Wonderful! - Wonderful! Ep. 6: Book Stink

Episode Date: October 11, 2017

Rachel's favorite smell! Griffin's favorite seasonal spice! Rachel's favorite durable garment! Griffin's favorite soundtrack composer! Music: "Money Won't Pay" by Bo En and Augustus: https://open.spotify.com/track/5hs2nY40aeqM0mpP8SBOon MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.

Hi, this is Rachel McElroy. Hi, this is Griffin McElroy. And this is wonderful. Oh man, it sure is, isn't it? It got real chilly in Austin, Texas today. It's over. What's that? It's a Mr. Popper's penguin strolling down my street.

That's how freaking cold it is. Freaking icicles hanging from the tree. Griffin wore a long-sleeved shirt. I wore a long-sleeved shirt from J'Crew. And I wore it, and I'm still still wearing it it's my new favorite shirt it's very cozy and it's got stripes which is very slimming and it's the new fall look and then for lunch i went down the street there's a new taco stand that just opened up like 50 feet away i went i was like let's try it out try one of their barbacoa tacos it was balling and then came home hung out with you hung out with our wonderful baby and

played around with them and then we just got i just had some donkatsu from our favorite japanese place it's a fucking good day this is my first thing and it's all the good stuff that i did today not a very relatable one but man some good stuff was done today i'm feeling fresh got a new cup can we talk about the new cups? We went to Target, we bought new cups. This is another unofficial thing. We haven't started yet. But we got two copper mugs,

because I've been drinking Moscow Mules lately, because we go to this farmer's market, and they sell this incredible ginger beer, and so I started making Moscow Mules. Listen to this. The touch, the feel of copper cups. This is the new... But I also got a plastic cup. Do you want to tell them why

I got a plastic cup? I don't know what it is. I can't explain it. If you put a glass of water anywhere in my proximity, I will manage to knock it over. Usually karate kick it over. This was

an extreme example. This was like a Rube Goldberg, actually. I was moving Griffin's very large body pillow, and it swung behind me, hit the glass of water off his nightstand. Glass didn't break. Didn't break. It's a good glass. Many, many, many, many,

many other glasses have broken. They have met with a sorrier fate. And so we actually had to go and buy a special cup for me but really it's for rachel um i love special cups man i just love when you look at that cup you know i know what you're there for a little copper cup you're there for moscow mules to be drank out of you guys all these wonderful things are for free that's not even the episode yet this isn't you haven't even gotten into the real shit yet uh do you want to kick us off with our first thing yes okay this is a real sensory experience

okay i want you to put your nose in this okay take a big old puff kurt vonnegut jr's welcome to the monkey house it's an old old copy i would say oh not nice what is that you want to describe the smells so it's rachel's handed me an old book right and so you get handed that and you think like it's gonna have sort of that musty old book smell i don't know that i would describe that as what this is like i feel like paperbacks almost have a different i'm gonna get another what notes are you gonna i'm gonna give some asmr too oh that sounds incredible i mean it's definitely a little musky but it's almost sweet there's like almost a sweet almost sort of um uh what's the word incense like sort of smell to it as if like it has a paperback because it's paperback it has like absorbed the smell of the room around it how long have you had this book?

Did you have this in sort of your more crunchy phase that you went through? I mean, yeah, actually. Okay. I probably got it in college. I might explain it. I didn't know there was a Kurt Vonnegut Jr. That's Kurt Vonnegut. Why did he go by Jr.?

I mean, he was maybe a junior. All right. Kurt Vonnegut. Why did he go by junior? I mean, he was maybe a junior. All right. Um, but my,

my wonderful thing is not Kurt Vonnegut. Although I really do. It's pretty good. I do love welcome to the monkey house. You know, they're making a TV adaptation of, um, uh,

cat's cat's cradle. That's going to be very good. Uh, old book smell is my wonderful thing. I love this. I love this. I love this, but I,

I, there seems like there's multiple book smells in there or is there just the one here's what i'll tell you okay okay i'm so excited uh so an international team of chemists did a study in which they um looked through a whole bunch of books um smelled them all smelled those nasty perverts and they described the smell as a combination of grassy notes with a tang of acids and a hint of vanilla over an underlying mustiness i get that yeah i think the vanilla is what i what was hitting hitting my snoot this is from a mental floss article uh books are made up almost entirely of organic materials, paper, ink, glue, fibers. All these materials react to light, heat, moisture, and even each other over the years and release a number of what's called volatile organic compounds.

So this has nothing to do with how they interact with the environment around them. It's just you put ink and fiber and paper all in the same spot and you squish them together for a few decades and they just produce this scent? Well, so books will absorb, because it's paper, they will absorb smells. Right. I love the examples they gave. They said, some books have hints of cigarette smoke. Others smell a little like coffee.

