Indiecast - The End Of Black Midi, The Rise Of Wishy + "Yay Or Nay?" On Ween

Episode Date: August 16, 2024

Steven and Ian begin today's episode with a review of Phoenix's performance at the Olympics last weekend, and the maddening idea that every band from the aughts is now being lumped into the made-up phenomenon known as "indie sleaze" (1:09). From there, they move on to the news that the proggy British post-punk band Black Midi has apparently broken up. The guys discuss their brief career and the surprisingly wide influence they have had on other acts (13:38).Then they talk about Wishy, the Indiana-based shoegaze outfit that has emerged as one of 2024's most hyped young bands. Their debut full-length, Triple Seven, is out today, and Steven loves it while Ian is more reserved in his judgement (24:49). After that, they move on to discussion about Ween, who Steven wrote about this week. He wonders whether Ian has a "yay or nay" assessment of the cult duo (39:15). In the mailbag, a listener asks about the strangest place the guys have either seen a show, and Steven talks about seeing the '90s rap group Onyx and Fleetwood Mac's Lindsey Buckingham at two different high schools (47:01).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the playful pop of Porter Robinson while Steven stumps for the Georgia rock band Futurebirds (53:26).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 202 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 Indy Mix tape. Hello, everyone, and welcome to 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 talk about the end of Black Midi, the rise of Wishy, and yay or nay on wean. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He thinks the first Fleet Fox's album is Indy Slease.

Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? Yeah, man, bitch, I think I'm Hunter Biden. I mean, like, I think that, like, people didn't make it. People did not make enough of that joke. I mean, the fact, like, I think, like, Raygun jokes lasted longer than, yo, Hunter Biden was, like, smoking crack and, like, getting laugh dances to White Winter hymnal.

Yeah, which is, uh, that sounds pretty awesome, actually. Yeah. That made me, uh, like Hunter Biden more. Um, yeah, the Edie Slee's thing. Oh, man. I feel a rant coming on about this. I don't know if you saw this Ian, but last weekend it was the end of the Olympics. There was the closing ceremony.

And the French, again, they continued to have impeccable music taste for their ceremonies. They had Gojira at the opening ceremony a few weeks back. For the closing ceremony, they had Phoenix playing with Ezra Koenig as a guest star. Air showed up. Yeah. Which was pretty awesome. That's a big Indycast shout out right there. Were there any other luminaries from the indie world?

Am I missing anybody? I don't know. Maybe they have like Chac Claire or whatever. That like one rap guy from the 90s that people. If you lived in like, if you went to like a public university in the late 90s and like new conscious rap people, they would totally tell you about like how Chac Claire was like this shit.

It was a guy who rap, but he was French. That's his, no, that was the Canadian guy. Fuck, man. I'm forgetting what the name of the French rapper was from the 90s. Well, there was. I'm embarrassing myself.

There was the baby, the French baby that had a hit. I don't know if you remember. Oh yeah, dude dude dirt. Yeah, Jordie or something like that. Jordy, yeah. So that was like a rapping baby. MC Solar, yeah, MC Solar. That's the one I'm thinking of.

So there were people talking about this ceremony online and the specter of Indies was brought up again. This, again, fake concept, doesn't really exist, came up in a New York Magazine article. I think it was on the cut, actually, the cut portion of New York Magazine, which, by the way, not to be a player hater, but they're putting out some like egregious content lately.

They had an article this week from a woman who had a baby and she had postpartum depression, and she was basically torturing her cat. Did you see this article? I saw the cover. I saw the cover of the magazine, but I did not read the article yet. Like the concept of the story was that because she had a baby, she didn't care about the cat anymore. So she stopped, like, feeding the cat.

She stopped giving the cat water. The cat's drinking out of the toilet. And it's written in this very sort of ha-ha glib sort of way. Like, you know, like, aha, I'm abusing this helpless animal. You know, isn't this funny? And of course, people got really upset about it as they should. And I don't understand this whole thing about, oh, I have a kid, so I don't care about my pet anymore. I just want to say, like, as a parent, I love my kids.

But having kids actually made my love, maybe love my pets more because, like, a dog or a cat is so much easier than a kid. So the kid goes to sleep and then the dog or the cat just wants to snuggle. And you're like, oh, you're so easy. This is a vacation from my kids. But anyway, people are talking about, oh, indie sleaze is rising because Phoenix and Air are on the Olympic closing ceremony. And just, is Phoenix the least sleazy band of the aughts? I mean, if you look at those guys, they're downright elegant. You know, they're goddamn suave.

There's nothing sleazy about Phoenix. Like, why are we talking about indie sleaze? totally made-up thing. And, of course, air. I mean, get them out of here. They're not even in, they're like from the 90s. Yeah. That being said, they did have a pretty pivotal role in the movie Go.

I think one of the songs from Moon Safari was playing during a scene where I think they were doing drugs and then stuff got lit on fire. It's a threesome. It's a threesome scene. That's cool. That's right. So, I guess, kind of, I don't know, sleep in the, but that would be kind of like more like Y2K.

like post raver sleaze. So we're mixing eras here. I think that Phoenix, like, yeah, the only band that, like, maybe is less sleazy than them is, like, vampire weekend and, like, lo and behold, you know, but let's not forget that. I mean, a year ago when we were talking about how indie sleeves was washed, like, they would have my girls on the playlist and, like, grizzly bear. I think just all it takes to be indie sleeves is, like, being popular in the late odds are being French, which I don't know, I don't know if racist is the right word, but

with Phoenix, I think it's a kind of an 80-20 combination. But, you know, like Serge Gameborg, you know, go listen to one of his albums. Oh, yeah, well, he's sleazy. Yeah, that's like, that is sleazy. That is like criminal. It's like not even indie sleighs. That is like big time, like criminality. Yeah, yeah, he's a dirtbag for sure. But, you know, we've talked before on the show about how music history is being constantly rewritten by younger generations. We were talking about that. I think. in relation to Shoe Gaze, how it feels like every 90s alt rock band now is being retconned under the umbrella of Shugays, even though in the moment they had nothing to do with the genre and really don't have anything to do with the genre.

