Episode 192: The Time Crisis Music Special
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
This is our music special.
We'll be talking about all sorts of great music
from the 90s, the 80s, the 70s, and a little bit of today.
We'll be paying tribute to instruments, songwriters,
singers, producers,
and all the fun that comes with enjoying music.
This is Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
They were a felt rubbing knee
Of my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt you the blow
One of us had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying
One of us is lying
In a lonely bed
Time Crisis, back in the building.
What's up, fellas?
Not quite the building. We're still remote.
We're remote.
I came down with my second bout of COVID.
Damn.
Last week.
But I'm fine.
I was sick for a day.
No symptoms, but positive.
No man's land.
But you can still do your go to the studio paint.
Totally.
Go for a run, go to work.
I got a question for everybody.
Well, right now we got Nick and Jake Seinfeld to be joining later.
How much Dave Matthews have you guys been blasting over the past two weeks?
I have not been going deep, admittedly.
Have you been going deep?
We got to get ready for the summer tour, man.
That's true.
We're going to go see him in San Bernardino, right?
Is that the plan?
Potentially.
Maybe we fly out and see some East Coast shows.
I was kind of going deep.
Although the truth is, I basically, I kind of felt like, you know what?
I haven't listened to like his first couple albums or their first couple albums in a while.
And so I was listening to the first album.
It's funny.
I've always loved the song Satellite so much.
I got stuck back on it.
So I'm kind of listening to it.
What would you say? Ants Marching, all classics.
And I like the second album with, of course, beautiful ballad Crash, which I've enjoyed my whole life.
And that cool song.
[Sings]
Wait, Satellite to me is the ultimate DMV song.
Throw it on.
Last time we were actually interviewing the man, we talked about everything under the sun.
I think it'd be good just to listen to the song Satellite.
Do a deep dive on a Dave song.
Wait, dude, didn't like the following day after the interview, you were at an airport and you saw like Bill Tong available?
Yeah, it's funny because we talked with Dave about his love of Bill Tong coming from South Africa, which is basically a South African jerky.
And yeah, I was in the airport the day after the interview and I saw just at one of those little kiosks, like Hudson News type places, they were selling Bill Tong.
So Dave might have missed out on a big investment.
Yeah, that sounds like Bill Tong has gone macro.
If it's at the Hudson News, it's like next to like the kiosk with like the Snickers and the Reese's Pieces.
Yeah, because we've all watched it happen.
No, it's basically like a type of jerky.
And in fact, I imagine the average American who's grabbing that Bill Tong is not thinking about its South African origins.
Is it beef?
Yeah, it's beef.
Okay, so it just reads as beef jerky.
Do you think that they think Bill Tong is the name of the brand?
They probably just think it's like a style or something, but the average American is clocking it as jerky.
Copy.
It's in a bag, like a lot of jerky comes in.
But it has been interesting to watch the changeover in your average airport, even in a pretty regular, degular airport kiosk these days.
If you're like keto or vaguely health conscious, you're going to be able to find stuff that's like a high quality jerky, probably some nice dried mango, bar of bars.
Jerky is a pretty funny plane snack that can have like a real kind of stench to it.
Like tuna.
It just doesn't seem like something you should bring on the plane.
You don't bring the tuna melt on the plane.
The jerky is not as bad as a tuna melt, but like that's pretty nasty.
If you sit down like the guy next to you, just bust open a bag of beef jerky.
Of Bill Tong?
Wait, how often are you hitting jerky, Jake?
Almost never.
Really?
Yeah.
Oh, here we go.
Jerky's like greasy.
No, not really.
I mean, just a Slim Jim is greasy.
Yeah, this is complex.
Also, I've also been thinking one artist that we didn't ask Dave Matthews about, which I bet was an influence growing up in the 80s, is Solo Sting.
Oh, that's a good call.
Jazzy Sting era.
Sure, sure.
Right.
Oh, this is slow.
It's a great live song.
When I talk about that Meriwether Post Pavilion.
He dropped the satellite.
Oh, and he dropped the satellite.
I actually was a bit bummed.
I feel like he... But then it picks up here.
That's just such a feel-good 90s chorus.
That just reminds me of like mid-90s East Coast summer.
Great vibe.
Also, the drummer, Carter, so good.
Like, he's so tasteful.
Yeah, I'm not really feeling the drums, I gotta say.
I love that it's like, it almost sounds like he's just got such good rhythm that he can kind of like leave it open.
Right.
Did Bruce Hornsby be with him?
No, but I got a call from friend of the show, Bruce Hornsby, last week because I was in the New York Times crossword puzzle.
Oh, right.
Bruce is an avid crossword puzzle dude.
So he just like hit me up and so we were talking and I was like, "Hey, Bruce, by the way, what's your relationship like with Dave Matthews?"
Both out of Virginia, you know, and he basically was like, he knows him a bit.
He sat in with him before Hornsby opened for DMB once.
You know, as you can imagine, they're like iconic musicians.
They've had some run-ins.
Not too much beyond that.
Doesn't know the catalog.
Well, I wasn't even getting into like...
Actually, I didn't even ask him about like fandom.
I was just like, "Do you know him?" Just like being a Virginia guy.
He's like, "Oh, yeah, I knew a guy who lived in Charlottesville who played with..."
So yeah, like mild connections.
Spring rain sent a cold
I destroyed this tree so
Everything underneath my face
Should look up, look down
All around, sides turn white
Remember like, I think he sent the Robert Criscow review, the first Dave Matthews band to the TC thread.
And Criscow referenced Bruce Hornsby, I think.
Yeah, he referred to him as like a Hornsby acolyte.
Again, someone attributing an influence to Dave Matthews that doesn't quite stick.
Yeah.
I'm a wildlife study
Desires and fire
And so is misery
I hear a laugh about this
Man who burns
And looks like he died
I mean, this isn't even really like rock music.
It's funny that it was on like alternative rock.
It'd be like Weezer and like The Offspring.
And then it would be like Dave Matthews band.
I was totally hearing it on K-Rock and the New York station.
So I wonder, were they like blasting that in LA?
I know some LA based DMB fans, but just seems like such East Coast music or like Pacific Northwest or, you know, again, LA is not jam territory.
And that includes Dave.
Yeah, I started, I was like starting to listen to some live shows because you know, DMB has released something like a hundred live shows in their series.
Crazy.
Famously a great live band.
Any good covers that you stumbled across?
They're very associated as we talked about on the show with their All Along the Watchtower cover.
They do like a strong Peter Gabriel sledgehammer.
You know, like he said, he likes to just like bring it down and then they do, they do like a pretty high energy burning down the house.
Wait, did he say last episode that he didn't know the Hendrix version somehow when they started doing it?
And then he heard the Hendrix version later and was like, whoa.
Yeah.
Or did I misinterpret that?
No, I think that's what he was saying.
And that's why he kind of developed his own version.
Throw in his version.
I'm curious.
I've never heard it.
I'm curious to hear what his version is like.
It's interesting to like think of it's almost like a weird experiment.
Like find a human that's never heard the Jimi Hendrix version and interpret it All Along the Watchtower.
So he was into the John Wesley Harding Bob version.
When you go to a live show in the mid 90s, this was a, if you got an All Along the Watchtower, that was a big.
You were psyched.
You were psyched.
You know, you better get a satellite.
You know, I think you'd be bummed if you didn't, but this was one where he would do this as a closer.
His encore.
And if you got it, it was, you felt good.
So is that him playing the guitar there?
I feel like sometimes they had an additional guitarist.
Could be.
They really play out the intro.
Scary.
Yeah.
It's like dark shoegaze.
Yeah.
Really fuzzy.
It's like chorus effect on the bass.
See the DMV tool connection.
Not as crazy as it sounds.
Right, right.
How about a DMV Tool co-headlining tour?
Unite the tribes.
Tool opens.
[Laughter]
By the way, this is 2003 in Central Park.
This, this Watchtower?
Yep.
In front of 120,000 people.
Wow.
I remember this show.
I was in college in New York.
Remember hearing about it?
No, I should have gone.
Were you like, "Ah, DMV, I'm hard pass."
Or were you just like, "Eh, I'm busy."
I don't know.
I was probably just, in the college, I was like hanging out so hard.
I probably heard about it.
Probably, if somebody had invited me, I would have gone.
I wasn't anti, but.
If you get that time machine, Ezra, and go back in time, tell your 2003 self, go to the show.
Go to the show.
Go to the show and stand 200 yards away.
Grab a pint of One Sweet World.
It will be discontinued.
And house it on the great lawn of Central Park.
Strike while the iron's hot.
Get that One Sweet World.
They're throwing in some Star Spangled Banner, which is a Hendrix reference.
So look, at this point, 2003, he had heard the Hendrix version.
Of course.
I guess he wasn't listening to classic rock radio because if you listen to like, "Virginia's classic rock," like you're going to hear.
Right. And then in his formative years, he was in the kind of the famously oppressive censorship regime of apartheid South Africa.
You know what we should have asked him?
If you ever listened to Rodriguez, "Searching for Sugar Man."
Oh, yeah, dude.
Someone brought up, we should have asked about Riley Walker's cover of his Lilly White Sessions record.
Oh, I wonder if he's heard of it.
I bet he has.
Okay, so they're taking their time getting into this.
Do you think the crowd knows what song it is or they're just like...
I don't think they know yet.
Okay, so there are two guitars. Maybe Tim Reynolds is playing with them.
Doing this in front of a hundred... Doing this in front of a hundred thousand people is pretty funny.
Very patient intro.
Almost kind of Metallica here a little bit.
Yeah.
At least the acoustic part.
I could see a DMB cover of "Unforgiven."
Yeah, that would be sick.
[Applause]
Such a classic line.
"Businessmen drink my wine."
[Laughter]
I've actually always had a theory that's such a funny line.
But to me that just sounds like Bob was hanging out after the show
and like some of the suits came backstage, started going through his rider.
"Mind if we have a glass, Bob?"
And he's just like sitting there just like, "These f***ing businessmen, they drink my wine."
"That's my rider, man."
They crash my green room and they're drinking my...
[Laughter]
...Sapien blanc here.
"Businessmen, they eat my chips."
Didn't sound as good.
"They crush my guac."
"Businessmen, they crush my guac."
"And then they eat my chips."
"But thank God there's still a little bit of Cliff."
[Laughter]
"That's my bar."
It's about his secret Cliff bar.
It's pretty funny to think about Bob Dylan,
current day Bob Dylan crushing a Cliff bar backstage in the green room.
It's happened.
Maybe even a Lara bar.
What kind of newfangled candy bar is this?
Dave is a great guest on the show.
I don't know about this as a great version of this song.
I got to be honest.
All respect.
I like...
You know who else I wonder if Dave likes?
The Waterboys.
You know that band?
Yeah, is that...
Are they South African?
They're Irish or English, I think.
Well, let's turn on some Waterboys.
Yeah, I had on my yearly playlist I make
of just songs I encounter that I like.
I had them on one of my...
I had a Waterboys song.
It was called "The Hole of the Moon."
Is that the one?
Yes, that's what I had on a playlist a couple years ago.
Guys.
Hell yeah.
Have we ever talked about Bob Dylan's tour rider?
Wait, is it out there?
Spicy.
It's been published.
I'm seeing this...
Some site printed in September 2022
outlines his tour rider.
It says, "The times they're changing indeed.
For Dylan shows these days,
no Patron is allowed to enter the theater from the lobby
while he's playing.
No frozen fish, tilapia or trout.
Fresh, grilled and not drenched in any kind of sauce."
Wait, sorry.
What was the first thing you said?
No Patron is allowed to enter?
Well, I guess you're all...
