Ep. 552: "A Temporal Fortnight"
Hello?
Hi, John.
Hi, Merlin.
I forgot my line.
What?
Line?
You forgot your line.
What doing?
Hey, how thing by thee?
How thing by thee?
How by thee are thing.
How art thou?
Hmm.
Should I compare thee to a summer's day?
I'm not very temperate, if I'm being honest.
I mean, you can compare me to a summer day.
It's long.
It's exhausting.
Well, you know, summer days have changed a lot in our lifetimes, Merlin.
I don't have to tell you.
Hey, I'd love to hear it.
Summer days make me feel fine.
Something about the jasmine in my mind.
No, they changed a lot.
I'm talking about climate change.
Oh, Jesus.
Yeah, Jesus.
All right.
Is this going to be our climate change episode?
I'm game.
Seriously, you guys, stop using hairspray.
Knock it off.
It used to seem so simple.
Let me tell you some things.
that are gonna make you shit oh no i wasn't prepared for that about the environment never prepared for it are you no no no or the or the fluffy pillows yeah i geez i don't know man it's it's a it's a complicated time you know part of it is we got off we got off schedules you know as a as a country as people or as a country
as humans well i know i mean i the asterisk on everything is always everything's different everybody's different but when i was coming up you know school would end around the end of may or beginning of june and start in september it's not just your slingshot in the back pocket of your denim jeans that's right well there are overalls and i would always be over there pestering mr wilson you'd go down to the pond and you'd be sticking you know picking at frogs with sticks
Oh, I was forever picking.
I would hit him with a copy of a Mark Twain novel.
Smack.
Smack and the Frogs, we called it back in Ohio.
Oh, no.
I understand.
There's lots of little things like this that trouble me, though.
Just to be clear here, what I'm saying is I'm not trying to be prescriptive or everything should change to be old.
But it used to be that there were a lot of things that we all had in common.
For reasons that, in retrospect, may seem obvious unless you're young and you've never had to think about these things.
We all read Love and the Time of Cholera, all at the same time.
The whole world.
Yep, yep, yep.
We wait for everybody to catch up on the page we were on.
I remember that.
Late 80s was a hell of a time for... It was.
We call them a party read.
No, but like, it's, it's honestly, this is, this is not, I'm not laying the pretext for some kind of an old man rant, but I do think it's something worth noting.
And I'll just mention two parts about this because I haven't prepared for this.
But one is like, it's, it's gotten a little confusing about like school years and what school years like mean.
Again, always asterisks.
What school years mean?
Well, I mean, you were used to the idea that to me, like, you know, I just want to be very clear.
I'm not going to say it again, but I'm not saying this is how it should be.
I'm just saying I think the world has changed in a way we haven't taken full account of in these fairly subtle ways.
So one is the time thing.
School ends on June 4th.
They're abouts, and it should start after Labor Day.
And I understand why we don't.
There's lots and lots of reasons.
Football players go there early.
The trombones have to be there for sectionals.
That's all fine.
And you're used to like, oh, you know, colleges tend to start a little bit before public schools.
But that gets a little confusing.
And you know what the other one is?
Is the TV doesn't sync up anymore.
TV doesn't sync up.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
No, I think this is subtle.
But, like, when I watch a live event on television, I'm watching it streaming.
I mean, it's just surpassingly rare for me to have actual over-the-air broadcast TV on for a variety of reasons.
But if I'm watching the news, this is not a big deal.
It's usually less than a minute of delay there.
You can see when the clock changes on the screen, it's like my clock says it's 6.01, but they're just starting this newscast, right?
Not a huge deal.
But we're not all watching exactly the same.
Time was.
You took a transistor radio to the ball game.
And you're hearing it in as close to real time as could be.
I saw that at the last ballgame.
The guy sitting right in front of me had a transistor radio in one ear.
Oh, I do that.
How the hell do you... Oh, you know what's cool is Apple TV.
Yeah.
I'm sorry.
John?
John?
John?
Can I just point out this is the problem?
What?
Oh, right, because we're streaming.
We're all living... We're living in a time of great... Cholera.
Of greatly increased latency.
Yeah.
Not latency as in, like, we've all got the same two-second, seven-second, 12-second delay.
But we all have different delays.
We're all hearing things.
So, anyway, what I was going to tell you was, if you watch Apple TV on Friday nights, they have baseball.
And one of the cool things is that you can watch, when you're watching a baseball game, you can listen to their audio of, like, the people running around with microphones.
Or, in most cases, you can choose to listen to the home team...
Their radio broadcast or the away team's radio broadcast.
So I watched the game the other night between the Yankees and the Red Sox.
And you could choose to listen to Yankees radio or Red Sox radio or Apple TV audio.
I think that's kind of cool.
That is cool.
I was thinking about this the other day.
Until we got cable TV, which in Anchorage was 1981.
All of the television broadcasts in Alaska came on tape two inch tape on a barge and So all of our programming that wasn't really inefficient.
Oh from like Long Beach
Yeah.
Not from like Vodstock or something.
No, no, no.
It was coming from Long Beach.
I got diplomacy on the brain.
It probably, you know, they got done with the Carson show.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And a kid runs it, runs it straight to the ship, to the barge.
Yeah, well, or, you know, they broadcast it in Seattle somehow, but then they put it on a barge and they shipped it to Anchorage.
So all of our sitcoms, all of our...
uh all of our programming that wasn't like the news was on a two-week time to lag time to lag i know about this and it's why at the bottom of every sears ad it would say prices higher in alaska and hawaii right similar thing so for us the day that cable tv arrived was not just like oh we have mtv although it was mostly that yeah
But it was also, we went from a two-week lag on almost everything, where Carson's making jokes like, did you see in the news?
And it was something that happened two weeks before.
But then most of the good Iran-Contra jokes would have spoiled a little.
Yeah, exactly.
Because we do have the newspaper.
But this is like, this is like the difference between a weekly newspaper and a telegraph almost in terms of old timey things.
You know what I mean?
A weekly newspaper is what basically, yeah.
But then we also had television from England and television from, I mean, it happened honestly over the course of an afternoon.
They came into your house.
They flipped a switch and suddenly you were wired to the rest of the world the way you were before.
They put a box on top of your TV and then it was... And I think all around the country it was like that in terms of, wow, I can get WGN now.
But for us, it was this additional thing of...
I think somewhere in the wrinkle of space-time, there's two weeks missing in Alaska between where we were, and then we just skipped ahead two weeks, and then we were on a roller.
You know what they call that at the Naval Center?
I think that's called a temporal fortnight.
It's like a leap fortnight.
A temporal fortnight.
Yeah, it's a wrinkle in time.
Two weeks get skipped.
Yeah, absolutely.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So, yeah, I, I think about, I was thinking about that just the other day because I, I, I, I've been saying that, but I, but I actually went, I was like, that can't be right.
It couldn't have been that.
And I looked it up and yeah.
And they were like, some things were three weeks, some things it was a three week like.
And but you're also teasing out the more subtle point I was struggling to make, which is it's one thing for things to change and for everybody to still be most of the same.
It's quite a different thing when things change, but everybody's not the same.
Right.
And that's why I say latency is interesting, because think of latency in our case here is why we sometimes talk over each other.
It's why, you know, there's all kinds of things where like we can't account for the Internet as Syracuse calls the Internet weather between me and you.
Right.
Right.
So there's not even like a known amount of, and obviously there's ways that computers handle this kind of stuff.
And oddly enough, now we also have clocks that are like so accurate on every device, but just something as simple as what they used to call a simulcast.
So like King Biscuit flower hour, like might be playing like a live concert or something, but a better example might be, I remember, uh, like when, uh, when Clinton did his, uh, did his convention address in, I guess that was 92.
I remember getting kind of fancy and turning on the stereo because we had one of those stations where you get the stereo signal over the radio and it's synced flawlessly.
Wow.
With the television.
Well, because, I mean, the latency such as it was is so small in both of those broadcast media.
I guess even with cable TV, there's going to be maybe a very small... I'm not trying to say that all TVs should show the same thing at the same time.
