No Filler Music Podcast - Flickerstick: How the VH1 Reality Champs Spawned Our Love for Live Music and Superfandom

Episode Date: July 27, 2020

To wrap-up our batch of episodes devoted to the albums of our youth, we go back to the origin and talk about one of the first bands we truly connected with. If you caught VH1's reality show Bands On The Run back in 2001, you may remember the crowned champions, Flickerstick. Their drunken antics and overall attitude toward the hoops they were asked to jump through helped them gain a devoted fanbase. That combined with the energy and passion of their live performances gave them the edge they needed to win the contest, and we were there for every second of it. Today we discuss their debut record, Welcoming Home The Astronauts, and how the power of an amazing live performance had such a lasting impact on budding music-lovers who are still talking about it 20 years later. Tracklist: Flickerstick - Smile Flickerstick - Talk Show Host Flickerstick - Execution By Christmas Lights Sister Crayons - Floating Heads Sloan - Penpals Flickerstick - Girls & Pills Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And welcome to this PSA by me, Quentin. I just wanted to give you guys a heads up with the audio quality on this episode. So we used Zincaster to record this episode. We're going to be using this website anytime we have guests on. It allows for really easy remote interviews, and it's pretty great. But there's some kind of weird muffled. parts during some of their recordings. It's something that we really don't have much control over. But otherwise, I think the audio quality is good enough for me. So hopefully it's not too distracting.

We wanted to do a test record with Zincaster for this episode because we actually have a guest coming up on the next episode after this one. And we talk about that a little bit in this episode. So anyways, just wanted to give you a heads up. Without further ado, here is our episode on FlickrSticks welcoming home the astronauts. And here are your scores from the final battle of the bands. Soulcracker played first and got 185 points. Flickr stick played second and got 218 points. So the winner of bands on the run is Flickrstick.

We never thought that we had a damn chance. ever and for somehow for it to turn out by music we won for all the right reasons and that's why i'm so proud of the band and welcome to no filler the music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gems that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records my name is Travis got my brother quentin with me as always and i got my flicker stick shirt on my body cue Well, I'm glad it's on your body, dude. Yeah. Because where else would it be?

Well, I mean, it is kind of worth mentioning that because it actually still fits me, which is impressive. Hey, dude. You're trying to make me feel bad, dude? I guarantee you I've thrown on at least another 10, 15 pounds since this whole COVID- I mean, I don't weigh the same that I did when I was 13. I can tell you that right now. But this thing still fits me, dude.

I can actually breathe in it too. Dude, I can see the bright blue t-shirt in my mind with that. weird logo that they had. Yeah, I still don't know. It looks like a harpoon or something like that, maybe. Something like that. But yeah. So as our intro clip teased there, and as we teased last week, we're talking about a Dallas,

well, actually more Fort Worth based. We're talking about a Fort Worth based band called Flickrstick that were the champions of a reality TV show on VH1 back in 2001 called Bands on the Run. And I would say that they are probably the first band that you and I actually like felt some sort of an attachment to, you know? Yeah, dude. We were with them all the way. And I was just as proud as those boys by the end of that show. And I remember us, all right, let me give a breakdown on what the show was here. So it aired from April 2nd to July 15th, 2001.

So three days after you and I turned 14, we saw the. these guys get crowned the champions. And I remember watching that show. I remember watching it the night that they aired. And I don't know if it was through a phone or through, it probably wasn't through text messaging back then. But audience members called and voted to pick who the ultimate winner was, right? So basically what it was. Four bands, which was Flickristic, obviously, a band called Harlow from Los Angeles, which

was like a punk goth band. The Josh Dottis band, which was like a jazz fusion. They were Steely Dan. Steely Dan trying to do Steely Dan. Yeah. From New York City. And then Soul Cracker, which were the runner-ups from San Diego, which were kind of like a, I don't know, power pop alt rock. Kind of ska.

Yeah. Yeah, a little bit. So the premise was, right, these four unsigned bands basically went on the road, right? and they had 13 shows that they each had to play over eight weeks. And it was a competition reality show. So the band that sold the most merch, got the most off of their ticket prices, they were able to set their own ticket prices. The band that made the most money over the course of the tour won the show.

With the caveat of these Battle of the Band competitions that would happen like every three episodes, where the lowest earning band had a chance to sort of. or like not get kicked off kind of thing. Oh yeah. This classic like competition reality show stuff. Yeah. Yeah. And Flickrstick won the first two battle of bands to avoid elimination, right?

