Indiecast - Manchester Orchestra + "Superwolves." Plus: St. Vincent-gate!

Episode Date: April 30, 2021

This week’s episode of Indiecast kicks off with Steve and Ian recounting their worst and toughest interview experiences with artists. There’s a difference between a good bad interview, like a conversation with Liam Gallagher, and a plain bad interview, like an inaudible conference call with Migos. The main topic of this week’s episode is a conversation about new albums from Manchester Orchestra and the revival of the long-dormant collaborative project of Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney.Manchester Orchestra has been one of the staples of the emo universe for the better part of the last two decades and their latest effort, The Million Masks Of God, is their grandest work to date. Meanwhile, the last time Bonnie “Prince” Billy and Matt Sweeney worked together was before Manchester Orchestra even released their debut album, with 2005’s Superwolf. Now, 16 years after their last collaboration, the duo is back for an album fittingly entitled Superwolves. After two decades apart, how does the collaborative spirit between the two artists hold up?In this week's Recommendation Corner, Steve can't with for the forthcoming EP from Mannequin Pussy, while Ian is enjoying the latest from Porter Robinson.Disclaimer: Technical difficulties resulted in Ian having to record this episode through his computer, which could result in slightly lower quality audio than usual. This should be rectified for next week's episode. 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 Indie Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indicast. 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're going to review new albums by Manchester Orchestra and Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

You know, in the alternate universe where we really did have an Indycast intern, this would be a really sad day because there was like an actual Lana Del Rey album announcement happening and that's maybe what? Like our third banter topic. Like it's maybe top five this week. So I mean, we would have to we would have to sit this intern down and be like, you know what? We thank you for your services, but they're no longer needed. Or what we could possibly do is kind of reassign them to what's becoming easily 2021's hottest, you know, intern beat, which is the St. Vincent album Rollout beat. Yeah.

Yeah. The St. Vincent rollout is the greatest thing, I think, to happen to this show, certainly. And just music critic discourse in general, because we're still in that groggy pandemic period where we're coming out of the pandemic. You see festival announcements happening. Tours are happening. You feel like by the fall, maybe even late summer, things will feel relatively normal again. But things are still a little bit slow right now.

But then along comes St. Vincent. And by the way, I was going to say, you know, the original name of this show was an indie cast. It was actually going to be called Daddy's School. Was the original title of this. But Daddy's like plural. So we would be the Daddy's. I'm not a father. Coming home.

Yes, but you are a white-collar criminal. So it works. That's a joke. We'll leave my criminal past out of this, you know? Yeah, the St. Vincent thing, okay, for people who maybe weren't paying attention to this this week, there was this blog post that went up,

I guess it was on Monday. It was by a British music writer named Emma Madden who interviewed St. Vincent recently for some publication. She didn't say who, but she did this interview, and the publicist for St. Vincent asked that it be spiked from the publication,

and the publication agreed, and then Emma Madden went ahead and posted the interview on her blog, and it caused the sensation on Twitter and elsewhere. And then a few hours later it was gone. And apparently, I don't know, there were sort of... I would say that it was like, you know, legal threats. I think extortion could also possibly be the word used here. Yeah, it's very strange.

And like if you read the interview, it seems like a pretty straightforward interview. And, you know, this whole story went through the normal, you know, cycle of backlashes where people were, you know, initially talking about how good this interview was. And then I saw people talking about how bad this interview was. And for me, what was striking about it is that it was neither good nor bad. It was very straight down the line, almost to the point where if it had been published, I don't know if it would have caused. any real response. I mean, it seemed like a pretty straightforward interview for this album. My sense from reading it is that the issue was that St. Vincent seems pretty sensitive about

being asked about her dad, even though the record is called Daddy's Home. Yeah. And she's centered her father's experiences on the record. So it's a very awkward situation with this whole. Yeah, it's like that joke. It's like, I'm being asked a lot of questions that are, that's, should be answered by my t-shirt that I'm wearing. Yeah, it's like literally that playing out in real time. And I think the most depressing part of this inevitable cycle that you're talking about is,

you know, you would see like writers talking about how, oh, you know, if this was the 70s and this was Lou Reed, we would think that they're a genius. And I think what they're equating is like being difficult with the press or being antagonistic to the press, which can often be very interesting. thing and frankly awesome at times with what actually happened here which is that the PR company I'm going to use extortion because I think that's the proper word here extorted a publication to remove what was an extremely innocuous interview and the publication actually went ahead did it like they're they're saying that's right it's not like it's not like it's like one of those interviews where you're just like feeling uncomfortable because it's like oh my

God, like, I really don't know if the artist thought this was on the record or it's like an unprepared interviewer, but, yeah, like, people were, like, judging the writer as if they, you know, as if they did anything wrong. If it's not like, it was very, the most obvious precedent for this is when Chance the Rappers manager, once again, extorted, strong-armed, whatever you want to call it, MTV News into removing a fairly a lightly negative live review.

So, I mean, like you were saying, it's like, so few people read music journalism anyway that if like St. Vincent actually admitted to doing crimes in this piece, I don't think people might actually like read it or even see it for that matter.

Like it made so much more news that like they asked it to be removed. Yeah, that's the thing to go back to what you're saying about like people comparing this to like Lou Reed or, you know, Courtney Love or any of these other instances where you have musicians being difficult with journalists. In those instances, the interviews got published. Yeah.

