Bandsplain - The Best New Music of Spring 2026 With Bre Morell. Plus, An Interview With Domenic Palermo of Nothing.

Episode Date: June 25, 2026

Yasi and returning guest Bre Morell discuss their favorite new albums that came out this spring. Plus, the new singles from their most anticipated albums of the summer! Next, Yasi talks with Domenic “Nicky” Palermo of Nothing about their latest album, ‘a short history of decay’, his Slide Away Music Festival and so, so much more. Episode PlaylistListen to the Best New Music of Spring 2026 hereAnd in case you missed it, listen to the Best New Music of Winter 2026 episode with Chris Ryan  here CREDITS:Host: Yasi Salek @yasisalekGuests: Bre Morell @bremorell, Domenic “Nicky” Palermo @bandofnothingProducer: Rob SundermannEditor: Adrian BridgesAdditional Production Supervision: Justin SaylesTheme Song: Bethany Cosentino Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

What's with this band anyway? I don't get it. Can you please explain? Wait, like, Bansplain? Hello and welcome to Bansplain. I'm your host, Yasi Salick. This is usually a show where I invite an expert guest on to help me explain a cult band or iconic artist. Today's episode is a little different. Today's episode is about our favorite music of Q2 of 26. Chris Ryan does not like it when I say Q2.

He says to financials. of a term, but he's not here right now. By the way, that refers to April 1st through the end of June. We actually did this in Q1 with Chris Ryan. We will drop the link to that episode in the show notes. Also, please stick around after we finish our music recommendations for an interview I did with Dominic Palermo of the band Nothing, a band I really love, a band we talked about a lot in our Q1 recommendations because we love their album. But today, first, I am joined by Repeat Van Splain Guest. musician and a woman who lives inside my home, Bree Morrell. Thank you for having me back.

Oh my God, it's such an honor. So nice to see you. So nice to see you as we did not see each other this morning and also last night. Bree, before we dive into the life-changing things we're going to do right now by naming our favorite music. Yeah. As everyone is on Bated Breath to know what we thought. Chris asked me this on the other episode, so I thought I might ask you. Okay. How do you go about finding new music?

That's a great question. I mean, I just, luckily, like, I'm just constantly surrounded by music people, and I literally live in your house now. Well, I don't know that that's too helpful for you unless I'm like, hey, have you heard this Madonna song? Well, there's that. Yeah. You've played stuff from, and I, there's one artist in particular I think we're going to talk about today that you put me on to that I hadn't heard yet. Midrift. Oh, right. Okay, midrift. Okay, great. So sometimes I come up to make coffee. and Yossi's like listen to this. So I have built-in music recs, which is great. But also I just like look at what my friends are listening to or, you know, what my friends are releasing.

Yeah, that's that's kind of it. Yeah, I think it's really interesting because once you are of a certain age, it's not, well, I don't want to speak for everyone, but for myself, it's not the same the way I discover music or even like the appetite with which I seek it out compared to when I was. like a teenager. I was like a scavenger digging through every message board to find, you know. We didn't have message boards and I was in teenager

but I guess we did well you just had to be like really nerdy AOL chat rooms. Yeah, that counts. Yeah, I guess there was message boards. I feel like now

I mean I'm lucky because again I live with you you know a lot of stuff I still do have a lot of musician friends I feel like it's just word of mouth for me really which definitely word of mouth.

Doing this has inspired me to break out of that a little bit and actively look for more new stuff because sometimes you don't hear about something. Like I found some great stuff that I hadn't heard yet. Totally. We talked about it a bit so I don't want to retread, but I always, when people ask me, I give like the same kind of like advice. Because like I guess I do probably stay a little more tapped in on top of it than maybe other people. You do for sure. It's always like look at what bands are opening or playing with the bands that you like. that's like the most low hanging for easy way.

Like there are still scenes. And like if you like one band, you'll probably like another band. There are still labels that are boutique enough. I don't know if that's the right word. But you know what I mean? Niche enough. Curated enough. Like we're on the car right over here.

We were talking about Julia's War, which is the label run by the guy who does they're getting a body of water. Doug? Is that his name? Yes. Doug. They're cutting a body of water. His name is Doug.

Bulgarian. He runs Julia's War. We did it. We got that out of our mouth. Anyways, I was saying to you on the car right over here that like almost every release from that label I like, because I just, he has good taste and I like align with his taste. So that's always helpful. And I don't want to be like two pro-computer robots, but like the algorithm does sometimes serve up a hot piping dish of deliciousness for me. Sometimes it'll just be fucking walking, vibing, put on a song, and then it leads to this other song.

And I'm like, God damn it, you're right. You have me fucking figured the fuck out. I'll go. I do like this song. It's great when that happens. It's good. You know, you can't, it can't,

you got to give credit where credits do to the computer algorithm. So we're going to talk today about a handful of I think we both came with like 10 to 12. We have some crossover. And then we also just happened to notice that there were a lot of singles released in this period that we have really like piqued our interest and made us like excited for the forthcoming albums from these artists that won't come out until Q3. So we'll talk about those too.

But I wanted to first talk about one that is probably the top of my list. and I know it's also on your list I thought it would be a good one to start with, which is Ice Age, their new album for Love of Grace and The Hereafter. What do you like about this album? It's great.

It's so great. I know. What a fucking novel opinion to be like Ice Age is good. I'm like, we've, we had talked about this. We've both kind of like been on the Ice Age train. Day one.

Viking ship. Yeah, literally because I mean, I didn't realize it was day one, but like, you know, I think I interviewed them from my like dumb blog interviewed. Maybe in 2012, which is pretty early on in their career because I didn't realize they're still so young. Yeah, very young. And saw them play at South by, I think, that same year, maybe the year after. We're probably at the same show. Definitely at the same show.

Yeah, I want to say they play with Lustreuse. I was definitely there. I love Lustre Youth. I never, never hesitate to give a shout to, like. was for you because I fucking love that band. But anyways, back to Ice Age. Yeah, and obviously they've had like, like New Brigade was so good. They had kind of like a big Nick Cavey moment for a second, which I also really liked.

But I really love this album because it's like, it has everything I like. It's like jangly rock music. It's like romantic, but like... It's pretty catchy too. Super catchy. Obviously offbeat. And I don't know if that's just because it's Ice Age or because they're Danish or like. Like, you know, whatever, but it's, it's just, it's fab.

It's, like, exciting. It has, like, a real energy to it. There are some tracks that I was like, reminds me of my beloved black lips. Who I think we're doing this similar kind of music early on. And, you know, I don't know if they get their due, but I don't, I don't, I think they're friends. So, but, like, that made me happy to kind of hear this, like, it's almost, like, throwback garage rock music. But in, like, put through the lead. of these sort of Danish weirdos.

Totally. I love it. When I first put it on, I was kind of like, oh, this is like not what I was expecting, but I got super into it. I really liked the lead single. Yeah. Is it called crazy?

Star. Star. Star, stars. I'm crazy. Yeah. That song got a lot of play for me for a while. The video is cool, too. Yeah.

It's great. It doesn't hurt that they're like literal supermodels all of course. I'm asking five of them. Yeah. They have something else in water over there. Stamped approval, Banspland, stamp of approval, Ice Age for Love of Grace in the Hereafter. Approved.

Do you want to choose one of yours to talk about next? Sure. So I will preface my entire list today by saying, since I wasn't here for Q1, Yasi very kindly allowed me to maybe sneak in a few that came out a little earlier than the window we're talking about today because they weren't mentioned on the last podcast. That's fine. You know, there's no rules here. I think this one still kind of counts. It was March 20th.

It's when underscores dropped her third album called You. And it is easily my favorite record of the year so far. I would be surprised if anything tops it. But I, you know, I'm open to that happening. But I'd be very surprised because it is so good. And I can't stop raving about this to everyone. I didn't know about her until you told me, but I'm also like famously not young or tapped in. I'm happy to help.

Yeah. Well, then like 10 minutes later, it was. I was like opening for Charlie XX on tour and I was like, oh, okay. I know. So you got to get in now because she's definitely about to like blow up on a whole other level. But this record is so incredibly perfect. It is just really fun, high energy electronic pop music. But it's so pure and like genuine in her love for just making music.

It's like so infectious and contagious. And I think something that I love the most. about her and it's so inspiring for me is she writes, produces, mixes, and masters. She did the whole record on her own. There's one song that she had mastered by another person. I can't remember why. She explained why. But it's so impressive to me because that's really relatively unheard of.

It's not very common to do that, especially mixing and mastering her own stuff. And it's just incredible and so inspiring to see what she's doing. Similar to Nina Durrachi, her record, I love my computer, came out in December. but I have to shout out that perfect record as well. The two of them just inspire me so much. And it's just great. And if you are into, if you like the record and if you're into production,

especially if you're just learning, she did like a three and a half hour long live stream on YouTube where she pulled up the Ableton files for every song and went track by track and showed you exactly how she made the whole record, which nobody does that. And that's incredible. And it's been so helpful to me. I've been watching it and learning so much

as I'm like trying to learn production. So I can't say enough good things about underscore. She's on tour right now with Umru. And she's about to go on tour with Charlie X,X, which was just announced. So see her while you can because she's great. I think it's so cool. I'm not, again, to put my feminism hat right on my head. But I do think it's like so incredible to see that once the like sort of like barrier

to entry of like having to like. go to the gear. I'm not saying that was like, but like once you can learn things on your own at home with your computer, it's like to see like the incredible talent and like obviously all that ambition was there. You know,

it's just like then you can just do it in the privacy of your home and not feel this like, you know, harsh male judgment. 1,000%. I wish so badly that I had that experience when I was younger, you know? But I'm so thankful that I'm here now.

I'm just now starting to learn. but I'm like so inspired and motivated by these artists. I'm happy for, I'm just happy that we're here. I can't wait to see like how many more underscores and Nina Drozchis and stuff we get like because they're inspiring a whole generation of new artists. As long as you have, which I know not everyone has, but as long as you have a laptop and an internet connection, like you can fire up. I'm sure there's like 9,000 YouTube videos and how to master your own music, you know. Millions. Millions.

Yeah. It's great. It's great. Great time to be alive. What a time to be a bedroom. For some reasons. producer um what if i rebrand next year as a bedroom pop producer i fully support this i abandon this podcast and i'm like don't event you know how you can do both sure um okay well i guess like in

a similarish vein not really but sort of um i want to talk about this artist hecht it's h-ekt and the album is forever. Hecht is the alias of a producer and DJ songwriter guy named Jesper Norbake. He's also Danish. It's, I guess it's fourth release, but its first full-length album. I've been listening to it so much. I'm not really sure how I came across it. A lot of what I have on here, and it's probably because it's June and I'm like really looking, I'm like in the summer vibe. Of course. It's total summer music, but like, not like hot molasses sleepy summer music, which I do have some on here too, because I feel like there's a place for that. But it's like, I just fucking slammed a Celsius, bitch, summer music. Do you know what I mean? Like, I'm wearing a fucking crop top. I slam to

Celsius. I want to, I'm feral and I want to hit these fucking streets. There's this track on there called Beautiful. And it, again, it's, whenever I say something reminds me of something, I want to be clear. I am not a music critic and I am not great at talking about music, which is insane that I have this job. But I'm talking about pure vibes. There is some indelible vibe that is the same. And that song really brings you back to one of my most beloved electronic artists, which is Gru Armada, which has this sort of like real like get out here

and fucking just like let go and like a really high intensity. The album is very layered. Like there's this like beautiful sort of romantic-y, almost R&B-esque song called Without You that I really like. The most, I think, known track off of it right now is called It's called Forever. It's the title track because it features Smurs, who are also having a huge sort of moment.

Yeah. A long moment, but and who are very good are also Scandinavian. I'm not sure where they're from. But yeah, I just, I really fucking love this album. I've been putting it on all the way through because it's like, it's textured and diverse enough that like you don't get bored. Because sometimes that's an issue I can have with electronic music where like it's a bit one note all the way through. Or this just has like, it takes you on a journey. I really love this album.

Hecht forever is what it's called. I think it probably would have been on my list too if I had heard it. Yeah. You played me a clip of it last night. I was like, oh yeah, this is awesome. So I'm excited to hear the whole record. It go. Back to me.

Back to you, babe. Okay. We'll keep it in the electronic world. Why not? Another record that I really love right now is by, and I don't know how to say this, I'm guessing it's Lukeman, Lukeman. Okay. His name is Luke, but his, whatever, artist's name is Lukeman. The record's called SD3.

He's a Toronto-based electronic producer. It's the third record in kind of a trilogy that he did called Star Dogs. This is Star Dog 3. They're all so good, and it's so specifically up my alley. It's very like sample base, collagey, electronic music, pulling from all over the place. So there's a lot of pop, rap elements, but there's also like acoustic guitar and vocal samples. We're so like post genre in this world right now. That's the world I want to be in.

But I love, I mean, I love the whole record. The dancing moments are my favorite. And I played you a little bit of it. And you, that was, I played some of the song to the sky that you said you liked. I listened to the album on my dog walk. walking Joey who did this morning come home and full body assault free. That's true. Sorry about that.

She was just excited to see you. She gets excited. Every day. She gets very excited. The novelty of you has not worn off. Again, could care less if I live or die. Again, she only does this when you're not, when you're there. Do you think she's like showing off for me?

She's showing off. She's trying, she's antagonizing you. She's like doing the thing where like your girlfriend goes and flourished with a guy at the bar. She's being a picnic. Yeah, totally. She sucks. Okay. Anyways.

That's, anyways, Lukeman, it's great. SD3 is the name of the record. Okay, love that. Well, I guess I will also keep it, why not, in the electronic vein? People are like, we like rock music. Can you play as fucking... There's some guitars coming up. There's some guitars all over this shit, babe.

