No Filler Music Podcast - Whatcha Heard: The Heaven and Hell Edition

Episode Date: January 30, 2024

Look, we'll be the first ones to admit it: we listen to a lot of shoegaze and dream pop on this podcast. And you'll get plenty of that on this episode. But you'll also get children's songs written by a beloved 90s alt-rocker, an aggressive blues-harmonica, and some epic 70s jazz-fusion from a group of musicians that used to pal around with Miles Davis. Only on No Filler will you experience that level of musical whiplash! Tune in for our monthly mixtape episode for January. Tracklist Sleater-Kinney - Hell Caspar Babypants - First Star Caspar Babypants - Caterpillar Jazz Deary - Heaven Pity Sex - A Satisfactory World For Reasonable People Return To Forever - Medieval Overture Carlos del Junco - Blues With A Feeling The Meeting Places - Now I Know You Could Never Be The One David Bowie - Modern Love Harp - I Am The Seed The Soundcarriers - Out Of Place No Joy - Slug Night T-Pain - War Pigs (Black Sabbath Cover) This show is part of the Pantheon Podcast Network. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Boarding for flight 246 to Toronto is delayed 50 minutes. Ugh, what? Sounds like Ojo time. Play Ojo? Great idea. Feel the fun with all the latest slots in live casino games and with no wagering requirements. What you win is yours to keep groovy. Hey, I won! Feel the fun!

The morning will begin when passenger Fisher is done celebrating. 19 plus Ontario only. Please play responsibly. Concerned by your gambling or that if someone close, you call 1-866-3-3-3-0 or visit comexonterio.ca. With Amex Platinum, you have access to over 1,400 airport lounges worldwide. So your experience before takeoff is a taste of what's to come. That's the powerful backing of Amex. Conditions apply. It's hockey season, and you can get anything you need delivered with Uber Eats.

Well, almost, almost anything. So no, you can't get a nice rank on Uber Eats. But iced tea, ice cream, or just plain old ice, yes, we deliver those. Goaltenders, no. But chicken tenders, yes, because those are groceries, and we deliver those too, along with your favorite restaurant food, alcohol, and other everyday essentials. Order Uber Eats now. For alcohol, you must be legal drinking age. Please enjoy responsibly.

Product availability varies by region. See app for details. Hi, I'm Mike Judge, and you're listening to the Pantheon Network. Welcome to No Filler. I'm Quentin. And I'm Travis. And on this month's what you heard, we're kicking things off with the. a brand new track from Slater Kinney. This song is called Hell.

Hell is just a signpost when you take a certain duration. It's like, look, this is strange to look at game. Not off the presses, Trave album just came out January 19th. Wow. Okay. So I heard this song, a segment of it on last weekend's weekend edition on NPR. Scott Simon, one of my favorite. did an interview with him.

And I wanted to play a clip from this, just a short one. Kerry Brownstein, I just really love what she says about this. This is about a loss that she just recently went through and just kind of like what playing music does for her through that. So anyways, let's play a quick clip here from NPR. Carrie Brownstein, hope you don't mind. I have to ask you about a tough period you went through just a couple years ago, even less.

Your mother and stepfather died in a car accident. First, how are you doing? And is music a kind of light that helped guide you out of darkness? Well, I'm okay as, you know, anyone is or can be after sort of the structure of your life is dismantled in a really sudden way. As everything around me was misshapen, music, it was a form that I knew. Playing guitar is something I've done since I was in my teenage years. And the ritual of placing my hands on the guitar neck and the fretboard, that was a solidity. That was a constant. And I think when you are thrust into a place that is incoherent, music, it's words, it's language.

It's something to repeat and a ritual that I really understood. So I really needed it. I needed to hear Corin's voice. She has a voice that's bigger than me. And I felt quite diminished. And this band is bigger than me. I love that. She said it so well.

I think that's the power of music. And especially if you're making music yourself, yeah, man, like that's your constant that you can go to when, you know, everything in your life just kind of gets turned up on its head like that. Yeah, it's an outlet, you know, for, for any emotion, you know. But yeah, especially something like that. And that's, I mean, that's tragic, man. Mother and stepfather. Yeah, two people like that. Yeah.

That's devastating. Yeah. Anyways, not to bum us out at the beginning of the show here, but really great interview. You can find it online if you want to listen to it. There's a few more clips from songs on the new record on there. So yeah, we're kicking things off with Slater Kinney this month. Kicking off the new year's first, what you heard with a brand new song, dude. A brand new banger.

Yeah, that's good. All right. So yeah, we're back in your earbuds for the second time this month. Yeah, man, get used to it. Cranking out two episodes a month now. And this is our what you heard for the month of January. I mean, we can't be stopped, you know, twice a month. Twice a month, dude.

