Episode 448 - Lou Barlow
Guest:Lock the gates!
Marc:Alright, let's do this.
Marc:How are you, what the fuckers?
Marc:What the fuck buddies?
Marc:What the fuckineers?
Marc:What the fucknicks?
Marc:What the fuckadelics?
Marc:What the fucknucks?
Marc:Sometimes I feel good about saying those things.
Marc:Sometimes I feel like you're silly.
Marc:But other times I realize it is what we do here.
Marc:Today on the show, Lou Barlow, the other half of Dinosaur Jr.
Marc:and the front man, the man behind Sebedo,
Marc:We'll be right back.
Marc:Remember that, you know, Jay Maskis and I talked a little bit about that.
Marc:Jay Maskis.
Marc:And it's interesting, man.
Marc:It is interesting to hear the other side of it, to hear the when I heard him play.
Marc:You know, look, I've listened to Dinosaur Junior.
Marc:I've listened to Sebedo in my life.
Marc:But obviously, before I talked to each of these guys, I filled my head back up with the music, went through the entire Sebedo catalog.
Marc:to uh to prepare my brain to engage with lou and uh you know i'll tell you man you know dinosaur jr equal parts equal parts gotta say love you jay but equal parts it seems i don't know look who the hell knows about relationships
Marc:Who the fuck knows how those work, how they deteriorate, how the tension begins, really how it is upheld, how it is transcended.
Marc:I don't look.
Marc:I think this is the first time I've been alone and not out of my mind on something or somebody in a long time.
Marc:Obviously, a different kind of relationship.
Marc:I'm transitioning a bit.
Marc:Look, before I forget.
Marc:You know, if you didn't check in on Thanksgiving, we put an episode up with John Heffron.
Marc:It's a great episode, especially if you're a comic or want to listen to some comics talk shop for about a half hour.
Marc:I didn't realize how much we got into it, but I don't think there's been a conversation quite like that on my show.
Marc:So go pick up that John Heffron episode if you missed it.
Marc:We dropped it on Thanksgiving.
Marc:Also, I'd like to mention that Will Ferrell...
Marc:We'll be on the show next Monday, which is our 450th episode.
Marc:Will Ferrell on Monday.
Marc:Very candid chat with probably the funniest man in the world.
Marc:Probably the funniest man in the world.
Marc:It was insane sitting there talking to him.
Marc:Because he's a guy.
Marc:Pretty low-key guy, as a matter of fact.
Marc:Sweet guy.
Marc:But you're sitting across from Will Ferrell, and I just got this dumb smirk on my whole face.
Marc:My whole face was smirking.
Marc:Like something funny is about to happen any second.
Marc:It's going to happen right out of his head.
Marc:That guy, Will Ferrell, is going to make me laugh.
Marc:That happened a few times, but we also had a very nice conversation.
Marc:I will tell you that.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:Pow!
Marc:Look out.
Marc:Just shit my pants.
Marc:Just coffee.coop.
Marc:Available at wtfpod.com.
Marc:Haven't done one of those in a while.
Marc:It's a classic.
Marc:Did I just call myself classic?
Marc:I have no idea what my computer does.
Marc:I have no idea.
Marc:I know I barely use it for anything, but I have no idea how it works.
Marc:I don't know your life, but I am beholden to the person that knows how to fucking fix my goddamn computer.
Marc:I will panic at anything.
Marc:And I you know, it's you know, it's weird that we live in a time where you need you need a computer guy and you need to find somebody you need to trust a guy because they can look at everything about you.
Marc:Like literally this dude that I have this guy, Jeremy, Jeremy Falk, Mac man, the Mac man.
Marc:You can if you're in Los Angeles area, you can go to Mac man now.
Marc:Uh, dot com.
Marc:And, uh, Jeremy's a, he's a Mac wizard, but now I know he also knows everything about me.
Marc:This is how weird the culture we live in is, is that there's a certain amount of transparency that you can't avoid like on Twitter and stuff.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I'm on Twitter, but that doesn't mean I need people tweeting when they're, they see me at a restaurant and they, and they say like, Hey, I just, I saw Mark Maron.
Marc:I didn't talk to him, but here he is sitting by himself at Cantor's.
Marc:Look, maybe, maybe when I'm alone at Cantor's,
Marc:On a fucking Friday night by myself eating cabbage soup and a half a sandwich.
Marc:Perhaps that's alone time.
Marc:You think maybe that's alone time?
Marc:I'm glad you noticed me and you thought maybe you could come talk to me.
Marc:You probably could have.
Marc:But, you know, sometimes like like I look, I wasn't out, you know, wearing chap somewhere hanging from a harness or doing something sorted and something that I'm hiding from the world.
Marc:But I was eating cabbage soup.
Marc:And in having a half a sandwich at Canter's in a booth by myself.
Marc:And, you know, on some levels, that's that's equally as embarrassing.
Marc:There is such transparency because it's very easy for people to know a lot about you if you're out in the world with social network or anything else.
Marc:And you just sort of have to gauge.
Marc:Well, what about what have I really what am I hiding?
Marc:Nothing too embarrassing.
Marc:But anyways, I do have a guy.
Marc:You got to have a guy.
Marc:You got to have a computer guy.
Marc:How are you going to get by without your guy?
Marc:Jeremy Falk, the Mac man, is my guy and he's available.
Marc:I told him I'd tell you.
Marc:All right.
Marc:I told him I'd tell you.
Marc:A few people use him, a few people of my ilk.
Marc:It's amazing when you are alone and you're not acting out too much in doing whatever you do, whether it be ice cream, porn, just sitting around watching television, if you're a drug person, drinking, whatever.
Marc:But if you sort of limit whatever it is that you're doing to avoid yourself and you just sit with yourself...
Marc:It turns out I think I'm probably, it feels like emotionally, if I'm going to be honest with myself, I'm probably 14.
Marc:And I think that's up for a few years from the last time I might have said something like that.
Marc:So I am growing up, but I'm still a little nervous.
Marc:Puberty is tough.
Marc:And feeling confident in the world is fucking ridiculous.
Marc:I'm a grown man, grown ass man, does a lot of shit inside just a fucking child sometimes.
Marc:no surprises there so i guess leading up to what i was about to say my dad's birthday was on the 30th and as some of you know because you listen to me i have not talked to my father in probably almost a year because he was upset with me and i was not feeling bad about that you know he was upset with the portrayal of him on the show which i thought was maybe not completely flattering uh at least humorous and
Marc:honest and not uh and not damning in any way uh i think it was uh endearing and uh in my mind i i sort of went easy on him but he was upset but i just decided i wanted i didn't want to deal with my father i just didn't want to deal with him and it's uh you know it's a weird thing it's a painful thing because you get to a certain age and you're like am i really doing that am i really i'm not going to talk to my dad
Marc:Look, he's got problems.
Marc:I got problems.
Marc:We got problems, whatever.
Marc:He's an old fucking man.
Marc:He just turned 75.
Marc:That's old.
Marc:He's my old dad.
Marc:And I'm not talking to him.
Marc:Then you start to think, well, what if I die?
Marc:Or what if he dies?
Marc:And we're left with this thing.
Marc:Did you get to talk to your dad before he left?
Marc:Did he get to talk to you before you went?
Marc:I guess no one would be asking you that because you'd be dead.
Marc:But you don't want to be one of those people that's like, no, we weren't talking.
Marc:And live with that.
Marc:But also, what's the big deal after a certain point?
Marc:I mean, what's the fight you're fighting?
Marc:I mean, for fuck's sake.
Marc:You know, I've always said that on some level, and I've said this before, a father and son relationship is really just, on some deep level, it's a battle to the death.
Marc:I know that's cynical and maybe dramatic, maybe a bit poetic, but I think it's true.
Marc:So I call my father and I just chose not I just chose to go in with happy birthday.
Marc:How you doing?
Marc:He happened to be in a relatively chipper mood and we had a nice discussion.
Marc:We you know, he talked for about 15 minutes about he how he's not he's given up on his system to win the lottery after hours of research.
Marc:Clearly time well spent.
Marc:So, yeah, that's what my dad does.
Marc:And I just sort of focused in on like, all right, he's going on and on about the lottery and how he had a plan to win it.
Marc:But he's given up on that plan.
Marc:And I just I noticed in his cadence and in the way he frames things that, you know, he is sort of a master of of kind of just going on and on.
Marc:And, you know, I think I have that.
Marc:I think I have that gene as as is indicated by what's happening right now.
Marc:But, you know, he told me that he was upset about this and about the TV show and everything.
Marc:And, you know, it was a little passive aggressive and a little weird and manipulative.
Marc:But he's my dad.
Marc:And you know what?
Marc:You know what?
Marc:Ultimately.
Marc:You get to a certain age where it's like, what are you fighting?
Marc:You know, just like he is what he is.
Marc:And quite frankly, I think I won.
Marc:I think I won.
Marc:We don't know who's going to die first, but ultimately there's no fight anymore.
Marc:There's just nothing to fight about anymore.
Marc:I prepared mentally.
Marc:I reinforced my boundaries.
Marc:I did some buttressing, some spackling.
Marc:And I say, all right, I'm going to get on the phone with this guy.
Marc:And I'm not going to become a child.
Marc:I'm not going to let him get to me.
Marc:He's not going to get in there and make me feel like shit.
Marc:I got my armor on.
Marc:Let's go.
Marc:I'm ready for battle.
Marc:Eh, that was just a conversation with an old guy who happens to be my dad.
Marc:All right, let's talk to Lou Barlow.
Marc:What do you record on now?
Marc:Do you record on GarageBand?
Guest:No, I mean, I got Pro Tools, I guess.
Guest:You do?
Guest:I bought the very first commercially available, you know, like for every man, layman's.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Pro Tools in, I think, 99 or 2000 I bought it.
Marc:So you had a, I mean, that's a big thing to learn, right?
Guest:Yeah, I'd watched over the shoulder of many, many engineers doing it.
Guest:Over the time?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:In the history of your 90 record career?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:This is one of those things where, like, Lou Barlow wants to talk and do the show, and I'm like, and then I start looking, and it's like, I like Sabado, and I listen to a couple of the solo things, and then I'm like, but he's done 900 records.
