No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 35: The Strokes - Is This It

Episode Date: May 19, 2019

​The boys are back together in different time zones to cover one of their favorite bands and albums of all time, The Strokes debut album from 2001, ​"Is This It".​ One of many noteworthy bands to emerge out of NYC during the post-punk, garage rock revival of the early 2000s, The Strokes gave us one of the genres' best efforts from that time. With both croonish and harsh vocals, simple, yet succinct bass lines & drum beats, and guitar solos to boot, "​Is This It​" truly is one of rock n' rolls' last hurrahs! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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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. Our goal since we were kids was to be good. You know, like when it comes to music, we work pretty hard at it, you know?

It'd be cool of like 20 years down the line from now, you know, we're like, hopefully old men. And like people like still talking about it's like good music they made. You know, that's much cooler than any cover or anything or anyone saying, hey, that was great. This thing lasts in the test of time. That is like the coolest thing in the world, actually. 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 Trey.

Dude, I was so excited. that you're back, that I almost said that my name was your name. My name is Quentin, and I've got my bro, bro, Travis, back with me in spirit. And we're dropping a full-length episode for the first time in weeks, dude, and we're covering the strokes. Is it right to say that I'm with you in spirit, though? Because doesn't that mean like I'm dead? Like, my spirit is with you? Like, I'm just, I'm here.

I'm with you right now, dude. It's just we're in different. States. Okay. All right. How about from this point on, I just say, and with me in another time zone is my bro, bro, Travis. That's fine.

So yeah, man, I'm back and, you know, I feel like I'm a little bit rusty. Well, you're rusty and you told me before we started recording that you're struggling with some allergies at the moment. Yeah. I'm on, I'm on some drugs that make me cough, so you might hear me cough a little bit. Mm-hmm. But it's better than... sneezing, which is what I would be doing if I wasn't on the drugs.

So I have to, you know, so question, dude. Take it, whichever one you want, it's going to happen. I got a question for you. What? Are you sipping on some scissurp? No. No scissurp. Cisurp is like, you know, that's when I, you know, that's what I, whatever.

I told you're rusty, dude. I can't come up with my one-liners. This is going to be a problem. Okay. The scissor. purpose is for when you're about to go to sleep and you need to fucking get through the night. No, I don't take sleep aids, dude. It's not a sleep aid, brother. You talk about NyQuil? I'm talking about NyQuil, bro. Dude, what do you think they call it NyQuil? It puts you to sleep. Well, yeah,

but that's not what it does. It also, like, it's a decongestant, man. Well, I don't, I don't do the hard stuff, dude. Okay. Okay. So, uh, yeah, uh, I don't know if you, you know, explained where I, where I've been. I honestly can't tell you why I took two weeks off. Wow. So it comes, dude, the fucking moment of truth. You just told me now that you've been lied to me. Well, no.

I mean, like, I was out of town last week. Uh-huh. I don't remember what my reason was for the two weeks ago. Wow, dude. Well, do you know? Because I'm just saying I don't remember. I don't remember either. I had a reason.

I had a reason. I had a reason. It must have, you know, I just must have been. You had something going on with work. Okay. Like some social event, some social gathering. Oh, that's right. That's right.

I still don't remember what it was, but whatever. Either way, last week I was in Boston. I was at a U.S. design conference for front-in developers, and it was dope. That sounds boring. Dude, it was dope. We were all about fucking inclusive web design, you know, responsive typography. Get out of. You guys talked about that?

What? You guys talked about that? Get out of here. Responsive typography. dude, the future of fucking CSS grid. Wow. God damn, dude, wake me up when it's over. It was awesome.

But anyway, I'm back and I'm ready to go. We talked about, I feel like we talked about this episode like three weeks ago that we were going to do the strokes. And now it's here. And I couldn't be more excited. This is one of those bands, man. This was like the band that we were into in like our formative years. Yes.

And we got to experience like rock and rolls, like, last hurrah, I feel like, you know? That's a good way to put it, bro. I really feel that way. I mean, really, that's what, I can't say I feel that way like I'm so genius. Like, that really is, like, what it is. Well, let's put it this way, man, because now I'm thinking about it. What if this garage rock revival from the early 2000s, what if this saved rock and roll, man?

