No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 14: Spoon - Kill The Moonlight

Episode Date: June 17, 2018

We continue our quest to cover all things Spoon with a look at Kill the Moonlight. On this album, Spoon becomes more experimental with their song compositions, adding more synthesized drums and keys to the mix. But still present are Britt Daniels's always spot-on guitar riffs and Jim Eno's simple yet masterful drum beats. With songs that break away from the mainstream through risk-taking and experimentation, but still carry with it pop-hook punches and catchy melodies, Kill the Moonlight set Spoon on the path to becoming the indie-rock gods that they are today. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/spoon-kill-the-moonlight-review Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. And you're listening 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's Quentin. With me is my brother Travis. as always. And today we are covering Spoon's fourth studio album from 2002,

Kill the Moonlight. And we did not release an episode last week because we were in Austin, the birthplace of Spoon, for a friend's wedding. So we're back now. And we're going to continue on with our Spoon-a-thon. and you know what dude i was pretty bummed that we didn't run into britt daniel down there i thought

he was just supposed to be walking the streets waiting for fans to come up to him and say hey well um you know they are on tour oh okay i mean so usually that's you know the odds are pretty slim that you're you're you know some musician walking around but kew you've actually you have actually seen him before in austin right i did yeah dude this is not that's not You have reason to believe, hey, I might see Britannia walking around in Austin because you did see him. Yeah, yeah. So this would have been like 2006, 2007 probably. I was living down there at the time.

And I don't know, me and my friends were walking around probably downtown somewhere near 6th Street, I'm sure. And I didn't even notice him, but he walked right past us. and my friend Larry turns back and says Brad Daniel? And I turned back too. Yeah. And he was with, I swear,

like three really attractive women. Of course. They all turned back and yeah. And he goes, he goes, yeah, or something like that. And,

yeah, nothing came of it, dude. Like we, Larry just confirmed that it was Bert Daniel. by calling out his name and he turned back and said yeah but that was it like after he said like he didn't i don't remember dude it was so long ago but there was no like conversation you know there was no like handshaking or anything you guys could have partied with brit probably dude

um is he here's a question is he famous and well known enough in austin to have lookalikes walking around like maybe this was just some dude who walks around he looks like britt daniel I don't know, dude. Chicks. Was he wearing a fitted shirt? Oh, it was fitted, dude. Well, then it was him, dude. It was definitely fitted.

Yeah, I wish I would have gone up and talked to him, dude. Like, I had the chance, you know. But whatever. Anyways, before we get into our album for the week, let's do our what you hurts. You know, this is music that we've been listening to lately. I'll start, Traff. Um, so while I was cleaning up the house, getting some laundry done after our vacation, I just threw on a playlist that I've been working on on Spotify for a while.

There's hundreds of songs on this. I just figured if I put it on shuffle, something will come up that I hadn't listened to in a while. Uh, you know, that would be a good fit for this episode. So I heard this song called The Magic by, uh, This artist that goes by Joan as the policewoman. And this is a song from her 2011 album, The Deep Field. It's called The Magic. What you already know.

This is me that you toss in my eyes. I slip on my head. Yeah, she's got an interesting voice. Like, you don't often hear that style voice with that kind of electronic music. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah, it's a great song. I don't remember how I came across it, but like, you know, I want to say I was working

on some mixtape back in the New Dust Hayday. Right. And I was trying to find songs that were in this certain style. And she was one of them that popped up. Really great song. So again, that song is called The Magic by Joan as Policewoman. Her birth name is Joan Wasser. And yeah, that was a song from her album, The Deep Field, which came out in 2011.

So, Travis, what you've been listening to lately, brother? What you heard? Okay, so as we mentioned at the beginning, you and I were at a wedding in Austin this weekend, this last weekend. When we came back to Dallas before you guys got your flight, I took you to Josie Records, which is a fantastic record shop in Dallas. And I found this album by Yes called Time and a Word, which the only reason I had heard anything or had any sort of familiarity with that album is because I remember, what is his name, Getty Lee,

the lead singer-based player of Rush. he had introduced yes at their Hall of Fame induction speech and he had talked about that album specifically how that was his introduction to yes

when he was younger he had a buddy who had him come over and he put on that album and like from that day forward is when he knew you know

I'm going to be a bass player I'm going to play Rickenbacher bass because that's the bass that the bass player of yes played so anyway i knew that it had to be a good album because it had like the stamp of approval of getty lee right so anyway i've been listening to that album it's fantastic it's yes doing what yes does best you know this came out so if when you look at their their discography this came out oh this is their second album so they had their self-titled album Just, yes, which I think you have that, right, Q?

