No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Prong - Beg To Differ

Episode Date: November 4, 2019

On our last sidetrack episode in Metal Month, we take a look at groove-thrashers Prong and their 1990 record Beg to Differ. The band blended their hardcore punk upbringings with a slightly slowed down thrash sound to help start the groove metal movement of the early 90s along with bands like Pantera and Sepultura. Also the question on everyone’s mind is answered: did Quentin learn anything in Metal Month? Tune in to find out. This show is part of Pantheon Podcasts. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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that fill the space between the singles aren't our favorite records. My name is Travis. Got my Brother Quentin with me as always. That was a band called Prong with a song For Dear Life. It was on their 1990 album Begged to Differ, and that's who we are talking about today on our very last metal episode for Metal Month. Technically, it's November, and Metal Month was October, but, you know, whatever. We tried. It's our sidetrack.

It's going to be short and sweet. This is our side track to the Metallica episode last week. So here we are, Q. We're wrapping it up. Tell me five things that you've learned about metal. Whoa, dude. Didn't think that I was going to throw you a pop quiz, did you? Number one, thrash means fast.

Okay. That's fine. Number two. I'll give it to you. Well, come on. Let me say this, man. I am, I'm done with it, dude. How do you listen to you?

to metal all the time. I don't. I don't listen to metal year round. You got to spread it out, you know. So wait, do you go months at a time without listening to metal? I mean, I'm like that with all kinds of music. You know, you go, you, sure. Genres kind of, you know, you go on, and you're on a, you're on a metal fix, you know, for a couple months, and then you swing the other direction. Okay. Well, the one band that I really enjoyed was Kimus. That is the, you're on a, you're on a metal fix, you know, for a couple of the newest metal band that we talked about. Like those guys are really young. They've only been on the scene for like five years, if that.

So yeah, that's really interesting. And, you know, Kimis, their whole thing is sort of mixing together metal from over the decades and creating their own sound. So that is funny that you said that. You know, they are, I think I may have said this on that episode, but like I feel like they're in a very approachable band. You know what I mean? even for people who aren't fans of metal.

So, yeah, I like the singer's voice. Yeah, I think they've got a little something for everybody. Yeah, yeah. And I will say this too, dude. I know moving forward, I will be listening to Ghost every October from now on. Yeah. I mean, that's another one that just, you know, anybody can get into Ghost if you're in the right frame of mind for some Satan worship.

What was the song called Welcome U Zero? Year Zero, yeah. Year zero. Oh yeah, dude, I'm going to play that every Halloween. You have to. I mean, it's one of those things where like, if I ever do a haunted house again, ghost, that's all I'm going to play is ghost. Yeah. All right. So some of you may have caught our bonus episode that dropped on Halloween. Hope you enjoyed it. That was kind of fun to put together. Talked about a band called The Undoing of David Wright.

We went a little bit more punk for that one. So I gave you a little break from the metal. Yeah. But that was, I think, I think I'm going to stick to, to what you said. That might be the first time that undoing of David Wright has ever appeared on a podcast. I feel pretty confident in that, dude. Me too. So we're better than all the other podcasts.

Here we are. Does that make us, does that make us better or does that make us worse? I don't know Okay So this is our Like I was saying This is our last mental episode For a while

Uh The next few episodes we got lined up Are going to be A dramatic shift And I'm excited about it man I'm ready to To mix it up a little bit Me too

All right So we're talking about prong today Let's get it Let's get into it here How did you find out about these guys How long have you been a fan of prong? Honestly, just over the last few years they came up on my radar.

Just digging through Spotify, it was probably one of those things where I found them on another band's related artist's page. That's basically how it went down. I find a lot of good artists that way. Oh, my God, yeah. So these guys are technically a thrash metal band as well. So that's why we're doing them after Metallica, because Metallica, as we talked about, was one of the pioneers. of thrash metal. These guys are also called and thrown into the groove metal camp.

So, Q, now... Hang on. Hang on. Groove metal? Yeah. That's a thing? Yeah, sure. Why not?

Okay. What is groove metal? I feel like I just blew your mind somehow. Well, so you're telling me that you could be a groove metal band and be that distinctive as to warrant having that, like, label? I mean, think about it, dude. I feel like we've had these conversations about bands outside of metal, right? How would you describe Mr. Twin Sister?

You would have to use more than one genre, right? Sure, sure, sure. Right. Okay, well, that's the same thing. Yeah, okay. Groove metal is just like a subset of metal. but, you know, it's like a tag, man. It's like a tag on a, on a, if you to classify these guys, you might throw them under multiple genres,

but stylistically, they have elements of thrash metal and groove metal. And groove metal is an offshoot of thrash metal. But what does groove metal mean? It's got the, like the intensity and sometimes the speed of thrash metal. but more often than not, it's played at more of a mid-tempo. So it's the intensity of thrash metal, but not necessarily as fast as thrash metal. So it's got more of a groove to it.

