Indiecast - Mailbag: The Smashing Pumpkins, Underdog Bands, And More

Episode Date: May 21, 2021

The new episode of Indiecast is all about listener questions. Steve and Ian fielded questions from listeners all over the country, with topics ranging from nostalgia to underdog bands. To begin, a listener is wondering about stan culture, specifically with regard to the response to lukewarm reception of St. Vincent’s new album, Daddy’s Home. After Pitchfork released a tepid review, screenshots were circulating around the internet of Annie Clark’s fan base threatening violence against both the publication, and the writer.Another listener is wondering if it’s too late to dig into The Smashing Pumpkins’ 1995 opus Mellon Collie And The Infinite Sadness. Steve and Ian are both quick to give their response, which is a resounding: “NO!”In this week’s recommendation corner, Ian is enjoying The Dance, the latest release from NATL PARK SVC. Hyden, on the other hand, is plugging Mdou Moctar’s new album Afrique Victime, which drops today.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 Uprox's Indy Mix tape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycast. On the show, we talked about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we'll be taking questions from you, the Indycast listener. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? Well, that really depends on how the next five minutes go of our conversation.

Like, we've been doing this podcast for what? Like, nine months now? Something about... Yeah, I think our... Did we start in July of... Yeah, August. 20, 20? July, August.

Okay, so we're approaching nine months, and I think this is... Yes. This is the part... This is the juncture of most relationships where you feel like you can come clean about things, where you feel like the structural integrity of what we have is strong enough to withstand any sort of things that might be a shock to the system. So... Oh, boy.

This is a setup for something. Yeah. So I'm reading your, you know, your latest 11,000 word, I believe that's what it was, opus on Bob Dylan, ranking 39 albums. And it was by no means a comprehensive list of Bob Dylan's work. That excludes bootlegs, live albums, I guess movie appearances. And I'm reading, as I'm reading through this list of 39 studio albums, all of which you must have listened to, numerous times over the course of your lifetime, it dawned on me that I don't think I've ever listened to one Bob Dylan album from beginning to end.

Really? Not like, uh... Yeah, I can't believe it. Like, I thought to myself, have I really listened to Blondon? Like, maybe like John Wesley Harding or one of the shorter ones, but I mean, I've had a Bruce Springsteen phase. I had a Beatles phase. I had a Zeppelin phase. There was even a time where, like I was trying to work through Neil Young's back catalog, and yet, like, not one Bob Dylan out from front to back. You know, the thing with Bob Dylan, I think, is that he obviously has this large cultural footprint in our world in the last, you know, what, 80 years, I guess, that he's been around. I mean, he's 80 years old. He's been in the public eye for 60 years. But in a lot of ways I feel like he's a cult artist

You know for as much success as he's had He uh I feel like there's a lot of people that Don't like him at all or like you maybe haven't really dug that deep Like there's something about him that I think Is like a little inaccessible to people Even compared to someone like Neil Young I mean because Neil Young Um

I feel like his music is a little more approachable in a way than Dylan is So I'm not surprised that you would say that. I mean, we all have those things. I mean, I think last week we were talking about Los Campesinos. I don't think I've ever heard a whole Los Campesinos record. Well, I appreciate that you're putting Los Campesinos on the level of Bob Don. Which is what I would do.

I'm frankly kind of shocked and surprised and maybe even a little disappointed that you're not like haranguing me for not being a, decades deep music critic who is just not familiar with the finer points of Bob Dylan's catalog. I thought that would be like a disqualifying admission. Maybe I'm just self-conscious about being a middle-aged man lecturing people about listening to Bob Dylan. Like I don't really want to be that guy who's like, you have to listen to Blonde on Blonde to be a serious music critic. Because I don't think that. I would say that it's a wonderful album. and I would say you should listen to it just because it's great.

But again, there's so much music out there that I haven't heard or haven't explored that thoroughly. So I think we all have our blind spots. It's hard for me to think of like an artist that you have to have heard to write about music professionally. I don't, like, who would be, is there anyone that you would say, like, if you haven't heard every Prince album, then you, you shouldn't be writing about music, or if you don't know the Beatles, you shouldn't listen to music. I mean,

this is kind of, we have a question from a listener that is somewhat related to this in a way that we're going to get to in a moment. But it is an interesting thing, because we do live in a world now where you can hear anything, for the most part,

that you want to hear. Certainly anything canonical, you can hear it if you want. And it's either By the way, I think that was I think that was the first time I've ever heard the word canonical Like spoken aloud I've read that word like

Probably dozens if not hundreds of times in my life And like one of the one of the subtle but unmistakable pleasures of this podcast Is that you and I get to in the midst of hashing out trends Use music critic words that I've never ever heard spoken aloud That's true I mean I'm yeah If I'm yeah if I dropped a canonical reference in conversation with anyone else with like my like normie friends for

lack of a better term yeah i feel like i would just get blank stairs and that is the indicast audience the one like it's the one guy who's still into indicast it's the one guy who used once used the word ethereal in conversation if you're that person indicast is for you we're here every friday so you know since we're talking about canonical bands here. I feel like we should bring up I don't know that this was like the biggest music festival news of the week, but certainly it caught my eye. It was. Which was Limp Biscuit

getting booked at Lollapalooza. That's a thing that I want to talk about. I also want to talk about the placement of Limp Biscuit on the Lollapalooza poster because it's right before Modis Mouse. And to me, that felt like a very pointed commentary about Gen X priorities

that Limp Biscuit would be placed the head of modest mouse. I think the first Limp Biscuit record $3 bill, y'all, I think that came out in 97, which is pretty sure. Yeah, $3 bill y'all was 97, I think. And significant other was 99.