Yep. It's got, I See You on it. Yeah. So that came out in 69. Time and a Word came out in 1970. So this is before I've seen all good people and before roundabout and all that stuff came out. But anyway, so let's just get to the song. This one is called Sweet Dreams.

So you can hear that. prominent bass throughout the whole song, right? So you can see why this was such an influence on on Getty Lee. But yeah, just, you know, just a great yes song, you know. I love that band, man. I love Yes so much. There's really, there's really nobody else like him. I mean, you can, obviously this is no revelation, but you can hear the, the huge influence that, that Yes had on Rush, you know. Yeah. It's so obvious, you know. Yeah, even, yeah, I mean, straight down to the guy's voice.

Yeah, exactly, right. So anyway, what a great song. Yeah, that was awesome, man. I loved it. Yeah, it's a great album. But anyway, I feel like yes is just one of those bands that if you find, if you stumble upon a yes record in a record store, just grab it. You know, it's going to be good.

Yeah. It doesn't matter which one it is. Yeah. Yeah, I feel like we're going to, I mean, there's no doubt we're going to cover fragile at one at some point. That's the one that's got roundabout. Roundabout. Yeah. That's such a good record. Yeah. All right. Let's get into Kill the Moonlight, dude. It's time. It's time. So we, I don't know if we, I think we mentioned this on an earlier episode, but my introduction and I think your introduction,

as well to Spoon in general, was this album, and specifically it was seeing them perform the way we get by on a late-night show. We think it was Conan O'Brien. Could have been Jay Leno. Dude, I feel like it was Conan. Could have even been Letterman, dude. I don't know, man. You and I were all about Conan O'Brien in the early 2000s, dude.

Right, right. That is, yeah, every night we would watch. his show. Another thing too, Spoon, I don't think we've talked about this too much, but I feel like Spoon was also our introduction to, I hate the term, but quote unquote, indie music. Yeah, I mean, really, what was it before Spoon? Like, what were we listening to before Spoon? To me, I feel like the term indie, I always for some reason go back to oh well indie just means that that they weren't on a major record label

they were on an independent record label but the term is obviously it it means a certain type of sound you know what I mean? Yeah I don't know it's just one of those terms that like what does it even mean anymore indie? Yeah you're right

but no but but but but don't but to your point like back when spoon was was doing this, Kill the Moonlight, going on late night shows. Like they were, that was when indie became a term

that everybody started to use. You know what I mean? And bands that weren't on major record labels were starting to get exposure because of the internet and whatnot. You know what I mean? Like you could make it

and get some success without being on a major record label because of the internet. And I think that's why indie bands, quote unquote, became such a big deal. Yeah.

Let's just talk a little bit about the sound and how it differs from girls can tell and a series of sneak. Those are the two albums we've covered already. So you can jump back, you know, hop on our website, no filler podcast.com, scroll through, listen to these other two episodes, Kill the Moonlight. So Spoon has this kind of trajectory, you know. trajectory trajectory yeah where they continue to get more and more

experimental really I feel like well like so what's interesting so okay we talked about we pulled that quote I think it might have been Jimmy you know that interview he did with the college where he said that Jim basically between series of sneaks and girls can tell Brad Daniel had sort of a like a revelation where he decided

oh you know what if I want to use a piano in a rock song. I'm going to use a piano in a rock song. Right. So I feel like that was when he decided, and probably the other band members decided, like, we can, you know, there's no rules here.

Like, if we want to start using a keyboard, let's do it. And then you can, knowing that, when you listen to Kill the Moonlight, there are so many other things that they start doing on Kill the Moonlight that they hadn't really done before. And it's probably a progression of,

like, it probably came from that. You know what I mean? Yeah. Let's just do whatever. whatever the song calls for, let's just throw it in there. You know, there's no rules. We're not making, you know, an album that should fall under any particular sound. You know what I mean?