That's crazy. Right. It's nutty. And I'm going to kick us off, dude. I think I'm going to pull somewhat of a 180. And I've been trying to find a way to sneak some Casper baby pants. Oh, God. Into...

Dude, I've had enough of Casper Baby Pants. I send him links to Casper Baby Pants all the time because... I mean, dude, we get it. You're a dad. You know, you have to listen to this kind of stuff. I'm a dad and I listen to kids music all the time. But I will say this, man. It's way better than most of the stuff.

That's going to be on in the background of most, you know, new parents. Yeah. Let's just put it this way. If you're a parent yourself and you can't stomach the thought of hearing, I don't know, Baby Shark, let it go, that freaking, right, let it go. What's the name of that show? Frozen. Frozen. Yeah.

You know, it's actually, you know, Acute, it's actually a pretty good movie. Okay. I remember watching it once before. I'm a big Pixar fan. Point being, Casper Baby Pants is music that you will actually enjoy listening to as well. This is Chris Ballou, aka the singer-songwriter slash brains behind Presidents of the United States for America. Not that long ago, he started writing children's music after being inspired by his wife's mixed media art that she does. Does he not have children?

Oh, he's got children. Okay, okay. Because I always figured that that played into it as well. You know, like he's just writing music for his kids or whatever. It's something that I love about his music too because you can feel that, you know, unconditional love that he has for his kids. So I thought, okay, what route should I take? Because he's got, he's got silly, he's got silly kids songs. But he also has a lot of really, like, just thoughtful and beautiful songs.

I think you know which way I'm going to lean, dude. Give me the thoughtful and the beautiful. That's what I'm bringing, bro. Okay. So this is an album called Sleep Tight. it's all just kind of lullabies and this song is just beautiful

dude I love it so if you're if you're driving right now you know maybe pull over yeah maybe pull over head over to you know the last rest stop we can't be responsible all right this is this song is called first star you know I was just thinking like we were just talking about music as an outlet right

it seems to me like Chris Ballou has found like more this style, this genre of music is probably more creatively fulfilling to him than what he did with presidents of the United States of America, right? Absolutely. Like, I mean, this is, you look at his discography. It's, I mean, it's huge. Yeah, I mean, it goes back to 2002.

Yeah, and what he started with on his first kids music record was a lot of the songs were, I forget what it's called, but, you know, after however many decades a song can get put into like the public domain or whatever. And you can do whatever he want with it, basically. So he took a lot of, like, classic children songs that he had free reign to do with whatever he wanted and slightly changed the lyrics, added more lyrics, added his own, like, chorus to it, you know, and just kind of like made them his own. And he kind of kept that throughout all these albums.

But most of them are his, you know, his songs that he wrote. But yeah, it's, it's awesome, dude. It's such a cool, yeah, like you said, Outwe. for him, because clearly he is just to the brim with silly songs and just, you know, unique song structures and he just, and he can mess around with any kind of genre that you wants, dude. And now that you, you mentioned that, I'm just going to play a little bit, just a tiny clip of one of his other songs, just show you like how far he can go in one direction

and then the goofiness that he can go in another direction. This album is called Easy Breezy. three years ago. You ready for this dude? This one's called Caterpillar Jazz. The other day I was feeling low and uptight looking for some quiet underneath a stormy sky looking to slow down time that zips by in the blink of an eyelash. When life is a little loud I put my ear to the garden ground listen and I'm still and When I do, I hear Caterpillar jazz

One plays the xylophone One plays the flute One plays the bass One plays the drums Man they are That's it dude I mean it It reminds me of

I feel like You know he is Johnny karate from Parks and Rec Yeah That's him Yeah But you know A lot of the music

That you know he put out under Presidency of the United States to America, we're kind of similar, you know? Like they had these kind of goofy premises and, like, lyrics and stuff like, you know, just little dune buggy? Yeah, like dune buggy and peaches and, you know, body and back porch. Like, they're very simple, like, premises for songs and stuff. Like, this is just, it just makes perfect sense, you know?

Yeah, it's almost like Presidents of the United States to America was just, like, like at its core, a guy writing these really simple songs. Goofy. Yeah. If you just sort of like. But through the lens of like grunge. Yeah. If you wash off the grunge and the grime and stuff, you've got like this kid's performer.

You got Casper Babypants. Yeah. That makes total sense. All right, dude. So that was a little long winded. I'm going to pass it to you and we're going to rapid fire. Okay. Because I mean, you know, in case we have to remind people this, this episode format, the What You Heard format, is supposed to be a mixtape where we go back.

and forth and play songs. We've just heard three songs from you Q. Well, that angel doesn't count. It counts. Actually, I have an outro, so, yeah, that'll even end. Okay, so, you know, we've talked about this before how usually, you know, at the beginning of the year, you know, I'm still finding all this great stuff that came out the prior year, you know, like right when we wrap up our best of the year episodes, I stumble upon something

that's like, oh man, that's awesome. I wish I found that when it came out, you know. So here's one of them. So this band is called Deary, London-based duo of Ben and Dotty. That's all you get from them in terms of their name. But they are a dream pop group. So, you know, perfect, right?