This is a New York duo called Ear, lowercase, that I learned about actually. through a friend of the pod Harry Tafoya who's like this incredible music writer and critic and art writer and critic as well he had posted that he had done a little piece on them and I was like oh I like his taste like I'll go check it out and they have this album called Rumspringa which I love that

because I just I think it's such a great name for an album that sounds like this because the Rumspringa is that's the Amish thing where they're like oh you can go take a summer break from being Amish and see what life's all about and see if you want to return. And it's like I think they're quite young. So it has this like youthful exploration into the world exuberance feeling to it. It's like very like I think they there people are calling it laptop tweet, which I do not care for.

Let's work on that. Yeah, we're going to workshop that. But it's like it's like lo-fi indie electronica. It's very collagy like you were saying about that other artist. I feel like I read something that said they bonded over liking the microphones, which I love the microphones. It doesn't sound exactly with the microphones, but I can see the sort of nods towards that like lush textural thing. There's like snippets of talking. Like it's it's very lobotomy music but not lobotomy music.

Like it's like a thing that you can lose yourself in where you just like kind of, it felt almost like listening like being in a dream or something. Okay. for an entire experience of an album. I really liked it. This is going to sound insane, but it has a very childlike quality, but also very sexual quality. I love it. I thought I was – I felt like I was high when I was listening to it. So that, which I enjoy, I enjoy feeling high when I'm listening to music, even though, as we talked about – or maybe I haven't told you this yet, I think I'm going to pivot to becoming a stoner again.

Oh, no. Okay. Yeah. I feel that I would have liked Disclosure Day if I had been a bit of – really high. And now I'm like, you know, then why not like things? Sure. Sure. And I have like a latent anxiety that will not leave like a fucking haunting. Would you enjoy the leftovers more if you were? No, that I think I would have to be dead sober for it. It's really stressful. I can't be thinking more about that. About cousin Larry and his place in the TV. We've been watching the TV show The

Leftovers. I had never seen it and Brie. I'm forcing her to watch it for the first time. I'm really enjoying it, Although it's harrowing. It is a bit harrowing. But also amazing. It's really good. Yeah. We're at season three, so we're like, have some questions about Kevin, played by Justin Thoreau's skitty jeans.

Yeah. Okay. That's not related. That's neither here nor there. So that was, my pick was your Rumsbringa. Great. I would like to shout out nine-inch noise. Okay.

For a moment. That's a really good one. It's a really good one. Yeah. Nine-inch nails. Maybe you've heard of them. did a collab We did an episode

We did an episode on them In case you guys were curious Go back and listen They did a collab record with Boys Noise Who they've worked with before On some movie soundtracks And it's awesome

They did Do we watch together The Coachella live stream? We did full old cello Where we From the comfort of our beautiful couch Watch the set Which was so fucking cool

Shout out Todd Torso I think that he's still working with them the creative direction was just fucking next level it was so cool also I like kind of glad we watched it from home because I feel like I wouldn't have been able to see as much from the audience of the tent or whatever definitely not also I'm never going back there we had the best view yeah I that was like the first I kind of heard the music

same not really this came out like a week later yeah the record I think it was so great and then I like for whatever reason didn't really get around to it until this week when we were talking about it it's like shit bangs it bangs I don't like to be Trent Resiner and just kind of like never become cringe. Like you're like just still as cool as you were. You have three children and you're just like, still Trent Resner, bitch. Must be nice.

Fucking forget it. Yeah. But it's a great. It's a great. Yeah, Banks. I don't really know what else to say about it. I listen to it a lot. Me, I'm Not is one of my favorite Ninety Chanel songs and they rework it here and it's so sick.

In what context are you listening to this album? I've definitely made my coworkers listen to it. I am a floral designer by day. Oh, that just makes so much sense when you're in the beautiful space of arranging flowers and you're like, let's listen to nine-inch size. You know what's funny, though? It's like there's just a small amount of us in there every day, like four tops. We all have pretty different music taste, but there's like two bands that we're all united on and one of them is nine-inch nails. So it's a safe, a safe bed if I'm DJ for the day.

Also, if you guys are in the Los Angeles area and are looking for floral design, may I shout out 101 lilies? No one, just 100. I'm so sorry. That's a different company. That's my company. I think you mistook that I was actually about to promote my new floral company, which is just 100. One, it's one better than yours. Yeah, one more lily. Okay, so it's 100 lilies. Oh, gosh. And they make the most beautiful flowers. You want to send me flowers? Just calm me up. It would be very easy because I bet the shipment fee would be very low because. Oh, wave the delivery charge. Yeah. So they're on Instagram. Give them. By them, it's literally Just me. No free ads, but that is a free ad.

Thank you. If they were ugly, we wouldn't be talking about it. I appreciate that. Should we talk next about our, I think we have two. That was next on my list. Yeah, we have two crossovers besides Ice Age. And the second one is the band Turnover. Yeah.

The album Down on Earth. These are your close personal friends. I love them very dearly. Did they pay you money to put this on the list? They paid me nothing. They didn't know that I am doing this, but I'm excited to tell them after. I really like everything about this album.

It's really, really good. I can't stress enough how much I love it. It's really amazing. It's everything I like in the sense of being like, dreamy, you know, vibe me, atmospheric. I did say that one of the songs reminded me of the Smiths. I thought maybe I would get in trouble for that because sometimes I say stuff and it doesn't make sense to anyone else. But I got some feedback that people also agreed. I don't think anybody would

be a, I mean, maybe somebody's not a fact. No, no, but on behalf of the Smith, I'd be like, what do you are? Oh, it's true. Yeah. Trust me, I've been on a blocking spree. Some people do be saying out of pocket stuff. I believe, yep. I don't know. What do you love about it? They're just so great. And something I love about them and really admire about them is that they're always evolving, their sound and growing and, and, you know, and, and, what do you love about it. And, expanding it and not doing the same thing over and over again. Even if it was really popular. That album peripheral vision

was extremely popular. But they just keep growing and changing and just getting better and better for it. And this record I think it's their best one yet. It's so good. I'm so excited that it's out now. I just can't say enough good things about them. They're the sweetest, best people, and

I'm so happy for them. And they're on tour or they're about to go on tour with my other dear friends, Narrowhead. Yeah, another band's plain fab, narrowhead. We love narrowhead in this house. I'm so excited about that tour. I'm definitely going to go see them. Yeah. Yeah, it's great. Give it a listen. I think what's the vocalist's name? Austin. Austin, the vocals are really exceptional. He's an incredible voice. Yeah. I've toured with them before. I mean, we were on tour together for like six weeks, I think, with Temple of Angels, and never missed a note. Like, sounds so perfect every night. Also, incredible jawline.

Really crazy. It was not expecting when I did Google. I was like, okay, Friday. day night lights like what's going on here um yeah turn over down on earth give it a give it a spin okay i'll keep it in the rock vein um i'm gonna talk about midrift yes silhouette is the name of the album these are very young boys yeah that sounds weird i think they're i think they're of legal age but i think they're from san francisco it's a trio they kind of blew up while they were teenagers. They had like, I think TikTok viral songs. That makes sense. One was called Twin Flames. One was called

Unrequited. I first saw them. They opened for Angel Dust a couple months ago, whenever that was. And my best friend Christopher Ryan and I attended that show and we walked in while they were playing and I was like, what the? This is

so good. Again, back to the point of discovery via because my TikTok algorithm does not bring me a shoegaze viral hits. It brings me women cleaning their apartments on a Sunday reset. I've talked about this before. It's actually my favorite. Just why I keep getting served them over and over again. It's like reset the apartment for you tonight and it's just like full lobotty hours. It's like, you know, like, I'm watching those too. I can watch them until I die. I get the suitcase TikTok so.

I wish I did. Mine's all, mine's all just. Next time you see those, you just go swight fast. And then how to quantum leap out of your timeline. Okay. Dark. Yeah, I really love it. They had a single that I listened to called Reaching for You. It's incredible. But the whole album is great.

It's very like emo shugaze. It reminds me a little, again, when I say, remind me, don't come from me and be like, doesn't sound like that. But it reminds me a little bit of Sam I Am, which I love Sam I Am. They don't really sound that much the same, but there's like a quality that is overlapping. Also famously, a Bay Area band. So maybe that's what it is. But yeah, it's the midrift full-length is really good, silhouette.

If you like guitars. We love guitars. We love guitars. That's awesome. Unfortunately, my next pick, no guitars. Not unfortunately. We're jumping around. It's a record that I love.

Back to some electronic. One thing about me is most of my listening habits is electronic-based. So you're getting, you know. You've turned your back on your rock roots. I haven't turned my back. Never, never, never. There's still some rock coming up. But yeah, my typical listening habits are largely electronic.

Anyways, my next pick is by Lorraine James. She is a London-based producer, and she just put out a record in May called Detached from the Rest of You. And it's really lovely. I like it a lot. It's very, again, tailored to my interests. It's, like, very minimal, ambient IDM, if you're familiar with that. Is that really aren't me? No.

That'll be the IDF. Okay. He's different. So IDM was the terrible name coined in the 90s for intelligent dance music. But it's like, like, Affects twin would be, like earlier, more minimal AX twin. Exactly. It's so stupid. Okay.

Dumb Dumb. I meant the term is stupid. You know what I mean. Basically saying that like dance music is dumb and intelligent people like whatever. There's this whole actually thing that's very interesting about, I think Kalefa Santa, if I'm saying that right, incredible music. critic wrote about in the New York Times like 20 years ago, but like about how like it's very interesting that like so much of criticism basically positions everything that's not like white guys with guitars as non-serious non-smart music. Like pop, disco, electronic is all kind of

considered like fluff, you know? I mean it's changed over time but I thought that was really interesting. No, totally. Anyways, this is a great IDM record. But it's also kind of pop. She's taking it into kind of a pop realm with some featured vocalists that she has on the record. The song called Score that I really like featuring a vocalist called Anisha Kim. It's a really great record if you're into that kind of electronic music. Lorraine James. Lorraine James. I didn't try to do this on purpose.

It just happens to be my taste. But my list is a balance of like pretty popular stuff that I think people already know about. But I'm not going to lie and say it. They didn't make my list. and like smaller bands that I would love to give some shine to. This is the former, which is the Slater album, Worst Girl in America. Missouri's finest. Missouri.

That's Missouri. I didn't know much about Slater before this album, except for the Aesalia Banks would constantly talk about her on Twitter and be like, no, but Slater's that bitch. That's the girl you need to look out for. And like, say what you will about Azealia Banks, but she does have that disease where she's like right most of the time, even if she's, you know,

we can have some questions about some of her ideologies, but like oftentimes with things like this, like taste takes, she's pretty good. So I was always like, oh, Slater, like Slater. And then obviously this album came and like blew the fuck up and like people are obsessed with that. And for good reason, like it's really kind of Y2K coded electro pop. It, again, has like a spiritual feeling,

to me of like crayon like that sort of kind of like I love creation do you know what I mean I mean it's not she's not necessarily rapping she's like pop star but it has that grimy streak kind of feeling I don't I'm not giving it the proper due there's people have talked about it much better on the internet but like I love this album at fucking this is slam a Celsius summer music like it's really fucking good I think she's really cool I like her looks like it just it's it's she's a good pop star she's a pop star we need right now sold me. I'll check it out. My next pick is, so this is one that came out a little bit earlier than the window, but I felt it was still worth mentioning.

In February, Gia Margaret put out a record called Singing. She is an artist that I've loved a lot. Her previous two records were very just like ambient, kind of experimental, electronic, but with like piano as well. She's like a, you know, grew up playing piano. It's like classically trained. What I didn't know is that the reason, so her, she has a date. record that came out that is more similar to this one it's more like vocal like fulky pop songs but she

had some kind of illness or injury to her vocal cords and lost the ability to to use her like couldn't sing anymore so she's her two records following that were just pure instrumental ambient I love that she didn't let that like handicapper she's just like I'm still going to make music and it's beautiful those records are beautiful and so when I heard the singles for this record I was super surprised because I wasn't familiar with her original record. So it's totally different than what I had known her for, but it's really good. I really love it. I played it for you. It's, yeah. Yeah, it is really good. Everyone around me dancing is a song that I, that I really love. I think that might have been the first single. The videos are really beautiful too. That's the one that I was like,

oh, this has like a bit of a country vibe. I think you said you had, you picked up a little bit of a like a pop country. Like a pop country. I felt like, I mean, I could be totally wrong with that. I heard like a bit of a pop country sensibility to it, even though obviously it's not a pop country. country. I know what you mean. Music. Yeah. And I see you.

Clear I see you. It's a really lovely record. Yeah, I really recommend it. It came out in February on Jag Jaguar. Jaguar. Yeah. Okay. I'm going to do a pivot here.

Okay. This is Wellness Check music. Uh-oh. And it's an album by Greg Mendez called Beauty Land. This is Are You Okay music. This is Grippy Sox music. But in the best way possible. It's just fuck me all the way up, emotionally, tender, vulnerable, gorgeous, like, wide open-hearted.

It's singer-songwriter, like, sparse. There's elements of it that definitely remind me of Elliot Smith. A lot of the themes are like around addiction and childhood trauma and some really intense stuff. It's such a beautiful album. He's from Philadelphia. Just really, really incredible. Couldn't recommend Beauty Land more. I mean, I feel like, you know, temper your own mental health to see if that's okay for you in that day.

Also, the artist formerly known as producer Dylan had Greg Mendez on her podcast, Music Person, and it's a great interview. So you should listen to it if you happen to like the album. Cool. Cool. I wanted to shout out a really cool record that I just came across by Cities of Eve. He put out a record in March, but I just recently came across it when I was researching for the pod, trying to find some new stuff that I hadn't found. And he put out a record in March called Even Colder Spring, and it is so good.

It's like experimental, ambient kind of rap. it's hard to really describe again which my favorite kind of music is music that blends genres and definitely like avoidant of being put in a genre whole that's the best the best artists are able to that in my opinion that's what I always gravitate to which makes I was realizing while preparing for this I mean he definitely is rapping yeah of course but I wouldn't say it's like any rap music you would think of exactly it's like I don't you can't really I don't know what to compare it to or like how to really describe it I just think it's really great and worth checking out. Similar to the other artists I talked about,

it's like kind of collage sample based. A lot of really pretty like ambient soundscapes going on. Again, just like really up my alley and I really love it and really recommend it. I think he was in a hardcore band. That tracks. Yeah. I think like it, I remember when he first came out, he was on like so many festivals and stuff.

