Episode 56: Grateful T-Shirts
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back once again. So much to discuss. We'll talk to Mordecai Rubenstein, aka Mr. Mort,
about Grateful Dead fashion. We'll talk to Jake about his Grateful Dead cover band's glorious
return. We'll also count down the top five songs of today and 1979. All this, plus much more,
more. Today on Time Crisis with Ezra King, piece one.
>> They passed me by, all of those great romances.
You were a part, wobbly me, of my rightful chances.
My picture clear, everything seemed so easy.
And so I dealt you the blow, one of us had to go.
Now it's different, I want you to know.
One of us is crying, one of us is lying.
Leave me lonely man.
>> Time Crisis back once again.
Sitting here with Jake, Los Angeles, California.
>> What's up, mid-November.
>> Mid-November, LA.
Finally getting to cool off a little bit.
>> Called November rain.
>> That's right.
So I've seen you more recently than the past two weeks.
Seen you a couple times.
>> Yeah.
>> Once you came by the studio.
>> Yeah.
>> Can you go on record and say that a Vamp Weekend album is being made, at least?
>> It's sounding great.
>> All right, thank you.
>> I'm really excited.
I don't know how much detail you want me to go into.
>> No, I don't want you to go into any detail beyond that.
I just want you to know that you came to the studio,
you witnessed a group of people hard at work.
>> Oh yeah, and I brought by a very special guest.
>> Jake brought by the guitarist from his Grateful Dead cover band.
>> Right.
>> Came through, was putting down some tasty licks.
Great having him in the room.
But before you guys came to the studio, I saw you guys play.
>> Yeah.
>> I was really excited to see Jake's Grateful Dead cover band play
because I hadn't seen them in years.
So I remember the first time I saw you, it might have been three years ago.
>> I think you saw our first show.
>> I might have seen your first show.
>> Which I want to say was late 2014.
>> Okay, so yeah, solid three years ago.
And then since then, from hanging out with you, I've become way more of a Deadhead.
I certainly know way more of the catalog, so I was kind of very excited to see you guys again.
Now, a big thing happened with your Grateful Dead cover band.
>> Well, first of all, I want to get your read on the show.
>> Oh, well, the show was great.
To be fair, I only caught the first set.
>> Right, right, right.
>> Jake's band played two sets.
I caught the first set.
It was very Europe '72 heavy.
>> Yeah.
>> Which I appreciated.
>> Yeah, second set, we took it out.
>> That's when you guys started going to some of that early Dead, just jamming.
>> We did some dark stuff.
>> You know, we just jammed things out a little bit.
>> And the funny thing is that even at this-- it was at a bar called the Old Town Pub in Pasadena.
I'm sure there were a lot of friends and family there, but also you just got like some straight-up Deadheads
who heard there's a Dead cover band.
>> Oh, absolutely.
>> And then even in the little courtyard of this bar, there were people selling bootleg Dead merch.
>> Oh, yeah.
>> Which was sick.
The question everybody at home wants to know is what's up with the name change?
Because Jake's cover band, Grateful Dead cover band, for years was called Dick Picks.
That's a classic cover band move is that your name is a pun on something related,
sometimes very tangentially, to the band.
You know, like you could make some kind of joke about something related to the band.
>> A song title.
>> Or a lot-- like a record.
>> Yeah.
And in this instance, Dick Picks is a play on words because it's referencing a compilation of dead--
>> Bootlegs.
>> --of dead bootlegs that the Grateful Dead started releasing officially in the '90s called Dick's Picks.
>> There was a guy named Dick Lotvala--
>> Yeah.
>> --who was one of the first tapers, and the Dead actively encouraged taping within their fan base,
which means someone shows up with a reel-to-reel unit, and they maybe get a little real estate on the side stage,
or they're in the very front of the show, and they're taping the show, and then they're trading tapes.
>> Right.
>> This guy Dick Lotvala was an early innovator in this.
He taped, like, every show, and then he would curate which he thought were the best shows.
>> So it's a guy named Dick picking--
>> Yeah.
>> --his favorite Grateful Dead bootlegs.
>> Dick's Picks.
>> So you guys, when you started the band in 2014, your plan was you took Dick's Picks,
any Grateful Dead fan worth their salt who knows what Dick's Picks are--
>> Of course.
>> --and you named the band a very similar phrase, which in the rise of, you know, smart phones and the Internet,
also came into prominence, Dick Picks.
>> Dick Picks.
>> So you called yourself Dick Picks.
>> Dick Picks, and that's P-I-C-S.
>> Right, like pictures.
>> Yeah.
>> I know that might sound a little convoluted to people, but for a Grateful Dead fan,
a lot of people would hear that name and be like, "Nice."
It's like a fun play on words for a Grateful Dead fan.
>> I would say it blew minds.
>> Some people loved it.
>> Yeah, some people were like, "That is the most genius cover band name I've ever heard,"
because it's going from the 1960s bootleg guy who's curating this live show--
>> Yeah.
>> --to full Internet era, iPhone era, very lewd--
>> Phenomenon.
>> Exactly.
[ Music ]
[ Music ]
>> It's got all the hallmarks of a good cover band name.
>> Yep.
>> It's got the wheels to the heads.
It's a play on words, except not everybody likes Dick Picks.
>> Yeah, Dick Picks got a lot of heat.
>> So Dick Picks got some heat.
>> We got some heat from friends of ours--
>> Yeah.
>> --who, you know, I absolutely respect their point of view--
>> Yeah.
>> --and people who aren't friends of ours that I don't even know,
who were like, "That name is offensive and triggering and brutal."
And I almost understood the logic of that.
>> Right.
>> It took me a long time to come around to--
>> The kind of visceral emotional part.
>> --accepting--yeah, and being like empathetic and accepting the emotional truth
of maybe what they were saying.
>> Who knew that talking about your Grateful Dead cover band would intersect so well
with what's going on in the news right now?
>> Ezra, the Dead are timeless.
>> The Dead are timeless.
>> I mean, they're always relevant.
>> Yeah.
>> I mean--
>> Not only the Grateful Dead back, but yeah, it's a very timely topic
because you have a lot of people, victims of abuse coming forward.
You have Louis C.K., Harvey Weinstein.
People are talking for the first time about not just the most violent types of assault
but other types of sexual misdemeanor.
>> Yeah, unsolicited aggression.
And so this had been a conversation going on in the band for a while.
And also the band had not been active for the past year.
>> Right.
>> We played some shows in November of 2016 and then took a year off.
>> You're coming back 2017, and you've got a choice on your hands.
>> And I'm about to post on my Instagram account about the show,
and I'm like, "I don't want to post about a dick pic show."
The tide turned.
>> Finally it went from you intellectually respecting the point of view of your critics--
>> Yep.
>> --to being like, "You know what? I don't feel good about this name."
>> Yeah, I was going to be stressed out posting it.
I didn't feel good about it.
So we had always joked that we should--oh, no.
Okay, because in 2015 we had played a fundraiser at an elementary school.
So we went by Richard Pictures.
>> Right.
>> Dick pics.
>> It seemed inappropriate for this.
>> It became Richard Pictures.
>> Got it.
>> Because, yeah, that would be crazy to go to elementary school and be like,
"Hey, we're Dick pics," and all these parents being like, "What is going on?"
>> Right.
>> So when the show was coming up at the Old Town Pub in Pasadena last Thursday,
we were like, "You know what? Richard Pictures."
>> So now on the band is called Richard Pictures.
>> Yep.
Give it another four years and that will be inappropriate.
But for right now, we are Richard Pictures.
>> I mean, it's still rooted in the other name.
>> Mm-hmm.
>> So you're right.
It's not a fully clean break, but I respect that you--
>> We've obscured it.
>> You've obscured it, which I think--well, at the very least--and to be fair,
I think we both agree that something that we probably don't realize,
being heterosexual men, is that getting an unsolicited dick pic
could be beyond stressful and be beyond unwanted.
It could--like you said, it could trigger and could really even traumatize somebody.
And also, dead cover band. It's got to be good vibes.
>> It's got to be kind.
>> It's got to be kind vibes.
>> Yeah, it's not like some brutal punk band.
>> I don't think people use this argument too much anymore,
but that's like some old school, like--
>> Hardcore.
>> --Maryland Manson [bleep] that's like--
>> Yeah.
We called our band Dick Pics because we do want to offend.
We want to explore trauma, male aggressive sexuality.
These are things that interest us.
And while we may not be endorsing it, we do like to look at the dark side of life.
>> I'm singing in the character.
>> Right.
>> I'm actually a complete sweetheart, and I was bullied in high school.
>> Yeah.
>> And I deal with this by being a complete [bleep] on my albums.
>> I pay forward the trauma that I experienced.
>> It's one.
>> Ezra Koenig's Time Crisis.
>> Grateful Dead is about good vibes.
It's about everybody feeling included.
I mean, Grateful Dead concerts, I'm sure some horrible [bleep] went down,
and it really seemed to hurt them when they would hear about somebody getting hurt or something.
>> Right.
>> But Grateful Dead concerts, that was one of the original safe spaces, you know?
That was like people kind of turning their back on a repressive society with police violence,
racism, that kind of thing.
So police violence, racism, that's--the Grateful Dead, that was supposed to be a safe space.
>> I was looking at an article today from 1991 in the New York Times that our producer Colin sent to me,
and the term "safe space" isn't used, but that concept is introduced by Jerry.
>> What did he say?
>> Okay, so Jerry in this article from '91 is quoted,
"He once wrote that we're a real cheap vacation to Bermuda, which is kind of right,
but insofar as we're providing a safe context to be together with a lot of people who aren't afraid of each other,
which is real valuable in New York, I guess we're important."
He's basically like, "Listen, some people are going to come straight from Wall Street,
wearing their suits, and come to the show, and some people are going to be stoned,
20-year-old kids wearing tie-dye shirts, and they're all going to feel at home there.
They're all going to feel together, and the way the world is now, you know, scary 1991,
I'm glad that we can offer that space where everyone feels included together."
>> That's a great vibe. Jerry wanted to have a safe space.
I mean, Jerry probably never had to get into some of the thornier questions that the world's wrestling with now.
>> Nope.
>> Back then-
>> I guess it always seems screwed up, doesn't it?
>> The world is consistently screwed up.
>> It just always seems like the most extreme version of history.
>> Yeah, who knows? '91 even could have been worse in some ways.
>> Of course.
>> For a lot of people.
Grateful Dead concerts are supposed to be a safe space. That's for sure.
♪ You know it was the hottest part of the day ♪
♪ I took them horses up to the stall ♪
♪ Went down to the barroom, ordered drinks for all ♪
♪ Three days in the saddle, you know my body hurt ♪
♪ It bein' summer I took off my shirt ♪
♪ And tried to wash off some of that dusty dirt ♪
♪ ♪
♪ West Texas cowboys, they all around ♪
♪ Women lookin' and money, they load it down ♪
♪ Soon after payday, you know it seems a shame ♪
♪ My uncle, he starts a friendly game ♪
♪ It's hollow jack and the winner takes a hand ♪
♪ ♪
♪ My uncle starts winnin', cowboys got sore ♪
♪ One of them called him, then two more ♪
♪ Accused him of cheatin', oh no he couldn't be ♪
♪ I know my uncle, he's as honest as me ♪
♪ As honest as a demo boy could be ♪
♪ One of them cowboys, he starts to draw ♪
♪ I shot him down, Lord, he never saw ♪
♪ Shot me another, oh, Danny Rupert, whoa ♪
♪ The confusion, my uncle grabbed the coat ♪
♪ We high-tailed it down to Mexico ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I love those cowboys, I love their gold ♪
♪ Love my uncle, God rest his soul ♪
♪ Taught me good, Lord, taught me all I know ♪
♪ Taught me so well, I grabbed all that gold ♪
♪ And I left his dead ass there on the side of the road ♪
So we're gonna do a little dead block, because--
This is gonna be a very dead-intensive show, I think.
This might be a dead-intensive show.
So strap in.
I hope there's nobody who listens to Time Crisis
and when we start talking about the dead,
is like, "There they go again."
I feel like we provide context.
I'm cool with that.
I mean, you know, it's like,
you know, we talk about Home Depot, you know, dead, it's--
we try to find that kernel of general interest
within the specific.
