No Filler Music Podcast - Ep 8: Foals - Antidotes

Episode Date: March 18, 2018

No Filler explores what makes Foals' debut album Antidotes one of the greatest math-rock albums of all time. The angular guitars, complex drums, and punchy, anxious vocals make this album truly unforg...ettable. For more info, check out the shown notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/music-review-foals-antidotes Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Starting point is 00:01:44 The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. In each episode, we'll dive into a little history of the artist and the album of choice with snippets from interviews and concerts as well as music from the album itself. On this week's episode, we're going to dive into Foles, debut album Antidotes that came out in 2008. My name is Quentin.
Starting point is 00:02:15 I got my brother Travis with me. And hey, I think we got some splinn to do, brother. Yeah, I guess so. For anybody who noticed. And by anybody, I think we mean our one listener. I think our one listener we have noticed. We have at least two.
Starting point is 00:02:33 We have at least two listeners. That's good to know. They may have thought, Hmm. Why isn't there a sidetrack up this Wednesday? I'm sure they spent a lot of time concerned. Scratching their head. It probably kept him up all night, dude. Yeah. All night.
Starting point is 00:02:53 Yeah. So here's the deal. We both have day jobs. This is just a hobby of ours. So, yeah, we just want to kind of space out. So what we're going to do is we're going to release one full episode every two weeks. And in between that, we're going to release a sidetrack. So every Sunday, you're going to get something new from us. It's going to be full episode, sidetrack every Sunday.
Starting point is 00:03:19 Which, I mean, let's get real, man. That's the typical podcast schedule. Very few podcasts put out more than one episode a week. Yeah. So we got a little too ambitious, brother. Yeah. I mean, you know, personally, I just wanted to get a lot of content out there, like from the get-go, you know? Yeah, yeah, and hey, we succeeded, man. Yeah, we got 10 episodes out, or, you know, about 10 episodes out. And now it's just going to be once a week. Yeah, yeah. So today we are talking about Foles.
Starting point is 00:03:54 And let's just briefly, just do a little brief discussion about what kind of music they bring to the table before we dive into our watch it hurts. Foles is a math rock band. What does that mean to you, Travis? Well, I think... What's the easiest way to define math rock? I would say what makes it stand out from punk rock or...
Starting point is 00:04:24 I associate Foles with like a punk math rock band. So like I try to think about like what makes Foles different from other punk rock bands is it's the complexity of the guitar and the drum sections of the band you know what I mean and like yeah especially it's it's it's usually more than one guitar doing something uh like in in tandem with each with one another you know I mean yeah the guitar players specifically well in full's specifically. I really don't know about other math rock bands because honestly, I don't listen to Math Rock. Well, so I pulled up a random Spotify Math Rock playlist. And I will say that like Foles
Starting point is 00:05:13 definitely, uh, stands out. Um, okay. There's definitely the, the complex guitar rhythms you're going to hear in every Math Rock band. But like I said earlier, Foles comes out of from like a, like a more like intense like vocals and like they've, they've got the spirit of a punk rock band but they they they come out of it from like a math rock approach yeah yeah it's it's really it's really complex stuff let's just say that like you got to you got to know your your music theory yeah even though they even though they even though they claim that they don't know um what notes they're playing and whatnot just like the keys of convenience where they're like oh we never learned how to we don't know music we just are right really just had a handful of
Starting point is 00:06:02 lessons or whatever. Right. Yeah. So let's do our weekly segment, or I guess this is biweekly now, huh? Let's do our biweekly segment on what we've been listening to lately. So I'll admit it. I didn't bring what you heard to the table tonight. For some reason, it's the last thing I think about, dude, when I'm getting ready for our episodes.
Starting point is 00:06:30 I'll be honest. a band that I would listen to a couple weeks back. Oh my God, dude. Listen. At least I'm being honest, dude. That's true. So this is a band called Ulrika Spasic. I'd say kind of in the psychedelic rock vein, surprise.
