No Filler Music Podcast - No Filler's Best of 2020: Part 4

Episode Date: December 21, 2020

To close out our Best of 2020 episodes, we're left with 5 wildly different tracks and a couple of Alice in Chains covers thrown in for good measure. From the demon-crushing metal of Mick Gordon's bombastic Doom Eternal soundtrack to the post-punk emo throwback of Tigers Jaw, we chat about our final favorites from this crazy year. Tracklist: Mick Gordon - The Only Thing They Fear Is You (DOOM Eternal OST) IDLES - Grounds IDLES - War Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow - Stealing The Code (Devs OST) Ben Salisbury, Geoff Barrow - Entering Devs / The Machine (Devs OST) Tigers Jaw - Warn Me Narrow Head - Yer' Song Mark Lanegan - Nutshell (Alice In Chains cover) Metallica - Would (Alice In Chains cover) This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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We get the deals. You gift the good stuff. And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gyms that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin with me as always is my brother Travis. And this is part for the finale of our favorite tracks from 2020. It's been a wild ride, Travis. Wild ride.

It has. You know, I've been listening to, as I sometimes do, Q, I go back and listen to our episodes. Some people would say I like to hear the sound of my own voice. But, yeah, I feel like we've done a pretty good job. Some episodes more than others, but with the flow, like the flow of the songs. I feel like our second, our part two episode had a really decent, like, vibe to it. Yeah. You know what I mean?

Like, we did a good job with, like, the psychedelic and, like, the vapor wave. Like, we just happened to have five songs that worked really well together. And then part three was kind of, you know, a little mixed, but, you know, we kind of brought some more, like, brevity to the picks, you know, with your, I don't remember the name of the singer-songwriter. Laura Marling is who you're thinking of. Yeah. And then, you know, I had tall black guy.

and his those lyrics in that song, you know, kind of speaking to the, you know, all the protests and stuff that were happening over the summer, right?

Yeah, dude, the fear in your eyes. So what are we going to, how are we going to close us out, Q? Like, we've set the bar so high, like,

what are we going to do? Well, here's the deal. So if you're tuning in for the first time, if this is your first time ever, listening to No Filler, hello,

welcome. Thank you for joining us. We're excited to have you. What we've been doing, doing is we each made our own list of favorites for the year. And so I brought 10 and Travis brought 10. And we decided to do kind of like a back and forth, just kind of pick a song that flows and just go from track to track. So we don't know what song the other one's going to play. And we're just kind of doing like a live DJ set, if you will. Yeah, it's, you know, at this point, we only have five songs between the two of us left.

Dude, I've only got two songs, man. You've only got two songs left. I've got three songs left. Yeah. We're going to try our best to make the flow between the two, but I can tell you right now, the three that I'm bringing, one of them is way out in left field. So I can't even tie the three of my last songs together. So, you know, hey, you know what? Strap in.

It's going to be an interesting ride, but I think we've got some good stuff to close us out. Also, if you sent us your suggestion on. on Twitter for your favorites of the year. We haven't forgotten about you. We're going to do an entire episode with nothing but fan favorites. And we're also going to throw in some picks from some of our previous guests on the show. So that's going to be a lot of fun, dude. We might have to do two episodes.

But I can't wait to play, you know, to finally have something else other than like our picks. You know, it's all about us, man. I've had about enough of it. That's going to be a lot of fun. You're tired of us. Dude, if I have to hear my dumb, dumb voice. I mean, you're still going to have to, it's still going to be our voices talking, though. Sorry.

Yeah, yeah, that's true. Shit. We didn't reach out to each of you individually and ask you to submit a recording of yourself, explaining what you liked about your own song. That would have been cool. That would have been dope. That would have been cool. Next year, next year.

All right, so this is our final five, dude. And you're starting us off this time. All right, Q. So I'm going to start us with some of the most fast and heavy metal music that you could possibly ask for. So if you are a fan of the Doom video game franchise like me, then you likely played Doom Eternal at some point this year. If you're like me, you got it and started playing it the day that it came. out, which lined up, for me at least, perfectly with when my company went to remote work and we were doing like heavy quarantining and stuff. It came out March 20th. And for a lot of us,

that was when like we first started to be like, oh, this COVID thing is actually going to affect my life in some way. You know what I mean? Like, oh shit, this is real. Yeah. Around this time is when, you know, the first, you know, a few cases started popping up in. in Texas in the DFT area. I know Q in Washington, you guys were already going through it. We got hit first, yeah. Yeah, and I was also quarantined. Like, I wasn't able to serve tables either, so we were all just kind of hanging out at home.

