60 Songs That Explain the '90s - “Feel Good Inc.”—Gorillaz

Episode Date: April 30, 2025

Rob is back from hiatus with a loaded episode! Join him as he straddles the line between real life and virtual reality when discussing the virtual band Gorillaz and the career of its creator, Damon Albarn. Later, Rob is joined by Jeremy Gordon, the author of 'See Friendship' and senior editor at The Atlantic, to get to the bottom of how Gorillaz became so popular (1:07:00). Host: Rob Harvilla Guest: Jeremy Gordon Producers: Bobby Wagner, Jonathan Kermah, and Justin Sayles Additional Production Support: Olivia Crerie Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's up, everyone? It's Rachel Lindsay, and if you love all things Bravo, then you need to be listening to Morley Corrupt. Every Tuesday and Friday, your favorite ringer podcasters and I dive into Bravo's biggest moments and dish out hot and always unfiltered takes. And guess what? Now you can watch us too. That's right, Morley Corrupt is now available in video on Spotify. So whether you're listening in your family van or watching next to your white refrigerator, don't be all uncool. and miss out. Catch new episodes every Tuesday and Friday, only on the Ringer Reality TV feed. All right. Let's say it's 1986. I'm eight or nine years old. Let's say it's seven or eight in the morning, Saturday morning. I roll out of bed. I got my bed with Transformers sheets. I got my He-Man pajamas or my Star Wars pajamas or my Go-Bots pajamas. One of those probably. Serial-wise,

I got my fruity pebbles or my cocoa pebbles. I'm on a pebbles-based diet. As far as I'm concerned, the two major food groups are fruity and cocoa. And then I rumble down the stairs to our basement because our TV is in the basement. And it's time, my friends. It is time for Saturday morning cartoons,

which means it's time for Bugs Bunny to teach me about classical music. My newt waltz by Choppin. A lifetime, my lifetime of sophisticated musical appreciation and flagrant mispronunciation, born in this moment. Thanks to Saturday morning cartoons. Thanks to Looney tunes. Thanks to Bugs Bunny. Depicted here playing piano right before Dr. Jekyll drinks the potion and turns into Mr. Hyde and starts chasing bugs with an axe.

The plot of this particular cartoon doesn't matter. What matters is that Bugs Bunny is about to provide my first exposure to the minute waltz by beloved 19th century Polish pianist and composer Frederick Chopin. And Bugs is going to slap a candelabra on the piano and throw in a Liberacee joke for good measure. I wish my brother George was here. That's a Liberacee joke. apparently Liberace, the beloved 20th century, primarily

Las Vegas pianist and fashion icon. He had a brother named George who played violin and right before he threw down on his rhinestone bedazzled piano, Liberace would go, I wish my brother George was here. Did I know that as an eight-year-old? Of course not. Did I know

that like 10 minutes ago? Also no. But see, that's why I'm here in the basement, wolfing down cocoa pebbles and watching Saturday morning cartoons. I'm here to be educated. Saturday morning cartoons. They used to only show cartoons on TV on Saturday mornings

and also for an hour or two after school. If you're too young to know what I'm talking about, then keep it to yourself. I'm busy. I'm watching cartoons. I'm learning things. I'm experiencing culture. I'm expanding my musical horizons.

Was Looney Tunes my very first childhood exposure to classical music? Maybe. Was Looney Tunes my very first childhood exposure to classical music in which I was 100% locked in and wrapped and delighted? Definitely. I am seated as the kids say, as the kids too young to remember Saturday morning cartoons say, I am seated to watch Bugs Bunny give Elmer Fudd a haircut to the immortal strains of Italian composer Gio Achino Rossini's, 19th century opera, the Barber of Seville. Yes, of course I'm pronouncing his name correctly. The slapping sounds there. That was Bugs Bunny using his ears to rhythmically massage Elmer Fudd's bald head. Just FYI. I don't mean to narrate a Looney Tunes cartoon to you. Speaking of Elmer, here's Elmer interpolating the Ride of the Valky's, the big hit opera single from 19th century German composer Richard Wagner. What? What did I do wrong now?

Wabbit twixt. I just love the wavit, killed a wavit, killed a wabit. I just love the smell of fruity pebbles in the morning. What else we got going on in the mid-80s, Saturday morning cartoons-wise? We got the snorks, we got the Smurfs, we got the Muppet babies, we got the real Ghostbusters. We got the life-changing multimedia extravaganza pee-pewies playhouse. for all you wrestling fans, we got Hulk Hogan's Rockin Wrestling. I myself, as an eight-year-old, I was a WWF agnostic.

And also, I had no inkling that, like, 30 years later, a Hulk Hogan sex tape would functionally obliterate the powerful media company that employed me at the time. I don't want to talk about it. But let's just say that I did not expect that. And furthermore, I did not appreciate that shit at all. And I will do my best not to let the Hulk Hogan's sex tape bankruptcy fiasco retroactively discolor my fond childhood memories of Hulk Hogan's

rock and wrestling, though I will tell you honestly that as an eight-year-old, my favorite wrestler theme song in that cartoon was Rowdy Roddy Piper's. Hulk Hogan's mortal enemy. Roddy Piper would start playing the bagpipes and whatnot, and everybody in the cartoon crowd on screen would start booing canonically within the universe of the show. Everyone agrees that Rowdy, Routy, Piper's music is bad. But I'm sitting there at home and I'm like, nah, man, let Roddy cook. I'm hearing some arcade fire, some Godspeed, you black emperor, and of course, also some corn. I'm telling you, Rowdy, Roddy Piper and his henchman, Nikolai Volkov and whatnot,

these guys are really on to something here melodically. There's got to be an Alice Coltrane record that sounds like this. Look, I watched a lot of Saturday morning cartoons. And I took the liberty of committing the theme songs to Muppet Babies and the snorks and even like pole position to memory. But Looney Tunes was the best. Bugs Bunny was the best. Bugs Bunny making Liberacey jokes in a cartoon first released in 1955 was the best. I'm sitting there in my footy pajamas in 1986 and I'm thinking, hmm, old shit might be better than new shit.

I'm paraphrasing, but you get me. No offense to the Berenstain Bears or the Wuzzlers or whoever, but nothing beats when Bugs Bunny got pissed off at a pompous opera singer, and so Bugs showed up at a big concert and disguised himself as a famous conductor and made the opera singer hold a high note until the roof collapsed. Tremendously satisfying conclusion. You know that movie Whiplash about the mean jazz drummers? That movie looks too mean for me, but I read the Wikipedia plot summary once,

and apparently that movie's ending is. similar. Also, does that one Looney Tunes cartoon constitute like 40% of my total lifetime exposure to opera? Don't worry about it. Look, everything I know about music I learn from cartoons. That's what I'm telling you. Jump to 1992 and I'm 14 and I still rely on cartoons for my musical education, even if my personal taste in cartoons has gotten, you know, edgier. Happy, joy, joy, happy, happy, joy, happy, happy, joy, happy, happy joy, happy joy, happy, happy joy, happy joy, happy joy, trust me, this was super edgy in 1992. Yes, the Renan Stimpy show, which incredibly first aired on Nickelodeon and starred Ren,

Wren the incredibly angry dog, and Stimpy, the lovably dim-witted cat. You know what, I don't want to explain this at all. Actually, the Renan Stimpy saga got a little too edgy. on screen ends off. That's an original song called Happy Happy Joy Joy and the line, I told you I'd shoot, but you didn't believe me. Why didn't you believe me? Bubbles into my subconscious every six months or so and the hell with the rest of it. I need to quit all social media immediately, permanently, obviously, but I can't yet because sometimes on social media I still stumble across a life-affirming clip of, for example, Beavis and But

head watching the Wicked Game video. I think of the chick on the chick. Yeah. Shut up, buddy. I think it's cool. I think we all knew we would wind up here on the couch in the mid-90s with MTV's very own Beavis and Budhead watching the softcore pornographic video for Chris Isaac's 1989 hit Wicked game. What percentage of my teenage opinions about late 80s and 90s music did I receive directly from Beavis and Butthead? What percentage of my current opinions about 90s music did I receive

directly from Beavis and Butthead? They are the two most influential rock critics of my lifetime, with all apologies to like Bob Chris Gower, Ann Powers, or Greg Tate. I'm sorry, but if I delete Twitter and Instagram and Blue Sky and wow, even threads from my phone, then how else am I supposed to hear butthead's Chris Isaac impression? Where else will I get trenchant sociological analysis of the 1994 Blur song, Park Life? I can't really tell me anything. Yeah, this must be English.

