Indiecast - The Indiecast Hall Of Fame, Part 2

Episode Date: April 23, 2021

Steve and Ian would be remiss if they didn’t kick off this week’s episode of Indiecast with a discussion of the Morrissey/Simpsons controversy, wherein The Smiths’ singer called the show’s depiction of him “hurtful” and “racist.”The main crux of this episode, however, returns to the Indiecast Hall Of Fame, which was designed to honor albums in the indie rock and alternative rock realm that were influential and beloved at the time of their release, but have since been lost to the test of time and sadly — some might say shamefully — left out of the widely accepted canon of the genre. After an episode paying tribute to albums by Counting Crows, The Promise Ring, and more, Steve and Ian are now turning their attention to efforts from Saves The Day, Megafaun, Secret Machines, and Unkle.In this week’s recommendation corner, Steve is boosting the forthcoming new EP from DIY power-pop icon Pronoun, entitled OMG I Made It. Ian is shouting out Snow Ellet, whose latest effort Suburban Indie Rock Star is out now.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 this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We redo albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we're going to revisit the Indycast Hall of Fame in order to induct four more unsung classic album. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host, Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

You know, Steve, I'm not just your friend and co-host of Indycast, but I also consider myself like a fan of Indycast. I've always loved, I've always loved when artists like sometimes you'll see in publications, they'll ask an artist about like their top 10 albums of the year. And I always love when they put their own one in there. I find that to be honest to it. Or at the very least, it's like, come on, man, you put your life into this. Have some confidence.

But, you know, the way this manifests for me as far as Indycast is like, I get a little jealous of like our readers who can submit mailback questions. because like I all like I have these like ones that are just like you know wouldn't warrant 15 minutes of conversation with us but I always just want to would hear what you'd think so I'm like tempted to like do some I've been tempted to make some like burner email accounts so I can like you know be I don't know like Jake from Columbus Ohio or I think we can do that I think we can we can write into our own show why not? I think that would be a cool meta trick to play. Actually, if I was going to submit an Indycast listener question, I would ask you what you thought about the Morrissey episode of the

Simpsons. Because I know, it is a couple sub-questions to this because, first of all, I want to know if you saw the episode. Because I know that you are, on your Twitter account, you are a Simpsons memeer non-Perell. You are the Tom Simpsons meme as far as I'm concerned. So I was wondering what you thought of the episode. And sub-question of that would be, do you think that this is in some way the Simpsons

acknowledging the devotion that it seems that people in the punk and emo seem have for the Simpsons? Like, we're going to do some Morrissey jokes for the benefit of this subsection of our audience. I mean, it actually plays in the mind. question, like the one that I had thought of quite literally before this episode drop of like, how much of a fan of somebody do you have, like how much of a, like what percentage of

someone's work do you have to be to still consider yourself a fan? Because, you know, with the Simpsons, like I'm season three through 11 and there's like 33 that I, like, I've seen maybe a third of the total Simpsons. And yeah, 33 seasons. It's in the 30. Oh my God. Yeah. Well, think about it, man. I mean, like they were hitting double digits in the 90s and here we are. Yeah.

I mean, has anyone watched all like? Oh, no, there's got to be out. There's got to be many people out there. But I mean, when I think about your question as to like, is this an indication that it's just straight up fan service? And, you know, Simpsons writers are acknowledging that in the punk and emo world who, like, for whom, Morrissey is, you know, clearly like a godfather in some ways. I don't know. If they, if they, I think that were true, they'd realize that like Morrissey is just

pretty much untouchable to the, like untouchable, not in a good way. But to the point where like Morrissey can, you know, dish back at them for calling him fat and a meat eater, you know, I don't know which one and so it's more. And people are like, yeah, I think Morrissey's the asshole in this situation. Like, um, am I. wrong though. I feel like I felt a little bad for Morrissey just because they like they did the fat jokes on there, which I feel like that's a bridge too far. If you want to make fun of, uh, you know, him being a xenophob or a racist or whatever, that's obviously fair game. The fat stuff, I kind of thought

like this, this feels like family guy level type jokes at Morrissey. So I'm, I'm going to defend Morrissey slightly on those grounds. I think that's a little. mean to go that route. That's about all the bandwidth I have to protect, you know, Morrissey. Like, I mean, it's with this, with the Simpsons and like Morrissey, like this whole, this whole lead up and the release of it, it's like, I think of, there was this experimental guitarist who did this orchestra of like 400 guitars. Now, if I were Riley Walker, I'd remember the guy's name offhand.

I looked it up. It's wrist chatham. But, I mean, this, this episode, too. me was like 400 people all making the same two jokes, which is, you know, you quote, this joke isn't funny anymore, or you say, like, I haven't cared about any of these people since 1999. And it was just, it was, there was, there was just such a depressing finality to this, you know, whole thing. It's like, oh, this like Morrissey in 2021. I mean, granted, it might, you know, it's like an S&L skit, but like extended to third.

30 minutes or 22 minutes as it were. I just wonder like how famous is Morrissey outside of like the alt rock, indie rock. Like how is that joke going to land with like most people? This must have been around for a long time, obviously. But I still don't feel like Morrissey is that famous that people would just recognize that immediately. Okay. So I think that with, like, you cannot underestimate, like, how important. If not Morrissey is just like the Smiths slash Morrissey, even just as like an institution.

