The Blindboy Podcast - Brendan Heaven

Episode Date: March 27, 2019

How a serial Killer boxing someone in the throat lead to the music of Nirvana Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Drool the goofy toothpaste on the cool boys boulevard you creepy young dooseligs. Sig sheeis, tarry shtach. It's the blind boy podcast, yurt. God bless you all, you spring cunts. It's, uh, yeah the weather's improving. It's getting a little bit springy, isn't it? It's getting a small bit springy. There's the promise of dew in the air. The fucking... it's getting a small bit springy, there's the promise of dew in the air, the fucking, I don't know, that,

that, the smell of a leaf that hasn't happened yet, do you know that one, the buds aren't out yet, but you can just smell, it's a resin, you just know it, there's life,

there's the potential of life, ready to happen, and I'm looking forward to those BAM-y evenings. So, this podcast is growing internationally at a bizarre rate. I've got a following in Buenos Aires, which I never thought I'd have. How are you getting on, Buenos Aires? So anyway, because the international following is growing, I'm getting a lot of offers for

international podcast dates so there is going to be a tour of canada right in july i'm coming to canada to toronto and vancouver um i announced last week i announced after this podcast went out last week so I got approached by a company that was like blind buy we noticed you have a following in Canada will you come and do some podcast gigs for us so I says yes I fucking will because I love Toronto

with all my heart I've never been to Vancouver yet fuck me I love Toronto it's one of my favourite cities in the world it's like it looks like New York favourite cities in the world it's like it looks like New York but it has the heart and soul of London which basically means there's no Americans there sorry America

but I do enjoy a bit of Toronto and I'm going to be going there for first off the company said to me will you do some live podcasts and I said yes i will but

can i bring with me my dear friends mr chrome and dj willie or dj the other two lads who are part of the rubber bandits and they said yes so in canada in july there's going to be two Rubber Bandits gigs and two live Blind Boy podcasts. The fucking, I announced them on Thursday. The Rubber Bandits gig in Vancouver is sold out already. In the Rickshaw Theatre on the 4th of July. That's sold out. In Toronto, the Rubber Bandits show on the 6th of July. There's only like 50 tickets left.

Rubber Bandits show on the 6th of July there's only like 50 tickets left so if you want to come to see the Rubber Bandits in the 6th of July in the Opera House in Toronto get your tickets now the live Blind By Podcast in Toronto and Vancouver right those dates aren't on sale yet I think they're going on sale on Friday the 6th of April. I think. But the podcast dates are Blind My Podcast, the 3rd of July in the Rickshaw of Vancouver, and the 7th of July in Toronto in the Opera House. So those are the live podcast dates that aren't on sale yet. One thing I did want to say say and i was a little bit concerned and confused right so i've got a load of fucking listeners in canada who are like canadian people

who don't know fuck all about the rubber bandits they just know this podcast and that vancouver rubber bandits date is after selling out quickly so just to say to the anti-Canadians I just, I hope some like 60 year old Canadian person who listens to this podcast didn't accidentally buy a ticket to a Rubber Bandits gig

it's a very different flavour, just to the Canadians listening the Rubber Bandits gigs will be a very sweaty very different flavour, just to the Canadians listening, the Rubber Bandits gigs will be a very sweaty, loud affair with mostly just

a load of fucking Irish people living in Toronto or Vancouver coming to our gig to get, probably to get shit faced and take loads of drugs and have a mad rave, and it'll be very loud and sweaty, and chaotic,

you're more than welcome to come to that, Canadians, you are fucking more than welcome, it's gonna be great crack, I think it's actually a legal hash company that's bringing us over, I need to check that out, but I'm nearly sure my agent said to me, it's like a legal cannabis company

that's taking us over, but it's gonna be nuts the rubber bandits gigs are going to be we haven't we're kind of on a break from uh doing live gigs we haven't done a live rubber bandits gig in in Ireland for a while but when I rang up chrome and willie and said man we go to Canada man we go to Canada and have a fucking laugh and hang out and have a bit of crack. Of course they said yes. So just a heads up, Canadians absolutely come along to the Rubber Bandits gig, but know what you're getting.

You're getting a very sweaty, loud, drunken affair, which will be great crack, but an incredibly different flavor and atmosphere to the live podcast the live podcast is going to be me with a guest i don't even fucking know who i'm going to be interviewing i can't wait to ask ye to suggest some some guests for me in toronto and vancouver live podcast is going to be a guest um it'll be mostly canadian people I'm guessing. I don't think anyone's going to be shit-faced drunk at the live podcast. I hope not.

Most likely not. So that's the kind of chilled-out vibe. Me in a conversation, live podcast. But then the fucking Rubber Bandits gigs are just going to be a very loud... A collective spiritual vomit from the island of erin and that will be the crack and i hope it's not too fucking hot i don't know what like i suppose canada does get a bit hot doesn't it like i i was in i was in new york once with mtv around fucking June or July and it was it was fair hot you know we went out to Jersey Shore um so I hope Canada's not too hot we'll deal with it fuck it we'll turn

on the air conditioning it'll be grand um I hope I get time to chill out in Toronto I really do um my schedule is going to be insane insane lots of gigs lots of traveling lots of kind of business obligations while I'm over there the Royal Ontario Museum in Toronto is the greatest museum I've ever been to in my life I have a mug from that museum that has i i believe i was there at um there was an exhibition of mayan and aztec masks and i fucking loved it and i just hope i get a few hours in that museum i and the dinosaur bones lads christ although dinosaurs have been ruined for me recently you know i mean i was first properly confronted with a decent set of dinosaur bones in the royal ontario museum in toronto they had a

fucking t-rex and a velociraptor and i was just marveling at their majesty you know i was i had a mad horn for dinosaurs when i was younger like even before jurassic park How's that for hipsterism? But like being beside these T-Rexes and Velociraptors and Brachiosauruses and imagining them as these ferocious lizards. But unfortunately, in the past 10 years, you know, science has learned a lot more about dinosaurs. And most of them, they were most likely feathered and honked instead of roared, you know. And I can't take a Velociraptor seriously if I just imagine them as this annoying, honking, feathered bird that can't fly.

