No Filler Music Podcast - 2019 Recap: Our Top 10 Discoveries

Episode Date: December 30, 2019

We begin our batch of year-end recaps with our top 10 discoveries of 2019. While there was certainly a ton of great new releases this year (and we'll review those next week), sometimes it's the album put out decades ago that ended up being your heaviest rotation of the year. If you're hearing it for the first time - it's just as new to your ears as the latest single from your favorite artist. So this episode is all about those amazing discoveries that we stumbled upon this year, some of these songs a few years old, and some a few decades old! Tracklist A L E X - Its Been A Really Long Time Textual - Dirty South Still Life Toe - tremelo+delay The Soft Boys - School Dinner Blues Pinkshinyultrablast - Land's End Frankie Broyles - L Bright Narrow Head - Uncover Al Green - Get Back (Beatles Cover) Sweet Trip - To The Moon The Soundcarriers - Step Outside This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won!

Feel the fun! The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 18665330 or visit Comexontera.ca. With Amex Platinum. You have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come.

That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So, no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no.

But chicken tenders, yes. because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. And welcome to No Filler, the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. Got my brother Quentin with me. as always. And this is our very last episode of 2019. So, Q, we talked about this a little bit at the end of the last episode, but the plan is to essentially just play a bunch of music for the next few episodes. We're not focusing on any one particular album or artist. On this episode, we're looking back at 2019 and talking about the songs or bands that you and I discovered in the last year, which is kind of a weird, it's kind of a weird format, to be

honest with you. Nobody does this kind of thing. Hey, this was your idea, dude. You know what? I stand by it. And here's why. Yeah, I think it's cool. And the fact that we're just going to be playing a bunch of tunes for the next several weeks, you know what that is to me, dude? What is it? That's music to my ears. God, dude. Are you going to be bringing cheesy puns to every episode now going forward? No, dude, but, you know, that I just. I couldn't resist. I'm sorry. So, yeah, like I said, this is going to be our top 10 discoveries of 2019.

And, man, the more I say it out loud, the more it's hard to explain. Because it's not new bands. It's not, you know, albums that came out in this year. It's basically just celebrating the fact that life, if you're a music fan, is all about discovering new music to you as a, as a, a music lover, you know what I mean? Oh yeah, dude. I'm bringing a song to the table tonight that came out in 1969.

Right, exactly. So basically when we sat down and started compiling our list of, you know, hey, what's the top 10 songs that you, top 10 new songs that you fell in love with this year? I personally realized how many bands that I had just discovered that, you know, came out five years ago, 10 years ago. Right. So I want to share that stuff with the audience here and with you, Q. So anyway, so the next week's episode will be our top 10 of 2019.

And then the week after that, we're going to do our top 10 of the last decade. So lots of great content coming up, lots of great music. All right. So let's just get started, man. Let's just jump right into it here. So I'll go first here. And I think we've joked about this before. But there's this trend right now with like electronic musicians with like, you know,

club, dance electronic like IDM, not IDM, like EDM, where the name of the artist is in all capital letters. Or they take out a letter or, you know, they put spaces in between the letters, right? Or what about like that band always, but the W is too. Vs. 2V, yeah, yeah. Anyway, here's another example of that. This guy, his name is Alex, and that's what he goes by, Alex.

But there's a space between each letter, and the letters are capitalized, or at least they are on Spotify. On his sound cloud, they're lowercase. Anyway, there's this, it's almost like a continuation of chill wave, but it's it's like a low-fi chill wave instrumental usually and a lot of times it's tied to like the vapor wave like branch of chill wave do you know what vapor wave is cue yes i'm very familiar with it

okay so vapor wave i guess the best way to describe it is like it's more closely tied to the 90s and 80s like aesthetically right like there's a lot of A lot of, you know, just think Blade Runner graphics, you know what I mean? Like that super like... It seemed like they never took themselves too seriously. And then they kind of surrounded the whole genre in like certain, like, stereotypical Windows 95. Yeah, Windows 95. Yeah, like, you know.

That and like... And Japanese characters. Greek, Greek, Japanese characters and Greek busts. Yeah. You know, and like neon or like lots of pinks and blues. Pinks and blues. Right. Anyways, a lot of what Vaporave became was more aesthetic than music, you know.

Right. But yeah, it is very much like kind of cheesy 80s synth kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. But anyway, so this guy kind of falls into that camp. He's more lo-fi hip-hop down to. tempo type beats, but it's very laid back and very like, it's just so, God, what's the word to use?

Dude, it's hard to describe vapor wave, man. Yeah, I mean, it's just background music, basically. But he's got these three albums that he's put out over the last few years called Growing Up. So it's Growing Up Volume 1, 2, and 3. Growing Up Volume 2 came out in 2018. I kind of stumbled upon it early. this year. And it's just really good background music. If you're somebody like me who is at a

computer all day, it's that kind of music you can put on and, you know, work to. But at the same time, I will admit, like, sometimes it is, it is so laid back that it could almost put you to sleep, you know. But anyway, let's take a listen here. This is the artist named Alex. And this song is called, it's been a really long time. I love that this is the first song that you picked because it's, it's going to flow really nicely into, to my first pick. Nice. I've always loved this kind of electronic music.

