No Filler Music Podcast - The Shins - Oh, Inverted World

Episode Date: November 25, 2019

This week we tackle The Shins' seminal indie record Oh, Inverted World. James Mercer and company blended 60s pop influences such as The Beatles & The Zombies effortlessly with Mercer's whimsical lyricism and infectious melodies to create a sound that is unmistakably The Shins. Clocking in at just 33 minutes, the record packs a powerful punch as a debut record, cementing the group as one of the most iconic indie bands of the decade. And having prominent placement in Zach Braff's Garden State certainly helped. Check out all the podcasts over on Pantheon. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to share. the often overlooked hidden gems that fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Quentin with me as always is my brother Travis. And today we're covering the shins, dude. This is one of those bands for me. It's like, you know, it was inevitable that we were going to cover them. This is their debut album.

I think it's worth mentioning. Yes. This is their debut album from 2001 called O Inverted War. world. We're going to touch briefly on their history, but we got a lot of music today, so we're not going to do too much of that. So

Travis, you've seen the movie Garden State, right? Who hasn't seen that movie, Q? I mean, it is, now, here's the thing, it's an indie film. And it was one of those coming-of-age films, you know? So I think it spoke to our generation, because

it came out around the time that we were dealing with similar things that the main character was dealing with, you know? Totally. And I was going to say, like, I feel like that might be one of those movies that we feel like everyone's seen Garden State, but maybe it's just people that are around our age. Yeah, absolutely. But anyways, their song, New Sling, popped up on the movie Garden State.

And we kind of, like, hinted at this last week on our sidetrack where it's not just that this song showed up on this movie, but one of the other main characters basically handed a pair of headphones to Zach Braff's character and said, listen to this song, it'll change your life. I think basically that's what she said. I'm glad that you brought up the scene in particular because it's not just that, oh, it was a song that played, you know, in the background of a scene. Like it was a, you know, there was so much attention brought to it, you know, because it's more, it's literally, hey, listen to this. And then, and then it just is, you know, a cut to the main character listening to the song for a good, I don't know, 20 seconds maybe. Something like that.

So the audience. He puts the earphones on. And that's what takes over the scene. Yeah, you are listening with the character. So it's basically the director saying the same thing to the audience. Like, hey, listen to this song. It's going to change your life. Yeah.

And, dude, I mean, I don't know if we should play a little bit of it, but New Sling is something else, man. And I feel like we're diving right into it. But, like, yeah, that's fine. I mean, it's such a good song, dude. Let's play a little bit. Just a little bit of it. Yeah, I mean, the, you know, the intro that you played was also featured in that film. So is it really?

I'm pretty sure, yeah. It's not just one song. There is a couple songs. from the Shins on Garden State. Yeah, so the intro song was Caring as Creepy, which is the first track on this record, which I believe is a single as well. All right, well, hey, let's play just a little bit of it.

Just kind of get us in the Shins mood for the evening. So here's a little bit of the Shins song, New Slang, which popped up in the 2004 film Garden State. for this town a lot in my mouth I don't know how I think of other from other

end quote unquote indie bands around this time and like a lot of articles that I read around this time when they were, you know, focusing, when they were talking about the shins. So, like, indie rock or that, that label kind of, like, they kind of pigeonholed themselves into this, like, you know, little box. And, you know, there's just a lot of music that was coming out around this time that just sounded all the same. The shins were able to, you know, have this familiar sound, but we're also very unique. The thing that James Mercer was setting out to do when he started the Shins was to have this

just, you know, it was a pop band. He wanted to be in a pop band, but he was super into the, like the oldies, you know, like the Beach Boys. He was also really obsessed with Phil Spector, you know, and that wall of sound. I've got a list here of some other influences that I read that sure he did to them. You already said the Beach Boys, but the Beatles, the zombies, the Smiths, the Cure, Echo and the Bunnymen. And, you know, what we're going to find out, obviously, when we keep listening to this, is just how well he blended all of those sounds and still kept it, like, refreshing and, like, new, you know. Yes.

It just sounds so, I think that's what made this album and their sounds so, what catapulted them so quickly is it, like you were saying, it's familiar, but it's also like very modern sounding too. Yeah. Or at least for back then, in 2001, you know. Yeah, and like we had mentioned last week, when we covered Neva de Nova, there was this kind of quiet as the new LOD movement is, is how it's been put

with bands kind of like Peter Bjorn and John come to mind Kings of Convenience I don't know Matt Pond, PA

which probably means nothing to most people Yeah I don't know if they had much success but Yeah It's that same It was that Acoustic heavy

or you know very pretty harmonies and and just just quieter sounding music, I guess. You know, that was just kind of in the face of more heavy stuff, I guess. Let's see, we were, what, 13, 14 when this album came out?

