Episode 96: Live from Chicago
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Transcript
Time Crisis, Chicago edition. Jake and I are here in the Windy City. We got sick of listening
to all those bank depths and we decided to pull something fresh out for the TC community.
We're joined by Brendan Kelly, member of the Lawrence Arms and creator of the Nihilist
Arby's account. All that, plus Mountain Bruise, a rundown of the Father's Day show, and so
much more. This is Time Crisis with Ezra King. Beats 1.
Time Crisis, back once again. Chicago edition. Just to give the whole context, we're recording
this on Monday, the day after Father's Day. Yesterday was the big Chicago show. Huntington
Bank Pavilion, Richard Pictures, Chicano Batman, Vampire Weekend. Biggest show of the tour so
far. Really? The final estimate is 17,000 people in the building. Whoa. It's literally
twice as big as our last biggest Chicago show. Really? The last time there was a proper Vampire
Weekend headline show was at this small arena at UIC and I think that's like eight. Wow.
Big show. Cold show. Freezing. Yeah, that was a shocker. Right on the lake. Cold wind
blowing in. Yeah. I thought you guys might drop a cold rain and snow. I would have been
sick. But. Very topical. Never in my wildest dreams did I think that our June Father's
Day show in Chicago was going to be that cold. Right. This has been on the books for months
and I was kind of looking forward to like a hot, humid, outdoor gig. Yeah, maybe like
a pleasant breeze off Lake Michigan to cool things down a little bit. Well, I think the
Chicago people were shocked too. Yeah. It was atypical weather. So the low yesterday
was 55 degrees, but I think with wind chill and like the lake factor. Upper 40s maybe.
I'd say lower 40s, man. Damn. I felt like I was standing in like 43 degrees. I've been
talking about lakes a lot because the past week I feel like a real Midwesterner now.
I've basically lived in the Midwest for the past nine days. We started the tour in Toronto
and after that Indianapolis into Wisconsin, Minnesota, two nights in Ohio, back here,
Illinois. So I had some interesting conversations in Cleveland because there's a guy in our
crew who lives in Akron. So we had a day off in Cleveland. So he was kind of psyched to
go, you know, see his family and stuff. Rock and roll hall of fame. I think ZT and Bay
went to the rock and roll hall of fame. I've never been. But I was talking to the dude
who lives in Akron and he was like, the weather in Cleveland is so different. And I was like,
how far apart is it? And he's like 30. And he was like, but yo, in the winter, you're
not going to catch me coming to Cleveland, man. It's freezing. Oh, because of the lake.
Yeah. No, like the lake makes a really big deal. It's like, it's so it's kind of like
weird microclimates. You can live in a suburb of Cleveland or Chicago and like a very different
weather than being right on the lake. I guess it's obvious for people. The bodies of water,
folks. The great lakes, folks. But you hear that, like you hear about like San Francisco,
like all those microclimates. You don't think about that with Ohio. Yeah. There's probably
somebody somewhere who lives in Akron, gets a job in Ohio, you know, and they're like,
all right, you've got to start like, you know, keeping a fleece in the car. All spring. Dressing
layers. Yeah. Just like Game of Thrones, saying goodbye to the family south of the wall in
Akron, heading into Cleveland.
I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her, she's so cold. I'm so hot for her, I'm on fire for her. I'm so hot for her, she's so cold. I'm the burning bush, I'm the
burning fire, I'm the bleeding volcano.
I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her, I'm so hot for her, she's so cold.
I tried rewiring her, I tried refiring her, I think her engine's permanently stalled. She's so cold, she's so cold, she's so cold, cold, cold, like a tooth stone. She's
so cold, she's so cold, she's so cold, cold, cold, like an ice cream cone.
She's so cold, she's so cold, where I touch her, my hand just froze.
Anyway, hell of a night last night. Great show. Yeah, it was wild, despite the weather. You guys sounded great. Oh, thanks. I was worried about my voice. What, you woke
up feeling a little choky?
I had a cold and yeah, I woke up, my voice is super low and just like, uh, because I've just been coughing for two weeks straight, basically. And some of those songs, we hit
some upper notes. Yeah, the harmony sounded amazing.
Thank you. I did proper vocal warm-up technique. Yeah. John, the other singer, taught me some proper technique and I was doing that. And it paid off. I felt like a real
musician. Yeah.
Doing my vocal warm-ups, drinking my like throat coat tea. I've been doing a lot of vocal warm-ups and, cause I was nervous cause on this tour now, we're playing so much
longer than we used to.
Was that like two and a half hours? Last night was two and a half. That is epic. We're basically hitting the curfew every night. That's awesome. It's fun.
Oh yeah, I was watching that cause I was side stage. Cause we have our little clock on stage. And there's the clock right there. Yeah. We had the same clock and it seemed
like the house was pretty like adamant about like, you need to be done at this time.
We'd never had a reason to even talk about this before, but now that we play longer and also this tour has been a lot of outdoor shows, there's been a lot more talk about
curfew. Right.
Like our crew puts a little sign backstage and also letting us know if the curfew is hard or soft. Right. So hard curfew, you know, you go past 11, it could be $2,500 a
minute. It could be $10,000 a minute.
So you're incurring like insane fines. I bet like in New York or something, maybe Chicago, like big cities, you're going into like 10. So how does that work? If you guys
like the final crescendoing fading notes of the song and at like 11 o'clock in like three seconds, like what do you think they'd actually...
Well, if it's truly a hard curfew, they could. We were somewhere where they're like, all right guys, tonight is soft curfew. As long as you begin the last song by 10.59
and you're done by like, let's say 11.05, you're all good. Right.
I was asking like, do people actually monitor this? And they're like, oh yeah. Apparently like when you play the Hollywood Bowl, the city like sends a dude with a
decibel meter for like the whole show. Wow.
Cause you get fined for going over the decibel limit too. I mean, yeah, people live around the Hollywood Bowl. I don't think anybody lives that close to the Huntington
bank pavilion on Northerly Island.
So yeah, so two and a half hours though. And you guys, you had about 70 seconds left on the curfew.
Yeah. Well we know, you know, we have a good sense of how long certain songs are and stuff. Yes. I was just nervous about having to sing that much more, but yeah, I've been
doing my vocal exercises, doing it on days off too. That's something I didn't know about.
I should do mine today. Yeah. So have all the shows been two and a half hours?
Chicago was extra long. I'd say generally like 2.10, 2.15. Such a great length.
Now I'm starting to understand like the, what's cool about it. Cause I used to just feel like, are we going to like lose people? And the truth is even if people check out a
little bit in the middle, maybe that's when they want to get a beer or something.
Well, first of all, the people in the front definitely aren't checked out. They're like, "They're starting Dark Star. I'm going to get a beer."
Yeah. I mean, I got to put myself in their shoes and be like, I've been at shows I like where I might do that. Not that I'm seeing that. I just get nervous about it.
Right. And then you kind of realize like, okay, there's going to be moments later in the show that kind of get everybody, get the energy back up. And you're kind of like,
it feels like more of a journey when you get over two hours.
It always used to be a tight 75. Yeah. I feel like you're just getting warmed up.
Well, I mean that the Webster Hall show, which you did some live reporting from. That was epic.
That was three sets, but all in all we were on stage for four hours and 36 minutes, which is longer than the longest Bruce Springsteen show ever.
Hats off to you, man. Which is how long?
Four hours, seven minutes. Which is probably continuous.
Yeah. We took breaks and had pizza and chilled and stuff. So yeah, that's a continuous show.
I wonder what the longest Dead show is. I mean, they would do two sets, but like, wouldn't surprise me if they were right.
I feel like a whole Grateful Dead experience could easily be four or five hours because there's the long break in the middle.
Right. Well, the whole experience, but I'm talking time on stage.
Yeah. We should get a number crunch on that. Too bad Seinfeld couldn't come out.
Yeah. We're missing him.
That's a bummer. Four hours and 40 minutes is the longest Dead set. So that's very close.
Wait, four hours and what?
40 minutes.
Oh yeah. What was yours? Four hours and 36?
36.
Wow.
Almost. But broken up into three sets. That's when it gets weird.
Okay. So the longest Springsteen show was 403.
Okay. That's intense.
I think when you get past into the three, four hour range, it's okay. But I think people maybe should like know ahead of time.
Because you know, it's like if you're going to go to see like an opera and people are like, "Yo, this opera is crazy. It's five hours."
But you get a dinner break in the middle, you'd be like, "All right. Interesting. I'm mentally prepared for this."
But if you're kind of just like, "Okay."
Standing at a loud rock show.
Yeah. Well, I think once you have the schedule, you can roll with anything.
GBV's doing a New Year's show. 100 songs for $100 at Terragram in LA. I bought tickets.
Okay. Oh, so there's not going to be, that means no Richard Pictures New Year's show?
Well, here's the thing. I bought tickets. Hannah's not interested.
That was more of an investment. You're going to be selling them on the secondary market.
The show is sold.
For a tremendous markup.
If things go my way, I'll end up at the show. But I'm willing to not go to the show and sell the tickets.
Who's this D-bag selling GBV tickets for $1,000 for the New Year's show?
Jake just going out for a steak and champagne dinner with those GBV profits on New Year's.
Scalper over here.
That's a cool concept, though. How long do you think that'll be? Because they have some very short songs.
I bet that, yeah, see, they'll do a lot of songs that are like a minute probably, but I still think it'll be like four hours.
Because their shows aren't normally like 2.15, 2.30, and they do like 50 or 60 songs.
Oh, that's amazing. So yeah, plus extra New Year's banter.
Right. I bet it'll be four hours. And I noticed it was like, I think music starts at eight. No opener.
Or maybe they start at nine.
Close out with an Auld Lang Syne.
That'd be sweet.
That's going to be quite a scene.
Save us from our own little thing called hope
Make this our right and only good enough
This is the road we'd like to travel away
And I will wait
Please be honest
You could go to the world I should know
Shakespeare's honor
Take a painted smile and quit the run
You're a guest, oh, you should know
There was a lot happening yesterday at the Chicago show.
So Nick, your son Max was out as a roving reporter.
Oh yeah.
What did he get up to?
Well, you know he's a big TC head.
He's one of the youngest TC heads. How old is he?
Seven and a half.
Is this show appropriate for a seven year old?
It's hard to remember. Do we ever get into anything where you're just like, Max, we'll talk about that?
What's like the spiciest thing we talk about?
I feel like if the show had a rating in front of it, it would occasionally say like sexual themes, language.
I guess once in a blue moon, some like sex talk jumps out.
Truly rarely.
Yeah.
Also Apple beeps all the language.
They do?
Okay. I gotta start listening back.
So no, you know, for the most part, just the idea that we go so deep on corporate food history is more just that he finds it interesting at all is bizarre.
Yeah, it's kind of a miracle.
He was really hooked when we did the diet Coke thing, when we were just listening to that diet Coke ad.
Oh yeah, yeah.
The Gillian Jacobs one where she...
Because I can.
Here's the thing about diet Coke.
It's delicious.
He's also a huge Vampire Weekend ad.
Nice.
That I can see. That makes sense to me.
Kids love VW.
They do.
It makes sense.
Peter Rabbit.
So the nexus of like the time crisis, he is one of those time crisis vampire heads.
So he went out and it's Father's Day.
So if I'm coming out here to do the show and support you, gotta bring him.
I mean, yeah.
And so we all came out here and we were there for the Ojai show.
So he was wearing his, that sort of grill.
I saw somebody in the lobby of the hotel when I was coming back after soundcheck and I walked past a family and somebody was wearing the Ojai two frog long sleeve.
I actually mistakenly thought that we were bringing that back for this show.
And I'm kind of glad we didn't.
We'll bring it back eventually, but I thought maybe we were going to be selling the Father's Day Weekend shirt.
