Episode 90: Unbearably Buff
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Transcript
Time Crisis, back once again.
On this week's episode, we dig into two new songs from up and coming band Vampire Weekend.
We also briefly discuss this year's festivals, including the Skull and Roses Grateful Dead
Festival in Ventura, all this, plus the greatest hits of 2019 and 1969.
This is Time Crisis with Ezra King.
Time Crisis, back once again.
Hello, Jake.
Hey, man.
Episode 90.
Really?
Spring 90.
Oh my God.
Yeah, spring 90.
Great time for the Grateful Dead.
I'm not a real head about the 90s stuff, but the people that I know that are full dead
completists all swear by spring 90.
I feel like a few years ago, there was an officially released best of the whole spring
of 1990.
Right.
For people who don't know, hardcore Grateful Dead heads, people have their favorite years
and their favorite eras, and clearly their favorite, not even just full year, is their
favorite season of a year.
Spring 77 is a very-
It's a classic.
Classic time.
I wonder if even real hardcore dead heads are kind of like spring 77 is overrated.
Oh, I'm sure.
You remember a few years ago, they released that Cornell 77 show?
Sure.
That was really trumpeted to everybody.
It's like, "Hey, maybe you don't know that much about the Grateful Dead, but this is
considered their best show."
I feel like in any community, the people who are just real heads are probably like, "Oh
yeah, entry level."
I can see why you might think that's the best Grateful Dead show ever, but actually-
Actually, dude, May 3rd, 90.
Was spring 90 kind of like some of the last great recordings with Brent?
Yeah, I think Brent died-
The end of the Brent era.
... summer or fall of 90.
Oh, damn.
To be replaced by Bruce Hornsby.
Among others.
Yeah.
Vince Walnick.
Right.
Yeah, to me, spring 90- This is not exactly where we plan on taking the show.
Sorry, I just saw on the sheet it said episode 90, and it's like, "It's springtime now."
I've thrown on spring 90 a bunch.
I mean, the number one thing that differentiates it is the keyboard sounds.
There's these kind of like-
Should we throw some on?
... more of a synthy.
All right, let's throw on some spring 90 just so people know what we're talking about.
Episode 90, though.
That's crazy.
Respect.
Respect to us.
We're out here doing it, man.
Twice a month.
To all the haters who thought Time Crisis was a fluke, you know what's funny?
We'll talk about it more in a second, but I just did a full week of press in the UK,
and I found that a thing that a lot of journalists say to me lately is like, "Well, so you've
been gone for six years.
Can we talk about that?"
I'm like, "Sure."
They're like, "That's a really long time to be gone between albums."
But it's not like you've exactly been sitting around.
You've been busy.
I mean, you made a cartoon.
You wrote a song for Beyonce.
You've been doing a radio show.
At first, I kind of rolled with it, and I was like, "Yeah, you're right."
Then lately, I've just been kind of like, "Well, let's keep it real."
There was a lot of sitting around, too.
I was like, "Time Crisis is four hours a month."
The Beyonce song was one song over six years.
To be fair, the cartoon was time-consuming, but even that was one specific year.
Oh, I like this West LA fadeaway.
March 22, 1990.
I'm sure this is very sacrilegious.
I always think about this when I end up looking at some Grateful Dead message board
and people are fighting tooth and nail about which performance was better.
Maybe this is because I'm a studio guy.
I just want to be like, "I know you guys think that Jerry's solo on Scarlet Begonia's
was way more lyrical that year, but you also just like the recording quality better
of certain bootlegs than others."
Sure, just the sound.
It's one thing to be like, "I was at these two shows, and this one had a different vibe."
But there's also parts--because I just listen to these, and it sounds--
Reverby, chorus-y.
That drum sound just wouldn't exist in another era.
Yeah, it doesn't sound like '72.
I know that the playing's a little bit different, too.
No, I agree completely. I feel like it's the tones.
This is an '80s song. Let's play an actual '70s song.
I mean, dude, tasteful palette, man.
Right, 1990 is not your favorite palette.
It's not a good palette.
Which is why I don't connect with spring '90. I know people swear by it.
I also feel like these recordings--just everything sounds a little more distant than like--
I mean, Europe '72, it almost sounds like a studio recording.
It does. There might have been some tomfoolery with Europe '72.
Maybe some vocal overdubs.
Is that some organ up there?
This sounds terrible.
[playing]
The playing's different, but the sounds are also--
It's just hard to know what's hitting you first.
Yeah.
I don't know how to describe it.
All these spring '90 recordings, the officially released ones at least,
they feel like airy.
Maybe because they're literally in bigger rooms, you know?
They're like arenas and stadiums.
[playing]
Now I'm curious. Put on '77 Cornell, Scarlett Begonia's.
And I bet the tempo will be different, but the tone, like the palette will be way different.
Not so wet.
Right.
All right, so we're going back in time 13 years.
Spring '90.
I love that it's only 13 years.
I know.
It's already just such a better sounding recording even before they start playing.
All right, now we're going to play everybody's favorite fun game, Move Back.
Oh yeah, this is Bobby Chet. I'm Chet. I'm skipping ahead.
[playing]
It's such a different--
So close.
--mic situation already.
[playing]
Those Phil Bass bombs.
Yeah.
Pretty similar tempo actually.
[playing]
I'm not even an audiophile, but I'm just a studio dude.
Yeah.
I just feel like the idea that I could listen to these two recordings
and just kind of be like, focus on the playing is so hard for me.
I don't know if the tempo or the vibe is that different.
It's just drastically different recordings.
[playing]
Anyway, episode--
Little dead detour there.
Episode 90.
This again, we're going to be very straightforward this year.
This is a pre-recorded episode.
But you know what, man?
It's going out live, so it's not a rerun.
It's new content.
It's new content airing live.
You know, it's like when Game of Thrones comes back on TV,
you're going to be like, "It's not live."
You know? Same thing.
They taped that like six months ago, man.
Yeah, sometimes I'm watching GOT and I just think about the fact that
they probably wrote it like two years ago, filmed it minimum a year ago.
It feels stale.
Not current.
It's not.
So this is like a Game of Thrones.
Anyway, got a lot of traveling.
Yeah, man. So you were in the UK?
I was in the UK for a week.
Vampire Weekend played three shows and also just did a ton of interviews.
What sort of rooms were you playing?
We billed them as our three little London shows.
We played a venue called Earth in Hackney.
I think that was like about 850.
It's a chill name.
So basically we played Thursday night at this place, Earth.
Then on Friday we moved into this place called Islington Assembly Hall,
which is probably 600 or 700.
We played there Friday night.
And then real quick turnaround, similar to the legendary Ohio Weekend
with Richard Pictures, we came back Saturday morning.
Same venue.
So we did three shows in about 36 hours.
Saturday morning show?
Yeah.
What time?
Hit the stage at 10 a.m.
Why?
Well, I've had this instinct for a long time that Vampire Weekend
should do morning shows.
I mean, it's the same reason why in Ojai we could have done
Saturday night, Sunday night.
Right.
But I had this feeling, which I think has become a little bit of a trend now.
Kanye's been doing these kind of outdoor Sunday morning jams.
Really?
Yeah.
Where does he do those?
I believe at his home in Calabasas.
Invite only.
I think invite only.
They're called Sunday services and he has like a gospel choir singing his stuff.
I mean, in his case, I think there's also a religious angle.
Okay.
It's kind of about the music, but it's also a little bit of just--it's like church.
But anyway, you know, great minds think alike.
Vampire Weekend pioneered the Sunday morning show about a year ago.
You know, it's like when you're hanging out.
It's like spend Saturday night going out to the bar.
Let's get brunch on Sunday.
And also I feel like on Sundays there's still good vibes Sunday morning.
By Sunday night, awful.
Those Sunday night dreads.
Yeah, the worst.
Like when you're in school.
I guess being at a show on a Sunday night is maybe a way to avoid the dread.
I guess if you go to a concert on Sunday night, you're a little bit like,
"Wait, what day is it?"
Yeah.
Better than just sitting at home watching Game of Thrones.
Just watching a stale ass--
Watching billions.
--pre-taped Game of Thrones.
Just thinking about how you got to go to work or school.
The only thing that I'll say about a Sunday night vibe is that in times in my life,
like the aforementioned six years between albums,
some of these moments where I actually didn't have all that much to do,
where I'm kind of waiting to really start in earnest on a project,
when I've had obviously the privilege of not having work on Monday,
but also occasionally a little too much free time,
I will say that there are times where on a Sunday night I almost have a good vibe
because I'm like, "You know what? I need the Monday morning reboot."
Otherwise, I feel like this endless-- I'm living in an endless weekend.
Right.
And my life is lacking meaning and direction.
At least tomorrow I'll wake up and it'll be Monday,
and if I go to the coffee shop, I'll look around and be like, "Yeah."
You're a part of the world.
I'm a part of the world.
There's a little hustle and bustle.
Yeah.
So anyway, I've always liked the idea of morning shows,
and I always thought it suited Vampire Weekend.
I mean, come on, wasn't it a good vibe in Ojai?
It's great.
I think you guys played at like noon or one, though, in Ojai.
I think Pictures played at like 10.
11?
Maybe 10 or 11.
Maybe you guys were 10, 30, 11, and we were like noon.
Yeah.
Hitting the stage-- Headliner, was there an opener?
No, there are no openers at any of these shows.
That's tight.
So hitting the stage at 10 in an indoor club is funny.
This place-- I don't fully understand this.
It's literally like the-- I'm going to get this wrong.
Islington I think of as like a neighborhood in London,
but it's also like an official neighborhood too.
They have a little council for that area.
Okay.
Like West Hollywood or something.
Yeah, kind of.
So it's like a place that has a lot of public meetings
and maybe even like the city council might do stuff.
I don't know.
It has a stage, but it also almost seems like a community center type place.
So anyway, there's big windows.
Actually, the vibe was like you got some sunlight coming in plus some lights.
It wasn't like crowding people into like a dank--
Windowless.
Yeah.
I think of all these like pre-album shows a little bit as like attended rehearsals.
Yeah.
Where it's kind of like, "Yo, it's mellow."
Like we're not here putting on the show.
You know, we only have four new songs out.
Did you play the new material?
Oh, yeah.
Nice.
That was cool because it was the first time we ever played--
Harmony.
Harmony, Big Blue, 2021, Sunflower.
Damn.
And we got some special spins on some of them live,
especially 2021 and Big Blue.
Like they're so short--
Yeah.
--in the official version.
We have like a couple versions now.
Where you take it out.
Yeah, just extend it a little bit.
And not even like jamming necessarily, but just like more parts.
[MUSIC - BIG BLUE, "HARMONY"]
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you.
I was so overcome with emotion.
When I was hurt and in need of affection.
When I was tired and I couldn't go home.
Then you offered protection.
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you.
I was so overcome with emotion.
