Indiecast - New Music From Haim + Our Ultimate All-Star Indie Rock Bands

Episode Date: March 14, 2025

Steven and Ian open this week's episode by addressing the confusing new slang about "reheating one's nachos" as a metaphor for revisiting a signature style, used this week in reference to the new Lady Gaga album [1:12]. They also talk about the new single from Haim, and what it portends for (presumably) their upcoming LP [15:01].In the mailbag, they weigh possibilities of Indiecast merch [31:56] and spend a ton of time contemplating their ultimate indie-rock all-star band, picking a singer, bassist, guitarist, drummer, and producer [31:56].In Recommendation Corner, Ian goes for the latest from British pop-rock outfit Courting and Steven stumps for the new album from North Carolina alt-country band Fust [52:41].New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 230 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 X (formerly 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 Uprocks's indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to the Indycast on the show we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we respond to emails from you, the Indycast listener. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He's reheating his nachos as we speak. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

You know me, Steve. I like my beer cold, my TV loud and my nachos either piping hot or as I most often experienced them where they're like kind of congealed and they got that red solo cup with like two ounces of beer and 15 cigarette butts in them. That's really the only way to do it.

Yeah, I like to have the nachos the morning after, you know, when they've been sitting in the fridge and then you throw them in the microwave and you reheat them because we all know that that's a thing that we all experience. We all just intuitively grasp that metaphor because

it's something we all like and enjoy. Ian, I have to, I have a bone to pick here with the slang creators of the world because there's this new thing going around. It's called reheating nachos

or reheating your nachos. And it came to my attention because of this Lady Gaga album cycle that, which by the way, she's everywhere. Lady Gaga is everywhere right now. And it actually made me think like there needs to be a term for

album cycle where an artist who previously was on a certain strata where they didn't do a lot of interviews now has sort of, shall we say, embraced a more modest following in their career. And now they're doing tons of interviews being very accessible. And that's where Lady Gaga is right now. We're not going to call it a career decline. We're just going to say that she is suddenly in love with talking to the media. media going on hot ones, going on talk shows. Yeah, she was talking to stereo gum.

You know, they're, I don't know what they're, like on stereo gum, are they talking about, you know, fiery furnaces on there and like 2000s indie rock? Well, on that, on that note, like I do have the faint interview going up. So I really hope Lady Gaga talked about how much she loved dance macabre. Lady Gaga address the Woo Life reunion rooms. Can you give your stance on this? But one thing that's come up, I forget what show she was on, but they brought up, or maybe it was like a press junket thing, but they brought up this slang term, reheating your nachos, which apparently is a term that means revisiting a former style of yourself from the past, or in the case of Lady Gaga, like musical motifs from the past. bringing them back. And this is brought up apparently like in a positive way. Like you're reheating

your nachos. Like this is something that is a compliment to the person. And I've actually seen this come up in in album reviews. I'm sure you have to pitchfork in their review wrote the following. Mayhem isn't the sound of someone reheating your nachos on the sly and trying to pass them off as fresh, which by the way, impossible to do. Who would reheat nachos? and then present them as fresh. I feel like, we'll get into that. There's a very obvious problem with this metaphor that we can talk about. We've already touched on it a little bit.

But anyway, Pitchfork claims that this album, it's not an example of reheating nachos and trying to pass them off as fresh. It's a full-on cooking show devoted to the art of nacho reheating. So the art of nacho reheating, they gave it an 8.0. So not artful enough to get the best new music. but artful enough to get an 8.0. So good for Lady Gaga. And then USA Today, they're trying to get on this.

Legacy media here, dying print media. Lady Gaga is reheating her nachos with Mayhem album, and it's delicious. Now, okay, this is the bone I want to pick with this. And by the way, look, I believe that this slang term, it derives, this is sort of like a gay subculture term or gay Twitter. I can start in gay Twitter and then I think it was Stan Twitter. Am I correct with that? Yeah, I think it is. It's like one of these things that we see so often where, like, it's new to us, but it's been kind of circulating within like weird or like black Twitter for like probably months. So yeah, the fact that it's just like arising to the surface now, like, yeah, it's it probably, that probably means it was played out. But now it's in this weird sort of space where like I can't even tell if like reheating the nachos was supposed to be like a good thing or like kind of a cutting thing.

It's like, you know, when Marge is trying to cut her Chanel jacket, she found at the thrift store, you know, because we have to talk Simpsons on this. Yeah, I just never been able to tell, like, because it's gone from, like, derogatory to complimentary to, like, ironically complimentary. So I'm never really sure people stand with it. I mean, I have to give the originators the benefit of the doubt here that this is like a funny burn. Yeah. Because if it's a funny burn, then I'm all on board with it. But if it's a compliment, it makes no. sense. Like, in what world? Well, first of all, who has ever reheated nachos? Yeah. Who's ordered

nachos and not been able to finish it and said, yeah, I need the doggie bag for the nachos. I want to eat this tomorrow for lunch. I think you have a problem with your relationship with food. I know that you're sensitive to this, Ian, being in the nutritious industry, I don't want to shame anyone, but I'm just saying if you're reheating the nachos the next day, I feel like, you're either, it's probably not even a food thing. I think you're just cheap, maybe. You're so cheap that you're going to eat these disgusting nachos 24 hours after you ordered them at chilies or wherever you were when you got the nachos.

