Ep. 493: "Part of an Amp"
Hello?
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
Square pegs.
Square pegs.
Square pegs.
Pegs.
Pegs.
And that was the waitresses that did that, right?
Yeah.
I thought she was so cute, but I was a square peg, you know?
Oh, gosh.
Oh, my goodness.
You know, ABC, the broadcast network, was always there for me throughout my youth.
It was as easy as 1, 2, 3.
Oh, you know, I like them, too.
And I watched their cartoon.
Oh, yeah.
Yeah, but like.
Hey, hey, hey.
Oh, that was CBS.
Yeah.
In the news.
I never knew that stuff.
You never knew what stuff, which, Oh, you like where stuff.
Well, all I wanted to say was you take a Fonzie, you take a Vinnie Barbarino.
Sure.
You take a, uh, uh, what was his name?
Johnny, Johnny Ace, slick Johnny.
Who, who was the new wave guy?
What was his name?
Like Johnny Slash?
Something like that?
I don't know.
Because the thing is, he kept saying, punk and new wave, totally different head.
Yeah, totally different head.
But he affected a slightly L.A.
punk.
Do you think he looked new wave, Johnny?
Is it Johnny Slash?
I got to look this up.
This is the thing, though, what, you know, L.A.
punk, New York punk, London punk, different punks.
Right?
Yeah, I actually have an anecdote from this weekend that relates to that.
Oh, really?
Yeah, it doesn't, I don't look good in it, but.
Did you encounter some mall punks?
Did you get into a throwdown?
Worse.
I encountered a middle-aged dad-style punk, like almost my peer, like younger.
Let's be clear.
For the story to work, you have to understand this is a fellow younger than me.
Okay.
All right.
Cut a long story short.
I think if you did the version to The Mean, you checked with our whole family, the family's favorite band is a band from New Zealand called The Beths.
Yeah, right.
No, everybody loves The Beths right now.
As I say, The Beths.
yeah um which i only figured out last week is probably because the singer's name is elizabeth i call her lees but no one else in the band is named elizabeth so it'd be like my band was called the johns well i mean that really does work because it's you and whoever hasn't left yet yeah um that was funny john no that was good no one else has no one else has not left
Oh, that's a good way to put it.
I will never dance again, like Pink says.
That's right.
So we went to see the Beths, and they were great.
And we saw them at the Fillmore.
Now, here's a great... Sorry, I'm already going to derail this.
We were standing in line in that spot between... We were waiting in line to get in the Fillmore.
You're by where the buses are.
You're right next to where the Jonestown Temple used to be, which is unfortunately now a post office.
That's a goddamn tragedy.
It was a beautiful building.
No, they should have kept it as a shrine.
He helped a lot of people.
You know, if you, if, are you your worst day is the question I have to ask?
Hey, good way, good way of thinking of it.
I said to my family in that way that everybody hates and no one likes, I said, you know what?
I have a very, you know, you know, I have a very specific recollection of being in this area one time.
And I remember that little fenced in area where the door is.
And I feel like I remember helping the long winners carry their equipment out after a show.
But then for the life of me, I couldn't remember what show it was.
But I feel like you were involved.
Otherwise, I probably wouldn't have been backstage at the Fillmore.
But did you play the Fillmore or whatever?
Yes.
Yes.
And I feel like maybe there was maybe Ling.
I feel like Ling was there.
I feel like... Did I carry part of an amp at some point?
Oh, yeah.
Absolutely.
At that place, though.
He carried the better part of an amp.
Huh.
We played there at least twice.
I've opened for Colin Malloy there on his solo tour.
Boy, that's just aggravating in so many ways, John.
Just to hear you say that's frustrating to me.
But we also played with Feist there.
Oh, that was probably it.
Yeah, we played with Feist.
Shaboom, shaboom.
And so that would have been peak era where everybody was there.
Right.
Remember this is like all the great fans.
Yeah.
Remember the times when you'd go to a show in San Francisco and all the great fans were there.
It was like a big community.
I haven't been to rock shows in years and I still wonder if I'll see somebody I know there.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I did.
So I remember that correctly.
And of course they were already like, whatever, who cares?
And, um, so anyway, we went there to see the best.
We went inside and you know how I am.
I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm a secret introvert.
And there's times where I like, I don't want to be standing.
And you know, uh, you know how the things have evolved.
If you want to sit somewhere, you generally have to be where the music is and, or you paid for it.
And we got regular tickets.
Doesn't matter.
Long story short, you know, there's that wonderful room upstairs where all the posters are.
I put a picture of this on the internet the other night, all those, uh, where the posters are.
And I found this, this amazing table right next to an open window of all things.
Wow.
It was weird.
It was like it was reserved for me.
And so I sat there and I had some vodka and cranberry juice and a burger.
And anyway, at one point I was walking up to the counter and I see this guy in a t-shirt of a band that I recognized.
Yeah.
I should have known.
It was like a three-quarter sleeve, like a baseball shirt.
Yeah.
Who's the band?
Circle Jerks.
Okay.
Who I'm not sure ever sold a three-quarter baseball jersey shirt.
Doesn't seem like them, does it?
The one I had wasn't.
And I was being that guy like I am because this used to be a thing I do and it's the thing I still do, which is I try to meet people.
oh i know you love people i say hey i saw the circle jerks in 1986 and it was one of my first hardcore shows and it was really uh really amazing and scary and the guy's like huh and it was already dawning on me oh no this is a guy who bought that shirt on amazon probably like he probably didn't know like but then i thought okay but i can still save this and he's like yeah cool
Did you say live fast, die young?
Yeah, leave a straight edge corpse.
And I was like, oh, yeah, yeah.
I was like, oh, man, what a crazy time.
I was like, are you from there?
Are you from like, you know, Southern California, Orange County?
He's like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I was like, oh, it must have been so amazing.
And I should have just given up and walked away.
The man's working, you know.
Oh, he was at work.
He was at the bar.
He was working for the Fillmore, which, by the way, runs a pretty tight ship.
Yeah, sure.
They have, they're very directed at the Fillmore.
I like it.
I think it's a good place to see a band.
Anyhow, now wait, now was that the place where The Last Waltz was or is that the one in New York?
No, it's the, so they filmed The Last Waltz in San Francisco at a place called the Fillmore, but I think it was at the something ballroom, but it wasn't the Fillmore.
Okay.
It was the Fillmore as the Fillmore Fillmore, but not the Fillmore.
Yeah.
Fillmore West, totally different head.
Fillmore, exactly.
Totally different head.
We've all got a duck.
They still give you posters.
When the shit hits the fan.
Huh.
A lot of pictures of Janice Joplin.
No, those guys work there.
There are guys who work there who are, and I mean this not in a disparaging way, but just so you'll know who I mean, they have a lot of people who work there who are obviously just burnouts.
Yeah.
And it's a guy who just sits there to make sure that nobody's in an area.
Sure, sure, sure.
Right, right, right, right.
Yeah.
I know those guys.
I know those guys.
You probably work with a lot of these folks.
I've seen them from all sides.
So that was my Square Pegs moment.
And it was, you know, whatever.
I mean, I wasn't a huge Circle Jerks fan, but I liked them.
And I liked their relationship with Black Flag, of whom I was a larger fan.
But...
You should have leaned in and gone, hang on.
You know, a repo man is always intense.
Oh, ordinary fucking people.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
So wait a minute.