Marc:Where did he find time to do the 900 records?
Guest:That's easy.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:It just accumulates.
Guest:I don't really know how it happens.
Guest:How old are you now?
Guest:I just turned 47 a couple of days ago.
Marc:So you lost four cats?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And you have no idea?
Guest:Well, I know one got bit by a raccoon, but he had three legs.
Guest:He got hit by a car, had three legs, but he just loved going outside so much we couldn't refuse it.
Marc:And it was over in Silver Lake?
Marc:Yep.
Guest:and the other three just mysteriously they all mysteriously disappeared but we also had a baby around the same time so it was almost like they were just like they you know when they saw the baby like fuck it yeah we're not the babies around here we're not gonna get the attention we deserve why is this happening yeah i've been listening to the older records okay the severedoe records and this is the first one in years right
Guest:Yeah, they say 14 years.
Guest:And what do you say?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't count.
Guest:The last one was 99, I guess.
Guest:You know, just after I moved here, I did a record and yeah, we didn't do any until we put out an EP last year.
Marc:And who's the lineup?
Marc:Is it the original lineup?
Guest:It's not original, original.
Guest:It's me and Jason Lowenstein who are original.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then we've had a few drummers over the years.
Marc:But who's Eric Gaffney?
Guest:Yeah, he and I were like sort of the originators of the band and then Jason joined shortly after that when he was, I think Jason was 15 when he joined the band.
Guest:do you i mean well what happened with eric gaffney well eric is uh he's a i don't i mean he's one of the most inspiring figures in my life yeah you know um he when i met him we were like really into hardcore punk rock right and he really liked my band deep wound that i had with jay mascus and jay was drummer of that yep and that was just straight up like pounding pounding super fast blur blurry you know
Marc:But how old were you when you were in that band?
Marc:You were a kid, right?
Marc:16, 15, 16.
Marc:I mean, it's just... What's interesting when I listen to Deep Wound now is that... You listened to it.
Marc:I did.
Marc:I listened to it a little bit.
Marc:Cool.
Marc:But no, but there's a... The thing that came out of punk rock, and I think that's something that you and Jay sort of, you know, kind of invented, was there's a sonic quality that sort of rides out.
Marc:Not the beat or the pace or the screaming, but a breaking apart...
Marc:That continues through all of it, you know, through whatever they call lo-fi or anything else.
Marc:There's an edge of chaos that is a lot more melodic as things goes on.
Marc:But it seems like if you really just, especially if you listen to punk rock on a shitty speaker, you're like, that is what kind of evolved into a sound that was not punk rock.
Marc:Can you see that?
Guest:Kind of?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:That hardcore punk rock, what I liked about it was that all the bands sounded different.
Guest:And there was a totally collapsing part of it where it was falling apart.
Guest:Actually, you're sort of describing it in a really good way.
Guest:Because a lot of this stuff became very militant and very...
Guest:structured.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know, and it became like a very, I mean, right now what people describe as punk rock and what they play is very structured and it's very, to me, it's kind of straight and kind of, you know, like regimented and people have, oh, this is the way I think and I love this and I love it.
Guest:But what I really loved about it was the pure chaos of it because you had stuff like Black Flag and then something like the Meat Puppets who were truly crazy and Flipper, this band from San Francisco, who were just like...
Guest:Nuts.
Guest:Nuts.
Guest:Like, just where the guitar was just this rolling, crazy mass of just... You couldn't pick anything out of it.
Guest:And they were just really nihilistic, but at the same time, almost like the most human sort of... There was such a humanity to it at the same time.
Marc:It was raw.
Marc:Raw and beautiful.
Marc:Yeah, because out of that weird nihilism and that chaos, it's almost like...
Marc:I mean, it may not be a good comparison, but only when you watch Iggy Pop early on, where you even watch him now, there's something severely human and quite disturbing about whatever the fuck he's doing up there, just physically.
Marc:And I think that punk, with all the noise, there were still guys beating the shit out of themselves and their instruments, and there's nothing more human than beating the shit out of yourself.
Guest:That's true.
Guest:Yeah, but you're right, though, the chaos of that.
Guest:I mean, that is something that I think... I took that part and then carried it on to...
Marc:you know, other pursuits, you know, because punk rock to me, like I said, it just got a little... Well, also, it seems like punk rock also became almost like metal in its mathematics.
Marc:Yeah, totally.
Guest:That there was a real split, because like we had, you know, in Deep Wound, it was Jay and I, and then we had...
Guest:our bass player Scott and Scott joined like a speed metal band.
Guest:Like he got really into like, because Metallica's early cassettes were floating around.
Guest:And half the kids who were into hardcore got into this real tight wristed, you know, Metallica stuff, which is so nerdy to me.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so, uh, safe and I'll repeat myself, but it was it.
Guest:And then, but what Jay and I kind of gravitated towards was the stuff that was just like either really beautiful.
Guest:I mean, even like the early REM records.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And, uh, then really like crazy stuff like the birthday party, then industrial stuff like SBK, Throbbing Gristle.
Marc:And what's that one?
Marc:Eisenstadt and Neubau?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Einsturzende Neubau.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Einsturzende Neubau.
Guest:Collapsing new structures.
Guest:Einsturzende Neubau.
Marc:But see, it wasn't there like, and you were only 16 or 17, you guys, but I mean, and I'm only a couple years older than you, but there was, you know, outside of just punk rock, I mean, all that stuff, industrial and all this other stuff, certainly stuff that was coming over from Europe, seemed to have this full philosophy behind it that was rooted in art itself.
Marc:yeah in a way and you know on and and on some level i remember as a younger person thinking like well this is a way of life and i don't understand it so i'll listen to one or two records and i can never just listen to the sounds of it because i'm not really a musician i always felt like there was some bigger thing i didn't fucking understand that this was all part of and i needed to understand all that yeah
Marc:Did you?
Guest:I did.
Guest:Well, I never really felt a part of anything in particular.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But I did see what you're saying.
Guest:I mean, like, God, these guys were wearing suits and like playing drills, you know, like, whoa.
Guest:And they had much bigger than me.
Guest:It's bigger than me.
Guest:They're smarter than me.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:Much higher than I am.
Marc:Right.
Guest:It's fucking insane.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so you knew Eric back then.
Marc:Forgive me if I don't know all my history and chronology of your life.
Marc:But I know that the first Sebado records were with him.
Guest:Yeah, he and I really bonded very early on about the band Flipper.
Marc:How old were you guys?
Marc:He met you during Deep Wounds.
Guest:We would have been 18, 19.
Marc:But he didn't work with you in Dinosaur, did he?
Guest:No, he didn't.
Guest:We almost had him try out for drums.
Guest:Oh, we did.
Guest:We actually tried him out for drums with Dinosaur.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he didn't cut it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Because Jay's very particular.
Guest:And Eric's a really very... An amazing kind of Keith Moon drummer.
Guest:Like, he just plays whatever he feels.
Guest:One day, he's the greatest drummer on earth.
Guest:The next day, he can barely play.
Guest:You know, he's just amazing spirit, this guy.
Guest:Like, just totally...
Guest:Which I really gravitated towards.
Guest:And he and I just started swapping tapes that we had recorded like when we were kids with each other.
Marc:Cassettes are a big part of our lives and in your life too.
Marc:There was a time where, you know, that meant something.
Marc:Sure.
Guest:And they were cassettes.
Guest:You had cassettes that your parents made of you when you were 10.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Like my father used to force us to do letters to my grandma about a cassette.
Guest:Right.
Guest:yeah you're like okay it's time your turn i'm like hi grandma it's louie i'm playing baseball you know yeah so we always had these little recorders around and i started to use them to record songs and record my sisters and make prank phone calls record oh yeah and remember that little thing you got at radio show you could stick on the phone awesome the best thing in the world it's great it sounded good with a guitar you put it on a guitar too and it sounded really good you took one of those sticky things that you could stick on the receiver under the guitar yeah
Marc:Onto an acoustic?
Marc:Yep.
Marc:And it sounded good.
Guest:It sounded amazing.
Guest:It sounded completely distorted.
Guest:That was my first before I got amplifiers and things like that.
Marc:That was it?
Marc:That was it.
Guest:It was the sticky thing from the radio show.
Guest:And then also just how you get those little plastic mics, too, that you could play into.
Guest:You'd have a stereo with maybe a cassette player and an 8-track on it.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And a turntable.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So we had one of those.
Guest:My parents had one.
Guest:And I could just sort of rig it so I could put a microphone into a guitar, play it out through the speakers, and it would just be...
Guest:crazy is that so awesome that signature crunch yeah it just sounded great and that's when i so eric and i would we would swap tapes yeah i made when we were kids and we were also interesting interestingly to me now thinking about it but um he we also just were really into christianity like we love talking about jesus and religion we brought up with it
Guest:I was, yeah.
Guest:I was raised Roman Catholic.
Guest:He was a bit of a hippie child, or he was a hippie child.
Guest:So we just talked about Jesus all the time.
Guest:We went to Bible readings and study.
Marc:Did you believe or were you condescending it?
Marc:Or you didn't know?
Guest:We didn't know.
Guest:We were just curious.
Guest:I mean, we were both like experimenting a lot.
Guest:I mean, we were taking a lot of acid.
Marc:You were?
Guest:Not a lot, lot.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:He took more than me, but taking some acid, you know, trying to score weed all the time.
Guest:And somehow that was all just went hand in hand with us.
Guest:We didn't really.
Marc:Jesus, weed, and acid.
Marc:Yeah, it was all like.
Guest:The same pursuits.
Guest:it was it was funny you know it was like we were kind of into a i mean i wouldn't i hate saying that i was we were a spiritual pursuit but we kind of were yeah kind of that's kind of what we were into and the music actually was a big part of it as well yeah and and so okay but you didn't lock in with him to in a band sense until later until maybe a year or so later but this was all in massachusetts yeah it's in western mass yeah is that where you grew up mostly yes i did but you weren't you weren't born there
Guest:No, I was born in Michigan.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Do you remember that?
Guest:A little bit.
