Episode 267 - Carrie Brownstein

Episode 267 • Released March 31, 2012 • Speakers detected

00:00:00Guest:Lock the gates!

00:00:07Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:08Guest:Really?

00:00:08Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:09Guest:Are we doing this?

00:00:10Guest:Wait for it.

00:00:12Guest:Pow!

00:00:12Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:14Guest:And it's also, eh, what the fuck?

00:00:16Guest:What's wrong with me?

00:00:17Guest:It's time for WTF!

00:00:19Guest:What the fuck?

00:00:20Guest:With Marc Maron.

00:00:24Marc:Okay, let's do this.

00:00:25Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?

00:00:26Marc:What the fuck buddies?

00:00:27Marc:What the fucking ears?

00:00:28Marc:What the fuck nicks?

00:00:29Marc:What the fucker baiters?

00:00:31Marc:Thank you for that one.

00:00:31Marc:I don't know where that one came from, but I had not seen that one.

00:00:34Marc:I've seen hundreds.

00:00:35Marc:My name is Mark Maron.

00:00:37Marc:This is WTF.

00:00:37Marc:I appreciate it.

00:00:38Marc:I appreciate it.

00:00:40Marc:Sure.

00:00:40Marc:I appreciate you listening.

00:00:42Marc:I hope you're having a good day.

00:00:44Marc:I'm excited about this show.

00:00:46Marc:On today's show, Carrie Brownstein is here.

00:00:49Marc:The lovely and talented, on many levels, Carrie Brownstein, who I've never really talked to, but I enjoy talking to her.

00:00:57Marc:You might know her from Portlandia, Sweeter Kenny, Wild Flag,

00:01:02Marc:She's a fucking rock star.

00:01:03Marc:Maybe we should talk about the Ice House in Pasadena last week.

00:01:06Marc:Man, thanks for coming out.

00:01:08Marc:I didn't know what was going to happen.

00:01:09Marc:It's not easy to sell tickets in the L.A.

00:01:11Marc:area.

00:01:12Marc:But, man, did the WTF people show up?

00:01:13Marc:It was great.

00:01:14Marc:Me and Maria Bamford, Eddie Pepitone, Nick Yousef was there, Frazier Smith hosted.

00:01:21Marc:What a great show.

00:01:22Marc:Packed it out.

00:01:23Marc:It was great seeing everybody.

00:01:24Marc:And I got to be honest, I've never... I got a fan...

00:01:28Marc:This dude, Aaron, brought me the biggest gift basket I'd ever seen in my life.

00:01:34Marc:Now, I've gotten some gift packets.

00:01:36Marc:Gift packets?

00:01:37Marc:Man, I'm doing good today.

00:01:38Marc:Appreciinate the gift packet.

00:01:40Marc:It's always good to appreciate a gift packet.

00:01:42Marc:So I got a huge gift packet, and I thought, well, thank you, man.

00:01:45Marc:He's like, I'm a big fan.

00:01:46Marc:I'm a premium subscriber.

00:01:48Marc:My dad's company, we do this.

00:01:51Marc:It's Melissa's Produce, and I'm like, well, okay, that's cool.

00:01:53Marc:And then he's about to walk away, and I'm holding this 50-pound gift basket.

00:01:57Marc:with a tamale kit in it, had a tamale kit in it, had crepes in it.

00:02:02Marc:And then he says, do you need some coconut water?

00:02:03Marc:So I figure, what, he's going to give me some boxes of coconut water.

00:02:07Marc:No, comes back with a crate full of green coconuts and an opener for the coconuts.

00:02:12Marc:And he says, how about some tangerines?

00:02:14Marc:You need tangerines?

00:02:15Marc:I'm like, holy shit, did you just rob a store?

00:02:17Marc:Sure, I have a few tangerines, a crate of tangerines.

00:02:21Marc:So basically what I've been doing this week is tangerines and coconut water, popping open coconut.

00:02:25Marc:That's been my job.

00:02:27Marc:I'm a guy, don't like to throw stuff out.

00:02:29Marc:So Jessica and I have really been taking, you know, it's a task.

00:02:32Marc:We're like, we've got to get through these tangerines before we leave town.

00:02:37Marc:So that's been the project.

00:02:38Marc:It's the Marin and Sanchez tangerine project.

00:02:41Marc:We're juicing.

00:02:42Marc:We're eating them plain.

00:02:44Marc:A lot of tangerines going on.

00:02:46Marc:That's good, right?

00:02:47Marc:It's healthy.

00:02:48Marc:So Carrie Brownstein's on the show tonight, and I tell you, it's not that I miss Sweeter Kenny.

00:02:53Marc:I'd heard some of their stuff, but I went back and listened to a lot of their stuff.

00:02:57Marc:I listened to the new Wild Flag album, which kicks ass.

00:02:59Marc:I watched Portlandia.

00:03:00Marc:I met her once.

00:03:02Marc:And I thought immediately that she didn't like me.

00:03:05Marc:And I mistook her for someone else.

00:03:08Marc:And that's not always a great way to meet somebody.

00:03:11Marc:But we had a great conversation.

00:03:13Marc:But she was at that thing I went to.

00:03:15Marc:I went to the upfront presentations when they were presenting.

00:03:18Marc:IFC was presenting their new shows.

00:03:21Marc:And you kind of show up and it's almost like a trade show.

00:03:24Marc:You're like, here are our new products.

00:03:26Marc:For the upcoming year, this is the Marc Maron product.

00:03:30Marc:Here's the Portlandia product.

00:03:31Marc:But her and Fred Armisen got on stage with a drummer and I believe it was a keyboard player.

00:03:39Marc:And she put on a guitar and I'd never seen her with a guitar.

00:03:41Marc:And we talk about guitars.

00:03:43Marc:and you know her as this funny person, but as soon as she put this guitar on to play Do You Want to Dance, I think was the song they did, and Fred was playing bass.

00:03:51Marc:There's something about somebody who plays a guitar professionally.

00:03:55Marc:Like, I'd only really seen her as a person that I was just talking to or as a person on television doing a funny thing, and I'd never seen her, like, strap a guitar on.

00:04:05Marc:But, man, she strapped this guitar on and just...

00:04:08Marc:It became one thing.

00:04:09Marc:Her and the guitar, clearly a completely symbiotic relationship.

00:04:14Marc:Her movements changed, her disposition changed, and she turned into a fucking rock star.

00:04:19Marc:And I was like, wow, I would love to strap on a guitar and have it become, like have my entire being change.

00:04:26Marc:But that just comes from years of playing rock and roll, if they still call it that.

00:04:30Marc:I've been called out for that.

00:04:32Marc:Rock and roll, what's up, grandpa?

00:04:35Marc:Who the hell calls it rock and roll anymore?

00:04:37Marc:I don't even know where my first guitar is.

00:04:39Marc:I was thinking about that, but I did find out, and I'll give you this story briefly.

00:04:45Marc:The first real guitar I bought, or that I talked my parents into buying for me when I barely knew how to play, of course, was a Fender Telecaster because Keith Richards had a Fender Telecaster, so I needed a Fender Telecaster.

00:04:56Marc:It was a pricey bit of equipment at that time, especially for a kid who knew three chords, but I cajoled them into buying me one.

00:05:03Marc:It was a big, heavy telecast, like an ash body.

00:05:06Marc:It was solid.

00:05:07Marc:It was beautiful.

00:05:08Marc:It wasn't quite the right color because Keith played a cream-colored one.

00:05:11Marc:This was a more white-colored one.

00:05:13Marc:But I was okay with it because it was a Keith guitar, and that's all I needed to be Keith was the guitar when I was 15 years old.

00:05:20Marc:But I was hanging around a guitar shop, and due to my inability to play great or focus on playing great at that age, what I focused on was other equipment.

00:05:30Marc:So what I did was I had this guitar.

00:05:32Marc:It was a perfectly beautiful American-made Fender Telecaster.

00:05:35Marc:I had the guys at the guitar shop.

00:05:37Marc:That's what it was called, the guitar shop.

00:05:40Marc:They used to call me Bagel Boy because I worked next door at a place called the Posh Bagel.

00:05:44Marc:I had them just gut this guitar, put on all brass equipment, put on two DiMarzio PAFs or DiMarzio Humbucker pickups, and then painted candy apple red.

00:05:57Marc:And I could barely play it, but I just spent like $200 getting them to $200 or $300 to make it look like something else, but no Telecaster looked like that.

00:06:05Marc:I could never live up to my guitars.

00:06:07Marc:So I had this guitar for years, this completely customized Fender Telecaster.

00:06:12Marc:And then I went to college and I brought it.

00:06:14Marc:And years into college, probably my fourth or fifth year when I was more committed to managing cocaine relationships than I was with managing my studies, I had a guy living on my couch, a guy by the name of Josh Kaplan, who now goes by the name of Josh Clover.

00:06:30Marc:He's a teacher up there, a professor out of UC Davis.

00:06:35Marc:He writes books now.

00:06:36Marc:He's a poet.

00:06:37Marc:He was one of those guys where I was always thrilled that he was around, though we didn't get along that well.

00:06:43Marc:But it was pretty much established that he was some sort of poetic genius, a genius of some sort.

00:06:50Marc:And I kind of showed him how to play a little guitar.

00:06:53Marc:And then he used to sit on my couch and play my guitar all the time.

00:06:56Marc:And then came that moment where it was like, hey, I could use some money because I want to buy some Coke.

00:07:01Marc:Maybe you could buy that guitar.

00:07:03Marc:So I sold him that guitar.

00:07:04Marc:I felt so shitty about it.

00:07:07Marc:It was such a unique and special guitar, but it was also his first guitar, and he was just learning how to do it.

00:07:12Marc:So I hadn't seen Josh in like 15 or 20 years, really.

00:07:15Marc:He was out up at UC Davis writing books on things I don't understand.

00:07:20Marc:I've dug up a couple of his books.

00:07:22Marc:He's a cultural critic now.

00:07:23Marc:He just came out with a book not long ago called 1989.

00:07:26Marc:about the Berlin Wall and Nirvana, connecting those two somehow.

00:07:31Marc:I have a very hard time with cultural criticism.

00:07:33Marc:I read two pages of it.

00:07:35Marc:I'm like, how am I lost?

00:07:37Marc:Okay, this guy's smarter than me.

00:07:39Marc:There's a few interesting sentences, and I think I've gotten enough out of it.

00:07:42Marc:But I went to the signing of this in New York.

00:07:44Marc:He did a thing at the new school.

00:07:47Marc:And I finally asked him, after whatever it was, 20 some odd years, what happened to my guitar?

00:07:52Marc:That guitar was special.

00:07:55Marc:And he said, yeah, I think I ended up giving that to one of the professors at my college's daughter is in a lesbian punk band, and I just gave it to her.

00:08:06Marc:And it was that moment where you realize, well, that's the journey of that guitar, and it's ended up in the right hands.

00:08:10Marc:I'm glad it's being used for what it's supposed to be used for, but that's the journey of a guitar.

00:08:15Marc:I still can't understand his books.

00:08:21Marc:Carrie Brownstein.

00:08:23Guest:Yep.

00:08:23Guest:You're pronouncing it correctly.

00:08:25Marc:Pretty Jewy.

00:08:26Guest:It is pretty Jewy.

00:08:28Guest:Yeah, let's come up with the name change during the show.

00:08:31Marc:Did you ever consider it?

00:08:32Guest:Fuck yeah.

00:08:33Guest:Of course.

00:08:34Marc:Like what?

00:08:35Guest:I mean, being in Olympia with a bunch of punk bands, everyone was changing their name anyway.

00:08:41Marc:So you had an out.

00:08:43Guest:I was like, come on, let's do this.

00:08:44Guest:And then it was just too late and then too late.

00:08:47Guest:And now it's really too late.

00:08:49Marc:Yeah, nothing.

00:08:51Guest:Maybe not.

00:08:51Guest:Maybe right on the show.

00:08:53Marc:Did you ever think of maybe like Jew girl, RRL?

00:08:56Guest:Yeah.

00:08:57Guest:I thought of just adding a steen.

00:09:00Marc:Were you brought up with a lot of Jewishness?

00:09:02Guest:No.

00:09:03Guest:I'm a West Coast, Pacific Northwest.

00:09:05Marc:Oh, that's like even worse than a San Francisco Jew.

00:09:07Marc:You might as well not even.

00:09:08Marc:Just the name.

00:09:09Marc:That's it.

00:09:09Guest:Yeah, it's just the name.

