WTF with Marc Maron Podcast Transcripts

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Episode 19 - Jack Boulware / Brett Nelson

Episode 19 • Released November 4, 2009 • Speakers detected

Episode 19 artwork
00:00:00Guest 1:Lock the gates!
00:00:07Guest 3:Are we doing this?
00:00:08Guest 3:Really?
00:00:08Guest 3:Wait for it.
00:00:09Guest 3:Are we doing this?
00:00:10Guest 3:Wait for it.
00:00:12Guest 3:Pow!
00:00:12Guest 3:What the fuck?
00:00:14Guest 3:And it's also... Eh, what the fuck?
00:00:16Guest 3:What's wrong with me?
00:00:17Guest 3:It's time for WTF!
00:00:19Guest 4:What the fuck?
00:00:20Guest 4:With Mark Maron.
00:00:24Marc:Okay, what the fuckers, let's do this thing.
00:00:26Marc:Thank you for tuning in.
00:00:27Marc:This is Mark Maron.
00:00:28Marc:You're listening to WTF with Mark Maron.
00:00:32Marc:I can't tell you how much I appreciate all of your emails, everybody tuning in, your subscriptions, your donations.
00:00:38Marc:I think the thing is going great.
00:00:40Marc:I couldn't be more thrilled than actually be getting this out there to you folks and for you guys to be digging it.
00:00:46Marc:And I'm honest about that.
00:00:48Marc:I am actually broadcasting from the garage up here at the Cat Ranch overlooking the Barrio.
00:00:52Marc:We are actually in Los Angeles County for this show.
00:00:56Marc:I'm now loaded in, sitting in my big chair.
00:00:59Marc:I got my nicotine gum tucked, just tucked between my cheek and teeth.
00:01:06Marc:So I'm getting the juice.
00:01:08Marc:Now, if I can just take a hit off my JustCoffee.coop coffee.
00:01:14Marc:Oh, yeah.
00:01:16Marc:pow i think i just shit my pants and that of course means it's good coffee just coffee.coop c-o-o-p you can get there at wtfpod.com give you a link if you put wtf in the coupon box you will get a 10 discount i hear some people are uh
00:01:34Marc:Pretty excited about it over at justcoffee.coop up there in Wisconsin.
00:01:38Marc:They said you folks have been buying this stuff.
00:01:40Marc:And, you know, he's like a drug dealer.
00:01:41Marc:He's like, yeah, I think we got some regular customers.
00:01:43Marc:And that's good because it's a good product.
00:01:45Marc:And I love being the ad rep for drug dealers.
00:01:49Marc:And that's what coffee is.
00:01:51Marc:Let's be honest.
00:01:52Marc:I did have a good time on the email show.
00:01:54Marc:I'm glad you guys dug it.
00:01:55Marc:I actually have an email sitting in front of me, which I kind of liked.
00:01:58Marc:Great podcast, Mark.
00:01:59Marc:Something about the intimate way in which you express your personal angst resonates with me.
00:02:04Marc:I don't have a failed marriage.
00:02:05Marc:I've never had a serious drug or drinking problem, and I've never had a need to seek out therapy.
00:02:10Marc:But somewhere there's a part of me that's envious of you for having lived that life and having become such a funny fucker.
00:02:16Marc:I guess it's the deal with the devil, though you probably didn't actually make a deal.
00:02:20Marc:And I wrote back.
00:02:21Marc:That's from Steve.
00:02:21Marc:I wrote back, Steve.
00:02:23Marc:Actually, I'm one of the few people that made a deal with him and he didn't deliver on it.
00:02:27Marc:That's for me.
00:02:28Marc:I don't think I gave him my real soul.
00:02:30Marc:I think at the time I was younger, I gave him the newer soul and I've been told I'm an old soul and I seem to have kept that one intact.
00:02:39Marc:But it did remind me of a story I used to tell on stage.
00:02:42Marc:Yeah, before I get into that, I want to get into a couple of things because we are going to do, I believe it's starting to feel to me like a music themed show today.
00:02:51Marc:My guests on the show will be my buddy Jack Boulware, San Francisco Jack, who just wrote a book about the East Bay punk scene, 20 years of that scene.
00:03:01Marc:It's an oral history called Give Me Something Better.
00:03:04Marc:Jack and I go way back.
00:03:05Marc:He's a great guy, great writer.
00:03:08Marc:I talked to him when I was up in San Francisco, so that's going to be one of the first hotel room interviews.
00:03:13Marc:Also, Brett Netson contacted me.
00:03:16Marc:I don't know if you know Brett Netson or the band Built to Spill, but they've got a new record out, and they are touring.
00:03:24Marc:And he emailed me, or didn't he email me?
00:03:26Marc:He put me on Facebook, and I got his phone number.
00:03:28Marc:I went over, and I picked him up down at the Echoplex, where they're playing here in Los Angeles, drove him up to the house, and drove him back to his bus.
00:03:35Marc:So we got that in the can.
00:03:37Marc:So you might enjoy that.
00:03:39Marc:But it started to sort of remind me about how important music is.
00:03:46Marc:Music is one of the few ways we get relief.
00:03:49Marc:And I know I've talked about this on the show before.
00:03:51Marc:And I know I've shared my music moments with you in terms of certainly listening to that one song over and over again.
00:03:58Marc:But I become sort of aggravated.
00:04:02Marc:I'm aggravated at Guitar Hero.
00:04:06Marc:Is that wrong of me to be aggravated at that?
00:04:08Marc:I mean, I didn't really like it when people played air guitar.
00:04:11Marc:Even though my buddy Dave in high school was a great air guitar player, he happened to also be a great real guitar player.
00:04:18Marc:and I've played my share of air guitar, but this thing, where you use a fake guitar basically as a joystick to feel like you're actually playing a song on the screen, to me, it's just fucking ridiculous.
00:04:31Marc:It's meaningless.
00:04:32Marc:It means nothing.
00:04:33Marc:I mean, shouldn't people be putting that energy into maybe playing real guitar, learning how to express yourself, not learning how to just make your fingers go fast on a fake guitar so you can feel like you're actually doing something?
00:04:44Marc:I don't like that symbiotic relationship
00:04:47Marc:that surrendered to the matrix.
00:04:48Marc:I know it's just a game, but I just think it has broader implications in terms of creativity, in terms of how people spend their fucking time.
00:04:57Marc:I mean, I don't know where you get time to do that.
00:04:59Marc:And I got nothing against gamers.
00:05:01Marc:I know a lot of people like doing, they enjoy video games.
00:05:03Marc:I played Guitar Hero once.
00:05:05Marc:I was pretty good at it because I play guitar.
00:05:07Marc:That's my secret.
00:05:08Marc:I play guitar.
00:05:09Marc:I don't play with people.
00:05:11Marc:I don't play for people.
00:05:12Marc:I've started to a little bit, very small audiences, like one person in my apartment, half a song if I don't freak out.
00:05:19Marc:I'm petrified of playing guitar in public.
00:05:21Marc:I've done it maybe twice in my life, and it was just too devastating for me to handle.
00:05:25Marc:I don't mind playing with a group of guys, but just playing by myself.
00:05:27Marc:Singing in public, horrifying.
00:05:30Marc:Karaoke to me is like going to war.
00:05:33Marc:It's that scary.
00:05:35Marc:It's like, you know, when I see people do karaoke and I think about myself doing karaoke, literally I start to sweat and tremble.
00:05:42Marc:That would be the most frightening thing for me to do.
00:05:44Marc:If you wanted to, like, I would, there's, I can make a list of things I would rather do than sing karaoke.
00:05:51Marc:And I don't even know why.
00:05:52Marc:To me, just singing is so vulnerable and so, I don't know, man.
00:05:56Marc:It just scares the hell out of me.
00:05:57Marc:I don't know how people do it.
00:05:59Marc:It's like skydiving or climbing Mount Everest to get on a karaoke stage.
00:06:03Marc:Is that bizarre?
00:06:04Marc:Some people love it.
00:06:05Marc:I don't know what the hell is wrong with me.
00:06:07Marc:But I do play guitar.
00:06:08Marc:I keep it to myself.
00:06:10Marc:I think it's important to keep a creative hobby.
00:06:12Marc:This is the other thing I was thinking about.
00:06:14Marc:It's like stop judging yourself so harsh.
00:06:16Marc:Everybody thinks they're going to be a rock star.
00:06:17Marc:Everyone thinks they're going to be a comic or an actor or a superstar.
00:06:20Marc:Fuck it.
00:06:20Marc:Look, if you got a hobby, you like doing it, do it for yourself.
00:06:23Marc:I play guitar like every day.
00:06:25Marc:I don't flaunt it.
00:06:26Marc:I'm not that great at it.
00:06:27Marc:But I'll sing and play in my room.
00:06:29Marc:I'll play out here in the garage.
00:06:30Marc:I've played with some of the greats, man.
00:06:32Marc:I've played with Hendrix.
00:06:33Marc:Played with Keith Richards.
00:06:34Marc:Played with Muddy Waters.
00:06:35Marc:And they all appreciate what I do.
00:06:37Marc:They think I'm a genius.
00:06:39Marc:And I do too.
00:06:40Marc:I am the rock god king of my garage.
00:06:42Marc:And that's for me and me to enjoy.
00:06:45Marc:And of course for all the bands I sit in with out here.
00:06:47Marc:I am a real guitar hero.
00:06:51Marc:Playing a real guitar hero.
00:06:53Marc:with real musicians but they're on a record they're on a cd some of the ways that music changed my life let's go over them let's go over them quickly because i want to get to jack i want to get to brett okay here's here's a few highlights the first concert ever saw sunny and share with my parents i saw sunny and share on tour don't remember much of it uh also saw peter frampton with my parents and i remember that uh i had grown a pop plant in the backyard and i'd
00:07:20Marc:rolled a joint out of the pot plant and my dad and my mom were sitting there and my dad goes, did you bring any of that pot that you grew?
00:07:27Marc:And I go, yeah, I did.
00:07:28Marc:He goes, let's smoke it.
00:07:29Marc:And I smoked some pot with my dad.
00:07:32Marc:It was bad pot.
00:07:33Marc:And my mother kept going, Barry, Barry, Barry.
00:07:37Marc:And I played guitar when I was in high school and my parents were pretty liberal, obviously, given that story I just told you, but I was never a drug guy.
00:07:43Marc:I think I grew pot just to see if I could grow pot, just see if I could make it happen.
00:07:46Marc:Someone ultimately, I showed too many people the pot plants because one day I woke up and sure enough, they were ripped out of the ground.
00:07:52Marc:But this is the kind of upbringing I had and this is a relatable music moment.
00:07:56Marc:The first time I got really high, I got high with John Luthie across the street from my house in his treehouse.
00:08:02Marc:And we smoked some pot.
00:08:03Marc:I think it was called I think it was Will Hawken or something like that.
00:08:07Marc:I can't remember.
00:08:08Marc:But, you know, all the pots had names when I was a kid.
