Indiecast - The Return Of Oasis, TV On The Radio + Nick Cave

Episode Date: August 30, 2024

Steven and Ian begin this week's episode by talking about a big potential reunion in the rock world. Of course we're referring to... TV On The Radio! The band appears to be teasing something right now, which the guys assume is probably their first concert dates in five years (1:38). After that, they of course talk about the return of Oasis. Steven is very pumped, but will he actually pay through the nose to see them in Europe (7:06)? Maybe he will to take his mind off the disastrous state of his Fantasy Album Draft team. It looks like Ian is on the way to yet another easy victory this quarter (22:07). The guys then transition to a conversation about Nick Cave And The Bad Seeds, who release a new album, Wild God, today. Steven is yay on Cave, but what about Ian (29:57)?In the mailbag, a listener asks about the phenomenon of "rawdogging" on airplanes and whether the guys ever listen to music without doing anything else (40:00). Then they answer an email about whether they like prog rock, and Steven gives a very detailed answer (47:17).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks up the UK act Seefeel and Steven goes for veteran singer-songwriter Ray LaMontagne (56:22).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 204 here and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. You can submit questions for Steve and Ian at [e-mail], and make sure to follow us on Instagram and X (formerly Twitter) for all the latest news. We also recently launched a visualizer for our favorite Indiecast moments. Check those out here.See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Indycast is presented by Uprocks's Indy Mix tape. Hello everyone and welcome to Indycast. On this show, we talk about the biggest indie news of the week. We review albums and we hash out trends. In this episode, we talk about the return of Oasis. We yay or nay, Nick Cave, and we discuss something called raw dogging with music. Yikes. My name is Stephen Hayden and I'm joined by my friend and co-host.

He thinks we should be talking about the return of TV on the radio instead. Ian Cohen? Ian, who are you? Either that or the rumors that Derek Wibley from some 41 is going to front Lincoln Park now, which is not true. Really? I hadn't heard that. Yeah, I saw it on Twitter and didn't look into it. But it was basically, I think, it's like one of those things where, like, you know, a Twitter account with 150 people, like, speculates something. because, you know, Derek Wibley's like, you know, kind of like Chester Bennington, a guy who was famous in the early 2000s and had kind of a spiky haircut, and it makes sense. So, but that's not true.

But TV on the radio, something, TV on the radio is doing stuff. Yeah, you've distracted me with this Derek Wibley thing. I only know that song Fatlip. Yeah. Still waiting, still waiting's a banger. Yeah. Still waiting's the one where they made fun of like the strokes and the new rock revival. That's a good video.

Oh, wow. I wonder if Julian Casablanca saw that and cared at all. Yeah, so as of us recording this episode on Thursday morning, all we know is that TV on the radio has teased something. They're doing something with their social media accounts. They are teasing a big announcement. We don't know what it is. It may have already happened by the time this episode goes up.

But I think it's worth assuming that they're going to, be doing some sort of, I guess, a reunion, too. I don't know, reunion is the right word. I don't know if they ever officially broke up. They haven't put out a record in 10 years. They haven't toured or played live since 2019, so a pretty long hiatus. I think it's been assumed that they were inactive, I guess. So them teasing anything feels like big news. My guess is that it's some sort of tour as opposed to a record. But who knows. We don't know anything at the moment. We're going to get to the Oasis News here in a minute. That's the big reunion of the week. But pretty cool that TV on the radio is back. I feel like this

is one of those bands when we talk about 2000s era into 2010s. They were never the most popular band of that era, but they seem like the most universally liked. You're not going to find a lot of people who don't like TV on the radio, there's people who like them more, people who like them less, but they're not going to engender the same polarized reaction that like the strokes get or that Interpol gets or even LCD sound system gets. And there's something to be said about the spectrum of passion that can be a good or negative thing, I guess, for a band. But would you agree?

I mean, I feel like they have like the highest approval rating maybe of any band of that era. Absolutely. And that's true whether you talk about them as like a Meet Me in the Bathroom band, which they very much were, or like Animal Collective or Grizzly Bear or the things that happen like in the late 2000s. Yeah, TV on the radio is a band I really like, I really admire. And I would say that of the 21st century, maybe the best band in theory. I mean, they're incredible band in practice. But, yeah, I think both Cookie Mountain and Deer Science won Paas and Jop in their respective years. And yeah, they're just a band that you think like this is like this is a creative player band.

And I'm surprised here that they were doing shows in 2019. I did not know that. I figured that like after they released Seeds, I believe that was the final album in 2014, that they, you know, I think Tunei's acting and Kit Malone is kind of doing his own thing. One of my wife's friends opened for him at an art gallery in San Diego recently. Solid guy. But yeah, this is a band that like people always want to like relitigate. It's like, yeah, I remember TV on the radio? They were like, they were the shit.

And you just have to wonder like why they haven't not held up, but be celebrated consistently in the same way. I mean, we talked about Obamacore last episode. And I mentioned Wale and I mentioned Deer Science. I did not mention the Wale song produced by Dave Scy. tech called TV in the radio. That is like peak Obama core. But yeah, I listened to Dear Science. I listened to Dear Science yesterday just on the strength.

I think that album, and this is going out of lim. I think it's a little overrated. I love Cookie Mountain, but yeah, I just remember, like all these old memories of like me kind of loving TV on the radio and theory comeback. Like aside from Cookie Mountain and live performance on it, I can't remember which late night show of Wolf like me. That you just, yeah, Letterman. You see that, it's like, oh yeah, this is like

the single greatest band that ever exists. Yeah, they're a great live band. I think their albums can be a little hit or miss for me. Like, anytime I saw them live, I thought they were great. I'm also a cookie mountain person, I would say, over Deer Science, although I like Deer Science. It is interesting to me that one of the songs from that record, Golden Age, has been repurposed by Fish as a big live song for them.