Right. I mean, yeah, dude, this is just, this is, this was something new in music at that time. And, yeah, the shins were, or, are now considered, like, top of the list, this is, you know, the shins is what kind of catapulted this sound into the stratosphere. So I wanted to... Yeah, they definitely helped, like, usher in indie music into mainstream. Yeah.

Yeah. And again, like, it's one of those things. Indie, the term indie is just so overused. continues to be overused. But, I mean, really, what does that even mean? What is indie rock? Yeah, we've talked about that before. I mean, it's not...

Yeah, it's hard to classify. Yeah, there's no one sound attributed to it. But, you know, obviously the term originated from bands that weren't signed to a major record label. Right. Didn't matter what the sound or genre was. But that term has now been used. to, I think, or I feel like it's used to describe a very particular sound, but, you know, it could,

it could apply, and it does apply to a wide range of bands, but I don't know, but when I think of indie music, I think of bands like the Shins, you know, or bands like Beach House or. Beach House, but, you know, that's the thing, Beach House is Dream Pop. So, I mean, it's, it's tough. Because, I mean, that's, There's another thing. I think Dream, that's funny that you mentioned Beach House because the Shins kind of helped catapult

subpop records sort of revive them again and Beach House is signed a subpop. So it's kind of one of those things where it's like, well, if subpop is now a, I mean, I guess you have to define major record label because it's like

subpop is pretty major if you ask me. But it's not major major. It's not like capital, right you know or it's not and dude and and we're we're getting in the weeds here man yeah yeah and that that's what happens when you try to talk about what the fuck does it mean to be an indie rock band you're splitting hairs and like it doesn't at the end of the day it doesn't really matter well here's what it comes down to you dude okay um i can relate to this because i live up in the pacific northwest and we have a ridiculous amount of subpop is in seattle so there you go well yeah and i wasn't

even going that route um we have a ridiculous amount of like very small, like microbreweries, you know. One of the beloved breweries up here in Seattle is Elysian. They make a damn fine IPA space dust. Anyways, they basically got bought out by Anheuser-Busch, like maybe four or five years ago. People were freaking out about it. You know, like, well, there goes Elysian. It got bought out by Anheuser-Busch.

And I feel like that's what a lot of people, when they think of, when they're talking about indie bands and like, you know, bands that they love that, like we were saying, like, indie means like you're doing your own thing and you're getting you music out there, but you're doing it on your own. You're not on a major label. Like, people for some reason get offended or they'll disown you if you get bought out, essentially, or, you know, if you get picked up by a big company or whatever, then like you lose your. your cred or whatever. I don't agree with it. A lot of times, like, like with Elysian or whatever, and whatever case it might be. And a lot of times I feel like it's probably more because you got to pay your employees or, you know, you're trying to make money. Like that's, you know, you're doing it for your, for your career. Elysian gets bought up by Anheuser-Busch. That's probably because they needed to pay their employees. The Shins get signed on his sub-bub. That's because James Mercer and his band members. Want to make money.

You know, doing what they're doing. I don't, I don't know. But that's the thing. It's like they, so I read an article that said that, um,

subpop's like marketing, uh, like forecast or whatever, their revenue, uh, expectations for this album was like 10,000 units. And they went on to sold, to sell like 100,000 units.

So it's not like signing to subpop was the shin saying, all right, hey, we're going to make it big now. We're on subpop. Like subpop wasn't what it is. today when they signed them. I'm sure a lot of that had to do with Garden State.

Oh, yeah, most likely. But yeah, still, like, I feel like you're saying, we're splitting hairs. I think that's what it comes down to when a lot of people try to, like, classify what indie rock means. Anyways, before we talk about the Shins and listen to some Shins tunes, I want to talk briefly about the band that James Mercer was in before the Shins. It's a band called Flake. Now they're referred to as flake music, but they were a band that were active from 1992 to 1999. So a good chunk of time. And one of the members of that band is a guy named Jesse Sandalval. Sandival, I don't know, who was the drummer in flake music and he also ended up drumming for the shins for quite a while.

