The Watch - ‘The Predator’ and ‘Friday Night Lights’ Are Coming Back! Plus, Stephen Malkmus Stops By | The Watch (Ep. 256)

Episode Date: May 11, 2018

The Ringer’s Chris Ryan and Andy Greenwald express their excitement over the new trailer for the upcoming* reboot of the classic sci-fi action thriller ‘The Predator’ (3:11) as well as the return of ‘Friday Night Lights’ (25:00). They also discuss their affection for BBC America’s hit show ‘Killing Eve’ (33:50). Later, Chris and Andy chat with indie rocker Stephen Malkmus about the heyday of Pavement and his new album with the Jicks (47:08). Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

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slash watch for $50 off your first meal kit. That's greenchef.us slash WATCHH for $50 off. Today's episode of the watch is brought to you by Microsoft Teams. Microsoft Teams is your hub for teamwork and Office 365. With so much to look after, wouldn't it be great if there was just one place to look? Teams is that single workspace where you can work, share, and connect with people in your work life. Teams brings together your chats, meetings, files, and apps all in one place. Take teamwork where you work with apps for mobile and desktop. So whether you're sprinting towards a deadline or sharing your next big idea, teams can help you and your team achieve even more.

Microsoft Teams in Office 365, visit office.com slash teams to learn more. Hey guys, welcome to today's episode of The Watch. Andy and I covered a ton today. Gosh, we talked about the new trailer for Shane Blacks, The Predator, starring the big homie Boyd Holbrook and Olivia Munn and the little homie Jacob Tremblay. We were pretty excited about that, but that led to a larger conversation

about the state of various reboots and reimagining. So we also talked about that Friday Night Lights movie that got announced this week with David Gordon Green attached. We also discussed the Americans and Killing Eve. And we wrapped up the podcast with an interview with one of our favorite musicians, Stephen Malchamist. You may know him from the band Pavement,

huge indie rock band in the 90s and early. I guess they ended in 99. So it's a 90s band. He's obviously put out a string of fantastic albums with his band The Jicks over the years and his solo records. He's got a new record coming out on Matador records called Sparkle Hard. You should definitely check that out. It's really, really good.

Lindsay Zolads has a feature on Stephen Malchmus on The Ringer.com. And there's a lot of great stuff on The Ringer this week, including some incredible NBA stuff. I really would highly recommend John Gonzalez's feature on Mo Bamba, which I know maybe watch listeners and are like, that's not PTV, bro. But it is. It's really good stuff. He's a draft prospect.

John got to spend 14 hours with. The Ringer Podcast Network is on and popping. As usual, the Dave Chang Show is great. Check it out if you want to know what it's like to open a restaurant in 2018. It's a pretty amazing journey. Dave Chang Show, subscribe to that. And also, Westworld, The Recapables with David Shoemaker and our Recapables episodes on Billions and Atlanta. Amanda Dobbins doing great work on Atlanta, rotating cast of characters on the Billions Pod.

Those shows are winding down. So get caught up. Make sure you've got them walking you through everything. And obviously, Westworld's just getting started. We'll talk about that on Monday. Let's get into this Narcos Expanded Universe. I need sports to have to clear the room. Stand up and walk now.

Hello, and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I'm an editor at the ringer.com. And joining me in the studio, it's cocaine, Mitch. It's in... I bet people were at home, and they were thinking, like, what's on the docket? There's a lot of TV. I know.

And we didn't touch Killing Eve on Monday. There's some interviews. People may know we have piled up. But I think over the years we've been doing this podcast, which is like six years now, six plus. Yeah. They know that you care about plus or minus two things. Yeah. You care about crime fiction and you care about the West Virginia senatorial map.

Yeah. A lot of people who know me know this. Everybody who knows me knows this. I am the Rukmini Kalamachi of Narcos. And that means this episode of the watch is my caliphate. Wow. Because the narcos, like not necessarily narcos, which is coming back for season four. And I'm really excited about that.

Yeah. But outside of that, there's just been movements on the margins of the narcoverse. Uh-huh. Now, you mentioned the West Virginia senatorial race. That's what I'm always doing. Somehow Mitch McConnell got dragged in. Like, I read some articles about this, but basically like a dude who seems like Satan was running for the Republican primary in West Virginia.

Don Blankenship. You kill a couple of people in a mine and all of a sudden you're a bad guy. Allegedly, right? No, he was convicted. Because election night, he also was like paroled. Okay, so that guy's evil. And then he said that Mitch McConnell had his hands on some blow that was like on a boat that belonged to Mitch. Allegedly. Allegedly.

And then Mitch McConnell, when Don Blankenship lost, team Mitch. tweeted a narcos meme at Blankenship and said, thanks for playing, Don. Like, we live in a hellscape simulation that is like one part Hunter Thompson acid trip and another part season two of Narcos. Do you think, do winners and losers here? Obviously, we all lost.

Yeah, America. Who wins here? Does McConnell Digital Team, do they win? I don't know. They got their memes off. Is that their job? Yes. That's what a digital team?

That's it. They put Mitch's face on. a Pablo Escobar body, and it was the poster for Narcos season two, and it said, thanks for playing Don. Do you think the next move for Bo Willemann, late of House of Cards, is to just write a movie about a Senate majority leader who is also hashtag a Coke Lord? If it was called Cocaine Mitch, I definitely think you'd get some engage on that. I think there would be some interest in there.

Do you think Narcos and Netflix, are they winners or losers here? Oh, huge winners. Okay, talk about it. Talk about the media marketing strategy here. Because it's permeated our national discourse now, man. Like that's... Are you saying? People talk about what...

We don't know what shows on Netflix are popular. We do. Narcos is popular. I thought you were suggesting that until this moment, until Narcos was renewed for season four, cocaine had yet to permeate American culture in a meaningful way. And so you were suggesting... Yeah, no, that's not what I was saying.

Okay. Other news on the Narcos tip. Great. And this brings us to sort of a more serious conversation. Oh, good. Other than suggesting, basically alleging that the majority leader of the United States Senate has his hands in the pot. He doesn't. I'm sure he doesn't.

I'm sure he's in spick and span hands. But the next bit we want to get to is that the star, one of the stars, the first two seasons of Narcos and a personal favorite. Will we go as far as to say a watch favorite? This is, by the way, this is next level. gymnastics you're doing to get to this. No, it's not. It's like we're talking about how narcos, it's the ripple effect of narcos.

Boyd Holbrook. That's your man. Is in The Predator, which trailer just dropped today. Directed and written by Shane Black, who was in the original version of the film back in the 80s. As an actor. As an actor.

Now he's known best as theuteur behind Iron Man 3. Yes. Shane Black directed this version. It stars Boyd Holbrook as an assassin. Jacob Tremblay as a boy Okay, that's kind of outside of his wheelhouse Olivia Munn as a scientist And Sterling K. Brown as a dude

In a suit? Who wears a jacket, yeah. And there are a couple other people that you're not mentioning. Go ahead. Theon Greyjoy is in this movie? Like, don't pull the nets in before they're full of them. Keegan Michael Key is in this movie?

Yes, yes he is. The trailer dropped today, it's Thursday, it's giving me life. super excited for the predator. Now, people talk about, how do you want to approach this? Well, I have a question. Let's just talk about this project.

Then I want to talk culturally about it. I thought, I didn't know that this was being just put out there as the predator. I thought this was like, more predators or here they come, the predators. It's basically going back to this, to the source material. And Shane Black, who I lovingly said

made Iron Man 3, which is low-key, one of our favorite Marvel Universe movies, also wrote Lethal. weapon movies. And Kiss Kiss Kiss Bang Bang, which he directed, yeah. And many other ghost wrote, a lot of things, who sort of the original, the original bad boys screenwriting. The Last Boy Scout, yeah. And is a personal favorite of both of us. And so they handed him the keys and it looks like he did something worthwhile with it. Yeah, I'm curious to see what people think of this because obviously the question here would be why. Why do we need to go back to the predator?

