The Watch - Ep. 24: 'The Watch' Re-up

Episode Date: February 27, 2016

On today's re-up, Andy and Chris talk 'The People v. O.J. Simpson' (2:00), 'Better Call Saul' (12:30), very special sitcom episodes (19:00), the 1975's new album (28:00), and Oscar hopes (36:00). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Before we get started, Channel 33, as always, is brought to you by Seat Geek, our presenting sponsor and our favorite way to buy and sell tickets to sporting events, concerts, and whatever else you want to go to. With the Seekek mobile app, you can quickly and easily buy tickets with just two taps and have your tickets delivered straight to your phone to enter the event. And if you can't make the event, Seatkeek now lets you transfer tickets to your friends or post tickets for sale, all from your phone. As a special offer for Channel 33 listeners,

Seekek is giving $20 back off your first purchase with the promo code BSPN. To get $20 back off your first Seat Geek purchase, download the Cedeek purchase, just download the C-Kee Gap today and enter promo code BSPN. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now. Hello, and welcome to The Watch on the Channel 33 podcast feed. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at the ringer.com.

And with me on the other line, he just discovered what a Brentwood hello was. It's Andy Greenwald. Re-up. It's the Re-up. It's the Re-Up. It's Friday. It's The Watch Re-Up. Me and Andy are here for you. for a briefer, a briefer span of time, a brief history of time.

Andy, you can find the watch on the Channel 33 podcast feed. It's on iTunes. It's on SoundCloud. It's on Stitcher. You should go to the ringer.com, and you should sign up for our newsletter. And you can also follow us on Twitter at Ringer,

on Facebook at Ringer, and on Instagram at Ringer. I'm pretty excited about this newsletter, because do you get the New York Times cooking newsletter? You ever get that? I get the morning briefing, that thing? No, I don't know if you've noticed.

this, but your boy, Sam Sifton, writes these very, very, like, frilly, flowery messages to us about what we should be cooking once a week. Yeah. I actually don't really read the times. I only have an RSS for Joe Nocera. That's fair. That's fair. Because when you can hold your glasses the way that man holds his glasses, you've got to pay attention. I'm just saying, I don't know what kind of newsletters coming my way when I sign up for the ringer, but I signed up. That's what I wanted to say. That was my little, like, plug within the plug. We appreciate your support. Andy, let's jump right into this Friday 5, we're just going to kind of buzz through a few topics.

We're going to be talking about OJ, better call Saul, very special sitcom episodes, the return of very special episodes. New band, well, not a new band, new band, new album from the band 1975, and of course the Oscars, which are coming up this weekend. Andy, let's talk a little bit about

people versus OJ. Yeah, I was wondering where you were going to start, and I'm glad we're starting with the best stuff. I have a positive and a negative. What do you to hear first. Oh. Wow. Um, you know, I kind of, normally you start with the bad news, but I feel like it's Friday, you know, people just psych for their weekends. Let's just let us down easy. Start with the good stuff. Connie Britton is a queen. Always. Always a queen. And the, the Faye Resnick

show would have been like, we've talked about this a little bit just off, off the pod and we're going to talk about it now. But like, if you were going to make a spinoff of OJ, if you were going to make a People versus OJ Simpson spinoff. I don't think you could do much better than the Faye Resnick Chronicles. Well, let's go macro here. This show is so good and enjoyable, and the ratings are so strong. I think that FX would be foolish not to start mining, it's called strip mining the show for parts and make a lot more dramas out of this.

And the Faye Resnick show would, of course, be at the top of the list. Now, I actually have one ahead of it, but it does make you think. Like, Faye Resnick, isn't she kind of like, Real Housewives. Yeah, she's actually on Real Housewives, right? So this boggles my mind. Like, I've never, true confession time, I've never actually seen a living second of any of those shows, and I'm not actually embarrassed about that. But I kind of get the gist.

You know, I feel like it's kind of like the fountainhead. You know, people talk about it enough where you kind of know where you'd fall on it. Sure. So, but what boggles my mind is those shows are, they print money, and people are always watching them and talking about them. And it's so odd that no network has made a successful scripted version of one of those shows, right? Wasn't that desperate housewives, though? Yeah, but that was 10 years ago. Like, the reason those Bravo shows work is because they cut them with the narrative arcs and beats of old-fashioned soap operas like Knott's Landing.

