Indiecast - No Meat Friday: Song Of The Summer, The 1975, and Weezer

Episode Date: August 12, 2022

Did the idea of a "song of the summer" come about organically, or is it just some concept artificially invented by content-starved media companies? Either way, this week's Indiecast episode has hosts Steven Hyden and Ian Cohen debating which artist between Harry Styles, Kate Bush, and Seals & Crofts (really!) can claim the title (9:39). Since this week's episode is another No Meat Friday edition, Steven and Ian share a number of noteworthy indie music stories from this week. They walk through revelations from a new interview with The 1975's Matty Healy, including his thoughts on cancel culture and how all his friends are comics (18:19). Plus, they share their thoughts about Rage Against The Machine amid their current tour (31:30) and how Weezer's Broadway musical was just canceled due to low ticket sales (41:44).The Recommendation Corner (56:26) this week has Ian sharing music from Jouska while Steven gives a shout out to Canadian indie rock band Kiwi Jr.New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 101 below 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 indie mixtape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to Indycasts. 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 spin some ping pong balls and play the banter topic lottery. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He's joining Guy Fierry on the Rage Against the Machine Tour. Ian Cohen.

Ian, who are you? Yeah, and we're utilizing all the sovereign power of Flavortown to, call for the release of Leonard Peltier and Mumio Abu Jamal. But, you know, if we're going to talk about ping pong balls in the band of banter topic lottery, we also have to make a shout out to our basketball fans and make like a Patrick Ewing frozen envelope type joke. Oh, my God. Yeah.

You're dropping some deep breaths here at the top already. You're just like, you're going from like the rage, you know, pet causes to like some Patrick Ewing, NBA lottery references. the people's heads are spinning out there. I mean, you're really delivering the goods here at the beginning of this episode. It's our darker, more introspective and insular second hundred episodes.

That's how we're kicking things off. You know, Ian and I have been talking, and we're not going to have any meat in this episode because there's no real big album coming out today. There is a Casabian record coming out today. And let me just be clear. We're going to just use, again, this, it's the more insular, it's the darker sophomore's 100 albums, and also the more

contentious one. Like, Steve just did not think that Casabian was meatworthy, despite the fact we spent like hours on this show talking about bands who will never come up with a jam as good as Clubfoot. Okay, but can you name another Casabian song other than Clubfoot? So if I were to guess what a second popular Casabian song would be called, I'd probably guess Fire and I'd be wrong because that's actually the most popular Casabian song. It is called Fire. I'm sure it was on a FIFA soundtrack. I think like they had, well, they had a canceled Flannel Nation tour or festival. I really wish they'd have like a FIFA Nation type festival where you get like Casabian, you get Kaiser Chiefs on the same bill. The problem is if you do that in England, it probably sells out Glastonbury. So maybe if

it comes to America, it'll be a little more, you know, in tune. Well, I feel like with our listeners, I'm going to say a good 90% are going to go blank on Casabian. I feel like Casabian is not a, certainly like an American Indiecast listener reference point. I'd like to think that there's a British listener right now who's tuning in, and they're already typing up an email, just schooling us on Casabian deep cuts, insisting that the third Casabian album is actually the best Casabian album. You know, maybe there's like a misunderstood misfire Casabian album that in reality is the best Casabian album. I'm just guessing. I have no knowledge of their discography other than Clubfoot.

I assume that was on the debut. I think it was, it might have been. I don't know. It's like, I get to, to me, it's like their equivalent to music, the music's break in where it might be on the second album where like they really perfected their craft. What I am disappointed about is Casabian changed their Spotify background, which used to be like the, it's exactly what you would expect Cassabian to look like, which is they kind of look like the cast of what we do in the shadows, but like reinvented as a early 2000s Brit rock band. But now they just kind of look like, they just kind of look like Foles as a SoundCloud rap group. It's really disappointing.

I mean, really the extent of my Casabian knowledge, and I could be. totally making this up, but I feel like the lead singer was hanging out with the Gallagher brothers for maybe a minute, minute and a half. Like, that was a thing. Just because I feel like in the Otts, the Gallagher brothers were, uh, they would latch on to like whatever, like, was the latest British phenom. And Casabian was that for about, you know, 15 minutes. Although again, maybe they're, I mean, are they still big in the UK, though? I don't know. I, I, it's so funny, because we joked about not talking about the Casabian album, and here we are.

We're burning serious minutes talking about Casabian at the top of the episode. Hopefully people haven't already turned this off at this point. This is not really headliner material, but here we are. Yeah. Well, I would imagine they're still pretty big in the UK. I mean, next week there's like a Silver Sun Pickups album coming out. So maybe they're like, there are two our UK listeners like what might happen if we came up top of the episode talking about Silver Sun pickups.

Yeah, I mean, there's Silver Sun Pickups next week. There's a panic at the disco record. And I don't know how deeply we want to delve into panic at the disco. They're a band that I feel like their peak occurred when I was like too old to care about them. And by too old, I mean I was like 25, like when they had their peak. Like Kasabian and like Silver Sun pickups, they have one song that I really, really like, and for the most part, stuff I don't care about. So it all comes full circle.

Are they like the stones to Fall Out Boys Beatles, like in the mall punk mid-auts era? I think that there's no other way to possibly describe them. Like you have to refer to the Beatles and the Stones if you're going to be talking about Panic and Fall Out Boy. Right. But, I mean, is there like a rivalry there? I mean, I feel like they were foils at that time. Am I just projecting that onto that? I don't think they were rivals.

