Indiecast - Catching Up With St. Vincent, The National/The War On Drugs Tour, And Other Discourse We Missed Last Week

Episode Date: March 8, 2024

Indiecast went on as usual last week, but Steven and Ian haven't actually recorded together in about two weeks. (It feels more like six months.) Steven was off recording the audiobook of his forthcoming Springsteen book There Was Nothing You Could Do (out May 28!), and he recounts the experience. (It was hard but rewarding!) (9:45). After a brief tangent about the recent "13 Albums To Know You" prompt that went viral on social media, the guys do a lightning round of news that they missed — a new St. Vincent album, a very Ian-friendly emo festival, a very Steven-friendly pairing of The National and The War On Drugs for a joint tour, and a conversation about whether Yo La Tengo is a jam band (14:20). The guys also give an update on their Fantasy Album Draft teams, after recent records by Mannequin Pussy, Faye Webster, and Yard Act (32:02).In the mailbag (38:22), a listener asks about favorite performances by musicians in movies. While Ian is partial to Cam'ron in Killa Season, Steven gives a laundry list of actor/musicians that ranges from Kris Kristofferson to Ice-T.In Recommendation Corner (50:13), Ian talks about the Canadian band Little Kid while Steven raves about the new single from Texas heartland rock group Good Looks.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 179 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 lot of things we missed last week. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. There are 13 albums to know them by, and they're all very interesting choices. Ian Cohen, Ian, how are you?

I mean, how am I supposed to narrow it down to just 13 hours? as Coltrane albums. I mean, you just, you need a couple of those and some Ornette Coleman bootlegs just to scratch the surface of my personality, you know? Yeah, you know, like those spiritual jazz records you were listening to at 12 and the, you know, the obscure British post-punk bands you and the kids were jamming to in eighth grade. So yeah, there was a meme going around this week on social media where, well, I guess it's a prompt. They were asking people. They were asking people, to name 13 albums to get to know you by. And apparently this is a play on a feature that runs on the quietest,

the British music website. It's called The Baker's Dozen. And these lists were going around, people couldn't resist to list 13 albums to know you by, which to me that prompt suggests that the list is autobiographical. that it's taking whoever's reading the list through your life, your journey

with music. I don't think that's how most people interpreted it, at least based on the list that I saw. It seemed to be like, I'm giving you a cross-section of my music taste. And so you ended up with like these lists and look, I don't want to clown anybody.

Look, we're just sharing music. It's harmless, it's fun. You know, good for you. We could share our favorite records and maybe you discover something, looking at someone else's lists. That's fine. I just have to say, and I have a feeling you agree with me on this, if you're going to do a list of, like, albums to know you buy,

and there isn't, like, two or three shitty albums on your list, I feel like your list is probably fraudulent. Because, again, going back to the autobiographical idea, you got to have Metallica's black album on your list. You got to have Green Days, American idiot on your list. You got to have like a no doubt record or, you know, something that you listen to when you were 12 or 13 years old. And you were just listening to the radio, you're just getting into music, and you latch on to this like big ticket record that everybody

knows. And look, I'm not saying those are shitty records. Like black album, I think is great record. You know, when I say shitty, I just mean like basic or like not interesting or unsexy. Or, you know, if you say it, no one's going to be impressed by it. And they may even judge you a little bit because it's on your list. If you don't have two or three of those on your list, I'm sorry, it's not really a list to know you by. You are forwarding an image of yourself that you want people to buy into. And like, look, I saw people push back against this idea on social media. It's like, how dare you police other people's lists?

How dare you? Why would someone lie about their taste? Are you joking? Yeah. Why would people lie? People always lie. They always lie about this kind of thing. Like, you saw this prompt, right?

Like, doesn't it say something like off the top of your head? Yeah, exactly. You know, just, just like, as if. Yeah. And the funniest part is that it's like, hey, in the style of the quietest, which we've talked about this on the pod before, the quietest is a publication, it's British, and they are guaranteed the one place where, I mean, if you're tired of year-end list, putting like the same 35 albums on each one.

Look at the quietest because you'll never hear of like 95% of what they post. But it is the- They might be making up albums for their list, for all we know. These might not be real albums that they're putting on their list. Because you just read them and you go, wow, okay, I'm going to take your word for it that this exists because I have no idea what this is. But yeah, they're a good sight. You know, hats off to them.

They're surviving. They've done a lot of good things. It's for people. But yeah, they are like the obscure music site. Yeah, it's like for people who think the wire has gotten a little too pop with it. Yeah, it's like, it's the top of your head thing that really struck me because, I mean, like, who the hell could pot? If it's top of the head, you're probably going to list like the 13 albums you've listened to the most or the 13 that you most recently listened to. And it's like to get to know me by.

It gets it. It's the different. It's like thinking of like, oh, yeah, just do your Tinder pro. file off the top of your head. You know, like there's, you don't get to know maybe what the writer is really like, but perhaps the sort of image they want to present them to present of themselves to other people, which is in its own way just as revealing. I mean, you know, some of these out, like, some albums you'll see there, like, where it's like a Shaw Day album is like the equivalent of, like, someone who says, I'm looking for a partner in crime. I'm fluent and sarcasm. It's just these like

fillers that you see on everyone, like where people think are being creative. But the thing that makes me the most mad about this is that we got through February without that, like, music writer month exercise where people would like listen to a new album. Like I really thought that was dying out, but then we just got a new one. Well, look, and again, I don't want to, you know, I'm going to use my least favorite phrase of all time here. I don't want to yuck somebody's yum here. You know, I don't want to, uh, you know, I don't want to, uh, you know,

You know, just making lists online. It's fun. You're sharing music. That's fine. I do think it's interesting, though, the concept of, I'm going to give you a list of albums I like, and that is going to tell you who I am. Because, you know, I'm someone I'm passionate about music you are as well. There's certainly autobiographical aspects of me when I write about music.