By the way, that's the magic undoing question of all pop culture in 2018. Well, we're going to to that because it's been sort of hanging over a couple of news stories this week in culture. But I don't know. I mean, when people talk about like this sort of longing for the way Hollywood used to be in the 80s and the 90s and the sort of middlebrow stuff, like I like the hand that rocks the cradle as much as the next person, I enjoy like a good thriller. But I also really do miss these kind of brassy, profane, violent action movies in a big way. And I mean, I probably wouldn't be able to discern whether they're good or not anyway, the diehards, the underseges, all these movies,

because they were such a part of my childhood anyway, that I basically grew up on them. So to see something that kind of seems to have that vibe and that energy is really exciting. Yeah, I just think, I mean, a longtime listener to this podcast would not expect me to have a soft spot for the predator or a reboot of the predator. Despite my affection for Jacob Trembly playing, boys, which is really a good look for him. Did you say you're a Tremblay completest

at this point? I mean, does that require watching twos of movies? I don't know. Has he been working? I think he's been in three movies. Okay. Yeah. Room, the predator, and some other one. It was like Wonder or something. Yeah, Wonder. I didn't see that. You want to check that out and come back? Like, do you want to just take a quick... Zach, can we get a quick 65? Chris is going to go watch Wonder. But,

but I think that this This trailer was exciting and it's exciting for the same reasons that you touched on, which is there is an entire genre of films that were defining for you, for me, for our generation. Shout out to West Coast video. These are the movies that you got to watch at sleepovers in middle school or before middle school, frankly, way before you were supposed to watch them. You mentioned Die Hard, Predator, Total Recall. Early Cable movie favorites too.

Yeah. Yeah. Not Josh Brolin Cable. No, it's just like when you first got HBO. Yeah, and they were on all the time. And Die Hard would just be on and you'd watch it for an entire summer. And to the say, I've seen Die Hard more than maybe any other movie. And I do not regret that use of my time, one bit.

But I was thinking about this and I was thinking about when we wanted to watch things communally and we wanted to just, you know, I don't know if we would have verbalized it because we were kids, but we wanted to have a lot of fun or see something that was extreme in any number of ways. we weren't checking for the CGI. Now, CGI didn't exist, but we weren't checking for special effects. What we were checking for was this weird blend of testosterone and humor. Humor and weird community spirit between groups of roughnecks.

I don't know. There was something appealing about these movies in a way that was just, I don't want to say it was pure because a lot of these movies were not considered to be great, although some of them really are. And we've gotten so far away from that. And I was thinking when I was watching this trailer that one of the reasons why horror movies, I think, remains so successful,

and I say this as someone who watches literally zeros of them. It's not just that they are constantly adaptable to the cultural moment, you know, one of the most pliable genres out there. It's because I think the spirit in which people go to see them is relatively unchanged. Whereas the spirit of action movies has really been split

because that corner has been eaten up by the comic book tent pole movie. And then the rest of it is the expendables. Yeah. Am I missing something? Some fast, I think Fast and Furious is kind of taken over a lot of that. And then I think that there is like John Wick,

which is the probably most mainstream version of a lot of stuff that came out of like Hong Kong or the raid movies. Which is a little bit more hardcore. You know, the funny thing you're mentioning with the West Coast video stuff, is like, and I, you know, dare say that a psychiatrist could make a lot of money in analyzing the true impact that this had on me. But you're talking about like the camarader between roughnecks. Movies like The Predator or sorry, we keep on it. Predator is the first one. This is called The Predator, the new one is.

But movies like Predator were gloriously inappropriate to watch when I watched them. Oh, me too. Like not only now looking back where I was like, there's just like a lot of like oiled up Carl Weathers and sunny. Landon and Jesse Ventura. I remember what happens to those guys in that movie. And then Bill Duke praying over Jesse Ventura's emptied out corpse. He's just like, I'm going to find him. I'm making bleed.

The Republican voters of Minnesota can relate. So there's like, there's that. There's like real extreme violence that I don't think I ever quite process. Like when Carl Weathers gets his arm torn off, but the machine gun is still shooting. I remember that. Like, these are the things, if you were to flip through the scrapbook of my pre-adolescent memory, large swaths of the book are Carl Weather's rippled bicep triggering M16 rounds in the Costa Rican jungle or wherever it was. Yeah.

This is probably not okay, but there are worse things, is my point here. And it'll be particularly interesting to see, I mean, Chain Black, I think, has the, the, the, and the swagger to basically grab. He kind of did it with Iron Man 3 too, which is to say, I know that all of these things are supposed to connect to 100 other movies and to do well across all quadrants of the earth

and they need to be PG-13, blah, blah, blah, and sort of ignore all of that to as much as he could. This kind of seems that way to me too, and it'll be very interesting to see if he was successfully able to Frankenstein all of the threads of 80s filmmaking that he comes from and that appeals to him, including the Spielbergian,

there's a little kid at the heart of this. I never watched a predator movie and I was like, I really need a kid involved in this. Other than yourself, underneath a quilt, at some kid's house in Havertown, watching this on an 8-inch television. Putting baby oil on my pubescent bicep and being like smoking a cigar. No, I just think that, like,

this trailer opens up with Jacob Tremblay, like opening a box with like a predator homing beacon inside of it. Yeah. And I'm just kind of like, well, like, I mean, Is he necessary to be putting in this situation? I don't care. Really, I don't care. I'm excited for Boyd.

I'm excited for the science of Olivia Munn. This is going to be amazing. There's another thing here, too, though. In this trailer, there's one shot of, well, there are a couple shots, but there's one moment where Sterling K. Brown is just, like, has a big reaction shot. Like, get a load of this asshole. And I'm like, these guys got it. Like, they understood what movie they were in, which is a key part of all these things.

This shame black communicating what kind of movie he wants to make is. Absolutely. at this point in our podcast how much of what we do is reading the tea leaves of trailers for some sense of people being in on the various jokes or being or some sense of trying to corral the bucking bronco

of multi-quadron IP. Yeah. Take that or leave it, but weirdly, you can call me on this when I fully don't see this movie the day it opens like everyone else. But I'm gonna blackbag you. We're going to this. Can we bring a quilt? Yeah, sure. It was

It was intriguing and it was kind of heartening. In other news from the Department of Possibly Unnecessary Remakes and Reboots, one of the stranger stories that I've come across, there's two really strange stories this week. One, competing Leonard Bernstein. That's hot IP. Yeah, competing Leonard Bernstein movies, one starring Jake Gyllenha directed by Carrie Fukunaga,

one starring and directed by Bradley Cooper. Which one do you want to see? And I heard that there were two scripts. There was a Mark Singer script that one of the guy working. on the post with Liz Hanna. And then there was another one out there, and that's the one that Fukenaga is making with... And I have to imagine,

unless we're heading for another pre-Fontaine situation, that one of these movies will, like, actually happen and the other one will, right? I no longer know what applies anymore. Right. You know, that would make almost too much sense. I mean, we are living in a world... The Birsteinverse could support two movies.

