Yeah Yeah Yeahs with Jenny Eliscu

0:00What's with this band anyway? I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, band's flade? Never heard this band in my life Oh, you haven't, I love that, really why? Yeah, I love this song, oh, I don't know that one Band's flade, band's flade, band's flade I really hate this band Whatever, I'm their biggest fan Band's flade, band's flade, band's flade Band's flade Hello and welcome to Band's flade I am your host, Yossi Salik This is a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist Today's episode is about the Yai Yai Yai's We are starting a mini arc and for lack of a better word

1:02I've come around actually guys, I will call it an Indie Sleeze arc Because you know what? We don't have another name And I know, we'll talk about it My guest today, who we're gonna talk about this with, who has a different idea Is music journalist, an absolute legend, Jenny Ellis' skill Welcome to the show, Jenny, I'm so happy to have you on I know, I understand Because as a person who was also marginally there, I mean actually quite a bit there I did have the Janet from Three's company haircut I was wearing the American Apparel leggings babe I had a tip to tell whatever they're calling this I was doing it Deep V? Deep V? Deep V? Oh my god I always say I wore a lot of American Apparel Beat up Converse, like the gamut But we didn't call it anything And how do you refer to it now? Post, and like there's just no name for it Yeah, it's like we need a short hint We need a short hint I mean I was reminded in, you know, refreshing my memory about stuff for this

2:04It was, yes, some people called it a garage rock revival Right Which was like the closest thing to, and it did sort of begin that way Before it became, I guess what they consider Indie Sleeze Because my understanding is that the kids think of Indie Sleeze a little bit more As the tail end of that Yeah, a little more like leaning into when you're getting your like TV on the radios Right Walkman, like a little more mid-awds into later-awds As opposed to that like 2000-2001-2002 But I hate the name Indie Sleeze I think it was just that I actually sat and thought about it One day I was like Indie Sleeze And I was like no, kind of accurate It was like 90s Indie but so much Sleeze here That's exactly what it was, it was like Slicker, it was like more fucked up Like there was the lamey of it all Even the costuming of it all was like it was something, I don't know I was just like I was like you know what, I'll allow it

3:06This episode is brought to you by Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing If you saw the band when they played at the bar Or stopped mid-festival to look at the stars Then you're ready to embrace the haze with Hazy Little Thing Citrusy smooth and easy to drink It pairs with nights that don't need a script Brewed with the purest ingredients for finest quality There's a reason it's America's best-selling Hazy IPA Embrace the haze with Sierra Nevada Hazy Little Thing Enjoy responsibly I saw a journalist in a British publication that I can't remember maybe like Melody Maker or something called Trash Rock Which I thought was also a good name There's just no way to refer to this period of time in a short Nobody likes a genre shorthand anyway But I love a sub-genre name I love a post-rock I love a slow core That's why I'm just sort of like I feel like I would say we as a society maybe could do better

4:09But also I defer to the young people They came up with Indie Slees It's stuck Who am I to say? I just feel like you're a genius No but I'm there at the birthplace of it You can't see it when you're in it You midwife Not only were you there You midwife the birth of Indie Slees So I think you can have quite a bit of it But if you want to do it I've surrendered to Indie Slees as being what it's called I don't think it's going anywhere And hearing you say it actually It feels like it's growing on me I'm maybe I'm just like coming around I'm just maybe I'm just literally picturing myself in those co-pressed ink photos And being like not a bad name And maybe I need to find more pride in my own sleaziness at that age You know, it's like sort of where I'm just like Was it really that sleazy? I guess I have this sort of like Denial I'm in sleaz denial Okay, well I can't wait to get into all this I'm so glad to have you Because like I said you were there from day one I have like an interesting relationship with this period of music Because I'm just a tiny bit younger than you

5:10But also I didn't get to New York to 2004 So like by the time I got to New York in my mind I was like everything's over Not even not even thinking about this I was like the 90s are over So I was like I missed everything I don't care And I was also like a little more At Max Fish with TV on the radio Than like at Cabin with the strokes So like obviously I was aware that the strokes were over there at Cabin But it wasn't really my world as much as like The other part of it was so I didn't have a lot of comings and goings With it and I don't know if you ever have this like If something happens concurrently to my life But I wasn't part of it I don't have the mythol Like it's one thing to look up to like things that happen when I was 13 And it was the 90s or things that I was like part of But because I wasn't part of it and it was like right there I kind of am like oh yeah it's cool Like when people are like the strokes are the best band that I've ever lived I'm like are they? I mean I like the strokes a lot

6:10But it's like I guess that's like I have just a bit of distance from it But you were part of it So I feel like you're gonna have such great things to say And I hope so And I'm gonna say something controversial right at the top Because I was really happy that I did Yaya first Because I think they're the best one I think people don't actually talk about it enough They don't get their flowers enough I think Karen O is up there in the mantle of our greatest female front women that are like Front people in general of course I'm not trying to be gender But I mean more like the way that like We would have a Mount Rushmore of like Chrissy Hind You know Courtney Love Like these like incredible women that like Inspired generations like Karen O's right up there And I sometimes think she doesn't get as much credit because she was a bit later Do you ever feel that? Yeah I mean I think that

7:10I think that the ecosystem of Indy Sleeze Because I'm just gonna accept it and call it that We can make up a new one right here if you want Give me time Give me the shots a lot The ecosystem of it It's your classic where the scene is only really great With all of it Right It's a multi-part organist And not that I don't love my favorite bands And artists from that era I love with the burning fire in me Like the way I love the Beatles or the Kings Or pavement or something But you know I don't think of for instance Pavement as being part of a scene You know even though they were Even though they were silvertute and there are artists they were connected to But and I love the strokes and yay, yes With that intensity But I think part of what made it all so exciting was that it was happening together

8:12And that you didn't just have the strokes in a bubble You had the strokes and yay, yay, yes And and liars And TV on the radio And moldy peaches and longwave and interpol And they were all a little bit different And DFA and DFA And electric clash And the fact that they were all just different enough from each other But also decidedly part of like the same scene Made all of them stronger for Happening simultaneously So I'm sorry You know, thank God we had yay, yay, yes At the same time as the strokes You know, I think it makes you love the strokes more It makes you love yay, yes more all of them more Knowing that they weren't just an isolated event Yeah, it was so special also because Obviously the 90s had really turned the focus on to like Seattle Right, like it was like

9:13Everything was kind of about grunge and Seattle And bands were like picking up and moving there to make it And the idea that like New York was dead as a music desert Is so interesting because it's it had such a rich history And when did you move to New York? Oh, I moved there when I came out of my mom's womb Oh, you're from New York City? I didn't know that Jenny, okay, so you just been there Yeah So what, and you obviously a deep love of music What was your experience with what was happening in like actual New York City music? Like what was popping at the Mercury lounge when you were like 14? Well, um, Mercury lounge didn't exist yet when I was 14 But you're exactly right. I mean there was It's in retrospect such a brief period of time that things felt dead But if you were my age and just a little too young to have gotten into sonic youth When they were really happening just a teensy bit in retrospect

10:13And just a little bit before that just a little bit too young for living color Right? And all of that great black rock coalition and CVGB stuff from that era And definitely too young for the earlier CV stuff Like you're, you know, I was born in 1974 You're, you know, I'm like getting into indie music and stuff in my teens and high school And hearing some like, you know, California punk rock descendents and shit like that And when they've descendents on this program UK, shit, lush, shit in my bloody Valentine And the New England dinosaur junior pavement kind of vibe And um, it was like what is going on in New York in 1990 to 1997, 1998 It felt like there was not much happening Even though sonic youth were minted at that point and making great records It was like when was Pussy galore? So Pussy galore also is a little bit like a little bit before my time

11:16Okay And so it's just sort of like what's for, what's for us? And the first thing that came along was Jonathan Fireyder Yes, perfect. I wanted to ask you about Jonathan Fireyder So did you like have a relationship with that band when you were younger? Oh yeah, yeah I mean, I went to see them every time I could I remember going to see them at the at the top of the World Trade Center They did a show in the Was it the rotating, I believe it was the rotating, the room rotated at the top of the Like the one at LAX Oh damn Yeah, there's a restaurant that does them Possibly the only time I ever went up to the top of the World Trade Center RIP was to see Jonathan Fireyder There was a weird show, they also I saw them at Brownies and other places But I was working at CMJ at the time This is you know, when did their first EP came out like 97 I want to say? Something like Gentile, yeah Right here in my beautiful little notes

12:16Not the major label, the major label, yeah Dreamworks, Pre-Dreamworks They had the EP that had been adopted on That would have been like 96 or 95, because 97 is when they signed Yeah, so in that zone, yeah And how did you find out about them? I mean, I was working at CMJ, we were just hearing and actually props to my friend and former colleague Cheryl Lachick Who we were office, my office was next to her office And she was obsessed with Jonathan Fireyder She was friends with their manager, she was like talking about getting a Jonathan Fireyder tattoo She was obsessed and so I would hear it must have been that she was listening to You know, somebody sent her a single or the EP and she was blasting it And I was like, oh, I fucking love this Yeah, it's really good Yeah, I actually hadn't listened to it at all until doing this research and all of them By the way, the reason we're talking so much about Jonathan Fireyder A band that you might not know about is because they were Well, again, as Jenny was saying, kind of like the first wave of like

13:19They're from Jersey, right? They're from DC They're from DC, okay But like kind of like establishing themselves as like a New York indie band And like getting this sort of like hype going And they inspired quite a few of the bands that we now are going to talk about in the Indies Lays They are all the famous of the strokes, we had never heard that band Yeah, and that tracks And the Walkman was most of the members of Jonathan Fireyder, minus singer, Stuart Lepton, RIP Who was still alive when the Walkman formed But he made his own side project Exactly, but you know, I think it's more so Well, one, you had the proximity, Jonathan Fireyder were from DC But they were based in New York, they were in New York band They had met as kids in DC And they brought Garage Rock Revival to New York Which was simultaneously happening in Detroit There were bands like The Go, who were the predecessors of the White Stripes And other artists of that era

14:21And I'm sure there were other cities probably like Austin and stuff Where Garage Rock Revival stuff was happening in 1997, 1998 You know, there was a, yeah, exactly There was a Memphis contingent of oblivions and shit like that That's about it And so fucking... Garage Rock Revival It felt like Jonathan Fireyder really brought in the moog of it all And brought back and this is also somewhat concurrent with the Nuggets box set And... It came up in our White Stripes episodes Psychisty is hell, moment of where you're just like Oh, moog, Garage Rock, psych, sleaze Yeah, and I think what I was really struck by with Jonathan Fireyder is like The Flamboyants Which I think you don't see like, well, no, I wouldn't say the white ones I wouldn't say the White Stripes were flamboyant at all I wouldn't say the oblivions were, I mean, they were crazy, but they weren't flamboyant There was something very flamboyant about Stuart Lupptens' stage presence

15:23And Karen O'Will say it, and I think I have some coats from her But she took a lot of her moves from him He was wrapping the mic cord And he was like a very sexual performer Which is very interesting Also, I was kind of interested in how like, they were like kind of the first cautionary tale of like They got a bunch of hype, they signed this huge dreamworks record deal and imploded Like, did not perform, and the band fell apart Yeah, yeah I mean, and also just I'll say you mentioned Pussy galore Yeah Credit to Pussy galore and John Spencer blues explosion Which again, like if you're my age, whatever, it felt like a little bit like a little bit before my time Just enough that I was like, I'm too late to jump on the blues explosion And waken now And but and that's you know, I would think that probably Stuart Lupptens would have said that things like that were inspiration Inspirations, but yeah, it definitely felt like as a fan at that point of the nerdy or kind of indie rock

16:26The pavements and stuff like that Or even if you look at like dinosaur junior You know, it was a don't look at me kind of a thing or a magnet or ironically look at me charisma Like I call it Yes, exactly It's like a you can't help but look at it, but it's like a black hole like, do you not perceive me? Yeah, exactly And to have Jonathan Fireyater as these like just super, yeah charismatic, cute, incredible musicians I mean, Matt Barrack obviously is one of the best drummers of all time They were all amazing, they really delivered live, they were really really good live And if you were a fan of theirs, it was annoying that they got backlash It was really annoying and then they signed a dream works, DreamWorks was a new label at the time And it and the backlash and it was like that chatter around that, kill them in a way that was so sad as a fan of theirs

17:26And to fast forward a little bit when the strokes came on the scene and know it all in New York And listen, I'm a fucking know it all and I hate myself for it But I actually know it also, it doesn't count People would be like, oh you really like the strokes They're just Jonathan Fireyater Redux and I'd be like, first of all Jonathan Fireyater were amazing And they were too good for this world And then like, yes, God bless if the strokes are like Jonathan Fireyater That's not a diss, first of all, second of all, you don't know what you're talking about I hope those people are like really happy now knowing that like the strokes absolutely like proved the test of time And are like, you know, still making albums and like moving hearts and minds Jonathan Fireyater is an important start with Okay, but let's start actually, you know what I want to start with? I want to read two quotes from Karen O If you don't mind, this is the first one Do I think being a girl had anything to do with our outsider status as a band? I think it had everything to do with it This is the second one

18:26We've always been coming from the position of being the underdog Of the one female fronted outsider band We came up when the strokes exploded I remember playing a show with the strokes at Dawn Hills And before we knew it, they were the band that saved rock and roll or whatever Then we released Fever to tell on the white stripes released elephant at the same time We were like definitely always the underdog And being the underdog is a great fucking position to be in, man It's so good for a little while I grapple with it But I think that's why we're doing what we're doing or still around and people still care It's like growing up not being incredibly good looking If things don't come easily to you, you're always struggling, you're always fighting You never expect anyone to have her pay attention It's such a throughline in the AAS music and just career, this like idea of being an underdog And I don't want to say I don't want to get dundered because it's impossible It's impossible to not talk about gender, especially when you're talking about rock and roll Especially when like to this day in any scene there's usually one band that has a female front person or women in it at all And then they call it a girl band

19:27And then they call it a girl band I will always remember, again, I was here in Southern California going to Cinespace Indulging in my own Indie Sleeves fantasies But my best friend at the time was a girl named Rachel who was half Korean, she was a musician And I remember so starkly her being like, oh fuck Well, I can't do it now It wasn't, you know, like it wasn't, oh she's doing it so I can do it That's not how people felt, you know It was like there's only room for one Not just one woman, one Korean American woman, you know, like And I thought that was so interesting and it's kind of still true It's like people talk a lot about breaking down barriers But like they still kind of only let you have one Yeah, I mean, I remember like at the time You know, when I was early days at Rolling Stone and covering like industry stuff and that sort of reporting And it was like the PDs at program directors at K-Rock and stuff like that

20:30Like being quoted as acknowledging that once they had filled the slot with your whole or your garbage or whatever Done, that's it Because they believed and maybe they focused group did and maybe it was true That people would change the channel if they heard more than one woman And I was just a quick sidebar to say that I get sometimes occasionally Randos who hit me up because they hear me on serious exam And they will complain men that I play too many female artists Or they have some spin on it And let me just say we all play the same stuff all day That's the way radio... It's a program That's the way radio actually works But because I am a woman speaking with a woman's voice It is perceived that I am just like ladies only over here

21:32And so this is still in 20, 30 years later So it must have been true It's disturbing to think that that recently that it was just like oh yeah listen and it's be like Another lady, get it go Yeah changing the channel man, what is this? Okay, we're actually gonna start our story with Nick's dinner I get by you guys were not expecting that but our story starts with Nick's dinner Nick's going in age order Well yeah I feel like because he was actually kind of the one making music first Was immersed in the New York scene He is a Sagittarius from Sharon Masha's Massachusetts And I was like, I'm not sure if you're listening I didn't actually get a full read on this but Nick's dinner if you're listening I did run into him at the ice age show and told him that we were doing this episode And he was like, oh and I was like, no, it was great, we're gonna celebrate you