One of the most singularly disgusting foods after 10 minutes of being heated. If you don't finish them, I cannot imagine a person who looks. It's like, yes, I'm going to eat that later. It's true. You know, because you get the nachos, and it's amazing when they arrive at the table, you're like, oh, hell yeah, I'm going to tear into these nachos. It's going to be so good. But once you break through the top layer of the nachos, like where all the melted cheeses, and you get into the guts of the nachos where, you know, maybe the hamburgers down there and, you know, the black olives, like all the wet stuff is in the middle of the nachos. So it's just turned into like a blob of gross food.

And you're just digging in there and you feel it on your fingers. And it just feels like some sort of nacho facsimile of like intestines or something. It's just very gross. And then to think of eating that the next day after it's been sitting in your refrigerator for 12 to 18 hours. And then you're going to throw in the microwave. I mean, I guess. You know, like, Kiles is sort of kind of texturally similar, but, like, you just order that. You have to, like, make fresh eggs.

Yeah. I just don't think they've ever mastered the proper serving of nachos. There's, like, no single or even, like, slightly larger single portion of nachos. You order them knowingly in a portion too big for anything less than four people, so. Well, there's no such thing as, like, a small nacho. It's just nachos. So they're bringing you the, you know. An enormous plate or bowl of nachos.

And I mean, I think in the moment when you're in the restaurant, you can reconcile the grossness of it as you dig into the deeper layers of the nachos. Someone's going to take it away. But it's sort of like, oh, I ordered this margarita. I didn't finish it. Can I get this in a bottle to go and I'll drink it tomorrow? Like, come on. The moment is past. All right?

The moment is past. The nachos, they had their moment. It's over now. So look, I think what we're saying here is very logical. I think anyone would agree. So the metaphor here of the reheating the nachos, if it's a sick burn, great burn. You bring up a good point here. I think we have to give the benefit of the doubt to the originators because we're talking about cultures here that have given the world so much in terms of slang.

You know, the gay community, the black community, given the world so much. like disproportionate amount. I mean, really like 95% of slang, really coming from these communities, if not more. So you really got to give the experts the benefit of the doubt that this came up as a sick burn and now laying people on the internet

have taken it and turned it into a compliment that makes no sense whatsoever. But yeah, can we put an end of this? I think this is the worst. This is the worst slang. Is there a worse slang than this right now? I mean, not worse. I do think just with its association with the lady Gaga, I really don't think we're going to see too many applications of it, except for us, like in the year end where we talk about like the indie castes reheated nachos award.

Yeah. This is another one. Like, I mean, this one's like not as like viscerally disgusting as reheating nachos, but I find myself troubled by giving somebody their flowers. That's another thing, which kind of originated from the same subculture. And what bothers me about that is that it is almost to a person applied to someone who is so extremely popular. Like it just makes me think of like one of the turning points of, I guess, modern music coverage. I can't find this one for the life of me just because there's been so much written about her. But I have a distinct memory of 2016 or 17 or so where someone wrote this very long, passionate article for something like The Guardian about how Rihanna was.

under is underappreciated. Yeah. And so, yeah, it's just like they haven't completely cornered that critical market. And so therefore, I mean, you can say anything on the internet. So it's like I'm not, I'm not mad about like the, I hate the player, not the game or what have you. But yeah, usually like give someone their flowers as tip. And it's also done like extremely in earnest, which I think is also like not just like it's kind of, it's kind of bitchy. but like I think the earnestness of giving someone their flowers is what troubles me more than something

which is just more outright annoying. No, you make a good point here because I think there is something to that where like the nachos thing, I think people are using that with a twinkle in their eye a little bit. Like I think in the pitchfork review, I like to think that there's some irony being inserted into that like in the usage of the nachos thing. But you're right. Like people will very seriously talk about how someone needs their flowers. Can we get this person their flowers?

Please. Can we get UP? Like we need to get UPS on this. We need to get multiple delivery services involved in a military style operation to get this person their flowered. Yeah, it's a very serious thing at this point. Yeah, there is that line where it goes from this cool thing that I heard somewhere that I am now using in a way that I know probably wrong. So I'm going to have some implicit self-mockery when I say it. There's that stage and then it progresses to no irony at all. And I'm just saying this seriously. Yeah, that is a bad

place to be. Man, we've spent a long time on nachos. I didn't think we had this much material on nachos. But, you know, it's March. It's a little slow. We're reheating our own nachos when it comes reheating nachos. It's gotten super meta. That is like I mean, I feel like mayhem now is in the lead for album cycle in the

Indycastes. For the Indy prognosticators out there who are already, you know, projecting to the end of the year, I think mayhem definitely is in the lead. Because Lady Gaga is just everywhere. She is everywhere now. I wonder how that album did.

I'm sure it did great. I feel like there's more juice behind. Like, this has been just an interesting album cycle because I had no idea where Lady Gaga stands as far as, like, whether it's like a, like a main pop girlie or one that's like a little older or like really critically acclaimed or not critically. I'd say like how very, not to interrupt, but the very serious way you said main pop girlie there just now. I feel like it is illustrative of a point we were just making about the earnestness.

thing. But anyway, I'm sorry to interrupt. The main pop girlies. Yes, is Lady Gaga one of the main pop girlies? Can we get to the bottom of this? The main pop women or like, you know, an elder states person or like in a good way. I just don't know. Like, she's been in this very

sort of unique space. Yeah. So, but she's in that space now where this album could succeed or fail and it won't really matter to her overall. She is in the level of celebrity where you have tenure, I feel like,

where you're just going to always be famous, no matter what. And a lot of pop stars, you really do rise and fall on how your latest thing does. I don't think it really matters with Lady Gaga. She could be in, like, Joker Part 3, and she would still be famous, I think. But yeah, in terms of the main pop girlies discussion, I feel like she's like the Robert Johnson at this point of main pop girlies, in terms of just being like a bedrock influence. do people know who Robert Johnson is?