00:08:11Marc:So I got really high and I know really how to handle it.
00:08:14Marc:And I left the treehouse.
00:08:16Marc:It's amazing that I even got down from the treehouse.
00:08:20Marc:And I walked into my house and my mother looks at me and she goes, are you stoned?
00:08:25Marc:I go, yeah, I'm sorry.
00:08:26Marc:I am stoned.
00:08:28Marc:And she just got a really stern face.
00:08:31Marc:And she goes, well, why don't you go in your room and play guitar?
00:08:34Marc:They say you play better when you're like that.
00:08:37Marc:And I was like, yes, ma'am, I can do that.
00:08:42Marc:But the monumental moments in my life, okay, I'll be honest with you.
00:08:45Marc:I'll be candid with you.
00:08:46Marc:Music moments.
00:08:47Marc:I saw, it must have been 1976, 1977, I saw ACDC with Bon Scott open for Journey.
00:08:57Marc:Sad thing about that story, I was there to see Journey, okay?
00:09:01Marc:I confess.
00:09:02Marc:I wasn't a huge Journey fan, but my friend Dave was a huge Journey fan.
00:09:06Marc:Another music moment.
00:09:07Marc:I'm in New York City.
00:09:08Marc:I'm out with my family at a hotel, at a bar.
00:09:11Marc:We were meeting my cousins there.
00:09:13Marc:Everybody's really dressed up.
00:09:14Marc:I was wearing a tie, navy jacket.
00:09:16Marc:I must have been about 20.
00:09:18Marc:And who did I see at the bar?
00:09:20Marc:Malcolm Young.
00:09:21Marc:That's right, Angus Young's brother from ACDC.
00:09:24Marc:And he was still drinking at the time.
00:09:26Marc:And I kind of struggled with myself and I walked up and I said, I really like your music, man.
00:09:30Marc:He goes, why don't you get the fuck away from me, asshole?
00:09:33Marc:Yeah, that's the kind of guy he was.
00:09:36Marc:Another music moment.
00:09:37Marc:I was traveling cross country.
00:09:39Marc:All right.
00:09:39Marc:Traveling cross country on a train.
00:09:41Marc:I decided that's what I was going to do.
00:09:42Marc:I graduated college.
00:09:43Marc:I'm like, I'm going to take a train across this glorious country of ours and I'm going to live it.
00:09:48Marc:I'm going to be like Woody Guthrie.
00:09:50Marc:I'm going to be like traveling man.
00:09:52Marc:I'm going to be like a hobo.
00:09:53Marc:Only I wasn't.
00:09:54Marc:I got a sleeper car.
00:09:55Marc:So it was kind of hobo-y.
00:09:58Marc:But I went from New York to Chicago and then Chicago down to Memphis.
00:10:03Marc:I was down on Beale Street hanging around, taking it in.
00:10:07Marc:Saw some old blues guy on the street with an amp and a fucked up guitar.
00:10:11Marc:He let me sit in a little bit.
00:10:12Marc:I played some harmonica and then I played his guitar.
00:10:15Marc:And then I'm listening to him and some white guy comes over and just takes his guitar and his amp from him.
00:10:20Marc:And the guy's like, what's going on?
00:10:22Marc:The guy goes, just don't worry about it.
00:10:23Marc:All right, just don't worry about it.
00:10:25Marc:Here's 20 bucks.
00:10:26Marc:And he takes the guitar and amp, and he starts walking somewhere.
00:10:30Marc:So me, the old blues guy, and this woman that I'd met down there, start following the guy that took his equipment.
00:10:35Marc:And he takes the equipment, takes the amp into what looked to be like some sort of upper crusty sort of event where there was someone giving a lecture.
00:10:44Marc:And it was all these white people, well-dressed, and he shows up with this amp.
00:10:48Marc:And I...
00:10:49Marc:Kind of step in.
00:10:50Marc:I go, I walk up to the guy.
00:10:52Marc:I go, what's going on?
00:10:53Marc:Why'd you just take his amp?
00:10:53Marc:He goes, why don't you mind your own business and stay out of our business?
00:10:58Marc:That was my experience with the South.
00:10:59Marc:That was his business.
00:11:01Marc:We treat the black people here how we want to treat him.
00:11:04Marc:He'll be all right.
00:11:05Marc:Get out of my face.
00:11:06Marc:That was very awkward.
00:11:08Marc:Definitely understood the blues in that moment.
00:11:11Marc:Saw Van Halen on their first tour.
00:11:13Marc:Took one hit off of some guy's pipe.
00:11:15Marc:He said it was opium in it.
00:11:16Marc:Spent most of the Van Halen set throwing up on my feet.
00:11:22Marc:Oh, sure.
00:11:23Marc:Drove 10 hours from Albuquerque to Denver, Colorado.
00:11:27Marc:Mile High Stadium.
00:11:29Marc:Me, my friend Dave, my friend Andy, my friend Chris.
00:11:32Marc:Took two separate cars.
00:11:33Marc:Loaded up on food.
00:11:34Marc:We had food fights.
00:11:36Marc:in between car food fights, driving all the way up to Denver to see Sunday Jam 2.
00:11:42Marc:Who was on Sunday Jam 2?
00:11:43Marc:I'll tell you who.
00:11:44Marc:The Rockets, Hart, UFO, the Cars, and Ted Nugent.
00:11:48Marc:That's right.
00:11:49Marc:Don't ask me how the Nuge made it onto that lineup, but he did.
00:11:52Marc:We got to Mile High Stadium.
00:11:53Marc:We're all hanging out.
00:11:55Marc:Andy goes, I'm taking acid.
00:11:57Marc:So Andy takes acid, and after about three hours, Andy sat there, and he watched the horse on top of Mile High Stadium, which is cement and a statue,
00:12:05Marc:walk around the top of the stadium.
00:12:07Marc:Then a woman came up out of nowhere and she said, you guys are really cute.
00:12:11Marc:And she started throwing up and we took her to the medical tent.
00:12:14Marc:That was that experience.
00:12:15Marc:Awesome.
00:12:17Marc:Saw the Rolling Stones, 1981, Tattoo U Tour.
00:12:20Marc:Excellent.
00:12:20Marc:The last tour that I remember them having Bill Wyman on.
00:12:23Marc:Will not see the Stones.
00:12:24Marc:anymore without Bill Weinman.
00:12:26Marc:But I did see them that night.
00:12:27Marc:Blew my mind.
00:12:28Marc:Was one of the greatest experiences I ever had.
00:12:30Marc:Now, when you are a music fan, at some point someone has to guide you.
00:12:35Marc:I'm an older guy.
00:12:36Marc:I'm getting older.
00:12:37Marc:I had some guides in my time.
00:12:38Marc:My dad was real into the oldies.
00:12:40Marc:My dad got me into Buddy Holly.
00:12:42Marc:My dad loved Buddy Holly.
00:12:44Marc:Loved Buddy Holly.
00:12:45Marc:I love Buddy Holly.
00:12:46Marc:But then you meet other dudes along the way.
00:12:48Marc:Like when I was working at the Posh Bagel when I was 15 and they called me Bagel Boy.
00:12:53Marc:There was a budget records next door and there was a dude that worked there.
00:12:56Marc:Two dudes that worked at budget records changed my life.
00:12:58Marc:This guy named Jim.
00:13:00Marc:I don't think he was creepy, but one time he had me over to his house.
00:13:03Marc:He says, you want to know what real music is?
00:13:04Marc:And we sat at his house and spent an entire day recording three hours of music.
00:13:09Marc:Vinyl soul music.
00:13:11Marc:The dude turned me on to Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Aretha Franklin, all the old soul cats.
00:13:17Marc:And I had these three hours, like three hours of cassette tapes that I listened to the fuck out of changed my life, changed my life.
00:13:24Marc:Then the other guy at Budget Records, Steve LaRue.
00:13:28Marc:Nickname, Lash LaRue.
00:13:30Marc:He turned me on to Brian Eno, Fred Frith, The Residents, Robert Fripp, Trippie, way out there stuff.
00:13:37Marc:You need a guy to take you to that level, to blow your mind out.
00:13:41Marc:So you introduce yourself to new stuff, put new stuff in.
00:13:43Marc:He also turned me on to Tom Waits.
00:13:45Marc:I got Tom Waits, Nighthawks at the Diner, the double live album.
00:13:49Marc:I was so taken with it that I dressed up as Tom Waits for most of my sophomore year of high school.
00:13:54Marc:Only button up shirts.
00:13:56Marc:I wear a hat.
00:13:57Marc:And I talk like I smoked a lot.
00:13:58Marc:It was a little weird, but at least I had an identity for half a year.
00:14:02Marc:I was Tom Waits from Nighthawks at the Diner, not from Frank's Wild Years.
00:14:08Marc:But also Steve LaRue was part of a band that only played out twice a year, an art rock band called Jungle Red.
00:14:17Marc:And I was at one of their performances.
00:14:19Marc:This was a monumental moment in the power of music and the power of art for me.
00:14:25Marc:Steve said he needed to borrow my guitar.
00:14:27Marc:My brother's guitar was an Ibanez West Paul.
00:14:29Marc:It was all beat up and fucked up.
00:14:31Marc:I said, sure, you can borrow it.
00:14:32Marc:He goes, you coming to the show?
00:14:33Marc:Yeah, I'm coming to the show.
00:14:34Marc:It was at someone's house.
00:14:36Marc:It was an art party in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
00:14:38Marc:So I show up at this house with my buddy Dave.
00:14:41Marc:Who was not an art guy because I worked down by the university.
00:14:44Marc:I had, you know, I sort of like, you know, knew some of the grownups and I hung out with artists who went to college.
00:14:50Marc:So we go over this place and we knock on the door and the door opens and a guy basically, you know, with no shirt on that had the words, the word heathen written across his chest in lipstick.
00:15:03Marc:Uh, said, hi, welcome to the party.
00:15:06Marc:And my friend Dave looks at me and I'm like, I don't know, dude, I think it's going to be cool.
00:15:10Marc:And Dave goes, is there a keg?
00:15:12Marc:And the guy goes, sure.
00:15:13Marc:There's a keg.
00:15:13Marc:There's one out back.
00:15:15Marc:And we were like, okay, we'll come in.
00:15:17Marc:So we go in and it's filled with like, you know,
00:15:19Marc:You know, everyone looked like they were in a flock of seagulls.
00:15:22Marc:That was the art scene in the early 80s or late 70s in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
00:15:26Marc:But there was some dark stuff going on.
00:15:27Marc:But the stage was set for a show.
00:15:29Marc:And I'd never seen Jungle Red.
00:15:31Marc:It was just Steve and this guy named Craig.
00:15:33Marc:That's all I knew.
00:15:34Marc:And I knew they only played out twice a year.
00:15:37Marc:All of a sudden, noise starts happening.
00:15:39Marc:Some sort of tape loop of feedback.
00:15:41Marc:Then Steve and Craig come out into the living room and they're wearing surgical scrubs.
