No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 30: Beck - Sea Change

Episode Date: February 25, 2019

The anti-folk, alt pop rock legend Beck has been cranking out some of the most unique and memorable albums for the better part of the last 20 some-odd years. Back in 2002, after making a household name for himself with songs like "Loser", "Devil's Haircut", and "Where It's At", Beck flipped the script on himself and shared his hauntingly beautiful, acoustic-heavy break-up album, ​Sea Change​, shortly after his relationship of 9 years fell apart. As David Fricke of Rolling Stone puts it, "Sea Change, gleaming with twang and heartbroken strings, is an entire album of spectacular suffering.​" For more info, check out the show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/episode-30-beck-sea-change Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. I've actually been working on a few projects, and this is just the one that came to fruition first. And these were a bunch of songs I'd written a few years ago, and I always wanted to do a record that was more atmospheric. It certainly has that...

It had one tone and atmosphere to it. They just carried through, you know, those kind of records that you just put on. They have something almost comforting to them, you know. 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 Quentin. With me, as always, is my brother Travis, and today we are covering Bex 2002 release C-Change. Travis, I know you haven't really paid too much attention to this album. You feel like you may have pressed play on track one and then just kind of gave up on it. I wouldn't say gave up. I just never got beyond track one because I like track one.

I recognize track one. Was that a single? maybe that's why I know it. No. So that was our intro as well. The song's called Golden Age. And yeah, it's track one on the album. So without diving into it too much here,

C-change is Beck's breakup album. And there's just something special about this record, dude. Before we dive into the history and get way into it, let's go ahead and do our watcher hurts. This is where we share a song from an artist that we either discovered or revisited over the last week in between recordings. Just a way to share some more music with you every week. So let's start with you, Treve, what you got for us this week, brother? What you heard?

Okay, so I first listened to the song when it came out as a single. but it's a little song by Modest Mouse. Who's that? I think we all remember Modest Mouse from, I mean, I would say their heyday was back in the early O's, right? Right, with good news for people who like bad news, I think was the name of the album. Yeah, and that had the song float on. Yeah, that's what skyrocketed. Yeah.

Yeah. And that was, man, that was, that was, that was when you and I were in the thick of music, man. As far as like, that was our, that was a perfect age for us to, to get into music. That was, you know, we were, what, 17. So like we were in it. And this was the kind of stuff that we were all about, man, indie rock, all rock. Yeah. By that time, we were listening to our, like we were discovering brands on our own and getting into artists and music without any. influence from our parents or our older brother, you know. Yeah, that's right. Did you know that Modus Mouse is from Washington? Yeah, they're from Ithaca. Say that again? Ithaca. Nope.

Man, I swear, dude. It's Icaquah. Let me say something here, real quick. Let me say something real quick here, dude. I'm looking at the word Issaquah right now. Uh-huh. And I see the two Ss is in there, Issaquah. Okay.

But I swear, man, anytime I've heard you pronounce it, I've heard you say it with like a T.H. Ithicua. No, dude. God damn. Never. All right. Well, I was just trying to pronounce it like I thought I've heard you say it because you're from Washington. So, Sarah actually works in Isoquah, dude. Did you know that? That's where she works. Yeah. I mean, I know that name for a reason. But anyway, I think, I feel like the lead singer, Isaac Brock is his name.

he has such a unique like delivery to to the way he uh he sings and you know he's one of those those singers that like he's instantly recognizable you know what i mean like you always know when you're hearing a modest mouse song right yeah and let's say for sure like there's no doubt we're gonna do i will probably do multiple full-length episodes on a modest mouse album dude there's like there's no way we're not going to yeah sure there's so many great albums from this band. Yeah, definitely. So what do you got for us? This is their their newest album and came out in 2015. The name of the album is called Strangers to Ourselves. The name of the song that we're going to play today is called The Groundwalks

with Time in a Box. Just another solid modest mouse song, man. I just love it, man. Just the intensity that the song starts with, man. I love that. And the lyrics, man, dude, Let me just read you some of these lyrics. I love this shit. He says, The world's an inventor with its work crawling, running, squirming around.

