Indiecast - A New Gaslight Anthem Album + The 20th Anniversary of 'Chutes Too Narrow'

Episode Date: October 27, 2023

After a short Sportscast segment in which Steven and Ian mourn the sorry states of their respective teams at the moment (Packers and Phillies), they get down to some inside-baseball chat about reckonings at major music publications. Rolling Stone published several articles this week that addressed Jann Wenner's recent comments about female and POC musicians, and Bandcamp was reeling after Instagram posts by the site's editorial director slamming the platform's union surfaced (6:57).After that, they delve into the latest album by The Gaslight Anthem, History Books, the band's first in nine years. Even with the long break, GLA pretty much picks up where they left off (30:31). Then Steven and Ian talk about the 20th anniversary of Chutes Too Narrow, the 2003 Shins album that Ian recently wrote about for Stereogum (37:03). In the mailbag, a listener asks about the numerous cameos by singer-songwriters in Killers Of The Flower Moon — including Jason Isbell, Sturgill Simpson, Jack White, and Pete Yorn (47:14) — while another listener talks about the surprisingly thriving Tumblr scene in the 2010s for bands like Beirut and The Decemberists (53:32).In Recommendation Corner (58:17), Ian talks up the new album by emo band awakebutstillinbed while Steven recommends a reissue from the iconic Pacific Northwest band Lync and a new EP by the jangle-pop group Lightheaded.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 161 and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about a new album by the Gaslight Anthem, an old album by the Shins, and some reckoning at major music publications. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host.

He can't believe the Phillies lost twice at home to the Diamondbacks. Ian Cohen, Ian, Ian, how are you? Well, you're leading with sports, but I regret to announce that sports cast is now on indefinite hiatus. No, what? Wait, wait, wait, wait. It is? That was a decision made without my knowledge. Why is this?

Okay, do you want to talk about Jordan Love for the next 15 minutes to? I figured this was mutual. Well, no, we'll do a quick sports cast here. You know, because, yeah, the Phillies just bounced. from the baseball playoffs in shocking fashion because everyone was like, the Phillies have the incredible home field advantage. The Diamondbacks only won 84 games.

And I only know all this stuff because I listen to sports podcasts. I don't actually watch baseball. I've only watched like maybe two innings of baseball all year, but I follow the sport via podcast. So a shocking loss for you. Like, are you a Phillies fan? Do you care about baseball?

You know, I was, I like this Phillies team. team, they got good vibes until Bryce Harper decided to wear a Patrick Beverly Sixers throwback in the tunnel on the way of Game 7, which is just importing some of the most rancid vibes in major sports. The Sixers are a team.

It is like late Sonic Youth type bad vibes going on there. So, uh, just a real unforced error going on. And I mean, I got to ask you though, because we can, this came up a lot. It's come up a lot in the past year. where you've made your stance on Philly sports fans very clear.

And I'm wondering... Well, not... I don't dislike the sports fans. The only team in Philly that I don't like is the Eagles. Okay, that makes sense. And it's because of the fourth and 26th game. Fred X. Like, that has a lot to do with it.

Fair enough. So, but in general, I'm not anti-Filly. I just want to make that clear. Okay. Especially because of the indie rock community in Philly. I'm not poking the bear here or anything. It's only because of the Eagles and only because of my Packers fandom. But anyway, continue.

Well, what I'm wondering is that the Philly sports teams have had a lot of close calls over the past year. You know, the Eagles losing in the Super Bowl, the Sixers losing in unceremonious, humiliating fashion. And of course, the Phillies also losing the World Series to the Astros. And I'm wondering, because, you know, as we talked about, they have such a presence on. music writer Twitter. Does it make Philly fans more obnoxious to come very close to the championship and lose so it galvanizes this victimization stance, or would we be more annoying if we actually won the championship?

That's a good question. There definitely is a persecution complex. I see where people like the world is against us, like that kind of thing, which, I mean, to be fair, maybe isn't entirely untrue. I mean, I think that there is some national animus toward Philadelphia fans. I mean, the Phillies, again, I've barely watched any baseball this year. But according to my sports podcasts and also the highlights that I see on social media, they seem like a fun team, you know, like a lot of mashers on that team, a lot of home runs.

Whereas Arizona, the way that they win is just by milking the bullpen. You know, you just put in like five relievers every game. It seems like that's how they won game six and seven. Kids love it. Down Philly, which seems like an effective way to win, but not very fun. That idea of like a pitcher going nine innings throwing a complete game is so anathema to baseball now. And that seems like one of the bad things about baseball right now. I will say that generally speaking, I like it when big market East Coast teams don't win,

especially because you inevitably get the media narrative that the ratings are going to be terrible for the big championship game. Whenever Philly doesn't get in or Boston or New York and of course the people who are talking about the ratings are people who generally live in those cities. So I'd like to see that happen, especially since I'm not invested in the World Series

having great ratings. It's not like I'm going to get money if the World Series top. out at like record setting numbers. I was watching the Phillies games on Max. Like I had no idea. Like my wife was telling me it's like, hey, did you know on our HBO app you can watch the World Series?

I've watched college football games on the CW this year. So I just have no idea where anything is happening. Like when I was watching Virginia play on the CW, I was expecting like Gavin DeGraw songs and like Snow Patrol to come pipe in. Oh man. Yeah, that's old school CW. As you said at the top, my team stinks. Packers are awful right now,

and I am anticipating a special kind of hell for me because the Packers play the Vikings this weekend. I live in Minnesota, so I'm surrounded by Vikings fans. I'm expecting to get clobbered by the Vikings. I'm expecting the Packers, I guess not me personally. I'm not going to get clobbered. But I, you know, I'm one of those. sports fans that says we when he talks about his team. So yeah, I feel it's the royal we

with me and the Packers. We're going to get murdered by the Vikings. My one hope is that like the Vikings just beat the 49ers, a very shocking upset. So maybe this Packer game will be like a trap game for them. You know, it's like the hangover from the big thing, but I don't think so. We look awful. Jordan Love. Woo. Yeah. It's looking rough. It's the worst of all world because not only are they like bad, but they're boring too. Yeah, exactly. We're irrelevant. Like, we're not even, you know, fun to talk about. Like, that game last week where, God, who did we even play?