And still others, cat dander. These are the different smells that there are. Thank you. Well, no, I just thought it was funny like they're describing a very specific kind of person that might have a bunch of old books. A person who owns a lot of books probably also does have a cat and also does smoke.

Just saying. So they use these compounds as a way to determine the condition and age of books by using special sniffing equipment. Okay. as a way to determine the condition and age of books by using special sniffing equipment. No, I need to know. Is it nose-shaped, the sniffing equipment? Is it like a big... Does it look like something sort of Pee Wee Herman-esque?

Or Double Dare. Is it a Double Dare challenge? You pull a flag out of the... You pull the flag right out of there uh henry did that to me the other day he did his own i was laying down next to him and he had this one razor sharp uh fingernail it's very hard to cut all 10 of his nails at once and so rachel typically does like two at a time which is a i was just on the wrong part of the cycle there he jammed that shit up to the fucking fatty part of his palm up into my brain, looking for that, trying to finish that physical challenge.

Holy shit, it was the worst thing I've ever felt in my life. So I want to tell you about these compounds. Yes, yes, the compounds. So, and I apologize to the chemists that listen, you're not going to enjoy my pronunciation. So listen, you're not going to enjoy my pronunciation. So I read an article that talks about the different odors of the different compounds that create this kind of aroma. Benzaldehyde is almond-like. And then we have ethylbenzene and toluene, which is a sweet smell.

These chemicals are where all smells come from? Well, these are specifically the ones that you'll find in paper, ink, glue, and fibers. I know, but is it when you smell an almond it only smells like an almond because it's got benzo... Oh man, that is another episode. I cannot help you. Shit, dude. I gotta learn anything about science. There's a

2-ethylhexanol which is slightly floral. Mm. Um, so, so I just thought that was interesting, you know, because I, I personally and a lot of people like that old book smell. Yeah. And I realize it's because, uh, the books are decaying. And it's, yeah, that's probably not great, but it's, it's, it's, I, in my opinion, it

is miraculous that this is the smell that these books produce because it's not like you know um gutenberg when he was making the book when he was inventing the book was like oh no we can't use this type of paper it stinks it's gonna stink too bad in 30 years you know they were just using so we could have had like stink books with the stink chemical in it you know what i mean like sliding doors we got all books can just be like oh how old is that book 10 years old get rid of that So we could have had like stink books with the stink chemical in it. You know what I mean? Like sliding doors. All books could just be like, ooh, how old is that book? 10 years old. Get rid of that thing.

It stinks so bad. It smells like old pizza. It's like a wine or a cheese. Yeah, but it could have been anything. But this is what they smell like, and that's great to me. That's actually, speaking of wine and cheese, it's true. Like as it gets older, the compounds break down. Because it has the cheese chemicals in it. It's yeah um that was a very good one yeah so that's mine for this week you

made me think of like the the the strand is that what it's called in new york in new york um or uh there was a bookstore in huntington that we would go into all the time that had like it was overpowering the smell was and that really took me back smelling that old book it really does take me back takes me back to a time when I read books at all how about my thing go for it

my thing is you're gonna be I think mad because it's very basic okay it's pumpkin spice oh not not pumpkin spice lattes although we will get into that i'm talking about the spice that is pumpkin spice can i see if i can name all of them please name all the spices in pumpkin spice cinnamon yes wow this is nutmeg yes um all spice right uh probably but that's not listed in this list that i have um sugar no oh um clove yeah um ginger yeah that's it yeah and and quote sometimes actual

pumpkin okay um um i don't have a lot about pumpkin spice, except to say that I genuinely love it so very much. And I recognize that that is probably like you hear that and it's like, oh man, I was really hoping they weren't going to talk about pumpkin spice on the podcast. I think it's incredible. I think seasonal, I enjoy seasons.

I enjoy holidays. I enjoy little checkpoints throughout the year that let you know that you've gotten to a new thing. And then celebrating traditions around those checkpoints, I think, is a very cool thing. And it's something that I've always really been attracted to. And the idea of a seasonal flavor is very exciting to me. Because there's no, like, spring seasonal flavor. There's not really a summer seasonal flavor. Winter, I guess, kind of. but that's more attached to holidays.

This is a holiday agnostic, just like it's fall. It is fucking pumpkin spice time. You know what's crazy about pumpkin spice? Like, I don't know if you remember this, but I remember the first time I had just like canned pumpkin without the spice. And I was actually surprised. I was like, this tastes nothing. This doesn't taste like pumpkin spice at all.