There's albums that signify errors of my life. But I'm also at an age where the idea that an album could, or a list of that, albums could like encapsulate who I am. That's just such a fallacy of like music nerddom, you know, that this is actually that your taste is reflective of who you are as a person. There's something about the number of albums too, like 13 albums, which I actually feel like for most people would be like an impossible thing to do. Like just think about the people that you work within your office or think about people in your family. they could maybe list their favorite album, you know,

and that's probably an album that they loved when they were 16 and that they still have warm feelings about. For most people, like, that's your favorite album of all time. I feel like, like, 98% of people could not list 13 albums that they even like. You know, like, I think that would be impossible for the average person. Like, you'd get to six, and you'd be like, what? I have seven more to go. I can't do this.

And then for the other 2%, who are the freaks, that will respond to a prompt like this and I will put you and I in this camp even though we didn't respond to this prompt 13 is not enough like 13 is like way too few like you start making this list and you're like

you're getting up to like 58 before you even are breaking a sweat so it's a very interesting number again if you did it good for you not raining on anyone's parade but yeah put some shitty albums on there

Come on. Yeah. Let's have a sense of humor about this. You liked some shitty albums in your life. There are some shitty albums that mean a lot to you. You know, let's be honest about it. You can do it. We love you.

Put the black album on there next to, you know, Albert Eiler and the fall and all those. A couple of canned bootlegs. Have we canceled? Yeah, can bootlegs. Have we canceled, like, the high fidelity movie so hard that like we somehow come back around to it? Like, I'm going to name 13 albums.

can get to know me by. It's like, what's that line? It's like it's not what you're like, but what you like. I think we've like somehow circled back to that after 20 years. And in high fidelity, a lot of people don't get this. Like, it's not endorsing that point of like. Like a lot of people like watch that movie and they're like, oh my God, this is like a toxic masculinity. Like he's, you know, saying that what your taste is is important. No, you just don't have media literacy. Like, it's not endorsing that point of view. Like the character in that film, he is a flawed character and the fact that he believes that what you like is more important than what you're like

is a flaw that is supposed to be something you don't endorse can I just say you know we had an episode last week but it was banked so we haven't actually recorded in two weeks and it feels longer than that yes to me feels like we haven't recorded in like six months yeah I think we we either need to do Indy Cassie's like every quarter or just like record twice a week because there are just so many dumb stories that keep popping up that we want to cover but they don't last longer than two days and so you find ourselves like being a little rusty uh in the well yeah yeah i mean we're gonna do a lightning round

here in a minute uh for last week because there was actually like a lot of things last week that were up our alley and people are tweeting at us and we're like we really hope you talk about this and of course we knew we weren't going to be because we banked the episode. Not much happened this week. This was like a slow week. Like everything happened last week. And the reason again why we didn't record last week was because I was in the studio recording the audiobook of my upcoming book. There was nothing you could do.

Bruce Springsteen's born in the USA in the end of the heartland. In the studio for five days, several hours each day. And I think the audiobook turned out great. I just want to say that at the top here. Like, I'm really happy with how I think it turned out. You know, I haven't heard it, but, like, you know, I heard it coming through my earphones as I was reading it. And I was like, all right, this sounds pretty good. And you can pre-order the audiobook, by the way, right now.

I should say, it comes out my book, May 28th. I recommend getting the hard cover because it's a cool cover. Also get the audiobook, because, you know, you can put the book on your shelf. and then when you go on your walks, you can listen to the audiobook, maybe listen to Indycasts, and then you're like, I want to hear Steve's voice a little bit longer, put on the audio book, you got me there whenever you need me. So I think the book turned out well. But recording an audiobook is really hard.

It was really hard. And I knew that going into it. People had told me, it's really exhausting to record an audiobook. You're staring at your iPad for hours on end. You've got to lock in. You've got to concentrate. you're reading shit that you wrote, but it's really hard to say,

even though you wrote it, you're like, wow, these sentences are long. Why did I put so many M-Dashes in here? Why are there so many adverbs here? I can't say my own words here. I have to repeat it 10 times to get through it without stumbling. And the other thing is, you know,

they talk about when bands go into the studio for the first time, that the drummer often gets exposed. because you know, you're on stage, you're playing, it doesn't matter if, like, the drummer maybe speeds up or slows down or is maybe like a little bit off the beat because you're playing live, there's an energy to it, people aren't paying that close of attention to the music. And then you get into the studio and the mic picks up everything.

