Trillbilly Worker's Party - Episode 264: And Much To Refute It (w/ special guest Tyler Jordan)

Episode Date: October 13, 2022

(I don't really eat on this one it was just a fake out) Today we discuss various topics that are by this point old news but which you will still no doubt enjoy, including: Kanye meta-discourse, rainbow fentanyl, free cable, and Tim Ryan vs. JD Vance. Then we switch over to an interview with Tyler Jordan from the Austin, Texas band Good Looks, which you should definitely be listening to. Check out Good Looks: https://goodlooksband.com/ Support us on Patreon: www.patreon.com/trillbillyworkersparty

I just got my... I'm going to eat on this episode. Oh, buddy, you're flirting with disaster. Already, right from the jump. It is the bait to... I can do it. If we lose 10 subscriptions to Misophonia again. I can do it without pissing people off.

I can do it. I guarantee it. Just trust me. I can't. But you're eating something crunchy, man. I can't But you're eating like something crunchy man It's like when Astronauts have to like

Dock up a fuel Like a refueling tank With their space station It's like just trust me I can do this I got this Stop fucking questioning my Professionalism Oh shit yo

I'm eating raw almonds. Raw almonds? What's the difference between a raw almond and your standard almond? Aren't almonds always raw? Don't you always eat raw? The difference is that I'm highly allergic to raw almonds. There's a new twist.

We'll see if I die before the end of this episode. So you're trying to see what anaphylaxis feels like uh-huh i know what it feels like but i like that i like you like that that's your kink you like that impending sense of doom and uh your organs and shut down failing on you yeah that's good stuff twist indeed i was just getting my flu shot, and the guy was asking me what I do, and I was like, I have a podcast. And he was like, oh, I love podcasts. I listen to podcasts all the time.

I was at the pharmacy. He was like, I listen to a lot of pharmacy podcasts. I was like, whoa. I was like, what the fuck? Pharmacy podcast? Yeah. I have found a chink in the armor of the healthcare system. Wow, slurs already.

Goddamn, so amazing. An anaphylactic shock. That's what happens. I get racist when I go into anaphylactic shock. You start throwing out slurs? Yeah. I found, okay, then I'll say gap. I found a gap in the armor of the health care

system there's like a whole genre of pharmacy podcasts devoted to how inept doctors are and how they're constantly prescribing the wrong drugs okay so this is like the true crime of like the health care industry the true crime podcast of the healthcare industry. Exposing shit. Exposing shit, yeah. I feel like doctors only prescribe Z-Packs, though. I think maybe that's it. If you were to look at a doctor's stats,

85% of their prescriptions are going to be for Zithromycin. What is Zithromycin? It's just antibiotic. It's like a z-pack it's like what you get for like upper respiratory infection and shit okay um maybe that's i don't know i have not and had i literally just came straight from there so i have not had a chance to listen to the pharmacy podcast but i like this dude was like i just do a lot of data entry listen to pharmacy podcast i was like dude your life sounds dope yeah he was like i'm about to kill myself just went to the gun store to pick up between me and you

not going well yeah after this i this, I will be gone. Today's my last day at this job. You're the last person I'm going to ever speak to. I have a plan and everything. And Terrence goes, no, no, no. And then he just brings a gun up from behind the counter and just domes himself in front of Terrence. That's why I'm eating raw almonds. Because I...

Terrence just calmly walks to the self-checkout and buys his raw almonds and walks out. What did that raw almond guy say to that guy? Well, I'm saying we can exploit this gap. We can exploit this division in healthcare between the pharmacists and the doctors it makes sense the pharmacists probably know a lot more about drugs than doctors and i feel like at least like some of the pharmacists that i've known have always been

willing to like i mean either for like recreational purposes or if you ask someone actually needs like medicine they're just willing to just give it out you know yeah well particularly in thailand why is what's thailand known for i mean i just have friends that got their say and you know certain pharmacies in certain countries which is you could skip the middleman which is the doctor and just go straight to the pharmacy and get xanax or whatever i mean it makes sense all medicare netic uh all health care now is just palliative throwing drugs at the problem. Me and Tom were just talking about this. I wonder if they talk about

the overprescription of Adderall on these pharmacy podcasts. Yeah. Or the opioid epidemic, man. Well, I was thinking about that. It's a weird thing. Obviously, we're in a period where they're over prescribing adderall but there's no like insane moral panic about it in the way there

was about oxycontin or painkillers but like a lot of people wake up every day and take military grade amphetamines and just like literally just to function through life man yeah no no shade i i whatever but uh i'm just saying it's it's definitely to the point where i feel like they're just throwing amphetamines at people to make them more productive to make them more productive workers and maybe make them numb too yeah there's a vogue that's what me and terrence are talking about it's like and i'm not knocking this in in a lot of ways it's cool but like you know like there's a vogue. That's what me and Terrence were talking about. It's like, and I'm not knocking this. In a lot of ways, it's cool. But like, you know, like there's a whole entire, a whole ass coffee culture. Hell, even cocaine has gained some more mainstream acceptance.

You know what I mean? It's like everything that's geared to wire you up is like you can get that at the ready. But by God, try to get a Xanax and you have to like shop around. Go around a block a few times. I'm trying to wind down a little bit. You know what I mean? Yeah. I'm too productive. I'm not

productive enough, man. Yeah. I like that brief pause to reflect on. I'm not productive at all, man. You just kind of drifted away for a second.

Look aimlessly at the ground. I just saw an interesting article in the Washington Post that I thought had some interesting conclusions.

The Washington Post, the most common restaurant cuisine in every state in a chain restaurant mystery um apparently places that support donald trump also tend to have the most franchise foods but like they were trying to figure out why this was the case but apparently the places with the most franchise foods also have the most drivers so it's like okay it's more driving more amenable to like reactionary

politics then again though i don't even know how you describe reactionary politics because i guess you could say a large part of what is considered liberal democratic politics is also reactionary reactionary also too like i'm thinking about states like california and new york that like, I mean, they just have chain franchises, like, all over the fucking state. But those states are blue states. So, like, I don't get the correlation. Right. Yeah. I get, like, franchises and, like, cars because, I mean, you know.

Right. They make all that shit and, like, you have to have a car to get to it. But, yeah. I mean, I want to, like to drill down into the specific franchises. Does an area that has more olive gardens per capita? Like a Waffle House built? Yeah, right. Is that more likely?

I always think it's funny when friends from up north come and they want to go to a Waffle House. I've just never conceived of a place that doesn't have a Waffle House, you know? Well, yeah, I don't know. But I guess we don't have Jolly Bees down here, which is a crime. What is Jolly Bees? Never even heard of it. Shout out to my Pinoy friends and people up there. Filipino fast food.

My friend Melanie Vennerishon talked about it for years and I never thought anything about it until they started popping up in New York. But I like to go try that fried chicken and spaghetti. Oh shit, man. That sounds good as fuck, man.

Oh yeah. Shit, dude. Nah, in new york you know what i was thinking about uh in new york you have all these like you have kentucky fried chicken a kennedy fried chicken of course but uh there's this obama fried chicken man oh boy actually i'm sure there are several of them in brooklyn yeah what's i need to know the it would be funny if actually this probably is the case it probably goes i don't know i don't know i don't know you think that there's more liberals in that area they can serve this probably probably yeah yeah yeah you would open up like obama fried chicken on staten island or something i don't know you'd be surprised I just imagine

that's where like Zinni Jardin and that woman that said black twitter ain't having no burning eat exclusively wait wait speaking of Zinni Jardin I need to find that tweet it's oh yeah here we go my fellow whites

do not initiate conversations with black people about Kanye West this week, and do not share your opinion on his behavior. This has been a public service announcement for my people, who suffer from the malady of believing everything is about them. Light supremacy. Was that before or after the DeathCon 3 comments? I think that was after.