No patron.
A lot of people were sneaking in big bottles of tequila.
Like, Bob doesn't want anyone drinking Patron
in the entire venue.
It's so funny because I was thinking about a tour rider
and I feel like the only time I see Patron...
Oh, it was on a tour rider.
...is on tour rider or in green rooms.
No, totally.
I think we might even have somebody...
One bottle of Patron, three limes.
All right.
So here we go.
So no patron is allowed to enter the theater
from the lobby while he's playing.
They must wait for a break between songs
like in a tennis match.
Sure, sure, sure.
That makes sense.
As in a theatrical performance where audience members
are held at doors into the theater during the performance
until there is a brief interview between songs
the rider states.
Okay, so now here we go.
Here's the rest of the rider.
The food and interesting sh*t.
No frozen fish tilapia or trout for dinner,
but the tour group welcomes other types of fish
so long as they're fresh and grilled, if possible.
On the preferred seafood list, swordfish, tuna, salmon,
mahi-mahi, shrimp, lobster, halibut, and yellowtail.
Fresh, grilled, and quote, not all caps drenched
in any kind of sauce.
Are the marching orders for whatever protein
the caterer picks for dinner, be it fish, chicken,
beef, pork, or turkey.
When choosing proteins management notes,
please keep in mind we often receive menus
with chicken and salmon as the portions available.
So if you have a specialty with a different healthy protein
in mind, please offer it.
Other dinner must real China plates
with silverware and cloth napkins.
Nice.
Yeah, he wants a smart...
I like that.
Yeah.
Well, also, I just want to point out as we listen to this
that, I mean, I've said this many times on the show
that there's this thing where people can hear about
people's riders and interpret it as a list of demands
rather than what it truly is, is like the artist
and the promoter and the venue and whoever.
You're basically throwing a huge event together.
So for instance with this, you know, a big tour
has a caterer because like dozens of people
are going to be eating three meals at the venue.
So it is kind of like, this isn't just speaking for Bob.
This is also for like the crew and the rest of the band
basically saying like, you know, we're trying to provide
a nice atmosphere for our guys.
Here's a heads up.
This is what we're looking for versus like, yeah,
maybe that had some caterers in the past
who like we're kind of skimping and it was like bringing like
plastic plates and drenching the protein and sauce
and it's a bad vibe, you know.
Eating off a paper plate and like so a plastic silverware
at night after night.
That's not a vibe.
That's depressing.
In a way you could almost think of it as more like
you were throwing like a big dinner honoring a local
businessman or even a wedding and this is these are like
your notes to the caterer.
That's like, hey, we're not going to tell you exactly what
to do, but here's ballpark what we're looking for.
It's going to be a classy event.
We want China plates.
You have some flexibility on the protein.
It's going to be a no-go on the halibut, you know,
don't make it too saucy and just don't make it too saucy,
you know, and I almost feel like we only want one starch
rice and only one starch, not both.
I bet them as the management wrote that they're probably
saying thinking to themselves in a just world.
You wouldn't have to tell the caterer to not make it too
saucy and to limit how many starches there are make a nice
healthy dinner for my guys with a protein.
It's not too saucy and you know an aside but you wouldn't
believe some of the people we encounter out there in this
big world of ours.
We got fools trying to you know, give us a potato and fries.
How about some broccoli?
You kidding me?
This is like the huge tray like like over the Bunsen
burner warmer of like tater tots with like the paper plates
and 80 year old Bob Dylan's just like Bob and the guys
rolled up to Fargo.
This is not going to fly dude.
I do not we had one tray was tater tots.
The other was plain pizza and then dinner rolls and butter
not a protein in sight.
The dinner rolls in the tater tots a very brown plate.
I could just totally.
All right guys tonight.
We're doing that.
We got hamburgers and the side is a dinner roll with butter.
Are you kidding me man?
What kind of fly-by-night catering the rock catering world
is funny.
One of the famous ones in the UK or Europe is called rock the
pots.
Oh, that's like a rock and roll catering.
Yeah, it's rock the pots there.
And I think there's a couple other ones because it is somewhat
specialized.
You got to like roll up and you know, that's the catering world
is no joke rolling up to have enough food for like and then
you got the local crew to even at like a not so big tour.
You could be feeding 40 to 50 people.
Yeah in a day.
Wow, if you're going to do Brownie put a tray out of
brownies for dessert.
Let's have another tray with some lemon squares.
All right.
What if someone does not feel in chocolate that night?
101 type do not put walnuts in the brownies either because
you're going to have some nut allergies.
Oh, and then of course, I don't know.
Well, we'll see if he gets to but of course in the modern
touring rock crew you get minimum 10% vegans.
That's tough.
Bob does not want to see their thoughts.
Yeah.
I mean truly a V.
I mean actually yeah, we had a couple vegan dudes in our crew
and they talked about how much better things had gotten over
the years.
But like, you know, if you're like a vegan drum tech 2003
rolling up to like Germany.
Basically anywhere even the US I bet there's many a sad night
where you're eating you are eating tater tots and ketchup.
Yeah, you're like you're like filling the like sausage bun
with like the grilled peppers and onions and putting mustard
on there.
Yeah, jamming some cold iceberg lettuce into a dinner roll.
No butter.
Of course dire.
You may be an ambassador to England or France.
You may like to gamble you might like to dance.
You may be the heavyweight champion of the world.
You may be a socialite with a long string of pearls, but
you're gonna have to serve somebody.
Yes, indeed.
You're gonna have to serve somebody.
Well, it may be the devil or it may be the Lord, but you're
gonna have to serve somebody.
I do remember like touring like yeah, like turn of the century
like 99-2000 with Wolf Colonel and like I forget if people
were vegetarian or vegan exactly, but the classic was pulling
to like a gas station subway and like everyone would get
like the veggie delight sandwich, which was just like that
like sort of like perfumey like wheat bread from subway with
just like yeah, it would be like shredded lettuce peppers
onion. You got to just douse it in vinegar oil and vinegar
and salt and pepper just to give it some vibe.
Yeah mustard and I would just get like the regular like
oh, look at the footlong turkey.
And then everyone else would be eating these weird like salad
sandwiches and then we get to the venue and everyone's starving
and I was like, well, I still got half this turkey here.
So let's not forget about the water boys though.
I do want to circle back.
Anything else interesting on his ride?
Well, no, obviously he wants a functioning espresso machine
with a quote quality coffee.
I like that.
Hell yeah, if it's Sunday, he wants smoked salmon.
Sunday he wants salmon? At the end of the day.
He's a he's an old Jewish man.
He has deep reverence for Jesus Christ.
Happy late Easter by the way, but at the end of the day,
he's old Jewish guy.
He wants a little smoked salmon on Sunday.
Here's the other two things that stick out.
For breakfast, he wants a mix of half healthy, half sugar cereals,
which I think that's really thoughtful.
I'm sure again, they probably rolled up somewhere and they
had only, you know, Fruit Loops and Captain Crunch and some
of the more health-conscious guys are they're hitting up
management being like, come on man.
This is nothing.
I can't just eat all this sugar to the dome first thing in
the morning.
That's messed up man.
If I'm on the crew, that's the thing I'm most bummed about
because like you can't eat like cereal for breakfast.
You're hungry like 40 minutes later.
I need protein.
There's no no no.
No, there's so much.
There's eggs.
There's yogurt.
I'm just saying.
Okay, he's got he's got a full menu.
I'm sort of cutting to the chase of what's interesting.
I just like that he has specified half healthy, half sugar
cereals.
Yeah.
Now there.
Yes, there's eggs.
There's everything else.
The only other thing that sticks it sticks out to me is what
is absolutely outlawed at lunch is no sweet relish.
Of any kind in either of the two salads either in tuna or egg
can absolutely not be made with sweet relish.
I mean, yeah, what is that sweet relish in the tuna salad?
Sounds kind of nasty.
Is that a thing?
You have to allow relish on the premises.
If one of your crew guys needs that relish on the hot dog or
the tuna or the tuna sandwich have that available, but I
agree.
You don't want to mix relish into the tuna salad like just
like out of the gate.
That's a messed up choice.
Yeah, that should be on the side.
And then lastly in this News Gazette that I'm reading that
seems to cover a lot of artists writers when they're released.
They say the star of the show Bob has the simplest list of
dressing room needs of the 10 acts that they've written about
all he wants is an electric tea kettle with an assortment of
black and herbal teas paper hot cups and teaspoons one unopened
jar of honey and one chunk of raw ginger six large uncut
lemons with a cutting board and a knife and two one liter
bottles of Evian spring water and with quote, please no one
and a half liter bottles and to quote real drinking glasses
and plastic cups.
That's it.
You know, it's specific but it's simple.
He's probably cooking up a hot drink for himself get the pipes
ready for the show squeezing in some lemon and honey.
Yeah, all very reasonable.
You need something healthy to snack on.
I mean when you really think about it, it is you like there
all day for the band's dressing room, which is a bit larger
of you know of an order they dark chocolate bars.
Absolutely.
No milk chocolate.
Hmm respect.
Oh and one unopened package of Tate's brand cookies.
Okay, just one specific but just specifically Tate's those
go fast.
Yeah.
Oh those are good.
Those are getting house.
Yeah, and I think again the it is sometimes when people read
writers.
It's the specificity that is like where people start to make
accusations of diva ish behavior.
But again, imagine that the you know, somebody in your family
as you do a grocery run and they just say yeah a bar of
chocolate cereal and tea.
All right, you might feel like could you be a little more
specific?
I'm standing in the grocery store right now.
There's 90 types of chocolate, you know, like you do you have
to specify that stuff to get the order correct and especially
when yet when you think about it the way this works as I
understand it is there's a runner who works for the promoter
who that day is ripping over to the supermarket holding a list
or maybe the day night before, you know, they need they need
it specific.
It's actually more work if it's like unspecific just as you
know, a bit of candy for the room, maybe some snacks.
Come on, man.
Just tell me what you want.
You know, I don't spend all day here.
Come on.
Don't be shy.
What kind of chips you want Bob?
Tostitos.
Okay, not a problem, man.
Okay, we'll get you the Tostitos.
All right.
Yeah, throw on.
Yeah, let's keep listening to that water boys.
Does this song have fiddle in it?
I feel like some water boy stuff is kind of yes.
It does.
Yeah, I think so.
Oh, wait, maybe not.
Maybe I was thinking that line was a fiddle.
This could go off at a Dave show.
Has Dave ever covered water boys?
So that's interesting.
You thought of this band with terms of Dave Matthews.
I can hear it.
Maybe it's a different water boy song, but this is far and
away their biggest song.
I'm on the Wikipedia page.
This band, it lists all the past members.
There are at least a hundred names on this list.
Whoa, no joke.
So what does that even mean?
Just like they're rolling on tour with like 10 people on
stage and is turning over all the time.
It's got to be.
I mean currently there's four members.
But yeah, they're from Edinburgh.
Oh, Scottish.
Right.
The second biggest water boy song on Apple music.
Oh, yeah.
Oh, this is a great song.
Yeah, this is more rootsy.
Yeah, because they're described as like folk rock and Celtic
rock, which the whole of the moon has no Celtic energy.
Have you ever heard this song?
This is kind of like a famous song.
I don't know.
It has like a Faces vibe.
Yeah, totally.
From dry land and its bitter memories.
Casting out my sweet life with abandonment and love.
Love's ceiling bearing down on me.
Save the starry sky above with light in my head.
You in my arms.
It's funny to think of all the famous Scottish bands.
A lot.
Most of them come from Glasgow.
Yeah, it's a much bigger town.
Yeah.
On a heartless fever train, crashing headlong into the heartland.
