Indiecast - Mailbag: Music Book Mount Rushmore, TV On The Radio vs. Wolf Parade, and more

Episode Date: December 10, 2021

It feels like we just celebrated the new year yesterday, but somehow, 2021 is already coming to an end. Steve and Ian already named their favorite albums of the year, and what better way to further reflect on an eventful year for indie rock with another mailbag episode?This week, Steve and Ian take questions from listeners all over the map about everything from their Mount Rushmore of music books, to bands they would watch an eight-hour docuseries about, and which band is better: TV On The Radio or Wolf Parade?With so many questions to get through, they once again are skipping this week’s Recommendation Corner and encouraging listeners to revisit last week’s episode to discover some new albums from 2021 that they might not have heard yet.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.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 indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to IndyCast. On this show, we talked about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we respond to emails written by you, the Indicast listener. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, a man who believes that maybe this year will be better than the last. Ian Cohen.

Ian, how are you? You know, it is year-endless season. So you got to start your introduction off with, in these trying times, or it was. was brutal out there, Ian, wasn't it? Like, just something that acknowledges the fact that, yeah, people had difficulties this year and that, you know,

but, you know, I'm proud of myself in my own list that I didn't do that. I did not do any references to it was a hard year, but this, you know, Little Sims record really got me through it in 2021, you know? It was the music that brought us together, really, Stephen. Like, can't you agree with that? I thought this year was better than last year.

I thought 2021 was better than 2020, right? 2020 was like the rock bottom year. Yeah. I mean, yeah. 2020 was like a little bit better, wasn't it? I guess. I mean, you got Trump. We had Trump in 2020, you know, there was no vaccines in 2020.

Yeah, I mean, I also bought a house and got married this year, but also. There you go. Yeah. Yeah, but does all that top say, oh, I don't know, like, like the Glass Beach remix album. I mean, like, can anyone really say for sure? It's like, honey, I know that, you know, our wedding day was one of the best days of my life.

But it was not as good as when I got the promo of the Glass Beach record. I actually think that might have been 2021. Fuck, okay. Well, my whole interpretation of the year end has been shot to pieces. We're off to a great start today. You mentioned year-endless season.

And I have to shout out my good buddy Rob Mitchum. Every year he does a spreadsheet where he compiles all of the best of lists. And he comes up with an aggregate of, you know, what the consensus is for the favorite albums of the year. And I was looking at his spreadsheet, and it's still a work in progress. And I think it's still like a little tilted toward British magazines. Yeah. What I'm looking at is that it's still alpha. Epidical, so.

Well, no, I had it fixed here that I'm trying to figure out. Here we go. So, like, the top album so far. Okay. Tau the Creator. Okay. Little Sims, which I already made a reference to. Okay.

Floating Points, Faro Sanders, number three. Japanese breakfast. Weather Station, low. That's the top, I guess, five or six. My feeling, though, is that if you look at, at a lot of these lists. There's some consensus maybe from like slots three to eight or so, but this isn't a year where it seems like there's one or two or three like dominant albums. You know, like how a lot of times on these lists you feel like, okay, I'm going to see Fiona

Apple up there. I'm going to see, you know, Lana Del Rey. In 2018, Idol's, Joy is a form of resistance, you know, like that. This isn't a year like that. And, you know, a lot of of times you hear from music critics complaining at this time of the year that, oh, I'm always seeing the same albums. It's so boring. I think you're seeing a lot more diversity this year in terms of the albums that are being picked, which I think is great on one level. But it also makes me wonder, I'm going to pose this question to you. This is also mean that there's actually not maybe like an all-time classic record that came out this year. Because I feel like a lot of times, we complain about lists being samey,

but sometimes there are certain albums that deserve to be at the top because they're just that great. Yeah. And are we just missing that one great album? Or is this, again, just a sign that people are listening wider and farther and that should be something that's celebrated?

Well, I think that there is a lot of consensus going on in that, like, for example, Turnstile made the only punk rock album of 2021. congratulations to them. You know, we get a lot of, like, Japanese breakfast up there. And, like, I think that there's a lot of, like, contenders, but no clear cut number one. And, you know, I don't know if this really represents, like, a diversifying of, you know, listenership or what have you.

I think it's just really there wasn't anything that came across to define the year. And I think that's kind of how the one, like, we've talked about this many a time, how, like, the one year of the decade, like 2011, 2001, is really, at the moment, somewhat of a rebuilding year, where we are still just kind of seeing where the future of music's going to go. And I think that, like, we're going to see, like, one of these artists come out in maybe, like, 2020 or 2023 with, like, an album that just completely, like, sweeps everything. And we realize, oh, this is what was really happening in 2021. So, I don't know.

I still think a lot of them are pretty samey. I find myself gravitating towards like the really hardcore genre list, like the metal ones that like Kerrang or whatever or like the electronic ones because I know I won't see, you know, the same old like, you know, like squid or like weather station or what have you populating the top. And also there's like not a desire from them to like talk, oh, this is what this year meant as opposed to these were just so happened to be the albums I've listened to the most. You know, this just occurred to me now.

