Stuff You Should Know - How Schoolhouse Rock Rocked: Featuring Bob Nastanovich of Pavement

Episode Date: May 25, 2017

Schoolhouse Rock is possibly the best children's program of all time. Join Josh and Chuck as they tell the story of SR, featuring an interview with Pavement's Bob Nastanovich, contributor to the '90s ...Schoolhouse Rock tribute record. Learn more about your ad-choices at https://www.iheartpodcastnetwork.comSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

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Starting point is 00:00:00 On the podcast, Hey Dude, the 90s called, David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're gonna use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.
Starting point is 00:00:17 We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass
Starting point is 00:00:37 and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place because I'm here to help. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life. Tell everybody, ya everybody, about my new podcast and make sure to listen so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye.
Starting point is 00:00:57 Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Welcome to Stuff You Should Know from HowStuffWorks.com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark. There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
Starting point is 00:01:30 There's Jerry. And this is Stuff You Should Know. Chip off the block of your favorite schoolhouse. Yeah, that was, we just heard the theme song. If you're between ages of, well, were you into it? Yes. Okay, so you're what, 41? I'm 40, dude.
Starting point is 00:01:52 40, so probably younger than you even a bit. Let's say if you're between. I was definitely toward the tail end of it. Okay, let's say 38 to 50 years old. Actually, yeah, that's not true. So let's say it was up to 85. Schoolhouse rock? Yeah, yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:12 So, somewhere in that range. Let's say 35 to what? Well, 50-ish. All right, that's what you agree on. A little more, 55 maybe. So that 15-year period, you were lucky. Yeah, like if you just heard that theme song and like something inside your body happened
Starting point is 00:02:28 emotionally in your brain, then that means that you grew up in the 70s and 80s. I think the heyday of Saturday morning cartoons, personally, as a fan of schoolhouse rock, one of my favorite, favorite, favorite things in the world. Yeah, it was pretty great. I still love it. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:02:50 Like I still listen to this stuff semi-regularly. Oh, do you? Yeah. For a little while when I went back to research this, I listened to or watched a bunch of them. Yeah. And they all just came flooding back. Yeah, and the writer of this article
Starting point is 00:03:09 actually interviewed, didn't he? Bob Doro? It sounded that way, unless he's a big fat liar in his author's note. Well, I just remember when this article went around, like the first thing we do when there's an article at House of the Forks is there's an email that goes around to everyone
Starting point is 00:03:25 where people kind of suggest kind of questions you can answer and stuff like that. Yeah. I think we ever really talked about that, did we? I don't think so. Nine years in, that's the secret. And people say, hey, you should think about this. You should do this.
Starting point is 00:03:37 And I said, somebody should try and interview Bob Doro. It's like he's 93 years old and you can still get in touch with a guy, I think. Yeah. And apparently this dude did. And sadly, I think all we got was like one quote. Yeah. Well, he was on his way to like a jazz gig in London
Starting point is 00:03:53 when he called him. I don't know, I bet you there was more in there than this. I was all disappointed. Oh, you're saying, I got you. I wanted like more, more select pull quotes from Mr. Doro. You wanted like, I called Mr. Doro, he answered. Hello, said Mr. Doro.
Starting point is 00:04:09 We should have interviewed him for this. I don't know why we didn't. I don't either. Apparently it's easy to get to. And there's, well, I'll get to that, nevermind. Should we get in the way back machine? Yes. Let's go back to the seventies, the greatest decade
Starting point is 00:04:24 in the history of humanity. Probably. I'm not joking. I'm a fan of 60, 70s and 80s. It'd be tough for me to decide. The 60s were a little too hippie for me. Oh yeah? Love the 70s though.
Starting point is 00:04:42 I mean, I had loved the 70s. And not even as a golden age, there was a lot wrong in the 70s. Nixon was president during the 70s, okay? Yeah. Lots of stuff were wrong in the 70s. But something about that decade just hit all the boxes. Yeah?
Starting point is 00:05:01 I just love it. I do too. And it reminds me of my childhood, which is great. Because, you know, I had a good childhood. It was fun. We talked about that in the nostalgia episode on how nostalgia is the correct path in life. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:05:14 Even though John Hodgeman doesn't think so. Yeah, nothing to that. So early 70s, there was a gentleman named David McCall and he co-owned an ad agency called McCaffrey and McCall. And as the story goes, he was on vacation with his family and he knew his son was having some trouble in math remembering specifically multiplication tables.
Starting point is 00:05:36 Yeah, no matter how much he yelled at him every night, he couldn't get multiplication. But they were in the car and this kid was singing as the story goes, Rolling Stones, a Rolling Stones song. And he was like, well, you know that. Why can't you remember the other stuff? I don't think he was that gruff.
Starting point is 00:05:54 I'm sorry. But it did hit him. He was like, you know, my son remembered. He has no problem memorizing things. But there's something about these multiplication tables. So I wonder if there's something to sing song. Right. And turning learning into not only just music
Starting point is 00:06:09 because that's not a new thing. People have been doing that forever. Right. But popular sounding music. Right. And bringing them with concepts to teach. Right. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:06:21 To make kids understand difficult concepts. Right. And it's so weird now, especially in the post school house rock world. Yeah. That, yeah, of course people do that. Like that's a technique that you use to teach kids. But apparently no one else is doing this at the time.
Starting point is 00:06:42 Yeah. This makes learning fun. This was a pretty interesting idea. And it really germinated in just the right guy's mind. Because this guy, McCall, was like you said, he was a partner in this advertising firm. And they basically specialized in doing the same thing but getting you to buy something.
Starting point is 00:07:02 Yeah. He was saying, maybe we could do the same thing that we do to sell people stuff, but to basically sell education to kids, to teach kids using the same techniques that we use in advertising. Yeah, like they would see a jingle for a product that would get lodged in someone's head.
Starting point is 00:07:20 And they would say, why can't we do that same thing? Like it would get lodged in a kid's head. And they would have learned something instead of bought something. Right. But you could also buy stuff. If you learn enough stuff, you can buy even more stuff. So he went to one of these,
Starting point is 00:07:38 I think he was a creative director, a co-creative director named George Newell, ran it by him. He said, great idea, get someone on it. And threw a cigarette at him, got out of the office, and commissioned one of their writers. They had jingle writers on staff, or at least working with them.
Starting point is 00:07:54 And they said, go write something. It wasn't very good. Didn't you feel bad for this person? I did, but you know what? It could have died there. Right. I never would have had Schoolhouse Rock. But this person went down in history
Starting point is 00:08:05 as the contributor to Schoolhouse Rock who didn't make it. Yeah. Sad. And who almost killed Schoolhouse Rock. I guess so. But McCall was like, no, this idea is too good for this. Yeah, which is really a great thing
Starting point is 00:08:20 and a lesson in persistence. So Newell was a jazz piano player. And he went to his buddy, one Bob Doro, one of my heroes, who was and is a great bebop jazz pianist and composer, and said, you can write a jingle too. Why don't you try this out? And here's the one quote. We might as well read it from a 93-year-old Mr. Doro.
