Indiecast - The End Of Pitchfork Fest + The Rise Of Mk.gee

Episode Date: November 15, 2024

This week, the guys recorded Indiecast a few days early, so they apologize in advance for missing any potential indie news. Steven was off to NYC for the film festival premiere of Yacht Rock: A Dockumentary — which he worked on as story producer — ahead of streaming on HBO/Max on November 29 (2:24). After a brief conversation about yacht rock, the guys talk about the exodus on social media to Bluesky and how the new-ish app feels like a Christian rock alternative to X/Twitter (10:09).Then they hash out an unfortunate trend: The end of Pitchfork Fest. They share memories of the festival and discuss how it was like a convention for music writers (17:57). From there, they review the recent Grammy nominations, some truly weird picks for Best New Artist, and some surprisingly good picks for Best Alternative Album (30:40). Finally, they discuss the meteoric rise of the indie-adjacent singer-songwriter Mk.gee and whether it annoys Alex G (43:00).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the Chicago emo band Bottom Bracket and Steven recommends the LA post-punk quartet Bondo (53:52).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 215 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 Uprox'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 talked about the end of the Pitchfork Festival, maybe. We make fun of the Grammys, and we yay or nay, McGee. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. I wonder if he's Team Twitter or Team Blue Sky, Ian Cohen, Ian, Ian, how are you?

I mean, I'm straight up threads, you know. I'm not ready to give up on threads just yet. You know, if I'm going to. Are you on threats? Have you posted some threads? I don't think I have. Isn't it the deal? Again, like this is not me.

This is like me being genuinely curious. Like, if you post on, like, Instagram or, like, or story doesn't automatically post on threads, I don't know how that shit works. I don't know. I have like a little threads count on the left side of my Instagram page. So I think I'm on threads and I'm getting notices on threads, but I've never posted on threads. Yeah, I feel like that's the thing.

It's like, I think I've automatically participated in it, but I've not like exclusively done threads. So I don't know. Like maybe if maybe that's like the one thing I'll like dominate, you know, like there's too much competition on X, the Everything app. And, you know, Blue Sky is now becoming, like, a second home for people who, a temporary, it's like a vacation home or whatever. Like, you're going to end up.

I know maybe, like, two people who I used to follow on Twitter who have, like, legitimately set up shop on Blue Sky and they're both political guys, you know? Yeah, yeah. Well, we're going to talk about, we're going to do a social media cast here in a minute. but I feel like we should point out that we are recording a few days early. And we're recording at night. This is like the first night. Well, it's nighttime for me.

It's late afternoon for you. Yeah, the sun is down. It's like dropped like 20 degrees. It's night time. This is like indie cast after dark. This is the first indie cast after dark ever. And we're recording early because I'm going to be out of town this week. I'm going to New York.

Because a movie that I was involved in helping to make is having a premiere at the Doc NYC Film Festival in New York. It's called Yacht Rock, a documentary, Doc spelled D-O-C-U-Mentery, of course. And it's a movie about Yacht Rock, and it involves a lot of the luminaries of Yacht Rock. you have Michael McDonald in this film, Christopher Cross, three members of Toto. You have Kenny Loggins. A bunch of other people. You've got Questlove is showing up in the movie because it's a documentary. You've got to have Questlove.

Prince Paul is showing up talking about sampling Steely Dan. There's a lot of other music journalists in the film. I was the story producer of this movie, so that is a fancy way of saying. I was the writer of the movie. For a documentary, you know, obviously you're not writing a script. It means that you are involved in, you know, sort of helping shape the narrative of the film. You're finding people to interview. You're signposting what you feel like are the important story points to hit.

This movie is, it's going to be playing in New York this week. It'll have already played, I guess, by the time this. podcast posts. So if you're in New York, you already missed the screenings. I'm sorry. But it's going to be on HBO, premiering on November 29th, on HBO as well as the Max app on your on your phone and iPad and Apple TV and all that. And if I may be so bold, Ian, I think that this movie could help bring this country together because, you know, we're all going to be hanging out with family on Thanksgiving and, you know, maybe there's going to be some political disagreements, people arguing. I think that like young and old can watch this movie and have a good time.

There's a ton of music in the movie. Basically, every song that we wanted to get is in the movie. That rules. So wall-to-wall music from late 70s, early 80s, as well as like, you know, 80s and 90s hip-hop that has sampled these great songs from the rock era, regulate the de la soul songs. We talk about that in the movie. So hopefully, like, if you're arguing with your parents or your in-laws, you can, like, put this movie on and you can all. agree on it and you can have 90 minutes of just fun and enjoyment. That's my hope for this movie. Ian, my hope is that we can heal all of the wounds of America with this movie.

I think we can do it. Yeah, that's my hope. Because there's a, the The Simpsons episode where Millhouse's parents get divorced, they actually have the Doobie Brothers on that one. Right. We got, who likes the Doobie Brothers? Because we got one of them. So, yeah, I see this healing a similar, well, actually that wasn't successful.