Yeah. So if you know anything about Doom, you are a Marine and you are killing demons. That's all you've got to know. Yeah. It doesn't matter what version of Doom you're playing. Yeah, it's been pretty consistent. And Doom 2016. which was kind of like the reboot of the franchise,

sort of went, it was like a return to form, basically. And that was one of the best video game soundtracks of all time. The guys named- Wasn't you one of the first-person shooters? Yes, it was essentially, like they were the pioneers of the first-person shooter. And it's a little company called Id out of Richardson, Texas, of all places.

I've probably driven by the building plenty of times. It's just like this. Yeah, I probably have two, man. I used to live in Richard. So anyway, Mick Gordon is the composer, and he is sort of like a heavy metal composer, if you want to call it that, right? And he uses this guitar style, which I just kind of recently learned about. It's one of those things where, like, I've heard this style of metal. I just didn't know. I had this name attached to it. It's kind of hard to pronounce gent or, I think that's how you pronounce it. It's D-J-E-N-T. It's a very, like, distinct. sound of like palm muted, distorted, low-pitched guitar sound, right? Anyway, this was hard for me to pick one song because the soundtrack itself is like hours long because it's a video game score, right?

There's hours and hours of gameplay. There's music for every moment of the game, you know what I mean? But so they brought back McGordon obviously to do the 2020 soundtrack, the Doom eternal soundtrack. So we're going to play one song from this soundtrack. Like I said, almost impossible to pick just one. But I'm going to go with kind of the more, one of the more memorable songs. So this is called, and this is kind of the, it's kind of the basis of the game. This tells you all you got to know. The only thing they fear is you. Here we go. I don't listen to enough metal, dude. You know, I need more stuff like that in my life. Okay, well, just imagine

that you're running through the pits of hell with a massive shotgun or the BFG as they call it the big fucking gun and you're just blasting away demons, dude. It's the best feeling ever. Blastin D's? Blastin D's? Dude, it's fucking amazing.

And like his soundtrack is largely responsible for, like people remember the soundtrack just as much as they remember like the game play because the two are so inseparable, like the gameplay experience plus his music. That's how, that's how, like, spot on his soundtrack was, especially for Doom 2016. So, like, the anticipation for the soundtrack for this game was almost equal to, like, the anticipation for the game itself, you know what I mean? And both delivered.

Anyway, that was a long first pick. Yeah, it was. But I'm curious to know how you're going to transition. from that. Like, I have a feeling you don't have anything that's anywhere close to that. Well, I'm going to bring the intensity, brother. Okay. So don't you worry.

All right. And I know you can agree with me on this. And I'm going to give a shout out to Mitch for turning us on to this band and this album. I know what's happened. Yeah, dude. Idols. The punk rock band from Bristol, England. And their album, Ultramano.

Man, dude, this is one of the best. albums of the year. I was, I was blown away by the opening track. Man, there's just something about this album. This is another one of those like Rally Cry albums for 2020, you know. A lot of the lyrics are very topical. There's songs about racial injustice. There's songs about consent, you know, like just really powerful songs.

So we're going to play track two on idols record, Ultramano. This song is called Grat. rounds. Yeah, it's crazy. I'm gonna ask you. I'm gonna ask you. Yes. Her demand.

I'm gonna demand that we play track one. Sure. His voice, his lyrics. are like perfectly paired. You know what I mean? Like, the way that he delivers his lines is perfect. Yeah, dude. And the way he accentuates certain lines.

You can hear the frustration and the anger. Yeah, but you, like, you just, you have to, like, it's one of those albums where you push play and, like, you have no choice but to pay attention. You're captivated. Yeah, man. Yeah, I want to read my favorite lines from verse three. he says not a single thing has ever been mended by you standing there and saying you're offended

it's like fucking well show up or shut up or whatever yeah put up or shut up yeah dude like just because like you can't just type you know be all like uh righteous and shit and just tweet something and yeah yeah feel good about yourself like go do something about it uh he says here do you hear that thunder that's the sound of strength and numbers. Yeah, it's awesome. So there's this really great interview that came out back in early October when it was first released on NPR.

Scott Simon interviews Joe Talbot, who is the lead singer from idols. And I want to play a quick clip from that. Simon asks him this question about where he, if he thinks that music has like a special role these days. Mm-hmm. And yeah, listen to what Talbot says. His response to that is great. Do you think music has a special role these days in the times in which we're living?

