No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Spoon Gives Laffitte A Musical Middle Finger

Episode Date: April 22, 2018

One year after releasing ​"A Series Of Sneaks​", Spoon erects a permanent middle finger to Ron Laffitte in the form of a single. Laffitte, the recently canned VP at Elektra Records, was ultimately responsible for ASoS's failure & for Spoon getting dumped from the label. This week's sidetrack dives a little deeper into the story as we listen to both sides of the single, "The Agony of Laffitte" & "Laffitte Don't Fail Me Now". For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/album-review-spoon-series-of-sneaks#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats. Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice? Yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes. because those are groceries, and we deliver those too.

Along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly. Product availability varies by region. See app for details. We had this ANR guy who brought us over there from Matador. And he basically once we signed the deal with him, I mean, he had been on us and so dedicated.

to signing the band and very, you know, all over us. Right. You know, trying to show us, you know, how serious he was about the band. And then once we signed, then he, you know, he didn't come to a single show. I couldn't get him on the phone. And then he quit, and we got dropped the week after he quit.

It's like I'm new to the amount. The one before about the wish of gowns. Take on the calls, but a lot. Forget all. And this is our sidetrack episode for the week. You're listening 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's Quentin.

I've got my brother Travis with me. We kick-started our love fest for Spoon last week with our episode on their 1998 release a series of sneaks and we're going to continue with our spoon-a-thon with a single that they released just one year after a series of sneaks came out all about that asshole A&R guy from Elektra that pretty much screwed them over after they got signed with Electra. Yeah, so we touched on this guy. briefly last episode. So he is sort of to blame for the,

I don't want to say failure of a series of snakes, but like basically he was the reason that it didn't get the, like support from the record label that it needed for having only been out for three months, you know? Yeah. And what was his name? I know his last name is Lafitte, is it? What's his last name? Or what's his first name?

No, his first name is Ron. Okay, Ron, yeah, Ron Lafitte. So, so yeah, so the story goes that he was the kind of guy that, or he was the guy that got them signed, basically, or like, pushed for them to get on Elektra. And then he gets him on. And then I'm not exactly sure what the story is with, like, his issues with the record label, but he was forced out of Electra. And, you know, all the while, you know, he wasn't doing what he should be doing to, like, push the record. and he wasn't answering their phone calls and all this weird stuff. And then he leaves or gets fired or whatever happened to him.

No, he gets fired, dude. Okay, so he gets fired and then they get dumped from the record label. Pretty much. And this was less than four months after the album's release. And again, we're talking about their second studio album, a series of sneaks, which came out in 1998. There is an interview. on AV music, the AV club that came out back in 2016.

Well, it's an article about the single that we're talking about today, which is called The Agony of Lafitte. And they were interviewing Jim Eno. And the way Eno puts it, he says, no one would have ever known that a VP of Elektra she's talking about Lafitte, who had been chasing us for a year and a half, who was totally excited about our band,

would ever just flake out and get fired from the label. Actually, this wasn't an interview with the AV Club. I'm sorry. AV Club pulled that quote from an interview that Jim Ino did back in 1999 for the Austin Chronicle. He goes on to say there was no indication at all that that would ever happen. That's why it's laughable.

ever thought anything like that would happen. So, yeah, Ron Lafitte gets fired. Who knows why? As you heard in that little clip in the intro there, this is from an interview that Brett Daniel did with Mark Marin on his WTF podcast. Ron didn't return their phone calls, you know, like he never showed up to a single show. Like, he just didn't. It's like he had zero interest in.

spoon after he quote unquote chased them for a year and a half just fighting to get them on this record label and then he pretty much just drops off the face of the earth yeah so

this is you know people say that this is what what caused a series of Sikhs not to really kind of get the exposure that it needed early on but the album does later go on to receive

like critical you know pitchfork put it on its top 100 favorite records of the 90s list. So, I mean, that's saying something for the, because, you know, when you think of 90s records for the vast majority of people out there, Spoon does not cross your mind as a 90s band. You know what I mean?