If you were to get Morrissey to play live shows in L. well, that's actually, I'm not sure about that because like the tour, the last tour was kind of a mess. but I remember, like, it was not that long ago that he played FYFest, and it was the draw for him compared to, say, Frank Ocean or Kanye, who was, I know Kanye was playing that night. That was a good one. But, yeah, it was about equal, you know. I'm going to pull the Southern California card here, though.

Well, you should. Because he's obviously going to draw huge there, but would he draw huge in, like, Topeka, Kansas or something? I mean, that's something I'm not that I'm not that sure of with Morrison, especially this point. Maybe that's what he needs to do, you know, rebuild his image doing like, you know, the tough, like Midwest circuits, doing the colleges, doing the, you know, doing the comeback tour in Topeka, Kansas and Wichita and Omaha. I mean, like, Red State America, that might be his future. Like him and Jordan Peterson can do, like, a double bill, you know, that could work for Morrissey. To go back to your question, you were saying, like, how much of someone's work do you have to know or be familiar with in order to consider yourself a fan?

I mean, The Simpsons, to me, they are a lot like a lot of 90s bands where people love the early records. And then they, you know, those bands keep making records and people aren't into them. I mean, I don't know if we're going to venture into Weezer discourse again next month. Because there's like another stupid Weaser album coming up. Even I who have, I feel like I have more, you know, endurance than most with Weasor conversations. Like I have no energy to talk about another bullshit Weezer record. But like I kind of put them in the same camp as The Simpsons in my mind.

Of like, I love this in the 90s. And now I feel embarrassed by it, you know, by the later work of this thing. I feel like that's true The Simpsons. I mean, The Simpsons I loved so much in the 90s. It's,

it's, I still love it to this day, man. Like, at work, people are just like, wow, you must be like the biggest Simpsons fan on earth.

And then I tell them about, I actually went to a Simpsons trivia like once or twice and just got my ass kicked, man. Like, I am not, like,

I'm like upper percentile, but like, there's just, there's just so many other levels above me, you know? Maybe I'm just like as big of a Simpsons fan as you can be and still like, functional.

in like in normal society. I just feel like if you're going to like catch a Simpsons episode in reruns or whatever, I get if people still do that, I don't know, maybe they don't. Everything's on demand now. But I just feel like the pool is so diluted now with like later seasons. Like the seasons I don't care about, far outnumber the seasons that are good. Again, to go back to the Weasr example, it would be like if you put all the Weezer albums on a playlist, you put it on shuffle, the likelihood you're going to hear something awful is much higher than

hearing, you know, my name is Jonas or something. I feel like that's the case with the Simpsons. I don't know, maybe they'll do some like Robert Smith jokes later this. I'd like to see, although they should defend Robert Smith. I think Robert Smith is clearly. Yeah, they already did the South Park episode. I don't know if there's been anyone who's done both. Is South Park still on? Oh, absolutely. Oh, man. Yeah, and they're still doing like Pan-Den. How much is these? They're still doing pandemic episode. Like, I mean, they're still, like, very topical.

So, no, people watch this stuff, man. Like, look, man, we, we do this podcast where we talk about bands that, like, 99.5% of people will never hear here or, like, have heard of. Like, South Park's still, like, its fan base is way more visible, you know? I suppose. I imagine that they're just doing, like, cancel culture jokes. Oh, no. That's exactly what they're. doing.

So that would be like, that's like, you know, they're. It's Saturday. It's sort of like Saturday Night Live in that regard. So. Oh, man. I just made myself so depressed talking about this, man. Like the Smiths, Weiser, the Simpson, South, probably like, all this stuff that like was so formative in my, uh, teens is now just, uh, like, I, we got to change subjects where I'm

just going to be too depressed to go on. It's just going to be like me doing 40 minutes of silence. Yeah, it's tough. I mean, do we want to do a shout out to Jim Steinman? Yeah, we got it. We're talking about our teen years. Like, meatloaf, man, like, I think that in the 90s history, people talk about, like, how, you know, Nirvana was the meteor that killed all the hair metal dinosaurs. And yet you have, like, Aerosmith get a grip, like, just selling, like, 10 million copies.

And also, meatloafs come back. I mean, Bad Out of Hell too. I mean, we should maybe give a little background here for people who don't know what we're talking about. Jim Steinman.

Unlikely. He's a songwriter. He passed away this week at the age of 73. He is known as the writer of the Bad Out of Hell albums for Meatloaf. He also wrote Total Clips of the Heart, karaoke classic.

There's a lot of other songs that he wrote. But those are like the big, you know, first paragraph of the obituary. work right there. And you're right. I mean, Bad at a Hell comes out of

77, I believe. And then it's like 15 years later, they make Bad at Hell too. And then there's that song, I would do anything for love, but I won't do that. In the heart of like Alt Rock being dominant,

the grunge revolution. And you're right. Like, you know, we like these clean narratives about Kurt Cobain coming in and like poison spontaneously combusting and disappearing because hair metal's dead. But no, people still wanted these like really overdramatic Broadway type rock ballads with super long titles. I mean, that is transcendent no matter the era.