00:15:47Marc:All right.
00:15:48Marc:And in the middle of the stage is my brother's guitar.
00:15:50Marc:It's got duct tape all over it.
00:15:52Marc:And there are doll's arms taped to it.
00:15:54Marc:OK.
00:15:55Marc:And then Steve, he has a guitar.
00:15:57Marc:He just starts making noise with it.
00:15:58Marc:And they both start screaming.
00:16:00Marc:And then there's like tape loops and Craig's on the keyboards and Steve is screaming.
00:16:05Marc:And then out of nowhere, Steve pulls out a box filled with antique fiesta wear.
00:16:10Marc:And in the middle of all this racket and all this weirdness, he starts taking pieces of his collection of antique fiesta wear and just hammering the shit out of them and breaking them into a million pieces.
00:16:20Marc:And there was just a room full of gay men going, oh no, oh my God.
00:16:25Marc:And it was powerful stuff, powerful music.
00:16:28Marc:Learned a lot that night.
00:16:29Marc:But I think the most important lesson I learned in relation to rock and roll, and I've shared this story on television.
00:16:35Marc:Some of you may know it, but I bet you a lot of you don't.
00:16:38Marc:I was in college.
00:16:40Marc:It's my sophomore year of college.
00:16:43Marc:I had tickets to see Jerry Garcia.
00:16:44Marc:I don't care what you say about Jerry Garcia or the Grateful Dead.
00:16:47Marc:They have their place, man.
00:16:48Marc:They seriously have their place.
00:16:51Marc:So I was going to the concert with my roommate, Tony and Brad and Glenn.
00:16:54Marc:They were all deadheads.
00:16:56Marc:And I bought my ticket from somebody else.
00:16:58Marc:I bought my ticket from this girl who was in one of my classes.
00:17:00Marc:And I didn't really know her, but I wanted to go to the show with my buddies.
00:17:04Marc:So I bought a ticket from her.
00:17:05Marc:They've all got tickets of their own.
00:17:07Marc:So we get to the, you know, before we leave the apartment, we all start eating mushrooms like they're popcorn.
00:17:13Marc:Cause they're like, we're going to go see Jerry, man.
00:17:14Marc:And we're going to trip.
00:17:15Marc:I'm like, I'm on board for that.
00:17:17Marc:So we get to the Orpheum in Boston and we're all starting to trip.
00:17:20Marc:Now here's the problem.
00:17:22Marc:They all go sit in their seats and I'm sitting next to two girls.
00:17:25Marc:I don't know.
00:17:25Marc:Some girl from my class and her sister, and I'm starting a trip and it's not good.
00:17:30Marc:Okay.
00:17:30Marc:It's not good.
00:17:32Marc:You feel that lift in your heart and your body starts to take off and you start feeling your brain starting to open up.
00:17:38Marc:And I'm starting to like, oh my God, it's happening.
00:17:40Marc:I just felt my face, you know, like the flesh on my face peeling back from my skull and I'm about ready to launch.
00:17:46Marc:And I'm looking over at these girls and they don't know me.
00:17:48Marc:I don't know them.
00:17:49Marc:And I'm starting to freak out.
00:17:51Marc:I'm closing my eyes and I'm getting lost.
00:17:53Marc:I don't know if you've ever had the experience where you close your eyes like, oh, where am I?
00:17:55Marc:OK, here I am.
00:17:56Marc:We didn't close your eyes again.
00:17:57Marc:Oh, my God.
00:17:58Marc:It's I'm in an Aztec pinball machine.
00:18:00Marc:And you open your eyes.
00:18:00Marc:Oh, no, I'm not.
00:18:01Marc:I'm waiting for Jerry Garcia again.
00:18:03Marc:Then you close your eyes and you're like, oh, my God, I'm flying in mustard.
00:18:07Marc:Oh, wait.
00:18:07Marc:No, I'm not.
00:18:08Marc:I'm at the Jerry Garcia concert.
00:18:09Marc:OK.
00:18:09Marc:So I'm starting to panic and I know what she could tell.
00:18:12Marc:Cause I'm starting to sweat.
00:18:13Marc:I'm starting to think like, I just need to go to the emergency room.
00:18:15Marc:I just need to go to the emergency room, which is not a fun mantra to be engaged with when you're on mushrooms.
00:18:20Marc:And she looks at me, she goes, you're all right.
00:18:21Marc:And I'm like, I don't know.
00:18:22Marc:I don't know.
00:18:23Marc:I don't know.
00:18:23Marc:My friends are sitting up there.
00:18:24Marc:I don't know.
00:18:25Marc:She goes, do you want some gum?
00:18:26Marc:I'm like, yes, gum.
00:18:27Marc:Oh my God.
00:18:28Marc:Gum.
00:18:28Marc:Yes.
00:18:29Marc:And she pulls out a piece of gum.
00:18:30Marc:And you know how some moments when you're in that state, you're like, Oh, gum.
00:18:36Marc:And,
00:18:37Marc:I put this gum in my mouth and I didn't realize it was freshen up and it blows up with all that goo in it.
00:18:42Marc:And I'm like, oh my God, I rip it out of my mouth.
00:18:44Marc:I'm like, what is happening?
00:18:45Marc:Am I bleeding?
00:18:46Marc:How is it?
00:18:46Marc:What is this?
00:18:47Marc:And I'm like, I realized what it is.
00:18:48Marc:I'm like, okay, okay.
00:18:49Marc:I'm okay.
00:18:50Marc:I'm cool.
00:18:50Marc:I'm cool.
00:18:51Marc:And I put the gum back in my mouth and I'm chewing it.
00:18:53Marc:And I'm like getting into the gum.
00:18:54Marc:And I realized after like two minutes of me just deeply getting into this gum that I'm just chewing it.
00:18:59Marc:And my entire body had sort of become the gum.
00:19:02Marc:And I'm just squishing like, you know, all my muscles together with each chew of my mouth, doing some sort of squishy gum dance.
00:19:08Marc:And I realized what's going on.
00:19:09Marc:I spit out the gum.
00:19:10Marc:I'm like, oh my God, the gum is not helping.
00:19:12Marc:The holy gum didn't work.
00:19:14Marc:And I'm starting to freak out again.
00:19:16Marc:And then Garcia comes out.
00:19:19Marc:The lights go down and Garcia comes out.
00:19:21Marc:I'm like, oh my God, maybe this will be good.
00:19:23Marc:This should be good.
00:19:24Marc:I'm okay.
00:19:25Marc:I'm okay.
00:19:25Marc:I'm not okay.
00:19:26Marc:I need to go to the emergency room.
00:19:28Marc:Wait, there's Jerry.
00:19:29Marc:And he starts going into one of his tunes.
00:19:31Marc:And I'm looking at Jerry and he's fat and he's kind of weird looking and it's not making sense to me.
00:19:37Marc:And I'm bumming out on Jerry.
00:19:39Marc:How can you bum out on Jerry?
00:19:40Marc:Jerry was designed and made himself to be completely appropriate for the state of mind I was in.
00:19:45Marc:But Jerry wasn't working for me.
00:19:47Marc:And I was starting to fall down the pit of self farther than I ever had fallen before.
00:19:53Marc:And then I noticed someone sitting in front of me, you know, the guy sitting in front of me, the guy that has been to so many dead shows that he doesn't even talk like a person.
00:20:01Marc:He's like kind of compressed and all his movements are a little tweaky and they're kind of elongated and they're kind of trippy.
00:20:09Marc:You know, he's like a little, you know, dead troll, like, Hey man, what's going on?
00:20:13Marc:So he's all wrapped in a little human knot.
00:20:15Marc:And I figure, yeah, I'll talk to him.
00:20:17Marc:I'll talk to him.
00:20:18Marc:He'll understand me.
00:20:19Marc:He'll throw me a line.
00:20:20Marc:He'll reel me back in.
00:20:22Marc:So I tap on his shoulder and I go, Hey man, how's it going?
00:20:26Marc:He's like, it's all right, man.
00:20:27Marc:And I go, you know, I'm, I'm looking at the stage and I just realized that, you know, eventually Jerry and his guitar are just going to be like one thing.
00:20:37Marc:They're just going to be like one thing.
00:20:39Marc:And this guy just turns around and he's all like elfin and weird.
00:20:43Marc:And he goes, Hey,
00:20:44Marc:Just hang on, man.
00:20:46Marc:Just hang on.
00:20:47Marc:And I was like, oh my God, those are the wisest words I've ever heard.
00:20:53Marc:That guy's a genius.
00:20:56Marc:That was the gift of the trippage.
00:20:58Marc:Just hang on, man.
00:21:00Marc:And I did.
00:21:00Marc:I did.
00:21:02Marc:I hung on and I made it through.
00:21:05Marc:And I never heard more practical advice for life than what came out of that deadhead elf's mouth at that moment.
00:21:12Marc:I made it through, I sweated out, and I'm here to tell the story.
00:21:17Marc:Now years after, a couple of years after the Jerry Garcia thing, I was at a loft party, an artist party with some high-minded creative types in Boston, having a lofty conversation about music.
00:21:30Marc:And I actually found myself saying in defense of old music that there will never be another Buddy Holly, that Buddy Holly was the best.
00:21:41Marc:And I remember this guy, a very arrogant, pretentious guy, turns and looks at me and says, you're a fascist.
00:21:49Marc:And I've never been able to forget it.
00:21:51Marc:I don't know what he meant by it.
00:21:53Marc:I still don't know really what he meant by it.
00:21:54Marc:But if he meant, given that that was probably 1985, that perhaps 20 years in the future, that all of the kids, all of the kids in this country, or most of them, the ones who were...
00:22:10Marc:will be wearing Buddy Holly glasses, then certainly, certainly I guess I was a fascist and I was right.
00:22:26Marc:All right, this is the first attempt at interviewing on the road in a hotel room, old school, having people come to the room for the interview.
00:22:37Marc:Right now I'm sitting with my friend Jack Boulware
00:22:40Marc:The legendary Jack Boulware, San Francisco writer.
00:22:44Marc:Many of you know him from his many books.
00:22:46Guest 4:San Francisco Bizarro.
00:22:48Marc:Yeah, very important.
00:22:49Marc:Sex American Style.
00:22:51Marc:Sex American Style.
00:22:52Marc:Huge.
00:22:52Marc:Huge.
00:22:53Marc:I still have a poster in my bathroom that you gave me, which I think is one of the greatest pieces of art.
00:22:58Marc:It's an original silkscreened casting poster for the Mitchell Brothers Theater, casting 1972.
00:23:06Marc:And it's hanging over my toilet.
00:23:08Marc:I have no idea what women think of that or why, but I see it as a real relic.
00:23:14Guest 4:It's an artifact of an era.
00:23:16Guest 4:When you were casting a porn movie, you'd take the time to make a four-color silkscreen poster.
00:23:22Marc:That's right.
00:23:22Guest 4:Just for the auditions.
00:23:23Marc:That was the way things went then.