What? So, oh, yeah, that's a huge. that show. Oh yeah. They cover Golden Age. So there is the jam band wing of the TV on the radio fandom. I was just looking up their last show that they played back in 2019. It was on a bill with Weezer, Pixies, and Basement. So, Basement? Holy shit. I did not. You imagine. It was at Madison Square Garden. So this was like a Weezer's Pixie show that TV on the radio was added as a support act with basement. So I wonder, like, what the Weezer picksies crowd,

if they were into TV on the radio or not. I just picture, and again, these are our people, so we can make fun of them. Like, a lot of middle-aged guys and, like, Star Wars shirts in that audience, you know, and they're excited to hear pork and beans, and then TV on the radio comes out. I don't know how much overlap there is in the fandoms for those bands.

But, yeah, I'm excited. My assumption is that they're just going to be playing shows and maybe not making a record. But I don't know. We don't know. I guess we'll find out. And maybe we'll know by the time this episode goes up. So that's cool news. But yeah, we have to get to the big, or I guess bigger reunion news this week.

And that is, of course, the return of Oasis. And look, one of us on this show has been speculating about this for a couple years now. Of course, I'm talking about myself. I've written columns going back to 2023. I wrote a column at the beginning of 2023 speculating on whether Oasis was going to be coming back because there were already rumors at that time that they were considering a comeback.

And it just seemed inevitable that they were going to, you know, Liam and Noel were going to get back together and they were going to assemble some people behind them. You know, we don't know who it's going to be. bonehead is rumored to be back in the mix, which is exciting for me. You got, you got Gem Archer. He'll probably be there. But look, it's just going to be a weathered-looking English guy in his 50s with like a Rod Stewart haircut.

Like that, it's just going to be somebody who looks like that standing behind Liam and Knoll, and it's going to be great. I'm just going to read from the Rolling Stone article here announcing the reunion. 15 years after their breakup, brothers Liam and Noel Galgar have apparently set aside their differences, announcing a run of concerts in the UK and Ireland for 2025. The group announced the Oasis Live 25 tour early Tuesday morning, though details on North American shows have not yet been announced. It's also unclear which original band members will join the Gallagher brothers.

They're going to be playing in Cardiff, Manchester, London, Edinburgh, Edinburgh, Dublin in the summer of 2025. Press release notes that these are the only shows in Europe next year and that plans are underway for Oasis Live 25 to go to other continents outside of Europe later next year. They put out a statement explicitly denying that they're going to play Glastonbury. And it's interesting because the early language from Oasis

is that they are avoiding festivals, that they're going to make people pay to see them on their own show, which is, I think, a smart strategy, at least early on. Look, we don't know how long this reunion's going to last. I could see down the road, 2026. Maybe they do some of these tour shows, and then in 2026, that's when they start getting the festival money. Look, I have feelings about this, but I'm curious for you.

I'm the big Oasis fan here. I know you're more of an agnostic person. It has been fascinating for me this week, seeing the response to this news, because there's actually been way more discourse about it than I would have expected. This is clearly a big reunion. No matter what you think about Oasis, just the amount of people talking about it,

whether they love it or they don't love it. And again, I always felt like this was inevitable because OASIS is one of the only great rock bands slash rock brands where the band wasn't together. There was an opportunity for them to do a reunion thing. There's not a lot of bands like that right now. that you could just say, if they get back together, it's going to be a big deal. And a lot of the bands that are like that, I kind of wonder if they're too old at this point.

And I'm talking about, like, Pink Floyd or, like, the three guys from Led Zeppelin getting back together. Well, the Smith's them, too. But, like, even the Smith, you know, because, like, some of these other bands I was talking about, like Pink Floyd and Zeppelin, I feel like 10 years ago, if they had announced a reunion tour, that'd be a huge deal. It'd be huge. But now it'd still be a big deal. But I don't get the sense that like young people

care as much about those bands anymore. I kind of wonder that with the Smiths too. Like Oasis to me, they're still in that window where you're going to get the middle-aged people, but I think they're also going to get a fair number of kids who love Wonderwall. Like people who were in their 20s who weren't alive.

in the 90s, and this is going to be their chance. Because that's when you can start to play the big rooms. When you can get the old people and the young people, like that, if you're in that window, then you, that's when you can do the big numbers. I wonder about that with those old old bands, if they've aged out of that. I wonder about that with the Smiths too at this point. Because they seem like they don't have the same cachet that they did 10 years ago. And a lot of that has to do with Morrissey.

I think, obviously. I mean, I love the Smiths. I think they're great. I'm not really interested in seeing them live, I have to admit. I'm not, I don't really, I am excited to see Oasis, even though I know it might not be great. It might just be okay. It might, you know, I might be paying tons of money for something that's just okay.

But look, I've never even been to Europe before. So to see Oasis in a stadium in Europe that is appealing to me, and I have friends over there. I've already reached out about maybe crashing on their couch. Although I guess they call it a sette over there. Or sette. I'm probably mispronouncing that. But anyway, what do you think about this?

Do you have any opinions about this at all? I mean, I do because, you know, this sort of reminds me of like Kamala Harris being like the, you know, the Democratic presidential candidate because there was like rumors and like, oh, no, that's not going to happen. And then all of a sudden it seems like it comes together within the span of five days. Also, I think it's, um, it is like Noel's ex-wife, like the kind of reverse Yoko Ono in that, like, they got the band back together rather than breaking them up. I do like the speculation that this is all the like pay alimony or like the like lawyer fees or something like that. I mean, the only thing to get away is back together.

If you have, if you're going to view this cynically, that is the way to look at it, that Noel, I think he, he announced his divorce. I think that was, I think it wasn't 2023 or maybe toward the end of 2022. There was also rumors that like his wife didn't like Liam. I couldn't understand. I don't understand why. Like, come on.

Why would she have a problem with Liam? I'm sure he was always a gentleman around her. I don't really want to like get into like blame the woman mode here. I mean, that's like a very ugly thing in rock history. But yeah, the alimony thing, again,

if you look at it cynically, it does feel like that's probably part of it. But it's just the inevitability of it, too, that you have Liam, who is basically doing an Oasis Tribute show at this point on his solo tours. And you have Noel with the high-flying birds. Look, nobody cares about the high-flying birds.