And I feel like I saw him a bunch back then. That was like probably around the time of, of when we're talking about the Ice Age time, because I think we're not 2012, 2013. But he's kept going and making really cool stuff. Go off. Yeah. Go off cities of view.

Okay. Well, my next pick is Rostom. American stories. Rostom, Batmongli. I should be able to say that because I'm Persian. Batmangli. Maybe most famously known as one of not. of the founding members of Vampire Weekend.

Okay. But also, like, an incredible producer is one Grammy, as he worked with Frank Ocean, Claro, Heim, Charlie, Carly Ray Jepsen, like, very talented. I had not listened to any of his prior solo albums, but this one just really grabbed me. I'm sure I'm, like, a little partial to it because it has Persian instrumentation alongside, like,

Just, you know, American good old guitar rock. And I find that comforting and familiar. But it's really well done in a way that's like subtle and cool and not kind of like overwhelming and trying to be like gimmicky. You know what I mean? It's just really beautiful. It is very much like a summer wide open road, like beautiful blue skies ahead of you. Yeah. It's just I don't have much to describe it.

besides that it's like just a gorgeous, gorgeous album. And it's a very nice thing to just put on in the house and like have your day. I want to hear this one. It's really good. Rostom American Stories. I really like the track. There's a track that he did with Claro, who I love, on there called Hardy. The track that he did with Claro is called Hardy.

It's really good. So highly recommend Rostom's American Stories. My fellow Persh. Don't forget that. My next pick, I've got a shout out Texas real quick and talk about a really great 7-inch that my friends in Institute put out at the end of February. We love the Institute in this house. I'm so happy to hear that. They're just the best and they still got it.

I don't really know much more to say. It slaps. It's three songs. It's a 7-inch they did just for Australia. It's self-titled the 7-inch, but the songs are called The Shooter, A Privilege, and Why Are They? these men still alive. Why are these men still alive? Just banging anarcho punk. It's great. It's awesome. It really no notes. Reminds me. I mean, I feel like there's a bit of a through line here, which is like Yossi at South by Southwest in 2013, which is like Ice Age Institute. It's like really curvil.

Honestly, I'm going to get into Kurt Vile, but these are all like real core memories for me, like Institute under or on top of the bridge or whatever. I was there. Yeah, absolutely. I would have been there. I'm going to future roommates. Literally when I get home, I'm going to go through my old pictures because I'll bet money that you're in some of my pictures. I used to be a little, before I was in a band. I was just the girl with the camera at all the shows. So I have a pretty good archive of Austin during that time.

Amazing. That was a great time. Yeah. It was a really good time. Just like hammered as hell. There was no Uber. So you had to like flag down a... No lime scooters either.

I remember me and Jared Swole from the Black Lips. Literally flagged down. Like, again. wasted a fucking pedicab. It was one of the funnest nights of my life. And then you're just like in the open air and just like fucked out like smoking sags in the pedicab. It was so major.

It's a classic awesome experience right there. Really wonderful. Okay. What's next for me? I want to talk about Lime Garden. Do you know this band? I don't. Lime Garden is a British indie rock band from I guess Brighton maybe.

Their album is called Maybe Not Tonight. I think it's their first album. It's very like, young girl fuck it vibes like in the best way. I think people have sort of compared it to like indie slaves which again not a not a term

I believe Chris Ryan just called it blog rock when we were talking to him before to me it just I don't know it just has this yeah it does have this like energy of like that era sort of like New York bands but also does just remind me of like

a British girl post punk band like that could be from any genre whether you're from like Delta to Five to Elastika to Lime Garden. There's this amazing lyric from the song called Always Talking About You that goes, I want to be famous, I want to be rich, I want everybody to say, that's that bitch. That's really good. They're on this label that I'm really into called So Young Records.

It's like a new London label, kind of like back to the Julio's War thing, like that I feel like they have really good taste. So whenever something comes out on that label, I'm like, oh, I'll probably like it. And they're very cool. Like you do a magazine and it's like community stuff that I'm, I'm into. So I wanted to shout out Lime Garden because I have been really, I have been really enjoying that album. Sick. Sounds cool.

I want to check it out. Yeah. I had one more full-length record on my list. It is by Anna Roxanne and it is called Poem One. It came out on Cranky this May. And she's an artist that I've been following and admiring for quite some time. It's very, I'm so bad at describing music. We're doing our best, too.

It's very minimal, ambient, but beautiful vocals. I saw her, my introduction to her was, I guess this was 2021. I went to New York on the, is this the 20th anniversary of 9-11? What a great time to be there. On purpose. Oh, okay. for a concert celebrating Williams Zinski's Disintegration Loops, which is a... Amazing.

It's a whole thing. And it was in a church. It was in the Riverside Church in New York. It was incredible. It was so beautiful. There was like a live chamber orchestra, like a small live orchestra performing these songs. Wow. Instrumentally instead of...

It's just like tape loops. Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's so incredible. It was unbelievably beautiful. And she opened and I wasn't familiar with her music before them. and she just solo with like, I think playing bass and singing in this huge, beautiful church. It was so incredible. She covered Julie Cruz and it made me cry.

Which I don't think I'm an artist that I wasn't familiar with previously. Has ever made me cry like that before? But it was just so special. It was also probably one of the first shows I went to post like COVID because L.A. was locked down for so long. Anyways, so it was a very memorable night. I also ran into her in Trinatown the next day, which is very New York. I did. I feel like I had to. I was just like I just had to tell you your show.

That was so beautiful. Yeah. Very sweet. Anyways, her record, she just put a new record called Poem One. It's very beautiful. There's a song called Keepsake on it. It's probably my favorite. I think it's like piano and vocal and it's just like, it's just lovely.

Okay, say the name ago? Her name is Anna Roxanne. Anna Roxanne. And the album is called Poem One. Yeah. I put that on this morning and I listened to like three or four songs and it was really lovely. It's very lovely. Good morning music.

Exactly. Yeah. Last but not least, because I fucking love this album. And I love this person. And I feel like his music is an absolute direct correlation of his good and amazing vibes. And it has the exact same vibes as him. And that's Kurt Vile, Philadelphia's finest. His new album, it's his 10th album, which is insane.

Philadelphia has been good to me is just like no business being this good. You know? Like you just put it on. like kind of transported into this like honeyed like time is slowed down it's just vibes babe like it's so good this first single zoom 97 i absolutely love and also i'm going to say this nine times out of ten i don't care for girl dad art about art about being a girl dad or like sentiments about being a girl dad because I tend to find it being like men who have just discovered that women have interiority and humanity because they had a daughter and I'm like amazing for you I'm glad that it

took you having a child to know that yeah um however here it's he's a girl dad now he has three daughters wow and a lot of the lyrics are about how much he just loves his family and like how like he doesn't either drugs anymore because he's just high off of the joy of his daughter him and his daughters love Charlie XX, all of them, and they listen to it together. And, like, so sweet. Yeah, it's, I mean, it's fokey, but also, like, there's something a little edge to it because it's Kurt Vile. Like, he's got some, like, little tossed off rapy spoken word bits. He's famously a huge M.F. Doom fan as Am I.

Just one of the coolest guys alive. And this album is fucking, I'll say it. It's perfect. It's just really great. Kurt Vile. You did it again, brother. All love and respect World's been melting

In front of my eyes Yeah My baby ghosts me hide I have some honorably Honorable mentions Of albums Yeah Should we just run through them

Sure Go ahead Some honorable mention Full lengths Yeah Boards of Canada Of course Sure of course

Very famously Very recently put out Their much awaited Record Called Inferno just came out a few weeks ago. There's 18 tracks on it. A lot of tracks.

It doesn't fully speak to me as much as, you know, which is why it just kind of barely didn't make my list. But there's a lot of great stuff on it. Also, one of my favorite songs on the record, The World Becomes Flesh, was the end credits of the back rooms, which is really cool. Yeah, it was really cool. Deep Time is another song that I like.

There's a lot of really great moments, so I wanted to at least mention it. Yeah, it's definitely worth mentioning. It's good. Yeah. It's good. I thought the Robin record was really fun too. Yeah. I honestly didn't listen to it much. So I don't have a good thing to say about it. I really, I think I kind of didn't like the single, the first single that much. I don't know what the singles were. I just listened to it as a whole album. Yeah. It's fun. I love her voice. It's just so like warm and cozy. And I love that, I mean, from what I heard of the first single, even though like, musically I wasn't that connected to it. I loved that it was kind of she was talking about. being a menopausal woman dating, you know, like, which I do think is fucking amazing. And I think it's whenever I see, like, art made around that because it's so rare, it does make me happy. I just, I didn't just super connect with the music.

But I haven't, I haven't spent time with the album yet. I figured that was probably the lead single because I saw the video is cool for it too. Yeah. But it's not my, I'll play you what my favorite one was. I don't have it written down. I love Robin. I mean, yeah, come on, it's Robin. I love dance music.

Same. Yeah. Those are my two. Okay. Honorable mention records? The Death Cab album, honestly, is probably part of my, like, top albums. I really like it. It's called I Built You a Tower.

It's their 11th album. It's produced by John Congleton, who has done a ton of stuff, Manic and Pussy, but also did their last album. It's really good. And I think I said this on my Instagram. I find, as obviously it's my job, but I feel like I study. late period releases quite a bit and like it can go many ways but I think this is like kind of the perfect balance which is like you they made an album that's so good that's like innovative in

ways and also still has the core elements that make you be like oh yeah that's a death cab album and the things that you love about them so they're like not as I said reheating their own notches, but they are not also like being like, we're going to do something so different, which is also okay. But like this just felt like a really nice place. Like it makes sense to me for an 11th album that like there's nothing to prove anymore. You just make what you love, you know, and that's what this album sounds like and I really like it. Another one is the Alda Huxley album. It's called Train on the Island.

I really have liked her albums all the way through. They're so kind of offbeat and interesting all the time. and I really like her voice. Some people don't. It's kind of a polarizing voice. She's from New Zealand. But this new album, I like it. I think it has a lot of unexpected moments.

It's worth listening to. A band I really like, taking of TikTok viral, is Basement. And Wired, their new album is really good. Really liked it. It has some banger singles. I think the title track is amazing. really like it.

Great, great choruses. I love the new Kevin Morby album. It's called Little Wide Open. Real summer, real summer wide open spaces music. No Dixie Chicks. American football. They have a lot of album,

I'm sorry. Their fourth album, LP4, really good. No business being that good, honestly, but really good. And Cola, the cost of living adjustment, which I think is the name of the album as well.

Yeah. It's a post-punk tree that I think is originally from Montreal, but maybe lives in L.A. now. I think you would really like them. Sounds interesting to me. Yeah, it's very like deadpan vocals, like really angular kind of guitar,

art punky, but I really enjoy it. Really, really like the album. Definitely really love the singles. So those are my albums. I did a lot of them. No, it's perfect. Now, Bree and I, when we were prepping for this,

we both kind of realized that we also had stumbled upon a good number of singles that have come out in Q2 that are like portending releases that will come out you know anywhere between july and the end of the year but these are singles that are making us really excited for these albums and we're like well why not fucking talk about them right here right now yeah um what do you got well I know we have we have two that off top that we share yeah which is the two singles that Howdy put out Oh, howdy, yeah. Yeah.

Try, try, try and blast. These are really, so good. So good. Yeah. But it's just like jangly. Power pop. Twangy. It's like everything like.

Also like they have like a knack for making songs that you have to listen to 30 to 45 times in order to feel satisfied. That's how I feel. I'm like, I'm so sorry. I need to listen to try, try, try 42 times. And then I'll feel that was enough. And then even when I'm done, I'll walk away and I'll be, well, one more time would be. It's a really good song. Yeah, it's really good.

So I'm really excited for that album. It's their sixth album, Big World. It comes out in August. Yep. We have, there's two others that I think we overlap on. Let's do it. Oh, I guess maybe it's just one. Kalela is the one that I'm like really big excited about.

Love. She's put out, I think. three singles now teasing her record that comes out in just a couple of weeks. The record is called New Avatar and those my two favorite songs. I think there's maybe a third one as well. Link B&B and Out of Time out of time out of time just came out like a couple of days ago I think these songs are so good and I cannot wait to hear the whole record. The videos are awesome. It's like trip hop adjacent but it was like just incredible R&B vocals on top and it's so sick. Shoo-Easy. elements to it.

Yeah, I can hear that. Yeah. It's great. It's the kind of thing where if someone else did it, you'd be annoyed. Totally. But because she's so incredible, she pulls it off, like, so well. Yeah. I cannot wait to hear the record.

Really can't wait. It's so good. Okay. I have also a man-woman chainsaw. Oh. Man-slash-woman slash chainsaw. The song is called Nosedive. This is a London six piece band, I believe, who started as teenagers.

It has a violinist. Which you already know that fucking rules for me. I love a little violin moment. Oh, you played this one the way here. Yeah. The vocals are by both a, I don't have their names. I'm sorry, but it's both a female vocalist and a male vocalist and they sing together, or they do on this track anyways, and it's really good.

It's just, it has like a really great feel. like an energetic feel to it, but then the violin brings in like a really nice emotional through line. And I like the interplay of the male and female vocals. It's very special. So I really can't wait to hear the album that I believe is coming on August 7th, called Cannonball. Okay, another teaser single that we got, I think just this earlier this week is by 16 Underground. They put out a song called Glimps of You and they have a new EP coming out in August. I love 16 Underground. They just played a few shows with Crushed. They're great.

They're here locally in L.A. Just poppy, trip hop, and it's very shoegaze as well. There's a lot of your favorite words right there. I think you'll really like them if you haven't heard it. I've been hearing a lot of chatter about this band, but I actually need to listen to it. I haven't done it yet. They're great. The song is great.