So I'm thinking out this theory in real time, but I wonder to what degree this is a reflection of like a post-Trump hangled. Because you know what I mean? Because I feel like in the late 2010s, in culture writing, that was such an easy hook. Yeah, totally was. You could ascribe significance to something because it was supposedly a reaction against Trump. And it gave certain songs or albums extra weight.

Like even like WAP from last year, you know, which was the consensus song of the year. Oh, yeah. I feel like people, part of what people loved about that song is that it made Ben Shapiro mad. You know, so it was a way to stick it to the Trump world. When that song goes off in the club or whatever, well, not the club, it was 2020. But yeah, yeah, that people are big. thinking of Ben Shapiro when they're throwing ass, man. Well, I know, but there's a difference between regular people and how people wrote about it.

Oh, and I'm talking about year endless, you know, or when, you know, Childish Gambino, this is America. Oh, like that, that becomes the Kassensa song of that year because, again, I think for culture writers, you want to connect it to something larger that makes it feel more significant. Or, you know, one of your favorite bands in 1975, you know, loved if we made it. Like, that was another song where this is a song about the overload of social media in the age of, you know, Trump or whatever. And this year, it was one of those years, like, where there wasn't that sort of overriding narrative that you could attach, you know, you could hang an album on a narrative, like a Christmas tree ornament and say, this is what elevates it. You know, because you have Joe Biden, in the office. You have more COVID.

And obviously, COVID is still a disrupting presence in our culture, but it's not as bad as it was last year. Like, we're kind of getting back to normal. Yeah. But it's not fully all the way there. I just wonder if that has influenced the way people thought about music this year. And if it just made albums feel less significant because you couldn't attach it to a larger narrative. Does that make sense? No, it totally makes sense. I think you're right about that because I think we're still just kind of figuring out like what our culture is.

You know, I mean, like, it's kind of hard to believe that it was only this year that, like, Joe Biden actually became the president. Like, that happened like this year, the year in which we're currently living. And it feels like it's been forever. And so, and also, you know, like a lot of these records were, like created at a time probably where, like, you know, like, in the middle of COVID. and people are still thinking about it. And so I don't know, man. I think that event, I think that this all speaks to more will be revealed about 2021.

Like maybe this, maybe like Pink Pantherous or whatever, you know, makes an album in 2022 that really, like, changes the way we, uh, think about music in the TikTok era or, um, or something like that.

But I don't know. You know, I wrote about, uh, you mentioned 2011. I remember I wrote about, piece back then making the same case that, I don't know if I'm making this case, I'm just bringing it up as a possibility. I think it's an interesting thing to contemplate. The idea that there's a lot

of really good albums this year, but maybe no sort of all-time important record. And that was a case I made in 2011, and you were talking about that. I was just looking at the albums that came out in 2011. Yeah. You have the Bonnie Bear, Bunny Verre, P.J. Harvey Let England Shake. Watch the Throne, which seems very 2011. Yeah. You have Drake Take Care, which I think... That's a classic. They would look at that as a classic. You have Who Kill by two yards.

Yeah, M83. That's like, that's the one I think of. Nostalgia Ultra by Frank Ocean. You know, his kind of breakthrough... I guess Channel Orange was where he really blew up, but that was the beginning, really, I think, of him being the man. Caput by Destroyer. Oh, yeah.

That's a record, I'd say. So, I mean, there's definitely good records that came up that year. Adele 21. Adele is really getting a lot of shine this year. Oh, yeah. I mean, how can you, this person is like literally bent the industry to their will. I mean, like today, like today, you know, the American football single came out and they're not going to be able to press vinyl until June. Right.

I'm surprised that, I mean, I don't know how I feel about Adele. I think she's all right. I'm a little surprised that there isn't more backlash. against Adele, just because I feel like she seems like a pretty juicy target, just because she is such a monolith in the industry. And it seems like, and I guess people just really love that record, so they're not going to call it up. But I'm surprised that it seems pretty unanimous that people love that record.

I'm surprised that it hasn't had more detractors than it seems to have. Why don't you go ahead and be the detractors? see how that works out for you. Well, we'll see. I don't know. I like to push other people off the cliff. I'm trying to inspire people listening out there. It's like a Manchurian candidate situation where I'm hoping to trigger an assassin out there.

Take this record down with my words. By the way, great segue from Adele to American football. Oh, God. That was a fantastic segue there. And that single, because they did a cover of Fade Into You, right? They did. And look, man, like I saw that. I'm like, ah, fuck, because that's like up there with I'm on fire or Wicked Game as like every single band would cover it.

But, you know, they did it like, it sounds like an American football song. So, I mean, I would be super stoked if they ended up making a covers album where they just took like the indie can. the indie songbook and just did it in like, you know, all these interesting time signatures with twinkling guitars and so forth. Like I think they really did something interesting with it. So that's not, that is not easy to do with a song that overplayed. Well, I just appreciate that they announced that before we recorded. And I feel like there was quite a bit of indie news this week.

Oh, yeah. That dropped earlier in the week, not after we recorded, because that's always my biggest frustration when someone does something hilarious, and then we just finished recording, and we can't talk about it. Yeah. And this just happened this morning, too. This is Thursday morning.

