Indiecast - Music Festivals Are Back!

Episode Date: April 9, 2021

After a very long year without live music, it seems like there could finally be a light at the end of the tunnel. Bonnaroo is on the books for September, and Outside Lands is scheduled for late October. On this week’s episode of Indiecast, Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen are feeling cautiously optimistic about what the return of these festivals could mean for the live music landscape, as a whole.With festivals scheduled for the fall, many artist teams are also feeling confident in the touring landscape for the latter months of 2021. Julien Baker and Japanese Breakfast have both shared routings for the fall, and Pavement is also rumored to be announcing a 2022 tour sometime in the near future. However, the question still remains: will there be any reluctance from fans to get back together in large groups, or will people just be rearing to go?In this week’s Recommendation Corner, Hyden is shouting out Chicago band Floatie, who dropped their debut album Voyage Out last month. Cohen is excited about Dream Weapon, the new album from New York experimental metal band Genghis Tron, and the quartet’s first release in 13 years.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we look at the upcoming music festival season for 2021, which is actually going to be a thing, it seems. My name is Stephen Haydnett, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen, Ian. How are you?

You know, this past week I've been reflecting on the importance of our name. indie cast, like how strong of a brand it is. It's like, in my mind, it's like Metallica or like death tones or like any of those ska bands that have the word ska in their name. It's like no matter, like we could do, we could tackle any number of subjects, you know, in our banter section or what have you. But like at the end of the day, we always know what our true north is. And I think that's become extremely important. As I've seen in the past week, when, ever one of, I guess our colleagues who would otherwise consider themselves, maybe more of an indie writer, starts to cover pop music.

Yeah. Right. It's dangerous. It's dangerous out there for critics right now. I'm not even sure if we should even like begin to cover this kind of topic. Just kind of, you know, what's been on our minds like of lay, which, you know, I think you and I have both seen one of our friends and colleagues, Keith Harris. like many of our colleagues have to go private

after they decided to dip their toe in the pop album not just the reviewing pop album game but like being a critic of pop music thing and not being like... But not too harsh. Not too harsh, yeah. It's like that it's that 6.5-ish two and a half three-star range that gets people in trouble.

Right, exactly. or even giving, well, we should step back here for a moment. We're referring to this story, there's a music writer named Keith Harris. He wrote a review for Rolling Stone of the new Demi Lovato album, which I don't know the name of. It's like a long title. It's very long. It's very long. We'll just call it the Demi Lovato album.

And Keith reviewed it. I think he gave it three stars, or Rolling Stone, I'm sure, gave it three stars, and he just wrote the review and the magazine put the star reading on it. Like, the stands went berserk. Apparently they, like, manufactured, like, fake tweets that were offensive, trying to get Keith canceled. I know that the pitchfork writer who reviewed the album, like, Quinn Morland, I think she had to, like, lock down her account. I think she had already been private due to a previous review of a pop artist, whose name I can't recall. And by the way, the name of the record itself is Dancing with the Devil, comma, comma, comma, no, sorry, Dancing with the Devil, Elipses, the artist starting over.

I was hoping it was the triple comma because that would be, because I'm a fan of egregiously bad punctuation in album titles. That would have been a Hall of Famer. And, of course, we've seen this happen numerous times. There was the Taylor Swift debacle with folklore, Jillian Mapes, I think. wrote the review for pitchfork of that. I believe that album got like an 8.0, which... 8.0, the gentleman's best new music. Yeah, it didn't get best new music, but it got an 8.0.

But even an 8.0 was not enough for these people. And, I mean, I was looking at some of these accounts the other day, some of these Demi Lovato, like, basically troll accounts. Because I really think that the people who drive this are basically trolls. I don't necessarily, I don't really believe that this reflects the majority of Demi Lovado fans out there or Taylor Swift fans or whoever it may be. But these people, they post like every five minutes and they're obsessed with like sales figures and chart placement and like metacritic scores. Yeah, which is the most bizarre part of it all. I know with Taylor Swift, a lot of that was based around, you know, what an 8.0

would do to her metacritic score, which is like really stolen valor to me. Like, that's like something we're supposed to be concerned about. Like whether, you know, like a three-star review of like a wild pink album is not, is going to reflect what we think is not a accurate reflection of like how good that is. It's like the chart part I understand. Like, I know that's been something that's come up a lot. And oftentimes pop artists will enlist their fan armies to drive up sales. I know the Barb's, Nikki Minaj's fan base was big on that.

And yeah, the fact that they are so like... That's so weird. It's very sports. You know, there's a very sports, you know, fanatic mentality here where if you win the charts, you win music for some reason. And I don't know. Maybe it's always been that way. but the degree to which people who are fans are invested in this seems,

I mean, again, maybe it was always the same, and we just have Twitter now and people can express how they feel, and we're just hearing this more. I mean, I think there's a lot of that element. You know, I was talking about this a little bit with someone on Twitter the other day, about, you know, people were saying like, well, you know, it's so much worse now with pop stars. You know, maybe people shouldn't even review these albums.

And I said, for one thing, you can't really ignore the most popular stuff in the middle. It'd be like saying, I'm not going to, if you're a film critic, you're not going to write about Marvel movies or something. I mean, you kind of have to acknowledge it in some way. But also, I feel like, I mean, the problem, I don't know, I feel like it's not pop music, it's social media. It's that people can voice how they feel immediately. And also that negativity creates a wave of negativity. It feeds other people's trolling. If you see one person do it, you feel like I can do it too.