Anyways, there were a few other members in the band. And if you think about the time frame that Flake music was active, they were kind of caught up in this, it was, it was in the grunge phase of rock and roll, you know, but, but like little tiny branches were starting to form with grunge music, you know, like we kind of talked about like dream pop or shoe gaze stemming from grunge. Blake music was kind of trying to emulate bands that were popular at the time is how James Mercer puts it. But anyways, I'm going to let James Mercer kind of talk about it and kind of like what led to him breaking free from Flake and starting the shin. So here's a clip of an interview that James Mercer did in 2007, and he's talking about his band Flake. I was unhappy with this whole thing

of like the pavement style and the indie rock power pop thing, the distortion pedal, the, you know, this whole aesthetic that I just wanted to break away from. I was really into. I was really into, to early rock and roll and R&B, and I wanted to do my best to try and start to put something like that together. And I had these songs that I was writing that didn't work in Flake. The guys just, especially Neil at the time,

who was the other principal songwriter for Flake, he just didn't like that stuff, you know? He didn't like oldies, he didn't like kinks and stuff like that. He just thought it was, you know, boring. And so it was hard for me to get any of that to go at work, you know. So that's why the shin started. So before I talk a little bit more about, you know, the transition from Flake to Shins, I want to play a song from the one full-length album that Flake released. And I don't know if I should say Flake or Flake music because they re-released their one full-length album, which is called

When you land here, it's time to return. They re-released it, or by they, I mean, James, re-released it, not that long ago. Back in 2014, he re-released it, like on vinyl. And now it's Flake music, but they also just went by Flake back in the 90s. Dude, that's your classic 90s. The album cover? Band name. Oh, sorry.

Well, I was going to say the, well, I was going to say just the one-word name. you know yeah but but dude look at this album cover doesn't this look like a i don't know smashing pumpkins album cover or something oh yeah yeah absolutely or just like helmet you know or hum like all those bands was one word band names so you know like like uh james mercer was saying you know he he was more drawn to like the oldies kind of you know that kind of music and there's a lot there were a few band members in flake they were just weren't into it. They thought it was boring. So anyways,

this album's great, dude. I just listened to it for the first time all the way through a couple weeks ago. I didn't even know about Flake until I dove into the shins this past couple weeks. So I'm going to play track two off of this album. Again, this is the only full length that

Flake ever released. Came out in 1997. This is a song called Blast Valve. There's a crowd that be... Yeah, man. Just your classic 90s alt rock sound, you know?

So it sounds like he was... He was no longer captivated by that anymore. Like, he was no longer interested in making music like that. He was like... Let's just put it this way, dude. So that same... That clip of him that I had from that interview in 2007, later on, the interviewer asks him, like,

You know, are there any songs that you had, like, under your belt that, you know, that you brought to the table for Flake that they just weren't into? And he said, yeah, I, I already, I had already written Phantom Lim, you know, that song, right? Oh, yeah. He, dude, he had already written that and sang it, you know, a rough-ass version of it to the members of Flake. and they weren't into it. So, yeah, he was just on a different, like, he was wanting to do something completely different than what his band members were into for the most part. I mean, like I said, well, I don't know if I mentioned this yet, actually.

But the drummer for Flake, his name's, again, Jesse Sandoval, went on to play drums for the shins. So here's how it went down. Flake, the band Flake existed at the same time as the Shins. And I'm sorry, I'm quoting this from like a speech to text that I did when I was listening to another interview. So it might sound weird. I'm going to try to make it work as I'm reading this. But he says, Flake existed at the same time as the Shins because Jesse and I would be a duo, just a two piece. and we would go and play shows as the shins.

And we would do different songs. More old style pop songs, a little bit more garagy when we first started. So it had a retro thing to it that Flake wasn't into. And then he had another guy named Dave Hernandez join on to play bass. So it turned it to like a three piece. And Hernandez was in a punk rock band called Scared of Shaka. and they were also a band based out of Albuquerque,

which I don't think I even mentioned yet. That's where the Shins hail from Albuquerque, New Mexico. So I read that the way that they were put on Sub Pop's radar was they were asked to open for their friends, Modest Mouse, in 1998. Yes, sir. And so they were torn with Modest Mouse, and that's when Sub Pop discovered them. And, yeah, which is interesting because, I mean, you know, Modest Mouse is also one of those, you know,

the thing about Modest Mouse is that they sort of started with, you know, bands like Sonic Youth and stuff. You know, they're kind of in that era of like 90s alt rock, pseudo-grunge types, not really grunts on the fringes of grunge and stuff. And then they, Modus Mouse kind of became an indie band in a way. Yeah, dude. You know, with their float on record that was around the same era, you know, so. I feel like, yeah, they defined like what we, when we think of indie music, I feel like the Shins and Monice Mouse were on the forefront of that. And I think a lot of that has to do with like their harmonies.

And again, like part of that quiet is the new loud movement. Well, I mean, there's nothing quiet about minus mouth, though, dude. I mean, come on. I mean, quiet is a new loud. When you hear a band like Kings of Convenience, they are quiet, right? Yeah. In comparison to the shins. But I think it's more, I don't know.