00:09:11Guest:My family was highly assimilationist, just could not get the Christmas tree up fast enough.

00:09:16Guest:Oh, really?

00:09:16Guest:Yeah.

00:09:17Guest:Well, that was a little bit my sister and I pushing it, but my parents did not protest, which I later regretted because it's like you're saddled with the identity.

00:09:25Guest:People are like, ah, Brownstein.

00:09:26Guest:Jew.

00:09:27Guest:Jew.

00:09:28Guest:But then I have nothing to offer, you know?

00:09:31Guest:I've got no... I have no traditions to fall back on.

00:09:35Guest:I don't know anything about the...

00:09:37Guest:the religion or the rituals, and that's sad.

00:09:40Guest:So I'm a little mad at my parents.

00:09:42Guest:Like, come on, you give me the last name Brownstein and you don't give me any- Yeah, one prayer?

00:09:47Guest:Any skills, come on.

00:09:48Marc:Yeah, there's no menorah anywhere?

00:09:50Guest:No, there is no menorah anywhere.

00:09:54Marc:Now that's, I mean, at least with no Jewishness, you should have menorah laying around.

00:09:59Guest:Just laying around, just a travel menorah.

00:10:01Marc:Like that was your grandma's or something.

00:10:03Guest:No, it's true.

00:10:03Guest:And I have friends that are not Jewish, Catholic, Christian, just whatever, that have menorahs.

00:10:10Guest:I, of course, I'm rejecting.

00:10:13Guest:I completely reject it.

00:10:14Marc:That's hilarious.

00:10:16Marc:So where did they come from, your parents, to where they had to run away from their Jewishness so far?

00:10:20Guest:No, they didn't.

00:10:20Guest:They actually both.

00:10:22Guest:They had their respective bar mitzvah, bat mitzvahs.

00:10:24Marc:Right.

00:10:25Guest:They're from Chicago.

00:10:27Marc:But they left it all behind.

00:10:28Marc:That's sort of interesting.

00:10:29Marc:I grew up in New Mexico as a Jew, and we were pretty Jew-y.

00:10:33Guest:Yeah.

00:10:34Guest:No, my mom, since divorcing my dad and getting remarried, is now a practicing Jew.

00:10:41Guest:She remarried a Jewish guy, and they had a traditional Jewish wedding, and they went out, and she celebrates the holidays.

00:10:49Marc:Oh, really?

00:10:50Guest:Yeah, so it's good for her.

00:10:51Marc:So there's time for you.

00:10:53Marc:You can always learn.

00:10:54Marc:Not that I'm pushing Judaism.

00:10:56Guest:This is why you brought me here.

00:10:58Marc:It's an intervention.

00:10:59Guest:You're like, Brownstein, come on.

00:11:00Marc:It's a Jewish intervention.

00:11:02Marc:I was sent by the Jews to bring you back into the fold.

00:11:06Guest:Oh, I get it.

00:11:06Guest:This is like a precursor to a reboot, isn't it?

00:11:08Marc:It is.

00:11:09Marc:Yeah.

00:11:09Marc:Jill Soloway just lives across the way.

00:11:11Marc:We're going over there after this.

00:11:13Marc:And she's got a Seder set up just so you'll learn.

00:11:15Guest:What a satyr is.

00:11:16Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:11:18Marc:Reboot.

00:11:19Marc:That's so true.

00:11:19Marc:My brother's a rebooter.

00:11:21Marc:It's just kind of weird.

00:11:22Marc:So what is it with you and a Gibson SG?

00:11:25Marc:Where'd that come from?

00:11:27Marc:Why the SG?

00:11:28Marc:That's a great guitar.

00:11:29Marc:I had one.

00:11:29Marc:I can't handle it.

00:11:30Marc:I'm not man enough to handle that guitar.

00:11:32Guest:It is, you know what, it is a little masculine.

00:11:34Guest:I was thinking about on stage last night, we did, we're doing these live Portlandia shows.

00:11:38Guest:We had Susanna Hoffs from the Bengals join us on stage.

00:11:41Guest:Really?

00:11:41Guest:And she's a very petite, beautiful woman.

00:11:44Guest:Yeah.

00:11:45Guest:She has a Rickenbacker.

00:11:46Guest:Sure.

00:11:47Guest:And a Rickenbacker just has a kind of like a delicate nature to it a little bit.

00:11:52Guest:Even when it's being wielded by Paul Weller, you know, it's still sort of like posh and

00:11:57Marc:Right, because it's got that Beatles thing, and it's a Tom Petty, too.

00:12:01Marc:It's a pretty guitar.

00:12:02Marc:It's a pop guitar.

00:12:03Guest:It's elegant.

00:12:04Guest:And there is something about the SG.

00:12:06Guest:It's like there's two double horns coming out.

00:12:09Marc:It's a demon guitar.

00:12:09Guest:It's a demon guitar.

00:12:10Guest:You had Angus Young and Pete Townsend.

00:12:13Guest:I don't know.

00:12:14Guest:It was the first guitar.

00:12:16Guest:Oh, no, that's not true.

00:12:18Guest:I had an Epiphone.

00:12:20Guest:I guess I liked it.

00:12:22Guest:I kind of liked the angularity of it and the bluntness of it.

00:12:26Guest:I felt like that was sort of my style of playing.

00:12:29Guest:And I've tried other guitars, and I like the sound.

00:12:32Guest:It's not as masculine, just to put it in a spectrum for people.

00:12:36Guest:Like a Les Paul, that's a really manly guitar.

00:12:39Marc:yeah but it's not dirty you know what i mean like like an sg is just like you just got those humbuckers sitting on a thin piece of wood and it gets so like it it gets very it can break apart really easily like the sound and that you like that right i do like that i i like a guitar that has a little bit of a growliness to it and um you know you one that feels like the harder you play it will react to that

00:13:01Marc:Yeah, exactly.

00:13:02Marc:It can take a beating.

00:13:03Guest:Yeah.

00:13:04Marc:Yeah.

00:13:04Marc:A Les Paul is definitely a cock guitar.

00:13:06Marc:There's no doubt about it.

00:13:07Marc:But you don't see too many of them around anymore.

00:13:08Marc:Like the three pickup Les Pauls.

00:13:10Guest:Yeah.

00:13:11Guest:No, I mean, it's a real statement.

00:13:12Guest:Like you really have to be like comfortable with yourself as a guitar player.

00:13:15Marc:To have a Les Paul.

00:13:16Guest:Yeah.

00:13:16Guest:And they're so heavy.

00:13:18Guest:Heavy.

00:13:18Guest:Yeah.

00:13:19Marc:One piece, solid neck.

00:13:20Marc:Well, I guess the SG is too, huh?

00:13:21Guest:Yeah, but it's still just literally less wood.

00:13:24Guest:Yep.

00:13:25Marc:They're heavy machines.

00:13:28Marc:I could never play a Gibson.

00:13:30Marc:Well, I have this one.

00:13:32Guest:Oh, I like that.

00:13:34Marc:This is a West Paul TV Junior reissue.

00:13:38Guest:I like the Juniors.

00:13:39Guest:I also like the little Melody Maker Gibsons from the 60s.

00:13:44Guest:They don't have a great tone.

00:13:45Guest:They're a little tinny, a little too bright for my taste.

00:13:50Guest:But I played one the other day in a guitar store, and I thought, why am I schlepping around this SG?

00:13:56Marc:Get a couple.

00:13:59Marc:You should have a few guitars, don't you?

00:14:01Guest:Yeah, I do have a couple.

00:14:02Marc:Now, I listened to the new Wild Flag album.

00:14:05Marc:It's excellent.

00:14:06Marc:I enjoyed it.

00:14:07Marc:I wasn't familiar with it.

00:14:08Marc:They sent it to me, and I'm like, I better do my homework, you know, because I like that kind of music.

00:14:14Marc:And what kind of music would you call that album?

00:14:17Marc:It's like punk pop, kind of.

00:14:18Guest:Yeah.

00:14:19Guest:I mean, I hate to use that term if people have a horrible association with punk pop.

00:14:25Marc:I don't know what people would call it.

00:14:26Marc:Who would be in that category?

00:14:28Marc:That's true.

00:14:28Marc:Okay.

00:14:29Marc:What would you call it then?

00:14:30Guest:But no, I mean, I think that's accurate.

00:14:32Guest:There are some pop songs in there.

00:14:34Guest:They're kind of warped.

00:14:35Guest:They're a little faster than the average pop song.

00:14:37Marc:Got some hooks.

00:14:38Guest:Yeah, there's some hooks in there, but it's a rock record too.

00:14:42Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.

00:14:42Guest:Yeah.

00:14:43Guest:No, I mean, I'm not afraid of that term.

00:14:45Guest:There's just a couple terms that I feel like people have these weird associations with.

00:14:48Guest:Like maybe that's like Fall Out Boy is like a pop punk band.

00:14:52Guest:Right.

00:14:53Guest:It does not sound like that.

00:14:55Marc:No.

00:14:55Marc:And so I think Green Day is a little drunk and no effect.

00:14:58Marc:So there's punks with pop hooks.

00:15:01Marc:You know, there's a lot of them, but it's not that.

00:15:02Guest:No, it's not that.

00:15:04Guest:Because it has more, there's a little more psychedelic stuff in there.

00:15:08Marc:Yeah, there's a little more, there's some, not Susie, but somebody.

00:15:12Marc:I don't know what, it reminded me of something.

00:15:15Guest:Wait, did you just first name drop Susie from Susie in the Mansion?

00:15:18Guest:Yeah.

00:15:18Guest:I guess, but who knows her last name, right?

00:15:20Guest:That's one name.

00:15:21Marc:Right, did she mean anything to you?

00:15:23Guest:I listened to some of her stuff.

00:15:25Guest:I think I have two of her records.

00:15:27Guest:You know, I didn't love her band.

00:15:28Guest:I always thought, like, she didn't have a great drummer, but she was fascinating.

00:15:32Guest:Yeah.

00:15:32Guest:You know, she had a cool presence.

00:15:34Marc:Yeah, and there's a little Lou Reed in there, I have to tell you.

00:15:37Guest:Yeah, I can see that.

00:15:38Marc:Yeah, were you a Velvet Underground fan?

00:15:40Guest:Yeah, I mean, I love the Velvet Underground.

00:15:43Marc:I heard that on the Sweater Candy records, too.

00:15:45Yeah.

00:15:45Guest:Yeah, I mean, just like this simplicity, but just like drenched in like a lot of grittiness.

00:15:52Guest:And it's so oblique sometimes and just cool.

00:15:55Guest:Like it's everyone tries to just even glean just a fraction of the coolness that they had.

00:16:01Marc:Yeah.

00:16:01Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:16:02Marc:It's the funny thing about them is how I love them so much.

00:16:05Marc:And then I sort of I read Please Kill Me.

00:16:07Marc:Did you read Please Kill Me?

00:16:08Guest:Yeah.

00:16:09Guest:That's like the Legs McNeil.

00:16:10Guest:Yeah.

00:16:10Marc:The Legs McNeil oral history of New York punk.

00:16:12Marc:And it just just destroyed Lou Reed for me because I was such a dick in that book.

00:16:16Guest:Yeah.

00:16:17Guest:It's hard to read those.

00:16:18Guest:They just isn't there one about L.A.

00:16:19Guest:now that's a little more recent, like an oral history of.

00:16:21Marc:There's a Bay Area one that my buddy wrote.

00:16:24Marc:Give me something better.

00:16:26Marc:I think it's called, which was the Bay Area punk scene specifically.

00:16:29Marc:Yeah.

00:16:29Marc:Those books ruin people.

00:16:31Guest:I know.

00:16:31Guest:That's just like meeting any of your idols or reading.

00:16:34Guest:You don't want to know that much.

00:16:36Marc:No.

00:16:36Marc:You don't want to know they're complete dicks.

00:16:37Marc:You want to assume it.

00:16:38Marc:And then Louie's gotten kind of peculiar as he gets older, but I guess he's just an old Jewish poet now.

00:16:44Marc:What are you going to do?

00:16:45Guest:That's right.

00:16:45Marc:So how old were you when you started Sweet or Kenny?

00:16:49Guest:I was 22, I guess.

00:16:52Guest:Yeah.

00:16:53Guest:Pretty young.

00:16:53Marc:Yeah.

00:16:54Guest:I was actually in Olympia, Washington.

00:16:55Marc:Olympia, right.

00:16:56Guest:Yeah, which is a college town.