Starting point is 00:08:47 I don't know how I lucked out. Apparently, they tried other songwriters, but most of them wrote down to kids. When I met McCall, he said, here's my idea. Give it a try, but don't write down to the kids. And when he said that, I got to chill. I have a high opinion of children. And that was the key right there.
Starting point is 00:09:01 They weren't songs like written in a remedial way because it was children. Right. Itsy-bitsy spider. Give me a break. Oh, that's a classic. But you're right. But so this idea germinates in this right guy's head.
Starting point is 00:09:17 He happens to end up indirectly getting in touch with this guy who has a high opinion of children. And he happens to be a jazz composer. Things are starting to happen. There's basically the hand of the almighty at work here. That's right. So Doro goes home. He has a daughter, gets out of textbooks.
Starting point is 00:09:37 And the first thing he comes up with, to me, one of the best. Man, it is far out. Three is a magic number. It was the very first schoolhouse song written because the first thing they wanted to tackle was math because of McCall's son. Yeah, this composition that he came back with,
Starting point is 00:09:57 Three is a Magic Number, when I hear it, it's super cool. But I'm really surprised that everybody was like, this is, yes, figure something out from this. Oh, man, I loved it. It is. It's cool, but it just doesn't seem like the basis, the keystone of schoolhouse rock to me. I'm surprised.
Starting point is 00:10:22 Well, it's one of my favorites. That's great. Because it dealt with multiplication. And not only that, but like you said, got a little trippy with the symbolism, faith, hope, and charity, heart, and mind, and body. It was about, and I wanted to do a podcast on Three, the number three, because it's very special.
Starting point is 00:10:42 It is very special. We did one on zero, why not three? Oh, man, I forgot about that. Remember? I think my brain melted a bit there. That's a good one. It's tough. Zero's tough.
Starting point is 00:10:52 It is tough. And not at all magic, right? Not really. So regardless, if you would have been working there, you would have been like, meh, and everyone else enjoyed it. You'd be like, I'm going to go get a bagel. I'm going to go and work on this processed cheese account. I did think of Mad Men quite a bit
Starting point is 00:11:12 when I was researching this. It was sort of that same time period. Or I guess toward, no, Mad Men didn't make it into the 70s. Yeah, I thought he did, because it wasn't supposed to be D.B. Cooper at the end. And that was the 70s. Right, which is not true. Yeah, or early.
Starting point is 00:11:29 I guess it was 71. I think it did crack into the 70s. Not like Boogie Nights did. That was all 70s, into the 80s. No, that's right, it cracked into the 80s with that cheese set. That song you recorded? Well, no, I was, well, yeah, that for sure. But I was thinking about when the party, the New Year's Eve
Starting point is 00:11:50 party, celebrating 1980 with Bill Macy. Oh, yeah. Man. What a great movie that was. Wonderful. Yeah, movie's almost like 20 years old. I believe it. We're old, Chuck.
Starting point is 00:12:02 I know, but those pop culture references are the ones that really hit home for me. What, the ones from the 70s? Well, when I think of Boogie Nights, I was like, oh, yeah, that was just a few years ago, right? And then someone says it's celebrating its 20th anniversary when I'm like, what? Or when I see an athlete's son or daughter.
Starting point is 00:12:20 Yeah, it's weird to see them. It's playing the same sport. The rookies are now like the old coaches and managers in the sports now. Man. Bizarre. So everyone's impressed at McCaffrey and McCall. Then they did a pretty smart thing.
Starting point is 00:12:36 They went to, McCall was on the board of the Bank Street College of Education in New York there, and he took it to them. It was just a song at this point. He said, what do you think is a learning tool? They used it, played it for the students, and they were like, this is awesome. Like, they're responding.
Starting point is 00:12:53 Again, except for little Josh. He's just sitting there with his arms crossed, he's scowling. I've never seen him so mad before. So the students liked it, the agency liked it. So they knew they were onto something. They got their art director, Tom Yo, Y-O-H-E. Oh, you're going with Yo? I'm going all out with Yo-He.
Starting point is 00:13:18 OK, Tom Yo-He. And said, put some animation to this. Draw out some storyboards. Because that was the beauty of Schoolhouse Rock to Me, was it was a combination of everything. It wasn't just the song. The songs are great, and we'll get more to the music here in a bit, but it was the combination of the visuals
Starting point is 00:13:40 with the song and the fact that you were learning something in such a unique way. It was just the perfect storm of awesomeness. Yeah, the songs on their own would have stood up on their own. And initially, they planned to just release an album of cool songs like this. But it was when Yo-He started sitting there drawing some of this stuff out, that's, I mean,
Starting point is 00:14:03 Schoolhouse Rock is not one or the other. It's the combination of those two things. They play off each other so well. Agreed. So they took, now they have these storyboards. They take this, so it got him Radford Stone. He was their account supervisor, the VP, for ABC. And they said there's this young upstart at ABC
Starting point is 00:14:24 for their children's programming named Michael Eisner. Doubt if he's ever going to go anywhere. But right now, he's running the kid's shop over there. And let's bring in, because this guy knows a lot about kid's programming, let's bring in Chuck Jones to the meeting. Yeah. Shout out to our friend Jessica, granddaughter of Mr. Jones.
Starting point is 00:14:44 And sat down in a meeting, played the demo tape, showed him the storyboard. They all turned to Chuck Jones. So what do you think? And he said, buy it. Buy it. That's how Chuck Jones talks. No, he didn't.
Starting point is 00:14:59 And Michael Eisner bought it. And before you knew it, they were in business. We're going to take a break. I think we should. Josh is going to go collect himself. And we'll be right back. Hey, dude, the 90s called David Lasher and Christine Taylor stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude,
Starting point is 00:15:32 bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point. But we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.
Starting point is 00:15:47 It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal? No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up
Starting point is 00:16:04 sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's beeper, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy, blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s.
Starting point is 00:16:18 Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough, or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing.
Starting point is 00:16:38 Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god. Seriously, I swear.
Starting point is 00:16:50 And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yeah, we know that, Michael. And a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life step by step.
Starting point is 00:17:04 Oh, not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody about my new podcast and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say. Bye, bye, bye. Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart
Starting point is 00:17:24 radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. Are you all right? You all right? Yeah, I'm all right. All right, we're back. So strange. So Schoolhouse Rock started on ABC Saturday morning as what they call an interstitial.
Starting point is 00:17:59 Yeah, we had some of those. Yeah, it's programming between the programming that's not commercial. Right. When the creators of the program you're actually watching weren't good enough to make 22 full minutes, you rounded out with interstitial programming. Yeah, exactly.