I feel like, I feel like, yeah. I mean, it is kind of one of those things where it's like, there's obviously a spectrum with everything, right? but more of that like pseudo folky kind of indie rock I think a lot of it has to do with the vocals and maybe like the harmonies and we we keep referencing

Kings of Convenience let's just put it out there if you don't know who the fuck we're talking about we do have a full-length episode actually we have two episodes technically because we have like that bonus episode that I posted I mean this is over a year ago now

but we've got a couple episodes on Kings of Convenience. Yeah, yeah. They ushered in this Quiet as the New Loud movement, which was around the same time, early 2000s. I feel like that... I think that's a subshoot of indie, like it's a shoot-off of this kind of music, you know. But, you know, I think one of the driving forces of Quiet as a New Loud, quote unquote, is that we were on the other side of grunge and rock musicians were wanting to turn the distortion down a little bit, you know?

Yeah, which is funny because before that, people that, you know, like bands that were kind of trying to create their own sound with, um, shoegaze and dream pop were also on the other side of like heavy metal and stuff, you know, like so it just kept, it kept like, getting, I mean, I guess quieter and quieter would be the best way to put it. Even with grunge compared to metal, like, you know, it's just continuing to get more and more, like, subdued in some ways, you know. So before we dive into Oinverted World, I wanted to play one song from the Shins' first, single, which is an album called Nature Bears a Vacuum.

Came out in 1998. This is an EP, The Shins, fully formed. This is the first, like, hey, here's a handful of songs. This is the Shins, you know, are recorded. And the reason I wanted to play is because, like, this is just a punk song, dude. I mean, it's, it's, I can see where James Mercer, you know, kind of broke free from the flake music sound

but like this sounds nothing like the shins dude this sounds nothing like Owenverted world but I just wanted to play a little bit of it this is the first track on that EP it's called Those Bold City Girls Yeah I mean you're you're

you're right that it doesn't sound like the shins that we know but you can definitely hear sort of the the beginnings of of it. I feel like his vocal stylings really are what make, make them such a unique band. So, like, he was already doing that kind of stuff. Totally.

And then, like, the pivot, you know, there are a couple of pivots in that song where it started to do some stuff that was different from a traditional punk song. Yeah, with that, whatever keyboard, like, organ sound that they had there. I mean, that's the thing. It's, I feel like, after having listened to this album all the way through today, an inverted world, that's kind of what I noticed is that it's the sort of the 60s pop, Brit pop sound in some instances, but there's always some sort of a pivot that happens or some sort of like, you know, interesting segue that happens in the songs, you know, and I think that's

what makes them the shins, you know, those, that blending of retro and modern, you know. Totally. Yeah. And before we get, too much into it. Like, you know, I want to play another, I want to play our first track from Owen Verde Wald here real quick. But I just wanted to say briefly, like, this is another one of those albums where, and I feel like there's been at least two or three debut albums that we've covered for bands where the majority of what you're hearing is music that they recorded themselves at home, like with their own recording instrument. and everything.

This is the case for this album. James Mercer and the Shins brought the majority of these recordings to sub-pop stuff that he did himself, you know, home recordings. Which I always think it's great when that's the case. And even if it's with like shitty recording devices, you know, and shitty gear, it's part of what adds to like the greatness of the the sound, you know, and the experience when you're listening to these albums. That's the case for O Inverted World. So anyways, let's dive into our first pick. Let's play track two from the record.

This is one of my favorites. It's called One by One All Day. We've got a couple clips from this one. Yeah, I mean, like I was saying earlier, like the jangling guitar in that song is super, you know, 60s Brit pop, you know? Yeah, like you had mentioned the zombies and, yeah, of course, the Beach Boys were a huge influence on James Mercer. Obviously, the Beatles, too, so.

And yeah, I mean, that's the thing. Like, think about, you know, he was in this band called Flake and two-thirds or half of the band members were just not into it. Like, they thought this kind of stuff was boring. But I think the thing is he takes it and if you, I feel like if you were to isolate his vocal track and normally listen to the music, it would sound like a 60s rock song. And then you add his vocals on top of it and it becomes this modern song, this new sound. Yeah. And that's the thing too. Like from what I've read, his lyrics always came last. It was it was chord progression and melody first and then lyrics. and one thing that I've read from a few interviews

and articles on O Inverted World this album is heavy on the reverb just in overall in the way it sounds he kind of masks his vocals and a lot of the instruments in reverb and that's simply because he was trying to mask the fact

that he was using you know like it was recorded and sounded shitty. So he would throw some reverb on pretty much everything and it would kind of mask that shittiness. Well, it sounds like they, uh, I read that they

recorded this in his like basement studio. Yeah. And, and, uh, and he, he jokes like in a nostalgic way about how he recorded this on an, an HP pavilion, you know, uh, uh,

Hewley Packer. Yeah. And, um, sure. Yeah. Yeah. And that's one thing that a lot of people say between this album and their next one, which is called Shoots Too Narrow, which came out a couple of years later. That's a big difference is like his vocals are just right there front and center on Shoots to narrow. And one of the main reasons is because it was just recorded with much better equipment.