So you're telling a story, but you haven't sounded bad yet.
What happened next?
Oh, I just felt like an idiot because like, here's how I am.
If I'm out and I'm wearing a shirt and I'm representing.
Yeah.
And I'm not wearing a concert shirt to a concert just because I'm too old for that stuff.
Right.
But anyways, I like it when people say things like, oh, all the great shows.
Or I like it when it has to be a shirt for something.
You know, if I see somebody at somewhere wearing a shirt for something I'm involved in, I say the same thing I learned from my friend John Gruber.
You say something along the lines of, that's a handsome shirt or, hi, handsome.
And then they go, huh?
Huh?
But I was trying to make a connection with the guy who's probably like a bar back or whatever.
But I don't know.
He wasn't receptive.
He wasn't mean, but, you know, he works there.
He's probably used to that.
He's used to the dads probably sitting up in the room with nobody but the burnout and him title who are just sitting there while everybody else is enjoying the New Zealand rock.
Well, I went down.
I would go.
Sometimes I just didn't want to stand for an opening act.
You know, I'm 56, John.
Sure, sure, sure.
And my kid, I mean, it was made clear to us from very, very early on that this would be, we should be prepared to just not see the kid all night.
Right.
The kid's going to go.
This is a rock show.
Goodbye.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I showed them, I said, I said to Mike again, why do I talk to anyone?
I said, look, I said, I haven't been here in a really long time, but I'm going to tell you, Billy, there's something you need to know about rock clubs.
And I can't promise these are all the same anymore, but every rock club has a secret place.
Drop it down.
Okay?
Yeah.
Bottom of the hill.
You go way, way, way, way, way up to the front.
And on the left, as an audience member, there's a big speaker.
And there's this little area where you can be right next to the stage unmolested.
Yes.
Slim's has a similar place, only it's on the right side, kind of near the steps you go down for like the green room or whatever.
Great hangout spot.
And there's a place at the Fillmore that's like that too, where you can totally get away with hanging out near the stage and not being molested.
Yeah.
No interest at all.
So anyway, mom and kid go and get like, you know, about halfway up and to the side.
And then I, you know, I had a cheeseburger and talked to the circle jerks, man.
Right.
I feel like, do you remember?
Of course you do.
Laughter?
No, I know you remember laughter.
But no, you remember when there was a, if you were a music fan, if you were going to say, I'm a music fan.
You had better be a fucking music fan, right?
Like music fans.
No, I'm not talking about music fans today.
I'm talking about music fans.
You're talking about music fans.
I'm talking about people that spent every spare penny they had acquiring music.
And learning.
Learning, borrowing, reading.
You become like you're in your own little Garrett.
With the resources you've got, money, time, otherwise, you learn everything you can about this scene.
Well, and those people, you know, I always had a hard time because I could not.
You're not a fan.
Well, that's right.
And it was not.
And it was the same with book people.
I like reading people.
Don't like book people.
But they go at each other.
Yeah.
And it's very competitive.
And it's very like, oh, have you read this?
Well, have you read that?
Freud has a name for that in Civilization and Its Discontents.
What does he say?
He calls it the narcissism of small differences.
Well, there it is.
The narcissism of small differences.
You see it every day.
You see it every day.
Yep.
But in music, I could never keep up.
I never knew.
And you knew a lot about music, a lot more than me.
But I've been around people that I was just dizzy.
Dizzy with what I didn't know about what they did know.
But I feel like the Circle Jerks tea is, yeah, it might have been an invitation.
Why would you wear it unless you want to talk about the Circle Jerks?
Because this is it.
It might have been an invitation.
It might have been a honey trap.
specifically designed to attract old dudes to come over so that he can scorn them oh my god i walked right into it right it's a scorning opportunity he's like it's the there's so few like real life scorning opportunities anymore yeah because everybody's scorning online it's been outsourced
You can't, you're not going to get that in person very often.
And then to like already know that you're going to be a class act about it, that guy.
But that's part of his deal is he gets to go like, you know, real funny old man.
Yeah, sure, dad.
Yeah, I just want some skank.
Huh.
Yeah, I don't know.
Maybe.
Well, you know, I talk about this sometimes.
I talk about this with my friend Alex.
And when I point this out, I don't mean this as either to pump myself up or to pump you down.
But you have said you are not a fan, whereas I am very much a fan.
I am arguably first and foremost a fan.
Yes, yes, that's right.
And I would like to think that I'm an interesting contemporary fan in the need that, or an unusual contemporary fan, in that I just want to like you, and I don't need you to know I exist, mostly.
I mean, we got to know each other, but when I talk about a podcast I like or a band I like, I don't need Liz to know who I am.
I don't even need to let her know that that performance of Little Death on RZ Public Broadcasting in New Zealand is my favorite performance of theirs.
She doesn't need to know that.
She's got stuff to do.
We're from a different era.
She does her job.
I do my job.
I was never in a million years going to write a postcard to Rob Halford asking him about the electric eye that's in the sky.
Wouldn't have dreamt of it.
What about that Manalishi?
I think it was green, if memory serves.
Yeah, but that, you'd have to go.
Rob Halford doesn't know anything about that.
He's just quoting about the Manalishi.
The Manalishi.
But, you know, this was the thing about when you put the first Long Winter's Message board up,
And people told me, don't go on there.
That's not for you.
And I said, but it's a bunch of people on there talking about my band.
Of course, I want to go and find out and answer questions and be part of the bar.
Yeah.
And the discourse, we'd call it now.
And the problem was that, yeah, it didn't take long to get embroiled in not just little dramas, which are fine.
I love those.
But it's that feeling that people got, and I have to think it started then.
Of the proprietary feeling about you and what you make.
And I know you've been fighting it since you first became a public figure.
Yeah.
And you say it all the time.
Like, just because you like my thing doesn't mean you get to say, doesn't give you any authority over me.
Well, first I have to decide that you're allowed to like it.
Are you even allowed to like it?
I'm the worst.
But you know, I saw that really firsthand.
And in the end, I think when I look back,
Of all the people you know, well, no, wait a minute.
I better reel that back because we know some people in common that might have me best if there.
I'll keep it friendly.
Don't worry.
But I have lost a lot of people along the way.
How do you mean?
I've been to the edge and I've stood and looked down.
Oh, I see.
You lost a lot of friends there, baby?
Yeah, I have.
And a lot of those, I think there was a whole group of fans that
In that live journal, in those live journal days.
That's exactly how I think of it too.
That really had a lot of expectations about what kind of guy I was going to be because they loved me and they wanted me to be a particular way.
And like so many people, well, I can't only speak for myself, people want access.
Right.
And acknowledgement.
They want to acknowledge.
That's right.
Like the street team.
Like, I'm out there putting up posters for you.
I'm on the street team.
Exactly.
I'm on the street team.
And my understanding of that was, yeah, and that's why you get into the show for free or early or you get to hang out with us after the show.
Yeah.
But it doesn't mean that I'm going to...
like, like call you.
Right.
I'm never going to call you on the phone.
That doesn't scale up.
And you're never going to call me on the phone.
Right.
And so that's not a diss or anything.
That's got, you know, like that, the number of people that can call me on the phone is very small number of people.
But like, I always watched John Vanderslice, who was so, so dedicated to... He's a hugger.
Yeah, he is.
And he made every one of those people feel like they were his most special friend ever.