Guest:I mean, I was there until I was 11.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And my dad actually worked with Iggy Pop's mom.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was a thing.
Guest:I kind of knew about Iggy sort of early on.
Marc:What did your dad do?
Marc:I mean, what was...
Guest:He was a manager at an abrasives plant, Bendix Abrasives.
Marc:Bendix Abrasives.
Guest:Yeah, they made like car brakes, you know.
Guest:So when the automobile industry collapsed in Michigan, like in the late 70s, that's when we moved to Massachusetts.
Marc:But he worked with Iggy Pop's mom.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:So he would tell you, like, you know, this woman I work with, Mrs. Osterberg, her son is a musician.
Guest:Yeah, and when he did, he did this whole thing in Cincinnati that was televised.
Guest:Where he spread himself with peanut butter.
Guest:Yeah, Iggy.
Guest:He spread himself with peanut butter.
Guest:And it was this amazing thing where they were doing this live.
Guest:There was a live festival in Cincinnati.
Guest:And it was being broadcast as if it was a sporting event.
Guest:Because it was at Riverfront Stadium in Cincinnati.
Guest:So you had Alice Cooper playing.
Guest:And then I think Leonard Skinner.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:But he totally spread himself with a peanut butter.
Guest:So there's an actually announcer going, he's spreading himself with peanut butter now.
Guest:The crowd is passing him along.
Guest:You know, so it's being, it's really crazy.
Guest:It's on, I'm sure it's on YouTube.
Marc:And your dad's like, I work with his mother.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Abrasives.
Marc:So he left.
Marc:He left after the industry collapsed and then set up shop in... Yeah, in Massachusetts.
Marc:And what did he do there?
Guest:Abrasives?
Guest:Well, it was actually... It was Abrasives.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It was like a bunch of people, a bunch of... They basically transplanted a bunch of families from Michigan to Massachusetts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And was he... Did he like music?
Marc:I mean, what...
Guest:Yeah, he liked music, but they weren't like big fans.
Guest:I mean, we didn't have a lot of records in the house growing up or anything.
Guest:And what did your mom do over there?
Guest:She would work secretarial jobs.
Guest:She loves your show, by the way.
Guest:She does?
Guest:She does.
Guest:She's really scared about what I'm going to say.
Marc:Oh, really?
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:I didn't know I had that reach.
Guest:No, you do.
Guest:She loves it.
Guest:But she worked secretarial jobs and assistant sort of clerical.
Marc:Well, did she know that her son was running around high to Bible studies and taking acid in the basement?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:No, they actually... Do you feel bad now?
Marc:I mean, you got to figure they know.
Marc:You turned out all right, right?
Guest:I turned out okay.
Marc:They're proud?
Marc:They're happy?
Guest:They seem okay with it, yeah.
Marc:Yeah?
Guest:Yeah, they worry.
Marc:They do?
Marc:Well, I know.
Marc:It's weird when you choose the life we've chosen and all of a sudden you find yourself in your mid-40s and still the only thing you could say is like, well, I got a gig.
You know?
Marc:You know, it's like, we're playing at this place, you know.
Marc:But, I mean, I have to assume, though, you know, given your catalog and, you know, you've done this thing that when people think about musicians and certainly sort of, you know, indie style musicians, you know, people that have avoided the mainstream kind of rock profile, is that, you know, you build a big enough catalog and you hold on to your fans long enough, you can sort of make a living.
Marc:You can.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:i talked to jay i saw jay yeah yeah uh i saw him uh recently at the sub pop thing and i talked to him in here okay you know you know and it was it was interesting because he you know i know he wanted to do the show and then for about 20 minutes i was like is he gonna talk soon you know he's a very sweet guy and i hung out with him but uh you know obviously people want to hear about you guys
Marc:And, but if you hadn't been fired for whatever happened from Dinosaur Jr., I mean, Sabado wouldn't have happened.
Guest:No, I had Sabado going before.
Marc:Oh, you had the first album, the first couple albums?
Guest:The first cassettes, we did two cassettes while I was still in Dinosaur.
Marc:Which was Freed.
Guest:The Freed Man and then something called Weed Forest.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Now, you probably told the story a million times before.
Guest:I always learn something new about it when I tell it again.
Marc:Well, did you listen to his interview with me?
Guest:No, I didn't.
Guest:I was really afraid because I thought he was, I was kind of terrified because I'm like, oh God, he'll just say so.
Guest:Because he always says the most withering shit.
Guest:You know, like, and I'm so sensitive to it, and I'm so sort of like, he's such a huge figure in my life, you know, and I've never really figured him out.
Guest:So he's, but he always says, like, stuff like, well, bass doesn't matter, you know.
Guest:He's like, what?
What?
Guest:Then, you know, I always learn little bits about, you know, what he thinks about me on these things.
Guest:So I was really scared to listen to it.
Guest:And so when people, when it actually came out, I was like, so what did he say?
Guest:Did he say anything?
Marc:You know what he said?
Marc:He said, you've got a girlfriend and you started to talk to him.
Guest:That was, that's the party.
Guest:That's his thing.
Guest:It's like, he started to talk too much and I didn't like what he was saying.
Guest:god that's the party right that's he said that for years and it's just like what the fuck it just i mean it still like gets me i'm still like oh god that hurts but but that's not horrible i mean you had a girlfriend at least oh i did i did it was great no it was great i got a girlfriend and i yeah and i definitely be started to become my own person i became a more confident and uh you know
Marc:Well, how old are you guys?
Marc:Because, like, okay, so the story is you're in Deep Wound, you need a drummer, you know, Jay comes and auditions for you, and he's a good drummer.
Marc:He's amazing, yeah.
Marc:He is sort of a savant-y kind of dude.
Marc:He is.
Marc:You know, like, who was I talking to, the kid from Kyle from King Tuffy?
Marc:Right.
Marc:And he said he was in a van with Jay, and they were driving a few hours, and he had an acoustic guitar, maybe even an electric guitar, and he said he started a solo about 10 minutes into the drive, and it went on for four hours.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:And if he's not actually soloing on a guitar, he's doing it just with his mouth.
Marc:Really?
Guest:When he plays air drums all the time.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:All right, so he comes in.
Marc:Now, what is the beginning of your relationship musically?
Marc:I mean, when did you start to sort of build the Dinosaur Jr.
Marc:thing?
Guest:1985.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Late 84, 85.
Guest:I had just graduated from high school.
Guest:Jay Hidd was a freshman at UMass Amherst.
Guest:So you were what, a year apart?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I was like 21, 22.
Guest:He was 22.
Guest:I think, you know, yeah, I don't know.
Marc:And you were bringing to it like, you know, what his music influences were kind of odd.
Marc:I mean, they were, you know, he was kind of rock oriented, right?
Yeah.
Guest:he was but i mean he had he had just an amazing collection of punk rock records and is that where you guys bonded around oh yeah sure yeah and then i sort of i was really into domestic hardcore you know like the stuff from dc you know like that um discord records you know henry rollins yeah yeah his early stuff fugazi yeah yeah pre-fugazi minor threat yeah minor threat so a government issue do you remember what your first record was my first yeah record where you're like this is a good record
Guest:I bought this, I got the mail order, something called the teen idols, which was the first record on discord records.
Guest:And that was kind of like, whoa, you know, this is like really, I mean, there's so many other examples of that, but that record in particular was like, because it was just these kids from DC obviously making their own record and it was so thrilling.
Guest:And they had this, this weird straight edge philosophy tune at that time.
Guest:I hadn't really done drugs.
Guest:So I just like, yeah, let's do that.
Guest:Let's not do those.
Guest:Let's not, let's continue to not do drugs.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:in honor of dc hardcore that didn't last long didn't last long all right so when so do you guys how many how much did you how much deep wound did was jay on those early records yeah yeah we did one we did one record of seven inch that had nine songs on it yeah and uh yeah and then when when did you decide to do the other thing
Guest:uh 80 85 like late 84 85 yeah sort of hardcore scene was kind of not really thrilling us so much yeah there was a big influx of what i guess was at the time would be college rock like rem mission of burma right that's when i reached for my revolver exactly like that single was a huge deal and uh that's right and then yeah i remember seeing them when i was in college yep and there was a band called the neats make you sell the neats did you see them i'm trying to they're from boston same record label
Marc:when i was in boston it was like 81 okay so like it was the dogmatic scruffy the cat uh i saw steve albini at the rap on a solo at the rat on a solo venture yeah of some kind of del fuego del fuego we played a lot with the del fuego zane well zane i think from the del fuego is a big kids rock he is music he is
Marc:Doesn't it amaze you, like, as a guy that sort of half invented that world of indie rock later on, redefined it anyways?
Marc:I mean, I know as a comic, you've been doing something for half your life since you were pretty much a kid, and then you kind of see guys you haven't seen in, like, 15 years, you're like,
Marc:Oh, you're still alive, huh?
Marc:What have you been up to?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, it's weird, right?
Guest:His story is cool.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Zane.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His story is awesome.
Guest:Like, he, yeah, became a huge kids music star.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And I saw him in Tucson.
Guest:He was, because he was in Tucson working to, like,
Marc:help people across the border from mexico so he has this huge he's got this incredible like you know generous political side aggressive thing god this guy's just perfect yeah right it's making kids music and helping people and they were the guys that got like nailed for no reason they were like the first like kind of you know punky indie band that did a beer commercial and it kind of fucked their credibility right you remember there was this rap on they had the studio record then they did the miller commercials like
Marc:fuck the del fuego right those records are good though right all right so you and jay so dinosaur you know what was the vision there what was that what was the transition like let's stop the punk rock shit well and we just jay wrote the very first dinosaur record is based him just writing you know 12 13 14 songs all of which were stylistically different from each other
Marc:And which album is that called?
Marc:It's called Dinosaur.
Marc:That's okay.
Marc:I have that one.
Marc:Just Dinosaur.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Self-titled.
Marc:I just got that one.
Guest:Yeah, and this was done at the time that we were just going to Boston all the time, playing at Chet's Last Call, The Rat.
Guest:You know, I think... Yeah, anyway.
Guest:Bun Ratties.
Guest:Bun Ratties.
Guest:Yeah, so he just wrote a bunch of songs that were all totally different and all, like, amazing.
