Indiecast - New Albums By The 1975 + Wild Pink, Plus: Why Are So Many Tours Getting Canceled Lately?

Episode Date: October 14, 2022

Indiecast may have ceaseless banter about The 1975 and band leader Matty Healy's antics — Steven and Ian even dedicated an entire episode to it — but now that the band has released their latest album Being Funny In A Foreign Language, have they finally written a project that lives up to the hype? On this week's episode, Steven and Ian share their thoughts on The 1975's return (33:07) and the new, ultra-vulnerable album ILYSM by Wild Pink (46:22).If you're an indie fan who happened to be online at all this week, you'll know that the biggest indie news story came from Blink-182 (:24). Original member and alien enthusiast Tom DeLonge announced he's officially rejoining the band and that they're embarking on a massive (and quite expensive) tour. Plus, Steven and Ian discuss why so many bands seem to be canceling their tours lately (11:47).In this week's Recommendation Corner (57:33), Ian mentions Gris Klein's album Birds In Row, the post-hardcore band's third album in 10 years. Meanwhile, Steven shouts out Brian Eno and Bill Callahan and tells listeners to check out Wisconsin band Disq's new album Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 110 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and Twitter for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprox'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 review new albums by the 1975 and Wild Pink. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He hopes Tom DeLong reveals the truth about alien life on the Blink 182 reunion tour. Ian Cohen, Ian, how are you?

If there's anything I've learned from this Blink 182 tour now, You know, I've learned a lot. You know, this is what Blinkwainty 2 does for me. It's a very educational experience. I feel as if, you know, with the return of Tom the Long, Indycast could probably use its own Mat Schieba character, like the guy who comes along if, like, one of us is sick or, like, is on vacation.

And then we can just announce, oh, it's the original Indycast lineup. That's true, yeah. I think Chris DeVille. We'll get him. He'll be our Matt Skeba. I think he could fit the bill. for sure with that.

We should say for those who don't know, there was a, this is, we're going to call this indie news because I think Blink 182 at this point has been grandfathered in to the indie rock canon by millennials.

They announced a reunion tour this week, Tom DeLong, back into the fold. They kissed and made up and now they're going to be doing a mammoth world tour that starts next year and goes for like a year.

It goes into 20, It goes into 2024. I had like such a, I just couldn't believe that I saw it. Like what, Blink 1282, they believe in alien life and they also believe that like touring is going to be feasible in 2024. Well, we're going to talk about this in a minute. It will be for this.

Yes. You know, we're going to be talking about, because that's another big story right now, tour cancellations, the viability of bands on the road. I don't think Blank, 182 is going to be affected. It sounds like, are tickets already on sale for this tour?

Or are they about to be on sale? My sense is that there's going to be a huge demand for tickets. My understanding is that there's pre-sales happening. I talk to, I've seen some people in Chicago mentioned that, like, Ticketmaster is still doing their, what has been called dynamic ticket pricing, which is, you know, more or less like surge pricing. And some tickets are like $800. A couple of friends of mine in,

San Diego were able to get some Blinkwain 82 tickets for something like $175, which, you know, after hearing that it was like 500, it's like, oh, that's kind of a good deal to see them to do the hometown show. But like, Blinkly 82 was a legendarily bad live band, you know, like you're going to see them in like a hockey arena. It's like three guys. It's going to be like one of those tours where you have like two guitarists behind the screen at all times, like playing the actual parts.

But I have no doubt that this show will do massive numbers. I mean, it is funny to me when we talk about these ticket prices that the Blink 182 and their fan base now have entered like the Eagles type territory of their career. You know, like when they play, what's my age again? It's going to be no one loves you when you're 53 at this point. Because they will be about 53 by the end of this tour. Because I know that DeLong and Hoppas are both 50. I don't know how old Travis Barker is.

It looks like he's injecting like Wolf's blood or something to make him look like he did 20 years ago. But, you know, Mark Hop is happy for him, you know, recently fighting cancer. It seems like he is healthy. I assume if he's signing up for an extensive world tour that he is feeling much better now, which, you know, we're happy about, good for them. I said this earlier, and I do think it's true, that Blink 182 for the longest time would not be a band that you would ever connect to the indie world,

certainly not at their peak. But it does seem like for certainly like the millennial generation and maybe even younger people, that they are like this legacy band now. And a band that has probably influenced in some way, the current generation of indie musicians either directly or indirectly just because this was a band that was so ubiquitous

you know for people when they were kids. I have to agree with that in the sense that like they're just a band that they're like one of the last bands that you could experience like almost exclusively through MTV or like video games and you know Travis Barker's various various forms of celebrity whether it's like you know being

part of the Kardashian family and just being kind of this pop punk whisperer. So, yeah, Blink 182's influence is certainly, you know, tangible in whatever you want to consider indie rock. And I just see it as like kind of a missed opportunity for me. Like if every now and again, like especially with like, you know, my chemical romance coming back and Blink 182, I could do pretty well for myself if I could fake liking this band more. like oh yeah blenquin eighty two like no the self-titled is really their artistic masterpiece which it is you know that's the one where they ripped off jimmy world and explicitly said so but yeah i mean i can't

front like i like this band more than i do which is you know i guess a problem to my bottom line i mean are there any bands like that for you where you know it's like you feel like yeah you could probably be this like expert because you grew up with them but like you can't do it honestly? Well, I would make that the angle of my piece. If someone approached me and said, write about this band, I would say,

well, can I write about how I wasn't a fan of them at the moment? And maybe I'm trying to reconsider them now. Like, that's what I would say to you, if someone comes to you with a Blink 182 pitch, just be like, well,

I don't really like it, but maybe I'll revisit it and I'll see what I think. Yeah. Or maybe like with my chemical romance, like that would be my advice for that. In terms of Link 182, I like their singles. I think that they're like a fun band.