Starting point is 00:18:17 This is January 6th and 7th, was the first weekend in 1973. So I was but two years old. Oh, well, I was negative three. Yeah, you were in the upper atmosphere. Just coalescing, waiting to be born. Flapping my wings. And this was before, like you said, the original thing was it was just going to be an album
Starting point is 00:18:39 called Multiplication Rock until they realized that the visuals were important. They could put it on television. And the first four songs that first weekend were some of the greatest. Aside from three is a magic number, the four-legged zoo, Elementary My Dear, and My Hero Zero. Great song.
Starting point is 00:18:57 Zero again. Not magical, but it is a cool number. Such a funny little hero. Yeah. Tate came along. They counted on their fingers and fingers. So when was that, Chuck, 1973? Yes.
Starting point is 00:19:11 And I think that first one had quite a, so it was up to, there were 13 episodes then, if it went from zero to 12. Yeah, and I think what they settled on was almost like seasons, themed seasons. So the first season was going to be math related. Yeah. So apparently Bob Dorough had been off like coming up with songs.
Starting point is 00:19:35 Didn't realize that they wanted a song for each number. And he had started to combine several numbers in a different song, so. He didn't get the memo. He didn't, and he finally did. And he was trying to figure out how to break the songs apart. And he came up with one called the four-legged zoo. You heard that one?
Starting point is 00:19:56 Yeah, it's fine. Yeah. So-so? Not one of my favorites, but I mean, they're all great. It's just some stand out a little more than others. Yeah. So what's your favorite of the multiplication rock? Oh, well, three is a magic number.
Starting point is 00:20:09 OK. Yeah. And that was something else I noticed about this. For each season, there were at least one stand out song per season that just about everybody knows. Yeah. And I would guess three is a magic number is probably that one. Yeah, or maybe my hero zero.
Starting point is 00:20:27 That was a big one. Yeah. That was a hit. So much so that Bob Dorough was up for Grammy in 1974. Yeah. For, I think, the whole album, right? Yeah, but those jerks at Sesame Street won. If you're going to lose, lose the Sesame Street.
Starting point is 00:20:48 Yeah, and Dorough is like writing and singing these initial first few songs himself. He sang, yeah, all of them except two. And he hired two other jazz musicians, Grady Tate and Blossom Deary. Great name. Grady Tate sang Naughty Number Nine and Blossom Deary sang Figure Eight.
Starting point is 00:21:05 But all the rest of them, the other 11, Bob Dorough sang. And he wrote all of them. So yeah, they really struck gold with that guy. Yeah, I mean, he was, he was that initial genius behind this whole thing. Yeah. And this is another cool thing about Schoolhouse Rock that I noticed.
Starting point is 00:21:23 The people involved stayed on for basically the whole run, the initial run from 73 to 85. Yeah, it seemed like a project that everyone enjoyed working on and that was highly collaborative. And it just seemed like a good experience. I don't think there's like the VH1 special like the dark side of the Schoolhouse Rock years. So they move on to, I don't know which one is my favorite,
Starting point is 00:21:48 Grammar Rock or History. But they moved on to Grammar Rock Next. Yeah, that was season two. Yeah, 73 to 74. And we should say, I don't think that these were like, I don't think there were breaks in the season. I get the impression that from 1973 till 1985, when they had enough episodes, they
Starting point is 00:22:10 were just running on like every Saturday morning during cartoons. Yeah, I certainly don't remember like breaks. Yeah. Like it just seems like every week they were there. Right. So 73 and 74, you have Grammar Rock, which debuted, some people will probably say the biggest of all time,
Starting point is 00:22:27 conjunction, junction. That's so what everybody knows. It's a great, great song. Song, as he sang many others, including my all time favorite, which I'll get to later. OK. But I know what it is. I bet you don't.
Starting point is 00:22:41 He was Merv Griffin's trumpet player, Jack Sheldon, who just had this voice that's just like. It's the conjunction, junction. Yeah, it's unbelievable. Yeah. Very unique guy. And he kind of looked like Will Ferrell to me. Like he should play him if they did a movie about.
Starting point is 00:23:00 They should do a movie about the whole thing, she asked me about Schoolhouse Rock. Well, there's no controversy or conflict. It's just two hours of everybody getting along, doing great stuff. He wants to see that. All right. So Jack Sheldon came along saying conjunction, junction.
Starting point is 00:23:17 And did you go back and listen to that like for this? Oh, yeah, I listened to a lot of these. So that is a sophisticated song. If you listen to like that, remember our poetry episode. If you listen to like the meter and the rhyming pattern, the rhyme scheme, and the slant rhymes they use. Like for something that's made for kids, it is not just rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme.
Starting point is 00:23:42 You know, like it's a sophisticated song. And it's pretty, pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's, I mean, I think that's why it worked. That was a secret. Oh, I guess it's not talking down to kids. Yeah, and like the music was good. Like if you listen to, I mean, those are a little sing-songy, but like some of them were like pop music at the time,
Starting point is 00:24:04 like the verb song. That's one of the funkiest songs I've ever heard. Verb, that's what's happening. And especially that one, like I read this great blog post by this African-American guy that was talking about how verb like meant so much to him. Because at the time, you know, they didn't have a lot of like cartoons and stuff that,
Starting point is 00:24:24 but addressed the black community at all. And so all of a sudden you get this cartoon. It's got this super funky music and this kid that looked like him having this great adventure in the city. And it just kind of, it's pretty neat thing, I think. Yeah, that was season two, it was grammar, right? Yes. So apparently in that same season, a lady named Lynn Aarons
Starting point is 00:24:49 was a, she was a copy, copy department secretary? Yeah, this is where it reminded me of Mad Men. And she like basically took Peggy's journey. Oh, okay. From like secretary to superstar. I've never seen Mad Men. Yeah, it's good. I'm rewatching it right now.
Starting point is 00:25:06 Oh, really? Yeah, it's that good. Yeah. So Lynn was, she was a secretary at the advertising agency. And apparently she was playing her guitar on lunch break. Another reason the 70s were great. Exactly. And who was it that found her, Newell?
Starting point is 00:25:24 The creative director guy? Yeah, like in the movie, he's just walking down the hall and here's this beautiful music and stops. He's like, what in the world's going on in there? Right. And it was Lynn Aarons. And so they took her and put her on, I guess, part-time on the project.
Starting point is 00:25:40 And they, I guess eventually made her a full-time songwriter, which is pretty cool. Yeah, she did it. Like that was her gig. 15 of the songs. Right. Including some of the biggest ones. A noun is a person plays her thing.
Starting point is 00:25:53 Great song. Interplanet Janet interjections. That's a good one. A victim of gravity about Isaac Newton. Interplanet Janet sounds like Rocky Horror. If you go back and listen to it. Yeah, it kinda does. It bears a real resemblance to it.
Starting point is 00:26:06 Or Rocky Horror sounded like Interplanet Janet. Oh, I went and looked. Rocky Horror was three years before Interplanet Janet. The movie or the play? The movie. Okay, so the play was even before that. Was it a play first? Oh yeah.