22:32He grew up super into metal is what I read Slayer, Testament and also one Scott thrown out of a Guns and Roses show Because he was taping it He just grew up playing guitar and making four tracks of himself playing Make Mars solos and stuff, if I can cool Went to Bard College of Styl Photography, played in a band called the Boba Fett experience Which later changed their name to challenge of the future Did you ever see challenge of the future play? I don't believe so So this is kind of the band, this is from the Bard Makes Noise website Which is a website about bands that went to Bard College The five members originally met while attending Bard College in the early 1990s Discovering a shared love of bands such as the Fall, Cannes, Spaceman 3 and the birthday party They formed a group in 1993 So that's where Nick's dinner vibe was coming And they were like, we're gonna go to Williamsburg Brooklyn and make it, babe This is the back when people did not move to Williamsburg, Brooklyn, just want to point out Even when I moved to Williamsburg, Brooklyn in 2004, it was like, crickets

23:34Nothing was happening New York muffin That sea town Trying to think of anything else Mini market, I used to get cool clothes there It's about all that was happening on a Bedford Avenue They broke up in 2001 Which is a little or time little iffy But in 2000 while I believe that band was still happening Nick's dinner met Karen O Mars Bar Did you go to Mars Bar a lot? I tried not to Why? What was the vibe at Mars Bar? Danger, a little bit of danger But hey, it's Indy Sleeze So you know It was on the sleazeier side of the options Of the spectrum of the spectrum Yeah, well there's also cookies I mean there's a lot that stayed till I was there that you're like, you know you get sleaze Yeah, lit Right, lit is a place where God does not exist I just want you to know that is a godless area

24:34And then the dark room The dark room But yeah, lit was it came along as ever so slightly later Mars Bar was there I don't know it was there when I started You know in the 90s when I started going into the East Village And you know Not to go dark but it's like oh I heard stories about that People having you know Got jumped outside You know like It was a little bit on the like sort of At careful leaving Mars Bar Sure no one's following you leaving Mars Bar Like that was sort of as a more like innocent You know, but I was just like oh god And places like Brownies Were more kind of my Your story But you know Nick's in her like He was a scene star She was around and I remember when I first Heard about yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah Yeah, maybe before I saw first saw them And it was like I don't even I knew Nick's name was Nick

25:36Because it was sort of like In the scene it was like oh yeah That guy Nick who like looks like Nick K Totally many Nick K Me and Nick K Yeah, and so it's like ooh I don't know that guy But that guy is cool I know he's talking about Oh it's his band so he was the one person I knew of him from the scene when yeah, yeah Started playing There was some great quote Let me see if I can find it Oh from Mark Spitz Okay, it's from Meet Me in the Bathroom Thank you to Lizzie Goodman He said around 97.98 There would be these parties in Brooklyn Where it'd be artists living in full warehouse floors So you could have a whole band come in and play And I can't tell you how many parties I went to Where there was a keg And then a shitty band with a lead singer with a beard The guitar player, those shitty bands Always seemed to me Nick's in there So again he was really he was in the scene He was around but he always had You know he's always had this Just beautiful pure vibe that he has now Where he you know you rarely saw him speaking

26:38You know like and we were at friends then But it's like he had this aura of silence to him That was very like impressive You know mysterious and alluring And he is as we were saying He's like ageless and timeless And he just has this beautiful Like he comes from someplace else Just a real incredible shape of a good job in the center Whatever you're doing is working Okay so let's do a carano No sidebar Caron Lee or Zolek Born November 22nd, 1978 Cusp of Scorpio and Sagittarius So that means there's a lot of sex in there Yeah yeah but also it makes a lot of sense Which we'll get into a lot With her sort of dual personality Maybe not a dual personality But her persona versus her personality That you see a lot with the stage Caron and then the you know Lived experience Caron She was born in Seoul Korea The daughter of a Korean mother And a Polish American father Her dad owned a clothing and jewelry manufacturing company And she was born in Seoul Korea

27:38The daughter of a Korean mother And a clothing and jewelry manufacturing company And her mom was a fashion trend consultant Which was so fashionable Raised an angle in New Jersey She talked to nylon in 2009 about how She was a little bit ostracized for her Ethnicity She said if we were playing spin the bottle All the boys would be pretty bummed to kiss the happy But as you grow up You start to realize what an asset it is To have that as a part of you it shapes you There's also a really great if you guys are interested Conversation with her And Michelle's honor of Japanese breakfast That they did I think for Well looks good on that one I want to say rolling stone That sounds right Yeah podcasts which is great where they kind of bond about Their experiences growing up Half Korean in America She said her dad put her on to the amazing music She didn't say what but I'm assuming I'm just going to go ahead and assume There was probably a lot of like She is super into that which we will talk about when we get into the music

28:40She said she wrote her first song at age 9 On the piano it was a corny girl group Do-Wop love song And paraphrasing what she said She also said she had like a best friend Who was like this is amazing This is incredible this is Mozart And she was like oh my god thank you Like gave her the strength to keep going I wish all of us to have a friend like that From the beginning She also said the first record she bought was by the doors Strange days People are strange on it So interesting have you done a doors ban splinter? Sure I have a doors truth Okay yeah Because the strokes too I'm not for you I mean it just was one of those like the dead where I just didn't Yeah it just didn't as like little indie punk rock Age that I happen to be Which is sort of like not cool to like the doors Totally I think you had to be slightly bit younger than me Fair shot and I've never gone back around to be like Let's do it The thing about the doors and I've said this on this podcast And a million times and I'll say it a million more times

29:40They were like kind of one of the earliest punk bands Yeah Which I think is like really overlooked about them And I don't know that's probably why the strokes Like them I think Julian is like such like a musical You know like I picture him like a beautiful mind Or the meme with the lady who's like doing Like that's how his music mine works But like for a lot of people like The posturing and the vibe of Jim Morrison was very punk I mean he inspired Iggy Pop you know to start Yeah Do making music like what's more you know punk than Iggy Pop So anyways that's my doors sidebar But she also loved Carano Michael Jackson Comes up a bunch of times She was very inspired by Michael Jackson Which makes a lot of sense to me in terms of like Again the flamboyance The performance The glove She said What I was young it was more appropriate for girls to imitate Madonna But I always wanted to be Michael Jackson This episode of Bandsplane is presented by Sierra Nevada Life's about embracing the haze

30:40What does that mean? Living in the moment Seeing where the night takes you Being up for the adventure And there's no better way to embrace it Than with hazy little thing by Sierra Nevada Hazy, citrusy, smooth And then with the moment Hazy, citrusy, smooth Juicy but not sweet Hoppy but not better America's best selling hazy IPA for good reason Hazy little thing, enjoy responsibly She did sketch comedy in high school Huh Which I thought was kind of cool She said that it helped her pick up a sense of physicality She was like oh that makes a lot I mean because she is such like an incredibly embodied performer Definitely But she's quite shy is that interesting too Yeah I mean I guess taking sketch comedies Will help you sort of Break a little out of your shyness Right It's got to because it's like there's nothing more

31:40As someone who did sketch comedy and stand up comedy There's truly nothing more humiliating than Standing on a stage and trying to be funny And trying to be like please like me You know Did you ever do stand up comedy? No, I have not, not yet It's number two late, babe You know what? It's number two late You're young, stumpy And then she got really into music Lots of bands that she lists But one very important one Which we already just talked about was Jonathan Fire Her friend took her to a concert And she said about them Those guys had so much fucking Hutzpah check sex appeal They're kind of scrappy, skinny, effeminate dudes But just so fucking sexual Just primal sex using out of their pores It was fucking awesome I kind of associate that also like when I think about Indie Sleeze And I think about the New Yorker but all I'm like yeah New York bands should be sexy You know, like it's not Seattle You know, it's not like The doldrums of rain And like such a different vibe

32:41Like I love that idea of that kind of coming back into the water With these New York bands Karen also said she would go see the makeup and PJ Harvey Oh yeah, the makeup, yeah that's my job In the Spongebob Spongebob Spongebob There's so much PJ Harvey for me and Karen O Do you even feel that too? Yeah, for sure And not just in Karen O In the Aya's, like I hear a lot of it in the music as well Even though obviously PJ Harvey's had like multiple eras of types of music But when I listen to a fever to tell I can hear quite a bit of PJ Harvey in there Yeah, it's interesting too how much of the cure is in all of those I mean if you're just limiting it to the Strokes Interpol and yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, like over time Not in the more primordial Viceroyle earlier music Not so much, but if you think about the music they've made in more recent years Heavy, I mean yeah, yeah, as heavy cure sounds

33:43And the Strokes of course, you know, on the new abnormal music Of course, you know, on the new abnormal and stuff like that Yeah, I think the cure is one of the greatest bands that's ever existed And every band today walks in there, walks in their footsteps And weirdly underrated somehow Somehow, even though like so massive, but still somehow a little bit overrated I mean underrated, she goes to Oberlin College Famously also Liz Verre went there And then they both, that'll create music careers from it She said that they had a winter term, which is two months where you're supposed to take off Because it's winter in Ohio is apparently just like miserable and you shouldn't even go outside And so she decided to learn to play guitar And she said, a buddy of mine interested me to Neil Young Who I have to say was extremely influential He's got that super unconventional voice But so much feeling so much heart His voice and Jeff Mangum's from Neutral Milk Hotel They were the two people who got me thinking I could be a singer I wanted to sing my heart out like those guys I loved that. I never heard her say that. I'm a huge Neutral Milk Hotel fan

34:47And then I was like, oh that makes so much sense Because he does have such an unconventional voice I also like that she did this because one of another hell that I love to go ahead and play my corpse on is That they let men do that They let men have unconventional singing voices But like women often are not given quite as much grace around that And I love that Karen was like, I can fucking do it It's also interesting when people who have a genuinely beautiful singing voice regard themselves as having had to work on it or something And you're like, well, but you have the voice of an angel But I do. I mean I think I love Karen and her voice But I see what she's saying. It's like a little... I don't know how to describe it How I hear it to my ears It's like, it's a little girlish and scratchy and like a little bit... Yeah, it just has a lot of personality in it She's not Ariana Grande

35:47And there's this sort of flattening thing That when you mentioned Jeff Mangum Because obviously the Neil Young falsetto thing We hear that but like the thing she does when she's being more When she's letting it rip a little bit more Or what Hamilton Line has her calls letting the dogs out Like who... who... like that? Exactly And it's the sort of the more funny comic voice that she does That's a little bit like... It's like, I don't know... You know what I'm saying? It's like... Things get kind of squished down in this way that's really like signature A little compressed Exactly, totally I love when she screams, I love it Because it's so unique We were talking about Courtney Love earlier That's a different scream, you know? Even PDA Heart That's a different scream Her is like, you can absolutely pick it out of a lineup And audio lineup She said the first song I ever learned on guitar Was by Massey Star

36:47Hell yeah So as I learned to play a little guitar I started writing music I didn't really care about really knowing how to play I know pretty much as much now about playing guitar as I knew that I'm dead serious, it's slightly embarrassing From the four lessons I took when I was 18 years old I've been able to write hundreds of songs You don't need to know much to write a good song It's not too late for us Johnny It should be If you've got the music in you, you know? She said then later she played some songs She wrote at a party and people were crying And she was like, I don't like it at Oberlinburg So I moved to New York I don't know those two statements are related They came one after another I like to imagine that she was like, fuck this Yeah, I just remember... I remember after seeing Yeah, yeah, as play And then hearing that when she and Nick started playing together That it was Foki Like cat powery sounding stuff And I couldn't picture until I started to hear some of the slight Ever so slightly later, yeah, yeah, stuff I couldn't really picture it And I was just like, oh, like Neil Young, cat power Foki Vots

37:48I was like, wow, okay Did you ever... did you not ever play out That I couldn't get to the bottom of Not that I noticed or not that caught my attention I don't... I think it was, if I understand correctly, it was like Like a background concert Karen and Nick met at Mars Bar They... I like this, and they started playing together And they were doing that kind of a sounding thing initially And I don't know if they... And they wrote the song now known as our time Yes As a unitarred song Yeah, yeah That I assume had a more cat powery Foki incarnation But I don't know if they played shows in New York at all I don't find any information about it I know she was doing open mics at Sidewalk Cafe By herself pre-unitarred Yeah, that was a whole... I mean that anti-focus scene That was a whole other... That's like the moldy peaches Exactly, exactly Sidewalk, I've been still there I like really vividly convicted in my mind It wasn't till recently Yeah But so I don't know if it still is

38:49As an expat of New York The idea of being really shy And then taking your guitar to Sidewalk Cafe I mean like I'm gonna play some songs Oh, die I feel like it was pretty low stakes Right, right It's like open mic, you know So I would probably pass away She also said So she was an enrolled in NYU She was a film student And every Sunday night Her and her friend, quote, a rockabilly Korean girl who only watched French New Wave films Sounds like one of the coolest people I've ever lived Yeah Would go to Shout Which was... Oh yeah Did you go there? Yeah A Mod Dance Party at Bar 13 Oh yeah What kind of music did they play? I mean... The jam and stuff The jam and like, you know... The who? I don't want to say like 96 tiers Right, I'm gonna experience that kind of stuff That's so fun Yeah, yeah You know, it's like, because there was also the Smiths Night at Bar 13

39:49And there was the Night at Vaughn And there was like... Yeah We had them, you know, I think about a lot Actually, does that even exist anymore? Because like, when I was here as even like a pre- Of age person We had like Tiger Beat And these like 18 Plus club nights That were like themed around A genre of music Does that still happen? Yeah, they do, I mean they do It's Abuelon, they do a New Wave Dance Party Oh, that's true, that's true So it's like, you know, it's like when you say it back then Shout out to Shannon Korn, I think she did DJs at that Yeah, that's true, you're at the kind of... I was like 44 years old, exactly Exactly, you know, it's a kind of like where you're like, oh, this is what the version of Wanting to hear 60s, you know Psychrock thing, like... You've danced for like, it sounds so fun, I wanna go Right? I know, sometimes I'll be able to show it to Abuelon this like an early show Because they're like gonna clear out the right needs To wanting your New Wave I love New Wave, but I'm just, it's a different thing But yeah, that, there were those sort of cool or more like

40:49Retro Garage Rock kind of nights That then kind of pivoted into what was the Tizz was And the mother fucker And eventually your misshapes And that kind of thing was... Shout out to Cindy, one of the coolest women to ever exist And still being extremely cool and gorgeous I thought she hung them in When I was living in New York Yeah, I mean, Justine and I just went to just like heaven fast together I saw your photos on Instagram, I was so jealous It was not in town I was at just like heaven The Cure Show Amazing, Edinburgh, so I was having my own version of Just Like Heaven Amazing, but yeah, I would have loved to see Justine, she probably doesn't remember why I haven't seen her in 20 years Well, it was funny because we met I was going to that kind of shit and stuff But I hadn't met Justine and I went to the UK with the Strokes in summer In the UK with the Strokes in summer of 2001 Writing about them for Rolling Stone And stuff and they were playing at Reading And Leeds and Glasgow And I wear this in like the VIP Like for at Reading

41:49And I had bought while I was in London I had bought a small faces t-shirt Oh yeah And Ogden's not gonflake And I was introduced to this table of people justine was sat at And she was like, ooh, cool small faces Oh, you hadn't met her before that And she was like, ooh, cool small faces t-shirt And I was like, thanks And she's like, wait, you're not English Where are you from? And I was like, I'm from Queens And she's like, I'm from Queens And we've been sisters ever since So we celebrated our 25 year friend of her story Seeing this reunite of the Strokes So we've been reunited for the Strokes Just like Heaven and Wapasidina, California Two girls from Queens Really touching Well, I don't know if Justine and you was at Shout She was a mod dance party But Karen O and her Korean friend Who only watches French New Wave films And apparently she was like I needed to do this person Other, she said I'd have like Seven Cosmopolitan's

