Indiecast - The Implosion Of Tenacious D + The Return Of Japandroids

Episode Date: July 19, 2024

Steven and Ian begin today's episode by reflecting on what they were doing when you-know-what happened last weekend. Then they get down to what is truly the biggest news of the week: The release of EA College Football 25, which is about to become Ian's obsession (6:00). After Video Game-cast, they pivot to a discussion about Tenacious D and their implosion over Kyle Gass' Trump comments in Australia (12:00). They also yay-or-nay the comedy-rock trio, from the perspective of another comedy-rock trio.From there, they tackle the return of Japandroids, who will release their first album in seven years, Fate And Alcohol, in October. But can they ever top Celebration Rock (20:01)? Steven also fills Ian on some jam band beef this week between Trey Anastasio and Dead & Company (28:08). In the mailbag, they answer a listener question about whether '90s-style "weird for weirdness' sake" music is still being made, with a tangent about the legacy of Tom Waits (40:35).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the British emo band Los Campesinos! while Steven stumps for the rising country artist Zach Top (53:50).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 198 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' indie mixtape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about tenacious D in ploding, Japan droids returning, and jam bands feuding. What an episode. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host.

He thinks EA College Football 25 is a bigger story than Trump getting shot. shot. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you? What we're going to do on this episode is the version of that Simpsons gag where Kent Brockman talks about the Lisa Lionheart doll for an hour-long news cast. And at the end, he's like, oh, then the president was arrested for murder. More on that tomorrow night. Do not turn to another podcast for more information on that. I think the Secret Service shows up if you say that the release of a video game is a bigger story than the president getting shot. I think that qualifies as a threat against the leader of the free world. So we'll be careful here.

There might be a SWAT team busting into San Diego here very shortly. This isn't politics cast. We're not going to have a politics cast here. Don't want to delve too deeply into the biggest news of the week. We're not going to hash out the trend of Trump being targeted by an assassin. that's left to other people. But it was pretty wild. I mean, I feel like we have to acknowledge it, at least.

It'd be weird to not just tip the cap, as it were. Not in a positive way. I'm not saying... Are you the Kyle Gass of this episode now? I'm not. I'm not. I'm not. I just mean an acknowledgement of it because it's pretty wild. Where were you, Ian, when you got the news? So I was at a Padres game and you know it's like 80 degrees fucking beautiful downtown San Diego.

It's like one of the few places where like the ballpark is in a walkable part of the city. And you know, I'm just like absent mindingly looking at Twitter while I'm in like the restroom. And you know, everything on my timeline is just like one word like what, huh? And usually that means something's happening in the Premier League if I'm not understanding what they're talking about. And then I scroll a bit more. And it's like I go back to my seat and tell my wife, hey, I think like Donald Trump was the subject of an assassination attempt. Like, are they going to cancel this game? Like, we were just thinking like what would happen if an ex-president got killed?

Like, would the game be canceled? Would we all have to stay there until they figured out what's next? But at the end, the Padres won. Great game by Dylan ceased. Yeah. I was on my patio, of course, when I got the news. I was listening to the latest Sturgle Simpson record under the name Johnny Blue Skies, as I've done many times in the past week.

Great record. I was also listening to Sobrock by John Mayer. If I could, you know, just to, this was before I got the news. It wasn't like I put that on in response to the news. I was, I think, listening to Sobrock. which pairs very well, by the way, with the Sturgle Simpson record. If you're looking for an accompaniment to that album, sob rock by John Mayer pairs very well with it.

But I looked at my phone, and I saw something about shots fired at a Trump rally. And I was in such a good mood that it didn't really register. I was like, oh, okay, whatever. This is a crazy election cycle. I'm sure, you know, no one was harmed or anything. And then, of course, look a little bit closer, and I discover just this, like, tragic circumstance. Someone lost their life. There's people wounded.

Trump caught one in the ear. A very distressing story. Also, Joe Biden has COVID, apparently. That news. So fucking Joe Vermin. Yeah. Again, this isn't politics cast. We can't spec.

He might be out of the election, though, by the time this post. Who knows? Who knows with this? Or he may have doubled down. He might have given another interview where he displays his tip-top physical and mental acuity. I'm sure he'll be doing that. Trump beat COVID too. And I remember that because Trump getting COVID was one of the best days on Twitter in the entire history of the site.

Yeah. I'm sure Joe Biden will be fine. I'm sure he'll be fine. But to get to the biggest news of the week, I know this is a big deal for you, Ian. EA college sports, 25. You've been talking about this in the DMs all week. You're very excited about it. I'm happy for you.

I'm not a video game guy, really. I haven't played video games on a regular basis in probably like 25 years. But this game actually sounds awesome. I always liked the sports games. Like, I love Madden. And I love before that. like TechMobile, Super TechMobile, NBA Jam, RBI baseball for the real old people out there. I love that game.

This game looks amazing. I've seen clips of it online, people playing it. The graphics just look incredible. Am I right that you have the game in your possession, but you haven't played it yet? All right, so to clarify here, like, first off, you've been on like the Paul Finebaum show multiple times and are listening to a Sturgle Simpson album. So seemingly you would be the target audience for this game. Right.