Trees drop colorful fruits directly into our mouths. The world's an inventor. We're the dirtiest thing it's thought about. And we really don't mind. Oh, that's great, man. And then down here, dude, the verse four, the world composes with his shirt tails

wrinkled hanging out, bang us together. see what sort of sounds we make right now. The world plays music, playing skin on teeth and side of the mouth. What sort of sounds, what lovely sounds come about. I just love the imagery of the world composing with his shirt tails hanging out, you know, like one of those like crazy composers, you know. I just love the imagery.

Yeah. I love the imagery. Yeah. And like the first lyrics that you read. Yeah. You know, like the world, the world provides all this stuff for us. Yeah. And we're the dirtiest thing that it's thought about.

I love that shit. I love it, man. And, you know, I was going to say, like, I feel like Modest Mouse recycles a lot of their melodies and stuff like that. But I'm not mad about it because, you know, their lyrics are just so great. Yeah. Are you saying you were reminded of some of their stuff with that guitar riff? A lot of it. Yeah.

I can't place what song I'm thinking of because, you know, they've been around forever. and they're so prolific. Yeah. But I don't, I'm not mad about it, you know? It's probably, yeah,

it's probably Isaac Brock's guitar playing because he, yeah, you know, singer, he also, his melodies, his lyrical, you know,

yeah, the way that he phrases things and the way that he like, yeah, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Cool. All right,

so my what you heard for this week is going to get us into the headspace for C-Change. And this actually is an album that I listened to last week. Do you know the artist Bill Withers? I feel like I've heard the name. I'm familiar with him. Yeah, I've heard the name.

I'm not familiar with his music, though. So I got into him through the TV series, The Wire, on HBO. I heard his song, Use Me Up, on the first episode of The Wire. That's the first time I heard one of his songs and I fell in love with it. and I think I mentioned earlier, I'm subscribed to the vinyl subreddit, and dude, I'm telling you,

I'm discovering really great albums through this subreddit. You know, just vinyl junkies like ourselves, you know, they share, hey, this is what I'm spinning tonight or whatever. And one of the albums that I saw on that subreddit, it's called Just As I Am, it's Bill Withers debut album. So this guy is a kind of smooth soul R&B singer. Again, this is his debut album. It's got the song, Ain't No Sunshine. I know you've heard that, dude. Yeah.

That's Bill Withers wrote that song, dude. That's Bill Withers. Ain't no sunshine. So he goes way back then. Yeah, this came out in 1971. Okay. Yeah. So the song I'm playing, playing today for my what you heard. It is the first track on Side B. It's called Hope She'll She'll Be Happier. And I'll just let it speak for itself. Yeah, man, his, uh, his vocals just

sucker patch you almost, you know. It's fucking beautiful. Because like the song is like this, you know, the, the acoustic is very like soft and general. And then he just hits you, you know, right, right off the rip, you know. And the lyrics are so pretty, man. Like, I'm, I'm not even going to pull him up and read him word for word. But like, you know, the whole idea, like, obviously he's singing to someone that he was, you know, very close to or someone that he was in a relationship with. Things didn't work. They broke up.

I almost feel like it's like one of those things where, you know, this is a trope in a lot of movies where two people that, that, you know, split up, meet back up again after a few months or whatever and kind of check in with each other, see how they're doing. And he's like, you know, maybe it's because it's such a late hour of day. You know, I'm, maybe, maybe I'm coming across as a bit more bluer than I am, you know, like I'm, I'm doing okay. I promise, you know, I just, I hope that you're happier with him, you know, like, I hope you're happier in this new relationship. Yeah, sure. It's, it's great, man. It's such a beautiful song. And the album's great, too, man. It's got a really a lot of really great songs on here dude again this is uh bill withers debut album from

1971 it's called just as i am and i think it's time to get into some sea change brother so beck everyone knows back right yeah i feel like he's especially especially people in our you know around our age group you know beck's been been around since any of us gave a shit about music. Let me tell you why he is still super relevant right now. So, as you know, I'm assuming you know, the Lego movie just came out with the sequel, right? Yeah. Beck is the credits song. He did the song for the credits. And he teamed up with the Lonely Island as in Andy Sandberg and those other dudes. So they're singing. I think I think Beck sings too, but those guys also sing on the track.