But it's cheaper. But so, I mean, who wouldn't want to watch a show with Queen Connie Britton and, I don't know, what do you call her, like Princess? Regent Selma Blair, just cutting through 90s, early 90s Brentwood, like butternives through fresh ricotta. Like, that would be an incredibly entertaining show. And I can't believe no one is in your town right now is making it. So during last week's up, this past episode, you know, and I was really enjoying it. And I was really enjoying the Cadi Britton performance and all the infighting between the dream

team and this the great Rob Morrow cutaways. I mean, it's such a, such a year for Morrow. and we're only in February. But then I'm feeling so northern exposed up in this piece. You know? Do you think there's a chance? Do you think there's a legitimate chance that for the next generation,

our kids' generation, the Jim Halpert Stair will be replaced with the Barry Sheck eye open? Barry Sheck, man. That dude is not getting a lot of burn on the script pages, but Morrow's got a good agent or he's got a lot of charisma because they cut to him a lot.

That's the same thing that happens in billions as Morrow comes in and he's just like says, Chuck, I need to make this case go away. And then he walks away. You know, it's like, it's like Rob Morrow is a, is a major star in this town and in this business. And you will respect his side.

It's not just that he's a major star. He's a very busy guy. He will come on set and demand that Axe Capital liquidate. And then he'll leave set because he has somewhere else to be. That is truly king status. You know what I mean? It's not where your parking place is on the lot. It's how quickly you can park and get out and still get your paycheck.

Okay, so here's my issue, though. As for as much as I'm enjoying it, and as far as, and I still think it's excellently done. And honestly, I could just watch Courtney B. Vance for like seven hours. But this week was the first time where I felt like the show kind of was a little campy and exploitive. And had some of the sort of worst tendencies of Ryan Murphy. And I think it might have been the music cues that sort of bothered me. This was the first appearance we had of Fred Goldman, who, you know, back when this trial was happening, I felt like probably was the object of a lot of ridicule because of, you know, showing emotion about his son being killed. And he shows up in this episode, or an actor playing him, obviously.

And this is sort of the weird part about this show is that people are showing up. And you're like, oh, yes, Fred Goldman is here. And it's like, well, this is a fictional version of this. This is a narrative version of this case. and he has this sort of incredibly emotional speech that he gives to Marsha Clark about I hope you never have to read an autopsy report of your own child and watching it and then when they get into the beats of like Johnny Cochran's power move and walking in and having like West Coast rap playing as the reservoir dogs of the dream team walking in a

courtroom and to check the chess moves between Marsha Clark by having Darden and it's like very traditional television show beats, I kind of felt a little gross. Well, it's an interesting point. I mean, gross is definitely the word that I use most when I think about how Ryan Murphy shows make me feel. Right.

So I don't think you're out alone on that one. But for me, I think one of the reasons why it works is because, I mean, the word that people used a lot to describe the OJ trial was circus, right? It was just everything happening at 100% volume all at once. And I feel like one of the reasons this show succeeds is because it is capturing that that spirit in the same way that the original

case was about issues as searing and serious as race and as ludicrous as celebrity so is this miniseries and i think that you you kind of can't make this show unless you give fred goldman's character the solo you know you kind of need that to ground a lot of the other excesses of the series in terms of how it was placed, the timing of it, you know, those are the kind of things that I feel like decisions are made in the moment in rooms like which episode that's going to fall in and then maybe they whiffed on that. Like maybe there is a more emotionally honest place to have slotted that scene in, but I still think it was important that it was there. I mean, this is the kind of things that are the slight differences and the little things that happen that are, is the difference between like Ryan Murphy and David Simon. I mean, David Simon probably doesn't open an episode with the C&C Music Factory scene between with Kardashian and Simpson in the club. And he probably doesn't close with those guys walking in like, you know, with the soundtrack.

And it's a cool moment or it's like an interesting moment when you're watching it. And then I just immediately felt like it was just a very strange reaction. And I usually don't get particularly precious about this stuff. But I think it was something about the Fred Goldman scene that did it. I think that's a really interesting point and it's also probably why you, me and six other people watch Show Me a Hero and this is a 10 million people are watching this.

Very good point. It's really true. But in and of itself, that would be an interesting conversation. Like, I don't know if I'm ready to do a serious deep reading of Ryan Murphy's work because, again, gross. But to compare and contrast Yeah, but to compare and contrast him with David Simon and like just look at the material they choose.