Oh, I'm sure they stepped out of the basement for the next one. Yeah. And so they signed a deal with subpop and. and guaranteed subpov 3 records. So subpop got O inverted world, shoots too narrow, and wincing the Nadaway, which is, I mean, to me, that's the Shins. It's the trifecta. That's the trifecta, dude, because since then, I mean, I'm not going to get into it,

but basically the Shins now is just James Mercer. And like, uh, yeah, I mentioned Jesse Sandoval, Sandoval, what, however you say, he's fucking last name. He was the drummer in Flake and he was a drummer for a. good bit of their early work. But from what I read, Mercer kicked out Jesse from the band for quote unquote, aesthetic purposes. Oh, yeah, dude. Come on now, James. What the fuck does that even mean? I know, dude. Aesthetic purposes. Like what? So that you look a certain way on stage? Fuck you. Yeah. I mean, I mean, think about it, dude. If he's trying to pay homage to 60s rock bands,

I mean, they did all have a very uniform look, but the fuck. Yeah, Jesse is quoted as saying, like, yeah, I was basically just booted from the band, you know, no hard feelings, but yeah, that's what happened. Anyways, I don't remember why I made two clips for one by one all day, but we've got another one. But hey, before we play this second clip, let's take a quick break. And we're back. Something dope's bound to happen in this second clip. Let's find out. It was clip two from one by one all day.

Yeah, that's the exactly what the curveballs I was talking about, like the segways that they take sometimes that are really like delightful when it happens because you're not expecting it. And I mean, that sounds like a xylophone or something like that that he's playing. Something like that. Or a harmonium or something. Yeah, it's really cool. And, you know, like you had said before,

the Shins pretty much helped reestablish subpop record. as like, you know, a main force in, like, the indie world. Yeah. I'm reading, I'm just reading from Wikipedia, but, like, subpop didn't have, like, a main artist that they could, like, point to. You know, like, they just didn't have a big hitter for quite a few years before the Shins came along. So that's big, man.

And, and, again, like, I don't know how much of this has to do with new sling showing up on the movie Garden State. But, you know, that just... It probably didn't hurt. Right. And that's a funny thing, too. Like, I listened to a lot of interviews and read quite a few interviews with James Mercer.

It's funny because a lot of the interviewers are like, hey, I like shoots to narrow more than the O-inverted World because, you know, it showcases your vocals more and you sound more confident. And, you know, the album just sounds a different way. And like we said, it's O Inverted World sounded the way it did because he was just recording with shitty, you know, shitty equipment. But, you know, I think it's funny that like, you know, with all these people reflecting back on and saying, yeah, you know, I love shoots to narrow, even more so than O Inverted World. But like, it was this home recording album that, you know, was like just covered in reverb and all. all this stuff to mask the fact that he was using shitty equipment, this is the album that put

subpop back on the map, you know? Like, that's one of the things I love about diving into the debut records from artists because, and the one artist that I can think of that comes to mind that we've covered before where this is the case is Animal Collective with Sung Tongs, you know, That was their home recording. For me, this is my favorite Shenz record. Is that because it's their first record? And you just like... There's just something about this record.

I feel like it's big, you know, part of it's because, I mean, it clocks in like just over half an hour. It's a really quick listen. That's right. But it's just, I mean, when you listen to it. And you told me you just listened to it all the way through for the first time today. Correct. It's great.

No, like you said, I like that. It's not even 35 minutes long. It's one of those records where you listen to it all day through and you're like, man, I wish there was more. Like it just ended too soon. Yeah. But it's a great little collection of song ideas probably, you know, that just, you know, they threw under the record.

Yeah. And to fucking throw this point home, let's dive into our next clip here. This is the next song on the record. This is another one of my favorites. it is called weird divide yeah I feel like this is when you start to hear sort of the little bit of the beach boys influence right with the with the harmonies and everything

and there's just this like then and then that Spanish guitar comes out of nowhere you know what I'm saying that yeah that's why I wanted to play the song I just love that Spanish guitar and there's just this like I mean, I feel like a lot of times we, we, we, we, we seem to, to use this, the same, like, descriptors for songs a lot, because, like, you know, we're just music fans. We're not, you know, we're not musicians ourselves.