It's like if you had lived in, because I think there was like a bad out of hell three. I don't know there was a fourth. There was definitely a third that did not have the same impact. Yeah, it was like the Fast and the Furious of classic rock albums, though. There was a franchise that was very successful. And, yeah, Jim Steinman passed away. So pour one out for him here from early 90s to the late 70s and beyond. I wanted to ask you something quick, too, before we get to our mailbag.

Did you happen to watch that Tame and Paula live stream? No, but I heard that. The inner speaker 10th anniversary? I heard that Kevin Parker and the guys, you know, the other members of Tame Impala, whose names we all know, just kind of blinded us with luxury. Apparently it was just like in the nicest imaginable house. Oh, my God. Yeah.

This house is crazy. Apparently it's the, it's like a house studio, like recording studio. It's where he made inner speaker and he also, I guess, made parts of currents there too. Oh. And then someone sent me an article about this. bought this house, I think it was last year, for like $2.75 million. It's in Australia. Okay, I was about saying, if it's in L.A.

or if it's, because I don't even know if you could, you know, rock that kind of house in L.A. I mean, yeah, because it was like on the, it looks like it's on like a bluff. Yeah. On like the edge of the ocean with like all this green light. It's like an unbelievable view. It's like a log cabin looking house. Just, just incredible.

Like, what's the Australian? form of money is it dollars or is it like cougarans or uh you know dog coin i don't know dude kangaroo bucks i don't know what the oh great now we're got now we've insulted the australians this is just like that simpson's episode i'm sorry i'm sorry i love australia australia is the best but um it was a one of the better live streams though that i oh yeah uh during this pandemic period and um um It was pretty awesome to see Tame Impala as like a rock band. Yeah.

Because of playing like these early songs. And, you know, Kevin Parker playing a lot of guitar. He's like shredding a little bit, extending, jamming him out. Made me excited to see Tame Impala, who will be all over the festival scene as we talked about in a previous episode. Probably not playing like that. Yeah. No, no chugel. No chugel.

No chugel. It'll just be slow rush. Yeah. You know, makeup jams, which it's pretty cool, too. Let's go to our mailbag segment. Yes, the real mailbag people. Yes. Or it could be E&RI in disguise.

You never know. I mean, now we've sort of floated that out for like the Q&ON subset of our audience, the conspiracy theorists. They're going to be doubting the validity of all of our questions from now on. This question comes from Paul in Barry, Ontario, Canada. So another Canadian. Canadians love the show, which is great. That's why I'm not going to make any jokes about Canada,

although I don't know the form of money in Canada either. Do you know the Canadian dollar? Is it called the dollar? Probably. It's called Maple Leaves? I don't know. That's a benign joke. It's a benign joke. It's kind of a dumb joke, too.

Anyway, while I appreciate both of your work very much, nothing frustrates me more than your, he's talking to me, your view that Oasis is superior to blur or your recent interest in collecting cassettes. Now, let's pause for a moment. Ian, you're with me, right? You prefer Oasis to Blur, right? I actually don't.

I think if we look at the overall picture, I would say that I prefer the music of Blur more, but like it's kind of close. I think that I would say I would rather listen to Oasis now, but like I think that Blur has like the better catalog. This is not me trying to. be sneaky and like give a non-answer but no i mean i think that is uh probably a fairly common view that you know blur has a more consistent discography i think you'd also have to concede that oasis

has higher peaks yeah like nothing nothing is touching do you know what i mean or champagne supernova uh but then again like blur's think tank like that to me is like a classic indie rock hall of famer maybe in the future oh man well yeah well Okay, we'll see about that. It'll be a fun thing to talk about. Also, Paul, I love the fact that you're haunted by me collecting cassettes. Yeah. I like that.

There's nothing that bothers you more than that, which I love. Anyway, that brings me to my question. Steve's wacky cassette collection aside, the cassettes are not wacky. I'm not collecting, you know, like weird alt tapes or anything. Actually, I do have one weird alt tape, even worse, which is one of his finest albums. Anyway, do you guys still keep physical media? Do you have a format of preference? Do you hang on to old CDs or are you into vinyl?

I enjoy vinyl, but I have so many CDs from over the years that I just can't part with them. Curious what your current relationship is with physical media. And Steve, why cassettes? Well, I feel like I should probably answer this question first, since he's calling me out here directly. You know, I'll say, like, I like physical media. I have vinyl, I have CDs, and I've started collecting cassettes recently. And fortunately, I live in a house where I can actually store all of these things, because I know for some people, if you live in a bigger city, you live in an apartment, you can't really have physical media because you don't have the space for it. But fortunately, I don't have that problem.

I'll say that CDs to me are still the best sounding media, especially if you're playing it in a car. As far as cassettes go, I started collecting them just because I like them aesthetically as objects. I like holding them. I like looking at them. I have a nostalgic connection to this format because it's the first format I ever bought music in. So, you know, a lot of the tapes I've been buying are tapes that I would have bought in the late 80s, like when I was 11 or 12 years old and buying music. So I feel like this is probably the onset. of my midlife crisis.