But yeah, I have a, I just last night unopened or I unboxed the PS5 that I bought. The game doesn't come out until Friday for people who don't want to spend the extra 30 bucks for the deluxe version. So what I have right now, and I'm looking to my left, which is where it's at, I have what is essentially a $450 NCA college football 25? machine and the game is pre-downloaded because it's discless and so I am waiting till Friday to play it. It's it's it's it's really unfathomable. This is like jam band fan dedication you know and you buy like all 12 vinyl variants of something like that. I don't think

this is going to undermine the podcast. As a matter of fact I think it might enhance it because back when this game was being made, this is how I would go through my promo pile. I would sit. I'd play the game for like an hour or something and just kind of run through all the things I've been meant to listening to. And since I haven't had that opportunity in the past 11 years, maybe I'm going to get back on my like 2013 shit and review like three albums every week because I'm actually listening to them now. So like the college football video game mode of music criticism. Like this is an, underrated tool for one of the leading music critics working today, playing EA college football. Is that what you're saying?

Yeah, absolutely. You know, what cocaine was to White Pony, NCAA football was to me. So, again, I don't know much about the game. So, excuse me if this is an ignorant question, but are there, like, player names in the game? Yes. Oh, wow. Okay. Yeah, so that was why it wasn't around for 11 years, because they,

There was a court case that said if you're going to put, you know, if it's going to be like QB7 instead of Caleb Williams or whatever, you got to pay Caleb Williams regardless. And what eventually they did is they signed pretty much every player in college football. It was like, here, here's $600. And all the players were like, fuck yeah. Like, I want this game. You will see a lot of college football players streaming the game.

playing it live. It's really fat. It's really unbelievable. I mean, this was like the most dudes rock week imaginable and nothing can topple the presence of a new game. The 40 year old men in your life are just eating

eating big time. So, but yeah, so you just have to recognize with everything else happening this week, what we're going to talk about nothing, like nothing compares to the existence of this game. So next week, you need to come back and give you a review of this game, I think.

I think people want to know what you have to say. If you even get on the show, you might just be playing the game 24-7 for the next week. You've never seen this part of me. Nora has my wife. I mean, I kept a PS3 for the sole purpose of playing NCAA 14, which is the last one. But, yeah, video game cast, like, I'm kind of surprised we never touched on this. for something as like 40-something dude coded as IndyCast. That's been kind of a blind spot for us,

but no, those days are over. And also, I'm sports games only. And the sports games, I haven't really played them because they're too fucking hard. That's the thing, is that when I try to play modern video games, and man, I sound super old when I said modern video games, but they're too difficult. Like, you could play TechMobile,

and you're playing it on that little square, you know, controller, and you go up down, and you press A or B, and that's about it. And I feel like there's now like multiple, you know, things on the joystick or whatever. And there's so many different, like, stats going on. There's so many different, like, aren't you actually calling plays, like real plays in these games?

Yeah, I think the real tipping point for me was back, even back as far as, like, 2006 or whatever, when I lived in this apartment complex that had a Madden tournament and the winner got, like, a month's free rent. And I remember just getting the shit. beat out of me by like a 12 year old kid. I'm like, dude, do you even live here? Or he's just like going from like Athens, Georgia apartment complex though, apartment complex trying to cop like what rent must have been like $300 at that point. So at that, yeah, it's like if you're like a digital native,

uh, you're going to be this, you're going to like kill someone our age. I don't go online, but like I do not play online. I'm just me, myself and I play like creating myself as like a five, six running back for Virginia, you know, kind of a Darren Sprouls type character. Yeah, this is why I understand what people watch video games now, they'll watch YouTube videos of people playing video games, because I think I would be like that. I would be the guy in the apartment who's just hogging the Doritos in Mountain Dew and just watching other people play,

because I don't want to have the pressure to know how these modern video games work, as I say as an old man. Yeah, modern video games. sounds like a recommendation corner from me. That sounds like a British post-punk band. Yeah, it's like British post-punk band or like Philadelphia emo band. It's like the Alabama versus England thing that ED every day should be Saturday does. Well, we've touched on this a little bit.

Going back to the Trump assassination attempt, the big fallout from that in the musical world involved the comedy rock duo Tenacious D. Can I just say that we are on this show also a comedy rock duo, I would say, at Indycast. So, you know, we have to pay respect to Tenacious D. If you didn't hear the news, Tenacious D, they were in Australia at the time of the shooting, and they were on stage, and Kyle Gass, who's the less famous part of Chenatius D. apparently it was a 64th birthday and they brought out a cake or something like that and they asked Kyle make a wish and what did he say exactly what I believe I have the quote here he said don't miss

this time alluding to Trump there was some fallout in Australia I think like the prime minister or someone like that wanted to have tenacious D deported out of Australia which which would have meant they were deported back to America, and I feel like that's where that statement would be more controversial. But at any rate, Jack Black put out a statement on Instagram the following day, essentially canceling the tour and putting the band on ice. He said that they had future creative plans, I guess, and he said that they're on pause for now. And Kyle Gass, I guess, was dropped by his agent. Yeah. So there's all this whirlwind going on. And look, I mean, I think it's in bad taste to joke about anyone getting shot on stage.

This does feel like a little bit of an overreaction. I feel like there would have been people who were upset about it for about 24 to 48 hours. But the new cycle moves so quick now, I feel like we have bigger fish to fry than tenacious D at this point. I feel like people would have forgotten about it. But this statement by Jack Black, it just gave the story. a whole other life, and at least based on what I've seen, Jack Black, getting a ton of blowback for this, it feels like he threw Kyle Gas under the bus here. This is your friend, your bandmate. Did you really have to... I mean, look, if you want to cancel the tour, that's fine.

The pausing future endeavors thing feels very ominous to me. It feels like they're breaking up. I don't know if that's what it means. Maybe they're just going on hiatus or something. So I don't know if you have a take on this. I mean, I know people are talking about the Dixie Chicks with this. You know, like when they went and did when Natalie Mains during the Iraq War, took a shot at George W. Bush when the Dixie Chicks were in London and there were similar complaints about making a criticism on foreign soil.