We're not critics or anything, yeah. Yeah. But it's got this, like, dreamy, like, weird flow to it where. But I think that's a little bit of the effects that they've got on his voice, you know, it sounds you know you see there's a lot of reverb and I feel like reverb tends to to give off that vibe you know that like sort of dream dreamy floating kind of vibe yeah and it's like the flow of of of his you know his melody and everything um and his lyrics are always just fucking weird as shit dude like a lot most of the time i just don't know what the hell he's talking about um but i love i love his his songwriting um i i i

pulled up the lyrics, but I'm not even going to bother because like it doesn't make any sense, dude. Honestly, it doesn't mean anything to me. But yeah, dude, I threw that song on here at the last minute. I wasn't going to play this one, but, you know, I listened to it again. I was just like, man, I love this song, dude. I got to play it. So let's jump straight ahead, dude. I feel like this is going to be lengthy if you don't, be careful here. Next song on the album that I'm going to play. is one of my, well, I keep saying, I've said this for everyone, one of my favorites, but this one always stands out to me. I love this song. We're going to jump down a few tracks. This is track eight on the record. It's called Girl on the Wing.

Yeah, so this song, when I heard it today for the first time, I mentally, made a note to like, I think this is the first time on this record that I've had to urge to like head bang in a way. Like, I feel like this is the heaviest song on the album. And it's got, you know, it's got a punk rock aesthetic to it, you know, punk rock vibe. So I mean, there's that. And I think, you know, maybe this is more in line with the stuff that he was doing with Flake, you know. Last pick of the album is my absolute. favorite, maybe my favorite Shin song, is the last track on the album. This is a song called The Past and Pending.

As someone says light to the first fire of autumn, we settled down to cut ourselves apart. Cough and Twitch from the news on your face. and some pouring candle burning in your eyes built to the past who were aware of the pending chill at the dawn breaks that finds us up for sale into the fog another low road descending

from the cold your house and summer time So this song for me, man, it's just the lyrics and the mood. Last month, we were trying to think of albums that just kind of fit into this feeling that you get during this time of year. You know, I'm not talking about for any holiday reason or, you know, like, there's something about... No, yeah, there's definitely certain feelings that you get, depending on the time of year. Like, fall just has something about it that brings about a certain feeling that's in the air, you know? As music lovers, you know, like, I will listen to albums or even just a band will just put me in like a state of mind that will, that makes me, you know, it'll make me think of a certain time.

of year or a certain feeling. Yeah, a certain time of your life. Yeah, this album to me, Oinverted World is just October, November, December, you know? This song happens to the first line in this song

speaks of autumn. And that's not why it makes me think of this time of year. It sounds like that might be, dude. No, no, dude. If somebody says the word autumn, you're going to think of autumn. For me, for me, it's the acoustic guitar.

and like the really subtle, very quiet, like, melody, harmonies in this song. The lyrics are fucking beautiful, dude. Yeah, I hear you. That's what makes, that's why I love this song so much. You know, it's, to me, this is like just one of my favorite, like, heartache breakup songs. Yeah, this is a song that I can relate to with the lyrics where it makes a little bit more sense. I don't know if I want to dive into him or not. I guess I might as well, right?

Let's see. Yeah, so my favorite line is from the second verse. He says, held to the past, too aware of the pending. Chill as the dawn breaks and finds us up for sale. into the fog another low road descending away from the cold lust your house and summertime you know it's just like held to the past like thinking back to all the beautiful moments of this relationship but you're so aware of the pending like future that you know like yeah it's like it's very uh very poetic yeah it's it's looking back on all these great moments in a relationship but well aware of it's

of the fact that like it's not that's not what it is anymore and you know like we're blinging up you know it's just it's a beautiful song I I love this song so much man yeah and you know again you know keeping up with the theme you know there's nice little moments like the the French horn that comes in beautiful you know where it's just like now talk about Kings of Convenience like that's definitely a Kings of Convenience moment but yeah like you're saying like these, it's moments like this in the album that you're just, you're pleasantly surprised by, you know, like, you're just not expecting it. Yeah, and it, uh, it never, it seems like it never, like,

deters from the song, like it always improves it. Yeah. It's not like they were doing it to be quirky or whatever. It's never like, but I think it contributes to this overall vibe of, like, whimsy, you know, and like, kind of like we were saying, playful. Yeah. But yeah, it's good stuff. Good stuff. So yeah, before this episode becomes too goddamn long, let's wrap it up, dude. I think that's a great, you know, this is O inverted world to me. This is the music from this album that I wanted to share with you all. I love James Mercer.