I mean, you know, Simon chose this incredibly naughty, relatively minor key story of the mayor of yonkers to extrapolate a much a larger much larger story in thematic story out of it you know murphy murphy so basically like look david simon goes to yonkers new york ryan murphy goes to new york new york in las vegas like those are the versions of big city stories that they want to tell right and they're very different um i just can i hit you with my my spinoffs sure like there is I cannot think of a single reason why Courtney B. Vance isn't in the FX offices on Pico right now being like signing the contracts for the Johnny Cochran TV show. There is not going to be a performance this year that I like more than Courtney Vance as Johnny Cochran.

It is incredible to watch him just dunk on everything. Like all the other actors on history, on news footage. Like I don't know if I could watch Johnny Cochran footage now and not think of how Courtney B. Vance is playing this guy. The complexity that he's having with it and that he's taking, these. he's finding it and the fun that he's having with it. And then you think about Johnny Cochran's actual career where he defended so many interesting people. And then at the same time, you know, he did these circus cases.

And then he also did serious work, social justice work on the side and did serve as a mentor to people like, like, Dart, Chris Darden in real life. Yeah. So can you imagine, even if you lightly fictionalized it, if you took Johnny, if you took Courtney B. Vance and you took Sterling Brown, who plays Chris Darden, you. who has just been astonishing on the show, too, I think. Why does damages get five seasons, but this show doesn't? This show is so much more interesting to me, and it's not a story we've seen on TV.

Follow-up show. I just think you have to have a show called The Juice is Loose, and you just put Schwimmer in the early 90s just partying. Just trying as best. That hang dog face, all those tequila shots. It's basically that CNC Music Factory scene, but for an entire series. Because, look, we've talked about this before, and a lot of other people have talked about it, too, but Friends is inexplicably popular, right? The whole generation of young people are just binge watching 200 episodes of Friends.

They love Schwim. They love Schwim. And you put him with that hang dog face and that weird kind of, it's not really, it's somewhere, it's like, it's not punchable, it's not hugged punchable, it's hug punchable demeanor that he has. I would love to see him put into a much darker world. Like, like he should have been cast in the shield, basically, is what I'm saying. Yeah. You know what I mean? Like, I think we need to start, we need to get more creative at how we're using Schwimmer in the future.

And I feel like we're ready for a Schwim Renaissance. I would love to see just final note, like maybe David Schwimmer running a, like an orange grove, you know, like just overseeing like the production and just so that he could keep saying juice, juice. Okay, Andy, let's keep it moving because we got to get rolling over to Sandpiper. You are so fired up about this, man. Like, I didn't know that this, that the elder care dragon rested within you. Yeah, let's talk about Better Call Solid. Its relationship to senior issues. All it took was a naughty AMC drama series to really just start to tug on the thread of the wool scarf

that Grand Grand had been knitting for you inside for all these years. So I obviously, we're talking about Better Call. saw, we're talking about the central tension, dramatic tension of this show revolving around the Sandpiper retirement community and corruption therein. And I have to say that I was sort of mocking this last week or on Monday, and Alan Seppenwall actually rightly pointed out on Twitter that retirement communities play a major role in the Breaking Badverse. They do.

I mean, you clearly forgot where my man Gus got God God. I mean, this story of Breaking Bad and Better Call Saul really is the story of managed care for our most needy elderly citizens in the American Southwest. Yeah. All the meth stuff was a misdirect. Like, you know, if you think about the story is really the arc of what was dude's life? Mark Margoleys played him, you know, the ding ding. Oh, Salamanka. Yeah.

Tio Salamanca. Yeah. This is really his story. And we're just putting pieces of it together obliquely, like the world's longest game of Tetris, right? Yeah. But we saw him as a young drug runner in Mexico, and then we saw him brought low, but then also brought cans of insure. So we saw, like, the circle of life. And I am sure, I'm convinced that Sandpiper stuff will lead to that at some point.

We haven't seen all the residents of Sandpiper. No, I mean, that's the thing is that you could get to the end of this season. And everybody's probably anticipating, like, when is Aaron Paul going to show up? Are we going to get a Cranston? Are we going to get a John Carlo Esposito cameo? And they could get to the end of the season and then Begley could go up to Odenk and just be like, I've got another case for you, Saul.

