No Filler Music Podcast - Ethan Durelle - White Knuckles On Turned Wheels (with special guest Joel Fruth)

Episode Date: July 13, 2020

If you were a teenager in the 2000s and grew up near Dallas, TX, you probably went to your fair share of live music in Deep Ellum like we did. On this week's episode, we chat with the former General Manager and part owner of The Door and The Prophet Bar, Joel Fruth. He's got some first hand stories to share about the one and only Ethan Durelle, the underrated and extremely talented post-punk indie outfit from Waco, TX. Their debut record, White Knuckles On Turned Wheels, and the sound they cultivated can best be described, as Joel puts it: "Radiohead and Death Cab for Cutie were married, and then Death Cab divorced Radiohead and married Incubus." What more could possibly be said beyond that? Tracklist: Ethan Durelle - I Get Shot In Every Film I'm In Ethan Durelle - Accidental Killers Ethan Durelle - Marionette Pinegrove - Old Friends Day Rhythm, Thanya Iyer - Honest Echo JUNE OF 44 - Cut Your Face Holy Fiction - Iron Eyes This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The meeting will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-8665-3-3-1-2-60 or visit comex Ontario.ca. 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. This episode is brought to you by Peloton.

A new era of fitness is here. Introducing the new Peloton Cross Training Tread Plus, powered by Peloton IQ, built for breakthroughs with personalized workout plans, real-time insights, and endless ways to move. Lift with confidence. while Peloton IQ counts reps, corrects form, and tracks your progress.

Let yourself run, lift, flow, and go. Explore the new Peloton Cross-training Treadplus at OnePeloton.ca. 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. I've got my brother Travis with me as always, and Travis we've got ourselves a guest today. I am so stoked. This is kind of out of the blue, but we managed to get a guest from our past to join us today to talk about a band called Ethan Durel, some good old boys from Waco, Texas.

And we've got Joel Fruth with us today, who was the sound guy at the door, among other things, back in the early 2000s, and he helped record. my band from high schools there are two little albums that we released way back in the day Jill you were all over that stuff back then

how are you sir? Yeah man that was I'm great man thanks for having me on that was a really really fun time back at the old door building and recording bands street level and just live to tape and stuff it was fun

oh yeah that was a blast so I want to ask you some questions here about the about so when I think of Deep Ellum, that area in Dallas in the early 2000s, that to me is the glory days of Deep Ellum, but that's because I was the perfect age for going down to music venues. You were part of the door. That was an all-ages venue.

So that to me was like the place to be. How long were you a part of the music scene in Deep Ellum? Because I know it stretches back to the 80s at least, right? Yeah. So the owner of the door, Russell Hobbs, he created the first. real sort of artistic venues in that part of town called Deep Ellum. He had the theater gallery in 84, and then in 85 caddy corner to the theater gallery, he opened the profit bar, the original profit bar.

And those ran, the theater gallery ran into like 1991 or so. And profit bar closed in 92, I believe. Yeah, and then the door opened May, 9. 1998, and that's when I started working for the door. And I did that all the way up until early 2013, about May 2013, so about 15 years straight. That's awesome. Yeah, we saw a ton of shows at the door. Yeah, I mean, I wasn't invited to be in your little band back then, Q, so I never got to meet this fella.

But, yeah, I mean, I just remember, you know, because I went to a ton of y'all's shows and stuff. I'm trying to think of bands that I saw like separately from from your band, Q, at the door. I mean, I must have seen I must have seen some. I just can't think of any. But yeah, I mean, just that era for us,

because Q, you know, we were the perfect age for that kind of stuff. And like you said, it was an all age venue, so it was even more perfect. But yeah, I mean, that's just like when you, like everybody remembers their first, you know, time they went to a venue downtown. It's a rock band.

There's just so many great memories tied up in all of those moments. So, yeah, Joel, you were definitely part of that fabric of DeBellum for us, you know. Right on, right on. Yeah, I think you guys had like a really cool, your age at that time, the music that you were coming up with that was happening at the door, all of that music was new to everybody, and it was new to you. And it was like this really organic thing. You know, it's like we had Dashboard Confessional open up for Newfound Glory on a Thursday night.

And there was 60. Oh, man. And then like a year or two late, that was 2001, a year or two later, I mean, we couldn't get either band. Like we had, last time we had Dashboard was in 03 and it was sold out months in advance before they were on Spider-Man soundtrack. Yeah. Taking back Sunday, Newfound Glory, get up kids. so many, you know, further seems forever was, you know, kind of the precursor to all that, a bunch of tooth and nail bands that blew up.

So, um, under oath, you know, or they were anybody. Let me ask you this. Um, so that's like, okay, so we've, we've sort of dipped our toes in the history of, of emo on this podcast. Uh, we did an episode on, on Jimmy World's Clarity. And, you know, we sort of dug into like all these waves, right? there's first wave emo, second wave emo, third wave emo, I think is happening right now. Or I might be wrong, there might be a fourth wave. But I'm pretty sure Jimmy E World was second wave.

