No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 16: Spoon - Gimme Fiction
Episode Date: July 15, 2018We finish up our SpoonFest with a look at Spoon fully realized in their 2005 release "Gimme Fiction". With the addition of keyboardist Eric Harvey alongside Britt Daniel's increasing comforta...bility behind those ivory keys, "Gimme Fiction" brings the piano to the forefront in several songs, yet still finds time to squeeze in those slightly strange & beautiful, electronic-heavy tunes that Spoon does so well. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/ep-16-spoon-gimme-fiction Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
Transcript
Discussion (0)
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 1-8665-3-3-2-60 or visit Comex Ontario.ca.
With MX 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.
This episode is brought to you by Peloton.
A new era of fitness is here.
Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ.
Built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights,
and endless ways to move.
Live with confidence.
while Peloton IQ counts reps,
corrects form, and tracks your progress.
Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go.
Explore the new Peloton Cross-Training Treadplus
at OnePeloton.ca.
Introducing the new Starbucks-Pistachio-Cream cold brew.
Silky pistachio-cream cold foam tops our bold, smooth, cold brew
for a delicious twist on a favorite winter flavor.
Make today a good day.
Order ahead on the Starbucks app.
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.
On our favorite records.
Uh, man.
Look, dude.
We removed a segment from one of our episodes way back in the day when I brought up the fact that we used to have trouble pronouncing ours.
But I'm leaving this in, dude.
This is our favorite wakers.
And my name is Quentin.
I've got my brother Travis with me as always.
And we are finishing up our spoon-a-thon with their fifth studio album, Gimmie Fiction, that came out in 2005.
So this is going to be it for a little while.
Well, dude, technically we're going to come back with another spoon track for the side track next week.
Yeah, you're right.
So spill beans.
You're not, spill beans.
You're not done yet with spoon.
Yeah.
So also, if you're not a fan of spoon, I'm sorry.
Well, let's put it this way, dude.
If you're not a fan of spoon by now and you've listened to our reviews up to this point,
then we haven't delivered the goods.
Well, I'd say they've got to start checking a pulse, you know what I'm saying?
Checking their pulse or our poles?
Nope, theirs.
Okay.
It's hard not to like spoon, man.
I mean, really.
Yeah.
And with this record, as we've kind of said in the past, like this is spoon fully spoon.
You know what I mean?
Fully realized.
Yeah.
This is spoon being spoon to their fullest potential.
Yeah.
But hey, let's not get into it too much yet.
Let's dive into our watcher hurts for the week.
So this is our segment.
that we do on our full-length episodes
where we kind of just share a track from an artist,
you know, a band that we've been listening to recently.
Just a way to share more music with you every week or every other week.
Travis, I guess let's start with you this time.
Okay.
What you've been listening to, brother?
What you heard.
And I forgot to go back and like see the context for this,
but so there's this podcast or not a podcast there's this YouTube series um this guy he kind of does
a deep dive into different like he picks an artist and does like a understanding uh you know
Trent Rezner understanding Kurt Cobain understanding Dave Grohl and he does like a deep dive
into like no wait is this another podcast no no no this is a you like I say this is YouTube
oh see I wasn't listening at all I'm sorry that's
fine. Let me see if I can find
what this guy's name is so I can do a shout out.
So the guy's name is, well his YouTube channel, his name is
lie, likes music.
Lie, as in, don't you lie to me, likes music.
I don't really know the significance of that or whatever.
But either way, he does deep dives into
rock music basically.
So, you know, he did an episode on perfect circle.
And I've never really given a perfect circle like a fair shake.
You know what I mean?
Me neither.
So I was like, let me just see what this is about.
You know, this will give me like a good sort of intro into them.
But one of the records that was mentioned as a influence on.
Maynard James Keenan, which is one of the singers.
I think he is the singer.
Was this record by Suey and the Banshees?
Like, you have you heard of them?
No, but I like the name.
So this is a
punk, new wave punk band from London
fronted by,
well, she goes by Suey Sue,
but Susan Dallion.
So she, so the female front front singer.
but they're kind of
you know came around the same time that sex pistols came around and
and you know
all of that all that jazz you know
let me hold on dude let me fucking Jesus
try all that jazz
let me just fucking retake that
okay
so one of the records that was mentioned
as an influence on a perfect circle
is a the 1986
album Tinderbox by Suey and the Banshees,
which if you're not familiar with them,
they are this sort of new wave post-punk band
that came over from England, started in the 70s.
And this record, so I went back and kind of listened to,
skipped through some of their earlier stuff,
to see if they have always sounded like this,
or if this is kind of like a new thing when this came out in 86.
And so, to me, at least, from what I can tell, this is their more dark album.
That's a darker album.
That's probably why I was an influence on Perfect Circle.
But it's got this really cool vibe to it.
Definitely has that new wave, like sort of some of those new wave signatures, you know,
like the guitar specifically.
And her vocals are just great, fantastic.
So anyway, let's just let it play.
This song is called The Sweetest Chill.
And it is, again, on Suey and the Banshee's 1986 album, Tinderbox.
Pretty fucking sweet, right?
I really liked that, dude.
Yeah.