Because they were always lagging behind in sales because according to what I've read here and from what I remember, they just didn't take the show seriously. Like basically they thought like in their head that they were, they were in a documentary. Like that this was going to be like more of a documentary and not a reality game show. And they were all pretty heavy. partiers. Oh, yeah. Heavy drinking, heavy drugs.

A big part of the flick-stick story. And probably why, you know, they had such audience popularity because they were the ones doing all the crazy antics and stuff. Right. Not taking the show seriously. So at the end of the show, even though, kind of like the Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump election queue, even though they didn't have the most money, they still won because of the audience voting.

Actually, that's not, that's the opposite of what happened to Hillary. actually. They won the popular vote, and that means they actually won. Yeah. So anyway, I remember we casted our vote for Flick somehow, however you did it. I remember we actually did that from our... It must have been a phone line thing. Something like that, yeah.

But they ultimately won, and that gave them $50,000 in cash, $100,000 in musical equipment from a guitar center, a showcase in front of recording executives in a fully produced music video to be aired on VH1. I thought they also got like a whole brand new studio time. Well, but that's the thing, and that's the funny thing. They even talked about that. They said, you know, that people thought that they got, they were automatically signed by winning. But all they got was a chance to perform or do a showcase in front of these executives who would

then do this bidding war. Kind of a shitty deal, dude. Yeah. And that's part of the story, too. So, all right, here's what I wanted to do. There's a whole bunch of stuff I wanted to talk about, but I wanted to, let's just play, because here's a thing. To me, the most interesting thing about Flickr's stick is what happened to them after they won

the show. But let's hear some music first, right? I want to say something real quick here, dude. So this is our last stop on the bus tour. On our school bus tour, dude, this is it. Yes, that's right. You've been doing a batch of back to school, you know, music that we've listened to in high school. And I think Flickrstick is the perfect band to finish things up with. Because like you said last

week, this was the first band that we kind of had a strong connection to. Like, this was our band, you know? Yeah. Like we were rooting for them. They were from our hometown. I think this was the start of our obsession with music and specifically like indie rock, seeking out, you know, relatively unknown bands. This is almost like the beginning of music turning into a hobby kind of like sports fans have, you know, like to where we latched on to a group and wanted to know more about the individual members. And then this also was the start of our love for concerts. Absolutely. Just music in general, dude. Like this was it. Yeah. And that's the thing. What made Flickersick is such a compelling band to watch was the live performance. And that's kind of been another, you know,

running theme with them is that they can't capture the live performance on the record, so much so that they put out a live, a live record called causing a catastrophe live that came out a few years after welcoming home, the astronauts was re-released once they were assigned to Epic Records. But anyway, so yeah, yeah, you're right about that, Q. When we saw these guys live and I have the ticket in front of me right here Q the actual ticket. Damn, dude. I surrounded myself with all the mementos here. I got the CD and this is not the actual CD that we owned or remember kids. I found this at Josie like maybe it last year or the year before that. But the ticket, here we go, Q. As we mentioned, we saw Fan and Planet open for Flickrissick

along with a band called Ruby Horse. We saw them at the Ridgley Theater, which is a Fort Worth venue. That was a cool venue, man. I remember it was tiny. Yeah. I remember a lot. I remember that show vividly. November 10th, 2001. So, damn, months after they won the show, we saw them live. That's awesome. This was right off the, basically, they got signed to Epic Records. They re-released Welcomeing Home the Astronaut right before this, and then they started touring, and we saw them. That, I mean, that's how fanatical we were, right? We immediately saw them their first major tour after the record. And I'm sure our dad was hanging out in the back with his,

uh, his ear plugs in because he used to take us to concerts. Yes, definitely. And just suffer through if, you know, if he wasn't into the music, he would suffer through it because he was a good fucking dad,

dude. And he, yeah, he was, he was happy that we were latching on a music like, like we did. Yeah. I don't know if we talk about this when he was on the show,

when he was on the, uh, Larry Carlton show that we did. But, you know, he's got two passions, right? Music and sports.

music, he shares that passion with you and me more so than the Spencer. Spencer loves music too, our older brother. And then Spencer is a sports fanatic. So yeah, it's no surprise that he, you know, we can we can thank him for our lifelong passion of music. It started with him. Anyway, that's a whole another episode. We're going to have him on in the coming weeks.