Or Jimmy. Got another case for you, Jimmy. Covered bridge retirement community. And corruption therein. What if Ed Begley ended the season by going up to Odin Kirk and said, got a case for you, Saul? And then Odenkirk turned to the camera and winked and the credits rolled. That would just be like, like,

if they just hit fast, yeah. if they just hit fast forward on everything. We're joking about it, and I think we should continue to joke about it. But, God, the show is very dependable. It is very entertaining. It sure is, yeah. I will say that there was a really great piece this week by Sean Collins and The Observer about the Mike problem on this show, which is that Mike is just really, really, like, an interesting character.

And when he is on screen and when you're just like you feel the gravity of the show sort of pulling towards him, people should check that piece out if they get a chance. And it's just, this has happened on other shows where certain supporting characters are so vibrant that they wind up demanding more screen time and demanding more say in the overall narrative of the show. I think obviously we've talked before about Omar was only supposed to be like a minor, I think only one episode or two or three episodes of the wire and wound up being obviously probably one of the defining characters of the show. You mentioned Aaron Paul. Jesse was supposed to die in the first season of Breaking Bad. Yeah. So I mean...

And there was a character, a guest star named Bob Odin Kirk showed up on Breaking Bad playing a minor supporting character. Was he only supposed to be on for a couple of episodes? I don't think they put a cap on it. I think, you know, when you cast someone like that, the goal is always to see what is possible and how long they can be around. But, you know, they sort of let the market decide. Or in this case, they let the scripts and the performances decide. So it's not like they told them, you know, this is a three-episode term.

and don't buy any real estate here in the Great American Desert. But they also didn't see this. Why wouldn't you, though? I mean, it's just a smart investment move. It's beautiful. It's a great place to retire, provided you can take care of yourself. If you need any assistance, you can't. Yeah, I mean, the thing about the show is it's so expertly made.

And Breaking Bad was like this, too. It's so expertly told in terms of performance and production values and direction and writing that you almost don't mind the way. you're being transported from A to B to C in a way that isn't necessarily all that groundbreaking. Like the stuff with the stuff with the pies and, you know, the way the two cases like synced up and then we learned lessons and it showed something about who Jimmy is now and then Jimmy revealed something to Kim about who he is now. All of that, you know, again, the A to B to C story beats of that are pretty, they're arrow straight. Yeah. But and not particularly surprising. But it was really

enjoyable. And, you know, I, that's why I can, you know, I think the thing to say about breaking bad and better call salt is very similar to the stuff that we often said about Mad Men, which is the reason these shows are so good isn't because they're better than TV, but because they are such expert expressions of TV. Yeah. Andy, really quickly, I just want to take a break and tell you a little bit about one of our sponsors. I'm a little bit distracted right now because I'm getting kind of hungry. I'm thinking about dinner. And I'm thinking about how much better dinner would be if I had Home Chef, With Home Chef, you get all the ingredients you need plus instructions to cook restaurant-grade meals

and under 30 minutes delivered straight to your door weekly. You get chef-designed restaurant-quality recipes including rustic vegetarian tart with spinach, roasted red peppers, and go-chees. Miso-glazed salmon. I've been wanting to experiment with some different salmon recipes. That comes with Brussels sprouts and apple. And then you can also, if you just want to get into the regular old dinner, you get Parisian bistro steak with cream potatoes and green beans. That's dope. Reefries cards and step-by-step instructions make cooking a couple.

accessible and help you learn new and fun techniques. Cook, chef-driven, healthy restaurant-grade dinners, and a flash. It's nutrient-dense, perfectly portioned meals tailored to your unique dietary needs, whether it's gluten-free, vegetarian, low-cal, low-carb, all those options are available. No more waiting in line at the grocery store. That sucks. Planning what to cook, which is also a drag, or even resorting to takeout, which never tastes as good as you wanted to.