And it just snowballs. And it falls on these poor writers who, again, like, they're not even, I didn't read Keith's review, but just knowing his writing, I'm sure he was thoughtful in his review. I'm sure he wasn't belittling her or anything. I think that was the accusation from some of her fans. you know, even like a thoughtful review is going to generate this type of anger. That's a weird place to be in here. Yeah. And, you know, I've thought to myself, like, because I've reviewed, I've reviewed some pop artists, like, back in the day.

Like, I am so grateful that, like, my influence or my sphere as a critic has reduced to the point where I'm not covering that stuff. Because, you know, I still get every now and again some, like, e-mail. from like Kid Cuddy fans or like people who were like back when I reviewed the weekends Kissland. I got like a few people who were, you know, doing the usual stuff like, you know, Virgin living in your parents' basement. Like every now and again, some childish Gambino fans pop up. But, um, yeah, that, that to me is a decidedly old school form of like trolling. Like, it's always two in the morning from like an, it's an email address, you know.

Right. Back in the day, it was always like two in the morning from like a dot edu address. And it's like, okay, cool, drunk college kids that I can deal with. That's okay. Yeah, if you're a writer, I think that's, you got to expect that. But yeah, this thing like where hundreds of people are actually making up tweets about you to try to like. That is scary. Yeah.

That's the part that spooks me. Yeah, I mean, that is genuine intimidation like taking to another level. I was thinking about this because, you know, if you are a writer of any kind of you have any kind of platform, I think getting piled on is a write of passage. I was trying to think, like, when was the last time you were piled on for something you wrote? Do you remember? You know, probably things I'd rather not like discuss on it. But it was like, it was not for like a pop artist. It was like for, you know, some like indie band and I spoke like problematically about something.

Like doing some things where I'm like, yeah, that was like kind of a shitty take on things. And it's usually at a point where I can actually like talk to the artist directly and hash things out. And I've had like some good conversations about those things. But I think what gets lost in a lot of these conversations about like, you know, fan armies or Stan armies or whatever is that. it can happen for people who write about like indie bands and you know if it's if they speak what they feel is out of line then it can be just as bad for them yeah I mean so it's it's not just a trip like it's not just pop artists because like people would be like oh we should stop covering pop bands and you know their fans are so it's so toxic but in reality it's like anybody who

finds like offense with any critic which is like the history of criticism. People evoke what Teddy Roosevelt said about, you know, it's not the critic in the arena. I don't know what critics were reviewing back in his day, like maybe like, I don't know, rodeos or whatever. But yeah, no matter, like, if you put your opinion out there, which is ironic because the critic is putting themselves in the arena just by nature of like writing.

So. Well, especially if you're writing about something that's really popular. Because I mean, like my biggest pylon ever was when I wrote my thing about Colin Jost, a couple years ago, and Michael Chey came after me. And he actually went on Wikipedia and wrote some things about me. Like that kind of, he was like my own biggest troll in that instance. But, you know, I got, you know, I got a ton of tweets sent after me. I mean, there is this thing.

It sucks, man. Yeah, it's awful. It is really bad. And there is this, you know, certain kind of Twitter user. who I don't know what is in their mind if they think like, oh, if I stand up for Michael Chey or I stand up for like Demi Lovato or Taylor Swift, that like somehow they're going to see that tweet and they're going to like want to hang out with me. Like there's this like weird kind of toady mentality with some people like where, you know,

they just feel like they have to go after somebody who is already getting piled on because it's like they're trying to ingratiate themselves to this famous person who like, is never going to care or know who they are. I don't know. It's like you're rewarded in heaven or something like that. I mean, there's like a real, it's like a religious component to it. But also, I mean, it's, you're right. It's like sports as well.

It's like, why is this person like attaching their entire identity to a, you know, a team in a city they happen to be born in and whose roster changes over like every several years and like a guy will leave if, you know, he gets more. money from a different city. I don't know. There's a lot of fascinating psychological components to fandom. But you know what? At the end of the day, I think we have to consider ourselves pretty lucky that indie cast just by nature of our name and our mailbag is pretty self-selecting about the people we interact. Yes, that is the benefit of talking about artists who don't have huge fan bases sometimes because you feel like you're not going to run a foul of these fan armies.

I mean, what do you think is a solution to this? I mean, people, there was a story, I think, in The Independent where, I think it was Rachel Brodsky wrote this piece. Yes, she was saying that, like, pop stars should tell their fans to stand down, which I am skeptical about whether that would even work. Yeah, that ain't going to work. If they would actually do that. I mean, because on some level, this helps them.

I mean, not the harassment part, but as you were saying before, this mobilization to get people to, I guess, excessively stream these songs so that they do better on the charts. I mean, I guess that's the idea with a lot of this boosterism that happens around the time of album releases, which again seems very weird to me, but there is something, I guess, beneficial to that if you're a big pop star. I just wonder, I mean, this isn't very realistic either in the current landscape, but like, it seems like the only solution is for writers to not be on Twitter. You know, but, and again, it doesn't seem very realistic because I think for most writers, you have to be on social media in order to network and get jobs. I would say that was true for, I don't think I would be where I was without social media. A writer living in the middle of the country, you know, who doesn't work in New York or work for any of the big,

music publications, if you're not in that world in person, if you're not on social media, there's no way you're going to have any access to editors or writers or anyone with prominence to get your name out there. But I just wonder, I mean, to me, that seems like the only way to avoid this. Like, if you're not on Twitter, you won't have people attacking you on Twitter. Or you just won't know about it. Exactly, which is, that's always, it's funny. I used to have this mentality of like, oh, it's good to hear from people, like, who don't

like your work because it prevents you from being in a bubble. And I got over that a long time ago. Yeah, that's not at all true. No, it's not. It's like, I'm already, I already have a negative voice in my head that doesn't like me. And it's called me, okay? Yeah. I'm my own biggest troll.

