I want to get personal real quick. A couple of months ago I was getting ready for a meeting at work, a pretty important meeting and as people sometimes do I got dressed up. I put on some crisp slacks, a nice button down shirt, a suit jacket, a shined boot and just as I was about to leave the house I caught a glimpse of myself in the mirror. This may sound braggy, but I looked pretty dapper. Then it hit me. I am no longer punk rock. 

I think most kids go through a punk phase. Mine lasted from about 7th grade up until the night before I put on that suit for that meeting. Not bad, a solid 15 years of feeling pretty punk rock about myself. Yet sadly, I seemed to have sold out. So what does one do when they feel like they are losing a large chunk of their identity? You can dig deeper.

On this episode on TMSIWTH: The Day My Kid Went Punk - a full on panic attack of stories trying to help me regain those old feelings. We have a 3 track show for you today, that I will be so bummed if you don’t check out. 

• Track One: The Day My Kid Went Punk / HtH

• Track Two: Time Constraints and Adolescent Psyche

• Track Three: TMS Listening Party

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(3:27) Ryan Walsh is one of these guys that's so disarmingly nice that you almost forget that he is in a real American rock band. Hallelujah The Hills have been pumping out music since the early 2000's, their latest album Have You Ever Done Something Evil just got a pretty awesome vinyl release. Ryan sat down with us to talk about his younger days, the Harvard Square pit and cable companies. 

You can listen to the full version of When The Punk Scene Exiles You here.

(25:04) Our friend Tim Cahill shares his thoughts on time constraints and adolescent psyche. 

22 minutes and 10 seconds. It’s mind-bobbling to think that THIS is what “Milo Goes to College” clocks in at. Having a highly condensed work space means that you’re going to operate in an entirely different world than most musicians. For one – you’re ideas are going to be quicker - this means that you’re going to have to be able to process, express, AND complete coherent strains of thought - musical strains, intellectual strains, anti-intellectual strains, whatever – all within this very limited time frame. This is impressive.

(32:58) One thing we all have in common is that we are always getting older; decades older, years older, seconds older. Right now we are the oldest we’ve ever been.  A couple of strains of thought come out of that for me. The first being: I’m old and the second is, I’m going to be so old. If I look at the amount that I have changed just between 17 to 27, it’s astonishing. What will I be like when I’m 37, 57, will I get to 57? What will I be like then? Will I ever feel younger, will I remember what younger feels like? Will I still like the things I like now? Will I outgrow these things? What will I miss?

It has taken awhile for me to be comfortable enough to admit this: I like musicals. And not just ones written by South Park creators.  

There's something about musicals that speaks to me. That could be in part because songs from musicals speak everything they are thinking or doing or feeling. There's no mystery in musicals. A good musical number is able to expose a deep part of the human condition - or sometimes they’re just silly stupid fun, I'm not embarrassed to admit that I like that, okay?

That brings us to 2002: I was 15 and still trying to find myself and lose my baby fat. If I remember correctly it was late winter, my Dad brought me to the Best Buy on Airport road in Toledo, Ohio. I had gone right after school to pick up the latest album from Silverchair called Diorama.

In the parking lot of that Best Buy my Dad let me put the CD on the car stereo, he let it play for about 7 seconds before changing his mind and hitting eject. Seriously. Seven seconds. Honestly, I can't blame him, at first listen it's a lot to wrap your ears around. It's a lot to take in, especially if you have known Silverchair since their days as 14 year old prodigies. I get where people have a hang up about the newer and weirder Silverchair, it’s an unexpected turn for these grunge kids to morph into all out musical whimsy.

Bu it is this progress that has made, in my humble opinion, Silverchair one of the most underrated/under appreciated bands in recent years. Diorama, and more specifically "Across The Night", shows that they aren't afraid to break away from what's expected of them.  

On this week's episode of Tell Me Something I Want To Hear I thought we would take a real hard listen to “Across The Night”, not just for the love of musicals but because I deeply believe that Silverchair is a band that demands your attention. Plotting their growth over the years is something that I find really remarkable. You should too. -Dylan 

It’s that time of year again when the leaves are changing, the lattes are pumpkin spiced and the season of the witch is upon us! It's Halloween, All Hallow’s Eve, or another name that I can’t think of. 

