Ep. 62: "Cat Butt Was Real"
Merlin: Hey, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
Merlin: God, it's early.
Merlin: Did you have a busy morning?
John: It's not even 1030 yet.
Merlin: I'm sorry.
Merlin: We're starting earlier than usual, by which I mean we didn't delay it as much as usual.
John: Yeah, well, I feel like there's a little bit of mission creep, and we're just getting earlier and earlier.
John: We're going to be recording this podcast at 730 in the morning.
Merlin: I don't want to hurt the evergreen, long live nature of our program because I think it'll be helping people potentially for millennia.
Merlin: But first of all, we always record at 10 a.m.
Merlin: on Wednesdays, unless you're traveling with the retinue.
Merlin: But I think we need to officially move to 1035.
Merlin: Would that help?
Merlin: 10.35.
Merlin: Are you on the West Coast right now?
Merlin: I'm on the West Coast.
Merlin: So it feels like 7.
Merlin: 10.35 on the West Coast feels like 7.
Merlin: It really does.
Merlin: I was just reading that Hunter S. Thompson used to wake up at 3 p.m.
Merlin: And then he did just so much cocaine.
Merlin: To use your phrase that I picked up here, I think he was gacked out on cocaine for a lot of the day.
John: Yeah, you know, I have considered...
John: I've considered a lot of different speedy remedies to my problem of not wanting to wake up.
John: But they all contribute to my problem of not wanting to go to sleep.
Merlin: Halcyon.
Merlin: He would have a halcyon at 8 a.m.
John: I wish I could find a halcyon.
Merlin: This is a term, I know you're not a technologist, but I think this is a term you're familiar with, time shifting.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Even given your 27-hour natural day.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: You know how there's some places, like really squirrely places, that don't observe the time change?
John: Oh, right, yeah, like little counties in Arizona or something that don't make the switch.
Merlin: Yeah, it just seems to me that given the decisions that you've made in your life, your career, and your natural clock, I don't see there's no reason that you couldn't move a 27-hour day.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Am I wrong?
Merlin: I mean, you get the kid stuff, though.
Merlin: That's tough.
John: Yeah, and I got to go to the bank and stuff.
John: The thing that confuses me is not the little time pockets in the world, but I have a pretty good natural compass.
John: I can always tell you what the cardinal directions are.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: You're like a bird of prey.
Merlin: You've got a magnet in your nose or something.
John: Yeah, right.
John: But there are a couple of places in the world...
John: Where that inner compass is completely turned around by something in the ground.
John: The city of Budapest is like this.
John: It does not matter to me how I arrive in Budapest.
John: I feel like the city is rotated around.
John: on the on the space time but not like even like 90 degrees it might be rotated like 17 degrees like just enough to really screw you up it's like 70 degrees it's rotated 70 degrees so so and the thing is I have walked to Budapest mm-hmm
Merlin: You were moving mostly east at that point.
John: I was, and so I knew which way east was.
John: When you were going in, you knew you were still going east for a while.
John: I did.
John: I knew, and I had been there before and experienced this problem of like, wait a minute, whoa, what?
John: No, that's impossible.
John: That can't possibly be north.
John: I know it in my bones.
John: And then it's like, no, I'm afraid it is.
John: That is north.
John: So I walked into this city, and I'm thinking...
John: this will solve this problem for me.
John: This has been a problem for years.
Merlin: You got, you got, you got a point of reference.
John: Yeah.
John: Now I'm walking in.
John: I have real, I have Europe at my back.
John: I am going to walk into this city and I swear to you, I walked around a corner and,
John: in in a city street and all of a sudden it was like and i was upside down and backwards that must i mean that's like when spider-man loses his spider spider sense exactly what it's like yeah i i and the whole time and the thing is i love the city the whole time i'm there i i i enjoy it very much but there is something there's some there's uh it's like a uh you've seen those images of einsteinian
John: fabric of space-time.
Merlin: It could be a non-Euclidean city.
John: Yeah, there's a gravity sink there.
John: It's like a hole on a putt-putt golf course, and it is... But there's also a twist in it.
John: It's like somebody...
John: It's not like somebody put dog poop in a bag and twisted it because Budapest, you could not describe it as dog poop in a bag.
John: That is how it feels.
Merlin: I feel like dog poop in a bag.
John: But you kind of just did.