So bands that are classified as groove metal would be bands like Pantera, Sepultera, who I've talked about before. Okay. All right, so prong. Let's talk about these guys for a second. So their very first release, they had two independent releases. The first one came on 87, which is when you and I were independently released.

That's the second time you've made a joke like that. I know, dude. No, it's pretty good. I enjoyed it. I like it. Okay. And then their first record under a major label came out in 1990. I'm just laughing about your, I'm laughing at your joke, man.

That's good. Independently released. Actually, the funny thing is that you and I were released together. We weren't released independently of one another, but whatever. Hey, you know what? I think two minutes counts as independent from one another. That's true. That's true.

All right. Man, we're way off. We're way off track here, dude. We're off the rails on this episode. Whatever. It's a side track. Let's stay focused here. We're going to stay focused here.

We're getting off track on the side track. Can we play? Let's play a song. Okay. All right. Fine. Here's all you need to know about these guys. First album came out, first album under a major record label, came out in 1990.

It's called Beg to Differ, and we're going to play some tunes off of it. What more do you need to know? I want to know who came up with that album cover because it's dope. Well, I could tell you, it's a fellow by the name of Brian Pusshead Schroeder. His nickname was, his nickname was Pusshead for some reason. How do you get a nickname like that? I don't know. There's a lot of ways you can get that nickname.

Yeah, it's cool because it kind of looks like a comic book panel, you know? Yeah. Three panels on a comic book. And, you know, the 90s was like the resurgence of comic books, you know. So that's probably not a coincidence. Okay. Let's play some tunes. Let's do it.

Again, these guys are called Prong. The intro track that you heard at the beginning of this episode was one of the singles off the record called For Dear Life, but we're not going to play any more singles going forward. Let's jump into a song called Beg to Differ. I'm into that, dude. You like that? I liked it. There you go, man.

Yeah. I can see the, I can see the groovy. Yeah. But there are moments of thrash. Totally. Yeah, I liked the drummer. It sounds like he was playing an electronic kit or the, you know, the way the snare drum is miced. Like the reverb on it and stuff. Yeah. That was really cool. I like that. And I liked how he doubled up on the high hat there towards the end of the clip. That was cool. Well, there you go, dude. My job is done here. I've introduced. you to another metal band that you like. Yeah, dude, you know what?

Hats off to you, man, for this past month. I think you did a good job picking bands. Thank you. I've been entertained at the very least. There's a lot of other bands that I would have liked to talk about, so we'll have to do this again sometime. We're not done yet, though. Do you think that was the only going to show you?

I'm going to show you more than that, too. But that gave me a little taste. Can we talk about why they have a song called Intermenstrual? What the fuck? I don't know, dude. I don't know the story behind that. I didn't look into it. I don't know what to tell you about that one.

Yeah, it's called interminstrel DSB. I don't know what DSB stands for, dude. Does that same for something? Should we know what that means? Let's look it up. Let's look it up. I have no idea. DSB.

Deadly, no. That's got to be it, dude. Deadly. Why not, man? Deadly semen buildup? I bet you that's it. I mean, come on, there's a metal man, dude. Oh, my God.

Medical condition caused by prolonged lack of sex. We're going off the rails, bro. That's probably what it means. Okay. God, all right, sorry. All right, I wanted to play one more song here. But yeah, beg to differ, I think, showcases what is generally meant by groove. metal, you know.

It was very, it's a lot more mid-tempo, you know. But the, the, you know, the distortion and the tone on their guitars matches, you know, the more kind of classical, classical, that's kind of a funny term to use for thrash, but the more classic thrash sound.

Okay, let's play, let's play track two real quick. This song is called Steady Decline. Dude, I'm a sucker for, that sound that he's got out of that snare drum is really cool. I can't figure out if it's an electronic kit or if it's just the way

they've got it mixed in there. It works, dude. The name of the drummer is Ted Parsons, if you're curious. Yeah, so go ahead. You're about to say something. Oh, another band that I was into briefly.

I think they're classified as stoner rock or stoner metal. You know the band Red Fang. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, prehistoric dog. He's a really good album. I feel like that might be in line with this style of metal. Am I far off there?

No, I don't think you're far off. Maybe that's more in line with groove metal. I don't Red Fing is, like you said, more stoner rock. Yeah. Yeah, which again, like I, I, I don't know what makes Stone or Rock, Stone a Rock, but I was getting some of those vibes. Actually, you know what?