Like a cannon in the rain.
With the beating of the sleepers and the burning of the coal.
Counting the towns flashing by.
And a night...
It definitely just sounds like D&B.
I'm just picturing him late 80s, kind of like rootsy dude.
I bet for a lot of people when this record came out in 1988,
probably felt like a breath of fresh air.
Because it's a new band doing something kind of rootsy,
but with like really solid songwriting.
Was this band cool?
Like were they playing shows with like the stone roses and like...
I doubt it.
You know, like orange juice or like, you know, like...
Can we get a number crunch on some Waterboys bills?
I mean...
We don't have Seinfeld here quite yet.
Maybe the Pogues.
I could see them on with the Pogues.
Sure.
Or like Nick Cave could maybe also bridge the gap.
Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.
I mean, it's pretty like grown-up music.
Yeah, do you think like the old heads were into this?
Like people who were like 40 in 1988 were like, oh man.
Yeah, definitely.
Yeah.
I bet if you were 40 in 1988, you heard this, you were just like, finally.
Yeah, my parents would have been 40 in '88.
Maybe they had this record.
They're going to let the Apple algorithm kind of dictate if they're cool or not.
The similar artists are World Party, Deacon Blue, Lloyd Cole and the Commotion, Simple Mind, REM.
Okay.
Yeah.
So, you know, I'm finding it hard to...
Literally, it's almost impossible to find their touring history because everything is just about how many former band members they have.
Yeah.
So, who did they play with or tour with?
It's just, it's every article is about the 200 people that used to be in the band.
It's like every musician in Edinburgh came through at some point.
At one point was in the Waterboys, which is kind of a cool vibe.
Yeah.
Just 100 people on stage.
I'd love to do a vampire show with 100 people on stage.
What the hell would that look like?
100 on stage?
Dancers?
Maybe we should just start like, should just start like inviting more like, because part of what gives the DMB such a specific sound is not just the idiosyncrasies of
the individual players, which of course is part of it, but also just the fact that they have soprano sax and violin in the mix.
Yeah.
Or it's like, you know, when the Dead did those shows with, what's his name, Marsalis.
Branford?
Branford Marsalis, you know, and just suddenly you hear like an Eyes of the World with a little sweet soprano.
Let's see, what, like, like what are the vampire songs that could really use like a killer sax solo?
Oh man, when I saw the Smashing Pumpkins at the Hollywood Bowl last year, not a good show, I have to say, but.
Wait, I feel like I missed this.
Did we talk about this on?
I don't think so.
I saw them in November at the Hollywood Bowl.
I went with Nino.
We had good seats.
We were like right there, kind of.
They closed the show with like a 12 minute version of that song Silver, which is on Siamese Dream.
I forget who it was, but it's a renowned sax player came out and it's ripped for like, no joke, like six or seven minutes.
Really?
Wait, like, was somebody young?
Was like Kamasi Washington?
No, no, no, it wasn't someone that young.
Well, how old is Kamasi Washington?
It wasn't Kamasi Washington.
He's probably like 30 something.
Okay.
Yeah, this guy, I mean, this guy, I don't know, 40s.
He maybe is in his 30s.
It wasn't Kamasi Washington, but I was like, okay, now we're getting somewhere.
Now, like I'm starting to feel.
Because like the rest of the show felt very rote.
Like it would be like a new song that like no one had heard or liked and then they'd play like the most obvious singles.
It'd be like a new song that I don't know and then it'd be like Bullet with Butterfly Wings and then it'd be a new song.
I don't know.
And it'd be like today and like they didn't play any of the like kind of mid-range deep cuts from like their kind of, you know, peak era.
Of course, Billy Corgan's like our peak is now.
I'm sure he like in his head.
He's like, you know, the new stuff is as good as the old stuff and maybe it is but obviously it's not going to like.
It's just not as recognizable.
And it just like the they just clearly just they just seem like they did not want to be there.
Really?
It's just like James E.
Maybe James Eha just has no like personal charisma or something.
He was sort of just like Billy.
Can you believe we've been doing this for 30 years?
And I was like, is he reading like a hostage note?
Like what is happening?
And Eha would be like, hey LA, how about this weather?
And it's like, yeah, it's like 65 degrees on a night in November.
Like I have a jacket on.
It's not exactly like it's cooling down.
It's a nice night.
Like it's not anything extraordinary.
I guess for the kind of like darker band.
Yeah, what are they supposed to say?
You know, I don't need like a stand-up routine.
I mean, I mean, I feel like Billy Corgan should be doing like Kanye style rants.
The band's jamming and Billy's just like, you know, what's wrong with professional wrestling today, man?
You know, I'd be like, okay, Billy just flying off the handle.
I love a 10-minute rant from Corgan.
I've like enjoyed him in interviews and stuff that I've listened.
He's a very like thoughtful guy.
I just, I don't know.
I just, I don't know, the vibes were bad.
Like Jane's Addiction opened and I much prefer the catalog of the Pumpkins to Jane's Addiction.
But Jane's Addiction like kind of blew them off the stage.
I thought.
Jane's Addiction's a great band.
They were having a good time.
Perry Farrell was just like, just in love with the crowd.
And the vibe, but the, I don't know, the vibe was just messed up.
But anyway, they did do a five-minute sax solo to close out the show.
Right, so you felt like finally something kind of interesting and fresh.
Right.
Yeah, exactly.
And then is even as like, even as the show was kind of annoying, they stopped at like an hour 55.
And I was like, ooh, like they closed it out with that five-minute sax solo.
And I was like, I need another like 20 minutes and I need you to bust out like two more classics.
The 12-minute song with the sax solo, that should be this weird dark moment.
And then you kind of emerge and boom, boom.
Yeah.
Interesting.
You know what?
I got to say, this is a real music episode.
All the TC heads who don't enjoy our deep dives into corporate food history.
This one's for you.
And it is, it actually is something unique that we get to do as an internet radio show that a lot of our peers in the podcasting space don't really get to do.
Just a bunch of dudes playing tunes and just talking.
Hell yeah.
Smashing Pumpkins are going on tour with Stone Temple Pilots and Interpol.
That's weird.
What's the sequence that night?
You think?
STP, Interpol, Pumpkins?
Let's get a number crunch on that.
That's too long of a night.
Too many bands?
Too many bands.
And I don't like the mixing of eras.
Interesting.
Okay, so to clarify, the tour is STP opening one leg and Interpol opening another leg.
And I know this is not the case.
I'm sure it's not the case, but I'm just slightly having a left in my mind picture.
Because of course, we know that the legendary lead singer of Stone Temple Pilots, Scott Weiland, no longer walks this earth.
He died a few years ago, tragically, way too young.
But I'm just laughing at myself, imagining that it's like, "Smashing Pumpkins with special guests, Stone Temple Pilots," and then in parentheses, "Instrumental."
It's not.
They're just like, "We can't replace Scott.
It's too f***ed up, but we're down to go open for the Pumpkins.
Just instrumental."
Smashing Pumpkins closing it out with a five-minute sax solo performed by Frank Catalano.
Born March of '77.
So he's a month younger than that.
Yeah, he's from Chicago.
Throw on "Silver F***."
I don't think I know it, actually.
One thing I want to say quickly, because their first two shows are in Vegas, and they're solo, no opener.
And I think I might have...
Pumpkins are going to play at the Cosmopolitan solo, and then they'll hit the rest of their tour with openers.
And interestingly, I had a similar experience to what you had with the Pumpkins.
So I may have mentioned on the show, but I saw Morrissey in Vegas.
Uh-huh.
And it was the greatest show I'd ever seen.
Just a few, maybe the week or two before, he had been in LA, and Amanthem had gone to the show.
And she was like, "He was so bad."
Wait, is this the famous Greek theater show where he said it was too cold and he walked off stage?
No, not that, but it's a different show.
Just antagonistic or just really didn't want to be there.
Didn't play any of the hits.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
And I think that, you know, not totally comparing them, but I had this feeling that he doesn't like the...
Morrissey doesn't like the LA audience, his politics, his personality.
He does not like them.
But he's loved in LA.
But yeah, he used to love...
But he's loved in LA, but...
He used to love LA because he has...
He used to live here.
He lives here.
He knows he's got a lot of fans and he has that great song, "First of the Gang to Die," that's kind of his tribute to LA.
And it opens where he goes, "Los Angeles, Los Angeles, you have never been in love."
Wait, you think it's like a political thing?
I think it's a political thing.
Same with Corgan.
And I would just...
No.
I just...
Oh, they don't like playing in the blue states?
Or just specifically in Vegas, where there's no...
There were no masking rules.
There were no anything.
The whole vibe was so much more present, so much more giving, Amantha said, than when she had seen him just in LA.
And obviously, we know Corgan has, you know, his...
He has his own politics.
But I just...
If we all...
If TC took a trip...
Wait, what are Corgan's politics?
Is he MAGA?
No, he's not some right-winger guy.
He is.
My understanding is he is.
Corgan's MAGA?
Well, I don't want to...
I mean...
I don't think so.
I think he's more like a libertarian guy.
He's not some like hardcore Trump guy.
He's not like Kid Rock or something.
No, no, no, no.
He's like a libertarian guy who's like...
Who's not shy about sort of like, you know, crapping on like liberal pieties.
But he's not like some, you know, weird Christian right-winger.
Hmm.
I mean, quote, "I'm a free-market libertarian capitalist."
There you go.
"I'm not anti anything except establishment.
I find institutions and systems suspicious."
For sure.
I don't know.
That's why...
I mean, Roger Waters might have said that, except for the capitalism part.
Yeah.
I'm just saying, as a, you know, free-market libertarian capitalist,
in the parlance of our times in LA,
versus, you know, maybe the show we all go see in Vegas,
Yeah.
which is...
It's an interesting theory.
I like the theory.
But I also think...
I think maybe he'll be more giving.
I was going to say...
And also, politics aside,
I've heard many people say that the LA and New York crowds
are not as exciting as the interior of the country.
It's not exactly my experience.
You know, Vampire Weekend coming from New York.
That's like a hometown show.
It feels exciting.
And these also tend to be the places where people have the biggest shows.
But, you know, there's definitely that.
Like, I remember once somebody saying, you know, shows in Nashville
can be kind of like lower energy too, because that's an industry town.
You got a lot of industry cats watching.
I don't know.
I don't know if that's really true.
But, you know, I've heard a lot of bands say that, like, New York is like
their favorite shows.
Like, New York is just like, the crowds are crazy.
I don't know.
I've heard...
People are all over the place.
Crowds are crazy?
I mean, I guess it depends what kind of music you're making too.
Yeah.
I think people also...
I just imagine you're on tour.
You're just like psyched to get to New York.
It's an exciting place to come to.
You see that skyline.
Pizza's pretty good.
You're loving life.
Let me just say, if you're a huge legacy act like the Smashing Pumpkins,
don't do an opener.
Don't have an opener.
If you're Morrissey, no opener.
I'm with that.
Yeah, for sure.
People there, see you do.
And then, if you're playing the Hollywood Bowl and you're Smashing Pumpkins,
you need to play for three hours.
Because if you're going to play your new stuff,
you got to leave enough time to play, you know, for the vast oceans or something.
So, okay.
Let me, I want to hear, I don't actually know any of the Smashing Pumpkins songs
you're referencing.
So play this one, Silver F***, that they decided to jam out.
Do you really know your Pumpkins?
I know my first four albums.
Dish, Siamese, Melancholy, Adore.
I love like, you know, 90s Pumpkins.
Hey, Seinfeld.
Hey, what's up guys?
Welcome to the show.
Join the chat.
How's the show going so far?
Is this like a free jazz solo over this?