Well, it did, but like, where is rock and roll now, you know? we need another we need another revival i think rock and roll is doing just fine brother it is but it's not it hasn't been mainstream i feel like since okay but what if what if this garage rock revival didn't happen then what would rock and roll look like right now man that's a great question yeah okay so for those of you who haven't been keeping up with my ramblings for the last two weeks I kind of dove into the history of garage rock, or I guess the genres that led up to the eventuality of garage rock. I covered psychedelia and surf rock. Both came about in the 60s.

So Travis, I know you haven't listened to my latest one yet. I'm just going to repeat something that I said and that I think is really important for Garage coming about. So think about the British invasion that happened in like the 60s. You got bands like the Beatles, the Kings, the zombies, the Rolling Stones. These bands to young people were super influential because these, like, especially the Beatles, think about the Beatles. Well, I don't know for sure what their age was when they started, but they were young, you know?

Super young. Super young. So you've got these, you know, young impression. kids in the 60s, hearing these bands just fucking explode with popularity. And they think to themselves, I can fucking do that, you know, I can be in a band. And so they, you know, pick up their dad's acoustic guitar or they go find some like secondhand drum set, get their friends together. And they form bands and practice in their parents' garage. You know, that's where the term garage rock comes from. And I mentioned that, like, when you break it down or like, you know, the basic thing to

know about garage rock is that it's going to be super basic chord structures. You know, usually it's an electric guitar or whatever, you know, some distortion. And it's always unsophisticated lyrics and song structure. And that leads to punk rock and, you know, all the genre. All the genre, that was split off and broken off from psychedalia and surf rock you know that's what it comes down to just super simple back to the roots of rock and roll

yeah I mean I feel like that's what for our generation like that's definitely the strokes were that you know they were all of that they were even the way that they dressed was you know so thrifty you know thrift store

yeah uh type clothes and like simple guitar, simple, or at least on the surface it seemed simple. Right. Simple drum beats. Yeah. And it literally made us join bands, you know? Yes.

Literally. I think it made it to where it's like, man, you know, anybody can do this. We can fucking do it, man. I mean, freaking Julian's voice, and we'll get into it, obviously. Yeah. It's almost not even a singing voice at all, really. No, no. It's not.

No. And that's what made it so great, just how late. It was. Yeah. The delivery just seems so lazy and like, it lazy sounds negative, but like it worked, you know? Yeah. Just so like, like, I don't give two shits, you know?

That's the attitude that they kind of gave off. And I feel like his voice is like the embodiment of that. It almost like when you watch old live videos of them, it literally seems like he rolled out of bed and just walked on stage. Yeah. I want to quote someone real quick. So their main, like, producer, you know, a guy that was in charge of recording their stuff back then, was a guy named Gordon Raphael. And I'm just going to quote something from him real quick from an interview that he did.

I think this was probably around 2001. But he says, the album Is This It changed a lot of people's minds about rock music. it changed their listening habits, their love of music, and an inspiration for them to start a band themselves. And I kind of loosely quoted the end part of that just to make it sound like a complete sentence. But, you know, that's it, dude. Like garage rock. And so we were in our early teens when this album came out. So I don't even know if we've mentioned the year, dude.

This is 2001 we're talking about. Early 2000s. I feel like Garage Rock around that time for people our age, you know, early 20-somethings, it did inspire them to start making music themselves, you know, or it changed their listening habits, got them back into rock and roll. I think that's what's so important and special about the garage rock revival of their early 2000s. Yeah, I remember where, like, where I was when I first saw the strokes.

Like it was in our bedroom watching it on that tiny ass old TV that we had And it was the music video for last night Cool And I just remember like Just everything about them man It was so fucking cool Yeah

And so like accessible The way they presented themselves It wasn't necessarily a punk rock look You know Like I said earlier It was like thrift store It was this retro vibe That like

Retro vintage The strokes were the first band or like, you know, the first, I guess, famous people that I noticed at that age that were doing like a throwback, like retro kind of style. And we fucking latched onto that, dude, hardcore. Oh yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely. Like, I, you know, the reason that I wore, and I didn't pull off the look at all, like when I look back at it, but like, the reason I wore a blazer with, like, the patches on the elbow. Like, I wasn't trying to look like. I was. Like, I wasn't trying to look like a professor.