Not comparatively, no. I think music's always had a special place, no matter what era. Music is the untold magic of our existence. It's the one thing that we don't understand, but we understand the most. It gives everyone a platform to feel part of the world, but also to feel. and there's something magical about music that is not understandable but completely humane, which means it's just in us. It will always be a platform to feel and it will always be a platform on which to be and experience the world.

That's kind of what stood out to me the most about like you push playing the album and like the lyrics are going to jump out of you big time. It's a rally cry man. Like I said. Yeah, it's fucking, it's great, man. Talbot and their music is like a great voice for people that need one. And the intensity, too. This is actually a great, this is a great match to come off of the Doom soundtrack. Yeah, I thought you might like that.

Yeah. So, yeah, I was luckily enough, dude, I was actually driving. I was in the car. I actually did hear this interview when it was aired, so it was really cool. And it's funny because I heard that and I forgot about, like they, they had played sound bites of different songs from the record. And then I just kind of forgot about it. You know, like I drew, like I didn't, I didn't revisit the album.

I forgot like, you know, it's one of those things where if you're listening, you might not necessarily remember like, who was that guy? Totally forgot. And then Mitchell sent us a link to this album. And he's like, dudes, you've got to fucking listen to this new idols record. Anyways, man, I want to quote them again from this NPR interview. So the single, there's a single on, on this album. called Reins. And it's about kind of the class division in England. And he says here,

there's a real cancerous history of class division in England and Britain. There's a class war going on in this country and in yours. The poor are dying at the hands of the 1% and they're being ignored. And the fact that there's a royal family in our country that exists in a time where people are making charities in order to feed the poor in a developed country is insane. The idea of a royal family is in my eyes insane

and they still exist somehow. Yeah, it's awesome. And like you said, couldn't have come out in a better year. Like this year is the year for this record and... We have heard the sound of strength and numbers this year, man, for sure. Yeah, yeah.

And yeah, it's one of those questions that you have to ask. Like, depending on when they wrote these songs, we might not have this if it weren't for the state of the globe right now, you know? Yeah. So let's play some track one, dude. This is another, this is like tied for me for favorite.

You know, like, this song is amazing. When we were putting together our favorites from 2020, this was my pickup of this album and Grounds was yours. So this might be a little lengthy episode, but. That's okay. Hey, you know what? Our last episode, part three was only 41 minutes, dude. There you go.

Like, you know, usually our episodes are around an hour long. So if this one's an hour and 20, then we're just making up for last week's being short. There you go. Perfect. All right, let's listen to war. I'm telling you, man, I had to stop what I was doing to pay attention. I know I talk about that a lot, but like, because all the things that happen in this song that take you by surprise, especially the way that just the way that they deliver the verses, man. Oh, and it's happening at such a fast pace.

Yeah. You know, it's just like hit after hit after hit. Exactly. And that's kind of the point of the song. They're talking about the sound of a sword, the sound of a gun. The sound, dude, the sounds of the drone button pusher. I mean, that is fucking amazing. Yeah, dude.

And then the whole, the drumming, the fucking drum fill. Oh, yeah, dude. It just comes out of nowhere, like you said. And then it just comes right back in with them screaming about war. You know, it's just fucking amazing, dude. Yeah. And I got to quote, man, dude, I mean, can you tell that this is one of our favorite albums of the year? Yeah.

I want to quote a line from another one of my favorite songs from this record, Net Touch Pamois. It's about consent and it's about douchebags that don't take a hint. Sure. And a girl tells you to back the fuck off. Right, right. He said, verse two, this is a sawn off for the cat callers. This is a pistol for the wolf whistle because my body is my body and it belongs to nobody but me. I fucking love it, dude.

Yeah. This whole song is, so he actually talks about that in the NPR interview. He says, yeah, that song came about from, he said, one of their largest shows to date was at this venue that held 10,000 people. And he found out after the show that there were a few people that felt unsafe in the crowd from the A-holes that were in there. So he wrote a song. He said, so I thought we could write an anthem for them. Yeah, that's cool. That's awesome.

Yeah. The funny thing about this song and a lot of the songs on this record is they are more metal than most metal songs. And this is not a metal album. Do you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Like the feeling and the intensity that you get from a good heavy metal song, they deliver that better than most. Most bands that say, hey, we're metal. You know what I mean?

Right. You know, you could learn something from these guys. Yeah. So, hey, that's it. Let's move on, you know. I want to say, shout out to Mitchell one more time. Mitch, thanks for sharing this album with us, dude. Fucking love it.

Yeah. One of my favorite albums of the year, man. Blew me away. But hey, before we jump into our next pick, let's take a quick break. So, speaking of getting blown away. Are we going to get blown again, dude? Yes, we are. So here's the thing.