It's whatever we want to do. Yeah. And I feel like, you know, it's what makes Bird Daniels such a great musician. And like I've always said about Spoon, you know, I think of them as the unthinkable band. Like, like, as the decades go, on with most bands, you know, their sound changes to the point that they're almost not even recognizable as the band that you fell in love with if you, you know, got into them early on. Yeah, I think for me, for me, Colplay is the band that I think of when I, when I think about

what they sound like now versus Parachutes, their first album, right? Oh, and let's not forget Kings of Leon, dude. Right. Exactly. But so, so here's the thing, though. I think that's, here's the thing. Britt Daniel, like we've, like, like we've mentioned and quoting them from early on, from Girls Can Tell, you know, Britt Daniel realized early on, there's no fucking rules, like you said.

And I feel like they, from the beginning, set out to not, you know, box themselves in. and that's what's allowed them to continue to evolve with their sound. But, you know, the whole time, it's spoon through and through. And there's no, like, major changes to where you're almost like, what the, like, what the fuck's going on? Where is this band that I, that I love where they go? Even between a series of Sneaks and Girls Can Tell, like those are such, between those two albums, there's such a big difference in sound, but it's still spoon, you know? So anyways, hey, let's play our first pick.

Let's fucking get into it, shall we? Yep, let's do it. So our first pick is going to be... So actually, let's first say that the intro song that played us in for this episode is called Jonathan Fisk, which is track five on the album. It's actually a single. But, yeah, that's a song actually. Jonathan Fiske shows up in a few of their songs.

I don't know if you want to get into this now, dude, or if you've got information on it. Well, so Jonathan Fisk is a based on a guy that used to beat up Brad Daniel in middle school. So here's a quote. Are you kidding, dude? I didn't even know that.

Yeah. Here's a quote from, he did an interview with NPR back in 2014 when they released they want my soul and he said because so let me just back up the reason that mpr i guess asks him about jonathan fisk is because jonathan fisc is the name of a song on kill the moonlight which is what we played that was the intro song but he mentions jonathan fisc again in uh and they want my soul uh the title track of that album so anyway so who is this guy right so basically here's here's

Jonathan Fisk was a character in a song from Kill the Moonlight, and it was based on a guy who used to beat me up as I was walking home from middle school. And so when I'm writing the song, the new song, They Want My Soul, about soul suckers in general, he was one of the people that came up. It's a song about religious pretenders, manipulators, educated folk singers, people that bring me down. And Jonathan Fisk was one of them for sure. So there you go. But apparently Jonathan Fiske is a huge fan of the band And came to all of Spoon shows for about two or three years So there you go

Wow But anyway And that, dude And that makes sense man Because the first time he mentions Jonathan Fisk He says Jonathan Fisk speaks with his fists Right

Dude, I'm I'm just glad that I didn't have some dude Beat me up On my way home from school, man I lucked out Yeah Because that was Dwebby enough, I feel like

In my grade school days I should have gotten beaten up man We should, we both should have gotten beaten up In our grade school days, bro You think so? Yeah, absolutely Well, look at us now, dude All right, let's play our first pick

So this is track one on the album It's called Small Stakes and I've decided we're just going to play the whole song. It's just three minutes long. Let's fucking do it. well A small time venture and your

mid-sized car I don't take the stripes but lines up your nose but your life on the page to come on tell me who can turn when you're stuck it feels so right

you feel so on tight You feel so on tight Dude I feel like Small stakes Small stakes is spoon Yeah Everything you need to know

about spoon You can hear it in that song Man Yeah it's what It's what it's like, you know, this is when Spoon has arrived at their destination. You know what I mean? Like, this is when, this is when they become, this album is when they become the Spoon

that you still hear on their records today. You know what I mean? Yeah. But this is a great intro to the other. This is the first track on the album. I don't know if you mentioned that or not. Yeah, yeah. That's track one.

Here's what I like so much about this song. And this is what I like so much about Spoon. I don't think you can get much simpler than that song as far as what's going on. Right. There's no guitar. There's no guitar. And it starts off with that little. The majority of the song is as far as the drums go is just that bass kick.

Yeah. It sounds like it's a synthesized like looped bass drum kick. You know what I mean? Yeah. That's what it sounds like. Yeah. And for the most part, that's all you hear. And then they throw in that tambourine shake.