They stayed divorced. But, you know, the effort was there. Marge and Homer got back together. If your parents are divorced, they're not going to get back together if they see this movie. But I'm just saying, you know, if you got some old boomers and you got some young people, I think people could, of various generations, could get together. And if you want to watch something on the day after Thanksgiving, I think this is a good movie to watch. I think it'll be very entertaining.

It's a safe, fun movie to watch with your family. You don't have to argue about politics for like 90 minutes. Just enjoy this movie. Listen to some good tunes. You'll have a good time. Yeah, I'm very excited for it. And, you know, when I post about that, like, of course, people I work with who have, like, no concept of, like, the level of notoriety I have. It's like, when are you going to be on HBO in?

I'm like, I don't know. Maybe they'll make a fucking second wave email. documentary. No. It's going to be the indie rock documentary. It's going to be the pitchfork documentary. I think that's going to happen. And we're going to talk about pitchfork here in a minute.

And I feel like we keep doing RIPs for pitchfork. And I just wonder if it's because Kande Nast can't write a clear-cut press release for pitchfork stuff, but like we'll get into that in a minute. But yeah, I don't know. We're going to get you on HBO, Ian. The co-workers in San Diego, they're going to see you on there. Is that going to be good or bad for you, though? Like, is that going to blow your, because I feel like you have like a Bruce Wayne Batman like existence in San Diego. Because you are like a, you are the indie rock Batman. But for the people in San Diego, you're Bruce Wayne. Like, they don't know this ultimate. or ego that you have.

And I love this duality. Well, that's not true. I mean, you're not going to believe this, but it's back in 20, I didn't think I'd be talking about this, but back in 2011, 2012, 2013 or whatever, my guy, Jeff Weiss, he was managed, he managed to, like, get into this documentary game where he would bring me on and I'd be like a talking head for these, like, documentaries about, like, Justin Bieber and Madonna. it. Like, you'd feed me, like, hey, all these questions. They'd ask me so I'd be an expert on it. And they'd air on, like, stars. And, like, I swear to, it's like, I saw you on TV talking about Eminem or Adel. Like, what the fuck are you talking about? And it would be, like, those things. Like, they exist. I did them. He would say, like, Ian Cash your check as soon as possible, because this is, this company seems shady as shit. So I love it. Yeah, people have seen that, which is, just astonishing to me.

But yeah, one of these days I'll get on, one of these days I'll get on HBO. It's pretty cool being a talking head. I feel like every music critic, you want to be a talking head. I do. Documentary. You want to be pontificating about something. And, you know, people who say they don't want to do that, like, come on, you do. You want to pontificate.

And you've got the sort of sound bites worked out. you know in the shower you've worked it out you're just waiting for your moment put me in the put me in coach i'm ready to play we're all waiting for that moment and yeah it's going to be the indie rock there's going to be like the you know last dance of indie rock that's we got to have like a last dance indie rock documentary and maybe we have to make it we maybe it's the black pumas performance at pitchfork festival 2024 because i mean I guess that's, you know, I guess that was the last dance. You know, you got to go out on top.

Yeah. Well, okay, we're going to hold up on that for a second. Like, we have Pitchfork Festival discourse that we're excited to get to. But I do want to talk a little bit. And I think we both want to talk about this, about the social media platforms battling it out right now post-Trump election. because, and I don't know if, like, anyone has, like, written the think piece about this yet. I think it's yet to be written, but it definitely seems to be a thing, like, where after the election, people are fleeing from X, formerly known as Twitter.

Like, I guess, like, Swifties are fleeing. I was not aware of that, but also people have pointed out, like, you know, for something like 42% of like women voted for Trump. So there's probably quite a few split tickets with the Trumpers. I'll just say like for me, I've lost like 1500 followers. I've lost like 300 or like several thousand almost. I'm like bleeding like crazy.

I'm like bleeding like El Pacino at the end of Scarface. I feel like they're probably bots though. Like bots that were like self-destructing after the election. Like I definitely, I lost like a couple of. So I think people are fleeing X, formerly known as Twitter. And I don't know where they're going. They might just be quitting social media and good for you.

You're going to like Alcoholics Anonymous equivalent for social media. But a bunch of people are going to other platforms. And I was already on Blue Sky, but I've like doubled down on Blue Sky. I've been doing the double posting thing this week. like, I feel like I'm a bigamist here. Like I have two wives, you know, because like I'm posting on Twitter. I'm posting on Blue Sky. Just doing the same post, both places.

And I'm gaining followers on Blue Sky, just bleeding followers on Twitter. But like still, I don't have that many relative to Twitter on Blue Sky. We don't have spent too much time on this because I was what, like, you know, we talk about social media stuff so much on the show. I don't know if like most of our listeners care about this. It really feels very inside baseball, even more than like us talking about

music writing stuff, which we're going to be doing more so in a minute here, like when we get to the pitchfork festival conversation. But have you spent a lot of time on Blue Sky? My first big hit I don't

call it a tweet. I don't know what they call it on blue sky post i think post maybe i don't know man it was like it was like making fun of blue sky i said that it i said that it feels like a little christian rock on blue sky because people are so sort of like we want this to be the anti-twitter we're so positive over here it's so pure and it just feels like okay twitter is like the satanic rock and roll and Blue Sky is the Christian rock and roll. Like, that's what it feels like to me at this moment of time. And there's a lot that I appreciate about the positivity on this other social media platform.