My last pick was a soundtrack, dude. video game that I spent a lot of time playing this year and that I absolutely loved. And that's the thing about soundtracks, right? Especially to video games and to TV shows, if you're invested in a video game or a TV score, you're going to become very intimate with the music that you're hearing, right? Especially if it's 10 episodes long or something like that if it's a show, right? So I fell in love as I always do with the with the music that these guys put out With the soundtrack for this TV show

Which by the way I can't recommend this TV show enough if you haven't watched it The show is called devs D-E-V-S Oh yeah man you were telling me about this Have you not seen it yet? No, I haven't watched it. Is it on Amazon? It's an FX show but you can watch it on it anyway So this is directed by a guy

named Alex Garland, who I will watch anything that he puts out. I'm in love with his stuff. Anything that he directs and writes is amazing stuff. Like, I'm a huge fan of his work. He did Ex Machina and he did Annihilation. So if you've seen those movies, then you know who these composers are because he uses the same two guys every time. Their names are Ben Salisbury and G.F. Barrow, or Jeff Barrow. Anyway, the soundtracks that these guys put out are some of the most, like, surprising and, like, impactful scores that fit perfectly with the story, like, every time. Can you have you seen either of those movies, Ex Machina or Annihilation? I've seen Ex Machina, yeah.

Okay. You may remember that scene, very pivotal scene. I'm not going to say anything for spoilers. But there's this sting, you know, you'd call it a sting in the music world, right, that happens, that coincides with, like, essentially the climax of the film, right? That is, you know, again, like, the perfect thing they could have done. They couldn't have done a better thing, right? Anyway, what they do so well is, like, delivery these kind of, like, the way that they blend sort of your more classical orchestrated stuff with technology, it's truly unique. Like there's nobody else that does soundtracks like this.

So anyway, I'm going to play two songs, Q. Sorry. Oh, my God. I have to do it, okay. I have to do it. All right. Because you have to get the, you got to get the feeling for what they're doing. And to give you like a really quick summary of the show in one sentence, it is a story about, I'm going to quote this interview.

It is the story centered on the murder of a programmer at a peculiar tech company, Amaya, which is secretly developing a massive and highly advanced quantum computer system, so advanced that it can use its data processing power to extrapolate and visualize moments of the distant past and even the future. All right, so let's listen to one track here to start us off, and I think this will give you kind of an idea of what these guys do. This song is called Stealing the Code. Just as a fair warning before I hit play on this track,

there are some, I'm just saying this just to warn you. I feel like it could be better if I didn't say this. Could it be even more impactful? But I'm saying it just because it's, there are some moments in the song that may startle you. That's all I'm going to say. Good God, dude. You're getting a fucking heart attack, bro.

Apologies to anybody. Shit. Apologies. Okay, apologies to anybody who I may have startled just. But. Dude. If I. ever take part in a haunted house.

I'm going to request that that song just play and repeat. All right. So that would be considered a sting, right? Well, let me say that's the most effective put-me-on-edge music that I've heard in a long time. And I feel like we should have done a fucking like... This would have been a good Halloween episode, actually. Yeah. All right, Q.

So. Yeah. And hey, anyone who was like out and about like driving to work or to go visit grandma or something? Sorry. Actually, I guess no one's visiting grandma right now. If you're visiting grandma, you're, you're, you got to reevaluate what you're doing. Your life choice is in December 2020. Right.

Anyway. Well, Travis, is the next, is the next one you're going to bring just to fucking Spooksville? It's going to, no, no, it's going to balance it out. That's why I wanted to bring to. I'll say what was so impactful about it was that it just, it was so sporadic. Yes, you didn't know when it was going to happen. Yeah. Now, obviously, it is synced up with what's happening during that scene, right?

Yeah. But if you notice in between the stings were these kind of these bells, right? Like these sort of. Yeah. Right. So that's part of this, right? So let me play the next track here. Very atmospheric.

Yes. When we play the next track, I'm not going to play the whole thing, but I just want to, this will give you a good flavor of the score. So this next song is called Entering Devs slash the Machine. It's beautiful. So had I not told you that it was kind of like a tech sci-fi thriller, what would you think that that type of a soundtrack, maybe like a period piece or something like that? Yeah, it's like a monk.

Yeah, Buddhist temple or something. Dude, perfect, temple monk. Yeah. Here's why that's so amazing. The show deals with, like, philosophical topics like determinism and free will and stuff like that. And, like, the software that this company is making essentially is, like, elevating them to, like, this God status. You know what I mean? Because they're able to see the future.