That would be 1984.
It's more a way of saying... I don't know if we fully interrogated the numerous ways since the 50s in particular...
Because another example people have used, at least in the reading I used to do, was how the 50s were the first time... I guess you think of radio, too, but especially early TV was the first time that you could see and hear people, like, today...
in different parts of the country how they look how they talk how you know and then since then there's been this sort of reversion to the mean where you know there's fewer regional accents fewer differences and acts you know what i mean and that's kind of what you're describing though because you're in this place that's so isolated in some ways maybe happily isolated in some ways did you feel i mean obviously you watched a lot of mtv must be the first part right yes
Well, you know, I was the exact right age.
I was 13.
Perfect age.
Perfect age.
Me too.
I got an 82, and I got an 82 when I was, I think, what was I then?
14?
14, 15.
Yeah.
So I went from...
from black and white to color but at exactly the right moment where it's like now i'm ready to hear music and see culture and know about things from all over and lo and behold here it all is there's captain sensible right on your own tv there it is and and so but if you think about it i graduated from high school in 86 like i had four years to try and like see the world
from a time before that where what we got was Time Magazine, The Carson Show, Laverne and Shirley, and the Daily Newspaper.
I had four years of exposure to...
um what what we now take well what now would be like a tiny sliver of the amount of culture that we can consume just sitting in an hour um four years to figure it out and so when i left alaska at 17
and arrived in america i a lot of the naivete i had a lot of the like golly g shucks type of like lack of understanding of where i was or what what actually was happening was just that i had no i had actually very little exposure to it american culture um what things were
And I landed down here and I was like, well, I'll just hop on the back of a hay truck.
And people were like, you're in Seattle.
It's not like you didn't know about the rest of the world.
But I would say, for example, the first time I visited Manhattan, which was, you know, that you've seen photos.
I think it was 1988, right?
And the thing was, for me, this sounds silly, but maybe you folks aren't a country mouse like I am.
But for me coming from Florida and even having been, I've been to places, but going to Manhattan is
I mean, obviously, it's so overwhelming in a kind of a wonderful and sometimes very trying way.
But it was basically like going to Disney World in some ways, where you're like, oh, look, there's Mickey Mouse.
Where you'd be like, oh, there's stuff that's open at 2 in the morning, and people actually go there.
It's not just a Super America gas station near the highway.
Like, there's actually this thriving city.
That's part of what makes it so overwhelming.
It's overwhelming to go anywhere new to me.
But especially that, because I'm constantly having this...
mental proprioception problem, like placing myself where I am and being surrounded by so much stuff that's both totally foreign and totally familiar.
You're like, oh yeah, and eventually you're like, yeah, Chrysler building.
By the way, I'll take the Chrysler building over the Empire State Building any day.
Oh wow, you're one of those.
I appreciate the history of the Empire State Building.
You know, one of the families.
You don't shy away from controversy.
I'm not afraid to speak truth to power or speak truth to towers if they're building the 30s.
You know, I had no sense of stranger danger.
And when I got to, and of course, when you're a teenager, whatever stranger danger is means a different thing.
But, but so part of that means that your, your parents in this case, particularly your mom had not beaten it into your head about like all the things a lot of us were hearing at the time.
no i think that's i think my mom didn't like strangers but it was that she didn't like them she didn't see it as like an entire community of predators coming after her precious boy like my mom did there was none of that and so when i when i first at 17 encountered actual criminals and actual dangerous people i had no sense no ability to gauge their dangerousness
And so the first time I was in Times Square, which was just a couple of years before you were... That's before they had the M&M store.
Yeah, when it was really... They had the S&M store, am I right?
Forno theaters and, you know, like New York dangerous, not Seattle dangerous.
And Seattle had its own dangerousness, right?
But I'm just wandering around like, hey, fellas...
Like, are there any good hotels around here?
I'm seeing you looking like John Voight in Midnight Cowboy.
Showing up in your special outfit and making friends.
I mean, I was wearing a Tennessee tuxedo like I did have.
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roderick on the line and all the great shows denim denim denim uh-huh but but uh but no just no conception it was it was only a few years after it that i that i really like would wake up sometimes and be like oh my god uh i was just so so dumb so new and somehow just skated by uh without anybody saying
Hey, punk, let me hold your wallet or let me hold your underwear.
Elevator passes.
Wallet inspector.
Hey, are you in the old hour gang?
Serials?
Hey, what of it?
I'm going to hit you with my dog, Petey.
but i'm really trying to deprogram stranger danger not just out of my kid but out of her mom out of everybody out of myself how do you transform a rote set of rules and fears about the world how do you change that into something really restart to get something closer to just what i would call situational awareness which is so much more useful in life
than a rote set of fears and rules.
It's 100% the game.
Is that a good word for it?
Isn't that kind of a good word for it, though?
We say situational awareness to one another, and I have since she was five years old.
I'm like, listen, anytime you're standing out on a sidewalk, I want you to be able to tell me which cars are in motion.
Identify the biggest danger right now without even having to think about it.
But also, who's the safest person you can see right now?
If you look around on this street, who's the person that seems to you to be the safest if you needed to go somewhere where there was a safe person?
Go talk to somebody with a name tag.
That was one of my rules.
Oh, good.
Exactly.
If you get lost, if it's somebody in a red shirt at Target with a name tag, unless they're a very advanced cosplayer, go to that person and they'll be able to pass you on to somebody responsible.
And that situational awareness, now that she's a teenager, is much more highly developed.
Like, where's the bathroom?
Where's the bus station?
And so we would play that game when she was a kid, and she's very now aware of, at least that I'm going to ask her situational awareness questions.
Do you ask her about means of egress?
Does she check her six and look for exits?
She should.
I'm busy doing that.
But for sure, she doesn't walk down the street with headphones on unaware that there's a slow-moving van.
It turns you into a human pinata.
If you're walking down the street looking at your phone with headphones on, which I do, like everybody, but if you do that in the wrong kind of situation, you're basically a pinata.
Yeah, exactly.
And you certainly don't go walking through a quiet neighborhood by yourself
on an afternoon with your headphones on looking at your phone not aware of you know but to to to take that and say but mostly sweetheart the world is safe and mostly people are nice the world is safe and people are nice is the thing that's the hardest
to get back into people's head.
Like it doesn't, it really has nothing to do with whether you like people or whether you want to be with them.
It helps if we all agree to that also.
Part of what makes that complex is if half of us or whatever feel like, no, actually it is a world of predators, then that has its own kind of viral effect where maybe they're not going to be as nice.
You know, it's almost like a prisoner's dilemma in some ways.
100%.
And you know, one of the weird things, I went to a lot of large concerts this year.
I went to one two days ago.
And so that has been, I've been interacting with large groups of millennials.
in ways that prior to this summer i hadn't really you know i think during the long winters years i thought of millennials primarily as my audience you know the the people i was trying to get to buy long winters records and that were going to come to see us the people who introduced me unintentionally introduced me to the long winters via live journal where i think across the board all what we now call millennials they're of that age yeah
But the younger millennials are the ones that I know less well.
You know, the ones that are wearing mustaches, the ones that are pattern clashing and wearing flat brim hats and parachute pants.
Delivering DoorDash on a penny farthing?
Yeah, like this kind of thing where the older millennials were just in college when, you know, in the late 2000s.
Whereas the young millennials...
are the ones that are maybe culturally like a whole other group.
And I've been with them in these large concert settings.
And there are a couple of, a couple of things I've noticed, which is that they don't want to be touched by,
in a concert setting you know they don't they're not just all pig piling the ones at the front of course can't help it so you're not getting for one thing just get one out of the way so you're not getting that press toward the stage i think up there like i'm not pushing that way but but i try and get as close as i can to the front and i find that they're all standing in little silos um
Like an implicit zone around them.
Yeah, meticulously keeping two inches of space on all sides from one another.
Like the way you get into an elevator, you know, and always kind of pick the spot furthest away and then you fill it in.
And you can be in a crowded elevator and kind of still not touch anybody.