And then they ushered in all of the popularity of like dashboard and all those bands that you just talked about. And it kind of started with Jimmy and some of those like Midwest Midwestern emo bands and stuff like that. Were you into like the earlier emo scenes like the first wave emo like in the 80s? No. I grew up super Flanders Christian kids, so I only listened to, it's no joke. I was only allowed to listen to Christian music until I was about starting college. I started venturing out, listening to other music. You know, there was always what was on the radio and, you know, like stuff that's shoved in your face that you can't not hear.

Yeah. But like going out and finding bands that I liked and exploring things that weren't centered around Jesus, which is, there's tons of good Christian music and Christian bands and stuff, but back then it was all, you know, it happens today too. Christian bands copycat the world a lot. Oh, yeah. So speaking of Christian bands, Joel, we just happen to be covering Christian music the last few weeks, actually. We've done Emery, Me Without You. Well, that's the thing.

And that's what we kept asking ourselves. It's like, are these really Christian bands? because they're on a Christian label because they weren't really singing about they weren't they weren't singing worship music or anything right this was like like when I was saying it's emery may was technically is sometimes classified as a Christian band I know me without you like explicitly sings about spiritual stuff and things like that but like if you didn't know that you you you probably wouldn't think that these were Christian bands right so kind of interesting totally and and I grew up so when I was coming up in you know junior high and high school there was this underground

Christian scene that I was totally into that didn't sound like anybody else. Maybe there was some influence, but I can name me those bands, but first wave emo, all I know is Catherine Wheel, and I couldn't tell you a song by them, you know, I never listened to him. So I was sort of, I guess, on the end of the first wave, second wave emo, which was like, well, we had some local bands, Lewis, and some others that were just dynamite, just blow your face off. You just didn't know what you were listening to. so cool. And then there was like get up kids and there's you know even early death cab is kind of

is yeah. That's something we've been learning too. We've had that conversation over and over again because a lot of times we have to remind ourselves that we actually listen to a lot of emo because I I for the longest time equated emo music with screaming like the screamo like side of emo. So like I always thought well Jimmy World doesn't really do that. I mean if you go back far enough they kind of do on some of their early stuff but like I never would have pegged Jimmy World as an emo band back when I was listening to them, but they were like some of the earliest. Sunny Day Real Estate is kind of like my, that's what I categorize in like the promise ring.

Yes, exactly, the promise ring. We actually, we played some promise ring on our Jimmy World episode, actually. So how many bands did you end up recording at the studio at the door, Joel? That's a good question. I think, you know, there were so many terrible ones. No offense to anybody. It was just a low budget. I did it for fun.

basically. I probably had anywhere from 30 to 40 artists over those few short years come in and do stuff. I had a couple bands repeat. I don't know if you've heard or heard of the Texas gentleman. One of their early outfits was led by Philip Kramer in his band called Any Day. It was like a worship band. We made some killer sounding stuff there because the musicians were just top notch. I mean like recording level guys that are on tour all the time now. But then there was like the band that would walk in with like, you know, a crate amp combo. And you couldn't hear anything but high end coming out of it. You know, you had to coach them through everything.

So you had to try to polish turds. Exactly. I was like, you know, the cool thing, the challenge for me was like trying to get them to do their best and not use autotune and not edit the crap out of everything. and like really had the experience of actually recording, you know, laying it down with a good take instead of chopping it up and, you know, faking it. But then some kid with a laptop in Fort Worth is in his basement, you know, auto tuning and chop. And he was like making these killer records, you know, for half the price. I was like, all right, I'm out.

Man, we can have a whole other episode devoted to that kind of conversation. So, Jill, one thing I will always remember, after you did some of our recordings for us, you know, anytime we'd come back and play the door, you would be the sound guy. And I remember some of our last shows, you would tweak the audio like on my snare drum or something for a certain song so that it would sound like how we did it on the recording,

which I always thought was cool. It made me feel like a rock star, you didn't make me feel like I had my personal audio engineer behind the board for us. That's cool. Yeah. It was awesome, man. Yeah. That's fun.

That's kind of interesting to think about right there. Because, like, how many bands get to have the producer of their record be the sound guy at the venue that they're playing at? That probably doesn't happen. Right. Yeah. Right. Yeah.

It's very rare. Yeah, that's interesting. It's all, you know, I was at the door. You know, I started as a sound guy and move. I was basically general manager, head production, head janitor, you know, whatever. did everything basically wore a thousand hats me and russ it was basically a two-man operation me and russell you know and i was there for 15 years and i did sound almost like 12 years of those and i think maybe three or four times in that you know thousands and thousands of shows that

someone that was involved with the record was actually mixing the live show it's extremely rare very rare yeah yeah that's awesome it was a blast man did you actually live upstairs jill i for for whatever reason i always thought that you lived up there yeah yeah yeah yeah so when when russell opened the door we just had the old room there was no balcony and he lived upstairs in like oh you know just two bare rooms i'm talking like you know it looked like cinder block walls and plywood i mean it was nothing and like one light bulb russell lived up there to to make it work. And he showered at my brother's apartment, like on the other side of town.