Right. So that's why the soundtrack, I'm going to quote this interview again, this guy says, complimenting the stories of sentient robots, mysterious extraterrestrials, and monomaniacal Silicon Valley types are sonically rich, phantasmagorically melodic, and rightously experimental score cues provided by Jeff Barrow and Ben Salisbury. That's a good description of it, right? But that's why it has these like monk like choirs and like bells and stuff that almost on like church, like, you know, religious kind of tones and stuff, right?

Yeah, it just proves how good they are what they do. Right, because when you watch the show, it doesn't really match what you might associate with a score like that, but at the same time, it's like perfect when you consider the themes of the show. And then you have those moments, like from the first song I played that just like stab you that come out of nowhere. And there's plenty of stuff like that throughout the whole score, by the way. Anyway, that's that.

Go watch the show if you haven't seen it. If you haven't seen Annihilation or Ex-Machan, I go watch those as well. If you like sci-fi, if you like those kind of like sci-fi movies that make you think, you know, I highly recommend those two films. And then this TV show is one of the best things that came out this year. Again, it was kind of like the perfect way, it was perfect escapism for this year. It came out earlier this year. And, yeah, I was just blown away by it.

And, of course, just like with Doom and, like, being excited about the score, like, I was, anytime Alex Garland put something out, these guys are probably going to be attached to it, and the music is going to be fucking amazing. And this was, like, another example of that. So, anyway, all right, this is a weird episode, dude. We're all over the place. Oh, yeah, and I'm about to make it even weirder. Okay.

As far as, like, bouncing around. All right. So this is actually a song that I played as a what you're, heard earlier this year. It was just one of those magical moments, dude. So back in, I guess it was early summer, we did our back-to-school episodes and we were bringing a bunch of emo music from the early 2000s. And I just happened to hear this song from these guys at the same time that we were

recording all these. So it was just like, man, perfect timing to find this band. Because they're an emo band that have been around since the heyday. of emo pop punk music. They are Tiger's Jaw, and they've been around since 2005. They've kind of changed hands with members here and there, but they are working on new music, and I'm actually excited.

I didn't know this, but they have a couple new singles that I haven't even heard yet that just came out in October. But let's play it, dude. Oh, so Spotify, let me know. You know how it's Spotify did. year in like, hey, here's the shit that you listen to you. Turns out that I listened to this song 53 times

as of when Spotify shared that stuff with me. Yikes. Yeah, it kind of blew me away when I heard that. That's more than once a week. That's not possible. Well, okay, here's why, dude. Because when I first heard it, I swear to God, I played it like 10 times back to back.

Because I was just so stoked, man. So, here it is. the band is Tiger's Jaw, the song is Warned Me. It's that feel-good email music, dude, that we all fell in love with, that we did several episodes about, was it this year or last year? I don't even remember. No, it was this year, dude. Yeah, it was earlier this year. I think our first one was back in May. We started with Blinfinite 2. But yeah, dude, it's that like Jimmy U.S. Postpunk email stuff, yeah. May. Yeah, man. And these guys,

been doing it since 2005. That's funny because, like, you know, there are bands, there are new bands that make music that sounds like that. Yeah. They've kind of been, they've been there since the beginning, not the beginning beginning, but like, you know, since third wave or whatever. Good stuff, man. That song just makes me happy.

And every time I hear it. Yeah, that's a good song. And a perfect segue for my last song, cute. Awesome. We did it. We fucking did it, dude. We did it. We did it.

Close it out with. I mean, this was, if you've been listening to the show this year, you'll know that there's one band. Oh, I know. I know exactly. That I have sort of been obsessed with. That's an understatement, my friend. It is because Spotify has the data to back it up to tell me how obsessed I was with these guys. So I'm talking about narrowhead.

I brought them maybe twice. I think I brought them twice as my watcher herds. and Spotify has informed me in the 2020 rapped that all five of my top songs which is insane because I listened to a ton of music just not on repeat like these guys all of them were narrowhead songs most of them were by

we're off their 2016 record I think it's called satisfaction yeah it is but yeah they put out a new record this year so of course I was all over it It was an amazing record. Did you get your vinyl yet? Oh, of course I did.

Dude, I got it like the day before it came out. I got a T-shirt as well because why not? Nice. So the record is called 12th House Rock. Came out, I believe, August of this year. And let me just tell you some data queue from Spotify. Tell me. It says here I was in the point five, the top point five percent of their listeners this year.

top 0.5 as in I listened to them more so than the top 99.5 percent of their listeners. I was also a pioneer cue, so it's Spotify tells me, that I listened to Knight Trist, which is one of the singles off their new record before it hit 50,000 streams. So, you know, the definition of a hipster. You were leading the way. I was listening to it before it was cool. And then, of course, they were my number one artist of the year. Was it Feels Like Sand? Was that your number one?

