Episode 183: That 90s Show
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Transcript
Pearl Jam
Alice in Chains
Horse meat sashimi
It's a very 90s episode of time crisis
We got some great guests and some great conversation
Stick around you're not gonna want to miss this one
here on
Crisis with Ezra Koenig
*music*
All of those great romances they were a threat, robbing me of my rightful chances.
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy.
And so I dealt to the blow. One of us had to go. Now it's different, I want you to know.
One of us is crying, one of us is lying. Leave it on me babe.
Time crisis back again. How many time zones are we in today? I'm in the Japanese countryside.
You got three guys in LA and we got Matt in Brooklyn.
Oh, you're not still on Martha's Vineyard Jake?
No, I bounced. I bounced yesterday, flew back.
Welcome back.
Thank you. Feels great to be back.
You're spiritually West Coast.
Dipped through Boston very briefly because we flew out of Logan.
Oh, how was that?
I haven't been there a long time. I'll keep it quick because we have a call that we have
to get to very quickly.
Yes.
We ate lunch at the Rock Bottom Brewery in Boston. Maybe we could circle back to that.
I'd love to hear about the Rock Bottom Brewery.
Let's just table that.
Not at the airport?
No, no. It was in downtown Boston, which is even weirder. I would love to just walk you
through our whole two hour adventure in Boston.
In real time.
But we have two hours.
Well, okay. Let's just scratch the itinerary for the show.
Okay. But yeah, we're about to get a friend of the show, Alex Skordelis on to tell us
about how somehow time crisis figures into this NBA scandal, which I know very little
about.
Boston Celtics actually.
Oh, Boston Celtics. Right. Head coach being suspended.
Yeah. When I was in Martha's Vineyard, I got a bunch of texts from Alex. He's basically
like, "Has this crossed your desk? The head coach has been suspended for a year. The story
broke on Twitter about an hour before it did officially from this obscure account that
only follows 34 people." And they couldn't figure out who this person was that broke
the story early. And they follow 34 people and they follow me, you, Seinfeld, and the
official time crisis account. Sorry, Nick. I don't think you were in the mix on this
one, but you will be shortly.
I better be. You know, I'm still... Pumpkin Spice Latte official account still won't accept
my... I don't even know what you call it. My submission to follow them? My request to
follow them?
Yeah. That's horse crap. But anyway, so there's some deep secret TC head that broke this.
That's also very connected to the Celtics organization.
We'll get Alex on the phone just to explain this to us. Yeah, because I remember I was
waking up in Japan, seeing a bunch of texts about the economic heads or tails of it. And
I didn't even put it together later that the coach, I guess there's this whole other element
that he was married to the famous actress, Nia Long.
Okay, news to me.
So we're never getting her on Time Crisis now.
Now, let's go to the Time Crisis hotline.
Hey, guys.
Hey.
What's up, Alex? Welcome back to the show.
Thank you for having me back.
I was just trying to catch the boys up on this whole backstory of you texting me of
all this, you know, has this crossed your desk yet? Do you know what's going on?
Let me just try to summarize quickly. You just tell me if this is right. Head coach
of the Celtics suspended for having an inappropriate relationship, affair, something with somebody
who worked at the organization. He suspended on top of that. He's married to the actress
Nia Long. So there's this whole other element of people being dismayed that he would violate
the sanctity of their marriage. So this is a big news story because the Celtics are a
major organization in the National Basketball Association. So he's a famous coach. If you
follow basketball, this guy's famous.
Extremely. Yeah, he was. I mean, he was the first year coach last year at Udoka, but took
the Celtics to the finals in his first season as a coach, which was incredible.
Oh, so this is bad timing for Boston.
Yeah. Boston's got a young team. They've got this hot coach who's in his first season,
almost took them to win the title. And then the scandal, it blows up and breaks up the
team a little bit or sets the team back for sure.
Oh, dear. OK, so now I understand the magnitude of it because at first I was hearing like
coach of the Celtics suspended. You know, if you don't follow basketball that closely
at first, I was like, who gives a ****?
Yeah, the specifics of the allegations weren't what caught my interest. I mean, it is a one
year suspension, which is pretty unprecedented for a coach. And the details of the allegations,
they're not out there yet entirely. So people don't know what we're talking about.
Yeah, yeah, exactly. But what caught my attention was the story obviously came out of nowhere.
There's an ESPN reporter, Adrian Wojnarowski, who goes by Woj. His thing is that he drops
big NBA news stories on Twitter and those tweets are called Woj bombs. So, yeah, he
dropped a Woj bomb a week ago last Wednesday that this was happening. Twitter freaks out.
But then people pointed to a tweet that predated the Woj bomb by one hour. A burner account
beat him to the story by one hour.
Ah, OK. So I'm starting to understand this better. So not only was this a big story and
this burner account, because even something happening an hour early, sometimes you're
almost like, well, OK, maybe they read something somebody else didn't read. I don't know. But
now I understand that when Woj drops a Woj bomb. Yes. A big part of it is that he got
the story first. He always gets it first. So this is a really big deal that this burner
account beat the Woj bomb.
It's historic. I mean, to beat Woj to a Woj bomb. I don't recall something like that happening.
Someone getting scooped by a burner. And so immediately all the Boston sports world focuses
on this burner and starts throwing around guesses as to who this could be. Is it a member
of the Celtics who didn't like the coach? Is it somebody from an opposing team like
Kevin Durant plays on the Nets? He famously has a lot of burner accounts. So a lot of
people are like, is this Kevin Durant? Is this the spouse of somebody on the Celtics?
So there's all these wild guesses going around. And I think of myself as somewhat of an Internet
detective. So I'm like, I want to look into this. And this tweet that broke the story
is blowing up. And I go to look at the account and the burner account follows 34 people.
So I'm like, oh, I can look at who they follow to get a better sense of who this is. Is it
KD? Is it a Celtics player? So I click on who this burner follows. And the first names
that pop up are @Dongstreath.
This is for Canaic Time Crisis Seinfeld 2000 in winter. I was like, oh, in winter? The
burner is a deep TC head. I'm like, whoever is behind this is a TC head.
Yet they don't follow me. Yeah, they will.
They will. And so, yeah, I was, you know, to me, because everyone is guessing like,
yeah, is it somebody on the Celtics? And so it's like, clearly it's a TC head. I don't
know if there's an NBA player who listens to TC.
Not that we know.
There's no chance that it's someone who's separately a fan of Starbucking, painting.
Wait, hold on. And Vampire Weekend.
Wait, I just realized, I just realized who it is. It's Nick. That's why. Oh, damn. It
was you?
That's why Nick.
The call was coming from inside the house.
His name was Nick too. Oh, it was you. Now we know from a couple episodes ago that Nick
has is a deep state operative and he has a lot of connections in national security agencies.
He used to work at the Pentagon. So, of course, he could beat a Woj bomb.
Imagine.
The one thing I never thought was to follow myself.
Sorry.
And that I was really undone because I just didn't think to follow myself.
Oh, I love this. It's like Columbo.
Oh, it's.
Just one more thing. Why did that account not follow you, Mr. Weidenfeld?
Last night I met a woman. You recognize her name. Who in our conversation told me you
were her old flame. Well, I didn't want to listen, but as she told me more, I learned
more about you than I ever knew before. You're keeping too many secrets from me. But baby,
I'm wise too. You fool me like the others and I know what you'll do. You'll find yourself
a new love and give me a secret too.
So in a way, as you look through all these people, the fact that there were four or five
TC related accounts, this actually might be the biggest clue for an Internet detective
out of all these accounts.
It's a huge clue. And yeah, the other things somebody found, I can't verify this, but this
burner account posted a receipt to a donation to Nithya Raman, who's an L.A. politician.
And so when people start to make very specific guesses as to who it could be, I don't want
to name names, but some of these people were friends of mine who were being guessed as
behind the burner account. And they were kind of freaked out by how much attention this
was getting.
Sorry, what did the account actually tweet? They just said, big story about to drop.
It was a kind of a cryptic tweet. It was, if there's one person who will never get fired
for sleeping around, it's M.A. Udoka. So they're accurate and that he didn't get fired. The
accusation was that he was sleeping around. So it was very cryptic, but like specific
at the same time.
So that almost sounds insider-y because it would be one thing if somebody heard, oh,
the coach of the Celtics got in trouble. Then you could just tweet coach of the Celtics,
big story coming. They even knew that he wouldn't be fired. I guess that could be a guess, but
that almost sounds like somebody who was aware of the decision the organization made already.
Right.
Like kind of deep.
Yeah, this is a TC head with top level Boston Celtics intel.
Yeah, it's an accurate.
This be a coincidence, like, like somebody just earnestly loves this coach and was just
like keeping praise on their integrity kind of thing.
That thought did cross my mind. Is this coincidence that you would put like one hour before this
major story drops?
And also this account doesn't post much.
Doesn't post that often. The previous tweet was something about Mitski and Weezer. So
that to me immediately ruled out like a Kevin Durant or a best Celtics player. So they seem
like they're interested in indie rock, rock and roll, basketball. They seem to be a fan
of the Denver Nuggets, interestingly. So there's a few clues out there.
Are you sure that Kevin Durant is not a Mitski or Weezer fan?
He's very, no, actually, I stand corrected. I've seen Kevin Durant will practice like
wearing a Pearl Jam t-shirt or a Kurt Cobain t-shirt. So he's, he's into rock and roll
for sure. So it could be, I won't rule it out.
He likes the Blue Album.
Yeah, he tapped out after that. This account hasn't tweeted since they broke this story.
So to me, like, obviously this person is a TC head. They're probably listening right
now. So to me, it's like just send up some kind of signal, like to confirm.
So they're trying to, I mean, do you get the sense that it's important to them that they
maintain their secrecy?
Unclear.
Are people still digging into trying to figure out who this person is or?
Well, yeah, maybe at this point they are just freaked out. You're saying your other friends
got freaked out. Maybe they don't want the whole, and also as I've put it together over
the weeks, this is, this story turned so big because obviously Boston fans are very passionate.
Now you've given us some much needed context about why they're particularly passionate.
They probably thought they were going to go to the, win the finals this year if they went
last year. But then on top of that, there's this, the amount of discussion about the other
side of it. Nia Long finding out that her husband was cheating on her in apparently
in real time. She found out as the story broke. That created a whole storm. There was a sitting
congressman from the Bronx, Jamal Bowman, tweeting his support for her and how they
should establish a national holiday to honor her. So this is, this story, I guess it really
had it all. So it is a big story. So I could imagine if there's just a humble TC head who
just, you know, maybe they're a hacker. They hacked into some of the Celtics emails or
something. They didn't mean for it to get this big. So they probably should lay low.
Yeah. Like I said, they haven't tweeted since. You would think that if they were that freaked
by it, that you would delete the tweet or delete the account. They've left it up. Somebody
did some kind of reconnaissance and found out that this account before the tweet had
five followers and followed 34. Now I think they have over 2000 now.
What? Wow. So who was like, how strange. And maybe it's not that deep. Maybe it really
is like, you know, within the Celtics organization, the day they're about to announce the suspension,
by that point you have to imagine at least like 20 or 30 people know about it. One of
them is on the phone that morning with his cousin saying, don't say anything, but pretty
soon they're going to announce that the coach is getting suspended and something like that.
And then they're like, okay, to me, that's the most accurate theory. I feel like it's
a, cause this person has tweeted a lot about the Denver Nuggets. To me, I feel like it's
somebody in Denver who probably like has a cousin that works for the Celtics who sort
of let it slip. Like, Hey, the story is going to break. And this guy's like, I'm going to
drop this bomb on Twitter. Big TC head, big mountain bruise fan. TC head making waves.
I wonder if this person came to the vampire weekend show at red rocks and saw us perform
mountain bruise. I'd bet money on it. That's what they should confirm or deny. If you saw
the performance that you were at, they might be one of those TC heads is not a VW fan,
right? Could be real deep as discussed. They exist.
♪ Meet in the trailhead light around a quarter to three ♪
♪ Me and Bobby stayed out late last night ♪
♪ Get on the trail, shake the cobwebs free ♪
♪ As we get to the top of the mountain there's a view ♪
♪ Take a load off and crack a few mountain brews ♪
♪ Mountain brews ♪
♪ Sweet mountain brews ♪
♪ Mountain brews ♪
♪ Sweet as morning dew ♪
- So what's the fallout with this story now?
So who's going to be the coach now?
- They have an interim head coach announced.
I think it was an assistant coach,
blanking on his name.
They're kind of like, yeah,
not letting a lot more information out,
trying to let the story lose oxygen.
But yeah, TC had really dropped the bomb.
- Well, thanks for doing that,
or like getting that scoop for us, man.
That was a-
- Yeah, no, I said to text Jake,
I'm like, are you aware of this?
I have a, you know, like,
I'm on text threads with friends who are NBA fans
and everyone's talking about it.
