Indiecast - Viewer Mail! More AI Music, The Best Musician Biopics, Our Biggest "Jaw Dropper" Musical Moments, and People Using Phones Less At Concerts

Episode Date: July 25, 2025

Hey, with Steven out of town this week, the guys planned a banked episode featuring emails from you, the Indiecast listener. Topics include the growing instances of AI songs showing up under the names of real bands (including Uncle Tupelo) (11:13), the biggest "jaw dropper" moments when listening to albums for the first time (25:05), the best musician biopics (34:34), and the surprisingly decline (maybe?) of phones at concerts (45:46).In Recommendation Corner, Ian talks about the latest from ambient band Disiniblud and Steven goes for the indie-country act Ryan Davis And The Roadhouse Band (51:58).New episodes of Indiecast drop every Friday. Listen to Episode 249 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, review albums, and we hash out trends. In this episode, we respond to emails from you, the Indycast listener. My name is Stephen Hayden, and I'm joined by my friend and co-host. He'll record over this episode of something interesting happens when I'm in London. Ian Cohen. Ian, how are you?

I think we need to take this time to determine what actually constitutes an emergency for us, because, you know, Jeff Tweedy announced a triple album already. Deaf Tones are back. We already had like a cold play story that I think got washed on Twitter in about like an hour. So I don't know. I'm worried about like launching onto something that just has no juice by the time you return. Yeah, I mean. Okay, so this is a banked episode.

I think we said last week that this was going to be a banked episode because as this episode is being posted, I'm still in London. I am hopefully about to see Oasis. I don't know if that's going to be the case, but I'll definitely be in London. So we had to bank an episode ahead of time. That's why we're doing a mailbag episode. And, yeah, we have all these timely things that are timely as we're recording this. I guess it's the 18th of July. It is.

So one week before this will post, there's that story about the CEO and his CFO at the Coldplay concert getting caught on the Kiss Cam. That story is actually still really. raging as we're recording this. I'm still seeing memes about it. I'm still seeing people talk about it. I assume no one's even going to remember this story by the time this episode post. Yeah, you mentioned the triple album from Jeff Tweedy that was announced. Stephen Colbert, his show got canceled, which is a fascinating story.

There's layers to that. I'm sure they will have all been plucked through by the time. time we post, this is going to be like the latest take on it. I mean, if this were a normal episode, we might have talked about Colbert anyway because it happened after we posted. So we might have talked about it. You know, you've got the Trump angle, you know, him maybe extorting CBS because of the merger deal with their, their parent company. And, you know, you already won that $16 million dollar settlement over that 60 minutes, non-controversy, controversy. Now they're speculating on maybe Colbert got the axe because Stephen Colbert was doing

vaccine sketches and Trump didn't like that or something. There's also the fact that just like late night TV in general feels like it's a thing of the past. You know, one thing I wanted to say about this, and I think we've talked about this before on the pod, But 2025 to me, it feels like the future has arrived this year. You know, like you look at this century so far, and a lot of people have talked about stagnation, you know, that the future isn't what we imagined it would be. It just feels like we're reiterating the 20th century over and over again.

And if you look at clothes from 20 years ago, people are dressing the same or they have the same haircuts. And I look at what's going on this year. and you're really seeing things fall apart. You're seeing things that we used to rely upon being just completely wiped away. Look, I don't have any strong feelings about Stephen Colbert, the late show. I never watched that show. I think most people don't watch these shows at this point.

But we're going to talk about this in a minute in the mailbag about AI songs, really starting to flood streaming platforms. It really feels like this year, you're seeing things change and it feels like, okay, is this how it's going to be from now on? Like the internet's being taken apart, social media is being taken apart. I think the media is definitely in the process of being taken apart in a very real way. You know, the government just stripped funding from NPR and PBS. Add supported websites feel like they're in free fall. You know, it's a very weird time.

You know, the weather is terrible. It feels like it's either, you know, a thousand degrees or it's like torrential rainpour. I'm normally, I'm not an optimist, but it really feels like, okay, is the dystopia happening now? I feel like it is. It really feels like that. in 2025. And again, I'm not saying it's dystopia because the late show got canceled, but I think it is

part of a larger thing where these infrastructures that we've just assumed would be there forever are now for real being taken apart in a very tangible way. And they're in the process of being replaced by something else, which may not

be better and in fact may be demonstrably worse. And maybe this won't be true a week from now with this episode post. Maybe there'll be some great news that comes about. But I don't know. That's how it feels. I really feel like the future is arriving right now all at once. Yeah. There have been a lot of articles to think pieces about like stuck culture. The thing you were talking about before where it feels like we were just endlessly reiterating, you know, decades past. And I mean, when everything feels like just awful.

and dystopian and getting worse progressively. I mean, man, where is idols when we need them to do joy as an act of resistance part two? Because, yeah, that's what the culture needs. But I think just us recording this episode is an act of optimism because it assumes that by July 25th, you know, we'll still be around. But yeah, I do think that there is a sense that, oh, this thing that, like, I always assumed would be true.

Like, you don't think about, I mean, it is public broadcasting, right? But, like, you don't think about, oh, wait a minute, that money could be taken off the table. You know what I mean? Like, the process, you're seeing, like, all these things just being stripped, like, you know, like an abandoned house for copper. And it's just very much like death cult sort of vibes with where our country is headed in so many ways. Yeah, it's so broad. That's the thing that is haunting about it. It's endless.

It is like breaking. In my general email, like I get like breaking news from the New York Times. And it's like not something that like is super like, you know, super huge. But it's like, oh, funding is being stripped for this. The Department of Education is being stripped. Like, does that mean I still have to pay my student loans? Just things you've never thought about. But now here we are.