There is a... I remember, we talked about this on the show. There was that recent trending topic about alien ant farm, smooth criminal. People were pretending like Alien Ant Farm was a good band for about 15 minutes recently. And it was really just tied to pre-9-11 nostalgia. You know, this idea of totally frivolous pop. culture that when we look back on it, it just seems fun and carefree and a look at a world that seems less stressful than the one that we live in now. And I think there's an element of Blink

182 like that for me, if you see the video for what's my age again or all the small things and they're jackassy guys running around naked, it does seem like, oh, like why can't there be more things like that? And Blink 182 leaned into that with their tour announcement. They put out a video where there's a bunch of different people saying, I can't wait to watch them come over and over again. And obviously the double entendre there. And I was like, that's really smart because that is total knucklehead, vintage Blink 182 humor.

And that's what the middle-aged blink 182 fans are going to want to revisit when they spend $800 on a ticket to see this ban. Yeah. I mean, listen, Indiecast fans. And if you want to experience like a world where like Blink 1282 never really went away, let me introduce you to this city called San Diego, California. Like there's actually been like a mini trend where a lot of bands when they come into town, they'll use Blink 182 as their entrance music.

Like I've seen Joyce Manor do that and also Black Country New Road. It wins the crowd over every single time. Well, and also San Diego You got the Padres here Coming up big time in the playoffs I'm jumping on the Padres bandwagon If we can do a quick shift here to sportscast Hell yeah

Just a quick segue there Are you on the Padres bandwagon? I'm like kind of dabbling in both Phillies and Padres fandom Look I mean Padres fandom It's like holy shit they beat the Dodgers once Like that was like the game where the Sixers where Alan Ivers, the Alan Iverson Sixers

like beat the Lakers in that game won and then just got blown the fuck out of the NBA finals. Like the fact that the Padres didn't get swept, I think the Phillies

have a better chance, but like San Diego sports is just a, you know, like, I mean, think of like the Green Bay Packers and like how, you know,

enmeshed in the community they are and just like the complete fucking opposite of that. That's the Padres. Yeah. have a cool, I like their uniforms and they, they have a cool team. And I don't know, they just, I mean, no one thought they would beat the Mets. They beat the Mets. They seem to be the team that

is coming together in the postseason. There's always like one kind of underachieving team in the regular season and they hit the postseason and they get hot. Could be the Padres. I don't know. We'll see. We'll find out in our next mini episode of sports cast, in our next episode of Indiecast. I just want to say quick, too, before we get to the mailbag that, you know, you We're talking about Blink 182 tour announcement being the big news of the week. I have to say that as a young gen Xer, old millennial, or an ex-enial, whatever you want to call me, that I was excited by the story that came out this week. Rick Rubin announced that the Strokes recently recorded an album on a mountaintop in Costa Rica,

which I have to say, you know, I like to prejudge Strokes albums, based on how cocaine-y the origin story is. And this is maybe the most cocaine-y the strokes have been since Room on Fire. So I am excited to hear the Mountain Top and Costa Rica record from the Strokes. But that's me. You know, again, I'm a little bit older. The strokes, I guess, are my blink one of each two. They're like my favorite boy band of the turn of the century.

It's so funny because, like, when I was working in radio, in 2001 when is this it came out like blink 182 in the strokes like you could play last night followed by first date or like any of the songs from that era so i think for a lot of people like they're just like classic rock bands um right i'm excited about you know i would like for a strokes album to be good um but like have you seen what rick rumin's actually produced in like the past decade it's not good but you know the new abnormal that's a good strokes record and i think if you talk to the Stroke's heads out there, that was embraced as like a full-on comeback record.

So I'm excited. I gotta say, though, I like every Strokes record. I, you know, put on angles, and I'm extremely happy. I like that record a lot. But we'll save that for when that Strokes album comes out. We should get to our Mailbag segment here. Thank you all for writing in.

It's always great to hear from our listeners. You can hit us up at Indycastmailbag at gmail.com. as I said earlier, we have a very timely question this week related to touring and touring cancellations. I mentioned Animal Collective. They canceled the European tour. That's one of many cancellations that have happened recently. I just saw this morning before we started recording that Craig Finn canceled part of his Eastern United States tour because a member of his band got COVID. I saw Regina Specter canceled a tour.

This is numerous cancellations. And this question that we have is related to that. It's a good excuse to talk about this. So, Ian, you want to read this question? Absolutely. And when we say cancellations, we're not talking about in the way the 1975 album treats it. We're talking about, like, actual cancellation. But just the...

Yes. So, Stephen Ian, I'm a big fan of the podcast and eternally grateful for you to turning me on to Gang of Youths. In the past few weeks, all three shows I had tickets for were canceled. Goy. I always love saying Gang of Youths that way in the same. way I love saying Jimmy Eat World is Jew, car seat headrest and the avalanches. I wasn't terribly disappointed with the first two since I had seen both of them live during the early part of their current tours, but avalanches really hurt me. They canceled last minute at 2017 Pitchfork Music Festival and canceled

their February 2020 show, which was rescheduled and subsequently canceled again a few hours before doors were supposed to open. So this brings up my first question. What are your thoughts on the reason for all the concert cancellations in indie music? Is it COVID-related? Will Toledo's definitely was? Because touring isn't profitable or just my bad luck? A related question is, what's your opinion on how artists should handle shows when they're under the weather? I saw a big thief earlier this year when Adrienne wasn't feeling very well.

She sat in a chair the entire show and they modify their set list to more mellow songs. While diehard big thief fans were happy to be bored, I was hoping to hear them perform some of the more upbeat cuts from Dragon New Warm Mountain. I would have loved for the band to tell their fans up front that Adrian was playing hurt, and given us the choice of seeing the band not at full strength, get a refund, or have them reschedule when she came off the IR list. Your thoughts, thanks in advance from keeping up the excellent work, Bill in Chicago. I'm assuming it's not Billy Corrigan. Oh, man, that'd be amazing.