But there's a part of me that's like still align with Satan a little bit, even though like I know how bad it is. It's like the, I don't know. Because you go on Blue Sky and it's all like half the posts I see on Blue Sky are like, oh, It's so great here. It's so positive. I love it here. And it's like, okay, great. I like the positivity.

I don't want to be, you know, a negative creep here. But like, there has to be a avenue for at least like a little bit of critical thinking here, I think. And I don't know. It's a little weird. I think I'm blue sky. It's a weird vibe. Yeah. A man cannot serve two masters.

And, you know, for me, I like anybody. I mean, I think this just draws such a stark difference between 2016 and 2024. Because like in 2016, people were like March and protest and they were like giving money to like, you know, causes and subscribing to all sorts of like, you know, print news. And now it's just like, yeah, my solution to, you know, I really need to reassess my relationship with social media. And I think going to a different form. And, you know, once I realize, like, wait a minute. A positive tweet. We're going to do a positive tweet here.

Yeah, but the only thing I'd want to do on a different social media app, you know, compared to Twitter is like, oh, you know, what if I'm like, yeah, man, like, Red House Painters, they were really fucking cooking on San Geronimo. Like, I could do that on Twitter now. There's just been such a slack. I think people have, like, kind of given up on Twitter. So, like, you know, if, like, I was like, it's fall. Like, I'm prone to listen to Ryan Adams. now. I don't say like, oh man, like Amy, that's still a fucking banger. I could do that on Twitter now. And, you know, for me, the first thing I saw when I went to

Blue Sky was this like music writer I muted on Twitter, retweeting a politics guy. I muted on Twitter. The vibe, it's a little Christian rock, but I think what it more felt like to me was those really well-meaning and just extremely eerie quarantine. live stream concerts that they would do in 2020 where you would watch, you know, a band and they would be like playing as if it were a show, but there was no audience. And for me, like, I'm on Twitter for the engagement, you know, if I really want like the good community, like I have group DMs or, you know, better yet, I can just mute the people who annoy me. I think that like people who, yes, like morally, like you won't want to support like Elon Musk or whatever. But like if Twitter

annoys you that much you're using it wrong. Like the mute button is your friend. Like I follow 419. It looks like people. I think it was more, but people dropped off. And it's like if you annoy me, I just mute you, man. Like, I'm not missing much. Just be judicious with it. Like, by the time it's all said, done, I'm just going to be following people who post exclusively about college football and patio music, which means what I'm really after is Block Spot in 2005. Yeah, I mean, my main thing is that I need a social media platform to promote myself. Because I have things to hawk to people. And I am worried about Twitter just going into a hole.

Because, again, I'm bleeding followers here, very, like, just a ton. So, like, I'm worried about that. But I'm with you. I mean, I just feel like the blue sky vibe. It's not totally what I want, but I think I'm going to have two wives here. I'm going to have like the Christian wife and I'm going to have the satanic wife. I'm going to have two wives of either side of the sort of moral spectrum here. And it's going to be that way for a while.

Blue sky in the streets, X in the sheets or whatever the way they describe it, you know. And third, no, it's like fuck marry kill except with like, you know, like X blue sky and threads. Exactly. But like Twitter will kill me and Blue Sky. I don't know if it's going to want to marry me or not. Let's talk about the Pitchfork Festival. There was announcement this week that it will be not happening in Chicago in 2025. I'm looking at the tweet that went out from the Pitchfork Music Festival. account here. And it says to our Chicago festival community. As the music festival landscape continues to evolve rapidly, we have made the difficult decision to not host Pitchfork Music Festival in Chicago in 2025, and then it has a bunch of other stuff after that.

Pitchfork will continue to produce events in 2025, NBM. we look forward to continuing to create spaces where music, culture, and community intersect in uplifting ways and we hope to see you there and also to have bodies in our spaces. Damn it, I was hoping to get that loud.

We got the spaces, but not the bodies. So they announced this saying, okay, so Pitchwork Festival not happening this year in Chicago, but leaving the door open that it might happen somewhere else. And look, I alluded to this earlier. You know, this is coming from Condé Nass, you know,

that the owner of Pitchfork, not to be critical of the PR comms department at Conday Nass, but like, I feel like they are not very good at offering clarity to people when they issue statements like this because we had this thing, I guess, what, in January, of this year where they laid off a bunch of people from Pitchfork. And they announced it in such a way that it made people feel that pitchfork was going away.

Yes. And there was a bunch of postmortems about Pitchfork. There were oral histories. There were various blog posts. And I think there's probably still people now that think that Pitchfork is done. There absolutely are. I've talked to them. And Pitchfork has continued to publish.

They're thriving. Well, I don't know if they're thriving. But they're surviving. They're continuing on. So now we have this statement. And the reaction to this statement was basically mourning the end of Pitchfork Festival. And it's like, are they actually done? I mean, are they going to do a festival?

