DISGRACELAND - Bonus Episode: Teenage Obsessions, Your Suggestions, and Great Singers

Episode Date: July 23, 2024

This week in the After Party, Jake talks about how his sixteen-year-old self influenced who he is today. We want to know: What were you listening to when you were a teenager? Whose poster was on your wall? How did your cultural obsessions when you were a teen shape who you are today? Jake takes your emails, texts, and voicemails and gets into your takes on who the greatest female singer of the 21st century is. Plus, Jake tackles your suggestions for future episode subjects.Get in touch with Jake at 617-906-6638, [e-mail], or on socials @disgracelandpod, and come join the After Party.To cop some new merch, head to disgracelandpod.com/merch now!To hear an extended version of the After Party featuring a story from Jake's days as a juvenile delinquent, become a Disgraceland All Access member at disgracelandpod.com/membership. To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoicesSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

This is exactly right. Double Elvis. Hey, Discos, need a little more disgrace land in your life? Just a touch to get you through? Yeah, me too. This is the podcast that comes after the podcast. Welcome to Disgraceland, the After Party. Welcome to the Disgraceland bonus episode.

A little thing we like to call The After Party. This is the show after the show, the party after the party, the bridge to get you from one full episode of Disgraceland to the other, the backyard to dig into the dirt. On this bonus episode, we are diving into your answers on who the greatest female singer of the 21st century is. We're asking the question of what music, movies, and athletes you were listening to watching and rooting for back in your teenage days, a little midsummer nostalgia trip.

And we're also digging into your suggestions for future disgraceland episodes. Of course, we've got your voicemails, texts, and more. And as always, a whole lot of rosy. All right, discos, let's get into it. So I was 16 years old in 1990, and on my bedroom wall, I had this massive poster of Michael Jordan, the one, you might know this when he's soaring through the air, his tongue is hanging out of his mouth, and he's about to dunk. It's a great image. I was, of course, a Celtics fan, but Michael Jordan, MJ transcended sports. MJ wasn't a basketball player.

He was a cultural figure. It was okay to root for him as long as you didn't root for him against the Celts. And I was that way with the New York Mets, too. It was okay to root for the Mets in the National League. And this was, at a time, you got to remember, this was before Interleague play in baseball. So the Red Sox never played the Mets, not at least until the 1986 World Series.

And I rooted for the Mets that whole season while also rooting for the Red Sox. And both teams broke my heart that October. It was like getting dumped by the same girl twice at the same time or something. I don't know, it sucked. I was rooting for the Red Sox, so I was obviously crushed when they lost, but I took zero joy from the Mets win.

Okay, just the whole thing sucked. And by the time 1990 rolled around, the summer of 1990, there was no Mets swag in my closet. There were no docked wooden posters on my walls. There's no Red Sox gear either. And there wouldn't be until the end of the decade when Pedro Martinez showed up in Boston. I did have a life-size floor-to-ceiling poster of Metallica's Cliff Burton on my bedroom door. In 1990, we hadn't yet heard Metallica's Black album. We were still blasting 1988's Injustice for All

and trying to figure out what we thought of Cliff Burton's replacement, Jason Neustead, who we could barely hear on that record, by the way. I read that summer of 1990, I read Helter Skelter. I was obsessed. For some reason, though, I didn't listen to the Beatles' white album while tearing through Vincent Bouloges's True Crime Opus. A book I once took as gospel, but a lot of you know that I now, I now think of it as a trove of disinformation, helter-skelter.

I listened instead, I wasn't listening to the White album, I listened instead to the Rolling Stones' Sticky Fingers album. Can't you hear me knocking, bitch, sway? These songs seemed darker to me than anything on the white album and better fit the world of 1969 that I was building in my head while obsessing over Squeaky Fromm and Tex Watson. Sticky fingers just grooved hard in ways, that I still can't explain.

It's hard to also explain my teenage tastes and how they evolved, how they changed, how they grew, where they came from, how they grew into what they are today. If it weren't for that summer in 1990, would I still be obsessed with the music and the films that occupies so much of my thinking these days? Obsessions that started back then,

obsessions with Martin Scorsese, with Quentin Tarantino, with other thrillers, of course, Rosemary's Baby, The Exorcist. You know, we're just talking, Michael Jordan, heavy metal, true crime, gangster flicks, thrillers, classic rock, and even hardcore music. This is right around the time I got into hardcore.