So, like, if the beat is a little bit off or if you're slowing down and speeding up, it's super obvious in a way that it's not on stage. recording an audio book is like that except you're not a drummer you're speaking in every gross like mouth sound can be audible and it's

like just magnified that's put through your earphones or like every stomach gurgle because he haven't eaten for several hours and you're hungry Mike picks that up if you touch your leg or your arm the mic picks that up

just every creak and moan and you know gurgle coming out of your body the mic picks up you can hear it the engineer can hear it it's a crystal just pristine quality

and you know you got to get that stuff out of there you got to clear out the gurgles and you got to make it perfect so that's hard to do but I guarantee you there'll be no gurgles on the actual audio book that stuff gets that's going to be for the outtakes if you want the box set version

of the audiobook will have all the gurgles as bonus tracks but the album itself the audio book will just be me reading the book but yeah man when you write your book I know you're gonna have a book in you and you do the audio book I'll give you some tips

it's no walk in the park though I'll just tell you that but it's worth it's worth it I'm glad I did it nah me I want mine to sound like a Scott Walker or like a big thief album where you get all the room sound like I want this to be ASMR style or like Matmos. You know, these are just some of the 13 albums you can get to know me by.

Some of our more like audio collages. You know, we're keeping the errors in. Yeah, my gurgles, I'll make a list of my 13 gurgles that you can get to know me by. And it'll be way too much information. You'll be like, I know too much about you. I wish I didn't know this much. I'll make a top 13 gurgles list posted online. Okay, let's do a lightning round.

Yes. of the things we missed last week because this week, again, it was kind of slow, not much going on. But last week, there was a lot going on. And it begins with a new St. Vincent album cycle. And I'm Googling the name of the album. Do you know the name of the album?

I'm Googling it right now. It's not Daddy's Home. You were on duty last week. Daddy's Home again, Part 2. Daddy's Home, More Homeish. God damn it. I got a scream in the title? I got caught slipping.

No, it is... All born screaming. All born screaming. God. Thank you. See, this is why I can't leave the store to you. This is your job when I'm off. You got to get the peas and cues here in order.

Yeah, so new St. Vincent album called All Born Screaming. She put out a single last week, which I don't know the name with a single. But I remember hearing it and thinking it was pretty good. Yeah, it was pretty good. It's broken man, by the way. That I know. Broken Man. Broken Man is the name of the single.

And look, we had a lot of fun with the last St. Vincent album cycle, Daddy's Home, just one of the great album cycles of the 2020 so far. This album has been described as darker and harder. You're always happy about the darker and harder album. That's what this record is. I was really hoping she'd continue on the past she did with the cover of Thunkey Town for the Minions movie. I'm deeply disappointed in that Well that was a darker and harder version of that song

It was like the sinister version of Funky Town You know there was like a I mean I wasn't around last week I wasn't paying attention to the discourse So I don't know what the reaction was to this But on the album cover and also in the video St. Vincent is seen With flames coming out of her body

as if she is being self-emolated. And, well, it was reminiscent. Yeah, it was reminiscent, I guess, of recent news, the protest over the U.S. involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which I was really hoping to get into on this show, by the way. I was hoping we could do a deep dive into Israel and Palestine. Finally get to the bottom of that story. But no, there was the service man, the Navy person who protested the war.

Aaron Bushnell is his name, who sent himself on fire in protest and passed away. And then, like, this video dropped like a few days later of St. Vincent. Just doing it in a video, not as a protest or anything, just as a visual sort of stimuli in her video. Was there any controversy over that, or did people just go, oh, that? that's a weird coincidence, but, you know, how could she have known this would happen? Yeah, I think. Which would be the appropriate way to react to it. Yeah, I think people, like, maybe tried to get, like, to whatever extent you can make a joke about the confluence of these factors.

You know, people noticed it, and then it kind of went away. Like, if the Manicin Pussy AI video controversy was, like, a 10, this was like a 5. This is, like, micro. I'm just disappointed because this I don't want to say if St. Vincent is going. But the AI video was a bigger ideal than that? I honestly think that got. Yeah,

video? I think that got more traction. I honestly do. Just because like I think people, if they're either bored or just reasonable to know like, yeah, this is, this is kind of like, it's just a bad coincidence. But like, we,

I think they know how long it takes to put things out. It's like, oh why don't they change the cover in the video you know it's it's like well that's not how shit works but um yeah i would say the ai thing actually lasted longer which just kind of goes to show the completely warped ideals of like the DIY hardcore community um right but yeah the song's actually pretty good too this is like very disappointing for banter like a kind of narrative free st vincent album like i really hope she's not going father john misty mode well you know i mean i think I mean, her music is usually on point.

It's just like the daddy's home thing. You had some weird media appearances. Like she canceled in an interview at one point. So the press thing was kind of weird. Her relationship with the press is always like a little bit fraught. So that's going to be where we get the gold. Not so much with the record. So we'll see what happens.

St. Vincent. But we're glad you're back. Congratulations on your new record. We hope to hear from you soon. We also have to talk about this emo festival, Best Friends Forever. This was announced last week. This is taking place in October.

And it is a galaxy of emo stars of the past. You got bright eyes, Sunday Day real estate, Cap and Jazz, the Jesus lizard, they're not really emo, but they're in here. Unwound, you got the dismemberment plan, built a spill, not really emo,

but they kind of, They've been like grandfathered into emo. American football, the get-up kids, jaw box, pin back. Lots of old favorites here. This has taken place in Las Vegas. So in your neck of the woods, are you going to this thing?

This seems like Ian Cohen Central here. Yeah, all tomorrow's parties, Ian Cohen edition. It was very close because, like, I'm going to London in October, and, like, right when I get back, this is happening. so I'm like stoked that I'm going to be able to go to this. It's like a 40-minute flight from San Diego.