Spoilers. But anyway. So yeah, let's just play some music because I want to, I want to, I want to. want to show you the band before we talk about because I mean who cares what happened to them after this you know what I mean we do because we were fanatical about them and it's kind of it's a really interesting story actually what happened I I read a really interesting interview that brandon the lead singer did for like Fort Worth weekly or something like that back in 2015 and he kind of spills all of it exactly what happened what happened to each band member what happened to him it's really

interesting so we'll talk about that I bet it's tragic huh it is it is it definitely is. All right. So let's just play a play a song real quick. We're going to play two songs. I wanted to have some fun before I bring the goosebumps. Q. Okay. We're going to play two, two songs I think represent what they did really well, which was just have fun with these kind of fun poppy indie songs and then do these really intimate. What's the word, man, besides goosebumps that we can use. Really compelling. I mean, they're ballads. right? Kind of. Yeah, in a way. Yeah. All right. So here we go.

Here's the first song. So this record is called welcoming home the astronauts. It was a record that they had produced and released before bands on the run. And then after bands on the run, they were signed with epic records and re-released it. What you're hearing is the re-released versions of the songs, which is important because it's reproduced. So they do sound slightly different than, you know, the original recordings of these songs. So in other words, they sound better.

But anyway, here is a song called Talk Show Host. There it is, Q. Bring back memories for you. Oh, yeah, man. Dude, this was one of those albums that I played all the way through on drums. Like, I would press play and play along with it. Yeah, I wanted to, dude, I wanted to bring that up because that's the thing. So Flickrannid Lee, vocalist, also played guitar.

Corey Krieg, main guitar player, keyboards, vocals. Fletcher Lee, who is the brother of Brandon, the Lee Singer, on bass. Rex Ewing, also known as El Dangeroso, if you watched the competition or if you're a major fan. He's on guitar, also does backup vocals. And then Dominic Weir on drums, who we actually went to school with his cousin, I believe. Shout out to Lulu. Shout out to Lulu. She's not listening.

So, okay, so Corey Craig, how do we pronounce it? The main guitar player guy. What I liked about the way he played the guitar, and you heard kind of at the very end, the outro of that song, you know, his guitar lines were nothing like complicated. And I know that's true about the drummer. His drumming is not very complicated whatsoever. Which was great for me.

As a 14-year-old, we just started playing drum. Jones. Right. And same give you say I figure of guitar player. Even though I would say the guitar player is very effective and has some really great lines throughout this record. His style was simplistic enough that I could pick up my guitar and like pick around on the fretboard and figure it out. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. Which I think was great because like you said, around this time is when we also picked up a guitar in a drum set for the first time. So I didn't pick up the whole drum set because that's It was heavy, dude, but I didn't pick up a pair of sticks. When you picked up some sticks and I picked up my guitar pick, you know, started plucking away.

And yeah, but I think that as part of it, right? It was approachable, you know what I mean? Yeah. Especially with a song like this. I mean, it's a relatively straightforward song, you know what I mean? The chorus is catchy as hell. Yeah. I like the little breakdown that.

Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Well, so here's the funny thing. They describe themselves. Actually, here we go. I'm going to give you a quote from Brandon. He was talking about the landscape of rock music in 2001. He says, you've got Lincoln Park and Lynn Piscuit, which I think it's funny because we've heard this over and over again.

Anytime like an indie band or something like that describes the landscape of music in 2001, they always say Lincoln Park and Limp Biscuit. Those are the two that you go to. He says, you've got Lincoln Park and Limp Biscuit, and then you've got sensitive metal like stains. and then pop rock like Lifehouse and Matchbox 20 we're into more psychedelic mellow music i have the confidence to say that i can't name a band that we're trying to be like i think that's a good description of them psychedelic mellow yeah and then so i was reading um you've been to the way back machine right oh yeah so the original vh1 show uh page for this show is archived which is sweet because i was to look at the old bands on the run website.

And they were described on there as somewhere between radiohead and the foo fighters, which is interesting. It is good because you didn't hear it in that last song. That maybe could be more like foo fighters. But the radiohead comparison, I think, comes in with songs like direct line to the telepathic. Oh, dude, are we playing that song? We're not. We're not.

but we're playing we're playing to me i think a slightly better one but you know like the intro the very opening of the song or of the album there's a song called lift and they've got these sort of like you know more experimental kind of sounds that they mess around with and throughout the original CD which you can find on youtube you can find the original recordings um before they got signed to epic on youtube and you can hear they did more of that kind of stuff in between tracks where they'd have like this, these old, like, audio recordings of what sounded like NASA or something like that. Yeah.

I mean, like, I remember the original recordings. And I remember thinking, like, man, they should have kept this song the way that was on the original. On a few, there's a few instances, like the song, Coke. They changed that one a lot. Yeah, yeah. Lyrics and everything. Right, right. Yeah.

All right. All right. So here's what happens. Okay. And let's break it down. So they had a lot of promise. obviously after they won the show. Everybody thought that they were going to explode in popularity, right?

