Episode 74: This Show Rules
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Transcript
Time Crisis, reunited once again.
On today's episode, we talk about cold brew.
What is it? Does it taste sour?
We'll talk to the experts.
Jake and I also talk about Jason Alexander, a.k.a. George Costanza's star turn
as Colonel Sanders in the new KFC ad.
All this, plus we count down the hits of 2018 and 1999.
This is a very cold brew episode of...
Time Crisis with Ezra King.
Beep beep beep beep beep beep beep.
Spawn in one.
Time Crisis back again. Jake, what's up, man?
It's been a minute.
It has been a minute. I've been all over the place.
Australia, Japan, Chicago.
Do tell.
It was funny. We went to Australia and Japan, and it's like a long tour.
It was a two-week tour with two shows.
Yeah, I remember we discussed this.
All the gear routing was a bit of a headache.
Rocket cargo.
Right.
In Australia, our keyboardist, Will "Buckethead" Canzanare, didn't have the real piano.
Where was it?
I guess they had to ship the piano to Japan, so he did MIDI piano in Australia.
Do you guys ship a real piano?
Apparently.
That's wild.
We're shipping a freight anyway.
Might as well throw a piano on there.
Yeah, it's not that much bigger than everything else.
How were the shows?
They were both tight.
I mean, it's a little funny.
I think I said this on the last episode or one episode about, you know, we booked these shows way in advance.
Festivals book almost a year early.
That's wild.
So you're doing a lot of guesswork.
Will the album be done?
We're going to be ready to play new stuff.
You hope so.
So all things considered, that we're not playing any new material, they're going really well.
Were people giving you guff?
No.
People seemed psyched.
And, you know, we got all the new musicians, and we're playing some stuff differently,
and we're having fun.
So, you know, I think given that we're in a kind of weird interim period, we're still putting on a good show.
Undoubtedly.
I caught a good 45 minutes of the Chicago show.
Oh, on the live stream?
Live stream.
Oh, man.
Saturday night, I was driving Hannah's Prius.
Really?
Down to go see Sorry to Bother You at the Hollywood Arclight.
Oh, tight.
Got caught in some traffic.
That's just what was on?
Caught like a, I was like, I'm just going to hang with this.
Solid 40 minutes.
Wow.
I mean, it's really stressful to me that we have to do all these festivals that have live streams.
Because sometimes even more people watch/listen to the streams than are even there.
And there's a part of me that's like, I can't monitor the mix.
Bayo told me that the live stream of Yahé sounded like shreds.
I actually caught that.
Because that's like.
He said it sounded insane.
That was the closer, right?
It was towards the end.
But it's because we have like all these effects on his mic because he's singing Yahé, and it goes like, Yahé.
That mic that's all f***ed up was picking up the bass.
So apparently just like driving everything insane.
I wondered about that because his bass sounded crazily out of tune.
And I was like, there's no way his bass is actually out of tune.
I know.
These are the things that happen with live streams.
Like, and they just drive me crazy.
But whatever.
You live and you learn.
And hopefully people are as charitable as you.
Oh, sweet thing.
Zion doesn't love you.
Babylon don't love you.
But you love everything.
Oh, you saint.
America don't love you.
So I could never love you.
It's part of everything.
In the dark of this place, there's the glow of your face.
There's the dust on the screen of this broken machine.
And I can't help but feel that I made some mistake.
But I let it go.
Yahé, Yahé, Yahé.
Through the fire and through the flames.
Yahé, Yahé, Yahé.
Yahé, Yahé, Yahé.
You won't even say your name.
Yahé, Yahé, Yahé.
Yahé, Yahé, Yahé.
Through the fire and through the flames.
You won't even say your name.
Only I'm that I am.
Who could ever live that way?
What's your way?
I ask what's your, your.
Lollapalooza was great.
That one was a little more nerve-wracking
'cause the other ones were like, you know, in other countries.
Lollapalooza's first time back on American soil.
Post Ojai.
Post Ojai's.
Post, uh...
We did all these little shows.
Regional SoCal shows.
It was our first time back on American soil at a festival.
People amped.
And again with no music.
I mean, well, here's the thing.
Yes, people were amped.
The crowd was crazy.
We've always had great fans in Chicago.
But again, in the years since we've been gone,
rock went from being played out
to almost being non-existent.
A shovel full of dirt on that coffin.
Exactly.
I feel like five years ago,
it was like a funny debate people would have
about is rock dead?
And now people don't even want to talk about it.
And then, you know, when you're a musician,
you hear through the grapevine all the festivals happening,
you hear these horror stories.
I'm not gonna name names, but like somebody will say to me,
"Did you hear that that band that you liked,
they were up against..."
That DJ.
That DJ, that rapper, whatever.
And I'm like, "Okay, well, that sounds like a good choice."
People who want to see that, they're like,
"It was harsh, man.
Crowd didn't even make it to front of house."
Front of house is just like the front?
No, front of house is where the sound guy is.
Okay.
So you know at a festival, there's always like a little tent where the--
Right.
So that's like a pretty good--
That's like back like 100 feet or something.
Maybe even farther, yeah.
Yeah.
But it also means that for the person on stage,
like we're at Lollapalooza,
I couldn't see where the crowd ended.
It might have ended just past where I could see,
but at least I'm looking out,
and I'm just kind of like, "Okay."
So anyway, I've just been hearing things like, you know,
it can be tough out there for the aging rock band.
The shins didn't get their front of house.
I didn't say that.
They're up against The Weeknd.
Well, we were against The Weeknd.
The Weeknd mopped the floor with the shins.
That was also funny is that we were up against The Weeknd.
At the same time?
Literally the same time.
Wow.
We're a mile apart, either side of Grant Park,
and we're just there.
And I was kind of into it.
A mile? Wow.
No, that's how Lollapalooza works.
They have two headliners,
although one's always kind of like the real headliner,
and one's like the second headliner.
Yeah.
So, you know, you get these like funny pairings.
Like the night before is like The National versus Bruno Mars,
and we're at Vampire Weekend versus The Weeknd.
Wow.
And also there was like this big DJ Zedd was playing at the same time.
It was like a pretty stacked lineup.
So three people going at the same time.
Probably even more.
Weekend versus Weekend.
It was Weekend versus Weekend, which I found kind of interesting.
Yeah.
And, you know, I was also a little nervous,
because like obviously we're not here with like a whole new show.
We're not even playing any new material.
And then on top of that--
This oldies act.
Oldies act Vampire Weekend.
And then on top of that, you know,
we got like some new shredders,
letting Brian Jones get into some Santana [expletive] on New Dorp.
I heard that, dude.
He's a shredder.
He's starting to stretch out a little bit.
Yeah, because I caught three shows live,
and he seemed pretty restrained,
and it seems slowly but surely he's coming out of that shell.
He's coming to his own.
Yeah.
And also it's like funny too how--
It's kind of like the pop model.
It's like when a pop star comes back,
it's kind of like, "Welcome to the new era.
Lady Gaga's back."
And this time she's into robots and dominatrix [expletive]
whereas like at the end of the album--
And the next album it's like 1950s Betty Draper.
Yeah, exactly.
Okay.
And of course I connect to that in some ways as an artist,
but we're also just a band.
You know, we're like a group of people who play music.
Right.
So there's also--with us there's like this feeling of like
this new crew of musicians, we've played seven shows together.
Right.
From a touring perspective as far as a band goes,
it's not like in Ojai we were kind of just like,
"Welcome to the new era."
I mean, unless you say the new era is about being laid back
and having fun.
For me it's like we played seven shows.
We'll probably hit our stride like April 2019.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, I was going to say like show 30.
Yeah, especially once we got to learn the new stuff.
You're like a baseball team, man.
You need like spring training.
Yeah, exactly.
You're not warmed up yet.
It's not even opening day.
Exactly.
The record's not out.
I know, but--
It's a long season, guys.
We're on an old-fashioned timeline.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Sometimes people apply a certain type of like pop timeline
to Rockman.
You're just like, "No."
Yeah, yeah.
It just doesn't work for us.
Like in some ways I'm glad that the album wasn't done/out by now
because I'm kind of like, "You know what?
We need our spring training."
Yeah, it's going to work out.
It's a little funny that spring training is in front of
30,000 to 40,000 people at Lollapalooza,
plus who knows how many people in Priuses around the world.
Oh, hundreds of thousands.
But I'm kind of into that.
It's like, "What's up with that bass?"
Yeah.
It's funny to think about people in like every major city
and smaller secondary tertiary city, small towns all across America,
catching that live stream.
Is that bass?
I mean, but also that's the kind of s--t that I also love in a way.
It's like this is not Lady Gaga's new era coming correct.
It's like we're working the kinks out.
Today we're born again
There's new grass on the hill
Around the third and headed for home
It's a brown-eyed handsome man
Anyone can understand the way I feel
Oh, put me in code
I'm ready to play today
Put me in code
I'm ready to play today
Look at me, I can be
San Diego
Seinfeld, you were monitoring some of this.
I saw this way after the fact on Time Crisis
that we got a little bit of pushback for opening with A-Punk three times.
Yeah, I saw a lot of like music blog type headlines
like Vampire Weekend played A-Punk three times in the Seinfeld theme.
So you guys opened, okay I missed this completely.
You opened with A-Punk three times.
In a row.
Yeah, and this is an idea that I'd had a very long time ago.
Hopefully I don't get in trouble for being too inside baseball.
All this stuff was speculative
because you always get festival offers even when you're not really out there.
And I remember at some point hearing like you guys maybe could play Coachella last year.
And I was like, I don't know.
They're like, well it could be a really good slot.
You could play before Beyonce.
It looked like maybe we could have that slot.
And at first I was like, that's amazing.
And then I thought about it, I was like, oh no, no, no, that's bad.
I don't want Vampire Weekend playing before Beyonce.
And then I was thinking, well what could we do?
Say we rushed to get it ready.
What are the types of things that we could do without a lot of new music
and without a lot of money to put on a great show?
Because you put on a great show, but you know it's a very expensive show.
And then I was like, well what are the types of things that a band can do just with the music?
You could extend a song, jam it, that's one thing.
Eight minute Cape Cod.
Do eight minute Cape Cod.
Eight minute Cape Cod.
And what's another thing you could do?
You could play a song multiple times in a row.
Just get people worked up.
I was like, oh maybe--
I also kind of like this.
Just some weird John Cage, like Brian Eno, like conceptual stuff.
I didn't even think about it that way.
First of all, I just knew that the real Vampire Weekend fans would just get it instantly.
They're just like, it's fun.
Yeah.
And there's also a part of me that's also like, I kind of resent the idea that you've got to roll up to a festival
putting on like an avant-garde theater show.
Not that there's anything wrong with that.
I'm just kind of like, we're just here to play music, man.
It's not that serious.
So I kind of like the idea also of opening with our biggest song.
I don't think anybody interpreted it this way, but my thought was,
A-Punk is our most well-known song, right?
Historically, when you're an artist playing, you hold back on your most well-known song
until final third, if not the last song.
Encore.
And I was like, you know what?
Vampire Weekend, we've got a great catalog.
I think our catalog's second to none.
Got three albums of great music.
I kind of thought it was funny to also just come out so hard in the beginning,
burn off our best-known song, almost unlike a dare.
It's like, you want to go watch The Weeknd?
Go.
That's me and my kind of like paranoid mentality.
I don't think it really came across that way, but that's kind of what I was thinking.
It's like, oh, the only song you know is A-Punk?
What, because you saw Step Brothers or something?
Well, you know what? Here you go, mother[bleep]
And here's three times.
I'm going to give it to you three times, just so you know.
And if that's all you want from us, well, [bleep] damn it, walk away right now.
But I'll tell you one thing.
You're going to miss out on a great set, young man.
That was kind of my thinking.
And honestly, it was a difficult way to open the show,
because actually it helped me personally, because it felt like--
it was kind of like a warm-up.
My favorite comment that I saw was like on Instagram or something.
One of the fans who's at the show said, "It's so weird. I was there.
And I didn't realize they played it three times."
And I was kind of like--on stage, I was kind of like, "I know what you mean."
It felt so weird playing it three times.
It's such a short song, too.
It ends with the-- [singing]
And then pause, and then-- [singing]
Also, it's such a short song.
I wonder why we didn't do that sooner.
How many pauses did you have between songs, versions?
I don't know. No more than 15, 20 seconds.
Okay, so it wasn't just a count-off, like-- [singing]
No. [singing]
I heard some people thought the live stream was broken.
I also feel like it's a fun thing, too, to start off a set.
If you can't get down with that, even more reason to go watch The Weeknd.
It's almost reminiscent of a fish kind of thing, too,
like a funny stunt that you pull out of your hat once in a while.
Like maybe once every 18 months.
They're like, "Dude, they played A-Punk six times in a row."
Like, mid-set.
[singing]
♪ By the ring on his heart and finger, oh ♪
♪ A thousand years in one piece ♪
♪ I said wish I took it from his lilywhite hat ♪
♪ Sure enough if she'd seen the thing ♪
♪ In the young man's ring, let's go get her in ♪
♪ Look outside the records gone, say oh ♪
♪ Look outside the records gone, say oh ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ Hey, hey, hey ♪
♪ You're listening to Time Crisis on Beast One ♪
- So anyway, Lollapalooza was our eighth show.
- Okay.
- And so we're really just getting started.
- So Dick Pix has played about, or Richard Pictures
has played about a third of those.
- A significant percentage.
But you know one thing that I wanted to say on this episode,
this is apropos of nothing,
but have you guys ever played West LA Fadeaway?
- No.
- Do you like that song?
- Yeah, it's okay, not one of my favorites,
but it's been in the conversation.
- It's been kicked around?
- Yeah.
- 'Cause I don't know. - Are you in?
- Yeah, I've always kind of liked it.