Yeah. So you cannot talk about pumpkin spice without talking about the PSL, the pumpkin spice latte. Starbucks introduced the pumpkin spice latte in 2003. It is now their most popular seasonal beverage, of course. As of 2015, 200 million had been sold. That data is two years old,

and I imagine that that number has probably doubled at this point. When they were creating the recipe for the pumpkin spice latte worked on it for a long time up in up in washington um and you know experimented with some stuff tried some stuff out trying to find the right balance between you know the pumpkin flavor and the more sort of like chemical balance between, you know, the pumpkin flavor and the more sort of like chemical, artificial flavors and sweeteners, if you will. And what they landed on was what if there was not any pumpkin in it at all? So did you ever have a pumpkin spice latte before 2015? I think so. Yeah, there's no pumpkin in that one. Unfortunately, even a little bit, there was not even a little bit of pumpkin in it um around 2014 like people started to catch on like hey hey starbucks there's like no pumpkin in this thing also it's like bright orange so what i guess is going on with that well and it's shelf stable

too like because i i did used to work at a coffee shop um and those syrups they just sit out on the counter all time so it seems like if you're gonna to put real pumpkin in there, that might be kind of a challenge. This blew my mind. And I realized, like, this is also a very old news story. And there was like, this was like a thing that everybody talked about a few years ago. Been out of the pumpkin spice latte game for a little bit. Rachel got me one the other day, and I drank it. And I said, well, that's pretty sweet.

That's extremely sweet. That is maybe because they changed the recipe in 2015 in response to these criticisms. They cut out the artificial colors. Now it looks like a coffee beverage again. And it now uses what is called a pumpkin pie sauce, which includes sugar, condensed skim milk, pumpkin puree, coloring, and preservative. That explains it because I looked it up when I was on my way there. I looked up to see if it was dairy free and it is not no so there is it didn't taste very good and i'm going to get back to talking about how good the pumpkin spice flavor is in general but that pumpkin spice latte

i drank the other like two days ago like i it left me wanting and i'm wondering if it's because they changed the recipe to make it less chemical and less like carcinogenic apparently and now don't it always seem to go wouldn't you just love to get in the car right now and just turn on fucking joni mitchell's blue and just like drive to dallas tonight yes windows roll, that 60 degree air just coming. Oh my God. Are you kidding me? With the old recipe pumpkin spice latte in her hand. With an old PSL and an old Four Loko. I think there's people on eBay selling the old sauce.

Which is rancid. Actually, it's probably still good. It's probably still good. There's definitely a site of Four Loko aftermarket. Anyway, okay. So introduced the PSL in 2003. It changed shit up in 2015. Now it's stronger than ever, maybe.

I don't know. I didn't think it was that tasty. I also don't like, I don't have as big a sweet tooth as I used to. Whoa, Griffin. What? I know I say a lot of stuff. Like, I'll eat some Skittles or whatever like that, but, like, if I'm drinking a coffee, I don't want to get, it makes my tummy hurt.

There it is, straight up. That much sugar just gets me. I was going to say gets i haven't seen you ever turn your nose up at any kind of sugar treat but because of the pumpkin spice latte pumpkin spice fucking exploded and now it is everywhere and in everything you ever eat um a few facts here at trader joe's the number of pumpkin products has steadily increased since the grocery chain began offering them in the mid-1990s according to a company spokesperson so i guess they were first in the game and sort of food stuffs um this year trader joe's shelves will be stocked with more than

guess how many pumpkin based items they have now is this 2017 uh yes this is from a i think a business insider article or washington post, one of the two. 32. More. 67. More. 93. More than 70 items. More than 70 pumpkin spice items.

Are you kidding? That's more than one shopping cart can probably hold. But I will fuck with most of it because they know what they are doing around with some pumpkin spice stuff. They know what they are doing around with some pumpkin spice stuff they know they know what's up according to data central menu trends restaurants pumpkin inspired limited time offers are up 234 from 2008 to 2012 this is specifically not just about pumpkin flavored foods this is like only for the next two fucking weeks get in here bring your pumpkin spice latte because once it's gone it's gone uh which is sort of like another big appeal of the psl um while uh overall limited time menu offers have grown 143 percent over the same period i

didn't read this this close when i was putting it on here this is more about limited time offers and how great they are um but there are new pumpkin flavors and from anything from m&ms dunkin donuts to flavored coffee k-packs to pumpkin flavored whiskey. There are fragrances. There's pumpkin spice lotion and shampoo and candles. Yeah. And all that said, it's all very good. I am excited to get myself my hands on some pumpkin pie. Bread.

On a pumpkin log. On a pumpkin bread. Oh my God. Like pumpkin log. Yeah, like a pumpkin log. It's like a. The thing that's rolled. Yeah, like a Swiss roll.

Yeah, my mom always called it pumpkin log, but I like a pumpkin log. It's like a... The thing that's rolled? Yeah, like a Swiss roll. Yeah, my mom always called it pumpkin log, but I guess a pumpkin Swiss roll would be a more accurate descriptor. Pumpkin spice baked goods are my shit. They're back. Pumpkin spice latte, a little cool on those, but pumpkin, man, you eat it, and it's like you're eating like a month.