England sucks. That's the good shit right there. There's a reason Beavis and Butthead has come up on this podcast like 50,000 times. And that reason distilled into just two words is England sucks. That's all I'm saying. You know who else hasn't come up enough, though? You know the only cartoon superhero? with enough clout to do an amusing and super awkward and semi-fake interview with

REM frontman Michael Stipe in 1995? Why, that'd be Space Ghost. Sing that shiny, shiny people song? No. I'll get you started. Shiny, shiny people. Shiny, shiny, shiny. I hate that song, Space Ghost.

Oh, me too, Michael, me too. I love shiny happy people, if you want the truth. Top 10 R-E.M. song. I bet Michael Stipe agrees with me. Top 30, maybe. Space Ghost, the titular hero of the Cheeseball 60s action adventure cartoon series, brought to you by Hannah Barbera, the animation monolith that, of course, also brought you Scooby-Doo and the Flintstones and the Jetsons and myriad other staples of one's Saturday morning and or after-school cartoon diet. But who would emerge? Decades later, not Shaggy, not George Jetson, not Fred Flintstone, no, space ghost would inexplicably reemerge as a late-night talk show host,

antagonizing your favorite rock stars. Listen, I can't worry about every little snafu. I have celebrities to talk to, like Moby. Celebrities, huh? So celebrities are more important than the safety and well-be. cares, Moby. Space Ghost Coast Coast premiered on the Cartoon Network in 1994. It ran off and on until 2008, and it featured a beguiling mixture of vintage cheeseball animation and live action interviews with the likes of Bjork, Willie Nelson, Hulk Hogan again,

Conan O'Brien, Weird Al Yankovic, Fran Dresher, and Tom York. I can distill the tremendous appeal of Space Ghost Coast to Coast into just three words this time. And those three words are, nobody cares, Moby. And also, it's that delightful, disjointed fake interview thing where the rock star is pretty obviously answering different questions than Space Ghost is asking and it's all humorously edited together. Maybe you had to be there. And by be there, I mean you had to be sitting on your couch at home by yourself as a teenager on a Friday night watching cartoons. Friday night cartoons. A tremendous and perhaps life-saving new innovation. for the socially inept.

George Lowe, the voice of Space Ghost for the 11-season lifespan of Space Ghost to Coast, George Lowe died in March 2025 at 67 years old after a long illness. In his voice, George's Stentorian Space Ghost deadpan voice, it bubbles up into my subconscious every few days or so, and I am eternally grateful to him for that. Bugs Bunny taught a generation. Bugs Bunny taught multiple generations of impressionable children about classical music. Space Ghost taught multiple generations of impressionable teenagers about secretly hilarious anti-comedy surrealism.

On the great sports and culture website Defector, the great blogger Barry Pichesky wrote a lovely eulogy with the headline, George Lowe had to be brilliant to make Space Ghost that stupid. And Barry, who's younger than me, but not by a lot. Barry writes, quote, Watching space ghost coast coast always felt like I was getting away with something. I just wasn't sure what. Staying up past my bedtime, both my parents asleep, sitting in the dark and watching this bizarre cartoon on a cable channel

ostensibly for children, not quite getting many of the jokes or anti-jokes, but understanding on some level that it was all very funny, I assumed I wasn't old enough to understand it, which at that age is one of the most thrilling feelings. in the world. And I found that quite moving, honestly, as a confused and thrilled teenager back then myself.

And I'm saying that even though I, personally, have always been a BRAC guy. Whoa! Hey! Go judgment! I remember this moment so clearly. So space goes coast to coast is successful enough to inspire a 1995 Cartoon Network spin-off show

called Cartoon Planet. which is stylized as an even more chaotic variety show, starring Space Ghost and two of the villains from the original 60s show, namely Zorak the Space Mantis and Brack the Cat Alien. That's B-R-A-K. And it turns out that Brack, voiced here by Andy Merrill, Brack has one of the funniest voices I have ever heard in my entire life. A fact I first discover when I hear Brack singing a song called Don't Touch Me,

in my grandparents living room. This song is 50 seconds long. I'm at my grandmother and grandpap's house in rural southwestern Pennsylvania. I'm sitting with my younger brother in the living room. No adults in this room with us. The cartoon network's on. That space ghost beatboxing.

And my brother and I are both immediately of the opinion that this is the funniest thing that has ever been shown on television. I still remember every place in this song where I laughed, in part because my brother was right there laughed. also. Don't touch me.

Don't judge me. Okay, maybe you had to be there, and so it's a good thing that I was there. I am not quite the man I am today, if I'm not there. Brack got his own spinoff show. I owned a couple of cartoon planet CDs. Space Coast Coast spun off a bunch more weird animation classics, most notably Aquatine Hunger Force.

The Cartoon Network debuts an initially late-night programming block called Adult Swim. It's September 2001, and a new and spectacularly weird 21st century animation monolith is born. Squidbillies, the boondocks, Rick and Morty eventually, etc. Can I personally wrap my head around all of those shows? No, Rick and Morty especially, but I respect. I understand the necessity of all of it. cartoons raised me, pretty much. Cartoons taught me about music, pretty much.

And so, by 2001, I am primed to receive. I am ready to welcome my new cartoon rock star overlords. One last thing. One last, maybe the very last great thing social media ever gave me. A couple days back, I saw this video, I think on blue sky. I saw this skeet. Is that what you call a post on blue sky? skeet. I'm never saying that out loud again, obviously. I saw this video that's just 30 seconds

of unhinged screaming from old Looney Tunes episodes. This is more appealing than it sounds. Trust me. What percentage of that screaming was Mel Blank? God tier Looney Tunes voice actor Mel Blank, who provided the voice for like everyone? That was five different Looney Tunes characters, but voice-wise was that entirely Mel Blank? He was the best. In the YouTube, description for that video, it says, why can't cartoons be like this anymore? And meanwhile, I'm wondering, where have I heard bizarrely appealing, unhinged cartoonish screaming like that recently? And two seconds later, I was like, oh, right. My name is Rob Harvilla. This is the 16th episode of 60 songs that explain the 90s, Cole in the 2000s. This week we are, it's still funny.

This week we are discussing Feel Good Inc. By the bizarrely mass. cartoon rock band Gorillas. From their 2005 album, Demon Days, Gorillas are canonically a fake, they are a virtual band, with now 20 plus years of elaborate comic book lore built up around them.