Starting point is 00:06:50 Dude. They've been around since 2014. They are from England. They're an English rock band. And I don't really know. much about them. I just, I just discover them through Spotify just last week. And the song that I'm going to play, so this is going to be what you heard first, brother. Okay. This is a song that they just released it had to be just a couple of days ago, because it just popped up on their Spotify.
Starting point is 00:07:22 I haven't heard it. You haven't heard it. It's brand spankan new. I hope it's good. Let's listen to it together, shall we? So, again, this is a band called Ulrica Spasic, and this is a song called Lord Luck. That turned out very, very well, my friend. Yeah, that was great. It was an excellent song. Yeah, I think the drum and the bass killed it for me, dude. That was great.
Starting point is 00:09:45 Yeah, that was a great drum beat. Excellent. And then the bass coming in. Yeah, and he busted out the tambourine there. That was great. Well, I know that this one, you know, this, this, this pig won't have a direct tie-in or any sort of like tie-in to math rock and Foles. But, you know, since we're talking about how important the drums and the bass can be, dude, Foles was all about the drummer, man. For sure.
Starting point is 00:10:12 The drummer is killer. Yeah, so that is a brand new track from Ulrica Spaceik. It is on their EP suggestive listening. and that's my what you heard, brother. We got to experience that together for the first time. It's pretty exciting. Yeah, you took it to gamble, but paid off. All right, so, Travis, what have you been listening to lately, brother?
Starting point is 00:10:39 Well, I guess this isn't really what I've been listening to lately, but I wanted to play this band because this is probably the second. I don't listen to a lot of my friends. Math Rock, but I listen to Fools and I listen to this group. They are characterized as experimental, but I would say that they align with Mathrock quite a bit. So this is a group called L1011. They are two dudes, a drummer and a guitar player. How long have they been around you?
Starting point is 00:11:15 I feel like they've probably been around for a while now. So they've been together since 2002, so quite a bit. Fuck, man. You know what's crazy? 2002 is a long, it's a long time. But when you just, it's because we're old, dude, we're getting old. 2002 doesn't, right off the bat doesn't sound like it's that long ago. But yeah, that's a long time.
Starting point is 00:11:36 But my first exposure to these guys, and a lot of people's first exposure, I would imagine. Because this, you know, they got a lot of attention from this. they were featured heavily on the soundtrack to this documentary series by this guy named Gary Hustwit. If you've ever seen the Helvetica documentary or Objectified or Urbanized. I've seen both of those with you, brother. Yeah, Objectified is one of my favorite documentaries of all time. It's really cool. Yeah, it's a great documentary.
Starting point is 00:12:15 So Elton 11 lays down the soundtrack for that. Well, yeah, there's L1011 music on the soundtrack. I wouldn't say, like, it's not like L-10-11 compose this music for these documentaries, right? Gotcha. But that was my first time I heard in L-10-11 track. I know you've done this before, too, Q, but, you know, you go to the credits and you wait until the songs are mentioned. I mean, I could have just Googled it, but, you know, whatever. So what's cool about these guys, Christian Dunn is the,
Starting point is 00:12:49 instrumentalist, I guess you should say. And Tim Fogarty is the drummer. So Christian is sort of known for, basically he plays a guitar bass, double neck guitar, and he will loop over himself. Like, that's basically what these songs are. It's one guy, but he's looping over himself. And I think the drummer loops himself as well. Like, you know, that's kind of how they, basically it's two guys. who are pulling off these really complex songs by looping and electronic drumming and effect pedals and all that kind of stuff. So anyway, let's just listen to the pick here. So this song is called Transitions and it is the title track from their 2012 album transitions. All right, so not much to it, right, as far as like, this is why it's, such perfect music for documentaries.