Like I was trying to look like these guys, you know? Like I said, I don't think I pulled it off, but that's, I was trying to imitate the strokes, you know? Yeah. Yeah. So, uh, let's lame off. Lame. Let's name off the roster, dude.

Uh, I don't know if we need to go into the history of these dudes. Like, they're upbringing and whatnot. Uh, so, but the strokes consists of Julian Casablancus. He's the lead songwriter. singer. Lead everything is something that we'll get into, I'm sure. We got Nick Valenci on lead guitar, Albert Hammond Jr. on rhythm guitar, Nikolai Frasher on bass, and Fabrizio Moretti on drums. Now, if that's not the most New York ragtag group of boys. Hold on a second. Got to open up this Ludens cough drop here.

Jesus Wild cherry plate All right You better not be smacking Smacking them lips in my ear Bro Don't worry about With all that juicy goodness

Don't worry about it You know that's just candy right You're just sucking on a piece of candy Hey I don't care It works All right So let's Let's

So do we want to touch on the record Like you had sort of Uh referenced How Julian was sort of the mastermind behind all of this. I mean, it was specifically the first two albums, right? That he was really the main, like he literally wrote all the pieces, all the instruments.

It's all him, right? Yeah, so, yeah, let's put it this way. If you're a fan of Foo Fighters and you know anything about Dave Grohl, Julian Casablancus was Dave Grohl for what? All the Foo Fighters albums up until there's nothing like that. to lose. Yeah. Dave,

Dave, Groll did everything. And when anything, any instrument that you hear recorded, uh, on a Food Fighter album up until there's nothing left to lose is Dave Groll behind those instruments. So,

but I don't know if Julian actually is the one playing the instruments on the recordings, but I know that he wrote all the parts on his first two albums. Yeah. He, you know, from what I've read, he, he,

he was an absolute like perfectionist. Yeah. So I have a quote. So I think I first pulled quotes from this book when we were doing the Interpol episode. Yes. Because Interpol, you know, their debut album came out in 2001 as well in New York. They were sort of in the same grouping of these like New York rock bands that were in this post-punk revival, you know, grouping, right? Yeah.

There's even a chapter called The Class of 2001 in this book. And it's talking about bands like the strokes, fans like Interpol. But anyway, the book I'm talking about is called Meet Me in the Bathroom. And it's just, which is obviously, that's a stroke song, right? That's the name of a stroke song by Lizzie Goodman. Basically, it's about this New York music scene that all these great bands came out of. So anyway, here's a quote here. She just interviewed a ton of people, including this guy who, his name is J.P. Bauersock.

and he was the guitar teacher for Julian and Albert and he said, and this was like, you know, he was a guitar teacher kind of before and like during the recording of his assent, like, you know,

when they first joined, they were trying to get better at their instrument stuff. He was their guitar teacher. And he has a quote here. He says, what Julian was mostly leaning on me for was that he wanted every note planned out. Nothing left a chance.

They were one of the first bands I knew that practiced in their rehearsals to a click, like a, you know, click track. Like a click track. Yeah. And not only once a week, but four or five nights a week. They were deadly serious about being super tight, so every note had to be worked out. Julian wanted to work out every note of the guitar solos as well. So that's why this album sounds so freaking tight, right? Yeah, dude, let me quote, shit, I don't know who this is, but I was just going through my notes again before we started recording. And there's something along that, like there's something to that effect that someone had said, you know, around the time of the release

of is this it, you know, kind of talking about that, you know, the garage rock revival sound and saying like, you know, it's not like these guys are amazing musicians, but, you know, when you compare them to a band like the white stripes, you know, when there's a lot of similarities, but... The thing about garage rock is it, like,

it's got this sort of, like, dirty quality to it, like this lower, lo-fi kind of quality to it. And that's where, like, to your point, like the white stripes

had more of that, like, edge to them, you know? Yes. But the strokes, while still doing the garage rock thing, it's, it sounds dirty,

but at the same time, it sounds very tight and like clean almost. Yeah. And that's all Julian is from what I can gather. It's like his perfectionism. Yeah, yeah. Is where that comes across, you know.

