Episode 208: Gen-X-Projectors
Links
- TCU Wiki
- Download not available
- Download CSV
Transcript
Transcript
Time Crisis, back again.
On today's episode, we'll talk about dirty projectors,
vampire weekend, burritos, and free will.
All this, plus the top five hits of 1988.
This is a very special, ordered yet random,
Time Crisis, with Ezra Koenig.
They passed me by, all of those great romances
They were a pale, wobbly leap of my rightful chances
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy
And so I dealt to the blow, when a bus had to go
Now it's different, I want you to know
One of us is crying, one of us is lying
Leave it on me, babe
Time Crisis, back again.
What's up, gentlemen?
Hey, what's up?
Another day, another dollar.
What do you say when people ask you that at work, Seinfeld?
What's up?
Or just like, how you doing? You know, just like, kind of empty, passing in the hallway.
If I'm obviously, like, in a lot of stress, or quite busy, I'll go like,
"I'm just chilling out." But like, clearly I'm not. The humor is that I'm-
Ooh, what a passag.
Oh, you mean because you're doing a stressed out voice?
"Oh, you know me, just chilling. Ha ha ha, oh my god."
I mean, yeah, you've sort of expressed that better than I do when I do the bit, but-
Having a great time at work.
Yeah, I don't consider that passive aggressive.
You know what a lot of people say now? "Live in the dream."
But that's also sarcastic.
That is so, like, I guess that's just responding to a nothing question with a nothing answer.
Yeah.
"What's up? Live in the dream."
That's like a sarcastic "Living the dream."
I think it's almost like neutral, too.
Like, sometimes you could do a very sarcastic "Living the dream."
Like, "Living the dream." Or it's just like, "You know, living the dream."
And it's like, "For real?" And it's like, "Yeah, I mean, it's okay. I don't know. I'm fine."
"Yeah, what do you mean? I'm fine."
"Leave me alone."
"I'm living the dream."
You know what I like when you say, "What's up? Good?"
Oh, right.
Not to be the grammar police, but I didn't say, "How are you?"
It's just like, if the question is so inconsequential that you can't even pay attention to the sentence structure, it's just like...
It's just the tone of the voice. It's just the mouth sounds.
Yeah.
"No, no, no."
"No, no."
I'm still thinking about "Living the dream." I'm just like, I can't imagine saying that.
"Living the dream."
Maybe that's generational.
Have you ever said, "Living my best life?"
Oh, yeah. That's kind of like, that's the Millennial Cringe version of "Living the dream."
It's Oprah, right? I think it's the Oprah.
I like "Another day, another dollar." I think that's...
Yeah, that feels the most right to me, too.
Yeah, I'm just like, "What's up? You know, just grinding."
I also grind.
You know what's up? Just grinding.
On my grind.
Either of you ever wake up and you post on social media...
All the time.
"Rise and grind."
Oh, yeah.
"Rise and grind."
Grindset.
Grindset mindset.
Just walking past somebody in the hallway at your corporate job at 4.30 p.m.
"Hey, man, how's it going? Rise and grind."
[laughter]
Okay.
[laughter]
Wait, Sanfo, let me get a number crunch.
Cool ways to respond to, "How are you doing?"
Like, cool little...
Are you going to ask Chet GPT?
I think it's going to give me a better answer than Google, so yeah.
"How are you doing?"
Yeah, like kind of cool, unique ways to respond to, "How are you doing?"
Quirky? Should I put the word quirky in there?
Yeah, probably.
Well, no, is the query, "What's up?" or "How are you doing?"
I put, "How are you doing?" Do you prefer, "What's up?"
Let's try both.
All right. Okay, we'll start with, "What's up?"
Do we want five?
What are five? You got to be real specific with it.
Top five.
Okay. All right, here we go.
Coming in at number one.
"The ceiling's up, but my spirits are even higher."
Ooh, I never heard that one before.
I like that for Jake.
Too wordy.
"The rest are even longer."
Hmm.
"Not much, just practicing my interpretive dance move
for the upcoming Squirrel Ballet."
I think they're taking the word quirky.
Oh, God.
I think this is also Chet GPT trying to, like,
say something that's never been said before.
I also have to say that I have this distinct memory
because it was burned into my mind as being so brutal
whenever this was 20, 25 years ago watching,
was it on MTV or VH1, it was a show about pickup artists.
There was a guy who was briefly kind of famous or infamous
named Mystery. He wore a big furry hat.
Hell yeah.
And this was about pickup artists.
And at some point, he's trying to teach all these scrubs
how to talk to women.
And I remember even at the time thinking, like,
"Well, these guys are so weird that you're probably,
by even just forcing them to talk to women,
you've already increased their chances from 0% to, like,
whatever, something marginal."
Anyway, one of the funny pickup lines that they had
was something like, was like, go to somebody and say,
"How are you ladies doing tonight?"
"Good. How are you guys?"
You know, assuming you get that response.
And then this was burned into my memory.
The answer we're supposed to say is, "Oh, I'm good.
Me and my boys here, we're planning an Ocean's Eleven-style heist."
[laughs]
And maybe there's a way you could just lead with it.
Like, "Hello? Hi?
Me and my boys over here,
we're planning an Ocean's Eleven-style heist tonight.
And we're celebrating beforehand.
Can I buy you a drink?" Maybe something like that.
[laughs]
Anyway, I was getting a little bit of that vibe off that.
Right.
I'd be like, "You're celebrating beforehand?"
[laughs]
Okay, maybe I have it wrong.
Maybe I have it wrong.
Maybe you're supposed to go up to somebody and say, "Hello?"
"Hello?
Me and my friends just pulled off
an Ocean's Eleven-style heist tonight.
And we're celebrating.
Care to join me for a drink?"
Now you like it?
I liked it more.
[laughs]
This must have been right around the time that Ocean's Eleven came out.
I'm assuming it's a lot more fresh and topical.
[laughs]
I also remember that because I...
You know how sometimes you just see something dumb on TV
and you just become obsessed with it?
I remember trying to make my cousin Asher,
friend of the show, laugh by talking about it
and just imagining a guy who kept updating it for every sequel.
And just going, "Hello.
Ew. What do you want?"
"Well, me and my boys over there,
we just pulled off an Ocean's Twelve-style heist.
And we're celebrating.
Care to join us?"
And of course...
I'm picturing a guy dressed in cargo shorts and flip-flops.
[laughs]
Like a Hard Rock Cafe t-shirt.
And he's just sort of like, "Yeah, we just pulled off an Ocean's Eleven-style heist.
I was the schlub."
Yeah.
If the dude's schlubby enough, it becomes kind of charming.
I mean, if he's wearing... He has to be wearing a nice suit.
You need to look like you're in that movie
to really pull that line off.
Even if you're wearing, I don't know, just a button-down.
It's just like, "What?"
Oh, no, that's brutal.
It's like the dude who just came from a mid-level data processing job.
Like, the blue button-down shirt tucked into the khakis.
- Yeah. - No, sir.
- No, I think... - Very bloused out.
I think you have to look like sh*t.
- I think that's where I'm... - Yeah.
Either you look like a million bucks or like crap.
Yeah.
You know what's nice about that is that nowadays
there's like a built-in comeback where the girls can be like,
"Oh, that's great. We just completed an Ocean's 8 style heist,"
which was the all-female reboot of Ocean's 11.
- I'm familiar with the reference. - Okay.
- For viewers who may not... - Well, to anybody listening,
if that happens, which it might,
you just found your wife.
Beca... [laughs]
And if that happens,
we guarantee that Seinfeld will fly out to your wedding...
- Oh. - ...and give a speech...
- Officiate. - Officiating,
because that's that kind of tidbit that's gonna be like,
"Now, Greg used to be really shy."
Last person you'd think... He wouldn't even get on the apps.
He was so shy, he couldn't even get on the apps and swipe right.
Last guy you'd think would go up to a complete stranger at a bar
and tell her that he and his boys pulled off an Ocean's 13 style heist.
But somehow, after listening to his favorite Internet radio show,
he got up the courage to do it.
And on his first try, Tammy responded,
"Well, what a coincidence. Me and my girls just pulled off an Ocean's 8 heist."
And some of you probably have heard that story before.
Some of you are probably hearing it for the first time.
- That's cute. - If that's not love at first sight,
I don't know what is.
I mean, I'm actually getting choked up imagining this couple
- that came together that way. - It's beautiful.
You know what else? Just as another note on this,
you could say, you know, Ocean's franchise...
Ocean's franchise style heist.
You know, that way you're comprising all the Oceans, including...
Yeah, because also, what if you're not there with your boys?
What if you're there with people of all different genders and whatever?
Well, then everybody's represented, all genders and races.
I told ChatGPT, I said, "These are too try-hard.
Give me five more casual, cool answers."
- Wait, sorry, last thing. - Oh, yeah, yeah.
If the girl seems extremely highbrow, you might want to say,
"Me and my boys over there just pulled off a Rafifi-style heist."
- I thought you were going to go Thomas Crowde. - I thought Thomas Crowde, too.
No, I'm going even further back. I'm going Criterion Collection.
"Me and my boys just pulled off a Criterion Collection DVD
exclusive presentation of Rafifi-style heist."
- Okay. We also... - Where does Italian job fit in?
Is that kind of a lateral move from Oceans 11?
You've got to have a good car to really back that up, I feel.
No, I think it's a little more in the Cudi man of taste.
I also just want to say that even though I first became obsessed with this line
via a show about a pickup artist,
there's absolutely no reason why you couldn't use it in the office.
Somebody say, "Hey, Seinfeld, how you doing?
Just pulled off an Oceans 13-style heist. So, pretty good."
Okay.
"Just pulled off an Oceans 13-style heist.
Want to divvy up the money with me?"
I'm just kidding.
I think it rolls off the tongue and sounds natural and organic.
Okay, but what else did ChatGPT come up with?
All right, so we're responding to WhatsApp and ChatGPT.
Very cooperative. Of course, here are five more casual and cool responses.
Number one, "Not too shabby. Just taking it easy. How about you?"
- That feels like on-brand for Jake. - Oh, not too shabby?
- Yeah. - I like "taking it easy."
- Would you say "not too shabby"? - No, I wouldn't say that.
It's a little ragtime era, isn't it?
I'd say, "Oh, you know, taking it easy."
Oh, you're going to like this one.
"Just chilling like a villain. What's new with you?"
- Nope. - Ooh, hate it.
- "Chilling like a villain"? No? - Can't do it.
Okay. Oh, I like this one.
"Just enjoying the day. You know how it is. What about you?"
- Nope. - Come on, Chat.
- Nope. - Oh, "Living the dream," number four.
- Okay. - All right.
- It's in the zeitgeist. - All right, last one.
"Just hanging out, keeping it real. How's your day going?"
- Keeping it real. - Again, these are just...