I mean, they have like, festivals in Paris in London. I think they had one in Mexico City too. Are they just going to do something in like New York or Los Angeles? Like is that outside the realm of possibility? I mean, I feel like that would probably, I feel like there's going to probably be a pitchfork fest somewhere in America. Right?

Maybe. I don't, I guess. I don't know. I mean, like, this is like, my point is like, this is a very vague statement. it like why do they do this? Well, maybe because it is so vague. I mean, it's sort of like the, you know, God, I'm like trying to leave election behind me.

But like, you know, why wouldn't you announce this and say, we're not doing it in Chicago, but we are going to do it here in this other place? Because I think the vagueness leaves it open for possibility. You know, like the more vague it is, the more you can surmise that, oh, maybe it's happening in Paris or London. Like, I could,

Look, man. But people are treating this. Like, the reaction was RIP Pitchfork Festival. Yeah. And my point is, is that, like, when they announced the layoffs earlier this year, it was like, oh, this, the site is over. And they announced this. And it's, like, a bunch of RIP pitchfork festival posts. And it's like...

It's RIP in the sense that, like, we're going to miss what it actually was. Like, whenever it becomes, it's not. going to be you know me you and like the other 40 plus year olds hanging hanging out in bip talking about like talking about ranking kurt vial records whatever it becomes is not going to be that i just feel like they are not very good at announcing this stuff because whenever they announce it it it makes it feel like it's done forever right and it's not really done forever and like yeah you can do the follow-up post two months from now saying like, oh yeah, we're in Miami or we're in New York or whatever.

But like you lose a lot of people in that space of time. I don't know. I just feel like they, the vagueness with which they announced this stuff seems very weird to me. And it doesn't seem very sort of proactive or positive for the organization. overall. Well, maybe they're just reorganizing until they can actually book white stripes again, you know.

Well, or black pumas again to go back to your joke. I mean, people are blaming booking the black pumas for killing the pitchfork festival. I mean, what if that is like the last headliner of the pitchfork festival?

Black pumas. Like, that's the end. Yeah. Or I think it was, who played Sunday night? Was that the Alanus night? Which, by the way, Pitchfork Fest got Alanus Morris said, apparently Kamala Harris couldn't afford her. So say what you will, but the check cleared for the festival.

Yeah, I, you know, I don't want to blame this on like, oh, this is like GQ's doing or maybe it is. But like, every time I've gone to Pitchfork Festival since, I mean, I went every year from 2008 to 2014 and, you know, I would go every couple of times. couple years after that, like I went in 2023 and 2021. Every time I had gone since like, say, 2018, I'm like, this could be the last one. Because whether it was like, even at its peak, I know it wasn't like a moneymaker.

It was just something they put on because it was cool and it didn't lose money. But it's like, man, are we running out of headliners or, you know, how many times can we like have the national or like, you know, 1975 play or whoever else it is? But every year I went, it was like doing pretty well. Like people were there. People were enjoying it. It was one of the very few festivals left to have like a really distinct, you know, character to it. And even last year, the headliners, you know, weren't great shakes.

But the undercard lineup, like, that was really good. Yeah, I mean, I think that for people like you and me, it's impossible to talk about this festival. without really focusing on how they really catered to music writers. Oh, absolutely. At this festival. Like, there was no music festival that gave music writers, you know, just, and just like random music writers, like, writing for, like, you know, whatever music website. Yeah.

The places that always depress your score on our fantasy draft. Exactly. rolling out the red carpet for like any rando music writer, no festival did that more than pitchfork. It really was the closest thing to a convention for, you know, national music writers to come together and hang out. And I was thinking about this because to bring up my friend Derek, the, a shadow character on this show, of course,

who I hang out with my friend Derek who works for a radio station big time radio music chain and I go to shows with him and it's always a reality check because I'm always reminded that even in this day and age

where radio feels like it's diminished they get way better treatment than like any kind of music writer or music critic ever gets and you look at pitchfork music festival And it's like, you never saw radio people backstage because like none of these acts were getting played on the radio.

So like they didn't have to suck up to those people. Yeah. You know, it was all about just online music writer people. And it's like, oh, this is the one festival where you can get into the VIP section. And yet, yeah, we're going to feed you free beer. And we're going to feed you like free ice cream. And we're going to give you like the sort of side stage view seats. that are like, you know, choice.

And it's only because there's not more important people on the scene that are going to crowd you out. You know, there's no clear channel people coming in. You know, there's no, you know, whatever. There's no live nation vultures coming in that are going to crowd out the writers of consequence of sound or paste or whoever. You know, you can get backstage and you can hang out with people. and it really was like the lalapalooza of like music writers hanging out you could you could you could interact with these people without having to type into a device you know you could actually talk

face to face and realize hey I actually kind of like this person who annoys me on Twitter yeah exactly like 11 months out of the year yeah I get like real I just would recall like nearly every time I would be on like the train going back to O'Hare or like on the flight back to the West Coast, usually L.A. And just like feeling kind of sad. Like, I mean, no matter what I was thinking about with like music or music writing, there was just like a sense of like loss because, you know, I was like hanging out with like people and we were like kicking it and just having a good time and the bands were usually pretty good. I mean, it was like a really well run beloved festival. And yeah, it'll be missed.