Guest:Like, he would just totally compose the songs, had incredible lyrics.
Guest:Like, it was like he was a freshman at UMass, and I think he had a writing class or something.
Guest:So something was like he was writing these incredible, like...
Guest:lyrics you know with incredible stories in them yeah and it was just exploding creatively and i and uh he i didn't even think he wanted me in the band because i knew he didn't like me you know it's like i just once once deep wound broke up i'm like okay i guess i'll never see that guy again really i did did you feel that he liked anybody though really oh yeah he liked people
Marc:But not you.
Guest:He didn't like me.
Guest:Yeah, some people he really liked.
Marc:Was it contentious?
Marc:He must have respected your ability to play.
Marc:I guess.
Guest:I guess he did, but everything was so personal back then.
Guest:I didn't think that my eagerness to play would somehow overcome how annoying I was for him.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But what was it exactly?
Marc:I mean, when you sort of think about it, because I'm fascinated with this with bands in general, is that it seems to me that some great bands, when they do break up, it's right when everything is fucking great.
Marc:To all of us listening, we're like, they're in.
Marc:Here they go.
Marc:And it's like some bullshit happens.
Marc:And you've been in and out of bands and had these problems.
Marc:But what was the primary thing?
Marc:Was it jealousy?
Marc:Was it like, you know, what?
What?
Guest:i don't know yeah he just really seemed really annoyed by me and so when i would talk to him i would get really nervous and then the nerves would then be like compounded by the huge silences that he would like i would call him on the phone and oh hi did you hear this new single or whatever you know yeah long pause
Guest:Well, look, I mean, just like phone calls with him became so incredible.
Guest:They were so incredibly painful that I would just fill it with space, just words.
Guest:And I would just like talk out my ass.
Guest:Like, I don't know what to say.
Guest:I'm just trying to fill these gaps.
Guest:And then he would then just judge me for the shit I was filling the gaps in with.
Marc:Oh, so you just wait and then he'd pick it apart.
Marc:Oh.
Guest:Then he would just wait until some particular time and just fucking pick me apart and devastate me in front of friends.
Guest:You know, like we're sitting in a KFC somewhere.
Guest:I hate the way you eat chicken.
Guest:I hate you.
Guest:It's just like, what the fuck?
No.
Guest:It's like, I hate the way you talk to waitresses.
Guest:And I'm like, what?
Marc:Oh my God.
Guest:It's like an abusive relationship.
Marc:It's an emotionally difficult situation.
Marc:yeah but what was murph like any sort of mediator was there yeah he was yeah murph was just this kind of bouncing free spirit you know among us you know he was very confused by jay and angered by him but he would just you know he was just a real well you guys are the rhythm section i think they take uh you know that i and i maybe i'm wrong and you can tell me i just find that bass players and drummers have a stability that that that guitar players and singers don't necessarily have um
Marc:I mean, like they, I mean, maybe I'm using, I'm seeing it as a metaphor what they do.
Marc:Like they, they need to be the backbone of something, but yeah.
Guest:Oh no, totally.
Guest:I mean that, that happened.
Guest:I mean, I really focused with Murph to become a real rhythm section, you know, and it was a lot of like taming Murph, Murph style to fit Jay's vision.
Yeah.
Marc:So you guys sort of had to interpret Jay and try to get Murph sort of in line with that thing.
Marc:Get him in line.
Marc:Just get Murph in line.
Marc:So you could follow Jay.
Guest:So we could follow Jay.
Guest:And I believed in Jay.
Guest:I kind of was developing a very deep and sick hatred slash jealousy for him or with him.
Guest:But at the same time, I was totally completely convinced of his musical agenda.
Marc:yeah completely you know what was he he wasn't a tyrant though he's kind of a tyrant yeah but you believed in the sound i believed in it so yeah absolutely whatever it takes you know so you have that that's sort of that personality that because when you talk about eric gaffney or you talk about jay you know that you know if guys have a certain sort of possession or or charisma yeah it's sort of like yeah that guy's he's got something i follow yeah i follow i'm a follower
Marc:Well, I mean, I'm not saying that in a bad way.
Marc:No, I'm saying it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm saying literally I like following people.
Guest:If I meet people who are charismatic and do have a talent or they're like, I will find a way to communicate with them and find a common ground and see what will happen.
Guest:I mean, for the music.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, for the music and then obviously personally too because it all goes hand in hand.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I have that, too.
Marc:Is your father a charismatic guy?
Guest:He is.
Marc:Yeah, because I find that when I try to track why I will sort of glom on to lunatics or people with charisma, I'm kind of wired that way.
Marc:Because my dad's sort of like, I'm the guy in the middle of the room.
Marc:This is my show.
Marc:And there's some part of me that's like, oh, that's the guy.
Guest:Oh, that's interesting.
Guest:I've never thought of it that way.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I've always been kind of...
Guest:I've never known what... I love my father, you know.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But I've never known what sort of influence... How he's influenced me exactly.
Guest:Right, right.
Guest:I mean, I know that I'm not...
Guest:I'm not exactly that guy.
Guest:Like, I'm in the middle, you know, that way you're describing.
Guest:But there are parts of me that is a little bit like that.
Guest:But I do really like charisma.
Guest:I like people who kind of seem like they know where they're going.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Sort of like that seems like a fun car to be in.
Marc:It'll be easy.
Marc:I've noticed that in my life around even street lunatics.
Marc:It happened, and I was just in Montreal.
Marc:If there's a guy screaming at something only he can see, he will stop to ask me a question.
Marc:And I'm like, am I wide open for this shit?
Marc:Am I just designed to emotionally, symbiotically connect to anybody who's like, I'm the guy who has the thing?
Right.
Guest:I'm not quite that, but my friend Jason is.
Guest:I mean, Jason and Sebedo, everybody will talk to him.
Guest:You just put him in front of any building and he'll walk back out.
Marc:People around him.
Guest:Street people.
Guest:I mean, it's amazing.
Marc:But you were able to sort of pull out and do your own musical projects.
Marc:And I think that your songwriting is, in some ways, extremely personal.
Marc:And there's a lot of, like, I mean, when I listen to it, like, I understand some of the struggles.
Marc:There's a sensitivity there that, I mean, I guess Jay's sensitive.
Marc:And, you know, when you look at the sound of Dinosaur Jr., because, I mean, I re-listened to Bake Sale and Harmoncy and some other stuff recently because I had to, you know, I wanted to fill my head up with your shit.
Guest:Oh, thanks.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:you know uh but you know it's hard i'm hard it's i don't know that dinosaur could have been just jay it doesn't feel that way to me it feels like there's you know in the first couple of records and and that the sound was uniquely both of yours i mean you listen to jay now but then it's very weird i don't know what the what you know your fans do or if there are jay camps and and and lou camps which i'm sure there are a little bit yeah do you get a little flack i get flack yeah
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:Like what?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I mean, I've said terrible things about Jay once, and they kicked me out of the band.
Marc:Was Freedman anything?
Marc:Was it related to that?
Guest:It wasn't, actually.
Guest:But, I mean, there was a dorm at Smith College, because Eric Gaffney and I lived on the Smith College campus.
Guest:You didn't go there?
Guest:No, it's a women's college.
Guest:So our girlfriends went there, and we...
Guest:We basically lived on campus.
Marc:Classic musician behavior.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:So we, there was a Freedmen dormitory that we, he and I, we were sort of, you know, squatting on our, in our girlfriend's college dorm.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And that's where we, there was an empty room and Eric Gaffney and I would kind of use that room to play music and record.
Marc:And they never kicked you out?
Marc:There was never sort of like, why are those guys here?
Guest:Yeah, no, they didn't.
Marc:It was good.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So what was that day like when Jay, how did Jay, was there a fight?
Marc:Was there an explosion?
Marc:Had you been marginalized to the point where you didn't feel like you had a place in anything?
Guest:Well, um, well, we'd had an instant on incident on stage where we played a song that I wasn't prepared to play.
Guest:And I started to play feedback through the song thinking that I was actually thinking that it was a good thing that I was doing.
Guest:And I'm like, I'm making feedback.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:How creative.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:yeah and uh the song ended and jay came over and pretty much tried to hit me with his guitar i'm three like that's it i can't take it anymore and i'm like i've never played feedback all the way to his song before but if you can't take the general you know vibe that's going on i appreciate that
Guest:So he came over to me and he tried to hit me and I was just like, I blocked it with my bass.
Marc:You guys crossed instruments?
Marc:Yeah, we did.
Guest:It was like epic crashing feedback.
Guest:What did the audience do?
Guest:They just stood there.
Guest:They thought it was part of the show.
Guest:I'm sure they did.
Guest:Yeah, punk rock, man.
Guest:But I actually felt a sense of victory when Jay did that.
Guest:Like he cracked first.
Guest:I was like, aha, got you.
Guest:Like I got him to fucking react because he wouldn't react to anything that ever, you know, he wouldn't really react.
Guest:And he would just, just, you know, basically was just these, just like calm and silence punctuated with devastating one line, you know, dissections of my personality and all the friends that we have.
Guest:I mean, and then, so I, I cracked him, you know, I got him, you know, so I was,
Guest:But that was not my intention, but I was kind of thrilled that it happened.
Guest:And they kicked me out shortly after that.
Marc:We have a lot in common, man.
Marc:There's something about having a relationship with a control freak that at some point, all you're gunning for is for them to like... And you're like, oh, see, I do have an effect.
Marc:You do like me.
Marc:Look, you're freaking out.
Marc:Is there some way I can help you?
Yeah.
Marc:Okay, so they kick you out, and you were bitter.
Guest:I was bitter.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Mostly about the way they did it.
Marc:What album was that at?
Marc:I mean, what had just come out?
Guest:We had just done Bug.
Guest:That's a great album.
Guest:Yeah, we did the little world tour around that, and we played a show in L.A.
Guest:opening for Red Cross at the John Anson Ford Theater.
Guest:I flew back home from that, and they fired me within a week, I think.
Guest:Who's they?
Guest:Jay and Murph.
Guest:So, I mean, he had gotten Murph.
Guest:He got Murph and basically made Murph do the talk.