So there you go. Like it's kind of crazy to think about that, you know, Beck, I mean, obviously he won, you know, he won a Grammy a few years back with that other album. Is that for morning phase? Yeah, morning phase. Yeah. So that one, that album came out in 2014. The thing about morning phase and Travis, I know you haven't listened to C-Change, but let me tell you, morning phase borrowed, from the feels and vibes of sea change.

Well, can you really say that he bar, like, you know, it's all Beck, so it's, you know. Right. But he just has such a wide range, you know. Yeah, I'll just say he, uh, Beck revisited that, like, the feelings and the emotions and and vibes when he did morning phase. Yeah, he's got a, he's got such a wide, you know, toolkit, you know, available to him as far as like, like, there's nothing he won't do because after morning phase, he did like a rap album almost like a pop album you know it's yeah his latest album is it's called colors it came out in

2017 and yeah dude it's just a straight up pop album yeah which makes sense i mean if you know if you're you know if you're back and you just did morning phase you know yeah and mix it up a little bit yeah and so and and before morning phase um shit dude he went six years without releasing an album the album that came up before morning phase is called modern guilt an album that he did with Danger Mouse, which I'm sure you've heard of Danger Mouse, uh, aka Brian Burton. Um, that's another one of my favorite albums of his modern guilt. Um, but yeah, so Beck's all over the place.

And that's, that's what makes Beck who he is. Um, he's one of those artists that like, so we talk about this a lot on this podcast. A lot of times artists kind of start to like, I don't know, stray away from their original sound, I guess, right? Yeah. I mean, for whatever reason, because of record label influence and pressures from record labels or for whatever reason. And sometimes it's so much so that you don't even recognize the band, and it's in a way

that you don't longer care about them, you know, like. like Kings of Leon. We've talked about them before we did a whole episode on Kings of Leon. Beck is one of those artists, and we talk about Spoon a lot on this podcast as well, as one of those, another one of these artists where they're constantly changing, but they're always, they always remain true to who they are. Beck is one of those artists for me. I feel like C-Change is exactly that.

So prior to C-Change, you know what? What put Beck on the map was his album Mello Gold, which came out in 94. That had loser on it. Everyone knows loser, right? Should we play some loser? I mean, we can if you want, yeah. Let's do it. I mean, that was a fucking anthem, dude, for the early 90s, you know?

Like the slacker grunge culture, you know, that was coming around in the 90s. That was it, man. Yeah, and then... Dude, like we say, I mean, that's track one on his first album, you know? Not his first, technically not his first album, but his first mainstream, like, big... That was his first big single, yeah. Yeah, yeah. And then you had Odley, which came out in 96, it had tracks like, where it's at, devil's haircut, the new pollution.

Dude. I love that album. So fucking good, man. We should do a full-length on that, maybe, if we ever get around to it. Oh, for sure, dude. Yeah, absolutely. But hey, you know what? Those three songs were not going to be able to do because those are singles.

But, yeah, so Beck had already, you know, established himself, you know, made a name for himself by this point. And here's what goes down, dude. So right before he turned 30, his girlfriend at the time, well, I'm sorry, his fiancee, her name is Lay Lemon. They had been together for nine years. And she broke up with him. This was right after he finished a tour for his album, Midnight Vultures. She dumps his ass. And he is in just a dark fucking place, dude.

She left him for some guy in a band called Whiskey Biscuit, some L.A. band, dude. Don't even bother listening. I tried getting through one song from Whiskey Biscuit. Terrible. So she fucked up. I think so. I guess it depends on the reasons. It doesn't matter.