Did I say the name of it? Yeah, Glimpse of You. Shout out to them. Okay. I can't wait to hear. My next one is by the dance rock band. RIP magic. Oh, yeah.

Might be rip magic. I actually literally don't know. It's all capitals. And I've not heard anyone say it. The song is called Screw Dark. For me, it is giving Happy Mondays in a way that I really enjoy. It's, yeah, it's just got that sort of like baggy, electronic war at Manchester's The Hossienda vibe. And you already know I'm all about that life.

I'm there. I'm sad. Yes, please. Two tickets, please. Two tickets for that. So I think it's very good. I don't know when the album comes out, but this single is very good. Speaking of two tickets to the Hacienda, should we talk about Daisy?

Oh, yes. We love Daisy and this household. We're your biggest fans, Daisy. We're a big Daisy household. Really excited for the Daisy album. I don't know if they have they announced an album. They just put out two songs. Yeah.

Big problem and gravity. Is that just me being. We're manifesting. Yeah, manifesting. I fucking love big... They're both really good, but big problem. Big, all caps. It's incredible.

Yeah, it's really good. Daisy fucking eats on everything because the music is great. The visuals are always kind of impeccable. Yeah. In this house, we stand, Daisy. I've been waiting for so long for someone to make this kind of... You know, it's just like it's impossible to do. And, like, without just being pure...

Carback. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And to make it feel new and he does it perfectly. Yeah, it's very 90s like we're talking about, very kind of baggy adjacent. But it feels very current at the same time and very fun and I love it. We love Daisy in this house. This one, I think the whole album, okay, I'll be honest. I'm going to be honest with you guys. It's June 18th. So there are albums that are coming out within Q2 that we will not be able to hear before we do this. And one of them is by Dari Bay. I think I will love it, but I'm just going to talk. about the single because that's what's out. The singles called We're Gonna Be Okay and I love it. It's a Burlington band fronted by Zach James,

who is the I think primary songwriter in the band Robber Robber, who actually really also like their album that came out this year. But I'm obsessed with this track, we're going to be okay. I don't even know what to say about it. I was playing them for you in the car on the way here and it's like, I just like it's not hard to get me. Like you need to have some guitar, you need to have but do you play a chord, you need some 90s elements?

Like, I'm pretty easy. But this song is really good, and I'm excited to hear the album. Wishy is another band that I think is really like, we're doing the 90s alt-pop thing in a way that really satisfies me. Their single is called Lovesick. Their album is, I don't know when it comes out, but I like this single quite a bit. It's really alternative pop.

It almost sounds like it would have been like more on the pop spectrum had, if we're referencing the 90s, like less alternative. But it's really good. I haven't heard them. Yeah. Chat Pyle put out the lead single for their new record. A song is called Deep Blue. And they have a record called Who Loves the Sun coming out in September. They are really sick.

It's like heavy, kind of sludgy noise rock. They're from Oklahoma City. really cool stuff. I saw them live recently. They toured with Fleshwater. I also think you would like. I think you like chat pile a lot too. The new song is sick.

And yeah, can't wait to hear the record. Okay. Did you say I add two? I do have one more. Should I do it? That's up to you. Okay, fine. My last one,

last one, it's not a teaser of record necessarily. It's just a single by Jacques Green that he did with Umru. But I kind of maybe mentioned at the top because Umru is on Torth underscores right now. They did a song together. Umar and Jacques Green called What You Say. I played it for Yossi, I think, last night. And she immediately started jumping up and down. Dancing. It is so good. I love it. It is on heavy rotation in my headphones lately. Speaking of labels that we look to, because, you know, they just put out a lot of great artists. Lucky me is a label that he works with. And I really, it's like dance, electronic music. And it's like just great, great stuff. The whole roster is awesome. And the label that I definitely look to for. cool new stuff. I will also shout out the fact. If you weren't going to do it, I was. Speaking of Joff Green. He did a remix for a Crush song, Starburn, recently. I just came out like a week or two ago.

Crush is a band that I perform in. And it is like maybe the best part of making music is getting like artists that you love to remix your song. It is like the most exciting, cool thing to me. Like I can't get over it. I said totally like I know how that feels. I'm more meant. Yes, that sounds nice. You get it. It is like the realized remix? Are you kidding? They did water. I feel so blessed. You know how we feel on this show about Realize. And it's also cool because I will never listen to my own music. But when it's a remix, it's not the same. It's like I'm listening to something else. Yeah, this Jacques Green remix is incredible. It goes insanely hard and I love it. So I had to shout that out. Good. I'm proud of you. All right. I have a couple more. I'm going to talk about Slow Pulp. Yeah. The man that I've been following that I really like, they're from Wisconsin, I think. But maybe. based in Chicago. Their new song is called Better Man and is not a cover of the Pearl Jam

song even though I would have been totally fine with that because what I really love about Slow Pulp is that they covered one of my favorite songs, Lifehouses, hang in by a moment. Desperate for changing. It's beautiful.

Sturving for truth. That's how he says it. Sterving. Closer to where I started. I'm chasing after you I'm falling even more in love with you Letting go of all I've held on to You don't know it

I know it I'm just I just can't be like Standing here until you make me move Hang in my moment here with What a fucking tune It's a good song now somebody can remix that And now you'll know how it feels to be a remix I'm just realize if you're listening I would love a remix

of me poorly covering the first verse of hanging my own. Anyways, Better Man is the new Sloppaulb song. It's really good. Again, back to my thing. It sounds like the 90s in a great way. And you had me a hello. I also want to talk about a band called Horse. The song's two singles, gloss and under your son.

The way I had to dig to find information about this band, because Horse, not an S.E. friendly name. It's getting tough out here. It's getting tough out here when you name your band, ear or horse. Yeah. It's giving me difficulty in your music, horse music. That's literally how I did like ear music and people are like, yeah, horse music. It's like playlists for your horse. Also that was like horse jumper for love. It's like all these. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Horse girl. Anyways, horse is a kind of alternative post-punkish band from Newcastle, Australia. I don't know anything else about them.

I looked at their Instagram page. It seems cool. Seems like it's just some cool guys in big pants making extremely Aussiecore music. Feels a little bit in the lineage of smudge, which is another Australian band that I love, except that way more soloing and maybe a little bit less power pop. Their debut album comes out in July. It's called Ask Me Again Next Year. You might have heard of this new artist.

Oh. She's up and coming. Her name is Charlie XX. And the song is rock music. And I fucking love it. And I don't honestly understand why it was so polarizing because it's just a straight up catchy, awesome, fun piece of music. And the think pieces people were writing on the internet made me feel sad for them. Yeah.

I think it's fucking awesome. I really loved it. I love the glitchy guitar. I like what she did with the like wordplay and the sort of like irony. I'm a Charlie fan and I love this song. I do kind of feel that people's reactions are very colored by the level of tolerance they have for the presence of someone in the media. And I think that Charlie's been extremely present in the media. And I wonder if there had been a longer duration of time.

between Brat and this song if the reaction would have been completely different. And I kind of feel like it would have been. Probably. I think she kind of invited this reaction by prefacing the release by saying dance music is dead and inviting a whole lot of intentional drama around that.

I think like if anyone with two brain cells, which today is... Most people don't. Today is the day that the Rolling Stone interview came out, but this was always what I read it to be. But like she says it in the Rolling Stone interview, which is like I was talking about brat. Right.

Like I wasn't talking about obviously like I love like I'm an electronic or I don't think dance music is dead. But people take your miss, you know, the quote out of context. Yeah. It also just happened to like poorly line up with Madonna's confessions to back to the dance floor. Right. Right. But I fucking love rock music. I think it's a great little two minute ditty.

And then I want to give one last shout out. I have two last shout out. Sorry. Why am I sorry? It's your show. It's my show. Literally your show. And I'm simply giving you more music listen to. Okay, one is another single that is off of the forthcoming album. It's by the artist. I wrote Melania Cole and I'm realizing I think it's Melina Cole.

I had Melania Trump on the brain, I guess. The song is called Lifeheart. It is on the label, Julia's War, which we love. The musician's name is Logan Horniak. And it's just chopped up vocals from a girl called Olivia O from a group called Lower Town and harp. I think that's pretty much most of the song. And I love it. I put it on.

Brain smooth. No thoughts. Just experience. That's what I like. Yeah. Love it. So I actually can't wait to hear the album, which comes out in August. Okay.

And then two more songs. that I loved. One is from Badrille, who are a Bay Area Shugays, like, adjacent band that I have just been super into and following for like, I don't know, three years now. They put out a song called Golden that I've just been obsessed with. It's like dreamy, sludgy perfection. And also my beloved blonde shell, who put out a single called Heart Has to Work So Hard, just has So Much vibe. Also her signature. fucking perfect chorus. And then last but not least, I want to shout out an artist called Lucky Break, whose debut

album is out June 23rd, so I've actually heard it. It's very good. It's on fire records. She has a track featuring Melissa Ophtermar from Whole. And also very cool. Her name is Emma, and she

said a lot of the album was inspired by listening to Bansplain. Wow. And so I'm very honored. And I genuinely really like the album. It's, again, a little 90s, which you might imagine. Something inspired by listening to Bansplaine would be. But she has a lovely voice.

And I think it's really cool. So her name is Lucky Break. Give the album a listen. It's quite good. And that is, I think, all of the recommendations we have. We did it. We made it through the wilderness. Somehow we made it through.

We will put a sampling of all of these tracks into a playlist in the show notes so that you can go and listen and enjoy or hate it. That's fine. Music is a subjective art form. And, yeah, you know, this show. obviously is largely about nostalgia and kind of going through artists older catalogs. But I think it's important to listen to new music. There's a lot of endless kind of great music out there. It feels often overwhelming to me.

I don't really. That was sounded like a politician speech that has really no point or end. I don't music good You go listen to it Good to listen to new music Try that fun We should have done the whole podcast like that That's how I feel like I sound no matter what

Anyways song good Beautiful gorgeous Good guitars Electronic Fun here's the name Go listen to it Brie Marelle Thank you so much for

Taking the time out of your Your day to come beyond the Bandsplayn podcast and talk about your new music recommendations. I'm so honored that you asked me. I thought I would never be allowed back into the building again, and I'm so thankful that that was not the case. People absolutely loved your episode on Massive Attack. If you have not listened to that yet, please go listen to it.

It's wonderful. I don't know what you're talking about. You have not just hair dysmorphia, but fit personhood and self-dispomorphia. Yes, we do. And yeah, that's it. Oh, I will last, last shout out because Christopher Ryan was not able to be with us. Most of his, I did ask him for his picks. They almost all aligned with mine except the Vince Staples album, which he quite likes,

and the new Johnny Blue Sky's album, which is Sturgele Simpson, which I'm actually really excited to hear because I really like Sturgele Simpson. I just haven't listened to it yet. So if you're waited to the last minute, you're rewarded with two of Chris Ryan's picks. You guys, what a treat. What a pleasure. I'm joined by Dominic Plain. of the band Nothing.

May I call you Nikki? Yes, you may. Gorgeous. Love this. How long have you gone by the name Nicky? Pretty much since my dad, my mom kicked my dad out of the house. Interesting. My dad wanted the severely Italian name, Dominic Plano.

He actually tried to name me Vincent, and we know that there's no good Vincent's in the world. No, okay. I was doing a mental. Vincent Price. Did he do something bad? Probably. Yeah. Vincent Castle maybe.

He seems like he's hard. Yeah. I'll give it to him. But yeah, my mom went with Nikki and Dominic kind of got erased for a while. I think it really works for you because much like your music, like in person, you're sort of this like formidable figure. You have neck tattoos, a beard, you know. But then you go by Nikki, which is a nice cute name. It could go both ways.

There's been some terroristic Nickies, I think. Like Nikki Hilton? No, she seems nice. I love Nikki. Yeah, she's great. Nikki, I think, was Joe Pesci's character in a casino. Oh, not in Goodfellas in Casino. One of them.

Yeah. I think he's Nicky and Casino. He's pretty bad. Okay. Okay. So it could go either way. For me, it's softening. Okay, that's good.

Yeah. It works. Not that I was scared of you or anything. All right, good. I wouldn't want that. I'm not scary. The first question, I need to tell me about, and I also need to see photos of your dog bug. Okay. All right. This is easy. This is a serious music interview. So sorry, guys, this is how we're starting. We've just got her. So, like, that's forefronting. She's, you know, she's a Brussels Griffin. She's like, no, I just read about her in an article, and I was like, okay, the article didn't include any photos.

What kind of journalism is this? So 16 years ago, I got my first Brussels Griffin, Pierre. I got him when he was three months old, and he's still kicking. No way. He's got one eye, can't hear. Kind of like almost like we followed the same path. I had a traumatic cataract at one point and had to get a fake retina from getting popped around in the head. And he lost his eye at the same time.

So we both had an eye patch walking around the house. That's your spirit animal? their sole animal. Yeah. So we decided to get another one and we wanted to get a girl and we found bug. She's six months old and she's a demon.

Well, yeah, that's six months. Having a puppy nearly ended my life. I would never do it again. Yeah, I honestly, I don't have any kids and this has been a mitigating factor of me really making sure that that doesn't happen, but we'll see. but she's really strange

oh my good lord that is not a dog that's that's a creature from a Star Wars or perhaps yeah I don't really the Magwai it's an interesting green she kind of has like that gizmo look

you know alien cute why do you like this kind of dog what draws you to they're very human like and they're kind of bizarre, and they look really bizarre, but they're really loving, and they stick by your side, and they're small. And, I mean, I took Pierre everywhere.

Like tote bag dog. Yeah, yeah, and that's like me. Just like, you'll see me. Again, this is another mitigating factor. Nikki, tote bag dog. You're like, don't be scared people. Face out of the little bag. And he's been, Pierre has been in every nothing.

album studio like every one of them he just comes he just comes and like vibes yeah i love that yeah okay that's that was just my first question okay i guess we'll talk about the music now i don't know i really um no i really and i know that it feels fake because you're here but i'm not a liar i would probably not enthused so much also honestly we don't have that many interviews on here so if someone's on here for an interview it's because i really like their band that's not really my job to interview band people. I'm just letting you know that I love a short history of decay. This is all to fluff you up right now.