That's probably why I'm doing this, but it's cheaper than buying a sports car. So I feel like I can justify it on that. I have to say, too, that as far as vinyl goes, I'm a little annoyed with vinyl at this point. I think I've probably talked about this on this show. I think vinyl is so overpriced at this point. And there's something like a little,

it feels like a bit of an affectation to me at times because, you know, I didn't grow up with vinyl. It wasn't my generation. It's something I got into later on because I thought it was cool aesthetically. But like CDs and cassettes, that's actually like my generation. And it feels in a way, I don't want to say more pure, but I feel like less of a poser, I guess, with this stuff. On top of like, I think all the pretensions of like vinyl culture, it's kind of turned me off at this point. So maybe I'm rebelling against that on some level. But in any way, you still collect physical media or have you just gone purely streaming?

Yeah, I was like such, like an embarrassingly late adapter of the iPod. I would, you know, it was like 2004 and I would still try to be going to the gym, like hoping with my disc man with a scratch copy of relationship of command, like hoping that it wouldn't skip. Like that, because like, I mean, I was, you know, 23, 20. I'm, you know, living in my own apartment. I'm 22, 23 some odd years old. Like no money. And, you know, not only did I like, you know, the tangible aspects of physical media, but like,

I can't afford a nice couch. I can't afford art or furniture. You're going to tell me I got to get rid of my CD rack, which not only holds, like, all my treasured, you know, compact disc, but, like, is easily the biggest, nicest and most important piece of furniture in my, in my apartment. And, you know, it's like, I would think, like, you can't really put a price on memories. until I moved from Georgia to California, at which point I'm like, wait a minute,

it costs how much to move all these? And then my parents, I kept, I dropped them off my parents' place and they donated them to like an army, like a military donation bin. Like they tried to sell it back to disco around, but like so many of my CDs were burned.

It must have been so mortifying. I'm going to use mortifying because, you know, my mom's Jewish. That's our word. And yeah, she tried to like sell like burn CDs to like a used CD store. like God bless her.

But yeah, nowadays, it's like, you know, like you were saying, like vinyl to me, like I do so many, like nearly all of my listening in either the car or on headphones or at the gym that, like, I just can't fathom a reason that I would listen to vinyl aside from like the affectation. Now granted, there are some like, you know, special collector's items, things that I own, like the death, like the Death Tones 20th anniversary, one, the, um, You know, the bright eyes vinyl collection. Like those I just have, like, those are purely collector's items for the visual. But like, yeah, I think that CDs, man, it's like, maybe what I could do.

Like, if I save up a chunk of change, like, I can actually recreate that CD rack from 2004 because, I mean, it can't cost. It can't cost that much to, like, get all those, like, you get all those CDs again, you know? Like, go on Amazon and go on like a penny spending spree. Or go to eBay. I mean, that's where I get a lot of CDs and cassettes. I mean, cassettes you can get for nothing. I mean, and that's something I feel like there's, there is this burgeoning thing with cassettes where they are becoming more collectible.

Obviously, like in DIY scenes, that's been going on for like a while, like where there's bands who will sometimes only put it out on cassette. That might be the only physical format they put out, that they put out anything at all. Go back to your Deftones thing. You said it was at the 20th anniversary of White Pony. Yeah, with the Black Stallion remix. Because I have to say, like,

Def Tones to me are such a CD band. That is a CD. That is easily a CD era. That is... Yeah, like White Pony is like a CD classic. Yeah. I mean, it reminds me of that story about... We might have talked about this already on the show,

but there was that story about James Gandalf. Fienie, how he would listen to Duky on vinyl on the set of the Sopranos. And I'm just like, I love James Gandalfini, but it just seems pretentious to me to listen to dukey on vinyl. That is a CD. Yeah. You know, that is the original format. The best is when, like, people, like, talk, like, they show off their, their, like,

vinyl of, like, 50 cents, get rich or die trying. It's like, oh, I guess this, you know, brings out the warmth and nuance of Bloodhound or high all the time, you know, it's like. Well, it's just that thing of like albums that didn't originate on vinyl and now we're going to put it on vinyl, that just seems so pretentious to me. It's like, yeah, if you're collecting, yeah, if you're collecting like jazz records from like the 60s and 70s and, you know, that was the format it was intended to be heard on, it's like, okay, I can get into that. but this thing of like vinyl is so pure that I have to put albums from the CD era, you know, on this like black wax. I don't know. I just, and I'm going to pay like $40 for it.

It just seems like lunacy to me. That market, I mean, it hasn't burst yet. And it doesn't seem like it will anytime soon. I mean, you would think that that bubble would have already burst. No. But, you know, vinyl sales keep creeping up. The kind of people who would buy vinyl is like a renewable, endlessly renewable resource to me, you know. Yeah, and look, hey, whatever you like, you know, do it, you know.

I'm just saying my own opinion, but like, hey, however you want to listen to music, all that matters is that you're doing what you love. So go with God. But, you know, I'm going to stick with my wacky cassettes. I think they're pretty fun. Let's get into the meat of our episode. we're revisiting the Indycast Hall of Fame. And if you don't remember, we did this, I think, a couple months ago.