Corporate retail.
[laughs]
So anyway, Jake, your email is the Time Crisis mailbag.
It is.
So you get so many great emails.
Recently, you got one that was about the dead.
This is Jake's personal and/or professional email.
Yeah, I got a really long email.
Great email.
Can't read the whole thing,
'cause it was just a novella sent to us by Samantha Ross.
Very detailed letter about her history with the dead.
Basically, like, her parents were huge deadheads,
and she grew up in New York City,
and Samantha mentioned that her dad had a--
like, had this party trick
where he could nail the exact year,
sometimes even to the city and the date of any dead concert
just by hearing the first two minutes of the show.
So this guy was, like, very tapped.
That's unreal.
Like, Tulsa, August '76.
He's hearing Jack Straw, a song they played 700 times,
and he still just, like, in two minutes, he knows.
Which is weird that they'd have that much variation
in their performance.
That's what people like about the dead.
So she goes on to explain her evolution
from someone who didn't care for the dead,
mostly due to her parents' love of them,
into someone fully appreciating their musicality
and how she's recently embraced them on her own terms
during a car ride this summer
after she downloaded the American Beauty record.
That's a classic story about heritage.
Yeah, like, your parents love it, so you kind of rebel.
Right.
And then you come around.
Yeah, sometimes it takes life experience
to realize what the older generation saw in something.
And I'm also interested in the fact--
it sounds like she grew up in New York City.
Right.
Famously on Live Dead, their first live album.
'69.
They're playing some of it at the Fillmore in New York,
and Jerry says, "Man, coming to New York's always a trip, man."
[laughs]
Like...
Imagine Jerry just, like, in New York in '69.
New York City must have been just so intense and weird.
Obviously, there were hippies in New York.
Who's hitting that Dead show in '69?
Is, like, Lou Reed going to that Dead show?
Or, like, the Velvets? Or, like, Andy Warhol?
No, I feel like at that point,
the Dead probably weren't, like, super cool.
Andy Warhol's down at the factory.
Edie Sedgwick and Lou Reed and Nico.
It's like, "What's going on tonight, guys?"
"Grateful Dead are playing at the Fillmore. You want to go?"
No.
Of course not.
I'm just trying to think of, like, some super, like, cool New York artsy people.
Like, were they catching the Dead?
Patti Smith?
Patti Smith is probably still in high school.
Was she going in to see the Dead?
My point is just that the Dead in New York City...
In '69, '70 is funny.
...always been, like, a funny mix,
'cause New York City, as much as it is a...
produced a lot of, like, alternative culture,
it's also a hostile environment for hippiedom.
For sure.
Of course you get some left-wing people,
but I'm talking about the very specific New York version of hippiedom.
To truly be that blissed-out hippie is difficult in New York.
New York is cutting and ironic and judgmental and brutal.
Yeah.
Which is not the Dead vibe.
And, you know, we've all seen it.
You see some, like, random couple white hippies
wearing a peasant skirt, tie-dye, just, like, stoned in, like, a bodega at 2 a.m.
You're just like, "What? Do you live here? You live in, like, Park Slope?"
Yeah.
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
I just find it interesting to imagine, like,
and I have no idea how old Samantha is, the author of the letter,
but, like, you know, and I definitely knew some people like that
who, like, grew up in New York City, parents are kind of like old hippies,
but then, you know, if you're, like, growing up in the '90s,
it wasn't particularly cool to be, like, hippie-hippie.
You're probably listening to, like, Wu-Tang.
So, you know, if, like, you brought your--
I don't know, maybe you should, like, bring your friends back to parents'
pre-war apartment on the Upper West Side, blast into some early Method Man,
and then your dad's like, "Hey, guys, I got a trick.
Grab a tape from my Grateful Dead rack,"
you'd probably be like, "Dad, nobody thinks that's cool."
-You'd push back. -Right.
So she goes on here-- I'll quote from her now.
-Oh, interesting. -I think Samantha's a little younger.
-I think-- -Now I'm very curious about what era this was.
I don't have her whole email printed here, but I believe she's, like, mid-20s,
if I recall.
I guess it also depends on what school she was going to.
New York's a big city.
But it's funny to think about that being in,
because in my high school, it certainly was not in.
It was at this point that some of my thoughts on the dead started to change.
I did not like the fact that kids who had no knowledge about anything dead-related
wore their merchandise so regularly.
So it just had become a fashion statement at that point.
-Right. -Oh, okay.
Samantha Ross is 19.
-So she just finished high school-- -She was in high school a few years ago.
-Very recently. -Okay, right. Got it.
Like, last year.
Even though I wasn't into their music,
this animosity towards non-Grateful Dead fans
that were simply just adhering to a popular fashion trend
made me realize that I was, in some ways, a fan of the dead.
On the topic of banned T-shirts,
I was a counselor at a sleepaway camp this summer,
and even my 11-year-old campers had blondie,
Rolling Stones, and of course, Grateful Dead T-shirts.
A popular shirt and sticker that many campers had read saying,
"Grateful to be at camp,"
with a bunch of bejeweled dancing bears surrounding it.
It's interesting with the 11-year-olds wearing those shirts
because that's still a little bit young.
Maybe with the Internet it's different.
I feel like maybe I was 13 when I really started taking control
over what I wanted to wear.
But I had a friend who once said to me,
"This is the first generation of kids whose parents want them to be cool."
Dark.
But the point being that in the past,
even with the kind of baby boomer parents
who generally wanted to have positive relationships with their kids,
as opposed to some real old-school, like,
"World's hard, you're on your own, son."
Non-existent relationship.
Yeah, but even then, the idea of wanting your kid to be cool,
you don't want them to be bullied or something,
but I'm sure it's going to be like that.
We're the generation who's going to probably be a little more tuned in
and be like, you know, you want your kid to probably have a cool shirt.
Or maybe in this late, late capitalist era,
we intuit that being cool is a way to make money.
It's definitely a way that increases your odds of making a living.
Imagine all these 11-year-olds whose parents got them
Blondie and Rolling Stones and Grateful Dead shirts.
Do you think some of the parents are also sitting down with them
before they go to camp and they're just like,
"All right, who's in the Grateful Dead?
Madison, name three members of the Dead."
Pop quiz.
Jerry Garcia, Bob Weir, and Ted Lesh.
Phil Lesh.
Got to remember the names.
The kids are going to call you a poser if you don't have the info.
"Dad, I just thought you wanted me to wear the shirt."
It's like, "Okay, name five songs."
Okay, Aiden, what year was Altamont?
Um, 1997?
Are you kidding me? Jerry was dead.
Aiden, no.
"I'll take that shirt right off you."
"That's okay, Dad, I don't like this shirt."
Who is the singer of Blondie?
Madonna?
♪ Get into the groove, boy ♪
♪ You got to prove your love to me, yeah ♪
♪ Get up on your feet, yeah ♪
♪ Step to the beat, move along with me ♪
♪ Music can be such a revelation ♪
♪ Dancing around, you feel the sweet sensation ♪
♪ We might be lovers if the rhythm's right ♪
♪ I hope this feeling never ends tonight ♪
♪ Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free ♪
♪ At night, I lock the door and no one else can see ♪
♪ I'm tired of dancing here all by myself ♪
♪ Tonight, I wanna dance with someone else ♪
♪ Get into the groove, boy ♪
♪ You got to prove your love to me, yeah ♪
♪ Get up on your feet, yeah ♪
♪ Step to the beat, go where I wanna be ♪
♪ When I get to know you in a special way ♪
♪ This doesn't happen to me every day ♪
♪ Don't try to hide it, love wears no disguise ♪
♪ I see the fire burning in your eyes ♪
♪ Only when I'm dancing can I feel this free ♪
♪ At night, I lock the door and no one else can see ♪
♪ I'm tired of dancing here all by myself ♪
♪ Tonight, I wanna dance with someone else ♪
♪ Get into the groove, boy ♪
♪ You got to prove your love to me, yeah ♪
♪ Get up on your feet, yeah ♪
♪ Step to the beat, go where I wanna be, yeah ♪
Time Crisis with Ezra King
Be-Be-Be-Be-Be-Beast 1
You know what's hilarious?
When do you think the first time a parent ever called, like,
a 10-year-old child a poser was?
Called their own kid a poser?
Yeah.
Like, recently.
I'm sure that happens all the time now.
Maybe in a sports context that happened a long time ago,
but in, like, an artsy-fartsy context, I mean...
I'm just picturing, like, the kid goes shopping with grandma
and grandpa comes back wearing a dead T-shirt,
and he's like, "Look at the colorful bear shirt
"grandma bought me," and, like, the dad sits down with the kid
and just like, "Thanks, Mom.
"Can I talk to Aiden privately?"
Aiden, what made you want to get that shirt?
Well, I thought the bears were fun,
and grandma said she would buy me something at the gift shop.
Aiden, do you even know the name of the band
whose merch you're wearing?
What do you mean "band"?
Do you understand how profound that iconography is
that you're wielding on your chest?
Do you understand?
No, I just like it, Dad.
Aiden, you're a poser.
Do you even know what a guitar is?
Aiden, you're a g*** damn poser.
Now, listen, I'm not saying you can't wear the shirt,
but you're going to take it off, and we're going to keep it
in my room until you're a little bit older,
and you're ready for it.
Dad, I'm really confused.
Aiden, you're a poser.
[laughs]
God, I hope my kids aren't posers.
Anyway, but I'm thinking about it with Samantha's email.
It's really interesting, because this is--
in some ways, it's about heritage.
Yeah, she felt ownership over the iconography,
even though she didn't give a rat's ass about the music.
She felt like her classmates were culturally appropriating
her parents' culture, in a way.
Yeah, which is so funny.
Like, the band that your dorky parents loved
is, like, the fashion statement
of 2016 high school in New York City.
That's hilarious.
I'm waiting for those kids in another 15 years
to start wearing those Guided by Voices T-shirts in high school.
Oh, it'll happen.
You're going to have a kid, who you're going to be
constantly playing Guided by Voices, and they'll be like,
"Dad, at least play me something
with a tasteful palette of the '70s.
This noisy, lo-fi, early '90s cassette tape aesthetic
does not jive with me."
Sounds like garbage, Dad.
"I like fourth-term Trump EDM."
[laughter]
"Dad, you know that the smooth sounds
of fourth-term Trump EDM are what I like,
and you're playing this insanely harsh music.
I don't like it."
And then they're going to go to school one day,
and these kids are wearing it, and be like,
"Wait, you listen to Guided by Voices?"
No.
"No? I got this shirt for 750 Trump bucks."
"It's an Alien Leans long-sleeve tee."
"Oh, well, that band sucks.
It's a sick T-shirt. I don't care."
"Yeah, my lame dad."
Noted American painter and radio personality,
Jake Longstreth, is actually a big fan of them.
"Really? Your dad must be pretty cool then."
And then they kind of, like, are like,
"I guess he is."
And they come home and apologize.
"Dad, I know I've been kind of mean to you
about your deep love of Guided by Voices.
There was actually a kid at school wearing a T-shirt."
My mind blown.
Then you go to school and call the kid a poser.
♪ Down, down ♪
♪ Out of my head ♪
♪ Down, down ♪
♪ Out of my head ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I'm gonna live on a mountain ♪
♪ Way down down here in Australia ♪
♪ It's in that suicide ♪
♪ There's such a strange strain on me ♪
♪ Ooh, I've got a mind ♪
♪ For losing the first time ♪
♪ Ooh, I've got a mind ♪
♪ People's calling on the midday sun ♪
♪ But I've been lucky you're the only one ♪
♪ Sun is calling you the number one ♪
♪ There's such a strange strain on you ♪
♪ Ooh, you think you're Jesus Christ ♪
♪ You walk the water but you brush your life ♪
♪ All you want is the firelight ♪
♪ It's such a strange strain on you ♪
♪ ♪
♪ ♪
All right, so, Jake, I think, uh,
Samantha's email has really tapped into a rich vein.
Grateful Dead, Grateful Dead t-shirts,
iconography, poserdom.
Now, I don't think you've ever been on the same show
as Mordecai Rubenstein, a.k.a. Mr. Mort.
- Don't know him. - Okay, so we're gonna talk to him
on the phone, 'cause Mr. Mort is a friend of the show.