And we had a new one from Bring Out Your Dead.
He did a new Richard Pictures one.
But the two frogs on the branch Father's Day Weekend.
Oh, you're wearing that?
Maybe my favorite vampire shirt.
It's so good.
And I was kind of like, yeah, if we brought it back this year, it would be maybe too much of a good thing.
Well, if you do Ojai next year and we can bring it back, that would be really lovely.
Yeah, that's great.
I kind of forgot that this is our second annual Richard Pictures Vampire Father's Day event.
Right.
This year with Chicano Batman, even better.
But we almost have never had a true yearly event.
Let's try to make it happen next year.
Yeah, we were supposed to do it in year three.
It's annual now.
I hope we're not like, well, I'm sure we can clear it out.
I wonder what we'll be doing next June.
Maybe like festivals or something.
Where should we do it?
Ojai again.
Back to Ojai?
Yeah, that'd be cool, right?
So yeah, Max was out there.
So Max went out.
You found TC Heads in the crowd?
So yeah, so we all came out together and he wanted to contribute.
He wanted to be a part of it.
And so he went around trying to find TC Heads in the crowd of vampire fans.
So what he looked for was anyone wearing an 8-Minute Cape Cod shirt.
Were there significant numbers of people?
Yeah, well, basically there was a bunch of merch.
Anyone that was wearing sort of bootleg merch around 8-Minute Cape Cod.
A lot of people buying that Ezra and Jake.
Oh, right, the long sleeves.
Oh, the Ben and Jerry's crazy one.
Yeah, the Ben and Jerry's one.
Yeah.
So he would find those.
A couple--
I think those guys did well with those shirts.
I think there was also some bootleg 8-Minute Cape Cod, right?
There was someone who had their own tie-dye Joker Man font.
Oh, that's cool.
8-Minute Cape Cod shirts.
Did you see this one?
I saw a picture when we played Indianapolis of two people wearing this one.
That's kind of like a mix of various memes.
I think somebody originally did a shirt that was kind of Lisa Simpson as a deadhead.
And then somebody made a shirt that's Lisa Simpson as a TC head.
So it's like a deadhead Lisa Simpson wearing an 8-Minute Cape Cod shirt and it says Vampire Weekend.
I saw a picture from Indianapolis that was like two people wearing that shirt.
I mean, it's pretty wild.
Seinfeld posted a tweet saying, "Hey, there's this kid walking around, 8-year-old roving reporter.
If you see him, go up to him and he's got questions for you to see how big a fan you are.
And if you get the questions right, you could win something."
TC trivia.
And so a couple people found us.
But for the most part, Max was just looking for anyone who had the merch, you know, had the bootleg merch.
And he did.
He found some people.
And so he sort of accosted them and then would ask, you know, sort of our own like Beat Kids sort of thing.
Oh, cool.
Yeah, he would ask them questions.
I think, you know, you'll find out the questions that he asked.
But interestingly, some people said that they were big fans but then weren't able to get a question like,
"Which classic rock icon has been branded TC's enemy of the show?"
Oh, wow.
I mean, I guess--
That's pretty basic.
We've got like 70 episodes.
Wait, how many episodes do we have now?
Oh, we have 96.
Oh, my God.
We're coming up on 100.
I wonder how many times we've mentioned Steve Miller.
Like is it possible--
Probably like on five discrete episodes.
Right.
So it's possible that there is somebody out there who's taken down like 40 TC's spread out.
That would be like my wife, Hannah, is a very sporadic listener.
She did not know any of the trivia questions.
So Max had to--
You know, Max wanted to practice before he went up to strangers.
And it was something he's told explicitly never to do.
So he tried it out on Hannah, Jake's wife, just so he could get sort of used to asking the questions.
And Hannah, I don't think got any of them right.
No, she didn't.
She didn't even get the ones right that were about you.
Which ones? I don't remember.
Well, there was the one about--
I mean, this one Max actually had a pretty difficult time even saying because it's such a complicated question.
What is Jake's real first name?
This is the best.
What is the name of Jake's childhood friend whose dad would hoard McRib in his second fridge?
That is an unwieldy question.
Is it possible that in all your years of being with Hannah, that story never came up?
Oh, I'm sure it hasn't.
Yeah, that just--
It is funny.
It is funny to think like--
It's such a non-story.
It's just like--
It's like a weird image.
I guess I'm picturing you guys just like driving somewhere and like you pass a McDonald's and there's like a sign up that says McRib is back.
And you like quietly laugh to yourself.
And Hannah's like, "What's so funny, Jake?"
And you're like, "Oh, you wouldn't find it interesting, babe."
She's like, "Try me."
And you're like, "Well, growing up."
I mean, it can come up.
Yeah, I can see it.
It's also just funny that there's all these people who are walking around and go, "Oh, yeah, Jake used to hang out with Lonnie and his dad."
And this is something that all these other people know.
Right.
But that is real s***.
Like when you're significant other, like even when you're like very open with each other, especially as you get older, just your database of stories and random s*** is
so huge.
Right.
It would be weird and very awkward if somebody told like a very important story that you didn't know.
But there's so many like funny stories that could come up at like a dinner or something.
You're just like, "Really?"
Yeah, I love that.
Like a couple that's been married for like 40 years.
Yeah.
And then like once in a blue moon, a new story comes up.
"I have never heard this story."
"I've been married to you for 38 years and I've never heard this story."
"What?
Why are you keeping this from me?"
Yeah, usually like from childhood or something.
And it's just like, "I've never heard about Lonnie's dad in a chest freezer full of McRibs."
I could see if we were at someone's house and they had a chest freezer in the basement.
We were like, "Whoa, check that out."
And that would burn the memory.
My friend Lonnie's dad had a chest freezer full of McRibs.
But just driving past a Mickey's, I don't think.
Jake Longstreth, you are still full of surprises.
After 50 years of marriage--
God, you are endlessly fascinating.
I think it's especially childhood memories about like friends and stuff.
Right.
Because especially when you meet somebody like in your 30s, like you might talk about your current friends,
like maybe the last person you dated, important family members.
But like your best friend from like second to fifth grade, you could go 10 years without that coming up.
Even though you might have some memories burned into your brain.
So throughout the show, you'll hear some of Max's roving reporting,
meeting up with some TC heads in the crowd at Chicago.
Let's check in with an official Time Crisis correspondent.
Which frequent TC guest coined the phrase "Starbucking"?
Winter.
Ding, ding, ding!
Where was Seinfeld 2000 exiled to?
Japan, Tokyo.
Ding, ding, ding!
Which classic rock icon has been branded TC's enemy of the show?
Steve Miller.
Ding, ding, ding!
What is the name that Ezra and Jake gave to the universe that Jackson made an Allie of A Star is Born live in?
S.E.B.
Ding, ding, ding!
Time Crisis with Ezra Koenig.
So Richard Pictures, which is, this is, you know, a real challenge for a Grateful Dead cover band, tribute act.
You only had 30 minutes.
A hard 30.
630 to 7.
We usually play two, two and a half hours.
Usually we'll do like two sets each, just like an hour, hour 15.
There are definitely some heads up front.
There were a couple people wearing Richard Pictures shirts.
That's sick.
I did see one guy with the Jake and Ezra's long sleeve.
And there was this one guy in between every song would just shout, "Dick pics!"
Ha!
That's sick.
There was also a guy with a homemade Mountain Brews shirt.
That's right. I didn't see that.
We've got to get into Mountain Brews a little later.
We'll get into some Mountain Brews.
But there was a--this guy's shirt was so sick, too, because it was just the cover of the EP.
Yeah.
With me drinking a beer.
It says Mountain Brews, and then underneath it it said, "Rocks played out, dog."
That's sick.
Then on the back, I guess, was the Tasteful Palette.
And also somebody sent a picture to the thread that was of a guy who made his own buttons.
And one of them was your Wikipedia.
"John Jake Pullman Longstreth is an American painter, musician, and radio personality."
Someone added "musician" recently.
Oh, that's cool.
Because it used to just be--
Wait, is this the actual button the guy gave it to you?
Oh, now we got it. Yeah.
So it's--this is so sick.
"John Pullman," in quotes, "Jake Longstreth, Jr."
Oh, I forgot about that.
"The Jr., born February 3, 1977, Sharon, Connecticut, is an American painter, musician, and internet radio personality."
This would be a great shirt.
As I'm saying that, I feel like I've said this before about a Jake Wikipedia shirt.
So anyway, short set.
Yeah, so we did a real Europe '72 vibe.
Like songs.
Not a lot of big jams.
Like no birdsong.
Yeah.
So it was "Brown Eyed Women," which has nice solos in it.
Right.
And then we did "Sugary."
I came in on "Sugary."
And those are a nice pair.
And then we did "Must have been the roses."
Which is your time to shine.
Yeah, that was my solo vocal.
I was telling you before the show that I saw a headline.
I must have been on Relics or something.
That was how Dead & Co. dropped their first "Must have been the roses" pretty recently.
Kind of curious to hear it.
Yeah, maybe we should pull a little bit of that up.
I'm just curious to hear what their harmonies would sound like.
We don't have our full set up here in Chicago.
Because we definitely workshopped those harmonies.
Well, I was just thinking about it that Richard Pictures probably put down a solid four or five roses before Dead & Co.
Oh, for sure.
Yeah.
Way ahead of the curve.
They also did it last year at the Father's Day show.
Yeah, we did.
So that's sort of an annual thing, too.
I love to bring the ballads to the band.
Yeah.
Like, tonight we're going to do "Ship of Fools."
And like, we're working on "To Lay Me Down."
Is this Dead & Co.?
So slow.
Yeah, it's real slow.
I mean, people always talk about them playing slow.
Dead & Co.?
Yeah.
Sounds pretty good.
Yeah, I mean...
Your versions.
I'm not mad at it.
I don't want to hate.
You guys obviously had more experience playing this song.
But, and of course, Dead & Co., I think they're great.
They're really firing all cylinders now.
But your version of that song in particular blows theirs out of the water.
You also, Jake, didn't you tell me that sort of famously this is not one that the Dead played a lot?
I don't think they did a lot of live versions of that song.
Maybe I'm wrong.
I just don't see it in set lists a lot.
Annie laid her head down in the roses
She had ribbons, ribbons, ribbons
In her long brown hair
I don't know, maybe it was the roses
All I know, I could not leave her there
So strong opening, then pulling with a ballad.
Yeah, we take it down.
I mean, I love that vibe with the Dead when they just will play a very spacious, pretty quiet ballad in front of thousands of people.
And there's just a real open, slow Jerry solo.
You can almost kind of hear the Dan of the crowd low in the mix.
And he's just ripping some gorgeous, very patient solo.
It's interesting with ballads. I've been thinking about that a lot because we've been dropping a bunch.
One thing that's been interesting to me is that we haven't done it every show, but Unbearably White goes down great.
That one seems to be kind of like an early fan favorite off the album.
But here's one that was surprising.
I think we've only done it twice, but two times we dropped our live version of My Mistake.
That's kind of like the jazz.
That one's felt great.
Wow. You didn't play it last night.
No, we didn't play it last night, but I think we dropped My Mistake in Milwaukee.
Wow. I saw it at Webster. It was great.
It actually felt really good. My Mistake live.
I think once the sun is down and it's like after there's been some energy, then to like drop into a quiet one like 2021 has often felt great.
That one's a really good live. That one's fun. You guys open it up a little bit.
We also did Jerusalem, Berlin, New York last night.
Oh yeah, Jerusalem, New York, Berlin.
My bad.
Jake.
I stand corrected.
Did not drop a corrected in Chicago.
No.
But Jerusalem, New York, Berlin, we don't do that every night either, but I think that might be, I'm still debating, I think it might be our strongest main set closer.