- Throw it on.
- I like that kind of funky side of the Grateful Dead.
But one thing I was thinking about,
'cause you know I'm a big fan of Robert Hunter,
I'm a lyrics guy, West LA Fadeaway has one of the most
random, but also great Grateful Dead lyrics.
Verse two, got a job moving items for the mob.
(laughs)
Do you know that lyric?
- No, I don't know the song that well.
♪ Looking for a Chateau ♪
♪ 21 rooms but one will do ♪
- It's like, Hunter starts listening to Springsteen
like 20 years after he's,
"Oh, they got a writer listening to Springsteen."
- I just like, also love like the lyrical world of the dead.
It includes quite a bit, you know, the American West,
kind of mysticism, old timey American history.
But like, I just love--
- Love of death.
- But the mob.
And also, moving items for the mob.
Even, there's something about him like saying items.
Let me skip to that part.
(rewinding)
- Oh, that's a rough tone.
- There's some better live versions.
- Is this a studio version?
- Yeah.
- I wonder what the dead's relationship
with West LA was specifically.
- Yeah, I wonder if Hunter just like,
bust that out of nowhere.
Or he had his own experience.
- Oh my God, this is gnarly.
♪ I had a steady job ♪
♪ Hauling items for the mob ♪
- I feel like sometimes he says moving,
I mean, hauling items.
♪ I had a steady job ♪
- And then there is something like,
because it's Jerry singing,
then you start to imagine like,
like a late 80s Jerry actually being
like some weird truck driver,
hauling items for the mob.
- Oh my God.
- Pulling in, just in some like desolate warehouse.
What you got for me Garcia?
- Jerry's look was very trucker.
He might be the most like trucker looking dude
of all iconic rock stars.
- Totally, especially for a band
with a famous song called Truckin'.
Bob Weir, he's not truckin'.
- Yeah.
- Oh, Nick showed me a website that thinks
that West LA Fadeaway was inspired by John Belushi's death.
- Huh, okay.
- Belushi joined the dead on stage at least once,
singing backup during an encore at a 1980 New Jersey gig.
- That's tight.
- Whoa.
- Hide of the Blues Brothers right there.
- Oh yeah.
- That's when that movie came out,
so he was like in his musical mode.
♪ West LA Fadeaway ♪
♪ West LA Fadeaway ♪
♪ Did a red light on the highway ♪
♪ Big green light on the street with a hit ♪
- One thing that kept coming up for me when I was in Japan,
I was hanging out with a little crew
that Ariel and Danielle were out there.
- Oh cool.
- That was something fun we did in Japan.
Perhaps the wrong territory to choose it,
but we played Boyz R Back in town
and Danielle was on vocals.
- I saw this on the set list and I'm very intrigued.
- I couldn't tell how big Thin Lizzy was in Japan.
It didn't get a crazy reaction.
Then we played it at the little club show in Chicago
and it was like, it went off.
- Really?
- Just like people yelling the words.
- Is it just like a straight up version?
- It's very faithful.
(singing)
It's very faithful.
(singing)
♪ Friday night they'll be dressed to kill ♪
- Yeah.
♪ Down at Dino's Bar and Grill ♪
- I was saying that.
Drink will flow and blood will spill.
And if those boys wanna fight, you better let 'em.
But anyway, during this trip to Japan,
you know, we had like basically a full week off in Tokyo.
So I was like half comatose from being so jet lagged
and it was like this crazy heat wave.
I guess kind of like globally.
But in Japan it was super hot.
- Oh, global heat wave is--
- It was, yeah, it's brutal.
- Dark term.
- But so I spent a lot of time walking around
with Ariel and Danielle and our friend Anya.
And you know, in Tokyo it's like an amazing city
just to walk around.
You could literally just walk in and out
of like vibey stores every day.
CT told me, and I went to it,
that there's a store called Ripple
that sold dead shirts.
- Wow.
- So a lot of vintage dead shirts.
- Like exclusively?
That's what they sell?
- No, it kind of just veers hippie.
But it's clearly named after the dead song.
But so we'd be walking around
and you drink a lot of coffee.
It's a real coffee culture.
- Okay.
- And it's sometimes how it dawned on me
that I hate cold brew.
And I was talking about it with them
and I was kind of like,
why is everything cold brew now?
I just had so many questions about it.
- Okay, grandpa.
- I know, this is like some pretty grandpa (beep)
And then I get back to LA.
I'm just walking around West LA fade away style.
- Land of cold brew.
- I walk past a, I don't think it was an Exxon,
but it was some kind of gas station.
There's a big sign, try our cold brew.
- Dude, 7-Eleven.
- Oh, 7-Eleven has cold brew now?
- Yeah, I noticed this.
- No, but this was a gas station that I was at.
- After you texted me about the cold brew kick you're on,
I noticed that like on a billboard.
Well, 7-Eleven, or maybe it was like an AM, PM or something.
- They might, a lot of these places have cold brew now.
- Try our cold brew.
- Everybody's obsessed with cold brew.
And then I was just talking with everybody
and I was like saying to my friends,
do you guys like cold brew?
I think it's worse than regular iced coffee.
And then also you start to find coffee places
where you ask for an iced coffee
and they give you a cold brew.
And then I saw like a goofy Instagram post.
It was some like overheard type,
you know these accounts that do funny things, overheard.
And one of them was at a coffee shop.
Somebody said, it was a patron saying to the barista,
can I have a cold brew?
And then the barista says, sorry, we're out of cold brew.
Is iced coffee okay?
And the person says, yeah, honestly,
I don't know the difference.
Then about a week ago, I emailed the crisis crew
and I said, guys, we gotta do a cold brew episode.
We're on board with this.
So I said, find us some great cold brew guests
that we can talk to.
And the first person we're gonna talk to is Tim Carman,
who's a food reporter at the Washington Post
where he's worked since 2010.
He was the winner of the James Beard Award in 2011
for food related columns and commentary.
Okay, so it says here he's a food reporter.
It doesn't say that he covers beverages,
but we'll see if he has anything to say about this.
- Now let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- This is Tim.
- Hey Tim, what's up?
This is Ezra and Jake from Time Crisis.
- Hey, how are you?
- Not bad, excited to talk to you.
So you're a food reporter at the Washington Post.
- That's correct.
- But you also cover beverages.
- I have made myself something of the coffee experts
among the food writers at the paper.
- And also in your own life, are you like a coffee fanatic?
- Oh, big time.
I have got more gadgets than you can imagine.
- So you're making a lot of coffee at home.
- I make coffee every day, usually hot,
but I've certainly done my fair share of cold brew.
- Well, that's exactly what we wanna talk about.
And we could use a little bit of context
from somebody who not only is a coffee drinker,
but also a reporter and somebody who studies this stuff.
I just had this realization
that cold brew was suddenly everywhere.
I also realized that as it becomes more ubiquitous,
people kind of will use cold brew
and iced coffee interchangeably,
which leads to a lot of miscommunications,
tragedies at the coffee shop.
- That's rubbing you the wrong way.
- It is rubbing me the wrong way.
So I guess if you don't mind, Tim,
I think you're gonna have a lot more perspective
on this than we do.
What's the cold brew story
and how did it come to kind of take over the world?
- Well, I think the first thing to realize
is that cold brew and iced coffee
are two different processes.
Iced coffee is very simple.
It's just taking hot brewed coffee and putting it over ice.
Conversely, the cold brew
is a long steeped room temperature process.
And you can use it, you can do it in a French press,
which I think a lot of people have already,
or you can buy one of these contraptions.
One is very popular with coffee shops called a toddy.
And you take a large amount of beans,
a six to one ratio of water to beans,
which doesn't sound like a lot,
but compared to what the ratio is for hot brewed coffee,
it's a monstrous amount of beans.
And you let that steep for like 12 to 24 hours
on your counter where it becomes very concentrated liquid.
It'll often be put right in a pitcher
and put in your refrigerator.
And obviously one of the benefits of that then
is that you can have coffee available for you
for like two weeks.
So it has a longer shelf life than fresh brewed coffee.
It's generally considered to be like less acidic.
- That's what drives me crazy, Tim,
is that most places where I go have cold brew,
it tastes so sour to me.
- That's unusual.
I don't know where you're getting your cold brew from,
but I'd be curious.
- I don't wanna name names.
- I think most coffee shops, they go for a blend
because consistency is key, right?
People want the same cup of cold brew all year long,
which is hard to do with a single origin coffee
because A, they're seasonal and they're only available
for a few months out of the year.
They'll create a blend of beans
that typically has a natural sweetness to it.
And that's what appeals, I think,
to most cold brew drinkers,
is that you've got a drink that's cold,
which people like during the summer,
and then it has lower acidity and it tends to be sweet.
I think those are like three of the main points
of why cold brew has latched on.
- Seinfeld 2000 here, the Starbucks near my home base
has cold brew on tap,
much like you would find a beer on tap at a bar.
Why is it on tap and what goes into that process?
- I'm assuming this is a cold brew nitro?
- Yes, I think it is.
- Oh yeah, what's this nitro (beep)
- Yeah, it's basically just cold brew coffee,
but it's put on nitro.
And what that does is that it inserts a gas into the coffee.
So it gives it a very creamy flavor to it.
There's obviously no cream in it,
but just because it's injected with gas,
kind of infused with gas,
it gives it this really rounded,
sweet sort of creamy flavor, which people like.
I don't know about you, but nitro coffee to me
also just seems to go straight to the bloodstream.
So it's like whatever amount of caffeine
is in that cold brew, it just immediately makes me jittery.
- But theoretically, nitro aside,
people sometimes talk about cold brew
as if it's more hardcore than iced coffee.
Is it necessarily stronger or just depends?
- It's not stronger.
I mean, it's the same cold brew that you would,
I mean, I'm assuming most coffee shops are using
the batch that they make for the cold brew.
They're using the same cold brew.
- Same beans. - Nitro, yeah.
So the only difference is that it's infused with this gas.
And I don't know, to call it more hardcore,
I think maybe it gives you more of a quicker buzz.
Every time I've drank it,
I've basically had to stop halfway through
because I just think, and this is just a personal thing,
this is not based on any sort of science,
but it makes me loopy within half the drink.
So I guess in that sense, maybe it is more hardcore.
If you're looking for that caffeine buzz, sure.
♪ Who are you with ♪
♪ Where have you been ♪
♪ Imagination seems to toss ♪
♪ Reason can't help ♪
♪ Staring at the walls ♪
♪ I think I know what I see ♪
♪ Anger and coffee ♪
♪ Feeding me ♪
♪ Drinking black coffee ♪
♪ Black coffee ♪
♪ Drinking black coffee ♪
♪ Staring at the walls ♪
♪ Black coffee ♪
♪ Black coffee ♪
♪ Black coffee ♪
♪ Staring at the walls ♪
♪ Black coffee ♪
♪ Drinking black coffee ♪
♪ Drinking black coffee ♪
♪ Staring at the ♪
♪ Stab to my heart ♪
♪ Stab to my heart ♪
♪ Stab to my heart ♪
♪ But it's all in my mind ♪
- I sometimes feel like,
rather than go get some artisanal cold brew somewhere,
I would rather house two tall boys of iced coffee
from coffee bean.
At the end of the day, I'm gonna be floating on air,
even if it took me a little bit longer,
but I don't know, there's something about
just like a big iced coffee,
it just goes down easier for me.
And that's what's so confusing to me,
this idea of cold brew actually having a smoother flavor
or something, maybe I'm just weird.
But also, I don't know, Tim,
if this is a full East Coast thing,
definitely I remember in New York, when I was a teenager,
there was a thing that I would hear family members
and like my parents' friends say a lot, which was that,
and this is a little bit before
that the whole third wave coffee boom,
but they would always say,
a lot of people go buy their fancy beans
at a little artisanal bean store,
but you know where it really has great coffee?
Dunkin' Donuts.
Do you remember this, Tim, do they have that down in DC?
- Oh yeah, they used to spin that BS about Dunkin' Donuts,
and even earlier, my father used to say that
McDonald's had the best coffee.
- That's the dark ages.
- Yeah.
- They say that in Canada a lot.
- Well, you have to understand,
my dad also drank freeze-dried coffee,
so his bar was very low.
- It was a step up.
- I can't even imagine the average coffee drinker
circa 1975, what they were drinking.
- Oh, it was terrible.
Commodity-based coffee beans.
- Inedible. - Over-roasted.
You know, I started drinking coffee in the 80s,
so I was a child of the terrible bean era.
Starbucks maybe had started on the West Coast,
but certainly had made it to the Midwest where I grew up.
- Where'd you grow up?
- I grew up in Omaha, Nebraska.
- So have you ever been in Omaha now as an adult,
and you're in some cool, kind of like,
hipster-fied neighborhood that has New York-style lofts,
and there's a coffee shop, and you go in and check it out,
and drink a Nitro cold brew or something?
That's exactly the type of coffee that wasn't available
in the 80s in a place like Omaha.
Are you like, I'm really glad that the kids of today
in Omaha can drink the exact same stuff
that people in New York or LA are drinking,
or is it bittersweet?
Do we lose something when things like Nitro cold brew
are in every city in America?
- No, I have no nostalgia for the old ways of coffee-making,
and the way it was sold.
It just wasn't good coffee.
I think we still battle that perception
of third-wave coffee being sort of snobbish.
- Right.
- But I look at it a different way.
I like to look at it a different way.
It's like, people used to think that Miller High Life
or Bud Light was good beer,
and then the craft beer movement came along,
and you realized there was this whole broad spectrum
of beers available, really delicious beers,
many different flavors, different styles,
different bodies, different hop counts,
and coffee is much the same way.
Now, whether or not everyone can afford it,
that's another thing.
I mean, that's a whole other issue about,
can people really afford a good cup of coffee,
and should you be a snob about people
that still drink Folgers?