00:16:57Marc:It's going up there.

00:16:58Marc:I performed up there.

00:16:59Guest:There's no one up there anymore.

00:17:00Guest:It does feel like that.

00:17:01Guest:There have been really wonderful eras of Olympia.

00:17:04Guest:And I mean, to be fair, there are still some great people up there.

00:17:07Guest:But in terms of like that sense where you could pull into town and just feel this pulse.

00:17:12Guest:Yeah.

00:17:12Guest:You know, there was just art.

00:17:14Guest:It's a tiny place.

00:17:14Guest:Yeah, it's very small and it's a little bit depressed economically, which when you're a kid or college age, you don't notice that because you don't have money either.

00:17:22Guest:Right.

00:17:23Guest:It's cool.

00:17:24Guest:Yeah, it's cool.

00:17:24Guest:And it's like, you know, you're just living in like a group house with six other people.

00:17:28Guest:And, you know, it's fine that all the restaurants are bad and like under, you know, not up to health code.

00:17:33Guest:Sure.

00:17:34Guest:When you leave and go back and you're like, I can't believe I ever dined at this restaurant.

00:17:38Marc:A lot.

00:17:39Guest:Yeah.

00:17:40Marc:Many times.

00:17:41Guest:Yeah.

00:17:42Guest:Like I ordered fake meat shrimp.

00:17:45Guest:Yeah.

00:17:45Guest:You know, and then later I also found out I was allergic to soy.

00:17:48Guest:So I spent a lot of time like torturing myself with like trying to be vegetarian and

00:17:53Marc:Did you give it up?

00:17:55Guest:Yeah, I'm an omnivore.

00:17:57Guest:I'm very proud of you.

00:17:58Guest:I actually braced myself for your admonition and then was relieved that you actually complimented me on my lack of vegetarianism.

00:18:05Marc:I can't.

00:18:07Marc:It's hard.

00:18:08Marc:My girlfriend's a vegetarian and it's fine, but it's like we're running a kosher kitchen in there.

00:18:13Marc:She smells pans.

00:18:14Marc:Did you cook meat in this?

00:18:16Guest:She smells them?

00:18:17Marc:Yeah.

00:18:18Guest:I wouldn't even smell my own pans.

00:18:19Guest:I just assumed.

00:18:20Marc:There's meat in there.

00:18:22Guest:Yeah.

00:18:22Marc:So you went to school there?

00:18:25Marc:And you grew up in Seattle?

00:18:26Guest:A suburb of Seattle, Redmond, which is where Microsoft is now.

00:18:30Marc:Yeah, like when you were growing up though, it wasn't like that, right?

00:18:34Marc:You saw that happen, didn't you?

00:18:36Guest:Yeah, it was quite rural.

00:18:37Guest:And yeah, a lot of bicycling and very nature-y.

00:18:42Guest:And then there was actually this forest not too far from my house.

00:18:47Guest:And they raised all the trees.

00:18:50Guest:And then they put this office park in.

00:18:52Guest:And in order to sort of compensate for the destruction of the greenery, they called it Evergreen Place.

00:19:00Guest:This will fool them.

00:19:02Guest:Yeah.

00:19:02Guest:Wait, this looks different.

00:19:03Guest:No, it's still Evergreen.

00:19:04Guest:And one of the offices in that cluster was Microsoft.

00:19:10Guest:And eventually, you know, they tore down Evergreen Place and it was Microsoft Place.

00:19:13Guest:And now it's a veritable campus.

00:19:15Guest:It's huge.

00:19:16Guest:It is, you know, synonymous with Redmond.

00:19:20Marc:And does it bother you?

00:19:21Guest:I mean, only only in that way where, you know, you sort of have this one view of your your childhood and it's it's kind of hard to reconcile.

00:19:31Guest:The place is so vastly different.

00:19:33Guest:Right.

00:19:33Guest:But none of my family lives there anymore.

00:19:35Guest:So I can still just kind of keep it as this like bucolic, like romanticized thing in my mind and I never have to see it.

00:19:41Marc:And you grew up your whole life in the Pacific Northwest.

00:19:44Marc:Yeah.

00:19:44Marc:So you're sort of wired with that weird, rocky, gray, northern thing.

00:19:49Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:19:49Guest:Like, yeah.

00:19:50Marc:Rain.

00:19:51Guest:A little bit depressive.

00:19:52Guest:Yeah.

00:19:53Marc:But the big trees and the coastline and the seafood.

00:19:56Guest:Yeah.

00:19:56Guest:It's great.

00:19:57Guest:Sense of space.

00:19:58Marc:Yeah.

00:19:58Guest:A little bit of like a pioneer, like outlaw spirit.

00:20:02Marc:Yeah.

00:20:02Marc:I'm sort of drawn to it.

00:20:04Marc:I mean, Seattle feels a little staid now, but the landscape up there is really compelling to me.

00:20:09Marc:Like Mount Rainier and all that stuff and just driving around up on the coast up there is beautiful.

00:20:14Guest:Yeah, I mean, to me, that's how I relate to landscape.

00:20:19Guest:Everything is huge.

00:20:20Guest:There's no flatness.

00:20:22Guest:There's always contrast.

00:20:24Guest:And you always have the sense that you're sort of surrounded by all of it.

00:20:27Guest:You have the ocean on one side.

00:20:28Guest:You can see the mountains and the trees.

00:20:30Guest:It's just jagged.

00:20:31Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:20:32Guest:And very dense.

00:20:34Marc:Dramatic.

00:20:35Marc:It's not like these wimpy beaches down here where it's just sort of like, just hang out.

00:20:39Guest:It's a little more challenging.

00:20:40Guest:There's no just hanging out.

00:20:41Guest:Yeah, and the notion of outdoor-indoor in the Northwest is completely blurry because you're always just tracking in dirt.

00:20:48Guest:People's houses are sort of damp.

00:20:50Marc:Yeah, no one uses an umbrella, too.

00:20:52Marc:That's always funny to me up there.

00:20:53Guest:I know.

00:20:53Guest:It took me until this year.

00:20:55Marc:To use an umbrella?

00:20:56Guest:Yeah, and I've lost four of them.

00:20:58Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:20:59Marc:You can't buy the good ones.

00:21:00Marc:Don't ever buy the good ones.

00:21:02Guest:Yeah, like a Burberry umbrella.

00:21:04Guest:No, don't do it.

00:21:04Guest:No, I won't.

00:21:05Marc:$4 umbrella.

00:21:06Guest:Same with sunglasses.

00:21:07Marc:Right.

00:21:08Marc:In New York, don't ever pay more than $4 for one of those umbrellas.

00:21:11Guest:Okay.

00:21:12Marc:And if they try to charge you five, just be a dick.

00:21:14Marc:And just like, no, I'm not paying that.

00:21:15Marc:And walk away and they'll be like, okay, okay.

00:21:17Marc:And then you have a $4 charge.

00:21:19Marc:Garbage umbrella.

00:21:19Guest:I'm glad I came here for this advice.

00:21:22Marc:But now, okay, so you guys played some pretty hardcore music and you got pretty well known.

00:21:32Marc:What were you watching though?

00:21:33Marc:What drove you to that?

00:21:34Marc:I mean, did you go watch the bands in Seattle?

00:21:37Marc:Was there something else going on?

00:21:39Marc:Who did you see?

00:21:40Marc:What made you go like, fuck yeah, I'm doing this?

00:21:43Guest:Well, yeah, so I was in the suburbs, so there's always a little bit of a disconnect between your suburban upbringing and the city that's nearby.

00:21:49Guest:But there was definitely stuff going on in Nirvana.

00:21:53Guest:Did you see them?

00:21:55Guest:I saw them with Mudhoney and Bikini Kill at the Moore Theater, which was my senior year of high school.

00:22:01Marc:Were they already huge or not yet?

00:22:02Guest:It was right before it smells like Nevermind came out.

00:22:08Guest:Sorry.

00:22:08Guest:It's right before Nevermind.

00:22:09Guest:I actually also saw them open up for Sonic Youth in 1990 when it was either 90 or 91 when Goo came out.

00:22:17Marc:It sounds like Sonic Youth really kind of influenced Sweet or Candy.

00:22:20Marc:Am I wrong?

00:22:22Guest:No, you're not wrong.

00:22:23Guest:No, you're totally wrong.

00:22:25Marc:Damn it.

00:22:26Marc:I just threw that out there.

00:22:27Marc:I felt good about it.

00:22:29Guest:Yeah, no, I mean, for sure.

00:22:30Guest:I mean, I think like just some with something sort of experimental coursing through it, like it just they they could always do that way better than than we could.

00:22:39Guest:But I just everything from the longevity to the like interplay of the guitars to the kind of like egalitarian nature of their music.

00:22:48Guest:But that I was always, like, pushing.

00:22:51Guest:They always felt like they were pushing themselves on every record.

00:22:53Guest:That was really exciting.

00:22:54Marc:Yeah, but I always, I don't know, maybe it's just me, but, like, I got to a point where a new Sonic U-Thumb would come out and be like, no, I get it.

00:23:00Marc:I get it.

00:23:01Guest:Yeah, no, you have to be careful of that.

00:23:03Guest:No, not you as a listener.

00:23:04Guest:Not sure.

00:23:05Guest:Oh, as a musician.

00:23:06Guest:Yeah, you know, you don't.

00:23:07Marc:It's not like it's full of hooks either.

00:23:09Marc:It's just like, I get the sound.

00:23:11Guest:It's not full of hooks.

00:23:12Guest:I remember seeing them when Slater, we opened for them and they did this thing where they did a 40 minute experimental set.

00:23:19Guest:This was at a huge outdoor stadium, like a 40 minute experimental set and then one song.

00:23:25Guest:I thought, wow, you are sticking it to those guys.

00:23:28Marc:Um, you're really showing that audience that came to see you, but it was also awesome.

00:23:32Guest:I mean, it's, it's sort of like that kind of boldness, you know, and is, is cool and it's admirable, but it's definitely, it's definitely a choice.

00:23:39Guest:Like you have to say like, you know, that you have to trust like, yeah, I guess the audience will come with us and you know, they have, but, um, yeah, that was, we never did that, but yeah.

00:23:50Marc:Are you guys in the museum?

00:23:52Marc:Do you, are you represented in the rock and roll, uh, what's it called?

00:23:55Marc:the experiment yeah the EM I went to the EMP it's like a room full of Hendrix a room full of Nirvana and then they had some sort of avatar exhibit and the Battlestar Galactica ship oh you just went there then yeah I only know that because I had a friend that we were in Seattle and she was like I have to go to see this BSG exhibit

00:24:14Guest:so you went to i didn't go she she went um yeah i you know what i i do have a guitar in there do you yeah and an sg it's an epiphone actually oh you gave the one you were done with yeah like sure you can have one i don't use anymore yeah was it broken did you write on it were there stickers on it

00:24:34Guest:No, I never put stickers on guitar.

00:24:36Marc:No, good for you.

00:24:37Guest:It's kind of like seeing a tattoo.

00:24:40Guest:It's like there's the way it's supposed to look.

00:24:42Guest:And then it's like, ah, you just have your eyes always drawn to the sticker.

00:24:46Guest:And it's never a sticker that you like the next year.

00:24:49Marc:Oh, it's stupid.

00:24:50Marc:And then you've done that to your guitar.

00:24:52Guest:Yeah.

00:24:52Guest:And it's almost impossible to get off.

00:24:54Marc:Yeah.

00:24:55Marc:Well, good.

00:24:55Marc:I'm very impressed.

00:24:56Marc:No longer vegetarian.

00:24:57Marc:And you didn't fuck with your guitar surfaces.

00:24:59Guest:Yeah, I'm done.

00:25:00Guest:I'm fine.

00:25:01Guest:I'm doing okay.

00:25:02Marc:So, okay, look, so now you're growing up.

00:25:06Guest:Mm-hmm.

00:25:06Guest:Right before your eyes.

00:25:08Marc:It's happening right here.

00:25:09Marc:How was the sexual identity thing hung on, Sweet or Kenny?

00:25:15Guest:I mean, you mean gender identity?

00:25:18Marc:Well, gender identity, but also like it was sort of known as like we were sort of called the lesbian punk band, weren't you?

00:25:25Guest:Right.

00:25:25Guest:Even though none of us were lesbians.

00:25:26Marc:Right.

00:25:27Marc:Why did that happen?

00:25:28Guest:Well, I think, I mean, especially at that time.

00:25:31Marc:It's hard to tell in Washington.