You know, this is just one of those super important, like, lyricists and songwriters of this time for me, you know. Yeah, no, absolutely. So, uh, let's, Stavanderer, what your hurts, dude. Um, let me share a song with you that I discovered this week just by looking, like, diving into, um, influences that James Mercer had, you know, back in the flake days, you know, when, when he was first getting into, to songwriting.

Um, so he'd mentioned in that clip that we played earlier, there were kind of, you know, Flake as a band. They were kind of swept up in this like pavement. And then he also mentions in another clip that I didn't end up playing for this episode. A band called Archers of Loaf. Ever heard of them? Archers of loaf. Like a loaf of bread.

Nope. Okay. Well, he, you know, this is just something. Like I said, like he felt like they were kind of emulating their sound, maybe not even. on purpose, but they were just swept into this sound, and that's just kind of how their music came across. And, you know, that's something that he was trying to steer away from. And that's why he split off and started the shins. But anyways, I, you know, I listen to a few songs from a few of their albums, and I found one that I really liked from an album of theirs called

VV. That's two words. VE their main years were 91 to 95 this is an album from 95 this song is called Step Into the Light

and I'm going to play a pretty good chunk of it dude like almost three minutes because you just have to so okay yeah

let's hear so here here's here is Step Into the Light by the band Archer's of Loaf so I was reminded of a band called Polvo, which we actually did a side track on them.

There were our full side track. It's that kind of noise rock, math rock. Not so much math rock, but more noise rock. What I loved about this song is how long the intro of the song was before he got in, you know, like, I, dude. But that's part of that noise rock where it's like, you know, It's a lot of like, you know, very unconventional sounding like melodies and stuff going on. Well, I feel like that, you know, Noise Rock and Shoe gaze kind of go hand in hand where it's that like, you know, they got the term shoegaze from like, you know, the performers when you saw them live were gazing at their shoes.

I mean, because in a lot of Shugays music, they were using a lot of effects pedals. but like even with Norse rock like it's very droney and like sure you know you can get into this weird headspace if you listen to it where you like like when I first heard this song like I wasn't expecting any words you know like I was expecting it to be an instrumental song and then three minutes into it he's you know the the first verse comes in and it's like man that yes I'm into this and the album covers a really cool. cool. So, you know, the song goes on. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I just, I just wanted to fade it out right after he started singing because, like, that's, that's what gripped me was that change from

just, you know, instrumental for, you know, two and three quarters of a minute. And then he starts and yeah, dude, that's, that's when the song starts at about three minutes in. And And the song's only four minutes and 20 seconds long. So anyways, that's my what you heard, dude. What you got for us? What you better heard? All right, Q. I got to give one for us.

So this band is called Helvetia. And it's spelled like Helvetica without the C. So when I first came across the band, I was like, oh, is it a play on the word Helvetica? Like Helvetia or something like that. but it's Helvetia, which is actually the name of sort of the, it's sort of like Switzerland's Lady Liberty. It's the name of this female sort of personification of Switzerland, this imagery of this this female in a flowing gown with a spear and a shield. So anyway, I've been on this sort of kick lately,

kind of bouncing around from 90s sounding bands that are more modern. And I would say these guys kind of fall in that camp. They're definitely not a grunge throwback like Narrowhead, that band I brought to the table a couple of weeks ago. But anyway, I came across one of their more recent albums. It's called Dromomania. And came out in 2015. and the song that we're going to listen to today

is called a dot running for the dust. I loved it. I love it. I love it. Yeah, it's good stuff, man. I really liked the mix, dude. I liked how they did it. Yeah, yeah, I love the drum beat.

That's sort of really kind of consistent drum beat throughout that doesn't really change all that much but it's got that that kind of like that that stop where the bass drum kind of kicks a few times and then it goes into sort of the chorus of it it's it's really well done yeah and I liked how the that main melody line with the keyboard or whatever synthesizer yeah it sounds like it's I mean it's it's muted almost like it's it's yeah yeah it's really quiet in the background the whole time yeah not his voice whatsoever, but the, the music there in that particular kind of instrument, whatever that was, kind of reminded me of deer hunter a little bit. Dude, you know who I was reminded of?