It's like, mm, I'm eating November right now. That's beautiful. And there's nothing else like that, I don't think. Right? I mean, peppermint in December. I guess so. Yeah, December. How come all that shit?

How come with the, I talked just now about holidays and checkpoints and all that is being very good. How come pretty much all the big dope ones are like all back to back to back? Do you know what I mean? big dope ones are like all back to back to back. Do you know what I mean? Like Halloween rules, uh, Thanksgiving rules,

and then Christmas, uh, uh, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, Ramadan, whatever you celebrate the, the,

the winter holidays. No, Valentine's day. No, fuck that. Fuck that. Fuck that. Are you kidding me?

No, it's good. It's good, but I'm saying Easter candies are super good. They're good, but neither of those holidays are as dope as Thanksgiving or Halloween or whatever December winter holiday you celebrate. None of them are that good. And all of those are right back to back.

Thanksgiving's the best, and then wintertime holiday is the best. And they're right next to each other. I feel like Thanksgiving should be in June. Talk about it. For those of you that don't know this about griffin he is very intense about holidays oh god am i uh you will probably do some special episodes oh then it was starting the day after halloween the next eight weeks of episodes are going to be insufferable i have a whole whole album dedicated to the sufjan stevens Christmas albums. Straight up.

That's coming down the pipe. Probably just going to do a whole Baked Good episode. Just like straight up. And then one about, you know, the real meaning of Christmas. Okay. We'll do some Christmas movies, I'm sure. Yes. I mean, not just...

Thanksgiving dishes. What I like about the idea of candle nights from A Boom Bam and Adventure Zone is it's an all-inclusive affair. Oh, yeah. I know. We could do some Hanukkah dishes. Let's do some Hanukkah dishes, dude. Hey, Griffin.

Hi. Can I steal you away? Oh. Whoa. So I did a fusion there of Joeyey lawrence into home improvement what if do you want to read that first jumbotron for me sure this message is for past gracie it is from future gracie i know you're sad because of your breakup but now it's fall you're a 2l and your friends love you and i love you you're a kick-ass future lawyer and a

great dog mom remain on the smooth tip and keep listening to the best couple on the podcast airwaves you rock hang in there that's a very good powerful message just reminded me of remains on the smooth tip the fucking oh sorry that was the that was the MC Scat Cat. That is how the record label described MC Scat Cat, as like a hip guy who remains on the smooth tip. Oh, my gosh. The greatest thing I've ever heard in my entire life. Gracie, keep doing it. Way to go, Gracie.

You're making it. Just claw at that fucking thing. You're doing it every day. Congratulations. Got another message. This one's for Densha and Frog Monster, and it's from Nanner, who says, Hey, ladies, Densha, happy almost-iversary. Froggy happy almost birthday.

Hopefully by now I've gotten you to listen to all the McElroy products with me. And you are hearing this come from Griffin's Sweet Lips. If not, well, hey, Hannah, happy B-Day. Keep going. You got this. And even if you don't the macaroys are always there right griffin right yeah like yeah like right yeah i agree they're obligated to always be there i want to know if this is a real frog that was in the mix there

or if it's just like a cool college nickname probably a cool college nickname maybe it's a message for a frog no it's probably a cool college nickname. Maybe it was a message for a frog. No, it's probably a cool college nickname. Frog Monster is maybe the coolest college nickname. Well, hoopity-dop-dop, scoopity-dee-dop, dee-ba-dee-da-ba-dee-do-ba-dee-ha-ba-dee-hoop. Hoop-a-doo-doo-doo, da-pa-ba-dee-dee-dee, do-da-do-ga-do-ga-do-ba-da. Hoop-a-dee-doo-doo, ra-ba-dee-hey-hey,

hoop-a-dee-ha, it's a-ba-ba-doo, baby. Stop podcasting yourself. We don't even know anymore. Find it on MaximumFun.org or wherever you download your podcasts. You want to hear my second thing? I absolutely want to hear my second thing? I absolutely want to hear your second thing. Okay, I've teased this before. You've heard me talk about them. If you heard our promo, you may have heard me mention it.

Overalls. Oh my God. This is a very fall episode. I know. I love overalls. This is a very fall episode. I know. I love overalls. This is true about Rachel. I have, Griffin, Griffin got me a pair of cloth overalls that I have not worn very much. They're, they're unfortunately too long.

Yeah. I'm a very short woman. Overalls are extremely difficult to shop for someone else for. Yes. I, my. Most measurements do not come in overalls sort of metrics. Well, also, my preference is for the denim overall, where the strap over the shoulder is adjustable. So you can just take it right off like you're in TLC or something.