It used to be, oh, this website is going away. isn't that sad. Now it's, oh, let's not have Google search anymore. Yeah. You know, let's not have social media that is functional and that is actually a gathering space for everybody. You know, let's just have, you know, continuing splintering into smaller, like, less good platforms that actually don't function very well. It just feels like, it's as if, like the very fabric of everything holding everything together is being disassembled, which to me is just a way broader thing than I ever remember in the past. It used to be like, oh, like the owners of this website are not very smart or they're not really, it's like, oh, this one company,

oh, they're not doing that great. No, no, it's like, no, let's, what's just kind of plant a neutron bomb in the middle of the square and like level everything. Like, that is where it feels right now. hopefully this is just alarmist on my behalf or we're in a sort of uncertain period things will shake out and everything will be fine that is the optimist in me talking but man yeah everything that keeps me together is falling apart that was a lyric that was written 25 years ago and it really feels every bit is relevant I would listen to the moon in Antarctica but the problem is I think this is true across all platforms that they don't have those mid out the mid song segues and it's just like is very, very jarring.

Also, to the point of, like, all these institutions that are crumbling, impacting us immediately, uh, since we recorded yesterday, the, uh, the, uh, Metacritic score for Alex G took a major hit, uh, due to what places like line of best fit and slant. And like, with the way media is going, our like fantasy drafts in a year are just going to be determined by those places, you know, that don't really have ad support or these just kind of like random lawless websites who think Alex G got a little too polished on his new album. Yeah, this is actually the reason why I'm so worked up this morning. It's because the Metacritic score for the Alex G album fell from 87 to 83 because of some mid-league

reviews from, well, there was the line of best fit. I think that one really lowered the score. And more like line of worse fit. That's what I'm calling. these days. Yeah, I don't know. Metacritic, what's going on, baby? Why are you pulling from these sites? Is Lina Best Fit, is that European or is that American? I'm getting jingo-wistic here with the Metacritic here. I want to deport the foreign websites from the Metacritic score. I'm assuming it's like American because it's like named after a very old Death Cab for Cutie's

song. But yeah, citation needed. as far as like, I'm also looking at about, oh, there it is. It's based in London. Oh. So when I'm in London, yeah, look out, line up. I'm coming to the office. I'm going to file a complaint for this AlexG review that is tanking my score.

Rich Tane, the founder. I'm looking at the masthead. You're on notice. Yeah, I'm coming for you. I'm coming for you next week, baby. And I'll probably, I've already seen you by the time this post. So I'm not actually spoiling my angry vans. visit to the line of best fit offices.

Let's get to the mailbag. We're all doing mailbag this week because I'm out of town. We can't really plot subjects. And we have a big mailbag too. We haven't answered emails in a while because Ian and I end up rambling about the state of the world, I guess, at the beginning of episodes. And we run out of time. So it's good to catch up.

Although, well, I'm cramming two emails into one here for the first one. And I'll read this one because it's tied to... The disintegration feeling that I was talking about just a minute ago. This first email, it comes from Dan, who's in Edinburgh, in Scotland, Edinburgh, is that how you say it? I actually went there during my UK travels last year, and I didn't remember how to say it, so I'm not going to give it a shot. It's Edinburgh, as far as I know.

I think just like Burr. Burr, yeah, the GEH are silent. The Brits got mad at us recently because we said Glaston Barry. I think it's Burry. Yeah, you're right. Or is it Barry? Maybe I'm, maybe I'm making it. We're just going to call it Glass, though, from here on out.

We're just going to call it Glass though. They wrote into, to correct our pronunciation there. Hi, guys. This isn't so much a question for the show as it is a journalistic tip. A few days ago, Spotify recommended to me a new song from Uncle Tupelo, a band I love. I was suspicious, seeing as Uncle Tupelo broke up fairly. acrimonously over 30 years ago, and if they'd gotten back together, I think I would have heard about it. When I checked out the track titled, You're Gone, the cover art looked suspiciously and obviously

AI generated. I played it and was immediately convinced the song was AI too. It sounded nothing like Uncle Tupelo. The singer was definitely not either Jeff Tweety or J. Ferrar, and the songwriting was pretty awful. It mostly sounded like a generic, extremely derivative Americana song. Steve, I know you like Uncle Tupelo, and I thought you might want to investigate this pressing issue, did Uncle Tupelo okay what is clearly an AI generated song to be posted on their artist's page, or more likely did someone else posing as Uncle Tupelo post it. If so, it would seem Spotify is not doing an adequate job of screening their content, which would be disappointing, but not at all surprising.

And this ties in, we got an email like a week before this from somebody. This is Brad in Baltimore. Something similar happened with A.A. Bondi, a lesser-known. Americana artist who I'm a fan of and I think Brad knew that. So yeah, I went on Spotify to look up this Uncle Tupelo song after I saw this email and I don't know if you've seen this Ian. I tweeted about it. Yeah. The cover art is hilarious. Yeah. It is what appears to be an Asian woman. It's a drawing. I think she's Asian. Or I don't know. I won't speculate on the racial identity of this fake person here.

But it's a drawing of a woman. And it's clearly not Uncle Tupelo type art. Uncle Tupolo, you expect like a black and white photo of like a porch. Or, you know, maybe. Rainy. Yeah, something's rainy. You know, like a broken down tavern. You know, western Illinois, something like that.

This is a very bright drawing, clearly not Uncle Tupelo coded. Yeah. And then when you listen to the song, yeah, clearly not Uncle Tupelo coded. It kind of sounds like if Owl City had a folk period or an alt country period. I mean, they probably did at some point. Probably did. But yeah, this is clearly not an Uncle Tupelo song. I can't confirm that Jeff Tweedy signed off on this.