00:23:25Marc:It was high end.
00:23:26Marc:Exactly.
00:23:27Marc:We're not just making filth.
00:23:28Marc:We're doing something important.
00:23:30Guest 4:With a nice poster to go with it.
00:23:31Guest 4:Kind of an Art Deco thing, if I remember.
00:23:33Marc:Yeah, it was good.
00:23:34Marc:It was good.
00:23:34Marc:Do you still have all those posters that you took from the Mitchell brothers?
00:23:36Guest 4:I've sold some of them, but I have some.
00:23:38Marc:And is the Mitchell brothers open anymore?
00:23:40Guest 4:Sure.
00:23:41Marc:But the boys are both dead?
00:23:43Marc:They're both dead.
00:23:44Marc:Wow.
00:23:45Marc:One killed the other, got out of jail, and died.
00:23:48Guest 4:Yeah.
00:23:48Marc:But the new book is the most important thing.
00:23:51Marc:This is something that needed to be done.
00:23:53Marc:It's called Give Me Something Better.
00:23:55Marc:It is the profound, progressive, and occasionally pointless history of Bay Area punk from Dead Kennedys to Green Day.
00:24:01Marc:Now, these books exist.
00:24:03Marc:The seminal book is Please Kill Me by Legs McNeil.
00:24:07Marc:about the new york punk scene and this is an oral history of the bay area punk scene and one thing i realized about reading this book is that i don't know a lot about the bay area punk scene i you know i got into punk rock late i was not a hardcore punk rock person but this was an important punk rock area
00:24:29Guest 4:It was one of the first, actually.
00:24:31Guest 4:Outside of New York and London, the Bay Area, opened the first punk club on the West Coast.
00:24:37Guest 4:Some of the earliest bands in the U.S.
00:24:39Guest 4:were here.
00:24:40Marc:And who are they, the bands?
00:24:42Guest 4:Earliest...
00:24:44Guest 4:People, of course, it's hard to pin it down exactly.
00:24:47Guest 4:Some say this former stripper named Mary Monday had a band called The Bitches.
00:24:53Guest 4:Mary Monday and The Bitches were the first punk act.
00:24:57Guest 4:They played mostly gay clubs in San Francisco in the mid-70s.
00:25:00Guest 4:Other people say there was a band called Crime...
00:25:03Guest 4:They supposedly put out the first punk single in 1976.
00:25:09Guest 4:They always wore police uniforms when they played.
00:25:12Guest 4:Important.
00:25:12Guest 4:And then there was a band named The Nuns that allegedly did the – they booked themselves as the first punk band.
00:25:20Marc:Now, did The Nuns wear nuns outfits?
00:25:23Guest 4:No, they did not.
00:25:24Guest 4:They kind of looked like –
00:25:26Guest 4:you know pimply uh new york greaser you know long hair kind of leather jacket wasn't there an important member of that band that went on to do other things alejandro escovedo the aljandro that's right the nuns man that's right i fucking love aljandro escovedo that's right and he was he was an early member of the nuns and um jesus his first album is a beautiful album
00:25:47Guest 4:Yeah, it is.
00:25:47Guest 4:It's nice.
00:25:49Guest 4:The Nuns, on the other hand, out of tune, kind of, you know, it was pretty raw.
00:25:55Marc:It was kind of garage-y.
00:25:56Marc:I just saw him in Austin.
00:25:59Marc:He's like an old, like, you know, he's an old myth, he's like a real seminal figure of the Austin scene.
00:26:07Marc:Yeah.
00:26:07Guest 4:And he grew up in the Bay Area, and his father was Pete Escovedo.
00:26:12Guest 4:the percussionist and Sheila E. I think it's, they're all, there's a huge family of musicians that came out of Oakland.
00:26:21Marc:I think he got sick though.
00:26:22Marc:I think he's fighting something.
00:26:23Guest 4:Yeah.
00:26:25Guest 4:Yeah, that's true.
00:26:26Marc:But I, the thing that like when I read, did you read the book?
00:26:31Marc:I've read parts of it.
00:26:32Marc:I've been very busy.
00:26:33Guest 4:That's better than the Chronicle.
00:26:35Marc:Well, you just did campus radio.
00:26:36Marc:Where did you do campus radio?
00:26:38Guest 4:UC Berkeley.
00:26:39Marc:How do I compare?
00:26:40Marc:Because I'm a little nervous about my interview skills.
00:26:42Marc:Were they like, so, dude, so were they professional?
00:26:46Guest 4:Like three people crammed in the room to listen.
00:26:49Guest 4:Yeah.
00:26:50Guest 4:A lot of people were calling up saying, I remember this band Corrupted Morals did a song in Spanish once.
00:26:56Guest 4:Do you have anything to say about that?
00:26:58Guest 4:Ha, ha, ha, ha.
00:26:59Guest 4:I mean, Corrupted Morals didn't last very long at all.
00:27:03Guest 4:Not that many people remember that band at all.
00:27:05Guest 4:It was very obscure, but that's Berkeley.
00:27:07Guest 4:Very obscure.
00:27:08Marc:Now, the thing that was amazing to me about you writing this book is that literally for the last two fucking years, I would call you, it seems longer even,
00:27:18Marc:How long?
00:27:19Marc:Three years.
00:27:20Marc:Three years.
00:27:20Marc:I would call you like, dude, I can't talk.
00:27:22Marc:I got to go to like Emery to Emeryville to talk to some dude who lives in a basement.
00:27:30Marc:I mean, every week you would spend hours with these dudes.
00:27:34Marc:I mean, some of them, I mean, obviously the dead Kennedys people know, the nuns, some of the other ones you mentioned.
00:27:38Marc:What are the ones that made it out?
00:27:40Marc:What are the ones that actually outside of building the scene actually made their mark and people would know?
00:27:47Guest 4:And then have a career or something.
00:27:49Guest 4:Right.
00:27:50Guest 4:Rancid, Green Day, AFI, No Effects.
00:27:54Guest 4:Yeah, I like that.
00:27:54Guest 4:They actually are from L.A., but they are based here and they've been here for a long time.
00:27:59Guest 4:Yeah.
00:28:01Guest 4:Dead Kennedys, I'm trying to think of, you know, there are certain sort of like micro successes along the way.
00:28:07Guest 4:Operation Ivy, very influential ska punk.
00:28:10Guest 1:Yeah.
00:28:11Guest 4:Kind of ska influenced punk rock.
00:28:14Guest 4:Yeah.
00:28:14Guest 4:Let's see, of the 80s bands, people like FANG, DRI, which stood for Dirty Rotten Imbeciles.
00:28:23Guest 4:Now we're getting more esoteric, but there's still success in their own right.
00:28:27Guest 4:MDC, Millions of Dead Cops.
00:28:29Marc:And you had to deal with an ongoing minor fight with Jello Biafra, correct?
00:28:34Marc:From the dead candidates?
00:28:35Marc:Did he finally relent and decide that maybe he should be portrayed or at least part of this book?
00:28:45Guest 4:He didn't want to do it at all initially and
00:28:48Guest 4:We interviewed some of the other members of the Dead Kennedys, and then he saw that we'd already interviewed maybe 70 or 80 people.
00:28:54Guest 4:Yeah.
00:28:55Guest 4:And then he said he would, and then he was in my kitchen for four and a half hours.
00:29:02Guest 4:He wouldn't leave.
00:29:03Guest 4:I'm scared.
00:29:04Guest 4:I'm scared.
00:29:05Guest 4:We would finish the interview.
00:29:06Guest 4:Okay, thanks a lot.
00:29:07Guest 4:Thanks.
00:29:07Guest 4:That's been great.
00:29:08Guest 4:Turn that thing back on.
00:29:09Guest 4:Yeah.
00:29:09Guest 4:And another half hour of whatever it was.
00:29:11Guest 4:Now, let's be honest.
00:29:12Guest 4:How much did you use?
00:29:14Guest 4:We probably...
00:29:15Guest 4:Used 10th, maybe a 20th of what he said.
00:29:21Guest 4:He's been interviewed so many times.
00:29:23Guest 4:He's a professional interviewee.
00:29:25Marc:And he's done so many spoken word records.
00:29:27Marc:He's very raw and he's very out there.
00:29:30Marc:He's never shorted things to say about shit.
00:29:32Guest 4:Well, I always got the impression that whatever he was saying, he said before.
00:29:35Guest 4:Right.
00:29:36Guest 4:There's a script in his head, and he's a perfect person to interview if you're willing to go with the flow because he will sit and stop in the middle of a sentence and say, no, wait, let's rephrase that and write it again in his head and then say it in a more eloquent way.
00:29:53Guest 4:With more eloquent ground, which I'm not doing right now.
00:29:56Marc:Well, that was the weird thing that William Burroughs once talked about his books.
00:30:01Marc:And he saw most of them as routines.
00:30:04Marc:Like, you know, the Benway routine.
00:30:05Marc:Like, he had it in his head that his characters were like a vaudeville.
00:30:08Marc:Like, everything was, you know, articulated as routines in his head.
00:30:12Marc:And I think a lot of people do that, especially professional talkers.
00:30:15Guest 4:Right.
00:30:15Guest 4:Professional talk.
00:30:16Guest 4:That's what we're talking about here.
00:30:17Guest 4:And that's what Biafra is, is a professional talker.
00:30:21Guest 4:On the other hand, there were a lot of people we almost had to poke to, like, interview for this project.
00:30:26Guest 4:I mean, some people had never really talked about this before.
00:30:29Guest 4:Or maybe they'd been interviewed by a zine or something.
00:30:31Guest 4:But this, you know, at one point, East Bay Ray from the Dead Kennedys goes, is this for a zine or what is this?
00:30:37Marc:A zine.
00:30:38Marc:No, it's a book.
00:30:38Marc:Do they even exist anymore?
00:30:40Marc:A zine.
00:30:41Marc:No, we have computers now.
00:30:43Marc:Ha, ha, ha.
00:30:43Marc:I mean, updated.
00:30:44Marc:Is this for a blog?
00:30:46Marc:A zine.
00:30:47Marc:A zine.
00:30:47Marc:I told him it was a book.
00:30:49Marc:Something that zitty kids hand out in front of punk bars.
00:30:51Marc:Did you get the latest copy of Bleh?
00:30:53Guest 4:Yeah, I know.
00:30:56Guest 4:People still make zines.
00:30:57Guest 4:They're almost like it's a refined thing.
00:30:59Guest 4:It's like people who are into 8-track tapes or something.
00:31:02Guest 4:It's like a not essential technology anymore, but yet some people just love the thing of the paper.
00:31:10Marc:Right.
00:31:10Marc:Well, what's interesting about that to me is that there were guys that refused to talk who no one would really give a shit about anyways.
00:31:18Marc:That you had these experiences with some of these dudes that were in minor bands that have continued to live the life and were still sort of cagey.
00:31:26Marc:Did you run into that a lot?
00:31:28Marc:I mean, you told me about one guy that was sort of like, you know, like, let's talk about both ends of the spectrum.