Got to play some dream pop. It's our bread and butter. All right, here we go. So this song is called Heaven. Fantastic. So that came out in November of last year. The band has supported Slow Dive, supporting act for Slow Dive at some point.

They freaking loved every second on that. Oh, yeah, sure. And Q, they were described by Atwood Magazine as a sonic tidal wave of feeling. That's a nice way to put it. Dude, I got a perfect follow up for that, brother. All right, Q, Well, then, let me just pass it right back to you.

What do you got for us? You may or may not have heard this track, depending on if you actually gave it a listen to when I sent it your way. So this is a group called Pity Sex. I've been obsessed with them. That sounds familiar. Have you brought them before? Not here.

That's because I sent you some tracks, Trave, off the mic. Oh, well, that's probably where. Yeah, I think I recognize White Hot Moon. Yeah, that's, I'm bringing a song. from that album, but The Feast of Love, the album from 2013 is another, that's actually the first album I sent you and said, you got to give it a listen, dude. Yeah, I remember enjoying it quite a bit. Yeah, man.

So let me read this little excerpt here. Ann Arbor, Michigan's Pity Sex pull from the fuzzy distorted sound of 90s alternative rock, capturing elements of noise pop, indie pop, and shoegaze in various elements. I mean, hello. That's our bread and butter, Trav. Speaking of my language, dude. Can't get enough of it. And yeah, dude, let's just jump right into it.

This is the opening track on their 2016 album, White Hot Moon. This song is called A Satisfactory World for Reasonable People. Kew, I feel like I'm dancing in a dream. I love it, man. I love their back and forth. They do that in a lot of their songs. I love a good handoff. two vocalists.

They're great at it. And the male lead singer has very unique singing style. He does it. I mean, it's definitely, you know, this goes back to what we were talking about earlier this month on our dinosaur junior episode. He's definitely got like the slacker rock vocals, you know. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. But he does it really well.

And a lot of the songs, there's some sort of distortion on his vocals. It almost sounds like he's singing through like an old radio or something. Like, you're hearing him through like an old radio. I don't know. But it's really cool. I love the way it's done. And I love kind of like with the last track that you brought, there's a little bit of heaviness to it. You know, it's dream pop.

But it's a little more on the alt rock grungy side. Bits and pieces of it. Really well done. These guys are great. Check out this album. Check out their record from 2013. Feast of Love. Haven't really listened to too much else from them. There's not a lot out there, just a couple EPs other than these two full lengths. One of those two EPs is just a split single

with another group. So anyways, not a lot out there. Hoping they're working on more stuff because, yeah, I just can't get enough of them. All right, brother, what you got? All right, Q. Well, now it's time for the first official 180 of 2024. All right, Q. So, I'm still on Reddit, unlike you. And as we know, and I've talked about plenty on this show, there's a lot of great music communities on Reddit. And since I interact with, you know, a handful of them quite a bit, Reddit will suggest other music communities, right? And just show me random posts from other communities. So I saw just kind of scrolling through what at first glance looked like the Bitches Brew album cover by Miles Davis.

But what the guy, the creator of the post, he kind of photoshopped in a bunch of other jazz records in sort of like the different sections of the record. Because if you know, if you look at the sleeve and stuff, like the backside and the inside, you know, the opened up sleeve of Bitches's Brewer, it's got all these kind of like pictures and stuff. And so he had a bunch of other like album art kind of strung through it. like this is my, some of my favorite sort of like jazz fusion records. And so I just, it was like, of course, I might listen to some of these, you know. So I pulled up this record from 1976 from this group called Return to Forever. And just figured I'd give it a spin. I freaking loved it, man.

The drumming is amazing. The guitar playing is great. and this band is actually comprised of, well, it was formed by this jazz keyboard player named Chick Korea. And he was on the Biches Brew record. And a lot of the artists that have sort of rotated in and out of this group Return to Forever are also played on some of the Bitches Brew's sessions and whatnot. So like this particular iteration of the group is Chick-Korea on the piano. Al Di Miola, I've heard of him. I've heard of him.

He's like a Spanish guitar player. Yeah. Sometimes. And some of his albums. Stanley Clark on bass and Lenny White on drums. Anyway, so let's just listen to it. Like I say, this is going to be a change of pace. you know, we've done maybe really one episode on this type of music with Jeff Beck's blow-by-blow, right?

This is kind of in the same realm. Always crazy good drummers on those types of albums. Yeah, so get ready. All right, again, so this group is called Return to Forever. The album is called Romantic Warrior. This is the opening track. This song is called Medieval Overture. That's what I love about what you're heard, dude.