I was like a little, I'm like, is that like, I was thinking like Robert Parrish, because maybe I saw like the Boston basketball documentary. You know, like, Robert, now Madonna would be Robert Johnson in this. She would, you know, so maybe. I don't know if you lead belly or something like that. Or like, no, she's like muddy waters, I guess in this. There you go.

Robert Johnson, the great bluesman who died at a young age in the 1930s. You guys don't know who this is? He's, right? He's in the zeitgeist, right? Yeah, these kids aren't even listening to Eric Clapton or the Jimmy Hendrix blues album anymore, man. Yeah, man, come on. What's happened? What's happened to our blues rock education?

Well, speaking of pop girlies or indie pop girlies, there's a new single this week from Hime. And this is presumably coming out ahead of a new album coming out this year. The album hasn't been announced yet. But it's been five years since their previous record, Women in Music Part 3. came out in 2020. So they are definitely due for a new record. This single is called Relationships. And, you know, Hime, I feel like we talked about them last year.

I think I said this. I predicted that their record would be the critic's choice for the number one album of 2024. And the album didn't come out in 2024. So that prediction was wrong. I wonder if I should just shift that. now to 2025. I feel like Haim now, are they the Robert Johnson of indie pop? Can I, can I just compare everybody to Robert Johnson at this point? I mean, Haim is like an elder statesman band. I mean, their first record came out in 2013. They've been around for a long time. You can see all of the

artists that they've influenced. I think they do seem like a foundational indie act at this time. And they're not technically an indie rock band. But you know what I mean? What we call indie music, Haim is one of the, I think, big influences, big core artists, I think, of this era that would have, you know, date back to the early 2010s. This single, it's like, what can you say about a Heim song, really, Ian? Are you going to nitpick it? Are you going to say, like, well, it's not as good as the wire or some other single from the past? I don't know. This is a really good song.

I feel like that's, like, not a very interesting thing to say about Heim because that is what they do. They put out very well-crafted music. And I have to say for myself, you know, I've been a little hit or miss on Haim over the years. I've always admired their craft. I always have respected their quality

control. I felt at times that their music was more catchy than emotionally involving. I haven't always felt anything tremendously momentous when I'm listening to their records.

but there's other records of theirs. I mean, the first record days are gone. I still feel like that's a pretty undeniable indie pop record, definitely like a modern landmark in terms of indie pop, I think. This song is really good. I've listened to it several times. It's stuck in my head. It kind of has like a 90s feel.

Like we talked recently, I feel like, about like post-Odley indie rock. This feels a little like that. There's like a hip-hop. beat to it. It feels very 90s in a way. But it also has that pop rock spice with R&B thing that Heim does all the time and they do it extremely well. A lot of people have imitated it, as I just said, but I feel like they still do it the best. And this song proves it. I'm curious, are you going to come up the top rope here on Heimian? Are you going to slam the song? How do you do about this track? Well, first I'm going to take you to Tass because you were just

circling around what you really wanted to say with like post-Odley and you know kind of late 90s the first 30 seconds sounds like luscious jackson like this is that that's what we're doing here it's very grand royal uh it's very kind of urbane and like kind of hip but winking uh that's what it that's what i was surprised to hear i'm like are they going to do some rap stuff i mean look the arrangement's perfect the production's perfect the hook and the subject matter is perfect the profanity in to hook, fucking relationship. It's like so perfectly placed. It's a hym song.

It's catchy. Like I can immediately, I can immediately imagine people saying it's song of the summer. And I think for me, it's just so perfect. It's hard for me to love. I just feel like it's like, yeah, fucking relationships. But like they're not really saying anything about relationships. I think that's like kind of the thing that gets me about like the difficulty of being

emotionally involved with it. I'm like, no, tell me about your relationships, not like, relationships. Am I right? And so I think it's a great song, but it's also kind of gets at the core of why Haim leaves me kind of cold. Because like I've talked, I mean, we've talked, but it's more, I think it's something I bring up more often about the necessary shittiness for me to love a band. And I find something that's universally beloved, kind of boring, even if the craft is good and the praise is deserved. This doesn't really move the needle from my, I guess, prevailing sense of Hyde being Vampire Weekend, if Vampire Weekend never did anything to make anybody mad. Right. Yeah, exactly. I think, you know, like when I heard this song,

I immediately just imagined being at an LA boutique hotel and checking in and what song would be playing as I was doing that. And I pictured this song. And I'm guessing that the song is already playing at like Ace Hotels. Yeah, I was about to say. Yeah, I was about to like wonder. It's like, the Ace Hotel is still a thing. Like, because that was extremely, uh, days are gone coded, you know?