42:49And be doing knee slides on the dance floor Like she was a kind of honing Or crafting Crafting sounds like an artifice Letting the dogs out Of this side of her And she really had the chance to breathe You know? Also, that was really cute She said the first day she ever did Her open-minded sidewalk cafe She was 21 and she said she was wearing a polka dot Black and white dress that she got at a thrift store And that day she got a tattoo Because she wanted to commemorate the beginning Of like her doing music And she was like really non-committal So she was like, I'm getting a tattoo And it was of a bee on her shoulder So the way sweet I felt the chemistry from the very first time we ever played music together We were just hanging out in her old apartment above Odessa I lived in Williamsburg and in a legal loft with 10 other people That's a cliche at this point I know She was playing song she'd written on acoustic tar for me And I was like those are rad Let me record them and play on them I immediately knew I would be making music And be somehow involved with her for a while

43:49I felt it just whoosh immediate connection So we did this unit hard project We don't know what it sounds like But we can guess We can do it with our time Also a lot of other The IA has have like inside you There are two wolves And it's like the freak out Amazing, more like electro-clashy disco-y And then they have these like really beautiful Honestly kind of elevated duop songs To me that's to my ear That's what they sound like They're these girl group love songs But sort of brought to a different level With Nick's guitar and stuff And so I'm like oh maybe that's sort of what those early songs sounded like But stripped down you know We don't know What we do know is that Nick's inter said New York when I moved here was awful Because everyone was so serious And cool and into heroin All the bands were dark and serious We had our dark band Unitar was super dark But that lightness, that silliness Was inside of us And Karen was an expert in bringing it out and embodying it

44:49We really needed that and New York needed it too Karen said I was all about getting free and causing trouble All I wanted to do was cause trouble If I had a night where I didn't cause trouble I'd be really disappointed in myself I lived for it New York was fun It was I'm sure it is still not Again it's so weird and retrospective when you think about how time feels To think about like Okay so I mean Late 2000 Is when the strokes did their mercury-lounge residency? December of 2000 is when the strokes Did their mercury-lounge residency That was how I first saw them Yeah, brought them all the attention Exactly Less than one year later is 9-11 Insane You know 10 months later And then everyone was real sad Sure So then it was like it wasn't fun It was fun right

45:49Distracting yourself from fear and trauma In this way that You know obviously if you're like in your 20s or something like You know there's a little of that energy anyway where you're just Everything feels sort of dramatic And you get fucked up to kind of just like cope with the angst of being Exactly one year old Exactly but So it's impossible When I think about it sometimes I forget and then when I remember like oh yeah from From 9-11 on we were all so traumatized Yeah That it's impossible to separate like those choices for Trying to go somewhere else and trying to distract yourself And you know I remember the phrase that came up at the time was disaster sex Which was just sort of like oh after a disaster you know You have sex to distract yourself Which is different from disaster sex Of course And then there's disasteration for those who don't have a partner

46:49Of course you want to be inclusive But we're not in 9-11 yet So we'll talk about the freedom prior So you mentioned Earlier like that you Went to some of the early SDA as shows So I guess what happened is at some point Nick says that Karen turned him and was like We got to make a rock band And he was like Why this is cool you know And she was like no dude trust me dude He said that she always said dude like every Which as a woman of vocal for experience I absolutely relate Except I'd partly do it into bed So she said You know let's do it come on this is what we gotta do And he said okay and we started telling everyone We're gonna start rock band It's gonna be fucking awesome So I guess they wrote a couple songs They drank brass monkeys And in two hours they wrote four songs The first song they ever wrote was bang

47:49And they were just like You know still at the bar has been like We got this cool rock band And The name they were at a bar And they heard It's just someone saying yeah yeah yeah And they were like That's the name of our band And then they'd brag about it so much The open for the white stripes at Mercury lounge which in fairness that wasn't like a very scary thing right because the white stripes were not Right and non-quantity at this time But it was still a real show Were you at that show by any chance I don't think so I'm pretty sure the first time I saw Yeah, yeah, it was at Warsaw Okay Down the line there's a bigger yeah yeah show where they had lined in TV on the radio open for them But they were I want to say first of three or something Yeah, and I don't I truly don't they erased my memory of anything that came after them It was just Just put on it all It was I it actually made me happy it made me smile it made you know it made me feel better it's like

48:51I'm assuming it Must have been post 9-11 Okay, it must have been Or could have been that summer right before but it's just like Karen doing the thing you know the pouring the beer all over right and she was just laughing she was cracking herself up I was I hadn't seen anything that Was that much fun that joyous and free yeah I don't think I've ever seen a young band that was that much fun before that that's so cool Well This show at the white stripes was September 2000 and I think they're like first of four or something And they didn't have a drummer so Karen was like well I have a friend I went to Oberlin with his name is Brian Chase He'll a little drum for us and he was like okay And they had one rehearsal and then they went ahead and played the show Nick's inner said no one was there there was one English guy and some of their friends

49:51And the white stripes stated Karen's afterwards And then they started playing some shows and they made the demo The mastery of you now you were working at this time and I was at Rolling Stone you were at Rolling Stone Yeah, I read that this mastery P which was again not commercially released It was just made to get them shows started really making the fucking rounds did it get into your hands at Rolling Stone Yeah, yeah, yeah, and now that I'm thinking about again the show They wore saw show would have been summer of 2001 because it was the night before the Mermaid parade in Coney Island Right so it'd been like July or something so I mean yeah they really brined they had Brian on drums That was the whole thing was was you know they had been playing a little bit I think the EP came around to me after I had seen them play Right within a matter of days, weeks you know and It's actually my my editor Joe Levy shout out to legend

50:53I'm really here for me I believe it was he called me into his office and he showed me the EP I think Somehow it's someone it's sent it to us and he was like have you heard the spand and I was relieved to be able to say I have their amazing You're like I'm on bottom I'm doing my child It's called the mastery P you guys because it's just like a close-up shot of like Karen from Lipsdown And she's writing those like sick so fucking early 2000s thing Which is like this big name plate necklace with like ride stones that says master in all caps It's the monster and fuck I know they should have made merch of it maybe they did actually So yeah so you were like I know that band so I was just like yeah I was like oh yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah I was like yeah I said they're great I saw them at war so they're amazing and Luckily because at that point the strokes as much as yeah yes might have been under dogs relatively Right the strokes had cracked it open just enough in mainstream media for people's antenna to be up

51:53To not want to be too late on the next thing right because the strokes had proven like oh shit Like we kind of heard about this and then like it was a thing yeah they were they were like buzz worthy enough that it was You had to cover them and you know or be seen as being out of the loop right and so when yeah yeah As came along it was like there was and I was just really lucky to be in the position I was in Having gotten it right with the strokes I had it was like I had the build a truck it was a truck that was like okay I've written about the white stripes and it was so it's like okay I like how you're being so humble The Jenny all this you really flew the fog of the strokes I feel like you helped a lot getting them the buzz that they had Thank you It was gonna happen you know it's one of those were just like it was gonna happen right right it was gonna happen There's no stopping something like that but I I play it's right time and being insistent enough that yeah and pushing past people of an older generation

52:53Being like oh you you really like I remember Joe would say like oh you really wish you had gotten to see the jam Don't you when I would be barking about the strokes and you're saying it's not just new I'm not just reset you know I was I was like trying to push through a little bit of the older guard Trying to dismiss this new stuff is just being a Poor facsimile of something older and there's and now I'm the person who has to remind myself when I'm being Momentarily dismissive of some young thing that I'm just like oh it's new my bloody Valentine's be like okay let the kids have there Listen we're we've been reheating not just since the dawn of time that's part of the continuum of rock music And that's fine. It's baked in like as Jim jim jammers said it's not where you take it from and it's where you take it too You know we want to hear that we want to hear a bit of the DNA of you know the earliest rock you know little Richard carried on through That's what makes rock music cool. Yeah, and then it just goes in all these like insane directions

53:56Okay, so mastery P is floating around you guys rob shopfield said Where was Rob shopfield riding up this time rolling so yeah he was he was he was into it he was there yeah he said the AAS EP was really hard to find and should have been hard to find because it sounded like crap Nick once told me that it was on a cassette And he put it he put his jeans in the laundry is the tape went through the laundry and that's what they master it from I was like you know what dude I believe you it sounds like it was recorded in a dumpster Um The one we hear now is remastered so I don't know if I could hear it the way it was originally heard maybe on YouTube or something Um Importantly it got two places well besides Rolling Stone It got into the hands of a safe a med my pronouncing his name awesome awesome yeah into the hands of a massive Ahmed by the bartender at Odessa He said people kept giving it to me at one point I found myself with nine copies of this fucking thing in my apartment I finally played it one night our time came on and I was like fuck this is a great song my friend Rachel suggested I manage them I'm like I don't know Brian looks like any monster the other guy looks like Eugene levy and they're all really pretentious

55:03Awesome is a hilarious one of the funniest roasters is he's a great roaster in meet me in the bathroom you can tell this person gave absolutely not one single solitary fuck it was a little bit of a time I just can tell you what I think here it is and it made me laugh a lot but he did he does become their manager the demo also made its way this is where I got like real baronstein bears situation but maybe you couldn't help me so the demo made its way to the vice offices into search all these hands one of the founders of who booked them for the vice five year anniversary party at spa I remember spa just indeed who managed that night said they were paid $400 now here's my problem vice was founded in 1994 this show was in 2000 but it's a five year anniversary party sometimes it takes a while to get you shit together okay because it's just no date on this party so I was like wasn't it I would they didn't exist in it and it's okay so it's 2000 which is your go to the show

56:03do you remember that or call no apparently was the biggest show they had played to date because before that they're most be playing brownies I think and that one mercury long show and like Lux on Grand Street I never know is a tiny it was tiny yeah so yeah they're playing really small shows but then that was kind of a big show and then the that paired I mean vice was vice in nineteen in 2000 bro like yeah come on now that was hey day of my god do's and don't stop the chain I know there's like there was some problematic situations around vice but at that point it was fucking cool oh yeah like we would rush to grab the vice from the fucking outside of the American apparel wherever you picked up your vice yeah and you would like be like oh my god like what's in it also said that then they played a huge show at brownies in December and that's when it was like the the hype had like hit the fan and there was managers yeah labels like everyone trying to sign them

57:04that may be the show for which you see the basement we have to we'll have to flash the journey just found this video on YouTube that's just like really funny handheld footage of backstage at our brownies show at the a as we're genius gorgeous smiling faces there talking to care no you see like everyone just kind of milling about and it's like so early on it's very cool yeah I well do you know when because obviously touch and go ended up releasing not until 2001 not until 2001 yeah yeah didn't get like a formal release until 2001 so your old boss Joe levy your old editor said I saw them three times at brownies in that period and they were three of the best shows I've ever seen thanks to Jenny LSU telling you to go see them all the things people talk about when they talk about yay as we're there Karen O grabbing three beers in her fist drinking one and pouring the other two over herself and over the mic stand you know all this unhinged deeply layers completely spontaneous behavior at the first shows all girls in the front they were all her friends they were giving her drinks and there was a sense that there was something happening here and involved girls

58:09all in on a secret that nobody else understood which is completely exhilarating because 99.99% of the shows you go to you're lucky if there's a single girl there let alone the sense that girls are not just participating but in control I love that yeah that's interesting I had forgotten that but totally true that yeah there was this Karen gang and also yeah just the idea that it Karen doing her thing gave girls permission to it's that it's that eliminating the male gaze thing totally well it's like I mean one time your girl to show there's a presumption like oh you're there because you think the bands hot you want to fuck the band you know like and it's like that's kind of taking off the table again obviously there are gay people but like you know like in a broader sense like okay like maybe you're just there to fucking have fun yeah and even just even just like Karen doing that persona

59:09it wasn't it was it didn't feel like something done for the male gaze you know it felt like it felt like you know the way now people talk about like girlhood you know the memes about like girlhood it's like that sort of like girlhood pure girlhood minus male gaze even though there's like a sexiness to it and it's funny because I like was rereading the Rolling Stone piece I did on yeah yeah as there was quote from Karen about how people at the time would be like she's over sex she's and I didn't remember it I don't remember that being a point of conversation because I guess in retrospect I don't really think about even listening to the music now like I don't really think about it as being like about sex or something although there were some pretty explicitly about sex songs yeah yeah but I guess it did feel like there was a certain element of freedom from

1:00:09heteronormative bullshit right you know yeah well I I was my pink pussy hatch back on my head but I was like yeah like to like elaborate maybe from when I'm hearing from your point is like there was a lot of ugliness in a cool way right like Karen I was afraid to be ugly like it's not beautiful and sexy to pour beer on your head you know some of those costumes were in war crimes and she'll say it she's like oh Christian joy would make my costumes and she would try to make the ugliest thing possible and I would like cry because I had to wear it but I would just fucking wear it because it was like it was like an experiment it was like an art project like what can like where can we push these boundaries so it's like yeah in a sense it was like sexual but in another sense it was like she wasn't afraid to show all these ugly parts of her and I talked to Cody Krochelo who we will who's the fucking greatest coolest artist but he did their all of their first all their first artwork and

1:01:09merchant stuff around the first album and he was like yeah I remember it was so cool like we would like go through photos and she would pick the ones where she looked the most busted and I'm like oh that's so rad you know like it's such like I don't think we see that much anymore you know and I and I think part of it is because like we live in a post social media world so it's like the obsession with being attractive and hot is like kind of trumped everything else and I'm not immune to it no one's immune to it I mean maybe some people are immune to it but back then it's like you were being perceived within a physical space most of the time and less on a two-dimensional screen like it was like yeah you'd be in a magazine or whatever but like that gave this freedom to have because there is something really hot about being unhinged and being free like that without it being like a typical sexual presentation yeah totally and I yeah of course there's no overestimating the absence of phone filming you know like we had

1:02:12digital cameras obviously but like you know when it was filming their phone so that frees you up a bit but the sense of fun the sense that she was laughing her ass off and she was like messing up and laughing and you know there's some of that in the strokes too I remember the early strokes shows where you're like to like Julian would fall down some and you would just be like well and there's a sense of like you know or the libertines which are obviously different yeah thing but do you just like oh it's falling apart in front of your very eyes and to see a woman doing that where she's just like laughing and having fun and not just yeah like he's like just sort of like posing and like contemplating how she looks all the time it was so great it was so rare you know yeah I mean it was a lot props to Kathleen Hannah totally I mean there obviously there are there are precedents for this and I'm PJ Harvey like when PJ Harvey went through her like drag era like that wasn't beautiful right yeah I did get see

1:03:14bikini kill mercury lounge and that was a similar thing and there's very like girls to the front boys were going to get you know like at out here and Kathleen Hannah doing her thing and it was fun and rebellious so I guess that would be the one other thing that I personally was the right age to have seen before I saw you as but in that vein of where you're just like thank God we're having we're just having fun we're having time yeah and I think a lot of what I read was that Karen I was like we didn't take it seriously like this was it was just refined like they had no aspirations to make it you know like in that beginning they were just like we're just like it's a fun project to do something I want to talk a little bit about that persona though like that what we're talking about this expression of the Karen oh on stage persona so in early 2003 she did this interview and she was like when I started piecing together the persona of Karen oh I was trying to do it in the most let's see how much I can get away with and let's put something out there that's basically untouchable and a parody of itself so people can't take it that seriously but everyone took it really seriously and have been taking it very seriously it's been this inner conflict

