Episode 647 - Mikal Cronin / Patrick Stickles
Marc:all right let's do this how are you what the fuckers what the fuck buddies what the fucking ears what the fucksters how's it going this is mark maron this is wtf this is my podcast welcome to the show hope you're doing well i hope i hope you're doing well globally
Marc:I hope all my friends around the world are doing well.
Marc:Everyone who's listening to this and all these different countries.
Marc:I just got back from Australia this morning and I'm out of my fucking mind.
Marc:I was only there long enough just almost to adjust to the difference in time, which is like 15, 16 hours ahead of where I am now.
Marc:So I flew back in time this morning and I'm fucking out of my mind.
Marc:But I got to be honest with you, given all my panic and fear and everything else, and I mean this, I had some of the best shows of my life in Australia this last trip.
Marc:I don't know what it was.
Marc:Maybe it had something to do with the jet lag.
Marc:I don't know if you know how I work, but I flew out there.
Marc:And I talked to you right when I got there, but later that day, I went and did television.
Marc:I slept for like three hours.
Marc:And then that night, that Wednesday night in Melbourne, I got to do the Project Live, which is a panel show.
Marc:So I get there, I'm like, I'm fragmented on sleep.
Marc:I ate a Cadbury dairy milk bar, amazing British chocolate, I believe it is.
Marc:I had a bunch of coffee, all the coffee there is espresso based.
Marc:There's no just regular drip coffee.
Marc:So I jammed myself up with sugar and caffeine and I went on TV in Melbourne, Australia, killed it.
Marc:And I don't say that about myself much, but it was good.
Marc:So I went back, crashed out.
Marc:And then the next morning we flew to Sydney after I did another TV show in Australia, a morning program with two anchors, man and woman.
Marc:That went pretty good.
Marc:Got on a plane for Sydney, got there.
Marc:And they had all this candy in the fucking minibar.
Marc:So I just went to sleep for three hours, ate a giant piece of chocolate with marshmallows, and then some other chocolate, then drank a bunch of coffee, and I headed over to the State Theater in Sydney, nervous because, as you know, I got a little...
Marc:anxious about the trip because i didn't know if we were selling tickets and there was some panic apparently everyone who likes me in australia bought their tickets immediately months ago and then very few people bought them after that but the fact of the matter is i got there got this michael hing guy opening for me did a great job the state theater is an amazing theater is one of the most beautiful theaters i've ever seen really in sydney and
Marc:And holy shit, there's about 1,100 people there, which is fine.
Marc:Even if the place seats more, it was fine, and they were into it.
Marc:And I don't know if it was jet lag or what, but I rambled through.
Marc:You know what?
Marc:I should give myself more credit.
Marc:I professionally rambled through about two hours and change, did a little Q&A in the middle for no fucking reason, just feeling it out, feeling the jet lag.
Marc:The thing about jet lag is you feel...
Marc:It's a combination of feelings.
Marc:You feel hungover, but then when you feel that, and I know I don't drink, it's like being hungover with having nothing fun to regret.
Marc:It's just the travel and you're fucked up and you're kind of queasy and your brain's not quite fucking working.
Marc:But I did like two hours and 10 minutes and it was fun.
Marc:And the audience was great.
Marc:It was a great show.
Marc:It was one of the better shows I've ever done.
Marc:Next day, we fly back to Melbourne.
Marc:I go to sleep again, eat some more chocolate, drink some more coffee.
Marc:And then I go to the Palais Theater right by the water.
Marc:It's this damp kind of smelly old theater.
Marc:It's pretty stunning, though, but it's dark.
Marc:It's got the haunted vibe.
Marc:It's sort of like, yeah, there was a lot of stuff that went on here.
Marc:And I don't know what you got, but I'm a little exhausted as a structure.
Marc:And that's how I felt that theater was.
Marc:You turn the lights on that theater and it goes like, oh, what?
Marc:What's happening now?
Marc:Again, what is it this time?
Marc:Is it music or some needy guy?
Marc:My opener, Ann Edmonds, did great.
Marc:And I got out there and I project onto it.
Marc:This old haunted structure with about 1,200 people in it.
Marc:Plenty of room.
Marc:I began to look at it as sort of an experimental art piece exploring the empty space of theater.
Marc:But it didn't matter.
Marc:Both those theaters were so hot and the crowds were so good.
Marc:And the Stones played there in 65.
Marc:And I did another two-hour show, but this one was pretty fucking tight.
Marc:And it was really one of the best shows I ever did in my life.
Marc:It was very exciting.
Marc:Then the next day, fly to Brisbane, which I was nervous about because this was the show I almost canceled because the tickets weren't selling.
Marc:I sold about $350, $375.
Marc:And then they found a room in the same structure.
Marc:It's in the actual city hall of Brisbane.
Marc:So after doing these two huge theaters and really just...
Marc:putting on big shows for me.
Marc:All of a sudden I was in this intimate space and I was just stripped bare.
Marc:The jet lag had ripped me open and the shows had ripped me open and I was almost too fragile in some ways to do the show, but it made the show even more exciting, more interesting.
Marc:And Mel Buttle, who opened for me, was hilarious.
Marc:And we're just in this conference room in City Hall.
Marc:It was all good.
Marc:And I have to tell you, Australia, I apologize.
Marc:I have to tell the people that are listening.
Marc:I had no time to do fucking anything, sightsee or nothing.
Marc:Just eat food, eat chocolate, drink coffee, sleep erratically, and do shows.
Marc:Three days I was in fucking Australia.
Marc:It's a hell of a trip for three days, but it was great.
Marc:I want to thank the people of Australia and thank everybody for the amazing momentum we moved towards Australia with.
Marc:I wish I'd stayed longer because the other thing about...
Marc:Jet lag is now just seems like a fucking dream.
Marc:I don't even know if I was there.
Marc:You just feel like you're moving through waking consciousness, a dream that you have just a little bit of control over, but your brain is still firing like you're asleep, so everything just sort of fades quickly.
Marc:It's very weird in Australia.
Marc:There's a lot of people, a lot of different kinds of people, but there seems to be this large tribe of spiky-haired alpha males who seem preoccupied with various types of football playing.
Marc:Maybe I'm projecting.
Marc:But they all look kind of similar.
Marc:They all look like they're on a mostly protein diet and would probably smile while they hit your face.
Marc:But maybe I'm projecting.
Marc:Thank you, Australia, is what I'm trying to say.
Marc:Now, look, today on the show, I've got a guy I really like a lot.
Marc:I love his music.
Marc:Michael Cronin will be here.
Marc:He'll play a song.
Marc:And then my buddy Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus just happened to be down the street.
Marc:And I snagged him.
Marc:So that's going to happen in a minute.
Marc:Let's start doing this.
Marc:We're heading into the Lorne Michaels episode.
Marc:It's in the future a bit, but we're heading into it.
Marc:And we're going back through the history of the show to sort of hear from guests that know Lorne and to get a real sense of how Lorne has loomed over so much of what we do as comedians.
Marc:And it looms large in my mind.
Marc:I don't know how much you had to do with what I do, but it's certainly been an obsession of mine.
Marc:So we've been sort of kind of going through the back episodes to...
Marc:to get these Lauren stories.
Marc:And there's a lot of them.
Marc:There's like three or four special episodes of just Lauren stories if we really wanted to do it.
Marc:But as we head into my experience, my new experience with Lauren Michaels, I want to play this clip.
Marc:This is from 2011.
Marc:This is from episode 164.
Marc:It was a live show from Brooklyn at the Bell House that included Bill Hader and Fred Armisen.
Guest:How often do you have to deal with Lorne?
Guest:Like every day?
Guest:All the time.
Guest:He's awesome.
Guest:He really is great.
Guest:He's very hands-on.
Guest:Can I share with you how paranoid I am?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:I had one meeting with him.
Marc:When?
Marc:Like 95 or something.
Marc:And it didn't go well.
Marc:And I think he brought me in was when Luna was starting downtown.
Marc:And the first thing he said to me was like, I don't know what you think you're doing down there below 14th Street, but it doesn't matter.
Guest:It didn't matter, did it?
Guest:No, it didn't matter at all.
Marc:But this is how fucking nuts I am and how self-important I am.
Marc:The Wall Street Journal wrote up this show and I told the interviewer who was asking me about Luna and that you guys were coming on and I told him about the SNL story and I told him that story because he was asking me about alternative comedy and I called him back.
Marc:And I said, look, could you pull the Lorne thing out?
Marc:Because I don't want him to see it and then keep Fred and Bill late.
Marc:I thought Lorne Michaels was going to see that story and say, you guys aren't going...
Marc:You're not going to the fabled WTM.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:That's crazy.
Guest:That's a good move, though.
Guest:That is.
Guest:I mean, that is a good move.
Guest:He did the right thing.
Guest:He did do the right thing.
Guest:No, yeah.
Guest:I mean, there's certain things, like, he'll laugh really hard at.
Guest:Like, any time, like, Will Forte would get angry in a sketch, Lauren would start laughing really hard.
Guest:And Will's face would get red and be like, What the fuck is he doing?
Guest:yeah like he would just like that was like lauren's sweet spot lauren would just start laughing he would see it on the horizon yeah yeah but does that make everybody feel good like does will come back and go i made the king laugh yeah yeah or you do hear that sometimes you go back to the office be like lauren was laughing yeah yeah that's a point that's a point after read through it or you're doing something you look up and he's not laughing and you're like oh has he ever given you any weird notes
Marc:Like, that just made you go, oh, okay.
Guest:Sometimes you have to, like, think, like, what does he mean by that?
Guest:It's that kind of thing.
Guest:But they're always constructive.
Guest:He'll do a weird psych-out thing.
Guest:Not weird psych, but I think he's being honest, but it becomes a psych.
Guest:Like, the very first Vincent Price we did, I came up, and he was, like, there's a band playing.
Guest:I'm dressed as Vincent Price.
Guest:I'm sitting there.
Guest:I'm, like, really nervous.
Guest:It's, like, my fifth show or something.
Guest:And he came up to me.
Guest:He's like, I like this, but why now?
LAUGHTER
Guest:What's this?
Guest:And I was like, why didn't you just say I'm about to go live?
Guest:And he's like, no, no, it's good.
Guest:I like it.
Marc:Yeah, man.
Marc:See, Lauren has had the zap on my head for a long time.
Marc:And you're going to hear...
Marc:Where we stand, him and I now, and what gets hashed out soon, my friends.
Marc:All right, let's talk Stickles.