That was the really big one. The big one. But 97 also the year that the Lentuck was, Lonesome Crutted West came out. So you have $3 a bill, y'all, versus the Lonesome Croutredd West. Six of one, half dozen of the other, you know. But, yeah, I don't know. Of course, when I saw Limp Biscuituit on the poster, I immediately thought of Woodstock 99 because I've done a lot of work.

You know, I did a podcast of it Woodstock 99. That was on my brain for a long time when I did that. So I'm just wondering if, are we going to ride a limp biscuit wave here in the back half of 2021 or what? When you say that you were surprised that Modest Mouse and Limp Biscuit were on the same line, like I would say that's like a bigger deal for Modest Mous Mouse because like regardless of what you think about Limp Biscuit as, you know, a band or as a cultural phenomenon,

a significant others sold like at least 16 million copies. Like, I mean, isn't it? And I think that there's. Although I will say that like that was in 1999. And that was the steroid era of music. Steroid era of baseball and steroid era. Yeah, it's like you could fall out of bed and sell three million copies. Yeah.

And that's true because I was bought, like, I didn't have like, I had like barely $10 to my name. And yet I was buying like two CDs every week. But, you know, with Limp Biscuit, I think that similar to corn, similar to other bands from that era, you know, ones that might have been equally popular. I still think that there is a, I don't know, not a car wreck sort of appeal to them, but, you know, if you were to put, say, Creed, a similarly popular band in that same spot, it would be like, what the heck's going on here? But, like, you look at who else is on that line of, like, you know, Playboy Cardi or suicide boys, like, along the same lines.

It's like, you can think of them as sort of kind of descendants of rap metal. It's very much like piss off your parents, piss off your course. piss off your cool older brother. And I guess, like, spiritually Limp Biscuit absolutely belongs in Lollapalooza. So, I mean, I'm totally cool with it. Like, I don't care, like, I don't care who else is performing against Limp Biscuit. Like, I would probably see that. If only to, like, yeah.

Me too. Only because they, you know, they, what are you going to get at, like, are they going to do the cover set? Are they going to do, like, break stuff 15 times in a row? row. Yeah, I'm looking at like the top lines and it's, I mean, I'm seeing Limp Biscuit, you know. Yeah, the car accident appeal that you mentioned, that's a good point. I would definitely feel like, you know, I could go see this up and coming indie band over here who I like their record, but live, are they that interesting? Probably not. Or can I go see Fred Durst in like his huge, like David Letterman beard that he has now?

the huge white beard. Is West Borland still in Limbiscuit, or did he lead again? I don't know. I think he's the type of dude who will probably be like, yeah, I'm like going to, like, I will pay my rent or my mortgage for the next year by doing Laopalooza. Like that's been his whole thing from the jump. It's like, I'm a huge wean Zappa fan, but like this pays the bills. And that's, I think, why a lot of people admire him.

He like kind of uses Limb... In the same way that a lot of people kind of use their day job to justify their hobbies, like he goes out every night and plays the nooky riff and then goes makes unlistenable solo album. So, you know, that's kind of living the dream right there. Yeah, I mean, I guess I was just more surprised that they got booked because I feel like a lot of these, you know, the frontline music festivals, they seem very particular about how they curate their lineups.

It's not Lollapalooza, man. That's true. I guess Coachella is more. of a, you know, they like to fancy themselves as being like a higher caliber, a tastemaker type thing. I mean, seeing Limbiscuit out on that bill, it reminded us, it reminded me of that conversation we had, I guess, a week or two ago about like the small town off-brand festivals. Oh, yeah. Like, I would expect Limbiscuit to play those where, yeah, if I'm drinking.

Oh, they're playing those two. It's like, yeah, if you're drinking, like, cheap beer, I guess it wouldn't be cheap beer. It's overpriced beer out of plastic cup. for hours and it's now 10 o'clock. It's like, hell yeah, now you want to see Limp Biscuit. Like, you're in the proper mindset of just hearing a great dumb limp biscuit set or a terrible dumb limp biscuit set. So, yeah, I think that'll be fun.

Have you been to Lollapalooza ever? I've never been to Lollapalooza, not even in the 90s. You know, but I would see the lineups back in the day and think to myself, well, I don't know if I could have survived the festival. The only festival I had gone to in my high school years in the 90s was, um, why, is the Y100, uh, I think it's called the festival. And, um, I may have gotten it wrong, but like, no doubt played, uh, cracker played, filter played. Uh, God lives underwater. Uh, gravity kills. I mean, like, mind you, oh, 311 also played. This was like, I would say one of the best days of my life up to that point. Um, um,

Like, I was 16 years old and it, like, I was, um, yeah, I was like one of the first people to have a car in my friend group. That, yeah, like, that, that was life, life changing. But Lollapalooza, like, I just can't even wrap my head around. I went there, you know, doing that. I didn't go during the glory years in the 90s. I, I did go to the Chicago iteration that has been going on now for, I think, like 20 years or something. I went there a few times in the odds and It was pretty good

I don't know that it's in Grant Park In the middle of the city And it's I don't know It's like not a great environment It's like it's better than Some festival environment It's better than Woodstock 99 for instance Which was on a military base

So it's better than that Not as good as Coachella You know when you were talking about that lineup By the way I must point out It is WDRE Fest, not the festival. I've been corrected on this many a time. Okay.

Well, you mentioned, like, gravity kills and vans like that. It made me think that at some point we need to do an episode on, like, the 9-inch nails rip-off bands of the 90s? Speaking of which, there was a festival announced in Chicago, this industrial festival, with stabbing westward as the headliner along with clipping and front 242. That's a lineup right there. By the way, every time I go to Chicago for Pitchfork Festival, you know, you're going to-hmm. you see Stabbing Westward shows, like in the bathrooms, like playing surprisingly big venues. I was, well, when I threw out the idea of doing a 9-inch Nails Rip-off episode,

Stabbing Westward was like at the top of my brain. They have some, like, pretty good songs. Bangers, man. They have some like, like, what do I have to do, shame, save yourself? It's a good band name, too. Yeah, great band name. Really good. So, yeah, shout out to Stabbing Westward.