My hunch is that he did not, and I'm sure J. Ferrar probably did not sign off on this. I've seen reports of this, like with other artists as well. Obviously, someone wrote in, said AA Bondi, this happened to. I feel like this is becoming more and more common. There is something ironic about, you know, a band like Uncle Tupelo that is associated with, like, authenticity and grittiness would be the target of an AI song. When I looked it up, I think the song had about 8,000 plays.

And I'm guessing that was mostly people like our listener that just thought, Oh, wow, Uncle Tupelo. Maybe this is like an outtake from no depression. You know, and this would be great to hear. And then they got conned into playing it. Right now it has 13,000 plays. So not bad. I guess this just kind of feeds into my rant at the beginning of the episode.

Another example of things slowly falling apart. I wonder, you know, Spotify obviously, has a lot of users. They also have a lot of people who don't like Spotify. People love to complain about Spotify. I wonder if this is the thing that's going to destroy Spotify. Because I don't see this problem, you know, becoming less prominent in the future.

It really feels like as more people become conversant with AI tools, that you're going to see more and more of this. and that if you just want to make a quick buck, tricking people into thinking that a new song by a well-known artist has debuted on the platform, I mean, it seems like a pretty good scam. And I just wonder to what degree these platforms

are going to be able to limit what is essentially spam. And is this going to be something that eventually chokes up these platforms. It makes it harder to find the music that people actually want. If you're a Spotify hater, is this a way to do terrorism against Spotify and just make the platform less functional? Because the reason why Spotify is so successful, I think, obviously you have access to all this music that you don't have to pay much money for or a lot of people don't pay any money for it. They just listen to ads. but it's also the convenience of it. It's just the most convenient way to listen to music.

I don't think it's the most fun way to listen to music. I don't think it's the most sort of an edifying way if I can get on my high horse as far as that goes, but it's the most convenient. And for most people, they just want convenience when listening to music. But if you're going to have a bunch of crap like this on the platform, it's going to be less convenient. And it's just going to be annoying to use.

So I don't know. it's another instance. It's like the Belbit sundown story that we talked about, where it's funny on its own, but when you think about the larger ramifications of it, it becomes, I think, a lot less funny. And you just feel like, okay, what are the, you know, it's harmless now, but what happens when there's like a thousand

or 10,000 or a million songs like this on Spotify? Yeah, I mean, there are times where I get, like, weirdly excited when I see, like, there's a new song from a band, like, Sugar or DeLorean, but, like, that's just an example of, like, a pretty common name, and you find out, oh, there's, like, a rapper also named DeLorean or, like, a, you know, a reggaeton artist named Sugar. But this is, I don't know if this somehow is, like, more pernicious that we're talking about, like, A.A. Bondi and, like, Uncle Tupelo, uh, the, you know, you might, and again, like 13,000 plays, that's a lot. But, you know, it's also like, you know, pennies.

This is not a grit-rich-quick scheme, although it's maybe like kind of long-tail where you do the... What if someone has like a million songs like this? Yeah, exactly. You know what I mean? And they just... Because when you go to the Uncle Tupelo page on Spotify, this song is listed as the latest release. So it's not just removed from Uncle Tupelo. It happens to have the same name.

It's like listed on the page. Yeah. So if you are Uncle Tupelo fan, and Uncle Tupelo, by the way, they only have about 222,000 monthly listeners. So in that context, like 13,000 spins is actually quite a few. I mean, I would imagine that if you're looking at album tracks, well, yeah, it's now listed in the top 10.

I don't think it means it has more spins than all the other Uncle Tupelo songs, but it's like prominently featured on the front page of the Uncle Tupelo, you know, streaming platform. Yeah, I wonder if this is like some sort of fishing scheme. You know, because I have an office job, I got to like watch an hour long video every year about like cyber scams and fishing and whatever. And maybe it's just like, you know, with A.A. Bondi and Uncle Tupelo, maybe there's just like this one person who handles like their email along with like 10,000 other people and they just

maybe click the thing that leads them to be AIed. I have no idea, but I also... I don't know who's manning the Uncle Tupelo email account at this point. It's definitely comp you serve or like, you know, Prodigy.net or something like that. You know? Yeah, I don't know. I mean, I think it's like a deliberate thing. Like I said, I posted this online just because I thought it was an interesting thing to talk about.

And I had a lot of replies from people talking about seeing other instances of things like this. Yeah. And even seeing like the same album cover, but for like other kind of smaller like rootsy or type artists. And I just wonder, yeah, here's like one. Someone wrote in about there was like a fake Richard Buckner song from 2025 called like We Can Be Together. And here's a and here's another one. Here's a fake Charlie Parr song. So like just these kind of rootsy Americana artists.

And again, it's like a similar cover where it's very bright and color. It's clearly AI generated. And, you know. I mean, it makes me think of like Twitter. Yeah, because like, you know, like when Twitter, it's still like usable and people will use it because they can't not use it. But like all the ads are like clearly AI slop and like, you know, most it's like usable. It sucks. But this is just you wouldn't think that this is the sort of thing that people are applied.

their skills to, you know, making like kind of penny stocks off Charlie Barr and Richard Buckner. Well, it's probably less noticeable. Sure, yeah. If you have these big ticket artists, you know, there's probably someone at a record label policing this and making sure it gets taken down. But these smaller artists don't have that sort of, you know, that label to look out after them. There was another instance of a story. I saw this on Instagram. There's this band that I like a lot called Dutch Interior.

which I believe they're from Los Angeles. Yeah. And there was a story about them where AI affixed a note to some Instagram post they had that said that they were a like neo-Nazi ban from Europe, you know, because of the name. Oh. The word Dutch being in their name. And this is just something that like AI spat out. And it was attached to this post and like tens of thousands of people saw this post.