But the other thing, and this is, I think, the biggest thing, when we would go to rock concerts, there was a sense that we all together comprised the audience.
And we were all here to see that band, so we were all kind of on the same team.
And this you saw a lot in mosh pits.
There was a complex etiquette to mosh pits and stage diving and where you stood in a room.
You could stand places where it was clearly like, I'm not in the mosh pit.
Do not engage me in that fashion.
But we were still- It's almost getting like a UN blue helmet.
Like you're not allowed to like skank into me because I'm not in an area where that's supposed to happen.
This is no skank zone.
But also if you saw somebody slip and fall- No skanks.
Like everybody went to get that person back up.
You didn't, you're not trying to find out if they're okay.
The person slips and fall and everyone around them just puts them back on their feet.
And it's instantaneous.
I know you've experienced it, but like the number of times that I've fallen in the middle of a huge crowd where everybody's going crazy and yet I'm lifted back up.
by unseen hands and nobody that's doing it is like are you okay it's just a reflex no it's almost a way of saying back to work like back to work in the earlier days like i don't know i wasn't there in southern california nor was i there when people were playing as john linnell says pass the dude like that's after my time but i and i did not i mean like slam dancing with my friends was fun
Like, if you're, like, that was fun.
I was not one of the people at, like, a Black Flag show.
But even at a Black Flag show, there'd be some psychopaths.
But almost everybody there was, you know, like, it wasn't the UN, but it was, but no, there was no idea that this is a, that this is a coliseum where only one of us will survive in the end and all others must be.
That's not how it goes.
It's like, get up, get back to it.
Like, we all need to be doing this thing in a circle.
Well, and also, any serious mosh pit, if there is a psychopath, everybody knows who he is really fast.
And people are actively trying to...
you can't isolate that guy but you can not engage with him but it was a self-healing group in a lot of ways it really was and it was a very it was a very it was it looks from the outside very violent and there is a lot of sort of violence in it but it's an it's a it's a real organism right but that's true of any concert yeah yeah and now i get yeah that's a really okay yeah that's a really good point yeah
When I'm at these shows now, I have this very real perception that each person that's at the show is there to see the show with their group of friends or by themselves or whatever, and they see themselves as pods and not as a collective unit.
And so when you say, when you are walking past somebody and you touch them or you bump them and you say like, hey man, can you stand over here so that this person can stand there?
And just the kind of like communication that you used to do with people around you that wasn't like a conversation.
It's not like you're like, hey man, how's it going?
What's the show?
People used to pass joints around.
exactly you're all pushed against each other and there's nothing about it that feels like an invasion or an assault because if you didn't want that you wouldn't be there you'd be you'd be somewhere else or back by the bar or whatever and that's been very unusual for me because i didn't you know i i just didn't expect it
I went to this show a couple of nights ago.
I got a DM from somebody who was like, hey, I'm a big fan.
I'm tour managing this band.
They're playing at the Gorge.
Do you want to go?
Oh, fuck you.
Did you see King Gizzard?
It came in.
Did you go see King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard?
And I was like, look, look.
Do you think I'm making fun of you?
I watched a live stream of them at a gorgeous thing the other night.
Were you there?
This just came in.
This just came in.
I had no, I had no, I didn't understand.
I'd never heard of the band.
But but this person was like, you know, I'm there.
I'm gonna I'm their tour manager So you confirming that it's one of my favorite bands that you saw you can come you can come hang out with the band come eat in the catering This is them.
I'm gonna be so fucking mad
And so it came in at exactly the moment when I was like, I wrote them back and said, there is no reason why I should do this.
This is a two and a half hour drive.
I would love to meet them.
I've never met you before.
I don't know this band, but you know what?
I'm going to do it.
Oh my fucking God.
And so they were like, great.
Well, come out to the, so I got in the car and I drove two and a half hours over the mountains to the gorgeous place I've been at many times to see this gizzard and the lizard wizard.
So, okay.
Are you fucking, can I just, can we be super clear here that this is not a bit?
You really did go see them?
Well, yeah, I did.
I went over to see them.
No, I'm sorry.
I'm not trying to be a dick about it.
I am, I mean, first, fascinated by this band.
They've had 25 albums in 10 years.
They put out 2.27 albums per year on average.
Yes.
And the thing I've said about them trying to get other people into them is to say, like, no matter what...
no matter what your favorite King Gizzard song is, it doesn't sound like any of their other songs.
They are, like, there's one thing to say, like, oh, what kind of music?
Oh, like, all kinds of music.
But, like, they do genre stuff so sincerely.
Their pop songs are amazing pop songs.
Their metal songs are so metal.
And their prog stuff is delightful.
They're all so good.
Oh, my God.
And were they wearing jumpsuits?
Were they wearing jumpsuits when you saw them?
I didn't know any of this.
Oh, my God.
That's so cool, man.
What a great introduction.
So I'm wandering around, and there are a lot of people in jumpsuits, not just the band.
I declared this the other night on Mastodon.
It is my belief that almost all Australian bands, I was watching a diff, they live stream every show with multiple cameras on stage.
I learned all about it.
Yeah, they're almost like, they're not like fish, but they're like fish structurally in some ways, like in terms of their fan base and stuff.
But I was just like, yes, it is my belief that almost every band from Australia should wear a fishing jumpsuit or a boiler suit when they're playing.
Americans that I know in the concert business like my tour manager friend now is a friend but I also was seeing all these kind of what I would have called the kids who work for Portugal the man and the kids who work for well who work in music now who all have mustaches and are wearing mismatched the dark hair guitar player has one of those mustaches
He does.
He does.
There are a lot of mustaches in rock and roll now.
There's the guy who plays keyboard and sings sometimes who looks like a combination of Dave Weigel and Honoré de Balzac.
That guy over on the left side of the stage.
He absolutely does.
At this show, they inflated a rubber boat and he got in the boat and crowd surfed across the crowd.
Who drop tunes a 12-string guitar?
While singing and then sized and he they floated him back, you know, to the state.
It was kind of it was kind of a disaster.
The barricade fell down and whatnot.
But so I was I was being introduced to this.
This whole universe of rock and roll.
And I had my favorite thing in all of rock, which is an all-access laminate that says, there are no doors to you.
And so I said, well, great.
And of course my friend is the tour manager.
So she's extremely busy.
Like she does not have time.
You got a hard pass and nobody's going to be, if somebody did like go, not that it would be them, but like if anybody went like, who's this big guy, the tour manager go, it's okay.
It's a pal of mine.
He's not dangerous.
Well, that, but also, this now is too big of an operation for any one person other than her and the band to know everybody, right?
Nobody knows who I am.
I could be the fucking Sheriff Twisp.
But also, the great thing about this was that no one at this concert cared where I was at any given moment.
I had no duties.
There was nobody there who was like, where's John?
Because she was busy.
keeping the stage from catching on fire so i took that pass and i went all over the gorge i went that's every place you could go i went to the soundboard i went to the guitar tech i went to the furthest back of the crowd i wove in and out of the crowd went to the vip area went to the bar you know and everywhere i was going i was just soaking in this crowd and
which was very much like what I was talking about before the opposite, right?
Everybody was touching everybody.
Everybody was grooving, but not because the band is what it is.
And every song is in 1117 time.
I remember standing at one point and I could see 700 people and every one of them was dancing to the beat of a different drummer.
Like, no one was dancing.
No one had a sense that the one.
Well, and just for contrast, and I don't mean this as a criticism at all, but I think of, like, the hardcore show that kind of turned the corner for me was Agnostic Front.
I went to see Agnostic Front and GBH.
which are two pretty heavy British hardcore bands that do attract a lot of skinheads in Tampa.
Tampa was a big skinhead town at the time.
But the thing is, you go to a show like that, and you're much more likely to see a lot of guys in leather jackets with whiteout paintings on it or whatever.
People were going to see... One time when I was in Toronto, AFI was playing, and all the kids looked very similar.
I'll bet this is a much more diverse-looking audience, and that has a lot to do with their music, probably.
Well, the audience was bananas.
Really?
You mean enthusiastic?
Well, everybody was in love.