Like on foreign soil. You can't do that on the foreign soils of Australia. The difference is that the Dixie Chicks were like one of the biggest bands in the world when that happened. Tenacious D in 2024 is Tenacious D in 2024. I mean, you know, people like them, but I don't know if they really have that much of a profile. By the way, are you, are you yay or nay on Tenacious D? Depends what year you're asking. I mean, this entire episode is extremely like,

Ian and his friends in college in 2002, coded. We, like, there are three albums that we listened to that year, which was, strokes, is this it? Andrew WK. I get wet. And the Tenacious D self-titled. We played that shit so fucking much.

Yeah, that sounds familiar. That sounds familiar for sure. Yeah, Tenacious D, if you were, like, between the ages of say 22 and well no let's say like 18 and 24 absolutely in like 2002 and you were a guy

and you were a straight guy you definitely like tenacious and you can't deny it no matter what you want to say now you had some love for tenacious D at that point yeah absolutely like we we love that shit I like jumped off complete I didn't watch pick of destiny or whatever

it's called and you know like I'm like Okay, that's cool. They're still around. I would absolutely not go to a show just because, I mean, just from the experience of going to see, I think you should leave. I know what it's like to go to like a comedy musical event in a amphitheater setting. And it's just, God, if you think people talking during a show is bad, just imagine like people like getting ahead of the joke by like three seconds. I just, yeah, I'm glad they exist. I'm glad they're doing their thing. but man, I just feel that, like, Kyle Gass, like, after everything, made an apology. Because at this point, like, I don't know if they're getting back together. I mean, this is like the second biggest. This is going to ruin the tour moment of 2024. I wish he would have made a joke about that rather than saying, you know, like, very gravely, like, I don't wish Donald Trump would get shot.

Seem a little inauthentic on both ends. Yeah, I mean, I was, you don't have to excuse me. I feel like my knowledge of this is very choppy, but I saw people talking about there was some recent Tenacious D movie or film where they dress up as like members of the KKK and they break into the White House and there's some sort of chicanery going on with Trump

at that time. So like they've made jokes about Trump before that were pretty disparaging and maybe not in great taste. This is different I guess because he just got shocked. but it's not like this is beyond the pale. It feels like maybe if you had taken a moment and let cooler heads prevail, just take a day before you make a statement. Maybe this wouldn't have happened.

I don't know. It feels like a big, again, overreaction to what happened, but, you know, things are very intense right now. I mean, it is strange that it's not even a week since the assassination attempt, And it already kind of feels like it happened a long time ago. You know what I mean? Yeah, totally. It doesn't feel, I don't know, maybe because we're just so numb.

We're already kind of being reacclimated to like the Trump year, like the Trump administration like body clock where you just saw terrible headlines every day and you just got sort of inoculated to it. I feel like that in myself already because we had this period. with Joe Biden where it just felt like things were boring and no one really cared about what was going on in the government.

In the past month, like since that debate, it's been a return to like the 2017-2020 era where you just felt like a barrage constantly of like New York Times alerts, you know, buzzing on your phone. It's like, oh yeah, I forgot what this was like. But your muscle memory is reacclimating to it.

Like, it already feels like Trump is president, even though we're, you know, four months away from the election. I feel like it's already happened. So we'll see. I don't know. It's a very strange thing. Yeah, it's scary because, like, people talk about how if he gets elected, it's going to be the end of democracy or whatever.

And it's like, dude, I remember 2018. Like, I mean, it sucked. And also, you know, we lived through it. But hey, man, maybe this time. Maybe just like last time it'll be great for punk rock, man. Well, speaking of 2017 and punk rock, if we can make a transition here, it was announced this week that Japan droids are back with their first album since 2017 near the wild heart of life.

I haven't said that album title out loud in a while, so excuse me for stumbling over that. But they announced a new album this week. It's called Fate and Alcohol. and it's out October 18th, and it's billed as their final album. And they released a single from the record. It's called Chicago. And look, we should just say, like, you and I have both heard this album.

Yes. And I guess we won't delve into the record yet. We're going to wait until the album comes out, unless you want to. Should we review the album now? Just remove the suspense? Or should we wait another? but it's like a while. Like,

yeah, I, like exactly three months from when we're recording. There's just so much going on this week that I don't want to spoil it too much. Plus, I mean,

like, who the fuck knows what's going to be released in October 2018, you know? We don't want to do another mailbag episode, if necessary. Yeah, so anyway, we'll hold off our thoughts on the album for now,

but the single is out. It's called Chicago. And, look, I have to laugh. I saw people making jokes about, oh, they're trying to get sinks for like the bear season four, you know,

or they're trying to get in different commercials with this song, as if this band has like any caniness with their career at all. Like, you know, if they're trying to get a sink, why wouldn't you put this song out like four months ago, like before the season of the bear came out? I mean, I don't know.

I'll just say about this song, I think it's fine. I think it's a, I don't dislike, it, I don't love it. I think it's a solid song. I think they're clearly trying to return to that celebration rock post-nothing type sound as opposed to the relatively elaborate near the Wild Heart of Life. I mean, that's still a pretty simple record because this is a very simple band in a lot of ways. But it feels like a little more raw than the previous record. It's tough with this band, and we've talked about this before.

They seem like a band that was put on earth to make Celebration Rock. That was their mission. They did it. They did it great. And then what do you do after that? It's very difficult. And with the title of this record, I mean, you can see, I think, the implication or the intention to present maybe a more mature version of this band.