Yeah. I'm sure that, that, I don't, they're not, maybe they don't have the cash yet. I always think of that Bonnie Bear song where he talks about being at the Ace Hotel, uh, which is a funny thing. That's something a Wisconsin guy would do. Speaking as a Wisconsin guy. I saw Wiki Lee there in 2014. So another extremely

Ace Hotel coded experience. Well, like Wisconsin guys, we'd be very wild by the Ace Hotel. Yeah. Wow. I've made it to the Ace Hotel. This is amazing. And I hear myself say that and it feels like a put-down

and it is maybe a little bit of a snarky comparison to make. But I mean, I like L.A. Boutique Hotels. Whenever I've been at them, I've had a good time. and when someone's put me up in one, I feel like, oh, this is great, because I'm a Wisconsin guy,

and I'm dazzled by those sorts of things. So, yeah, there is just sort of like a frothiness too at a very west coast. It's a bop, I guess, to use another term that I hate, but we all know what it signifies. It's a bop. Are they really doing their nachos on this one?

It does feel more like their early stuff than the last record. The last record was a little rockier, I think. This feels like more of like the first album where they're combining all these different genres into one thing in a very seamless way. You know, you have like a 90s indie rock thing that we've talked about, like the post-Oto-Lay thing. You've got like a little bit of the R&B thing going on in the song. You have like tango in the night, Fleetwood Mac lurking in there always with this band. so to me it kind of reminded me of like classic haem and i and i love that first record like it's a very

enjoyable album um and i would expect that if the rest of the record is like this people will be giving hym their flowers all year ian because can't we agree that hymn is underrated can we finally give heim their appreciation could people finally you know give these plucky underdogs a leg up in the world what i can imagine is when did that second record come out? It was like 2017. Okay. So we're not like at the 10 year anniversary yet.

Like that is that like that's where you that's a sweet spot because that record I think kind of did fly under the relatively speaking, you know, like their antics or their coexist the X-axis second album. Yeah. That's like the one time where they, it was like people were like, yeah, it's kind of more of the same. So that's when that was post-Trump too, they probably didn't have a Trump song on I'd love to imagine like a Haim protest song about Trump.

That'd be a pretty funny thing to imagine. Because that's, and that's one thing I think maybe to appreciate about Heim. You know, they're not going to do, they're going to sing about relationships. They're not going to sing about, fucking relationships. They're not going to do fucking Trump or anything like that. So, or Elon Musk songs. But yeah, I don't know. Again, this song is very catchy.

I mean, I can't, you can't deny this song. I think it's a really good song. And yeah, and I'm excited to hear their record. You know, again, days are gone. Big fan of that record. I haven't really liked anything as much as that album since then. I wrote about the second album when it came out. And I didn't really like it.

And I remember a lot of guys getting angry at me. It's always the guys who will defend. I'm guys. Yeah, if you, like, criticize a few. female indie rocker. It's always the guys that come out and accuse you of having some nefarious ulterior motive as opposed to just reviewing the record for what it is. And I'm like, I've liked their other records. I just don't really like this record. But it's like, oh yeah, you, you're the bro. I'm not the bro. I'm coming. You know, so anyway, that's a

digression there. I'm sure we'll get an email from one of those guys now that I've said that. Stinky Dave's revenge, you know. Stinky Dave. Stinky Dave, shout out to Stinky Dave. He wrote a follow-up email to us, by the way. And he was somewhat apologetic. But I think, you know, he's just one of those, he's a loyal listener, loves the show. And we love him too.

We accept his stinkiness. We accept his odor for what it is. Oh, yeah. I talked about like shittiness being necessary for me to live. love someone. So Stinky Dave's obvious. And, you know, I think our communication with Stinky Dave has that requisite shittiness that makes Indycast what it is. That's right. I think all of our listeners are a little bit stinky probably. I say that as a compliment. Yeah. You talk about shittiness, maybe stinkiness is a inherent quality to a good podcast listener. Let's get to our mailbag segment here. We

We haven't done many mailbags lately because we end up talking about nachos for like 20 minutes at every episode or some nacho equivalent. And we always kick the mailbag to the curb. So we're going to try to catch up on some emails this week. By the way, it's always great to hear from our listeners. If you can hit us up, we're at Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. Ian, do you want to read our first email? Totally. So this comes to us from Zach from Joplin, Missouri.

and Zach says that my wife and I recently traveled over three hours to Oklahoma City to see MJ Lenderman and Wild Pink. I could just stop there. What a guy. Both were great live, especially M.J. Lenderman who put on an all-time great show. Been a listener since day one and learned about both of these bands from you guys, which led me to think, you guys need some merch.

I would have proudly wrapped it into a cast T-shirt or dad had that show. I'm sure there were more than a hand. handful of people there who listen to the pod and discover these bands because of you. Quick note, Steve, respectfully, you should probably stop talking shit about buying records. For a lot of us, it's the best way to support our favorite bands. I realize there are other ways to show support, such as shirts, CDs, cassette tapes, but any support for struggling bands, record sales included should be encouraged, rant over. Ha ha.

Appreciate you guys. Thanks for the Rex and Hacking Outtrak and SportsCast forever. Zach from Joplin, Missouri. All right, Zach. first of all, well, I have to address that last point first. We'll talk about merch here in a minute, Indycast merch. But, Zach, thanks for the email. Look, Zach, I'm reminded of our conversation from last week about Kendrick Lamar,

where I think it was Stinky Dave, actually, was one of those people who was saying, you know, why aren't you being nice to Kendrick Lamar? You should be nicer to Kendrick Lamar. Like, give Kendrick his flowers. What is your problem here? And it's like, with vinyl. Aren't you being inundated enough with pro-vinyl propaganda at this point, Zach? Hasn't big vinyl made its case?