00:25:33Guest:Isn't it?

00:25:33Guest:You know where I think it's harder to tell?

00:25:36Marc:In Portland?

00:25:37Yeah.

00:25:37Guest:Actually, in the Midwest, Midwest moms, there's this woman with a shaved head and a college sweatshirt, and she's got her two kids, her sons, they both play football, and her husband.

00:25:51Guest:They're just like, okay, yeah.

00:25:53Marc:Just a big carload of butch.

00:25:54Guest:Yeah.

00:25:54Guest:Exactly.

00:25:57Guest:And it's awesome.

00:25:58Guest:But to me, that's a little trickier.

00:26:02Guest:But I understand, you know, there's a lot of fleece in the Northwest.

00:26:06Guest:You know, it's not I guess it's not a feminine fabric that we thought it was.

00:26:11Guest:It is soft, though.

00:26:12Guest:Yeah.

00:26:12Marc:So practical.

00:26:14Guest:It is practical.

00:26:14Guest:There's there is a lot of like practical, like, you know, a practical dress code there.

00:26:19Marc:Sure.

00:26:20Marc:Shoes, warmth.

00:26:21Guest:Yeah.

00:26:21Marc:You know, try to stay dry, kind of.

00:26:23Guest:Yeah.

00:26:24Marc:A lot of REI stuff, you know.

00:26:25Guest:Yeah.

00:26:26Guest:No, I mean, that's not like form fitting.

00:26:28Marc:Right.

00:26:28Marc:Oh, no.

00:26:29Marc:No, there's no reason to define yourself that way.

00:26:32Guest:No.

00:26:32Marc:Just having a form.

00:26:33Guest:No, it's just like these shapeless oafs kind of moving around like clouds.

00:26:39Marc:Earth nerds, I call them.

00:26:40Guest:Oh, I guess I think with Slater Kinney, especially in like a very like crude way, people just conflated like, oh, it's an all girl band.

00:26:50Guest:Why?

00:26:50Guest:They probably don't like dudes.

00:26:52Guest:You know, like they have to be set up in opposition to this or.

00:26:56Marc:Well, it had something to do with the punk thing, too.

00:26:57Guest:The punk thing.

00:26:58Marc:I don't think anyone thought the bangles were a bunch of lesbians.

00:27:01Guest:No, I mean.

00:27:03Marc:Or the Go-Go's for that matter.

00:27:05Guest:Yeah, no, and I think also we weren't in Los Angeles, we weren't trying.

00:27:09Guest:The image was not a part of Slater-Kinney or even Punk at that time.

00:27:16Guest:It was almost trying to just obfuscate what it meant to be female or feminine or to mess with that or subvert it.

00:27:26Guest:So I think once you start doing that,

00:27:28Guest:Then you're desexualized.

00:27:30Guest:And once you're desexualized, you're a lesbian, you know, from the male.

00:27:33Guest:I don't get it.

00:27:34Marc:Can't see your boobs.

00:27:35Guest:Yeah.

00:27:36Guest:So from the male perspective, and it was also like an interesting, you know, just media story.

00:27:41Guest:But no, I mean, I think at the same time, like.

00:27:44Guest:And I think that, you know, music, a lot of artists from David Bowie to Mick Jagger, I mean, it's pretty common to sort of like peddle in this kind of sexual ambiguity.

00:27:57Guest:But what's hard is when you feel like that's sort of pigeonholing you.

00:28:01Guest:You get labeled that and then you're never able to just kind of transcend it or to be just considered a band.

00:28:07Guest:So we just spent a lot of time just waiting for people to stop putting these descriptors in front of us that were like, gay, female, this, that.

00:28:16Guest:It's like, when is it just we're a band?

00:28:18Marc:And did it happen?

00:28:18Guest:Yeah.

00:28:19Guest:It took...

00:28:19Marc:How many records later?

00:28:21Guest:Took about four records, I think.

00:28:22Guest:Oh, my God.

00:28:23Guest:And then it was a relief.

00:28:25Guest:You know, when we stopped being compared to only female bands as if there's just like this tiny little lineage.

00:28:31Guest:Right.

00:28:32Guest:We never sounded like the Go-Go's.

00:28:33Guest:Yeah.

00:28:34Guest:You know, so it was like all of a sudden when someone compares you to television or wire, you just feel this huge sense of relief.

00:28:41Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:28:42Guest:And I love it when male bands are, you know, like they get compared to women.

00:28:46Guest:I'm like, it's just all music.

00:28:48Guest:Yeah.

00:28:48Marc:Yeah, and also like at that time too, like it seemed with Nirvana and that whole sort of Pacific Northwest thing, the whole look was not, it was, again, it was anti-look.

00:28:57Marc:Yeah.

00:28:58Guest:For better or worse.

00:28:58Guest:I mean, now I look back, I'm like, I could have just shaped my eyebrows a little bit.

00:29:03Guest:You know, would that have been so hard?

00:29:05Marc:That's the mature Carrie thing.

00:29:06Marc:Why couldn't I just made it a little pretty?

00:29:08Yeah.

00:29:09Guest:But at the time, I never even thought of that.

00:29:12Guest:Like that just, that wasn't going to exist.

00:29:14Yeah.

00:29:14Marc:Now, the last album, which was the last album you did?

00:29:16Marc:The Woods.

00:29:17Marc:And that was sort of hailed as a masterpiece by some people.

00:29:22Marc:By one or two people.

00:29:23Marc:That's fine.

00:29:23Marc:That's enough.

00:29:24Marc:Take it.

00:29:25Guest:Oh, hey, I am proud of that album.

00:29:27Guest:That was what we were talking about earlier of trying to surprise people.

00:29:31Guest:I think we had gotten to a point where we even thought we know what our next record is going to sound like.

00:29:36Guest:You know, people are going to put this on and or they're not going to put it on because they're going to assume they know.

00:29:41Guest:And we changed labels and we went into the woods and recorded with this guy, Dave Fridman, who'd worked with the Flaming Lips.

00:29:47Guest:And he, you know, he turned it out.

00:29:50Guest:He said if he said on every song that you hear, there should be a moment where someone actually has to turn to the speaker and wonder what happened.

00:29:59Marc:It happened to me yesterday.

00:30:00Marc:I was listening to it again.

00:30:01Marc:And I thought that like, is my plug not in right?

00:30:05Guest:That's great.

00:30:06Guest:I love that.

00:30:06Guest:If you think something's wrong, that's a good moment.

00:30:09Marc:Because there's a guitar tone on there that is so distorted and kind of like breaking apart.

00:30:15Marc:But then your voice sounded normal.

00:30:16Marc:So I'm like, no, that's on purpose.

00:30:18Guest:Yeah, no, it's pretty blown out, that whole record.

00:30:20Marc:Yeah, that's something you want people to hear when they listen to your record.

00:30:23Marc:No, I think that's on purpose.

00:30:24Marc:I think we just kind of listened to it a couple times.

00:30:27Guest:Yeah, to get used to it.

00:30:28Guest:This is going to hurt for four times, and then it will feel good.

00:30:32Marc:So, okay, now you live in Portland, which is one of the weirder places I've ever been.

00:30:39Guest:It is a little weird.

00:30:40Marc:I don't understand what's happening there.

00:30:42Guest:Okay.

00:30:45Guest:Everything got really sensitive.

00:30:47Marc:No, I've performed up there two or three times.

00:30:50Marc:And I've said it when I was there.

00:30:51Marc:I said, I've never had a feeling where whenever I'm in Portland, I walk around and I feel like people are looking at me like, all right, he doesn't know.

00:31:01Marc:We'll discuss it later.

00:31:03Marc:Like, I feel like there's something going on there that they're all meeting later.

00:31:07Marc:Yeah.

00:31:08Marc:And I'm an outsider.

00:31:11Marc:Is that possible?

00:31:12Guest:It's hard for me to say because, I mean, I've lived there now for a decade.

00:31:15Marc:A decade.

00:31:16Guest:And I grew up not so far from there.

00:31:19Guest:So the sort of in-group, out-group dynamic, I've always felt in there.

00:31:24Guest:Sure.

00:31:25Marc:How would you characterize that?

00:31:26Marc:I mean, obviously the show Portlandia skews it all pretty well, the full range of the types of people that are there.

00:31:32Marc:But it is a weird combination, no?

00:31:34Yeah.

00:31:35Guest:Yeah, no, it's definitely like a combination of sort of hypersensitivity, a little over analytical, privileged, you know, for the most part.

00:31:47Guest:White.

00:31:48Guest:It's pretty white.

00:31:49Guest:Yeah.

00:31:50Guest:Yeah.

00:31:50Guest:And, you know, I don't like I'm careful now to note that like I love I love living there, but I definitely like it's a self-conscious city.

00:32:00Guest:I think it just it doesn't have a sense of.

00:32:02Guest:self yet the way like Seattle does or San Francisco like you go to Portland and just it's there's part of it that seems so ephemeral which I can see that that would be alienating like just kind of looking around and you know people there's like this sort of vagueness to it but that could come across like as if they know what they're doing but I think Portland still has like some growing pains that it takes a little bit to like settle into.

00:32:24Marc:I felt that was one of those places that people go when they leave somewhere else, very intentionally for very specific reasons.

00:32:32Guest:I feel like San Francisco was like that before.

00:32:34Guest:You would go, no one was from San Francisco.

00:32:36Guest:People went there to come out or people went there to do the... It was like this sort of destination.

00:32:41Marc:But it's a weirdness thing.

00:32:43Guest:It gave it a transient quality.

00:32:44Marc:Yeah.

00:32:45Marc:Yeah, I feel that.

00:32:45Marc:That's a good point because I feel that there too.

00:32:47Marc:I lived there for...

00:32:49Marc:A couple of years and I never could figure out what the fuck was going on there.

00:32:53Marc:Like I literally felt like I was sort of sliding like that the city had no anchor.

00:32:58Guest:Yeah.

00:32:59Marc:And it was disconcerting because I hear I kind of get it in New York.

00:33:02Marc:You definitely get it.

00:33:04Marc:But San Francisco, it's beautiful.

00:33:05Marc:Everyone seems to be having a good time, but I'm nervous and I don't know why.

00:33:09Marc:And I felt that same thing in Portland.

00:33:12Marc:I'm like, well, I can't get a can't wrap my brain around with who's in charge here.

00:33:16Guest:Right.

00:33:16Guest:Yeah.

00:33:16Guest:No, no one.

00:33:17Guest:It's just sheer anarchy.

00:33:19Guest:Yeah.

00:33:20Guest:I mean, it's I think a lot of people move to Portland, though, too.

00:33:24Guest:do less which i think is an in the inverse of the norm you know people go from working these 50 or 60 hour weeks in bigger cities they go to portland they can work less because it's you know not as expensive and they go to sort of improve their quality of life so that like kind of environment of of leisure yeah is a different kind of stream to like join than another kind and you got bunk sandwiches those are good there's

00:33:50Guest:it's there's such good food there um the the big biscuit place pine state yeah pine state biscuits that's good you just name like a thing like biscuit and then i'll say yeah bunks sandwiches yeah good food amazing food yeah i mean it's it's not totally accurate to say that people aren't doing things there but they're they're doing things that are sort of like highly curated and very creative and you know so how'd you get into uh comedy

00:34:14Guest:Well, mostly via Fred Armisen.

00:34:18Marc:How did you know him, though?

00:34:19Guest:Through music.

00:34:20Guest:So he was a fan of Slater-Kinney.

00:34:22Guest:And when his first year of SNL, he invited us.

00:34:28Guest:We were playing in New York.

00:34:29Guest:The band.

00:34:29Guest:The band, sorry.

00:34:30Guest:So he invited Slater-Kinney to the after party because we couldn't go to the show because we had our own show.

00:34:35Guest:So we played our gang and we went to the after party.

00:34:39Guest:I met him and we hit it off.

00:34:42Marc:Did you date him?

00:34:43Guest:we did not date no which actually we both would agree but i'm certain is why we're still really good friends really yeah i mean i think that like was there a discussion yeah there there have been discussions oh ongoing there's an ongoing discussion we we revisit that yeah you know um but now it's even more like we now we for sure need to just be friends sure it's

00:35:06Guest:definitely like come on you can fuck up the third season you got the second one in the can it's time to ditch it you know you can fuck up the third season or we can fuck on the third no fuck on the third season and fuck it up midway through wait for season three yeah it's gonna be a doozy no it's i think it's um we have a very intimate friendship in a platonic way but yeah so we but what we because we weren't going to date but we still like approach it with that energy it was like a kind of a crushed out feeling of yeah

00:35:35Guest:wanting to be around someone, but then realizing that that's weird if you're not sleeping together or dating.