Yeah. Which I don't know if. So that's one thing that that keeps popping up in spoon songs is the tambourine. And that just drives the song. Yeah. So we've talked about Jamino as a drummer and how incredible he is. And this is the kind of stuff where it's just like it's the, you know, to me, you know what makes a great drummer is not necessarily the decision to you know to add something

or to use a certain piece of equipment but to not use those things you know what I mean like the decision not necessarily the complexity of the beat right but how what they use and how they use it and yeah dude I think this song is a perfect example of what makes Jimino so great. At the very end of the song, he brings in the snare drum finally. And it almost, it's almost like completely separate from that bass kick and tambourine.

Like, he's got the snare drum with a bunch of echo on it or reverb, whatever you want to call it. And, yeah, it just feels separate from the rest of it. Do you know what I mean? Yeah.

Yeah. It's just such a good song. Yeah. You know, intro. There's, for an album. There's those random kind of like effects thrown in there that are kind of scattered

throughout. Like, it almost sounds like a reverse like tape effect type thing going on. You know what I mean? That's just what Spoon does. That's what Brit Daniel and Jamie Eno does. They, they always know how to keep your attention.

And that's, and that's by throwing in these random effects and like, you know, random audio clips into their songs. And it's never, it never feels like an afterthought, you know? Like it's, it's always just a perfect addition to the song. Yeah, it's a great,

it's a great spoon track and a great intro into this album. So, yeah. All right. So let's, let's, let's go into number two, shall we? Let's keep on trekking. So, our next pick is going to be

Trek 3 called Something to Look Forward to So again Simple drumbeat He brings that tambourine in But like there's just something Man the bass line in this song

Once it kicks in You know That's kind of a classic spoon baseline you know what I mean I feel like you hear the same kind of The same kind of bass in Rhythm and Soul You know which comes out

couple albums later. But yeah, I mean, you know, we've talked about the different flavors of Spoon. Like this song is a little bit more lighthearted, I guess, than small stakes as far as the vibes, you know. But you get to hear the guitar playing in this song. You didn't get to hear that in small stakes. The thing about Bert Daniel, he's just a riff machine. You know what I mean?

Like he just has this, it just seems like this bottomless well of guitar riffs that he just yeah has access to because it almost it almost goes in line really well

with it like it's almost a baseline you know what I mean the way he slides up you know it sounds like a baseline I don't think it is I don't know man

but hey dude all we're doing is just reaffirming you know what makes spoon spoon you know

like we're arguing over whether or not what we're hearing is the guitar or our bass I mean that's because that might

speak to our freaking ignorance too, dude. I don't know, I think it's a guitar. Yeah. But anyway, just another great song, man. I kind of want to get into the lyrics, dude, just for fun. All right, yeah, let's do it. God, they're so simple, dude. Right, but like, but here's the thing, though, like,

like, I know the parts, like, when I read these lyrics, like, I can sing it in my head because I know the song, but like, the, your, you're Chicago, manual of style, right? The way he sings it, you know what I mean? Like, that's what makes a good lyricist is bending, like, taking the words and putting them into the rhythm.

You know what I mean? Like, the way he sings that line, you know, the cadence and the spacing of it is not how you would say it. What does that even mean, dude? Your Chicago manual of style. She dresses like, she dresses like she's from Chicago. I don't know.

He says, only's got to go just as far as we let it go. And it's, yeah, I never thought about it when hearing it, but you never say onlys with an apostrophe S on the word only, you know, it only's got, but it works. It only has got to, you know, like he's, he's abbreviating, he's taking out the word has and put an apostrophe S on only, but it works. God. And the way that he sings that song, only's got to go just to.

I know, dude. I love that part. As we let it go. Yeah, dude. That's my favorite part of the song, actually. So, Carolette, Mino, boom, bong, d'n, d'n, d'n, d'n, d'n, d'n. That bass line is killer. Yeah.

Killer. Yeah. So, dude, we're only three songs in to this album. You know, like, we skipped over the way we get by because that's a single. Right. But our two picks have been track one and track three. So, fuck man, it's only got to get better from here, right? I mean, there's, there's, there's, there's 12 songs on this album and we're only showing you three.

Yeah. Yeah, so let's play our last pick. And Travis, because my internet has decided to shit on me, why don't you tee this up for us? All right, so this song is called Back to the Life. This is one of my favorite spoon songs. Yeah. This is the perfect example of, you know, how spoon evolved for. from Girls Can Tell to this album.