I mean, I miss, you know, back in 2010 when I would, like, go up and introduce myself to, like, what I thought was local natives and then it would turn it out to be bare in heaven. Where else can I do that sort of thing, you know, where I'm, like, mingling with, mingling with the artists and the VIP or getting, like, in 2008, they gave out free sparks that year. Yeah. Legendary performance might be that year. But, yeah, it's just, like, it's, regardless of, like, what it becomes in the future, there's just, there's just, just like a sense of loss in the same way that like pitchfork still exist, but there's still for people like you and I, a sense of loss.

And you know, pitchfork festival is the first time you and I met in person, right? That's true. Yeah, that's true. History. Yeah, and, uh, yeah, and just the purest and most pungent form of B.O. Of all time and the pitchfork crowds of, uh, you know, late July in Chicago. Oh, that's rank. The combination of the humidity that time of the year in Chicago

and just the unshowered masses. It's so funny because you talk to people with jam bands and they always think, oh, the crowd stinks so bad. It's like, go to a pitchfork festival, man. That's the stinkiest crowd I've ever been a part of and I say that with a lot of affection. And maybe they'll continue to stink in the future. We'll see.

Who knows? again, I feel like it could end up in like Los Angeles or New York. I mean, I don't know. Because again, like this vague statement from them, it leaves the door open for it to appear somewhere else. Yeah. What I know for sure is when they have like Ken Carson headlining whatever festival they're doing in New York, the B.O. will be just as bad.

Yeah. Giordi Grie. Grip and Ken Carson and Xavier's so based or whatever. Like, look at me. I know some of the, I know some of the rap guys they're into now. Are we really going to talk about the Grammys?

Is this, are we, are we going to do that at Indycast? Is this a thing we're going to do? I feel like this is going to lead to angry reviews in our mentions, but like, we have talked about the Grammys a little bit because the Grammys are drunk.

The Grammys are... Drunk and washed, yeah. What's got to be a name to be both, add those at the same time. Well, they're washed and also like kind of progressive in like weird ways. I mean, it's like a weird thing. So the Grammys were announced last week on Friday,

you know, at the same time that we post. So this is kind of old news by the time that we're going to be talking about this. but we want to talk about some of the nominees here. I mean, what we usually talk about is the best new artist because that is, I mean, I think that they're just like kind of up in the arms race here. It's like when Jay-Z and Kanye toured Watch the Throne, they would do ends in Paris like 11 straight times.

And I feel like the Grammys are just like kind of seizing upon like everyone making fun of best new artists. and they're just like upping the absurdity by like putting Cranbid and like Sabrina Carpenter. Isn't there a six album? Yeah, this is like one of the thing that is always like fun to talk about the Grammys because with the best new artist, how they define that, which is not, well, you know, we could set aside like best if they, if that ever applies at all, which it really doesn't. But like the new part of it is always like a big mysterious.

thing. And yeah, like with Kerrangben, which we've talked about Karengben on the show before. And I feel like you've like disc Karengben. Like, I think Karengben, they're good at what they do. I don't think they're like the most mind-blowing band ever. But like, they clearly have an audience. You know, they've been doing their thing for a long time. I actually think that that they're like quite a good live band. but like they put out their first record nine years ago like a full nine years ago and then they were mainstream enough after that to have a tiny desk concert appearance six years ago so this is like again like pre-pandemic

we're still like in the first Trump era really like where people are digging on crangben but like here we are best New Artist nomination this year, uh, pretty mystifying. Like that was something that jumped up to me as being like a, like a thing that, if you want to clown the Grammys,

you can clown them for that. Yeah, but I also like, look, my, my favorite, uh, best new artist, can we talk about like Teddy swims for a second? Uh, yeah, yes, please. Um, okay.

So if you show me a picture of him in jelly roll, like side to side, I probably wouldn't be able to tell what, who's who so i guess we got like a genre now but um this is a guy and i feel like you you would need to listen to this because he opened for both zach brown band and the 2023 greta van fleet star catcher tour uh his album is titled i tried everything but therapy part one part two is coming in 2025 also your boy benson boone's in there like you've talked about him right i haven't talked about benson boone i i'm like kind of missed

the fight that you call him my boy. I feel like you've talked about Benson Boone. Isn't he like one of those like no like sort of like a Noah Kahan like uh type dudes? I haven't talked about it, but I haven't talked about him. But like yeah, he's definitely like in the Noah Khan zone. And he has that song that's like ubiquitous. Like if you go to any bar with touch tunes, you're going to hear Benson Boone within like a half hour. Yeah.

Yeah. And then there's Shabuzi who's like, this is like old old town road style number one hit. This like been number one for like 17 weeks in a row. He's like the pearl jam, the Lil Nas X's Nirvana or something like that. Like, like, and Ray who's like a British R&B artist who's going to be nominated for like awards for the next 25 years. Jason like Jacob Collier's status. The Grammy, like it just shows like how little like this stuff he feels like. more avant-garde than everything I see on pitchfork or, like, quietest.