They're like one phrase too long, all of them.
"Keeping it real." Can you say the same about yourself?
- I like "slightly combative." - Just hanging out, being honest.
Yeah.
Just being truthful. "Sustained eye contact."
"Just working hard to improve the world for myself and the people around me."
- Yourself? - How about you?
"I wish they gave you a pretty, pretty good..."
- Oh, yeah. - Oh, my God.
God, that'd be brutal if you're not Larry David
and you just made that your go-to over and over and over again.
- Oh, my God. - Oh, you know that there's a guy...
"Pretty, pretty, pretty good."
All right, "Living the dream" is sounding better and better.
- LTD. - LTD.
I like that too, LTD. How you doing, man? LTD.
What's LTD? "Living the dream, fool."
"Living the dream, dummy."
- Limited. - LTD, limited?
"Living the dream."
What's the perfect intersection of "playful" and "a little bit too rough"?
Is it "dummy"?
- "You goof"? - It really depends on who you're talking to.
I don't know. "You goof"?
- "You simpleton"? - Oh, [bleep]
No, I don't know. "Simpleton"? That seems...
- It's too esoteric. - Ask Chat GPT.
- Oh, okay. - Three playful ways to refer to a dumb person.
"Silly goose," "goofball," "space cadet."
"You silly goose." I like that.
"Living the dream, space cadet."
"Silly goose" is sweet. "Space cadet" is like, "Go to hell."
"Space cadet" is, to me, the perfect middle ground.
It's so random, and it's not really that mean, but it's also like, "Space cadet, [bleep] you."
Even as a kid, I didn't really get that term for a stupid person.
To make it into the Space Academy, don't you have to be fairly intelligent?
- Like, what is the... - Right.
Space cadet. You're an astronaut in training, right?
- It's funny. It's half sarcastic. - Oh, it's a... Okay, got it.
Because the space part is like, "Yeah, you're in space."
"Earth to Seinfeld."
"Earth to Seinfeld."
"Earth to Seinfeld, we're in a meeting here."
Oh, 'cause you're spaced out. You're literally out to lunch.
You're out to lunch, but then the cadet part is ironic.
- You're not literally out to lunch. - Oh. No, not literally.
- It's like... - You're spaced.
It's like calling someone "Shirtlock." It's like, "No [bleep] Shirtlock."
I never... This is the first time I'm getting that.
It was just like, I'm a... What's the word?
A hapless... I don't know how to be an astronaut.
Something new every day.
- Who's a space cadet now? - Yeah.
- All right. - Call somebody a naval cadet.
- What do you mean? - I mean, you're out to sea, brother.
Get your [bleep] head in the game. You're out to sea.
Feeling this again
Haven't left my bed
Never brushed my hair
And if you look me in the eyes
You'll see that I don't care
Speaking of living the dream, how about that for a transition?
- Beautiful. - I heard that there's new Vampire Weekend music out.
- It's true. - I haven't heard a lick yet.
- Now, Jake, that's not true, Jake. - You played me a demo.
- Now, Jake, that's not... Jake, that's not true. - You played me a demo
in my backyard one night, like two years ago.
- Yeah. I would say even more than two years ago. - Yeah, two and a half years ago.
- Two and a half, yeah. - I was trying to figure it out today. I was like, "When was that?"
Yes, that was a long time ago. So, yeah, you probably don't remember anything.
- I don't. - Well, yeah, we dropped two songs this week.
I mean, it's in the last couple of weeks we've announced our album,
"Only God Was Above Us," coming out April 5th.
But we dropped the first two singles. It's become a bit of a tradition
with Vampire Weekend that we lead with two singles or two songs.
Last album we did Harmony Hall plus "2021," and it was pretty obvious Harmony Hall was the single
that "2021" was kind of like a... - The B-side? - The B-side and a Muse Bush.
This time I truly consider it a double A-side.
And we launched with "Capricorn" and "Gen X Cops."
And probably some listeners have already heard these songs,
but we recorded this, we kept Jake in isolation
so that he could hear them for the first time on air. - That's right.
- Same with "Seinfeld." So this is the first song
we launched with "Capricorn."
Can't reach the moon now,
Can't turn the tide,
The world looked different
When God was on your side,
Who bears the future?
Do they care why?
I know you're tired of trying
For this and clearly you don't have to try
Capricorn, the year that you were born
Finished first and the next one was yours
Too old, dying young, too young to live alone
Sifting through centuries for moments of your own
piano solo
Alone in the world
But in my pride
I called out to God
He didn't have the time
I'd seen it coming
It's no surprise
I know you're tired of trying
For this and clearly you don't have to try
Capricorn, the year that you were born
Finished first and the next one was yours
Too old, dying young, too young to live alone
Sifting through centuries for moments of your own
violin solo
trumpet solo
A hundred dollars
Or someone's die
I looked for answers that
They weren't mine to find
Good days are coming
Not just to die
I know you're tired of trying
For this and clearly you don't have to try
Capricorn, the year that you were born
Finished first and the next one was yours
Too old, dying young, too young to live alone
Sifting through centuries for moments of your own
Capricorn, the year that you were born
Finished first and the next one was yours
Too old, dying young, too young to live alone
Sifting through centuries for moments of your own
Wow.
You remember it?
At all?
A little bit. Yeah, the chorus.
Sounds familiar.
A little bit.
I mean, it didn't sound like that.
I don't think.
I mean, yeah, I can't even remember.
It must sound different.
I remember there being that...
I didn't remember the word Capricorn,
but I remember there being a hook with that...
That phrasing?
Yeah.
Wow. Well, you know me, I'm a... I'm a tone...
I'm a tone-touching lyricism guy.
Mm-hmm.
You seem to like really pick up on lyrics on a first listen,
which I do not.
I'm like, I'm a palette guy.
That's what I'm trying to say.
Yeah, I see.
I'm a palette guy.
Well, right off the bat, like,
this is really interesting for Vampire, especially.
I don't know what the references are.
Hmm.
You play me Harmony Hall, it's got that guitar solo on it.
I'm like, okay.
A little Stones-y, a little like Jerry a little bit.
This is just like, I don't know what the refs are,
which is exciting.
That's fresh.
A little bit of everything.
Maybe.
Can I say something insightful?
Sophisticated?
Yeah, absolutely.
I call it Diane Young reference in that.
Yep.
Yeah, you know what's funny about that?
When I was like kind of revisiting this song
as we were mixing and stuff,
I realized there's sometimes where it sounds more like Diane Young
and sometimes I'm saying dying young.
But even the way my accent a little bit is,
if I say Diane, it's like, it's naturally sounds that way.
And I got to say like that's this album
and we'll talk more about it when the album comes out,
but it's not very smart ass.
So I like, I appreciate that there's like a layer there,
but maybe this doesn't matter to the fans,
but to me in the past,
that's the type of thing I'd be like looking to insert.
Whereas with this,
I actually care more about the,
much more about the primary meaning,
which is too old for dying.
You know, whatever, somebody caught in the middle.
Too old for dying young.
Too young to live alone.
So yeah, the fact that this old song kind of sneaks in,
that wasn't top of mind when I was,
when that line first came out.
But yeah, I'm not mad at it, but yeah.
This is not like Harmony Hall referencing Fingerback.
Well, even that one was complicated
because Harmony Hall, Fingerback was,
Harmony Hall was like this idea that pre-existed it.
I just think like, let me think.
I don't know.
Maybe I'll whistle a different tune.
So what was that lyric?
Too old to die young.
Too old for dying young.
Too young to live alone.
So you're a middle-aged guy.
Yeah. Like you can't check out just yet, but.
You're on a long road.
But also you've been trying too hard.
That was like a major,
I don't know where that came from.
That was like a major lyric
and kind of this song becoming a real song.
Like I was like working on this kind of verse
and I just had this idea that the end of the verse would be like,
♪ I know you're tired of trying to listen clearly ♪
♪ You don't have to try ♪
Like that, I don't know.
I remember that was kind of like an early important part.
Like help me unlock something.
And then you applied that to the mix.
You were just like,
we're not going to try with this.
We're not going to try it too hard.
We're not going to sweat it.
Just like let the reverb and the boominess just like go.
I mean, in a way.
I, I, that's very bold.
The mixing choices.
Interesting.
I fully sign off on them.
It's just not what you would expect.
Like, oh, there's a new vampire single.
I'm expecting a tight, tidy, uber precise song
where every detail has been scrutinized.
This feels like, nope.
It's boomy.
It's like this, there's parts where...
The secret is that this takes just as much scrutiny for us,
if not more, to make sure we really want it this way.
But yeah, of course, point taken.
Like there were a few songs on this album,
not just for this one,
where because things sounded too slick or something,
we went crazy, especially Arielle.
Trying to put some life into it.
You know, like every album there become these kind of like
lame or whatever inside jokes.
And one was when we first started working with Arielle
on Modern Vampires, he had a studio in Burbank.
And down the road from him in Burbank
was a real old school health food market called Full O' Life.
Like O with apostrophe.
Full O' Life.
And this is...
You find that so funny, Syphon?
It's so stupid.
Full O' Life.
And it was like hard to describe.
It's like a very LA thing because there's a long history
of health food here, which we've touched on on the program
here and there.
And so this was like, the font was like 50s,
like a 50s farmers market font.
Full O' Life.
And you get an alfalfa sandwich, you know,
it was old school health food.
And it didn't survive into the Erewhon.
I mean, Erewhon is old school too,
but it didn't survive in the Erewhon 2.0 era.
Let's put it that way.
So anyway, that was a place that we'd buy snacks
at Full O' Life.
And then at some point there was a lot of discussion
on this album.
Like, even when something sounded cool,
it'd be like, it's just not Full O' Life.
And you know, it became a shorthand.
And I think we both felt the same way that
there were sounds that needed to be looser.
And you know what's funny about it too, Jake,
is that like in the, I know it sounds like
just like kind of like a good line to say
it's actually harder to make stuff like that.
In the Pro Tools era, it literally is.
You know, because our music has never been
just the band rocking, even from our first album.
It's always been a bit, some combo of live playing
plus making stuff in the way most music is made
in a digital audio workstation.
And the truth is, as anybody who's ever made music knows,
whether you're an expert in Pro Tools
or you're opening up GarageBand for the first time,
generally speaking, the default mode of making music
is making stuff to the grid.
And so if you ever want to like,
and of course you can still have vibe with gridded music,
but definitely for Arielle it's like
to not have it be mercilessly gridded
actually takes more work.
Because that means like really zooming in
and like getting kind of deep on stuff.
The other song that we dropped
other side of the single is Gen X Cops.
I told you that we had a song called Gen X Cops, right?
I don't think you did. Intriguing title.
Named after a late nineties Hong Kong action film.
I didn't know that.
And to a lesser extent, also inspired by its sequel,
Gen X Cops 2, also known as Gen Y Cops.