And I mean, how can I not go to this? Like, do I love the fact that it's in Vegas? I don't know because like when else am I going to go to Vegas? If I'm going to go to Vegas, it might as well be for that. But I'm just like kind of shocked how good this lineup is. There's like, I would say like no not good bands on. And that includes like the modern bands they got. They got mannequin pussy on there.

They got like Home is Ware, Foxing, Mama. I'm like dying to know how ticket sales are because people are excited about this, but is this something people will travel for? Is this proof of concept for future endeavors? Like, also, you can't do this festival more than once. Like, you've cleared out the vault. You know, there aren't too many other bands from the post-hardcore emo world in the late 90s, early 2000s that you can do to book a festival. But I mean, I'm really stoked for this. I mean, you're getting some legit value ads here.

It's like the first this memberment plan shows since 2014, I think. Last time I saw Cap and Jazz at FYFS in 2017, they were fucking awesome. It's going to be a fun time. It really is. And also, you get the Jesus lizard. He's going to give all of us a bunch of wedgies for being, like, emo. So you have to have that counterbalance. Yeah, I'm a little surprised that there's not like a fallout.

boy or like a My Chemical Romance, you know, like the arena punk thing to be like the standalone. Because, you know, you've got the top line, you've got bright eyes, sunny day real estate and cap and jazz. It feels like there needs to be like one band ahead of them. Like the single line headliner that would bring it on, like bring it all back home here. But maybe this is like the discerning emo fans festival. I mean, they have when we were young. I mean, that's like, you know, radius clause. You can't, like, all those bands are playing when we were young.

So, yeah, I mean, I'm stoked about it. If nothing else, it just kind of proof, it's like proof of concept. If you're talking about the book I'm trying to write, this is basically chapter one. So, yeah, this gives me the, this gives me a bump of motivation. So that is your pandering to your taste music event happening. mine is the National and the War on Drugs announcing a joint tour that is going to be taking place also in the fall

not coming to Minnesota which I take is a personal sign of disrespect but it is going to be in Wisconsin about a three hour drive I think I'm going to end up doing that and this is interesting because it takes me back Ian to the early 2010s because I saw these two bands play together

at the Beacon Theater in New York in 2011. And it was like the second time I'd seen the War on Drugs. I'd seen the National a few times by then, probably several times by then. This is like high violet era, the National. And the War on Drugs had recently put out Slave Ambient. I'm pretty sure that this was maybe the biggest room that they had ever played at that moment in time.

So they were clearly like the opening act. act of that tour. This feels more like they're co-headlining. I wonder if they're going to be switching, you know, who plays last. I mean, I feel like the national is still more popular, probably than the war on drugs, especially with the Taylor Swift bump that they've received. But, yeah, it just takes me back to the days of 2011. I remember around the time of that show, I moderated a joint interview between Aaron

Desner and Adam Granduccio. for the AV club. And it was basically this Aaron Desner asking Adam how he made Slave Ambient. He just wanted to know how he recorded that record. And I think like at the Beacon Theater show,

the National came out to the song Brothers from Slave Ambient, which, you know, great song, also very apropos for the National. You got two sets of brothers in that band. So yeah, I don't know. It's cool. It's like a full circle moment.

They're back. They're both big bands. It's going to be a great tour. It's going to be great for people like me. Graying beards. I like these bands. I know, but this is more of me. Yeah, this is absolutely your thing.

It's definitely more in my zone. The graying bearded, bearded 46-year-olds coming out in droves for this tour, I'm going to be there. It's going to be a lot of fun. I'm excited about it. Yeah, I'm glad that you gave me the historical context for this. Like, I had come under the erroneous assumption. This was like a De Niro and Pacino and Heat sort of thing where these two, like, you know, massive icons of their respective fields never really got together before. But it turns out they have much longer history.

Oh, yeah. I don't think, I mean, that show I saw, I don't think that they were touring together. They might have only played together at that show or played maybe like a handful of dates together. I feel like this is like the biggest full-blown tour that they've done together. But yeah, there's definitely been intersections with those two bands over the years. So cool to see. I'm excited about it. One last lightning round item on the agenda.

And this is like another like internet thing that was going around last week. Just wanted to bring it up on the show. It comes courtesy of music writer Grace Robin Somerville, who let's call her a friend of the pod. Yeah, friend of the pod. She tweeted out, I think it was like a Reddit page, there was some sort of like internet forum where people were debating is Yolatango a jam band?

And apparently there were like 11,000 responses to this question and they had to shut it down eventually because it just got too heated. People got very upset on either side of the equation. And look, for those who don't know, Yolatango, when you see them live, they play two sets.

they often extend their songs with long improvisations. They have covered the Grateful Dead on numerous occasions in the past. They even played a couple of shows with Trey Anastasio back in 2019, his solo band. So there are some jam band Bonafides here. I will say that I went on Twitter and I argued that Yolatango is a jam band. I don't think I actually believe that, But I like to say it because it angers a certain kind of indie rock person who gets very defensive when you point out that a lot of 90s indie rock bands have jam band tendencies to them. And even if they're not like culturally a jam band, they actually sound more like jam bands in retrospect than like a lot of contemporary indie rock bands.