When I was hurt and in need of affection.
When I was tired and I couldn't go home.
Then you offered protection.
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you.
I was so overcome with emotion.
When I was hurt and in need of affection.
When I was tired and I couldn't go home.
Then you offered protection.
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
Big blue, for once in my life I felt close to you.
I was so overcome with emotion.
When I was hurt and in need of affection.
When I was tired and I couldn't go home.
Then you offered protection.
So am I learning my lesson?
Or am I back on my own?
So it was a good vibe there, and I would say that the Saturday morning show is my favorite.
And actually, at that one, historically I think a lot of our shows would be like 80 minutes.
Even on the third album, the Saturday morning show is two hours, two minutes.
Strong.
25 songs.
That's strong.
Including three A-Punks.
It was a good vibe.
We busted out our Paul Simon cover for the first time.
Which one?
Late in the Evening.
Do you know this song?
Oh yeah.
[singing]
Yep.
It was late in the evening, late in the evening.
Yep.
It was late in the evening.
Yeah.
Is that on the One Trick Pony album?
I think so.
Yeah.
It's kind of like a precursor to Graceland.
Yeah, so all the shows went well.
And we did like these radio sessions.
We had to cover...
Full band?
Yeah, that was full band.
That sounds hectic.
We did kind of like a stripped-down Harmony Hall live.
Oh, and then so there's this thing on Radio 1 in England called Live Lounge.
You perform your song, and then you perform a cover of a current hit.
Last time we did it, five, six years ago, we did Blurred Lines.
Okay.
A song that hasn't aged particularly well.
But I was kind of like just thinking about like what is a hit now?
And I'm like...
Small Charcoal Grill.
No, yeah, we were like we're going to do Seven Rings by Ariana Grande.
They would have been like, brilliant.
That's a huge hit.
Awesome.
That'll be a whole thing.
Vampire Weekend covers Ariana Grande.
That'll be something people click on for a day.
Oh, people will click on that to make fun of you guys.
That's awesome.
Let's do it.
And then I just get up there, and we start playing the beat.
And then just for three and a half minutes, I just go,
"Small Charcoal Grill. Small Charcoal Grill."
That's live?
Yeah, just live on radio.
They'd probably cut it and just be like, "We are so sorry.
This is so disrespectful to the Live Lounge Institution."
But anyway, I was talking to one of our managers, John.
This test of the emergency broadcasting system.
You were talking to?
John from our management company.
At first, I was a little bit like, "Oh, man, I feel a little old for that."
And I like it.
It can be a good vibe.
Sure.
The host is super cool over there.
But it's just one of those things where it's like it can easily go so wrong.
Yeah.
I just couldn't think of a pop song that would feel right.
And I'm still not sure that we--
Was it something that's been in the top five of this show ever?
Oh, yeah.
Hold on, hold on.
I got to guess.
So I'm just saying to him, I'm like, "What song could Vampire Weekend cover?
We're just going to seem kind of awkward."
And he pitched one that at least I appreciated just because it was kind of funny
in terms of how it connected back to us.
Sunflower?
Mm-hmm.
Cool.
Tough to do, though.
Yeah, we did this kind of like--
Our version was kind of vibey.
And we threw in some little teases to other songs.
A little bit of China Cat, a little bit of Our Sunflower,
and a little bit of Harmony Hall.
Sick.
Just to drive the point home.
I think it turned out all right.
I'm not going to play it, but you guys can check it out online.
So we did stuff like that, and then I just sat and did just days of press,
which is funny because--
Like in a hotel suite?
Classic, yeah.
In a hotel suite.
Oh, my God.
I was so jet-lagged, too, but I was just like super high on coffee
just talking to people for like seven hours.
Jesus.
A lot of British journalists, a lot of European journalists come to London.
Like some people fly in for the day to talk or they're based there.
Wow.
You know, German people and Belgian people.
Oh, so it's all European press.
Just about.
There's somebody from Japan there.
What percentage mentioned Time Crisis?
A few.
Actually, it was funny.
Like 25%?
Yeah, there was a cool guy from Ireland.
He was funny.
I appreciated it.
He just like kicked it off with like maybe two non sequiturs kind of like
that weren't about the album.
He was just like, "It's very tempting to try to do this in an Irish accent,
but I won't out of respect."
He just like was like, "All right, man.
So seems like I got some kind of beef with the space cowboy."
And I was like, "What?"
And he's like, "Steve Miller, what's up with that?"
And I was like, "Well."
He did his homework.
Yeah, and talked about that.
And then he said, "I think I've played this on Time Crisis before.
You know that we did like a reggae cover of Conte Partiro before?"
Yeah, I think this has come up.
Wait, what is that song again?
It's like a pop opera song.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yep.
This is where I try to sing in Italian.
So he was also funny.
He said, "You did this cover of Conte Partiro, huh?"
And I was like, "Yeah."
And he's like, "Not your finest hour.
What was up with that?"
I was like, "Damn."
Okay, fair point.
And I was like, "Well, it was for a Starbucks compilation."
He was cool, though.
[singing in Italian]
We gotta get to the chorus.
[singing in Italian]
Sounds pretty good.
I would argue this is Vampire Begins Finest Hour.
I think the vocals are strong.
I think the beat, not as.
But you're holding it down with the foreign language, dude.
Thank you.
I'm not sure what a native Italian speaker would say.
But it was interesting to also finally talk to people who have heard the album.
That's pretty wild.
To talk to strangers who have heard the album.
I haven't had that experience yet.
I'm only interested in people that want to talk about time crisis.
Yeah.
Well, let me think of anybody that's been in a time crisis.
No, but like I said, there was a lot of that.
Just like, "So you've been keeping real busy."
I always think about that, too.
That's a four-hour-a-week-- four-hour-a-month commitment.
I always think about that, because that's such a classic cliche of music writing.
I guess they're trying to be charitable when people are just talking about--
Somebody's been gone, but they've been keeping real busy.
As a music industry professional, I look at the list, and I'm always kind of like--
It's never just like, "Drove a truck for Walmart for two years."
It's always like, "From hosting their own podcast to recording three songs with another producer
to acting in a TV show for a week."
The past seven years have been--
It's always like that.
And then that's when you go super Jim Morrison.
You're like, "What's up with this obsession with keeping busy?"
I resent this idea that I kept busy, let alone that I should keep busy.
I did not keep busy.
I actually just stared at a tree for a full year.
Yeah, I watched television.
I watched a lot of reality television.
I let it wash over me.
I ordered from Wingstop on Uber Eats.
Gained a lot of weight.
I gained a lot of weight.
I watched YouTube videos and not tutorials.
So people who had heard the album--
That was kind of interesting, although I did find that--
It is funny, too, when you talk to so many people, you almost start to develop talking points
over the course of a week.
Sure.
Because at first--
[laughs]
That makes me immediately think of, "There's 100 people in the room."
Oh, yeah, yeah. I have more sympathy for her after that.
Sure.
I at least try to keep it real when I'm talking to people.
Also, it's very artificial, and I think the journalists know that, too.
Although I will point out that there are some profiles of people, like a written profile,
where legitimately they gave access to the person for weeks.
They were shadowed somebody for weeks.
That's wild. Like a Long New Yorker profile?
A Long New Yorker profile.
Let's say at a Long New Yorker profile, they minimum spent 10 hours with the person,
even if it's spread out.
Yeah.
A lot of these interviews, you sit down for like 20 minutes.
Right.
I also found that that's a funny cliche of music writing sometimes is like--
And you got a feel for the writers, and I know some people who do this for a living.
And I didn't even think about it until I started doing it, too,
but it's that vibe of kind of just like, "I sat down with Lady Gaga at the Bowery Hotel in New York.
She ordered a chamomile tea with honey."
And they try to pull these details out as if that's a place she was like unguarded.
"Won't you come meet me at the Bowery Hotel?
This is where I can be myself and order the things that I like."
There was like an infamous profile years ago where this woman really tried to take down MIA,
and the whole thing was like, "I sat down with her at the Beverly Hills Hotel,
and she ordered truffle fries."
It became this thing because she was trying to say MIA is not a woman of the people.
She got that decadent truffle.
And then the most hilarious part is--
Very fragrant flavor.
--later the tape came out, and the woman says to her like, "You want to order some food?"
And she's like, "Yeah, I'm a little hungry."
And she's like, "The truffle fries here are unbelievable."
[explosion]
So it's like so extra.
That's brutal.
But I'm saying even if MIA ordered the truffle fries, this is like a totally artificial situation.
Yeah.
Plus it's on brand for MIA.
To order truffle fries?
Absolutely.
I guess this person didn't feel that way.
It's outrageous. It's decadent.
Is that--
I don't know.
I'm just like-- if I'm guessing, if you were like, "Jake, what kind of fries would MIA order?
Sweet potato?"
Yeah.
Regular? Crinkle cut? Or truffle?
Yeah.
I'd go with truffle.
Crinkle cut.
Tater tots?
I'd actually say if you sit down with a journalist at a fancy hotel, it's actually more extra to ask for a crinkle cut.
Yeah.
Could someone go out and buy a bag of Ore-Ida frozen crinkle cut?
The poor waiter, "Ma'am, we serve truffle fries here. This is a fancy restaurant."
"Well, I'm just a normal person, man. I want some crinkle cut."
"It would be much easier for me if you just ordered the truffle fries.
We have a whole system. They're always making them around the clock."
I'm sure that actually-- not quite that, but I'm sure that has actually happened in some way.
Like, a person with working class roots who now is clearly rich and famous sits down with a journalist at a fancy restaurant
and tries to have some moment of class solidarity with the waiter that just makes the waiter's job way harder.
Oh.
Inadvertently.
"Hey, bro. Let me get a beer."
"Um, all right, sir. We have a-- on tap, we have a Hefeweizen."
"No, man. A regular beer. You know, like guys like us drink."
"You got like a Budweiser or a Miller Lite?"
"Uh, no, we don't have that. Come on, man."
"We have a Stella Artois and a Peroni."
"I'm a regular guy like you, man. I don't want no fancy Belgian beer."
"Just fetch me up a Budweiser back there."
"Sir, we don't have that. Oh, come on, man. Figure it out."
And like, the guy's like sweating. He's like, "Uh, Bradley Cooper just said that we need to get a Budweiser."
"Okay, okay. Um, run to the corner store."
And it's like, the guy like comes back. He's like, "See, man? We're normal guys."
But then he's like, "Okay, can I get like a card for the-- you know, like a restaurant card to cover the Bud?"
And the manager's like, "No, no, just go. Just pay it for yourself. We'll reimburse you. It'll be in your next check."
Of course, that doesn't happen.
So then the waiter ends up buying an overpriced six-pack of Bud, never reimbursed.
No tip either.
Oh, hell no. 'Cause it's on some weird company card. The publicist like signs for it, doesn't tip.
New York Times Magazine cover story. Bradley Cooper, man of the people.
