Reply All - #39 Reply All Exploder

Episode Date: September 16, 2015

This week, one of our favorite podcasts, Song Exploder, takes over Reply All. Host Hrishikesh Hirway interviews the mysterious Breakmaster Cylinder about coming up with our theme song. Then, we air one of our very favorite episodes of Song Exploder, an interview with Phil Elverum of the Microphones about his song "I Want Wind to Blow" You can find our theme song here: https://soundcloud.com/breakmaster-cylinder/reply-all-theme-song You can find Song Exploder here: http://songexploder.net/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

From Gimlet, this is Reply All. I'm Alex Goldman. And I'm PJ Vote. And we're doing something different this week. There's a podcast that we are both huge fans of that is called Song Exploder. And the way that it works is the host, Risha K. Sherway, he takes one song and he sort of tears it down to its component parts. He interviews the person who made it and talks about exactly how it was made and why it was made. Yeah, that's sort of what's cool about it.

I feel like usually when musicians get interviewed, they're like, I don't know, like it just came to me in some weird dream or whatever, But because he talks to them about the mechanics, somehow a lot of times they'll be like, okay, here's exactly what the song meant and what it was referring to. And it's really satisfying. So this week's reply all is two episodes of Song Exploder. The first is our theme song,

which was incredibly informative for us because even though we listen to that theme song every week, there's a lot we don't really know about it. We knew nothing about it, it turns out. It's crazy. And then the second episode is an interview with Phil Elverham of the microphones. It is the explosion of his song, I want wind to blow.

This was the Song Exploder episode that turned me into a Song Exploder fan. Because I, like, I sort of knew that song, I liked that song. I didn't think I had a lot of questions about that song. And instead, I don't know, it was fascinating. It sort of ends up just being about how getting to see all the tiny little creative decisions that go into making anything, even something that sounds like it came into the world completely formed. It's really good. All right. Enjoy the show.

My name is Rishi K. Sherway, and this is a special reply-all edition of my podcast Song Exploder. On Song Exploder, I ask musicians to take apart their recordings to let listeners hear the inner workings of a song and learn how the whole thing was made. One of the things I love about Reply All is the intro music by Breakmaster Cylinder. By the way, I'm not sure how many of you know this, but before Reply All, Alex and PJ had another podcast about the internet called TLDR, and a lot of aspects of Reply All first manifest in that show, including having a theme song by Breakmaster Cylinder. So they've all been working together since September 2013. When I wanted to find out how the reply-all theme was put together, I discovered a few surprising

things, like the fact that PJ and Alex have never actually spoken to Breakmaster's cylinder, who prefers to remain anonymous. They've only ever emailed. So when the guys say, the mysterious Breakmaster cylinder in the credits, they really mean it. They don't even know if Breakmaster's a he or a she. I interviewed Breakmaster Cylinder, but out of respect for his or her privacy and mystery, I had an actor replaced Breakmaster Cylinder's voice. Or did I?

I'm sworn to secrecy. I also discovered that before there was a theme for a Ply All, before there was even a theme for TLDR, PJ and Alex first had to agree on whether or not their podcast should have a theme at all. Here's PJ. Alex wanted one and I didn't want one. I think I remember feeling like it was not a good idea because you would end up having episodes that didn't totally fit the theme song. Did you remember that argument? Yes.

I don't think that I had a particularly strong counter argument. So why did you win that? It's a weird question. I never win any arguments. I wanted something kind of anthemic and breakbeaty and just like really heavy. Isn't it anthemic? Like an anthem instead of an anthem? So many years ago, probably 2008 or 2009,

I somehow stumbled upon a video that Breakmaster Cylinder made, which was a remix of Mr. Sandman by the Cordets. It was this video that was just the most gruesome. some moments from every horror movie strung together to the tune of this sort of creepy, distorted remix of Mr. Sandman. And I was like, whoa, this is someone I want to keep an eye on. So I started looking through Breakmaster Cylinder's other videos, and I started following their music. And then when it came time to do a theme song, I was like, who is just weird enough to work with us

and make this thing? My name is Breakmaster Cylinder. And I first wrote a theme song for PJ and Alice. for TLDR. The first theme was received relatively well and was sort of the sound of the show. In retrospect, it feels more childish, I guess. It's sort of goofier.

I think that initially we were enamored of the idea of doing a show about the internet that was very internet-y, and our first theme song was all synthesizers, and it was all synthesized. One of the things that we really realized making TLDR is, yes, it's a show about the internet, but it's mostly a show about just your environment.

and where you are and who you're talking to and how you're talking to them. So they wanted to do something a little more refined, maybe. The tone of the new show was going to distance themselves from what that theme sounded like, which was too, you know, little kid-like. I am reading an old email from Alex Goldman to myself in November of 2014,

and he says, if I had to describe what I wanted in terms of emotion, I'd try to describe our show, which at its best moments is both irreverent and earnest. I had some weird thing where I was just, I was obsessed with Bach. Prelude in C is basically what the reply-all theme is. Yeah, it follows the same chord structure. It's the first four measures, but instead of playing each individual's 16th note, you bring it all into one chord. So what you can do is you can take one measure and you can block it into one chord, so it's this. And the second measure is this, and third, and fourth, and then it goes the first four measures, and then it goes measures 12 through 15. So, and you land back on the tonic and it's nice.