So basically, after the show, they do some more shows leading up to like getting signed, right? And they're selling 80 to 100 copies of their record in any given show. Averaging 500 to 700 copies a week is what their manager said. So they had a huge following because of the show, which is interesting because this is an example of a band that gets their success from a TV show competition and not from a really popular single or a popular record, right? Because a lot of bands, they put out a record. It sells, you know, goes platinum or something like that. They have this radio single that makes them huge, right?

They kind of skipped all that and went from unsigned band from Dallas that, you know, just played local shows and stuff to, you know, getting on this TV show and winning. that and then having that success after that. So they kind of did it in a weird order that most bands don't do it in, right? Almost anybody. I mean, that was the only season of that show that ever aired. And I can see where this is going already, dude. Can you?

I don't think you can. I think so. All right. So here's what happened. You know, so they go on to make the song, the music video. They made a music video for beautiful, right? And it costs like $260,000 to make the video. It's what Brandon said.

He says it had helicopters in it. for God's sake. I fought them on it the whole time asking, that's actually what he said. Could you just do it for 40,000? Let us live on the rest of that money if you're going to spend it anyway. And of course, answer was no, right? Oh, man. And so they go on, now this is interesting. I didn't realize this. They went on to open for cranberries as in, ooh, cranberries, zombie, right? Yeah. And it forced them to sort of rent a bus to keep up with the tour, right, obviously. Now listen to this little tidbit here, Q. Cranberries had something like 80 grand for touring, is what Brandon said.

Their label gave us $1,000. Jesus. He says that it wasn't even enough to get us to Montreal for the first show. But we were like, fuck it, I guess. So basically, like, they're thrown into the machine, right, basically. And just like, well, so you guys won this show. Congratulations. You know, good luck, Finn for yourselves, basically.

And yeah, they won $50,000 off that. off that show, but I mean, I may have been spent at that point. Yeah. Anyway, so what happens is they get signed by Epic, which is a Sony music subsidiary. They re-released the record and it's reproduced. And interestingly, enough, dude, I saw this name jump out of me when I was looking at the liner notes. Rick Bieto produced it. And I've talked about him before.

He's got this YouTube channel that's super popular. It's called Everything Music. He does really awesome deep dives into like what makes us. song great. He's got a series called What Makes This Song Great. He's got like, you know, countdown videos where he talked about the best guitar intros, the best bass intros and songs, yada, yada, yada. Anyway, I thought it was interesting that he produced the record. But, yeah, that's cool. Anyway, so yeah, everything's, you know, looking peachy and stuff. They're getting ready to release the single, beautiful, right? VH1, not VH1, Epic was going to release

it. They had this whole, they had a show planned and everything. Guess what day, Q? It was, scheduled to surface on the radio. Guess what day? Remember what year it was? 2001. Oh, no. Yeah. And guess where they were on September 11th?

I don't have to guess now, dude. They were in New York the day of September 11th, getting ready to do this show that was supposed to be like this single launch party, basically. My God. And the show was canceled, obviously. Yeah. So a lot of people point to September. 11th as part of the reason that they kind of petered out because basically what happened is

the music industry kind of goes up in chaos basically and epic kept them on but they stopped promoting their record and the a and our guy got fired and that was it just like what happened to spoon did yep and other fans we've talked about where once you stop promoting the record you know what's the point of being signed at that point right you know what I mean so ultimately what happens is They offered Brandon and the rest of the band a buyout. Either the band could sell the record to Epic for $120,000 or buy it back for half that amount. And so they bought it back. So that's kind of what happened to them.

And then after that, over the years, various members quit the band for different reasons. They actually fired Dominic, the drummer, and replaced him with another guy. Krieg, the guitar player, who actually co-wrote the songs. Most of the songs on welcoming home the astronauts was co-written by Krieg. So it was Brandon and Krieg that wrote the songs. He left because his wife was pregnant and he just wanted to focus on his family. Had to leave the rock star life. Pretty much.

Now, I thought this was interesting. I didn't know this. Fletcher, the bass player, who had another kid on the way. He actually quit the band to enlist in the military and he served 13 months in Iraq. So, wow. Plan's hit. and he wants to go fight basically, right? So anyway, long story short, Brandon is basically falls into depression.

His girlfriend breaks up with him. And then he just goes full into alcoholism and basically spent all the money that they got from the, from the show and all that stuff on booze, right? It's a wicked demon, dude. It is. He got to the point where he had to be, like one of his buddies had to take him to the hospital. he goes through rehab and he emerges on the other side. This is like maybe 2015 or something like that. Other than that, that's basically what happens to flicker stick.