And he somehow still managed to keep his autonomy...
but I had the mix in the, in the, in the, in the room mixed pretty low.
So you could hear all the instruments, which I always enjoyed.
Yeah.
That was nice.
No, but you're right.
No, I'm, I'm just giving you, yeah.
But like before, before the show, after the show, whatever, like he was, he was, but he was also very, pretty, pretty well prescribed in a Hodgman like way of like,
you can have all of me up to this line and then I'm not here anymore.
Like this is the part you get access to.
And I think that's actually setting that you can be nice about it.
But I think that's a wholesome way to do that rather than like, I'm going to encourage you to follow me back to my hotel room.
Well, and the problem with me, I think, is that I don't want it at one level.
I don't want there to be any boundaries between me and other people.
I don't want any limits.
You know, I want to like, what's the craziest thing that ever happened to you?
Like what?
Well, you know, I will follow you down a manhole.
Um, if it's intriguing to me in that moment, right.
And, and, but it doesn't mean that every time you come to town, we're going to go down a manhole together.
It's just like, yeah, we did that one time.
That was amazing.
But so at one level, I don't have the same boundaries that Hodgman or, or you or, or, um, or Vanderslice or a million other people, right.
All the rock people I know, they all have those boundaries and they maintain them.
And at one level I don't cause I, cause I want every experience to be in dance.
But in another level, of course, I have extreme boundaries.
Yeah.
See also introversion.
Exactly.
Because it depends a lot.
I mean, if I could say it depends.
The way you just described it makes a ton of sense, which is like, hey, regardless of how we do or don't know each other, you seem interesting.
And that's just as true for a Lyft driver as it is for somebody who so far hasn't mentioned that they have this obscure European EP of yours.
But like it's going to be guided by things like there's going to be things like, well, are you cool?
That's a big one.
Are you being weird and creepy and like trying to escalate this in a way that's not wholesome?
Are you breaking all the like unstated rules of this?
But then there's also just the whole like, man, sometimes you're just tired.
And sometimes you just, it depends, it depends, it depends on so many things.
And like part of it, it could be that like, you know, it's, it's, it's sometimes if you, if you do have an opportunity, for example, to hang out with somebody who's like in the band, in the green room, I, you can tell me, but like, I feel like sometimes if you're going to work that out, it works out ahead of time.
If you don't work it out, it doesn't work out.
And probably maybe, unless you're planning to literally just go to say, hi, break, hi, hi, and please, you know, break a leg.
it's probably better to do that after than before.
There's all these little things that like, you know, you don't know what kind of day those folks have had.
They've been on the road.
They've been doing all this stuff and sound checks and see also Jackson Brown song.
And like, sometimes it's just like not, now's not, not a good time.
And you should have picked that up.
See, and that's exactly the thing because a person can be very interesting and,
And in context of a certain moment, particularly as a touring musician, this is just not an opportunity for them to be interesting.
It's just, this has been a weird day already.
The thing that you don't know is that I know there's somebody by the backstage door that I don't want to see.
And now you're in here and you haven't seen me in a year and you're trying to be really interesting right now.
And I think you are interesting.
It's just, this isn't interesting.
And that's extremely hard to,
And the thing about, you know, the thing about people that manage their relationships better is that they try really hard not to have that situation.
But also, I've watched Hodgman a million times have somebody stand there, somebody fascinating, somebody that we all know, stand there right in his face talking.
And I know what's on John's mind.
You know, I know that there's something going on.
Like this has been going on a little too long.
Well, because he's also got there because somebody was yelling at him a minute ago about money or because we, you know, we just found out that we're not going to get into the sky lounge or something.
And, and so, but he's really good about sitting there with a clenched jaw and just taking it.
And unfortunately, you know, I'm, I'm not as good.
So what I do feel like I've lost a lot of those feelings.
really like heart fans the the core group of 2004 long winters indie pop fans one by one they all got really disenchanted with me because i didn't give them the the the special mix of of special treatment and appreciation and you know me i'm like
I don't know.
I hear what you're saying, and I feel like I understand it.
You know, I mean, you don't want to blow this stuff up too big, but...
This is really, really unsympathetic, but think what you will of somebody if you like them enough to be aware of what they do and like their stuff in some way or other to connect, have made a connection remotely with them.
You can probably appreciate the fact that there is an aspect of it being a performance, which I mean not a put on, but a sense of it's a thing that takes energy.
It's a thing that takes preparation.
And it's a thing where like up to you're still, you're talking to like the guy with the leather man on his belt and the, and the Sharpies about like the mix in this wedge.
And there's all this kind of stuff.
You're probably not you, but one is you're, you're sick.
You're sick of doing this.
You're sick of your bandmates.
You're sick of sleeping, you know, at a motel six or whatever you're.
And then on top of it all, now there's this big parade of people that the opening band is dragging through the area and
And, like, you just want to be, like, alone probably, right?
Like, you've been in a van with people for days.
And, like, where do you go to just read a book or look at your phone and not have to be on?
Like, you would understand that in a theater production, right?
But, like, do we have that same amount of respect for people?
I don't know.
I'm probably understanding.
You watch all those people come backstage at a theater show, too.
And everybody's back there crying.
Yeah.
Oh, my father.
He loved it.
He loved it.
My mother.
What was it?
She loved it.
I wish I could have gone to wicked.
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I feel a lot of that is that, I don't know, you know, a couple of years ago,
a band that we all love came through town.
And you know how fussy I am about backstage passes.
Do I?
Oh, about the right, like, you know, oh, here's the thing, it's set aside, we've made a plan, that kind of thing?
No, no, no, no.
The backstage pass problem is that I know how backstage passes work, and I know all the ways that
that bands use them to keep people at a distance.
It's a, it's a personal space thing, right?
It's a, uh, like, Oh, you're invited to the after show or, Oh, you can take, you know, you can take two pictures, but, but only in the first song or, you know, like there's, and, and the bigger the show, the more different levels of access there are.
Yes.
And and what what often happens in Seattle is that there's a venue that I know really well.
I know you had an anecdote about this.
I think this is what you were talking about, a place, pal years, you know, you have a connection there.
But it was one of those such a big act and such a big thing that was happening.
Right.
He told you, hey, look, just so you know, there's not any extra spots for this.
Well, that happens all the time.
I sent a message out the other day to a group of people, and I was like, look, Madonna's coming, Pink is coming, The Cure is coming, and Duran Duran is coming, and I don't have any juice at any of these shows.
Who's the one with the juice that's going to put me and my gang of ladies that are all looking at me with big, keen, painting eyes about these shows?
Who's going to get me in
And I got back all these messages from all the hot shots around here who are like, none, no, nobody like we can't get into those shows and they're being put on by our absolute worst enemies.
And so not only can you not go to them, but we can't go to them either.
And then this is just, you just have to get in a internet line with the rest of the punters.
No, I'm talking about a thing where you see it, you see it all the time.
A venue, let's say like the, like, let's say it's the bottom of the hill.
You know the doorman, you know the bartender, you know the manager, you know the booking agent.
You go there all the time.
Most of the time they don't card you.
You waltz in.
You're like, hey, how's that going, everybody?
High fives all around.
But then a tour will come through where it's maybe an underplay or the tour, maybe it's not an underplay, but it's a seasoned tour group.
And all of a sudden security is different.
They brought in outside security.