Okay. I've listened to it quite a bit since it came out and you didn't have to go so hard. Thank you for our four streams. That was me. All for our all four of those streams. Oh, thank you. We'll talk about streaming. We'll talk about TikTok.

It's my two favorite things. When you, when you make an album, this is like such me not being a musician or understanding that much how, like what, like for example, like, when you set out to make this album, were you like, okay, I'm going to cover personal ground that I haven't covered before? Like, was that like an intention that you set out? Like, did you make a Pinterest board of this album, a vision board, a collage? And you were like, or is it just like you start making music and then it takes a form of its own and you kind of see what it is once it emerges? It's weird.

It's also strange saying this, you know, like, I never want to feel like a broken record, like, over doing press album, the album for 12 years, you know, like, but like, you know, nothing quite literally pulled me out of a really bad place when I first started doing it. It's also put me in a lot of bad places as well, which is ironic in a sense, but, you know, for me, this project has always been like a self-therapy thing for me and kind of a way for me to get out of it. of the bed and like kind of put one foot forward. So I always have dumped all of myself and everything that I've kind of been carrying into it. And it, you know, it really did help me move on in some bad times. And, you know, we stuck into this 10-year cycle of like releasing an album every two years. And, you know, there was so much of myself in that first record and guilty of everything. because it's like basically a massive trauma dump for me.

And two years later, it was like, okay, what do I do? You know, what do I do now? And it's like, you know, I tried to hone in on things and stuff like that and and get that same point across. But for me, you know, like time, sitting with something for time and letting it like calcify on you, it's different. You know, you have a better understanding of what you're dealing with, even if it's still completely confusing and chaotic.

Yeah, you got like a little perspective with time. Exactly. And, you know, having that five years apart from Great Dismal to this kind of, I was in a really strange spot. I didn't know if I wanted to move forward this. I spent a lot of time at home, which was strange for me not being on the road and out of a rocket like I usually am and, you know, being forced to be at home and all of a sudden being faced with these, you know, the realization that, you know, when I had made this decision

to push towards this as music. And, you know, I did alienate a lot of things in my life, you know, for better or for worse relationships. And just getting back with, like, people that I, you know, I'd lost touch with and just meeting new people and being home in general. And just, like, a lot of problems that I thought maybe that I had kind of mended, that obviously didn't. And it was a pretty frightening time for me.

kind of just basically being able to look myself in the mirror and be like, this is who you are, you know. Getting older is just another step in that. So I did get kind of back to that when I wrote this record. But, you know, the recipe for nothing has always been like a pen and paper and kind of, you know, exposing myself for better or for worse. You know, it's embarrassing a lot of the times. You and Jeff Buckley, brother.

Okay, listen, you're in a great lineage. So, I mean, like, that was the recipe for me. It was like, you know, honesty and embracing the vulnerability of myself and just put myself out there. Because I feel like a lot of our listeners, that's what they want because they can connect with it and stuff. So, yeah, I just started writing, and, you know, for a couple of years, just pen and paper, notes.

And then those things kind of turn into more of, you know, I start to see them as like being laid in like a chorus or something like that. So I pick up a guitar and I kind of write to that. And then that takes a different shape until I'm finally like, okay, I have a couple of songs that really feel like kind of important. You know, it's always a voice memo. I don't, not like a big pro tool. I don't have like a big setup.

I put my phone on the ground and play a guitar or P.N. and sing really bad into the phone. And, you know, those demos always sound the best to me because, like, you can tell where I'm at right at that moment, trying to get the words out. Yeah, there's such a vulnerability to that voice right there. Bumbling through, like, you know, whatever I'm trying to figure out. And I think I had a couple songs, and I was like, okay, you know,

that's bringing some of the band, and maybe we can start to build on this stuff. and yeah, here we are, basically. It makes so much sense now that you're saying that, because even like the title is short history of decay, right? That's like in it is like, oh, you're kind of taking stock. Like you had enough time because, you know, things like going on tour and running, running, running, it's like, oh, you don't have to think about yourself because you're like,

here I'm out here. Everything's a distraction on the road. I mean, I don't necessarily do myself any favors. Like when I'm out there, I kind of live at 100 miles an hour. I drink a lot. I'm, you know, drinking to forget a lot on the road. So you're saying nothing doesn't bring like a yoga teacher and a macrobotic shop on.

I haven't read Zen yet. You know, the Zen is passing out at 5 in the morning and, you know, waking up at 9 a.m. to have to get back in the van and drive or something, slightly little drunk still and just being like, nothing matters right now. So, you know. No cops listening, please. that's just a metaphor and a euphemism is what do you say. Bob Bruno drives and everyone knows that our Bobby Bruno is sober as a judge, baby, as you guys know.

It's completely, especially when you're sitting at home and trying to face yourself, you realize how much you've been distracting yourself from everything, you know. People do it in different ways. This is my way doing it. Just wanted to get back the basics of like kind of exposing myself for who I am and all the imperfections that that you know bloom out of me essentially so isn't it annoying when they say like the only way out is through and you're like yeah fuck i guess it's true yeah yeah i really wanted to shut up about that but it's probably take that a lot of different ways in my life like through the wall right right and and that's part of the reason why i'm in the position that i'm in is because of those

decisions you know it's never been about evading anything it's just always been through and that's why I wear a lot of what I wear because of it, you know. For those of you that don't know, by the way, and not to be like, but like Stefan voice of Saturday Live, this man has everything, okay, prison time, traumatic head injury, medication-induced psychosis, childhood trauma, like what isn't here? Of course you're had a lot to mine, it seems, you know. It's a real, this is the hottest nightclub. It is. We have a lot to work back for sure. But it wasn't all bad. We had a turbulent house growing up, but I had the best mother that was like, you know, there for me through it all.

I put her through hell. Like, you know, nothing worse than watching your child have to go through what I put myself into and stuff. And she went through, you know, we had a rough dad around the house that she had to shake loose. It was really hard to get rid of them for a while. and I have a crazy brother and sister that, you know, God bless them and they're listening, but, you know, we didn't make it easier on her and she, two jobs, you know, never home and kids are running or loose. So like, but, you know, a lot of people don't have that, you know. So, like, I put myself into a lot of the positions I did, you know, so it's only right

that I, you know, carry them myself and stuff. But, yeah. Do you feel like you were inspired in part by like, I don't want to say like your mother's work ethic, but like kind of like, you know, how she was just like got on with it, you know? Absolutely. You know, I can recall certain instances in my house that were like truly horrific, you know, and watching her go through it. And, you know, she was always there the next day, you know. So absolutely, I try to carry some of that energy. But I know where near as strong as she ever was, you know. I mean, you seem pretty strong.

I just made that list right there. And I was like, me, just one of those things. And I would be, like, in hospital in the seaside institution for female hysteria for the rest of my days. So it seemed pretty strong to me, honestly. Yeah. I mean, getting older. It's, you know, people from where I'm from in Philly, they learn to, like, walk through the fire, you know. And I do have a bit of that at me, for sure.

Do you feel a kinship, this is a bit of a swore, but do you feel a kinship with other, like, Philadelphia bands or artists that are maybe, like, in the milieu or that you maybe, like, came up with in the scene there? Because I know you left for New York a long time ago, but... Yeah, but, you know, my family's still in Philly, and I'm always there still. I'm just kind of like I lurk in the shadows kind of at this point. But, yeah, I mean, Philadelphia nostalgia for me will always, it, like, runs through my veins. I never would consider myself in New York or no matter how long I live there.

I'm from Philadelphia. I was born in Philadelphia, which is a rarity when you're speaking of other bands and peers. There's not too many people like me. And honestly, I'm a constant reminder that that is the case when I'm around other people that say they're from Philadelphia. It's like, I don't care that they're not, but like,

I know that I'm not easy to be around because I'm born in Frankfurt and Kensington under the L. Like this, we don't really exist. And if, you know, in this world, not a lot of us make it out of there. I know that sounds cliche, but it is quite the case. So I do carry that flag, but there's some people out there that, you know, that I really do connect with. And yeah, I don't even know where I'm going with that way. No, this is a free-filling podcast and just keep going with thoughts.

This is a corny question, but. Nice. Do you, yeah, yeah. Do you recall, you know, being a kid and you're, you know, you're saying you're coming from this world, not a lot of people get out or like, you know, even maybe like dream of like, oh, I'm going to make music for a living? Like something that maybe came through, you know, into your world, into your hands that, like, gave you the glimmer of an idea like, oh, I could, I could do that or like, I want to do that or like, that's, that's like something possible for me. Yeah, but maybe in a different sense. I think a lot of my motivation is always stem from despair, to be honest. It's a good motivator.

It's the absolute motivator. I found myself in some really strange pickles, and that's a really nice way to put it. But, yeah, I mean, it's always kind of, I've always performed best, and I've gotten myself into situations by having my back against the wall. perform best. It's another trait that comes with where I'm from and the type of breed of people that come from where I'm from. Like we, you know, we're rock bottom bouncers, you know, and I don't stay on the bottom long. I've been there quite often. I'm comfortable being there, but once you, once you kind of are there and you can kind of feel what that is, you know, it's easy to push yourself up and that's kind of always when I've excelled is when someone told me I couldn't do

something I couldn't be this thing you know I couldn't I couldn't sing I couldn't play a guitar or I couldn't you know leave Philadelphia or couldn't release an album than anyone would care about like if I did you know to be sure and I'm still here and that's like the old neighborhood thing like watch me yeah totally I'm totally I've always had that yeah like say I can't do this, you know. And I'm still like that. And I, but that and dread, I think, you know, as have always kind of been the mitigating factors for me. Well, you joke about that, but honestly, I think that's really healthy. And I've talked to my therapist at length about this. Shout out my therapist. That like, in order to do anything, to act, to do change,

there has to build up a tension within you. And the tension has to build to such an extreme that an action happens, right? And despair is a tension. Like you get so miserable that eventually that tension will snap and you'll do something. Some people only live in that middle space where they never really get the tension up to a 10 so that they change or do anything. So it's what I said, it's a great motivating factor. I really mean it, you know? It is, absolutely.

Like, and when people do get themselves up into that point before it snaps, like, I've dealt with it so much in my life that I've gotten really good at, like, you know, calming myself and putting myself in a position where I could move, you know, maneuver and navigate. And a lot of people don't have that, you know. The tools, if you will. Yeah, absolutely. And that's kind of been bestowed upon me for. my family for sure. We're good against the ropes for sure. Do you feel, I mean, given that this album

came on, like you said, the heels of like a five-year self-exploration as opposed to like a two-year, do you feel like you exercise something? Like, you feel like you got to like another level maybe of like self-actualization? There was many different levels, honestly, along this journey. One of the earliest ones was me losing my Medicaid for a minute because my taxes were all messed up. And shout out the tax ban. The Byzantine world of income tax? Really cool. But my Medicaid was gone and I was kind of reliant on several different medications that I was taken from the head injury that you mentioned earlier. But also whatever I was dealing with, I hate throwing the word trauma around because it's just like so many years.

I know. It's lost its meaning at this point because of the way people misuse it, but like, I know what you mean. Yeah. And, you know, I was seeing a neurologist for a long time, and she, she had me on quite a different, I mean, we, we cycled through a lot of stuff to try to figure out what was causing, like, the paranoia and, like, the sudden fits of, like, crippling depression and, you know, all this other stuff. Anxiety. And I was absolutely relying on. it for a little bit and it was just kind of taken away in a second and I didn't have it. And you know the the first year there was there was fits of psychosis that I was kind of dealing with at home smoking weed and stuff like that at the house to kind of try to self-medicate and then you know started to hear voices and then I was seeing things and you know Do you say anything cool at least?

No, I honestly had like this feeling that like, it's really strange. It was really scary, honestly. Whenever it was in the shower, I was like afraid to wash my hair. They didn't want to close my eyes. And like I thought like something was there. It just felt like this thing. I kind of thought it was like it felt like it was aliens, to be honest. This is such a crazy side of mind.

I've never really talked about this with anybody before too. But like not even my partner at home and stuff. because I was like, you know, you're, you're tripping like what's going on. Right. And you don't want to sound crazy. You don't want to be misinterpreted. You know, and I've had that in my family, you know, my brother went through it around the same age. Kind of went off the deep end, tried to kill himself, you know, survived, jumped off a five-story building, you know. But just made this brilliant recovery again. And like now he's just alive and he's full of life and he's great.

But I, you know, I'm seeing that down the hallway, like, while I'm dealing with this, and I'm like, I'm like, you know, you always envision these people in your family and like which traits you're going to bring. Like a big fear of mine has always been, like, turning into my dad. You know, but like you don't think about stuff that your brother or sister go through. And, you know, at that moment I was like, oh, you know, this is scary. like uh so that was a level were you able to like kind of connect with him on that and like no not really we i and partially is because i don't want to i don't like i don't want to have people feeling

like they should be worried about me classic you know like i classic man maneuver kind of i'm kind of yeah i know it's it's terrible it's it's terrible because i should should have reached out at that point, but I mean, I had plenty of people I could have and I didn't. Trying to just keep my shit together, you know what I mean? Like, but I did push through again and then it kind of was like that that was like kind of a key point for me where it was like, okay, like I don't need this stuff. Like I could I could get through this. I didn't quite like taking that medication in the first place anyway, but it became like

a crutch for me. Yeah, I read you said something that it was like. like it wasn't the like medication that caused the problems, like the sort of mental issues that came when you went off of it. It was going off of the medication. Like having it there and then having it removed. Whereas if it had never been there in the first place, that might not have happened. For sure.

I for sure. I do think that like the head injuries did change something in me. I noticed myself getting angry at like littler things and like really seeing red, which was scary to me because that's giving me, you know, reminets of the old man and stuff. Like, so that was why, you know, I trusted in the medicine to kind of do that, but never really helped. And there was up and downs off the medicine, too. Things made me feel worse as, you know, this is a common thing. And some things did feel like they work.