Like, it just gives me the proof that I know absolutely fucking nothing about pop music. Yeah, I mean, the best new artist thing is always a conundrum. How they define that. I'm always, again, I mean, we have to talk about, like, the best rock category. Yes. As well as, like, the best, like, alternative category. That's always something that I'm very confused by in terms of, like, how do they define rock versus alternative? because if you look at the rock category, it's very 90s.

And I have to tread carefully here because a lot of my boys are in the rock category. I have to say, it's very 90s here. I mean, this is almost like if you were just like looking at like books I've written, they would all just be this category because you have the Black Crows. I'm looking at the best rock album. You have The Black Crows. You have Fontaine's DC. who by the way, Fountains D.C. and Idels.

They're the two, like, new rock bands in here. The Grammys fucking love Fontein's D.C. and idols. Yeah, that's a good record. Fontaine's D.C. is a good record, though. Yeah, exactly. But I'm just saying, like, Fonte... But, like, they've been nominated for a while. Yes.

Idols are also been nominated for a while. But you have Black Crows, Fontains, D.C., Green Day. idols, Jack White, Pearl Jam, and the Rolling Stones for Best Rock album. So very, you know, again, like very old man stuff with like some new things sprinkled in. But then you look at like the best alternative music album category. You have Brittany Howard, Clero. You have Kim Gorton, the collective getting like the nomination. that is like, wow, holy shit, Grammys.

Drop it on it. And you have Nick Cave. Of course. And then you have St. Vincent. Which, yeah. But like, you know, that's like a pretty progressive group of nominations. Wait, is that the same Vincent's Spanish album or just like the regular one? That's the regular one.

Okay, got it. All Born and Screaming, yeah. Because the Spanish one just came out. I think I wanted to too late. Got it. Um, but it's like, you know, four women and then Nick Cave in the alternative, you know, category. So it's like the new rock category, I guess, is alternative. I guess. I mean, you know, the metal, the metal one's even better because you always get like one band that's like less than like 40 years old and that's knocked loose this year.

Otherwise it's like, knocked loose. Knocked loose the boys. Um, uh, I have a piece coming up with them. I talked to them the day after that. That was like pretty wild. But yeah, knock, knock fucking loose along like Goheera and like Spirit Box, of course. And, you know, like there's always room for, you know, it's like Code Orange was that band a few years ago. And like in 2000, that was like deaf tone.

So go figure. Yeah, we can be seeing knock loose in this category every four years for the next 30. But otherwise, like, I mean, the more we get into this. like the alternative metal but then we start to see like they started just like making new categories like progressive r&b and melodic rap yeah like the melodic rap category how how recent is that like what even is that like if it sounds like drake i guess like i mean that like i'm not really joking um like because i mean look that we we make fun of rock but like best rap is like just as rockist.

It's always like Jay Cole. I mean, there's a Pete Rock and common album being nominated for the best rap album.

So like, melodic rap, I think just kind of puts a category where they have to reckon with the fact that it's not like, you know,

you know, you know, if Chuck D's putting out like a record or KRS 1, you know what I mean? That just feels like, is it racist

to have like a melodic rap category? It's very weird. because it'd be like, oh, like a melodic rock category? It's a very odd designation to me. Hold on. I'm looking at the Wikipedia for this, and apparently this can't be true. This has been around since 2002.

What? A lot of crap. E featuring Gwen Stefani, let me blow your mind, won it. Nellie featuring Kelly Rowland Dilemma. Beyonce featuring Jayze Crazy and Lop, not a rap song. Jayzee and Lincoln Park, numb slash encore.

Jayzee's won this a lot. So is it just like a rap song with like an R&B type hook? I guess. This is America won it in 2019, of course. Kanye West featuring The Weekend and Little Baby, Hurricane. That was bizarre.

Like, Jay Z has won this award. five or six times incredible wow the more you know shit yeah i was not aware of like the melodic rap category that just seems like the craziest category or progressive r and b like i mean are we talking about like on earthwind and fire like uh i mean challenge campbino is of course nominated for progressive r and b but like that's another thing where it's like well are you saying like the R&B being nominated isn't progressive? Oh my God, we're back on the fucking bad. The most 2017 shit ever when Dave Longstreath and like Robin Pecknold were talking in 2017

about like how Indy Rock isn't progressive anymore. And like people just like completely got on their ass. Oh my God. Like I guess we're having that discussion. It really is. We're doomed to repeat 2016. in 2017 forever. Well, yeah.

I just feel like the deeper you dig into the Grammy categories, the crazier it gets. Because, you know, look, the Grammys are obviously stupid. But like, if you dig deep into the categories, it just becomes so bizarre and strange that you can't help but be fascinated by it. So, like, yeah, just these categories, I love digging into it.

So I'll be excited to see who wins the melodic rap category. A lot of metal. Yeah. I will say, though, because I know our fans are interested, I did the deep digging. And yes, Beck is nominated for a Grammy this year. He's got a credit on a Black He song. Shout out to them for playing that crypto event that got Sherrod Brown out of his seat. So, you know, your work is done here.