Gorillas are also, of course, a groundbreaking collaboration between Blurr-front-man Damon All-Barn and comic book artist Jamie Hewlett, featuring an ever-spirling constellation of guest stars. That's Feel Good Ink as in Feel Good, as in Feel Good Incorporated. And speaking of guest stars,

this song, of course, features the Godtier Long Island rap trio, De La Sol. That is Macio from De LaSole, scream laughing there. Macyo, aka Pacemaster Mace, aka Plug 3,

aka Vincent Mason, the DJ and producer and rapper and occasional scream laugher who comprises one third of De LaSoul. I hope I never give Macyo any reason to laugh at me. If you prefer De La Sol at their screamiest, then I would direct you also to their

1993 album Balloon Mind State, and specifically the song Ego Trippin' Part 2. If you're listening to the Balloon Mind State album on headphones late at night to unwind right before bed, that song, Ego Trip Part 2 might re-unwind you, just speaking from personal experience. You know another crucial element of the Saturday morning cartoons experience? Commercials. Just to fully replicate the 80s Saturday morning cartoons experience, I really hope that you just heard an ad for Pop Tarts or Bubble Yum or Betty Crocker's pudding roll-ups available in milk chocolate, chocolate fudge or butterscotch, or honeycomb or Lucky Charms, or cocoa and fruity pebbles. Just a staggering array of,

of ultra-sugary breakfast cereals available in the Reagan era, all of which I consumed in vast quantities, and that too has made me the man I am today. And now, a brief word on Britpop. It's over. You don't need to tell me. It's over. It is 1999 and Britpop,

one of the coolest and rowdyest and bitchiest, and most geographic. distinct musical revolutions of the decade is over. England sucks. That's not true. England is fine, but Brit Pop is over. This is a blur song from 1999 called No Distance Left to Run. The best Brit Pop song is Common People by Pulp.

The Best Brit Pop album is either definitely maybe or parentheses, What's the Story, close parentheses, morning glory question mark by Oasis, one of those. They're both rat as hell. You pick. And the best Brit pop band is sway. I'm just kidding. Those guys are rad too, but yeah, it's Oasis. Don't overthink it. They sure didn't. You asked me, point blank blur or Oasis, it's Oasis. Is that a frontrunner opinion? Not to mention a knucklehead who grew up in Ohio opinion. Sure, probably. But speaking as a knucklehead who grew up in Ohio, there was always an arm's length aura to blur, even peak blur. Butthead for sure did not appreciate their landmark 1994 album Parkluck. But I could sense even back then that I'd be cooler if I did appreciate Park Life more. And sure, I dug their biggest alt rock radio hits.

There's no other way, girls and boys. Woohoo, et cetera. But nah, as a 90s teenager, I never got heavy into Blur. Too snooty, too brady, too whiny voiced, too condescending, too English. But in 1999, Blur put out their sixth album in my favorite. This album is called 13. And this song, the penultimate track and big, grandiose whiny finish is called No Distance Left to Run. And yeah, Blurfront Man Damon Albarn is whining here, but he's crooning whining.

He's emoting. He's in Sad Sack Breakup album mode. And okay, this I can heavily vibe with back in Ohio. Damon All Barn is crooning whining very explicitly about his breakup with Justine Frischman of Elastica, a fellow viable candidate for best Brit pop band. And for whatever reason, I have never forgotten Justine talking to the NME in 2000 about how hurt and how pissed she was when she first heard this blur album 13, which he thought was milking their breakup. She says, quote, I squirmed when I heard it.

I was really surprised at how personal it was. We were breaking up and Damon was very secretive about what he was recording, which was unlike him. If I'd heard it, I would have asked him to tone it down. I've always had a horror of my private life being exposed for all to see like that. End quote. She also says, and this is the part that really struck me in my early 20s, Justine says, quote, he didn't talk to me, he wrote about it.

But if he'd spent as much time giving me emotional support as he spent writing songs about not getting it, we might not have broken up. End quote. That concept, that image, that dichotomy has stuck with me, writing about it versus doing it. Saving someone from drowning versus writing a song called, oh, geez, I wish I could save you from drowning. Anyway, Justine adds that she cried the first time she heard no distance left to run. And same deal with the first song on 13. another grandiose little jam called Tender.

And meanwhile, come on, come on, come on. And meanwhile, I love this album. Suddenly, I love Blur now. And possibly that's just down to the tone of Damon Allbarn's voice. Historically, I had always found Damon's singing voice to be a little too smug and sardonic and yelpy and droopy. But dig the macho-vulnerable bass dip right there. loves the greatest thing, and the backing choir too on Tender.

Come on, come on, come on. The heightened scale, the unapologetic air of grandiosity. Not every rock song with a choir works. And in fact, most rock songs with a choir sound at least a little bloated and ridiculous, but the naked ambition,

the brazen rock star pompousness. Even the outright bloated ridiculousness of Damon Albarn hits difference. It's harder. Blur will carry on into the 21st century and they'll put out a few more albums including a new one in 2023 and they'll headline Coachella

in 2024 but the kids in the crowd won't give a shit and Damon will get all pissy about it and I love it when that happens personally when an old vaunted rock band bombs with the youth at a major festival. Shout out the stone roses but Blur is going to be fine basically but here

at the end of the 90s Damon Albarn, having milked his high-profile romantic relationship for content, and having spent most of the decade trading bitchy insults with Oasis and Swade and so forth in the press, Damon is realizing that maybe he ought to at least pretend to be a little less personally famous. Sidebar, Justine Frischman of Elastica previously dated the lead singer of Swade, Brett Anderson, and so Damon and Brett would trade bitchy insults. And in 1994, Damon tells Loaded Magazine that, quote, I've always been more of an intellectual, bisexual, end quote.

And he also says, quote, I'll say this, though, I'm more homosexual than Brett Anderson, end quote. And that's arrogance, my friends, claiming that you're more homosexual than your heterosexual romantic rival. Sidebar number two. There apparently was some controversy over who wrote Blur's song to. from 1997, the woo-hoo song. And Damon has said that, quote, people in the states are always trying to take credit for it.

But he insists that he wrote it. He's got the demos to prove it. And on Twitter, in 2024, in response to some tweet on this topic, Liam Gallagher of Oasis goes, quote, got to be off your box to claim to have written that song, absolute turdose, end quote, turdose, in all caps. T-U-R-D-OS. Tirtos. Incredible.

England rules. Also, that's why Oasis is better than blur. But even by 1997, Damon Albaran realizes he better change his personal vibe, or at least his personal brand. That year, he tells the UK newspaper, the Sunday Times, quote, wanting to be the biggest is a weakness. I slowly recognized that in myself. It was a flaw in my personality that I wanted to be the most famous, the most loved. I'm on top of that now. End quote. Fantastic. I dig this rock star tone tremendously. Not only am I the best at being bisexual, but now I'm the best at not wanting to be the best. Recently, I became eagoless.