00:31:34Marc:Because I know there's one dude that you talked to who went on to create a record company and become very successful.
00:31:40Marc:Then there was another dude that you had to find.
00:31:42Marc:That you had to, like, he was still on the drugs and he was still sort of isolated.
00:31:46Marc:Do you remember who I'm talking about?
00:31:48Guest 4:which one one guy did not wake up for the interview we had finally scheduled at his little uh his warehouse uh you know place there's 20 people living there somewhere in the bowels of oakland and we go there and he uh you know i knock on the door covered in punk stickers and some girl opens up and like who are you and we're
00:32:11Guest 4:And then I wander through these plywood walls and somebody has built a stairway out of two by four.
00:32:18Guest 4:So I walk up that and she looks in his room.
00:32:21Guest 4:Yeah, he's in here.
00:32:21Guest 4:Go ahead.
00:32:22Guest 4:So I go in there and he's lying in bed covered in blankets and there's a bunch of
00:32:28Guest 4:clothes around, there's some booze bottles, and there's a... And this guy's almost 40, okay?
00:32:34Guest 4:And there's... I just see albums there, and one of them is Ted Nugent, Double Gonzo Live, which is a very un-punk album to have out, but maybe he's revisiting some things.
00:32:44Guest 4:But anyway, he does not wake up.
00:32:46Guest 4:I'm yelling his name in his...
00:32:50Guest 4:there's only one room it's a giant trash pad and he's rolled up in the blank and he just he's out man he won't wake up so i walked downstairs and you know that's it drove home with my co-author silica tutor uh you know i she was she's in the car meditating it was a very strange process so i tell her she said how to go that was fast and i said he never woke up and she said no i missed it
00:33:15Guest 4:So we drive back to San Francisco.
00:33:17Guest 4:An hour and a half later, the guy calls, says, where were you?
00:33:20Marc:I'm like, oh, my God.
00:33:22Marc:Like, you need that.
00:33:24Guest 4:But I found him on the phone.
00:33:25Guest 4:Eventually, he had moved to Texas.
00:33:27Guest 4:He moved to Texas?
00:33:28Guest 4:He eventually moved to Texas.
00:33:30Guest 4:And then I got him on the phone.
00:33:31Marc:You caught him in his last days in the SF area?
00:33:34Guest 4:Yeah.
00:33:35Guest 4:Which band was he in?
00:33:36Guest 4:He was in a couple – well, several bands.
00:33:39Guest 4:One of them is called Filth.
00:33:41Guest 4:And then he was in a band called Isocracy.
00:33:45Guest 4:East Bay punk bands.
00:33:46Guest 4:Isocracy was known not for their music but just because they threw garbage into the audience.
00:33:51Guest 4:Yeah.
00:33:52Guest 4:Every gig, they would drive around in a van and pick up trash from wherever.
00:33:56Guest 4:Shredded paper, dictionaries.
00:33:58Marc:And they had a following for that?
00:33:59Guest 4:Yeah, and then other people would bring stuff.
00:34:01Guest 4:One kid thought it'd be funny if he brought a huge bag of kitty litter to one of their shows.
00:34:06Marc:Dirty kitty litter?
00:34:07Guest 4:No.
00:34:07Marc:Oh, okay.
00:34:08Guest 4:And threw it up in the air.
00:34:09Guest 4:And, of course, there was just dust everywhere.
00:34:12Guest 4:Punk kids are coughing, and they had to stop the show and empty out the club.
00:34:16Guest 4:It has nothing to do with music.
00:34:20Guest 4:But that's the best part of this project is that it really isn't about the music.
00:34:24Guest 4:Punk music was founded on the principle that you don't have to really know much about music.
00:34:29Guest 4:It isn't important.
00:34:30Guest 4:What's more important is just to get up there.
00:34:31Guest 4:Anyone can get up there and do it.
00:34:33Guest 4:And the stories of people, I mean, that's the juice of the book.
00:34:37Guest 4:It's the anecdotes.
00:34:38Marc:What stories were actually moments outside of that one sounds pretty good where you were just like, what the fuck?
00:34:44Guest 4:Well, there was a group of young kids who broke into a cemetery in Oakland into a crypt, hanging around with flashlights, and they grabbed some mummified remains of bodies and brought it home, a skull, an arm or something, and then an entire mummified baby.
00:35:06Guest 4:So, of course, they're sitting in their little punk house,
00:35:10Guest 4:cleaning the skull and picking at the baby, wondering what they're going to do with it.
00:35:14Guest 4:All the roommates come home, freak out, freak out.
00:35:19Guest 4:They stay up all night arguing.
00:35:21Guest 2:About what?
00:35:22Guest 4:What are you going to do?
00:35:23Guest 4:This is like you were doing Satan.
00:35:25Guest 4:This is Satan's work.
00:35:26Guest 4:What are you doing?
00:35:27Guest 4:And the mummy thieves are trying to defend, oh, we're just a prank.
00:35:32Guest 4:I don't know why we did it.
00:35:34Guest 4:There's no reason.
00:35:35Guest 4:We're just dumb kids.
00:35:38Guest 4:So...
00:35:39Guest 4:Police are called.
00:35:40Guest 4:Nine cop cars come to the house the next day.
00:35:43Guest 4:The mummy baby has left with one of its thieves.
00:35:48Guest 4:He takes it under his arm, doesn't know what to do with it, goes to the Gilman Punk Rock Club where he has keys because he works there, and hides it in the sound booth.
00:35:56Marc:Just hides it?
00:35:58Guest 4:Hides it, thinking he'll come back later.
00:35:59Guest 4:And what happened to the mummy baby?
00:36:02Guest 4:The band Rancid is there rehearsing one night.
00:36:05Guest 4:Twelve cop cars, squad cars, come surround the place.
00:36:10Guest 4:They hunt around for the mummified baby.
00:36:13Guest 4:And one of the guys in Rancid says...
00:36:16Guest 4:You know, if I were going to hide a mummy baby here, I think I'd hide it in the sound booth.
00:36:20Guest 4:And they go up and they find it there in a Tower Records bag.
00:36:23Guest 4:This hit, like, nationwide news.
00:36:27Guest 4:You know, corpse, you know, punk thieves.
00:36:30Guest 4:I mean, it was this huge, huge thing.
00:36:32Marc:It's also interesting the transition from like the 60s where you had the Manson family, but these guys didn't even kill anybody.
00:36:38Guest 4:No, they're just like, this is cool, man.
00:36:40Guest 4:They were kind of like, this is in the early 90s, and it was kind of the fascination with serial killers.
00:36:45Marc:People are like walking around, you know, with the... I have a John Wayne Gacy clown painting.
00:36:49Marc:Yeah, exactly.
00:36:49Guest 4:We were sort of victim of that.
00:36:51Guest 4:Clown paintings, you know, Manson buttons and t-shirts and all that.
00:36:54Marc:I'm so glad you and I got out of that loop where we were like...
00:36:56Marc:Dude, let's watch Bud Dwyer shooting.
00:36:58Marc:What's his name?
00:36:59Marc:Yeah.
00:36:59Marc:Bud Dwyer?
00:37:00Marc:Yeah.
00:37:00Guest 4:Shooting himself in the head again.
00:37:01Guest 4:Yeah, from three angles.
00:37:02Guest 4:Yeah.
00:37:03Guest 4:I like that somebody had actually found news footage of that and edited it together like it's some sort of art film.
00:37:09Marc:And then there was a weird close-up of the blood specks on the flag, as I recall.
00:37:14Marc:Nice detail.
00:37:15Guest 4:Good memory there.
00:37:16Guest 4:But, you know, kids are not into that anymore at all.
00:37:18Guest 4:Young people could just care less about that apocalyptic information as a zeitgeist.
00:37:23Guest 4:They really are not interested.
00:37:24Marc:And you wrote a book.
00:37:26Marc:I forgot to mention that you published The Nose magazine, which was a seminal magazine in terms of kind of, you know, walking that beat.
00:37:35Marc:of that type of information.
00:37:36Marc:And that doesn't exist anymore.
00:37:38Marc:Freaky info.
00:37:39Guest 4:Yeah.
00:37:39Marc:It doesn't really exist anymore.
00:37:40Guest 4:No, it doesn't.
00:37:41Guest 4:I mean, all the information is there.
00:37:42Guest 4:It's easily available.
00:37:44Guest 4:Just go to Wikipedia.
00:37:45Guest 4:Just Google it.
00:37:46Guest 4:It's there.
00:37:46Guest 4:Boom.
00:37:47Guest 4:Oh man, that's intense.
00:37:48Guest 4:It's over.
00:37:49Guest 4:We used to spend like a month designing a magazine and printing it and distributing it.
00:37:54Guest 4:It doesn't even matter anymore.
00:37:55Marc:Well, it's interesting.
00:37:57Marc:Out of this crucible of all these years, it's probably like, what, a little less than a decade?
00:38:01Marc:The Bay Area punk scene, you know, proper was probably one of the years we're looking at.
00:38:06Guest 4:It depends on who you talk to.
00:38:07Guest 4:Some people say it lasted six months of 1977.
00:38:11Guest 4:That was it, man.
00:38:14Guest 4:All this other shit, that's just pale imitation.
00:38:20Guest 4:You know, it's still going on today.
00:38:22Guest 4:There's still punk shows.
00:38:24Marc:Out of the Crucible comes Green Day, which are a huge international band.
00:38:28Guest 4:Right.
00:38:29Guest 4:They made their big bank in 94, 95.
00:38:33Marc:So that probably signals the end of it for a lot of people.
00:38:37Guest 4:Yeah.
00:38:37Guest 4:For the originals.
00:38:39Guest 4:For our book, it's a narrative arc that kind of peaks there because punk rock now is like, oh my god, everybody's freaking out because it's gone completely mainstream.
00:38:48Guest 4:It blows up, shatters, little pieces fall to the ground, punk dust, and now the cat's out of the bag, basically.
00:38:56Guest 4:But...
00:38:57Guest 4:Despite that, young kids are like, oh, I'm not going to do that.
00:39:02Guest 4:We're going to keep it real with their music.
00:39:05Guest 4:Fuck success.
00:39:06Guest 4:Try and reinvent it and take it in another direction.
00:39:09Marc:Now, did you talk to Green Day guys?
00:39:12Guest 4:We talked to Billy Joe for about three hours.
00:39:14Marc:And he respects all that came before him?
00:39:16Guest 4:Yeah, well, you know, those kids from that generation grew up listening to punk.
00:39:22Guest 4:One guy told us he was walking on his junior high playground and found a cassette tape lying on the grass, picked it up, Sex Pistols on one side, Dead Kennedys on the other.
00:39:31Guest 4:He has no idea what this is, but the names alone are intriguing if you're 11 years old.
00:39:36Marc:That's a great story.
00:39:37Guest 4:And so he went and bought... His first albums he ever owned in his life were...
00:39:43Guest 4:Dead Kennedys and Bird and Ernie from Sesame Street.