Like, well, yeah, there's kind of like a quiet, yeah, there's kind of a quiet
part in the middle.
And if I recall right, the sax solo was kind of like in the middle.
This sounds like Tool too.
Okay, so I can see Riffin over this.
As we're saying every band, you go, you know, it sounds a lot like, I think
it sounds a lot like Tool.
[Laughter]
It all comes back to Tool.
Do you not know the Siamese Dream album, Front to Back, Ezra?
No, I don't know any Smash Mouth's album Front to Back.
Wow.
You know, I know all the hits and I know the radio hits and like everybody.
I think they're the most days between bands.
I love 1979 and today.
Like their hit, like especially off of Melancholy, like I just thought like the
choices they made for the singles was like so whack.
Like all of my favorite stuff of Melancholy were like the deeper non-singles.
How many tracks are on Melancholy?
Like 40?
No, not that many.
I would say like maybe 30 or like 20.
Seinfeld Number Crunch.
How many songs are on Melancholy and the Infinite Sadness?
Okay, here, this part.
What Corgan's doing is like fuzz solo.
He's like, "Ladies and gentlemen, Frank Catalano."
Hollywood Bowl explodes.
[Screams]
That's a 28 track album.
Oh, nailed it.
28?
Yep.
Yeah, I don't even know this song, but I can totally see this being a very
exciting live song.
I lost interest in the Smashing Pumpkins when he turned away from his
incredible proficiency as like a psychedelic, like fuzz guitarist.
What was he getting into in the 2000s?
Like the Maschine era.
Which is what, like industrial?
Yeah, heavy.
I like the like really melodic guitar playing and songwriting and I like
the heavy stuff.
I like the ballads, but it's a guitar band, man.
I just, I don't know.
The album is an hour and 21 minutes and 39 seconds in length.
Long album.
Oh yeah, this part is sick.
Kind of like Hendrix part.
Slightly baked at the Hollywood Bowl.
Just...
Yep.
Beautiful autumn night.
Exactly.
LA, how about this weather?
And then the sax starts to kind of weave in and out with Billie.
Oh, yeah, I could do some like call and response.
I like that we're recreating the Smashing Pumpkins closer to
Hollywood Bowl from five months ago.
For anybody who didn't get to go to see that show, we got you covered.
I forgot how deep this part goes on the album.
They should add a trumpet player.
Just be that much funnier and weirder.
Yeah.
Trombonist.
In your bed.
I'll have to make a playlist of Smashing Pumpkins that has
no, like, like none of their singles.
Yeah, I'd like to hear that.
That was the whole song?
No, it comes back.
This Rolling Stone tour review from 2010 is titled Corgan
Lashes Out at Quote Jerk-Os, Who One of Your Old Songs.
Singer Says Band's Hardcore Fans Are Quote Stuck in 93.
Hell yeah, dude.
Proudly.
Jerk-Os.
I love it.
You guys want to hear the old stuff?
You guys want to hear the songs that made you fall in love with my band?
You know the last, actually the last Corgan thing I got really
into was the Zwan album.
Yeah, is that good?
Yeah, the Zwan album is sick.
Really?
Yeah, straight up.
Super group.
Yep.
I also thought it was funny that Matt Sweeney was in.
Oh, I was going to say Sweeney plays in Zwan.
And Pajo too.
Two like super duper like kind of tastemaker 90s indie guys
playing in Zwan in like 2000s.
Sweeney is, Sweeney's so technically proficient.
I mean, he's really good at tracks.
No, I mean, it's just interesting.
I mean, this is like a, I just love to think about those rehearsals.
So even the studio version, how long was that?
Eight minutes probably.
Studio version is like eight.
Throw in another four.
Frank Catalano, Whalen.
Longest song on Siamese Dream.
And that was the end of the whole show.
Yeah.
Yeah, that's begging for just like one hit.
You got to, you got to just go back in with like, I mean like
save today to like the end.
They played it like third or something.
It's like, all right.
Close it out with a fun cover all along the Watchtower.
Smashing Pumpkins, very fascinating band.
I mean, obviously some real incredible artistry.
I've just never fully known what the, how to like categorize them,
which I guess is to their credit.
They're like a little bit goth, but they're not like 100%.
No, they definitely like, yeah, loved like the cure and stuff.
No doubt about that.
But was also like definitely into like Zeppelin and Hendrix.
For sure.
I mean, they're one of the hardest rocking like big alternative
bands of the 90s.
Like when you listen to stuff like that, and they rock harder
than PJ.
Oh, definitely.
That like distortion sound.
I remember like, yeah, maybe like sometime in the 90s when they
were really a huge band.
I remember like friend of the show, Uncle Ted showing up for
like Christmas or something.
He was like, dude, I just started Smashing Pumpkins on the drive.
But man, I'm loving that distortion sound.
That band rules.
It probably sounded really fresh.
Nobody had quite used that like tone before.
Billy Corgan, kind of an underrated guitarist.
I think he has like a personality.
People fixate on his voice.
Yeah, you're right.
I mean, I guess I always thought of him as like just an incredible
guitarist.
But yeah, like remember that like it might get loud thing with
like The Edge and Jack White and Jimmy Page.
I'm like, get Jack White and The Edge out of there.
Get like Jimmy Page, Billy Corgan, and like people that like
actually rip.
Jack White can rip.
He can rip, but he's not like an interesting guitar player to
me.
What?
Jack White?
He doesn't have like a unique sound to me.
He just strikes me as like a very incredibly proficient, talented
guy, but I just feel like a million guys play like him.
I just don't know.
He's definitely like pioneered certain types of like weird
tones like that song.
He has some very unique tones and he did write the biggest
rock riff of the 21st century.
We've covered that.
The biggest rock song.
Yeah, in stadiums across the world.
Again, I maintain not a good riff, but wait, I can't.
I didn't remember this conversation.
You said Seven Nation Army is not a good riff.
I don't think it's a good riff.
Oh my God.
I mean, I think it's a riff the way that like Rock and Roll
Part 2 is a riff.
It's like, okay.
Yeah, it's like you can sing it.
I mean, it's not.
Wait, but I mean, that's a good riff too.
Wait, because you're saying it's not.
You don't think that Rock and Roll Part 2 is a good riff?
No.
I think it's like an earworm, but I don't think it's like
a, it's not like a sick rock riff.
Jake, what goes into a good riff for you?
Alright, Jake, top five riffs.
Okay, just like off the top, like Black Dog, Led Zeppelin.
Sweet Emotion, Aerosmith.
Let's see here.
That's a pretty funny Google.
Top riffs.
You know, Layla by Eric Clapton.
I just find Seven Nation Army and Rock and Roll Part 2 to
just be these kind of like, kind of plodding, kind of pedestrian,
not very interesting rock riffs.
Jake, I'm looking at the top 50 guitar world.
No, sorry, total guitar, guitar world 50 greatest guitar riffs
of all time.
Yeah, what's the top?
What's their top five?
All right, their top five.
I gotta scroll.
There's a lot.
Oh, there are ads in here.
Oh, yeah, it's only giving you five at a time and you got
a full slideshow situation.
Hang on a sec.
Well, Seinfeld, Scrolls, Ezra.
Yeah.
What about you?
I respect all the riffs you're talking about, but you know,
I do like simple riffs and I guess there's a part of me
that's I think it's like similar to like a pop song.
You'd never knock a pop song by being like, I don't know
what's like a simple pop song.
Someone's just like, you know, Red Red 1 by Neil Young, just
simple.
Neil Diamond.
Yeah, I don't know, just songs that I like really respect,
like simple, you know, like Louis Louis or something just
like classics.
Yeah, but then that's dependent on like a vocal performance
and everything.
I'm just, we're just talking about like an instrumental
guitar riff.
All right, number 10, Purple Haze.
What's the riff?
Okay.
Yeah, great.
La Grange, ZZ Top.
Okay.
Pantera, Walk is number eight.
I don't even know that song.
This is not a top 10 riff.
No way.
It's also too...
That's, there's a million riffs like that.
I mean, if the tone was different, that could be a Shania
Twain song.
That's amazing.
Iron Man, Black Sabbath.
That's a good one.
That's a classic.
Everybody loves that riff.
I mean, Enter Sandman is another classic.
Oh, that's number six.
That's number six.
Okay.
Ain't talking about love, Van Halen.
Bring that up.
I'm not sure.
That's, I don't know that title.
Oh, yeah, yeah, sure.
This is pretty cool.
I think this is great, but Van Halen has bigger riffs.
You know, it's funny, like, I feel like the biggest Van
Halen riff is Jump, which is obviously a keyboard riff, but...
Keyboard riff.
That's a great riff, that Jump riff.
All right, this is a good riff.
All right, keep going, Seinfeld.
It's not keyboard world.
Smoke on the Water, Deep Purple.
Okay, I don't love it, but...
Hilarious, but I'll allow it.
Back in Black, AC/DC.
See, I was thinking about that.
I like simple stuff like that.
Oh, yeah.
That's a proto riff.
See, yeah, that's a great riff, and that's part of a great
song.
That's the other thing.
Rock and Roll Part 2 is sort of like Seven Nation Army.
It's like, what's the song?
The song is not good.
Ozzy Osbourne, Crazy Train.
Okay, that's an awesome riff.
That's pretty iconic.
Yeah.
It's making me go to a different page for number one.
Okay.
A-Punk.
Number one, A-Punk.
Whole Lotta Love, Led Zeppelin, number one.
Wow, like the least creative Jimmy Page riff.
Okay, interesting.
[Imitating Jimmy Page riff]
I kind of feel this whole list is made for Guitar World nerds
to just get so angry about.
I mean, that's what all this is for.
This is essentially clickbait.
Yeah.
They don't believe in this list.
It's literally clickbait.
Yeah, because Seinfeld had to click through all those ads.
Where did they put Seven Nation Army?
Was that top 20?
Oh, that's going to be a tough one.
Yeah, that's going to be a tough number.
Seinfeld is going to get like, just full computer virus.
Yeah, I know.
Even his email gets sagged.
I'm firing up my anti-viral.
Just trying to make it through the Guitar World Top 100 riffs.
You're going to have to get a new computer.
Seinfeld sends an invoice for a new laptop to Apple.
Oh, Lord.
This is going to take me a second, but I will find it.
I will find it.
What is going on on Guitar World?
It's all these ad beds and pop-up ads.
They got cookies.
They got cookies popping up on me here.
I'll just throw out some notable ones.
Number 40 is Pearl Jam Alive.
Ooh, we got Slipknot at 38 with Psychosocial.
Don't know it.
Seven Nation Army is 30.
How did you find that so fast?
Oh, kind of low.
You got the Norton antivirus?
I'm coming at your number crunching.
Yo.
Coming for you.
What number was it?
It's at 30.
That's kind of deep.
Garage Rock riffing goes stadium-sized, is what it says beneath it.
I mean, okay, for me, when I think of riffs, I would, yeah, of course, like Led Zeppelin
has some classics, but I think I love the, when I think of like, some of the
greatest riff creators of all time, I'm definitely thinking of Black Sabbath,
probably first.
Interesting.
First.
Wow.
Yeah, I don't know why.
I just like, all due respect to Jimmy Page and like, he's amazing, but I don't
know why.
I just kind of like, I don't want to say-
You're thinking of-
[Humming]
Yeah.
I guess there's just something about-
Fair.
I just respect Tony Iommi more.
I don't even say I respect him more, it just sounds so demeaning.
Jimmy Page obviously is an icon.
I just feel like Black Sabbath is more like, unprecedented or something.
You know what I mean?
I do.
And actually, that doesn't mean they're better.