I think that I think Pete Wentz's label basically signed Panic at the disco before they ever played a live show. So kind of quasi-industry plant, I guess. They have a very symbiotic relationship. No beef. I mean, because they've had a very similar trajectory, too, like where, you know, they started in this mall punk, Lane and the aughts, and now they just make very shrill, big sounding pop songs that you always

hear at swimming pools, you know, in the summer. Yeah, that song High Hopes, which is just, when that comes on, it's like a swarm of bees coming after you. Like if you're in a public space, you just have to get the hell out of there if that song starts playing. And I feel like Follow Up Boy has like ten. of those songs from like the last decade. Just enormously shrill, ugly sounding.

Just, I don't know. I don't know if we've got some Fallout Boy fans out there. Some of the worst music, I think, that's been made in the past decade, comes from Fall Out Boy. Just untenable to me. Yeah, I can't even pretend. Even though it would be like very helpful to my career as an emo writer, I can't. I've tried. I just cannot even pretend.

I like thanks for the memories. Like that's my one song of Fall Out Boy that I like. And Panic of the Disco, it's like the only difference between suicide. I forget what, it's the second song on the first album. Yeah, that's as far as I go.

So what you're saying is that high hopes again, like the song of the summer in the sense that it makes you think about being at a public pool and just kind of hating the monoculture. Because that's what song is. of the song for me. Well, you know that song, Centuries by Fallow Boy? Yeah, big time football song.

Oh, my God. Awful. That guy's voice, I just cannot stand. Patrick Stump. That's the singer, right? Yeah, Patrick Stump is the singer. Pete Went sort of kind of the songwriter. And if you could name the other two guys in the band, which I cannot.

Yeah, I think Patrick Stubb, man. Jerry Shemp is one guy, and Shemp Jerry, I think, is the other guy. name. That's my guess for the follow-up way. I guess it's, because Wenz is the bass player. And then you get the guitar player and drummer. Actually, the drummer, I think, is from Milwaukee.

So he's a Wisconsin guy. I should know his name. I'm betraying my home state by not knowing him. Centries, though, we've talked about, like, worst song of all time. And you put Delamitri in that category, which

I think, again, is a mistake, but you're entitled to your opinion. Centuries, I think, I would put on my list of, like, the worst songs of the last decade. I hope should be up there, too. Yeah, that's up there, too. But, yeah, they're just in that same lane of, like, okay, we were mall punk, and now we just make enormously shrill, ugly-sounding songs that they play at the swimming pool. You know, that's the lane that both of those bands are in. I made a joke at the top of the episode that we're playing banter lottery here

where we had the ping pong balls like in the big, you know, circular thing and we're pulling out topics to talk about. And we're going to be doing that because we're going to have some song of the summer discourse right now in this episode. And I don't feel good about this. I feel like a huge sellout talking about this because we make fun of some. Song of the Summer discourse. And look, I've been in the music writing salt mines for a long time. You know, I'm a full-timer. I'm a lifer. I've written Song of the Summer articles. I always feel like it's not an organic concept. I feel like this is something that, like,

the music media invented because summer is slow with news and you have to just have something to talk about. Am I wrong with this? Is this like an organic thing that regular people, people actually feel like as a thing or are we just inventing this because we have nothing else to talk about? I feel like this is kind of an example of a horseshoe theory wherein like the most like basic and I mean that like not as like a descriptive term of people but just a basic relationship with the radio like if you have that going on and also if you are like very in deep in music narrative.

those two groups care about song of the summer. Otherwise, I think like this vast middle part between those two poles, really don't think about it too much because, I mean, I don't want to represent myself as like a man of the people, you know, like, I mean, you are the one who lives in the Midwest and so forth. I live in, I am a coastal elite. But nonetheless, you know, I think just having a, you know, full-time job that isn't necessarily in the music writing salt mines, and we no disrespect

to people who actually work in salt mines. But, um, yeah. Are there, are there, are there real salt mines still these days? Fuck, man. I don't know. Like, is that where they get salt? Is that, like, are they, are there people literally in mines getting salt from mines? What?

I don't know about that. Yeah, this is where our intern needs to get, get on the case. I mean, because, because, yeah, maybe it was offensive for me. to talk about the music critic salt mines. I'm totally ignorant on salt mine culture. So I could be totally in the wrong by mentioning that. I'm just imagining that as, you know, like a 19th century type thing. But we still use salt.

So maybe we're getting it from mines. I have no idea. I think we'd just get it from the oceans or whatever. But yeah, like having a full-time job and all of those sort of things. Like, I don't, my relationship with summer isn't quite what it used to be. Like, the way that I would remember what summer was, you know, especially like July when things really slow down is that NCAA would come out and I'd go to Pitchfork Festival. And neither of those things happen regularly anymore. So, yeah, to me.

Yeah, for me, it'd be like, oh, I'm going to go see Terminator 2. This is an exciting thing for the summer. You know, yeah, looking forward to like a big summer movie, which I have not had in a, like, in a while. But yeah, I'm with you on that. But, I mean, I think you're right. I think there are people who, like you said, like listen to the radio, or maybe they're hanging out in swimming pools to bring up swimming pool culture again.

Or, you know, they're at summer at community festivals and their songs playing over the PA and maybe you hear a certain song over and over again and that becomes a song in the summer. Maybe that can be the thing. I mean, is there a song of the summer that you can identify? Can we settle this finally for everybody in this episode? Yep, it's running up that hill. Like, I'm not even joking. I mean, like, this is the song that definitely, I was thinking the other day, it's like,

huh, I haven't seen any article on running up the hill in about a week. That has its time coming gone? Absolutely not. I saw that Stereo Gum ran a reader's poll on a song in the summer. Running up that hill was number one. I got to say, it's actually kind of a cool list because chat piles great. Grimus smoking weed, JPEG is number three. Which to me, yeah, that's a song of the summer right there

about staying inside and doing drugs until you manifest a image of grimace telling you to commit suicide. That, to me, spells summer. But, yeah, I mean, the Cape Bush thing, it makes sense to me because when I think about songs of the summer, I don't really think about new songs. I tend to think about reassuring oldies that I like to play when I'm having a cookout. You know, I have some family members over. You're going to put some oldies on that everyone likes. You know, like, summer breeze by Seals and Crofts.