Because it's like they go to town. It's like a real showcase for Will on keys just going wild.
And I like that moment because I have the guitar off.
Oh yeah.
I just kind of turn around and like the earth starts spinning.
Wow.
I just like watch the earth and like chill. That feels good.
Wow. Classic Yahe late in the set.
Yep. We've had some controversy with the fans about like some people want us to close every single show with Walcott.
Traditionally, we always did.
And sometimes we've done on this tour, we've done just a Yahe closer.
And then sometimes we've done a Yahe Walcott closer.
And sometimes we've done just Walcott, but doing it every single show feels a little like, I don't know.
It's kind of random.
It's I mean, it's cool, but I just don't see why that has to be.
I guess just because we used to do it.
Right.
Or maybe because getting out of Cape Cod makes people feel ready to go home or something.
I mean, it's definitely like, it's got like a barn burner energy.
Yeah. Going out hard. That's cool.
To me, Yahe feels like a very strong closer too.
It feels emotionally more like a closer.
At least to my sensibilities.
Walcott, don't you know that it's insane?
Don't you want to get out of Cape Cod, out of Cape Cod tonight?
Walcott, mystic seaport, is that the way?
Don't you know that your life could be lost out of Cape Cod tonight?
Walcott, don't you know that it's insane?
Don't you want to get out of Cape Cod, out of Cape Cod tonight?
Walcott, your bottleneck is a snitch show.
I am as bald as a ghetto, out of Cape Cod tonight.
You're listening to Time Crisis on Beast One.
But to your guys' closer, to get back to the RP set,
after the gorgeous country ballad, must have been the Roses,
Jake on lead vocals, then you guys had like 8 or 9 minutes left.
We're looking at that clock.
Yeah.
Yeah, we have like 8 and a half minutes to do China Cat, Rider.
Into I Know Your Rider.
China Cat, Sunflower, Into I Know Your Rider.
Yeah.
Normally when we do that, that's in the 12 to 15 minute range.
Yeah.
So I started playing the opening riff too quickly.
Yeah, that was a fast China Cat.
And Aaron was like, I could hear him audibly just like right next to me like,
"Damn, this is fast."
Wait, because you play bump.
Yeah, I started it too fast just because I was like hyped up about the clock.
It's fine.
It worked out fine.
It was like maybe not the best version.
And then normally we really take our time with the transition from China into Rider.
And this was more of like kind of making eye contact with each other like,
"Let's hustle. Let's get to the D part."
And then John cut a few verses.
And we ended, I think, like right on the second.
Yeah, just about.
At 7 o'clock.
Yeah, it was 7.
Yeah, maybe a few seconds.
Maybe 7 o'clock and 5 seconds.
Yeah.
Acceptable.
Yeah, but you nailed it.
That was a great way to end the set.
Yeah, that's a classic.
Yeah.
I know you, Rider.
The Dead played Roses 148 times.
Oh, that's a lot.
It's sort of like right in the middle.
You know what I mean?
Right.
Sort of like right in the middle of their jams, like how many times they play.
So it's been an incredibly busy few weeks for the TC organization.
VW on the road, dropping bank depths left and right.
REM pod, Webster Hall pod.
I actually got a text from my old college roommate who was like,
"You know, I always listen to the REM podcast.
I haven't listened since the U2 days."
Right.
And he's like, "And I just threw on the new one, and then I heard your voice.
I didn't even look at the description."
I was like, "Very cool, man."
But another major thing is that you dropped the first Mountain Bruise EP.
I did.
I feel like on TC, people don't even know you're cooking this up.
Yeah, maybe it hasn't come up.
So first of all, what is Mountain Bruise?
It's a recording project with the members of Richard Pictures.
So Mountain Bruise is the name of the artist.
Yes, the name of the band.
And the EP.
Self-titled EP.
And the first song.
Yeah.
So it's like Sabbath style.
That's sick.
And Little Wings was playing a show that this kid organized up.
He brought a generator up Highway 2 up into the Angeles Crest National Forest.
And just like posted an outdoor show up in this canyon in the mountains.
And we were like drinking brews.
Somehow we got in this funny riff about like mountain brews.
I don't know.
It's dumb.
And just to really explain it, Mountain Bruise are beers that you drink in the mountains?
Yes.
Yeah.
Beers that you're enjoying in the mountains.
Would you be like, hey, you want to-- what's the lyric in the song?
Well, the song I wrote later.
Somehow we came up with the idea.
Were you just like, Kyle, toss me a mountain brew?
No, I don't remember.
And then yeah, there was the photo.
Someone took the photo of me that's on the cover wearing the shades, drinking the beer,
sitting on the mountain.
And we're like, oh, this is a funny-- it's very high school.
You come up with the band name and the cover first.
Yeah, totally.
And then Aaron, who's the bass player in Richard Pictures, was like, we should record an album
of covers and call it Mountain Bruise.
And I was like, I'm just going to start writing some songs and have them be like Dick Pick's originals.
I hadn't written songs in maybe 15 years.
So I was like, this would just be a fun thing to do.
So Mountain Bruise was the first song I tried to write.
The song developed into a narrative about you're going on a hike on a Sunday with a buddy.
You're out too late the night before.
Got to shake those cobwebs off.
You get up to the top.
Your buddy has packed some brews in his backpack.
Take a load off.
We should listen to it.
Let's listen to track one.
Let's sip a few Mountain Bruise.
Track one on the Mountain Bruise EP by Mountain Bruise.
Here's Mountain Bruise.
Nice acoustic, open tuning.
Yeah, the playing is so good.
Well, yeah, because doing this cover band with these guys for the last five years--
Everybody's so locked in.
We're like-- we play really well together.
[MUSIC - MOUNTAIN BRUISE, "MAYBE"]
Sunday morning, why don't we go for a hike?
Meeting the trailhead light around the corner.
That minor chord gives it much more gravitas to the song.
Me and Bobby stayed out late last night.
Me and Bobby stayed out late.
Get on the trail.
Shake the cobwebs free.
As we get to the top of the mountain, there's a view.
Take a load off and crack a few Mountain Bruise.
John Nixon on guitar here.
Mountain Bruise.
Oh, yeah, beautiful harmonies.
Sweet Mountain Bruise.
Yeah, I wanted the chorus to sound like the Eagles.
You know, you, Ezra, on your Instagram, you back to back, you posted,
"Jake's released this, and I'm really digging the Tim Heidecker."
Oh, yeah.
And this really reminds-- there's something similar--
I was thinking about that, because, yeah,
Tim Heidecker just dropped a great new album, too.
A lot of multi-hyphenates.
It's big in the music game right now.
And I really respect it, because--
I love his record.
An American painter, musician, radio personality.
What does Tim Heidecker's Wikipedia say?
Oh, I'm sure it's like eight titles.
American musician, comedian, writer, producer.
Tim Richard Heidecker, born February 3, 1976.
Oh, he's also February 3.
One year older than you.
He's an American comedian, writer, director, actor, and musician.
Nothing beats yours, though, dude.
Painter, musician, radio personality.
That could be the title of the Jake Longstreth album
when you're in your mid-50s.
Or just American painter would be a good one.
Oh, as a title?
Yeah.
What's the Doors American poet?
American painter.
So you ran out of the Mountain Brews.
Time to go back.
Yeah, we sipped them.
I love sweet Mountain Brews.
Well, Sweet Chili Heat.
Yeah, we're working on Sweet Chili Heat for the next EP.
Oh, sick.
So the plan is to drop a series of EPs and they might form an album?
I think that's what Miley Cyrus is doing right now, too.
I think they're just going to be a bunch of EPs.
An EP project.
Yeah.
More like a BTS thing.
Well, they dropped many albums.
Built a spill?
Yeah.
I'm going to make that joke every time BTS comes up.
That joke will never get old to me.
I think a four-song EP is a manageable chunk for the band
and for our "audience."
Yeah.
I just feel like putting a ton of work into an album
that I'm just going to put on the Internet,
it just feels kind of crazy.
It's fun to just do little chunks.
This is truly like the thing once or twice a month.
We'd be like, "Hey, do you have four hours on Sunday to track some vocals?"
It's a very fun, slow-rolling project.
I love that you really gave, even on the recording of the song, space to breathe.
You could easily kick this one up to eight minutes live.
Oh, yeah. Oh, for sure.
I love that in the narrative of the song,
that you and Bobby were out late last night presumably drinking,
and then you're like, "Dude, we were partying late last night.
Let's shake the cobwebs off and go for a hike."
Then as soon as you get to the top of the mountain, you're like,
"Pull out some beers."
I guess that's the cycle of life, though.
Hair of the dog, man, right?
That's right.
Maybe real quick, what are the other three songs?
Oh, yeah.
We got "Tequila Noon."
"Tequila Noon," great title.
The sound of "Mountain Breeze" really is "Grateful Dead Meets the Eagles,"
which is also such a hilarious--
just imagine talking to somebody who's not that into classic rock.
It's kind of like "The Dead Meet the Eagles,"
and they're just like, "What are you saying?"
That sounds like the worst thing ever.
Or just like, "Do they sound different?"
Well, yeah, of course they do, man.
Or people who are real music people, maybe rock snobs.
It's kind of like "The Dead and the Eagles."
That sounds like the least cool band ever.
You know what, you're taking a--
wait, who is it?
It's Hegelian.
There's this thesis, antithesis, synthesis.
So "The Grateful Dead" and Graham Parsons, whatever,
people created a type of cosmic American music.
And then the Eagles were seen as the sanitized version.
Like Graham Parsons hated them.
I don't know if "The Dead" ever chimed in,
but I can imagine Jerry and the boys being kind of like,
"I don't think the Eagles are particularly cool."
And then decades later, you kind of see the way that those things are--
the dialogue is interesting. Combine them.
I wonder if you met Phil Lester or something,
you're like, "Hey man, check out my EP."
It's kind of like a "Dead meets the Eagles" thing.
If you just be like, "What the f--k?"
"No thank you."
Yeah. How dare you?
I was up before the light
Fixed a cup and had a bite
Sun comes up as I stand outside
And watch the dew begin to dry
It did not close, the door was wide
A gush of air, what a freezing ride
You and I don't have much to talk about
The tumbleweed and dust
Sweep it if you must
Tequila or nude with a lemon or a lime
Well, you know, we've talked about the Eagles a lot on this show.
I always thought riffing on the Eagles would be like an interesting subject matter.
Well, there's another song on the album called "You Eagled."
Right.
Sounds like the Eagles and it's kind of got a golf metaphor.
Right.
In my head, this is sort of like fan fiction about like Glenn Frey playing golf with his buddies in like maybe 1987.
And he's like past the Eagles.
He's aging.
Right, it's before the Hell Freezes Over tour.
Right.
Yeah.
Because he's like, "I'll never be an Eagle again."
Right.
Shade in the light, it's 9 a.m., it's gonna get hot
I ain't ever gonna eagle again
And what does it actually mean to eagle and golf?
Two strokes under par.
Oh, so it means you're like pretty good.
Yeah, it's like you golfed a good game.
Right.
He's aging, his golf game is going downhill a little bit.
Right.
He's never gonna eagle again.
He's trying to accept that he's falling off a little bit.
And then this verse, I'm like addressing Glenn directly.
Yeah.
What's it like for your songs to age?
10, 20, 30, 40 years on the page
Play those tunes until you're dead
We drive around with those songs in our heads
Yeah, it's like the Eagles have been in the atmosphere my entire life.
40 years.
Yeah, I picture like, this is Glenn Fry in his 40s.
I think this happens with a lot of musicians too.
It's like they push against this thing that made them popular.
Just like, "That ain't me anymore."