I think that's worth a round of applause. I love it. But also, Damon Albarn, in the late 90s, compared with all his Britpop friends and all his Britpop enemies, Damon has something that basically nobody else, else has. He's starting to get another idea. In one facet of this other idea shows up briefly on the Blur album 13 at the tail end of a noisy and crunchy song called mellow song. That high-keaning melody

right there, do do do do do do do that's our egoist friend Damon Albarn on the melodica. The melodica, you know that little keyboard that you play while blowing into it, sort of half-tiny piano half harmonica. You get a frail, feathery, eerie, plaintive, wounded songbird vibe out of the Melanica. You know that awesome, cheesy 80s arena pop song, And We Dance by that band The Hooters? I didn't name them. They're from Philadelphia and they're grown men who make their own decisions. And they name themselves the Hooters. Anyway, fantastic

melodica intro here by The Hooters. and we danced like a wave on the ocean roamed. Great song. For sure it was the Hooters who first inspired Damon Albarn to take up the melodica. No, okay, more likely Damon was inspired by something, by someone slightly hipper. Augustus Pablo. Say, Jamaican reggae legend Augustus Pablo, who we observe here throwing down on the melodica

on the title track to his phenomenal 1976 album King Tubby meets Rockers Uptown. I love this record so much. Put on King Tubby's Meets Rockers Uptown by Augustus Pablo at your next barbecue or house party or whatever, and you will have quite literally the time

of your life. Damon All Barn has spent the 90s touring with blur, expanding his musical horizons, getting deeper into dub and funk and hip-hop and electro, and the hilariously offensively broad category of world music, which at its broadest, world music applies to any music that is not made by sneering English-speaking gentleman with guitars. This is all giving Damon another idea. And so Damon starts toting his melodica around with him. And thus here we have

Damon's melodica and also his Yelpy, droopy voice on a song released in the year 2000 called Time Keeps on Slipping. But Damon is merely a guest. this time because this song is brought to us by Deltron 3030, the science fiction rap trio of producer Dan the Automator, turntablist kid koala, and also this guy. Mathematical astro, grapple flow, teradactal, very factual crash course, last resort, cast me off,

and last we warp to my home world, my own neurological cubby home. Dell, the funky homo sapien, the beloved Oakland rapper Del the Funky Homo Sapien, who did indeed just rhyme, mathematical, astro-grappleflow, teradactyl and neurological cubbyhole. I love this guy very much. And this guy is about to collaborate again with melodica enthusiast Damon Allbarn on a delightful and inexplicable major pop hit. But then again, delightful and inexplicable is historically how Dell the Funky Homo sapien rolls. From the instant, I evoked the name, Del the Funky Homo sapien.

I think we all knew we would wind up here. With his 1991 breakout hit, Mr. Dobelina, that's a Monkees sample. Kind of fake and kind of real 60s TV rockers, The Monkeys. This song, of course, is taken from Dell's 1991 debut album, which is called, hey, how about that? I wish my brother George was here. Did I know when I bought this CD at the Amoeba Records in Berkeley, California? Did I know that the album title, I wish my brother George was here, was a cheeky reference to Bugs Bunny making a cheeky reference to Liberacee?

No. I did not know that. Did I instead think that Dell the funky Homo sapien had a. real-life brother named George whom he missed? Yes. Yes, I did think that. Did I therefore mistakenly project a melancholy, perhaps even a grieving tone onto the entire remarkably lighthearted Dell the funky Homo Sapien album? I wish my brother George was here. Maybe. Perhaps. Meanwhile, Dell is just blissfully talking trash about Mr. Dobelina. Mr. Dobelina, Mr. Bob Dobelina want to quit.

You really make me sick with your fraudulent behavior. You're going to make me flippins in the army couldn't save you. Just to reiterate, Del the Funky Homo sapien does not have a brother named George, but he does have a cousin named Ice Cube, who serves as the high-profile co-producer of this album. I wish my brother George was here. And despite my confusion, what I love about Dell immediately is his sense of place, his geographical specificity is world building, whether the world he is building is intergalactically spectacular or defiantly mundane.

The next song on this record is called The Wacky World of Rapid Transit, in which Dell takes the bus from the East Bay to San Francisco. That's the plot. That's the premise of this song. If you've ever taken the bus across the Bay Bridge, then you know this to be an epic Oregon Trail caliber, excursion. So in this song Del is trying to ignore all the jerks

and weirdos trying to talk to him the whole time, starting at the bus stop. And what I remember most and what I love most about this whole album is the way Dell says, I don't have time to listen to your stories.

I was supposed to be here at 235, but I guess it's one of the record. Yo man, I wouldn't even ride in the bus, but my Ben's in the shot, you know, and my baby mama got my Elkhone day. I don't have time to listen to your stories. And so, based entirely on his majestic delivery of, I don't have time to listen to your stories,

I will be listening to Dell the funky Homo Sapien for the rest of my life. And Dell builds a robust solo career for himself in the 90s, balancing such whimsical adventures with genuine battle rapper Fury. On 1993's no need for alarm, he's really, really mad at a writer for rolling, stone. I'm still trying to get to the bottom of that one. But I do love Del best as a painter of landscapes when he sets a scene and fully verbally inhabits it. The sights, the sounds, the sense, the vivid ambiance. In 1997, Dell puts out an album called Future Development. This song is

called Corner Store. It's about how he's walking with his friends in Oakland down to the corner store. And this song is, in the best and most sincere sense of the word, transportive. On the way we bowed halfway bare, children running everywhere like they just don't care. The Muslim bakery is like right between. And if I pass by with beer, they will look at me mean. So what? You can feel the children rudely brushing past your legs. You can breathe in all the smells wafting out of the Muslim bakery.

And you can feel yourself withering beneath a disapproving glare. of the dudes in the Muslim bakery, if you're passing by with beer. Dell has a rare and precious gift for storytelling, for galaxy building. And he further proves this in 2000 on the Deltron 3030 record, in which Dell portrays Deltron Zero, a young mech soldier and computer prodigy,

rebelling against a 31st century Orwellian dystopia in his quest to smash the state and become Galatron. Rhyme Federation champion. Don't overthink it. That's his job. This song's called Virus. I want to devise a virus to bring diet straight to your environment. Crush your corporations with a mild touch.

Trash the whole computer system and revert you to papyrus. I basically levitated the first time I heard Dell rhyme virus with papyrus. Also, there's a skit on this Deltron 3030 album that's just a review, a positive review. of the movie Strange Brew, the 1983 super Canadian Rick Moranis cult comedy classic Strange Brew, hosers and whatnot.

It's a great movie. There's a lot going on here. Dell the Funky Homo Sapien thrives in environments where there's a lot going on. So let's get this guy onto a mainstream pop hit already. Shall we? Finally, someone let me out of my cage.

Now, time for me is nothing because I'm counting no age. Now, I couldn't be there. Now, you shouldn't be scared. I'm good at repairs, and I'm under East Nair. Okay, this song is called Clint Eastwood. It is performed by the band Gorillas and features Del the Funky Homo Sapien. The first Gorillaz album, self-titled, Gorillas with a Z, is released in March 2001.

Gorillas are, in our human universe, a collaboration between super famous rock star Damon Albarn, and also pretty famous comic book luminary Jamie Hewlett, perhaps best known for co-creating the Tank Girl series. FYI in the Court of Public Opinion, it appears that the Tank Girl comics are slightly better than the 1995 Tank Girl movie soundtrack featuring Bjork Hole and Portishead. And that soundtrack, in turn, is way better

than the 1995 live-action Tank Girl movie starring Lori Petty. Okay, Damon's got the sound. down. Jamie's got the vision. Our Deltron 3030 friend Dan the Automator, no stranger to elaborate concepts, he serves as co-producer. Simple enough.