St. Vincent, a new single. It's a pay-your-way in-pane remix by idols. Yes. That dropped. I think that proves that she listens to the show. Yeah, of course. Why wouldn't she? But, like, did idols do it as a show?

band the remix or is it just like the lead singer? Maybe it's like the guy who just strips down to his underwear. Like that's maybe that's the real creative engine in the band. Are they playing on the record? Is that the idea that is this like a post-punk like shouty version of that song? Did you really? Yeah, I was about to say. I think it was a little too much expectation for me to actually listen to this thing before

coming on. Like why would I do that when we could just like have a good laugh about it instead? Yeah, the headline is so great. I feel like if there were an Indycast bot, it would have produced that headline. Because that just seems like something we wheeled into the world. So, yeah, I'm not going to listen to it either. I'm just going to enjoy the headline because the headline will not be topped by the music. I promise I'll listen to it by the next episode.

How about that? All right. All right. You listen to it. You tell me what it's like. I'm just going to enjoy the headline. Also got a shout-up my man, Father John Misty. He's been busy on Instagram.

this week, he posted a photo of himself on Instagram with black and white picture, and he has a beard and apparently he shaved his head. Not completely, it's just like a very short haircut. And you had a good tweet about this. Yeah, like the terrible Kendall Roy, like, what is this guy doing? Like, just go with the full baldy, man. Commit to the fucking bit. Like, he looks, he looks pretty handsome as hell.

Yeah, I know. I can't hate, man. Like fuck that guy for being, you know, for looking like Father John Misty and being Father John Misty. I mean, it's like, man, you look even more handsome than you show here. I'm not afraid to say that. I'm not afraid to say Father John Misty, you look even more handsome than you normally do in that photo. You know, I'm, I'm gearing up for a feisty Father John Misty album cycle because I'm already seeing people do this performative dislike of Father John Misty.

It's not performative. Yeah, people are like actually. don't like what he stands for. But what does he stand for? What is the thing that people think he stands for that they're rebelling against? I don't know. I think maybe it's just like the slow drip from like the night Josh Tillman came to my apartment. I think he just kind of, I don't know.

I think maybe he's just like a symbol of the incorrigible dude songwriter who gets away with certain things. or I don't know. But he hasn't, he's not an abuser. There's no like skeletons in the closet. You know, there's nothing, he's never been accused of doing anything bad. He's just a guy who's done interviews that some people find to be obnoxious. Well, I think that maybe that's it where it's, you know, he's a person who kind of under, who doesn't see the writer, artist relationship as symbiotic, which, you know, that, that's a little hard to deal with for a writer, I suppose.

I just for me personally I like really good singers who write beautiful music and put witty and insightful lyrics over the top that's just me apparently that is a controversial opinion but I to me that's like what he does and he does it very well I'm excited for his album

I'm excited for a feisty album cycle I might have to get in there and throw some punches rhetorically speaking like God's favorite customer like that did not generate a lot of fun content. We need to get back on his bullshit. Also, we got to think about

how the 1975 did basically nothing this year. There was not a lot of feistiness. We need those to come back like really strong in 2022. What if there is a thing where the Father John missed the album and like a 1975 album drop in the same

week? Then we're going to have to just do like an everyday indie cast. Yeah, that's going to be like a four hour episode. We're going to be throwing jabs at the other person's phase. Our get back, that's what it's going to be our get back because it's going to get ugly. You're going to be taking

shots at my guy. I'll be taking shots at your person, your people in the 1975, it's going to be, that would be insane. So, you know, I'm going to wheel that into existence. Just saying we're pretty good at that. Yeah, if they drop on the same day. Because I'm assuming

the 1975, like you said, they've been quiet. I assume that there's an album in the works from them. They're probably in the lab working on something. Because how long has it been since their last record? It's been... Two years. Well, I mean, a year and a half. A year and a half.

Yeah, I think it was like eight... But not that long. No, not that long. But it seems like an eternity. Yeah, it's long for them. It's definitely the longest they've ever been without beat. Because that last album had like a 10-month album rollout, so... Right.

And you know, you mentioned how God's favorite customer was a quiet album cycle because Josh Tillman didn't do any press. He didn't do any interviews. Which seemed like a reaction to the pure comedy to his album cycle where he talked to everybody. And I thought it was brilliant. I loved that album cycle. That's still one of my favorites. A lot of people didn't like it. I thought he was great. I loved reading Father John Misty interviews. But Maddie Healy did something similar on the last 1975 record. He was probably like, all right, I'm going to chill out for a while.

I've stirred the pot. time to step back. And I kind of miss them. I was a person who reacted negatively to Maddie Healy. And now I feel like, okay, I would like you to come back because it is fun to talk about. So please come back. Josh Tillman, Maddie Healy. Yeah.

Let's make 2020 a better year than this one. All right. So let's get to our mailbag. And like I said, at the top, we're only answering questions. It's an entire mailbag segment. We did not do a mailbag segment last week because we did our album. of the year. So we're making up for that. Trying to clear out the bag here a little bit.