But this is something that's happening constantly. People my age have done it with the music of the 60s and 70s. So we did it to the boomers now, the Zomers and young millennials are doing it to, you know, Gen Xers and all that stuff. And you have to have a sense of humor about it. I understand that. The indie sleaze thing does bother me just because it's such a fake thing. Like, shoegays actually existed in the 90s. Indy Slees, as a concept did not.

We just call people hipsters back then. You got the trucker hat and the tight jeans and all the cliches going along with that. I would also make the argument that if we're going to talk about like genuinely sleazy music of the aughts, that it's not the indie music. It's the indie adjacent music of the. of that time. And I know you're going to be with me on this. The bravery is a sleazy band. She wants revenge is a sleazy band. Your boys and the editors, sleazy band. I'm going to say Kings of Leon once they started having hits, you know, sex on fire, etc. They became a very

sleazy band. And these are, this is music that we both like in varying degrees. The first bravery record, I'll go to the table four as being just a great, sleazy, disreputable, trashy, really fun rock record from that time. So I feel like we got to move to those bands if we're going to really celebrate the skumbags. And I say scumbag with affection as a compliment in this context. Do you agree with that? I mean, I think it's the indie adjacent music, not the indie music of the aughts. Yeah, well, I mean, the bands you'd mention, like the bravery. and so forth.

They're like maybe like trashy. I don't quite get like sleighs from them, which by the way, the killers, the killers like were kind of seen as indie sleighs as well, right? Even though they're Mormon for crying out loud, just kind of goes to show how, you know, vaporous the boundaries that become. But yeah, I think that like if we're talking about like indie slees, we got to talk about like the bands from the UK, you know. I'm talking about like the cribs and the cooks and the court nears and the.

like the post-libertine type bands that we're talking about, you know? Because like the libertines were sleazy. I mean, that was right there in the name. They were tabloids. Like the strokes were, I mean, most of my information on this topic was taken from, you know, meet me in the bathroom. And, yeah, Interpol, sleazy. The strokes, sleazy.

And the last part of the book is all, like, the guys from that era complaining about how vampire weekend and the NASPA. and all the bands from the wait aughts like didn't know how to party you know it's like what do these guys know about like pulling girls from the club so well it is striking when you look at band photos from the early odds talking about the strokes or interpol and you see them smoking cigarettes and maybe there's a beer bottle in the vicinity as well and I think that that's what passes for slees in retrospect because we are in an era now that if they're smoking in a movie, like there will actually be like a warning that flashes like before the movie starts.

Like smoking now is seen almost like shooting heroin or something was in the 90s. So yeah, so those goalposts have definitely shifted. I think we came up in an era where Sleez was like a sex and hard drugs type thing. Whereas it feels like in the odds, it's more like do you drink Budweiser and smoke Marlboros. Like that is the height of sleaziness for that era. Now that I think about it, the indie sleaze comeback, which by the way, I think the Dare guy produced something on Brat.

So, I mean, like that's just bought it like six more months of discourse. We thought we were doing 2016. But in reality, I think we're like since Connollah Harris got nominated, we're like doing 2008 again. Oh, wow. Yeah, like vague Obama-esque feelings of hope. Like J.D. Vance being the new Sarah Palin. I mean, maybe we'll get a TV on the radio album out of this.

Also, I think, like, Charlie X, the X had a birthday party, and people were saying that it had a lot of cobra snake picture party type vibes. Yeah. So, look, I mean, it's Brad Summer. We're all living in it. And if what she says goes, yeah. I like the idea that as Kamala shifts in the polls, that it becomes a different era of election.

So when she was first in, when she was first announced, it felt like 2016 because he had all the sort of cringy pop culture things happening. But now as she's pulled even and even pulled ahead a little bit in some polls, we're getting the 2008 vibes. I like that idea because it means my beard will be black again. That would be amazing. We'll see if that happens. I'm getting my deep V-neck American Apparel T-shirts out of storage, you know.

We're going to fucking bang that first justice album and first Crystal Castles. Writing 250-word reviews for the A.B. Club. Those were the days writing about the final season of the Shield in the TV section. That was pretty amazing. You did that? I did, yeah. I wrote about the Shield. I was the Shield Head at the AB Club back in the day.

Did you watch The Shield? I did not. I know the people who, like, are into that show are super into Bosch as well. I see, I, okay, I beat the Bosch allegations. I've never watched Bosch. The Shield is great. And the last season is amazing. I will say the, the Shield finale is still, I think, the best last episode of a show I've ever seen.