Starting point is 00:15:23 It's very sort of... It's repetitive. Well, it's repetitive, sure. But, I mean, you know, that's kind of the nature of... He does a lot of finger tapping. It's, yeah, it's really... Really cool to see him pull that off live. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:15:42 Because, you know, he's kind of hopping around, tapping on all of these foot, these foot pedals, you know what I mean? To set the loop and all that stuff. So on that recording, those sounded like electronic drums. They probably were, yeah. No, yeah. Yeah. He's got a pretty elaborate setup, you know, because he's going from an actual drum kit to,
Starting point is 00:16:04 I think he's got like pads and stuff. I don't remember it was so long ago. Yeah. That we saw them. But yeah, I'm sure he's got a drum pad set up somewhere with his kit. That way he can turn those loops on and stuff. But I like it. I like it.
Starting point is 00:16:20 And so, you know, you're hearing a bass line as well. So he's, you know, he's got a double neck bass and guitar. So he's doing the baseline and looping it and then, you know, so it's really cool. But what makes it math rock, I guess, is that it's sort of that angular guitar, right? And, you know, you can, you'll definitely hear that style, I guess, of guitar playing in the full sclips that we play. I just personally I think that the Foles guys do it
Starting point is 00:16:53 better than most. Especially after you know kind of skipping around a math rock playlist today I can say a lot of bands sound more along the like the L1011 vein of like that more kind of like
Starting point is 00:17:10 I hate to say the word upbeat my friend because that's one of the only words I use to describe music but when you listen to Foles they, like I said, they're more of a they're like a punk rock math rock band you know what I mean? And like Math Rock
Starting point is 00:17:26 kind of found its way into some emo stuff as well in the early O's. So that style of like guitar playing sort of has gone around you know I mean but Foles does something different with it I think than most bands do
Starting point is 00:17:42 so let's dive into it brother and I think Hey, let's start off with something that I know you. Okay, well, actually, let's read off the roster real quick. Okay. So we've got Janice Filipakis, and forgive us, we don't know for sure if this is how to pronounce these names. We're just going to fucking roll with it. Janus Philopacus is on vocals.
Starting point is 00:18:07 He's lead vocals, lead guitar. We've got Edwin Congreve plays keyboards. Walter Gervers plays bass. Jimmy Smith plays, I guess, rhythm guitar. I don't know. They may go back and forth as far as lead, depending on the song. And Jack Bevin, one of my favorite drummers of all time. So Travis, tell me a little bit more about Iana,
Starting point is 00:18:30 something that you read about him that I thought was pretty interesting. So he's Greek, right? And he grew up on this island called Carpathos. And sort of like he talks about some of his early memory of music is watching his father and other local men from the island perform a traditional Greek ritual that is called mandinades and again probably pronouncing that wrong but basically it's recounting the history of their village by improvising songs in iambic pentameter and iambic pentameter is a
Starting point is 00:19:15 line of verse with five metrical feet, each consisting of one short or unstressed syllable, followed by one long or stressed syllable. And I guess we can get to this when we play two steps. But it's kind of, you know, you can definitely see how this played into, like, his approach to songwriting, you know what I mean? But we'll save that for when we get to that song, because I think it has a definite tie-in to that little story there. but yeah so so it's interesting because you know he goes on to say that you know a lot of indie bands
Starting point is 00:19:49 at the time that they were that they were kind of up and coming uh would have been listening to or brought up listening to you know british punk rock bands like the jam or something like that whereas he and some of the other bandmates were brought up listening to you know that kind of uh folk music or world music and then getting into the post-rock stuff after that so like it all kind of goes into like what makes particularly what makes yonis interesting uh it's like that background you know yeah and so uh members of foals all met in different ways some of them through school uh they all grew up or went to school in oxford um a few of them have known each other since around age 14 15 and we won't get into too much here but they were a few of them were
Starting point is 00:20:41 and other bands together. I have a little clip I want to play. It kind of talks about the music scene in Oxford at the time. I guess there were quite a few bands in this genre in Oxford, the Mathrock scene. And this clip kind of talks about, so it's Yanna speaking. It kind of talks about, I guess, what they wanted to do differently with Mathrock, you know, like the origins of Mathrock. rock and kind of how they approached it a little bit differently.