Right. There's the obvious, you know, go-to list of 90s records that are obviously on that list as well. But the fact that Pitchfork considers it one of the, you know, well, they call it top 100 favorite records of the 90s. So, you know, do they have a separate list of the best records? And this is just like some of the Pitchfork authors, you know, this is their favorite records.

Who knows? But I'm just saying, you know, that's saying something. And some publication called Magnet ranked at number 29 on their top 60 albums of 93 to 2003, which is kind of a weird, I don't know why they. split the 90s and the 2000s into one list. That's kind of weird. But anyway, I'm just saying like it is a critically acclaimed album. You know what I mean?

But I think Spoon sees it as that was the moment where like their trajectory like just stopped because they get signed on to a major record label and, you know, hey, we're going places. And then they get dumped three months later. And so they have to like start over again. And then, you know, so to tie in. in what we're talking about today, they wrote these two songs as just kind of, it's almost like a satire, you know, about what happened to them.

And like, yeah, and so I'm going to play another clip pretty much right where our little intro clip faded out. Um, where Brett Daniel kind of talks, he talks specifically about these singles. Um, and it kind of explains some things. Uh, so here is just a little bit more of that interview.

His name was Lafitte. Ron Lafitte. And so we had a song called The Agony of Lafitte. We had a song called Lafitte, Don't Fail Me Now. And this single that we put out was kind of the first thing that gave the press or whatever, anybody, a reason to sort of latch on. Like, there was a story all of a sudden. Right. Right.

And it was kind of the first thing that... And that was on a series of sneaks? It ended up as being like a bonus track on series of sneaks later. Yeah. And so there was like some good press behind it. Like it had a little edge to it. Yeah, for the first time, yeah, for the first time some people started taking notice. And then the next time we put out a record, it's, things started happening, you know.

So they kind of used these songs almost like as a, not a publicity stunt. But, you know, like, it was something for journalists to write about, you know, like, hey, here's what happened with the series of sneaks. here's the dude that's responsible for the for the failure, you know? It makes you wonder if they, if they, like, their intention was to get

press exposure by writing something like this, you know? Or if like this was just their way of like processing and dealing with it like, you know, it's basically a middle finger that they're given to both electroly and obviously round the feet. But like, dude, my favorite, my favorite part about this, this whole thing is that for this single, both side A and side B, the songs have his last name

in the songs. I fucking love it, dude. Yeah, and that's, that's obviously the joke, you know. And they're funny, they're clever little puns, you know. So, yeah, it's like they're trying to make fun of the situation and how like, like he was saying, like, we never in a million years saw this coming, you know. but you know the irony being like it it's like that's what got them the press attention that that ron lafitte was supposed to be pushing and getting for them when when a series of snakes came

out you know what i mean but you know they talk about how like i think we referenced this last episode like this is like the dark period of of brett daniel's music career like he looks back at this with like you know it's like the lost period yeah yeah but uh he also uh he also Apparently, they refer to it as the locust period, like, you know, the plague period where they were plagued with bad luck and stuff. So, like, Jim, you know, tells a story about how in between this and getting signed to merge and coming out with girls can tell, they were writing, you know, all of these songs and trying to record them for, like, demos or whatever. and like they were recording under a reel-to-reel, like a tape machine and like the tape like malfunction like that and like the fear was like oh we just lost all those recordings you know that we just did but like and they were about to like call it quits and shit but like somehow the you know

the tape happened to cut at like the perfect spot to where like it it just faded into the next song so like they saw that as a as a sign you know like let's let's keep going to on or whatever, but like they were on the verge of like just, you know, screw it, fuck it. Like, you know, it's not, it's not meant to be. Like we talked about earlier, Brett Daniel had several other little side gigs that he did, you know. But yeah. So let's, uh, let's play the, let's play Lafitte don't fail me now, uh, which is our official sidetrack, uh, for, for this episode.