The last time I went to a concert where every single person looked happy, I don't even remember.
Which there's 22,000 people in this this was the largest show they'd ever played in their whole career So the band was giddy and feeling like what is happening?
You know, they never play the same song twice in the same town.
I was I was talking to the guitar player The the one with the mustache you're kidding the guy with the guy with the bangs and the like the glasses the yet no the the the The handsome guy
Yeah, the one that looks like a few Weybill or whatever.
Yeah, he has the same inflammatory bowel disease that I have.
Oh, really?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
He's the serious one in the pan from my impression of talking to them for a little bit.
He's the one that kind of is the straight...
It was just like talking to them.
It's like when you see pictures of Rivers Cuomo before Weezer when he was briefly in a metal band.
You know, he's very serious.
He seems very focused, but they're all funny.
Oh, funny and friendly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But he was saying... I'm sorry, I'm geeking out because I really like this band and I haven't met that many other people who have even heard of them.
Well, and that was the that was the experience of everybody that I encountered like they're 22,000 people at this show and every single one of them is an evangelist and Also, can't believe that anybody else has ever heard of them because that's a good feeling.
That's not a wonderful feeling It was wonderful.
Yeah, and it's so implausible that this band has 22,000 people at this show because as you said
My friend Adam Zaks, I ran into him at the show and he was like, this band is like every band at a festival, but in one band.
In one band.
It's like, you know, how about this?
It's like going to, what was the one, like Lollapalooza, like where they have different stages.
It's like, this is all the stages.
all the stages together at once it's like it's like a crummy local band it's a it's a it's a kind of little too sincere acoustic band it is like a very genre any of three or four different very genre specific very heavy bands yeah i said i said on instagram that it was at one point i was like well this is like genesis mixed with midnight oil mixed with dio
I was going to say Iron Maiden, but that's even better.
I was like, how did those three things go together?
And yet, I'm completely absorbed.
But the space thing was different than what you'd seen.
Oh, and the guitar player was saying that when they come back to a town,
the next year, they're aware of what their set list was the last time they played there, and they never play the same song twice in a town.
So when they come back to San Francisco next time, they're going to play a completely different set than they did the year before.
If you missed Gila Monster on a previous tour, you're not going to hear it on this one.
And that to me was like, well... Can you imagine adding that, John?
Can you even imagine, even if they have a dedicated person for taking care of this on a computer, could you imagine adding that complexity to a tour?
Well, so I'm with the tour manager, right?
So before the show, I'm sitting in her office, and the keyboard tech is in there, and she hands him, I swear to God, an accordion folder.
LAUGHTER
And she says she's looking at her computer and she says, find the lyric sheets for the following songs.
I need three of them for this song, two of them for that song, because at one point they're at the desk and they need it on paper.
People do switch instruments, but also there's a lot of different people.
Like there's a lot of like some people will do like guitar and keyboard and percussion or whatever.
Right.
They do a little bit of I always think of like the way saga was like changing instruments like on a bunch of songs.
there's quite a bit of that but also it's very it seems very manageable but anyway they are managing their set list to that degree she handed me the set list before the show and i said i don't know the band or any of these songs why what is this going to do for me and she said well here's one thing you might like they say the name of every song in the song so unlike the long winters where you would be hard pressed to know what the song was called
by listening to it, if you look at your sheet and listen to the song, you will hear those words at one point, rattlesnake, and you can look at it and go, oh, it's rattlesnake.
And so this will help guide you, this piece of paper.
And it's a three-hour set, you know.
But walking around and talking to everybody, I saw a lot of...
I would say the group of people identifies as a group, first of all, in this way, in this, like, we're all here.
So we are the organism.
And it's not that we're each in our silo watching a thing that we like.
The crowd is part of it.
And also, they think of themselves as a jam band audience.
That's the part that's so weird.
And this is why Marco Arment, our mutual friend, who he's one of the biggest Phish fans and least embarrassed Phish fans I know.
And I'm always kind of tempted to recommend this.
Not because I think he'd like...
This given song, because good luck with these guys.
It's not like it's different every time, but I want to repeat, they've done 25 albums in 10 years.
They are so prolific, and the material is surprisingly good for somebody who puts out that much.
Some of it is just like, oh yeah, we just did a spoken word concept album.
They're just constantly making stuff.
But it's hard to pitch to somebody because it's like, what's this music like?
It's like a lot of different things, but culturally, they're kind of a jam band.
In terms of their mojo.
And that's super weird to me, right?
Absolutely.
I don't like that kind of music.
There's a lot of Gen X in the audience.
Looking around the room, I did not see what I expected, like a new band that has a very young audience.
It was people across the age spectrum.
There were plenty of people my age there.
But like talking to my friend, she said as they were gearing up for this tour, she couldn't get them to rehearse for the tour because they all got together and they were like, well, if we're all going to be together, let's just make a new record.
And so during the time that she had budgeted for them to rehearse for the tour, they actually just wrote a new record and recorded it.
And she's like, so they showed up for the tour and they're not rehearsed.
They don't, they're not rehearsed at all.
In fact, they have 10, 12 new songs in their head and, you know, and that's what they want to play.
And I'm just like, wow, this is, but in talking to the band afterward,
I was like kind of embarrassed or shy about saying like, so there's a lot of like, the thing is, it's not just the, it's not just tie dye.
Like there are people out there who are wearing full on glitter suits and there's somebody.
Yeah, just to be super clear, so you don't get mad at me trying to pitch you this band.
I dare not try one of my general introductions lists with these guys, because it would be virtually impossible.
But what I would say is, if you're thinking you've got jam band or fish in your head now, just remember, I'm saying that's cultural.
Each one of their songs is a very memorable example of a different genre.
Not every song, but they don't sound one way at all.
Well, no, and I really feel like it's a band that is a live band first.
I really feel like the music is meant to move you physically, you know?
But in talking to them, I like broach this thing because we're sitting backstage.
They're all sweaty and everybody's and somebody's making toasties and they're flying to Australia the next day.
So everybody's just in this kind of state of mind.
That is a continent that understands what to do with toast.
And that's all I'll say about that.
And they're very and they're putting a little bit of we had a little bit of a disagreement as a room full of people because the Americans in the room were like, oh, you're putting peppered peppered jam on there.
And the Australians were like, it's pepper jelly.
Why are you saying pepper jam?
I still don't really know the difference.
I thought it might be seeds.
It's pepper jam.
Clearly it's pepper jam.
And they were like, it's pepper jelly.
That was my pole dancer name for a while in the 80s.
Pepper jelly.
Well, but so... I don't went by both at different clubs.
So I was like, but this jam band thing.
And they all...
this was the weirdest part of the whole night they were all like yeah we're really in that jam band space you know it's like maybe not musically but um but yeah they were like not shy not embarrassed they were just like they didn't like instantly as one go no we don't think of ourselves oh no we're much cooler than that yeah none of that they they were just like yeah that's rad like um we don't sound like uh fish or the dead or anything like that
or Ford tour or whatever.
Um, but jam band is we're fine with it.
And, um, and that was, that was a mind blower to me because what happened was it was just like color television coming to Alaska.
I suddenly saw that jam band did not mean
What I thought it means.
And there is a future for jam band that is not jam band music or something.
And I could see the crowd was the intellectual side of jam band.
Like everybody there had glasses and they were all pushing their glasses up their nose throughout the show.
Cause it's like math rock audience too.
Yeah, I mean, like, there's one thing that's, I haven't given this much thought, but one thing to think of, like, if y'all are music fans, like, when you think of it, think of it partly like, God, I'm putting this all so badly.
It's that, so you've got the elements.
So you know how in jam bands, there are like whatever, what's that band called that everybody likes?
Yeah.
Dream Theater.
There are these bands that have a following.
Look at a band like Marillion back in the 80s or Dream Theater, I guess, mostly in the 90s.
But you know these kinds of, these sorts of bands that get this really rabid following with this music that's frankly pretty proggy or metal in some ways.
It's not, you know, do-do-do-do, you know, Jerry Garcia music.