1:04:21it changes the nature of the way I conceived it my persona in the beginning to be really lighthearted and punk rock and party about it and then everyone takes it with a lot of weight and it's a conflict with it's like should I be taking this more seriously and I don't think I could exist if I took it more seriously there's so much in there that I'm like so fascinated by it's like the idea of protecting yourself by making something that you're like this is so silly and crazy that you it's not me you know you can't take it seriously it's so it's so interesting like because that goes back to like her being shy and then also she said it and I I think got a lot like the YA has worked kind of the most punk out of all of these bands you know the spirit was so punk and you don't I don't know like not that the strokes weren't but they kind of weren't you know and like Interpol not really you know like maybe TV on the radio a little bit it's not even not really you know like yeah I think you're right I think that on that on that spectrum with this group of artists yeah closest would be the white stripes but

1:05:26the white stripes being a much more very deliberate very manicured very the red and the white of it all then yeah but there's there's also the range of like what's what's art driven versus popularity aspirational popularity driven and the spectrum of that we're at one end of it you do have the strokes which was always this sort of like thing that was bound for a larger world and yeah yeah yes and the white stripes felt more like like underground you know underground art music that didn't care if it got it was happy to be indie you know it's perfectly happy to be indie yeah I think that's totally right um you know I love that I just I guess as someone who like I think a lot about persona because of the world we live in now which is like Karen oh was like a roll it ahead

1:06:26of the game but it's like we all we are all now kind of floating personas because of social media and because of the internet and it's like if you do a job like me or you like that compounds it you know a million like there is a yossi persona coming into your ears right now that is not necessarily me it's not not me you know it's like kind of this like weird venn diagram and hearing Karen talk about it as something that she sort of did both like intentionally but also because like she couldn't not it was like an exorcism almost probably like a like I really like reading about it one more quote from your form editor J. Levy but let me stress again that yes everyone had the sense that we were seeing something special but not important it was a fucking nobody rock band on Avenue A in New York City there wasn't any chance it was gonna turn out to be important did you feel that way no no you felt you were like oh yeah this shit's gonna pop I don't know if

1:07:29I thought it was going to become kind of like mainstream or anything at all you know and I don't know that I felt that way about the strokes or the white stripes or anything but I felt that it was important and I think that comes from having had that like little interlude where it didn't feel like and your was yeah contributing timeless indie rock to this era when it's like oh we got pavement we got dinosaur junior we got super chunk we got archers of look you know like from the mid 90s up through and then this stuff started to happen and it felt like no these are canon this is canon so it felt important I don't know if I at that point was it like cared I don't think I cared you know about yeah about what you know it just felt like okay well I know the difference between something from the indie world that is now gonna make a permanent mark on what this generation contributed right did it feel at all like what had happened with like Nirvana and Pearl Jam and

1:08:37stuff was sort of like flash in the pan is not the right word but like like a haley's comment like okay that happened one time like it's the indie is not going to break over again like that I for me just because again of my personal trajectory like Nirvana you know when I heard Nirvana they already had gone from sub hop to to Gaffin DGC and never mind was blowing up and that's how I heard Nirvana and then I went and listened to bleach and a beginning of my like getting into discovering indie rock and then I was working at CMJ which was this like you know music publication for college radio but also had this like South by Southwesty event every year and I was in college at the time and so I was super deep into indie shit but I was also aware of all of the records that were coming out and what DGC was doing post Nirvana that they signed Sonic youth you know that Warner Brothers

1:09:37signed the flaming lips and built a spill right you know and Doug March famously negotiated to have Warner Brothers give him health insurance for his family which was like groundbreaking thing because it was like the moment when they were all it was a feeding frenzy post Nirvana and so guitar as a fan of flaming lips and build a spill and these things I was like huh the the major labels feel like this is a that feel like indie music is bankable so what is that that must be real yeah but I guess it is a kind of important to point out that like in the time error we're talking about those the dream of that had been a bit supplanted by at least like in mainstream like MTV and stuff by rap rock right like by the tail end of the 90s it was corn and it was limbisket and it was slipped on and it like that's kind of the next thing that had risen to the top in terms of like

1:10:40mainstream rock it wasn't built to spill yeah but it was sort of like it felt sort of like this layer had been created right that was like maybe they thought at first if you're DGC for instance you're like we need our next Nirvana or something but in the meantime what's already what are the kids already like right they like they like solar asylum right they like sonic youth they like the flaming lips who've been around for a long time and so this other layer that was in middle class yeah this sort of other layer of like yeah big indie you know because at that time you had artists like what Jimmy world right had fully blown up and that's much money so artists were selling it's a 98 you know 60,000 copies like you know a big indie artist would be selling like 60,000 copies of a record like a Slater Kenny yeah and it didn't cost them a lot of money to do or invest if they just got one you know they just hedge if they just got one it paid for all the rest of them totally yeah that makes a lot of sense all right well let's why don't we talk about the mastery

1:11:47because now in our timeline let's say it's it's released so that we're in summer of 2001 bang just a stone I mean I just like can it really took me back to being like oh if I had if this demo had made its way into my hands and I put it on that's the first song I heard I would have been like yes correct I will absolutely follow this band till the end of the earth yeah it is kind of a perfect EP and I'm curious to hear if you think there are any tracks that are like a little bit sub but because you did the fact that it the fact that it starts the way it starts and ends the way it ends it's just you're just like well did it how did it start that strong and then get better yeah as it went yeah it's I think on my first listen I found our time to be like like didn't belong there because it was so such a different speed but then obviously it's like one of the best songs on there but like the like the first three songs like how like it pummels you with like being

1:12:49mystery girl arts I really love art star the screaming yeah I just I guess miles away is maybe the one that I'm like not like over the moon about but I I still like it like the miles away it sounds like it could be something on show your bones in a way it though they were playing those songs all the time yeah their shows so it's like I think probably by the time I heard the recorded versions I had seen them play so I knew all the songs right and art star was I mean live was the most incredible part of the set I mean art star and art time though those were the things you waited for I feel like you know I mean for me it's like as a as a fuck son you sucked repeated over and over again as a chorus she is my Hillary Clinton do you know you were my president um yeah I mean amazing arts are art times such a good song but that art time was like felt really like the the song the most

1:13:53it felt like medicine in a post 9-11 context really and that was where I mean I remember I would cry during that song like routinely a a a shows it's also like what an incredible caro is such a brilliant lyricist and the other thing I just honestly don't think she gets enough credit for like she has so many lyrics that make my like arm hair stand up and like it's the year to be hated is so a just genius on its own but so pressing it you know like how that came to be true about this about this band about the world that they were in couldn't have been so glad that we made it so glad that you made it but also obviously it's crimson and clover I mean the song is crimson and clover but in a way where as you say the reheated nachos where it's just like who fucking cares I love nachos yeah reheat them as many times as you want to be as delicious it's the year to be hated so glad that we made it again I just like listening to it I'm like I can absolutely see why people

1:14:57like I gotta go check this band out so touch and go put it out like we said in in America and then witch a jaw my guy Welsh mark always at the scene of the crime in the best way put it out in the UK and it was produced by Jerry Teal I think in real time in the beginning who was the former guitarist of Boss Hogg back to the John Spencer blues explosion of it all in January of we're now in 2002 so 9-11 has happened the strokes played sorry I live for the first time an Albert Hammond junior warri a has been were you about that sorry I live taping too I think that's very cool that they were supporting their compatriots because the a has had opened for the strokes at like don hills or something so they had developed relationship before the strokes had gotten signed and gotten so big and Albert is of strokes the most likely to do that kind of a booster to put on another band yeah yeah so in January of 2002 the strokes were like really on their way up

1:16:01right like this is it comes out that summer well it is a sick up pushback because of 9-11 right they had to take it and why see cops off and so it was supposed to come out that very same week and it got or the week later or something and it got pushed back to sometime in October but I mean it was you know it it came out over the summer in the UK with the original cover with glove-ass yeah iconic what such a better cover with respect to whoever did the other cover I don't know but so yeah by early 2002 they were you know minted for that world they were in a lot of albums and artists that had sort of like shift gears around 9-11 because of like Jimmy at world yeah it's like one of the most famous examples well also New Year's Eve so the strokes played the at the Apollo on New Year's Eve 2001 into 2002 got it by voices open David Cross did stand up I was that that was amazing incredible stuff I mean we'll say it for the strokes episode but one of

1:17:01my favorite things about the strokes how much they love got about voices oh yeah it's like one of the coolest things about them as a me died died in the wolf got it by voices truther um okay so in March the IAS this is a whistle in 2002 to their first tour opening for girls against boys I assume that was a touch-and-go situation um and they hired Dave Sytech as their I was not highly pronounced as last name I think it's sit-tech sit-tech day I cannot pronounce one single it's incredible that I have a job where I talk for a living Dave Sytech Polish American um was their driver and Rodi because I think he maybe he had a van not really sure how they wrote him into the situation um he says that he saw them play at their second ever show at Don Hills and he said there was probably about 60 people there Brian and Nick came out on stage and started playing for a while and I was like this is pretty wild then Karen came out in a gold lume one piece covered in olive oil and saying is if there were a million people there we were just shocked that sounds so cool I wanted to see them at Don Hills with when she comes out in the gold lume one piece with olive oil on her I know the olive oil thing was a level up

1:18:05of stagecraft you know what like shine it up babe get get sticky and shiny I love it it's like one of those things where when you hear about like how they make like and like and like a like a Carl's junior ad like oh yeah oh how they make like the food stylist so whatever yeah you're like they sprayed with one one time I made my own blood um for a Halloween costume so the blood that they make for movies I think this is they use the same recipe it's quite easy it's corn syrup hmm red dye and chocolate syrup to give it that more of a like a maroon and I was carry and I thought it was a really good idea I just made a whole bucket of it and then dumped it on my head yum it's so uncomfortable like the idea that she performed with that also maybe it shouldn't have corn syrup but I got bruises on my arms because like my arms kept sticking to my sides and I'd have to like them off Jesus so I'm saying they have a lot of respect for a care and own her um commitment to being uncomfortable on stage for the look um so they do that tour and on that

1:19:10tour they play self-by-self-ust did you go to the self-by-self-ust as part of your job again I don't I do not work on you're like I've been doing it in 48 self-by-self-usts and I couldn't tell you um they played the AIS played LaZona Rosa and it sounds like it was a um overwhelmingly amazing show they went backstage I guess clinic had played yeah they played with clinic yeah sure they broke into their backstage and sold their masks and they were wearing clinics masks clinic would wear would wear they dress up like surgeons yeah um and then from this a myth was formed that I have done journalism and busted but the myth was that Karen O who like you know she'd like to have a food drinks people said that she got wasted and pushed Courtney love who was backstage into the crafty table right which I mean I guess Karen herself said that she had done that but well I don't care I don't remember that but people said they did that's what everyone says she's like clearly like I was blocked out if you say so right

1:20:14but I asked Courtney love and she said that didn't happen so I think this was just uh what is memory you know what is it funny what really happened and didn't happen yeah and let's not let that get it in the way of a good story you know because that's funny little good for nothing you know great story um it could have also by the way been Christian Joy it could have been someone else they were wearing masks we all looked the same yeah everyone had a similar haircut I never had the bull cut but again we all I had so many questionable haircuts it was a it was our time to be hated for our bad haircuts yeah yeah Janet from three's company that's that was my add a mullet like it was like I would get my hair youco straightened and then go to a woman named Athena and silver lake who would just like do whatever she wanted and I would just walk out of there with some like asymmetrical just like craze I don't know if it was the same and probably not the same South by Southwest in question but I do remember a South by Southwest around that time where I was like leaving like the dress goal or some hotel in the middle of the day and I saw this like a dude

1:21:14with curly hair and shocks and I was like look a fucking everyone dressed in like a stroke now and it was a stroke it was either fab or Albert I remember it was just like fucking everybody's dressed in like a stroke now like oh it's an actual stroke I'm in the strokes me okay so they're blowing the fuck up is what I'm saying people are the hype Israel Nick said we were all pretty freaked out by the vultrous descending we were the it band or whatever and there was so much crazy hype it felt good but it also felt super weird weirdo label people were calling me at home and on my cell phone and I was like how did you get this number mistrust defenses up but I also recognize how fortunate we were to have this happen because that shouldn't ever really does so funny right it's like really like damned if you do damned if you don't like I'm sure so many bands listening to this right now are like okay well I would have like to play eight shows and then have a major label calling my personal cell phone you know because that's just such like not gonna happen now like that is a thing of a fucking past but like I can also see how that would have been like you started a band

1:22:16as a joke with your friend where you pull a portal ball on your face and then next thing like things are getting really serious really fast like probably felt really scary and they're like I mean Karen's were like 22 years old wow yeah yeah I mean Nick's a bit older but I think I think Karen was 22 you know imagine being 22 and this is all happening Karen also said much later in 2013 that one of her best friends died right as all this craziness was happening I don't know exactly when and she said I like really the band really got me through it like people asked why I kept doing even though it was like really hard and and like intense and she said I was totally traumatized and devastated and lost and if I didn't have the AAS taking me around the world I wouldn't have made it they tore it with a johnson's or blues explosion um alongside the liars create band well also they were just like Karen and Angus were just the coolest downtown indie it couple what an amazing what an amazing Angus is so tall and it was just like you that you know

1:23:23they just looked super cool is Karen tall no but she reads us tall you know some people read as different heights but like then in photos when you see her you're like oh you're not you're like Nick's inner site so you're obviously not that tall yeah yeah um she's like average I guess yeah Karen said that she remembered being in the audience at a blues explosion show and she was younger and she said I was just psychically trying to send them a message just look at me just look at me just look at me if he even glanced over my direction I'd be like yes so when I finally met them like when john and Christina were in the same place where I was I felt legit like I'm legit because they're here they were really quite the near a couple of the 90s it's interesting taking on the mountain mantle Karen and Angus um john Spencer said we toured with them in Australia which was interesting and a bit embarrassing was at that time it was some of the last tours we do with a promoter that we worked with for several years and they were just being wind and dine and courted by labels and definitely by this promoter and we were just sort of along for the ride even though they were our support act that's got a feel that's got a feel interesting they of course start getting

1:24:28popular in the UK because what is God bless because what is more classic what would we even do without the UK to tell us what we're supposed to like to tell us what we're supposed to like to re-import our own things back to us with their stamp of approval because they care more about art and rock music than we ever will I thought this line from the observer in summer of 2002 is really interesting just like put us in like the time for the first time since the high times of 1997 and urban hymns and okay computer credible guitar music is hot the scuzzy garagey sound of the vines the strokes the hypes the white stripes and the a as is jolting vitality back into rock but not one of them is British he didn't mention the liberty and maybe they hadn't quite yeah that would have been a they were a couple years yeah and then obviously then the Arctic monkeys will come to save the day in terms of British rock music okay so they put out their second EP in November of 2002 machine good stuff machine graveyard in the pin remix this is also on touch and go and

1:25:35by the end of 2002 the ad sign to deal do you remember people chattering about them signing to a major I don't not for the first album right no I mean the only thing I honestly that I remember comes up in between albums one and two and I can save that if you want to win yes please okay so also said we almost actually the stories about them signing is really funny he said we almost signed a Warner but then we did a meeting with Seymour Stein and he fell asleep in the dinner meeting we had later that month and then carrots and something totally innocently about him falling asleep and it got printed in New York magazine so I believe that that according to us of that tank for the Warner's deal. Suru Shelby of I said they had a fucking lunatic manager he was basically telling all the label losses to fuck off it was bad. Craig and Atlantic really wanted to get as in their managers throwing drinks in his space calling them a meter label corporate evil pieces shit. I also if we love you I love this well I bet it means I've been it made the majors like want them more