Because this song, I don't think there's... I think this entire song is synthesized. I remember when they would play this live, I think Jimino had a drum pad or something like that that he would hit for some of this stuff. And I think Britt had like an effects looper pedal thing that he had some samples in. I think that he would just kind of loop.

through. I think they would use their instruments to contribute to the sounds that are happening in this song. But for the most part, it is synthesized. You know what I mean? But let's just let it play out. But this is probably like one of the more kind of unique spoon songs. You know what I mean? But it's a good sort of an example of when they started making songs like this. You know what I because I didn't really have any songs like this in their previous work but again it's more Spoon starts to get more experimental

in this album and this is like the perfect example of that so must you let it play yeah it's such a great show yeah heart dude that one gets me every time

gets the blood a pumping it's a yeah it's such a great song and so it's cool I think you I don't know if we talked about this, but how it starts with kind of that he's laughing or something like that. And then you can hear this sort of recorded audio

from the recording session where he's like, take that distortion out or cancel that distortion out. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That reminds me, they do that again on don't you ever. Remember that song? In the beginning, you know, there's that like, Jim, can you record that or something like that?

Like that's what that's, remember that? So like they've done that before, obviously. They do it a lot. It's kind of a, you know, it's just bringing us into the recording session, I guess. I don't know. The decision to keep that sort of stuff in, you know, that's, again, it's like, most bands don't do that, you know? You don't get to hear, you know, him and Jim having a conversation, you know what I mean? It's just great.

And they keep doing it. And don't you ever was a, it was a huge single. It had a video, you know. Yeah. It's just cool. I think that was the song that we, so we introed Spoon. in our first episode on them with Don't You Ever. That's right, yeah.

Which is on Gaga, Ga, Ga, Ga, Gagga. Yep. Which was their sixth studio album, right? Yeah. Yes. Comes out after, comes out after Gaming Fiction. Gimmy Fiction, yeah.

Yeah, so, dude, if I had to pick, I feel like back to the life might be my favorite Spoon song of all time. Really? It's hard to pick but this one's definitely

number two, number three, maybe number one, man. It's just something about it. Yeah, it's short and sweet. It's the layers that get, that,

you know, just keep building on themselves. The lyrics are awesome. Yeah. And that's really sweet what they do with the violin sample that they use. Yeah, yeah.

Oh my God, dude. And again, with, again, Jim Eno finds a way to, I mean, he just lays out the most simple drumbeat. It's nothing but stomp clap, stomp, clap the whole time. That's it. Right. That is what makes Spoon so amazing. So I got the lyrics pulled up. They bring up, he talks about taking up your scythe, which.

is the stereotypical depiction of the grim reaper he's holding that giant scythe it's a scythe it's a scythe if you think of a grim reaper he's holding a scythe the lyrics are son you must go back to the life

go pack your bags take up your scythe because this world wasn't meant for us both. Who made the night, who made the day, who gave you life, who gave you say? I said, this world wasn't meant for us both. Who rules the day? Who rules the night? Go pack your bags, take up your scythe. I said, this world wasn't meant for us both. That's it. Those are killer lyrics, man. Killer. Great lyrics. It's repetitive, but at the same time, each, you know, each line is different. Yeah.

Because he asks a question, you know, he asks these questions, who made the night, who made the day, you know, who rules the day, who rules the night. Yeah, and it's interesting that he switched. The second verse, it's who made the night, who made the day, and then it's who rules the day, who rules the night. I think it's probably because it rounds with Seith. Well, but I was going to say, like, you know, the fact that he talks about taking up your site. And because, you know, immediately when you think of the word sithe or you envision a sithe in your head, you think of the Grim Reaper. And then these kind of like existential questions, who rules the day, who rules the night? Well, is he talking to the Grim Reaper?

Because if he's saying take up your scythe, who would do that? Go pack your bags. This world wasn't meant for us both. Right. Yeah, it's just, but again, like simple, you know. Extremely. They are, that's what makes spoon, another thing that makes spoon so great. It's just like, yeah, the simplicity, the way that they make really complex songs out of really simple, like, starting points, you know what I mean?