And without tipping our hands too much on the record, I think that that is evidenced on some of the songs on the record. But is that something you can even do in the framework of a group like this, where it just feels like they accomplish their mission? So what are we still doing here? That just seems like a conundrum that apparently they feel like they solved or maybe they feel like they can't solve it because this is their last record. Yeah, I mean, as far as the thing of like, oh, they're trying to get a bare sink or whatever, like, yeah, maybe that happens.

But as far as this band, like, this is one of the least careerist bands I've ever encountered. I mean, they take like four, they've talked about like how hard it is for them to like make any music. And they signed to anti because one, they're Tom Waits fans and also the presence of Tom Waits on that label, suggests that they, they don't have to do any more press than humanly possible. But I did think it was funny that this song was released on the week of Pitchfork Festival. And if last year was any indication, you know, VIP is going to look exactly like it did in 2012. There wasn't a lot of new blood there as far as writers go, which is great for me. But, you know, you're going to get some people bumping that song, you know, at the get-together at empty bottle or whatever. And, and,

Secondly, I love the fact that it came out the day after the MLB All-Star game, because there's like literally shit else going on in sports, so their huge contingent of sports writer fans can just rave about that. Yeah, I mean, I think that with Japan droids, I'm kind of glad it's their last album because every single album they talk about how it takes us like two months, three months to write a song that we think is good. they don't love recording they love touring but I don't even know

if they're going to do that which is funny because they're not a great live band but to the point of like Celebration Rock being the album they were put on this earth to make I agree with that even though I love Post Nothing and I love near to the wild heart of life too but I saw someone saying it's like yeah

Japan droids is a band I think they got like eight great songs and that's it it's like dude that's like one third of their entire output and also yeah that is Celebration rock i just think that the thing that bugged me was seeing the and i this is so predictable the kind of dude on dude backlash where you know certain dudes want to present themselves as like being above japan droids which was a little more annoying than like the mj lendersman dude on dude backlash because

japan droids are so fucking niche at this point they are not at the center of indie rock discussion um like i don't know what you're trying to say with that but Whatever, we got three more months. Just like the presidential election, we got like three to four more months of this shit. Yeah, I don't know. It is funny to me when I see people talk about, oh, I'm sick of the MJ Lenderman discourse. When we're on like what, like month two of like Brought Summer references. Like I feel like I see Trott's summer.

Brought. Well, okay, I said Brought. That's right. I guess it's Brad. Well, I'm from the Upper Midwest. I see B-R-A-T and I read it as Brought. Like that album is called Brought as far as I'm concerned. I don't care.

That's an evergreen thing. It was Brought summer in the Upper Midwest in 2022. It was in 1996 and it will be in 2026. That's such a reflexive thing for me. Like I didn't even totally get that when you pointed that out to me just now that like when I see B-R-A-T, I don't read it as brat. It's Brought. And that album is called Brat. It's about sausages.

It's about grilling, delicious food in the summertime. Grill so confusing. Yeah, like that song. But, yeah, I mean, come on. Like there's, like you said, like this Japan Joids record, they're just about, I'm very curious to see. Well, one thing I'm curious about is like, what do those guys do between records?

That's what I'm wondering, you know? Because they take so long, and it's not like they're so, I mean, they must have other career. I think Dave has a 9 to 5. They must because they're not successful enough to be like, you two, and we're going to take like three or four years to make a record. You know, like they can't afford to do that, so they must have other jobs.

I will say that one thing they did spend seven years doing is buying a flanger pedal. That's one of the things that they did. Well, good for them. Good for them. And yeah, we'll see how this record does when it comes out. and I guess we'll be going into dudes autumn by the time this record drops. So we'll see what happens.

Dude's summer, dude's autumn, dudes rock, any season of the year. Okay, so we talked about EA College Football 25, which is an Ian subject. I want to bring up a Steve subject here. You probably know as much about this as I know about EA college football. So if you'll indulge me and let me talk about it, I'll try to fill you in. Um, another big story this week in the jam band world. This was the story in the jam band world. Uh, I don't know if any of this filtered over to you, Ian. The, uh, brewing Trey Anastasio versus dead and co beef. Have you heard about this at all? No, I thought that like Trey did a interview,

or he had a conversation with Ed O'Brien of Radiohead and this is what I thought you were talking about. Um, just kind of comparing Radiohead fans versus Fish fans, but this is completely new information. So you're going to have to like slowly walk me through it. Okay so Trey he's been working the media rounds lately because Fish put out a record uh last week it's called Evolve and Fish's kind of been all over the place they were on Colbert they did the tiny desk concert for NPR and Trey has also been out doing interviews he talked to Rolling Stone did a really good interview with my friend Andy Green and he also went on the mark Marin podcast WTF and in both the Rolling Stone and Mark Marin podcast, Dead and Co came up. Dead and Co, of course, the offshooter of

Grateful Dead that involves John Mayer, hugely successful, stadium band. They're currently doing a residency at the Sphere, which has been a big hit. And in both of those interviews, Trey said essentially the same thing, which was that he's really glad that these Grateful Dead songs are still being played and being enjoyed by people. But it's not the same because Jerry Garcia is no longer with us. And this is a sentiment that has been repeated millions of times, millions of times, by anyone who has heard of Dead and Co or The Grateful Dead. I've seen Dead and Co twice.