Tell me something, girl.
Actually, I'm sorry I said Bradley Cooper.
That's more like a kid rock move.
That was not a B. Coop's move.
No.
He is who he is.
So you're sitting down with these people.
And it was mostly cool, but sometimes I just felt-- at least I had the language now to be clear about it when people would ask me,
it's like, "What's this album about?" And I did say a few times, I was like, "You know, I'm not always good at explaining what the album's about."
Like, I have more clarity on the last album now. I could probably describe more.
Sure, sure.
I can look back and say, "Well, this is the state of mind I was in. I was probably trying to accomplish this.
This album, I can kind of guess about how it's different and stuff."
And sometimes they ask me about specific songs, and I just feel a little bad, but I'm just like,
I don't want there to be an article dropping concurrent with the album, let alone weeks before.
Right.
Where it's kind of just like breaking down songs people haven't heard and then they hear it with-- and I don't even always know the answer.
So then what do you say? You're like, "I don't know, man. Can we, you know?"
Well, sometimes people be specifically like, "Is it about this?" And I'll just be kind of like, "It's not not about that."
I just-- so sometimes I just be very straightforward and say, like, "I did have something specific in mind, but I don't want to overly contextualize it."
And I said, "Listen, for better or for worse, I don't like to contextualize stuff before the fans hear it."
There might be times where that's cool because it leaves the song open and people can approach it.
There might be times where a song might have benefited from some contextualization.
I don't know. Those are just the rules that I play by.
Pretty gym of you, dude.
♪ There's blood in the streets, it's up to my ankles ♪
♪ She came ♪
♪ There's blood in the streets, it's up to my knees ♪
♪ She came ♪
♪ She claimed the streets of the town of Chicago ♪
♪ She came ♪
♪ She claimed I'm on the rise, they're following me ♪
♪ She's about to break the day ♪
♪ She came and then she drove away, sunlight in her hair ♪
♪ She claimed the streets on the river of sadness ♪
♪ She claimed the streets, it's up to my thigh ♪
♪ She came ♪
♪ Yeah, the river on the way down the left of the city ♪
♪ She came ♪
♪ No wind in the cradling river's a-weeping ♪
♪ She came in town and then she drove away, sunlight in her hair ♪
You're listening to...
Time Crisis
On Beat One
Anyway, we just dropped a couple new singles.
The final batch before the album.
Okay, let's get into it.
I guess now that the song's been out for a few days, I can contextualize them at least a little bit.
So I guess kind of like the A-side...
I don't really think of these as A-side, B-side.
Of course, there's ones that are naturally going to get a little more attention or push at radio,
but to me, they're all equal.
The last batch definitely felt that way.
With like their both short songs, it could have gone either way.
Obviously, Harmony Hall is like...
That's like the single.
The major work of the first two.
Yeah, and also as I discussed, like the last batch is kind of like...
That's kind of like the funky batch a little bit.
It'd be interesting to see when people hear the whole album what they rank the songs.
But this is a song called "This Life," which...
This life has taken control of me.
So fun fact, people might not know this yet, this is a TC exclusive.
Jake, you play on this song.
Really?
Yeah.
Okay.
You probably don't even remember.
I do.
I mean, I remember...
You remember being in the studio.
I remember going in the studio and playing guitar over songs I'd never heard before.
Yeah.
And just sort of doing some guesswork.
Yeah.
And maybe getting lucky a few times.
You got lucky on this one.
Cool.
Does John play on this one too?
No, John plays on "Stranger."
Oh.
The two guitars from Dick Picks, Richard Pictures, appear on "Father of the Bride."
Oh yeah, this one.
I haven't heard this stuff in like a long time.
There are a lot of versions of this song too.
I know pain is as natural as the rain.
I just thought it didn't rain in California.
Baby, I know love isn't what I thought it was.
'Cause I've never known a love like this before.
Oh, yeah.
Baby, I know dreams tend to crumble at extremes.
I just thought our dream would last a little bit longer.
There's a time when every man draws a line down in the sand.
We're surviving, we're still living, all stronger.
You've been cheating on me.
Surprisingly unpolished.
Unpolished?
Yeah.
Well, we'll talk about it more.
I needed this song to be a little unpolished.
But I've been cheating through this life.
I remember you guys now driving yourself crazy with all these different versions.
Yeah.
I dig it, man.
Thank you.
Oh, Christ.
Am I good for nothing?
Baby, I know hate is always waiting at the gate.
I just thought we'd lock the gate when we left in the morning.
And I was told that walk is how we landed on these shows.
I just thought the drums would be louder warnings.
Ooh, ooh.
Ooh, ooh.
Sweet.
You've been cheating on, cheating on me.
I've been cheating on, cheating on you.
Very light saxophone.
You've been cheating on me.
I thought it was a harmonica.
I've been cheating through this life.
Oh, that sounds fun.
I've been cheating on, cheating on me.
And all of a sudden, I've been cheating through the roof.
Oh, Christ.
You've been cheating on me.
Oh, Christ.
Am I good for nothing?
I'm pretty into when songs use the word "Oh, Christ."
Go big or go home.
Yeah.
You know what I'm saying?
'Cause I don't remember living life before this.
Darling, our disease is the same one.
All right, guys.
Who's singing there with you?
Daniel.
OK, cool.
Here comes Jakes.
Jakes on the solo.
Uh-oh.
OK.
That's it.
OK.
I've been playing that a lot.
That sounds very meandering.
Like, what key is this?
That's what that sounds like.
Hey, I'm thrilled to be on the record.
Wait, hold on.
Let's rewind.
Glad that worked out.
I think it's very tasteful.
It doesn't sound calculated.
That's for sure.
'Cause also, normally we were doing that da-da-da-da-da-da.
So it's like we wanted to break from that.
So we wanted, you know, instead of going back to that big guitar part,
let's go like here.
That's really funny.
Got a lot of phase on it.
I think we just did one pass.
I mean, I can hear myself guessing.
Like, is this third?
Like, is this a half step or a full step here?
I don't even.
I'm surprised by the bass tone.
Ooh.
Is there another bass that comes in there?
Yeah, yeah.
I think 'cause we did a whole pass of fretless.
Okay, nice.
We had this one, this like shredder dude who's on the album a bit named Jimmy Johnson.
He's a James Taylor's touring bassist among other things.
How old is he?
I think 60s.
Wow.
How many people over the age of 50 play on the record?
Two come to mind.
Maybe just two.
The like pedal steel--
Greg Lees, who you met before.
He plays a lot on it, right?
Yeah.
Like he plays the like solo on Harmony Hall.
Yeah.
And we also just play his guitar.
Yeah.
Actually, I was looking through old videos.
Check this out.
I remember meeting him and him talking about like seeing like Graham Parsons and stuff.
Yeah, no, he's a true legend.
Just like, oh yeah, Gene Clark was a hell of a guy.
Just like--
I was looking for old videos the other day.
I just ended up so deep in my phone.
I just wanted to send you a funny one of us, of like us hiking in Hawaii.
Oh, you and I.
Yeah, no, it's like you and I.
Well, actually, now I kind of want to play this.
I was so deep on my phone.
Well, okay.
Dude, you are.
That's really deep on your phone.
No, because I have everything on--
So deep on my phone.
Wait, check this out.
This is like a six-second video that I clearly was just trying to film the vista--
Yeah.
--of us hiking on the Nepali coast, and then I just caught this.
--of the gods.
Wackest title.
That's right.
You're describing the book that you're reading to Rashida.
Wait, one more time.
--of the gods.
Wackest title.
Also, look at the actual video.
It's like a breathtaking view.
I mean, that's just what happens when you hike.
It's like a breathtaking view, and you guys are just having this convo.
--of the gods.
Wackest title.
Oh, my God.
So what's actually in the book?
I think it's maybe Fingerprints of the Gods.
And it's kind of like conspiracy theory, ancient aliens kind of thing?
Not aliens.
God, I don't even remember.
Graham Hancock's full-- or maybe it wasn't Fingerprints.
I was reading the follow-up to Fingerprints of the Gods.
I don't know why I was reading that.
His big thing is sort of like the pyramids are actually way older than people think they are.
This is some real Joe Rogan podcast kind of stuff.
The reason I was thinking about this video is I found this video of Greg Lee's.
We were doing this whole crazy pedal steel version.
We'll drop in extended versions.
Oh, this is cool.
I just started to feel like--
Oh, this is just him on loop.
How far back does your phone go?
Pretty far.
Damn.
This is July 2017.
But that Hawaii trip was--
2016?
No, I want to say '15.
Oh, that's possible.
Yeah, that's crazy.
Yeah, there was a version of that song that I just started to think was felt too played out
that had the--
you know, kind of like tropical reggaeton groove.
I think I was always self-conscious about this song.
I can say it now that it's out, where I just wondered if it was just too normal.
Just like too straightforward?
What do you mean?
Yeah, too straightforward.
And maybe this is part of growing older and not being so try-hard.
It doesn't have an obvious Vampire Weekend signature contrasting element.
Right.
Does Harmony Hall-- that's pretty straightforward too.
Yeah, but Harmony Hall has the contrast of kind of like the classic rock guitar
into the house piano.
Oh, yeah, no, that's true.
The house piano, when it drops in, that's--
And this one, I'm just like-- it has its cool moments,
like when the chorus-y or the tremolo vocals.
Right, right.
So I think it has cool elements, but it is just kind of like a real song.
And I think I also felt like-- I'm curious how people perceive it.
It's also a song that I think-- it's one of those deceptively simple songs.
Some songs telegraph the fact that this is an important song, it's epic.
This one is-- it kind of comes across light.
[singing]
And I also felt like-- I really like the lyrics,
but the whole time we were working on this song, I was always like,
"Oh, I know somebody's going to hear these lyrics and be like, 'That's stupid.'"
Walk me through the lyrics, if you care to.
I mean, I've been cheating on you.
Oh, by the way, that part is by Makonnen, a friend of the show.
I love Makonnen.
And that was from this demo of his that I always loved,
and then he was cool with us.
So he's credited as a writer on the song.
So is Mark Ronson, wrote the bass line.
But Makonnen had this song, "You've been cheating on, cheating on me."
I just always liked-- well, first of all, I know there's going to be some people
who maybe would be thrown that there's a Vampire Weekend song
that even talks about cheating, but I was kind of like, "It's time."
Just for a real--
Just because you're a very wholesome, family-friendly band?
Oh, no, I just feel like because it's just too real, almost.
It's not like a high, Baroque-style Vampire Weekend.
It's not an overtly emotional band, historically.
This song also-- it's even opposed to Harmony Hall.
It doesn't have some of those big words.
It's less vague, in a way.
It's kind of a direct, real-life thing.
It's like a country song.
I always liked that Makonnen thing, where it's like two people cheating on each other.
But the opening lines are, "Baby, I know pain is as natural as the rain.