And I will say, like, if you really want to get into Vaporwave, this is pretty tame. Oh, yeah. You were I was saying, like, they kind of poke fun of themselves in a way, like pushing the limits of what they think people would actually enjoy listening to. Well, the thing about Vaporwave, too, is that, like, aside from the, stuff that you're talking about where they're being like over the top just to be over the top yeah like yeah you know a lot of vapor wave has like that corny smooth jazz from like the 90s or 80s as like the backing track but it's done with these kind of cool beats and stuff over and

sometimes it's yeah right and those beats are usually like the best way to describe them is like the stock beats that you would get on your Casio keyboard from, you know, 95 or something. Right. Like they purposely use synthesized beats that sound dated, you know? Right. One thing I liked about it and one thing that I think is obvious is that this guy, Alex, this producer, he probably grew up in the 90s like we did, right? because all three of his growing up albums that he's put out has a photograph,

I assume of him because it's the same kid in each picture. And it just looks like a photo that was taken of a kid from the 90s, you know. And he throws in, like there's a song, I don't remember which one it is, but he throws in a clip, an audio clip from a Mario game, you know, from an N-64 Mario game. So, like, you know, he's tapping into the nostalgic of, of, the decade that we grew up in the 90s. And that's a lot of what this vapor wave stuff is and this like, you know, it's almost, it's hypnagogic too.

Like we, you know, to throw that word out there again, it's one of our favorite words on this podcast. But anyway, like I said, the whole, the whole aesthetic and the whole vibe is all pretty similar to what you heard there. So he's got three albums of this kind of stuff. That volume two has 28 tracks on it. So there's a ton of stuff to listen to if you like that. Anyway, Q, what's your first book here? Yeah, so we covered the Mercury program back in January, maybe February, so early this year.

And then our sidetrack was a little side project from their drummer, David LeBlow. And he goes by textual. So it's in the same vein of that, like, almost purposely using, like, outdated synth sounds to make your music. And I want to bring up this artist again because we talked about him during this sidetrack. We both love robot science. He does that kind of stuff too. We played one of his songs during that episode. So we're going to revisit that album again by Textual.

So again, if you want to, you know, if you like what you hear. First off, listen to our episode on the Mercury program, which is a little bit different. They're more like math rock, instrumental math rock. But that was earlier this year back in January. And then check out our full sidetrack on Textual that we posted in early February. So my favorite album of his is an album called Hindsight Glasses that came out in 2004. And if you dive in deeper and listen to more of his works, it gets more and more ambient. So the song we're going to play is track three on the record.

It's called Dirty South Still Life. Yeah, man, great, great song to follow up my, uh, my lo-fi chill wave. I wouldn't put that in the same, in the same vein, but it is, it's in the same, like, building at least, you know. Yeah, I think, I feel like the name textual as, like, his moniker for this work is perfect. Like, he's really good about building those textures and, like, kind of drawing out, like, the buildup, you know, like, it just keeps building on itself. And for me, like when I'm listening to his music, and this is for that entire album, I keep waiting for the payoff.

You know what I'm saying? Like with most music, you're waiting for it, especially in like, like, electronic, like, EDM kind of stuff. You're waiting for it to kind of go back into like a certain phrase, you know, or something. And you're just waiting for that and waiting for that. And with what he does, he continues to just build and build and, and, and change it. And then as we faded it out, it kind of, it kind of turned into this like more ambience sound.

And that's what I love about that album. So again, that was an album called Hindsight Glasses that came out in 2004 by an artist named Textual, who also happens to be the drummer for one of our favorite math rock bands, The Mercury Program. So let's move right along, dude. Real quick, we got a fucking, we got a lot of tunes. dude. Let's get right back into it. What's your next pick? So this is going to, this is going to seem like we, we planned the order of this, but we didn't. Um, speaking of math rock, cue. Well, let's just say

that, that, that, that, that, that we ordered these songs in, and when we discovered these artists. So, so each song is from like early 2019 all the way down to like recently, right? Well, do you want to know why it makes sense then that I discovered this band when you discovered texture? Because we're diving into the Mercury program. Yes, exactly. Dude, and this is what we're all about, man. This is why we love music, right? Right. You're always, you're constantly discovering new stuff all the time. You get into a new artist, you know, or you dive into like a genre that you're into at the moment and then it's, it's fucking all these rabbit holes, you know? That's just never ending. Yeah, exactly.

Exactly. So these guys are a Japanese math rock band from Tokyo called To. And when I came across this record, man, it just blew me away. And I want you to cue, especially you, to pay close attention to the drumming because it is unbelievable. The drummer, his name is, and I know I'm going to butcher this, Kashikura Takashi. Ooh, that sounded great, bro. Do you like that? That sounded really good.

I hope I did that right. Anyway, let's just so I can play it, dude. This song speaks for itself. It's going to remind you a lot of the Mercury program and kind of that same vein. There's no xylophone, though. I will say that. But this album is called, and man, this has such an emo album name. It's called The Book About My Idol Plot on a Vague Anxiety.

came out in 2005, the name of the song that we are playing. It's called Trimolo plus delay. Also, dude, real quick, let's just put into context, dude. 2005, we were still in high school. And I don't know if anyone cares, but like, think about that, dude. Yeah, yeah. We were juniors in high school. We were a year away from graduating.