We played the Broncos, like the worst team in the league. And, yeah, guys, it's just awful. Well, Romeo Dooms has got me a couple of garbage touchdowns and fantasy. So, you know, I got to take what I can get out of this team. All right, enough sports cast. Let's get out of sports cast. Let's get into Indycast. You know, I always worry when we talk about music media stuff, that it's too inside baseball,

that our listeners don't care about it as much as we do. So this next topic, I'm very interested in talking about it, but I worry that we're going to lose some listeners here. Then again, we just did sportscast, so maybe I don't need to be worrying about alienating people. There were two stories this week dealing with music publications and music publications going through a reckoning of some sort. One involves Rolling Stone, the other involves Band Camp. Let's talk about Rolling Stone first. I don't know if you saw this, but Rolling Stone ran, I think, three stories this week

in reaction to Jan Winner's recent comments in the New York Times. where he said essentially that there were no women or black artists in his recent book because there are no women or black artists who are insightful enough for him to interview. Let's be very clear. That is Jan Wanner's position, not ours. Yeah, yeah, that's Jan Winter saying that. He's essentially saying they're not articulate enough. They don't have interesting enough thoughts for me to interview.

And, of course, this caused a big firestorm. very controversial. Jan Winter, of course, already not at Rolling Stone, so it's not like he was ousted from there, but this certainly sullied his reputation, and that naturally reflects on Rolling Stone, even though I think if you pay attention to Rolling Stone at this point, you will have noticed that they've changed pretty dramatically since Jan Winter exited a few years ago. If you look at their covers alone, much more diverse than they were before, much wider range of artists, much younger artists. You know, a lot of K-pop, a lot of, you know, sort of like Latin rap,

all that kind of stuff, all coming to the fore at Rolling Stone. But Rolling Stone, they ran three stories this week that I thought were interesting because they were very pointed articles about how Rolling Stone in the past was very restrictive toward artists of color and female artists. There was an oral history of, like, female music writers where it seemed like the overriding message of the story was that Jan Winnor was not nice to female writers over the years, like when he was the top dog there at Rolling Stone. There was another article from the Black Rock Coalition talking about, again, you know,

the lack of black artists on the cover, the lack of coverage of black artists over the years. and there was another column essentially saying the same thing, this idea again that if you were reading Rolling Stone and you weren't like a straight white male, that you weren't really seeing yourself represented in the pages of the magazine. And it just struck me because I think Rolling Stone, they had to make a statement about Jan Winnor

because they wanted distance themselves from these comments that he made. But also, I don't recall reading articles in a magazine, that we're so critical of the publication's own past. Like, I would have expected, like, an editor's note, like, the editor saying, you know, we disavow these comments, we are not that publication. We are, you know, we strive to have much more diverse coverage than we've had in the past. But to have three articles, you know, including, like a reported piece about the old, publisher. It was very

striking to me. Almost like Rolling Stone is severing itself from its own past. Do you recall anything like this? This was very dramatic to me. Yeah, I'm thinking about when I read the big payback, that book about hip-hop, like the

incredible book by Don Chandris about hip-hop. I'm thinking about like the source. That was a publication that had like a lot of internal drama and oftentimes played out in the pages. But I think that, you know, I think that was that cohered with the state of hip-hop beef at the time. But this is very interesting because this creates this kind of paradox with a lot of big publications

where you have to acknowledge how important the past is in order to deconstruct it. We saw that a little bit last a few years back when Pitchfork, ran their re-reviews of certain albums. I think like the most well-known one was Interpol's Turn on the Bright Lights. And that was like a very, very, I think that got a lot of traffic. But I think that this points out. And a lot of people will say, well, wait a minute. These people seem to be so, you know, against everything this publication, this name stands for.

Well, why would they write for them? And I think it's very edible at this level right now. You know, it's like the doors, the end. I mean, I know that we shouldn't bring up the doors in relation to Rolling Stone because they're kind of getting past that. But I think that this isn't specifically a 2020-3 Rolling Stone thing so much as a point about how much music writing is particularly driven by spite. I know for me, I mean, during my formative years, I would read like pitchfork shit all over

my favorite bands like Jimmy E. World and the Promise Ring, and now here I am, like 15, 20 years later. I think there is something, it's almost political in a way where it's like, I'm going to get in from the, I'm going to take the machine down from the inside. And look, I think that helps when, you know, you're not getting paid very much as a young writer,

and we're going to get into that in our second subject. But, yeah, I do wonder what the path forward is. I mean, I wonder, I don't know if I necessarily care. that much. But you look at Rolling Stone now and you're right that cobbling together these various stendums of like Swifties and K-pop fans and, you know, Urbano and so forth. Like I think that's, that's what people want to read. But I do wonder if like the sort of person who would be drawn to reading Rolling Stone as opposed to, I don't know, watching TikToks or YouTube would really care. I mean, look, the arc of music journalism is headed towards the great dustbin in the sky,

but I think they're doing everything they can. But I do wonder if this is going to be a theme, not just for them, but for other publications where there is just this reckoning for how shit happened before and how we're not that anymore. Yeah, I mean, because I think with Rolling Stone, that, again, clearly they had to make a statement about, Jan Winner and that idea that he represents now that the only important artists are like straight white guys with guitars. That clearly has to be something that if you're a music publication in 2023 and you're trying to reach young people, you have to get it out there that this isn't what we represent anymore. However, there is a thing with Rolling Stone where they do have a history that is significant

to a certain kind of reader. Yeah. And I wonder, like, if you get too far away from that, like, what is your identity? You know, like, what are you? Like, for all of his faults, and there are many, many faults with Jan Winter, when he was there, like, I knew what Rolling Stone was.

You know, I knew what they represented. And if he were still there now, there's a 1,000% chance that Mick Jagger would be on the cover right now. Like, when there was a new Stone's album, you would have Mick Jagger on the cover. They'd be like an in-depth interview with Mick Jagger. Jan Winter probably would have done it.