Right.
And they've put in a new institution.
Like, here are the different levels of backstage access.
And so you show up at a place that you know like the back of your hand that feels like home.
But there are all these people you've never seen before standing there.
And they're rent-a-cops.
You know, they're hired people.
They've been given a 15-minute long security briefing.
And probably a very, very...
simple mandate like i bet there are rules that are very easy to understand and which makes them a little bit easier to enforce like look nobody is allowed back here unless they have this you're not allowed i'm sorry this is a succession reference but you can't go in kendall street house without a rainbow wristband you to get in this area you have to this thing i have no say in that i'm just meat standing here and doing what i'm told
And that's precisely how it works, right?
They don't want them to have any decision-making power at all.
And they're told to stand there, stare straight ahead with an absolute, you know, like the worst face you can put on and just keep saying no, no matter what, keep saying no.
Because you don't have the authority.
You don't know the difference.
You're not even from here.
You're a, you're a 55 year old man who's doing this for, for $120 tonight.
Yeah.
And this is your job.
So I have, I get into this all the time where I walk into a place and I see the bartenders and I see my people.
Hey, how's it going?
I'm on the guest list.
And I walk back to an area that I think I belong in.
For a variety of reasons.
For a lot of reasons, right?
It's a place you've been a lot, including as an artist.
A lot of times as an artist.
It's practically your route.
And my blood is on the floor back there.
And I, you know...
believe you me, if these walls could talk, type of thing.
And then suddenly, between me and a door that normally has a friendly face sitting at the door, like, hey, man, how's it going?
Here, there's a strange person who...
This is not their place.
They look really uncomfortable, fish out of water.
And they're sitting on the magic stool.
And I go, hey, man, I'm just here to see that.
And they're like, well, your pass is blue.
And the pass that gets you through this door is pink.
And I'm like, yeah, well, that was just a thing.
It must have been a mistake.
And if he's not heard it a thousand times, somebody has told him that he's heard it a thousand times.
And then I'm there.
And he knows.
His job, remember earlier we told you to just keep saying no?
That's your job.
You will succeed at your job if you keep saying no in the enforcement of the thing that you're here to enforce.
And there are thousands of show business stories where, where somebody like that stops Ray Charles at the back of some places.
Like that's not the right pass.
And Ray Charles is like, I'm Ray Charles.
And the guy's like, never heard of him.
Um, he's not on the list.
Like that happens a lot.
Yeah.
And, and, and because they hire these people specifically because they couldn't pick Lizzo out of a crowd, right?
They're just, these are just people that they, that they pulled from a soup kitchen.
Yeah.
But I am... You can borrow some burnouts from the film war.
You know, like, hey, come on, 50 bucks.
I am constitutionally really bad at navigating those moments.
And I work at it so hard.
And I still cannot accept... And what happens is, I go, this band...
who's coming through town that invited me to the show, gave me a fucking pink badge.
I'm sorry.
They gave me a blue badge and they know that a pink badge is what was required to get through this door.
And so they kept me in blue badge land and fuck that.
Yeah.
But there's nothing I can do.
I can text them five minutes before they go on stage and go, why the fuck isn't my pass right?
Can't do that.
I can.
Because if you're contacting, if you know their management, that's one thing.
Well, if you're texting the drummer when they're about to go out, that's not very cool.
If you're texting their road manager.
five minutes before they go on the road that's not what he's worried about he's not worried about you yeah right there's nobody in it's not like you're there it's not like you're there it's not like you're um the whatever that guy from atlantic records it's not like you're gonna show up you're not herb albert you're not gonna like show up with a contract or something you're not the person where they're like you know oh there's someone that's somebody gonna be here tonight and they're gonna sign us up for you know you're you're it's nice to have you there you're a pal but you're not like essential to the process
Even those guys, you know, I don't think five minutes before, but, but, but what happened, what, what had happened was what had happened was what happens to me internally is that,
You know, I don't really feel slighted that much in the world, but that's that thing.
If there are five levels of past to a thing, and you're inviting me to come, and we're old bros and have traveled the world together and have played lots of shows together...
You know to be able to trust me with the highest level of pass because I'm not going to come into the dressing room five minutes before you go on and put my dick in your face.
I know the rules.
So if somebody knows the rules, give them the best pass.
The passes are only to separate the people that don't know the rules from the secret bathroom.
You don't give a pass to a snork.
Or you do give a pass to a snork, it just says in a code on it, snork.
Oh, I see.
So that after the show, it's like, all the snorks, come on, we're all going to have a spaghetti dinner.
So we were at a show a couple of weeks ago, and it was me and Josh Rosenfeld, president of Barsuk Records, local indie rock luminary.
And we were both on the guest list.
And we arrived there and I opened my envelope and it had these laminates, these backstage laminates that like glowed in the dark and were holograms.
I mean, each one of my passes probably cost 50 bucks just to manufacture.
They were beautiful.
And Josh opened his envelope and the past was like after show party.
It was made out.
It was like it had been copied on a, uh, on a laser copier.
Josh was like, what the fuck?
And I looked over and I had that feeling of like, lol.
You got the book to pass.
But I didn't, you know, you don't want to show it.
Yeah, that's when the essentially sibling relationship in some relationships comes out where you're like, hello?
Yeah.
You got the paper one.
I was like, oh, gnarly.
And he's like, what the fuck?
And the thing is, we know, the two of us, every single aspect of this touring operation, their sound guy, their manager, everybody.
We know them all.
And so what the fuck, right?
Yeah.
What is this about?
So we get in the front door and we're just here to watch the show.
We're just normal.
We could just sit in a chair and watch the show for Christ's sake.
But Josh has this paper backstage pass that's, that's literally vibrating like a, like a, like John Bonham's gong, like in Josh's pocket.
This will not stand.
We sit in a chair and we're watching the show.
Neither one of us are using our pass at all.
We got nowhere to be.
But that fucking thing is burning a hole in his mind.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so he pulls out his phone and starts to send texts and he's not telling me he's doing it.
I'm just looking over and I know what he's doing.
Hey man, how's it going?
I'm just out here in the crowd.
Glad to be here.
I just, I noticed I got this, um, you know, like after show spaghetti dinner pass and
And I was wondering if there was a, and so for the rest of the show, and I'm, I'm laughing at him because this is absolutely what I do.
Oh, you're right.
Except I'm mad and he's, I mean, he's mad, but he's like keeping his, keeping a lid on it.
We spend the rest of the show trying to get somebody steaming, steaming, trying to get somebody to come.
And I've got, I've got these holographic passes.
I could go up on the roof.
I could, I could be swinging in the, you know, my thing is let my passes say like he's in the band.
Basically actually says in, in, in like a stencil on there, unarrestable, unarrestable.
And honestly, I did have the power to leave him, go backstage, find somebody to solve his problem and bring them out.
But, but you know what I did?
I was just like, Josh, I'm sticking with you, man.
You and me, like, I'm not going to abandon you and just go backstage and just, you know, hang out back there where the sound is terrible.
And you're basically standing behind a, uh, like a moldy curtain.
No, no, no, no.
I'm going to stay out here.
And we finally, they, somebody finally came out.
With halfway decent passes for him right at the culmination of the thing where the whole benefit of being backstage is now everybody's just going to the spaghetti dinner.
It's all over.
But at least he had them.
At least he got them.
That sucks.
It sucks.