Let me finish this quote here. I pulled it up here. So this is from a guy who wrote a review on Pitchfork. And he says, the difference between the two bands lies in their degrees of skill. The stripes have an air of amateurishness that belies songwriter Jack White's obvious. talents. The strokes, even on their debut album, sound like experienced professionals for whom mastering the form seems only an album away. So, yeah, that's interesting, man, because

the guy right there just alluded to how insanely talented Jack White is, right? Like, he's one of the best guitar players ever that he's one of the best, like, rock, rock and roll stars of all time, right? Yeah, and I think with this... But it's interesting that like, it's almost like it's super effortless for white stripes and they're almost like, like you said, like it comes off as like sloppy amateur sometimes. But he's super talented. Right. And I think what the guy's saying is, you know, you've got the obvious talents of Jack White.

But alongside Jack White is drummer Meg White, who is an amazing drummer in my book. But I think that's... what he's saying, like the amateurishness comes across with the white stripes as a whole being, you know, Mastermind Jack White, but also somewhat sloppy drummer Meg White versus the strokes. You've got the genius of Julian, but then alongside that you've got all these other members in the band that have been, you know, practicing and perfecting these songs, you know, as much as Julian has this whole time down to a fucking click track, you know? Exactly. But to me, I feel like that Like that's Julian like knowing that hey we're we're kind of you know we're amateurs.

Yeah. But let's you know rehearse four or five nights a week and like get this down. Like every known has to be down perfectly. So even though we're writing these simple songs like they're going to sound super polished and like tight and stuff. And they did. You know, that album is just so freaking tight. Well yeah.

And they're going to sound that way live too with all this. Exactly. All right. Let's play a song, man. Now let me tee this all up here. Just to give you a taste. I feel like this song is good. a good intro for the Strokes and everything that they represent in, you know, this garage rock revival.

So here is track one from the album, Is This It? The Strokes debut record. This song is called Is This It? Yeah, what a great way for the bass player to just come in. Yeah. That baseline, dude. I fucking love it. I know.

That's why I made the clip as long as it was because I just had to wait for that. do do do do do do do Oh, the fucking bass. He's one of my favorite bass players for sure, dude. Yeah, Nicolai. So, dude, anytime I think about Nikolai, I think about the tall guy in the back that just stood there and didn't move. With the somewhat goofy, like Bob looking haircut. Yeah, but that's, I mean, it's all part of it, man.

Right. Same with Albert Hammond Jr., dude. Like, no, dude, he would move around. He would move around, but like, he was unique in his own way and how high up he had his guitar strapped on. That's true. You know what's funny, man? I played my guitar that high because of him. Because of him, yeah.

Yeah, and I remember when I joined that band Grass Fight, if you guys remember the episode we did with Nathan Forster, where we talked about in Rainbows, that was the lead singer of that band Grass Fight. Anyway, I remember when I joined Grass Fight, he would be like, why do you have your guitar so high, dude? I said it's because of Albert Haven Jr. Of the strokes. Yeah. And that was the end of that argument right there. Dude, and Albert's a fucking beast on the guitar, I feel like, man.

Just with his, like, precise. He's the lead, though. Any solo you hear is Nick Valencia. Okay. Just saying. But he's got that tight, like, rhythm guitar down. You know, he's doing all that rhythm stuff, the really tight stuff. So, yeah.

But anyway. I mean, I'm listening to the song we just played, like, it's kind of a good intro. into like the drumming styles of, uh, fucking Fabrizio. Yeah. Because like, and like he was a huge influence on my style of drumming. It's just as basic as you can get, especially in that song, dude. He doesn't even bring in the bass drum, you know, the, he doesn't even step on the bass drum for a while, dude.