Marc:Patrick Stickles.
Marc:Patrick Stickles is the front man of Titus Andronicus.
Marc:You might have heard him here on episode 462.
Marc:It was one of my favorites.
Marc:The guy's mind is on fire.
Marc:He's got a brain on fire all the time.
Marc:I like guys like that.
Marc:And here's what happened.
Marc:He's got this amazing new double, triple record out.
Marc:It comes with three vinyl discs.
Marc:Full 12-inch vinyl.
Marc:One of them, you got to play at 45.
Marc:Keeps you on your toes.
Marc:But it's a rock opera.
Marc:And we had talked about him doing this rock opera when he was on a couple years ago.
Marc:And I just liked his records.
Marc:I don't even know where I got his records, The Monitor and Local Business.
Marc:And I just felt that he meant it, man.
Marc:He means it.
Marc:He's got to play rock and roll to live.
Marc:mentally and physically, if it doesn't get out of them, we're all in trouble.
Marc:So I really, I mean, I liked his drive and I was, I was excited to have him on the show.
Marc:So here's what happens.
Marc:He gave me the test pressings of this vinyl.
Marc:When I did my show at BAM in Brooklyn, he came backstage.
Marc:He was going to come to the show, but, but he got there an hour and a half, two hours late, but he brought me these test pressings and he gave them to me as a gift, which was great.
Marc:But,
Marc:But I got the vinyl.
Marc:I got the CD of the most lamentable tragedy.
Marc:That's the name of the rock opera from Titus Andronicus.
Marc:It's her first album on Merge Records.
Marc:You can get it at mergerecords.com slash shop and use the promo code WTF at checkout to get 20% off all music and merch.
Marc:Also, you can hear my full episode with Patrick.
Marc:And as I told you before, it was episode 462.
Marc:And you can get that on Hal Premium.
Marc:So Patrick Stickles is in town, tells me he's coming to town.
Marc:He's playing at the Roxy.
Marc:I can't make it.
Marc:That day, though, I'm driving down York Boulevard in my neighborhood.
Marc:And out in front of Permanent Records, I see a bearded Stickles.
Marc:Just hanging out talking to people.
Marc:I'm like, what the fuck?
Marc:I knew he was in town.
Marc:I didn't know he was doing an in-store permanent, but they'd just done it.
Marc:And I pulled over and I see him.
Marc:He's just on fire.
Marc:The dude is just like mentally on fire and full of the spirit of rock and roll and trying to crunch the big existential numbers in his head at all times.
Marc:So I said, hey, man, won't you come over tomorrow and hang out on the mic for a bit?
Marc:He's like, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So this is a sort of impromptu conversation with Patrick Stickles from Titus Andronicus.
Marc:And he also just informed me that his his new music video is going to to be premiering, I believe, today at Titus Andronicus dot net.
Marc:All right.
Marc:OK, I'm telling you that now.
Marc:And now you're going to hear me talk to Stickles.
Marc:Where the fuck is that ashtray?
Marc:I hate to have this ashtray.
Marc:Hold on.
Marc:That's it.
Guest:I just want to thank everybody for tuning in to What the Fuck with me, your host, Patrick Stickles.
Guest:Coming to you from the garage that you all have imagined so many times.
Guest:I just want to let you know that it is real.
Guest:It's a real place.
Guest:So what's going on?
Guest:Let's just work some shit out.
Guest:Let me tell you, driving around this neighborhood with a big trailer is tough.
Guest:Can I tell you, folks?
Guest:I sure scared myself a few times trying to park that thing on those hills.
Guest:All right, my guest today is Marc Maron.
Marc:Hold on.
Guest:You might know him from Dr. Katz, professional therapist, and he's... I did it.
Marc:Patrick Stickles.
Guest:Hello, hello.
Guest:Here in the garage again.
Guest:What an honor to be back here.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:Well, you're welcome.
Guest:I'm sorry that I missed the fucking show.
Guest:That's all right.
Guest:That was vengeance for me missing your show at the Brooklyn Tech.
Marc:But you did show up very excited and, yeah, late, and you gave me the, what was that, the test pressing?
Marc:That's right.
Marc:Of the masterpiece.
Marc:Of the masterwork.
Marc:If you want to call it that.
Marc:Yeah, I mean, look at this thing, man.
Marc:The most lamentable tragedy, a three-album rock opera.
Guest:Yes, although to be fair to your listeners, one of those LPs is a 12-inch 45.
Marc:I know, and it forces you to listen in order.
Marc:I noticed that today.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:Well, and not in the order that people would think.
Guest:It's trying to make a more active listening experience rather than the whole put it on, make dinner.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:Does more active mean like, oh, fuck, wait, so this isn't the... All right, well, okay, so I guess I put this one on.
Guest:Well, the...
Guest:It is trying to keep people on their toes.
Guest:Basically, you know, you listen to the first LP is just two sides of 33 and a third.
Guest:That's very normal.
Guest:And then you go to reach for the first side of the next disc.
Guest:If you don't adjust the speeds, the track will be playing a lot slower.
Guest:And this is one of the ways that we indicate that we've entered into a dream sequence because it's like an altered reality.
Guest:Is that 45 supposed to be an altered reality?
Guest:That's a dream sequence, yes.
Marc:And that's the one with the My Father's Brothers song?
Guest:That's right.
Guest:That's the ancestor of the main character, like his great-great-grandfather or something, who was the original person in his family to emigrate to America.
Guest:From?
Guest:From the old country.
Guest:Which old country?
Guest:Any?
Guest:It's Ireland.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But it could be any, mostly any country.
Guest:Any country where, you know, dreams have been dashed and where, you know, a happy future seems impossible.
Marc:It seems to me after I talked to you last that you're working through a lot of your own shit in this record.
Marc:Yes.
Marc:Yes, that's true.
Marc:the journey through, uh, through medication, through the meltdown, through, uh, you know, owning your, your brain, owning yourself, uh, and for, for better, for worse warning, warning people of the possibilities of personality trouble.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yep.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's right.
Guest:And when I told you all these things the first time, I didn't realize that you discussed these same things often in your own work.
Guest:I was pretty ignorant coming into the whole thing, aside from the Dr. Katz episodes, which I enjoyed very much.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Well, no.
Marc:Yeah, we talk about that shit a lot.
Marc:But I mean, I remember...
Marc:Because the last time I talked to you, you were kind of fresh out of the fucking whirlpool.
Guest:Yes.
Marc:Fresh out of the... Well, I thought so.
Guest:I thought I was out of the whirlpool.
Guest:I thought I was on the other side of something.
Guest:You were like, no medicine guy, I'm just going to smoke some weed.
Guest:Yeah, well, I was back in a doctor's care about a month later, so to be fair.
Guest:And what happened?
Guest:Well, you know...
Guest:I guess you could say that my, well, some of those decisions were possibly a little bit selfish, and maybe a lot of them came from a genuine place of whatever, concern or self-preservation or a desire to not extinguish my artistic tendencies and to feel life.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But this is one of the morals of that rock opera we just talked about.
Guest:Those are all valid things, but ultimately...
Guest:That's your business, and you're still accountable for the decisions that you make.
Guest:And how they affect other people.
Guest:Yes, exactly.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Even though I'm fighting my own personal little war against myself, there shouldn't be so many casualties in that struggle.
Guest:Inevitably, there are.
Guest:Oh, boy.
Guest:Did you lose some people?
Guest:Not even, really.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I'm a very lucky guy.
Guest:You pulled back?
Guest:I know that I, you know...
Guest:Hey, everybody out there has heard this tale before that's tuning into this program, you know, to be just rolling around angry man style, you know.
Marc:But you may have heard the tale before, but the thing that's great about the record and about how you deal with it is that the struggle is definitely on this record.
Marc:And in the songs themselves, you read the lyrics because if you get the vinyl, it's a beautiful bit of business.
Guest:It's a quadruple gatefold designed by the great artist Nolan Straws of Baltimore, Maryland.
Guest:It's great.
Guest:Former singer of the great band Double Dagger.
Guest:You ever heard that?
Guest:No, no, good.
Guest:One of the greatest of all time, and he plays in a really good...
Guest:Awesome band now called Pure Junk.
Guest:Nolan Straw.
Guest:I tip my hat to him every time.
Marc:And he did a beautiful layout.
Marc:Did some beautiful art and all the lyrics are here.
Guest:Although I did the lettering for the lyrics, not to brag.
Marc:And also you did the lettering for your famous logo, I guess, too.
Marc:No?
Guest:Not you?
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:And I didn't design that logo either.
Guest:That was our former keyboardist, David Robbins.
Guest:What happened to that guy?
Guest:Was he one of the fallen?
Guest:Burned him out, basically.
Guest:He was like...
Guest:He was a wonderful guy.
Guest:He was like a beautiful soul.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So in a lot of ways.
Guest:Too sensitive for the stickles.
Guest:I mean, maybe.
Guest:I don't know if it was.
Guest:I mean, I contributed to it.
Guest:But it's the life.
Guest:You know, I don't necessarily make the life easier on people.
Guest:But I'd like to.
Marc:I don't know, man.
Marc:I think that if the record's doing well, the response is good, right?
Marc:So, I mean, I think that a lot of people identify with the struggle and with the drugs, with the wanting to be yourself, with the not wanting to be on drugs, with the thinking that you can manage your own shit, and then sort of drifting into fantasy and kind of coming through it a bit on the other side.
Marc:You seem okay today.
Guest:Yeah, well, I am in a much better place than when we first met.
Guest:Medicine?
Guest:No medicine?
Guest:Yes, medicine.
Guest:I take 100 milligrams of Lamictal a day, and then I've got the Klonopin as needed.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:But as needed is a very elastic term, right?
Guest:That's a slippery slope with the Klonopin.
Guest:Take it when you're anxious.
Guest:Well, all right, so 9 a.m., let's go.
Guest:I'm plenty fucking anxious, you know, but like...
Guest:You got the wiggle room on the Klonopin.
Guest:Yeah, well, I mean, I shouldn't, though, is the thing.
Marc:Well, I know, but Lamictal, what is that?
Marc:That's for the bipolar?
Guest:That's an anti-convulsant, yeah.
Guest:Right, so.
Guest:I spent a lot of my life convulsing, so I still do my fair share.
Guest:You do a lot of it on stage, though, thank God.
Guest:I try to keep it up there as much as I can.
Marc:Well, so the Lamictal's not going to bring the poles together.
Marc:It's just going to try to level the highs, so when they get too out of control, you knock it down with the Klonopin.