Starting point is 00:26:18 Meatloaf was even in the play. Oh yeah? Before the movie. All right, and not a play, I guess, musical. Sure. Which is a play with songs. A play with songs and dancing. So the next one to come along was America Rock
Starting point is 00:26:34 or History Rock, which kind of vies for the best to me with Grandma Rock. And that one tied into the Bicentennial. Yeah, that was a big deal, which you don't remember, but I remember being a little kid, being five years old. And it took over the country for that entire year. Yeah, no, there's a resurgence in colonial emblems and stuff like that.
Starting point is 00:26:58 If you ever walk past a very, very old person's house today, you might see a flag holder that's a black metal eagle holding some arrows, maybe, or something like that. That is from 1976. Still there. Like a resurgence in Betsy Ross and colonial knick-knacks and stuff. I was just born, but it created a high water mark
Starting point is 00:27:24 that I was able to see even four, five, six years later. So History Rock or America Rock featured some of the best songs, Mother Necessity, Shot Heard Around the World, and No More Kings, which is maybe my second all-time favorite. Yeah. Yeah, and that's the one that there was an album that came out in like 95, 96,
Starting point is 00:27:50 called Schoolhouse Rocks Rocks. I think so. Schoolhouse Rock Rocks, where they got contemporary artists to cover these songs. And did you ever listen to that? I listened to the pavement one today. Oh, man. So I emailed Bob Nistanovich today from pavement,
Starting point is 00:28:08 because as I said in the previous episode, I tricked him into being my email friend. And I said, hey dude, I would love to hear if you have any thoughts on No More Kings, how you guys were approached, if there are any stories, what it meant to you, what it didn't mean, whatever. Let me know. Crickets.
Starting point is 00:28:28 No, no, no. He emailed back. And then I said, I'll call you on my way to work. Call him away to work. Crickets. Yeah, got his voicemail. And then as I was coming in the studio, he called and left the voicemail saying
Starting point is 00:28:39 he was in his minivan rocking out and he didn't hear the phone ring. Oh, that's funny. Which is very funny to me. But I told him I'd like to hear what he has to say, because he said he has a tale to tell about that experience. Man, we're going to have to record it after this. Well, yeah, or if the.
Starting point is 00:28:55 Maybe it could be like a listener mail. Yeah, like if I can get him on tape, then we'll tag it at the end. If not, if it ends up being an email version or something, I'll just maybe recount it in my own dumb words. Or you could ask him if we could read the email and make a listener mail. Oh, for real?
Starting point is 00:29:15 Yeah. Like a real listener mail? All right, it's not a bad idea. So anyway, so listen up for the end for Bob Nistanovich's story about No More Kings. Because if you listen to that CD, it's like the Lemonheads and Ween. It's a Super90 CD.
Starting point is 00:29:30 Yeah. Moby. And they're all, most of them are pretty straight ahead. And so you get to the pavement song. And it's just all pavement. Like Malcolm has changed his words. There's like laser guns at the end. And it's just wonderfully pavement,
Starting point is 00:29:47 like quintessentially pavement. Like leave it to them to just kind of throw it all out the window and do their own thing. I liked it a lot. Three Ring Government, I didn't really know that one. That one was good. And apparently they. So it basically talks about the different branches
Starting point is 00:30:03 of the government. But puts it in the context of a Three Ring Circus. And it's really, I mean, aside from the fact that it compares the government to a Three Ring Circus, it's not at all offensive. But apparently they sat on that one for years and didn't release it until like 1979, because they were worried about offending the government.
Starting point is 00:30:25 Which is a strange thing to worry about. Yeah. Through today's lens. Yeah. But even still, I mean, this is like post-watergate. It's not like everybody was like, oh. Right, right. You know, we couldn't possibly call the government
Starting point is 00:30:38 a Three Ring Circus. Yeah, that's true. That is weird. It seems like that would have been a good time to do it. Yeah, I think so. But the most famous song from that year by far was Sheldon's I'm Just a Bill. Is that your favorite?
Starting point is 00:30:56 No. OK. That was composed not by Mr. Doro, but by a man named Dave Frischberg. And I mean, that one was just a mega hit. Sure. Straight to number one on the Billboard charts. It's like, as far as Schoolhouse Rocks goes,
Starting point is 00:31:13 that's the cultural icon that signifies the whole thing, I think. Close second would be Conjunction Junction. Maybe they're tied, I don't know. But I just feel like I'm just a bill as the most readily recognizable one. Yeah, and it's just amazing when you look back, though, like the learning that was going on
Starting point is 00:31:35 and the teaching that was happening, these kids, us, we were learning how a bill becomes a law in the best way possible. Like better than any, well, not any teacher. There were great teachers back then. I want to say like any dumb teacher that's boring their kids. But it definitely struck a chord with me. Sure.
Starting point is 00:31:54 And that's how I remember a lot of this stuff. And apparently two adults were also noticing Schoolhouse Rock at the time. Supposedly, there were plenty of orders. This was before video cassettes, before they were widely available, I guess, in the home. I'm trying to think of how they would have played them if they didn't have video cassettes.
Starting point is 00:32:16 But anyway, apparently lobbyists and legislators would get in touch with ABC and be like, you've got to get me a copy of that. I'm a bill thing. Give me a Betamax. Because I want to show it to my staff to train them on this kind of stuff. Well, I think they asked for cassettes, at least,
Starting point is 00:32:32 at the very least, so they could play in the music. I see. Maybe that's what they meant. Probably. OK. An eight track. Yeah. And then there was Science Rock was the year after that.
Starting point is 00:32:43 That was 78 and 79, which was pretty good. Interplanet Janet, Victim of Gravity. I really like that one. It is so weird. What, Interplanet Janet? Yeah. Yeah, that's a good one. And then the Telegraph Line song, which I think
Starting point is 00:32:56 that was written by Ms. Arends, too, I think. Oh, yeah. And that one was really like, I mean, you literally learned about the nervous system and how the body communicates to the brain by listening to that song. And that's one that they wanted to play for med students. Yeah, and they did.
Starting point is 00:33:15 Amazing. Some of them. All right, well, let's take another break. And jeez, we'll cover the sad last season of Schoolhouse Rock after this. After this. Oh, wow, oh, wow, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh, oh.
Starting point is 00:33:39 On the podcast, Paydude, the 90s, called David Lasher and Christine Taylor, stars of the cult classic show, Hey Dude, bring you back to the days of slip dresses and choker necklaces. We're going to use Hey Dude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the 90s.
Starting point is 00:33:57 We lived it, and now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it. It's a podcast packed with interviews, co-stars, friends, and nonstop references to the best decade ever. Do you remember going to Blockbuster? Do you remember Nintendo 64? Do you remember getting Frosted Tips? Was that a cereal?