Anyway, this is Gen X Cops.
I like that ending.
Wow. Yeah, it's like, um, it's like the master tapes got thrown in the bathtub or something.
Oh, it's not supposed to sound that crazy.
I mean, I'd like it, but I could see someone's mom being like, I can't hear the words.
Can I ask, is there a little bit of a surf rock?
Well, the drum, the drumming is, has, there's a different energy on the drumming.
Yeah. A lot of sick fills.
A lot of, yeah, like really fun.
I'm not going to say busy because that's sort of a pejorative, but.
They're definitely fast.
Yeah, I love them. I think it's cool. I'm excited about, about this.
This album is definitely a, yeah. And I don't, you know, I want people to,
I don't want to go too hard now because I want people of course to hear the whole record,
but it's definitely some of our most aggressive tones.
I'm fully supportive of that.
This is what kind of made me think of Harmony Hall and the sort of progressive.
There are a lot of different parts to this one compared to the last one you played.
Yeah. I mean this, yeah, this one like goes through all these different sections.
It's faster, gets like piano solo and then ends.
This one, the original idea goes back like a really long time ago.
Me and CT actually wrote it together.
The verse chorus and the slide riff.
That was a demo that me and CT did.
Who's playing that slide?
I'm recording it's RL, but originally CT wrote most of it with me chiming in here and there
on a lap steel back in the New York days.
Oh wow. I'm excited to get into the meaning of Gen X Cops, maybe at a later date.
Yeah, I think we got a full album episode.
We got, we got to let it, let it simmer. Let the people get in first.
Yeah.
Right. We also announced the album release show on April 8th in Austin, Texas.
Total eclipse during the day.
We're going to start the show around noon, noon, 1230 or something.
Play for a bit. Then the eclipse is going to happen.
A total eclipse. I think we'll pause out of respect for mother nature and then finish the set.
It's going to be outdoor in this place, the Moody Amphitheater, a new-ish amphitheater in Austin, Texas.
And I guess we first talked about this show many years ago.
August 27th, 2017, episode 50.
I can't believe it was that long ago.
This is from the Time Crisis Wiki account.
Topics, cousin Asher and Despot fly out to LA to take over co-hosting duties.
Jake calls in from Vermont to chat eclipse watching.
Cause I had just been out in Casper, Wyoming with Hannah and her parents
watching the eclipse there. And then we went to Vermont.
And the crew plans to get together for Ezra's 40th birthday to watch the next eclipse in 2024.
So this plane was hatched seven years ago.
You were a young, fresh-faced 32.
At the time, Ezra turning 40 felt like so far in the future.
Well, yeah. And that's the thing.
The show is not to celebrate my birthday.
It kind of is.
No, we'll have a party at night to celebrate my birthday.
I mean, the way I've explained it to people is that...
Me insisting.
No, there's going to be no reference to my birthday at the show.
So you're not going to stop down the show during the eclipse
and sing happy birthday with the whole crowd.
No, I'm going to specifically say I don't want to be surprised
with a cake or a large tray of cupcakes.
But it is, the show and the eclipse is on your actual birthday.
Yeah, the way I think of it is the reason,
I mean, the reason that I remembered that this was happening
was because it was my 40th birthday.
You know, otherwise I would not have remembered the exact date
of the next big total eclipse going through the US.
And because of when the album was starting to line up,
I kind of remember being like,
there's going to be this big total eclipse.
It's on my 40th birthday. Of course, I know the date of that.
And like talking with the team saying,
it might be sick to do a show.
So, yeah, the way I think about it is for the friends and family,
like come to Austin, experience a once in a lifetime event.
Jake, you have been in a total eclipse, but many haven't.
And it might be your only chance in your lifetime
to see one in Austin, Texas.
Well, during a Vampire Weekend.
That's a once in a lifetime event.
Yeah. And then we can have a nice barbecue dinner
with do country karaoke or whatever that night.
I love it.
And I don't think, you know, these things take so long to plan,
like to find a, to look at the path of totality of the eclipse
and say, which cities is it going through that have a open air venue
that we can play and also that will probably have good weather?
Because, you know, it's also going through like Burlington, Vermont.
I mean, look, knock on wood, it's great weather in Austin.
But, you know, the further north you go,
the more likely it could be cloudy or whatever,
wintry in early April.
So then, you know, it takes some planning to kind of find it.
And then, of course, you need permission
and all these things to play a venue,
obviously during the day and whatever.
So, yeah, I wouldn't have remembered it if it wasn't my birthday.
I wouldn't remembered it early enough.
I could totally see like if it was just an eclipse,
kind of like right now, like February being like,
wait, should we try to do a show?
And then it being like, oh, God, you know,
luckily I remembered this like a year ago.
Or maybe, who knows, I might have even mentioned it
to our long time touring dude, Brian Cross.
And he might have even just had it on his radar for years.
But you know what? April 8th, 2024,
it's going to be this show.
It's a show on a Monday.
Yeah, that's a bit awkward.
I like it, though. Monday at like 1215.
Yep.
Austin. Let's go.
Let's go.
I'll be there, man.
Did a quick number crunch.
And if you're in the path of totality while it's happening,
you could be looking at a range of two to seven minutes
of black sky.
Well, yeah, actually, Jake, I know.
Full apocalypto.
I know you've, I know for some listeners,
they might be like, well, Jake told us all about that,
the Casper, Wyoming eclipse in episode 50.
But given, what episode are we on right now?
Given this is episode 208.
Right.
Maybe you can remind us.
Because even when I've talked about it with people,
I've quoted you a little bit.
I said, this is going to be cool
because I know a guy who's in an eclipse once
and he said he was actually blown away by it.
Is that true?
Were you blown away?
Yeah, it was not what you expect.
It's not, the sky doesn't go black.
It's, it has, it takes on a very kind of uncanny light.
I'll take that.
An uncanny light?
Yeah, yeah.
It's a, it's almost like, you know,
when like someone's doing like a photo shoot
and they have one of those like white reflecting boards.
Oh yeah.
And it makes everything evenly lit.
Oh yeah.
And there's no shadows.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's like if reality, as far as you can see,
is just like under one giant white reflecting board
where there's like no shadows.
And I remember also the birds, they stopped.
It was like a movie.
It was like a M. Night Shyamalan film.
The birds were like, chirp, chirp, chirp, chirp.
They stopped.
And it became very still.
Does everyone seem two-dimensional?
You mean because of like the white reflecting board aesthetic?
Yeah, yeah.
Like, do you feel like when you see people,
they all look like cardboard cutouts?
I don't know if I'd go that far,
but it is, it's just kind of an eerie,
very, yeah, just, it's an uncanny light, Seinfeld.
It sounds on brand for the music
that would be performed as part of this show.
It feels like the, what is the,
it's like the pathetic fallacy.
It seems like it's on brand for the sound of this record,
the direction that it appears to be going in.
Well, you know, it's funny.
We were talking with one of the promoters
and everybody's getting hyped about the show
and there was a guy there and he said,
and I said, yeah, it'd be super cool.
I've always wanted to be in a total eclipse.
It's going to be an interesting experience
and yet another reason to go see
this kind of amazing natural event.
And he was like, and it fits in so well with the album.
And I was like, yeah, I mean, you know, sure.
You know, it's not like,
it's not like there's anything about something like
Eclipse in Austin.
He's like, well, yeah, of course,
because this is an outlaw country album
where a character called the moon
wanders into town and he is not welcome there.
It's like redheaded stranger.
No, anyway, yeah, it's not explicitly like that.
But then actually, I swear I hadn't thought of this.
The guy said, well, no, I just mean,
because the album's called Only God Was Above Us
and you're going to have this like kind of like
amazing celestial event above.
And I was like, oh, you're totally right.
And yeah, maybe the moody light will.
And actually the place we're playing
is called the Moody Amphitheater.
It's one of the moodiest amphitheaters in America.
That's hard because there are a lot of moody amphitheaters
in the country, I feel.
Yeah, especially up in like the Rust Belt.
There's some extremely moody amphitheaters.
Northeast, some very moody amphitheaters.
But this is the moodiest amphitheater in America.
People are also curious
because, of course, Austin has birds
like any place in America.
But you know what else it famously has?
Under the bridge?
The bridges?
Barbecue? No.
They do have barbecue. I don't know if they have...
Under the bridges?
You know, the bridges that cross the river.
I don't know. What do they have? Frogs?
They might.
They got a lot of bats.
Austin's a bat town.
You know what?
Yep.
I was in Austin actually in 2017.
And I remember being there in the evening
and the bats coming out.
We were staying at a hotel right on the river.
And the bats came out.
Yeah, I remember that now.
I mean, this eclipse is not unlike the bat signal in some ways.
And the band is called Vampire Weekend.
Oh, my God.
Come, my army of bats.
[Laughter]
Come, my army of bats,
as we take over the capital of Texas
onwards to the Capitol building.
[Laughter]
Fall...
[Laughter]
This is the new villain in the Batman universe?
Yeah.
Ezra.
[Laughter]
My army of bats.
Batman fights a rock star.
[Laughter]
Some sort of device.
He has to be more like a Trent Reznor style rock star
that Batman has to fight.
Yeah.
He's doing a show in Austin during the eclipse.
Yeah, this is pretty Reznor.
Yeah.
My army of bats.
But then there's like a...
There's a Texan superhero
called the Longhorn.
Nice.
Who comes out.
He's wearing like a Lone Ranger mask.
And then, yeah, the Trent Reznor dude is like...
What's his friend's name? Atticus...
Finch?
Finch.
No, that's a character.
That's from Atticus Ross.
All right.
Finch is from Colmar in particular.
So that we don't get in trouble.
We'll make it...
It'll be Atticus Finch so that the real...
Atticus Ross can't say anything.
It's probably public domain now.
Atticus Finch.
Now bring out the Longhorn
who we have hogtied 45 minutes ago.
He is now powerless to stop us.
What do you mean he escaped?
You're not going to get away with this, partner.
He's like...
How did he get to front of house?
My trusty six shooter
is telling a different story.
Never forget the Alamo.
Yeah.
The stars at night
are big and bright
deep in the heart of Texas.
That'd be good.
The army of bats come and sweep Trent Reznor up
and fly him to San Antonio
where he plans on desecrating the Alamo.
Christopher Nolan, are you listening?
You're keeping in step
and you're lying in wait
Got your chin held high
and you feel just fine
'cause you do
what you're told
But inside your heart
it is black and it's hollow
and it's cold
Just how deep do you believe
when you bite the hand that feeds
We chew until it bleeds
Can you get up off your knees
Are you brave enough to see
Do you wanna change it?
I assume your guitar can only play a frequency that's heard by bats.
Yeah, there has to be some like insanely...
It's a seven string guitar. It's a modded, yeah.
Yeah, and when I play the highest fret on the seventh string...