Gorillas are officially, canonically, a cartoon rock band. A virtual rock band. A quartet consisting of four cartoon characters. And I cannot decide. Right up to this very moment, I cannot decide how deep we want

to get into guerrilla's lore, which is quite impressive and daunting, which is biblical in scope and density. Even if you're a guerrillas agnostic, I suspect that you have stumbled across many images, album covers, music videos, live performances, and various web extras depicting the members of gorillas. Who are? Okay, Murdoch is the glowering, satanic, megalomaniacal, dark-haired hedonist bass player

and mastermind. Russell, 1L, is the gigantic white-eyed drummer. and hip-hop oracle. Noodles. She's the diminutive pre-teen Japanese guitarist. And 2D, not 3D, but 2D. 2D is the black-eyed,

blue-haired, emaciated singer and keyboardist who likes zombie movies. That's enough lore for now, I think. You could spend the next two weeks solid consuming nothing but Gorilla's lore, exploring the bowels of Kong Studios and whatnot. Gorillas had a great website back in the early

2000s, back when websites felt new and dangerous. Most interviews with gorillas, especially in the beginning, starting around 2001, even in like Rolling Stone or the various British weeklies or whatever, most guerrillas interviews are styled as conversations with these cartoon characters, where Noodles is thoughtful and spiritual, and 2D is pretty oblivious, and Murdoch is a huge jerk, and so forth. There's a lot going on here, conceptually. And not every artist thrives in such a heavily stylized environment. But fortunately, we know at least one guy who does. So, okay, so a while back, my kids, my two pre-tecats, my two pre-tecats, my two pre-tecats, teenage boys, they stumble across this

gorilla's song, Clint Eastwood, on YouTube or whatever, and they love it. And we play it in the car all the time. And sometimes I remember to play the clean version without the F-bomb, but usually I forget. This is a hit pop song, Clint Eastwood. It made the Billboard

Hot 100 at number 57, but notably, that is higher than any blur song ever. Even Woo-hoo didn't make the Hot 100 at all. The first Gorilla's album, sell 7 million copies worldwide, which is way better than any blur album,

which is possibly better than every blur album combined. And I'd like to know, of all the millions of people who know and love this song, I'd like to know what percentage of those people are aware that, canonically, Dell the Funky Homo Sapien is rapping on this song, Clint Eastwood. From the perspective of Dell,

Russell the Gorilla's cartoon drummer's dead friend. Russell the cartoon drummer is from Brooklyn, right? And all Russell's friends, including Dell, were killed in a drive-by shooting that Russell mysteriously survived. And all Russell's dead friends possessed Russell. They were sucked into Russell's body. And they live on inside him. That's why his eyes are milky white. And Russell moved to England to escape all this violence and he joins guerrillas.

And on Clint Eastwood, the ghost of Dell emerges from Russell's body and starts rapping. And this explains the lines, Now I'm sucked into your lies through Russell, not his muscles, but percussion he provides. I just don't think this is translating well to the podcast format. All this guerrilla's lore.

That's my concern. Forget it. Here's the chorus. Now, canonically, this is the voice of 2D, the wayfish, zombie-esque guerrillas cartoon frontman, 2D. But no, really, it's our old pal, Damon Albarn.

Both his droopy voice and his melodica. And this is a remarkably fantastic pop hook, the Clint Eastwood chorus, given that Damon sounds half asleep or perhaps even half dead. I got sunshine. He sounds like Muppet Baby Bob Dylan. I don't mean that pejoratively. I mean that right from the first guerrillas album, the first of eight Gorilla's studio albums and counting, not counting remix projects and whatnot, immediately, we have no problem hearing what is clearly Damon All Barnes' voice, but imagining that it's actually emanating from a zonked out black-eyed cartoon character. That song is called 5-4, as in the time signature, and yes, the chorus is, she turned my dad on.

And doesn't Damon's voice just make more sense to you? as a subversive cartoon. Okay, one thing I'll say about guerrilla's cartoon lore. There's a huge perplexing rabbit hole of old early 2000s website shenanigans and short videos and fake interviews and whatnot. And there's this early 53 second guerrillas video called Free Tibet. It's a real life video of six men sitting cross-legged on the sidewalk outside the Chinese embassy in London. and they are protesting China's treatment of Tibet. And 2D, the cartoon guerrillas frontman, the blue-haired semi-zambi guy,

2D is part of the protest. He is animated into this scene. He is sitting there silently, reverently, reverently, with these real-life protesters. And you just see them all sitting there. Then there's a little title card with information about the Free Tibet campaign, along with a URL for Free Tibet.org. and that's the video. And watching this video for the first time

across these 53 seconds, my reaction goes from, oh, wow, to, oh, no, to, hmm, maybe, to yeah, sure, to okay, this is weird but kind of lovely. It's a journey. To my mind, this clip swings from disrespectful to cautiously respectful

to oddly moving in less than a minute. You are free to never, ever engage. with the virtual cartoon band aspect of Gorillas. That is an opt-in experience. It is not necessary to enjoy this music. But that cartoon versus IRL dissonance can be fascinating and confusing and slightly troubling and bizarrely heartening if you are willing to indulge it. Okay, as the Gorillas Project rumbles on, these records will get increasingly guest star heavy. but here on the band's 2001 self-title debut,

we get a modest handful of features. Most notably, beloved Cuban singer and Buena Vista Social Club luminary, Ibrahim Ferrer, who does not have, nor does he require, a convoluted cartoon alter ego. That song is called Latin Simone,

parentheses, K Pasa Contigo, close parentheses, and dig Damon's melodica sneaking into the mix again amidst the trumpet. My personal favorite song on the first guerrillas record is called 19-2000, a title that nicely sums up the evolution, the transition,

the psychological journey from the 90s to the 2000s that Damon is attempting here. But don't worry too much about any of that, because the chorus to this song is, Get the Cool Shushine. Infectious. That's No, The Underage Cartoon Japanese Gushin. guitarist on vocals there, voiced actually by Miho Hattori from the great New York City avant rock band Chibomato. Tina Weymouth, God to your basis for Talking Head, she's in the background there

somewhere as well. And I'm also delighted to hear from either of them, but I think we can agree that nobody on this first guerrillas record is having more fun than Dell the funky Homo sapien. It's funkier than funkadelic wearing pamphers. While you eggheads is on the wall preparing answers. And God bless Del, truly, for emerging from within Russell the guerrillas' drummers' body once again to rhyme Atlantis, enchantress, funkier than funkadelic wearing pamper's. And while you eggheads is on the wall preparing answers on another rad single called Rock the House. Now, if you come to this song, to this first guerrilla's album as a huge fan of Dell the Funky Homo sapien,

you might be tempted to be dismayed that these are the biggest hits of his career, the most radio play, the most MTV play, by far the most streams now. It's a drag, maybe, that Dell could only reach his commercial apex within this splendid, but quite convoluted virtual universe. But just from the buoyant tone of his voice here, Dell doesn't sound concerned about any of that at all. So maybe let's do like he does and do what he says. There we go. Great advice. Great trumpet line also on Rock the House.

So partly Gorillaz is a full-blown subversion of Damon All-Barns ego. Yes, he's not in the videos. In live performances, heavy on giant teeth. TV screens and holographic effects and whatnot. He's a shadow lurking behind a curtain with the rest of the real-life band, like the Wizard of Oz. He's not even officially in the band. But on the other hand, this is a huge flex for Damon All Barnup. A way to flaunt all his cool, famous friends, to flaunt his immaculate globe-trotting musical

taste, to flaunt how quickly and decisively he can leave all his old Britpop friends and enemies far behind. It's not just that with gorillas, he's had another idea. This is a much bigger idea. Conceptually and commercially, guerrillas far surpasses blur at this point. With younger people especially, guerrillas don't brick at Coachella. Put it that way. Is Damon pleased with himself about this?