I just don't know if they both need to come out at the same time. 1,000%. I mean, we are living in a world where the Getty kidnapping spawned 12 hours of entertainment in a six-month period. Yeah. So that was a strange story. And another strange story was definitely this Friday Night Lights news. Okay. So for people who haven't seen it, Friday Night Lights, David Gordon Green, great filmmaker, directed Stronger, directed Stronger, directed Pineapple Express, worked a lot on Eastbound and Down, directed a lovely movie called All the Real Girls a long time ago that I'm still fond of.

he has been hired to direct a Friday Night Lights movie. What are you talking about, Chris? Well, I don't know because this is one of the stranger releases. Obviously, there has been, I would say, an uptick in interest in Friday Night Lights over the last, what has been eight, seven or eight years since it's gone off the air. Maybe longer, right? Less. Less. Yeah.

Well, in any case, it's a show that's lived on. It's streaming on Hulu now. Obviously, people have fallen in love with it. several people from the show have gone on to huge careers like Taylor Kitch and Michael B. Jordan. Kyle Chandler's having a good career. Connie Britton's still out in there in the mix. Jesse Plymonds? Jesse Plemons, obviously.

Weirdly the biggest star. They're not making a show about the Taylor's. They're not making a movie about the Taylor's. They're not going to reboot. Which was in the mix for a minute, though I think that was kind of a poor idea. That had been talked about. What's going to happen with the Taylor's now that I think they're in Philadelphia at the end of Friday Night Nighterites, right? Yeah, they moved to the city of champions.

Yeah. I mean, recent history excluded. Right. So do you think Eric Taylor worked on Doug Peterson's staff in the Friday Night Lights timeline that we're talking about? Could you imagine a better quality control coach? Oh my God. Wait, do you think, can we pitch this? Don't you think Eric Taylor would have worked in the room with Frank Reich and Joe DePhilippo? Yeah, do you think that he created the Philly Special Play? I think he drew that up. Whoa. Whoa. What? I think so. I mean, why not? Right? He just walks right up to him and he just goes, hey, Philly's special.

They're like, who's this guy? They're like, who's this guy with the sunglasses? It's cold. Anyway, they are not going to make a smash and Riggs and Julie and Saracen show or a movie. They are not going to continue in the, I think it was late 80s, the 80s that was the Billy Bob Thornton, Peter Berg movie version. It is basically a Texas high school. football movie. A reimagining a new story, new characters, I think even like not Odessa or Dylan, which

is it is in the show. Is this just like an excuse because like David Gordon Green was like, I want to make a football movie and they were like, well, we have Friday Night Lights? Or do they go to David Gordon Green and say, hey, do you have a take on Friday Night Lights? My guess is that it's the latter. I mean, he just did Halloween. You know, he's playing with toys that interest him. That is what a successful director can do it, you know, in today's Hollywood.

I'm not really mad at this because there is room for more. Sure. There's room for more stories, you know, given with a certain spirit, with a certain focus on, you know, on young people, on athletics, obviously, but also race and class that play into the story that was all the way, that was there in Buzz Bissinger's book that started this whole thing. Yeah. That set. And also, I'm here for David Gordon. Green is a filmmaker. He always makes interesting thoughtful choices in whatever

type of project he's working on. He's a really good and interesting filmmaker. I will say that it does seem like a little bit of a missed opportunity only because we have a phenomenal exploration of that world.

We have two. I mean, the Peter Berg version, and then I think the show started a little bit with Peter Berg's vision, but very much became a Jason Cadence. Yeah, I think Berg came up. I think Berg worked on the let's have three cameras going in this room. Yeah, his direction style was there. And you guys, we don't have to worry about blocking.

We can just cut around it. And then the dialogue and a lot of this, we have a story, but we don't necessarily have the dialogue nailed down. I guess what I'm saying is I wouldn't have minded seeing a Ryan Cookeller version of this. Now, my guess is the studio thought so too. Sure.

And he said, I'm very busy for the next 20 to 35 years. But it does seem like a missed opportunity if you're going to create something that could be reused and retold in different ways, which again, I'm saying, it should be. This is a rich, there's a rich opportunity here for an anthology film series, basically, of different visions of life.

I kind of wish that they had someone with different eyesight. I have no idea whether or not this is the case with this property, but I think it's worth mentioning to our listeners that a lot of the times when you see weird activity that seems inexplicable like this, it could have something to do with the rights. And the rights reverting, the rights lapsing. That often happens with superhero stuff, where they have to get stuff going on certain characters or certain

lines or certain with certain companies because pretty soon it'll revert. If Sony or Fox, well, Sony did give Spider-Man essentially back to Marvel and a sharing agreement, but if Fox doesn't keep Fantastic 4 IP and X-Men IP in development for a certain amount of time, it reverts to Marvel. And obviously, I mean, Friday Night Lights has been a very rewarding property. I don't know if it's ever been like a blockbuster, but it's something that clearly has a really dedicated fan base, even from the movie made like around $60 million. The show struggled for ratings, but has become one of the most beloved shows of the century, I would say.

But it's interesting. It's very interesting. I was thinking about the same thing with the rights issues with Fox has ordered the passage to series. And it sounds like without giving much away about the books, although Andy and I've talked about the passage pretty extensively in the past. Justin Cronin future dystopian vampire novels. Yeah. That the show that they described really applies to like the first 80 pages of the passage. So I'm curious to see what happens with that, but I wonder what they've been trying to make this. Ridley Scott was going to make it. Gosh, a bunch of people have been attached to it.

It passed through a lot of hands before ending on TV. And then it was curious that it ended up on broadcast TV. But they seemed passionate about trying that. I mean, it was a big swing. But it's also the kind of big swing that predates the Disney move that is likely to decimate the original content on Fox. How so? Well, we talked about this before, but.

Well, that is unless Comcast, facts. Well, who knows what's going to happen. But basically, Rupert Murdoch was retaining ownership of the network, but selling the studio to Disney. I see. And it all of a sudden it become, you know, increasingly in order to be a viable entity on either on broadcast or on cable, you need to own what you create. We own what you broadcast so you can have it during its whole life cycle because that's where the profits are. So it's sort of a weird, it would potentially, if the Disney deal went through it would leave fox as this sort of shadow entity. And that's why there was a lot of thought that it

would go much harder into reality, much harder into sports and even some news because why would they be because it just wouldn't be financially viable. Yeah, they've only like greenlit a couple of series over the last couple of years, right? Well, the Orville. Well, no, I mean, this is this would have been the first year reflecting the new reality, but then they can't even move forward in that reality because they don't know what's going on. But it was noteworthy that some very expensive shows were ended today like Last Man on Earth and Brooklyn 99.

Brooklyn 99 is an example of a show that does well for them is critically really critically loved. It has a passionate fan base and it's owned by Universal and it's very expensive. And I think maybe in a different universe

they would have figured something out but maybe this is just one of the times they have to cut the court. One Friday Night Lights thing that I wanted to bring up in the spirit of the larger conversation. I'm just spitballing here, so come up with something different.

You're going to spitball something other than Coach Taylor's post Friday Night's Life that involved him joining Doug Peterson's staff? Oh, no, I'm going to go pitch that right as soon as this is over with. You have to understand that. Can you think of a cast, television cast, a beloved cast, that could be more easily plugged into other franchises? What I mean is the cast of Friday Night Lights the television show would make a terrific predator movie. Oh, I mean, I would watch a Shonda show with that cast.

Yes. I would watch a procedural with that cast. I would watch like, you know, kind of like romantic brothers and sisters, like, you know, drama. So you would watch that cast in every show on the ABC. I can't think of a single show that I wouldn't watch that featured Taylor Kitch, Michael B. Jordan, you know, Adrian Pallagy, like all those things. Minkie Kelly, Connie Britton. Yeah.

That's kind of a thing. Like, they should just sign them up as a traveling review and just plug it into the franchises. Why don't they have an F&L repertory company in just like every three or four years they do a show? But it doesn't have to be a football show. You know who is getting very excited about this idea? Who?