John: I feel like that.
John: It isn't the city.
John: I'm the poop in that analogy.
John: Budapest is the bag.
John: nobody blames the bag there are no bad dogs but so so knowing that that exists knowing that that place is there and knowing that that most people don't experience it because most people don't have a very accurate inner compass then it causes me to wonder about everything then it's like well if that if that can be true
John: Then what else can be true?
Merlin: Yeah, so much about this doesn't add up.
Merlin: And I have to be honest.
Merlin: My fall card for Hungary is basically goulash and the Gabor sisters.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And that's pretty much the extent of it.
Merlin: Like Balaton.
Merlin: Oh, well, I'll write that down phonetically.
Merlin: Like Balaton.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: I already have so many questions for you.
Merlin: I don't want to get in your way with this.
Merlin: But in the same sense as with – it's actually Peter Parker.
Merlin: But in that same sense, you are a man with an active mind and it seems to me that for the time you're enjoying this city, there must be some small part of you that's still wondering what the heck is going on.
Merlin: And you think it might be the soil, the pavement?
John: Oh, no, it's something much deeper than that.
John: Because I honestly don't know why my sense of cardinal directions is so strong.
John: But it has saved my ass a million times.
John: And it doesn't seem to be... It's not like I get interference from microwaves.
John: As far as you know.
John: As far as I know.
Merlin: Do they get the sun?
Merlin: Do they get the sun in Hungary?
Merlin: Because my sense of Kenning is the opposite of yours.
Merlin: I mean, I'm lost on Market Street because it's a diagonal.
John: They have the sun there, but also, you know, one of the good things about
John: is that one side is a hill and one side is flat.
John: Like, there's a river that runs down the middle of it.
John: The river runs due south through the town, and one side is a big hill and one side is flat.
John: So you've got a geographical compass already in place.
John: Yeah, so there is an awful lot.
John: There are a lot of physical features.
John: It's not like it's just a rambling...
John: mess of a city.
John: It's an incredibly ordered, gridded city with a lot of features.
John: They basically have a sign on one side that says, this is East.
John: This is Easttown.
John: And yet I can't get my head around it.
John: Because it doesn't square with how I – because it doesn't square with my emotional sense of what the directions are.
Merlin: But if you go to somewhere like London or Boston – I've never been to London.
Merlin: I've been to London for like five hours.
Merlin: But in Boston – He saw it all.
Merlin: I saw most of it.
Merlin: I found a place that had – I don't smoke, but I found a place that had cigars and I went to a station and I used the loo.
Merlin: Did you see a bobby?
Merlin: I saw a bobby.
Merlin: He had a torch and a lift and a lorry.
Merlin: What else?
Merlin: He had a torch on his lorry.
Merlin: Listen, I've been to London a lot of times.
Merlin: You saw all the good stuff.
Merlin: Yeah, that Olympic Stadium doesn't sound like really much to look at.
Merlin: But I mean, obviously for me, you got two problems here.
Merlin: Well, I cannot set aside genetics.
Merlin: You can never – I think you're unwise to set aside genetics.
Merlin: But I was – the time when I had to acquaint myself with directions, especially when I started driving, was in Florida where everywhere I've lived in Florida was oriented around a north-south country.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: Like US-19, US-41, like there's always an almost – I mean the highways, right?
Merlin: They just go north and south.
John: Well, Florida is just a north-south dongle.
John: Florida is just a dongle, let's be honest.
John: That's a dongle?
John: Yeah, it's a dongle.
John: Huh.
Merlin: It's a turkey waddle.
Yeah.
Merlin: You know I don't like to quit The Simpsons, but Homer at one point refers to Florida as America's wang.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But no, I think that's part of it for me is I'm always trying to orient myself to like the large body of water is over there.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: To the west in my case.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And so, I mean – so for me, seriously, somewhere like San Francisco where, as you know, Market Street is actually almost a perfect diagonal.
Merlin: And then the streets that go around there are totally confusing.
Merlin: Some of the names change at Market Street.
Merlin: And there's intersections where there's like five roads coming together.
Merlin: And I find that – but you have no problem with that.
Merlin: I mean we get in – the times you've been here, which I always enjoy, we get in your van and you have –
Merlin: 100% confidence that you will get where you're going.
Merlin: You take a step and you always know what the next step is.