And at some point, Noel's got to think, I could be playing stadiums right now instead of theaters and clubs with this solo act that no one cares about. So it just felt like the energy, the momentum was, always going to pull in this direction. Yeah, I think that, like, you know, they're very committed

to disliking each other publicly, but I never saw Oasis as a band that was so artistically motivated that it's like, no, we can't, we can't sully our reputation. Like, they always seem like a very pragmatic band. I think that was true of like their songwriting and just the way they went about things. And, you know, when I heard that this reunion was actually happening, You know, my first thought goes to, like, does Steve have a limit to what he would pay to see this show? Because, you know, I'm thinking of me with that, like, Best Friends Forever Festival in Las Vegas with, like, you know, Sanity Real Estate and Cap and Jazz and so forth. Where I heard it, I'm like, oh, this thing was created for me. I got to go there.

And now that the reality is setting in about, like, flights and hotels and what it would be like to just be amongst all those people, I'm like, I don't know anymore, you know? So are you going to wait for the possibility of the U.S. tour? I mean, would you prefer that the show, the first couple of shows, goes so disastrously they don't reunite and play the United States, and it's just legendary for that, or that it goes well enough where they kind of drag it into 2026, and they play on like a week of dates at MSG or crypto.com arena? Well, I definitely hope they come to the United States.

I definitely want to see this tour at some point. I've actually seen rumored tour dates for outside of Europe. It's been circulating online. I'm not going to be too specific about this because we practice responsible music journalism slash criticism on Indycast. But I've seen U.S. dates that are rumored to be happening in 2025, and there's not that many of them. According to this rumor thing that I saw, and they were playing stadiums in a select number

of cities, like a small number. And I think the idea is we're going to play in like regions of the country and just try to be a magnet for anyone in this area that wants to see this show. And assuming that we can get 50,000 people on the West Coast, East Coast, Midwest, South. If this rumored thing that I saw is true, it seems like that's the strategy. And then perhaps down the road, if they don't kill each other and the tour is going well, you come back and that's when you maybe play arenas. and some more cities. Based on the rumors, that feels like that's the strategy at this point. I mean, the big roadblock for me, in terms of going to Europe,

it's the expense of it, but it's also the fact that my family, we've talked about taking a trip to Europe. So if I'm going to go there by myself and hang out with friends and drink pints at Wembley Stadium, that's going to be a hard sell, I think. So that's a big roadblock. So maybe I could get some family trip shoehorned into that as well, but that could be difficult. And just getting tickets, I think, in Europe on this initial run is going to be really hard.

So I don't know. The idea of seeing Oasis, again, like in a European stadium, whether it's in London, Manchester, or even like in Dublin, that could be amazing or that could be the most obnoxious thing in the world. It could go either way. Like, I'm not sure. Because it's part of me that's like, oh, it's going to be a big thing. sing along, you're going to be arm and arm with these people.

It's going to be a great party. But then, on the other hand, it could just be like, you know, like 50-year-old guys trying to relive their 20s and they're just doing like keychain bumps and the audience and they're aggressive and there's like a hooligan type vibe. It could be that as well. Yeah. I'm wondering with like people in the UK, whether it's going to be a reverse of the people I know, like Americans who fly to Europe to see Taylor Swift.

I've known people who've done that in like the Netherlands and Scotland to see Taylor Swift. And it's like whether there's like some random bloke in Manchester who's like going to try to see him in Chicago instead because it might be easier to get tickets. And I'm like wondering for you. It's like because you've seen Oasis live. Like in I don't want to say they're prime because that's 1998, but it's kind of their prime in terms of like Oasis being Oasis. I mean the classic lineup. Yeah. Well, Tony McCarroll, the original drummer wasn't there.

It was Alan White at that point. Yeah, the classic lineup of Oasis I saw in the 90s on the Be Here Now Tour. Yeah. And a corner shop opened. There was a fire alarm in the middle of the show. And Noel was playing Talk Tonight in the acoustic set. I mean, it was awesome. I loved it.

It was, I mean, the room was this cavernous theater that just, I mean, it sounded terrible. And I was way up in the balcony. But it was Oasis in the 90s. It was great. After the show, we were hanging outside where their dressing room was. And it was in the middle of January, so it was freezing. But, like, Liam was, like, on the second floor of this building. And he was waving to everyone in the window.

And I think he had, like, a drink in his hand. And he was acting very Liam Gallagher in 1998, just being like a drunken buffoon. And that was amazing. Yeah, they were great. They were great. They were great. And they were a train wreck at the same time. So at least I saw them then, but I don't know.

I wrote about this this week. I am physically incapable of being cynical about this. I just cannot be cynical about it, even though I can see clearly all of the potential pitfalls. I'm just excited. It doesn't matter how many people online want to take shots at Oasis. Doesn't matter. Love this band.

Did you see, there was like this weird side conversation that happened. online this week because someone posted a video of pavement covering Wonderwall in the 90s. Yeah. And it was like a piss take type cover. Yeah. It's like extremely not. This is what the 90s were like, you know. Right.

Right. And it prompted this conversation about pavement versus oasis, which is like an insane conversation to have. I love both bands. I love them for different reasons. They're very different bands. They're not trying to do the same thing at all. I don't think you have to pick one or the other,

but of course it turned into this very sort of binary conversation about, well, Pavement is this snarky, insincere band, and Oasis is this sincere band, or Oasis is this terrible band, and Pavement is this great band, and whatever side of the equation you fell on, you could caricature the other side.

It was all very tiresome, I think. You can like them both. I would bet that Stephen Malchmus likes Oasis. I would too. There's no, because you read interviews with him, he likes classic rock and fantasy baseball. Like, that's who he is. He's not some, like, fine art intellectual guy. He's a dude.

So I'm sure there are some, I bet if you ran to Stephen Malkman's and you were like, tell me your favorite Oasis B-side that he would have an answer for you. I would bet more than a little bit of money on that. Yeah. Although I will say that I really would have loved, like, late 90s, Liam taking shots at Steve Malchmus or whatever. Like, not because, like, I wanted to see, like, pavement shot down, but it's just like, imagine pavement, like, in the crosshairs of prime shit-talking oasis.