The dude who played voodoo. He was on a show. What was he on? I feel like he's in the like the librarians. What's that show? The library. You mean Noah Wiley is? The librarians.

Yeah. I can't remember which show that dude was on. Voodoo kept eating, though. Yeah. He's still out there. Okay. Okay, let's quickly talk about killing Eve before we get to our Malcolmus interview.

I had one other thing. Sure. We're recording on Thursday. Last night, The Americans, the show on FX in its final season aired. It's the seventh episode. There are three to go. I feel,

I would feel remiss if I didn't make a note of this. Sure. Even though, you know, you're the backboard right now, and I'm just hitting balls. You know what I mean? I'm just training. I'm young Agassi here. You give me some stuff to work with it. I'll see if I can volley with you. Well, the big thing was this was, it's been a really fascinating season because I talked about this with Alison Herman, a little bit with Rob Hardvilla last year. This was, I think, the best drama on TV,

my favorite show on TV. Season 5 felt like a really big missed opportunity. And for me, the beginning of this final season felt kind of of a piece with that. That was the season when a lot of the things that I'd been praising for a long time as features started to feel more like bugs. Yeah. The show's disdain for traditional act-out and dramatic beats. It's sort of disinterest in the busy work of plot that usually keeps things going. This season five just felt completely inert in a lot of ways.

And kind of in a similar pattern to some episodes that I had praised for being like, this show won't play the game of TV. Right, right. And this I was like, no, no, you got to play, you got to at least put on a jersey. You know, I don't know what you're doing. And I think that Alan Sepenwall, in his criticism of the show, suggested that shows that get two final season renewals often fall into this trap where there is a, once you get those guaranteed two seasons, you are clearing your throat for one season and then you're letting it all go. Yeah, because, and also we've talked a lot before about the new model for a lot of television now is use everything you have on your whiteboard as fast as you can. Yes.

Don't save anything for like season three when you don't know whether or not this actor is still going to be. popular or are going to be on the show, you might get canceled. Who knows what's going to happen? And there's another factor that that's the point that I definitely want to to go back to because for the beginning of this season, I couldn't believe my reaction to a lot of the episodes because there was an episode where the dramatic act out, the end of the episode, the last beat that should leave you breathless for the next week, was a close-up of a sandwich. Was it like a poison sandwich?

No. It was a Russian sandwich? Nope. A cold-cut sandwich that Philip Jennings had made. after he had had a flashback to a time when he had to eat gruel or worse in a black and white flashback to his childhood in Russia. I got it pretty good in America? He didn't even. The camera lingered on it as if to say, well, at least you can get Mordadella.

So I didn't know what was going on. Now, all of a sudden, in the last three weeks, the show unpaused itself and lurched forward to a degree that is almost like fast forward. And last night, the episode Harvest was absolutely devastating. It was excruciating to watch. the emotions on the show that were there for so long, they feel like they've been like Jurassic Park, someone finally unfroze them and everything is back again. And all the things that I love so much about the show,

just the way that it foregrounded emotion and particularly familial emotion and the weird complications and interactions between people who enter into these contracts, whether they are with a international actor or whether they're with the man or woman you want to marry. And to have that all rushing back was shocking and gratifying.

And it also, though, really made me wonder about the things that we've accepted for a long time with TV and the things that we no longer do. And what I mean by that is all of a sudden last night, basically, and I apologize there would be a minor spoiler here. Noah Emmerick's character, Stan Beeman, the dog at FBI agent who lives across the street and has become best friends with spies. With Mr. Colcutt, yeah. Kind of figures it out. Finally. And he figures it out with just like a... And you realize that this show, the Americans,

and many shows of its ilk that came around in sort of the post-Golden Rush, Golden Age Rush, predicated on one devious, difficult, dare I say, impossible question are all kind of hinging on one moment like that. They are all one finger snap away from the entire premise crumbling. And again, I think it's to the credit of Joel Fields and Joe Weisberg that they strung it along for this many years, and they strung it along by just having Stan

never think about it again, which is fine, because you can suspend the audience's disbelief when you don't engage with it. But it came so quickly, you know? And you realize that things that we used to take for granted about TV, like, well, of course they're not going to solve the murder

until season seven because it's TV and we're going to spend more time with our friends. Those same points that we, probably you and I could have, maybe we would have made a joke about it happening on Chicago PD or Chicago Fire last week. It's all the same stuff. It's all still happening.

Yeah. And it reminded me of, in my own experience now, when I was talking to our buddy, Sam S-Mail, and his producing partner and laying the groundwork for the pilot I'm making Briar Patch, you know, I kind of had a version, a very conservative-minded version

of what future seasons could be. I don't want to tip my hand too much about anything, but I became the most conservative, I'm pitching Steve Botchco in 1983 version of myself and Sam was like, but why would something else happen to her? That just sounds like TV. I'm like, oh, right. We are not in that world anymore.

Oh, like she would eventually go through some other kind of similar. What's the second murder that happens? You know what I mean? And it was just such a visceral reminder of the disbelief that we've always done with TV and the tradeoff that we've made in this sort of prestige era. I wouldn't trade 95% of the Americans. It's wild that we're just like, let's just do three more seasons of Broad Church. Right.

It's ridiculous, you know, on some deep level. In this case, it was done well. Just story-wise. I mean, like, the actors are incredible. The story is interesting. But do something different. Do the predators in season two or whatever. It was amazing to see this.

And now these last three episodes are going to be wild because they are literally everything that everyone who has watched this show, not everything, they are 50% of what everyone has been watching the show has been waiting for. The other 50% were those slow beats and the time spent with the actors

and the great performances and the details and et cetera, et cetera. But it was really crazy to realize that. And especially, and really instructive because there were a couple podcasts you and I did where we were talking about how half hours were so vibrant and people don't seem to really understand

what the next big hour is and we saw the big move towards anthology series and event series or whatever you want to call them. And I didn't, and the arguments we were always making for those were, well, it's an undervalued resource. You can get actors to sign up, bigger actors do sign up for shorter term projects, et cetera, et cetera. But one of the things that I had never really considered was,

no one's figured out this problem. This is a central problem. Unless you are procedural or about a hospital, you're going to be about the one thing that you're going to have to pay the rent on at some point. So this actually leads pretty well to Killing Eve. Great. Yes, you're right, it does.

Because I know that it's been renewed for a second season, right? It has. And it's been doing great. It's been doing really well for a show that's on BBC America that, you know, not a lot of people are checking for before it started. It is a remarkable show. I love it. I love it unconditionally.

This last episode in which, and we'll talk a little bit about this specifically, so if you aren't caught up, you can skip ahead to do whatever. where the two main characters where Eve and Villanelle actually have a confrontation in Eve's Kitchen. And it is played for both all of the sort of highs that you would get off of that kind of like these two characters are finally face to face and talking. And also the terror that would come from a trained assassin being in your home and essentially letting you know that at any given point she could end your life and the life of everybody you love. was so perfect and Sandra O's reaction to that scene was, you know, she's so traumatized

and she's so scared and everything they do with it is just like incredible. But you do wonder, it's like, what do you do next? What do you do? How do you string this out? Does she just chase her for seasons and seasons and seasons? And this is, this goes to like,

what do you do with Luther? What do you do with these cat and mouse things? when everybody who's watching has so little time to watch everything anyway, but you are giving us what we want. You're already giving us what we want. You're giving us this complex portrait of these two characters who are once obsessed with and repulsed by one another. It's fascinating. It's perfect.