Halloween is one of my favorite holidays if only for the fact that it is the one time of year where I give in and actually seek out a scary movie. The rest of the year I couldn’t care less about Freddy or Jason. But I'm not the only one, we all like to be spooked sometimes. Whether we’re going on roller coasters, haunted hayrides, haunted houses, or watching movies, we all love a good fright.

On this episode of TMSIWTH we are doing just that: talking about all things spooky! We have four tracks to get you all worked up before the night of the witch. 

• Track One: The Thing

• Track Two: The Drift

• Track Three: TMS Listening Party

• Track Four: The Afterlife

(2:06) We talk a lot on this show and on our website about the films that define us. Embarrassingly for me, it was Garden State. For our friend Nick Orsini, the one film that taught him the most about being a man was John Carpenter’s 1982 film, The Thing. If you haven’t seen it yet, stop what you’re doing and head over to Netflix or iTunes or Google Play and watch it. You can also read it here. 

(7:10) What do black cocaine, meat-punching percussion and crooning all have in common? Almost nothing... except for the fact that they all appear on Scott Walker’s 2006 album, The Drift. But in order to really appreciate what is happening here we have to go back to 1965.

In a year of music dominated by bubble gummy pop noises and early rock and roll anthems, the same year that the number one hit was "Wooly Bully", in that same year a group of guys formed a family band, despite not being a family and kick started one of the strangest and darkest careers in pop music.

(17:55) I would love nothing more than to just turn this entire show and the TMS website into a giant love letter to Kate Bush. As a 27 year old American male I should have never crossed paths with Kate Bush, and yet I have and she is always at the top of my list of all-time favorite singers. (Please note I didn’t say female singers, I need you to note that) She has the wacky and incredible ability to pull you into every note and every word of her songs. Her music is campy and theatrical and pretty great. Songs like “Babooshka” and “The Wedding List” have deep background stories and characters.

“Get Out of My House” is one of those songs. There’s so much going on, that you get lost in that thing. On this week’s Listening Party we’re going to listen to Get Out of My House together, not only because it’s super badass but because Kate has said that this song is her musical version of The Shining. If you weren’t a fan before this song, and the guttural screams from Bush should convert you.

(24:26) Perhaps the spookiest of all halloween themes is DEATH. 

Yet, we surround ourselves with movies and TV shows and books about that very topic. Perhaps to ease our own fears about that day when we take our last mortal breath, perhaps because we’re sick. Most likely it’s both.

To end the show today I want to share an excerpt from the excellent book Sum Forty Tales From the Afterlife by David Eagleman. The book shares several, I would say about 40, short pieces about what the afterlife may be. In one afterlife you are reincarnated as a horse, in another you are a background actor in someone else’s dreams. The book is meant to help unnerve the feeling of anxiety we get about death, at least that’s what I think. Each story turns out to be a mini Twilight Zone episode, really I can’t recommend it more highly.

• Do yourself and myself a favor and follow me on Twitter
• Buy Sum: Forty Tales From the Afterlife
• Pick up a Kate Bush album
• Follow Nick Orsini on Twitter, too!
• Buy the Scott Walker anthology

Women love a bad boy. They're mysterious and rebellious and, from what I understand, very sexy. It's no surprise that the world of Rock 'n Roll is filled with these bad boy types; these long haired, pierced and tattooed rockers are everywhere! They've even invaded our beloved pop music, it's now gotten to the point where even The Biebs is a bad boy!

On this episode of Tell Me Something I Want To Hear we don't want to talk about bad boys, otherwise I would just do a 45-minute audio essay about what happened between Puff Daddy and Ma$e. No, on this episode we are talking about Bad Guys. Not Bad Boys. 