So hopefully that new scientific revelation won't sully my experience in the Royal Ontario Museum. What else do I like to do? I enjoy Jewish delicatessens and there's a Jewish delicatessen called Kaplinsky's in Toronto. If I can visit there I will as well. Hopefully my schedule won't be fucking mad and I won't be just on the road all the time. And of course fucking hash is legal there as well

and it's a hash company is bringing us there so I hope I don't like I don't know end up in the museum looking at the dinosaurs pulling up a whitener

imagining the imagining the dinosaurs honking so that's that's something that I'm going to try and not do

as well look at that now social anxiety creeping in i'm supposed to be over going over to toronto to enjoy myself and i've already fantasized into reality the inevitability of me pulling a whiter in front of a lot of dinosaur bones and being asked to leave the country fuck that, yeah, but there's going to be a wider world tour in the works, probably some American dates, most likely a bit of Australia, I'll be going to Australia when it's our winter and their summer, that's not confirmed now, but I'm trying to make, I'm trying to work it out, I'm trying to make I'm trying to work it out I'm trying to make it happen and then what I can't wait to do

is to start doing some live podcasts in the non-English speaking countries because like in fucking Spain like you know what I mean fairly decent listenership several thousand people listening to this in Spain there's listeners all over the gaff

and I get I get contact from some of the people listening in these countries and the vibe that I get is people people who speak English as a second language and who really really want to speak it well tend to listen to a lot of podcasts they tend to listen to English that's spoken in regional accents or english that's hard to understand as a way to challenge themselves so most of my like brazilian or fucking argentinian or italian spanish listeners that's what they're doing it's like they said i i listened to your podcast because i wanted to hear see if i could listen to somebody speaking English in an Irish accent and they end up then staying for the content so it's quite a bizarre

thing that I never thought would happen so before I move on I'm just gonna really really quickly plug Irish life podcasts in April I know it's annoying but I'm under contractual obligation to promote them so I'm going to do it mad quickly okay this Saturday Manahan Castle Blaney sold out thank you Manahan Friday 5th of April

Nace Moth Theatre 6th of April Vicar Street Dublin 7th of April Vicar Street Dublin still a few tickets left for those Friday the 12th of April Whit Vicar Street, Dublin. 7th of April, Vicar Street, Dublin. Still a few tickets left for those. Friday the 12th of April, Whitley Hall, Belfast. A few tickets left there. 27th of April, Cork in the Opera House. All those gigs are almost sold out,

but there's tickets left. So thank you very much and god bless um last week what was i fucking doing last week last week i was filming in limerick i brought over as you know i have a bbc series which is called blind Boy Under Stries and I think that's a might be a working title not sure but the pilot was called

Blind Boy Under Stries Housing and for each episode we're going to take a new theme so I'm working on that series as you know I was over in London filming it so this week the last bits we needed to film I said fuck off ye come to limerick i'm

too busy i'm writing a fucking book i'm doing this podcast i'm doing no bandits tunes at the weekend i don't want to go to london ye come to me so the bbc came over to me to limerick and we did some filming and we'd great crack and it's just nice to film in Limerick and what was sound was the amount of help we got from just local businesses like I want to give two shout outs

because the thing is you can't shout out businesses on the BBC because the BBC is 100% paid by British taxpayer money so they don't do any advertising also yes I by British taxpayer money, so they don't do any advertising. Also, yes, I got British taxpayer money, brought it to fucking Limerick,

and got to hire and create a couple of jobs, temporary jobs just for a week, but nonetheless created some employment in Ireland with British money. So take that, Maggie Thatcher. Dolan's Warehouse in Limerick were unbelievably sound they gave us the full upstairs to film for an entire day, unbelievably helpful so God bless you and fair play

and what else the Art College in Limerick LSAD who where I did my fucking my degree and I did my masters I went to the film and lens based media course there

and said to them how are you getting on lads I'm in Limerick with a BBC film crew a proper professional film crew would you like to send a couple of students so that they can watch so that happened too a few students came down from the film and lens based media course

in LSAD and they got to see a proper film set in action with professional equipment and got to observe and watch not free labour lads

they got to observe and watch and yeah I do that because I have undying love for the art college in Limerick because I fucking hated school. I really, really didn't like school. I didn't suit the academic secondary school education system at all. I was consistently in trouble.

