No Filler Music Podcast - Undeniably 80s: The Synth-Pop Fusion of Nu Shooz

Episode Date: February 14, 2025

Portland's synth-pop duo Nu Shooz saw massive success with their debut single I Can't Wait off their 1986 record Poolside. The band fused soul, jazz, and dance/electronic to create a synth-pop sound all their own. We dive into their first 2 records and reminisce about the unmistakable, and undeniably contagious sound of 80s synth-pop. Tracklist Nu Shooz - Lost Your Number Nu Shooz - You Put Me in a Trance Nu Shooz - Are You Lookin' for Somebody Nu Nu Shooz - Wonder Nu Shooz - Savin' All My Time Nu Shooz - Anytime This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, I'm Weird Al Yankovic, and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. And welcome to No Filler. The music podcast dedicated to sharing the often overlooked hidden gems. to fill the space between the singles on our favorite records. My name is Travis. I got my brother Quentin with me.

And on this episode, we're talking about the 1980s synth-pop band New Shoes. And that was their massive single called I Can't Wait, that I'm sure we've all heard. Dude, yeah, I had no idea that. I didn't know the name of the band. Me neither. And, yeah, everyone has heard that song. Yeah, that's one of those songs. that I think has just sort of like been part of our pop culture, you know,

since it came out. Like it's, it's, it's been sampled a bunch of times. It's been covered a ton of times. It's one of those things where it's like, where have I heard it? Because I've heard it so many times. Right. Is it getting played on the radio? Like on the, you know, the, I don't know, your Jack FMs and whatnot?

Or was it just strictly through commercials and movies that I've heard it? It's just, yeah, it's just out there. Yeah, exactly. It's been featured in TV series, films. Like I said earlier, video games. I think I talked about this on the what you heard. So I talked briefly about how I stumbled upon this group, like recently. And I've been obsessed with them, dude.

And I've been hyping this episode up to you for the last few weeks. I'm already hopping in squarman, dude, just from that intro. You know, we don't really do 80s that often. And like, I think when we have, we've definitely flirted with this kind of stuff because we've done an episode on Gloria Estefan, which is kind of in the same realm. Kind of. Yeah. You know what? I think the closest we got to covering this was our Ferris Bueller's Day Off episode.

Or just the whole batch of John Hughes, too. Of John Hughes. Yeah, yeah. Because he definitely would sprinkle stuff. But yeah, what, like I said earlier, like this group is essentially is a synth pop group. and it's a duo right it's mostly a duo but they have a ton of musicians that appear on their records so what's interesting about this duo cue is that they're married and they've been married okay uh for decades they're still together and they still make music as new shoes they still

perform as new shoes uh so it's john are they still releasing as new they're still releasing uh they put out a record i think a few years back yeah if i didn't mention the name of the single. It's called I Can't Wait. I don't think I named it. I think I just said that we played. Dude, that happens a lot, man.

Yeah, I think it too. You know what, dude? I'm excited. I got a little ahead of myself. Okay, so this is like a cover. I mean, yeah,

they put out a compilation of all their best stuff. But like if you look at their, at their discogs or their, or their Spotify, it's a bunch of remixes and an unplugged session that they did. Oh, cool. With this song, Tiger Talk remix, there's a power mix.

There's a whole record of remixes, of remixes. So yeah, this is the song that put them on the map and got them, you know, some airplay on MTV. They put out a couple of music videos. Well, what I think is crazy is that they've only dropped four full-length albums. Yeah, that's right. Damn. That's right, it did.

So they put out... They take their time. So the record that put them on the map was called Poolside. And that's the one that featured, I Can't Wait. It also had the single point of no return, which I played as the outro clip to the What You Heard last month. And then I also played Don't Let Me Be the One, which is the other single. So I only played the singles so far from the song. record and we're going to do nothing but non-singles from here on out cute because that's how we're

hey dude that's what we're all about and then we're also going to cover their follow-up record called told you so which is phenomenal and you know what dude they may have been the first the first people to use the letter you instead of spelling out you know what somehow i doubt it but maybe i know maybe but you know what's the origins on that that's a rabbit hole that's a great question Who was the first person? Because I, you know, it definitely abbreviating words, you know, was all the rage once people started text messaging.