I enjoyed it. I had a good time. Saw two shows at Wrigley Field. When was that? like 2021 maybe 2022 a few years ago I had a good time I'm pretty sure if you asked every single person in that stadium having a good time

would it be better if Jerry were here a thousand percent would say yes but Jerry died of course in 1995 you can't have Jerry so you know it's nice to have John Mayor doing his John Mayor faces playing his John Mayor guitar licks he does a really good job all respect to John Mayor.

I don't think that this is a controversial statement at all, but on Jam Band Twitter, people have been a buzz, they've been a flame, they've been thrown around accusations of being a hater, being jealous even, being a hypocrite, because Trey played with the dead in 2015 at the Fair of the Well concerts.

So he was the Jerry for a few shows at those at those gigs um so we kind of have like a little bit of a feud here tray versus dead and co does any of this make sense to you does any of this sound interesting absolutely like i love beefs where i have absolutely no dog in the fight um my understanding of it is that and correct me if i'm wrong because this is just completely based on vibes but there's maybe like kind of a chip on the shoulder of fish fans because you know dead and co they're playing stadiums because they have John Mayer, I think they're kind of seen as like cool or fashionable in a way, whereas like fish has like never been cool or fashionable despite their popularity. Also like my under, just from like

the bits and pieces I saw a bittersweet motel in between watching Clerks the animated series and listening to Tenacious D. I got the sense that like Trey was kind of a prickly guy. Is this, is it, am I making this up? I don't. I mean, that's a different tray because that's like 90s tray and that's around the time where he starts tipping into substance abuse right that's because bittersweet motel that's like 97 okay so it's it's not like basing jeff tweety on like what i saw and i'm trying to break your heart right exactly like he's a younger guy and uh you know he was clean and sober for like most of the 90s and then like at the end of the 90s it started to uh the the wheels started to come off you know there was a huge entourage around the band huge party and it started

to turn bad. So if that was your impression, it might have been a result of that. Trey never says anything all that interesting in interviews. You know, like when he's talking about his sobriety, that's a very, he's very compelling and heartfelt when he does that. But for the most part, he's not really ever courting controversy. He's not a shit talker at all. So this is a little bit of a divergence from that. I think by his standards, this is like Noel Gallagher in 1995. you know, talking about blur. But I think if you take a step back,

I really don't think it's a chip on the shoulder thing. I really think that he is praising Jerry Garcia more than knocking dead and co. It's sort of like Cheryl Crowe saying that Drake shouldn't have used Tupac AI. Maybe, I don't know. Yeah, talk about things that already feel like there are billion months in the past.

I think he's the saying that like Jerry is the goat. and no one can be better than Jerry and I think he even he would say about himself like when I sat in with the with the dead like I'm not Jerry like I but I did my best to honor his music and I was honored to do it

like he said that in the interview so I don't know I think people were overreacting it does show like the jam band scene the fans there are so intense and they're so devoted and it's not like

pop stands where they will, they're like secret service for like their, their pop idol. Like they will carry water and throw themselves in front of their pop idol for anything. Whereas Jam Band fans will like turn on their idols all the time. And what's funny about this is that if you look at Jam Band like Twitter, they're constantly making fun of the Dead & Co. Like Dead and Co is a huge target. John Mayer is a huge target. But then when something like this happens, all of a sudden, John Mayer is like sacrosanct,

and we can't like say something that is, I think, obvious to anyone who cares about this. So anyway, I thought that was a very funny and hilarious story. Yeah, it all sounds like emo Twitter where like 90% of the posting is making fun of the bands that you love. Right, exactly. But if anyone rips on that band, you go, it's, like DefCon 5. I mean, yeah. So like you, it is like a familial type thing. We can make fun of our own, but if you say anything bad about it, watch out. Although Trey isn't, he's like one of the heads of the family, so he should be able to say it. If you're listening, Trey, I love you. I'm glad you did this.

Never mind the haters. I think you were totally on point. Yeah, and you know what? I might have check out Evolve now to see if there's like any subliminals at like Goose or whatever. Or is it Fuck, man. No, Goose. Goose is the jam band. Hell yeah. Geese is the New York band. Although the New York geese is getting jamier and jammier.

Like, their second record was pretty jammy. Yeah, pretty great. That's pretty great record. Yeah, they're definitely doing the New York City indie rock to jam band podcast or pipeline, which is a very real thing. I love it. I love it. You know, is there any other iteration of the word goose that we could have?

There's goose, there's geese. Is there anything else? Well, Jesse Gander is the guy who produced Celebration Rock, I believe. So fuck yeah. Wow. We stuck the landing there. What a way to bring it out home.

This is Cornell 587 level jamming right here. And which I know that now because I had to look it up for a Twitter joke. There you go. Love it. All right. Well, before we get to our mailbag segment here, we should do a quick fantasy update. We touched on this briefly. last week, but you've had Cassandra Jenkins on your fantasy team, My Light, My Destroyer,

which looks like a really strong pick. It currently has a 90 on Metacritic, although the Pitchfork Review just dropped today, today being Thursday, and they gave it an 80, which seems a little low. I would have expected, that's an 80, an 8.0 from Pitchfork. I would have expected like an 8.4 or five. Yeah, that's what I was thinking, which I don't think it's going to mess up the numbers too much, but it's a little bit, it's a little soft, frankly. It's similar to the Clara thing because she's clocking in an 81, which is, you know, in the annals of fantasy drafting, that is typically the one that dragged you down.

It's fine. It's not great. Would I do a different pick? And I like that record anyway, but I like both these records. But, yeah, I went heavy duty on the kind of centrist, kind of smooth, jazzy indie rock, and might come back to haunt me. Yeah, I mean, again, we've talked about this. As long as you don't dip below an 80, I think you're okay.