And it sucks because like you say, like I'm not a fan, right?
I'm not there to fan boy.
I'm not there.
Cause I even like it really, but I am there.
I do want the rank.
If I'm, if I'm a fan of anything, it is a, I'm like, um,
I'm like a rank fan.
If you could, if you sent me a thing right now that said, here's the band you hate the most in the world, but here are all access passes to the show, I would go.
Yeah.
But if you were like, here's your favorite band ever, and your seats are like up in the nosebleeds behind a pole, I'd be like, oh, really?
Do I have to go see Paul McCartney, but like I'm in the 400 level?
Yeah.
Yeah.
i don't know that's that's the opposite of you i think in some ways no i mean we would not have i don't i think it would be much less likely let's just say the truth we wouldn't be friends if i weren't a fan of yours like that's how it started you didn't you were not aware of me i was aware of you and i was like fairly obsessed with with your with your music and um and that you know weird and weird kind of weird way it worked out but like
Yeah.
Now I'm the same way though.
I mean, you know what, just partly it's, I know this isn't the same thing, but it's a little bit like when you've gotten, let's say, upgraded to first class or business or whatever.
And like, let's say you've paid to get into business class and your TV doesn't work.
And like in a million years, you would never say to somebody, is that the person you want to be in life?
Is the person who's mad about a TV and a chair not working?
And you're like, no, I would never in a million years want to be that person.
But at the same time, I did pay $500 for this seat.
And I'm not getting the thing I'm supposed to get, right?
And I know that sounds like an unsubtle example, but if you've never been in a situation like that, listener, you're lying.
Everybody's been in situations where, like, hey, that person got a refrigerated cheese plate.
Why didn't I get a refrigerated cheese plate?
Sorry, sir, we're out of the cheese plate.
You're out of the cheese plate?
What did I upgrade to?
I'm so worried about this because one day I'm going to get...
I'm going to get on an airplane and it's going to be a nice seat that I worked some way to get.
And the person next to me is going to have either a lap dog or a
is going to have some other situation.
Oh, no.
You're being nice.
You're talking about the kind of person who takes the shoes off and puts it on their dog.
There's going to be a thing like that where it's going to be a combination of like, I'm in a position now of rank and privilege, and the person next to me is abusing that.
And now I'm the guy on a plane, just hard vibing.
Because I've had those many times.
But if you're back in row 69 and the girl next to you is detoxing off of meth for your entire flight from Seattle to Frankfurt...
you know you're in row 69.
What the fuck did you think you were going to get?
Yeah, it was a $300 flight.
You shouldn't complain.
Yeah, this is a massive plane.
You're flying to Germany.
And yeah, the girl next to you is freaking tweaking for nine hours.
Yeah.
But that's the life you're living, my bro.
But to be all the way up in the cushy seats and to feel like I am 54 years old and I have earned this place, even though I got this for free through some scam, I am here now where I belong in the front of the plane.
And this guy next to me is doing fucking ass yoga.
Like, I'm just, I'm so worried I'm going to Karen out.
Yeah.
And I'm terrified of that.
I'm terrified.
And is it fair to, for me to infer that you don't like how you don't like how you are that way?
Would you rather be not that way?
Or how would you amend that to feel, to better integrate that into the story of John?
What would need to change about that?
Well, this is the thing.
I play these scenarios out all the time.
You know, I moved into this house and I have two neighbors that border my house.
Really?
And I was in a fight with them both.
After the first year of trying not to be in a fight with them.
Like, I tried really hard.
I did everything I could to be gentle, to say, like, oh, hey, I know that this is how it used to be.
Respectful, accommodating, smoothing over, win-win, looking for the win-win, keeping it positive, right?
All the kinds of stuff that we all do to, like, as the comedian Stuart Lee says, you know...
For a calmer life.
Everything.
Yeah.
Trying so hard.
Trying so hard to make up for all of the mistakes I've made in the past of coming in hot and heavy.
Yeah.
Instead, just being like, oh, I'm texting you now.
Happy birthday.
We're friends.
We see each other.
Hi, neighbor.
All that stuff.
And still ended up in protracted wars.
And I look around my life and I'm like,
In that situation where I sit down in a chair in an airplane and I'm like, ah, a big flight to whereversville.
And someone sits down next to me and takes off their shoes and starts clipping their nails.
And I don't know what I want.
I don't know.
I know I don't want to be the enforcer of etiquette for the world.
It's a terrible job.
I don't want it.
But the third time the waitress in the sky walks by and gets hit on the cheek with a nail, with a toenail, and doesn't say, sir, that's not appropriate behavior because they're not getting paid enough.
Uh-uh.
I don't know what to do.
You know, I don't know.
I honestly don't.
I don't want to be here's what I know.
I don't want to be in a fight.
But I also know I cannot change the makeup of my mind and constitution enough to just breathe deeply and be fine.
At least in my mind, though.
And how do you do that?
John Vanderslice would be fine.
Well, I mean, I leapt right to the best example, which is being on a plane.
But in some ways, that's an unfair contrast with how you feel about your free ticket to a rock show in some ways.
Because the thing is, one of the problems with being on the, as you once called it, a fart tube full of long pigs, one problem with being on that flight is how absolutely constrained you are.
Your focus is like, this is where you are.
You're stuck here.
In my case, I have ADHD.
This is how my brain works.
I weigh...
It's not that I lack attention, it's that I lack the executive function to focus on the thing I would like.
And sometimes now all I can see is like my discomfort of this.
Like the person who leans their seat back in front of me is the worst person who has ever lived for that moment, right?
And I know that's not true.
I mean, I'm a pretty...
nice decent person but I hate them with fucking fire and I would love to do anything I can to cause harm for that person because that's I'm so hyper focused on my experience of being in this little narrow seat you know what I mean at least with a rock show you can go and you can kind of mill around but that also means now you have nothing but your own mind to blame you
not you but one for like oh how did I get from here to there this started as a free ticket to a rock show and like now I'm now I'm mad because my friend got a paper pass and it's like you find I feel ashamed when I when I do I do that and then I feel very ashamed about it and I hate both
I was, I was at a, I was at a big show, a big show, big shoe, really big shoe.
And I was at the, and if this was not, this was not a venue I normally go to.
This was, this was a stadium here in the town.
And, uh, and my friends were playing the big stadium.
Very exciting.
And I show up and I got a, I got a gal on my arm and we're dressed for the, we're dressed for the occasion and
And we show up at the back door, and there are some of these people that they found in the parking lot of Lowe's, and they put jackets on them, and they told them, don't let anybody in without this pass.
And I walk up, and I'm like, hey, here's our passes, and we're here to see the show.
That's not the right pass, and you shall not pass.
You shall go no further.
And I'm there and I'm with this gal and I'm like, hey, my friend.
Look, it's clearly a mistake.
They meant to check this box.
They checked that box.
The person that can solve the problem is literally at the bottom of the stair right on the other side of that door.
And so if I hand you my wallet and go through that door, I know exactly where they're standing and they're going to come solve this problem for me.
And the guy stares straight ahead and says, no, you cannot pass.
And I'm trying to put on a good show for my lady friend.
I'm in my nice rock clothes.
I'm here for what should be a celebratory event.
And I feel that rising up in me.
And I start to argue with a person that I know cannot be argued with.
It's a kind of physics where the more you argue with the person, the denser their matter becomes.