Indie cast approved. We're going to do. So we have the Muse second law anniversary episode on the books. We have the Stabbing Westward tribute on the book. So we've got some good theme episodes coming up on this show. But for now, in this episode, we're going to be doing a mailbag episode. We're just answering questions, which is always fun for us. I love doing the mailbag segment.

It's fun to just keep that going and get a bunch of questions in. because we get way more questions than we can answer. So it's nice to empty out the mailbag a little bit. And by the way, if you do want to write into us, our address is Indycastmailbag at gmail.com. I should also say quick, I always forget to do this. If you like our show, can you give us some reviews on like Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your pods?

We need more reviews. Getting reviews actually helps the show, like with our algorithm. It tells the platform that people like our show and it can give us better exposure. So I always mean to ask for this and I always forget. So I just remember now. So if you could do that. And also, like, if you write to us, take a screenshot of a review if you've left one. And I'll be more likely to pick it for the episode if you've left a comment saying how great we are.

A little quid pro quo, I guess, for our listeners here. I'm bribing our listeners with exposure if they give us compliments. Let's get to our first question. This one comes from Michael in West Hollywood. Okay, that is like, yeah, I lived in West Hollywood, and this is like the opposite of our typical indie mailbag participants. So I'm super stoked about this. Shout to the baby blues on the corner of Selma in Fairfax that I used to go to.

Yeah, it's like, you know, normally we've got some. someone from Canada, someone from Pennsylvania, Michigan, but we're getting some West Hollywood people here, which, you know, we're classing up the joint. This is from Michael. It's about St. Vincent St. Vincent's, which is a very timely topic. St. Vincent put out Daddy's Home last week, which we reviewed on our show, not favorably. But no one got upset about our episode that I'm aware of. Maybe they did, and they just didn't tell us about it.

But, yeah, there was some controversy this week with St. Vincent Stans. there, and it's what Michael has to say. St. Vincent has just released the most divisive album of her career. Even some people like myself who've enjoyed every album up to this point have struggled to gel with it. I felt Pitchfork's assessment was pretty

fair and perhaps even a bit generous. For those who don't know, Pitchfork gave Daddy's home a 6.7, which I agree, I think, is very fair. It's higher than I would have given it. But, you know, they gave it a 6.7. That's the lowest score, I think, Pitchfork's given.

a St. Vincent album. As far as I know. She's lined up at least, I think, three best new music. I mean, she's pretty acclaimed by Pitchfork generally. And even that review is pretty positive, all things considered. I thought the assessment was fair, perhaps even a bit generous. That's why I was taken aback when I saw a Twitter thread of screenshots of violent threats toward the organization and personal attacks toward the reviewer, including misgendering.

It bursts any remaining theories that only the Stan armies of huge power, top stars engage in this behavior, which I feel is a problem that many indie listeners like to pretend is not also a problem in our listening culture. We are still emerging from the half decade of attacks on free press and something about these remarks, whether jokingly or otherwise, feel hypocritically Trumpian, especially from those who denounced his behavior. That behavior has infiltrated all aspects of our culture. Many artists, including St. Vincent, O. Journalism, for their initial exposure and rise. I have disagreed with my share of reviews over the years, but I owe journalistic music articles for my discovery and love of many artists I listen to today.

I suppose my first point is that this is not a problem we can ignorantly continue assuming does not also apply to indie fans. Secondly, do you think there's any way to repair this journalist-artist-fan relationship of trust that has been fractured in every facet of society? Michael, big question here. So he's asking basically, you know, it seems like there's crazy fans out there on social media who go berserk if you don't say that they're artists of choice isn't absolutely brilliant and a genius. And he's like, how can we fix this?

I don't know if it's something to fix. I mean, it's not like this has happened as long as, you know, there's been a relationship between the person creating the art and the person whose art is reviewing. the art. Now, I can tell you, it's been a long time since I've reviewed artists at the level of St. Vincent, but, you know, back in my day when I would give, say, a Kid Cuddy album, a bad review, like there was one tool in the toolbox, and that was you, at two in the morning, someone from a college email address sends me an email, like saying that, like, I'm a virgin who lives in my parents' basement. And because I'm not getting laid, I don't understand the weekend's Kiss Land properly. Like, that was the one tool that, that was the one tool in the toolbox. And you go with that and you know what, like you just kind of go through it. Or like people write a song about you like Sonic Youth did with Robert Crisgow or whatever. But I think today it's the reason we have people like Michael like, you know, saying this is like a huge cultural issue is that I think a lot of it gets tied up with a kind of a moral thing because like you was saying with like misgendering. And, you know,

and things like that, particularly with St. Vincent. Also, always it's interesting when someone with like a gender kind of neutral name reviews an album and like people don't quite know whether to say like this person's misogynist or whatever like Peyton Thomas was the name of the reviewer with this one. But I think it gets tied up in like moral things like, you know, like the only possible explanation for giving St. Vincent a six, seven is like internalized institutional misogyny. And I think that's something that makes people a little more skittish about, like, writing about albums and, like, how do we repair that? I think, honestly, it's not about avoidance, but I think it's, like, resilience, you know?