1:26:39it's like oh this is so cool and also the I guess what also says they didn't want to sign to a major they kind they really wanted to sign to an indie so it was like all like who cares and he was just like L.O.L. Town with these like you know people whining and dying them which is really funny. Yeah I mean it's also funny just to see more Stein of it all because of his obviously legendary history but and then also just the balance of bastions on Seymour Stein which is like all if you want to know about Seymour Stein's vibe when it came to trying to sign indie bands and the 90s and beyond just to see all that song. Yeah I mean I'm such a Seymour Stein fan in broadly but then maybe not granularly but I didn't know him I just brought a lot of great music into this world also. I'll say that. Again also says and meet me in the bathroom that they really just wanted to sign or stay with touch and go and witch a top but then they got their first royalty statement back from witch a top record then it was for $32 and also said he called them and

1:27:39was just laughing historically on the phone and they were like what what's so funny and he was like you got it and really she's statement for $30 and then they started laughing and he said Karen was like okay we'll call you back maybe two hours later she called me she wasn't laughing at this all right we're gonna do the major this is a story but I mean yeah it's important to make a living yeah I mean it's interesting some context would be if just the touch and go side of it. Sure you know a touch and go was one of the coolest indie labels of leading up to that era and they kind of started to wind down once you got into the 2000s a bit but like it might not read contemporary ears but touch and go like coming out of the 90s was like one of the coolest labels you could possibly be on and the kind of label a la a sub pop you know or a bar suke or any of these where your royalties split was so much better and unless there is a situation where there was some just major accounting going on like you would be getting you know a royalty for an EP they'd just

1:28:43come you know it's like I'm sure it was yeah it's the tradeoff of that kind of a decision and it is a similar conundrum now you know even now like where you're just like are you gonna take an advance that you may never earn back right or are you going to maybe get a nice 50 50 royalty split and make the kind of money that you can make if you're that one postal service album on sub pop that you know what I mean yeah just carrying sub pop on its back for for the past whatever several decades it also I think it's important the I.S. said and I believe them I believe I believe the I.S. that they were actually most motivated about more people hearing their music mm-hmm which is it's true right like this is pre we got we got to a point maybe a bit after this may mid 2000s where you did have massive acts coming off of indelible's right Adele was signed to excel the Arctic monkeys are on domino you know like it became a thing where it was these

1:29:49I presume it was probably the democratization that happened because of the internet but like indelibles became more able to blow up artists and get them into people's ears that wasn't a thing yet and I think from what they were saying is like we just wanted more people to hear our songs we wrote we wrote songs that we wanted to be generational we wanted like teenagers to hear them and like less teenagers were probably going to hear a touch and go release that in yeah yeah interscope release which is who the end up signing with and if you're in the if you're in the recent history of as we were saying like with Nirvana and seeing what can happen in a best case scenario you know that feels good and this is also importantly this is because the consolidation of major labels that was going on already at the time but has now ground down to where there's basically one company you know it's sort of like like one label yeah I mean not really but there's three you know this where there was so because there wasn't quite you had more options if you

1:30:49were being courted you had more options first. I was cool. It was cool to help man like you managed nails were on inner so there was like so much cool stuff coming out wasn't no doubt on inner stuff yeah there was cool stuff. Manson was on inner scope rock from a cryptid signed to inner scope. Yeah it was so I get it I understand why they would do that. Nick said we went with inner scope because they were like we like what you're doing fine we wouldn't want to touch a thing and we were like we want that in writing at the very beginning we wanted to reach kids teenagers this is the time when music is the thing you identify with and it identifies you and shapes your soul and your future self and he's so right he is so right. I mean I found Nirvana Nirvana was like my gateway to all good music and because they were on a major and I was 11 years old you know like whatever 10 years old like I probably would have gotten there but it would take a longer. Yeah because what they have when they're courting you is we can get you on the radio. Yeah and they can and they can and they they could and they can and that's still and that's still the thing that moves the needle you know. Does it still today does move the needle? Yeah does it I don't know much

1:31:52about that. The only way you make money is if you're on terrestrial radio. Interesting. I mean not the only way you make money but it's it's if you're on terrestrial radio you are making money. I don't remember the last time I've heard terrestrial radio. Yeah. I've been in the car bumping serious I'd love you, John L. S. K. but the day of Matthew's band radio stage. Great. That's great. We listen. You need to you need to do a you know they have that show. What would you play? That's the guest host and we need to get you or what would you play episode on the on the NBA? That would be my dream. If you're listening I can work on that. Oh my god. I love it so much. Okay well let's talk about fever to tell. It's it's time to party. It's time to party on fever to tell April 29th 2003. I want to just say here's what's happening in the music space in 2003 before we get into this. So same year the elephant by the white stripes comes out kind of a major deal. It's a lot of hip

1:32:53pop is really popular at this point. Get Richard I try in 50 cents that shit is that is my New York. Like when I I mean I moved maybe a year later but up in the club then it's go short of your birthday the best. Come away with me by Nora Jones. Huge major album. Lincoln parks Mediora the M&M show Beyonce dangerously in love. Black Eyed P's elephant elephant and elephant in the same year you know. You know really it's time spiritually connected albums if you actually think about it. Evanescence falling. Just shit is kind of weird but cool but weird and not a lot of I mean jets get born was pretty big. Yeah yeah but not a lot of big rock albums. If unless I'm forgetting something from 2003. I mean I guess 2003 you are in the dying of new metal. Yeah because like we said Mediora I mean. Halt to the senseless. Halt to the fever radio. Head comes out a lesser radio. Head album if you ask me muse. We're kind of

1:33:58getting into like the rebirth of I guess arena rock in a the Mars Volta. Well I guess the good question for a more informed mind than mine is. Is this the era that is the death is that the death of rock as a mainstream commercial force because that's is when hip hop don't became the dominant commercial force on the radio and in general and yeah because it is you know for a lot of us the new metal thing like after you got that first sort of earliest corn stuff and there are these corn stuff is great which but earliest corn stuff is like early 90s. Yeah but I guess I mean like yeah that moment you were talking about earlier where it's like yeah the limit is like it is like 2001 like it's stained I'm not a perfect person my first Rolling Stone cover story was stained it's been a while. Been a while. That was great song I'm sorry it's a great song that was I mean I feel like that was 2000 or 2001 so then after that it's that's start then

1:35:04you're getting shit like three doors down. I think that guy died. Oh sorry sorry my rest in peace but you know it's like nickel back three doors down. She's like some some you know some crapity crap is happening. I think in the early like I think this is how you remind me as one of the best songs of all time. Yeah I will down that. No that's that's a fact. Do you know that it's the most played song on on the radio for the entire decade of 2000 to 2010. The number one most played song on Trusher Radio was this is how you remind me. Wow we got facts here. Yes but to to make it to go back to our point rock is a little bit dead and it has been supplanted by it's been supplanted by hip hop and that's great you know and it's a little bit also by pop right like we by the end of the 90s early 2000s a lot of boy band stuff is happening in Britney Spears and we start to have the sort of rise of the female pop star again in like a

1:36:07more major way with the Britney's and the Christina's and stuff. Okay fever to tell this album has no business being as fucking good as it is. I'll say it right here. Yeah it's perfect. It's perfect it is yeah it's it's so crazy how fully formed it is considering it's like basically their first real collection of songs after like a four song EP and a two song EP it sounds incredible um they produced it along with Dave's attack man we used to be a proper I don't know what else to say about it it's phenomenal. Well also just like that thing of like short songs that you're like it doesn't need I mean doesn't need to be longer than that you know sometimes you just need two minutes get in get out and you're like yep that was that was it and just keeps moving and the whole album is like 38 minutes or something. It's a real brevity is the soul of what situation also it has we said earlier the inside you there's two wolves side a side B is like it

1:37:14really there's one kind of yeah as and it goes into a different kind of yeah as and they're both awesome yeah but it's interesting how it just completely kind of shifts when you get to that I don't know if it's exactly side-to-side I'd be I don't have the the vinyl in front of me um but it's really sort of I feel like it's sort of just like only at the very end you get to like I forget what track number maps is it's it's like the fourth to last fourth to let right so yeah I guess maybe that is right like because maps why control modern romance poor song yeah I mean modern romance like you're just like as if maps didn't like and demolish you why control okay well let's you know what let hold on let's take it from the top let's take it from the top with with some of the making of this um album so here's what Karen oh said about fever to tell later on in 2005 she said when we're all living in New York and we started the AAS I was 21 I was the peak of being completely absorbed in the New York night scene in the New York music and social scene although there wasn't much of a music scene at that point but the whole hedonistic side of me was kind of trumping

1:38:14everything else we were feeding off that manic street energy it really did feel much dirtier and more antagonistic and as the years have gone by I think we're more removed from just being there so we had to rely on other things that were inside of us I think that's where the second half of fever to tell comes from why control and maps was this other side of us that started to get nurtured we were relying more on our motions and what was going on inside the inner terminal rather than the outer terminal and I loved that like description like the first half of the album is like manic New York wildness inks and the second half is like oh we had to slow down and actually like write songs from another place and this is our interiority yeah I mean I always I still always wish I could hear some of like the songs that Karen was writing like in that unitarred pre-it like you know sad songs and like how much of that you know kind of carries through to what you hear when that sort of like oh maybe yes isn't just fun time good time Charlie kind of vibe and like it can

1:39:17it can be it can be both things at once I feel like back when they were doing those earlier shows and you would hear them do maps like it still it didn't you know it tracks sort of sadder like it's more of a melancholy moment on the album than it felt when they played it but it was like that same thing that they do now when they play where Karen would give the long intro and just be like this is for my love angus at the time you know it's next love and you know would say this would do this thing as they were doing this sort of vamp into the song and so it was such an important part of their set you know and as I was saying like this thing of like Karen and Angus being this kind of like John and Christina ask New York power couple thing it just felt like it was part of like their brand you know that song felt and almost in a way that it wasn't until we got more music from them to see that there's always going to be with the a yes that two wolves thing

1:40:18you're talking about where it's like oh yeah we're always going to get some of the like devastating I mean when you think about the songs like that on fucking its blitz like not to skip over show your bones but there's so much of that on its blitz that you're just like I can't I had to take a break when I was re-listening to it because I was just like this is too much yeah I guess it goes back to like everything Karen has said about herself as well as like I know that they all write the songs together but like at least as the lyricist you know set her setting the tone like Karen contains been her at least definitely in the beginning of this band like this very outward persona and then this various shy and a person that like comes out in some of these other songs yeah it's it's great and I think maybe that's part of the reason that the a as became what they became that they became a sort of major force and rock music because they weren't just one thing you know I don't know I don't I think the frenetic amazing songs need the the lower end of this like emotionally resonant stuff

1:41:23to ground it so that you can reach people on so many different levels and so when you throw that album on you're not just getting like a jolt and a kick in the pan so you're also like really feeling your fucking feelings of for a teenager that's all you need yeah I mean it's it's like you can you can even more so get away with boy or such a stupid bitch and girl you just no good dick you know if you also have a map or a monorow mans or something so they felt a lot of pressure apparently I read this like you know their EP had gotten all this hype it had been floating around for two years Karen said you know our first EP had done so well we had changed so much from who and what we were back then that I was nervous on how we were going to top it but then Angus said I don't think your EP is that good at all I'm certain you can top it and I was pissed but then I felt really it's a good tough love there he's like oh I was not good at all they were kind of going the fuck through it because famously they canceled their redding show while they're making this album

1:42:24because Karen was like absolutely the fuck now I'm not getting on an airplane like I'm tired and I think it's really cool like I heard her talking to Michelle's honor about it and that rolling stone thing and she's like yeah the best thing I ever did was start saying no I'm struck like many times by Karen owes like self preservation but also like right sizing of things you know it's like she's like yeah like I don't care like I there's more there's there's enough there's no scarcity or like I don't care about going to the Grammys you know like I think it would be easy for me at 22 I would be surprised to do this by that like don't you think you might be seduced by that and she was just like I don't care yeah I think some of it on I feel like maybe even in that Michelle's honor things she talks about this or ludes to it it's like it's also just the social battery I mean if you're an introvert like you may be able to get up on stage and the olive oil and do the thing but you're still an introvert whose social battery needs the power downtime and you

1:43:25and it and it needs it to the extent that it becomes life or death you know especially when you're in that position and everyone wants a piece of you at every show if you do all the press of the Grammys it's like that's so much yeah and it's you know in that conversation with Michelle's honor she talks about this like even now it's hard for public people to be able to assert their need for recharge time for their mental health but the idea that you're everyone wants you to do stuff and you're gonna I mean I don't even think anyone used the phrase mental health back then you know I'm saying like you to be able to be like well your mental health are for our mental health could be like uh get the fuck out there right like so she was she was definitely at the pioneer of just being like no as you as you say being like a I don't care I don't need to do that right for my ego and be if I don't do it I'm going to be sick right and I won't be able to give you what you need going forward let's talk about the art I love this album art I think

1:44:27a lot's been made about the album art and like people have said like I don't know so as I said earlier Cody Crichelot did this um he's incredible also a musical artist in his own right goes under the name Sean um I asked him I was like how did this happen like because I was like I didn't even know I was just like in my Wikipedia and I was like aren't they Cody Crichelot and he was like I literally got into an arts program at Parsons for a year they put 30 students in these private arts studios and I was going out every night and I guess he was friends with the liars and Inga's introduced him to Karen and he was like I had a backpack of VHS tapes with my stop motion animation on it and gave her one we used to be a proper country and she was like hey you should just do all the art for our album he's like I was 19 and I didn't know how to use Photoshop and he's like that's why all the art looks kind of bad because I didn't know how to use Photoshop but I don't think it looks bad when I look at the cover if you were to tell I'm like that's what it was like back then yeah that looks like what it felt like back then like that's what everything

1:45:29looks like there was neon and it was messy and it was kind of cartoonish and like it reminds me so much of like a rap mixtape cover and Cody told me Karen was really into rap and wild style and stuff and I was like that makes so much sense like I don't you feel like that when I look at that I'm like at Santa space like that's what the inside of Santa space looked like to me is like those colors this kind of cartoonish like the Indies list of it all that was the that was the kind of tone and tenor of the time yeah I mean I feel like to me it's it's not an iconic album cover which is to say I don't necessarily instantly picture it when I think of the album the way you do with with with the cover of Abbey Road or something like that or like it splits even with the earth right exactly and so it's true but I don't I mean like I love how on I love how of its time and honest it is as like a kind of portrait a snapshot of that time yeah like even though it's like I love that the strokes like hand on the butt but

1:46:31that that album cover could have come out in 1976 that album cover could have come out in 1991 like there's it's not really of a time right it's just a cool image this is fucking 2003 this is what 2003 look like this is a sion commercial you know like yeah this is like sell but like it's all of that stuff that I remember of that time like it gives it to me in that visual yeah and it's cool the the Cody Critchlow of it all and the fact that you know the longevity of these artists and the fact that you're a 19 year old like art school student and you meet this band and you do their art and then you're developing and two years later you're like oh now your Cody Critchlow who makes all these and still does work for you yes but makes all these amazing visuals and videos and stuff. Grammy nominated for his perfume genius album are exactly and so it's like okay well it's some of what's so cool about it is just that it was this nascent kind of thing. They were all babies exactly. I think and and hats off to Karen O for you know being like this

1:47:31is cool I want you to do it even though it was like again kind of high stakes raising your first album on a major label that was great um this album obviously did really well. People liked it hit 55 on the Billboard 200 which for you know an album that is coming kind of out of nowhere on it on a major um we'll get into it but that really happened after maps was released as a single which was the third single yeah and it actually did get played on like alternative radio which felt kind of mind blowing at the time. Sure. Okay let's go through those tracks. It really starts off strong. I'm rich like a hot noise. It's like a perfect also. I love I love this again the persona game right like Karen O is not rich. Wouldn't she wrote this song? I don't have any money.