Well, someone responded to that tweet they said well looks like i have to cancel my kanye west fan club meeting thanks for the heads up and then he responded you're allowed to still believe some of his tunes are bangas yo what is wrong with her man how are you trying to coach are you trying to coach people on like how to talk to black people while speaking in ebotics, man? But not only ebotics, but talking like Dizzy Rascal. Like you're a fucking UK, you know. What do they call UK rap?

Drill? Not drill, not grime. Grime, yeah. Like you're a UK grime artist. Kathy Griffin responded, I. Like you're a UK grime artist. Kathy Griffin responded, I get what you're saying. Duh. Jesus.

Some of these responses are why I am leaving Twitter, and whether I like it or not, I'm switching to TikTok. In the lesser of two evils argument, it seems to be. I don't know, maybe 10% less toxic. I'll take it. And Zinni said

love you woman that is so bleak that is such a bleak exchange i love that go ahead no no no you go ahead no i was saying didn't kathy griffin get canceled for uh for uh uh having like trump's head like fake severed head or some shit like that yeah yeah that was her one i was listening to danny brown on podcast a week and he was talking about trying to smash kathy griffin and getting cucked by asap rocky that sucks i mean you know wait so asap rocky he's gorgeous asap rocky fucked kathy griffin no no but she was not interested in Danny Brown. She was all over Asap Rocky.

She was all over Asap. Well, damn. Some guys got it all. You know, if there's a note, they can sing it. If there's a beat, they can dance to it, you know? Including Drake. Including Drake, who has an impeccable Jamaican accent, I'm told. As a Jamaican, I agree.

Ten out of ten. Yeah, how does it pass? 10 out of 10. Be Patty's. Chad Hanks, actually. That episode of Atlanta? Actually, that episode of Atlanta, was he doing a Trinidadian accent, or was he just being a regular white guy?

I can't remember. I can't remember. Be the regular white guy. I can't remember. I can't remember. Oh, shit. Well, today's episode, we are here to atone. We're here to ask for forgiveness from our white allies, like Jenny.

But at the same time, is Jenny right? Should we talk about Kanye? But Aaron is not white, so Aaron, you can talk about Kanye. I can talk about Kanye. How about you do that? How about me and Terrence sit our white asses down and listen? I'm free to talk about Kanye for an hour. Just talk about Kanye. Sit your white asses down.

Make Aaron sweat. Every once in a while, we'll chime in with a... Well, you know, Aaron, you can't rule it out. Yeah. Just talk himself into... Dig various holes for himself and feel really anxious. Try to apologize for Kanye, but not apologize for Kanye. Yeah. Did you see his comments about kinetic energy communities?

What? He told Carlson about his plans to create, quote-unquote, kinetic energy communities built with free energy, a technology not currently available to human beings. Would you live in a kinetic energy community if there was free energy? Hell yeah. Yeah, last thing I heard is he he uh he was going to take like some land from young thug and make slime city which was going to be like an

intentional living community based on the precepts of uh dr sebi and some black israelite teachings oh god damn son and it was going to be in atlanta right in atlanta yeah shit man i will live there i mean you could knock the dr seve diet all you want to but it's you gotta be way better for you than whatever the shit we're doing now he is he proposing to like buy a community i think this is the future like billionaires just buying communities redeveloping them well friend of the show amanda burrows sent me a article from let's see an an app state graduate in 2012 who wrote their dissertation. This is literally the dissertation. Dear Johnny Depp, would you please buy the state of West Virginia?

Auto-ethnography of an Appalachian woman. The whole dissertation is literally a case for Johnny Depp buying West Virginia. And it cites precedents. Like, apparently, Kim Basinger bought a community in Georgia. Really? Yeah. Where in Georgia? Brasselton brazelton oh i know where that is i've fucking been there before kim basinger owns it bro

god damn dude i'm about to hit up my ex and damn m&m's mom a night mile old your town damn old your hometown wait so wait hold up how much so when you talk about buying a state i mean west virginia is like relatively i guess small like how much does it cost how much are we talking well when it still had coal hey we're shitting out of yeah now maybe a little less yeah what the fuck this thing is so insane wait does it really go in depth as to how like does it like uh yeah like a portion the finances of or like the assets of west virginia i guess she wound up writing a book off of it um why shouldn't Johnny Depp

being the genius, celebrated, wealthy actor that he is buy West Virginia? I've also included a discussion about the impact popular actors, actresses, and musicians have upon residents of Appalachia in live performance with their movies and television. Listen to this. For example, I recalled

the sorrow of Mama when Jane Mansfield died in a car wreck her head severed from her neck while that her children slept in the back seat this got accepted dude you can do this as this got accepted as uh i bet this this is blowing my mind on a very, very deep level here. This is kind of connected to that we need a monarchy, that Jason Howard thing about visiting the Queen's funeral and stuff. Like, we just need,

there's some people that just desire to be lorded over by people that have a lot of money and notoriety and stature or whatever. And I'll never understand that for the life of me, because I could enjoy your stuff, but at the end of the day, I kind of want you to die. Yeah, yeah.

Leave me the fuck alone. This is so absolutely bizarre. So wait, how much would it cost? How much would it cost to Johnny Depp to buy West Virginia? I don't know. I need to find the whole... Apparently, it's very popular. You gotta put a too-long-didn't-read price tag in the beginning. Wait, wait,. I need to find the whole. Apparently, it's very popular. You're going to put a too long, didn't read.

Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. So they're like, okay, two things, two holes in this. This is funny. This is like an academic thing because two holes in this. Johnny Depp, number one, is notoriously not good with money. Like, he's the guy that's like has to do projects to like re-up because he like goes broke and spends his fortune like a drunk sailor yeah and then the other thing is i don't know if you've been paying attention what's been going on the tv the last two years but uh divorce and

particularly high profile ones not cheap probably deal with johnny depp to be the one to buy West Virginia. Not right now. Yeah, this was written in 2012. Oh, okay. Before the... Before she added, like, updated it. Yeah, he still has some troubling behavior even back then, but... Did y'all see the most recent pictures of him? Like, looking like Jimmy Savile? Dude, I thought that was a role for a movie that he was playing i thought he had makeup on for a role for a movie no man my man is

uh yeah looking like fucking uh i don't even know man mickey rourke in like sin city or some shit i love this will you set the people who are living there safely aside perhaps on a hillside in kentucky pick up west virginia by its southern fringe and shake it until the seeds of the trees are scattered and the waters are filtered clean and then put the people back is this like poetry i mean i guess i guess i could see how this could be like a poetry is this like cleanse yourself in the waters of Lake Minnetonka Hillbillies. This is fucking crazy. Man. I gotta tell you,

I'm just amazed that there's somebody out there with a brain that works that way. Yeah, like how did you even come up with this, man? Yeah, I need to... This is simultaneously, this is like not a dumb person, but simultaneously the dumbest idea I've ever heard. Yeah, just like

applicate like just a dumb idea, man. I want to find the whole thing. Applying like all of your all of what you've learned in school, your years of schooling, the hard study you've done. Yeah, she did turn it into a book. Yeah, and then your analysis. Johnny Depp should buy West Virginia.