I mean, where else are you going to hear this stuff? Where else are you going to hear Casper Baby Pants? And some 70s Jazz Fusion within the same, you know, 30 minute time span. Nowhere, dude. I think the answer to that question is nowhere. Absolutely nowhere. I'm always reminded of Wendy Carlos when I hear that kind of stuff, you know? Yeah, I know what you mean.

The huge wave of like, or, maybe. maybe like the birth of synth instruments, you know, that didn't take up. I mean, Wendy Carlos had like an entire room that was her synthesizer, you know. Yeah. But like this is once, you know, more bands were able to bring in these kind of awesome, like, synthy stuff to make some super epic kind of songs like this. Yeah, totally. So let me just read this little sentence here.

So as Return to Forever started out as more of a Latin-tinged jazz ensemble, but Korea, influenced by the Mahavit, I'm going to, I'm not going to pronounce this right. The Mahafish New Orchestra of John McLaughlin and some of the progressive rock bands coming out of Great Britain, notably yes, and Emerson Lincoln Palmer, moved the group more toward rock, achieving considerable commercial success. So that's interesting to me that these jazz players are being influenced by these progressive rock bands that were, you know, expanding the rock genre into like jazz and classical territories. You know, I mean, it's kind of funny because like, you know, yes, you know, wanted to push rock a little bit, you know, and be taken seriously with rock and, you know, start. started to, you know, experiment with synths and stuff like that. And then like this jazz piano player. And classical stuff too. And classical stuff, yeah, definitely.

But then, you know, this jazz keyboard player who, you know, was on Miles Davis records is getting influenced by rock, right? I mean, it's interesting. It's cool. Yeah. For sure. I feel like you really got to give that one a proper, got to give proper attention to that. Got to be in the right headspace for it.

And yeah, give it the right focus. the right amount of focus and attention. So again, that was returned to forever off of their 1976 record Romantic Warrior. That song was called Medieval Overture. All right, Q, I would imagine we're in store for another 360. I mean, 180. Unless you got a 360, we're right back where we started. Let's call this a 270.

Hey. And here's why, dude. So, as you know, I have my beloved built-in speaker system in my house that has probably been here since the 70s, and it's got a radio built in, and K&KX is where I get my NPR. It's NPR in the morning and jazz throughout the day. On Saturdays and Sundays, after 6, it's all blues hosted by John Kessler. Okay. So I heard this track on a Saturday night.

This is a harmonica player named Carlos Delhunco, and it's, bluesy jazz stuff. This song I'm bringing is straight up blues. Not even a hint to jazz. But it's, dude, the things that he does with this harmonica, man. It's freaking awesome.

Get ready. All right. So I'm ready. This is an album of his 2005 called Blues Mongrel. This song is called Blues with a Feeling. He's rolling.

At first I was like, you can't tell me that's not a guitar. But then I realized, yeah, that's a guitar. So you had a guitar player on that record. Yeah, I mean, honestly, yeah, that was showing off the guitar player more than anything in that song. And that was, yeah, love it. That might have been the first harmonica on this podcast here. Maybe you really think about it. Man, maybe.

Could be. That would be pretty nutty if it was. Could be. I'm not really a blues guy. I'm not either. I'm not either, dude. And let me tell you why, and I was about to bring this up, actually. What I love about this song.

What do you love about a cue? Was what we were, the part, you know, that one part. Hang on. What I love about this song is the nitty-gritty, like, breakdown instrumental bits. Yeah, sure. And really, the rest of the song is just a straight-up jam. You're running the mill blues song. Yeah, and it's...

In terms of like the, you know, the format. The melody. That's what blues is. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. But I mean, dude, you know, when you're in the kitchen doing dishes, listening to the radio, you don't know what's coming. And you get hit with something like this, you know, it just hit in the fields, dude. I got you.

You know what, dude? And it's funny because Scott Simon on NPR. Gotta love Scott Simon. Jokes about this often. because I feel like he's like he bites, bites his tongue basically, like through his teeth, his gritted teeth has to say like, you know, sit, say MPR and your smart speaker and, or stream us on your, on your, on our website. Or if you ever, you remember radios? You can hear us on your radio too. There's something magic about the radio, dude. I'm glad that it's still going strong. I mean, you can find it all on your radio, on your radio.

On your radio. This song just hit me right, dude, so I wanted to play it tonight. All right, dude, what you got? What are we on track three for you? Song number three? You know, I think we're getting a little wild here, Cues. I'm going to bring us back to... We're kind of all over the place tonight.

We got jazz fusion. We got harmonica blues. And this is what you heard's all about. But let me, let me, you know, let me re-send. interests back to our wheelhouse here, Q. So I've been sitting on this record for a while now because we kind of, I think we missed, yeah, you know, we didn't do any watch-you-heard episodes all throughout November and December because those episodes were devoted to the year-end, right, our best of 2023.

