Indiecast - Fontaines DC + The Defining Indie Artists Of "Obamacore"

Episode Date: August 23, 2024

Steven and Ian open this week's episode by talking about pontoon boats -- Steven was on one this week, and he listened to Steve Winwood's "Back In The High Life Again" on a loop. Ian shares his own pontoon story about someone named Uncle Zippy (2:05). After a brief look at the Fantasy Albums Draft (5:05) -- Steven has records from Sabrina Carpenter, The Spirit Of The Beehive, and Illuminati Hotties out this week -- they talk about a recent article charting the pop culture events of the Obamacore era. Steven asks Ian for his take on artists like Tune-Yards, Chance The Rapper, and Run The Jewels -- are they Obamacore? What is Obamacore, anyway (14:47)?After that, they talk about Romance, the new album from Irish rock band Fontaines DC. Is this the record that finally gets the guys on board with a band they are otherwise indifferent about? (It is for one of them!) (36:10). In the mailbag, a listener corrects some misinformation about a recent Ween concert (46:35). Steven and Ian also answer an email about driving long distances to concerts when you live in a small town. (They also discover the Canadian hardcore band Dayglo Abortions, for better or worse.) (48:39)In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the latest from Magdalena Bay while Steven stumps for BBsitters Club (56:38).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 203 here 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 X (formerly 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 Indycasts 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 Obamacore and Fontaine's DC. Not necessarily the same thing there. My name is Stephen Heiden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. I wonder when he last hung out on a pontoon boat? Ian Cohen.

Ian, how are you? Yeah, just for our listeners to know, We're going to spend the rest of the summer talking about various watercraft and which music fits on either one of them. You know, we're going to talk about pontoons. We're maybe going to talk about canoes, kayaks. Yes. And jet skis, right? You've been jet skiing lately?

Not in the past few, not in the past few years, but recently. Since I've been in San Diego, jet skis, I used to always say, like, when I was, like, in my 20s that I'd much rather have a jet ski than a kid. and I still stuck to that. I don't have either right now, but I can rent a jet ski, which I do, because I've dated people in the past who have heard that I like jet skis

and like they've to a person that's like a white trash thing. And I'm like, no, you've never been on a jet ski. And jet ski's fucking rule. My wife is pro jet ski. See, I've never been on a jet ski. I was just thinking about this jet ski or kid's scenario.

And the downside of that is that a jet ski won't take care of you when you're old. However, a jet ski also won't talk back to you. So the jet ski will take care of you. Like when you're in assisted living at the end of your life, they'll just prop you up on a jet ski that'll keep you young at that age. Is that what you're saying? Yes. And I will be taking no follow-up questions on this.

Okay. All right. I was on a pontoon boat this week. I was in lovely Wisconsin Dells for a family vacation. I was there for several days. Had a really great time. On the second to last day, the penultimate day, if you will. My family, we all rented a pontoon boat.

It went down the Wisconsin River. Beautiful. I was manning the music. I was playing tunes that were appropriate for going down the river. of course played some CCR because you're literally rolling on the river at that point. I had a bit too where any time I wanted someone to drink a Miller High Life,

I would play Back in the High Life by Steve Winwood, which I discovered because I was doing boots on the ground music journalism on this topic, that Back in the High Life by Steve Winwood is the greatest pontoon boat song of all time. I know that there's like, there's songs that are literally about pontoon boats. I think there's a song by Little Big Town,

who I know you're a big fan of, the country trio. They have a song called Pontoon. But I don't know, that's a little too on the nose. I think that the sound of Back in the High Life by Steam Woodwood, it's so perfect for a pontoon boat. I don't know if you've ever experienced that in your life, Ian, rolling out of a river, listening to Back in the High Life by Steve Winwood, but it's pretty great.

It's quite possible because, you know, first off, I love the fact that you're playing back in the high life and giving someone a Miller High Life. Like, I know icing was a big Obama core sort of trend. So maybe we're bringing that back. But I'm thinking back to the one time I was on a pontoon. And it might have been when back in the high life was kind of a new song. Wow. Yeah. I remember hearing that song when I was at Hershey Park as a young kid.

I might have been like 10 years old or something like that. And we went to Maryland for some reason or another and we went crabbing on a pontoon with somebody named Uncle Zippy. I don't recall hearing about this person, seeing this person or having their name mentioned once after that trip. I'm going to have to like call my folks and, you know, dig into this piece of Cohen family lore. But I just love how like him talking about jet skis and pontoon. and, you know, Steve Winwood's solo career, we're, like, kind of micro-dosing the Eastbound and Down summer, which, again, that's an Obama-era comedy, maybe not Obama Corps.

No, no, I feel like that's the antithy. We're kind of skipping ahead to Obama Corps here. We're going to get to that here in a minute. I feel like Eastbound and Down is, like, the antithesis of a lot of Obama-Corps stuff, at least what I think of as being sort of, you know, defining of that era. I feel like that was an antidote to a lot of that stuff. But we should talk about that in a minute. Before we get to that, I want to talk briefly about our fantasy draft.

Today is a big day for me, personally, my team. I have three albums that are coming out today that I drafted. I have Illuminati Hotties. Their album is called Power. There's a new Spirit of the Beehive record called You'll Have to Lose Something. And then there's Sabrina Carpenter, her album Short and Sweet, which is one of my favorite album titles of 2024 because she's like 4-11, I guess.

She's really short. So, if it's referring to her? 34 minutes. Right. I think there's many levels to this. I think it refers to the album. It refers to her. I don't know if there are other height-related topics

that are broached on that record. We'll have to see when it comes out. None of these albums are on Metacritic yet. So I don't know if they haven't been reviewed or they haven't been reviewed enough. So we'll talk, I guess, more about that next week. We should have more information. This is basically like my Super Bowl today. If these albums don't deliver or if any of these albums dip below the 80 Mendoza line,

like that's for us. Any album that dips below 80, you're in serious trouble in the fantasy draft. If any of these albums with, I am on my way to wait. What? This is like my fourth straight loss, I think. Yes. Yes. I believe it would be 0 for four. So that would be the sweep. I think right now you are hoping perhaps for the gentleman's sweep, as they say. But yeah. Yeah, but it's interesting because I didn't expect Sabrina Carpenter to be discussed.