It definitely doesn't mean they're better, but just like-
Well, no, I mean, Zeppelin obviously had a much like, broader, more varied
catalog.
Each album was like, so different from the last, where Sabbath like, came out
of the gate, like, fully formed Sabbath, and then it was sort of like a short
way.
Yeah.
It was like a very like, there was like a low ceiling on their aesthetic.
But yeah, man, it's-
They do have a lot of-
It is kind of more pure in a way.
Like, there is like a kind of a cagey kind of calculation in Zeppelin that
you don't feel in Sabbath.
It does feel very pure.
Yeah, so I think of that as, you know, and then probably, as I've said on the
show before, if I had to think of like, riffs that have influenced me or been
just important to me that I love dearly, I would probably think of The Smiths,
This Charming Man.
Friend of the show, Johnny Marr.
That's a good point.
I mean, yeah.
Yeah, like that's-
I wasn't even thinking indie.
It's funny.
I was thinking like, just, you know, truly like, New York's classic rock.
Like, yeah, just Layla and Sabbath and Jump.
I wasn't even thinking like-
Classic indie riffs.
Yeah.
I mean, I guess for me, it all comes back to Johnny Marr as just being like,
he is like the iconic indie guitarist in terms of like, writing like all-time
riffs.
Yeah.
What's- I'm blanking on the boy with the thorn-
What?
Why am I blanking on the title?
The Boy With a Thorn in His Side?
Right, right.
That one.
Throw that on, Matt.
It's such a short little riff, too.
Not even a riff.
Or you could say How Soon Is Now is like-
Uh-huh.
Really iconic Smith's riff because it's so weird.
Like, what even is it?
Nick, did he play any Smith stuff when you saw him in Vegas?
Uh, yes.
He played a bunch of Smith stuff.
It's mixing it in.
Okay, I thought of another riff that's like my kind of riff.
Blister in the Sun.
Violent Femmes.
Hell yeah.
Because I was trying to think of stuff that you like pick up a guitar and just start playing.
Yeah, it's not a Jimmy Page riff, but I like-
I do respect the simple, iconic, memorable riffs.
That's a good one.
Yeah, that's an all-timer.
That's probably played at sporting events, right?
Uh, could be.
Yeah.
Featured in the film-
Thumbs up.
Featured in the film Air.
Oh, you saw that?
I saw it.
There's two Violent Femmes songs in Air.
Yeah.
Which is tight.
And it's set in '84 and I was like-
That's the year that their iconic album came out.
Okay, I was like, this might be fudging the math a little bit.
I mean, I know it's right in the ballpark, but okay, '84, confirmed.
Yeah, that first Violent Femmes album is very interesting because Blister in the Sun seems so present to me as a child in the 90s.
Yeah.
I just like heard on the radio, maybe it did kind of get a second wind in the 90s that when I found out they were a band from 1984 or like that album was.
Yeah.
It was just like slightly surprising.
Same year as Van Halen's Jump.
Two classic riffs.
Jump.
Okay, so this episode is our music special where we more or less only talk about music.
And this topic is still music, but it gets a little bit broader.
And there's a drug that everybody's talking about called Ozempic.
It's a once weekly medicine for adults with type 2 diabetes and is used to improve blood sugar along with diet and exercise and reduce the risk of major cardiovascular
events such as heart attack, stroke or death.
It's produced by Novo Nordisk, a Danish multinational pharmaceutical company founded in 1923.
But the reason that it's kind of exploded recently is because more and more people are taking it as an appetite suppressant.
At the 2023 Academy Awards, Jimmy Kimmel made the joke, "When I look around this room, I can't help but wonder, is Ozempic right for me?"
Because so many Hollywood people are taking it, shedding the pounds.
Chelsea Handler on a podcast said that, "My doctor just hands it out to anybody."
So that's what's going on in Hollywood.
Everybody's taking Ozempic and there's talk that this could be the biggest drug of all time with the obesity epidemic.
- All time, wow.
- Could be.
I mean, you always read these statistics.
What do they say?
40% of Americans are overweight or obese or something?
- Yeah.
- But anyway, we're not here on Time Crisis just to talk about the drug itself.
But the fact that there's been this long-running commercial for Ozempic, which they still show because I saw it recently.
And they rewrote the 1974 hit by the band Pilot called Magic to be about Ozempic.
So why don't we listen to the Ozempic commercial for anybody who hasn't heard it?
- Looking to get back in your type 2 diabetes zone?
Once weekly Ozempic can help.
- Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic.
- Ozempic is proven to lower A1C.
- Yeah, it's such an earworm.
It really gets in your head.
And there's something about seeing this commercial right when this new wave of Ozempic talk came about that I found myself in conversation a lot where people are
talking about Ozempic and who's taking Ozempic and what does Ozempic do?
And just every time I'd be listening to these conversations, I'm just there going, oh, oh, oh, Ozempic.
Usually when...
- You're that guy.
- I'm that guy.
Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic.
And when I hit the Time Crisis thread, Seinfeld, you mentioned that you're a huge fan of the song.
- I was on the linear cable for quite some time and I would have CNN on quite a bit.
And we're talking years ago.
And, you know, the Crisis crew knows this.
I haven't talked about this much in the show, but I have an adorable five-year-old son named Little Jerry.
And, you know, for him, the Ozempic jingle is the original song.
Like if I played "It's Magic" by Pilot, he'd be like, whoa, they parodied the Ozempic jingle?
Like that's what it would be.
- Right, the younger generation.
Yeah.
- And I gotta say, this is so cathartic for us to be talking about this because, again, in our household for years,
it's one of those things we blurt out spontaneously from time to time.
It's so funny in our household.
And I'll also tell you when Ozempic became trendy as a Hollywood drug, I was already like, oh, I'm up on this.
What?
Like, I'm like, oh, Ozempic, like, went mainstream?
Like this obscure...
- Oh, what? Ozempic? - Ozempic? I was like, oh, like Ozempic blew up.
- Seinfeld, just to confirm, you're not playing the Apple Essential Pilot playlist around the house?
- No, not yet.
We haven't reached that yet.
No, no, no.
- Okay, well, now we got to listen to the original "Magic" by Pilot.
I always did love this song.
- It's a great song.
Wait, can I just say really fast before you hit play on that?
This also made me think of "Oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly's."
- Oh, yeah.
- Right.
Which every time I hear O'Reilly's, for the next two days, I'm walking around the house going, "Oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly's."
- O'Reilly's.
- So if you have...
- I think you got to finish it.
Bring it home.
- If you have a company that starts with the letter O, I think you got to leg up.
- Yeah, it's perfect.
- O'Reilly's, maybe just to mix it up one day, should just do an, "Oh, oh, oh, O'Reilly's."
"Otto Parks!"
They should switch.
It'd be hilarious if their new Ozempic commercials were like, "Oh, oh, oh."
- Ozempic. - "Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic."
"Come on, America."
"Oh, oh, oh."
- It's such a nasty jingle.
- Like, I'm picturing the guy pitching O'Reilly's, like all the jingles he's written, and like,
all the other ones are like much more musical.
He's like, "Oh, I got this one.
I got, I just got one that's pretty dumb, but I'll just play for you anyway."
And they're like, "That's the one.
That's the one."
- O'Reilly's.
- Okay, let's hear "Magic" by Pilot.
- Is this like a glam band kind of thing?
Like, yeah, this intro is very glam.
- "Oh, oh, oh, it's magic."
- So he's kind of saying "ho."
- "You know, never believe it's not so."
- Yeah, he sounds English.
- Yeah.
- Is he?
- Let's get "Number Crunch."
- I don't know.
Let's look up Pilot.
- "Never believe it's not so."
- Oh, they're Scottish.
- Oh, dude, they're from Edinburgh.
- Full circle.
One of my top five favorite Edinburgh bands.
- "Lazy day in bed. Music in my head. Crazy music playing in the morning light."
- "Oh, oh, oh, it's magic. You know, never believe it's not so.
It's magic, you know, never believe it's not so."
- Yeah, I can't tell like what kind of scene they were coming out of.
- I mean, this is very, so Beatles-y.
- Yeah.
- But I could just, this could be like a David Bowie song or like a...
- Yeah, sort of.
I mean, sort of.
I know what you mean.
Yeah, like they're probably listening to T-Rex, Bowie.
- Yeah.
- "You know, in the morning light. Oh, oh, oh, it's magic."
- Yeah, but you could put this on the radio right after "Changes."
Go down pretty easy.
- Oh, for sure.
- "Never believe it's not so. It's magic, you know."
- Well, I hope those guys are cleaning up.
- Well, who wrote this song?
- Let's see here. "Magic."
Written by David Patton and Billy Lyle.
- And they're members of the band?
- Yeah.
- Produced by Alan Parsons.
- Oh, wow. Alan Parsons, okay.
It's a great production.
- "You know, in the morning light."
- I guess Selena Gomez covered it.
Guess who that Selena Gomez cover?
- It's interesting to think about these guys' royalty checks.
- Yeah.
- Tied to the success of this drug.
- Weirdly, on the Wikipedia page for this song,
there's a subheading of "Usage in other media."
No mention of Ozempic.
- Pretty mad.
- This is like a karaoke.
This arrangement sucks.
- Yeah, not very tasteful.
- I feel like she should have done it in a higher key or something.
In the original, the guy is at the absolute top of his range.
- It sounds closer to the jingle.
- They should have kept all the lyrics in for the Ozempic commercial.
- It's magic.
- It's magic.
Yeah, they could have just alternated.
It could be "Oh, oh, oh, Ozempic, you know, never believe it's not so.
Oh, oh, oh, it's magic."
- It's almost like a Weird Al.
Couldn't you see a Weird Al version?
Instead of it being an ad, he just wrote a song called "Oh, Zempic."
- Oh, totally.
- Yeah.
- The next Weird Al album, the first single is "Oh, oh, oh, Zempic."
And then he has a song about Chad GPT.
That'd be one of Weird Al's originals.
It's not a cover.
- Yeah, yeah.
- It's just like this weird accordion song.
"Chad GPT, try to kill me."
- Now, I wonder what percentage of the American public...
Okay, let's just throw out some guesses.
There's no way to get this number for real, but...
Of the percentage of the American public that is encountering that Ozempic ad on CNN,
how many know the reference to the '70s song?
- Oh, I'm sure there's a one-to-one.
- CNN's probably an older...
- Well, yeah, that's what people say, is few people spend all day watching TV anymore...
- Right.
- ...who are under the age of 60.
Sometimes it can be shocking when I'm suddenly in a situation and somebody's throwing on CNN, MSNBC, Fox News...
- Crazy.
- ...depending on their political preference.
Whichever one it is, then it cuts to the commercial block.
And sometimes it can be five pharmaceutical companies in a row.
- And, you know, you have the...
That's always been a criticism, too, about, like, the coverage.
There is some insane fact, which we probably...
Maybe we should look up, Seinfeld.
The percentage of, say, CNN's advertising dollars that come from Big Pharma...
Because I've definitely seen people make that point before, where they're just like,
"Oh, you expect CNN to, like, have honest reporting about... you name it.
COVID vaccine, some other pharmaceutical."
Their entire business would crumble without Big Pharma.
And I remember thinking, like, "Really? Like...
Yeah, they're not running, like, Arby's ads?"
- You sound a lot like Billy Corgan right now.
- Yeah, I'm getting my Billy Corgan.
I'm not saying that I know, but I do remember being, like, kind of shocked by that.
- Yeah, couldn't they just sell ads to, like, Toyota or whatever?
Like, yeah.
- No, I think it's only for, like, older people.
- Seinfeld, did you know the pilot song?
- Oh, of course.
- Okay.