Like, all these years in the academy to get a PhD, and the thing that you're offering the world is, Johnny Depp should buy West Virginia. God damn it. I mean, it is the natural progression of things. Like, with all these intractable problems, yeah, just turn it over. Just turn it over, yeah, like you said, Tom,

to a benevolent overlord. They'll take care of it for you. The masterful, responsible, you know, estate of Johnny Depp will take care of West Virginia. I loved him in Sweeney Todd. He'll bring coal back. What's the, what was that thing,

noblesse oblige or whatever? Yeah. Like the fact that nobles had the obligation, like that's what, yeah, just turn it over to like the Johnny Depps

and the Kim Basingers. Oh, fuck, I found it, I found it, I found it. Hell yeah. The Young Thugs. This thing is so long. I want to read the whole thing.

I just want to know a price tag, man. I want to know how far away I am from owning West Virginia. There's a man under that mountain. Well, maybe it's... It is a creative writing prompt. Or, I'm sorry, like a creative writing endeavor. Kind of, it looks like. Okay, that's...

But, at the same time... Go ahead. Well, I'm just saying, maybe it's one of those ninth-dimensional chess things we don't really understand. Maybe it's like an allegory for critiquing what we're saying instead of right earnest yeah you can't you can't leave that out also if you did promote ideas like this that's always a good escape parachute thing no you see what i was doing was what i really meant was yeah i've employed that time or two on this show. Yeah.

Oh, shit. Well, when I said some of my favorite lungs are black, what I really meant was... What I really meant was... Just to clarify. Oh, shit. Well, let's see. What else is in the news uh jd vance said that if we allow pot to be legalized people are going to start beating up elderly people yeah start uh beating elderly women with

guns yeah gun burning them over the head yeah a lot of the times look at the underlying charge it wasn't just that they smoked a joint. It's that they smoked a joint and then beat an elderly woman over the head with a pistol. This is a man that would probably actively do the same to his mother. Not high. Just like Sober's Judge,

just in the name of conservatism. This man allowed a movie to be made that made a mockery of his mom's addiction problem in the most awful format you could imagine. He's mad at somebody, yeah. So there's that. There is also, right now, a full-blown moral panic about fentanyl.

I mean, it's obviously been building for a while, but I've been kind of wondering what the endgame is or why, as opposed to, like we were saying earlier, Adderall or for prescription or stuff like that. It's the lightest on the fentanyl, babe. Well, so there is the rainbow-colored fentanyl that they were saying was going to be handed out. Halloween. Yeah, like Halloween.

But it kind of all became clear this week when a conservative group, let's's see run by former top trump officials proposed a formal u.s declaration of war on mexican cartels and a mechanism to shut down legal ports of entry i mean like that's a break your bad shit yeah criminal has become the mechanism through which they now want to crack down on the border. Well, I mean, it wouldn't be the first time. I saw some veteran tags on a car

the other day that was like, veteran of the war on terror. And it's like, that'd be so tight. I have like, veteran of the war on coal tags. Like, whatever idea you spent your life fighting, like you get veteran tags for it. Veteran of the war on coal tags. I'm like, whatever idea you spent your life fighting, you get veteran tags for it.

Veteran of the war on fat. Uh-huh. Yeah, so this is just the latest frontier, the war on the Sinaloas or whoever. But it feels so retro. Like, the cartel thing was big like 10, 15 years ago. It's come back well who's the face now that el chapo's got pinched i don't know i did see an article about el chapo basically saying from prison that

well i mean this isn't even a conspiracy theory this is literally proven. Just that like what was going on with the cartels in the late 2000s and 2010s and I'm not an expert, but it was done in coordination with high level officials in the DEA and in the equivalent of the DEA in Mexico. The drug war

is basically just a front for actual drug distribution. Absolutely. But like, so there was this op-ed in Newsweek this week about how Arizona is about to declare a state of invasion. What? Not a state of emergency, but a state of invasion and what and not a state of emergency what's that mean exactly it means like they're gonna send their own national guard basically down to the border to fight invade mexico yeah right fight cartels that don't even really exist so what are they gonna do just like uh like shoot the first guys they see in fake Versace shirts or shit?

Yeah. I think that they're using it as an excuse to basically murder anybody who comes over the border. I think they're basically using it as a cover for just genocide, essentially. Because this thing was calling for Texas to do the same, to declare a state of invasion. So what is it? What is the narrative, I guess, that immigrants or migrants are coming and bringing fentanyl with them?

Right. Into our country? That was the thing. There was an interview with this woman going around on Twitter of her saying they're bringing it over the border and they're going to be handing it out at Halloween. like hey you imagine a bunch of cartel guys just setting up trick-or-treat stations along the border i just posted up at the rio grande just just handing out that right bubble y'all y'all remember like in the 90s when they said that uh beware uh taking

your kids trick-or-treating because people will put like razor blades and jolly ranchers and shit like that you know yeah and like of course it's like a fucking urban myth and fake shit but this feels similar man like look out for rainbow fentanyl listen goody bags if the kook lux clan uh if they enjoyed the all that comes with civic life in amer in the 50s, I don't see why the Sinaloas can't do trick-or-treating. That ain't even a lateral move, in my opinion. That's an upgrade. Well, it's even weirder,

because the Ku Klux Klan actively wished for the overthrowing of the United States government. You know, for like an installation of a white supremacist one. Like, cartels don't have any real political project, really. They're just... Making money moves, dog. Right. All those guys

want to do is like take Instagram pictures with them and like models, you know, and shit like that. Like holding AK-47s on the hood of a Lamborghini Murcielago. Yeah, that's all they want is just to show the drip off to the world and maybe not try to get their head

cut off in the process. In all honesty, that's not the worst political project ever i shouldn't say that i know there's like a lot of people murdered and so forth over that but you know that being said that being said it's like those guys those guys are you know again like chimney sweeps or They don't have any agenda, man. Do they really? They exist, sure, but not like you all think they exist. Did Pablo Escobar, is it just Narcos the show, or did he really have political aspirations and shit? Well, he offered to pay off Columbia's national debt if they named him president. Like, suspended the constitution, named him president.

Should have done it. So in a way, he did have a political problem. Yeah. There's this guy named Oswaldo Zavala who wrote a book called The Cartels Do Not Exist. And he's interviewed in The Nation. And they asked him, Is your title just a provocation?

Do you really believe that cartels don't exist? He said, I really do believe that. It's not to say that drug traffickers aren't real or that the violence isn't real. Of course they are. But that our understanding of all that has been filtered through what the National Autonomous University of Mexico sociologist Luis Histórico called the narco matrix. This is the idea that drug traffickers are a separate entity from the government and that they've amassed so much power that they've posed a threat to the state. That's completely wrong.

Traffickers have never really had any say in political life in Mexico because they've always been subordinate to the state. But we don't get that. Like when you watch Sicario's or something, you think that the cartels have penetrated the highest levels of government exactly exactly when really president yeto could have any of those guys clipped in a half a second if you know what i mean yeah right hmm yeah that's such a good point they always make it seem like the cartels are some parallel like you know like force you know competing with the government. It's like, nah, man. You're in bed with that shit.

100%. You'd have to be. With that much money and resources, man, you'd have to be. It's the same thing with Al-Qaeda, too. Al-Qaeda doesn't exist, really. This is like an American tactic to make people... Same thing with something stupid like Satanism. You know what I mean?

Church of Satan is not a factor in political life or anything. You know what I mean? But there has to be some boogeyman, and it's intensified if it's made out to be a shadowy cabal. Well, in the case of the cartels and Al-Qaeda, or Al-Qaeda specifically, Al-Qaeda was a creation of the CIA to the extent that it even existed. But the case of cartels and a lot of these drug trafficking networks, they are nexuses for intelligence activities like the CIA.