And you often see these guys by the time they're 50s, 60s or older,
then they're out on stage playing that old song
and the audience goes wild and they're like, "Thank God for this."
Yeah, "Thank God I'm back to this."
Yeah, but he's in this funny late 80s period where he's just kind of like,
"Man, the idea of performing 'Lion Eyes' right now, oh, I feel like a loser."
That, but also a little melancholic too.
A little bummed.
He's like, "Man, my best days are past."
Well, yeah, because the Eagles weren't together.
He couldn't even do it if he wanted to.
I ain't never gonna eagle again
Try as I might, I'll never win
I ain't ever gonna feel this way
At first it stings and it fades away
So are there any Mountain Brews performances on the books?
Nothing on the books.
Are you ever going to maybe drop a Mountain Brews with Richard Pictures?
Is that controversial?
Oh, play a Brews song during a Richard Pictures show?
That does seem like you'd be kind of tainting the water a little.
It seems like-
You gotta keep them separated.
What do you think?
Well, I don't know.
I could imagine the other people in RP, maybe they felt like,
"Listen, man, we started this group to celebrate and interpret the music of the dead.
Now Jake's coming in here with some originals."
It's really the classic move, like, "What about playing my songs, guys?"
Right.
That just seems kind of presumptuous of the audience.
I think it's a separate deal.
But it is the same people.
So maybe book a Mountain Brews show, but at least there's clarity.
Yeah, I could-
Now what about you could drop a dead song in a Mountain Brews set?
Absolutely.
Okay, all right.
I think you could do sort of two sets.
Yeah.
I think Mountain Brews could open for Richard Pictures.
Right.
That's interesting.
Would you leave?
Or you just sort of- would you leave and then everyone would come back?
Do a set break?
No, I think the move is to do like four Mountain Brews songs
and then just go right into like Bertha.
I don't know.
Yeah, that would definitely feel like the opening act.
Yeah.
Well, it depends.
Once you've got like 12, 16 Mountain Brews songs,
then you could be all over the place.
Or maybe the Mountain Brews thing could be that when you catch Mountain Brews,
you're going to definitely be seeing some originals, some dead, and some Eagles.
That's the mix.
That's right, because actually the members of Richard Pictures also had an Eagles cover band.
Yeah, what was the story?
I feel like I never caught this.
It was called Barely Eagles.
It was so dumb.
But we never actually played live.
We did rehearse for like two months, and then we just lost the thread on it.
It's kind of a thing now to be a multi-hyphenate cover band.
Really?
Yeah, like there's this one that covers Pink Floyd, Phish, and-
Hold on, I've got to look it up.
Okay, so this is who I was thinking of.
Pink Talking Phish, a fusion of Pink Floyd, the Talking Heads, and Phish.
Yikes.
Well, hold on.
No, I mean-
They're doing their thing, man.
They're doing their thing, and if someone-
They're like a serious-
I'm sure it's tight.
Let me look up their tour.
I just like the joke about Grateful Dead meets the Eagles.
That sounds terrible.
I mean, yeah.
Well, the Grateful Dead meets the Eagles is actually almost more sensible than-
The Talking Heads is just like-
Oh, this is tight.
They're doing two nights at the Beachcomber in Wellfleet.
I always wanted to play there.
Is that a British?
Is that-
No, no, that's on Cape Cod.
Oh, I see.
So Wellfleet, that's like one of the handful of towns I'm familiar with on Cape Cod.
So when Vampire Weekend was starting, of course, we were always like, "Oh, we get so much Cape Cod."
Yeah.
We get so much Cape Cod imagery on the first album.
We're like, "We gotta go play the Beachcomber in Wellfleet."
But we never-
I don't think-
Is that like a venue-
Like a proper venue?
Or is it like a bar?
It's-
I think it's a bar/venue.
Yeah.
You know?
Have you played Cape Cod before?
I don't think we ever have.
And actually-
Dude.
We've been always talked about like starting our own-
I don't want to say like festival, but our own like big event type thing.
And just every time I've like floated the idea, our team goes and does some research.
The thing is it's like very expensive.
So like, you know, here in Chicago-
Like if we could put our own event together and get 17,000 people, that's like a solid like small festival.
Yeah.
But of course, when you come do a show and like you just slot into like the schedule at a venue, it's way easier.
But I always was like, "We should do our own thing. It should be in New England. Ideally, it's on Cape Cod."
I should ask them again.
I feel like one of our touring dudes, I remember him like flying to Martha's Vineyard once to check out a site.
Oh, wow.
I think- Here's the thing.
That would be crazy.
Cape Cod and Martha's Vineyard, they're both difficult to get to.
Yeah.
So Cape Cod, infamously-
Traffic.
Yeah. As I sang about on Walcott, the bottleneck is a sh*t show.
Yeah.
And for people who don't know what the bottleneck is, it's basically that because Cape Cod is this peninsula off of Massachusetts,
there's only one way in, one way out.
So you got all these people coming from all over New England and then you hit that bottleneck and it's just traffic.
Everybody's just trying to squeeze into this-
Oh, God.
I don't know what it is, two lanes or whatever.
So there's a high cost of, high price of entrance into Cape Cod.
And if you're probably, if you live there, who cares?
And if you're there for the summer and once you're there, you're probably having an okay time.
But yeah, getting in is brutal.
Obviously, getting to Martha's Vineyard is crazy.
I've only been to Martha's Vineyard once.
But you can fly in.
Now you can fly in.
But that seems crazy.
Yeah, I've only been to Martha's Vineyard once, but cousin Asher actually, he's been a lot.
And I feel like we're talking to him.
If you want to bring your car, you have to book the car ferry months in advance.
I've heard that.
So you can't just be like, "Yo, let's go to Martha's Vineyard and roll up."
You got to be like, in January, you got to be like, "We will be there with our Subaru on-
June 18th.
June 18th, 8.45 AM sharp.
What about doing the festival in Jersey?
Well, I wonder if there's a cool spot in Jersey.
You'd invite a few bands.
You'd like curate a small festival.
You guys would play.
I love this idea.
I mean, we could take the Ojai model, Last Father's Day.
I mean, I'm pretty into that.
We don't necessarily need that many people.
I also think there's like something weird happens when you put on your own show and like your fans are psyched.
And then you make it too much of a festival.
And then actually people are like, "What is this?"
I would keep it pretty tight, highly curated.
So the Ojai model was Saturday night, Richard Pictures Vampire set, Sunday morning, Richard Pictures Vampire.
That to me is almost warrants a festival.
No repeats.
You know, maybe we'll make it no repeats.
Neither band can repeat.
That's strong.
You know what we could do?
Saturday night, Richard Pictures Vampire.
Sunday morning, Mountain Brews Vampire.
Wow.
That's a good opening song.
Wow.
That's right.
We open with Velvet Underground, Sunday morning, Sunday morning in Ojai.
That's right.
Sunday morning.
Yeah, we could open with Mountain Brews, Sunday morning.
Why don't we go for a hike?
Perfect.
So that's pretty strong.
Obviously adding to the bill could strengthen it, but also might muddy the waters.
Right.
Do we do like a comedy tent?
Maybe you just keep it tight and light.
I remember, yeah, I feel like I've been down this road multiple times where, you know,
I think in the off season when we weren't doing a lot, you know, there'd be a lot of talk about what the live stuff was going to look like.
And so there's, you know, throw out ideas.
It doesn't always happen.
I like that this episode is just like a brainstorming session for future vampire shows.
I mean, I feel like, okay, as I recall, whenever this was a few years ago, like my man gets back from Martha's Vineyard, he's like,
"You know, we could probably go do a show on Martha's Vineyard, probably lose a little bit of money."
And it'd be like, "All right." But, you know, to like really do like a festival.
Well, here's one question.
Does the festival need to have camping to really feel like something special?
Matt's shaking his head no.
What do you think, Jake?
I mean, I'm not into festival camping.
But you're into camping generally.
Yeah, but I like to go camping.
The whole point is to get away from people.
I just don't like that vibe of like a bunch of like RVs and like vans, like idling and just like people sleeping like on the grass next to their car.
It's just like, I just don't like that aesthetic.
Like we played the Ventura County Dead Fest up there in April.
Yeah.
And that was like crazy. It was so crusty.
Well, that's maybe a crusty location.
But, well, OK, but the setting for the festival ideally would be a kind of like pretty rural area.
I mean, I think that the Ojai worked because it was a small town.
So you'd see people you saw walking around, which I thought had its own sort of sophisticated version.
But the Libby Bowl at Ojai, what is it like? It's twelve hundred?
I think so. Is it just too small?
I mean, well, we could do that. But when I say a festival, I'm picturing like eight to ten.
Thousand people.
Yeah. A true event.
Interesting.
Food trucks.
The problem with like a really rural area is that then you have to bring all these like port-o-potties.
The place gets trashed. It's just sort of like.
OK, so maybe what we need is an Ojai type town or there could be a New England one.
There's like Western Mass where there's a beautiful, somewhat rural setting.
And it's very adjacent to a cute town that has all sorts of lodging.
And you can stay there. And maybe if you are into camping, you could camp nearby.
But like that's on you.
But you would set up a stage somewhere.
Yeah.
Like a little guild or something that could accommodate eight to ten.
I think so. I just don't see this happening in an urban environment.
Right. I'm going to think on it.
All right.
In terms of like SoCal.
Hey, listen, we don't have to figure it out today.
Yeah. We'll touch base.
Yeah, we'll touch base.
I think you need some infrastructure. I just think that it's such a pain.
OK, how about this?
Well, Twiddle has their own yearly thing in Vermont.
We'll just hop on that.
Yeah, maybe we just hop on that. That might be the easiest.
All right. We've got time to figure this out.
Any TC heads who have any experience in putting on festivals,
we don't want this to turn into a Woodstock 50 scenario.
Yeah, what happened there? It all got canceled.
Think of the Woodstock. It got canceled like three times.
What a mess.
The money guys were like, "This isn't happening."
And then the promoters were like, "Yes, it is."
And then we're getting new money guys.
I mean, the whole thing always sounded a little bit cursed.
We're now joined by Chicago native Brendan Kelly,
who runs the Twitter account Nihilist Arby's,
and also a member of the Lawrence Arms.
That's correct. Hi.
So everybody knows that we didn't just blow up your spot?
No, no. When the account first started, I did it kind of anonymously.
And then there started to be kind of a lot of attention getting paid to it and stuff like that.
And then this dude from AdWeek kind of tracked me down and was like, "I think this is you."
And I was like, "Yeah, all right. It's about time."
And so he was like, "Give me the exclusive story."
And so I did. And then it was like a big, really, really nice thing.
And then everything kind of blew up from there.
So now you've got some crossover in the Venn diagram of fans of the band, fans of the Twitter account.
Yeah, yeah. The fans of the band circle is a lot smaller than the fans of the Twitter account.
So when did Lawrence Arms start?
We've been together for 20 years. It's our 20th anniversary this year.
We started in '99 with really no expectations of doing anything.
And we played an extraordinarily unpopular form of punk rock for a very long time,
going through the end of the ska punk thing and into the emo thing and then into the pop punk thing.
How do you describe it now?
It's just like Midwestern meat and potatoes rock and roll with a punk kind of sound to it.
You know what I mean?
But that was not popular for a very long time.
But then all of a sudden, the world kind of turned and we'd been doing it forever.
And so it worked out for us really well.
So it would be easy to be like, man, we really persevered playing all those tours with Thursday and Yellow Card.
Yeah, Thursday from Jersey.
Yeah, yeah. But really we were just like, I don't know what else to do.
I can't do anything besides this.
So it just so happened that we woke up one day and the sun was in the right place.
And you're about to go on a tour?
We're doing a tour with Bad Religion in August. So that'll be cool.
Oh, sick.