Like, you have to kind of understand this is, like, part of the territory and that if you're a critic, you know, putting yourself out there, you kind of know what to expect and to, you know, steal yourself to it. And, and also just to kind of, but, like, I think what he, you know, what Michael is alluded to. to is that it can get to the point where your address is revealed, where you, like, where there's, like, some sort of, like, actual present threat going on. And I don't, I don't know how to fix that. Well, yeah, there, you know, there's a, uh, a spectrum of negative responses that a review can get. And by the way, sometimes people get mad if you write a positive review of something that they don't think is worth getting a positive review of, you know, like, that's happened to me. You know, So it doesn't, sometimes you can be, you know, people can be mad because you're not mean enough or they're mad at you because you're too mean.

I mean, I agree with what you said. I think there's no excuse for abuse. There's no excuse for like threatening someone or doxing them or anything like that. But, you know, I do push back against this idea that this is a recent phenomenon that it is a result of the Trump era. You know, I, I, I, I, one of the worst reactions I ever got to review happened 20 years ago when I wrote a negative concert review of a corn show in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I got death threats. I, people were calling me at my office. I, God, I think, like 60-some emails, like just terrible hate mail from people.

Hilarious hate mail. I mean, I printed it into a book because it was like very funny. letters from people. But yeah, if you if you write a review of a popular artist that's not favorable, that's obviously going to upset fans. And if you don't expect that as a critic, you know, you're, you're being a little delusional about that. I mean, of course people are going to be upset about it. And you do have to accept a certain level of negative reaction. Sometimes if you're going to write something critically. And just not take it. Personally, because really these people, they don't know you.

They don't actually know anything about you as a writer. They probably don't even read pitchfork a lot of these people. They're just seeing a score and they're spouting off on Twitter about it. So, yeah, I don't know how else to fix it. I mean, really the only way that this will stop is if people don't read reviews and they don't care what critics think. Like, that's the only real way that I think that you don't have angry readers. And I don't think that's a good solution for critics. You know?

Just go back to, you know, not liking St. Vincent in private, you know, like, you can go, you can just do that or, you know, just like kind of roll with it. Or just not review it at all. Like, I think that would be like, particularly after St. Vincent was announced as like one of the heaven. Liners for Pitchfork Festival, there was like this kind of rumbling of like, when are they going to review this? I think it would be actually funnier if they didn't review it at all. Like, I don't think that would be possible. But just to like, yeah, you know, no one wants to jump on that bullet.

Yeah. We're just going to, we're just going to kind of let our silence speak for it. And just, yeah. As far as like, you know, this also existing in indie culture, I mean, can you think of instances like where indie fans got mad at you over a review? Yeah, none, none, no, never. Not my, not my, not my 14 years of writing as any indie fan found issue with anything I've ever written, never. No, I don't know.

It's been a long time, like, because the stuff that, well, one of the things that, like, really gets underplayed as far as, like, the stand culture conversation is that this hasn't happened so much to me, but I know people who have given similar scores, like to bands that like I can't even like I don't even remember their names like something like T-Rex to see that's a that's a band and um they got like shit on by not but it was a small but very passionate number of people who thought it was um you know just awful like and also institutionalized misogyny or whatever this band got like a six seven or what have you and um it's like people who are like very vocal about a small band that can also make your life a real pain in the ass. Yeah, that's a good point.

Yeah, people that, anyone that feels invested in a band, you know, that fan base can be weaponized against writers. And it's not always big fan bases, because sometimes for smaller bands, the people who are into it are even more committed than they would be if it was like arcade fire or something. I was going to say, do you remember this band called Reading Rainbow? Yes. Of course I remember Reading Rain, dude. I'm like...

I reviewed their second. I remember really. liking their first record and then I reviewed their second record and I didn't really get into it. Actually wrote about it for Pitchfork. I think it got like a 6.0 or something. And I saw someone made a comment where they're like, I'm going to fill a sock full of quarters and hit you in the face with this like over a reading rainbow review. So, which I just thought was funny because it was such a specific form of violence against the game. It wasn't just like, I'm going to beat you up. I'm going to like take a sock and fill a four of quarters and hit you in the face.

That didn't actually happen. And really like, I mean, like most of these threats that get made, I mean, actually all of these threats are usually BS. I mean, that's another thing to remember about this. I can't think of an instance where someone actually, like, followed through on, you know, not to say that it should be taken seriously or that it's not upsetting. I mean, it's very upsetting to get. threats and all that sort of stuff.

But I mean, these are people who are just angry and spouting off. And, you know, this is like an angry world. I think sometimes people just feel like any way they can get their anxiety out, they're going to take it. And I guess if this is how they do it, it's relatively harmless. So I don't know. But at any rate, shout out to Peyton Thomas for the St. Vincent Review and Pitchfork. Although, I got to say, man, I'm mad about.

that review too but only because pitchfork imply that it is a higher quality album than turnovers dream pop emo masterpiece peripheral vision by point one i'm mad let's let's put that on the record it's better by 1.6 points yeah let's move on to our next question here this is about smashing pumpkins oh sweet here we go this is from stephen in uh Tacoma washington Not quite indie cast territory, but close. I think that's a new, we're planning a flag in Tacoma. I don't think you've been to... Yeah, West Coast.

We haven't been to... Yeah, two West Coasties so far. Hello, Stephen and Ian. I'm a long time, listener, first time. Question asker. The question is simple. I have gone my entire life without listening to melancholy and the infinite sadness. Should I listen to it now?

Obviously, I've heard in 1979. It's hard to avoid, but my virgin ears have yet to hear the rest of the album. So should I keep waiting for the perfect moment or listen to it now? P.S., my best friend and I have been reading Ian Cohen's review since we were 15. I remember reading a review of Japan droids post-nothing and how much that excited us at the time. Your work has meant a lot to us, and we still read it to this day. And Steve, you seem like a nice guy too. Keep up the good work.