It'd be William in Chicago. Right. If it was Billy Corgan. Thanks for the question, Bill. Yeah, this is a very timely issue talking about tour cancellations. And I guess, you know, we can answer his questions. but then I think we should also maybe talk more big picture stuff with touring. Just to answer the second part first,

should bands announce that members on the injured reserve list or not a full strength, to me, that scenario could very easily just devolve into a total cluster fuck where, you know, if people have the opportunity, to ask for a refund because the set wasn't as energetic as they hoped it would be. I mean, that just opens the door for all sorts of, you know, awful people to ask for their money back for the most sort of capricious reasons. I mean, it would be, I think, really hard to regulate. I'll say in the case of Big Thief that they might have played a set like that anyway, even if Adrienne wasn't sick on that particular night.

I could see them doing a show where they just played metal songs for an hour and a half. I mean, I've seen them do shows like that in the past. So regardless of whether someone is sick, if a band plays a set that isn't to what your expectations were or what you would have wanted them to play, I feel like that's just part of the live music experience. You know, you see bands and sometimes they don't play your favorite song or sometimes they structure the set lists in a weird way. while I understand you know, being disappointed by seeing a band, I feel like that's just part of the experience. I mean, what do you think, Ian?

Do you think that that's a good idea to announce that you're on the IR list and people can back out of the show? I love the idea of like pitchforker stereo gum turning into ESPN with like, you know, like on Sunday morning before fantasy pops up talking about how, you know, big thief is,

day to day or questionable with like a sore throat or something like that, you know. But, you know, just like a lot of things these days after having read Long Road, the new book out written by Stephen Hayden about the career of Pearl Jam. Yeah. Oh, yeah. That sounds great. That sounds like a fascinating book. Yeah.

I thought about the Red Rocks concert. Now, like where Pearl Jam, correct me if I'm wrong here, where Pearl Jam like kind of sat in a circle. and just did kind of an acoustic, like surprise sort of. I just want to make sure I'm not conflating canonical Pearl Jam shows here, right? Well, you're talking about a show I read about in the first chapter. It takes place in 1995. And it's not the whole show.

They opened up, like, sitting down and they played. It wasn't unplugged, but it was definitely mellower. They played a version of Jeremy, like where they don't sing the chorus, which is something Pearl Jam does from time to time even now. But yeah, definitely not the crowd-pleasing set that people in the crowd probably wanted or a lot of people in the crowd probably wanted. Yeah. So, you know, there are the festival sets that I see, you know, from Big Fee for a band of a similar ilk. And, you know, when I, I love the idea of like a dynamic tour, you know, a dynamic set list.

Like one where, you know, you might not get the same show in San Diego that you do in Orange, County or something along those lines. I think that there's this, I don't know, like an entitlement almost to this. Like, hey, we need to know if the band is feeling sick. We need to know if Big Thief's not going to play.

I don't know. I'm trying to think of the Big Thief hit, and my fucking escapes me. UFOF. I don't know. What is the big thief hit? Well, I don't know. Maybe he wanted to hear Spud Infinity from the new record. If I'm not hearing a 10 minutes sput infinity. I'm not

fucking going to the big thief show. Yeah, I mean, but again, I get the disappointment of that. I think unless it's an extreme case, like where someone literally can't sing and it totally derails the show, you know, maybe that's an extreme instance.

But touring is so difficult right now that I tend to cut bands a little bit of slack for not wanting to cancel if someone is sick. Like, if you can perform you get out there and you do it just because if you cancel a show, you're taking a hit of thousands of dollars or tens of thousands of dollars if you're a bigger band.

So let's just cut these people a little bit of slack. I think it's a hard time to tour right now, which leads to the bigger question here. And Bill talks about this in his first question in his letter, just asking, like, why are people canceling shows? because we're seeing all these cancellations. And like Bill says, some of it is COVID related. Some of it is related to just how expensive touring is.

And that seems to have been the issue with Animal Collective. They put out a statement this week about canceling their European tour. And just talking about like how, because of all the real world issues happening right now with, you know, supply chain issues, inflation, high gas prices. It's just really expensive to tour to the point where for some acts like the margins just don't make sense. I mean, you did a story

on Will Chef of Ackerville River for stereo gum. Didn't he say he's planning to tour Europe knowing that he's going to lose 15 grand? Yeah, and this is apparently very common for bands who are touring Europe. It's like you're planning a flag with the hope that you come back and maybe take less of a bath. But he, I mean, he was talking in like terms of $15,000 for losing money in Europe.

And like also like five to seven thousand a pop like doing the East Coast and West Coast tours. And the thing about the Animal Collective announcement is that I almost feel like this is a tipping point where bands are going to start to, I don't know, feel empowered or emboldened to say like, yeah, we're not going to do this shit. because even before Animal Collective, there was a situation with like Santee Gold and Metronomy, you know, bands that like you might not think of as being on the level of Animal Collective in terms of cachet,

but like they're probably more popular than Animal Collective. Like those two acts really fill seats in a way that like you might not expect, like it's kind of similar to like the drums or metric. And they were like, yep, yeah, this doesn't make sense for us. So yeah, it's like tough out there for even reliably popular bands. I don't think any of those acts

are having problem selling tickets. It's more just the things that you mention where it's almost like a mo money, mo problem sort of thing where it's like metronomy can't get in the van. Sancy Gold can't get in the van. Animal Collective can't get in the van and perform a show

that you would expect from a band at that level. So they just say, you know what, fuck this. I reached out to some musicians that I know this week just asking them about this because, you know, This is true of all things in social media that the most vocal people are usually the ones who are suffering in some way. You know, like when you see people in the media tweet about how bad the media industry is, it's usually people who have been laid off, you know, which is totally understandable that you would feel that things are terrible. Whereas someone who's maybe doing like okay isn't going to announce that publicly because you just invite scorn from people.