Um, so again, in the intro, we played just a little bit. of side A on the record called the Agony of Lafitte and here is a good chunk of side B on that single. It is called Lafitte, don't fail me now. Such a good song, dude. Yeah, so, you know, here's what I wanted to say about

about just the overall, like, composition and, like, vibe of the song. Like, this is the same vibe that you're going to hear in girls can tell. And, you know, it sounds like it could be, you know, a B-side for girls can tell. It's got that same, like, tone and, like, there's a, and you can hear a definite change in, like, the sound of that song

versus what they had done with a series of snakes. And, like, it makes you wonder if, like, the, the drama of what happened to them, like, sort of changed, like because it's this song has kind of a somber tone right yeah it's so it's acoustic right it's an acoustic track for the most part

it's basically I think I mean there's there's an electric guitar in like the second verse he starts doing those little riffs that he kind of throws in the background right which are really cool

number one but yeah it's I'm just saying like this sounds like a girls can tell song you know what I mean so yeah so let's backtrack go quick So just a reminder. So a series of sneaks came out in May of 1998.

And they were recording that album as far back as 97, so, you know, a year earlier. And then this single, The Agony of Lafitte, was released in November of 1999. So, you know, in between the release of a series of sneaks, or maybe even in the same time, Brame, the time period, he was writing these songs for this single. And then Girls Can Tell comes out in February of 2001. So that's not, you know, from November of 99 to February of 2001. So the Agony of Lafitte was released just a couple months before, you know, just a few months before Girls Can Tell came out. Now that's its release date. It's not saying that they,

you know, wrote these songs within that time. But, but yeah, yeah, you can see the progression. So again, Girls Can Tell is the album we're going to cover next when we revisit Spoon in a couple weeks, which is their third studio album. And yeah, like we had mentioned earlier, there's a big difference in sound between a series of Sneaks and Girls Can Tell. Just the progression of Spoon's overall sound. Well, there's a quote from Jim, you know, from that interview that we played a clip from last time. And I don't have it pulled up.

So I'll play it in the episode where we talk about Girls Can Tell. But he mentions like that shift in like their songwriting style between series of sneaks and girls can tell and how Brett Daniel, basically I'm paraphrasing here, but basically, Britt Daniels, you know, comes with a conclusion that,

like, I don't have to rely on a distorted guitar to write these songs anymore. You know, I can throw on a piano if I want, you know,

and which you definitely hear, you hear the piano prominently on girls can tell. Oh, yeah. And then definitely on, uh, kill the moonlight later.

So, like, that shift had happened in the short period between, like, them getting dumped from,

Electra and writing these two like, you know, satire pieces about Ron Lafitte, you know what I mean? And like, it just makes you wonder if, if getting dumped from Electra is what, like, made him stop and, like, sort of like just explore these new, because it's like they don't have a label anymore, you know, they're doing these songs just kind of like on the side, you know? I would like to know exactly when he wrote these songs, you know? Did he, I mean, he had to have written these songs after, well, I don't know, man. I couldn't have been that much longer after. Well, but he could have even written these songs before they officially got, got dumped from the record, you know. Yeah, dude.

Because, well, why would he write a song? If it's not answering their phone calls. Yeah, I know, but why would he write a song attacking their record label, you know, a manager or whatever while they're on the label? You can write it. You can write a song and have zero intentions of ever releasing it, you know? That's true. I just, my, my assumption would be that they wrote this after they were dumped and like,

yeah, you're probably right. Because you can, you can sense the annoyance and, you know, because there's that line about like planning for your retirement in your 30s or whatever. Right. Like he's just singing about, yeah, writing about how this Lafitte guy doesn't give a fuck about anyone else like saying things like, are you honest with anyone else? Yeah, you know, it's time to take the trash out. I love it, too.

Yeah, what's funny is, it's essentially... Like Jimino said, that quote that I, you know, I quoted from, with Jimino speaking with the Austin Chronicle back in 99, he said that, you know, this was a laughable situation. Like, there's just something that they never thought would happen. Right. So they, you know, they're trying to make light of it. But at the same time, it almost comes off as like a, like a breakup song or something like that. You know what I mean? Like a bitter breakup song where you're...

you're, you know, just writing these lyrics about this person that just dumped you, you know? Yeah. Because that's exactly what, it's exactly what happened to them, you know? They got fucking played, dude. But yeah. It's a great song, like you said, dude.