So our first question comes from Matt in Arnold, Missouri. Arnold, Missouri. That could be someone's, that could be like a chill wave name. That's like a Boni Vair song. Arnold. Arnold. Missouri. Please, my father calls me Arnold. You can call me Arnie, Missouri. Curious what you two think of Christmas

music. Best song and an album, or maybe you don't think anything of it at all. So a timely question, a seasonal question, tis the season. Do you want to go first on this? Yeah, I feel like I'm trying to be sensitive here because as a Jewish person, do you just feel like attacked this time of the year with all this Christmas music? I don't, I've come to terms with it because, you know, Christmas means we get like time off of work. and so forth and all those good holiday deals. But the other day I was in Ralph's and, you know,

I had the unique pleasure of hearing Manchester Orchestra's The Gold. Oh, yeah. Oh, fuck, that's a cool song. And also it's like, wait, they're not playing. Great grocery store song too. Yeah. I've heard that song in multiple grocery stores. Yeah, go get it, man.

And, but it's like, wait a minute. They're not playing Christmas music. Like, what's up with that? Because, like, it becomes this ambient, like, all-consuming thing. like everywhere you go, it's, you know, there's Christmas music. And I've, I guess I've become like kind of immune to it. Um, one of my most formative experiences as, uh, a retail employee during the holiday season, which I think everyone need, I think everyone should have to do retail work during the Christmas season. It teaches a lot about patience and how to deal with people.

I worked at the gap in, I think, 1998. And that was the year that swing really broke. And so we had an entirely swing. It was like all Christmas songs, but like performed in a swing style. There's like a Tumblr that has the soundtrack playlist. And I really need to find that so I can, you know, retcon that soundtrack and just, you know, re-experience that. Also, neither here nor there. I know there was like a lot of Brian Setzer on there.

It's like, he's like a top nominee, I think, for like the most pernicious music influence of all time. Like, no. Yeah. Yeah, there's going to be, like, if there's, like, a time period that he can retcon and think of, like, man, this is what real music was, like, and, you know, all sorts of other. Well, to bring back swing music and then go the extra mile to do Christmas swing music, that's the work of the devil. I'm also. Which is, like, easily, like, the lowest form of music, as far as I'm concerned.

I mean, the original rockabilly people. Yeah, but, like, I'm talking, I'm talking about, like, modern-day. Teddy boys like yeah this is back when men were men and oh man I want to see the rockabilly people come out of the woodwork in our listenership there's got to be a couple rockabilly people out there

yeah ring a ding ding for you bozos people sometimes can't tell like what I say and you say so I'm just got Ian is the one taking shots at rockabilly culture I'm going to be Switzerland here I am not going to take a stance on rockabilly culture but yeah that would be awful that would be a tough experience

working at the gap in 98 and hearing Christmas swing music. Yeah, I want all the smoke from you Reverend Horton Heat fans. Oh, my God. But otherwise. Those people, they might know how to fight. That's the thing with those people. And living in Southern California, I think you have to be especially careful because that seems like a hotbed.

Yeah. Oh, God. Of rockabilly culture. Yeah, that and like social distortion, which is sort of rockabilly adjacent. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But otherwise.

Sideburns and like the buffon thing and smoking cigs. got the cigarette pack rolled up in the short-sleeved shirt, that whole thing. Oh, God. But otherwise, yeah, my Christmas regimen is posting Jimmy World's 12-2395 on that day on Instagram, Joyce Manor's Christmas card on that day, you know, Christmas, done that every year since 2014. Otherwise, I try to find albums with sleigh bells on it, like, you know, the Walkman's old albums, and that's the extent of my Christmas music. I don't mind it.

Yeah, you know, I agree with you. I think most Christmas music, I think, think of it the same way that I think of Christmas decorations, you know, it's just part of the atmosphere, the environment of this time of year, you know, and just as I wouldn't critique a Christmas tree, I don't really feel the need to critique Christmas music. It's just, it's not even really music to me. There's very few Christmas albums that I would listen to outside of the Christmas season, and these are very chalky choices, but the John Faye Christmas album, you know, the great acoustic guitarist. and the Vince Goraldi, Charlie Brown Christmas.

Again, very chalky choices, but those two albums, I think, there's a reason why they are often recommended this time of year. They stand apart, I think, from a lot of Christmas music. I tend to hate, like, any new form of Christmas music in the music that tries to update it to modern pop styles. Speaking of news that came out this week, did you see that announcement about the Christmas song

with Ariana Grande, Megan, the Stalian, and Jimmy Fallon. It was a Elipsies Mass Christmas. It's like a COVID-themed Christmas song with Jimmy Fallon. I just got to admire their restraint that, like, they didn't get, like, James Corden on that. Like, I mean... Corden is pissed that he didn't think of that first. I know, man.

Like, his time is over, but I see that... Gordon is probably doing a thing where he's dressing up as Santa Claus and, like, dancing in the street with, like, dancers dressed up as reindeer. There's probably something like that coming down the pike from Corden. Because he loves to dance. Yes, he does. He loves to do like show tune type stuff. So this might be too hip for him.

He may, you know, this is like, oh, I can't. Although Ariana Grande, for sure, was probably on carpool karaoke. Oh, yeah. If you had to do that back. I would like to just like, maybe that's like what we need to see. Like, you know, the behind the studio version of that song, where, like, you just talk, like, yes, like, Meg Dostali, and like, hey, like, what do you, what do you think about this for real, you know?