Marc:I suppose so.
Guest:I mean, I guess, yeah, that would be the plan.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I suppose.
Marc:Because the choice other than that is lithium, which will suck the balls right out of you.
Marc:Right, right, right.
Marc:You know Richard Thompson's work, the guitar player?
Marc:I've heard of him, you know, but I haven't done all my homework yet.
Marc:Well, it's all right.
Marc:He's a good guitar player.
Marc:But I ran into him in Ireland, and I had interviewed him, and I was backstage talking to him.
Marc:And I told him that I smoked a cigarette with Keith Richards.
Marc:And I said, you know, Keith is a bad influence on me.
Marc:And Richard Thompson says, he was a bad influence on everyone.
Marc:That's the rock and roll hero, though.
Guest:I wonder if the choices that I would have made had I not studied his life as much as I have the past few years.
Guest:Who, Keith?
Guest:Keith, yeah.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:I mean, Keith Richards, like...
Guest:If he had done the things that he had done and not the rock and roll genius part.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:Who would care?
Guest:Keith Richards or Neil Young or somebody can make lots of sorts of decisions and come out on the other side looking like they were right.
Guest:Right.
Guest:But then again, they also wrote Jumpin' Jack Flash or whatnot.
Guest:Down by the River.
Guest:Yeah, so they can mostly back up.
Guest:History's going to forgive a lot of the things that they did.
Guest:Yeah, that's right.
Guest:And it may just feed their myth, you know?
Guest:Even if it was kind of gnarly.
Guest:What's his famous thing?
Guest:I never had a drug problem.
Guest:It was the cops that had a problem with my drugs or something, right?
Marc:Well, now he says that the entire drug experience was experimentation.
Marc:But he's pretty honest about it.
Marc:He knows he's lucky to be alive and he saw a lot of people die.
Marc:And I think right now, old Keith is just trying to make people realize that whatever they think he is, that's about a 30-year-old story.
Marc:The truth of the matter is he's a 72-year-old dude with grandkids, and he's still alive and making music.
Guest:As long as we're talking about him and I have this platform, I just want to say real fast that his daughter, Alexandra Richards, she and I have the same birthday, July 28th.
Guest:I was 1985.
Guest:She was 1986.
Guest:And I just want to also say that she was photographed in the pages of Self magazine.
Guest:holding the titus andronicus record local business and that may have just been because it was a red vinyl prop but then again maybe not same birthday yeah i don't know i can find out if she likes you i would appreciate you want to know i mean i well i got not really i want her to like us
Guest:Okay.
Guest:So you want to leave the mystery?
Guest:Well, no.
Guest:I got a guy.
Guest:I'm getting up here and I'm just saying to the world, there's a connection here, folks.
Guest:There's the will of the universe here.
Guest:He's trying to make itself known.
Guest:We got the same birthday.
Guest:And the video for Trouble from Cross-Eyed Heart, that dropped on July 27th.
Guest:So maybe Keith didn't know.
Guest:Maybe that was intended as a present for his daughter.
Guest:But that was my 30th birthday present this year.
Guest:You know what I'm saying?
Guest:I knew Keith Richards' video.
Guest:And he's watching Keith's hands going just like they should.
Guest:And it's like...
Guest:Oh, man, that was a great birthday, you know?
Guest:But I'm just saying, I guess I'll just come right out and say it.
Guest:Because you've got to visualize what you want, right?
Guest:And you've got to make your vision chart for the things you want.
Guest:I feel like the expensive winos and Keith...
Guest:are probably going to go play some shows, he said.
Guest:He said that there'll probably be some expensive winos shows.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And what a great band.
Guest:Steve Jordan on drums.
Guest:Fantastic.
Guest:Anyway, I really think that if these shows do happen, that Titus Andronica should be the opening act.
Guest:okay i'm just putting it out there out there alexandra richards and i have the same birthday uh nobody out there has studied as much as i have in our little field anyway maybe like some much older guys but yeah come on yeah come on keith come on keith throw patrick a bone let's do it man like you would think i was cool
Guest:yeah I think he would man come on and Alexandra this birthday thing you already held the record let's go let's make this happen like Connecticut is pretty close to New York City that's where we live yeah whatever fuck this show it's like we'll come over the house jam not even jam because you sit around smoke cigarettes you guys would I think you guys would get along he likes to talk smart guy you like to talk you're a smart guy
Guest:Well, maybe I should talk less, listen more.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Is that going to be the new stickles?
Guest:Well, no, because then I would be out of a job.
Guest:Well, you do both of them, it seems.
Marc:How do you do it?
Marc:I just force myself to shut up.
Marc:God, how?
Marc:It's hard.
Marc:It took a long time of talking to people and realizing that I didn't need to fucking...
Marc:Talk.
Marc:You know, like sometimes it's like, all right, just don't talk.
Marc:Well, yeah, like.
Marc:Yeah, just let's in.
Marc:You don't have to always fill the void.
Marc:Well, yeah, it's hard though, man.
Marc:It's very.
Marc:So wait, so you played the Roxy and you said coming in that, you know, that you got the same number of people that Bruce did.
Marc:What was that math?
Guest:Except for the VIP section.
Guest:Our VIP section was barren.
Guest:Except for maybe like two people who had a whole bunch of elbow room.
Guest:But then the dance floor.
Marc:That's a testament to perhaps being at that point in your life where it's just real rock and roll and the VIPs are not hip.
Marc:That would be nice.
Guest:They're not hip yet.
Guest:Well, I mean the VIPs, maybe they can just skip it.
Marc:Yeah, who needs the VIPs, man?
Marc:Would it make you feel better if Lemmy was in the corner?
Guest:Oh, well, Lemmy is a different sort of VIP or Iggy or anybody like that.
Guest:It's different, but I don't know.
Guest:I mean, I guess I wouldn't mind if some network executive or something came to the show and gave me the same deal you got.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:I wouldn't mind that if they want to...
Guest:put me on TV or in the movies or something, they can stand back there, but... You want to be in the movies?
Guest:No, not really.
Guest:But it's a... Well, let me put it this way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Last night at the Roxy Theater, quite a big fan of Bruce Springsteen, okay?
Guest:I'll admit it.
Guest:I'm from New Jersey just like he is.
Guest:he has a very legendary uh concert recording from the roxy july 7th 1978 it was the source of most of the first disc of his live 1975 to 85 box set and so that was what we were playing over the pa last night um between the bands baked from brooklyn and spider bags from north carolina it behooves me to mention these great artists
Guest:Anyway, and at the beginning of the concert, Bruce gets out there and says something like, I know that a lot of people waited a long time online to get tickets for this show.
Guest:A lot of people didn't get in.
Guest:I don't play no private parties anymore.
Guest:I only play my own parties now.
Guest:Less rock.
Guest:So that's what it is.
Guest:And attracting these VIPs or whoever, these cultural tastemakers, these people that have got the keys, that have got access to the apparatus of the industry, that's just present company excluded, obviously.
Guest:That's like a means to an end, you know what I'm saying, to reach the people that are going to fill up
Guest:the dance floor right you know because these vips you know maybe you know we might have been the hottest ticket in town last night probably not i think kanye west or somebody was in town who i admire very much too but you know if every if all those people were saying i need to be in there tonight because this is the hottest ticket in town well you know where are these people going to be in two years when it's not the hottest ticket in town
Guest:you know what i'm saying it's much more important to foster and nurture the connection with the people who love you yeah who have a real genuine connection to the the art and and don't and aren't concerned with the status that comes along with it and if they were trying to be part of any scene it's just the scene around the band you know because it's
Guest:Beautiful, communal, the whole rock and roll thing.
Guest:Everybody together is like a little family for one night and a little temporary autonomous zone.
Guest:Taz.
Guest:Taz, yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Hakim Bey.
Guest:That's pretty good.
Guest:That's such a bad acronym.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:No, it's a real acronym.
Marc:There's a book.
Marc:Autonomedia put out a book by a guy named Hakeem Bey called Taz, Temporary Autonomous Zone.
Guest:God, I've been talking about it for years.
Guest:I didn't even know where it came from.
Guest:Well, I know I didn't make up that phrase.
Guest:Yeah, I'll show you the book after.
Guest:I might have it still.
Guest:That's an important concept right now in the movement to make the rock and roll slash punk scene less violent and more inclusive to people, you know...
Guest:who maybe can't or don't want to participate in those kinds of macho... Right.
Guest:Beat the shit out of everybody on the dance floor.
Guest:Yeah, you know.
Guest:Get yourself bloody.
Guest:I mean, you know, even if people aren't breaking their nose every single night with certain so-called punk bands, it still has often been the case.
Guest:That a show will begin and in the front row will be a lot of people that I'm really very interested in sharing my secret feelings with.
Guest:Not that I'm trying to play super favorites.
Guest:I mean, I am.
Guest:But meeker people who I know are probably there...
Guest:to be like an aficionado, you know what I'm saying?
Guest:And want to be at the front of the stage to feel what it's all about.
Guest:The struggle, dude.
Guest:Yeah, yeah.
Guest:But then a lot of the times, they'll be there and they'll be singing along for some kind of sensitive, pensive opener and something.
Guest:And I'm like, wow, this is the life, man.
Guest:There's so much mutual validation going on.
Guest:I feel so safe and loved, and they feel the same, I know.
Guest:And then it's like, one, two, three, four, ba-na-na, into some giant hit.
Guest:And in 30 seconds, it's all shirtless frat boys.
Guest:And nothing against those people, you know, because I might not have been in a fraternity, but I've been definitely a dumb punk bro that made the scene less inclusive just by thinking that, oh, I'm just going wild and this is the...
Guest:the way to go and that's fine you know like but it's it's like there's questions of affirmative consent you know what i'm saying and it shouldn't be taken for granted that if you step onto the dance floor at a punk show or if you're in the front row because you want to be by the amplifiers or whatever you want to be beat up yeah that's not that's not signing up to get to get pummeled yeah clobbered
Marc:But I like that you're such a fan of Bruce because, and I don't know if we talked about this the last time, but there's always, you're really good at knocking out the anthems, building up the build, building up the pace.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:Getting it going.
Marc:Like I like, because whatever punk rock is, I've talked to people who are part of the original punk thing where it meant something a little different, but you just play fucking rock and roll songs, dude.
Marc:That's right.
Guest:Well, there's a distinction for me between punk, the ideology, and punk rock music.
Guest:Because like you said, the first wave has got certain aesthetic signifiers attached to it.
Guest:It was just meant different.