I've heard good things about it, and not just from you. It's really good. I mean, is Bosch because of the Chick-Lis thing? because Chickles feels boche-coded a little bit. Yeah, I think so. You got to ask somebody else,

but like, yeah, that's just like one of the shows where it's like, if I was, you know, working as like a writer nowadays and I just kind of need something

to fill the time. I might fuck around and watch the shield, but I have to be more selective with my time. Right now, we're deep into love is blind UK. So unfortunately,

I can't take on that sort of obligation. Yeah, you got to, focus on the serious things like love is blind UK edition that's like you can't make time for the shield because love is blind is like too important that's actually that's like the truth there's like no embellishment on that you what you stated is an actual fact I'll just say the shield it's the beginning of Walton Goggins that's the first TV show he was on and it's the original love that I have for him he's Shane Bandrell on that show he's amazing that's a great

name he and he's great and he's great and believe it or not, he plays a redneck cop. I don't know if you would have expected that, but that's what he plays and he's brilliant on that show. Let's talk about a band that, I wouldn't call this band Sleazy. They come from the UK. They're more intellectual, maybe, than Sleazy. Talking about Black Middy, the British, I guess, Prague rock band,

we'll call them that, post-punk Prague rock band. They announced last weekend that they're going on an indefinite hiatus, which is basically what bands say now when they are breaking up, but want to leave the possibility of a lucrative 10-year reunion tour in the future. I'll read this from Pitchfork. It could be a little while before Black Midi released new music over the weekend singer-cuitary guitarist, Giordi Grie. Hell yeah.

Speaking of the most Black Middy name of all time. Hosted an Instagram live session and at one point wrote Black Midi was an interesting band that's indefinitely over, indefinitely over. So it's not indefinite hiatus. It's indefinitely over. So it just means, because if you say it's over,

you don't really need the indefinitely there, right? But the was, the was is doing a lot of work. The was is doing a lot of work. You could just say that's over. Because over implies indefinitely, just being the copy editor for you there, Giori greep.

As Stereo gum notes, the British group's singer bassist, Cameron Picton, another great name. These are all like Thomas Pynchon characters in this band, wrote in a since-deleted post on X on Sunday, August 11th. We'd agreed not to say anything about breaking up, so I was as blindsided as everyone else last night, but maybe in a different way. I guess sometimes all you can do is LOL anyway. Starting sessions for my own record soon, looking forward, should be good, hopefully great. and when reached by Pitchfork, a representative for the band said Black Middy are on hiatus for now while they are working on solo projects. So you got the lead singer saying, we're done, you have the bass player confirming that

we're going to be working on solo records. The publicist is trying not to be too final about it. Just a little background of this band, Black Midi, they formed in 2017. They put out their first record two years later. called Schlegenheim. I guess. I felt very flemy saying that title. I saw Black Midi on that tour.

I thought they were fantastic. Great live band. It was in a small club. The drummer in particular, Morgan Simpson, I thought he was just dynamic. And when you see an indie band with a great drummer,

it does feel like you're watching a unicorn fly across the sky. I mean, it does feel like a relatively unique thing these days. He was a powerhouse. The band was really impressive, really exciting. They put out two more records after that, Cavalcade in 2021 and Hellfire in 2022.

I have to say that for me, the debut remains their definitive statement. I feel like they moved in a gradually wackier direction as they progressed on the next two records, which I found to be sort of less and less compelling, although I appreciate that this is a band that really stood out. out as a group that wasn't afraid to make music that wasn't for everybody or even for most people. You know, there was a confrontational aspect to Black Minnie's music that felt like a throwback to indie music of the past, of the 80s before everything became so pop-centric in the last 10 years.

So for me, that's really the core of my appreciation for this band. I want to get your thoughts on them. I know, like, for you, like, you, I feel like you have gotten deeper in a way into that theatrical brand of British post-punk music. Right? Am I, at least like the black midi wing of that? I feel like you've really kind of followed that in recent years. Yeah, I mean, they've all, I mean, they've been around for, I guess, five years. They formed the 2017, but I started hearing about them in 2019.

And even though they're done, like, I think it just goes to show. how compressed the evolution of indie rock is nowadays where there's like second and third generation black midi influence happening you know in the past month i've heard stuff like personal trainer fat dog english teacher um and i think they might be post black country new road bands and black country new row is probably like the second generation of black middy but i was gonna say they feel like they were they really picked up again the more theatrical aspects of what black middy does yeah and and yeah you mentioned them being like a throwback to the 80s to me they were a throwback to like the aughts and the bands you would see on

like pitch for like a 9.3 and like people would say this fucking sucks I just meant like the confrontational aspect of it and you could say that about the odds too I mean there was definitely more of bands that were proudly indie like that were not trying to cross over yeah They felt like they were part of that tradition. Yeah, like your fiery furnaces and deer hooves and animal collectives. Exactly. Yeah. And kind of similar to Animal Collective.

Well, I mean, I love the Animal Collective albums. But the way I think of Black Midi as being similar to them is that you don't really appreciate what they did until you hear dozens of bands doing that and really badly. bad black midi is just the worst shit possible and that's kind of what we're starting to see a little bit now but you know I don't like you I didn't find their second and third albums to be like too compelling as listening experiences like I could deal with them for about 10 minutes at a time

but holy shit great live band Morgan Simpson very very not not a great black middy name unfortunately but like incredible drummer and that's just the guy that you would not take your eyes off the entire time. They also had, they also had some, like, swag when they performed live. I remember when they were played Pitchfork Festival, and it was either 2021 or 2023. They had, like, an entire wardrobe on stage, like, just hangers of clothes that they would switch into.

They had a vision. I think that's the case, you know? Like, I think that's a, it's a rare thing. And they were, like, a band where you could watch the drummer or watch the bassist or watch, like, the saxophone guy. They will be missed. I think that as decade lists start to come to the four, you'll probably see them not top it, but they're definitely going to be a player in that. Yeah, I would expect that too, especially breaking up at this point, which again, not to be too cynical about it, but I do feel like these guys are all in their 20s still. I find it unlikely that they're never going to play together again.

I do feel like they're all pretty restless creatively, and I can definitely understand them feeling like what I want to do is not going to work in this band because there's so many ideas. You have a lot of ideas. I have a lot of ideas. This isn't going to be compatible. I need to make my own music.