I know, and, like, and how much are they being paid for that? I mean, are they making money? It's, like, this is the tonight show forking over money? Then, like, what's the point of this? This just seems to win the internet. It seems like an abomination. Yeah. You, you know, you mentioned the Jimmy Eat World Songs being, like, one of your holiday

traditions. I have to shout out something I wrote this week about counting crows along December, being my favorite holiday song. I went in deep, like in depth on that song. And that's a song that I have this very silly Twitter tradition where I tweet a lyric from that song every day. I think to annoy people, but also because I love the song,

and it's December. And I think some people like it, although I know I get at least two one follows every time I do it. But, you know, I do it for the love of the game. You can't worry about that kind of thing. So, yeah, Counting Crows along December. That's probably my favorite holiday song of all time. and it applies to any holiday,

not just Christmas, it applies to Hanukkah, applies to Kwanza. By the way, I was going to ask you, as our Jewish correspondent on Indy cast, how do you feel about

the Heim cover of the Hanukkah song? You know what? They've earned it. Like, I mean, they are representing for, you know, Jewish culture

all, you know, in the greater indie world. I've always said about them and Vampire Weekend that they just remind me of being, for better and worse, they remind me of being in Jewish youth group, like, back in the 90s of that. It kind of completes the circle that they're covering Adam Sandler, because, I mean, that got a lot of spins, you know. And like, your issue is always that they,

they remind you of, like, the popular kids. Yeah. At camp, but they're also, like nice. Yeah, they're nice. And I really wish I could hate them. So you want to hate them, but you can't. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, I lose on both ends. Right. They're all very likable people. Fuck them for me. so nice. And apparently, like, you know, also multi-talented, great at acting, you know. Yeah, exactly. I haven't seen that movie yet. I haven't seen that movie yet. Eser Caning, very nice guy and talented guy. And, yeah, a lot of Haim starring in the new PTA movie, which I haven't seen yet because it's not in my part of the country. Yeah, we are, we are not the coastal elite.

Is it not in San Diego either? No, you see, that, it's L.A. and New York. Like, as far as were concerned, like San Diego might as well be, like, I don't know, Charlotte, North Carolina compared to like, just, it's like, oh, that, you know, I know that's a big city. You know, they have professional sports teams, but yeah, we don't need to open there. Like, they can wait until Christmas. That's so weird. I thought for sure you'd be getting that already. Well, that makes me feel better.

Yeah. I don't feel as culturally isolated now. Let's move on to our next question. Yeah. Do you want to read this one? Yeah, I'll do that one. So this one is about, of course, I feel like this one was a long time coming, a question about get back. So this comes from Kyle, who's from London.

So if like me you've devoured Peter Jackson's Get Back Doc on the Beatles, my question is in the indie rock universe, which album would you love for there to be a fly on the wall eight-hour documentary about? And Kyle also mentions that London is home to the people who find the Beatles playing on a roof, an annoyance. Yes, that's one of the funniest things about that, that there's, at the end of that movie, all the people mad. The Beatles have not played live in three years. This is going to be their last concert ever, and there's still people who are like, Hey, get the cops over there.

That's kind of an Australian accent. Yeah. It was awful. Yeah, we've talked, we still, we've had to talk about your accent. I just love that. Yeah, I know. I actually got some hate from our Australian listeners because I was doing an Australian accent in a recent episode, they did not appreciate

my cultural appropriation of their way of speaking. So I apologize for that. I'm sorry, I have a thing for accents. I'd like to slip into them every now and then. So this is a good question. This was asked on Twitter recently. Someone did an

Eric Elper style promptee about this. And the answer I gave then was Chinese democracy, the Guns and Roses record. Because I feel like that's like one of the only albums, like, where eight hours might not be enough to show the entire making of that record. I would just want to dig deep into all the delays and weirdness and, like, Axel Rose's

psychics and all the things that are going on. That buckethead coming in and out. Tommy Stinson, all that stuff. But obviously, Chinese Democracy, not an indie rock record. So it was actually making me think of, like, an album I once called the Chinese Democracy of Indy Rock Records, which is the... Wren's record, the follow-up to the Metallands, which is kind of coming out today, the day that this episode posts, the Eon Station record.

Yeah. And you did a story on this for Spin. I did a story like a year ago where I interviewed Charles Bissell from that band. And I guess, I don't know if he's the McCartney or the Lennon in this. Kevin Wheeling kind of looks more like Paul McCartney, so we'll say it's him. Yeah. But yeah, you talk to him, and he seemed like he didn't want to dig too deep into the strife there. Yeah, I mean, I thought if this is maybe more like a, I sort of wish that it was like love below speaker boxed, you know, because the reputation is that Kevin's like more of the straightforward guy, the big boy, whereas, you know, Charles Bissell.

as like the kind of off on a tangent, you know, perfectionist. And I mean, it's not like, it's not even so much that he didn't want to get into it. Like also really disarmed me because at the beginning when I started talking to Kevin, he's like he knew like what my job was, knew that I was married. And like, man, it's like, I'm just thinking like this got like, I remember being 23 listening to the Meadowlands and it's like, oh, like just revering this band. And all of a sudden, like I'm talking to this guy like, oh yeah, we're going to talk about homeowners. How do you know that you were married?