00:39:46Marc:It fucked his head forever.
00:39:47Marc:That's hilarious.
00:39:48Guest 4:He ended up being a roadie for Green Day.
00:39:50Guest 4:He's like one of their best friends.
00:39:51Marc:It's like me the first time I found a piece of porn.
00:39:53Marc:I was like, uh-oh, it's all over.
00:39:55Marc:Yeah.
00:39:55Guest 4:And do you still enjoy porn today?
00:39:57Marc:Yes, I do.
00:40:00Marc:Well, I think that's a good place to end.
00:40:02Marc:Let's have a cigar.
00:40:03Marc:The book is called Give Me Something Better.
00:40:06Marc:By Jack Boulware and Silka Tudor.
00:40:09Marc:And it's available now.
00:40:11Guest 1:And it's great talking to you, man.
00:40:20Guest 1:Thank you.
00:40:23Marc:check hey hey hey hey sounds good you're pro at that checking checking hey yeah yeah you know how to do that in my garage is uh brett netson we're on now sure we can yeah but you know it's a you know it's it can all be edited man the band is built to spill
00:40:47Marc:Who are here?
00:40:48Marc:Let me take that out.
00:40:50Marc:I got to take my snooze out out of my lip.
00:40:53Marc:I'm going to have to live without nicotine for a few minutes.
00:40:55Marc:I'm so strung out on that shit right now.
00:40:57Marc:You smoke?
00:40:58Marc:Yeah, a lot.
00:40:58Marc:You still?
00:40:59Marc:A lot?
00:40:59Marc:Quite a bit.
00:41:00Marc:Don't you wake up with the whistles?
00:41:04Guest 5:Maybe.
00:41:04Guest 5:Maybe sometimes.
00:41:05Guest 5:Yeah, sure.
00:41:05Marc:But I finally figured out today that it's been going on because I've been doing this dip kind of shit and chewing the gum and stuff.
00:41:14Marc:The snooze is like, I get it from Sweden.
00:41:17Guest 5:Nice.
00:41:17Guest 5:How do you do that?
00:41:18Guest 5:I've been wanting to do that.
00:41:19Marc:You like snooze?
00:41:19Marc:I love it.
00:41:20Marc:Oh, you can do it.
00:41:21Guest 5:If you get in the bag, it's fine.
00:41:22Guest 5:The stuff that's not in the bag, it's like mud.
00:41:24Marc:Yeah, I can't deal with anything not in the bag because it doesn't go all over my mouth.
00:41:27Marc:But it's strong shit.
00:41:29Marc:I'm using the strongest one.
00:41:31Marc:And I realize I've been getting up real early.
00:41:33Marc:And I can't figure out why because I think it's my anxiety.
00:41:35Marc:But it's my body going, time for nicotine.
00:41:38Guest 2:Yeah.
00:41:39Guest 5:Time to get going.
00:41:40Guest 5:Snooze time.
00:41:41Guest 5:I was in Sweden, Norway and Sweden.
00:41:44Guest 5:i was doing a lot of that the chicks do it everyone does awesome everyone does they just stick it right up in their mouth and you're like oh man i don't know why that's hot because it shouldn't be hot but shit so uh built the spill is on tour how many days you just you got two more how long you been on tour for uh like a month and a week or something like that yeah how do you say that five weeks yeah five weeks is good that'll work and we got a week left uh los angeles san francisco and the new album is called uh there is no enemy and
00:42:13Marc:And I got to be honest with you, it's got one of those songs on there that I've listened to over and over again.
00:42:16Marc:And when I bring it up to you in the car, you're like, oh, really?
00:42:18Marc:That one?
00:42:21Marc:Good old boredom.
00:42:22Marc:Good old boredom.
00:42:23Marc:Well, no, but you know, it's like your proximity to your work is going to be what it is.
00:42:27Marc:I mean, like it's like with me, like I got jokes that I like and I got jokes that I do.
00:42:33Marc:And I got things that where it's like, am I doing this one again or do I like that one?
00:42:37Marc:But, you know, people like it.
00:42:38Guest 5:Maybe it's jokes you like, people don't.
00:42:40Marc:That's true.
00:42:41Marc:Maybe they're too weird.
00:42:42Marc:I got a real weird one.
00:42:45Marc:I got a real weird one in the mix right now that I can't see.
00:42:48Marc:It's about... Well, the joke is basically about guys who become transsexuals, guys who get the surgery to become women.
00:42:56Marc:I've not had that experience of... I've been uncomfortable before, but I've never actually said, I'm done with this dick.
00:43:02Marc:But the joke is basically...
00:43:05Marc:Like, I wonder if these guys who do the change ever have, you know, buyer's remorse.
00:43:09Marc:Oh, wake up one morning.
00:43:10Marc:Yeah, that's a bad morning.
00:43:12Marc:What did I do?
00:43:14Marc:And they call their friend.
00:43:14Marc:They're like, why'd you let me do this?
00:43:16Marc:I'm a woman.
00:43:17Marc:What?
00:43:18Marc:Okay, you can come over and fuck me again.
00:43:20Marc:And that joke always gets like, you know, like, oh, why'd you take us there?
00:43:28Marc:And I thought it was a pretty practical, provocative joke.
00:43:31Marc:Sure.
00:43:31Guest 5:My kid's grandfather is a transsexual.
00:43:34Guest 5:What?
00:43:35Guest 5:That's pretty interesting.
00:43:36Marc:Your kid's grandfather.
00:43:37Marc:What does that mean?
00:43:37Marc:How did you distance yourself from that?
00:43:39Marc:Their mom's father.
00:43:40Marc:So your father-in-law.
00:43:42Marc:Yeah.
00:43:43Marc:Whoa, yeah.
00:43:44Marc:Yeah, you can't get distance from that.
00:43:46Marc:Okay, that's fine.
00:43:46Marc:Not that you'd want to.
00:43:47Marc:No, I liked him fine.
00:43:48Marc:Here's the deal, though.
00:43:48Marc:I've gotten such flack.
00:43:49Marc:Let me just say it right there before you share the story, Brett.
00:43:53Marc:I've gotten some flack from the transgender community, and I don't want to feel... That's not cool.
00:43:57Marc:No, it's not, because I don't want anyone to think I'm condescending.
00:44:00Marc:I just find it interesting and compelling and a little weird to me.
00:44:04Marc:But I'm certainly happy that, you know, like I got an angry email from a transgender person and I certainly didn't want to hurt her feelings.
00:44:12Marc:So what is that experience like in terms of did you know him when he had the operation or it was?
00:44:18Guest 5:He never did.
00:44:18Guest 5:He ended up dying before he could do it, but he was planning on do it.
00:44:22Guest 5:It was all gearing up for that.
00:44:23Guest 5:But the funny thing is, and I've known a few transgender people, and they're really, really masculine.
00:44:29Guest 5:They've grown up really masculine, very male, just the ones I've known.
00:44:34Guest 5:And it seems like maybe that's how it goes.
00:44:36Guest 5:And then as soon as they come out or whatever, they're some super nice people all of a sudden.
00:44:42Guest 5:It just releases.
00:44:43Guest 5:They come from this gruff, cranky, hot-headed... Probably trying to stifle it.
00:44:47Guest 5:Sure.
00:44:47Guest 5:Right.
00:44:48Guest 5:Keeping it down, killing it.
00:44:51Guest 5:This was fascinating.
00:44:51Guest 5:It was cool.
00:44:52Guest 5:And he ended up being the nicest guy in the world.
00:44:54Guest 5:And he was a musician and would play music with my kids all of a sudden.
00:44:57Guest 5:And part of that guy play music with him now and he had a lot to do with it.
00:45:00Guest 5:And he became... He got really into Buffy the Vampire Slayer.
00:45:03Guest 5:Hmm.
00:45:04Marc:Yeah, that's very popular with, I know a lot of lesbians who are big Buffy fans.
00:45:10Marc:Yeah, sure.
00:45:11Marc:Yeah, I never watched it, but I appreciate their, I certainly know what it's like to be impressed by somebody that turns you on.
00:45:20Marc:Yeah.
00:45:21Marc:So you're on the road.
00:45:22Guest 5:Oh, how do we get Tucker?
00:45:23Guest 5:Sorry.
00:45:23Marc:That's all right.
00:45:24Marc:No, it's the best.
00:45:25Marc:It's better.
00:45:26Marc:So you're, now, we had a brief conversation in the car, you know, because I, you know, I had been doing this podcast for a couple months and, you know, I get emails, you know, or negative sort of feedback of like,
00:45:38Marc:You know, this is his last shot or whatever.
00:45:40Marc:And the weird thing about it is, no, people can look at you however you want.
00:45:45Marc:But, you know, you know, you've been in a band a long time.
00:45:48Marc:You're the real deal.
00:45:48Marc:You've toured.
00:45:49Marc:You've made several records with these guys.
00:45:50Marc:You've been in and out of this group.
00:45:52Marc:And they're a seminal indie rock group.
00:45:53Marc:I mean, it seems to me like from my research that in some circles you get sort of the same...
00:45:58Marc:billing i do like you are you know one of the founders of a sort of movement that when you came out it was around the same time as probably dinosaur jr and a lot of you know when indie rock really started to break big correct well a little bit after them yeah so it was like the last of the does the door was coming down on the major labels coming and throwing money around so what what i started to realize today just today i wrote this down that you know if you can find something you love to do and something you're good at
00:46:25Marc:and you like doing it you fucking win yeah and and the fact that you you know i'm still out doing what i do and you're still out doing what you do it just because you know other people don't see you as being as successful as somebody else doesn't mean you know it usually means the opposite in the sense that you know you're the real deal and you know you're doing it because you fucking love it do you yeah when you go on the road well
00:46:48Guest 5:Yes, but I mean, after a long, long time of it, it's more of a rich part of your life.
00:46:56Guest 5:Right.
00:46:57Guest 5:It's not so much, it's satisfying more than exciting.
00:47:02Marc:Right.
00:47:02Guest 5:Well, yeah, because you're-
00:47:04Marc:it gets tempered after a certain point when you're not just doing it for the the glory but you're doing it for because you know you're you're in a creative unit and you guys are professionals and i imagine that the satisfaction isn't you know about you know how many the satisfaction is like uh uh how i feel great that i'm able to make myself useful really as a musician as a person in the world well that's fucking nice there have been times in my life where i was uh liability yeah
00:47:31Guest 5:Oh, no, that guy's here.
00:47:32Guest 5:Yeah, something like that.
00:47:33Guest 5:I was like, oh, dude, come on.
00:47:35Marc:What, did you hit the wall?
00:47:36Marc:Huh?
00:47:36Marc:You hit the wall for a while?
00:47:37Guest 5:Oh, sure.
00:47:38Guest 5:Yeah, what'd that look like?
00:47:39Guest 5:In Boise, Idaho.
00:47:41Marc:That's where the last time I saw you was.
00:47:42Marc:Impossible to explain.