Feels like Sand was my number one. And that was off the 2016 record. I listened to it not as many times as you listened to that Tiger Joe song, which is funny. But I listened to Feels Like Sand, I think 42 times or something like that this year. Anyway. Let's play some music, brother. Let's play some music. So I also wanted to say this, Q.

I'm happy to see. that Spotify's data is backing up almost all the artists that I brought as my top songs from 2020. Yeah, me too. Narhead, Equip, Hum, and Mick Gordon. McGovern, who I just played a few tracks ago, right? So anyway, the data doesn't line. So we're going to listen to the first track off of their new record. I specifically did not want to play a single, even though I absolutely love a track called Hard to Swallow.

But I'm not going to play that. I want to play opening track. And we're going to play, it's going to be a little bit of a lengthy clip here, but that's in line with the rest of this episode. So anyway, here we go. So this song is called Your Song. There, man. They're already up there.

Yeah. I mean, so obviously what they're doing is a Grunge revival, right? Yeah. But it's not just Grunge, right? I wouldn't say they're doing. It's post-hardcore. That makes it sound like they're, they're, They're a fucking cover band.

Well, no, I mean, that's the thing. Cover band for grunge. Are we going to, are you going to make me do it? Do what? Are you going to make me talk about Greta van Fleet? Oh. Because the only reason I like to bring it up is because I think Greta Van Fleet is the perfect example of a band.

And I might get hate for this. There are people that love Greta Van Fleet. But they're an example to me of a band that is doing Zeppelin, basically. Yeah. And that's what they're doing. And that's, they don't care, right? So, like, it sounds like that. Yeah, no, and you're right.

They're more so than most. But yes, there are a lot of bands that are doing a sound. Yeah. Like, like temples comes to mind. Yeah, exactly. I like that one album of theirs. Right. But, but no.

Yeah, but narrowhead is, is. They are, they are carrying the torch, right? Yeah, there we go. It's not. it's not a knockoff or a gimmick. Like they are just making rock music that sounds like grunge music because it is grunge music. You know what I mean? It's not like grunge can only be kind of like the band that you just play it.

It's not like grunge music can only exist in the 90s and any grunge music that's after it is somehow like inferior, right? Yeah. I like their music more so than some bands from the 90s. Some grunge rock band. And they do it better than. And that's because they have all of that to draw from. You know what I mean?

And it's not, we kind of touched on this briefing on like the Pearl Jam episode and the Stone Pilots episode that we did where it's like you were like in the 90s, like if you were a grunge band while the definition was still being like the term, the genre was still being defined. Kirk Cobain had like a microscope. Yeah. And he would be like nitpicking every single grunge band under this microscope. Exactly.

Narhead isn't. They're not a grunge revival band. They're a band reviving grunge. Okay. I like that. Did you just come up with that? I did, dude. That's amazing.

So, like, yeah. And what they're doing is incorporating a lot of different bands from that era into their own unique sound. So, like, if you listen to this record, especially hard to swallow that song I mentioned, you're going to hear, to me, what stands out the most is helmet. I don't know if I've talked about helmet before. I think I may have done a sidetrack on them, actually. A sidetrack? Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, you've done so many fucking artists. It's amazing.

I know, man. Yeah, I did a soundtrack, a sidetrack on Helmet, and they also incorporate elements of hum, which was one of my bands from this year. But then they have... I hear smashing pumpkins and some of their stuff. Yes, they have a lot of smashing pumpkins, especially there's a single... That's a thing. If you name a 90s rock band that you like, and I could probably point to a song off of this record

or off of satisfaction that nods to that band. And that's what makes Narrowhead so great is it's everything that you love about 90s rock and grunge, like rolled into this nice perfectly executed package. You know what I mean? Yeah. Yeah. So I've listened to Satisfaction a couple times all the way through. Yeah. Big fan.

I haven't actually listened to 12 house rock. All right. So I had always planned on ending this countdown with narrowhead. Like they're my top band, my favorite band to come out in a long time. they're from Texas which is great this yeah this record has gotten a lot of love they've kind of been elevated now to the next level of

popularity I guess but they're still very sort of a buzz band you know but yeah so like vice I think had one of their tracks off of this record is one of the top hundred tracks from this year like once you you know so they've hit that next tier you know so yeah anyway

I love these guys again my new favorite rock band go listen to 12th House Rock if you haven't heard it already and then go listen to Satisfaction the album that came out in 2016. All right, Q, we're done. We did it. We did it.