Like, you know. Right. AOL and stuff like that. A.S.L. T-T-Y-L. Like all that stuff. L-O-L. Exactly.

Anyway. So this is going to be tune heavy. It's just the way I like it. But I did want to play a quick interview clip from these guys, which is really funny, dude. It's like, so they're from Portland, Oregon. They formed in 1979. And originally it was, the lineup had 12 members, which is wild.

What? Because they originally started as like a Latin, a Latin band. Like they went to like music school and like learned, like, she was learning how to play like the Conga drums and like percussion stuff. and he was learning to play piano. Oh, yeah, I didn't mention their names. John Smith and Valerie Day. That's the main duo here. And so, like, they were, you know, originally they weren't called new shoes originally.

But they were doing, like, a bunch of different things. Before they landed on, like, you know what, let's do, let's do some pop music, right? But anyway, I'm going to let, I'm going to let the, I'm going to let Valerie Day. kind of talk about their origin very briefly in this hilarious. It looks like it's like a, you know, public access television show from Portland. And the interviewer is hilarious, dude. I'm not going to put this whole clip in the episode here, but I'm going to let you watch a queue. And if you have YouTube in front of you, you should try to find their interview on KPDS.

from 1988 because it's just it's just great man anyway here we go there's a very short clip but this is going to kind of go into the origin of of the band here we go so I knew she started back in 1979 as a four-piece rock and roll band about a year later John decided that needed to be a soul band so it became a 12-piece soul band with four horns three backup singers which I was one of and also professionalist how would you describe our music Well, I heard it said that we're a soul band with a pop singer. In fact, I think he said that at one time. I said that once.

In some interview, and I thought that was pretty accurate. And in 1986, we got a record deal, and now we're famous. There you have it. And there you have it. Well, I think that's the beauty of the synthesizer movement, whatever you want to call it, dude, because you don't need 12 people in your band to have horns and, you know, keyboards and whatever else, bass, guitar. That's what I appreciate about news year's cue is that they still have a horn section on their records. Oh, a legit one.

Yeah. Okay. So, like, for example, on their record pool side, they have a saxophone player. They have a trumpet player. they have a they've got two bass players a bunch of backing vocals stuff like that I guess I was under the impression that they did not continue to be a 12

piece band I guess it's kind of like yeah I did you know how many people rotate out through to Dave Matthews band it's you know yeah sure it's just Dave Matthews and whoever else I mean they present themselves as a duo sure yeah but on their on their tours do they do they bring a whole oh yeah They got a whole band behind him, which is great. But that's awesome.

That's what's interesting about because like what you just said, like some, a lot of synth pop artists, you know, back in the day, back in the 80s and stuff, you know, maybe they had your classic four piece, you know, they had maybe a guitar player, bass player. But then they would have the synth doing all the, like you said, horns and stuff like that. And, you know, sometimes like samples. of DIY Pop, bedroom pop, all that. Yeah, exactly. But that's what's cool about these guys is because their background is like Latin and Soul.

And then they decided to try pop out. And then basically, you know, you just add yourself a little, get yourself a little synth keyboard. And then now you're making synth pop, you know, but you also got your horns and stuff behind you. So like, if you heard on that track that intro does in, I can't wait. like they have, you know, a horn player in the background, which is interesting. Because like you don't really need, you don't really need that with a synth keyboard, you know. Right. But like that, that single, I can't wait, had Tender saxophone, trumpet, a moog bass, drums, bass, guitar.

But here we go. So we're going to jump into this. Like I said, I'm just going to play a bunch of music. And I think we're just kind of. I think we're just going to levitate, Q, because this music is so great and so catchy. And we don't really play music like this very often on this show. So here we go. Let's just go back to the 80s, Q.

Are you ready? I'm ready, dude. I'm so ready. All right. This record came out in 1986. And I'm going to play the very first track, Q. And this song is about a problem that almost doesn't exist anymore in modern day. So this is like a Seinfeld problem.