And it was I think the issue was Can you sue AI for libel? Because it was libel But it's a machine doing it But yeah It's just another example of how You know these things

I mean I think that's where it starts Because yeah people You might not see this for Taylor Swift Or for Sabrina Carpenter But like a lot of people go on these sites To look up songs by Uncle Tupelo And Charlie Parr and whoever.

And it's going to be interesting to see how they respond to this because I think it's going to be really hard to police. Yeah. Just the flood of crap that's going to be going into these streaming platforms. I think it's going to be a real issue. Yeah, I'm not particularly optimistic just kind of given that I would say the people who control the levers of power seem to be pro-AI, pro-tech in all ways. and, you know, it's like, well, you know, the kind of techno-optimism you see, it's like, well,

if an AI version of a Richard Buckner song does better, maybe Richard Buckner should write better songs, you know? So, yeah, it's, this sort of thing, if I think about it too long, it just, like, makes my head hurt. And, you know, so. Well, the thing that's, is, that's problematic, too, is that, and you're seeing this all over the place, is that these, these systems get worse. but the powers that be also eliminate the alternatives.

Right. So at some point, you know, people might just have to use Spotify if they want to hear music. I mean, there's obviously going to be other platforms. It's going to be YouTube. But to what degree they're also overcome with fake music. I mean, fake music, I'm sorry, it's harder for that to take over the physical world. You know, you can't really pump this kind of stuff into like a record store. But it's very easy to do it on these streaming platforms.

And it's going to be a big effort to police that. And to determine, like, well, is this spam or is it a art project playing off of preexisting artist's work? And maybe it falls into some gray area of fair use. I mean, I don't know what the issues for that would be. But it's not good. Nope. Not good. Yeah.

Man, this is the past guy. I know. Man, I'm sorry. You know, people listen to the show. they're cooking or they're working out or they're driving. They're trying to have an escape from the world. It's doom and gloom. And I apologize.

But I don't know. It's just the way it is. Okay, this should be a more lighted, a more lighthearted conversation. It's not topical, Ian. So do you want to read our next email? Yes. So this comes to us from one of our three listeners in Cuba. Hey, like shout to them.

I do wonder, do they have stats on? Spotify. Sometimes bands will post that at the end of the year. It's like, hey, our second biggest market just happens to be like some town in Florida. I would love to see what our international reach is. But anyway, this comes from Alejandro. And he says that it's super rare for me to hear something the very first time and in less than 60 seconds be just totally blown away and press the move on a level that's just beyond reason. Normally, I just like something the first time I hear it. And yeah, there are acquired taste. There's some incredible songs, amazing albums that blow your mind, but that's not what I'm talking about here.

I'm talking about those super rare times when a song just hits you hard and usual in such a short amount of time. Total jaw droppers. And of course, it almost always happens with the first track on an album, usually when you're younger. So personally, smells like teen spirit when I was 17, the night of wine and roses, Elliot Smith's Needle in the Hay, Kanye's Dark Fantasy, and resuming de los 90 by a Cuban band where the love at first listen moments. What are your jar, what are your jaw droppers? Saying you greetings from beautiful Cuba. Alejandro.

Thank you, Alejandro. Yeah. I mean, yeah, I mean, I think the obvious truth of this is that most of these moments happen, you know, between what, like the ages of like 14 and 21? You know, like when you're first discovering music, it's just a lot easier to be wowed because you haven't heard as much and you're discovering so many things. I mean, like, you know, hearing the Beatles for the first time, which as an adult, you're like, oh, the Beatles, it's so ubiquitous.

But, you know, like, hearing Abby Road, that was pretty huge when I was a kid. I mean, the album that immediately came to mind when I read this email was OK computer. Yeah. Like, hearing airbag. And I think I had already heard Paranoid Android because I think that music video receded the record.

But, yeah, I went to Circuit City to buy the CD. Speaking of things that no longer exist. And, yeah, I remember, you know, doing the thing, you take the plastic off the CD and you go into the car and you put this album on. And yeah, that was like a mind-blowing record for sure. I'm trying to think of, do you have any, like, from the last 10 years? Yeah, I mean, I think so. Maybe it's not like 10 years.

Well, actually, no, it's no longer 10 years. So, you know, I first thought it was like, you know, Dream House by Deaf Heaven. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Like, that's just one where you're just, like, locked in. But yeah, the thing about like OK computer is that for me, I bought this album when I was in Israel. I went on a teen tour. So I bought it in some like Israeli record shop.

And it was like it was not airbag. That was my jaw dropper moan. And it was sitting in the desert listening to exit music for a film like just night and dark in the desert. And I guess, you know, radio head was playing the long game with that. But yeah, that that was like kind of like. 17 my mind is blown but you know like last 10 years tougher to say

I feel like my brain is just kind of too locked in to really be like I'll like stuff but it's not going to completely change the way I think about music in the same way that like hearing like my bloody Valentine's only shallow did right yeah yeah it really like needs that first track that like knocks you on your ass

like to be the mind blower you can't have the album where you You got like the spoken word interlude at the top of the record. That's probably not going to do it. It's got to be, yeah, like loveless where you have the drums and then that crazy guitar part comes in. And you're like, what is this? That is the mind-blowing stuff. I mean, I feel like for me, the mind-blowing stuff, it's not like instantaneous.