No one wants to hear from the person that's doing okay. So I reached out to some people that I know, like, are doing okay at the moment. And the thing that, you know, that I hear from people is that there's just such a bottleneck in the infrastructure of the touring business right now. You know, for instance, if you want to get a tour bus, you know, there's not a lot of tour buses right now because everyone is on the road. I imagine the same is true of renting a van. Like you talked about getting in the van. well, you might not be able to get a van right now because there's just only so many vans out there.

And that also extends to, you know, renting gear, hiring a tour manager. You know, there's just so many people on the road and there's only so many resources out there. And it's interesting because, like, I see people talk about how the tour industry is broken and that we need to rethink tours and music festivals.

And I never know what people mean exactly when they say that. Because, I mean, to me, when people say that, it's code for there needs to be a government subsidy. That we need to be more, I think in Sweden, for instance, you can get public funding

as like an arts organization if you want to go on the road. Am I making that up? I mean, I feel like Sweden does that. Sweden has some form of like, you know, government backing for art. I don't know if it, like, allows touring. But, you know, you read about a lot of artists from Sweden who will talk about, like, spending, like, a year in their 20s, like, on the dole, so to speak. And making, like, this really profound and, like, utopian idea of music.

I don't know if it does it for touring. But I think you're correct in that, like, I mean, I've said many, many times, like, COVID gave us the opportunity to. maybe rethink what touring should look like or our expectations. And every road leads to the same thing, which is that, hey, maybe Ben shouldn't tour or this idea of full socialism, neither of which seems even remotely plausible.

And so I think this is where it gets into this bit of an echo chamber that you're talking about, where it's like, we need the change. And like, I have absolutely no actionable plan for it. Yeah, I mean,

the thing with a government subsidy, let's just imagine a scenario, where that was possible, which it does not seem possible in America. We don't fund schools enough. We don't fund hospitals enough. We don't fund homeless shelters enough. I don't think Mitch McConnell is going to send money to Animal Collective so that they can tour Europe. I just don't see that happening.

But let's say it does happen. And we have a system where you can apply for a grant and get like $10,000 from the government to offset your expenses when you go on the road. Does that really solve the infrastructure issues that we have? I mean, I feel like if that were to happen, there would just be more people on the road, which would make it even more difficult to book at a club or a theater or to rent a van or to hire a tour manager. And it also doesn't address what I think is a scarcity of the most precious resource of all. And people don't talk about this enough in this conversation, but it's the scarcity of the audience. Like, I'll just use myself as an example.

I live in a decent size Midwestern city. And in the past, you know, if I wanted to go see a show, you know, there's multiple shows happening in my town on any given night, but there's usually just like one show that I want to go see. It's pretty rare for there to be a conflict. But in the last three or four or five months, I feel like there's been numerous occasions where, like, I'm planning to go see a band. And then I find out, oh, there's this other band that I want to see playing the same night. And I can only go to one. I mean, there have been times where I have seen two shows in one night because one was later. And I was able to leave one show early and go to the other one.

But most of the time, I can't do that. Or it might be a situation where there's like five nights in a row where there's a show I'd want to see. And I just, I can't go to shows five nights in a row. I mean, it's just difficult to do that if you have a life. I mean, you can only go to, you can only see so much live music, even if you're a big live music fan. And I feel like my situation is not at all unique. I would imagine if you live in Los Angeles, New York, Chicago, you know, cities where every band essentially has to visit, like when they go on tour, that it's even worse. So what that tells me is that in the audience, there's a situation where even if you want to go see a band you like, you might not be able to do it because of all the music that's on the road.

So I don't know. That's a problem that I feel like is solved only when things start to level out a little bit. And I wonder to what degree bands are looking at the situation right now and saying, maybe I'll wait six months. And by then, things won't be as hectic as they are now. And I'll have more of a lane to operate in. Yeah, I hope so because I think the one thing that, you know, bands and other artists who typically rely on the road have brought up is that it is still,

at least to their knowledge, like the most effective way to grow one's audience in an organic sort of way. So it is an investment, you know, even when you are losing money. That's why bands have been doing it for so long. But yeah, I mean, you also have to think of the fact that like even a city like San Diego where bands don't always go to, like I think in the span of a week, like Death Cab, Alex G, and always are coming to town. It's like if you're someone who doesn't have a connection to, you know, ask for lists or what have you. Like, I mean, to see any of those shows, like, you're probably paying $100 if you're bringing someone with you.

So, you know, even if you are that dedicated to supporting, I mean, even these, like, high-level indie rock bands, you know, the inflation affects the consumer as well. So I don't know. I think that it's probably the most boring answer possible to say that maybe we just need to like recheck this in a year or six months to see if bands are still canceling. But right now we're just kind of hitting like ahead of things because like you would think Animal Collective would be a band that after this long would be kind of immune to, they would be a recession.

Well, I do think that the European tour aspect of it does mitigate that story a little bit. If they were canceling, you know, American tour, it would be a different story. But like Europe, I mean, I, I, I mean, I. Like you said, I don't know what their ticket sale situation was, but even if they were selling a lot of tickets, just because of the way the world is right now, it's super expensive to play there. I mean, it's expensive to play there under normal circumstances. And now you have inflation, again, high gas prices. So that's just like the real world interceding there. I don't know how you fix that.