And it's a dominant case in music discourse. Vinyl is coming out of everyone's ears at this point. We hear about vinyl all the time. Vinyl is the most romanticized physical format for music on the planet. So for me, I just look at myself as a dissenting voice. I'm not alone dissenting voice. I think more people are talking about the fact that vinyl at this point

is ridiculously overpriced and it just feels like a market that is oversaturated with a lot of junk. You know, just multiple editions of albums just trying to fleece the hardworking consumer out there with your colored vinyl and throwing on an extra track

and all this garbage. And I feel like I'm just trying to speak out against this a little bit because I think, again, the pro-binal lobby, if you will, is so predominant now, and it's so loud. And it's good, I think, for someone to say, look, I think vinyl is kind of a rip-off. It's very, it takes up a lot of space in your house. It's a little bit heavy. Look, I own a lot of vinyl, too, and I enjoy it.

It sits beautifully in a storage facility about a mile from my house. It's great. But like you said, there's lots of alternatives to help the, those so-called struggling bands that you just talked about, cassettes, CDs, shirts, stickers, buttons, hoodies. You don't have to buy the vinyl. If you do want to, great. I'm not preventing anyone from buying vinyl. My little whining here on this podcast is clearly not put a dent at all in the vinyl market. So do what you got to do. I'm just saying, I'm just offering a little bit of a dissenting voice to the pro-vinyl lobby there. So that's that. In terms of the merch,

I'm down. Ian, you want to do some Indycast merch? Yeah, one of my favorite podcast guys, a podcast about guys just opened their merch store and they have like their little bits on hoodies and things like that. I'd be open to it. I was actually at a Wild Pink headline show in San Diego about a month or so ago. It was thrown in there. kind of in between Wild Pink's LA dates on Valentine's Day with MJ Lenderman. And I saw like quite a few guys there where I'm like they've reviewed at least three of Steve's books on Goodreads. They would absolutely wear a hat. Surprisingly like kind of like older crowd, like older than me at that show.

So I love the idea. And also we have to like put our money where our mouth is by utilizing Steve's ideas for good tortie. shirts on our own merch. Oh, yeah. You like the one where it's just like the tour dates on the back, right? And so maybe it's just like the date and episode airs and maybe the flub or the recommendation corner or something about nachos or something like that. Yeah, I think I'd be open to it.

Yeah, I think this is a great idea. Zach, you do not get a finder's fee for coming up with this idea, but you get our love and respect. Maybe we'll mail you like a free sticker. Yeah, we'll have to go to Uprocks HQ. We'll have to talk to the people in charge, see if they can get some merch going. Or else I guess you and I will have to just take the initiative, print up some shirts, throw them in the back of the car, drive around the country, just sell them out of the trunk.

I'll have to go back on hardcore Twitter or Blue Sky to find out what T-shirts they hate now. It's like, wait, is Gilden the good one or the bad one? So, yeah, I'll have to reacquate myself with that. You're going to go on a t-shirt blue sky? Is that what they call it over there? Instead of like T-shirt Twitter. Is it a T-shirt Blue Sky? You're getting over there?

Yeah, find some good skeets about like whether American Apparel or what it's called. I think it's Los Angeles Apparel now, like whether it's like, you know, cancelable to use those. Because I hate to say it, but like American Apparel, like those are the only T-shirts that actually fit me. Well, I mean, if we go on Blue Sky, we'll for sure sell out. merch among 75-year-old MSNBC viewers. Totebag, baby. We'll kill there. It'll be amazing.

All right. Let's get to our next email. This is a good one. This one is very exciting. This comes from Jim in Los Angeles. Could be Louisiana. It just says L.A. Oh, well, I assume that's...

It's probably... It's probably... It's got to be Los Angeles. Jim probably sent this from the Ace Hotel Lobby, listening to the Heim song. thought to emails here. Hey guys, love the pod and the quarterly drafts. That said, if you could draft the ultimate indie group

comprised of five slots, four band members, one producer. How do you hash out the best collection of members? I know the boy genius thing is a bit overkill, but I'm thinking something a little more fun. Band chemistry maybe, but you could always draft a more volatile group or a most volatile group. Doesn't have to be solely musical selections. It's got to have some discord.

just planting a seat for fun exercise. Hope you guys are doing well. Thanks for all the recommendations and hashing out trends. So I like this idea. He's asking, let's draft an ultimate indie band. And he's saying five slots, four band members, one producer. So why don't we just say, okay, so four band members, let's say singer, guitar player, bassist, and drummer, and a producer. Yes.

And so that's what we decided to do. We didn't do the most volatile thing. We're just going to go with who we want in our band. And we're not going to do a draft because there's only two of us for this. There's so many potential musicians. It's not like the album thing is somewhat limited. Indy musicians, it's just too wide. I don't think we're going to have any overlap.

There's one person who might overlap, I think. Yeah, if there's anything that runs the risk of it, it's producer. Okay, I thought it was. going to be i don't want to give i've had to be bass player uh okay then we're definitely going to overlap i'm like already sensing that you're going to scoop but okay well we'll see i mean if you say this person i've got a potential backup same um okay so do we want to do like do we want to each announce our entire band yeah let's yeah because i think that it helps to explain kind of the rationale of like why we're putting these specific people together but i thought but

Why don't we go? Why don't we each say singer? Okay. And then each, because then we can spread this out a little bit. We can really savor it, okay? Okay. Is that cool?

I can work with that. You see, that's good band relationship right there. It's give and take. And then we can return to our entire lineup so people know, like, okay, I can take in the totality of the band once we reveal each slot. I think that makes sense.