You know what, dude? Hey, maybe she's happier with whiskey biscuit, dude. I don't know anything about this person. Who knows? Well, let's just say, but think about he, she didn't, she didn't dump him because he had better music is what you're saying. Right, right, right. So imagine, you know, turning 30 is a big deal, right? Yeah, sure.

You know, imagine you're about to turn 30. a girl that you've been with for nine years breaks up with you and you find out that she's been cheating on you with this other fuckhead and another band Yeah you know it's not it's not great I hear you not great sure And apparently The majority of the songs on sea change

were written in one week's time Wow So you know he just was in this headspace And he just kind of spilled his gut on paper, you know. But then he shelved it and didn't do anything with it for a few years. So did he just write lyrics basically and then never actually sat down to compose anything? Is that what you saying?

Or did he actually write these songs, like the melodies and everything and then shelved it? I'm not sure about melodies and all that. But what I do know is that the time of him writing these songs, he didn't. feel like it was time to share them with people. Yeah, maybe it was just too personal still, you know? So, and, you know, I wish I had done this earlier, but let's, let's figure out the math here. Let's figure out, so Beck is 48 right now. He's born in 1970. So, okay, that's easy. He's born in 1970. So he was approaching 30 in the year 2000, right? So 19, let's say 1999. That year is, when all this went down. So 1999 was when the album Mutations came out. So this was right after the

success of O'DLay. You know, he's got all these songs in his head. He spits him out on paper. He wasn't ready to share it with the world. A couple years go by, and that's when we actually see this album come to fruition. So I got a quote here from him. He says here, so this album written in a short period of time, probably a couple of days. That's why it has such a mood. It's all of one time, except for a couple of songs. I always wrote more personal stuff. I just didn't think anybody wanted to hear it. I actually tried to make an album similar to this right before I did Odley, but it was a weird time for me that initial wave after the first record. So it just wasn't the right time, you know. So I thought that was interesting. And

And I've heard interviews with him where, like, that happens a lot with him. You know, he's just constantly writing. And he just kind of figures out the right time to release it. So let's dive into our first pick. I'm going to play track two for us. I've got a couple clips from it. This is one of my favorite songs on the album. I'm shocked that it was never released as a single.

This song is called, Paper Tiger. Just like a paper tiger. Man, I just love the mood that this album has, you know. I feel like they knocked it out of the park, man. Well, okay, let me ask you this. So, like, that had a different feeling to me than the opening track. The guitar sting that comes out of nowhere.

I wasn't expecting that. I thought that was kind of cool. And then like the sort of the orchestrated type moment that comes in. Yeah. I mean, you know, that sort of, that those two elements sort of give you this sort of like, like, I don't know, off kilter, like unbalanced feeling. Yeah. Which maybe matches the lyrics. I don't know what the lyrics are.

But if you're going through a breakup, you're going up and down, you know, your emotions and stuff. Yeah. And so one thing that that I found out recently, I didn't know this. but Nigel Godrich, which we all know is, you know, to radiohead what George Martin. Fucking George Martin is to the Beatles, right? Yeah. He produced this record with Beck. Around the same time the Hale de the Thief came out, too.

Yeah. Which is interesting, right? Because we just talked about them in our last full-length episode. It's like it meant to be, dude. None of this was, I didn't do this on purpose, man. I've been wanting to do C-Change since we started this podcast, man. But no, it's great. Like, you know, Beck set out to, like, he wanted this record to have just a certain, like,

feeling and vibe. And a lot of that was acoustic-based, right? And you've got these stringed instruments, you know, in all these songs, his vocals are just right there. We've talked about that with a lot of the radio head albums. It's just one thing that you notice is just Tommy York's vocals, especially when you're listening to the record in your earbuds, you know, in headphones.

Like, it just kind of jumps out at you. And it's always very raw and vulnerable feeling. And I think it's such a perfect way to share an album with songs that are so personal. Yeah, to showcase emotions related to a breakup. Yeah. Yeah, we talked about the vocal stuff with Tom York. Specifically, it started with X of Music for a film on OK computer. It's when Nigel decided to put his vocals front and center in the mix.