Of course he is. Talking to Wired Magazine in 2005, Damon says, quote, Gorillas shouldn't be denied any of the affectations of genuine rock stars just because they're cartoons. They've been very successful. So now they have more money and they can make bigger, more grandiose videos. The paradox is that by being completely artificial, gorillas is a lot less artificial than a boy band or any of these other constructed entities we're all used to. End quote.

Yeah, we're talking the early to mid-2000s here. lot of anti-teen pop sentiment and a lot of anti-American idol sentiment, X-Factor, all these reality TV pop stars. Gorillas are a shrewd commentary on the disposability of 21st century pop culture. Gorillas fake it so real, they are beyond fake. Is that all a bit pompous? Maybe, probably. But when I put on the guerrillas song, Dirty Harry, do I still levitate when the children's choir drops out and the beat comes in, absolutely. Oh my God. I could listen to this song on repeat for three hours. It is 2005 now. And the second Gorilla's album is called Demon Days. And Gorillas can now deploy a children's choir without sounding bloated and ridiculous. That is way harder to pull off

than a regular choir. Producer-wise, this time we got Danger Mouse, aka Brian Burton, clocking in just a year after his 2004 internet sensation The Gray album, which mashed up Jay-Z's black album with the Beatles' white album and unleashed an avalanche of think pieces. Danger Mouse has a tendency to make everything sound like a spaghetti western, but he works great here. We got the Immortal Galaxy Building rapper MF Doom on this record.

We got Sean Ryder of the immortal late 80s, early 90s, Madchester rock band Happy Mondays on this record. Martina Topley Bird, Roots maneuver, booty brown from the far side. It's cool if those names mean anything to you, but it's also totally cool if they don't, because suddenly, this riff is all that matters. Yeah, first of all, the only part of Feel Good Ink that really matters is doot. Do do, do, do, do, do, do, etc. Just an astounding riff.

The lyrics do not matter. Damon Allbarns somehow even more half asleep or half dead vocal tone does not matter. It doesn't matter. This song is a triumph of riffology, a triumph of groove, a triumph of multiversal atmosphere. So I myself spent just a little time awash in guerrilla's lore, which included reading a 2007 graphic novel-type autobiography of the band called Gorilla. colon rise of the ogre, which you can buy now for like a hundred bucks minimum, or you can just read it for free on the internet. And you got to adjust to the convoluted cartoon backstory of it all. These are extensive interviews with primarily the four virtual members of guerrillas,

but you do hear Damon Albarn, both the egoseness and the sizable ego of Damon Albaran. You hear him very clearly through the voices of these characters. At one point, Nudels. She's the young Japanese guitarist and moral center of the band. Noodles explains the essence of guerrillas like this. She says, quote, For many groups and artists, there is a desire to add to a tradition or a history of music, rather than stand apart from it or advance it. They seem happy just to be in a band. For them, that is enough. The security comes from the closeness of the impersonation. End quote.

Feel Good Inc. is the moment when I realized that Damon AllBarn was trying to advance the history of music. And I think he actually kind of did. Okay. So there is indeed a windmill in the Feel Good Inc. video. A flying windmill island. That Jamie Hewlett, the visual half of gorillas. Jamie has explained that the flying windmill was inspired by the beloved 1986 animated film Castle in the Sky. directed, of course, by Hayao Miyazaki, who runs the Japanese prestige animation monolith Studio Ghibli.

As usual, nice to know, but not necessary to know. The flying windmill here represents the tower of soul-eroding rock star hedonism, in which the members of guerrillas have imprisoned themselves. That's also nice to know, but even less necessary to know. Damon is crooning a little more tunefully here on the pre-chorus, but he is also shrinking. He is fading into the background. He is further subverting slash burnishing his ego. He is dissolving.

He is teeing up the true stars of Feel Good Inc. Because at long last, De La Sol have arrived to trash your whole computer system and revert you to papyrus. Laughing gas, hazmatts, fast cats, ass cracks.

Play these ponies at the track. It's my chocolate attack. Rest in peace to Trugoy the Doe. a.k.a. Dave, aka. Plug 2, a.k.a. David Jalachor, aka. 1 third of De LaSoul. Dave passed away at 54 on February 12, 2023, just as De LaSoul's priceless early catalog

was finally available digitally. And so in 2005, this is what makes feel-good ink so glorious and so bittersweet. De LaSoul are all-time rap legends, even then, but they're magnificent first four records. Three feet high and rising in 1989. De La Sol is dead in 91. Balloon Minds State in 93 and stakes is high in 96.

They are not available via iTunes, not available via official digital channels, including streaming when streaming blows up in the early 2010s. As with Del the Funky Homo sapiens, guerrillas are providing De LaSoul with by far their biggest commercial hit. De La Sol themselves put out three ambitious and fascinating new albums in the early 2000s, but those albums neither blow up nor go pop. But Feel Good Inc. goes top 20, it's number 14 on the Billboard Hot 100.

Notably, in the video and beyond, the three members of De La Sol, Dave, Macio, and Pos de Noose, they are not cartoon characters with elaborate backstories. They are, simply and triumphantly, themselves. And they sound like 500 feet tall superheroes because that is what they are. Or perhaps Dayla Soul are the 5'0-foot-tall-tall-super-villains-all-super-villains here, what with all the maniacal Or perhaps Dalai-Soul are the maniacal. Did you know that guerrillas opened the 2006 Grammys? Like the whole show?

Go watch that sometime. You got Wizard of Oz, Damon Albarn, and his real-life backing band totally out of sight. You got the cartoon gorillas on stage in hologram form. It's sort of a hologram, but more accurately, it's a high-tech version of the classic Pepper's ghost delusion. That's a real thing. But never mind that now. The volume, the base frequencies couldn't be too loud on stage. or it would ruin the illusion somehow. Don't ask me why or how exactly. Never mind. I just think about

all the big stars at the 2006 Grammys. Let's see, Green Day, U-2, Kelly Clarkson, Mariah Carey, Kanye West. All these pop stars forced to sit there and watch Murdoch, the evil guerrillas bassist in semi-hologram form. Murdoch's prowling the stage in his underwear alongside his virtual bandmates with the flesh and blood dudes from De La Sol camped out in front and having what appears to be the time of their lives whilst basically screaming. What a baffling and beautiful moment this is for Damon Al Barne's other idea and De La Sol to join forces and be anointed as primetime mainstream pop stars. Pop stars proudly made in Bugs Bunny's image. Bugs Bunny watching as the roof collapses on the opera singer.

England rules, virtual bands rule, the future rules, all hail our new cartoon rock star overlords. And then, here on the Grammy stage, here on music's biggest nights, here comes the punchline. My God, that's Madonna's music, as they say in professional wrestling. That is literally Madonna's music. Did you know that guerrillas and De La Sol and Madonna joined forces? To open the 2006 Grammys, they opened like the whole show. Madonna also is a semi-hologram on stage in this moment, though the illusion is so convincing that I don't think everybody realized that.

At the time that Madonna ain't physically on stage yet, it's nice to know, but it's not necessary to know. All you need to know is that nobody on this stage, and nobody lurking behind it is satisfied, is happy just being in a band. Even now, watching Gorillas team up with Madonna, I do not quite understand what is happening here. But I know it's funny and I know it's cool. And that is still one of the most thrilling feelings in the world.