Andy and Jake have made the weird their work. Scouring the internet and the used cassette bins at Goodwill they have compiled some of the weirdest sounds I have ever heard. Their site, Weirdest Band in the World is one of those internet projects that rarely disappoints. This week Andy tells us about one such weird band - full of a bunch of bad dudes.

Enjoy this week's show, why not subscribe on iTunes, or follow me on Twitter? 

Music provided by Tim Cahill, and the Internet. 

I feel like if you’re visiting this site and this show then we had a pretty similar high school experience. Did you have a couple close, goof-ball friends? Did you feel like you didn’t fit in with a certain crowd? Did you find comfort in music? Did you only ever see the version of The Breakfast Club that was formatted for TV and had all the curses edited out? Then yeah, I’d say we had a pretty similar high school experience. And that’s totally true about The Breakfast Club, I saw that movie probably once a month on Comedy Central when I was in high school. Always edited. I didn’t know it had curses in it until like two weeks ago, when I saw it on Netflix. Watching the movie with fresh eyes in my mid (to late) twenties flipped something on in me. It brought back this weird ‘getting-close-during-a-teenage-dance’ nostalgic feeling - and with that a rush of deep and powerful, mostly selfish feelings to my dumb lizard brain.  

I don’t get how a movie that was made two years before I was born could so perfectly nail those high school feelings. It’s John Hughes dude, and it's not just The Breakfast Club. So many other Hughes films from the 80s and early 90s can do that. This is probably due in part to the just perfect soundtracks to these films. Pretty In Pink, Some Kind of Wonderful, shut up - they’re perfect. Wang Chung is my jam.

John Hughes built these worlds for us and we relate to the characters he created within them. For me this was especially true in Ferris Buller’s Day Off. I saw myself as him. Oh no, not Ferris. I was not that cool. I was more of a Cameron.

These feelings I get, and I think you get too, from these Hughes films are somehow both extremely personal and incredibly universal. On this episode of TMSIWTH we’re exploring the sounds and feelings of John Hughes films. We’re getting all Hughesian with our emotions. Why? Because you’re like me and totally want to make out with Mary Stuart Masterson.

We also have a house band this week too, they’re called The Ice Cream Trucks and they met in high school and played a couple John Hughes Soundtrack songs and covers from their high school days that will be sprinkled throughout this episode. It was a lot of fun. 

You can also subscribe on iTunes!

We have a 5-track show for you all in celebration of John Hughes, nostalgia and high school.

• Opening Track: The Ice Cream Trucks
• Track One: Pretty In Black, Theresa Martin
• Track Two: The Breakfast Me, Nick Orsini
• Track Three: TMS Listening Party - The Smiths
• Track Four: 17 1/2 Candles

(8:25) Some of the greatest bands are those that got together in high school. We're not talking about high school bands, we've been to Battle of the Bands, most of those groups are garbage. No, we're talking about those groups that have stayed together since then, and grew up together. The Ice Cream Trucks are one of those bands.

• The Ice Cream Trucks are online!

(13:40) Did you know there was an alternate ending to Pretty in Pink? Seriously. In the alternate ending, Andie and Duckie end up together. And SOME HOW, test audiences didn't like it. It's actually outrageous. Not that I always root for the underdog. But I kinda do.

I can relate to Duckie, I really can. Not in the "in love with my best friend" way, but in the hopeless romantic, grand gesture, forever kinda nerdy way. It's how I've always been. Starting at around 11 years old, I began fantasizing about love and being swept off my feet. Mostly by Zac Hanson, but that's neither here nor there. And 16 years later? Still a romantic. I haven't changed too much. I'm still a huge awkward nerd. Maybe slightly less dramatic and flamboyant than Duckie, but I get it.

• Theresa Martin is on Twitter
• Kelly Cashman hosts You Are Remarkable

(17:43) I was a criminal. Right before that, I was a brain. Around the same time, I was a basket case and an athlete. I was also a princess on some random months of a random year, forever ago. The Breakfast Club is about five people, six if you count Richard Vernon, Vice Principal. Five sets of skills and talents. Five sets of shortcomings and flaws. The truth is, they are fractions of a whole. Five distinct phases and outlooks inherent to every single person. The reason The Breakfast Club is the perfect coming-of-age story is because it's not about confronting the other, the differences between people and cliques, but rather the phases of self.