Or they were broadcast. Like, people actually saw them and they were fun to read because of the combativeness. Yeah. The thing about this interview is that the actual interview is pretty stayed. I mean, there's not a lot of conflict. You could tell that St. Vincent is annoyed in the interview, but she doesn't really, you know, fight back. she doesn't say anything funny. It's more that she just retreats.

And then obviously she felt upset about the interview after the fact and then wanted it pulled. I love combative interviews. I want to read those. And I would be thrilled if this had been published and there was maybe more of a real back and forth. I mean, we've talked about Father John Misty on this show. His press cycle for pure comedy was great for that reason. There was some real back and forth going on between writers. And Misty in those instances, the thing that blew me away that I wasn't aware of, because I guess I wasn't reading a lot of St. Vincent profiles during the mass seduction album cycle.

Do your homework, Steve. Apparently at that time, she was making writers climb into a pink box, and then she would play a recording when she was asked a question that she didn't like. I don't know if it was just like a canned answer that she would play on an audio tape. but basically this behavior, this kind of behavior that I would classify as obnoxious, essentially. And that to me is just, it's one thing to go back and forth with a writer. It's another thing to just, like, belittle them

or to, like, use your power as, like, a supposed celebrity to make a writer feel stupid or small, which I don't think is tolerable in my mind. And I just have to say that, like, If we can be frank here for a minute, most indie rock interviews, they're not worth very much. They're not that interesting to read. And they don't get that much traffic. They really don't.

What do you mean by indie rock, though? Because I mean, like, St. Vincent is like what I guess you would consider to be like indie rock royalty. Well, she's in that, I guess, no man's land between pop music and indie. She's bigger than most indie rock. But she's not really like a huge pop star. She's like a cult level pop star or like an indie superstar. Which means, Big fish in a small pond or a small fish in a big pond.

Which means that like when she plays at Coachella, she like always underdraws relative to her like, like relative to her like point on the poster. And like this is also kind of true of a lot of ban. Like I know war on drugs also like seriously under Drew. Like when it compared to like actual pop star. So you're right. She's in that bit of a no man's land where it's like,

oh she made a pop out with mass seduction but like are we really talking like pop here so it is that it's like pop but like not you know pop radio i mean my only point is is that is it really worth putting yourself into a pink box for the st vincent interview or any interview with an indie rock person i would say not like if you are a young writer and you feel like uh you know this person is belittling you because they're on some power trip or there's some sort of conceptual game that they're playing with their persona in an album cycle. You don't have to be a pawn to that. I don't think that's the way to go. I actually respect the writer in this instance, Emma, who I feel like actually went against that and made her story a lot more interesting because it was spiked

and then she was able to put it on her blog. So good for her for doing that. You know, you and I were talking about like our favorite bad interview experiences. And yeah, I was thinking, yeah, I mean, you know, I used to work for a small town daily newspaper. So in the odds, like when I was in my 20s. So that was where most of my bad experiences came in because normally I was interviewing people when they were on tour and like their shows weren't selling that well. so they're going to talk to a writer in Appleton, Wisconsin, like to promote their records.

So I remember, like, for instance, interviewing Dickie Barrett of the Mighty, Mighty Boss Toad, who was, like, pretty rude to me. The guy in the ska band was a rude boy. I don't even think you knew you were walking into that. But, like, I just had, you know, because ska's back. I got, I got to make that joke. He was very scarsatastic. Did that work?

I was trying to fit Scott into sarcastic. It was hard to do. But I have a lot of affection for my bad interview experiences. Like I had a really infamous interview I talk a lot about with Liam Gallagher in 2011, like where every sentence, every question I gave, he would do like a one sentence response. But it was always really funny and great. So I asked them like 25 questions in 15 minutes or something. And then of course, I feel like, I don't know if you've,

had this experience. I feel like there's a write-up passage with music writers where you have to interview Brian Wilson at some point. Never, never have. Maybe I just don't have that much juice. Legendary, because I feel like a lot of people have interviewed him and because he's actually pretty accessible, especially for, you know, an icon of his stature. Yeah. I interviewed him once in the basement of the Metro in Chicago with John Cusack because they were promoting that Brian Wilson biopic, love and mercy. And I remember I talked to him for about seven minutes and then I was in the middle of a question and he shook my hand and walked away.

And that was it. And I feel like that's pretty much par for the course with Brian Wilson. He's always like that. He just checks out randomly and then you're done. You have some good, like good bad experiences. Yeah. I mean, the closest I got to like the Liam Gallagher or the Liam Gallagher like antagonistic 90s icon or the

Brian Wilson notoriously difficult was Billy Corgan That one was just like a lot of fun Because this was like 2018 maybe when he was doing a solo album So like it's fun to like have someone who like kind of is unknown entity for being difficult with journalists But like also a little bit you know past their prime so they have like good stories and like they have a whole history of that So that's fun but I mean There

When I think of like my bad. interviews. There are several kinds. My version of, like, you being at the Wisconsin small town paper was being a contributing editor at Pitchfork from, like, 2012 to 15. And I would get to interview bands who either, like, just got Best New Music on their first album or, like, who had signed to a bigger label or PR company and, like, we're doing a rising. And those are, those ones are bad because, like, they just don't really have anything to say yet, or they're, like, as surprised to be interviewed as you are to be interviewing them.

Like, if anyone remembers the band Poolside, they're still around actually. But that was like a, that was like a prime example of like, are you sure you want to interview us, dude? I'm like, yeah, let's do this thing. And it was fun, but it was just like, hmm, maybe we're going to turn this one into a right through instead of a Q&A. Like those are like that's the, that, that is like one species of a bad interview where it's like these questions and answers are just so uninteresting.