00:35:40Guest:So we just did projects, which can kind of take on the same energy.

00:35:44Marc:Oh, yeah, the intensity.

00:35:45Guest:Yeah.

00:35:45Marc:Sort of like, God, I wish we were – no, just focus.

00:35:47Guest:Yeah, let's focus.

00:35:48Guest:Let's write this.

00:35:49Guest:But, I mean, we're sort of overplaying.

00:35:52Guest:Like, you know, it wasn't – there wasn't like a bunch of just sexual tension that we were trying to – we really were just excited to work together.

00:35:58Guest:And so we would just make these little vignettes.

00:35:59Guest:We put it under the moniker Thunder Ant, and it was –

00:36:02Guest:Very silly, not even trying to be funny, often not funny, just kind of dwelling on a single moment for way too long.

00:36:10Guest:Right.

00:36:10Guest:You know, until it just kind of fell apart into absurdity.

00:36:13Marc:And that happens a lot in Portlandia.

00:36:15Guest:Yeah.

00:36:15Guest:You know, I think a lot of times I just think it's not even trying to be funny.

00:36:19Guest:It's just, you know, it's like it's just an obsession over a moment or a dynamic.

00:36:26Guest:Right.

00:36:26Marc:And that's the key to the comedy in that show.

00:36:29Marc:I've laughed out loud at the show, which is not easy.

00:36:33Marc:It's gotten a little easier in general, but that's my thing.

00:36:36Marc:But the scene where he's surrounded by gadgets.

00:36:40Guest:Oh, yeah.

00:36:41Guest:Technology loop.

00:36:42Marc:Yeah, the technology loop.

00:36:43Marc:That was fucking hilarious.

00:36:44Marc:It was a little too close to home for me, but it was very funny.

00:36:47Guest:Yeah, that's close to home for me too.

00:36:48Guest:Sometimes I'm sitting on my couch watching television.

00:36:52Guest:I have my phone to the left of me and I have like an iPad or a computer, sometimes both.

00:36:57Guest:And my experience of watching television, which is already a screen, is being mediated through like four other screens, four or five conversations, you know, a couple of text messages.

00:37:06Guest:It's just like...

00:37:06Guest:I don't even know.

00:37:07Marc:You're just a hub.

00:37:08Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:37:10Guest:I am my little Wi-Fi router.

00:37:11Guest:I'm a router.

00:37:12Marc:Yeah, you're a router.

00:37:13Guest:Yeah.

00:37:14Guest:No, it's pretty bad.

00:37:15Marc:Is it bad?

00:37:16Marc:I mean, how deep do you think about stuff like that?

00:37:20Guest:I think about it kind of a lot.

00:37:22Guest:I mean, I'm always interested in the way technology mediates our relationships.

00:37:28Marc:Oh, sure.

00:37:29Marc:There's nothing unmediated now, clearly.

00:37:31Marc:And we choose mediation because there's less emotional risk a lot of times.

00:37:34Yeah.

00:37:35Guest:Yeah, and I think it does foment a lot of disconnect.

00:37:40Guest:Many people claim the opposite, like I'm more connected.

00:37:43Marc:Interconnected, no.

00:37:43Guest:Yeah, I find it exactly the opposite.

00:37:46Guest:I feel so fragmented that what piece of me is still whole enough to actually forge something real?

00:37:54Guest:I have to work so much harder in a very intentional way with my friends because I feel like everything's so compartmentalized.

00:38:03Guest:Yeah.

00:38:03Marc:The sad thing is, not just compartmentalized, but the vision of you sitting on a couch with a TV on, your iPad, and a phone, and thinking that you couldn't be more connected, but it's a lonely portrait.

00:38:17Guest:It's so lonely.

00:38:18Guest:I'm still alone.

00:38:19Guest:Right.

00:38:20Guest:Yeah.

00:38:20Guest:Actually, there was a night where I was plugging everything into charge, and I was like, I have more Mac products than friends.

00:38:27Marc:Okay.

00:38:29Marc:Yeah.

00:38:30Marc:And even when you buy a cord at a Mac store, it's like, oh, look at it.

00:38:33Marc:It's so pretty.

00:38:33Guest:I know.

00:38:34Guest:It's so pretty.

00:38:35Marc:Yeah.

00:38:36Marc:It's just great.

00:38:37Marc:Like I just got an iPhone like recently.

00:38:40Guest:Oh, for your first one?

00:38:41Guest:Yes.

00:38:42Guest:Oh, so you're a new convert.

00:38:43Marc:Yes.

00:38:44Marc:Yeah.

00:38:44Marc:And like, and you don't know what it does until you have to do something or until something happens by accident.

00:38:49Marc:But it, I, it frightens me that real interaction has become sort of draining, hasn't it?

00:38:57Guest:Yeah.

00:38:57Guest:I mean, not draining, but it's just like.

00:38:59Marc:You got to show up.

00:39:00Guest:Yeah.

00:39:01Marc:You can't just, you know.

00:39:02Guest:No, I find myself like if I make plans too many days in advance, I start to have this anticipatory dread about it.

00:39:10Guest:And then I go through with it and I enjoy it.

00:39:12Guest:But I'm like, what is that anticipatory dread?

00:39:14Guest:Why do I have that?

00:39:15Guest:It's because like there's more accountability when you hang out with someone in person, you know, like there's you show up, you're present.

00:39:22Guest:And that's, you know, those are good things.

00:39:24Marc:They are, but they're a little daunting now because we're so spoiled and interconnected through technology.

00:39:29Marc:I find that, because I do this a lot, so I have to be present for this.

00:39:34Marc:But to really show up for someone's feelings and be an active listener, be in a relationship with somebody, there are moments where you're like, I know I'm built to handle this.

00:39:44Marc:I know you can't just turn this off.

00:39:47Marc:Do you have rules around technology in your life?

00:39:51Guest:Um, I try when I, when I write to establish some kind of rules of like unplug, you know, turn the airport off, you know, turn the wifi off.

00:40:02Marc:You have that thing on your computer that's sort of like an adult child thing where you.

00:40:06Guest:An adult babysitter.

00:40:07Marc:Yeah.

00:40:08Marc:They have those.

00:40:09Guest:No, I know.

00:40:09Guest:I have not used those yet, but I have some like writer, fiction writer friends that are like.

00:40:14Marc:What's it called?

00:40:15Guest:it's isn't it called like i don't know it's the something lock or like yeah yeah something like yeah basically like you cannot access the internet for you know you type in it's voluntary yeah yeah it's voluntary and it won't let you yeah like even if you're like come on no yeah usually computers don't respond to them anyway they do now my phone will siri will i i asked i asked siri a question the other night i asked how do i remain present and it did not understand me yeah that's it's tricky

00:40:44Guest:The Siri thing is a little bit weird to me because I've had a couple of friends.

00:40:48Guest:We'll be in a group situation and somebody will be trying to figure out where's the gas station?

00:40:53Guest:Where can we eat?

00:40:54Guest:And they're talking to Siri.

00:40:55Guest:Meanwhile, we've all figured it out.

00:40:57Marc:That's right.

00:40:58Marc:That happens all the time.

00:40:58Marc:GPS have caused more fights with my girlfriend than I can even imagine.

00:41:04Marc:There used to be a time where we would remember things.

00:41:07Marc:I think that ultimately, in the long term, this is going to make us stupid.

00:41:11Guest:Yeah.

00:41:11Marc:Because you used to be able to sort of like, okay, turn right and then, all right, I can remember that.

00:41:17Marc:And you did.

00:41:18Marc:And now you're like, oh, you're in the car like three minutes.

00:41:20Marc:I go look it up, just search it.

00:41:22Marc:And it's panic.

00:41:23Guest:Yeah.

00:41:24Guest:What about intuition?

00:41:25Guest:Like that's just starting to drain.

00:41:27Guest:Like I find myself just looking at that little blue line as I'm moving along on my GPS.

00:41:31Guest:Yeah.

00:41:31Guest:Like if I just like lifted my head up, I could also probably- I know where I am.

00:41:35Marc:Yeah.

00:41:37Guest:Yeah.

00:41:37Marc:Yeah.

00:41:37Marc:Yeah, and the thrill of being lost without being mad at a machine.

00:41:41Marc:Remember that?

00:41:42Marc:Oh, yeah.

00:41:42Marc:It's like, we'll just find it.

00:41:43Marc:We'll ask a person.

00:41:45Guest:I know.

00:41:45Guest:I remember stopping and asking directions.

00:41:47Guest:I remember touring in Europe, and we would drive.

00:41:52Guest:We drove into town, and our tour manager just hailed a cab, like got out of our car, hailed a cab, and asked the cab driver to take us there.

00:42:03Guest:You had to be very creative about getting places.

00:42:05Guest:Yeah.

00:42:05Marc:There came a time, too, where I realized that people no longer knew anything.

00:42:09Marc:That, like, there was this idea, like, let's just stop at a gas station and ask them.

00:42:12Marc:It's like, they don't fucking, they don't know where it is.

00:42:15Marc:Why did we get this thing in our head that people at gas stations know where people are going?

00:42:19Marc:Because there was some mythology around, what's a local gas station?

00:42:22Marc:We're new to this neighborhood.

00:42:24Marc:But people don't know anything.

00:42:25Marc:I can ask people in this neighborhood, what's across the street?

00:42:27Marc:And they're like, I'm not, I don't, okay.

00:42:29Guest:I'm not from America, except that they are.

00:42:31Marc:Yeah, it's weird.

00:42:32Marc:I think we defer to these machines.

00:42:34Yeah.

00:42:34Guest:I asked a question I hadn't asked in a long time the other day at the dog park, which was, what time is it?

00:42:39Guest:Because normally I didn't have my phone on me.

00:42:42Guest:And actually the woman looked at me like it was an inappropriate question.

00:42:47Guest:How dare you?

00:42:48Guest:That is such a personal question.

00:42:50Marc:Was this in Portland?

00:42:51Marc:Yeah.

00:42:53Marc:What kind of dog?

00:42:55Guest:I have two dogs, actually.

00:42:56Guest:One is a German wire-haired pointer mix.

00:42:59Guest:They both look like hunting dogs.

00:43:00Guest:The other one is kind of hound-y looking dog.

00:43:04Marc:No cats?

00:43:05Guest:No, I have... I lost my cat.

00:43:09Guest:He died, but he was my favorite.

00:43:11Marc:Sorry.

00:43:12Guest:No, it's okay.

00:43:12Guest:But I just wanted to set up that I'm not an anti-cat person.

00:43:16Marc:How old did a cat live?

00:43:18Guest:He lived until he was 10, so he died pretty... That's not old enough.

00:43:21Guest:He should be... Yeah.

00:43:22Marc:Yeah.

00:43:23Marc:That's sad.

00:43:24Guest:Yeah.

00:43:25Guest:I like animals.

00:43:26Guest:I did a lot of volunteering at my local Humane Society.

00:43:29Marc:You do now?

00:43:30Guest:I don't have as much time, but I did for many years.

00:43:32Marc:How do you volunteer at the Humane Society?

00:43:34Marc:What do you do?

00:43:34Guest:Oh, I did a lot.

00:43:35Guest:It was right after... Actually, I started the last year that Slater-Kinney was a band, but once the band broke up, forget it.

00:43:43Guest:I literally won Volunteer of the Year.

00:43:45Guest:I volunteered so many hours.

00:43:47Guest:I did dog walking.

00:43:49Guest:There's two different shifts.

00:43:50Guest:So, you know, I would take the morning shift.

00:43:51Guest:I would get there like seven in the morning.

00:43:53Marc:Were you with like a group of dogs?

00:43:55Guest:No, you can't because they don't really know that much about each dog.

00:43:58Guest:So they don't do a lot of group things.

00:43:59Guest:Right.

00:44:00Guest:So, you know, one at a time.

00:44:01Guest:But you were on a team of dog walkers.

00:44:03Guest:Right.

00:44:04Guest:You know, go in there, clean out the cages, take them on a walk.

00:44:07Guest:I did lobby hosting, which was to take a dog that could actually like wasn't too freaky or damaged and hang out in the lobby and greet people.

00:44:16Marc:You just sit there with the dog?

00:44:18Guest:Yeah, and people come in and you say like, you know, this is Pepper.