And I'm not just talking about Yola Tango. You could say the same thing about pavement. You could say the same about Sonic Youth. You could say it about Bill to Spill. You could say it about the meat puppets. You know, all the way down the line. There's a lot of jammy 90s indie rock out there. And it amuses me to see people get very hot and bothered about someone putting their precious 90s indie rock in proximity to jam bands.

That's me trolling. I also don't think it's totally wrong, though. And I do think that it's worth sort of examining the prejudices that people have about this kind of music and realizing that the shit that they like is not all that different from this other shit that you are just so terrified to be associated with. So anyway, I'm very amused by that. I don't know if you care about this at all, but I found it very amusing to follow it last week. Yeah, I mean, I just love the content when, like, people are getting mad

about something. And, you know, like, when I saw Yolotango play last, they were opening for death cab and they played past the hatchet on good. I'm good kind for like 15 minutes of like an opening set. So I would say that's like, you know, objectively jammy, subjectively, maybe kind of freaking out the squares. But yeah, I think that like maybe, maybe not more so than like, I hate to, like, I feel so shitty saying this word pop-timism. The kind of, um, I know. That's why I could probably never, ever do an audiobook because I'll just, like, you feel with such self-loathing saying the things I actually write.

But, yeah, I think there's, like, an overall trend of the jam-coated bands that have really broke down a lot of walls that people put up, because, I mean, I live through the 90s. Like, jam band was like, you weren't mixing. You were just off on your own world. But, like, it's one of the greatest. differences between the conversation 15 years ago even and now is that like jam band, it's like assumed to be something that is part of the discussion rather than its own world. I mean, it might, I don't know if it's as impactful the acceptance of jam aesthetics than

like optimism, but yeah, like you see a Steve Malcolmish show and that guy's fucking noodling, man. And it's not and it's not in the Sonic Youth way where it's like, oh yeah, they're replicating like Ashraw Temple or Cann or you know like Crout Rock like the okay jam stuff like no this is straight tie-dye shit yeah and look again I think people get hung

up on culturally jam band you know there's there's an impression of like what that is and it goes back to the 90s this idea of like no indie rock is like punk and like we're we're anti-hippie and like we have to have a binary between what we are and what they are

it's very important to like erect these borders between what we like and what that is. And I'm always like, I don't like the borders. I don't think that they're meaningful. And I think it's worth looking at the border or looking at the wall and going, is this thing even real? Like, how much does this like really relevant? Especially now that we're like 30 years beyond the 90s.

And a lot of that sort of seeing politics, the taste politics at that time, just feel irrelevant at this point. But yeah, I don't know Even in the punk days Like Greg Jen from like black flag Would show up wearing like a you know He would wear tie-dye shirts I mean it's

He's a huge deadhead Yeah He's a huge deadhead So is Dave Navarro oddly enough Right Which makes sense I mean You could totally hear

He definitely loves very long guitar solos So yeah I don't know I am just eternally Amused by people getting upset about no they're not a jam band they're a band who jams okay i got you i got you man they're jam adjacent that's how that's that's how it goes in emo when people don't want their like favorite 90s band being like lumped in with emo bands it's like like the bands on the uh the festival we talked like jawbox no man they're they're their jam their emo adjacent even though like um you know j robins

produced every single emo record of that time okay well not that that we've put our lightning round here to bet. Okay, hold on. Let me redo that. All right, well, that's enough of the lightning round. Enough of last week. Got to stop living in the past here. Let's talk about the present.

Well, I guess we are still living in the past because the update. I was going to say we have to do our fantasy draft update and we're still catching up from last week. God damn, a lot happened last week. Good thing, nothing happened this week. We would have had to do a two-hour episode. Last week, we had a bunch of albums that are on our respective fantasy. teams come out. Manicin Pussy and Faye Webster for me came out last week. Yardack came out for you.

And this is where I currently stand on my fantasy team. Fay Webster, underdressed at the symphony. And again, this was an album that I traded for. I dropped Serp in with Feet to add this album. It's coming in an 83 at the moment. And I'm a little disappointed by that, I have to admit. I thought would be a little bit higher than that, but it's not far off from what I expected it to be. I thought that would be like an 85-86. And the reason why I'm quibbling over a few numbers is that I feel like it's going to be close again in our fantasy draft. We'll see if that makes a difference.

Manicin Pussy, I Got Heaven, currently at 88. Doing numbers. That is over-performing for me. I didn't expect it to do that well. I like that record quite a bit. It got an 8.8 from Pitchfork. I actually feel like that's a little high. I feel like that's more of like an 8.1, 8.2 record, but, you know, hey, for my fantasy team, I'm not going to complain.

Love the overperformance there. And then, of course, I had Katie Kirby. She's at 81. And then the smile was that one time at 86, that's actually dropped to 83. So I'm currently at what, like 335? Yes. And I have one album left, Julia Holter. What are you at?

You're at 264? I'm a 264, but I have two remaining. Oh, my God. Yeah, all three of my artists who are currently in play are booking in 88. What? Brittany Howard 88, Calliuchess, 88, and Yard Act, another overperformer, 88. Now, they haven't been reviewed by pitchfork yet, so I'm going to, I'm going to assume that that's probably going to dip a bit.

But that being said... Oh, my God. You're killing it. Yeah. I'm crushing it. And I'm fully confident that Wax a Hatch. Let's suppose that Julia Holter and Wax a Hatchie are awash, which, you know, it's not unreasonable. Jalen has to post a 72 or better. So...