Starting point is 00:21:14 So this is a clip from, I guess, a radio. It was a radio interview that they did at a music festival back in 2008. In Oxford, like, the kind of, the kind of scene that we were part of became kind of, it became quite self-absorbed in many ways. And like the, often the fun in making, like, technical, you know, being in a technical band, like, or a math rock band or whatever is, it's, it's, the challenge of trying to create something that is difficult and it becomes boring and so now the challenge. I just, I enjoy trying to write hooks and trying to write stuff that communicates. To me,
Starting point is 00:21:53 there's more of a challenge and trying to write something that is accessible than something that only a few like beard-stroking elitists will like, you know? So, Travis, when you listened to this Math Rock playlist, did you get that kind of vibe where a little, a little bit of a little lot of the music kind of seemed more for beard stroking elitists. I mean, that's a good way to put it. Like, was it approachable songs for the most part? I mean, yeah. I don't think it was kind of, as he said, like, boring.
Starting point is 00:22:28 Like, I guess the bands that made, made its way under this playlist in particular were more, they weren't like strictly math rock, you know what I mean? Sounds like, I guess the band that the, the, that they came from was to Edmund Fitzgerald, right? Mm-hmm. The band that the Foles guys were in. A bit heavier. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:22:49 These are like your six, seven plus minute songs. Yeah, it was more... Very complex. Right. Like, that's what they were going for, right? Right. Versus kind of like I said earlier, like the math rock style of guitar playing
Starting point is 00:23:04 sort of found its way into a bunch of different genres. So I think that's maybe why, if you listen to a math rock playlist, you're going to get a wide range of like singing and songwriting styles, but they're all going to have that more complex guitar playing. So, but yeah, you know, I think that's kind of what makes it interesting is that because they were in this other group together and they were trying, they were approaching it like seriously
Starting point is 00:23:33 and like trying to make more serious math rock, it caused Janus to like grow bored with that type of math rock and so they wanted to do something different with Foles which you know probably is why Foles is so like interesting because like he didn't want to do like the boring math rock like really super like serious type type math rock he wanted to still do like the really like technical stuff but like do the spin on it. Yeah he said it felt too pretentious. and he wanted to shy away from that. Let's go ahead and play the first clip, shall we?
Starting point is 00:24:13 Yeah, no, that's good, yeah. So what's our first one? French Open. Yeah, the French Open. So this is the opening track on the album. And yeah, it does kind of, it is kind of like what we said about Tyco with the first track that we played on that episode. If there was a Foles 101 course that you could take at a college,
Starting point is 00:24:37 this would be the song that they play, you know, get familiar with this sound. This is Foles. It's a great intro to Foles because there's a good portion of it that's like instrumental, like the opening minute or whatever, is this buildup. You get to hear the angular guitar, how they do it, like right off the bat. So let's get into it. Yeah, cool. So this is track one off of antidotes.
Starting point is 00:25:02 It is called French Open. What more do you need to hear? That's such a great intro for an album, dude. Yeah, and like, you know, I think what sets them apart is Janus as a vocalist. You know what I mean? Like, he is so unique. So this is a, okay, I'm going to read two different. Actually, no, it's the same.
Starting point is 00:26:36 There's one quote from, a BBC sound article that came out in December of 2007, that I think sums up the Foles sound perfectly. Different but familiar. The Foles sound mixes intelligent, angular guitars with fluorescent dance beats, all laced with impassioned, impatient vocals. That's perfect. That's a perfect way to sum them up.
Starting point is 00:27:06 Back in 2007, before this even came out, That is, you know, it's all about his, like, his impassioned and impatient vocals. You know what I mean? That's really the perfect way to describe the way he sings, you know. Impatient, that's a great way to put it. Yeah. That quote that I read in regards to Kings of Leon kind of comes to mind when you hear Janus sing. He's singing like there's a loaded gun to his head, you know?