The only enjoyment I got out of school was messing and creating trouble. That's what I used to enjoy I used to enjoy being a smart arse and making people laugh I did not enjoy academic work it didn't click with me I didn't like this business of just learning things for the sake of it I cannot do maths at all I can barely count my fingers I literally can't do maths so I ended up ended up doing foundation for the fucking leaving cert which means you effectively fail your leaving cert then but when I went to Limerick School of Art and Design when I was about 18 um it was the first time ever that teachers I suppose

had told me I was good at something and it was the first time that I felt worthy it felt like I had something proper to offer because I'd spent the whole time in secondary school being called a bousy and being told I was useless so when I got to

art college I'd be there painting and drawing, and all of a sudden, like, the teacher, who I'm scared of, because secondary school had taught me to be afraid of teachers, all of a sudden, the lecturers are going, wow, you're brilliant, well done, and that alone, that alone at a young age, was huge for at that moment i was like all right okay i can be a professional artist you know i can take and i'm not painting and drawing now but it doesn't matter what i'm doing with music or with the podcast or writing books that's all art that's all it all comes from a kind of a stem of creativity and

the art college was very important for me in developing those skills so i did like to knock on their door and try and be sound to them and say do you want to give me a couple of students and they can see what's happening for experience so um this week's podcast is going to be about it's going to be musical it's going to be a music some some a roasting hot take um and a bit of musical history and reflection now i know last week i touched upon i briefly covered enya but looking back that wasn't really a hot take. That was me making the case for why Enya deserves more critical acclaim. And I got a lot of positive responses to that.

People agreed with me. And then we had an interview with Michelle Darmody and Elie Kiziumbe about direct provision. Got a great response to that, too. It's great just to be able to put stories like that out there and get people listening and talking and thinking about direct provision so this week yeah musical hot take

and it is about it's my own something I've been beating around in my head for a while something I've been kind of fixating on it's my own kind of theory on the origins of

the sound of the band Nirvana right specifically Kurt Cobain's voice and Kurt Cobain's tone and where that kind of comes from now I have an utterly fucking bizarre hot take around it now when i say hot take

what what what i mean is because you don't take my fucking podcast literally there's a lot of people taking my podcast literally i'm not an expert on anything okay so if i'm talking about history if i'm talking about music it's mostly um fairly informed opinion you know sometimes i get things wrong sometimes i have a few details that are off but my main motivation with this podcast even when i'm talking about history are you know stuff that's happened my motivation essentially is entertainment i want to completely and utterly entertain you i want to give the most entertaining version of events rather than the one that's uh i won't say historically inaccurate because i'll never knowingly talk out of my hole i won't knowingly lie to you if i don't know a piece of information i'll let you

know that i don't know about it but at the same time i'm liable to make the odd mistake because i'm not a fucking expert i'm not an expert in anything so be careful around that because i get people talking shit about me online i got people saying uh talking about how how i might be inaccurate in my history or things like that so don't go around saying that i'm an authority i'm not i'm someone who's talking into a sock in their bedroom who's somewhat informed but ultimately what i'm trying to do is provide uh entertainment and something that's interesting and nice to listen to and a bit of crack and uh so yeah don't want to get on to exactly what the hot take is yet but obviously i love i love nirvana i fucking adore Nirvana. They're, how could you not?

They're the last great, huge superstar band, you know, in that tradition of massive bands. It kind of stops at Nirvana. You can make a case for Radiohead, but really Nirvana are the last in that line of Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Prince, you know, this huge behemoth act that transcend time and will forever exist. I don't think, I just don't hear Radiohead, I love Radiohead, but I don't hear them getting the

Generation Z and Young Millennials millennials you don't really hear them listen to that much fucking radiohead but nirvana has survived kirk cabane is a legend nirvana's music is listened to the music is classic it's going nowhere it's amazing and ultimately with nirvana i think what separates like nirvana came out of the seattle grunge scene in the early late 80s and what kind of grunge grunge is like okay you're talking seattle and the state of Washington that's up in the top left of America but it comes from we'll say the heaviness of 80s metal right so the heaviness and aggressiveness of metal but without the technical prowess of metal so 80s metal thrash we'll say mega death Metallica very very heavy loud music with

massive amounts of distortion but also quite technical like Van Halen virtuoso musicians grunge kind of took that heaviness and that loudness but then mixed it with the the DIY sensibility of punk

punk music isn't about technical prowess punk music is about simplicity and the idea that anyone can pick up a guitar and start a band so the two of them kind of mix together in the most simplistic way is a very

simple definition of what grunge music was and Nirvana came out of the grunge scene there were many many bands in Seattle who of the grunge scene. There were many, many bands in Seattle who were making grunge music. The closest to Nirvana's sound would be the Melvins. You know, you go and listen to a couple of Melvins albums, and it sounds like Nirvana.

But, you know, out of all these grunge bands who else did you have fucking allison chains well they were kind of big no fuck it let's go with the big ones uh sound garden pearl jam allison chains um mud honey uh the melvins as I mentioned all these bands and they were class but they haven't really survived in the way that Nirvana has you're going to get the odd few people listening to Pearl Jam but in terms of legacy

I mean 1990 was 29 fucking years ago so nearly 30 years ago am I wrong with that I can't do maths lads how long ago was 1990 was it 20 years oh man I'm shit at maths

let's just say 1990 was 20 years ago no it's 30 years 29 years ago so grunge was like 30 years ago we'll say um, nirvana really are the only ones that have survived properly, okay you're still gonna get a few heads into

alice in chains and pearl jam but nirvana have survived the reason is what separated nirvana from all of the other grunge acts is that yes, nirvana were heavy as fuck and hard as is what separated Nirvana from all of the other grunge acts is that yes Nirvana were heavy as fuck and hard as fuck right

but ultimately Nirvana the music is a post modern ironic throwback to 60's pop music if you got Beatles songs

and kind of put really heavy loud guitars over them you'd be in the territory of Nirvana Kurt Cobain liked 1960's bubblegum pop and this comes through in the melodies that are in Nirvana's music