And then after that, we're just going to write a new record.
And then every year we do like a residency thing here. It's like three nights called The War on Christmas.
During Christmas?
Yeah, yeah. And it's like, this will be our fifth year of doing that.
And it's developed into like a little festival that's just like us and our friends and people come from all over the place and stay for the three days.
We play all different songs. So it's grueling.
Last year we played 57 songs over the course of three days.
No repeats?
No repeats.
Oh, sick.
Because enough people come for all three days.
Giving something totally different each night.
We got a busy rest of 2019. But nothing too strenuous.
I never wanted to die, oh
But it's too late now
My heart has grown so cold
And the corpse I leave behind
Ain't gonna be
No pretty boy
It's a sick sack of disease
We've thought about
Ways we'd love to go
High and beautiful
And they love in the snow
On New Year's Day
On Christmas Eve
On a warm November night
Buried beneath the orange leaves
It's a big dream
But where's a week ago?
My heart got kicked out of all its holes
That time, yeah, just didn't work out
So I guess I'm dying, oh
And I really know where I'm gonna have to go
'Cause all my girls would rather be alone
So one thing we were talking about that we just,
before we started recording that we decided we'd wait
to see if you had anything to say about,
are you aware of Skyline Chili?
As a Midwestern human being
who has toured the last 27 years, yes,
I have been cursed with knowing exactly what Skyline Chili is.
But like, there's no Skyline Chili's in Chicago, are there?
I don't think there's any Skyline Chili's outside of Ohio.
I think most of them are even localized in Cincinnati.
I'm not even sure if there's any in Cleveland.
I could be wrong about that, but it is very much a Cincinnati thing.
A southern Ohio.
You know, so one thing that's interesting to me that I always like kind of forget about
is that Cincinnati's practically in Kentucky.
The day we played in Cincinnati a few nights ago
and just going to take like a shower at a hotel.
To drive to this hotel, we literally drove in and out of Kentucky twice.
'Cause it's like going on these bridges over the river
to like weave around and stuff.
Yeah, Cincinnati's a weird thing 'cause you think of it as like a corner central Ohio town
but then there's like Covington, Kentucky, which is right there,
which is actually way cooler than Cincinnati, right?
And then there's also Evansville, Indiana right there.
So it's like sort of like at that--
It's got its own little tri-state area.
Yeah, well yeah, totally.
I love tri-state area. Me and Jake haven't grown up in one tri-state area.
That's right.
We're always big fans.
C-T-N-Y-N-J.
Okay, so you started to hit Skyline on tour, but like growing up in Chicago, that wasn't--
No, no, well no, it totally doesn't exist here.
But like, you know, as soon as you go to Cincinnati--
There's four-- I mean, it's weird.
I mean, it's Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, and Florida.
How many Florida locations?
Florida truly is just like this crazy vortex, different things pop up.
It looks like there's six locations in Florida, and they're really sort of--
Florida?
Not really concentrated. I mean, they're just sort of like all over the state.
And how many are there in Ohio?
800.
Oh, no.
Is it like the Tim Hortons of Southern Ohio?
I wasn't there for it, so--
Did you eat there?
No, no, the reason I--
What do they serve?
Sounds like you've eaten there, Brendan.
[laughter]
Yeah, um, well, here, go ahead.
The reason that I was thinking about it is the first time I went to Cincinnati,
which I think actually was with Dirty Projectors,
I remember just wandering into one with Wes Miles, who was on tour at the time.
And we just wandered into one, just kind of like-- it just looked like a diner.
And then they're like-- you saw that you could get chili on spaghetti,
and we're like, "That's weird. Let's try that."
So I was thinking about it again, because when we played in Cincinnati,
the place wasn't called like the Skyline Amphitheater or anything,
but we're on stage, and I wanted to go out into the house during soundcheck
to just hear how something sounded.
So I was like, "Oh, can you guys play that part, and I'll go out into the house?"
Because it's funny how you could play a show where you just go on stage
and you hang backstage, and you don't actually set foot.
Totally.
And you don't really have a sense of what the place looks like
from the fan perspective.
But so this time I happened to go out, and then I look out,
and then flanking each side of the stage are two screens
that say, "Sponsored by Skyline Chili, Chili Vision."
[laughter]
So I was just like, "This is just amazing that people will be watching this whole show
and then watching these screens of us in Chili Vision."
So then I was like, "Oh, yeah, Skyline Chili."
And then so I was like, "Can we get some Skyline Chili for our after-show food?"
You kind of eat dinner after the show, late.
And then they brought some, but for some reason they didn't bring the spaghetti.
They just brought hot dogs and chili.
Well, so you can get Skyline Chili.
It's something like five ways or six ways.
Yeah, three-way, five-way, which has to do with the toppings or something.
Yeah, and spaghetti is one of the ways.
It doesn't always come on spaghetti.
I don't know too much about this because that sure should have been sponsored
by Skyline Chili and Pepto-Bismol.
But, like, the--I don't know.
People from Cincinnati swear by it.
It's one of those things that's just like, "Hey, this is where I'm from.
We love this stuff. I understand if you don't like it, but I go here all the time."
I've eaten there once, and I will not make that mistake again.
But the chili is like swimming in cinnamon.
Okay, yes. All right.
Yes, that's wild because I was eating some of the chili, and I was like--
well, the way that I put--I wasn't grossed out by it.
I was like, "This is a very subtle and sophisticated flavor profile."
And then I was like, "What am I tasting?"
And somebody was like, "I think there's cinnamon in it."
And I was like, "I don't know that much about--I'm not good at piecing out spices
or something, but--"
Some cardamom in there?
I can picture just eating some high school cafeteria chili.
I can picture what that would taste like, like really kind of like acidic whatever.
Whether or not you like it, that's like interesting.
I just don't believe you described Skylar and chili as subtle and sophisticated.
Wait, okay.
Has anybody in the room ever made chili?
I have. I make chili all the time.
Really?
Yeah.
All the time?
Yeah, turkey chili. Make like a pot on a Sunday.
Would you put cinnamon in?
I've put cinnamon--like a cinnamon stick. I've done that before.
Yeah.
Yeah, I mean like brown sugar cinnamon. Those are like flavor profiles.
Definitely.
But there's a lot of cinnamon in Skylar and chili.
But I feel like it's really kind of overpowering.
I'm not much on sweet flavors, and I know cinnamon's not always sweet,
but in Skylar and chili, it really does taste sweet to me.
Right. Well, it's certainly unusual. Maybe that's what I'm saying.
It's like--
Too much sugar.
I could almost picture something like--I don't know about on the spaghetti,
because I didn't have--I think that's the thing that--
Well, that's the part that really--
That's the part that really makes people weird it out.
I could picture the chili itself like--I could kind of picture like a story
like in Bon Appetit, when this French chef's flight got laid over in Cincinnati,
he tasted Skylar and chili, and he actually declared it
one of the great undiscovered pillars of American cuisine or something.
So I'll just tell you a little bit about the recipe of it.
Yeah.
So they say that it is now sort of synonymous with "Cincinnati chili."
Oh, okay.
And the history of the guy who created Greek Immigrant is pretty interesting.
Cincinnati chili/Skyline chili.
The ingredients include ground beef, water, stock, tomato paste,
spices such as cinnamon, nutmeg, allspice, clove, cumin, chili powder, baby leaf,
and some unsweetened dark chocolate.
So--
Oh, you know what?
That's funny you say dark chocolate, because somebody was eating it,
and they're like, "It has kind of a Mexican mole quality."
Interesting.
Well, you know, the most interesting thing about Skyline chili is that,
you know, on St. Patrick's Day, they dye the noodles green.
So you get the, like, pile of chili on the green noodles,
and it is so gnarly looking.
That sounds pretty unappetizing.
It really is.
Like, if you woke up and that was, like, in your bed,
you'd be like, "Take me to the hospital right now."
Yeah.
You know, also the other thing is, like I said, it's such a regional thing,
and people in Cincinnati love it so much.
I don't want to sound like I'm, like, totally talking s--t on Skyline chili.
It's just not for me.
You know what I mean?
Like, it's very different, and I get regionalism.
I mean, I'm from Chicago.
We've got a lot of weird--
Well, yeah, what's the Chicago version of--
We've got hot dogs loaded up with, like, everything you could possibly--
Well, you know, we had some hot dogs after the show last night,
which were great.
From where?
I don't know where they were from, but the bun had poppy seeds on it,
which I loved.
Was it Wiener Circle?
No, I've heard of Wiener Circle, so I asked, and they were like--
It's a great name.
I don't know if this was from, like, a fan's place.
The one thing that I noticed--
Everything was great, and they had cheese and mustard and stuff.
The one thing that shocked me was when I opened the relish,
it was a crazy-colored green.
Is that a Chicago thing?
It's, like, emerald green.
It's a bright green--
Very unnatural-looking.
Yeah, it sure is.
It's, like, a more fresh kind of tasting relish.
It didn't taste bad.
I think it's actually, like, sort of, like, less fermented, you know,
which sort of, like, adds to the greenness.
And I'm sure because this is the Midwest, and, you know,
not far from here, people have been known to dye their noodles green
on St. Patrick's Day.
I'm sure there's dye in that relish, but, yeah,
that's, like, really a hallmark of a Chicago dog.
Sport peppers, mustard, tomato, chopped onion, pickle.
# Saturday in the park #
# I think it was the 4th of July #
# Saturday in the park #
# I think it was the 4th of July #
# People dancing, people laughing #
# A man selling ice cream #
# Singing Italian songs #
# Everybody is saying #
# I bet, can you dig it #
# Yes, I can #
# And I've been waiting such a long time #
# Saturday #
What about deep dish pizza?
Is that really a thing, or is that kind of overhyped?
So here's the thing about deep dish pizza is,
so deep dish pizza started in, like, the mid-40s, right,
with, you know, people argue whether it's, like,
Pizzeria Uno or Lou Malnati's or whatever.
Right.
Chicago-style pizza that's been around
since, like, the early '20s is tavern-style,
cut into squares, served at bars,
cracker-thin crust, cheese and sauce all the way to the edge.
That's what everybody here eats all the time.
Thin.
Very, very thin.
Interesting.
And, you know, like, your aunt comes to town,
and she's like, "I want to try Chicago deep dish pizza."
I mean, it's like somebody coming here from Germany
thinking that we eat Thanksgiving dinner every night.
You know?
Right.
Yeah, yeah.
It's like, no, that is a thing that exists here,
but, like, when there's all, like, this sort of weird,
like, partisanship about, like, New York pizza
versus Chicago pizza, everyone in Chicago is just like,
"That's not even a f***ing pizza, man."
Like, that pizza is for you when you come here.
See, this is crazy, because I've literally--
I always had a feeling that there was something
about deep dish pizza that didn't feel like
people in Chicago cared as much about it
as I was led to believe,
but I didn't know about this thin stuff.
Yeah, yeah, so, like, it started out--
Chicago burned down in 1870.
Oh, yeah, the Great Chicago--
when the cow kicked over the lantern.
That's right.
Yeah, that's right.
Whoa.
Did you know about that?
No, I didn't know that.
Old Lady O'Leary, man, her cow kicked over a lantern,
they say.
The fire station is there, where that shed used to be.
And the city burned down, and so that's why we have, like,
such a great skyline, because there was, like,
a sort of an architecture contest
to see who could, like, make the best buildings.
And so, you know, this became, like, the birthplace
of the modern skyscraper, and also they decided
to adopt the Glasgow grid system, right?
Which was, like, the most, like, well-planned-out city
at the time, because this was, like,
a real experiment in city planning in a--
Because they just got--
this is a big city that got handed a clean slate.
Right, yeah.
You know, you get a chance to, like, start over
with a city of, like, over a million people.