Wow. And I was living at home commuting in. And my friend Justin was actually working with Russell and living in the downstairs room. Man. I didn't pay rent or have a house until 2015. I never paid rent in my life. Oh, man. I moved from my parents' house down to the door.

It was part of my compensation package that I had no rent. I had to go shower at my brother's house or at 24-hour fitness. You know? Man. It's funny. And then when we moved to the new building, we had a shower in the green room. So I lived there. That was way, way cooler spot.

But that's for another conversation, I suppose. But yeah, I lived up there. See, like, to me, as like the 15, 16-year-old kid that I was, that to me was like the coolest thing ever. You know what I mean? It was perks on perks, man. It was cool. Joel's the sound guy.

He lives above the venue. How fucking cool is that. All right, so we are covering Ethan Dorell's 2003 album White Knuckles on Turned Wheels. Kind of hard to describe these guys. They're kind of all over the place. Prague rock maybe, some grungy vibes at times.

Yeah, I was actually keeping track of all of it so I listened to the whole album all the way through today for the first time in a long time. And man, today like, they bounce around. from like style to style like usually within the same track you know what i mean it's just so yeah they they do such a good job i mean you really like quentin like you're saying you you really can't put one genre on these guys you know but if i guess if you had to like what would you what would you call these guys gosh i don't know i i just kind of called all that stuff back then

indie rock oh yeah label you throw on it because he didn't know what to what's a like how to peg it you know, but some would say that's emo, like they were emo. Yeah. So I think they fall under that category for the most part. Yeah. How did you stumble across Ethan Drell, Jill? Oh, Lord. I don't know.

You know, bands would just email us and be like, okay, you're booked. Like Russell, his emails would be, okay, you're on. I mean, we'd always misspell your, you know, why you are. And in fact, do you know forever the sickest kids? Oh, that sounds familiar. They're a big band from Dallas, and they started out as two different bands that played the door all the time, Fort Worth bands. And one of them was Good Day Joseph.

They wrote a song called, OK, you're on. That's a song. Just, you know, totally making fun of Russell, but also, you know, praising him at the same time. It was a good song. But, yeah, I was singing about Ethan Derell today and was listening to it also as I was driving back to Dallas. And I'm still kind of.

unfamiliar with the deeper cuts on that record because they're like so different like the later songs in there but i was also waiting i was i was i was pondering this moment in this podcast when you would ask me like like what do they sound like and i kind of figured it out so i'm going to throw it on you radio head and death cab for cutie had a baby but death cab divorced radio head and married incubus And so, like, it was around 10 years old. So, like, 10-year-old Ethan Derell had all this radio head and death cab. And then Incubis came in. And then they started having all these groovy, like, groovy times in their music.

Let me ask you, let me ask you this because it's funny that you said Incubis. Because I remember thinking Incubis on one particular track, on one particular part in the track. And it was 77 steps in that part where it gets kind of. almost like a reggae kind of vibe. Yeah, it gets a little reggae. Yeah, dude. And I was like, Incubis kind of sounds like that. They shuffle the time code, the time signature, sorry, not time code.

They shuffle the time signature a couple times in songs. Yeah. And that made me think that they were kind of math rocky almost. Yeah. Jeff, Jeff Weathers is the drummer. And if you listen to this, to this particular record and the live shows that I have a few live recordings of them, he's just, he's, he's, okay, He's not the best drummer in the world, right?

He's good. And he fits the band, he's creative, but he is way backbeat. So you always feel like the drums are lagging. I don't want to ruin it for anybody. But when you listen to this record next time, you'd be like, okay, come on, Jeff. All right. So that also, but that back beat also adds that vibe where I'm thinking, man, this is like, it's so emo, but so groovy at the same time.

Very, yeah, very groovy. So let's play a song. Let's get some tunes going. So, Jill, we were kind of on the fence with what to play today because we don't want to play. We don't want this episode to be too long. But there's so many songs that we could play. Do you have one in particular that you just would love to share on this episode? On this record, I think, you know, accidental killers.

I see you hovering over it. It's sort of like their, what would you call it? their typical song. What's the word? I mean, it's like, it's like they're radio-friendly. So here's the thing, like, that's the one that we had planned on playing. And then as we kept listening to the record, we were like, well, we should also play this one and this one and that one.

Yeah. But accidental killers, yeah, that is a great one. Yeah, Benioff or Accidental Killers, that's the quintessential. There it's got your name. There you go. It's the quintessential Ethan Derell song. Yeah, no, you're right about that. And then, we might have to play some marionette as well.

Yeah, yeah. But yeah. Sweet, dude. I'm glad that you picked accidental killers because that's one that we had definitely wanted to share. Yeah, so I didn't make a clip for it. Yes, we're just going to play a little bit of it. All right. So here is track three from Ethan Durell's 2003 record White Knuckles on Turned Wheels.

This song is called Accidental Killers. you love they're not here there and test of time set to scare all the children Yeah man The first time I heard that song It just blew me away

And Joel, I can tell you exactly Where I heard it and when It was Late night Like probably past midnight We had been We had spent the whole day recording at the door and all four of us and you piled into, I think you had like a little tiny sedan at the time.