So, yeah, it kind of makes sense that this group was putting out music in the 2000s, you know, the mid-2000s, because that's when third-wave emo music was all the rage, you know. And if third wave emo music doesn't make any sense to you, jump back and listen to our Jamie Role episode. Episode 11 that came out in May of 2018. So I'd go back and listen to that.

If you want to get a deep dive into the history of emo. Anyway, let's just play it, man. Again, the song is called Trimolo plus delay. And we got to play it far enough to hear this drum fill that blows my mind every time I hear it. So here we go. Hey, we just listening to the whole song, dude. Fucking great.

What did you think of that drumming, dude? He reminds me of David LaBlow, the drummer for Mercury program, dude, aka the guy that does textual. Yeah, I mean, like I said. Dude, I love, that's my favorite kind of drumming, man. That's super technical shit where I'm listening to it and I'm thinking, never, never in my life.

will I ever be able to play like this? I do. Yeah, I'm all about that kind of stuff, man. Yeah, what I like about Mathrock is it, it seems like, I mean, every, every instrument that you're hearing, you know, it's always super complex and very complicated, but the drumming always takes center stage, it seems like. Yes. That's what we talked about that with Mercury program.

And that's what I love about Mathrock, man. Yes, me do, because being a drummer, that's what I'm all about, dude. Right. And it's just, where else are you going to get to hear drumming at that level, you know, throughout the entire song, right? Yeah. Anyway, I love it, dude. Check them out. They're called Toe.

That record in particular, again, the name is so freaking long. The book about my idol plot on a vague anxiety came out in 2005. That is so emo, pro. I know, dude. Remember there was a phase where like, hey, let's see how long we can make our album names. Yeah. Well, like, what, my chemical romance bands. like that like or brand new remember brand new oh yeah dude deja ontan dude i feel like we're dating ourselves

right now but that's fine yeah that's fine um all right so uh cue to your point we gotta keep this keep this going here let's keep this train here all night so cue what what is what is your next pick all right my next pick is a band called the soft boys you remember when i covered them dude was that for spoon nope i don't even remember what like okay uh this was sandwich between air and the strokes. Okay. You were out of town for like two fucking long. And so I had to do two side tracks back to back by myself.

Do you want me to do it? Do you want to put some like a violin underneath you saying that? I'll do it. Like a little tiny violin? I'll put it. Yeah, it'll be playing right now while we're talking. Whatever that sounds like. Yeah, dude, I'll find the saddest, tiniest little violin clip and I'll play it right now.

Actually, dude, I'm going to be honest with you. I had a lot of fun doing these episodes by myself. I covered Dick Dale, Link Ray, and Dwayne Eddy for one episode. And then I covered the soft voice. I think I was teeing up for the strokes. Yeah, I was teeing up for the strokes episode by diving into like post punk rock and like surf guitar. Anyways, yeah, I was just trying to tee us up for the strokes while you were out of town. The Soft Boys is one of the bands that I covered. They were a very short-lived post-punk

neo-psychedelic band from the late 70s. And I covered an album of theirs, their first album called A Can of Bees, which came out in 1979. And I want to say the songs that I covered actually popped up in a reissue of the album, which is, it's like 20 plus songs long. But anyways, this is just a really cool. I mean, post-punk is a great way to describe these guys because they're not, they're not like sex pistols or, you know, black flag, you know, traditional punk, if that's even a thing. I don't know if traditional punk makes any sense.

But anyways, so this is like legit, one of my favorite discoveries of the last decade, hands down, not just the last year. Of the last decade, Q. Yeah, dude. Yes. I'm sad that I didn't know about these guys earlier. I just put it that way. Specifically this album, because if you jump to their next full length,

which is called underwater moonlight, which came out in 1980, so just a year later, they really start to get more into like the, I don't know, Echo and the Bunnyman or like the Cure. kind of post-punk sound. But Cana V's is more punk. Yeah, let's just fucking play a tune from it, dude. Yeah, man. Let it speak for itself. Yeah.

This is a song that appears on a reissue. No, I'm sorry. Nope, this one shows up on the original. It's actually a live recording, which is awesome. This song is called School Dinner Blues. I'm in the house in the laundry. Yeah, so, like, the verse and the chorus followed more of like a, like that standard kind of blues structure, you know. Oh, it's, it's classic blues.

I mean, the song is called school dinner blues, but that's what I love about it, dude. I mean, like, they, they were, they were doing a lot of, I mean, think about it, this was 1979, you know, probably edging towards 1980. and these guys were pulling from the, you know, what was considered classic rock in the 80s, you know, blues, stuff like that. That's what I love about this album. It's chock full of that kind of stuff. If you remember the song that I covered on that episode was called The Asking Tree, which is like the super, like gritty, dark blue song.

That's what I love about this album. It's just chock full of that stuff. They cover John Lennon song, one of my. favorites of his called Cold Turkey on this album. So yeah, dude, that was the soft boys. This is an album called The Can of Bees that came out in 1979. Easily one of my favorite records, discoveries of the last 10 years, dude, easily. So let's move right along, bro. What you got for us? All right, Q. So my, most of my picks are sort of following the episode schedule of the last year. So this band is a shoegaze band.