Guest:And they walked in like, we're breaking up the band.
Guest:They're in my apartment in Northampton.
Guest:We're breaking up the band.
Guest:And I'm like, okay.
Guest:That was it?
Guest:And they walked out and then pretty soon after that, they're looking for bass players on MTV.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I think they went right to Australia after they did that.
Guest:But it was like Jay's thing.
Guest:The band's broken up.
Guest:Dinosaur had a singer originally that we wanted to get rid of, so we broke up the band for a day and then reformed to get rid of him.
Marc:So it wasn't a firing.
Marc:It was sort of like, well, none of us are going to... It was a little cowardly.
Yeah.
Marc:positively cowardly and I was you know really I was obsessed with that for a while you know but you'd done two Sebato stuff and then and then yep and then which album did you do you know what was the album where you were free of Dinosaur Sebato 3 yeah and that was your big album
Guest:um yeah we put out and that was with gaffney that was with gaffney you called him up after meeting him in high school and said it's time yeah well we i mean we just did kept in touch and that's when we got jason loenstein he was a like 15 years old got him to play drums and he also brought his own songs we were very into like
Guest:switching instruments, because Eric was a drummer and a guitar player.
Guest:Jason also a guitar player, drummer, bass player.
Guest:And you played guitar.
Guest:I played guitar and bass.
Guest:I switched back between the two.
Guest:I mean, we just played each other's songs.
Marc:Okay, so now let's talk a little bit about this sound, because there is definitely a dinosaur sound, but there's also a sebato sound, and there's also this sort of thing that... I don't know if you... I guess you hear it still, but I think that our generation was the last to sort of...
Marc:you know kind of appreciate and incorporate a lot of analog weirdness and you know cassette tapes and you know weird things in the background but it seemed organic and i guess they call it lo-fi or the first wave of lo-fi because there seems to be a new resurgence of what they're calling lo-fi yeah but what did it mean to you when you got labeled that because i can't imagine you were thinking that
Guest:No, I, you know, people sort of took it as being like a half-assed way of doing things.
Guest:I just liked it, you know?
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Because I just grew up with cassettes.
Guest:I love the texture of cassettes.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I love mysterious.
Guest:I love the ghosts that come out of like, if you put a bunch of, you know, like tape hiss and rumbling and all this stuff, like there's things start to whisper at you from it, you know?
Marc:True, right?
Guest:And that's how, you know, I would actually form a lot of songs and I would hear the melodies coming out of the noise that I would kind of create.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, you can kind of hear like the...
Guest:Yeah, I formed songs that way, especially with 703, and then was doing a lot of acoustic stuff, but layering it in such a way that there would be a lot of overtones that were coming off of that and that were kind of literally speaking to me.
Marc:What were these things you were playing?
Marc:You would record different things and then run them at the same time to see what kind of textures they would come?
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:Did you bring outside elements in?
Guest:What do you mean?
Marc:I mean, did you go on the street and record things?
Marc:Yeah, we did that.
Marc:Like what?
Yeah.
Guest:Well, we would go, we would take the tape recorder to Kmart.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, and just walk around Kmart and film, or not film stuff, but, you know, tape things.
Guest:Just record little bits, and then we'd make like a lot of, there was a lot of collages, you know, we'd make these just collages of little bits of things, and then also incorporate like our...
Guest:our cassettes from when we were kids and uh and then i was using a lot of like a electric or excuse me acoustic guitars where it was like you know with two or three strings on them with different kind of tunings and then just sort of trying to build songs that way and people thought that that was uh that was um uh amateurish or what and self-indulgent
Marc:Yeah, but the thing is, is that, like, but that comes from an aesthetic, there are precedents for that.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I mean, you know, it's sort of noise music and the stuff that, like, Fred Frith was doing and things like that.
Guest:Oh, yeah, there's a huge precedence for it.
Guest:I mean, that's all, but what's always sort of ridiculous to me is when people go, oh, you're the godfather of lo-fi.
Guest:I'm like...
Guest:That's really dumb.
Guest:Like, I'm not.
Guest:I'm, like, part of, like, I'm just another kid who's passing this along.
Marc:Well, you're part of a tradition of using, you know, textures, sound textures.
Guest:And also just, you know, intimate, private recording, not necessarily being in a studio or that kind of clinical atmosphere.
Marc:Well, this was also the time where people were, like, you know, shut up, little man, and those tapes were, you know, kind of going around, and there was a whole world of scenes and cassettes and things being passed around.
Marc:Daniel Johnston was doing his...
Marc:his cassettes and there was a there was a an i'd like to say earnestness to it but there's also kind of this you can't hide you know there are things that happen on cassette that are one-shot deals man yeah and you were just kind of layering them up yeah it's not even lo-fi at all it's just a it would i would think it would be more along the lines of art rock on some level it was yeah
Guest:It was.
Guest:I mean, it was that way, especially with 703.
Guest:And then I had to sort of streamline the approach because, you know, basically to make a living, I had to play live shows.
Guest:And that became like a thing.
Guest:I was like, well, I got to do this.
Guest:You know, I actually have to embrace it.
Guest:So there was a streamlining that kind of had to happen out of necessity to play shows and play songs that, you know,
Guest:And not do purely improvisational shows.
Marc:Well, see, that's the difference between knowing that you wanted to create something enjoyable as opposed to just... I know.
Guest:It's like I had to make that choice at some point where I was just like, well, it's not going to be improv and tape collages.
Marc:Drag someone through this three-hour thing where you're running around turning machines on.
Guest:Yeah, because I could have done that.
Guest:I love that.
Guest:I love that part of it.
Guest:I love that thing.
Guest:And I know that's very well respected to do that.
Marc:Kind of, but when you think about guys who do that or guys that you can remember in your life, do you listen to any of that stuff anymore?
Marc:I mean, who are those guys?
Marc:I mean, I remember having Fred Frith albums, and those were the records that I remember being that were...
Marc:Like I had some dude at a record store who was like, you know, in Albuquerque.
Marc:Some dude in the record.
Marc:There's always that dude, right?
Marc:It's like, you got to listen to this.
Marc:Do I have to listen to it?
Marc:And then you take it home and you're like, it seems very important.
Marc:No one else seems to know about this.
Marc:So this guy's really fucking special.
Marc:And you're just sitting there listening to street sounds for an hour.
Marc:Like, where's the composition in this?
Guest:Yep.
Guest:There were good things.
Guest:Remember Ralph Records?
Marc:Right, The Residence.
Guest:The Residence, Ronaldo and the Loaf.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Snake Finger, that stuff was pretty catchy.
Marc:Chew gum, chew, chew gum, chew gum, gum, chew gum.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yeah, I know.
Marc:I've got a copy of Discomo or Eskimo on white vinyl.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:And it's just like...
Guest:yeah but they had songs too they had they had a the commercial record the right i think that's one with two gum is on is it might be i'm not sure but that's 60 songs on it right they're all yeah but it's quite it's a really catchy cool record what that whole world i mean what would you call that world because like i was there too and it was that guy at the record store who was making me listen to this stuff oh god
Marc:i still have on vinyl i think uh the george and james album what's that what was the residence they redid george gershwin's rhapsody in blue on one side and james brown live at the apollo on the other side yeah in this weird kind of compressed computery it's like it's not a record you would sit down and listen to no
Guest:No, when the residents, I had the residents on my iPod and every time they would pop up for a while, I was like, it's great.
Guest:I got to have the residents on my iPod.
Guest:They pop up and I'm like leaping off the couch to shut it off.
Guest:I mean, cause I'll, I mean, I will have, you know, my iPod is on random is truly chaotic, but the residents, I'm like, no.
Marc:It's hard, man.
Marc:And they're still out there, and I respect what they did in the stage shows.
Marc:It's theater, yeah, yeah.
Marc:With the eyeballs.
Guest:Their eyeballs and all that stuff.
Marc:But I guess really what it was designed to do, I imagine they do have some people that love them.
Marc:But there is that weird, the difference between when you're younger and you're impressionable, which it seems like we both are.
Marc:That you hear stuff like that and you think like, well, they've got something figured out.
Marc:And then you spend a lot of time trying to sort of like, you know, be the guy that is on board with that when really all you can... But then you end up taking people to events and they're like, what is this?
Marc:And you're like, just hang out.
Marc:And then at some point during one of those events, you're like, I don't even know why I'm here because I'm not necessarily enjoying myself.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But what I was getting at was that it influenced you and sort of you took the parts of that you could wrap your brain around and just fucking ran with it.
Guest:Yeah, and I made songs.
Marc:yeah i like songs yeah you write a lot of fucking songs yeah and i like them i love you know that's so that's it well some of it's coming back too because there's a guy in radiohead now the the guitar player johnny i guess is now it's only he's almost exclusively playing with pedals on stage like you know they're doing their their concert and he's just at a console right you know making sounds yeah yeah
Marc:Okay, so you put the band together to tour, and what did you lose in doing that?
Marc:It must have changed your sound.
Marc:It did.
Guest:It streamlined it.
Guest:So instead of playing every song having a different tuning, all the songs would have one tuning or two or three tunings because we literally could not be sitting there tuning guitars at every song because our shows were already the worst shows ever.
Guest:or best slash best show ever but i mean it was just a matter of like trying to make a show that was like kind of move one song after the other trying to just like you know just get out of there without every you know without everybody hating us yeah and be able to come back right and uh so yeah we streamlined the sound a bit and um we put out a we put out a you know a couple of like electric records and then we put out a record called bake sale which was people really like and they just they reissued that because i know i've got this special reissued one
Guest:Yeah, we reissued that a couple years ago.
Marc:So those records you think, like, you know, Bake Sale, Harmacy, and The Sebado, those are your most polished records?
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Why do you kind of think?
Guest:Yes.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know why I made it.
Marc:Do you like them less or more than the other ones?
Guest:I like Bake Sale a lot.
Guest:I like the vibe on it.
Marc:It holds up, dude, man.
Marc:It's great.
Guest:It's a sweet record.
Guest:I mean, I guess it's sweet.
Guest:I like the vibe of it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I like... Harmacy was kind of rough because Sub Pop had put so much importance on us and we were supposed to go to this next level and they dumped...