Yeah, I was about to say. It would been like a conversation. It wouldn't be an interview. It would be a conversation. And it'd be like, okay, that's what Rolling Stone is. Like, they are the magazine that does the Mick Jagger interview and they put Meg Jagger on the cover when there's a new Rolling Stones album. Like, I know what that is.

And as you attempt to get past the legacy or the bad parts of the legacy, of a publication that you're at, how do you do that while at the same time maintaining that connective thread that gives your publication status and stature and identity? I mean, I think Pitchfork, obviously, as you alluded to, I think they're dealing with the same thing

where Pitchfork has this brand that's very established and you look at it now and there are certainly things happening now that are going against, what that brand was, starting with the much more favorable coverage of mainstream pop music, which was something that we all

know, pitchfork wouldn't have done 20 years ago. And that's reflective of how music culture itself has changed. It's a, I think, to some degree, necessary change, but it's also like what are you then if you don't have that oppositional

stance to pop music that pitchfork had in the past? Like, what is the identity? I think that is always the rub here. and it's an evolving question for all of these long-running publications that have managed to stick around over the course of decades. And it's just an interesting thing, I think, to observe. Yeah, I do wonder if it's just going to be, like, we're already in the phase of, like, what comes next for major publications because there's, like, a 16 or 18-year-old kid mad about the direction now, and they cannot wait to get their hands onto the controls and do the same shit over again. And the number of people doing it just gets less and less and less until we're strictly in a TikTok medium. Well, I mean, that's the thing, though.

I think that's a misnomer. I think there's more people than ever commenting on music. It's just that they're not necessarily paid professional critics. Right. You know, there are a lot, you know, like we're inundated with music commentary now. Like, you get it everywhere. And you don't necessarily need to get it from. a magazine or a website.

And that, I guess, is the rub if you are a person trying to make a living doing this. Like, there are a lot of people out there who just do it for fun, and they do it very well. And, you know, they're not trying to make a living at it. So that's always the challenge there. Let's talk about Band Camp quick. Yes, you've got people trying to make a living out there. Well, okay, so we've talked about Band Camp before on the show. They're obviously going through a rough time right now.

There were a bunch of recent layoffs there. They recently got bought by this very Orwellian sounding company called Song Trader, no E between the D and the R. And it seems like they're in a transitional phase. We don't know how that's going to affect consumers or users of Bandcamp. Hopefully that platform is still going to be able to survive and thrive in the future. We don't know the future as it holds right now. Bancamp was in the news again this week because the company's editorial director

went on Instagram and did a series of posts. I guess these were old posts. Yeah. I guess they recently resurfaced. There was a story on a website called 404 Media, which I had never heard of until this story. but the editorial director who presumably he was involved in negotiating with the union there at band camp he went on Instagram and described the union members as privileged tech workers

cosplay as Amazon warehouse workers and then continued and said there's a strong piece to be written I think is what he meant to say in white collar tech workers who make north of $70,000 a year appropriating the language of the legitimately oppressed for anyone who wants to write it. And then for those who couldn't pick up on the subtleties of that, he just said, fuck, Ban Camp United. There's like, I think, seven U's in fuck there. The same person also went on a tirade on Instagram about Pitchfork, who did a story about

band camp and he referred to pitchfork as an anti-intellectual joke and I'm your enemy for life and yada yada yada yada um you know in this story it went viral and people were just dunking on this band camp guy all day long to the point where like i started to feel bad for him and maybe i shouldn't because the content of what he was posting is not great. No. The sentiments are not great. The, you know, just posting this publicly as a manager, not great, not professional behavior. I mean, I just feel bad for anyone that ends up in, like, the social media scrum, you know,

like where you're getting dunked down left and right, because it inevitably turns from, I'm criticizing the content of what you said to just like really mean-spirited comments about like how you look in a photo. Right. You know, because this person posted selfies with the messages that he was posting on his Instagram stories. And it was a little strange because it looked like he was acting out the emotion of the statement. Like he'd be making faces like he was saying it. And it was very odd. But I started to feel bad for him. because I feel like the pylon got so bad.

I have to say, you know, I was thinking about how social media, I feel like, was a lot worse 10 years ago in terms of, like, personal attacks, like where you'd have people attacking other people in the media because they didn't like something. Like, I know for me personally, like, I was writing for Grantland at that time. And there were people that would, like, literally, like, live tweet my columns and just were like, and they would just go through it paragraph by paragraph and they're like, oh, this is awful, this is stupid, blah, blah, blah. And then around 2015 it stopped.

And for a moment I was like, oh, maybe people, they've come around. Like, I've won these people over. Like, they don't dislike my writing anymore. And the thing I realized is that that's around the time that Slack became a thing. And because of Slack, people realized that, oh, I don't need to go on social media to vent about something I hate, I'll just do it to my bros on the Slack channel. So the shit talking that used to be commonplace, I think, in social media, it migrated to Slack, to DMs, to text chains, all that stuff.

And it just made me feel like this Bandcamp editorial director, can someone tell him about text chains? Can someone tell him about DMs? Like, vent in the DMs. Don't do it publicly. It just is not a good look. Am I wrong to feel bad for this guy? I guess I can't help it.

I know what it's like to be in the social media scrum. It's awful. Even if you deserve it, I feel like the punishment is always disproportionate to the crime. Yeah. And this guy, I have warm feelings towards him. Back in 2014, he greenlit a story I did on the modern baseball, Wonder Years, Fireworks, Citizen Tour.

Like, nobody was greenlighting that. So I have good feelings from that part of things. But, like, gosh, it did remind me. It was a very 2014 affair, as you mentioned. I didn't think of Slack as the connective tissue here. But look, you've been over the barrel. I've been that guy. And it just reminded me that it really has been a long time

since someone on music writer Twitter has been the day's main character. Because like you were saying, reviews aren't going to get you there. An article you post on like The Ringer or whatever is not going to get you there. However, sounding like, you know, one of those NFL owners talking about like how Lamar Jackson is spoiled because he's only making $10 million a year or something like that. and wants a new contract. That's not a good thing. And also, yeah, the screenshots.