I just thought it didn't rain in California."
That's a good lyric, dude.
I really like that lyric.
That's one of those ones where I--
It's very Joni.
Oh, really?
I think.
I mean, she would connect her personal, emotional journeys
with the geographies that she's in, for sure.
I just wonder if it's one of those-- and now here I am contextualizing it,
but the song's already out, so it's different.
It's almost like as I get older-- and you know, like,
early Vampire Weekend, Oxford, Common Mansory,
there's a line like that where I'm like, "That is a truly good line to me."
It doesn't have any expensive words or anything,
and it doesn't take itself too seriously, and it's a little funny.
That's kind of like a country lyric, too.
Oh, for sure.
♪ Baby, I know pain is as natural as the rain.
I just thought it didn't rain in California. ♪
Yeah.
I can picture Merle Haggard or George Jones singing that.
And also, in terms of-- obviously, there's some songs on the album
where I did apply my stringent logic to it, and I was like,
"The song is about somebody who's kind of like a dope
and finally hits a moment in life where they realize
they've got to look through their whole life."
And it's not just about that tit for tat,
"You've been cheating on me, I've been cheating on you."
It's like, "Maybe I've been cheating through my whole life."
So I like opening the song with the vibe of just,
"Yeah, I know that everybody goes through pain in life.
It's as natural as the rain, but I didn't think it would happen to me.
I live here in California."
So then where's it go?
♪ Baby, I know love isn't what I thought it was
'Cause I never known a love like this before you ♪
Straightforward.
The second verse is the one that I find the most--
I wonder what people make of it.
That's, "Baby, I know hate is always waiting at the gate
I just thought we locked the gate when we left in the morning
I was told that war is how we landed on these shores
I just thought the drums of war beat louder warnings."
Damn.
Well, that's when it goes dark, but I also thought that--
That's good, though.
The phrase "I was told" I thought was also really funny
'cause I didn't exactly take it from this, but it made me think of--
Do you remember there's this famous YouTube video
of a woman yelling at the Apple store, and she's yelling,
"I was told by AppleCare"?
No.
So it's just something about "I was told"
that really also fit my vision of the narrator of the song.
Well, yeah, it seems like he has received wisdom that he's accepted,
and now he's like, real stuff's happening in his life,
and he's completely caught off guard by it.
Right.
Just like sometimes you roll up to the Apple store,
you're told by AppleCare.
I was told.
I don't want to go too much further.
I still want people to have their fun--
Tight song.
--digging into the song.
But yeah, that's--
Thrilled that my little lick made it on there, dude.
I think that's a very strong lick.
Actually, this song in rehearsal has become actually one of my favorite
to play live.
It's a really good vibe.
That's cool.
Yeah.
And then I wonder if you remember the other one.
I'm curious.
I haven't-- 'cause it's 18 songs on the record?
Yeah.
I have not heard 18 songs.
I mean, I've heard maybe 10.
Well, we're going to get into it when we prerecord our album time capsule episode.
I'm really excited for that episode.
So I think the basic idea just for the TC Eds is obviously me and Jake got a lot of
prerecording to do over the next month.
Got to bank a lot of Eps.
Banking Eps.
You know, April of 2019 is going to surpass the four-hour-a-month workload
that we're usually--
That's true.
--waited by.
We're going to be looking at like maybe a six- to eight-hour work month.
Next time I do an interview and somebody says,
"So you were keeping real busy over the past six years with your radio show."
I'll say, "Man, I wasn't keeping busy."
I don't know what busy is.
Try banking six Eps in one month.
No, I'm recording four hours a month.
That's nothing.
You know what's hard work is banking Eps, and I've been banking some Eps, brother.
Bank between 10 and 15 hours of content in a month with no planning.
Yeah, so anyway, just so the TC Eds know, the idea is that the weekend the album
comes out, the album comes out May 3rd, which is a Friday,
so then there's a TC that Sunday.
So that's the weekend we're going to drop me and Jake's album time capsule
where I play you the whole album, I talk about it,
maybe even imagine how people might react to this and that.
I guess what we did is--
Conan, there's--
We did a small taste of it now.
Oh, this is--
Me asking probing questions.
Banking the Eps.
We're banking the Eps.
So this is the other single.
This is the other song that came out.
This is the one that a few people asked me about where they were just like
really wanted to know,
what is this song about, can you speak to it,
and I was just a little like, not really.
Come on, man.
What's this one called?
Unbearably White.
Oh, I remember this one.
I think that's why--
This uses the line unbearably buff.
Oh, yeah.
This is kind of like the Jake batch when I think about it.
Yeah, this is--
Got Jake on guitar and then we got the word buff in this song.
Yeah.
Beats one.
Ezra Koenig's Time Crisis.
Baby, I love you, but that's not enough
And pulling away has been unbearably buff
Boom.
I ran up the mountain out of your sight
The snow on the peak was just unbearably white
The city was freezing, an elegant flow
The wind at the doorway was unbearably cold
You walked to the bedroom and sat down to write
The page in your notebook was unbearably white
There's an avalanche coming
Don't cover your eyes
It's what you thought that you wanted
It's still a surprise
It's hot on the body
It's hot on the mind
To learn what kept us together, darling
Is what kept us alive
What's that instrument? That's a cool tone.
It's not a guitar. It's like some--
I don't want to give away a secret.
Okay.
Blood Pop put something together.
The story gets told
To tell it myself would be unbearably bold
Presented with darkness, we turn to the light
Could have been smart with just unbearably bright
There's an avalanche coming
Don't cover your eyes
It's what you thought that you wanted
It's still a surprise
It's hot on the body
It's hot on the mind
To learn what kept us together, darling
Is what kept us alive
Call it a day, call it a night
Careless and cold and just unbearably wild
Call it a day, call it a night
Careless and cold and just unbearably wild
Call it a day, call it a night
Careless and cold and just unbearably wild
Baby, I love you, but that's not enough
And in a way, it's just unbearably wild
I'd rather be melting out of your side
It's not me, it's just unbearably wild
Call it a day, call it a night
There you go. Unbearably Wild.
Provocative title. I can see why people, um, journalists would be like, "What is that song about?"
Well, one thing that I talked about a lot with them is, 'cause some of them are like, "Oh, is this a response to, like, something that was written about Vampire Weekend?"
And this is something that I checked a while ago, 'cause I had the phrase in my head for a while, and I remember seeing articles that were called, like, the unbearable
whiteness of whatever.
Of Jonathan Safra Four, or whatever.
Which, for anybody who doesn't know, is a play on the title of the novel, The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
So, I wondered, but it's not some thing where, like, I sat down and I was like, "Oh, I wanna, this is a response to an article."
You know, sometimes I just start with, like, a phrase.
Sure, sure.
And it wasn't even unbearable whiteness, that's obviously very specifically about something.
The phrase "unbearably white" actually seemed a little more open.
Yeah.
And, uh, fertile to me.
But then, you know, I write this whole song, and then at some point I'm thinking about it, I'm like, "Maybe I should check that I'm not, like, responding to one thing in
particular."
And so I looked up "The Unbearable Whiteness of..."
Yeah.
And not only... I found two different articles that referenced Vampire Weekend.
They weren't about Vampire Weekend, but there was a minimum two, ten years apart.
And then there were, like, hundreds of just articles, period.
So not only was it not, like, one article in particular, it's like such a kind of, "Oh my god, there's just a new one, two days ago."
"The Unbearable Whiteness of Being Beto O'Rourke."
"The Unbearable Whiteness of Milk."
So I guess my point is, and again, this is something I looked up after I wrote the song, so I wasn't even responding to this, but...
Yeah.
"The Unbearable Whiteness of Urban Farming," "The Unbearable Whiteness of the American Left."
My point is just that the, um...
Jesus Christ.
If any journalist wrote an "Unbearable Whiteness" article that referenced Vampire Weekend, please keep in mind, there are literally ten "Unbearable Whiteness"
articles written every day.
I'm not gonna respond to you.
That's all I have to say about that.
I mean, I like how you play with it. It's like a snowy, uh, mountaintop. It's a sheet of paper.
Well, yeah, I like the page in the notebook.
I feel like there's one journalist who asked me, like, "So is this about race?"
And I was like, "Well, I think about things besides..."
"This would be, like, a good one to talk about in six months or something."
It's just like...
What about in, like, two weeks?
Maybe in two weeks.
We'll do a deep dive on this song.
I understand that, what you said, that it's like a provocative title, but I think when you hear the song...
Yeah, no, it does...
I don't think it's a provocative lyric.
No. I mean, I don't know what the hell the song's about.
I like that you kind of traverse...
Traverse around with, like...
To me, it's about, like, blinding...
When, like, you catch, like, the sun glaring off, like, a windshield, it, like, blinds you.
So it's, like, snow, a sheet of paper, like, that's sitting out in the sun.
I mean, I just heard the song. I don't...
Right, right.
I don't know if I'm going deep on it, but to me, it's, like, a cool little journey through, like, the different permutations of that sensory experience of just, like,
blinding brightness.
And that could be a metaphor for whatever you want it to be, but...
Well, it seems like it's tied to a relationship and, like, you're blinded by someone's light or you're...
I don't know. I don't know what the hell it's about.
I don't know how much I should say now.
Yeah, it's just one of those things where I was, like...
And it's not like I talked to any journalists who were, like, offended by it.
It'll be interesting.
Well, I'm not going to look, but I could imagine, like, just somebody being, like, just because it literally contains the word "white," maybe it will be an invitation
for anybody who wants to write.
Oh, for sure.
But...
It's a provocative title.
Why is it provocative?
Um...
Well, I guess you could just say it raises a hot-button topic.
Exactly.
The song's not provocative in that it's writing a song that's saying something specific.
No, it's not.
I'm just saying, if you see the track listing, that title might stick out.
There'll probably be somebody who gets to work...
Well, maybe somebody who can write a tweet without hearing it, I'm sure.
Oh, hell yeah.
That's how it works.
But anyway, anybody who wants to spend some time with the song, I'm happy to talk about it eventually.
I just can't even put my finger on it anymore.
When...
I just don't know anymore, because I do feel like...
I don't like the idea of just leaving things sitting forever.
But I do feel like it's important to let people engage with an album before you start breaking everything down.
Yeah.
I have a lot of very specific things I could say about this song.
I don't want to do it in response to anybody, though.
Give it time, dude. Let it breathe.
I'll let it breathe.
Being provocative is cool, man.
Provocative just sounds to me like...
You're just trolling for attention?
Like Marilyn Manson or something.
I'm just saying, when you see the title...
I understand that.
Like, Sunflower's not provocative.
Harmony Hall is not provocative.
Yeah.
Unbearably White is provocative.
I like the title.
It's good to have a title or two that sticks out.
Well, and also the truth is...
Should've called it Unbearably Buff.
[laughter]
The last thing I'll say before we move on is...