1:48:36There's something like that plays with like power dynamics in that song. I love it. Yeah it's one of those songs I mean I guess maybe true of so many of the songs on that album where if you saw a yes perform at that time you can picture Karen move it you can picture her jumping and kicking and it's like it's like in the code of the song when you listen to it that you can it feels like it has movement. It's such a also like a great album starter because it just starts with this bang like even the song is just like gets right into it um day with the night is just sort of fucking to me or a perfect song. Yeah and also feels very like meta indie sleaze you know where it's just like that's that's the theme song for whatever one's life was you're doing it you're using the term I'm happy. All right those are too late. I got a day with the night.

1:49:38Also to me this is a very PJ Harvey-esque song in the sense that it's like a song about personal sexuality that's like not super over but like it's definitely there. All right. I love that. Yeah it's funny to imagine if you slow down date with the night to down by the water pace. Yeah it could be a PJ Harvey song. Yeah and it kind of pumbles you right this album like we're talking about like the first like man tick black tongue black tongue is underrated as hell. It's really good. It's really you can keep your black tongue found out the mortuary. And it also has yeah yeah yeah is just let it be yeah yeah yeah but also so much of that stuff that was just like vocalizations that Karen would do like in black dance like uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh-huh uh yeah you know it's like you don't

1:50:39need to write you know other artists maybe try and make syllables of words to go with that but it's like no this is you know it sort of reminds me of like flat duo jets or something like previous generation thing but yeah yeah she was like a naturally gifted for lack of a better word scatter or whatever but this is like this is like a thing in some really good rock music and kind of does go back to like the little Richard and stuff that we were talking about like this is like if you can do that well it's like its own instrument it's right and then you called earlier but this is the song that ends but you just a stupid bitch and girl you just know good dick it's so good it's wonderful okay maps we got it we have a relation let's talk let's just speak about let's speak about maps what do you think it is about maps that makes it such a classic timeless song i think it's i mean

1:51:45at the risk of oversimplifying is the combination of the words and the melody but you know definitely the mel there's no underestimating they're just the actual melody is so that thing where you're like it's it feels familiar even though they made it and even though it was new and they invented it you know and i don't know if there's something psychological let's get Malcolm Gladwell on the horn to starting a thought with weight it's really a hook you know because you're you really are going to listen after this as weight what's gonna come next brilliant you know i'd be curious to hear from Karen too just like in the in the evolution of that lyric where the weight came into it because if you just had almost any other words there before they don't love you like i love you it wouldn't and i think that's what ultimately right as recaining tweet that led to the Beyonce song it's so much of it is in the weight it would be saccharin right without the weight the weight makes it

1:52:46human and i know she feels just like you right she said she took it from an email like an actual email that she wrote in this and you can hear that for me also again as a woman often graduated online for my the way i speak i i felt very seen by this song because i say weight before it starts sentences so often it's just like wait is this no no no like it's it's it's i don't i'm not saying mendones i wait for they think there's it like a kind of a vocal tick that a lot of like vali girl type girls have and i i was like i don't know if that's what had Karen put it in there but we've already heard from nixin or that was kind of she was a vali girl uh speaking type person but yeah the the right the weight is doing so much heavy lifting in this song to give it that just it's unique yeah and there's also i feel like at the time even though so it this scene was so small when i first saw them playing that song this scene where it was so

1:53:53insular and it's like the Karen and Angus of it and you knew that this song was about what their life was like which was there in indibans going on tour but they're getting but it's so tiny but they are getting a lot of smoke blown up their asses and the they don't love you like i love you like most people in their relationships with someone where you might have some jealousy or you might have there's not this they i think the they is also a part of it is like who it for for just civilians who are just who's the they that don't love you like i love you but if you're a person with an audience it's oh the the fans don't love you like i love you you're out on tour right we're looking at the maps of where you are yeah the audience might think you're awesome but they don't love you like i love you it felt like it was again like a song for us the folks in the in the audience who knew that these bands had fans in the first place so i don't that it extends beyond that and it's a song for everyone and everyone loves it but i'm intrigued about the context of it for everyone else you know right i think that's why it's so genius right because it

1:54:58works on both levels like it absolutely works on level of like they your fans they don't love you like i love you you're adoring fans you know but also for i think a normal person is just like everyone like i love you more than anyone else ever will you know like and i think people really can relate to that because that's like that that sort of like very young adolescent love is so intense and so like it's like no like i love you more than anyone ever will you know yeah it's got state it's got some high stakes in it too it's implied it's implied that you're trying to persuade someone to stay the between the weight and the you know what i mean it's sort of like something that's maybe slipping away i think this is where you for me i really hear carons like love of Leslie Gore out of of girl groups and the Shangri-La's in torch songs like this is a torch song you know like

1:56:00it's it's like a it's just so beautiful and sad and the video man fucking gutting you know watch this like close up of Karen and the like tears that the other thing is like you believe you really believe her you know it feels so real and authentic which is interesting in contrast with this whole other persona that she's doing half the time so maybe that's what made it so much more powerful right you have this sort of badass silly who gives a fuck persona and then you're presented with this other side which is like so vulnerable and so honest yeah i don't care what anyone says this is a perfect song i think this song has done the same thing that don't speak has done which is like because it is so embedded in the culture and because it became such like a VH1 song that my mom loves you know people have like started to diminish its value by being like oh that's just this like corny written it's like i will fucking stop you right

1:57:00there no it's not it's a masterpiece yeah you might have heard it too many times it doesn't make it not a masterpiece it's also like yeah it's the in similar to don't speak it's like that category of like it's not a breakup it's it's a pre-breakup it's almost a pre-breakup song it's almost like you're like where we might break up right it's a love song when you're when you might be breaking up it so feels like so your feelings are so at the surface which is almost what makes them more heightened right because it's like at least with the breakup song it's like okay the conclusion has fork on you know here it's like there's so much anxiety yeah uh that's a jam but i'm gonna say something my favorite yes song is y control it's my number one mm-hmm i cannot hear the lyric i wish i could buy back the woman you stole without having every ounce of feminism and god's good earth flow right back into my body it is what a brilliant lyric what a gut punch and again it can

1:58:04apply to anything you know any experience that you've had as a woman where um you've been demeaned or assaulted or uh misjudge or you know insert fuck shit here i wish i could buy back the woman you stole i wanted to give props to this this beautiful Kafka ask twitter twitter person that i i read the other day um i think this person was was joking but of course like you know every humor there's large grains of truth and i was like wow angel angel isla dash yg you captured most of the entirety of the female experience a one tweet here's what it says top five female experiences one realizing you're kind of chopped two getting called fat for the first time three

1:59:07realizing it was essay four developing an ed five crashing out over a guy you never even dated i was like i know we joking but you fucking nailed it you knocked it out of the park if a man ever asked me what it's like to be a woman i'm just gonna send this tweet i'm be like it's like this yeah fuck crack my ass to hell over here with and amazing anyways i'm digressed that's how y control makes me feel that i think and it's also like there's something really melancholy about it but also like it's a jam yeah you know i used to play it all the time when i dj i think it's a really good song to dj like because people get really into it but also they get into it the same way like i used to love playing laid by james so now dj because like you're like i'm sad but i'm sad and i'm dancing like it's like really that kind of song it's embarrassing that i did it on camera but okay it was

2:00:08beautiful thank you so much and then you're you're a big modern romance girl it's beautiful well i feel like monoromans gets overlooked because of maps because it comes after maps and because maps is so the song of that kind like in that pocket on that album and yeah i feel like modern romance has been sort of lost history and the precursor of the model love of um right oh yeah but also i like it thinking i was like but also like the tracks on its blitz like you know soft shock and skeletons and stuff like that i love skeletons yeah she really they really all three of them really fucking snapped with this shit one of the also that the last song goes back it's like a pure duop song maybe i'm scared of a lot but i scared of loving you it's like really really lovely uh that's right favorite to tell 10 out of 10

2:01:12that's what we say oh yeah for me personally it got an 85 out of 100 on metacritic for aggregating um but i think in time it was pretty i mean you'll remember better than me but i think it was pretty lauded right i think so i think so i mean there was so much build up to it because as you point it out it came out in 2003 and this is a couple of years of you know the build up of yay as buzz kind of it took a while for the albums to come out in you relatively speaking to when the buzz started you know and then and so it felt like it in my memory it didn't feel like there needed to be as much of a push for that album because it had its own momentum and so it was a success even before it came out i felt like it wasn't like it didn't feel like what's gonna happen with the album it felt like oh yeah this is they're off to the races this band is off to the races as compared to

2:02:15show your bones where in the cliche way that that kind of soft more slump as they say although i don't we'll get into i mean i don't i don't think it's a strong of an album as people just all but i don't think it's in any sense like a disappointment or let down yeah i think the for it's the phrase soft more slump it's like i wish there was a phrase hey whoever invented indieslee is give us a new phrase right it's not about the slump is the result is the implied result that it it the fact that it's a cliche is like as if that's what always happens it's not about whether that happens or not in a similar way you say like there are those of us who stand really hard for room on fire as being the better strokes album then is this it but it's the slump is the result it's to the pressure what it's i'm talking about the pressure that the lead up to the album coming out is so feels so high stakes there's this there's the line about like you have your whole life to write your first album and then only a year to write your second album it's this it's all of the

2:03:18voices outside yeah no yeah the slump is actually the perception it's not it's not the actual quality of the work it's the oh it's kind of the over correction especially when you had a huge first album it is almost like clockwork because i obviously do this for a limited time so i see it every time it's almost like the critics are embarrassed that they were so lotatory of an album and have to be like well this one that's like it's a strange psychological thing and it happens all the time when someone has a like knockout of the park first album sometimes sure it's correct sometimes the second album is like not very strong but sometimes like room on fire is a great example and difficult to say it was show your bones because i think it has some really strong strong songs but it's true it's not as good as fever to tell but it's it's not a bad album but it's not like you know blow it no not at all i mean i think yeah it's interesting i agree i think

2:04:19there's there's an over correction there's also a like you know it's sort of like demo i just where when you hear the demos too much and then you hear the final version you initially you're not sure if you like it as much because you got so attached to the demo and if you got really attached to an artist first album you hear the second one and you and you have and you you're confused you've confused yourself do i like this as much oh no you're worried what if i don't like this as much maybe i don't like this as much and it's just it's it's like a mirage you know that you create for yourself and you know i think now in critical circles there's a little bit less of that tendency because i feel like nowadays media reinforces their own opinions to prove that they were right you know so they'll always or the Grammys will give Grammys to the same people over and over again to be the like we know we were kind of right going down we got it right last time but yeah it seemed to me what i was thinking of earlier i just remember when it was leading up to show your bones that

2:05:24inner scope did these events to play the album for media which had not happened for fever to tell and i loved it the first time i heard it but it's significantly because they want an interscope and because the publicist for yay as ad interscope at that time was the legendary and wonderful Jenny body who would come up with these really fun coup she was the perfect publicist for them so this is not a slight to her she would come up with these fun kooky ways of taking like Rolling Stone journalists to hear an album an exciting new album and we wrote around Manhattan in a limo me and some other Rolling Stone folks listening to show your bones and the album sounded great and it was fun right but i that album to me it is attached in my mind to this memory of like a major label taking me on a limo ride to listen to you know an art punk album yeah it's really also of all their albums it's like the least limo ride album of all yeah yeah

2:06:24yeah it was fun it was fun and i loved the album but i still think like oh yeah that's the pressure cooker kind of that was going on was that inner scope we're like oh yay yes no it was going to limo ride it'll be fun it'll be kooky and people will love it yeah well then that didn't happen well before before show your bones comes out it's there's a little while it's three years Karen O'Fall's off stage in Australia this is one major biographical point the fall after fever to tell comes out i mean they're obviously touring pretty heavily um Karen said during the song rinja rich i was on the edge of the stage sort of draped over the monitor with my legs in the air and i was really drunk i flipped off head first hit the guardrail and landed on my back then the monitor fell on my head uh security pulled me back up i was limp but i was still singing the fucking song after i finished i asked our tour manager to feel the bump on my head someone brought over a big bag of ice and a red cloth i was wearing a red ensemble so people in the audience thought it was all an act i sang maps and then i said i'm sorry we have to end the show early i have

2:07:24to go to the emergency she's saying maps though she made sure to they got their big song it was at liquid fest livid festival in Sydney um so this was bad also like you know there's a lot of talk about like again they were going too hard you know even though Karen was starting to say no like there was not maybe enough know they were all partying to 25 years old of course you know they're probably not feeling as healthy Karen was her stage persona was really wild and crazy and causing these situations and krisian joys that didn't meet me in the bathroom after she fell off the stage in australia she started to slow it down they turned down they did really turn down so much stuff like i guess they go off her side live off a fever to tell they said no um Karen was supposed to be on the cover of vanity fair um but she amazingly had a rule that if they're not all three of them on a cover she's not doing any of them she's not really interesting because again they're on the same label as no doubt and there there was some interesting talk where

2:08:26Karen i think saw what happened i don't see happen too but what went to fawny experienced and then what her arc was and she was like i don't want that like i don't want to be a solo like i don't want to be separated from my band and been be made into this like sort of token you know pop star or whatever surely manson too they would always like blur out the other guys yeah and you're like please it's a band excuse me that is butch big put some respect on his name they got nominated for i think a couple of grimmies so that's on right to you and the the major one being best alternative music album um they lost to white stripes who won for all of them interestingly setting off like a very kind of make sense for their careers right like jack white really became more of like establishment rock you know but again this is exactly what i'm saying yeah yes after that we're nominated for that same award three more times and have never won yeah and the white stripes and

2:09:29jack white have won repeated since then he was like minted either you fall into a black hole where it's like oopsies or you're or you're not to say over recognized because i'm glad saint finson wins grand news sure you know but you know it's like yeah either they sleep they're just sleeping on you forever right or they're just like oh yeah we love back you know right totally it's also like a chicken of the act right like once you get one it's like then you start participating in different things on your career and you start doing things because you're a Grammy award winning artist right you know you can get right you can get morning show appearances that they're like oh they want to Grammy cool exactly next dinner did say that um weird allianca bit came up to them and said he voted for them though so nice that was cool um right around after the Grammy's carano moves to LA ossif said in the book it turned it turned when caran moved to LA um i mean it's no secret that definitely had an impact on her approach everyone changed caran said i was just looking for a change you know i just felt if i didn't leave new york at that point i probably never would i came back

2:10:31pretty regularly to see my family and friends but when i moved there were definitely large periods of time when the band didn't see each other we kind of got on with the business of our own lives she also said in the spin i think it's this one oh no the one before the 2006 she said moving to LA was like moving to the desert and the desert is a mirror it's brutal you see a lot of things you don't like so you're forced to build confidence and you get out of that knowing that you can do a million things and you can do them on your own this is around the time started to inspect jumps and getting colon colonics is what i read oh so LA so coincidence that those things happened 2006 LA or 2004 colonics popping out here um but yeah i mean dating sput going from dating angus from liars right your scene mate you know like to dating someone as older and as famous and as hollywood which is like a spice Jones spec Jones like occupies both places right because he was

2:11:32also like this like very cool like skate world director of pavement videos you know that's so many years prior that's true yeah and at this point he had done being John Macho which probably at this is all right yeah yeah it's a change and listen these changes do have some impact on the band which we're gonna get into um they tore a bunch and then it's time to go into the next record this is a bad vibe it's what i read okay so what i read was i guess in september 2004 um karen had started work on a solo project with um sam speagle who is spike jones's brother who won under the name squeaky clean he had produced a song she had done called hello tomorrow i don't know that's a song it's like a some music for spike Jones is adidas commercial um this