Our guest today, we are delighted to be joined by Jeremy Gordon, writer, editor, and author. He's worked for pitchfork and spin in the outline. He's currently a senior editor at The Atlantic and his fantastic debut novel called Sea Friendship. is available now. Jeremy, welcome. Heidi, thanks for having me. Of course. I think all my questions are minor variations on the same question. How did guerrillas get so huge

and so huge specifically with young people? I think this is a band that is continually bigger than I think it is. You know what I mean? Yeah, absolutely. I saw them a couple of years ago at the Barclays Center in Brooklyn, and frankly, I was shocked by the makeup of the crowd. It was extremely cross-generational, very young, very racially mixed, very diverse.

It's not to be naive, but I just wasn't expecting it. And then as I was thinking a little bit more about it, it seemed to me like Damon Elbarne had sort of been ahead of the curve and anticipating a lot of intersecting trends of the 21st century, the popularization of anime and hip-hop. the sort of genre-free way that the internet encouraged all sorts of different subcultures and demographics to smash together. In that sense, the guerrillas really felt to me like something that sort of tapped into trends before they were even trends as the broader, as far as the broader population was concerned. And now 25 years later, all of these elements that make up the band are sort of ascendant culturally. and they have kind of become a legacy act in my brain in terms of all the stuff coming together. Do you think that Damon understood when he started the band

that that's what he was doing? Was this a really deliberate attempt to get ahead of where he saw music going? Or this is just a weird thing he decided to do that sort of blew up? It's a good question. I think when he started the band, at least as far as I you know, recounted in my research, he was thinking of it as just a way to make a different type of music without the baggage of being in Blur. He was very conscious of the fact that Blurr was so successful for having a certain type of sound. I think he specifically mentioned that, you know,

if you wanted to make a reggae song as Damon Albarn, as Blur, that would be weighted with so many expectations and stereotypes. He struck me as someone who was intensely aware of one, his own iconography as a rock star, so to speak. And guerrillas, to me, you know, without being able to read his mind, I think one of the things that makes him such a great pop musician is, as with any sort of pop musician, is their ability to kind of latch

onto stuff that is happening before it is even, before other people even are aware, or maybe not the qualities of a pop musician, but someone with excellent taste, someone who is able to kind of have his finger to the pulse and sense what is out there. Because 25 years ago, I mean, it's not like hip-hop is only popular 25 years ago, or anime, for example. But anime was a little, I would say, undercover in the broader culture, the notion of the internet being this kind of unifying force for all these different occurrence. That was very much new. But there are certainly people who were

had were a little bit more hip to what was going on and it's not a struggle for me to imagine he was one of them. How invested are you personally in like the virtual band like the anime aspect like the cartoon backstory behind this band? Like is that do you get the sense also that the people in that crowd at the arena show like are the biggest fans of this band really invested in the cartoon aspect or are there some people who don't really engage with that at all. It's not necessary. Me personally, I was never particularly invested, but there is certainly a throughline and a consistency to the backstory, not just sonically, but certainly visually. I mean, one of the

really impressive things about the show is that there's, so the band performs as a standard band, band plays. It's just Damon and all the members on stage. But they have a video screen, a backdrop that is constantly playing different footage. A lot of it is mostly collaged from their existing music videos. And what I was most impressed by was the sort of evolution of the animation. I mean, you start out at the start of their career. It's very flat and thick lines, 2D. And you go all the way to the modern day.

And it's very sort of 3D rich, developed, colorful, a full-bodied. I cannot speak to the importance of the mythology to anyone, but you have to imagine that it's one of those like Easter sort of a surface, you know, as deep as a lake, but interesting enough to look at for the kids who really want to get into it, not to generalize by young people these days, but I feel like if you make lore sort of appealing, and consistent, there are certainly people who are going to get into it for a time, at least. So you got into guerrillas first and then went back to blur. And I'm just wondering what that experience was like, like, what does Gorillas give you that blur doesn't and maybe vice versa?

When Gorilla's first came out, I was in grade school, I think, or maybe I was, I was in grade school. And I was into anime and I was into music as a concept of as something that I heard on the radio and kept abreast of in my, you know, sort of schoolyard rhythms. but sort of like the bigger, the things that you become more tuned to as you get older, like where a band fits in or the sort of this album being better than that album, like none of that really appealed to me. But Clint Eastwood, I mean, most fundamentally,

it sounded cool and they looked cool. It was an interesting, even by the standards of, you know, at the time I was pretty familiar with, like, manga and superhero comics and all that stuff. And the look of the guerrilla stuff was very striking. And then, and it still is now, it is not dated visually to me whatsoever. It was like cutting edge. And it was just, it was strange.

There was a weird undertone to it. And I think, you know, my only awareness to blur that time is I knew that they were like the woo-hoo band song too, being like very omnipresent for a little bit. That is certainly something that like speaks to the, I mean, the size that, please correct me if I'm wrong in this, But as I understand, like, song two was written as kind of like a laugh at like, oh, look at how simple we can make it for people. It feels pretty sardonic. Yeah.

Yeah. And then, of course, the fact that it took off hugely in America, like Routis's point. But, you know, it's a, from the other side of it, like a thousand bands could have attempted to write a song like that. But this one took off in the way that it did. And I think that is the kind of quality of pop inventiveness that he had to, make it look, make it look and sound cool. I mean, it's not to, it's easy to overthink it when you're, you know, paid to do it. But I am always struck by this quote that Tom Petty once had about the birds.

He was writing about them for a Rolling Stone retrospective. And he just said, not to be shallow, but they were the coolest guys around. They just looked at the coolest. They had the best outfits, the best hair. Like, they were just good to look at it. He was like, that's why they were so big. That's why we liked them. Like, they sounded great.

They looked great. like what more do you need right gorillas the birds of the 21st century I'm always saying this so it's validating for me I think back to it was a couple Coachella's ago right where blur played

and they sort of bricked right like the crowd was sort of dead and Damon was super mad like it's interesting to me that the huge success of the guerrillas has not really helped blur that much among young people maybe I'm wrong about that

but like do you get the sense that a lot of people A lot of kids like you who got into guerrillas then went back to Blur, or is there sort of a wall between these two projects to this day? I think it's so different. I mean, because I forget this. I'll never forget this. I met someone, I was talking to some people at the concert, and I met this father and daughter duo. And the dad was like an old punk who was like, I loved Blur.

And his daughter was like, his daughter was like, oh, you know, I really like my dad's music. but then like gorillas, but I like anime myself more. It's not that I think that there's a huge divide between it, but I guess from a service level there is. I mean, one is a more conventional rock and roll band, and gorillas have lots of sonic elements to it that are just not found in blur, and then the visual thing is just completely different.

And frankly, I think this is part of the reason why they've courted a younger crowd. I mean, they can sort of cover up the fact that they are, a bunch of, you know, no slight to any aging white men in the world, but they're a group of Asian white men and the sort of visuals, being able to hide behind the, like, graphics of it is, it sort of distracts from that fact of it.

But, you know, I mean, I think not just what was, it's not just that the crowd was diverse or, like, younger. It's that they lost their minds. at every single song. Every single cut got a huge reaction. This was not, it was not, like, it was not just a single's only thing. It was like the fifth single off their sixth album would get, like, huge screams.

I mean, they were treated. And I think, like, this is the energy that must have made it, must make it so fun to do, is that Alburn is such a rock star, you know. He's such a performer and understands, like, a crowd so deeply. And he was just losing his mind. It was the energy was so high-pitched, and it seemed like he'd never flagged. And, you know, as I can imagine, as a musician, like, that feeling must be incredibly gratifying to, like, be performing to a sold-out crowd of, like, diehards who know the sign.