Guest:Yeah, exactly.
Guest:And it was different from the dominant culture at that time, which was very excessive.
Guest:So they said we have to be more economical.
Guest:Whatever the Ramones were doing, you know?
Guest:Because like you said, we mostly just play rock and roll.
Marc:It's great, man.
Marc:And everything kind of weaves into the next.
Marc:You always did that, though.
Marc:I mean, you know, the monitor is like close to an opera in a way.
Guest:Well, that doesn't have a linear narrative exactly.
Guest:But it's definitely a concept record.
Guest:A frame story and then kind of a more series of vignettes.
Guest:More like Born to Run in that way, as long as we're given credit where it's due to the boss.
Marc:But The River, too, is sort of a concept, right?
Marc:He's made a few.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Well, I thought a lot more about The River when making that one.
Guest:Your new one.
Guest:Yeah, just because I didn't get that one for a lot of years because it has a certain bipolar quality to it, you know what I'm saying?
Guest:It's got, like, Sherry Darling right next to, you know...
Guest:point blank or whatnot or you know super dark songs like some of his darkest bleakest stuff right next to like his most uplifting joyous stuff and I was like what's up with that and I see now and I had to have it explained to me by a couple different books but I see that that's kind of a richer experience than say Darkness on the Edge of Town which is like purely bleak like it's very you know finely distilled
Guest:sort of a thing, but it's sort of a little bit one-dimensional, and I would have to level the same accusation at most of the Titus Andronicus albums prior to this one that you're holding there, because I thought that it would be very corny to sing about, say, romance, or to write a song that says, hey, everything actually is going to be okay.
Guest:I've always had moments like that.
Guest:I didn't see how they could fit into my particular artistic...
Guest:purpose, but that hence the rock opera and the emotional camouflage of the so-called fictional story.
Marc:And also, when you got three records, you document the perseverance of the human spirit.
Marc:Exactly.
Marc:That's how you glimpse real transcendence.
Marc:That's it, buddy.
Marc:Well, you did it, man.
Guest:I'm trying.
Guest:I'm glad we talked for a little while.
Guest:It's a great pleasure to be here.
Guest:Thank you for all your support over the years.
Guest:Sure, man.
Guest:Thank you for all the laughs.
Guest:Thank you for all the validation.
Marc:Yeah, and thank you for the original test pressings of the most lamentable tragedy.
Guest:Hey, you know, I know you're a vinyl guy.
Guest:It was sweet, buddy.
Guest:It's great to see you, Patrick.
Guest:It's great to be here.
Guest:Thank you, Mark.
Marc:So don't forget to pick up that album, The Most Lamentable Tragedy.
Marc:And if you get it at MergeRecords.com slash shop, use the promo code WTF to get 20% off.
Marc:It's a good record, people.
Marc:I mean it.
Marc:He means it.
Marc:Stickles means it.
Marc:Titus means it.
Marc:Michael Cronin.
Marc:He's one of Ty Siegel's buddies.
Marc:I loved his last record, MC2, and now there's MC3.
Marc:Actually, he's on Merge Records, too.
Marc:So you can go to mergerecords.com slash shop, and that's 20% off with the WTF promo code.
Marc:But I was always sort of curious about Michael Cronin.
Marc:I thought he was some sort of wizard.
Marc:I thought he was older than he was.
Marc:I thought a lot of things about Michael Cronin.
Marc:Then he comes, he's like...
Marc:He's just this guy, just this young dude who happens to play really fucking great music.
Marc:But he does the full spectrum.
Marc:He'll do some noise music.
Marc:He'll do some psychedelic music.
Marc:And then these records, these last couple of records, good rock pop.
Marc:He lives down the street.
Marc:So here's me talking to Michael Cronin.
Marc:So we're inside, and I told you I watched the Eagles documentary.
Marc:Now, like, I'm on neither side of this fight, the Eagles fight.
Marc:Me too.
Marc:Oh, you're in the middle?
Guest:Yeah, I mean, I don't mind it when it comes on, but I don't actively hate it.
Marc:Right.
Marc:Like, I don't understand what makes some bands cool for hipsters.
Marc:Like the bands that those guys came from, kind of like that whole, the Birds and, well, that's weird.
Marc:It's the Birds and the Flying Burritos Brothers.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Marc:They're cool.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Belinda Ronstadt, the Eagles, not cool.
Marc:Not cool.
Guest:How the fuck does that happen?
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:You said you witnessed an argument?
Guest:It seems to keep coming up.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Recently?
Guest:Yeah, I think because some people are getting, some young people seem to be getting into them a little, maybe.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I'm not on the cusp of cool music.
Guest:No, me neither.
Marc:But I mean, just the idea of that's kind of interesting to me.
Marc:So there's some hipster arguments.
Marc:Some heated discussion.
Marc:Like one idiot, you know.
Marc:With some fancy glasses goes, I don't know, I think the Eagles are okay.
Marc:And some guy goes, no, no, no Eagles.
Guest:I think it'll come back around.
Guest:It's like Fleetwood Mac seemed to get cool again a couple years ago.
Guest:Like Lance and Liz down at Permanent Records, they say like they sell at least one or two a day all of a sudden.
Marc:Really?
Marc:Well, that's because a lot of the people that are buying records are fucking old guys like me trying to find some part of our life that we lost.
Marc:There's nothing more humbling than being in a record store going through bins with chubby 50-year-old dudes that look kind of like me with a sad face.
Marc:That's great.
Marc:Did you buy rumors?
Guest:I have rumors, sure.
Guest:You like it?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Where'd you grow up, buddy?
Guest:I was born in LA here, but then moved to Laguna Beach when I was like nine or so.
Guest:Yeah?
Guest:So spent those formative years there.
Guest:In Laguna Beach?
Guest:Down in Orange County, yeah.
Guest:On the beach?
Marc:On the beach.
Marc:So is that where you met Ty?
Marc:Yeah, we went to high school together.
Marc:You and Ty Siegel went to high school together?
Marc:Yeah.
Yeah.
Marc:The weird thing about you guys is that a lot of people don't know you guys or your music, but you're not even 30 and you have 50 records out between the two of you.
Guest:Do you ever just think about that?
Guest:It's gotten really lucky to just stay busy and eventually have people just want to release whatever.
Marc:Yeah, it's weird when I first saw you or pictures of you or when I saw you play with Ty at the Echo that one time I was there.
Marc:Oh, yeah.
Marc:I assumed you're like, because you had your long hair and some scruff, that you seem to have sort of an ageless demeanor, and I decided you're like the old wizard, but it turns out you cut your hair and you're just a punk like the rest of them.
Marc:I'm just a dude.
Guest:I like the ageless wizard, though.
Guest:That's amazing.
Marc:Well, yeah, because you sort of showed up on a lot of Ty's stuff, and Ty, I got into him, I guess, a couple years ago.
Marc:So when you guys are coming up, you're all in high school, and I'm afraid to ask what year that is.
Marc:What is that, like 98?
Marc:2000?
Guest:I graduated in 2004.
Marc:Oh, my God.
Guest:Ty was 03.
Guest:Right.
Guest:So you're all down there in Laguna.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And who's the other guy that's on?
Marc:Charles Muthart.
Marc:So what kind of shit are you listening to?
Marc:What's the deal?
Marc:Back then, like in high school.
Guest:What brought you guys together?
Guest:we i remember like in the like early 2000s we're kind of all listening to well there was there was like punk bands you know like black flag and old stuff yeah but then there's also like the stuff that was coming out there's a lot of like dance punk yeah moving units and uh the rapture
Guest:okay just kind of like a disco beat right i got really hip for a second really yeah i missed everything i mean that was that was a quick thing but i was already old and sad by then yeah but we all we all kind of listened to that and then ty already had a band like a duo band where he played drums and sing and then our other friend uh played like bass and keyboard at the same time and saying and he kind of had like a
Guest:I love this guy, but he had a pretty affected Tom Waits-y voice.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:For a 16-year-old.
Guest:He's amazing.
Guest:He's awesome.
Guest:And there's a lot of that disco kind of punk thing going on.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:It was called The Love This, and they would play.
Guest:There was not a lot of music going on at our high school.
Guest:It was really small.
Guest:Or in our town.
Guest:There was no really place.
Guest:What town?
Guest:It was Laguna?
Guest:Laguna, yeah.
Marc:Really?
Guest:So it was just all happening at the school and at people's houses?
Guest:It was just house parties, high school parties, so they would be the resident band.
Guest:So I was already a fan, and then word got around.
Guest:I played saxophone in the school band, like the marching band and the jazz band.
Marc:Was that your first instrument?
Guest:That was from when I was 10.
Guest:You played sax because your folks were like, why don't you play an instrument?
Guest:Yeah, well, my mom's a musician, so she started me out and my siblings on piano pretty early.
Guest:Professional musician?
Guest:No, she could be.
Guest:She just retired, but she's an ER doctor at Cedars-Sinai.
Guest:up here yeah really yeah wow so she would commute a couple times a week from south orange county oh to do the all night shift uh kind of thing no you know she had like decent shifts by the end but um so she was like a uh internist or like just a general doctor i think general yeah yeah one of those guys dealing with all the gnarly shit yeah comes in yeah that guy's in trouble yeah it's brutal
Guest:What did your dad do?
Guest:He just retired as well, but he was a lawyer.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Smart people.
Guest:You're doing all right down there.
Guest:This is fine.
Guest:It wasn't a hard upbringing.
Guest:No, I mean- How many siblings you got?
Guest:I got three others.
Guest:What are they?
Guest:Human.
Guest:They're all smart people.
Guest:Really?
Guest:My oldest sister is less than a year older than me.
Guest:So we're Irish twins, so to speak.
Guest:I guess that's slang.
Guest:Just one followed the other.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Within like 11 months and a couple days.
Guest:And then you got what, brothers?
Guest:Yeah, I got a younger brother.
Guest:He's like 15 months younger.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:My parents went quick.
Guest:Knocked him out.
Guest:Let's get this over with.
Guest:And he graduated law school.
Guest:Wow.
Guest:So he's working at a firm.
Guest:My youngest sister just moved to LA to go to law school.
Guest:They're all doing that.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then there's me.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Doing this thing.
Guest:Well, how do you, how do your, how do your folks feel about that?
Guest:Um, they're really supportive.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Especially now that, I mean, for a while, my mom was always supportive because she's a musician.
Guest:She kind of, oh, she plays, um, she plays piano and harp.
Guest:She plays like classical.
Marc:There's a harp in the house?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:A big harp?