Starting point is 00:34:15 No, it was hair. Do you remember AOL Instant Messenger and the dial-up sound like poltergeist? So leave a code on your best friend's vapor, because you'll want to be there when the nostalgia starts flowing. Each episode will rival the feeling of taking out the cartridge from your Game Boy,
Starting point is 00:34:28 blowing on it and popping it back in as we take you back to the 90s. Listen to Hey Dude, the 90s, called on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Hey, I'm Lance Bass, host of the new iHeart podcast, Frosted Tips with Lance Bass. The hardest thing can be knowing who to turn to when questions arise or times get tough,
Starting point is 00:34:48 or you're at the end of the road. Ah, OK, I see what you're doing. Do you ever think to yourself, what advice would Lance Bass and my favorite boy bands give me in this situation? If you do, you've come to the right place, because I'm here to help. This, I promise you. Oh, god.
Starting point is 00:35:03 Seriously, I swear. And you won't have to send an SOS, because I'll be there for you. Oh, man. And so will my husband, Michael. Um, hey, that's me. Yep, we know that, Michael, and a different hot, sexy teen crush boy bander each week to guide you through life,
Starting point is 00:35:17 step by step. Not another one. Kids, relationships, life in general, can get messy. You may be thinking, this is the story of my life. Just stop now. If so, tell everybody, yeah, everybody, about my new podcast, and make sure to listen, so we'll never, ever have to say bye, bye, bye.
Starting point is 00:35:36 Listen to Frosted Tips with Lance Bass on the iHeart radio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. So Chuck, Schoolhouse Rock for the first four seasons was the epitome of creativity. Even their process was creative. Like the songwriters would, I guess they would say, this season our theme is, you know, going to be science, or going to be grammar, whatever.
Starting point is 00:36:14 So go forth and figure this out. And the songwriters would come up with songs, and they'd pitch them to the creative team. And so there was this process of creativity, and it started with the creatives. That's the key here, right? That's what made it just so legitimate, and so wonderfully creative this whole time.
Starting point is 00:36:35 It started with the creatives, right? Yeah, and they would, pretty cool, they would get them vetted by that Bank Street School of Education, so they would make sure everything was right. Yeah, and then ABC would be like, oh, let me see it. And then they'd say, oh, I guess it's fine. And then they'd start the storyboard it once they had the lyrics set in stone, right?
Starting point is 00:36:55 That was the first four seasons. The fifth season, they said, die creativity, die! And they reversed the process, and they said, hey, songwriters, here are your assignments now. We think kids should know more about computers, so we're gonna just screw this whole thing up, okay? Yeah, this is a part I don't get. It says the ABC program exec, Squire Rushnell,
Starting point is 00:37:17 commissioned this because that was the idea that children were afraid of computers. I guess. I don't remember anything, but they're being like excitement about computers. I don't remember any kids being like, I don't wanna go near that. Yeah.
Starting point is 00:37:31 I remember kids being like, oh, that's cool. Let me sit down and. Usually it was the parents that were afraid of computers. Well, I think herein lies the problem. Yeah. With season five. So we should say season five, too, if you notice we jumped quite a bit from 1979 to 1985.
Starting point is 00:37:45 Schoolhouse Rock was running all those years on Saturday mornings. They just weren't any new ones. They were the same ones that they were rerunning. Yeah, the classics. 1985, Squire Rushnell says, give me four episodes, there's six, is it four or six on computers? Yeah, and we're gonna call the season
Starting point is 00:38:03 a scooter computer and Mr. Chips. What do you think of that? So it's what, like a computer with a bag of chips? It's like, no, Mr. Chips is a computer. Well, what's scooter computer? It's a kid. No, you haven't. And they said, well, what about the,
Starting point is 00:38:16 goodbye, Mr. Chips, that great book, anyway. No one's ever read that. What's a book? So it was a little confusing. We have disdain for him. It's a little weird. I know, I feel bad if that's not really how it went down, but it sounds kind of like that classic story, you know?
Starting point is 00:38:33 Sure. Like an executive takes over the creative and it just goes downhill. That's usually how it happens. And I do feel a little bit bad because the originals were still involved. They got Mr. Doro back on board. And I think they did the best they could,
Starting point is 00:38:47 but I think one of the issues is all the other seasons, math and science and history, it's all civics, it's all baked in, like that stuff is classic and didn't change. When you're writing songs about data processing and basic computer language, a couple of years later, like no, it's not relevant anymore, you know? So it's sort of, that's why no one's ever heard of it.
Starting point is 00:39:11 Plus again, they were like, so wait, Scooter Computer's the boy or the computer he's hanging out with? Right. And why is the computer on roller skates? Yeah. Just stuff like that. It didn't work.
Starting point is 00:39:22 It was an undignified end to something really great. Agreed. So they pulled the plug on the whole thing in 1985. They said, hey, this Mary Lou Retten lady, we like her. She's got gumption. She's got apple pie coming out of her ears. Gross. We love her and we want to put her on TV.
Starting point is 00:39:41 So they put her interstitials on. Yeah, ABC fun fit. Oh, I'll bet that was the same time when Reagan made Arnold Schwarzenegger as like fitness czar. Oh yeah. You remember that? Bet. The presidential fitness test, right?
Starting point is 00:39:57 Yeah. Man, I failed that so many times. Yeah, I think I was always sick that day. It's like I got to climb a rope. Yeah. Still to this day, I've never climbed a rope in my life. No. Made it this far.
Starting point is 00:40:09 Yeah. I'm going to be chased by a tiger on the way home. Yeah, I was going to say, that's how you're going to meet your demise one day. You're going to be in like a burning building and a rope's just going to fall from the ceiling like a cartoon. Reagan.
Starting point is 00:40:20 Yeah. In the late 80s, there was a student at UConn, Go Huskies, that said, I want to bring Schoolhouse Rock back. They started a petition. I could not find this person's name for the life of me. I couldn't either. Sorry, person.
Starting point is 00:40:36 But ABC said, you know what, people want this. And I guess it took them a little while to get around to it. But 1993, they brought it back. They were re-running all those classic tunes and cartoons and added some new stuff by Bob Doro and the gang. Yeah, they brought back the originals. And this season was called Money Rock. And they did a substantial number of new episodes,
Starting point is 00:41:02 but again, written and performed by all the original people, but a good starting of 20 years later. And they had things like 750 Once a Week, which is about maintaining your budget, Tyrannosaurus Debt, which is about the national debt, and plenty of others. I remember the tale of Mr. Morton. That was another Lynn Aaron's offering. What was that one about?
Starting point is 00:41:26 I can't remember exactly. I didn't go back and re-watch it, but I remember. He's like, boss all his money on Scratch Office or something? I don't think so. But, you know, again, the reason why this was that it works so well is because these were men and women who were used to selling products for a living, and it was just sort of a natural thing for them to do as an ad agency.
Starting point is 00:41:50 It seems weird at first when you're like an ad agency came up with Schoolhouse Rock, but it kind of makes perfect sense when you think about it. Yeah, I mean, they were selling these ideas to children in ways that were comprehensible to children, that were approachable by children. And they just kind of took the kid's point of views and packaged it for them, I think is a good way to put it.