I don't need other people in my head telling me that I suck. Yeah, I mean, but for me, like, I'm on there because, like, who the fuck else am I going to discuss this kind of stuff with. Like, in my life, I spend, you know, most of, I spend most of my day amongst people who, you know, are actual Demi Lovato fans. And it's like, who am I going to share rap memes with, you know? And also, how am I going to find out about, like, what's really happening in, like, the worlds that I follow?

Like, it, it, like, I've thought many times about, you know, at this point in my career, can I get off Twitter? And it's like, yeah, possibly. But, like, would I, like, I think my writing would suck. her without it, you know? Can you name one Demi Lovato song? You know what? I can't.

And it's weird because I work in, you know, I work in, like, eating this sort of treatment where, like, Demi Lovato is, like, just kind of like a goddess just for her life story. And it's fun, like, and people, like, really, really admire her, like, regardless of her music. And I, like, maybe I've heard some of these songs in passing, but I can't name one. I can't either. And that's my fault, not hers.

Well, you know, and that's not a judgment on her. It is funny to me that there was a time in our culture, like where the hipster... There was a time in our culture. It's time in our culture, like where the indie hipster judging people for liking pop music was like the biggest boogeyman that existed in music culture. And I think it's come full circle because the indie hipster now might be the only one safe from the Stan armies. Because if you don't even know about this stuff and you can't write about it, then you're

going to be attacked. So, you know, maybe, maybe the indie hipster is going to be like the last person standing in this whole thing once it all gets burned down by, by pop fans out there. Let's go to our mailbag segment. Speaking of which. This question comes from, Drew from Cincinnati. I almost said John from Cincinnati. You remember that show? John from Cincinnati? Yeah, I do. Drew from Cincinnati. It's the sequel to that show. Classic, classic indie cast mailbag name, by the way, Drew from Cincinnati.

Exactly. Love it. Love it. Thank you, thank you, Drew, for writing in. Hi, Steven and Ian,

I really enjoyed your series in the best albums of 2011, and I am highly anticipating your 10-year anniversary episode about Muses the Second Law. Yeah, well, I think we're locked into that now. We have to...

Yeah, they're gonna remember. Our stands are the type who will remember. It's like, hey, remember when you, like, offhandedly mentioned this muse album in an episode back in 2011 or 2021. Yeah, it's June of 2022.

Where the fuck is it? Yeah. Talking about, I can't remember that name off the second law, but it's the one that sounds like Mario Kart to me. Never mind. If you could have dropped a track name from the second law off the top of your head, I would have like bowed down to you on this podcast. That would have been amazing.

Yeah, I know, man. I mean, you know, Black Coles and Revelations I can name tracks off of, But, you know, it's the second law. That's deep shit. Madness, we know. Supremacy, that's it. I knew it was like, it's supremacy.

That's the one. Supremacy. That's it. Yes. Oh, man. Still got it. Oh. Do you think that there's like an element out there who's in the muse that is like, you know,

that kind of like, uh, might be kind of dark out there, you know, like that kind of like fascist? Do you think they have like a fascist following at all? Because they have songs like supremacy and like that album. clones, like, which is... Yeah, I think they've definitely... There's definitely, like, I don't know if, like, fascist is the right word. I think there's definitely

like a Jordan Peterson kind of element to that fan base, but it's not because, like, people listen to Muse and become radicalized, I think that they're... It's like, you know, the Stan Armies we're talking about. Like, there's something within them that appeals to that sort of... Or maybe just, like, the fact that, like, Mews is

super fucking popular and they're going to inevitably, you know, rope it, rope in, some people with, you know, less than ideal. Right. Ideal. I'm not casting aspersions on Matthew Bellamy here. You know, I'm not suggesting. Oh, God.

We're going to hear from Muse fans. I'm not suggesting. I'm just saying that because of the, you know, the triumphant nature of the music and song titles like supremacy, if there's a certain kind of person out there who would be attracted to them for that reason. Yeah. Is Matthew Bellamy, is he still married to Kate Hudson? I don't think, no.

He made an entire album, I think, about there to. Oh man, I got to hear that record. A muse record? Yeah, I review. I know that because I reviewed the last muse album. So that one, that's the, that's the only, that's the blood on the tracks then? That's, that's the divorce album? I guess, yeah.

I don't think I know that album. I guess it is. I guess it is definitely real. It exists. That's simulation theory. That's the one. Oh, man. Okay, we got totally sidetracked from this letter.

Okay, going back to Drew from Cincinnati. However, I was disappointed at the muse discussion didn't remind either of you of a different 2011 album you could discuss. I can only hope this is because Indycast will be doing a multi-episode deep dive into this album when it turns 10 this fall. I am, of course, talking about Coldplay's Milo Xilito. In particular, could Ian elaborate on how the stars align for him to give this the highest score cold plays ever received from Pitchfork?