We wrapped up 2020, this goofy-ass year with a nice little bow on top. And again, we've got, let's try and get it all done in one episode, but we're going to do a whole episode with our listener favorites and some of our previous guests, some of their favorite songs as well from 2020. That's right. So that's going to be fun.

Oh, dude. That'll be next week. Here's something interesting, Q, because I mentioned this when we talked about equip. Remember how you're like, did you reach out to him and ask him if he was going to put out something for 2020? That's right. And I said that I reached out to him and asked him if he was going to repress that record

that I fell in love with. Uh-huh. Turns out he did. And I just bought it yesterday. And I'm fucking stoked. Nice. Nice. That's the one that's,

It's supposed to be like a soundtrack to a video game, right? Yeah, dude. Cool. Dude, it's gorgeous. The vinyl. Let me see. Yeah, dude. Slack it to me.

I was so anxious that I missed it again because he actually announced this a week ago. Look at that. Oh. You see it? You better clean your pants. No, dude. I don't see. Oh.

I'm sharing my screen. Oh, my bad. I was looking in slack. Look at that. Ooh. Oh, dude, you better frame that, motherfucker. Man, that guy knows what he's doing, man, with his aesthetic. Yeah, with his aesthetic, yeah.

So I don't know how I missed this, but, because you had George Clanton as one of your artists, right? Yeah, with Nick Hexum, the 311 dude. Equip is on the same record label as George Clinton. How cool. So, you know, anyway, it's called 100% Electronica. That's the name of the record. Record label. Some big wave kings, dude.

Yeah, dude. Anyway. So. Just to make this episode even longer, we're going to do what we have done the last three weeks, which was bring a musical moment from 2020 to the table. Last week, it was Kurt Cobain, not Kirk Cobain, might as well have been, right? It was Posty Malone. Yeah, Post Malone's tribute to Nirvana. week before that it was

Ireland,oria, and the record quarantined at Algonso. The first week it was Tom York doing plasticine figures on whatever that guy's name. Jimmy Fallon. Anyway, so something happened last week.

So this is fresh, dude. But Allison Chains... Last week, depending on... That's true. Depending on when you listen to this. We'll record, yeah. Last week when we recorded this. Yeah. And today is December 10.

And I just peeked behind the curtain. They're not supposed to know that. So Allison Chains was given the Founders Award this year by the Museum of Pop Culture. As part of that ceremony, they had this whole kind of thing. And a ton of artists did covers of Allison Chains songs, right? A ton of artists. So this has been the year, if you're a fan of Alice and Chains, this has been the, the year for covers because I talked about that record label.

The first episode of our 2020 picks, I brought that Sabbath tribute or that Sabbath cover of Sleeping Village, right? And I talked about how the record label put out a Allison Chain's dirt tribute record. Oh man, I'm looking at these tribute performances, dude. Mark Landigan's jumping out at me. Is he now, Q? Because that's the guy I'm bringing to the table. But anyway, so Metallica did a cover.

of Wood, Billy Corgan did a cover, Corn did a cover, Corey Taylor of Slipknot Anne Wilson of Queen, Chris Novonovina of Nirvana, Taylor Hawkins of Food Fighters. Anyway, some of these artists actually did the song together.

So like Taylor Hawkins was behind the kit with, I think, Corey Taylor singing. Dave Navarro of Jane's Addiction, right? Mastodon. Anyway, you can go watch all of those performances on YouTube. But the one that sucker punched me was the one by Mark Landigan. The guy from screaming trees. Guy from screaming trees. He did Queens of the Stone Age stuff that he was on songs for the deaf. He covered the song Nutshell, which is one of my favorite

Allison Shane's tracks. It's the most like, it is this beautiful song that is also tragic, if you are familiar with Lane's Daly's story. And the song is almost, their performance on MTV Unplugged is almost like the, it's the most well-known version of the song because of how, how, like, the delivery, the performance by Lane's Daily on MTV. Mark Lannigan came out with an autobiography this year

and he talked about how close he was with Lane Staley. And so that makes this performance even that more powerful because, you know, some of the lyrics in the song kind of give you a peek behind the curtain of like what Lane Staley was going through his depression and stuff like that, right? And he, I think, overdosed around the same time, like near, you know, around the time of that performance, the MTV performance, which made it that much more tragic, right? because we all saw you could see like the pain in this guy while he was singing right on MTV. Anyway, I listened to a good amount of these covers and I picked the Mark Lanark on one because it, I mean, dude, it choked me up, dude. So get your Kleenexes ready. Also, there's like this steel lap like slide guitar element that another performer brings to the table that is really effective.