Guest:Big harp.
Guest:And she can do it?
Guest:She, she shreds.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:Wow.
Marc:So you grew up plinking around on a harp?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:Try not to break it.
Guest:Try not to tip it over.
Guest:I kind of regret not learning harp.
Guest:Do you think it's too late, Michael?
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:It's never too late to learn harp.
Guest:I can plunk around.
Guest:I understand it.
Guest:Really?
Guest:But it's not...
Guest:You can't apply it very well, you know?
Guest:Right.
Marc:I think, isn't there one groovy harp player?
Marc:Well, Joanna Newsome.
Marc:Joanna Newsome.
Marc:Yeah, she's great.
Marc:That's right.
Marc:She's the harp player.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:She married Andy Samberg.
Marc:She did.
Marc:All right, so you're playing, so she gets you on saxophone.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you know how to read music.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And what kind of music are you playing on sax?
Marc:Did you get involved?
Marc:Did you get interested in jazz or just marching band?
Guest:I, I mean, I did, they had, you know, they had like a kind of big band style, you know, high school jazz band, which I really liked.
Guest:And I played like the lead, so I got the solos and stuff.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:So you can do it, huh?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And like, it was kind of a, it was kind of an unsaid rule that you had to be, to play in the jazz band, you kind of had to be in the marching band because it was the same kids.
Guest:And I, you know, hated marching band.
Guest:It's terrible, man.
Guest:It's terrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So you were in the marching band.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:But that was the price you had to pay to do some leads, huh?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:That was the only thing that kept you in.
Marc:It's like, I'm the main sax dude.
Marc:I guess I got to go out and do this dumb parade.
Guest:I got to play the baritone sax in the marching band, which- That's a big one?
Guest:It's heavy as shit, but it's awesome.
Guest:It's got the best range, just low, like honk.
Marc:Yeah, yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And did you do parades and shit?
Guest:Oh, yeah.
Yeah.
Guest:The stupid little capes and shit.
Marc:I don't know.
Marc:Didn't you get any flack from that cool guy?
Guest:I was never a cool guy.
Guest:I fit right into that band.
Guest:I was not the cool guy.
Guest:You weren't?
Guest:Yeah, I hung out with the nerds and the...
Guest:The band nerds?
Guest:Yeah, a couple of them.
Guest:The computer nerds and then eventually the skateboarders and then the punks.
Marc:So you went from computer nerds and then somebody turned you on to some drugs?
Guest:And then you're like, I gotta go.
Guest:I was totally clean living until my 20s.
Guest:Really?
Guest:I don't do a lot of drugs or anything.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:I'm not judging you.
Guest:I'm not going to be like, really what a puss.
Guest:What a puss.
Guest:Why not, man?
Guest:No, I was just, yeah, I was just, I don't know, doing my thing.
Marc:But how does that blow up, though, like that?
Marc:Because you're doing saxophone, you're in a marching band, you're wearing capes.
Marc:What changes?
Marc:What blows your mind into playing the bass and then doing punk rock?
Marc:Like, what was the moment?
Guest:Do you remember?
Guest:I mean, it was really like joining that high school band with Ty and Coleman to love this.
Guest:So you saw them at a party?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you were like, these guys.
Guest:I was getting to know, like, Ty a little bit.
Marc:What was he like when he was younger?
Marc:Because you guys are both pretty soft-spoken, but it seems like you were kind of, you know.
Guest:I mean, he was, yeah, he's a madman.
Guest:He is, right?
Yeah.
Guest:yeah i know he was soft-spoken in here i heard the interview but oh i didn't get the real tie god damn it well no he just he's he just no that's that was the real you got he got the real guy this week guy just got one side of the coin right um well he when he gets on stage he seems like a guy that just sort of comes to life up there yeah like that's how he that's what he that where he lives it out he fits
Guest:yeah yeah like yeah yeah he becomes a guitar hero yeah so um yeah it was it was kind of it kind of felt like an old movie or something because i heard word that like oh the love this kind of wants a saxophone player oh it's a sax player yeah
Guest:um so and then i remember like i think i was 17 yeah i was probably 16 school ends we're in the parking lot see him walk over he's like hey man do you want to we're looking for a sax player it kind of felt like hey cat come come jam come sit in with us i was like yeah of course and just went over a couple days later and like joined the band as the third
Marc:Into someone's house, who was Ty's house, or where'd you go?
Guest:Yeah, I was, played at Coleman's, in Coleman's like garage.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Kind of basement garage.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah, and that was kind of my first time being in a, being in a band playing like- But what'd you, did you jam?
Guest:um i i kind of just i kind of i knew their songs you know because i see i saw them so many times so i just kind of jammed over it you know so they were a real thing like you saw them many times at many parties yeah a couple times i mean they were cool they would strictly they wouldn't go out and play any like public shows or anything like none of us knew how to do that at all well what are you like 17 16 yeah
Guest:But there's just no other bands going to play gigs around town or anything.
Guest:No one comes through?
Guest:Not Laguna, no.
Guest:We'd have to come up to L.A.
Guest:usually.
Guest:Did you guys make the trip sometimes?
Guest:Yeah, we started going to the smell a lot downtown.
Guest:You know that place?
Guest:No.
Guest:It's like an all-ages DIY space that's been around for years and years.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:And that's where all...
Guest:that's where all the first shows i saw were and that's where all the my bands would play for the first time they were very open sure well the all ages thing for the punk rock thing was huge yeah i mean it was like five bucks usually they knew who their audience was yeah gotta get the kids in here it's all kids and there's a whole there's a whole strong scene about it now like it's at some point
Marc:Like I've talked to Ty a couple times over permanent shit and he's turned me on to records.
Marc:Well it just seems like there's this garage psych sound that is popular or at least like the thing.
Marc:There's another LA band that does sort of like even more kind of, you know, lyrical, less garage, more psych sounding.
Marc:Is it Wand?
Guest:Yeah, Wand.
Guest:Yeah, those are buddies of mine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:They're amazing.
Guest:They're my favorite band.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Are you guys all the same age?
Guest:Yeah, a little younger.
Guest:They're younger?
Guest:Or you're younger?
Guest:They're a little younger.
Guest:But we're around the same age.
Guest:Younger kids keep... Oh, my God.
Guest:You're already there, these kids.
Guest:Yeah, but me and the main songwriter, Corey Hansen, we went to college together up at CalArts.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And we were roommates for a couple years, so...
Guest:It's really good to see him have a band that everyone loves because he's so talented.
Guest:The songs are amazing.
Guest:The whole vibe of that music.
Marc:I think Lance and Liz turned me on to them.
Marc:I don't know what I'd do without Lance and Liz.
Marc:I missed about, it seems, about 30 years of music somehow.
Marc:And then they...
Marc:But the weird thing is, is this like that record I played for you in there, is that now music nerds and record nerds are going back into catalogs of completely non-mainstream, off-the-grid people that were on big labels, but you would never know their shit, really, or their B-sides.
Marc:And then you start to realize how much of a fucking stronghold mainstream music business had on all of our brains.
Marc:There's no way you're going to get turned on to that shit unless someone goes, dude,
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because they just pump the same shit over the radio all the time.
Marc:Right.
Marc:But there's thousands of fucking records out there of the same time, even.
Marc:At any time in history of music of unheard people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, thank God for the internet for that reason alone.
Guest:Or record store clerks.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was living back in Laguna after high school and late in high school.
Guest:I used to have shows at my parents' house.
Guest:They would allow that.
Guest:So it would just be like those bands.
Guest:At your parents' house?
Guest:At my parents' house.
Guest:You would sort of be the host?
Guest:I'd be the host.
Guest:How many bands?
Guest:The thing was, people would start, there was no real outlet for music, and then eventually there's a bunch of music kids.
Guest:So everyone would start a band like for these shows and play like two or three songs.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And it was just the same group of like 10 people like.
Marc:Would mix and match different bands.
Guest:So there'd be like, I don't know, 10 to 15 bands per night, you know, just.
Marc:Mix it, but the same 10 dudes.
Guest:Pretty much.
Marc:And you just kind of.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Because you guys still do that.
Marc:yeah i guess so it's it's more fun that way well i mean more fun just to like but see that i think that's a relatively new thing with your crew of guys it seems i mean there was a lot of studio guys that show up on a lot of different albums but it seems like all of you guys like even on that meat the what's that record i just got the meat bodies the meat bodies like you can hear ty all over that thing if he's not in there it sounds like that he's some influence doesn't he play a little on that
Guest:Yeah, he does.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, he plays some drums, I think.
Marc:Yeah, but it's just, but there's a sound to it.
Marc:But it's interesting that that whole idea, and I imagine it's not that different, but I haven't heard it from talking to musicians where you guys were just kids, you had no outlet.
Marc:So your parents, thank God, were like, you can have your friends over to play music.
Marc:They were amazing about that, yeah.
Guest:And you would have these parties that didn't get out of control?
Guest:No, everyone would kind of keep each other in check.
Guest:There wasn't even a lot of like drinking or drugging or anything.
Guest:It was just like very positive stuff.
Marc:What a respectful bunch of kids you all were.
Guest:Tried to be.
Guest:I mean, of course there would be problems and the cops would come all the time.
Guest:Just from the loudness?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And I would like try to tell my neighbors like little notes being like, we're going to have a little birthday party.
Marc:You should have said, we're doing something very important musically next door.
Marc:We're building a generation of psych rockers and punks.
Marc:Stay off our backs, man.
Guest:Yeah, man.
Guest:Jesus.
Marc:So, okay.
Marc:So, Tenny, you're just interchanging bands.
Marc:And did all the bands sound different?
Guest:Yeah, kind of.
Guest:I remember me and Ty played in this metal band called Goat Herder.
Guest:It was like a thrash metal band where me and him would both switch off on bass and drums and try to do double kick drum.
Guest:And we had four songs, but it would always go crazy.
Guest:And the singer Tom would...
Guest:He'd get like, what is that, Picardi 151 or something?
Guest:Yeah, flame it.
Guest:Yeah, and they'd have a tiki torch, and we were all wearing like Hawaiian shirts and shorts, and then you'd spit fire inside the house.
Guest:That was as bad as it got.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:There was always this little window by the door that somebody would...
Guest:amazingly never get hurt but yeah inevitably somebody would fall through that little window and it was like on ground floor you know it's like a yeah platter window so I yeah I would always just the next day I have to go and buy like plates of glass and replace that but that's about like is out of control so I had one party at my house with two bands when I was a kid because my parents let me they were out of town I turned the entire house into like a club
Marc:And it just packed out.