That's a great question. Was the staff just really excited about it? was there a larger conversation about how Pitchfork could afford to be nicer to Coldplay? I think Ian's review, which was huge for me as a 15-year-old obsessed with both hurry-up, we're dreaming, and Milo Zaldo back then. Shape and minds, Ian, out there, you change in Drew from Cincinnati's life here, was right to assess Coldplay as a pop band rather than a less credible radio head. In hindsight, Milo Zaddo sounds like Coldplay's Pop-Timism album,

but I think it came out too soon to fully benefit from Popimism's more generous, critical evaluations of mainstream artists. I keep thinking about the warm reception the killers received for imploding the Mirage in 2020. I wonder if Colplay might have got the same for Milo Zado or if they have the potential to make a slick, crowd-pleasing return-to-form album in the 2020s. That would be similarly received. I'd love to hear what you guys think about this album and how it stacks up in Coldplay's discography, and if Milo or any of their earlier albums might have been even better received if released later in the 2010s.

Thank you both for the great work on the pod. Best regards, Drew from Cincinnati. Okay, so, um... This is a shout to Drew from Cincinnati, man. Like, I'm feeling the love. Oh, yeah. To be, also to be like a 15 year old reading pitchfork. Like, I mean, I discovered that site, like, when I was in my, like, late teens, 20s.

I don't know. Like, I've been hearing, like, a weird amount of, like, hey, I read this review when I was in, like, middle school or whatever. And I don't know, man. Like, I kind of wish that they were, like, less plugged into cool music. like I was when I was like 14. Well, Drew, though, was reading your cold play review. So he wasn't too... That's a good point. He wasn't too cool for the room. So I was inspired to go into the Pitchfork archives to look at previous cold play reviews. And he's right. Milo Zaldo got a 7.0. That is

the highest score. Any cold play album has gotten. Parachutes, the first record got a 5.3. That's way too low. Russia Blood got a 5.1. That's way too low. That's why. We're too low. Got a 5.1. That's way too low. Viva Lovita. That is a crime. Actually, okay, X and Y, that's the next record, got a 4.9. Okay, now, I think we just have to, can... You got to add a 3 to all these.

I am like X and Y hive. Yeah, I am X and Y hive. Like, we are definitely doing a cold play episode at some point. You got to, yeah, you got to add at least a 3.0 to all these scores. I think that that should at least get at 7.9. That X and Y kills me. Vila Vita got a 6.9,

also known as the... Yeah. I like to refer to the 6.9 as the dirtbags 10.0. And then the albums after Milo Zadu, Ghost Stories got a 4.4. That seems too low. That's not a great record. It's not a good record. I think it deserves like a high five.

5.8. A headful of dreams 4.8. I can't even remember what that sounds like. I mean, Milo Zalido to me, I don't know how you feel. we know how you feel about the record. Would you have given it a higher score if they would have let you? Probably not. I think what's going on here is that we've reached this like crest of where you didn't, like,

especially after like Viva Levita, like it wasn't fun to punch down at Coldplay anymore. And, you know, Malesado, it's a pretty good record. Oh, yeah. It's the exact, it's the exact point where they, like the tie was starting to, turn a bit for them critically, but like they were still making good music. Like, ghost stories, I got into like a very involved Twitter argument about this album. Like, some people will say, like, no, man. This is like the, this is like they're around the world in a day or like this like weird outlier like breakup record in the middle of their discography that really needs a

reassessment. And then after that, like a head full of dreams, you know, it's funny that like Drew's mentioning like Milo Zalo's Coldplay's Popimism moment because that's everything after this, record. Like, there was still some songs on Milo that, like, like, kind of sounded like, you know, neon Bible era arcade fire or the killers. But, like, I mean, they were doing songs with chain smokers after that point. And by the way, their last album got nominated for a Grammy. Like, I don't know if the, if this is, if that's a real accurate assessment of like, what, where Cole plays at right now. Like, maybe they're in like that back, that back phase where everything that, they'll, like, release an album and like, you won't even remember it until it gets

nominated for a Grammy, like two years later. The Grammy nomination, I don't know how much stock to put in that, because that was, I think, widely perceived as like a what-the-fuck type nomination. Yeah, true. You know, I mean, yeah, for me, like, I feel that after Malo-Zawito, my interest in co-play recedes pretty dramatically. But I agree with you. Because Milo Zaloto is, it's like a concept record of sorts.

And I forget the exact plot, you know, because there's that, there's that first song on the record we were we just talking about where the lost boys meet. So there's like this gang called the Lost Boys. And I think Milo Ziodo is like the main character on the album. I don't know. And then Rihanna's, like honestly, man. I would love for like Chris, yeah, Chris Martin to like explain in non-elusory terms like what the actual concept is.

Like it's funny because like the fact that Drew mentions Mews in the same paragraph, It's like almost kind of like their muse album. Yeah, although they're not as wonky as muse. I mean, they still always had a good box sense. No, but it's still like conceptual. Right. You know, it's got some sort of plot line, but in reality, it's just meant to be like kind of stripped mind for singles for the next performance.

But I mean, as far as like my thoughts about, you know, this album as a whole, yeah, at the time, I guess I was like the resident Coldplay expert. but you know the fact that like Steve like went back and found those like old reviews man like I sort of wish you know having just published a Sunday review like I was kind of hoping that like Russia Blood or Parachutes would be like kind of purged from the archives so I'd get like a second shot at it oh yeah those are way too low but you know yeah Russia blood man I'm just and I probably won't be able to find a way to do like a 20th anniversary piece on it because like everyone's going to want to.

But like 2020, watch out in 2025 because I am coming for X and Y, man. Like that is the Cold Play, how I will defend with my life. I don't, it's, Cole Play sees it as their worst album. I like it the most.