- Wow. Anything else cool happening in the sports world?
- One more thing, yes.
There is, there's one more thing
that I want to drop on you guys real quick,
which is that on Sunday night,
NBC aired a promo for next week's Sunday Night Game,
the Buccaneers versus the Chiefs.
So it's Patrick Mahomes versus Tom Brady.
- Major.
- In the promo, they had Beck covering
Old Man by Neil Young.
I'm in a Neil Young cover band,
so this caught my attention.
It made sense to do Old Man
because it has the line in the song about being 24.
And Brady and Mahomes each both won their first Super Bowl
when they were 24.
Mahomes is still young, Brady's the old man.
- Brady's the old man.
So this is like Mahomes talking to Brady.
- Yes.
- Old man.
- So Beck dropped it as a single
and it came out in the promo,
but as soon as it came out,
Neil Young posted on Instagram
a still from his music video,
This Note's For You,
where he's holding up the beer bottles
that's sponsored by no one.
So he's throwing shade.
- Love it.
- Saying, you know, like, middle finger,
you guys are using my song as promo.
I don't approve.
But then--
- Neil's got to chill, man.
- Back it up for a second.
In 2021, he sold 50% of his catalog for $150 million.
To me, it's like--
- You pay the piper, right.
- Yeah, it's a you already,
you sold it off already,
you have no say anymore over how this is used.
- I dig it.
I like Neil going old school.
He's a crotchety old dude.
He's like, I'm a rock star.
I don't chill for Coca-Cola and the NFL and Budweiser.
I love that.
- And let's not forget that Neil's Canadian.
He likes Canadian football.
What's the Canadian Super Bowl called again?
- The Grey Cup, I think.
- The Grey Cup, yeah.
- Yeah, I still have a good memory of watching that
with everybody on the,
I think we watched the 2019 Grey Cup on the bus,
the whole band, I was like, whoa, alternate universe.
- Those CFL players, they have full-time jobs.
They have other nine to fives.
- I love it. - That's old school.
- I know Neil can get behind that.
- But yeah, I guess if you sell your catalog,
you kind of lose the right to complain.
I don't know, I kind of like it.
- Look, I don't find it coherent,
but I'm with you, Jake,
in that I support Neil's right as a legend--
- Well put.
- As one of the GOATs to be a crotchety
incoherent old hippie rocker.
Just like with the Joe Rogan thing,
I thought that did not totally make sense,
but I do support his right to be slightly incoherent
and angry and you know, that's cool.
- You support his right to be old.
- I support his right to be an old man.
Wow, this is also very,
this is very Borghese and multi-layered too
with the young quarterback and the old quarterback
and the relatively much younger Beck
and the old Neil Young.
Beck's gotta make a music video
that's just him doing yet another cover of old man
talking to Neil Young about how this made him feel.
- I felt bad for Beck in all this.
Like Beck just did a straightforward cover,
drops his cover and he all of a sudden
gets shaved to Neil Young.
It's like Beck caught a stray in all this.
- What was his angle though?
- I think a check.
- Yeah.
- Beck got a check and I don't know,
maybe he's a passionate football fan.
- The Beck part was like the weirdest part of it for me.
Like back in the NFL,
those are two American icons that do not blend.
- They really should have gotten Greta Van Fleet.
- Yeah.
- That would have ruled because it's truly,
it's like the young Bucks keeping the flame of rock alive.
I know you just would have killed it.
Old man, live your life.
Just like a heavy Led Zeppelin revival version.
- I'm a lot like you.
- I think this just smacks of like,
there's some Gen X,
Wyden Kennedy,
who just, you know,
exact who loves Beck.
And he's just, Beck's like, okay.
They're just like, you know what we could do for the football?
We could, you know, let's get Beck to do that.
I mean, there's just no-
- I don't like the sincere singer songwriter
mode of Beck at all.
I don't like it in the context of shilling for the NFL.
- But he didn't write the song.
- What are you doing, dude?
- You prefer Beck's more fun, ironic.
But I can also see, let's say you're Beck.
And as a professional musician, I can say,
sometimes you get all sorts of offers.
Use your song this way, that way.
At a certain point, it's like, you know,
you got to make some money.
You say no to the things that are egregious.
The rest of it, you know, is just showbiz.
So I picture your Beck every once in a while,
somebody's like, hey Beck, you want,
somebody wants to use loser in this kind of derogatory way
to like, in a commercial to make fun of another brand.
And Beck's like, no way, man.
That's not what loser's all about.
And they're, you know, you probably get some,
a hundred grand, you know,
you play at a Jared Kushner's birthday party.
And Beck's like, nah, man, I'm not about that.
Nah, I don't care how good the money is.
All right.
And then they're like, all right, Beck, we got one.
This one, you're going to cover a very tasteful song
by beloved singer songwriter, Neil Young.
So when Beck said first, he's thinking,
well, I guess Neil signed off on it,
which in a way he did by taking that big fat check.
So Beck's thinking, all right, Neil signed off on it.
He technically, and what's this all about?
He's like, well, actually it's for the NFL.
Beck's like, I got no real problem with football.
And then they say, and actually the reason they chose
this song is because it makes so much sense
because it's the young quarterback, 24 years old,
the old one, Tom Brady.
And Beck's like, oh, this is, this is God's plan.
This makes so much sense.
This is not some weird stretch.
This is not some misuse of one of my songs.
Everything's lining up.
And they say, you know what, and you know what else Beck?
The money's not bad.
All right. I love that song.
All I got to do is record a cover.
- It's not great, but it's not bad.
- It's not great, but it's not bad.
- I like this idea that Jared Kushner wants Beck
to play loser at a birthday party.
(laughing)
- I won't do it.
So I just, yeah, I really feel for Beck in the sense
that he probably does ask all these questions
and it probably did seem like it all lined up
where Beck's like, it's football, American is apple pie.
Neil signed off on it.
It actually makes sense for once, you know?
- Do you think Neil can name one Beck song?
- Oh yeah. I've actually seen Neil and Beck play together.
- Oh wow. Oh, another ring.
- Where?
- I grew up in the Bay area and every October
I would go to the Bridge School benefit.
And I think Beck played it a couple of times
and yeah, Neil would come out and play a song with Beck.
- A Beck song?
- Usually a Neil song, I think.
- Okay.
My question today is, can Neil name one Beck song?
I'm going to guess no.
- One time at the Bridge School benefit,
they had some banter and Beck said,
Neil, not to put you on the spot,
but could you name any of my songs?
It was a painful 10 minutes, but Neil got three.
- Guys, I'm on the official NFL eShop
where they sell a Ed Sheeran starter jacket,
NFL starter jacket.
So it is pretty sick.
It looks like it's the Cowboys colors
and it just says, "Sheeran 2021 NFL kickoff."
So they could have gone, that strikes me,
he strikes me as a fan of football.
- They're casting a wide net there.
- They needed an American to sing it.
I think they should have gone with Greta Van Fleet
because if Neil Young hated on Greta Van Fleet,
they'd just be like, "With all due respect, sir,
your time has passed.
You've inspired us,
but we are the new generation of rock and roll."
All right, Alex, we got to let you go, dude.
- Yeah, I got a bail.
Thanks for having me.
- All right, thanks for explaining that to us, Alex.
- Of course, good talking to you guys.
- Talk soon.
Great reporting.
- Thanks.
- Great reporting, peace.
♪ Old man, look at my life ♪
♪ I'm a lot like you ♪
♪ Old man, look at my life ♪
♪ I'm a lot like you ♪
♪ Old man, look at my life ♪
♪ I'm 24 and there's so much more ♪
♪ Live alone in a paradise ♪
♪ It makes me think of two ♪
♪ Love costs such a cost ♪
♪ Give me things that won't get lost ♪
♪ Like a coin that won't get tossed ♪
♪ Rolling home to you ♪
♪ Old man, take a look at my life ♪
♪ I'm a lot like you ♪
♪ I need someone to love me the whole day through ♪
♪ I wanna look in your eyes ♪
♪ And you can tell it's true ♪
- You know, there's another bit of sports news.
I don't want to go too deep into it
'cause actually I had a thought saying it on air
just so you remember.
We haven't had Bayo on the show in a while
and I'd love for him to come on the show soon
and talk about his cousin, Harrison Bader,
plays for the Yankees now.
- Oh wow, he got traded?
- Yeah, I can't remember if we ever talked about this
but we'll go into detail hopefully with Chris.
So Bayo has a little cousin named Harrison Bader.
He grew up in the same town as Bayo in Westchester County.
I must've met him very briefly
when he was like 13 or 14 years old
because he came and was in the Oxford Comma video.
We had like a lot of our friends in it.
It's a single shot video directed by Richard Ayoade
and there's a lot of people jumping out and random people
and like my sister's friend from college
who went on to be on that show, Pen15 is in it
and that guy Hamilton Morris who has that show about drugs.
All these people just popping up.
- Damn, a lot of heavyweights.
- Yeah, people pop, I didn't really know these people
but you know, just like we asked friends and family,
you got some friends, everybody come through
and dressed up, it's a fun video.
And at the end, there's like a bunch of kids running,
little kids, some older kids.
And so, you know, we're in upstate New York
so of course Bayo said,
"Oh, maybe like some of my little cousins can come."
So Harrison is in that video somewhere
and then a few years ago,
Bayo was saying that his cousin is playing
for the St. Louis Cardinals.
- I remember that.
- You know, we were on tour during the season
so there's a lot of like, he's watching the games
and keeping us in the loop about it.
And we've even happened to play in St. Louis on that tour
and Bayo wore a Bader St. Louis Cards jersey on stage.
So, you know, I've been like pretty aware of it.
So I was already like, "Oh, that's awesome."
Always kind of curious,
even though I don't particularly follow baseball,
curious to hear from Chris.
"Oh, how's your cousin doing?"
All that stuff.
And then anyway, he got traded to the Yankees
a couple months ago and Bayo will loop us in more
but I know his first game was a week or two ago,
we were texting about it
and you know, you can imagine that for a guy
grew up Westchester County, Stone's Throat from the Bronx,
real kind of like New York kid,
like his mom is Bayo's aunt, grew up in Brooklyn.
I assume his dad's a New Yorker guy.
He's like part Jewish, part Italian,
real East Coast type dude.
And then you end up on the Yankees, the magnitude of that.
- And the Yankees are good this year.
- Yeah, I've been hearing that.
And they have this guy,
the guy breaking the home run record.
- Aaron Judge.
- It's major.
Anyway, we should have Bayo on to tell us more about it
but I just wanted to end our sports roundup
with a little bit of that.
I might have to follow, really start following the Yankees
'cause you know, I feel like with a lot of sports,
I don't truly follow it but I do have these teams.
It's like, if I'm gonna have a donut,
I'm gonna go to Dunkin' Donuts.
If I'm gonna follow baseball,
I'm gonna support the Yankees.
- Let's get in man, it's the very end of the season,
there's like a week left of the regular season
and then the playoffs start.
- Wait, but Jake, I always forget,
were you a Yankees fan or a Mets fan?
You're a Yankees fan.
- Diehard Yankees when they were terrible.
- All right.
- Late 80s, early 90s.
They lost over 100 games in 1990.
(laughing)
Mattingly had a back injury,
he was out for most of the year, it was heartbreaking.
- All right, let's get in.
- I'd love to talk about that
but let's get into some Allison Shane's talk.
- All right, shifting gears.
Shifting gears.
- Well, I know we're on a tight schedule tonight.
We're trying to get in and out.
- I overbooked the show, my apologies.
- Jake did a great job booking the show.
- We got a hard out for you
and we got three different calls to do.
- That's right, I'm on vacation in the Japanese countryside.
Oh, but real quick, before Allison Shane's,
I just have to say, I ate horse yesterday.
(gunshot)
I ate horse sashimi yesterday.
We went to a restaurant that has like some type
of kind of regional big udon noodles
and get a big bowl of that.
And they had horse sashimi on the menu.
I thought, all right, got to try it.
It came out very cold.
I talked to a person I was with
who actually lives in Japan
and I was like, "It's supposed to be this cold."
And they were kind of like, "I don't know.
"Have you let it chill out?"
It felt like almost like fresh out of the freezer.
With the soy sauce and they had like some kind
of spicy things to mix it with, the sauce was excellent.
Once it kind of got a little less cold,
it tasted very close to like a really dark,
rich tuna sashimi.
It tasted good.
Nobody else at the table wanted to partake,
but I did feel, I weirdly felt like I needed it.
(horse neighing)
- When nobody wanted to partake, were they grossed out?
Did you feel shunned or was it just sort of a neutral?
None for me, thank you.
- It was more like a none for me.
Also, I'd ridden a horse earlier in the day.
So there was a bit of like conversation about that.
Full circle and I said, "Yes, circle life is what it is."
People weren't grossed out.