So this particular track I wanted to play on probably our October, you heard but we weren't able to do that because I you know I put out that episode with Adrian the bonus Halloween episode yeah I missed out on that one man yeah so anyway I've been sitting on this one for a while so it's about time to to play this track so this is a group called the meeting places and they're you know they're under the the the shoe gaze umbrella queue but I'm gonna I'm gonna say that they're They're not your run-of-the-mill dream popper shoegays act, in my opinion. So this is not going to be your stereotypical shoegu-gates track.

This record is, it's just great, man. It's a great listen. It was hard for me to narrow down a track to play. But this is off the 2003 record, Find Yourself Along the Way. This song is called Now I Know You Could Never Be the One. Yeah, man, as much as I think of the early 2000s and 2010s as like the beginning of chill wave and second wave dream pop movements. Yeah. There was a lot of great indie stuff like this.

I'm reminded of like, I don't know, the stills or long wave. Yes. I was thinking of the same thing. This is like in the same camp, I think. The guitar tone and the effects that are used. Yeah, the stills were definitely a little bit more like angular, a little bit more distortion and edge to them. But yeah, I agree with you, do. Especially long wave, good call.

I love that kind of stuff. Yeah, yeah, I think that's the same. It's like, you know, in this, you know, we talk about this all the time. There's a never-ending supply of amazing 90s rock records out there, right? I think the same could be said for the 2000s. You know, we always talk about how like, oh, the 90s was the last great decade. for rock. There's some truth to that. But then, hello. I mean, shit, we, we, we, you know, we really came into our own musically listening to. Yep. These bands, you know, bands from the 2000s,

the strokes. I know I say the strokes every time, like, that's my go-to band when I think of, Interpol. But that's because, you know, I, the strokes was like one of the first bands that, like, we latched on to and, like, we really fell in love with, you know. Yeah. But yeah, tons of great stuff, man. So, you know, I think 2020, for us was the year of just like diving into a bunch of 90s records. Maybe we'll, you know, pay attention to some of these great records. I know for sure I would like to do an episode on Pia Frouse this year, which... Oh, yeah, dude.

There is a record that they put out in 2001. Here you go, dude. Nice. I just do it. I'll wonder what it's like. So at some point, we will be covering that group. another an Estonian dream pop group. Anyway, so again, that band was called The Meeting Places.

The record came out in 2003, find yourself along the way. Definitely check it out. That track was called Now I Know You Could Never Be the One. All right, Q, what do you got? All right, dude. I'm just going to play one of my favorite David Bowie songs, okay? Because I heard it on the radio. All right.

And I just, every time I hear this freaking song, dude, It just, I just fucking love it so much, dude. Bringing out the oldies, dude. Let's do it. You know, it's funny because I just recently attended a good friend's birthday party, and it was kind of David Bowie themed. It was a, you know, this guy was born in the 80s. And so during part of the party, they played,

what's that freaking movie, dude, that Bowie stars in. Yeah, man. The Labyrinth. Labyrinth, yeah. So it was a labyrinth theme. I love that movie, dude. I had actually never seen it before, which is kind of surprising. So that was my first time of seeing it.

It's just classic, man. They rented out this, like, you know, studio space and just, like, projected it on this big wall and everybody kind of danced. It kind of felt like... That's cool. you know, one of those showings where, you know, people kind of participate and stuff.

So if you were dressed up as the character when they showed up on the screen, you run up to the front and, you know, whatever. Kind of like the Rocky Horror Picture Show. Yeah. Underground. So a lot of people were just dressed up as Bowie, you know, so anyway, that's awesome.

I've had recent exposure to Bowie Q. So fitting that we were playing him on this episode. Well, everyone knows this song. I love this song so much. Here we go. All right. So this is, Let's Dance from 1983.

We're going to play the opening track. This one's called Modern Love. I can't believe I'm learning this for the first time, Q, but did you know that Stevie Ray Vaughn was featured in that song? What was he? What? I mean, whatever guitar parts are in that song, that Stevie Ravon, dude. I certainly didn't know that.

So apparently he's all throughout that record. That's something, dude. So this was produced by Nile Rogers, who's a very well-known producer. You know, I think everybody. And some way or another, there is a song that you love that Nile Rogers probably produced, right? That's why I feel about Nigel Gondrick, which kind of sounds like the same name. Yeah, you're right. But yeah, so wasn't this record, like this was Bowie's like,

super like commercially like he like he went out yeah like he wanted to make yeah a like there's some story where like he purposely wanted to make a super popular record to like snub his previous label or something like that i might be getting a wrong this is i mean this is gotta be yeah this is yeah let's dance is like a massive massive song yeah let's dance and modern love i mean Yeah, modern love too, yeah. And dude, every song in the 80s, if it was going to be on the radio, it had to have a freaking saxophone solo. And he knew that.