Well, no, everyone tweets their own.
- But for you personally, you're never on a road trip,
and you pull into a little diner,
like a Twin Peaks-style diner,
you get a slice of pie and just a cup of black coffee,
whatever garbage they're making back there,
and you sip, and you're like,
you know what, there's something nice about this, too.
- You know, I will sometimes do that,
but it's mostly just out of desperation,
'cause I want something hot and caffeinated,
and I can't find something better that's closer.
'Cause I really, like, I was in San Francisco
and Los Angeles last week, and I stayed at a hotel
that had one of those little brewers in there,
and it's truly, I mean, it's a terrible cup of coffee,
but I was tired, I had to get up early for interviews,
and I needed some caffeine, so I did it.
But it was like, it was like a drug.
It makes you realize that it's partly
after year after the high.
- That's how I feel.
I wanna have one of those little brewers in my bedroom.
'Cause like, when I'm at a hotel, I like that.
I like that I can have a little,
Jake's shaking his head no,
but I like that I can have a little (beep)
pod coffee, it's like the primer,
then I jump in the shower,
then 20 to 30 minutes later, maybe I hit the street,
and I get something more artisanal.
But I like to have that base high.
- Sure, yeah, no, I completely get it.
- But so, okay, so all things considered,
you think that the rise and spread of cold brew
is a good thing, more options, different kinds of flavors,
you're happy that you see it popping up everywhere now?
- Well, not just cold brew, I mean, I know you're
sort of focused on cold brew, and I'm glad
that cold brew's there, 'cause I do think that people,
I think it's like a gateway into the third wave.
I think one of the secrets of third wave coffee shops
is many of them serve cold brew,
but not many of them really like it,
'cause it doesn't give you the full range of flavors.
But I think that gets you into that shop,
and introduces you to different coffee beans, perhaps,
depending on what the coffee shop is using for its cold brew,
and then maybe, you know, if you're open to suggestion
from the barista, you'll move into something
that's even more interesting and more complex.
So I think it's good, I'm all for it.
- Okay, well, thanks a lot, Tim, great talking to you.
Appreciate it. - Yeah, it was fun.
Thanks, guys. - All right,
have a good one, man.
♪ She's like cold coffee in the morning ♪
♪ I'm drunk off last night's whiskey and coke ♪
♪ She'll make me shiver without warning ♪
♪ And make me laugh as if I'm in on the joke ♪
♪ And you can stay with me forever ♪
♪ Or you could stay with me for now ♪
♪ Tell me if I'm wrong ♪
♪ And tell me if I'm right ♪
♪ And tell me if you need a loving hand ♪
♪ To help you fall asleep tonight ♪
♪ Tell me if I'm wrong ♪
♪ And tell me if I do ♪
♪ And tell me how to fall in love the way you want me to ♪
- Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
- Jake, do you drink cold brew?
- Yeah.
- You'll go into a place
and you'll specifically ask for a cold brew.
You drink a black cold brew?
- I ask for iced coffee, but I go to fancy places.
- You ask for an iced coffee and they give you a cold brew?
- Yeah, that's standard.
If you're going to a bougie coffee place in LA
and you ask for iced coffee, that's what it's gonna be.
- See, would you rather have a cold,
like a artisanal coffee cold brew
than just like a tall boy iced coffee from Dunkin' Donuts?
- Yeah, I'm not gonna drink that.
I'll make iced coffee at home
'cause I'll make a strong pot to begin with.
- Yeah.
- I'll let it cool to room temp
and then I'll add four or five ice cubes into the mug.
- What, does that home iced coffee
taste better than a cold brew?
- No, it actually doesn't.
And actually this came across my desk yesterday
'cause I was at home working
and I had the home brewed mug of coffee
that had cooled down and I added ice coffee,
or ice cubes, and I was just gonna sip on that.
Then Hannah came home with a half drunk cold brew.
- So you had accidental taste test.
- And the cold brew was so much richer.
- Richer.
- So much better.
I just dumped the homemade mug down the drain immediately.
- Maybe I just got trash taste at the end of the day.
What do you drink, Seinfeld?
- Well, I drink everything,
but I was thinking about,
actually I was in Whole Foods
and I saw a can of cold brew.
- Really, you go to Whole Foods?
- Yeah, there's one near my home base.
(laughing)
And I came across this can
and it was Ethiopian single estate cold brew,
really nicely designed can.
And I thought, this is gonna be a treat tomorrow morning.
- Yeah.
- And I cracked it open at 7.45, whatever.
And it was the most disgusting thing
I have ever drank in my life.
- 'Cause it was that sour diesel cold brew.
- It was exact--
- It was sour diesel, hold on.
- Sour diesel is a very accurate way to describe it, yeah.
- Now, were you drinking it out of the can?
- Straight out the can.
Like a beer.
- Why don't you pour that over some ice
into a pint glass?
- 'Cause it was cold, it was like I had in the fridge,
it was already cold.
- Here's the thing, I think cold brew
is sort of like, it's like whiskey.
If you're gonna pour it over,
you have to pour it over ice,
let it sit for a minute or two.
It needs to be a little bit diluted.
I would never wanna just drink cold brew with no ice.
- But it's already cold.
- Yeah, but you need the ice.
It just--
- You need that ice.
- It dilutes it, it's a texture thing.
- Yeah, I'm talking about that.
- Also, coffee out of a can seems like a weird sensory--
- It did have the aluminum kind of,
that's tangive, like, yeah.
- You gotta get out of the can, man.
Also, first cup of the day, gotta be hot.
- Good call.
- Wait, actually, this reminds me,
before we get to talk to some more cold brew experts,
remember a few episodes ago,
we talked about Canadians double dipping
at Tim Hortons and Starbucks?
- Yep.
- And we're like, is it cool to roll into Tim Hortons
with a Starbucks coffee and be like,
let me get a maple glazed donut?
We actually got some good emails about it.
- A lot of response to that, yeah.
- We did get a lot.
Here's a good one from Heather McDonald.
Hey, Crisis Crew, big fan of the show,
emailing in from Toronto.
I'm currently listening to episode 72,
late I know.
Well, time crisis is just nothing.
- It's evergreen.
- If not, not timely.
I needed to speak up about the concept
of Canadians double dipping in Starbucks and Tim Hortons,
and I will say, this is 100% a real thing.
When I was in high school,
the local Tim Hortons was directly behind a Starbucks,
and we'd often send someone into Tim's
for a good muffin/sandwich/donut,
and someone else into Starbucks to get our coffee
to avoid being exposed.
Being alone was a nightmare,
as the employees would always try
to make an awkward joke about buying
from both establishments.
Was it uncomfortable?
Yes.
Was it necessary?
Also yes.
Anyways, love your work out there,
and just thought I'd give my two cents on the subject.
All the best, Heather.
- Starbucks has muffins too.
- But I guess they're not as good.
Well, let's see, you're actually Canadian, Seinfeld.
What do you think, she's describing being alone,
and you roll in with your frappuccino from Starbucks,
and then you go to the Tim Hortons employee,
and then she said they would make an awkward joke.
What would that joke be?
- Oh, hmm.
They'd say, "Oh, oh, oh, you're a traitor.
"Oh, I see," you know, something like that.
"Oh, you're betraying us," something like that maybe?
- And us is Tim Hortons, or is it Canada?
(all laughing)
- I think in that case, it would be Tim Hortons,
but it's very poetic.
- You know how in some countries
where people are very polite,
the joke is that there's simmering rage beneath the surface?
Is that true of Canada?
Or Canada always joked, "Me is legitimately nicer."
- Yeah, I mean, I don't wanna generalize,
but I think you would find some of that for sure.
- Oh, looks like we got a traitor here, ha ha.
- That, yeah, exactly.
- We oughta take you around the back and execute ya.
- The first time-- - Oh, no, I'm sorry.
I'm doing it like Minnesota.
What are you doing? - Whoa, we're gonna take ya.
No, I can't, I don't know.
- Oh, looks like we got a traitor here, ha ha.
Oughta take you in the back, blindfold ya,
shoot you in the back of the head.
That's not very Canadian.
A Canadian would never say that.
- The detail is kinda making it a little dark.
- And then just here's another one from Darcy Belmore.
Hey, Crisis Crew, just finished listening
to this week's episode.
As a Canadian, I definitely get food at Tim Hortons
and coffee at Starbucks, at least while on campus.
I go to Tim's first, grab an egg, B-E-L-T.
Oh, 'cause of the egg.
It's like ATM machine. - Belt?
That sounds good.
- I go to Tim's first, she's--
Grab a belt. - Get that belt.
- A belt, is that not well known in Canada?
- This is the first time I've heard of a belt.
- I'm guessing it's a bacon, egg, lettuce, tomato.
I go get a belt on a 12 grain bagel
and then walk across campus to Starbucks.
- Damn, that's a hell of a breakfast.
- Tim's coffee is the pits.
Darcy, wait, is that a thing?
Is Tim's coffee bad?
- Tim's coffee falls into the same description of like,
oh, the real coffee's at Dunkin',
oh, the good coffee's at McDonald's.
Like, it's one of those.
- We got one more email from a dude.
I won't read the whole thing, but he's from Buffalo,
which for those unfamiliar with the city,
it lays on the US-Canada border
and has quite a Canadian feel to it.
The winters are long, the people are friendly,
and ponds are filled with children playing hockey
in the chillier months of the year.
But most important of all,
it is the rare American exception
where most individuals prefer Tim Hortons to Starbucks.
Now that's interesting.
Just this past week,
I relocated to the Charleston, South Carolina area.
Buffalo to Charleston.
- That's a hell of a move.
There's gonna be some culture shock.
And I'm finding it difficult to part ways
with my former morning routine
of grabbing a coffee from Tim Hortons
and the occasional breakfast sandwich from Starbucks.
- Well, reverse.
- Yeah, personally, I find Starbucks
to have a delicious array of breakfast sandwiches.
- He's not wrong there.
- They're pretty good.
The interesting part of the story is that back home,
I often felt embarrassed or ashamed
to bring my Starbucks wrappers and bags into work
or to a friend's house.
Wow.
- Shame.
- Buffalo, I guess, really is part of Canada.
- I was gonna say, with all due respect,
like this guy's disqualified.
I mean, it's not, technically it's not, so.
- Or so he felt ashamed
bringing his Starbucks wrappers and bags into work
or to a friend's house,
as many in the area felt that Starbucks
was a little bougie for their liking.
It might be bougie, but it's American, my friend.
Tim Hortons, you're aiding and abetting.
- It's so ubiquitous, though, I don't know.
- Wow.
- Anyways, I figured you folks would be interested
to know that there are several pockets
of blue-collar America that are ride or die for Tim Hortons.
I get that, but that's interesting.
- The people in Buffalo who think Starbucks is bougie,
are they hitting the gas station coffee?
- Oh, I guess, and maybe they're hitting Tim Hortons.
- Scooping it out the river.
- No, that's a lateral move
in terms of class distinctions.
- No, no, no, I think, well, if I'm reading the email correctly.
- No, it's like a multinational chain.
- No, I'm picturing Dan going into work,
holding his spinach and feta breakfast sandwich
from Starbucks, and there's just more like a Joe Schmo
drinking Tim Hortons coffee, who's like--
- Egg and cheese.
- Oh, welcome to work, your majesty.
(laughing)
Let me get a number crunch.
How much does just a black coffee cost at Tim Hortons?
- Well, what size are we talking?
- Gotta cross-reference the exchange rate.
- For a tall, it's 160, grande is 180,
and then your venti is $2.
- That's at Tim Hortons.
- That's at Tim Hortons.
- Wait, they called venti at Tim Hortons?
- Oh, I'm sorry, I thought you meant Starbucks.
I was converting the names, okay.
- Oh, so Starbucks, you can get a black coffee
for under two bucks?
- No way, no, no, no, no, no, I messed up.
- Oh, I bet the small-
I bet the small-coffeed Starbucks is $1.85.
- This show rules, guys.
(laughing)
- We really need a video component here
to complete the show.
(laughing)
- This week's TimeGrizz episode included
a very shallow analysis of one line
from a late '80s, not particularly well-loved
Grateful Dead song, and a little bit of
poorly-researched coffee pricing information.
♪ I'm on the second cup of coffee ♪
♪ I still can't face the day ♪
♪ I'm thinking of the lady who got lost along the way ♪
♪ And if I don't stop this trembling hand ♪
♪ From reaching for the phone ♪
♪ I'll be reaching for the bottle, Lord ♪
♪ Before this day is done ♪
♪ I'm on my second cup of coffee ♪
♪ I still can't face the day ♪
♪ The room was filled with laughs ♪
♪ As we sang the night away ♪
♪ But my sleep was filled with the dreaming ♪
♪ Of the wrongs that I had done ♪
♪ The gentle, sweet reminder ♪
♪ Of a daughter and a son ♪
- If I worked at an office, and because, like I said,
I like to drink just plain, black, average-joke coffee,
if my office had coffee, even not good coffee,
and I was just drinking the office joe,
and then there were some people
who thought they were better than me,
who would always be getting excited,
say, "Let's go do a Starbucks run,"
and I'm sitting there drinking the office joe,
I could imagine being a little bit peeved.
"Oh, you guys gotta go get fancy coffee?
"Well, I guess I'm just the ass(beep)
"who drinks the communal coffee."
- You know, I have to say,
this is a little bit off-brand for you, Ezra,
'cause you're a guy with pretty rarefied taste.
(laughing)
You are, man. - I know, you know what?
I think as I get older, though,
so much of my life has been about
reaching for that brass ring.
- Yeah. - You know,
getting out of Jersey, going to Columbia,
being in a band, traveling the world.
- But not just a band.
- A preppy band.
- A band that styled itself.