00:47:43Marc:In Boise, Idaho.
00:47:44Marc:You mean how you ended up there?
00:47:46Guest 5:No, I was born there.
00:47:50Marc:No, anyways.
00:47:51Guest 5:I'll just come around and say it.
00:47:52Guest 5:It was drugs, right?
00:47:53Marc:Sure, yeah.
00:47:54Marc:I talk about drugs all the time on this show.
00:47:55Guest 5:I tend not to.
00:47:56Marc:Oh, really?
00:47:57Guest 5:Well, no.
00:47:58Marc:I don't think you're going to surprise anybody by saying you're in a rock band.
00:48:02Marc:Oh, I did drugs.
00:48:02Marc:You did drugs.
00:48:03Marc:You're like, no, I'm turning this off.
00:48:06Marc:What we were talking in the car about, you know, that being on the road that you're sort of coming back around to to what it used to be like to like, you know, why it was great going town to town and just.
00:48:23Guest 5:Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.
00:48:24Guest 5:Yeah, sure.
00:48:25Guest 5:So the thing is, okay, so we're playing like the theater circuit basically, right?
00:48:30Guest 5:It's like, we still play some clubs, but usually it's like a thousand seaters or something like that, right?
00:48:35Guest 5:And you can make like a middle class living doing those kinds of tours.
00:48:40Guest 5:And the thing is when you cross a certain threshold from playing clubs like Al's Bar here or Spaceland or any of those cool places where you can get on the mic after the show and say, hey, can we stay at your house and all that stuff?
00:48:54Guest 5:With my other group, Caustic Resin was more of a, not punk, but it was more of a lifestyle than a band.
00:49:03Guest 5:We'd do that, and it was a beautiful thing.
00:49:05Guest 5:In my early 20s, that was like, this is the life I want.
00:49:10Guest 5:You do it once, and you're like, yeah, that makes absolute sense.
00:49:14Marc:You're at some stranger's house.
00:49:15Marc:You wake up, and they're like, you want breakfast?
00:49:17Guest 5:Sleep in the yard or something.
00:49:19Guest 5:Cats come over and wake up.
00:49:20Guest 5:and then you go they make you eggs and potatoes and you go to thrift stores yeah and go to the record store and with your crappy cds it's like hey would you buy a couple of these yeah yeah right and then uh maybe go swimming or something you know and everything's okay like in tucson like or austin texas these kinds of places and it's just a awesome time it's great
00:49:40Guest 5:And so then, okay, so then you keep trying and you're working hard to try to make more money or to get more people to come to your shows.
00:49:46Guest 5:And after a certain point, you cross a threshold where you don't hang out with the people who go to your shows anymore.
00:49:52Guest 5:Because I don't know what, it's a weird thing.
00:49:57Guest 5:You cross a certain point and then usually people you have nothing in common with.
00:50:02Guest 5:Come to your shows.
00:50:03Guest 5:I'll just say it.
00:50:04Guest 5:The drunkest, stupidest motherfucker in the room is the one that comes in and wants to talk to you first.
00:50:08Marc:Right.
00:50:09Marc:God, I can't believe I said that.
00:50:10Marc:And they're the ones that completely misunderstand.
00:50:12Guest 5:But sometimes cool people do come up and talk to you too.
00:50:17Guest 5:as well but you know you know what i mean well like i went to see a good example you can't tell you can't tell the difference no of course not because you got people come to shows there's crossover yeah people come to shows that have nothing to do with your life or what the way you live it or anything like that right you have nothing in common with them whatsoever well i think that's one of the things that crushed cobain's head was that you know that that fundamental misunderstanding yeah when you got a bunch of meatheads showing up to your show
00:50:41Guest 5:that just want to fight.
00:50:43Marc:Yeah.
00:50:43Marc:Jock dudes that you hate.
00:50:45Marc:Right.
00:50:45Marc:And those, you know, like he's a guy that, yeah, that built his world around being against those guys.
00:50:51Marc:Yep.
00:50:52Marc:Like I saw, who did I see?
00:50:54Marc:The Hold Steady.
00:50:55Marc:I went to see The Hold Steady when I was in, when I was in Austin at, at South by Southwest.
00:51:00Marc:And they, they're guys, they're stalwarts.
00:51:02Marc:They've been around a long time in one band or another.
00:51:04Marc:And, and, you know, despite whatever anyone thinks of their music, I mean, they're solid, you know, but I,
00:51:10Marc:I don't know what kind of fans they would attract, but I was standing in that crowd and you had your hipsters, you had your alt guys, but there was just this crew of like five jock idiots that were dancing in a circle and doing everything but fucking each other because that's what they were avoiding.
00:51:25Guest 2:And I was like...
00:51:26Marc:That's what they avoid every day.
00:51:27Marc:Every day.
00:51:29Marc:The desire to just like, come here, bro.
00:51:30Marc:What's up, man?
00:51:31Marc:How you doing?
00:51:32Marc:Just suck my cock, bro.
00:51:33Marc:Let me suck your cock.
00:51:34Marc:Yeah.
00:51:35Marc:Come on.
00:51:36Marc:Yeah.
00:51:36Marc:Come on, buddy.
00:51:36Marc:Fuck it.
00:51:37Marc:We're not gay.
00:51:37Marc:We're cool.
00:51:38Marc:We're on the team.
00:51:38Marc:Yeah.
00:51:39Marc:Just a hand job, man.
00:51:41Marc:But there was a bunch of them.
00:51:42Marc:And I thought like, you know, I've often felt that about comedy.
00:51:46Marc:There's no way I can be misunderstood.
00:51:48Marc:You know, those guys are not going to come to my show.
00:51:49Marc:You're dealing with language, which is very specific.
00:51:51Guest 5:And you're pretty realistic.
00:51:53Guest 5:Or what do you call it?
00:51:54Marc:Raw and real, yeah, honest.
00:51:56Marc:Realism.
00:51:57Marc:Right, yeah, and there's no misunderstanding, but I know people like, you know, Attell, who is a great comedian, but, you know, he's sort of, he's kind of cultivated this horde.
00:52:08Guest 5:Well, his show is based on partying.
00:52:11Guest 5:Right.
00:52:11Guest 5:Which was awesome, though, by the way.
00:52:12Guest 5:Oh, yeah.
00:52:13Guest 5:No, he's hilarious.
00:52:14Guest 3:I'm sober.
00:52:14Guest 5:So you've watched it sober, right?
00:52:16Guest 3:Yes.
00:52:16Guest 3:I watch it, I go, oh, yeah.
00:52:18Guest 3:Yeah, that.
00:52:18Guest 5:I remember that.
00:52:19Guest 5:Yeah, yeah.
00:52:20Guest 5:Standing out on the street somewhere, talking to somebody.
00:52:23Marc:for two hours yeah and then not remembering it that's awesome yeah but uh but so how do you deal with that now and i think the transition you're talking about is that once you leave the club scene to where everybody's on the same page like even your fans feel like an organic part of what you're doing yeah i imagine that technology and the way people get music now is distance them a lot from any sort of specific community other than just being fanboys and there's two dynamics going on it's just that you get more popular more different kinds of people show up to your shows there's right
00:52:53Guest 5:And then there's the cultural, you know, malaise that's going on right now, which is also making things horrible.
00:52:58Guest 5:However, what I could say about it now is that this particular band, I'm really glad to be playing with this band again because it's sort of a, it's a more populist kind of band.
00:53:10Guest 5:It's a lot of different kinds of people are showing up to our shows, which is nice.
00:53:14Guest 5:Right.
00:53:14Guest 5:And I feel real lucky.
00:53:15Guest 5:Kind of like you said, it's like we're doing what we're doing.
00:53:19Guest 5:We don't have to be famous.
00:53:21Marc:Right.
00:53:21Guest 5:And we can make a living doing it.
00:53:22Marc:that's that is the dream dude i mean you've been going at it i know how could you you couldn't set that up if you tried well the whole idea of being mega famous is is sort of a child's dream after a certain point that you know you want people to love what you do but i think they're you know we fool ourselves more like i want to be a star you know eventually i'm going to be a star it's just for that attention and you know once you get back to the craft and you get back to realizing you know we're grownups and you start seeing grownups at your show who appreciate what you do and have been for 20 years yeah
00:53:51Marc:I mean, there's something that I'm glad I'm there for those people.
00:53:54Marc:I mean, what the fuck am I going to really say to a 21 year old in the sense that I can't like I know when I was 20, I liked a lot of dark stuff and I was reading William Burroughs and listening to Lenny Bruce records.
00:54:04Marc:But I was one of those weird kids and I get those weird kids.
00:54:07Marc:But mainstream culture, they're just going to be like, oh, man, he seems upset about something.
00:54:11Guest 5:I've listened to your show before and you said the guy that's freaking out yelling, even though he's right, everybody's going to look at him like, whoa, oh my gosh.
00:54:22Guest 5:Like if you're at the cell phone store.
00:54:24Marc:Like, this phone is a piece of shit.
00:54:27Marc:Everything this represents is shit.
00:54:30Marc:It's like, oh God.
00:54:31Marc:Because they don't want to lose their place in line.
00:54:32Marc:That's right.
00:54:33Marc:They don't want to lose their place in line and the management's sort of like, sir, we're going to have to ask you to leave.
00:54:36Marc:Why?
00:54:36Marc:For telling the truth?
00:54:38Oh, God.
00:54:40Marc:But that's exactly right.
00:54:42Marc:Do you find you have kids coming, though?
00:54:43Guest 5:They do, totally.
00:54:44Guest 5:See, the thing, you know, the band is mostly Doug Marsh.
00:54:48Guest 5:He's the singer, the guy.
00:54:50Guest 5:He started the whole thing.
00:54:51Marc:Yeah, I want you to give yourself a little more credit here.
00:54:53Marc:I will.
00:54:54Guest 5:I'm okay.
00:54:55Guest 5:I'm good.
00:54:56Guest 5:I helped make it what it is.
00:54:57Guest 5:Yeah.
00:54:58Guest 5:Just the way that he writes certain songs in a certain way that the college students always keep showing up.
00:55:04Guest 5:No matter how old we get.
00:55:05Guest 5:Right.
00:55:06Guest 5:Which is beautiful.
00:55:06Guest 5:It makes me uncomfortable sometimes.
00:55:08Marc:It's a great thing about music.
00:55:09Guest 5:Sometimes I'll stand there and it's like, I'm just a middle-aged, slovenly piece of shit.
00:55:15Guest 5:What am I doing?
00:55:17Guest 5:And Doug's cool, because he gets to sing and stuff.
00:55:19Guest 5:I'm just standing there like, ooh.
00:55:21Guest 5:Looking at people.
00:55:22Guest 5:And the way the music is, Bill Spill's got a lot of different kinds of things, right?
00:55:25Guest 2:Yeah.
00:55:26Guest 5:We're playing cool, groovy rock songs.
00:55:28Guest 5:I'm like, I'm good.
00:55:29Guest 5:I'm not thinking about nothing.