Like, I feel like that's the greatest summer song of all time. Like, you don't really need another summer song. You just play Summer Breeze, and it's great. I was at a cafe the other day doing an interview with someone, and that song came on, and we both stopped to note. that summer breeze was playing and how great of a song that is. So that I think is in that running up that hill lane where obviously running up that hill is being talked about because it was in Stranger Things, which kicked off this

cavalcade of think pieces talking about that song. But it is this reassuring oldie, I think, for a lot of people. Even for people who don't even know that song. They still know it's an old song and there's something kind of nice about that in the summertime. I also feel like Jerry Rafferty's right down the line. Great summer song. That's all you need.

But in terms of new songs, I don't know about you. And again, like, I don't listen to the radio that much these days. So my barometer for this is like if I'm out and about and I hear a song playing, if you're at a community festival, you're at the swimming pool again. I keep talking about swimming pools in this episode. There's literally nothing else to do in the summer. Exactly. You go to the pool.

Cool. Songs that you hear at those places, I feel like it's the Harry Style song, as it was. I feel like I've heard that song a lot. Now, it's possible that I'm actually hearing Take On Me by Aha or Blinding Lights by the weekend. Because if you're in the swimming pool, if you're underwater, things kind of sound a little muffled. So you don't hear all the nuances, but the Harry Style song seems like it's it. That already has a billion streams, by the way. on Spotify. I think I got to a billion in like six weeks. Just an incredible, you know, rise for that song. Do you get that sense? Have you heard that song a lot this summer? Yeah, I just want to congratulate all of my fellow music writers. You know, it took a lot, but we've elevated Harry Styles. We alone,

our work has elevated this scrappy upstart to hitting a billion streams. Yeah. That's why I said, I feel like a sellout in this segment. But, you know, you got to do what you got to do. You do. And I think that, yeah, that song, or just because, like, it does mesh so well with that particular drumbeat, I think, you know, break my soul by Beyonce, which, by the way, is her first number one song since 2008, apparently. She has gone a very long time without a number one single. And, like, to put that into perspective, like, was it that glass? animal song like number one for like six months so yeah yeah maybe that's still the song in the summer

i don't know but um yeah that or like one of the lizzo songs that i mean it's pretty chalk as far as i'm concerned with song of the summer or like bad bunny which i believe is the biggest record of 20 i mean prior to renaissance so yeah pop stars really dominating it you know to the to the point where you can actually and accurately consider Kate Bush to be this kind of weirdo outsider but I mean look

Return of the Mac it's you know what it is oh yeah I introduced my kids to that song recently Return of the Mac it was a very proud moment for me as a father and because I always like to sing like Mark Morrison when that song comes on and I think they were

not so into my Mark Morrison impression, but you gotta like that song. If they didn't like that song, I would have been very disappointed. I would have said, I would have told them, I'm very disappointed in you. Return of the Mac, ripping families apart. That's right. So, I've held off on bringing this up for about 20 minutes in this episode, but we can't avoid this topic any longer.

And one reason I delayed bringing this up is that I feel like there's a segment of our listeners out there who get really annoyed to, we talk about the 1975. They feel like that we talk about the 1975 too much. We get emails about this from our listeners. And it actually makes me wonder how popular this band actually is. And maybe we can

delve into that here in a minute. But we have to talk about this band again. I'm sorry. Because there was a pitchfork profile written about the 1975 this week. Really just about Maddie Healy, the lead singer. And I have to

talk to you about this, Ian, because I was reading this story and I was basically that gif of Jesse Pinkman and Breaking Bad saying he can't keep getting away with this. This guy is committing murder on a daily basis with no pushback. And music critics actually seeming to think that he's profound when he's saying absolutely ridiculous things. And look, I have to keep going back to this example because I love Father John Misty. I'm a Father John Misty defender. I feel like he got crucified by music critics for doing way less than what Maddie Healy does. And he got put in music critic jail. Like Father John Misty's not doing interviews. That's not done an interview in like years, which is a shame for all of us.

Maddie Healy keeps on talking because no one apparently will stop him. I just want to bring up some of the things that that pop up in this article. First of all, we learn that Maddie Healy is very good friends with Bo Burnham, a indie cast favorite, and that he played him the record. Healy played Burnham the record, and Burnham apparently laughed when he was supposed to laugh. By the way, the record is called Being Funny in a Foreign Language. One of my favorite parts of the story is that they quoted Taylor Swift. Wow.

You know what Taylor Swift said about the record? To be honest, I haven't read it yet. Like, I've had a very busy week. Okay. But like, we're just going to do Rick reaction videos. And honestly, I thought for a minute, like, because there was not much going on this week. Otherwise, we were going to do like a line for line reading of this profile as. Yeah, we're not going to do, we won't do a line for line reading.

But there are certain parts I want to bring up. Because you haven't read it. I want to get your reaction to this. There's a three-word quote from Taylor Swift about the record. Again, the record's called Being Funny Funny and a Four. foreign language. Taylor Swift says, quote, it's so funny. End quote. I like that she used funny because funny is in the title of the record. I think it would have been funny if she said, it's so foreign. She could have said that, because foreign is in the title of the record,

but she said it's so funny. Anyway, Healy also played the record for Bo Burnham. He thought it was funny too. But then Healy admitted that when he heard Bo Burnham song, that funny feeling, from his special inside. He got a little like, you know, there's a little competition there. He said he needs to stay in his lane a little bit, he adds with the grin. When he did that song,

I was like, you motherfucker. Because apparently that song is like a commentary on online culture, and that's what Maddie Healy does, allegedly, although most 1975 songs I hear are about him talking about a woman

being frisky. Yeah. There's not a lot of commentary Terry that I can really elicit from that. One other thing I want to bring up, too, apparently this record is produced by Guess Who? Guess who's producing the new 1975 record?