- Exactly. - Self-consciously.
- Fake it 'til you make it. - Right.
So, you know. - You're not some
working-class Springsteen kinda guy.
- Exactly. - But with your coffee.
- I think that's the thing, is that as I've gotten older--
- Back to your roots. - And I have this feeling,
a little bit, of having seen it all.
- Right. - I've been all over
this damn world of ours.
- You've been in a room with every famous person
on the planet. - I've been in a room
with every famous person on the planet.
I've tasted the best of everything.
And I think I look around, I see how empty it is.
And now I'm kinda going back to my roots
and be like, you know what?
Just a regular guy.
Sometimes I actually fantasize living in New Jersey.
- Oh, I could see it.
- It could happen.
- I could see that.
- That might require some convincing.
But I love the look and feel of it.
And honestly, if I lived in New Jersey,
I wouldn't go to Starbucks.
- I would go to Nevada Diner.
- That was your spot.
♪ Well I had to cop her in her baby cleaning check ♪
♪ With her line blown out she's foaming like a turbo jet ♪
♪ Dropped her up in my backyard on concrete blocks ♪
♪ For a new clutch ♪
♪ Played a new set of shots ♪
♪ Took her down to the car wash ♪
♪ Checked the plugs and points ♪
♪ Well I'm going out tonight ♪
♪ I'm gonna rock a joint ♪
♪ Curly, not Jersey, industrial skyline ♪
♪ I'm a hull set, cobra jet ♪
♪ Creeping through the night time ♪
♪ Gotta find a gas station ♪
♪ Gotta find a payphone that's turned back ♪
♪ Sure is spooky at night ♪
♪ When you're all alone climbing with the gas baby ♪
♪ I'm running late ♪
♪ Miss New Jersey in the morning ♪
♪ Like a lunar landscape ♪
- There's something nice when you have the Office Java.
It's communal.
When you drink the Office Java,
you're saying with your taste buds
that we're in this together.
When you leave the office to go get Starbucks,
yeah, you might think you're supporting a local business,
but you're not.
- No, but you're leaving the office
to get out of the office.
- What's wrong with the office?
- It's work.
- It's fun to go make a coffee run.
- But the Office Java's in the break room.
But the Office Java's in the break room.
That's a place where you can debate the news of the day.
- No, man.
- Sometimes with that Office Java--
- I got more off experience than you guys do,
or at least Ezra does.
(laughing)
It's all about who's making the run.
- Right.
- What do you want?
- And also, you don't wanna be like,
sometimes you don't wanna run into the,
there's somebody you don't wanna run into
by the coffee machine.
- Back in my day, you're damn right you might run
into somebody that you didn't wanna see,
but you know what, we hashed it out like grownups.
We weren't staring at our phones, walking into walls.
Yeah, you might see somebody you hate
pouring themselves a cup of Office Java.
And you know what?
You'd have to get into it right there.
- Talk about last night's episode of LA Law.
(laughing)
- That's right, but that's when people talk to each other.
You didn't have this polarization.
I'd see some schmuck who voted for Reagan
by the Office Joe, we get into it, Office Java.
We're gonna talk to, how do you think you say his name?
- Brent Wilsinski?
- Wilsinski.
- Wilsinski, something like that?
- We'll ask him how to pronounce his last name.
But he's the head brewer and guru of cold brew
at Stumptown Coffee.
Now Stumptown, Jake--
- Oh, I'm familiar.
- You're probably familiar, started in Portland, Oregon.
- I did an exhibition there in 2000, their first store.
- At Stumptown?
- Yeah, it was their only location.
- And they offered to pay you in stock options
or free beans.
- I got the opportunity to hang my art in their coffee shop.
- And sell it.
- Oh yeah, it's like I sold a few pieces.
- Okay.
- Was Brent part of this?
- No, I have no idea.
- Well, he's the head brewer, he wasn't one of the founders,
or Dwayne Sorenson.
- I have no idea if Brent was in the mix back in 2000.
I think this was 2000 I did this.
- But Stumptown Coffee was sold to Pete's Coffee in 2015
for an undisclosed amount.
And also, here's something interesting,
Stumptown has the rights to coldbrew.com.
Okay, so we're talking to the right person.
- That's hot real estate.
- Let's get Brent on the phone.
- Now, let's go to the Time Crisis Hotline.
(phone ringing)
- Hello?
- Hey Brent?
- Hey, yeah, this is Brent.
- Hey, how you doing?
This is Ezra and Jake from Time Crisis.
- Hey Brent.
- Hey guys, how's it going?
- Not bad, we may have butchered your last name.
You wanna tell us how to pronounce it correctly?
- Yeah, totally.
It's Walshinski.
- Oh, we were close.
- A tough one.
A lot of consonants on there.
- So Brent, you're the head brewer at Stumptown.
How long have you been in the mix over at Stumptown?
- A little over seven years now.
- So I'm very interested in this
because part of the reason we're talking about cold brew
is, you know, full disclosure, I have a negative view of it.
- Oh.
- This has got you journalism.
- Yeah, yeah.
(laughing)
- No, no, I might be, first of all,
the more we talk-- - You're a skeptic.
- The more we talk about it, I start to question
if I know what I'm talking about about anything.
But the first question that I've had is,
and I was talking with Jake,
just having this feeling lately that it's just everywhere.
Starbucks has it, 7-Eleven has it, gas stations have it,
and in fact, cold brew has started to become synonymous
with iced coffee to the point that you see these kind of
hilarious things where people are like,
oh, I want a cold brew, do you mean an iced coffee?
We have, you know, like, it's all confused.
So it's always interesting to see how something
just suddenly, seemingly suddenly,
just takes over the world.
So Stumptown was something of a pioneer?
- I think so.
I mean, cold brew, like, as an extraction process
was definitely around before Stumptown was around, right?
Like, extracting something with cold water
over a long period of time, like sun tea, right?
Like, that's kind of a similar idea
where you're letting tea sit in water
at a cooler temperature.
- There's a long history, but this modern cold brew.
So just paint a picture for me.
What year was this when you started at Stumptown?
- 2011.
At that time, cold brew was, I think,
maybe a little popular in cafes,
but not that big of a deal and kind of unknown.
You know, we weren't pioneers in the cold brew process,
but we were pioneers in the idea of, like,
bottling it and turning it into, like,
this big, like, quick, easy thing.
- Right, those little Stumptown bottles.
That was like--
- Yeah, those stubbies.
- So hold on a sec.
If I walked into a Stumptown in 2010, 2009,
and asked for an iced coffee,
would I be getting a different product today
as opposed to 10 years ago, eight years ago?
- That's a good question.
Just because I started in 2011.
But no, I think there probably was a time
where we were doing iced coffee
in that we were brewing hot at double the strength
and then pouring over ice,
and then the ice dilutes into the solution,
and now you have, like, somewhere in the realm of, like,
the dissolved solids in that beverage
are, like, close to, like,
what you would get at a RTV coffee.
I don't know when we started doing, like,
the cold brew process.
I know it was definitely before the stubbies came out,
but so if you were to order a cold brew,
you would be getting something that was extracted
in cold water and diluted and served.
- But that's, like, the standardized understanding
of iced coffee at Stumptown today.
If you walk into a--
- Well, at Stumptown today, we don't serve iced coffee.
- Right, so, like, the only cold coffee--
- So you guys murdered iced coffee.
- I guess we have iced Americanos, you know,
that would qualify as iced coffee for sure.
But in terms of, like, what a lot of people do, right,
it's, like, they brew a pour-over, right,
or a Fetco or whatever batch brew method
at twice the strength and then pour it over ice,
knowing that that ice is going to dilute.
That's why they brew it at double the strength
and then serve that as iced coffee.
♪ Bad, bad news ♪
♪ Just bad, bad news ♪
♪ Get down to money and clout ♪
♪ Money and loot ♪
♪ Bad news ♪
♪ Bad, bad for you and I'm back at the coffee bean ♪
♪ Anything in between ♪
♪ This is all ♪
♪ This is all ♪
♪ Back at the coffee line ♪
♪ Back, back, back at the coffee line ♪
- Okay, well, Brent, just tell me this.
Am I insane?
I have this feeling that I like iced Americanos
and I like iced coffee.
My impression of cold brew is that it's sour.
- Interesting.
- Am I just crazy?
- No, I don't think you're crazy.
I think, like, so here's the thing.
I think right now, like, cold brew is such a new thing.
I think the craft beer industry went through this too,
where, like, craft beer started.
There were a few, like, really, really good beers out there,
but then, like, a ton of other people flooded the market
and were like, "We can do this too,"
and made, like, a lot of really bad beer as well, right?
And I think, like, right now, we're sort of in that time
where there are some companies that are like,
"Oh, coffee and water, I got it.
Like, we can totally do this."
And, like, they may not be interested
in buying high-quality coffee,
but they are interested in, like, the whole cold brew,
the excitement around cold brew,
and are using some form of the cold brew method,
but with, like, really low-quality coffee.
- Does cold brew, do you think,
do the consumers read as fancier?
- I don't think, like, that's something
we're trying to portray.
It is typically more expensive,
but that's because it takes a lot more coffee
to make cold brew.
And that's why, typically, you know,
a lot of people say, like,
cold brew also makes them, like,
get really high on caffeine.
Like, it really is, like, by volume,
more coffee dissolved into it.
- That's not just a myth.
You really could get more twisted off cold brew.
- Totally.
Yeah, yeah.
Like, we've run some caffeine analysis on ours,
and, like, I think our stubby has something like
200, 250 milligrams of caffeine,
whereas, like, a typical 10-ounce, you know,
cup of coffee would probably be, like,
100 or 130 milligrams.
- So it could almost be double,
just like a plain cup of coffee.
- Yeah, and, like, a lot of our offerings
are, like, different TBSs, like, total dissolved solids.
So, like, our original cold brew
is kind of, like, the most, like, refreshing
and has the most water versus coffee,
but something like our Nitro hairbender
is, like, a really, really high amount of coffee.
And that's somewhere in the realm of, like,
400 milligrams of caffeine or so.
But I guess to get back to your question
about whether or not it's fancy, like,
I think maybe some people do because it's typically
in the $4 or $5 range,
but I don't want to be this person who's saying, like,
this brew method is, like, 100% better.
I think all brew methods are just different
and, you know, highlight different things
and are for different people.
So that when someone's like, "Oh, I don't like cold brew,"
I'm like, "That's totally cool."
You know, like, "I don't like mocha pot."
- Right, just a matter of taste.
- Yeah, it's a different method.
- Brent, when's the last time you had
just, like, a Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee?
- (laughs) That's a good question, too.
I--
- Or coffee bean, just that type of place.
- I, like, drink Starbucks, like, semi-frequently,
like, when I'm out camping or whatever,
you know, I'm, like, out in the middle of nowhere.
I don't hate it, you know?
I'm not, like, sometimes I just, like, really need coffee.
- Does anybody ever go make a Starbucks run
just to get out of the office?
- (laughs) That's a good question.
No, I think I can firmly say, like,
that definitely does not happen.
I think, like, we're also spoiled with free coffee
and great coffee.
I don't know, it's just-- - Right.
Have you tried, like, the Starbucks cold brew?
- Yeah, yeah, totally.
- And it's decent?
- Yeah, no, I actually think they're doing a decent job
in regards to, like, extraction and process.
Like, in that, I think a Starbucks cold brew
tastes like Starbucks coffee.
There's no, like, adulteration or, like,
it's a clean, like, representation of Starbucks coffee.
- Mm, that's interesting.
- But I think in that regard, like,
I appreciate it from, like, the brewing aspect.
Like, I think there are probably some really smart people
working at Starbucks working on these beverages.
I personally don't like the typical profile of Starbucks.
Like, I'm not craving it, but I don't--
- I feel you on that. - But at least it tracks
from beverage to beverage.
- Yeah, yeah.
- It's kinda like if you don't like
the Marvel Cinematic Universe,
but you still admire Avengers Infinity War
as an ambitious crossover event.
- (laughs) I guess that's true, yeah.
Or like Budweiser, right?
Like, I love a Budweiser sometimes,
but, like, what I mostly appreciate
and, like, find so incredible about them
is, like, you know, it's brewed all over the country,
and, like, no matter where you buy it,
it tastes exactly the same.
Like, that's a pretty impressive feat.
- No, you're right.
I think so, I'm gonna be set for that.
Well, thanks so much, Brent, for filling us in.
- Yeah, totally.
- I'm definitely gonna go roll down to a Stumptown soon.
There's not one in my immediate neighborhood,
but this really makes me wanna go
explore the Stumptown menu a bit more.
- Yeah, I mean, if you're ever in Portland,
I'd love to give you a tour of the facility.
- Oh, that'd be sick.
I'm sure we'll be up in Portland sometime in the next year.
All right, thanks so much, man.
Have a good one.
- Yeah, you too.
Bye.
♪ Your breath is sweet and weak ♪
♪ Your eyes are like two jewels in the sky ♪
♪ Your back is straight, your head is smooth ♪
♪ On the pillow where you lie ♪
♪ But I don't sense affection ♪
♪ No gratitude, no love ♪
♪ Your loyalty is not to me ♪
♪ But to the stars above ♪
♪ One more cup of coffee for the road ♪
♪ One more cup of coffee before I go ♪
♪ To the valley below ♪
♪ Your daddy is a mountain lord ♪
♪ And a wanderer by trade ♪
♪ He'll teach you how to pick and choose ♪
♪ And how to throw the blade ♪
♪ He oversees his kingdom ♪
♪ So no stranger doesn't drool ♪
♪ His voice trembles as he calls out ♪
♪ For another plate of food ♪
♪ One more cup of coffee for the road ♪
♪ One more cup of coffee before I go ♪
♪ To the valley below ♪
- So we're getting a lot of emails, tweets, messages
about something that's very time crisis-y.