He's been on "Time Crisis" before.
He's had all sorts of jobs in fashion.
He's designed clothes.
He's written about clothes.
Um, he's done a lot of streetwear photography.
He's documented a lot of New York City street style.
- Yeah. - He's worked at Marc Jacobs,
Levi's, all over the place, so GQ sent him this past week
to check out some of the Dead & Company shows
at Madison Square Garden.
- GQ sent him? - GQ, Gentlemen's Quarterly,
which is primarily a fashion...
- Gotcha. - Uh, publication.
- GQ, GQ style. - George Clooney's been on, like,
half of their covers... - Exactly.
- The last ten years, right? - Yeah, so this is what they said.
"The Grateful Dead subculture is one of the most unique styles
in music fandom, and on Sunday, Deadheads from all corners
of the country proved it at Madison Square Garden,
where Dead & Company kicked off their fall tour.
Dead & Co., led by John Mayer and Grateful Dead guitarist
Bob Weir, attracts OG Deadheads who have attended
countless shows since the 1970s.
For them, Sunday night was a reunion of sorts,
and they pulled out gear from their collections
of bootleg T-shirts and custom jackets.
But Dead & Co. also turns out a new generation of fans
who have been initiated into the culture.
These kids have embraced a different side of the Deadhead DIY world
and rocked up in their rare T-shirts from the likes of W.O.B.F.
and From the Lot. So these are the kids who are buying
these new Grateful Dead shirts that different people
are making DIY, like the people who are selling them at your show.
- What are they running, like, 70 a shirt?
- It could be all over the place.
So naturally, they sent Mordecai Rubinstein,
aka Mr. Mort, expert chronicler of subcultural style,
to hang out and snap the most epic tie-dye T-shirts
and steely patches that he could find throughout the day and night.
So we got to talk to Mort. This is perfect for us.
Friend of the show, was over at the Dead concert...
- What's getting in? - ...taking pictures.
- Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
[phone ringing]
- Hello? - Morde, how you doing? It's Ezra.
- Oh, wonderful. Thank you. How are you?
- It's great to hear your voice. You're on with me and Jake.
I don't think you ever met my West Coast co-host, Jake Longstreth.
Hey, Mort. - I don't believe so. Howdy.
- So first of all, you're a friend of the show,
so it's great to hear your voice, even though you couldn't be in person.
Also want to congratulate you.
I know not too long ago you became a father.
- Oh, yeah, seven weeks.
- Has that affected your style at all?
- Well, I went from mocking dad style
to, I guess, being dad style.
- Well, now nobody can accuse you of appropriating dad style.
- Yeah, but it's really, like, cramping my style on this phone right now.
I'm trying to whisper when the baby's sleeping.
- Oh, 'cause you got a baby sleeping in your apartment?
Okay, understood.
Well, the main thing we wanted to talk to you about is
you were photographing the Grateful Dead lot scene
at Madison Square Garden this past week.
- Oh, yeah, definitely.
- So how was it? - It was amazing.
I've never been to a show with Jerry or without Jerry
or what's their new playboy leading the place, John Mayer.
I've never been to a Dead & Co.,
never been to, like, a tribute band, none of that.
So it was a pretty, pretty amazing far out experience.
But if you have been or you've done some research like I have,
there's no shakedown street here.
There's no lot styles. There's no lot.
Madison Square Garden's--
you know, I don't think if you opened up a pillowcase
and tried selling socks, it'd last five minutes out there.
So you had to really, like, you know, dig for it.
You had to, like, really look for the sellers.
And I say really dig and look, I mean, you know, Instagram, creep, you know,
which was pretty cool 'cause it made it, like, a lot harder to get.
You know, people would see me wearing a T-shirt the second night
and be like, "Where'd you get that?"
I bought it at the Steps at Penn Station.
So you found a lot of people, even in New York City,
like you said, Madison Square Garden doesn't have some giant parking lot
like when you're going to catch a show somewhere else.
So you found people just kind of, like, very quietly selling
their own bootleg Dead merch all over the general vicinity?
From Brooklyn to the subway station to the exit at Penn Station
to the bathroom stall inside Madison Square Garden.
I acquired it all.
People were selling bootleg merch in the bathroom?
Uh-huh, 100%.
And what did you buy?
I'll tell you a couple things.
I bought an amazing T-shirt with Lucy and Linus, Snoopy,
maybe that's the same person,
Daffy Duck, Donald Duck, some other little Bam Bam.
I bought this beautiful tie-dye shirt made in Brooklyn.
I like that.
And I did a play on the word "Terrapin" at Penn Station,
the two N's, which I thought was cool.
Strong.
Witty.
Yeah, I got myself the pink and green.
I got my wife the blue and black and white,
knowing that she'd want mine.
But I was nice where I actually got two.
Normally I'm cheap and I just get one and say, "Well, share it."
I got a couple T-shirts.
I gave away Yamaka.
I got a pin.
I got a couple stickers.
It was a Grateful Dead Yamaka?
Oh, yeah.
What, it just had a skull on it or something?
It had a "Steal Your Face," I think that's the classic kind of thing
with the thing going through it.
Yeah, the logo.
It's funny because I couldn't tell you one song,
but I can tell you almost every graphic.
Well, so I also want to ask that, too.
Okay, let's get into it.
So, Morris, we--
I'm going to cut you off.
I went to San Francisco a couple years ago for what I thought was going to be a couple days.
Next thing you know, they're moving me there,
the corporate life, corporate housing, everything's fun and nice.
My wife--my girlfriend at the time was like, "Where are you going?"
I'm like, "Man, I need to go take this trip for a little while."
You know, they're going to build an office for me back in New York.
I stayed two years in San Francisco.
One of my first days, I went to Haight-Ashbury.
I knew I wasn't getting no original Grateful Dead T-shirt,
but I wanted what they want the tourists to have
because that's all that's available for under $300, $400 back then.
Did you get that gap there?
Was that where it was originally a gap?
No, there's a gap at Haight-Ashbury now.
Is it the first one?
No.
Oh.
It's just deeply like--
Right, Haight-Ashbury is--
--a jean store.
I mean, you know.
It's not really true hippie anymore.
Yeah, right.
The smell of weed is really just an incense stick,
but I bought some tees and I came back to New York,
and my wife tells me, "Take those off."
I'm like, "What do you mean? These are my Grateful Dead tees."
She said, "Get a haircut and take that fake [bleep] off."
I took it off, but I didn't throw it away.
Not the haircut, the T-shirts.
A few years later--
Wait, wait, wait. Slow down. Slow down. Slow down.
You went to San Francisco for work.
You're not a fan of the Grateful Dead, but you love menswear.
No, you can't name one song.
You can't name one song.
[singing]
Okay, close enough.
This is before Grateful Dead shirts came back into fashion.
Oh, yeah.
This is when John Mayer was probably doing that other song.
So you go to Haight-Ashbury, and you always like to get
whatever the local tourist gear is, so you buy these Dead shirts.
You go back to New York, and your wife says, "Throw it out."
Why? Because she--
Because she has one from when she was 14,
when she thought she was a real hippie.
Ah, so she's a real deadhead.
So she thought you were a poser.
Yes, and I was, and I really was.
I wore the Patagonia. I wore the tie-dye.
I grew my hair, grew the beard, because all the menswear people
were starting to wear fedoras and bow ties,
and that's where I was coming from, and I'm like, "F--- that."
Okay, so we're talking like 10 years ago.
Yep.
Bow ties?
Yeah, that's what was happening.
Was that like a Mumford and Sons reference?
It was a little Mumford.
This is like--you're talking about the era in New York
where everybody was into old-timey stuff.
Yeah.
So you were ahead of your time in terms of menswear,
because you were getting into this kind of Grateful Dead T-shirt hippie vibe
when a lot of guys were being very uptight,
getting the Nazi haircut and the bow tie.
So maybe in the professional environment,
you're doing something different, but on the home front,
now you got your girlfriend, who went on to become
the mother of your child, thinks you're a poser.
Oh, she knows.
Did she try to break up with you?
Why did she stay with you?
Because she's smart, you know?
She knows that it's all fun and games.
It's Halloween every day.
She knows Mordecai from Puerto.
She knows I live for a costume.
I live to, like, be zig-zag.
But so did it hurt your feelings that you come home
and your wife is calling you a poser?
Big time.
No, I took the shirts.
I literally put them on bottom to bottom to bottom of the dresser,
and then three years later, I go to Beacon's Closet,
they don't even want to buy them.
Whoa.
Yeah, fast forward.
Bottom of the market.
Did she try to turn you on to the dead?
No, not once, which I also really appreciate,
because a lot of the people that have, I would never talk to them again.
You know, they play the [bleep] for you on a car ride.
It's a six-hour car ride, and they play great for that.
I want to pull over after the first 30 seconds and hitchhike.
I'm not a big hip-hop disc guy, the other, but that [bleep] is killing me.
Now I really want to hear a banjo mandolin, you know?
No, I don't know.
So, wait, so this is--
And what do you want to hear, Kanye?
No.
Okay, wait, so Mordecai,
how come you like the music now, but you didn't like it before?
It's a really good question.
You know, people are asking me, "What did you think of the show?"
And I'm getting these responses.
You know, the first set was a heater.
Took them a couple songs to get it tight.
"Cold Rain" is one of my top ten.
It crushed me.
You know, "Weird Jazz."
You know, oh, their language is so cool,
how they use the words "soft" and "fragile."
You know, I like that.
And I like music that takes me places.
I'm a hustling guy from Brooklyn Crown Heights, you know?
When I hear a banjo, I think I'm at a bluegrass festival
with a bunch of cool hippies that I didn't grow up with.
We all want what we didn't have, I think, anyway.
So I like that kind of stuff.
So in a way, your interest in the T-shirts
came before your interest in the music,
and you have no shame in that.
Oh, no way at all.
No shame at all, and not in a way.
In the way.
So you're actually happy it panned out that way.
Oh, yeah, man.
I mean, I went to Petaluma.
I went to all the crazy places from San Francisco
all the way to Napa and all the places in between.
I went to every single flea market there.
If a guy didn't wash the shirt for 30 years
since his last dead show,
I'd pay 10 times the price that he wanted to just for it.
People don't understand.
You can just go buy a new liquid blue shirt
or a new M65 without having the blood, sweat, and tears
that went through it.
That s--t is priceless.
Well, that's something I've always noticed about you
is that you respect--
whether or not you like the culture,
you respect the people whose clothes reflect their life.
This is true.
I mean, these clothing tell stories.
So you bought some cool gear there,
but what about just the general fashion
of the people at the show?
Were you impressed?
No, no, no, no, no, no, no.
I was so unimpressed.
You know, GQ was smart to have me shoot it,
but they had me shoot outside.
Inside, you know, I don't really take pictures inside,
but I did a little bit of that.
I did a lot of exploring.
I ran around.
I went the second night, too.
And there's so many Yeezys and stuff
and not as many Birkenstocks,
which kills me because I spent the whole show
both shows just trying to see Bob Weir, Bob Weir,
just to see if he was wearing socks with his Birkenstocks.
And I was pretty close,
and I couldn't get a good view of Weir,
but I understand-- the first night I saw--
So you don't think it's not cool
for a young guy to wear Yeezys to the Dead show?
Isn't that best of both worlds?
No, it's not.
What do you want to see from somebody's fashion
at a Dead & Company show in 2017?
I want to see a Birkenstock taken to the St. Mark's
and put on a 7-inch sole
if they want to do something modern to it, you know?
I want to see people take the Balenciaga Crocs
and wear those.
I want comfort, you know?
The Yeezy's, that [bleep] is not comfortable.
Or maybe it is.
I never really tried them on.
But it's funny.
These kids-- you know, I met a kid on Instagram.
I met a kid.
This is a real story.
He's, like, 21.
He buys and sells Palace and Supreme
just to support his Dead habits.
And he's one of the biggest dealers
of, like, vintage Grateful Dead.
I will not drop his name.
Okay, no, but I've followed some of these guys,
these kind of Instagram Dead guys.
Yeah, it seems like there's this weird intersection
of old Grateful Dead T-shirts
but also, like, new Supreme stuff.
Yeah.