Oh, damn it. Yeah. Well, you did make a wise move, I think, and this is both for our lessons, because I chose Sanfa last year and you chose Serpent with feet. I think that there's like kind of a lesson. There's like a work in the NFL draft. Like we're immersed in NFL draft stuff. There's like 15 different combine articles every day.

And you learn about trends. We got to avoid trying to go with like all R&B artists who peaked in 2018. Like that's a that's fools gold right there because certain with feats of 77. Yeah, I see that. Okay. So I did. So Faye was definitely a good upgrade from that. coming at an 83.

God damn, straight 88s? Yep. Because like waxed hatch, you could be an 88 too. I actually think, I mean, you're being kind here. I think that she'll probably outperform Julia Holter. But you never know. Julia Holter, I am kind of banking on that one being reviewed by like five places and them and all of them being raves.

So like maybe I could steal a 90 with her. I kind of need that. I think you're right. Here is my like galaxy brain thought. Like I feel like maybe the new Waxahatchy is going to be judged relative to St. Cloud, which was like, you know, 2020 across the board like top three. And so it might get a little underrated. Whereas Julia Holter, I think there's like positive vibes around this album and she hasn't

really had a moment in a minute. So you might be right. This might be just like some real like, this might be some. real galaxy brain, stars aligning. But that being said, I don't think Jalen's getting less than an 85. No, no. I'm in, I'm in big

trouble. And, you know, I don't want to talk too much about Waxahatchie yet. I do think it's a really good record. I don't think it's quite as good as saying Cloud. But she hasn't put out an album in four years and people really like her. I don't see that album

being sort of underrated. I think if it's going to lean one way or the other people would lean maybe towards overrating it. And I say that again with respect. I'm a fan of Waxahatchy. I think I'm in trouble. I'm not feeling good. I'm not feeling good about this at all.

My only hope is that like Jaylen gets canceled. Yeah, good luck like that. And that album doesn't come out. That's my only hope. I need like a power bottom situation here or something. That album just gets deleted off of every although that album was well reviewed before

I got deleted. That'd be an interesting situation. actually. Like, let's say an album on your fantasy team comes out really well reviewed, but then the artist is canceled and the album doesn't come out. Like, do those good reviews still count? I guess they probably do? I guess.

Or is that like a doping situation? Like, if one of your players was caught doping. But the home run still count, though. Yeah, that would count. Well, I'm thinking of like the NCAA. That'd be a fascinating turn. Yeah, I think it's like a, like with Louisville where you have to vacate your title.

Like it's like people know you won, but like on the record you have to like take down the banner in the KFC Am arena. Yeah, but are we in college or are we in the pros? Because a secret third thing. Yeah. I don't know. We got to,

we need like an NCAA or something to put down some bylaws here for the fantasy draft. You know, that probably won't happen. You know, you never know. We should know in advance how to handle that kind of thing. Let's get to our mailbag segment. And thank you all for writing. It's always great to hear from our listeners.

You can hit us up at Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. Ian, you want to read our email? Yeah. This one comes to us from Jordan from Cincinnati, not to be confused with the cult favorite HBO show. Yeah, I was going to say, like, does Jordan get a lot of John from Cincinnati jokes? Yeah. People always.

Hi, I'm. I'm Jordan from Cincinnati and you're like, oh, you mean like the 2007 HBO drama from David Milch that was canceled after one season? And you're like, no, that's John from Cincinnati. I'm Jordan from Cincinnati. And they're like, oh, okay, sorry about that. Yeah, it happens all the time. People cannot stop talking about John from Cincinnati. It's true.

My son's name is also bored. Hey, Stephen Ian, love the pod. You guys are appointment listening every Friday morning. Love SportsCast, too. My Jordan. Awesome. Maybe some baseball cast this spring, summer. My question is about movies, though.

Do you guys have a favorite acting performance slash cameo for a musician? I know Steve is probably partial to Dylan and masked and anonymous in the Humeo Ploosa episode of the Simpsons with the pumpkins and Sonic Youth. Keep up the good potting. Thanks. Jordan from Cincinnati. Baseball cast, probably not. Are you a baseball fan? Yeah, kind of, sort of.

I mean, like, last year we didn't really talk about a lot how, like, San Diego, the Padres were supposed to be, like, awesome. And they were just, like, terrible vibes and shitty, like to the point where the athletic had to run a, like, a 5,000 word expose on how bad the vibes were. I mean, I guess I am. Like, the Phillies are always in contention. So I'm ambiently interested in baseball. I tried to be in, like, a pitchfork fantasy baseball league once. and I just could not keep up. Yeah, you know, when I lived in Milwaukee, I was a big Brewers fan.

And Milwaukee is a great baseball town. And that was also before I had kids. So I just had hours and hours to burn in my life. I had nothing to do back then. So I would watch, you know, baseball, like three or four nights a week. I'd go to the games, tailgate. Again, Miller Park in Milwaukee, great tailgating scene. great parking lot.

I love to get back there. I haven't been to a Brewers game in like 10 years. It's way too long. Anyway, ever since I have had kids and I've moved to the Minneapolis area, I've just fallen off on it. A bad thing about Minneapolis, like the Twins Stadium, it's a great stadium, but you can't tailgate there. It's in the middle of town.