so you know pearl jam is really dark the melvins were dark as fuck uh really loud and heavy but not a lot of melody going on nirvana ultimately they're very very catchy songs like there's a thing in songwriting called The Old Grey Whistle Test now not the TV show called The Old Grey Whistle Test the TV show was named after this phenomenon whereby in the early 20th century in New York there was a place called Tin Pan Alley

and in Tin Pan Alley around I think the Brill Building I believe loads of songwriters used to have pianos and they would write songs mainly for the sheet music industry not even records yet writing catchy songs for people to buy as sheet music and go home and play at home or sing in a pub so it was called Tin Pan Alley because you had all these songwriters on pianos playing at the same time in the same area so this cacophony of different pianos sounded like people banging pots and pans so in Tin Pan Alley when they were trying to write songs and they needed to figure out what was going to be a hit okay what they would do is a thing called the old grey whistle test, so the songwriter would

write a song on piano with piano in their voice, they'd really, really quickly cut it to vinyl, right, really quickly, just one press copy to vinyl, and then what would happen in the evening when they all went home, cleaning ladies would come in, and they referred to these cleaning ladies as the Old Greys, okay? So the lads would have the song that they'd written that day on the vinyl, leave it on the player, on loop, all night. And if they came in the next day, and the Old Greys, the women, were whistling the song that they had left on repeat, it meant that it passed the old grave

whistle test and that song was going to be a hit nirvana's music passes the old grave whistle test it's still to this day that is a you know if for me i always knew if we were recording a music video and obviously when you're recording a music video, you have to play the song over and over on set. If the extras in the video very quickly start whistling the melody of the song for the video, you know you've got a hit in your hands. When we were recording Horse Outside, within 20 minutes, every single person who was an extra in that video

couldn't stop whistling and singing the tune. So I then, thinking Old Grave Whistle Test in my head, was going, fuck it, that song's going to do alright. So Nirvana passes Old Grave Whistle Test, not a bother. You hear a Nirvana song, it's stuck in your head all day. No matter how heavy it is, no matter how hard it is, Kurt Cobain had the melodic sensibilities of 60s pop. He has publicly said that he was a huge fan of the Beatles when he was a kid but the kind of the holy trinity of 60s guitar

pop for me okay would be the Beatles the Kinks and the Beach Boys okay I think the biggest influence on Nirvana is without question the Beach Boys it's fucking uncanny I'll show you quickly when I say that to people Nirvana are just a really heavy Beach Boys

people go shut up you're talking out of your hole and maybe I am talking out of my hole but I'm going to play you a quick example now we'll say of a Nirvana song and then I'll follow it up with a little Beach Boys song, just a clip. Now my hot take isn't Nirvana

were influenced by the Beach Boys it's one aspect of the hot take I'm sure there's someone else out there saying that Nirvana and the Beach Boys were similar my hot take is way worse than that I'm going to get to it in a while

but here is a snippet of a Nirvana song called About A Girl I need an easy friend I deal with them In too loud I don't think you Hit the shoe I do what you

Have a clue And I take it But it's wild You hang me Out to dry But I can't see you every night Free So that's Nirvana, About a Girl, About

That would have been written 89, 1990, right? So Now I'm gonna play 1965 The Beach Boys And listen to the similarities between the two tracks So you don't think I'm going to play 1965, The Beach Boys and listen to the similarities between the two tracks so you don't think I'm mad.

This song is called Girl Don't Tell Me. My little girl, it's me Don't you know who I am? I met you last summer When I came up you stayed with my friend i'm the guy who left you with tears in his eyes you didn't answer my letter so i figured it was just a lie The hair's getting long and the shorts, they sure feel fine So, that's the Beach Boys, Girl Don't Tell Me. And, you know, you'd want to be deaf to not see that there's massive similarities between those two songs.

That fucking Beach, 65, that's nearly 30 years ago. You know? Or sorry, 30 years ago you know or sorry 60 years ago so and the nirvana song was written 30 years after that so those are two songs that are 30 years apart yet they sound quite similar because kirk cabane he got his singing style from the Beach Boys and what makes the Beach Boys kind of stand out, now when we think of the Beach Boys, when I say the people, the Beach Boys people who aren't

we'll say huge music fans the Beach Boys have an image of kind of being novelty and fun and you will hear serious music heads people who really care about music, will give the Beach Boys the respect they deserve,

but the average person who's not crazy about music wouldn't put the Beach Boys on a Beatles level, we'll say, but they absolutely fucking are. Like, first off, Brian Wilson is as important a producer as Phil Spector the Beach Boys album Pet Sounds is one of the most important albums of the 20th century in what it did for production

but what makes the Beach Boys unique is that you had Brian Wilson and the other fella Mike Love with these incredibly sweet melodic falsettos. But then you also had Dennis Wilson, the drummer, and Carl Wilson, who had, Dennis and Carl had shit voices, okay?

By the standards of 1960s music and what was considered normal and what was considered a good voice, Carl Wilson and Dennis Wilson both had awful husky voices that were in a low kind of range. And what you hear with that song there, Girl Don't Tell Me, and what separates it from the rest of the Beach Boys' work, from the rest of the Beach Boys work, the lead singer doesn't have a strong voice that can go, the melodies aren't reaching high, instead what they do is they reach low, so if Brian Wilson was singing that song,

those melodies would be falsetto, and they'd reach high, and they'd be catchy, but because it was either Dennis or Carl with their shit voices singing that song when the melody was supposed to go high where they were singing they dragged it down and what you end up is that right there I speak a lot about um you know music is an ongoing conversation, okay? It's an ongoing conversation whereby you can trace the DNA of music and songs. And what I like to obsess over is to trace DNA of songs and go, I like this song, where did it come from?