Like, hey, it's a really simple drumbeat, you know what I mean? but they add layers on top of it and it becomes more slightly more complicated drum it's not like we said it's not a drum it's all synthesized or whatever and like looped I think every spoon song that we've talked about

we've probably talked about the drumming and we've probably talked about you know either the lyrics or the guitar riff or something you know those are like the three More so than anything else. Yeah, I feel like those are the three things that make a killer Spoon song

would be the drumming and then whatever Brit's doing, either on the guitar or with his lyrics or both. You know what I mean? Yeah, and so again, it goes back to Britt Daniel and Jimino. Right. But I think what's going to be great, and, you know, we've already, we've talked about this. This is definitely a thing that's going to happen with our Spoon Fest, as we're calling it, or Spoonathon.

every other every other full-length episode is a Spoon album and we're going to finish off with Gimmie fiction which we'll do in a month from now for now but we're definitely going to

revisit Spoon again and I think what's going to be great is when we finally get to they want my soul or hot thoughts I feel like the newer

member of the band have also contributed quite a lot to their sound. And that's going to, you know, that'll be fun to kind of talk about what, what they've brought to the table. And with interviews that I've heard with Britt within the last three or four years, he does talk about that like, yeah, you know, this, this song, you know, this particular song was written by this member and that member of the band. And I just kind of brought my voice to it. And it was great because, you know, I didn't have to do anything else than contribute my vocals.

Everything else was done for me. And I don't, that's probably not the case for these early spoon songs and albums. You know, I feel like it was probably mostly Brit and Jim, you know, but he can, he can kind of take a back seat now, which is great because these albums are still fantastic, and they're still spoon through and through. They're unsinkable, dude. That's it. Spoon is unsinkable.

Right. Yeah, every, every album is, is, like, fantastic in its own way. Not every, you know, I'm not saying every song is great, but every album is great. You know what I mean? There's never been a Spoon album that disappointed me. Yeah. I can't say that about any, any other band, you know what I mean? Yeah.

So these are the three songs that we're picking for, for this album. So that's it for this episode. I think this is a good time to bring up the fact that Spoon does not play songs from Kill the Moonlight anymore. So yeah, let's just say, let me just say that. So like between our Girls Can Tell episode and this episode, I went and saw Spoon play at the Wildflower Music Festival in Richardson. And they played quite a bit from a wide variety of their, just like their albums. You know what I mean? They played something from Girls Can Tell.

I think they played fitted shirt and they played something from just about every other album except for a series of sneaks, but you know, that's understandable. What's not understandable is how they seem to not play any songs from Kill the Moonlight anymore. Like I thought, oh, maybe I just got unlucky with the set list. But I went back and looked at previous set list from this tour

and they just never, they never seemed to do it. and you've seen them live, you saw them in November? Yeah, I saw them up here in Seattle. And, dude, I want to say they did play something even as far back as a series of sneaks, but they did not play anything from Kill the Moonline. Okay, so I tried to find an answer for this and had no luck, but you have a audio clip that might give us an answer. Is that right?

Well, I mean, let's just play it, dude, and we'll talk about it. Okay. because yeah let's just play it so um this is an interview right before they want my soul came out there yeah back in 2014 they were interviewed on the nerdist podcast britt daniels and alex fischel uh who's one of the guitar slash keyboardists in spoon uh now they sit down with with chris hardwick and yeah so a question was brought up by chris and um i'll just i'll just play clip and we'll talk about it. When you have eight

albums to choose from, how do you decide which ones to go back and cherry pick? Does that change or does that set say... There's just certain ones that you know you can play real well. There's certain ones that you know that everybody wants to hear and then

after that maybe you just pick out some just to be weird, you know? You haven't played in three or four or five years. For you? Like you have to have them, you have to play some for you. Yeah. Well, for me, I love playing the songs that, I don't know. Yeah, I mean, you play the songs that you know are going to be good. And I don't know.

I don't know. I just feel like we've never really had a point where we were playing songs we didn't like. Okay. So from that clip, he's saying that, you know, we play songs that we know are going to do well. and then we throw in some songs that that we want to play just to be weird. And then he says at the end, we've never been at a point where we're ever playing songs that we don't like. So from that you can, from that you can gather that with all the songs that they have to pick from, they're choosing their set lists. they're picking songs that they know are going to do well

and they're always playing songs that they like to play. They are not playing songs that they don't like to play. What does that leave you with, dude? They don't like songs from Kill the Moonlight. Right? I don't know. Or they don't think that those are songs that are going to do well. And they're not songs that they want to just throw in there just to be weird.