And we drove to either Wendy's or Waterburger, whatever was open and just got some late night munchies. And you put this song on in your car and just press play and you're gushing over these guys. Maybe it was, God, it could have been 2004, maybe 2005. Oh, yeah. But. Yeah, man. Yeah. And it just blew me away.

It was something that I hadn't really, like I wasn't into that kind of music at the time. So they were kind of like a stepping stone for me, I feel like. Yeah, very different from Jonas Brothers. Well, no, dude, we were so heavy into the strokes back then, man. That was our, that's true. That was our band. Right on, right on. That's a good one to be into.

Interpol and all that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah. Early modest mouse. Yeah, exactly. I mean, I guess that's. the post-punk stuff, right? But yeah, Q, I mean, that's the thing.

It's like, IQ, I don't know when you showed me the band, but I mean, I was introduced to it probably around the same time. You probably showed them to me. And yeah, it's just one of those things where it's like, man, this is fucking really good, man, and it's really different. And it's just so the way that they,

and I think Marionette showcases it the best of how they change, even like you said, the tempos and like how they change, almost seamlessly from like style to style and stuff like that. It's very complex. Yeah. These guys are really good.

Man, we almost said the same thing. What gets me is like, you know, I grew up my brother was a drummer, so I really relate to drum lines and bass lines and stuff. And if you listen, that's a really hard beat to play. Yeah. And he pulled it off live and they always played it perfect live. Oh, and like you were saying, Joel, like that beat does sound like it's kind of dragging on.

Yeah. The whole time. Like it's it's there If you listen closely He's always just a split second behind There's a couple songs where I don't know if they edited it or what I don't think they did

But he's he's spot on On some of the really more difficult drum parts But some of the stuff where he's just into the song He's just a little bit backbeat And I think it adds more charm To the record especially with Yeah The sounds the way they recorded

Like the drum tracks are all the same So they laid down all the drum checks with basically the same micing, same room mics, you know, same compression, all that, except for 77 steps and some other songs later in the record where they dried it up a little. I just like that. I like it when records are sort of raw and they choose a sound and they stick with it through the whole record. Oh, we're with you on that. There's no exception.

Yeah, we're definitely with you on that. Yeah, no, I thought the same thing. And like, I was going to bring this up to what? this is kind of a behind the curtain here but we almost we thought about or you you tried to get the lead singer on the show for us and I was going to ask him like I was going to say hey you know this this record sounds like raw you know what I mean and and not not that's not a negative thing like it's a it's what makes it so great you know what I mean is that like you said that the way that you choose to record the record like it just brings off that that that energy and like the rawness

in like the what's the what's the word maybe some of the aggression in some of the moments like because you know the guy he screams very much like any other emo singer would and he does it in these moments where they just kind of come out of nowhere very exasperated and stuff like that it's just it's fucking great man I can tell you right now Evan Lecker he's the lead singer he there's no auto tune that dude just sings perfect yeah that's the he doesn't

he doesn't go flat or sharp hardly even live like he's perfect I just thought that was so impressed with the band that they could, they pulled it off and then their live shows, I don't know if we're going to get into live shows on here, but their live shows were just so, so great because they nailed it and they were so into it. That's what, that's the few, like,

reviews and interviews that I've read about these guys that I can find online. That's what everyone says is like, this is one of the best bands to see live. I got to catch them in Dallas. probably around this time, Joel. Did they ever play at the door? Yeah, they played at the door 10 or 15 times over like a three or four year period. That must have been where I saw them then.

So you probably remember this too, Joel. They used to do a cover of shout by Tears for Fears and just blew it away. Oh, man. We got to get our hands on a recording of that. Yeah, I have two awesome live recordings. So we multitracked them live and then mixed it down. And we have one that my Padawan, Garth, he was one of my sound guys that he learned for me, but he kind of like surpassed me. He did one from 05 and I have one from 04 when they opened up for Stave's Aker.

They're just, they're so, they're so great. I mean, there's not really much many words I can use for a band that just some kids that went to Baylor. Yeah. And of all places, Waco, Texas, you know? Yeah, so they're, the guys are all from Houston, I think. All of them, yeah, everybody's from Houston. But they all went to Baylor and that's how they, that's how they formed. That's how they were able to even play the door. I mean, they probably wouldn't have drove up from Houston, you know? Yeah, that's awesome. All right, so, Treve, what do you think? You want to just do those three clips of Marionette and then call it a day?

Yeah, yeah. Okay. All right, yeah, so Joel, what we're going to do now? I split Marionette up into three different parts, and we're going to play three different clips for Marionette just to kind of show how all these different parts that they have in these songs. All right, so here is clip number one from track seven called Marionette. Your response time slow down.

Once a week, your colors change. Once in your life does shine. The sergeant, are you not blind? Into my sleeve. Pain it on my forehead. Make my eye sting from it. And starve this poet to death. It's taken to...