Did you see any of these--
we were just reading this old jury quote
about how at a Grateful Dead show,
back in the day, you'd be getting
everybody from Wall Street guys to young hippies.
Did you see any guys straight from the office
wearing their uptight corporate style?
Yes, I'd like to see that quote
because there was tons of that.
Tons and tons and tons of the retro acts
over a button-up with khakis.
Tons on Tuesday.
Last night, tons.
I was blown away.
Do you think that's a respectable look,
like the corporate lawyer who takes off
a little early to go catch the Dead in Kosho?
It is and it isn't.
It is because he's coming straight from work
and you gotta appreciate a guy that did that
and not a clown like me that took three days
to get dressed, you know?
Like, this guy's--
don't go and see something he loved
and grew up with and doesn't care
what he looks like.
He's not gonna put on a costume, you know?
And there's me that couldn't tell you one song
and I did everything except for put on makeup,
you know?
All right, well, at least you're keeping it real.
Well, so, Morga, I love talking to you always
and I love hearing your take on the Dead
and the show.
I'd be remiss not to ask you,
as one of the preeminent chroniclers
of style of our time,
if Grateful Dead shirts have kind of come
into fashion in the past few years,
what's coming back next?
All I can think about is John Mayer's cropped
T-shirt on Sunday.
That's all I can think about.
It was, like, so perfectly cropped.
And I can't make fun 'cause he's a rock star,
but if you wore that on the street
while you are a rock star,
that's s*** for the stage.
So if that guy can wear that on stage,
what's gonna stop some kids--
Wait, wait, I don't understand.
'Cause he--
What's a cropped T-shirt?
Like, he was showing his belly?
Oh, midriffed?
This shirt that John was wearing
was either capital or vismin,
and the back was just, just higher than the front.
It wasn't showing the belly.
It wasn't showing, like, a tramp stamp kind of thing.
It could have been his guitar that was doing it,
but it's bulls*** it wasn't his guitar that was doing it.
It was cropped just so.
So you were seeing too much of his lower back
for your taste?
You didn't like it?
'Cause it kind of seems to me--
I keep seeing more and more
John Mayer's becoming a style icon.
I see people be like,
"You know, John Mayer buys expensive sneakers."
You know, I'd rather talk about his style
than Sheila Booth's fake non-style.
[laughs]
Tell me about your Lithuania tee.
Do you know what year it's from?
Oh, my Lithuania tee?
I think it's from '94.
Where did you buy it?
On Etsy, from Dead Shaman Supply.
You think my Lithuania tee's fake?
He sells a lot of repros.
He doesn't sell all repros.
But he sells a lot of repros.
But don't you feel like--
Who cares if it's a repro?
You know, like, at a certain--
If you're talking about authenticity--
Oh, I do. I do.
That's why my wife made me throw out all the tee shirts.
But this--it's a big problem with the repros.
Because if you look at Liquid Blue,
anything after '95 is trash.
It looks like they took screenshots of the tee shirt
and made the screenshot a tee shirt.
And if you look at, like, this kid Deadhead's Instagram,
you'll see the difference.
I know his Instagram.
Yeah.
I mean, I don't want to shout anybody out,
but it's just, like, really,
really interesting, the whole Lithuania thing, you know?
Look, I agree with you.
It's cooler just to be--
have an old tee shirt.
But if you want to get a tee shirt,
I don't know, dropping 400 is not cool in my book.
No, and also, I know a lot of guys,
maybe you included, I don't know this much about you,
a lot of guys I know, they don't want the snow.
They don't want the holes in the tee shirt, you know?
So, fine, buy something new.
Better that than Jerry Lorenzo, you know,
fear of God, you know, pre-A*.
But the problem is the double RL and the pre-A* stuff,
it's like it looks just so fake.
But getting a good liquid blue on heat ashford for 25 bucks,
you know, or your Lithuania tee,
if you don't know it's real or not,
I don't mind that, but if it comes with fake holes,
that's a problem.
I got you.
All right, well, Mordecai, a pleasure as always talking to you.
Yeah, next we'll talk about what's next.
Next we'll talk about-- I can tell--
okay, I understand, you don't want to give away all your secrets.
No, 'cause I know Levi's and Gap and all the hot brands,
you know, they listen to this show.
Urban Outfitters, you know, we can't keep it all.
Okay, well, we'll talk to you soon.
Thanks for calling in, dude.
Thank you so much for having me.
Have a great night.
Bye.
That was Mordecai Rubenstein, Mr. Mort.
Always a pleasure to have on the show talking about fashion.
So, Jake, you were having a hard time wrapping your head around
the fact that this dude cannot name one Grateful Dead song.
It's just such a different world view
to, like, be so into, like, just the T-shirt stand of the band
but not give a rat's ass about the tunes.
And actually, even maybe he expressed, like, disdain for the music.
Well, he said he didn't like when people were, like, forcing it on him, I guess.
But, you know--
So, it's like, I'm not going to wear, like, an insane clown posse T-shirt.
Because you're not a big enough fan?
You'd feel like a poser?
Yeah, well, and I actively think that music is terrible.
You think ICP is terrible?
I do.
ICP is cool now. Be careful, Jake.
It's like a class issue now.
Okay, but you could tell that Mordecai is passionate about the culture.
You know, his way in is just-- is through the clothes.
Your way in is through the music.
That's fair.
It's very extreme.
Like, if you're going to wear all this gear, buy all this gear of this band,
you think you might do, like, a little legwork.
I don't care. It's fine.
It's just, like, a funny relationship to have.
Well, I'll tell you something.
As the president of an LLC--
Yeah?
--and a member of a band,
somebody who listens to your album a hundred times
on the free tier of a streaming service
is putting less bread in your pocket than one poser who buys a T-shirt.
Fair point.
So I say, thank you to the posers.
I don't think there's a lot of posers buying Vampire Weekend T-shirts.
I think people only buy Vampire Weekend gear if they like Vampire Weekend.
If they're heads.
If they're heads. Maybe in ten years.
That'd be nice.
You have to raise your T-shirt game on the next tour.
You want to design one, Jake?
Yeah, I should probably help you out with that.
Yeah.
I'd love to see a Jake original.
I'd love to.
That'd be cool.
Merch is a very big business now.
Sure.
Now people are doing pop-up stores, people are starting their own fashion lines.
And here I have been, like a chump,
sitting on the sidelines
talking about Home Depot,
making cartoons,
and sitting on my ass in the studio.
I missed a g***** damn gold rush.
Kanye and Justin Bieber.
You think it's different now than it was a few years ago?
Oh yeah.
Wow.
We missed a g***** damn gold rush.
Well get on that right now, dude.
We could do something where we do like,
even before the album comes out,
we do limit, you know what a drop is?
Yeah, can an album drop?
Or like, no, but in like, clothes.
No.
It would roughly refer to some sort of situation
in which you're like,
it could be at a pop-up shop
where you're quickly selling a bunch of merch.
It could be at a flea market,
it could be just pull up,
you know, I'll post on Instagram,
"Me and Jake got 100 hand-painted VW t-shirts."
Ooh.
"Bring $100 cash
and meet us in a Home Depot parking lot.
We're gonna get a good lot scene going."
I like this.
That really would tie everything together.
This should be--
A Home Depot lot scene.
Home Depot management would be so confused.
Yeah.
Just--
Honestly, it'd be great for them.
Would it?
Yeah, 'cause maybe a kid comes through
to check out the drop,
buys some limited edition VW X Jake Longstreth merch,
and then afterwards, maybe they're thirsty,
they want a soda,
going to Home Depot to grab a soda.
Maybe they start looking around and say like,
"Oh, you know what, actually?
I've been meaning to refinish my deck."
It's Father's Day.
Right?
I'm gonna pick up the Makita Impact Driver.
For Dad.
He's gonna love it.
Okay, Jake, I want you on my merch team
for the next album.
Love it.
♪ I can't stay much longer ♪
♪ The fire's getting higher ♪
♪ I can't help you with your problems ♪
♪ If you won't help me with mine ♪
♪ Gotta get down ♪
♪ To the mind ♪
♪ Oh, mind ♪
♪ Keep me up just one more night ♪
♪ I can't sleep no more ♪
♪ Let me say it's a quarter to eight ♪
♪ You keep me up to four ♪
♪ Gotta get down ♪
♪ Wanna get down ♪
♪ To the mind ♪
♪ I, I, I, I, I, I, I, I ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ End of the line ♪
♪ I got to get down ♪
♪ Gotta get down to the cumberland mind ♪
♪ I swear I really spent my time ♪
♪ Ain't done money five dollars a day ♪
♪ Can't take anymore money away ♪
Wait a minute!
♪
You're listening to...
Time Crisis on Beats 1.
Speaking of Clothes in the Dead,
you were also reading this article that said that
Jerry in the late '80s teamed up with Levi's.
Right, right.
Kind of surprising.
Right.
Well, okay, in that same New York Times article,
it mentions just in passing this ad he made,
and it says,
"He's just appeared in some ads for Levi's jeans."
And then here's a quote.
"Me, Hornsby, and Branford Marsalis,"
Mr. Garcia said.
"Spike Lee directed,
"and I figure if Spike can sell out, so can I."
And then I looked for it on YouTube, but couldn't find it.
So I'm a little confused,
because you would think if there was an ad
with Bruce Hornsby, Jerry Garcia, and Branford Marsalis
directed by Spike Lee,
then it would have been on YouTube,
so maybe it never aired.
But we did find that radio spot he did for Levi's.
In the late '80s,
Jerry participated in a series of radio spots
where Levi's--
I don't know if they were reintroducing the 501.
The campaign was the Levi's 501 Blues,
where I think the kind of idea--
Some whiz kid at the--
♪ I got the 501 Blues ♪
Some whiz kid at the ad agency thought--
I can just picture the '80s version
of a Mad Men style meeting,
just like, "Okay, what are Levi's?
"They're all American.
"We want to tie into Americana,
"but we want it to be deeper than that.
"We also want to feel fresh."
Well, how about this?
Idealistic, progressive.
Levi's are all American, and they're blue,
like the blues.
Another product of American ingenuity,
blues music.
So why don't we get people
tangentially connected to blues music,
and we can do something kind of cool and cultural,
and we'll call it 501 Blues.
Hey, how about Jerry Garcia of the Grateful Dead?
No actual blues musicians.
Let's get a white guy
who can play a little blues guitar.
Around 50.
A countercultural icon.
Let's get Jerry Garcia.
And they got him to do it.
[playing in bright blues-rock rhythm]
♪ ♪
♪ You'll find me on the back of my jeans ♪
♪ Levi's Blues is what it means ♪
♪ A good pair of Levi's bound to set me free ♪
♪ ♪
♪ 501 Blues, shrink and fit only me ♪
You know, I think that's one thing
that's interesting about Jerry,
is, like, he wasn't, like, a hyper-political dude.
Yeah.
And that's what I also-- when we were talking
about Grateful Dead concerts being safe spaces,
and I'm not knocking the politics of our day,
but I could totally picture Jerry
like that kind of very vague old hippie,
just like, "Our concerts are, like, safe spaces, man."
And then it's back in 2017, and somebody's like,
"Then why are you playing at a venue
whose security has contributed to the oppression of Ibawa?"
And just Jerry being like...
Oh.
Oh, um...
Bobby, you want to feel this one, man?
And just, like, people--
I mean, that way he would not know what to do with himself.
I think he'd probably get into some just, like--
Yeah, the world's a big place.
I could picture that if Grateful Dead was, like, touring today,
and Jerry's getting some of those, like, thorny--
and, you know, very real situations
where he's giving some kind of very vague '60s version of it
to safe space and be like,
"Then why are you allowing, like, the local police
to do the security at your show
when they, like, you know, did some ill [bleep]?"
I feel like Jerry would probably at first be like--
he wouldn't be defensive.
I could just picture him being like,
"I don't have the answers, man.
"You know what? I'm just gonna--
the rest of the next couple years,
I'm just gonna tour with a Jerry Garcia band
playing small venues."
I think he'd just kind of back off and be like,
"I don't know."
"I don't have the answers, man."
"I don't have the answers, man."
So anyway, I think Jerry's relationship
to corporate America was probably something similar.