Do you kill the golden goose by stringing it out? In many ways, this is the central question of pop culture, film, pop culture, film and TV. in 2018, where everyone always wants more, and now everyone seems increasingly thrilled to give you more. And, you know, I think it used to be, that was the knock on TV, that there was just always going to be more anyway.

Then we sort of started to move away from it. That's the biggest tension left in the show for me, and I say that as someone who loves the show. Yeah. I love it wholeheartedly. And the only concern I have about it is what you're, what you're bringing out. I think the thing that I'm sort of hearing is I don't want it.

And I don't mean any disrespect to this because I really like this show in the first season, but I don't want it to turn into Orphan Black. No, exactly. I don't want it to turn into, we're going to add seven characters and we're going to have you know, Fiona Shaw's son's going to get an episode. I mean, like, that's fine, but there's a, the way it's constructed now is perfect. And I kind of don't want it to become TV in that way. And there is, there a reward.

to be had on both sides. Sandra O. and Jody Comer are just bringing it. These are two incredible high-level performances happening in concert with each other. When they were finally in the same room as they were in this week, it was electric. It happened at a really perfect time for the show, basically midway through,

which was still sooner than I expected. Frankly, I didn't not understand that the show was going to go from an international espionage assassin show to kind of a serial killer, single white female thing. Sure. And it works.

That said, Matthew Reese's performance on this episode of the Americans last night is not only exceptional. It is exceptional partly because of the time we have all spent engaged with it. Every emotional note that he hit was that the part of the keyboard you can only reach when you've been playing more or less the same melody for six years. Oh, yeah. And it was incredible. And it came with the weight of everything we've spent with him and his own performance. I've been thinking about this a ton with Lost because I think that Lost is only growing

in influence in the way superhero movies and superhero franchises are told, especially as these superhero franchises are confronted with recasting, with sidelining and then bringing back characters and timelines and futures and pasts. And I think a lot about Lost. And part of the reason why,

even if I don't find Marvel movies particularly emotionally stimulating, you still have surface level like, oh, so that's it for Chris Evans soon? Is because you've spent 10 years watching him. And the same thing happened with Lost. Like, Lost actually had so much tape. There was so much tape of the characters in Lost.

You were like, not only am I blown away by we have to go back, but I'm blown away because of like the way I feel about these people. And that's the same thing with what you're talking about, Matthew Reese. There could be an entire bad season of that show. But that's a character you've been watching. I still spent time with them during that year. Yeah, exactly. Like a sports team, I watched the bad season,

and then I was ready for them when they made the playoffs and lost a little early, you know, but still have enough promise and talent to make me excited about it. We also won the Super Bowl. Thanks to Coach Taylor. And Coach Taylor won the Super Bowl for us. I think the one thing that I would say, and maybe we can pick at this over the weeks to come,

is the most successful projects seem to have a really keen sense of exactly what they are. Orphan Black is a really good example of a show that I love that first season. I was really impressed by every aspect, of it, Tatiana Maslani was not worse in the second season. If anything, she was better. But that was a project that was ultimately impossible. There was no way it wasn't going to have diminishing returns.

Other than a kind of hardcore fandom and love of the character and the performances, characters in that case. Killing Eve, this is the big question on it. It is, other than Atlanta, it is the best show on TV right now. But you can see that they're introducing this idea of the 12 and this sort of larger conspiracy. that that could be season two, season three, whatever. I mean, what I would say is, and there's no good answer here,

but part of me hopes that Villanelle and Jody Comer's amazing performance is one season. And then if the show has to become a... Sandra O versus... Sandra O and Fiona Shaw procedural against the 12, against whatever, okay.

Rather than she gets away at the last second at the end of the season and they chase each other through South America. If Phoebe Wallerbridge is writing it and she's writing a ton of things right now, so who knows how much time she'll have to devote to anything, I'm there regardless. But part of me would prefer the kind of creative honesty

that would demand, we are going to do a supernova season, and then we are going to settle. And I'm okay settling. If you're settling at the level of the killing Eve would settle in, I think the danger is when you start really hot, and then there's nowhere else to go. Yeah. And, you know, I think one of the reasons

why Infinity War was successful for us is because it knew what it was. And what it was was, you know, probably the most expensive episode of TV ever made. Sure. In a way. I mean, obviously the production values and the fight scenes or whatever. But the type of storytelling it chose to do, it succeeded within the parameters it set for itself. All right. Well, we're going to take a quick break to hear from our sponsors.

And then we're going to go to our interview with Stephen Malchmus. And we'll be back on Monday, I think, with a special guest. And we'll probably be talking some Westworld. Oh, we're going to talk Westworld, guys. Okay. All right. We'll be back on Monday with Andy. We're going to do our Malchmus interview now. Quick word from our sponsors. Today's episode of The Watch is brought to you by ZipRecruiter. Every business needs great people and a better way to find them. Something better than posting your job online and just praying that the right people see it. ZipRecruiter knew there was a smarter way. So they built a platform that finds the right job candidates for you. ZipRecruiter learns what you're looking for, identifies people with the right experience, and invites them to apply for your job. These invitations have revolutionized how you find your next hire.

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Right now, watch listeners can try ZipRecruiter for free. That's right, free. Just go to ZipRecruiter.com slash watch. That's ziprecruiter.com slash watch. ZipRecruiter.com slash watch ZipRecruiter, the smartest way to hire. I love the smell of Thomas's English muffins in the morning. Because they smell like victory. They smell like breakfast, too.

That's a nice, nice thing. We can get both. In the morning, I get up every day. I salute the flag. Obviously. I do a thousand push-ups. And then I make myself a Thomas's English muffins, nookers and crannies. breakfast. And what that really does is it teaches me the lessons that I need to know for life.

Because life can be hard, but life can be soft. And that's what Thomas is all about. It's got the crunchy outside, but the soft, buttery inside. And that is actually a key to being an adult. Never let them see you cry, but always let them see you love. Can I tell you something? I've never told you before? No, please do. Thomas was my father's name. And... Do you want to know something else? Yeah. My father's name was Cranny.

What? This is not real. Cranny. Ryan. Oh my goodness. No wonder to take, for me, taking a bite of a Thomas's English muffin is like taking a ride on a sled called Rosebud. It takes me to a place emotionally and flavor-wise that I've dreamed of going through. It's like Markgo-posed in an English muffin.

If you're looking for a breakfast, that's worth skipping the snooze button for. Thomas's is the only breakfast brand that delivers a one-of-a-kind eating experience with its original Nooks and Crannies English muffin. There is nothing quite like that Nook gang, that Cran Life texture, perfectly toasted to give you an irresistibly crispy edge

with a soft, warm center. Take it from two true fans for life. The secret to revealing that perfect Nooks and Cranny's goodness every time is to gently pull your Thomas's English muffin halves apart. If you touch it with a knife, I swear to God I will find you. I will hunt you down. I will make it my mission in my life to ruin yours. Use a fork, pull them apart.

As soon as it's done toasting, apply butter, watch the butter melt, nooks and crannies. It pulls right there. It's a flavor delivery system unlike any other. It's a delicious burst of flavor. If you haven't had them already, you have to toast and butter. Some Thomas's Nooks and Crannies English muffins, they are truly like new other. Shows from respect to your father. And my father.

His father and my father. Show some respect to your fathers. Show some respect for the flag. Show some respect for the muffins. And do some push-ups. Andy, before we get into this interview with Stephen Malchmus, I think we should set it up a little bit. He's obviously got a new album out on Madador called Sparkle Hard. Yeah.