Like, let me do the lifting. They're the ones where they're just like kind of bad vibes. I'm not going to name who those were. It's just like, let me get through this interview and just put this out there and be a good trooper. They're the unusable interviews. Can you give us a hint? You got to give us a hint for that. You can't just throw that out there and say I'm not going to say.

You know what? If you know me, if you've talked to me in person, you know who this person is. I'm not going to put their business out there because like, look, I think I have enough PR people soft blocking me. Is it a contemporary artist? Yeah. Yeah, they're still making music. Oh, man. Okay.

Yeah. And then there are like the unusable interviews where I interviewed Migos one time for a pitch for a guest list, which like the questions are prepared. They know like it's like weirdest fan interaction, things like that. And they did a conference call. It was like all three of them dialing in on a conference call where the reception was just so awful and you couldn't hear a thing they were saying and you know they're really really funny on record but just like really disengaged in person and like the only thing that came

through really clear was just like they said some really offensive stuff and I'm just like yeah we we can't use this at all and and then there was the time I interviewed St. Vincent. Oh, you have a St. Vincent's story? I do have a St. Vincent's story. So this is like this is what I was like super new to interviewing people. Like this must have been 2012. And I just started like interviewing bigger people. And this was at Coachella. I get like an email a couple hours beforehand.

She was doing her collaborative album with David Byrne, another notoriously hard person to interview. And it's like, oh, okay, okay. I got to like think of questions. I got to like get prepared. I'm just going to go to their trailer like as instructed and interview them for like 20. minutes about this album I've never heard. And, you know, this, I think this was like a one year. It rained at Coachella.

So I had like a hat on. I had like a jacket. I had my backpack. Like, you know, not at all looking like I am a cool rock journalist. Not that, you know, like, not that there's such a thing, but like, this is really. And so I step in the trailer and, you know, I had heard about her being like a little, like, standoffish or difficult. and the first, like, without a beat, I step in the trail, and the first thing she says, like, what the hell are you going camping or something?

And, you know, that's just like, alpha, alpha dominant behavior. She had established her dominance. And, you know, I'm just sitting there thinking, like, am I going to get out of this thing? Like, am I going to get any cool answers out of this? And I think the article that eventually ran was, like, a couple of paragraphs. Like, I don't think I got, like, I don't think I got any gold, man. So you didn't quote the camp? You didn't quote the camping line?

Because that's actually kind of a funny line. It's funny. That was funny. But it was like she was making. She was making, she was making feel uncomfortable. Yeah, exactly.

Like she was establishing her dominance and making it very clear that like she was running things. And I mean, if I had been someone who was like a more seasoned, you know, journalist, I would have like, you know,

ran with it. But like, you know, there's a huge disparity in the power dynamic. And I'm just going to like sit there with like, my dumbass little hat on and my, backpack and like, you know, do that and like maybe feel better after I go see like neon Indian.

So I mean, you know, I'll throw this out there. Like, I'll interview St. Vincent. If she wants to insult me, I'm all for it. We'll do the interview. It'll be really funny. And then we'll publish it. And I think that would be a good interview where it's just St. Vincent insulting me, a rock journalist.

And people will get a kick out of it. And again, we'll actually let it be published. We won't do sort of a straight down the line interview. doesn't get published. I think that's not the way to go. But maybe St. Vincent should just lean into like the insult comic Don Rickles. Yeah, go full heel, man. Go full heel. Like embrace it, man. That's the problem with a lot of these indie rock artists. Like, they... Yeah, be the bad guy. You know, exactly. And, you know, I actually would get behind that. I think that would be fun. But this thing of where you're,

you're doing the half measure, where you still want to be perceived as this nice person. and no, get that out of the way. Call me a hockey puck. You know, do the Don Rickles thing. I'm throwing that out there. I think that would be fun to do. Let's go to our mailbag segment here. We have a question today from a listener named Mike in Arlington, Virginia.

Mike, thanks for writing in. He says, hi, Steve and Ian. Longtime fan of both of your writing and your podcasting. Thank you. I was in the grocery store this week when I heard who bestanks the reason. Oh, yeah. And the phrase, how to save a life. come on back to back.

See, that's when you know life is returning to normal. You know the grocery store. You hear Hoobestank. We're living in the greatest country in the world right there. It got me thinking about former hit songs that you maybe won't hear on the radio anymore, but you could hear at your chain supermarket anytime you walk in. The Grocer Store Hall of Fame songs, if you will. Yes.

So my question is, are there any singles from Indycast artists that you can see entering the canon of great grocery store songs? Did Pretty Pimpin get enough airplay to make the cut? is Red Eyes by the Warren Drugs, the kind of song you can imagine hearing as you get lost looking for toilet paper. I actually have heard red eyes and Walgreens before. Really? Yeah, so it was pretty epic. I don't know, maybe I've got like a cool indie rock DJ working at my local Walgreens. I don't know.

Or a guy who just looks exactly like me. Maybe they recognize me and they thought, make Steve's day play Warren Dug's song. You'd like to think that, wouldn't you? When he's looking for, you know, antihistamines or something. Five years from now, will I be hearing Don't Wanna by Hime as I peruse the meat aisle for Smithfield thick cut bacon to make my Sunday BLT? Is Mike getting a cut from the Smithfield people? That's a very specific reference there.