It's unreal, man. I know, man. But yeah. Yeah, it's cool stuff. It's, yeah. It's fucking amazing. So, yeah, like, this is when I thought, like, oh, there's some... I reckon.

that sound. It sounds like Midwestern emo stuff. Yeah. And then like that punk, that drumbeat towards the end is total like punk rockish kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, it's cool. Yeah, it's just fucking great, man. I love their guitar lines, the dueling guitar lines. Like, everything they do is just really cool

and original to me. It's just fucking top notch, man. All right, let's keep this train rolling. Here's clip two from Marionette. These sound like jam sessions, you know? like just ideas that they had. Yeah. So good.

Sophisticated garage. Yes. I was going to throw in that transition where it's kind of more like melodic and stuff. Sounds kind of like American football. Did you guys ever get into them? Oh, yeah. Canstinella brothers. I'm just trying to drop as many email references as I can here.

I'm impressed, Travis. I'm impressed. To up my cred here. But yeah, I mean, that's what I'm, that's what I heard. That's where the math rock part of it comes in. To me, that's like, hey, that sounds like math rock to me. And that's another one of those genres that kind of gets thrown around a lot. Yeah.

But that's at least what I think of. Yeah, with the dual guitar kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, and like the drums and stuff. Totally. Yeah, I did. I used to describe them as math, math emo type. Yeah.

Yeah, and like I said, like this is the first band of that in that style that I really got into. And it's definitely shaped the kind of music that I listened to. to now and over the last, you know, 10 years, 15 years. That's cool. This was well before we got into Foles, right? Yeah, I didn't get into Foles until at least 2008 when they dropped antidotes. Yeah, yeah. That's right.

So this is well before that. Yeah. All right, let's do one more clip. This is going to finish up the very end of Marionette. I mean, that's like, that's three songs in one right there, you know? Three distinct movements. So there's, I think. That's the radio head that you're talking about, right?

Yeah, I was just about to say, okay computer. Yeah, I mean, that's the closest he gets to Yorkian vibes. Multiple songs within a song is my reference to radio head there. And some of their weird sounds they get on the other songs where they're just whirr, you know, making weird metal sounds. Oh, yeah, like what is it called, chord? That's on chord. Yeah, yeah. That's got such a sweet intro, man.

Is disruption sharks on this record? no so i actually haven't listened to their other full length this is all i know of ethan derrell okay yeah i think it's a live song it's on the live record only there's a couple of their songs they only did live that i never had on a actual album well if i can find an actual video on it on it because there is some stuff of them live on youtube we can throw it up and and put it on our show notes on our website yeah um so i guess that's all i mean we could just we could keep playing music from this album. But I think Marionette is kind of a good example of just how varied it gets from song to

song and even within one song. I actually wanted to ask you something about that, Joel. So like you're a producer, music producer. It was, yes, but yes. You were a music producer. So like that a song like that isn't going to make it necessarily on a major record label, right? or radio yeah

this band's not you know major label release material you know so on it it lives on the indie record but you know I would that song

even be on an album that they're trying to push you know no obviously not it's it's too it's too all over the place but when you listen to it all together I think it works itself out

yeah yeah absolutely I mean that's what we love about it. So like if you're, it's just, I always think about that because, you know, we've, we've talked about so many bands that started out on small labels, got picked up by a major label, and then just had a completely overhaul, horrible experience with their major label. Yeah. And overall, their sound gets completely hijacked. There's very few bands that continue on with their, with their creative weapons intact, you know, like most of it gets polished up. You know, we got to take these rough edges off you so you can be palatable for, you know, the masses. Yeah, it happens often. Yeah.

I made a reference earlier. I don't know if y'all quite caught it when I said early Modest Mouse instead of later Modest Mouse everyone loves. Right. Right, everybody. But if you listen to early modest mouse, you're like, what the heck is going on right now? Right. Because, I mean, everybody's entry into Modest Mouse was float on, right? I mean, it was for me, at least. Yeah. A lot of great music back then, man. We were in high school at the right time as far as like there's all this great rock music like you know I feel like the

2000s was the last good decade for for rock yeah what say you gentlemen oh I agree 100% dude that's that's a hard one to say because you you were young and formidable you know and I was comparing these bands to bands

I already heard but there was a lot of original cool stuff the thing about the door is we were getting all these bands on like polyvinyl and all small little labels that no one knew and then all the sudden kids would tell us oh you have such and such coming and we'd be like well yeah who are they you know like we didn't know anything about them and then there would be like a thousand kids there you know i remember we had uh we had uh say anything the first time and it was oh yeah i saw them at the door giant show but the next time we had him

it was paramour say anything and me without you the same bill What the heck? Mars Volta's very first tour ever on Halloween night. Oh, dude. Oh, dude. It was a Wednesday, 2001. Oh, man. What's their names opened up?

The Oregon and the husband-wife team. Mates of State in the anniversary and Mars Vulta. Mars Vulta's first tour ever. Like on a Halloween night on a Wednesday. That type of stuff happened at the door all the time. Yeah, that's so awesome. Yeah, we were getting inundated with creative bands that had nowhere to play because regular clubs wouldn't book them.