Very enjoyable rock record. This is, we've talked to Malchus before. forward. Did you do that last one with us at back at Grantland? No, but I interviewed him in old friend Nils Bernstein's apartment for Spin.com, like in 2000. Yeah, and even beyond that, I think that probably he has

provided more than anybody outside of like Mobb Deep and Wu-Tang Clan, the soundtrack to our friendship. I mean, this is somebody who's been making records throughout the span of our like knowing each other. This is a foundational guy for us. Going back to the point where I think we determined that, but even before

we met, we were at the same pavement show. at the Trocadero ballroom in Philadelphia in 1995. I got to say, I don't know how you felt about it. I was a little intimidated only because this guy's whole brand for when we were young and just looking up to him and worshipping him was that he was basically too cool for any of this. He's inscrutable, yeah, right. Inscrutable and smart and sort of wicked, funny, and sarcastic,

and just wasn't here to play. And what's nice sometimes about meeting people who are your heroes is that they're just people. Yeah. And he couldn't have been nicer. It was really fun to hang out with him for a little bit. He really just wanted to talk sports and parenting, which was nice for me. This was recorded a couple of weeks ago,

so there may be some stray references to a Portland Trailblazers team that promptly got swept by the New Orleans Pelicans. This was pre-playoffs. Yes. So he was very hopeful about CJ McCullum, and it turned out he was wrong. Sparkle Heart is the name of the album. You should definitely go and check out some of his masterpieces like Crooked Rain, Crooked Rain by pavement.

We'll be back on Monday, like I said, special guest, and we'll be doing Westworld for now. check out me and Andy's interview with Stephen Malchamus. And make sure you check out on Friday, Lindsay Zolads' feature on Stephen Malchamus, which sort of talks about his approachability. To us and podcast hosts in general? Just his like settling into being like straight up, you know. Not intimidating? Not intimidating. The dad that we all need. All right. Stephen Malchamus. Chris and I are now we are overjoyed. We're excited to be joined by our guest who moments

ago asked us if we liked the band pavement. The answer to that was yes. A strong Yes. I figured unless you're here to attack me, you know, if you're like Smashing Pumpkins fans that have brought your daggers out. Chris and I are the host of the longest running Stone Temple Pilots podcast in America. We finally have enemy number one, Stephen Malcolm is at the table with us. You have a lot to answer for it. Do you still have a getting some Smashing Pumpkins message board heat? No.

No, okay, good. That's past. No, because they know, I mean, I've said that I'm fans of, I'm multiple fans of one song. I'm a fan of some of their songs and stuff. I never, yeah. Plus, I'm, you know, it's, I know, I've come from an era when we knew it only cost $1,000 to kill someone. They were, you know, a friend who knew a Russian who would do it. Yeah.

Now you need to have multiple bitcoins to pay a Russian to kill someone. That's right. It's tough. More and more of them as the price goes down. Corgan is back out there and you wonder he might need. as he's resurrecting the songs, you might need to resurrect some straw men to beat up. That's true. That's true. It's possible. Yes, we are fans of pavement. We are also fans of your contemporary work with the Jicks.

Sparkle Hart is out. Shire, yell the date to us. We're 18. We're recording this in March. We're recording this in March. So this may have a little bit of into the future prognosticating going on. And we have many questions about the new record and, of course, about the aforementioned band. But I know Chris wanted to start by asking how you felt about the Lakers. You went to the Lakers last night. By this point, they'll be more than eliminated,

and they'll have given... That's fine. They'll be delivered their pick to the sixers, hopefully. I mean, I know that the loss, or the win is maybe a loss at this point, or I'm not exactly, I don't know if a win is a loss for them like it is for the Knicks or the Nets,

or, you know, I'm not sure about what number they have to be to get their pick. It either goes to Boston or Philly, so they're just playing for the pride at this point. It was, I mean, I was really impressed with, vibe in the stadium, the fans were intense.

You got your first taste of Coos mania. Coos was chucking, he looks a little like Matt Barnes when you're as blind as me, which was kind of funny. Just that he's a skinny guy with a lot of tattoos and that's all. It's not often that you get to visit

L.A. from a seat of superiority in Portland. That's true. Sports superiority. Sports superiority, yeah. Here's the question I had. I was thinking about getting a chance to talk to you. And I was thinking about

when I first heard Slanted and Enchanted, I was 15 years old and I fell in love with the record. And it felt totally mysterious and totally cool, which is all that you want from music when you're 15 years old. But also then, when you guys first started to do a little bit of press or there was something in spin or whatever

those first furtive steps towards bright lights were, you seemed very cool and very mysterious in all these interviews. I want to ask you now, because in looking back, I was like, well, you were 25 or something when that happened. Did you feel cool? Did you feel mysterious? No, I mean, we tried to play up some mysteriousness.

And, I mean, we were young people in New York City, and we felt like outsiders a little bit to a really small scene of bands that were kind of like pussy galore and surgery and helmet. There was a very... Like agro? Yeah, agro, but it turned insane. And everyone turned out to be very nice people in those bands. And it was more of a kind of Richard Kern fascination with, yeah, guns and redneck kind of things.

But they all went to nice schools. Yeah, that was like the iconography used. But I didn't realize that, you know, because obviously New York's a big scary city to a suburban boy like me initially. It turns out it wasn't, but I mean it was in some neighborhoods, but not in where I stayed, which was Hoboken. So you were living in New York at the time, because the legend, you know, oh, you were just playing in a garage in Stockton and these songs tumbled out. All that media stuff happened when I was living in New York and going to Maxwell's and seeing bands. And, you know, we're just big fans, and we were fans of fanzhing culture that sort of existed that doesn't, I mean, I guess it exists online, but it's kind of different. there was more sassy, there was a lot of dissing and cutting down on records.

And, you know, there was a, yeah, it was some kind of culture that doesn't exist anymore. So that's where pavement was kind of bred in this world of seven-inch records and fanzines. It's holding together. Both the career and the microphone. I'm a sloucher, so this works. So I think, I don't know how I was, that's really nice of you to say, but I think some, a lot of people didn't think I was cool too. And I want to be cool, like most of us.

Yeah, we're trying. Even a nerd is cool. And I think, yeah, maybe at that time there was a, you know, it wasn't going to be cool. like a heavy metal guy that's, you know, it was like a new paradigm. You could be cool this way, being a little bit literate and

in New York and have into hip records, but... But also you guys had released occasionally, or on and off, you had nicknames, you know, and your name was not in the first record. You had pseudonyms. That was... There was some smeary, like, stuff on the covers. There was definitely an effort, bands that we liked

were a little bit cryptic the like the swell maps was one band they were an English DIY post-punk band groups like wire and kind of mysterious

you know we were definitely signaling that we are in this continuum of groups and so and maybe some people didn't know about that either so it could seem novel to them.

I'm not saying that you did it. When I saw you the first time play live, I don't think I knew what you guys looked like. Yeah, we didn't have a lot of pictures. Right. And I think people, you know, a lot of music that I liked

when I heard like a band like Can or something, you know, I kind of like built this picture. I heard the music and it was dark and it was more, it was, you know, it hinted at a world that was not all rosy you know

I was like this is kind of heavy or something so I was like you know I was like a teenager and I was like wow you know

like this music hints at like more than just the surface and so you know I think I wanted to you have a surface and what's under there

it's a mystery you know so we were trying you know we want to I was like I want to be a band eventually like that

of course we have funny joky afraid songs, you know, afraid of, but also have something under there that's mysterious and maybe the imagery played to that. There's like a possibility that there's like a couple of different things break different ways. And you guys are just a band that maybe Andy and I love the way we love like butter glory or spent, but never like kind of like. I like those groups too.