Oh, yeah. Well, and friend of that, we will, we will save that for the Cole Play episode. Friend of the podcast, Christina Squires is a big X and Y fan. I've had many DM conversations about Coldplay with her. And she's a big,

X and Y booster. I would say Rush of Blood or Viva Le Vita would be my, I feel like those are neck and neck for the best Coldplay record and maybe that's a chalky

thing to say. Those are probably the most predictable things to pick as their best record. But, you know, with good reason, I think they're the strongest. Milo Zalado

and Parachutes would be right behind those for me. I'm not as big on X and Y as you are. Is that like the emo cold play record? Is that like the emo fan? Sort of.

You know, I never thought of it that way, but I just can, I just like think of it from like a very, um, happy time in my life. Um, and so, but yeah, I think that Fix You is definitely like, definitely like arena emo. So is like talk, uh, the title track. Um, yeah, to me, it's like in a weird way like Cole plays like, it's like, oh, their arena rock emo record like not unlike, I don't know, the rising. tied by Sunny Day Real Estate.

Oh, wow. Wow, what a connection there. Oh, God. We're, like, we're going to turn this entire episode to a X and Y, you know, revisitation. But, you know, just, Drew, we will definitely get to Coldplay in fall 20, 21. Yeah. All right.

Yeah, I mean, we, wow, we got really sidetracked on Muse and Coldplay there. Like, we really, we don't have to do, like, a multi-episode. We might have to do, like, a mini-series where we just talk about every Muse album, because I, I want to do. talking about the divorce album. What was it called? Simulation theory? Simulation theory.

I think, or maybe that was drones. Don't quote me on that. I need to go back. Was it drones or clones? I think I called it clones before. It's called drones. Thrones, yeah. I think drones might be the one that was informed by his divorce.

I remember I wrote something kind of nice about drones for Grantland back in the day. And I'm sure I got dragged for that by somebody. RIP Grantland. Oh, God. So let's get to the meat of our episode talking about the music festival season. We're starting to see announcements from festivals. We didn't get a chance to talk about the Bonneroo announcement. That happened like literally, I think, 10 minutes after we finished recording our previous episode.

But that was announced last week. Outside Lands was announced. Coachella has already said that they're not going to do. a festival this year. So they're not going to come back. Lollapalooza hasn't said either way what they're going to be doing. I suspect that they're going to do a festival. Yeah, Chicago, I remember last year,

the Chicago festivals, like, really dragged their feet as far, like before finally canceling. So, you know, before, you know, we're going to do some poster analysis here of some of the big festivals. But before we get to that, just looking at the festival, season in general, like, where are you at with this? Because I know for me, like, I was already before the pandemic, for several years before the pandemic, I was already feeling like, oh,

I'm too old really to go to festivals. I'm over it. I don't, I'm not really excited about it. And now I'm in the frame of mind where I'm like, well, I haven't seen live music and, you know, over a year. I'm, I'm raring to go, like, for any show. Although I have to say that looking at these festival announcements, I felt less excitement than, than just, you know, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, I'm, like reassurance that oh like kind of blah festival lineups are back again it feels comforting you know but I wasn't really excited to see any of these festivals based on their headliners yeah it's same thing for me I mean for like you know someone who listens to as much emo as I do I find it hard sometimes to like really access how I'm feeling and that was particularly true with like looking at these

festival lineups like where like they're it's like oh cool I can still make run the Jules jokes. It was like, it's like when you spent, like, have you ever been in a situation? Like, I think of this. It's like when you're like, like, like, just so sure that you're going to like, like, I, this job is unsustainable. I quit my job or I got to move out of this city or like, I just know this relationship's going to be over. And then like some time passes and then nothing happens. And it's like, okay, we're back to normal.

And like, you feel like sort of stupid for having all those thoughts that like things were going to be like, momentously different. Like, that's, I've thought a lot about, and actually Christian Holden from the hotel year brought this up as well, that with things getting back to normal, it's like we sort of had a chance to really reimagine like what the music industry might look like. And, you know, maybe we didn't take the opportunity to do that. And we're already getting back to, you know, kind of normalcy, which in some way is comforting. because, you know, we are a podcast that deals primarily in music and we can only do so many

retrospective episodes. But yeah, I mean, like, I thought it was just, like, I thought there was going to be some, like, massive sea change of, like, who was going to be on these festivals. Because, like, as just a viewer of music, I, this is, like, one of the metrics I use to figure out, like, who's popular in real life? Like, who are the bands that are getting these unusually high placements who are probably, like, by the people I know in Los Angeles who kind of sort of stop following new music.

Like who are the new glass animals? And the answer to that is glass animals. Well, I will say that I think it's too early to say that, well, everything is going to be normal. You know, because I think there's going to be efforts initially to just revert back to the way things are. But I'm curious to see how these things are actually embraced by people. You know, I think there's this assumption that people

is raring to go to these festivals. I do wonder about the lingering psychological effect of the pandemic. Like, are there going to be people who, even after they're vaccinated, they're still not going to feel comfortable in these places? You know, I assume that there's going to be at least some people like that, you know, who are going to be rethinking their own approaches to these things. Because even if the industry is, you know, basically just like wants to protect, 10 to like the last year and a half didn't happen.

It doesn't mean that the audience is going to react that way. I mean, they might very well react that way. I guess I don't know, but I'm curious to see how this unfolds. I mean, let's look at the Bonarue poster for a moment. So the top headliners are, on Friday, you have foo fighters and Megan D. Stallion. On Saturday, you have Lizzo and Tame and Paula. And Sunday, you have Tyler. the creator and Lana Del Rey.