John: Well, and the thing about San Francisco is, I mean, that city was laid out by miners, miners and trappers.
John: And I think what they did is they tied a length of string to the belt loop of like 50 drunk guys and just sent them all out from the... Let's call this one Kearney.
John: Go!
John: We'll call you Market.
John: But in something – in a city like San Francisco, I kind of – I don't know what it is.
John: I kind of just look up at the sky and know where I am.
Merlin: Well, this is why I bring up the sun.
Merlin: It was when I discovered the sun that my sense of direction got so much better because I'm – What age were you when you discovered the sun?
Merlin: I think I discovered the sun at a point when I had to discover the sun.
Merlin: I never paid much attention to the sun.
Merlin: And then at some point I was informed that it, generally speaking, rises in the east and sets in the west.
Merlin: And the only two things that I have going for me in life –
Merlin: Literally, number one, I almost never forget a face.
Merlin: I don't know anybody's name.
Merlin: I have yours written down here on a card.
Merlin: But that and I have an extraordinary sense of what time it is, usually down to no more than five minutes.
Merlin: And, you know, that's not just because the morning edition song came on.
Merlin: It's like I know what time it is and my wife will say, what time is it?
Merlin: And I will go six, eight, six, 18.
Merlin: And I'm almost always – so let me tell you how that helps.
Merlin: Once I discovered the sun, I was able to know that because it is the morning and the sun's over there, that's kind of east.
Merlin: And it just seems to me that you would just see your shadow like a great roiling groundhog and you would know where to – I don't want to belabor this, but I – Well, but this is the problem with living on the earth, one of the problems living on the earth.
John: Like for instance, if you're in Malibu, California –
John: You are conscious of the fact that the Pacific Ocean is to your west and America is to your east because you are on the Pacific Ocean, right?
John: That's how we think of the world.
Merlin: I could see it from my house.
Merlin: Three days a year.
John: Malibu is in this weird little beard.
John: It's like a little beard on California.
John: California.
John: I thought that was West Hollywood.
John: The ocean is no longer to the west of Malibu.
John: The ocean is to the south of Malibu.
John: Malibu points south.
John: That's completely unacceptable.
John: So when you're in Malibu and the sun comes up, you think...
John: Oh, my God, the sun is rising in the north or whatever.
John: I mean, you cannot reckon with it because your mind is so used to thinking of the Pacific Ocean, always to the west, always to the west.
John: But really, when you stand in Malibu and look out at the ocean, you're looking south.
John: You're looking toward the Galapagos.
Merlin: That's where they get the turtles, tortoises?
John: That's where the tortoises come from.
John: And this is true of Portland, Oregon, too.
John: If you get accustomed to thinking that the river in Portland, Oregon runs east-west, and then you realize it runs north-south, it can really screw you up.
John: Why would you think that?
John: Because the first time you were in Portland, you got really baked.
John: Yeah, totally, dude.
Merlin: And now I'm given to believe that Portland is very flat.
Yeah.
John: No.
John: Portland's another city like Budapest.
John: There's hills on one side and flat on the other.
John: And a river in the middle.
John: Locally sourced meat to the north?
John: To the north of Portland?
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I know where those food trucks are.
Merlin: I like those food trucks.
John: Yeah, Portland.
John: I just spent a week on the Oregon coast.
John: What?
John: Yeah.
John: I went down to the Oregon coast and rented a house.
John: What?
John: And I sat in the house.
Merlin: I've heard nothing about this.
John: Well, this is the thing.
John: I keep my travels.
John: The thing about announcing to the world that you're on the Oregon coast is people can come find you there.
Merlin: They can explore your home.
Merlin: So even – I mean there are certain kinds of information that you are comfortable releasing retroactively.
Merlin: But your movements in a contemporary sense need to be something that's a need-to-know basis.
John: That's right.
John: That's right.
John: And particularly when I'm going somewhere for – to experience a kind of like lonely beach solitude.
John: I don't want that – I don't want somebody like – They call that J. Alfred Prufock time.
John: Did you wear your trousers rolled?
John: I did.
John: When I'm walking down the beach... Did you eat a peach?
John: I didn't have a peach.
John: You know, you encounter people who are out on the beach in the dawn light and sometimes they have two red dogs.
John: Sometimes they have a black dog.
John: And you want to meet those people on even footing, beach footing.