00:44:21Marc:Yeah, Pepper got thrown out of a building.

00:44:23Marc:But look, he's okay.

00:44:25Marc:His face is weird and he doesn't have a foot, but he's a good dog.

00:44:28Guest:Yeah, he's great with kids.

00:44:31Guest:Yeah, there was always like so many things that they could not do.

00:44:34Marc:You did that after the van broke up?

00:44:36Marc:Yeah.

00:44:36Marc:Were you dealing with grief and sadness?

00:44:38Guest:Yeah.

00:44:39Guest:And you know what's a great way to deal with any emotion is to channel that into, project that onto an animal.

00:44:44Marc:Oh, absolutely.

00:44:44Marc:Project everything onto an animal.

00:44:46Guest:Yeah.

00:44:47Guest:You're so sad.

00:44:47Guest:You're so lonely.

00:44:48Guest:What are you going to do with your life?

00:44:49Marc:Oh, look at you.

00:44:50Marc:You don't play guitar anymore enough.

00:44:53Guest:Yeah.

00:44:54Guest:No, I, yeah.

00:44:55Guest:I just played so much guitar with those dogs.

00:44:57Guest:Did you?

00:44:57Guest:No.

00:44:59Yeah.

00:45:00Guest:I didn't.

00:45:00Guest:I didn't play guitar for many years.

00:45:01Guest:But anyway, I did love... Really?

00:45:03Marc:You put the axe down?

00:45:04Guest:I did.

00:45:05Marc:Like, just put it away?

00:45:06Guest:Kind of.

00:45:07Guest:I sold a couple of amplifiers.

00:45:10Marc:What kind of amped do you use?

00:45:13Guest:At the end of Slaterkini, I had a Vox AC30, an orange, and I also had a... God, you're such a fucking rock person.

00:45:21Guest:Super reverb.

00:45:23Marc:Like an old Vox?

00:45:23Yeah.

00:45:24Guest:You know, I did not tour with an old Vox.

00:45:27Guest:Those things are so finicky.

00:45:30Marc:But all tubes.

00:45:31Guest:Yeah, all tubes.

00:45:32Guest:Yeah.

00:45:33Guest:So yeah, I got rid of some of that stuff.

00:45:35Guest:And I liken it to like how, you know, like you take off a wedding ring after a divorce and you're just like, you don't want to pull the, look at that again.

00:45:42Marc:I know, but you still see that dumb indention on your finger for a good four or five months.

00:45:47Guest:Yeah, no, that was like the calluses.

00:45:48Guest:Oh, you felt your calluses go away?

00:45:50Guest:Yeah.

00:45:50Marc:And you dealt with that?

00:45:51Guest:I dealt with that fine, yeah.

00:45:53Guest:But it is a little weird because it's, you know, it's like literally just like you feel like you've built up this resistance.

00:45:59Guest:Like that's just years.

00:46:00Guest:You earned it.

00:46:01Guest:Yeah.

00:46:01Guest:And then they go away and you have these like soft little hands.

00:46:04Marc:Oh, no.

00:46:04Marc:And you got to start on a nylon string again, like a little Yamaha.

00:46:07Yeah.

00:46:07Guest:Yeah, just on a child's guitar.

00:46:09Guest:No, yeah, it was pretty weird.

00:46:12Guest:I remember playing again and just ripping my hands to shreds.

00:46:15Marc:You're proud though, right?

00:46:16Marc:It's like you just see that weird flap of skin come off and just to keep going.

00:46:19Guest:Eat it.

00:46:19Guest:You're coming back.

00:46:20Guest:Yeah.

00:46:21Guest:I know, and I'm really bad at picking things too.

00:46:24Guest:So like, yeah, it's not good for me to have any little danglies on my, to pick them off.

00:46:28Marc:I don't know how the hell you quit guitar for three years without going crazy.

00:46:31Marc:I mean, I don't play in bands, but I got to play to keep my sanity.

00:46:34Marc:Was it, were you that upset?

00:46:35Guest:No, that totally makes it sound like it was trash.

00:46:38Marc:Never again.

00:46:39Guest:No, it wasn't like that.

00:46:40Guest:I was relieved, actually.

00:46:43Guest:I developed a lot of anxiety around touring, and I just associated all of it with just feeling unhealthy.

00:46:52Guest:And I'm not an unhealthy person.

00:46:53Guest:I don't have an addictive personality.

00:46:55Guest:I didn't do damage to myself on tour.

00:46:58Guest:But I would just get these tour-related illnesses.

00:47:00Guest:Every stress illness you could have, I would get.

00:47:03Guest:I would go on tour, and my body was just basically screaming at me, like, stop.

00:47:08Guest:You're going to get shingles.

00:47:09Guest:Oh, really?

00:47:10Marc:Yeah.

00:47:10Guest:yeah like yeah you're gonna have them hives yeah just oh yeah hives i went to the emergency room twice like just blowing up with hives and like face swelling oh my god and it was you know that's just you have to at some point listen to yourself or your body and i so i i think there was part of me that just it was kind of a relief it wasn't even so much sad to put the guitar away it was like yeah just goodbye like just chill out for a while and where were you guys you were at the top of your game you were a big act you were filling what 800 seaters 1200 seaters

00:47:38Guest:yeah like bigger like yeah 1500 2000 it was you know yeah we do i mean in some ways i think we went out at a good time i mean looking back on it you think like better to go out when people still want you around right you know you don't want to just go up and then you kind of start to go back down and no one cares and that's you know we were we were fortunate they're still doing the same thing that thing and what is the band still getting along

00:48:05Guest:Yes and no.

00:48:06Guest:I mean, I think my anxiety was a strain on the band.

00:48:09Marc:And you were the front person, right?

00:48:11Guest:In Slater-Kinney, we more had Corin Tucker was the voice.

00:48:16Marc:And you were the guitar.

00:48:17Guest:I was more on guitar.

00:48:18Guest:We both sang.

00:48:19Guest:We both sang songs.

00:48:20Guest:But she sort of had that voice that could pin people to a wall.

00:48:24Guest:It was sort of the deal-breaker voice.

00:48:26Guest:Either people thought it was great and unique or people just did not get it.

00:48:31Marc:Who sings on Wild Flag?

00:48:32Marc:You, right?

00:48:32Guest:Me and there's another woman, Mary Timoney.

00:48:35Marc:And is anyone from Slater Kenny in the band?

00:48:37Guest:The drummer, Janet.

00:48:38Marc:And that's it.

00:48:39Guest:Yeah.

00:48:39Guest:But I'm still friends with... Corin is still one of my best friends.

00:48:42Guest:And Janet's also one of my closest friends.

00:48:44Guest:So despite going through that kind of rough phase of the band of Slater Kenny and then the breakup, which does end up feeling a little bit divorce-like, we're still really good friends.

00:48:55Marc:Now, wasn't it always assumed that you were in a relationship with her?

00:48:58Yeah.

00:48:58Guest:Corinne and I dated for like a second when we were, you know, 19 and 20.

00:49:03Guest:Right.

00:49:03Guest:You know, and she's like married with two kids now.

00:49:05Guest:Really?

00:49:06Guest:Yeah.

00:49:06Guest:I mean, it was just that people really focus on that, even though it's like, in my mind, I'm like, doesn't everybody do that?

00:49:12Guest:Right, right.

00:49:12Guest:1920.

00:49:13Marc:It's like you're supposed to.

00:49:14Marc:We had to feel things out.

00:49:15Guest:Yeah.

00:49:15Guest:I mean, it's just sort of...

00:49:16Marc:But that got hung on you.

00:49:18Guest:Oh God.

00:49:18Guest:Like in such a, yeah.

00:49:19Guest:I mean, it's, it's fine.

00:49:21Guest:You know, it's like, I'm nothing to hide, but it was just one of those things like, you know, still, I remember like reading a review and like, uh, we played a show in New York Slater Kinney and there was like, the reviewer like mentioned that it was like years later, like corn had, you know, it's like, I'd just been to corn's wedding.

00:49:37Guest:It was like, yeah.

00:49:38Guest:Okay.

00:49:38Guest:Let's, you know,

00:49:39Marc:It's called college.

00:49:41Guest:Yeah.

00:49:41Guest:But it's also, you know, it's, again, people... If you don't provide people with a narrative, people will provide one for you.

00:49:48Guest:And we were never good at, like, self-mythologizing in Slater-Kinney.

00:49:52Guest:Like, we were so... Olympia and punk and the Northwest, it was so earnest.

00:49:56Guest:It's like you didn't realize that you could actually create, like, a whole mythology.

00:50:00Guest:Like, it was just like, nope, this is who we are.

00:50:02Guest:Just strip down.

00:50:03Marc:Yeah, yeah.

00:50:03Guest:And later, you see all these other sort of wiser, like, a little bit more...

00:50:07Marc:Sure.

00:50:07Marc:They hire mythologizers.

00:50:09Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:50:09Marc:You can hire a company.

00:50:11Guest:Yeah, and you rewrite the story.

00:50:12Guest:Yeah.

00:50:13Guest:And we just never did that.

00:50:15Guest:And I think when you don't do that, someone will just fill it in for you.

00:50:18Marc:Did you have any jobs, real jobs, in between Sweet or Kenny and whatever's going on now?

00:50:23Guest:Yeah.

00:50:23Guest:Well, I actually ended up getting so much into the Humane Society world that they did hire me in their training and behavior department.

00:50:32Guest:And I taught classes.

00:50:34Guest:Like, I actually assisted dog training classes, which was really fun.

00:50:38Guest:And then I worked for a little while at an advertising agency in Portland called Widening Kennedy.

00:50:43Marc:A mythologizing agency.

00:50:45Guest:Yeah.

00:50:46Guest:And I figured it out.

00:50:47Guest:I was like, ah, damn it.

00:50:49Marc:I wish I had known.

00:50:50Guest:Yeah.

00:50:50Marc:That you just lie.

00:50:51Guest:Yeah.

00:50:52Guest:You're a product and a brand, and you give yourself a catchphrase and a tagline, and you fucking do it.

00:50:58Marc:Was that from Portlandia?

00:50:59Marc:Was that sort of based?

00:51:00Marc:There's a scene in a...

00:51:02Marc:Was it an advertising agency?

00:51:03Guest:Yeah, and that was Wieden and Kennedy.

00:51:04Guest:That was based partially on my experience.

00:51:06Guest:And then our director, Jonathan Kreisel, had also worked, spent, I think, even a little more time than me in advertising.

00:51:11Guest:And it was just sort of our collective experience.

00:51:13Marc:Was that the actual building?

00:51:14Marc:Yeah.

00:51:14Marc:Oh, they let you shoot over there?

00:51:16Guest:They did, yeah.

00:51:17Marc:And you're on good terms with everyone over there?

00:51:18Guest:Yeah, you know, again, this is another one of those things where I have talked about this job in interviews before, and people want it to seem like it was a bad experience.

00:51:27Marc:Well, you're punk, man.

00:51:28Marc:It's fucking advertising.

00:51:30Marc:When did you snap?

00:51:32Guest:It was actually great, for one, because I think if you're involved in any singular community, comedy and music, it can start to feel small.

00:51:40Guest:Even if you live in a big city, you think, I know everyone here.

00:51:42Guest:Sure.

00:51:43Guest:And I show up at Wieden & Kennedy, and I was like...

00:51:45Guest:oh my God, I have 400 new friends.

00:51:46Guest:It felt like switching high schools or something.

00:51:49Guest:And there's also a lot of creative people there.

00:51:52Marc:That's one of the weird double-edged things about it, is that so many people, some of the funniest, most creative people in the world gravitate towards that business.

00:52:03Marc:yeah well it actually pays and it's consistent and but yeah i mean there's very if you can live with it and you're you're with an agency that isn't sort of like uh you know branding the new hitler or something you should be all right yes those people should feel bad yeah i think so um but yeah the yeah you know it's it's pretty creative people so so armison he's in town yeah you're gonna do a thing tonight what is the live portlandia experience exactly

00:52:28Guest:You know, a friend of ours came up with an app descriptor last night, which was, it's shaggy.

00:52:34Guest:And it is, it has an unrefined casualness to it.

00:52:38Guest:It's more about just, you know, both of us are used to him on SNL or doing stand-up and then me in music, having this more immediate connection to an audience and just having that, you know, dynamic where it can feel kind of spontaneous and

00:52:56Marc:So is it more promotional than it is sort of a show?

00:52:59Guest:It's both.