Now I'm mostly don't take anything. I take like a really low amount of like a benz-o. And I only take it when I really feel like I'm having an edgy day. But yeah, you know, that was like a first step of this cycle of like trying to deal with myself and get into this position where I could evaluate myself more. And it was never about writing a record by any means. It was about trying to kind of get myself into a position where I felt like I could, you know, continue to put a foot in front of myself, like I said earlier. And yeah, it was just the process just kind of moved on and on. And there was other parts of that that equally sucked,

but just obviously not as bad as the aliens in the shower. Aliens in the shower seems really bad. I mean, again, if they were nice and saying funny things, like that's fine. No, they were intimidating, honestly. They were freaking me out. You know, I feel like this music, especially this album, all of your music, but this music is so easy to sort of like put yourself,

yourself being like the listener me whoever's listening into and feel like seen and held even if obviously like most people will not have gone through exactly what you went through but the fact that you went through that and were able to make

I think what it is is like every person is just trying to keep it the fuck together like being alive is a trauma and I mean that sounds really dramatic but I kind of really mean it like I mean life life is absolutely like an absurd amount of pain.

Yeah. You know, there's fleeting moments of happiness, but the whole cycle is, you know, it's dreadful. It's nary. It's absurd. It's gnarly. It's absurd. And we've also like removed the pillars of what kind of kept it together for a long time,

which is like, you lived in a community. You had, you know, a village. Like you like, yeah, some of those things were like also kept people back. But in a broader sense, like, you, we needed that. And like now it's like I'm just up in my house with my phone and I'm supposed to like get through shit like that. You know, like I don't know if that's. Yeah. I mean, we're.

We're constantly. The problem has always been there. But like we're in hyperview right now. Like I'm just like opening your phone and seeing the stuff that we have to see every day and the pain that's. like being distributed, like it's, and, you know, and the general uncertainty of everything and the fear, it's just so heightened right now. It's really, it's really like perplexing to me that things of, you know, that in one lifetime I could see so many different levels of like what life is, even outside my little world. Yeah. Well, I think that's exactly. Like my, like,

my humble view is like, I don't think we're supposed, we're not built, our psyches are not built to see that much pain and suffering all around the world, you know? And obviously, I'm not saying we should look away for a bit, like, we need, there's no not knowing about it and we, like, need to help and stuff. But it's just never in human history have people known this much pain. And the way you can tell because of the way people react to it, myself included, like, you You spend one day on looking at like Instagram infographics about 18 different genocides, you get a little dulled to it. And it's like it doesn't mean you're not human and don't have empathy, but like your your psychic can only take so much. Yeah, I mean.

And it's a privilege, obviously, because we don't, we're not living that genocide. So we are not taking it in the way that those people are. And there's this general lack of feel. I mean, there's this, you know, the dissensification can only go so far, right? like as a human, but also it's like there's this lack of feeling like you could do anything about it that's really like, like watching kids get bombed daily to me is like something that I don't ever think you could be desensitized to that, but it's, you know, it does feel like that at this point. It's like, what can you do? Like there's nothing that anybody could do to stop anything that's happening

that's like happening right now. And that's, to me, it's the big difference. It's like there used to be this illusion that like that you know that there was something we could do to change things and now like as further and further we get along to this it's just like you know the general lack of like attention span and like like and the general lack of unity of like what we hear every day and nothing changes about it and that's that's a that's a whole new thing and I don't think anyone has really ever dealt with that you know to an extent I mean there's been terrible things that have happen through history, right? But like with all of our communication and all of our intelligence now and, you know, all these tools you would think that, you know, that this type of thing just couldn't

happen. No, the tools make it worse. The tool makes it more possible for these things to happen. We're seeing that now for sure. I mean, I do not to like get too much down this rabbit hole, but like, when I feel really hopeless, I just like try to remind myself that like you can always make a difference in your own community. Like a palpable, tangible, visible difference. Like, you might not be able to, like, help across the world in a way that you feel is, like, super impactful, but, like, you can join a soup kitchen and help out one day. You can, you know, I have friends here who are, like, amazing angels and, like, they raise money every week and make sandwiches and take them to, like, the unhoused neighbors that we have here in L.A. and, like, help them out, bring them water bottles.

and I'm just like, this is like something we can all do, you know? Absolutely. More or less just speaking to the general, just, you know, the dystopia. Yeah, it's just, it feels like nothing can happen a lot. And, you know, I just hope that it reaches a point where people put their foot down and, you know, get on the same page and, you know, stand up for each other. This is when you say you're running from there. Definitely not running for me.

I clearly there's no no one really trying to help in that department either I think it needs to stem from the people like every great revolution did you know I agree okay shifting gears quickly just away from the light stuff we're just talking about um well I just first not to keep tooting your horn but the way that I scream out of my car the lyrics from the title track if there's one less thing I need it's some life lesson and obviously clear literally you, one million thousand percent. Me probably like stubbed my toe or something and was like, not again, God. I mean, I still do that. Because it's dramatic, but. PlayStation controller dies. The trials never end.

But sometimes I went through like a long period with like one of my best friends where I was like, like respectfully, I've had so many lessons. I've learned. Let's shift gears here. But, you know, it's not a job. For me, that line almost is like a semi-ironic. I just like save them. Like I don't want to be taught anymore.

You know, it's not even like, it's just like I've had enough, you know, the white flag. Totally. Surrender. But then surrender. For sure. This is, again, another corny question, but I'm going to be who I am. Do you have a spiritual practice that you've developed over the years? given your some life lessons?

I guess there's two things. One is, one is, you know, I do still drink quite a bit. I probably should chill. But I don't really drink to like, at least consciously drink to escape anything anymore. I drink socially. I just happen to be really good at it for the most part. I do really believe, by the way, that some people are constitutionally built to get it down that way. We went and saw the Afghan wigs the other night, and I was like, this man, Greg Dooley, was built by God to drink whiskey and smoke eggs.

That's what he was put on earth to do. And you can tell it. He's thriving, full head of hair, gorgeous, like. I'm definitely different. You're definitely built different. I'm definitely different. Yeah. Yeah, like that's not it.

For me, it's, for me, for me, staying insanely busy has become like a really good tool for me. Too much time on my hands has always kind of been a thing for me. Keeping me busy is definitely the best thing for the world. And, you know, I've really taken that to another level recently in like the past few years and just like, you know, letting the ideas kind of, you know, set up shop in my brain. And, you know, with nothing, it's always been a pretty DIY project. I've found myself to be unmanageable to this point. Become ungovernable, which is what you did. Yeah.

I mean, I've had managers in the past and shout out them, but it just didn't work. And I do everything from the music to the designs, to the T-shirt. You know, I work with all the designers. I sit in on the booking. Like, I help book the flights, you know. Luckily, five years ago met my match and, you know, I got help the help that I needed. to kind of make sense of all the chaos in my head and good friend Marissa

sitting right here but you guys can't see her she's kind of been like a game changer for me to kind of just help me facilitate all this stuff and then it kind of gives me more room to just keep doing it and you know new projects and new stuff like that

like for me it's all a part of like the survival aspect of what I do. And, and, you know, that that has become a tool for me. It's like, you know, it's not a tortured artist. You know, it's, it's, it's, it's, I'm a nonstop thinking artist that you're a girl boss. I'm a girl boss. Absolutely. Girl dad too recently. Shout out bug one more time. Would you say you're a bit of a control freak? I could probably say that I am, but I, Over the years, I've learned that I am not always right and that I need to allow the right people to help me find the best decision at the end of the day, which has been a big part of my growth. Because in the beginning, I was very much, I know what I'm doing, you know.

And I probably severed a lot of relationships in that way. But I've gotten to a point now where I do respect the team that I put around myself to help me get to where we need to go. Because I'm far from perfect, you know, obviously at this state of the interview, we all know that. But I have a vision and, you know, I trust to put the right people around me to help me get to where we need to get. And I really have, that's really changed a lot for me too. You had your hubasank moment You're like, I'm not a perfect person So weird, we were playing guitar band last night at Bob Bruno's house

And someone did a hoopas, someone did a hoopis stank song It wasn't, I'm not a perfect person Are there other hoobustank songs? I actually woke up with the reason stuck in my head I'm not a perfect person, the reason is it? That's so fucking weird That's so fucking weird I literally walked out of the shower today

getting ready to leave Bob And I was like, I can't get the reason stuck out of my head right now. And he's just in his room on his left, so he's like, ha. There it is. It's all one thing, babe. It's all connected.

It's all connected. It's the aliens again. Every time I think about not being perfect, that comes right into my head. It's like a Tourette's. I'm like, no, no. It's almost like. That almost feels evil.

It's insidious. But also, you know what? Not untruth. Good song about shit. You know what? You got to take your hat off to them where the hats off is due. Absolutely.

I have two lyric questions. All right. I know artists famously love to explain their lyrics. It's their favorite thing. Number one. I don't mind. In track one, never come, never morning. Painted Angels, laced in nicotine, filled up with aspartumee.

Are we talking Diet Coke's and a sick? Are we talking fridge sigs with a real sick? Absolutely. Hell yeah. Hell yeah, brother. My house growing up was, obviously, we're poor white people living in a poor Puerto Rican black neighborhood in Philly. And the house was, the wallpaper was yellow. There was Diet Coke everywhere, Diet Pepsi.

Maybe some fresco. It was the 80s. But, yeah, I mean, it just, for me, just like kind of painted this, envision this household that, that I was in and painted angels is kind of, we had this wallpaper that had these little angels in there. It was like so outdated. Sounds kind of beautiful. It's like really like what you would picture walking into like a grandmother's house

in the 80s in the 90s. But you know, you ever get to that point where you like some weird, strange memory just like from like out of the blue just like ends up? you're like, oh, I remember what my railing felt like in my house. All the time. Super strange. I don't know what's up with that. But that kind of stemmed out of one of those moments for me.

Did you ever see a cartoon when you were younger where I think it was like Donald Duck maybe? And he was like maybe having a dream or something, but he's running through the hallways of his own mind. And it's all these file cabinets. I feel like that all the time. Yeah. It really stuck with it. I burned into me that cartoon. I don't think I've ever going to be able to watch you.

again without thinking when you're talking When I'm talking, it's just Donald Duck in my mind Like going through files or whatever Yeah, that's But some of those files have what your railing felt like When you were a kid in them The Epstein files. It's the Epstein files of your own mind

I told her I wouldn't bring up the Epstein files You know what? How can we get through one day Without bringing the Epstein files? We're only human. I talk about them every day, every single day Just got to give a shout out to my man. Yeah, shout out Jeffrey Epstein.

You did bad things, but we do not support you on this podcast. Okay, second. I only have two. In nerve scales, does the line, it wears me out. Reference radiohead fake plastic trees. You know, it's hard to not. Deny the allegations. Yeah, honestly, it's absolutely. It might be subconscious, right? I mean, when I wrote that song, like, I didn't have too many lyrics to it at first. It was like one of the songs we wrote late and I just had this really nice vocal melody in my head. And I just kept kind of saying. that and I was like, I can't say that because of this situation right here. But I was like,

it just felt too right for a world. But it's such, it's perfect. It's like, it seems like a little nod. It's not like a, you know, it's a plagiarization or whatever. Yeah, I mean, I absolutely love some of their records. Like they're, you know. They have like four perfect records to be. They really do. Again, if we're taking hats off for people, we couldn't take our hat off for radio head. It's pretty commonly acknowledged to be a great band. Absolutely. I cherished a lot of those records. They were around me at some really rough points in my life and I got really connected to them. I hate putting them on in the van and stuff because you don't want to be the... It's a little downer, man.

Feel bad even saying this, but you don't want to be this fucking guy being like, I love this radio head record. It just like doesn't go over well in most situations. Well, we always make the joke on the podcast where we're like, great band, really extremely terrible fan base. Really one of the most egregiously bad fan bases on God Good Earth. I truly believe everything he just said to be the case. I mean, I've gone to see them a couple times and I'm just like, I'm like, I get this feeling like I shouldn't be here. It's like, you know that devil wears prodig meme that's like, you know, florals for spring, groundbreaking. It's like, oh, you're a middle-aged white man that loves a radio head, groundbreaking.

Exactly. Like there's enough of that. I don't need to contribute me. You're allowed. You can be a part of it. That's such a terrible place to end up. So, I mean, for such a good man, like... Well, they're doing fine, baby.

I mean, I'm not concerned. I'm not concerned. I mean, yeah, I mean, I know that as well. Oh, do you mean politically? We wouldn't know how to talk about that. Yeah, no, no, no, that's all good. Between Tom York and God, really. Yeah, yeah.

Well, they've done their fair share of really stupid things in the past year. I'm sure we could all agree on. I mean, my rock bottom with them was way before this was when I was at Coachella in like 2013, maybe or something, and I went to a pool party and who was DJing with leather wristbands on your friend Thomas York? And I was like, well, it's over. I can't unsee this. My, I couldn't stop thinking that I was like, man, do you think if Kurt Cobain was still

alive, he would have eventually been DJing at a Coachella pool party with leather risk? I don't think so. I have to believe no. I have to hold on to that, that that wouldn't have ever happened. But it's like the long arc of time bends towards cringe, basically. It really does. I just, I just, one of our original drummers was this guy, Mike, that runs the catatonic use page.

Okay. And he put that video up the other day of Lee and Tom York playing guitar like on something. And I just like blown away by like, I was like, what the fuck is going on? Like, so that's specifically the reason. and why I would hate for that to be connected to me in any, absolutely any sort of way. But shout out, like, made some

good records. What about the lowercase letters? Like, we just were like, you woke up one day and you're like, I'm going E.E. Cummings mode on this album. Honestly, you're absolutely accurate on that. When I wrote, like, a lot of it, and I was putting titles down for things,

I just, you know, I love E. Cummings. Same, honestly. And I don't care what any fucking person on earth says, that shit bangs. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, super important writer for me. Running through the ragged meadow of my soul. You read something like that and then come show me. Yeah.

