No Filler Music Podcast - Sidetrack: Spoon - "The Book I Write" (Stranger Than Fiction S/T)

Episode Date: July 22, 2018

To top off our SpoonFest we decided to dive into the soundtrack for "Stranger Than Fiction" for our Sidetrack this week, which just happens to be chock-full Britt Daniel & Spoon. Music supervisor/composer Brian Reitzell collaborates heavily with Britt Daniel for this soundtrack, and Daniel offers up four Spoon tracks for the film, including "The Book I Write", which is an exclusive track for the movie. For more info, check out our show notes: https://www.nofillerpodcast.com/episode/ep-16-spoon-gimme-fiction#sidetrack Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Here Harold stood Face to face with his oldest desire I turn my camera on I cut my fingers on the way On the way The way of slipping away I turned my feelings on You made me untouchable for life

Yeah 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. This is our sidetrack episode for the week. My name's Quentin. Got my brother Travis with me. And we are covering the soundtrack for the 2006 movie Stranger Than Fiction. This movie is just chock full of spoon.

So we decided to finish up our spoon-a-thon with one last go-round with some spoonage for our side-track this week. Travis, when was the last time you saw this movie? Probably within the last five years. But it's really good, man. It's been a while. I watched it again last night. Yeah, it's, it holds up. Yeah, it's great, man.

You know why, dude? Because it's Will Ferrell not being over the top, like right off the bat. You know what I mean? It's Will Ferrell not being cast just to be Will Ferrell, you know? And he's actually a pretty legit actor. Yeah, it's like when Jim Carrey is cast for like the Majestic or something. Or the Truman Show. Or one of those other movies.

Yeah. Or Eternal Sunshine, you know? Yeah. It's like, wow, he's actually got some chops, you know. Right. Yeah. So it's a really cool movie. I don't know if we need, if you're like, I don't know.

I don't know if you want to talk about the movie. Well, Q, this isn't a movie review. Huh? This isn't a movie review podcast. It's a music review podcast. You're right. But to make a little bit of sense, to make some sense behind that intro, main character, Will Ferrell wakes up one day,

and he is hearing his life being narrated in his head by a woman, who he finds out later, is a writer who is writing a book on his life. so that's all you need to know and the clip that we pulled for the intro you find out that this guy has always wanted to learn to play a guitar and he

finally gets off his ass and goes out and buys the guitar and tries to learn during that scene Spoons I Turned my camera on is playing the whole time so I just kind of spliced in the actual song for our intro but for every spoon song that you hear on this movie,

they've got it edited and looped in a way that you never actually hear Brad Daniel's voice in the scenes throughout this movie. But there are quite a few spoon songs that go as far back as girls can tell that pop up in this movie. So you've got the way we get by, on there, which is on Kill the Moonlight. You've got My Mathematical Mind, which was actually our intro song for the episode we did last week on Gimmie Fiction.

And you've got Vittorio E, which was also on Killed the Moonlight. So I lied. It doesn't go as far back as girls can tell. But there's a lot of really great spoon moments in this movie. And there's a few little guitar ditties that Brett Daniel and music supervisor Brian Reitzel put together for different scenes throughout the movie as well. So Britt Daniel had a lot to do with this movie. And I found out through an interview that Pop Matters did with Britt back in 2006. kind of the backstory behind how he got involved in the first place.

Apparently, so again, the music supervisor, so the guy that basically my dream job, right? Right, yeah, exactly. The person that gets to put together a soundtrack for a movie. This guy's name is Brian Reitzel. He also did the soundtrack for Lost in Translation. He did the soundtrack for Mary Antoinette, which apparently was also another really.

great soundtrack. I really liked the soundtrack for Lawson Translation. I didn't realize this was the same guy. Apparently, he was listening to a lot of spoon while he was kind of putting together, trying to figure out songs to put in this movie. It says that he identified the storyline with the Austin band's unique energy. And he took it a step further by calling Bridgeneral to help him with the process. Well, you know, we've talked about how great of a guitar player, Brad Daniel is over the past couple months.

So, you know, it's a perfect fit for a movie about a guy who finally gets off his ass and picks up a guitar, you know. Yeah, right, exactly. So apparently, Ritzel and Daniel Bond, they find out that they have a mutual obsession with the soundtrack to this movie called Solaris. I don't know, I don't know anything about that movie, do you? Do you ever hear of that? Did you say Brian Retzel? Yeah, Ritzel. Brian.

Brian. Yeah, he's a composer too, man. He's done stuff for like video games and whatnot. Oh, cool. Yeah. Yeah, yeah. I saw that on his Wikipedia page. Yeah, he's a music supervisor for movies, puts together soundtracks.

But yeah, he is a composer. Dude, he remixed inside of himself. What? He remixed Inside Out on the Inside Out remix his album. Oh, really? Yeah, there you go. Yeah, so obviously him and Spoon. He's a huge fan on.