Stephen from Tacoma, Washington. You know, actually, I think we should skip this question now. This guy was way too nice to you. Maybe we'll just move on. Okay, so he's asking, should he listen to melancholy and the infinite sadness? I'm going to guess that that's a yes from both of us on that. I mean, I'm curious to hear your thoughts. I mean, because it seems to be directing the question to me, but I'm curious, like, what,

I don't know if you've ever really had a substantial Pumpkin's discussion on here. So I'm curious what you think about this. Well, I mean, look, I think it's a great record. say that Siamese Dream is the best Smashing Pumpkins record, but this is, might be one B to like 1A for Siamy's Dream. It's definitely the prime of Smashing Pumpkin's career, like that 93 to 96 run that they were on. But I actually had a different thought on this question where, because it made me think about

how when I was a kid in the 90s, and I'd be reading about, you know, canonical albums. I'm saying canonical again. This is the canonical episode. I would read about them in music books, you know, read about the Velvet Underground or the Stooges or something. And a lot of times, I wouldn't actually hear that music for maybe like a year or two afterward because like those records weren't accessible in my town. And, you know, a lot of times it was just going to like a UCD store and just happening to sort of accidentally come across. like Fun House or White Light, White Heat. And then it's like, oh, I finally get to listen to this.

And a lot of times I found that because I had imagined it for so long, that I was initially underwhelmed by a lot of these classic albums because they had been built up so much in my mind. But it just made me think about how now, obviously we can hear anything for the most part that we want to hear. And I find that it's like fairly common among younger people. And this ties back, I guess, to our Bob Dylan conversation, that like sometimes people choose not to live.

listen to canonical stuff. Like, you can actually decide now that, like, I'm not ready to hear melancholy in the infinite sadness. I'm going to wait until some perfect moment. Instead of just saying, like, well, whatever, I'll just scan through it right now. It'll take, I can, I don't have to hear the whole thing. I can just kind of dabble in it for 20 minutes and then move on. I don't know, I'm just fascinated by that idea, you know, that there's these huge albums

that you're already curious about. but, you know, people, I think, are much more sort of deliberate about not hearing things sometimes. In a way that I couldn't have imagined when I was a teenager, you know, growing up in a pre-internet world where I would have been like, wow, you can go to a box and just hear every Velvet Underground album. I don't have to, like, wait for months and search trying to find, like, a copy of a Velvet Underground CD. I mean, that kind of blows my mind there. So, anyway, that's kind of a tangent away from this question. But it's an issue in the background of it that I find really interesting.

Yeah. I mean, first off, I got to say, like, if I can't imagine what it would be like to hear post-nothing when you're 15. Like, if post-nothing came out when I was 15, I might be dead right now. Like, I think with Japan droids, I've been able to appreciate it as kind of like as intended as, like, a nostalgic sort of like where of all the good times gone sort of thing. but like if I saw that as like aspirational like we're going to go out tonight and like get you know post nothing slash celebration level drunk and also I wonder if I like how much more insufferable I'd be if like you know I was reading pitchfork reviews at 15. I was already bad enough when like all I had was like rolling stone and spin to internalize. But anyway, I appreciate that. Also it's funny.

I went back and read that review and I compared them to like the get up kid. So that's kind of a win back in 2009. But as far as like the perfect time to listen to Melancholy, Infinite Sadness, I mean, that album actually came out when I was 15. So, you know, like I don't know if you can recreate, you know, being on a school bus to the Jewish youth group meet up in Pittsburgh or, you know, just being alone in your room, like being grounded. So you're not going to get that. But it brings up a point about like the best time to experience smashing pumpkins. Like, I recall, like, when we were voting on the best tracks of the 90s list for Pitchfork back in 2009, I got to see, like, how five years of difference just created this insurmountable generation gap, particularly with, like, alt rock stuff, like the discussions about, say, Interstate Love Song or Alice and Chains. And I think Smashing Pumpkins were kind of included in that as well, because if I were, like, in my 20s and from an indie rock perspective, when melancholy came,

out probably would have hated the smashing pumpkins because they they were against everything indie rock stood for it at that time uh they had beef with steve albini uh sonic youth pavement uh Courtney love I mean like how much more anti indie rock could you possibly be well and it was so grandiose too I mean it was definitely like aspiring to be you know it like it emulated like the great you know monstrosities of like classic rock in the 70s you know like the big double albums where you just get lost in it and has very grandiose cover art, which I loved, of course. I mean, that was way up my alley.

And even compared to like Pearl Jam or like a lot of the, or REM at the time, bands that were like trying to scale back and like reconsider their relationship with fame, Smashing Pumpkins were like, fuck this. We want to be Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd at the same time. And I mean, I think with this album, you can all, it's a little more fan.

servicey than Siamese Dream and Adore, which I think come from a more personal perspective. So if you can kind of accept that with songs like, say, Bullet with Butterfly Wings and Zero, which kind of pour it on a little thick as far as the T. Nanks goes, I think you can just appreciate it on a sheer they don't make them like this anymore sort of level. It's, I mean, it's similar to like listening to the wall because I think in the past couple, you know, in the past I don't know, 30, 40 years, the wall has really been, you know, reconsidered for its, let's say, problematic elements or how it appears to, like, the kind of sheltered teen. And I think melancholy does that in a way as well. But in contrast to the wall, like, the songs are just awesome.

There's, like, all the singles are incredible. And there's, like, twice as many singles that could have been singles as, like, Billy Coring was on such a hot streak at that time that, like, even the box sets of B-sides were incredible. incredible. I think, yeah. And I think, too, the thing you were talking about before about the indie scene politics and how that complicated, how a lot of people heard smashing pumpkins, you know, that stuff all goes away over the course of time.