Right when the eclipse...
Right at the time of the eclipse.
It has to be something insanely convoluted.
When the bats are all gonna come out...
Yeah, and the long horn from long distance
is a perfect shot to like pop the seventh string open.
It's like, "No!"
Anyway, if any of that sounds...
This is gonna be a hell of a concert.
If any of that sounds entertaining to you,
buy a ticket for the Moody Amphitheater April 8th.
Come on down.
Come on down.
I'll be there. Seinfeld will be there.
Will be.
Nick will be there.
Seinfeld will be running the dunk tank.
Jake will be judging a pie-eating contest.
I'm gonna get on stage with the t-shirt cannon.
I actually like that idea.
I think we should make that happen.
Yeah, it'll be a fun set.
I mean, this is early days, so it's gonna be...
And also it's a daytime show,
so I think it's just gonna be a great loose vibe.
You think you're gonna come out and play the album in order
and then go into some oldies?
Or are you gonna just... You don't know yet.
I feel like the Webster Hall show...
Didn't you play the album in order?
Webster Hall, we did the album in order,
but I don't know if we want to repeat ourselves.
Also, again, even though it's not a birthday show,
because it is my birthday,
I might just want to be loose and fun.
Cool.
Maybe you come up and sing a song, Jake?
Yeah, I'm down.
I think...
We'll see when we get there.
At this point, we have a very large catalog.
We can see kind of what feels right.
I mean, look, Vampire Weekend show,
you can get some new music,
you can get some greatest hits,
you can get through a few curveballs.
I can guarantee that much.
We've got a little while to work on the set list.
I'm excited for your covers on this set list.
I'm not gonna spoil it, but I have some intel.
I've got some good covers in the mix.
There's a few you don't know about either.
Anyway, it's all early days for that.
Anyway, check out the songs.
Hopefully you already did.
Only God Was Above Us, April 5th.
It's a very good album.
Can't wait for you to hear it.
All right, now we're gonna give a call
to another Longstreth, Dave Longstreth,
who's got a very exciting show coming up
in Los Angeles that we're gonna hear all about.
Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
These Kines are good.
I think I bought one of these at a coffee shop recently
and it was like $4.
And I was like, "Four for the..."
That explains that $2 billion evaluation or whatever.
I was like, "Four for the Kine bar?"
Like, mass-produced pre-wrapped thing like a Kine bar?
That's just so out of control.
Four.
I mean, you can go to Snickers for...
$1.50?
$1.99.
I mean, listen, I'm a high roller.
I buy Snickers.
I don't even look at the price.
You paid $70 for a Snickers bar?
What up, Dave?
Hey, Ezra. How's it going?
Not bad. Welcome back to Time Crisis.
Oh, thank you.
$70 for a Snickers bar? What?
Sorry, I'm chewing on a Kine bar.
And I was saying, recently I was at a coffee shop
and I bought a Kine bar and it was $4.
Outrageous.
Like, what's a Snickers run?
I was just saying that I'm such a high roller,
I don't even...
I buy Snickers, I don't even look at the price.
All right.
It's $1.39.
Yeah.
$1.39 for a traditional?
I was going to guess $1.50.
The target for a...
Yeah, for your standard Snickers.
I was going to say, yeah, like $1.70 for a Snickers.
But that's amazing because it wasn't that much cheaper.
I mean, how cheap could a Snickers have been in 1995?
$0.89?
Yeah, totally.
$0.69.
Can you number crunch this?
Unless, Dave, do you know off the top of your head
the average price of a Snickers stand-alone in 1995?
No, I don't know.
Yeah, I was going to say, yeah, $0.79.
That was my thing.
It was like in the mid-90s or something.
According to ChatGPT, $0.75 to $1 range.
Okay.
$0.95.
Okay, but think about it.
That was 30 years ago.
Yeah.
$0.29, if you want to be exact.
So the price of a Snickers is only up $0.39, $0.40, $0.50.
I just think like...
Dude, it's percentage, though.
It's gone from...
It's more than doubled.
It's less than doubled.
Are you factoring in Shrink Flesh, though?
Because it's a smaller bar.
Well...
It's probably like, what, a few grams lighter.
Wait, what?
You're saying current-day Snickers is lighter?
Smaller than it would have been in '95.
And for all we know, the price of peanuts went down.
All I'm saying is that's less than double.
How much is a dollar worth now versus 1995?
Okay, listen.
If the Snickers, let's say, Seinfeld had said around 75 cents.
75 cents to a dollar.
So let's just call it 85 cents.
Sure.
So double that would be $1.70.
So basically doubled.
But you just said it's $1.39 at Target.
Okay.
So it's well under doubled, and I just want to know.
A dollar in '95 is $1.71 in 2022.
Okay.
Wait, Seinfeld, did I...
I didn't have a calculator.
I spaced out for a second.
Yeah, yeah.
So the value of a dollar in '95 is equivalent to $1.71 in 2022.
Which is the latest year that data is available to chat GPT.
Mm-hmm.
So maybe the price of the Snickers has risen higher than the relative rate of inflation.
Or lower.
I'm confused.
Whatever, who cares?
Yeah, I think that's a good price.
I think that's a great price.
It's an honest price.
Right.
$4 for a kind, though.
The joke was Ezra as Jake saying, "What?
$70 for the Snickers?
That seems like a lot."
Yeah, no, I'm just imagining Jake because he never looks at how much a Snickers costs.
And actually, a lot of people have to be careful about this.
You don't even think about it.
And you just swipe it.
For all you know, you got to go check your CVS receipts and stuff.
Because at the end of the month, your wife, your accountant might say,
"You got hosed, man.
You paid $70 for a Snicker.
You go into a mom and pop shop.
You don't really think about it."
Yeah.
You always have to look.
Paying with the phone, for some reason, corresponds for me for just not thinking about
what the price is.
Or engaging with the fact that I'm buying something at all.
Exactly.
I'm sure you'd probably get called out within three weeks by one of those
investigative journalist local news shows.
But imagine you're just a local gas station owner and you're just like,
"F*** it.
Twizzlers.
$100."
And you're just like, "For every 10 sales I lose, I'll get one mark who just pays it.
Rich person just pays it and leaves."
Never thinks about it.
And then you think that you could maybe get a couple months in and your Twizzler profits
are up significantly.
And then one day, here comes channel four.
"Can I talk to you, sir?"
Oh my God.
Yeah.
America was built on $100 Twizzlers, ma'am.
♪ Oh baby, baby, just a second for me ♪
♪ Oh baby, baby, I wanna look into your eyes and you ♪
♪ Oh baby, baby, smile and your body has to do ♪
♪ Oh baby, baby, I wanna see you looking down the street ♪
♪ Oh baby, baby, looking for the love to keep ♪
♪ Oh baby, baby, baby, I'm a pessimist before ♪
♪ Oh baby, baby, I wanna dance and get the money for you ♪
♪ Yeah, talk about yeah ♪
♪ Yeah, talk about yeah ♪
I wonder if the Twizzler, you know, the manufacturer of Twizzler would have anything to say about that.
Yeah, I guess there are all sorts of rules.
I mean, like with tickets, the secondary ticket market, they try to rein it in so you don't get these like scumbags using like sophisticated computer programs, buying
up all the tickets with no intent, you know, and then reselling them for sky's the limit.
But at the same, by the same token, free market, American capitalism, like you got to let people...
You got to let people, yeah, price it where their local market wants to pay for it.
I know.
Maybe that's $100 in where Jake lives, I don't know.
Yeah, like Jake, how would you feel if Gavin Newsom came out and said, "The fine art market is out of control. A big painting can be sold for no more than $5,000 bucks and
like a little painting maybe, you know, $1,500."
We're capping it.
You know, you can totally see somebody be like, "By selling these works of art for so much, it allows like the big fish to get even bigger. It allows the, you know, these
well-known artists like the David Hockneys of the world to be selling their art for sometimes thousands of times what your local coffee shop artist is selling." Is
that fair?
That's not fair.
That's not fair. The state of California has to do something about it.
That's not fair at all.
And that's what I'm campaigning on.
Regulating the art market, that's your platform?
Yeah.
What about like music venues and tickets? So what we charge, so what Richard Pictures charges at the door at the Old Town Pub, that should be ballpark what Vampire
Weekend's charging at the Hollywood Bowl.
Yes, and it's also what The Weekend should be charging at SoFi Stadium. Everybody comes home with $3,000 bucks.
This is the Ian McKay model. $5 for a show.
This is also everybody comes home with $3,000 bucks. So that means that a ticket to see The Weekend at SoFi costs a nickel and, you know, a ticket to see Richard Pictures
at Old Town Pub ends up costing $100.
That's like the inverse of a...
Now I'm confused. Dave, what are ticket prices at Disney Hall for your March 2nd show?
I don't know. That's probably the one question that you could ask me that I don't know.
Well, I'm sure it depends. Well, first of all, Dave is playing Disney Hall, designed by Frank Gehry, downtown Los Angeles.
And I imagine the tickets vary widely because you can be like front row, there's different balconies. You can sit behind the orchestra too, right?
Yes.
That's pretty cool.
I saw this Messian piece called From the Canyons to the Stars, which I mentioned only because there's a really big percussion section. There's like seven
percussionists in this piece or something like that.
And anyway, it was like almost sold out, the show. And I was like, "Oh my God, From the Canyons to the Stars is happening. I need to go."
The only tickets that were still available were those directly behind the orchestra. And it was seriously like a $10 ticket or something like that.
Whoa.
And it was the best seat in the house. It was amazing.
Could you hear the piccolos?
I could hear the piccolo, yeah.
Okay. So it's not like you were just hearing, "Bom, bom, bom, bom."
Oh, not at all. Yeah, no. Yeah, I mean, I guess... I don't know. I think the acoustics of the space are such that, I don't know, it was like a pretty balanced...
There's probably speakers in there. So maybe they're giving you a little taste of a mixed performance.
Very lightly amplified. I think so.
Oh, that's cool.
But yeah, no. So that's like, I don't know if behind the stage is open for this show, but...
I feel like it usually is, but all right. That's good for the listeners to know. And what... This is not just a typical Dirty Projectors concert.
You want to explain why this show is happening at the iconic Disney Hall and what it's all about?
Oh, right. It's basically like an album that I've been working on for three-ish years now that started as a piece of chamber music and has sort of gone through a whole
bunch of different iterations and is now just like the album, you know?
It's called Song of the Earth and we're kind of like premiering it with the literal LA Phil. So that's why it's at Disney.
Amazing. Just to be clear, so the LA Philharmonic musicians will be playing off of like sheet music that you've written?
Yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Who's conducting?
Gustavo. No, not Gustavo.
Not Gustavo? Not Dudamel?
Not the dude. I don't know if people call him that, but...
Bradley Cooper?