So it's like a Schrodinger's cat.
Was this person intransigent?
Well, the more you talk to them, the more intransigent they become.
Talking to them is the last thing you can do.
And yet here I am.
I'm arguing with this guy.
And I'm getting frustrated, which is just adding saltpeter to it.
And then in that moment, standing there with my ascot askew,
Going, I don't think you fully grasp the nature of your mistake right now.
You should continue to point into empty space saying they're like six feet away.
They're right there.
Listen.
Listen to me.
Yeah.
You can fix this.
It's not too late.
You can save this.
That's right.
You can save this.
You know what?
And I'm never somebody that's going to be like, you're going to lose your job.
Never.
Never.
I've done that.
No, no, no, because, you know, lose your job.
Like, who cares in the end?
Well, it's fashionable now to make fun of Karen's, but I was a Karen a lot of times.
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Don't you know who I am?
And as I feel, as I cross the line and become embarrassingly agitated, at that moment, Bob Mould
And Jason Nardisi and John Worcester walk up.
And I know Jason and John.
I have met Bob Mould a couple of times.
But they walk up.
They look at me and nod, and they show their past to the guy, and the guy goes, you know, welcome to the show.
And John Worcester and I don't like each other.
And he has made it plain over the years that if he has the opportunity to
take the last donut and throw it in the toilet rather than I have it, he'll take that opportunity.
Now, he's very good.
He's been at this a lot longer than I have.
This is John Worcester of your favorite band of all time, Super Chump.
He thinks you're hyper enough as it is.
Sorry, that was just a dumb Superchunk joke.
That was a little Superchunk.
But he's been in Superchunk forever, and he also plays in The Mountain Goats, or he did.
Yeah, that's right.
And so he's in Sugar now also.
Yeah, he's Johnny on the scene.
He's like how Phil Collins was in 1985.
Right.
He's there.
He's everywhere.
He's not like Phil Collins because he's never written a song in his life.
He's concording between Lives Aid.
That's right.
He's everywhere.
And he's always in a situation, in situations like this, right, where he is in the little red wagon and I am on the big wheel.
Him and Reggie Watts just waving at you from the other side of the room.
That's right.
Hey, hey.
And so over the years, there have been times when we've been standing around, we've pretended to be friends.
There's a lot of, oh, and he was also on the best show.
the radio program yeah he's he's but like he's in that kind of he's in an interesting space where like he's been in all these really terrific bands he also is involved in comedy with the WFMU stuff yep but I mean he's also kind of like he's almost like a almost like a Dave Grohl kind of character where like you could just see him showing up somewhere and making it fun
Yeah, he's always going to be on the documentary about the thing.
And honestly, he's hilarious.
He's smart.
He's funny.
He's wry.
He's, you know, he's got a cool look.
Like, there's no reason that he and I wouldn't be friends.
Except we're not.
And the thing is that his whole take on it,
is that he'd, if this came up and I said, you know, he would do the, he would do the, the like, huh, that's funny.
I don't think about you at all.
Yeah, right.
Right.
His whole take is and but but I hear from other people.
Oh, John Worcester was saying this and that about you and John Worcester, blah, blah, blah.
Made sure that made sure that you did made sure that the last donut got thrown in the toilet.
Like I hear from other.
Well, yeah, but it's no but it's the level of this.
It's the level of this.
Right.
He and I are are total bitches to one another.
And I'm just as bad.
I'm just as bad.
Um, because every opportunity I get to make sure that his, you know, that his, uh, his kick drum is like slightly unscrewed.
I mean, it's not to the level of pranking because that would require that he, that he acknowledged that he care that I be thwarted.
Anyway, so just to give you the picture, I'm standing there losing my cool at this back door and John Worcester potentially in the top five of my rock nemesis.
I'm getting it now.
If you ever had an outside chance of getting that little thing cleared up, that just disappeared.
Yeah.
Not only that.
Were they the headliners?
Oh, no, no, no, no, no.
Oh, so it wasn't like Ray Charles came in and said, no John Roderick.
No, no, no.
They were just guests.
They were also there to see the big rock band.
And making this worse, I had a way closer relationship with the big rock band than they did.
Oh, boy.
Did you say that?
No, no, no, no.
All this is happening in a split second.
But that's Bob Mould.
Right.
So Bob Mould, of course, his people called their people.
Bob Mould's going to get whatever pass he wants.
But also Bob Mould doesn't care if he's backstage.
He's fine to go to the spaghetti party.
I mean, he's Bob Mould.
He's on a magic carpet.
Yeah.
Right.
He's just flying along Bob Mould.
Worcester and Nardisi, they're trailing along behind Bob Newell.
They're part of the little spaceships that come along behind the big spaceships.
They're plus two.
They're plus two.
But I'm standing there, friends with the people on stage, and I'm arguing with a door guy.
And Worcester, as he goes by me, he just gives me that look.
And he keeps eye contact with me as the door shuts.
Oh, come on.
He Godfathered you.
He fucking Godfathered me hard.
And I'm, and you know, and I was, I was one second away from being like able to say to my lady friend, Oh, Hey, I'd like you to meet Bob Mould.
pretty, that's pretty good.
Hell yeah.
And instead the door shuts and, and they could have, they, Worcester could have turned to the person who could have helped me right on the other side of that door and gone, Hey, Roderick's out there and he needs help.
But he and I, Oh no, I would do the same thing.
I would eyeball him as the door closed and just been like, Oh man, sucks.
Sorry.
So you're saying you hate the game, not the player.
Yeah.
Because you're both players.
Oh, and it's the game.
It's the game.
It's the game.
It's the problem.
Yeah.
Because when I had a chance, when I was in the catbird seat, when I was in the tuxedo, oh, man, I kept him away.
I kept him away from the little bacon-wrapped scallops for sure.
You know I did.
Those are Colin Malloy's.
Don't touch those.
That's right.
That's right.
Hey, look, don't change your strings in Colin Malloy's dressing room.
Ha!
Hmm.
It's hard to be a person.
It's all in me every day.
Merlin, every day I wake up and I just go, oh, why is this all still in me?
Why is this tiger cat pacing around in this cage?
What does it really want?
What would ever make it happy?
Yeah.
What would ever make this tiger cat happy?
You know, cheetahs meow.
Cheetahs meow.
Meow.
Cheetahs meow.
Meow.
Just like a regular cat.
They don't roar, they meow.
Meow.
Yeah.
There's a thing I sometimes say to people, this is totally unrelated and yet really related, where sometimes when I'm making a big show and puffing myself up and whatever, I'll say something to somebody along the lines of, more formally, I'll say something like, beep, beep.
skeptical be cautious be suspicious of people who think you should be somebody whom you're not because they probably have their reasons right like if you look into like like whether that's a power thing not with a relationship thing whatever it's just like people out there there's a whole world of people out there who will constantly tell you to be someone else and something like i i feel like what one reason i think that that's a there's a lot of reasons i think that that's a bad thing to do
to which to capitulate.
Like, don't do it because lots of reasons, but here's the one that's salient for our discussion.
They'll never be happy.
You'll never change enough, fast enough, fundamentally enough, prayerfully enough.
You'll never change enough
ever to please somebody who's just decided that they just don't like you and it's a shame that you have to say that to somebody but you know be aware folks that in the world there are people who are going to constantly pull all kinds of shit on you to get you to be or act some way different than how you are to get as valuable to ask yourself what they get out of that even if it's just the thrill of like the power of getting to bully somebody
But, you know, the thing is, though, like, it's like negotiating with terrorists or paying blackmail.