I think if you, you know, again, with me, with Taylor Swift last quarter, her getting a 76 basically ended my season. So as long as Clero, we'll call that the Mendoza line of the fantasy album draft. is the 80. Just stay above that and I think you're okay. Speaking of Sergill Simpson, who we brought up earlier, that's looking like a big miss for both of us. He currently has an 88. Seriously? That's definitely a miss for me. I feel like that would have been in my purview.

Again, I feel like there were no reviews of that record before the album dropped. There was an embargo on it, so all the reviews dropped on the 12th when that album came out. And with Sergil Simpson, it's hard to predict how critics are going to react. I mean, like, Sounded Fury was a very kind of like polarizing record. I think this album definitely feels like he made a record that he knew people would like. That's my take on this album. It feels squarely in the middle of like, if you love the first three records, this album is going to deliver for you.

And you still have to produce. really good songs in that framework. But he definitely, you know, for a guy who prides himself on confounding expectations, maybe the biggest expectation to confound was that he was going to be unpredictable. Because this record in a weird way feels like him playing by the rules in a way that he hasn't in a long time. So, and it's bearing out in the reviews. And, I mean, the response to it from what I've been seeing has been really strong.

So definitely kicking myself a little bit for not taking that record. But again, I think it was not money in the bank ahead of time. That's for sure. I mean, none of us picked brat last time around. Brat. Brat. Brat. Brat? Brat. Which, I don't know.

I'm going to change the tide on that record and get people to call it brought. I really want that. Bort summer, yeah. Someone should make a meme where you put text on that neon green background. That would be cool if somebody did that. Like, spelled up phonetically. So you have to pronounce a brat instead of Brad. I don't know what the like, you know, accent thing above the A would be to make people say

Brat, but. Or Brad, some are the Stone Gossard, you know, side project. That's how we get down. Yeah, you're bringing Brad back. We've had a lot of Brad references so far. Yeah, more than one is a lot. Yeah. Let's get to our mailbag segment.

Thank you all for writing in. It's always great to hear from our listeners. This email this week, it comes from Brennan. I don't know, did Brennan say where he's from? I don't think Brennan said where they were from. Nope. All right. Please say where you're from.

We like to know where our listeners are coming from. So just say Brennan from, you know, Ridgewood, New Jersey, or Brennan from Akron, Ohio, or I'm trying to think of other indie cast type cities. Yeah, we do big business in Australia, I think. That's true. Yeah, we eat in Australia. Okay, you want to read this email? I do. So Brennan lets us know that the other day, I was thinking about many of the artists in the 90s and how there seemed to be a very strong ethos and aesthetic of, scare quotes, weird. Weird for the sake of being weird, embracing a type of Dadaism. artists that created an entire persona that wasn't particularly authentic but definitely distinct.

The whole vibe built from a surplus, stores, and thrifting. I think of Beck, flaming lips, Tom Waits, etc. While this still exists, it seems artists are more intentional about their weirdness. It either needs to have a purpose or some sheen of cool associated with it. I do think TikTok has possibly introduced some unhinged weirdness for the sake of the algorithm, but curious about your take on this. Am I imagining this or was there something driving that artistic approach in the 90th that just doesn't exist in the mainstream anymore? or also Tom Waits,

yeah or nay. Wow. A lot going on there. A lot to unpack there. Do we want to address Tom Waits, or Neer first? San Diego legend, yeah. I mean, with Tom Waits,

I mean, I just mentioned him in like the Japan Droids thing. He, you know, basically the reason anti-records exist, which put out great albums such as The Promise Rings Woodwater. Wow. Yeah.

Here we go. I'm drawing that line. But yeah, I mean, I think the time is come and gone for me to have a Tom Waits phase. And, you know, I'd probably appreciate what he was doing if I gave it an honest list. You know, I like some Man Man albums. I like the Modest Mouse album, Good News for people who love bad news, which has some pretty overt Tom Waits' homages. But I also like making hobo jokes on Twitter more than I ever will like Tom Waits music. So, you know, I've made my choice.

This is just a thing where you, like, solidify your brand, you can't go back. Yeah. But that's, I can't say nay on Tom Waits. Tom Waits just doesn't present itself in my life enough for me to totally be nay on it. And sometimes I'll like hear old Tom Wait, that's what he sounds like. Because mostly what I think of is like the Swordfish trombones, rain dogs era where he's like doing the real stabbing people with my whole bow knife type thing. That's also a Simpsons reference.

I know. I feel like that's more later. I feel like that's entering the 90s, like, where he has, like, the real bark. Like, in the 80s, he was still, he was, like, in that sweet spot, I think, between what he was doing in the 70s, which was this sort of, like, throwback, like, beat-style, like, crooner-type music, you know, with, like, a little bit of, like, kind of, like, a greaser, almost aesthetic to it, like, Blue Valentine and, and records like that, which I like, but, I mean, for me, I prefer the RD or 80s records.

I think swordfish trombones, rain dogs, I think those are great records. Into the 90s, like, when you get to, like, bone machine and, like, records like that, that's where it starts to get really barky. And I like, and I'm not saying that as a negative, because I like that, too. Then, you have, like, mule variations

coming out at the end of the 90s, which I would almost, like, if you don't listen to Tom Waits, so you don't know much about him, mule variations from 1999 would be the record, I think, I would recommend as the Gateway because there's almost something like Springsteen-like about that record. And there's Springsteen moments on, I think, those 80s records too. Where, yeah, I mean, Springsteen famously covered Jersey Girl, which is a Tom Waits song.