Okay, singer. Who do you have as the singer in your band? All right. So with this entire exercise, I've been considering whether I want to, you know, separate musicians I like from bands that I don't really like or, you know, just find people who are like available on the waiver wire who haven't been around for a while or just, I don't know, just name the members of Chicken Foot and see if you'll catch on. But in kind of all aspects, maybe not like the best vocalist, but as far as a front person, as far as. their presentation and their prolificity, prolificness, whatever you want to call it. Also, the fact that, like, I just need to manifest this person making new music in 2025. I'm going with Bradford Cox.

Ooh. Yeah, like, not like the, like, oh, like the, like, I mean, but they've been great in so many styles and just like the vision and the presentation. and also if I want my band to become like an Indycast subject, they're probably going to say some things. So, you know, like Jay-Z said in a lyrical exercise, and my interviews are hotter. Definitely true of Bradford Cox. So I feel like I can't go wrong with that.

And you're going to see how I build out this band with kind of a theme because I actually do want it to not be a completely ass musical idea. So I'm going to go with Bradford. All right. So I wanted to go with, because I was thinking there's a lot of singers that I like. Like for a while I was considering Britt Daniel as my singer, just because I like his voice a lot. And he's just a cool dude. Very, you know, he plays guitar, obviously, but I could see him just being like a standalone singer and having like a Jagger type vibe to him.

But then I was like, I want to just go with a standalone lead singer because I love the idea of just someone who sings. and stands in front of the band. And who is in the indie world a iconic example of that? And I went to a person who I'm in the midst of thinking a lot about because I'm writing a book about this band right now. I don't know if I've talked about this on the show, actually. But I'm writing a book right now about a band called The Strokes.

So I'm going to go Julian Casablancus as my lead singer, knowing that he's a control freak and is going to probably force the other people to play parts that he writes himself, which is going to be a problem in this band, especially with some of the musicians that I have in the group. So that's going to probably create some volatility. But, you know, Julian Casablancus, great frontman, kind of a lunatic, gives amazing interviews just with incredible dumb guy quotes.

Smart guy. He's one of the best smart, dumb guys. Absolutely. So, yeah, he's my singer in my band, Julian Casablancus. I was also thinking Hamilton Lighthouser. He's got a new solo record and just an incredible voice. Like, he can be making great music with the same, like, he can make great music like at 22 and like 62, like kind of like Rod Stewart. And I had a thought of like Hamilton Lighthouser being the front person for the band I was considering.

But like when I put it all together, it just sounded. it basically turned out to, oh, this would sound exactly like the National Circuit Alligator. So I went with Bradford Cox. Nothing wrong with that. No. I consider Dan Behar as my singer, too. He was another person I had. But I still kind of, I almost want to put Dan Behar in the guest singer spot.

Like, he could do what he did with the new pornographers where he's not on stage, but he just comes on stage like three times with like a bottle of wine and does a song and kill. kills it and then leaves and then you're like wow no one on stage here is nearly as cool as Dan Baehar when is Dan Baehar coming back and you wait like 45 minutes for him to come back I think he just has such a distinct voice and personality and lyrical style that like it would maybe just you would just maybe hear this band oh just kind of like a version of destroyer you know yeah maybe all right base player who's your bass player you're going to pick Carlos D too right Of course. Of course I had Carlos D, man.

Yeah. So do you want custody of Carlos D or do I get Carlos D? I want Carlos D because this absolutely makes sense. Well, actually, it might make sense with yours as well. So it's got to be Carlos D. We need those celebrated baselines of the future, which as I'm sure us Indycast Deep Cuts people go was a name he proposed for the first Interpol album.

but the game like this is what the game's been missing Carlos D or maybe I mean I don't want our band to get canceled so like I won't think about like the free agent basis from formerly a big thief but it's got to be Carlos D and I I can it fits very well with my vision for the band but we just like Bradford Cox and also like Carlos and Bradford Cox doing an interview together, but I guess with yours, like, you're also taking the interview route. So I think we can do joint custody. It's sort of like when you're in high school

and like the one guy who has a drum set plays in 15 different bands. I think we can share custody of Carlos D. Unless you have a backup. Well, yeah, I mean, maybe Carlos D can play on the record and I'll have a touring base player. I'll say for, you know, I was Googling here quickly as you were talking, I realized I actually didn't have a backup of Carlos D. Carlos D was the first person I put down. He was like, okay, I want Carlos D in the band. And I want like prime era wearing a gun holster, Carlos D. Like, antics era.

You know, because like not even turn on the bright lights. I want him to have some success and that be even more inflated ego-wise. Carlos D. Carlos D has herpes like website. Exactly. Exactly. Just prime, glorious era, Carlos D. but since you picked them, I'm going to go, I'm going to, this is somewhat of a,

uh, uh, improvised choice, but I'm going to say Eric Judy from Modest Mouse. I've always loved his bass playing. Uh, and that original, or that classic line of Modis Mouse with, you know, uh, you got Isaac Brock, Eric Judy and Jeremiah Green that, like when they were three pieces to me, that's like the real modest mouse and they were so great to get. So I'll put Eric Judy in my band. He seems like a chill dude. So he probably would go along with Julian Casablancus if he wants to write the baselines. So I need one normal guy in my band.