• You Should Buy Nick's Book
• And Listen to Matt's Podcast

(27:15) At one of the strangest concerts I learned the difference between The Smiths and The Cure. The Cure were a bunch of sad dudes, The Smiths were a bunch of sad dudes who were always included on mix CDs I made for girls. "Please, Please, Please Let Me Get What I Want" is the anthem to every high school boy's pursuit of girls. Below is Space U2's cover of The Smiths classic Hughes tune.

(32:51) Do you know what the average age someone loses their virginity? We do thanks to a study by The Kinsey Institute. Unlike what the research tells us I was not 17 and 1/2 when I lost my V-Card. I was much younger and without going into any great detail it was not a pleasent experience. Maybe it was because of my partner, or maybe it was because of the place I did the deed. Most likely it was because I didn't know what song I should play while I awkwardly flapped around. REWIND's Theresa Martin fills us in on what we should be listening to while we're "filling it in". Get it?

• REWIND with Theresa Martin

Thanks to the Executive Producer Jeremy Allen, Nick Orsini, Matthew Meylikhov, Kelly Cashman, Theresa Martin, Keri Wise, Tim Cahill and our new favorite band The Ice Cream Trucks. Go on Netflix and watch a Hughes movie ya jerks!

There is an entire section of this country that is collectively known as “The Midwest”. Now, to be totally honest I don’t exactly know where those lines are drawn (Wisconsin?). However, being from Ohio I do understand that I identify as being a Midwesterner, but somehow still don’t fully 'get it'. Just about an hour away from where I grew up is a city that is completely different from what I consider “The Midwest”, it’s a place called Detroit. 

When I was a teenager, growing up in Toledo, OH, Detroit was the only place close that big name acts would come to play. I could jump in the car and in less than an hour be in line to see bands like The Stooges, Daniel Johnston, The Killers, yes – Blink-182 several hundred times. I was always so impressed with Detroit. It was the only image I had of a "city” – and it just so happens to be the birthplace of some of the best musical artists in the country. Every genre is represented from The White Stripes, Eminem, MC5, Stevie Wonder, Sufjan Stevens, and The Temptations!

Musically it seems like Detroit is untouchable, yet financially – not so much. In the past couple of years Detroit has seen the almost complete loss of the auto industry, their housing market crashing, the murder rate skyrocketing and the largest municipal bankruptcy in US history. You know you’re in trouble when your city’s loudest political voice is Ted Nugent. He’s articulate, right?

But it's not all Bad News Bears in the Motor City. 

On this episode of Tell Me Something I Want To Hear we are going to take a small peek at some of the music that makes Detroit so special – while at the same time completely ignoring all the financial, political and social issue that plague that city. Mostly because those are topics for smart guys, and we are not smart guys. 

We have a 4-track show for you all in celebration of Detroit and the music that makes it so – Detroit-y? Here’s our track list for today:

• Track One: Soul Man
• Track Two: Mission of Miller 
• Track Three: TMS Listening Party - Suicide Machines 
• Track Four: FAM-I-LY! FAM-I-LY! (Love & Faygo)

(05:33) We can’t even begin to talk about Detroit music without mentioning Motown. Motown is quintessential rock and roll, and it is quintessential Detroit. While researching for this episode I was blown away by all the musical acts that were actually on Motown records at one point. It's kind of shocking - #BruceWillis

No doubt about it, Motown was the original hit factory. The sounds of Motown are ingrained in our cultural identity, were the soundtrack to the 60s and 70s, hell, they’re the soundtracks of lives, and ACTUAL soundtracks both stage and screen.

In the early to mid 60s things couldn’t get much better for Berry Gordy, the head of Motown and the song writing teams of the Detroit record label. The former boxer-turned-record-label-exec was starting to bring in some money - some real money, hit after hit - in a way that was unheard of for musicians at that point. Their money gave them power and it all started with this song – about… money.