I wore out, sick of it all's full-length album, blood sweat, and no tears back then. This was a band that I didn't know it at the time, but there were a band that I would later tour with and open for on the Warp Tour seven years later. While a band I'd never heard of at that time at the Warp Tour were going to be huge later while that band opened up for us, a band named Blink 182. I had all this shit going on that summer in 1990 in my bedroom.

I cut up that Sick of It All albums insert, which was dumb, so I could tape the band's images up on my wall next to Michael Jordan, next to the Dallas Cowboys, Tony Dorset. Tony was my guy, the Cowboys were my team. The Pats sucked in 1990. I rooted for them on Sundays with my stepfather and the rest of my family, but I also rooted harder for the Cowboys. We lived in Massachusetts, but the Cowboys seem to be on TV every week. They were America's team.

They still are, I guess. I don't know. I can make an argument that the Patriots are now America's team and have been for the last 20-something years. But the point is, my bedroom was stuff with all of these things. And of course, cassettes. I can't forget cassettes. There are cassettes everywhere. My friends and I, we traded cassettes.

We lent cassettes to each other. We made mixes for each other. CDs weren't yet a thing. Vinyl was hard to come by. It was hard to maintain. If I had records, they were like seven-inch hardcore or punk rock records, and I didn't have a lot of them. Again, I had cassettes, or I had a bunch of my mom's old records and my dad's old records. But vinyl wasn't really, really in play for me back then when I was in high school.

And, you know, cassettes were like, there were like currency in my neighborhood. That's all we really did was listen to music and talk about music, occasionally go swimming. We played football, of course, violent games of football in the neighborhood park near where I grew up in Clinton, Massachusetts on Burted Hill. This field, it was an actual hill, okay? So we played football on a hill. Our rule was always that the offensive team had to be running uphill. This, of course, made the game more physical and more violent. And, you know, when running plays in an actual neighborhood pickup football game got boring, we would just play kill the kid.

That's, you know, you throw the ball up in the air, whoever catches it and picks it up out of the scrum or whatever. starts to run for their life with like Walter Peyton with their hair on fire. 10 other kids chased them around and gang tackle them. I broke my arm playing football in that park. One summer, not that summer, though, not the summer of 1990. And as I sit here this summer and think about the new disgrace land episodes that were set to release this fall, so many of them, episodes on Metallica, Blink 182, an episode on The Exorcist, an episode on the 1986 Mets.

an episode on the Unsolved Murder in the National Football League from back in the day. So much of the inspiration for the telling of these stories comes from that teenage bedroom of mine. In a way, I'm still the same kid. I'm still obsessed over the same things. I'm still consumed by all the storytelling connected to those things, even though I'm far from being a kid. I was actually sitting down this morning trying to track my interest as a 15-year-old with my interest as a grown man now who tells stories for a living and is about to unleash onto you guys a whole slew of new stories.

And connecting the dots was very easy. And I guess I'm proud is the wrong word, but I guess I'm happy to realize that and to acknowledge that and to I have some weird gratitude for it for some reason. And I wonder what you guys were listening to. to back then. I wonder what posters were on your walls when you were growing up. I wonder what you did to pass your time as a kid during your summers. What music you guys listened to? What movies you guys watched. Again, what posters you had on your walls. What sports teams you were rooting for. Pick a summer,

pick any summer. I picked the summer of my sophomore going into junior year of high school because it was particularly formative for me that summer, what I was reading, like I mentioned, Helter Skelter, what I was listening to, what I was obsessed with. But I want to know what you guys were obsessed with from a particularly formative year from your teenage version of you. And again, what posters were on the wall, what music was teenage you listening to, what movies did teenage you watch? And yeah, let me know, 617-906-66-36-38. Do you share this stuff with your kids. Do you show your kids the movies that scared the hell out of you when you were a kid? I really want to show my kids Jaws this summer. We're headed to, we're headed to Edgartown where it was

filmed for a couple nights, and I'm really excited about it. And I really want to show my kids' jobs, but I can't. I just cannot. They're too young. 617-90666-638. Let me know guys via voicemail and text. Also, you can hit me up at Disgraceland Pod. Let me know via Instagram, Facebook, TikTok, again, what were you listening to watching and viving on back when you were a teenager that you want to talk about with me? Let me know. All right, I'll be back in a flash. So last week, we asked the question, who is the greatest female singer of the 20th century? And whoa, nelly did we get a lot of incoming on this one? The 405 Texan, the greatest singer, not female singer, the greatest singer of the 21st century

is Amy Whitehouse. 4.05, that is a bold statement. I'm not sure I agree. I definitely think that Amy Winehouse is probably my favorite female singer of this recent century, so far at least. But I need to think on whether or not I think she's the greatest singer of the century. That's saying a lot. I'm not saying she's not. I'm not saying she's not, but I'm not saying she is either. I need to think about it. The 814 Texan, best female vocalist of the last couple decades is Adele. The second best vocalist is Adele. And the third best vocalist is Adele. 814, even though I don't agree, that one is hard to argue.