And so, yeah, they don't exist as autonomous units just in the world, free-floating, doing what they're doing. They're operating at the behest of the Mexican government, the United States government. Yeah, they're not like NGOs or something, man. Hey, I have to say, Kurt Sutter, creator of Sons of Anarchy, got this right when he showed that Danny Trejo and the other cartel guy flipped their CIA badges. That was a serious twist in season five. Fuck! Maybe you would watch that show, god damn.

I love Danny too. Yeah. My shit, Dave. My shit. That is I don't know. I think the fentanyl thing is very crazy i think it's uh you know obviously it's something that like did y'all know that jd vance has like an opioid like non-profit like an opioid treatment non-profit that just like eats up money doesn't like do anything jesus fucking christ man i i saw like tim ryan trying to like

hit him on that but i don't know dude that that whole race is so fucking what's gonna happen there i think tim ryan's winning right like he's in the polls at least he's in the lead i don't know this is from the debate the other night ryan clearly anticipated he kept using this phrase backseat driver tim Tim Ryan did. Ryan clearly anticipated Vance attacking him on border security and policing. Again, this is Ohio. Ohio border security. Border security. The most landlocked, innermost heartland state, Ohio.

Ohio. I guess through Lake Erie shares a border with Canada, right? Yeah, we were by Canadian, like, migrants and shit. Yeah, you're right. You're right. My bad. Maybe that's what they're talking about. Canadian border.

Yeah, but you'd have to swim through Lake Erie and hit, like, clean and cold and shit. That's a good point. Folks, they're coming in droves across Lake Erie. From where? Canada? Yeah, but by way of, you know, droves across Lake Erie. From where? Canada? Yeah, but by way of, you know, by way of Lake Erie. They made a roundabout way. Yeah.

Ryan, a former college football player, used the same turn of phrase three separate times to respond. I don't know why they threw that in there. Yeah, is that a football term? Backseat driving? Like, what the fuck? why they threw that in there yeah is that a football term backseat driving like what the fuck um he said i'm not going to take a backseat to you or anybody else on fentanyl drugs or immigration or anything else ryan said after vance criticized ryan and other dems for not doing more to block illegal drugs from being smuggled into the country i am not going to

take a backseat to jd vance on law enforcement or anything else like that um in the same response ryan attacked vance for raising money for january 6th defendants this is ridiculous i'm not taking a backseat to you i brought damn i'm in the front i'm driving away from this goddamn debate it's that you're a backseat driver and I'm a frontseat driver, pal. I'm in the driver's seat. And honestly, in the Midwest, backseat driver is Will Dyson. That's like cussing out his mother, man. I'm the top, you're the bottom, JD.

Listen, let me explain something to you perhaps you can understand. If we were two gay men, I would be the top and you would be the bottom, motherfucker. And you need to understand that no hobo though yeah yeah oh man oh my god the back it says the backseat line sounded familiar because senator sherrod brown a fellow democrat widely viewed as the model for his party to win statewide, says it all the time. I take a backseat to no one on border security, Brown said. Sherrod said that?

Yeah, Sherrod, yeah, Brown said that, yeah. Oh, God, that guy's such a... I thought that guy was cool. I don't think none of them are cool, actually. I used to think he was cool like 12 years ago. I was like, wow. I thought he was cool until I met the dude at the Clinton Foundation. He's a fucking dweeb. Also, I'm not going to lie, before I knew how he looked, I thought he was also i met the dude at the clinton foundation he's a fucking dweeb also i'm not gonna lie before i knew how he looked i thought he was black man people say that about me all the time

interestingly nobody said that about me. It's all right, man. Don't feel left out. What's your name, Dale? Thomas Dale? Yeah. Well, just my first and last name, name Sounds like it could be a black name But my full name

It immediately Reveals how actually redneck I am Yeah you throw Gentry in there and you instantly go from Was Briefly signed To R&B singer on Murder Inc

To country star Terrence Gentry to briefly sign R&B singer on Murder, Inc. to Country Star. Terrence Gingery. That's all right. My middle name is Chase, so. Yeah. Aaron Chase Thorpe. That's good. That's solid.

That's a rocker's name, man. That's true. Damn. Would you guys go to a Kid Rock Kanye West tour? Imagine how baller that would be. For an anthropological experiment yeah truly as a journalist yes oh shit man i they i love this though i i just love the playbook here tim ryan trying to out

write jd vance ryan's line that he helped bring in 500 million dollars in funding for ohio police largely is based on the 250 million dollars from the federal american rescue plan uh i i think what he's he's claiming that he got half a bill for ohio police he's like i didn't defund the police yeah i'm not like those kooky uh democrats in new york and california right in fact i funded that shit not funded it i gave him more money did you see that commercial uh where he had a commercial where he has a gun and he's shooting these tvs with like that are uh uh displaying ads like against him and shit attack ads no and one of the last one the last tv that

he shoots like first one is like i don't know like border security stuff like ads about that the next one is like um you know the national debt or something and the last one is a defund the police saying how he supports that and he's like and i definitely don't like want to defund the police and like shoots the tv or some shit like that man and then attempt i guess try to outright uh jd vance that's like a very post-modern thing yeah it's like destroying the television it's like that is like a 90s thing like it's a very right yeah shoot your tv yeah it's like some yeah yeah pretty sure marjorie taylor green did that man she did what what's with the fucking tv like no it's tv back i'm just gonna get i'm gonna get i'm gonna call direct tv and say listen i'd like to sign up on new service i'm cutting the cord cutting i'm going back i need to be wired again man i need around the clock you need the commercials

my cousin listen you know i thought the black box was gone. You remember the black box? Yeah, yeah, I remember the black box. You've got all those channels? Yeah. I don't want to dry snitch here, but my cousin, I won't say which one, brought it back, and he came out the other day. We were watching the U.K. football game.

He goes, let me ask you a question. He said, you ever came home from work at 4.30 in the afternoon and wanted to watch something from season six of Columbo? I said, you son of a bitch. I said, what TV shows do you have? He said, it'd probably be easier to tell you which ones I don't have. And all day I would just hit him with this. I'd be like, wings?

He'd roll his eyes at me and say, buddy. And I thought I had him stumped with remington still and he just immediately went to it and then went god damn everything damn son damn well did we adhere to zinni jardineine's admonishment, to her warning? My fellow whites, do not initiate conversations with black people about Kanye West this week. Do not share your opinion on his behavior. This has been a PSA for my people. Whosoever from the malady of a real evening, everything is about them. Apparently y'all are not allies, because you talked about it with me.

Damn. Fuck, I'm a direct violation of Zinni Jardin's maxim. It sounds like we need to be gangster checked. For that behavior. Somebody call Nancy Pelosi.

Oh, shit. call nancy pelosi um that was the maybe the worst and a long line of courage tweets maybe the worst what what did she what did she say the what set would set you in that one yeah yeah that well that was the one of her one of her replies jesus What was it? She said that Snoop, she said something like, Snoop Dogg knows what Pelosi's doing to Trump is gangster checking him. It hurts me to even repeat it, honestly. I refuse to believe that woman is real, man. I feel like she's just a composite of different people. I used to think so.

I used to think it was a bot. Like, I used to think that account was a bot. But then, like, it dropped that she was, like, in close proximity to the Epstein shit that the MIT Media Lab. What? Yeah. Oh, yeah, that's right. That is right. Oh, shit.