Kind of. So here you go. This song is called Lost Your Number. I mean, that was a real problem back then, dude. Dude, it really was. I mean, think about it. Listen to the way that she's talking about this. She's beside herself, dude.

She lost this number. She walked into the pay phone thinking that she had the piece of paper. She was ready, dude. She pulled out the dime. She's like, I need this number so bad. like I like and like if you don't know how did I lose it think about it how else are you getting in touch with this person if you don't have their address the only other thing you can do is is uh you know put put one of those uh like a like take out a classified ads yeah when

the newspaper what that whole there was a section back then for that classifies classifies but what was the section it was called like seeking just missed you or something yeah yeah yeah yeah but like yeah she's talking about how she had a you know she had it written on a yellow piece of paper and it's gone and your s-o-l dude you know you ain't gonna t tty-l so uh the intro melody gave me some um safety dance vibes yeah and that's the thing dude i you know i don't i don't know what um what instrument like what synth or um what uh what uh you know what arranger as i was called an arranger what's the roll in data wait completely You know, like the Roland 808 is a very well-known, you know, I guess it was called a rhythm composer.

But like you, you know, there are sounds that are tied to the 808 that everybody use, that everybody hears. It's like the OG. Yeah. And one of them synthesized drumbeats. Is that like clap sound that you hear? And like I bet you bet you had an 808 new shoes. I mean, I can't confirm that. but if they didn't, they had a machine that had the 808 samples in it.

A drum machine, yeah. Yeah. Anyway. And that's why a lot of those 80 songs have those same characteristic, those notes and stuff, those sounds, because they all, you know, a lot of them use the same equipment, you know. Great song. Love the backup vocals. How can I call you up?

Amazing. Two backing vocalists. on the record, one on this song, I believe. But yeah, so Valerie Day, the lead singer, she also does percussion on the record, which is cool. And then John Smith, he's keyboards, guitars, he produces and arranges. So I think a lot of the melodies, the arrangements is like that. The synth stuff is coming from him, which is cool. And then they just had a slew of other musicians behind them.

So, yeah, what more you need to hear, dude? I mean, just that's how you start a record. I need to hear a lot more. Well, you're going to. So yeah, I did check out who sampled.com. And I'll tell you why once I get to the song, because I was convinced that one of these songs would be heavily, heavily sampled by vapor wave artists. And it turned out to be true that most of the people who sampled, or at least the song, that appeared on who sampled.com.

It's not, it's a, you know, it hasn't cataloged every single time. This stuff has been sampled. But of the ones that people submitted, it was all vapor wave, which is really interesting because that's, we'll talk about it throughout this episode, but that's,

I mean, this is a gold line for vaporwave producers. But a lot of times, this is like, the easiest thing to do is just grab the sample and slow it down. And that's what most of them did. Can I call you? Exactly, dude.

You can put what you just did. You get really sad as a put that on band camp, dude. I'm not even going to sample it. It's just going to be me singing in a little voice. Right. But that's exactly it. Anyway, so I was looking for something that did a little, you know, maybe incorporated it with other things.

And I couldn't find a good example. Sometimes they would literally just sample one part of it, slow down, and then repeat it. And that was their song. So anyway. Yeah. That's why we talk about how, like, vaporwave, it's a dime a dozen. You got to weed through a lot of BS to find the good stuff. Anyway, let's go to the next track here, Q.

Low entry point to be a vapor wave. Very, very low point. Yeah. Especially when you got a gold mine like these two records to pull from. All right. Moving right along, we're going to jump down here and play a song called You Put Me in a Trance. 80s than that. We're going to get a little bit more 80s than that.

you once we as we continue. But yeah, that's, talk about like a snapshot, right? And we missed that, you know? We were born in 87. I mean, yeah, we didn't live through it, but we certainly heard music like that in our household growing up. We did. Gloria Estefan comes to mind, like you said earlier.

Gloria Estefan, the cars. I mean, I know that they're in a whole other fucking realm. Totally. I'm just saying like, you know, you hear bits and pieces of this. Just across the 80s spectrum, you know what I mean? Because a lot of, even rock bands were doing this kind of stuff. I mean, of course, Carus was like a synth rock band, maybe, if you want to call them that. Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, I wonder what their demographic was when they came out. I mean, they made it to, you know, they were, these were huge, you know, billboard hits, you know. So, I mean, I think, you know, apparently they had success in, like, dance clubs and stuff like that. Yes, dude, that's what I figured. Yeah. Yeah. So the, uh, let's see. What was the actual position of this song?