Like I said, I'm ride or die with Amy Winehouse. But Adele, as a vocalist, is a powerhouse. So for me, Amy Winehouse is way more interesting of a singer, even though she might not have the pipes that Adele has. But I know there's a lot of love for Adele out there. I've seen it reflected in more than just this text. lots of social interaction on this question as well. So I'm going to bang out a bunch of those answers here

and save the best female vocalist voicemails for the upcoming after-party. We're doing two after-parties this week. So these are going to kind of string together for you. Let's go look at some of these social answers to this question. Hold on. Let me pull this up here. All right.

Anthony the Barber, 9-16 writes in, I think the answer is Amy. Anthony doesn't seem convinced. Fing good music writes, what does it mean to be the great? greatest singer. And, you know, I think, I think it just means exactly that. I mean, I don't know.

I don't want to put too many rules around it. But, you know, which female singer do you respond to the most from the last 20 years? Chuck, the podcaster. This is Chuck, one of the host from Stuff You Should Know podcast. Chuck writes in, Nico Case has entered the chat with a big heart. And, yeah, that's one, Chuck that I, that, Nico. certainly gives Amy Winehouse a run for the money for me anyways. And also that reminds me of Jenny Lewis. I love Jenny Lewis. I love her voice. I love her as a songwriter, as a personality

in music. I think she's fantastic. And definitely, definitely a big part of the last 20 years here. Puddle of Grunge writes in, Haley Williams is great. Chris Klein, Britney Howard. who else we got here we'll get some more votes for amy um someone wrote in shaka kong shukkah kong we're talking last 20 years come on 21st century someone else wrote in Whitney Houston nope um maria carrie and christina aguilera come on come on we're talking last last i guess i guess those two i don't know to christina and maria they're more 90s to me uh julia underscore day underscore Venus writes in Lana, meaning Lana del Rey. And I got to tell you guys, I finished writing this Lana Del Rey episode last week. A couple weeks ago, I recorded it last week.

I recorded it here while I'm on the road in this creepy old barn that we're staying in. It's beautiful, but it is creepy. It's kind of haunted. I'm pretty sure there's an owl living in part of this barn. I know that there are a lot of mice living in this bar. as well. In the Lana Del Rey episode, it's, I don't want to say it's creepy, but it's dark. It's very dark, and it is a dark tribute to a dark personality. I know that Lana has this image that sort of exudes this mid-century, mid-20th century ideal of Americana, but I hear a lot of darkness in Lana Del Rey's music, and it is definitely reflected in this episode, and I cannot wait for you guys to hear it. Puddle of Grunge also writes in, Puddle of Grunge also writes in,

Puddle of Grunge is all over this thing. Fiona Apple. Someone wrote in Ella Fitzgerald. Someone needs to get a freaking clock or calendar because Ella Fitzgerald was dead way before the 21st century. Cloe blooms writes in me. Clobooms, I guess I got to hear your music. Lady Gaga performed with Metallica, Tony Bennett, and Queen. This is Miss Ash B.W. writing this. Lady Gaga sang a sound of music medley at the Oscars.

Lady Gaga had a sold out Las Vegas jazz residency and releases and fire pop albums. I'm going with Gaga. Gaga's a good one. Let's not forget the film A Star is Born where she killed it. She's incredible. Incredible. Hope Sandovel is a suggestion from Moon Pie I. And Hope Sandoville is the 90s.