Starting point is 00:42:15 Yeah. So besides the Schoolhouse Rock Rocks CD, which I still have, actually. Yeah, that 90s thing created a bit of a resurgence of it. Yeah. The resurgence in popularity, for sure. Boy, that Blind Melon 3 is a magic number. It was great.
Starting point is 00:42:29 Yeah. Yeah. Shayne in here. I didn't hear that one. Did you like them? Yeah. I think Soup, their second album, is one of the great underrated records of the 90s.
Starting point is 00:42:39 I don't recall that one. Man, it was good. I think I only heard their first album. But they were. That was good, too. They, I think they made the pop charts right out of the gate and just kind of were unfairly labeled as a pop group, even though they really weren't.
Starting point is 00:42:53 They were, there's a lot more to them. No rain song and the catchy video with the little girl and everything. Yeah. Yeah, Soup was good, man. You should check that out. Oh, well. That's very good.
Starting point is 00:43:01 Very sad. What happened to him? AOD and they didn't find him for a while, right? I don't remember that part, but maybe. I think they, nobody missed him for a little while or something like that. What a waste. In 1993, though, there was another resurgence.
Starting point is 00:43:19 I guess that was before the CD, when they took it to the stage with Schoolhouse Rock Live, which kind of started out as most great theater like this in a sort of a basement black box theater in Chicago. And it just grew from there to eventually an off-Broadway run. Yeah, not just that. It started in the basement theater of a vegetarian restaurant in Chicago,
Starting point is 00:43:44 just to add that extra little dose to it. Yeah, why not? But yeah, it made it onto off-Broadway. Yeah, it ran for four solid years and then they had a touring version. I remember wanting to see it, but, and I think I was living in New Jersey at the time. I should have gone and seen it.
Starting point is 00:44:02 I think I had no money at the time. I think you still might be able to catch it. There's a group called the Theater Bomb Theater Bam Chicago Theater Bam Chicago. And they're still doing shows? They're still touring, as far as I know. I need to do my Free to Be You and Me live show. That's one of my dreams.
Starting point is 00:44:21 I talked about that before. Isn't that Rosie Greer one? Yeah. Did he do the whole album or just that one song? Just the one. It was conceived by Marlo Thomas. That's pretty great. But yeah, that was another, like,
Starting point is 00:44:34 that one hits me square in the face still from childhood. Right in the bread basket. Right in the bread basket. In 97, they had a 25th anniversary package of VHS tapes. Yeah, so think about this. Like, it goes off the air in 1985, then all of a sudden, 93, 94, 96, 97, there's like schoolhouse rock everywhere. It will never die.
Starting point is 00:44:58 No, and I think this was one of the first instances, because, dude, admittedly, Generation X is extremely nostalgic as far as generations go. Very nostalgic. I would propose that schoolhouse rock was the thing that kicked it off as far as Gen X nostalgia goes. Well, it definitely was something that was so drilled into our consciousness.
Starting point is 00:45:24 Like, it's a touchstone. Right, but I mean, there's resurgence of it, I think. Oh, yeah. Is the first example of just how nostalgic as a generation, Generation X is. Yeah, for sure. That's mine. You got Sharknado.
Starting point is 00:45:39 I'm predicting that that will be rooted out by historians in years to come. Yeah, dig that one out of the vault. Maybe at the place of your death, like a plaque next to that rope that you couldn't climb. It'll be a memorial. It'll be like rope, jeez. You already forgot.
Starting point is 00:45:58 Right. In 2013, Kennedy Center had a sing-along for their 40th anniversary, 2,000 people in attendance. Pretty amazing. I would have done anything to have gone to that. And then it's been parodied and homaged over the years and everything from The Simpsons to Saturday Night Live. Did you see Conspiracy Rock?
Starting point is 00:46:20 No. Conspiracy Dude. That was a TV funhouse bit, right? Yeah, by Robert Smigel. It's one of the all-time greats, man. He nails the conspiracy theory or nails Schoolhouse Rock. But it's all about how these major corporations like GE and Westinghouse own the media.
Starting point is 00:46:38 They own ABC, NBC, all these media outlets and how they can use it to shape opinion and squash opinions that disagree with them or their products and choose what to report on. It is so good. Go watch it right now. It's on YouTube. But apparently, there's a bit of a conspiracy theory
Starting point is 00:46:59 around it as well, because it aired on the actual Saturday Night Live episode. But then when they re-ran it and I think released that episode on DVD, it wasn't there. They edited it out. And supposedly, it was just because Lauren Michaels didn't think it was funny. There's just no way that that's all it was.
Starting point is 00:47:21 I'm thinking no. It was such a smack in the face to NBC and all the other ones. Well, and they just had one a couple of years ago on that it was an homage to I'm Just a Bill that was pretty great, too. Yeah, this was better. You got to see it, man.
Starting point is 00:47:39 Yeah, I have a feeling I have, and I just don't know it. He nailed it. I'll let you know I'll text you and say, I have seen it. And you'll say, who's this? I don't have your number on my phone. So I actually ran across a little bit as great as Schoolhouse Rock is. I actually ran across criticism of it.
Starting point is 00:47:58 What? Yeah. Oh, boy. Are you going to try to sleep the room? Maybe. I'm about to get angry. You might want to. All right.
Starting point is 00:48:05 So they were teaching very broad concepts to kids in ways that kids could understand. Awesome ways. And when you're coming at them with multiplication or grammar, whatever. But apparently, especially with the History Rocks or America Rocks season, depending on what you want to call it, that's
Starting point is 00:48:30 where the criticism tends to come out. So there's one called Elbow Room. Did you remember that one? Got to get you some Elbow Room. Right, where it's about there's so many white settlers that we just got to spread westward. OK, I see where this is going. It's not a single Native American has shown
Starting point is 00:48:46 in this westward spread. Yeah. They actually mentioned that it's God's will manifest destiny. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So the whole thing kind of, I don't want to say it came under fire because it's not like everybody's like, oh, yeah, Elbow Room. Forget Schoolhouse Rock.
Starting point is 00:49:00 Yeah. Very few people are. But there is criticism of Schoolhouse Rock in that it really kind of fed American children the popular line on things. And it was just exactly the kind of stuff where when you grow up, you're like, wow, I was really misled when this was first explained to me
Starting point is 00:49:19 as a child. Yeah, yeah. Well, we talk about that a lot too, about how schools, especially in the 70s and 80s, whitewashed a lot of stuff. So this was part of that. I can see that. I mean, it was, and I'm not justifying it, but it was definitely of the times.
Starting point is 00:49:38 For sure. Which is why I think that these creatives were like, we can't say this to kids. I think that there's definitely been more of an awakening in recent years. But I want to know that. There wasn't a trail of tear song in the works. Right, yeah.