We might have to bleep that out. We don't want to. We have no bacon allegiance, man. We are not doing epic bacon podcasting. This is not 2014. Yeah, this is the last time. Smithfield, if you want to advertise on this show, contact our people and pay the money.

Don't be sneaking in plugs into our listener questions. Any recommendations would be greatly appreciated. P.S., as excited as I am about the 10-year anniversary podcast for Mews is the Second Law, man, it's like, we're on the hook for this. Our jokes have manifested this. People out there are demanding. I swear, most of our letters reference, Muses the Second Laws at this point. I'd be remiss if I didn't point out that their best record,

Origin of Symmetry, turns 20 in just a few months, figured it deserved a quick shout out with all the muse mentions on the pod lately. Orchina Symmetry, that's a good record. I like Orrin Symmetry. So, yeah, so he's asking about grocery store songs. This is a great topic. Ah, love it. Yeah, you know, when I was thinking about my answer to this question,

I was thinking about the songs that I often hear in the grocery store, or at Walgreens, because I'm not in grocery stores as much as I am in Walgreens and in CVS. And I feel like my, the all-time song for me in those spaces is barely breathing by Duncan Sheik. Do you know that song? Good one. Yeah. I hear that song all the time. Also, the song, Sunny came home by Sean Colvin. By Sean Colvin, yeah. Like, do you know that song? That's such a mid-90s. Yeah, absolutely. And moreover, Sean Colvin is also famous for like being interrupted by old dirty bastard, you know, the Wu Tangs for the children thing. It's a Grammy. So, I would say Sunny came home

as maybe her second biggest contribution to pop culture at this point. I was listening to Sunny came home this morning, getting ready to the show. Because I was like, yeah, that's a grocery store jam. It is. And I was amazed by how much

of current indie rock sounds like that song. Yeah. The boy genius crew is such Sunny came home. That could be a Phoebe Bridger song. Is Phoebe Bridgers covered Sean Colvin? She's covered so much stuff. It's particularly indie cast type stuff that

I mean she was doing like before she got famous like the house that heaven built I think and like American... Did you do that? Yeah, I really think she did the house that haven't built. Oh my God, that's crazy. So, you know, I would definitely say you know, the boy genius crew to me seems like future

Walgreen CBS. You and I had some disagreement about like which Phoebe Bridger's song it would be. I think it'd be motion sickness but you disagree. You think it'd be Cato, right? Yeah, I think it's going to be that one. because like I hear it and a lot of I hear it already. And I think that it's more like, you know, Punisher being her big commercial Grammy's breakthrough.

I think it's going to be more recognizable to people. Although motion sickness does sound a bit more like Sunny came home. Would not be surprised if I hear Kyoto. Like of the boy genius extended universe, I really think that's the one that you're going to hear a lot. Also like, yeah, Google all slide first ballot hall of famer. I mean, like, I am not leaving the grocery store when that's on. Sam would found out about you by Jim Blossoms.

That gets a pop and sprats. Like, I'm in grocery stores a lot. So maybe that's why this always becomes like this running theme. On the flip side, I hear Blessed Union of Souls. She likes me for me. Hey, Leonardo, which, like, I hear that song is the, like, that is my first ballot, worst song, worst single of all time. Oh yeah, that might be my most hated song.

It's in the conversation for sure. Yeah, but otherwise, Hymn, like, they are going to be in grocery stores until as long as they can draw breath, as long as, like, there are actual, like, in-person grocery stores. Started to hear Casey Musgraves high horse a lot. That one's also happening. But I also feel like, I also feel like this conversation is, like, a tiny bit disingenuous because, like, all the stuff that we're mentioning. like if indie cast was doing this question in 1998 or whatever like we wouldn't say oh yeah Sean Colvin Duncan Sheek those are going to be like in grocery stores like we'd be like whoa is gold sounds going to be in uh ralphs in 2021 no we wouldn't because it wouldn't have been uh

we would have thought those things were too cool we would have had more of an attitude about it I think yeah exactly we're talking about this we're talking about this there used to be this thing of like oh you hear this song in a dentist office you hear the song in a grocery store it'd be a way to knock the song. And I think we all like, we love these songs. Yeah. I like, I like barely breathing a lot. I appreciate hearing that in the grocery store or in the CVS whenever I'm there or yeah, slide. I feel like slide is a song I've heard so many times when the automatic door is like literally sliding open. Like you, you walk into the store and like the doors open and hear da-na-na-da-da-na-na-na-da-da-da-da-da-da. Like the guitar riff starts immediately. That's happened to me a couple

times with that song. It's very cinematic. It makes you feel like you're in a 90s film when that song comes on and you're just walking around Walgreens. So yeah, we, so yeah, we aren't knocking these songs. No. I think there, there is this genre of like contemporary indie rock that has some cachet but also is pretty normie sounding so you can hear it in these spaces and it makes sense. And I think that's the kind of music we're talking about here. Yeah. I also think that like whatever songs end up being the slide or the barely breathing uh you know 20 years to now like we're not aware it might be like i don't know glass animals or just like one of these songs that yeah something that like doesn't like that we're not talking about but it's super

popular so maybe it'd be like the neighborhood they're a little too they're a little too edgy i think i think they're too edgy you gotta have like it's got to be like singer songwritery like yeah it's it's not going to be indy core. You might get an inclusion or two, but it's probably going to be like, I don't know, like Leon Bridges or something like that. Well, if I can make a segue into our next topic here, I've heard a song by our next band that we're going to talk about, Manchester Orchestra, the Gold. I've heard that song in Walgreens. They had a song on the last album about the grocery store, so it was called The Grocery. I'm not familiar with it. What is this?