I have some E.E. Cummings tattoos as well. I'm so jealous. I need to go. My senior quote was in E.E.C. I was like obsessed with E.Cumings in high school. That's sick. Yeah.

Yeah. Super important. Super important writer for me. I can kind of see it in your lyrics. honestly now that you say that. Yeah, I mean, I could only wish that that would be the case. But yeah, it was mostly supposed to be for like just the design aspect of the record. And then it kind of just landed that way.

And they were like, the label's like, is this what you want? And I was like, I don't know now. Like looking at it. And I'm like, it feels weird looking at it and press release and stuff. You know, like I'm like, oh, all of a sudden here's this. problematic dude that has to come and just change the way that everything is done. I think you're not the first one. I think people have done this.

Definitely not. And people have done way more annoying things than that. It's not annoying. I also kind of get it and I don't want to put words in your mouth, but like from my outside perspective, I'm like, I can see being like, okay, there's a bit of melodrama going on here in the themes of these songs. Like maybe we'll just tone it down on the sentence because like capital is like even more melodramatic, announcing ourselves.

It's kind of into that. I mean, it's also like with the title of the record, like the short history decay, like, it kind of just feels like this bottom end of like broken language. And like, to me, it just looked the way that I wanted it to look. I mean, we're very like, I say this all the time in a depressing sound way, but like we're like post language. Like we're absolutely entering the most post language that we've ever been. Everything, nothing means anything. No words mean anything. Like when I talk to like 14, I don't know if you.

much time you talk to like teenagers yeah but like when I asked them about like their slang and stuff nothing means anything like they'll be like that's aesthetic was one of my most hated ones but then I feel like an old person but I'm like that is not it doesn't that's just a it's a generic word that you need to apply another and they're like no that's aesthetic Depeche mode said it a while ago right words are necessary words are very necessary I think they are a little necessary but maybe I'm old, you know? I'm verbal maxing, which no one else is doing anymore. I think it's crazy that people aren't writing anymore.

Like there's like no one knows how to write and handwriting it anymore. Oh my God, I know. No one is basically right on the computer either, honestly. We're losing that. People don't want to read. We're entering a strange world. We sound like boomers right now. I'm a boomer.

I've already like, I don't care what. I mean, I'm silly like, it's fine. I'm the old man. I was already complaining when we were walking up from the thing about writing code. I was just like, just kill me. I'm not going to be here anywhere. I've done it. I've seen enough just like I'm ready to go.

Yeah. I'm good. Like AI can actually, I welcome you to take my job. Claude, come on over, babe. Have a seat. You could do it. It's not hard. We ran into a bit of that problem.

I heard. Which I knew what I, you know, I knew what I was doing when I did it. Sorry, for people who don't know, we don't want to sound like we're talking in code. Nikki posted these hilarious AI images. They were just stupid and funny, and people got mad about it. And I was like, we have to part. We have to start, A, nuance and be parsing, like, using AI to create your music or your craft

versus using AI to make a dumbass, you know, like thing that's supposed to be funny. You know, like, it's, okay. I get it, but like, let's choose our battles. When we released our first single for Cannibal World, I worked with this AI artist for the video. Yeah. And everybody was not thrilled with my decision. This guy, I see Saul. He's like a outcast, like maybe Russian, maybe Ukrainian.

We don't know where they know. He's a computer figure. Yeah. We worked with Ben Ditto. He's really brilliant. CD works for Vice now. It's like the global editor or something, but he's

just been all over the place doing cool shit for a long time. And I, you know, I kind of was like testing the waters a little bit when I was doing like the nothing and as anime girls kind of stuff. And, you know, I'm 44 years old. Same.

You know, it's like, it's funny to like pull on people's strings a little bit and obviously I understand all the problems with AI. Like Yeah, you're not stupid. Not stupid, right. You and Missy from Managan Pussy, I, like, truly, like, support what this use that you've done. Because I think it's like, I'm going to probably get myself in hot water, but I don't care because I believe what I believe come from ass.

I think, like, you don't have to use AI. And I think, like, but like anything else, it's like the internet at this point. Like, instead of ignoring it, you need to figure out how to use it creatively and ethically. Yeah, that's what humans have been doing. entire like existence. If not, if not people like you and Missy using it creative and creatively and ethically, then it's just going to be people using it nefariously and terribly. That's all that's going to be there, you know? It's going to be used regardless. Like we're past the point of that. Like, it's just, you know, like to me that, to a lot, a big

part of nothing has always been about like, you know, the beauty that can come from the, the, of hell. Yeah, which AI certainly is right there at the bottom of hell. Absolutely. And, you know, like, I don't want to make things for people that are really easy to digest ever when I'm doing what I do. Like, I want to provoke people's thought. I want to put them in a corner where they're in a philosophical debacle. You know what I mean? Well, it rhymed in a way. That's because your E. Cummings right in your heart came. Your E.E. Cummings jumped right out. But, you know, like, and no one was thrilled that I was going to do that. And I, but I have like, you know, I did put my foot kind of down with that.

And I knew I could make something really beautiful and make people a little upset and make people a little angry and have them, have me be the person that they cast stones at and stuff over it. But it's important to ask questions. Like there's so much terrible stuff going on around all this stuff, like for you to just be complacent. I'm like, okay, everybody's not allowed to use this now. And if not, you're going to have backlash for it. Like, that doesn't get us anywhere. Yeah, right. Like, okay, so you're a cop now.

That's what you've chosen to be a cop. To me, like, that's not what I'm here to do. I'm not here to provide, like, the best flavor for everything and make things for people to just, like, absorb, like... Right, like background music. Yeah, like, that's not what I'm here to do. And if you know nothing, you know, you know that that's the case.

Otherwise, we would probably be bigger by now or not. Or not, I don't know. Or not. Or not. You know what I mean? Or I could just quit. It's always giving me the drive to do this. And it's just insane to watch, like, you know, we released this, like, really beautiful

song in this really pretty video and this, like, really strange way. And just watching people turn into, like, violent savages in comments and saying, like, the worst things they possibly can. And it's just like you're proven like a really bad point about like what, what AI is and what you are and what you're capable of being so quickly towards, you know, another human being. And to me, that was what I wanted to, I wanted to showcase. And I never really got to talk about that because nobody really wanted to even give me the time to talk about. Kind of segdwayed myself into it just because we got there. But like, that's, that's really what I wanted to show.

I was like, this is what, this is how you approach this, is that you're going to turn into, you know, like a violent menace over this. And, you know, this is, this is what we are. And to me, that, that was like what I want to do. The song is called Cannibal World. Like, everything I did was super intentional. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I think what you're saying is so, first of all, intelligent, but also, like, so important

because I think one of the greatest diseases that our society suffers from is people's absolute inability to understand or even endeavor to understand, but like nuance. Like you said, you want to provoke thought. People do not want to be provoked into thought. They are not interested in that. And it causes meltdowns when they have to because it's almost like reverts to this like childlike tantrum state because they're so uncomfortable. It's so uncomfortable to have to grapple with what you actually think instead of picking it up from the internet, picking it up from an infographic. Okay, I'll, I'll think that. You know, it's coming up with your own opinions unheard of. Insane. It's, it's really, it's, it's, it's really

sad, honestly. It's like, it, it, it opens this door to be like, maybe, you know, maybe we aren't, we aren't the ones that are supposed to be here. We've only proven ourselves to not be that, you know, like, like we said, not to jump back, like what happened, what's happening in Palestine and stuff and everywhere else and here. It's like we're failing miserably at what we're doing. And even our best people who have the right ideas don't know how to act with them. And it's super disheartening. And I, you know, that's one of the main things I write about on this is like

internal struggle, but like the struggle of this world is just, and human existence is, It's baffling lately. I kind of wonder sometimes, though, where I'm like, okay, if we zoomed way out, like, is the, like, history of humanity, are we in some very large tension build? Do you know what I mean? Like, kind of, like, what we're talking about earlier that happens within each of us. Like, are we building up to some crazy level of tension? I absolutely think we are.

So that the change comes, whatever the change is. And maybe that's happened on a micro level several times throughout human history. For sure. And I wonder or I just hope that that's what's coming. You know, I know it's annoying. People are like, oh, the pendulum will swing back or whatever. But like pendulum got a swing somewhere. I mean, away from here.

It does feel like it does quite feel like that there's something that's provoking some big change here. And I just don't, I don't really see it as being a positive thing for anybody. I don't know. I have no idea what it's going to look. I don't know if we're going to live to see it. You know, like I don't know if it happens that quickly, you know. But I, you know, there's a heartening things that I do see. Like I see all these sort of like people's clear desperation to have a separation from their phone, you know, whether or not it's working.

But like bricks and this and light phones and like people are trying so hard to get away a little bit from that existence. And you know who's not doing that, which is the most ironic thing is the people that are coming at the video for AI. Why do they even know about it? Because they're online terminally. Using the meta app to tell me what I'm doing. It's wrong. It's always people who have Jeff Bezos come to their house every single day of their life that want to come from me,

you know, which I also have Jeff Bezos come to my house every single home. I mean, yeah, it's just it. But, yeah, like, that's always just the most ironic aspect of this. It's like you're literally telling me this through Instagram, man. Right. That you've signed up for and given your, like, you've turned over. your most precious commodity, which is your attention. We're confused.

We're really confused. I mean, this is my last one. I'm going to sound like a full tinfoil hat psycho. But like... Talking about it right person. But like, you know, like how much of it is like, what is it like... I can remember the quote because I'm stupid, but it's like, you will, like, you will be part of the surveillance state and you will volunteer to do it.

You know, it's like very much like the Pokemon Go thing. That thing sent me into the moon. Where they were like, for years, I had people. that I knew catching fucking Pokemon everywhere they go turns out to be a years long fucking project to map the world for free people did it not only did they they paid they paid the company trillion dollar business and they got what they wanted it's genius the nefariousness is actually again once again if we're taking hats off to people I have my hat must be off to that level of like evil genius we're we're making it so easy like the the the

anger in the direction is all just going in the wrong places at all times and everyone is confused and no one moves where the point to finger and meanwhile everyone that's doing moaten 99% of the wrong are leaving unscathed and they they must be laughing at us about how how easy it is to to manipulate us to point in our finger in the wrong direction it's it's terrible it's really terrible and defeating. Yeah, but I feel, I feel like in my heart and soul that those people are like deeply miserable and live miserable existences and like are like never, nothing will ever be enough for them.

So they actually live in some sort of Greek myth of hell. And even though they are controlling things, like they're not happy, you know? For sure. I don't think, I don't, I mean, I couldn't even begin to expand on what drives those people. They don't know what it's like to have one or two sakes. come home and put on All Be by Edwin McCain

and sing at the top of their lungs in the kitchen with a simple pleasure. They don't know those things. Yeah, come home, smoke a little weed and play Arc Raiders with your friend. Or like right when I get home from this, putting breath of the world right back on the switch

where I started from the beginning. Hell yeah. You know, my mom has played every Zelda game and beat it since the beginning, every single one. Why didn't you lead with that? Already your mom sounded amazing, but now she's just literally the coolest person ever.

Yeah. She also put me on the cocktodes when I was like eight years old too. What? Yeah. Damn, your mom's a cool. Should we have her on the podcast? Honestly, anybody will vouch for her that knows her. I was just telling Bree Morrell, our mutual friend,

the voice of a fucking angel, incredible musician, florist to the stars, that I played the original Zelda on the fucking, because we're at the same age, the original Nintendo. Couldn't make fucking heads or tails. That was the hardest game on God. God's earth. You had no internet. There's no walkthroughs. I was just like, guess I'm on level three for the rest of my life. Meanwhile, your mom beat it. Yeah, she backed toward me.

Like, I got stuck and then she just picked it up and they never stopped. Zelda 3 was my favorite. They came with the gold cartridge. You remember that? I sure did, Ben. Remember the way it smells and everything. I miss my NES. Is that what they call it? Yeah, it's weird going back to them, though. It just doesn't do it. It just doesn't do it. It just does not hit the same. Some people will say that it does, but when I do it, I'm like, I can't do this. Okay, we're going to shift gears once again. Okay. Let's talk.

Okay, slide away. Right, right, right. That's your festival. Yeah, this is probably the first hour I haven't thought about it in like three months. By the time this comes out, it will have been done and over with you guys. But I still want to talk about it because I think it's really interesting. It is named after the Oasis song. well it's a question that I haven't answered yet or the verve song it could be the verve song too

but you haven't you don't know which one you won't tell me which one you know it could be either they want people to make their own decisions people really want it to be one or the other those verbs records mean meant a lot to me and and i and i've lived through oasis being big three times now as you have too um which is annoying as fuck but i who doesn't love oasis right I have lyrics from Slydeaway Tattoo to me. I don't know. I don't care. It's so good.

But it's a verb song. Did you go to these last? No. No, I couldn't do that. I'm happy for everybody. And they sounded great. But I'm not going to. Yeah.

Like, I've been to a rowdy English pub enough. Right. You got the vibes. I would have went to see them in Mexico City. That would have been lovely to see them there. But like I just was so busy at that point. I was like, I don't feel like shovel them. money out to do this.

But I'm, obviously it's fucking brilliant for them to be able to like turn it around and come and do that. They sounded fucking the best day ever they ever sounded. I saw them only one other time, which was like when they played Coachella and that would have been like 2001. Yeah. Yeah. That was same.

It must have been. Yeah. And I feel like they kind of sounded bad to be honest. They were out of each other's necks. Yeah. Liam, I think, was just like fucked at that point. vocal chords were fucked. The video sounded incredible.

I only asked because the verb opened for them in London. It was the best night of my life. The loyalty is so, the loyalty is so commendable with this. Yeah, they were like, Richard Acroft, get your shit, get your guitar,

dust it off, babe. We're heading the road. Real people, for sure, which to me is like in a sea of awful phony peoples in this industry that I, that I constantly have to deal with.