I'd be insane if I said, like, "Really? People heard Unbearably White and they want to talk about race or identity?"
That'd be insane.
I think there's multiple valid interpretations to a song sometimes.
And I think a really good song sometimes has that flexibility.
But, yeah, I just hope that if people want to interpret it through that lens, I think it's totally valid.
I just, uh...
Yeah, now I'm...
See, well, no, I don't think it...
I mean, like, if you actually listen to this song, you don't listen to it and you're like,
"Well, this was an interesting commentary on race in America in 2019."
It seems much more personal and poetic and abstract to me.
Well, I guess that's the thing.
It doesn't come up here and there when I've done interviews.
And I finally found the words to say it to somebody, 'cause there's other songs on the album that people really wanted to ask specific questions about.
And they seem to be very personal and specific.
Sometimes people would ask me questions about my own identity and stuff.
And say, like, "Well, does that factor into how you wrote this song?"
And my vibe is always like, "Obviously, I have a...
My own identity is important to me.
But then I also have my identity as a songwriter.
You know, the land of song.
It's bigger than any one thing."
So I kind of have this funny feeling where I was trying to put into words this one journalist where I said something along the lines of,
"It's totally valid if somebody wants to look at a songwriter's lyrics, mine in particular, through the lens of identity.
I just hope if they look at it through the lens of identity, they actually, you know, take the time to look at it through my personal identity."
If you're gonna treat it just as, like, a set of lyrics, then you might as well just talk in the broad sense about
what does whiteness refer to in each stanza?
More like English?
I guess these are different--actually, as an English major, these are different ways that you can interpret anything.
Right?
Through the lens of post-modernism, post-colonialism, whatever.
So I kind of feel like if you want to interpret it just, like, on the very basis of language, that's one thing.
Almost in, like, an impersonal way.
But I just kind of feel like if you're gonna go personal, you really gotta go personal.
I can just picture with this song, as soon as somebody hears the title, and they have some half-baked notion of Vampire Weekend,
I know that there'll be somebody who'll write something that'll say, like,
"This is Ezra of Vampire Weekend being defensive about whiteness."
[laughs]
Or something. Which is, like, the easiest way to, like, villainize the writer of this song.
'Cause we know, like, right now, there's a lot of people who are very defensive about being called out about privilege and whiteness,
and it's a problem. It's a real problem.
I just kind of feel like--I just don't think there's lyrics in this song to support that.
But if you do want to look at it through the lens of identity, I would just get very specific.
That's all that I would say.
Born in 1984.
You gotta start there. 1984.
You gotta listen to at least 50 hours of TC.
Oh, big time.
Yeah, maybe in two weeks we'll go a little bit deeper.
We skipped the live fandango
Turned cartwheels across the floor
I was feeling kind of seasick
The crowd called out for more
The room was humming harder
As the ceiling flew away
When we call out for another drink
The waves have brought a train
And so it was later
As the military's chair
Let her face at first just go steep
Turn the water shade off it
guitar solo
She said there is no reason
And the truth is plain to see
But I wandered through my playing cards
Would not let her be
One of 16 festal virgins
Leaving for the coast
I know though my eyes were open
They might just as well be closed
And so it was later
As the military's chair
Let her face at first just go steep
Turn the water shade off it
guitar solo
A lot of festival lineups are coming out now.
It's festival season.
Festival season's approaching.
So this is a time crisis guide to how to beat the heat.
Jake's gonna go through all the hot fashions for festival season 2019.
We'll walk you through it.
Starting with Coachella.
We're gonna have the TC tent out there.
Selling merch.
Jake's got everything you need.
Stay hydrated, folks.
We're recording live at Jake's libation station
at Coachella 2019.
That means Jake just like
I don't even know it's considered Coachella fashion anymore.
I'm still probably stuck on like some early Vampire Weekend days like 2008.
Jake in like a neon tank top.
What's up, guys?
Brutal.
It's festival season.
We're not doing that many festivals this year.
Or maybe we are.
What's the first one on the agenda?
Not to put anybody on blast, but we politely declined a couple.
Didn't quite feel right this year.
Money was not right.
You know, it wasn't always about the money.
I can't go into detail.
I would love you to go into detail.
I would love to go into detail, too.
What, like the other artists?
You're like, "These bands suck."
Oh, no. Who cares about that?
No, I'm kidding.
And you know how I love everything.
Yeah, you love everything.
What band would suck?
Imagine Dragons and the 1975.
You're like, "Oh, I love it. Let's do it."
I would bring them out on stage, grab their hands, and be like,
"Guys, come on."
Yeah.
"We're all in this together."
Artist solidarity.
There's sometimes shenanigans that go beyond money.
Sometimes the money's too good, if you know what I mean.
Weird corporate stuff?
Sell a piece of your soul.
Or just like the way the games people play.
And I'll be honest, like, you know, we're going to roll up to these festivals.
We're going to put on a damn good show,
but I've been so focused on the headline show
that I want to be like leaving it all out on the field,
playing two hours in Islington at 10 a.m.
That makes me feel like I'm doing something in my life.
That's strong.
65-minute set, you know, that's fun, but it's different.
Oh, dude, I relate to that completely.
We're playing for TC Heads.
Oh, right.
Richard Pictures is playing the Skull and Roses Festival April 5th.
I guess that already happened.
At 3.30 in the afternoon, we're playing an hour.
Whoa.
That's not how we roll.
Yeah.
A night for us, the Old Town Pub in Pasadena.
Spreading two sets.
Yeah, we're playing three hours.
We're playing two 90-minute sets.
Obviously thrilled to get, you know,
to play the 45-minute hour-long set in front of Vampire.
Oh, right, that's kind of a different story.
That's a whole other can of worms.
♪ Stand in that boat ♪
♪ Get up, get out, get out of the boat ♪
♪ Playin' cold music on the bar roof floor ♪
♪ Losing your laughter and dead to the cold ♪
♪ So take it with matches as you loose on the town ♪
♪ Take a whole pail of water, just to cool it down ♪
♪ Fire, fire on the mountain ♪
♪ Fire, well, fire on the mountain ♪
♪ Fire, fire on the mountain ♪
Even as a fan, like, I remember, like,
my favorite bands would be playing at a festival,
and I'd be like, "Oh, well, they're playing an hour.
Like, who cares?"
Well, I'm of two minds about it.
I mean, back in the day, when we'd play a festival
and I would see that we only had to play for 45 minutes,
I'd be like, "Thank God,"
because I wasn't always in the mood to play for a long time.
And also, I'd feel like, "Good, nothing but the hits.
We'll hit 'em here and there."
But now, maybe that I'm older and I've experienced--
and I still am, I used to be constantly stressed about my voice.
I think, you know, knock on wood,
I'm developing better techniques, 'cause it's important.
I want to play some long shows, and I made it through.
I held it down two hours in the morning,
and I felt great after that show.
I was like, "Wow, I did this."
- That's tight.
- 'Cause I woke up that morning being like,
"I just did two shows in a row.
Like, I'm about to sing this morning."
Went down to the hotel gym, 10 minutes on the tread.
- Yeah, and you're singing every song.
- Just about. - That's crazy.
- You know, last summer, we dropped a few Sister Pearls,
and we did a little bit of a Bayo joint.
- Right, right.
- And we'll do that again in the future,
but at least I'm going to be singing the majority of it.
Some of these longer instrumental breaks,
I really can relax, though.
That feels good.
Didn't always have that in the past,
but after we made it past the two-hour barrier,
I've been kind of feeling like, "Yeah,
I want to see how far we can take this."
But back in the day, at a festival, I'd be like,
"Okay, 45 minutes, I can get through that easy."
I was maybe just more nervous about everything.
- I think there's a tipping point in a concert sometimes,
where you make it through the middle section,
and then it's kind of like-- I don't know,
it's like you build some kind of solidarity.
You're just kind of like, "Now we're really in this together.
We're here. We made it this far."
But anyway, are you guys kicking off
the entire Grateful Dead festival?
- I don't know. - I just want to make sure
we explain this properly to people who don't know.
As I understand it, this is a festival
that's about Grateful Dead cover bands
and kind of dead adjacent, like Othiel Burbridge
is the headliner who plays the dead in co.
- Does he play in dead in co? - Yeah, he's the bass player.
- Yeah, yeah, I guess he's headlining the fest.
I don't know if he's playing dead stuff or original material.
- He's got to do some dead stuff. - I'm sure.
- Remember, he sang "Fire in the Mountain" when we saw him.
- Oh, yeah, that was sick, actually. - Yeah, he's great.
- Not going to see him, unfortunately.
I think we're just going to be there Friday night.
We're playing at 3.30 in the afternoon on Friday.
- You might be the first band of the whole fest.
Well, how do you make yourself stand out?
- We've been talking about this with our set list.
- Has anybody been like, "Guys, listen.
"We're one of L.A.'s most beloved Grateful Dead cover bands,
"but we're going to the big leagues now.
"We're going to a whole festival
"where you got the best of the best
"coming from all around the world
"to perform the music of Jerry and the gang."
We only got 60 minutes, 3.30 in the afternoon.
And then somebody's like, "Well, let's just pick a lot of great songs."
You're like, "Everybody's going to be picking great songs.
"It's the Grateful Dead festival, man."
- Exactly the conversations we've been having at practice.
- So here's what I would say if I was in Richard Pictures.
So somebody's like, "Well, let's just make sure that we--
"you know, we come out, and we hit 'em with a scar fire,
"and then we go straight into a China rider."
- No, we're not doing any of that.
- Did anybody just say, "We got one hour.
"We got to make this s--t count."
- Birdsong for an hour.
- I was going to say 59-minute playing in the band.
But yeah, sure. - Actually, that joke was literally made.
- Yeah, okay. Great minds.
- Great minds, dude.
♪ Some folks just freeze ♪
♪ Oh, just trust your mind ♪
♪ I don't trust nothing you do ♪
♪ But I know you'll come out right ♪
♪ I'd say it once again now ♪
♪ Oh, I hope you understand ♪
♪ When it's done, it all comes through ♪
♪ A man is just a man ♪
♪ Yeah, playin' ♪
♪ Playin' in the band ♪
♪ Daybreak ♪
♪ Daybreak on the band ♪
♪ Some folks move for dance ♪
♪ Oh, just watch me dance ♪
♪ Some folks are three times ♪
♪ Just to look to see the signs ♪
♪ I could tell you're trippin' ♪
♪ Oh, just put what's in your hand ♪
♪ But I can't stop 'til I'm through ♪
♪ I'm just playin' in the band ♪
♪ Playin' ♪
♪ Playin' in the band ♪
♪ Daybreak ♪
♪ Daybreak on the band ♪
♪ ♪
♪ Standing on a tower ♪
♪ Word to my command ♪
♪ You just keep a-travelin' ♪
♪ While I'm playin' in the band ♪
♪ If a man wants you ♪
♪ He's got no sin upon his hand ♪
♪ When the cast is gone ♪
♪ I keep a-playin' in the band ♪
♪ Playin' ♪
♪ Playin' in the band ♪
♪ Daybreak ♪
♪ Daybreak on the band ♪
♪ ♪
- We're doing some '60s material.