And where did the song that it came from come from? But every so often, you have your little genetic mutations. And the genetic mutations are happy accidents that change the genetic code as such. They change the... It's like, you know, a traditional musical conversation is two songs having a conversation with each other over time. And then just this lunatic comes in and spits in someone's face, and that stops the conversation, and then a new one has to start about why someone had their face

spat into, do you know what I mean, that might be a very extreme example, but that there is a genetic mutation in music, either Carl or Dennis Wilson with their terrible voices in that song in 1965 and I'm guessing like they're all a family you see you know and their dad used to manage him their dad was a prick their dad beat the fuck out of Brian Wilson and made him deaf in one ear Brian Wilson had terrible mental health problems but because they're a family they were quite democratic with the songs and music so they used to kind of cringe when carl wilson or dennis wilson was singing because they had shit voices so that song there is an album track you know i don't even think i don't think it ranked much as a single but it's a genetic mutation in that right there is the that's the dna of nirvana that that is the start of the

nirvana conversation in that song because in kurt cabane's track about a girl and all of nirvana's repertoire kurt cabane doesn't have a particularly good voice either to be honest now good isn't the right word kirk cabane doesn't have a traditionally strong singer's voice he has a mid-range uh husky voice you know he smoked a lot of fags he was a heroin addict his throat wasn't great so it was a gravelly husky voice whereby if kirk cabane was given the choice of you know singing a high melody like Paul McCartney could do or John Lennon could do he wouldn't go for the high melody he'd drag the melody down and if he had to go high he might scream instead such was the weakness of his voice Carl and Dennis Wilson had the same thing so back to the Beach boys song what you get with that beach boys song now listening to it

since grunge has happened it has that nirvana's music like i said but it was a post-modern response to 60s bubblegum pop so if you listen to early beatles music like i want to hold your hand the really catchy shiny and beatle mania before 1965 Beatles music it's very upbeat it's very catchy and you can't get it out of your head it's it operates on a nursery rhyme level then of course after 65 they start getting a bit dark and same with the kinks kinks before 65 really catchy and not a lot of staying on major cards to keep it really nursery rhyme type of catchy you know also what you get is sincerity um early beach boys stuff early beatles stuff it's sincere when they're singing about i want to hold your hand

they mean i want to hold your fucking hand sincerity is a modernist principle the post-modern response to sincerity is irony and humor and angst that's what you get with nirvana nirvana is not sincere you know here we are now entertain us but sang like someone who's does not want to be entertained someone who's's tired, that's irony, if the Beatles were singing it, they'd be quite happily saying, entertain us, quite happily, also regarding the Beach Boys song, the reason I believe it to be an accidental genetic mutation, is because they weren't thinking about irony in 1965, irony was not present in popular music in 1965, it was sincerity and I know this with that song because there's an instrument in there called a glockenspiel. A glockenspiel is like a tinkly sound, it sounds a bit like a triangle but it's on what's known as an arpeggio which is a repeating loop. I know from listening to that that they were echoing back to a buddy holly song called every day which is a

really simple sincere bubblegum pop song i know by the production that's what they were echoing they were trying to continue that conversation but then carl or dennis walks into the room with their terrible voices and ends up ironically accidentally ironically subverting the sincerity of what brian wilson's intention would's intention would be when he wrote the song. That fucking Beach Boys song, it starts to feel a bit depressing. But not bad depressing, good depressing. Angst. There's angst and pain when either Dennis or Carl drag those notes down.

You hear pain in their voice you don't hear enthusiasm you hear an ironic angst and that's what Nirvana Nirvana's music is to kind of lay foundation to that argument just look at Nirvana's music videos from the early 90s

look at a video like In Bloom in the video for In Bloom it's a deliberate parody of the beatles first appearance on the ed sullivan show in like 1963 uh the ed sullivan show would have been like the late late show in america it was if an act was to break america they went on the ed sullivan show and they performed and that was it they became massive the rolling stones were on it as well so when the beatles first went on the ed sullivan show they could barely perform because all the girls in the audience were screaming and roaring and i think they did i want to hold your hand so in their van

is video for in bloom which is 1991 they do it in black and white they dress up looking like the beatles or buddy holly but they play this crazy fucking heavy depressing song where instead of the melodies going up the melodies of the vocal goes down so right there you can tell that that's an early 90s post-modern ironic remix of and and using things like nostalgia as well because the Beatles would have been and the Beach Boys would have been what Kurt Cobain and the rest of Nirvana were listening to when they were kids. Nirvana is an ironic response to 60s pop. But the roots of it, I think, is the vocals of Carl and Dennis Wilson.

And I think it's a strong enough case. You can't deny that. You can't listen to those two songs beside each other and tell me holy fuck that nirvana track sounds a lot like that beach boys track i've i've played that beach boys track for people for the laugh and said to them did you hear this nirvana song and a few people take a few seconds to go that's not nirvana do you know what i mean it's the same thing it's a depressed vocal that goes down when it should go up and what this does is it creates a feeling of angst and coolness and irony which didn't really belong in 60s music it's a late post-modern thing that belonged in