What fucking Lang. That would be incredible. No, he's working with a guy. Maybe you've heard of him, Jack Antonoff, who is producing everybody at the moment. And he frames it in the article that, like, working with Jack Antonoff is this progressive thing.

He says, people may think it's uncool. Uncool is in quotes. I don't know if he did air quotes when he was talking. To work with the biggest producer in the world, I don't give a fuck. I want to make a great fucking record. And there's quotes about cancel culture

and all that kind of stuff too. How does he get away with this? I feel like there are so many quotes in this story, and I know you haven't read it, but I feel like if it was anyone else, especially like another sort of like white male indie dude, if he said any of this, they'd be killed. But Maddie Healy skates.

He's Walter White of Indy Rock here. Not getting any comeuppance at all. I don't know why I'm yelling at you, Ian, but I want you to like tell me how does he get away with this? Well, I mean, my thought goes, I mean, I think I'm going to stay on brand here by not referring to Breaking Bad, but to Marats where Brody's like, that kid's back on the escalation. later. Yeah, we're really appealing to our 40-something audience with the mall references. But, you know, okay, so here, I've not read the article in full. And, you know, this is no disrespect to Ryan Donball or pitchfork or what have you. Because, like, look, I have established myself as very pro the 1975. It's a very entertaining story, by the way.

I want to, like, shout out. It's well done. I'm just beside myself with these quotes. It just blows me. So I think there's a part of it. And I've had this conversation with people who liked the 1975 as much as I do, which is that there, it's, how did they let them get away with it? Basically, he says things that are entertaining in a, I read the quotes from Taylor Swift from Japanese breakfast. I've seen them kind of come up in isolation on Twitter. And I like to think of them as similar to like the campus. and pop star never stop, never stopping, where it seems ultra serious, but if you, like, think of them being kind of sarcastic to this oblivious person, then it becomes so much more entertaining.

And I don't know if I like the 1975 reading this. I actually, I actually like appreciate their music more because if, like, Maddie Healy, like, really believes 85 to 95% of the things he says, then it just makes the fact that they can make music this good so much more unbelievable. I'm just so much impressed with how these are the thoughts caraming around this guy's brain, and yet they make some of my favorite music. I just kind of have to admire it. It's like watching Spudweb take to the air and dunk a basketball.

See, the thing with me is that I feel like, you know, I've never interviewed Maddie Healy. I don't have a read on him in terms of what he's like in a room. But in his interviews, he comes across to me as an airheaded guy. And the seriousness with which he's treated now by the media just seems so incongous to me to like what the actual content of what he says in interviews and what the content of the 1975's music is, that they are treated as like this commentary on modern society that is incredibly insightful and profound. And I just don't see it at all.

I think the parts that I like about that band are the trashy pop aspects of it. And if that was how that they, if that's how they were appreciated, I would understand it more. But the fact that people look to Healy as this like, you know, sort of Oracle of modern times, it blows my mind. I mean, because the way you're talking about him is, in that classic Billy Corrigan sense of like he's this grandiose rock star who says ridiculous things but he makes grandiose ridiculous music and it all kind of fits together but he's in a way treated as like a Bob Dylan figure almost you know by some in the music press and I just don't get it like that to me like that reception that's when the Jesse Pinkman and me comes out where

he says these dumb things and it's like not acknowledged that it's dumb. It's taken at face value as being smart and I just don't think it is. Maybe I'm missing something. Maybe I'm the dumb guy here, but I don't know. I read this stuff and I'm like, how is he not being mocked for this? This is so easy to be mocked for. He's delivering mockable material on a silver platter and we're just treating it like it's, you know, prime cut steak, you know?

We always must return to the meat metaphors here. Right. I don't know. Am I off base with this? Am I wrong? I would say that I do think that, like, the people who write about the 1975 and interview them, like, do kind of acknowledge that he does say ridiculous things. I don't think he's treated in the same way that, I don't know, like Fiona Apple would be

if, like, she were to do interviews more often. Like, I just think that he is this combination of extreme self-awareness, but also, like, self-delusion in a way that's, like, entertaining, but also very rare nowadays. So I don't blame any writer for just, like, it reminds me of something I used to say about, like, Red Hot Chili Pepper's albums and that, like, the best way to mock Anthony Kedis is just to quote his lyrics.

And I think that you couldn't possibly mock Maddie Healy any better than Maddie Healy could. And I think he has some awareness of that. He says, I think I've seen it poll quoted, that he recognized he's kind of a dumb guy. But again, I think that his target, also, the one quote I did see that I do take issue with is, I believe Japanese breakfast brought up the fact that a lot of hardcore and punk people could learn from Maddie Healy because he takes a stance on things, which, again, I think if you were to read that in a sarcastic kind of way, it would be a lot funnier and probably a lot more accurate because you look at punk and hardcore and it's almost nothing if not topical. And he doesn't take a stance on things. I mean, in that article, he says, I'm politically homeless. You know, he talks about how he doesn't really feel like he fits in on anywhere in the political spectrum,

which might be totally true, but that's not really taking a stance on something that's deliberately not taking a stance. I'll say, too, that one of the most illuminating parts of that article for me is that there was a part where it talks about how they were working with BJ Burton for a period on this new record. BJ Burton being a really great record producer based where I am in Minneapolis, who, is known for working on 22 a million with Bonnie Bear. He did some work on Yeezus. He did the last two low records, which are mind-blowing. And Burton ended up leaving the project because they were working with Antonoff, which is like the opposite choice.