It's just, it's just high hat and snare. I mean, it must have been really easy for somebody like you who, who, who, had just picked up the drums recently to be able to sit down and play a stroke song, right? Yep, and that's gratifying as fuck, dude. And same with the guitar. Like, same with the guitar was able to pick a guitar and play some of these stroke songs, you know,

pretty quickly because they're so simple. That's what made it so, like, accessible, you know? Yeah. So before we jump to the next track, let's just talk a little bit more about Julian's voice. just in that it's like for me it was I never heard anything like it

and he puts this like slight distortion on his voice and I don't know whose idea that was if it was his or you know their their producer what's his name

Gordon Raphael I don't know whose idea this was but it's just it's like he's singing through a megaphone you know yeah yeah yeah it's like a slight It's slightly distorted almost, you know, or like it just sounds like he's speaking through like a really poor quality speaker. Well, actually, you know what? I'll just read it now.

I was going to save it for a later, but I love this quote. So I'm going to quote from someone named Joe Levy, who did a review on this album for the Rolling Stone back in 2001. He says, half the time he seems to be singing through an intercom like he's buzzing at the door asking to come into your life. life. He's buzzing at the door. That's awesome. Yeah. All right.

So let's dive into our next pick. And we're just going to play this whole song, dude. Let's jump to track three on the album. It is called Soma. I'm glad you played the old song. man. I know. Yeah, because I tried to split it up and I'm like, I can't fucking, I can't leave this part out and I can't leave this part out. No, dude. Because it just builds on top of like each, you know, and like, man, the way the drums kind of kind of come in and out in the song, you know. Yep. He's got that little drum pill that brings him right back in. It's so easy, man. Yeah, but I mean, and again, like super tight like we were talking about. Yeah. But yeah, you know, I was kind of reminded of like, we kept talking about this with Paul Banks and the way that he would sing for Interpol, how, you know, he's, can, he maybe starts like kind of soft and more monotone.

But then he'll go under these moments where he's kind of screaming almost. Like Julian does the same thing. I'm so glad that you said that, man, because I'm going to finish up this quote by Joe Levy from Rolling Stone. He says, uh, his greatest trick is a pleading tear. in his voice that lets him slip around the songs, crooning one second, leering the next, then exploding into a throat shredding shout. I mean, yeah, it really is very similar to how Paul Banks would sing. And that's one of the reasons I love Paul Banks, you know?

Yeah, and again, we're talking about Interpol here, which was one of those bands that popped up in New York City during this garage rock revival in the early 2000. We have a whole episode on Interpol's debut album, Turn on the Bright Lights, which I believe came out in 2001, right? Yeah, that's what I'm saying. This is the same time here, man. And it's in New York, too. So, like, this was just something in the fucking water or something. This energy, yeah.

Yeah. So should we just dive right along, dude? Jump into the next pick? Dive right along. Let's dive right in, bro. Yeah, dude. So we're going to jump down a few tracks. and play track six.

This one is called Alone Together. Yeah, man, Nikolai kills it from here, dude. He steals it, dude. The bass in the song is insane. Yeah. It's insane. Like, you know, he follows the melody of Julian, like in the verse, you know. Mm-hmm.

Like, right along with the voice of Julian. Mm-hmm. You know, him and the guitar player, whichever one's doing it, have got that, like, really great riff that they're doing, of in sync with each other. Yes. Just, you know, this is like, you know,

when I go back and listen to this album, it's songs like this that stand out to me as the more like, the more interesting songs of theirs, you know, because they're more, they have a darker vibe to them. They're not as like upbeat and like more poppy as like maybe like last night, you know.

Yeah, one of the. Which is their single. Which everyone knows. Everyone knows the last night. I think you're right. And yeah, I want to actually read some of the lyrics here, dude. Because like you said, and I'm with you. It's the more darker songs that I appreciate more in the album.

So I'm just going to jump to the chorus. He says, take me away. See, I've got to explain. Things they have changed in such a permanent way. Life seems unreal. Can we go back to your place? Oh, you drink too much. Makes me drink just the same.

Damn. So he was only 23 during this, like the recording of, or at least when this album came out. So, like, he's a young man, probably doing stupid young man stuff, you know. Yeah. But, yeah, so you were saying earlier that, like, one of the markings of Garads Rock is that the lyrics are really simple, you know. Yeah, and sophisticated lyrics and song structure. That's just quoting from Wikipedia.