There's got to be an embargo on her album reviews. But I've not seen much. And again, this might be more due to my lifestyle or just being, you know, completely swamped with other forms of work. But, yeah, I haven't seen much, like, banter about, I mean, Spirit of the Beehive got, like, the stereo gum album, The Week, nod. And I haven't seen that thing. That's going to do well. I think, I feel good about Spirit of the Beehive and Sabrina Carpenter. There's not a lot of worries there. I think Sabrina, I don't want to get too bold.

I think she could approach 90. Maybe not hit 90, but she's going to be up for 80s. I would expect Spirit of the Beehive to be mid-80s. I'm a little nervous about Illuminati Hotties. I feel like that could be a 79 very easily and you know good band were both fans of that band

I think I was banking on the goodwill vote for Illuminati Hotties because that band is generally acclaimed Sarah Tudson respected as a songwriter musician and producer but yeah I'm not hearing much talk about that record either so I don't know that that might not mean anything

You might still get, again, like the one freelancer who loves Illuminati Hotties is just going to rubber stamp the positive review. I guess that's what I'm banking on. But yeah, it doesn't, it's not a world beating record. It doesn't feel like. Yeah, I think what you're looking for is what I would call the Billy Voleck strategy. This is like hardcore remembering some guys. But I remember I won a Fantasy League back then because this was a quarterback for the Titans who would just rack up so much garbage time. yardage and yeah it doesn't like if for fantasy draft it doesn't matter whether you know your team the

team wins in real life you just want the points and so if lumini hotties is like an album that gets like memory hold a couple weeks from now but as you said the person who's been reviewing all the illuminati hoddy albums show out and give it like an 82 that's a win that's a billy boleck right there yeah and that's all i'd need i'm not relying on illuminati hatties to make my team i just hope it doesn't break my team. We should say, too, I haven't heard any of these records yet. Have you heard any, like you said, the Spirit of the Beehive record getting good reviews. I haven't heard it yet.

I guess I'm going to wait until it comes out. Have you dipped into that album? Yeah, I have. You know, that one's been, it was given a real push by its people. And I'm, like, Spirit of the Beehive, I don't know. Is this like the Zumer version of, like, Deer Hunter where, like, every, not like, in the fact they sound like Deer Hunter. I mean, they do a little bit.

But in the sense that like, oh, this is like our left of center band that kind of defined like who we are as an indie rock generation. I mean, I've been reviewing. I've been following them, I think, since like 2014. I reviewed an album of theirs in 2017. And I said it was called Pleasure Suck and it reminded me of wean. So, you know, maybe maybe you need to check that one out. But I just can't. it's it's one of my great disappointments as like a indie rock lifer that i cannot wrap my head around

this band like i have tried so hard and uh i just haven't found myself really connecting with an album of theirs on like a front to back experience and i think i'm also influenced by how over the past i don't know six some odd years they their influence might be kind of a net negative uh i see a lot of Philly bands who like hear Spear to the Beehive and they start putting all these like tape warp and vocal pitch shifting effects and they all of a sudden forget how to write a song, um, you know, and you,

you can't, it's sort of like animal collective in that you can't do animal collective better than animal collective, you know, you got to be able to like write a my girls as well as a, you know, number one, uh,

or, you know, kuku, or whatever you want to put as like, uh, you know, the animal collective weird song. So,

um, I still, I still feel like okay about this record. Like I'll probably find one song that like I put on a mix and remember at the end of the year. But yeah, I think this is just such a weird generation gap with Spirit of the Beehive. Yeah, it's interesting you compare them to Deer Hunter because I feel like they haven't made, you know, their Halcyon Digest, where they are this left to center band. But, you know, with that record, you felt like Deer Hunter was making their classic. It felt almost like their Siamese dream or their disintegration,

like a big sounding, beautiful, immaculate record that everyone can get behind. I don't know if they've done that. Maybe this record is it from the way you're describing it. Maybe not. I'm intrigued by this band. They're not a band that has, like, captured my imagination, really. And maybe they are more of a zoomer phenomenon or a young millennial phenomenon. If you are, you know, in your early 20s, this might be.

be the band that you hear and they're like they're opening up all the possibilities in my mind. This is showing me what music can do. I could see them being a band for people of that generational cohort. Maybe if you're a little bit older, you'd be like, well, I don't know if I really get this, but I am intrigued to check that out. And of course, I have a vested interest in critics loving this record because they're on my fantasy team and I don't want to lose four in a row. So please critics, praise this record, overpraise this record. This is a record. This is a record. that I need to do well. This is one of the leaders of my team. I need them to

come through. This is Ladenian Tomlinson, if we're in the aughts. Wasn't Ladany and Tomlinson? Wasn't he like the number one pick back to for a long time? Yeah, him, Priest Holmes, Marshall Falk. This is back when like running backs could get like 25

carries and eight receptions. Like before, you know, NFL teams figured out, oh, like we can just get a new one once the old guy turns 28, you know, you see, like, yeah, I just love reading, like, NFL fantasy previews, and they're talking about a guy like Derek Henry or, you know, it's like, oh, he's in his age 31 year, like, you know, like we're talking about, like, David Bowie making Black Star. Yeah, I mean, running backs are like rich guy wives at this point.

If you age out of your 30s, you're going to get dumped for a younger model. Priest Holmes, what a great name, by the way. Incredible running back name, priest homes. That should be the name of a show that aired on NBC in the 80s about like a father in a church, like a Catholic priest who runs like a youth home. Yeah. I'm thinking like Obama. Michael Landon is in it.

He plays priest homes in the show. I was thinking of like kind of a post house sort of like priest where it's like kind of a dark, possibly spectrum type guy, but he gets results, whatever those results are for a priest. I don't know what the equivalent of house is in the religious world. So he solves crimes, are you saying? He's a priest who solves crimes? Religious. He solves religious woes.