and sort of does like a nice spin facelift to this song. Anyway, so let's listen to it, Q, because I wanted, I had to get your reaction. Usually we have just kind of had these songs play us out, but I, I, we got to, we got to talk about it. All right, this is Mark Lanigan, and I'm guessing that this is the guitar. There's several musicians. There's somebody named Jeff Fielder, Ben Smith, Ryan Waters. They're kind of doing the drums and the bass and stuff like that. But Maggie Borkland, she's a Danish guitarist. All right, Q, here we go. This is, get ready to have your

socks blown off, Q. All right, here we go. Pretty fucking moving, moving, cue. I think it's a, it's a perfect song for Mark Lanigan to tackle because his his vocals are so I don't want to say dude I don't want to say it don't say it don't say it I've got another word falling around my head that I want to use instead it is so like tender haunting

just haunting yeah his vocals are haunting yeah since we're wrapping up the year and doing like year end uh lookbacks why don't we look back at the word haunting haunting and hypnagogic pop those are our two buzzwords of the year dude uh yeah for sure i mean we've been saying hypnagogic we've used that term ever since like episode

three or four when we talked about tycho so that one's been haunting though um there's there's better words for 2020 there's better words to use to describe his voice but um that's my go to but anyway i mean if you are familiar with his vocals on songs for the Deaf, like Green's of the Stone Age, he can also have this very deep

gruff kind of voice, right? Yeah. And so to hear him perform like that, and especially when you know that he was really good friends with Lane Staley, the lyric at the very end of the song where he says, if I can't be my own, I'd feel better dead. And then if you're watching the video, Mark Lannigan kind of does this thing where he kind of kisses his lips and does this like piece. That's fucking, it's moving, man. Yeah.

Yeah, it's worth watching. It's great. So I'll put the link to the YouTube video on our show notes page. But, yeah, so I, you know, like I said, I watched a lot of the covers from, you know, corn and all of them. A lot of them just did pretty faithful renditions of the song that they were covering. Yeah. Which I understand, like, it's, you know, it's hard to mess with perfection. I wouldn't want to alter it too much, right?

But I would say Metallica did an interesting cover of wood. So I'd recommend watching that. And I got to say James Hetfield's voice is still headfield's voice, you know? And did you want to, you want to fade out with that? Yeah, we'll feed out with our closing track. Yep. Sounds good. Yeah, we're going to, we'll fade out with Metallica covering wood.

and it's kind of a really, really well done kind of acoustic cover. So anyway. But yeah, that's that. I was blown away by that performance. That's probably one of the most beautiful, tragic songs from that era, I think, especially when you know the story of Lane, you know, and the struggles he went through. It's basically a song about him, you know, his struggle with being in,

the spotlight and stuff like that right so we talked about like no place to call home and stuff like that anyway a lot of people struggle with that his privacy was raped like that's one of the lyrics like stuff like that anyway um so that was that was our uh that was our year end review where we reached the end here cue and next week we got our listener picks coming at you so that's going to be cool yeah and i'm gonna put all these songs our 20 songs in the order that we played them and i'll make a public Spotify playlist. Yeah, and then same with the listener one. Maybe we'll have a separate playlist for that.

Anyway, all right. So also we have another playlist that I guess we'll maybe shape and kind of curate a little bit. But, you know, we had dozens of songs that didn't make the cut that maybe we'll put out like a 2020 picks. We'll put all that out at some point. All right. So that's that. So where can you find us, Q? I'm going to make you stay at this time.

Oh, alright. See if you can remember how to say it all. Man, it's been a while. So you can find us on our website, no filler podcast.com. You can stream all of our episodes directly from the website. We've got all of our show notes for each episode. It's got track lists on there, sources from any articles that we cite in the episode. You will find it on the website.

website, no-fillerpodcast.com. We are also part of the Pantheon podcast network, the music podcast for music lovers. Music podcast network. There we go. Music podcast network. There are a ton of great music-centered podcasts on the network. We are happy to be part of it. Pantheonpodcast.com.

We're also on Twitter at No Filler Podcast is the handle. And yeah, that's it, brother. Next week we're going to be bringing some of our listener favorites, as well as some of our previous guests and their favorite songs from 2020. That's going to be fun, dude. So, yeah, and again, we're going to have Metallica fade us out with their cover of Allison Chains' wood. And that's going to do it, man.

So, yeah, thank you, as always for listening. My name is Quentin. My name is Travis. Yeah, I'll take care. One, two, three, four.