I wonder if Quinn Stefani was influenced by this band.
This sounded a little bit like Quinn Stefani, like in her note-out days.
Yeah, so a lot of female vocalists from the past few decades have come to mind when I heard that, right?
Quincyphine was one of him.
But then I've also, I kind of hear a little bit of, now I've got to look up her name because I don't know her name, but you know that band Tennis that came out a few years back and I think they're still making records.
Oh yeah.
You know, you hear a little bit of influence on her, on the lead singer.
her name is
Elena
Elena Moore
but yeah I mean
obviously
you know
female vocalists from
you know
80s female vocalists
had a huge influence on
especially with with
you know
chill wave and all that kind of stuff
sort of like doing like the harking back
to the twin sister
we were talking about her earlier today
just the two of us yeah
just the two of us yeah so I mean
Anyway, so yeah, Suey and the Banshees, I admit the only song I ever really knew or listened to from them.
It's like this, God, what is it called, man?
It's like this, it's pretty much like the vapors.
What's that song called?
I don't know anything by the vapors.
You do, though, dude.
Okay.
Turning Japanese.
Or, you know, walk like an Egyptian.
This song was called Hong Kong Garden,
and it was on their first record back in 78.
And it just, you know, it started with like,
Q, I'm just going to play.
We're going to play it, okay?
Here we go.
Let's do it.
Hear this?
Yes.
In the United Way.
The gimmicky side.
Right.
Okay, so this is the same band?
Yes.
But this is the first record.
Yeah.
So I never really delve into them.
But this record, Tinderbox, has a whole different vibe.
It's, you know, came out 10 years later.
Yeah, definitely.
Well, it came out.
Worth a closer listen.
Yeah, definitely worth a closer listen.
But that kind of almost like it's, you know, it's like I said, it's dark.
It's, you know, her vocals are kind of, I love the passion in her vocals, you know.
I love sort of the, almost like the, the guitar is almost like it's got this kind of haunted vibe to it.
Anyway, great stuff.
Definitely check out that album.
And that song again was called The Sweetest Chill.
So anyway, Q, what have you been listening to this week?
Well, you're probably going to be excited, dude.
Because I know you're familiar with the band Dungen.
Dude, why did I know just by looking at the song name that that was going to be from Dune?
Because they're the Swedish rock, you know, psychedelic rock band that everyone thinks of.
of.
Dude, I promise you not everybody thinks of them.
Okay.
Yeah.
All right.
So Dungen is a band that I've been in love with, really, since their album that came out in 2008 called four.
Not their fourth album, actually their fifth one.
But this one, I feel like it must have been around 2008 when I heard them first.
And it was songs from that album.
album. Again, they're this Swedish psych rock band. There's something about their, so what I like about
Dungen, they have really heavy moments, kind of like that band that I shared a couple weeks back,
wolf people, remember them? Where, you know, they, you know, they.
They're like equal parts, heavy, I wouldn't say metal, but, you know, the heavier side of psychedelic rock.
But at the same time, you'll hear songs on the same album that are very pretty, you know, with really pretty strings and piano lines.
And Dungen is great because they'll have a handful of songs on each record that are purely instrumental.
You know, so there's there's a lot that they offer up with each album.
I honestly hadn't been keeping up with them since 2008.
Again, like, that was really the last album of theirs that I paid attention to.
I listened to a few of the albums that came out before that, but I kind of stopped paying attention to them.
And they just released an album.
It's actually a collaboration.
between them and this band out of New York called Woods.
Have you ever heard of that band?
Well, I was looking at their discography just now because I saw that they collaborated with
Doongan on this record.
I recognize one of the album covers from our New Dust Hayday.
Okay.
I think we may have covered something from an album, Binned Beyond in 2012.
Okay.
I've seen that record cover before, so I have some familiarity with them.
I don't know the...
Yeah, I don't know too much about Woods, but they're classified as folk rock.
Okay.
Maybe not so much on the psychedelic side.
But there's a record label called Mexican Summer that has been releasing collaboration albums with artists for this summer.
And they've released collab albums with Ariel Pink.
I'm sure you've heard of them, right?
Oh, yeah.
Ariel Pink and Weighs Blood.
I've never heard of that one.
Their first collaboration release was with two artists by the name of Devante Hines and Conan Mocasson.
Anyways, really cool idea, you know, to kind of bring two bands together and release a full album.
They're all titled Myths.
and this is the third installment.
So this is Myths Zero, Three, with Dungen and Woods.
And the song that I'm sharing with you today is track five off of that release.
And I'm going to butcher it because I don't speak Sweden.
I don't speak Swedish.
It's called Jag Vile Va Kevar.
You're welcome for that.
And yeah, let's play it.
That's not what I was expecting.
How so?
Well, from what I remember from Dungen,
they were much more psychedelic.
You're probably remembering Dungen from 2008, right?
Yeah, because that's when I stopped listening to them.
Same.
Okay.
I have a confession to make.
And this might, you know, in the times that we live in,
this might not be a popular thing for me to say.
But.
Okay.
I can't get into Dungan because I,
I don't know what they're saying.
What?
If I'm watching...
I like to be able to sing the words to the songs that I'm...