Sure. But yeah. I'm going to jump down to verse two because this is my favorite line, or my favorite several lines. This is my favorite part in any stroke song. He says, he knows it's justified to kill to survive. He then, in dollars, makes more dead than alive. Let's suck more blood.

Let's run three hours a day. The world is over, but I don't care. You didn't play that part, did you? I played the whole song. Wait. You're right. Okay, so let's just play that then. Yeah, so here is clip two.

It's got a part, it's got part of verse two on there, and then it fades to the end of the song. And the guitar solo there is just pretty simple, like if you really think about it. Pretty simple guitar solo. But still, like super effective. Super effective. And that's another thing that I appreciate about this garage rock revival. I mean, I feel like for the most part, you know, with the exception of these, you know, bands that they came about in the early 2000s, the guitar solo was something that is kind of lost. Even to this day, like you don't hear guitar solos that much anymore. Yeah, but they brought it back, you know? They brought it back, yeah. This, you know, these, the era of like this garage rock post-punk revival in the early 2000s, like, they brought guitar solos back. You know, it's interesting because like, I've always thought like, man, guitar solos, they really died in the 70s, you know. Yeah.

As far as like, you know, of course, heavy metal, you want guitar solos? Listen to heavy metal. Always have guitar solos forever and always, you know, there's always guitar solas and heavy metal. But as far as like, you know, there weren't too many guitar solos really with like... Well, the 70s brought about disco and then 80s brought in dance music, you know, and electronic music. You know, I don't know why I just, for some reason, I always associate good rock music with the 70s. I think what we mean is like bands like yes or bands like, you know, we're... steely dad, like really complicated rock song structures. I feel like that died in the 70s.

Yeah, like the rock's always been there. The Alman Brothers. Yeah, right. Yeah. And that's why I feel like, you know, maybe this revival, you know, kind of had a lasting impression on rock and roll as we know it today, you know, bands like the white stripes and the strokes and Interpol. You know, they brought us back to the roots, especially the white stripes, you know. And so, They weren't one of the bands from New York, but, you know, it's bringing you back to the super simple, stripped down blues and rock and roll, you know. Yeah, right. All right. So we got one more song to play for you on this album.

This is one of my favorites, if not my favorite on the record. This is track 10 of the album. It's called Trying Your Luck. That song gives me chills every time, dude. Yeah. So let's just put it this way, man. The Strokes is one of those bands that the only way they were able to pull off this, like this simple of a style of rock was with each member of the band doing their part, you know? That song may not be as like intense, you know, and emotional if you didn't have, for one, obviously, Julian's.

voice, but like the baseline and the repetitiveness and simplicity of the drumbeat, like just driving the song. The thing about the simplicity of the drums and the guitar, I feel like the bass lines are always a little bit more complicated. Like he's sort of, you know... He's providing such a mood to each song, man. Yeah, kind of like, he's kind of the secret weapon, I feel like. Yeah.

But, yeah, again, with the way that Julian, you know, just like with Paul Banks, man, like he will try to hit these notes that he maybe shouldn't be trying to hit. Right. You know what I mean? You know, if you were to, like, assess him from like a, I don't know, traditional singing style or something. But it works because it's got this emotion behind it, you know, especially on this song, man. it's more of like this like this uh laid back delivery interview like you said earlier man it's like he just literally just got up out of bed and walked straight into the recording room it's like it's it's almost like the words or he's kind of dragging the words out of his mouth yeah it's like he's mumbling

but then on a dime he'll turn around and just start screaming right it's just so effective you know it's Very effective. And you had mentioned Paul Banks. I think he had said like he gives credit to like scotch or something for his voice. Yeah. That's because the studio that they recorded in was like it was cold. Like it was this abandoned mental institute or something. Wait, so he drinks scotch to warm up?

Yeah. That's hilarious. But that's one of those things where it's like, man, that's what helped his voice have that sound. And the only reason he did it was because they're, recording space was cold. So it's like all this shit just lines up, you know? I don't know what the story is with Julian and his voice. I think that's just how I think.