Actually, I think that, like, prime shit-talking oasis is, like, still ongoing. Oh, yeah, yeah. They haven't lost their speedball in that regard. You could talk about songwriting or records or whatever. the shit talking has stayed top-notch for 30 years. Let's talk about our fantasy draft here. We alluded to this last week that, I guess, what was it, August 23rd, that was my Super Bowl because I had three albums out that day, the Illuminati Hotties record, the Spirit of the Beehive

album, and Sabrina Carpenter. And I'm like the Broncos in the 80s, basically, if this is the Super Bowl. a disaster, Ian. A total and utter disaster for me. And it's insane because, okay, if you remember last week, I was thinking that Illuminati Hotties was going to be the weak point for me. That was the album I was worried about. But I felt like Sabrina Carpenter, Spirit of the Beehive,

they're going to at least go over 80. They're going to go over the Mendoza line. Both of those albums right now. We got Sabrina Carpenter at 79. Spirit of the Beehive at 78, both below the Mendoza line. Disaster. Disaster for me, Ian. One album below the Mendoza line would be terrible.

Two, it's not even going to be close in this matchup. And then Luminati Hotties, who I disrespected with my doubts, they come through with an 81. So they're over the Mendoza line. They did the best so far of the albums that came out last week for me. I don't know what to say, Ian. I came up with this idea to do the fantasy draft. I mean, I stole the idea from Bill Simmons, but I came up with the idea of stealing it from him.

I'm terrible at this, Ian. I'm terrible at this. You're going to blow me at, this is going to be the worst draft yet. Yeah, I was surprised by that. Imagine me telling you two months ago that you would have been better off picking a Jack White solo album for your team. I mean, I had my doubts about something. A carpenter!

I mean, I have a complaint. I'll hold the complaint here for a second so you can talk, but I'm going to rail against the system here for a little bit, because that's what you do when you lose. I can college football, if you don't make the playoff, you blame the system, you don't blame yourself. But anyway, what were you going to say? Yeah, I mean, I'm kind of surprised because, I mean, like, Illuminati-Hadi strikes me as a band, you know, with all due respect, that, like, you're going to find the one writer.

who, you know, likes them every single time. And they're like, they're like a guaranteed 82 or 83 as long as they make records. But yeah, Sabrina, like, shocking. Spirit of the Beehive, like that arm just doesn't seem to have a lot of juice critically. And it's a good record. I like the record. Yeah. I mean, it's not noticeably that different in terms of quality from their previous ones.

But I'm kind of surprised. I mean, I got an 82 with Claro. Cassandra Jenkins got an 88. Michelle Nadeocello Chello's got an 84. I got MJ Lenderman and Nillifri Yanya right to go. I mean, this is shocking, shocking blowout. I was thinking, yeah, I was thinking Bill's in the 90s, but Broncos in the 80s is equally accurate.

Or like that one time the Chargers me, the Super Bowl, you know, to rep San Diego, man. I don't know what to tell you, man. It's like Ravens Giants. That's Super Bowl. Remember that? Of course I do. One of the least watchable games of all time. It's curtains for me, Ian.

Curtains. This is terrible. What happened, man? What happened? Well, look, I'm going to rail against the system right now. I'm going to rage against the machine. Because if you look at Metacritic, you look at the top of a lot of these reviews. And you see the New York Times.

You see Pitchfork, see Rolling Stone, the big hitters. Like on Sabrina Carpenter, they're all giving it positive reviews. And then you scroll down, you see what the negative reviews are coming from. And I'm sorry. I mean, no disrespect to any of these places. But what does Sputnik? music. I've never heard of that site. You see, that's a, that's a place that like reviews a lot of, um, it's kind of like a fan site, but like that's where you find, like, that's where you'll find a one

glass beach review or something like that. Sputnik music, music, O-M-H, uh, clash music. You know, people, I constantly hear this from music critics and journalists that music journalism is dying. music media is dying but then I look at Metacritic and there's all these outlets I've never even heard of being counted for their reviews. It's like, okay, what are we doing here?

Like, who are you people? Why are you screwing me over? Music, O-M-H, clash music, line of best fit. I've never read any of these places. I've never heard of any of that. And no disrespect to you. You probably never heard of me either, okay?

But I'm just saying that there are some random ass outlets being counted in Metacritic. And I'll just say, like, part of this is me writing for Uprocks. I don't get counted on Metacritic. They don't count me, but they're counting these places I've never heard of. So I'm just saying the system, Ian, is broken. They're conspiring against me by recruiting these random ass places that no one has heard of. They're dragging down my scores, Ian.

They're dragging me down They're dragging me down, man So MetaCritic A line of best fit is That takes its name From a Death Cap for Cudy's song So I can't hold too much against them But

Well I hold nothing against them I'm blaming Metacritic Because like who are you Treating as authorities here Yeah You know There's so many random-ass places That they sample from

I don't get it And they're hurting me personally I want to see about their Like the way they determine Whether or not a site Is big enough to be included And they also have this like proprietary calculation where I'm sure like a pitchfork review counts more. It's weighted higher than that of music at OMH, which what does the OMH stand for?

No idea. No idea. I looked it up. I googled all these places. I've never heard of music OMH other than on Metacritic. I mean, this could be like a shell company that Metacritic set up to drag down scores and to hurt people like. me in the fantasy draft who are just trying to win one season. I just want one win over here, man. I'm like the Carolina Panthers over here. Just want one win. Yeah, I'm trying to-

I'm actually starting all these. These are all shell. That's true. I am the generals. I'm the generals. Just take the ball. He's spinning the ball. Yeah, I actually made all these sites up just to like lower your score. You're going to find out like the paper trail all leads back to San Diego. You're killing me, Metacritic. You're killing me with your who you're taking from here. I just don't get it.

Don't understand it at all, Metacritic. But you know what? I'm going to call myself out as well because you know, we're looking at like neither of us chose Brat and neither of us chose Fontaine's DC or Nick Cater. We're just absolutely fucking crushing it right now. We went way too heavy.

Both of us, I think on like kind of past their peak. Indie favorites and just missed out on the ever-reliable UK press going hard for the people they chose early on. Charlie X-EX was a big miss. Yeah. I wonder if that was announced by, like, when we did our draft. I feel like that record, I don't know, probably was. We probably just blew it on that one.