Man, I'll sing along as best I can to a lot of music songs.
Well, I don't know.
I can't tell what they're saying.
Who cares, bro?
I don't know, man.
I'm just telling you, I can't...
I can't get into it.
That's a shame, man.
I told me.
I said, I prefaced it by saying, hey, it's my...
not be a popular thing to say.
Well, keep in mind as well, this is a collaboration, you know?
That's fine.
So I'm not sure what part of that was, was Woods, you know, what they brought to the table.
Obviously, it's the dude from Dungen that's singing.
Sure.
Because you can't mistake his voice, not just because they're singing in a different language,
but you just can't mistake that guy's voice.
Anyways, if you are a little bit curious about Dungen,
I would start with their album four, just the number four came out in 2008.
If you like that one, jump back one album prior to that one called Tio Bitar that came out in 2007.
Those are my two favorites from them.
One of my favorite bands, man.
They're in the top 20 for sure.
I love doing it.
All right, so let's dive into Gimmie Fiction.
So again, we're diving back into some spoonage.
And so actually, let me quote someone real quick here.
I liked this quote a lot.
So this is from a journalist, I guess, for drowned in sound.
His name's Joe Goggins.
And this is something he had to say.
back in 2015.
So they had a reissue of Gimmee fiction
and it's actually up on Spotify.
I don't know if you've given it to ListenTrave.
There's a lot of demos on this reissue.
So this is the 10-year anniversary reissue for Gemi Fiction.
You know, so this is now looking back on it,
you know, listening to it again after 10 years.
He says,
if ever there was a fork in the road for the group,
this album was probably it.
Knowing as we do with the benefit of hindsight
that they picked the right route,
gimmie fiction sounds even more invigorating on reflection.
So I like kind of what he says,
and I would agree that this may be a fork in the road for them.
And that's kind of like what we're saying.
This is now spoon.
fully realized, you know, this sound, this approach to the way they make albums,
Gimmie fiction is Spoon.
You're right.
This is, um, the songs that you hear on this album sound like the songs you'll hear on,
uh, on their last album that they just put out.
Hot thoughts.
Hot thoughts.
As far as like the approach, the sort of the variedness of it, his, I feel like he becomes
more and more comfortable with his voice as time progresses.
He also becomes more comfortable behind the piano too.
Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
Yeah.
You probably read the same thing I read about that, right?
Yeah, I'm sure.
Yeah.
So there's a really cool website that we came across when we were researching for this episode
called gimmeefax.com.
It's a website put together by this guy named Sean O'None.
Neil. He is a writer and he's a guy that used to live in Austin. He's now living in Chicago.
He's been quote unquote hanging around the margins of spoon since 1996. 1996, dude. And a lot of what
information that we're pulling today comes from this guy. And it's all interviews that he has with
Britt, with Jim
Eno,
with
producers
and other people
that had something
to do with this album.
So this guy
knows
this guy knows Spoon.
And there's a lot of
really cool.
There's a lot of great pictures
you know, from like the studio
and other other
Yeah, like tour
photos and stuff like.
Yeah, tour photos.
Pictures of
you know,
um,
notepad writings with lyrics and,
and,
you know,
court ideas and stuff.
A lot of cool stuff on this website.
Um, so,
but like we're saying and kind of like,
you know,
Joe Goggins is saying,
hey,
this is a fork in the road for the group.
Uh,
you know,
a little bit different approach,
um,
in the way that they,
that they're writing these songs and everything.
But at the same time,
you still have that experimental side.
you know, with quite a few of these songs.
You still have those drum pad electronic moments, you know.
But I feel like what we're trying to say and what they're saying here
in that this is now spoon fully realized, I feel like they are using each member of the band
more so now and moving forward than just Britt and Jim.
Well, this is the first album, from what I understand,
that they brought on an actual keyboard player.
Instead of just having them kind of coming and going for a tours and stuff,
like this is when a keyboardist became a member of the band.
Yeah.
And that was Eric Harvey, I believe his name is.
So, yeah, and if you listen to the album that came out, what was it, 2002,
that Killed the Moonlight came out?
Yes.
You listen to that album or, you know,
you go back and listen,
listen to our episode on Killed the Moonlight.
One thing that was,
that bummed us out is the realization
that Spoon does not play songs
from Killed the Moonlight anymore.
Right.
But when you listen to Gemi Fiction
and then you listen to
Gagga, Gaga, Gag, Gag, Transference,
they want my soul and hot thoughts.
It becomes clear that,
that most likely the reason they're not playing songs from Kill the Moonlight anymore is because
they are utilizing each member of the band now.
You know?
And Kill the Moonlight is still one of those albums where, you know, most of the songs
could be played with just Britt and Jim, you know?
Yeah.
This album's great, man.
I remember really loving it when it came out.
And I enjoy it.
even more now.
So for us,
this was the first
like new spoon out
as far as like
we get into Kill the Moonlight
Killamilight's already out.
We probably go on C-SPUN
for their Killed-A-moonlight
tour or
around that same time.
And then Gimmie Fiction is the first
brand new spoon material
that we got to enjoy.
You know what I mean?
Right. Yep.