And we were in with these booking agents. They're like, hey, let's just do this. Let's send you these bands and see what happens. And it was always just monster. Yeah, I guess what I, I wasn't, yeah, I didn't say that it was, it was the last, like, it was the greatest decade for rock. I would just mean like rock post 20, you know, 2010 onward, I feel like there just hasn't been, that you have to search harder to find them, you know what I mean?

I actually, I totally agree. They're out there. They're definitely out there. You just have to find him. Yeah. I was thinking of that today. And I was like, Ethan Durell would,

no one would go see him today because they don't do, they don't have any beats or sequences or, or keyboards or any like, you know, weird shit. It's just rock. You know, it's like,

name me a new rock band that's coming out right now. You're, you're totally right. I mean, we can't even put Tame and Pala in that category anymore, you know? Not anymore. Yeah.

There's always at least one keyboard. That's true. I had this conversation with this band from Chicago called The Kickback. They're really great. And they would come play a show to like five people at the Profit Bar and melt faces. And I've seen them in New Orleans. I've seen them in another state. And it'd be like 10, 20 people.

And they would melt your face. It was so good. And they're like, yeah, we don't have any beats. You know, we don't have any samples. We're a rock band. It's like there's no room for a rock band anymore. It's really sad. Yeah.

Yeah. But no, hey, I'll tell you what, though, man. I'm going to name drop these guys as often as I can. This band called Narrowhead, they're out of Houston. Dude, it gives me so much hope. They're bringing back the grunge sound in a big, bad way. Like, grunge is kind of having a resurgence. You just have to kind of look for it.

But it's almost like shoegaze, the shoegaze sound, the dream pop shoegays sound is sort of almost morphing, like bringing in elements of grunge and stuff. So you just have to look for it. it's out there. That whole doom, they call it doom, you know,

doom metal, yeah. It's kind of like, there's some that's real doomy, but there's some more like shoegaze, like cloak room, you know, or it's just,

or true widow, they're from Dallas, you know, just huge sound. And I think, you know, that's been the undercurrent for a long time.

It should, it should rise to the top pretty soon, you know, like you're saying, I need to hear this narrow head, I think. Oh, you'll love him,

Jill. Dude, listen to the record called Satisfaction. It is unreal, dude. It is so good, man. Well do. It's probably one of my favorite records from the last decade, for sure. All right. Hey, so you guys want to segue into our What You Heard segment?

Yes. Sounds good. So this is where we bring a song to the table. Just something that we heard in between recordings. Joel, how easy is it going to be for you to send me a song right now? we can let you go first. Send you a song. Or unless it's on Spotify.

It's on Spotify. Okay, cool. What is the artist's name? It's a band called Pine Grove, one word. That sounds familiar. Pine Grove, okay. Is this the new single? No, that's the latest release.

But their quintessential songs, that first one. It's called New Friends. Old Friends? Old Friends. excuse me, new friends. Old friends. The B side is called New Friends.

All right, cool. Let's play it. So here's a song from a band called Pine Grove. Yeah, anything else you want to say about it to tee it up or you want to just play it? Well, yeah. So, like, you know, I'm pretty jaded on music. And when I hear something, I latch on to it. These guys have three or four records, audio tree, all kinds of stuff right now.

Just because it's so genuine and raw. I hate using that word genuine. It's so heartfelt. I hate using heartfelt. But it's very genuine. The guy is young. He's totally mental. He's like the youngest,

Ryan, is it Ryan Adams? Yeah, Ryan Adams. It's like Whiskey Town Ryan Adams. This is the new Whiskey Town, Ryan Adams. Without the crazy, crazy, I'm going to fire my whole band. They do have a, they do have a rotating cast of characters that play, but it's the drummer and the guitar, the second, guitar player are always in the band, but they rotate.

And it's just very wordy, like, you know, SAT words, and he makes them work. So that very first song's good. There's another one on there, but Old Friends is good. Let's do it. Awesome. All right. I'm stoked. Here is a song by Pine Grove.

It is track one off their album Cardinal. The song is called Old Friends. Walking outside Labyrinth being over cracks along under the trees. I know this town grounded in a compass, Cardinal landing in the dogwood, I keep going over it over and over, my steps iterate my shame, how come every outcome's such a come down,

lately afternoon with the shades drawn down. Kept saying I just wanted to see it, saying what's wrong with that, needle shaking outlines in a compass, every album such come down at the port of the war I fucking love it man I love that kind of stuff yeah I really like it when to hit hit that groove

you know that reminds me very much I don't remember where Joel have you heard of a band called Marmalakes it sounds familiar dude good good Polk yeah you're right very much it does sound like Marmaladex yeah and I want to say they're from Texas I think they may have been from Denton or around that area I might be off, but yeah.

Well, they're in Austin now. I know that. Okay. It's that kind of folky, almost like vampire weekend, but a little bit more fulky. Well, I mean, the funny thing, I thought, I thought, well, it was between Steely Dan and Vampire Weekend. When you said that, like, they use, like, intellectual words, you know? Yeah. I always, because what's his name, what's his name, Koenig or whatever, the dude from Vampire Weekend.