But then it's the part on top of that that's so mind-boggling is like people don't seem to hate any of the songs because the band is just fun.
And they're just having fun with it.
Yeah, there wasn't anything... Oh, that was, I guess, the other thing.
I've never been to a metal show, which I kind of would call this, where there was no...
anger in the room like no one in the room was no performative rage there was no aggression even though the music was very aggressive the band was putting out no aggression from the stage and the audience was responding with no aggression
And that was also new because in most metal and punk, the band is putting out a ton of aggression and the audience is responding to that, whether it's driven by anger or frustration or anger.
a belief in aliens.
Well, it was very easy to see at that GBH show.
You know, there's definitely a vibe at some shows that you go to, and it's like, I guess what I'm trying to say poorly is that there are people who know that anger or rage or the implicit violence is part of the appeal, and that's what they vend in some ways.
But that doesn't mean that aggressive music has to be accepted in a way that makes you feel
Unkind.
You can just enjoy it because it's cool music.
So that's why I said performative.
It's not like people are out there going, meh, you know.
The only reason I wanted to talk about the actual King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
Terrible name.
Or King Gizzard and Liz Wiz.
And I tried that out on several people.
I was like, so how long you been into the Grizz and Liz Wiz?
And nobody picked up that ball.
KGLW is not very pretty is what a lot of people do.
Well, and the band refers to themselves as the Grizz or Grizz.
They're like, Grizz is on tour, and when Grizz gets back out... Oh, and the third person.
I like that.
And I was like, well, but, you know, when King Grizz and Liz Whiz, nobody... And nobody wanted it.
And it's not like they scoffed at it or said, like, don't say that.
I bet they've heard a lot.
I bet they've heard a lot of clever ideas.
But I really lie.
It was so dad.
And I said it.
I said to Ari, I was going to this show, and I said the name of the band.
And...
Both she and Susan were standing there and they took a moment pause and then they're like, wait, that's the real name of the band?
Because that sounds like the type of thing you would say.
That's the type of band.
It's almost a Susanism.
Yeah.
King Riz and the Liz Whiz and they're like, oh, we thought you were kidding.
King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard.
But anyway, the reason I want to talk about it is not to sit with you and nerd out about all the time signature changes, although I do want to do that in private.
But the point for our audience... People in the audience.
...is that...
Whatever it took in my head to overcome, I had to overcome six different pandemic style inhibitions to get up and go to this show.
And a lot of them, as you know, as somebody on the internet- Especially so far away.
Well, that, but also that whole level of stranger danger that comes with, well, this is a fan and this fan is inviting me to interact with them
In their context, this person is saying, you come to me.
And what she knew that I didn't was she was saying, I'm going to introduce you to a world, and this is what I'm giving you today.
Because you've given me whatever podcasts give me, but I actually have something to give you.
Is that personal something right now?
I don't know.
Maybe.
Well, tell her I think they're cool.
Tell her I think she's cool.
She was on some airplane flying back to her own home.
And if she described it in a lot of detail, I bet that would have been a put-off.
It would have.
And she didn't, she didn't say anything and she didn't say, don't look them up.
She didn't say, do, I think she assumed that I would then go do a deep dive on them, which I studiously did not.
Um, but she was doing that thing that we all who are in public facing jobs are, are accustomed to getting, which is, Hey, you know, I work at an airplane museum in, in Ohio.
And if you're ever through, you know, come by and I'll show you the thing.
And I tend to try and accept those invitations.
Hell yeah.
Yeah.
Even though the stranger danger of being in, in the public eye is you're always at risk of ending up in somebody's sex dungeon or just, I mean, the worst is ending up in a long and not fruitful interaction with somebody that you can't get away from.
Right.
So we all go into these things with like, you know,
Hey, I've got to be someplace in two hours, but I'd love to meet your family.
And this was one where she knew that whatever... Did it end up in retrospect?
It sounds like... It's something I do sometimes.
I've done this with you so many times with videos or bands.
I tend to be pretty circumspect about recommending stuff, oddly enough, to my close friends.
Because I feel like... Before I recommend a TV comedy to Syracuse, I do a lot of kind of...
mental gymnastics and mathematics in my head about whether it's a good pick, not because of my reputation or anything, but in your case, like there might be a thing where I'm like, honestly, it could be something like King Gizzard.
And what I will say is, look, I try not to do this too often, but I'll say, look, just trust me.
Just trust me.
Like, if I explain this at all to you, it's not going to make any difference.
It's just, just go check out this thing.
And I try not to do that too often because I want to keep my powder dry so that I've always got the just trust me.
It kind of sounds like that, like she knew enough about you to kind of say, well, just give this a throw.
Trust me.
Give it a throw, right?
and right now pulp is on tour oh my god and and in fact tonight they're playing in san francisco i know you told me an hour you made me a very kind offer and i was like well there's a there's a there's a person that is listening to this show who happens to be pulps you know one of pulp's like sort of main tech people i just want to i want to speak directly to that person right now which i don't normally do i love that band very very much
I know.
If he calls your dad, he could stop it right now.
You know what I'm saying?
I love that song.
I love that song so much.
And he said, look, Pulp's not coming to Seattle.
They're only coming to, because he's from England.
They're not coming to Seattle, but they are coming to California.
And if you want to come down, I'll give you the whole Pulp experience.
Would you get to meet Jarvis?
Well, I don't know about that.
They probably keep him like a glass case or something.
He, you know, he's like on a hovering carpet, you know, or something.
Maybe he's not.
You ever heard him interviewed?
He's a really smart guy.
He's so smart.
There's a couple bands from that era.
I mean, if you take the kind of basic bands, like, okay, I'll be real basic and say, I like...
I like Blur so much more than Oasis because I just simply do not like Oasis.
I'll get that one out of the way.
But I think there are sleepers.
I mean, I think Primal Scream, I guess, would be technically a little more Manchester.
But in particular, them and Suede, I think, are two bands that people need to give a second look to.
It felt like Suede and Pulp were Britpop until Oasis showed up.
And changed it.
It was that more Smithsy.
I mean, I think of the Britpop that we, in America, we know as Britpop as being more influenced by, sort of like by the Kinks and certain kinds of what we call British Invasion.
But like those bands were much more, I mean, like to me, Suede is very...
Smithy in some ways and and you know what I mean?
I'm very suave and like every god if you guys have never seen common people at Glastonbury Watch that one performance of common people at glastonbury the violins a little loud in the mix, but it's an incredible performance Common people you know the you know the BPM goes up like 20 points in the song as it should it's crazy I have watched a video about this but continue.
Sorry.
I like music John I don't mean by Jason Finn's the only person I have to talk to about music and
I know, and he doesn't even like music.
But if you watch the mannerism of Sean Nelson in all of the Harvey Danger early years, they are all Jarvis Cocker.
The Marlboro man died of cancer.
If you see him in those videos, the way his body moves.
I used to always think Morrissey, but you're right.
Or a little sweaty.
He's got like a kind of sexy vibe.
And because of it, I think if you watch the Common People video and you see this lean, beautiful man who's doing this like act and it's so smart and it's so like biting.
So clever.
Oh my God.
She studied sculpture at St.
Martin's College.
And this was the problem, I think, because Harvey Danger did not expect, and Sean certainly didn't, expect to be popular with suburban kids in juncos with wallet chains.
Even those giant pants?
No, they did not think that was their audience.
I get the feeling that the guitar player and the bass player in particular did not have that in mind.
Sean, and I forget the drummer's name.
Remind me.
Evan.
Evan.
Evan, right, right, right.
But, like, Aaron and, oh, shit.
Jeff.
Jeff are both, like, they seem like they're almost in a different band.
They almost seem like they're in, like, a, I don't know, like a very good, like, college.
Like, Jeff always seems so, like, low-key, but Sean and Aaron were so lively.
But the way Sean did it was so, like, sinewy and foxy.
He danced like a tall man.
Yeah.
Well, and Jeff and Aaron, to be honest, we're in completely different bands from each other and often like completely different universes mentally.
That's the Jeff Lynn experience.
Yeah.