Not this song, but I can't wait. Number one, dude. Number one for the dance and disco club. For this song? Yeah. No, sorry. For, for I can't wait. I'm just talking about, like, that was the highest they got.

So like Billboard Top 100, Billboard Hot 100, dude. Number three. So yeah, they were, they were, they kind of had overnight success as is how they, described it in some interviews, like with that song, right? And they never really achieved it again. But like with this record, they did get a lot of exposure. And in my opinion, dude, the next record that I'm about to play some songs from told you so is even better. But I don't think they, I still don't think they achieved the success of I Can't Wait.

But you know, not everybody has, you know, has a number. a top hit every go-round, you know? But that doesn't matter. Yeah, you know, that's a hard thing to accomplish, I think. Yeah. But we like to play the songs that weren't singles and show you that sometimes they're better than the singles. One of my favorite songs is coming up just around the corner here, Q.

So we're going to jump to, like I said, their next record. It's called Told You So with a U. With the letter U. Why would they want to spell out the word you? Like, why would you want to do that? I did a quick, a quick chat, GBT's question on that, dude. It's been around four centuries, brother. And, you know, the CB radio callers used to do that.

Oh, interesting. So that was like 60s through the 80s when that started. Wow. But no, way before that, dude. Renaissance times, man. And we thought we were so damn clever, dude, on an AOL when we did. that. Right. You know what I mean? I don't know if I've mentioned this dude, but new shoes is not spelled the way you might think it is. No, we're close. It's spelled N-U-S-H-O-O-O-Z. And apparently they

like scrambled to come up with the name and that was essentially what they came up with. And then one of the band members was like, we should spell it like this because that's more rock and roll, which first of all I don't think that's I guess it's rock and roll whatever but I mean it works I guess it's just funny because in you makes me think of like new metal you know right maybe they're thinking like

Led Zeppelin Deflippard right Yes I bet you that's exactly what it was dude You're right yeah Anyway so according to discogs which I I trust sometimes more so than Wikipedia when it comes to like genres and stuff

they list this record as synth pop, which we've established. Right on the nose, yeah. Smooth jazz. Okay. A quiet storm. Right. There is some of that. Down tempo and freestyle.

So freestyle. Free style. Yeah. Now, just keep that in mind as you're listening. Those are the labels that get thrown on to this particular record. Because it does, there is quite a variety on this record. There are even a couple of instrumental tracks on here. which is kind of cool.

I'm not going to play one of those, but this group has a background in soul and Latin music. So, you know, they bring a lot of that into it, which is what makes it interesting because, like, at its core, it's synth pop. And then it has all this other stuff fused into it, right? So it's maybe synth pop fusion, if you want to call it that. So anyway, all right, here we go.

We're jumping to 1988. So, you know, we were on this earth, dude. when this record came out. We're just pooping and peeing in our diapers, dude. That's what we were doing. All right, here we go. So this song is called, Are you looking for somebody new?

That's it right there, dude. Loved it. I think her vocals are sitting much nicer in the mix. Sounds great. Love the great song, man. And you know what, dude? They had some fun with it. Like a lot of people were doing in the 80s

where they brought in those sound effects to kind of like add to the story. Like her screeching the tires She walks to like a phone Yeah and then that one little line Sounds like you're hearing it through a phone call Yeah so she mentioned You know they got to work with the alarm clock at the beginning

Good stuff It was mastered by a guy named Brian Gardner Which is interesting He's got quite the discography list Including Inima of the state by $1.202 Which is wild it.

Chupac, Janet Jackson, M&M, Blyndt, Tyler the Creator. Smashmouth and Tyler the Creator. Yeah. Anyway, dude, his Gardner has over 750 credits including this extremely short list.