♪ Went down to the mountain, I was drinking some wine ♪
♪ Looked up in the heaven, Lord, I saw a mighty sign ♪
♪ Written by a cross in heaven ♪
♪ Plated black and white, good for death ♪
♪ There's gonna be a party tonight, uh-huh ♪
♪ Hey, Saturday night ♪
♪ Yeah, uh-huh ♪
♪ One more Saturday night ♪
♪ Hey, Saturday night ♪
♪ Everybody's dancing down the local armory ♪
♪ With a basement full of dynamite and lavatillery ♪
♪ And we're chooking rice and everybody getting high ♪
♪ Comes a rocket stroke at midnight, place is gonna fly ♪
♪ Hey, Saturday night ♪
♪ Yeah, uh-huh ♪
♪ One more Saturday night ♪
♪ Hey, Saturday night ♪
All right, Jake, you ready for the top five?
If the dead are in it.
Doubt it.
It's time for the Top Five.
F-F-F-F-F-Five on iTunes.
Okay, so this week, we're gonna compare
the top five songs on iTunes today
to the top five Billboard hits of 1979.
Why 1979?
That was the year that the dead first played
"Madison Square Garden,"
which they played on January 7, 1979.
Wow. So you think about that.
You really-- all the musicians out there,
you gotta believe in yourself.
Yeah, it took 'em 14 years to get there.
Yeah, the dead started in the mid-'60s.
There's no way they were playing to that many people in New York.
And then 1979, like the height of "New Wave," "Disco."
They don't have a big album out.
They're very unfashionable,
and yet that's when they're at their peak.
It's amazing.
So they played 52 times in total at MSG.
Phish will play their 53rd concert at MSG
on December 28, 2017,
to start a four-night run.
Ezra, who's the top MSG concert player?
I know it.
You know it. It's your boy.
It's Billy Joel.
Yeah.
Yeah, because, you know, 'cause you can see at the Garden,
they have his name up in the rafters.
Oh, really? It's like--
Yeah.
1973, Knicks.
Yeah, literally.
It says, like, the Knicks and the Rangers
and all the championship sports teams,
and it says Billy Joel, most concerts played at MSG.
I caught him there once.
I know you did.
You texted me the set list.
90-plus shows for him.
Good Lord.
What about number two?
Elton John.
You got it. '64.
His name is also up in the rafters.
Maybe he played the most consecutive shows or something.
It's Billy Joel and Elton John are the two musicians
up there next to the Knicks and the Rangers.
What blows my mind is that the Dead,
going back to that 1991 New York Times article,
played nine straight nights at MSG in '91.
Yeah.
That is just, like--I don't know what to make of it.
It's just so surreal. Hard to picture.
That was their commercial peak as a touring entity.
Early '90s, Bill Clinton's in the White House.
Not yet, bro.
Oh, yeah, he went in '92?
One in '92, you know, in there in '93.
Oh, you're right. That was election year.
We're a full two years out from Clinton, bro.
We're like deep George H.W.
He's on the national scene.
Not really, dude.
Oh, yeah, you're right, 'cause the election was '92,
and he didn't take the office till '93.
Yeah, he didn't really come on the scene till '92.
Okay, you're right, those weird H.W. years.
Anyway, it's 1979 versus 2017.
I think you're gonna like this 1979 top 5, Jake,
just 'cause the No. 5 song on the charts in 1979
was one of your favorite bands, The Eagles.
Nice.
"Heartache Tonight."
[playing in slow tempo]
♪
♪ Somebody's gonna hurt someone ♪
♪ Before the night is through ♪
♪ Somebody's gonna come undone ♪
♪ There's nothing we can do ♪
♪ Everybody ♪
♪ Everybody wants to do something ♪
This song's real hard.
♪ If it takes all night ♪
Yeah.
I wonder if Henley was blown about that drum machine usage.
Is it a drum machine?
I've always thought it was. Is it not?
♪ There's gonna be a heartache tonight ♪
♪ A heartache tonight ♪
It could have been some weird effect.
♪
♪ There's gonna be a heartache tonight ♪
♪ A heartache tonight ♪
This is a pretty rough song.
♪ Lord, I know ♪
You're listening to the tasteful palates
of the 1970s on "Time Crisis."
You know what? Also--
We should point out, this was--of the classic period,
this was The Eagles' final album.
Yeah, long-run record.
Amazing 1970s.
It kind of reminds me of some, like, late Beatles, too.
Just, like, a band getting to the end.
They're such consummate songwriters.
They're never gonna drop a dud.
It makes me think of, like, ♪ Oh, darling ♪
Some kind of wack little Beatles.
♪ The long and winding road ♪
♪ Dun-dun ♪
Well, that song's in a whole other league beyond this.
Debatable.
I would say "Oh, Darling" is, like--
It's a nice niche of, like, the '50s ballad.
On "Let It Be," they had a couple just, like, blues rockers.
Right, right. This is just, like, quintessential bar band.
Like, we wrote a song called "Heartache Tonight."
I also love the--the Eagles, like all good songwriters--
and we've talked about them a bunch on the show
'cause they are one of your favorite bands--
I'll own it.
They're really good at--in the best Eagles songs,
especially the singles, like all great songwriting,
but they're on kind of an unusual moment or feeling.
That's the difference between the kind of just, like, rank-and-file,
just, like, wack, middle-of-the-road pop music,
and then these people who, like--
Even, like, Adele or something.
There's a million songs about breakups.
Adele always finds that way in where she's saying something
about a specific moment in a breakup or something.
And you think about the Eagles, like, we've talked on the show,
about, like, "Lion Eyes."
It's a very specific--you're painting a picture
not just about cheating, but about being at a restaurant
with a woman, like a trophy wife,
who's unhappy with this kind of wack dude.
Sugar daddy, yeah.
Sugar daddy type dude, and you can tell that she can't hide
the fact that she's cheating on this guy,
and she's not happy with him.
So it's, like, a very interesting slice of life.
And then when I think about, like, what is this song about?
Well, keep it going, 'cause this song's actually--
the chorus is really wack, but, like, the verses are, like...
♪ Some folks can't hold out that long ♪
Pretty good.
♪ Some folks can't hold out that long ♪
♪ Nobody wants to go home now ♪
Here we go.
♪ There's too much going on ♪
People got the phone wrong, man.
They don't want to write it.
It's like...
♪ This night is gonna last forever ♪
♪ Last all, last all summer long ♪
♪ Sometime before the sun comes up ♪
♪ The radio is gonna play that song ♪
That's kinda weak.
But I like that part.
Like, something about Glenn's delivery
really, to me, transmit that feeling of, like,
we're partying, this is fun, like, people want to hook up.
Although it's funny, it's like...
People want to, like, hang out and have a good time.
Glenn's very voyeuristic.
A lot of his songs are, like, just, like, watching other people.
Right.
This song is, like, Glenn's getting a little older,
he's, like, cruising down the street,
he's watching all the younger folks,
he's seeing them, he's like, that guy,
he doesn't want to go home 'cause he's lonely.
That guy's looking for something,
and he's looking at the kids.
Glenn's a little judgmental,
but he can relate at the same time.
We talked about how Glenn always, like,
has some made-up story.
Rest in peace, he's not with us,
but he always has, like, a perfect story
for where his song came from.
Life in the fast lane.
Man, I was cruising down Sunset
with this crazy dude behind the wheel,
and I said, "Dude, you're driving real fast,"
and he was like, "Life in the fast lane."
You know, he always got, like, a story.
Totally.
And I get a picture of this one,
just, like, me and Don were driving by a bar,
saw a bunch of high school kids.
We saw 'em, saw the nerds, the jocks,
having a good summer night.
We were a little too old for that.
And I just turned to Don and said,
"Look at all those kids," and he said, "Yeah, man."
Remember being that young, everything was fun.
I said, "Well, it wasn't all fun, Don.
"And if I look at those kids,
"there's gonna be a heartache tonight."
And he said, "That's a song, man."
Drove back to my path.
[laughs]
♪ And we can make it come out right ♪
♪ There's gonna be a heartache tonight ♪
♪ A heartache tonight, I know ♪
All right, I was too hard on this song.
It's kind of deep.
It's about the--
It's classic Eagles.
On the surface, it's very stock.
And then when you spend a little time with it,
you're kind of like, "Ooh, I'm starting to feel you."
Yeah, think about that.
Next time you're out on a Friday night
watching all the young people having fun
and you're kind of jealous, just remember
that even though you might not be
a high school junior anymore,
get [bleep] faced for the first time,
you're also not experiencing the raw pain of heartbreak.
Maybe that's what Glenn was trying to say.
Let's see what we can glean from the number five song.
Oh, the number five song in 2017.
Post Malone featuring 21 Savage.
Do you remember this song?
Oh, yeah, sure.
So number five was the Eagles, a rock band in 1979.
Number five in 2017 is "Rockstar."
[soft music]
This song's been on the charts for a while.
This is a huge song.
It's one of the biggest songs of the year so far.
[soft music]
♪ ♪
♪ I've been, I've been, I've been poppin', poppin' ♪
♪ Man, I feel just like a rockstar ♪
Wow.
This is a shift in life.
♪ All my brothers got that gas ♪
♪ And they always be smokin' like a rockstar ♪
I feel like most songs now--
I guess it's always kind of been like this,
but the perspective of that Eagles song,
it's like, "Somebody's gonna this, somebody's gonna that,
there's gonna be a heartache tonight,"
just that kind of, like, neutral narrator.
Third person.
You don't get a lot of that.
Now it's always like, "I feel like a rockstar."
It's me.
Just imagine a song that's like...
♪ Close that door, we blowin' smoke ♪
♪ Tonight's gonna feel like a rockstar ♪
♪ Somebody's poppin' pillies, somebody's, somebody's ♪
It's like, you don't get a lot of "somebody" songs.
Yeah, Glenn didn't write in the first person, really.
Interesting.
♪ I do a TV, I know we know what I'm on ♪
♪ Tosh, tosh ♪
♪ On the table, lick a porn, don't give a damn ♪
♪ Don't joke, girlfriend is a goobie ♪
♪ She just tryna get ahead ♪
That part's good.
♪ Sayin' I'm with the band ♪
Yeah, listen to that.
♪ I'm with the band ♪
♪ I'm with the band ♪
Something really interesting happens with his voice.
I don't know if it's the auto-tune or that's just his natural vibrato.
♪ I'm in the club ♪
It's an effect, right?
Or is it...
It might be his natural vibrato interacting with the auto...
I don't know.
Yeah.
♪ I'm with the band ♪
♪ I'm the rockstar ♪
♪ When we, when we call up on 'em ♪
♪ And show up in 'em, the shot toss ♪
Reminds me of the Neil Young song "Cinnamon Girl."
I can see that.
When the girl's waiting backstage.
♪ The drummer relaxes and waits between shows ♪
You know what, I bet Post Malone likes Neil Young.
Yeah, man.
Who doesn't?
That's true.
Who doesn't like Neil Young?
He's like Willie Nelson.
He's like...
Kinda everybody likes Neil Young.
Yeah.
Okay, back to 1979.
The number four song, "Sticks."
Oh.
♪ I'm sailing away ♪
It's not...
So, Jake, for our listeners who somehow made it through this entire episode
without having at least a vague interest in classic rock,
you're a guy who loves the tasteful palette of the '70s.
Yeah, but not the late '70s.
So you don't like bands like "Sticks."
No, I don't.
They're like overblown to you.
Well, it's not that song anyway.
Yeah.
It's "Babe," which I believe is a ballad.
I don't know it.
I like the tasteful palette of like 1970 to like 1974.
Oh.
So you like the tasteful palette of the early '70s, really.
Yeah, yeah.
Very patient.
Yeah, it's taken a real long time.
This is...
This song was written by member Dennis DeYoung
as a birthday present for his wife, Susan.
Have you ever heard Stephen Halpern?
Yeah, you played it for me.
He's a new age artist.
Early new age.
Similar kind of words, keyboard, tone.
Going!
Yeah, I don't like the really formal, stilted kind of Broadway.
It's almost like, yeah, it's very showtuned.
Yeah.
It's weird to think about this band like being really into like
Zeppelin and Sabbath.
Yeah.
And like taking that vibe, but then making it really academic
and stiff.
♪ 'Cause you know it's you, babe ♪
♪ Whenever I get weary and I've had enough ♪
♪ Feel like giving up ♪
This is like Glee or something.