You can't possibly do it better than Bach would have done it. It's got to those nice, diminished sevens, it's really good. This piano in this room is not really good enough to record most of the time. That is a faky piano sound though, which is a little unfortunate, but I kind of tried to dirty it up in the EQs. I totally cannot play drums, so I just recorded every drum hit individually. I bought some brushes, because they're awesome. That is layered with a trap kit.

This theme song is just like layering all my favorite shit ever. I guess. It's a coin being spun on a table, but it's pitched up, like, exponentially along a curved line. So it starts slow, and it gets higher quickly. So hopefully it sounds like it warps into whatever sound comes next. Those are two different sounds. That is a mason jar being rolled across a table.

And then the other sound is a small glass being shattered with a hammer. In addition to these organic elements, Breakmaster Cylinder also made parts of the music digitally, programming notes with MIDI software on a laptop. This baseline, I wrote a MIDI line and then exported it to five different bass noises. And then throughout the track, I have them all layered at the same time,

and then I'd mute all them except for one, and just switch between them when it sounded right. It switches between them quickly, so you get some sort of, B-boops and some rumblier dubstep basses and some sort of warm mid-range out of all the same bass melody. After a few rounds of drafts and revisions went back and forth between Breakmaster and P.J. and Alex, the theme settled into its final form.

I asked PJ and Alex if the theme song had a title. It doesn't really, but... It's called Reply All Intro 4, FrankenFuck 1 and 3, Beapes Lower Down. Dotwave. It's called FrankenFucked because we combined the beginning. of one and the end of another, and then it says beep boops lower down. I said I wanted lower down beep boops.

Because we turned down the beefs and the boobs in the mix. TLDR is a great show, but Reply All has a lot more depth than TLDR did. They'll be talking about one just general branch of the internet, and then they suddenly zoom in on one human story. And I don't know if a theme does that exactly, but I think it does balance the organic with the electronic, you know, Bach and machine base, like the human component on the Internet,

which their show does really well. I think our show feels a lot like both of our personalities, which is like cheerful with like a depressed streak and like a little bit manic. But I think that mostly it's a pretty optimistic show. And I think the theme song is an optimistic theme song. And I like the feeling it's, starts us out with every week. Normally in Reply All episodes, what we hear is a condensed version of the theme song,

but it's actually a longer piece of music. So here's the fully assembled, full-length version of the Reply All theme by Breakmaster Cylinder. Coming up after the break, Rishy Kesh takes apart another song. This time, the song I Want Wind to Blow by the band The Microphones. It's one of our favorite episodes of Song Exploder, so stick around. And now, back to our show. You're listening to Song Exploder.

My name is Rishi Kesh Hereway. In the fall of 2001, Phil Elverm released the album The Glow Part 2 on K Records, pitchfork named it the best album of the year. In this episode, Phil recounts how he created the first song on the record at Dub Narcotic Studio. He spoke with me from his home in Anacortes Washington about his love of being alone in the studio, evoking nature through music, and where the name The Microphones comes from. Plus, we'll hear from Calvin Johnson, founder of the legendary record label K Records. My name's Phil Elvrom, and I made a bunch of records under the name The Microsons.

microphones and now I make records under the name Mount Erie. This song is called I Want When to Blow and it's the first song on my record, The Globe Part 2, which came out in 2001. I recorded it in Dubnarcotics Studio in Olympia, Washington on January 1st, 2001. I just noticed that when I dug out the track sheet. I just recorded all the time. That was my life back then. I lived a block from the studio and I had a key so I would just kind of be in there whenever it was available. So Dub Narcotics Studio is sort of the in-house studio of K Records in Olympia. And I moved to Olympia ostensibly for college, but I only lasted two quarters there because I just got so involved in all the other cool music and punk stuff that was going on downtown. Calvin Johnson invited me to work in the studio and gave me a key for some reason.

and I still don't know why. But I had access to this amazing studio, and I would just be in there at all hours doing experiments. I was obsessed. I mean, it was great to Phil. I said, here's the key to the Devon of the Comedy Studio. I just figured if he didn't know what he was doing, he was figuring it out, and he's just good at it.

That's kind of how I continue to work to this day is just, you know, making mistakes and discovering crazy accidents. I remember writing this song in Philadelphia, mid-tour, in my friend Mira's parents' upstairs bedroom. I just have a distinct memory of waking up, noodling around in the morning and coming up with a melody of like, dwang, dwang, dwang, dwang. It just happened.

Sometimes it just comes out. This song is kind of an exception because customarily, I don't have a song when I start recording. You know, it's based on experimentation in the studio, and I probably had played a version of it a few times on that tour. So I came home with this pre-formed thing. I recorded it, I decided to break it down into just the low Gs on one track and then the higher melody on another track.