Yeah, yeah. Didn't they kind of write, like, Oxford comma was that song on their baby record? Right. Right. Most people don't know what the hell you're talking about. Kind of like James Mercer kind of stuff, right? The guy from the Shenz. Yeah. All right, Chav, I'm going to go next here. This is an artist named Thanya Ayer.

She is, honestly, I don't know much about her. I haven't listened to a lot of her stuff, but she's got an album coming out at the end of this month. Travis, I'm going to play this song mostly for you because I know you're going to love it. This is something that she did with a couple other, I think they're just producers. they go by day rhythm and this track is the only one of theirs that pops up

so it's a collaboration with Thanya Iyer Are you gonna tell me why I'm gonna love it or do you want me to just kind of like tell you why I live? Oh you tell me why I do Okay So this is a song that came out in 2019 It is called Honest Echo

Love it Right? Yeah So I'm guessing Quentin that You thought of me because they they sound a lot like, or at least the lead singer sounds a lot like the Mr. twin sister. Yes.

Lead singer, Andrea Estella. Yeah. I felt like this was like a good blend of like Mr. twin sister and like Kings of Convenience, just with like the way that that guy's saying. Yes. I thought that too. Because we're twin brothers. You guys know way more bands than I do.

Well, so okay. Joel, I don't know if you knew this, but Josh, as in Josh of Days old dream, Quentin and myself had a music blog that we ran in like the 2010s, I mean, for about four or five years. And so all these bands from that era we tried to cover. And that's maybe where all of this obscure knowledge comes from. But yeah, that's probably the first. Yeah, that's a guarantee the first time we came across Mr. Twin Sister back when they were called Twin Sister because they opened for, what was that band called Q? My morning, or not my morning.

No, no. Morning benders. Morning benders. I don't remember them because Mr. Twin Sister blew him out of the water. Okay, so again, her name is Thanya Iyer. And that, again, was a collaboration. So her other stuff is a bit more eclectic, maybe not as, like, dancey or groovy. But she's got an album coming out on July 31st called Kind.

And she's got a couple singles that she dropped from that. I'm pretty excited to hear more from her. All right, Chavve, what you got for us? What you've been hurting? All right, man. We're going to bring it on home here. So, Q, as you know, I've been stuck in the 90s for the last few weeks. Yeah, I did.

Just kind of bouncing around from like these more obscure, and I don't know how obscure they were. They may have lots of attention, but these weren't 90s rock bands that had the mainstream attention that the bands that we listened to because that's what we had exposure to, like the Pearl Jams, the Stone Dibble Pilots, the Nirvana, all that stuff. I really enjoy finding these, to me, it's like I'm still. assembling upon them for the first time, but these more obscure bands like Hum, which, you know, they have a huge cold following.

Oh, yeah. Yeah, and they just put out a new record. I don't know if you knew that, Joel. No. But, uh, and then, so the band that I brought a few weeks ago, they were called, um, God damn it, what were they called? Yeah, brother. Uh, shit, dude.

Hold on. I got a save to my, you're going to edit this together to make it sound like I, now, just forget about these. I got to mention one more band. I you know it's rare for me to like a band so if I can throw a name in there just bonus material why oak oh oh I've heard of yeah dude uh I just read their names on somewhere I don't know how I read that name but like I feel like maybe they dude where did I literally just read the name of that band today I don't know if it was a on my Facebook feed or something but they're probably

getting on a TV show or a movie or something because they're they're phenomenal probably probably No, okay, the band I brought a few weeks ago was called Unwound, and I was blown away by them. So anyway, I sum up on this next group in like a similar to Unwound kind of playlist or something like that. Anyway, I'm going to read a sentence from their Spotify bio, because I think it describes them really well. This band is called June of 44, and I'm just going to read this here. they craft loud, dissonant, complex guitar rock as intellectual as it was forceful. And I think that's a good description. So we're going to play a song off of their record, four great points that came out in 1998.

This song is called Cut Your Face. Dude. So I just, I love some of the upon stuff like this because it's like, man, this has been around since 98. I could have been listening to this since 98, you know? And it's like, damn. And then you hear it, it's like, God, where have you been all my life? Right. Anyway, yeah, I'd never heard of these guys ever.

Yeah, I mean, this whole record is kind of like that. It's not as aggressive. This song, I feel like, is the most aggressive on the record. Some of it is instrumental. Some of it's kind of math rocky. But yeah, really good stuff. And surprising. Yeah.

It's such a crazy time to be alive because, you can throw on Spotify radio or Pandora Radio or whatever, and then all of a sudden some band comes across, and you're like, holy crap, this is so sweet. But when I was coming up pre-Napster, pre-internet, it was like, hey, my friend was going to Baylor at the time. He was like, hey, check out Dave Matthews. And I was like, oh, cool.