When was their farewell tour that we saw? Do you know what year that was? 2009. So we saw them January 24th, 2009 at the House of Blues. It was one of four farewell shows. Their very last show was actually at this venue called the Ardvark in Fort Worth, which, interestingly enough, is where his mom and dad met. Like his dad, apparently his dad was like a famous dance guy, dancer or something like that.

Huh. That like, um, danced with Debbie Reynolds back in the day. He has like a dance studio that he opened up. I don't know if you remember with you, but Brandon Lee would move around quite a bit on stage. He kind of like Jagger, you know. Jagger swagger. Yeah. Exactly.

Uh, you know, he learned some of that from his dad, obviously. Because dad's a dancer. So anyway, that's the roller coaster and the ultimate end of, a, of, a, a flicker's ticket it kind of sucks you know it breaks my heart man yeah they had all this promise they had all this buzz they had all of this this fan base that came out of that show including us so they had i mean here's the thing you can look at it from that way right i mean they had a very devoted fan base that's ultimately why they won because people like us voted for them they would have lost if it was based on how much money was raised you know because that was that was the key

one of the two key components of the show was here raises the most money on ticket sales and merge sales. And then the audience vote kind of could sway it one way or the other because Guitar Center put up an extra $5,000 for whoever won the most votes, which put them over the edge when they won the fan vote. So that's why Brandon was saying in that intro clip, like they won because of the fans and the music they were putting out because the fans like the music so much, basically. Dude, and we helped, man. Exactly. We helped. There you go. A little 13-year-old Travis and Quentin watching VH1 and our little cathode ray TV that was in our bedroom.

All right. So here's one more thing I'm going to say. And then we're going to play our last song. On their MySpace page in 2008, they said, this is Brandon. Oh, I guess it was a message from the band. After a decade's worth of playing, the time has come for us to pack it up and say goodbye. Throughout these years, our greatest reward has been the dedication and support of our fans, we simply could not have lasted this long without you, Flickrstick fans.

We've had some very good times together, and you will miss all of you. I want to say, I read that, man. I remember that. I don't know if that was when they announced their farewell shows, but yeah. Anyway, so what I wanted to do here is actually play a secret track. This is track 12, if you want to count the track, but it plays after the last song. You have to wait a little bit for it to play. but the reason I want to play this is because I think this is one of the examples

and one of the few tracks on the record that actually does convey the live performance on the track itself. Am I going to recognize this song? Yes, you will. Okay. You definitely will. But dude, get ready to be taken back, dude, to the live shows. Because this is one of the songs that I remember would just stop the audience, you know,

and we would be so captivated by Brandon's performance. during this particular track. And then it's one of those things. I think this was usually an encore song because it starts with Brandon by himself on the guitar. And then the rest of the band comes in after him, you know? So they would come back on the stage and then play another two songs. Plastic encore.

Exactly. So we got two clips here. This song is called Execution by Christmas Lights. Cause it in Seat swell. And if the consequence could speak. There's just a little tease of what's to come, Q. Completely forgot about that song, man. It's one of my favorites.

Get ready, dude, because I'm the same way. I probably haven't heard the song in years. And the chorus that comes up after the second verse and the next clip that we're going to play, just fucking knock me up my feet, dude. That's all I'm going to say. So without further ado, here's the next clip. What can be said about his voice, dude?

His voice is great. It's something else. It's haunting, right? It's vulnerable and, you know, there's imperfections in it, you know? Yeah, yeah. And that's part of the charm of it. Yeah. It's not a, like a, it's not a great singing voice in a way.

Like, it's not a traditionally great sounding voice, but there's something about the way he, it comes across in his performances that makes it so, like you said, like genuine and like. Yeah, and like you had said, captivating. Yeah, exactly. All right. Get ready to get up. I'm ready, man. And just if you're listening, just imagine hearing a performance like this live, because I think that'll help.

All right, here we go. Here's the next clip from Execution by Christmas Lights. Wash in the execution by Christmas lights. Oh, flickers tick. There they go. Floating off in the space. Gooseleys, man. Yeah.

I remember he would always turn over those shun-on-as to the crowd at the end and we would all just be chanting that at the end. Yeah. But so I think what you said earlier about like this was our first, I think we were fortunate that Flickrissick was one of our first bands that we really attached to because it set such a high bar for live performances, you know, and showed us what live music can do to you, you know what I mean? Yes.

Because of how energizing and captivating, the performances were, especially by Brandon and the rest of the band. Like, if you don't experience a performance like that live, you might not ever know that that's what live music can do to you, especially in an intimate setting. And in your formative years, if you don't get a chance to see a band like that at a young age, then you might not become a lifelong music fan. Right. And this is right when we started, as we mentioned earlier, this is right when we started our journey of discovering music on our own and stuff like that. This was the first band that we really latched on to. Yeah, and two years later we got our driver's license and started to get those freedoms and started buying our own music. Right.