Guest:you know, God, maybe millions of dollars into us or hundreds of thousands of dollars into that record, into the idea that Suboday was going to go to the next level.
Marc:What does that mean for someone like Sub Pop?
Marc:The Nirvana level?
Marc:I mean, like, I mean, because when you really think about
Marc:who really went to the next level from, I just got a box from Sub Pop, and I love Mud Honey, I love a lot of their bands, the Screaming Trees I think were originally on Sub Pop, that whole, and I think I got that record, Harmacy, originally on Sub Pop, because there was a period there in like, what was it, like 91 or 92?
Guest:This would be like... Harmony was 96.
Marc:Oh, was that late?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I guess I was involved in that first wave of self-pops.
Guest:The first wave was awesome, yeah.
Guest:Like Mudhoney and Tad.
Marc:But Tad, I just... Tad was not that thing, dude.
Guest:That's what I heard, yeah, yeah.
Marc:That was pretty crazy.
Marc:And Jay does this thing where he just goes on, walks on stage with a pedal board and a guitar.
Marc:He's finally perfected playing everything himself somehow.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Live.
Guest:I know.
Guest:He did it at Amoeba last week.
Guest:You went over there?
Guest:Yeah, it was really good.
Marc:So you guys are okay?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:No, he's got a kid.
Guest:He's got a five-year-old.
Guest:I know, yeah.
Marc:He's got a spiritual system.
Marc:He seems pretty zen.
Marc:He doesn't seem that aggravated.
Guest:No, he doesn't.
Guest:I think he is, but in general, I don't.
Marc:I think he actually... It was kind of interesting to see him, just to talk about him for a minute, to see, because they had all those bands.
Marc:They had Munhutting, The Catheters, Mets.
Guest:I mean, guys that were just like...
Marc:and then in the middle of this on the main stage you know like we're we're at this backstage thing they had sort of given us a restaurant to hang out all day and jay's sort of like okay you know and then he just walks over by himself and in the middle of this you know what was like a you know loud ass rock show one after the other right he just gets up there and sits down with his acoustic guitar yeah and starts layering and then in the middle of it with this antique gibson i think he's playing yeah
Marc:He'll just like, you know, he'll get a rhythm track going and just play lead.
Marc:Launch into his solo.
Guest:It's really funny.
Guest:It's crazy.
Guest:It's really funny how he does that.
Guest:And actually, he's gotten it.
Guest:He's really perfected it because it sounded really good to me the other day.
Guest:Because I always thought that was a little ridiculous.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I thought that was like, it's a little self-indulgent in playing leads on acoustic guitar.
Guest:To your acoustic rhythm.
Guest:Or just sometimes he would just play the leads without the double underneath.
Guest:Right.
Marc:Well, I think what it does, though, what I noticed was that with the expectation of Dinosaur fans and the expectation of a rock show is that his melodies are pretty sweet, as are yours.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:His leads are really good.
Marc:Right, but they're kind of waiting for the crunch.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So there's some part of him that's sort of like, I got to deliver some crunch.
Guest:I think he's really lived into that, actually.
Guest:What, the crunch?
Guest:The crunch and doing that solo.
Guest:I was really impressed last time I saw him.
Marc:But you did, what, four solo records?
Guest:I did a ton under the name Centredo solo.
Marc:What was it behind that name?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Just some nonsense.
Guest:I just liked the way it sounded, and it was related to Sabadeau.
Marc:So people would know?
Guest:I guess they would know.
Guest:I mean, to me, it fit some kind of grand plan that I had.
Guest:I kind of forgot what that was.
Marc:Well, you know, they come and go as you live longer.
Marc:But like getting back to Eric Gaffney and getting back to whatever issues you had with Jay, how do relationships and bands sort of begin to sort of break down?
Marc:Why after, what, two or three records Eric Gaffney is gone?
Guest:Eric just really, he, while we were playing these shows, I mean, the problem that I would say was that
Guest:We were putting out these records and people were really focusing on my songs because they were more melodic.
Guest:They were more traditional.
Guest:Eric was writing these impressionistic, amazing, just chaotic songs, but with really cool lyrics in them.
Guest:But he has a very unique voice that some people...
Guest:you know like or don't like like or don't like he's got it uh yeah it divides people so he has sort of a divisive musical presence on the records which i like but people started of course you know not of course but they started gravitating towards my songs and he felt that you know and then so there was nothing i could do to stop that from happening right even though like when we played live it was like no we we kept it really equal all the time i never like tried to step out like
Guest:Because Eric was such an incredibly gifted performer, really, and he loved being in front of people.
Guest:We used to be downtown Northampton, and he would just grab an acoustic guitar and just start improvising songs on the street corner.
Guest:He was just this really provocative lead man.
Guest:So when he would play guitar, when Sebedo played, Jason and I would assemble behind him and play as his band.
Guest:And when I would play, they would assemble behind me and play as my band.
Guest:And I really liked that.
Guest:But eventually, like, Eric just really started chafing at that whole idea.
Guest:Like, he just, because I think he really wanted to be in control.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he kind of felt like I stole the control from him.
Marc:That's what, let's see, that's the same.
Marc:I guess that is the fundamental issue with band dynamics.
Marc:Because, I mean, that's what happened with Dinosaur Jr.
Marc:That's what happened with, you know, whether it's real or not real, whether it's someone's like, fuck you, you're controlling, or you don't realize you're controlling.
Marc:Those kind of obstacles can't be negotiated sometimes.
Guest:No, I mean, I took it as far as I could with Eric.
Guest:I mean, he would quit the band whenever he felt like, and he would send me these really long letters that were all written in different color ink, and he would almost make them like collages.
Guest:They kind of look like serial killer notes.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he would just always pick out things like where I had insulted him at some point, or he would dissect the way I had treated him and just be like, okay...
Guest:Well, why don't you go live in Portland for a couple of months and then when you're ready to come back, you know, give me a call.
Guest:You know, and he would do that.
Guest:So he would always come back and leave and come back.
Guest:And then finally, finally he sent me another one of these letters and he said, you know, I want one third of every record advance.
Guest:You will not play on any of my songs.
Guest:I will not go on tour.
Guest:You know, just like...
Guest:And I said, that's great.
Guest:You're not in the band anymore.
Guest:Like, sorry.
Guest:You can't be a guy who takes a third of our money, does all your own stuff, puts your songs in with mine, and never tours or plays my songs.
Guest:It's not going to happen.
Guest:That's wrong.
Guest:I had to put my foot down and just be like...
Guest:like that's not happening yeah friend like anything else will happen as long as you if you want to spend the time with me to make music and let me play your music and play my music i'll do anything you want i'll do any crazy shit you want to do right i will continue to follow you into whatever weird territory you want to go to i will be there i will be your man i'll be your wingman i'm you know yeah
Guest:But that's too far.
Guest:And then it was just the years of him just writing me letters like, you owe me $100,000.
Guest:You owe me.
Guest:And then with the invention of the net and email, I just got this idea in my head like, I got to get Eric back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I got to get him back.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So I spent like two years just emailing him constantly and addressing every single one of his points.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't owe you $20,000 because like, you know, when you think, you know, just, and he had some wild stuff that he'd accused me of that I would just, you know, really just go by point by point and just like say, I didn't do that.
Marc:At any point did you like to think like, well, maybe he's got some mental issues that he'd,
Marc:Yeah, of course.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But everybody, everybody did.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Like, I mean, Jay, I mean, he's, I, there's something going on with Jay.
Guest:Sure, sure.
Guest:And then, I mean, as I get older and look at myself and the clearer I can look at myself, I'm like, yeah, I've got some issues too, you know.
Guest:I played in a band called The Folk Implosion with a guy, John Davis, who was just a brilliant, beautiful guy.
Guest:I mean, he had some really serious issues.
Marc:Well, yeah.
Marc:Okay, so what ultimately happened with you and Eric?
Guest:Eric, well, we got him back in the band, like 2007.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Got him back in the band, reissued some records, went on tour.
Guest:He played drums for us.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We got the old band back together again.
Guest:We toured Europe and the US.
Guest:It went well.
Guest:I think it went great.
Guest:But somehow we lost $6,000 in the midst of one of these tours and we didn't know where it went.
Guest:And so then it was like, I had to like figure this out with Eric, who then of course said, well, there's $6,000 missing.
Guest:You need to give me that money.
Guest:I'm like, I don't have that money.
Guest:We all lost that money.
Guest:That's not the way it works.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then from there, it was like he would then start just sending me more of these kind of letters like, you know, you insulted me on stage in Hamburg.
Guest:So I went right back to work, yeah.
Guest:I was like, okay.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, like, I...
Guest:And then it just became about him just going through the minutia of all of the horrible ways that I had offended him or shamed him in public.
Marc:So that was it?
Guest:That was it.
Guest:And I'm with Jason the whole time, too, and Jason's a very no-nonsense person.
Guest:Loewenstein?
Guest:yeah he's awesome you know really and you guys are you got he seems stable he's stable i mean he's like but he's you know he's a guy who comes from absolute chaos in his background as much as anyone else like there's people who come from chaos who hold that against the world and there's people who come from chaos and are just like you know they don't they're not chaos they have a calm they've got a call they've got a system they've got a system they've got a calm
Guest:um you know he's playing with you tomorrow he's playing with me tomorrow with uh and we have a drummer named bob d'amico who plays had been playing with jason for ages and they were in a band called the fiery furnaces together and uh yeah so we've got a new a new sabato that we've been playing for about two years and we just did a record so john davis in the in the folk implosion i mean that was you know you did a song with him that became like a bonafide hit of sorts yeah yeah it was cool
Guest:what's it called again natural one yeah yeah it was on the radio yeah it was like no like you know casey casem yeah it was awesome i mean that was really sweet where are you at with that project he well i did a record after i moved out here and did two records in quick succession succession like all right the the sebado and then i did this record called one part lullaby with the folk implosion and that was the first record i put out on a major label and
Marc:It's weird, though, because all your records are uniquely yours stylistically and melodically and writing-wise, but some are stripped down.
Marc:I mean, like the folk explosion is a different sound.