You know, he used to open up for the samples. My favorite band was the samples, you know, and it was like, oh, this is awesome. And Dave still covers the samples at shows. It's just like, you know, only knew about a band because someone who was cool or check out this cool band you probably don't know them you're not cool enough yeah you know not a big deal the pre hipster like the real hipster you know that knew all these bands yeah that that's when i came up yeah we joke about how like we should

get paid by spotify at this point because that's who we use we use spotify to find to to play all the music and we always we find all these new bands just because because of these algorithms that Spotify has where you can kind of jump down these rabbit holes and listen to like bands that are similar to this band. If you like this band, you'll like this band. And it's just never-ending amounts of music you can find nowadays. It's just too easy.

It's like who does the math at Spotify? Like who does these regressions and all this analysis? Because it's like it's got to be related to like year, right? And then there's like the drumbeat algorithm. and there's like the screaming algorithm and then there's like oh it only has a thousand plays algorithm

yeah really no I mean you might be right because I mean like usually when you when you find like obscure bands like this that don't have much listens under their related artists in Spotify it's usually more obscure bands

that don't have very many listens yeah I feel like we do a lot of obscure on this on this podcast and I mean it depends on the the category of albums that we're covering at the time. But yeah, I feel like we do a lot of obscure stuff.

And it either is or it isn't. I think June of 44 is obscure, but. I never heard of them. I can't believe it. I think Ethan Dorel is obscure, too. Yeah, we're hoping that a lot of people are going to hear Ethan Derell for the first time. Right on. This is cool, man.

I really like what you're doing here. Thank you. We are so stoked that you joined us, man. It's like one of those like full circle moments for me, dude. It's really cool. That's cool, man. I'm glad to be here. I think you have a really cool show.

I'd love to come back sometime. Awesome. Oh, man. We'd love to have you on because Q and I, we like to throw around words and stuff and just hope that it's the right word to use when describing music and stuff. So I feel like we need more, more cred, you know,

sometimes. So, like, yeah, you were able to bring in some good tidbits there, especially with like the knowledge of like recording processes and stuff. Like, I just don't know any of that shit. Well, you know, I'm the worst with vernacular when it comes to music because I always just said indie, you know, indie rock.

Pop rock because I'm like, what are the words to use? And then you read pitchfork and you're like, oh. Pitchfork. Those are the words. We have a love, hate relationship with pitchfork. A pitchfork review always sounds like the person is writing, I don't know, some sort of like a creative writing assignment or something like that. Yeah. Yeah.

It depends on the, dude, back when we had our. music blog in the 2010's pitchfork just wrote the most obnoxious, like, pretentious reviews of stuff. But I feel like they've kind of evened out a little bit. It's not as absurdly like over the top like critique of an album, you know? Well, probably because the writers that were there were like, this place is becoming too mainstream. So they went on to like, you know, the portlandia, you know, music review. that. They wrote scripts for poor landia.

Right. Well, that's it, huh? Tribe, you want to wrap us up? Put a little nice bow on it. So you can find us on no filler podcast.com where you can find all of our show note pages for every episode where we list out all of the tracks that were played on an episode as well as any sources that we cite.

Or in this case, if we have any, like, extra material that we're sharing with you guys, like some of the stuff that Joel is going to send us for Ethan Derell. we'll drop it on the website and you can also find us on the Pantheon podcast network we can find a ton of other great music podcast content and that's it follow us on Twitter at No Filler Podcast if you interact with us on Twitter

we will probably talk about you on the show and that's it so yeah I've got an outro for us okay he's got an outro what's you got so what's his fucking name oh Evan So Evan, Mr. Evan Licker is in, well, apparently he's in quite a few other bands. But he was in a band called Holy Fiction. Yeah, that was right after Ethan Durel. Right after Ethan?

Yep. Yeah. So I just started listening to this stuff today, actually. They have at least two albums. I don't know, they might have more than two, but there's two that are popping up on Spotify. And Spotify, if you're listening, we would love to get paid at this point. We're like, we're penis in them, did. You're like, who?

I hear a mouse talking. That's what they... Yeah, right. Seriously. Just... Okay, so this is kind of a more folky band, but there are definitely those Ethan Derell moments in this record. So this is an album that came out in 2010,

and we're just going to fade us out with the first song from this album called Hours from It. The song is called Iron Eyes. And Joel, once again, thank you so much. for doing this today. We had a blast. We would love to have you back on whenever you are down. Right on.

I totally would love to. This is awesome. Awesome, awesome. All righty, y'all take care. We will shout at you next week. Getting ready for a game means being ready for anything. Like packing a spare stick. I like to be prepared.

That's why I remember 988, Canada's suicide crisis helpline. It's good to know, just in case. Anyone can call or text for free confidential support from a train or spot. any time. 988, Suicide Crisis

Helpline is funded by the government in Canada. It was the night before the gathering and all through the house. The host

rapid cozy cashmere throw from homesense for their spouse, kids toys for $699 under the tree, and crystal

glasses for just $1499 for their brother Lee, a baking dish made in Portugal for Tom and Sue

and a nice $599 candle perfectly priced just for you. Happy Holidays to And to all a good price.

Home Sense. Endless presents perfectly priced.