And yeah, I do remember
I remember being in love
with this album when it came out.
I remember being as excited
as I was when AHA Shake Heartbreak came out by Kings of Leon.
You know, it's that thing where you discover this band and you fall in love with him
and then you find out that they have a new album coming out.
Yeah, you have that anticipation of like...
And then you listen to it and it exceeds your expectations.
Right.
Well, these both came out, this is around the same time.
AHA Shake Heartbreak came out in 2004.
Yeah, dude.
Yep.
Those are exciting times for us.
as music lovers.
Yeah, for sure.
So where to begin?
Really, there's not too much we need to unpack.
You know, this is our last episode for a while,
except for our soundtrack that's coming out next week.
Yeah, this is our last spoon episode for a while.
Yeah, yeah.
So I feel like we've talked enough about their history and all that.
by this point.
So, you know, they're just continuing to get more and more recognition,
yet still somehow staying in that kind of undiscovered indie rock realm, you know,
like they were getting more and more mainstream success.
So you know what?
They were compared a lot in articles I read that came out around the time of this release
to Wilco for many reasons, actually.
Apparently, Wilco had a similar situation with their first release on a major record label.
Apparently, they got dropped as well, you know, and it still continued to have success.
And they still kind of skirt the lines between, you know, indie rock and mainstream as far as like their recognition as, you know, as a band.
and Spoon at this point
I feel like we're starting to turn some heads finally
With their single
Off of this one I turned my camera on
That one is still one of the band's biggest hits to date
Did you know that?
No which is that's interesting to me
Because it's you know it's spoons or it's Brits
Like his it's his false vocal voice
Yeah it's his vocal all
alter ego, you know.
Yeah, his entire, the entire track.
Which we haven't, we haven't played.
Yeah, we haven't played one of those tracks yet where he sings in his higher pitch.
And that's only because those songs are singles.
Well, is this the first work?
No, he does that on, he did go on Kill the Moonlight too.
He does it in Kill the Moonlight.
Yeah, and that song also has his really cool little beatbox loop that he makes.
That was a single.
We're talking, yeah, dude, that's the only reason I didn't play that one.
on our called the Moonlight episode.
We're talking about stay don't go.
Yeah.
Which is honestly one of my favorite spoon songs.
Yeah, he sings in falsetto and I turn my camera on,
which is again, was one of the singles on this album along with Sister Jack.
Those are the two singles off of this one.
Sister Jack's a great song.
I love that one.
Yeah, definitely.
So our first pick is going to.
be quite a ways down on the track list it's track seven it's called i summon you and this is one of my
favorite spoon songs mainly because of the lyrics um let's let's give it a listen and we've just got
one clip from this song and then we'll we'll talk about it remember the way to the world
it's a sound that we used to buy but a pretty song i love the lyrics so is this the first
acoustic
spoon song that we've played
I feel like it might be
I think so yeah
if you've ever seen Spoon live
he has always
played this song by himself
I don't know if that's to say that
in every instance
all the other band members leave the stage
when I saw them earlier this year
or I may have been late last year
this was kind of like a
like a pre-oncore
kind of thing where everyone left for a little bit.
He came back, played this song by himself.
The rest of the band members came back.
They played a little bit more and then they had another encore.
Ever since they toured for this album,
he's played this song by himself.
Yeah, I mean, it's one of the few spoon songs
that probably could be played just with one person, you know?
Yeah.
This is apparently Jim Eno's favorite song on the record.
Really?
Yeah.
This, according to Britt Daniel,
This is lyrics that he says, I had a girlfriend and we had fallen for each other really fast.
But the whole time we were meeting each other, we knew she was moving away.
So within a couple months of us meeting, she moved to Kansas.
I summon you was something I'd write to her.
I missed her a lot.
So if you read the lyrics.
Now this little girl, she says, will we make it at all?
800 miles is a drive.
Where are you tonight?
how do we get here it's too late to break it off
I need a release the signal's a cough
I summon you to appear my love
I got the weight of the world
I summon you here my love
so you know
you can just imagine him like
saying these words to her
like I wish I could just
summon you here to me
yeah exactly like I wish you were here
yeah I get it
yeah it's really pretty
yeah it's just a great
great, you know, tragic love song
if you think about it that way.
Yeah.
But, yeah, I mean, who, yeah.
I think I've always associated,
I didn't, I didn't know the story behind that, the lyrics.
But, you know, I feel like that's kind of what,
what you think of when you hear the song.
Like, it's, it's obviously a love song, you know.
Yeah.
But, but.
So, yeah.
One thing we had mentioned earlier, I guess with girls can tell.
which came out in 2001.
That was the first album of theirs
where they started using piano in their albums
where he just realized,
let's not limit ourselves.
One thing that he mentions about this album,
specifically he's kind of talking about
the first track on the album called The Beast and Dragon Adored.
He says around this time,
you know, starting to write a lot of songs
on piano for the first song.
time. He says, you know, before girls can tell, for some reason, we were stuck on this notion that
piano was uncool. Over time, I started being able to play it a little bit, and then it got to where I could
actually write a song on piano. He says, you know, I could write these songs. They'd still be very
rudimentary. But when you don't know how to play an instrument and you're writing a song,
you go to all kinds of different chords that you wouldn't if you knew what you were doing.