Like, seeing that. from afar is like I love it like I fucking love I'm sure in a way like it's a little bit similar to your situation I mean they're from you know Manchester and a part of town that like they grew up with not exactly but similar circumstances and like they're never like probably gotten that far away from where they're from you know psychically anyway totally totally I mean I am team roses for life though there's always stone roses first even when even even even even even even even even even even Even and Ian went off the deep end.

He's doing some stuff. He has some thoughts and feelings. Hey, everyone does. That was a confusing time. And also now, looking back, like, who the fuck knows what the fuck was going on? He's reading all this crazy shit. Honestly, it's true. Like, sometimes you're just like, there's, everything is wrong and everything is right.

And I, like, can't parse it. I'm just doing my best. I did Stone Roses and Happy Mondays as one two-part episode. I don't know why I did that. I think it's just like their arcs are right. next to each other. Yeah, it makes perfect sense to me. And then I came out the other side, surprising myself.

I was like, I'm more of a Happy Mondays person. I didn't even realize. Respect. Such a, I'm like a, I was like, these people really fucking did something. I mean, the Stone Roses are amazing, but they're happy Mondays are. They each only made one good record, to be honest, I think. Bumbed and Pills Thrills are both good. They got a couple good tracks.

Soreners only ever made two records. Yeah. The second one is bad. The second one's not great. I do like some of Ian Brown's solo stuff Yeah sure And Sean's too We went again

We've straighted far from God's Light Which is we're talking about your festival I'm okay and the verb I'm sorry that I keep using the ass word I know like I'm just limited by language And genre is fake However This is a shoe gaze

It's and more Yeah I mean Et cetera Plus plus It's obviously been derived from that world, you know, and the ways that we have done it over the past couple years, it's, we've only had a certain amount of room to showcase what, how many umbrellas this

could be, but the further along we go, it's becoming quite clear that this is, you know, we're trying to keep the umbrella across that whole spectrum of thing. Hum is not a shoegaze band. No. Just like deaf tones are not a shoeggays man. God tear band. To be honest, nothing is not a shoegaze band. Like, we all know this.

The genre is not real. The genre is not real. But you are programming in a way that someone could come to the show and there's not some like jarring, startling, like shift from band to band. Precisely. You're not like, here's slip knot, you know? Yeah. Which you could be. It's a great band.

Zero shade to slip knob. For me, it's like a beautiful way to just put bands that take some of that recipe and use it the way that they, however they did, whether it was, you know, some of the OGs, like we have chapter house on this year, that's shoegaze, right? We know that. Real heads, no. You know, we had swirlies on a show, right? That is this weird American shoegaze that was quite different. I just got put on to swirlies by Carly from Wednesday and I was like, I'm sorry, where the fuck have I been? This is amazing.

I mean, a lot of people. I mean, it's no shame in that at all. You know, I've been trying to force them down people's throat since the first time we got to open them in Philly in 2011. Yeah, they're fabulous. I'm not a perfect person. Sorry. I don't know everything. It's not my job.

It is kind of my job, actually, but we don't have to talk about that. I did it to myself. But, you know, the same sense from having these younger, you know, these older generation from the 80s and 90s and then putting them in with this new wave of stuff, you know, like some of these younger bands we had on this, on this run, Total Wife and War Machine and stuff like that, you know, and how they're taking that sound and just like, you know, developing. and just once again another unique way. And to me, that's what, like, I wanted to showcase, is like how people are running with, how people are running with it now and being able to showcase some of this older stuff

that inspired it, and then even, like, our era and like 2000s era, and just having it all under one roof is this like, you know, it's funny to say this, this multi-generational thing now, because I've now heard another festival two other festivals call themselves this and I'm like, oh, okay. Yeah.

The first multi-generates, I'm like, oh, shit, okay. Well, we've been, babe. Yeah, I mean, that's bound to happen when people are seeing that it's successful, right? But obviously, like, what we do is much different. It's more calculated. Do you pick all the bands, obviously? And not only pick all the bands,

I chased their old asses around and have to get them off the couch to do it. Personally call him on the telephone? Did you knock, knock on their door? Hello, Nicky here. I've been chasing Humb for three years now since the first slide away, and I've been dealing with countless unanswered emails or sidewinded, like, anger for, you know, bothering them.

And a lot of stuff that the normal person want to do to get their festival off the ground. And doing this while I'm juggling everything else I do. We have a super small team. Everybody's fully focused on what we do. and it's fun for me to open up another weird door that would be the world's worst promoter and not meant to be a promoter, but I don't feel like I was meant to be a musician either.

I just kind of bestowed myself in that. And I have a good work ethic, and I think that I care about things a little bit more than most people do when they do something. So I think that that's what sets me apart and sets us apart from what we do and what people try to emulate what we do and stuff. But, I mean, like, it's torturous.

Dealing with Hum was, like, not that they're hard to deal with, but, you know, like, they're just, they just went through a lot of stuff. And, you know, they just had put the idea of doing it behind them. And I just had to explain to them yearly through multiple band members and different females. Like, people care about this. Like, you know, you struggle through the 2010s, and you felt like, Like, you know, like it was time to put it behind us.

Like, you know, there's a whole new generation of kids that like would die to hear this stuff. And like you can't not do this, you know? Like I won't allow it. I'm going to bother you every year. And I could be like that like, like booken ages hate to see me coming. Like I'm just like I go right to the artist a lot of time. And I, you know, because I connect more with them than I do with your agent. Yeah, it's artists.

It makes sense. You're not like a wheeler dealer. I'm not talking money with them. I'm just going to put the idea out there. Like, we'll talk about money later with somebody else. Like, I don't deal with that, but, like, give us a shot. Like, let's do it, you know. And I did it with Swerve Driver last year.

I've done it with a message Scott from Love's Lice crushing off band camp. And he's psychotic. Like, he adds, I was like, this is a long shot. I was like, send, bling, had a full message back from him again. I was like, oh, he's down. So that's cool. But, like, you know. And then chapter house swear driver like AOL hotmail emails.

I'm just like, as soon as I see a hotmail address, I'm like, here we go. I'm like, this is going to be difficult. Like they're going to. I didn't even know hotmail still like functioned. Neither until recently. God bless. Well, you're doing God's work. You're going to potentially, again, we're recording this before slide away in L.A.,

but you might even get my ass who goes to sleep at 930 out of the house at night because I love Humps so much. and I have listened to you'd prefer an astronaut 60,000 times in my life. Well, you will not be impressed. I've heard the sets are amazing. It's like it's magical. Like they sound so good and they're having fun up there. I made fun of them like right after the first show because like after they played once, I was like, okay.

Like I don't, I'm always me, but I'm like a different me for like to get. people in the door and then once them in the door I'm like what to put us out? You're stuck with me a bitch, this is the real man. But after the first show I went right to the green room and I was like, I fucking told you idiots. I was like, you don't fucking listen to me. Like I just like

snatched out. They were like, who the fuck is this? You know? I was like, I seen the moment I was like I seen the moment in the second song where they all just loosened up a bit and they were like oh fuck yeah like people fucking are into this and there's four thousand people just like worshiping

and happy. You know what I mean? Like it's something they haven't seen in years, you know. And for me, that meant so much for me to be able to be like, you fucking jokers, I told you, like, look at this. Like, this is what you could be doing. And now they can fuck off and do whatever the fuck they want to do. I'm done with them. I say they do a full, you'd prefer an astronaut tour. Yeah, I mean, they could do it ever and get the bag. Like, get the bag. You know, I'm on to the next thing. Okay, what about TikTok? What about it? I think my question, I have a real question. It's not just what about TikTok. Although I do feel that if I would rather show someone my like full ass vagina than show

them my TikTok algorithm because it's like so much more embarrassing. Yeah. Why do you, I just, I mean, obviously this is like the most duh thing of like this new ecosystem of TikTok almost being like the new radio where like if you. your song hits for whatever reason, like it opens doors, whatever. But I just like, I feel, and maybe it's because of my own bias of what I like, but I just feel that there's so much more quote-unquote shoegaze or shoegaze adjacent songs that take off on TikTok than maybe other kinds of songs. And I'm so curious, do you have, like, do you have any sense of why you think

that is? You know, I've definitely had the thoughts of it. I'm pretty kind of, I've been, been locked in on social media stuff like the past 15 years. I've always like right on it. Like, you know, a lot of, because this is such a DIY thing that I have to be. Sure. But TikTok just just slipped past me. And I think a lot of it was because I just watched it so many contemporaries and peers embarrassing themselves on it.

Oh, yeah, like doing a dance. And, yeah. Yeah, like a lot of my feed is purely that because I'm just like I'm clowning on them to everybody. Like I'm like dude did you see this one today? It is like it's so obvious when it's inauthentic When you're doing like like a great I'll give her another shower just because I love her and she's my friend

But like Missy for Manikin Pussy does it so perfect Because I'm like you just sit there with bad lighting She just picked her phone up No makeup and I'm gonna fucking talk to you about something And it's so her and I'm like this Yeah she gets grief sometimes because she says the wrong thing Because she also is speaking to people that are like watching every word also Yeah

I have a different fan base they're bad sometimes with that. But, like, hers are, like, they're waiting. And she does wake up and just start spitting. And it's often spitting about things like that she believes in and that are important, not just like, here's my makeup routine or whatever. And I think it's really fucking cool.

Yeah. But you weren't doing TikTok dances of what you're saying. Well, I mean, I tried to comment it from a different way a couple of times. And then I was like, maybe I'm just going to kind of like, my algorithm on Instagram is, I would love to show you it because it's fucking insane. It's like weird as fuck. Like it's demented, like dark, dank memes.

Like she won't even look at it. Like I just pull up my Explorer page and it's just like disturbing looking stuff. It really shows you who you are because you're like, why is this on here? Which is fucked up. Because I expressed interest in it. But my only TikTok plan was to just kind of like pull those videos off. My nothing TikTok clan was gonna just pull all these really videos, and I was just gonna put one of our songs,

a fabricated life over them for like 17 seconds, and that's what I was just gonna fill the whole thing up. And I did it for like two months, and I was like, you know, I gotta move on from this project. I was like, it's not that important. But how the Shugay songs are ending up there? I don't know, I mean, I guess they fit well against the thing, but it's also just like it's a big trend right now, obviously.

The kids are really into it. Like they're getting behind stuff like Wisp and, you know, like, duster. Duster and all that, which is great because a lot of bands are being able to take this project that no one cared about for a long time. And it's becoming successful and it deserved to have those legs. You know, that was like a big reason why I pulled in Scott from Astrobrite and Love Slice Cushing. as you know those records were made in the 90s and like they deserve to live through

after we did the you know the first show with him in philly on the first slideaway they you know Numero called them up and did a reissue at the records Numero just sitting waiting to be like oh we forgot that band ring ring hello we're here to reissue yeah just cash in man but also the no but thank God I mean yeah give new life to all this great stuff it's like one of my favorite labels. I love those people and we just had them in Chicago Slydeway and did a little table and we had some of their people DJ the show and stuff but yeah I don't fucking know and it's like I just like it's there's no answer we need one I can let's get a nothing one going I'm really

bad at TikTok so I can't help you unfortunately I need to I need to get better I'm 44 I just want to keep one scrap of dignity however I have no problem doing front facing camera don't care Well, happily, don't give a shit. You got a podcast. I have a band. It's pretty embarrassing. Podcast is pretty embarrassing. No, I mean, you're still there.

That's right. I don't give up yet. Still in the game. Yeah. This is kind of a looking forward question. Okay. You've done a great job, girl bossing, filling up your whole dance card of schedule with everything possible.

Which I, honestly, I'm joking, but I'm not, because one of my favorite, I'm full of really annoying like 12 step adjacent phrases and one of is you build self-esteem through esteemable actions and what is you build self-esteem through esteemable actions okay I mean how do you argue with that yeah and like you can keep busy in a myriad of ways you can keep busy playing video games all day it's not exactly the same as keeping busy like building a festival doing your artwork you know like doing all this stuff um but I guess my question is like you know you're 44 or we're in our middle age. Like, do you have a sense of where you want nothing to go next?

Or are you more of just like a fly by the seat of your pants? Well, we know that. But we could be both. You could fly by the seat of your pants while holding some secret vision for what you hope will happen, but you dare not speak into the world. Yeah, that's probably pretty accurate. I mean, like, it's a struggle, honestly, like doing this. It's getting harder to be on the road and be away from home. From your children, the dogs, and your partner.

And also just like my body hurts. I've put myself through hell over these past years. And like, you know, I missed a lot of home life and things like that. But I do love playing music for people. And I love making music. So like, but I'm in a nice place now where I could do it when I feel like I need to for myself. And I want to remember that more than anything that like, you know, that I should be doing this for myself and that I should be putting myself in a position where I'm, you know, I'm taking care of what I need to do sometimes. And if that's staying busy doing what I'm doing or if that's like making a nothing record, then that's how I should approach it.

And honestly, like, looking forward, which I don't do very often and I don't do it well. Not the most optimistic, a little bit cynical. So I don't look too far. You're at Cartoulli or be here now. Yeah, absolutely. Like I said in the very beginning, like whatever is going to help help me keep one foot forward is like what I'm focused. focused on doing and just try not to hurt anybody on the way and that's that's basically my that's my whole thing so that's a beautiful philosophy thank you

Nikki Palermo thank you so much thank you coming on the Bansplaine podcast we had a great time talking to you I had a lovely time thank you for having me I said we like I have multiple personalities and maybe I do okay come back next week for a new episode of Bandsplaine if you liked what you heard today subscribe for more episodes of Vance Blaine. Our guests today were Brie Morel and Nikki Plarmo of nothing. This episode was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Chris Thomas. Executive producers for Bansplaine are Gina Delvac and me, Yossi-Sulloch. Our gorgeous

and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Costantino and Jennifer Claven and graciously recorded by Carlos Delaguerza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer emeritus, producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fennacy and the TV show The Left Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplain on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Are you shopping? I'm online shopping. That's what I'm doing.