Marc:It was a disaster.
Marc:At the end of the night, there was a very obese, naked woman in the hot tub that we couldn't get to leave.
Marc:That's how that ended up.
Marc:That nobody knew?
Marc:Yeah, of course not.
Marc:who'd you come with i don't know it doesn't matter yeah okay i saw a light so when did you guys get turned on to the bands that influenced you really i mean like because it like yeah i know that like i didn't even know who the fuck hawkwind was until ty told me and then you get into that catalog and it's like oh my god there's a hundred records
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:When did, who started sort of like tapping into some of that older shit that defines some of your sounds now?
Guest:You know, I was, I was always really late to like rock.
Guest:There wasn't any, there wasn't really any like rock music at all in my house.
Guest:My parents were like, like my mom was a classical musician.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And so there'd be like light classical and smooth jazz.
Guest:Right.
Guest:My dad would listen to like conservative talk radio in the car.
Guest:Oh no.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um rush limbaugh and his long pauses oh my god so you grew up with the the conservative mindset yeah so i just didn't even i didn't even know i didn't know what rock music was really and i remember i think i was like nine eight or nine i was like i because i none of my my siblings weren't really into music too much either
Marc:Oh, my God.
Marc:So you just had the harp and the piano and your sax and Rush Limbaugh.
Guest:I remember going to the public library.
Guest:I'm like, I want to check out rock music.
Guest:What's rock music?
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah, I went to- You said that to the librarian?
Guest:No, I just wandered over to the cassettes.
Guest:I had a bunch of cassettes.
Guest:How old were you?
Guest:I think I was eight or nine.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:um i picked i just picked one out and it was like you know guy with long hair and a guitar shredding i was like this looks like rock music i take it home and listen to it and it's like i forget what it was it was like the scorpions or something it was like some yeah yeah hair metal crazy yeah ridiculous shit and then but then i had this uh did it make an impact um
Guest:I think that one didn't stick.
Guest:Thank God, dude.
Guest:But pretty soon after that, we had this, when we moved to Laguna, we had this- Scorpions weren't horrible, but you know what I mean.
Guest:No, no, no.
Guest:It was worse than Scorpions.
Marc:It was something.
Marc:All right.
Marc:It was something worse.
Marc:Queensryche.
Guest:I don't even know what they do.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But I had this cool babysitter type.
Guest:We weren't babies, but my parents worked, so he'd pick us up from school.
Guest:He was a lifeguard.
Guest:We had a string of lifeguard babysitter people for some reason.
Guest:That's interesting.
Guest:You might want to talk to your mom about that.
Guest:Yeah, but then he would pick us up from school and he introduced me to Nirvana.
Guest:Really?
Guest:That was my first favorite band.
Guest:I was like 10 or 11.
Guest:So I immediately bought everything I could.
Guest:That really changed everything for me.
Guest:So that was probably when the, what, the last, when Nevermind came out?
Guest:It was actually like right, it would be right after he died.
Guest:Oh, really?
Guest:So it would be like, I forget when he died, but it would have been like 95 or 96.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:And that did it, huh?
Marc:That did it.
Guest:That did it.
Marc:Thank God for that guy.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:The lifeguard saved your life.
Guest:He gave you Nirvana.
Guest:It was, it was amazing.
Guest:I remember like totally, I didn't see anything funny about it at all, but I was, we were listening to it and, um, it's like, oh man, I want to start a band that sounds like Nirvana.
Guest:I think when I call it Nirvana too.
Marc:Did you do that?
Guest:I still plan to someday.
Yeah.
Guest:Because I love it.
Guest:Those are big shoes to fill, buddy.
Guest:I remember him laughing.
Guest:Who?
Guest:Just the babysitter life character.
Guest:Oh, when you said that?
Guest:Nirvana 2.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Now, yeah.
Marc:And now, what, you're like 10?
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:You must have thought it was hilarious because it was probably an earnest idea.
Guest:No, it was like, why wouldn't I call it Nirvana 2?
Guest:I love Nirvana.
Yeah.
Guest:So yeah, and then from there, I got into Metallica.
Guest:Really, you went from Nirvana to Metallica?
Marc:Because I never went to Metallica, but a lot of people go Metallica.
Marc:Yeah, those early records are really cool.
Marc:No, they're great because they sort of like, both of those bands kind of annihilate that kind of blues base of most rock and roll.
Marc:They kind of go their own way.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:like like the nirvana stuff that's all pop chords a lot of them like you know kind of sad almost beatlesy it's beatles worship right like through a big muff yeah and and and and metallica like i don't even know what the fuck that is as far as progressions are where'd that come from no it's just shredding
Marc:But there's no one, four, five kind of chorusing.
Marc:It's on the world.
Marc:It's interesting.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:So those were the two.
Marc:Those were the defining factors.
Guest:Yeah, and there was Green Day and kind of really The Offspring.
Guest:Oh, yeah, yeah.
Guest:Dude, I've actually been, the last week or so, been going back and listening to Old Offspring.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I'm like really into it.
Guest:Blasting down the freeway.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's cool.
Guest:Like smash.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:I just like that.
Marc:And when did you get into like some of the psych rock stuff?
Guest:Was that Ty?
Guest:That was, yeah, that was Ty and like,
Guest:That group of friends.
Guest:They were into it?
Guest:It was really late high school that I started getting into some of the music that I still listen to, like garage rock and some punk stuff.
Guest:It took that group of friends to...
Guest:I finally had like music friends right you know and when did you decide to go to Cal Arts how did that like did you pull out of like all those high school bands and then where is that place it's up in Valencia and so that was a commute or did you live up there um I lived up there that was years after high school actually I I bounced around before I like went up to Portland immediately after high school and
Guest:And which bands were you in up there?
Guest:No bands.
Guest:No bands?
Guest:No bands.
Guest:Was it a chick?
Guest:No, I mean it was school.
Guest:Oh.
Guest:It was like a college.
Marc:Oh, you went to college in Portland?
Guest:Yeah, and I kind of thought... Done with music?
Guest:Yeah, a little bit.
Guest:I mean, I, I thought I, I wasn't, I wasn't like, I didn't get this direct pressure from my family, but as they're, they're all lawyers, academic, like doctors and lawyers, brilliant people.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:so i mean they didn't they weren't like you need to cut out music and get right go to school and get a real job right i i felt i felt that like on my own right so i kind of i kind of um yeah i kind of started trying to study how long did that last bud not not very long year yeah it was a crazy time up there i uh get depressed
Guest:yeah yeah I had a it's actually yeah there's the story of that time is like kind of the the B side of my last record MC3 it's really like a mini it's like a narrative a mini concept record the whole the second side of Michael Cronin yeah it's the first like through line series of songs I've done which was what was that through line
Guest:it was i i mean i was up there i was in school it was like a tough school i didn't really it's just like i i had no idea what i was doing i just like i need to graduate school and get a job i wasn't playing music so you just sort of like okay uh high school's done now i've got to focus and do what i'm expected to or what cultural there's cultural expectations yeah right right yeah and yeah i do want to stress because i know they'll listen it wasn't it wasn't like my folks that were
Guest:Right, no, it was just sort of like, this is what people do.
Guest:And that's what people did.
Guest:That's what, like, all my high school friends did.
Guest:Harge County, man.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And, like, I don't know.
Marc:I guess that's, I don't need to pigeonhole it.
Marc:That's just what you do when you come from people that are educated.
Guest:No, sure.
Guest:Yeah, you assume that.
Guest:You get educated.
Guest:Right.
Guest:You assume it's time to do this.
Guest:So, yeah.
Guest:Yeah, there's a time where I was just like kind of something was wrong.
Guest:I wasn't doing something right, you know.
Guest:That's a little vague, Michael.
Guest:I know, it was vague.
Guest:Really?
Guest:You just didn't feel right?
Guest:I didn't feel right.
Guest:I started like, you know, getting depressed and anxious for the first time.
Guest:Oh, yeah?
Guest:Like anxiety attacks?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, I had a few of those for the first time.
Guest:I was just outside of my bubble.
Guest:I grew up in such a bubble.
Marc:Right, and you had friends and everything.
Marc:Now you're up in Portland where it's dark and weird and the town has a certain vibe to it.
Marc:And you're with, I imagine, fairly rich kids from all over the world that seem to have more of their shit together, that kind of thing.
Guest:Yeah, and at the same time, I developed this...
Guest:create this really bad back injury from, from years of, uh, like, you know, skateboarding and stuff.
Guest:I, it turned out I slipped a disc, but I had a, uh, I just felt it in my like leg.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Sciatica set.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I thought it was, it was coming on slowly and I thought I like pulled a hamstring or something.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It got worse and worse and worse to the point where like I couldn't even really like walk anymore.
Marc:And this is your first year of college?
Guest:This is, yeah, the second year.
Marc:And now you're, like, not only uncomfortable, but you can't leave your room?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you're limping around.
Guest:I would limp around, like, literally like an old man, like that speed.
Guest:And I was just, like, on a bunch of painkillers, and I was just, like, unhappy.
Guest:Did you have friends?
Guest:Yeah, I had friends.
Guest:That's good.
Guest:And they were good, like, interesting people.
Guest:And it was, like, a classic thing where, like, my worldview was getting...
Guest:expanded yeah you know first right college or whatever that's good um but like so much was wrong and something was like very wrong and physically i was all fucked up yeah and so yeah that just fed into like depression and anxiety and like what am i even doing here and did you have a breakdown yeah i kind of i had a i had a snap snapping point um called the parents um
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Well, you know, the first time it was, I was going to doctors up there and they're like, okay, figured out like I slipped a disc and it's bad.
Guest:Right.
Guest:my my mom my parents were looking into like surgery yeah yeah so it's like usually you don't often have to go to surgery for that for that thing sometimes you can work it out on your own yeah but apparently mine was so far blown out that like i needed to get surgery oh so it's all fucked up and then there's like this really long waiting list for some reason really yeah even with your old lady being a doctor
Guest:I couldn't get in, but then, um, usually doctors are like, let's go to Bob.
Guest:I don't know.
Guest:But, but then I still don't know if she pulled some strings or something, but I got a call and like, let's say a Saturday being like, you need to get here by Monday.
Guest:You're going to have surgery to LA.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We fit you in.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was like, Oh, okay, sure.
Guest:And I was already like,
Guest:I was so blurry on painkillers and so much chronic pain.