So we had a little shoegaze stint on no filler back in... That wasn't that long ago, dude. We covered back in September. My Bloody Valentine. Yeah, it was My Bloody Valentine. And then we did a sidetrack episode on Cock and Swan. And I think we had, before that, we had talked about slow dive. So...

Yes. Yeah, we... So anyway, that kind of got me in that mindset, and I was looking for other Shugays bands and trying to find newer Shugays bands. And this is one of those more contemporary, you know, sometimes called Dream Pop. But Shoegays, Dream Pop acts of the last decade. And they are called Pink Shiny Ultra Blast. They named their band after an album by another Shugay band called Astro Bright, which came out. 2002 called Pink Shiny Ultra Blast. So anyway, this album has been sort of a heavy rotation for me

me of the last few months ever since I've discovered them. But it's called Everything Else Matters. And it came out in 2015. These guys are actually from Russia, which is kind of interesting to me because they're not really known for their shoegaze. Q, you're familiar with The Guardian, right? It's this UK publication. Yes. So Pink Shiny Ultrablast was named their new band of the week back in November of 2014. Okay. And there's this little article that they wrote up about them talking about how it had been a good year for Shugays. Because, you know, slow dive came out with that, that comeback album.

Yes, I love that album so much. There you go. Anyway, so yeah, let's just check it out. This song is great. I fucking love it. I love her voice. I can't even find a Wikipedia page for this group. So there's not much about them.

But anyway, let's just listen to it. This song is called Land's End. Dude, I love that catalog. Dude, what a, like, beautiful nod to, like, the dream pop shoegaze bands of you are, you know? It's like a perfect, yeah, it's beautiful, dude. It reminds me a lot of slow dives comeback, man, like you were talking about. I feel like, Q, I can credit you to sort of turning me onto shoegaze more so than my, like, you know, surface level understanding of what it was, you know.

Yeah. I think the thing that still kind of not blows my mind, but gets me every time is the fact that Dreampop is shoe gaze, you know? Oh, me too, dude. Because I love Dream Pop, which means I love Shoe Gays, and I've always loved Shugays. Yeah, it is weird that those two terms are synonymous. It just proves that there's a... If you follow it back long enough, like music journalists at the time, we're using those two terms interchangeably for the same sound.

That blows my mind to you. But what's interesting to me is how one or the other term seems to get assigned to a band. You know what I mean? Right. Like there was a ton of dream pop. There was like a dream pop resurgence back in the 2010s. Yeah. Like Beach House.

Yeah. Beach House. All those beachy themed bandy. Right. But I wouldn't call them shoegaze. No. But if you go back far enough, like you can find bands that are in that vein that were considered shoegaze, you know. Right.

But I guess the point, the point being is like I would call this. group pink shiny ultra blast shoe gaze me too they are more her vocals are very dream poppy yeah see here we go anyway um anyway but i would like i said like like you said they are definitely nodding to the shoe gaze bands from the 90s more so than anything yeah which is what i love about it good stuff dude yeah i i've been meaning to to dive deeper into that band for sure the whole track The whole album's good, man. It's awesome. Cue it up.

All right, Cue, before we hear your next pick, let's take a quick break. And we're back. All right, Q, what do you got? So, I'm going to play a song from Frankie Broils, who is... Oh, man. I know, dude.

The lead singer of the now defunct band, Balkans, which, for us, very special place in our hearts, dude. Favorite bands from the decade, man. Yes, because... down. Yep, easily. They are one of the first, to me, I will always remember them as the first true, like,

underground, quote unquote, indie band that we covered on our music blog, New Dust. I remember getting an email from, I don't remember if it was a PR dude or like one of the members of the band. It was the first band that we, like you are kind of saying, approached us with their music. Yeah, yeah. And, and, and asked us to talk about him. And we, we just loved him so much, you know. Yeah, dude.

And, like, that album has stayed with me ever since. Same, yeah. This, uh, Balkans is like the best example of a punk band that took what the strokes did and ran with it, you know, and they were like the next generation of that kind of punk rock. Yeah, that I like, a rock sound. Yeah. And what I like about. what Frankie Broil's did a few years later, well, a handful of years later, this album that I'm

going to play a song from is from 2017. You know, he kind of softened it up a little bit. Like, Balkans is pretty in your face, you know, as far as that style of post-punk rock, kind of like what the strokes were known for early on. You know, when you listen to his solo stuff, it's a little bit dialed back. This is going to be the only song on this episode that you may recognize because this is hands down my favorite song from the record. I played it earlier in the year when we covered Balkans. It was a little sidetrack that we did.

This was following our Strokes episode back in May of this year. But I'm going to play it again anyways just because I love this song so much. So this is a song from Frankie Broil's solo album from 2017 called Slow Return. This song is called L. Bright. His voice just reminds me of a little bit of Julian, Casablanca's of the Strugs. But hearing that song again, it made me think of the lead singer from The Walkman. His name is Hamilton, and I'm not going to pronounce this right. That's fine.

But that's what we do right here. His name's Hamilton. Yeah. His name is Hamilton. Hamilton. More more than you need to know. Anyway, you know, which was another great, you know, post-punk revival band from that, from that era. So, yeah.