So that's heartbreaking, dude. Well, I'm not going to jump to that conclusion, dude. It seems like it, though. Well, how about this, though? With small stakes and with Back to the Life to the songs we played, there's not a lot for all of the band members to do in that song, right? It's possible that because their band has evolved and gotten bigger, and I think more, you know, they've kind of stepped away from the stuff that they were doing,

the experimental stuff. maybe that's why maybe maybe they want to maybe they want to be able to showcase all you know there's i think like six five it's either five or six guys that they that they tour with now it's five total including brit okay yeah so there's a keyboard there's always a keyboard no no that's the only other um that's the only other explanation is that they want to play songs for the band not just for right jim and not just for not just for fans even at this point. Well, I mean,

let's, let's fit, dude, when I heard them play fitted shirt, like that, that song is for, for me, you know what I mean,

or for the people that go way back. Yeah. Right? Because there's nothing too interesting about that song in particular. Yeah. If you're a new spoon fan and you just came on to spoon,

you probably don't know what that song is. And it's a pretty straightforward and simple song. But like, for me, It's great to hear fitted shirt, you know what I mean? Because it's from Girls Can Tell. Yeah. And you're right, dude.

The majority of the songs on Kill the Moonlight can be played with literally just Jim and Brit. Yeah, they're really simple. Jim can push a button on his drum machine and Brick can play in his piano. Well, or his, or his guitar. But no, I mean, you need a bass. You need a bass for a lot of these songs. but that's three people. At the concert that I saw back in November,

Brit at one point fucking walked on the stage just by himself. Like the rest of the band members left the stage and he came back and he played, I summon you, which I'm sure we're going to cover

for the Gemi Fiction. Yeah. Episode. But he played it by himself. Like, he could play back to the life. He could play you know, say don't go.

I don't know. Right. It's a bummer. It's hard for me to accept that that he doesn't like any of the stuff that he wrote for Kill the Midlight. Like that would be a little bit disappointing.

But, you know, it's fine. Yeah. I'm just happy to hear a song from Girls Can Tell every once in a while when I go see him live, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So to wrap it up, there's a few more songs on this record that I wish we could cover, but because this is no filler, we can't because they're singles.

I'm a huge fan of Stay Don't Go, which is track four on the album. The only percussion that you hear is, I assume, Brett Daniel beatboxing, basically, and they turn it into a loop. Yeah. Right. There's another song that, like, you can see why maybe they wouldn't play that nowadays because they've got five guys up there.

Yeah. And it would be a really strange, it would really take you out of the set list and, like, the flow of their concerts nowadays to hear that song. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah.

And then track seven, someone, something. Another single. There's just a killer breakdown. a really cool piano breakdown in the, I guess you'd call it maybe the bridge of the song, which is just killer. You know, it's funny, like, I think we mentioned how they use the piano.

Well, I guess we cover the piano, and girls could tell how they introduced the piano. But there's some great piano moments in this album. And that song, the breakdown that you're talking about, is an example of a piano moment. You know what I mean? A classic like spoon breakdown like piano kind of thing. We didn't really get to showcase any of that.

And then if I were to suggest a song that I wish we had covered, that might not be a single, but we just didn't cover it, it would be all the pretty girls go to the city, track 9. Yeah, that's another great piano track. And I would say that that song feels like it could have been a B-side or just another track on Girls Can Tell. It's got that Girls Can Tell vibe.

to it. So I'd highly recommend checking that out if you were to do a deep dive. I agree. But yeah, obviously we're suggesting that you should go listen to this album all the way through. All the way through. Yeah, absolutely. There's too many fucking good songs.

The whole song. The whole song. The whole song. Yeah, the lyrics on paper tiger. I mean, I know, I know this means nothing to people that don't know what we're talking about. Listen to this album is what we're saying. Yeah. And actually one thing we didn't mention

But I thought this was cool dude I didn't know this but This was all recorded in Jim Eno's home studio So this was all recorded at Jim Eno's place He had a recording studio set up at his at his house That's cool Yeah All right

So that's gonna be it for today That is our take on Spoon's fourth studio album Kill the Moonlight it's up there for me for one of my favorite albums of all time not just spoon albums it's up there for me period

it makes the top 10 for sure as far as memorable albums that I can go back and listen to at any given time and enjoy it doesn't matter how often I've listened to it and for our side track for this album I think we're going to do

an arithmetic album. Hmm. Okay. Because, so here's why. And this is going to, this will tie back to our outro song for this episode. Britt Daniel was interviewed by Pitchfork back in 2003. It was one of those interviews where they're like, hey, what album do you, do you listen to when you're in this kind of mood or like, what's a nostalgic this or that album for you?