Well, no, you can adjust it so that the length on the bottom. Or you could just let it hang like you're in TLC or something. Or you could let it hang like you're in TLC. God, that'd be such a good look on you babe overalls uh were created in the 1700s uh yeah dude 1700s uh they were called okay now this article i don't know if it can be relied on or not but this article said the very first bib overalls were often referred to as slops yeah that sounds right i think i've heard that before since i'm from the you know the country

it's a it's a working man's outfit uh at the time they were not made of denim but instead a tough cloth uh i bet that felt bad they were worn over another pair of pants so did they do you think back in the day they would also let a strap hang down i want to know who came up with that first that would probably be a hazard it's us it's such a hot look how come nobody's doing this anymore it's just tlc and jennifer aniston for a little bit and then nobody um will smith back when he was the fresh prince used to do a little he would wear overalls with one? Okay. All right. So then in the 1850s, they started specializing overalls for the industry. So it was white for painters, blue for farmers, and pinstripes for railroad workers.

I never, holy shit. I knew that, but I didn't know that. I didn't think about it either. But now that you said that, it's like, oh, yeah, they are always wearing that shit. In the early 1900s, Oshkosh Bagash began selling bib overalls for children, which, oh, my gosh, the best. Can we just say to Mr. Osh, Mr. Bagash, and Mr. Kabosh, I didn't say it right. Just well done. Good ingenuity, good entrepreneurial spirit. Thank you for your service.

The idea was that the kids could dress like their dads by wearing these overalls. Oh my god, Oshkosh, my gosh. Once they were featured in the Miles Kimball catalog, sales went through the roof. Miles, the kingmaker. Yeah, I don't know who Miles Kimball is. I went through the roof. Miles, the kingmaker.

Yeah, I don't know who Miles Kimball is. I can't stop thinking about the colors matching the different professions. I know, it's mind-blowing, isn't it? Sorry, I'll get my head back in the episode now. So overalls became kind of a fashion thing in the 60s, and then where we are familiar with them is in the 90s when a lot of uh musical groups would wear them with one strap unbuttoned also crisscross backwards backwards holy shit yeah um and yeah i would say so middle school is when i i really went for the overalls describe your everything about your middle school fashion please

oh man i'll do mine if it makes you feel everything about your middle school fashion, please. Oh, man. I'll do mine if it makes you feel better afterwards. Middle school is where I started to get into kind of thrift shopping. So I had a lot of large polyester shirts. But shit, it was 99 cents. You remember that? Nobody. Baby, baby, baby.

Nobody wants that anymore. Well, do you remember that baby baby baby nobody wants that anymore well do you remember do you remember it i do i do okay uh i had a lot of the same title of the song you said it there is a place in st louis i used to go to called value village that was enormous and had a lot of polyester button-down shirts with like butterflies and stuff on them i used to wear little plastic barrettes in my hair little baby that's good stuff um either a wide leg pant or overalls as i mentioned uh i used to say wide leg pant like how close to not jinko no i know but give me like a jinko percentile no not even not even close not even like two percent like flare at the at the calf like a bell bottom yeah oh that's a good look too um like a like a skater shoe

what do you like a vans or yeah but probably not a vans we weren't we weren't name brand families vans were cheap back in the day though I remember Vans being fairly affordable Chucks Oh yeah I definitely had Converse Nonstop Chucks Used to dye my hair red, purple What? Babe I never bleached it though so it was always kind of like a hint of color

Are there pics? I want to see pics of purple haired Rachel Honestly I don't think pics exist Will you dye your hair purple just so I can get an idea of like what you're what you're we can time it with the halloween costume okay i'm not gonna do that um and i'll dye my hair purple no you won't if you do it i do it i don't give a shit about my hair nobody fucking sees me ever it's true people definitely People definitely do see me, though. That's a good point. A few days a week, which is going to be a challenge.

You wear a big hat. Like a big Blossom-style hat. Yeah, a big Blossom-style hat. Did you own one of those? I bet you did. I did. Yes! I did.

Yeah, that's about it. I would say just a lot of unnatural fabrics and overalls. Loving it. Just a lot of unnatural fabrics and overalls. Loving it. I remember my friend at the time had a pair of denim Union Bay overalls. And I saw them and I thought, oh, cool. People are wearing overalls now.

I'm going to go out and get some. I also happened to go out and get Union Bay overalls in a different color. And everyone was like, why are you trying to be like her? Why are you trying to change the flavor? Were you like, no, look, they're pinstripe. It's because I work on the railroad. She's wearing white it was devastating yeah I'm sorry babe

I wore those for a very long time but to be fair that is what you exactly what you did and they did get you they caught you chomping flavor

and I love you but you can't be a flavor thief in this in this world I just want to wear overalls all the time I know

but not because your friend you know wore them and then you got to chomp that flavor I needed somebody to let me into the overall time. I know, but not because your friend wore them and then you got to chop that flag. I needed somebody to let me into the overall universe. I think you're ready to come back.