- Yeah, no, it's...
- I don't know. I mean...
- It's in a lot of movies, too.
- It's a popular...
- Yeah.
- It's just a cultural earworm.
- All right.
- In 2020, the pharmaceutical industry spent $4.58 billion on national TV advertising.
It's up year over year.
So, from 2016 to 2020, it's, like, going up a percentage point every year.
In 2020, TV ad spending of the pharma industry accounted for 75% of their total ad spend.
- Wait, wait.
- And, yeah, I mean...
- Big Pharma was 75...
Oh, no, or 75% of what Big Pharma spent.
- Was on cable TV.
- Yeah.
- Okay, you know, I found a list of the top 15 brands spending on CNN.
This is old. It's from 2018.
Yeah, it's not only Big Pharma.
There's Geico.
It's a lot of pharma.
- Yeah, you get a few.
There's Geico, T-Mobile, Office Depot, South Beach Diet.
- I think Office Depot is either Office Depot or Office Max.
Or, wait, maybe it was Staples.
One of those office supply chain stores used a...
♪ Taking care of business every day ♪
- Oh, yeah, that's classic.
- For years.
- Yeah.
- Have you guys seen the Sky Rizzy commercial with a very abstract jingle?
It's an original called "Nothing is Everything."
- Wait, oh, and Sky Rizzy is a...
- Wait, what's the ad for it?
- Oh, yeah, Sky Rizzy is...
Yes, it's very weird.
Sky Rizzy is some sort of...
- It's eczema, I think.
- Oh, eczema, yes.
- Eczema.
Yeah, anyway.
- Let's throw that on.
Let's throw that on the Sky Rizzy ad.
- I have moderate to severe plaque psoriasis.
Now, there's Sky Rizzy.
♪ Things are getting clearer ♪
♪ I feel free to bare my skin ♪
♪ Yeah, that's on me ♪
♪ Nothing in me go hand in hand ♪
♪ Nothing on my skin, that's my new plan ♪
♪ Nothing is everything ♪
- Achieve clear skin with Sky Rizzy.
- Nothing is everything.
- Three out of four people achieve 90% clear skin.
- Yeah, I guess...
- What is this, Kid A we're listening to?
- I'm not sure the Radiohead version.
♪ Nothing is everything ♪
- It's a good, catchy little slogan.
You got moderate to severe whatever and...
- Plaque psoriasis.
- Plaque psoriasis.
And you want nothing on your skin.
And when you get that nothing, it's everything to you.
- Clean slate.
- All right, let's get into the top five.
- It's time for the top five.
Five on iTunes.
- This week, we're just gonna focus in on the top five songs of 1992
for our music special episode.
Why 1992?
- Just a killer year, bro.
- No, it's a great year.
- Episode 192.
- Okay.
- Why not?
- We're deep into the 90s right now.
I just feel like maybe a lot of the episodes going forward,
we'll just do like top five from the 90s.
- The number five song this week, '92,
Atlantic Star with "Masterpiece."
Atlantic Star I thought was like old and it's...
They're from White Plains, New York,
and have been releasing music since 1976.
So they're 16 years in on their career.
♪ A simple touch of your hand and everything is right ♪
♪ The gentle way you look at me when we kiss goodnight ♪
♪ You've given me the freedom no other lover's known ♪
♪ And now I thank you girl ♪
♪ Thank you girl ♪
- I mean, he could have written this song in like 1976.
- I mean, oh, totally.
- Yeah, this is surprising.
This is number five in '92.
- So I guess the song came out in '91.
No, it came out in '92.
- So we're in April of '92 at this point.
"Nevermind" and "10" and the "Black Album"
and "Use Your Illusion" are all out at this point.
♪ I know you ♪
♪ I found a masterpiece in you ♪
♪ A work of art and truth ♪
- I mean, I guess maybe in the R&B context,
it wouldn't sound that weird.
But even for 90s R&B, this is still pretty throwback.
- And they're definitely older.
- Yeah.
- Is this in a movie or something?
'Cause I listened to a lot of R&B in '92
and I just don't have any memory of this
or anything of this pacing.
- You know who would have some context for this song?
- I do.
- Your special lady friend.
- Yep.
- I just texted her.
- I think one of the times that we did the Generation X
duel of the death between me and Rashida, we did '92.
- Oh, interesting.
- We'll have to bring her back for one of these 90s years.
- Fascinating.
I mean, truly a throwback song.
- Yeah, that's a head scratcher.
- And I mean, I guess for a band from the '70s,
you know, Aerosmith had a comeback in the early '90s.
- Yep.
- It's not that weird 16 years in to like...
But yeah, the production, just everything about that song.
- But were they a big deal in the '70s?
I don't...
The Atlantic Star have hits in the '70s?
They must have, right?
- Yeah, they did.
- Okay.
- They, yeah, I mean, they...
Let me look at their singles.
They were on the R&B charts doing pretty well.
She's working.
I just asked her, "Do you like Masterpiece by Atlantic Star?"
She wrote, "I like them, but not sure about that song."
Wrote, "It's from 1992. Do you remember it?"
All right.
We'll be back with more.
- That's funny.
So it stumped even her a little bit.
- Well, yeah, I gotta say, I can't tell if she's saying,
"I'm not sure if I like that song.
I'm just not sure which song you're talking about."
This is a fun one.
The number four song this week in 1992
was also a bit of a throwback,
but it's actually a song.
And Rashida's checking out Masterpiece by Atlantic Star.
The number four song was released
originally in 1975.
Bohemian Rhapsody by Queen.
- Wayne's World.
Up tech.
- Released on Halloween, 1975.
Wow.
Yeah, I wasn't familiar with this song.
- Until Wayne's World.
- Until it blew up on MTV.
- So MTV was like playing the original video?
Or there was like a special Wayne's World video?
- No, yeah, like Mike Myers and David Carvey were in it.
- I don't think so.
I remember they cut--
Well, I remember the video.
Didn't they cut in the original video
with all of the heads moving and everything?
I feel like I remember the original video
being played heavily on MTV.
- Oh, yeah, I know.
- It's like all their floating heads.
- Yeah, yeah, that was in there for sure.
- They didn't cut the clips of the movie?
- Yeah, they did.
- Nick, are you saying they did it with--
- I have no memory of the clips of the movie in it.
I do remember--
- It was a mashup between the original promo film
that they made in the '70s and the clips from the movie.
♪ Just killed a man ♪
♪ Put a gun against his head ♪
♪ Pulled my trigger, now he's dead ♪
♪ Mama, life had just begun ♪
- Isn't it sort of a rare case?
I feel like that Shin song in--
- Jersey State?
- In that crowd?
- Or Garden State, yeah.
- Garden State where someone plays an entire song.
- It's part of the plot, basically.
- Yeah, where they go, "Listen to this,"
and they play the whole thing.
That doesn't happen that often.
And when it clicks, it's enormous.
- I remember seeing Wayne's World
and then becoming obsessed with this song,
like a lot of people.
And then I bought the blue cover,
Queen's Greatest Hits,
and I just couldn't really get into anything else
on that album.
When I got older, I realized
that was too much of a career retrospective.
I probably should have just bought Night at the Opera.
I do like 80s Queen now,
but as a young boy in the '90s, I wasn't ready.
Okay, everybody knows this song.
We'll do a Bohemian Rhapsody deep dive some other time.
- Yeah, that's a good call.
- And then just to close the circle,
Rashida said she hadn't heard that song in years
but instantly knew every word of the chorus.
Bit corny, not their best showing.
And then I said,
"It was number five this week in 1992 on Billboard."
She said, "Wow, that's an anomaly,
much later than their real hits.
Always was on repeat, so was Secret Lovers.
They were a little old-fashioned always."
Okay, so even as knowing the group and being a fan,
she was a little bit surprised
that that was like a hit in '92.
So yeah, it was anomalous.
As was number four.
Maybe this is gonna be a very anomalous week in 1992.
Number three, Criss Cross Jump.
Okay, now we're back to some pure 1992.
♪ Jump, jump ♪
♪ You should know, you should know better ♪
- For anybody who doesn't remember,
Criss Cross were two kids who rapped
and they wore their clothes backwards.
♪ We can mix them and get up ♪
♪ Jump, jump ♪
♪ The Mac Daddy make you up ♪
♪ Jump, jump ♪
♪ A daddy Mac don't make you up ♪
♪ Jump, jump ♪
♪ Criss Cross will make you up ♪
♪ Jump, jump ♪
- You know what I'm not saying
that really told anybody else before?
- Yeah?
- When this came out,
the day that the video came out,
I saw it and I walked out into my neighborhood
with my clothes on backwards.
- Yeah?
- Immediately, somebody was like,
"Are your clothes on backwards?"
And I was so embarrassed,
I walked home and put my gloves back on the right way.
- Really?
- Yeah, it was one of the few times,
like yeah, I think I walked into like Kemp Mill too.
Like, you know, which was our record store
and my clothes were on backwards.
And I don't, it hadn't really taken off.
I thought it was so,
I thought it was the coolest thing I'd ever seen.
And I went out in public and was immediately,
I couldn't pull it off,
like emotionally sort of, you know,
I couldn't do it and I was made fun of.
And I've never even pulled it off.
- You were wearing like cool hip hop clothes,
like Criss Cross?
- Yes.
I was wearing--
- You were wearing some tight--
- Cross Collar.
- Some very tight corduroy.
- It would be great on a suit.
- Yeah, you were wearing a tuxedo backwards.
- No, but I've never,
it's sort of very triggering to think about this
because I really like don't think about that,
doing that very often,
but it was, you know, I was like,
I'm going to take a swing
and I was so immediately embarrassed
by someone that I sort of
tail between my legs and walked home.
- I could see it coming back, couldn't you?
TikTok generation.
- But it's also interesting
that it's not like this became a popular thing
people did.
They're the only ones who wore their clothes backwards.
- Yeah.
- Which is cool, they were popular.
Oh, the song was huge, they were huge.
But the idea that, you know,
they did this really iconic thing,
but it's not like it took off culturally.
It was only, they're the only ones
who wore it backwards.
- I mean, they can't picture it being very comfortable
or flattering.
- Well, if you're wearing baggy clothes,
if there's a lot of room,
it might feel the same.
- Awkward at the urinal.
- I mean...
- It's Mary.
Unless you're, you know, taking a shit
and then you're like...
- Yeah, I mean, wearing...
- You got a set of other problems.
- Wearing blue jeans backwards seems insane.
Obviously you're wearing sweatpants.
It's kind of like whatever.
- Yeah.
- We've heard this on TC before,
'cause we talked about the fact that
there's a sample of "I Want You Back"
by the Jackson 5,
even though harmonically it's so flipped.
- Oh, okay.
- You know, but it doesn't go to...
"I want you back."
- This is like getting pretty niche,
but I'm thinking about how, you know,
there's been this phenomenon,
which I'm sure we've all participated in
to various degrees,
is that as this kind of like younger Gen X,
old silverback millennial cohort enters middle age,
you definitely see the rise of,
and are more interested in kind of like fashion
and vintage than say the boomers were.
- Mm-hmm.
- I don't think there was a boomer equivalent
of like boomers like pushing 40
and just being like, you know,
digging into some like vintage hippie clothes.
They might've been buying vintage toys or something,
but there's this phenomenon of like people,
you know, people are like a little more connected now online.
You definitely get like the kind of 40-something cool dad
who might still be shopping for vintage stuff
that they're kind of interested in as a young dude.
And sometimes, you know, you pull it off.
Like you could totally see that
just being like 45-year-old dad who's like,
"You know what, man?
"I always wanted that Jane's Addiction tour T-shirt,
"but I couldn't see the tour.