Of course. For real. Before that, I saw no evidence to believe she existed. In fact, much to refute it. Yeah. Well, that's about all I got for this week. You guys have anything else you want to throw in the pile?

Nah. I hope Biden makes weed legal. Yeah, we didn't talk about that. I forgot about that. I mean, that. Dink Brandon. I mean, that's probably not happening, right? No, it shouldn't happen.

Okay. It shouldn't happen. Well, I mean, it's just like student loan thing. Everybody got hot and bothered about that. Now that's been walked back a little bit. Yeah, yeah. Anything that seems like it could be good is going to have 100 qualifiers. That's the other thing.

100 means-tested qualifiers. A month before the election, too, man. Come on. Right. Now's the time you got to make those decisions. Not getting me again. No, no, no. Not again. Yeah, are you guys voting?

You almost had me. Are y'all voting? I might pick up some Chinese food later, So I think the early voting is open. So I might, if it's like open on the way back, maybe. If I'm high enough and don't mind staying in line. I think I'm going to not vote. I think I'm going to do it. I think I'm not voting.

It's like this exciting thing that's up on the horizon. I'm like, do I want to do it? Do I want to not vote? Am I going to do it? Do I want to not vote? Am I going to do it? We should make it a trade. First time in your life that you've said, no, you know what? This is my day. It really would be like the first election in like 10 years that I've been like, no, I think I'm good.

I think I'm good. Yeah. I mean, there's like, then I'm thinking like there's Hersha Walker. That guy's pretty fucking insane. I don't like Raphael Warren, I'll call it much, but I probably should. Walker's going to win anyway, so don't worry about it.

Yeah, so I don't got to vote. Yeah. Results come in like 7 p.m. Hersha Walker's win with like 51% one vote. In Lithuania, Stonecrest, Aaron Thorpe. Mr. Aaron Thorpe would have went

in the polls and punched one in for the Reverend. We wouldn't be in this mess. They covered it by door, docketed by door.

I'm like, what? Yeah. Not even paying attention to the results of it. There was an election? What?

Stacey Abrams herself will come and beat your ass. I would love an election, what? Stacey Abrams herself will come and beat your ass. I would love to see that. Like, Stacey Abrams just beating Aaron Thorpe's ass. Because I didn't vote for it? Like, you motherfucker.

Like, doing that Robert De Niro, like, tongue hanging out of her mouth and Goodfellas, like, kicking your ass. Backslapping. Front slap, back slap. You gave us Herschel Walker.

Damn, man. That got scary. I might do this. I, you know, I was at a friend's house front slap back slap you gave us Herschel Walker damn man that got scary I might do this I you know I was at a friend's house that's been several weeks ago and one of the Lexington City Council

people was there and I was talking with them and I said listen I'm a single issue voter because I'm one of their constituents

I said I'm a single issue voter and that is who's going to abolish lex park the parking system this goddamn town i had just a big belly laugh like i thought i thought i was joking it out like literally i was the most dead-eyed i'd be like no i'm serious i want them Like Me This This here What I'm doing right now This is like me

Dialing it back a little bit I think it would be morally okay To shoot them all in the head But What I'm suggesting you do Is just disband it So we can avoid All that mess

One man's One man's war Against The parking authorities Of Lexington, Kentucky. That's it. So I might do the self-righteous thing where I go to the polls and don't vote for anybody but still punch one in.

So that's, you know, I showed the initiative. Yeah, yeah. Which, if I don't vote, I'm not going to do that. I'm just going to stay my ass to the house. Yeah, I might stay my ass home. I don't have that much initiative. I don't have that much initiative. I don't have that much, like, spite.

It is about whether the cost benefit of walking to the polling station. You know what I mean? Like the weather, if it's nice outside, if it's not cold, if it's not raining, if I'm high enough, you know. If all the factors fall into place and somebody gives me a sucker For being a good boy After I punch one in Maybe Well a lot of people I talk to

Can't vote Because they're like former felons I mean I hang out mostly with former felons Being a former felon yourself Yeah I'm not voting in solidarity With them One quick note I want to add On the Kanye thing felons so being a former felon yourself yeah i'm not voting in solidarity with him you know one quick note i want to add on the kanye thing this is just my own little personal thing i can put into it i can add is when little boosie took him to cot to task for some of his comments which the

thing about boosie is if he wasn't a homophobe he would make a ton of sense because he actually has some very good stances on a lot of things but then he'll just punctuate it with like you know gay slurs and then also there's the thing where he like you know helped his teenage son lose his virginity but that was weird but what he took him to a strip club it's louisiana it's a different code down there anyway i'm joking. Anyway. But Kanye, remember when Kanye was like saying Lil Boosie, like, shut up, da-da-da-da-da. I will tell you this from experience that there is no artist on the planet Earth not named Tupac Amaru Shakur that has more unconditional love in prisons than Lil Boosie.

Yeah. unconditional love in prisons than little boozy yeah 95 of the requests you get from prison are for little boozy songs and i'm just going to tell kanye omari west today that's a tree he does not want to bark up you do that he got shooters man oh you do not they're not afraid to go after kanye west they're not afraid to go after you it is true yeah when i did the radio show it's all i would get requests mostly for. Boozy badass. At a certain point when you got the numbers, your money don't really matter that much. Yeah.

That said, give Boozy a nuke. Oh, shit. God damn. All right. Well, let's tie this one up thanks for listening this week everybody you can go to patreon.com and support us over there

p-a-t-r-e-o-n.com the pharmacist this morning who gave him my flu shot was amazed by the concept of Patreon he was absolutely blown away he was like people give you five dollars a month To listen to you talk Do you actually go

Shield the Patriot in public spaces Just sliding the link to the lady That's like a cashier at the grocery store Might be something there you like $5 a month How do you think we got those numbers man I'm out here hitting the streets Shaking the bushes, IRL.

Yeah, man. Yeah. We have a... We are sitting on a sleeping volcano of Truebillies patrons who will rise up. Yes. I'm going to tell people

to subscribe to our page. I said, well, I'm a Baptist, but I'll come check you out next Sunday. All right. Anyways, patreon.com slash Trouble with the Workers Party. Thanks for listening, everybody. Stay tuned after this for an interview with Tyler Jordan of the band The Good Looks. Thanks for listening. Well, welcome, Tyler.

Joining us today is it's mr tyler jordan i i've got a uh an uncle named rerun that's like uh he's got like this encyclopedic knowledge of rock and roll right so he'll be like um you know um leslie west was the brains the brains of mountain you know or whatever whatever whatever he's always talking about who the brains, the brains of Mountain, you know, or whatever, whatever, whatever. He's always talking about who the brains is of everything. And so we're here today, Mr. Tyler Jordan. Well, I won't say I won't say I don't want to try to break up good looks within five minutes of meeting you. But that's right. You got to you got to watch it.