And that is Jason Alexander, AKA George Costanza,
is appearing in a new KFC ad where he plays the Colonel.
This is the official KFC press release on the KFC website.
Kentucky Fried Chicken announced today
that it has selected actor, comedian, and director,
Jason Alexander, as the latest celebrity
to play the role of the brand's iconic founder,
Colonel Harland Sanders.
Did you know the Colonel's first name?
Jake, you did?
- Oh yeah.
- Harland Sanders.
Beginning August 6th, ads featuring the sitcom veteran
as the Colonel and dinner time hero
will air on television and computer screens nationwide
to promote KFC's $20 Philips trademark,
which for the first time are available
in four different varieties.
We could literally just talk about the press release.
It's like then they shift.
Modern families want and need mealtime
to be simple and stress-free.
KFC knows this can be a feat when the clock strikes 5 p.m.
and wants to help families solve the dinner time challenge
without sacrificing taste.
It's true.
A working family being able to go feed everybody
for a low price at KFC is helpful,
but like KFC just wants to help.
Language is like, chill.
To do just that, KFC's enlisted sitcom king, Alexander,
to offer its $20 Philips four different ways,
including a new boneless filet $20 Philips.
And then there's a quote from the CMO.
- Boneless.
- Andrei Zahiminsky.
I am all too familiar with the challenge of family dinner.
With four chicken meals to choose from
each at only $20, we're continuing KFC's tradition
of providing an easy dinner time solution
for families at great value.
And there's no better person to spread the word
about our new family of four in a sitcom setting
than comedy extraordinaire, Jason Alexander.
Alexander's background as the star
of one of the greatest sitcoms of all time
makes him the perfect choice.
Then they have a quote from Jason.
As the son of two working parents,
there were plenty of dinner times
when a bucket of chicken and all the fixins saved the day.
It's been fun to combine my personal love for KFC
with my sitcom experience into a new take
on the role of Colonel Sanders.
I feel like one time we were talking about this
after a time crisis is sometimes when people,
I mean, I think these days people don't get
particularly annoyed for somebody doing an ad.
'Cause like at the end of the day,
it's like, yeah, we all eat KFC from time to time.
Why get angry at like an actor, you know, musician?
It's fine.
It's just interesting that very few people ever say,
when asked about like, you know,
why did you let your song be in this commercial?
Why did you participate in that?
And just be like, you know, 'cause I got no problem with it
and whatever, they paid for it.
Who cares?
A lot of times people get a little defensive and say,
well, I actually eat KFC.
It's not like I did this, you know, Boston market.
There's some part of me that's always been like, who cares?
- Yeah.
- I actually drink Pepsi, okay?
It actually made me feel good.
I used to drink Pepsi with my grandpa.
So, you know, leave me alone.
And I don't know if that's what's happening
with Jason Alexander.
- I can't really imagine that.
- I did this for free.
- Yeah, see, that's also funny too.
It makes a lot more sense to me to be like,
somebody like asked me like,
why did you like have a Vampire Weekend song in a Honda ad?
Be like, who cares?
We said no to corporations we thought were horrible.
Honda seemed fine.
They paid for it.
More people heard the song.
That's why we did it.
Versus like, I've actually driven in Hondas.
I got high for the first time in a Honda.
It's part of my heritage.
Yeah, 'cause there's also something funny.
It's like, if you like it so much, why charge?
So it actually makes more sense.
Like, why did you let them use your song?
'Cause I wanted Honda to pay.
Versus like--
- Yeah, I wanted to gouge those MFers.
- And sometimes it feels that way.
Nothing wrong with Honda.
Please forgive me, Honda.
- Listen, we had to do a retrofit
on the foundation of the house, okay?
The earthquake insurance was through the roof.
- Or just say because--
- Needed the check.
- 'Cause being an actor, being a musician,
it's inherently stressful,
and you take money where you can get it sometimes.
Actually, here's something I've been thinking about
because I've been like watching so much Seinfeld lately
since we started doing Seinfeld Sundays.
- Chronological order or just randos?
- I tend to watch a season in order, but I bounce around.
I've always found the last couple seasons
very interesting when Larry David left.
The music gets way hardcore.
It starts to go pow, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow.
- Really?
- The music gets really crazy, and the cuts got way faster.
- Wow, I have to check that out.
- Watch like season seven or season eight.
It's kind of like Jerry just started doing his thing.
And to his credit, season seven and eight
have so many classic episodes, and even conceptually.
- Do you mean eight and nine?
- Oh, eight and nine, is that what I mean?
Yeah, eight and nine has like the yada yada episode.
There's just so many classics,
but it's the cuts get way faster.
There start to be these like 12 second scenes
where Jerry's like, "Kramer, what are you doing?"
He's like, "Ah, pow, pow, pow, pow, pow."
It just starts to move really quick.
And also, they're outdoors a lot more.
They're on this like fake New York street quite a bit.
- Oh, I remember that.
- The Warner soundstage.
- It's like the world opened up a bit.
I would say the humor didn't change at all,
but the pacing and the (imitates gun firing)
the Bizarro Jerry is also in those scenes.
- This is also post the accidental death of Susan.
So George's character now sort of has this like
dark cloud over him for the remainder of the show.
- Really, he carried that?
- They reference it often.
- Yeah. - Wow.
- He works for this foundation that's been set up to--
- There's even an episode where he goes back to the store
where he bought the envelopes.
- Yes.
- But anyway, so I've been watching so much Seinfeld,
and then like it's actually been a problem
'cause it's all I wanna watch.
And then I wanna watch secondary stuff.
So I've been watching all like the DVD extras
that people have ripped and put on YouTube.
And one thing I've been thinking about,
obviously he was so typecast as George,
but Jason Alexander in the interviews,
he actually seems like he's so warm,
even though he's an incredibly talented actor,
he's so deferential towards Larry and Jerry.
He weirdly seems like he doesn't have a,
well, maybe not weirdly,
but he just seems like for a famous dude,
he just doesn't have a lot of ego about it.
He truly like loved the show.
He admired the writers and he did his thing.
And he kinda comes from
a classically trained acting background,
maybe the only one of the four.
So as I'm watching it, I was just kinda like,
Jason Alexander should be in more stuff.
So I literally, before this came out,
I was thinking like,
how come he hasn't had some like breakout dark role
or like how come Jason Alexander
wasn't on like Breaking Bad or something?
- Yeah, playing someone's like weird dad or something
in some like dark indie movie.
- Yeah, like he should be on like an HBO show
or like an indie movie.
- Yeah, like a weird Todd Sollens movie or something.
- Exactly.
I was just thinking like, he's such a great actor
and he just even seems to have a great attitude
about the fact that he was a part of this
and he just seems very thankful.
So anyway, I wanna see Jason Alexander get that money.
I mean, I'm sure he's fine from Seinfeld,
but it's like, I'm not mad at it at all.
So I just kinda wondered if like they offer him this
and he's like, "Sure, I'll do it, that'll be fun."
♪ I have a mansion, forget the price ♪
♪ Ain't never been there, they tell me it's nice ♪
♪ I live in hotels, tear out the walls ♪
♪ I have accountants, pay for it all ♪
♪ They say I'm crazy, but I have a good time ♪
♪ I'm just looking for clues at the scene of the crime ♪
♪ Life's been good to me so far ♪
- You know what'd be cool?
Well, first of all, I guess the problem is
all these people are probably pretty loaded,
but it'd be cool to be like, just to hit everybody up
who was on "Friends" and "Seinfeld,"
be like, who just wants to like be on a sitcom again?
Who's got too much time on their hands?
Or who just feels like acting?
Who's got a real love of the game?
And I wouldn't be surprised if Schwimmer and Alexander
were two of the guys who said,
"You know what, I (beep) love acting."
And be like, let's build a show around this.
- Matt LeBlanc's in.
- A "Seinfeld" and "Friends" mashup.
We can't use the intellectual property,
but like, let's really get those acting chops.
- Making my skin crawl.
- What would you think of that?
- A solo crossover of Ross, old Ross,
and old George Costanza.
- They both lived in New York City in the '90s.
I guess this is going back to our "Infinity War" idea.
- It is a little bit.
- How about this?
A one-act play, Schwimmer and Alexander playing themselves,
and it's about them having a conversation
in the bathroom at the 1995 Emmys.
- Like a Frost/Nixon type thing.
- I like that.
- This is great, this is great.
- That's a good idea, dude.
- Yeah.
- But they get trapped in an elevator at the Four Seasons.
- Yeah, this is good.
- Maybe they even knew each other
as just like New York actors back in the day.
- Sure.
- And then they're just like kind of talking,
and maybe like Schwimmer has a chip on his shoulder,
like, you know what, man?
"Friends" is an important sitcom too.
Yeah, maybe it's not considered as smart as "Seinfeld,"
but you know what, man?
It's like always hurt me, and then Jason's like,
"Why do you think I feel?
"I'm not Jerry, I'm not Larry.
"We're both actors, and this (beep)
"damn 'Seinfeld'/"Friends' Civil War'
"has pushed us apart."
And they just like really get into it.
- I watched that.
- How about this, Kramer and Matt LeBlanc in an elevator?
- Ooh.
- And Matt LeBlanc says to Kramer,
"Hey, man, you and me should grab a beer sometime,
"because we're both the comedic relief
"on very successful sitcoms."
And then Kramer's just like, "No, thank you.
"We have very little in common, sir."
- Yeah, I think that's exactly how it would go.
- How come Kelsey Grammer gets to have
his gritty hour drama boss?
I've never seen it.
Some people watch that show, right?
How come Jason Alexander doesn't get his--
- Maybe he's like, you think he's looking for it?
You think he's after it?
- Well, he had a show--
- We gotta get him on the horn.
- Yeah. - We do, yeah.
- He had a show this year.
I think it was like a family,
like a Partridge family type of thing.
- Really?
What was it called?
- I didn't watch it.
- Comedy or drama?
- Maybe because people in the online Seinfeld fan community
didn't do enough to support the show.
- Well, oh, it's called "Hit the Road."
Alexander played Ken Swallow,
the patriarch of a modern day Partridge family.
This was on, what channel was this on?
Audience Network.
- Literally never heard of that.
- Yeah, same.
I think that's why I couldn't watch it.
- What's the audience?
That's like a cable channel?
- It's a channel owned by AT&T.
- And I think you can only see it through direct TV.
- I feel like there was some onion or something
that was like a joke about like a new platform
that you could only view on the ordering screens
at McDonald's.
What was the joke?
- I think that's what it was, yeah.
- It's a platform owned by KFC.
I have also lately been feeling like
there's just too much content.
- Yeah.
- It's been hard for me to wanna start a new show
or even a movie because,
and maybe it's similar to turning my back on cold brew
and just wanting to drink Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee.
- You're just going old man here.
- I'm going old man.
I wanna drink Dunkin' Donuts iced coffee
and I wanna watch Seinfeld.
- Get into Succession.
Get into Yellowstone.
- Oh, that last episode.
Did you see it?
- Oh yeah.
- Of Yellowstone?
- Succession.
Great show, Yellowstone's great.
I'm pumped for Ozark to return.
I'm pumped for Better Call Saul to return.
- Better Call Saul is back and no one's talking about it.
Do you notice that?
There was no hype?
- Yeah.
- It was on Wednesday.
- You guys are speaking Russian.
I don't understand a word you're saying.
You know what, Jake?
You and I are just different people.
You're a $5 cold brew.
- Premium cable drama watching.
- Jake's posted up at Civilian Coffee
with an $8 cold brew,
watching the latest episode of Succession on HBO Go
on his tablet.
- Ezra's just ham and egging it over here.
He's drinking his D&D iced coffee.
- I'm at Dunkin' Donuts.
- He's getting in that minivan with 240,000 miles on it.
- I'm at Dunkin' Donuts watching Seinfeld on my tablet.
- Oh man.
- I think also, you know,
like maybe it's from working on the album so long
and like having, you know,
having to play shows and just so much on my mind.
It's kind of like when we worked on Contra,
I could only watch The Office.
- Oh wow, okay.
- And actually later I found out that for a lot of people,
The Office is like a classic comfort food show.
- Yeah.
- Like sometimes I've talked to people who are like,
"Oh yeah, I love to watch The Office."
And I was like, "Yeah?"
And they're like, "Yeah."
I watched from the first season to the last
and it started over again.
- I don't understand that.
I would never rewatch The Office.
And people like throw on TV in like an ambient way.
Like it's just on in the back.
I've never understood that.
- Would you rewatch Seinfeld?
- Yeah, not in its entirety,
but I would like, if I'm in a specific mood,
I'd be like, "Oh, I'll throw Seinfeld on."
- It's because these sitcoms are more comforting
because, you know,
I've watched maybe The Sopranos three times
and I'm kind of want to watch it for a fourth time.
But it's like, it's an emotional dark experience for me.
- I don't rewatch TV.
It's so--
- You never rewatch The Sopranos?
Well, you know, that's an important cultural artifact
for where I'm from. - No, I know.
I could see it.
For me, if I'm gonna watch something,
I want it to be like new.
I'm really, I'm gonna really give it my attention.
- I know, it's the exact opposite attitude you have to music.
- It's absolutely true.
- It's funny.
You to music is like me to TV and coffee.
- Yep.