80s and 90s the pixies kind of introduced it as well so that's not even my hot take that's not even my hot take that's the foundations for the hot take to give me a sense of authority and just to expand a little bit as well on to try and make the concept of irony in music simple, because I'm just reminding myself, I'm someone who makes fucking art for a living, and the concept to me might be easy, because it's the world I live in, but if you're an accountant,

we'll say, you'd be like, what the fuck is he on about, what's irony? A simple example of irony would be, it's when you have two opposing things, right? Two things that oppose, that have two separate meanings. And when you mix them together in just the right way, it creates this new meaning. That new meaning is irony. Classic example of, we'll say, early 90s angsty irony that Nirvana would would have been operating in the film reservoir dogs the

most famous scene in reservoir dogs is where your man is in a warehouse the policeman is in a warehouse tied up in a chair and the gangster cuts his ear off all right we all know that from Reservoir Dogs okay what made that particular scene so groundbreaking in 1991 which is the same year that Nirvana are doing their shit because this is real fucking Generation X irony carry on so irony assumes that and post-modernism assumes that the audience who is watching who is consuming the thing that they're watching is literate in media that they've grown up around television they've grown up around films so tarantino knows when he has the reservoir dog scene cutting off your man's ear he knows that his audience have seen violent films before that they've grown up with them so when the razor blade comes out

and you know some violence is going to happen the tarantino knows that the audience expect scary music classic example um 1960s the film psycho right the film psycho your one is in the shower and your man comes in with the knife and you have that really striking scary violin music that we all know the scary music in psycho that set a precedent that's like that's sincere that's a sincerity woman is being killed in the shower the music is scary it all matches up it makes sense that's sincerity now we've got 1991 Reservoir Dogs there's a man tied up in a chair he has petrol thrown on him and he's going to get his ear cut off what does Tarantino do he plays 70 70s bubblegum pop he plays a piece of music which is happy and upbeat and this this piece of, this happy and upbeat music, juxtaposed with a person getting their ear cut off.

The mixture of those two opposing meanings blended perfectly together creates this new emotion called irony. That's what irony is. And that's what Nirvana's music is. Sincere, early 60s bubblegum pop, but done with very, very heavy guitars. And instead of going for the upbeat melody, you go down on the melody. And you have now this irony. So Nirvana's music really is, it's the ear getting cut off scene in Reservoir Dogs.

And you know, why do we have irony in the early 60s? And why do we not have irony in, you know, why do we have sincerity in the early 60s and then irony in the early 90s? My personal opinion, I think, you look at what's happening from 1960 to 1965, you've got the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962, the world truly, genuinely believed that it was going to end in nuclear war in 1963 people thought the world was going to end okay the cuban missile crisis was no fucking joke russia and america came very close to destroying the entire world with nuclear missiles that's a reality so therefore culture must reflect that terror and fear

by feeding people good news. The early music of the Beatles and the early music of the Beach Boys pre-65 is a load of good news. Then, mid-60s onwards, shit changes a bit. Irony starts to get introduced when the Beatles start doing acid with Sgt Pepper and the ultimate act of irony in pop music in the 60s, the final defining ironic act, 1969 Woodstock Festival.

This is 69, you've got the Vietnam War going on, but the Vietnam War is dragging its heels. As well, what makes the Vietnam War so special compared to World War II, what makes the Vietnam War so special compared to World War II. It's the first war that people are seeing on television and are actually being confronted with the meaninglessness, the angst and the hopelessness of what war really is. With World War II, you can control it with propaganda. You can say to people, our troops are fighting the good fight and they're all coming home and they died on the battlefield in a noble way.

By the time Vietnamietnam comes by 69 people are seeing on the news about things like the my life massacre they're seeing u.s soldiers committing war crimes they're seeing villages on fire they're seeing children with their backs on fire so this now you can no longer believe in the sincerity of good war so by 1969 this is reflected in art perfectly ironically jimmy hendrix at the woodstock festival does a guitar solo he does the star spangled banner which is the american national anthem he plays it on electric guitar and distorts and fucks up the notes to make this proud song of a nation sound very fucked up and painful and right that's the for me is the touchstone of the introduction

of irony to pop music that Jimi Hendrix moment 1969 I've digressed I've fucking digressed lads alright very very quick ocarina pause or no banjo pause before I

move on to the final hot take the banjo's on the other side of the room and I'm not going to go over to get it I've got this really big giant depressing ocarina

so we'll have a we'll have an awful ocarina pause fuck that Rock City you're the best fans in the league bar none tickets are on sale now for fan appreciation Fuck that. now to guarantee the same seats for every postseason game and you'll only pay as we play come along for the ride and punch your ticket to rock city at torontorock.com on april 5th you must be very careful margaret it's a girl witness the birth bad things will start to happen evil things of evil it's all for you no don't the first o-men i believe the girl is to be the mother I can't even get a couple of notes out of it like

enough of that so that was the shit ocarina pause you might have heard an advert for some bullshit um this podcast is sponsored by you the listener via the patreon page patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast do you like the podcast do you find it enjoyable well you can become a patron by giving me the price of a cup of coffee or the price of a pint once a month via the patreon patreon.com forward slash the blind boy podcast please do please please do if you can afford it it is makes a huge difference to my life if you can afford it it makes a huge difference to my life if you can't afford it that's grand

yart okay I launched into a do you know what that was a necessary explanation of irony and how it relates to culture and it kind of tied in with the theme because I stuck it with 60s music

so my warm take tied in with the theme, because I'd stuck it with 60s music, so, my, warm take, is that, Nirvana, and Kurt Cobain's voice in particular, can trace their origins,

to the Beach Boys, in particular the song, Girl Don't Tell Me 1965, that is my belief, where does it get hotter, well this is, this is uh this is the moment where like let's just say you and me are in a pub and we've just sat down we've had a pint you know and i've i've spoken all about i'm making my case for the beach boys in nirvana and you're listening

to me and you're going fuck it blind boy yeah do you know what i'm on board i like it now i'm gonna start going somewhere where you're gonna slowly just back away you're just gonna get your point and you're gonna leave all right which is that's where i want to be with a good a good hot take that's really where i want to be i want people to be just going fuck off ok so Dennis Wilson ok so that song that I played you Dennis and Carl Wilson

with their terrible terrible voices which I believe inspired Kurt Cobain specifically I think the biggest inspiration on Kurt Cobain's voice was Dennis Wilson ok

this is where it starts getting mad Dennis Wilson he he was a bit of a I don't want to say waster isn't fair because he had his issues right he had his issues he had uh mental health issues issues with addiction all of this he he was just the drummer in the band. He was Brian Wilson's brother. They're not going to kick their brother out of the band. He was the drummer in the band. He didn't even drum that much on the albums.