I will say, I think right now the thing that's troubling to me is that it does seem like for up and coming artists, they're really up against the wall, even more than usual. Because of how just oversaturated the tour schedule is, I know, again, I'll use myself as an example, that when you're trying to pick what show to go to because you only have so much time in your life, I know for me it was like, well, I want to go to the pavement reunion tour because I don't know if they're ever going to tour again. Whereas another band might come into town that you like and you're like, well, I could probably see them again or I have seen them in the past. Do I need to see them this time? You know, I think these are the situations, the choices that people are making. And it does end up hurting a certain kind of band that doesn't have like the event aspect to what they're doing. You know, like a scarcity again. Like pavement on the road, they're going to sell out because they haven't done a tour in 12. years. Or like Bruce Springsteen, he can sell out because he hasn't done a tour in six years and he's in his 70s and he might not tour with the East Street band again. So I don't know. It just seems like we're in a situation where maybe you have to be a reunion

tour or something to like get people, you know, to be a lock to get people into the show. Yeah, or maybe like you just wait five years and it's like, I mean, I know always is on the row. But it's like, hey, we're celebrating the five-year anniversary reunion of the Always Blue Rev Tour. And then, like, you just go straight into that. Yeah, that'll be every tour now. Or it's like, it's the seventh anniversary of our third album. We're going to play it in sequence. I mean, there might be things like that. Or maybe there'll be more package tours, you know, where you see two. I mean, we've already seen a little bit of that.

Where, what was that? Who did Spoon just tour with? Interpol. Yes. It's like Spoon and Interpol. You know, that seems like an example of why compete with each other, because our fans are of the same demographic. Instead of making people choose between seeing Spoon or Interpol,

we'll just tour together. You know, maybe that's going to be something that we see more of. I could see that happening. Just as another way to get people to come out and kind of pool your resources. So, I don't know, it'll be interesting to see how this unfold. I feel bad for artists. right now. And I know this is an incomplete solution. This is a very sophisticated issue, but I will say again, if you can buy a record, buy a record. If you can buy merch, buy merch, buy merch. This idea that I think a lot of

music fans had for a long time that, well, I can just go on Spotify and stream music because bands make money on the road. Well, now we're seeing that that's not necessarily true. You know, So you got to put some shekels in people's money can or whatever. You know, contribute. We're all part of the same ecosystem here. We all have to pay our share. And if we don't, then the music that we love and the people who make it suffer. I think that's a great segue.

Talk about the 1975. Okay, well, let's get to our list of topics here. And speaking of struggling indie bands who need our support, let's talk about the 1975, to the delight and the annoyance of, well, I guess, I wonder what the split is in our audience of people who want more 1975 talk and those who want less. I don't know. It'd be an interesting poll for us to do. But they have a new album out today.

It's called Being Funny in a Foreign Language. This is the fifth album by the 1975. And I wrote about this album this week. I reviewed it for Uprocks. You can go check it out after listening to this episode, or you can pause and read what I have to say. I'm curious to get your take on this, Ian, because I felt as I was writing about this record,

and by the way, I wrote a positive review of this album, which might surprise some of our listeners. It surprised me, actually, that I wrote a positive review of this record. But I felt like I had your voice in my head a little bit as I was writing my review, because as I was listening to the record, I was like, this is kind of what I was asking for in my review of notes on a conditional form,

their last record, which I wrote a very negative review of. I felt, and I still do, that that's a very self-important and bloated record. And at the end of my review, and I'm not the first person to say this or the only person to say this, but I was basically issuing a challenge saying, can you make a record that is a tight record where every song is good? Because you've never done that. You tend to make these sprawling records with a lot of filler. And I'm like, can you make a tight record?

That seems like a big departure for you. And that's what this record is. And I'll say that I think every track on this record is at least good. And I think some of them are great. But I knew in my mind, I'm like, this does not seem like the record that Ian Cohen would like. And I will say too, and we can have a, I'm curious to get your feelings on where you feel the 1975 are right now.

I will say, like, I think this is the most consistent 1975 record, but it also seems the least significant. You know, it feels minor in a way, even though I think it's a good record. So I don't know. I guess am I on the right track here? This does not seem like the record that you would like, is what I'm trying to say. I really thought when you said that, like, you know, you were hearing my voice inside your head.

that this was like a a callback to our Blink 1-82 discussion of like, you know, like you're quoting, I miss you all of a sudden. But that was probably not the case. Yeah, with this one, I'm like, I'm very curious about like what the reception of this is. Like, I have really no concept as to, like,

where the 1975 are in terms of like the pecking order of, you know, pop music in general or like alt rock or whatever you want to describe them. as but you know what it's funny i maybe this is just like our indecast telepathy going on but as i was listening to this record or even just seeing the fact that it's like 11 songs um that i'm like you know what this is this is this is the stephen hyden now like this is this is the steven like this is the like this is the album that they're making with him in mind you know mattie healy is done dropping algernon cabalotter and deaf tones and his interviews he's going to

start talking about Chugel. You know, he has conquered one half of indie cast, and now he's just kind of, you know, closing the circle and getting the other one. Well, he has talked a lot about Paul Simon in interviews. I don't know if you've noticed that. I've not. But I think it was the New York Times interview. He brought up Paul Simon, like, multiple times.

Which I thought was, I thought was interesting. And there actually is a song on here that reminds me a little of Paul Simon. I think it's wintering. Wintering. Yeah. Like we hear vampire weekend, but like, you know, they're just kind of a, you know, in the lineage of, uh, of Paul Simon as well. Which I, you know, when you, like, I think of, um, you know, what I like out of the 1975, which seems to be the exact opposite of like what you're into.

Like my favorite song on the previous album, uh, notes on a conditional form was probably like the fake Jamie X X song with like cutty ranks on it, which is like, I. I think what you would, you know, qualify as filler. It's an instrumental. It is like a one-off thing. But that just to me exemplifies. I love the bloat. I love the sprawl.