Well, and again, like the Black Keys didn't get an album nomination, so that album must be truly terrible. They got a song nomination, though. Yeah, well. Yeah, can't totally skunk the Black Keys, can you, Grammys? Let's go to our conversation here about McGee, yeah or nay. We're talking about McGee because he had a moment, I guess, last weekend he was on Saturday Night Live, which I guess that is still considered to be a crowning achievement for an artist. Like if you get on that show, it feels like, okay, you've arrived.

I mean, Chaparone was on like the week before him. Charlie X, X, X is on in a few weeks. Yeah. It's crazy because when you look at like this guy and like the closest analog for someone who has bit on SNL recently. It would be like boy genius. You know, like, I mean, this got, could this guy like, could this guy have headlined Pitchfork Festival 2025?

Is like he that big now? Yeah, I mean, I don't know. I mean, is he going to be headlining like Lollapalooza in Chicago? I mean, I guess we'll see. But, yeah, McGee is a singer, songwriter, producer, and multi-instrumentalist, also known as Michael Gordon, or you call Mike Gordon. Same as the bass player from Fish. His record from this year is called Two Star and the Dream Police.

And obviously it's caught fire online. People love this record. It's big enough that he's playing on SNL. And we're going to yay or nay McGee here. And I'll just say like at the top here that I'm yay on McGee. this is a record that I've enjoyed he hits a lot of my aesthetic buttons it's funny I mean I was talking about this

the night that he played on SNL that um because I've been listening to this record for the last like few months and it's really grown on me a lot and I would say like for people that aren't familiar with this artist that if I was going to like do like the compared to other artists

like shorthand, that it's almost like Bunny Bear meets like Alex G. And that's how you get McGee. And it almost rhymes, I guess, when I say that, where similar to the artist that I just mentioned, he's working in a sort of milieu that is like very kind of like drawing on 80s music, sort of the album-oriented rock. of that time. And other people have talked about this, but, you know,

talking about artists like, you know, I guess like Sting or like Billy Joel or Bruce Hornsby, like artists in that realm, even like Brian Adams. And taking that aesthetic, that like soft rock aesthetic of the 80s. And that really kind of like CD rock,

I guess, aesthetic from that. time and exaggerating it and sort of perverting it and distending it where it becomes something digitally sort of different from that time where you can hear those sounds but it's like kind of taken to a different place and in the same way that I think Alex G takes some of those sounds I actually thought like watching him on SNL, like if Alex G was thinking like, oh, that should be me up there. Like, I don't know. I feel like there's like some echoes of Alex G with what he's doing. Like Alex G, of course, just signed an Interscope.

So I think they're priming him for his own SNL moment at some point. But yeah, it's just taking that like kind of 80s M-O-R sound. and just kind of putting it through the internet blender here a little bit and coming out with something, I guess, more modern sounding, but still having that quality to it. And I don't know, I respond to that. Like, I like what he's doing. I like the record a lot.

I don't know how you feel about it at all. I don't know if, like, how I've talked about it, like, resonates with you at all. A little bit. I mean, like, I come to this out with like a similar sort of like alchemy to it. Like I remember I liked a song of his in 2020. Gosh, like right before the pandemic. And also I thought his name was pronounced like MKG, like, you know, 8 ball and MJG. Like the first time I heard someone say it aloud, I'm like, oh, oh, right, McGee.

That makes sense. And, you know, when I first listened to the new record, it struck me more as like kind of long, tail, blonde, current style in the R&B. That was the kind of vibe I was getting from it. Yeah, the Frank Ocean thing I should have mentioned. That's a big part of this record as well. Yeah, I'm like, is he the Mac DeMarco of Tame and Paula's or the Boni Vara of Glass Animals?

Like, I mean, like, I remember listening. I'm like, yeah, okay, like I can just put this aside. Probably not my thing, but it's pleasant enough. But like, I remember the person who wrote the pitchwork review. someone I follow on Twitter he was like this is like the best album I've heard in like the past three years

and it got like a 7.8 and I'm like yeah man I can relate to you is he emo now but like it was so like I'm just been fascinated because like after that album got released it all of a sudden it was like yeah this album's extremely popular and I can't figure out like you know I trust it

but it was sort of like how Chapel Rhone like for a while it was just like the album was out and then all of a sudden you wake up and it's people just like decided it's huge not that they decided like in a you know like an industry plant sort of way but it's just like yeah this album got like enormous and i can't pinpoint like a song or a performance or just it just leveled up like imperceptibly and um you know i've tried like i really want to make a concerted effort to listen to it and like try to find you know what i like about it um you know and i've given it a few cursory listens it and it didn't really stick with me. Like I didn't really, you know, catch the hooks or anything like that. But, yeah, I think that this is, the sort of artist that is going to be, I'm trying to think of how to say this politically or diplomatically or whatever. It's like, this is going to be the one indie band that like my co-workers say they're into. Or, you know, I would say it's going to be like,