And I think that sort of context, it's not really there if you are a younger person just coming to the album now. I mean, that seems like such a lot of that indie stuff. And, you know, and people looking at smashing people, pumpkins as being sellouts and, you know, not authentic and all that kind of stuff. I mean, it's so far past its expiration date at this point, where in a way, maybe someone who hears it now can appreciate it on a more peer level, you know, because there's not all this baggage attached to it.

But I'd say, you know, listen to, listen to melancholy. Ian, listen to blonde on blonde. You know, this music's all there. If you got like, you know, an hour despair. slap it on, give it a shot. You know, like, what do you got to lose? It's there. You'll listen to us talking for like an hour. You can listen to like Billy Corrigan at the peak of his powers.

Exactly. Put it on. Let's know. Write us back. Let's know what you think. But no more compliments for Ian. We've got to keep Ian humble here. So no more people writing Ian telling them that they read his reviews when they were 15. All kidding aside, that's awesome. That's nice to hear, isn't it? It is. It's kind of nice to hear.

Shaping minds? That's scary to me Because whenever I go to like pitchfork festival And see like 15 year olds or like teenagers I think like are they ever going to like uncool music Like are they ever going to have that point where they their mind is shaped By like really terrible like where are they going to experience like what bush or what have like Or stabbing westward were for us?

You know it's like I think you need a little bit of time to like I don't know be kind of brain washed by monoculture. I don't know. It feels a little different though now in terms of the stratification between cool and uncool music because like how uncool music would have been defined when we were younger, that's

totally out the window. You know, like if this were the 90s and you had someone like Taylor Swift this enormous superstar, like indie people would have just scoffed at her. Whereas now she's like a huge indie person as well as a huge pop star. So I don't know how

you define uncool music now. It's probably all those bands in the middle of the Lollapalooza poster that I've never heard of. Right. Like I think we're just, we're like due for a huge reassessment of like, I don't know, Milky Chance or like, that's a real band. I heard them yesterday at work. Yeah, there's bands like that. And then, yeah, there's bands that actually do really well on their own, the headline, you know.

Yeah, glass animals. Glass animals. That's the one. I'm trying to think of that jam band that played at Madison Square Garden that is sort of an indie band. Their name is escaping me at the moment. Do you have any idea what I'm talking about? Steve, if you don't know this, I'm damn well not going to know this either. Let's move on. We have time for one more question. We actually had two more that we were going to do, but I think we only have time for one more. So the last one, we'll bump to our next episode. But this is a question. This comes from Wes and Milwaukee. Here we go.

Oh, there we go. There's some good indie cast. Get out of the West Coast now. We're going to the heart of America, the heartland of Wisconsin, with West and Milwaukee. Thank you for writing in. He's writing it about favorite underdog bands. Hey, Stephen Ian, love the show, calling Ian's Bluff from last episode to do an entire episode on Los Campes. Yes.

Another Los Campes reference. Los Camps, is that a thing? Do people call them Los Camps? Yeah, that, Los Camps, LC, whatever it is. As long as people are talking about them, that's cool with me. Lots of Los Camps references on Indycast lately. I really do need to listen to more of this band. Oh, yeah.

Are also one of my favorite bands of the last decade, an example of a phenomenon. I'd like to hear you guys discuss, a band that consistently receives critical acclaim, but are never really mentioned when talking about the greats. But as a listener of this band, I feel the underappreciation pushes us fans into a cult-like devotion, which I think as a band would actually be more fulfilling,

while less rewarding monetarily than breaking big. Another one of my favorite bands, who currently I feel is more of a recent example, is Pyle. I think I've tweeted about Pyle. Pyle's pretty good band. They're from Boston, right? Are they Boston? They're from Boston, yeah, fucking killer live band. Would love to hear who your favorite beloved underdog bands are,

and also how would you feel if these bands finally broke big, if it would somehow ruin the magic at all? again, many thanks for a great show, Wes, from Milwaukee. So this is an interesting question. I have some thoughts on this, but I'm curious, since you are a Los Camps fan, how you feel about Wes's assessment here and what are your favorite underdogs out there? Okay, can I just say that, like, Wes from Milwaukee asking what our favorite underdog bands in is might be the most indie cast mailbag question of indie bag mailbag questions like this is it's almost

self parody it's like self parity it is it is perfection of form like i just want to put i want to like post and frame this one and people ask us like what is indecast about this is it so west um yeah i i think west makes a very good distinction here because we talk a lot about like it's one of our favorite subjects like what bands are like underrated or overlooked and i think there isn't a lot of times in these discussions scrutiny on like what it actually means to be underrated or underappreciated or maybe does it mean that you're properly appreciated by a smaller number of people than you'd like because with Los Campesinos it's like they they are like a perfect band to me. I think that lyrically they talk about like you know soccer and food and

you know they write about like sex in a way that's not cringe which makes and like extremely rare for an indie band. And if like they kind of played up the UK aspect, their band from Wales. Like if, if Gareth was just like straight up talking over like angular postpunk, they might be, I don't know,

amongst those bands like Squid or Black Country New Road. But instead, they funnel this lyricism through very anthemic, quasi-emmo. They call themselves the UK's first and only emo band on Twitter. They are constantly stumping for, bands I like. But, you know, if they were bigger, if they were more popular, I don't know if that would really work for them because I think the cultish devotion to them, like being, you know,

their genius pages with lyric annotations is just off the chain. Oftentimes it's like from Garrett himself. And I think that really kind of helps a band like that. Pyle as well. The thing about them that you always hear is that their records are good, but it cannot compare to their live show. and I think that's true. I don't think, I think those bands are properly appreciated by the correct number of people. For their sake, I wish they were more economically recompense for that. But they're about as big as you could expect a band of that kind to be. I mean, they're not doing things where you're like, wow, this could be on the radio

or on like the, you know, the big pop Spotify playlist or whatever. I mean, they're making the kind of music that, like, yeah, only a certain number of people like. And they're, like, at the top, really, of that pyramid. I mean, the thing about, you know, underrated, underappreciated, the fact is that, like, 99.9% of bands are underappreciated. Because you've never heard of them. They never get reviewed. They're not successful. And, you know, they might be great.

but like no one cares about them. And in the case of Lowe's Camps, a band that gets like 8.0s from pitchfork, I know they're not getting the best new music. But like, to me, that's like pretty damn appreciated, I would say. Because like I know artists who'd never get reviewed at all. Yeah, they've succeeded like 99.9% of bands.