♪ But it's you, babe ♪
I bet they perform this on Glee.
♪ Giving me the courage and the strength I need ♪
♪ Please believe that it's true ♪
♪ Babe, I love you ♪
Weird.
♪ Babe, I love you ♪
I love this s*** too about like, I mean, maybe the stories get
kind of lost in translation a little bit, 'cause I've certainly
written songs with a person in mind, or I've name checked
somebody in a song, and I usually always let them know.
But nine times out of ten, I'm kind of like, "Look, it's vaguely
inspired by your name."
I just feel embarrassed, so I just don't think I could ever--
the idea of just literally saying to somebody, like your girlfriend
or your wife, just like, "I wrote you a song."
Just like, you know, 'cause I just don't--it's weird,
especially as a birthday present.
It's so presumptuous that then the wife has to be like,
"Oh my God, it's so beautiful."
Yeah, versus just like, "You know, I like more of your
prog-type stuff.
There weren't enough tempo shifts for me.
I prefer it."
When you're writing in 7/8.
Yeah, also just like, "I hope you got her something else."
I mean, we don't know if this is true, but just like,
"Susan, I got a birthday present for you."
"I got a birthday present for you."
"Oh, Dennis, where is it?"
"It's downstairs. It's in the studio."
"Oh, why is it in the studio?"
"Well, it's so large I couldn't contain it."
[laughter]
"You can't bring it up to the bedroom?"
"It's physically impossible."
"That's impossible, Susan. Come down to the home studio.
Sit here and close your eyes."
"Happy birthday."
"Wait, what is it?"
"This is it."
"Keep your eyes closed."
"It's this song."
"Keep your eyes closed for the next five minutes and ten seconds."
"Oh, this song is my birthday present? Yeah, I wrote it for you."
"What's it called?"
"Babe."
"Is it gonna be a single?"
"I hope so."
"It's out of my hands now."
"And guess what, Susan? I have all the publishing. I wrote it by myself."
[laughter]
"The song is a birthday present."
"May you never do that."
"Any time I've written a song that's remotely about somebody--
and again, I'm not saying that there's anything wrong with the idea of writing a song for somebody or about somebody,
but I just approach it with such embarrassment that's a little bit like,
'I hope you like this. If you don't, we can talk about it.'"
"It's so presumptuous."
"But it's so presumptuous to give it as a present."
"Right."
"I wrote a song for you, my wife. It's called 'Babe.'"
"Honey, it's so sweet. Thank you. I mean, I'm concerned about the retaining wall in our backyard."
"And I was hoping we could maybe put a little money towards that."
"And it's you, babe."
"Whatever. It's sweet. It's sweet."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"The only part throwing me for a loop is the birthday present element."
"Yeah, yeah, yeah."
"For all we know, he got her some great other gifts. The number four song, 2017, 'Imagine Dragons Thunder.'
Good to see some rock on the charts."
"Love this band."
"Actually, after the last episode and releasing this, I was thinking about it.
I was like, 'This is my favorite 'Imagine Dragons' song that I've ever heard.'"
"Foyer."
"I like that."
"I'm not mad at this song at all. Has it grown on you, Jake?"
"Yeah, a little bit. I'm down."
"I'm not mad at this song at all. Has it grown on you, Jake?"
"Yeah, a little bit. I'm down."
"Also, dope subject matter. Just natural phenomena. I'm into that as a subject matter."
"Okay."
"There's enough songs about how you're making money, you bought a condo in Manhattan, you opened up TJ Fridays in Dallas, whatever.
Now you're right, it's one of the only songs we've had in the top five about a natural phenomena.
Although I still think this song has a little bit of that classic."
"I rule."
"Yeah, I rule quality."
"Thunder only happens when it's raining."
"Back to 1979, Barbra Streisand. We always get these random Barbra Streisand songs.
'No more tears, enough is enough.'"
"I feel like Streisand and Bette Midler were just crushing it late 70s."
"Oh, I guess Donna Summer's on this too? Oh, it's a duet between Barbra Streisand and Jones."
"Is this from a movie?"
"No, she did a..."
"God, I hate this."
"You already hate it?"
"Yep, confirmed."
"Why? She's talking about natural phenomena."
"The album is called Wet."
"What?"
"Wet."
"Barbra Streisand, Wet."
"Yeah, it's kind of a cool name."
"There's Donna Summer."
"Did you hear Wet yet?"
"Must cop."
"Wet is top five Barbra albums for me. Big Wet fan."
"Wet was a real turning point in her career."
"How is this a top single?"
"I want to just skip ahead. People buy my stuff."
"Yeah, skip ahead."
"Yeah, I knew it was going to get funky because that song was produced by Giorgio Moroder."
"That answers your question, huh?"
"How far into the song are we?"
"About two minutes."
"How long is the whole song?"
"Well, there's an 11 minute version."
"Wow."
"This version is only 4.43."
"This is crazy."
"Love that guitar playing."
"Barbra got funky."
"Yeah."
"You know, these late 70s songs don't stand the test of time quite the way they do."
"The schmaltzy stuff doesn't. The funky stuff is pretty cool."
"It still doesn't stand the test of time."
"Oh, Jake, by the way, Barbra Streisand's album Wet was a concept album of sorts with all the songs referring to or expressing different interpretations of water."
"So this song, 'No More Tears, Enough is Enough' tears are a water-based phenomenon."
"Natural phenomenon."
"A natural water-based phenomenon. That's pretty cool."
"Streisand's Air album."
"Blown Kisses. Got My Head in the Clouds. You could have fun with that."
"She's got her Fire record. She's got her Earth record."
"That's interesting."
"That's interesting, man."
"Barbra, what made you want to make a concept album about water?"
"Actually, I bet I know what the answer was."
"Don't. No."
"October 1979. What made you want to make a concept album called Wet about water?"
"Well, I recently bought a magnificent estate in Malibu, and living by the beach just made me think about water, and I wanted to make a water album."
"I look down, I see my pool, and then I see the ocean."
"It's crazy. I take a bath in my giant bathtub in the morning, and then I look out the window, and I take a dip in the pool, or I could even go down to the beach. I'm surrounded
by water."
"And then I hit the hot tub."
"I hit the hot tub. At night, I'm in the hot tub."
"Listen, I was a little girl in Brooklyn. We didn't know from water. Now I'm out in Malibu."
"I'm drinking Avion."
"I'm surrounded by water."
"So I turn to Giorgio, and I say, 'Let's make it about water.'"
"Barbra Streisand doesn't really talk like that."
"My good friend and neighbor, David Hockney, wonderful artist, wonderful painter. He's obsessed with water."
"He's always painting pools."
"I bought three paintings from David Hockney last year. I tell him, 'David, I love your paintings. I love your water.'"
"I want to make an album about water."
"Little Jewish girl from Brooklyn. I might go to Coney Island once. I saw the subway."
"I didn't see the magnificent Pacific Ocean."
"I didn't know David Hockney."
"I knew the butcher on the corner. We didn't..."
I seriously think it could be about her. I don't even want to look it up anymore.
That's such a hilarious time in any artist's career, where they're just so rich.
They're just looking for any kind of vague inspiration.
It's no longer just, "Well, this is about what's been happening in my life."
It's just about something super random.
"I don't know. I like water. I live by the beach."
That stuff's so painful when you've got to pull out some...
Sometimes you have a good answer, but you read so much stuff where musicians are just like,
"So what inspired this album?"
They talk about some vacation they went on.
"I invested in a Kia dealership in Thousand Oaks last year.
My brother-in-law talked me into it. Best decision I ever made."
We're here with the Fleet Foxes to talk about their new album, Thousand Oaks.
You've always had a lot of nature imagery.
A lot of your lyrics have had a kind of mystical feeling.
When I hear "Thousand Oaks," it makes me think about Renaissance England, rolling green fields, trees,
the mystical power of trees.
The African savanna.
The African savanna. A thousand oaks.
California in the 19th century.
And the number 1,000. There's something so mystical about that number.
How did you come to this idea of Thousand Oaks?
Well, my jagged-ass brother-in-law talked me into investing in a Kia dealership in Thousand Oaks.
One of the most boneheaded decisions I ever made.
I lost a ton of dough on that.
So honestly, Thousand Oaks is just mostly about my anger towards my brother-in-law about the Kia dealership.
Every song is kind of just a different aspect of my anger towards my brother-in-law.
The number 3 song in 2017 on the charts, Eminem featuring Beyonce.
You know about this one, Jake?
I've heard about it.
So you knew that Eminem came back with a new Beyonce song?
Yeah.
So last time we talked about Eminem on this show, we were talking about his anti-Trump freestyle,
which we both thought was pretty good and a really solid and bold political statement by a major artist,
which we frankly don't get a lot of.
Yeah.
But if you really think about it, this is a guy who's willing to just come out and say,
"If you like Trump, I don't want you as my fan."
Throwing caution to the wind.
And so he comes back.
This song is a little less angry.
What's this one called?
This is called "Walk on Water."
Look at that first lyric, "I walk on water."
I walk on water.
This could be right at home on Barbra Streisand's 1979 album, "Wet."
Jesus, I walk on water, but only when it freezes.
Why are expectations so high?
Is it the bar I set, my arms I stretch, but I can't reach?
A far cry from it, or it's in my grasp, but as soon as I grab, squeeze,
I lose my grip like the flying trapeze into the dark I plummet.
Now the sky's blackening, I know the mark's high, but a fly's rip apart my stomach.
Knowing that no matter what bars I come with, you're gonna harp gripe,
and that's a hard fight getting to swallow.
So I scrap these as pressure increases like khakis.
I feel the ice cracking because--
Wait, wait, what the hell is he talking about?
Okay, well, so you know, there's an interesting podcast that Rick Rubin started,
a new podcast where they talk about the songs.
I listened to it, so I have some more info to contextualize the song.
Apparently the song is about Eminem feeling like for all of his success,
he's kind of painted himself into a corner because when you get to your 7th or 8th album,
you've explored so much territory that in some ways you've kind of done it all.
And now every move you make is like a high-wire act where it's like
you can't please everybody anymore.
Eminem's shown his serious side. He's shown his silly side.
He says, "Some people hear a new song from me and they say,
'Oh, how come he's not doing that old-school hip-hop?'"
Or they hear some old-school sh*t and it's like,
"How come he's not keeping up with the times?"
Or, "Why is he being all whiny and serious?"
So I think the song is about him reckoning with his place in culture
and the difficulty of being a very successful artist with a lot of pressure on you.
You can't please everyone, so you got to please yourself.
That's right.
So I think he's saying, "Why are expectations so high?"
He said it's almost like he's a victim of his own success.
Alright, well that's not interesting at all.
You're not interested in Eminem's struggles with his self and his artists?
Not in that respect.
One thing that I want to know is what does he mean when he says,
"As pressure increases like khakis"?
Yeah, I don't know what that means.
I feel the ice cracking.
Wait, you think you know what it means?
Oh, okay.
Yeah, okay, Eminem's just too smart for me, actually.
"As pressure increases like khakis."
You know, that's one of those things where it's either super smart or super dumb.
That's the thing with wordplay.
I'm probably guilty of this too.
Wordplay can either be this sublime thing where something has multiple meanings
and you found a way to use language in a fun way,
or it can just literally be nonsense.
"As pressure increases, my khakis have creases."
I'm doing what Eminem was talking about.
You're saying either he's being too straightforward or he's being too rapid-y rapid-y.
Plays on words, I don't know.
What do you think of the Beyonce hook?
Can you hear those sound effects?
Like in public and paper?
Yeah.
Here we go.
"If only they knew it's a facade and it's exhaustive."
I like this.
Second verse is great.
Oh, really? You like it?
Yeah, it's more specific to his actual day-to-day struggle of being an artist.
Right, now you understand what he's talking about.
Probably should not have dropped the R-word.
I guess that's just old Grandpa Eminem.
Yeah.
I want to see the return of the awfully hot coffee pot metaphor.
"Creativity's a awfully hot coffee pot.
Do I dare to pick it up?
Pour myself a cup?
The creative process is an awfully hot coffee pot."
I like Eminem.
So do I, man.
One thing I like about Eminem, too, and I encourage everybody to listen to that podcast
because if you're remotely interested in him--
I got to check it out.