That's kind of when I started. So, yeah, it's a trick that Nigel uses, you know what I mean? So, you know, you're probably right that like that was intentional just to match the mood and the lyrics, you know, and just like, hey, this is personal stuff here, you know, let's bring those vocals up to the front so that you can feel like you're, you're having this moment with Beck, you know. Yeah, yeah. So clip two has a really cool guitar solo. And that's pretty much why I want to play it. So here is clip two from Paper Tiger. And that's the end of the song.

And you know what? I feel like I misspoke, dude. Because that was a fucking violin, like stringed instrument solo. I mean, there was a guitar solo, though. There was a guitar solo, but like, man, what a killer. Like, you don't usually think about those kind of instruments as having time to shine in a song for a solo. But holy shit, that was fucking cool. So I'm looking at the personnel listed for this record.

And I don't see. stringed instruments listed. What? Well, as, like, you know, as far as like, you know, he must have worked with like an actual orchestra or something like that. But like the strings for track two are not credited to any one individual. Well, according to Wikipedia, Beck's father, his name's David Campbell. He provided string arrangements.

Well, it's definitely. Well, I'm looking at it. the personnel listing and it says David Campbell string arrangement for track seven only for track seven. Okay. Now, interestingly enough, you talk about Nigel Godrick. He actually played the keys and provided some of the percussion on this track. Cool.

Yeah, so that's one of my favorite songs on this record. We're going to jump ahead here. We're going to skip quite a few songs. the next song I'm going to play is track six. It is called End of the Day. This is one of those songs, dude. The lyrics just fucking get me, man. You can totally relate.

Like, even if it's not something that you've gone through yourself, these are lyrics that you can totally relate to, man. So again, this is track six on the album. It is called End of the Day. So do you know what it is? singing about I had the lyrics pulled up

while the song was playing so I was reading them along with the song because I mean it's one of those things or

the end of the day is probably a metaphor for something either no no no no I got this I got this

okay so remember now all these songs were the majority of these songs were written within a couple days

you know yeah all of this is literally about his feeling you know like his headspace, you know, and his day to day after being dumped, you know, when he says,

so the lyrics, I've seen the end of the day come too soon. Not a lot to say, not a lot to do. That sounds, that's, that's a state of depression, dude. Yeah. Yeah. You know, it's it's the whole like, I don't want to get out of bed even, you know? Yeah. Like, my day has not even started yet, and it's already the end of the day, you know? The next verse, I've seen the end of the day come too late. I've seen the love you had turning into hate. Yeah, dude, he's just, he's, he's just dealing with the aftermath of this breakup.

And I really like the lyrics, uh, I guess, it's the chorus right before I faded it out. He says, it's nothing that I haven't seen before, but it still kills me like it did before. It's like, it's not like I haven't been dumped before, you know? But like going through this again, it's just as bad as the first time around. Like, it just, you know, it kills me just the same. Yeah, it's never fun. Yeah, I can't even get the fuck out of bed.

I don't even know what to do with my day. Oh, and fuck, the day's already over. Like, the whole day has been wasted in my thoughts and emotions, you know? Yeah. I just love the song, and I love it because of the lyrics. Like, it's a pretty simple, straightforward song otherwise, you know, like, there's nothing too. I like the twanging guitar, too. Yeah.

But, yeah, I just, that's another one of those songs for me, dude. So a few things, I thought, some quotes. from a few articles I've read that I really liked. I've got a quote from a online publication called Diffuser. This guy writes,

these weren't songs by which to slit your wrists. These were dispatches from a survivor. I really like that. And then you've got an article from the Rolling Stone by David Frick, which I

am familiar with now, dude. Enough of, so many artists that we've covered, there's a David Frick article for them on Rolling Stone. He's one of those contributors and writers. He's just, he's everywhere, dude. I always love what he has to say. For this album, he says, The clarity of his crisis has a lot to do with the naked strength of Beck's singing.

