Completely Conspicuous

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead album Shakedown Street.

Show notes:

- Recorded at CompCon world HQ

- First ep of the new decade

- Shakedown Street came out in '78

- Lots of musical stuff happening: Disco, punk, new wave, hard rock

- Disco wasn't as bad as everyone made it out to be

- Jay: No guilty pleasures: If you like it, you like it

- The Dead were coming off a triumphant '77

- This was a contractually obligated studio album

- Lots of influences thrown in: Funk, disco, African jazz, rock

- Met with savage reviews

- The version of "Good Lovin'" here pales in comparison to the live version, especially when Pigpen sang it

- The last album with Donna and Keith Godchaux

- Title track gets slagged as bad disco, but we dig it

- Shakedown Street is now the name of the merch area at Dead & Co. shows

- Pressure was on from Clive Davis for them to have hits

- This album was produced by Lowell George of Little Feat

- Seen as a disco album, but it's pretty diverse musically

- The Dead weren't a great studio band

- Mickey Hart stepped up with three songs

- Phil: "I Need a Miracle" might be the best song on the album

- "Stagger Lee" has an interesting history; versions were covered by many different artists

- Jay: The Nick Cave version is the best, and the most profane

- Album was scattered because of different influences plus substances

- "All New Minglewood Blues" is a pretty rockin' cover

- Dead appeared on SNL that year

- Ends with a Garcia-Hunter love ballad that works

- Jay: Liked about half the songs on the album

- Next: 1980's Go to Heaven

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

It's part 3 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we count down our favorite albums of 2019.

Show notes:

- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ

- Breitling's #4

- Former Boston act now relocated to Nashville

- Perfecting her sound

- Kumar's #4

- Introspective album that topped my midyear list

- Sweeping, synth-driven songs

- Breitling's #3

- Worthy follow-up to classic mid-'90s indie pop release

- Expansive and experimental

- Kumar's #3

- Return to rocking from for NJ punk stalwarts, produced by Bob Mould

- Surprisingly succinct from a band known for 8-minute epics

- Breitling's #2 and Kumar's #6

- Majestic final release from artist who tragically took his own life right after it came out

- Backed by the band Woods

- Kumar's #2

- Third release from Toronto punk-pop act

- Writing about frustrations of getting older

- Breitling's #1

- Recently released instant classic from Boston indie rock act

- Frontman Ryan Walsh wrote album after dealing with struggles writing his book about Astral Weeks

- Kumar's #1

- Veteran Canadian power pop act with another great release

- All-star team of musicians

- Darker feel than some of their other albums

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

It's part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we count down our favorite albums of 2019.

Show notes:

- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ

- The top 10

- Breitling's #10

- A surprising solo debut from a veteran rock legend

- Kumar's #9

- Raw shoegaze effort from Brooklyn act changing its sound

- Breitling's #9

- Electronic album with an analog feel released late in the year

- "Crust ambient"

- Kumar's #8

- Power pop-punk album about the aftermath of broken relationship

- Great album cover

- Breitling's #8 and Kumar's #10

- Strong release from shoegaze pioneers

- Trying some different things

- Breitling's #7

- Shoegaze duo from California that likes to take its time

- All killer, no filler

- Berniece's sleep aggression

- Kumar's #7

- Second release from indie legend's latest band

- Embracing '80s hard rock sound

- Breitling's #6

- Used to call this band the Steve Miller of indie rock

- Opinion has changed, especially with the latest release

- Sound is augmented by female singers

- Kumar and Breitling's #5

- Latest in an strong stretch of releases from this punk/alt-rock legend

- Sounds as good as he ever has

- Unusually upbeat

- Next: Our top 4 albums

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

It's part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of 2019.

Show notes:

- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ

- This program is not affiliated with Moviefone

- A decade of talking rock

- Near

- Breitling: Had time to listen to a lot more music this year

- The Billie Eilish vs. VH debate has been raging for a while

- Kids don't know or care about music from 10 years ago, let alone 35

- A lot of butthurt older music fans getting worked up for no reason

- Most kids have zero interest in classic rock

- Listen to what you want

- The "OK Boomer" phenomenon

- When music becomes something on in the background

- Breitling needs to see Idiocracy

- The albums that didn't make our top 10 lists

- Breitling: Floating Points, Rroxy More, Top Down Dialectic, Katie Dey, Max Richter

- Kumar: Mikal Cronin, Ty Segall, Mark Lanegan, Trinary System

- Mission of Burma's second act may be done

- Breitling: Juana Molina, Bedroom Eyes, Lubec, DIIV, Tullycraft, She Sir, Snowball II

- Kumar: Sleater-Kinney with a controversial new album; Janet Weiss pushed out of the band

- Breitling: Would have been better received under a different band name like Unicorn Butt

- Kumar: Pixies, Palehound, Kim Gordon, Pile, Black Mountain, Sebadoh, Fontaines DC, Telekinesis, Hold Steady, Desert Sessions, GBV, Wilco, Plague Vendor, Oh Sees, Nick Cave

- Breitling: Better Oblivion Community Center, Florist, Big Thief

- Next: Our top 10 albums

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the decade in TV and movies.