Oh, my God. Well, I don't know. There's always next quarter. Got to fire my GM again and then rehire them. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to do, Ian. I'm beside myself. I'm terrible at this.

Terrible. Well, as you alluded to Ian, a record that has a very high metacritic score that I could have drafted. I think this was on my board, actually, but I didn't take it. The record's called Wild God. It's by Nick Cave in the Bad Seeds.

Currently has a 92. A 92, Ian. A 92. And, God. Okay, I got to get over this. I just feel beside myself. I feel like Dennis Green at the end of that, you know, that... That's a good one.

You want to crown their ass? Yeah, that's a good one. They are who we thought we are. Yeah, exactly. You want to crown Ian's ass? You want to crown it? He is who I thought I was. Yeah, whatever.

So this is the first Nick Cave album in five years. And it's a little weird to me to have a Nick Cave album come out in August. It's a little like putting on like a black leather duster in August. in August. It just doesn't seem to fit with the current climate. I feel like Nick Cave albums should come up between Halloween and New Year's Eve. That is the Nick Cave Prime listening time, at least for me. But at any rate, this album's out in August, and it's a record I like quite a bit, actually. And I haven't been super high on recent Nick Cave records. Always respect him. It's hard to say he's ever made a bad record in my estimation. He has a very high sort of level of quality and very strong

quality control. But his records have tended to be, I guess, a little bleak, if I may understate that. And there's a good reason for that. Obviously, he's suffered just unspeakable tragedy in the past decade. He's lost like two of his sons, which I can't even imagine going through that, how horrible that must have been. And he's written about this, he's made music about it, and people have really, I think, rightfully so, saluted just his eloquence and his grace and just the wisdom that he's evidenced and whatever he's talked about, you know, grief and dealing with loss. But I have to say, like, I missed a little of that, like, old school, like, rock and roll

swagger that you get from Nick Cave. And on this album, I think he brings some of that back. There's certainly some somber elements to this record. There's some heaviness to it. But it does in any way feel like at least relatively light compared to recent Nick Cave records. Cave himself has called this a happy record. There's a song literally called Joy on the album. To be it just has this sort of sense of like epic overwhelming sweep.

That kind of vibe I guess that you want from Nick Cave. I'm going to go out on a limb here, Ian, and assume that you haven't really listened to this record. And I'm also going to guess that you're probably not a fan of Nick Cave, just knowing you as I do, knowing what triggers you in terms of what you don't like.

And I know that that sort of poetic, loungy crooner type rocker that just seems like the antithesis of like what your personal aesthetic is so I feel like I know the answer to this question already but I want to know like yay or nay on Nick Cave Ian where do you stand on Nick Cave and the bad seeds yeah so I'm kind of surprised this was his first album in five years because it feels like every year there's like a Nick Cave album that gets

praised this highly and is praised for like know, this sweeping epic about just the biggest emotions, about grief, about pain and the poeticism and the, you know, the Greek tragedy of it all. And, uh, but yeah, you're right. I think ghostine was the last one that happens. But yeah, I mean, you're correct in that I refuse to acknowledge any music made before Siamese dreams. So, uh, Nick Cave, obviously a blind spot. But, you know, I think he's been more acclaimed in the 21st century than he was before. So I've had plenty of time to, you know, do recon on him. And, you know, I, there are artists of this type where I eventually do the deep dive because they're so profoundly influential on music of the current day. It's kind of

like malpractice not to know their stuff. Like, you know, I did it with Sonic Youth. I did it with Neil Young, Van Morrison. But when I think about like Nick Cave music in all caps, the bands I most frequently hear it associated with are like people like Ice Age and Savages. And I think like maybe newish Arctic monkeys. Yeah, the whole gothy over-the-top poetic thing. I think the national too. I think you could probably make some connections between the National and Matt Berninger's vocal style in Nick Cave as well.

Yeah, I mean, I guess so. You know, I always think like the National gets compared more to like American bands. But yeah, I try with Nick Cave albums. Like, yeah, not for me, except with one big exception. the 2007 Grinderman album. That's the one, if you're not, I'm guessing most people who are listening to show are familiar with it. It's, uh,

I think it's like the same lineup as the bad seeds, except they just made this over the top, extremely loud, extremely distorted, uh, record mostly about like not getting laid. Right. It's like,

just imagine this album coming out in 20, 24. I can't believe that, um, even Nick Kay fans aren't relitigating no pussy blues every six months. But it actually kind of gets to something, which I find very interesting about Nick Cave, because for like every time I hear about him in a non-musical sense, it's either like the thing you said where he writes some extremely heartfelt, you know, letter to a fan about, you know, sharing grief or whatever. And similarly, he'll be like saying some Bill Maher type shit about cancel culture. He's sort of like the Gallant to Morris's goofess or whatever. Let's not compare him to Bill Maher.

He's a lot smarter than Bill Mar. He's more eloquent than Bill Mar, even if the content might be similar. But I know what you mean. Yeah. There is that, but he is an older artist. He is coming from a punk background. So I'm not shocked that he would take that. There's some things that he said in that regard that I think are actually like pretty well taken.

I mean, I think anyone could look at the excesses of using the term cancel culture. But, you know, that policing of language, I think all of us probably find a little. little tiresome. But again, when you have like the middle age guy going on about woke people, it gets pretty boring very quickly. I would like to hear Nick Cave sing the term woke mind virus. I think that would work for him. I don't think he would go there. I really hope he wouldn't, I can't see him going that extreme. I am a yay on Nick Cave. And I'll just say like for those of you out there who haven't really listened to his music, you know, he has a long career going back to the late 70s when he was in this band called the birthday party, a very well-regarded post-punk band from

Australia. He launched his solo career in 1984, solo career with the bad seeds, of course. For me, the sweet spot, and this is where I'm going to go back to your Siamese dream comment, because I, for me, like the prime era of Nick Cave is the 90s. That's my favorite period of his career, beginning with the Good Sun, that record came out in 1990. And then, you know, up through the Boatman's Call, which was in 97. And that's the album, I would say, if you are a Nick Cave, Neophyte, that feels like, to me, the best and maybe easiest entry point into his catalog. That's the record where he really leans into, again, the triggering elements for me in here,

but like the deep voice crooner, late night piano ballad type side of his, personality that I think on that record is really enchanting and beguiling. His talent, I think, as a singer really comes through on that record, just the resonance of his voice. And you feel that this dude has been through a lot of stuff, even at that point. And he's guiding you through these songs that are really, again, beautiful and poetic. And again, I feel you wincing on the other side this microphone he in, but these are elements that I take a lot of, I put a lot of stock in. And, you know, that's almost like Frank Sinatra type quality that Nick Cave has at times. If Frank Sinatra was like a vampire or a zombie, you know, he'd be Nick Cave.