It's interesting to, to hear what I love about it is it's so unmistakably Frankie, right? Yeah. And that's what I love about it is that the Balkans came out with that record and then nothing, they didn't do anything. They pretty much stopped after that, right? Yeah, I mean, there must have been like late teens. early 20s when they were when they were in the Balkans yeah they were probably like

the the you know the band on campus that people would see at house shows right like the best house show in town kind of yeah exactly best house show on campus yeah exactly so it's just great to hear him putting music out again you know

well it's great is what's cool about what Frankie was doing and maybe still doing I mean, you think about Balkins, the stuff that he was writing in that band was post the Strokes. And now you listen to something that he released in 2017, just a couple years ago. And it's just still right there in that like era of like you were saying the Walkman, the strokes, long wave, like early 2000s. Like it's really cool that he is stuck in that sound.

And I'm not saying that in a bad way. Like it's cool to hear that sound continue on, you know, with people of the next generation. Man, dude, we didn't plan this. But this plays perfectly into my next band. Oh, hell yeah, dude. I'm so excited to hear another song from these guys, dude. I love the man. Yeah.

So talk about favorite discoveries of the last decade. I just happened to discover these guys this year, the last year of the decade. Not that long ago either, dude. A couple months back. Yeah, this was, yeah, this band is going to sound familiar to listeners of no filler because I covered them as my what you heard on the Ride the Lightning episode, which came out in October. So anyway, speaking of new bands making music from a different era, this album is a grunge record. And that's what I like to describe it.

as just a grunge record, not like a grunge homage or like a, oh, it sounds like grunge. Like, it is a grunge record. You know what I mean? Like sometimes I try to be careful with that because a lot of times everybody's heard my rant about bands that seem like they're doing it to be gimmicky or, you know. Gimickey is not the right word. But yeah, I know what you're saying. You're not a fan of bands where it seems like they're just riding the gravy train.

Like, oh, this sound has worked in the past. Let's just fucking completely copy, like copy paste what other bands before us have done. And not do anything new. Yeah, dude. Yes. I know what you said. Exactly. I can't say with 100% certainty that that's not what this band is doing.

But there's just something about it that sounds super, like, authentic and genuine. You know what I mean? Yeah. Totally, dude. I get it too. I've listened to this album all the way through now. and yeah dude it's it's it's great it's new it's new and fresh it is basically like if i stumbled upon this record in like the bargain bin at a cd warehouse or something like that i would be like i'd be

convinced dude this is a kick-ass fucking 90s grunge band like who are these guys they must like you know i guess they put out a record and nothing ever happened to them back on the 90s when they put this out because there's no way that this could have come out in 2016 right down to the album cover i mean exactly and we talk about this i think we talked about this i think we talked about it to me, when I see that, it's the same color palette as the Smashing Pumpkins. Siamese Dream Re-Release. I started to rush myself because I'm realizing that we haven't even mentioned the band yet. This group is called Narrowhead.

They're from Houston, I believe. They're from a Texas city close to me. So that's exciting. Anyway, this record is called Satisfaction. On the Metallica episode, I played my favorite track on the album, which is called Feels Like Sand. I wanted to play a different song just to get another more exposure to the record. This song is called Uncover. They would have killed it in the 90s, dude.

But that's the funny thing. It's like, would they have made this music in the 90s? Maybe not, because all of the influence that goes into this record are bands that probably hadn't come out yet. Dude, and that kind of reminds me of... You know, one of your favorite metal bands of the last decade, chemists. Chemis, yeah.

Who just pulls from all the metal that came before them. And, dude, that's what we preach. I know, that's what we love about music is that bands like this, these guys are super young. I'm reading an interview back in 2014, granted, but it was Dallas Observer,

actually interviewed the lead singer Ryan Hughes, just asking him about his influences and stuff. And he says, what's funny is he actually talks about shoegaze. He says, I learned a lot about those bands through hardcore. And he's talking about my bloody Valentine and failure and ride. He said, before I got into hardcore, I guess he means hardcore punk, which it's kind of hard to track this. But anyway, he says, I was listening to stuff like Nirvana and stuff my dad was playing for me like rush. So by the time I got to narrow head, the sounds of our influences weren't necessarily new to me, but I had a better lens to examine them with because of hardcore. D'Rite's introduction to narrowhead's influence also came through his father. Ah, so he goes on to, the article goes on to say that the other vocal Jacob Duarte

Wait Yeah I guess there's two vocalists, two guitar players Jacob Duarte says that his dad was in a 90s emo band so that's where his influence came from which is dope dude Anyway

They're kind of saying it right here They're hitting it on the head He's talking about how he used to listen to bands like Nirvana And then he was introduced to more hardcore punk bands Which came before, you know, that came before grunge and he was able to sort of examine the Grange movement

through a different lens now that he knew about what came before it. You know what I mean? That's huge, right? And that's kind of what, when you listen to bands, even like, you know, when you listen to this record, you hear a lot of smashing pumpkins in it. You hear a lot of, you hear some Nirvana in it,

but you hear a lot of those, you know, iconic bands for the 90s. But when you listen to early, early smashing pumpkins, or at least when I listen to it, I hear some shoegaze in there. So it's all fucking wrapped together in a fucking tamale, you know? Or an enchilada. No, yeah. I appreciate that you used tamalea or enchilada because these dudes are from Texas. And, man, let me tell you. I miss that text max, man.