I actually, when I was researching today, I got online to see if anybody was carrying an overall. Because last season I saw him in Old Navy and Gap and everything. Didn't jump? Didn't see him yet. Didn't stripe while the iron was hot? Damn it. No, didn't see him yet. Oh, and, you know, Pockets, Hammerloop, didn't see him yet. Oh, and, you know, pockets, hammer loop.

Those are good, too. Oh, shit, yeah. Love all those pockets. Pull a pencil. I had a lot of hammer loop pants, and I never once carried a hammer in them. I feel like I did once, just for the novelty. Why? You brought a hammer to school?

Well, no, not at school. When I was working around the house, I'd pull a hammer in there. That's very good. I think I used to, like, I'd put an umbrella in it to be very practical. I think in middle school, literally all I wore was cargo shorts and bowling shirts. I was, I was a heinous,

heinous beast. So many bowling shirts, a hot topic sold them. I think for a while. No, I know it's not a good answer. Also consignment shops, like nonstop.

That is like where we got all our clothes growing up was consignment shops um okay so how about my second thing go for it i have a music thing and it's kind of time to like halloween a little bit but i'll have to walk you there a little bit um my second thing is a musician and composer who goes by the name Disasterpiece. Real name Rich Vreeland. And he is a composer. He is mostly known for his work on soundtracks. He has a pretty wide catalog at this point. But he mostly does soundtracks, and that's what he's mostly known for,

particularly in games and one particular soundtrack for a movie that I want to dive into. So I'm going to play a few things and sort of talk about why I like him. He is a very influential musician for me. A lot of the stuff that I did for the Adventure Zone soundtrack was inspired by listening to his music. And also, I think he's probably my favorite composer, soundtrack artist alive right now. So his first major release was for a video game called Fez, which came out in 2012.

And that was kind of his breakout thing. And it's probably my favorite game soundtrack ever. There are these incredible themes throughout and these late motifs that just thread the whole thing together. He uses very distinctive synths that kind of define his music. I want to get to the place where you probably know him from here in just a second. But he uses a lot of 80s synth sounds and bit crushers. And for Fez, the music was so...

Each song was so unique to all of the different environments in the game, which really helped to bring them to life. So just to sort of set up, if you've never heard any of his music before, this is the theme song to Fez. It's called Adventure. so the next sort of big thing that he did was a film soundtrack to a horror movie um is it uh oh gosh what's do you remember what was it it follows it follows that's right so this is when you said like 80s that's what i thought immediately yeah so he did the themes onto uh a really great horror movie called it follows which is just about this um invisible monster uh that is only visible to you

if you have its kind of curse. And the only way you pass the curse on is by having sex with somebody. Um, and the whole thing is that the monster never stops. The monster is always, always, always walking towards you no matter what. And so you have to keep moving or bone down and spread the curse to somebody else. Um, and so he did the disaster piece of the theme song to this movie and it was sort of his first like major film uh soundtrack role and it rules it's extremely good it has this very very dark tone it's very atmospheric with lots of like uh distortion in the sense but at the same time i remember the first time i saw the trailer i knew nothing about the movie but i was like oh

shit that's disaster piece because i recognize a lot of like the synths and sounds that he uses in in the rest of his music he does that here but he uses them for more sort of um sort of subtle like atmospheric like building tension sort of purposes um it has my favorite theme song to any horror movie ever and i'm not being hyperbolic when i say that the title song to it follows is just called title and it's great that's not what i want to play what i want to play is um he used he threads like a lot of of late motifs through like all of his work and uh it's no different here and it follows what are you saying there are you saying lake motif late motif is like a i don't know what that means it's like a uh like a recurring theme that is it shows up multiple times in like a a collection or a soundtrack or anything okay

that reuses themes and usually it ties those themes to a specific like character or situation um and so what what is so genius about the It Follows soundtrack is in horror movies, this idea exists of characterizing the monster or the evil or something with a recurring element in the music, right? Yeah, like Halloween with Mike Myers. Right. Or to be even more simple simple like the best use of this and in halloween it's the oh how does the halloween yeah that's good so that's like what three or four notes in an arpeggio going down jaws is two notes right and that's it a scream is just the violin shriek the right um and it follows disaster piece does this with his same like

synths is like crunchy synths um but it's just one note and it's non-stop and it is set usually to like a pulsing beat that is coming at you non-stop just like the monster and it follows it is fucking incredible and it is fucking terrifying. Yeah. And it is throughout, like, every, throughout the soundtrack, like, you'll be listening to it and you'll hear this, and you'll be like, oh, that is where the monster shows up in the movie. And you know it and it just feels like this thing is coming for you. So this is, the theme song to the movie is great, but this is not that. It is the first song in the album called Heels.