They would bring in a better drummer to do it. But Dennis was still earning a fair amount of cash. And he liked to spend his cash. And he appears to be like a very sensitive person a very kind of a kind person but as well also you know

someone who's very easily hurt and lashes out a person with problems Dennis Wilson in 1968 was driving around he had a big fucking mansion up in Malibu I believe and he was driving around and he had a big fucking mansion up in Malibu, I believe, and he was driving around

and he met a hitchhiker, okay, and the hitchhiker had three or four girls with him, so Dennis stops anyway, in his kind of his innocence and good nature, and gets chatting with the hitchhiker, he likes the vibe of the hitchhiker, he seems like a, like a cool dude, the girls seem class, so Dennis says to the hitchhiker, get seems like a cool dude, the girls seem class so Dennis says to the hitchhiker get into my car there or so and we'll head back to my fucking mansion and I'll look after you, so he does so the man and five

women I believe, head back to Dennis Wilson's gaff and end up staying with him for about six months and like they end up like having like mad sex orgies and doing acid for about six months, and, like, they end up like,

having like, mad sex orgies, and doing acid, and, I think they all caught gonorrhea, Dennis was just like, looking after him, the Beach Boys didn't give that much of a,

didn't give that much of a fuck really, because, Dennis wasn't needed in studio, so the main hitchhiker, the man, starts like showing Dennis Wilson his songs and telling Dennis Wilson all about, you know, his plan. This hitchhiker's name was Charles Manson. Charles the lunatic, mass murdering, psychopath, serial killer Manson. Dennis Wilson became friends with Charles fucking Manson and wrote songs with him. Right?

Now Charles Manson, like, you know Charles Manson. He died last year I believe but he is, you know, like the archetype for crazy serial killer. The Nazi tattoo, he has a swastika in the middle of his fucking forehead you know we've all grown up seeing charles manson he's uh become a media spectacle quite unhealthily one of these serial killers that was um given superstar status but before charles manson and what charles manson did is he managed he used his influence to form a small cult of about eight people mostly women and they lured people to a gaffe and murdered them they murdered several people very evil fucked up shit and what's important to remember is that before manson did this and this harks back to what i

said a couple of podcasts ago about why it's important not to dehumanize psychopaths and pedophiles and abusers. Manson obviously would have had a huge degree of superficial charm. And it was this charm and magnetism and charisma that got him close to someone like Dennis Wilson. And it was this charisma that That allowed him to have. A cult. You know. A cult sounds like fucking hard work lads. If you're going to have a cult.

A bunch of cunts who follow you around. And do what you tell them. You better be charismatic and convincing. And Charles Manson was this. Before the murders. He was also an aspiring singer songwriter he was obsessed with

interpreting the music the lyrics of the Beatles in particular and this is what I find quite interesting too the song the Beatles song Helter Skelter

which is a Paul McCartney song which is some people will cite it as theartney song which is some people will cite it as the first ever heavy metal song some people there's lots of candidates for what's the first heavy metal song but the bog standard we'll say

Rolling Stone article reading is that Helter Skelter is the first ever metal song but Manson believed that Helter Skelter referred to first ever metal song. But Manson believed that Helter Skelter referred to a world event whereby America would have a race war and Manson committed a series of murders

in order to trigger this race war that would like bring an apocalypse or something. I don't know. Mad bullshit. So Dennis Wilson, big fucking eejit, becomes best pals with charles manson starts writing songs with him starts bringing these songs to the beach boys right but then what happens

because charles manson's a fucking lunatic so himself and charles start writing songs and then i think they went to a studio one day and Dennis Wilson's like management were there or something anyway and there was a disagreement and because Charles Manson's a psychopath he pulled a knife he pulled a knife on bodyguards or security or something anyway himself and Dennis Wilson ended up in a scuffle in a bit of a fight now this is where it's hazy, this is the bit where I don't have full

historical accuracy on this bit what we do know is that Dennis Wilson got into a scrap with Charles Manson, we do know this, what we also know, Dennis Wilson got punched into the throat at some point after 1968

and this crushed his larynx, I believe, and permanently changed his voice. Now, I think Charles Manson boxed Dennis Wilson into the throat and fucked his voice up. Okay, that's what I think. I don't have the evidence for that. I know there was a scrap and I know that Dennis Wilson ended up with a boxed larynx.

What I can't prove is that Charles Manson did it. But my hot take brain wants to say Charles Manson boxed Dennis Wilson into the throat and permanently changed his voice. Charles Manson boxed Dennis Wilson into the throat and permanently changed his voice. The greatest influence on Kurt Cobain's vocal style was the solo work that Dennis Wilson did after getting a box into the throat. That's when Dennis's voice went really low and really husky and you start to hear the origins of that grungy sound the origins of a person who has a raspy damaged voice singing over melodic voices and keeping all the notes low so my heart take ladies and gentlemen is that Kurt Cobain

sounds the way he does because Charles Manson boxed Dennis Wilson into the throat okay can't prove it it's just that's my theory

that's my theory and that's what I take to bed at night and hold dearly as a little fun nugget that I keep to myself you can call me a fool if you want that's grand And hold dearly. As a little. Fun nugget. That I keep to myself.