Like, the composition of it is great. Like those, when he brings in that electric guitar to do those little, uh, in the background, like, that's a cool, like, almost like, uh, it's got almost like a, a 60s, British invasion type type vibe. For me, dude, I had like a

Fleetwood Mac vibe with this song. Maybe that was just me and just hearing it right now. I just for some reason thought Fleetwood Mac, but yeah, 60s, 70s rock vibe. Yeah, it's just another solid spoon song, dude. Like we've said before, Spoon is unsinkable. Spoon can do no wrong. Right. And they proved it here, dude. I mean, think about it. They get dumped by a manager label.

Come out with a song like making fun of the whole situation. And that gets them like attention and back in the spotlight. And then merge picks them up, you know. Dude, that's the perfect spot to leave off for when we pick back up again in a couple weeks. Yeah. And what's great about our episode on Girls Can Tell. Yeah. And like we said, like this is the perfect like transition into Girls Can Tell because it sounds a lot. like the stuff he was writing for girls could tell because he was writing it all at the same time obviously yep here's something that i found out while we were recording this just now dude um and this is going to be our outro for this sidetrack have you heard of the band nada surf yeah dude are you a fan i never really got into him i don't know if i ever if i ever delved into them i i know i've

I've definitely heard of them. Apparently, they have a cover of the agony of Lafitte. And they also, yeah, dude, I haven't listened to it. We're going to play it and listen to it for the first time together for this outro. Apparently, they had some shit with the lecture as well. So they decided to do a cover of this Spoon song. But did they have shit underneath Ron Lafitte as their manager? I don't know, dude.

So since I was all looking, I was looking all this shit up on the fly. Honestly, dude, there was about two minutes of you talking earlier that I wasn't listening at all. And then I just threw in some generic responses. So I hope they worked. I was looking up some articles to see if I could find anything on it. And there was an article that came out in 2003 on the New York Times. talking about not a serf recovering from this incident that they had to deal with with Electra, basically trying to get them to steer away from their sound to write more quote-unquote

popular sounding songs. One little line here from this article that stood out to me while I wasn't paying attention to you earlier. One of the guys from Not a Surf recalled conversations with the label, Electra, that preceded along the lines of, quote, we don't just need a song that could do well. We need miracles. Something ironic with a massive, massive easy-to-seeing chorus

that preferably talks about sex or high school or both. Hmm, fuck that, dude. So clearly, I mean, think about that shit, dude. That's like, that's the nightmare, right? That every band fears when signing on to a major record label that the label's going to try to influence their sound and just have they, all they want is for them to churn out hits. And that sounds to me like this is exactly what they're dealing with with Elektra. So yeah, we're going to close out this episode with not a certain. cover of Spoons Single, The Agony of Lafitte.

And be sure to check us out on SoundCloud. Subscribe to us on iTunes or any other podcast app that you use. Hop onto our website, no-failorpodcast.com. There you can read show notes and dive a little bit deeper into our episodes. and next week we'll be covering Jimmy Eat World's 1999 album Clarity and that's going to do it for this sidetrack episode thank you as always for listening

again this is not a serfs cover of Spoons The Agony of Lafitte and we will shout at you next week my name is Quentin my name is Travis bye bye Holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts that say I know you. From festive and cozy fashion to luxe beauty and fragrance sets,

our special selection has something for every style and price point. Visit our Holtz holiday shop and store or online at Holtrenfrew.com. Hi, I'm Sophia Loper Carroll, host of the Before the Chorus podcast. We dive into the life experiences behind the music we love. Artists of all genres are welcome, and I've been joined by some pretty amazing folks like glass animals. I guess that was the idea. was to try something personal and see what happened.

And Japanese breakfast. I thought that the most surprising thing I could offer was an album about joy. You can listen wherever you get your podcasts. Oh, and remember, so much happens before the chorus.