Like, very few people ever end up paying blackmail once.
And I don't know.
I just I feel like that's something to keep in mind is like just just the because once you get once you've habituated yourself to a system where you go, OK, I'll be how you say.
Like, does that make your life any better?
Like, not really.
You got to figure out who you are and do your thing.
And I think that's a wholesome and healthy thing.
And I don't know, sometimes it just feels like we're supposed to, like, pretend that we're somebody that we're not in order to make somebody we don't know very well think we're better.
John Worcester's never going to give you the plastic...
Full pass, ever.
Oh, no, no.
But, you know, I don't care about him.
No, I mean this more to our listeners of, like, just this idea of, like, well, what can I do?
I know you're not saying this, but, like, oh, how do I ingratiate myself to this bully?
It's like, well, I have a couple problems with that.
It's hard to ingratiate yourself.
I'm not saying John Wish is a bully, but I am saying that, like, it's difficult to...
I don't know.
In a lot of relationships in life, you're better off to just like, you know, new dealer, walk away.
Like, rather than thinking like, oh, I'm going to begin this entire whole new practice of pretending to be somebody that I'm not so that this other person will think that I'm okay and give me the good pass.
And it's like, I'm not saying you're doing that, but like, I've done that.
I think a lot of people do that.
And like, that's the wrong part to change, I think.
It always comes down to the fact that even Bono has a boss for me.
I was reading about the King of Bavaria the other day and realizing that the King of Bavaria, he just wanted Wagner to like him.
Because he was a fan.
He was a super fan.
And you go, wow, Wagner was ghosting the King of Bavaria.
Yeah.
And I spend a lot of time sitting and thinking, ah, I was only the king of Bavaria.
You know, if I...
We're the king of Bavaria.
Things would be a lot different around here.
Uh-huh.
Right?
Like these castles, these fantastical castles that I'm building around, you know, they're all going to have elevators.
Mm-hmm.
If I were king of Bavaria, there would be no World War I because I would have set all that stuff right a long time before it got to there.
But then you realize, no, the King of Bavaria is just sitting writing fan letters to Wagner because he's like, oh, Tristan and I's old.
Yeah, nice ring trilogy.
It's sort of like the former president and how he tried to suck up to people like Tom Brady or how he'd give relationship advice to Robert Pattinson.
It's like, oh my God, you're so sweaty.
Yeah.
You know?
Yeah.
You don't want to be kissing Tom Brady's ass.
That's no good.
There's no way to live.
Maybe the thing I want to be the least of all things is thirsty.
Yeah.
Sweaty.
Yeah, yeah.
No, I feel you.
It's something I really try to keep an eye on, not because of optics, but because of...
integrity in the true sense of the word, in the sense of like, I want to be a contiguous person that has an internal sensibility that hews to my own rules of things.
And like, I can't be out just chasing every rabbit that like puts his tail in the air.
No, although I've been impressed with the fact that you do often, if you love the art that somebody makes and
You cop very little status vibe with them.
You're just like, hi, I just want to say that I really love your thing.
And you're very humble in a situation where you love somebody's art.
And even if that person then throws back some like, oh, thanks, kid, stay in school.
Drink your milk.
And somebody could legitimately lean in and go, do you know who that is?
That's Merlin Man.
I just know it's, I like it when people, sometimes I get notes from people like,
And I'll get a DM or email.
I'm talking like a couple times a month.
Like, it's not a lot.
But I'll just sometimes get, I got a really nice note from a guy who I do consider a friend.
And like out of nowhere, he just texted me the other day and he said, that was a really funny bit.
I like that joke.
I'm glad you do what you do.
We had a nice exchange.
And I can just tell you like from the bottom of my heart that that means the world to me.
For somebody to go, you made this really... I know you love making your literally impossible to understand obscure jokes that are a hat on a hat.
I got it.
And that means so much to me that I'm willing to risk it.
And there's a whole... I mean, I don't know.
I don't know how many of my tweets are even visible anymore.
But you will discover, like, I...
I don't, I don't, I'm not talking about doing the trick with the period in front of the ad.
I'm talking about, I just want this one.
Chris Malamfy, your Hip Ray podcast is really good.
And I love it.
Patricia Lockwood.
I can't name many other poets that are living right now, but I really love your work.
And all I want to do is give this little, I just want to give a little thing.
All I want to do is have some fun.
Oh my God.
They played that at the Fillmore before the show.
Oh yeah.
That's like guitar.
Thanks.
That's awesome.
You know, it's just basically a remake of that Steeler's Wheel song, right?
Stuck in the Middle with You?
Yeah, Stuck in the Middle with You.
It's the same exact song.
Have you ever listened to... No, no, no.
Listen to them back to back.
I will.
I was listening to... I go through this annual thing where I listen to a lot of, especially like Carter Family stuff, and I was realizing there's like... There should be a podcast about this.
How many songs are essentially based on...
um what would flower or or no what was the other one um oh shit what's the other one the one that became a god made honky tonk angels like there's these certain carter family songs where people are still using the melodies of their songs to this day they even stole from themselves no more the moon shines on lorina i mean that sounds a lot like a bunch of other you know
But you never think stuck in the middle with you is going to inspire like 25 years later, like another super big hit.
She's at a car wash outside a car wash on a Tuesday if memory serves.
Is that right?
And she just wants to have some fun.
She just wants to on Santa Monica Boulevard.
Santa Monica Boulevard.
um i just uh in my own the the hopefully the most selfish thing i can say about this is that i just i will feel good letting you know i i see you or i hear you like you did a thing and that was awesome i did like david sims like he doesn't fucking know who i am um he's a film critic for the atlantic who does a podcast that i like and he had a very funny bit and i and i just added him in a response just to say
you know i'm just being that guy i'm just another dork who you don't need to know about and like after your oscar episode last week it's really funny to me how much you obviously you're still angry about all quiet on the western front getting all those nominations and the fact that you keep leaning into it so heavily it's very funny and i and i i paid him what i consider a big compliment which is i mean he says he didn't see this whatever but i go like you know some of my favorite tweets are when i can hear it in the person's really hear it in the person's voice and i hear it in this
Now, when people say things like, I'm not trying to be sweaty, thirsty, hungry, anything about that, but that makes me happy.
So it is for me in the sense that I just wanted to pass that along.
And it doesn't take that much to just be nice to somebody.
I'm not immune, John.
I love status, too.
I'd be lying to say I don't care about stuff like that.
I think there's something more at work in you, though.
Because, and I think you would bat this down.
You would bat this down like a cat and a ping pong ball.
Yeah.
Except if you hadn't been that way with me,
my life would be radically different, right?
If you had not, if you had not like really electric slid right into my life at, at that particular time and had been sort of like, I mean, cause you've never been somebody that's, that would say like, I won't take no for an answer.
I just don't meet that many people that I liked as much as I liked you and Sean that night and the next day.
Yeah.
Just two people where I was like, holy shit.
I mean, we're hanging out.
Ken string follows around and stuff.
Yeah, right.
He's also a big energy.
Well, he's the reason.
I mean, he was kind of the reason I was at that show.
I liked your stuff a lot, but I immediately just, and it wasn't a Harvey Danger thing.