It's like, let's do it, like, totally as clean as we can.
So the original grid plan involves, like,
this many houses, a corner store, and a pub, right?
And so Chicago has always been, like,
a city with, like, more bars than--
I mean, the drinking culture here is the culture here, right?
So these tavern-style pizzas evolved from that,
where they'd put them out, like,
instead of, like, bar peanuts or whatever,
they'd put out these pizzas, cut them into squares
instead of into slices to, like, make them last longer.
That's really where the evolution--
At a classic bar that's doing it old school like that,
do you pay for the pizza, or that comes with the drinks?
The way it used to be traditionally
was that the pizzas were just out.
I have yet to see somebody just put out a [bleep] pizza
and be like, "Go ahead and party with the pizza for free."
But, you know, Chicago's evolved a lot
just since I became of drinking age,
which was a while ago, but, like,
it used to be every third beer was free,
and every fifth beer, you got a free shot.
Like, that was just a Chicago thing?
You could comfortably walk into a bar expecting that?
Yes. Wow.
Like a policy.
Someone's keeping tabs, or, like,
how do they-- you just say, "This is my fifth"?
Like, if it was a crowded bar, "Yeah, this is my third beer.
Oh, okay." No, no, no, no.
At a crowded bar, it wouldn't necessarily be like that.
But at, like, a pub-feeling spot, yeah.
You know, like, if you're, like, a dive bar,
and it's, like, 6 o'clock,
and there's, like, 20 people sitting at the bar,
you can pretty much guarantee
that's the way your night would roll,
and that's-- you know, that dream is dead now,
but, you know, it's pretty cool.
I mean, like, the--
What happened?
The destruction of the community?
Capitalism, people got--
No civic spirit.
What happened to everything?
Okay.
Rising to Internet.
Yeah.
Trump.
That's right, yeah.
Too many video games.
Trump's fault.
Yeah.
What about Italian beef?
Italian beef is a weird one.
It's definitely a Chicago proprietary thing.
Al's is considered widely to be the birthplace of Italian beef,
and so if you guys don't know what it is,
or if you do for the listeners or whatever,
it's essentially like a-- kind of like a Philly cheesesteak,
but there's no cheese, and it's, like, peppers and beef,
and then you dunk the entire sandwich in, like, an au jus.
Yeah.
Right?
And then you have to eat it.
The counters, they're set up very specifically
because you have to stand kind of, like, with your ass out
and, like, your body away from it
because the sandwich [bleep] falls apart.
I mean, it's like--
Oh, you just become trash.
Yeah, it's like-- it's made of, like, you know,
decomposing plutonium or something.
Yeah.
And you just kind of, like, have to, like--
you can't really eat it, like, sitting down
unless you want to walk out looking like
Barth from "You Can't Do That on Television" or something.
[laughter]
So how often would you eat that in a year?
Me, personally, [bleep] never.
Never?
No, no.
It's-- they're really good, but just the--
I mean, you look like you just, like, delivered a baby
when you're done with those things.
I mean, like, you're-- it's so-- they're so wet and gross.
It's just--
Ooh.
But they are delicious.
I mean, like, I've had my share of Italian beefs,
but I think I'm a little old for that now, you know?
Yeah, when you're young and crazy.
Yeah, that's right.
[music - "i'll burn my eyes out"]
(SINGING) Today is the greatest day that I know.
Can't live for tomorrow.
Tomorrow's my choice.
I'll burn my eyes out.
Before I get out.
I want it all.
And I would have a refuge.
Oh, I find it's your unsaid place.
Let's check in with an official "Time Crisis" correspondent.
What's your favorite internet radio show?
"Time Crisis."
Ding, ding, ding.
[laughter]
Are goldfish a children's snack?
No.
Absolutely not a children's snack.
No hummus on goldfish.
How many fridges do you have?
My family grew up-- I'm a three-fridge home.
I'm a three-fridge home.
Sadly, only one.
Firmly one.
Unfortunately.
How many fridges did Lonnie Dads have?
Well, he has, I think, one fridge, but also a freezer chest.
Real PC head.
"Time Crisis" with Ezra Koenig.
So tell us a little bit about the origins of Nihilist Arby's.
So I used to work at an advertising agency here in town in the Hancock building.
What was going on with the band at that point when you were working a day job?
So we got off the touring cycle on an album that kind of changed our career.
And then we kind of stopped because I had a kid, and then once that kid was almost two,
my wife got pregnant again.
And so we still maintained-- we go to New York, we go to Denver, we go to L.A.
We'd play big cities, but we were on a really light touring schedule.
Over the course of that time, we found out this, like, "Oh, [bleep] we don't tour at all now."
We've been around long enough, and we've been doing 300 days a year for 15 years or whatever.
We're getting a lot more popular.
So we just kind of slowed down and rode with the fact that less was becoming more for us.
Was it because the album was doing well?
The album was doing well, and our style of punk rock was becoming really popular.
And all of a sudden--
Like you were saying.
As opposed to being these sort of weird outliers that played this weird kind of music,
all of a sudden we became the godfathers of this sound.
You were entering the OG phase.
We went from everybody being like, "Who the [bleep] are these guys?"
to like, "Oh, these guys have been doing this since the beginning.
These are the guys that do this right."
Perseverance.
Which, again, I'd love to say it was perseverance, but it was more like,
"It's too late for me to get another job. I don't know what to do."
That's a lot of artists and bands, though.
Yeah, true.
They're like, "Oh."
So I was working as a copywriter in this ad agency, and I had a meeting in a conference room,
and then I had [bleep] that I had to get done right now.
So the next meeting came in, and it was my friend who was the social media director there.
I was like, "Do you mind if I just sit in here? I have to bang this out right now."
So she was in there with this company--
You know what? I really don't give a [bleep] I'll mention who they are.
They're called Pan, and they're a pre-ground cornmeal company.
Okay.
The guy's like, "So we want to make Pan the premier go-to pre-ground cornmeal for every kitchen,
whether it be a Michelin-starred restaurant or your grandma's house."
Cool.
And he's like, "And we want to use Twitter," which to me is like trying to safely land the space shuttle
with a handful of Diet Coke. It's just like it's the wrong tool.
You know what I mean? The two things don't really work together.
Plus, there's no way to have a proprietary ownership on pre-ground cornmeal.
It's a raw material, you know?
Right.
It's like flour.
Yeah. It's like, "What's your favorite flour?"
It's like, "I don't know. The one in the bag that's literally closest to my hand, that's my favorite flour."
What about salt, dude?
And there also is something like when you do try to take just a regular commonplace thing and make it the one.
Obviously, I guess I can't knock a brand or somebody who works for a brand for warning to have ambition.
But when you're taking something like that, like if you work at a flour company, you're like, "We want to be the flour."
Obviously, what you're saying, it's like Starbucks or something.
It's like, "We want to destroy any small business or local group or person who does what we do."
It's like when you really break it down, it's an intense ambition.
Yeah. It's definitely weird.
And so the social media director, she's like, "Well, arepas are really hot with chefs and stuff."
And he's like, "No, we don't want to hang our hat on the arepa. We are the Venezuelan cornmeal."
It's bigger than arepas.
It's not just about the arepa.
And from what I've learned, and I don't know how true this is, but I've heard several people say it.
Venezuela is kind of like the Ireland of South America in that you would never advertise your food as being from there
because it's famous for not having the greatest cuisine, even though I just found out there's a Venezuelan restaurant in my area.
That's a South American perspective.
Yeah.
But arepas come from Venezuela?
Yeah.
I love arepas.
Yeah, yeah. And there's a restaurant in my neighborhood that kills it that's Venezuelan.
So that's already a hard sell, I think.
Right.
And then she's like, "Okay, we can't use arepas."
And I just see her soul just getting sucked out of her body right there in real time.
Right.
And I'm just like, "Man."
I'm starting a Twitter account about this because it's like, "What if you were this social media director
and the horror of this job just drained all of your will to live and care about anything,
but at the end of it you had to still put in this catchy, "Enjoy pond, cornmeal."
And I was like, "I should call it Nihilist Arby's or something, but not that stupid."
I picked Arby's pretty much at random, and I just thought that it was just a funny word, kind of.
But this was the era of Wendy's starting to clap back and brands.
No, no, no.
Oh, it was before.
What year did you start the account?
2015.
And I was like, "It should be Nihilist Arby's, but not that stupid."
And then I was like, "No."
My mentor in advertising was like, "It can never be too stupid.
It can never even be stupid enough."
And I was like, "Okay, so Nihilist Arby's it is."
That's amazing.
And I just did it as a joke.
I did a few tweets.
I didn't really think much of it.
And then one day I look at my phone after launch, and I've got like 20,000 notifications.
I'm like, "That's more than even if my parents had died or something,
so I don't know what the hell's going on here."
And the whole thing just f*cking exploded.
Wow.
And then they started writing articles about it in Adweek and being like,
"Who is this weird, subversive guy?"
That's interesting.
So you feel like could they tell that you were an insider?
I mean, there was speculation of all different kinds of things.
It was like, "Is it a comedian?
Is it a performance artist?
Is it a disgruntled copywriter?"
It was a disgruntled copywriter, but--
Anybody speculate member of a punk band?
No, no, that never came up.
But that's where it came from.
It came from people a lot of times, particularly when it was first taking off
and all the articles were getting published and stuff,
people would send me their ideas for tweets.
It's always about death and sandwiches, and it's like, "No, that's not the intersection.
The intersection is the horror of having to be a social media director
and then still having to soullessly show for a brand."
That's where it comes together.
You're really splitting hairs when you're talking about something this stupid,
but it really makes all the difference.
We do that a lot here.
I feel like once or twice we got an email because we used to always kind of
joke about the person running the account for a brand.
I feel like once or twice we had people be like, "You know, you've got to have sympathy for those people."
The recent college grad who just gets saddled with that--
Yeah, no, it's terrible and thankless, but I don't know.
Far be it for me to begrudge anyone from making a living.
We had a guy on the show once who runs social media for a Texas-based wings chain called Pluckers.
Nice.
He basically is an eyeless because when we were talking about it with him,
he kept being like, "You know what? What did he do before? He was a journalist."
That's the best part. He was a journalist.
So basically his catchphrase is, "It's a dumb time to be alive."
He's like, "Look at what's going on in the world. It's a dumb time to be alive.
I'm just going to run this account. It's going to be stupid.
I'm just going to do whatever it takes for retweets," which I guess in a way is a healthy attitude.
Maybe being an eyeless is a healthy attitude when you have that job.
I think being an eyeless is a pretty healthy attitude in the world today in general
because people tend to think of it as a sort of like what's an album that comes up all the time
when people talk about nihilism is the second NWA album.
The backwards one?
I'm not saying.
Yeah, you're not going to say that.
No.
And it's like, sure, that is a way that nihilism can manifest,
but the real underlying philosophy is like, "I can't do anything about this.
Nothing matters. Anything I do, I have to do because it serves my purposes,"
whether that's like raise your child right or learn about things or ignore the TV or whatever it is, travel a lot.
Nihilism can be like a really freeing and enlightened philosophy, but it's maligned.
It gets a bad reputation as being pessimistic as opposed to realistic.
Right. Well, I mean, there's optimism, there's pessimism, and then there's nihilism.
It's literally not the other ones, but it's up to you to decide sort of the whole thing.
I've become a lot more philosophically engaged with the whole thing than I ever expected.
So by starting Nihilist Arby's, you've actually gone deeper on the philosophy?
Yeah, and I know a lot about the Arby's menu too.
Yeah. So if you want to learn more about Arby's, go to Arby's.
If you want to learn more about nihilism, who should we read?
I mean, people would say Nietzsche, but you could just watch Rick and Morty. Rick and Morty is a nihilist show.