And one thing I have to say, like, there's a part of me that was a little bummed to see this at Bonaroo, because Bonaroo is the jam band festival, at least that's what they were originally known as. And they've been making this adjustment for a while. But, you know, there's not really any, like, jam bandy headliners. You have my morning jacket that's on the second line. They're the most Bonaroo, like old school OG Bonaroo thing.

Yeah, they are like the Bonaroo band in my mind. And if you go a little deeper, you see bands like Goose on there. So there's some jam band stuff on there. But this seems like a lineup that could just, you could put this out. I'm sorry, Steve, can I pause for it? Can you tell like our Indycast listeners who Goose is? Because I don't know who they are. Oh, man.

Well, this is a whole other conversation. Goose, just like a short brief thing. They are the new young jam band, the new emerging jam band. They're very fish-like. The name, I guess, should have been a clue. Right. And they're from Connecticut. They're actually like a...

There you go. I think they're a pretty good band, actually. They're pretty good at what they do. There's actually not a lot of young jam bands that have been able to build and sustain an audience. I mean, for as, like, popular as that genre is. There actually isn't that many, like, marquee acts, and many of them are pretty old. So I think there's some excitement about them for that reason. But anyway, that's for a whole other episode.

So anyway, I was a little sad to see that this lineup, you can... could just like transport this basically to Coachella and yeah it would work there I mean so the distinctiveness of Bonarroo feels like that's completely gone at least in terms of the headliners you know maybe further down the bill they still have their roots represented am I wrong to think that Lizzo is a reach here I know she's popular but like I don't know yeah that's a great question because um yeah Like you said, this is a very Coachella lineup in that. It's got, like Coachella, Coachella's always got The Rock Act.

Like, it'll be like Muse sometimes, you know, a few years ago or the time where they had Jack White. Food Fighters is like classic, classic Coachella. Then you have like the popular rap artist, like Megan D. Stalian and so forth. And then like the very popular indie band in like the Arcade Fire role, which Tamer. Impala, I think, is here. And so Lizzo, you know, one of the things that I always appreciated about the announcements of festivals, usually in, like, December or January of, you know, the years that you get a sense of, like, who's about to release a big album.

And, you know, Lizzo is, like, she's an artist who is still very popular, I imagine, but, like, I do want, this is so wild to say, but it seems to me, like, from a 2019 feels like just, like, a completely different planet. I don't doubt her popularity, but I see her as, like, associated with this time in the past that is just hard for me to access now. But, you know, I think that she'll do great. Like, I mean, I don't, like, who's going to show up to Bonarue? I don't know. Like, also, Lana Del Rey's a headliner, like, has she lost a lot of momentum with her new record? Look, I think the point of, like, Bonner.

fan base. I think, I feel like, that didn't feel like as much of a reach to me. I mean, Lizzo, again, she's obviously very popular. I guess my first thought when I saw that was, oh, did Ariana Grande not pick up the phone? Did Cardi B not pick up the phone? Because presumably, pop stars are just sitting around right now. They haven't done anything for a while. I would think you'd have your pick, but I don't know, maybe not. I would argue that like maybe those artists that you've mentioned are just waiting to do their own festival tours and like don't want to i guess you know kind of spoil it by doing um you know a festival like amongst other people like you know they they would rather just wait to do their own stadium tour and do that um you know it's interesting because when you look at the

2020 bonneroo uh it's it's it's not all together different like the headliner lizzo and ham impala and lydia and lorette d'el ray were headliners on the previous bonneroo 2020 uh so as my Miley Cyrus and Vampire Weekend and Tool. So, yeah, it's not altogether different than what was happening in 2020, which I think this, that's kind of what was to be expected, you know, from 2021. It's like, let's just put this one out there, see if it happens, and then 2020 come back hard, you know? You know, you mentioned Tool, and I was just thinking like how Maynard James Keenan had COVID twice.

Did you see that story? What? Yeah. He had COVID twice. I don't even know how that happens. Dude, that's tool for you. I know, exactly. Even, like, his COVID sickness was super elaborate and, you know, had weird time signature changes and stuff.

Yeah. So, you know, going back to, like, you know, talking about, like, Tame and Paula, I feel like last year when we talked about their record from last year, which I'm blanking on the title of, that's, like, not a good sign. The slow rush? Come on a damn, man. We are really, yeah, we are really memory-holding. Well, I mean, Muses and Tame and Pollo, we're, like, slipping here, man.

Well, the Muse thing, I never knew. I never knew, like, their late stage album titles, and I never knew the Demi Lovado album title. The Tame and Pala, though, that's definitely a screw-up on my part. The slow rush, I mean, I feel like whenever we would talk about that record, it was always in the context of, like, oh, Tame and Pala really missed their chance to dominate festivals, you know, like with this record,

because it really seemed like a record design for that. that. And now I see, you know, they're a headliner at Coachella. They're also a headliner at Outside Lands. I assume there's a very good chance that if Lala Palooza does take place, that they'll, that I see them as being a likely headliner there too. Tam and Paula has this spot locked down for like the next 20 years that they want it. Like, they're going nowhere. Tyler, the creator, is also a headliner at Outside Lands. Maybe he's got a new record coming out, Like, because the last one was... Yeah, I would assume so.

You know, I think that he still got the juice to be a headliner. I mean, I think he, his influence and his fan base is, you know, very diverse. And he could, like, he's a guy who you can, like, use to anchor a festival. You know, he's maybe not, like, the huge, the biggest, like, draw as, like, oh, this is now, like, a must-see festival. But, like, he's someone who you can put at a festival and be like, yeah, we have a solid anchor for, like, you know, Sunday night. It's crazy to think that he is now moving into, like, the legacy act part of his career. Legacy, that's right, man.

