Somebody Likes It

If you are sitting at a bar after recording a podcast, and you are trying to explain to someone what your podcast is about, Television quickly becomes a “who’s on first”. It’s really hard to tell someone what you are doing a podcast about when you say Television and you immediately have to say “the band” Television…which is weird cause nobody EVER says “television” when referencing a television, they say “T.V…"

There are a few musical artists that nobody hates. Willie Nelson, Bob Marley, Van Morrison. Marvin Gaye. Jimi Hendrix. Janis Joplin. Billie Holiday. Even if you don’t want to listen to them, you still kind of love them. Even if it’s a begrudging love, you still love them. Admit it.

Stevie Wonder is one of those artists.

Fine. Maybe it was my fault this once. Whatever fault that might be…maybe this time I should just own up to it. You win, Chris Cox. We listened to Doves The Last Broadcast this week, and not Iggy and The Stooges Raw Power…you win this time. But you have to admit that I sure do have a tin ear for dialogue.

I never found the 3 Stooges very funny, but a few days ago I was up late and caught a few episodes on AMC and they aren’t half bad..wait, what are you whispering to me over the tubes that make up the internet? —rustling of papers—

Boy is my face red. Different Stooges I guess? I’m being told I’m not supposed to write about the Moe, Larry, Curley shit, but a band that we listened to? Get it together Bartell.

I feel like I want to…NEED TO…say something about how I felt about this album…but Chris Cox has told me that when I am doing these write-ups to keep it in my pants…so I won’t say anything about this record…I might have told you that it is the best god-damned thing I’ve heard in years…that it marries Josh Tillman’s incredible gift for melodies, crazy ass lyrics, and brilliantly over the top production in a way that somehow is even better than his 2012 album “Fear, Fun”. I might have said that listening to it makes me want to run outside, climb on my roof, and yell at the world that the world (at least my neighbors that are probably calling the cops on me already) is seriously losing the heck out if they (the world) haven’t heard this album…but I won’t do that.

If you had told 17 year old Shane that he would barely even remember who The Darling Buds were 20 years later, I’m sure he would have just tried to get you to buy him beer…

ASK…and ye shall receive! We finally got around to answering the question, “So, what’s the chance you look up from your collective 4 navels for half a second, and listen to a record that a member of the unwashed masses thinks might be an interesting listen”?

Remember the first time you asked yourself “What the fuck is a Wonderwall”? Cause you heard that song by Oasis, and had no idea what the hell Liam Gallagher was yelling about? At one time Wonderwall was a cultural touchstone pretty much on par with the Kennedy Assassination, and the Challenger Explosion, but I feel like we as a country have pretty much forgotten that. And that’s shameful. Shame on us.

I very clearly remember the first time I heard Doo-Wop (That Thing), the single from Lauren Hill’s break-out solo record from 1999. I was sitting in a car in horrible Portland Oregon rush hour traffic with my room-mate Mary, and after the song ended we looked at each other, nodding in wordless acknowledgement of how great the song we just heard was. I remember thinking that it sounded like the future of R&B, but as my life was in transition at that time, I never really followed up on exploring that.

This week we cover a wide variety of topics, like the Brothers Reid, the confluence between bands we can’t seem to separate in our minds, and the stilted, occasionally simplistic takes shared in reviews of records that are, in retrospect, the foundations for entire movements or scenes, not — hey! — unlike this week’s record, The Jesus And Mary Chain offering PsychoCandy.