That's about as far as you can get from what BJ Burton's going to do for you, if you're going to work with Jack Antonoff. But Burton said that he was a little turned off by how Healy and the guitar player who I can't think of his name right now. George is the drummer. He's the producer and the drummer. He's like a real load-bearing member of the band. He does a lot of production work.

Burton was saying that those guys, you know, when they were writing songs, that those guys would go on Spotify and look at popular songs and study their chord progressions and use that as a launching point for what they were going to do.

And Burton was like, I was trying to get them away from that. And the 1975 didn't want to do that. And they ended up with Jack Antonoff, who probably produced a lot of the songs that they were listening. thing to on Spotify during those sessions. I mean, look, the new 1975 song, Happiness, I think it's a good song. That's a, that's a, that's a solid single, don't you think? Good song, yeah.

I mean, you know, just kind of working very much within the wheelhouse. And you have acknowledged how you like them more in that kind of, uh, go west, uh, king of wishful thinking. I do. I do. And yeah, and I, yeah, and they work well in that vein. They, that's a good, catchy number. A toe Tapper. So we'll see if most of the record is like that. I think we need to talk about Rage Against the Machine. We have not talked about them I think ever on this show, have we?

No, we haven't. Well, we're talking about Rage Against the Machine now because they are on their tour right now with Run the Jewels. And I don't know about you, but I've seen a lot of phone camera videos from this tour in my timeline over the last, you know, couple of weeks.

I feel like this tour is really generating a lot of the enthusiasm, you know, people shooting their videos, they're posting them on Twitter and Instagram, and just talking about, like, how amazing it is. And it just seems like there's like a big rush of excitement again for this band. I think that maybe also speaks to our demographic because, you know, run the jewels and rage against the machine. I mean, they've, they're separated. by about 20 years as far as when they actually released the new music, like 15 to 20 years,

but nonetheless, like, very much in the same vein of, in a weird way, dad rock, even though, like, they incorporate a lot of rap because let's face it, rap is definitely dad rock now, depending on who you're talking about. Oh, sure. Yeah, like run the jewels. Yes. And push a tea are like the kings of, like dad rap at the moment. Vince Staples getting there.

Vince Staples getting there. So, but yeah, I do think that there is kind of an uptick of Rage Against the Machine fandom because they're playing, I believe, five nights at Madison Square Garden. And look, I think that Rage Against the Machine has this every couple of years, they don't come back necessarily. I mean, they tour, they get together and they tour, they play Coachella or whatever. And, you know, it's good to have them back. I think that also, gosh, it felt like there was a span of like 11 or 12 years where they were not seen as a joke, but they were kind of seen as a harmless nostalgia act because, I mean, you could think of any number of reasons. Audio slave, you know, for one thing. Profits of rage. I don't know if y'all remember that. I think that was like the last video I ever wrote for Pitchfork. It was like this EP. made like in 2016 before the election and you know tom orello very well intention but he's kind of in

that dave gruel slash henry rollins realm of just this guy who is totally available to do every single documentary you could imagine and you know talk about like how billy is ilish is the future of punk rock or whatever yeah i i mean it is interesting with tomorello because i feel like whenever you see him doing anything else other than rage against the machine, it's because Zach Delaraca, for whatever reason, doesn't want a tour very much or be involved in the band. Like, I don't know what he does between rage tours. It does really seem like Tomarello is like, he has like a red phone in his house that's just for Zach Delaraca when he decides, like, Zach is like, okay, I want a tour.

This phone just blows up. and Tomarillo will drop like whatever he's doing. Like profits of rage is like the most egregious example of like him and the other guys in the band just biting their time

like waiting for Zach Delaraca to call. And it's weird to say that about a project that involves Chuck D. And I think that they were... Be real from Cypress Hill was in there too. Yeah. So it wasn't like they were slumming with like nobodies.

But at the same time, you couldn't listen to that band without thinking, like, oh yeah, like Zach Delaraca didn't want to do a reunion tour, so they're doing this instead, you know? And now they're on the road. And it's interesting with this band because, like, I'm not a huge rage against the machine fan, but I've always, like, appreciated them. I don't really liken them to, say, the clash in my mind. Like, I don't at all think of them really as a political group. I mean, they're obviously. obviously a political group, but in terms of, like, what I take from them, the lyrics just go right over my head. I don't really care about the lyrics at all. It's all about the music and Zach Delaraca's delivery. Like, to me, they're more like Led Zeppelin than the clash. You know, like when I listen to Led Zeppelin, I don't really care about the Hobbit, you know? And when I listen to Ridge Against the Machine, I don't really care about, like, socialism or, you know, whatever cause they're talking about. It's the musical attack that they have when they're together. Like just

the sound of that band, they have incredible riffs, incredible grooves. Zach Delaraca, I think, is a great frontman. And the way he delivers his lyrics is really compelling. The content of his lyrics, though, I don't really care about. I do appreciate that there's a generation of people who are probably, you know, radicalized by listening to Ridge Against the Machine. Like maybe that was the beginning of their political consciousness. And I'm not dismissing that at all. I know that that is an element of their popularity and their significance. But for me, it really is about the Zeppelin-y aspects of what they do.