So I guess I'll have Eric Judy. Yeah. And also I like the idea of like Julian Casablancus singing over those baselines. Exactly. It would definitely kind of loosen up the rigidity of the strokes, which you really don't need that to be shaken. them because that's one of the great things about them but i don't know to me it's like you're really thinking of your band as a entity yes and i'm just kind of throwing people together here hoping that it turns into a delicious gumbo you know but i don't know how it's going to end up

but we'll see anyway guitar player who's your guitar player so i i i thought about this because um is that what band have i looked for the most guitar tablature and been just so disappointed by what they came up with, because the game ain't what it used to be. I feel like the tablature game of the 1998 is better than it is now. There's just so much garbage out there. But this is another person who's not on hiatus per se, but their main gig is, so I feel they'd be open to it.

I'm going to pick Daniel Rossin, formerly a grizzly bear. Oh, wow. Yeah, they have, like, I love alternately tuned guitars. I love alternately tuned acoustic guitars, played with distortion. I just love when you see a guy with like a 1950s or 30s style acoustic guitar running through a distortion pedal. I listened to Beckettimist and Yellowhouse recently, and I love just how heavy that stuff sounds. And I think just kind of, as you can see, I'm like picking some of my favorite indie bands from the 2000s, kind of like the old heads getting

together. But will it mesh with these two? I think it could. I think that all three of them excel in music that is not like maybe superficially heavy, but just has a heft to it. So I love that guy's guitar playing, man. Yeah. Yeah, that's a good choice. I like it a lot. Very under the rated our choice, but he seems like a stabilizing influence in your band. Definitely a chill guy. I want to imagine Ross and hanging out with Carlos D. and Bradford Cox. That would be one hell of a green room right there. For a guitar player, I'm going to go with someone who started out as a side man.

At least that's how he became famous, and then he started his own band or became famous with his own band. But lately, he's also been the sideman again playing on other people's records. and I think it's shown that I think he has a very distinctive guitar sound but I think it can blend with other bands and he's also just a great soloist and he's just one of my favorite musicians working today

I think he'd be great I'm going to go with Adam Granducille on guitar for me. He can also handle some of the production as well you know help out with get some cool synth pads in there as well I think he'd be good

I like him a lot. I'm going to bring a little Warren Drugs flavor maybe also combined. I think his guitar and Julian's voice actually I think would sound pretty cool together. So going with that. I like the idea of that because if he's playing like war on

like one drugs guitar with like modest mouth style bass sounds like something most indie bands in the past 15 years have tried so hard to do. Exactly. With like a singer with like a kind of like a lower voice more atmospheric. I really have him lean into that

Julian like more of the croonery style maybe. I guess in a way, this is turning into the national a little bit. But all these bands are turning into the national at some point. But I think that could be really good. I like how my band is actually jelling right now. I wasn't sure when I didn't get Carlos D. I fell a little anxious. But now, Adam, I think we're stabilizing a little bit. I'm feeling good. Yeah. And as far as drummer goes, like, yeah, Brian Devendorf was absolutely one of the people I thought of because I would until I heard Rome, uh, the live album just like heard him rip. I just felt like, God, like free Brian Devendorf. You know, they got drum machines on the new

national album. They're like lowering it. And then you hear boxer. It's like he's as loud as Matt Berninger. But I'm not going to go with that because I think that's a little too narrow in my, um, bandmaking idea. I thought that's good too. Can I just say it's good you didn't take that because I took Brian Devendorf and I would have made you pick somebody else. I gave you Carlos D. So if you were going to take, so if you would have taken Devendorf, I would have been like, hit the road pal. I get Brian Devendor.

So yeah, he's my drummer for the reasons that you said. I think that he is totally, I mean, if he's not the best indie rock drummer of the last 15 years, he is like on the short list of drummers. He's just a kick-ass player who also has the humility to not, play a lot if he feels like he doesn't have to or if it doesn't suit the song so he can rip live or he can hang back just a virtuoso who seems to have no ego at all just a perfect band guy i think to have also he wears sweet headbands and wristbands when he's on stage uh so aesthetically

looks very cool up there so i'm happy he's in my band if you would have taken him i would have said no i get him you take somebody else but you're going to take somebody else anyway I was throwing around some ideas like, you know, Morgan Simpson, formerly a black MIDI, but I think that his style is just a little too much for what I'm accomplishing here. Same with Jason Garris from Cloud Nothings. You know, I haven't heard him in other contexts, even though like him and Dylan Baldy make like Ambien Jazz Records. So the person I want to go with is someone who has over the years played in many different bands, many different contexts, very wildly variant,

and just kicks so much ass in all of them. I'll go with John Steneer, formerly of Helmut, still in battles, played with a lot of the feet on the field, like kind of like a minimal techno project. And John Steneer, like look at like the, I'm talking like mirrored error battles live footage, insane person. And also, he, like, sweats so much.

And he wears, like, collared button-down shirt. So that's a really cool look I went from my drummer. You can see him in the helmet video for Unsung. The coolest any band has ever looked while three members wear shorts. They're playing, like, a steel mill for some reason. I love John Steiner. Like, he, like, put him on any track, and I'm going to hear it. So I think that he'll find a way to fit within the context of,

what we're doing here while still just playing like when i hear helmet or i hear battles like my posture improves that's how that's how tight that guy is you know i'm tempted you know because we're very guy heavy so far yeah i know i realize that too i'm tempted to replace brian devendorth with uh janet weiss on drums i thought you'd say meg white well meg white would be amazing but Janet Weiss, one of the great, another, you know, if we're talking best drummers in the indie rock world, the last 20 years, 25 years, Janet Weiss is definitely on that short list. Maybe I can do like a Grateful Dead thing and have two drummers. I love that. I love that.