And Brett Daniels mentions this. album, which is actually a soundtrack for the movie 1984, which he feels like is heavily overlooked an album that definitely needs to be listened to. So it's a soundtrack by the arrhythmics. And I definitely haven't listened to it. And I'm definitely going to listen to it over the next week. And we'll see if it's something we can cover for our sidetrack episode. I mean, I love the arithmetic's dude who doesn't right sweet dreams yeah um like that that's a band that i can that i can safely say that i don't think i ever just pushed play on one of their albums and let it play through which is a shame you know because i've always loved the the singles that everybody knows so yeah this

yeah good good excuse to to dig a little bit deeper yeah and it'll be a you know it'll be a little bit different. It'll be a change of pace for the last several albums that we've done, which is just, you know, in the indie rock vein. Well, okay, so that's a good, a good tee up for me here, because I wanted to tease our next full-length episode, because we're going to mix it up, and we're going to change the genre a little bit. We're going to do colossal. I guess he's a, what would you call him, Q? I would say IDM, right? Edm. intelligent electronic dance music it's ambient though more so than anything ambient for sure more like drone music you know like something that that really just i mean you could really just put this record

on and just zone out or study it's a good study album and we haven't really covered an album like this i think we sort of touched on it with with tycho but this is uh sort of even more toward like ambient background. This is going to be sort of along the same vein as our Tosca and Tycho episodes, but like a little bit further, like I said, in the direction toward ambient. So this will be a good one to do. This is for a very long time has been one of my favorite electronic musicians, you know. Same.

Yeah, there's nobody who does it quite like him. You know what I mean? There's a lot of ambient electronic artists out there, but I feel like he takes it, has sort of his own spin on it, you know. His name is Scott Morgan, but he goes by Blossel. And the album we're going to cover is Sick Bay. No, wait, shit. That's the song.

The album that we're going to cover is called First Narrows. It came out in 2004. Yes. So there you go. We've just teased both the sidetrack and the next full-length episode coming down the pike. So that's it. And then we'll have one more spoon album to cover and then we'll be done with our little spoon-a-thon until the next time. Because we would both have discussed, we would like to cover the next four albums from Spoon as well.

But we'll do it way down the line just so we can kind of spread it out a little bit, you know. Yeah, so hop on to our website, no-failurepodcast.com, if you want to dive it a little bit deeper with each of our episodes. We've got our show notes on there. There you can find a track list for every song that we cover on our episodes, including the What You Heard's, the anthros, and the outros. We also have links to any sources that we pull from for the content for each episode. If you want to dive a little deeper, you can find a lot more information on our website. You can also hear all of our sidetrack episodes on there in the show notes. And you can also subscribe to us on iTunes, pretty much any podcast app that you can stream podcasts on.

us on there. You can also find us on SoundCloud as well. And please comment. We want to hear from you. Let us know how we're doing. Let us know where we can improve. Basically, we just want to hear from you. We want to know what you think. And yeah, that's going to do it for us this week. For our outro song. I picked a song from a cure album called 17 Seconds, which is their second studio album. This is an album that has a very special nostalgic place in Brad Daniel's heart. Apparently, this is one of his all-time favorite albums. He says, this album is just a really good be depressed in high school record which I feel like

sums up the cure pretty well right right yeah yeah so and that's you know it's funny to bring up the cure again because our last side track episode was on Echo and the Bunnyman which is another one of those really good be depressed in high school bands yeah we're kind of bringing it back to

to the last episode to that new wave post-punk yeah sound from the 80s. Yeah. So I listened to a few songs from the album and I picked this song, which is track three on the album, mainly because right off the bat, it just kind of feels like a spoon song. So, and knowing that this is one of Brett Daniels's all-time favorite records, it makes sense. So again, we're going to play out this episode with song from The Cure's second studio album from 1980 called 17 Second Second Second Seconds. And this song is called Secrets.

And that's going to do it for us. My name is Quentin. My name is Travis. And we'll talk at you next time.