I don't know, dude. Like, it was... Is he an Indycast listener? Is he listening right now? Fuck if I know, dude. But it's like... I can't describe the feeling when, like, there's an artist that you really admire who knows actual things about your life, you know?

It's like, it's similar to how sometimes it work. And I know that, you know, as the Joe Lunch Pale of the Indycast, you know, the guy with the day job and man of the people, like... Yeah. I don't know, Steve, if you'll ever know what it's like when one of your coworkers or, like, clients, they get that look in their eye where you just know they're going to bring up the, like, hey, man, I know about your podcast. You're never going to know what that's like. Well, I do, though, because I live in a part of the country where most people don't even know what music criticism is. Right.

So it is still a surprise to me if I meet someone. Yeah. And they're aware of what I do. I mean, I think it's such a, it's like, it is like working in the mob. It is like the subterranean world that most people don't understand. Yeah, this thing of ours. But I don't know. Like, that would be, maybe it'd be a boring documentary.

I think it would. I think there's a lot of, like, waiting around. Yeah. Because you brought up, like, he didn't want to get into it. Like, I didn't really want to get into it either, you know? It's like, I think this record is really, it's excellent on its own terms and is being a bit dragged down by its baggage. And, you know, it's like there, there's a lot of, like, you know,

know what this person's saying is not true. Unless you get them both together in the same room, like we're never going to get to the bottom of it. So I kind of wanted it to be more about the album itself. It just sounds like, and from what Kevin was saying and from what Charles is saying as well, it's a lot of like, oh, we took this year off because like we were getting married

or having kids. It's a lot of waiting. Yeah. Well, I mean, I'm glad it's finally out in the world. And hopefully Charles will get, his music out soon. I interviewed him. I think that was this year, early this year. It was. It was January.

Yeah. So almost a year ago now. And he was saying that he was close. And I really hope, you know, maybe now that this record is out, Kevin's record, it'll push him to get his record out. But, you know, who knows? And you've already waited this long. I guess you might as well just see it the full nine yards at this point. The full nine yards. What a great metaphor because you need to get 10. Well, there's the whole nine yards. Or am I just thinking of that because there's a movie called

The Whole Nine Yards, the Bruce Willis movie. Isn't that a saying? Probably. Maybe I'm wrong. Are you familiar with the Bruce Willis movie where he plays? I think he's like a mobster in the suburbs. Oh, yeah, yeah. It's kind of like a Sopranos like movie. I think it came out around the time the Sopranos started. Anyway, we don't need to go on a whole nine years. We'll start a whole nine yards podcast. We'll just talk about that movie. but what would be your get-back choice?

So, I mean, I think that movie or that documentary proved that even for like the most legendary bands, it's like 2% magic, 98% like boring repetition. So what I, you know, if we're going to use that framework, there needs to be a band in conflict. The project has to be kind of doomed. I think that's more interesting to me. Like it needs to happen, but it needs to be doomed. And they're all set to be like random guests dropping by. And so the biggest problem. I had with the otherwise great Oasis

documentary Supersonic is that it stopped right before they did be here now. Absolutely. Yeah, so that one, like I would watch 16 hours of that, you know, is away, the Gallagher brothers coked up out of their minds, like them selecting

choppers for the, you know what I mean video, Johnny Depp coming by to lay down slide guitar. The key change to all, like, to all around the world. This is all excellent stuff. Yeah, the grandiosity is what really draws you in. And that's part of what's, I think, appealing about get back.

Because you're right, they're doing a lot of things that are boring, but it's the Beatles doing it. It just makes it more interesting. Like, if it was any other band or most bands, it would be unwatchable. But it's like, wow, there's, yeah, they're playing, I've got a feeling for like the hundredth time, but like, look at Paul McCartney's turtleneck. I mean, doesn't he look fantastic? You know, there's just the glamour that they have, even when they're doing it.

very mundane things that makes that movie, I think, so much fun to watch. My favorite line of the entire documentary is, like, John Lennon saying, yeah, I have a lot of great ideas. I'm literally a beetle. Right. I love the self-awareness. It's like, yeah, we're the shit. Yeah, exactly. But as far as, like, the indie album, I tried to, like, limit myself to thinking about this year.

I would love to see a making of documentary for the Arms Ultra Pop, A, because all of their filmed material, like their videos, the adult swim live performance they did. They also made like a live movie at Live at the Masonic Temple, which is just incredible. It, like, might be better than the record itself. But I just, I think they'd A, pull it off really well because they have such an incredible multimedia mindset. And secondly, I want to be able to see who's in the band and like whether they take timeouts to like, you know, down like raw eggs like they're rocky or something like that. You know, it's like, okay, we did we did 10 minutes of takes. Time to get back to the lat machine. I just, I always just love to see their process.

Yeah, another thought I had was I would love to see a revamped version of I am trying to break your heart. Oh, yeah. That would be, you know, eight hours long. It would also include the Jim O'Rourke stuff because none of that is in the movie. I don't even know if they shot that. I don't think that they did. Because Jim O'Rourke is like the Billy Preston. Oh, yeah.