Someone comes in with a seemingly inc, like an intractable spiritual malady and priest Holmes gets to the bottom of it. See, I think he would be on the road. So in each episode, he's in a different town, and then he comes upon some issue that he has to solve. So maybe there's a family, the mom and dad are going to get divorced, or maybe there's another situation where the dad has a bunch of gambling debts and priest homes has to help get him to, you know, gamblers anonymous or something. That could be a show. It sounds like a Warren Zvon song. It could be good.

Could be good. Let's talk about Obamacore. There was a great, albeit exhausting article that went up on vulture.com this week. It was, let's look at the headline, 100 pop, I was scanning through here. I can't see the headline. Here we go, 100 pieces of pop culture that defined Obamacore. And it's very extensive. It goes through everything.

Reading this article, I enjoyed it and I also kind of hated it. at the same time, because it takes you through this era, 2008 to 2016. And it's all these things that you have not thought about in a long time. And yet, as soon as someone mentions it, you instantly remember it, you instantly remember how you felt, you instantly feel secondhand embarrassment, you feel a tension in your body. Your muscles are tensing. Your shoulders are going up near your earlobes. I felt like my body, like, getting locked into a position.

I felt like Robert De Niro in Awakening's. Have you seen that movie, like, where he can't move? And then he takes the drug, and then he can move for a while, and then the drug wears off, and then he's stiff again. It's a great movie. I got nothing for you. I know a lot of a bomb. Penny Marshall directed Robert De Niro, Robin Williams.

heartwarming film 1990. Maybe it's streaming somewhere. Anyway, but I'm just scrolling through it right now. You make my dream scene. You make my dreams come true scene in 500 days of summer. Remember that? There's no, like, I saw that.

I'm like, there's no fucking way that was Obama Corps. That had to be 2004. No way. That's late. That's late 2000s. I remember that. And, you know, you got Glee. You have the Mindy Project.

Yeah, that's extremely, extremely Obama core. You've got, man, high maintenance, remember that show? Oh, yeah. You've got, man, God, where the wild things are trailer. Remember that? Again, that's another thing where I was just like, oh, that's got to be 2006, man. No. Like, that's so first term Obama.

That screams first term Obama to me. That trailer. or Carly Ray Jepson on Jimmy Fallon doing Call Me Maybe on toy instruments. Oh my God. This story, it's amazing. It just walks through all of these moments that they're calling Obamacore. And for me, when I think about Obamacore, like what defines it in my mind is I'm trying to think of like a delicate way of saying this. but I associated it with like with a sort of performative like rich person version of liberalism

you know like a I went to an elite college and now I work at a you know trendy place and I'm online a lot and I want to express how again this sort of like fake liberalism that I think was really prevalent at that time, this like self-righteous kind of smug attitude that pervaded either when people were serious or like a lot of the comedy of that time also has that, like the rally to restore sanity and or fear, that thing. You wrote about that one, and I thought that was great. You wrote about that one like in the past couple years, right? Well, it's, I wrote about that in the Springsteen book.

That's in the last chapter. Just how much of a time capsule that is in terms of looking at. at being on the right or the left as being extreme and that most people wanna be in the center. That was the attitude and I think that centriism was very indicative of certainly the early Obama years and then you could just see as time went on, that kind of centriism just totally fell out of fashion.

But there was like a real sort of like, we've got everything figured out type energy at that time. You know that these, that we had to deal with in the past, whether it be like racism or sexism or what have you. Like we're moving beyond it. We figured it out. We elected Obama. You know, we've crossed a certain threshold here.

We're progressing. We're feeling ourselves. We're feeling good. And that just slowly going away. And then, of course, ending with Trump getting elected in 2016. We've been talking about this list this week. We're DMing back and forth. I mean, what was your?

your take on it. I want to do something here in a minute where I want to run down some artists that I think in my mind, like musical artists that I think are Obama core. I want to get your take if you agree with me or not. I want to yay or nay whether you think they're Obamacore. But what did you think about this article? Like you, I could read maybe three or four entry because like these are not just, this is not just a list. This is a hundred things and each one has like a paragraph or two of a blurb. So it's an exhaustive and exhausting read. And I can get like three or four at a time before I just start seizing up. It's tough.

Yeah. It's physically hard to get through this article. Yeah, because it's so. They did a great job. It's a testament to how well they did this article that it is so painful to look at. Yeah. But it's, it's, it's a fucking incredible piece of work. And it's, it's hard to read in the sense that like there's, there's like this, there's this like,

loophole in time where like five, six or eight years ago feels like way longer in the past than 10 or 20 years. It's yeah. And when I think about, when I think they call it Obama Corps. And I just want to say that there is a, I think there's a conflation between Obama era and Obama Corps because those two aren't necessarily the same thing. Like when I think of Obama Corps, like 2008 to 2016. was my peak as a music writer.

I mean, I was like churning out like a review or two a day or something like that. And I didn't have TV because that was like the only time of my life where I've been like primarily writing about music. So of course, I was like broke as fuck most of the time. And I just barely watch TV, listen to music, played video games. And yet when I think of that time and what defines it, I don't think of music. Like I think of Aziz Ansari or that one year pitchforkfest had a comedy stage. that was like drowned out by liars over on the next stage.

I think of, of course, Hamilton. I think of working in comedy and being sent funny or die videos that literally made me want to die. I think of the I Drink and I Know Things Game of Throne T-shirts. But you're right. It's like this set. So it's like a, I think of it as like smug kind of, oh, well, we can have political music. But, you know, the good guys are in charge. So it's like, you know, sending your kid to like one of those.

rooms you can just like break shit and containment. And a lot of the comedy of that time is like, oh, we're in a post racial era. So like a lot of the jokes were kind of straight up like racist or sexist, but like done with like an arched eyebrow. So I think what makes me cringe about it is that like during that time, it really felt like, oh, we're, we can never go backwards. Like you would see articles saying that, yeah, the Republican Party is dead. They're going to go the way of the wigs.