At least you get some weird insight.
And you can tell, this is a dude--one thing I'll say,
from everything I've ever heard about him, read about him,
in his own words, other people's words,
he truly is a super intense, hard-on-himself perfectionist
versus, say, a kid rock who seems just like a showboat and ego-driven dude.
Eminem seems like a genuinely tormented dude
who really wants to be great, really cares about craft.
And we could listen to this song and maybe we don't like it that much or whatever,
but Eminem truly is a dude who's all day long thinking about his lyrics
and working at them.
He's like Leonard Cohen.
He is like Leonard Cohen.
And kid rock is like Kiss.
Yeah, exactly.
Eminem is gravitas.
He's hard on himself.
And there's an interesting part where he talks about how
when he was a kid growing up listening to Tupac,
he had this epiphany where he realized--he was saying,
"Why is Tupac so good?"
Because some people listen to Tupac, they just love it,
and then the future rappers of the world listen to Tupac
and say, "How does this work?"
They take it apart.
"What makes this good?"
And Eminem's big insight with Tupac was he said Tupac's lyrics
moved with the chord progression.
It wasn't just like he picked a set of words to say
and then put them over the beat.
He would make sure that certain lines corresponded with the emotional part
of the chord progression.
So if it hit a chord that was minor, he would make sure that that's where
he was saying something dark or something that fit with it.
And Eminem realized there was kind of a--almost like a Jerry Garcia-esque
lyricism in the way that he was matching words to the chord progression.
And Eminem realized that's something that he wanted to do.
And it's not something that every rapper does.
Whether or not you like Eminem, that's a guy who's thinking.
♪ 'Cause I'm just a man, but as long as I got a mic ♪
♪ I'm godlike, so me and you are not alike ♪
♪ I wrote "Stan" ♪
He wrote "Stan."
I think that's also Eminem.
You never know where you stand with the guy.
Is he just this emotional wreck?
Is he just all in his head?
And then he makes this kind of emotional song,
and then at the very last minute, he snaps out of it.
He's calling me a [bleep]
He's calling you, Jake, a [bleep]
He's got three verses.
Hey, man, I'm with you on your journey.
Yeah, of just kind of being like, "And everybody's so hard on me,
and because I'm so good!"
And I'm like, "I feel you, dog."
"I'm a legendary rapper!"
"I feel your pain, man."
"The pressure gets to me!"
"It increases like caggies!"
And then Beyonce's final lines, she gets real emo.
"If I walked on water, I'd drown."
"I'm human just like you."
And then Eminem, he could have left it there.
Let Beyonce have the final word.
The whole point of the song is to say Eminem is a flawed human
who's hard on himself just like everybody.
Give him a break.
Then Eminem thinks about it, and as the door closes,
he bursts back into the room and says,
"Jake, you're a b----, and I wrote 'Stan.'
You're nothing.
I'm the greatest."
And I say, "That's one of your weaker numbers, bud."
"Stan?"
"Stan's a classic song."
"Your verses on '2001' are your best work, sir."
"If I walked on water, I'd drown."
"One last thing, f--- all you guys!
F--- you, Jakey L.A.!"
"Shut the f--- up!"
"American painter and radio personality, f--- you!"
"I wrote 'Stan.' Everything I said before, I was--
I don't know what happened.
I took the wrong medication this morning.
F--- all you guys!"
"Anyway."
Good for Eminem. He's keeping it real.
I like that he's back in the mix.
It felt a little empty without him, wouldn't you say?
You mean culture?
Yeah, it feels empty without him.
Yeah, I like him back in the mix.
This is a new song in 1979.
Donna Summer, she was on the charts twice.
She's crushing it.
She was the queen back then.
I feel like we did other top fives in the last few months
with a lot of Donna.
Late '70s, early '80s.
She was killing it.
This song's called "Dim All the Lights."
Also produced by Giorgio Moroder.
I'm in.
According to Billboard, the song is about sex.
Oh, okay.
All the way.
Okay.
This is the drop of '79.
Yeah.
This is like a famous long note she held.
That was a long note.
Yeah.
I've never heard this before, have you?
Yeah, I don't know.
Well--
And she wrote this song herself.
She didn't write a lot of her hits.
This is the one.
Gotcha.
Amazing voice.
Dim all the lights.
All of the lights.
Dim all the lights.
It's time to have sex.
Just dim 'em.
Throw, like, a t-shirt over the bedside lamp.
Yeah, back in 1979, you couldn't be controlling the lights from an app on your phone.
Right.
They had dimmers, though.
Did they have a lot of dimmers in 1979?
Probably not a standard issue item.
No, I think that's when you'd hear all these stories.
I feel like--
Well, then, what she's saying, "Dim all the lights."
I mean, what does she mean, though?
In her--
No, I think back then--
In her Barbra Streisand mansion in Malibu?
I think in the late '70s.
This is that kind of weird, just, like, useless stuff that you vaguely pick up, like, when you're, like, a kid from, like, a couple eras after something.
It's, like, 1994, and I'm just, like, on, like, a Saturday just watching some episode of, like, some weird sitcom from 1979.
I'm just like, I feel like back then, you're right, people would throw a t-shirt on the lamp, and then sometimes it'd burn the house down.
Still do.
Still?
Oh, yeah.
I feel like I watched some sitcom when I was a kid where they were, like, somebody tried to do something sexy.
I think also--
I don't leave the t-shirt on there.
I think people would also sometimes vaguely unscrew the bulb.
Wasn't that a move?
Oh, really?
From back in the day?
If you unscrewed the bulb, like, halfway, it would be a little dim.
I'm getting a message here.
Yeah?
In 1959, Joel Spira, who had found the Lutron Electronics Company in '61, invented a dimmer based on a diode and tapped an autotransformer, saving energy and allowing
the dimmer to be installed in a standard electrical wall box.
No, I believe it, but it's, like, the compact--
It's not a standard--
Yeah, like, CDs were invented in the '70s.
Really?
Yeah.
Wow.
Any of our older listeners who were--
Right, right, right.
--truly conscious in 1979, did you have a dimmer at your house?
If you were trying to set a mood, what did you do?
And if you were rich folks who had a fancy dimmer, you probably also had a CD player in 1979.
That doesn't count.
I just want to say, any of our kind of Joe Schmoe 1979 listeners, what did Joe Schmoe do in 1979 to set the mood?
Give us a call.
The number two song on the top five today, Ed Sheeran, "Perfect."
Is this his ballad?
Yeah, this is the song--
God, this song sucks.
[laughs]
♪ For me ♪
This is kind of his gospel song.
♪ Darling, just dive right in ♪
♪ Dive right in ♪
♪ Follow my lead ♪
♪ I found a girl ♪
♪ Beautiful and sweet ♪
This song went number one in Belgium.
♪ I never knew you were the someone waiting for me ♪
♪ 'Cause we were just kids when we fell in love ♪
♪ Not knowing what it was ♪
♪ I will not give you up this time ♪
♪ Darling, just kiss me slow ♪
♪ Your heart is all I own ♪
♪ And in your eyes, you're holding mine ♪
♪ Baby, I'm done sitting in the dark ♪
♪ With you between my arms ♪
Between my arms.
♪ Barefoot on the grass ♪
Awkward.
♪ Listening to our favorite song ♪
♪ When you said you looked a mess ♪
♪ I whispered underneath my breath ♪
What you what?
♪ That you heard it ♪
♪ Darling, you were wonderful tonight ♪
♪ I don't want to miss a thing you do tonight ♪
No, remember, Jake, this is the song--
Yeah.
Okay, here's another thing.
I think Ed Sheeran's a great songwriter.
You do?
Yeah, he's written all sorts of hits for other people.
He's written some--he's written one of Justin Bieber's
best songs, "Love Yourself."
He's written one of our favorite songs,
"Your Body is a Wonderland,"
and "I Know It Like a Backroad."
What was that song called?
Wait, the Sam Hunt?
No, what was his song about, "Knowing Your Body"?
What's it called?
"Shape."
Oh, "Shape of You."
"I'm in Love with the Shape of You."
Yeah, that's--
That's when America was really into body songs.
But Ed Sheeran can often be great at, like,
just finding a slice of life.
This song, to me, there's some really standout moments,
but--and look, we're talking about a world-class songwriter,
so I hope people don't think I'm being harsh,
but we're holding him to his own standard, Eminem style.
To me, this is not one of his best songs
just because there's a lot happening.
Like, "Shape of You," it's a very specific story.
You meet the girl, you go to the Chinese buffet,
you go home and have sex,
and you can't get her body off your mind.
That's what he--you know, this song,
it's about a lot of things.
It's like this--it's about a relationship,
and you don't even get to, like, the important moment
until, like, the very end of the chorus.
He's talking all about, like,
"I didn't know I was gonna meet you,"
and you're great about--
and then suddenly you get to the heart of it,
the hook, which is,
"We were dancing, feet on the grass,
"we're having a beautiful night,
"and then you said you looked a mess,
"and then I say underneath my breath for some reason,
"you look perfect, and you heard it."
Everything--you know what I mean?
Like, Ed Sheeran sometimes--
he's a master storyteller.
When he talks about taking the girl to the Chinese buffet,
you can taste the sweet and sour chicken, generally.
This one is just not clicking into focus for me.
So anyway, in this weird moment,
it's like, again, it brings up all these questions.
Why did he say it underneath her breath?
If a girl tells you in a self-deprecating way,
"I look like a mess today," and you disagree,
say, "No, you look great."
But he said it underneath his breath
'cause he was too shy to--I don't get it.
This song's called "Perfect."
You know what I mean?
It's just not his--it's not in focus.
- ♪ Well, I found a woman ♪
♪ Stronger than anyone I know ♪
♪ She shares my dreams, I hope ♪
- Maybe I'm being too--
I guess the positive interpretation would be
that this is just an impressionistic journey
through his love for somebody,
and he's jumping from kind of, like,
statements about them
to this moment they spent together dancing.
- ♪ To carry love, to carry children ♪
♪ Of our own ♪
- Whoa.
- ♪ We are still kids, but we're so young ♪
- Smash cut forward to the--
- ♪ To carry love, to carry children of our own ♪
- I guess, yeah, he's jumping back and forward in time.
- ♪ I know we'll be all right ♪
♪ This time ♪
♪ Darling, just hold my hand ♪
♪ We might go and be gone ♪
- Like, this part makes sense.
- ♪ I see the future ♪
- He's just saying quite a lot in this song.
- Yeah.
- So, like, right there, he could've been done,
and now...
- ♪ I know we'll be all right ♪
♪ Darling, just hold my hand ♪
- It's just like a hodgepodge of cliches.
- Right.
- ♪ You between my arms ♪
- Maybe he was like, "I gotta finish this song now."
- [laughs]
- And I don't, you know...
- ♪ We're singing to our favorite song ♪
♪ When I saw you in the dress ♪
- We're singing to our favorite song?
- What's your favorite song? You gotta...
- You know what?
- Throw in the Eric Clothin "Wonderful Tonight,"
just to get a palette.
- Okay. - I just wanted...
- A palette cleanse?
- Yeah, just in terms of, like, a very focused...
- Well, you know what I'll say.
- Relationship song.
- Well, that's very straightforward.
It's about... - Yeah, but it's focused.
- It's about, we're going out tonight,
and you look wonderful tonight.
- Yeah. - Period.
- It's incredible.
- I'm waiting for you to get ready.
You come down, you look wonderful.
We go to the party,
everybody's looking at you, you look wonderful.
We get home, you still look wonderful.
[smooth jazz music]
- Oof.
So much more tasteful.
- Oh, my God.
So slow.
In, like, a super confident way.
- Tasteful palette levels stabilizing.
[both laugh]
- ♪ It's late in the evening ♪
- He's setting the table.
- ♪ Wondering what goes to well ♪
- She's wondering. - Literally.
- What clothes to wear.
She's just going through her closet.
- I don't always do this.
Sometimes out of-- 'cause I'm not capable,
or just 'cause-- or 'cause I don't want to,
but I do love a song that, in the first two lines,
summarizes the whole song.
"It's late in the evening."
- She's wondering what clothes to wear.
- ♪ It's late in the evening ♪
- ♪ She's wondering what clothes to wear ♪
- It's also kind of like the Chekhov thing.