Of Wilco. Like, he comes in and kind of saves the day. So it would be cool to see that. And also, I just love any kind of Jay Bennett, Jeff Tweety drama. You know, that moment in get back where George Harrison, you know, claps back at Paul McCartney. I mean, there'd be that times 100. and a Yankee Hotel Foxtrot Doc.

So, you know, Sam Jones, the director of that movie, dig into the vault. Give us a six-hour version of that. I would totally watch that. The anniversary of the album is next year. Oh, wow. I guess of the official release. Right.

Is next year. So maybe we can get that done. I think that would be great. Let's move on to our next question. And this comes from Tyler. And I don't know if Tyler said where he is from. I don't think he did Damn, Tyler, well, okay

Let's just say that he's also from Arnold Missouri. He's from the indie cast universe. Hey, Steve and Ian, I recently reread Michael Azarads Come as You Are for the first time in 25 years It holds up really well as a book And as a portrait of a flawed artist

And it prompted me to revisit Nirvana's catalog with my 13-year-old son Anyway, with the holidays quickly approaching, I was curious which books are on your Mount Rushmore of music books this gives Stephen a chance to shill his own books like Long Road, Pearl Jam and the soundtrack of a generation coming in 2022. Thank you, Tyler.

So Tyler was wondering, what is on our Mount Rushmore of music books? I guess that means like our four favorite music books. Do you have four favorite music books? Yeah, and they are, This Isn't Happening, Twilight of the Gods. Your favorite band is killing me. And for some reason, if you Google Stephen Hyden books,

a second one that comes up is critical race theory, the key writings that formed the movement. I don't know how that happened. Well, you know, that was on the side. Yeah. Anyway, but yeah, I mean, as far, like, music books, I've actually, like, been honest with myself and gotten back into trying to read them.

You know, the original ones, the first ones I think of that are, like, like, I don't know how well this answer will age, but the dirt, the motley crew, oral history, and Chuck Klausman's Welcome to Fargo Rock City. Those are like the first books that I read and thought to myself, like, I just tore through those in like two days. And, you know, Fargo Rock City was super important as well because, you know, at that time, I felt like it was really difficult to find people writing about like music and sports at the same time. Like I know that sounds like really silly now, but, you know, early 2000s tougher to come by.

And that was a book that made me think that maybe there was a career for me in this. So, you know, shout to Chuck. But otherwise, you know, I've tried recently to read the classics of music criticism, like mystery train and so forth. And I just get like, I don't, you know, like, I know that it's like we're in the mob or whatever, Omerta and stuff. but it's like, I don't want to really read criticism. I think the oral histories are what really, you know, what I really find to be interesting. So the Mount Rushmore for me,

and I know these are very recent books, as we also said in the most recent Hall of Fame episode, I don't acknowledge music that was made before 2001. So I think Meet Me in the bathroom was a recent one that I just tore through. Like, I couldn't get enough of that book. same with it was just released like a few months ago

Dan Ozzie sellout if you know for no other reason because hey finally someone's talking about major label emo and hardcore like how could something be tailored more to my interests I think it takes a very astute look at a misunderstood

and undercover time but as far as like the classic like it reveals new information and also takes a perspective. I got to mention the big payback by Dan Charnas. It's about the business side of hip-hop.

I read that along with Jeff Chang's Can't Stop, Won't Stop, which is more of like a history of hip-hop. And like those two books, just endlessly fascinating. Totally. I could not get a half to those. Yeah. I read that. I think that came out 10 years ago, was it?

It came out a while ago. I remember, I think I did the audio book of it, actually. But I really loved that book. and the Jeff Chang book is both. Both of those are essential. Yeah. Music, classic reads. My Mount Rushmore,

you mentioned some of these already. I'm just going to go in order of like when I read them. Okay. Number one is Hammer of the Gods by Stephen Davis, the Led Zeppelin biography, which was essential reading for me as a teenager,

a young teenager. It's been demonstrated after the fact that a lot of that book is bullshit. Basically, that there's like a lot of misinformation in there. but as just like pulp fiction for classic rock it's essential. I just tore through it as a kid. Mystery Train by Grail Marcus,

you mentioned this book. You mentioned trying to get into it, not really taking. This is a book I read probably when I was an older teenager and it really influenced me in terms of just saying that you can use music writing as a way to talk about anything. Because there's lots of things in that book that have nothing to do with music writing.

He'll be talking about, you know, the band and then he'll go off on like a merit. American history for like two or three pages. And I could see a lot of people rolling their eyes at that, but, you know, I am a pretentious music critic and I found it inspiring. And that's something that I still am inspired by today. Fargo Rock City by Chuck Klosterman. You mentioned this book already. Came out. I think it was 2000. It came out. And, you know, I don't know how younger music writers feel about Klosterman, but I know like for people our age of our generation, he was the most important. music critic of that time in terms of everyone had an opinion on him. You either liked him or you didn't like him, but you read him and you had an opinion. And there's really no critic like that today. And he was, I think, like, the last kind of celebrity music critic. I think if you were to poll random people, like name a music critic,