Is it an album about the grocery store? No, they made on a black model of the service store. they had a song called The Grocery, and they had another song that mentioned being in the grocery store. Those were not the same songs. But yeah, I have heard the golden whole foods. And it goes down great in that space. It's like, oh, yeah, this works really well. Let's talk about Manchester Orchestra. This is a band that is from Atlanta.

They formed a 2004. They put out their first record in 2006. It's called I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child. This is a band that started out really centered around. the lead singer and songwriter, a guy named Andy Hall, and he's the charter member of the band. And I guess the other longest running member of the band is a guy named Robert McDowell, who's the guitar player and really the co-pilot in terms of producing the records. And Manchester Orchestra to me, you know, we've talked on this show about how artists in different genres

sometimes get ghettoized in their genre where they only get discussed in that context. And they don't, for whatever reason, get allowed to enter, like, the larger sort of indie rock conversation. And Manchester Orchestra to me is one of the biggest examples of that in terms of emo bands. Because this is a band that I feel like, depending on what your background is, you either think this band is huge or like you've never heard of them. And what compounds that for me is that when I listen to this band, they actually sound very much like a mainstream alternative rock band. Like to me, like that's their lineage. Like those 90s mainstream mainstream band, some of which we've just referenced more than like the emo or punk canon.

Maybe more so on their first two records, they were more in that vein. But I think starting with simple math in 2011, they really moved into this more grandiose, very orchestrated, guitar-heavy, big choruses-type music. And I always feel like they're a band that like if you are into that kind of alternative rock, you would love this band. I've interviewed Andy Hull a couple times and he's joked about. how they've been compared to band of horses. Oh, yeah.

And I actually think that's like a fairly, I mean, it's a reductive comparison, but it's not wholly inaccurate. And if it gets you in the door, I would actually lean into that. They're like band of horses with heavier guitars, basically. Although on the last couple of records,

the guitars haven't been all that heavy. But their latest record, it comes out today. It's called The Million Masks of God. and it really continues this trajectory that they've been on that began with a blackmail to the surface which had that hit single the gold on it and where they've moved like away from that emo punk thing

that they had in the first couple records from the alt-rock thing that they had on the middle records to more of like a mature sounding indie type sound like when the gold came out to me that reminded me of trouble will find me era national. It had that kind of vibe to it to me. And I think the latest record continues in that vein. Really beautiful, really well produced, lots of different sounds to it, really good songwriting. It's the kind of record, again, that I think if you are into the kind of bands that we talk about

on this show, you'll like this record. It's just interesting to me how I feel like they're still in that lane somewhat. I mean, I think their last record broke them out of it to a greater degree than any record they put out previously. But I don't know, it's just a fascinating case study to me and how bands get slotted even as they change and maybe don't really belong in that lane anymore. Yeah, the thing is, like, I would not call it. Like, they're emo adjacent at most. Like, I just want to put it on, like, the record that there's emo flavoring to it.

But otherwise, they're, like, kind of the last of their kind as far as, like, alt-rock bands, as you would mention. And also, I just want to point out, like, my, I feel like my life's gotten a lot easier since I've, like, you know, turned around and started to really enjoy their music. Like, it was so, it was, it's really difficult sometimes when there's, like, a band that is kind of at the center of a lot of music that you do like, but you just haven't been able to, like, latch on to it. And I think that what's what happened so many times is a lot of what we, I don't know, as critics or as bands try to, like, point out as, like, objective. views of music is, you know, determined by circumstance. Like when they first started popping in like, you know, mean everything to nothing and such, like, I was in a point, like, I had a conversation with Nina Corcoran, who's like a huge

Manchester orchestra fan and wrote about mean everything to nothing. We started talking about, like, how you have your, like, emo phase. And at, like, 22, there's, like, a very frequent, almost like a rum springer where, like, those people like go super hard into indie rock and like just this about everything that had come before and you know that was the phase I was in like I heard them and I'm like okay this is

like you know this is all rock right here like I'm not interested in it and that album you're talking about I mean everything to nothing it came out in 2009 could not be farther away from where indie rock was at that point absolutely the Brooklyn art rock thing yeah collective grizzly bear which we've talked about on the show

we love those bands you got to your fiery furnaces story with this right here. Like, I think that's one of my, what it happened, I'll, I'll take this one for Steve because, like, in 2000, I talked to my fiancee actually, like, she was big into the evangelical Christian, like alt rock scene punk or whatever in like the early 2000s, which means that she saw a lot of me without you. And I asked her, it's like, hey, have you heard of Manchester Ork? She's like, yeah, I saw him a few times with me without you.

you. And what Manchester Orchestra, like, what Andy told you was that they played an early show. I think it was in Cleveland. And they had to, you know, load out afterwards because fiery furnaces was going on afterwards. And they were like, there were 500 people there to see me without you who are not mentioned

on any of the cool websites and there were like 40 people to see fiery furnaces. This was like 2007, by the way. So, I mean, that was, that just really just kind of draws out why the arc of history bends towards bands like Manchester Orkstrom

you without you. I know for me, like I didn't get into them really until Cope, which was 2013. And I remember seeing that album cover in a store and it's just

cope and like black and white cover. And which I thought was a really cool looking cover. And they just seemed like this band that almost came from like a bizarre world of like, it's like, why hadn't I heard about this?