Like, if this was just a Twitter rant, this would have gotten nowhere near as much mileage, but this was like a NPR Whole Foods version of those little boozy IG reels where he just like tapes himself in the car saying the most out-of-pocket shit imaginable. I think that this kind of speaks to, and Rolling Stone is kind of the story.

same way about how there's got to be a better way to age in this industry. I'm seeing so many people who are, you know, 45 and older in this, you know, the lifers lose their goddamn minds online. Like, it's either brainworms or a type of music writer CTE, where we need to donate our brains to science. Yeah. My question for you is that, I mean, I know this is not the real point, but when he said making $70,000 a year, I'm like, that still sounds like a lot of money for a lot of money. music writing gig. I think the point he was making is that if you make that much money, you shouldn't be saying that you are,

uh, not a press, but like you, that you need a union to help you get better benefits. I think that was the point of what he was trying to say. Oh, absolutely. Which, um, it's like anyone has a right to unionize it.

There is no like, oh, like, well, you are doing well enough. You don't need to unionize. I think that it's, is not a great argument. I mean, but again, maybe I'm being too sympathetic to this guy, but I feel like we've all been in that situation where, you know, you get upset about something and you just need to vent and you vent to your friend in a text chain. And then like a half hour later, you look at what you text it and you're like, I'm kind of off base here. I'm overreacting, but it felt good to get it out. Yeah. You know, I got it out. Now I can see my own words. I can see

that I'm wrong and it's a harmless thing because your bro, your bro's going to support you. It's like, they're going to be like, yeah, fuck those people. You're right. You're absolutely right. But even your friend when they're saying that, they know that you're probably wrong. But they just need, but they know that you need to say that

you're, you just need to hear someone say that you're right. You feel good, you feel better, you got it out of your system. And then later on you're like, okay, I was wrong. I'd like to think that this guy, if you could have just vented to a friend, he would have seen later, like, oh, I was off base.

Like, I overstated that. I didn't really mean that. Maybe I'm giving them too much credit because these posts were spread out over the course of several months. I did not know that part of it. Well, I think, again, like, I think the,

like the union posts were in May, but then this pitchfork thing was recent because it was in response to the story. So that suggests a threat of thought. that is consistent over the course of many months. So anyway, I don't want to pile on on that person.

Yeah, I'm a proud union guy at my real life job and we're gearing up for strikes. And so, yeah, it's really just a matter of like, you know, what you're paid relative to your worth. And I think that you're pointing out, I cannot tell you how embarrassed I am when like I DM or text a guy about something. And then I look at the most recent conversation we had. I'm like, oh my God, what the fuck was I on that day? Yeah, but you know, you need to do that.

You need to vent. You need to get it out. You need to like, and I think when you talk about the CTE, maybe that's what that is because you don't get it out. You have this poisonous gunk in your brain that hasn't been vented. And then over time, it breaks down and you just are lost in a haze of insanity brought on by abusive, of discourse over many years. Too many scrums.

That's like literally how you get CTE. Exactly. Exactly. Too many online scrums. Let's do a quick fantasy update here and we'll make this quick. Sampha, we were talking about this. We were saying last week, Sanfa had to do

87 we were thinking for you to tie me, I guess. 87 to tie me going into the final matchup between Taylor Swift and Marnie Stern, which, again, I'm totally screwed, I think, in that matchup. Sampha, right now, I'm Metacritic, 89, which is the highest score for you, right? Yeah, that, I mean, I consider Sanfa's music to be, like, if James Blake skipped all the

early cool shit and just went into kind of corny R&B, but my man's putting in work for me right now. So critics love that kind of music. They love that shit. Like slightly indie R&B is like the true north that has been the true north forever. And so this was all part of the strategy. Yeah. So actually 1989 Taylor's version drops today. So we'll see the reviews of that.

I'm expecting that to be north of 90. I think you're going to kill it there. And then I have Marnie Stern. That's like early November. Yeah, that's the week. That's the next week, I believe. So I'm hoping for mid-80s there, and I'm hoping for some backlash reviews against Taylor Swift. That's my only shot.

I need the CTE over 45-year-old music writers to come out for me, give Marnie Stern, you know, some high grades, somehow get me into the high 80s, and then I need some backlash. Think pieces about Taylor Swift. That's going to drag her before. I mean, that's going to drag her before. I mean, that's got to come at some point. She's overdue for some backlash think pieces. I don't think it's going to be now, though. I think I'm in big trouble.

So, I don't know. We'll see what happens. Let's talk about the new Gaslight Anthem record. It's out today. It's called History Books. It's the first Gaslight Anthem record in nine years, following up on Get Hurt from 2014. I actually interviewed Brian Fallon,

the lead singer and songwriter of the Gaslight Anthem. That interview is going to go up next week. It was actually a really fun interview. We actually talked about the entire discography of the Gaslight Anthem. And Brian is a great interview because he's one of those people. He's very candid about the ups and downs and the strengths of records and the weaknesses of records. So if you're a fan of the Gaslight Anthem, I think you're going to enjoy that article. I think that column will go up in the middle of next week.

But, you know, listening to this record, it was an example of, and we've seen this before, like we're a band, they go on hiatus and they're gone for like maybe a decade or so. And some bands, they come back and you can tell like, oh, I don't know if they really can do what they've done before. If, you know, if they still have that kind of ability to evoke the thing you liked about the band. And then there's the Gaslight Anthem who I feel like totally click back into place with making Gaslight. anthem anthems. And it was funny talking to Brian because he confirmed this essentially that like, you know, he's put out a series of solo records that are very much like in a singer-songwriter type vein. But he has this other gear in his mind where, okay, I also write gaslight anthem songs.

And I know what that is and it works. And, you know, there's a bunch of songs on this record where you're just like, yes, this is the gaslight anthem. They're doing gaslight anthem type things. of course Bruce Springsteen shows up on the record I think this is the first time he's actually appeared on a Gaslight Anthem album Brian actually told me that Bruce volunteered to be on the record because he was so excited about the band

getting back together I just love the idea of Bruce being a Gaslight Anthem fan even though Gaslight Anthem is like the ultimate like Bruce Springsteen fan group but yeah I don't know it's like this kind of record we were talking about this in our outline line, like there was a Menzinger's record that came out earlier this month.