Yeah, and never kind of like have this outsized with the impact that you guys obviously had. So I was curious whether or not, as somebody who was probably very very. aware of where pavement was at the time when it was happening is as the music industry has changed of the years, do you find any of this stuff particularly surprising? Are there technological revolutions that you sort of are like, I never would have predicted something like this would happen, especially within my lifetime? Or do you feel like it's kind of kicked back now to the place where it's like you can make music for your 200 friends and play these. That's true. That's, I mean, I've heard people like Steve Albini talk about how the platforms

have actually opened the door for many artists because you can get your music straight out to people by a band camp and it's very inexpensive and that there was a chokehold on expensive studio time and only those that were invested in heavily could be heard

with a nice sounding record or do exactly what they want and you can do that now. So I guess that's true. You know, I don't know. I'm not like, I don't have my ear to the street completely in what's going on at the small levels of bands and what people are making of it.

Obviously there's different genres that are more popular now with young people. Young people that might have been similar to me might be more into hip hop or, And maybe not, I don't know how that creates a scene where you all play together in a local town and share your ideas to make something. Yeah, it's like a community. Sure. Which is, you know, in music there are those.

It only takes three or four bands, but, you know, they grow and like Ty Seagall or something in his world. It's very small, but it has an out's a larger impact. Yeah. when you have the OCs and Ty C. And Michael Crona, you know, it's like five bands, but they are a big thing. So I don't know if hip hop works like that. I guess odd future was like that. Yeah, there's like some Atlanta stuff, and there's been times in Atlanta where I feel like that's especially the case.

Yeah, Atlanta for sure. And the role of producers in hip-hop, I think you'll have a guy who's working very heavily in the scene for a while. and he'll show up on a lot of different people's stuff and that'll be a signature throughout it. But yeah, I mean, I was just kind of curious about somebody who, and you know, you've made this like this wonderful new record and, you know, whether or not like this record is made and it's made in the mindset and made with an awareness of the music industry

is the same one. The last record you made, the record you made in 1997 or whether there is any sort of like, oh, there's a different way I have to communicate now as compared. I mean, yeah, sometimes I would talk about some current day things influence my approach, I guess. But they're also related to just to me and what I already did. Yeah. That are not, they're just, it doesn't exist in relation to how people perceive things or my, you know, the vibe that people, who's going to even bother to listen to it or.

something. It feels like for as changed as things are in the industry or what's left of it, some things are constant. And this is one of them that you, when you're making the record, you're writing songs, you're just making them. And then you have to kind of poke your head up and have to fit it into whatever is going on financially. Because I was looking at, again, looking back at some interviews and just across the span of

your career. And one constant is that no one ever really talks about the music. And I feel like there's a focus now in how there's a celebrity, a celebrification of everything. That's normal. Yeah. But every interview with you from the 90s, no matter when it was, is, are they the new REM? Is he feuding with Stone Temple pilots?

Like, are they going pop with Crooked Rain? There's always this larger narrative that you could take around. I mean, I understand that because when I read articles, I like kind of train spottery things about what amps people used. But when people are talking about, like, I wrote this song and it really meant a lot to me. You're selling it. It was, you know, I wanted to do melodic. You know, I kind of glaze over, too. So, you know, my eyes glaze over.

You keep that for, like, tape-op, you know? Yeah. But I do like, I mean, I always do like to hear, like, what studio did you record it in? Yeah. What amps and compressors? But I also know that's, it's similar to sports. You know, I would rather talk about the contracts. and the draft picks

then the actual game. Yeah, but the guy hit a three. I don't really care that he hit that three. Right. With passion though. What was going through your mind when you hit that three? But as like self-aware, guys, were you thinking at the time,

so when pavement was nearing it to end and there were, you know, whether there were actual arguments or fights or slam doors or not, were you thinking, oh, well, this is the thing that people are interested in? That this is this meta-narrative that we're almost performing now

is the spin story going to have to be. I mean, towards, I mean, there is a kind of putting the bow on the band when it ended in like 1999. I mean, I just thought that was like a nice narrative to end in the 90s. And it just, you know, it's kind of, of course you look inward and say, like, do you want to do it anymore? Or is it, can I see anything? it growing

or is it just going to go down slowly or what kind of struggle it felt like a struggle but yeah I think I thought yeah the 90s is just like boom we're like a good 90s band

and that's we're exactly in there that's all people love decades and that'll be ours so is that why you specifically sat out the next decade exactly

because then 2010 was the reunion Not really. Because people love decades. I've never heard you say that before. I know we do. I mean, I like them too. I like generations. I like talking about generations and decades.

It's very addictive. And I know that if you, yeah. So I don't, but the pavement reunion, I don't know really, I can't even remember why it happened then. Maybe it was because it was 20 years. and also I kind of knew that we should do it

when should we do it I mean I knew because I wanted to do it basically but other people really wanted to do it you wanted to do it basically that's the official line I never really thought about the 90s thing

but when you think about it the way that when pavement stopped it was like that it was in like a nice hard paragraph break into and I'm sure there's stuff in between like these moments but it's like a nice hard paragraph break into and then strokes and white stripes and yeah, yeah, it's weird.

It would be weird to imagine pavement in that same sort of timeline, you know what I mean? Yeah, I know, I did notice a bit that there was a, at least in the media, there was a new indie rock kind of thing that did come then with the white, those bands that you said, where it was kind of like we were not,

it was like their thing. or something. All the way through that other time, I think people were fighting a little with that, or we were still, you know, people were fighting with that idea or that band, our scene. But then that came,

it was kind of like, oh, you know, it's not important anymore. Yeah. We've got our 22-year-olds and our audience and, you know. It's a last backward-looking question, I think, unless Chris has two more word docs, full of them.

No, I don't know. No, I've actually wearing. a new order t-shirt today, so I'm all set. Okay, good. It's funny to realize in retrospect, again, I didn't even think about that, that you kind of put a bow on it with the 90s. At the time, and this is partly because of the age we were, finishing high school, finishing college, and all that goes along with that, it felt like a very dramatic, fraught time with a lot going on. And then in retrospect, the 90s are this bizarre, like, beautifully ignorant bubble where the world was fine and the economy was doing great.

And we could care about things like that. It is funny to think of it that, I mean, that it is that way in retrospect. And also, but, you know, I also remember, you know, going to New York in 1991. And also, you know, it wasn't like when I first got there, it was hard to find a job. I mean, I came there with a gray suit and maybe thought I was going to go to, I mean, my parents got me one. And I thought I might go down. the idea was I go down to Wall Street or somewhere. Wow.

I never did that, of course. Never went to one interview. But also it seemed like there were no jobs that were like in media and stuff. But flash forward like four years and some of my younger cohorts, they were all working for magazines. It just seemed like there was a lot. Like it seems something happened between 91 and 95, like you know, it seems something happened between 91 and 95, like you say, where then every, you know, there was like jobs in creative, semi-creative and creative things.

And also our band was successful and stuff. So it seemed like a miracle to me that it was like that. And I guess, and like you're saying, it does play out that way. So bringing us up to more the present day with Sparkleheart coming out, what is actually I'm just going to ask you this way what is your life like like how

there's three or four years between records average obviously you have a family you have a very serious trick or treat schedule you have other interests how does music play in your life now

does it constant songs and oh look it's been three years I've got a couple or is it more it's time I mean I'm always thinking about the songs especially right when you finish a record,

there's like a burst of creativity, and maybe those things lie around. I did work on this TV show. We were going to mention. Called the Netflix. Faked. And that took some time this year. A lot of my life is,

and my partner is an artist, and she wants to work too. she's struggling to work we're both struggling to keep our to do our work and also have a like take care of our kids and as unrock and roll as that is

it's a lot whatever burden that we have assumed or assumed that we need to to raise kids these days it seems to be outsized compared to what my parents did or even

were your parents more like good See you later. Yeah, I just have a babysitter, and I don't even, you know, I don't really remember hanging out with them too much. But we, you know, they're like our social group is basically our kids, you know. And sometimes we see our friends. It's like that way. Andy sees his friends when he makes this podcast.