But I do feel like in five to ten years, as the black MIDI legend grows, which I would expect it to do because of what you're saying, just the influence that they've already had in other bands, I just feel like the, you know, Coachella reunion is going to be impossible to ignore. Although Giordi Grie, who I love saying his name, it's an adventure every time I attempt to say it. He's an excellent poster, too, by the way. Oh, yes, absolutely.

Great poster online. I could see him not reuniting just out of principle. He does seem like he's a person like that. But again, I think even just the creative aspect of it, they're going to, I find it hard to believe that they're not going to want to play together down the road. Maybe in their 30s at some point. But yeah, again, talking about their prowess as a live band, I think the live band thing is a big deal with them. I think if I hadn't seen them live, I wouldn't have the same appreciation for them that I have now. I remember hearing about them in 2019,

and it was because there was some performance that they played. It was almost like a rehearsal, because it wasn't in front of an audience, but that was what was being passed around. It was clips of their live performance, and it was because they felt like a band. It was coming out of that era, which in a way maybe we're still in,

but I feel like in the 2010s, there was this time where you had a bunch of artists coming out that got big on band camp, and then they formed a band to tour. They were a one-person operation who had to become a band in order to play live, and you could just tell when you would see those bands, because they didn't feel like a band. They were a little boring to see live. And then Black Midi comes on the scene,

and they just felt fully formed in a very classic kind of way. Aesthetically, the way they presented themselves, but also instrumentally, they had a clear, sort of synchronicity on stage that was really exciting to see. Yeah, they will be missed. And also, I guarantee one of these guys is going to make the most unlistenable solo album imaginable. Like, you're going to find out who, you're going to find out who was like doing the

Mars Volted jazz scrunk shit. Yeah, I can't wait. I mean, you know, I think we talked about this with Black Middy. I mean, they're a curious band, too, because the arc of their career, at least with the albums is basically encompassed in the pandemic era. Oh, geez, you're right. That first record came out in June of 2019. So, you know, a little bit before the pandemic happened,

and they were obviously able to tour that summer. And then the pandemic comes down in March, and they released a record in 2021 and 2022. I don't know if they'd take it. in 2020. I know they did in 2022. But again, it's not like they were around a ton

because of just the weird time that this band intersected with. A weird band for a weird time. Maybe that's the epitaph for Black Middy. Yeah, I just want to apologize because I called the dude Georgie Griep a couple times, like, uh, over the past week. And that was not intentional.

Auto correct does not recognize the genius of John L. Schlegenheim. Black Middy, they were here for a good time, not a long time. Actually, I don't even know if you could call it a good time, but they will be missed. An interesting time. Yes, for sure. All right, so we just talked about a band at the end of their career, supposedly, at least for now.

Let's talk about a band at the beginning. And that's a band called Wishy. That's Wishy, the word wish with a why at the end of it. I always like to spell these things out for people because they're listening to the show, I want to make sure they spell these things right when they go into their search engine of choice, or I guess streaming platform of choice. And it's not Wishy like Always or Howdy or Waves or whatever, where it's two V's making a W. W, it's WI-S-H-Y.

Yep, yep, exactly. Just a standard spelling of Wishy. This is a band from Indianapolis, a five-piece. And they've really emerged as like one of the most hyped bands of the year. going into this band I was aware of one of the principal songwriters person named Kevin Crowder who's I knew Crowder's solo work I guess Crowder was in a band before this called

what was the name of the band he was in? All right so the name of the band was Hoops and they put out a pretty good record in 2017 that sounded like wild nothing and all those bands and then you can go Google what happened to them I'll just use the word yeah You can go Google what happened to them. So Hoops was short-lived.

Crowder made some solo records that I think are quite good. I like that. And then it leads to the formation of this band Wishy. They put out an EP last year called Paradise that was acclaimed. Got some reviews positively from some big outlets. And it really set the stage for their debut full length, which is out today, called Triple Seven. And if you're paying attention to music media this week, a lot of people raving up. about this record, a lot of hype, a lot of people building Wishy up into, you know,

maybe the hottest young indie rock band. And I have to say, I'm on board. I am in support of the hype. I really, really like this record a lot. I expect it to be among my 10 or 20 favorite favorite favorite favorite Put It On Records of 2024. I expect it to be among my 10 or 20 albums of the year. That's how much I like it. It's definitely one of my favorite put it on records of 24. And I put it on record is basically the album where I don't know what to listen to. I'll go to this. It's my default because I know I really like it. And I want to get into this with you because I've seen you on social media and maybe even on the show take a couple like side glances at this band, side shots, if you will. I feel like you've been a little skeptical of this band.

and the hype that they've received. So I want to hear your take on this band. But I'll just give my take first, and I'll let you respond to it. What this band does is basically draw on very well-worn material for modern indie rock bands. They're drawing on Shoegays music, which we've already talked about in this episode, and we've talked about Shugays a lot lately because Shoe-Gays is big with the kids. And they're also drawing a lot on 90s alt-rock, which we've also talked a lot about, because a lot of indie bands love the 90s.

They love that fuzzy, crunchy guitar sound that we associate with the decade. They love their smashing pumpkins. They love their wheezer. They love their third eye blind. They love all that stuff. This band is drawing on this material that we've heard. Millions of bands draw on. And I'll say that to me that Wishi is drawing on that well.

makes this record more impressive to me in this sense that it'd be so easy for this record to be merely likable you put it on, you enjoy it, and then when it's off you forget about it because that's what a lot of bands are doing. There's certain things that you can do,

I think, to appeal to people, you can have the right instrumental tones, you can have the right gear, you can have the right reference points, and it will make your music likable to a certain audience. But it won't make it memorable necessarily because at the end of the day

you need songs. Do you have the song? songs that are going to connect with people that they're going to remember. And most bands don't. Wishy does. This band, I think, writes really, really good songs. The kind of songs that you want to play over and over, but more importantly, the songs that you remember in your head when the record is done. And I think that that is the strength of this record. Very, very good songwriting. And I just think that it's impressive, actually, to take sonic trappings that are very common. That would be very easy, again, to be forgettable and to make them memorable.