That kind of feels in the same vein of, as the Gaslight Anthem. Like, this is very good, like, autumn music. It's like, put on your flannel shirt, you know, like, drink like a IPA, hoisted above your head. Like, that's what this kind of rock music is, I think. And it's well-timed, I think, for this time of year. Yeah, I got to give a shout to Brian Fallon. Speaking of, like, 2014 music writer pylons, like, I shit all over. get hurt. And I think I, you know, I actually like talk to Brian about it. I think we hashed it out a bit.

That's been kind of a common theme in my life where I shit all over, you know, a band's music, and then I end up interviewing them and it's chill and they have a good attitude about it. But yeah, I like how Gaslight Anthemps kind of put this stuff together because it is very much a type of guy music, which I think it, if it's not like dead center in our interest, It's very much adjacent, you know, because it is like Bruce Springsteen and, you know, thinking music ain't like it used to be. And, you know, like if they like Pearl Jam, I imagine Spin the Black Circle is probably their favorite song just because of its message. And I did want to give a shout out to a great podcast. I've been listening to called Guys.

It's about types of guys. And this week's episode is about rockabilly guys, which is fucking hilarious. They did Sky Guys the previous week. And I just love the type of guy who likes the Mensingers, who likes the Gaslight Anthem. I think there's some with Pupp in there as well where it's just about being an older guy and your back hurts at the show. And you know, you're not really sure about what's going on with this streaming music. And you just want to crack open the Bukowski at the bar or, you know, when you're pushing the stroller. I got to respect the type of guys.

And yeah, it does sound like old gaslight anthem, 59 sound, fucking awesome record. I actually saw a license plate frame saying I got the 59 sound playing on my radio the other day, which it was on like a 2012 coroller or something like that, which I think was very poignant. So shout to these guys doing their thing. I got to respect it. Yeah, and I think part of getting older is embracing being a type of guy. Yes. You know, I think like when you're in your 20s, you're very defensive about being a type of guy.

Like you're like, no, I'm not that type of guy. I also like this. I'm going to demonstrate that you can't pigeonhole me. And then you get older and you're like, you know, I like being a type of guy. I'm comfortable in my own skin. This is the type of guy I am. And by the way, you know, we shouldn't be limiting here in terms of gender. I think women can be a type of guy as well.

Oh, absolutely. You know, like there's type of guys with women. And women are also, you know, they can be the type of guy. who's what we're talking about here, I think Gaslight Anthem actually has like a big female fan base. Oh, absolutely. I don't think the Bukowski thing applies to Gaslight Anthem.

I think with Gaslight Anthem, it is more of like a, because I don't think there's like a strong, I don't think of them as like an intellectual band. True. necessarily. I think of them as more of like... Carrowack?

No, yeah, maybe Carowac. Hemingway? They're like a, they're more emotional type band. Right. I think that they are more about, It's not like the mountain goats thing where it's the although mountain goats I think for the people who love them There is a lot of emotion in those songs, but there is more of like a literary thing going on and and And those songs whereas I think with Gaslight Anthem

It is about hitting you with these like emotional peaks and like you feel like you're lifted off the ground like when those choruses hit That's like what they're doing maybe they're more I think there might be more movie guys Maybe I don't know Eddie and the Cruisers or whatever. I'm glad that they're back. I love seeing them on the reunion tour. From talking with Brian, it seems like they are back. This is not some like reunion, like one time only thing.

They are back on track. And it's really cool. This is a cool record. If you're a fan of the band, you're definitely going to get into it. All right, so let's transition here. Like I said at the top, we're talking about a new gaslight anthem album. And we're also talking about an old Shins album. The Shins album in particular is Shoots Too Narrow.

that album turns 20 this month. You, Ian, wrote a retrospective piece for stereo gum about the album that was very well received. And it's interesting. You know, we talked a little bit about this last week after we were done recording. You said, I have to go write this shoots too narrow piece for stereo gum. I think you were going to write it that night, like Thursday night, and it ran Friday. and you asked me if it was my perception that shoots too narrow is looked at as like the best GINS record or is it the first record O Inverted World?

And I said that my perception is that I think shoots too narrow at this point is held in higher esteem even though I personally prefer the first record. And I feel like the reaction to your column bears that out a little bit. you know, it seems like there was like a lot of enthusiasm for remembering this record. Is that your impression as well? I mean, I feel like shoots too narrow

has the belt, so to speak, right now in terms of Shin's albums. It's so, it's so hard to tell, and I don't think I have any more clarity after having written this piece, which it's so interesting because there are albums that have so much more personal

meaning to me, and when I do these retrospectives, and they don't hit, but this one's seemed to hit in ways that I wasn't anticipating. Like one of the guys in the band or the band that made this particular record said it was the best thing ever written about the shins, which shot Dave Hernandez. But yeah, and you also mentioned that I kind of had to put this together really quickly. So I think what I found out about this record, you mentioned, is it seen as like maybe a lesser second record? The comparison that I came up with, and I think this makes more sense having listened to them both this past week, is that this is kind of their

room on fire compared to O inverted world. Is This It in sense that, like, they both came out 2001, 2003. Second album is darker in a way, more lyrically. But what I found, I never paid attention to the lyrics of the, I think James Mercer puts a lot of care and cares a lot about his lyrics. but I struggled with this piece because I love this record shoots too now and I've like never really thought that deeply about it. So I'm in the middle of writing.

I'm like, fuck, what am I supposed to do? So anytime I'm like up against a word count problem, I just go to the lyrics, hey, maybe this can pat it out. And it actually just completely changed my perspective on this record because it's like super dark and mean. and in a way that really jived with a lot of the music I liked at that time, like Death Cab, super mean songs there, Curse up, obviously some very mean songs, Meadowlands, mean stuff.