John: You don't want to be out there and somebody with two red dogs goes...
John: Super train.
John: And if I told people I was out there.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: But so I go to the Oregon coast.
John: And my expectation is it's the middle of January.
John: It's going to be a constant, like, shitty, dark, cold, windswept, rainy week where I'm going to sit in this little shingled house and I'm going to shiver and stoke the fire and have lots of deep thoughts.
John: And steam.
John: And I'm going to steam.
Yeah.
John: And instead I get down there and it's the sunniest week on record and it's just beautiful every day.
John: Wow.
John: And I mean, cold, it's January, but it's, it's just beautiful.
John: That sounds bracing.
John: It was, it was great.
John: And you know, and I've, so every day I go and I, I start, I say, I'm going to take a quick walk on the beach and then I go and I walk for three and a half hours up and down the beach.
John: And, um, I did not have as many deep thoughts, um,
John: But one of the takeaways was that the Oregon coast, for me, is one of these places that I believe everyone in the world should... It's not that everyone in the world should experience it, but that everyone in the world should have access to it.
John: It's such a perfect place that I almost can't believe that it isn't part of everyone's mental landscape.
John: Because, you know, the state of Oregon, the law there is that there is no private beach.
John: All beaches are public.
John: So you can walk from the top of Oregon to the bottom if you can ford the rivers.
John: Uh, and, um, and the beach is just, the beaches are really shallow.
John: So when the tide goes out, you can walk out onto the mud flats seemingly forever.
John: I don't know.
John: It's just a, it's just, it's a, it's a place that's always in my imagination.
John: And we used to go there when I was a kid.
John: So, so I just got back from there.
John: So I'm a little dreamy.
John: I'm a little like spaced out.
John: I'm... Hmm.
John: And it doesn't... The thing is, it doesn't... Like, Portland, somehow the... Back in the old days, Portland and the Oregon coast were kind of a symbiotic... It was like the people on the Oregon coast were largely from Portland, and Portland was this little logging town, and it just all felt like a kind of a weird island.
John: But now Portland is throbbing with this food truck energy and people with the...
John: You know, with sink stoppers in their ears.
John: And the Oregon coast is still eternal.
John: It's just, it doesn't feel like it's changed at all.
John: So the two things, now it feels like there's a disconnect between Portland and the beach.
Merlin: But you stayed mostly close to the shingles.
John: Yeah, there's a little house that's basically in the sand dunes that's, I mean, there's a slingshot from the water.
John: And I camp out there.
Merlin: And you, I mean, in as much as you can say, we can cut this out, but in as much as you can say, you were ready for a, not a sabbatical, I guess a week ago to just go away.
Merlin: And you're thinking this is going to be a place to, you get a change of scenery.
Merlin: You put aside the worries of the day and the deep thoughts can flow like the shallow tide.
Merlin: That was your thinking going into it.
John: Yeah, but I know that you have a lot of feelings on these topics about the deep thoughts and how they flow.
John: And I'm beginning to question whether there is any retreat that causes the deep thoughts to flow or whether the... Merlin, I keep looking for the secret key that is going to unlock the...
John: it's going to unlock my work and it's going to make me want to make
John: The kinds of things that I think I should be making.
John: And this is a weird thing because I make things all the time.
John: But I have a list of things I think I should be making.
John: And I couldn't be less interested most of the time in making those things.
John: And so I keep thinking I'm going to find this key.
John: It's going to unlock the box where these things that I think I should be making are.
John: And they're going to pour out of me like they used to.
John: Like when I was young.
John: And I didn't think I should be making those things.
John: I just did them.
John: And I'm going to find that again.
John: And so every time I go on tour, every time I have an interesting moment or a fun night, I come back and I sit down in my chair and I go, God, I'm fired up.
John: I'm going to do this stuff that I really think I ought to do.
John: And then I just...
John: I just, the kind of life drains out of me.
John: So I went out to the Oregon coast thinking I was going to talk to God in the form of the rhythm of his waves.
John: And, you know, I love the waves.
John: I stared out at them.
John: Maybe I even talked to God a little bit, but it's not like I came back and poured it.
John: poured it into anything.
John: Well, that's not true.
John: I wrote a long article about how punk rock sucks.
John: But nobody wants that.
John: That would have come out anyway.
John: Nobody's interested in it.