He covered it on his live record, 75 to 85. I'm pro Tom Waits. I'm yay on Tom Waits. I do find it interesting with him where I feel like when I first got into music as a teenager, Tom Waits was a much bigger deal. It felt like he was like one of the great bards of music up there with Dylan and Ian Cohen and Ian Cohen. Leonard Cohen. Oh, fuck, man. I'm at Leonard Cohen.

I'm ex-up Ian Coen. Man, I'm like, I really wanted to know where you're going with that. Between Ian Cohen, Leonard Cohen, and Bratt, I'm having some great moments. in this episode. You know, Joni Mitchell, like the people that, if you're interested in singer-songwriters, that, like, you have to investigate this catalog because it's essential. And I feel like Tom waits to slip from that a little bit. Like, I don't see him being talked about, like, a lot of those other artists, like,

they've been memed. You know, like, Bob Dylan has been memed to death, you know, and, like, even Joni Mitchell now, like, I see stuff online about her all the time. I don't see that as much about Tom Waits, and I think he has the catalog to justify it because he's got a lot of great records, and they're definitely worth investigating. But I don't know, maybe it's your fault, great bard, Ian Cohen,

because you keep making hobo jokes about him. Can't get enough. It's an unfair caricature, because I think he is a great artist. And, yeah, mule variations, definitely rain dogs, swordfish trombones, brilliant records, digging to them all. Let's get to this weird for weird sake question, because I think it is an interesting idea

about the 90s and this sort of, I guess, premium that was put on presenting yourself as being an outsider. And I think Brennan is saying that he feels like that doesn't really happen anymore. I mean, I would just say that it's shifted a bit, that that Thrift, store culture, for instance, of the 90s, I mean,

thrift stores now can be as expensive as, like, regular stores. You know, in a world where eBay exists, and every cool old thing is out on the marketplace, and it's super expensive now, and you can't just buy cool old stuff for next to nothing. Like, that kind of idea is gone. But I do think that, like, the weirdness for weirdness sake thing, I think it's tied up more, like,

Like it's not white guys doing it. Okay, I guess I'll put it that way. That it is people, it's women, it's people of color, it's queer people. Basically people who have been marginalized and are trying to assert an identity and bringing into the mainstream. And I think that's where that's migrated to. You know, just to use like an obvious example, someone who's very successful right now, like Chapel Rhone, I think along with just making like really catchy and well-made pop music,

It seems like a big part of her aesthetic is being like an outsider that her audience can relate to. And it's interesting because the music itself isn't necessarily weird. It's just the way she presents it, I think, comes from an outsider perspective. And it's just part of like the aesthetics of now, like where I think people want that in like a more sort of accessible pop package. So I think that's where that's going to. I mean, does that make sense to you? Yeah, what that does in the modern sense. And this is kind of like a follow-up to the Odley core question that we got.

I think it was last week where I'm going to zero in on like the 90s version of it. Because there is extreme, there's a very 90s aesthetic that, you know, includes Beck and flaming lips. But I also broadened the scope to include like, you know, the whole BC Boys grand Royals. universe, Quentin Tarantino and like all the music surrounding him. And I also want to bring up, you know, this is kind of like a personal interest of a lot of the UK bands like beta band and super furry animals and corner shop. I think maybe air and, you know, the post Austin Powers music that was bringing swing and lounge into things. You know, you mentioned that like the, I guess the democratization of thrift store buying or what have you has made these bans just sound like so

fucking dated i don't necessarily mean that in a bad way because uh i think there's some value to listening to a super furry animals album um and no like oh yeah that you could only make that in 1998 you know what i mean because after grunge and gangster rap started wane i think people shifted more towards irony and kits and you know it was generally speaking and optimistic economic boom time. So, you know, digging up on cool styles of music, there was novelty to it. And there was also like a skill to it as well because you couldn't just go access it in any old place. You really had to go crate digging. You had to, you know, go like buy obscure records and obscure record stores. And so, yeah, I think that the novelty of it is what makes it sound dated and

both good and a bad way. And yeah, you just straight up can't do that anymore. There is such a collective knowledge of all things that you can't do. Like, you know, with beta band, it was like, oh my God, they're doing record scratching on an indie rock album? Right. Yeah, it was, yeah, the idea of like taking hip hop and putting it into rock music was a novelty in the 90s. And you could have someone like Beck who was like this skinny blonde white guy who's rapping. Yeah. He also plays acoustic guitar. And oh, he can make a song that kind of sounds like Prince.

And that was something that was refreshing to people because music was much more segmented into different genres as opposed to now where it's all blended together. It's also the last gasp of like a pre-internet world where like you were saying, these records were hard to find. Like you couldn't just do a Google search or a search on Spotify

and find something cool from like 50 years ago that no one was aware of. It feels like now any artist that most people haven't heard of is brought back from the past. They instantly have

a compilation on Spotify. There's like a Wikipedia entry on it. There's all of these ways that anyone can become an expert on it in like 15 minutes. So yeah, I think that dismantles. that type of aesthetic too. But again, I think it's migrated into other areas.

I think that idea of like, I'm going to be weird and I'm putting weird in quotes, there's always going to be a place for that, I think, in music, at least from like a presentation standpoint. It does feel like weird music. We're in a moment like where that's not being embraced at all. There was a conversation this week about the fiery furnaces record, blueberry boat.

It's the 20th anniversary of that record and how that was for a moment in the middle of, like, certainly the critical zeitgeist. But they also had some commercial traction as well. And, you know, I mean, we've talked about this before, but it just feels like we're so far away from a moment where a band that sort of potentially annoying to people. I'm saying potentially because I love the fiery furnaces. I'm a fan of them. I know you're not. I could probably list. Every like five to seven years, I give Blueberry a boat a shot.