'Cause when I sent you guys a picture,
when you looked at it, truly,
if I told you that was salmon sashimi,
it's that same rich, kind of dark purplish red color.
- Tuna, yeah.
It doesn't look, there's nothing about it look gross.
And I would say nothing about it tasted gross,
but I think people just felt a little bit like,
"Eh, they made it this far without eating horse.
"Why start now?"
- I would think the opposite.
- Yeah, that's true.
- This is a coincidence,
you didn't seek out this restaurant because you heard it.
- That was the thing.
It was just, suddenly saw it on the menu
and felt like now's the time.
♪ Well my heart knows it better than I know myself ♪
♪ So I'm gonna let her do all the talking ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ I came across a place in the middle of nowhere ♪
♪ With a big black horse and a cherry tree ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ I felt a little fear upon my back ♪
♪ I said don't look back, just keep on walking ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ And the big black horse said, "Look this way" ♪
♪ He said, "Hey lady, will you marry me?" ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ Woo hoo ♪
♪ But I said, "No, no, no, no, no, no" ♪
♪ I said, "No, no, you're not the one for me" ♪
♪ No, no, no, no, no, no ♪
♪ I said, "No, no, you're not the one for me" ♪
- So anyway, let's get back to Alice in Chains,
but I did feel like I just needed to...
- No, that's huge, that's a huge...
- There's a lot of...
- It's almost like a drop.
- There's a lot of grade A reporting happening today
on the show, so...
- We got, Tom Chris has a lot of people in the field.
We've got our hands deep into the sports world,
deep into the horse world,
and now deep into the Alice in Chains world.
So Jake, it's the 30th anniversary of Dirt.
- Yes, it's the 30th anniversary of Dirt.
Tomorrow, 'cause we're taping this on the 28th.
It came out on September 29th, 1992.
And Dirt and Soundgarden's Bad Motorfinger
are my favorite grunge albums.
- Whoa, more than any Nirvana albums?
- Somehow I don't really think of Nevermind
as a grunge album.
Maybe that's ridiculous.
But yeah, they're albums I spend more time with
than Nevermind, for sure.
I return to Dirt and Bad Motorfinger
more than Nevermind.
- Interesting.
- I love Nevermind.
I just feel like the weight of history
when I listen to Nevermind.
It's kind of like listening to Sergeant Peppins
or something.
- Right, rather than the White Album.
- Exactly.
But yeah, Dirt came out in '92, incredible record.
And I wanted to have,
well, I've been on a text thread
for the last six months with Aaron Olson and Ryan Adlaff,
who are from Richard Pictures and Mountain Bruce,
and my brother, Dave.
We have a four-person text about Alice in Chains.
Because several years ago,
Aaron had a one-off Alice in Chains cover band
called Five Lane Blacktop,
where there were five different people who sang lead.
And so, there was discussion of maybe resurrecting
that band for this Halloween.
Although I said that I would just serve
in a management role.
That I actually don't have the musical chops
to participate in a revival of Five Lane Blacktop.
- Was Dave in Five Lane?
- No, Dave was not in the original Five Lane Blacktop,
but we did a hangout for my birthday earlier this year,
and there was kind of like an impromptu jam session
in my living room with a bunch of detuned acoustic guitars.
Take that down to drop D, with Aaron and Ryan.
And then Dave doing, Dave knows Dirt incredibly well.
And he was gonna call in today, but he got tied up.
He can't call in today.
Dave knows every little vocal nuance
that Layne Staley performed on that record.
- Major influence on Dirty Projectors.
- I mean, in a way, in a roundabout way.
- Not, not, not.
- Not, not, exactly.
But anyway, we were texting today and I was just like,
"Wow, let's just like have the guys call in
"and talk about Dirt a little bit."
- Absolutely.
- Ezra, are you a fan of Dirt?
- You know, I don't know, is the truth.
Like, when I think about Alice in Chains,
they always seemed a little random to me,
but I always did, you know, I liked Man in the Box,
Rooster, are any of these songs on Dirt?
- Rooster's on Dirt.
Man in the Box was on their first record, Facelift.
- You know, I don't know them well enough,
but I always thought Alice in Chains was interesting.
I'm looking at the Japanese listing,
it might be the same as in the US,
but the description is for Dirt is,
"Alice in Chains were initially tagged
"with the grunge moniker, when in fact,
"their haunting, ponderous sound was far closer
"to the progressive rock of Queensryche."
Their haunting, ponderous sound.
I don't know if anybody wants their music
to be described as ponderous, but I like that.
And I like their general vibe.
- Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- Hey, Aaron.
- Hey.
- What's up?
Welcome to TC.
Welcome back.
- Thank you.
- Happy 30th anniversary.
- Thank you.
Finally.
- My first question for you and Jake is,
did you guys buy Dirt on release day?
So is this actually your 30th anniversary with this album?
- I'll go first, I guess.
I was seven when it came out.
I don't think I bought it the day it came out,
but I think I bought it within the year or two
that it came out, probably.
- On cassette?
- It was an early CD for me.
I was really anti-CD for a long time,
as like a little kid, 'cause I thought it was like lame
to be able to skip songs.
- That tracks for you.
- Yeah.
(laughing)
- As a seven-year-old?
- Yeah, as a seven-year-old.
I remember friends were getting CDs
and I was like, "That's lame."
But, you know what I mean.
(laughing)
Yeah, I probably picked it up in '93.
- At age eight.
- At age eight, yes.
- At the tender age of eight.
- Yes.
- Hold on, Mac, let's just put on our calendar.
We gotta have Aaron back next year
for his 30th anniversary of owning the CD of Dirt.
Ryan, how about you?
- I got Dirt for Christmas in 1993 from my grandmother.
- So the album had been out.
Wow.
(laughing)
Cool grandma.
- You will, it's one of those things
where my mom would ask like,
"Ryan, your grandma needs to get you a Christmas gift.
"What do you want?"
And I said, "I want Blood Sugar Sex Magic
"and I want Alice in Chains Dirt."
And then my grandma had to like give those to me.
But, you know, what is Alice in Chains Dirt?
I had to try to explain it, she didn't care.
- Thanks, grandma.
- Yeah, exactly.
I love you, grandma.
(laughing)
I had a cassette tape of it, which I probably got in '93.
'Cause it, wait, yeah, 'cause it came out in the fall of '92.
I bet the singles, you know, I wasn't up on AIC before Dirt.
And the singles started rolling out.
And yeah, at some point I purchased the cassette
at the Wall, which is the local kind of
New England record store chain
that was in the shopping center near my house.
- All right, so you were a bit older, Jake.
You were like, you were 14.
- Well, Ryan and I are 10 days apart.
We're both February of '77.
So we were the right age.
- Yeah, wheelhouse.
- What'd you guys think of that haunting ponderous sound?
(laughing)
- I loved it.
- But Aaron, you as a small child,
you were ready for the haunting ponderous sound of...
- Yeah, I was so, so down.
I have an older brother, three years older.
So he was, you know, I was getting stuff
funneling from him.
- So he was 11.
- Yeah, I mean, I don't think, we were,
and still are, like, really into music, I guess.
Like, yeah, my mom always had music on.
Or I don't know, there's just, that's like all I knew.
- But an 11-year-old saying to an eight-year-old,
like, dude, check out this song, "Junkhead."
(laughing)
- Well, okay, so that's the thing is,
my brother did like Alice in Chains,
but you know when you're, maybe again,
maybe this is me and my weird, like,
fanaticism as a kid or whatever,
but Alice in Chains was like my band,
away from my brother.
Like, I think he kind of liked it,
and then I like latched on, and I was like,
I'm the Alice in Chains guy.
And like, you know, you really ride hard
for specific things when you're a little kid,
I find, or I found in my life.
- And especially in that era,
where it'd be such a big deal to like,
invest in a t-shirt or a poster.
- Which I had two of.
- Even the CDs were expensive,
so it's like, if you're gonna start
buying someone's discography,
you kinda gotta be all in.
- Yeah, and yeah, I had two Alice in Chains posters
next to each other on my wall in my bedroom
when I was a kid.
- See, this is fascinating to me,
'cause I don't know if I could even cobble together
a text thread of other people I know in my life
who are passionate about Alice in Chains,
or even know the album Dirt particularly well.
So I always thought Alice in Chains
seemed like pretty cool.
Explain to me a little bit,
in the early '90s rock universe,
so maybe on one side of the spectrum,
you know, you had Metallica,
like just like a straight up metal band
full of darkness, Black Album came out '91,
that still was looming large around this time.
So you have that side,
and then of course you have Pantera,
just like heavy, heavy music.
And then in the middle you have Grunge,
you have Nirvana, and Pearl Jam,
who maybe come across a bit punkier
than the Alice in Chains and the Soundguards,
and then you have like maybe the Chili Peppers
or something, a bit more of a sense of humor, fun.
What was Alice in Chains' lane in that landscape?
- Staley.
- I love the way you phrased that question.
- Yes, I really teed that one up.
So their lane was Lane Staley, their singer.
- For me it was like,
they had a very, very distinct, perfect ratio
between like metal, which I'm not a fan of,
hard rock, which I'm also not a fan of.
And then I don't want to say pop,
'cause that's not the right word,
but some sort of like major key, melodic, sugary rock.
And like, there was like such a perfect mix with that,
where there'd be like this kind of sugar rush release
on some of their great songs and the choruses,
but they really worked for it.
So it didn't come off as like kind of too sweet,
too saccharine.
That tracks.
- I think it's the harmonies.
I think it's the harmonies really is the gateway.
If you're not a hard rock person,
the harmonies are so sweet and clear and smooth.
And they don't feel like metal.
They feel more like, I don't know,
a Crosby, Stills and Nash.
- And like, why?
'Cause they have multi-part harmonies sometimes?
Did any of their, like how often was that happening?
- It was pretty distinct, I think.
- Oh yeah, it was very, it was like their signature.
And I'd extend that to the guitars too.
They had some guitar harmony stuff happening,
which wasn't as unique,
but it really mimics the vocal harmonies, I thought.
And like, I don't know,
it was very harmonically rich music,
I would say in general.
- Interesting.
What do you guys think are
Alice in Chains influences or origins?
Am I right to say that they seem like guys
who maybe didn't give a about punk rock?
That's interesting.
- I don't, I wouldn't think that.
- We've talked about this on the show before,
when everybody would talk about,
we're the same age, Aaron,
just like, you know, maybe you could see it
step in my shoes, growing up in the nineties,
I wasn't that passionate about grunge,
but then I got really into punk,
including like the whole history of punk.
And then people are like, well, you know,
grunge is kind of like, you know,
91 is the year punk broke.
And I would like listen to the grunge bands.
I'd be like, what?
I couldn't see the,
because I was like so interested in the Clash
and the Ramones and even like Operation Ivy
and like local pop punk.
And I couldn't see the connection,
but then I was like, okay,
I can see Kurt Cobain kind of being like a dude
with a punk rock spirit that he's bringing into his music.
And then when I kind of found out, okay,
Eddie Vedder grew up loving punk rock,
I can kind of see it.
By the time I got to Alice in Chains and Soundgarden,
I was like, punk could not have happened.
And this still, music would still be a,
make sense coming out of the history of rock and roll.
- That's interesting.
I mean, I think it's there in sort of a backdoor way,
but yeah, I see what you're saying.
I mean, to me, there is like a direct lineage
from like Sabbath and Zeppelin.
- With those harmonies, which those bands have.
- Eagles are in there too, man.
- Yeah, totally.
- Eagles, CSNY.
- Yeah.
- Well, yeah.
- Totally.
- I think that Alice in Chains getting lumped in as grunge
is, I mean, did them a lot of favors.
It put them across my seven-year-old desk,
but I don't think they're a grunge band.
I think if you listen to Dirt next to the Black Album,
it's just as metal as the Black Album is.
And it's so just dour and bleak lyrically
that it's its own thing.
- The lyrics go so much harder than Metallica.
I mean, I like Metallica,
but like the lyrics in Metallica
are generally pretty terrible.
- They write songs about werewolves.
- Yeah.
- Alice in Chains writes songs about real problems.
- Wait, hold on a second.
I don't really know what I'm talking about,
but like I know Alice in Chains, Rooster's about Vietnam.
Couldn't you put that next to like one song
about the horrors of war?
- Rooster's about Jerry Cantrell's dad,
whose nickname was the Rooster.
- Ah.
- And who he was estranged from.
And then like half the album is about like-
- More personal.
- Half the album is basically about heroin,
like doing heroin.
- Definitely.
- And like being tor-
Not in like, and I was reading some stuff today
about how like Layne Staley was saying
how like fans would come up to him and be like,
"Yo, dude, I'm like messed up right now."
And Layne was like, "I'm sorry."
Like, that's not,
this is not meant to celebrate doing heroin.
This is, these songs are about like
the torment I feel that I'm an addict.
But like anything where like
an artist takes troubling subject matter
and makes it aesthetic and makes it like exciting,
people kind of misinterpret.