And in between that was all the bands that we've covered over the last few weeks, right? Because 2002, 2003 was when we got into May and June 8 World and all that stuff. So yeah, I think Flickrstick was a really crucial part of that. You know, I mean, they really were. Yeah, we could get one of those boys on here to talk with us. Yeah. I mean, Brandon, at least in 2015, when that article was written that I read, had been sober for, I think, 19 months or something like that.

It's awesome to hear, man. I hope you stuck with it. Yeah, I hope so too. I thought this was kind of interesting. We talked about the song, Coke. He actually, somebody, a country music, singer actually released it as a he did a cover of it oh man that is a country song dude i could totally see it with a little twang on it and brandon actually recorded um backup vocals on the track so that's

kind of cool that's awesome can that be our outro song dude we got to find that it's not i listen to it's to it's to we'll put it in the show notes i'll tell you that okay come on i'd like to buy the world to Coke. Dude, that's exactly what it sounds like. But you're right. It does lend itself well to country. Yeah. Now, here's the question. In the country version, does he say, and lie here naked with my girl, or lie here taken with my girl? Because that was the change in lyrics from the original album to the re-release. I couldn't tell you. That's some flicker stick trivia right there. That is some flicker stick trivia. but the guy's from Houston. The guy's name is Rich O'Toole

is a country music singer. I love it. He's on a record label cue called Paytime Off Records or PTO Records, which just sounds like one of those dopey country music bullshit. And if who knows, PTO Records is probably not a country music label. I just like knocking on country at any moment that I can. I'm with you. I don't think we've even mentioned our hatred for country music.

No, but our good buddy Mitch has said that, he will show us the goods one of these days and turn us. It's going to have to be something beyond Sturgle Simpson or whatever. He said something about Outlaw Country, which is a genre that we should get into. I'm ready, dude. I'm ready. I'm ready to. Anyway, that's it, man.

There are so many other songs on this album worth talking about and playing. But I think those two kind of showcase the band in, it a good way, especially that hidden track that we just played. Hopefully it came across, you know what I mean? I think we have the memories of the shows and stuff tied to it, you know? Yeah. Travis, do you know if that photo still exists on the internet's from their farewell show that we saw? I tried to find it.

Oh, man. We got captured by a professional photographer. We were like front row. And Brandon climbed over the barricade and got hoisted up. I think the security guy hoisted him up. And so he was just literally right in front of us singing for one of the songs, like, in the crowd. It was amazing. And yeah, dude, man, I wish we should have saved that photo.

Yeah, I thought I had it on my Facebook page, but I guess I was too self-conscious to tag myself because here we go. here I am. Because we were looking dopey. Probably. Yeah, I tried to find it. Their website no longer exists. Like flickerstick.com is not a thing. I remember they had a really cool website.

I will say to you that it's on sale for $3,895. If you want to buy Flick.com. Oh, no. The domain is for sale. But yeah, dude, this was the first, one of my first dip in my toes in building a website. And it was some school, some class I took. in middle school that was like computer science or something like that and i built a fan page actually i'm confusing my spoon it was a spoon fan page but no i had a i had a flicker sick geocities page

i would love to see that that no longer exists yeah it doesn't exist because you know a lot of the geocities pages were archived you can still see them but i must have deleted it from i know i've got one somewhere man for i don't know if it was one of the things like the my space stuff where you had to like opt in to have it archived. I don't know. But I can't find it. So all I got left Q is this t-shirt that I'm wearing, which I'm pretty happy with. I got nothing, dude. I had a red t-shirt with just the word, the flicker stick.

Yeah. Font on it. Yeah, I did. And I remember it was really shitty quality. And the words kind of bled over into each other. And it looked like it said fucker stick. So I stopped wearing it. Oh, God.

Yeah. You are just, you know, some bad kerning away from it saying fucker stick. If you don't know what kerning is. I sure is held on. Then you're not a massive graphic design nerd like me. That's like the spacing between letters. Gotcha. And there you go.

Now you know. All right, dude. That's it, man. That's the end of our batch of episodes devoted to music that we listened to in our formative years. I can't see high school because this was middle school, dude. This was middle school. Yeah, that's right. But no, it's been great basking in this nostalgia glow, man.

Yes. Now, here's the ultimate question, Q. Should we tease our next episode? I think we should. Yes, let's do it. You know what? We get to basking it one more time next week. Yes.