"My mom wouldn't let me, and you know,
"now I got a little bit of cash, and yeah,
"I'll buy it for $500 from Japan.
"Why not?
"I'm still a hype beast."
You know, that's like, that's the thing.
- For sure.
- Yeah, or just interested in fashion,
but I'm just laughing at myself picturing
just somebody who's like had like a Nick-type experience,
and now is like in their 40s and just being like,
"You know what?
"When I was 10, I really lacked confidence,
"and I was a (beep) huge Criss Cross fan,
"and I tried to rep it, but like I felt really embarrassed.
"And like now, finally, I'm more comfortable with myself.
"I'm still, you know, I'm not too old
"to like not wanna like look cool,
"and yeah, I'm doing like a Criss Cross thing."
- I show up to work for like my like development meeting,
and they're like, "Are your clothes on backwards?"
And I'm like, "Yeah, yeah, they are."
- Yeah, I'm a Criss Cross fan.
What's the problem?
- I also like Dave Matthews' band.
You got a problem with that too?
Yeah, have you ever been to like a fish show?
Yeah, you get a lot of like 50, you know,
middle-aged dudes who still like fish
and have a (beep) good time at the show.
What are we supposed to be doing?
And yeah, we still like Criss Cross too.
We should get like, you know what we should tell?
We should tell a friend of the show, Jonah,
who runs the famous fashion sub-stack,
Blackbird Spy Plane,
which covers a lot of fashion and vintage.
That would be like a good April Fool's Day post next year
is like Criss Cross style coming back for middle-aged men.
(laughing)
If you were somewhere between five and 15
when the Criss Cross song "Jump" came out,
you are entitled to wear backwards clothes now,
and nobody can say (beep), it's cool.
Number two song, kind of a downer,
Eric Clapton, "Tears in Heaven."
(guitar music)
- Oh God.
(guitar music)
So heavy.
(guitar music)
People who don't know, there's this tragic story
that Clapton's four-year-old son, Connor,
fell out of a window in a New York City apartment building,
belonging to a friend of Connor's mother.
(guitar music)
Oh God, people really got to be careful about windows.
I know it's like the most basic thing ever.
(guitar music)
You do hear these stories.
And like the extremely talented, beloved
French music producer, Philippe Zidar,
he produced a lot of the classic Phoenix records,
really beloved guy in the French music world.
He tragically died a few years ago
falling off a balcony in his Paris apartment
because the, what would you call it,
like on a small balcony, the front window,
a little railing was like loose or something.
He kind of leaned, something like that.
What?
I know, I know.
- Same thing happened to sort of an acquaintance of mine,
this guy Trevor Moore, who, you know,
was from "The Whitest Kids You Know."
If you remember that-- - Oh, yeah,
I remember that show.
- Yeah, that sort of sketch comedy group.
Yeah, he fell off his balcony too.
- Oh my God.
Yeah, sorry to be a downer.
Actually, turn off the music.
It's too much of a downer.
Sorry to be a downer,
but it is the kind of like very basic thing
that's, you know, if you're ever thinking like,
"Oh, this window looks strong.
"I can lean against it a little bit."
Don't do it.
Just don't do it.
Stay the hell away.
It's scary out there.
And actually, I knew some,
God, I heard some other story.
I remember college, I heard a story about someone
who had been in a dance performance at some college
where they were pushing against a big glass window
as part of the performance.
They'd been told that this window is like crazy,
triple glazed, it's super thick, don't worry.
And in the middle of the performance,
in some modern dance performance,
on like some little, you know,
black box theater type thing at a college,
the window busted through and these dancers fell,
you know, anyway, stay the hell away from windows.
- TC took a harsh turn here in the top five.
- Man, I'm hoping number one brings us back.
- Can I just read this quote though?
- Ground level guys, stay ground level.
- Hold, LA baby.
In March, 2004, Eric Clapton stopped playing
"Tears in Heaven" in concert.
While touring Japan in November and December '03,
he discovered he could no longer perform the song.
Clapton said, "I don't feel the loss anymore,
"which is so much a part of performing the song.
"I really have to connect with the feelings
"that were there then when I wrote the song.
"They're kind of gone
"and I really don't want them to come back.
"Particularly my life is different now."
Anyway, I thought that was interesting.
He like, he seemed to like work through,
like playing the song for years and years in concert,
seemed to work through something.
And he doesn't want to reawaken those feelings
by playing it.
- On the one hand, it's kind of a strange quote
'cause obviously the first thing people are saying is like,
well, what do you mean you don't feel the loss anymore?
But of course, I imagine he's just saying
he feels he's at a different place
in his grief and his relationship to that horrific event.
So, and what he says that's interesting,
that specific set of feelings about it are gone
and I don't really want them to come back.
Although then he began playing it again in 2013.
- Well, he said, "They probably just need a rest
"and maybe I'll introduce them
"from a much more detached point of view."
- Yeah. - Wow.
- In some ways that seems very real for him to say
because on the one hand you could be like,
it's just a song, just play it.
But he's actually saying that,
implying that when he did perform that song
for the first 10 years, it was meaningful to him.
- Cathartic. - When he performed that song,
it was actually cathartic
and that was like, he was bringing emotion to it
performing it on stage truly meant something.
I could totally see that.
If he hit some sort of wall
where he was just at a different point
and it was like, "Eric, we're gonna put tears in heaven
"in the usual slot, like really get,
"bring it down a touch and give people some feelings."
If he was getting to a place
where he's just like a song and dance man
performing a song like that,
he'd have to be like truly dead inside to be like,
"Yeah, absolutely,
"then let's kick into Layla right after.
"Yeah, no, no, that's a great one-two punch."
Absolutely, you know?
- Yeah, that's intense.
I mean, maybe he kind of ended up doing that
because he reintroduced the song
from a much more detached point of view.
- Yeah, maybe it meant something different for him.
- Does anybody wanna hear that at a live show?
- It's probably my least favorite Eric Clapton song.
- But I mean, even just what emotionally--
- Yeah, I know, yeah.
- It brings up, I mean, the whole thing.
- I mean, as we talk about it,
it's kind of one of the saddest hit songs
that I can think of.
Of course, there's many emotionally moving songs
that have sadness in their DNA,
but can you think of another song
that's just like that brutal
where you're like, "Most people know what the song is about."
- Right, there's a specific tragic visceral origin to the--
- I mean, yeah.
I remember there's the Biggie tribute
after he died with a police sample,
"I'll be missing you."
And of course, that's tragic too,
and that was people talking about--
'cause that was heavy too
because his wife was singing on that too, right?
So that was his friend and his wife--
- But it still doesn't feel competitive with this.
- Well, yeah, he was--
- If we're doing tragedy points.
- No, it's a child, yeah.
Gee, oh, man.
- Yeah, I can't think of another song
about the death of a child.
There must exist, but that's really--
the fact that it was a hit
is very kind of bizarre when you think about it.
You could see it being like an album cut, right?
- Yeah.
I can think of folk songs about young people dying.
- Sure, falling down a mine shaft or getting--
- Yeah, but like-- - Or even "Oh, Danny Boy."
Is "Danny Boy" about a boy?
- What is that?
What's "Oh, Danny Boy?"
- It's the Irish folk song,
although it's actually written by an English person.
Although I guess in "Danny Boy,"
it's the narrator's dead.
♪ Oh, Danny Boy, the pipes, the pipes are calling ♪
You know that, right, Jake?
- I don't think I know it.
- ♪ From glen to glen ♪
- Wait, throw it on real fast.
- ♪ Down the riverside ♪
- Throw it on, "Oh, Danny Boy."
- ♪ The summer's gone and all the roses are dying ♪
♪ 'Tis you, 'tis you must go and I must bide ♪
- I mean, yeah, there's plenty of songs--
- That's right, no, "Danny Boy" is not dead.
It's the person's dead, and they're saying,
"Danny Boy, you come back and visit my grave."
- ♪ Oh, Danny Boy ♪
♪ The pipes, the pipes are calling ♪
- Yeah, I guess I know this.
- ♪ From glen to glen ♪
♪ And down the riverside ♪
- This sounds like classical music.
It doesn't sound like folk music.
- Okay, well, there's a Johnny Cash version.
- Uh-huh.
Is this like a Hollywood musical version
from, like, the '50s or something?
- It could be.
This sounds like it could be, like,
a record from the '50s.
- Yeah.
- What about "Candle in the Wind"?
Elton John. - Oh, yeah, right, yeah.
- I know, but he's--
- "Dance of the Red River."
- That's--I mean, Marilyn Monroe, terrible death, but--
- And then "Repurpose" for Diana.
- That's Elton John being like--
- But I think for "Princess Di" at that time--
- Nothing as visceral as the loss of a child.
- ♪ Oh, Danny boy ♪
♪ The pipes, the pipes are calling ♪
♪ From glen to glen ♪
- I was wrong.
This is a song about--
- ♪ Down the mountainside ♪
- That Danny boy's gotta leave,
and when he comes back, the singer very well may be dead,
and he just says, "Come over to my grave.
Lay some flowers for me."
- I mean, also, specifically that--
when you talk about, "Is there anything like this?"
It's almost incomparable because Eric Clapton's so famous
by this time.
- Yeah.
- It'd be different if it were a song on a record
by someone you didn't really-- weren't that familiar with.
Do you know what I mean?
There's something about the level of his celebrity.
So you know him, you know his family, his kids,
his marriage and all this, and then the song so soon.
I just don't know if that kind of--
the context that you--
I just don't know if you can even compare to it.
- I guess another qualifier if we're talking about
what's unique about this song and the situation,
the closest, I think, would be Faith Evans singing
on that song, but it's--
and even Elton John was friends with Princess Diana,
so I'm sure he felt real emotion
when he repurposed "Candle in the Wind,"
but just, like, a song written and performed
by somebody who's talking about just, like,
such, like, a brutal loss within their own family,
that's hard to think of.
I mean, 'cause even, like, a buddy shouting out,
like, you know, the fallen friend,
also extremely emotional, whatever,
but even that's in a different category.
Or, yeah, or even, like, you know,
some classic rock band, like,
I don't know, there's probably some example,
like, playing a song after, like, a member had died.
- Right, there's an Eagles song about Graham Parsons
called "My Man," which is, you know,
it's a tribute to Graham Parsons,
their fallen friend, but yeah,
it doesn't stack up to the intensity,
like, to the point where we were just like,
"We don't want to hear this."
- Yeah, and also, I imagine this is probably
getting played a lot on kind of, like,
because it's a mellow song,
it was probably getting played a lot
on the kind of, like, easy-listening-type '90s radio.
- It's totally Eileen's car situation.
I mean, you would hear it in the dentist's office,
you would just hear it everywhere,
CVS, grocery store, and I was just like,
"God, even when I was, like, 15, like..."
And like, yeah, you're right,
everyone knew what the song was about,
there was no one that didn't know the anecdote.
- Right.
- Must have been a weird moment for Clapton,
I wonder if he, he probably didn't anticipate
that it would become such a huge hit in a weird way.
- Mr. Show did a really devastating parody of this, yeah.
- Oh, I remember the Mr. Show one.
That was brutal.
But the, I think we've talked about this
on the program before,
one thing that's also very strange about this
is that he gave it to the soundtrack
for a movie called "Rush."
- That makes it even weirder.
- It makes it seem a little bit kind of immersive.
- That is a really upsetting movie too.
- That's about, like, drug addiction?
It's about cops?
- It's about heroin addiction.
- Oh, it's about two cops who become drug addicts
when they go undercover?
- Deep cover, yeah, it's a deep cover situation.
- Sounds kind of interesting, actually.