So I like that a lot. And really, those 90s records, I think that's a really great run. To me, that's the place to start in his catalog. The 80s, I think, are more in that kind of post-punk tradition. Those are great records as well. And then his 21st century work, I think, is also quite good. And he does kind of go back and forth between these more sort of, I guess, you know, again, kind of crooner-style records. And then he's making also really aggressive rock records.

You mentioned the Grinderman record. Around that time, he put out a record with the bad seeds called Dig Lazarus Dig, that I think is pretty underrated in his catalog, more of like a rock-oriented thing. I'd also recommend that as an entry point if you are wanting to investigate the more rock side of Nick Cave. But big catalog, a lot of great albums.

I don't think there's like a real bad album in the bunch. But definitely we're checking out. Even you, Ian. Because there are a lot of post-Siamese dream records in there. Maybe you'll come around on old Nick Cave at some point. Let's get to our mailbag segment. Thank you all for writing in. It's always great to hear from our listeners.

Ian, you got to read this first email. I'm kind of blown away by this. I want to hear what you have to say. But yeah, let's read it for our listeners here. All right. So this comes from Blake in Chicago. And Blake from Chicago wants to get our take on the trend of raw dogging. Yes.

It's got a G at the end. I feel like there should be an apostrophe. But whatever, I'm not here to litigate the, I'm not here to litigate that part of it. So Blake says, if you're not familiar, it's the act of doing something without any external stimulus that would otherwise make something boring more enjoyable. You'll see TikToks of people claiming they were a dog, the 20-hour flight to Australia, just staring at the flight map on the in-flight TV screen. Have you heard of this? Yes, I've heard of this. I've heard of this.

So it got Blake thinking about albums that he's immersed himself in just to take part of the sonic experience rather than washing dishes or doing something otherwise while an album played. specifically raw dogging Julian Baker's turn out the lights when it first came out and a particularly arduous raw dogging session. I know you made me read this letter just so I had to say that sentence. Exactly. Was Swans to be kind on an hamtracked ride to Kansas City. Since Ian likes to go through his submissions pile while playing NCAA football on PlayStation, it got me thinking if there were in any albums that either of you have felt that you needed to raw dog to appreciate. and they included a urban dictionary link to prove they're not making this up. Is urban dictionary on Metacritic?

Well, I know what that is, so I would take their opinion more seriously than some of these other places, but I don't think they're actually on there. Too bad, urban dictionary. Maybe I wonder what they pay. They're freelancers. It'd be interesting to find that out. Yeah, I'm familiar with this phenomenon. I've seen the TikTok videos of people sitting on an airplane just staring at the seat.

or looking at the flight tracker on the way to Australia or wherever. And I'm totally dumbfounded by this phenomenon. I don't get it at all. It seems like sociopathic behavior to me, going on an airplane and not doing anything else. So you can appreciate the flight, like on an aesthetic level. Like, is that the idea that, like, you aren't going to be cutting yourself off from the experience of just living on the flight? I guess that's the idea. I don't know.

I don't get it. totally beyond my comprehension. Raw dogging an album, this is, I don't really get this either. I mean, Blake said that he listened to the Swans record on a train. So isn't he doing something else while listening to the album?

Maybe if you're like a passive passenger, like on a plane or a train, but if you're driving a car where you actually have to like manipulate your hands and feet, maybe that doesn't count. I don't know about the, I don't know about the finer points. Yeah, I mean, I do have a daily thing that I do when I'm done writing for the day,

I will get up and listen to music on headphones plugged into my little office boombox and I'll kind of walk around my office listening to music. But sometimes I'm actually like writing on my phone when I'm doing that. So I guess maybe that's not a pure raw dog experience. Because otherwise I am listening to music, you know, in my office. I listen to music when I go on walks too, but again, I don't know if that's quite a raw dog thing to do. I mean, I love driving and listening to music. That's one of my favorite things to do in the world.

But, yeah, I don't know. It's not quite the same thing as taking a flight because a flight is boring. Music is a stimulus. So music is not boring in the same way that a flight is boring unless the music sucks. So, yeah, I don't know. This feels a little fuzzy to me as a concept. Yeah, it seems like a lot of these TikTok trends just remind me of that joke on The Simpsons. Like, now the new fat sweeping America, wasting food.

I remember in 20, it was 2020, like in the, I don't know, the peak of DeSantis mentum where people would talk about this time that like Ron DeSantis was on an international flight. And he just stared at the seat in front of him the entire time. headphones nothing and people use that as evidence like this is a very weird fucking guy um and yeah i mean are we supposed to like go back to the 1930s or whatever or like the 50s when like air travel was new and just like appreciate that on its own um yeah i think it's the funny part about all this is what raw dogging describes is like mindfulness which is a concept that we use every day in my real job and has been around forever but of course i don't think it will trend as well in tic-tok And, you know, I think the problem I have with this is a concept is that it's so hard to define because I think it kind of, first off, I, using the term arduous raw dogging session and swans in the same sentence, very fucking problematic.