Starting point is 00:27:36 It's like he's got a really, really important. message that he's trying to get across, you know? I think what's interesting about Janus is that, like, a lot of times if you go see a band live, you know, you might hear the vocalist, you know, as they're getting into it and like really, you know, yelling and it might not sound like the recording, right? But what's interesting about Janus is that like, on the recording, it sounds like, it sounds like a live show, you know what I mean? Like he's where he's just kind of yelling, his voice might crack, you know, it might be imperfect,
Starting point is 00:28:06 but like that's what makes it so like so interesting you know and kind of like what I was saying more of like a punk rock vibe you know yeah yeah and let's talk about the horns dude um so yes backtrack a little bit um foals flew into new york in the summer of 2007 to start recording this album. And their producer was Dave Cetech, who plays in the band TV on the radio. And he brought his own ideas to their approach. It was Citech's idea to bring in the horns. The horn section, which is actually members of the band Antiballas. I don't know how to say that. Yeah, they're an Afro-Funk. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:29:02 Afro beat group called Andy Ballas. Yeah, yeah. And so the story is right that they kind of were unsure and kind of fought them on it a little bit. Yeah, yeah. So he, yeah. So again, Dave brought in the horns. I don't know if he wrote the horn section or for the members of that band wrote it for these songs. But if you listen to EPs, you know, in singles of songs that,
Starting point is 00:29:30 showed up on antidotes that were recorded by foals themselves the horns are not in there and again dave setek decided to throw these horns in which for me i love the horns in this album and when i first listened to this album i didn't know you know i didn't have this knowledge um as far as i knew the horns they these were members of foals themselves you know i love the horns i think i think it adds a whole other level of complexity to the songs. But... Yeah, I agree with you on the horns, man. I mean, they really bring something unique to this album, you know?
Starting point is 00:30:13 And... Yeah, yeah, but... So keyboardist Edwin Congreve of Foles was a little bit concerned about what he saw. You know, he viewed it as a whole new direction. Like, CETAC took our sound and kind of drove us. in a new direction. And he was worried about already established fans of Foles, you know, that kind of got into them through their early singles. He was worried that they would hear the, you know, polished up new album and hear these horns and think of them as something cheesy.
Starting point is 00:30:53 I mean, yeah, I'm glad that they kept it in. That's all, you know, that's all I got to say, really. Yeah. And I'm sure they, I'm sure they, they don't regret it, you know, because it's just so, it's just so unique, man. You don't hear, you don't hear horns very often. No. No. And so one other thing, one last thing to say about having producer Dave Seetech, apparently Cetech sent him his final mix of the album.
Starting point is 00:31:23 They listened to it and they really didn't like it. the way they put it they said it sounded like it was recorded in the Grand Canyon so I guess lots of reverb
Starting point is 00:31:36 just to sound that they didn't like so they ended up mixing it themselves at the end so everything that CETC did they pretty much trashed it I mean dude that means they could have easily ditched
Starting point is 00:31:49 the horns you know yeah but they kept it in and I'm really really glad that they that they did because, I mean, French opens one thing. You know, the horns are pretty out there on that song, but you listen to the rest of the album and you really don't notice the horns.
Starting point is 00:32:07 It's just another layer, you know, it just adds, like I said, it just adds that touch of complexity that makes this album stand out so much. It makes it an album that I revisit multiple times a year, and I've been doing it since around 2008 when it came out. I listen to this album every year. It never gets old. I love it. Let's jump into the next clip.
Starting point is 00:32:34 Yeah, so the next pick is... Is it two steps twice? Yeah, I think it's two steps, yeah. This might be my favorite song on the album, dude. It's hard to say. Yeah. But, man, this one, whew. Let's just...