Yeah, I did. I can't believe I didn't realize that Stevie Ray Vaughn was part of, part of, uh, had anything to do with David Poy. Like, I can't believe I didn't realize that. My favorite, my favorite part of this freaking song is the chorus when, when he says, gets me to the church on time. And then in the background on the next line, And they go, church on time.

Church on time. I just love it, man. So that particular, what you just said, that thing that you like about this track, apparently that is, you know, he wanted to essentially kind of like pay homage to Little Richard on this track. It says here, Bowie said Little Richard, his earliest rock hero was an inspiration for this song, specifically the call and response sections. That's what I'm talking about, brother. I love it.

Love it. All right. So I'm going to pass it back to you, Trev. What you got? How can you beat that? I can't beat David Bellway. But I didn't realize that the lead singer of one of our favorite indie bands from back in the day, Midlake, put out a record.

Did you know this? The lead singer? The lead singer. Oh, he finally got over his writer's block, dude. Uh, yeah. Because it was tragic for a little bit there. Right. He looks very zen.

I know, dude. He looks exactly like you... Like he's finally found his piece. This is what you'd expect them to look like, I think. Yeah, from what I've read, dude, he was struggling with some creative demons for quite some time. And that's why he left the group. Or they stopped like mid, mid writing their last album. something, he just, like, trashed the whole record.

Anyways. Yeah, the guy we're talking about, his name is Tim Smith, and he was the kind of the founder, lead singer of this group called Midlake that put out some, a couple of really awesome records back in the early 2000s. Trials of Van Acupunther. Was it, was it the early 2000s? Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. Yeah, Trials of Van Acupanther was the one that kind of we were turned on to. The one prior to that was also really good. Bamnan and Slivercork. Slibercork. Now, I think we've done episodes on both records. I don't know if we did trials, but we did Bamnan. Man, if we haven't done trials, we got to do that.

We should. We should do it. Surely, we've done it. But yeah. Anyway, so he put out a new record. That's awesome. And I believe he collaborates, I believe that's his wife or partner in this photo here. Here we go, Q.

So, Smith, I'm reading the write-up on the band camp page. Smith had been working for years on a set of new tracks for his debut album, but he set them aside and began again when a new source of inspiration arrived. Classic, right? Along came 80's music, he explains. I knew of bands and I had heard the odd song, but I had never dug deep into Joy Division, Cocktoe Twins, the Smith's Cheers for Fears before. The major album for me, though, was The Cure's Faith, which I listened to nonstop for three years.

that music really resonated with me so I was led in a different direction which took a long time to figure out because I was on my own learning how to record better, mix better, write better. I feel like he's trying to like explain himself to everyone who's been.

Yeah, I know right. Where have you been, man? Likely excuse. I mean, I had to listen to this cure album over and I had to relearn how to play. I discovered 80s music for the first time. It's like, yeah, right, dude. But, I mean, I'd say it,

but I don't really hear any 80s influence this record. Don't tell him that. I think what he's trying to say is like maybe that's, yeah. He had a direction he was going with his music and then he was inspired by something else. And then maybe that eventually that I'm back to this record. What I like about this new record came out last year is it sounds like Midlake stuff. The Midlake stuff that, you know, that you could, you definitely heard a change in Midlake when Tim Smith left the group, right?

Yeah. And so if you liked Childs of Van Acupunther specifically, you're going to like this record. So here we go. I'm going to play the second track out for this record, Albion. Actually, so he goes by the name Harp. I will say that. He doesn't go by Tim Smith. The name of the group is Harp. I believe his spouse or wife is involved in somewhere or another. I need to figure that out while we're playing here so I can actually give proper credit. But here we go. This song is called I Am the Seed. Yeah, this guy's just a poet that sings. He's a singing poet.

Yeah. The lyrics are always very deep. Yeah, definitely. And yeah, I mean, it's like hearing from an old friend, dude, that voice, that style, like the way he kind of harmonizes with himself. Yeah. Did you hear this not knowing it was him? And then you thought that's got to be the midlight guy? No.

So our brother Spencer told me about this. Oh, because he's a big, big mid-league fan. Yeah. So, all right, let me give credit to his wife. So it is his wife and she is, she does the drums. She does the, I guess she programmed the drums. So I guess it's not an actual drum, but says here, one crucial addition was Smith's wife, Kathy Zung, who he considers a member of harp, not just because she,

she programmed the drums. He said, Cathill has a very good ear, and she's very knowledgeable about music. She's been right here alongside me these past five years, helping me with every part of the process. So it sounds like she's also been kind of an influence on him, musically,

lyrically, stuff like that. Just his rock, it sounds like to me is what I'm gathering from then. Because he's been through, he's been through the ringer. Oh, sure.