yeah, you know, I'm into indie rock, like McGee. You know, instead of, say, like, glass animals or wallows or whatever else in there. I mean, you know, I'm not like, I'm not, like, kind of yeah on it just because it hasn't, like, hit me. But I'm not, like, against it. I'm just, like, kind of happy that, like, an indie artist of this, of this nature can, like, still get kind of S&L huge in this day and age. Yeah, I mean, I think there's something about him, like, where he is. able to tow the line between appealing to like an indie audience but also having that uh frank ocean dare i say even like ed sheehan quality to his songs like where they're pretty catchy

and they're pretty like easy to and easy to like on a very surface level while also having that kind of murky lo-fi thing going on and And again, I just feel like, like when I was watching him on SNL, I kept thinking about Alex G. Because I think there is like a similar thing. I mean, I think Alex G is like a deeper artist than McGee. But I think when Alex G puts out his next record, he's going to be slotted below McGee on streaming platforms. Yes. If you like McGee, you're also going to like Alex G.

Yeah. Which is a weird thing because I would bet a lot of money that McGee loves Alex Gee. Oh, yeah. And probably listen to his records. And that was probably an influence for him. Like, to him, like, Alex G is probably like Neil Young or something. And he's, you know, I don't know, like, what would be the analogy there? Like, he's like Pearl Jam or something.

And like he's looking at Alex Gee as being like, this precursor to him. But like that sort of low-fi indie rock singer-songwriter type thing where like, yeah, like McGee's just like totally caught on. I mean, when I saw him on the, on SNL, I actually thought like he had like a good amount of charisma as a performer, even though he's like not doing anything especially sort of performative when he's on stage. but I don't know.

Like, I thought he was, like, pretty engaging as a performer. Like, I really liked him on the show. And I felt like, oh, this guy could actually be pretty commanding on a really big stage. He seems he's got the star power. He's got some juice. Yeah, he's got the juice. Yeah, that's maybe we go from, like, yeah or nay to, like, juice or, like, not juice or whatever. And we just, like, patch in.

on the soundboard like David Schwimmer as uh on uh like saying juice that's what we're gonna do that's our that's our new like uh that's our new like shock jack radio thing that we're gonna do we're gonna for the for the for the more coarse trump 2.0 hour we're gonna get a little more opium anthony with it love it love it but no I would say like I'm yay I'm the record I'm a fan of the album I've been really enjoying it it's gonna do pretty I think it's gonna do pretty well on year end list like uh That's like going to be like the one where it's like, yeah, we kind of underrated that like first or first time around.

Now we're just part of episode that we call Recommendation Corner where Ian and I talk about something we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? So yeah, I mean, if we're going to do the time for, you know, reliving 2016, 2017, might as well do the crime. In other words, listening to classic sounding late revival era emo. And in this case, it is a band from Chicago called Bottom Bracket. with an extremely revival-era emo album title. I'm so afraid of where. If you look at the album cover,

it's got like a bike and like the typeface. It's also on Count Your Lucky Stars. I mean, if that's not enough of a sell for you. Yeah, this is a sound I've been, I was like kind of burnt out on like several years ago, but like I'm open to now where it's got, you know, the gang vocals, the tapping, the production is pretty slick. You know, they're from the Midwest.

and just really melodic and urgent. Because like a lot of emo I've listened to this year, you know, it does the tapping, it does the gang vocals, but they're not really crafted into like actual songs. You can tell like with these guys and Ben Quad and Southtown Lanes who I mentioned before, like, oh, these guys know how to write a hook. This is just real meat and potato stuff, you know, to maybe slot the bottom of your year end list if you're more emo and clod. line. But yeah, bottom bracket, I'm so afraid of where. So I want to go with a band from Los Angeles called Bondo. This is a post-rock band. They just put a record called harmonica. And, you know, this is a record you want to put on because I think we can all agree that

we're a little sick of hearing people talking at this time. You know, we are hearing people trying to rationalize the election. hearing people on social media pontificating here and there. And this is a record where there's not that many vocals really going on. It's mostly instrumentals. And it's a record where I think if there were more vocals, it would probably slot into the emo realm, like maybe more of like a sort of Fugazi sounding emo band,

maybe even like a Sunday day real estate kind of thing going on. But there isn't much vocals. It's just really just like 90s gnarly riffs going on, 90s rock sounding type stuff. It's just a really good record that I've been enjoying this week. It was recorded live to tape. Sounds really warm.

The band obviously has played together a ton over the years. You can hear them living and breathing together. There's like little improvisations going on in the songs here and there. here and there. It's just like a really good record. It just sounds like a lot of sort of like 90s kind of

post rock type stuff, touch and go if you're into that kind of thing. I think you would really like this record. It's really pleasurable to me. I've really enjoyed it this week. Again, it's called harmonica. The band is called Bondo from L.A. Really good band.

I don't know if you heard about this record. I've not, but you've got, you have piqued my interest. I thought, like I've never actually listen to Chavez, but I feel like you were going to say, oh, yeah, of course it sounds like Chavez. That's a band I've, like, heard people talk about and I've never listened to yet. Just throw a Chavez reference into there, too.

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