Guest:It was like a chronic pain, which is a crazy thing to deal with.
Guest:Yeah, horrible.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's hard to describe.
Guest:Your brain keeps trying to live with it, but you can't.
Guest:yeah it's just like right so I couldn't concentrate so it's like kind of failing out of all my classes anyway yeah my social life was kind of falling apart so I just I was like okay I had I had my car so I just loaded up my stuff in my car all of it yeah I didn't have much stuff you know but you were like I'm done with school it wasn't like I'm coming back here well I wasn't sure yeah that time but I just I had to leave I couldn't tell anyone I didn't tell anyone at this
Guest:school it's only told like a couple friends I'm just like I'm gone and then so I was gone I had surgery and then I was like laid up in bed for a long time yeah like now really just kind of like what the fuck am I gonna like laid out in bed I'm like in school but I hate it yeah something's wrong so you had a lot of time to think
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then, and then like, I, I, I mean, I recovered.
Guest:I tried to go back to school for a little bit, but I was still like depressed and fucked up.
Guest:So I just, I left.
Guest:I went, I went back to Laguna.
Guest:Were you lost or were you happy to be home?
Guest:I was lost, but like the silver, I mean, in retrospect, cause that was like 10 years ago.
Guest:But in retrospect, that was like one of the best things that ever happened to me because I was home.
Guest:I was like aimless.
Guest:it's like something's wrong and then like my friends are like hey do you want to just come over and play music in our basement like join our band I was like yeah sure like can you play bass I'm like I could probably learn bass I don't know and then so we started playing music and I started like writing music for the first time who are those friends was that Ty
Guest:that was uh that was the first the first band in that period i joined was with this guy that guy charles moonhart the guy tom white's voice no no no the other guy from fuzz from fuzz he's the guitar player oh okay good yeah um yeah and some other like some other old high school friends and we started a band did it have a name um it turned into moon hearts oh okay who i've like charlie and the moon hearts yeah yeah i couldn't find those records
Guest:They're kind of hard to find.
Guest:I'll bring you one if you want.
Guest:It's fun.
Guest:It's pretty, you know, it's garage rock.
Guest:Pretty aggressive, like some surf in there.
Guest:So that saved you?
Guest:I feel like in retrospect, I was just going with it, but it was really important.
Guest:And you started writing songs?
Guest:I started writing songs.
Guest:I started singing.
Guest:We jammed out something.
Guest:and they're like who's gonna sing in this band and like nobody wanted to do it right and I'd never like sung before I was like uh I'll take it I'll give it a shot I don't know I'll write some lyrics yeah I like sang for the first time I remember we recorded like in garage band down in the basement I came back the next day with lyrics and a melody I'd written uh-huh I was like you guys everyone out of the room like go outside I don't want you to hear this yeah like me doing my first vocal take ever yeah
Guest:And I did it and there, you know, it wasn't good.
Guest:I've heard it since.
Guest:It was pretty awful.
Guest:But they were just like, oh, that's great, man.
Guest:You're the singer now.
Guest:I was like, shit.
Guest:There you go.
Marc:Welcome to rock and roll, singer.
Guest:I mean, I was excited to like write the songs and the melodies and the lyrics and stuff.
Guest:But like, I've never, I was always, I'm always like the shy guy.
Guest:yeah like i'm still i'm getting out of it now yeah like as my in my late 20s or whatever but like in high school like i didn't talk to anybody except for my friends i was so painfully shy so the idea of like singing in a band was insane yeah um
Guest:But yeah, that whole process really helped me just in my normal life get out of my shell a little more too.
Marc:That's great, man.
Guest:So yeah, it was like a crazy- So that was the first band, Charlie and the Moonhearts.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:And then like that, so that started the rock career in a way.
Guest:Yeah, I guess so.
Guest:And we were just, we were just like having fun.
Guest:There was no, there's absolutely no ambition other than just like, let's play some shows.
Guest:And if we can record, if we can figure out how to record something, that'd be awesome.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Then we just make like,
Guest:Cassette tapes and like that was the thing, huh?
Guest:Yeah, I mean that was that was all we could really do we could do CDRs Right, but you couldn't you couldn't sort of mass run them off.
Guest:No, I I just found because I just moved a couple days ago into this area I found some of the first like moon hearts demo
Guest:and they're just now I now know that there's like shorter lengths of tapes that would fit the music better right but they're all just like 90 minute tapes with like four songs on it five songs and all that I just hand drew the covers with like stupid hearts and stars and like glitter and what was the plan with those just to give them the fans but there was no idea of like how do we make records no idea
Marc:But I think like, okay, so this is sort of what's interesting to me is that, okay, so you're making these glittery cassette tapes.
Marc:You're with this band, Charlie and the Moonhearts.
Marc:You're doing shit.
Marc:You feel like you have something.
Marc:You sounded different than other people, I imagine.
Guest:Yeah, I tried to.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:What was the sound?
Guest:I mean, it was definitely based in garage punk.
Guest:Punk surfy kind of.
Guest:Yeah, we're listening to a lot of the mummies and the gorys and the oblivions.
Marc:Right, right.
Marc:So how does it... Because you look at you or Ty and you record on at least...
Marc:three or four, maybe five record labels over the course of five or six years.
Marc:I mean, how do you get from making glittery 90-minute cassettes with four songs on them to sort of wondering how or trying to make a living on record?
Guest:Yeah, it's such a – it's so hard to – I don't even know.
Guest:I mean, it was such a slow burn of just no expectations and, like, starting to, you know, play bigger shows.
Guest:And then, like, an Italian guy with, like, a small –
Guest:Record label that would just print like 300 black and white seven inches.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Contacted me on MySpace at the time.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Just like in broken English, do you want to make a seven inch?
Guest:And I was like, yes, of course.
Guest:That's my dream.
Guest:Right.
Guest:I never...
Guest:So was MySpace important to you?
Guest:It was crazy.
Guest:That was the way we mostly booked shows.
Marc:So you put music up on MySpace.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And you had a page.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And then you'd find other bands and they'd find you and they'd be like, do you want to play this show?
Guest:Do you want to play this party?
Marc:Really?
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:So that sort of replaced the weird kind of fanzine writing letters that the old punk rockers did.
Marc:You'd write a letter to a guy in a band or call him to try to book a gig with some other punk bands.
Marc:So MySpace really functioned that way.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It's funny because MySpace is gone.
Guest:Gone.
Guest:They're going to be gone.
Guest:But it was really important.
Guest:It's like how we got our first couple records made.
Guest:With the Italian guy.
Guest:The Italian guy.
Guest:And who was the next record?
Guest:Well, this was, yeah, this was on MySpace too.
Guest:Like this record label, Tic Tac Totally out of Chicago.
Guest:Just a small label, like one dude working out of his garage.
Marc:Now, were you finding that you were building a fan base?
Guest:yeah i mean slowly but surely and we started being able to play shows like out of town play in la like at smell uh yeah i think that was that was one of our first shows our first show was at my house yeah of course and that was also the most popular venue that was the place to be the cronin shows as they would be called um so what made you decide to go to cal arts in the middle of all this
Guest:I eventually figured out that maybe I should go to school and graduate.
Guest:From something.
Guest:Yeah, because still playing all these shows, I'm not going to be a professional musician because how do you even do that?
Guest:How do you make a living?
Marc:You still thought that the way to do that was to go to school.
Yeah.
Guest:I didn't know I didn't even think that I was just like I'm gonna go to school and the only way I could get through school and get like a degree would be to play music there right you know and it's a cool school it's like really experimental yeah it's like the basically like the John Cage school music really yeah so you started getting into that so what'd you learn there
Guest:um you know i i was is it really the john cage school movie did he start it or no i mean but all the all the professors were like contemporaries sure sure so it's just it was that contemporaries of john cage yeah they like they would like play plays you know they'd play his stuff and they're they're all like yeah a lot of waiting with the john cage silence
Guest:um but it was really cool because they were just really out there and it wasn't it wasn't like a straight conservatory like i would never be able to i i mean i auditioned the way i auditioned was like with saxophone because it was the only i didn't play a lot of saxophone at that time i was mostly like playing in punk bands but i was like that's the only one i can read on right so i think i played like a bach piece i brought my mom up to audition with me yeah
Guest:so she backed you yeah she uh she played piano and i wrote like a piece for saxophone and harp uh-huh did she play harp too she played harp she brought the harp up and they had a piano there yeah yeah and you did two pieces and then we did we did a third one that was kind of like a eastern european like fast kind of klezmer piece with like piano and i'm playing saxophone
Guest:And it's you and your mom.
Guest:It's me and my mom.
Marc:There was never a moment they were like, we should get this on record.
Guest:I think we recorded one of them.
Guest:You did?
Guest:It's just kind of a schmaltzy piano harp piece.
Guest:That's sweet.
Guest:But I'm still trying to get her on a record.
Guest:I don't know how to tie a harp into my music yet, but it'll happen.
Guest:It'll happen.
Guest:You'll figure it out.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:It sounded like the window to do that would have been when you were at Cal Arts.
Guest:Sure.
Guest:It was mostly like three years of critically thinking about and playing music all the time.
Guest:All kinds.
Guest:Yeah, so no matter...
Guest:A lot of people, it seems a lot of musicians, there's still a cliche about if you go to music school, you'll lose all your spontaneity and kind of, they say it kills something in you as a musician.
Marc:I don't know, but you entered without the illusion of being some sort of concert saxophone player.
Marc:I mean, you'd already been in the trenches.
Marc:In a way.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And it doesn't sound like it's a noodle school.
Marc:Like, you know, I mean, Berkeley, I think different musical schools produce different types of people.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And it seems like this one was more completely creative and you could find the education you wanted.
Marc:Whereas, you know, you weren't being trained to be a proficient studio musician.
Guest:Yeah, it was more just expanding your mind about what music is and what it can be.
Guest:There's still amazing session musicians that come out of there.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Of course.
Guest:Yeah, of course.
Guest:Just with a broader sense of what they can do on their instrument or what they can do with music generally.
Marc:Well, maybe that's what they were setting out to do.
Marc:You were setting out to be a rock guy.
Guest:Yeah, I guess so.
Guest:And you returned to it.
Guest:I returned to it.
Guest:I graduated and a few days later went on tour up the West Coast.
Marc:Did you make a record?
No.
Guest:There's a record.
Guest:We have a one-sided 12-inch record.
Guest:So you did that right out of school because you guys were in it.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I mean, that was about it for me because I did that tour, immediately jumped in the van with Ty as soon as I got back to LA or San Francisco or something.