I mean, they're, dare I say, that they seem more enthusiastic than, like, Blur fans, although, granted, I've never seen them perform. I'm just talking out of my mouth. But it was sort of, it was mind-blowing. The charts always tell you so much, but, like, blur, guerrillas have sold so many more records and just had pop hits the way Blur never did up to an including woo-hoo.

That doesn't tell the whole story, but I don't see the youth coming out for Blur the way they clearly are coming out for guerrillas. So that's got to tell you something. There's a subplot here with Feel Good Inc and also Clint Eastwood. Del the Funky Homo Sapien and De LaSoul, like these are their biggest songs.

These are their most played high charting most streamed songs now. Like, what do you make of the guerrillas project is sort of this weird way to, like, give a hit song, you know, to these beloved but sort of underrated rap stars? Yeah. Well, Alburn has talked about, like, enjoying collaboration quite a lot and being able to, like, gorillas, their touring outfit is really an impressive number of people. I mean, they were bringing, uh, they, they just have a lot of people.

who play with them. And I think to that notion, I mean, it's a, on a sentimental level, it is a testament to the kind of like, power of a certain facelessness, you know. I mean, so many musicians, so many people who are on guerrilla songs probably had their biggest, yeah, their biggest hits, as you say, with them. And their identity had nothing to do with it.

You know, they're like, their hipness or whatever, the relevance, all these sort of like invented qualities that the label, so to say, probably were like, If you want someone to be a guest on the song, they have to have a certain amount of profile. But with the gorilla, and again, these guest stars, I mean, they've treated like unbelievable superstars by these kids again. I mean, you can imagine that some of these guest artists,

like their own records would not have the same level of traction with the audience. When they came on stage and started singing their hook, you know, people lost their minds. And it is nice. in a collaborative sense it's easy to root for, you know? Not to be corny about it,

but I think just, you know, it's not easy to have a career in music and to still be able to like bring so many people along years later. I think it's a very nice thing. And a second wins, you know, like a second band, you know, a second band that sort of outstrips your first. Like God bless Oasis, you know, but like Oasis does not.

There is no equivalence to this for Oasis or really anybody who was in Britpop at the time with Damon Alburn. Yeah, and Alburn seems someone like someone, at least in interviews that I've read and watched,

who is very fluid in his identity and is not very self-aware, does not say, you know, he says, he can say ostentious things, but it's very much like a a performance on some level, like a knowing awareness. Yeah.

And it's just nice. It really seems like guerrilla is just something that is like very nice to indulge. I mean, you think about it from a certain perspective. He's getting to write music that draws from many, many different sounds. He's getting to collaborate with a ton of people. He's kind of been able to do it while being a little faceless, you know, because all the promotional stuff, all the photos are just kind of under the auspices of these characters.

And they're hugely popular, you know? And it's young people who give a shit. It's not just the same old, like, crowd who want to hear the same old songs. And as a guy who's dipped his toes into so many different things, like whether or not it's solar records or writing scores, like, it just has to be very gratifying to find a vehicle that allows you to kind of do whatever you want in a sense. And it's funny you say, like, he's an older white man. He's collaborating with a lot of older white men.

But because of the image of this. band like the band doesn't age right if i went to see this concert now like you did you know i'd see the band on stage like the cartoons from 2001 and as you say like the art style has evolved but this just this project has a youthful feel to it because he is able to slink into the background strategically you know when that's good for him and good for the band absolutely uh you told me you were gonna maybe do a new york times profile a guerrillas but it fell through. If you did have a chance to talk to Damon,

what did you want to know? What were you hoping to ask him, what insight are you looking for for him and how this has all happened? I did want to ask him who he has more fun performing for, who you would rather play a show with these days. I strongly suspected that it would be gorillas, which is, I mean, Pilar's a great band, obviously.

We don't need to, we can talk about them all day long as well. but I was very curious just to know about his perspective as someone who seems very skeptical of nostalgia and wanting, wants to do new things. But, you know, how do you actually do that without being self-indulgent? And I did, yeah, I did just want to bluntly get on the record, like, who would you rather, you know, gunned your head? Who would you rather play a show at Coachella, so to speak? I think when the band started, like, when I went back and read a lot of press, like, there was an idea, like, this is a what music is going to be now.

Like this is the future, you know, the internet, you know, anime cartoons. Like, I'm wondering if you think of guerrillas as an influential band. Can you think of anybody else, any artists major or minor that you feel are in this mold, either sonically or sort of visually? Well, the cartoon band thing to me is one of those things that I feel like you can't do it without knowingly. Right.

It's kind of their lane. It seems quaint today, but I'm not the first person to mention that. Back in the day, so to speak, like the divisions between what your son was and what your son wasn't was very, not only taken very seriously at, like, the institutional level, but by fans themselves, you know, you had to sound like this. I mean, I remember interviewing a couple years ago, I talked to Dave Grohl for a piece, and he said, he swore that I would be shocked by the number of, of A-list stars who had recorded albums that were totally different from the music that they were known for. These guys who would basically just go into the studio and make music that was, you know, is something like, this is purely hypothetical, but it's like Justin Timber, like, making a death metal album or like Lady Gaga making, like, you know, her reggae record. Again, those are not real, but, you know, stars who are very boxed into their awareness.

of like what is expected of them. But, you know, today that is, there's so many younger artists who, that does not, that just doesn't seem like an issue for them whatsoever. Well, just to wrap up, I mean, I think a vampire weekend, right? If you want to talk about back in the day, you know, the discourse around, you know, the first, at least, vampire weekend record was, there was an undercurrent of like, how dare they, you know, it's just, they were so comfortable the band was, just trying

different things and trying these different genres and they just they didn't have you know and they weren't agonizing about it at all you know and a lot of it rubbed a lot of people the wrong way but i think that you know vampire weekend were right to think that you know like with a certain amount of respects you know and knowledge and genuine enthusiasm like you can just try anything and maybe that's another way that damon sort of being in the background when he wants to be helps you know like if damon were front and center and that's what you were looking at as you were listening you know to like dirty hairy or something like that. The dissonance might freak you out a little bit because it's a cartoon band,

you know, like the genre hopping makes a lot more sense, I guess. Yeah, it's, it sounds as just as simple as like not having their own faces in front of it, but as you say, that's probably a huge component. I mean, it's just people don't get hung up on the identity is deeply.

And certainly, his vitality when he's performing just seems like, like so unden it's so undeniably charismatic. I mean, again, he was really treating it like he was playing like Wembley or something and just like going at every, every inch. I think at multiple points he went into the crowd and was just sort of like walking around and singing and really engaged. It felt like a full contact sport.

And, you know, there's a there's a sort of veteran charisma to that. I mean, someone who's been playing these shows for years and years and years and really just like knows how to conserve his energy. Like it's almost like, you know, it's like watching like, I was going to make a terrible sports analogy, but it's like, watching one of those,

or second pro wrestling or watching some like veteran basketball player who just like knows how to like pick his spots and understand what is demanded at the moment. Yeah, veteran savvy is Damon Albarn. Yeah. Well, this has been fantastic, Jeremy. Thank you so much for talking. I really appreciate it.

Of course. Thanks so much to our guys. guest this week, Jeremy Gordon. Thanks to our producers, Bobby Wagner, Jonathan Kerma, and Justin Sales. Thanks to Olivia Creary for additional production help, and thanks so much to you for listening.

And now, let us all go listen to Feel Good Inc. by Gorillas. We'll see you next week.