Well, I only brought that up because I'm almost positive that Julian was a heavy drinker or is a heavy drinker. Yeah, sure. Oh, dude, it's guaranteed that they were drunk. Yeah. They were drinking alcohol during the recording. Oh, and they were probably drunk both concerts, you know, both times we've seen them live. They were probably drunk.

So anyways, let's wrap this up. We got one more clip from trying your luck. You know, I just, what I love about them is just how simple they are, man. Yeah. I mean, that sounds like a little too surface level or whatever, but like... But I feel like the point you're trying to get at is that you can't be a band like the strokes if you're not extremely well practiced and... you know, basically metronomed in your delivery, right? Yeah.

Well, yeah. To, you know, that's what they were doing with the click track. I mean, that's why I was so on point or whatever. Yeah. Because they, Julian had them, like, you know, practicing, you know, four or five nights a week. You know, and I also read that they, you know, he was pushing for, like, 13-hour studio sessions and stuff like that. Like he was the driving force behind this record, like no doubt about it. Yeah.

So I've got some other interesting, like really interesting notes here about how perfect of a match. You said his name was Gordon Raphael, right? Yeah. So the producer, like him and Julia were kind of on the same level as far as like, like they spoke the same language. Like I've got some quotes, some more quotes here from this book. This is from Julian. He says, Gordon just had the right ingredients for us. We tried to do the same songs with other people and they sounded totally stale.

Gordon is the king of understanding abstract information. You'd get further by saying, could you make it sound more yellow than you could say, take out the bottom end or something? He'd get what you were trying to say. And then the manager of the straps, Ryan Gentles, kind of goes on along the same lines. He says, Gordon is such a great interpreter of musicians. Julian won't say That high hat is too trebly

Turn the bass up or the treble down He'll say I need the high hat to sound like the rich guy Who hangs out at the party and doesn't talk to girls Waits for them to come and talk to him And Gorn is like okay That's almost verbatim How I've heard him describe a hi-hat sound

Oh, that's so cool man Here's another example It's too much like the way a sleeping bum smells On a Friday night When he's had too much booze I don't want it to smell like that. Gussie it up and shave him. That's the snare drum sound I want.

Oh my God, man. So he talks in analogies like that and Gordon understands them. Dude, I imagine being anyone other than Gordon and Julian saying shit like that. And you're like, what the fuck are you talk? I don't know what you want for me. Right. Yeah, dude, it's a perfect pairing. No, and I've got another quote from Gordon in this interview that he did.

And the way he put it, for is this it, they did it live, they made a mess of it, they had some fun, and they let the energy come out. So they recorded it live. And that's, dude, that just goes back to how amazing these guys are, how talented they are. Despite how simple it is, you know, like you said, for us being in our early teens, just picking up a pair of sticks and picking up a guitar, for us, it was great to be able to play along with these songs. Yeah. And that's part of what that garage rock sound is. Just back to the basics. That's literally what it means. It's anybody can pick up a guitar. Yep. That's what it's all about. You know, pick up some sticks. It's a beautiful thing. Let's finish it on that note, dude. It's good to have someone to talk to again, man. I felt like I was losing my mind. I'm back, baby. One of my friends that I work with, she listens to our podcast and she's like, you know, yeah, it was almost like you were turning to Travis and he wasn't. there like in how I was like my delivery you're like hey in the right show you know what I'm saying so as always hop on our website no filler podcast dot com there you can find our show notes and all the other goodies that we've got on there for you all right so I figured for our outro and this is kind of a cop out maybe because it's too easy but we're going to fade us out with some Velvet Underground from my favorite album of theirs, I guess you can call it the banana album or the Andy Warhol

record, the one with a banana on it. So many of these Velvet Underground songs are just dripping with the strokes, you know, like you can really hear the influence more so than just in Julian's vocal delivery, but like in the simplicity of the music and all that. This is part of that psychedalia emergence, I guess, that happened in the 60s. part of, you know, what led to garage rock. So we're going to fade out with their song, I'm Waiting for the Man, from their 1967 album, The Velvet Underground, and Nico.

And until next time, my name is Quentin. My name is Travis. I'll take care.