We're kind of going to be a one party country going forward. and like look where it got us. So there's just this like cringe at how blind we were. But as far as like the music goes, like I'm, I think of, it's funny, I think Obama Corps for me, musically, really took shape after he left office. Like the playlist that he makes nowadays to me define Obama Corps more so than like the music of the time, if that makes sense. If I could bracket the Obama core era, it begins with TV on the radio.

is Dear Science and ends with Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book. Yeah. That's what I think. Or like Wally's the mixtape about nothing. That one like that. Have you ever heard that? I don't think so. Okay.

So Wale is a rapper who's had a very interesting career arc. He started as like kind of a proto-hipster rapper, kind of like Das Racist or like early Drake or Childish Gambino. It was an out. It was a rap album frame. by a lot of Seinfeld quotes. And, you know, he went on to become, like, a part of Maybach music group. He, like, became kind of a strip club rapper. But, like, that's really a 2008 rap mixtape.

And, but, yeah, TV on the radio's dear science is where the Obama era begins. And Chance the Rapper's Coloring Book is where it ends. And to Pimp a Butterfly, I'd say it's defining album of the time. All right. Well, okay, let's get to this. Because I made a list here of artists that I associate with Obama Corps, where, and this is the test I always use, if you were going to make a documentary

about this era or a film, what songs would you play that would instantly denote the era? And there are certain artists that I think are so tied to that time that to me, you know, they could have existed in a different time, but they wouldn't have risen to prominence

in the same way in any other time in history except this period of time. So there's three artists that I think for sure are Obamacore, and I want to get to, your take on it. I have some others too that I think are more controversial and I want to get your take on it. But the three that I think for sure are Obama Corps. One, tune yards. I think that to me is like

maybe the quintessential Obama Corps and maybe who kill that record feels so Obama era to me. It came out almost exactly in the middle of the Obama era. It came out in 2011. It's a it's a record that engages with black culture and yet there's no black people really involved in that group at all. And it's like it has an attitude toward that kind of music that in retrospect feels a little insulting, you know, where you have songs like gangst, like songs called gangsta and powa. I mean, they talk about this in the vulture article. I think they make a really solid case for that. But do you agree? I mean, I think Tun Yards is very solidly Obamacore. So I'm going to make maybe a controversial statement on this because I do agree that in any year that isn't 2011, it doesn't become the, like, you know, Paas and Jop was still a viable critics list at that time.

And it was famously voted number one that year and Chuck Closterman wrote about, it's funny because the Vulture article references the piece that Chuck wrote for Grantland where he basically said, are we going to look back on this? record and wonder like, oh, why did we love this record so much? Or you remember that like six month period where we thought two in your arts was brilliant? And he got murdered for that in the moment. And they referenced that article in the vulture thing. And they take a little bit of a shot at Chuck. I think they said, yeah, it was condescending and they might even call him misogynist, which I think is off base. I don't want to go back into my misogynist versus sexist distinction again. But then they say, but he was also right, which is a pretty funny thing to say. But anyway,

you were saying. With tune yards, like, yeah, it's very much of its era. But like, and I would have said maybe in 2016 at the end of the Obama era, like, yeah, this is absolutely one of the pinnacles of Obama quarantines

of like what defines it. But like, when I think about that album now, what it meant, what I just think of all the, and again, I'm trying to walk lightly here. It just reminds me of like all the anti-racist book clubs that came out like you know after like you know after the protest for George Floyd in 2020 like that is like a that what album was like way ahead of its time in some

way so it's Obama era but like spiritually it feels like something that's happening like a couple of years ago so yeah like because like you know like power like gangsta like also having like I think like primarily like white dancers on stage um you know there's like a song about like you know like having a fantasy about uh when i have sex with a cop sort of like uh sur-sychosexy but like more woke oh my god and uh yeah and so yeah like politically it just feels like it's set the course for like resistance politics more than obama core so i think this is a rich text to talk about uh you know i i i don't quite there are many other things which I would put as like Obama Corps as opposed to Obama era.

Okay, that's an interesting point. I still think it's Obama Corps, but I take your point. I think that's an interesting observation. The other two I had were Chance the Rapper and Carly Ray Jepson. To me, again, if I was making a documentary about the early 2010s, I would absolutely have something from acid rap in that movie, and I would have Call Me Maybe in that movie. Do you consider them Obama era or Obama Corps?

Chance the Rapper is about as one-to-one Obama Corps as you could come up with. Like, you know, charismatic guy from Chicago and, you know, he's doing the Arthur theme. And, yeah, it just, it strikes me as like, oh, this is kind of what we wanted with, like, you know, Childish Gambino's camp. Obviously, a chance the rapper takes a far different approach. But, you know, in the same way that, like, Obama would have, you know, like a religious component to what he does, like, Chance the Rapper was a church guy. I think it's extremely Obamacore that they had a side project called Donnie Trumpet. Oh, my God. Yeah, that might be the most Obamacore album of all time, the Donny Trumpet and the something something.

I forget what the end is there. Yeah. You mentioned to Pimp a Butterfly being a defining. Obama Corps album Kendrick Lamar is interesting because six months ago I would be tempted to call him an Obama Corps artist but then not like us totally changes that

equation where because there was a moment where he felt maybe locked in the 2010s where that was how he was going to be remembered for those early records and it almost felt a little like people were maybe second guessing how praised he was I mean he won a Pulitzer Prize

in the 2010s. So he was the most critically acclaimed artist of the Obama era, I think without question. Maybe Kanye is in there too. But it was a different kind of praise for Kendrick where people looked at him. There was like 100% approval rating for Kendrick Lamar, I think.

And it felt like that changed, but then the Drake feud knocked that out of the park and now it feels like he has this second act or maybe it's a third act to his career that he didn't have before. Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, even though like, Damn is the one he won a Pulitzer for and that came out in 2017, uh, that album was like in a weird, I mean, there was definitely a political angle to it,

but that was like kind of his version of a pop album. But, you know, you think about like to pimp a butterfly. That is a definitive Obama core album to me because, you know, it is very much, you know, based out of like, you know, Black Lives Matter movement, like the place. police brutality that was happening in mainstream. But like we've been saying, it's almost, there's like, can I just say quick that Dam? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, sorry. I was just going to say, like, Dam has a record.