He says, certainly different stuff that I would have done on the guitar.
And he says, it was all based on what I could actually play.
And if it was a chord progression that stayed away from the black keys, that made it a little bit easier.
So, you know, we're talking, I'm talking about all this and we're not going to play Beast and Dragon a Door it for you today.
But just listen to this album.
There's a lot of great piano on this.
One thing I found out that was really cool.
He says, you know, we had more of a budget now for this album,
but we still didn't have access to a grand piano.
And he's saying that this song,
The Beast and Dragon Adored, definitely needed a grand piano.
So we did one thing that we did a few years back for Girls Can Tell,
where I snuck into the piano lab at the University of Texas.
They have a music building that has all of these soundproof rooms with pianos for music students,
to come and practice on
and nobody were guard
nobody guarded these rooms
so me and mike
he's talking about
their producer
took some mics in mic stands
and snuck into one of these rooms
with the grand piano
so dude i just love that man
right so they recorded
the grand piano parts
for the beast and dragon adored
uh basically they broke in
to the university of Texas
and did this.
That's great.
That's great.
Nobody knowing.
Yeah, that's awesome.
Especially, you know, as we've talked about, Spoon is from Austin.
Yeah.
You know, so being from Texas, like, you couldn't have lived in Austin.
Like hearing those little stories about how they recorded the piano parts for Beast and Dragon
I Dord in the UT, like music halls.
You know what I mean?
It's just great.
It's really cool.
Yeah.
So Mike, so his name's Mike McCarthy.
And he is, he's mostly known.
for his work with Spoon.
He's worked on five of their albums from Girls Can Tell all the way to
Gaga, Ga, Ga, Ga, Ga.
So he's been with him since Girls Can Tell.
Anyways, want to move on to the next one?
Let's do it.
All right, cool.
So what are your thoughts on this song?
So we're going to play Was It You, which is Track 9.
Do you like this song?
I love this song.
So I've always been a fan of track 9 and track 10 on this record, which is,
was it you and they never got you?
Because sort of along the same lines as Back to the Life, which is one of our picks for Kill the Moonlight,
it's got the more sort of electronic synthesized spoon vibes.
You know what I mean?
Yeah, that's what I like about it too.
Yeah.
I like it when they do that.
And that's one of the other things that makes spoon so great is it.
that you'll hear a song like,
I summon you,
which is just your straight,
simple acoustic song,
and then you'll hear a song like,
was it you?
And you just get this entirely different sound,
this entirely different vibe.
Yeah.
And yeah,
I like it for the same reasons
that I like back of the life musically.
But it's just got a really cool vibe to it, man.
Like the lyrics are kind of minimal, you know?
Yeah, there's nothing much to the lyrics.
Mike McCarthy,
he actually says that
that this,
he didn't really like this one.
He says,
you know,
it's kind of long and drawn out.
Not that interesting to me
is what he says about this one.
So,
hey,
let's,
so we got a couple clips to play.
Let's play clip number one.
And,
and then we'll talk about it.
Yeah,
so I just love the baseline.
I love,
I actually like how drawn out it is.
Like,
you know,
it takes a little bit before you,
before you start singing,
you know.
It's just that drumbeat.
Yeah.
And I like it too.
Yeah, I like it too.
Yeah, I just love it, dude.
Yeah, so Britt Daniels says that this is a song that he wrote on an acoustic guitar.
He says in roughly 60 seconds he wrote this song.
Dude, I believe it.
Two or three years before they even started recording.
So this is a, what he considers, he said it was a bit of a throwaway song.
But then he made a drum machine demo of it when he was.
he was working up songs for Gime Fiction, and he really liked it.
So I know looking at the liner notes, it is Jim Eno that provides drums on this track.
So that drum machine loop that you hear was written by Jim Eno.
But yeah, I love the bass too.
Yeah, just those simple kind of guitar riffs kind of thrown in.
Yeah.
Here and there that you hear pop up.
I mean, yeah, it's just.
It's just got this almost like a dream vibe to it a little bit.
Yeah, dude.
It makes me think of sleepwalking.
So I wanted to do two clips and really the second clip is just trying to,
I want to try to share, you know, what we're saying with,
it does kind of drag on, not in a negative way.
That's what I like about it.
yeah it just it continues on with this beat like spoon has always been really great at they'll kind of
throw in really cool sounds and you know just kind of mix it up a little bit as it goes on same with
the baseline uh even the drumming changes up a little bit the longer it plays out so the second
clip is going to be the the last bit of the song i did fade it out myself at the end
because it does actually play straight into the next track,
which is they never got you.
But I faded it out so it's not just an abrupt stop.
So yeah, let's play clip two.
Yeah, so that's how the song ends.
Yep.
It's basically, I think he sings a verse maybe once or twice,
and then it's just that.