- Oh, that's cool. - We're doing, like--
- The real early stuff. - We're doing, like, "Creampuff War."
- Okay, it's not getting a lot of play.
- No. We're doing "Promise Land."
- "Mountains of the Moon"? - That'd be cool.
We're doing, like, a really trippy, long bird song to open.
- Uh-huh. - Straight into "Promise Land"
and "Creampuff War" back-to-back.
- You know, I was thinking about "Promise Land" recently,
'cause for the first time, we're playing in Norfolk, Virginia.
- ♪ I left my home in Norfolk, Virginia ♪
♪ California on my mind ♪
- I just wonder if you're from Norfolk, Virginia,
and, like, you see a band, and they rip into "Promise Land,"
do your eyes just, like, roll out of your head?
- Yeah. - That's, like, the Norfolk, Virginia song.
- I'm sure. I memorized the lyrics
to "Promise Land" in the last week or two.
- Really? - Played it for my dad. I rehearsed it.
- Yeah? - He was in town. I was like,
"Dad, check this out." I just played "Promise Land" for him.
- "Have a Seat, Pops." - Yep.
- Poured your daddy a drink in the living room
just to have an acoustic. - Yeah.
- Just making eye contact. - Occasional eye--
- ♪ California on my mind ♪ - Yep.
- Okay, I like where we're just heading. - Straddle that greyhound.
- What else? - Oh, song-wise?
- Yeah, yeah. Or is it you're still figuring it out?
- Um, so, yeah, we're gonna do those.
So "Bird Song," "Promise Land,"
"Cream Puff War."
Then I think some classics. - I feel like--wait.
I feel like I've caught a Richard Pictures
"Bird Song" opener before. - Oh, yeah, that's a classic.
- I think at the Novo Theater.
- Good memory, dude. - At the Novo Theater
opening for "Vampire Weekend,"
I caught a "Bird Song" opener.
- A good, like,
solid 10 or 12-minute "Bird Song." - Yeah.
You know what's funny? I'm into that, like,
we used to always be, like,
obsessively, like,
got open with "Energy." - Mm-hmm. - You know, like,
on the last album, we'd open with Diane Young a lot?
- Mm-hmm. - And then for their first show
of the London run at Earth, I had this
feeling. I was like, "This is a new era, man."
It felt a little bit risky, but I was like,
"Let's open with 'Harmony.'" And we have, like,
an extended intro, so, like, Gareth's on the--
hitting the conga, and
Greta and Brian are hitting the riff. - Yeah.
- "Here's our bombo, da-na-na-na-na-na." And we, like,
let it, like, cook for a second. - Wow.
- Then I finally come with the vocals, and it was like,
"I like a 'Harmony' opener." - That's strong.
- Then in another show, I was also, like,
testing it out. We tried it later
in the set, and that felt pretty good, too, but
it's similar to, like, the "Bird Song" opener thing,
where it's like, I almost feel like the opening
song is kind of a good-- you don't
want to go too slow. Those songs aren't
slow. - Mm-mm. - They're not super fast,
but-- - But it's not A-punk, yeah. - Yeah.
There was a rare 3A-punk opener
at Lollapalooza last year. - I remember
us talking about it. I think-- I think we talked
about it. - I remember. I love the concept
of the rare opener. We--
[laughter] You know, partially because
remember that time when we went
and we saw the special screening of the
1989 "Grateful Dead" show at the
movie theater? - I do. - Anybody who doesn't
remember, on Jerry's birthday every
year, they'll do this, like, special thing
where you go to a movie theater, buy a ticket,
like you're going to the movie, and you just sit there and watch
a filmed "Grateful Dead" concert.
And we went, and it was just kind of a, like,
a funny crowd, some old hippies, some young people.
- People dancing in the aisles. - People
dancing in the aisles. There's probably about 20
people in this movie theater in Hollywood. - Yep.
- I remember reading about-- I was
curious to read about the set list before we saw it.
And that concert that
we watched was a very rare
"Touch of Gray" opener. - I don't think that's that
rare. - I don't think it's that common.
- Huh. I bet they did it. - Oh, we need
Seinfeld. How many "Touch of Gray"-- 'cause, I mean,
definitely, it seems like a first set type of song.
Is that what you're saying? - I think of that as an opener.
When you mentioned, um,
opening with Harmony Hall, I was like, "Oh, that's kind of
like the dead opening with 'Touch.'" - Maybe
it's not a rare opener. Maybe it's just an
opener. - I have to say, um,
we opened with "Touch" once.
Tough. - 'Cause you wanted to ease in?
- You need to be warmed up for that song.
- Even though it's, like, a song everybody knows?
- It's easy for that song to be pretty
stiff. - This is a slightly hard
thing to look up. You would need to actually get one of those
old... - Yeah. - It's easy to look up
how many times they played "Touch."
It's funny. It's like those old books
that, like, the serious deadheads used to make.
I have one from, like, from, like, '89,
'90, where they would compile the whole
year of songs, and they would
crunch the numbers. This is, like, basically pre-Internet,
or very early Internet days. - Wow.
- And then you would buy the book, and it was just, like, the most
hardcore stats. - Advanced metrics
on dead shows.
- The likelihood of a "Touch" opener
in 1988 was roughly
one out of seven.
- ♪ It must be getting early ♪
♪ Clocks are running late ♪
♪
♪ Paint my number morning sky ♪
♪ Looks so phony ♪
♪
♪ Dollars breaking everywhere ♪
♪ Light a candle,
curse the glare ♪
♪ Draw the curtains, I don't care ♪
♪ 'Cause it's alright ♪
♪
♪ I will get by ♪
♪
♪ I will get by ♪
♪
♪ I will get by ♪
♪
♪ I will survive ♪
♪
- What was your closer?
- Oh, uh... - Are you still figuring it out?
- Uh, "Masterpiece."
♪ When I paint my masterpiece ♪
- I wonder how many times that'll get dropped
over the course of the weekend.
- I bet none. 'Cause it's like,
that's a Bobby one,
and they only did that, like, in the late '80s, I think.
- You know what I was listening to,
like, maybe a few months ago? You know it's a super rare
"dead" in quotation song?
They performed it four times,
really at the bitter end.
And it's the only song that I know of
that both "Grateful Dead" and "Talking Heads" played.
So it's the middle of that "Grateful Dead,"
"Talking Heads," Venn diagram.
- Whoa. So it's a cover for both of them.
- Yeah. - I have no idea.
- "Take Me to the River."
The Dead did "Take Me to the River" like four times
in, like, '94, '95.
- Wait, the "Talking Heads" song?
- Yeah, but that's a cover of Al Green.
- ♪ Take me to the-- ♪ Oh, yeah, you're totally right.
How did I not realize that?
- I think-- - Wow.
- It's not one of Al Green's biggest hits,
so it's, like, it's not crazy
that you might associate it more with the "Talking Heads."
- I mean, I've heard both versions.
- Yeah, but have you heard the "Grateful Dead,"
"Take Me to the River"? - Bring that up.
I haven't even heard-- - All right, real quick.
Then we gotta bang through the top five.
- We didn't talk any festivals.
- Okay, we'll talk about it in the future.
- So you're playing some festivals this summer
with Bob Dylan and Cardi B. - Bob Dylan and Cardi B.
- Cool. They will not meet.
- No, because we played right after Bob Dylan in Japan,
and there was definitely no meeting happening.
[upbeat music]
- Whoa, this is so close.
Jerry died two months after this.
6/30/95, Three Rivers Stadium, Pittsburgh, PA.
- He died, like, a little over a month after this.
- ♪ Now to know I love you like I do ♪
♪ After all the change you put me through ♪
♪ You stole my mind and my cigarettes ♪
♪ And I haven't seen hard nor heavy yet ♪
♪ Now won't you tell me ♪
- So they have some horn players on stage?
- It might be MIDI horns.
- Wow.
- I can't tell.
- ♪ Drop me in the water ♪
- This is terrible. - ♪ Take me to the river ♪
- Harsh, man.
- ♪ Drop me in the water ♪
- I can't tell if that's real or not.
- ♪ She treated me so bad ♪
♪ After all the things we could've had ♪
♪ Love is an ocean ♪
- God, Bob's covers.
- Bobby, you got to start dropping
some "Take Me to the Rivers" in the set list again.
- ♪ Won't you tell me why ♪
♪ Don't understand ♪
- ♪ Take me to the river ♪
- That'd be tight if this summer
Denton Code dropped a couple
"Take Me to the Rivers."
- Wow.
- Phil's wearing a sick whale T-shirt.
- I just say, you know, I think there's a lot of people
who like "The Grateful Dead" and "Talking Heads."
- Eh... - Yeah.
Come on, there's a lot of people who like both.
- I mean, nowadays, for sure.
- Oh, yeah, maybe not at, like, their peak.
- Not in, like, 1980.
- Yeah, more in, like, our era. - Yeah.
- There's definitely, like, a kid who's, like,
growing up in the '90s who's just like,
"I like 'Grateful Dead' and 'Talking Heads.'"
- Uh-huh. - Yeah, 'cause they're both,
like, kind of fun... - Yeah.
- Groove-oriented music.
But this is the only song that's in both of their repertoires.
To be fair, it's barely in the Dead's repertoire.
- I wonder what Burn thought of the Dead.
- Good question.
We'll get to the bottom of that.
It seems appropriate now, with so much chatter over the years,
one of the banked episodes will be a full
TC guide to "The Grateful Dead."
- Oh, yeah, yeah. - Where we actually, like,
play the music, not, you know, really go through it.
- And play the good stuff.
I feel like when we're talking the Dead,
we always bring up, like, the worst.
We just--we're just, like,
combing through the dregs of their catalog,
'cause it's funny to do that, but...
- Well, it's more fun to talk about, like...
- The weird missteps. - There's more to chat about.
- Yeah, yeah. - 'Cause it's not--
wouldn't be very TC just to throw on the cream of the crop
and just be like... - Yeah, just like,
"Front of the Devil," great song.
- Excellent.
I wouldn't even say this is bad,
but we should do that, too,
when we do "The Grateful Dead" banked up.
- Yeah. - I like the idea, too,
of just, like, getting, like, random people on the horn.
Remember, like, way back in the day...
- Oh, yeah, dude. - We were, like,
playing some Dead for, like, Gerard Carmichael?
- Oh, yeah. - Remember "The Grateful Dead"?
We were just kind of getting his, like...
- I remember him being like,
"This is, like, your dad's music," or something.
- Yeah.
So I feel like we should get some people on the horn.
I mean, David Byrne's cool.