Each meal is under $10, more affordable than the grocery store. You just visit homesheft.com slash BSPN and use promo code BSPN at checkout for 20, dollars off that's homechef.com slash BSPN code BSPN Rediscover HomeCooking with Home Chef. We kind of we we mentioned this a couple weeks ago that there was a quote unquote very special episode of mom right and then this week I think somewhat interestingly like linked to that was there was a very special episode of Blackish right I didn't get a chance to see that episode of Blackish I did weirdly get a chance to see that episode of Mom but you hit me up.

this morning about this. Tell me a little bit about this episode. I was really blown away by this. The episode of Blackish that was on this week was called Hope, and it was written by the series creator, Kenya Barris, and it's basically the show's take on not just the Black Lives Matter movement, but, you know, a conversation that is a very real thing for many African-American families in this country, which is what is fairness in this country, what to expect from the justice system, what to think about the police, and what to think about this run of just, truly appalling video footage and news and legal decisions that have been plaguing this country. I mean, obviously, these things are not new, and this is mentioned in the episode, but the video of

them is new, and it does seem like an epidemic at the moment because people can see these things now and are paying more attention to it. And the episode is just phenomenal. And it's phenomenal not because of the subject matter that it deals with, although kudos for tackling something so difficult in the first place. It's a phenomenal piece of inclusive. and responsive writing. The episode is basically a bottle episode.

The entire family is gathered around the TV, waiting for the news on an invented case involving police overreach, let's call it. And they're also there because they're trying to decide what to order for dinner from the various takeout menus. There's a good running joke about just somebody bury the P.F. Chang's menu in respect to that. But the show is so clever and nuanced and delicate

in the way it does all this. and it feels completely true to every character, a number of points of view, but it never loses sight of what the show itself wants to say. It is not just like, to use a line from the debate last night, it is not just a fruit salad of POVs. It is very focused in a way that I found really, really impressive. And, you know, I haven't seen the episode of Mom,

although I like that show a lot. Do you? It was a really, the thing about the black, yeah, I like it. I think it's good. I mean, I never watch it. But when I watch it, I'm like, oh, it's pretty good. The thing about this episode of Blackish, And it's worth noting with the Carmichael show returning in a couple weeks to NBC,

and that's Gerard Carmichael's multi-cam show. It's, you know, intentionally, almost defiantly a throwback to Norman Lear sitcoms, basically, where a bunch of opinionated family members sit around in essentially a stage play and talk about stuff. And one of the things that Gerard does on that show is they hold the writing as late as possible, so they can be responsive. And that coupled with this episode of Blackish really were a remarkable argument for what the sitcom can do. Yeah, I mean, in some ways, Horace and Pete is like that too, right? Yeah, I mean, one of the things that people, well, I'll make two points about it.

One is the production, the realities of TV production are insane, and it drives people crazy. They have to do so much work, you have to do it so fast. But there are advantages in that, right? You can be more nimble. You can be more responsive to the news. You know, they could have written and filmed this episode six weeks ago, maybe. You know, in the case of Horace and Pete, they're probably filming today's episode last week or last night. there's a real potential to engage with the present in a way that is not possible in movies.

And similarly, watching this episode of Blackish, I was like, we sit around heaping praise on a show. I'll mention again, a show like Mad Men, for really delving into the emotional and political realities of who we were as people 50 years ago and, you know, finding insight in who we are now through that mirror, that lens. but it's like there's a lot of stuff happening right now. And it is wonderful to go on these, you know, these artsy peregrinations through various time periods and put all these different filters and artistic ideas over it. But there's a lot of stuff happening in the world, and you're just leaving that on the table.

And it's kind of refreshing. The sitcom takes on the mantle of dealing with it. Now, not every episode should be like ripped from the headlines, like Law and Order, but some could be. I think that, you know, we often, we usually don't talk about sitcoms. And it's not because we don't like them or it's not because we don't like watching comedies. It's because not enough happens in them for us to sort of get a foothold in a conversation about it, right? And this is sort of something that's played these shows for a while.

When you think back to Parks and Rec or the Office, a lot of the things that people would talk about, aside from, you know, maybe the general worldview of the show, were the romance plot lines. Will they or won't they plot lines? And that's generally most sitcoms jump immediately into a will they or won't they plotline because it's what they think keeps people coming back. And I wonder whether or not with this episode of Blackish, with this episode of Mom, with Horace and Pete, I wonder if to get back into the conversation, sitcoms will start doing more things like this. Now, I'm not advocating for them to, you know, do something drastic on modern family. But Modern Family was, for instance, a show that started with like a very kind of progressive. not politically charged but socially aware

set up you know it was this idea that the new family in America could take all these different shapes and colors and sexual orientations and it still be a family which for I think a Wednesday night sitcom was somewhat somewhat brave to do you know but they kind of never I don't feel like they've really like engaged politically since then