It was a part of a greater shift of indie music towards that OC, Scrubs, Garden State, kind of low-key, mean nerd music. That's obviously been scrutinized and deconstructed a lot in my. modern day. But I had, I still, I think that with this, like, no one's going to choose just one. I think both of these records provide such a different experience. Oh, inverted world to me is more vibey. It reminds me of like the summer of 2001, whereas I can put on shoot two narrow anytime and the songs are just better. But I think the interesting question is, where do we stand on Winston the night away? That's like their big, slick Joe Chickerelli produced

album and one where they were kind of famous at that point because Garden State came out after Shoots Too Narrow. I forgot that. I thought it came out in like 2003. So I think this, I feel as if like wincing the night away is more of like an indie cast type of record. Well, I have to go back to something you said because you said very offhandedly that well, shoots to narrow, the songs are just better. I actually disagree with that because again, I think Shoots too too narrow now has the rep as being the better record. I don't know if the is the sit room on fire analogy works because I think in that instance people still think of is this it as being the classic and room on fire has gained in esteem over the years but certainly at the time people thought

well this is just reiterating the first record. Like the analogy I would make and maybe it's just because of like similar album covers but I think O Inverted World is the first record. I think O inverted World is the first Weezer record, and I think Shoots Too Narrow is the second Weezer record. I think it's more like Pinkerton, and in the sense of it being, as you said, darker, meaner, I think it's more musically sophisticated. Like, there's more going on with the production on Shoots Too Narrow than O Inverted World, which, like, the first record is like just straight up guitar pop, not a lot going on in terms of other instrumentation. Shoots to Narrow, it really expands sonically. And I think that might be part of what people respond to.

There's like a little bit more meat on the bone with that record maybe than there is with the first record. But the first record has new slang. It has caring as creepy. Like there's a reason why Zach Braff went to that album. Yes. When he was trying to show how great the shins are. I think if you are just going for like standout classic songs, O inverted World has more to me than shoots too narrow.

Like the strength of shoots too narrow, if you're going to make that case, is that it's more consistent to right. out. I think people might listen to O Inverted World and go, yeah, there's great high points, but maybe there's some filler tracks. I don't agree with that. I think the record is great from top to bottom. You are right in that, at least for me, O Inverted World is such a moment in time. Like I remember when that record came out. I drove four hours to see them play live, like that original band that all got sacked. Like I saw that band playing a bar. Who were they playing with at that time? I don't remember who they opened.

I think I saw them play with Modest Mouse in 2001. See, I saw, they were the headliners when I saw them. They were playing at the 400 bar in Minneapolis, which is like a 300-person capacity room. So they were the headliners at that moment of time. But yeah, you know, going back to Winsing the Night Away, that is an interesting thing here. Because I think when you look at the shins, those first two albums, everyone agrees that those are great guitar pop records. and I think they really stand up. Wincing the Nightaway,

I guess if we're going to go back to the strokes, like that's their first impressions of the earth type thing. And I could totally see someone saying, wincing the Night Away is my favorite Shins record because it's the first one that they heard. Yeah. You know, it had a bigger push behind it, it had a bigger budget.

I think that they were on a major label for that record. With Wincing the Night Away? Yeah. They were still on. subpop at that time. Oh, okay. Okay. But I feel like I remember that record being bigger for whatever reason. Maybe I'm misremembering that. But I could see someone who's maybe a little younger than us being like wincing the night away is my favorite because I heard that one first. I could see that. But I think that's the only argument you could make in favor of that. I think the first two pretty much stand apart from the rest of what the shins have done. Yeah, I think it's easy to misremember Winston Nightway as a major laboral album because it's produced by a guy who did evil urges. And what else did Joe Chichorelli do?

He did like that broken social scene out that came out a few years back. Just a really slick guy who worked on John Mayer and Frank Zappa albums, right? I think he did Icky Thump. Yes, that's that too. Yeah, very 2007 type of guy. Just the slicker, not as loved album. When I was doing my research on this, I found a spin article from 2007, which really just overstated the hype. It's like, this is Sub Pop's biggest gamble.

And it's because they shipped like 200,000 copies of wincing the night away, which compared to doing big numbers on Spotify, particularly compared to, you know, shoots too narrow. Even like Port of Morrow, which, like, completely memory hold, that is a big hit as well. well. So, yeah, I think Winsing the Nightaway is a good album. I think it tends to be both over and underrated. But, yeah, it's just that fascinating. You can't discuss that album without discussing modest mouse's album from 2007. We were dead before the ship even sank. And I just want to point out that I was incorrect on who I saw the shins with if I did see them at the Black Cat in D.C. Preston's School of Industry was actually the headlining band back then. Oh, wow.

Yeah. And that was O Inverted World? That was 2001. If I'm correct, unless I maybe saw him at the 930 Club, I don't know. That's pretty early on for the Shins. Yeah, that was after O Inverted World came out there. That was like November 2011. But that album took a while.

That wasn't like a huge hit. And I feel like shoots too narrow, like coming after that really built up the first record. you know, those two albums, I think, kind of fed each other at the time. So I feel like it took them a little while to become big. Let's get to our mailbag segment here. Thanks to everyone who writes in. It's always great to hear from our listeners. Ian, you want to read, I guess we have time for two letters here.

Do you want to read our first letter? Yeah, we are transitioning. We aren't doing a lot of sports cast today, but we are doing movie cast. So this comes to us from Chris from Long Island. Shout to Strong Island. Love the podcast and always enjoy a nice tangent into sportscaster TV cast to mix it up a little. So how about a little movie cast? Would love to get your thoughts on all the musicians that pop up in Martin Scorsese's latest masterpiece.