Show notes:

- Going over some of our favorites of the decade

- Jay: Haven't seen a lot of critical faves

- Both enjoyed Blackkklansman

- Toy Story 3 is the best of that series

- Matt: Beasts of the Southern Wild was a stunner

- In the Loop is profanely excellent

- Jay never saw Inside Out; Matt says it's borderline educational

- The traumatic sadness of Disney movies

- Don't ban offensive old movies

- Stereotypes in older movies stick out

- The series 24 was so over the top about torture and terrorists

- Writing for women's roles in the '80s was pretty awful

- Post-9/11 jingoism

- Good Sorkin: The Social Network

- Bad Sorkin: The Newsroom

- When older celebs are trending on Twitter

- Matt: In praise of Monsters

- Timothy Olyphant is great

- Matt needs to watch Justified

- Black Mirror is predicting everything

- The Americans is an excellent show

- Matt hasn't seen Breaking Bad or Better Call Saul

- Orphan Black features an amazing performance by Tatiana Maslany

- Bill Hader elevates himself from comic genius to dramatic auteur on Barry

- Russian Doll came out of the blue

- The People Vs. OJ Simpson was excellent, with a bizarre performance by John Travolta

- The sneaky genius of Legends of Tomorrow

- Dark on Netflix is a German show that is brilliantly out there

- Downton Abbey: Cultural phenomenon that doesn't make sense

- The Leftovers got better when it went beyond the book

- The Marvel shows on Netflix were surprisingly good (except for Iron Fist)

- The fight scenes in Daredevil were intense and creative

- So much content out there that it's impossible to see it all

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss the decade in TV and movies.

Show notes:

- This decade has flown by

- 10 years ago, Matt was getting ready to move to Ireland

- Hard to rank the best movies and TV because there's so much we haven't seen

- Recording on the day that Disney+ launched

- Some bugs because of the huge demand on day 1

- Biggest change is the move to streaming content

- Binge-watching has become a huge trend

- Spoilers abound

- Jay: Don't read reviews until after I've watched something

- HBO's Watchmen series is pretty good

- So easy to fall behind on a show

- Shows switch to different streaming services

- We're so distracted that many people are doing multiple things while watching a show

- Short seasons are appealing because you can finish them quickly

- Rare to watch shows live

- Matt watched final season of LOST from Ireland, live with his family via a laptop

- Similarly, there's so much new music being released but a lot of it doesn't get heard

- Radio stations play a lot of the same music over and over

- More and more original programming on non-traditional outlets: PlayStation, Amazon Prime, Apple+

- So many streaming services available now

- The end goal is to replace your $200 cable bill with an equal amount spent on streaming services

- Jay: Cut the cord three years ago, went to all streaming

- You can't get everything

- Takes a long time to decide what to watch sometimes

- Sometimes we watch two different things while in the same room

- Seeing movies in a theater is great, but dealing with other people isn't

- Stay off social media if you don't want spoilers

- Jay: 10 years ago, I was watching late night talk shows every day

- Now, watch clips online the following day

- Jay: Haven't seen a Star Wars movie since 1983

- Something to be said for holding onto hard media

- Bringing back dead actors using AI

- Deep fakes are freaky and amazing

- Superhero movies became big moneymakers in the last decade

- The Shining happened because Kubrick was at a low spot and needed a hit

- The new Fantasy Island reboot is a horror movie

- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead bootleg Cornell '77.

Show notes:

- Recorded at CompCon world HQ

- Talking about Dead show recorded on 5/8/77 at Cornell University

- Phil: Listened to this hundreds of times

- Jay: Very impressed by the bootleg

- Phil: The show was so random

- Dead had taken some time off from touring from '74 to '76

- By spring of '77, band was firing on all cylinders

- Phil's parents wouldn't let 8-year-old Phil see the Dead on that tour

- A lot of live albums are unnecessary

- But a great live recording is transcendent

- Phil: Early Chicago with Terry Kath on guitar was a great live act

- The Dylan and the Dead live album was a dud

- Phil Lesh: The Heineken Years

- Clapton's MTV Unplugged album was awful

- Jay: Solo Clapton is terrible

- Phil doesn't like Thin Lizzy

- The Dead has 36-minute versions of songs on their bootlegs

- Phil has around 125 Dead boots

- Figuring out which songs flow well into others

- Phil: The version of "Morning Dew" on this bootleg is the best

- Plenty of snow at that show, inside and outside

- Love when bands change up the setlist every night

- When you get sick of songs you love

- Somehow we start talking about "The Day After"

- AC/DC's music is more complicated than you think

- Phil would set his time machine to 5/8/77

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

I'm joined by guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the Grateful Dead's 1977 album Terrapin Station.