So I was kind of figuring out it would sound unnatural in a way, but interesting. So that's kind of what I was doing with this guitar part. I've always been really into utilizing the stereo spectrum. Music comes out in stereo. People listen to music in stereo. There's a lot of opportunity there to play with special stuff and two. speakers. There's two speakers everywhere. It's amazing. I used to have a musical group with a girlfriend called The Thunder Clouds. It was like a Beach Boys cover band and we would just figure out Beach Boys songs,

break them into two-part harmonies. And, you know, we played a couple of shows around Olympia. It was very fun. So the first words in the song are The Thunder Clouds broke up, which is about us breaking up as a couple and also about the changing weather you know it's multiple levels of meaning about weather being a metaphor for my emotions so that was kind of what all my songs were about back then and arguably still are the thunder clouds broke right up the lightning letter the clacking shutters just shut up. And then there's three other vocal tracks which only come in on these like few words

that make this kind of elongated chord. Yeah, I've always recorded analog and I still do. So in preparation for this interview, I had planned to go down to Dub Narcotic and make digital backups of the reels, which I have never done. They're still just sitting there.

But because they're 12, 13 plus years old, the reels of tape are deteriorating. There's a thing that happens with certain tapes of a certain generation, I guess, where the adhesive starts to break down, and when you rewind it or fast-forward it or play it on a tape machine, it doesn't play properly. But there's a workaround where if you bake them at a low temperature for like two days, then you get one or two more passes out of them on the machine.

So we were able to salvage the tracks for this interview. I'm playing all the instruments here. I guess I prefer it that way. I get kind of crazy when I'm deep in a recording project where I'm not really communicating in words or anything. I know I'm so immersed in this sound idea that if I had to talk about it to someone else or tell them what I'm trying to do,

that it would throw me off, I think, which leads to a lot of logistical complications running back and forth to hit the record button. and this sound you can hear is me walking getting the headphones on and walking back after I finish the piano the alternative is me going back and erasing all of the sounds of me walking over to the piano walking back to press stop I like the sound of human life going on in between the quiet parts between performances

you know there's just two piano tracks but I put the mic like 50 feet away and just like slammed the notes down, let them resonate in the room. So they feel huge. The song is about tumultuous feelings. This song sort of builds and morphs into this explosion. And I feel like that's maybe where the power of this song comes from, is this tension that is building for the whole thing. There's this pulse.

And finally there's this release. I had this hollow body electric guitar, this K guitar. I was aiming for basically the sound of water. You can hear the pick sound almost. I miced the strings as well as an amp. Two different delay rates on the right side and the left side to sort of create this disorienting, watery, waves hitting each other effect. There's no ship on my sea.

It's the last line I sing, and so I go out to sea with the instruments. This recording is me, alone. in the studio scraping the bottom of a snare drum. I heard that sound first in my head and I was like I need this weird kind of scrape without thinking about snare or thinking about whatever it was that could make it. And then I'll look around the studio, where can I find those sounds in this room? I was going for this thing for this song of new characters appearing all the time and then vanishing. I wanted there to be people poking their heads, not people, instruments poking their heads. in the door. I remember discovering that I loved recording, that breakthrough when I was in high school

getting to record for the first time. We had a simple eight-track studio set up in the record store where I worked and just staying after work and experimenting, realizing what was possible with recording, and also realizing that so much of orthodox recording ideology is about capturing a thing perfectly. And I just was never interested by that because it seems like all of the other ways around that perfect sound are much more, you know, there's a vast world of possibilities. So I guess I maybe developed a tendency to work in the opposite direction of trying to do it the right way. In fact, every time I've ever recorded a drum set, I've probably put the mics in a different place just because they're going to sound enough like drums.

And why not have them sound characteristic and new, if possible? That's why my project was called the microphones at first, was because it wasn't even songs, really. It was just sound and recording. And the early songs were literally about recording, about gear, sort of in a metaphorical way, like my heart is the pre-amp or whatever. You know, I was in high school, so lay off, man. I loved recording, and that was how I got into doing this, not because I wanted to write songs.

Of course, I've developed a love for writing songs since then. But yeah, it was that breakthrough of self-recording, which changed everything for me. And now here's I Want Wind to Blow by the microphones in its entirety. Thanks to Risha Kesh Hurway, the host of Song Exploder. You can subscribe to Song Exploder on iTunes or whatever podcatcher you use. and at SongExploter.net. And thanks to Breakmaster Cylinder for giving us a tiny peek behind the curtain.

Reply all is me, PJ Vote, and Alex Goldman. We were produced this week by Tim Howard, Struthie Bittamanei and Fia Bennon, production assistants from Kalila Holt. Special thanks this week to Mickey Carter, Christian Coons, and Fairlith Young. Matt Lieber is a book you stay up and read in one night. Our theme music is from the mysterious breakmaster cylinder,

and our ad music is by Build Build Buildings. You can find more episodes at iTunes.com, Reply All. Our website is replyall. Dot rodeo. Thanks, however. Oh, also, we're on the Think Again podcast this week. Think Again is part of the Big Think video series on YouTube. If you've ever watched a Big Think video on YouTube and you like those, they also have a podcast. It's called Think Again.

We are on it this week. We talk about stuff that we know very little about and try and sound knowledgeable. You can find that at BigThink.com. Thanks for listening. We'll see you next week.