Jason Isbell, Sturgle Simpson, indie cast Hall of Famer Pete Yorn. He poses these as questions. I'm assuming that they actually do indeed show up because I didn't notice when I watched the movie. Yeah, so, okay, so we're talking about Killers of the Flower Moon, which came out. last week. And you didn't notice Jason Isbell or Sturgle Simpson? I didn't. I mean, I knew, I didn't know beforehand that they were in the, in the movie, which

I like this leading to the possibility that like Martin Scoresse is like, watch righteous gemstones and things like, yeah, I got to get Sturgele Simpson in there. Well, because like Jason Isbell has like a pretty big part. He plays Bill Smith, who's like the husband that's investigating Leonardo DiCaprio. Man, I'm just so bad Maybe I'm just like in the mindset Were you awake during this movie? Like were you paid like

Were you just like on your phone the entire time? No but I was in the special old person theater at the landmark in San Diego With like the reclining chairs You can only buy a senior ticket There's like senior and child there is an adult so Yeah I think I may have like mind melded with I was like probably the youngest person in that room by 10 years at least So like because Isbell has like

a big part of the movie. It was bigger than I was. Maybe I've just forgotten what he looks like. Yeah, I mean, I don't know, man. He's pretty noticeable in the movie. Sturgle Simpson has a smaller part, but he's very Sturgle Simpson. He plays this rodeo guy

that DiCaprio and De Niro hired to basically help them kill people in the movie. And then Pete Yorne shows up. I was not expecting Pete Yorne. I actually waited until the credits to confirm that it was Pete Yorn. Because Yorne plays a killer in the movie.

And he has like a really unusual voice. Oh, that guy's Pete Yorn? Fuck. Well, I don't know what guy you're picturing. Because I don't know who you're picturing at all in this movie. So you say that guy, you could be picturing like... A.C. Kirby, no, like the guy... A.C. Kirby. I remember that character.

I'm like, I... Yeah, yeah. That's Yorne. Of course that's Pete Yorne. Fuck. And then you have Jack White at the end of the movie. That I noticed. And then this is not of the same generation, but there's Charlie Mussel White. He's also a singer-songwriter.

He's got a part in the movie. So there's like a bunch of singer-songwriters in the movie. Again, Isbell, I thought was really good. And if you ever re-watched this movie, Ian, pay attention for Jason Isbell. Like, he has like a pretty major part in the film. Did you like the movie? Yeah, I mean, I thought the movie was great. It was a real experience.

It was very disorienting to. see it at like noon and then leave the theater and it's like four o'clock. But as far as the cameos go, like I like those. I kind of wish it was a little more stunt casty, like when action Bronson pops up as a coffin salesman in the Irishman. But what I like about like all these people who are in the movie, it gives me, there's like a non-zero chance that Martin Scorsese would like Indy. because you did your big Martin Scorsese filmography ranking,

you did something on the Rolling Stones next. Do you think that there's a chance? There's no chance, but I think if his daughter, that he's always on TikTok, if she were a fan and were playing it in the house, I think Marty would be into it. It would be great.

Marty, you are part of the post-45-year-old indie rock fan community that we cater to us. on this show, so it would be great if you could check us out. I just want to say, I love the movie as well. I love the score of the film that Robbie Robertson did. I was listening to the score a lot this weekend. I actually feel like this is potentially one of my favorite albums of the year.

It's like a really great score. It reminds me of, not in terms of the music, but like the score that Trent Rezner and Eticus Ross did for the social network, which is the last score I remember really, standing out as like an album onto itself. Like you can just listen to that as an album and it works so well. And another example of that would be like Johnny Greenwood score for There Will Be Blood.

Yeah. Like those, you know, like where you have again like rock people doing film scores that you don't need to watch the movie to enjoy the music. It's so good. I would put this Robbie Robertson score in there for Killers of the Flower mood. Really good album. Robbie, of course, was not in the film. He's a singer-songwriter.

And sadly, of course, he passed away recently. I could see him winning an Oscar for this score. I would not be shocked. It seems like he's going to be an early frontrunner for that. I would love to have seen. One thing that would make the soundtrack better is if they put in some of the songs from the participating actors like Robert De Niro pulls up in his car with the Owoogahorn bumping life on a chain.

Right. That would have been good. That would have been good. Yeah, Yorn. I noticed that his brother is a producer on the film. Pete Yorne's an LA guy. Pete Yorn's like, he's like an industry dude. Well, he's from Jersey, I think, originally.

What? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's his thing. That was a big part of his thing, like early on. Alan Seppenwald, the great TV critic, I think went to high school with Pete Yor. So, out there in Jersey. I just always remember him being this like, just this like, he did the score for me, myself, and Irene. So that's what I'm thinking.

Yeah. Well, I think. I don't know if he did the score. I think they just liked his songs and used a bunch of his songs in the movie. His eldest brother. Yeah, his eldest brother, Kevin Yorn, is an entertainment lawyer. So he's an industry guy. Yeah, I mean, he's been in L.A., I think, for a long time.

But he's originally from Jersey. Let's read the second letter here. I'll read this one. This comes from Marissa in New York. Hey, Stephen Ian, as a 20-something, I wanted to provide some intel on the cross-generational appeal of the Beirut sphere. Now, we talked about Beirut. I guess that was the episode before the last episode earlier this month.

And this is in response to that. Apparently there's a Beirut sphere, which I'm very curious to learn more about. Marissa writes, when I was a teenager in the mid-2010s, I was part of a thriving indie rock tumbler. Wow. This included a significant faction of teens with blogs dedicated to the Decembris, Beirut, and neutral milk hotel. What? Teens? Tumbling about the Decembris? I'm shocked. We're now seeing a return-style romanization of the specific blog era by younger zoomers that

missed out on it, so I'm afraid that Beirut shuffle sweeping TikTok is likelier than you might think, though I personally think Noah and the Whale would be funnier. You are right, Marissa. P.S. first time writing in, had been a devoted listener for years. Over the summer, I was living in a research station in the Madagascar Rainforest. And on my day off, I once walked to the nearest village with an internet cafe so I could hear you guys talk about news and hash out trends that I missed. Appreciate you all.

Wow. That is some major dedication, Marissa. Thank you so much. Listening to us in the rainforest. Hash out trends. Amazing. I learned so much from this email. I had no idea that there were teens in the 2010s going on Tumblr and posting about

castaways and cutouts. You know, the crane wife, part three. But according to Marissa, this was apparently a thing back then. Were you aware of this? Not at all.