That's the record where he does the duet with U2, which I think is about, that's about as Obama Corps as you can get, Kendrick and you two on the same song. Even though it came out like, you know, technically in the Trump era, maybe that's the last album of the Obama Corps. era. It's damn. It's Kendrick and you two getting together on a track and people are like, okay, this has gone too far. Now I'm going to vote for the orange man going down the escalator. I've just been pushed to the brink by Kendrick here. I can't believe a song on that record has been memory hold for me, but I forgot that he had Bono on that. Holy shit. The whole band is on there.

I believe the whole band is on there. Yeah, it's all of you. too. It's not just Bono. I believe you got Larry Mullen Jr. and Adam Clayton laying down the groove. I don't know what the edge is doing. I don't know if he's laying down some guitar, maybe some like Moog. I don't know if he's dropping that in there. But

yeah, that's all of you two on that track. Would run the jewels be Obama Corps? Absolutely. 100%. They feel like it. Because like that's an out, and we've talked about this before. Yeah, because it's like kind of like you know, oh, look at this. It's like deaf jokes and

Dundon family getting together there's like you know the kind of buddy the buddy comedy buddy cop routine you know it's like kind of

vaguely political but like again there's that containment where it's like yeah we can bring this stuff up but you know the good guys are in charge so it's not the same sense

of like urgency to it you could get the sense that like oh the actual president would listen to that album you know in the same in the way that like you know

Joe Biden or Donald Trump absolutely would not. So yeah, run the Jules, even though they're a band that's like, or an act that's like popular now. The first two, possibly three, I don't remember when the third one came out. But yeah, Run the Jules 2 is like extreme like fortunate son in the movie type Obama Corps. And I feel like Killer Mike has had a similar trajectory to Obama post presidency where people, people don't look at him in quite the same way. There is a self-righteousness to Killer Mike that people liked in the Obama era. And now I feel like it maybe turns people off. So there's a similar, I think, arc between Obama and Killer Mike, maybe from that time,

if that makes sense to you. Yeah. Also, Killer Mike says a lot of dumb shit. Well, that too. That Obama does not. Is Bonnie Bear Obama Corps? Hmm. I don't think so.

I mean, he's Obama era to me. Right, right. Now, again, this is like due to my own lack of studiousness with this list. They talk about like, you know, stomp, clap, hey ho, luminaires. Yeah. Okay, good. Because, like, to me, Boni Vair seems like an artist just because he takes so fucking long between albums that he kind of transcends it. Now, Fleet Fox's work on a similar sort of timetable, but I think of them as Obama Corps.

Yeah, I think so, too. political or whatever, but like, I, because, you know, they precede, you know, all those bands. But yeah, Fleet Foxes to me seem Obamicor, Boni versus Obama era. Yeah, there was, I think there was a difference between like first term Obama and second term Obama. I think the first term is more of a pure idealism, hope. You've got a lot of those folk bands coming out, getting popular, which to me, feels very late 60s, you know, we're going back to the land. We're simplifying. You know,

we're appreciating what really matters. So we're going to put on, you know, a bolotie and some suspenders and we're going to strum a banjo. I mean, Mumford and Sons, you could maybe say is, there's certainly the defining Stomp and Holler band. So maybe they are the Obamacor folk rock band at that time. Them or Fleet Foxes, as you were saying. I, For a second, I thought about Frank Ocean Because both of his albums came out during the Obama years But I think he transcends the era He's probably more Obama era than Obama Corps

Yeah, but like that that would be like calling Like DeAngelo like Clinton era or something like that He existed then and like You know, the albums came out then But like he just does not operate on the same timetable of space and time Although I'll say that Black Messiah That's Obama Corps Oh yeah for sure

Absolutely. Okay, well, I feel like we could talk about Obama Corps for three hours. Yeah. It is very interesting. I love thinking about that era, even if it makes me again physically lock up and want to go into a fetal position. But let's move on. Let's talk about a record that came out today. Talk about some new 2020s era tunes here.

We're talking about the latest album from the Irish post-punct. outfit, Fontaines D.C. Their record is called Romance. And I think this is like their fifth record. Is that right? I got to look this up. I want to say fourth. Okay.

They've been pretty prolific. I feel like they started in the late 2010s, and they're putting out a record pretty much every year or every other year. They're working very hard. They got that Irish work ethic. Yeah, their first record came out in 2019. First record's called Dog. roll. It's a great poetic. It's a very Fontaine's DC type record title. Then you have a hero's

death in 2020. Skinti Fah or Fia. Skinti Fia. I believe that's how it's pronounced, yes. Yes. That came out in 2022 and then you have romance out today. It's interesting. I was talking with I'm going to call him an indie rock star. This is a verifiable rock star in the indie rock world who listens to this show, and he was asking me about Fontaine's DC, wondering why we haven't talked about them, and assuming that it's because we don't really like them. And I was like, that's a pretty fair assumption to make. I have to admit, I've always had a little bit of prejudice towards this band, because in my own personal experience, and I don't know if you've had this as well, Ian, whenever I talk about any modern rock band, like if I'm tweeting about a band, there will be at least one or two middle-aged,

rock dudes in my mentions who will say but what about Fontaine's DC? We've talked about this on the show before. There is a certain kind of like middle-aged indie rock fan who looks at like the British post-punk movement, any band that comes out of that because there's always some big hype band that comes out of that milieu like every few years and they just get hyped to hell by a certain kind of again middle-aged indie rock fan who just is like, this is the real rock. Now someone's bringing real rock back. Finally.