Chuck Klosterman would probably be named the most, even though he's not really, he hasn't been a working music critic in quite some time. He still writes about it occasionally, but that's not his main thing anymore. And just for me, too, seeing a guy come out of the Midwest, you know, with no connections to the East Coast or anything like that, get well known. That was very inspirational. Finally, out of the vinyl deeps by Ellen Willis, this is a compilation of her work. She was a music critic that worked in the 70s, 80s, I think she went into the 90s, most associated with the village voice. This is the book that, like, if you read those old school music critics, you know, the less. Bangs's and the Robert Criscoes and Dave Marshes,

Ellen Willis to me is the most contemporary feeling out of all of those. You read her stuff and it feels like it could have been written last week. And it could have been written last week by like a critic who's like smarter than most critics working today. Like it's just really great writing. It has aged super well. I think better than like most music writing from that time in the 70s. and she's not as famous as, like, say, at Lester Banks, but I really think that, as much as I like Lester Banks,

I think she's a better critic than him. So, like, I would say out of the vinyl deeps, that's maybe like the least well-known of these books, but it's the one I would maybe recommend the most heartily. So that would be on my Mount Rushmore. I feel like we also have to shout out the book, Flyboy and the Buttermilk by Greg Tate, the great music critic who passed away this week at the age of 64.

I've heard him described many times as the godfather of hip-hop journalism. But he's also, you know, he was also a member of the Black Rock Coalition in the 80s. Living Color was like the most sort of famous act associated with that. But he was also an expert in like jazz music and funk. And he wrote about all sorts of things. A true giant passed away this week. So we got a shout out Greg Tate. in this section as well.

We got one more question here in our mailbag. Do you want to read this one? Yeah, because I think this one's really geared towards my interest. So Andrew from Maine here. Maine, the state. Yeah, I don't think we get a lot of mainers, you know?

I know. I love Maine. I've never been to Maine, but I love the idea of Maine. Same. So, hey guys, Andrew from Maine here. Which song hits harder after three beers? TV on the radio, Wolf Like Me or Wolf Parade Shine a Light. You want to talk about Indycast bot, like. Yes.

This is a great question. Two songs that came out at around the same time, like Mid-aughts indie rock and just like so mid-a-ts indie rock. I mean, these are like two of the great songs, I think, to come out of that era. And I'm going to give an answer. This might seem like I'm copying out here and doing like the push. but I think it's the most accurate answer. If I'm in a bar and one of these songs comes on the radio,

I think the song that's going to hit me the hardest in a bar is shine a light. But if I'm at home having a couple beers and I decide to go on YouTube and look up music videos, the Letterman performance of Wolf Like Me is the one that it's going to hit the hardest. Like just seeing them play that song, I think, adds another element. I mean, that song is great on its own. But that performance and just seeing them go balls to the wall is so great. But yeah, it's really hard. I mean, these are both great, you know, classic indie rock songs from that era.

Yeah, I just think that what the perspective of each particular song, you know, Wolf like me is kind of an avant-garde art rock song, you know, about fucking. Like it's the, you know, people were always criticizing TV on the radio. It's like, oh, yeah, like, these guys, like, what's their personality? They're so guarded. And, you know, the lyrics of this song are pretty explicit. Whereas Wolf Parade Shine a Light, like, that is kind of more of the, it's like proto-Japan droids, proto, like the Menzinger is about just being kind of a working man. You got Dan Bochner, who's probably got no sleeves on.

just kind of doing that growly thing. You know, they're Canadian. So that song came out in 2005 in the middle of me being in law school where I could kind of refit the lyrics to be about that. I also did that with the Meadowlands, which is like very hard to do. But nonetheless, it's a very insular world where your entire life revolves around that. So I have very distinct memories of, you know, just, getting through a tough week, you know, in the office tower,

uh, and just getting super wasted and listening to apologies to the Queen Mary. So shine a light to me is a song that gets improved by beer. I think it's a song that is kind of about that in a way. Whereas like wolf like me, uh, you know, maybe if you're getting a little more drunk,

you can get more into it and like rock the fuck out like they do on their, uh, late night performances. But when I, when I think about like the three be, like the get to the weekend and then you can treat yourself to three beers like i think that's what shine a light's about and also i just want to give an extra shout out to andrew from maine because obviously apologies to the queen mary is like indie cast canon but so few people

correctly identify shine a light as the best song really like what what song gets identified father and son of holy ghost i'll believe in anything like uh oh no way man those are great songs but like Shina Light is the one. I also like the fact that it's really hard to make a bad song called Shina Light. That's also like the Constantine's, another great Canadian band. You know, Rolling Stones have that. That's on Exile on Main Street, right? Shine a Light.

Yes, yes. I'm sure there's like 15 spiritualized songs called Shine a Light. Yeah, it's really tough to, if you make kind of like a blue collar rock song called Shina Light, it's going to be fucking awesome. Well, and also, shine a light, the Rolling Stones one, was the song that Noel Gallagher ripped off when he wrote, Live Forever, I believe. So we can call that a Shine a Light song as well. I'm going to group that into the genre of Shine a Light songs. I think we have an empty mailbag now, or at least the... Inbox Zero. Yeah, the small bag that I put these letters into is now empty.

which means that we are at the end of our episode. So thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix Taped newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.