Oh, Bradley Cooper could.
Bradley Cooper could. It's Lydia Tarr, actually.
Lydia Tarr, Bradley Cooper, Dudamel. Those are the three most famous conductors living.
It's a woman named Sarah Hicks is conducting. And yeah, she... I've never... I haven't met her yet, but she's worked with a lot of friends and she's apparently really
awesome.
And then you'll be singing?
Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'll be singing and playing the nylon string guitar.
That's tight.
And yeah, the band is in the mix as well. Mike's playing the drums, Maya and Felicia and Olga are singing. Olga's like playing harpsichord and farfisa.
And then we've got a couple of percussionists as well on the band side.
So is it songs that roughly fall in like what we expect from like a rock pop album? Like three to five minutes?
It's like, man, so this is the first time I'm being asked any questions about this music.
This is a great opportunity to get your talking points in order.
I know. I don't have my story straight yet, but like my first reaction is really like, I don't know.
Not good enough.
I heard some of the music a while ago and I was like, this reminds me of the Getty Address.
This is like an updated version of that in a way.
It's a similar palette of like working with orchestral elements in song form.
And instead of the album being about Don Henley, it's about Glenn Frey. Rest in peace.
It's about Glenn this time.
In the end, I will. Yeah, there's going to be several, you know, sort of iterations of Song of the Earth.
One about each member of the Eagle.
Timothy B. Schmidt version.
Right.
Looking forward to that.
Yeah, that's Song of the Earth 4 probably.
The girls just seem to find out early
How to open doors with just a smile
A rich old man, she won't have to worry
She'll dress up all in lace and go in style
Late at night, her big old house gets lonely
I guess every form of refuge has its price
And it breaks her heart to think her love is only
Given to a man with hands as cold as ice
So she tells him she must go out for the evening
To comfort an old friend who's feeling down
But he knows where she's going and she's leaving
She is headed for the cheating side of town
You can't hide your lying eyes
And your smile is a thin disguise
I thought by now you'd realize
There ain't no way to hide your lying eyes
So it's sort of like, I don't know, it flows.
As a piece of music, it's continuous.
There are melodies and aspects of the lyrics
That recur throughout the thing, front to back.
There are musical elements that weave through,
Across the thing.
But then it also manages to break down
Into these three minute, four minute chunks as well.
Sick!
Yeah, it's kind of like a killer's album.
Or it's like S&M, Symphony and Metallica.
Do you remember that live album?
I think I missed that one.
It was cool.
It was basically Metallica played their greatest hits with a symphony.
Cello's going bum bum bum bum bum bum.
Wait, actually maybe we gotta throw this on for a second.
First of all, there's zero percent chance this has anything to do with
What Dave does, but just in the spirit of TC, we gotta throw it on.
I remember at the time thinking it was kind of cool.
I can see that.
You know, I guess because I really have been listening to
Way more, I don't know, scored music, old music.
My recommendations, my algorithm is getting more classical leaning.
If you have Apple Music, there's a whole classical app you can download.
It's just called Classical.
I heard that.
It's cool.
I'm intrigued by that.
Yeah, you should check it out.
Where I'm going with this though is that, so the other day I was listening to this
Specific, what's it called?
Play, like a constantly updated playlist.
What is that called?
Whatever, it's just like the new classical releases.
And like number three that week was some beautiful, coral, acapella arrangement
Of some Metallica song.
Okay, well Metallica has never been a...
There's always been a connection between metal and classical, right?
For sure.
The first metal artist was Antonio Vivaldi, roughly speaking.
Right.
Just shredding arpeggios.
Anybody who's listened to Four Seasons knows that it's got everything that a metalhead would want.
It goes hard.
And, you know, among a million other classical baroque composers.
And, you know, and Metallica famously loved Ennio Morricone, the film composer
Who, of course, is very conversant in classical arrangement.
This is what Enter Sandman sounds like on that album.
This is live with the San Francisco Symphony Orchestra.
Wow, busy.
Getting kind of spy movie.
Yeah.
And this is before every movie trailer had like a symphonic version of a pop song.
Right.
This is some like Live or Let Die type vibe.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, Metallica writing a Bond song would be amazing.
Oh, yeah.
I feel like the perfect moment for that was 2000.
But whatever, I still support it.
I mean, I'll say that I think I don't know if he writes the lyrics by himself,
but I think James Hetfield has such like a magnificent way with words.
So many just like legendary Metallica song titles.
Yeah.
On this album, there's a song called The God That Failed,
which is taken from a book about Soviet communism.
Oh, wow.
I just love the idea of like Hetfield just being in a bookstore
and just being like the God that failed.
It's like that's going on the Black Album.
I'm going to jot that down.
That is epic.
What year is that?
This is, this was recorded in 1999.
The conductor is Michael Kamen.
Wow.
So what we're playing at Disney Hall,
I don't think it's going to sound that much like that.
Okay, whatever you're playing, how about a,
I would have just an encore of Ender Sandman ready to go.
Just in case.
That's probably a good idea.
People are going to be hype.
You're going to be like, all right, guys, that's the end of the piece.
They're going to be like, one more song.
I guess that's one thing about you've spent years composing this.
You don't want to be caught with your pants down
when you got the crowd chanting one more song
and be like, guys, there's 50 people on stage
with painstaking orchestral arrangements.
We can't just bust out, you know, Love Light, Louis Louis.
Yeah.
So just have something ready.
That's a good call.
Wait, I'm still thinking about this Metallica and classical thing.
Jay, wait, that movie, Your Friends and Neighbors,
do you guys remember that movie?
Yeah, the Neil LaBute movie.
The whole soundtrack is like cello quartet versions of Metallica songs.
Oh, really?
I don't remember that.
Metallica rules.
Great band.
There's one other thing that I want to say about Metallica.
I was listening to Juan the other day.
Incredible song.
Yeah.
What's insane is how out of tune the guitar solo is in the first minute.
But actually, that's not what I was going to say.
What I was going to say is imagine whatever
they're like writing the song together there in the rehearsal.
I don't know how they wrote songs or whatever,
but just thinking about the moment that that rhythm arrived.
Can you imagine how psyched you would be?
Yeah.
Just playing that for the first time.
Oh, is this a thing?
Or sorry, I'm sorry.
Is this a thing that we can do?
Can we do this in this song?
And also just thinking about like that rhythm.
[imitates rhythm]
Those like whatever those like triplet 16th or whatever they are.
Where does that like that rhythm?
Where does that come from?
I mean, is it a little bit like some Spanish like Berlioz type thing?
What's like the famous Spanish?
[imitates rhythm]
Like the...
[imitates rhythm]
I guess there's like the La Boheme.
Yeah, even that you could probably say traces roots to classical.
But yeah, it's so hard.
What does it sound like at this concert?
When does that happens like pretty deep in the song, right?
Yeah, maybe like five minutes in.
Do you guys think you can do that on a double kick drum pedal?
No way.
Oh my God.
All this is very James Bond.
My friend just posted a clip from them playing the some Mahler symphony like last week.
And it sounded really, really sick, which I say in advance of saying
that these arrangements that they're playing here are I kind of agree with Jake.
It's like the songs are enough.
Like I can't believe...
It's a hat on a hat, man.
Yeah, it's a hat on a hat.
I can't believe the arrangement was like, oh, let's add more parts.
Let's not like adapt the...
Well, here's a counterpoint.
Even if this needed some finessing,
this is only two nights they did at the Berkeley Community Theater.
I think the reason that you hear the SFSO just demolishing a Mahler symphony in 2024
is because the seed was planted 25 years ago.
That maybe of all the symphony orchestras in America,
they could kick a little more ass.
They could come a little bit more correct.
You know, like it's not New York.
It's not L.A., smaller city.
What does San Francisco have to be proud of?
The bass band in America came from there.
And I think the reason that you...
The two biggest bands.
Who's the other one?
Grateful Dead.
And Grateful Dead.
So I think the reason that even in 2024,
they're coming correct on Mahler is because...
They warmed up.
A seed was planted in 1999 by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich, Jason Newsted.
This was the end of his tenure.
And Kirk Hammett.
That's all I'm saying.
I like that.
And maybe that's the same thing that's going to happen with L.A. Phil.
Probably. Probably.
Also, just to be completely clear about this.
Now, obviously, you've always had a foot in both worlds.
Like, you know, I still remember the first time I ever heard your music.
I was a college student.
And I was like, "Damn, this guy's on some different sh*t."
And it's because you know how to compose for chamber music or orchestra.
But you're also very much a rocker bringing these things together.
You've done work that's kind of like standalone.
You've obviously released many classic beloved traditional albums.
But you've also done standalone work.
So this one, this is the world premiere, meaning there's no recordings of this floating around.
You're launching this music with this performance.
Like in a true, like, classical world kind of way.
Yeah, that's true.
Okay, right.
That's exciting.
Yeah, that's awesome.
It has to do also with the sort of like the specifics of the way this music came together.
Which is like, Jake, you mentioned the Getty Address, which is like a Journey Projectors album from a really long time.
2005.
19 years ago.
So 20 years ago, right now, I was probably in the same boat that I'm in right now.
Which is like 11th hour trying to finish the record.
Trying to finish the record.
But yeah, I mean, I always like I have this an equal sort of attraction and maybe revulsion might be too strong of a word.
To kind of like that world.
Like when I was in college, they had a program where you could apply for grant money for independent projects.
But you had to set up like a different tax ID for the entity that would receive the grant money.
And I named my entity, I named it Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra.
I remember that.
That's sick.
And yeah, I mean, I think I was just I sort of had a chip on my shoulder that it was this, you know, demonstrably like dead art form.
All that classical sh*t sucks. Heavy metal rules.
Exactly. Exactly.
Classical drools, metal rules.
Wow. That felt like it could be like in the holdovers, Jake.
Totally.
Obviously, from a young age, you've had a talent arranging for orchestral instruments.
And obviously you've taken inspiration from the history of classical music, right?
Yeah. And so the way this piece, the Song of the Earth started life is a friend of mine who is the conductor of a chamber group in Europe.
This group called Stargaze had been trying to get me to write a piece for them for like years.
And then at some point in the pandemic, we were just like, all right, it's on.
I'm going to this is going to be this pandemic era thing.
And the premiere for that work was set for like when Alma, my daughter, was going to be like six months old or something.
And so, of course, the time around the third trimester and having a newborn is so crazy.
And I completely procrastinated writing this piece for them.
And when it finally became inescapable that I would have to write this 40 minute piece or whatever for my friend's chamber group,
it was like a kind of like just like a deep, like free write.
I didn't have the luxury of being able to second guess or create some sort of intellectual framework around the music.
I literally just needed to be like putting music on the page or whatever.
And so in doing that, I ended up making something that was like just really different than the last couple like Dirty Projectors records.