I know we said five people, but I'm going to get Janet Weiss in there as my second drummer. All right, producer. Who's your producer? So I had a thought if we're really going to go with stuff that it's extremely 2005 coded, go with Dave Friedman just to kind of max out everything. I assume that would. I thought that would be your choice. I was penciling that in for you. So I'm going to not go with Dave Fridman because he's got like one of the most high variant production backgrounds.

Like some of the stuff he does sounds amazing. Other times it sounds just like complete ass. So I'm going to go with someone who I loved for a very short period of time, but just hasn't been around very much. And also it is someone who Bradford Cox has worked with. I'm going to go with Ben H. Allen. He's the guy who did Halcyon Digest. He did Meriwether Post Pavilion. He did the first washed out album, which I love so much.

It just brings out that low end. And especially if we're going to have a guy like Carlos D. and John's near you got to have the good rhythm section like Ben H. Allen I don't know where he's been up to lately. I also considered Chris Cody but like I just want that familiarity with like I need that Halcyon Digest sound. So I'm going to go with Ben H. Allen to rope this thing together. See I thought as an emo guy you might go with Will Yip for as your producer. I love Will Yip another high variance guy. So I'm going to go with somebody who um, has definitely worked in the indie world,

but he's more associated with like alt rock of like the 80s and 90s, and he was someone that people would bring in because they wanted to evoke that era, like an indie band that wanted to sound as huge as that time. But I've always loved this guy's, the sound of this guy's records.

I also love that he has one name. It's the one word name, and it's not like a normal name. I have no idea how he got this name, but it's always sounded. cool to me and I would want to see it in the lighter notes of my band's record. I'm going to go with Flood as my producer because, you know, I'm thinking that this record is going to be my Samstown.

And I'm like the killers. I'm trying to do some combination of like the Joshua Tree and like New Order in the same record maybe with this. The second phase of being pure heart album, machine a machine is a god. Exactly. So just that big yet sleek. sound that Flood gets. That's who I wanted my record.

Flood. What a name. Flood. Beautiful. I like the guy, the guy who did Be Here Now, and I think some of the Verve records, that's another cool one. I love the idea of this very cool producer being like, I want to name myself after my favorite, they might be Giants album. We've not 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 I think I talked about this band last year when they released an album and Recommendation Corner, but I like that album and I like this one. It's a band from Liverpool called Courting. They are not an emo band, but they're a little bit, a little bit of emo lyricism. And also, this album title is Lust for Life or The Stories in the Soil Keep Your Year to Now, it's actually Lust for Life or How to Thread the Needle and Come Out the Other Side to,

tell the story. It doesn't sound anything like bright eyes, except there are a lot of lyrics. So on their last album, they were accused of reheating the 1975s nachos. You know, they had like DJ Sabrina, the teenage DJ in there. Some of the lyrics are very Matty Healy-esque, but I think with this record, they kind of become more the band that they are, which is more like an artsier, emo-eer version of like the Cribs or one of those other bands from the. UK of that era who might be described as landfill indie in a positive way like a remembering some guys thing. It's just solid, catchy UK pop rock with a little bit of postpunk, but they're not going like full-blown post-punk with like Dan Carey on the production. Yeah, kind of a low stakes record

that I'm enjoying. I think it's like less than 30 minutes long. So courting, less for life, or how to thread the needle and come out the other side to tell the story. All right. I want to go with the album that I think is my favorite record of 2025 so far. It's called Big Ugly, and it's by a band called Fust. And this is a record, if you're familiar with this band at all, you would not be surprised that I'm a fan of this band. They're from North Carolina. They worked with Alex Farrar on this record. It's a very alt-country-coded type record. As you can tell from just that description, this is a very, MJ Lenderman adjacent type record.

I would say that Fust has more of a band vibe than Lenderman does, and I mean that in the sense that they sound like a band and also that they sound like the band. And the songwriting is great.

I love the interplay between the musicians. There's lots of sweet pedal steel guitar all over the record. It's a record that reminds me of I gave my mind anyway. I grouped them together with this band

from Philadelphia called Flory that I'm a big fan of and their previous record, The Holy Bible, was on my year end list. I think that was for 2023. They also have a new album coming out later this year.

Just this very kind of robust, a little bit sloppy, but just tons of great vibes, kind of like early 70s type rock filtered through like indie rock of today. And it is, I'm trying to not, say the word patio here because I don't want to turn into a total caricature of myself,

but this is patio music just definitionally. I mean, you look at patio music in the dictionary, it's going to look and sound something like this fuss record. And I love it. It's just a really great record. Again, it's called Big Ugly. Probably my favorite record of the year so far. The year is early, of course.

But, you know, the first quarter is almost done here. At the end of March, it's going to be into the... second quarter here. So really good record, really good band. They're going to be playing in my town next month. I can't wait to see them. I like this record too. And I heard I'm like, oh, this is, there's, I was thinking about doing recommendation corner with it, but like there's absolutely no way that Steve's not doing this one. Yeah, I got to do it. I got to do it. It's the Carlos D of recommendation corner. You know, you can't always run away from the cliche that is yourself. Sometimes you've got to embrace the cliche that is yourself. That is my parting knowledge to all you'll

listeners today. Embrace the cliche. Gotta reheat your own nachos, man. Absolutely. You got to give yourself your flowers. Thank you all for listening to this episode of Indycast. We'll be back with more news reviews and hashing out trends. Next week. And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie 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.