If you think Nick Cave's got some problematic shit going on, Michael Gear is another thing altogether. But yeah, if like you're like listening to music on a train, listening to music on an airplane or even in a car, like this is what like a lot of albums are like designed. like they are designed for that actual experience and so like what like if I'm what if I'm like taking some substance and then sitting in a room doing nothing is that raw dogging because that's like you know I used to take ammian back in the day and that's how I got to know siga ross's uh parenthetical album um you know I remember listening to funeral during an actual power out hitch uh and having my mind blown does that actually count um yeah I mean I think are albums that I learned to appreciate by having some other stimulus going on because I mean that's the whole thing about like mindfulness and creativity like your mind will be very like more creative if you're doing something that occupies your hands you know that's like why some artists will say they have their best ideas like when they're in the shower or when they're cooking or when they're walking their dog I mean is walking my dog does that like disqualify raw dogging I don't know I mean yeah it's like having like a breakup is that

Like if you're experiencing a breakup while listening to an album, is that rod dogging still or not? I don't know. I get the idea of just listening to an album to listen to it and not have it just be in the background as like, you know, musical wallpaper. You know, I do see that totally as something that's worth experiencing. And a lot of music listeners probably don't do that as much as they should or not should. but they might get something from that if they just listen to a record while sitting down or doing whatever

and not being focused on something else at the same time. So maybe that's the raw dogging idea here. We've said raw dogging like way too many times, though, I think, in this episode. We're going to get the little E explicit language thing next to our pod this week for sure. We've had the raw dog discussion. Now let's never speak of it again.

Let's get to our next letter here. This comes from Greg in Edwardsville, Illinois. Love. Love that name, Edwardsville. So classic. I feel like that would be the town that like a character and a John Updeg novel would be from. Came from Edwardsville, Illinois.

Let's talk Prague Rock. Yes. I've heard you both express some affinity for things I would call Praguegy. Weens the mollusk, Glass Beach's Plastic Death, Raleigh Walker's Course and Fable, etc. But I don't think you've ever had a proper Prague discussion. Are there classic Prague albums slash bands that you dig, such as King Crimson, yes, Genesis, etc. Do you have any awareness at all about more modern Prague bands?

Pineapple thief, porcupine tree, hawkin, haken? Sure. Hocken? Don't know that last one. Where do your Prague allegiances, if any, lie? As a fan, I can't help but feel like modern Prague in particular is one of the few rock genres that absolutely has zero visibility outside of those who actively seek it out.

You'd never see a modern Prague album sneak onto any mainstream publications album of the year list, for instance. Thoughts on why that is. That's from Greg. Yeah, I mean, yeah, compared to, like, Nick Cave, like, classic pro-like, when we take about, like, classic Prague, like, Nick Cave is veritable, like, the smashing pumpkins in terms of my deep engagement. Like, I've never actually listened to a King Crimson album or, like, a Rush album for, like, pre-Phil Collins Genesis. It's like nothing against it conceptually. It's just that like I just never had that phase. And I don't think I'm going to, I just don't have the time for it now.

And I do like Prague-y stuff, but I feel like it's got to be like Prague cut with something else. You know, like Black Country New Road is Praguey, but not Prague. I don't know if Glass Beach is Prague-y, not Prague. And even like Prague-Emo, like Cohit and Cambria is kind of mostly a no for me. Although I think you can put like the world's a beautiful place in there. They're like opening for. like prog metal bands these days because there's you know there's a lot of crossover with the emo and the arc tangent world but i mean if we're talking about like why we don't see the bands that uh gregg mentioned

like pineapple thief porcupine tree and uh hawkin haken i don't know um i mean why they're not on mainstream publications their album of the ear list i mean do you really got to ask i mean we've gone from like raw dog into scaring the hose because you know a lot of the bands that are mentioned like porcupine tree like they seem like very much like the modern day dream theater like i when i know when i see these bands they're like on the cover of guitar world or um you know like festivals where it's like oh look at that like uh yeah like this emo band is like way on the bottom um they'll play like big arenas or like sleep token for that matter um they're just so outside the scope of like what most mainstream publications cover they're like almost not worth considering because like you know you'll get

a metal guy you'll get a jazz guy um and you can get a token there but like Prague is just like especially like the ones that are like super duper technical um i just don't see that at like I mean it's kind of like a rhetorical question as to why they're not covered. Well, I think it also goes back to how records are classified, which is often based on things that have nothing to do with music. Because if we were just looking at the music, like Black Country New Road, I'm sorry, they're not Prague-y, they're a straight-up Prague band. They are Prague. Glass Beach, that last record, that's a Prague record. I don't care what anyone says. If you think that's not Prague, you're fooling yourself. it's way more proxie we were talking about this recently with also also like why they're called an emo band and not just like a pop rock band

I feel like with emo right now it's a lot a lot of it seems based on vibes to me and like who they are touring with or what record label they're on rather than the actual music because I don't really understand sometimes like what makes something emo and not pop rock or what makes it emo and not prog because man if you listen to the black country new road and you listen to like early Genesis, there's not much difference there. They're at least as precious as Peter Gabriel dressing up as a potted plant in the early 70s. So I don't know. I think that there is a resistance sometimes with people because of their prejudices musically where it's like I come from a punk background. I love punk music.

I can't like Prague because in my mind punk is against Prague. So I'm going to call it something else. and pretend that it's not Prague. But it is Prague people. If you like Black Country New Road, you are a Prague rock person. If you like Glass Beach, you're a Prague rock person. Or if you like The World is a Beautiful Place and I'm Not Afraid to Die or whatever that name is, you like Prague rock.

So I'm just telling you that right now, you might as well just start buying Rush albums and Yes albums and King Crimson albums. You probably like them. So as far as my feelings about Prague, I am a fan. I like Prague. I love Genesis. I love all eras of Genesis. I would say that my favorite Prague album of all time is probably selling England by the pound, which is an incredible record. I love Rush, big Rush fan, love all eras of Rush. Saw Rush on the Clockwork Angels tour, their last tour ever. I guess there was a tour after that, but it was near the end of their career. Big fan of yes. Even some of the 80s stuff, like Owner of a Lonely Heart, fan of that, but definitely. fragile, the Yes album, close to the edge,

fan of all those records. Definitely like King Crimson. Shout out to Red. Ian, you would like Red. I think you'd like that record. Kurt Cobain was a big fan of that record. I even enjoy some gentle giant records. They have crazy album covers, but they're a good band.