Yeah, I don't agree with Mike McCarthy.
but I'm not a producer
you know like
so he's saying he thinks it's too drawn out right
that's all he's saying it's kind of boring
I mean but that's again
it's one of the reasons that I like spin
they're not afraid to throw to put
to put what what
what Brit even himself said was a throwaway song
until he added the drum track
to it and to me that's what I like about it
it is worth listening to this reissue
that came out in
2015 for this album because they do have the was it you demo on it and it is quite different i could
see how with with what mike is saying you know he listened to the demo obviously um you know
when brit daniel brought all this stuff to him uh you know and he's he's kind of saying that
he likes he liked the demo version more so it's it's worth giving a listen but this is a song that
has always stuck with me from this album is this one.
Because it's different, you know.
Because it's different.
And we talk about how they, you know, how they, they're not afraid to take a risk, you know.
Not that this is like, ooh, how risky of them.
But it's just like, you know, not at all.
It's a very like, it's got like a hypnotic.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
Maybe that's our affinity for down tempo that makes us like this song.
I think so.
You know, because it's got a little bit of that vibe to it.
But hey, you know what?
It's worth sharing on this podcast because that's what we're all about, man.
Right.
Those deep dives.
You know, a song that you probably have never heard from Spoon, you know, hopefully.
Yeah.
Was it you?
Track 9 on the record.
And we're going to finish up this episode with the last track on the album.
This is one of my favorite Spoon songs to date.
it is
this one is called
Merchants of Soul
That's how you've
End a record
There's just so much going on man
And this is what I've always loved about Spoon
It's what dude
There's always something
I know man
But there's just something
Yeah
Every track
There's something that you're going to hear
That you're not expecting
Or they're going to add
They're going to throw in some, like at the very end, you know, on the last verse,
when he switches up and adds the tambourine shake to it.
Yeah.
Hey, let me just read this real quick, dude.
I've got, this is liner notes here.
Britt Daniel is credited.
I'm going to read all the stuff that's going on on track 11, Merchants of Soul, that aren't obvious, right?
So, Britt Daniel contributes with slaps.
So what?
What's he, something that he's slapping?
Okay.
There's a Moog that pops up in there
You know the synthesizer
Sure yeah
Shaker
Yeah the Shaker
And then you've got
I said tambourine
Yeah you've got Ames Asbell
Plays viola
Sarah Nelson plays the cello
And that's it for
Notable
Instruments on this
On this song
I think the Moog is that kind of like
but um but dun dun da-d-d-d-d-d-d-d-l-d-l-d-l-d-l-d-l- Right.
But yeah, that's what's what's saying, like, you know, all that went into it,
but it's not, it's not jumping out of you.
I really like the lyrics, too.
The lyrics are fucking great, as always.
Yes.
One notable figure that pops up in this song
is a guy by the name of Ralph Reed.
Dude, I'm glad you brought that up because I've used Ralph Reed as like a screen name.
like as my like gamer screen tag and stuff like that on certain things so like
really yeah and same with jonathan fisk i've used i've used like jfisk and stuff sometimes for
us names and stuff i'd do that all the time yeah bert general says um i managed to get ralph reed's
name into this song and that was the highlight for me i was into this i was into this idea
of ralph reed taking me on a journey to the danger side this is ralph reed's night out
Ralph Reed is a conservative American political activist, best known as the first executive director of the Christian coalition during the early 90s.
He says, mixed up and lonely on the dangerous side, Ralph Reed was driving, said he wants to go all night.
I made him wait, took my time to decide to get wise.
The fiends are fiend and outside.
merchants of soul so unkind
you know
that's funny because
when he talks about
Jonathan Fisk
let's remind everyone who Jonathan Fisk
was the bully that
would beat him up
when he was walking home from school
or at least that's the name that he gave
this I don't think that's his actual name
but you know Jonathan Fis shows up
on Kill the Moonlight on the song
Jonathan Fisk but then he comes back later
in
They Want My Soul
On They Want My Soul, yeah, on that title track.
And he talks about Jonathan Fiske being a soul sucker.
He said that when he wrote, They Want My Soul,
it's a song about religious pretenders, manipulators,
educated folk singers, people that bring me down, soul suckers, etc.
So I feel like merchants of soul could it be about the same thing.
Like this is just kind of maybe a theme that he goes back to,
people who are afterwards.
Ralph Reed being one of those manipulating soul suckers.
Yeah, a soul sucker, right.
Jonathan Fisk being someone that just brings them down.
Yeah, and no doubt, no doubt, a religious pretender, right?
Right.
I just got to quote the first line in this song
because it is one of my favorite lines in Any Spoon song.
I was a heartbeat on the danger side,
just had to see what it all was like.
Put your nose in that.
Yeah.
I don't know if what he's, you know, the line put your nose in that.
I think of, you know, your family pet, your dog, you know, takes a shit on the, on the carpet, you know, on the rug or on the rug or something.
And you fucking rub your rub its nose in it.
Yeah.
You know, to show it what it did and why that was a terrible thing for it to do.
Right.
Try to teach it a lesson.
Yeah.
Um, that just comes to mind.
Um, God, I, dude, I just love the lyrics.
Yeah, he's, he's, he's, he's, I just love Brit Daniel, man.
He's, he's probably my favorite lyricist, um, maybe of all time, man.
I'll say he is one of the only songwriters that I really pay attention to the lyrics, you know,
and, and, and, and actually try to take the time to dissect and figure out what he might be singing about.