When people, especially, like of Marissa's age, mentioned Tumblr and thriving teen communities, I think it's either about Joyce Manor or like the neighborhood. And those were the only bands to exist on Tumblr. But I do think that,

makes sense in retrospect because Tumblr, it's been kind of considered like an old soul sort of social media. It was kind of straight up blogging and aesthetic curation, which makes sense if you're going to be into the Decembris and Beirut, who have that kind of old soul component, kind of Etsy-based. It's a lot of, you know, hand-stitched stuff. And so I can see the appeal, especially in 2013, because of the bands I had mentioned, like, that was big time for like church. is high in the 1975. Real turning point for indie culture, quote unquote. And so the way to like really pivot is to be into, you know, shit like that.

And I think that when you look at it now, the way, the most punk or contrarian thing you can do in a time of like Taylor Swift to Gemini or rage rap or whatever is be someone who's like super into that dork-ass literary music. And I say that, you know, with War, because I like some December. songs. I like some Beirut songs. Yeah, I also think it's reflective of the fact that, you know, we live in a time where everything is just so atomized that there's no real, like, monoculture aside from Taylor Swift. Like, you can get, you know, a couple of people who have friends in the industry or the writing industry, like into Decembrus in Beirut and see that as a trend. That kind of happened with Indy Slease this year where it's just like a couple people rising

to the surface. and so you can make something like this happen with a minimum amount of people. So, you know, we're going to see that. And then, I don't know, Noah and the Whale, let's remember some guys. Fuck yeah. Can you name a single Noah and the Whale song? I cannot name a single Noah and the Whale song. Sorry.

You would have blown my mind if you could have done that. Yeah, I got Spotify up right now. But I'm just going to read some of the two atoms in a molecule. Life goes on. It appears to be an acronym. him. Oh, this, you got to see the cover of their 2008 album. Peaceful, comma, the world lays me down. That is 2008 aesthetics. And that is, you can just put that in the time capsule if you really want to remember what 2008 was like. You know, you throw that on, you play some flight of

the concords. You're, you're living some good times. You've not reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? So I mentioned this a bit last week. I kind of previewed by saying, I want to give this more time to talk about because I didn't want to bunch it in

with the jam remover album. But if you kept up with the emo narrative of 2023, you know that awake but still in bed's new album. Chaos takes the wheel and I am a passenger. By the way, that title is about like one fifth as long as their previous one. That has really come forth as a strong contender, pole position for best emo album of 2023. Obviously, it's been very highly anticipated. It's been

five years, five years, almost six since their last album, which came out in 2018. It's also signals a return of tiny engines. You know, they put out an album a few weeks ago from Bewilder that I mentioned here, but this is kind of one of the big ones. And this is one of my favorite type of albums, which is the bigger, bolder, sprawling second album, the first two-success. The first two songs are six and eight minutes long. It's about an hour. And it kind of makes me think of their version of goodness or harmlessness if we want to think about some of the bigger emo sophomore albums of the mid-2010s.

And I think that if you like any form of emo, particularly like late 90s or revival style, like this is going to do everything you want and then some. It lives up to the hype. when I do the eventual top 10 emo albums list that I do every year for Up Rocks, I can't envision anything else being number one, although Home is Where comes close. Saw those two bands on tour. Those two bands are really killing it this year. They are bands operating with vision, with scope, and I get bummed out about this scene

quite a bit because it doesn't feel like there's as much talk about it in mainstream spheres. It seems to have retreated upon itself, but I can't recommend this one highly enough. but still in bed. Chaos is a passenger. Chaos takes the wheel and I am a passenger. All right. So I'm going to chewhorn two records into my recommendation corner this week.

One is an old record, one is a new record. The old record is called These Are Not Fault Colors. It's the one and only studio band by a legendary Pacific Northwest indie band called Link. This album was reissued this month. I looked on Bandcamp this morning and the vinyl editions of this record are already sold out. I wonder if they're going to do like another pressing.

It seems like there was a lot of demand since the record only just dropped last week. But this album originally came out in 1994. And when you listen to it, you can really hear the seeds of like so many bands that came out of this region after Link. In particular, Modis Mouse, who have talked about Link in the past as being a touchstone band for them. Isaac Brock, you know, listening to this group when he was a teenager, and I think taking a lot of the elements that are in this group and putting it into his own songs. This album is produced by Phil Eck and Calvin Johnson, of course, who both went on to work with Modest Mouse.

And it totally holds up. I mean, it's described as like a post-hardcore record in a weird way. It sounds like an email record now in retrospect. But I think at the time, this was like quintessential indie rock. Very short songs, sloppy guitars, like raging vocals, things, you know, songs that just sort of barge in, make a statement, and then barge out, tons of energy, but also a lot of melody and a lot of great riffs. Just a great record, it really holds up. And again, if you're looking for something that really set the tone for music in the scene in the 90s, this is such a pivotal record. It's good to see it get another spotlight.

The other album I want to talk about, this is actually an EP by a band called, light-headed. It's called Good, Good, Great. And this band, they're signed to Slumberland records, and essentially when you say a band is signed to Slumberland records, you have a good idea of what they're going to sound like. Jangly guitars, you know, sort of Faye vocals, lots of really great melodies. That is what you get from this band. The thing that they bring into it that I really like is a 60s pop influence, particularly bands like the Left Bank, millennium, the association, these groups that have sort of like a baroque quality to what they do, that's also infused into this band. And it just results in music that just feels light as a feather,

very beautiful, really good songs. And I've just been really enjoying the EP. It's a perfect length. I think it's about five songs. And yeah, the band is well-named, light-headed. You will feel light-headed in a very good way when you listen to this record. Again, it's called Good, Good, Great. It came up, I think, earlier this month, really worth catching up with really good record. Yeah. With Link, if we want to sell it even further, I remember back in 2009 some of the Pacific Northwest Indy old heads, heard Japan droids post nothing, and they would call that, yo, this is just like a link rip off.

And, you know, I think that, I think they meant that in kind of a warm way. But, you know, I've been told a lot. It's like, yeah, Link, man. And I think Japan droids are a big fan of that record. You know, they're Vancouver. So if you need even more of a push to go check out this classic one done type band, that should do it, right? And just to clarify for people doing the Google search for this, it's L-Y-N-C. That's how it's spelled.

Not like a link to a website. This is the old-school link before there were such things as websites. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Indycast. you can hit us up next week where we will do more news and reviews and hashing out trends. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Taped newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.