Finally some real rock. And Fontaine's DC is that band. They're not as big as idols. I think idols are the kingpins of that type of music. But Fontaine's DC, they're like the vice president maybe of that. They're a little less popular, but they're quite big. And so I have a little prejudice toward them because of that. But I can also say, honestly, that their albums have generally left me pretty cold,

you know, put on dog roll back in the day, did not. do much for me. Same with the other albums. But you and I were DMing about this album this week, figuring out if we wanted to talk about them. And it sounds like you're on board with this record. Because you're like me, right? You haven't really been a fan of this band, right, up until now,

but maybe this album is bringing you into the fold a little bit. Yeah, by the way, at 93 on Metacritic as we speak. Yeah, putting up big numbers. That's crazy. Yeah, not surprising. Not surprising. I'm surprised that it's 93. I would expect it in mid-80s, but 93.

I mean, that's got to be all British press. Oh, absolutely, absolutely. Yeah, the Pitchfork Review ran, and it's positive, and it's a 7-7. But, yeah, you're absolutely correct. And also, if we're talking, you know, if we're previewing the 10 years from now, our Trump core episode, like idols are more or less the chance the rapper. Actually, Lizo would be, but idols are definitely up there. Yeah, I mean, they are

They struck me as a sort of band I probably would have loved in college When like, you know, I made a big deal About trying to be like literate And all my friends were obsessed with the idea of like Studying Abroad in like Ireland But yeah, I mean, they are they struck me as like Maybe a more literate version of idols or like

A more brooding version of shame that band I think we may have talked about them before But yeah And I like I like one song off their albums typically. And I gave this one a shot just because, not because of the reviews or anything like that. Just like, whatever. I have my NCAA football 25.

I need something to listen to while I play Dynasty Mode. Let's give it a shot. And I was skeptical about they started dressing kind of like a Jet Moto character, like mid-90s video game sort of aesthetic. but then I looked further into this and I see that they jump from partisan records, which is the same label as idols and like a lot of other tasteful indie rock acts to Excel, which is like, you know, Grimes or I think Grimes is on that label, Radiohead, MIA, you know, cool shit. And then they change more importantly producers from Dan Carey, who's like the Mani Fresh of UK post-punk.

Like this guy does every fucking record to James Ford. Shout to Schecky in Mobile Disco. Remember some guys. He's like, you know, the guy who does Arctic Foles, or Arctic Monkeys and Foles albums. And yeah, this, I like this one more because this is like, to me, a one of those, what you would read in Rolling Stone on a three and a half star review of a genre hopping album,

DreamWorks core. A lot of different styles. There's like kind of a, like a spaghetti western type song. And then there's like kind of a rap. speak song and then there's like kind of a shoe gaze album going on the shoe gaze song going on and it's just really from a song on basis it grabs me it's like oh there's something interesting going on here this is actually kind of catchy um this is i know this sounds like damning with faint praise but every time like ice age puts out an album people like you know praise it to the

heavens this is what i imagine they're hearing uh so this is like the ice age album i've always wanted to hear i know they're like wow man like really selling it dog but uh i find my i think i'm going to be coming back to this album a bit i don't know if i'm going to be i always love being a late adapter uh for a band that was like critically praised and like i just didn't feel and then you know the album like right after that is the one i get into and i go backwards i tried that with mac de marco i tried that with ice age um i don't know maybe i'll be a fontaine's dc guy going for it and i'll be up in your uh dms and email saying like hey man What about Fontaine's DC?

They're bringing rock back, man. They're bringing rock back. It's amazing that you dropped an Ice Age reference. I feel like we're going to conjure the ghost of Diet Cokeluster Banks here at any moment. But at any rate, yeah, I mean, I think for me with Fontaine's DC, the music was always a little lacking. It felt a little meat and potatoes to me where it's like, I've heard a lot of bands like this. I'm a little tired of this sound. It's not doing much for me.

And it does seem like with this record, to your. point that it is more adventurous musically they're trying a lot of different things I feel like they're injecting a little more sugar into the mix it's a little catchier maybe that's you know to your mid-90s point

it does feel like the record that the underground band makes after they signed to a major label and now they're going to try to have hits on the radio if we lived in a world like that this would be the record that Fontaine's DC is doing it's interesting too

because idols, I feel like, is on a similar trajectory. Like on their last record, they had that single dancer where they're wearing the suits and they're dancing around. I think James Murphy is on that track. So it feels like both bands are reaching there. We're spreading our wings type phase. We don't want to just repeat what we've done on other records. Now we're making our adventurous record.

I'm curious as to whether. the heads are going to like this record? Because the reasons that we like it seem to diverge from what the people who already love this band love about this band. I think a lot of people love the meat and potatoes aspect of this group. And now maybe they're going to feel like,

hey, wait a second, these guys aren't bringing rock back anymore. This is a little too poppy for me. So I'm curious about that. But I don't know. I mean, to me, I like this album too. I guess this is the Fontaine's DC album I like the most, but I still feel like I'm not going to feel compelled to put this on if I'm not listening to it for this show.

It's good for a Fontaine's DC record, but I don't really need it for any reason other than that. I mean, do you feel like this is going to stay in the rotation for you for a while? I think it will. I mean, I had a little bit trouble coming up with something for a recommendation corner because, like, oh, I would have done Fontaine's DC. but like I see myself returning to this one. I really, really do.

Just because like it's, it is kind of nice when you hear all this praise for a band that like leads you cold. And then there's like an album like the fourth or fifth one that kind of gets it. So I'm looking forward to going back to those previous albums with fresh ears, you know. Because I mean, this is happening. This is like a theme of this article that I am way past deadline on about. like how so many things other than the music itself affect your view of it and right you know how like so many bands I may have liked or albums that I could have liked have just been completely skewed with contempt prior

to investigation dude it's just somebody I don't like on the internet liking them or I don't like the way this band was talked about yeah that's tough wishing for that innocence to return so yeah that that's a danger That's an occupational hazard. And I copped to it with Fontaine's DC. The reply guys aggressively pushing Fontaine's DC on me, push me in the other direction. I like that you're coming around on this band. I think it's important that we have some Fontaine's DC representation on Indycast.

Like one of us at least should like this band. It feels odd that neither one of us were on board. So I'm glad that at least you're coming on board. I think that's important. Let's get to our mailbag segment. It's always great to hear from our listeners. Thank you all for writing in. You can hit us up at Indicast Mailbag at gmail.com.