Yeah, so those are the only ones that are notable. I guess so, but I mean the Slim Shady LP, that's a pretty big deal. Now, is Astralounge, the big smash mouth? Oh, yeah, that's the best one that everybody knows. It's an all-star But, you know, he, if you look at his discog list, Brian Gardner did the full list. He worked on a Vince Caraldi record.

Hey. Miles Davis. Credence Clearwater Revival. Dude, yeah. Tom Fogarty. Fogarty. It's Fogarty, brother. Are you serious?

It's Fogarty. Fogarty. Treve, what was the name of that new Swerve diver album? De Ramey Fogarty. Lato, Letito. Exactly. That's phonetically what it looked like. Charles Mingus, right?

So he worked on a lot of stuff. All over the map, all over the map as far as around is good. Yes, exactly. So anyway, that obviously has a lot to do with like the sound too, right? The mastering. Anyway, so we're going to jump ahead with you. We're flowing around at this point. Now this is where we're going to slow it down a little bit and this is maybe where the

jazz, the smooth jazz comes in. This is the song, dude, that I thought this sounds like a. vapor wave track to me or I should say vapor wave sounds like this is what I should say here's the next track off I told you so this song is called wonder I'm telling you man I was blown away by this by this band because like I like I said I never heard of I mean I'm aware of them because yeah yeah I can't wait was such a huge hit um but yeah in the 80s you know music like this you know music like this was all over the place, but like it's hard to find a really solid that makes it. And that's why I think these guys are extremely, you know, very talented musicians that decided

to make synth pop. You know what I mean? And you can tell. Like the arrangements are incredible. And that's all John Smith, which I don't know if I, you know, that can't be his real name. His name's not John Smith. Maybe it is, but probably not. But yeah, that's all, that's all ham, dude.

And of course. So great, dude. You know, so Valerie, she's credited as the congas, the timbalas, the bongos. So she's also laying down all the percussion work, too, which is awesome. And backing vocals. Not surprising. I guess she's just, yeah, sure. Providing her own harmonies.

Well, that song was great, dude. That song would sound good coming out of a, you could go to T-Moo or something, find the cheapest portable speakers they got, and that would sound good on. It would still sound good, yeah. Again, the production quality is incredible. This record sounds amazing on a really good pair of speakers. I would love to come across these on vinyl, dude. Oh, yeah.

Dude, till the day I die, I'll be searching for this. And when I see this, I might just, they might have to revive me because I'll probably faint. Just go to Josie Records tomorrow and snap me a pick when you find it. I will, dude. I absolutely will. I mean, let's see, yeah. So it was originally. I'm seeing if there's a remaster of it.

No. So they do have original pressings. Final wasn't dead yet in 88. Not at all. So yeah, just how much of it was. I mean, this was Atlantic Records. So there could be a pretty good. There's probably a lot of pressing.

There's probably a lot of pressing. But I mean, if you had this, would you give it up? No. You wouldn't. So maybe I have to start looking at like, you know, estate sales or something or somebody from That's, that's dark draw. I got to tell you though, over the next decade. or more.

A lot of 80s records are going to show up. Yeah. You know what I'm saying? Yeah. So get ready for that. Unless they pass it on to their children, which... That's what I'm planning on doing. Fine.

All right. I got one more track for us here. I mean, if you haven't been convinced yet to just pull these records up and hit play, maybe I got one more chance here to do it. But, like, obviously, these records are amazing, Q. If you like this stuff and you're listening, you know, this might not be everyone's cup of tea. Like, I get that.

And, you know, I'm sure we'll be back to shoegaze. You know what, Trump? I got shoegays lined up for us for next month. See, that's not your typical shoegays. There you go. Yeah. Don't worry about it. Yes.

Don't worry about it. And gals. But, you know, sometimes you're going to mix it up a little bit. And this music is fucking great. All right, here we go. So here's the next track. This is our last track for tonight. This song is called Saving All My Time.