And when I see these clips pop up and you can hear them play live, like that is what comes across, not like when they're projecting, you know, political messages on the screens behind them. I mean, does that make sense to you? I almost feel like that's maybe the most common way that people appreciate them. That's why people like Paul Ryan, for instance, was a rage against the machine fan? Obviously, he was totally ignoring the politics of what rage was doing. But that to me is why there's still such a compelling, like a arena rock band,

like why they can do five nights at MSG and probably kill every night. I think that with Paul Ryan, what it didn't do was like, with Paul Ryan, I think the problem was that, as you said, he's kind of seen as like not the exception, but like for the most part, the rule of rage against the machine fandom, which is not to say that, you know, rage against machine fans have incubated a bunch of like, you know, weightlifting Republicans, more that it's about the music, it's about the riffs, it's about the groove, it's about Tomarello making his guitar sound like a term. turntable without using synthesizers. They make that very clear in the album credits. But yeah, I think, like, what I love about, like, a lot of Rage Against Machine songs is that, like, for the first 30 seconds or so, it's like, you got that, like, Zeppelin immigrant song type riff, and then it's like a battle rap song for, like, the first half of the verse. And then he completely turns cheek, like, oh, by the way, the CIA is up to weird shit in

Chile or something. By the way, speaking of which, as far as like what Zach Dela Rook is up to, there was one time where I really, really thought I saw him at Bodybuilder's Gym in L.A. This gym I used to go to where musicians do go to. Like I saw Pat Nosswald there on my first day. Who else was that? The guys from Death Heaven would go there as well. I'm pretty sure Childish Gambino was there one day and he saw me. But yeah, we're not going to get into Bloc.

Bodybuilder's Jim lore. But yeah, I mean, like, look, if people get any sort of, like, messaging from Raised Against the Machine or the fact that, like, hey, you can actually do this stuff on a major label and had done that on a major label, I think maybe it'll encourage some other people to, you know, follow suit with that. But look, I mean, I'm 12. Like, I was 13 years old. I knew who Leonard Peltier was thanks to the Freedom video.

Did it send me on a path where I was, you know, committed to, like, full communism? not necessarily, but I think they're kind of like a force for good. And, you know, what's interesting to me now is that when I think about when Rage Against Machine was an active band and when their peaks of, I guess, high visibility are, it's usually during like a Democratic presidency. Like, I don't think that people were clamoring for them really during like the first Bush administration. And like during the Trump era, that was like profits of rage time but maybe i don't know maybe it's just like a band where

it's i don't know good to have their thoughts contained and otherwise like a real more i guess safe environment but again that's a level of like political analysis that i'm probably not probably not ready to do because i'll just say yo bulls on parade that that riff fucking whips man well i made a joke about this at the top of the episode but there was that story recently about how Guy Fieri is following Rage Against the Machine on this tour that he's hit a bunch of shows like a deadhead, but he's a rage head, apparently.

And I do look at Guy Fierry as the platonic ideal of what a Rage Against the Machine fan is, that he's this doughy middle-aged guy with spiky hair and a goatee, who's just like a good-natured guy that likes to get down to some cool riffs, you know? And I feel like that is probably very representative of the audience.

It's not necessarily, you know, these politically minded militant type people. It's Guy Fiery's. There's an audience of Guy Fiery's out there watching Rage. And, yeah, that seems like a fun crowd to hang out in. I mean, if you're going to get, like, the Trotsky's, you've got to get the Guy Fiery's as well. It's just like the nature of doing business. You got to cast a wide net? You think Guy Fieri has some, you know, that he's communist?

He's like a closet communist, maybe, because of rage? We've got to look into the Flavort Town economy, maybe. Maybe they've gone like full socialism or whatever, you know, it's like the workers of Flavortown seizing the means of production. To make a segue here, I guess, to other examples of 90s rock. We're talking about Rage Against the Machine. They're at the top of the heap right now, doing multiple nights at MSG. Do we want to talk about Weezer and their Broadway run? I didn't even know this was happening, by the way, which I guess is.

why they canceled their Broadway run, but apparently they were going to do a bunch of shows on Broadway connected to their season albums, which we didn't even talk about on this show. Like, we didn't talk about these Weezer records. You feel like we would talk about it. But I had no interest in talking about it. I'm kind of burned out on talking about Weezer at this point.

But there was a story that came out. This came out like right before we saw. started recording, that they were going to do this Broadway run, I guess like Springsteen on Broadway. It's like they're equivalent to that. And Revis Cuomo came out and said, we're canceling because of low ticket sales and high costs. Like there was no subterfuge at all.

It was just, we're canceling because no one's buying tickets. And I don't know what this says. Does this say anything bigger about Weezer? Or is it just like a Weezer fans don't want to go to Broadway to hear them play these records that no one cares about? Like if they did a blue album Broadway run, would that have just cleaned up? I would say that a blue album or Pinkerton show is like a license to print money. But, you know, and I'm not like when you say, do you want to talk about Weas? I'm like, you could stop right there.

I do want to talk about Weezer. See, because I kind of don't. I'm kind of sick of. I feel like I'm exhausted finally. And it took a long time. It took a long time, way too long, probably to get exhausted by Weezer. But when I saw these season albums dropping, because they've been putting out a lot of music. They're a very prolific band.

They've put out like several records, I think, during the Indycast run here that we haven't even bantered about. We haven't even, like, joked about in passing. You know, and I don't know if it's just... I mean, but apparently you're not exhausted talking about them. Well, I think that this story resonated with me in a way that other Weezer marginalia has not because, I mean, can you imagine anyone else at this level going on their fans discord and saying outright, hey, we got to cancel this because of low ticket sales and astronomical expenses? Like, that to me almost in a way reminds me of what I appreciate and admire about Weezer more so than if. they were to make an album that was even like 25% of like the green album or maladroit. Like just like imagine Billy Corgan and I know that like smashing pumpkins have been accused

of like having like really soft ticket sales going on the discord and saying like hey this one's a bomb. Sorry all. I mean I appreciate that because I think there's like kind of a side story to this in terms of alt-rock, like questionable alt-rock tours, which a very indie cast subject of Flannel Nation, which I don't know what the difference between this and Summerland is, but earlier in the week, ever clear, I've interviewed our Alex Ocas, great guy, they decided to pull out from this Flannel Nation festival,

which was happening in San Pedro, California. They decided to pull out because, and I'm going to quote, they cited inadequate means to provide the level of experience our fans expect and deserve while attending an ever-clear show. And after that happened, all the other bands on that tour started to follow suit. Filter, Cracker, I believe Solisobin was on there as well. Sugar Ray. Sugar Ray, yes.