But as far as like the bands that I want to see, like, that I think would benefit from like more people kind of changing their perspective on them, I almost feel guilty about bringing up a band like Foxing, who is like enormously successful by most metrics. But I think that like when I see them live and when I hear their record, I just feel as if they were to scale up and play like Coachella, for example, I think they would kill it.

Like that's the thing. I think that they've reached a point where they can tackle any sort of, you know, big stage they were put on. And I think that they're kind of just, cornered as like oh this emo band or whatever same with like the world is i mean i think but even like fox like near my god was like pretty well reviewed was pretty like widely covered but but but i want to see them like you know how like there's those indie bands on like the one or two or three indie bands like per year that get like put on every festival like the japanese breakfast spot i want to like i think

that by the way they and japanese breakfast put out of split together in two thousand 11 or something like that. But yeah, I think that they would belong in that spot and they would crush it. That's the thing. It's like if Pio and Los Campesinos were elevated to a much bigger platform, I don't know if that would really suit them. But yeah, I think with like a band like Foxing or like the world is, I think they should have been like Wolf Parade or broken social scene for a minute. Which is funny because like a lot of people would probably say that Wolf Parade is underrated, you know, because they weren't you two or something. You know, I mean, there's always there's always different, I guess.

definitions of success and it really is in the eye of the beholder, I guess, because it really is to go back to what you were saying, it's not really about being underrated, it's about feeling as a listener that like, well, not enough people like this. You know, even though a lot of people might like it right now, it's still not at a proper level of recognition and whatever that is in my mind. And it's sort of like a, it's a hard thing to define. I mean, for me, like the first band that I thought of, in terms of like contemporary music was indie-cast. favorite Wild Pink, which is a fan that we've talked about a lot. And they've been pretty well reviewed. I know like Vulture did like a big piece on them saying it was like one of the best indie

rock records of the year so far. They called the best rock record. The best rock record. And they were correct. So, you know, so I guess by my own definition, they're not underrated because they have been covered by, you know, big publications. They're not hugely popular. I feel like there's a lot of people out there, a lot of our listeners even, who I think would really like that band if they gave him a shot because they hit a lot of the buttons that we talk about on the show, things that we are into. So there are band I'd push for. I mean, to me, like, historically speaking, like the go-to answer for this, for me,

and I think a lot of people is, like, Sloan, like a band like that from Canada, Canadian power pop. I mean, like, is that, I mean, I feel like, I think that's, like, design. to be like underapper. Like that's power pop's whole thing. Right, exactly. Oh, these guys could be enormous. Right.

That was Fountains of Wayne's thing. Well, it goes back to Big Star. It goes back to Big Star. Like, you know, the original Power Pop band where people are like, oh, why wasn't Big Star more famous? They were so good. Or, you know, the replacements have that. I mean, yeah, there's so many bands of that ilk.

But, and you look at their music and you're like, oh, it's so catchy and melodic. Why wouldn't people like this? But then, you know, kind of going back to what you were saying. saying about like a lot of punk and emo stuff is that there does seem to be something embedded in these bands where even if they're not conscious of it it seems like well we're not really pushing to be huge like if we were we'd be a different kind of band you know like like no one i feel like at this point like is anyone forming an emo band or a power pop band thinking yeah we're going to be as big as biance with this kind of music you know like no one thinks that well i think that you

have, we completely missed on the Tramp Stamps controversy about the supposed an industry plant pop punk band. This was, God, this feels like ages ago, except it was like a month ago. That was like formed, I think, by Dr. Luke. I don't even want to begin to get on that because like that was, that was just like one very inside baseball controversy where I just had to view it from a distance. I mean, it does happen, but yeah, I think if you're starting a band like we were saying last week with a bit with a name like Ogbert the nerd.

I think you put it. You shout to them, by the way, they rule. But like, you put kind of a ceiling on your, you know, popularity. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with that. I mean, as our listener suggested, I think that there is something really nice about just having, like, a really good fan base that is into you. That I think when fan bases are smaller, they tend to be kinder and smarter. than like really big fan base? I don't know, I guess I'm contradicting our previous conversation

in the St. Vincent thing, but... We contain multitudes. Yeah, maybe that's not true. I don't know. I'm sorry. But I do think that there is a phenomenon a lot of times with bands where maybe you get bigger than you really wanted to be, and people end up at your shows that you, like, aren't totally comfortable being there.

I mean, that was the big thing about a lot of 90s bands. I mean, Kirk Cobain talked about that with Nirvana, that he would look in the audience. the incident was like full of frat dudes who like the kind of people they used to beat him up and you know maybe that's not cool you know even in even though you are successful even in titus andronicus like they would you know there would be people who would even a band at that level they would say that there were people who just like kind of misunderstood the entire point of the monitor you know yeah so i could see you know as much as you want to get your music out there and you want to be financially viable or even rich

you know, even beyond just being viable, but having a lot of money. Yeah, I think there is something to be said about just having like a nice size fan base that's cool that you know is with you. And is this going to be supportive of what you do? So, yeah, it does seem like a band like Los Camposinos or any number of bands at that level. It seems like they're doing pretty well. We've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first?