I'm going to read the first letter because this is just a quick email clarifying a conversation we had last week about wean. This comes from our listener, John and San Marcos, California. He claims that he's the only listener in San Marcos. So if you are in San Marcos and you're not John, send us an email. Fact Check, John. I feel like we have at least one other listener in San Marcos. But anyway, John says, I was at that wean show in San Diego.

Now, this is referring to your friend, Ian, who saw wee. Greg? Yeah, his name is Greg. Who saw a weed in San Diego and claimed that they displayed jam versions of every song, and it was really bad. John was at that show, too. He said, I'm writing in to confirm that Stephen is correct. According to Setlist FM, they played 33 songs in total, and I only remember three extended solos. It was my first wean show, but my brother-in-law, five.

follows them on their West Coast tours, he said it was a solid show. The weirdest thing about that night was that there was a dressage competition next door at the Delmar Fairgrounds. So people were going nuts about the stallions. Of course, the five-part stallion. We all know that as wean fans. Keep up the great pod, John. So John was on the ground. Again, more boots on the ground journalism.

This is citizen journalism from John. Thank you for that. So, Greg, if you're listening, stop spreading misinformation about Wien Man. Yeah. Not cool, dude. Not cool. I think, well, I would love a little bit more information about what an extended solo is compared to a regular guitar solo. Also, it's pronounced Drosage. Oh, is it? Okay. Let's say, Dressage. Yeah. I would have done that too, except for the fact that, like, the Olympics just happened. And I believe Dressage was a part of the Olympics as well. So, yeah. No harm, no foul there. My bad.

All right, you want to read our second email? Yeah, so this is coming to us from Jordan from Camloops. Yeah, that indie cast town in Canada. Canada. Yeah, long-time listeners dating back to the Celebration Rock Days. Damn. I'm sure Japan droids have played a show or two in Camloops. Love the lot.

And of course, Jordan, you probably liked the tragically hip episode that we did back then. One of my personal favorites. All right. So Jordan says, after spending most of my life in a major city, I just moved to a large town slash small city. The closest mid-sized city that gets some Canada-wide tours is two hours away and Vancouver is three and a half hours out. How do I figure out the threshold for which shows are worth making the trip for?

Two weeks ago, I could walk 10 minutes and be at a dive horse jumper of love show. Now every few months, I can see a Cannescon Legacy Act like Brian Adams or Dayglo Abortions play in a hockey rink a half hour away for everything else on the track of Vancouver. We'd love to hear your thoughts, even though the specific Northwest, it feels like a very Midwest-coated question. So, okay, before we get to answering this, are you familiar with Dayglow abortions? Yeah. I'd never heard of this band until I read this email. Yeah.

Talk about burying the lead. He's like, oh, Brian Adams, and like instead of tragically hip or like Sloan or whatever, it's like Dayglo abortions. Yeah, I mean, Dayglo abortions must be rocking his town pretty regular. So I looked this band up. Who the hell are Dayglo Abortions? And I'm just going to read from the Wikipedia page. Dayglo abortions, sometimes abbreviated as DGA, also that's the Director's Guild of America, DGA,

are a Canadian hardcore punk and metal band from Victoria, British Columbia. Their lyrics reflect a genre typical disregard for societal norms. The band was formed in 1979 and released their first album, 1981. The band's biography, Arg, Fuck Kill, the story of the Daygalo Abortions was published in 2010. Apparently they were investigated for their album covers at one point in the 80s because they were known for having like really sort of outrageous and explicit album covers, I guess in the style of 80s hardcore punk.

In the politics section of the Wikipedia page, it says on their 20, on their 2004 album, Day glows showed a newfound political awareness. Holy shite. His name of the record. Has song titles such as America Eats Her Young, Christina Bin Laden, Scientology, and Where's Bin Laden? So two Bin Laden song titles.

Yeah, they sound terrible. I'm sorry that this is the only band that comes to your town. I don't know. What's your answer to this? What do you think is the threshold for, because he's talking about either going two hours to like a mid-sized town or Vancouver, that's the big city. That's three and a half hours away.

Yeah, I think that when he said it was Midwest, or it might be her, Jordan's kind of gender neutral. But I think when they said it was Midwest coded, I think back to when I was living in Lexington, Kentucky, which is like sort of corridor between the Midwest and the South. And if there was a show in Lexington or Louis, or Kentucky or Cincinnati, which are both like an hour or so away. No fucking question.

I would absolutely go to that show. I was just so starved for live music and really anything to do. And nowadays, if something is like 20 minutes away or I think, oh, I don't know about the parking in that area of town. I'm not going to go. So I think a lot of it comes down to how comfortable you are asking a friend if you can like sleep on their couch. or like shell out for an Airbnb or a hotel because, you know, there have been times in San Diego where I've done the back and forth to L.A. two hours, two and a half hours each way to see like a show that like really matters. You know, for me, that was like the Joyce Manor show at the Long Beach Amp or the Long Beach Arena or like seeing Japan droids at a Hollywood Forever cemetery. I also think that it comes down to when's the headliner on? because if I will not take a 10 minute Uber, if the headliner I want to see is going on later than 10, also I'm 44 and I have a day job.

But yeah, I think ultimately your mileage may vary. And I think it also comes down to are you going to have a beer at the show? Like, are you literally able to drive home? Or is there a train? I know that sometimes we can take the surf liner up. So, yeah, I think it. live music it's like i think it just all it just hold on let me back up there um if it's day glow abortions like yeah maybe that's like an hour long drive but otherwise man i can't give anyone

advice i'm spoiled it is absolutely a not a so-calcoded question yeah you know i can relate to this question because when i lived in appleton if i had to go to any show because no shows came to my town. Except for onyx, right? Well, no, they never came. They never actually showed up. I didn't have to go to Milwaukee or Madison, which are about two hours away. So that was my, that was like my norm for like a long time. And then, you know, the three hour option or the three and a half hour option was Chicago. That was farther. And Chicago gets every show. Milwaukee, Madison get a lot, but they don't get everything. So if I'm going to go to Chicago, it was because, oh, the classic lineup of Guided by Voices is getting back together and they're playing in Chicago.