Yeah. I'm actually more impressed when I'm on like the fourth or fifth listen of a record. And I'm really getting locked in at the. that point because there's so much music you hear now that sounds good the first time you hear it and then you don't really want to hear it again or you don't feel compelled to go back to it but a record that you're like oh that's good i want to go back and then you're like oh i like this a lot and then you're like the third time you're like oh this is really good and then number four it's like holy crap this is like one of the albums of of the year or you know of my

recent life i think that's how it happens when you get older Yeah, with like jaw droppers, like, I think as a young in, you know, it's like the first listens should be like so disorienting that you're not sure what you're hearing. Like there should be that like sense of confusion rather than like, oh my God, like this completely changing things. Because like, you know, like I, when I first listened to Lovelace, I don't know how that stuff's supposed to sound. It's like, but like once you kind of get what they're doing and then it's like, okay,

this explains a lot. But otherwise, this is probably not what Alejandra is talking about. but I just remember the first time I saw Party Hard on MTV. There's like this subgenre of like videos that I saw just when I was like, you know, back when I was like 18 or 20 and home from college and just unable to sleep and watching MTV 2 at night, you know, Eminem's My Name is. Like I saw that. I'm like, this is either like a gag or like a culture changing thing and, you know, it was clearly

the former. The paranoid Android video is also like that is absolutely a, You see this video at 2am on MTV 2 and wonder, like, what did I just witness? This is the band that did creep. Yeah, it is such a strange video and such a strange song. But, yeah, otherwise, the first thing that comes to my mind is bleed American because I heard that song. And, like, I took the CD home from the radio station. We had, like, a promo copy.

And I got a speeding ticket, like, 10 minutes later. So that's like real impact right there. I think it was like when your house came on that I finally got pulled over for like doing 35 and like a 20 mile per hour, you know, road like in the middle of Charlottesville, Virginia. Yeah. I mean, I was just trying to think of like the last 10 years. Like what has blown me away like right away? Yeah, it's just a different standard because, you know, this is a very me type thing. but I remember hearing Hangover Game by MJ Lenderman

and being like, oh, this is a great song. And this is, and feeling immediately like, oh, this is tailored for me. I think this is like totally like my shit listening to the song. But I don't know if it's not the same as hearing like airbag. No. It was a song I loved and it's a song I still love. But that mind-blowing feeling of feeling like, oh, this is what music can be. You know, it's just a different thing.

I still totally respond to music. But yeah, you're just such a open nerve at that age. It's just a different sensation. And it's like, you know, the way you hear music, I guess that gets changed like, oh, when you have like a kid. Because seeing your kid being born puts airbag in perspective. You know, it's like, oh, yeah, that's a great song. But, you know, this is life being created.

You know, like, things happen to you as you get older, and your experiences inform you, and it changes how you respond to certain things. Yeah. For me, it's like, it's not like jaw dropper. It's like, oh, we got a live one here. Because I think about stuff that I discover off band camp. Like, you know, the first, when I first heard, like, the Glass Beach band, like the first Glass Beach album, which, you know, it's like, oh, I heard someone say something cool about this

on, you know, some message board. And it's like, oh, wow, like, this took me by surprise. Like, this is really, really cool. So, yeah, it's more like, oh, we got a live one rather than this is fundamentally shifting the way I view music. Or like, oh, like, I'm awake now. Because I feel like a lot of music you hear, again, there's something about, and this is, I think, true of culture in general. Like, most culture now, it's very sort of adequately executed and it sounds good, it looks good. There's like a baseline of like competence, I think, with things you encounter.

But very little of it seems genuinely inspired. Like very little of it actually flicks that light on in your chest that makes you wake up and be like, oh wait, this is not the same old, same old. I felt that way about the rehearsal too with like TV. Absolutely. Absolutely. Like, yeah, this is not just the same old, you know, prestige fake crap that. we're told is good, but then you watch it and you're, there's no real thing that's connecting you to it.

Um, so yeah, it's not mind blowing. It's like wake up music, I guess would be how I would describe it or wake up culture. Like I'm now alert again. I've been shaken out of my numb slumber and I'm, I'm enjoying something, uh, that feels real. Yeah. You can't always get the experience of hearing a stink fist on IMA when you were 16, but like, You can get wake up music. All right, let's get to our next email.

I'll read this one. This comes from Adam in Vancouver, Canada. Vancouver. Have you been there ever? I was in Vancouver, I think, two years ago. Okay. Great city. Great city.

Totally. Love it. I was there 10 years ago to cover the open of U-2's tour. I thought you're about to say some Japan droids related. No, no, it was like the Songs of Experience tour. Wow. It was one of the last things I wrote for grand. Grantland.

Maybe not the last. Because I think that was in May. I think that was like right after Bill Simmons was fired from Grantland. And then I had to go to Vancouver. Not the, I had to go. I was like, privileged to go. It was pretty awesome. I got to go.

But yeah, that was a weird time. That was another weird time in media back then, 10 years ago. Adam from Vancouver. I've made your show part of my nightly cooking routine. Tonight's menu is Dijon salmon with bernets and roasted potatoes. as wow. Hopefully you won't spit out your meal as you're listening to this episode. It's a very toxic episode and I apologize for that. I blame myself. Apologies that this has come up in a past episode, but I wanted to get your take on music biopics. Lately, it feels like they've become the new

Marvel franchise. For me, nine times out of ten, I'd rather watch a well-made documentary than set through a dramatized, half-bake impersonation of an artist. The closest I've come to enjoying one is Inside Lewin Davis, which I know is only loosely inspired by Dave Van Runk's life. And yeah, very loosely inspired. I feel like I need to defend Dave Van Runk because people watch this movie and they think, oh, that's what Dave Van Runk was like because the mayor McDougall Street, the memoir that he wrote with Elijah Wilde, it was an inspiration for the film. But like Dave Ranc, this gregarious, warm-hearted guy with like a big beard and deep voice, He's not like Louan Davis in the film.