♪ Well, I've been watching you ♪
♪ Watch all night, Diane ♪
♪ Nobody's found a way behind your defenses ♪
♪ They never noticed the sap gun in your hand ♪
♪ Until you're pointing it and stunning your senses ♪
♪ All night long, all night long ♪
♪ You shoot 'em now because you're waiting ♪
♪ For somebody good to come along ♪
♪ All night long, all night long ♪
♪ But you'll be sleeping with the television on ♪
♪ Hey ♪
♪ Oh, you say you're looking for someone solid here ♪
♪ You can't be bothered with those ♪
♪ Just for the night, boys ♪
♪ Tonight it lets you take some kind of chances, dear ♪
♪ Tomorrow morning you'll wake up with the white noise ♪
♪ All night long, all night long ♪
♪ You're only standing there ♪
♪ 'Cause somebody once did somebody wrong ♪
♪ All night long ♪
♪ But you'll be sleeping with the television on ♪
♪ Your eyes are saying talk to me ♪
♪ But your attitude is don't waste my time ♪
♪ Your eyes are saying talk to me ♪
♪ But you won't hear a word ♪
♪ 'Cause it just might be the same old line ♪
♪ This isn't easy for me to say, Diane ♪
♪ I know you don't need anybody's protection ♪
♪ I really wish I was less of a thinking man ♪
♪ And more a fool who's not afraid of rejection ♪
♪ All night long, all night long ♪
♪ I'll just be standing there ♪
♪ 'Cause I know I don't have the guts to come on ♪
♪ And I'll be sleeping with the television on ♪
- You're listening to Time Crisis on Beat One.
- Seinfeld, I feel like I noticed
that you were tweeting with somebody who was like,
I've just been listening to some late TC episodes,
what are other good ones to listen to or something?
And you said you should go back to the start,
but then people were commenting on that,
or replying and saying,
well, here's different good ones to check out.
And I was like, we gotta put together greatest hits,
TC episode, because for us, it's just such a rant.
Like we can't remember where the good runs were.
We can't remember the good conversations.
The TC heads, no, but.
- Grape Ice Cream.
- Grape Ice Cream.
What other stuff do people like?
The One Direction on Nantucket movie.
What was that one about?
- Yeah, the hardware store.
- The hardware store.
- Oh, that horrid.
Bedsheets, obviously that was like a three, three-parter.
- We've had some great. - My ribs.
- Oh yeah, Lonnie's dad.
- Lonnie's dad.
- Yeah, that's the two fridge.
- Lonnie's dad, the two fridge,
that's pretty legendary for me.
Anyway, that's a long-term project,
is the Time Crisis archive project.
You know what, we gotta start making
dicks pics of Time Crisis.
- TCDB.com.
- Okay, we're gonna start putting out compilations
that are the best choice nugs from Time Crisis
on very nice limited edition vinyl.
And it's gonna be volume one through 10,
and we're gonna pick the best of the best.
- Yep.
- But we need a name like Dicks Pics.
I mean, it could be Jake's Takes,
but I've always felt like it didn't make quite enough sense.
- No, no, I don't think that's it.
- Jake's Rakes?
Jake's raked the leaves of Time Crisis
and cleaned it up into something.
- I was pushing it.
- Nothing around Desiree, so that's.
- Or something to do with the Crisis Crew?
- True Crew?
- Let's see what some synonyms for pics are.
Choice.
- Choice Crew.
- Crisis Choice.
- What rhymes with select?
- Detect?
- Crew.
- This is.
- This is really.
- This is really scraping the bottom.
(laughing)
- This show rules.
- This show rules.
- This is almost like behind the scenes.
(laughing)
BTS.
- Breaking the fourth wall.
Okay, EddieTC Heads, if you can come up with a good idea
what we can name our numero group of vinyl selections.
- Yeah, yeah, hit us up.
- I mean, it could be Seinfeld Selections.
Doesn't exactly roll off the tongue.
Seinfeld Selects, better.
We could make it intentionally awkward.
Like, top choice of Seinfeld.
A little like a weird translation.
- Or you could just name each album
off of like one of the tracks.
Like the first one could just call like Grape Ice Cream.
- Right.
- You know.
Second album's called Lonnie's Dad.
- It could be, yeah, so it could be like
Time Crisis Volume 3 Lonnie's Dad.
- Yeah, yeah, exactly.
- Okay, but if anybody has a good idea let us know.
Okay, time for top five.
- It's time for the top five.
Five on iTunes.
- Okay, so this is gonna be a pretty interesting one.
We're doing the top five songs on iTunes right now
versus the Billboard top five of this week in 1999.
Why '99?
- That was the year that Stumptown was founded
in Portland, Oregon.
Also the year I graduated college in Portland, Oregon.
- Really?
- Yeah, man.
First Stumptown on Belmont Street.
- That's kinda interesting.
You graduate college.
- Third wave takes off.
- And third wave takes off.
So that's a hell of a way to enter the workforce.
- I didn't work there, I worked at Papa John's.
- I know, but you probably grabbed a cold brew there
or an iced coffee.
- Hot cup.
- You know, that'd be like graduating college
in '69 with the moon landing.
- I was gonna say when Levi Strauss is starting
in San Francisco.
- No, the gap.
- You're right.
- Sometimes people graduate college at a time
when there's like an oil crisis
and sometimes they graduate when there's
new retail opportunities or technologies taking off.
- Boom.
- It depends, the world you're entering into
is very different.
So we're doing '99.
The number five song in '99, Jennifer Lopez,
If You Had My Love.
- August of '99.
- That sound is already just so '99.
- So is it like a harpsichord, like a fake harpsichord?
- Yeah, it could be a keyboard,
like a chord guitar sound or something, who knows?
Yes, or a harpsichord.
- This song is dope, though.
- Yeah.
- You a fan?
- Oh yeah.
- This was her breakout hit, right?
This was her first.
- Produced by Rodney Jerkins, great producer.
Michael Jackson showed interest in this song,
but felt that it was better suited for a female artist.
Yeah, you can actually really picture it.
- Totally.
- Oh yeah, he would murder this.
♪ This is how it's got to be ♪
♪ And if I can't trust ♪
♪ If I can't trust in you ♪
♪ And I refuse to let you play me for a fool ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah ♪
♪ No, we could possibly ♪
♪ Possibly ♪
♪ Become a dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty, dirty ♪
♪ That's what you told me ♪
♪ That's what you said ♪
♪ You want me ♪
♪ You have to, you have to be ♪
♪ You're in all the things I've been wanting ♪
♪ If you really want me, baby ♪
♪ If you had my love and I gave you all my trust ♪
♪ Would you come find me ♪
♪ Tell me, baby ♪
- Classic.
The number five song on iTunes right now.
Something new.
We haven't heard this on the show yet.
This is an interesting one,
'cause I first heard this song not on Time Crisis,
not in an Uber, not in a business establishment.
I heard it in a commercial, I guess for the Apple HomePod,
where DJ Khaled and his son are yelling at each other.
And it's a DJ Khaled song called "No Brainer"
featuring Justin Bieber, Chance the Rapper, and Quavo.
♪ We the best music ♪
♪ Another one ♪
♪ DJ Khaled ♪
♪ You say God of the crowd, baby, it's a no brainer ♪
♪ It ain't the heart that choose ♪
♪ Him or me, be for real, baby, it's a no brainer ♪
♪ You got to mind, lose, go hard and watch the sun rise ♪
♪ One night'll change your whole life ♪
- It's like a sequel of sorts.
- To "I'm the One"?
- Yeah.
♪ It's a no brainer ♪
♪ Put 'em up if you with me, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ In the middle ♪
♪ Put 'em high ♪
♪ Put 'em high ♪
♪ Most stars, yeah ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ Put 'em high ♪
♪ Quavo ♪
♪ Mama told you don't talk to strangers ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
- Yeah, that makes the J-Lo sound
positively Baroque comparison.
- I mean, it's not-- - Very careful.
- Right, yeah, this is one of those songs,
it's also funny too how like,
I don't know if it's always been this way,
but it's like I hear that song the first time
and I'm like, I have nothing against it.
It's not very exciting to me,
but I also just like look at the names
and I'm just like, I will probably hear this song
700 times and then eventually I'll be like,
well, you know, it's a very catchy song.
- You'll hear it a lot for the next like,
four and a half months and then never again.
- Right, but generally it seems like
things are too big to fail today.
Like a DJ Khaled song coming out
and just like dropping off the charts,
I just, does that, I don't think that would happen.
It'd at least get like a pretty big wave
of initial enthusiasm, I don't know, who cares.
The number four song in 99, this is a big one.
- Okay.
♪ Somebody once told me the world is gonna roll me ♪
- Heads up.
I feel like we've riffed on this song on a show before.
- Well, this song's basically a meme now.
- Right.
- The kids love to joke about it.
♪ Finger in her thumb in the shape of an L ♪
♪ On her ♪
- Forehead.
♪ Well, the years start coming ♪
♪ And they don't stop coming ♪
- Do you have any memory of like
when the song first came out?
- Didn't make sense, no.
- It was the type of thing you'd hear on the radio
and you're driving for Papa John's?
- Oh yeah.
- Did you think it was remotely cool?
- No, it gave me kind of like a Mighty Mighty Boston's.
- I think Mighty Mighty Boston's are cool.
- I mean, I probably like it more now than I did then.
- Did you know who Smash Mouth was?
- No, I only knew that song.
- Well, before that, the previous album,
they had a song,
♪ You might as well be walking on the sun ♪
- Oh yeah, sure, I knew that.
No, I mean, I guess my perspective on it back then
was sort of like, this is like major label,
like fake, like alternative rock or something.
I was just like, this is garbage.
Like this was the same league as like Third Eye Blind
and Three Doors Down and that kind of stuff.
♪ It's getting pretty thin ♪
♪ The water's getting warm ♪
♪ So you might as well swim ♪
♪ My world's on fire ♪
♪ How about yours ♪
♪ That's the way I like it ♪
♪ And I'll never get bored ♪
♪ Hey now, you're an all star ♪
♪ Get your game on, go play ♪
♪ Hey now, you're a rock star ♪
♪ Get the show on, get paid ♪
♪ All that glitters is gold ♪
♪ Only shooting stars break the mold ♪
- Although I would say this.
- Yeah?
- I would listen to the song.
- Right.
- But if like Korn or Marilyn Manson came on the radio,
I would change the station.
- Too heavy?
- Yeah, in '99 or like Limp Bizkit.
- Yeah, you weren't checking for that stuff.
- I was like checking out the Alt Rock radio station
and you'd catch this and maybe you'd catch like--
- Fastball?
- Yeah, exactly, yeah, fastball.
I'd be like, I can hang with this
or like semi-sonic or whatever.
- Right.
- And then it would go to like Korn and Limp Bizkit
and I'd be like, I gotta bail, guys.
(laughing)
- The number four song in 2018, "Girls Like You".
Maroon 5 featuring Cardi B.
♪ Spent 24 hours, I need more hours with you ♪
♪ We spent the weekend getting even, oh ♪
♪ We spent the late nights making things right between us ♪
♪ But now it's all good, babe ♪
♪ Well, I thought we'd better play me close ♪
♪ 'Cause girls like you run around with guys like me ♪
♪ So sometimes when I come through ♪
♪ I need a girl like you, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Girls like you love falling in love with me too ♪
♪ And I want when I come through ♪
♪ I need a girl like you, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ I need a girl like you, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
- What are the lyrics to this?
- Oh yeah.
- I like all that palm muting on the acoustics.
- I do like the guitar.
♪ Took a whole day up trying to get way up, oh ♪
♪ We spent the day like trying to make it ♪
- The lyrics are very strange.
'Cause girls like you run around with guys like me
'til sundown, when I come through,
I need a girl like you, yeah, yeah.
- They worked these lyrics hard.
- Girls like you love fun, yeah, me too.
What I want when I come through,
I need a girl like you, yeah.
Maroon 5 has had interesting lyrics in the past.
- Dude, Adam Levine was sitting on those lyrics for years.
- Who knows if he wrote them.
- He was just waiting for the right song to come around.
- It's very circular reasoning.
'Cause girls like you run around with guys like me
'til sundown, when I come through,
I need a girl like you.
I need a girl like you.
Why do you need a girl like me?
'Cause girls like you go with guys like me.
Can you be a little more specific?
You know, we both run around 'til sundown
and we both love fun.
- It sounds a little bit like if train A
is headed for the destination from, you know, 230,
like it's one of those equations.
- Maybe it's a commentary on there's no magic in this world.
You know, everything's kind of predestined.
- I think you're overthinking it, man.
- What do you think it means?
- I think it's just like, it's like,
sugar, you are my candy girl.
And you got me wanting you.
It's like an Archie song, dude.
It's the Archies in 2018.
- I can also imagine like, you know,
many songwriters, myself included,
will come up with the melody first.
- Yeah.
- And sometimes you have a really good melody.
And sometimes it's kind of complicated.
And the faster the melody is,
the more dire it can be sometimes.
Can you fit lyrics in that fit the song?
- And you gotta record it today.
- So somebody was like, maybe it's,
♪ 'Cause a girl like you ♪
♪ By now it's by now me ♪
♪ Da da da ba na na ♪
♪ But need a girl like you ♪
And then kind of like,
♪ Girl like you ♪
♪ Run around with guys like me ♪
♪ And then sundown I come through ♪
♪ I need a girl like you ♪
And also the way he sings it, it's very unclear.
♪ I just like the loveliness of loving you ♪
- We spend the late nights making things right between us.
But now it's all good, baby.
Roll that backwood, baby.
And play me close.
- Roll that what?
Backwood? - Backwood.
It's the most expensive rap to use when rolling blunts.
It's something that rappers say.
- Dude, remember in that Metallica documentary
when they're writing lyrics with their therapist?
He's like, yeah, dude, my lifestyle's my death style.
- Oh yeah, your lifestyle determines your death style.
- That's like what this, it's the same.
- That means something, though.
The way you live your life determines how it's gonna end.
- Obviously, you are what you eat.
- Yeah, at least that means something.
Now, okay, I'm not mad at it,
but "Girl Like You" is a real head-scratcher for me.