I meant to bring this up during Wonder. I'm getting some like SimCity 2000s. Dude. From the music. From the instrumentals, dude. I got to admit, I'm not, I can't pull that music up in my head, but I believe you. let's bring it up dude let's just I really I'm I want to know if my memory serves correctly but so I just like the menu music just I don't know give me something all right here you go give me something

this is oh that's a documentary here you go gameplay SimCity 2000 let's see what we got this is how it looked is this the music though aren't they just put no this is it wow dude dang we used to play the shit out of this but we might have had a newer version, dude. We might have it like Sin City 3,000 or something. I don't think the city. No, I remember it, dude. I remember it looking exactly like that. I remember all that, dude. Obviously,

you were wrong. That was very wrong. Were you thinking of like roller coaster tycoon or something? No, no, no. I thought it was SimCity. You were wrong. Okay, that was a little more 8-bitty than I remembered. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But

I think, you know, we've talked about this before, did. Well, the reason that, you know, we like hypnagogic pop to some extent and a vapor wave, scent wave for that matter, is that like, yeah, some of those stuff that we grew up, some of the video games. Yeah, the media that we consumed video games or like weird educational videos that we were, you know, that when the AV club rolled the VCR into the CRT TV into the class. room. Yeah, the educational videos had a lot of

synth heavy tunes in it, for sure. You know what I think about? I see this all the time on YouTube videos, but there's, have you ever seen that internet video? It's like, it's singing about the internet, basically. I see if I can fucking find it, man.

Internet video. I don't know how to search for me. Internet, educational, video 90s. Here it is. Incredible. There it is. There it is right there, dude.

Like that, especially that little outro sound, that's it it it. dude, that's the vapor wave sound right there. Yeah. Oh my God, dude. But yeah, we've, you know, I don't remember this video, but I sure remember, what was it? I think it said DEC. DECDIC Diamond Entertainment Corporation.

Yeah, they probably produced all sorts of educational stuff. Yeah, dude. Anyway, there it is. I think that's why I have such an affinity for synth wave and synth pop and all that kind of stuff because it takes me back to my childhood, you know. And it's fucking great. Aside from all that, it's also just really catchy AF, dude. There's something about the 80s, you know.

I always go back to it. Now, obviously, the 90s rock is my, 90s rock is my wheelhouse, and it always will be. You know what I mean? That's where my butter is bread. Wait. That's where my bread is buttered cute. But yeah. Anyway, so that's funny, dude.

I'm glad I was able to pull that on my brain. But you've never seen that before? I don't think I have. Yeah. Well, I watch a bunch of like count time videos and stuff of like things that, you know, kids and the kids who are alive today will never understand. And they always talk about dial up internet. And like they, for some reason, they play this clip because it's just funny. Because it's amazing.

Yeah, that female vocalist in the beginning, like almost trying to do like a rap type thing. Anyway, man, fellow kids. Yeah. So that's it, Q. New shoes. Pretty damn good synth pop. You know, it's been a while since I found... Really good.

An 80s record that held my attention like the entire way through. Because a lot of times with 80s, there are a lot of one-hit wonders in the 80s, you know? Yeah, and that's why, yeah, I think that's one of the reasons why we kind of pass up on it a lot when we're trying to think of artists and albums to cover. Or a lot of times, like I've had records that I wanted to cover on, on no filler, where there's like eight singles that came out. Right. And the ones that are left over just aren't good.

They really are filler. Right. And this is no filler, dude. Exactly. Oh, that was great, dude. Awesome. Awesome. Awesome.

So yeah. Take away the vocalists from that, which I wouldn't, I wouldn't, do that. I love your vocals. Don't do that. You can see why they said we were a soul group with a pop singer. Although if you take away the vocals, I wouldn't call that soul, but it's, it's kind of like maybe it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, it's, a, a, fusion of a lot of different things. You know what I mean?

There's a ton of shit going. Very much like Gloria Estefan in what they were doing. Exactly. What were they called? The power saw machine? They called Miami saw machine. Miami saw machine. Okay, yeah.

Exactly. And same with like Chade's backing band, right? Yeah. What were they called? They had a name too. I'm sure they did. Sweetback? Sweetback.