Show notes:

- Recorded at CompCon world HQ

- The Dead's 9th studio album

- Band had signed with Clive Davis and Arista

- Album was produced by Keith Olsen, later known for slick AOR albums by Eddie Money, Rick Springfield, REO Speedwagon, Heart

- Phil: Would get a tattoo of the Terrapin cover

- Cover of "Dancing in the Streets" is pretty lame

- Live, the cover turns into a long jam (duh)

- Donna Godchaux was featured a lot on this record

- Side 2 is an side-long suite written by Hunter and Garcia

- Band didn't tour for this album after Mickey Hart got in a car accident

- The tour before this album was legendary for Dead fans

- Tried songs out live before they made it to studio recordings

- Side 1 closes out with a Donna G. song that sounds nothing like anything else the Dead has done

- The Godchaux marriage was splitting up while they were in the band

- Olsen erased Hart's drums on one song and replaced them with strings

- Lyrics on Terrapin Station are pretty dense

- Relatively short album for the Dead at 35 minutes

- Phil: These songs got better in the live setting

- Jay: A lot of filler on side 2

- Album feels like a contractual obligation

- Dead & Co. plays part of the title suite now

- Phil: Not a John Mayer fan, but he's a good guitarist

- Jay: Not a fan of this album

- Next: Cornell 5/8/77

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts and anywhere else you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

It's part 3 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we conclude our countdown of our favorite albums of the decade.

Show notes:

- Recorded at CompCon world HQ

- Kumar's #3 of the decade: Parquet Courts cements their post-punk presence (2014)

- Impressive body of work with an art-rock vibe

- Breitling's #2: Johnny Foreigner's self-produced magnum opus (2011)

- Breitling was running a JF-themed blog for a while

- Kumar's #2: A punk explosion of political anger from Superchunk (2018)

- Still vital after all these years

- Breitling's #1: Post-punk legend Walter Schreifels' debut solo album (2010)

- Sincere folk rock with incredible hooks

- Kumar's #1: Bowie's final album was a masterpiece (2016)

- Recorded in secret with an unknown jazz band

- He thought he had more time, but died a few days after the album came out

- That's a decade

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

It's part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of the past decade.

Show notes:

- Recorded at CompCon world HQ

- Breitling's top 10 aren't ranked in order

- JB's #10: 2014 compilation of singles by Cookies

- Experimental stuff, hooks galore

- JK's #10: Magnum opus by Titus Andronicus (2010)

- Sprawling album with lots of guest stars, loosely based on Civil War

- JB's #9: Breakout 2013 album from Speedy Ortiz

- Hot '90s indie rock sound

- JK's #9: Double album from Toronto's Fucked Up (2011)

- Sound of hardcore singer fronting Velocity Girl

- JB's #8: Dan Bejar brings the heat in 2011 with Destroyer

- Catchy '80s yacht rock vibe

- JK's 8: Jeff Rosenstock's post-election response (2018)

- Deals with disappointment and hitting your 30s

- JB's #7: Snowball II with an early '90s homage (2017)

- Produced by Kurt Heasley of Lilys

- JK's 7: Epic 2013 release from Queens of the Stone Age

- Near-death experience led to different lyrical approach

- JB's #6: The only War On Drugs worth fighting (2014)

- Adam Granduciel's mainstream breakthrough, attracting scorn from Mark Kozelek

- JK's #6: Arctic Monkeys continue evolving their sound (2013)

- Incorporated funk and hip hop beats into their indie rock

- JB's #5: Infinity Girl's debut for Topshelf (2015)

- Underappreciated shoegaze masterpiece

- JK's #5: Bob Mould's first album with Narducy and Wurster (2012)

- First of a strong stretch of ass-kickers, on par with his work with Sugar

- JB's #4: She Sir's 2014 release is painstakingly crafted

- Shimmering shoegaze

- JK's #4 and JB's #3: Courtney Barnett burst on the scene with strong 2015 debut

- Interesting lyrics combined with hot rock guitar

- To be continued: Our top picks

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.