So Red Fang is also classified as sludge metal. Yeah. Man, I mean, they're more... Can't keep up. Can't keep up. Doom metal, but not really. Yeah, I can see why they're not. Even you have trouble.

It's, yeah, no, I mean, that's the thing. Metal, like I said, they've got, there's so many subgenres for metal. It's hard to really classify a band often as, as, as having one particular sound, you know, at least not nowadays, because I feel like metal bands these days are taking in so many influences from the past, you know. Yeah, like we were saying about Kimus. Yeah, exactly. It's really hard to pin a band down. I mean, usually they will get one label thrown on them, like how Kimus gets the Doom Metal tag thrown on them, even though they

don't like that because they're trying to do much more with their sound, you know? Yeah. So, So here's what Wikipedia has to say about prong, along with groove metal and thrash metal, industrial metal, the fusion of heavy metal music and industrial music, synthesizer or sequencer lines, that could be in line with what I was hearing with the drummer. Maybe he is using an actual, like a drum machine or something. Cross over thrash, fusion of thrash metal and hardcore punk. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I mean, I think you can hear. some of that punk influence on that song we just played. Totally.

I mean, their first two records, which were independent releases, before they were assigned to Epic Records, had more of a hardcore punk sound. So, like, their origin is hardcore punk. So, and then they, you know, that's why they got the crossover thrash label on them because they basically, you know, fused the two together for their sound, hardcore punk and thrash metal. Yeah. So.

Cool. So are we saying we're not going to do What You Heard's anymore on our side tracks? Is that what you told me earlier today, Q? Are you, do you want this on record, bro? I don't care. I don't know, man. You know what? All right, let's just try to keep our sidetracks under 30 minutes.

And we're at that mark. Let's play some Whatcherds. Okay. I hope you got something. Oh, of course I do. I always got something. All right, cool. So this is

was a bit of a surprise to me when I read this. So we did an episode on Aymond Tobin. We talked about bricolage. Amon Tobin's one of my favorite electronic musicians. I've been listening to him for years and he has come out with some new material this year. In fact, he's come out with a lot of new material this year. so much so that I was like, this is bizarre

that he's put out two full-length albums in 2019 so far. So I looked into it, and there was a interview that I read from him saying that he had like 12 albums worth of material that he's going to release in the next 12 months. Whoa. I was in like an album a month, you know. So how long had it been since his last? I'm looking at it.

It looks like 2011 was his last full length before these two. Yeah. So that makes sense, dude, eight years worth of shit. Yeah. So he's, you know, he's been cranking him out. But, or I mean, he's cranked, you know, he's very prolific. He just hasn't released them yet. But anyway, so he put out a record under a pseudonym or, you know, another, under the

name that he records under. That's going to be my watch your head for today. So I read that he had released three albums in 2019. I was like, wait a minute, I only see two. But that's because he released another one under this side project that he does called Only Child Tyrant. So this album is called Time to Run. And the song that we're going to play today is actually the title track, Time to Run. So here we go.

This is Aymond Tobin recording under his side. project only child tyrant that was cool dude yeah so it's it's a lot different than the stuff that he has has been releasing um lately under ament Tobin so like it makes sense that he wanted to to put this out under a different name you know they reminded me of uh holy fuck yeah dude right yeah yeah industrial comes to mind the word industrial i feel like describes that pretty well yeah Like it kind of seems like it's like you can see, you know, like automation and like, you know, mechanical gears and stuff moving. I feel like, I feel like Eam and Tobin's music has always given me that, that, that vibe. But yeah, so I'm reading like a press release about this record.

So I don't know who is quoted as saying this, but says here, I like this description of it. Intense Angular indie rock made by acid dipped machines. And I like the way that this person said indie rock because there is a lot of guitar stuff in this record. And he said, I've got a quote here from Tobin. He says, I've often made my favorite things when I wasn't overthinking. This record came about over a period of time

between things I may well have been overthinking. It's fun to program drums that sound live and fake at the same time to make synths sound like guitars and have guitars played by robots. My enjoyment of these processes became a complete sound with its own personality, one that needed its own name. I hope you'll like it as much

or at least nearly as much as I did making it. So perfect definition of a side project, right? Like he was just kind of playing around experimenting with things and he had come up with this sound that just became its own thing, you know, so. Anyway, I love Aim and Tobin. I'll listen to anything he puts out from now to the end of time.

So anyway, if you like Tobin like I do, you can look forward to a lot more releases coming out of him over the next few months like he was saying. He's got a lot of stuff basically in the barrel ready to get shot out at us. So more excitement to come. Cool. All right. What you got here? What you've been here lately.