I don't think of them as like, I don't know, like a terminally online in excess so much as like, you know, the smashing pumpkins in a way like down to the, you know, just dumbfounding interviews and bloated albums and the, you know, the genre. I like the kind of song that they're doing here. I like the lane they stay in, but like I need those other lanes. Otherwise, I get the same sort of feeling that I did when this, like I like happiness and I like, I'm in love with you more than I did as singles. But to me, they just kind of sound like, like an instant ramen. Like you have the ramen pack and that you just kind of sprinkle some 1975 flavor on it. Like if you told me it was like one direction or like.

like Harry Stiles trying to make their 1975 style songs, I would probably believe it. So I don't, I think you're correct in that in a way it's a sob to people who have kind of gotten tired of their shit. And also,

it kind of takes away the things that I love about the 1975. So I don't know if this is the sort of album that's going to elevate them in a way that, I don't know why this came to mind, but all that you can't leave behind. Like you two's

like the epitome of like, hey, we're done with all that bullshit. This is the rock music you know and love. Well, yeah, I mean, I think the problem with the record, and I said this in my review, is that this is an album of doubles and triples. Like, there's no home runs on this record. And I think when

you talk about enjoying the sprawl, it's because you like to see the long ball. Like you appreciate them being a slugger who swings at a lot of pitches and you'll put up with the strikeouts because there's all these home runs that are on the record. And I think that would be the defense of a record like notes on a conditional form. Like for people who like that record, they'd be like, well, yeah, there's some misfires, but it's just because they're trying a lot of different things. And

that's worth it because when they connect, it really works. And I can buy into that. I mean, I do feel like part of my enjoyment of this record is connected to just being really annoyed by Harry Stiles. And maybe like I'm trying to will a rivalry here between Maddie Healy and Harry Styles because one thing I do appreciate about Maddie Healy is that he is a person who is unafraid of making himself look like a bad person in his lyrics.

Like he will cop to unfavorable behavior, sometimes in an obnoxious way. But also, like, on this record, I found it endearing just in comparison to Harry Stiles, who is basically a Ken doll, you know, on his records. He's always writing, like, songs about him being a good person and being the best boyfriend and being your best friend. And, you know, there's no dark side to what he's doing. And I think that as a point of comparison, it just made me think, okay, Maddie Healy, even when he's annoying, at least he's not doing the nice guy act, which I find just to be insufferable with Harry style. So I think if there can be some sort of like rivalry there, maybe he can be like the Mick Jagger to like the Paul McCartney, you know, and there can be some Beatles and Stones thing going on there. I would like to see this come into existence. So I like that aspect of it.

I want to follow up on something you just said about, you know, we're just talking about like the place in the pecking order with the 1975. I do feel like the idea that you have to follow this band, like among casual listeners, has really receded. And that they are more of like a hardcore fan band at this point. And I guess maybe I'm judging this. on traffic for my record review this week, which was kind of anemic.

It did okay, but I just feel like there hasn't been a ton of enthusiasm for this album, and maybe I'm totally wrong, or maybe it's stronger in England than it is here. But I don't know. It seems significantly less than there was for their previous record.

I think I have to agree with that. I mean, I get a pretty good indication of, I don't know, the taste of what I would might consider a 1975 fan base to be at work where, you know, predominantly around people who are, you know, 22 to 30 years old. And like, I knew, I've had one 1975 conversation in two years that I've been there. You know, oftentimes it's more like, you know, Taylor Swift or things associated with that. But how fucking ironic would it be if, like, they are a critics band now? I mean, I think that they were kind of going for that in a way, like, but.

I just don't know, like, whether the previous album, like, I mean, alongside the novel coronavirus, like, kind of stunted their momentum. I, you know, we're going to be talking about Arctic monkeys next week. And, you know, Arctic monkeys have, like, legit, massive hits, thanks to AM. Like, I wonder if the 1975 are more like Arctic monkeys or something along those lines than, like, the biggest pop act. Like, because, I mean, how do I even, how do I even qualify? how do I even quantify this shit nowadays?

Like, I don't think I've heard a lot of, you know, chatter around these songs. Like you said, they're singles or, you know, doubles or triples, you know, just as terms of, like, artistic accomplishments. But I also don't think any of these have really even had the impact of, you know, some of the singles from the previous record, like the birthday party. You know, I think the, I haven't heard anywhere near as much chatter around, like, part of the band as I had around the Pine Grove lyric from the last album, which I think maybe is indicative of their, you know, lesson status. So I do wonder if this is like a least satisfying

of all outcomes wherein that it's their least interesting or daring album, but also not one that pushes them to a higher level of popularity. Like it just seems like an album that can be like better than you think, but also worse than you think at the same time. Yeah, I mean, I feel like this record is them trying to figure out their mature period. Like, how do we become a mature band? Because, you know, I think Healy is like 33 or so, like early 30s. So he's getting to that age, like, where you're not the young, hot phenoms anymore. You are, like, the mid-career band.

And, like, what is a mature 19-19. 75 record sound like. And that's a hard thing to answer. Because I don't think that making another record like notes on a conditional form would have been the answer either. I think that would have felt like diminishing returns.

You know, it's like how off, you can't be the provocateur forever. You know, you have to grow out of that and become something else. But what is that thing? I don't know. I feel like they're still figuring that out. Yeah.

I think that also, you know, like, I would maybe be, like, less concerned about this if they were more prolific. I don't know. Maybe they, like, do, like, Back to Basics out in 20, 24. And by Back to Basics, I mean, it's like 20 songs and 80 minutes with all sorts of, like, bizarre genre experiments. But, I mean, look, it's not as, it's not the worst case scenario in terms of, like, what they actually did. It's just like, okay, they, you know, they may, they feel a little bit, um, it almost, reminds me of a God's favorite customer by Father John

Misty where it's just like the low key I'm off social media now here's 10 songs like I know you're kind of sick of my shit so like let's just do this and move on to the next. Yeah and that's a great record I also feel like that record has an emotional

element to it that this record maybe doesn't have I mean that's like a song cycle clearly based on you know his own personal relationship and that album feels unified in a way maybe this record isn't. But again, I think it's a good record. I just think it's hilarious that I like it more than you do. That's like the twist ending of our 1975 talk.