Starting point is 00:32:49 All right, let's just play clip one, man. So two steps twice. Clip one, this is the beginning of the song. Yeah, here it is Their music just like It envelopes you You know It gets your hair standing up on it
Starting point is 00:34:11 You know Yeah like It just tickles all the right bones man Yeah no It gets the adrenaline going man But yeah Dude this song in particular Really showcases Jack
Starting point is 00:34:24 As a drummer Oh Holy crap Especially and like this song Is all about the build up And what's great about this song is that they just like that clip we we played was a buildup right and then right it and then you know right as it was fading out it it it kind of pulls away again and yeah but this one has dude a lot of songs have one
Starting point is 00:34:46 buildup the song has two buildups you know I mean right that was the first buildup and you know what's great and yeah so we'll go right into clip two um because clip two is almost right where we faded out at clip one which is silly we just I mean we can't play the whole song but yeah Yeah, it is two buildups, and it's almost, it's back to back. It really is back to back buildups, which is weird to say. But they do it. They pull it off. Let's just play clip two, dude.
Starting point is 00:35:17 Let's do it, man. Goosebumpleys, man. Goosebum, please. And so when we saw them perform, it was a while ago now. I mean, I think it was right after, maybe after Holy Fire came out. there is dude there is a clip from the show that we saw um really yeah yeah he's he's climbing up on the on the on the on the speakers you know yeah he does that shit a lot um i i think to this day they still close with that song yeah i think that's their that's their closer man um and when you hear it live dude he's just i mean
Starting point is 00:36:55 he is screaming yeah uh by the time that that that by that part of the song he's just i mean he's he's he's He's lost it, dude. His voice is gone. He's just, yeah. They go all out for that. Well, yeah. Again, man, the drumming is ridiculous in that song. It's unbelievable.
Starting point is 00:37:16 Yeah. What is he doing, man? I mean, there's just something. Just really unique. So here's the deal, man. You got to have a drummer that is bringing complex drum beats to the music. You got to have a bass player that's doing the same. Well, the bass player has to keep up with the drummer.
Starting point is 00:37:34 Right. He has to be able to keep up. He or she. Right, because the bass player and the drummer always play hand in hand. Right, exactly. So, I mean, in order to keep up with Jack, you've got to be a really good bass player. And the thing about Mathrock is a lot of times, like you said, the bass and the drummer, base player and the drummer are playing in tandem.
Starting point is 00:37:56 They're playing with each other. With Mathrock, the guitar player, the key. boardist, like every instrument is playing off each other in the same way. You know what I mean? And that's kind of what's interesting about to tie back to my what you heard pick. With L1011, he's doing the same thing, but he's doing it by looping over himself. You know what I mean? Yeah, which is really cool. Yeah. Right. And, you know, a lot of the, a lot of the guitar, and this is kind of what the, going back to the BBC quote, that it's angular guitars. It's a lot of like staccato, like single note picking, you know, but it's done, you know, very, very, you know,
Starting point is 00:38:31 kind of staccato quickly, complex, angular guitar rhythms. And I think that song, again, you know, we kind of said earlier that French Open was a good intro song to Foles, but two steps twice, I think is like a good, like, overall, like showcase of like what these guys do really well, you know. Two Steps Twice is the song that I play if I'm trying to get someone into Foles. Yeah, because. Or math rock, you know. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:39:00 Yeah, here, just listen to Two Steps Twice by Foles. Right, exactly. It's got everything. So our last pick from this album is track 9. It comes right after Two Steps Twice on the album. The full title is Big Big Love, Parentheses, Figure 2. This song has a different vibe for sure than the other two, which is good, because... Which is why we picked it.
Starting point is 00:39:26 It's a great song on its own, but it was... I think it's a good song to play to kind of show their range what they're capable of, especially if you listen to Foll's post antidotes. Actually, you know what? This is a good of time as any. I've got one other really good clip to play from Janus being interviewed in 2013 on BBC radio station. So this would have been... This would have been after their third studio album, Holy Fire.
Starting point is 00:40:05 So this is just a clip. You know, he's kind of talking about kind of how they've changed as a band since Antidotes. I really like what he says here. So, yeah, again, here's that clip from BBC. How much do you think you've changed since Antidotes as a band and as people? A lot, I think. I think it was bound to be like that because antithodes, we were like, 19, 20 years old when we were making antidotes and we're like 40 now.