Fastball, Indicast's favorite sponge were on that bill. By the way, we're really stretching. The flannel definition here by including Sugar. Sugar Ray is the top-billed ban here, by the way. On the poster anyway. No connection to flannel. Come on. Yeah, even in their brownies and lemonade phase, which is the debut, they were definitely more of like whatever, I don't know, Hollister or like Pacific Sunwear or whatever the opposite of flannel was. But, you know.

Yeah, it should be like bowling shirt nation. You know, they should have a bunch of, like, bowling shirt bands. Sugar Ray, smash mouth, bowling for soup, you know, maybe like some crappy ska bands from that time, like Goldfinger, put them in there. Actually, Goldfinger's okay. I won't call them crappy. That should be a tour, Bowling Shirt Nation. Yeah, and also, if we're going to talk about, like, the band that represents the pinpoint between Flannel Nation and Bowling Shirt Nation, I didn't know. this until the other day and maybe they just like kind of put this band on there without people

knowing. I'm like, who the fuck is Star Zero and why are they on this, this flyer? And then I look in the fine print featuring members of the flies. Ah. Which, okay, first off, which fucking members? Because if I'm going to see Star Zero and I'm expecting the gods of basketball, which of course is the song that anyone wants to hear from the flies. Like, it needs to be the two brothers, the rapping guy. Like, I don't, if it's the bassist or the drummer, I don't give a shit. But there is literally no internet footprint of this band, Star Zero. I tried to see what that was all about.

And this is a band that for the most part does not exist, except on the flyer of Flannel Nation. And it's like, why do I have, like, where are the people feeding me this information? Like, where are you Indycast listeners? I need to know about this shit, like, in real time. If it was the rapping guy from the flies, I feel like they'd put that on the poster. I feel like featuring the rapping guy from the flies. The fact that they just say featuring members of the flies,

it does seem a little shady to me. It does feel like maybe it was like the replacement bass player at some, you know, like maybe like the original bass player quit. They hired a new bass player and it's that guy and that's, and maybe the original drummer or something. And those are the two members. Because, yeah, it would either be like, who are the brothers in the flies? Do you know the name?

Pasquit's brothers. You better fucking believe. You better fucking believe I know that. Oh, my God. That's the thing, like, where you throw the ball up and you're like, he's probably not going to be able to dunk this. And then he dunks it. You're like, holy shit. I didn't even think that would work.

This is Lobb City, because I know this because they are not, they are legends in two games like Peewee Kirkland. They have a surf camp. Their father is a legendary surfer, Dorian Paskowitz. And so if you're thinking to yourself, hey, the flies always looked like a band that was invented by a bunch of surfers. That's because it's true. And also they got a skydiver on the cover of Holiday Man. I am down to talk 30 minutes about the flies. Like, I am just opening that door.

I wonder, like, what the status is of, you know, the IP with the flies, that if someone owns the name, the flies and therefore you can't just get a bunch of people and tour as the flies because again this is like another thing that leads to me to believe that the main people are not in Star Zero because the main people would just tour

as the flies, I feel like. And if you're not one of the main people and you can't tour as the flies, then you're forced to come up with this extremely generic 90s alt-rock name, Star Zero. Yeah, that's very...

And say that you're not. And then you feature members of the flies. Because if it's the Pascoitz brothers, and by the way, you could be lying to me. You could have just made everything you just set up, and I wouldn't know. But I'm assuming you're not going to lie to me and the Indycast listeners. If it was the Pascoa's brothers, it would just be the flies, I think, is my point. So I'm thinking with this, like, first off, you're right, and that Star Zero is absolutely the kind of band name you would expect from, like, a mid-level, like Billy Crutt-Ups band or something like that.

Like if a mid-level movie star from the 90s were to start a band, it would have that sort of name. But you bring up a point about there's probably more to it than we even know. Because I know that like fuel had like kind of beef between Carl Bell, the, you know, the brain trust of the band and Brett Scalions, which is definitely not the brains. He's definitely the Hymbo front for fuel. They had a very ugly split recently, and I think one of them can only perform fuel songs. It's very complicated. But either way, I mean, if you're coming to the negotiating table with the Pasquitz brothers

trying to get the flies IP, you've got to get got you where I want you. I mean, like, otherwise, like, why are you even there at the table? Well, I'm sure Star Zero would have played that song if this tour or this festival would have taken place. By the way, too, I just want to compliment you on the... sort of casual virtuosity of naming another guy in Fuel who's not Brett Scalions. Like, I feel like I would impress people if I just knew the singer from Fuel. But you're dropping the guitar player.

I assume that's the guitar player. It is. Carl Bell. Is his name? Yeah, he was out of the band for a while and then came back in 12. He was like Napoleon returning from Elba or something like that. It's just like that. Exactly like Napoleon.

There's no other way to describe it. In the same way that Panic in the Disco and Fallout Boy can't be described with terms other than the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, fuel can only be described in the terms of like 19th century French warfare. I think it's hilarious that this Flannel Nation festival story became a national story. I don't really know why the festival was canceled. You mentioned Everclear, said something about how this festival will not live up to. the standards that we like to have for Everclear fans, their experience at our shows. I mean,

I assume that this is just like a shady, crappy festival. And that's why it got canceled. I do think it's funny that this became something that was reported on national websites. I guess it's just the combination of bands. You know, this galaxy of talent on one bill. And people just wanted to talk about it for that reason. Yeah.

I mean, it's not like sour grapes or whatever. because like, come on, the people who are going to go to that kind of festival are like, it definitely in it for the music. It's not like they're going to be, oh, yeah, time to pull out my, time to pull out my flammation outfit, like you're going to Coachella or what have you. It's just that I really just wish they would just come out and say what the fuck really happened because a lot of this just seems like euphemism for, I don't know.