Let's move on to something else. Let's talk about the other album that we're viewing this week, and it's by one of the true Indycast mascot bands, maybe the Indycast mascot band, Wild Pink. and they have put out their fourth album today. It's called I-L-Y-S-M, short for I Love You So Much. And speaking of a song cycle that is very personal and emotionally overwhelming, this is a record that is inspired by the singer-songwriter of Wild Pink, John Ross, being diagnosed with cancer and confronting that.

And it's a record that is really beautiful and also harrowing, I think, in many respects. It really, I think, one of the things I really love about this record, and I want to talk to you about this, because you called this your album of the year, on Twitter this week, and you wrote about it for stereo gum,

I think one of the powerful things about this record is that it does, I think, really evoke the headspace of someone who is confronting life and death. You know, there are moments of fear on this record. There's moments of grace on this record. it's a heavy one, but it's also really beautiful. If you knew nothing about the backstory,

you could just appreciate this as music, I think. Why is this your album of the year, Ian? Because I love this record. I wouldn't go that far. But it is your album of the year. Why is it your album of the year so far? Well, I mean, I think that, you know, Wild Pink is a band that I've, like, you know,

as you said, I've been very much in the bag for. And, you know, I was sort of worried after a billion little lights that, you know, as much as I love that record, that maybe they had kind of reached a dead end. Like, I envisioned a possibility where they just kind of like do like, it's a little more polish, a little more war on drugsy, a little more, like, I could see them making that album to diminishing returns. And the fact that like they made something that this, that kind of just explodes what they can do. Like I didn't think while Pink was capable of being this sonically diverse, but also this like emotionally intense.

Like, you know, a lot of, you know, it's sort of, you know, reductive to say that the quote unquote cancer album is like a, it's not like a trope, you know, in music. But, you know, it's something that happens where like people confront their mortality. But they do this in a way that's like more pretty than heavy. And also I just think of it as this album that invokes this headspace of like, you know, you can, you can engage with this album, you know, if you have it undergone, like, undergoing, like, gone, undergone cancer yourself, you know, it has this very ghostly, um, dream style

logic to it where you're just kind of, it almost is like if you've ever been, like, sick or laid up with, like, COVID or anything where you're kind of separated from real life, you can kind of get in the headspace of this record. And, um, it's just ambitious, but not overbearing. And, you know, I compared it to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, you know, which I don't know. Like, I've been probably guilty of overselling Wild Pink in the past. But it just made me think of that album in the beginning just because of all the stylistic turns it takes. But when I spend more time with it, it reminds me more if we have to make a Wilco comparison to a ghost is born.

In terms of this, like, kind of eerie beauty that it puts forth, hell is cold. The third song seems like a pretty obvious nod to, you know, Hell is Chrome. Well, it is also a song on the record called War on Terror, which to me, you know, because I also compared it to Yankee Hotel Foxtrot when I heard the promo. And, you know, like when you make comparisons like that, I think sometimes people misinterpret it as saying, this is as good as Yankee Hotel Foxtrot, which was not what I was saying. I don't think you were saying that either. It's more that it's Wild Pink making their version of Yankee Hill.

Hotel Fox tried a record like that where it's a band deconstructing what they do, breaking it down, and making it both more expansive and sparse at the same time simultaneously. It seems like those are conflicting

ideas, but this is a record that sounds bigger, but it's also more ghostly. There's a lot more spaces in this music, I think, than is usually on Wild Pink Records. It's interesting, with this band because we've talked about Wild Pink all the time. We're both Wild Pink

Boosters. And you don't want to dwell too much on like, well, this band being underappreciated. You know, other people aren't writing about them enough. I mean, there actually have been people who have also stood up for this band and defended them and try to get people into them.

I wonder to what degree John Ross's voice is an issue with this band. I mean, I like his voice. But it's such a modest and unassuming sound that I think sometimes people make the mistake of thinking, well, this is just like a pleasant indie rock band. And the intensity of what he's singing about in his songs maybe can get lost.

Because even comparing him to someone like Jeff Tweedy, you know, there's an obvious intensity to what Tweedy is doing in his music, even when there is more of like a laid-back feel to it that you don't always get with Wildpink. It's not always immediately apparent if you're not sitting down with the record and really taking it in. And I just hope people don't just dismiss this as like a pleasant indie rock record because of the guy singing it. Because there's so much more here.

There's so much richness in his words and the way that this record is put together sonically. I don't know. I just think that what they're doing, there's so much better than a lot of bands in this lane right now. And I feel like they've been superficially judged maybe in some corners. I think you're right about that. And, you know, his voice is, I would say, an acquired taste. I think it effectively does what it's trying to do with this album.

And actually, it's even more receded in the mix than it was on a billion little lights. But, you know, I think you talk about something that's, like, a concern for me, and this is, like, pure music critic brain here of, you know, wondering, like, whether the hype of a certain cadre of, like, followers is, like, working against them. Like, you know, I think of, like, a band, like, symbols eat guitars where, like, the, the narrative around every one of their records at a certain point was, like, how come this band hasn't gotten the attention they deserve?

And it's like, you know, you hear from, like, the same five people. myself included about it. But I also think that with this band, unlike some of the bands that I've done, you know, stump for before, like Foxing or, you know, Simble Zee guitars is that it doesn't have that, you know, strive to be big that I hear in some of these other bands. Like, I don't want to, like, I don't envision Wild Pink playing these huge rooms. You know what I mean? Like, I don't think it would enhance the music in any.

Anyway, I just think that, you know, John Ross, you know, not to be confused with John Rossiter, the guy from Young Jesus. He, he's going to continue to make albums that follows his muse. But I do think just the kind of dismissal of them in a way, like, not even dismissal, but like, you know, not taking them with the heft that they deserve. I mean, if you can't do that for the album about cancer, I mean, then, you know, I don't know what's preventing someone from being into this band. And I hate saying, oh, if this record doesn't do it for them, I don't know what will. Because I said that about, you know, the last record as well and look here and here we are. Yeah, I just feel like they've been miscast a little bit. They get grouped into the emo category because I think Ross's voice reminds people of Ben Gibbard.