Like people would think Tony Soprano's a cool guy.
It's a little bit like people,
I think a lot of, or at least according to Layne Staley,
people seem to like think that Dirt was a glorification
of like shooting heroin.
- Well, it's like they say,
you can't make an anti-war war movie, right?
'Cause it's, it instantly is like glorifying it
or whatever.
And it's kind of, I think it's kind of the same
with drug songs.
- And this, these songs go hard.
- They are dark.
They're really dark.
Like they're, they don't, if you listen to the lyrics,
it doesn't sound fun to do heroin.
♪ They found a way to kill me yet ♪
♪ I've burned with sting and sweat ♪
♪ Seems every path leads me to nowhere ♪
♪ Wife and kids, household pet ♪
♪ Mom ain't green, what she does ain't bad ♪
♪ A bullet scream to me from Southward ♪
♪ Yeah, they come to snuff the rooster ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Yeah, here come the rooster ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ You know we ain't gonna die ♪
♪ No, no, no ♪
♪ You know we ain't gonna die ♪
- So this album came out in '92.
His addiction and his problems made it
so he couldn't be in the band relatively soon after this.
And then obviously he died.
When was the original first classic
Alice in Chains era over by?
- Like Dirt, basically.
- Well, there was one more studio record.
The self-titled from like '94, '95.
- I know, but it was, so by '96,
he was having so many problems he couldn't--
- That's when they did Unplugged.
And he's like half asleep the whole time,
probably nodding off, I mean, yeah.
- So he was in bad shape by '96.
And when did he die?
- 2002 or--
- Yeah, '02.
Right, so between '96 and '02,
he was estranged from the band
and probably living a difficult life,
struggling with addiction.
So when you think about it,
he was having big problems even as this album was made
and the life of the band did not extend too much past this.
- No, this was undoubtedly the peak.
- Right, heavy.
- A short trajectory for the band.
- What are the best songs on Dirt?
Everybody's got to pick one favorite.
How about that?
Everybody on the AIC text group chat.
- Okay, Aaron, what are your three?
- I can get it down to three.
"Rain When I Die," which my wife,
we were just listening to it, was like,
I think I actually like this song.
And I was like, yeah.
- That's incredible.
- And "Junkhead."
And I'll just leave it at those two, actually.
Keep it with two.
- Ryan?
- Oh wait, actually, "Damn That River," sorry.
- "Damn That River" goes hard.
- Yeah.
- I'm gonna jump on "Wood" before anybody else takes it.
The single soundtrack, that song was really,
it really jumped out for me.
- Incredible.
- Jake?
- I'm gonna go album opener, "Them Bones."
Just like that opening with him going, "Ah!"
(laughing)
In that weird time signature.
- Because that's track one, throw that on for a second.
- Throw on "Wood."
I mean, "Them Bones."
- Can I wait, before you start it,
can I just say, I was just talking
with our mutual friend, Nick Kurgovich, about "Dirt."
And he said when he bought this album when it came out,
because he bought it 'cause he had the single soundtrack,
like "Wood," that he put this on
and he actually had a jump scare.
And he vividly remembers it, that it frightened him.
- The beginning of this record is a perfect,
it's the perfect start to this record.
- Everybody listening, it's 1992.
(rock music)
Driving home from the CD store.
♪ I believe ♪
♪ In them bones ♪
♪ Some say ♪
- Some say.
♪ We're born into the grave ♪
♪ I feel so alone ♪
♪ Gonna end up a big old pile of them bones ♪
♪ Ah ♪
♪ Ah ♪
♪ Ah ♪
♪ Ah ♪
- Yeah, I see what you mean.
It really is the harmonies.
And I don't know, I'm ashamed to say,
I may have never even heard this song,
and yet having a vague, just like '90s kid familiarity
with Alice in Chains, I know these harmonies.
I know this vibe so well.
- I feel like they use very distinct intervals.
I don't know what they are, but they have a very distinct--
- Yeah, it's kind of like vocal--
- It's in weird medieval (beep)
- Yeah.
- There's a lot of harmonies that are kind of
totally different melodic lines from each other.
Like they're not always in--
- Like counterpoint?
- Yeah, kind of, yeah.
They're not crossing over.
Yeah, it's counterpoint.
They're not parallel or in similar motion always.
(upbeat rock music)
I love this solo too, by the way.
- Yeah.
But I feel like the verse is in like a weird time signature,
and then the chorus, they go into like straight 4/4.
And it's like, that's kind of what I'm talking about.
That like sugary kind of release.
- Yeah.
- I mean, the choruses in this band are so amazing.
Like I said, I don't like metal really,
and I'm not a huge fan of hard rock,
which is a broad genre admittedly.
But I love this band, and it's because of like those choruses.
- It's, God, one of the like least accessible songs
on the album has one of the poppiest choruses.
It's like basically a Weezer chorus or something,
but it's-
- Oh, "Angry Chair"?
- Yeah, it's "Angry Chair."
Yeah, I don't mind that one.
- Throw in "Down in a Hole."
You can go out on "Down in a Hole."
- This is the single, right?
"Down in a Hole."
- Yeah, this was like a ballad,
but this was my other favorite.
- I have nothing to confirm this,
but I think that Jerry Cantrell
must've grown up listening to Boston.
- Yes.
- And this, like the guitar. - Very true.
- Think of this song as a Boston song.
- Absolutely, great call.
- Oh, totally.
This is funny too, because they famously say
that Kurt was inspired by Boston more than a feeling
for "Smells Like Teen Spirit."
- Funny.
- "Godfather's a Grunge."
- Yeah, man.
- How is "Smells Like Teen Spirit" related to?
- Well, just like, (imitates guitar)
the same kind of riff.
Time for a critical reappraisal of Boston.
♪ Here I sit ♪
♪ Holding red flowers in my soul ♪
♪ Down in a hole ♪
- That's another AIC move of like harmonies in the verses
and then the huge chorus.
It's just lame.
- Very dynamic. - Interesting.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- Incredible, incredible dynamics in this band.
♪ I've been raised ♪
♪ I don't understand who they thought I was supposed to be ♪
♪ Look at me now ♪
- This is a real '90s episode,
'cause our next guest is this guy, Stephen Hyden, who,
oh, Ryan knows Stephen Hyden.
We went to the Goose Show with him.
- Absolutely. - Pre-pandemic.
- That's right.
He's got a new book about Pearl Jam.
- He wrote a book on Pearl Jam
that just came out this week.
- One thing I wanna ask Stephen about is,
in the Pearl Jam book,
he talks quite a bit about Stone Temple Pilots,
who he likes and has a lot of compassion for.
And it's funny, listening to Alice in Chains,
'cause people always said Stone Temple Pilots
were a Pearl Jam ripoff,
I weirdly hear more Alice in Chains.
And of course, they were doing their own thing.
- Wait, you mean you hear Pearl Jam in Alice in Chains,
or you hear Alice in Chains in Pearl Jam?
- I hear more Alice in Chains in STP than I do Pearl Jam.
- Oh, interesting. - Yes, absolutely.
- Especially when we were listening to Them Bones,
I was like, okay, I could see Stone Temple Pilots
take a lot of inspiration from the dynamics
and the chords of that song.
- Think about this song,
and then Stone Temple Pilots' song "Creep."
- Yeah.
- Half the man I used to be.
- Yeah. - Oh, yeah, yeah, totally.
'Cause even lyrically, the Scott Weiland archetype
is more similar to Layne Staley than it is to Eddie Vedder.
- And I feel like Cantrell and the DeLeo brothers
are more Zeppelin heads than Mike McReady.
Mike McReady to me is straight Lynyrd Skynyrd.
He doesn't have the sophistication of Page.
- Jake has no respect for Mike. - I hate McReady.
I have zero patience for him.
But he doesn't have the sophistication of Page.
But I feel like Cantrell and the DeLeo brothers,
they tap into that like houses of the holy era Zeppelin energy
which Pearl Jam never touched to their detriment.
- Also, there's something else that STP and Chains
have in common, and that's, it's a minor thing,
but there's like this, I don't even know what you'd call it,
I guess like turns of phrase
that are very working man things.
There's an Allison Chain song where he says,
like never wanted to end up like my old man or something.
That's very like 70s, like, oh man, I'm working for county,
gonna end up like my old man.
And then STP is like all I got is time.
I don't know, there's like this weird,
I feel like it's something very 70s
working class thing or something.
I don't know where it's coming from or what it's doing,
but I remember it distinctly as a kid
and thinking it was very cool to talk like that.
Talking about my old man and like all I got is like
five bucks, man.
- Right.
- Or I says to the guys, yeah, I don't know.
- Kurt would never, Eddie probably not.
(rock music)
It's very interesting to think of them
as being kind of like the 90s CSNY.
Just to break it down, you guys have been talking
about everybody in the band so far,
but just for me and the listeners.
So you had Layne Staley, the brilliant but doomed singer.
Jerry Cantrell was the lead guitarist
and kind of a co-songwriter or what was Jerry Cantrell's?
- I think the primary songwriter as far as I understand.
- Yeah, primary songwriter.
- He also sang quite a bit.
- He was the harmony.
- Yeah.
- So he was singing a lot of those harmonies.
And then you have bass and rhythm section
was the DeLeo brothers.
(laughing)
That was STP, dude.
- And it was-
- Oh, okay.
- Dean and Robert DeLeo were the-
- The bassist and guitarist.
- Yeah.
- Wait, is it like Don DeLeo?
- Yeah.
- Spelled differently.
- No, no, no, spelled differently.
It's D-E-L-E-O.
Who are the two brothers on bass and drums in Alice in Chains?
- Honestly, couldn't tell you.
- Mike Starr is the bass player.
- Mike and Ricky Starr, the Starr brothers.
- Mike and Spike Starr.
And he left, I think,
'cause he had a crippling heroin addiction.
- He was kicked out.
- Yeah.
- In early '93.
- Damn.
- And then the drummer is Mike.
- I'm not wild about the drummer, I gotta say.
I'm not wild about the bass playing and the drumming
in this band.
It's really about Lane and Jerry.
- I can't remember the drummer's name.
- Speaking of, I've always said
how there's something about all these early '90s guys,
their names just sounded grunge.
There were names that you would not have seen
in a different era of rock.
Eddie Vedder, Kurt Cobain, Chris Novoselic,
especially Nirvana, Dave Grohl.
There's names, you would not have seen them pop up
in the '60s or the '70s.
But I can tell you, Jerry Cantrell,
that actually sounds like a dude playing guitar
on a record from 1968.
- Oh yeah, for sure.
- That's an old school name.
- Yeah, Jerry Cantrell, he played with Ellis Presley.
- Yeah.
- Exactly.
(laughing)
- He was in the Las Vegas Review Band.
- And on guitar, on guitar, got my main man.
Put your hands together for Jerry Cantrell.
Woo!
- Jerry, his name's Jerry for Christ's sake.
It's soft.
- Yeah, the Jerry already obviously
is like a classic rock name,
and then the Cantrell just takes it to the next level.
What's Jerry Cantrell been doing since--
- He's continuing Alice in Chains.
- Right, who sings in Alice in Chains now?
They have a guy that sounds exactly like Lane.
- Yep.
Can I speak to how much you hate the drummer real quick,
Jake?
- Sure.
- Have you ever listened to Jar of Flies,
the follow-up EP?
- Yeah, I know those songs.
- Is it possible to throw on
just the beginning of No Excuses?
'Cause I think that encapsulates why he is not to like.
- It's stiff, it's technical, and it's got a bad tone.
- It's got too many cymbals.
- And this says it all.
(drumming)
- Thank you, Aaron.
(drumming)
- I'm not mad at that.
Wait, that's from 1993?
- It sounds like Dave Matthews Band.
- Yeah, I enjoy the Dave Matthews Band element.
- Here we go, the verses on the harmony.
(drumming)
♪ It's all right ♪
♪ There comes a time ♪
- They really have a signature harmony.
- They really do.
♪ Got no patience ♪
♪ To search for peace of mind ♪
- That's great, I mean, it really is interesting.
- Yeah, this is totally D&B.
- It just needs a bit of a ♪ Wanna take it slow ♪
- Wait, can we hear that intro one more time, though?
I wanna hear that drum intro.
- It just gives like a chill drum vibe.
(drumming)
- It almost sounds like the beginning
of a Peter Gabriel song from like So, too.
- Or it almost has like Tunnel of Love, Springsteen,
almost like--
- It sounds like '86, kind of.
If you had some slight sample, like an ork stab or something.
- Yeah, I actually think that Mike Starr was fine on bass,
and then when they got the other guy,
like Mike Inez, he's all busy.
He's like the equivalent of the drummer, but on bass.
- Right, too technical.
- Yeah.