They would, they would, they, uh, I, I was on tour with them for a year and I, I don't know if I ever saw them look at each other pretty weird, but that's the, that's the power of that.
And honestly, that invitation lie to California to see pulp.
It's probably my only chance to ever see Paul.
And making that decision, like I'm going to go that far into accepting invitations to things with the expectation that it's going to be worth it.
And I know if I flew down to LA and saw them at the Palladium,
that the experience would be worth the pain in the ass.
But it's such a pain in the ass because it's going to involve rescheduling my daughter's shit, or at least being absent for it.
That's why with great gratitude, I declined your very sweet offer.
It's just like, it's just hard to get shit accomplished.
But let me ask, let me ask the elephant in the room.
Um, does your feeling about, like, if you could go back, having made, having seen, what did you call them?
Like the, the, the Grizz?
Is that what you call them?
King Giz and the Liz Whiz, but no, but they call themselves the Grizz.
The Grizz.
But like you having, after that experience, do you think it would make you more inclined in retrospect?
If you'd known that it would, if you had the, you had the fun that you had with that, do you think it would make you more ambitious to hop on a plane and come to California?
It does.
It absolutely does.
It, the, it was such a overwhelmingly positive experience.
And also weirdly I've played the gorge four times and I've probably been to another four or five shows there that I wasn't part of the festival.
And so I feel like, oh, I know that place.
I know the gorge and all the different corners of it.
But the experience of just being at this massive show with no responsibility and all access, I just learned so much more about this venue that I thought I knew.
All the little nooks and crannies of it and all the kind of what would be the crowd experience of it was the thing that I didn't know because I'd always been
I don't know there with either a job to do or there with access to the environment as a member of the crowd that kind of embarrassingly like so many of us are in music.
are on the receiving end of this weird access embargo that's come into rock and roll over the last 20 years.
You know, it used to be if you had a backstage pass, you had a backstage pass.
And then it was like, well, there's the green backstage pass and there's the blue backstage pass.
Yeah, when I've gotten those in the past, sometimes probably with you, but you get to go past the pipe and drape a little bit, but you're not going to go hang out with the band after the show.
That's the thing.
If it's like, oh, you've got a blue pass.
Well, here's where the line is.
But then it's like, well, there's the blue pass, the green pass, and the red pass.
And the red pass gets you.
And then what's happened now is- That gives you access to the Orangina.
Yeah, exactly.
At a, at a Taylor Swift show, I'm sure that all the security has a, has a big poster at every door and it has 16 different levels of pass because at a show like that, the guitar tech probably isn't ever going to be in the same room with Taylor.
It's possible that the, that the room that Taylor's in doesn't even have a pass level because
But they're doing the work of a medium-sized business.
There's a lot of ins and outs.
Yeah, a medium-sized corporation, right?
Yeah, probably.
I mean, how many people?
You think there's, like, probably dozens of people on that crew?
Oh, hundreds.
Well, you know, I watch Exit Stage Left, the 1981 Rush concert film.
I watch that once a month or so.
And I always just think about, like, it's one of those classics that opens with, of course, Neil Peart spouting a bunch of stuff.
But, like, you see the roadies setting everything up, and you're like, man, 1981, they sure had a lot going on, putting up light rigs and all that stuff.
I bet you need that.
You need that level standing.
I went back out to the King, King Grizz and the Liz was stage after they'd cleared all the, the show people off, right?
Because the band's off the stage.
And then there are a bunch of people, publicists and whatnot, who are kind of milling around.
And then you look down the ramp and there's 40 hard hats.
And they're standing down there, and you know that there's some rule where the people in jumpsuits have to be off the stage before the hardhats take the stage.
Because when they take the stage, then it's theirs.
And looking at these hardhats... Well, it's like leaving the house when the plumber comes.
Like, it's his house now.
right this is his house and looking at those hard hats and contrasting them with the with the mustache and flat brim baseball hats like they're one of the guys backstage who works for portugal the man had a had a dachshund in a baby sling you know there's a there's a hole that the dachshund was like remember me again what state was this in
The dachshund's been to 60 shows.
It's a very PNW kind of thing to do at a rock show is to bring your dachshund in a sling.
But there's also a lot of hard hats in Washington.
And these guys look like they have stormed 60 pirate ships.
You know, they're a completely different class of human.
Yeah.
And then they take the stage and they start taking apart this gear.
And of course, I like to think that I, uh, that I, uh, that I transact with both worlds.
So I went back up on the stage and was like, Hey, what's up fellow hard hats.
They were clearly like, well, again, we don't know if this guy's the sheriff of twist.
He's really hard to read in this context.
And so they normally, you know, if I if this was the the crew and I was on the festival, you could tell I was one of the bands and they would be like, move aside, Earthling.
But in this case, I just kind of parked myself behind a road case and watched them take.
You might have been some kind of like music big shot.
who knows who knows i might own the goddamn room because the the might be gorgeous george the gorge got bought by live nation a few years ago christmas and those people talk about living on an aircraft carrier i bet they got there's some of this oh they're some of the darkest wizards in the country absolutely and you know and they use blood magic a lot of them looking at me you couldn't tell if i was a dark wizard in tennessee tuxedo
And so that's a whole other universe, right?
Taylor Swift has 300 people.
Was it a jean jacket or were you wearing overalls?
Because in retrospect, it would have been kind of cool if you were wearing overalls.
No, and I think I did have a hat on that said Prince William Sound Emergency Rescue Boating Cops.
That's a long hat.
It did have scrambled eggs on the top.
Oh, good.
Good to show your rank.
I could have been anybody.
You're the admiral of Twisp.
I mean, Taylor Swift's got 40 bus drivers, let alone all the truckers and stuff, and they're all there, and they all have some kind of green pass to get them backstage.
So it's a...
That's part of this, this problem for, for those of us that have been in the business for so long is when I go to see a show and somebody hands me a green colored pass.
and then i walk over and hold it up next to the poster with 16 different kinds of pass and i realized that that is some kind of kiss-ass pass i can't shake it because it feels really yeah because at every level you know someone up the chain yeah looked at your name and then looked at the passes and said green paths and
And that is a drag.
If you, for instance, know the band, if you have interacted with their manager before, you see the person sitting at a desk going green pass, and it feels like, fuck you, I'm at least a blue pass.
Like I stood outside of a venue with Josh Rosenfeld, who was the owner of the record label of the band playing inside.
And the person at the box office was like, huh?
Well, what I have here is, uh, I get a green pass and some kind of after show party bracelet.
And Josh is like, what?
And then the person hands me an envelope with a gold pass in it.
And he and I are at the show together.
And I'm like, oh, man, I've got a gold pass.
And he's like, I don't even understand.
And Josh is not somebody that's going to pitch a fit or anything.
Josh is very entertaining to talk to, though.
I think the band should look forward to talking to Josh.
He's a very, very smart, very entertaining.
I miss chatting with him.
What we're going to do, what either or both of us are going to do.
The gold's good.
You had the scrambled eggs on your pass, too.
I could go up the elevator.
You could drive the bus, probably.
We're just... All we intended to do was go to the show, stand in the back, talk to each other out of the side of our mouth and watch the show and then probably leave.
Yeah.
But the fact that I had a gold pass throbbing in my shirt pocket and he had an after-show bracelet...
was a thing that neither of us could get over.
And so he's like on the slide down low texting their number one guy like, Hey, um, don't know about the thing, but, and then that guy's like, uh, I'll get you a pass.
Hang on.
And then radio sign.
And then it's even worse.
You're standing in the back with an after show bracelet.
Now you guys know what it feels like to be me.
Waiting for the tour manager to find a minute to shuttle.
This is me at 20% of the shows that I go to.
There might be something there for man.
I'm like, no.
Here's a patch you can put on after the show.
Yeah, that's right.
And so, I mean, I've learned, oh, it's so hard to learn to just be humble and just be like, oh, I got a green pass.
Sometimes it's hard to get it out of your mind.
Well, because like in another way, I mean, like, I don't know.
I don't know if this will save this from seeming like big timing.