- It's a good movie.
- But still, what does that have to do with this?
- I mean, why is that on the soundtrack?
- I guess in a way,
maybe he was just in a haze or something,
because I guess if he really was being cold-blooded,
he wouldn't just give it to a soundtrack,
because especially in the '90s,
he would have made way less money.
- Maybe that was a way for him
just to kind of record the song,
and it's out on the soundtrack,
he doesn't put on a record,
he's not making a record,
and then he plays it at MTV Unplugged.
- Oh, interesting.
Well, as we move into the number one song
this week in 1992, it's very interesting,
because it's called "Save the Best for Last."
- Did we save the best for last?
Is this the best song of the top five?
- I don't know, but Vanessa Williams.
- I used to love this song.
[upbeat music]
- Of this type of ballad,
this is maybe my favorite from this era.
[upbeat music]
- Not true.
[laughs]
[upbeat music]
- ♪ Sometimes it's all a big surprise ♪
♪ 'Cause there was a time when all I did was wish ♪
♪ You'd tell me this was love ♪
♪ It's not the way I hoped or how I planned ♪
♪ But somehow it's enough ♪
♪ And now we're standing face to face ♪
♪ Isn't this one of the crazy places ♪
- Sure is.
- ♪ And I thought a chance had passed ♪
♪ I could go and save the best for last ♪
- Wait, is she the best?
[laughs]
Is this guy, he was like a player?
Oh, wait.
- ♪ The night you came to me ♪
♪ When some silly girl had set you free ♪
- This is a beautiful song.
- ♪ I wondered how you'd make it through ♪
- That's bass.
- ♪ I wondered what was wrong with you ♪
- I wondered what was wrong with you.
- ♪ 'Cause how could you give your love to someone ♪
- Oh, is this like she and this guy were friends
and he was like hanging with all these silly girls?
- Yeah, maybe.
Like, she's the ugly girl that takes off her glasses
and now she's pretty.
- Yeah.
- ♪ There's the one thing that you can't see ♪
♪ But now we're standing face to face ♪
♪ Isn't this one of the crazy places ♪
- Wasn't this one of the crazy?
- ♪ And I thought a chance had passed ♪
- I don't think she's saying she's the best.
- I don't know what, or maybe she's saying,
she had a relationship with this guy.
Either they were just friends or--
- She's definitely saying she's the best.
- No.
- Yes.
- Okay, wait, hold on.
But here's an alternate interpretation.
- Or their love is the best.
If he doesn't want to feel so--
- Yeah, their love is the--
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
- The love that she brings him is the best.
But yes, she's the best.
- Right, 'cause she was like,
'cause maybe also they were,
maybe they were friends
and then they also started like
having some lightweight hookups.
- Right.
- And she was a little more into it than he was
and he was like, "Oh, no, no, yeah, I'm sorry.
"I'm just, I'm a playboy."
So she's thinking, "I've been your friend.
"I've been your kind of like side piece
"and now I'm your wife.
"You saved the best for last."
I thought you were always just gonna bring me,
you were gonna bring me all this kind of
bullsh*t "Friend Zone."
Funny, the album's called "The Comfort Zone."
- Good title.
- Maybe she was getting--
- Great, great title.
- She was getting "Friend Zone" by this dude
and then finally hits her with,
"Actually, I love you.
"I wanna spend the rest of my life with you."
And she's like, "Look at you.
"You saved the best for last."
That's what I was hoping to hear.
- I also am not, I'm not hating on her confidence,
but when she says,
"You thought our time had passed,
"but you went and saved the best for last."
She's the best.
- You're simply the best.
But I think the character in the song
is she's so sort of like modest.
She's almost kind of like,
"Oh, shucks, me?
"Like, really?"
And it'd be like, "Yeah, I'm the best.
"You made the right choice."
She's sort of like--
- Yeah, exactly.
The character is not--
- She's overwhelmed.
Sometimes the sun goes around the moon.
It's that, the odds are that long for her.
- Yes, yes, great point.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Excellent interpretation.
Jake's nailing it.
You're totally right.
She's saying, "Sometimes it snows in June."
And also maybe she's saying,
"I had given up all hope that my life
"would involve true love."
'Cause a lot of people would say,
"That's the best thing in the world."
- Right, right.
- Hold on, hold on.
I gotta tell you.
I have to take this sort of full circle
before the end of it.
Matt, just send me this.
As we talked about the commercial for "Ozempic,"
this song was used for Bistro Best
fuller flavor gravy granules.
- Wait, this song was?
Oh, God, wait.
- So the commercial for this song
is for this sort of instant gravy
that looks like coffee grounds.
- It's basically just MSG and add water.
- And you see the sort of process
of making it like a sort of a big dinner
and then how they'll cover it with this gravy.
And they're using,
"Sometimes the snow comes out in June."
I mean, it's really incredible.
- And this is a nice--
- And it's not a parody of it.
They're not doing Ozempic style.
- Gravy granules.
- Bistro Best fuller flavor gravy granules.
- And this is '93, one year after.
Wait, we have to play it. Let's play it.
- Play it and sort of walk through it.
- Oh, they sold it that quickly?
- It's incredible.
- Oh, 'cause the gravy goes on last.
- Imagine we're like--
- It's like you're saving it, right?
- It's like--
- You're like, "Mom, this meal sucks."
And then you save for the best.
- I save for the best for last.
- We sit down with the writers and we're like,
"So, okay, guys, we have a bit of a debate.
Is she saying she's the best
or is she saying that their love is the best?"
And they're like, "No, no, no.
The song's about gravy granules.
What the (beep) are you talking about?
She's saying this guy was saving the gravy granules
for the last thing to put on the food.
Isn't that (beep) obvious?"
- Gravy granules.
Is that a product that's still not even on the market?
Gravy granules.
- Can you eat them dry?
- That's the most unappetizing sounding thing
I've ever heard in my life.
It's like crystallized fat with MSG bonded to it.
It's like throw it in the saucepan with some water
and a quarter teaspoon of butter
and you got your even better 93 margarine.
All right, play the ad.
- I should point out that this song was nominated
for the Grammy Award for Song of the Year
and Record of the Year in 1993
and it lost to "Tears in Heaven" in both categories.
♪ Sometimes the snow comes down in June ♪
- There's no voiceover?
♪ Sometimes the sun goes round the moon ♪
- What the hell?
That's even weirder.
♪ You go and save the best for last ♪
- Richer, tastier, new Bisto Best.
Simply the best gravy Bisto I've ever made.
- Nice voice.
♪ You go and save the best for last ♪
- Simply the best gravy Bisto has ever made.
- The Grammy voters that year were like,
okay, we could give it to Clapton
and about the song he wrote about his dead son
or the song that's currently on TV
every ad break for the gravy granules.
- Because it's really interesting
when I think about the Ozempic ad
and I go, they could have just used magic.
I mean, that is the idea, right?
Is that you shed this weight so quickly
or it helps your type two diabetes or whatever.
- But it's smart because it gets you saying Ozempic.
- Ozempic.
- It gets five year old little Jerry
in the Seinfeld household is now,
he's running around singing about Ozempic.
He's teaching kids at school, oh, oh, oh, Ozempic.
And they all just can't wait
until they're old enough to take Ozempic.
- And if they had done Save the Best,
maybe that's why you don't know about Best Gravy anymore
and their gravy granules.
- Right, exactly.
- If they had said, they just used the song.
You made the song more popular.
- It's smart to flip the lyrics.
- Gravy, save the, yeah, it's tough.
It's tough to put gravy granules in those lyrics.
♪ Gravy, you gravy best for last ♪
(laughing)
- Doesn't gravy granules sound a little bit like
in a different context,
like it could be a little high end,
like the menu, like that Ralph Fiennes character,
it could be like, you know, a nice reduction.
- Oh yeah, sprinkled with gravy granules.
- Right?
- Yeah, yeah.
Tonight the chef has prepared a duck breast
with gravy granules sprinkled on.
- Right?
- Yeah, totally.
It does sound, and I mean, it's a fancy commercial.
They had an English person doing the voiceover.
- It is still a product on the market.
You can get, I can get a, let's see.
It's on Amazon for $20 for a pretty large looking container.
- TC Taste Test?
- And what does it look like?
It's not a liquid, it's granules?
- Yeah, it looks like it's like a instant coffee.
- It's like a coffee.
- Yeah.
Let's see here.
- Ah, Bisto.
- Kind of curious about these reviews.
- Okay, so maybe this is an English product
when they sell it in the US.
- They could have said, "Save the Bisto for last."
- 24 ounce.
- That would have been-
- How about, no, it should have been,
"I'll never be your Bisto burden.
"Let's grab these granules and-"
(laughing)
- Oh my God.
- Okay, draw the curtains.
- I found a stock photo of the actual thing.
- A stock photo of the actual product.
Are you looking at what it actually looks like?
- Is it like a powder?
- It looks like, I just sent it to the thread.
It looks like pellets.
I don't know how zoomed in this is,
but it's not like salt.
- Oh, wow.
Yeah, that looks like-
- It's like rabbit food?
It looks like-
- Exactly, yeah.
Look at some sort of feed.
- It makes sense that this is a British product
because they're using more gravy.
They got their sundae roast.
- I'll say this.
- It's powdered gravy at the end of the day, right?
It's a type of, it's a form of powdered gravy.
- There are 1,700 reviews on Amazon.
92% of them are five star.
- Wow.
- Judith (beep) reviewed in the United States two days ago.
English lady got me to use this over 25 years ago
and I finally found it on Amazon.
So they ordered a lot of it and gave it to the family.
They love it when cooking beef roast for wonderful gravy.
Wonderful gravy, folks.
- Don't you like that she had heard about this
20 years ago and-
- From a British lady.
- But also to order a lot of it.
- Stock up.
- I mean, but if you've never had it,
wouldn't you just get one and then see?
- Supply chain issues.
You don't want to be-
- Yeah, you don't want to (beep) around.
I heard about it from an American lady.
That lady's name?
- Can't trust her.
- Vanessa Williams.
That's going to be my review.
And then I'll just read it in parentheses.
If you know, you know.
- Yeah.
- IYKYK.
- I just Googled a Bisto gravy MSG.
Answer, yes, Bisto contains MSG.
- In fact, it's only MSG.
- Yeah.
- In a powdered granule form.
- Yeah.
- I mean, I guess making gravy back in the day
was probably a whole crazy operation.
This probably did save a lot of time.
- Yeah, you got to like liquefy the fat and all this stuff.
Yeah.
- Yeah.
- It's an amazing product.
I've never had it,
but even just hearing about it gets me excited.
And we've got a case and it's going quickly.
- Got to order a lot of it.
- So please tweet at @TimeCrisis2000
because this is an exciting product.
And when I tell you that people are going nuts for it,
it's going to be gone very quickly.
So please don't wait.
And I personally, I can't wait to try it.
In fact, I'm going to buy some of it myself.
Well, let's go out on one more,
"Save the Best for Last" because I think
that's a really beautiful song to end an episode on.
Maybe we should end every episode
with "Save the Best for Last."
One more time, "Take it Away, Vanessa."
♪ Sometimes the snow comes down in June ♪
♪ Sometimes the sun goes 'round the moon ♪
♪ I see the passion in your eyes ♪
♪ Sometimes it's all a big surprise ♪
♪ 'Cause there was a time when all I did was wish ♪
♪ You'd tell me this is love ♪
♪ It's not the way I hoped or how I planned ♪
♪ But somehow it's enough ♪
♪ And now we're standing face to face ♪
♪ Isn't this world a crazy place ♪
♪ Just when I thought our chance had passed ♪
♪ I could go and save the best for last ♪
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