He, like--he was--he shouted out "Vampire Weekend"
when we first came out.
- He's worked with my brother quite a few times.
- Oh, yeah, of course. - Yeah.
- Just text Dave right now.
Dave.
- Can you send me David Byrne's phone number?
[laughter]
How weird would that be?
- I don't know if I'm comfortable with that, Jake.
- Dave, can you give me--
- Can you just text him and ask him
if he heard "The Grateful Dead's 63095
Take Me to the River"?
That'd be fun.
I could picture Dave just, like, texting him,
like, a link to the YouTube video,
"Grateful Dead 63095
Take Me to the River 3 River Stadium,"
just Byrne writing back.
Wow!
- Yeah, like some funny emoji.
- Yeah, wow. - Eyes wide.
- With the eyes. Wow!
- Dave, what do you think Bjork thinks of "The Dead"?
- Oh, that's a good one.
Send her the same video.
- Not a fan. - Who knows?
- I hung out with Bjork once,
and I remember asking her about, like,
what kind of classic rock stuff she was into.
I don't know, it came up organically.
And she was talking about how, like,
her dad or her brother or something
was in, like, a classic rock cover band
that did a lot of, like, Steely Dan stuff.
- Oh, really?
- And she was like, "I don't like that stuff.
I don't like the, like, rock--
like, guys playing guitar rock stuff."
But then she was like-- - Fair.
- This is the part that really killed me.
She was like, "I was in a Trader Joe's."
- She said I was in a Trader Joe's?
- She was like, "I was in a Trader Joe's in Brooklyn,
and I heard, 'There's a new kid in town.'"
- By the Eagles? - The Eagles songs.
- Yeah? - And she's like,
"Yeah, sounded good."
- What? - Yeah, yeah.
She was feeling "New Kid in Town,"
and I was like, "That's a great melody.
I can see why."
- That's what you hope for when you ask Bjork
about classic rock.
- She heard "New Kid in Town" in a Trader Joe's in Brooklyn,
and, um, was feeling it.
- [laughs]
- ♪ There's talk on the street
♪ It sounds so familiar
♪ ♪
♪ Great expectations
♪ Everybody's watching you
♪ ♪
♪ People you meet
♪ They all seem to know you
♪ ♪
♪ Even your old friends
♪ Treat you like you're something new
♪ ♪
♪ Johnny come lately
♪ The new kid in town
♪ Everybody loves you
♪ So don't look 'em down
♪ ♪
♪ You look in her eyes
♪ The music begins to play
♪ ♪
♪ Hopeless romantics
♪ Here we go again
♪ ♪
♪ But after a while
♪ You look in the other way
♪ It's those restless hearts
♪ That never mend
♪ ♪
♪ Oh, oh, oh
♪ Johnny come lately
♪ The new kid in town
♪ Will she still love you
♪ When you're not around?
♪ ♪
All right, let's bang through this top five.
It's time for the top five.
Five on iTunes.
Today we're comparing the top five of 1969 to 2019.
Why 1969?
Woodstock, right? Yeah.
Right, 'cause we're talking about festivals.
We didn't really talk about the new Woodstock.
The lineup just came out.
I encourage everybody to check it out.
We'll get into it.
Did you guys get an offer?
No, it never came up.
Hmm.
Well, I don't know.
I mean, stuff doesn't always make it across my desk, you know?
I feel like that would have crossed your transom.
Yeah, I might have heard about it.
I think we're on tour then.
Oh, Crosby's playing.
I love that Robert Plant and Greta Van Fleet are playing.
Oh, yeah.
That's truly like a weird, like, Back to the Future-style,
like, time machine.
Are they gonna hang out?
Well, they're playing different days.
Oh, yeah, they're not hanging out.
They're not hanging out.
All right, number five, 1969.
Oh, dude.
Proud Mary.
Starting strong here.
Wait, so is this the original version he wrote, Proud Mary?
Yeah, yeah, this is a--
A Fogarty joint.
Tina Turner did her famous cover.
Yep.
♪ In the city ♪
♪ Waking for the man every night and day ♪
♪ And I never lost a minute of sleeping ♪
♪ Worrying 'bout the way things might have been ♪
♪ Think we'll keep on pointing ♪
♪ Proud Mary, keep on pointing ♪
♪ Pointing, pointing ♪
♪ Rolling, rolling ♪
♪ Rolling on the river ♪
♪ Bring a lot of plates and milk, Bill ♪
♪ Want a lot of pain down in New Orleans ♪
So this is the story of a woman who works as a maid for rich people.
It's kind of a cool song, just that it's about a proud, working woman, you know?
Not like the most common song being sung by a classic rock dude.
Like a 22-year-old guy.
Yeah.
From the Bay Area.
He wrote this, he wrote "Fortunate Son."
He's very class-conscious.
Great song.
You know what's funny?
I don't want to go too into detail.
There's been a lot of drama with Meghan McCain lately.
Okay.
I did not see that coming.
Just in the world.
Somebody sent me some of her old tweets about music, and one was--
maybe I just saw this online, it might have been Versace, Tamagotchi, Jack Wagner posting this.
It was something about this song where she was like,
"LOL, I love 'Fortunate Son' by Queens Clearwater.
Is that okay, even though I'm a senator's daughter?"
♪ It ain't me, it ain't me ♪
♪ I ain't no, I ain't no senator's son ♪
Yeah, he literally says "senator's son."
Yeah.
She's the senator's daughter, so she's in the clear.
♪ Rolling, rolling ♪
♪ Rolling on the river ♪
♪ If you come down to the river ♪
♪ Bet you're gonna find some people who live ♪
♪ You don't have to worry 'cause you have no money ♪
♪ People on the river are happy to give ♪
♪ If we keep on fighting ♪
♪ Our America keep on fighting ♪
♪ Rolling, rolling ♪
♪ Rolling on the river ♪
♪ Rolling, rolling ♪
♪ Rolling on the river ♪
♪ Rolling, rolling ♪
♪ Rolling on the river ♪
Number 5, 2019, Post Malone, "Wow."
A lot of drama with Meghan McCain recently.
And quite a bit of drama.
Is this a new Post song?
It came out last December.
But is this hitting the top 5 now?
Yeah, maybe it's fully crossing over now.
♪ Now it's everybody flocking to the decoy ♪
♪ Shorty mixing up the vodka with the Lee Koy ♪
♪ G-Wagon, G-Wagon, G-Wagon, G-Wagon ♪
♪ All the housewives pulling up ♪
♪ I got a lot of toys ♪
♪ 720S pumping fallout, boy ♪
♪ You a sucky sh-- in the beginning ♪
♪ Back when I was feeling unforgiving ♪
♪ I know I pissed you off to see me winning ♪
♪ See the igloo in my mouth and I be grinning ♪
♪ Hundred bands in my pocket, it's on me ♪
♪ Hundred deep when I roll like the army ♪
♪ Get my bottles, these bottles are lonely ♪
♪ It's a moment when I show up, got 'em saying, "Wow" ♪
♪ Hundred bands in my pocket, it's on me ♪
♪ Yeah, your grandma, my brother, they know me ♪
♪ Get my bottles, these bottles are lonely ♪
♪ It's a moment when I show up, got 'em saying, "Wow" ♪
♪ Everywhere I go ♪
♪ Catch me on the block like a Mutombo ♪
♪ 750 Lambo in the Utah snow ♪
♪ Trunk in the front like the sh-- Dumbo, yeah ♪
♪ Cut the roof off like a nip-tuck ♪
♪ Pull up to the house with some big butts ♪
♪ Turn the kitchen counter to a strip club ♪
♪ Me and Drake came for the... ♪
♪ When I got caught, all of y'all disappeared ♪
♪ Before I dropped, Sony, none of y'all really cared ♪
♪ Now they always say, "Congratulations to the kid" ♪
♪ And this is not a 40, but I'm pouring out this... ♪
♪ Used to have a lot, but I got more now ♪
♪ Made another hit 'cause I got bored now ♪
♪ Always going for another pump, fourth down ♪
♪ Last call, Hail Mary, Prescott, touchdown, yeah ♪
♪ Hundred bands in my pocket, it's on me ♪
♪ Hundred deep when I roll like the army ♪
♪ Get my bottles, these bottles are lonely ♪
♪ It's a moment when I show up, got 'em saying, "Wow" ♪
♪ Hundred bands in my pocket, it's on me ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Yeah, your grandma probably knows me ♪
♪ Yeah, yeah, yeah ♪
♪ Get my bottles, these bottles are lonely ♪
♪ It's a moment when I show up, got 'em saying, "Wow" ♪
♪ Got 'em saying, "Wow" ♪
♪ Wow ♪
I think John Fogerty's playing Woodstock.
Really? Yeah.
I think he played the original Woodstock, too.
Yeah, they got the mix-up. Yeah, there he is.
There's a few.
I mean, basically, the Woodstock line-up's all over the place.
The Killers, Miley Cyrus, Santana, the Lumineers,
the Rat Contours, Robert Plant.
Did Santana play the original?
I bet-- Are you kidding?
No, I'm not kidding. Jake, bro.
Okay, I guess he did.
His legendary performance of "Soul Sacrifice."
My bad.
I'm sorry, I just thought that Santana
is one of the most iconic Woodstock performances.
No, you're right.
I mean, I'm not a Santana guy,
so I kind of maybe just zone out on that part.
Well-- Leon Bridges, did he play--
We got some research to do to get ready
for our three-part Santana-banked ep trifecta.
Very excited about that.
Leon Bridges is, like, 25.
Oh, my bad.
Who are you thinking of?
Leon Russell.
Chance the Rapper did play the original in '69.
Yeah. Halsey did, too, right?
Yeah.
Okay, "Canned Heat, Hot Tuna, Pussy Riot."
All together?
That's a good three bands in a row.
I love Canned Heat.
They played, for sure.
Oh, yeah.
♪ Going up the country, wanting you on the go ♪
♪ I'm going up the country, wanting you on the go ♪
That guy's got a sick voice.
Yeah.
The number four song, 1969, "Fifth Dimension,"
"Aquarius/Let the Sun Shine."
Oh, God, this is classic.
We've heard this before on the show.
Oh, yeah.
♪ Let the sun shine ♪
This is great. It's two songs from hair.
Yeah.
You get two in one.
♪
I guess this is when astrology really is probably
breaking into the American public consciousness.
I bet so.
Couldn't you see this being used in the new Tarantino movie
coming out this summer?
Oh, totally.
Yeah, it's a perfect set in L.A. in the summer of '69.
Mm-hmm.
♪ Aquarius ♪
♪ Harmony and understanding ♪
♪ Sympathy and trust abounding ♪
♪
♪ Mystic crystal revelation ♪
♪ Aquarius ♪
♪
All right, we've heard this one before.
Not in the mood, folks.
The number four song, this year, 2019, "Lauryn Diegle."