Starting point is 00:49:51 And this is another name for what they were talking about. Like Forced Removal, which turned into, got to get some Elbow Room. So catchy, though. I want to know, Chuck, because I'm not in school and I don't have a child in school. I don't have a child at all. I have a four-legged child, but are they still
Starting point is 00:50:11 misleading kids like they did when we were young? Do we just assume now that we know the deal that they don't do that any longer, or are they still doing it? So any history teachers out there that are like 5th, 6th, 7th, 8th grade, because that's what I remember really being just overtly lied to. And then as we got a little past that,
Starting point is 00:50:32 they started to be like, well, maybe the Native Americans didn't really want to leave. Right. And then it just got a little more legitimate. So I want to know. Teachers out there, let us know. I bet the answer we'll get is that we've come a long way, and it probably depends on your district.
Starting point is 00:50:50 Oh, yeah. And maybe even your teacher. Yeah, I can see that. I bet there's not like a one-sweeping answer for that one. But there's definitely been progress, you know. I would guess. You know who would let us know? Tyler Murphy.
Starting point is 00:51:02 Yeah, Murphy. Let us know. Well, I know what he's doing. He's doing all the right things. Oh, yeah. He's up on the desk. Yeah, yeah. Opening minds.
Starting point is 00:51:09 Great stuff. So you ready for my favorite? Yes, please. Rufus Xavier Sasparilla. What was that one about? Pronouns. I don't know. Oh, yeah.
Starting point is 00:51:21 I have a hard time expressing how much joy the song brings me still. Yeah. I listen to it a lot. Yeah. If I'm ever down, that's the song. That's pretty great. It's amazing.
Starting point is 00:51:34 It's the word play is unbelievable. And it's another Sheldon song. Right. Like how it's very fast, how he, like every, I looked up to see if people did it live and stuff. And everyone always slows it down. Because nobody can. Oh, is that fast?
Starting point is 00:51:50 Well, it's just very complex. And the whole idea of the song is, is the complexity of all these nouns that you can replace with pronouns. I got you. I got a friend named Rufus Xavier Sasparilla. And they go to the zoo, and there's an ardvark and an armadillo and all these big words.
Starting point is 00:52:07 He's like, I could say that, or I could say, he did this. And we did that. And she said this. Nice. Yeah. It's a word that takes the place of a noun, like kangaroo. Can we play it? You know what, we wouldn't, because of law,
Starting point is 00:52:23 they should make a actually one about copyright infringement. Right. It was started out as a bill. Yeah. So we probably can't play enough of it to do it justice. So I just say, go and listen to that song in full, because it's delightful. All right, I'll do that.
Starting point is 00:52:38 Man, they go to the zoo. There's animals. They'll pile on a bus. They? Yeah, this girl in Rufus Xavier Sasparilla. They? Yeah, exactly. It takes the place of a noun.
Starting point is 00:52:49 You got anything else? No, but there probably will be a tag on this one with Mr. Nostanovic or with me just recounting his tale of No More Kings. So if you want to know more about Schoolhouse Rock, go read this article on HowStuffWorks.com. And since I said that, it may be time for listening to mail with Bob Nostanovic.
Starting point is 00:53:12 All right, so now as promised, or as hopefully promised, we have, via a telephone in the studio, Mr. Bob Nostanovic, who is actually a member of two of my favorite bands of all time, both Pavement and SilverJews. And it's a real treat to have you here, Bob. We did a show on Schoolhouse Rock and talked kind of at length about Pavement's efforts
Starting point is 00:53:38 toward that, I guess, late 90s CD. And got in touch with you and you said you had a couple of stories to tell. It was a, we were in Memphis. We were supposed to be making a SilverJews record. And the singer of SilverJews, David Berman, decided he did not want to make the record and he went home. And we'd already booked a week of studio time SilverJews had.
Starting point is 00:54:05 And then subsequently, we were, Stephen and myself and Steve West were unceremoniously fired from SilverJews. That's beside the point. We were kind of like at all the studio time that David was supposed to pay for, sort of bail him out. Pavement sort of took that and made a record. So Stephen, Stephen thankfully had three songs and we made the Pacific Trimmy P.
Starting point is 00:54:37 But I guess most significantly in regards to this project, Jackie Ferry, a dear friend of ours, was supervising the Schoolhouse Rock. And she gave us our choice of songs and it was fairly obvious to us that no more Kings, you know, had a lot of appeal. Right. It was always our favorite one. We were kids, Boston Tea Party, theme, kind of.
Starting point is 00:55:08 We were able to use the vocal stylings of Steve West to our advantage, I believe for the first time in band history. What did he do for that song? And it all turned out to be, we were very pleased with it. We were very pleased with all of it. And I think that it's an outstanding compilation. And it's one of those things in Pavement's time that I feel like we actually did a good job on.
Starting point is 00:55:35 Now what did Steve West do for that one? He played drums and then all the deep voice rambling in the background, mostly him. He's got an incredible voice, speaking voice. He's one of the people that you can hear from 150 feet away and with a wind. He's got a beautiful deep voice. So we, he's doing all like the ranting and raving.
Starting point is 00:56:07 It was all pretty jubilant. We had a good time. It was the only time the three of us ever recorded together as Pavement, and I feel like we made a good choice. And we just loved that song. It was one take. Oh, really? It was overdubbed.
Starting point is 00:56:24 Yeah, one take on the instrumental and just some vocal dubbing. I took eight minutes. Wow. And it was just the three of you? Oh, yeah. Yeah, just the three of us. We really went there because we thought it was going to be Silver Jews, and that wasn't Silver Jews.
Starting point is 00:56:41 So Canberra, again, eyeballed we're at home. And I don't even know if they were contacted. We made that Pacific Trim EP. That song, Give It A Day, during the same session, and a couple other songs that are on the B side of that thing. But no, the schoolhouse rock was this kind of thing in the pocket of mine, like, well, we have anything to do. And it seems like I got this one song.
Starting point is 00:57:07 It's like, well, we have to do this thing for Jackie. We have to do this thing for Jackie. I'm not quite sort of planning on doing it anyways, but Jackie at the time was a BJ at MTV. And she later became our, she was the nanny for Courtney and Kurt for Francis Bean Cobain. Oh, wow. And then she was a tour manager for Pavement.
Starting point is 00:57:31 In fact, she has, she's been battling cancer for over a decade. But one interesting artifact that she owns is the actual cardigan, cardigan button-up cardigan sweater that Kurt Cobain wore in the famous MTV Unplugged performance. Oh, wow. Holy cow.
Starting point is 00:57:58 So yeah, she's quite a character. But it was her project. And she was a good friend, and we wanted to do the best we could for her. I didn't really care about anything else. We didn't even realize, we didn't know whether there was a good tiny thing, like a limited edition of like $200 or whatever.
Starting point is 00:58:21 But funnily enough, my wife, that was the first payment song she ever heard, because her sister. Oh, really? Yeah, her sister bought the school us rock thing when her sister was like 14. But my wife would have been about 10. And she heard that as first time she ever heard payment. That's pretty funny.