Guest:Yeah, totally.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:That was like we were using lots of samples and all this almost like, I mean, it was like trip-hop influenced.
Guest:It was poppy, but it also, you know, it was just we were really stepping out and kind of like almost, it was a really, it was a sweet project.
Guest:I loved it.
Marc:And so you were a little more meticulous about the production.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:But still doing what you want to do.
Guest:Still doing exactly what I wanted to do.
Guest:And I've been working really closely with my partners in the band and with John Davis.
Guest:And then we had a guy, Wally Gagel, who produced the record.
Guest:And we did this really beautiful record.
Guest:And John quit the day the record came out.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So.
Marc:What did you do to him, Lou?
Marc:How did you drive him crazy?
Guest:Well, I mean, at the time, I mean, there was, yeah, I don't know.
Guest:I was not in my, I was not in a great state at that time for sure.
Guest:But he, I was kind of a drug addict and he was someone who was very, his whole life was very controlled.
Guest:Like he, I mean, I can't really get too in depth about it, but he, he just, everything had to be very controlled and very, and I was living in chaos.
Guest:So that definitely, I think for him, he probably needed to get away from me.
Marc:yeah what was the drug what was your drug meth really holy shit you went down that hole i did for how long probably two years oh my god do you do anything now uh i drink a little bit yeah oh so you so you you were you were nuts
Guest:i was nuts yeah how far nuts voices in your head nuts where you started getting there i was getting to the voices stage and then i um uh what kind of saved me was i would go on tour yeah and i went on tour and i started drinking whiskey and whiskey got me off of it off of meth
Guest:yeah and then um it's not the recommended treatment no if it works it's not i mean like my whole life i realized like at some point like my life has always been like you know from the the introduction of like drugs into my life it's been like a relay race sure yeah okay marijuana hands it to alcohol alcohol takes it down oh back to marijuana marijuana to crystal methamphetamine oh a slight detour into cocaine ecstasy no back to meth coming on the final stretch
Marc:We're getting a little old for that shit, right?
Marc:No, I totally... Meth is taxing.
Guest:Yeah, I developed facial tics.
Guest:I still have.
Marc:Yeah, well, you kept your teeth and your hair.
Marc:I did.
Marc:You didn't commit that much.
Guest:No, I can't because I'm not a self-destructive person.
Marc:You're a self-medicating person.
Guest:Yeah, but even that, I don't even know why I feel like I have to medicate because I don't...
Guest:because you're sensitive guy seriously hey but i don't you know i mean alcohol help that's a really good social thing for me do you have like do you are you an anxious guy i'm pretty anxious but i know so many people that are so much more anxious than i am that it makes me kind of back off and i can't afford to be anxious like i can't i can't afford to be afraid to fly right no
Guest:I can't afford to be freaked out that I'm going over a bridge.
Guest:I can't afford to freak out about going through a tunnel.
Marc:But would you be if you don't have the self-talk around that?
Marc:I have tendencies, yeah.
Marc:Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Marc:For sure.
Marc:My first reaction when I have a lot of things to do is not like I'm going to get them done.
Marc:It's like, fuck.
Marc:Just dread.
Marc:And that creates a fucking... I need to calm down.
Marc:I eat these nicotine lozenges.
Marc:I don't drink or do drugs anymore.
Marc:It's just all coffee and nicotine.
Guest:I would love not to do anything.
Guest:You'd love to not drink and...
Guest:it's just physically it's just really yeah physically it just it really where it just wears you down even just a couple of glasses of wine tonight i'm like it just kind of makes gives me a headache you know that's called you're getting old i know i'm i embrace it i don't mind getting old i'm fine with it you know how many kids you got two yeah and they're and they live here
Guest:They live here.
Guest:They live in Silver Lake with their mother.
Marc:So that fell apart?
Guest:That fell apart like eight months ago.
Marc:So you're in the middle of it?
Guest:I'm going to a meeting with my soon-to-be ex-wife and her lawyer in about three hours with my lawyer because they sent me a court order.
Guest:She told me she wouldn't send me a court order, and then she did.
Marc:Let me tell you one thing.
Marc:I'll tell you one thing about this.
Marc:I got no kids.
Marc:And a lot of what you're putting on her is her lawyer.
Marc:That lawyers turn them out.
Guest:Oh, I know.
Guest:I see it.
Guest:Because I would just be like, what are you doing?
Guest:I got the quarter.
Guest:What are you doing?
Guest:She's going to ruin us.
Guest:What are you like?
Guest:She's going to ruin us.
Guest:I mean, like if you think you're doing this out of self-interest or she's talked you into it or your friends have talked you into thinking you're doing it out of your self-interest, you're actually destroying the two of us.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:They demonize you.
Marc:What the lawyer starts to do is like, he's hiding money.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:That's totally happening because my job is so bizarre.
Marc:Right.
Marc:When you're an independent contractor and you have a business, and then they're going to fucking drag you through a disclosure process.
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Guest:No, they want a forensic.
Guest:I'd never heard this term.
Guest:Forensic accountant.
Guest:That's a new term.
Marc:I'm sorry you're going through that, dude.
Marc:And you can't, like, is it hostile?
Marc:I mean, was she hostile when you separated?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She was bombed, yeah.
Guest:I mean, I was the big bad guy.
Guest:I mean, I broke up with her.
Guest:I did the whole classic middle-aged kind of.
Guest:I mean, I fell in love with someone else.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But, you know.
Guest:Are you with that person now?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, you're going to have to ride this out, buddy.
Guest:I know.
Guest:I'm like, if I can do it, if I can do it without just internalizing all the pressure and somehow it manifesting itself physically, like, I'll be okay.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:Because I know mentally, like, I'm pretty, like...
Guest:there's a lot of i mean my kids are a great source of like joy in my life i mean in in a certain way like having them outside of the of the the sort of structure that i was living with them in before right like like a huge gift for me yeah really getting to know them and in a way that she's not trying to take them away no you're gonna split that up pretty good yeah as much as i can i mean i tour all the time so that's hard
Marc:But here, I'll just tell you what's going to happen.
Marc:You're going to be dragged through a bunch of bullshit until you finally go, all right, how much is it going to take to stop this?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That's what's going to happen.
Marc:So you might want to get there sooner than later.
Guest:Oh, no, I know.
Guest:That was the whole thing.
Guest:It was like this meeting I was going to do today.
Guest:I'm like, I can't do this.
Guest:I told my lawyer, like, I can't do this meeting.
Guest:I'm going to be on a really cool podcast today, and I got to practice with my band.
Guest:And he's just like, Lou.
Yeah.
Guest:If we don't do this, you don't do this meeting today because I'm leaving on a tour tomorrow.
Guest:And then the court order is supposed to go through.
Guest:I mean, it's like last minute mind fuck.
Marc:There's no justice.
Marc:Okay.
Marc:Whatever you think is right doesn't matter.
Marc:I know.
Marc:And the quicker you settle it, the less of your money the lawyers will get.
Guest:tell you the good thing i mean to tie this into what we're talking about is like my relationship with my bandmates i mean like i got used to like dealing with with a logic i mean like logic has nothing to do with it either you want to work it out with somebody and you have to do it on on their terms to a degree i mean like you have to say okay this is this is nuts but if you feel this is what's happening i'm going to acknowledge this from you and i'm going to acknowledge that reality instead of fighting against it i'm going to acknowledge it
Guest:And allow it, you know, I mean, allow it to the point where I'm not just completely destroying myself at the same time.
Guest:I mean, that's the balance.
Guest:Right.
Marc:But that's... The big bad part of the divorcing is like the guy with the... Whoever's got the money, that's... It's all... You're going to pay for her lawyer.
Marc:You're going to pay for your lawyer.
Marc:You're going to pay her what she needs.
Marc:And it's like if you can... You just want to at some point stop hemorrhaging the money because the lawyer's like, you know, really, it's in their interest to drag it out as long as possible.
Marc:I know.
Guest:And they...
Guest:well yeah it's good they're doing a great job at that respect they're doing a good job it's definitely entered like i remember these like funny conversations that uh my ex-wife hadn't or soon to be ex had you know early on which is like yeah let's just you know this is gonna be a mediation right this is gonna be good i think we can do this yeah it'll be best for the kids yeah good for us yeah no court order you know she's like oh
Guest:My friends are telling me to get a court order.
Guest:We shouldn't really do that.
Guest:She's like, I know we shouldn't do that.
Guest:We could probably get this thing wrapped up in maybe two, three months.
Marc:And now the friends have gotten in their head.
Marc:The lawyers have gotten in their head.
Marc:You're a monster.
Marc:You have a Swiss bank account now.
Marc:You're like, you have millions of dollars that I don't know about.
Guest:One of the great things is they want to have all my stuff appraised, all my instruments appraised.
Guest:Here's the thing.
Guest:I'm not a collector by any means.
Guest:I use the barest minimum of what I possibly can use.
Guest:And I've always done that just because I channel my money into my house, into my home, into my children.
Yeah.
Guest:And that's what I've always done.
Guest:I have maybe $3,000 worth of equipment, which is pretty modest, you know, a handful of guitars.
Guest:They want to pay $2,000 to get a guy to go in and appraise my stuff that I'm going to pay for.
Marc:It's so fucking ridiculous.
Marc:Just ask her.
Marc:Just say, how much does she want?
Guest:How much does she... Can I... I know what she wants and that's too much.
Guest:All right.
Guest:Well, there you go.
Guest:Then it's going to... No, I mean, it's too many.
Guest:It's devastating.
Guest:But we'll figure... I don't know.
Guest:It'll... I'm... You know, a year... I just keep thinking it's like, you know, a year from now, you know, the way of the land is going to be a little different.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:You know, and...
Marc:And your catalog does pretty well, right?
Guest:Record sales aren't what make my money, you know?
Guest:It's touring.
Guest:It's touring.
Guest:It's totally touring.
Guest:And then, you know, odd royalties, I guess.
Guest:It all, it accumulates.
Guest:I mean, it just sort of, it's, but it's so random.
Marc:It is.
Marc:You just don't know.
Guest:Oh, I got a, you know, $2,000 check today.
Guest:What?
