Public Record

Your Vortex boys are back and so is the Clickhead live chat. On this special online odyssey, Sam and Jason dig into the "Gen X Soft Club" aesthetic and find themselves wondering what exactly makes Gen X different from Millennials and Gen Z.

Covered: The MTV generation, indiesleaze, McBling, Y2k and Y3k, blobitecture, Dexter Holland of The Offspring, Dexter Holland's Gringo Bandito hot sauce, the '90s sound coming back, nostalgia overload, and much more. 

John and Marc explore the late period of Mark E. Smith's legendary group The Fall, focusing on 2013's "Sir William Wray" 7-inch, with insights from special guest Steve Pringle, author of the comprehensive Fall book You Must Get Them All: The Fall on Record.

This time around, John and Marc drop the needle on Warren Zevon's most famous single, 1978's "Werewolves of London" backed with "Roland the Headless Thompson Gunner."

If you've ever turned on a classic rock radio station you've no doubt heard these songs, but do you know their inside stories? And what makes them so much more than "novelty" hits? This week on the Spindle, learn these answers and more—watch for those mutilations late at night!  

Formed in the South Bronx by four African American sisters, ESG coined a sound with their very first release: the "You're No Good" 7-inch, released on England's famed post-punk label Factory. Marc and John dig into how they got there, and why their sound was so unique—and so often sampled, without the sisters seeing much in the way of credit or cash.

It's time to tumble down internet rabbit holes once again with Sam and Jason on an all-new Click Vortex. On this episode, they set the time machine in motion and travel back to April 1994, to reflect on that momentous month. Discussed: Kurt Cobain & Nirvana and Courtney Love & Hole, Blur (and their infamous recent Coachella performance), the tale behind Danzig's unlikely hit "Mother," the Beastie Boys, Enigma's beat-heavy new age gloss, and Bruce Springsteen at his most "mall appropriate." 

If you're of a certain age, you've probably heard The Kingsmen's "Louie Louie," a '60s top 10 staple that got a later boost when it soundtracked a crucial scene in the 1978 frat comedy Animal House. But did you know it was also a target of the FBI? Marc and John dissect this 1963 hit and why it got kids dancing and adults griping, on this new episode of the Spindle.

Sam and Jason are back on the bi-coastal swing, digging into the wild world of Beatles covers, encompassing the great to the terrible. To kick the clicks off, Jason rounds up selections from Vortex favorites PM Dawn, Todd Rundgren, Tom Jones, and the Red Hot Chili Peppers,  plus left field takes from Boris and Merzbow, Spooky Tooth, Sinéad O’Connor, and more. Then, Sam takes things in a cosmic direction, examining multiple covers of one song, the Beatles' classic "Across the Universe," with takes by 10cc, Scorpions, Rufus Wainwright, Beady Eye, Sean Ono Lennon, and even Sam's own band, The Format.

Check out a Spotify playlist of these fab selections. 

While Marc and John are gathering new 7″ singles to play for you, we’ve got a Spindle Rewind from the archives: here’s the guys on the On the Corner epic, this alternate version/sonic collage presents five and a half minutes of textural, mind blowing jazz fusion. Though the electric era found Miles seeking a wider audience, this single demonstrates just how subversive, surprising, and totally non-sellout his early ’70s period remains.

Hey, this is WASTOIDS With, featuring interviews with some of our favorite musicians from a rotating cast of WASTOIDS. This week, we’re hanging out with Will Anderson of Hotline TNT. He’s been traveling the offroads and byways of the American rock underground for years, often working in a more offline capacity, but his latest, Cartwheel, has opened Will up to a new audience via its release on Jack White’s Third Man Records. Will joined us to hang out, share his thoughts on the so-called “shoegaze revival,” and offer some thoughts on the ever-shifting streaming music landscape and how he uses easily accessible tools to create his music. 

Sam and Jason had a very special guest ready to roll for the 50th episode of Click Vortex, but when they postponed, they decided to honor their inner chatterbox and just riff off the dome. Topics covered include their favorite musical biopics, like Walk Hard and La Bamba, the forthcoming Timothée Chalamet Dylan movie, the Beatles Cinematic Universe, cult Australian comedy Young Einstein, and Jason's hairbrained proposal for Austin Powers IV.  Plus, all the details about iNDIEPLAZA 2024, your Click duo break in their brand new soundboard, and jokes a plenty from the Clickhead livechat. Here's to 50 more!