It was so different that I was just sort of like, oh, yeah, this is this is orchestral society for the preservation of the orchestra.
Like this is I don't know what this is.
And it took me actually the premiere of that version of the piece to be like, whoa, actually, this is like my favorite thing ever.
And so I've been sort of making it into something coherent since then.
And that's what Song of the Earth is.
That's what Song of the Earth is.
Yeah. A chamber piece that has evolved over time.
I also I got to say, I love I love the hero's journey of young holdovers kind of Dave creating a new tax ID,
creating a new tax ID at an esteemed university in Connecticut.
That does seem like a real plot point in an Alexander Payne movie.
Like sweating the tax ID.
You got to create a new tax ID, son.
An EIN? What is an employee identification number?
But I love the idea, too, that kind of young, young punk rock dude and you come up with a name.
It's not like you called this your whatever this what is it?
An LLC, whatever, whatever entity you create.
It's not like you called it overtly.
You were just a little bit snarky.
You didn't call it like like orchestral music sucks.
You whatever you called this kind of cheeky, cheeky thing.
And then all these years later, decades later.
Here I am. Here you are.
And maybe you actually realize, like, you know what?
It's cool that the orchestra is preserved.
Like as much as there's been so many times in history where kind of like things that people think are fuddy-duddy,
like, you know, a hall that puts on orchestral work, you know, like because also it's tough out there for like a French horn player.
You know?
I.
You know, it's funny you should you should talk about the French horn because
I feel like we're sort of burying at least since I've been on the call, we're sort of burying the lead here,
but it's like happy album announced day.
I noticed in some of the like the visual the visuals this morning,
like kind of an emphasis on a little bit of like storytelling about
there was like a French horn in there.
There was like a conductor.
That's probably why French horn's been on my mind, because some of the album we recorded at East West Studio
where we did a big old orchestra day.
Yeah, I actually should have invited you.
I didn't realize Ariel has a bit more experience because he's scored a bunch of films and TV shows.
You know, I invited like my family.
It's kind of like, you know, sweet to have Rashid and our son there checking everything out.
But Ariel, and it's actually really fun.
Ariel made it like a little bit like a party.
So like in the control room, I get there and Ariel's like his like cousin, who's like a professor.
He's like, I'm just in LA for a couple of days.
And I was there and I was like, oh, what's up, man?
And then like, you know, random people like the old other musicians stopping by just to check it out.
A guy we both take tennis lessons with sometimes.
Shout out to Simon. That was awesome that he was there.
You know, so there's just like a lot of people coming through.
And that made it more of a special occasion.
And there's one song and there's a which is one of my favorite songs on the album,
which has some French horn harmonies.
And it really is just such a beautiful instrument.
It's insane. That's a top three orchestral instrument, right?
Orchestral instruments ranked.
I don't know. Yeah. I mean, you've got to be right.
It's just like such a cool one.
It doesn't get the glory of, you know, trumpet, of course, exists in so many genres that, you know, whatever.
But French horn, it's like it's such an orchestral instrument and just so like sweet and warm.
It bridges the winds and the brassier brass.
I was at a scoring session for the new Avatar movies a couple of months ago.
And like because the budget is like unlimited for that movie,
there were like eight French horn players just like blasting,
like the eight French horn players in Los Angeles ripping these parts.
It was I had never heard anything like it before.
It was amazing.
I love that. Orchestral Society for the Preservation of the Orchestra.
Yeah.
Is a legitimate cause now.
We're back.
We love this stuff.
We got to it is important that we got to be like taking children to go see classical music's greatest hits.
You know, you got to be like a kid and go see like Beethoven's Fifth or whatever.
Right. Well, I think I had this sort of like narrative when I was like in school
where I was just, you know, I was imposing some sort of like cultural narrative
that that assumed that music's obsolescence.
But lately I've been feeling like what if it's not obsolete?
What if it's what if it just is ageless in this in this way and it ebbs and flows
and like some of the most futuristic music that will be made in the next whatever 10 years
will be made for French horns.
I think that's totally possible.
Yeah, this is maybe a random reverence.
You know, there's like that famous quote.
I do not know which weapons World War Three will be fought with.
However, World War Four will be fought with sticks and stones.
That means something totally there.
I do not know what futuristic sounds the next year will hold.
But I know after that the futuristic sounds will be cellos and French horns.
Also, you know, I've had a little bit not like you.
I've never composed anything like this and it's not my aptitude.
But that's something I have aptitude for.
But, you know, whenever that was about a couple years ago
when we were living in Japan for a while,
everybody's heard of the famous Japanese vinyl bars and like jazz cafes.
And you're often an older person who plays their jazz records and have a coffee.
But there's one a friend put me on to, which is the classical version.
And this place has existed for almost 100 years.
Wow.
It's in Shibuya. It's called Lion.
And you step in, it's got a little bit of a Clockwork Orange vibe,
like Bust of Beethoven.
And you're sitting forward facing like a church.
And these big old wooden speakers look like they're from another planet.
And then they play a mixture of classical music.
I'd go, oh, there's some weeks I walk there every day.
That became my ritual, like just for lunch.
If I didn't have anything to do and, you know,
my kid was in school and Rashida was working,
I'd take a long walk and go post up, have a coffee, read and listen to the music.
And one piece that they played at some point where I was like,
I was like, I got a painfully trying to find out what it was.
Because like, you know, the dude put on the vinyl
and I couldn't quite see the cover.
But anyway, it was it was who you brought up before? Messian.
Is that how you say it? The famous French composer?
You could be like be French in the accent or not. Messian.
That's how I say it. Olivier Messian.
And the one thing I loved about this piece so much,
because I was like, what is this?
What piece was it? What piece was it?
It was a opera he wrote in the 80s about the life of St. Francis of Assisi.
Oh, I love that one.
And I was like, this is so out there.
Yeah, but it's using traditional orchestral instruments, but it's so modernist.
And then I didn't know that much about him.
I'm sure you probably know a lot more.
But I was like, this dude was in a sense so traditional, a very devout Catholic.
Yeah. So when it came time for him to, you know, even though he was a modernist
and when it came time for him to, you know, write an opera in the 80s,
he didn't pick a kind of like postmodern, playful thing.
Like, like, I'm going to write this about the first
the development of plastic containers, you know, or whatever.
I mean, that would be cool, too.
But there's something about hearing that music.
Like with the crazy marimbas going wild.
And then just being like, this is a deeply religious man
who is moved by the story of St. Francis of Assisi.
And something about that combo in the traditionalism of the
the venues in which it was played and even me hearing it
back to back with like Tchaikovsky or whatever in this.
It really made me think about like, this is as trad as it gets
and as futuristic as it gets.
And I love that. It made a big impression on me.
Wow. That sounds like. Yeah. Yeah. I love that.
I love I'm forgetting the name of that opera right now,
but I love that one.
And Messiaen is just like such a singular figure.
Last time I was in Paris,
we met the dude who worked on Messiaen's Ondes Martinaus.
Which is like a theremin type electronic instrument.
Yeah. And he was he was like rewiring a speaker
that had a sort of like old sort of yellowed label
just affixed to the bottom of it.
It turned out to be Messiaen's
the address of like where Messiaen had lived in Paris.
Wow. It was like some old like.
Yeah, it was really it was very cool. It was very cool.
But yeah, about the lion,
the classical listening listening bar.
That place is so weird because it's like,
yeah, it's like all wood paneled. Right.
But then it's like really harsh fluorescent lights.
Right.
When I would go there during the day,
it was very low lighting.
I could maybe at certain times of day,
they switch it on and it gets a little.
It was it was moody, but I could that would make
I could totally see that.
It kind of reminded me of Tuff Gong.
Weirdly.
Kingston.
Yeah, because of the wood, the wooden speakers and the lion.
There's like a prominent sculpture of a lion. Right.
Yeah. Well, outside there's some sort of like stone,
faux Gothic thing.
And actually, I think I think somebody told me
that like maybe that was maybe going to close
or whatever support if you any and anybody,
if you ever happen to be traveling Japan
or obviously if you live in Japan to support lion,
it's such an important kind of institution
because a classical vinyl bar is a great way
to take in that kind of music.
If you're not hooked into like an orchestral situation.
Well, is there any like is there a Dirty Projectors song
that we could go into that maybe like something?
What's the Dirty Projectors song you think
has the most like orchestral flavor?
I don't know. I don't know.
I mean, it would make a certain amount of sense
for you to do that.
But I'm in this zone finishing
the Song of the Earth album right now
where I'm like, oh, you can't set the stage
for the future with some music from the past.
You could do. Yeah, you could do.
I will try. I like Jake's idea.
I will truck from the Getty Address,
which will be celebrating its 20th anniversary next year.
This is also fun because, you know,
I toured with you a little bit
on the Getty Address album.
That's what brought the three of us together.
That's totally true.
And you know what?
Getty Address tour.
I remember staying at the Department of Safety,
which is in the Anacortes, Washington.
Yeah, in Phil Elbrum's hometown
and playing what some game and being like,
oh man, like Jake and Ezra are really like
getting to know each other.
Some like card game or something.
But wait, this was a chance for me to say also
Phil Elbrum, Mount Erie, the microphones
is opening the Disney Hall show as well.
Amazing.
Which I'm just so excited about
because he's just like, I just I love his music so much.
He like continues to just blow minds
with everything he's doing.
He's evolving.
He has a feature on Song of the Earth as well.
So great.
We're going to be doing that live, too.
Love it.
March 2nd, folks.
Disney Hall, Mount Erie
and the premiere of Song of the Earth.
And yours truly, Projectors Rival Truck.
All right. Talk soon, Dave.
All right. See you guys.
Have a good one.
See you.
Bye.
[MUSIC - SONG OF THE EARTH, "I'M A TRUCK"]
[MUSIC - SONG OF THE EARTH, "I'M A TRUCK"]
[MUSIC - SONG OF THE EARTH, "I'M A TRUCK"]
[MUSIC - SONG OF THE EARTH, "I'M A TRUCK"]
[MUSIC - SONG OF THE EARTH, "I'M A TRUCK"]
[MUSIC - SONG OF THE EARTH, "I'M A TRUCK"]
All right. Let's get into the top five.
It's time for the top five on iTunes.
So the album cover, which we released a little over a week
ago, which is from this amazing treasure trove of pictures we
were introduced to, taken by Steven Segal, amazing
photographer.
And his pictures and his video work
have been a huge part of this album.
You check out the Capricorn and Gen X Cops videos.
There's a lot of his work in there.
And the album cover, which is an image that really struck me
the first time I saw it, is taken in a subway graveyard
in New Jersey in 1988.
And I just loved everything about it,
because there's all these pictures that
are kind of part of this album artwork that
are all very surreal, kind of look Photoshopped,
because there's these people at these, like, impossible angles.
But one thing I loved about them is that there's no editing,
no Photoshop.