But, you know, part of it is also like, well, maybe the reason I came was because I just wanted to say hello to this person.
That's happened numerous times where, like, no, I like music.
I like comedy.
I like all the things.
But mainly, you know, I just – if I'm being honest, also, sometimes it's just I want to introduce my kid, you know?
Exactly.
Exactly.
And that's no shame.
I would like my kid who's not going to admit it but really likes what you do.
It would be neat if they got an opportunity to say hi.
We don't need a photo or anything.
And we don't need to be back there, like, in the wine bar or anything.
But, like, if that's the reason you're going, then you're like, well, yeah, I guess I'll go see a concert, too.
Yeah.
I mean, you're a Merlin man from the internet.
No, no, no.
Right?
No, not anymore.
But for 30 years, they've been telling me, hey, sorry, there's only a hundred bucks in this envelope, but here's 14 drink tickets.
And it's like, well, I don't need drink tickets.
Like you're trying to pay me in cocaine and that's not what I need.
I need money.
And then what happens is over time the whole music industry says, well, what bands get is they get to be famous and that's its own money.
And so we don't have to pay them money because they are already getting the money of being famous.
And it's like, well, no, that's not money either.
That's just cocaine in a different form.
What we need is money.
And people are like, well, we're taking all the money.
So you don't have to worry.
Can we pay you in a small bit of status and give you a blue pass?
And that's what it is.
Then what it is is like, well, because I used to say this to Eric Corson all the time.
He's like, oh, well, this band is coming.
I'd really like to see them, but I can't afford the show.
And I'm like, Eric, you're a rock star.
The one thing where you shouldn't need money is at the box office of a show you want to see.
Like, tell me every show you want to see and I'll make the call.
And he's like, oh, I don't want to be a problem.
And I'm like, it's literally the difference.
It's hard to know.
It's like you don't want to.
I mean, if you're somebody like me and a civilian and Eric's not a civilian, but I mean, like, I don't know.
It just feels like you're overstepping your bounds a little bit to ask for something like that.
But that's the problem, right?
That's the whole the whole music business is based on that.
I have so much to learn.
there's like there's a lot of shame involved i had to do it the other day billy eilish is coming to town i sent a text message to a guy that runs and she's playing in a big room right so that's a whole different level of of backstage pass i wrote this guy and i was like listen i don't you don't have to give me a gold pass or anything billy eilish doesn't know me from adam but
I want to take my kid, and I want it to be good.
What do I do?
I'm not even asking for anything.
I'm asking for you to guide me here.
You're not asking for a special treat.
You're asking advice in some ways.
I'm asking for advice.
It's also an opportunity for them to give you a treat, but you are really just, you're giving them lots of, hopefully, some leeway, depending on your relationship.
You're giving them leeway to say, yeah, like this happened with you and Matt sometimes, where you're like, yeah, Taylor Swift is coming to Showbox, and there's no tickets for anybody.
That's happened in the past, right?
It happens.
It happens.
I don't think she came to Showbox, but anyway, you know what I mean?
In this case, she's playing a stadium, and the most expensive tickets are $2,500 or $6,500 or whatever it is that's happening now.
I know.
And I'm not going to pay it.
And I'm not going to pay it because, no, I don't have that kind of money.
But also, come on.
Give me a goddamn break.
I know every hard hat in this town.
You can't.
And with the Taylor Swift show, I couldn't.
And most people couldn't.
Even the big shots.
I've heard this.
Couldn't get passed.
Whatever that Live Nation dark wizardry is where they're like, no, we're going to sell every ticket for $3,500.
It's like they cast a spell all the way around Hogwarts.
And it's just like, forget it.
But I'm like, is this a situation with Billie Eilish or are you going to put me in a seat in row I?
Let me know.
I just want to know.
And radio sign.
So I'm like, fuck, dude, that show is I'm contacting you far enough out that you can at least.
But this is, you know, this is part of the game, right?
Shame in asking is somehow also a currency in music.
And this really came to the fore for me last week.
Because a band that I'm not going to name, but that's come up.
I can already tell you're being classy.
I'm a classy guy.
One of their records has gone platinum.
and i know a lot of people that worked as part of the business side of music that made this record go platinum the publicists the radio programmers the all the people that worked pushing stuff around people that worked in los angeles in some capacity where they were making finger guns at other people who were making finger guns back at them
One of the people.
Love your big guy.
See you on the back nine.
A couple of those people you've actually had dinner with and one of them you had, we went back to his house and you kind of had a drunken conflict with him.
I was not drunk.
I was just insulting his terrible house.
Because like people who want to be called doctor, he has an emptiness inside that can never be filled.
But it was a nice house.
It was a nice house.
You were insulting his house.
In fact, you insulted his Japanese soaking tub.
And I just read an article a couple of days ago that said he and his company have bought the oldest building in San Francisco.
Old building they bought, huh?
The old building.
It's from 18 Hawk.
And so...
i'm so on social media suddenly i'm seeing these people posting some of these people some of these finger guns people some of these other people posting pictures of themselves comparison is the death of joy john that's right the platinum record here it is the platinum hey look what i came in the mail the platinum record oh yeah well here's the thing i actually performed on the record okay
Oh, that should raise you a color or two.
Well, so I was having a conversation, separate conversation with somebody in the business side of things.
And I said, you know what?
We're talking about something else.
But I told myself for the last week, I wasn't going to bring this up with you.
And I'm really sorry to do it.
And I really don't want to.
And they're like, oh, my God, what is it?
And I'm like, I don't even want to say it.
And they're like, come on, fucking say it.
And I was like, OK.
Am I going to get a platinum record?
Because I'm sitting here watching the mailbox.
I'm sorry.
I thought we were still talking about concerts.
You're talking about because he played on the album, where's your platinum record?
That's right.
Every time the mailman has come to my door.
It's like Jenga.
You pull out John's piece and the whole goddamn thing falls apart.
Yeah.
I'm like, I'm going to get one of these.
Cause I'm one of only four people that aren't in the band itself who played on the fucking thing.
And I'm not saying that what I did sold a single record.
It's a tiny thing.
But if this guy in Pennsylvania who used to work for the label has one and it's going to sit in a, in a banker's box in his garage,
Am I gonna get one?
And the person I'm on the phone with, there's a pause.
And they say, well, there was a list of all the people that were gonna get them.
And then someone combed through the list
And took some names off of it.
Including some local people from KEXP, including some people, some other people that we know.
Did Cheryl Waters get cut out?
Because I will not abide that.
That's exactly the name.
No.
They cut out Cheryl Waters?
They said Cheryl was on it, and they cut her out, and they just gave one to the KEXB.
My family knows who she is now because they're on the radio here.
I'm like, Cheryl Waters, she's the one that always introduces the bands, and she's the best.
I know.
My goodness, now that, okay, all right, now I got my dander up.
Right, so I'm sitting there on this phone call and I'm like, you have got to be fucking kidding me.
Because they name, you know, this person names four or five people.
And it's like, so somebody, some business person.
A dark wizard almost certainly.
And left all the other business people.
So you're saying that unlike in the 50s and 60s when Elvis got a gold record and probably everybody that worked on the record got a gold record.
Now this is just one of these things where it's the business people that make the call.
So they also make the call about who gets it.
And it becomes just a jack off session from people who, but, but the people, but it's like all the producer types, all the people, all the really stiff,
types who love being interviewed about the process in documentaries.
I'm thinking of when I watched the Blade Runner documentary recently, and it's like all the guys who got to cover themselves with glory for the movie, but like maybe didn't go into so much detail about how they gutted the budget all along the way.
All those guys get it.
They've got probably, you know what?
I bet they keep them at their second or third or fourth house.
I bet they got a rumpus room with all the platinum records in it.
They don't even know those bands.
They don't listen to those songs.
it's in the basement bathroom basement bathroom and a lot of those people are exactly the ones that were like i don't really hear the single here but okay and then there's the guy that was like let's put them on mtv's beach party too and whatever and so so i'm like okay well
I would normally bear this with grace.
And by that, by normally, I mean never.