Like, you know, a lot of song.
I know the words, but I don't really care what it could mean because, you know, and that's the thing.
Like with Britt Daniels' lyrics, they are very obscure, but they're so provocative.
Yeah, I agree with that, man.
Yeah.
Especially, you know, especially when you find out what he's singing about a lot of times, too, you know.
Oh, dude, hey, speaking of that, we found out something a few days ago that goes back to one of the songs we
covered for our Kill the Moonlight episode.
Oh, that's right, dude.
Hey, let's set the record straight, dude, which I think is what we should call this segment
from now on.
This is a throwback to...
Episode two.
Well, episode two, we call ourselves out for making a mistake in our first episode on Allison
Chains.
Yeah, I said that Stone Tipal pilots were from Seattle, which they weren't.
And so I corrected myself.
And I thought I was going to be, you know, like...
like a new segment where we say,
hey,
we said something wrong.
I'm sure we've said plenty of incorrect things,
dude,
since then,
but we just haven't brought that segment back.
Well,
and you know what,
dude?
Podcasters get called out
by the people that listen to their podcast.
And we just don't have enough people listening.
Or the people that are listening
aren't sending us emails
and telling us where we're saying dumb shit.
Or they don't know that we said something dumb.
Yeah.
Yeah.
But anyways,
Let's set the record straight here on a song that we covered on our Kill the Moonlight episode.
This song is called Something to Look Forward to.
One of the lines in that in that song is,
Your Chicago Manual of Style.
Right, your Chicago Manual of Style.
He's singing about this girl named Carol.
And we were just like, what the fuck is Chicago Manual of Style?
What the hell does that mean?
and you were like, hmm, you know what?
Maybe it's just a cool way of saying that she dresses like she lives in Chicago.
Right, exactly.
Well, guess what the Chicago Manual of Style is, dude?
Well, I know because you showed it to me the other day.
That is a style guide for American English.
First published in 1906.
It has 17 editions now.
Basically, it just, it's just a grammar, you know, and like,
document prep guide.
You know, it goes through like citation styles and stuff like that.
Basically, if you're an English major, you know what the Chicago Manual of Style is.
Well, what's funny is, I mean, you know, I was in the newspaper.
I wrote for the high school newspaper.
I thought about being a journalist.
I knew what the elements of style is, which is this book by Strunk, June.
and E.B. White, like, everybody knows that book.
But I've never heard of the Chicago manual.
Well, there you go.
But I've never heard of the Chicago manual style.
Which sounds like a very similar thing,
where it's just literally a book about, like, grammar, best practices, basically.
Yeah.
But, yeah, that's funny, dude.
Yeah, it's, you know, you know why it's funny?
And this is what we've talked,
what we've said about Bert Daniels since our first episode,
our first Boon-A-thon episode.
I mean, his lyrics can be so,
simple and just
you know straightforward
he's singing about stuff that he's
that he's noticing in his environment
but it's still
he does it in a way
like you know his songwriting
is just provocative
and it it just makes
you think yeah his
his lyrics are
are unlike anybody else really
I mean really I think I can safely say that
yeah there's nobody else that
there's nobody else that writes music
lyrics that are
as like as interesting as his.
I mean, come on, hold on.
Let me, let me back.
That's, that's, that's a, that's a stretch.
But what I'm saying is like,
there's no, there's nobody else that I can think of that writes.
He has a very unique voice, both lyrically and definitely his actual singing voice.
Like, Spoon is unmistakable, dude.
His sound is unmistakable.
That goes for his guitar, his guitar style.
Yeah, yeah, but I mean, his voice in particular.
And the way that he chooses to.
emphasize syllables, you know, or stress syllables.
Yeah.
All that kind of stuff.
A lot of times you don't know what he's saying.
So now, dude, I think that's, we're definitely,
maybe we're trying to get it all out here at the last second.
Yeah.
Our love fest for Britt and Spoon,
because since this is our last full episode
talking about our favorite band, so.
Yeah, so if you're joining us for the first time on this episode,
Just jump back and listen to our other three full-length episodes on Spoon.
We start with their second studio album, a series of sneaks, and we cover Girls Can Tell after that and Kill the Moonlight.
We're finishing up here with Gimmie Fiction.
Our sidetrack next week is going to be covering Britt Daniels' involvement with the soundtrack for the movie Stranger Than Fiction.
which I don't know off the top of my head when that came out,
but it was actually not that long after Gamey Fiction came out.
That's that movie with Will Ferrell,
where he's not just being Will Ferrell for once.
It's actually a really good movie.
Yeah, it's a great movie.
And Spoon is just all over that movie.
And Bridgenil even does a few original songs for, you know,
specific scenes for the movie.
Yeah, a lot of times I tell, you know,
if I'm talking about Spoon with somebody and they're not familiar with
band. I'll say, have you seen Stranger Than Fiction?
And if they say yes, I say then, then you've heard a spoon song. You've heard Spoon song.
You just didn't know it. Because like you said, I do the same thing, man. Yeah.
It's, yeah. What's our next full-length episode, dude?