All right, so this band I'm going to talk about is kind of the West from Milwaukee of music. Like this one is designed in a lab for Indycast. It's a band called National Park Service. It's stylized as N-A-T-L, Park spelled as is, SRVC. And they are a, I mean, let's just list it off. A seven-piece band from Minneapolis. They describe themselves on their Twitter feed as a sixth wave emo super group, which, but they all kind of, they dress, they, they all wear like the same kind of suit. And they play a style of music that I would describe as like big tent aughts.

Like I hear some arcade fire in their music. I hear Los Campasinos. I hear also a lot of Rha, ra riot a little bit. of Gaslight Anthem, like very much like tree of Bruce. And they put out their debut album called The Dance, I believe, last weekend. And similar to Manchester Orchestra's Black Mile to the Surface, most of the songs have like the in the title, like The Dance, The Garage. Is that a Garth Brooks reference, by the way?

Let's get him on the pod. We got to get him on the pod to ask. I don't think Garth Brooks has like, you know, I don't think he has like a monopoly. on that. But, you know, the sharks, the deadline. And, you know, this band, it's like people would, it kind of plays along with the last question about, like, you know, if indie rock was what it was in the late 2000s, this band would be huge.

And it's like, I don't know about that because maybe they'd get like lost in the mix amongst the bigger bands that we've asked, talked about already. But in 2021, it's more of like a wow, they still make you type of thing. which is not to like denigrate their craft. I think it's a very good album. One that has like this epic sweep to it. And a lot of like, you know, horns and strings. And it just thinks really, really, really big.

Like I think they're really swinging for the fences in a way that a lot of bands, uh, don't. And yeah, it's a little bit nostalgic. Maybe they make another record where they like completely master it. But I think for, if you listen to Indycast, like, there's like no way you're not going to be into this. record. So, yeah. National Park Service, the dance. I was going to say, you were talking about industry plants before.

This is like an Indycast plant. Yeah, I know. In the music business. Yeah, that's a cool record. Also, shout out to a Minneapolis band. Love to support the local music, local for me anyway. So that's awesome to be here. I want to talk about a record called Afrik Victim by a 35-year-old Nigerian guitarist called

Mdu Mokdar. This album is out today, and I would say that if you are into guitar solos, this is the guitar solo album of the first half of 2021. Makdar, he's been around for a while, but he's really, I think, come into the consciousness of, like, American rock listeners in the past couple years. He put out a record in 2019 called Elana, the Creator, which is part of that desert blue scene that, includes bands like Tenor Win, and there's also this great guitar player named Bombino. And it's basically just like dudes in Africa playing rock music that sounds like across of like ZZ Top and like upbeat African music. You know, just real kind of drony, awesome sounding guitars and just like great rhythms,

very energetic behind it. You might have heard Mdu Maqdar on the recent Matt Sweeney and Bonnie. Prince Billy album Superwolves. He and his band appear on three tracks. And you instantly know when Magdar is on the scene with those guys because it's like way more upbeat than the rest of the record.

He's like a shot of adrenaline on that album. But the new record, which again is called Afrique Victim, I think I'm pronouncing that correctly. I think it's even better than Alana the creator. It's such a great record. It's like one of those records where there'll be vocals for about

two minutes, and then there'll be like a three-minute guitar solo after that. And, you know, he's talked about how some of his influences include, like Jimmy Hendricks, Eddie Van Halen. He's influenced by a bunch of Western guitarists. And you can hear that in his playing, because he does bend notes, he blurs notes. A lot of these guitar solos, they pick up intensity as they go along, and at some point, it turns into this, like, incredible, like, squall of noise that's super exhilarating to hear against that great energetic rhythm section. So I know that there's people out there that love guitar solos. Just like I like guitar solos, you got to hear this record.

It's going to give you what you want at a time where you don't really hear a lot of guitar solos on rock records. So thank you, MDMachdar, for bringing the guitar solo back. I appreciate that. I also wrote about this record. It's my reviews out today. So if you want to check that out on our box. Can I ask you a question, though, since you seem to be much more.

you know, in tune with the kind of this style of music. Like, we usually hear like, you know, the, the, the people who stand above, uh, yeah, like the, like the, like a guy like this, but like, is there like a, when you listen to this style of music, is there like a Nigerian nickelback? Like, is there like a version of this music where it's just like, yo, this is, where it's like, I don't know, like, Inuit Malmsteen or like just, or like blues hammer type stuff. Because like, that's a good question. I mean, really, Machdar might be the nickelback because he's so successful.

Like there might be like a hipper version of him, you know, just gigging around North Africa that like the heads in Africa are into. And they're like, oh, this dude who's popular in America, that sucks. I mean, I don't know if that's true. I suspect it's probably not. I think he's pretty beloved in his home country too. But that's a good question that we'll have to tackle on a future episode trying to find the African nickel back. He's like, I listen to him like, yeah, I know this sounds awesome. But, like, I also wonder, like, you know, it's like, yeah, like, who are, like, the Tuareg musicians who are just like, man, this is mad corny, you know, totally derivative.

No, that's a great question. I can't say that I know that scene well enough to, you know, expound on that. Yeah, because you usually only hear about the superstars, you know? It's kind of like the Johnny Be Good mythology. Like, he had to build his first guitar out of, like, he had, like, find the wood. and like, I think he took like wires from a bicycle and used that for the guitar. So, you know, when you have dudes like that, like, I'm guessing that there's like not a ton of people out there playing this kind of music. So I don't know.

But that'll be a fun thing to look at in a future episode. Well, we've now reached the end of our episode here on ATCAST, but thank you so much for listening. 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 mixtape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it

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