We did. We did. We picked a couple albums that we feel like are really great and aren't discussed all that much. It's the kind of record that I think you or I would maybe pitch for a pitchfork Sunday review. We would pitch it for a pitchfork Sunday review and we wouldn't feel confident that it would actually get accepted. You know, like it's those kind of records that are deserving. but, you know, maybe they don't really get discussed in the critical conversation. So Ian and I are bringing them into the critical conversation on our show.

So, Ian, why don't you go first? What's the first album you want to induct into the Indicast Hall of Fame? So we alluded to this one on the previous episode, and we talked about CFCF's Memory Land, which is science fiction by Uncle. So Uncle, at the beginning, it was a collaboration between DJ Shadow and James Lavelle. James Lavelle, I believe, was the head of Moax Records, which one for the people who were listening to vinyl in the 90s, let's just say. So Uncle was like, this holds a special place in my heart because I think it was like the first album that I bought because of like actual hype. Like, you know, I would hear singles before an album dropped or like, you know, get excited about albums because I knew the artist.

But in 1998, I saw this album advertised. And I just can't imagine what useful memory this is knocked out of my brain. But I remember seeing this album promoted in the hot issue of Rolling Stone 1998 before I went to college. And it sounded like the most – I knew – I vaguely knew who DJ Shadow was because, like, my friends who were skaters in high school were listening to them. I didn't skate. They just listened to like both Mace and Apex Twins. So those are the people I kicked it with. But, you know, I got the sense of like, wow, this sounds like a groundbreaking type of album.

And I'm going to college. Like, it's really time to expand my horizons. And so this was a just a big cavalcade for electronica, but also like it's crossover with rock. So this album, science fiction, it had Tom York. It had Richard Ashcroft. It had the Beastie Boys. Something I didn't know at the time, it had badly drawn boy two years. before Our of Wilderbeast, he was doing like a metal track.

It had cool G rap. And it was just designed. It was designed as this huge event. And it was. And I kind of miss my ability to be to have like that suspension of disbelief when I was 18 to, you know, like we were saying in the kidday episode, how like people who were listening to Square Pusher and Apex twin and were like 35 when kid A came out probably like, oh, this is just a rip off right here. But for me, it's like, oh my God. like where else am I going to hear Cool G rap and radio head on the same album? This is the future.

And now mind you, like there was no Spotify. All you really had going was your Winamp playlist. And this is an album to me, which is interesting to talk about in 2021. I mean, Uncle kept going without DJ Shadow. I feel like I reviewed three of their albums at some point. But in 2021, it's this album that I feel is so. Indycast Hall of Fame because somehow managed to be both extremely underrated and extremely overrated at the same time.

Yeah, I mean, it was overrated probably in its time, but now it, I think it is underrated. Yeah. To speak to a point you were making earlier, this is a throwback to a time where it really did seem revolutionary to have like a rapper and like an electronic artist and like a rock band on the same album. You know, that was very much in the spirit of like the late 90s where, you know, you have albums like Odalay by Beck and like all the people that, you know, rip that album off, very self-conscious, basically like white indie rock people, bringing in other kinds of music in a very sort of like,

we're not just a conventional rock band kind of way. Yeah. Like it's, and, you know, the spirit of it, I think, was in the right place in the moment. Looking back on it, it can seem a little corny now because these collaborations happen much more organically. Uh-huh. It's not, people aren't as self-conscious about it. But, I mean, there's some genuinely great songs. Oh, there's great songs.

Like, Rabbit in Your Headlights, like, the one with Tom York, also, like, just an incredible video. But I think what, the reason it's kind of overrated and underrated now is that the songs that stick out, like, first and foremost, the ones people talk about are, like, the bad ones, like, the Beastie Boys one, which is, like, clearly, like, leftovers from Intergalactic. It's, like, you know, the meme where, like, people sometimes do tweets and Beastie Boys. voice where it's like, dun da da da da da da da da da da. Like it's that's like it's like that song gone live and also lonely soul. Like the one with Richard Ashcroft like this is the point where like Richard Ashcroft goes from this like golden rock god of urban hymns to this kind of joke that he's become.

And I think if you press play on Lonely Soul right now, it won't end by the time this episode is over. I have to strongly disagree. I actually, because I saw in our outline, I saw you clowning lonely soul. Oh, yeah. I remember, I remember loving that song. So I listened to it this morning. I think that song is still really good.

I like that. I think it's definitely, it's in the vein of, like, urban hymns, like those really long, you know, bittersweet symphony, like, these epic ballads with, like, great string sections. It's in that vein. Twelve false endings. The lyrics are terrible. You know, that's okay. I don't mind that.

I mean, you know, the drugs don't work. They just make you hurt. I mean, I think that was a lyric from Urban Hymns. It's make you worse. Oh, my God. Am I fact-checking you on verve lyrics, man? This is supposed to be, like, what a role reversal right here. Oh, well, you know, look, it's early in the morning.

I'm not as up on my verb lyrics as maybe I should be. But at any rate, bad lyrics do not preclude me from liking Richard Ashcroft ballads. so I think that's why I still like Lonely Soul. Spoken like a true Oasis fan. Exactly. Just, you know, overindulgent late 90s, Brit Rock. It's always going to be close to my heart. I'm going to talk about my first album that I want to induct into the Indycast Hall of Fame.