There's a lot of egos. You got to try to lay a lot of egos that much. This is Tyler Jordan. Good looks. He's joining us today. He put out a great record this year. Bummer year, which is incredible. It's interesting because when Jacob, your publicist,

reached out to us and thought we might be a good pairing, I hadn't, which makes perfect sense because i'm never up on anything that's cool i'm always the one that's getting put up on stuff but same here i hadn't i hadn't been initiated into to good looks yet man but it's an incredible record and it's like i think it's cool the whole sort of country inflected thing you know that y'all do it without like you know sort of like making it parody and like you know putting on nudie suits and everything which could be cool too honestly well thank you but it's a cool thing it's a cool thing y'all do man and

i wanted to bring you here today obviously to uh to talk about the record a little bit but also talk about one of my favorite topics. And that is of course, the, the live nationization of venues and all the ugliness that goes to tour and that I'm sure that you have some firsthand experience with. So sure. Yeah. Maybe we should jump off there. I mean, I think so, like a little bit of my background i used to be in booking that has been a number of years ago now and uh a lot of this stuff was happening then left like live nation buying up venues and all that all that kind of thing and just you were you doing the booking

for the club or for the for the for the artist no for the club yeah for the club so i worked with a lot of a lot of guys that did booking for the artists yeah for the club so i worked with a lot of a lot of guys that did booking for the artists and stuff like that usually um we had a lot of bands out of nashville or something like pga i don't know if you know like a lot of those guys over there that were like signed infinity cat and some of the nashville labels in like the mid 2000s but we had a lot of those guys um and gals and uh yeah it was just like but like even then i could see the whole sort of landscape of it changing because i was so stupid when i got into and started working for this club because i just assumed like if you were on like a buzzy label that you were like rolling in cash

you know what i mean and i remember yeah when lee baines and the glorifiers who at the time were signed the sub pop came through there and i was like oh man and talking to them and it's like nah actually actually we owe the label money but you know anyway like maybe you could just share it i don't know how long good looks has been rolling at this point but like maybe you could share some of those kind of experiences that sort of dispel notions of you know how well your favorite buzz bands are doing financially. Well, I'll tell you what, we were gone for a month. We just got back from tour and this was the first time, we've been a band for five years. I will say we haven't done a ton of touring and we changed the name at some point so um but but this was the first time in

five years that we've ever paid ourselves um it's mostly just been a money pit and um yeah and so we were we were gone for a month away from our jobs and we paid ourselves 250 bucks a guy so i mean it's it's uh it, it's bleak out there, man. It's hard. It looks, it looks like one thing, you know, you, you assume certain folks are successful or whatever, but it's hard. It's hard to find that money, man. It feels like every step of the way, it's like, everybody's getting paid except for us. It feels like, you know, you just keep adding pieces to the team and stuff and there's more money coming in and it looks good on paper. And it's just hard, man. Yeah.

Now, it's it's it's it's funny because it's not funny, but I mean, it's it's interesting because like how it's I've been out of the game for a while. So maybe you can kind of like sort of update me on how things have been going post-covid with all that kind of stuff but like um and i know this varies like all over the place but like with that growing sort of again what i call the live nationization it's like for those who don't know it's like live nation is bought up like a significant amount of these like you know traditional touring venues all over the country and stuff like that so where they used to be sort of mom and pop ran or ran by some local person they're usually sort of even if they have that veneer they're usually you know owned by by jay-z by jay-z and co yes right well well i will say i don't i don't know that i've got a ton of

experience with that side of it i mean before we were mostly playing real small kind of places and sort of you know this sort of mom and pop or diy spaces and and now we're working with a we're at the booking company and so that that those guys kind of help do most of that that work so i'm not it. So I'm not, it doesn't, I'm not seeing it a lot like firsthand, I guess I should say. Right. So like you, like y'all are signed to a booking agent that will like give y'all per diem and all that kind of stuff and like secure your activities. Yeah.

Maybe just talk about that a little bit about how it works for a touring musician in terms of like how the finances are broken down. Yeah. So most of the money right now comes in from from playing live i would say all of it um uh so so yeah the the booking company goes out and tries to get guarantees at um at venues and um sometimes they do and sometimes they don't sometimes it's a door deal where you get a percentage of the door um but it's uh that stuff is yeah i'm i'm trying to think of like i don't like it's hard i don't i'm like i want to like what is too much of the curtain you know it's like also it's like uh i don't want to ask you like okay so what's like the bottom dollar you could get a good yeah exactly and also like trying hopefully to secure uh like

a hotel room somewhere if possible or maybe they've got like a lot of these clubs they'll have like a airbnb or something like connected to them. So they go out and try to find that and try to make sure that we at least get like fed dinner and that kind of thing. But, you know, it's just, it's expensive right now. And there's a lot of, I mean, we're paying pretty crazy gas prices and we just bought a new van and, you know, we are, we're all in our, we're all in our thirties. And so we are staying in hotels and trying to not do the crash on the floor thing anymore. Yeah, I've had enough of that. Those days are behind us.

Yeah, no. That's right. So Tyler, another thing that I'm kind of interested in, and anytime we have somebody that's that that does music on here i like to kind of talk about it but like you know streaming is obviously one of those things that's like you know a source of contention it's it you know for uh you know travis scott bruce springsteen it might be the best thing in the world but for you know sort of a an uh fledgling touring band you know what i mean is it could be you know not not so lucrative like what do you think if you if somebody were to hand the keys off to tyler jordan to remedy all this what do you think

like all that stuff would look particularly when it involves like the label relationship and stuff like that in your opinion. Sure. Well, I mean, I have a lot of thoughts about it. I don't know if I have a solution to it, but I will say, I think it's bad. I think it's bad for everybody. I mean, I think guys like Travis Scott and Bruce Springsteen or whatever, were probably making better money when they could sell millions of records. I mean, I don't know, but I mean,

I feel like that's probably some of what's at play with these guys like selling their whole catalogs and um you know trying to trying to cash out in a way i don't know but that was a good segue to my next my next question but well i will say the that i think i i think on paper, Spotify is incredible. Access to every song ever is awesome and good for art. It's this really incredible, amazing thing. And so as a

music listener, I love the fact that it exists. But I mean, it's sort of just the structure of capitalism, right? Every time some cool, innovative technology comes along, it gets wielded in this way that's like horrible and fucks the little guy over, you know? Yeah. No, you're right.

And I know we're talking about music, but I was just thinking about like Amazon, you know, and like if you're a consumer of Amazon Prime, it's pretty dope to get packages the same day or the next day. But then, as you were saying, Tyler, those conditions, right, that allow that to happen, you know? Especially the relationship with the artists and the, you know, the label and then the streaming platform like Jay-Z and Travis Scott. Well, Jay-Z has his own shit. Title. Actually. Dazzy, though. Who uses that shit, bro?

Who listening right now uses title, yo's like paramount plus bro nobody uses paramount plus except for me because i watch star trek that's it yeah go ahead tom you had a question tom you would say something no no no no keep going i'm sorry no no no no i guess all i wouldn't say i was like you know travis scott like jay-z like you know they're fine because i mean they're so big and so many people i mean i guess i also don't know how that works like this might be a naive question but like do like the artists get paid per play like for spotify like how does that work how do they get compensated so i i think the um i think that like some of the larger artists which is uh what tom was talking about is is that like some of the larger artists, which is what Tom was talking about, is that like some of the larger artists, their labels go out and get them like a chunk of money.

You know, like they make some sort of deal where they have a better deal than just your average guy. But your normal person that just uploads an album to Spotify, I can't remember what the actual number is, but it's like, you know, point zero zero one three cents per player or something like that. It's it's it's really, really low. I know that I did the math on it once. And it comes out to like if you get a million plays on a song, I think you get paid like three thousand something dollars. Jeez, man. Yeah. Yeah. it's it's it's rough and um and you know for a band like us and most bands i would imagine like you know we have a deal with the label and so then um like basically every label deal is just like alone with connections essentially like you you get some amount of money from the label label to make the record and to

help promote the record because nobody has $30,000 just sitting around that's a musician, usually, unless they got mom and dad money or whatever. So you get some amount of money from the label. And then until you pay that money back, essentially like the label just you know gets everything um yeah it's not like in publishing like i know i know that like a lot of book deals like you don't really have to pay the advance back that's just kind of part of it but in music it is and i've i've heard from from friends that have had bad experiences with labels where like you know they'll fly you out and wine and dine you or whatever and then before you know it like when that bill comes doing payable like all those meals

and all the right that you thought was just their large guess is actually you have to pay that back to yeah you're you're like paying for their office supplies and shit like the larger deals but the thing about the publishing though the the dark side of that is that when usually those publishing deals the reason why you don't have to pay the advance back is because they own a piece of that you know publishing right forever so it's like it's like they yeah that's that's also pretty like you're giving up a lot of publishing deals you're giving up half of of the publishing to the publishing to the publisher until the end of time. Right, right.