Yeah, that was your explaining to him. That's what it is. Work is play, you know, for me, which is, I know that that's supposed to be like some evil late capitalist thing that happened, but it's more about the kids that, yeah, when I'm doing this interview, this is like, I'm getting off right now. I'm really, this is as good as it gets. Which I'm not saying it's not fun, but there's more work involved. There's work that is, you know, it's like a lot of things that I achieve kind of dissipate into the day-to-day, which wasn't, you know, like making a rough. record, you're like, I did this.

It's hard and it's, it will exist in the ether at least forever. But a lot of those dinners you cook and I mean, I actually don't arrange as many things as I should. But you know what it is. There's a lot of arranging play dates. That's over here. This is I'm wrapped right now. This is like when I heard Slanted and Chandor for the first time, like you're singing my song. I don't have children.

So Andy has a tendency to text me on the weekend and be like, who's life like? How's it going on your end? and I'm like, I'm golfing. So, yeah. That is awesome. I showed up just, like, trying to explain what it means for a child to have strep for the third time in, like, six weeks. And he's like, are you okay?

And I'm like, I would love to talk about the navigating the politics of the Roseanne reboot. Like, that sounds like the easiest Thursday ever. Yeah, right? That is fine. That's not a big deal. So that's kind of, that takes a lot of my time. And that's, so, I mean, we could get a nanny. That's a problem with my relationship with my partnership with my partner.

partners, like, how do we navigate that stuff? And that's what my life is like. And a lot of family-related stuff. You don't realize that when you have, you don't realize how family extended becomes part of your vacation life and getting with cousins and stuff. They don't tell you that. Of course, you can make your own rules and just go to Japan with your kids because you want to go to Japan. you want to go to Japan. Yeah.

But you could do that? Well, I hear that people do that, but instead it's more arranged around grandparents and cousins. Yeah. I just didn't know that was going to be part of the deal. How much does that change what you're interested in writing about? I keep that separate, you know, because it's not, it's only interesting in a podcast. That no one's going to listen to it now. But yeah, no, I'm more, I mean, the music exists.

The music itself is just throbbing action, like playing a basketball game. That's all fun. And it's actually, you get the- It's like actually in the flow of doing something. Yeah, you do something. And then lyrics and conceptualizing, then I try at least to deal with, you know, more everybody's feeling these things, not parents. Yeah.

Like men are scum, universal thought. Which is right there. Well, that's just like, you know, that's women are scum too, I'm sure. You know, I just know this is what I know. Yeah, this is definitely. We're all scum, but I can tell you I know that men are because I've been there. You were wearing that gray suit who knows what happened. I wanted to ask a little bit about, it's hard to kind of like,

because it's hard to pin like a narrative, as we're talking about with these athletes and stuff like that. It's hard to pin on narrative on the Jix stuff and the solo stuff. But I do find that it seems like to me you're interested in like, this one especially Sparkle Heart. It seems like it's not as heavy as like some of the other records. It's not, it doesn't feel as like deeply like kind of, I wouldn't say like psych rock or blues rock, but like some of the stuff that I felt like some of the earlier records was drawing from

was there tonally like kind of like a spectrum you were working from we were like, yeah, I kind of want to have like this thing that feels good to have on. I don't know. I feel like a kid could be around when this record's on, and they wouldn't be like, what is this? I can vouch for that. Yeah. No, it's chill. There's more pop tunes on there by my standards.

There's easier melodies. There's like five songs on there because I've talked to Matador about the songs they're going to feature. Yeah. And I know which ones they are. No, you know, there's some country rock on there. there's yeah there's some I mean it's never

going to get too to popular pop but there's definitely I did make an effort to keep the chords like kind of not trying too hard

to show like it can go all these different directions and and you know just get to the point a bit cut

out the noise or some of the sometimes I think there is that's a thing people like to say noise but there's some like

you know just mushy guss in there that I just think I could just like not have it in even though it in the end it shows like

oh that's clever moves or and some when you're stoned it might make sense or something as

uh novel but I just was like I'm just going to like cut some of that out this time do you think of if you look back on all the records you made solo and with the band

do you think of is there one record that stands out as you nailed it on that one or do you consider all of them as like you're just chasing something in the moment individual songs I mean I listen to this one called Face of Truth and I'm just a little bit surprised

by how weird it is and stuff like So I'm proud of that, I guess, in a way, because I was like, oh, that song, that song, you know, really I don't, that was one where it's the opposite of this in a way where I just didn't, I was completely a little bit more like up my own ass and in a metaphorical sense. And I, you know, I was just like down in my basement thinking like, this is so cool. and then I put it out and I don't know if it really

people agreed or something. But you know I like it still so you know I usually I'd listen eventually they'll come a time I can go back and listen and I like I mean there's some songs that I'm like this one called the Black Books the first I'm like why did I put that first? What am I

thinking it's you know totally like hypnotized myself into some way where I wish somebody would have been there and just said like not that one first Is it like time travel in a way to play older songs and be like, oh, I remember that guy in the gray suit who wrote this? Is that pleasurable or is it weird? Kind of just go into autopilot in a nice way.

Yeah. You know, it just, you go into these routines and your body like takes over, your voice takes over. And I don't even really think of it that much. Unless it's been overplayed, like, towards, you know, eventually a song loses. its meaning because you played it so many times. And I don't know, I guess if it's a really popular song, that's fine because everybody's cheering or you're giving something and you get something back. But if it's just like you're playing to like 150 people and you're doing that song again,

you're like, why am I doing this song again? Yeah. I just kind of like the way, I appreciate the way you're talking about the physical aspect of it. And this is obviously just a podcast they can't see, but when you're talking about it, you're physically playing the song again. It's like what you're saying about sports. I mean, we can fall in love as fans with the narrative and the emotional moments, but those are mostly our moments.

Like when I heard those songs, those matter to me. For you, there is the physical aspect of it. There's the job part of it. That's true. You can actually get it done or you're like good at your job. Yeah, it's a job. And I learned that from, I like lately, I've been, I don't know, I've just been meeting more musicians and different,

I've kind of been sort of closed off in my, just the pavement dudes, or just the Jick dudes and Doudices. And, yeah, I liked, I meet other bands on tour, and the people are always awesome. Everyone I've met. I really haven't met. That's one thing cool about music. Maybe some people get too famous or get egotistical,

and maybe some of those people weren't the best. But everybody else that wasn't, like, being alpha, awesome. And they're the doers of it. And all of us doers that just like playing music and like searching for a song, that's a great part of it of music that's a little boring to a podcast or something.

No, that's interesting. And when we see other sides of it, like I remember being both surprised and excited when you were on the I'm Not There soundtrack. I loved your contribution to that. That was fun. Lee Ronaldo was the, producer of that and he got those guys

Medanski Martin and Wood and they did a fantastic backing track sound like I'm giving my Oscars thanks you practice it here but that was really fun to do it's fun to know that you can be a disembodied voice and people still like you when you're not just doing your thing

or also pursuing your abilities in a different direction than fans might have expected that and I think I think Shira said what you were doing at here but there's something jam related Yeah, there's a Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia specifically, which is the Grateful Dead, pretty much in my opinion. A benefit concert with some Folkies. And there you are. And me too.

Yeah. Which I'm not. You don't identify Folky. Usually not, but I'm going to give it a shot. I'm going to give it a shot. Stephen Mountain. Thanks so much for coming by him. Thank you.

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