And I get about like every year I get like 30 seconds more into Quaker. So yeah, maybe this is the year where I like finish the whole thing. Yeah, I mean, if you like Black Country New Road, I feel like the fiery furnaces are not that far removed from. No, or like glass beach and shit. Like I get like the, it's not like we're, it's not like we're, it's not like. something where I'm like, yeah, there's no fucking way. I'm going to be into this. I'm like, it's frustrating because there is a reality

where I'm like a blueberry boat person. Oh man, I hope that day comes. That would be a great indie cast episode. We've now reached the part of our 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?

I think it's a testament to just how jam-packed this episode is that we haven't even mentioned the announcement of a new Wild Pink album. Oh, yeah. That's a great single, too. Yeah, great fucking single. Baritone guitar Wild Pink era.

That is, that's, like, they play it throughout the entire record. Can't wait thought about that one more. Yeah, noisy. It's noisy, too. Pretty, like, fuzzy sounding record. Yeah. Yeah, super into that. But I, not at all.

And speaking of bands that don't miss, another thing where it's like, wow, I can't believe, like, we've had to kind of put this in recommendation corner rather than the top. But we talked about them in a previous episode. Los Campesinos, they are one of the most Ian bands of all time in that they got super buzzy at the end of the blog rock era and then in 2013 or so rebranded themselves as the UK's first and only emo band because romance is boring, got big on Tumblr and they

inspired a bunch of emo acts if you go to their Spotify recommendation, recommend it if you like page. There's like Jimmy Eat World and the world is a beautiful place in between Silver Jew and silver Jews and like Modest Mouse songs. This is about as Ian Cora as it gets. And their new album, All Hell, is out today. And is it their best record? I mean, I kind of stopped shy of saying it because, like,

recency bias has a major role in that. Plus, I'm also reviewing it. But it's definitely the ultimate Los Campesinos records. I would say that if you, it's kind of like their mule variations, if you will. Wow. But, you know, this gets to a question that I have for you because as I, I'm reviewing the record and the review hasn't dropped yet. And I see a lot of huge pieces on them because, you know,

the Los Campesino superfans are the only people left writing about them. And I've put an embargo on reading interviews, reading lists, reading reviews, because I don't want to talk, like, I just spent like a lot of time writing this review and I don't want to talk myself out of anything I just wrote this late in the game. What's your status on that? Do you, like, read the reviews while you're writing or? I try not to, for the reason that you were saying, I just don't want to be influenced by someone else. I want to keep my response as unfiltered and honest as possible.

And I was thinking about this last Sturgeon record, which I wrote about last week, and I didn't have the opportunity to read reviews of that because there was a, like I said, an embargo on reviews, so they all dropped at the same time. And it was interesting reading some of the other reviews because, and this was also informed, by like me listening to the record more, you know, this week. But I almost feel like my review is too cynical now. Like there's parts of it where I'm like, ah, was that too hard on this record?

Because sometimes, I don't know if you've had this, but sometimes you write a review of an album and the reviews feels more negative than you actually feel. This is like 80 to 90% of the time. Yeah, it's weird. I mean, because I think my review is like, it's largely positive. But there were a couple things in there where I'm like, uh, maybe I was a little too.

cynical about this. So I was questioning my review pretty soon after it ran actually a little bit. But I don't know. It's probably something only I would notice or care about. But anyway, yeah, I definitely try to avoid reading anyone else's opinion while I'm writing a review for sure. Speaking of Sergill Simpson, for my recommendation quarter this week, I want to talk about a guy named Zach Topp and his new record. Actually, this came out about maybe a month or two called Cold Beer and Country Music. And you can kind of guess what kind of album this is from the title of the record.

This album came on my radar because there was quite a bit of buzz, again, on Jam Band Twitter, about Zach Topp sitting in with Billy Strings at a concert in Montana, I think it was last weekend. And Billy Strings, of course, the bluegrass phenomenon,

playing huge venues. and Zach Topp came out and played some guitar with him. Zach Topp is normally an electric player, at least like on this record he is. He plays a lot of Fender, Tallahaster guitar, very reminiscent of like Buck Owens, Merrill Haggard, that Bakersfield country sound of the 60s. And this record reminds me a lot of like 80s country records

that were inspired by that Baker's Field sound. So early Dwight Yocum, guitars Cadillacs, that record. Early Steve Earl, Guitar Town. This is a little bit later, but the Mavericks, their work. Very much in that style, which is a style I like a lot. And this is just like a really good record. Very enjoyable. It's a record I would recommend if you're a Sturgeon's a fan

and you like the new record, but you wish that it was like a little more country sounding, maybe a little bit more like the first record from Sturgel. This Zach Top record, totally works, I think, in that vein. And again, Zach is spelled Z-A-C-H, because every country singer needs to be called Zach these days, I think. And then his last name is just Top, T-O-P.

The record's called Cold Beer and Country Music. Again, if you get sick of listening to the Sturgle record this weekend, throw this one on, very enjoyable, kind of throwback country record, really enjoying it. I love the truth in advertising. especially the fact the guy's name is Zach Top. That's a great fucking name. I love it.

I love it. I hope that's his name. I've never heard of someone with the last name Top. Zizi, you know, his father Zizi. That's true. That's true. It's like, yeah, I guess one of the Z's and ZZ Top could be Zach. Zach Z Top.

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 Mix tape 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.