Loving up here. It's hard to come by. Dude, I just fucking door-dashed myself a bag of tacos, my friend. That's why I ate before this record for this episode. From where, dude? Torchie's tacos, man. Oh, which is Austin, Texas.

Oh, my heart, dude. Let me tell you, dude, I miss. They got the best queso in the biz, man. Do you get there a lot taste corn? Because if you don't. Yeah, I have. I have, I have had that. It's off the cop, but fuck, it's so good, dude.

God, damn it. I thought you were about to say, I thought you just coined a new term instead of off the chain. Oh, off the cob. It's fucking off the cob. next time something is badass. I'm going to say that. I'm going to say, this is fucking off the car.

Off the cop, dog. All right. Let's move along, bro. All right, we got a couple more songs. What, three more tracks? Well, you got one. I got one and then you know. Three more tracks,

Q, we're coming under the home stretch here. Okay. So, you know, I'm a big fan of the vinyl subreddit. I'm a big fan of that community. It's like-minded final junkies. And someone was talking about. this album by Al Green that they found a great copy of. It's called Green is Blues. It was his second ever full-length album. Came out in 1969. So I started playing some tunes from this album,

and I got to a song called Get Back, and I realized almost immediately that it's obviously a cover of the Beatles song, Get Back. So when I heard that, I heard that, I was a song, it blew my mind because like, hang on a second, 1969, that had to be around the same time that Let It Be came out, which is where Get Back shows up on. I look into it because I was like, you know, who did it first? You know, is the Beatles covering Al Green or is All Green covering the Beatles? So, Let It Be came out in 1970.

But the Beatles wrote, Get Back, and released this song as a single back in April of, of 1969. So a year before Let It Be came out. And, you know, Paul McCartney wrote it.

So clearly Al Green was covering Paul McCartney. The cool thing about it is Al Green was such a Beatles fan that he heard the single of Get Back before it was released on Let It Be. You know what I'm saying? So like for Al Green being such a huge name in like the R&B, you know, soul music, you know, he's like a legend. He's got songs like, let's stay together, tired of being alone, take me to the river.

The fact that he loved this McCartney song so much that he released it on his second ever full-length album, just, you know, just made me happy, dude. You know, it's something I'll never forget when I heard it. It just blew my mind. So here is Al Green's cover of The Beatles Get Back. That's how you cover a Beatles song, dude. Yeah, man. I was going to say I love the spins that he put on it.

I love it. Dude, in the horn section, fucking golden. I got to say, I might like that better than the Beatles version. Same, dude. Same. Which is great. That's the goal of a cover, in my opinion. Pay homage to it, but make it better.

Refresh it a little bit. Dude, and the fact that it took me until, it took me fucking, you know, 31, 32 years of age to even know that this exists. Come on. Isn't that crazy, dude? I know, man. It seems like a very, probably a well-known thing, you know? Most people are probably like, yeah, of course it covered.

If I was old enough, I'm sure I knew that that was a thing. Right. Anyways. Yeah, I love that fucking shit, dude. Man. And it's great because the only reason I press play on this Green is Blues album by Al Green is because I saw someone take a fucking picture of the album. album cover, you know, in front of their record player spinning it themselves, getting into it.

Anyways, uh, all right, dude, we got our final two picks. So, here's another shoegaze band, Q, although I would not classify them as shoegaze or Dream Pop because of how, how do I say this, Q? You know what, I'm going to, I'm going to use Wikipedia's term because I, here's, here's, a genre I've never heard before, but it applies perfectly to these guys. Indie Tronica. Oh.

That's a bad. That hurt. That hurt. Oh, man. Oh, that's bad. Okay. They better be, they better be like the spitting image of Indie Tronica. Here's the point.

So this band is called Sweet Trip. They're from San Francisco, California. And they are best known for their genre We're defying soundscapes, as the Wikipedia says. But mostly it's their blending of alternative rock and electronic dance music. So, and that's a perfect description of them because it's, it is what you know about like indie rock, that sound. I thought it was alternative, dude.

Why aren't they considered alt tronica? I mean, come on. Alt rock, indie rock is, is old rock somewhere, right? That's why indie is such a stupid, like. I know, I know. You know, throw it all in the same umbrella. Right. Everything is in Iraq at this point.

Yeah. But anyway, so this record is called You Will Never Know Why. We played a song off of this record on our Kimus episode. This was my What You Heard. But I have since discovered that my favorite song on this record is actually a different song. We played Conservation of Two, which was track one. but I'm a big fan of this one. This might be my favorite track on the record.

It's called To the Moon. And let's just fucking listen to it, kid. Yeah, dude, the fact that that came out 10 years ago, like, I wouldn't think twice if you told me it came out yesterday. They're way ahead of their time. Yeah, I mean, but that's the thing, though. I mean, plenty of indie bands sounded like that back then, though. Well, yeah, I guess that's the, I guess, I don't know, man.