Amon Duel? Are we counting them in the Prague Rock Camp? I like that band. Don't really like Emerson Lake and Palmer very much. I do own some Dream Theater albums. I think I own two shout to a good band

awake has to be one of them right um there's one from 94 I'm gonna I think that's awake

or there's dreams I remember the first one with because pull me under used to be on headbanger's ball so I would see that but there was one I think it's the one with orado mania on it

that's awake that was the one you could like see on MTV and like getting like Sam Goody I feel like it had like it was something and something was the title

of the record. Mirrors and images or something. Maybe, yeah, that's it. I got that one. Got it. Images and words. Images and words. Yes.

That's the one I have. I have that one. Porcupine tree, I do like that band. And some of the Stephen Wilson solo stuff I like as well. I would say, you know, to push back on something you said, Porcupine Tree to me is less like Dream Theater and they're more like radio head at their most prog rocket jays. Or like Muse.

Like they have more of like a like a alt rock feel to me than Dream Theater, which feels like they're more from like metal, like a Prague metal thing. I actually think that porcupine tree would be a band that our listeners might get into. Like if you aren't really in a modern Prague, they feel like the band that would be probably closest aesthetically to what maybe an indie rock person would like. So I'd throw up porcupine tree as a band maybe to get into. maybe they need to do a tour with Black Country New Road. Black Country New Road can open for them.

They can bring the tribes together of Prague and Prague adjacent. And then, of course, there's Fish. One of the biggest Prague rock bands ever, a band that's much more like Genesis than The Grateful Dead. Of course, they bring the jamminess into it too. So that's me. That's my take on Prague Rock. I don't know if I just blew your mind.

I don't know if you were just taking a nap during that whole time, but that was going off on Prague Rock. But yeah, that's how I feel about it. Absolutely not. You know, you might not have sold me on doing a Nick Cave Deep dive, but I am absolutely going to listen to the, according to Apple Music, the Essential Porcupine Tree album, which is 2000's light bulb sun. Yes, do it.

I do see this as being kind of muse adjacent. Like, I thought, yeah, I guess I got like porcupine tree confused with skeleton tree or pineapple thief. But, you know, like, honestly, if you, if, if, if, If Black Country New Roads sounded like early Genesis, you bet your ass I'm going to listen to that. So from here on out, we're broadcast. We've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something that we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first?

Yeah, so there is a, you know, speaking of reunions, the band or project, it's kind of a revolving cast, a project called Seethiel. They are putting out a new mini album, non-eep-an album, called Everything Squared. and it's their first new music in 13 years. But I've been revisiting their entire catalog. They've been a band that's been around since the 90s, have been on labels like Warp and Too Pure. And they are an interesting intersection of, you could call them like IDM, you can call them Ambient, Drones, Shugays, Dream Pop.

There's a sort of band that's been on like multiple pitchfork, best of genre lists. And the album I want to recommend aside from their new one, which is quite good, is I'm going to spell it because don't know how to pronounce it it's k k i guess q i guess q i q ui q ue from 1993 um and it's i guess the best way to describe it is if loveless was an ambient album or like a dream pop album or like an electronic chuge's album it's one of those albums that's like just such a 1993 thing that almost nobody has tried to replicate it uh the next album is sucker uh that's more like kind of a like a p i l sort of postpunk

drone thing, but anywhere you go in this catalog, you're going to find something super interesting and feel like, oh, this was really intriguing and also unexplored. So the new album's good too. It's called Everything Squared. All right. I want to talk about a guy that I've liked his music for a long time, but I've never written about him, probably because I wouldn't have anything interesting to write about. But hopefully I can talk about him for about two minutes. His name is Ray LaMontaine. And he put out a pretty good album earlier this month called Long Way Home. I don't know if our listeners have heard of Ray LaMontaine. He's been around for a long time. If I was going to do an extremely reductive description of him, I would say that he's like

John Mayer if he sounded more like Ryan Adams. That's Ray LaMontaine. He's doing like a sensitive singer-songwriter thing. He has nine albums. He has like a 20-year career. I was reading on Wikipedia the other day that he lives on a 103 acre farm that he bought for $1 million. So apparently he's done pretty well for himself. You know, I think like if you live in Colorado, he's probably rock in Colorado, probably playing like eight shows every tour, doing a couple of things at Red Rocks. Just seems like a very kind of like West, Pacific Northwest, Southwest type artist. And I own several of his records and I enjoy a lot of them, you know,

until the light turns black. That's a really good record. He put out a record I like a few years ago called MonoVision. That was back in 2020. That's a really good record. And I like this album. The thing with him is that he doesn't do interviews. He has a very low profile.

He's not someone that I would ever call like an underappreciated genius. Like he's essentially like a journeyman singer-songwriter. So like he's not Bob Dylan. He's not Neil Young. Like I would liken him to like a Gordon Lightfoot. Someone like that who really good songwriter. writes really good three to four minute songs that like if Ray LaMontaine existed in the 70s, he would be having soft rock hits every year. You know, he'd be on the same radio station as

John Denver in America and Gordon Lightfoot, an artist of that ilk. So if that's the kind of stuff that you're into, and these are my listeners, I guess, that I'm talking to right now, you're going to dig this guy. He has that same kind of vibe to him, a bit of a throwback vibe. He was born in the wrong era, but just a really good artist. And he's just chilling on a huge acre farm somewhere, I think, in Vermont or something. Right? And he's a pretty song. So anyway, this record's called Long Way Home.

Ray LaMontaine is the artist. And I think it's a good record. You should check it out. Yeah, and I think if our, I guarantee our audience knows this, dude. My memories of Ray LaMontaine come back from like 2004 when I was trying to illegally listen to his albums on whatever, whatever, like, download service in between, like, you know, Ryan Adams and Damien Rice and iron and wine. So, yeah, also the fact that he bought 103-acre farm for a million dollars, you should see what a million dollars would catch in San Diego, man.

I'm wondering where he's like buying that shit. But yeah, shout to Ray Lamontaine, Journeyman. Think of the range we covered in this episode, man. Gordon Lightfoot, Gentle Giant, Raw Doggin. What other podcast is bringing this to the table? Exactly. Why even listen to other shows? This is why we're the only indie rock podcast on the planet.

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 Mixedape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.