• Harry Enfield - Loadsamoney

(14:35) If you talk with any musician that grew up in the 60s there is one televised moment that they can point to that changed their life. It's the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan Show. I didn’t grow up in the 60s, and I don’t think my generation, or at least the "culture" that I identify with, had a televised moment like that. My defining musical moments were made on the floors of friends basements or alone listening to mix cds. Today’s generation probably has theirs on tumblr, or some shit.

One such musical moment came to me in the summer of 7th grade - when a friends older brother played us a song. It’s “Secrets” by Mission of Burma. We sat on the floor of my friends brothers room and listened as the song built, and built, and developed into a frenzy. The song implanted something in me, and later that summer my friend and I would go on to pick up albums by Fugazi, Bad Brains, Sonic Youth and Black Flag. Before then my only image of punk rock was Tre Cool.

I was lucky enough to sit down and talk with Mission of Burma’s Roger Miller about his early days growing up in Ann Arbor, MI, Detroit in the 60s, psychedelic music, the very early days of punk and the musical moments that changed his life. Hint: It’s the Beatles.

(49:03) Every once in awhile it's nice to just let things breathe. The Listening Party portion of the show (and part of our TMS Blog) is meant to let things breathe. We pick one song tell a little story and play the song. It's not brain surgery. 

In my younger and more impressionable years I liked a lot of shit music. Well, that's not all together true. In my younger and more impressionable years I liked a lot of music that every body else thought was shit music. That still doesn't sound right. Ok, last try: In my younger and more impressionable years I liked and owned several albums by The Suicide Machines. 

(54:49) We've talked a lot about punk rock today for some reason, that was never our intention. There is just something about post-1960's Detroit that makes its musical residents want to rebel and to scream and punch and say "Fuck Wine Coolers". The Insane Clown Posse said it, and they're millionaires. 

ICP, belong to a genre of music called Horrocore, a subgenre of hip-hop that features these dark lyrics and combines elements of horror. The content is off-putting and can get a bit graphic and crude. They rap about hatchets and murder and the regional soda company Faygo. They have even created a mythology behind their music, what they call the Dark Carnival. From what I understand The Dark Carnival is a lot like the idea of heaven - but with drugs. Oh, and for listeners who are unfamiliar, the two members of ICP, Violent J and Shaggy 2 Dope, complete their Dark Carnival images by painting their faces in clown makeup. Honestly, it's kind of silly - but as silly as this all is it kind of works for them.

To end the show our very own Nick Orsini brings out the human side of the Juggalo culture. He has written a poem about love. Please enjoy, Love & Faygo.

"The rain fell on Cave-in-Rock and washed my facepaint off

A world opened a purple sky with two-liter Faygo drops

as fat as the greedy stomachs when enough is not enough

We spent a caffeinated night rapping into my karaoke machine

while my parents were asleep

These are the friends who became my family

The rain fell on my high school where I ate lunch in the bathroom

until I put that record on...then it was all cigarettes and Riddle Box

Psychopathic and the hatchet, The Great Milenko and aggression

Now I'm online dating...fixing up this truck

about to drive five states to find out about true love" -Nick Orsini

• ICP on Nightline
• Juggalo V Eminem Fans

Thanks to the Executive Producer Jeremy Allen, My beautiful bride Keri Wise, Nick Orsini, Adam Dohm, Roger Miller and a big thank you to Detroit. You have had a rough time buddy. But if there's one thing America loves more than guns it's a comeback story - Detroit you will have an epic comeback story. 

This week on our show we talk to Matt from the The Bynars. Dylan also "pimps" our other new great projects. Enjoy.

Join us at TT The Bears on March 8th! We'll be dancing like fools. 

This week on our show we talk to Tom Crossman who talks about music on his show. Dylan talks to Tom about talking about music on our show. Enjoy.

This week Dylan and I cuddle on a blanket with the Drollhouse Girls, talking childhood sleepovers and why we create. We eat some popcorn and look to the fugure with their magic eightball. Pickup your very own copy of Drollhouse Magazine online or locally in Toledo.