John: What about hard to open jars?
John: Is that something you'll be addressing?
John: Hard to open jars.
Merlin: I don't find... Why hard candy is so costly now?
John: I don't find... I don't find jars hard to open and hard candy still seems affordable.
Merlin: Why don't people buy trousers that fit?
John: when i say the music have to be so loud when i say punk rock sucks i don't mean punk rock music i mean i mean punk rock oh this heals a rift okay thank you yeah no punk rock music you know my my contention about punk rock music is it's not a thing
Merlin: It really never was a thing.
John: Yeah, good punk rock music is just good rock music.
John: That's true.
Merlin: I mean, if you listen to The Clash or The Ramones or any good band, if you listen to X or Wire, you listen to those bands and you go, these are just... Or talking heads.
Merlin: You just listen and it's like, this is a fresh take at...
Merlin: following a bloated era, a bloated era, a bloated era that I happened to really like, but that it was, there was certainly, but they are on a continuum from the kinks.
Merlin: Well, on a continuum from Eddie Cochran.
John: Right.
John: So there is no punk rock.
John: Okay.
John: It's just rock.
John: And the stuff that, the stuff that you could legitimately call punk rock, which is like self-conscious, uh,
John: art music where it's like yoko ono screaming over some intentionally out of tune instrumentation and you know that's just that's that's neither punk nor rock it's just garbage so punk rock punk rock music is just rock music punk rock as a philosophy is the thing that i think is bullshit
Merlin: Even in 1976 when the garbage was piling up on the streets and there was no jobs.
Merlin: I saw a really good documentary on Joy Division.
Merlin: I've seen the Alex Cox movie about Sid Vicious and stuff like that.
Merlin: It's a little alternately hagiographic and nightmarish.
Merlin: But I saw this really cool documentary on Joy Division.
Merlin: I thought it was Michael Winterbottom.
Merlin: Maybe he did the fiction film.
Merlin: Anyhow, I really – Michael Warnerbottom?
Merlin: Yeah, Michael Warnerbottom from the Warnerbottom brothers.
Merlin: But what I got from it showing this kind of archival footage of what it was like to live in Manchester in 1976.
Merlin: I mean it was so blighted and everybody was living in – what do they call it?
Merlin: Council –
Merlin: Flats.
Merlin: Flats, like just these awful, it looked like something Stalin would come up with in a bad night.
Merlin: And there was a time when, I don't know why this one really stuck in my mind, but I guess there was a strike, as you do in England, and the garbage piled up on the streets for, I guess, weeks later.
Merlin: yeah and it was it was blighted it was really blighted and you know you listen to i don't know how you feel about the sex pistols i you know i don't think they're quite as good as people say they are but i mean no future no future i mean the sex pistols are the best punk band you think they're better than x
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: But the thing is that... You don't think it was an animus alongside things like, oh my god, Genesis and Queen, this is the worst, which I disagree with.
Merlin: You don't think that was an animus?
John: The Blight of Northern England also produced Black Sabbath, which is one of the great rock experiences.
John: No question.
John: The thing about punk rock philosophy, the reason that I think it is bullshit...
John: And I say that even acknowledging that punk rock as a corner of youth culture was very important to people.
John: I have a lot of friends who claim that punk rock, the culture saved their lives and it was the family that they didn't have.
John: And it was a place where they...
Merlin: Maybe they felt like they fit in for once.
John: Well, yeah.
John: And I mean, I mean, the thing is that you could people say that same thing about Scientology.
John: You know, it's a place where your fashion questions, your music questions, your political questions and your social questions are all answered in one place.
John: Oh, it's doctrinal.
John: And it absolutely is.
John: And you are 14 years old.
John: And so you walk into this you walk into this meeting hall and you're like, oh, my God, finally, I'm home.
John: And I understand that that has a powerful emotional effect on people.
John: And even though a lot of these people now are 45 and 50 years old, they cannot look at punk rock with a clear eye.
John: But the reality is that punk rock as a philosophy, as a social philosophy, is intrinsically negative.
John: It is anti-reactionary.
John: And it is reactionary, exactly.
John: And in a way, fascist.
John: But it does not have... It is not pro anything.
John: It is anti-everything.
John: It lets you know what it is supposed to.
John: It never really stipulates what it's for.
Merlin: It's like a 14-year-old boy.