You might think that, oh, I've already heard every shoegaze band that I want to hear at this point. And then you hear this record, and you're like, oh, yeah, that's why I like this kind of music. When people execute it really well, it really works. And to me, this record, yeah, it's drum. drawing on 90s alt rock, but it also legitimately sounds like a record that could have come out on Madador Records in 1994 and spun off three or four memorable MTV hits, you know, songs that you would have heard in the buzz bin, songs you would have heard on 120 minutes or alternative nation. They're not just emulating that. I think they actually achieve what they're

aiming at. They're creating something that I think can stand with a lot of that music. So I know, I love this record, big fan of it. Where are you, Ian? Are you still cynical about this band? Have you come around at all? Like, where do you stand on Wishy? Yeah, so you mentioned the, it's my put-it-on record of 2024 so far. And of course, like all things that we talk about, it leads for me back to the first Yuck record.

Yes. Designing our Yuck Award Indycasti. You know, for an album that, like you said, doesn't do. particularly anything like innovative or doesn't we say quick like we're talking about yuck this band that came out early 2010's their self-titled record was 2011 I believe yes and it's a lot of the same uh reference points on that record not super innovative but it's like a really well executed version of that kind of throwback 90s alt rock record yeah so um yeah it's a sort of record where it's like yeah i can't like you you rank it high higher on your year end than you would if you were reviewing it because it's hard to get across

like why it does the things well that it does. It's just like I enjoy listening to this. And so I would say wish he would not win this award for me. I would give that to Freiko, a band that we've talked about here because a big part of what, you know, Yuck's first album did. It was super unfashionable in 2011. Like no cool bands were trying to sound like major label Dinosaur Jr. at that time. And similarly, like, Frico is doing kind of an Ockerville River and Bright Eyes thing. I think that my hesitation with Wishy is that so much of it seems super designed to be like trendy in 2024. I mean, just the album title, Triple Seven. You get the casino sort of theme, kind of similar to Heaven in Las Vegas. They have a song, I think, called Like Like Sunday. And this band sounds exactly like

the Sundays at points. And it's a song. It just reminds me of like in 2017, you would see like all these Philly bands saying, yeah, you know, we're bringing back the sound of Cheryl Crow and Tom Petty. I think that really needs to have its place in indie rock and it's like there's a billion other bands doing it. I do think that this band does what a lot of other bands are doing and better. But the thing about it is that the songwriting actually hasn't really stuck with me all that much. It just reminds me of like, like when I,

think I'm thinking of a wishy song. I'm thinking about another song from a different band. And I have yet to kind of grasp the emotionality of the record and the way I did with Yuck and the way I did with Fricco. It's funny because like one of the albums that this reminds me of the most is the second Yuck album. Behold and Glow, I reviewed that album. And it took things in more of like a shoegazey alt rock sound.

and they also let the female basses sing a lot more. So I'm very curious to see what happens with their second album, like once Shoegays' moment inevitably passes. Right now, it sounds good. I don't, to me, it's like a seven and a half type record for me. See, I don't think that the Shoegays connection really matters with this band because there's a lot of Shugay's acts now that really lean hard on the stereotypical sonic signifiers of Shugays, which is very sort of blown out guitars, very ethereal.

Sorry to use the word ethereal, but it works here. Vocals, like whispery type vocals. And there's not a lot of muscle in a lot of these bands. I really think that wishy to me sounds more like a 90s band. It is more about like just punchy guitar riffs and like really clear melodies. and vocals that are up front and are memorable. Like Kevin Crowder and the female singer in the band, whose first name is Nina.

I cannot remember the last name. My apologies to her. But the interplay that they have is vocalists really draws you in, I think, on this record. And, I mean, look, agree to disagree on the songwriting, but I feel like I've heard so many bands like this, and I usually don't remember the songs. The songs on this record really jump. about to me.

This feels like a band that if you played them for just like a normie music fan, that they would love this band. And I've heard that anecdotally from people that, you know, people that don't read music websites, if you play them this band, they're going to like this band. I think there's something very immediate about what they're doing. And your point about like, yuck drawing on this kind of music when it wasn't fashionable, I mean, I take that point, but I do think that you are projecting a little bit onto this band. I don't think, I don't get the sense from them that they're like, oh, we're bringing

shoegays back, or we're bringing 90s alt rock back. I don't get that feeling from this band. Because, again, I mean, they would have to be delusional not to recognize all the other bands that are doing this right now. I don't think anyone would claim to be an innovator working in this space in 2024. I just feel like, again, it comes back to the songs. I just think that they execute it really well. There are, I mean, there's at least like four or five, like, standout songs here

that you could put on any playlist and people would love. And even if there is a sort of, I mean, are you implying like an industry plant type vibe here? Is that, because you were kind of saying that you kind of felt like it was prefabricated in a way? like, oh, they're kind of pandering to people that would want this kind of band? I don't think it's like industry plant. Like, I don't think there are imaginations behind it. But I do think that a lot of what's happening here just feels, it has that feeling of being, I don't know, just a little too on the nose as far as like what a 20-24 up-and-coming rock band should be.