So they get compared to Death Cab for Cutie. Whereas if you talk to John Ross, I don't think he's even listened ever to Death Cab for Cutie. He's very much in, you know, he's into classic. rock singer-songwriters, Jackson Brown, Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty, those are the influences that he draws from. And I would invite people to listen to this record in that context, because if you think of those singer-songwriters, they are known for writing personal songs and grouping them into a narrative that is satisfying from beginning to end. You know, that's true of late for the sky by Jackson Brown or Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen or Wildflowers by Tom Petty. And to

To me, this record is the most successful attempt by Ross of making a record like that. A record that you put it on and the first song connects to the last song. And the album feels like a journey that you're on with the person who wrote these songs. And that's the kind of crap that he's aspiring to. And I think he keeps getting better and better at it. And I think this album is the best example of that. Absolutely. And also, like, I mean, when you think about like why they're connected with emo, it's like, you know, they started out on tiny engines. And of course, you have like people like myself hyping them up. So maybe I need to like do some reverse psychology. Well, again, I think they sound like death cab for cutie in a way by accident. I mean, I think, I mean, the tiny engines thing is significant. But I think just his voice is it's reminiscent of Ben Gibbard. And that's why.

people link them to that band, but that's an accidental resemblance. But, you know, if that gets people to listen to Wild Pink, then fantastic. But again, I think as a singer-songwriter, what he's doing lyrically and how he connects it to the music, it's a real conversation on this record. You know, I think musically, it really conveys what he's singing about even more than the lyrics. It's such an expressive record. There's a lot to, I think, appreciate with it. It's not my album of the year,

but it will likely be in the upper reaches of my year-end list. I think it's a really strong record. And we're encouraging people to listen to it, as we do with every Wild Pink record on this show. Also, they're touring with Trace Mountains this fall. That's a big indie cast double bill as well. And that will be a tour I will be seeing. I'm excited.

I'm going to that show. That's going to be great. 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? I should have looked up whether this band's name is pronounced Birds in Roe or Birds in Row, you know, like the British pronunciation. They are European, but this is a French hardcore band,

French post-hardcore band. Let me just be very clear about that. There is a difference. Post-hardcore means that the songs are four minutes instead of two. Anyway, their new album is out today. It's called Gris. I don't know. It's probably pronounced like Grie Klein or something like that.

But they were on Death Wish Inc. before. They put out a really good album in 2012 and 2018. They put out albums very rarely. And so this new record, they're on a different label. And I think this one is more accessible in a way that doesn't necessarily go into what post-hardcore bands usually do when they want to be more accessible. which is like, you know, bigger melodies or like doing explosions in the sky style instrumentals. It sounds like more dancier in a way. Like I want to say just swaglier without sounding like an asshole.

Maybe it's because they're French. I don't know. They're sort of like Goheera in that they kind of look too pretty to be playing the music that they play. But, you know, this record kind of brings together all the things that if you liked anything on Death Wish, whether we're talking about like Tushé Amore, or that extended universe that includes like, you know, Converge or Thursday, they're doing it in a way that sounds much more rhythmic and much more engaging than post-hardcore typically is, which is a genre that's very easy to fall into cliche. But this band transcends it.

They don't put out albums very frequently. So if you like this one, it'll probably hold you down for the next four years. So Birds in Row, Greece Klein, that's my recommendation corner this week. So I'm going to do two quick shoutouts before I go to my official recommendation corner choice this week. Bill Callahan has a new album out today. It's called Reality. It is, of course, really good because he only makes really good records. I did an interview with him this week on Uprocks where he talked about his back catalog,

going into the smog years, as well as a lot of his Bill Callahan, Bill Callahan records. I encourage you to check out that interview. It was really great. I also want to say, there's a really cool Brian Eno record out today called Forever and Evermore. It's his first album with vocals since, I think, 2005. And really cool record. I might end up talking about that more next week. We'll see.

But my official recommendation corner choice this week is a band from Madison, Wisconsin. Love to rep the Skani bands. This is a band called Disc. It's spelled D-I-S-Q. And this is a band I've been following for a while now. It's interesting because in a way, I feel like they cover the entire history of like late 20th century indie music. They're very versatile. Sometimes they're doing electropop.

Sometimes they're doing like Elephant Six type music. Sometimes they'll do like, you know, their take on like a flying nun band from New Zealand, you know, like one of those kind of zippy guitar pop bands. really talented. They can really do a lot of different things. Their new record, I think is probably my favorite record that they've done so far. It's called Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet.

It came out earlier this month. And there's just tons of like really great and noisy, chunky, melodic indie rock songs on this record. In a way, it kind of reminds me of like Black Sea era XTC if they were from the Midwest, or like early REM reckoning era or so, but with heavier guitars.

Again, just a really engaging and fun record. A cool thing about this band is that they have multiple songwriters. I believe that there's four different songwriters in this band, and I always like bands that do that, where you have different singers, you have different people, you know, kind of forging their own personality in the band. And it just adds, again, to the versatility of this group.

They can really do a lot of different things. They're pretty exciting band. I mean, they've been prolific. They've put out quite a bit of music already, but I really feel like they're coming along. And again, this is my favorite record that they've done. So again, the band is called Disc. D-I-S-Q is how it's spelled.

And the album is called Desperately Imagining Someplace Quiet. That is like a quintessential. Like the moment I heard this record drop, I'm like, Steve's going to love this fucking album. And they're from Wisconsin. And they're from Wisconsin. to wrap Wisco bands, so I'm glad there's another really good Wisconsin band out there. Disc and the Bodines. Those are the two bands I will always rep on this show.

Thank you so much for listening to this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mixedape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week and we'll send it directly to your email box.