You can call me a fool if you want. That's grand. What are we up to here? What time are we? We're at the hour. Hour mark. So. Dennis. Dennis Wilson died.

He died about 1983. Didn't have a very happy life at all ended up like marrying a fucking 19 year old or something stupid like that severe cocaine problems problems with alcohol other addiction issues not a very happy person you know obviously he got the fuck away from charles manson the guilt of it

stuck with him it kind of traumatized him a bit it's like i had this man living in my house for like two months three months he was friends of mine and then he went and became the most famous and notorious serial killer in America. And Manson's legacy, you know Marilyn Manson is named after him. Do you know? Manson has a strange musical rock star legacy. The one that I think is that he boxed Dennis Wilson into the throat. And that Dennis Wilson voice after 1968 influenced Kurt Cobain

so what I'll leave you with before I head away I'll play like Dennis Wilson did not have a successful solo career he made one album called Pacific Ocean Blue it's only now in the past 10 years being looked at

as kind of an important album as something that was a precursor to like when it came out it's like Dennis you can't your fucking throat is boxed off you couldn't sing the first time around

and now you're after getting a box into the throat and you definitely can't sing now so it really wouldn't have sold anything it would have been ripped to shreds he would have been seen as a god help us but he dennis wilson was a genetic accident that laid the foundations for angsty 90s grunge and alternative rock you know not just grunge like bands like pavement and stuff like that you can hear that in Dennis Wilson's voice now obviously Neil Young that's a whole other conversation that's a different conversation about his contribution to grunge but Dennis

Wilson is part of the conversation without a doubt so I'll play you a song now there's about three or four versions of it it's either sometimes Lady, it's sometimes called Falling in Love it's one of my favourite tunes I heard this about ten years ago, no longer, I heard this I heard this longer ago it's from 1970 I believe and

it's a very very upset sad Dennis Wilson whose voice is fucked just trying his best trying his best and what what it reminds me of a lot of as well is it's there's a nirvana song called something in the way and if you know something in the way it's on never mind what makes something in the way so special is that Kurt Cobain's voice really sounds like shit in that song but the shitness of it is pure beauty because Kurt Cobain was lying on his back and as he was lying on his back like his his neck was kind of pushing down pushing towards

like try singing uh lying on your, it's not very easy, so he was lying on his back with the guitar, and he recorded something in the way, and the producer, I'm going to say it was Butch Vig, the producer heard Kurt Cobain lying down on the couch, singing something in the way, and said, don't fucking move, I'm putting a mic beside you, the way you are singing on your back like that that's perfect

so they recorded it and it was out of tune and they tuned down the violins and everything to fit Kurt's shit voice but I hear Dennis Wilson 1970 Falling In Love in that Kurt Cobain take and

that's what I'm going to play for you now I'll play 30-40 seconds I'd love to play the whole fucking thing I can't because of the nature of the podcast and shit getting taken down so this is Falling In Love by Dennis Wilson it's utterly beautiful it's unintentionally sad and angsty

because of poor old Dennis and his broken throat and what makes it even a little bit more sad for me too it's unintentionally sad and angsty because of poor old Dennis and his broken throat. And what makes it even a little bit more sad for me too is that he's a drummer and there's not even drums on it. We've spoken about drum machines before. There's a drum machine on this song. Using a drum machine in 1970 was not being cool. It was a really shit novelty thing to do and it was someone who couldn't afford a drummer

or couldn't afford to record drums. This would have been viewed on as, it would have been seen as a pile of shit when it came out. Flowers come in the spring All the love I can bring Bring it for my lady All I can do You know You know it's for my lady I love her so

I'd like to grow With my lady My lady Falling in love Summer winds again Together with the lady Of the life I live Live the life that I love

So there you go, Dennis Wilson, early 70s, lady slash falling in love. That is not a pile of shit. That's a fucking beautiful, gorgeous, bloody song. It's years and years and years ahead of its time. Unintentionally, most likely, but I fucking love it. I fucking love it and I'd say

Kurt Cobain loved it as well. And I can hear Nirvana's sound in that song and in the earlier Dennis Wilson shit with the Beach Boys that's my hot take, I think Charlie Manson was responsible, there you go okay, I'm gonna fuck off now

thank you so much for listening I really enjoyed this, I loved I love any fucking, any podcast where I get to speak with passion about music and about things that I obsess about and think about a lot. I love doing. And I really, really enjoyed that.

And I hope you enjoyed it too. And that my passion was infectious. Not sure what I'm going to talk about next week. Should we figure something out? In the meantime, enjoy the stretch in the evening. Be compassionate towards yourself be compassionate towards your neighbor have a lovely time listen to some nirvana if you know if you're the type of person who's has never really considered the music of the beach boys give it a

crack in particular the stereo version of pet sounds fuck me you can't go wrong with that you know all right god bless Thank you. Thank you. the groundbreaking Song Exploder podcast and Netflix series. This unmissable evening features Herway and Toronto Symphony Orchestra music director Gustavo Gimeno in conversation. Together, they dissect the mesmerizing layers of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring, followed by a complete soul-stirring rendition of the famously unnerving piece, Symphony Exploder.

April 5th at Roy Thompson Hall. For tickets, visit tso.ca.