2:12:34this solo project i don't i couldn't figure it out this never came out she does put out a solo album in 2014 i don't know if it's these songs couldn't make heads or tails but whatever this is as it was intended to be never came out but that's kind of how she got involved with sam speagle and again it's interesting that she was working on her own music given the quote about the desert being a mirror that shows you can do things on your own or whatever but it was a big deal she she told spin in 2006 there's a huge revelation for me i suddenly knew that all the suffering and conflict and frustration i'd been through with the a as was not necessary to make art most artists just can't let go of that you have to be sad to create something beautiful where the word is out you don't meanwhile nicks inner is touring with bright eyes he had that head wound city is that the name of the band there um so he's doing stuff as well he um played guitar on the soundtrack for the fantastic four movie didn't know about that um that song actually ever made it into the movie um and then they're like okay we need to actually make a

2:13:35a yes album this was not this is not a happy time in the a as i can go ahead and say because they said it they don't like each other well nicken and caran didn't like each other it sounds like brine was a bit of switcherland here's the awesome said they were creative differences and i get the next record off the ground following her move and the spike thing all of a sudden spikes little brothers we clean became producer extraordinaire when i had flood lined up i had steve lily white i had steven street the smith's producer did blur steve albeany people that would make better sense sonically and the end i will say the album sounds great it was his first big record and he did it and i don't think caran had ever written and recorded the same time so god bless her for taking that on but it took a toll on the band okay so you can know i don't really say anything we can already imagine like there might be a little tension where someone's bringing their boy friends brother and who has not produced an album to produce our album and you're also like trying to write the album and record some of the thingy so yeah i can't stop thinking about what a steve albeany

2:14:36show your bones what was on the like yeah our flood that's a lot man also i'm a steve lily white truth or so of course the dmb and of course um brine said i think sam wanted to make a more computer oriented la dj culture record so exactly the 2004 of it all man that's with synospate that is we are steve okay town um you know funky weird keyboard sounds processing the vocals that there's a bunch of delay but nick and i didn't want that i mean we're still a gritty rock band from new york same spiegel said i wanted to show your bones to have a timeless feeling to it you can't place it anywhere you can't say it sounds like downtown new york 2005 dance punk hipster music i think nick wanted to do a record that was like walking around on loadload street at four in the morning and your friends are drunk and jumping on some car hell yeah brother i mean i feel like they did it dot it he achieved that i think it does sound time let it doesn't sound fashionable or it doesn't sound i mean to me the album is more of a zooming out and it is works perfectly as a

2:15:39transitional album did he did sand off a little of the of the sharp edges yeah you know yeah yeah but like what works about it to me is that it refocuses on the songwriting itself and it's less about some of the energy is tamped down again way that is not as instantly appealing as like fever to tell but the focus on like the song craft itself ends up being like oh yeah this there these are not this is not just like jumping around and pouring beer and going uh-huh it's like the the melody and the and the lyrics and everything totally it doesn't in fairness carano has said multiple times and i respect her for not like trying to fake it like she was like i i'm not a nankste 21 year old anymore i like i'm not gonna make the same music i'm a different person it's been five years you know and i think you hear that right this is like the album of a person

2:16:43people but a person specifically a front person that's matured into like a sort of a way mellow different person and so yeah she's not gonna be you know screaming about fucking and pouring beer on her head or whatever that same spin profile is so it's crazy we we'll never get this kind of stuff anymore because no one does press like this it's all just like hot chicken torture and here's my subway take but um it's so awkward it's so obvious they don't like each other and they they're like there's a part where the interview is like so is it fair to say that you and nick aren't getting along and karen goes i think that's obvious it's just rough nice they're just not being friends here later in an in an interview with an australian magazine called rip it up nix and i was like that was like right like he was like that was you know oversensationalized very hollywood eyes those quotes you know they make a sound that's not it was just a turbulent writing process and i was like well i think probably both could

2:17:46be true right like that day you could have really hated each other and it came off you know yeah i'm the thing but i wonder what i want to ask you is like do you hear in the album that this is like something forged in the fires of like two people who are not agreeing on what they want to do and what they want the album to sound like i don't think so i mean show your bones and mosquito are my least listened to yay yes albums in their catalog and so you know listening for this was the first time i had in years that i'd listen to show your bones all the way through and yet in addition to the fact that they play a lot of those songs still live and so i've heard them since then i remembered it way better than i thought i did yeah which i was like as a testament how good the songs are because some of them i hadn't heard in years you know and i remembered that limo ride in thinking like that as someone who desperately wanted to like that album

2:18:46because i loved the man so much that i did really love it the first time i heard it and i felt like oh thank god it is it's really good and i think it i think it's i think it's underrated more so a because it came in the shadow of such an impactful phenomenal debut and because yeah the production is less dynamic you know the production is a little more demo-e sounding then maybe if one of those other producers had made it or if they had taken more time or it doesn't it wasn't until i was reading a little bit about it too that i was like oh was there tension like i don't didn't remember that or he doesn't sound fraught by any means yeah um but then i guess like i guess reading about it you kind of understand why it maybe like isn't either here nor there in terms of sound you know like it's got some of the similar like qualities of fever to tell but there's a little

2:19:48something i don't want to say missing that's not exactly the right word but like it still it didn't commit to a new direction exactly yeah but it didn't leave it didn't do the old thing either like it kind of it's like exists in this like and again i really like a lot of these songs like i think it's cool but it isn't interesting like you said it earlier this perfect word it's a transitional record like it kind of lives in this like never region between fever to tell and then what comes with um isn't it's but the next one yeah which is like obviously like then it's like they really figured out oh we want to do this now yeah it's it's to me yeah it feels more like show your bones to the album where this song crap the songwriting thing a little bit more of serious songwriting and less of like kind of personality and it's just the the fever to tell thing of where yeah they minimal ingredients with maximal impact but then this sort of zooming out

2:20:49and just being like okay what about working harder on the song craft itself and having that be the thing that carries you know like it it it it it was an important thing they needed to do to get to and so maybe they strip away some of their personality a little bit or some of the signature sound and personality but you get but then you can get to the albums that follow where it brings both of those things together yeah i can i can just imagine like again like nix said why was it so about i don't know Karen and i hated each other we didn't trust each other i can imagine in that scenario it's much easier to say i don't want to do it's much easier to say no than it is to say yes to something new right so like when there's not trust you're sort of gonna like negate some stuff and then carve out what you can from what's left right and i and i think that's kind of what you hear um that being said i think some okay well first of all my second favorite i a song which

2:21:50is not even on this album it's a fucking b-side to gold lion is let me know i look why was that why was that song on this album yeah i am a deep lover if there's only one person in a what what is that you know there's a hundred people in our room you know i'm the one you good guys are you getting you good guys good go exactly i just i think it's one of the best love songs ever and i love how abruptly it ends i love the lyrics like i couldn't see i couldn't hear it shut me off when you were near like really captures that sort of like i'm gonna sit up again that like dizzying like high fucked up feeling you feel when you're like really into someone you know like you almost are like i'm gonna fall off a cliff and and i love songs that um feature the words i'm calling or i'm calling out your name or i'm calling out and it has that too i just love i think it's a perfect song and i don't understand why i didn't make it on the run

2:22:54but again it's the b-side to gold lion which is also a classic yeah yeah song and i mean cheated hearts is one of their greatest songs sometimes i think i'm bigger than the sound bruv it's again kareno is really good at writing this kind of song it's amazing it's i mean i don't know exactly what it's about but like the lyrics take these rings and show them safe away it's like a little bit of like ambivalence what about commitment about marriage like it's a really good song and it's this thing that she has the ability to do of having a melody that is like a nursery rhyme right but but it's also really original it's like this you know obviously a lot of great pop music does this but where you're like this is so primordial this is so elemental but it's also new it's and also what she does is she like barriers the razor blade in the candy you know like it is this these like really familiar sounding melodies and

2:23:59then you hear the lyrics and you're like what yeah like i wouldn't expect that that what that's what you're gonna say and also fucking love mysteries um brought the screaming out on that one she had a little she was like me fuck you nix inner it no i don't know if that was it but i just imagine i made a shit out in that booth and she's like i don't know let it out i just i love how it starts as one thing and then devolves into this whole other like screaming freak out i like warrior a lot i think this album actually has really good songs yeah obviously phenomena is a great tune a great entry in the a s catalog and you've got to love a song that is like three layers deep of reheated nachos you know in a in a good way honestly it was pretty not that

2:25:07poorly received critically and pitchwork maybe gave the lowest 6.8 but you know entertainment weekly gave it a minus while saying until this time give it three and a half stars the guardian done like it two stars rolling stone four stars did okay Grammy nominated Grammy nominated once again hit a higher spot on the billboard 200 which this always happens right when you your first album just doesn't it's like they didn't know yet they didn't know yet and then people are anticipating this one didn't win the Grammy and then i guess they were like by fuck you never see again i don't know that's i have no idea but i would imagine once you're done with that you're like kind of love to not see your face um they do have a song in 2007 on the spider me and three soundtrack i don't remember that you would at that time ceilings is what it's called and then they put out an e p this is what gets really interesting right they put on e p in july of 2007 which is

2:26:10clearly what show me your bones might have sounded like if they had continued in the direction of fever to tell and not decided to leave that direction right would you agree is is yeah with down boy yeah yeah down boy uh rockers to swallow kiss kiss which i love and then i says is it is it is it how do you pronounce this oh yeah i think i i think it's is but yeah that's one of the greatest ia songs it's amazing but yeah this this is like more in conversation with fever to tell it's like almost like they went kind of back and they did it was like these were songs that were written prior to um prior to show your bones so it's almost like they took these rings and stole them safe ways so they could wear them on another rainy day another rainy day

2:27:11what is notable about this e p besides practically that it's awesome is that it's produced by Nick Lonnie who worked with Kate Bush on the dreaming he produced in excess gang go for the posies silver chair and most importantly uh public image limited flowers of romance which um Karen said it was one of their favorite albums and he is who produced its butts that's how he gets in and they do a q and a and this is it gets really funny in the mid 2000s as you know since you were a working journalist it starts to get real like i have to go in the way back machine and pull up a blog because that's what the press was back then so this is a q and a and drowned in sound just one question from a from a fan that i wanted to read in their answer i would like to know along with a lot of other people i suppose why you are releasing older material as new rather than using some of the songs on show your bones i'd also like to know if your third album proper is going

2:28:14to be more of the same but even mellow or or the complete freak out cat related concept album you threatened last time oh i forgot there was like a joke going around that i'm show your bones is going to be a uh concept album about caranose cat whose name was like koko something um for this at all okay that was a joke it didn't happen okay so this is from a man named Duncan nix center said hi Duncan it's not necessarily releasing older material as much as it is recording songs that have never been recorded we've been playing some of these songs live for a while and our fans have been asking us to record them so we did and they didn't really fit in with the last record and brine said the songs on the ep were indeed written in between people to tell and show your bones but for this project they felt fresh as ever and then caran said before we record they don't say the name but it splits we wrote at this little bunker practice base in the city we just went there in spurts so it never felt like we were there for an extended period of time nick and i were just jamming and doing our thing and playing really until consciously just being in the moment that's how we did feverate tell us just talking about how they write it splits

2:29:18and that's what comes out in 2009 yeah it's it's a long time away from it's a long time away from 9-11 yeah to use a sort of marker of like when this band sort of emerged really more 2000 but like we're really like hype so now we're like eight years in yeah obama's president obama's president Susan Boyle has a big album wow yeah sure you know i'm just trying to place us in time the fame monster you mentioned goga earlier comes out what do you remember about 2009 she got weird is this is like we're not that this is how i'm placing myself like when did hipster run off start well yeah it was around that time i mean to your earlier point about sophomore albums doing better on the charts in 2008 empire weekends contract abuse at number one on the billboard right

2:30:18which is their sophomore album yeah and you know similar to any of these other artists you know you the definitive album would be the self titled debut album contrast a great album as well but that was a that was a major that was the most commercially successful and also debut moment from and they were on excel they were truly an indie artist this is the phase you're talking about where not everyone's going to a major is quickly they're saying what kind what can we do staying in the indie world and that that was huge i mean this none of these other artists had ever achieved that commercial like mainstream commercial success so that's the era when you start to get this new sort of zone of blog rock and blog rock very whether post-pavilion by animal collective comes out in 2009 yeah case you guys were wondering hipster run off start in 2007 so this chapter of indie is in full swing and it's like very like and now even the fact that and

2:31:20you know it's like if TV on the radio or the walkman had started a couple years later you know they would have done better commercially probably but they were just like a little bit too ahead of that curve in the same way that sonic you you know TV on the radio being the sonic youth of blog rock or something yeah but obviously you have all of the vampire week and post-vamp week and dirty projectors animal collective who animal club you know had been around for a minute but were really on the ascend this is like i picture this time it's like such a bizarre time right because it's like the last gasp of the monoculture maybe even and i'm just i just picture like you would see a magazine cover with like a movie not cover but like whatever a magazine spread where it's like Kanye West Bethany Costantino you know like a guy from animal club like it was just such a strange landscape we love best goes on this program as you guys know does the theme song but it's just like you like best goes is a great example you could still become kind of famous as like an

2:32:25indie rock band and and have great success which you know deserve it but like a little few more years after that kind of gets taken off the table right because the monoculture starts to really die it's just such a such a strange era for music in my humble opinion all the pitchfork is really king of the castle peak peak pitchfork yeah stereo gum Brooklyn vegan yeah i think for a lot of indie artists of frustrating time if you're a newer indie artist in there because there's this illusion that any it's like if vampire weekend could have a number one debut for their weird album right that was not commercial then then maybe that's just all for the grabbing and it's like well it's not it's not that easy it's i mean really the only i guess the big big big one was phoenix yeah that's oh the wolf gang of a day of phoenix is that same year yeah 2009 google looks that i'm on brough top of my head but like other than that i was like paramour who had already kind

2:33:27of you know laid some groundwork but like they were huge muses still fucking right dominant which could i tell you who won the alternative Grammy for in in 2010 for oh nine what's same i'm gonna guess it's a some Bjork out my forgot like vulture or some vulture cure or whatever no it was phoenix oh it was phoenix okay one wolf gang on my day s phoenix the open door EP by death capricutio is nominated that seems crazy wow not that it's not a good you know that's like trying to play clean up because they hadn't nominated like plans or transatlanticism sounds of the universe depeche mode it's an interesting one to put anyways yeah phoenix whatever i just wanted to i just love to i just love to reminisce i love to walk down memory lane hmm same even though i famously hate this time and i think it was very ugly and disgusting hmm just might take all of that sort of just ugly ugly clothes myself included just back clothes bad haircuts just rough rough stuff let's talk about

2:34:29its blitz sedance album yeah i was surprised i wasn't expecting them to make that kind of album i was so delighted by it and to me zero is yeah one of my top three all-time favorite yeah yeah songs the video it's it's so it's so anthemic it's so triumphant it's so it's oh not perfect again what a great album opener they're really good albums i mean we think about it it's like rich rich right yes rich like i don't know i see a gold line they really do a good job opening yes zero is incredible get your leather on i mean come on come on nicks dinner said that they deliberately wanted to change the sound of the band which again i think you can kind of hear the growing pains of that on show me your bones but now it's like we've committed um he actually