Okay. So I'm super pumped about our next full-length episode because we are returning back
to metal. And this would be our first true metal band.
an album. Yeah, the only one that comes anywhere close to that would be our first episode on
Alice and Chains. Right, exactly. So this is sort of our first, this is our first return to the
realm of metal and me being the huge metal fan compared to you at least. I always get really
excited about, I've been planning putting metal back into no filler and just trying to figure out
what to do next, you know, and I thought it would be a few.
fitting to talk about the godfathers of metal, Black Sabbath.
And this is going to be kind of a first for us as far as the way I'm going to approach this.
But I wanted to cover three albums without devoting an episode to each album,
because basically I want to play a song, one song from each of their first three albums.
That being said, we're going to cover briefly, briefly talk about early Black Sabbath,
And then we're going to just dive into the songs, you know.
Black Sabbath is one of those bands that I feel like they don't,
we don't need to go into the history of them.
We don't need to talk about, you know, we just can,
we can scratch the surface basically.
But yeah, early Sabbath is some of my favorite metal, hands down.
And as I've talked about before, like early, early metal,
it branches off of blues just like rock music does, right?
Yeah.
And, um, like Zeppelin and.
Yes, exactly.
Rolling stones.
You've got, yeah, if you think about like blues and then you think about rock and you think about metal, rock, the rock branch is Zeppelin.
The metal branch is Sabbath, but they both branched off of blues, right?
So anyway.
So, as always, you want to know a little bit more?
You want to dive a little bit deeper?
Check out our website, no-filler podcast.com.
We've got our show notes on there.
If you want to, you know, just dive a little bit deeper.
we've got more information on our website for you.
You can stream our episodes straight from the website
with our SoundCloud players.
You can also subscribe to us on any podcast app.
We're on iTunes.
We're on SoundCloud.
We're on Stitcher.
Pretty much any podcast app you can think of.
We should be on there.
Let us know what you think.
Please comment, you know, subscribe, send us an email.
Let us know how we're doing.
Let us know where we can improve.
we'd love to hear from you.
Give us suggestions for albums to cover.
Help us out here.
We're trying to keep this thing going as long as we can.
We could use some help.
So, again, that's going to do it for us this week.
Next week, we're going to cover the soundtrack for the movie Stranger Than Fiction,
which is just loaded with all things, Spoon.
And, yeah, my name is Quentin.
Well, Q, I got to tee up the outro song here.
Oh shit, dude.
My bad.
Sorry, I was jumping the gun.
That's fine.
What do you got for us?
We mentioned that website, give me facts.com.
One of the artists that, this artist kind of find, you know, somebody brought a compilation
CD of this artist onto the tour bus or something like that.
And it's this guy who goes by the name of King Tubby.
It is a Debb, a reggae Deb artist from the 60s and 70s.
Wait a second.
Are you saying Deb?
Hold on a minute.
No, I said King Tubby.
No, I know, dude, but you said reggae Deb.
No, I said dub.
Oh, it sure sounded like Deb, dude.
Well, whatever.
You said it twice too, and I heard Deb both times.
That's possible.
So anyway, somebody brought a King Tubby compilation CD onto the tour bus.
And Brett Daniels is very much influenced by this guy.
He even mentioned him in several interviews around the Gaga,
ga, ga, ga, ga, ga era.
And he even said, like, you know,
you're going to hear some of that come through in the record.
And anyway, so.
Hang on, dude.
There's a, there's a song on, on that record that's called, like,
something reggae, right?
Yeah.
Eddie's reggae.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So, anyway, I, just, this is just a, a,
from him, King Tubby.
And I think if you listen to
Gag, Gag, Gag, Gag, Gag.
I also don't like saying that record name here.
I know, man.
You're forced to say it five times.
I know.
But I think you will hear some of that influence for sure.
Cool.
And that's their album that came out
right after Gimmee fiction.
Yes.
So basically, Britt was introduced to
dub, you know, through King Tubby
while they were touring for Gimmy
fiction and then you sort of hear that influence.
And while he was, I'm sure, writing for the next album.
Exactly. And then you can kind of hear that from then on. So anyway, this song is called
Keep on Dubbin.
Yes.
That's going to do it for us this week. Come back next week for our sidetrack episode on the soundtrack
for Stranger Than Fiction, which will be the last time we talk about Spoon for the
foreseeable future.
But anyway, I've enjoyed it.
I've had fun talking about.
Yeah, man, me too.
I feel like the minute that we decided that we were going to start this music podcast,
that this was inevitable, dude.
Yeah, we had talked about doing this early, early on that we're going to do a spoon-a-thon
and we're going to cover their first four albums or their first five, I guess,
and then we're going to cover their next four maybe later.
And by the time, that's the thing, about time we get around to covering the next four,
They might have another album out by then.
Oh, dude, I sure hope so, man.
I mean, they're pretty consistent.
Oh, I hope so.
Yeah.
Every two to three years, it seems like.
Yep.
All right.
Enough yabberin.
Yeah.
All right.
Let's listen to this.
What's the name of the song?
Keep on dubbing.
Keep on dubbing.
All right.
My name's Quentin.
My name is Travis.
Y'all take care now.
You hear?
Thank you.