It's just good old-fashioned horsing around.
So I love that.
And so this album cover, because these--
in the subway graveyard, I guess a lot of the cars
were overturned on their side.
So he had one guy, a friend of his named Randy,
sitting on the bench, or pretending to sit on the bench.
He was probably lying down reading a newspaper.
And then another dude is just kind of standing upright.
So the effect is that it looks like that dude is fully sideways.
And the newspaper that Randy's holding,
the New York Daily News, the headline that day was
"Only God Was Above Us."
And at first--
I'll talk more about this in detail in the future.
But at first, when I saw the image, I was like, all right,
where are we going to put the Vampire Weekend?
What should the album be called?
I came up with some kind of bad names.
And the more I thought about it, I was like, I love this image as is.
I love everything about it.
I love how it looks.
I felt like it kind of had this, like, Beastie Boys meets Pink
Floyd kind of look.
And I kind of love the idea of, like, if Pink Floyd was making
their record in New York in 1988, and it kind of looked--
and they got hypnosis to do the cover.
I was like, that would be so sick.
Boys from Pink Floyd are, you know, staying in a luxury
apartment building on the Upper West Side,
commuting down to Electric Lady.
Anyway, I loved how it looked.
And I also loved the fact that it was taken in New Jersey.
And I decided, let's just call it what it says on the newspaper,
so we don't have to add any text.
With time, the title came to mean a lot more to me.
That's so interesting how it's like serendipity.
It was like, you just kind of let it be the title.
Yeah.
And increasingly, I felt like it was meant to be.
Right.
But yeah, at the time, I was like, all right, I could live with that.
And then, of course, as you're working on the record, I'm like,
this was the only album title that could ever make sense.
You know, it became like destiny.
But anyway, that's how we know for sure that it was from 1988,
is that that newspaper edition was from 1988.
What were they referencing? Did you look it up?
That was interesting. Eventually, I got curious.
And I was like, I wonder what... Man, I also think about...
I mean, I'm sure Steven Seagal probably had put some thought into like,
maybe, I don't know if that was taken the same day or whatever,
or he just saw it and was like, oh, that'd be cool for this shot.
Luckily, it didn't say some like... It wasn't just some like some brutal pun.
Right.
It was like, "Pandemonium at the Bronx Zoo."
That'd be a pretty good album title, too.
So, yeah, eventually I was like, I realized I was like, what...
You know, sometimes you're taking an image, you don't think about it too much.
And eventually I started to think like,
it's actually an extremely unusual headline.
Yeah. What does that mean?
I have no idea what they're referencing.
I looked it up and it was a story about a Aloha Airlines flight,
which doesn't exist anymore.
You can probably... They were in a service to Hawaii.
And there was a flight flying to Hawaii, I think from L.A.
And in the middle of the flight, somehow, more or less, the whole roof ripped off.
I remember.
And it's funny.
This image, at least.
Yeah. And it's funny, like people, you know, since I've been talking about it,
people are like, oh, you know, there's a documentary about that.
Like, I actually never heard of it.
And so the New York Daily News, in a somewhat unusual move,
asked one of the survivors of the flight,
like a dude who happened to be from Queens,
I guess, to write about his experience,
or maybe he talked to the journalist or something.
Anyway, they're interviewing a guy and he said in the whole,
in like the paragraph, he's like, man, this was crazy.
Like everything was going, the flight attendants carts were like moving all around.
He specifically says there's money everywhere.
Because like in the 80s, I guess you're paying cash for like your drinks or whatever.
It's like there's money flying everywhere.
And he's like, I couldn't believe it, man.
I looked up, it was, I looked up, the whole roof was gone.
Only God was above us.
Amazing.
So that's the actual context for it.
That particular story didn't influence the album as much as the decontextualized phrase.
But anyway, that all happened in 1988.
And the number five song in 1988, this week, was...
Eric Carman with "Hungry Eyes".
Well, in another turn of serendipity, I listened to Eric Carman this morning.
Get out of here.
Me, Hannah and Lizzie listened to Eric Carman while we were eating breakfast.
What song? This?
Not this. Eric Carman, "Essentials".
He had like some big 70s hits, right?
Well, he had "All by Myself" and of course, "The Raspberries".
Yeah, he was the lead singer of "The Raspberries".
Yes, go all the way.
I've been meaning to tell you
I've got this feeling that won't subside
For some reason, Hannah had been blasting a Celine Dion version of "All by Myself".
And so I was like, you know what, I want to hear that original.
That's what's going on in our house at 7.45 in the morning.
Eric Carman.
Now I've got you in my sights
With these hungry eyes
I didn't know that was a cover.
Really?
Yeah, I thought that was a Celine original.
Written by Eric Carman.
In Montreal, it's a Celine original.
There you go.
How old was Eric Carman in 1988?
It's a great question.
Seinfeld's on it.
I'm going to guess 38.
What's the year? 1988?
1988.
He was 39.
39. That's how old I am.
This is your hungry eyes?
These are my hungry eyes.
Can I also just point out that I typed in "Eric Carman" into Google
and it said, "Did you mean Eric Cartman?"
Nope.
Who's that?
You don't know who Eric Cartman is?
South Park?
Yes.
Cartman.
No, kiddie.
Shut up, calf.
Eric Cartman is more famous than Eric Carman.
Unfortunately.
All right, we need somebody to do a perfect imitation of Eric Cartman
singing this song.
Jake?
I don't even know what that sounds like.
You're like, "Angry eyes, hungry eyes.
F*** you, calf.
Hungry eyes, angry eyes.
All by myself.
No kiddie, this is my bad.
Angry eyes."
This is a great song.
Yeah.
This is interesting.
Eric Cartman said about the recording of the song,
"At the point when this happened, I'd moved back from L.A. to Ohio
because they're from Cleveland.
The Raspberries were from Cleveland.
And decided to concentrate on being a songwriter.
I'd become disillusioned with the idea of being an artist.
I only learned to sing because I had to.
I never really liked my voice.
I still don't really like it.
So I decided to just be a songwriter.
I'd be in Ohio and have a normal life.
And then anyway, someone called and was like, 'Do this song!'"
Oh, so he didn't write this song.
No, Denna Cole and Frankie Previte wrote it.
He produced it though.
He had this one song and he thought I was the guy to sing it.
He sent me the tape.
It sounded like air supply with the Led Zeppelin's drummer.
That's pretty funny.
Interesting.
It was strange, but through it, you could hear there was actually a good song there.
Yeah.
Love to hear that original demo.
"So I moved back to South Park.
I never really liked my voice.
I just wanted to be a songwriter.
And they said, 'Carpent!'"
Great song.
And so is "All By Myself."
I mean, what a career.
Yeah.
"Raspberries" to "All By Myself" to "Hungry Eyes."
"Please, baby, go all the way."
Ooh, another great song.
George Michael, "Father Figure."
Yeah, this is an epic one.
I mean, have we ever gone a little bit deep on George Michael?
I feel like we have.
Yeah, I'm a big fan.
That wham, doc.
Didn't see it.
Oh, it's great.
I've heard it.
It's really interesting.
It doesn't cover the solo material, but I may have said this before,
but what's so crazy about George Michael is...
What year was George Michael born, Seinfeld?
I want to get this totally accurate.
I'm going to guess the same year as Eric Carman.
No.
No, no, no.
No, he's much younger.
Christmas Day?
No, no, no, no, no, no.
He died on Christmas Day, my bad.
He was June 25th.
All right, so he was making this album at like 23, 24.
Because he was like...
Wham started...
Or he and the other dude, they had like a ska band when they were like 15.
Like all the greats.
And then, you know, Wham's popping off.
He's like 18, 19, 20, just going nuts.
You know, so by the time he's making this album,
he's probably like 22, 23.
And this album is just such a level up.
You know, Wham has really some amazing songs,
but this is like...
This was him being like,
"Let me introduce yourself to the mature me."
So by the time this album comes out,
he's 24,
and he already has this kind of like deep wisdom.
And like these songs,
like more psychological,
like "I could be your father figure."
And then,
three years later, when he's 27,
that's when he's doing like...
When he's like blowing up the jacket.
His iconic jacket in the "Freedom" video.
There's so many artists who,
when they're 27, are barely getting started,
or essentially still in like some sort of adolescent mindset.
It does kind of feel like...
Some people don't fully feel like an adult
until they're like 40.
And just imagine that he was like...
I don't know.
I just think like a modern pop star would be dropping
around the corner.
A modern pop star would be dropping a record
with this type of like...
This level of like maturity and wisdom
at age 34, not 24.
Emerging adulthood.
Yeah.
Number three song this week in 1988,
"Tiffany" with "Could've Been."
I don't know if I know this one.
Wait, what was "Tiffany's" like most famous hit?
Oh, I think we're alone now.
Tommy James.
Oh yeah, right.
Oh, I didn't know that was a cover.
Oh, damn.
By another Ohio great.
Tommy James.
Oh, he's from Ohio?
Yeah.
I feel like a real space cadet right now.
Nice callback.
Yeah.
1988 was really like
the beginning of me being
interested in pop music.
Right. You're nine years old?
No, 11.
Oh, wow, 11. Yeah, right.
I don't think in '86 I was that into it.
I mean, '87, '88 I started...
I remember I knew who Tiffany was.
Hmm.
Tiffany and Debbie Gibson were like
the big teen stars of '87, '88.
So this song
was not written by Tiffany.
It's written by Louise Bleich
who said she wrote it about a smooth-talking oral surgeon.
[laughs]
He led me to believe he was going to finance
my career and all this stuff.
I bought the whole thing, which is actually what inspired
the lyric of "Could've Been" because what I fell in love with
wasn't him but all the things that he promised,
all the big lies and the bullsh*t.
He probably was just trying to score, I don't know.
So I didn't really fall in love with him.
I fell in love with what could've been.
And then 16-year-old Tiffany
interpreted it.
[laughs]
Louise Sellinger just...
Alright, just picture a really smooth-talking oral surgeon.
She's like, "Got it."
Alright.
Imagine you're 42, you've been let down a lot
and you don't have dental insurance.
[laughs]
Tiffany's a very strong singer.
Is she?
1988, "Got Nowhere to Hide."
[laughs]
No pitch correction.
That's a hell of a phrase.
1988, you got nowhere to hide.
That's a really good, well-thought tune.
And that's a single-track vocal, too.
That's just... that's naked.
Yeah.
Ooh!
That's kind of a nice response to "What's up?"
"Got Nowhere to Hide."
I do like that, actually.
"Nowhere to Run," too.
That guitar solo's played by young Jay Maskis.
Don't I wish.
I mean, Dinosaur Jr. was...
...was probably at their peak.
"Smooth-talking oral surgeon"
is almost like a weird phrase
that would be repeated a lot in curb.
Yeah.
So, you're the smooth-talking oral surgeon.