She's a 90s singer by my estimation. So I can't go with Hope Sandoval. We got a lot here. Grace Pawry. lot lots lots of votes for amy winehouse lots chelsea wolf love that from tracy amy oak um got a lot more we get not as many for taylor swift as i would think we get a lot of votes for adele but guys who um who's your favorite female singer of the 21st century i want to know hit me up we're not done litigating this i feel like i feel like i'm forgetting i feel like we're

all for getting some obvious choices here. Okay. And I not only want to know who you think is the best, I want to know why. What I'm trying to do here is not just Stoke conversation, but I'm trying to, I'm trying to expand my listening horizon. Okay. I understand that Adele is a great singer, but I don't have a go-to, Adele record that I actually listen to for my own pleasure. So if you think it's Adele, what record should I be listening to? Okay. If you think it's Taylor Swift, you're going to have a hard time convincing me of that. But just tell me, like, give me the one album by Taylor Swift that reinforces your take that she's the greatest female singer

of the 21st century. This is what I want from you guys. Let me know, 617-906663638. Also, you can hit me up at Disgraceland Pod on Instagram, on X, on TikTok, and Facebook. And I will respond there. I'm going to take a quick break, and I'll be back in a flash. All right, some recent requests.

from you guys on episode subjects that you think we should be covering. We talked about this in the last after party. Again, I'm paying particularly close attention to these requests at the moment because we are here at Double Elvis contemplating ways in which you guys can perhaps play a significant role in choosing the episodes that we cover, either the ones that are part of our All Access Club that we released through our Patreon and Apple subscriptions to our members, or perhaps even the episodes that we release widely. I haven't quite figured this out. So I'm soliciting feedback from you guys. on not only episodes that we should be covering, but on how we choose these episodes.

This is going to be an ongoing conversation for us over the next couple weeks here. Here's a smattering of recent suggestions. What I want to do here, I'm going to read these out to you guys. I collected a bunch of them this morning via email, and just listen to them. And if any, are scratching the itch for you,

hit me up and let me know, like sort of like second it. You know what I mean? Reinforce it. Okay, most of these are just from, emails that were sent to disgrace land pod at gmail.com. I'm not going to read these full emails because we'll be here all day. But that said, know that there are some pretty articulate and impassion takes on why we should cover these artists. Some of these artists are obscure. Some are,

of course, big names. That doesn't really matter. I always kind of do a good mix. I try to do a good melding of big names and perhaps some more niche names. It doesn't matter to me as long as the story is compelling. And of course, we're not going to be cracking into any of this research without having a strong indication beforehand that there is a very compelling story there. So anyway, some of these are even names we've covered already, which just goes to the ongoing plate of disgrace land, which is we have this massive archive so big, in fact, that lots of new listeners aren't aware of the episodes we've covered. So before I list these, however, I want you guys again to listen in any of these subjects strike a chord with you. Please go ahead, reach out. Let me know.

the more consensus we can get on these subjects, the better, the happier you all are all going to be. 617-90666-663-8 to text me your subjects, leave me a voicemail. And also you can hit me up at Disgraceland Pod on the socials. Okay, so in no particular order, here goes. Al Jurgensen of Ministry, Woody Allen, Michael Jordan, Beck, the Gitts, Motorhead, Megadeth, Link Ray, Bigel, Mark Lanigan, Quentin Tarantino, Mark Wahlberg, Stevie Ray, Vaughan, Anthrax, Dr. John, Howard Hughes, Millie Vanilli, Princess Diana, John Mayer. I'm going to stop here. That's a lot.

I can just keep reading names all day. I'm going to go back here and just give you some thoughts here. Let me know what you guys think as well. Al Jurgents in a ministry. I know there's some truly psychotic stuff there, but I just don't know how compelling of a guy, Al is. I need to look into that more. Woody Allen, 1,000 percent.

We will be doing a Woody Allen episode probably sooner than. later. Michael Jordan, we've actually already written a Michael Jordan episode, but I kind of, I didn't write it and I kind of want to, I have such love for MJ. I think I want to write a Jordan episode myself. So we will definitely do a Michael Jordan episode and it'll probably be, again, sooner than later, just like Woody Allen. Beck, not going to touch that one. The Gitts, the Gits, gosh, this has been being recommended since the first days of the podcast. And I got to say I'm kind of afraid of this episode. It's a, it's a, it's a really, really tough story. And I don't know that it can be covered in one episode or even in two. And I've never really fully been able to make up my mind

on what I want to do with this subject matter. So if you guys have any ideas on the GITs, let me know. Motorhead. Motorhead is done. And that comes out in our all access feed this Thursday, July 25th. So all access members be on the lookout for that episode. Everybody's got a crazy lemmy story, me. So if you want to hear that and you're not a member, become one today. Link Ray, what's the angle? What's the crime? What's the dark story with Link Ray? Forgive my ignorance. Big L. For sure, Big L. This is another one that has been recommended from the early days of the podcast. And I think it's high time we get into this story. Mark Lanigan, you know, I'm into it. Some days I'm more motivated than others. Quentin Tarantino, I'm not sure there's.