And, you know, maybe that's the shit they like. I mean, all the bands that I had mentioned before, like legitimately like Tom Petty and Cheryl Crow. It's I just, and also I just read the pitchfork review today where it talks about like how they sound like Midwest emo and Jimmy Eat World. Don't hear that at all. Wish it was true. I just can't like grasp it just yet. Maybe it'll come to pass as I try to listen to it more. But I am, what's the word that you're looking?

Like not buy, not sell. I'm like holding on wishy. I really do want to see what happens when they start to. draw out like what happens on album two not that that not that i need that to like justify album one because a lot of bands who's make yuck type albums the first one make shitty or no second album uh um i'm a little disappointed with how i haven't quite come around to an album which should be like really designed for me you know yeah i don't know i i'm looking at the pitchfork review right now they gave it a 7.3 which is actually what i would yeah

And that's too low. I really think this band could potentially be like an always where people, oh yeah, it's good. It sounds good. Like, I enjoyed this album. And then in 10 years, you're like, oh, yeah, like people are still listening to these songs because they're just really good. I really think that this is the kind of band that people underrate

because there's not a lot of novelty to it. And that's what critics, above all, seem to worship the most. Like, oh, is this new? Is this something I haven't heard before? And look, I'm not denigrating that. There's a lot of value to that. But I also love songs. You know, I hear a lot of bands that have, like, a unique sound.

And, or they got, like, a crazy lead singer. You've never seen anything like this before. And it's pretty exciting. But then you listen to that band in six months? You know, maybe, maybe not. You know, you're not really, once the novelty wears off, like, what else is there? I think Wishy, they have the songs. And I feel like these songs are going to be listened to over and over again.

again by the people who love this record throughout the year. So we'll see what happens. I think maybe you'll come on board eventually. I don't know. We'll find out. Yeah, I don't think we can say that this is being under, you know, underrated on the most part. Because, like, you know, we're talking about this at the beginning of the show rather than recommendation corner.

So they do have some hype that I don't really recall always getting. So I'm not anti. I'm just, like, feeling a little bit of, like, dissonance between how much I should like this album and how much I actually do. So it feels a little weird, but prove me wrong, Wishy. We'll see what happens. We'll see what happens. Let's get to a band that I love.

I love them more than Wishy. Much more than Wishy, I have to say. One of my favorite bands of all time. I'm talking about Wien. And Wien is coming up in this episode. Well, one, I wrote about them this week. I wrote a long column about Wien writing about my favorite songs by this band.

I had a great time doing it. And it was really inspired because earlier this month, there was a 30th anniversary edition of Ween's 1994 album, Chocolate and Cheese, released. A ton of demos, essentially like a new album from Ween composed of like unreleased songs that they recorded doing the Chocolate and Cheese era. Chocolate and Cheese for My Money, one of the great albums of the 90s.

Just a fantastic record. And I feel like that's the record that probably most people who are more casual fans of the band know. It would either be that or The Mollusk, which came out a few years later. And two very different records, Chocolate and Cheese is like this new genre on every song type record. Just an incredibly wide breadth of sounds on Chocolate and Cheese. Whereas the Mollusk is this concept record about aquatic life. among other things. It inspired SpongeBob Squarepants,

the creation of that show. It really feels like sort of an English 70s Prague rock type record with some fokey elements to it. Beautiful album. Ween, again, I think just a fascinating band how they shake out in their career. I don't know if we've ever talked about Ween, you and I.

I'm curious where you fall. I'm going to yay or nay. guess you on wean there's no question i'm a a very emphatic yay but where do you fall what's your experience with this band so i i have to respect the fact that they did the 30th anniversary of chocolate and cheese and didn't change the album cover i think we have to mention why like that being a big part of what makes it so iconic in the 90s and i think you would see like in it's a beautiful woman it's a shot of her midrift and you see some what's the word bottom boob.

Yeah, I think it's underboob, I don't know. Underboob, that's it. You see some underboob. Yeah. And she's wearing a belt buckle that has wean on it. Exactly. I kind of cover. Yeah, I think I could be wrong about this, but I think I, there were like movies and,

you know how like in movies in the 90s you would see posters on the wall that were from like bands that were five or six years ago? I think there was like a chocolate and cheese poster in the movie Road Trip. This is a memory better real deep in my mind. mind that's just coming out now but um wean is a band i mean i grew up in suburban philadelphia in the 90s so you know voodoo lady spirit of 76 uh they they had some they had some hits uh back in the day but this is a band that i listened to pretty much constantly between the ages of 20 and 25 um the mollis uh love that record uh that's probably the one i'll listen to the most these days with white pepper being number two

my college friends and I just played the ever-living shit out of 12 golden country grades which explains a lot about the sort of life we were living at that time it's beautiful yeah and I think I only got to see them once on tour it was on the Quebec tour I drove from Athens to Atlanta to see them and by that point like I don't I can't think of a band that I listen to more at a certain time in my life and then like almost stopped cold immediately.

It's not that like I thought they suck. It's like, oh, I was, it's just like it never dawned on me to really listen to a wean album. Nowadays, like I can throw on the mollusk or white pepper if I'm feeling a little nostalgic because there are great songs on there. It's like absolutely frightening how good they are at writing songs in, you know, in kind of contrast with their, you know, more self-destructive tendencies. I had a friend, and I know they like have become kind of jam adjacent or just like, straight up jam. They played two nights in San Diego recently. I was not able to get to either of them,

but a friend of mine went and saw them the second night. He's like, this is one of the worst shows I've ever seen because... What? I know. He was like, all they did is like they would do one verse of a song and then just play like a 10, 20 minute guitar solo, whereas I think the first night of that tour or the first night of like the time. Who's that, who's this friend?