And it is now Here is Now Here's Now, Now, Here's Now, Now, Here, Now, Here, Myrack, and I feel like this is a band that is really popular in our world in the, Indycast sphere, but I feel like when people talk about early aughts, like that return of rock generation with the strokes, Interpol, Yeah, Yeah, Yeah,s, all those bands. Secret Machines doesn't get brought up, I think, as much as they should be in that conversation. I feel like they're a little overlooked. I think this record in particular, which is their debut full-length album, is really awesome. And just a little background on Secret Machines, if you're not familiar, this band was originally from Dallas, Texas.

They relocated to New York City. It was a power trio made up of two brothers, Brandon and Benjamin Curtis, and a drummer, Josh Garza. Benjamin Curtis ended up leaving the band in 2007 to start the band's School of Seven Bells. He later tragically died at the age of 35 and 2013 from cancer. I feel like this is kind of a star-cross band in a lot of ways.

their first record comes out and it does well critically they become this band that I think people look at as a potential almost like arena band because they have this huge sound. There's references to bands like Led Zeppelin and Pink Floyd, but referencing our Greta Van Fleet conversation from last week, Secret Machines, I think, is an example of a band that drew on those influences without just slavishly imitating them. You could sense the essence of those bands, but they were taking it, I think, in a more sort of forward moving direction. And then they put out their second record in 2006 called 10 Silver Drops, which doesn't do as well. I actually like that record a lot. I almost wanted to talk about that album instead because that album is like really unharalded. But they put that album out, and then Benjamin Curtis leaves.

after that record comes out basically. The thing about this record is that whenever I revisit it, I'm always just blown away by the drum sound on this record and just how big and full the drum sound. And I just feel like why aren't more indie bands now? Just putting like huge fucking drums on their records. You never hear really big drums anymore. Even on like hardcore records.

or like, you know, records that are more pedal to the metal, they don't have that same kind of roomy, John Bonham style, just heft to them. And it adds so much to this record. Because it has that classic rock thing. It also has like a crout rock, space rock influence to it, so it's spacey, but it also has a lot of guts and power to it.

So, yeah, if you aren't familiar with this band or this record, I think you're going to be pleasantly surprised. I think especially for that era, this is like a really powerful band. They were also like a great live band too. And yeah, I just feel like they're one of those bands that like if things had gone a different kind of way,

maybe they'd be playing arenas now instead of being in a way of footnote in the history of like Otts era indie rock. Yeah, this is like a first ballot like Mortal Lock Indie cast Hall of Fame to the point where maybe discussing 10 silver drops would have made it like a little bit more unharalded. But yeah, as far as I,

I'm concerned. Like this, there was like this kind of like a, like offshoot of the New Rock Revolution, so to speak, that included Texas. It was like these guys, trail a dead. And they were like a lot more like big, bold, like classic rock. I mean, this is like some straight up laser Floyd stuff at points. Like Led Zeppelin, like drums. And, I mean, the fact that like one, you know, one of them went on to play for Interpol makes

a lot of sense because they, you know, both extremely awesome low end. And I just think that like they didn't really have a narrative behind them aside from like, hey, look at these guys are huge, Texas, you know, classic rock. And I don't think they ever projected the same aura of cool or just had the same kind of like personality forwardness as like Jack White or the AAS or even Interpol for that matter. like Interpol you still had like a really cool image of New York and you know being this like kind of down and out Cokehead like the secret machines were just like a rock band and I think it was just kind of difficult to place them in a greater narrative and you know I like if you bring this album up like you will it's a bat signal for people it's it's just an awesome album that really doesn't have too many like too many there are There isn't much else like it. And if you listen to IndyCast and you haven't heard this record,

there's like almost no chance you will not love this. Oh yeah, you're going to have a great weekend. If you have not heard this record yet, you are going to just put on the biggest pair of headphones you have. First wave intact. I mean, that is just the one of the biggest. Take a gummy. Oh, man.

do some just some gummies and take a ride man you're going to love this record the road leads where it's lead amazing song sad and lonely great song um yeah good stuff what's your next record yeah speaking of bat signals um i almost have to apologize in advance to you know emo twitter if you're listening out there um i'm going to talk about saves the day in reverie which i mean those people would probably tell you that we need to dedicate like three consecutive episodes just to parsing this album's, uh, this album's history.

So for all the people who need a little bit of background. So saves the day, uh, one of the definitive, um, bands from when emo was starting to break into alt rock radio in the late 90s, early 2000s, uh,

through being cool, 1999, classic of the form, like classic like New Jersey emo punk about being sad about girls. And then Stay What You Are came out in 2001. That was the one with Big Hit at your funeral. That was their, oh shit, we're opening for Weezer in Arena's album. And then, like many bands from that era, they get signed to DreamWorks.

And in 2003, they put out, now I'm called In Reverie, which breaks from the songs about like, you know, sawing your girlfriend in half to be more like power pop almost, like a jellyfish album, really complicated. hated jazz chords, like really insane progressions, surrealist lyrics, and people hated it. This entire era, like I talked about Woodwater in the previous Hall of Fame, this is along the same lines, like that album, the anniversary's Your Majesty, Fire Thief, all these emo bands from like the late 90s and early 2000s, like started kind of making indie rock records or at least, you know,

like indie as it's understood as all rock. And the old fans hated it because it wasn't punk. It wasn't emo. And none of them ended up selling a lot of records either. And so, you know, get up kids on a wire I put on there as well. And the thing about this album that makes it so fascinating is saves the day kept going. Like a lot of these records from that era were actual career killers. And in a way, like this was the end of saves the days.