- There's something about those harmonies that also,
when you hear like kind of haunting field recordings
of like regional folk music from like the '50s,
like somebody goes to like an Irish pub somewhere,
and these people have like,
they've just been like,
they've never heard a record in their life,
and they've just been like,
there's like a darkness to it.
- Weird droney harmonies.
- ♪ As I went a-rambling one morning ♪
I'd love to get a genealogy of Lane Staley
and see if I can trace his heritage back to--
- It's probably Irish back there.
- Yeah, it's probably Scott's Irish.
- Lane Staley.
- Oh, Lane Staley.
- It is also the 30th anniversary
of Peter Gabriel's album, "Us."
- Okay.
- Which has the song "Digging in the Dirt,"
which is really--
- Oh, I've heard that song before.
He was tearing it up on the modern rock charts.
Right here.
We've done a couple different 1992 top fives where--
- Singles from Peter Gabriel were in there.
- Steam.
- ♪ I'm digging in the dirt ♪
- Give me steam.
- Well, that's weird, Aaron,
'cause you've also done a Peter Gabriel cover band.
You've done--
- This is true.
- You've done "Five Lane Block Top."
What was the name of the Peter Gabriel band?
- It was just LA Takedown.
Oh, no, it was Red Rain.
- Okay, Red Rain, and you've done Richard Pictures.
- But yeah, I feel like there's something cosmic
happening there where, you know--
- Wait, and the doors.
- Well, yeah, we did the doors, yeah.
I mean, we also--
I'm also in a Bob Dylan cover band.
I mean, it just keeps going and going.
But yeah, the fact that Peter Gabriel released a song
called "Digging in the Dirt,"
like pretty much the day that Alice in Chains put out "Dirt."
I don't know.
- "Zeitgeist."
- Yeah, "Dirt."
- I mean, it totally makes, yeah, too.
And also, if you had to pick a word
to associate with a year like '92, dirt.
Makes sense.
- I wonder if them calling it dirt
was like a grab at being more grunge.
Like dirt, grunge, there's an association,
I would say, like just dirty, grungy.
- It's the perfect record album title for this.
- Maybe somewhere deep in their hearts,
they wanted to call it like "Ascension of the Phoenix."
And someone was like, "No, dude.
(laughs)
"Guys, it's '92.
"It's just dirt."
- Actually, Ezra, to answer your earlier question,
dirt to me, that has some punk ethos to it.
- Yeah, I know what you mean.
- Instead of naming it like a typical
dumb metal album name, like "Ascension of the Phoenix."
No, dude, it's dirt.
- Dirt.
- Yeah, it's like, there's a band called Pavement.
We're gonna name our album just dirt.
It's raw.
- The most punk thing on the album is the joke song.
- Do you know who the vocal is in the joke song?
- I do.
(laughs)
- Oh, it's not them.
- It's Tom Mariah from "Slayer."
- Oh, okay, so they were friends with Slayer?
All right, well, let's throw that on.
- I guess the most metal thing about them.
- Oh, God, this is not the song to throw on.
- All right, we're gonna throw on
the Alice in Chains joke song featuring Tom from Slayer.
All right, thanks so much, guys.
Great to have you on, as always.
Everybody go throw on "Dirt"
in honor of the 30th anniversary.
(rock music)
♪ I am ♪
♪ I am dirt ♪
(roaring)
- Jake, you did a great job booking this episode.
Like you said, very '90s.
Our next guest is Stephen Hyden,
legendary rock journalist, friend of the show.
He's got a new book, which I was lucky enough
to read earlier this year.
I know I talked about it on the show.
It's called "Long Road, Pearl Jam
and the Soundtrack of a Generation."
It's out now.
It's cool.
It's like, you know, he's got his kind of idiosyncratic
personal take on Pearl Jam and their career,
but it's also like very factual.
He's always great at kind of contextualizing
when things are happening.
I think it's a great book,
especially for the kind of marginal Pearl Jam fan like me.
- And me.
- Or Jake.
People who are like, you know, like kind of in,
maybe just like curious.
People are always like, "Yeah, I like Pearl Jam, okay.
"What's the deal with them?"
- Pearl Jam, curious.
- If you're PJ curious, it's a great book
because you probably know many of the songs
and you've probably been like, "Wow,
"people are really passionate about that band.
"People are out there like throwing on flannel shirts
"and following them in a van like the Grateful Dead.
"Like what are they buying into?"
And this book really explains it
and gives you a history of the band dynamics
and all that stuff.
- Are they buying into those Mike McReady guitar solos?
- I wanna start with that.
All right, so let's get Steven on the phone.
- Now let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- Hey.
- Hey, Steven, what's up?
Welcome back to Time Crisis.
- Oh my God, I'm thrilled.
It's been way too long.
I feel like it's been like a few years at this point.
- In the COVID era, but yeah, time flies.
Time flies when you're having fun.
We were just hyping up the book.
I've actually been talking about this book since I read it,
which was, I don't know, seven months ago or something.
- You were one of the first people to read it.
- I'm so glad.
I really appreciate you giving me the early copy
because I was able to read it
before I saw my first Pearl Jam show
with Jake at the Forum.
- Yeah, and you did that episode about it
and you were with Adam from the War on Drugs.
- Oh yeah, Adam from the War on Drugs came to the show.
Actually, that's another thing, Jake.
It's not very popping, but after that show,
we did have a little bit of a Pearl Jam text thread.
- That's true.
'Cause Steven, before you came on,
I had some friends on discussing the 30th anniversary
of Alice in Chains Dirt album.
- Oh.
- We had a discreet Alice in Chains text thread.
And now, as Ezra brings this up, it's right.
We have a very sporadically used Pearl Jam text thread.
Me, Ezra, Adam from War on Drugs,
and Ezra's tour manager, Brian.
- Is that Alice in Chains thread?
Is that like really grim?
I just feel like if you're talking about Dirt,
it's a brilliant record,
but it's like one of the most depressing albums
of all time.
- It's mostly texts about when can we get together
and drink and listen to Dirt?
(laughing)
And it's mostly like, I'm out of town,
the 10th to the 18th, I can't make it then.
That's mostly what the text thread is.
Although today was very active,
'cause I was trying to wrangle up some guests for the show,
and my brother Dave was gonna come on,
and he had to bail last minute,
'cause he's a huge Dirt head.
Anyway.
- What are you guys drinking on Dirt night?
- Hard, hard stuff.
- Whiskey, bourbon.
- Whiskey, tequila.
- Everclear.
(laughing)
- As long as it's not heroin.
You know, as long as you're not
like shooting heroin together,
'cause I feel like that would be
the ultimate Dirt night expression.
I feel like if you're just drinking Miller High Life
or something, that's like the safe Dirt night.
- That's the dad's Dirt night.
- Yeah, exactly.
- That's like safe suburban dad's Dirt night.
- When you're hanging out on Dirt night,
are you trying to discern like,
is this Layne Staley singing?
Is this Jerry Cantrell singing?
'Cause I always feel like that is,
if you're trying to dissect Alice in Chains sonically,
'cause there is like this thing with Alice in Chains,
I feel like where people feel like,
well, maybe Jerry Cantrell is like actually
the actual lead singer of that band,
because they're always singing together.
Layne Staley gets so much credit as a great lead singer,
and he is, but I feel like especially as he faltered,
it was like Jerry Cantrell was almost like
the secret lead singer of that band.
- Well, okay, I don't know their career very much after Dirt.
Like Dirt is the height of the band.
- Jake's a Dirt guy.
- Yeah, I'm a Dirt guy, hey.
(laughing)
On the song "Wood" and on the song "Down in a Hole,"
that's Cantrell on the verses.
- Right.
- Maybe Layne is in there a little bit
on the harmonies with him, and they're gentle, they're soft.
And then when the choruses just go off, huge choruses,
Layne comes in, we were just talking about this,
Layne comes in with no harmonies.
- Right.
- Like on "Them Bones," it's like weird harmonies,
which is a really cool reversal of the classic
solo vocal verse, and then someone comes in on the chorus
just to beef it up a bit.
- Well, if I may make a recommendation
for post-Dirt, Allison Chains.
- Please.
- The "Jar of Flies" EP is arguably as good as Dirt,
and it's a little more melodic, you know,
'cause that's like the unplugged version of Allison Chains.
- Yeah, we were just listening to that
and making fun of the drum tone.
- Jake can't stand the drummer.
- I can't deal with, okay, here's the transition for you.
I can't deal with the drummer of Allison Chains,
and I can't deal with the lead guitar player in Pearl Jam.
So--
- Oh, what, McCready?
- I can't deal.
- You're taking shots at McCready?
- Jake has been hating on McCready.
- I can't deal with him.
- Oh my God.
- He's the most like hard rock cafe dude ever.
(laughing)
He's the most awkward lead guitar player
of a major band I can think of.
- Oh my God.
- There's 10,000 guys like him.
- I can't believe you're going that hard on him, Jake.
Even at the show, Jake was just standing there
just being like, not feeling McCready.
- I feel like this is like "Saving Private Ryan,"
and like they're taking shots,
I'm taking bullets coming out on the beach immediately,
taking shots at McCready, 'cause like,
I mean, I write about this in the book,
he's my favorite member of the band.
- Oh, wow.
- So now like we're really throwing it down here.
- We're at laundry heads.
- I mean, I'll throw this out there
just like as an alternative thing,
maybe this will change your mind.
I think that if you look at Pearl Jam
from a jam band perspective,
and if you're looking at the live recordings,
that McCready is the one who is bringing
the improvisational aspect to the live stuff.
So like, if you're listening to like "Even Flow,"
for instance, the like thousandth live version
of that song, the only reason why it's different
is what McCready is bringing to the table,
because he is playing a different solo every single time.
Like he's the one who, I think especially live,
I mean, it's funny that you say this,
'cause like I went to go see Pearl Jam
with my friend Rob, who I did the "36 From the Vault"
podcast with.
- Oh, right, right.
- And he was rolling his eyes at McCready a lot,
because he's very hammy live.
He's like stalking around the stage,
he's like doing a lot of the rock theatric type stuff.
But I think musically, he's the one who's like
bringing different things to every live performance
that they do.
So that is part of like what I really like about him.
If you wanna say there's a Jerry,
you wanna say Eddie is the Jerry,
but in a way, musically speaking,
McCready is the Jerry of Pearl Jam
in the sense of the guitar player
changing up the live versions every time they play live.
- How about this?
There's no Jerry in Pearl Jam.
(laughing)
Pearl Jam is Pearl Jam.
The Grateful Dead are the Grateful Dead.
- There's not even a Jerry Cantrell.
- There's not even a Cantrell.
He plays a different guitar solo every night
and they're all bad.
I'm sorry.
He can just be the weak guy.
He can be like the SNL. - Jake is hating.
- I'm sorry.
Just sub him in for the guy that played
for the SNL band for 10 years.
- I just like haven't played--
- Whoa, whoa, whoa, wait.
You're taking shots at G.E. Smith now?
- Absolutely.
- We're taking G.E. Smith shots?
- I'm taking shots at Hard Rock Cafe blues guitar players.
Not interesting.
- Oh dear.
- I'm sorry, Steve.
We're getting off on the wrong foot here.
- First of all, I didn't know.
- The only way to settle this is,
Steven, can you make Jake a playlist
of your top 25 even flows?
Try to spread them out over the last 30 years.
- Your top 25 even flows.
Jake.
(laughing)
♪ Freezing ♪
♪ Rest his head on a pillow made of concrete ♪
♪ Oh, feeling ♪
♪ Maybe he'll feel a little better ♪
♪ Saturdays are ♪
♪ Hell now ♪
♪ He says he sees them again ain't that familiar ♪
♪ No friend he can't have when he's happy ♪
♪ Looks insane ♪
♪ Even so ♪
♪ He's on the run like a motorbike ♪
♪ All he don't know ♪
♪ Is how he chases them away ♪
♪ Something here ♪
♪ He'll begin his life again ♪
♪ Life again ♪
- When we saw Pearl Jam at the forum,
I had never seen Pearl Jam before.
And I gotta say, I was so charmed with Vedder.
I mean, to me Vedder is the band.
He was such an incredible front man, great banter.
I think we covered this on the show.
He told this whole story about going,
trying to go see Pink Floyd and the wall era.
His buddy lost one of the tickets.
He just sat in his parking lot stoned all night.
And then when he told it,
this like nice kind of drawn out five minute anecdote,
he won me over.
I mean, hell of a front man.
There's no band without Vedder.
That to me, Vedder is the Jerry, even though there's no Jerry.
- Well, can I just say too that because of Vedder,
I'll give Vedder credit for this.
I think it was like '06 when Pearl Jam played,
I think it was Columbus, Ohio.
Robert Pollard opened for,
the Robert Pollard Solar Band opened for Pearl Jam.
And they played Bob O'Reilly together.
Like Robert Pollard sang it with Pearl Jam.
So because of Eddie Vedder,
Robert Pollard, guided by voices,
got to sing Bob O'Reilly in an arena.
