Platonic Polyamory (fka Undressing Underground)

We finally wrangled Liam back to talk to Jennifer about God, mewithoutyou, and other stuff she's interested in, instead of being stuck listening to people name a bunch of noise musicians she's never heard of.

Liam, temporarily unburdened of his faustian bargain to have friends in his 40s but only be allowed to discuss movies, has a lot to say. Most of this episode is revolves around theology, but it does dip a bit into mewithoutyou and other bands out of Philly that I should know but don't because I've always been completely unmoored from this city I continue to gravitate to.

You can read and hear more from Liam on various podcasts on his and (former guest) Joshua Alvarez's Cinepunx blog and podcast network. You can also of course hear Liam on the various podcasts contained within he and recent guest Doug Tilley's Cinema Smorgasbord podcast feed. They're all fun and none of them are 4 hours long.

Also, we wanted to express again our deep sadness about the loss of Darryl W. Bullock and encourage anyone listening to at least check out our last talk about his books on the queer history of pop music, if not go an episode further back to hear him discuss some of the worst Christmas music ever recorded. We nervously joke a little about the circumstances, but it was a real shock and we still regret the fact we'll never be able to bring him back.

We were all deeply saddened by the news of Darryl's passing in the weeks after we first spoke to him. We all had a great time talking to him and were in reverence of the deep well of his knowledge and dedication to exploring the deepest corners of pop culture. After we had finished recording, we had all discussed speaking again in 2025, after he had finished his latest book, which he believed he would be finished later this year.

Our sympathies go out to his friends, family, and his husband, who he repeatedly referenced and clearly adored. We would also like to thank the person who reached out to us in the comments of our last episode to inform us of the tragic news.

In this episode we spoke at length about about the history of queerness in popular music, Darryl's books, and some of his other interests. His passion was palpable and we are so grateful to have had this conversation with him.

For more information on Darryl and his work, you can follow the links provided in WFMU's obituary, pasted in full below:

WFMU sadly lost one of its own this past December 23rd. From 2018 until early 2024, Darryl W. Bullock hosted 250 episodes of The World's Worst Records Show on the Sheena's Jungle Room stream. In addition to having a taste for Mrs. Miller records, Darryl was also a music writer who explored the relationship between pop music and LGBT issues in books like David Bowie Made Me Gay: 100 Years of LGBT Music, The Velvet Mafia: The Gay Men Who Ran the Swinging Sixties, and Pop, Pride and Politics: Music Theatre and LGBT Activism, 1970–2021. You can hear Darryl's shows here, and you can leave a remembrance here. Rest in peace, Darryl, and thanks for sharing your music with us.

It's that time of year again. Jill and Josh have been doing this relatively consistently for 9 years now, save a couple early on and despite this feed being otherwise dormant for about 5 years in the middle. I don't know how they still come up with as much weird, funny, and singular tracks as they do after all this time, but they continue to put me to shame.

I don't have much else to say about it, just that this is one of the few traditions with others that I have left and I remain grateful for it. I think we're going to start a new tradition at the beginning with an old track Jill played because it remains evergreen as nearly every time we do this I'm within 2 months of another breakup leaving me bitter and resentful, only to be temporarily relieved by this annual meetup.

Quick note: I confused Ted Nugent with Todd Rungren. I have no idea what god forsaken place spawned Nugent.

Also a quick bit of self-promotion, the Smudge and I finished our DVD Zine, The Arbitrary Art. You can pick up the full zine, just the DVD, or just the feature we built it around at the link below. The download is pay what you wish, if you want to watch it for free. If you want a copy of the DVD ISO, just let me know. If you enjoy it, let me know. I've only heard from two people so far out of the evidently couple hundred that have seen it.

https://thearbitraryart.gumroad.com

Merry Christmas

Today we spoke to WFMU DJ and one of the last great music blogspot writers, Darryl W. Bullock, about some of the awful Christmas music he's presented on his radio program and blog over the years. We play a few clips of some grating little nepo babies slurring their way through asinine lyrics about the moon, saccharine nonsense about Vietnam, and some just plain weird and funny little numbers.

We'll be back after the holidays with our second part, in which we dive a little deeper into Darryl's record collecting but also his latest career as a historian of LGBT/Queer music history. Brandon didn't tell us about that, so we were just listening to his radio show, but were excited to learn about his books David Bowie Made Me Gay and Queer Blues: The Hidden Figures of Early Blues Music

Last chance to hear Brandon's original theme song about Doug! But also, all of us speaking emphatically about bad movies, good movies, and about talking about movies. We touch a little more on Eric Roberts and Doug's other podcasting ventures and and and... I forget. Many things. We had fun. Hope you do too. Now we just gotta rope Liam on here.

And now all the other stuff I wrote the first time:

But, Doug Tilley's back! One of the first guests on this feed something like 9-10 years ago, he actually turned on this camera this time and told us all about Canada, Eric Roberts, 80s local news anchors in Detroit, and the other usual Doug Tilley things. This'll probably be three parts because we're not Blank Check and we respect you enough to not put up 3 hour episodes.

Check out Doug's main podcasting project at ⁠⁠Cinema Smorgasbord ⁠⁠with his buddy, Cinepunx cofounder (and former guest here) Liam O'Donnell. A spinoff or evolution or whatever of their original podcast, Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man, Cinema Smorgasbord covers a whole host of other actors and filmmakers that will make you tepidly exclaim, "Oh yeah, that guy(/lady)!" Or, if the last 30 years of Eric Roberts vehicles is too high budget for you, dig deep into the stone ages of podcasting with his 13-year-old(!) podcast ⁠⁠No Budget Nightmares⁠⁠ with his old friend Moe Porne. Can you believe that shit is still active? I suppose I can since these are the only movie podcasts I ever listen to.