All right. Man, hold on. You sounded like you were very depressed right then when you went into that. Oh, really? You're like, all right. Well, okay, here's why I sounded like that, because I'm already just anticipating you not liking this, because I know historically you don't like anything that Bjork does.

And this, yeah, so I found out a few days ago that Bjork was in a band called the Sugar Cubes back in the 80s before she went solo. I had no idea. I've never heard this band until, like, let me just, when I heard it on the radio, I was listening to it, and I, you know, the DJ, you know, played it in, said, here's a couple songs from the sugar cubes or whatever. And I heard it and it's like, that's Bjork's voice. And I thought that she had started something new and she was in a new band called the Sugar Cubes.

But turns out this is a band from the 80s. Anyways, I was a big fan of Bjork for a while. I kind of stopped paying attention in what she's been doing recently. But anyway, she was in an alternative rock band called The Sugar Cubes back in the mid-80s. Let's just let the music play for itself. This is from, I believe this was their debut album.

Yeah, it's called Life's Too Good. Came out in 88. And this is a song called Cold Sweat. It was all right. I love it, dude. There was nothing, there's nothing all that unique about it. Like, it sounded like it came out of that era, you know? Sure.

It sounded like she was channeling Bono or something like that, you know? Like it sounded kind of like a YouTube song from that era, you know? Oh, yeah, yeah, okay. I see that. I'm not saying it's bad. I'm just saying, I think it's cool that she was in like a post-punk band back in the day, you know. No, I do it, dude. Yeah.

Her voice just fucking gives me chills, man. Every time anything that she does, just like sends the shivers up and down the spine, bro. I don't know what it is about her. I think she might be just be an alien. I think she's an alien. That's what it is. I don't think she's human. But yeah, that's cool.

I mean, that's cool that you were able to be like, wait a second, that's Bjork's voice. Like, you knew it instantly, right? Yeah, yeah. Well, actually, so it was another song off this album called Birthday that they played first, and then they faded into cold sweat. But yeah, if you listen to the song Birthday, well, I mean, it's Bjork. That's the thing. And like you can't.

Yeah. There's no, you know, there's no denying that voice. Yeah. But no, I seriously thought, oh, cool, she's in a new band called the Sugar Cups. It just tells you how unchanging her voice is, you know, if you didn't think for a second that that sounded like a younger. Oh, that sounds like Bjork from like, what, 50 years ago? Well, shit, not that long ago, man.

Not that long ago, man. We're not that old. 33. Yeah, 32 years ago. But yeah, that's, now, what's interesting to me, like what you said, they're regarded as the biggest rock band to emerge from Iceland. Well, I didn't say that on record. I said that before we started recording.

But yeah, no. Apparently, they're one of the biggest alt rock. bands from Iceland. Now that's what it said on the description on Spotify. So who knows who wrote that. Yeah. That's that's under that's the source for that is a Rolling Stone article about Bjork that came out in 2017. Yeah, dude. I'd never heard of him, man. Never heard of him. There you go. So, yeah, that's it, man. Next week we, we're going to shift gears finally. So if you've been waiting for us to, to, to, to stop talking about metal, it's about to happen. So you just got to wait one more week.

Yeah. We're going to talk about one of the most successful bands of all time next week. One of the biggest bands ever. We're going to talk about them next week. So there you go. We don't do that very often. No, we don't. But, I mean, this is one of my favorite records.

If I were to make a long list of my favorite. records. This would be on that list somewhere. I wouldn't put it top 10, but, but this record in particular, let's put it this way. I can safely say this. This is one of my favorite debut records. Okay. Yeah, dude. You know what? Absolutely. It's, it's something special about it. And you know what? No one even knows what we're talking about. So no. But hey, you know, I think we, we've given them some clues here. People can maybe start to try to guess, you know? One of the biggest bands of all time. For sure. Yeah. I mean, that's, that is the truth. Okay, so there you go. That's that.

What are we going to fade us out with today? Some more prong. I actually do have a song from prong that's going to fade us out. Q, do you remember we were probably too young and I was not a legit metalhead to have watched this at the time? But you've heard about headbanger's ball on MTV, right? Yeah, yeah, MTV's, yeah. So they had this thing called Headbanger's Ball. it was a heavy metal, basically it's when they would play heavy metal music videos on MTV. So one of the songs off of Beg to Differ was used for commercial breaks during Headbinger's

ball in 1990s. So if you watched that program back in the day, you're probably going to recognize this song. And that's what's going to fade us out. The song is called Lost and Found. and that's going to do it for us this week. My name is Travis. And my name is Quentin. See you on next week.

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