It's neither like vibey, poetic, surrealistical (beep)
where you're just kind of like, I don't know what he meant,
but it's like, I get a vibe off it.
It's not that type of lyric.
Most Maroon 5 songs feel a little more specific.
- Throw in the Archies, dude.
I really feel like it's the same emotional
and lyrical palette.
- This is probably 50 years old.
♪ Sugar ♪
♪ Oh, honey, honey ♪
♪ You are my candy girl ♪
♪ And you got me wanting you ♪
♪ Honey ♪
♪ Oh, sugar, sugar ♪
- That's what I did. I like that.
♪ You are my candy girl ♪
♪ And you got me wanting you ♪
- Cardi B!
♪ I just can't believe the loveliness of loving you ♪
♪ I just can't believe it's true ♪
♪ I just can't believe the wonder of this feeling too ♪
♪ I just can't believe it's true ♪
♪ Ah, sugar ♪
- Oh, sick!
All right.
♪ Oh, honey, honey ♪
♪ You are my candy girl ♪
♪ And you got me wanting you ♪
♪ Oh, honey ♪
♪ Sugar, sugar ♪
♪ You are my candy girl ♪
♪ And you got me wanting you ♪
♪ When I kissed you, girl ♪
♪ I knew how sweet a kiss could be ♪
- He knew how sweet a kiss could be.
♪ Like the summer sunshine ♪
♪ Pour your sweetness over me ♪
- Oh.
Pour some sugar on me, 20 years earlier.
- I've actually always wondered that,
if the Def Leppard song.
- Yeah, they would have some distant childhood memory
of this song.
- Yeah, it was a reference to this.
♪ You make me so sweet ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Pouring the sugar on me ♪
♪ Oh, yeah ♪
♪ Pouring the sugar on me ♪
- Well, I mean, look, there's nothing wrong with.
- Yeah, it's just a little love ditty.
- Sometimes a song is basically just like,
I like you and it feels good,
and it feels good because I like you.
- Or like half of the Everly Brothers catalog.
- No, but their songs are a little more specific.
Look, we need all types of songs,
but you know what's also funny, hearing that song?
It actually has a lot in common,
vibe-wise, with "Brown Eyed Girl."
And you can imagine that, you know,
somebody listening to "Brown Eyed Girl,"
that's like the poetic, making love in the green,
like "Brown Eyed Girl" is about like.
♪ Behind the stadium ♪
"Brown Eyed Girl" is like so bittersweet
about like young love and lost love and change and stuff.
- And memory.
- And memory, yeah.
- Seasons.
- Days when the rain came.
- Right.
- And then sugar, sugar.
But you know the hilarious thing is like,
one person listens to "Sugar, Sugar,"
and they get that feeling,
one person listens to "Brown Eyed Girl,"
Irish poetry, you get the same feeling.
Who cares?
So shout out to Maroon 5.
Here's a song that's actually about something.
I remember the first time I saw the video
for this next song, and.
- What are we, number three of 99?
- We're number three of 99.
And it made a big impression on me,
like I didn't have a lot of context for it.
Like sometimes you're right about something,
sometimes you're wrong.
Sometimes you see somebody like,
that person didn't go far on some of this.
I know this seems crazy,
but I remember the first time I saw this video,
and this is this group's second album.
So I was just ignorant, I missed the first album
just 'cause I wasn't listening to this type of music.
And when I remember I first saw it,
I swear, I was sitting in the basement,
and I thought to myself,
that one person in this group has such a charisma.
She's such a good performer, she's beautiful.
I just remember being like 14,
and it's like a 14 year old,
you see like a beautiful woman,
you're just kind of like, there's something there.
- Destinies?
- And it was Destiny's Child.
Clearly I was not the only person thinking this,
but it just always lodged in my brain.
I remember vividly the first time I saw Beyonce.
- I was thinking either NSYNC or Destinies,
and then you said a woman.
- Right.
Honestly I didn't have the same feeling about NSYNC.
I would have picked Joey Fatone
as the one to go to the distance.
I was like, he just seemed more solid.
But when I first saw Destiny's Child,
I just remember I really had this feeling.
It was the first time I saw Beyonce,
and I was like, there's something special about that person.
- Nailed it.
- And I was--
- Talent scout over here.
- I could have been a talent scout.
Yeah, but you know what's funny?
It's like, I'm right about stuff like that one in 15 times.
- That's a great ratio, man.
- No, it's not a good ratio.
If I worked at a record label, I'd be awful.
- Yeah, I would suck.
- I would really be bad at it.
That's why it's notable.
Like, oh, shit comes out,
I'm just like, that's fucking sucks.
That other thing rules, I'm always wrong.
But this was the one time I was right.
Very similar sound to If You Had My Love.
- I think this is also Rodney Jerkins, right?
- No, this one's not Rodney Jerkins,
although he did work with Beyonce later.
♪ At first we started out real cool ♪
♪ Taking me places I ain't never been ♪
♪ But now you're getting comfortable ♪
♪ Ain't doing those things you did no more ♪
♪ You're slowly making me pay for things ♪
♪ Your money should be-- ♪
- Man, '99 was a long time ago.
- Basically 20 years ago.
- That's crazy, dude.
It's crazy that my 20th college reunion's
coming up next year.
- Damn, you gonna go?
- You know what's really intense, man?
- Yeah? - I don't know.
- I remember when I went to college in '95,
I went to school in Oregon,
and my parents had gone to school in California.
And so the same month that I started school in Oregon,
they went to their 25th--
- Whoa.
- 25th college reunion in 1995.
- Roll that to the West Coast.
- So they had an 18-year-old who's a freshman in college,
and then they were, you know.
- That'd be like you had a 13-year-old right now.
- Yeah.
♪ You do, so you do ♪
♪ You do, so you do ♪
♪ Can you pay my bills ♪
♪ Can you pay my telephone bills ♪
- Also, I vividly remember it.
I was like, this song is great.
I love the groove and the cadence of the vocals.
That woman is a star.
And it kinda reminds me of Hotel California.
Those are all the things I thought.
- Oh yeah, it does kinda.
- Yeah.
- I never really loved this one.
It's a little too proggy.
It's just real herky-jerky, kinda like.
- Right.
- It's just like--
- But the vocals are so good.
- It's too complex for my taste.
- But that was a little bit of the wave.
(imitates vocalizing)
- Can you write about that?
Similar chord movement than Hotel California.
♪ Don't know none of these calls come on ♪
♪ Your mind's not as simple as it once ♪
♪ You try to leave ♪
♪ With another type of brother ♪
♪ Still leave me ♪
♪ Why haven't I found another ♪
♪ A baller ♪
♪ When times get hard ♪
♪ Need someone to help me out ♪
- I'm surprised Don Henley didn't sit.
♪ You can check out ♪
♪ But you can never leave ♪
♪ Pay my automobiles ♪
The number three song in 2018 is Tekashi 6ix9ine,
song called "Fifi" featuring Nicki Minaj and Murda Beatz.
- Who?
- You know, he's a young New York rapper
with rainbow-colored hair.
- I don't know.
- Very controversial.
- Why?
- For quite a few reasons.
I mean, he's got a lot of beefs.
He has a criminal record.
- How old is he?
- I don't know, 20, 21, 22.
♪ Got that wet wet ♪
♪ Got that drip drip ♪
♪ Got that super soak ♪
♪ I hit that she a fifi ♪
♪ Her name Kiki ♪
♪ She eat my dick like it's fruit free ♪
♪ I don't even know like why I did that ♪
- This sucks.
- Why does this suck?
- I don't know.
- Not feeling it?
- I feel like I've heard eight million songs just like it.
Am I wrong?
- I wonder if you would like his other stuff.
He's like known to be,
I don't know his stuff that well,
but he's like really,
he's like real intense,
like this type of (beep)
♪ Got plenty of ♪
♪ Drop me off drop me off ♪
(gunshots)
- Go!
- You like this one more?
This is like his first big song.
- Jesus Christ.
(mumbles)
Jesus Christ.
Yeah, not my jam, man.
- It's intense.
- Yeah.
- You gotta admit it's intense.
- Oh, I admit.
- The number two song back in '99
was KC and JoJo, "Tell Me It's Real".
- Oh, hell yeah.
♪ Are you for me ♪
♪ Or are you not for me ♪
♪ Can't you have love ♪
♪ To last forever ♪
♪ In your soul ♪
♪ Tell me it's real ♪
♪ The feeling that we feel ♪
- Oh yeah, this is beautiful.
- I love this song, yeah.
♪ Tell me it's real ♪
♪ Don't let love come just ♪
- Also kind of similar guitar, harpsichord type sound.
- Yeah.
- It's not fake record static.
- And yeah, that's interesting.
People do that a lot now.
- Yeah, all these chord progressions are kind of '70s.
- Yeah, like maybe like A minor and E major,
like that kind of feel.
♪ Baby you told me that you love me ♪
♪ And you'd never leave my side ♪
- Great singers.
Also like pretty pronounced auto-tune.
Is that, is that?
- I don't, uh.
- On that chorus?
Not here.
- Auto-tune existed, I don't.
- Well I thought I heard.
- It wasn't in widespread.
- Wait for the chorus.
♪ Let me know just how you feel ♪
♪ The feeling that we feel ♪
♪ Tell me that it's real ♪
- Oh, it's there.
- But it's also just multi-track.
- It seems deliberate though.
- I'm not convinced that it's auto-tune.
- Really?
- Yeah.
- You know, auto-tune existed.
Cher Believe was in '98, but.
- It seems like it's a very like,
deliberately part of their aesthetic.
It's not like they're trying to like,
just correct for crappy singing.
- It could be, it could be.
♪ I can't explain the way you make me feel ♪
♪ Every time that you do me that you love me ♪
♪ And you know you do ♪
- This is also a very similar vibe to Mariah Carey.
♪ And I linger on dancing ♪
♪ And then the feeling is strong ♪
- Oh yeah.
♪ Oh don't you know I can't escape ♪
♪ Always be my baby ♪
- The number two song, Cardi B, I like it.
Okay, now just to compare, 'cause she's on both songs,
and I don't want it to seem like I was being like,
anti-pop, this is a great song.
It's like funny, there's memorable lyrics.
It's Girls Like You, it's just like,
this is like a fun pop song with memorable lyrics.
♪ I like dollars, I like diamonds ♪
♪ I like stunning, I like shining ♪
♪ I like million dollar deals ♪
♪ Where's my pen, bitch I'm stunning ♪
♪ I like those Balenciagas ♪
♪ The ones that look like socks ♪
♪ I like going to the chula ♪
♪ I put rocks all in my watch ♪
♪ I like texas from my exes ♪
♪ When they want a second chance ♪
♪ I like proving wrong ♪
♪ I do what they say I can't ♪
♪ They call me Cardi, Cardi, banging body ♪
♪ Spicy mami, hot tamale ♪
♪ Hotter than a Somali, burr, cold, buh, rari ♪
♪ Hop off the stool, jump in the coupe ♪
♪ Big dip on top of the roof ♪
♪ Fisting them, as hard as I can ♪
♪ Eating halal, driving a Lam' ♪
♪ So that, I'm sorry though ♪
♪ Thug my coins like Mario ♪
♪ Yeah, they call me Cardi B ♪
♪ I run this shit like cardio ♪
♪ Diamond district in the chain ♪
♪ Step by, you know I'm gang ♪
♪ Just to stop them, blow the brass ♪
♪ He so handsome, what's his name ♪
♪ I need the dollars ♪
♪ To try to beat it up like Banyan ♪
♪ Tell the judge to close the curtains ♪
♪ Bad chicks make you nervous ♪
- Do you think this stuff from the 90s
is like closer aesthetically and musically
to like the 70s than it is to now?
'Cause in a way, it's almost like a halfway point
between now and like the late, mid-late--
- 1999 would be round up to 20 and then be like 79.
I would say no.
I would say the music of today is more in common with 99
because, you know, like when we would listen
to the J-Lo and to the DJ Khaled,
you're kinda like, this (beep) not a million miles away.
There's certain kinda things that date the 99 stuff,
certain sounds, but it's like--
- I feel like the songwriting of the 99 stuff
is closer to the 70s, kinda what we're talking about
with the chord regressions and whatnot.
- But how, you know, what's the songwriting
if I like it so different than "Bills, Bills, Bills"?
"Bills, Bills, Bills" is like a tighter song
'cause it's specifically about one thing,
but I don't know.
- My theory, this could be totally off base.
The stuff from 99 was not written on a computer.
It was like a person with a keyboard or something
putting a melody over chords,
and then they were like, let's produce the song now.
- Which was on a computer.
- Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But this stuff on the 2018 stuff, to me, sounds like,
they're just like, let's take some sounds
and samples and loops and stuff
and just build it off the computer.
- Well, people definitely were doing that in the 90s.
- I'm sure. - Like a lot of hip hop,
but you're saying specifically--
- Well, what I'm saying, the songs that we're listening to--
- The top five. - Yes.
- KC and JoJo, somebody who really plays music,
sat down at a keyboard or a piano
and wrote the chord progression and worked on it.
- Yeah, I think all three of them.
I think the J-Lo and the--
- You're right, but the Cardi B is a sample
plus a Freddie Ruhr and the Bill Trapp beat.
- Yeah. - But of course,
people were doing that, samples plus the beat of the day
in the late 90s.
- I'm not saying it's a failure of Western civilization.
- You're just saying it's a difference.
- Yeah, I mean, I kind of am.
- But you know what, you still get plenty
of these music school kind of geeks in the mix
with pop and rap who sit down at a keyboard
and play, you know, you could play you anything.
Be like, make it more 70s, make it more jazzy.
- Yeah, is there a KC and JoJo of now?
- What would be? - I don't know.
- What are the defining characteristics?
Like kind of super emotional R&B
that has this kind of like elegant baroque touch in a way.