It's very nihilistic.
Yeah, for sure. I mean, he just like destroys worlds and then like recreates simulcrums of his friends, and he's like, "Okay, good enough."
Riders on the storm, riders on the storm
Into this house we're born, into this world we're thrown
Like a dog without a bone and factor out of law
Riders on the storm, there's a killer on the road
His brain is squirming like a toad
Take a long holiday, let your children play
If you give this man a ride, sweet family will die
Killer on the road
You guys want to know something I don't think I've ever shared. I must have shared it personally with you, and I'm checking with my dad because this seems like maybe it's
a story that was told to me growing up and I just didn't dig under the hood enough.
But my family's from Akron, Ohio, and according to my dad—
Very different climate than Cleveland.
Very different climate, was going to jump in, very different climate than Cleveland. But that my—I don't know who it would be—my dad's great uncle or something is the
creator/founder of Arby's.
What?
Look, I just texted my—I'm going to call him because I know that this is something—
It's a Weidenfeld?
That he sold it, so started as an independent business and then sold it and made nothing from it. So created the first Arby's, if not in Akron, in just outside of, I don't
know, Ohio.
So, I mean, it's wild, but that's what I was always told growing up is that he got royally screwed.
He's like the McDonald Brothers.
So it wasn't a chain. He had one—
No, he had the first Arby's and then someone came in, bought him out.
And went corporate.
Corporate.
Alright, well for the next episode you got to—
I'm going to get more, yeah, but it is something that—
He probably became a nihilist.
Without a doubt.
After that.
So I think everyone—
So we'll all follow up with you guys on that, but I know just one of those things, I'm sure we all have it, that I just remember people just sort of—my dad saying something
like that, but because they're like, "Yeah, no one really talks about it because it's sort of a sore subject."
I bet.
But now as I say it out loud, and this is what our show's about—
Your dad's going to come back like, "No, it wasn't Arby's in Akron. It was actually this chili chain in Cincinnati called Skyline. He started—it was his idea to put it on
spaghetti and they just f***** him, man."
And that's why we never eat chili on spaghetti in this family.
Okay, so last month Kim Kardashian, she got on Twitter and she wrote, "Hey Jack in the Box, I have a serious complaint, but I won't fully put you on blast. Check your
corporate email inbox or send me a DM with direct person from my team to contact, pronto."
It's very entitled.
How f***** important could it possibly be?
Do you know what I mean?
Right.
I cannot imagine a situation—okay, Kim Kardashian may very well have a multi-million dollar deal with Jack in the Box that involves a bunch of corporate lawyers and a
huge profit sharing situation.
I don't think you go to Twitter and go, "Yo, Jack in the Box, you gotta talk to me about this s**t."
Oh yeah, I wonder if it is some brilliant maneuver where they were like, "Kim, Jack in the Box is down for the Super Bowl ad, but we can't get them to go over $15 million for
your fee."
And she's like, "I got an idea."
I mean, maybe—
She does something just to make them see her power?
It just seems remarkable to me. I mean, I don't believe anything on the internet, you know? So, the motivations are obviously—
I'm so naive. I just pictured her at the drive-thru of the Jack in the Box in Calabasas, and there was just like—
There was like a hair in the something.
She's like, "You're f***** out of tacos? You think you're f***** out of tacos? Wait, hold on, let me get it on my phone."
Well, so all the fast food brands jumped in. Carl's Jr. wrote, "Psalm 520, thou shalt not go to Jack in the Box."
Hooters wrote, "Not a good day to be Jack."
Steakums wrote, "Kim, why are you even going to Jack in the Box? LOL."
Wendy's wrote, "But like, who even goes there?"
That's whack. Steakums and Wendy's basically making the same joke.
Burger King wrote, "Jack in the Box to the principal's office."
Well, this—
That's weak.
The story continues to unfold.
Oh, really?
Jack in the Box then writes back to her and says, "Hi, Kim. We're unable to DM you. Please send us a DM with how we can get in touch with your team or someone. We'll reach out
immediately."
Oh, and by the way, Kim Kardashian's very familiar with how DMs work.
And then she knew they couldn't DM her.
So this is her response.
Yeah.
"I would like to add—" Well, this is, I guess, sort of illuminating what's going on, not really responding to them.
"I would like to add that this is not about me or a wrong order. Nobody recognized me."
That seems hard to believe. "Nobody recognized me, and it's something that I observed that affected other customers at this particular location that was
concerning."
Whoa. So she was at a JITB.
Yeah, it was one of those—
That rolled off the tongue.
You know, she was—you know those days when Kim Kardashian walks into a Jack in the Box, but something else bigger is going on at that same Jack in the Box?
Yeah, no one recognized her.
That's one of those days.
She observes from a sort of—
That's never happened.
Yeah, what was she wearing? Like a costume? Maybe she just actually played herself.
You know what would be amazing? They were like, "Will Kim do something with Jack in the Box?"
And she was like, "Can we come up with something that lets people know that I do go to Jack in the Box, but also kind of makes me look like a boss?"
And they were like, "All right." You know?
Because it is funny that the big take—this is ultimately good for JITB.
Because the big takeaway from people is like, "Whoa, Kim Kardashian goes to Jack in the Box?"
In fact, I think it makes all those other brands look pretty bad.
Because they're all like, "Who even goes there?"
And that article you just showed me said, "Kim Kardashian goes there."
Yeah, Kim Kardashian goes there.
That's who.
You know, it's kind of like that whole thing with Coors and Bud Light, where they started that feud around the Super Bowl.
Where Bud Light was like—I believe this is the right—
It was about what the—do they use corn syrup?
They use corn syrup.
But they both use corn syrup, but just one of them doesn't have to list it for some reason.
Oh, classic.
But Anheuser-Busch and Miller Coors are trying to have a merger right now.
Oh.
So it's like they created this huge beef, but it's like this is right at the point of your merger.
This is all obviously orchestrated to be like—you know, it's publicity for both brands.
Fake beef.
That's for—
Wow.
Yeah.
Those are identical products, basically.
Yeah.
I mean, that is—
Is that professional wrestling? Fake rivalries?
Wow.
Oh, totally.
But, you know, the thing is when you get down to these brands and responding to this, all sassy and stuff, it's like that sh*t didn't happen before Nihilist Arby's.
Wow.
And I don't mean to be like, "Dude, I changed the game," because it was just a dumb joke.
But really, you can look at the timelines.
Before that, it was like, "Ten nuggets for $1.99.
Come on down to McDonald's.
What's your favorite kind of shake?"
Yeah.
That kind of sh*t, right?
Yeah.
And then, like, people came out and showed that my engagement was so much higher than the Arby's actual Twitter engagement.
It was—their tweets were getting—
I wonder if Arby's noticed an uptick in people coming in and they were just kind of like, "Oh."
Yeah.
I mean, I've definitely got a friendly relationship with Arby's at this point.
When my Twitter got hacked, they were the first people that called me and they were like, "We've got to get you back on Twitter."
Did you eat there for free?
No.
If I were to go to Arby's, I would pay for it.
I don't know that—
But is that just out of principle?
Yes.
Yes, it is.
Yeah.
I'm sure if you wanted to, you could get, like, lifetime supply.
The gold card.
Yeah.
Well, you know, it's also funny how, like—I don't know.
I'm sure somebody could put it more eloquently about how, like, ultimately, like, you know, capitalism is great at incorporating even the critiques.
Because a big one that a lot of people hit us up about that we talked about was the one where, like, Stake-Ums got, like, really deep where they were kind of like, "What's
the f*cking point of this?"
What was, like, the big Stake-Ums moment?
They were, like, with crushing student loan debt and increasing alienation and loneliness.
No wonder people want to engage with a brand.
Like, we realize this is all bullsh*t, but, like, our lives are so f*cked.
And it really did put Stake-Ums on the map in terms of, like, way more people talking about Stake-Ums.
But basically, Stake-Ums went full Nihilist Arby's, kind of.
Well, like, kind of. But, like, they started out trying to be really negative and, like, engage with Wendy's and be like, "Come on, motherf*ckers."
And then Wendy's kind of, like, roasted them.
And then there was this huge media frenzy where everybody was like, "Stake-Ums kind of like a working class Pennsylvania thing for, like, you know, people that live in
these, like, sort of underserved communities."
And, like, "How dare you, Wendy's?" Right?
And then Stake-Ums, like, took that and twisted it around.
And now their, like, tagline is, like, "Stake-Ums bless." Right?
Oh, right, right.
That's their tagline. And, like, the guy that runs that account, he's, like, contacted me before.
Like, when he first started, he contacted me on the Arby's account. He contacted me on my own account and everything.
And are you a little bit just, like, fall back?
Well, no, no. Like, whatever, man. Again, it's, like, far be it for me to tell anyone how to make a living or, like, what to do.
But, like, this is why brands cannot exist on Twitter in any sort of authentic way.
Because brands don't f***ing love you, man.
The analogy I would use is brands are the creepy guy at the end of the bar that wants to f*** your sister.
He doesn't care if she can handle it. He is out there for one thing.
It's, like, "I want your money. I want you to buy Burger King products." That's it.
Say anything. Do anything.
So any sort of, like, you know, "Suicide's no joke." It's, like, "F*** you, Burger King." You know?
Well, and I feel like we saw good—we've seen some good call-outs when Burger King or somebody gets into that stuff.
And then somebody else is like, "Oh, do you cover, like, health insurance and, you know, mental health care for your employees?"
And they're just kind of like, "Mm-hmm."
The whole thing is, like, that's sort of, like, where, like, Nihilist Arby's even came from.
Was, like, you just can't be an authentic brand on Twitter. There is no room for you.
It's, like, it started out as such a weird—you know, when Twitter started out, people were like,
"Hey, just brushed my teeth. Walk into the store." You know?
And, like, it's like, "Who wants to read this bulls***?"
And then, like, all these, like, weird subversive geniuses got on there and, like, turned it into this medium that was, like, brand new.
Like, you know, like, you see, like, Drill.
Oh, yeah. Legend.
You know, and, like, his tweets or, like, Tigers Go Roar.
Any of these people that are just, like, these brilliant—that created, like, a new form of comedy that was, like, "I've never seen anything like this.
I didn't know, like, a sentence and a half could be, like, this absurdist thing that, like, makes me, like, cry laughing."
Yeah.
So it's, like, this brand new thing, and then brands are like, "Whoop-a-dee-doo! Here we come!"
And it's, like, if you're, like, imitating subversive geniuses, creating a new art form as a brand, it really rarely goes very well, I think.
Well, their follower counts, I'm sure, skyrocketed.
But are they selling more Steakums? My theory is that the Steakum sales are the same.
I would love to know that.
I wonder.
Twitter does nothing.
Yeah.
Would you ever pick, like, where you get your tires rotated based on, like, a clever tweet?
No.
It would, like, never f***ing happen in a million years.
You'd be like, "Uh, this place at the end of my street rotates tires. I'm doing it there."
You know? And, like, at least, like, a Popeyes commercial, they, like, drop the chicken nuggets slowly, and it appeals to, like, your, like, period, like, lizard
brain.
You know what I mean?
Like, on Twitter, it's just like, "Oh, Popeyes was funny."
You gon' get that word.
Redhead with some pigtails, better check the score of these meals, sell.
Now, that's better, I'm so clever, my bars chilly, better grab a sweater.
You blocked my tweets, King Squash the beef, now you check my feed and your eyes swelling.
How you love that? These straight facts, tryna take the swag, but we don't want it back.
Got my bars chipped, and they hate with that, but we tried your food, where the flavor at?
You number one, that's a joke.
Why your ice cream machine always broke?
Why your drive-thru always slow?
Why your innovation just can't grow?
It's Queen, we need the same old.