Like this just seemed like the kind of thing I would like, and I hadn't heard anything about it. And then I went back and I heard their other records and I really liked it. But yeah, they just are one of those bands that, for whatever reason, they just fall in the cracks of where music coverages on a lot of the big indie rock sites. And it just seems like maybe the reason for that is that at every point in their career, they've made a record that really was not what the fashionable thing was to do. Like when they put out cope in 2013, that's a very loud guitar record.

It's probably their heaviest sounding record. Tom notch rules, though. That song, that song rules. And that whole album, I think, is great. I think that's a great springtime record. I like it a lot. In the same way, I like Band of Horses around this time here. But, you know, 2013, that was the year when, you know, we've talked about this on this podcast.

That was the year when indie rock was really taking a turn toward pop music. And, you know, you had Lord in the 1974. and Hymn, and that was the thing, almost going away from heavy guitars. And then they make their heaviest sounding record. And it seems like they've done that consistently throughout their career, which is not going to get you a lot of coverage, but for the people who appreciate that, it's going to bond them even tighter to you,

because Manchester Orchestra really is the kind of band where if you like this kind of, like, anthemic, beautiful-sounding, epic, even bombastic indie rock or alt-rock, there's not a lot of people doing it. And they've really kind of cornered the market, I think, in a way for people who still like that kind of music. And they feel like, oh, this band is giving it to me, and I appreciate it. Yeah, exactly.

I think that with, you know, they got compared early on to Neutral Milk Hotel and bright eyes and so forth. And nowadays, like, their new record is produced by, you know, Catherine Marks, who worked on, like, St. Vincent, Bjork, I believe. and Ethan Gruska, who was Phoebe Bridgers producer. Also, Phoebe Bridgers covered the gold, I think, with Andy Hole back in 2017. But, you know, I think the narrative changed in 2000. Like, they didn't do anything different as, like, between Cope and Black Mile.

But, like, by the time Black Mile came around, you had a lot of people like Julian Baker and Tushay-Amore and Foxing, who were just talking about, like, how much this band meant to them. and you know like you stay popular for long enough and eventually those teams that you you know reached will become writers themselves and be like no you guys got it all wrong but the good but the thing is like black mile on the surface which just sounds so different than anything they had done before and this album it goes even further until like you had mentioned trouble will find me era the national and i think that's a you know it's a good um it's a good a comparison because it kind of scales down those like brawny uh you know i would say almost southern

rock guitars uh for more like acoustic stuff uh you know more kind of light electronics and it's their chillest record but also i think the one that i i enjoy listening to the most because you know even black model of the surface the highs were really high but like sometimes i you know towards the back half of the album i drifted a bit but this one seems like the most complete where they i mean they've like reinvented themselves and I think that it's really cool to see a band kind of whether the critiques of people such as myself I interviewed Andy um you know they were super like I think that's like just super cool that like you know when I got to interview an artist that I'd been tough on before um and you know I think they're at a point where they are I mean their fan base is super

strong they did their black model at the surface concert for free there's a great example of like what really can happen if you stick to your guns and just, you know, kind of trust the process. And eventually, like, this stuff does get rewarded in the end. They're like a nuclear version of an

indie cast core type of band where, you know, like, you know, a lot of the mans that we talk about, like, maybe you're rocking with like 80,000 like Spotify listeners at best. But, like, Manchester Orchestra is like kind of the model. Yeah. And, you know,

it is interesting to me because like you said, you interviewed Andy, I think Robert last week. And they were cool when you talked to them. I think that with a band like this, unlike, say, a St. Vincent, like Manchester Orchestra, they don't expect to get great press. And they're not relying on great press in order to find an audience. They've been around for a long time. They're doing their own thing. I think they could probably take or leave the press.

I'm sure they like to get nice reviews and have big features written about them. But, you know, there is this thing where I think some artists almost feel entitled to getting great press. And then there's others that maybe never really got it. And they found out a way to build a great career on their own where they can take or leave it. And that always seems like the best way to go. I'll just add before we move on to our next topic that if you haven't listened to this band and you listen to this show, I think you definitely want to dig into the back catalog. This is a band where there's a lot of records that maybe you haven't heard of.

that you're really going to dig. Just a really good, straightforward rock band in an era where there's not a whole lot of bands like that. So check them out. Let's move on to our next record. This is a record called Superwolves by Bonnie Prince Billy and Matt Sweeney. This record is a sequel of sorts to an album called Superwolf that came out in 2005. Bonnie Prince Billy, of course, is a pseudonym used by the singer-songwriter, Will Oldham, who of course

has been very prolific over the last I guess 25 or so years. And Matt Sweeney is a guitar player. He played in a band called Chavez in the 90s, really good band. He was also in a band called Swan. Yes. Corgan, which I think at some point we need to do a whole episode on Zwan,

or at least part of an episode. We can get some good Swan content. And they made this record together called Super Wolf in 2005. came out on Drag City. Kind of a cult record. It didn't get a whole lot. They didn't do a lot of press for the record.

They didn't play a lot of shows. For a long time, you couldn't hear the album because a lot of Drag City records that wasn't on any streaming platforms. It wasn't streaming until only three years ago. So I had the CD, of course, so I could listen to it whenever I wanted. But a lot of people couldn't hear the record.