2:35:30said in an article it just seemed like there were too many moby whiny indie bands out there hmm what do you think it was talking about i don't know it's hard to say in that time what that could have been um shots fired as all i'm saying we won't do not come for sousian do not come for ben jimin gibbered on my program um i'm just gonna i'm creating false uh false in uropp if it didn't exist i think more notably nicks dinner with had gotten really into vintage synthesizers right and he uh they recorded this in texas yes sonic ranch the esonic ranch and he brought this vintage arp synthesizer and i guess i read something that karen was like why don't you just not play the guitar for a couple days and see what happens like you're so into these things or whatever and we love it and again it sounds like they had healed you know they had healed their their rift so we're back on the same team it's just fucking phenomenal man

2:36:36and davis the tech is involved too so they have two producers on this which i also think does something cool because davis the tech is obviously a genius in particular studio genius but i am so enamored by the old school producer vibe like that we're like i do vibes like nicklone is like i come in and i'm like what if you like i picture them all just being like i'm pouring some red wine on the piano how does that make you feel play from that space right and i don't know if that's what nicklone i did but whatever they did they snapped bitch because the solvum is do you think where do you hold this next to fever to tell i mean that's the thing is just like it's always there's always that like iconic like fever to tell is iconic and definitive and all that stuff and perfect but then you have to ask is it's blitz actually a better album you know is it's blitz the best yay as album case case could be made you can have your emotional attachment to fever to tell but if you're to play the whole catalog for a new year yeah or just on some sort of

2:37:45of you know what i mean like on the bot i if you're like taking all of the boxes it's blitz might be the one i think what's interesting is the back to the inside then there's two world situation i think the emotional wolf on fever to tell is stronger then the emotional wolf on it's blitz get out maps why control in modern romance no but you're talking about softshocks skeleton i love skeletons love softshock actually really like dragon queen um featuring toon day from tv on the radio i love hysteric hysteric come on these are great songs but naps one i know but i'm i i yeah maybe it's just a personal preference thing i don't know it's and maybe they're equal maybe they're equal maybe they're equal great great maybe they're equally great but i just think like for them to come back from show your bones having some dark cloud around it or some doubts or some feeling of a

2:38:53little wobble or totally it is such a great i love that for you as i love so to fuck you yeah i mean head full goal is there most stream song yeah it's their most popular song because all the remix is in shit yeah well even i yeah the atrach remix obviously really but like their number one most stream song is the regular head full roll for ten almost four hundred and eleven million streams yeah that's crazy let's go i would have thought it would be maps but it's had some role yeah that's a god tier song that's why it is an absolute god tier song my uh my king Richard ioday do you know him the british comedian hmm he directed it the video for it okay i learned that yesterday um made me really happy because i love him um it's the one where there's like a werewolf dancing in front of they're like they're kind of like allowing that video they're doing like a lounge act kind of thing and then there's just like a werewolf in a suit that's giving Michael Jackson dancing in front of them it's a really cool video

2:40:02zero into heads little role is like a knock you out one two punch yeah of a start to an album be a right soft rock skeleton this is a great this is a wonderful album yeah hysteric fall sweetly hang heavy you suddenly complete me so i'm saying just my tears so sweetly hang heavy you suddenly complete me it did really well um i think this might be their most highly reviewed album so yeah i guess to your point like it probably is like the the objective or like critical favorite as like this is the best yeah well it's like yeah it's it's you know production wise too it's just so it's so listenable you know it's so like you could introduce someone who doesn't have like ears that are

2:41:03as art leaning to it and they would vibe to it without needing too much sort of like you had to be there type yeah vibe i think what's really cool too is that like it's not the kind of thing where like Dylan goes electric you know what i mean like it's it's so clear that in their DNA was already dance music from day one yeah so it's all it's more of an evolution than it is like a departure yeah and i think that is a really cool thing again i love a departure as well but like i think that it felt i think it hit so hard because it felt so like oh they just enhanced this part that they had always had with themselves yeah i mean i think it's cool like you know obviously it's a classic thing of artists that start off being very like stripped down and and elemental and that kind of thing to be to add to add some studio tracks some stuff and yeah and then it's like oh yeah it's good to have room to add because then you can take the thing you were trying to do and make it

2:42:06you know not to say necessarily better but like you can have it go farther into different areas or make it sound even more like what you were imagining when you had fewer tools and or didn't know how to use those tools as well you know it's like can maybe nix and are just hadn't spent the hours doing the fit synth but if you plug that cable there play which is one of those instruments that always whenever i see one i'm just like nope no idea burp burp burp burp burp burp you can do it love it but love it for those you know what i mean it's just like okay well it just takes those 10,000 out or whatever the experience to be like oh no the this was always in us but we just didn't know how to use that gear yet and this is a testament also to interscope and also to 2009 because they were given those 10,000 hours like actually uh niglane like pointed out in some interview that it was a really unusual for a album to be written and created in the studio like because production budgets were usually cut back from that that's a lot of studio time you

2:43:09know but they were given that room to do it and i mean in our scope believed in them and bet on them and also people were still buying CDs and to them yeah and i think hopefully you know at that point you're getting good reviews you've got Grammy nominations for the two albums you've done so far you've earned yeah a bit of you know slack yeah they hit 22 on the Billboard 200 yeah it did great people love it to this day people love it definitive album cover to fit earth's fischar photo of the egg it's so cool they played a saturday and a live finally it is notable that they did play maps got to they probably requested to oh i think they were told to yeah um i'm just speculating but also zero so very cool and then they played Coachella did you go that year i did yeah i did not go that year um they had that beautiful like sun whilst the sun is setting moment and great slot yeah just pre you know dusky vibe yeah in october of 2009 the where the wild things are movie came out um karen oan spike jones had

2:44:12broken up at this point but she did the soundtrack and nick and brine played on it too and also deer hunters bradford cocks really underrated i gotta say i still to this damn like one of the most underrated musicians and bands of all time is deer hunter um and other people from other bands um and then in 2010 i guess nick and karen were like simultaneously going through a really hard time like nick is going through a breakup and karen was really depressed and i think she was living in New York again and they just started jamming together um with no like you know no intention and as an excite we were just playing songs because we needed to and it was very therapeutic and i felt really good to do and that was about a year and those jamings of a year is what turned into three years later uh the album mosquito i actually like mosquito i think mosquito

2:45:20fair to say kind of a maligned yeah as album right yeah i mean it has some good stuff on it for sure i just love when people get weird yeah okay do i return to it not that much so that's a thing but i think i was expecting to like put it on be like what hard to listen to that's not hard to listen to no not at all i think it is interesting i was when i was refreshing my memory i said i was like oh yeah people really hated that album cover it was just like a whole thing because i hate that album because it's cool it's cool it's cool yeah and also it's like a really cool artist like i get like it's this um artist name i'm gonna rest pronounce i'm sorry it's south it's a south crane animator named boom six shimbe shim who goes by shimbe and um i think it's i think it's so cool but people thought it was like bootleg garbage bill kids actually i read that caranose favorite movie was garbage bill kids movie i think it's fucking awesome is it because of the slimy what is what i don't even i don't i read it i clicked on some like uh not that this doesn't

2:46:25still exist but it's just like there's too much dissection on the internet of things on the internet that were just like is this really there are blog posts about the reaction to the yay like i was just like how was this i don't remember it didn't reach me that that was going on at the time and i'm sorry i love these paths i think that's a really cool and weird song yeah and you know what you're fucking amazing for putting dr octagon on oh yeah i love dr octagon colleges to the album dr octagon ecologist if you guys don't know dr octagon is an extra terrestrial time traveling gynecologist from jupiter who treats chimpanzee acne and has a 208 year old uncle with the skin of an alligator paging dr octagon cool key cool key it's one of the fucking best artists of my lifetime blue flowers is a jam i loved that album um and it's fucking sick as hell that they got dr octagon on the horn on the james murphy produced track buried alive it's fucking

2:47:30weird and it's cool and i respect it dr octagon ecologist is one of the best album titles of all time it's a great album too but also what shit on you guys yeah slap that shit on it's so good yeah that was like that my friend did that for Halloween one year i thought it was an amazing costume nice the alien alien guy gorgeous that's fucking dan the automator produced that album yeah one one of the greatest producers of all time don't give me start on handsome boy modeling school honey i will love to start with you on handsome boy modeling school i still listen to that album well the first one all the time the truth the one with the song with mike patten one of the hottest songs of all time yeah we used to be a proper as one i'm saying um but yes okay i understand why mischido is not the strongest point in

2:48:31the a as discography but i love that they were like fuck it let's be weird you know yeah the emotionally resident songs are still good but not as strong as on the other albums although wedding song is quite sweet and i believe karen sang that to her husband uh barnaby clay at 30,000 love and wedding reception which is really sweet just happy we got to talk about off the hot dogs i'm being honest um okay so that's that album kind of comes and goes also again it's fucking 2013 like this is obi chi i love that obi chi i love but like yeah yeah milie sire's bangers daft punk random access memories this is one am by arctic monkeys comes out 2012 i believe is when spotify started so we're kind of we're not in streaming music era yet but we are post-napture and we are in this sort of no man's land of like apt itunes music downloads

2:49:31and stuff which unfortunately in retrospect was such a great time and we didn't appreciate it while lasted it from an artist perspective because people actually paid money people actually purchased things but did they i mean people ripped people just ripped shit off the internet that's why i did yeah yeah it worked i keep you 100 with you yeah but it worked out better than it works out now that's true and there was a reliable metric because you could right to keep track you couldn't game the down how many downloads a song had system the way you can uh yeah these dreams it has this whole shit's gonna fucking implode but um at this point not quite yet but it is interesting that after mosquito they went away for a long time not which is not to say that they're just like oh do you think it was because of the negative feedback i no i think just life and Karen had a baby and yeah you know just in time passes you're also 14 years into being in a band yeah yeah yeah i think i love and i love when artists go away for a long time say oh my god it's the best go ahead you know live your life especially when they come back and you're like holy fucking shit you

2:50:34saw that it which guess guess what spoiler alert is what happens with the a s a small biographical notes Karen does put out a so album beautiful crush songs it's lovely on julienn cause of long business label cult records that's the year that she tells the enemy that the a s or a bit of a aatus um and they were on a large hiatus they did in 2018 cover big stars 13 for Spotify which is actually one of my favorite covers of all time it's so good like that with Karen i was voice and then what was the year that she and azura did moon song oh i don't remember that the performed that on the Oscars yes what movie was that for it was a spike Jones thing wasn't it it was for yeah yeah yeah good one okay and then in 2022 a smooth eight years later they put out cool it down and guess what this album's fucking amazing yeah do you love when that happens oh yeah it's unusual i remember listening to an advance that on cuz i wrote the bio for the you

2:51:35know the like label bio or whatever go with it and i just cry it instantly i mean they they didn't when the single came out oh yeah spitting off the edge of the world with peat perfume genius i lost it i was like this is so beautiful also guess who directed the video crichlo cody crichlo so sweet what a beautiful arc um i love that song i love that Karen oh took her like good you know i think a lot of what happens and why people make a lot of late career work not being as good as because you're not something that's so great about rock music is that it taps into like really primal emotions that you just don't have as much anymore when you're like a mom and a wife not this whatever an adult who pays taxes and is like you know to have a mortgage or whatever it's just like you know you have perspective and you're but i love that like that doesn't have to be true because you couldn't tap into emotions about anything

2:52:39and kind of take from that place and spitting off the edge of the world is about climate the climate yeah well for one Karen and like so many artists just so sensitive so emotional really can take yourself there i think at any time or place she in my interactions with her often it feels like the emotions really are just below the surface right and i think if you're that kind of person and also maybe in general having a kid really brings brings it out i mean there's even the song on cool it down that where she talks about you know because there's some these couple of spoken word moments that are really beautiful yeah and she's describing asking her son you know to say what what the moon looks like or something yeah and you know you see you see things through your child's eyes and it gives you this just profound feeling of newness to your own way of experience and this high stakes thing about especially with things like the climate crisis where you're like this

2:53:40is my children's world and we're ruining it you know totally it's my favorite kind of late late late stage album because it's not trying to like recreate the past or like the youthful version of the ias it's dealing with the concerns of maturity you know i think that's where bands get it wrong you know like whenever like i hear a late stage album by a band not whenever but often and i don't like it it's because i feel they're trying to like kind of reheat their own nachos yeah yeah and like that doesn't it doesn't feel authentic it doesn't work and i do think like or they're trying to chase youth you know like and it's okay i love when artists talk about like the last cure album for example which is like such a meditation on like mortality and like

2:54:45death it i know we might think the cure is always talking about death but this is like really talking about like i'm in my 60s and like what does it how much longer do i have i love that kind of stuff you know or even like divorce or like things that are really like like the the meat of maturity i think that makes much better art when you're at that life stage than trying to sort of like put on your old tight pants and yeah from that place yeah i mean to me cool it down feels very much like a continuation of its blitz and i mean it's good in a lot of the same ways that it's good for a lot of the same reasons that its blitz is so good it's sort of another album like that in terms of having like poppiness and you know dance iness and um yeah those songs that have those dynamic shifts and are really big and then also the sort of more delicate like spoken wordy like moody shit that they're so good at as well

2:55:51i really oh i should mention Dave Citek and and andruwaya and Justin Raisin produce this album but i really love flees because it has the sort of elements of that esg song moody and care and was like a big esg person also i hear a lot of esg in early a it's like such a continuum and i'm like i loved that nod back to like again it's a difference from a nod back to your roots and back to what inspired you as opposed to like trying to just be that again yeah so it's a wonderful album yeah i mean the thing of like of like if we're gonna extend the nacho reheating metaphor it's like when you're like i'm putting it on for 30 seconds like you're just hard acknowledging it you know like she she does the thing in flees where um

2:56:51where she sings it that's where we dance like yes first she's first she goes she does the like this and then you're like oh wait what is that to get and then she tells you she actually sings the lyric of you know very moody yeah yeah yeah yeah and you're like oh yeah okay you know no it's a direct nod it's an interpolation it's not a sort of like if you know you know it in the way the phenomena has that we're sort of like we're we put the nachos are in there we're going to get in for 30 seconds we're not afraid to point to point the shining light at the thing our influence in the song right right which you know reminds me of like the vampire weekend song step which is like three layers of things they interpolated that are just sort of like we don't we don't we're not pretending that we can get something from something else that we're not hiding around with we're not hiding our influences we're like actually embracing them and sort of showing them to you um yeah I mean this is the best possible uh up swing of an ending this is kind of how we felt when we did the Madonna episodes even though um how did it come out yet I don't think it had her last

2:57:56album but it's like oh he really want you really want and I yeah guys are not dead it's not I'm not saying this is their last ever album but as far as we're concerned for our story it is and it's like I love it when we go out on the high yeah also different today it really slaps from that album great it's really great I love that song yeah I saw them play when they did I'm sure you did too when they did those like couple of underplays prior to this album coming out it was just it was so cool to just like be there again and and see Carano again and just hear the songs again and she had this amazing costume on and I was like oh yeah yeah well Jenny we did it we did it Joe we did it we got to the end of the IAS story or the end for now um thank you so much for joining me to talk at length about the career of the IAS and thank you for joining us please come back next week

2:58:57for a new episode of Bandslam. if you liked what you heard today subscribe for more episodes of Bandslam our guests today was Jenny Ellis you you can hear her on serious XM and also on her own podcast Ellis you wherever you get your podcasts this episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin sales video production by Jacob Harnett executive producers for Bandslam and Regina Delvac and me Yasi solid our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cossin Tino and Jennifer Clayton and graciously recorded by Carlos DeLagarsa and Los Angeles California special thanks to our producer emeritus producer Dylan aka Dylan Tepra Rupert and also Sean Fennese and DMB Radio on serious XM come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandslam on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts in the future baby try to leave lost do you have a look at Mohawk I got a儿 rock obsessed

3:00:03it is mess with you