Maybe that's the point of it. trying to make like yeah i don't know like there's something about it's a timeless sound it's a timeless sound yeah i don't know there's something about that like jangly guitar um you know the subtle synthesizer that's thrown in there yeah um yeah dude that's something we we definitely tapped into this sound and just kind of never looked back you know or the last 10 years you and i but like well indie rock indie rock yeah we indie rock is is that the jangly guitar that you talked about yeah totally is definitely a staple of that 2000, the 2000. And maybe if you're not like mid-20s to mid-30s,

you could care less about this sound, you know, but I will always have a special place in my heart for this kind of music. Yeah, yeah. But yeah, Andy Tronica. I mean, I'm never going to say that term right down. I'll take it, dude. Yeah, I get it. But it works.

I mean, and, you know, what's great about this record or this, band. It's mostly, I mean, you heard that there's two vocalists, right? But mostly the band itself is sort of known as like, it's the music of this guy Robert Roberto Burgos. He's the main guy behind the band. And then he's got this female vocalist named Valerie Ray's that sort of adds to that. She kind of gets the dream pop vocal vibe into the mix. You know what I mean? And I think maybe that's why they get that label thrown onto them because of her vocals. But you know what I was reminded of to you?

And we got to talk about this band at some point. Okay. Why does Boy Alive? I feel like the guitar and the way that they were doing the music was very similar to the way that Erland Oya approaches what he did with that group. Yeah. Why does Boy Live? And we'll have to talk about that group at some point because those two records that they put out, or two of my favorite records.

Yeah, dude. I say when we cover it, we do them both at the same time, man. We just play songs for both albums. Yeah. I mean, they're essentially one, it's essentially one long album in my mind, you know? Yeah, dude.

All right. Cute. Bring us home with the last song here. What do you got? All right, dude. Well, I'm going to take a gamble here because when I heard that, you know, dual male-female vocals from that band,

I was reminded of a band called the sound carriers, which I've... Oh, I remember them. Yeah, dude. And the reason they're fresh in my mind is because I was down in Portland a couple weeks ago, and I was posted up at this really, really cool bar. And they had a record player set up in the bar. And it was a super slow night. The bartender was spinning his own tunes, you know.

he would go over there every now and then flip the record. He was flipping through the records himself, picking out tunes. And he played this album called Celeste that came out in 2010 from the sound carriers. And I was just going to play track one because I figured, you know what, this is probably, you know, sparked my attention right when he dropped the needle. But the first track on the album is a single, so I can't do it. I'm just going to jump to track two. This is a song called Step.

outside. Yeah, man, that's great. A lot of great movements in that and changes and all sorts of great stuff. The thing about the sound carriers, any album that you listen from them, they just, they just tapped into that like 60s pop rock, you know, but they do it in such a fresh way. And so I just looked it up, dude, because I want to give this bar a shout-out because, seriously, if you live in Portland, check this place out. It's a really, really great bar, really good vibes.

It's called Blank Slate. Anyways, dude, yeah, anytime I'm in Portland, I'm definitely going to go back there. Good vibes, good tunes. That song, again, is called Step Outside from the Sound Carriers from their album, Celeste from 2010. Good stuff, dude. I feel like this collection here, this list of songs that we've talked about, they're all sort of nodding back to something else, you know? At least a lot of them were. Yeah. I don't know if that's just what we happen to be listening to this year, but lots of shoegays sounds, lots of, there's a grunge, there's the nostalgia from the vapor wave.

I feel like this is just like the result of us starting this podcast, dude. You know, know, because we'll get into an artist from a certain decade and just kind of surround ourselves with, with similar kind of music. And a lot of times that ends up being a contemporary artist that nods back to that sound. And yeah, you know, that's like we say all the time. And for me, this is my favorite thing about music is how it's constantly evolving, but it always draws back from the past, you know. Yeah, it's very rare that a band is so innovative that there, that nobody's ever heard anything like it.

You know, there's just not that many artists like that. So in the meantime, most of them are looking back, like you said, but it's taking it and improving upon it or twisting it in a certain way or adding to it in a certain way. And it just becomes. Yeah, no. And I feel like a lot of, yeah, I feel like the trend in Hollywood. is to do remakes, you know? Yeah, but I don't feel like it's the same thing when it comes to music.

It's not like, oh, you know, I guess music just doesn't have anything new to share. You know, it's like it's a totally different thing when it comes to music where it's not like, you know, where the fuck, where did all the, the fresh new ideas, where do they all go? You know, it seems like it's all just, you know, harking back to the music from, you know, you know, a decade ago, two decades ago. I never feel like it's like it's always, it's always been that way. Yeah, I guess that's the, that's the big difference. You think about British, you know,

the British invasion type stuff. Yeah. It was blues standards and stuff. The Beatles were doing blue standards and stuff, you know? Rock and roll came from blues. I mean, this is how it's always been. Yeah. But I agree with you that it's not the same to say,

it's not in the same way that movies just, remake movies, stories, you know, how many times are we going to see the Lion King fucking story? Right. And we were just talking before we started recording. Like, there's going to be live action Mulan. Which I'm fucking pumped about it. I'm pumped about it too. The big studios right now know that the safe bet is to just rehash that story that you loved. Yeah. That movie that you saw 10 years ago. And people like us will come and see it because we are nostalgic about stuff from our past, you know. I guess the difference being