Yeah. So he doesn't even, you know, he doesn't live in Denton anymore. He moved to Durham, North Carolina. which is where she's from. And yeah.

So new man, new hair. You know, he's got this white hair. He just looks like a like a, like a guru or something like that, you know. Yeah. Well, like if you pull down a dirt road and you pull up to a nice little cottage, you know, it's going to be him, him and her, and they might try to get you to join their cult. Yes, 100%.

And I would 100% consider it. That was harp, also known as Tim Smith's new project. If you have been longing for that old Midlake sound, this record will give it to you. All right, Q, are we, what are we doing here? This is your last pick, right? It's my last pick. And you know what? No introduction needed here.

This is the sound carriers. Oh, love it. We should do an episode on them, dude. Absolutely. I revisited my favorite album of theirs, Celeste. which came out in 2010. This track, I just completely forgotten about it. It's a little ways down on the record.

And it's fucking great, dude. Like, you know, so they're like a lot like stereo lab or, you know, other groups in that vein where it's really very like. Broadcast. Broadcast, yeah, exactly. And this one's a little bit different, which is what I like about it. So, here we go. This song is called Out of Place. I don't think I've heard a sound carrier's track that I didn't love, Q.

No one does it better than them, man. They're just perfect, man. No one does it better than them. Perfect. In that vein, yeah, absolutely. I think we've talked about them enough on this show. We have. You know, it's time to do an episode.

For sure. Yeah, I would love that. Let's do it. And you know what, dude? Let's wrap this up. You got one more track. I do have one more track. I got a good way to.

to follow up with that. It's not in the same vein, but it's another kind of chill track. So, hey, this goes back to what we were saying just earlier. Here's a group I've never heard of. They kind of hit the scene in the early 2010s. And it's, yeah, it's just like, man, I've never seen this record. This album art, I've never heard of the band.

And they're freaking awesome. So this group is called No Joy. I think it's safe to say, Q, that the words you get, gets tossed around quite a bit because I wouldn't I would not call the shoegays but they are considered a Canadian shoe gaze band I mean we can't do we can't get through one episode without bringing up saying the word I mean I've said it like three or four times already I know I know so but anyway I would just classify them as a good old-fashioned indie rock group queue so they first kind of got

attention around 2009 they played some shows with who's could do which is funny because I mentioned them last or a couple weeks ago on the dinosaur junior episode. And then they did some shows with a pretty well-known indie band named Best Coast, which I've heard of. The lead singer of Best Coast took a liking to the band and tweeted, dude, no joy is the best band ever. Two hot blonde girls just shredding away. What more do I have to say at you? Say no more. I won't.

I mean, I'll say the name of the track. So here we go, this song. Hold up, brother. I know this album. The only reason I stopped, I paused for a second because I had to remember, you remember that amazing, that infographic that I brought a bunch of Shuge's groups. Yeah, yeah. They're on that.

So you don't know this record and you haven't listened to it. I know this record. And if you're going to play Hair, Tarot lies, I'm not very well. I'm not going to play that track. Well, sorry. didn't mean to like, I got excited when I saw that album cover. Yeah,

this is great stuff. I made a big point just second ago about like, I've never seen this record. But I have looked at that, I have looked at that infographic. So that's funny. Yeah. Anyway, yeah,

that was one of the singles. I want of you mentioned, Herr, tarot lies. It has quite a play count. Anytime I see a play count that's that large on a record and it's like way off from the rest of the play counts, I'm always like,

that's a single. Yeah, it's a single or like it was, it appeared on a TV show or something like that. Anyway, whatever. Okay, so this track, again by the band No Joy, is called Slug Night. Nice and fuzzy, just like I like it. You know what, cute, it's you gaze adjacent, I guess. You know, fine. It's you guys, okay?

I feel like I have to apologize to the listener's like, I'm sorry. Here's another shoeguze track. I hope you like shoe gaze. Because here, you know what? I know. Here's another one. You know what? If you're stuck around with us for this long, you're a fan of shoegaze at this point.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, great, great song. Good record, too. I haven't listened to it in a few years. So anyway, I thought that was a good way to wrap us up, Q. No joy brought me a lot of joy when I listened to that track. So let me just go back to talking about Tim's,

Smith of Midlake, can we just look at this picture together? Sure, we can. And just agree that they 100% larp on the weekends. 100%. They may not just larp on the weekends, dude. It could be a seven-day week kind of thing. That's true. Their life is larping.

Or just they go to every Renaissance festival. Let me just say this, dude. I couldn't be happier for the guy. Me neither. Dude, I'm thrilled. I love it. I'm just saying I love I love everything about it now that maybe this was just you know for the for the album art and the promotion material but it is not if you look closely enough

the shirt that he's wearing I guarantee you she so she sewed that that's her own pattern she said it yourself what are you a detective no um but maybe I'm half joking but you're probably right anyway uh yeah that's that's a sidetrack cue all right so you've been listening to no filler. This is our what you heard format. Be on the lookout in a couple weeks for our next deep dive episode. And I think I talked about perhaps doing deaf tones. I thought that we were going to do cocktail twins, brother.