For someone who started out as a teenage, Folk Hobo, just voice and strum. Beck has rarely walked this far out in front of the music on his own records. And considering his eternal high school looks, he possesses a surprisingly manly tenor, a clean, deep instrument of lust and worry. And goddam is that not fucking true, do? Especially when you listen to this album. Well, that's really funny that he said, um,

his eternal high school looks because he looks the exact same, you know, over a decade later. Yeah. All right, so I got a couple more clips for you. So hold on a minute. I wanted to get back. Okay, go. I wanted to get back to the lyrics real quick because, you know, yes, like, I think you're probably right that this is literally about the day, right?

Obviously, it could also be a metaphor for, for the relationship, whatever. but like is there any hope at the end of the song i don't think there is right no i don't so he is like he's not even at the point where he he can see some light you know what i mean like he's that's how deep he was when he wrote these lyrics in that state of depression you know where it's like it's never going to get better you know and you know i haven't like i haven't read all of the lyrics like i haven't gone from track one all the way to to the last track reading all the lyrics, you know, like, I don't know if there is any light in this album. Yeah, is there any hope? But I do, you know, I do like how, you know, what this one guy was saying. At the same time, these,

these aren't songs by which to slit your wrists. Like, well, that's what I was asking about, because if the guy was saying, hey, these are letters from our dispatches from a survivor, that to me means, hey, he made it out on the other end of this and is telling us that, hey, I survived, it's going to be all right. So they probably are, there's got to be something. lyrics somewhere on this album that give hope. When I read that and, you know, being more familiar with his album than you are, I feel like what he's saying is, you know, this is an album that like, you know, the great thing about music and about albums, really, in some cases, a lot of times you can listen

to an album and find parallels with what you're going through. Yeah, that's true. Like, I feel like this, you know, I feel like C-Change is one of those albums that is a great companion for someone that's going through something like this. And yeah, it's fucking sad. It's really depressing. But it's something that you can relate to. And, you know, it can help you help you get through it. Well, yeah, we even talked about that with, with Radiohead on heel to the thief with one song in particular where Tommy York even said, like, I'm not.

even sure what this means anymore. I wrote it so long, I think it was where I end and you begin. He's, you know, he wrote that so a lot ago that the meaning of the lyrics even changed for him over time, you know. So it's like, if it's true for the people that wrote the lyrics, as far as like, hey, this is, you know, it's up for interpretation. Yeah, that's sort of the beauty of music is that, you know, everybody can listen to the same song and have different takeaways from it, you know. Yeah. Yeah. All right. So moving along. You got a couple of clips for you for this one. This is track 10 on the album.

It is called Sunday Sun. Yeah, what a great song. But we were just talking about hope. I feel like there's hope in this song because the lyrics are straight up saying, yesterday is ending Sunday sun. As in like, to me, I'm interpreting that as, you know, Sunday is the first day of the week, right? So like the week is ending, the shit that I'm going through is ending.

Tomorrow there's going to be some sun. It's the beginning of a new week. You know what I mean? That's how I'm taking it as. But like there could be other interpretations, obviously. But I like the first verse too. He says, haven't got a lot to learn. In my eyes, they stray again looking for a satellite in the rays of heaven again.

I feel like that's, you know, part of those like the grass is greener type scenarios. right he's always looking for he's always looking to the clouds daydream in or something yeah maybe i mean that's another one of those up for interpretation lyrics but yeah and you know like that's what i've read too with with um you know uh reviews of this album and and you know people that you know around the time that this was released music journalists and whatever who are familiar very familiar with back like the thing about most of his albums prior to this is, you know, the lyrics were really abstract, you know. But for a lot of these songs, they're very straightforward.

But yeah, like you're saying, this is one of those things. It's kind of up in the air, but for sure. Dude, anytime you're singing about the sun in the positive light. Yeah, the sun is rarely used to describe depression. You know what I mean? Yeah. Like if you're talking about sun, to me that means, hey, the depression, the depression is clearing, you know, there's some sun, there's some hope.