we just talked about it's major movie studios, which is the equivalent of a major record label that's doing it because they know it's a safe bet for the bottom line or whatever versus these unsigned indie bands that aren't on a major record label

are doing it because that's like the music language that they speak or whatever, you know what I mean? Yeah, yeah, totally. It's what they grew up on, it's what they grew up on, it's what, they, their parents listen to and it's, that's what they know, you know, and they're putting their spin on it. Yeah. And I fucking love it, man. I love it. I love hearing a brand new band of young 20-somethings putting out a grunge record. I love it, man. I want to hear more of it because I miss

grunge music. I wish we had more of it. So there you go. We do have more of it. It's great that, that, you know, dudes that are 10 years younger than us can get in inspired by grunge music from the early 90s and write a whole new record based on that style of music and, you know, deliver something fresh for us oldies to get into. Exactly. And that's how I felt when I listened to this record, man. I was like, this is it. We're fucking doing it again.

Yeah, dude. Let's go. Let's bring it back. It's time. Let's do it. Let's have another grunge wave. It's not going to happen, but at least we can get hopeful about it. it and point the bands like narrowhead and say here we go they did it now we just need another

band to do it same with chemists right bands like that right let's let's hear what the next generation has to offer for us in this style of music it's never ending dude exactly all right dude so we got to wrap it up man this is a lengthy episode but song heavy you know what scan through any part of this episode and you're probably going to land on a song you know hopefully we didn't bore you too much with our droning on about about our love for these albums and these artists and these songs um i mean if you're bored by it there's a lot more coming the next two episodes you're just like this um but this is what this is what i love doing this is just a way for us to share tunes with you all that's really what this is all about for us man is just

playing music with the masses you know this is the best way i just need an outlet I need an outlet to share music that I listen to. Yeah, I don't even care if I, if I never hear from any of you, ever, don't care. But you know what, Q, we might be hearing from him soon because I'm going to put up a Twitter account. And by that, I mean, I'm going to actively use, I'm going to start using our active Twitter account. Yes. Because it's kind of funny. I can't, I can't say that we don't have a Twitter account because we do.

But we've been avoiding mentioning it because we don't really use it. We're not active on it. And hey, yeah, it's great. dude, I'm glad that you are putting on record. I'm committed to. Our goal for 2020 is to get socially connected, you know. It's about time. To have a social presence of some kind, you know, because any, any presence on there is better than zero, which is what it is right now.

So that's my goal for 2020. Yeah. And I'm hoping we can get a little help from all of our friends on the Pantheon. podcast network. Oh, tell us about that, Q. Okay, I guess I will. Say more about that.

All right. Yeah, so we're part of the Pantheon podcast music network where you can find a ton of really awesome music podcasts where they nerd out more so than us probably with music, you know, really in-depth stuff. If you're a music nerd like us, like us, hop onto our network. You can go to our website Penteonpodcasts.com. You can even just search those keywords into Spotify or Apple podcasts.

Wherever you listen to your podcasts, you can find our network there. You know, somebody said that it was, somebody said that it's like the MTV of podcast networks. Yeah. Which I thought was an interesting way. Let's just put it this way. MTV, back when MTV actually played music. Back when MTV was music television. Reality TV.

Yeah, totally. But the point being that it's like a, it's like a channel, if you will, of music podcast content. So like you said, if you pull up the Pantheon podcast feed on Spotify or anywhere else that you get your podcast from and hit play, you're going to hear an episode from one of our podcast. And then you're going to hear an episode from a different podcast. So just push play and. and just see what happens, you know? There's a ton of great content on there from people who are a thousand times more knowledgeable about music than we are, down to people that are super niche and only talk about one band

on their podcast. So there's tons of great stuff out there. We're just happy to be a part of the network. And, yeah, and you can also go to our website, no-filler podcast.com. If you want to dive a little bit deeper into each of our episodes with our show. show notes where we link to all of our sources, you know, so if there's something that we talked about regarding a certain album or, you know, a certain, like, recording session that we bring up, chances are you can find the articles where we get that information from, you know?

If you want to dive a little bit deeper, yeah, just hop under our website, no-filler podcast.com. All right, man. All right. I'm tired of my voice is getting a horse, dude. I'm feeling it. I'm feeling it, dude. Do we need to get the violin out again, dude? I guess we'll, yeah, fine, we'll play it again.

Man, you know, I think of that fucking opening scene in Fibble Goes West. Isn't there like a really sad violin? Well, if there is, that's probably going to be our outro, because I got nothing to outro us out for this episode, so maybe we'll just play some Fibble violin, you know? That counts as, that counts its music. That'd be weird. Anyway, so next week we're going to do our top 10 from this year.

So today was more about sort of open-ended artists or songs that we discovered this year. But next week will be brand new songs that came out this year that we fell in love with. So again, it's going to be five from me, five from Quentin. And that'll be another good time. Nothing but tunes coming your way next week. And that'll tell you. it, man. Like you said, it's a long episode. So let's wrap it up. My name is Travis. And my name's Quentin. Talk to you guys next week.