Well, we had talked about that privately, you and I. But I, you know, I would love to do cocktoe twins again. Well, I think the album Head Over Heels that I'm bringing. is heavy enough, dude, that it's worthy of being next in line after a Dinosaur Jr. record. Okay. And this was their second studio album, so it came out way back in 83. Yeah, and that's what I'm interested in because it blows my mind if they came out in 83. Let's put it that way.

I'm more of a fan, or at least I should say, I've had more exposure to their 90s stuff, the stuff they bought on the 90s, so having in Las Vegas. And then Milk and Kisses came out, I think, a few albums after that. Anyway, it's just cool to hear Robin Guthrie do his thing on these records, you know? Oh, yeah, he's such a key piece to the magic of that record. Or, I mean, of that band, right? But, yeah, it's him and Elizabeth Fraser's voice together is like the dreamiest of dreams, Q. Oh, man.

And that dude, just get ready on this one. It's just like, I feel like I'm, you're in like a, it's like I'm in a cave or something. Just everything just echoes and bounces off of each other. Yeah. It's heavy on this one, man. It's great. Really love this record. Well, if you were excited about a deaf tones episode, we'll do them eventually.

Let's put it this way. I was going to say, like, I wanted to talk about, my exposure to Devtones is literally what I've been listening to like the last few months. Like, I just recently got into them. And so I'm sort of bouncing around and listening. to a bunch of their records. So I haven't landed on exactly which one I want to cover. I was leaning toward the self-titled record,

but I'm bouncing around. So anyway, maybe we'll do, maybe we'll do like one of those episodes where we play songs from a bunch of different records for Devtones. But I feel like they're a really interesting group. Anyway, all right. So next month, we will do a cocktoe twins. You notice how I said it correctly,

cockto twins. That's how you pronounce it. Jesus. You remember this, some guy Instagrammed us and was like, wha, wah-wha-wha. Oh, yeah. Here's how you pronounce it.

Actually, that was, he put that in a review on. So it's on there forever. iTunes. Jeez, man. Yeah. Wow. He was like, these guys are not very interesting. And by the way, it's pronounced cocteau.

It's like, do you know how to pronounce this? And then, you know, middle finger. Anyway. So Cocktoe twins next month. and then we will do our what you heard for February a couple weeks after that. So tune in for even more dream pop and she days in just a couple weeks. Can't escape it from the podcast that just can't get enough of it. All right.

So I have a song to close us out, which is really interesting cue. It knocked me on my feet. I mean, it knocked me off my feet, I should say. That would be weird to get knocked on your feet. your feet. Wouldn't that be strange? It would be odd. So, you know, if you're our age, especially, you know who T-Pain is. Yeah, I do know T-Pain. I'm familiar with T-Pain, I guess. You know, the Autotune, the godfather of Autotune, I think. I thought Cher was the godmother of Autotune. Well, yeah, and he's the godfather. Okay.

I don't know. I can't say that with any. I was just making a joke about those songs that we all remember that had a bunch of, you know, heavy on the auto tune. Anyway, he's actually a pretty accomplished musician and an amazing singer, which is the irony, that a lot of people are like, if you never heard T. Payne sing without auto tune, you know, you haven't lived yet, basically. So anyway, he put out a record last year called On Top of the Covers, which is a really kind of tongue-and-cheek kind of name. And it's got him like in a back row with like a rose. Love it. Anyway, so it's a it's a covers record. Oh, that's awesome.

And he did a cover of War Pigs by Black South. Oh. And it's incredible. The funny thing is Ozzy Osbourne himself got wind of it. And he said, this is the best cover of war pigs ever. That's saying a lot. And he said, why didn't you guys call me? Anyway, so Ozzy, one more I need to say, according to Ozzy Osbourne, this is the best cover of war pigs ever.

And I think I agree with that. So anyway, that'll be the song that closes us out. Remember to check us out on Instagram. And by that, I mean, reach out to us on Instagram. if you would like to get in touch with us. I thought about posting again, and then I said, eh,

better not. And they went out with my day. Man. But if you want to talk to us, just, you know, you can find us on Instagram. And, you know, we'd like to say,

send us your recommendations, you know, songs that you've been listening to lately. If we like it, we might put it at the end of an episode. But for now, you're stuck with T. Payne's incredible cover of Black Sabbath.

Warpigs to close us out. Until then, we will see you guys in a couple weeks. Be sure to check out the Pantheon Podcast Network, the home of many other amazing music-related podcasts. The Pantheonpodcast.com, check us out. All right. Until next time, my name is Travis. And I'm Quentin.

Y'all take care.