Guest:And he was like, dude.
Guest:He's like, you're back in the band.
Guest:I played in early incarnations of his band as Ty Siegel.
Guest:Right.
Guest:And then I was, I mean, he was up in San Francisco.
Guest:I was down in LA at school.
Guest:Was that Reverse Shark Attack?
Guest:We did that.
Guest:Yeah, we did that.
Guest:Shoot, when was that?
Guest:2009.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:We recorded that just at my parents' house when I was living in Orange County.
Marc:The famous Cronin studio?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And performance space?
Guest:It was a garage band with one mic, one amp, a drum set, guitar, bass.
Guest:He likes that though.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:It worked out.
Marc:He's real organic with that shit.
Marc:The last record seemed to be a little more production.
Guest:Yeah, it sounds great.
Guest:Chris Woodhouse.
Guest:Yeah, that was fun.
Guest:That guy does some amazing work.
Guest:Were you on that record?
Guest:Manipulator?
Guest:Yeah, I did the string arrangements and then played on a song.
Guest:I played bass on a song.
Marc:So you are the wizard.
Marc:You're like, get Cronin in here.
Marc:We need a French horn.
Guest:If you need a French horn, you can call me.
Marc:And some cellos.
Guest:Yeah, or a saxophone player.
Guest:I've played sax on so many up in San Francisco bands or down here, whatever.
Guest:I've played saxophone on so many songs that's always the same thing.
Guest:They're like, all right, here's your solo.
Guest:Do something melodic for like four bars and then just go squeak.
Guest:I'm like, okay, I know how to do that.
Guest:That's on all your friends' records that I've ever been on.
Marc:So you were in the Bay Area for a while?
Yeah.
Guest:Yeah, so that tour actually graduated school.
Guest:I had a duffel bag in my base.
Guest:I jumped in the van with Ty with no break, went on another West Coast tour with him, ended up in San Francisco, and just stayed.
Guest:That's where he was?
Guest:Yeah, that's where him and most of the friends I grew up playing music with were...
Guest:and he was he was already like they're all in the bay area defining themselves so okay but the the point is is that you guys were all working and making records on whatever label would have you and you were playing on everyone's records yeah and at that time by the time i moved to san francisco like i i hadn't i haven't had a like a proper job since yeah we just started touring like right maniacs and like ty was we were all recording and
Guest:you know, we weren't making money off the recordings at all, but we're just touring like crazy for the last, like, you know, four, four years or whatever.
Marc:And now you're both like, I saw you play with him and you put, you tour with him sometimes or, or always when it's a Ty Siegel band?
Guest:Always pretty much.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Up in like since, since that time about four years ago when I like rejoined.
Marc:And then it strikes me that I guess we should probably get into the three solo records because the first Michael Cronin records on Trouble in Mind?
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That's a good label.
Guest:They're great.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:I have to give them credit, Bill and Lisa Rowe.
Guest:Uh-huh.
Guest:Because I got to know them through touring through Chicago, played with their old band Coca-Cola a few times.
Guest:And they let us stay at their house and stuff.
Guest:Right.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:So we were friends and then I was coming through with Ty Siegel and me and Bill were listening to music and we're into the same kind of stuff.
Guest:We're into these like psychedelic Del Shannon records.
Marc:Yeah, that's a good record.
Marc:The one that everyone knows.
Marc:I just got that.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:So we were, we were like connecting on that.
Guest:And I was like, at that time I was like, I've been thinking about like putting out some music under my own name and I kind of want it to be something like this, you know, like psychedelic pop.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:And he was like, uh, you definitely should.
Guest:And I pretty much like 95% guarantee that if you send it to me, just record it, like we'll put it out.
Guest:Like we're starting this new, it's kind of new early.
Guest:Um,
Guest:record label so he's like just do it I'll put it out like unless it's fucking terrible right of course I won't do it so that that really like lit the fire under my ass to be like okay I'm gonna collect all my musical worlds together and try to make this like
Guest:Try to make this record under my own name.
Marc:And it just struck me because I only knew you and whatever I projected onto you from Ty's World.
Marc:Sure.
Marc:And then these records, I'm like, holy shit, this is full on production, big sounding pop music that really, all of the songs were just hit you in the head in a way where it's sort of like, this is beautifully realized.
Marc:It didn't seem like we're just kind of plinking around or fucking just like raw as fuck.
Marc:It sounded like you produced those records.
Marc:Well, thanks.
Guest:That's really nice.
Guest:I tried.
Guest:I worked hard on them.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:And the last one, it's sort of like one of these records where I'm like, this should be a huge record.
Marc:i don't know i mean i'm sorry that's a hard it's not even a question but like i i know the last two are on merge and i like him and mac and you know they've always been doing a lot of great stuff but it's like it's one of those records where i don't really know what the life of records is now but it seems to me that it's very accessible it's catchy but it's also deep and it's got you know this amazing orchestration and stuff that like at another time you're sort of like this would be like a hit record
Marc:Well, thank you.
Guest:That's awesome.
Guest:Yeah, I mean, it's amazing that people still want to hear, like, guitar music at all, you know?
Marc:There's a whole new generation of guys, and I think you guys and a lot of the people you were talking about are defining sort of this age of music that there's definitely...
Marc:The community of it is always mind-blowing to me that you guys all know each other and that you play with each other and that there's sort of this crew of people moving up.
Marc:Ty's getting a lot of attention, and now you're getting a lot of attention.
Marc:How did you get tied in with all the comedy people?
Marc:Through Jonah?
Guest:Kind of.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:That was, I, I've gotten really into comedy the last couple of years.
Guest:Oh yeah.
Guest:I guess.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Oh good.
Guest:You know, I started, it started out like hanging around the meltdown.
Guest:I've been there a few times.
Guest:That's, it's good.
Guest:It's a good place.
Guest:Yeah.
Guest:Um, I was touring so much and I was, I needed a break from music just in my head.
Guest:Like I would just be surrounded by music all the time.
Guest:So I was like, should I listen to audio books?
Guest:Should I do this?
Guest:Like what's a podcast?
Guest:Right.
Guest:I was really late onto that.
Guest:And then like,
Guest:I started getting into a lot of podcasts I've listened to for years and a lot of comedy and I started like learning about comedy through these podcasts learning about people and I started going out to shows when I moved to LA or once in a while in San Francisco and then I got a Twitter comedians are all about Twitter and then like you guys don't I don't know what it is with musicians like I get boxes of fucking records and I'm like this is a great record I'm gonna tweet this guy he's like no
Marc:or if there is a tweet it's from three years ago like you just can't you don't see you guys don't like there's some part of you guys where it's sort of like I'd rather not promote it all if that's possible there's a way that I could yeah I think it's fun I don't I don't I'm bad at self promotion but I do like reading comedians tweets well it's good just to have a presence on there so when one of us likes your shit it's there yeah we can at least send you somewhere and my space is over bud
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:And that's how like, I don't know, like Jonah, I think, contacted me.
Guest:Did you do his podcast?
Guest:I did a live one up in Portland, but it didn't get recorded.
Guest:They fucked up.
Marc:What about Jonah Radio?
Marc:You haven't been on Jonah Radio?
Marc:that was that was that one i know but he didn't do an interview kind of hangout thing no i mean i actually i'm i live a couple houses down from him now in atwater or are you if he oh that's right he bought a house down here yeah he's down the street everyone's down the street now well he would probably like every band you mentioned that i'm like what he'd be like oh i love that record i have that one yeah he's like he's like that guy no he's yeah he's yeah he knows all the records
Guest:well i don't know i just got i started you know there's a couple comedians who liked my music and then i like their stuff too it's like him like so the community's blend yeah braunler's great yeah so they both jonah and kurt both directed there's two music videos right there's the one that's a rip on they call me out or call me out that one and then there i didn't watch the other one that's braunler uh jonah a joint as well
Guest:Well, not a joint, but they were both in it.
Guest:But that was, Kurt directed that, and Kristen Schaal starred in it.
Marc:Oh, you're with all the groovy kids.
Marc:This is a big groovy rock comedy crossover.
Marc:Yeah.
Guest:I like it a lot.
Guest:And I got to play, you know, I've gotten to play a few comedy shows at, like, Nerd Melt or...
Guest:I played Kurt and Kristen's show.
Guest:Oh, yeah, down at the Virgil?
Guest:Yeah, I saw you do stand-up there once when I just went.
Marc:How was that?
Guest:It was great.
Guest:I don't remember.
Guest:I'm a big fan.
Guest:Thank you.
Guest:I'm trying not to geek out.
Marc:Whenever I do those rooms where it's full of alt kids, there's part of me that's sort of like, I'm going to teach them a lesson.
Guest:I know.
Guest:You're kind of yelling at everybody.
Guest:Yeah.
Marc:i loved it i kind of knew what to expect and then i was like yep this is exactly exactly what i wanted well let's play a song man you want to sure sometimes i get musicians in here like like richard thompson or nicolo people like that and i'm embarrassed about my setup but like this is like how you recorded half your life like this this is high tech for me this is great
Guest:The circle moves in front of me And the fuel burns away And I know there's peace inside the open flame Maybe there we can stay
Guest:Sitting alone in a silent room Do I say I've been loved, I've been lost, I've been locked inside my mind And I can feel what's real and spin to me all this time
Guest:If I love a different kind
Guest:Give me faith, feel the season slip away And the rain slows the road There's a chance today you'll find your open door And I'm here, here to hold
Guest:Can I say I've been loved, I've been lost, I've been locked inside my mind
Guest:I've been loved, I've been lost, I've been locked inside my mind.
Guest:I can feel when it's real and it's been to me all this time.
Guest:I've been lucky enough to find love of a different kind.
Thank you.
Marc:Yeah.
Marc:Great.
Marc:Thanks.
Marc:Thanks, man.
Marc:Thanks for having me.
Marc:Little Beals court at the end.
Guest:Little Beals court at the end.
Guest:You got it.
Guest:Good talking to you, man.
Guest:Thanks a lot.
Marc:Nice.
Marc:I like when people play music in front of me.
Marc:You can get Michael's music and stuff from Titus Andronicus and a lot of other shit.
Marc:They got good stuff at Merge Records.
Marc:Oh my god, I'm so fucked up on jet lag.
Marc:Alright, so go to WTFPod.com for all your WTFPod needs.
Marc:Yeah?
Marc:You know the deal.
Marc:I'm too tired to play, but I think I gotta play...
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guitar solo
Guest:Boomer lives.