Please tell me, because I'm trying to figure out my head, like, who all does this sound like? Because there's a lot of, I'm hearing a lot of different bands when I hear this. Dude, it sounds like Midlake, Circa, Bamnan, and Slivercorg. The fucking album that we're going to cover next week, dude. I'm not going to say anything else because That's crazy You know we don't like to spill beans But dude that reminded me

Yes Of Bamnan and Sliver Cork Yeah yeah yeah You're definitely right And it's not Maybe a little bit his voice But not so much of voice But really the kind of the quirkiness

Of that keyboard Yeah the quirkiness and like Yeah I don't know I don't describe it I don't want to get into it Let's you know We'll save it for next week

But yeah I will say that the rest of the album It's a mix they have a lot of different sounds that they that they kind of play with but yeah it's really it's really sort of experimental

in that way you know and a lot of interesting things that that they do so the band is from Seattle of course because who isn't from Seattle I don't know why you said of course but yeah I mean there's a lot of great bands of I don't know I feel like I've been talking about a lot of Seattle bands lately we've been talking about Seattle but we talked about subpop almost the entire

episode today. So anyway, a good band, good album. Haven't really dug into much else that they put out. They're actually pretty prolific. They put out 12 albums

in the span of about 13 years. They formed in 2005. First album came out in 2006. Dude. So, I mean, they're prolific. That's crazy. That's a lot, man,

because, I mean, off the top of my head, Fleet Foxes has released, what, three albums in that time span? Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. It's like, you know, now, you know, it is worth noting it's not 12 full-length albums. Some of them are EPs and stuff, but still, yeah. That's great, dude. So anyway. I loved it, man. I'm going to listen to this whole album probably tomorrow on my, on my commute to work, dude. I'll tell you, the whole album is enjoyable, dude, from start to finish. It's good stuff. Yeah. Yeah, so we're going to be wrapping up our distortion-free November next week.

We hinted at the band recovering. We're going to cover Midlake's album Bamnan and Slivercork, and I'm too lazy to pull up when this came out, but I feel like it was around the same time. I got you covered, dude. I got something called Google. Yeah, bring it up. When did this album come out?

2004. Yeah, we're going to cover Midlake's album from 2004, Bamnan and Sliver Cork Definitely our favorite album from this band You know what I'm happy about, dude? What? We're finally going to talk about a band

From my neck of the woods, dude Hey, there we go. No more Seattle stuff, dude, these guys are from Denton. You know, the one... You say your neck of the woods, but dude, I was born and raised. Okay, that's fine.

My current residence. There we go. Yeah, dude, I'm excited. I'm really excited to play this music. music and share it with you all. I'm hoping that this is an album that a lot of people don't know about. So yeah, in the same way that Zach Braff sort of helped the shins out on Garden State, I heard that Jason Lee of My Name Is Earl did a similar thing with Midlake.

I don't remember what it was exactly or like how he promoted them or something, but he gave them some sort of shout out and it sort of put them on the map. Hey, dude. I'll save it for next week. Save it for next week. But there is a, there is a very obvious reason why he put their name on the map. So we'll talk about that next week. Cool.

All right. So to wrap it up, check us out on pantheonpodcast.com. That is the music podcast network that we are so proud to be a part of. and you can find plenty of other great music podcast content on the network. Also, swing by our website, no filler podcast.com, where you can find all of our previous episodes and read show notes where we list the track list, all the songs we talked about, including the sidetracks,

and we list any sources that we cited when we dug into these bands and albums. And yeah, that's that. Next week we're talking about Midlake, and I'm super stoked, dude. It's such a fun album, you know, and such a talented group of dudes from Denton, Texas, you know. Just wanted to mention that again. So anyway, yeah, that's that, man. Cool. Q, you got anything else to add?

Yeah, I've got an outro track for us, dude. Okay. James Mercer had mentioned being a huge fan of Steve Copeland. Wait, now I'm Steve. Stuart Copeland. Oh, yeah. From the police? Yeah, dude.

Drummer from the police, he was a big fan of how his drums were mixed in the police's debut album, which forgive me because I don't speak French. But their album was called, I think it's French. God, I don't even know, dude. It's called, oh, my God. Outlandos de Amor. I don't know how that sound. It's not okay.

Sounds good to me, bro. All right. Well, yeah, this is the police's debut album from 1978. This album's got Roxanne on it, which we all know, and So Lonely, which I'm a fan of, you know. But anyways, you know, he mentioned how much he loved the sound of Stuart Copeland's drums in the mix on this record. And so I thumbed through the tracks and found a song that, you know, spoke out to me as far as, like, really dope-ass drumming. And this is just a super solid, like, punk rock song.

You know, late 70s punk rock song from the police I'd never heard of before. So we're going to fade us out with this. You know who the main writers are on this one? Sting and Stuart Copeland, dude. And most of these tracks, they don't mention Stuart as a writer. So this is one that he also helped write, which is cool. Well, there you go. Yeah.

So this is a song called Peanuts. This is the last track on Side 1 of the police's debut record from 78 called Outlandos. Just kidding. But anyways, yeah, this is going to do it for us. We'll wrap us up with this song. Again, it's called Peanuts by the Police. And we will shout at y'all next week. Thank you as always for listening.

My name is Quentin. My name is Travis. Y'all take care. Thank you.