I think there was that whole like thing about like was there going to be a kiss not but it would be interesting to see if like a couple of shows tried doing stuff like this whether it's I mean I don't really advocate for like characters dying on sitcoms because it's just sort of how do you recover from that but I would be curious to see them sort of get a little bit more inventive with the with the dramatic arcs yeah and I think you know the best comedy comes from specificity and so rooting the characters in a time and a place and a point of view

can only help the comedy I think In addition to, you know, maybe helping it gain traction in the larger conversation. It was interesting. When I talked to Abby and Alana from Broad City for my pod last week, and one of the things we talked about was how, you know, the season premiere of Broad City, the third season, which I thought was just great. A lot of it had to do with, well, like a lot of the episodes have to do with them trying to afford stuff or get into stuff. Yeah. And I was thinking like, it is so funny how far we've gotten away from any television characters ever worrying about money. like that's just not something they do you know and it maybe you trace that back to friends because

prior to that the model for sitcoms was you know a family show like the cosby show or there was rosanne was a more working class family show but then on friends they just lived in palatial lofts in the west village and laughed about stuff right and that mirrored you know that was aspirational and the advertisers like that and also it probably mirrored the experience of people writing the show a little bit more but if you start your conversation or your or if you focus your your joke camera you know, only at the top percentage of income, look at all the material and people and experience and potentially jokes that you're just ignoring,

you're just leaving that stuff on the table. Yeah, I think that there's, you know, I think that the way that they handle it typically is usually like, whether it's Don Draper or Bobby Axelrod or or Richie Finestra or whatever, it's someone with a lot of money with money problems. So it's not really money problems. It's not like you're going to be homeless money problems,

but it's an issue where you're like, I might lose some of my money. And I think that that is typically what happens in sitcoms is it's like there's a firm upper middle class grounding with like sometimes it's like, we can't afford this second car, you know? Right. It's like they're not wrong with the ratcheting up TV creators are not wrong to go along with this ratcheting up of stakes, particularly in a highly competitive marketplace, right? And so the idea that the problems that a billionaire has are a billion times more stressful

than the problems that a hundred error has. Sure. But, you know, when Abby and Alana in Broad City, like, buy a dress at a sample sale and they didn't take off the little security tag, and then they have to deal with that, that can be just as rich subject matter as buying the third yacht. Yeah, right. And maybe a little bit more approachable. Will Axe get on the yacht? Yeah, I mean, or will Axe get Metallica on the yacht before Rob Morrow has to go? Yeah.

Because he has a lunch across town. it's interesting and it definitely bears watching. I recommend people check out this episode of Blackish, but also Carmichael Show when it comes back in a few weeks to NBC. Okay, Andy, the fourth thing we wanted to talk about today was this band of 1975, and I really wanted to talk about it for one specific reason, because over the last couple of days, I feel like it's been inescapable that this record is coming out. Can you tell me what the name of this thing is?

Because it's very funny. It is so funny. I'm going to have to look it up. So you keep talking about it, and I will deliver a dramatic reading of what it's called. Well, I have a sort of favorite Andy anecdote from our music criticism days, and that has to do with when you were writing about... So what's the name of the album? Are you ready? Yeah.

Are you sitting down? I think so. I like it when you sleep, for you are so beautiful yet so unaware of it. That was the creepiest thing I've ever heard. Don't ever talk like that again. That's a record title in 2016. That is the name of these dudes album. They didn't just think of it.

They had to write it down and give it to their lawyers and be like, no, we're serious about this. Anyway, continue. These guys have been in my face all week online, and I've noticed just an incredible amount of PR and marketing force behind them. And one of my favorite stories that you used to tell was when you were working on, I think, either a feature or maybe it was part of your book when you were talking to dashboard confessional. a lot and I think remind me this is was I don't know if Jimmy Iovine I've been told you this or whether you had just heard it second hand but it was basically this concept of pushing the button on a band yeah yeah so tell right it was the idea so so so basically dashboard was on the on the brink of what a lot of people assume would be major stardom and vagran was about to enter

into a deal with that was the indie label the dashboard was on with Interscope records which at the time was the biggest of the big labels like 50 set was on in the interscoveying a Aftermath, yeah. And taking a share of vagrant, basically, so that they could share in the profits of dashboard and also be responsible for the push. And, yeah, that was the idea. Like, I mean, I went to see dashboard playing shows with, I think Weezer. And I wrote all about this in the book I wrote. But I mean, like, took a helicopter from L.A. to Phoenix to see the show, came back stage to Glad Hand, shook my hand, and said, congratulations, great show.