Okay. I don't think. Oh, okay. Well, it's an English. band composed of the members from show they now that could be interesting that's something you might want to check sweet back out well so interesting i mean to look this up cute but just to talk about what happened to this group so like i said they're still together um in 2007 they were inducted into the oregon music hall of fame and that same year they formed a spin-off band called the new shoes orchestra

with a sound that they coined called Jazz Pop Cinema. So they put out a record called Pandora's Box. So yeah, I think they kind of stepped away from synth pop for a little bit. But then in 2012, they came out with a record called Kung Pow Kitchen, which was a return to their 80s roots. So there you go. If you want to hear more of their synth pop, there is one more record to check out, which I haven't listened to yet.

so I'm going to have to cue it up. Do you want to do like a mystery? We could. Just select a random song for the outro? How about we just play the first track off the record? Let's do it. Yeah. To close us out.

So that's, you know, an 80s band, decades removed from the decade. And so it's interesting. It'll be interesting to hear what synth pop sounds like in 2012 from people that mastered the sound, you know. Speaking of. decades removed. You just teed it up perfectly for what I got in store next month, Trev. Did I? You did. Does the name Emma Anderson ring a bell? It does sound familiar. Co-founder of Lush? Okay. Does that ring a bell? We've covered them before, dude. Oh, I've been

getting into Lush a lot more lately, dude. Oh, man. Yeah. Well, guess what, dude? She released her debut solo album in 2023. That's really funny here. And I freaking love it. I haven't listened to it, but here's what's funny about that. You know who else put out a single this year or last year? And records coming out later this year? Let me guess.

The lead singer of Cocktoe Twins. No. Okay. The lead singer of Lush, Mickey Barini. What? The lead singer of Lush. So I guess Emma Anderson wasn't the lead singer. Interesting.

I didn't know that. Cool. So, yeah, I was planning on bringing or possibly sitting on it for the best of in the year. But yeah, so that's interesting that the two members of Lush are, you know. She's the co-so she's the other founder. So I guess Emma Anderson was one founder. But yeah, I'm pretty sure Mickey, yeah, Mickey's the singer. Okay.

Yeah. So awesome, dude. I'm excited because I, I, it's, dude, it's so great, man. I can't wait. And I won't get into specifics now about what, well, part of the reasons why it's so great. Yeah, I think split and spooky are becoming two of my favorite. They're so great. Two of my favorite shoe gaze records, man.

They're so great, dude. Yeah. Awesome. They were one of the first bands that have been described with the shoe gazing label. Shoegazing. I'm excited about that, man. It'll be good to. It's really, really good.

It'll be good to play some, some modern shoegaze, I guess. again. Well, modern shoe gs from one of the OGs of the label. I guess my question would be, is it shoegays still? Well, hey, you gotta wait until next month to find out. All right, I did. Well, I'm excited about that. Next episode, of course, will be our what you heard for February. And yeah, after that, Emma Anderson. And then we got something else in store that should be a proper 180 from Emma Anderson, a proper 180 from all the deep dives so far this year, which hasn't been much. It's been Why I Spoil Alive and then new shoes. Which is, I think, a great back-to-back. I think so, too. And I think Emma Anderson's going to be a really great follow-old.

I think so, too, because as we talked about, White Aspoor Live, you know, was kind of a fusion of a bunch of stuff, too, disco, primarily. Disco dance. Yeah. All right. Well, thanks as always for listening. Check us out on the Pantheon podcast network. Reach out to us on Instagram if you want to get in touch with us. I've been having a conversation with both of our listeners, all two of them, that reach out to us on the reg, dude. Awesome. I like to hear it. I love to hear it.

Dude, I'm telling you, our listeners, this is no surprise, but they like good music. That is not surprising at all. No. It's like we speak the same language, dude. great. This beautiful thing. All right, enough you happen. Again, reach out to us on Instagram. Just tell us what you, what have you been listening to? What would you like to hear us talk about? What have you been heard in? What have you been heard in lately? Okay, there we go. So we're going to play the opening title track. I've never heard this. So this is a gamble. We don't know what's

going to sound. I haven't either, Trif. But dude, why would it not be awesome, right? It's going to be Great. So this is off of New Shoes' 2012 record Kong Pow Kitchen. So here we go. The song is called Anytime. And thanks as always for listening. My name is Travis. And I'm Quentin. You all take care. Unwrap holiday magic at Holt Renfrew with gifts

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