00:53:00Guest:Because, you know, of course, IFC was excited because, oh, yeah, you guys are going to promote the show this way.

00:53:05Guest:But for us, we don't want to just get up there and be like, hey, you know.

00:53:09Marc:It'll be on.

00:53:10Guest:It's coming.

00:53:10Marc:Yeah.

00:53:11Marc:Watch the whole sketch later.

00:53:13Marc:Yeah.

00:53:13Guest:Yeah, exactly.

00:53:14Guest:I mean, that's just bullshit.

00:53:15Guest:So we, you know, we play music, we show clips, we do Q&A, show slides.

00:53:21Guest:I mean, we kind of wrote a little variety show and it's fun and we bring people on stage.

00:53:26Guest:It's sort of about like exploring other cities.

00:53:29Guest:It's like, okay, what's local about this place?

00:53:32Guest:And it's fun.

00:53:33Marc:It's like... Do you go out as characters or what do you mean explore?

00:53:36Marc:Yeah.

00:53:37Guest:I mean, actually, we bring people up on stage, and we really figure it out.

00:53:41Guest:Oh, really?

00:53:41Guest:In kind of an anthropological way.

00:53:43Guest:Oh, that's good.

00:53:44Guest:It's just fun.

00:53:45Guest:We do do a couple characters, but not a lot.

00:53:49Guest:A lot of it's just more like, hey, come hang out in our living room, if our living room was a club.

00:53:54Marc:It seems that where you guys meet is there's a vulnerability.

00:53:58Marc:You're not banging anyone over the head, and it seems to come natural somehow.

00:54:01Marc:It's good.

00:54:02Guest:Yeah, I think we do.

00:54:03Guest:We both are.

00:54:04Guest:Yeah, no one's ever used that word, but it's pretty apt.

00:54:07Guest:There's a little bit of vulnerability in there.

00:54:10Guest:Yeah, Fred is nicer than me, I think.

00:54:12Guest:He's sweeter.

00:54:14Marc:Well, when I first met you, I thought you hated my guts.

00:54:17Guest:I know.

00:54:17Guest:But you know what?

00:54:18Guest:I am.

00:54:18Guest:I can be.

00:54:19Guest:I've had friends call me out on that a little bit.

00:54:21Guest:Like, oh, my God.

00:54:22Guest:You were just like.

00:54:23Guest:And I don't even really notice it.

00:54:24Guest:Like, part of it is just my version of not even shyness, but just, like, discomfort.

00:54:30Guest:I also have this.

00:54:31Guest:And, yeah.

00:54:32Guest:And I have done plenty of backpedaling in my day.

00:54:36Marc:Well, I think I went up to you and I was like, yeah.

00:54:39Marc:I said, I think I met your husband.

00:54:42Marc:Yes.

00:54:43Marc:Right.

00:54:43Guest:This was not that long ago.

00:54:44Marc:Right.

00:54:44Marc:It was a John Benjamin has a van premiere.

00:54:47Guest:Yeah.

00:54:47Guest:And you're right.

00:54:48Marc:And you're like, that's not me.

00:54:50Guest:Yeah.

00:54:51Guest:I mean, that's.

00:54:51Marc:Was that Corrin's husband?

00:54:52Guest:Yeah.

00:54:53Guest:Lance.

00:54:53Marc:He's a nice guy.

00:54:54Marc:I met him upstate New York, right?

00:54:55Guest:Yeah.

00:54:55Guest:Lance.

00:54:56Guest:Oh, Maurice Sendak probably.

00:54:57Guest:Was it during that whole thing?

00:54:58Marc:I don't remember what he was shooting, but he's a documentary guy, right?

00:55:01Marc:Yeah.

00:55:01Marc:I met him at, I was doing a show with Eugene Merman in Ithaca.

00:55:04Marc:I don't know what he was shooting.

00:55:05Marc:Do they live up there or they don't live up there?

00:55:06Guest:Oh, he's at a wedding.

00:55:07Guest:He's from Ithaca, yeah.

00:55:09Marc:Right, he was at a wedding.

00:55:10Guest:Yeah.

00:55:11Guest:No, Lance is great, yeah.

00:55:12Guest:And what an inappropriate reaction on my part.

00:55:14Guest:Like, all you're doing is referencing friends of mine.

00:55:16Guest:It's not like you're like, are you married to that asshole or something?

00:55:18Marc:No, I just had you confused.

00:55:20Guest:I know.

00:55:20Marc:And then, of course, after that, everyone was like, she's gay.

00:55:23Marc:And I'm like, no, she didn't see, what?

00:55:25Marc:And they're like, oh, did I fuck up everything?

00:55:26Marc:And then I'm like,

00:55:27Guest:No, not none of those things are true.

00:55:29Guest:Yeah.

00:55:30Guest:So it's just one.

00:55:31Guest:Yeah.

00:55:31Guest:But that's such an annoying reaction on my part, like that.

00:55:35Guest:Oh, no, that's that's my dear friend, Corin.

00:55:37Guest:You're talking about Lance.

00:55:38Guest:Like, let's just reenact it where I get to be really polite.

00:55:40Marc:OK.

00:55:41Marc:Hey, I think I met your husband in Ithaca.

00:55:43Guest:Oh, no, that's actually my friend Korn Tucker's husband.

00:55:46Guest:Oh, I'm sorry.

00:55:47Marc:But you were in the band together, right?

00:55:49Guest:Yeah.

00:55:49Guest:Okay, all right.

00:55:50Guest:Well, it's really nice to meet you.

00:55:51Marc:It's nice to meet you, too.

00:55:52Marc:God, that worked out really well that time.

00:55:55Guest:Yeah, God.

00:55:55Marc:Because the way I remember it, you went, no...

00:55:58Guest:I'm sure I did.

00:56:01Guest:Such an asshole.

00:56:02Guest:Yeah.

00:56:04Guest:I was just telling a friend a story about being rude to Peter Buck from REM when I was in my very early 20s and he came to a Slater Kinney show.

00:56:14Guest:I sometimes have like this just it's so irreverent.

00:56:18Guest:It's so just it's really I'm working on it.

00:56:21Guest:I'm working on it.

00:56:21Marc:I do think you're right that it comes from shyness.

00:56:24Yeah.

00:56:24Marc:It's like there's a defensiveness that, you know, when you're a public person and especially when you're in a rock band or even as a comic, you can't walk around like an open wound all the time, you know?

00:56:37Guest:Yeah.

00:56:38Guest:No, I mean, you're being generous by saying it's only shyness.

00:56:41Guest:I mean, I think part of it, too, is I think defensiveness is a good – that's definitely thrown in the mix, too, of just –

00:56:47Guest:sort of not like that first little interaction is so important that if like you don't feel like there's a way in or something all of a sudden it's just like doesn't exist but i what'd you do to peter buck oh god so we were playing slater kenny was playing this club called the crocodile which i think his wife at the time used to book and we're in georgia

00:57:07Guest:No, he was actually up in Seattle.

00:57:09Guest:He moved to Seattle.

00:57:11Marc:Oh, that place is still around, right?

00:57:12Guest:Seattle?

00:57:13Marc:No.

00:57:13Marc:Yeah, kind of.

00:57:14Marc:What's left of it?

00:57:15Guest:The crocodile.

00:57:15Marc:I hear they call it Redmond now.

00:57:17Marc:The campus is what it's called.

00:57:19Guest:Yeah.

00:57:19Marc:No, the crocodile.

00:57:21Guest:Yeah, it shut down for a couple years and now it's back.

00:57:22Marc:Yeah, Patton did a show there.

00:57:24Guest:Yeah, it's pretty nice.

00:57:26Guest:So we played and Peter Buck was there.

00:57:30Guest:And I mean, here's a guy, it doesn't matter whether you were a huge R.E.M.

00:57:33Guest:fan or just whatever.

00:57:34Guest:It's Peter Buck.

00:57:35Guest:It's Peter Buck.

00:57:35Guest:This is a band that changed the landscape of music, ushered in college rock.

00:57:40Guest:Lots of bands wouldn't exist if not for them.

00:57:42Guest:And his very unique style of guitar playing, which was very cool.

00:57:46Guest:He comes, I'm running down the stairs from the backstage after we play.

00:57:49Guest:I mean, I probably was literally 23.

00:57:52Guest:Yeah.

00:57:53Guest:Still doesn't matter.

00:57:53Guest:He says, hey, I'm Peter Buck.

00:57:57Guest:I just wanted to say, you know, great show, but you probably don't need to hear that from me.

00:58:01Guest:I'm just an old guy.

00:58:02Guest:Yeah.

00:58:03Guest:Yeah.

00:58:03Marc:Oh, my God.

00:58:05Guest:I just walked away.

00:58:06Marc:You did not.

00:58:07Guest:And I got in trouble later.

00:58:08Guest:Well, I mean, of course, I should get in trouble.

00:58:10Guest:I should be scolded and reprimanded.

00:58:12Guest:But like a year later, he was actually people actually confuse Corrin and I all the time.

00:58:17Guest:He was doing something with Corrin Tucker, my bandmate.

00:58:21Guest:And someone went to introduce them.

00:58:25Guest:And he was like, no, no, no.

00:58:27Guest:We've met.

00:58:27Guest:She's very rude.

00:58:29Guest:really and Corin called me and was like you are a jerk like this is what here is a band that I love that my husband is friends with because they all were in Athens together and now he thinks like I'm a total bitch wow so he held on to it oh yeah and we since then I have apologized how'd that go

00:58:47Guest:It was fine.

00:58:48Guest:I mean, it was very casual.

00:58:49Guest:I think I sort of was like, I'm so sorry I was really rude to you once.

00:58:51Guest:Like, it wasn't... We didn't have, like, we didn't do a sit down.

00:58:54Marc:And did he go, and you are?

00:58:55Guest:He should have.

00:58:57Guest:He's the better person.

00:58:58Guest:He should have put me in my place.

00:59:02Guest:No, I mean, there's never any excuse for rudeness.

00:59:05Guest:I'm really...

00:59:07Guest:Yeah, I'm just I'm a little feisty sometimes.

00:59:09Guest:And I just, you know, it's like it's almost like a knee jerk reaction.

00:59:11Guest:And then but at the same time, I'm I always want to be liked.

00:59:16Guest:So it's totally at odds of that because I'm I'm actually.

00:59:18Marc:It's interesting you found your way to comedy because that's the that's the comedian disposition.

00:59:22Marc:Hey, fuck you.

00:59:23Guest:Like me.

00:59:24Guest:Yeah.

00:59:24Guest:It's the worst.

00:59:26Marc:Did you do you have siblings?

00:59:28Guest:Yeah, I have a younger sister.

00:59:29Marc:And what was what was your old man's racket?

00:59:32Guest:He was a lawyer.

00:59:34Marc:Oh, yeah?

00:59:34Guest:Corporate lawyer.

00:59:35Marc:Wow.

00:59:36Marc:Your mom?

00:59:37Guest:Teacher.

00:59:37Marc:Oh, okay.

00:59:38Marc:That's a good balance.

00:59:39Guest:Yeah.

00:59:40Marc:They're not together anymore?

00:59:41Guest:They're not together.

00:59:41Guest:My mom and her husband actually just moved back to Seattle after leaving for California for many years.

00:59:47Guest:And my dad retired and moved to the central part of the state, which is high desert.

00:59:52Guest:Like once you pass the Cascades, it's just high desert.

00:59:55Marc:I don't know if you've ever-

00:59:57Guest:Yeah, he really wanted out.

00:59:58Marc:He left Chicago and went to Seattle.

01:00:00Marc:Now he's in the desert, the high desert.

01:00:02Guest:He literally is in a straw bale house.

01:00:04Guest:This is a guy that I thought didn't give a shit about the environment.

01:00:07Guest:I actually don't think he does.

01:00:08Marc:Yeah.

01:00:08Guest:But he's in a very eco, like straw bale house with a solar panel.

01:00:13Marc:Oh, yeah.

01:00:13Marc:He probably likes it.

01:00:14Marc:Like, look at this.

01:00:15Guest:Yeah.

01:00:15Marc:Yeah.

01:00:16Guest:It's pretty weird, but it's, yeah, it's cool.

01:00:19Guest:It's filthy.

01:00:20Marc:Oh, really?

01:00:21Guest:Yeah.

01:00:21Guest:I mean, he just, like, with straw bale, like, I always just think, like, there's rats in the wall, right?

01:00:27Marc:What is it?

01:00:28Guest:It's straw.

01:00:28Guest:It's literally, like, and the walls are, there's no right angles.