And it is going to show you just what I mean. Just, it accomplishes so much just with one note. and that's what i like really love about his stuff is how much he accomplished like his sense are beautiful and his compositions are incredible but he accomplishes like so much just with the recurring use of like the simplest elements to like an extent where i don't know how he pulls it off like i don't know how you use a single note to like accomplish something like that um one other thing that he did uh last year there was a video game that came out called hyper light drifter that was one of my favorite games last year his soundtrack was incredible he had a lot of acoustic piano and synths and stuff in it too um and just like his

other stuff there's there's themes that recur throughout and a lot of it happens just with these three notes that he plays in these songs to sort of establish this kind of spooky ruined dying world um and it just plays throughout the whole thing and and just with three notes like he gets across so much about this world and i think it's just genius. So this is a song off that called Vignette Corruption. Do you know anything about this dude? I always get intimidated by people's like performing names and then it's like makes their whole persona a mystery to me like who's this guy yeah no he's

his real name is rich vreeland uh i'm pretty sure he's a new york dude he's young he's like 31 um and yeah it's it's i've been following him since since fez i played fez and was like holy shit this is the best we have the fez soundtrack on vinyl i think it's really really great yeah and so it's been really cool to like watch him go on and do like more more stuff not that making a video game soundtrack is like you know uh not not laudable enough uh but then to see him like go on and do It Follows and get a bunch of different soundtrack work has been really, really cool.

And I don't know, I just think it's like, I think he's got a really great way of boiling down sort of these characterizations of these worlds into just a handful of notes that happen throughout the whole composition. And he just puts it i talk a lot about mort garson who did the theme song to uh the adventures well he didn't do the theme song to the adventure zone we use the song of his for the theme songs to the adventure zone he was this

like 70s moog electronic pioneer um and i feel like disaster piece has kind of a similar ear like whenever i hear mort garson's song i'm like oh that's mort garson because i can tell like the synth that he uses and i feel the same way about disaster piece so that's cool like it's so interesting to me that you did nick drake and now you're doing disaster piece like that there i can't think of two more different they're very different but i i listen to both of them a lot i listen to disaster piece a lot like i listen to a lot of soundtracks um i listen to soundtracks like i like listening to a soundtrack because usually i'm working when i'm listening to music and soundtracks don't have any words and because disaster piece makes these soundtracks that help build character in a video

game world or in the case of it follows like a film world i don't listen to that much it follows because it is kind of spooky and a lot of it is very sort of dark and dreadful. But I listen to Fez and Hyper Light Drifter a lot because when the music is designed to make like a world feel more vibrant and alive and detailed, when you listen to that music, when you're not playing the game or doing whatever, I don't know, it's more, it's like transportative in a way that I can really get down with. And I, a lot of this stuff I'm talking about, like minimalist, powerful, recurring themes and world building, all that stuff.

Like I think he's the best dude in the biz right now. And that's why I wanted to talk about him also because it follows is a really good spooky movie. It's super good. Yeah. We should watch that this Halloween. Yeah, for sure. I think we have it.

We just haven't watched it. And probably because I'm afraid. Do you want to talk about what some of our listeners are finding? I would love to talk about some submissions. Yes. Here's one from Victoria from Seattle who says, I really love winning a challenging round of classic Microsoft Solitaire. Watching the cards drop always feels like a little congratulatory firework show meant just for me oh my gosh that and and free cell free cell and ski

free and jazz ball fuck yeah dude not my sweeper though no too much work yeah too much work uh here's one from alex who says my boyfriend and i have stumbled upon a very good korean cooking show on netflix called chef and My Fridge. The premise is that celebrities bring their entire fridges and chefs have cook-offs using only the ingredients from the fridges. There's a lot of good-natured ribbing between the chefs during the competition, and it's become our go-to comfort food television for a lazy Sunday. Rachel and I read this, and we were like, yeah, that sounds pretty good, and watched it while we had dinner tonight. It was good. Each episode's an hour long, and there's only one cooking thing in there, and the rest of the time is sort of padded with these Korean celebrity sort of interrogations.

At least that was the episode we watched was all these chefs and hosts. We only saw one of the celebrities, so there were two celebrities on there, I think. I don't think we saw the second half. I think this was like a best of con. Anyway, I enjoyed it. I really, really loved the cooking section,

but a lot of it is like, I feel like I would enjoy it a lot more if I knew who Korean celebrities were. I know who some Korean celebrities are, but not this particular Korean celebrity. Here's another one from Rebecca, who says, Hey, Griffin and Rachel,

I was recently watching Frasier with my beautiful mother when she muted the television and said, apropos of nothing, I used to do ventriloquy semi-professionally, and I don't regret a second of it. Then immediately went back to watching the show. While I laughed so hard, I thought I was going to permanently damage my body. Any further questions were curved in favor of watching Frasier. I certainly don't think this was a universal experience, but oh my God, did it make my year.