So I feel like any Pearl Jam skeptic
from an indie rock world ought to be able to recognize,
we all want to hear Robert Pollard sing Bob O'Reilly
in a huge room and it's because of Eddie Vedder.
So that's another thing that you,
just to tie the worlds together.
- Now you're just brown.
- Well, I'm trying to bring Jake back here
because, okay.
- This is one of the funniest situations.
This is the worst first date.
I know it's not a first date.
(laughing)
- It's all love.
- It's a really sit down.
- It's all love.
- We haven't even started the top five guys.
- That's funny too.
That's such like a genre of like,
kind of like a tweet or like a social media post
where somebody's like,
"I think I'm sitting next to the worst Tinder date
of all time."
(laughing)
You know, like the girl's vegan
and the guys just told her she just got back
from a hunting in the woods.
And he took down a 5.0.
It's like that.
It's like, "Hey guys,
I think I'm at the worst Tinder date of all time.
This dude just opened with how much he hates
Mike McCready of Pearl Jam.
And the girl just said,
"That's actually my favorite member of the band."
And they're both 22, which is pretty cool.
22 year olds talking PJ on the first date.
- It's two 45 year old guys talking PJ.
We're both 77, I think, right, Seton?
- Yeah, yeah.
You're February 77.
- Yeah.
- I'm September.
- So I'm English town.
- Nice.
- 77.
In February, you would have been like,
you know, Madison, Wisconsin, probably.
And February 77.
I just brought up the power of the dead.
I'm trying to bring you back here.
- No, we're good, we're good, man.
- Jake likes Pearl Jam, right?
- I do.
I like Pearl Jam.
- I mean, I feel bad that McCready's taking so much ire,
but okay, well, Stephen,
you can definitely speak to this
because I think one thing I love about the book,
I was saying this earlier,
is, and why I think your book is great
for even Pearl Jam skeptics,
maybe especially for Pearl Jam skeptics,
just 'cause it's like, you give people lots of context.
Like you'll go off on a whole thing
about Stone Temple Pilots
or what was happening in the larger music world.
You also really are interested in the band dynamics
and stuff like that.
So you kind of keep it interesting
from a human perspective.
Can you just give us your general take
about the humans in this band,
the elements of this band that come together,
Vetter is the type,
"Oh guys, it'd be cool to get Robert Power
to come sing Bob O'Reilly with us."
What are the other people,
such as the Mike McCready represent,
'cause obviously it's only Pearl Jam
with all of these people.
Can you just give us your kind of bird's eye view
of how Pearl Jam reached this kind of the harmony
that makes them them?
What are the elements, the people, the influences?
- Yeah, so there's a phrase that I seize upon
early in the book that came from Matt Cameron,
where he described Pearl Jam as punk rock, arena rock,
which in my interpretation is this idea
of simultaneously being a band
that can play arenas and stadiums
and sort of be reminiscent of the bands of the past
that would play those types of rooms.
You know, The Who, Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen,
and at the same time operate like a band
that comes from the punk rock world.
You know, specifically like the '80s indie world
that certainly people like Jeff Amitt
and Stone Gossard came from,
you know, playing in Green River,
you know, very sort of early Seattle punk band,
you know, from the mid '80s into the late '80s.
And I think that that's a big part
of like why they've been able to stick around
for a long time.
They can be a band that if you wanna see
The Who or Aerosmith or, you know,
like a band like that in a big room
and that can hit like that and deliver like that,
even in ways that like, you know,
like Jake was talking about, like the House of Rock thing,
I mean, that is part of the rock and roll tree, you know?
And I wouldn't say House of Rock.
I would say Mike McCready is more of like
the Jimi Hendrix, Stevie Ray Vaughan type style
of guitar playing, and maybe Stevie Ray Vaughan
would fall more into that House of Rock thing,
but that is part of like the arena rock tree.
So they can be that, but they can also be a band
that has a lineage that does come from
like the indie rock world,
and maybe they carry themselves more
like a band that would be from there.
And it seems like an impossible combination to pull off.
And I think Pearl Jam over the course of their career,
it was always about trying to figure out a way
to pull that off, 'cause it is a really hard balancing act
to execute, but I think they really did figure it out
in the long run, 'cause like you look at them now,
and you just saw them at the, was it at the Forum in LA?
- Yeah, Forum.
- So the Forum, they can play the Forum,
they can sell it out, but at the same time,
they're like, they have like really no media profile at all.
You know, like when I've been talking about this book,
I often compare Eddie Vedder to Dave Grohl, you know,
and no shots at Dave Grohl, I mean, he's great,
but like Dave Grohl, like when they promote,
whenever there's like a new Foo Fighters record,
he's like all over the place.
He's on award shows, he's on talk shows, very ubiquitous,
whereas Eddie Vedder has really avoided that
for a long time, and yet he still has the same
rockstar friends, you know, he can still play
the same big places, but it's like,
it can be invisible and very visible simultaneously.
And again, that's a really hard thing to do,
but they've been able to pull it off for a long time.
And I think that's the key to like their long-term survival.
- And it is interesting, like,
I feel like I've noticed more people,
maybe it's just a natural function of time,
becoming kind of interested in Pearl Jam,
maybe just because they're hitting that 30 year mark
and people get interested in stuff
when it's been around 30 years and start to be like,
whether you like them back in the day,
were agnostic, disliked them,
I feel like there's been some growing energy lately.
Maybe I'm just speaking about myself,
but we're just kind of like, oh yeah, Pearl Jam,
I'll go see Pearl Jam.
Oh yeah, I've got a buddy, they go see Pearl Jam
every time they come to town.
As you promote this book and talk about it,
is there a bit of a Pearl Jam renaissance happening?
- I don't know, I mean, there are really interesting
battle in that regard because,
and I don't want to put too much weight on this,
but like Pitchfork just put out a new list
of like the best albums of the 90s, 150 albums.
- Oh, oh, I haven't seen that.
- Very controversial.
And there's like no Pearl Jam albums on there.
I think-
- Zero Pearl Jam.
- Zero Pearl Jam.
- Really?
- Zero Pearl Jam.
- Versus?
- Nothing from Pearl Jam.
They did put Corduroy on their songs list this week,
which actually I was kind of surprised by
because Pitchfork generally,
if you look at their archives,
like they're not very positive toward that band,
but it is interesting.
I don't feel like they've really,
they don't seem like the band that is like canonical
like to like younger generations yet
in the way that like Nirvana is.
- And I'm curious about this, not having seen this list,
like for instance, is Nevermind in the top 10?
- It is in the top 10,
but like Holes lived through this as like two spots higher,
which was interesting to me.
- Oh my God.
- Like Nevermind-
- That is so funny.
- Nevermind was number 10.
It's an interesting top 10 list for the albums
because like Loveless,
My Bloody Valentine record was number one,
which actually surprised me a little bit.
- That's kind of old school.
- Exactly.
And then like Lauryn Hill was number two.
Okay, Computer was number three.
I forget what comes after that, but so-
- Okay, so those are all like,
none of those are surprises that they'd be in the top 10.
Again, perhaps the particular order is irrelevant.
It's more like, all right, what's top 10?
What's top 50?
♪ Don't be mad ♪
♪ You're finally here and I'm a mess ♪
♪ I take your interest back ♪
♪ Can't let you roam inside my head ♪
♪ I don't wanna take what you can't give ♪
♪ I'd rather starve than eat your bread ♪
♪ I'd rather run but I can't walk ♪
♪ Guess I'll lie alone just like before ♪
- Where's Dirt?
- I don't know if Dirt made it, actually.
It's funny 'cause like you see these lists and like,
and I hate that I do this because it annoys me.
Like if I make my own list and people do this,
but like you do the control F
and you put in the thing that you are curious,
where did this land?
I think I looked up like Siamese Dream.
- I mean, I was half kidding you by suggesting that.
I assume Dirt is not on the list, if I had to guess.
- They recently did like a Pitchfork review on Dirt.
They did like a, it's funny that we're doing so much Dirt talk.
- Dirt is not on the list.
- Oh, no Dirt? - Dirt is not on the list.
- Nick, do you think of B-1000 and Alien Lanes?
- I can tell you. - Okay, thank you, Steven.
- I can tell you, Alien Lanes is not on the list.
B-1000, I believe is about 129.
Maybe we can confirm that, but I think it was about--
- We're talking about the most underrated rock bands
of all time, Alice in Chains and GBB.
(laughing)
- AIC and GBB.
- How about this?
- B-1000, yeah, B-1000, 123.
- GBB, underrated, MBV, overrated.
- Can I just say too, since we're talking
about the Pitchfork list here,
Octoon Baby was like 118.
I think that's way too low.
Can we talk about U2 for a second?
- Sure. - I think they're way underrated.
I think Octoon Baby is for sure at least a top five album
of the '90s, as far as I'm concerned.
- Well, I wouldn't go top five, but I would--
- I would for sure for myself.
I think that album is a masterpiece.
- No, I love it. - It's very good,
but I mean, I guess as, I know this is the exact type
of thing that you talked-- - Guys, just want you
to take a guess. - Yeah.
- Steven, you do not get to answer since you know the list.
Where do you think Dookie falls?
- Beautiful album.
Okay, it was a number one, it was a number two,
and it was a number three, so I'm guessing four.
- I'm gonna guess-- - Just kidding.
- I'm gonna guess 115.
- I'm gonna say not on the list.
- I mean, that would be incredible if I did,
if it was a trick question.
No, it's, what did you say, Jake?
- 115. - Ooh, it's 111.
- Wow, good guess. - Ooh, wow.
- Really good, Jake. - Thank you.
- Wow. - I think like--
- Arthur Russell's "Another Thought," that's 115.
- That's '90s?
- Wait, was that like the '80s?
- That doesn't count.
- '94. - It's like a reissue?
- Where is "Siamese Dream?"
- It's like '98, I believe.
- Damn, you're so good, I mean, you're, yes, it's '98.
- Well, because this was something I looked up--
- It's incredible, Steven.
- I looked that up specifically because I felt like,
again, as a aging music writer,
I felt like that was way too low on the list
'cause I was DMing with various people about this list.
Someone brought up Dookie,
and someone brought up the self-titled
"Rage Against the Machine."
- That album, like the self-titled?
- Sure, where do you think that fell?
- I'm gonna guess 43. - I looked that one up.
- Yeah, I was gonna say 40-something.
- 120.
- Ouch, oh, deep.
- Which I'm not even a huge "Rage Against the Machine" fan,
but that seems way too low for me.
- Okay, I remember the last time, like two years ago,
during COVID, Rolling Stone did the top 500 albums
of all time, and the top indie rock album,
do you guys remember what it was?
- Top indie rock album?
- It was a Matador release in the '90s,
and it wasn't "Pavement," and it wasn't "GBV."
- What'd be "Liz Phair" and "Sebastian"?
- Yes, it was "Liz Phair."
- Yeah, yeah, "Exile" and "Guy-Ville."
- "Liz Phair" was the top indie rock album
on the top 500 list two years ago.
I'm gonna guess "Exile" and "Guy-Ville" is number nine.
- Number four.
- Oh! - That was number four?
- Ooh, it took the Dookie slot.
- It took Dookie, and they threw Dookie all the way to 111.
- This is gonna be so all over the place.
It's possible that we're done talking about "Pearl Jam."
Maybe that's a good thing.
You've been talking about "Pearl Jam"
so much lately, right, Stephen?
- I mean, I'm happy to talk about "Pearl Jam"
till the cows come home, but-
- Well, everybody, look, check out the book, everybody.
- I love all of Stephen's books.
I haven't got the PJ book yet.
I'm gonna get it.
I'm gonna read it, despite my misgivings of Mike McReady.
I'm psyched to read this book.
Stephen's a great writer, iconic band.
I'll hit up the PJ thread,
and we'll add Stephen to that thread if he wants.
Maybe he's PJ'd out.
I don't know.
- I mean, the thread, man.
I mean, the Alice in Chains thread.
- Oh, you know what I was gonna say?
Jake, Jake, we should buy it for Brian and Adam,
the other two guys on the list.
We should buy them Stephen's book as a group chat present.
- That's a great call.
- Before I click out of this window.
- Yeah, yeah.
- Time out of mind.
- Ooh, I was just thinking about that.
- Is it on the list?
And if so, where does it fall?
- Well, I think it's gonna be high.
I think it's gonna be high.
It's gonna be, well, I think, first of all,
Bob Dylan's Greatest Hits Volume 3,
which came out in the '90s.
That's probably number five.
And then I think Time Out of Mind, an actual studio album.
I think it's gonna be like 28.
- Because I follow the Jokerman Podcast Twitter feed,
it's pretty much my entire Twitter feed
is basically just Bob Dylan at this point.
Not on the list.
- 68.
- Oh, I guess I was wrong.
I guess I misread the tweets.
- So you were, yeah.
- But I was a bit close.