He's a good. Yeah, I've collaborated probably many times over. So, yeah, they both have a mutual obsession with this soundtrack to a movie called Salaris by Cliff Martinez. Oh, dude. I've listened to that. Yeah, dude. Cliff Martinez is great, dude. He did Only God forgives.

He did, well, he's done some video game scores, too. That's where I know I'm from. Yeah, I know you're really into video game soundtrack. Yeah, well, I'm sure that'll come up at some point. Dude, yeah, Cliff Martinez is also known for doing Drive with Ryan Gosling, right? Mm, okay. Yeah. Cool.

Yeah, apparently Britt Daniel, you know, tried to get hit. his girlfriend and his band members into this, this Salaris soundtrack, and no one was into it. And then he found out that Brian was really into it, too. So, you know, they clicked on that. And then, yeah, from there, it just kind of took off. And Spoon just ends up being all over this movie, like we said. Apparently, Brian thought it would be cool to actually have a Spoon song

written and recorded for the movie. and so our the official sidetrack for this week is going to be the book i write by spoon which shows up on this soundtrack it actually it's just during the credits but this was a song that he already had some of the lyrics written out for that he so he basically played brian a bunch of kind of like ideas for songs that he had and uh one of them already had the lyric, the book I write in it. And he sort of had like a melody already written. And so then obviously that's a great choice for a movie like this.

So they went with it and they finish out, he finishes out writing the song and they record it for the movie. So I guess let's just go ahead and play it, dude. So this is again a song that pops up in the movie. It plays during the credits. This is just over two minutes long, so we're just going to play the whole song. And this is Spoon's song from 2006 called The Book I Write. Just another doozy from Spoon, right? Yeah, that kind of sounds like more, you know,

I feel like there's at least one song in each of their albums post-Gimmie fiction that sound like that. Just, you know, you're just kind of, I mean, you could even say Sister Jack kind of sounds like. like that too. I was going to say, I thought it kind of sounded like Sister Jack. And that's the thing, this was a song idea that he had, you know, who knows how long? Yeah, I mean, it makes you wonder if this, if this was going to show up on, as a B-side on a single, or if it was going to be included in, in an album, you know, down the road and they just threw it in, for this movie, you know. But I guess the point I'm trying to make is like, this is classic spoon, obviously, like the song sounds like, like I said, like a lot of their songs have this vibe to them.

But I'm not as interested in these songs as I am with maybe some of the other ones that we've played, you know, in the past. Sure. Yeah, I got you. But there's some great moments, man. Because they do so many great moments in that song. Yeah. But, you know, because the whole, uh, when he's like, uh, uh, I'm not going to, dude, I'm not leaving that in that side of time. Sounds like a dying cat.

Yeah. Yeah, no, like I said, it's got, you know, it's got the, it's got the, it's got the, the spoon signatures that, you know, we have talked about. It's got your tambourine and shakers, you know. Right. It's got, it's, it's a spoon song through and through, obviously. And, you know, if this is something that he had already wrote, you know, I wonder if, it makes you wonder if, if he decided to sit down and write a song for the movie. instead of like going through his catalog of songs he was working on, if he would have produced something that maybe sounded different, you know?

Because like I said, it's a spoon song. Like it sounds like a spoon song. Right. And he already kind of had the melody in mind too. Yeah. It's funny. He says, he says here,

to be honest, we were a bit worried that it was a little bit too literal. As in, you know, with the lyrics being the book I write. Right. Yeah, sure. No, dude, now that makes me wonder if, are those the lyrics that he had already written?

Well, he says that he already had the lyric, the book I write. So he already at least had that part, you know, that idea or verse or chorus, whatever. He was destined for, to write, to write this song for this movie, you know. But, you know, let's think about some rock artists that have written soundtracks, right? Okay. Maybe like Johnny Greenville, the guitar. Oh, shit. Johnny Greenville?

Not guitar. Hold on, dude. Greenville. Hold on, man. Johnny Greenwood. Thank you. Yeah, I'm going to take that. You got to deal with that shame.

No, no, no. Because I, dude, I fucked up when I said guitar. I meant guitar, guitarist. I said guitar. Yeah. Yeah. So Johnny Greenville, you know, he did. You said Greenville, dude.