Anyway. One for the Rockheads, you know? Yeah, exactly. My boy, Dave Van Ruck. Are there any biopics you feel are genuinely well done or even necessary? Wow, that's an escalated. You know, it's like, yeah, are they good or like, should we just not stop making them all together? Well, Adam is saying that he'd rather watch a documentary, an artist, rather than a biopic.

And I agree with him on that. I would rather watch a documentary as well. I'll say about biopics. I have a love-hate relationship with musician biopics because I make fun of them all the time. Like when the Dylan movie, A Complete Unknown came out, I made constant jokes about it. But I also weirdly enjoy watching music biopics. I think because of the ridiculousness, I think they're often unintentionally hilarious. Like I saw Bohemian Rhapsody in the theater.

And I thought it was really stupid. I had a great time watching it. It was like a lot of fun, especially the end, because they just recreate the live aid performance. And even like a recreation of that performance is still fun to watch on a big screen with the speakers playing Radio Gaga really loud. I mean, I had a good time, even though the movie's terrible. And I agree with Adam, like a film like Inside Lewin Davis,

which isn't a biopic. It's a film about a musician that's inspired by real life. I think those movies tend to be better than biopics. And I think the thing that biopics about musicians really underscore is that actors almost never are as cool as musicians. Like Timothy Shalame is better looking than Bob Dylan, but he's nowhere near as charismatic, like when he's holding a guitar. Like, if you know what the real Bob Dylan is, it just inherently looks inferior when Timothy Shalamay is doing it. even though I thought Chalemay did a good job in that movie. And I also think, you know, Jeremy Allen White in the trailer for the Springsteen movie,

even though he looks nothing like Bruce Springsteen, I thought, oh, he could be doing a good job. I think the one biopic that I think is absolutely necessary, and I think is actually a great movie and a masterpiece, is Amadeus from 1984. And, you know, it helps that it's directed by a genuinely great filmmaker, Milosh Foreman, but also the fact that Mozart was dead for 230 years or whatever before that movie came out really helps the movie because you don't have to think about the actual person

when you're watching the film. He might as well be a fictional character when you're watching it. I think that separation makes it easier to suspend your disbelief than if you're watching a movie about NWA or something and you know that's not their manager as Paul Giamatti, you know, being crazy. That is inherently undermining. I would also give a shout out to a film that actually isn't officially released, but I think is one of the great biopics. And that's superstar, The Karen Carpenter's story, which is the Todd Haynes movie from 1987, where he told the Karen Carpenter story using Barbie dolls. I don't know if you've heard of this movie. Yeah, I've heard about this one. You can find it on YouTube. It's about a half hour long.

It's like genuinely moving, though. It's like a really, great movie and it's also a good commentary on how fake a lot of these movies are so I would recommend that as a biopic that and Amadeus. Yeah and we got to if we're going to talk about like ridiculous but effective

biopics, the doors I mean it's got the best line reading in cinema history that's a great Well the Velkemer's good he's really good at it but yeah that movie is ridiculous but it's so fun to watch. Yeah and I think the point about like Amadei being what it is, like, you don't know the details.

Like, I don't know what Mozart looked like. And I think to a certain extent, Ray had that going for it, even though it was, you know, someone who I know of. It's not, like, so current that I can, like, pick against, like, oh, like with NWA, for example. Like, I know I'm not looking at, I'm looking at Paul Giamati, you know. But, yeah, I've been of the opinion that the best music type movies are either, like, fake biopics like you know walk hard spinal tap pop star um or like actual documentaries i think almost famous nails it because it's like inspired by but like not about uh you know the eagles or whoever else it was supposed to be about i feel like if this movie was made now it would be more like

oh we this is the band we're talking about and uh you know i think about like this is a this is a show I've only heard about because my wife was telling me about, like, Daisy Jones in the six. Oh, yeah. It's just, like, ridiculous, but, like, not self-aware, ridiculous in the same way that the doors are. But, and also, thinking about movies, like, notorious, which, that was the last movie I saw when I was, like, unintentionally in the hospital. Anthony Mackey looks so little, like, Tupac. It's actually, like, a good choice.

But, and this got me things just in general. We don't talk about these very often, but like barely fictionalized rapper movies that like star the actual rapper, like 8 Mile or, you know, get rich or die trying. But I'm thinking just, and again, maybe this is a recession indicator or just the, you know, a sense that like rappers don't have the personality pull this off. I'm thinking about like the straight to DVD movies I would see like in college. Like when 3-6 Mafia made the movie choices, and, you know, you see Project Pat and DJ Paul re-impersonating the, yeah, the great poupon commercial. I'm thinking about baller blocking by cash money. And like the greatest of all time, kill a season, which is like one of the worst movies ever made. It's like three hours long.

Like it's got no real actors in it. like Jules Santana and Cameron can't act at all. But there's just some great scenes that have been picked out. You can watch them on YouTube. It's a great movie to watch on YouTube 10 minutes at a time. Shout to Prims Hood Cinema. And also shout to Tom Bryan. He wrote 10 Things I Learn while watching Killers Season while I was at the Village Voice in like 2006.

You could still find that online. It's hilarious. So I think those, you don't get, like you don't get those. I don't think Playboy Cardi is going to make a movie like that, but I think those are necessary. And you know what? I miss them. Well, there was that movie that the weekend was in earlier this year. That's not a biopic, but it feels like it's extended from his music.