So next week, we are super stoked. This is a guest that unless you lived in Carrollton, Texas, during a very brief window, or Denton, Texas, you would have no clue who this guy is. But to us, he was another very critical piece to our musical journey because he was like the drug dealer in a way, that way. So we're talking to a man named Mark Burke. He ran a little CD store in Carrollton, Texas, which is the town that we grew up in, called CD Addict. And it was kind of the only, to my knowledge, at least, it was the only place you could buy indie CDs, right? You know what I mean? Like he had a lot of basically all the records that we talked about over the last few weeks.

We purchased from him at CD Addict, right? Yeah, we've mentioned him a few times since we started. this podcast. Yeah, man, nothing but love for Mark. And we've reached out to other people that grew up with us. And all of them said the same thing. Like, yeah, dude, he was a huge part of helping cultivate my love for music. Yeah.

And then he moved his CD shop to Denton and has been there since then. It was a record store called Mad World Records. But we'll get into what happens. with all that, with him. We'll talk to him about all that next week. And we're just going to nerd out about, you know, what it was like to own a CD store right before streaming really took over, you know, and then actually survive past that, you know,

and have a relatively successful shop in Denton. And if you're, if you're familiar with Denton or North Texas, like you know that that's where it's the closest thing to Austin that, like North Texas has, right. It's home to UNT, University of North Texas, which has a huge music program, lots of jazz bands and stuff like that, and just has a thriving music scene. So yeah, it's no wonder he, you know, he was able to have success in Denton with a CD shop that also, you know, it was mainly a vinyl record store at that point, right? So yeah, it's going to be really fascinating to talk to him. And yeah, dude, I couldn't be more excited. So that's going to, that's actually going to be the way that

we wrap this up is to talk with him, which is going to be great. Yeah, dude, it's, it's fucking perfect, man. I'm so stoked that we were able to make this work. Yeah, I did. All right, man. So, that's next week. And now it's time for our what you heards here, which is our weekly segment where we each bring a track to the table from an artist that we listened to since we last recorded. Do you want to go first? Do you want me to go first? You go first. I got to pull up some stuff here on. All right. So I just randomly stumbled upon this song. It was on one of my Discover Weekly playlist on Spotify. But this particular group, we actually, I believe, had some coverage on our music blog, no filler.

Oh, God, dude, I always do that. On our music blog, New Dust, that we ran back in like 2009, 2010, this band is called Sister Crayon. They also go by another alias called Rituals of Mine. But I remember this album cover of the record that came out in 2011 called Bellow. Anyway, so the track that I stumbled upon is actually on a record, a single or an AP called Cynic. It came out in 2013. And the name of the song is called Floating Heads. Dude, the drumming and the bass, fucking amazing.

That reminds me of it. kind of had some radio head vibes just with the melody and the repetitiveness, especially the drumbeat. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I can definitely hear that. Great stuff. So I said earlier that they went by another alias of rituals of mine. That's actually what they go by now. So basically, the band is called rituals of mine previously known as Sister Crayon. And this was one of the releases under Sister Crayon. Very cool. It's mainly two individuals. It started by Tara Lopez. which is the vocalist and then Danny Fernandez which back in the day it was just it was kind of an electronic music act so they didn't have any you know instruments yeah but then they were joined by

a drummer and a keyboard player and all that kind of stuff anyway um yeah this record is classified as down tempo and trip hop which is interesting which you get a little bit of that on that song it's got some port-ed ad or massive attack vibes too a little bit yeah but i'm curious to hear the rest of the record so I'm probably going to listen to that. But yeah, really solid track. Really stood out to me. All right, Q, what do you got for us today? All right, so I just started watching this mini-series.

I was watching it on YouTube. It's called People Watching. Really great. I'm going to read its description here. It's an animated exploration of concepts such as depression, self-loathing, societal stereotypes, preconceived opinion. And Nistalgia. Just go out and watch it.

It's really great. People watching is what it's called. They're like five to ten minutes long. And towards the end of each episode, it always kind of, they'll always just kind of fade in a song into the credits. And on the second episode that I watched, there is a song by a band called Sloan. You ever gotten into them, dude? That is the name of my cat. I know that.

but do you know anything about this band? Not off the top of my head. Well, here's the deal, dude. It's one of those moments, man, again. Okay. Where I'm like, how have I missed this all this time? They go back to the 90s. They go back to the 80s, my friend.

Okay. I would put them in the post-punk indie, you know, shoegays, dream pop, whatever you want to call. I'm excited. Dude, I'm excited. Maybe not so much shoegaze, but, you know, it's hard to describe this stuff from the 90. And Travis, I know you've been, you know, swimming in the 90s with your floaties on the last few weeks. So you're going to love this stuff, dude.