Starting point is 00:40:35 So it's like, yeah. You won't be laughing when you actually are 40, but go on. I don't know, just we're definitely different. I think the band, I think, and people that are in bands as well understand that there's a kind of, it's just a kind of, you're endlessly changing and your desires and what you want to achieve with your band, endlessly change. But then you happen to put out record. put out records sort of every two years. So they're kind of these strange snapshots.
Starting point is 00:41:03 It's like putting out a photo of yourself every two years, but nobody sees you like on all your like days in between. Yeah, yeah. I think that's the best description of how bands change that I've ever heard. I agree. Like it's the best way of looking at it because, you know, as fans, like he said, like we never see the in between. You know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:41:25 We only hear the album to put out. No. Every album is a photo. It's a snapshot, yeah. And so like... Yeah, and you don't see them every day in between. It's like... Yeah, fans get upset all the time when like their band sounds different, you know what I mean?
Starting point is 00:41:39 Yeah, and we've talked about this at length. If you go back and listen to our, what was that, our third? Our third episode on Kings of Leon. I'm sorry. Yeah, on Kings of Leon. That's true, yeah. Same thing, man. And it's, and yeah, he's totally right.
Starting point is 00:41:54 Like, yeah, we're changing. It's, you know, it's been two or three years since. our last album we're constantly changing you're just only seeing you know it's like it's like seeing a photo of a friend of yours uh you know i'm seeing from high school or something and and and then you see them a couple years later and you're like what your hair doesn't look the same as it did in this photograph what the fuck and it would be silly to be like confused by that you know what i mean right right i don't understand why you don't look exactly the same as you did yeah so so again if If you listen to albums of theirs that came out after Angeidotes, what they've been doing now, you know, since then, each one is slightly different, really.
Starting point is 00:42:39 But, yeah, so I think Big Big Love is a good example of kind of like you were saying. It's like it kind of shows their range. Yeah. Kind of what they're capable of. So again, here is, we've got a couple clips you're going to share. Here is the first one from, again, track nine. the song is called Big Big Love Parantheses figure two
Starting point is 00:43:02 It's just all about The guitar work and the drums really I mean the bass player too And that's the thing And I guess we didn't really Tie it back to His upbringing earlier But you know
Starting point is 00:44:55 His lyrics are never really that Complicated you know Especially like What he's actually singing about, you know what I mean? A lot of times it's very simple, you know, one or two lines kind of repeated almost sometimes. Yeah, his voice is pretty much just another instrument, you know, it's just another way to add a different type of rhythm to the sound. Yeah, yeah. And, yeah, they go back to his upbringing, you know, the Greek growing up on this Greek island where he would
Starting point is 00:45:25 watch his, his dad performed these dancing, these dance rituals with other men from the village. where they were seeing an iambic pentameter, it's kind of the same thing, you know what I mean? Like, you know, he's using his vocals in a way, kind of like you said, to add another rhythm to the math rock like equation, you know? Yeah, I would have loved to be a fly on the wall, you know, doing those rituals.
Starting point is 00:45:56 I would have loved to hear that. Let's play clip number two, shall we? Snow! Electric Sharks! Oh, electric sharks, no Oh, electric sharks, no? Is that what you're saying? Electric shocks, maybe?
Starting point is 00:46:53 Shock. But like I said, like we said, like, the lyrics are never, it's never about the lyrics. They're not profound. No. But that's not the point. You know, the very first song that we played French Open, he's literally repeating a slogan from, I think, like a tennis.
Starting point is 00:47:13 sportswear company a French slogan or something yeah yeah so again it's like he his lyrics are not about the meaning necessarily they're right it's not necessarily about
Starting point is 00:47:25 what he's saying it's about how the rhythm adds what how it adds to this song right which is fucking cool man yeah so I love that guitar line that you know
Starting point is 00:47:40 the guitar part that's happening in that second clip. Holy shit. So cool. Yeah, it is cool. And same with the drums. Like he just, you know, jumps over to the, to his tombs, basically. It's just a like a rolling thunder kind of sound. Yeah, sure, yeah, yeah. So, yeah, that's our picks for Antidotes, Foll's 2008 debut full-length album.