I mean, I just wanted to-
- You were very close.
- Not as close as Jake and Dookie,
but it's interesting.
- I think you know it's in the top 100.
- Yeah, we were talking about a lot of records
that were falling outside the top 100.
I do think Time Out of Mind's having a moment.
And I wanted to say, just speaking of Steven's writing
and the fact that we went so deep on Bob Dylan
recently on the program,
one piece of Steven's writing that I really enjoy
and that I found myself returning to a lot
in my post Bob Dylan Greatest Hits Volume 3 mania
was Steven's Every Bob Dylan Studio Album Ranked,
which he wrote for Uproxx.
- Yes.
- And that to all of the Time Crisis fans
who got into middle period Bob Dylan via our two-parter,
and maybe you're interested in going through because-
- Can I just say, by the way,
that I love that you did a middle period Bob Dylan
like two-parter?
That's so inspiring to me.
I love that this has become so normalized.
I was just gonna say too,
I mean, I was joking about this with the Joker Men guys
that Froggy K McCorton from Good As I've Been To You
should have been on the songs list for-
- Some of his early 90s work.
- His cover of Froggy K McCorton
that was woefully underappreciated
on the best songs list of the 90s.
- Where's Wiggle Wiggle?
I mean, come on.
- Right.
Well, I mean, all kidding aside,
you could have put Lovesick
or Standing In The Doorway on that songs list
as legit great songs.
But anyway, Ezra, I'm sorry.
Sorry to interrupt you.
- Well, I was just saying, it's a great piece of writing,
but one thing I should say,
and I don't know if Jake, if you've seen it,
but because via Bob Dylan's career since volume three,
me and Jake got so deep into Brownsville Girl,
I was a little bit sad to see that you put
knocked out, loaded, dead last
on your list number 39.
And you give it up for Brownsville Girl.
And to be fair, I do have to say Stephen's writing,
it really comes from a fan place.
Over and over again in the list,
you make it clear that you love all Bob Dylan's music.
And it's kind of a matter of which day you make the list,
but you did put knocked out, loaded, dead last.
- And I love knocked out, loaded.
You know, I mean, it's like not a knock on that album.
It's like, if you're gonna rank Bob Dylan albums,
something has to be last.
It doesn't mean you don't like it in a way.
If you had to make your top 200 albums of all time,
knocked out and loaded would be number 39, number 40.
- Right, exactly.
- Okay, computer, number 41, Sergeant Pepper.
But it's just, every Bob Dylan album is one through 39.
- Exactly, I mean, 'cause you know,
the thing with Bob is that every album of his
that you think is bad will become your favorite album
in like five years.
Like that's the thing I realized with him.
Because honestly, like the thing I would be least interested
in putting on is, you know, something like "Triplicate,"
you know, which is his triple album of standards.
And like each album is like a half hour long
and it's the same tempo.
But I know that at some point that is going to be the album
I am most obsessed with,
because that's just how Bob Dylan is.
- That was "Evans Doesn't Miss."
Wasn't that "Evans" number one?
- Yes, yeah.
- He was trolling, I mean.
- But he may not be though.
- No, I mean, "Jokerman" mindset is deep.
It affects, it's like a zombie apocalypse.
- It affects us all eventually.
- I really tried to get into "Tempest"
based on the "Jokerman's" recommendation.
And it definitely has its moments.
- Well, there was this movie I seen one time
about a man riding across the desert
and it starred Gregory Peck.
He was shot down by a hungry kid
trying to make a name for himself.
The townspeople wanted to dress that kid down
and string him up by the neck.
Well, the marshal, now he beat that kid to a bloody pulp.
As the dying gunfighter lay under sun and gas
for his last breath.
Turn him loose, let him go,
let him say he'll do me fair and square.
I want him to feel what it's like
to every moment face his death.
Well, I keep seeing this stuff
and it just comes a-rollin' in.
And you know it blows right through me like a ball of chain.
You know, I can't believe we've lived so long
and are still so far apart.
The memory of you keeps calling after me
like a rolling train.
- I will say, and I know Jake, you can relate to this
'cause we talk about it a lot.
Like, what records are you actually gonna throw on?
And Steven, before you came on, Jake was saying
he listens to "Dirt" a lot more
than he listens to "Nevermind"
because the weight of history on "Nevermind"
just makes it, you're just less likely
to wanna throw it on than you,
at least for Jake, you'd want to "Dirt."
And I wonder if you ever feel this way
and this might be different than your top Bob albums list.
I've just found lately, I'd rather listen to "Shot of Love"
and Fidel's "Knocked Out, Loaded"
than any of the classic '60s stuff.
And I've been feeling that way kind of for a long time.
I'm sure it'll go back later.
I'd rather listen to '80s or '90s, Bob,
than the objectively more classic,
tasteful '60s and '70s stuff.
You ever feel that way?
- Oh, absolutely.
And that's like what is so great about Bob Dylan
is that he has so many albums in his catalog
that still feel unclaimed in a way.
And, you know, like for people like us,
"Shot of Love" or "Empire Burlesque"
or even an album like "Street Legal" or something,
they feel like classics already,
but in the larger scheme of things,
they're still under-discussed.
Whereas an album like "Blonde on Blonde,"
I mean, we've all read-
- It's a museum piece.
- Yeah, we've all, and look, "Blonde on Blonde,"
if I had, you know, to me,
that's the greatest album ever made.
Like, and I will say that.
- That's your number one?
- Yeah, if you're asking me to pick
the greatest album of all time,
I would say "Blonde on Blonde."
And if you put it on, I would enjoy it.
Like, I still listen to the classics too,
but, you know, when you listen to "Shot of Love,"
there's just not as much like narrative baggage
attached to an album like that.
Like, you don't hear like Grail Marcus's voice
in your head commenting on it as you're listening to it.
And this is true of like other, you know,
sort of like canonical, like classic rock people,
like someone like Van Morrison, for instance.
There's like this Grail Marcus book
where he writes about all the Van Morrison albums.
And he's basically, he writes at one point,
like every Van Morrison album from like 1980s, 1995,
you don't need to listen to those at all.
Like, they're all basically garbage.
And I'm like, that's like one of my favorite periods
of Van Morrison.
Like, I love that period.
♪ Beautiful vision ♪
- "Beautiful Vision."
- Yeah.
- And like, "Hymns to the Silence," "Common One,"
and there's so many just beautiful records from then.
And, you know, that's one of the very attractive things
about these sort of like big time artists
is that they have so many albums
and they have like entire decades of their career
that have been dismissed by experts.
- It's like, almost like you're getting
multiple artists in one.
- Right.
- The same way that there might be one person
who's like, "Yeah, I love the Beatles,
but then, you know, you also catch me listening
to West Coast Experimental Pop Group
or whatever, like obscure, weirder '60s stuff."
But with Bob Dylan or Van Morrison,
it's both are within the same artist.
You can be like, "Oh yeah, I'll listen.
I'll throw Freewheel in on 'Once in a Blue Moon,'"
but like, you have this whole decade of them.
It's almost like being into,
even though of course there's so much continuity,
to be into it and finding people to talk about it with
is almost like being into a semi-obscure artist.
- Totally.
- To talk about Empire Burlesque with somebody.
- Well, I was gonna say,
it's like being into historically significant visual artists
that have different phases of their career.
You can say like Picasso.
The Blue Period is only like five, six years.
- Right.
- The work he was doing in the '30s was much different
than the work he was doing in the '70s.
If you wanna go deep, you can.
- I agree.
I think there's something interesting though about,
'cause I always think of like Tunnel of Love
as this like very important,
I think when it's music, if you're from a certain era,
at some point, that's our nostalgia.
Like even if it wasn't at the, you know,
it somehow connects us very specifically
to when we were growing up.
I mean, my parents listened to Bob Dylan pretty religiously,
like, but at some point that '60s, '70s
is not my experience at all.
And even those later albums, which were not on as much,
became much more of my childhood.
- Just 'cause they were new when you came out, they came.
- Yeah.
- Yeah, that's cool.
- And like you'd even hear it on MTV even.
I mean, there's just something about
the connection at this age. - Yeah, watch 'em unplugged.
- Totally.
- Oh yeah, I like that, that there's two different ways
you can approach like a deep career artist like that.
You can either start getting into the albums
that come out in real time, like when you're,
you know, if you're like 17 and 97,
like check out Time Out of Mind.
You can do it that way.
Or you can kind of just grow up with the records.
And actually I have a memory of being in college
when I definitely was listening to Blonde on Blonde
all the time and Highway 61 Revisited,
just all like the classic, classic '60s stuff.
And I remember hanging out with,
he's an interesting filmmaker, very talented guy,
Eugene Kotularenko.
- Oh, hell yeah.
- I went to college with him.
And I remember being like 19 or 20
and him just being like, "You ever listen to Infidels?"
And I was like, "What is that, like '80s, Bob?"
And he was like, "Oh yeah, you should listen to it.
Great record."
And I just remember at the time being just like,
I remember kind of bookmarking it and I was just like,
and I think I tried, I was like, I cannot.
- Eugene was at Infidels head at age 18 or 19.
- Respect.
- He's like, "You gotta listen, there's a song about Israel.
You're gonna, it's like, it's crazy."
And he's like, "You gotta check it out."
But I really have this feeling where I'm like,
and you know, when Bob would have been,
when Infidels came out,
he would have been in his early 40s or something.
So a little bit older than me.
I can't even fully put it into words.
It would be almost be too simple to say,
"Well, you know, you grow up,
you have more experiences, you relate more."
But it's like, I can feel my center of gravity
going more towards Infidels.
There's something about it.
I just understand it more.
I feel more comfortable listening to it or something.
And I really have a feeling.
Now I've thrown on Tempest, I like it,
but I do have a feeling when I'm like old,
Tempest will be hitting.
When I'm Bob's age, when he made Tempest,
I think I'll understand something deeper about it.
I love that, having that too.
- Yeah, I was just gonna say that.
I think there is something to be said too
about how, you know, we're talking about "Knocked Out Loaded"
and he was like 45 when that record came out
and I'm 45 now.
So I feel like that makes me like that record more
because there's something about me being the same age
as Bob when he made that record.
It's like, I kind of understand.
Although his experience was obviously much different
than mine when he was 45 because he had this entire,
I mean, he was still having to reckon
with his younger self at that point.
I mean, I feel like he's gotten beyond that now.
Like where people, certainly people who love Bob Dylan,
they're not comparing him to who he was when he was 25.
But like when he was making records in the 80s,
like that was still something he had to react against.
And it just made those records sound worse,
I think, to people at the time.
Whereas we can listen to those records now
and we have the benefit of just appreciating it
as like part of an unfolding story, you know?
- Yes. - Like where we're not
comparing it to what he was in the 60s.
We can just kind of appreciate like,
oh, this is like the flavor of Bob in the 80s, you know?
But I gotta say, you know, to go back to Van Morrison,
Van Morrison is like, I feel like his legacy is in flux
just because he's like a lunatic
and he's said a lot of stupid things in recent years.
His 80s period, I think is the best 80s period
of all the 60s like singer-songwriters.
Like if you're gonna compare him.
And I love 80s Bob, but like I think 80s Van,
that might be my favorite decade for Van.
- What's your number one song from 80s Van?
(inhales)
- Man, "Cleaning Windows" is a great song.
- All right, I'm gonna start there.
- I think that one, I mean, "Common One,"
"Common One" is great.
"Summertime in England,"
actually "Summertime in England" probably
from "Common One" is a great song.
- I love the song "Beautiful Vision."
Like, yeah, like the song "Beautiful Vision,"
the song "Dweller on the Threshold."
- I was gonna say "Dweller on the Threshold,"
that's a great song too.
That album with the Cheapkins he did is really beautiful.
- Oh yeah, actually, I know that one.
And I've always loved that,
'cause I've always loved that kind of traditional Irish stuff.
- Actually, I'll say-
- We gotta do an 80s Van episode soon.
- I was gonna say "In the Garden," actually from,
"No Guru, No Method, No Teacher,"
which is like one of my favorite Van records.
"In the Garden," beautiful song.
- Okay, all right, I'm starting with "In the Garden."
- Steven's making the time crisis
number one live even flows.
- All right, and 80s Van Morrison.
- Well, we decided on 25 even flows for Jake, right?
- We'll share them with the audience.
- Top 25 even flows.
And then with the Van thing,
you need to imagine that it's 1994,
and Van Morrison is making "His Greatest Hits," volume three
at the time, a la Bob.
And he has to dig into that material,
and he has to tell his own idiosyncratic story
of what he's been up to.
And he did have some actual, like, pretty big songs,
at least in the late 80s, right?
- There's that song, "Have I Told You Lately,"
that, like, Rod Stewart covered.
- Right, so that became like a,
yeah, that became almost like a standard.