Okay. The song that I heard was on their 1994 album called Twice Removed. The song was called People of the Sky. I'm not going to play that one for my What You Heard, because then I just went ahead and played this entire album today while. I was doing some yard work. I'm just going to tell you right now, dude. I'm looking at the album cover and I'm fucking stoked right now. Dude.

I don't know why. Just the album cover alone. I'm like, I love this shit. I'm telling you, man. It's one of those fucking, it's like, how have I missed out on Sloan all these years? All right. Here is the first track from the album. It's called Pin Pals.

Man, that's great. Definitely listening to this tomorrow. Yeah, dude. And you've got quite a few albums to dive into. I'm just curious to see what happens on the rest of the record, you know what I mean? Because like, I'll tell you, it's great, dude. And it's all over the place.

I'm getting some, some spoon vibes with a lot of the guitar riffs. Well, I thought that about the guitar riff, yeah, the opening guitar riff. Well, you'll, you'll hear it in a lot of the other songs, too. Okay. Cool. It's good stuff, man. Nice. Yeah.

I mean, it is, like you said, it's kind of like, well, how do we not? How did we miss Sloan? Especially with, no, it looks like they were a Canadian band. Maybe they didn't just, I mean, maybe they, maybe they, They didn't get any airplay over in America. Yeah, maybe not. But yeah, with this many records, they have one that came out as recently as 2018. Yeah.

And they have, dude, they have a live album that just came out. Or, well, it's one song. It's a single. Well, that album that came out in 2018 is called 12. It's their 12th studio record. Crazy. Yeah. Cool.

All right, man. Well, that's a rap right. There. That is a rap, my friend. That's a series wrap. Almost. It's a next week. It's a series wrap. Next week is the fucking season finale, bro. That's the finale, dude. Yeah. So yeah, dude, where do we go from here? What's next, man? What's on the horizon?

Do we want to tease that next week, maybe? We don't even have to tease. I said something about our dad coming along. Maybe that'll give you it more than you need to know. You know what I mean? Maybe that's, that should cue you in maybe on maybe the decade, you know? Let's just tell it, dude. We're playing dad tunes. We're playing dad tunes next. Okay.

That is our next stop. So, yeah, we decided, hey, we've been talking about music that we were into when we were kids, or teenagers, I should say. What better than to transition into the music that, you know, we grew up with, right? The music that our dad was listening to when we were kids, right? Yeah. And so we're going to talk about, well, let's not talk about the artist, but we're going to stay in the 70s, maybe the 80s a little bit. I don't know if we'll go back to the 60s, but 70s and 80s. We're going to stick in those two decades for a while, which honestly, those are the two

decades that have been, to me, the most, I don't want to say ignored, but, you know, let's say neglected. Yeah, most of our albums that we talk about are in the 90s and the 2000s. Yeah. Because that's just our wheelhouse. You know what I mean? That's like we've said over and over again, that's when we were engaged in listening to music.

So we thought we'd go back to, to, I mean, there's, it's an unlimited well of amazing music from those two decades. So there's no, no end to the amount of great music that we can talk about. Yeah, we're going to try to get our dad and maybe our older brother on for at least one of those episodes. And maybe some more guests. We're starting to get more guests here. So outside of our, you know, immediate family members because, you know, I talk to you every week. Right. All right. So that'll wrap us up here. You can find us on our website, nofillerpodcast.com.

We can find all our show notes and all of our episodes going back to episode one. Each episode page has our show notes and our track lists. So each song that is played on this episode, you'll see listed there as well as any sources that we cited or got information from. And you can also find us on the Pantheon podcast network, which is a podcast network of like-minded music shows like ours. So go to their website, pantheonpods.com, to find much more great music content. That's it. My name is Travis. What's the outro, brother? Oh, yeah. That's right.

You always forget about the outro. I always forget the outro. All right. So I actually have a song from FlickrStick's next record that I totally forgot about. And we actually had this record. Yeah. There's some great songs on there. We heard some great stuff on there.

So this record is called Tarantula. It came out in 2004. This was after they left Epic. So they were on a local Dallas label called Idol Records. And the song that's going to close us out is called Girls and Pills. Yeah, dude. Yeah. This is when they're trying to capture.

sure that live sound a little bit more. I think so. I will say, this record is more aggressive than welcoming on the astronauts. They went a little bit darker. Yep. So, all right, that'll do it. My name is Travis. And my name's Quentin. We'll talk to you all next week. A holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to to Lux Beauty and Fragrant Sets. Our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com.