Guest:Like, what?
Marc:okay that's great it's like every day's christmas you know where'd that come from i mean thank god but when you did the tour like when you regroup with dinosaur what was it three years ago four years ago for that eight years ago already i mean was that you know did that change everything personally and mentally for you around all that stuff did you get closure did you think the band played well i did i got i totally whose idea was that
Guest:Um, it was Jay's manager's idea.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:Someone's like, Hey, we can make some money.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Cause they were, you know, Jay had finally worked and, you know, sort of perfected the reissues of the first three records and then said, um, yeah.
Guest:And then the manager, his manager was like, we got to do a reunion tour.
Guest:And Jay was not into it.
Guest:And then, you know, Jay had terms for, you know, how much money he wanted out of it.
Guest:And I used to call Jay and say, dude, seriously, do you really want like, you know, X amount of money?
Guest:I mean, that's not fair.
Guest:It's like, I don't care.
Guest:I don't want to do this anyway.
Guest:and then i was just then i was just weighed with like okay do i just say you know like oh well then i'm not doing it yeah or do i just go i'm gonna do it because i want to do it yeah because i want to do it personally i want to play the songs again i want to i want to be a part of this
Marc:And you did get some closure?
Guest:Yeah, I said, okay, I'm going to be a part of it.
Guest:And I did it.
Guest:And I'm glad I did.
Marc:And you guys are better because of it?
Guest:I think we're better because of it.
Guest:I think the cool thing about what I do with Jay or the relationship I have with him is it always feels like it's evolving in some way.
Guest:Even though it's glacial and sometimes almost totally imperceptible and sometimes it seems to be moving backwards.
Guest:But in general, it's like, this is still moving towards something.
Guest:I don't...
Marc:we get older you know i mean even when i talk to him like and i don't know him from anybody but you could tell that he had some sort of cosmic shift in his life you know and now you're gonna you're gonna get one you're gonna get it you're at the beginning of a life defining bit of business yeah well i mean that was the point what the life to find yeah i wanted something to
Marc:And how do you feel about the new record?
Marc:I mean, is it different for you?
Marc:Is it, you know, what did you do differently and how does it compare to some of the older stuff in your mind, creatively?
Guest:Creatively, it reminds me of just the older stuff because we did it all ourselves.
Guest:I had a practice space over in Glendale that we knocked and we recorded all the basics in Glendale through my space and did it all ourselves.
Guest:Jason is the engineer, totally self-contained, you know.
Guest:I had a friend of mine mix my songs, but...
Guest:And then, of course, going through all the stuff that I'm going through, too, it really focused me on finishing.
Guest:Just immediately, bam, bam, bam.
Guest:All this stuff just started coming together.
Guest:Whereas before, I'd be like, what's the next line?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:Because I can't even be honest with myself.
Guest:Because if I'm honest here, I've got to be honest.
Guest:You know what I mean?
Guest:Just the honesty part of it, I was really stuck.
Marc:That's a little bit of a theme with you, isn't it?
Guest:yeah well i can't remember the other thing is i can't remember my lyrics unless i know if i'm unless i'm singing something that i'm going through or that i i believe in or that that is happening because i i just can't it's not immediate you can't just i can't access it in my brain i don't like i just can't if i'm making stuff up or trying to be clever it's like i or writing from someone else's point of view i just can't remember the lyrics
Marc:i'm the same way like everything's very immediate for me and like i did a show that was like i was i did a show about my divorce and separation during the separation and it was so clear right that i needed to have the conversation publicly in order for me to fucking process it yeah is that the same way it is that is like that
Marc:Because a lot of people are like, why don't you play that song?
Marc:Or why don't you do that bit anymore?
Marc:It's like, because I'm fucking done.
Marc:I can't go back there.
Marc:I mean, you have distance.
Marc:And sometimes songs, and I imagine some comedy transcends the feelings that are immediate.
Marc:But to really get behind it, it's not the same.
Marc:What did you feel like when you were playing those dinosaur songs?
Marc:Was it just fun to be part of it?
Guest:Oh, I loved it, yeah.
Guest:I love dinosaur songs.
Guest:I love them.
Guest:I mean, I love the records.
Marc:It's sort of heartbreaking that you guys have the relationship you do.
Hmm.
Guest:i don't know i mean i spend a lot of time i spend too much time i think about all of it a lot you do like in what sense regrets or no not regrets i guess i'm always trying to like this was something i mean it kept me with uh my wife for so long 25 years it's like i'm always figuring out for 25 years 25 years i'm always trying to figure out ways was she the girl that she was jealous of immediately initially yeah she was my first you know
Guest:Really.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So I spend a lot of my time when things go wrong.
Guest:I spend a lot of my time figuring out what I did wrong.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Or and figuring out ways around it or figuring out just trying to get in and trying to trying to understand it.
Guest:Because sometimes if someone presents me with something that I find unacceptable, it's like.
Guest:Well, what do I do?
Guest:Like, just carry this around?
Guest:Like, that's unacceptable.
Guest:Or do I try to understand what this other person is going through and maybe gain, that's how I'm going to gain closure.
Guest:They're not going to give it to me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, most people are just not going to hand that to me.
Guest:They don't have the ability to do that.
Guest:Most people do not have the ability...
Guest:To give you closure for things, you know, and like, it's kind of up to you.
Guest:Exactly.
Guest:It's up to me to do that.
Guest:So, I mean, and that's a lot of ways with my relationships with Jay, you know, Eric Gaffney, John Davis, my wife, you know, um,
Guest:Those are spent, I spend my time thinking into it, getting into it, figuring out what I need to do to either make it go further or, but now that I'm getting older, it's like, fuck.
Guest:Some things I'm like, with Eric Gaffney, it's like, I'm not doing that.
Guest:It's too far.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, there's an interesting thing in the if you get into like the recovery model, you know, of not drinking shit.
Marc:Right.
Marc:There's that inventory thing.
Marc:Like there's this thing where it's designed to sort of enable people who have somehow destroyed their life or ruminate on whatever that damage was.
Marc:And you just sort of like you make this big list of people and you say like how they wronged you.
Marc:And then you put your part in it.
Marc:And then you put like, you know, what part of me does that affect?
Marc:And then you get this big long diagram list of exactly how you're an asshole or how you're not.
Marc:But you know how to take responsibility for that shit to just say like, I did what I could.
Marc:I, you know, I'm contrite.
Marc:I apologize.
Marc:You know, I, you know, this is what I did in that.
Marc:If you don't want to accept my apology, I did my part.
Marc:That's it.
Marc:And then after that, you either choose to ruminate or not.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:It's hard to cleanse that shit.
Marc:But, I mean, I know that fucking struggle.
Marc:You know what I mean?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, I mean, you sound pretty good.
Marc:I mean, I don't know you, but you sound all right.
Guest:No, I'm living with my girlfriend and going on tour and playing music with my friends.
Marc:Awesome.
Marc:You want to play some music?
Marc:Do you want to do a song?
Guest:Oh, yeah, okay.
Marc:Are you ready?
Marc:Is that a... That's a ukulele.
Guest:That's a baritone ukulele, yeah.
Marc:Sounds good.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:I am ready.
Marc:Okay.
Guest:All right.
Guest:They've got the calves of champions They greet the warmest way They are the dads, the men ones They've got some money saved
Guest:Another kind of classroom Another shade of fear Another door you shone through Until you conquer your fear
Guest:Let my children go.
Guest:Feeleth themselves to hurt and grow.
Guest:That's the hardest thing I have done and haven't even done it yet.
Guest:Thought I was wise, averted my eyes, avoided the light, went head down through it.
Guest:But I was wrong, I've gotta be strong and hold my head up high Failure is a state of mind
Guest:Back in Massachusetts In my familiar role Afraid to make decisions But had to test my soul The girl wanted to live here And I followed my love I came to California
Guest:Enough was never enough
Guest:To let my children go To feel it themselves, to hurt and groan That's the hardest thing I have done And I haven't even done it yet
Guest:Thought I was wise, averted my eyes, avoided the light, went hand down through air.
Guest:But I was wrong, I've gotta be strong and hold my head up high.
Guest:Failure is a state of mind.
Marc:Awesome, man.
Guest:This is an old song.
Guest:The last song was a new song.
Guest:It's all a matter of soul and fire Infatuation, a true desire The thrill of discovery, divine intervention Cruel, cruel change and the pain of rejection
Guest:And when you walk away, think of all the joy we share If you decide you need me, I'll be wondering if I care
Guest:Not there to soothe your soul Friend to tender friend I think our love is coming to an end
Guest:King Persuader Congratulations You share her heart You bought her soul Princess Confusion Come to me again Saying goodbye
Guest:was so much fun when you walk away think of all the joy we share when you walk away feel the freedom in your heart
Guest:There's joy in letting go.
Guest:You're free to find the love apart.
Guest:Cause when I lose control, I need a kind, forgiving friend.
Guest:But I think our love is coming to an end.
Guest:I know all love is coming to an end.
Marc:That's awesome, man.
Marc:Sounds great.
Marc:I love that little thing.
Guest:Yeah, this thing's great.
Marc:Thanks for talking to me, Lou.
Marc:No problem.
Marc:Thank you for talking to me.
Marc:Alright, that's it.
Marc:That's the show.
Marc:I hope you enjoyed that.
Marc:I fucking love when musicians play in here.
Marc:It's fucking beautiful.
Marc:Intense guy.
Marc:Great conversation.
Marc:It was great to hear the other side of some of that Dinosaur Junior stuff.
Marc:Go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Check the merch section.
Marc:Things are happening.
Marc:Ceramic mugs should be there.
Marc:Regular mugs should be there.
Marc:Cat bowls, t-shirts, all that stuff should be there and available to you.
Marc:Some posters there.
Marc:Some of those posters are single printings, but we got most of them.
Marc:Will Ferrell on Monday, Ken Marino this Thursday.
Marc:I'll be on the Pete Holmes show tonight also.
Marc:Oh, I went to the gym.
Marc:I'm back in.
Marc:I'm back.
Marc:I did a day.
Marc:So that could either be back in or just an anomaly.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:We'll see.
Marc:Boomer lives!
you