And I don't know. He's taken it on the chin a lot lately for his like movies and TV shows. I haven't, I watched one episode of The Idol and then I bailed just because there's no reason why a show with that. much sex and drugs should be that boring. I don't mind the decadence here, but it should be fun to watch, but it was just loaded with sex and drugs and was not interesting to watch. You know, when you said kill a season, for a second, I thought you were talking about killing season, which is a movie, a straight to video movie that John Travolta and Robert De Niro

made in like 2013. Have you heard of this movie? I have not. I love how this is like, this is like the real like indie cast. because you know this real movie starring like John Travolta and I'm talking about. It's not a real movie. It's barely a real movie. It's like it's so weird to have these two people that I still think of as being big stars,

even though Travolta, I feel like he hasn't made like a legit movie in 20 years. And like in this movie, he's got a beard, like one of those like Quaker beards, you know, like where it's just the beard and no mustache. And I think he's like a crazy guy and he's like hunting. or De Niro in the forest or something. You watch it and you're like, did you even make any money doing it? It doesn't even feel like it's a cash grab

because it looked like there was no budget for this film at all. Anyway. Yeah, I think about like the times when I did work in, you know, the entertainment business and realizing like how hard it is to make a movie and to like have a cast,

have people shoot it, have it be edited. And you just look at movies like killing seasons. Like, wow. that that made it through you know yeah it's fascinating to behold i guess they thought this was going to be good but anyway it should be like a killing season kill a season double feature somewhere but killing season doesn't have a scene where like john travolta breaks a bottle over a hater's head and then peas on him but kill a season does oh my god well checkmate kill a season right there um let's get to our last email is this going to be our last email i think of yeah i think so

Yeah, this will be the last one because we've got to get recommendation corner in. This one comes from Heidi and Montana. Hi, Stephen and Ian, long-time listener, multiple-time writer. So I guess we've read emails from Heidi before. Well, thank you, Heidi. I figure in Montana, not a whole lot to do other than to stare at Buffalo and write emails to Indycast. So thank you for keeping our mailbag full. I was at a fantastic perfume genius show

in a fairly small venue in Denver with my son a few weeks ago and from where we were sitting on a low balcony off to the side and close to the stage, I could see the whole crowd. There were times during the concert where not one phone was being held up to record and there were many extremely recordable moments. And I just watched a clip of the 1975 at Glastonbury, Glastonbury, Glaston Barry at Glaston. And in all the crowd shots,

I only saw one person with a phone out. Is it possible that recording at concerts is decreasing because, as is my tendency, people are figuring out that you look at the footage once and forget about it? Is there a chance it's becoming less socially acceptable? What is your phone protocol for live shows? Thanks for the always enjoyable conversations, and that's from Heidi. So Heidi's saying that at shows that she's witnessed lately, that she feels like there's people using their phones less.

Does this ring true for you, Ian? Yeah, I mean, the first thing I did was look up to see whether, you know, Heidi's from Montana, saw a show in Denver. And I'm thinking, oh, did that, like, what people in Montana do to see a show? But, uh, no, like, Denver is, like, 13 hours away from, like, whether she lives in, like, Bozeman or, like, Missoula. But it's funny you mentioned, like, perfume genius because, like, I saw them perform in, like, a few years ago, like, 2020 or 2023.

And that was, like, peak. people don't know how to act at shows. There were like people next to me, like, talking the entire time and they left 20 minutes for the show end. But the last time I saw him was like maybe like a couple weeks or months ago. And I've noticed what Heidi has as well, which is that people don't really have their phones out as much. I don't know if it's like social decorum or like whether it is a matter of recording a show

being seen as like corny millennial stuff. I mean, for myself, I try to get like a good 10 second shot to post on, you know, Instagram. Because, you know, it's helping the band, I guess, you know. Like, I feel like I have a duty if I'm going to be put on the list to, like, let people know I was there and, like, show a good scene from this. But otherwise, I mean, I do like kind of like to go back sometimes and think about, oh, what concerts have I been to this year? But, yeah, I do think Trendwatch, people are putting out their phones less. And also, I'm hoping this will apply soon to people talking during the band set. I don't think that's happened.

I think we're still too close to the COVID blast period where like 21, 22, 23 people like did not know how to be anywhere, let alone a concert. So I think Heidi is, I think Heidi is on to something. Yeah, you know, it's funny. When I read this email, my instinct was to push back against it and go, is that really true? I feel like people still use their phones a lot. lot. But then I was thinking about my recent experiences and I've been to a lot of club shows lately, you know, like cap 200 person rooms. And also I guess some, you know, somewhat bigger than that,

maybe 600 person rooms. And it really is true that I feel like the phone usage, at least in terms of filming a concert, has gone down. I still see it sometimes. It's, sometimes. It's, people are on their phones texting and stuff, but it does seem less frequent now. And I wonder why that is. You brought up an interesting thing about, you know, is this a generational thing? And like, do kids look at millennials and go, oh, that's like boomer, boring, lame? Like, they're, oh, they have to shoot a video of everything. Like, they got to keep it. They got to post it on their social media thing. I wonder if there's something to it. I really don't know. I'm like you, Ian, I do sometimes shoot a video maybe about 60 seconds

with the thought of sharing it with my listeners if I think it's like a good performance like I saw Fust recently and I filmed 60 seconds of that them playing their song Spangled and it got a good response people were like oh this song is great and then I did something similar

when I saw Florey because they were just super fun to watch live had a tambourine going I'm sorry, it was a cowbell. They were bashing the cowbell, they're dancing. Francie was making guitar faces left and right. And that got a good response too. So you and I are doing it, I guess, from like a music journalism slash criticism perspective.