- Yeah, like, I don't know, those kinds of changes.
And like-- - Well, Florida Georgia Line.
- Maybe Florida Georgia Line.
- Jesus Christ. - No, there's definitely,
well, like, I know what you mean,
because I think, you know, KC and JoJo
and people from that era are still making music.
I think a lot of the sounds of KC and JoJo,
there's still people making new music that sounds like that,
but it would read as kind of grown up.
- Like quaint. - Or quaint,
or just like the, you know, to a certain type of listener
who maybe is in their 40s or 50s now,
and KC and JoJo, they love that type of music,
and they love stuff that sounds like,
it's also like there might be like a rock listener
who loves Wilco, and they loved Wilco when Wilco was new.
- Yep.
- And they still love music in that vein,
you know, like whatever you wanna call it,
like a acoustic analog Americana.
- Sure. - But maybe that,
and of course, there's always gonna be a lane for that.
It's just not on the charts right now,
aside from Florida Georgia Line,
who's keeping the flame alive for Americana,
and KC and JoJo.
- Americana and R&B.
- That's right.
All right, it's time to get to the number ones.
Okay, first thing I wanna say,
the number one song in 1999,
and the number one song in 2018,
are the exact same length, three minutes and 38 seconds.
- Wow. - That's kind of freaky.
'Cause that's a freaky, this is a freaky Friday.
- That's a TC first.
- The number one song.
I feel like, wasn't there some thing,
there was like a website or something
where somebody said something about that,
the most important song to you,
or the one that's gonna reflect your taste or your life,
is gonna be what was number one when you were 14.
Wasn't that, does that sound familiar to you guys?
- Yeah, sort of.
- And somebody built a website that was like,
find out what was number one on your 14th birthday.
- Right.
- Yeah, so there's a website,
find out what was number one on your 14th birthday,
and why it matters.
It's supposedly the song that defines your life.
So anyway, I don't know if this song
was number one on my 14th birthday,
but this is a song I associate a lot with being 14.
And kind of starting to think about culture and music
in a new way, kind of realizing a little bit
the mechanisms of marketing and business behind culture
and things like that.
And this song made a big impression on me
because I love elements of this song.
There's elements of the song I found very haunting.
There's parts I don't like as much.
And also, it's funny, 'cause sometimes when you're 14,
and a lot of what's on the charts
are kind of like about being 14.
So this song is about a young woman
who's not sure if she really wants to have sex yet,
but she's kind of down as long as she's treated correctly.
So it's definitely from the point of view
of a younger person.
- Okay.
- And the opening of it, I always found very haunting.
Like there's something about this part that's so sad.
It makes me think of naive melody.
You're just talking like,
(imitates melody)
The drums are a little hyper, but.
Isn't there something so sad about this?
(imitates melody)
It's like a little detuned.
♪ And nothing else matters ♪
♪ And nothing else matters ♪
(imitates melody)
And even just the opening line,
that's like a strong opening line for a pop song.
I feel like I've been locked up tight
for a century of lonely nights
waiting for someone to release me.
It's like so grandiose.
- Damn.
- It's like Game of Thrones.
It's like, no, I think you just went through puberty
and you're the horny for the first time,
but it's like this intensity.
It's like some Shakespearean.
You know, there's a lot of songs about like teenage lust,
just like, wanna get it on.
I feel like I've been locked up tight
for a century of lonely nights.
It's intense.
Like you're locked up in a medieval castle.
♪ You're licking your lips ♪
♪ I'm blowing kisses my way ♪
♪ But that don't mean I'm gonna give it away ♪
♪ Baby, baby, baby ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
♪ My body's saying let's go ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh ♪
- Kind of more Euro trash piano.
♪ My heart is saying let's go ♪
♪ If you wanna be with me ♪
♪ Baby, there's a price to pay ♪
- It's something about the chorus always lost me.
It loses that like sad, dark quality.
- Yeah.
♪ You're gonna need the right way ♪
♪ If you wanna be with me ♪
♪ I can make your wish come true ♪
♪ You gotta make a big impression ♪
♪ Gotta like what you do ♪
♪ I'm a genie in a bottle, baby ♪
♪ Gotta love me the right way, honey ♪
♪ I'm a genie in a bottle, baby ♪
♪ Come, come, come on and let me out ♪
♪ Music's playing and the lights don't out ♪
♪ It's one more dance and then we're good to go ♪
♪ Waiting for someone ♪
♪ Good to go ♪
(laughing)
- What was that?
- Good to go.
♪ Heartbeat's racing at the speed of light ♪
♪ But that don't mean it's gotta be tonight ♪
- Okay, that's where also I kinda wonder what's going on.
Hormones racing at the speed of light,
but that don't mean it's gotta be tonight.
It's just like, who wrote this song?
Hormones?
'Cause also it's like--
- Using hormones in a lyric in a sincere way.
Hormones is such a like a Kurt Cobain kind of word.
- Yeah.
- But he would use it in a way that's sort of like,
God, the body is gross and humanity is disgusting.
- And it would be in some weird kind of like surreal--
- Like medical context or something.
- Yeah.
- This is just like straight up like,
hormones are racing at the speed of light.
- Who wrote this song?
David Frank, Pamela Shane, Stephen Kibner.
Okay, so she didn't write the lyrics.
But there's also something funny, it's about like,
the first verse is talking about teen horniness
in this like super grandiose poetic terms.
Like, I feel like this longing that I have--
- In my loins.
- In my loins, I've been banished for it.
There's a war going on in my body
between my desire and what I know I must do.
I literally feel like I've been locked away for a century.
And then the second one is just like,
listen, our hormones are popping,
but we don't have to have sex tonight.
I guess racing at the speed of light is poetic.
- Speed of light, no, it is like the most stock phrase ever.
- It's kind of very like family sitcom too,
like Malcolm in the Middle, like--
- I know that's also--
- The hormones are just racing at the speed of light.
Listen, Christina, oh, Christina,
I know your hormones are racing at the speed of light,
but that doesn't mean it has to be tonight.
And nothing else matters.
- Yeah, I wonder also, is this song,
'cause she was like a post-Disney person.
So I wonder if there was--
- Maybe she was like 20 or something.
- No, she might've been younger than 18.
I wonder if there was a thought,
'cause like this is the big first single
of a former Mickey Mouse Club person becoming a pop star.
So I wonder if there was any thought put into like,
what tone are we trying to strike here?
Or maybe they wrote the song not even for her, I don't know.
'Cause later in her career
was when she like embraced sexuality.
Remember she had like a single, "Dirty"?
- Kind of.
- That was about being dirty and naughty.
But this song is like about ambivalence.
It's weird, like I wonder if kind of like abstinence only,
like kind of religious type people heard this song
and they were like, "Thank you."
Or if they were just like, "Wait a second."
- You're on thin ice here.
- Yeah, okay, I like the part about
it doesn't have to be tonight.
And I like the part about, you know, being locked away.
And I like that, you know, that the genie's within a bottle.
What about all this rub me the right way stuff?
- Also the delivery is very sultry.
- They're kind of trying to have it both ways,
I guess, with this song.
- Riding that fine line.
- It made me think also about the Spice Girls.
It was kind of similar, that it was a song
seeming a little bit about sex.
It's kind of like laying down the ground rules.
If you want to be my lover, you got to give me my friends.
- I never understood what the hell.
- I'm a genie in a bottle, you got to rub me the right way.
Here's the rules.
- What was the first big Britney single?
- Um.
- Right, it's like the year before this.
- Hit me baby one more time.
But I'd also had some similar sentiments.
My loneliness is killing me, I must confess.
I still believe, when I'm not with you I lose my mind.
Give me a sign.
- Damn dude, you just tapped in on these Britney lyrics.
- Well no, for me being that age, I couldn't help it.
- That's in your bloodstream.
- Yeah.
♪ My loneliness is killing me ♪
There even was a slight Britney versus Christina thing.
Wasn't there?
- Yeah.
- They were kind of positioned against each other.
- I thought Britney was like sort of the more like wholesome.
- Yeah.
- All American, like Mad Men era, Girl Next Door
or something, and Christina was like the like edgier one.
- I think there's an element of that.
- Is that, is that?
- Whatever.
- Anyway, the number one song in 2018,
also three minutes 38 seconds.
The first time I heard this song was on the show.
And I said, I couldn't tell what's so special about it.
This is one of those songs that now,
because it's a meme, it's a fake hit.
- Are you in now?
- Well now at least I have to admit that it's catchy.
- Are you aware of the In My Feelings dancing and stuff
and people jump out of the car
and they do this whole dance to it?
- No.
- But have you heard ♪ Kiki, do you love me ♪
- Well, if it was on the show, probably.
♪ Trap, trap, money, penny ♪
Is this Post?
- No, this is Drake.
- Oh.
♪ Gotta be real with it ♪
♪ Yeah ♪
♪ Kiki, do you love me ♪
♪ Are you riding ♪
- Kiki?
♪ Say you'll never ever leave ♪
- Yeah.
♪ Beside me ♪
♪ 'Cause I want you ♪
♪ And I need you ♪
- K-I-K-I.
♪ And I'm down for you always ♪
♪ K-B ♪
- Like a woman's name.
♪ Do you love me ♪
♪ Are you riding ♪
♪ Say you'll never ever leave ♪
♪ From beside me ♪
♪ 'Cause I want you ♪
♪ And I need you ♪
♪ And I'm down for you always ♪
♪ Look the new me is really still the real me ♪
♪ I swear you gotta feel me ♪
♪ Before they try and kill me ♪
♪ They gotta make some choices ♪
♪ They running out of options ♪
♪ 'Cause I been going off ♪
♪ And they don't know when to stop ♪
♪ And when you get the ♪
♪ I see that you been learning ♪
♪ And when I took you shopping ♪
♪ You spend it like you earned it ♪
♪ And when you popped off on your ex ♪
♪ He deserved it ♪
♪ I thought you were the one ♪
♪ From the jump that confirmed it ♪
♪ Trap money Benny ♪
- The funny part is that like the hit part of this song
is literally like the first 10 seconds.
Is the ♪ Kiki do you love me ♪
You haven't been hearing that around?
- No.
- Well, it's a big old hit.
- For the next few months.
When was the last time you heard hotline bling?
- Not much, but you know, that's the thing.
Rap moves faster.
- Is that what it is?
I just, it's weird to me that like,
the songs are like everywhere for a few months
and then they're just like gone.
- Well, somebody like Drake has so much music
and he has said so many hits
and so many culturally important, impactful songs.
I was thinking about that.
Like we're rolling up to these festivals, no new music.
- Yeah.
- Just busting out Oxford comma.
- Yeah, heard that on the drive the other day.
- That song has been out for 10 years.
- Yeah.
- It was written 12 years ago.
But for me, it doesn't feel that old.
I don't know if I'm just, if I'm tripping or something,
but this is probably wishful thinking,
but I almost feel like whatever your timeline,
it's only as far away as however much music
you released in between.
So between Drake's first album and now,
he's been on hundreds of songs.
Between Vampire Weekend's first album and now,
I've been part of 25 songs.
- No, more than that.
- Two albums and a handful of other things.
It's not a lot.
- Well, three albums.
- Well, I meant first, yeah, I don't know.
- Okay.
- I don't know what I'm saying.
- I gotcha.
- If you're not worried about having hits
on an important part of culture,
you can just take your sweet time.
- That's what I'm doing.
(laughing)
- Taking the long game.
- Still working on my first solo album.
- You know what's funny?
The other day, it just popped into my head,
like, Jake should drop an album.
I wanna see a Jake Longstreth vinyl.
- That's tight.
- Have you thought about it?
- Yeah, I have songs I've written.
I just have to get it together to record it with Dick Bix.
- They'd be the band?
- Yeah.
- Have me and Ariel produce it.
- Okay.
- Do two days.
- Exactly, yeah, do it fast.
- Two days at Vox.
We'd like rehearse it for a day or two.
- Yeah.
- So everyone knows it and then come in and just crush it.
- You can take your time with the vocals,
but have to get the tracks done.
- Mountain Bruise, dude.
- Is that what it's gonna be called?
- Yeah.
- Jake Longstreth, Mountain Bruise?
- Mm-hmm.
- That's great.
- Coming out in like 2021.
- Yeah.
- Like I said, taking my time.
- How many songs do you have?
- Probably like 10.
- You already have 10.
- I got Tequila Noon.
(laughing)
I'm blanking on my other song titles.
Oh, Spring Wind.
- Love that.
Sweet Chili Heat, Too Jokey.
That's for a different project.
- Yeah, maybe I could rewrite that.
- Yeah, yeah, like if you could be--
- Spring Wind.
- Instead of Sweet Chili Heat,
if you wanted to like class it up,
it could be like, kinda like Sweet Desert Heat.
- Oh yeah.
- It's about like you driving through Arizona.
- Or you could do like, you could do one with like--
- Sweet Mountain Heat.
- Or like, like Tequila and Weed.
You could do kind of like--
- Tequila and Weed.
- You could do like--
(laughing)
- This would be the second Tequila.
- Yeah, exactly, exactly.
- I always think that's kinda cool
when like an artist has like a couple interrelated songs
and they never explain why.
It's like Stone Roses have a couple different stone songs.
- Right.
- So it's like Jake Longstreet's Mountain Bruise
and just like track one, Tequila Noon,
track seven, Tequila and Weed.
- Yeah.
- It's like, you don't go crazy.
It's not three songs.
- Yeah, it's not like--
- It's not four, it's just two.
- Just a theme.
- Yeah, exactly.
- All right, well let's table that.
- Mountain Bruise coming out on Numero Group.
(laughing)
- 2020.
- Love it.
- All right, we'll see you guys in two weeks.
- Time Crisis with Ed's Rocadon.
Beats.
One.
(explosion)
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