and and then and then talk to Chris Garaba for a while and afterwards I talked to Chris and he was just like very non-plus he was just like that's I'm I'm his golden guy right now like he is now like they everything is lined up and he will push the promotional button and the entire machinery will turn and push me and then if I you know until I fall off the ledge basically they start pushing someone else yeah and I've noticed that the main promotional arm behind this 1975 record which is you know I we could talk about about the music in a second, it has really been Apple Music, and it's the first, I think the other major artists that they, not major artists, but the other artist that they really tried to break was Halsey, and they had varying results with that. I don't really know what she wound up selling. I feel like the, I mostly heard about Halsey on Apple Music, so it's hard to say. Do you know what you could do? You know what you could do with what Halsey sold? You could stack them up and make a delicious pizza oven because you put the wood around the bricks that she dropped, and you could get a delicious char.

Deep dish. You know, you could really, because it has to be hot, you know, to get the, to get the cheese melted and get that nice chew on the bottom part of the pizza, that's what you want. Yeah. You can't be, you have to be at least like six, seven hundred, maybe even 900 degrees in there. So brick really conducts heat well, is what I'm saying. Well, I don't have a lot of ventilation in my apartment, so I can't really have that Halsey record around.

But, you know, they, the 1975 played like a concert in, sort of in, among the L.A. skyline, like, on top of a building in Los Angeles, and then, like, you could see the downtown Los Angeles skyline from it. And I think they've been on the Zane Loz show a couple of times, you know, and they just were really pushing this record really hard. The funny thing about this band is that it's definitely the kind of band you and I would have been, like, super into in 1996. Like, a band that was experimenting with lush, lush pop sounds

while also being, like, neurotic and hyperliterate in their lyrics. it's not exactly connecting with me and also singing about drugs. And being English. And being English. And being English. Yeah. To me, the record's not really connecting with me, but I am interested in how they're being sold on two tracks right now. So, like, there's one that's like,

this is just the pure pop version, and this guy never wears a shirt and he's really adorable, and you should just be into them as a pop band. And then on the side or, like, on another track, it's like, this is, you know, we're trying to, like, get that Morrissey burn off of the sky where it's like he is a doomed poet for his generation. I don't know if either of those paths are going to work, but it is interesting to watch it happen. It's like British scientists locked them away for 15 years being like, the verves should have worked, but they didn't. Why is that? And then they came out of the lab and they were with these guys. Now, I don't, I don't mean to bag on them too much.

Like the first record a couple years ago had a song called Chocolate that I think was pretty good. but I think it is almost impossible to listen to this music or, you know, stand in the middle of this PR deluge and just not be overwhelmed by the thirst, by the record company thirst. Like, this is the thirstiest I've seen a major label be in a really, really long time that, you know, we don't have any major rock bands. We absolutely, desperately, desperately need to create one here. And I, you know, I'm reading the press stuff about this record, reading reviews of it. and all of them talk about how the first 1975 album went platinum. And to that, I'd like to say, yeah, fucking right. Now, I don't know your sound scan figures.

You know, I don't know where your diamonds on the wall come from. But I kind of want to, it makes me think about, there's a comedian named Joe Mandy, who used to write on Parks and Rec, and he's a very funny guy. And this dude has one million Twitter followers, okay? And he is very upfront about the fact that he spent like 200 bucks and bought 700,000 of them. and that's what he did and now he has a million Twitter followers.

Even so, even though I know he did that, every time I see a tweet from him in my feed, I'm like, oh, I should pay attention to that because he has a million followers even if nearly all of them are sex bots. So, I just don't, I just don't buy this.

You know what I mean? Especially because, and again, none of that matters because PR blasts or PR blasts, when someone pushes the button, good for them, like, I would like the record industry to succeed. And we're having this conversation a week or so after we went off about how we wish rock music or whatever passes of rock music was relevant in 2016. But I listened to this record, my man. I listened to this record. And I was like, are you serious? Maybe we just weren't for real.