Is it Chekhov?
It's like, if you introduce a gun in the play--
- Oh, oh. - Somebody's gonna use it.
Now people think, "What's gonna happen with this gun?
Something's gonna happen with it."
And just like Eric Clapton,
a lesser songwriter would just be painting a random picture
and be like, "I'm waiting for my girlfriend.
She always takes a long time to figure out what to wear."
But here, that's very much-- that's not a throwaway detail.
You're telling everybody, "This lady's upstairs.
She's trying something on.
"Oh, it doesn't look good. I'm trying something else on."
Is that just a throwaway detail,
and then they're gonna go to the party,
and then we'll find out what the song's about?
No, that is what the song's about.
That lady who's feeling the pressure.
- She's trying on her fourth outfit.
- She's trying on her fourth outfit,
feeling the pressure of a patriarchal society
that judges women based on how they dress.
And now I'm wondering, Eric Clapton,
is he gonna be some macho d*ckhead who's like,
"Babe, it's not hot enough"?
We're about to find out.
Is he gonna support-- - "Babe, we're running late here."
- "Babe, we're running late. I don't care what you wear."
Well, other people do.
- What do you think Eric's wearing?
- ♪ Long blonde hair ♪
- It's like a weird white suit with a belt--
- Yeah, yeah. - With a belt-bottom suit.
- But he changed, too. He came home.
He was playing soccer with his mates.
He came home, showered.
Put on a suit.
- ♪ You look wonderful tonight ♪
- ♪ Ding-a-ling-a-ling ♪
- Such a better song. - Oh, yeah.
- I mean-- - Can we listen to the whole thing?
Let's just keep it going. Let's keep it going.
- I also just love that it's like...
when you really think, like,
what are the great songs about?
This is a song about...
- ♪ Everyone turns to see ♪
- Telling a woman she looks great.
- Yep. - ♪ Go to a party ♪
- It's an ode to domesticity, you know?
It's like... - It's real life, too, you know?
That's, like, some real sh--. You know, you could reverse--
it could be any genders. - Yeah, oh, totally.
- You know, female, non-binary, whatever.
You could--one person say to another person,
"I feel weird. Do I look okay?"
And you say, "Yeah, you look great."
- Yeah. Yeah, that, like, 20 minutes
before you leave the house to go to a party.
- Yeah. - It's, like, such a specific
sort of buzz and anticipation. - Right.
- And then you're at the party,
and you go to the--like, the couple check-in.
- Right. - "Hey, how are you?"
Like, you've been talking to other people.
- Yeah. - You come in.
"Hey, how are you?"
- "You look wonderful tonight."
You know what's also great about this song?
- ♪ Is that you just don't realize ♪
♪ How much I love you ♪
- That big crash cymbal there.
[imitates crash cymbal]
- It's also, like, there's so many songs
that are just about, like,
like, some Led Zeppelin songs.
Like, "You got a real hot mama?"
- Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
- "You're looking real good."
- This is, like, very specific.
It's about, like, vulnerability on both sides, kind of,
because it's like she's feeling weird about how she looks,
and he's saying, "You look great."
And then he's saying, like, "Man, she doesn't even realize
how much I love her." - Yeah.
- Come on, Ed.
- ♪ So I give her the coffee ♪
- ♪ Keys ♪
- ♪ She helps me to bed ♪
- He's all drunk, like, just getting into bed.
- ♪ And I tell her ♪
♪ As I tell her goodnight ♪
- They're not having sex.
- ♪ I say, "My darling" ♪
- They're just going to bed.
- ♪ You are wonderful tonight ♪
- [laughs]
Jake's miming the guitar.
- ♪ Oh, my darling ♪
♪ You are wonderful tonight ♪
♪
- Thank you, Ed Sheeran, for making us revisit this song
with your...
- ♪ Tune ♪
- Truly mediocre single, "Perfect."
This song, it's really, like, a--
it's very meaningful that at the end,
he pivots from, "You look wonderful."
He says, "You are wonderful."
- Yeah.
- It's--I love-- when you actually zoom out,
I love it.
This is, like-- it's a three-act play.
- Yep.
- Act one.
Clapton's waiting downstairs.
God, she's taking a long time.
She doesn't know to where she comes down.
"Do I look all right?"
And he looks at her and says, "You look amazing."
Doesn't give her a hard time about it.
Fellas...
- Who knows what he's actually thinking?
It doesn't matter.
- He knows that she was just feeling
really vulnerable upstairs, trying on stuff.
- Yep, yep, yep.
- He says, "You look great."
They go to the party.
He thinks about--
man, she doesn't know how much I love her.
He gets [bleep] faced.
Time to go home.
She drives home.
He gets in bed, turns out the lights,
and just says, "You're a wonderful person."
It's just a snapshot of one night
in the life of a couple.
- Yeah, a night they probably won't remember.
- Yeah.
- Just a random Friday night.
- That's something that, you know,
pop music's a great art form for,
is taking a kind of mundane event
in the lives of regular people
and making it beautiful
with tasteful guitar solos.
Where's the Ed Sheeran one?
It's all over the place, man.
And you know what, Ed Sheeran, again,
I truly stand by he's a great songwriter.
I'm sure he'll write it--
I think he could've just written
a few different songs within the realm of perfect.
- Ed's got a long career ahead of him.
- He'll get his wonderful night.
I was also gonna say,
I think you can write a great impressionistic song, too,
that maybe is not as specifically about--
- Yeah, sure.
- A night we went out and came home.
But if you wanna talk about that kind of
going back and forth through time
and thinking about memory
and when you first got with somebody
and how things changed
and hitting impressionistic moments,
which is what Ed Sheeran seems to be trying to do perfect,
I mean, you can't beat
"Brown Eyed Girl" Van Morrison for that.
- Oh, my God.
- Now, you can't say "Brown Eyed Girl"
is about anything as neat, as wonderful tonight,
but that's just like a great impressionistic thing
about memory and love and, you know.
I feel bad.
We've been kind of hard on Ed on this one,
but it's only because we love "Shape of You" so much
as one of the masterworks of songwriting,
and we just don't feel like "Perfect" is up to snuff.
The number one song in 1979,
"The Commodores" as Lionel Richie's group,
with "Still."
[soft piano music]
Ooh, real schmaltzy top five in 1979.
- Ballad-heavy.
♪ ♪
- ♪ Baby ♪
♪ Morning's just a moment away ♪
♪ And I'm with how you are ♪
- He's setting the scene.
Morning's just a moment away.
- ♪ You laughed at me ♪
♪ You said you never needed me ♪
- Mm-hmm.
- ♪ I wonder if you need me now ♪
- Mm.
- ♪ We play the games that people play ♪
♪ ♪
♪ We made mistakes along the way ♪
♪ Somehow I know deep in my heart ♪
♪ You needed me ♪
♪ ♪
♪ I'd bring the pain if I were safe ♪
- This is epic.
- ♪ It's deep in my mind and locked away ♪
♪ But then most of all ♪
♪ I do love you ♪
♪ ♪
- ♪ Still ♪
- This is just like the Ed Sheeran "Tonight."
Just like that classic final word of a chorus.
- ♪ Still, still ♪
- All right, so this is a song about--
- I've never heard this song in my life.
- He still loves her.
- ♪ Those memories ♪
- Wow. - Those mem-o-ries.
- ♪ Sometimes I'm sure we'll never forget ♪
♪ Those feelings we can't put aside ♪
- Okay, I mean, that's pretty.
- Yeah, I mean, that's-- - They broke up.
- That's a dirge. - They broke up,
and he still loves her. - Yeah.
- Thinking about the past.
Let's see how it stacks up against the number one song
of our time.
You know, it's been a pleasure to watch this song
push its way up the iTunes charts,
'cause it wasn't always number one.
We've heard this.
- Cardi B? No. - No, that song--
- What happened to Cardi B?
- The song kind of peaked in terms of its popularity.
- Right. Burned bright. - It burned bright.
It went number one, but I think it gave her career
such a huge boost. She's on the cover of magazines.
She's a household name now that she's really in a great place.
Well, you know, we'll see how her next--
- Great. - And she's on--
She's worked on some other singles.
Yeah, so she's in a great place. - That's awesome to hear.
- She lived at-- [laughs] Jake's psyched.
Do you remember who Camila Cabello is?
- This is the Cuban song.
- Right, it's called "Havana," featuring Young Thug.
- Weak. - Oh, you already--
You don't like it? - No, I don't like it.
[upbeat music]
- You don't think it's cool to hear a little bit
of that Cuban piano on the radio?
- Not really.
- ♪ Half of my heart is in Havana, ooh na-na ♪
♪ He took me back to East Atlanta, na-na-na ♪
♪ Half of my heart is in Havana ♪
♪ There's something 'bout his manners, Havana, ooh na-na ♪
♪ He didn't walk up with that "How you doin'?" ♪
♪ When he came in, though ♪
♪ He said, "There's a lot of girls I can do with ♪
♪ But I can't without you" ♪
♪ And forever in a minute ♪
♪ That's all my night ♪
♪ And Calvin says he got Milo in him ♪
♪ He got me feeling like ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh ♪
♪ I knew it when I met him ♪
♪ I loved him when I left him ♪
♪ Got me feeling like ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh-ooh ♪
♪ And then I had to tell him I had to go ♪
♪ Oh, na-na-na-na-na ♪
♪ Havana, ooh na-na ♪
♪ Half of my heart is in Havana, ooh na-na ♪
♪ He took me back to East Atlanta, na-na-na ♪
Wait, is this something about two different guys?
Is there a guy in Havana and another guy in East Atlanta?
I don't know.
[ Chuckles ]
You're just baffled.
You're asking the wrong guy.
I'm pretty zoned out right now, I'll be honest.
Well, it can get into the end of the top five.
It takes a lot of...
It's tiring to do this show.
It takes it out of you, man.
I'm very focused for the last two hours.
Well, that's the number-one song on iTunes right now,
Camila Cabello featuring Young Thug.
I mean, it's kind of -- it's different.
You're not hearing that kind of, you know, Latin piano much.
That's kind of fun.
Yeah, I mean, it's just kind of banking on that as, like,
a cliche to just kind of pull from that grab bag.
Well, she's Cuban.
She was born in Cuba.
Just kind of leaning too heavily on that
already-established musical legacy.
It just, like, is a pastiche to me.
It doesn't hit me.
Well, all right.
Doesn't feel fresh, Ezra.
I mean...
Jake Longstrap, "Arbiter of Fresh."
That's Jake's take.
Well, that was the top five.
It's been an interesting show.
Talked a lot about the dead.
Yeah, this is the most dead-intensive app.
I really hope that even people don't listen to the dead.
You know, we talked about the clothes.
We talked about being a second-generation deadhead
with mixed feelings about it.
We talked about...
Trump.
We talked about Trump.
We talked about...
Jerry doing the Levi's ad.
We talked about how dick pics can be triggering.
Right.
Hopefully we educated a few people, 'cause, you know,
there's probably a lot of guys out there who don't think about that.
Yep.
They're just like, "So what? I'm a chill bro.
"I listen to Grateful Dead bootlegs,
"fire off a couple pictures of my penis
"into a stranger's DMs."
Well, you know what, man?
The first part's cool.
Not the second.
People don't want to see that [bleep]
No.
Don't do that unless you have permission.
You can listen to dick pics without permission.
You can go see Richard Pictures.
You can go see Richard Pictures without permission.
At a local SoCal venue.
Yeah, no, I mean, that's going to be a big reckoning,
is that as people hear some of these stories
and have to think more about their own behavior,
that includes in the digital realm.
Oh, yeah.
Let's send less unsolicited dick pics
and spend more time listening to Grateful Dead bootlegs.
I think that's kind of the message of the show.
And check out Richard Pictures.
When's the next show, Jake, for the Dead Covermen?
Well, we played yesterday in Apple Valley.
It was a hell of a show.
Oh, so people--
Saturday.
They missed it.
Doing a show every two weeks makes scheduling kind of difficult.
We're trying to book a New Year's show somewhere.
Oh, that'd be sick.
That could be fun.
All right, well, thanks for listening, everybody.
We'll see you in two weeks.
Time Crisis with Ezra King.
[theme music]
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