00:55:30Guest 2:Right.
00:55:30Guest 5:There's a couple of the pop songs that kind of stop and slow down and are very little.
00:55:34Guest 5:And all of a sudden, I start thinking, looking around, going, whoa.
00:55:37Guest 5:Oh, man.
00:55:37Guest 5:But I think, okay, so the exciting thing for me about this particular group is something to look forward to in the future and the way everything is so homogenized and been co-opted.
00:55:51Guest 5:Corporatism is prevalent in all-encompassing.
00:55:54Guest 5:Yeah.
00:55:55Guest 5:Everywhere.
00:55:55Marc:Right.
00:55:56Marc:Except when you do stuff like we're doing right now.
00:55:58Guest 5:Yeah.
00:55:58Guest 5:We're doing this and we're playing shows.
00:55:59Guest 5:And my hope is that more and more different kinds of people show up to the shows and hang out with each other and talk to each other.
00:56:06Guest 5:You know, because that's what's missing.
00:56:08Marc:What I'm starting to realize about myself is I'm 46.
00:56:11Marc:Is that you hit a point in your life where you're not, you can no longer say, well, this is about to happen or that's about to happen.
00:56:20Marc:Where you have to realize like, this is the life.
00:56:23Marc:I'm living the life.
00:56:24Marc:Yeah.
00:56:24Guest 5:And then what do you do to keep it going?
00:56:27Guest 5:Try not to be terrified?
00:56:29Guest 5:Well, it's still uncertain, too.
00:56:30Guest 5:That's for me as well.
00:56:32Guest 5:And you got a kid?
00:56:34Guest 5:I'd kind of like to get a job with the Forest Service or something.
00:56:38Marc:I'm with you.
00:56:39Marc:Let's do that.
00:56:40Guest 5:Who do we call?
00:56:41Guest 5:I got an opportunity to do it, too, and I just about took it.
00:56:44Marc:To do what?
00:56:44Marc:Be a ranger?
00:56:45Guest 5:Well, it was actually Bureau of Land Management to go shut down road rehab, land rehab, which I'm very interested in otherwise.
00:56:52Guest 5:You know, I'm at home.
00:56:53Guest 5:I'm doing gardening and survivalist James Kunstler peak oil.
00:56:59Marc:Oh, you're out there with your own well.
00:57:01Marc:Oh, dude.
00:57:02Marc:Yeah?
00:57:03Marc:I'm in love with that whole thing.
00:57:05Guest 5:just the idea that when the shit hits the fan my whole life i've been interested in those things and and being on the run playing music whatever sleeping on couches you don't think about none of that and then i came back i was able to buy a house at the tail end also tail end of the free money yeah i'm telling you yeah it's a beautiful thing after you get off tour rocking and rolling going back to going back to the compound to drill well that's right make some alcohol get my motorcycles running on alcohol right yeah you do yeah
00:57:29Guest 5:Well, I got the car going.
00:57:31Guest 5:I tried a car, right?
00:57:32Guest 5:Run a car.
00:57:33Guest 5:Not feasible.
00:57:34Guest 5:No?
00:57:34Guest 5:No.
00:57:35Guest 5:It takes way too much water to make very little alcohol because I got a muscle cut Chevelle 454.
00:57:41Guest 5:It takes a lot of fuel.
00:57:43Marc:You're going to have to make some compromises on the dream there if you want to run your Chevelle.
00:57:46Marc:I know.
00:57:47Marc:What a drag.
00:57:48Marc:I tried.
00:57:49Marc:I tried.
00:57:49Marc:You're allowed to have one indulgence.
00:57:51Marc:Just keep some gas for the Chevelle.
00:57:53Guest 5:I think I will.
00:57:53Marc:Because when the shit hits the fan, no one's going to have anything.
00:57:56Marc:You may only need to get away once.
00:57:57Marc:That's right.
00:57:58Marc:You might as well have a fast car.
00:58:00Marc:Yeah.
00:58:00Marc:All right, Brett Netzen, thanks for talking.
00:58:03Marc:The new album, Built to Spill, There Is No Enemy.
00:58:06Marc:And I think if we could, I'd like to go out on that.
00:58:11Marc:What's your favorite one on here?
00:58:13Marc:Let's go with Planting Seeds?
00:58:14Marc:Yeah.
00:58:15Marc:All right.
00:58:15Marc:Thanks for talking.
00:58:18Guest 1:Come on, you're still.
00:58:40Marc:now i started to really think about how many times i've bought certain records do you realize that every time they change the format you buy the same fucking records again i mean what the fuck is that about they've got us by the balls of music industry unless you download it for free which i generally don't because i would like the artists to be paid but if you really think about it since i was a kid i mean i've been through records eight tracks cassettes
00:59:04Marc:cds and now downloading it and then they release new stuff or they release the uh the super deluxe mix or the ultra produced mix or the way it was really supposed to be i mean i can't even count the number of times i've bought the beatles let it be i can't even count them and i get so attached to the damn music and now with with the ipod yeah i had i had a thing happen man i wasn't even gonna talk about this
00:59:25Marc:I just don't have fucking control over my goddamn technology.
00:59:29Marc:I just, I don't.
00:59:30Marc:I don't know.
00:59:31Marc:If something goes wrong, I have no recourse but to go, holy shit.
00:59:36Marc:Holy, what just happened?
00:59:38Marc:What just happened?
00:59:40Marc:I'm not talking to you, dog.
00:59:42Marc:Shut up.
00:59:44Marc:Shut up.
00:59:47Marc:I got to go to the Apple store and get this fixed.
00:59:49Marc:I had a problem with my iTunes or something happened on the computer.
00:59:53Marc:And I went to the Apple store and I went to the genius bar.
00:59:57Marc:And why is that dog doing that now?
01:00:01Marc:And I went to the genius bar.
01:00:03Marc:Every time I start talking, you're going to start talking.
01:00:05Marc:You're going to start barking.
01:00:08Marc:So I go to the Genius Bar with my problem, and the guy starts working on my computer, and somehow or another, he had moved all of my music that was on my computer because it was taking up too much on my hard drive because I didn't realize I had that much music.
01:00:19Marc:And he said, I just got to move it to the trash can for a minute, and then we're going to take it out.
01:00:23Marc:And I don't know what transpired, but at some moment, he dumped like 70 gigs of music.
01:00:31Marc:And in that moment, it was as if...
01:00:35Marc:Like I'd just been told someone died.
01:00:37Marc:There was that moment where he's like, I said, what just happened?
01:00:40Marc:He goes, I just, we just threw out all the music.
01:00:42Marc:And I'm like, oh my God.
01:00:44Marc:Like, I think I started to cry a little because I had taken hundreds of hours of my time to put my CDs on.
01:00:52Marc:into the format where they could go into iTunes.
01:00:56Marc:And now they were gone.
01:00:57Marc:And I just thought like, how am I going to get that back?
01:00:59Marc:What am I going to do?
01:00:59Marc:Am I going to sit down for hours and hours again?
01:01:01Marc:What the fuck just happened?
01:01:03Marc:And I was devastated.
01:01:04Marc:I felt like I was going to go into grieving.
01:01:07Marc:It was a devastating moment.
01:01:08Marc:I mean, I was once the proud king of an empire of song.
01:01:12Marc:And now it was gone.
01:01:15Marc:It was all gone.
01:01:17Marc:With one click from a nerd's finger.
01:01:22Marc:And then the guy said to me, he goes, do you have it on your iPod?
01:01:25Marc:I said, I do.
01:01:25Marc:He goes, all right, well, look, this isn't store policy or anything, but I'm going to tell you what you can do.
01:01:30Marc:And I'm like, okay, do we have to go outside?
01:01:32Marc:Or can you tell me in here?
01:01:34Marc:He's like, you know, maybe it's better we go outside.
01:01:36Marc:I'm like, all right, I'm sworn to secrecy.
01:01:39Marc:Lay it on me.
01:01:40Marc:He's like, I'm not saying this on behalf of the store.
01:01:42Marc:I'm like, I know we're outside.
01:01:43Marc:He goes, all right, there's free software.
01:01:46Marc:It's called Sanuti.
01:01:48Marc:It's iTunes backwards.
01:01:50Marc:And that will enable you to upload.
01:01:52Marc:your songs from your iPod back into your iTunes.
01:01:56Marc:And I'm like, okay, my lips are sealed.
01:01:59Marc:Can we go back inside?
01:01:59Marc:Now my computer's in there.
01:02:01Marc:He goes, yeah.
01:02:02Marc:You sworn to secrecy?
01:02:03Marc:I'm like, not a soul.
01:02:04Marc:I'm not going to tell a soul, except everybody is listening to this right now.
01:02:09Marc:Sanuti, iTunes backwards.
01:02:11Marc:It'll rip it right off your iPod and put it back in.
01:02:13Marc:That's between me and you.
01:02:20Marc:All right, that's our show.
01:02:21Marc:I want to thank Jack Boulware for being here.
01:02:23Marc:The book is Give Me Something Better.
01:02:25Marc:Pick that up if you're interested in punk rock at all.
01:02:28Marc:Love, Jack.
01:02:29Marc:I want to thank Brett Netzen from Built to Spill, their new record, There Is No Enemy.
01:02:37Marc:It's actually a great record.
01:02:38Marc:I want to thank all the musicians that have helped develop me into the man that I am and changed my mind and my life and my heart.
01:02:45Marc:God bless you all.
01:02:47Marc:PunchlineMagazine.com is your source for all things stand-up comedy.
01:02:51Marc:That's for reals.
01:02:53Marc:including they got interviews, they got news, they got reviews of the best names in comedy.
01:02:57Marc:Everybody's up there, the full range, the full comedy spectrum.
01:03:00Marc:That's punchlinemagazine.com.
01:03:03Marc:It is also the home of a Type 5, which is a video interview series featuring intimate chats with people like Stephen Wright, Michael Ian Black, Paul F. Tompkins, Todd Berry, me, and many more.
01:03:14Marc:That's punchlinemagazine.com.
01:03:17Marc:Go check it out if you're into comedy.
01:03:19Marc:And, of course, go to wtfpod.com.
01:03:23Marc:co-op, get all jacked up on coffee and listen to some Iggy Pop music.
01:03:28Marc:That's what I recommend.
01:03:29Marc:That's what I suggest.
01:03:31Marc:Do it now.
01:03:32Marc:I've also been a little coy about announcing that you can get my CDs here on iTunes if you'd like.
01:03:37Marc:So go over there.
01:03:38Marc:Go do a little search on me.
01:03:39Marc:Just Mark Maron.
01:03:40Marc:You know what the fuck.
01:03:41Marc:Mark Maron CDs.
01:03:43Marc:And you can get them.
01:03:45Marc:Okay?
01:03:46Marc:Thanks for all your support, for all your subscriptions, for all your donations.
01:03:49Marc:And of course, I want to thank Brendan McDonald for making this thing make sense.

Episode 19 - Jack Boulware / Brett Nelson

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