These times, man, maybe we're too old. But I like, I don't understand. Like I talk about what I want and then I hear it and I'm horrified. Because I think I've said to you into the same microphone many times how I would like a rock band to engage with pop music, to pay attention to what's on the radio, to try and do something from their point of view that is part of that same conversation. To engage with black music or R&B music or dance music or the 80s. And then you hear some of their songs and it's just like, oh, they listen to Bowie's Let's Dance and started giggling. Like, what's the song that people like? The sound?

Yeah. That's their jam. That's fine. That's fine, okay? But that song is so sexless, it makes Bell and Sebastian sound like Al Green. It's just, I can't believe this is what we're doing right now. And call me, call me when this record goes gold. That's a strong verdict.

Andy, let's wrap up by quickly talking about the Oscars. They're coming this Sunday night. And we haven't really talked about it much. I wasn't really sure where your head was at with it. I want to say, let's say what is one thing you hope to see on Sunday night? I hope to see Sylvester Stallone thank Ryan Cougler and Aaron Covington and Michael Jordan for allowing him to be the avatar

of their enormous success And I know it wasn't, he did thank them at the Globes but it was just like the camera had gotten cut off by the time he thanked them Just start saying their names when you get your name called Like just start saying Ryan Cougler, Michael B. Jordan at your seat and keep saying it as you walk up to the stage And as you walk to the microphone, just be saying, Ryan Cougler, Ryan Cougar, Michael B Jordan, Michael B Jordan, and then be like, great.

Now you can thank everybody else. Everyone should say that. The closer we get to the Oscars, the more it actually does boggle my mind that that movie wasn't nominated for anything else, considering just how successful it was on its own terms and it being exactly the movie that the Academy loves to celebrate. I mean, I'm curious your answer to this. I find this, I think it's just, it's a strange, sour vibe around these Oscars. And it's not just because of the fact that people have been, I think, it's. the large part correctly paying attention to the enormous racial disparity of the nominees. These movies, they're B-minuses. They're fine. Like, I think Spotlight is the best movie nominated

for Best Picture, but it's hard to get your dander up about it because it is a intentionally subtle, small, pointed movie. You know, beyond that, it's a coronation. Like, I'm ready to see the Queen Alicia Vikander win. I hope that happens. But it's not because I saw her in the Danish girl because I have no interest in seeing that movie. I just like her an ex machina. You know, and I just think she seems like a fool actor. By the way, we have not talked about, I watched that movie on a plane for you, my man. We'll save that for a special episode. I think that I'm happy to see Bree Larson win too because I think she's amazing. My dream is that Leonardo DiCaprio is going to win his Oscar on Sunday. This is part of the problem is that

it's kind of foregone conclusions. Revenant's going to win everything. Leonardo's going to win. Brearson's going to win. Elisha Vincandr's going to win. All these things are kind of locked. And this is the problem that Oscars has is that by the time they actually get around to having them, people have sort of figured out what's going to happen beforehand. So you're really just watching a four-hour pageant. I would love to see real Leo show up on the stage. We're going to get a guy who goes up and is just like, thanks to Martin Scorsese,

thanks to Alejandro for giving me this opportunity, my mother, all the people of working, blah, blah, and then he's going to try and save Walden Pond. But I would love to see Yacht Leo show up, Vap God, standing on stage the patron saint of Israeli models and just be like, I finally won bitches and just like accidentally like just basically go up in a puff of vapes of e-cigarette smoke. No, do you know how he disappears?

David fucking Blaine shows up and talks a smoke bomb and goes magic. That's right. I can't think of a better way. We'll probably talk more about how we'd fix the Oscars on Monday when we come back for the regular watch episode. as always, thank you so much. It's been a blast talking to you. I'm going to go turn on this 1975 record

and think about mortality and join a retirement community. Maybe Sam Piper, somewhere nice in the Southwest. Great job, Varensky. Thanks for listening. We just want to thank our sponsors, Home Chef again. With Home Chef, you get all the fresh ingredients you need plus chef-designed recipes to cook restaurant-grade meals

in under 30 minutes. It's nutrient-dense, perfectly portioned meals, tailored to your unique dietary needs, whether that's gluten-free, vegetarian, low cow, low carb, all those options are available. Meal kits are delivered straight to your door weekly for under $10 per meal. Visit homechef.com slash BSPN and use promo code BSPN at checkout for $20 off. That's homechef.com slash BSPN, promo code BSPN.

Rediscover Home Cooking with Home Chef.