But I've always loved Superwolf. I think it's a beautiful record. You know, Will Oldham, in general, is a little hit or miss for me. Like a lot of his records, I find to be a little affected. And there's just something I don't really get into it. But working with Matt Sweeney, who is really like an old school guitar player. I mean, he's played on so many different kinds of records.

He's played with everyone from, like, Adele to Neil Diamond. He's played on six organs of admittance records. You know, he played with Billy Corgan. He's a very gregarious, warm-hearted guy. Yeah, he's played with Robert Powell. And I think that his generosity and his guitar playing brings something to Oldham's songs that to me just makes it more of a magical combination. It almost has like that mid-70s Neil Young type vibe to it. Real beautiful but also kind of grainy and grimy and there's always like a dark sinister edge to the music that they make together.

And I love the new record Superwolves. To me, this is like one of my favorite records of early 2021. One of the things I really like about it, too, is that along with the great dynamic between Oldham and Sweeney, you also have the involvement of Mdu Moktar, the great African guitar player who plays on, him and his band play on three songs, including one of the singles Hall of Death, which is this very kind of buoyant shredder of a song. Yeah, that one, I like that one. That's really the Mdu Mokhtar. I mean, that sounds more. I had no idea he was on it. Yeah, and by the way, Mdu Moktar, I'm going to talk about him again on this show.

His new record comes out in May. It's a fabulous record. But my feelings that I'd probably like this more than you, because this seems like the classic record that Ian Cohen is not going to be into. This critically acclaimed folk rock record. I feel like just that. alone before you hear anything, Ian is like, okay, I'm not feeling this. Like, am I wrong here?

Well, I mean, it's funny because in a lot of ways, our thoughts on Will Oldham are pretty similar. Like, I got to point out there that, like, I see a darkness, the one that came out in 1999, Johnny Cash covered the title track. That was the first one I had discovered. It was on the top 10 of, like, pitchforks originally, original 1990s best album list. And, like, I was 22, really starting to, like, get a sense of, like, the history of, like, indie rock, drag city, et cetera. And, like, that one to me is an all-timer.

Like, that is just an incredible singular record. I still put it on, like, quite rarely. It's maybe, like, a once a year listen. And still, like, wow, this one really. Yeah, it's great record. Yeah. I'm with that. I'm with you on that, too.

Yeah. Otherwise, though, it's a bit diffused. He puts out a lot of records. I liked the one he did in 2008, lie down in the light and letting go. And he did in 2006, which I, I did. I think he did in Iceland, and there's, like, a lot of really cinematic string arrangements for that one. But otherwise, I mean, with him, and you're right in that, like, the whole drag city aesthetic, man, like, you know, guys like Will Oldham and Bill Callahan and, you know, Steve Malchmus by extension, who are just seen as like these, I guess, role models for, you know, being like 40 or 50 years old in indie rock. You know, they had this kind of playful wisdom, make you kind of wish they were your uncle or whatever.

And, you know, I think that's, that's cool. I think it's good they exist. But, like, I have that, like, the vibe is just off with me. Like, I like people who are, like, in their 40s and 50s and just talking about, like, how fucked up they still are. You know, like Fred Thomas or the rent, like, or Mike Kinsella, you know, guys who can still get super emo with it in their 40s. And, you know, I know that, like, you don't have to choose one or the other. But, you know, my tastes are my tastes. And, you know, with this combination in particular, like, I've never listened to Chavez.

Like, I know that, like, that's a right of passage for 90s indie rock. I also was never a huge slint person either. I will vouch for Zwan. By the way, what an irony. Drag City records are on streaming. Zwan. I know. That's why we got to do a Zwan episode.

I know, man. We manifest a lot of... I know. We manifest a lot of things on this show. Maybe that could be it. But, you know... Wouldn't it be amazing? Like, after this episode goes up,

Spotify puts out an announcement, full SWAN catalog? Oh, God, that would be awesome. I mean, it's just one album, but... Yeah. You know, I saw someone live, by the way. Did you see Zwan play? I don't think I have...

I don't think I had, like, money to seize swan. They played a, they played a, they played a gymnasium at St. Norbert College in Ashwabanon, Wisconsin in like 2002. That's where I saw them. I should have asked Matt Sweeney about that. I interviewed him for, I wrote a profile about Superwolves. I should have asked Matt about, if you remember, he's playing St. Norbert College with one.

That would have been a fun. How can you, how can you forget? I mean, I think to me, like what you're saying about the, I mean, I, I, I, I, I, I, all the artists that you mentioned, Callahan, I mean, I love all those artists, but I mean,

I kind of understand what you're saying. I think the difference with this collaboration, for me, is Sweeney, who I think is, like,

more of like a rock guy. And I appreciate what he brings to Oldham songs, which, you know, yeah, I see a darkness is great. I mean,

he's put out so many albums that, like, there's definitely some here and there that I quite like. But, yeah, there is something about him

that, I find sometimes on his own to be a little obtuse, a little hard to connect with. You use affectations, and I think there's, like, the use of language, like,

he'll say, like, V or something like that, or like, I am a youth inclined to ramble. Like, I mean, that's a long of particular,

like, is where I start to tune out a bit, but there's, like, this kind of, like, I don't know, like English major. I mean,

he's an actor as well, so, I mean, he, you know, plays a role, but like, there's this old-timey sort of, uh,

the affectations and also like the songs about like shorties arc i mean it's like okay i get it it reminded me of that uh sufion stevens song decatur where they rhymed like everything with um you know abraham lincoln or whatever it's like it's it's a little bit much for me well so i think this is like pretty standard i think people listening to the show would have would have expected us to come down on this divide where you i think probably think the album's okay but you're not going to listen to it again whereas I am the folk rock wimp on this show and I really love this album I think it's one of my favorites of the year so far

so whoever is whoever team you're on if you're on team Ian you know go with him if you're on Team Steve you can go with me Team Ian is down with Hall of Death that's the one that's like kind of in a math rock sort of time signature

so yeah I mean Hall of Death is where I think that's like the Indycast core song But, you know, I'll say this, though. I'm doing Machdar. I'm doing Lockdar, man. We're going to talk about that. He's great. When I was listening to this song, like on my ride home in traffic, I wasn't feeling it.