Speaking of movies that look like shit, did I mention I made a thing with ⁠⁠The Smudge⁠⁠ (sort of) about midwest noise festivals? Well, you can look at the trailer for that ⁠⁠here⁠⁠ and eventually we'll have a DVD you can purchase.

This week we talk to Doug about Eric Roberts (natch), his early internet communities, making a short feature film on video in the early 2000s, and Newfoundland accents!

And now all the other stuff I wrote last time:

But, Doug Tilley's back! One of the first guests on this feed something like 9-10 years ago, he actually turned on this camera this time and told us all about Canada, Eric Roberts, 80s local news anchors in Detroit, and the other usual Doug Tilley things. This'll probably be three parts because we're not Blank Check and we respect you enough to not put up 3 hour episodes.

Check out Doug's main podcasting project at ⁠Cinema Smorgasbord ⁠with his buddy, Cinepunx cofounder (and former guest here) Liam O'Donnell. A spinoff or evolution or whatever of their original podcast, Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man, Cinema Smorgasbord covers a whole host of other actors and filmmakers that will make you tepidly exclaim, "Oh yeah, that guy(/lady)!" Or, if the last 30 years of Eric Roberts vehicles is too high budget for you, dig deep into the stone ages of podcasting with his 13-year-old(!) podcast ⁠No Budget Nightmares⁠ with his old friend Moe Porne. Can you believe that shit is still active? I suppose I can since these are the only movie podcasts I ever listen to.

Speaking of movies that look like shit, did I mention I made a thing with ⁠The Smudge⁠ (sort of) about midwest noise festivals? Well, you can look at the trailer for that ⁠here⁠ and eventually we'll have a DVD you can purchase.

I forgot while writing this that Doug said Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man got pulled from iTunes because of the name, so, there's your title.

But, Doug Tilley's back! One of the first guests on this feed something like 9-10 years ago, he actually turned on this camera this time and told us all about Canada, Eric Roberts, 80s local news anchors in Detroit, and the other usual Doug Tilley things. This'll probably be three parts because we're not Blank Check and we respect you enough to not put up 3 hour episodes.

Check out Doug's main podcasting project at Cinema Smorgasbord with his buddy, Cinepunx cofounder (and former guest here) Liam O'Donnell. A spinoff or evolution or whatever of their original podcast, Eric Roberts is the Fucking Man, Cinema Smorgasbord covers a whole host of other actors and filmmakers that will make you tepidly exclaim, "Oh yeah, that guy(/lady)!" Or, if the last 30 years of Eric Roberts vehicles is too high budget for you, dig deep into the stone ages of podcasting with his 13-year-old(!) podcast No Budget Nightmares with his old friend Moe Porne. Can you believe that shit is still active? I suppose I can since these are the only movie podcasts I ever listen to.

Speaking of movies that look like shit, did I mention I made a thing with The Smudge (sort of) about midwest noise festivals? Well, you can look at the trailer for that here and eventually we'll have a DVD you can purchase.

Hello, I'm very tired, so I'm sorry to be reusing the same description again.

Our old friend Sara Century is back to talk about her ⁠⁠massive SCREAM zine, over 60 pages dissecting the themes of all six Scream films⁠⁠. It rocks. Everything Sara does rocks. I'm not really sure what else to say about it except it's worth your $14 for the physical copy with the cool, unique, handmade cover. If you can't afford that + shipping, then at the very least it's worth your $7 for the PDF version.

This is the first third of our talk. We like talking movies, particularly with smart people with smart things to say about them, so we're going even longer than usual. The conversation is wide ranging, as always, but Sara still packs in a ton of fun factoids and analysis on the series to whet your appetite for her zine. ⁠⁠Go buy it⁠⁠.

I also did finally watch When a Stranger Calls Back and it's great. You can read ⁠Sara's piece on it here.⁠

This was it for now. We have a couple of guests slated for the next couple months and we'll of course be back with the whateverth annual-ish Cease & Desistmas.

Also, I put up a trailer for my little movie thing with the Smudge about Milwaukee and Fargo Noisefests. You can see that here. More details soon.

Hello,

Our old friend Sara Century is back to talk about her ⁠massive SCREAM zine, over 60 pages dissecting the themes of all six Scream films⁠. It rocks. Everything Sara does rocks. I'm not really sure what else to say about it except it's worth your $14 for the physical copy with the cool, unique, handmade cover. If you can't afford that + shipping, then at the very least it's worth your $7 for the PDF version.

This is the first third of our talk. We like talking movies, particularly with smart people with smart things to say about them, so we're going even longer than usual. The conversation is wide ranging, as always, but Sara still packs in a ton of fun factoids and analysis on the series to whet your appetite for her zine. ⁠Go buy it⁠.

I also did finally watch When a Stranger Calls Back and it's great. You can read Sara's piece on it here.

Back next week with the final third.

Hello,

Our old friend Sara Century is back to talk about her massive SCREAM zine, over 60 pages dissecting the themes of all six Scream films. It rocks. Everything Sara does rocks. I'm not really sure what else to say about it except it's worth your $14 for the physical copy with the cool, unique, handmade cover. If you can't afford that + shipping, then at the very least it's worth your $7 for the PDF version.

This is the first third of our talk. We like talking movies, particularly with smart people with smart things to say about them, so we're going even longer than usual. The conversation is wide ranging, as always, but Sara still packs in a ton of fun factoids and analysis on the series to whet your appetite for her zine. Go buy it.

Back next week with the next third.