Who's that liking the Dean Wing guitar solos? I don't know. Because I've met one of your friends. Yeah, I don't think he's a wean tankie. I think if he went to, like, the show where they played, like, more of the songs, he'd be into it. But he's not a jam that guy. They don't jam that much live. He's exaggerating.

There was probably a song or two that they jammed out. But they, they aren't fish. They don't, like, play, like, super long jams on every song. So I'm going to dispute his account there. I have met your friend that's a fish fan. He loves me. He loves him. It's not the same friend. So he's, yeah, he's into the brown sound. He's on board. But, yeah, I mean, I've seen Ween many times. I started seeing them in the aughts. And I write about this in my column that ween in like the early to mid-a-auts is the most evil environment I've been at at a concert.

Every show kind of felt like Altamont a little bit in the crowd. It wasn't like a jam-band audience where people, people are dancing, having fun. Maybe there's like a beach ball being thrown around. This is people getting serious about intoxication with various substances and then just going deep into themselves on a dark journey into, you know, the apocalypse now part of their psyche, you know, just the darkest depths. It was dark. I mean, I had a great time, though. The band too was worst for wear at that point. That was the era like where Gene, ween, who thankfully is sober now. I mean, there's been some weird things with Ween. They just canceled some tour dates

out west and hopefully everything is okay with them. And Dean has had some issues lately with depression. Hope he's doing great. I mean, they're both great guys. A lot of ups and downs with them. But yeah, I remember seeing them in the aughts and Gene. You'd see one show and he looked really. skinny and then the next show it's like oh he's like looking like a little too heavy like he would just fluctuate between extremes and it was kind of scary you didn't know what was going to happen

with him and that and the and the audience was scary the band was scary but the music was pretty fantastic so i have good memories of that but it's also dark at the same time but anyway wean a band i love i didn't know about your wean phase that this i feel closer to you right now because of your ween phase because we I had a very intense ween phase at around that same time and I still love the band I still listen to them but I had I was very intense with ween in the early to mid-20s

of my life for sure yeah I had this boss at this job I was working in college and he gave me this burn copy of 12 golden country grades that had the Muhammad Ali speech at the end of powder blue which apparently isn't on subsequent pressing so I wish I kept that. Shout to Music Today.com in Croze, Virginia. It's the house that Dave Matthews built.

Wow. Damn. Yes. That's impressive. I'm impressed. All right, let's get to our mailbag segment. Thank you all for writing in. It's always great to hear from our listeners.

You can hit us up at Indycast Mailbag at gmail.com. Ian, you want to read our email this week? Yeah. So, hi, Steve and Ian, first time, long time. This comes us from Tom from Lancaster, Pennsylvania, underrated Indy Town, by the way, that's Tom's words not ours, but I agree. For some reason, I was reminiscing recently about the time I went to see Deer Hunter play at a large swimming pool in South Jersey.

Unfortunately, a series of thunderstorms went through, and after several hours of keeping everybody waiting, they eventually canceled the show. Bradford Cox came out and told some poorly received jokes that nobody was in the mood to hear. This was near the peak of their career just before the release of Housian Digest, and I can't for the life of me figure out why they were playing at a pool in New Jersey instead of an actual concert venue. In fact, the makeup date was at a large club in Philly. So here's my question.

What's the weirdest place you've ever seen used as a concert venue? Keep up the good work. Tom and Lancaster, Pennsylvania. And he makes a joke about me mispronouncing this name. He says, Ian, please correct Steve's pronunciation of, is that how you said it? I said Lancaster. Lancaster?

I would have maybe said Lancaster? I think that's what he's predicting. That's what I predicted, too. I assume that you were going to be reading this one. Like the actor, Burt Lancaster? Exactly. I would pronounce it that way. Well, that's your regional Pennsylvania thing.

How am I going to know that? I'm not going to feel bad about that one. So I have two pretty good answers to this question, but I'll let you go first. Do you have any good unconventional, like, weird venues you've seen shows in? Yeah, I went, like, oddly enough, during the phase in which I listened to the most wean, that was probably the era in which I would have gone to a weird venue. Problem is I can't remember any of that shit. Like 2000 to 2002, 2010, I probably went to some weird unorthodox venues and was too drunk to remember what happened.

So, but in the time since, you know, I saw Joyce Manor play at a train station. I saw a glass beach at a bowling alley. And that was like one of the last shows that happened before COVID. It was a beautiful time. And but the one that like stands out as just kind of like weird, like just weirdly. appropriate for an unconventional venue like and I realize I'm talking about seeing a festival at Petco Park it is kind of weird to see a festival take place on a baseball field uh because like you could still see the baseball field but when they hadn't figured out the layout in 2019 this was

the first year they did it they had doja cat play on like the smallest side stage and this is like moo era doja cat not like the famous one and they had vein dot FM play and the stage was right in front of a 7-Eleven in like kind of kind of sketchy shitty downtown San Diego and so you would see the you would see vein FM which is you know kind of like a new new metal metal core type band rocking out in front of a shitty 7-11 so that was great for me because like when I listen to veins music I feel like I'm 16 years old loitering outside of a 7-Eleven And I wish I had better answers for this, but I think maybe just being in San Diego and L.A. for most of my life, you have pretty professional venues. I'm sure you've got better answers than me. So I have two answers here. They both took place in high schools. The first one was in my high school in the 90s. Do you remember the rap group Onyx?

I listen to throw your guns like weekly. I fucking love back the fuck up. More rap should sound like that. Their big song was Slam. Yes, that is all on Back the Fuck Up. Back to Fuck Up. So Back to Fuck Up era, Anex, for some reason, booked a show at my high school. And the authorities, or the powers that be anyway at my school found out that they had an album called Back to Fuck Up and maybe shouldn't be playing at high school.