Frazier. I certainly don't think this was a universal experience, but oh my god, did it make my year. Do you think she thought, today's the day. I'm going to reveal my secret. What television show would be most appropriate for revealing this secret? And she landed on Frazier. It's possible. Was there a good time to tell your child that you used to semi-professionally be a ventriloquist? I don't think so. I mean soon as i mean as soon as possible does jeff dunham have kids and do you think that they know what daddy does all day i'm sure the dark the dark deeds i don't know that ventriloquists are big fans of jeff dunham probably not i think there's probably ventriloquists who listen to this show who are like don't say jeff don't don't say jeff don't say jeff ah fuck he said jeff dunham i don't want to talk about jeff dunham but i end up

doing it a lot for reasons beyond my comprehension. Okay. Here is one last one from Whitney who says, A wonderful thing I enjoy in fall is toast soup. You heard of this? I don't think so. It's a few slices of lightly burnt toast simmered in bacon-infused chicken stock blended together with a bit of cornichon

brine dijon mustard and butter it's so strange and soothing all at once and a perfect fit for a rainy day i mean it sounds delicious sounds really really really good i wonder how burnt this toast has to be so a little bit because i they sent a recipe along it's jennifer m McLoggan's Toast Soup on food52.com. You can go find it there. And they talk about, like, bitter being kind of a flavor that nobody really uses. So it's, like, a little bit burnt a little bit. I like it. I want to eat this. I'm looking at a bowl of it now.

It looks real good. Toast Soup. I also just love, like, those two things shouldn't go together you know egg cereal what who thinks of these things in order to get to toast soup there was probably a chef who had to like walk there and they probably did were like all right egg cereal let's try it damn it no spaghetti waffles still no damn it think about soup in a bread bowl you know like you're thinking about bread in a bread bowl you know like you're thinking about bread in a soup bowl that's what we're doing it's beautiful oh boy this has been wonderful and

thank you all for listening and uh if you leave a review on itunes or tell a friend or do literally anything to help us out we would appreciate it i didn't mean for that to sound like, come on, you ingrates. Um, no, we do. We appreciate your, your help. And,

um, we appreciate max fun for having us on the network. Go to max fun and maximum fund.org and check out all the great podcasts there. What are you, what are you into these days, baby? And the max fun mill you. Oh my gosh. I listened to a lot,

a lot of shows. Um, stop podcasting yourself. Just recorded their 500th episode. Oh, wow. Yeah. So did JJ Go, right? Jordan and Jesse Go did theirs,

I think, last week. Wow, they all had such an early start. I know. And I like One Bad Mother. I like Bullseye. Classic. I like all the McElroy shows. Oh, thank you.

You can go to McElroyShows.com and check out all the great podcasts and videos there. Thank you, baby, for setting me up for that one. You're welcome. You literally said McElroy shows. Is there anything else that we need to talk about? Oh, we have a P.O. Box. It's P.O. Box 66639 Austin, Texas 78766. Tweet at Rachel.

Let her know where all the great overalls can be bought this year. If you are interested in sending me an old pair of overalls. Oh, don't say, you can't say that because this is, it's a small box and two pairs of overalls will fill this thing up. No, I was just going to request that they hit me up and ask me what my size is. I'm not going to give it out on air. Oh, so you, but you have just suggested, Hey, listeners hit me up and ask me what my body sizes are.

And that seems okay. Maybe I shouldn't. Maybe you should. I just really want overalls. I know you. I'll figure it out. Okay. I'll make you overalls.

I'll take my old jeans and I'll take two belts and I'll make overalls out of them. Take all those cargo shorts you still have and turn them into a pair of overalls. I have one pair of cargo shorts. Get out of my butt hole. Thank you all for listening. Until next time, I'm Griffin McElroy. I'm Rachel McElroy. It's been the end of the end. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it.

Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. Working on it. Money won't pay. MaximumFun.org Comedy and culture. Artist owned. Listener supported. I love it.

Good stuff. Well, I hope that you're enjoying this podcast you're listening to as much as we are pretending to. But anyway, why not listen to another podcast, too? It's called The Flophouse. And on our podcast, we have recently watched a movie, often a bad movie, and we review it on our podcast, but mainly talk about other stuff and, I don't know, hang out. It's all about hang out, feeling like you're being with your best friends. Who are your best friends?

Us three Dan McCoy, Emmy award winning writer for The Daily Show Stuart Wellington, owner of the best bar in Brooklyn, Hinterlands And Elliot Kalin, former Emmy winning head writer for The Daily Show with Jon Stewart Former head writer of Mystery Science Theater 3000, The Return So many things Author of the upcoming children's book Alright, that's enough

The Elliot's credits just go on and on. Yeah, but if you like the idea of listening to three funny guys talk about bad movies, then why not come over and listen to The Flophouse?

It's available at MaximumFun.org or wherever fine podcasts are found. So get out of here!