I don't want to say imperial phase. what happened is what happened is like when DreamWorks got merged into Universal you know a band like Jimmy World got you know they moved to Interscope but like saves the day got dropped like they were one of the many bands who fell by the wayside after that merger and you know what's happened with this album over the years is it's gone from like you know fuck this album forever

to you get like these people piping up like myself like actually this album's like pretty good And then I think now you'll have like in Reverie Hive, which will say like, hey, this is clearly the best saves the day album. You know, like it's the complete outlier in their discography. As a matter of fact, after this one, they course corrected real hard and started making hardcore records on Equal Vision again. I remember interviewing Ben from Tiger's Jaw and he said that in Revery is his favorite album of all time. Like all records, this one's his favorite. You know, I think that, like, a lot of albums like this are really interesting to revisit now because they kind of predicted what might have happened in 2014 where, like, people who are in indie rock or alt rock have to reckon with the fact that, like, you know, these aren't just, like, dumbass punk kids who, like, don't listen to any other music, but they have interests outside of that. And, you know, this is a real bold, daring album, you know, especially for their major label debut.

I think it really stands out because, you know, it does have some very, you know, complex chords. It does have some interesting structures. But it also still has that emo-ness to it, like the first song anywhere with you, where it doesn't sound like the way power pop can be like kind of overly clever or stuffy. It's, yeah, it's just fascinating, fascinating time capsule, but also a really good record. Steve, have you ever heard this record? I have never heard this record. I don't even know if I've heard any Saves the Day records. So I feel like if our relationship's going to continue on this show,

that I should probably dig deep into Saves the Day at some point. So we don't have an IndyCast divorce down the road. So I'll look into that. I'll put that on my to-do list. That was an extremely Ian Cohen induction into the Indicast Hall of Fame. And now I'm going to do an extremely Stephen Hayden induction into the Indycast Hall of Fame. The record is Megafon by the band Megafon. If you're not familiar with this band, it's made up of two brothers.

Again, I guess I have a brother thing in this episode. This wasn't intentional. But you have two brothers, Brad Cook and Phil Cook, along with drummer Joe Westerland. This was a band that formed in the wake of a band called DeArmond Edison breaking up. And if you know that band, it's probably because you're familiar with Bonnie Vair. and Justin Vernon and the whole origin story of the first Bunny Bear record for Emma Forever ago. Basically, DeArmond Edison broke up. He went back to Wisconsin, went to the log cabin, wrote those songs, and the rest is history.

Well, part of the rest of history part is that the other three people in that band formed Megafon. And this was a band that never got as popular, obviously, as Bunny Bear. But they were, for me, they were like one of my favorite live bands to see in the late odds. a band that I think in a lot of ways, like Secret Machines, seems a little star-cross to me. They also seemed like maybe they were like a little ahead of their time. You know, they were combining indie rock influences with folk and free jazz and also jam band influences. Apparently, like, the cooks met Westerland at the Horde Festival in 1997.

Oh, yeah. And I remember, see, I went to school in O'Clair. I went to college there in the late 90s. And I remember that there was a band called Mountain Vernon that these guys were in, including Justin Vernon. And they were very much like a horde type band. You could actually go on YouTube and see them playing in a battle of the bands. It sounds kind of like Dave Matthews band at that time. But Negafon, yeah, they were just an incredible live band, very unpredictable.

In some ways, a lot like a band we talked about recently, Akron Family. In that same vein, you know, Megafon was from North Carolina. They had that southern quality to them, that southern stoner quality, but again, very progressive musically. And, you know, I wonder if maybe if they had been based in Brooklyn and associated with like the grizzly bears and animal collectives of the world, if maybe things would have gone differently for them, if they could have been, as you said, with secret machines, them not really having a narrative. I feel like Megafon fell through the cracks in that way. The self-title album that I'm talking about here, it came out in 2011, and it felt like in a way for them, like, their stab at like a big mainstream record, or at least mainstream, as they would

define it. Because if you listen to like earlier records of theirs, like Gather Form and Fly, they're very weird, very experimental, whereas the self-titled record has fairly, it has fairly straightforward songs. There's songs on this record that almost sound like Grateful Dead homages, which in 2011 was definitely out of fashion. And I feel like that would probably go down differently now than it did back then. It's interesting because based on what I've read about Megafon, I was under the assumption that they broke up. But apparently they're, well, they're on the, they're like on an indefinite hiatus. So I think they've left the door open of maybe getting back together, but it's been

almost a decade now. I think they went on hiatus in 2012. And as far as the relevance of this band now, I would say that probably the most lasting impact is Brad Cook, one of the members. He's become this really in-demand

producer in the indie rock world. He was the guy, he produced Waxahachi, St. Cloud, to much acclaim. He was an executive producer of a deep understanding by the war on drugs. I'm not sure exactly what that means. I know that he was in the studio a lot and really helped make that record. So you can you can see the impact of like what these guys did in terms of just integrating all these different kinds of music and just having like really great sounding records that have I think the feel of like older more vinyl bound

music but also a progressive edge to them where they're constantly pushing the envelope and trying to do different kinds of things. So if you're into the indie jam world and you haven't heard this record, I think you will really like it. This is an unsung band that I think is worthy of reinvestigation. So Megafon by Megafon. Yeah. And for me, man, it's like I like this band as well. Like you mentioned like maybe if they were from like Brooklyn or whatever or like maybe they'd be like more popular now.