Fuck. You said Greenville again. So, yeah, you know, Johnny Greenwood did the soundtrack to There Will Be Blood. And when you listen to it, you know, you wouldn't know just offhand that he's the guitar player for Radiohead, right? Right. So like, among other. Yeah. So I guess the point I'm trying to make is when Johnny Greenwood sits down to do a score for something, he's going to approach it differently than when he's going to approach it differently than when he's,

He does stuff for Radiohead. So, if Britt Daniel had approached it like, hey, I'm going to, you know, this is not a spoon thing. This is me doing a score for a movie or a song for a movie. He's not, he didn't score. Hey, that's perfect, man. That's perfect for you to bring that up because. So the interview that I'm pulling from, the question that was asked to him was, I was curious how the process differs when you know that the end result of your music is not going to

be used for an album, but for a movie. I guess that's not a question, but you know, during the interview, that's kind of what they're, that's what led Britt to talk about, uh, you know, this song idea that he had that had the lyric, the book I write in it. So Brick goes on to say, um, because there was already some sort of foundation for this song, I didn't really feel like I was writing a commercial, but instead I was just finishing a song. I like how I put it that way, writing a commercial, because that's actually not, I mean, I could see that being the mindset that you would have as a songwriter. Because apparently he was, he got to read the script before jumping on, you know, to work with Brian. So he already knew about the movie.

And yeah, if you're a professional songwriter and you get asked to write a song for a movie, you are going to treat it almost like writing a song for a commercial, right? but that's not how it was in this case because this was an idea that he already had for a song and so he was just finishing it up so so i guess that's like going back to what you were saying by johnny greenwood you're saying you couldn't you wouldn't necessarily right off the bat know hey this sounds like a radio head yeah it's not like you hear it and you think oh obviously that's Johnny Greenwood, it sounds like the stuff he does for radio hit.

Yeah, right. That's, yeah, like you were saying, he's approaching it. Yeah. With a different mindset. But in this case, Britt Daniel was just finishing up a spoon song, you know,

that he already had kicking around. So maybe what I'm also trying to say is, I would love to hear what Britt Daniel does if he sat down and, like, composed a score for a movie. Okay, dude, hey, let's do it right now. man off the this let's just fucking on the fly here let's do that dude because there's a few songs that him and brian wrote together four specific scenes in the movie dude let's give it a go

oh really okay so but this is in collaboration with brian though yes but still yeah um all right let's do writers block it's just a piano ballad but i'm sure it says britt daniel slash brian writzel for for writers on it so let's let's play a little bit of that well there you go dude what at any point did you hear spoon or or brit daniel in any of that i mean i think that piano chord sounds like a a brit daniel piano chord okay yeah who's to say how much of that was was brit and and what part of that was brian because you heard some strings whether they were synthesized or or legit you know stringed instruments recorded and that yeah in the piano but yeah so yeah like kind of like we were saying um yeah there's

like two different mindsets you have it's it's the all right i'm in the writing for spoon you know state of mind and then i'm in the writing for a scene in a movie state of mind you know um so yeah that's our sidetrack for this week to finish off our spoon a thon We wanted to do one last little episode on Spoon. I thought it worked out pretty well for us, man. Because this movie came out one year after Gimmie fiction.

Yeah. You know, so we're keeping it chronological. Yeah. It's almost like we sat down and planned this all out a couple months back. It's almost like we did just that. So next week. Yeah, dude, I'll let you.

Sorry, man. I know you're more excited than I am for this. So go for it. So we're going to cover Black Sabbath. but we're going to mix it up a little bit as far as how we approach the episode. You know, typically it's one album and we pick a couple of tracks or three tracks from the album. With this episode, we're going to basically pick a song from their first three albums and do it that way because I didn't want to stretch this out over three episodes.

And I've always wanted to cover their first three albums and I figured this would be a kind of an interesting way to do it you know and we'll get to kind of hear a wide range of kind of their sounds we're going to you know hear how they like what they you know came right out of the bat with back at 69 and um it's going to be fun man and it'll be nice to go back to to metal we haven't been we haven't done a metal episode since episode one so i love you know showing metal to somebody who doesn't really listen to metal and having a chance to like describe it and describe what it is about it that I'm compelled that that compels me you know and that I you know what makes me come back to it over and over again so it'll be good times awesome so for the outro

for today um again I just watched Stranger Than Fiction last night and I was you know just taking some notes for the for the podcast and uh there's a song that pops up towards the end of the movie it's a song by this is a band called the jam which we actually brought up at some point during our episode on foals um they like offhandedly mentioned like you know most people were probably listening to the jam growing up and we were listening to um what do they say like world world music Right. You know, which, which, you know, influenced their sound. Anyways, this band The Jam had a song called That's Entertainment that came out in 1980.

It was a single off of their fifth studio album called Sound Effects. So this is like, you know, one of those post-punk bands. And again, it pops up in one of the scenes in this movie. It's great. I enjoyed it, so I thought it would be a good way to finish up this one and kind of throw something in there that isn't Brad Daniel. So, again, that's going to do it for us this week for our sidetrack episode. My name is Quentin.

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And with no fees or minimums on checking and savings accounts, is it even a decision? That's banking reimagined. What's in your wallet? Terms apply. See Capital One.com slash bank for details. Capital One and A member FDIC.