And you kind of alluded to this too, Tyler. It's like you see, I know, I think Paul Simon and Bob Dylan and hell, even Motley Crue have sold their catalogs recently for like buku money. That's right. their catalogs recently for like Buku money do you think that so let's say me and you are insanely wealthy VC guys which I would not wish on anybody but let's say we were

and we wanted to own Dr. Feelgood in perpetuity and we went to 56 and we said to him hey listen we're gonna give you a quarter of a billion dollars for the for your your catalog essentially like do you think what do you think is is behind that really do you think it's a matter of like since streaming is kind of dominant doesn't look like it's gonna go anywhere they that they can just sort of eat off of that in perpetuity

like but that even like i don't know even for a band like motley crew that seems like an exorbitant amount of money you know yeah i i don't i don't really know what's what's driving it totally i i probably need to read a book about it or something but the um yeah the thing it makes sense to me with like someone like dylan who's who's old and it's like well you know you can get this money now or your your relatives can have it forever and fight over it so yeah i don't know i'm not sure exactly what what drives it but i mean yeah i guess in a way forgot bob bill and paul simon it kind of makes some sense it's like well i can just kind of control my estate by getting this one-time cash out and then can allocate it how i see fit when i die versus like you know i'm not really sure what tommy lee and the boys

i hate to say this like on a socialist podcast, but, but some part of it is just like the amount of all that money all at once is, is like a really powerful thing. And just like kind of like the liquidity of like having that many assets all at once, as opposed to like over time, it's probably really appealing. Yeah. Yeah.

Totally. Totally. So, you know, maybe before we, before we circle back to a couple of questions that I had about touring still, there is, and this might be lost to a lot of listeners,

but this is just something that I've noticed just kind of being plugged in a little bit, is all these, there's these like, and you tell me if you guys have noticed this, but like I was having a conversation with a friend last night and i was talking about like being into like uh you know just growing up listening to rap for example and like in the mid-2000s like with when all the blogs were kind of popping off and like really kept you up to speed with like what was going on wherever in the country, all the different scenes and whatever.

I felt like I was so plugged in and knew everything that was going on. But now it's like my nephew will drop some dude's name on my lap and I've never heard of this person. Which is part of getting older, I know. Like Lilfredo sauce and so shit like that right but they'll be like the biggest shit in the world and like but but

like me and none of my friends have ever heard like a song from them you know what i mean and then like then you like you see these things about like you know these like spotify artists or like even like uh sometimes they'll take like the music like like elevator music or something that you'll hear it's like like got like massive streaming numbers but like you'll see these artists that like their streaming numbers would suggest they have a massive fall and then you hear about them doing like a show somewhere and like eight people show up right like what what has what is it about like streaming and maybe soundcloud and all these other things that has like sort of changed i guess what developing a

following in music even looks like does that make sense yeah yeah i well i mean so uh so one thing of it is that everyone has, with streaming and personal choice, right? Like everyone can find their weird little corner of whatever genres and sub genres and SoundCloud rappers or whatever the thing is that they want to listen to. There's this amount of specialization that's happening now that's really kind of i mean really cool right but it's just like i'm not knocking i don't mean to come off like i was being antagonistic toward that no no no yeah yeah and and so that's like that's like one part of it like i feel like you there's just like nobody that's gonna be dylan or nobody that's gonna be springsteen you know that that's just kind of like can't exist anymore or something. And then the other part is that like those,

I was thinking about this as like, what are those numbers even mean when you're looking at someone that's got like this many thousand like listeners or whatever, and like what, and then like, but then nobody shows up to the show. Some of i mean some of what that is is like you know spotify and i would assume these other platforms like kind of function on an algorithm and so a lot of people aren't like when you when i look at the majority of our listeners it's like it's not people like clicking on our song and listening to it's people with like the radio function on it's people with like the discover weekly you know playlists and things like that and so you know some of it's like what these platforms are like kind of curating they're like it's just like instagram they're showing

you know like oh do you like this oh you do like this okay let me give you more of it it's that same kind of it's that same kind of thing so right it's almost like it's almost like the algorithm is kind of like i don't know instead of like revealing your preferences to you it's kind of guiding you you know what i mean so like for me personally like a few things i was thinking about when you're talking tom one um business for me is like with plat with streaming platforms like um i remember pandora was the first one it was kind of harder for me to find music that I liked, you know, because like there was so much music. And like you were saying, Tyler, it's like you have access to the Internet. You have access to like from one focal point, I guess, like all of culture.

Right. Like any niche genre that you that you're into, you can find. But it seems like there's like a overload of information and not an overload of music i guess not that that's a bad thing but like with the blogs i don't know if y'all remember i don't know if tom you remember tyler y'all remember but there was this there is still is this blog called big ghost chronicles oh yeah yeah yeah yeah and it still exists and it was like kind of talks like ghostface yes yes he talks like ghostface yeah and like Yes. He talks like Ghostface. Yeah. And like, it's an amazing blog, yo.

But and it's still around. But I knew like in the 2000s, like what like was going on in the music scene because of that blog. Now, even though the blog still exists, I have no idea what's going on, you know, because it's so fractured and there are so many different communities. And that's not a bad thing. It's just like an overload of information, you know, and content, you know. it's so fractured and there are so many different communities and that's not a bad thing it's just like an overload of information you know and content you know that's right yeah well i think too another thing i mean particularly where like hip-hop is concerned and like it and to some degree even like like indie rock scenes too is like i don't think that atomization is like a bad thing where it's like you, this is what's going on in Nashville,

this is what's going on in Austin, this is what's going on in Milwaukee, this is what's going on wherever, wherever. And there's individual things in all those cities that, gentrification and all these other things that we talk about all the time, they kind of inform what's going on with those scenes and how clubs are ran and and and labels and this that and the third but like i think that there's something interesting about like those regional sounds but like also i don't know about about y'all tyler but

do you have like and you said that y'all hadn't done like a ton of touring so far but like do y'all have like a territory that y'all staked out is it like mostly the southwest the southeast like like what like are y'all going like getting like offers from all over the place like how does it work out for good look specifically well um i i think so we just did like a a big like kind of east coast and midwest tour and we're about to hit the west coast and and that's like more accessible because we have a booking company and because we've got like a pr campaign going at the same time with jacob and you know you kind of need those pieces like if you're doing everything on your own it makes more sense to kind of stake out a little area

and hit the same places because um you can only you you should only be playing the places you can kind of like get back to and and and and keeping things on like a smaller scale makes sense but but yeah we kind of we kind of right now we're playing pretty much everywhere in the united states right right so there's like this thing that I was talking to my friend, Daniel Pujol, I do another podcast with, and he toured extensively from like 2010 through like fairly recently, pre-pandemic and stuff like that, and it slowed down after the pandemic. But something we talked about from time to time is like the concept of like road-dogging it versus like you'll have some

bands and this is and again this is gonna sound antagonistic but it's not intended to be that way i'm just interested in how that works out and how it gets to be this way but like you'll see like a festival bill for example and you'll see like five festival bills and like the same bands will kind of be on the lower card of it. It's like, I feel like you have some bands that like take like a more of a road dog approach and trying to like stake out like their territory and like where they'll be going back to,

like you say, and then other bands that like, you know, we'll just end up sort of maybe on the festival circuit. Like, and like maybe I had a friend that that that helped organize bonnaroo for for many years and she would say that like you know like obviously those guarantees are a lot bigger than doing like you know like the club shows um right but that

like there's there are bands that like i think are probably i'm trying to think how to say this without sounding like i'm shit talking but like i'll just say i'll just say there's bands that like you couldn't name two of their songs but like they were on every festival bill getting like big guarantees you know what i'm saying uh-huh like i don't want to like again i don't want to sound like i'm like shitting on that because like you you got to make make it pay, you got to make it. But like, I'm interested in like how you get funneled into like one way of touring versus another. Have you got any perspective on that? Yeah. Is there some favoritism there or like, how does that work out?