Starting point is 00:48:05 Easily one of my favorite albums, top 10 on, you know, that album's going to be a on my top 10 list until the end of time probably. Yeah, I would agree with you on that. I think something worth mentioning here is that, you know, with no failure, we try not have to play singles, you know, within the episode, the tracks that we cover. The singles on this album are, it's essentially the bulk of the first half of the album. and there are some killer tracks that are singles. They released four singles on this album.
Starting point is 00:48:45 So it is worth going and listening to this album from start to finish. This is one of the, this is one of those albums that really is no filler. You know, it's all good. You really have to, and you really have to listen to it from start to finish because, you know, the French Open, the first track that we played is track one, and it spills like so beautifully into Cassius, which is like their big single. like it's just this album flows really well together you know and you really have to give it a full listen to really appreciate uh folds you know i think like you said the last the last track that we played
Starting point is 00:49:22 kind of showed showed their range you know because the first two tracks were kind of similar but if you listen to the album as a whole like there's a lot of different sounds happening you know but it's all kind of wrapped in the like in the folds you know the foles you know the foles rapper you know. Yeah, so that's our take on Foles and their debut album Antidotes. And again, be sure to check us out.
Starting point is 00:49:47 Just jump onto our website, no filler podcast.com. It's got pretty much everything that you need to know about us on there. You can subscribe to us on iTunes. We've got a link to that on our website. We've got our SoundCloud player if you want to
Starting point is 00:50:03 listen to us on SoundCloud. We've got our show notes on there. We've got our monthly playlists as well. Yeah, just hop over there and check it out. And be sure to subscribe and comment on iTunes. That helps us climb the charts. You know what I mean? Yeah, give us a rating and give us a review.
Starting point is 00:50:27 Even if it's a bad one, I mean, we want to hear your review. Yeah, we want to know. And we do have an email set up too, and we have a, I guess, an email form. that you can post it right from the website. So if you think that we suck, let us know about it, send us an email. Tell us why we suck, and then maybe we can improve on the suckiness. But we'll never know if you don't send us an email. We want to hear from you.
Starting point is 00:50:58 We want to know that people are listening, you know. So our outro for this week is going to be a song from an artist. that Janice was really into back in 2008, Arthur Russell, who was an American cellist, composer, producer, singer, and musician, who, according to Wikipedia, found success in downtown New York's avant-garde and disco scenes in the 1970s and 1980s. And I don't know about you, Travis, but I had never heard of, of Arthur Russell before looking into this.
Starting point is 00:51:41 No, I don't think I have. And I, you know, even yesterday, too, I was listening to quite a bit of his albums. Really, really interesting stuff. He died, he died from AIDS in 1992. And they were a lot of uncovered tapes, some unreliable. released tapes, just countless, countless hours of music that Russell had never released properly, that were uncovered, and there's been a lot of compilation albums that have been released. And, I mean, if you, if the only thing you take away from, from this episode is,
Starting point is 00:52:28 you know, that, that we got Arthur Russell to, to reach your earbuds, I'm cool with that, because it's really unique and I think I think he's his music is definitely needs to be heard he is a cellist but he doesn't really use that too heavily in his music it's a lot of it's very beat driven the song that I chose is called this is how we walk on the moon and if you are a Jose Gonzalez fan he actually covered this song on a a benefit compilation called Red Hot Plus Rio 2. It was released back in June of 2011 by the nonprofit Red Hot organization, which raises money and awareness to fight against AIDS.
Starting point is 00:53:25 So it's a compilation cover album, a lot of great artists on it, one of them being Jose Gonzalez covering Arthur Russell's. This is how we walk on the moon. So anyways, I'm going to let this song play us out, and it's just going to play to the end of the track. All right, so that's going to do it for us this week. Thanks so much for tuning in. My name's Quentin, and I'm Travis, and thanks so much for listening.
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