We talked about Goblin in our 2011 episodes. That's 10 years ago. You know, Odd Future was bubbling up, like, a little bit before that. So, yeah, he's moving into, you know, like, the second decade of his career, which is insane to think about that he's at that moment now. Also, at outside lands, you have the strokes, who, they're another band that I guess they would still be touring on the back of the new abnormal

but they just seem like a band that is in that foo fighters class now I guess like where... Yeah, they're straight foo fighters now. You know like you need like the old rock band that still has cachet. I mean I think the strokes are a lot. Yeah.

You know, even with younger people I feel like the strokes are hipper than foo fighters are. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely, man. You can argue that even an interpole, like, could do in a pinch. Maybe not to the level of the strokes, but, like, I still see, like, strokes.

Yeah. Yeah, it's, it's kind of amazing how that happened. I, in a way, I wonder how much the voids have to do with that, because I feel like the voids actually have, I'm serious. Like, I feel like the voids actually have a pretty strong, like, young fan base. I remember when I wrote about, like, their last record, and I was mostly positive, but it was, you just talking about what a weird band that is. And I got emails from kids who were like, I don't even know who the strokes are.

I don't care who the strokes are. I'm a huge Voidshead, which was surprising to me. That's cool. I think that's really cool. Exactly. Not that you get, not you getting like hate mail, but like the fact that like voids somehow like have established that strong fan base, you know, that's, I think that's kind of cool. Yeah, and I think, you know, and they're definitely more of like an internet-y type band

too than the strokes are. So it makes sense to be at some level. It's always fun to look at the second liners on these posters too. Oh, that's where the action is. The second, the third, that's where the actions are. The second line on the Bonarue poster, you have Run the Jewels, of course. That's chalk. Of course, of course.

You have Janelle Monet. You have My Morning Jacket, which is huge chalk for Bonaroo. You have GZ, who I only know from... Oh, G. G. E. I thought you said JZ for it. Oh, no, no. G.

Who I only know from music festival posters. I don't know his music at all. Yeah, he's sort of like what would have, like, and correct me if I'm wrong, like, Indycast listener, but he was sort of like what would happen if, like, Machine Gun Kelly never went pop punk. Like, I think he fashioned himself as sort of like a male Lana Del Rey, but like as a rapper. I'm not, I'm serious, man. I just like this combination of like reference points. You have machine gun cali.

Yeah. So that's G. That, yeah. So I guarantee you like in 10 years or whatever, there's going to be a 10 year of 20 year, 15, whatever, like reassessment of G.Easy. He's like, like, this is what like a 16 or like a 14 year old kid like listens to and like will become a music critic and defend with his life. So good, you know, shout to that future. So. And then you have Jason.

Isbell, who definitely seems like a second liner at Bonarue. I wonder if he'd be a second liner now at Coachella, or if Coachella would even want to book him. I think it's, it's maybe, yeah. I mean, look, I think Coachella does still have to, I think that there's still like that golden voice, rock roots aspect to them where they might get like the, I don't want to say like a token rootsy act like Jason Isbell,

but like maybe the one representation. Because let's face it, it's still Los Angeles. Well, and people, like, indie folk or like Americana based, like, that stuff still is enormously popular out there. And he's a good draw, and obviously in Tennessee, you know, Bonner would take a place in Tennessee. He's going to draw huge there. You have Phoebe Bridgers there who... The big leveling up.

Yeah, she's leveling up. I know you asked in our outline if I thought that she could headline pitchfork, and I think Absolutely at this point. Yeah. Yeah. I think she could definitely be a pitchfork headliner. You have Incubis in the second line. Yes.

Incub. Yes. Jam bandy. Kind of jam band. Very good fit with Bonneroo. More so than Deftones. They're the jam band, new metal band. They're bridging that gap, which you wouldn't expect to be bridged.

And then you have little baby, Leon Bridges, Young the Giant. Young the Giant. That's another just total festival band. I could not name one Young the Giant song, but I see them on every poster. I gave them a negative review back in like 2011. And yeah, they're just like one of those bands like Cold War Kids.

And this is a topic for another episode of like that whole wave of like just weirdly, weird. I don't want to say like resistant, but like just a band with like Maroon 5 like longevity, you know, where they just they're like almost like, the new corporate rock. There we're.

Yeah, well, you get like Young the Giant, Portugal, the Man, all those kind of band. Yeah, foster the people. All the bands like with the in the middle of their band name, which I always find to be very strange. Isn't there another band like that? What's another? Yeah, probably.

Yeah, I don't know. The head and the, I mean, but then we like cross over into the head and the heart type action. and there's definitely, I don't know, man, like this is going to bother me. But, yeah, also, Leon Bridgers.

There's one kind of, like, Blue Rocky band that I saw open up for the Black Keys. Oh, Lonely the Brave. Lonely the Brave. No, that's not it, but that's another band. Oh, God. It's not lonely the brave.

That's another one, too. There's some other band. Maybe they don't have a lot of their name. But I thought it was like, something the something. I don't know. I'm sure there's millions of. Cage the Elephant.

Cage the elephant, that's it. Cage the elephant. Yes. Which, again. Another band that is like a mainstay on the second. Yeah, which I remember being blown away. Someone explained the band name to me. I always thought it was an elephant named Cage.