Yeah, no, but like, this is reminding me of our episode on Fleet Fox's Help This This Blues, remember? Yeah, man. For the shrine slash an argument. Yes. When you're singing about terrible sunlight, you know? Yeah, yeah. Like, if you're depressed, you fucking, you know, open up your blinds and you're blinded

by the sun, you're like, fuck, fuck all this, man. You know, there's nothing good about this. I'm just going to go back to bed. Yeah, yeah. Not even the sun can brighten your mood. Yeah, I can get you out of this funk. Yeah. So I don't exactly remember why I decided to do two clips for this song,

but I seem to remember there being a really cool buildup in this song, and I kind of just like the way it progresses. So here is clip two for Sunday Sun. It just kind of goes to shit, right? Well, yeah, that's actually kind of cool. because there's not much distortion in this album, so the fact that he chose to end it with some distortion is kind of interesting. Yeah, and we're approaching the end of the album here.

Yeah, dude. So I don't have an outro for this episode. I'm going to instead play one of my favorite songs on this record from start to finish as our outro. So yeah, that's it for today. I feel like Beck might be one of the only artists, definitely one of the only artists I can think of that's done something like this, you know, like with the path that he took from loser and from that fame on deciding to steer away and go this path, like even just for one album, like to be, to share something like this with his fans, because he had fans at this point, you know?

He's definitely a unique artist. You know, I feel like he reinvents himself all the time. The fact that he, you know, it's funny that he even said, like, hey, I had, I've written songs like this before. I just didn't feel like the right time to release them, like, you know. Yeah. Maybe that's because he just felt like it wasn't the right time with his, like, where he had reached with his fame and stuff.

Like, you know, if this was his second album, you know, the, the fans may not have embraced it as much, you know? Because like, you know, O'Dillay and Mello Gold, well, shit, there's four albums that came out before this one. But yeah. You know, actually, but that's what he said. He said that he had written songs like this back then, right? In that era of Beck, like the O'Dalee and Mellow Gold era, he had some songs like this.

Yeah, so that does make more sense of like, you know, you know, you don't want to isolate some of your fans. like, you know. Yeah. So there's an album of his called One Foot in the Grave. And I've listened to this album all the way through. One Foot in the Grave is, you know, kind of like what David Frick was saying, you know, this is Beck here. You know, he was this teenage folk hobo, just voice and strum.

Just Voice and Strum is One Foot in the Grave. It's pretty much just nothing but it can. There's maybe some drum beats here and there, but nothing crazy. There is a song on One Foot in the Grave called It's All In Your Mind. It's actually on the Japanese bonus release. It's track 17 on the album. It's All In Your Mind shows up on C-Change. So this was a song that was released back in 1994, and he puts it on C-Change.

It's track 7 on the album. Oh, so he had done. He had done quite a bit of acoustic stuff then in between. Yeah, dude. Okay. You know, like he said, you know, I kind of, you know, I have all these songs, you know, sometimes I'll kind of hang on to him for a while, you know, if it's not the right time. But like, yeah, he was doing this like more raw acoustic stuff even earlier on, you know, even in the early 90s.

It's a different recording, like the two versions of it's all in your mind. it's different on C-change, but very similar. And yeah, that's, Beck's just one of those artists that just, you know, he'll just do what he wants to do. Yeah, you know, I was thinking about that right as you were saying that, like trying to classify Beck, you know, as a, like I would put him in the class of like, his music is art. you know what I mean? Like it's art and he's a he's an artist more so maybe than a musician. And that's how he can like the way he approaches music is like no matter what the genre and no matter what the instrument like those are all his his tools, you know.

It doesn't matter. He's not a, you can't put him in one camp. There's just no way. No, dude. And you know what? Okay, I'm just going to say this man. Beck's one of the only artists that I'm totally okay with when he raps. It's never that great.

Yeah. It's never that great. And even in his latest album, colors, there's a few songs where he wraps on it. It's not great, but I still like it because it's Beck. But that's what I'm talking about. You know, like good. Yeah, exactly. It's fucking cool that he fucking does it, man.