I've been hearing so much, like at Larry's golf club.
Yeah.
"It wasn't me, it was the smooth-talking oral surgeon!"
"Lah, he's a smooth-talking oral surgeon!"
"Eh, what do I care about a smooth-talking oral surgeon?"
"Too smooth!"
"Not smooth enough."
[laughter]
Um...
"Number 2 song."
"This Week in '88."
Ooh, this is a good one.
"Pet Shop Boys" and Dusty Springfield.
"What have I... what have I...
...what have I done to deserve this?"
I love "Pet Shop Boys."
You know what I'm noticing?
All of these songs were released in '87.
These were only in February, though.
Yeah.
But it took them a minute to close.
Yeah, this was released August 10th of '87.
So, six months later,
it's hit number two.
That's a great song title.
Yeah, I mean, the "Pet Shop Boys,"
they really got away with words.
"You always wanted a lover.
I only wanted a job.
I've always worked for a living."
How old was Dusty Springfield
in 1988?
"49."
Okay.
Wow.
Major comeback moment.
"She was born in 1930.
She was born in 19...
...1940."
"1940."
1938?
Or 1939,
according to Wikipedia.
"How am I gonna get through?
How am I gonna get through?"
Oh, did you know she received
the Order of the British Empire?
Didn't know that.
OBE?
Yeah, Sir Dusty Springfield.
I don't know about that.
Yeah, what is the...
Dame.
Oh, we're like Dame Judy Dench.
Dame Dusty.
"What up? It's your boy Dame Dusty.
What up?
It's your boy Dame Dusty.
I'm coming to you live from the..."
What would Dame Dusty be at?
Oh, uh...
Oh, my God.
He had some kind of motorsports event.
Yeah, it's the Monster Energy Drink.
Right.
"Dame Dusty, your favorite monster drug podcast.
Today we're joined by the Pet Shop Boys.
Dame Dusty."
Great song.
Okay, the number one song
this week in '88.
Jake, do you know this one?
"Exposé" with "Seasons Change"?
I don't know.
I mean, I know I've heard of "Exposé."
I don't know if I... I don't know it by the title.
Let's see if I recognize it.
Is this gonna be a ballad?
No.
Okay, this is like slick '80s music.
That's a rough bass tone.
Not feeling it?
Kind of makes me think
of that MGMT song
from a few years ago.
I don't know if I know the one you're talking about.
Oh, it's big. It was a big MGMT song.
"Little Dark Age."
On the record from a couple years ago?
Yeah, you're gonna like it.
But it has just like a very '80s bass line.
It's like... Obviously you'll find this a bit cooler.
Yeah, I mean, this is sick.
Wait for the bass synth.
Yeah.
In many ways, totally different songs,
but they share a slightly haunted
1988 quality.
Minimalist.
Spooky energy.
I gotta check this record out.
There's a lot of good songs on it.
I bet. Great band.
Connecticut band.
Yes.
Starting Connecticut.
I don't think they are currently a Connecticut band.
Oh, sure. Yeah.
I mean, Connecticut, in terms of like
30 projectors and MGMT?
Yeah. Much above its weight.
John Mayer.
The extended indie universe.
I mean, Michael Bolton.
Very extended indie universe.
Reverse Cuomo?
Yeah, but in terms of...
I guess Mayer probably came out in the '90s.
Almost.
But projectors and MGMT
started in Connecticut.
That's tight.
New Haven and Middletown.
The twin cities of Connecticut.
Ivy Leagues?
Or, I don't know.
Colleges?
Where's Connecticut College?
I don't know.
New London?
I don't know anything about Connecticut College.
Tracy Chapman went to high school
in Connecticut.
Really?
I think we're going to cover Tracy on a future ep.
A little teaser there.
A little peek behind the curtain.
TC does loosely plan shows.
That's true.
We've got...
We're not talking about Tracy Chapman.
Whether we actually ever do is a whole other question.
We work hard to come up with the concepts.
We work really hard to make it seem like we're not trying.
That's right.
That's my approach to everything.
People know this show is fully scripted.
Every word that we say is written.
Wait, by the way.
Didn't somebody hit the thread with this
insane Jam Band Reddit post?
Oh, that was me.
Read it out as we listen to Expose.
It's a good way to go out.
Hang on.
I'm feeling the sax solo.
You are feeling?
I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
I'm feeling it.
Did Trey or Jerry sit down at some point before the concert and write it out?
No, of course not.
In some ways, this actually gets into issues of free will.
You know, like, it is... Jam bands are a funny way in, but it's like,
yeah, okay, they're doing a new version of the song, but it's planned in the sense that
the whole universe planned for that moment.
Everything that's ever happened in the history of the world was leading to this moment.
The music that Trey and Paige and Mike and John listened to growing up,
the time they spent together, in that sense it's planned,
and there must be some lag between things being composed,
the brain sending a signal to the hand to move a certain way.
You know, what do you mean by that?
Yeah, no, you get into weird kind of semantics of like,
exactly, what does it mean to be truly free?
If you ask a psychic, a psychic might find a jam band show very boring.
You gotta understand, for a very talented psychic,
going to see Fish, it's the exact same as seeing Taylor Swift on the Eras tour.
I've been watching a lot of dead YouTubes as I'm going to sleep at night.
It's kind of a nice mellow...
Although sometimes you'll get one more Saturday going, whoa!
Just as I'm drifting off after a nice eight minute he's gone.
- Wait, you're listening on headphones? - No, watching.
Just on the TV in our bedroom, just on YouTube.
- What's Hannah doing? - She's on her phone or just asleep.
- So who turns it off? - Usually me.
- Plays all night long? - No, eventually the Bobby number kicks in.
"Okay, we gotta turn this off."
But I was going to say, watching Jerry play these solos of her songs I know,
the solos are thrilling because I know...
He's usually kind of playing around the main melody.
And it's the slight deviations from the expected melody
and the slight variation in the phrasing that are thrilling as a fan.
And I wouldn't say it's improvised, but...
- If we were talking to this woman... - The shading is improvised.
We'd have to ask her, "What do you mean by 'planned'?"
- Yeah. - Would she say, "They literally got together...
- For instance... - "They're just randomly hitting the fretboard?"
Are you implying that in practice they played this exact version?
Because we more or less know that's not true.
She just might be psychic.
And what do you mean, "They clearly planned."
Yeah, it's like if you could see the essence of everything,
you would probably use words like "planned" a bit differently.
Yeah, true improvisation would just be
not thinking and just putting your fingers on random fretboards and random strings.
And even then, randomness is a concept.
I might not be able to explain it. I've had this conversation a few times
where you talk about whether or not there's an order to the universe
or a destiny or whatever, and people say, "I..."
Coincidences are things that appear to have a shape.
Well, the universe is so big and chaotic and random
that, of course, certain things appear to have a shape.
People who believe in that there's no such thing as a coincidence,
that there's a destiny or a story to what happens in the universe.
But, and I don't know who's right, but we also got to keep in mind
that chaos and randomness are also concepts.
- You know what I mean? - Yes. Just as order is like, yeah, sure.
Yeah, I'm just saying, you get into some kind of out-there form and emptiness type stuff,
the idea of being like, "Well, this is clearly chaos."
You know, even that is like, "Well, says who?"
Right. There might be an underlying order that we can't see.
- Is that what you mean? - Yeah. And even, you know, which one wins out?
It depends how you look at it.
Is order just another chaotic part of chaos?
Or is chaos a part of order?
I remember reading years ago that it was very hard for computer programmers
to program a computer to spit out a random series of numbers.
A quote-unquote random number generator.
- That makes no sense to me. - Yeah, I can't...
I mean, wouldn't anything be random?
Well, I think if it's just like 4, 9, 3, 5, 6, 0, 2...
- Okay, but how do you program that? - For 0 through 9.
- Yeah. - And it's just like...
- I'm not a computer programmer, but you could just... - Explain it in code.
Okay. Backslash, colon...
No, I just... There's got to be a way to...
There's only 9 or 10... I guess it's 10 digits, 0 through 9.
- So you just have it... - My understanding...
- It's like the lotto ball. - Yeah, but what's the mechanism?
Because, you know, if you flip a coin a billion times,
usually one side eventually nudges up to 50.5%
because it's not totally random.
There's a small tendency for one side based on weight or something
to land heads up or something like that.
Just saying, when you actually try to create...
Anything that's programmed is ordered.
So to create an ordered system that truly creates chaos,
- it's a little bit of a paradox. - Yeah.
Like even, for example, you say, "I have 10 things,
I built a machine and drops them on the floor."
So it's pure chaos, right?
Somebody else, like this guy's wife, might say, "It's not chaos at all."
Over a long enough time frame, the logic of how gravity
and this set of 10 things falls, there's order to it.
Here's Slate, the website. It says,
"You can't program a computer to produce true randomness
wherein no element has any consistent rule-based relationship
to any other element because then it wouldn't be random."
- And there you have it. - Couldn't you just have it?
Jam bands are a scam.
- Gotcha. - Wow.
I'm tripped up on this.
This is not intuitive to me. I'm not good at this kind of stuff.
Sometimes this kind of stuff comes up and I'm like...
When people are like, "Oh, you have no free will," and you're like,
"What? I do."
- You think you do. - I could choose to eat this...
No, but there's a half-eaten burrito in front of me.
I can choose to eat it or not eat it. It's up to me.
But also, you're making assumptions about the nature of time,
which science has never given us consistent answers about.
It's your experience.
I guess I'm already full, so that's why I'm choosing not to eat the burrito.
But you know what? See, now I am going to eat the burrito.
And yet you're not.
And yet you're not, Mr. Longstress.
Of course we had calculated that at the last minute
you would take a cheeky bite of that burrito, Mr. Longstress.
Come, come, Mr. Longstress.
Surely you don't believe your free will led you to bite that burrito one last time.
Is this Atticus Finch?
- We're back. - It's me, Atticus Ross,
partner of Trent Reznor.
- I hear... - We'll get you there, partner.
Allow me to play a solo for you.
I think you might enjoy it.
- I think we need to... You know what? - This is a funny way to go out.
It's the perfect way to go. We're just hitting our stride.
Too bad it's the end of the episode. But you know what?
If anybody has any thoughts on this or good, readable articles
about, you know, jam bands, the nature of free will,
if an ordered base system can ever produce true randomness or chaos,
let us know. And you know what I would like?
After Seinfeld, you check on the legality of this.
But maybe after the show in Austin, we all meet up,
have a little birthday party, we blaze a fatty,
and we kind of dig into some of these philosophical conversations.
And if we can't get to the bottom of it, we'll go have a nice big plate of ribs
and ice cold Scheinerbach.
- Sounds great. - That's what I want for my birthday.
All right. See everybody next time. Peace!
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
View on TCU Wiki | Download Episode | Download CSV | Download Transcript