I went to that show, although I think I was in Milwaukee at that point. So that wasn't that far to drive. But if I was in Appleton, I would have driven to Chicago for that. Most of the time, I did not do that. But Milwaukee Madison, I did pretty regularly, but I was also in my 20s at that point. And like you said, I was more willing to drive farther. Now that I'm old, I don't drive that far. I won't try 15 minutes to like a lot of shows.

Also, there is a thing where I think you reach a certain age, and it is hard to ask someone to crash on their couch. You can do that in your 20s and maybe into your 30s, but I do think at some point in your 40s, especially if your friends are around the same age and they have kids, it feels a little weird to crash at their place because it's like you're old enough, you can afford a hotel room. Hotels are not that much. You can afford it. So I always feel weird about asking to crash at someone's house. I have done it, but I am more likely to just get a cheap hotel room somewhere.

I also like to have my privacy. So that's that. There's that too. But yeah, you have to be willing if you're going to go farther away to get a hotel. So yeah, Jordan, I don't know. I don't know how old you are. Maybe you're young. I mean, you're walking to a dive show, 10 minutes,

so you're probably in your early 30s, I'm guessing. But yeah, Vancouver, special occasions if Daiglow Abortions is playing one of their classic albums in its entirety maybe you go to Vancouver

for that but otherwise I don't know keep it to a two hour drive it might be it's a long drive yeah what if they're doing

a 20th anniversary tour this year for holy sheite I mean like are they going to do the extended version are they going to do the Christina bin Laden slash where's bin Laden

you know medley I wonder if there's any other bin Laden songs It's like a bin Laden trilogy maybe. Yeah, is this like the Canadian idiot of its time or something like that? I don't know. We've now reached a part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where we each talk

about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right. So we talked earlier, of course, about like what the difference between Obama core and Obama era. And so I'm picking an album this week that, I mean, it sounds super duper 2024. And at the same time reminds me of Obama era. type indie acts such as chairlift. Some are calling Magdalena Bay, the new chairlift. Maybe Micah Tenenbaum is the new

Caroline Polichick. But they put out, they put out a new album today called Imaginaldisk. It's kind of a Praguegy pop concept record in the style of, you know, maybe 2012-ish grimes or, you know, as I said before, like chairlift or maybe like early quote-unquote future of pop Charlie Eckers. CX. And I enjoyed their last album, Mercurial World, came out in 2021. It was sort of that era where I'm like, I need Grimes without Grimes.

And it's funny because, like, this is a band I typically not like. Because, like, I read their, like, this gets into, like, contemporary investigation. They struck me as like, oh, these are just a couple of rich kids who got together and all of a sudden

they're doing like these kind of kitsy visuals. But, you know, the songs are there. So this album, takes what they did before, kind of does more of a concept album, about someone who gets like a disc implanted in their brain. It's also like kind of very late 90s concept, like Y2K scare type stuff.

So, yeah, I really look forward to spending more time with this album. It's 15 songs. There are interludes. It's, this along alongside Fontaine's D.C., just the kind of record where if I were 10 years younger, maybe this would be in my top five, but at the end of the year.

But this is what I just enjoy on the strength right now. So I feel like my recommendation corner lately has been very heavily leaning toward country music because I like country music. I also like listening to it a lot in the summertime. And this year has actually been really great for country music, especially slightly left to center country. Of course, country is also doing really well on streaming platforms, having a big mainstream moment as well. But I'm going to veer away from that a little bit. I'm going to go to one of my other

franchises and my musical recommendation, which is indie-leaning jam band music. And that means I want to talk about a band from Chicago called Bebysitters Club. And they have a record that they put out last week. It's called Joel's Picks, Volume 2. And of course you can tell from that album title, you could probably guess that this band likes the Grateful Dead. This is a compilation of live tracks that they put up between 2019 and 2023. And it's really jammy. It's really fun. There's lots of MIDI guitar,

which I'm always on board for MIDI guitar. I can't get enough of that. One thing I like about this band is that with a lot of indie jam music or indie leading jam band music, it tends to be a little too serious. You know, it's very much focused on

like 1970s era dead, the deep jams of that era. And there's not enough of like 80s dead involved there. There's not enough like fish there. There's not enough wean involved in that. I always feel like jam band music needs at least some element of goofiness in order to work. If it's a little too serious, you end up in a room with a lot of guys and beards with their arms crossed, staring at a band very intensely. It's just not a fun vibe. You need some of that seriousness, but you also need people in the audience who are dancing, who are throwing the beach ball around.

You know, it's the yin and yang, I think, the peanut butter and jelly of this scene. A little bit of goofiness goes a long way. And this band has that. It's because they bring the fish in, they bring the wean in, into the dead mix. So you have these great jams, but you also have a sense of fun. You have a feeling that these guys know how to crack a joke. And I really like it. It's a really good record, a lot of fun to listen to.

Again, it's called Joel's Picks, Volume 2. The band is called B-B-sitters Club. That's two capital B's sitters. That's all one word club. Punch it in. I don't know if they're on streaming platforms. This is kind of like an underground record. But you could definitely find it on band camp, I'm sure.

Really good record. Check it out. Good jam band music. It's funny. The way you described a jam band without that sense of humor with like the crossed arms bearded dude, you make them sound like Fontaine's DC. Well, a little bit. A little bit.

I just think that there is a type of indie jam music that, only appeals to guys in their 40s. And I like some of those bands, but I just find that the seriousness of it, it turns me off a little bit. And it's like, come on, we need a little bit of goopiness here. We need a little bit of silliness. I think, because even the Dead have some really silly moments. They have some silly songs.

They knew how to have fun. They're going to do a 20-minute dark star and then go into, you know, Johnny Be Good. they're going to play Keep Your Day Job or some other terrible song that is actually a lot of fun when you hear it live. So, again, the peanut butter and jelly jam requires a little bit of goofiness. Less yacht rock, more pontoon rock. Exactly. 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 Mixedape 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.