I would never bear this with grace.
I'm trying so hard these days to bear all this stuff with grace and not have too much fucking dignity in the world because it never does anything but chat my ass and everybody fucking hates my guts and burning down the world all the time when I'm like, where's my goddamn toasty with pepper jam on it?
But in this case, I would like to say to you, my friend,
That if you went to the business people, which I know you talked to, and resubmitted the list and said, listen, there's millions of dollars in everyone's coffer.
You just bought the oldest building in San Francisco.
You can find the $6,000 it's going to cost to make platinum records for all the people that worked on the goddamn thing.
And this person was like, oh, Jesus Christ.
I bet they're not actually made of platinum, but that's just a speculation on my part.
They're not.
Okay.
They're spray painted with silver paint.
And this person actually said, you know, the new ones are a lot chintzier, the old ones.
And I was like, doesn't matter.
I'm not surprised at all.
Not surprised at all.
This is all because we stopped having TV all happen at the same time.
This is part of that now.
Now we're all playing from our own hymn book.
I don't care.
My friend who carries around an M16 of music business power said to me, now you have transferred the shame onto me.
Now I have to go to them with my fucking tail between my legs to accomplish this thing.
this task of putting you and cheryl waters and 16 other people or six other people yeah let's just let's just name let's just put it down to five people i have to go save this to them and they might look at me and go no and we're never going to know who's the label that does it who who who generates who who everybody everybody at the label
Gets one like all the people that don't even work at the label at what level our platinum Records given out to people as a as a as a you know as a as a little treat like the thing you see on the wall in like a yeah Who's responsible for passing those out and paying for them and stuff the business people the manager basically, okay
The manager is the one who's, and I think is doing it largely to say, hey, business guy, I'm going to give you this.
And then next time I come to you for a thing, you're going to give it to me.
Because remember when I scratch my platinum album, I scratch yours.
Oh, that's right.
It's all business.
We're all friends.
It's who you know.
and so then i sit i sit down and it's one of these like well maybe i'll make that call and maybe i won't because i don't want the additional shame but okay and i'm like i'm sitting in my chair i'm like don't when the mailman comes to the door you're no longer hoping that he's going to ring the doorbell and hand you a platinum record but in the meantime maybe they will and there's two there's two other outstanding debts that the music industry owes me one of them
is the certificate of appreciation that i get for co-writing a song on a grammy winning record on amy mansard mental illness mental illness they said you don't get a statuette but there is a certificate she won a grammy for that she won a grammy for the best folk album for mental illness and i co-wrote the last song
And I said, and in 2012, Kathleen Edwards and I won the SOCAN prize for songwriting in Canada for the best song of the year.
And I never got a certificate for that.
And I'm one of the two people that won the award.
It's a songwriting award.
Just to remind people, I mean, it's similar to the Grammys, right?
We've got a song of the year and record of the year, and they're different.
What is the performance?
I don't know if people care about this, but one of those awards is for the songwriting award.
You know, one of them, right?
Like one of them is for the songwriting and one of them is for like the record qual record.
Like this single Silly Love Songs as a record you listen to.
Yeah.
Well, there's so many of them.
And in Canada, I don't know.
Maybe it's a can of stewed tomatoes that they give you.
Like I don't, it's, it's, it's big.
I think it's called the Juno Award and they give you a little can of stewed tomatoes.
So there's that too.
I wonder if AFI ever won one.
But so I'm sitting there with this platinum record-shaped hole in my heart.
I'm like, I'm going to call, because I know people at the Grammys.
I used to be on the Grammy board.
So I called the person in charge of the Grammys for the Northwest.
It's not a literal grandma, though, right?
No.
And her office said, well, she's in Croatia right now, but why don't we put you to this other person that you know?
Guide you over to this couch.
And I emailed them, and I was like, hey, I really want to get that certificate.
It's from 2017, but I never got it, and I'd really like to get it.
Because I've got a downstairs bathroom and I want a platinum record and the certificate of appreciation and whatever the hell Canadian can of baked beans I get for that songwriting prize.
And she wrote back and said, ah, the thing is that the certificate, not the statue, the certificate only goes to people who worked on the recording.
The mixers, the masterers, the engineers, the audio hardhats, because it's the, the Grammys are the recording industry awards.
And so I said, well, once again, it's like Elvis gets a gold record and a Grammy statuette, but every other one goes to people on the, on a different side than the musician.
Right.
Yeah, the statues that Elvis won, I'm not meaning to pick nits, but, you know, he didn't write any of those songs.
But, like, I bet Doc Pomus or, you know, Lieberman Stoller or whoever, like, probably did.
I bet they were more generous about this in the past and probably used real platinum.
Well, and probably there weren't so many people on the industry side back then.
And these, so when you see a gold record on MC Hammer's basement wall, as a, as a punter, as a civilian, you think, oh, that's for the music.
but really what they're doing is giving them to everybody but the people that participated in the music i know i didn't know this and so then i i write an email to this to canada to the socan and i'm like hey and they said something in a french accent that was like let's hop on a call and i
so i'm on the phone with a canadian that ends every sentence as if it's a question and i was like hey this is from 2012 but i don't know if they're i mean i've seen kathleen with her statuette and it's a songwriting prize so i was wondering if there's any even a certificate maybe a can of baked beans whatever it is and the person on the phone said well that was a long time ago and all the people that worked there then are now gone or dead
And I don't know where the, I don't think it's in.
I don't think the statue's in like a basement or anything.
And I don't know.
That's how they talk.
That's how they talk, huh?
If I did know.
It's a long time ago.
I don't know how I would get you in touch with them.
But here's an email address.
It's in French.
And the person that's going to.
Is that you a French email address?
Is like a, they're probably an intern.
Alainz.ca.
And so I sent the email and I might as well have written it on a paper airplane and thrown it into the sea.
Oh, John.
And so I'm on the phone with Kathleen last night.
She's in Germany opening for your friend and mine, Craig Finn.
And she said, oh, I brought your name up to Craig.
And he like bounced off the, he was like immediately brought somebody else up.
And, uh, and, and I was like, oh boy, there's a reason for that.
But I said, do you know anybody at SOCAN?
And she said, oh, I know a bunch of people there.
And I was like, well, what about my statuette?
And she was like, oh, you'll never see that.
And so, this has all happened in the last week, and it's very related to going to see the King Gizzard and the Wizard Wizard, or King Gizz and Liz Whiz.
And maybe my desire to see pulp is all twined up in the fact that on my basement bathroom wall, there is nothing.
There's not a thing.
I would be happy to print you something.
There's like one swatted, but downstairs, I do have- Have you thought about putting up like Garfield comics or something?
I have two phony awards.
Or Far Side Cartoons would be nice in a bathroom.
I have the Seattle Weekly's 2007 Award for Best Tweet.
Hmm.
That's part of their, like, Best Thai Food Restaurant.
You've hung on to them.
I know.
I know.
It's the kind of thing you put in your window.
It's like, you know, best non-Italian pizza in town or whatever.
Exactly.
Best parking garage in downtown Seattle.
And that year, 2007, nobody knew what was happening.
And they were like, we got to have a best tweet category.
And it's got to go to one of the only three people we know that has ever tweeted.
Who do we know that has Twitter?
And at the time, I was like, I was John Roderick of the internet.
I had 1,500 followers and was good at tweeting.
And so I basically am now, I think what I'm going to do is I'm going to print up the emails that I got telling me that I wasn't going to get a statuette.
Oh.
And I'm going to put those in frames.
Okay.
And I'm going to have something on my basement wall, Merlin.
I'm not going to be like an illuminated text like a monk would make.
Wouldn't it be nice to somebody if you took that email that said no one works here anymore.
And also it was a long time ago.
Maybe somebody could kind of like that up a little bit.
It could be a graphic novel or that's beautiful.
I don't know.
I just think like it could be maybe somebody could turn it into a one panel far side comic.
Uh-huh, where a bunch of cows are standing in the middle of a field all looking at their platinum record.
Does anybody work here anymore?
They're like musician and then they all drop down.
Boy, the indignity.