It wasn't a Long Winter's thing.
It was like, I just liked you two guys.
You guys had, there's something about your sense of humor.
And the two of you together were just, apart from the bits that you do on stage, but just sitting around in our underwear watching The Office together is a treasured memory of mine.
But I think there's something in you that is a native community builder.
Because when you go around and do these things, there is a level at which you're like, hey, I'm just a fan and I just want to say I see you.
But you do put people together.
And I think you're aware when you do that stuff that other people are watching and you're trying to direct their attention to things you think are cool.
And I think over the years, over the 20 years that I've known you, 20 plus years, 20, 20 years, 20, 20.
Yeah.
Yeah.
That you have built a lot of communities around you that then you go, okay, like, and, and I'm, you know, like, you don't say like, my work here is done.
I'm out.
But you're definitely like, okay, good.
You guys, you know, like, yes, yes.
Like you, you get excited when people you like know each other and do a thing in a separate location.
You are interested in putting things together and in showing things you love to people that you hope will love it too.
And I think that's... Yeah, but it's also true in how I see numbers on this shit.
Nobody fucking cares how much I like the move.
Nobody cares how much... There's just all this stuff where even Mission of Burma, there's these bands where I'm like, somebody out there will see this today.
And love this band the way I did in 1988.
Like, it's not for everybody.
It's so not for everybody.
But there might be somebody out there.
Like, I hadn't heard Dag Nasty until the last year.
And I'm like, how the fuck could I like Rites of Spring and Minor Thrip but never have heard the first Dag Nasty album?
Which is basically a pop record.
It's a pop record.
it's a fucking amazing imagine if like not like you know like teen idols did pop music it's closer to the descendants than it is to minor threat in a lot of ways but like that came along and i was like holy shit i can't believe i've never got into this till now and that's why now i feel like you know pay it forward the dumb way to put it but like if you you know there's that phrase i use sometimes i got straight out of i want to say ap or um cmj
Remember when they do a review, they say R-I-Y-L, recommended if you like, and then four bands?
And it's like, I found this Dream Pop Shoegaze band the other day that I just fucking lost my mind listening to this.
And I was like, yeah, R-I-Y-L, Yellow Tango Stereolab, Guided by Voices, and My Bloody Valentine.
And it's like, because yeah, those are four bands I super love, and this kind of sounds like all of them.
And oh my God, you guys, if you like two of those bands, you really need to hear this.
And like, I get, I get like almost kinetic.
I get like bristly of like, I love this so much.
I've got to put it somewhere.
That's what's so great about the baths.
You put them on and you're like, oh, this sounds like everything I like.
I totally agree.
Down to like, and I'm not saying they're copying, like the best bands that sound like other bands I like sound like A, 12 different bands and B, none of them.
Yeah, right.
And so there's times, like on Expert and Dying Field, there's this one beautiful little turn toward the end of that song that reminds me heavily of that dog.
Anybody know that dog?
No, no one knows that dog.
That's okay.
If you like pop music, check out that dog.
And when she goes, ah, ah, ah, ah.
you're going to go, oh my God, that sounds like that amazing record by that dog.
But it's all just exciting.
It's exciting to go, look at this.
It's like when your friend comes over to your house when you're six and you're like, do you want to come to my room and see my toys?
And you're like, I absolutely want to come to your room and see your toys.
Can I play with them?
You can absolutely play with my toys.
What's interesting is that so many of the music genre evolutions that happen in the course of our life
I don't think of them as, normally I don't think of them as technology dependent, but they kind of are, right?
You could have made Ramones music in 1961.
Yeah.
But really you couldn't.
It wasn't just that you couldn't have made those sounds with the equipment.
Yeah.
But it just wasn't.
Pan the bass and the guitar all the way right and left.
It kind of just wasn't.
And then make it sound like a girl group.
You couldn't have done it, right?
And certainly Duran Duran, you couldn't have made that music 10 years earlier because the synths weren't there and the drum machines weren't there.
And then you needed time for disco to cool off enough that people could enjoy a band like new order or Duran Duran without going, Oh, this is disco and it sucks.
Right.
And kind of understanding it or whatever.
But now when you listen to the baths and music that's come, that comes out now, all the technology has all been here for a long time.
There's no, none of those, none of that music is technology based.
But at the same time, I get that same feeling of if this music was here all along and
what would have happened if this had come out in 99?
Like, yeah.
Like, would this band have been the biggest band in America if this had come out in 2000?
So interesting.
You should put it that way and choose that year because that actually is a really interesting, interesting year for movies, a very interesting year for music.
A lot of shit got weird in 1999.
The boy band stuff was taking a different direction.
The, um,
like sort of like Latin music was kind of coming up big, stuff like that.
But also you had like, you know, New Radicals or whatever they're called.
Like, you know, you give what you get or whatever.
Or Len, you've got these weird pop bands out.
And like, there's been times, I mean, I've thought that about, you know,
your pal Bob Mould and Husker Du and like God bless R.I.P.
Spot somebody else had mixed those records in the mid 80s not saying anything against Spot but he was not the greatest engineer oh I know if those Bad Brains records sounded good oh my god when like Chris Gowell's
Chris got, like, so many things.
He's such a sourpuss.
But his big ding, he gives Zen Arcade an A-, and it's like, well, I think the quote, something along the lines of, you can hear Bob Mould's speaker, you can hear Bob Mould's guitar gathering dust between the amp and your speaker.
Because, you know, Spot, I don't know.
I often will think stuff like that.
Like, if that had sounded different, if that had been at a different time, like,
Yeah.
Yeah.
You're like, oh God, this really feels like a skeleton key to like an entire world.
If you'd heard this at a certain time.
And for me, that was probably REM.
Maybe that's the best of all.
Like what a weird fucking band for me to be that obsessed with.
They're basically just like a weird, like a, you know what I mean?
Like it's just, it's, you know, I thought about this the other day.
I was, you know, when I was down in the South and watching all the people wandering around, I thought one thing we'll never know.
is how many like kind of, uh, just Southern frat boys that would never have done anything other than just be Southern, you know, white dudes in, uh, in white shoes, uh,
got, got radicalized by REM playing in a, in like a, uh, like in a flat floored cafeteria space.
Could be, yeah.
Or like, like could be 40 walk club, but it could also just be, you caught them in North Carolina, like with, you saw them with like, you know, let's active or pylon or whatever.
And how, how much of what we think, how many of the liberal, uh,
50-year-olds in the South can trace that directly to an REM exposure in 1980, 81, 82, 83.
Yeah, talk about a sliding doors moment, yeah.
I think that REM is responsible for more good things in America than they'll ever get credit for.
Yeah.
Can I end it there?
Because I feel really good about that.
Yeah.
Don't get caught.
Good fucking band.
And had you ever personally seen Mike Mills injecting cocaine into his penis?
Have you ever actually seen that?
No, no.
But I mean, you can infer that, right?
I've been around him.
I've had dinner with him, but he didn't have any cocaine in his penis.
That you could see.
He and I have had a few encounters over the years, and one of them I thought he was a real prick.
But he was drinking.
Yeah, he's got those outfits.
He does.
Look at the way he's dressed.
Nudy suits.
All right, I might make a playlist for this one.
People love a playlist.
Yeah, it's a lot.
Okay, can I hit the bell now?
Yeah.
Okay.
Okay.