♪ The field I roam was wet with rain ♪
♪ After a summer shower ♪
♪ When I saw you standing ♪
♪ Standing in the garden ♪
♪ In the garden ♪
♪ Wet with rain ♪
♪ You wiped the teardrops from your eyes in sorrow ♪
♪ Yeah, we watched the petals fall down to the ground ♪
♪ And then I sat beside you ♪
♪ I felt the great sadness that day ♪
♪ In the garden ♪
- Stephen, do you want to just do a speed run
through the top five songs
on the Alternative Airplay chart right now?
- Yeah, I'd love to.
- It's time for the top five on iTunes.
- Okay, number five right now
on the Alternative Airplay chart,
Vance Joy with "Clarity."
You know Vance Joy?
Vance Joy, he had a really big song.
He's an Australian artist.
He had a big song called "Riptide."
- No, I don't know this at all.
I feel like I'm being exposed for my lack of--
- It's produced by Joel Little,
who famously produced the first "Lorde" album.
- Okay.
♪ Strictly lost but not in game ♪
- Vance Joy's a really big artist.
He's got a little bit of an Australia surfer, maybe like--
- Sort of like Australian Jack Johnson type vibe
with a little bit of a--
- But poppier.
- Yeah.
♪ I'm gonna fall right out in the sky ♪
- Is this Alternative?
- I don't even know what that means.
I'm surprised that that's still a format for 2022.
- I feel like I'm in a CVS.
- Yeah, he might be going a little,
he's going a little bit poppier now.
- This sucks.
- All right, number four.
- Jake's buying cold medicine and hearing this song.
- I wish we had more time
'cause I'd play you guys his earlier hit, "Riptide,"
which is a little, slightly crunchier, less poppy.
I wonder what you'd think of that.
But the number four song right now,
oh, we know these guys, Red Hot Chili Peppers,
"Tip of My Tongue."
- Ooh.
- Off of their next album, "Return of the Dream Canteen."
Great title.
♪ Return of the dream canteen ♪
- Pretty GBV.
- Wait, is this the same record
with the weird Irish ballad?
- No, they're doing back-to-back double albums.
- What?
- Yes.
- That's like the John Frusciante effect.
They just, uh...
- The floodgates open.
- They're totally on fire. - Back-to-back doubles?
- Red Hot Chili Peppers is releasing 30 albums this year.
- This sounds like blood, sugar, sex, magic.
- I mean, I can't be mad at this.
♪ Tell me, can you stand this ♪
♪ I'm on the brink of this ♪
♪ And tell me what you think of this ♪
- I like this more than that pirate song that they put out.
- Irish Black Summer.
- Irish Sea Shanty.
- Yeah, I wasn't a huge fan of that.
- Wait, Stephen, so I remember you wrote a piece
about Red Hot Chili Peppers ranking their albums.
Did you get deep into the last,
what was the last album called?
Love Unlimited.
Did you spend any significant time
with that last RHCP record?
- Not a huge amount of time.
It didn't make a huge impression on me,
but I'll admit that I was excited to hear
a Chili Peppers record that John Frusciante plays on,
because I do like him a lot as a guitar player.
- Yeah.
- It was interesting doing that list,
because the thing I realized is that
people's favorite Chili Peppers albums
are the ones that came out between,
whatever albums came up between the ages of 12 and 17,
for whatever reader it was, those were the favorites.
So for me, it was like Mother's Milk
and Blood Sugar Sex Magic.
And then for the next generation,
it was Stadium Arcadium, tons of Stadium Arcadium fans.
Which I think that album,
that album, I said that was like their worst album.
- It had huge songs.
- Yeah, it had huge songs on it.
- It had massive, massive songs.
- Lots of songs on it.
- And it's funny that you say that,
because for my 12 to 17 era, it's kind of true.
I don't know what, if I was ranking them,
if I'd put them top, but of course,
oh wait, I'm blanking.
What, Californication, what's that album called?
- Yeah, that's it.
- Yeah, it's Californication.
I thought that was great when it came out.
But I also have a really soft spot for By The Way.
- Right.
- I remember even at the time being kind of like,
wow, strong followup.
There are some really good songs on it.
All right, let's keep moving.
I mean, that's just some classic Red Hot Chili Peppers.
You know what, it's funny,
Colin, another producer on the show,
emailed us about this song a while ago.
I guess it's doing pretty well.
This is Dirty Heads.
I don't know how much you guys know about them.
I associate them with like slightly stupid,
kind of like Southern California, reggae-ish.
Jam band adjacent, right?
Is that fair?
Steven, are they jam band adjacent?
- Dirty Heads?
- Are they outside your beat?
- I mean, I don't go deep on Dirty Heads,
but like the slightly stupid reference
makes me feel like you're probably right.
'Cause slightly stupid would be definitely jam band adjacent.
- They're blowing out Red Rocks.
- Yeah.
- They got a bit of like a follow, you know.
- Any kind of like-- - A little show to show.
- Yeah, like lightly reggae stuff.
Like you're gonna have some jam band people
in there for sure.
- Well, you guys are gonna like this,
like Jake's gonna love this.
This is Dirty Heads with their hit cover.
I think it's fair to say it's number three
on the Alternative Airplay chart.
This is their hit cover of Joe Walsh's "Life's Been Good."
- Oh no.
- Wow.
- Oh no.
- Steven, what are you drinking there?
- Just water, water and coffee.
- Coffee?
- Yeah.
- What is it?
- Are you in Japan too, Steven?
(laughing)
- I had another interview before this.
- Wow.
- Such.
- Wow.
Coffee at home at nine at night.
- I know, I might be paying for it later.
Hopefully not so much.
- Some people can just do it.
That sucks.
- This is honestly, "Life's Been Good"
is like one of my favorite songs of all time.
I think the lyrics of the song are brilliant.
Like every lyric is very quotable.
- It's a great song.
- And this cover of it just makes me,
it makes my heart hurt a little bit.
♪ Should've complained ♪
♪ But sometimes I do ♪
♪ 'Cause it comes with the fame ♪
♪ They say I'm crazy ♪
♪ But I have a reason ♪
- Because I feel like the Joe Walsh version
has like a layer of irony to it
that makes it really work.
- Of course.
- And there's no irony here at all.
It just feels like it's total bro rock.
- It's Tony Soprano's "A Cool Guy."
(laughing)
- Although the one thing, "Life's Been Good"
is mostly a reggae song.
- Yeah, musically it's like not a stretch at all.
- What is this band?
Okay, but I didn't, yeah, but they're rapping about,
okay, all right, let's move on.
I'd love to go deeper on "Dirty Heads,"
but yeah, starting with a cover of a beloved song
is always gonna be a tough way.
- It just makes you like wonder,
like what is the alternative audience in 2022?
Because you talk about,
alternative was always like a weird term in the '90s,
but you felt like there was some unifying aesthetic
that defined what it was.
And I don't know what this aesthetic is.
- Now it's truly bizarre.
And I mean, it's only gonna get more bizarre
with number two, "Imagine Dragons," "Bones."
I mean, I do understand how they're alternative,
but they also are in a sense,
one of the biggest pop artists of the past five, 10 years.
Let's see what this one sounds like.
- Is this new?
Steve, are you an "Imagine Dragons" defender?
- I'm not a defender necessarily.
I was just gonna shout out
a old school "Time Crisis" episode.
I think that's like one of the great episodes
in the catalog where you talk about
"Imagine Dragons" in the 1975.
- Oh, right.
The singer from 1975 was hating on them.
- Yeah, that's a great riff.
I love that episode.
♪ Patience is waning ♪
♪ Is this entertaining ♪
♪ I-E-I-E-I ♪
- I'm not a defender, but I'm not a hater of "Imagine Dragons."
I understand why they're popular
and where they fit in the world.
And Dan Reynolds, lead singer,
seems like he's a legitimately positive guy.
- Dude.
- Yeah, like a positive good force.
- And there's something too where it's like,
you know, I can understand there's this kind of mix of rock
and this type of pop production is not for everybody.
I do think though, if you could take a step back,
like you could just tell that "Imagine Dragons"
are doing it right.
You know, you might not like it.
I've just always had that vibe off them.
It's like, they're doing it right.
They seem like a likely candidate for a band
that in 10 or 20 years, somebody with no baggage
could go back and like, you know,
shock their aging hipster parents by finding inspiration in.
- Yeah, and if you're at an NBA game
and it's a timeout and Radioactive comes on,
you're gonna probably enjoy it.
You know, it's like a good song for that environment.
It's jock jams type music.
- And they have a lot of them.
- Exactly. - They got a lot of those songs.
- Where if I'm just hanging out in my office,
I'm not gonna put it on,
but if it comes on in the right environment,
I'm not gonna hate it.
- Right.
- Yeah, that's a good point.
- I'm psyched in 20 years when our kids start a band
and the major touchstone is "Imagine Dragons."
- Well, you know, I will say one of the things that maybe--
- Come on guys, no GBV?
- One of the things that made me appreciate Radioactive
is that years ago I was in my hometown
and we were at this like church picnic
and there was a teenage band on stage
and they played Radioactive and it was very charming.
That was probably one of the first songs
they ever learned to play and I was like,
okay, I actually kind of like this song now
'cause I saw 14 year olds playing it.
- I can see that sounding great,
just like kind of a garage band.
♪ Radioactive ♪
- And they had this like teenage girl lead singer
and she was singing it kind of off key,
but it was great.
It was like the best possible version of that song.
So, yeah, exactly.
- There's definitely something to it.
Okay, and then the number one, I guess in a way,
the number one song is by The Killers.
It's a new song called "Boy."
We've had "Imagine Dragons," "Dirty Heads,"
"Red Hot Chili Peppers," and "Vance Joy."
I mean, in a way, The Killers are the most like
classically modern alternative band.
'Cause even, I mean, of course,
"Red Hot Chili Peppers" are alternative,
but that's their funky side.
That's kind of its own thing.
I'm curious what this song sounds like.
Steven, you've been writing for kind of like
late period Killers, right?
You're a Pressure Machine fan?
- Pressure Machine and "Floating in the Mirage,"
I think especially the singles from that album.
- Oh yeah, "Floating in the Mirage," that was strong, yeah.
- There's some good songs from there.
And yeah, I think they've had like a pretty good
late career resurgence.
- Oh, this is getting back into some of that
kind of dance music Killers.
- Oh yeah.
I feel like this is gonna explode at some point.
♪ Dead down ♪
♪ Wrong fit ♪
♪ Big deal ♪
♪ That's just growing up ♪
♪ Untouched ♪
- I mean, I like this mode of the Killers,
but we can officially say in the five alternative songs
we've heard so far,
none of them are really doing a rock thing.
You can make a case of doing an alternative type of thing.
We've heard reggae, we've heard funk,
we've heard pop, we've heard dance music,
very little rock.
- Yeah, this is like--
- This is kind of '80s, like, you know,
New Order or some (beep)
- No, totally, but it's not guitar-based rock or whatever.
- Right, right.
- Yeah, it's like, yeah, like that New Order thing
with like a little bit of like a Joshua Tree
sense of uplift to it.
♪ Go away ♪
♪ There is a place that exists ♪
♪ Just give it some time ♪
- I haven't heard this song.
- I like this song.
- Yeah.
- I wonder what that hot sauce is doing.
- Oh yeah.
I wonder if it's still in production
or if that was kind of like a one-off thing.
- We had two members of the Killers call in
a couple of years ago
'cause they were promoting a hot sauce that they made,
a four-pack, which actually I went through all of it.
I enjoyed, I eventually used all four bottles
of the hot sauce on various homemade breakfast burritos.
- Yeah, it was great.
We really didn't talk, we didn't talk music with them.
- Hardly at all. - Just hot sauce.
- Mostly hot sauce, yeah.
- I recently went to Utah for the first time and--
- Great state.
- Yeah, I think it deepened my appreciation
of Brandon Flowers.
He still lives, or I think he's moved back there
and it's such a--
- Oh yeah, I'm pretty sure he's a Utah resident.
- What town is he in?
- He's like in some small town.
He's not in Salt Lake City.
- I think he's out in the mountains.
'Cause it's such an unlikely place for him to live
as one of the reigning rock front men of the time.
- I also gotta point out that the Killers
and Imagine Dragons are number one and number two bands.
They both have origins in Las Vegas.
They both have origins in the Mormon church.
They probably might have different relationships
with the religion they were raised in.
And I think actually Brandon's brother
is Imagine Dragons' manager or something.
So it's like a real, it's like a very close connection.
Shout out to Nevada and Utah.
- Yeah.
- Shaping the sound of modern alternative music.
All right guys, thank you so much, Stephen,
for coming through.
Check out the book in stores now.
Check out the Killers hot sauce.
Make sure you call.
Call your close friends and loved ones
because it's really important that sometime in the next,
let's say two weeks, you do a Dirt Night.
Bye everybody, bye Stephen.
- Time Crisis.
- With Ezra Koenig.
- Great.
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