So there's no parking lot really to congregate, which is a big bummer. Is tailgating a thing there in San Diego? Sort of. We're in an interesting situation because actually our friends, my wife and I's friends who live in Milwaukee are like within walking distance from the stadium. So that was awesome. Oh, nice. But San Diego is interesting because like most places the stadium is like kind of marooned from like the good part of town. But like Pekko Park is right in the middle of downtown.

So you don't necessarily need to tailgate. You can just kind of go to a lot of the cool places. there and just head to the game. Also, like, the food scene in the stadium is incredible. But, yeah, I would say that San Diego tailgating is about what you would imagine. You know, there has to be a certain kind of intensity to the city in order for tailgating to really work. Philadelphia, that's incredible tailgating. I've been to that. Midwest, that's tailgating, Buffalo. San Diego is just way too chill to, like, have a good tailgating scene. Yeah, there is like a paradox about tailgating.

where it really flourishes in cold weather cities. Like the places where you actually could comfortably tailgate all year round, it seems like it's not as big of a thing. But yeah, like Wisconsin or like you said, Buffalo or like Philly, you know, it gets to be like 20 degrees. And you're, you know, drinking beer out of a Red Solo Cup at like 9 a.m. Before the game. And it's like, oh, it doesn't get any better than this.

You know, just freezing your ass off. drinking Bloody Marys. Okay, let's get to this question. Musicians as actors and films and TV shows. I have like a pretty long list. I figure, yeah. You've seen more movies than I have. So maybe you should go first.

Like, what jumps out to you here? Yeah, I was surprised that there was no redundancy because I figured, of course, Steve's going to sit. I'm like partial to the real life musicians playing fictional musicians that are like more or less based on the person they are. And I like cameos, not like. like real, you know, acting things. So, you know, I figured you would put the non-speaking acting part that Chris Cornell does in singles

where he watches Matt Dillon's character blow out the windows of his shitty car playing, like, very much non-grunge music. Um, and also, I'm not condoning his actions, but Mark Kozlik and almost famous the one line reading. He's like, I don't want to get some barbecue. Uh, it's got a couple other ones too. Like, well, yeah, there's, when he's on the bus, and they see the girls

running outside the bus and he says something like oh teenage girls something like that like not a line that's aged well with Marcossa like but yeah there's I don't remember the exact line

but yeah there's the line with him I thought that was like one of the outtakes but I figure you're going to be more in the rock and roll side me I've seen just like a lot of straight to DVD rap movies from like the late 90s early 2000s. And I'm like being dead serious when I say that Cameron's portrayal of Rico and

paid in full is legitimately legendary. There's one scene in the hospital. If you watch this movie, you know which one I'm talking about. I'm not going to quote it on this pod because it involves some foul language. But I mean, that's like legitimate theater compared to kill a season. And I want to propose in a bylaw that if Steve loses a future fantasy league draft that he should have to watch, kill a season in its entirety. It's a movie you can experience from just like reading Reddit threads and YouTube comments. Like the actual movie looks like it costs $2,000 to make and it's like two and a half hours long.

It's like Lord of the Rings style. It's inspired like my favorite Tom Brihan column. It's actually still online somehow, even though it was written for the Village Voice, things I learned watching Cameron's Kill a Season. So I would say like that's my favorite. I don't even want to call it acting, but it's inspired like the most fun conversations between my friends and I. So just go watch, like go look up on YouTube any scene from Kill a Season. It's like if you want to see a movie where Cameron delivers a eulogy for his grandfather in rap form,

but doesn't mention his grandfather at all, this is the kind of movie for you. So I haven't seen Kill a Season. It sounds incredible. It doesn't even sound like punishment to make me watch that. like it would be a gift. I mean, when I was thinking about, like, rappers acting, because that's its own category. I mean, there's actually, like, a lot of good rapper performances, and there's people, like, Ice Tea and Ice Cube that have had, like, long careers as actors.

I mean, like, Ice Tea and New Jack City. Right. Come on. Yeah. Just amazing. He's got the big beret. He's got the line where he, you know, gets Wesley Snipes, and he says, I want to shoot you so bad. My dick is hard.

Classic line. I got Ice Cube and Boys in the Hood. That's amazing. And 22 John Street. He was great in that. Yeah, I mean, look, there's lots of great ice cube performances. Ice Cube and Three Kings, he's great. But I think Ice Cube and Boys in the Hood, that would be the one, if I had to pick one

ice cube performance. That's classic. Drey and Snoop, both in Training Day. You got, like, Snoop as, like, the disabled drug dealer. And then you have, like, Dre as a dirty cop in. Denzel Washington's like strike team or whatever. That's great. You get Eminem in 8 Mile, but even more than that, like his cameo and funny people.

I don't know if you've seen funny people. So long ago. That movie was longer than Lord of the Rings it felt like. Yeah, that movie's long, but there's a good scene with Eminem. Like he's friends with Adam Sandler and they're in a restaurant and someone recognizes Eminem and, wait, no, he's with somebody else and Eminem sees him and they get into like a fight or something. That's pretty funny. On the more cameo tip, you also got to shout out, you know, not just Chris Cornell in singles, like Eddie Vedder in singles.