Whenever he feels inspired, he wraps. That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Travis, have you listened to colors? No. I think I heard the single and he started rapping and I couldn't go beyond it. Well, listen to it, dude. It's worth listening to. It's an album that makes you feel good. You know, it's just a great album. It's back doing what he does. And he set out to make a pop album. And that's what it is. And it's great, man. It's just a solid record. And morning phase, like we mentioned, if you really enjoyed what we played for today for C-Change, you'll really like morning phase. Yeah, dude. So that's it for today.

So again, our outro is just going to be more from this album because there's another song on here called Little One. It's the second from the last track. I think it might be my favorite one on the album. And I tried to like piece together. You know, I tried to make a couple clips from it, and I'm like, you know what? I'm pretty much playing the whole song. It's kind of long. It's like, it's a good four and a half minutes, you know, so I didn't want to just play a full song and get back into it.

You know, so I figured we could just play us out with this song. So check back next week. We will have our sidetrack episode up. we'll find an artist to go along with this album, you know, with these vibes. And then we'll be back in a month, I'm sorry, two weeks from now. We'll have our next full-length album. I always say album, dude. Our next full-length episode is going to be Radioheads in Rainbows.

That'll be our last Radiohead episode for a while. And we've got ourselves a guest. for once. Did you just say what I think you just said? We've got ourselves a guest. Wow. Yeah, dude. And it's not some, it's not part of the fam, you know.

Like we had our brother on for episode four, I believe. Yeah, let's just, let's just put it that way. Let's put it that way. This is our first guest that's not a family member. Yeah. So it's a pretty big deal. Pretty big deal. I'm excited, dude.

So, a good friend of Travis's, um, I don't, don't know the guy, but you know what? I feel like he's already a friend. Oh, yeah. His name's Nathan. He was in Travis's band. No, no, no. I was inside. Not your band. Yeah, you were in his band. He was the front man for a band called Grass Fight. And I played guitar with him for like a flash in the pan. It was like, you know, three, four months. but, you know, I would say that more so than anything, he is the biggest radiohead fan that you perhaps will ever meet. Dude, he, yeah, so we did like a little test recording last week with him just to make sure we could get it all. So Nathan's in California.

I'm up here in Washington. Travis is in Texas, so we had to try to figure out how to make this work because all. three of us are in different locations. And dude, he was just dropping knowledge, man. Just dropping knowledge. Yeah. He proved instantly that he knows more than radio hit, more about radio head than we do. Yeah.

Vast amounts more. And you had reached out to him when we first started this podcast. Yeah. And he said, dude, let me, I want to get on, let me, let me join you guys for your Anne Rainbow's episode. Yeah. He said, either put me on for the OKCupid. shit for the okay computer or in rainbows and we had already recorded the okay computer record so

it's going to be a great way to end our our radiohead fest within rainbows with a guest who knows a shit ton about radio head and we're going to go track by track on this album which is something we've never done before so it's going to be a lengthy episode but but yeah i'm excited man We're going to dive right into it, and it's going to be a good time. But in between this episode and that one, we will, of course, have a sidetrack episode. Q, do you know what it's going to be yet? I do, but I'm not going to share that knowledge, bro. Okay.

I'm not spilling beans, man. I'm all about keeping the beans where they are, you know. Where would that be, exactly? I don't know. Where? In the place that you keep your beans. in pantry. Yeah.

You guys have a bean jar or something? I don't have a bean jar, okay? Right. But I'm not spilling them, dude. So as always, hop on to our website, no-filler podcast.com. There we've got our show notes for each episode.

You can stream each episode directly from our website. We've got our SoundCloud players on there. You can even find us on pretty much any podcast app that you got. We should be on there, I hope. And again, we're going to wrap this episode up with another song from Sea Change. We're going to play it in its entirety. Again, it's called Little One, maybe my favorite song on the album.

So until next time, my name's Quentin. My name is Travis. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to lux beauty and fragrance sets, our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holt's holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com.