I've been interested in this artist.
I've been seeing her name around.
Never heard of her.
Is she Christian?
Yes.
Oh, hell yeah.
This is Christian music.
Finally, some Christian music made into the top five.
Haven't been seeing a lot of that.
Good to see the Christians getting their representation
in American society.
Well, religious Christians,
you're not seeing them a lot in the top five, man.
Say what you will.
♪
♪ I keep fighting voices in my mind ♪
♪ That say I'm not enough ♪
♪ 'Cause it's unbearably buff ♪
"Buff."
This is the first song to be in the top ten
of both the Christian Airplay and Adult Pop Songs charts
since the fray "How to Save a Life."
I didn't know that counted as Christian.
When was that?
2007.
♪ More than just the sum of every high and every low ♪
♪
♪ Remind me once again just who I am ♪
♪ Because I need to know ♪
♪ Ooh, oh ♪
♪ You say I'm loved ♪
♪ When I can't feel a thing ♪
♪ You say I am strong ♪
♪ When I think I am weak ♪
♪ And you say I am held ♪
♪ When I am fragile ♪
It's interesting, 'cause obviously,
there's a lot of Christian artists.
Yeah.
This sounds like Adele.
It's kind of like a fake Adele song.
So because it's Christian,
are we supposed to just assume she's addressing JC?
Slash God.
Yeah.
♪ I want you say ♪
Is that the sort of default POV?
Well, yeah, 'cause--
'Cause if you just played this
and didn't say it was Christian,
I would just be like, "Yeah, it's a song."
It's pop music.
♪ Now is everything you think of me ♪
♪
♪ In you I find my worth ♪
♪ In you I find my identity ♪
♪ Ooh-oh ♪
♪ You say I am loved ♪
♪ When I can't feel a thing ♪
♪ You say I am strong ♪
♪ When I think I am weak ♪
♪ And you say I am held ♪
♪ When I am fragile ♪
♪ When I don't belong ♪
♪ Oh, you say I am yours ♪
♪ And I believe ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ Oh, I believe ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ What you say of me ♪
♪ I ♪
♪ Oh, I believe ♪
'Cause I wonder, like, Lauren Digle or something,
if you're a real Christian artist,
are your fans weirded out
if you just drop a song that's just, like,
about, like, cruising with your friends on a Saturday night?
They're just like, "Where's the..."
Probably some of them.
"Where's the God part?"
Just literally every song...
I understand that you can't drop, say, a satanic song.
That wouldn't fly.
Talk about provocative.
That would just be provocative for no reason,
but I'm just saying, like, if, like...
That'd be a cool look for you.
To get into Satanism?
Early Maltese cruise style?
Just, like, '80s style?
Oh, dude, we gotta talk about the dirt.
We'll have to save that for...
Maybe that's a Bottle episode.
By TC standard, it's a little soon to talk about
the Motley Crue Netflix movie, "The Dirt."
Highly recommend.
I just wonder, like, if it's a Christian album,
is it cool if, like, half the songs are addressed to God or Christ
and the rest could just be neutral?
Yeah.
Not necessarily about faith?
Isn't U2 sort of a Christian?
Isn't that, like, what people say?
They have a Christian vibe.
I think Bono would say, like,
that Christianity's part of his life,
but that he's a searcher.
I still haven't found what I'm looking for.
Right.
That seems like a struggling Christian.
Like, "Where the Streets Have No Name," is that heaven?
Yeah, I mean--
Is that the desert, man?
Yeah, I feel like it would be weird to drop a Christian song
called "I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For."
It's, like, a little confused, and it's kind of like--
I feel like a lot of, like, songs that are truly called, like, Christian
are obviously wrestling with faith as part of the Christian tradition.
Mm-hmm.
From St. Paul to St. Augustine, you know,
it's part of the story.
But I feel like what gets called Christian
always has a type of--
Affirming.
Whatever, praise music or whatever.
And I love a lot of historical Christian music.
I'm a little less familiar with what you would call Christian pop,
but I feel like the vibe I get from a lot of songs that I come across
is always, like, "You lift me up when I'm down.
"You're the pillar that's holding me up.
"I can always count on you.
"When I felt small, you were there."
Yeah, affirming and basically telling the story
of when I had a question, you were the answer
versus a song that would just be like,
"Yeah, like, I still haven't found what I'm looking for."
It's a little--
Utter confusion.
Yeah, I feel like there might be an expectation.
If we have any fans, any Christian fans who are very familiar
with this kind of music, you could fill me in.
But I feel like, you know, like anything, like movies or something,
there's genre conventions.
If, like, the hero doesn't live at the end of a horror movie,
people would be a little bit like, "Yeah, that's not how it works."
I wonder if there's, like, a Christian artist who came out and, like--
Probably a lot of Christian songs start a little bit like,
"There were times when I was confused, when I was a mess.
"I didn't know where to turn."
Yeah.
And then the chorus is like, "But you did this."
But I wonder if, like, a Christian artist came out and the song was like,
"And I still feel that way."
I'm still searching for Christ.
Still confused, but I still believe.
Too weird.
I bet there's, like, some cool, like, pastor somewhere
that you would just be like,
"Man, it seems like you got it all figured out.
"You found Jesus, turned your life around.
"Now you have this, like, awesome thing in your life
"that gives you meaning and stability."
And I bet there's, like, probably some cool pastors,
probably a lot of them who would be like--
and be like, "So I guess you're on Easy Street now."
And be like, "Man, you think I still don't struggle with faith?
"Like, that changed my life, but you think there aren't moments
"where I, like, cry out in the night?"
Like, you know, that's a part of what it means to be--
I'm sure, like, a lot of people would say that.
Sure.
I think there must be Christian music that reflects that.
Early Pedro the Lion.
Oh, yeah, that's-- what are they, like--
-Pedro the Lion. -Christian indie?
Yeah, I love that band.
Saw them a lot 20 years ago in Oregon
because they were from Washington.
But, yeah, it was, like-- their first few records, like,
was, like, basically a document of the singer David Bazan's,
like, struggling with organized Christianity.
And the first EP is, like-- as I recall,
was, like, a little more like, "I'm a Christian,
"and I'm feeling this."
And then as the albums went on, it became increasingly, like--
-Am I Christian? -Yeah.
You're some good Christian country.
Pedro is a tight band, folks.
You know this album, Lovin' Brothers?
-Oh, hell yeah. Is this-- -Satan is Real.
-What? Oh, Lovin'? -Yeah, the Lovin' Brothers.
♪ Satan is real ♪
♪ Working in spirit ♪
♪ You can see him and hear him ♪
♪ In this world every day ♪
♪ Satan is real ♪
This album has that song, The Christian Life,
-that the Byrds covered. -Oh, that-- great song.
♪ And lead you astray ♪
This is so, like, proto-Everleys.
♪ I attended service at a little church in the country not long ago ♪
♪ A prayer was led by an old country preacher ♪
♪ Who then raised his hands as everyone stood and sang ♪
♪ "My God is real" ♪
That's one thing that Christian country artists--
that's, like, one of those Venn diagram memes.
Be, like, black metal artists.
It'd be, like, Venom, Motley Crue, anybody's, like, satanic.
Lovin' Brothers, and then in the middle, Satan is real.
It would be interesting if, like, a contemporary Christian artist--
I'm sure it's been done-- had a song, like,
♪ Satan is real ♪
Just imagine Lauren Digle, just--
-Satan is real? -With this song, it's called Satan is real.
That'd be so sick.
I mean, talk about a provocative title.
Yeah, this is, like, kind of goes down a little too easy.
-Yeah, where's the struggle, Lauren? -Yeah.
Where's the rub?
♪ Satan is real ♪
♪ I hate fighting voices in my mind ♪
Yeah, 'cause the Lovin' Brothers are sort of, like, Satan is real,
evil and temptation are real.
Like, this is not make-believe. We need to, like, fight.
-I-- I-- Fire and brimstone. -Yeah, dude.
I'm weird to that, 'cause, like, that's what gets me going.
I also-- I like that vision of the world.
It depends where you see Satan, obviously.
You get into that Westboro hateful stuff, that's bad news.
They're seeing Satan in beautiful things, loving things.
You know, even just when people say, like,
the devil's working overtime, I like a world--
maybe 'cause at heart I'm a bit of a pessimist,
but I like a world view that's, like, everyday,
whether you're literally picturing, like, a red devil
or just the forces of chaos.
I like that idea. That's a very realistic world view.
Everyday you're gonna wake up, and evil things will happen.
Things that you wanna go one way will go another way,
try to do good, and bad things might happen.
That's the world we live in. Satan is real.
I would draw a distinction between evil and chaos, though.
Oh, like Dungeons & Dragons?
Chaotic good-- chaotic evil?
There's also neutral evil. No, neutral-- chaotic neutral.
-Are you familiar with this? -No, I'm not a D&D guy.
Is that Dungeons & Dragons that I'm--
-I have no idea. -Oh, maybe it's magic.
Oh, no, it is Dungeons & Dragons.
Maybe it's in a lot of games.
A car accident that kills someone you love
is, like, completely senseless and chaotic, but it's not evil.
Once you start talking about evil, you're making moral judgments.
Maybe there's something good about just the forces of chaos.
♪ Chaos is real ♪
Okay, let's bang through the rest of this.
1969, number three.
I'm in. Come on.
They're also playing Woodstock, it looks like.
Great banging zombies.
Honestly, this would be too on the nose for the Tarantino movie,
-but it's, like, just pictures of 1960s. -Oh, yeah, like Time of the Season, dude.
And this V.I.B.S. song called Time of the Season comes out.
Perfect.
Yeah, that soundtrack's gonna be fire.
♪ Pleasured hands ♪
♪ To take you in the sun ♪
♪ To promise lands ♪
♪ To show you every heart ♪
♪ It's the time of the season ♪
♪ For loving ♪
♪ Little to the... ♪
This is on Odyssey and the Oracle, right?
Odyssey and Oracle, yeah.
♪ What's your name? ♪
♪ Who's your daddy? ♪
♪ Is he rich like me? ♪
♪ Has he taken any time ♪
♪ To show you what you need to know? ♪
♪ What you need to live? ♪
♪ Tell it to me slowly ♪
♪ Tell you why ♪
♪ I really want to know ♪
♪ It's the time of the season ♪
♪ For loving ♪
bass & drums play in syncopated rhythm
♪ What's your name? ♪
♪ Who's your daddy? ♪
♪ Is he rich like me? ♪
♪ Has he taken any time ♪
♪ To show you what you need to live? ♪
♪ Tell it to me slowly ♪
♪ Tell you why ♪
♪ I really want to know ♪
♪ It's the time of the season ♪
♪ For loving ♪
bass & drums play in syncopated rhythm
Back to 2019, Jonas Brothers' new single, Sucker.
Back to 2019, Jonas Brothers' new single, Sucker.
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