Well, I'll just say this. I, I only have the window experience that I have. And if we're going to call ourselves a mid tier band, well, we are, we are in the very low mid-tier. So I don't know. So I don't know. It's hard to say how all that stuff happens. I mean, we're just starting to kind of get added on to festivals. But I would imagine uh yeah i i think i'm just going to be talking out of my ass if i answer this question because i'm i'm not really sure i i definitely know what you mean though you kind of start to see the same same bands kind of over and over again but i think

it's like a as a mid lower tier band we you know touring is the thing that you can control, right? Like it's the, it's the, you know, it's getting out there and it's like putting the work in. Yeah. There's, there's other ways of like promotion where you can just like dump money at something, but we don't really have that, that, that luxury. So like the best option for most bands and especially bands that are, you know, with, with limited resources is just to like get out there and bands that are you know with with limited resources is just to like get out there and play shows you know yeah so and can i ask a question to charles

speaking of that like being a kind of mid-sized man lower mid-man but as you were saying as you characterize yourselves but like with the pandemic and going on tour like I'm assuming if you're a bigger band, it might, or bigger act, it's obviously easier to, like, get shows where venues are more likely, more willing to, like, you know, have you come on, especially with the pandemic, was that, was there any difficult, I mean, of course there was, but can you talk a little bit about that, I guess, like, the difficulty and the challenges that, that y'all had to deal with during the pandemic or supposedly the pandemic being over but we know that's like a goddamn lie sure sure i mean well i i i will say the the first thing that was sort of um the first thing that sort of happened was we um we had a record that was like this record bummer year that we just put out um we recorded that in 2018

and we were ready to put that out in 2019 which is kind of when we started mastering the record kind of putting all the finishing touches on it and uh and then you know just as soon as we found a home for the record on keeled scales our record label you know the pandemic happened and so we were kind of ramping up to put it out and then we put everything on hold. And, and, and then we just like sat on this record for two years. Um, so that was, I mean, that was pretty, that, that was a pretty big effect. Also, I mean, you know, everything is real herky jerky shows that are getting canceled constantly. Um, you're taking on a lot of risk when you're you know most

bands are running like pretty high high debt you know like they're paying for like vans and they're paying for you know like the bigger tours or like production and all they have all these costs you know but someone gets someone gets covid and it just all shuts down and then you're just like on the hook for all that that that money that you're not gonna you're not gonna make um we actually just had five shows cancel we were doing some support for this um the songwriter i really like uh craig finn who was in the whole study and so we were doing some support shows with him and and you know his one of the bandmates got covid and so they had to cancel their whole tour. I mean, we had to cancel a few dates that we were going to do with them.

But they were it was like a lot of dates that they had to cancel. It's not like you're getting a stimulus package for a stimulus check from the government. Right. You know what I mean? No. Like as a touring band, you know what I mean? That's right. We should have gotten those PPP loans. Hell yeah, that's right.

We should have. Yeah, I know yeah it's it's dark out there man well let's let's switch gears just a little bit and to wrap up here let's talk about let's talk about that record a little bit more so you know when i was talking to jacob he's putting us in contact uh something that kind of interested me was that you grew up in uh in south texas you know kind of in close proximity to the petrochemical i guess in oil and gas and everything else and you know obviously up here uh i grew up in a coal mining town and and all that stuff and i'm like the only man in my family that never

worked underground today which is a source of great shame at Thanksgiving. Maybe tell us a little bit about you and your upbringing and kind of how that informs your music. That's kind of my way to not do this. So tell me about your process. Sure, sure. Well, yeah, I mean, I came from a pretty small town. It's right in the pet the the petrochemical you know lane alley down there on the gulf coast of texas uh the big the big chemical plant where i'm from is dow chemical um they do you know plastics and a lot of different kind of petroleum products and

uh i heard i heard one time i and not to cut you off but just to connect it back to something personally i i wrote this thing about joe manchin in west virginia and when they had the the the dupont chemical spill which i guess is you know kind of similar to dow but like they're every did you know every person in the united states has a dupont chemical called c8 in them right now just from that one spill just lying dormant yeah like 98 percent of america has like some degree of c8 in them yeah yeah and and but they're not like on the hook for that huh they're not paying for any uh kind of health problems when they were going to be held to account joe mansion filed an amicus brief and got him off the hook so oh my god man

yeah and that and that guy is the one that's uh that's informing climate policy going forward so yeah it's his climate bill right yeah if you were curious just how fucked we the guy who has poisoned who helped poison the country indeed yeah yeah well yeah i will say where i'm from has some of like the the county has these like super high um cancer rates and you're also you know they're always burning something off in the middle of the night it's always like there's a flare going you're like and you know some things they have to burn off or whatever but you're always kind of you're always kind of wondering it's like well are they being sneaky right now are they just betting that like no one's around um but but yeah that was that was a big part of my upbringing i'm

also um a son of a son of a preacher and like a very small um conservative religion and and so those are those are two two two kind of like big parts of my childhood and yeah there's a lot of small town small town texas in this in this record and um i don't know well next time we have you on we'll have to dive into that a little bit more because that's that's us too that's that's that's our second favorite topic after all the meandering nonsense i just put you through small town religion and all that kind of thing but yeah yeah but anyway man i appreciate you so much for for making time for us and no thanks and uh tell everybody where they can can find jack and find the record at and all that yeah um so i guess if you want to keep up with the band, uh, following us at, uh, at good

looks band, uh,.com. That's also our Instagram. Twitter, uh, is good looks band. Um, you can, can find the record at our, uh, at, at keeled scales.com. It's like a snakes scales, K E E L E D. Um, but yeah, I just, I really really appreciate you you having us on and having me on and um i've been we've been listening to y'all show a lot in the in the van on tour it's like the only thing it's the only thing the guys can can agree on you know typically it's me picking

like i've been listening to cocaine and rhinestones a lot and the guys sort of revolted on that and and so so this has been this has been the setting um so it was really cool and i i always catch like you were just saying about the religious stuff i always catch y'all's like kind of i kind of catch your religious references every now and then i'm like oh this guy knows what's up people that uh that speak that language can kind of pick it up still even years later yeah we'll jump into that a little bit more we'll have you back all the time i appreciate it man thank you yeah thanks thank you so much for having me Why, why am I waiting on you, babe? Let's have a side of me Why, why am I waiting on you, babe?

Let's have a semi-tragic ice and party on a Saturday night Watch the shimmer, watch the shuffle in that magnificent light. No, why? Why am I waiting on you, baby?