01:00:34Guest:Yeah.

01:00:34Guest:Because it's just, you know, it's like straw and then it's covered in stucco or plastic.

01:00:39Marc:So it's not adobe because adobe is just mixed with straw a bit.

01:00:43Marc:Adobe bricks is mud.

01:00:45Guest:Right.

01:00:45Guest:No, this is much more like the walls are also really, really thick.

01:00:48Marc:So how do you know if bugs are eating it or not?

01:00:51Guest:I don't.

01:00:51Guest:I just, based on his level of cleanliness, I think, dad, there might be bugs and rodents and stuff like that.

01:00:57Marc:And what's he say?

01:00:58Guest:He's not worried about it.

01:01:00Guest:He's doing fine.

01:01:00Guest:He's a great guy.

01:01:01Guest:I love my dad.

01:01:02Guest:We're really close.

01:01:02Guest:But when I get there, I love to just get a broom out.

01:01:06Marc:Oh, really?

01:01:06Marc:Yeah.

01:01:06Marc:Do you have a few minutes?

01:01:10Guest:No problem.

01:01:12Marc:Now, what's the book you wrote?

01:01:14Guest:I have not written a book.

01:01:16Guest:I have not.

01:01:16Guest:That's one thing that... Are you just procrastinating?

01:01:20Guest:I'm majorly procrastinating.

01:01:22Marc:Did you take an extension?

01:01:23Guest:I took an extension, but I think that that book is not going to happen.

01:01:27Guest:It's going to kind of... We're going to re-sort of work it into something else.

01:01:31Guest:It was... Oh, that was... Why did I forget to mention that I worked for NPR for years?

01:01:36Guest:Yeah.

01:01:36Guest:and wrote a blog music blog for them that was my main job after Slater-Kinney music writing yeah and I loved it but so I got a book deal which is you know very excited about very proud and then got sidetracked with other things that I love but I really like it's just the word fail is like flashing through my head right now it's hard to write a book man yeah it's I got a book deal now I'm freaking out about it I've got enough words written but I don't know if they're good words

01:02:07Guest:Oh, my gosh.

01:02:07Guest:I felt like I was just basically like dumping letters onto a page.

01:02:12Guest:You know?

01:02:12Marc:Yeah.

01:02:13Guest:I could not make sense of it at all.

01:02:15Guest:Like in the short form writing I was doing for NPR.

01:02:17Marc:Didn't you have enough of that to make a book?

01:02:19Guest:Yeah, but they didn't want and I didn't really want just like a essay.

01:02:24Guest:You know, they wanted more of like a through line of my own story, a little more memoristic and not just a series of like disparate.

01:02:30Guest:And I just, it was like, I could never look at it microscopically.

01:02:35Guest:I was always looking at the big picture and then I would sit down to like.

01:02:38Marc:The big picture is horrendous.

01:02:40Guest:Yeah.

01:02:40Guest:And it's just, and I, it ended up being really hard.

01:02:43Guest:Like there was hours would go by.

01:02:45Guest:I was like, how have I not physically, I, I, yeah, the level of procrastination gets really crazy.

01:02:53Marc:But procrastination, what people don't realize, it's just paralysis.

01:02:56Marc:It's fear.

01:02:57Marc:It's weirdness.

01:02:57Marc:And everyone would be like, read The War of Art and do this or do that.

01:03:01Marc:Or you just got to sit there and do it.

01:03:03Marc:But that's maybe true.

01:03:05Marc:But unless you're really acclimated to it, sometimes it could take three days to get two pages.

01:03:10Guest:I know.

01:03:11Guest:I know.

01:03:12Guest:And I did a lot of other things in the meantime.

01:03:15Marc:So that day you took that extension, you were like, I'm taking an incomplete extension.

01:03:19Guest:That's how it felt.

01:03:21Guest:It just felt like a big F. But yeah, I think my friends that are good at writing, what they do is they write.

01:03:29Guest:They get up and they get themselves in front of their computer and they tune out all distraction and they write even if it's not something they're going to keep or use.

01:03:40Guest:And when I was writing for NPR, I had a little bit more of that discipline because it was a day-to-day thing.

01:03:46Marc:Yeah, an office, right?

01:03:47Marc:Yeah.

01:03:48Guest:No, I worked from home, which is also tough.

01:03:51Marc:Yeah, because there's dishes to be done.

01:03:53Guest:Oh, I could not even start writing until the house was clean.

01:03:57Marc:Oh, of course not.

01:03:58Marc:I've got to walk the dog and make coffee.

01:04:00Marc:And then it's already one.

01:04:01Guest:No, it's like four, but then it's dinner time.

01:04:06Guest:Yeah, it's pretty sad.

01:04:07Marc:So, all right, so no book in the works right now, but you're regrouping.

01:04:11Guest:I'm regrouping.

01:04:12Marc:And then the new album is, how long has that been out?

01:04:14Guest:Wild Flag album came out in September.

01:04:16Marc:Oh, really?

01:04:17Guest:2011, yeah.

01:04:18Marc:It's a great record.

01:04:19Guest:Thanks, Mark.

01:04:20Marc:And are you doing another record?

01:04:21Guest:Yeah, we have a handful of new songs.

01:04:24Guest:And when I'm not doing Portlandia, we're trying to write.

01:04:28Guest:One of my bandmates lives in Washington, D.C., so we already kind of have this slight disadvantage of just not having sort of an organic writing.

01:04:35Guest:What band is she from?

01:04:36Guest:She was in Helium.

01:04:37Guest:Do you remember that band?

01:04:38Guest:They were from Boston.

01:04:39Guest:Yeah.

01:04:40Guest:She's a great guitar player, kind of cool, mysterious vibe, but we just don't, yeah, we don't have that much time to write, but we have a bunch of touring.

01:04:48Marc:Yeah.

01:04:48Guest:And I love touring, as I've talked about.

01:04:50Guest:Good.

01:04:50Marc:Maybe she brings some creams and salves with you.

01:04:54Guest:I don't think I like the word salve.

01:04:55Marc:I don't either.

01:04:56Marc:No one uses it.

01:04:57Marc:It's an outdated word.

01:04:58Guest:I just pulled it out of here.

01:04:59Guest:Also, that L is a little tricky.

01:05:01Marc:Yeah.

01:05:01Marc:Sav.

01:05:02Marc:Some people say something else.

01:05:03Marc:Sav?

01:05:04Guest:Sav.

01:05:05Marc:Yeah.

01:05:06Marc:Old ladies say sav.

01:05:07Guest:Yeah.

01:05:07Guest:But there's an L in there.

01:05:09Marc:I know.

01:05:09Marc:Yeah.

01:05:10Marc:Well, hopefully you won't crumble.

01:05:13Guest:Thank you.

01:05:13Marc:From the inside.

01:05:14Marc:And the new season of Portlandia, which we talked about a bit, I've got to catch up.

01:05:18Guest:That's okay.

01:05:19Marc:I listen to your records.

01:05:20Guest:No, hey.

01:05:20Marc:What's more important?

01:05:22Guest:Oh, wow.

01:05:23Guest:No one's asked me that question.

01:05:24Guest:They're...

01:05:25Marc:Be honest.

01:05:26Marc:You know.

01:05:26Marc:The records.

01:05:28Guest:You know, they're both important.

01:05:31Guest:But it doesn't, to me, but that doesn't mean I can predict or determine what's more important to you.

01:05:36Marc:What do you like doing better?

01:05:38Guest:When I'm doing those specific things, I like doing that better.

01:05:41Guest:I honestly, like I'm, I feel like I. Portlandia?

01:05:44Guest:yeah portlandia right now i think is well what i like about it is it's just it feels different there's something i love playing music touring has always been a conundrum for me you know just it's so fragmentary you like being home but then i get restless i'm i'm just i'm i'm full of contradictions and i'm usually just dissatisfied

01:06:06Marc:Wow, is that the name of the next album?

01:06:07Guest:Yes.

01:06:10Guest:Yep.

01:06:11Guest:It's really catchy.

01:06:12Marc:Well, I mean, it's an artist disposition.

01:06:15Marc:You know what I mean?

01:06:16Marc:It's always the next thing, no matter how good the thing is.

01:06:18Marc:You're like, okay.

01:06:20Guest:Yeah, what's around?

01:06:21Guest:What's next?

01:06:21Marc:Yeah, what do we got going now?

01:06:22Guest:Yeah, but I do love being on stage, and I love playing in Wild Flag.

01:06:28Marc:Is this the first time you really acted?

01:06:30Yeah.

01:06:30Guest:Actually, when I was a kid, I did acting before I did music.

01:06:34Guest:I was in school plays and took theater and improv classes in the summers as a camp to go to.

01:06:42Marc:Jewish camp?

01:06:43Guest:No, not J camp.

01:06:45Guest:See, I know it's called J camp.

01:06:46Marc:Good for you.

01:06:47Marc:That's very...

01:06:48Marc:So we'll put that in the plus column of your Judaism culturally.

01:06:51Guest:Thank you.

01:06:52Marc:You know J-Camp.

01:06:54Guest:Reference J-Camp.

01:06:54Marc:Then someone gave you a guitar and that was it.

01:06:56Guest:Yeah, kind of.

01:06:58Guest:It was like all of a sudden that was the lens through which I wanted to see everything because it was so immediate and it was just like so antagonistic and it just seemed to just meet up with all of the sort of angstiness that I had.

01:07:08Guest:And so I stopped acting and doing – I thought that's what I was going to do and then it just didn't hold any of the power that music held –

01:07:16Guest:for me.

01:07:17Guest:So it wasn't totally crazy that it wasn't a total surprise to me.

01:07:25Guest:Right.

01:07:25Marc:Are you as angry?

01:07:27Guest:I think so.

01:07:28Guest:I hope so.

01:07:29Marc:You're very fortunate in that you've sort of been able to grow up and do a number of different things and still remain relevant and creative.

01:07:37Guest:It's definitely like, no matter what I'm doing, I need to wake up in the morning and feel like

01:07:43Guest:i'm relevant if not to the general public then at least to myself so if it wasn't portlandia or whatever i would i would find a way like i'm not it's very i think if you have a certain amount of success yeah when you're young which i was fortunate enough to have even though it was indie rock nothing major you know you don't want that to be wow like peaking in your 20s that's almost as bad as like you know being popular in high school and having that be the best time being a child actor

01:08:08Guest:Or being a child actor, that's, yeah.

01:08:10Guest:I think the earlier you peak and if you're always looking back, if you're looking back to five years of age is your best year.

01:08:16Marc:Brutal.

01:08:16Guest:Dark times.

01:08:17Marc:Sure.

01:08:17Marc:Well, you know, I think the one great thing is that the Humane Society will always be there.

01:08:23Guest:I have thought that too.

01:08:25Marc:Thanks for talking, Carrie.

01:08:26Guest:Thanks, Mark.

01:08:32Marc:Okay, that's our show, folks.

01:08:33Marc:What a lovely chat.

01:08:35Marc:A lot of guitar talk, but that's all right.

01:08:38Marc:Hey, I will be at the Denver Comedy Works April 6th and 7th.

01:08:43Marc:You should come to that if you live in that area or are close by.

01:08:46Marc:It's going to be some good shows.

01:08:48Marc:It's a great comedy room.

01:08:50Marc:Also, what else?

01:08:51Marc:Go to WTFPod.com.

01:08:53Marc:Get all your WTFPod needs met.

01:08:56Marc:Get an app.

01:08:57Marc:Get a T-shirt.

01:08:59Marc:Get a poster.

01:09:00Marc:Get on the mailing list.

01:09:01Marc:I'll mail you something every Sunday.

01:09:03Marc:You can get some.

01:09:04Marc:Wait.

01:09:04Marc:Hold it.

01:09:06Marc:Pow!

01:09:07Marc:Wow.

01:09:08Marc:I just shit my pants.

01:09:09Marc:Just coffee.coopcoffee at wtfpod.com.

01:09:13Marc:And you can also comment on things, which is always touch and go with me.

01:09:18Marc:Boomer.

01:09:19Marc:Boomy.

01:09:20Marc:Come here, Boomy.

01:09:22Marc:I swear to God, this cat exists.

01:09:24Marc:He was just in here.

01:09:25Marc:Boomer.

01:09:26Marc:Come here, Boomer.

01:09:28Marc:What?

01:09:28Marc:He's not out there?

01:09:31Marc:boomer's a real cat he's laying in the sun there you go i'll send pictures later so