He has some lines and he's pretty funny. And Jeff Amit and Stone Gosser, too, are both in singles. They play Matt Dillon's band. I also got a shout out Eddie Vedder in Walk Hard, the Dewey Cox story, his induction speech for Dewey Cox, especially the long version. Brilliant, just a brilliant cameo. I gotta shout up my man Bruce Springsteen and High Fidelity. Second time we're bringing up High Fidelity in this episode. That's great.

I recently wrote a column, I think it's out today, actually, about Leonardo DiCaprio. I watched all of his movies and I ranked his films. He has a film that is like officially unreleased called Don's Plum. And it was filmed in like the mid-90s and it's like all improvised. And it's all these like 90s actors like Toby McGuire's in it. E from entourage is in it. it and Jenny Lewis is in it. Jenny Lewis is in it and she actually has like a pretty big part in it and she's really

great in it actually. I like her in that movie. Other just like great musician performances, David Bowie and like lots of things but as Pontius Pilate in the Last Temptation of Christ, it's like David Bowie is the man cast to execute Jesus Christ. Like what could be better than that? Chris Christoperson in lots of things. I use an amazing actor, but especially in Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid.

Great. Dwight Yokem in lots of things, but Panic Room. He plays like the psycho guy in the criminal group that breaks into that house. Really good. Also, Dwight Yonkham in Slingblade. Got to shout him out in that movie. Willie Nelson in Thief, Michael Man's Thief. He has like a really small part.

It's kind of weird that he's in it, but he's really good. And then I got a shout out my man. Tom Petty in the Larry Sanders show, but also in the Postman, the Kevin Costner post-apocalyptic movie. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah, geez. From 1995, Tom Petty just shows up in there. Tom, like, Wildflowers era Tom Petty, just amazing. So, yeah, lots, you said Bob Dylan, Bob Dylan, and he's also in Pat Garrett and Billy the kid. So that has a lot of musicians acting in it.

Also, shout out Joe Strummer. he's like a really good actor in straight to hell Alex Cox's movie so that's like a ton of recommendations this is like criterion channel cast right here out there I love that yeah yeah and all I can do is like say hey I saw choices the movie and I think Project Pat really nailed it

All right we now 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 once you go first And another downside to not being able to record over the past week is that, you know, albums get forgotten so quickly that this one is a real blast from the past. This came out a whole two weeks ago. It's from a band called Little Kid. They're Canadian.

They released their last time, I think, in 2020, which, like right in May when, like, the lockdown was, like, really becoming like, oh, my God, how long is this going to go on? So it kind of flew under the radar when their new album, A Million Easy Payments came out at the end of February. It's on Orndal Records, a Philly-based recommendation corner favorite. The bio was written by the guy from Friendship, another recommendation favorite. And so you got a sense of what to expect here. Stylistically, it's like I would describe it as indie folk, but like the kind that has like flutes and strings and the songs are seven and a half.

half and sometimes 10 minutes. But it's very writerly and shockingly dark and angry in places. Some of the lyrics, even though they're being whispered, will just kind of jar you with how explicit they are, you know, about like politics or just like the guy's own like traumatic upbringing, very literary as well. I kind of think of it as like a Dubya era, freak indie folk record, you know, like maybe Sufyan or Devendra Banhart sounding. but if artists were as mad about him as they are now about politics like this is the kind of album

that would like really hit a lot harder back then but it's an album i really can't say enough good things about and i'm just kind of not surprised that it hasn't gotten more traction but i'm disappointed so let's hope that people uh people uh who are listening check it out and um yeah yeah that sounds cool i will dig into that when we stop recording I want to talk about a band that I've talked about before on this show, a band from Austin, Texas, called Good Looks. I was a big fan of their 2022 debut Bummer Year. And I remember when I first heard about this band,

the publicist was like, this is a total Stephen Hayden band. And I believe he described them straight up as Heartland Rock. And they are Heartland Rock. It's just great, open-hearted songs with airy guitars, Plain spoken lyrics. All the good stuff. Bummer year, great record.

Well, I'm happy to report that Good Looks is back. They put out a new single this week. It's called If It's Gone. It's from their forthcoming record that's going to be out in June, which I'm sure I'll talk about when it comes out, called Lived Here for a While. And yes, that title does remind me of the Last War on Drugs album. I don't live here anymore.

Heartland Rock songs about moving. I'm just a sucker for it. This song, in particular, if it's gone, I think it's like one of the best good looks songs I've ever heard. Just a great song for Spring. Again, if I say Heartland Rock, and it evokes something in you that you love, something that reminds you, say, of maybe born in the USA, cross with the War on Drugs, cross with the Bodine's,

and all those other good things, this band's going to be up your alley, and this song is going to be up your alley. It's really great. And look, I know it's not the album. I'm just previewing. the album right now, but this song, I've literally listened to this album, I'm sorry, I've listened to this song

27 times this week. So good. One of my favorite songs I've heard this year. Again, it's called If It's Gone, the band is Good Looks, check it out. Really good band. Yeah, I like this band, too. It's got that kind of like Austin's sort of like college rock sort of vibe to it as well. So I have that in the queue. I'm looking forward to listening to it. I think we got to mention a new

Wild Pink song that references Coldplay in the title. Oh my God. That's another hour-long thing we need to do. And that song, I think it dropped right before we started recording, so I haven't heard the Wild Pink song. But yeah, you got Wild Pink, you got good looks. Heartland Rock is back.

We're eaten. We're so back, Heartland Rockers. 2024 is going to be a good year. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news, reviews, and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix tape 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.