It's like, I don't know, man. Is anyone excited about anything anymore? But I think of Megafon because in 2009, like, that was the record I was into, the one with, like, the forest on the cover that had guns on it. That I used. That closed out a 2009 mix that I made. Just had, like, a lot of classics from that year, you know, daylight, Matt and Kim, crown on the ground. And, like, yeah, Megafon. Like, they did fit into that, you know, maybe like the more artsy folk indie rock realm.

but I think that, yeah, there are men I'm like really interested in revisiting. Yeah, I do think in some ways they got kind of buried by BoniVare, but also like kind of boy, it's like, well, as long as megaphone exist, like or as long as they exist, they get that tie in that association. So, yeah, I think that's, you know, like Akron family, a lot, a lot to, a lot to rediscover there. So that's it then for our Indycast Hall of Fame. four new albums in there. I look forward to to inducting more albums.

You know, you brought up Trail of Dead before. Have we not inducted a Trail of Dead album yet? I'm surprised that that hasn't happened. Worlds apart, like, I almost feel like we would have to just do the entire episode about that and get Riley on here. Like, there, yeah, worlds apart is like, that, I just can't really do it. It's, it's there. It's always in the periphery, but it's like, when do I pull out the big guns, you know.

Yeah, I don't know. That's like the controversial exclusion so far. I think if there's going to be people protesting the Hall of Fame, it's going to be like, where's trail of dead? So hopefully we can rectify that

in the near future. All right, we've now reached a part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner where Ian and I recommend something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so I want to give a shout to Hugo Reyes.

He made a four-part series about like Chicago, Chicago's role in emo revival, like dating back to 2004 and to current day. And in the most recent one, he brought up this artist called Snow Ellett. That's like the word snow, last name, E-L-L-E-T. And it's, you know, and he brought that up. And there's been some argument about like, is this emo pop? Is this Brooklyn indie rock?

One of my favorites, I love your lifestyle. So it sounds like the tough alliance. playing emo music. It's called Suburban Indy Rockstar, and there is that kind of clever power pop self-awareness to it. It's kind of like an origin story. But more or less, if you like the stuff I typically recommend in this part of our show, if you, like, man, it's been two years since the last Oso Oso album.

I wonder when they're going to drop again. This is going to be the album that really justifies giving you 10 minutes of. your time. It's five songs, 11 minutes, like all my favorite Nemo albums of 2021. It's less than 15 some odd minutes. And just really, really, like really catchy songs with, you know, the drum machine. Just sounds like bedroom pop. It could come from Chicago. It could come from Philly. It could come from Portland. I'm really looking forward to seeing where this guy takes things going forward. I had a strong feeling that you would talk about this in Recommendation Corner. And I'm glad you did because I like this. a lot too. It's a very

fun record. You mentioned Oso Oso. It's definitely in that similar kind of late 90s, early 2000s pop rock vein. Just really good songs. It seems like a little more lo-fi than Osso Oh, absolutely.

But really, but just like really good, catchy, fun songs. Really well-timed with the time of the year that we're in right now. Just good springtime music. My recommendation is kind of in the same Vane. It's this artist named a pronoun. Yes. It's a project by the singer-starring writer named Elise Valturo. Just this week, she announced her upcoming EP that's coming out in June.

It's called, OMG, I Made It, and she released a new single called I Want to Die, but I Can't, because I've got to keep living. Great song. Extremely 1975 energy. I love it. Yeah, it's a great song. I've heard the whole EP. I really like it a lot. This actually isn't even my favorite song on the record. Like the first track on that EP is so good. But yeah, it's just tons of bangers on there. Again, similar to the Snow Ellet recommendation,

this is just like really well-written, shiny pop rock songs that are catchy as hell. Not much else fuss to it. You know, you can just enjoy it as just pure like ear candy. And I'll say that if you aren't familiar with pronouns self-titled album, which I believe came out two years ago. I think that was 2019. It's actually called I'll Show You Stronger.

That's the album from the show you stronger. That's the name of it. I'm sorry. Yeah, but that record, that's an awesome record. She opened for Jimmy Eat World and that makes a lot of sense to me. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely in that same, again, emo rock. Yeah, emo scented power pop.

Yeah. Really good stuff. I'll show you stronger. If you haven't heard that record, definitely check. that out and also check out the new single too. The EP drops in June. I'm sure we'll give it a shout out at that time as well, but I just wanted to put that on your radar. Really great EP to look forward to. So that wraps up this episode of Indycast. Thank you for listening to this episode. We'll be back with more news and reviews and hashing out trends next week.

And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie 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.