So it was Cage, Compt, the Elephant. But it's, it's, you know, they're talking about caging an elephant. That's the, right? Or did I get, yeah, no. Like, no, when I was living in Kentucky, man, That was like the band that everyone would brag about, like having seen on like, oh, yeah, man, back when I was living in Bowling Green, Caged the Elephant, like, they would play this bar. And so I, I have quite a bit of Caged the Elephant lore. They are a perfectly serviceable modern rock band.

Like, they are exactly what we're talking about when it comes to, like, Young the Giant and so forth. And, like, I wonder if, like, people are going to eventually, like, come around on them, like, the way that, you know, like, you wrote about Stone Temple Pilots recently where there's just going to be this, like, hardcore defenders. of like the alt rock that existed, you know, within like this, this past 10 years. There's got to be. There's got to be some music critic right now who grew up on Cage the Elephant and knew that it was never about an elephant named Cage. They did from the beginning. So like Portugal, the man, is that a man named Portugal?

Because Portugal isn't a, it's not a verb, you know? I don't even know what that. But, you know, shout to them. I'm still getting, still, still feel it still like that. They're going to be eaten off that for the rest of their lives. Oh, yeah. And you know what? They were around for like a decade or more before that song hit.

Yeah, they were like a psychedelic rock band or something, weren't they? Yeah, I reviewed one of their albums on Stylus. That's how old Portugal the man is. Shout to Stylis magazine. Wow. So, anyway, it's going to be interesting with these music festivals. I guess we'll see how it unfolds. Curious to see.

Yeah. It would be really funny if Lalapalooza announces right after this episode because we've been speculating on whether they're coming back. I think they are. Yeah, the tours are coming fast and heavy, man. So I think there's momentum surrounding these things where the more people see it, the more they're going to start to feel secure and saying, well, you know, here's ours too. The same way where we saw, like, bully announced a tour. Then Julian Baker and now Japanese breakfast announcing a tour. So the ball is rolling.

Yep, and I personally can't wake to see Glass Animals and Young, the Giant, and all these great bands at a festival near me. Yeah. All right, 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 the record that, you know, I want to talk about today is by a band called Gengistron. Now, as gyms have started to open again, like, at least in California, like you can go into it. indoor gyms now. You know, more work, like, I've required more workout music. And, you know, Gengist Tran's a band I've been aware of for a while. Like, I thought they were just like some kind of like technical metal band.

But they, I think they completely rechanged their lineup. They're associated with the armed, which is a band I'm really, really into now. Their record comes out next week. And they put out an album called Dream Weapon. And this, like, I was just surprised by how clean and catchy this record. is it's like a almost like psychedelic metal but like electronic it reminds me of like what it might have happened if like battles that band like their albums that happened after mirrored were like a lot more poppy and for lack of a better term like less wanky it's or it's like the armed with clean vocals um it's

it's a record that kind of bridges the gap between like pretty uh electronic music but also like heavy instrumental prog and um i mean it's on relapse record so that should let you know like what sort of audiences into and it's kind of record that also i feel like it's not given enough um of a platform because it doesn't really have an audience that is obvious um but if you're the type person who wants to listen to i don't know work out adjacent music that isn't like super agro uh gangistron dream It's one of my more pleasant surprises of this past year. Are we going to talk about that arm record next week? I feel like we have to.

Oh, we got to talk. I got a lot of fun. I interviewed them for about, like literally about their meal plans and weight lifting. That's all we talk. Are they, are they called the armed because they have huge arms? No, dude. But Clark huge, sneak preview, the bodybuilder that you see in the videos, he's always been in the band.

So that is not an actor. All of them are just massively ripped. I'm like, holy. Holy, my gosh. They all look like Glenn Danzig in that band. Yeah, today, I think today my interview with them goes live where we basically talk about their meal plans. Oh, man. Yeah, it's, yeah, 20, like, the Gengistron is a good sort of cool down record compared to ultra pop, which we'll talk about hopefully next week.

But, yeah, and they share band members as well. So it makes sense that Genghis Trump. What's that? I was just saying, you know what else Drops next week is? Oh, I don't know. Oh, yes. Gretta Van Fleet.

We're definitely talking about that record. I can't wait. I want to talk about a band from Chicago. It's a four-piece band called Floaty. That's IE at the end. They dropped their debut album called Voyage Out last month. And I've been really enjoying it. It's one of those records where in the morning,

if I just want to put on a record and I don't know what to put on, this is an album I've been putting on pretty consistently lately. And I've seen this band described as math rock, which I think is broadly true. There's like a lot of tricky tempos and like, you know, interesting time signatures in the music. But I feel like this band is like also like a lot poppier and catchier than a lot of math rock. I feel like, you know, you think of math rock generally as being music that can just seem convoluted for the sake of being convoluted. But this is a band. that I feel like they put songwriting first.

And whatever is going on instrumentally with this band, it's never at the sort of sacrifice of melody or having good, succinct song structures. At times, I almost get like a sea and cake vibe from this record. Maybe that's because they're from Chicago. I'm getting like a post-rock thing. I want to do the post-rock math-rock thing. But again, this is just like a really enjoyable record.

a really enjoyable indie rock record. If you're looking for just good old-fashioned indie rock, the way they used to make it, this is a record that I think you'll enjoy. So it's called Voyage Out. Band's called Floody. That's, again, F-L-O-A-T-I-E. And yeah, go to their band camp page,

check out the record. It's really good. So that does it for this episode of Indycast. I guess we kind of gave a preview of what we're doing next week. I feel like those records we have to talk about, as well as other things. I'm sure that will come up between now and then. Thank you for listening to this episode. We'll be back with more reviews, news, and hashing out trends next week.

And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mixape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie. And I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.