Nope, uh, that bacon ate it.
Bacon ate it, go crazy, that spicy chicken go crazy.
You can take a fry, dip it in the sauce, it still be so tasty.
Them little tweets don't face me, McDonald's be so lazy.
I know the reason you hate me, 'cause I'm fast food's first lady.
It's Queen Wendy up in this thing, y'all can't be the servant of things.
Y'all too chicken for this beef, I'ma leave you resting in grease.
Nuts for carter, retweet, boy, you know you can't compete.
On top of reggae, man, watch out.
See, there's no stopping me.
What would be interesting in a few years, when like the dust has settled,
just to look back and say, "Alright, Wendy's."
You clap back thousands of times, what was it worth?
I feel like we researched it when IHOP changed their name to IHOB.
We got conflicting results about that.
And I remember I was like, "They're not selling more burgers 'cause of that."
But that was a massive like 360 PR campaign, like that wasn't just Twitter.
But still, were people going to IHOP because they're selling burgers,
which they already were, and we already have enough burgers.
I just couldn't imagine someone was like, "That's clever,
they turned the B over to-- or a P over to a B, that's so funny.
Let's go there and eat."
I mean, everything under the sun has been done, you know,
so at a certain point, especially if you're like some dipshit brand manager,
you're like, "Uh, what about like clear Pepsi?"
You know, and that was like in the '90s, you know,
and we're 30 years away from that now.
So we already ran out of ideas at clear Pepsi, and now people are just--
So what did your agency that you worked for, think of Nihilist Arby's?
Did not like it very much at all.
Right.
You don't work there anymore?
I don't.
'Cause it is sort of like an indictment of advertising in a way.
Very much so.
So I could see them really not taking kindly.
I stopped working there, and then because of Nihilist Arby's,
I went and worked for The Onion.
And so I was there for like the last two and a half years,
and they just got sold, and then there was like crazy layoffs,
so I'm gone from there.
But no, the traditional advertising agency was not--
even though it was like the global heads like in England or whatever
were like, "Check out our copywriter," and then like the local office here
was just like, "No!"
It was--you know, and my boss is like, "What is this?"
I'm like, "This six-page article in Adweek about me
where they literally call me a genius in the headline,
I think it's pretty good for us."
Right.
And I mean, I'm no genius, by the way.
But like it's advertising, so it's got to be pretty serious.
Somebody who thinks about branding would consider that a win.
Yeah.
And instead they were like, "No, we have to scrub our name out of this article."
And it was only because I gave the guy the exclusive story
that he agreed to go back and retract the name of the agency.
He was like, "I would never do this normally,
but since you gave me the exclusive scoop, I'll do it for you."
Like you said, when you look at everything that's happened
over the past few years, you would think that all these brands
that are betting big on Twitter and stuff like that,
that they would probably be happy to go to an agency that's like,
"Oh yeah, and then this guy runs Nautilus Darby's."
They'd be like, "Oh man, you're a legend."
Yeah.
Yeah, you'd think, but like everybody's a coward.
You know what I mean?
Like on the brand side, on the agency side, it's like--
I was--after I left that job, I went and this dude brought me
into this agency here, and he's like, "Check it out.
It's all graffiti from local graffiti artists.
We're playing hip-hop in the office, you know,
and we like to do really subversive, non-traditional, disruptive things."
And I'm like, "Everybody says that.
Can you give me an example?"
And he's like, "No, I mean, no, I can't.
No, we don't actually do that."
Right.
Wow.
So that's the sad truth.
It's like everybody wants to take credit for when somebody
does something against the grain and they don't get fired fast enough.
And it's like, "Oh, thank God we had this brilliant genius,"
but really they are like, "Oh, you're getting fired,"
and then it's like, "Oh, nope, that worked out. Okay."
Right.
Because everything looks stupid until it's proven.
Right.
I mean that's why any of our bands exist in any sort of peak
of any sort of scene.
That seems like a really stupid idea, but nobody's doing it.
Maybe it's not as stupid as it seems.
And then you do it, and then all of a sudden people are like,
"Oh, this is awesome, and nobody else is really doing this."
And it's like, "Whoa, these guys are great. I always knew it."
Wait, and what was the quote you had from your mentor before?
"It can never be too stupid. It can never even be stupid enough."
Was this person like a Don Draper type?
No, he was just like an older copywriter guy that I worked with on a few projects.
And he was just kind of like showing me the ropes a little bit.
He wasn't like--I don't even remember his f*cking name, to be honest.
Yeah, it's a great quote.
Well, thanks so much for coming by and talking to us.
Can we play your favorite Lawrence Armstrongs?
What would that be?
There's a song on our last record called "Metropole," and it's the song "Metropole."
That would be a song that I think would be--
Sick. Let's check it out.
--pretty exemplary.
Brush off the hours of your day I'm buried in the distant dusk
Winding paths, uncertain roads, histories remapped
I'm not together, I'm apart I'm not together, I'm apart
The wilderness of these streets The neon trees shine their lights down on me
Years on repeat Years on repeat
Mother, I don't even care I thought I tried
I'm so sorry I never called and I never rang
The traffic lights blinked a million times I blinked twice and 20 years went by
20 years went by
The wilderness of these streets The neon trees shine their lights down on me
Years of defeat Years of defeat
We're stuck somewhere in between The sounds of the fog cast their eyes
And swirl all around me This is the end of all things
This is the end This is the end of all things
This is the end This is the end of all things
This is the end This is the end of all things
Let's check in with an official Time Crisis correspondent.
Who was your favorite father, and you cannot say your own father?
Who's my favorite father?
Five, four, three, two, one.
George Washington.
Um, Ezra Koenig.
Ezra Koenig, right?
Hank Hill.
His dad.
Her dad.
Does it count?
One through a check in Caledon.
Beats one.
Ezra Koenig's Time Crisis.
I wanna let you know I think you need to hear
It's been on my mind for about a year
What you did to me has gotta be a crime
You're out there living free You should be doing time
It should be illegal to me It should be illegal to me
It should be illegal to be so cruel to me
It's been driving me mad How you've been out and about
Oh, I get so upset I wanna scream and shout
You think that I don't care All the things that you do
You must be out of your mind You think I'm some kind of fool
Some kind of fool
It should be illegal to me It should be illegal to me
It should be illegal to be so cruel to me
Everybody's telling me it's nothing but your behavior
That I should just be warm and let you live your life and be your favorite
Oh, but it should be illegal to be Oh, it should be illegal to be
So cruel to me So cruel to me
Well, it's been a hell of an episode here in Chicago.
How are you trying to say-- You were trying to do Chicago with a Chicago accent the other day.
Oh, yeah. Well, Ryan, who plays Keys-- He's from Chicago.
Every time he says Chicago, there's a slight accent he has.
The problem that us coastal elites have when people try to do a Chicago accent,
it very quickly becomes almost like a Sweet Martha's Minnesota accent,
which is very different for a true Midwesterner.
Oh, by the way, just very quickly for people who don't know,
when Vampire Weekend played Minneapolis, Sweet Martha came out.
That's amazing. I saw the video. It was sick.
And we raised money for the St. Paul Public Library
by selling Vampire Weekend Sweet Martha's shirts.
Incredible. I saw those. They look great.
A true Minnesota grill.
I was trying to say it like Ryan says it, and he just makes the A a little more nasally.
Like Chicago. That's too much. I was saying Chicago, but he was like, "That's too much."
You got-- Right.
Chicago. [bleep]
[laughter]
I feel like the other-- If I just say it, I would say Chicago.
Chicago, that's what I would say. Chicago.
I'm trying to find the middle ground there. The middle ground.
Yeah, that's-- Chicago.
Chicago. Maybe it is the Chicago.
You kind of blasted it. I still feel like I'm going like full Fargo.
I know, I know.
Anyway, our true Chicagoans, let us know.
So one last thing.
We were talking about some of the great homemade merch we saw at the show.
We were alerted to the fact that some people--
Okay, I still don't even know the full backstory on this
because there's that great hat that somebody makes,
which is the 8-Minute Cape Cod hat, and it's a white hat,
and it says 8-Minute Cape Cod embroidered in all different letters.
Hannah has one, right? Yes.
Okay, my understanding is-- because none of this is--
We don't make official TC merch.
Well, I mean, I guess we make official giveaway merch.
So, okay, so Emmett Clark is the person who makes that hat.
And now my understanding is that that hat is kind of based off a shirt
that somebody else made that was an 8-Minute Cape Cod embroidered T-shirt
that one fan made.
Right, and that's based off of just the original--
Right, but the multicolored embroidered vibe,
that came from the fan merch community.
No matter what, this is-- we got no real horse in this race.
But anyway, Taylor Swift just unveiled a new line of merch
that kind of coordinated with her new album.
And from what I can see, her new album has a very colorful palette.
Her last album was kind of dark. This one has a more colorful palette.
So she has a hat. It's a white hat.
It says "Taylor Swift in multicolored embroidered lettering."
You know, I saw it and I was like, "That does remind me of the 8-Minute Cape Cod hat."
I don't have context to say whether these are just general trends
in the merch community.
The zeitgeist.
It could just be the zeitgeist.
And anyway, my take, even if we did somehow find out
that somebody on Taylor Swift's team was inspired by Time Crisis bootleg merch,
I would say that's cool.
That's a win for us.
That's a win for the Time Crisis community.
Right.
But, yeah, it's not like--
By us, I mean the Time Crisis community.
The Time Crisis community. The TCC.
The whole TCU, really.
Yeah, so I don't have a horse to race.
The TCC, the TCU.
So Matt hit up Emmett, who sent him the two hats,
just to see what he thought.
This is the guy who made the hat.
And Emmett wrote back, "Hey, Matt, best word I can think of is 'oof.'
Looks like it could even be the same future of BoldFont.
Could be grounds for a new feud.
TC vs TS 2K19."
Oh, we're not going for that.
Too powerful. Too political.
I appreciate the email. If you need to beg more,
I'd love to call in.
Not going to die on that hill.
You do your thing, Taylor.
But at this point, I'm just genuinely curious.
Right.
So maybe Seinfeld can put it out on Twitter just to see.
Again, no malice here.
Arguably, that's the whole point of how our system works,
is that people make bootleg merch that should be reincorporated
back into official merch from a different universe.
You know, that's the system we all signed up for.
So anyway, I'm just genuinely curious.
Is it possible that there's a connection,
or is this all just you're making a mountain out of a molehill
and somebody would be like, "Bro."
Because definitely embroidered text on T-shirts and hats
has been a trend for the past three to four years.
So yeah, I don't know.
Sound off in the comments.
Maybe we need to loop in somebody from GQ
or Women's Wear Daily or something to really let us know.
Could a design--and it wouldn't be Taylor Swift herself.
Is it possible a designer saw the 8-Minute Cape Cod hat
and said, "That's a cool vibe"?
That's all we want to know.
We're just asking questions.
Anyway, we'll find out.
So, yeah, Seinfeld, you get that out
and let us know what you find out on Twitter.
Well, it's been a great episode out here in Chicago.
Great weekend. Great Father's Day weekend.
Hopefully the show goes well tonight.
That's right, Sleeping Village.
Another 30-minute set from RP.
Yeah, maybe we'll get 40 minutes.
Oh, yeah.
Sort of depends.
But yeah, a short set for us.
Are you considering just doing one long song again?
Well, we are going to open with Darkstar.
30 minutes. Darkstar's nothing.
We'll see how it goes.
Anyway, thank you to everybody who came out to the Chicago show.
We'll never forget it. That was quite the experience.
Another great Father's Day, Vampire Weekend, Richard Pictures.
We'll see you soon. Peace.
Time Crisis with Ezra King.
B-B-B-Beasts 1.
(music fades)
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