Starting point is 00:58:43 So yeah, she likes it. We were talking a little bit about just your take and kind of just the different takes of all the artists on that compilation. And a lot of them were pretty straightforward. And I think I really like the pavement one the most, because it was kind of the perfect mix of very straightforward at times and then just totally pavementized at times.
Starting point is 00:59:08 Yeah, it's very, we don't, I mean, we'd be straightforward. I don't think we're kind of good enough to do things straightforward. Like, I think you think of like a band like Nickel Creek covering our songs a bit on a stranger. They can, and they kind of Americana did or whatever. Sure. Like, in order to do like straight things, you got to be, you got to be good or else you're
Starting point is 00:59:31 going to kind of humiliate yourself. Like, for example, like R.E.M. doing like pylons crazy, they could do that pretty straight because they have that sound. They just, you know, but I think I've heard a lot of cover songs where it's like a great song and they go, somebody with a great voice, you know, usually like a female, will sing it pretty straight. Just the fact that it's somebody with a gorgeous voice,
Starting point is 00:59:56 you know, covering a classic, it sort of works. But no, none of us are good enough to do that. We had to devise our own take on it, you know. Well, I thought it totally worked. Was the schoolhouse rock? I mean, was that something that you guys were into or was there much decision? I mean, besides the fact that it was your friend asking,
Starting point is 01:00:17 was it something that you thought was kind of cool or did you feel like you should do it? Yeah, that was a great idea. At the time, we thought it was a great idea. And at that point in our lives, I'm guessing it was like 96, 97, somewhere in there. Yeah, yeah. We'd forgotten, you know, like that point where, you know,
Starting point is 01:00:40 that we hadn't seen or heard any of that. The only one I could really remember off the top of my head at the time was like conjunction, junction, you know. Yeah, of course. What's your function? But like, you know, those are some of the first songs when we were little kids, like under 10 years old, that got stuck in our head.
Starting point is 01:00:56 Yeah. So yeah, I just thought it was, I mean, if anything, the only negative I thought it might be a little bit childish and corny, but, you know, as it came together, it just seemed like a very worthwhile project to me. And, you know, she was pretty earnest, Jackie. And I'm happy it all worked out. I kind of, I think it's actually become like sort of a,
Starting point is 01:01:27 one of the more significant things that Pavement ever did sort of outside the realm of Pavement. Yeah, for sure. Of still being Pavement, like, you know, I don't even know. I'm the kind of person in regards to that band that would find out about things last. So I lived in Louisville and I was always at the racetrack. And, you know, people would say, hey, you know,
Starting point is 01:01:47 you're going to be making a new album in like two months. I wouldn't know anything about it. Like, you know, you're going on tour, you're starting in London. I would like, you know, I just wouldn't even know. And like, so anything that rolled through the door there, like requests to do stuff, I never knew about them, you know, unless we're going to do them, you know. So, you can see where I was on the pavement.
Starting point is 01:02:09 The pavement totem pole. Well, man, I always call you Pavement's secret weapon. Yeah, yeah. I think there was something about your addition to the band that really just sort of mixed everything up, whether it was, you know, the percussive elements or just you coming in with your unique take on backing vocals.
Starting point is 01:02:33 Yeah, no, I just, I think I presented the element of really not entirely knowing what I was doing and I was true. And the funny thing about it is like, even at this point in my life, people who are completely unaware of Pavement, mostly from this industry, the horse racing industry, like, heard I was in a band, even a successful band, they just doesn't make any sense to them. And then they'll also, you know, they'll have to like, look it up on Google or whatever to realize.
Starting point is 01:03:07 So, yeah, we were actually like a band that made records and stuff. And then the funny thing is, they'll always ask me that, you know, if it's music types or something like that, one thing I'm really sort of unaware of in the human race, I have no feel for people that like kind of collect musical gear and take music really, really seriously and like playing music really seriously and like jam and like, or just really like have this incredibly dry approach like, like gear heads, like a really, really serious, like people ask me to jam.
Starting point is 01:03:48 And I don't, I mean, my idea of, I don't, I don't jam. I mean, I can't imagine jamming. Like, what does that even mean? Like, um, no, I'm the same way. It's really awkward. Like, it's always awkward. Like people ask me to do something and then I'll be like, oh man, like, you know, like I got to figure out a way to get out of this, you know, because like,
Starting point is 01:04:10 right, aim my skills. Like they're not going to really not going to believe I'm in a band. Like once I show up with like, whatever I have two drums or whatever and start hitting and they're going to be like, there's no way this guy was in a band. Like this is a fake, you know, like, so very strange, very strange. Well, you just got to say, no, man, I'm the secret weapon and the secret weapon does jam. Yeah. Like this, like the spice and like some sort of.
Starting point is 01:04:34 Bola Bergu or something, I don't even know. Like the whole experience was pretty magical. Um, it still doesn't really make that much sense to me, you know, yeah, just, uh, I really enjoyed it for sure. But in regards to that specific project, that's something that went really smoothly. Like it never got to the point. I mean, it was literally like Steven, I'm sure probably worked on it.
Starting point is 01:05:03 That morning or something, but when, when they press record on that school, that's rock thing, that thing was a humdinger, it was in and out the door. Doug Easey is like, that's good, you know, like, yeah, that's probably a good approach for something like that. Cause you don't want to overthink it and then it becomes a thing and it's stressful. Perhaps. So I think that approach to just get in there and like knock it out was probably the way to go.
Starting point is 01:05:25 It certainly worked out in this case. Yeah. And it's a song that has no history within the context of the band. You know, it's not like something that we've been working on or some of them have been sitting there, some of them have been played live or, you know, I mean, I think that we had to, you know, pay, pavementize it and give it a bit of an original spin because that's the only way that we can really do it. I mean, like, you know, like we were talking about with the straight thing,
Starting point is 01:05:52 you know, you can't, you got to have significant, um, yeah, I'm not that like, you know, Steven and Steve West aren't talented. I'm not going to like those guys are great. But like, in fact, the fact that they're able to like improvise, right? Um, something like that's pretty cool. So, but I remember being really, really happy that Steve West, who'd never really been used, um, in pavement outside of just playing drums, um, that he was, that he sort of fit fantastically on that, yeah, that recording.
Starting point is 01:06:26 So, I sort of loved that about me more things. I love hearing him in there. Nice. All right. Well, thanks, Bob. I appreciate your, uh, telling us these stories and, um, I'm going to think of about a hundred more reasons to have you on in the future. Yeah.
Starting point is 01:06:41 Anytime. All right, man. Thanks a lot. For more on this and thousands of other topics, visit HowStuffWorks.com. We're going to use HeyDude as our jumping off point, but we are going to unpack and dive back into the decade of the nineties. We lived it. And now we're calling on all of our friends to come back and relive it.
Starting point is 01:07:23 Listen to HeyDude the Nineties called on the iHeart Radio App, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts. Bye-bye.

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