But yeah, I don't know. You know, the phone thing has never bothered me that much. I know some people get really upset by phone usage. It's never really annoyed me unless someone is raising their phone in front of me and I can't see the stage. That's the only time I've gotten annoyed by it. But yeah, I don't know. That would be a good trend though, right? I guess we're going to end on a positive note.

Maybe we've had so much negativity. But maybe the light at the end of the tunnel is that people are using their phone less set shows. So we can celebrate that. And during a 1975 set at the very least, you know, because like that's one of the definitive. It's because you'd be on that phone type band. So a C change, maybe?

Yes. maybe there's hope after all, Ian. Maybe there's hope after all. You've now reached the part of our episode that we call Recommendation Corner, where Ian and I talk about something we're into this week. Ian, why don't you go first? All right, so I'm going to go with recency bias and talk about the album I most I listened to just this morning,

which is a project called Disney Blood. It is spelled D-I-N-I-B-U-D, self-title. And it's a project from Oshika Nair and Nina Keith. The former person has yet to put out an album since 2022 haven't come crashing. That record ruled. It was like the M80, like the ambient songs on like an M83 album, but like kind of more, more tense and some drum and bass at points. So very interesting guitars. Use a lot of loops and open tunings.

And so like you can look at it from one way and think, oh, this person's like clearly influenced by Midwest emo. And on the other hand, like, oh, this is like, John. McLaughlin or whatever and it's both the names both as influences so yeah a little bit of American football a little bit of John McLaughlin but this is in kind of the ambient uh the I would say mainstream ambient world in which people like you know like Juliana Barwick exist she's on the album grouper it just sounds really good in the morning it's kind of ease you into your day but it's not like one of those ambient albums that just kind of drifts there's still a lot of like tension and, you know, abrasiveness going on.

So I'm looking forward to getting more into this one. So I want to talk about an album from a band called Ryan Davis in the Roadhouse Band. The album is called New Threats from the Soul. I wrote about this album. Well, I haven't read about it yet. By the time this post, I will have an interview up with Ryan Davis up on Up Rocks. I suggest you check that out. It was a really good conversation.

You might have heard a lot about Ryan Davis lately. He's been in the press. The New Yorker recently did a profile on him. I think Rolling Stone did a profile, of course. And it's kind of a feel-good story because he's been an indie rock lifer. He was in a band called State Champion in the 2010s, which never really had a huge audience, but they made up in quality, what they lacked in quantity for listeners.

David Berman was a famous fan of this band. He actually wrote a blurb about them calling Ryan Davis, one of the best songwriters working today. There was a kid named Jake Lenderman who used to go to state champion shows when he was a teenager and he was a big fan and struck up a friendly acquaintance with Ryan Davis back then. And Lenderman ended up paying it forward with Ryan Davis when he became what he became in the 2020s. He invited Ryan Davis to open up the Manning Fireworks Tour, and that really opened him up to a new audience. I really started getting to Ryan Davis on the previous record that he put out with the Roadhouse Band, which was called Dancing on the Edge. That came out in 2023. That made my year end list that year. And now he's back with this record. It really feels like this is his chance to shine.

He's in a moment now, like where this kind of, you know, country tinge, David Berman inspired style songwriting is, really having a moment. Although I think Davis really tries to color outside the lines with that formula. There's a lot of long songs on this record, very wordy songs. You know, there's some sort of interesting oblique references to like hip hop records and like even like musical quotes from like hip hop records on the album. While at the same time he's delivering, you know, just these lines that are really funny and also kind of sad. And it's just interesting how he's able to sort of embody that archetype of the singer-songwriter while also subverting it at the same time. So please check out my column on Uprocks and definitely check out the record.

It's called New Threats from the Soul. I should also say quick, I didn't mention this last week, but there is a new Billy Joel documentary on HBO. It's a two-part, five-hour movie, kind of incredibly long movie. But I'm in the movie. I was interviewed as a pundit. I have not seen the movie as we're recording this. But I'm told that I'm in it quite a bit. So if you want to see me talk about Billy Joel, go to HBO Max or Max, whatever it's called, and learn about Billy Joel over the course of five hours.

It's supposed to be a good movie. So I'll recommend that as well. Absolutely. And you know what? If Ryan Davis was on Metacritic, I would have chose that. I think this album is going to be a huge one. I know. I'm mad at myself.

Well, you're writing about it. Oh, you're not reviewing it, but I don't know. I'm mad at myself for not picking it. wasn't listed in the upcoming albums list and I just blanked on it when I was doing the draft. I think you're right. I think this one's like that this one's like sky high in terms of like what it can do. And I think yeah, because it's got like the, you know, the silver Jews sort of thing going on that was mentioned in this now like canonical GQ article about bad rock. But like none of the baggage of like MJ Wenderman or anyone else.

So yeah, it's a this one's, this one's. this one's headed straight to the top. Also, how interesting is it? Like, you wouldn't have said this like two years ago that a guy with Ryan Davis and the Roadhouse Band. Like that's one of the big ticket ones in 2025. Exactly. That's the moment we're in, baby.

Yeah, optimism, baby. Yep, exactly. We're ending out a positive note. No more negativity, man. Things are looking on the up and up. And it'll be even better next week when we'll be back with more news reviews and hashing out trends. Thank you for listening.

And if you're looking for more music recommendations, sign up for the Indie Mix tape newsletter. You can go to uprocks.com backslash indie, and I recommend five albums per week, and we'll send it directly to your email box.