But this morning, it was, the sun was coming out, was walking my dog. I'm like, oh, I'm getting, I can see myself seeing myself being like a super wolf person by the end of the year. Okay. We've now reached a 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, I mean, I'm sure that if you're team Ian, you expect me to talk about origami angel. And I did a piece for them on stereo gum. You can read that. You know what it is with me and Gami Gang. But I wanted to actually pick out something that was a little off the beaten path as far as like what you might expect from Indycast. Porter Robinson, you might remember him from 2014-ish, let's say. A guy who would play like ultra festival and like anime conventions. His sound. on worlds was sort of like M83 or Passion Pit

their pop songs transferred to a kind of EDM world also maybe a little bit of like K-pop or J-pop went away for about seven years and I mean this style of music could not sound more dated and yet his new album, his own album nature

it's I'm such a sucker for 2014 like this loophole where like seven years ago feels older than like 20 years ago. It's very uplifting. A lot of the songs are about just like getting through writers block to actually make this album after seven years.

If you miss Passion Pit, if you miss like Saturday's Equal Youth Era M83, you know, this guy, he's, he is not always there when you call, but he's always on time, as Jaru and Ashanti once said. Yeah.

Yeah, it's just like it feels such a specific void and such one that like I need from time to time, it really just kind of cuts through the usual stuff that I'm listening to. And, you know, I would say that, like, is it good Porter Robinson? Is it just more Porter Robinson? The fact that it exists, it really gets me in a happier place. So I highly recommend that. Well, I'm glad you talked about this record. We actually got a question about Porter Robinson. I didn't use for this episode, but a listener was asking about Porter Robinson.

So whoever that is out there, I didn't tell Ian about that. Ian was just on the same wavelength as you bringing that up. So I've been on this bad habit lately where I keep talking about albums that aren't out yet, and I hope that's not annoying to people, but I'm a music critic. I listen to a lot of promos,

and sometimes I forget when things come out, and I don't realize it until I have something to recommend, and I realize, oh, it's not coming out for another month. but I just want to say that the new Manicin Pussy EP which comes out next month and it is called Perfect It's coming out on Apataph Records just like their previous album Patience did

It's really good I've been listening to it a lot lately You know I've just been on this kick now Like where I'm into like Really catchy pop rock type stuff Like it just seems like that time of the year the windows are open. I'm out in the sunshine. I just want to hear shiny guitar rock songs with great hooks. And I think that's definitely true of this EP. And if you were a fan of patience, I think you're going to like this record.

To me, Patience was a record where it seemed like the idea was we're going to sound like Celebrity Skin era whole and just build on that template. And which is great. I love that era of whole. Again, grungy rock songs that have a radio-friendly sheen. I mean, I think that's been the aesthetic that Manicin Pussy has embraced lately, which is kind of funny, considering their name. I don't know if they actually get played on the radio anywhere. I noticed that on the

promo email that Epitaph sent out, that they were calling them Manikin P in the subject line, maybe so it wouldn't go to spam filter. I don't know. No, that's actually what it is. Yeah. Okay, it makes sense. There are a lot of bands that are like that. Even if, like,

I think sometimes it has, like, the word guns in the title or something like that. Right. So this is a band, again, and I love the lead singer Marisa, Marissa De Bees. I love her voice. I think she's like one of my favorite, you know, punk rock singers right now. And I would recommend, you know, you can't hear the whole EP yet, but they did put out a single recently called Control, which you can go check out on your favorite streaming platform of choice. I don't know if it's also on Band Camp, if you want to download it somewhere, put some money in mannequin pussy's pocket.

But this is a great song, Control. Speaking of putting money in their pocket, shout to Mayor of East Town. The teen who's in a band in that show is wearing a mannequin pussy t-shirt. They are also playing mannequin pussy songs. I saw that show on HBO starring Kate Winslet doing an absolutely perfect Chester County, Pennsylvania accent. And I'm like, wait a minute, is that a mannequin pussy song? But it turns out they actually contributed to that show. So, yeah, they're on an eight.

It's a small, funny story. Like, apparently, like, they asked the hotel year to be a part of that as well. And, like, Christian Holden in a tweet they deleted, said they asked for too much money. And so they got passed over. Well, I'm glad Manacin Pussy got that money. Yeah. And I hope they get more money for their upcoming EP. I think it's really good.

It's called Perfect. It comes out May 21st. I'll try to mention it again when we get closer to that date to just remind you. But for now, go check out control. really good rock song, a good way to usher in your weekend. That does it, I think, for this episode of Indycast. So thank you so much for listening. We'll be back with more news, reviews, hashing out trends, maybe another St. Vincent controversy.

If we're lucky, you know, I guess we see what happens. We'll be back 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 you. it directly to your email box.