a story there, Mark Wahlberg. I'm not very interested in that story. Stevie Ray Vaughn, I would love to depict a helicopter crash. So perhaps anthrax. I don't know why anthrax is being suggested. Dr. John, I believe Dr. John got shot in a nightclub while he was playing. I think that's the story there. Howard Hughes, that could be an ongoing podcast, a daily podcast. There's so much with Howard Hughes. I don't know what the angle is there, but it would be fun to crack. Be good to find a cool point of you into Howard Hughes. Millie Vanilly. I have a really funny idea for a Millie Vanilli episode.

I'm not going to burn it here, though. Princess Diana, now this, now we're talking, John Mayer. John Mayer is a fascinating guy for me. I really like that last John Mayer album, by the way. This sort of like the divorce rock one. He's a fascinating guy for me. I don't know what the episode would be. I get asked to do a John Mayer episode.

I would say like, you know, once a month, I should probably look into this. All right, I'm going to stop right here, okay? Also, I also got a strange request to write a romance novel and then voice the audiobook. I thought that was cute, but that ain't happening. So, so anyways, let me know, of all the ones I just mentioned, hit me up and let me know which of those, if any, really kind of stoke your gears, get you going. and if you want to hit me with some other subjects, now is the time. And I'm going to start, I think, putting some organization around how to better solicit these requests from you guys.

That is coming. If you have any input into how I could be aggregating this info and organizing it, let me know as well. 617-9066638 at Disgraceland Pod on the socials. Okay, this episode is nearing an end, guys, but the afterparty continues for our all-access members, which you can easily become by clicking on the link in our show notes, becoming an all access member. You know what the drill is. It's going to hook you up with a ton of extras. You're going to get an extra full episode. That's what we've been talking about here. An extra full

episode per month. You're going to get ad-free listening. And you're going to get the always on chat in the Patreon app. In general, you're getting a fuller, more rewarding disgrace land experience. As I said, bang that link in the show notes to sign up and support us and making the show. And as always, thank you. And I will be back in a flash. All right, we are back. We are and we're about to take off, but let's recap, shall we? Number one, there's more after-party to listen to right now. All you got to do is go to the show notes, click the link to become a member.

Number two, right now in your feed, last week's brand new episode on Donnie Hathaway. If you haven't heard it, it is there, and it is a wild one, and I encourage you to check it out and let me know what you think. Number three, we talked a lot about great female artists in this episode, and if you want to explore some great female artists in the Disgraceant Archive,

we have episodes on Amy Winehouse, Cardi B, Lil Kim, Taylor Swift, Britney Spears, a whole bunch, a lot for you to dive into in the archive. Check those out. If you need directions on how to find any of those episodes, hit me up at disgrace land pod. Number four, this week, we have another after party, like I said, coming your way. We'll be diving into your answers on the question of what music, movies, and athletes you were into as a teenager, as a kid. What posters did you have on your teenage bedroom walls? I want to know. Number five, you can let me know at 617-90666-638. Call me on the telephone, leave me a voicemail or text me or hit me up at Disgraceland

pod on the socials. Number six, remember, no one cares about great storytelling more than you do, and well, that is a disgrace. And now, in honor of my favorite female singer of the 21st century, Amy Winehouse, me reading to you the billboard charts from the week of October 26, 2006, the week Amy's groundbreaking album Back to Black was released. Number one, Moneymaker, Ludacris featuring Farrell. Last week. Two. Peak position. One. Weeks on chart 10. Number two, sexy back, Justin Timberlake. Last week, two, peak position, one, weeks on chart, 15. Number three, lips of an angel, hinder. Last week, three, peak position, three, weeks on chart, 14. Number four, smack that. Acon, featuring Eminem for an angel. Number five,

How to save a life. Keep position. Precision. Three. Weeks on chart. Peeceion. Number six. Chasing CERT.

Two, Acon. Number six. Chasing cars. Snow patrol. Last week. Six. Peep position. Five.

Weeks on chart. 22. Number seven. Two little. Two little. Quit talking and start mixing. CURT.