Like, I mean, it's, I think it was a live nation event. So how shady it was, I'm not sure. but I mean we're hearing so much about like how festivals are by no means prepared to like put on a whether you're an ever clear fan or not or whether your expectations are set at ever clear concert it's it's pretty abundantly clear from this point that like festivals are definitely not they're back but they're definitely not able to put on an experience that is like say even 2018 there's just been so much brain here drain and, you know, people concerned about money that, I don't know, I think we're in a weird way picking back where we left off in 2018 or 19 when we were wondering just like how sustainable this festival culture really is. Well, I saw Everclear, this is the only time I've ever seen them, in a gymnasium at the University of Wisconsin, Ashgosh, 20 years ago.

And if this festival was a worse experience than that, then it was pretty poorly set. up. That's all I can say about that. You gotta tell me more. Like you cannot stop at, like, I know we're running long, but like, you gotta tell me. Like first off, like 2002, this was like the double, Everclear released like kind of a double album at that point. Am I, am I, am I, am I mistaken? That sounds about right. That sounds about right. I was, I was working for my hometown paper at that time and that was the big rock show that week. So I went to go review it. And I'm trying to remember who else was on the bill. I saw a lot of shows at the UW Ashgosh Gymnasium. I saw Jason Maraz there. I saw Michelle Branch there. I saw Everclear there. I saw Bob Dylan in the same gym.

I saw a lot of people in this gym, man. It was crazy. This was like the, you know, the beacon theater of Ashgosh at that time. The CBGivs of Ashkosh. And by the way, it was Songs from American movie. Everclear really did put out a double album in 2000. Based on the film American movie? No, but there was... Mark Borschart? I think it was more just like Art Alexakis' conceptual gambit. Because the first album I remember, it was like super happy, and then the second one, subtitled

Good Time for a Bad Attitude. So you could kind of, it was like sort of like his version of, say, Sweetsuit by Nelly. Right, which came out around the same time. time. I saw Nelly around. I reviewed a Nelly concert around that time, too. I'm going to release a volume of, like, my concert reviews from the aughts. Got Nellie, got Everclear. I saw Toby Keith a bunch of times. Yeah, I think this is what we need to pivot to in the second hundred episodes. Just you, like me, just setting you up to tell stories about seeing bands the Oshkosh Gymnasium in the early 2000s. That's really what the people want. Yep. Tales from the Gym coming up here on Indy-Cohs. 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, want to go first. So, you know, in the spirit of this episode, I am kind of talking about old music as if it were new. A band that I was very into and very excited about from, let's say, 2016 to 2018, a band called Jouska. They were from Albany. They released a really great album in 2016 called Topiary. that was sort of kind of late-stage HEMO revival. They signed a tiny engines, moved to Philly, released an EP in 2018, and haven't heard a word from them ever since.

It's one of those bands that you care about a lot for a very limited amount of time and just slip your mind as they go on to make side projects and so forth. Out of nowhere last Friday, they dropped a new album, but it's kind of an old album called Visions from the Bridge. It was completed in 2018. And it's quite a good record. It's more kind of shoegays leaning than their past work, which was kind of modest mouse,

World is a Beautiful Playstyle, emo. I want to bring this band up because not just this record, which I think is very good, and it's about half hour, so it's worth your time if you like kind of groovy or shoegaze indie. They are gutting a body of water. The guy's newer project is going to ramp up to have a pretty cool end of 2002 with a split on top shelf and a new record. But, I mean, this is just,

if you like to remember some emo revival guys, and I think we've reached the point where we can have remember some guys in this era, this will hit it on two levels. First, which is a great record. And second, you can just relive your late-faced Tumblr times. So I want to talk about a band from Canada

called Kiwi Jr. And this is a band you all might have heard of because they've been pretty prolific in recent years. They put out their first record in 2020. It was called Football Money. And they've put out an album per year since then. Their third album drops today. It's called Chopper.

And with this band, I've seen them compared in the past a lot to pavement. And I think that's because the singer sounds a little like Stephen Malcolmus. Also, I think because of the pavement connection, I've seen them likened to Parquet Courts. And Parquet Courts, of course, is often compared to pavement. I will say, though, on this new record, it gives me vibes of, dare I say it, the stills, logic will break your heart. Another indie cast favorite, you know, that sort of mid-aughts Canadian indie rock. It feels like that to me.

It's a little slicker, I think, than their previous records. It's very catchy, a lot of just very pretty guitar rock mid-tempo songs with the sardonic lyrics added to them, commenting on a range of. of topics. There's really a lot to dig into here, but again, it's this very pleasurable indie rock, guitar-based music. And if there's anything we like on this show, it's that kind of music. So yeah, if you are looking for a throwback to like the second wave of like return to rock bands from the odds, you know, the wave that came after the strokes, those kind of bands, bands like the stills, but maybe with like a little bit of pavement element. added to it, I think you'll really like this record.

Again, it's called Chopper. The band is Kiwi Jr. It's a record I like quite a bit. I don't think I've heard a more convincing argument to listen to a new record than the one you just made. Well, I knew when I dropped the logical break your heart, Ref, that you'd be on board. Hopefully I haven't oversold it with that. But again, I was getting that vibe.

Maybe it's only because they're also Canadian. But I don't know. Give it a listen and let me know what you think. Yeah, I'm like hoping I don't come on to the next episode saying, you promised me logic will break your heart, and instead we got without feathers. Ian, man, this is like a deep ref classic from Ian, like this episode. Just so many deep refs from you.

Just an incredible display of virtuosity of remembering some guys, remembering some album titles, remembering some guitar players from fuel. I hope you all are really appreciating the display that Ian put on in this episode. Thank you all 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 Mix Taped 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.