So the show got canceled and it got moved to a venue in Green Bay, Wisconsin. So it didn't actually take place at my high school, but it was going to take place at my high school. So I just want to mention that as like an honorable mention. My first choice is a show that I actually did see. And this took place at my sister's high school in the early 2010s. And it was Lindsay Buckingham played a solo show in the auditorium at my sister's high school in South Milwaukee. And it was just him and a guitar. and it was amazing.

Lindsay Buckingham, amazing performer. He sounded great. He was playing with a drum machine. So he would play Fleetwood Mac songs with a drum machine, and he was just playing awesome guitar, playing solos over it.

But it was at my sister's high school. So that was a little weird. I guess this venue was used sometimes as like an alternate venue for Milwaukee area shows. Like I saw one of my favorite folk singers, Todd Snyder, he played a show in the same auditorium. And it's like a nice auditorium.

It was a relatively brand new school. But still, this is, you know, the guy that wrote Go Your Own Way playing at my sister's high school. It was very weird, but it was an amazing show. So that's my answer to that question. We need an oral history of Onyx's failed show at your high school. Oh, my God. Yeah. Do you imagine, like, at that time, high school kids, like, hearing a slam in their high school?

I can only imagine how that would come across. We'd probably be, like, seeing it on, like, you know, with one of those HBO documentaries about the time that Onyx played in Appleton or Green Bay or wherever it was. I need to hear more. Shout to Sticky Finger. Yeah, shout to Sticky Fingers. Fuck man, I can't remember the other members of Onyx. This is the most embarrassing moment I've ever had on Indycast. We've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner

where we talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? So I was considering talking about the new combat album. I did an interview with them on StereoGum, which you can read now. It's great record. But I wanted to bring attention to something that came out a few weeks ago. It's an album from an artist named Porter Robinson called Smile, and it's got the Smile emoji.

because I only recently gave it some spins and I just want to bring it up because I feel like you're either going to appreciate its gusto or absolutely fucking despise it because Porter Robinson's previous stuff I've listened to him bits and pieces he was kind of doing like M83 for mid-2010s Ultra Festival

but like also for video game kids who don't like to go to those festivals I did a profile for him in 2014 It might have been for Live Nation TV or one of those places I got money from back then and never, you will not find it. I went to an anime convention to see him perform and interview him.

Like I was backstage. I think Anna Montaguchi were there too. So, but a decade later, he's kind of evolved from that. And his previous album, Nurture, a lot of people are fans of it as well. But I would describe this as, there's like a concept about this

extremely naive artist who's putting out their debut album and just being completely naive to the record industry. The music sounds like more of a hyperpop bleep bloop version of the first 1975 album, which also includes the ballads. There are a few ballads here that have kind of those chip tune synths. Apparently a lot of like Porter Robinson's Gen Z fans kind of hate it. I don't have the same attachment, you know, emotionally to his early work. And I just think it's a lot of fun. This is like my version of the Wishy record and that, you know, it's got its flaws, but I feel like I'm going to listen to this a lot. So I am stumping for this record. I have no idea what you would think about it. I'm curious to hear your take when you get a listen. Well, I actually

did check this album out this week before you put this in our outline that you're going to talk about it this week. I saw other people tweeting about it and it made me curious. It might take away from it and this is after one listen, that it was giving me shitty pop at a chain restaurant type vibes. You know, like when you're an Applebee's or something, and they're playing like some song that you've never heard that you look it up and it has a half a billion streams on Spotify.

You're like, wow, I guess this is popular. A lot of these songs reminded me of that. And I'll say that I do have some warm feelings about that kind of music. especially in the summertime. You know, this weekend I'm going to Wisconsin Dells with my family. I'm sure we're going to be going to some restaurants. I'm sure I'll hear songs like the songs on this Porter-Robinson album. And I'll feel good about it because I'm eating a cheeseburger,

eating some French fries. It's good summertime junk food type music. So that was my takeaway from like the first listen to it. Maybe I'll go in deeper. Don't love the emoji in the title. I feel like he's trolling me with that, but I'm not going to read too much. into that. I am going to recommend an album by a band from Georgia called Future Birds. The album's

called Easy Company. And if you read my substack, which you can, if you go to evil speakers on subspat, I've been writing there every week lately. I talked about this band recently. In particular, the album that they put out early in their career, I believe was 2010, called Hampton's Lullaby, which is a record I loved at the time, recently revisited it, and I really, enjoyed it, really held up for me. I would describe that record as coming from the My Morning Jacket Wing of the Alt Country Tree. So there's some rootsy elements to what they do, but it's also vibeier, bigger sounding. There's a lot of beautiful like pedal steel guitar woven through the record, but it has more of an epic feel. It's not that back porch thing. It's more like playing

in a big empty field while a thunderstorm goes in the background, like that type of just epic sweep to the music. This new album was produced by Brad Cook, who you'll recognize from the liner notes of so many acclaimed singer-songwriter records lately. Most recently, most notably, I guess, would be the most recent Waxahatchie record. He worked on that one, as well as St. Cloud, back in 2020. Waxi actually actually appears on one of the tracks on this Future Bird song. on this Future Birds album. And I would say that generally, this does feel more Americana-like maybe

than their early work. It is more, I think, more of a straightforward kind of Southern rock type record. Still really good. Very solid band. There's three different songwriters, three different singers. They're very easy to cheer for.

So I'm glad that they're still out there doing it, making records, playing big shows. So check this band out if you haven't already. They're called Future Birds. That's all one. word in the band. I'm sorry, the album is called Easy Company. That about does it for 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 Mixedape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.