Merlin: All it knows is what it hates.
John: All it knows is what it hates.
John: And that has... Certainly, you're in my generation.
John: That mentality...
John: because punk rock was also cool, because that was where a lot of the... That was the genesis point of a lot of the stuff that we liked, and particularly... I mean, anytime you're in a sort of a mind-control posture, if you can attach it to good rock music, you got half the people right there.
John: They don't even have to think about what it's about.
John: That's why Christians...
John: are so interested in making rock music now.
John: It's a great way to get inside of people's heads and get them before they're really thinking critically.
John: So, all through the 80s and 90s, we, as a generation, internalized this movement
John: Punk rock critical eye, which all it could say was, that sucks, that sucks, that sucks, that sucks.
John: It never espoused its own concept of beauty.
John: And so I think personally – And the ones that did weren't really punk rock songs.
Merlin: Right, right.
Merlin: That's the funny thing when like – when Wire sings Outdoor Minor, which is a gorgeous – basically almost a ballad or when – I mean how different is something from London Calling from – I won't say Bruce Springsteen because I don't want to start a thing.
Merlin: But from like a soaring like proto power anthem almost.
Yeah.
John: Well, and now Green Day is basically making music like ELO.
John: It's like the Buzzcocks with press releases.
John: It's come all the way.
John: It's come full circle.
John: But again, leaving the music aside and just talking about punk rock as a social phenomenon, a fashion movement, a way of criticizing...
John: culture, which it deeply, profoundly is.
John: Punk rock draws a line on everything.
John: Is it punk or is it not?
John: And that's where indie rock got the concept that selling out was the ugliest thing you could do.
John: That whole business of
Merlin: Yeah, like what would Johnny Rotten think of this decision?
John: Exactly.
John: And Death Cab for Cutie were asking themselves that question.
John: What would Johnny Rotten think?
John: I mean, through three different filters, I mean, they weren't actually thinking about Johnny Rotten.
John: But, you know, Sunny Day Real Estate wouldn't do interviews on their first record.
Merlin: Bell and Sebastian wouldn't be photographed unless every single person, like nine people in the band, were all in the photo.
John: Right.
John: And Eddie Vedder drove across America in an uninsulated Ford van while his bandmates flew from show to show in their own private 747.
John: Keeping it real.
John: Because he was keeping it real via Mike Watt, via Johnny Rotten, via, you know.
John: And so...
John: We all have been carrying this around in us, everybody, our generation, and I think everybody from 30 to 50, this idea that every time we make something, we look at it and go, hmm, punk or not?
John: Oh, God, not punk enough.
John: Garbage can.
John: I'm coming around.
John: I'm coming around.
John: Okay.
John: So, you know, so anyway, so ultimately I feel like, and the reason I'm saying this now is that I look at the generation that is finally throwing this in the garbage, which is this newest generation.
John: 20 to 25 year olds who are making stuff now and they you know I think they look at their cultural patrimony and they see a bunch of like whiny millionaires and they see the last the last vestiges of that kind of pitchforky like
Merlin: sell out this is hack and the kids that are 22 are like you know it just seems like that's how old people but you end up you end up starting if you allow it to happen to yourself and it's certainly happened to me is you end up starting whatever you call a career with a certain amount of cultural baggage about what the previous generation would think which is not so different from going to eden
Merlin: Right, exactly.
John: Absolutely.
John: And the kids now, I think, are just like, fuck it.
John: Right.
John: And they take a little bit of the sneer, but none of the self-criticism, and they just want to dance, and they're just being kids again, and they seem like a much more, oh my God, and praise be to God that they are making culture much more lightheartedly.
John: Right.
John: You know, you look at Lena Denham,
John: or dunham or whoever that girl is that's making girls and and the this generation is they're just as smart as we ever were but they are having a they're having a little bit more fun because they aren't well doing something more profound and more likely to endure in some ways
John: Because they aren't self-censoring based on a fundamental principle that if you are not approaching the world with negativity, then you are part of the capitalist oligarchy.
John: Right.
Merlin: You've got me thinking about this and there's certain – okay, so I mean I personally never have thought the germs were all that great.
Merlin: They kind of phoned it in.
Merlin: Think about what's enduring about – You liked Agent Orange.
Merlin: I mean that's – Too many harmonies?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: It's – what is that?
Merlin: That's like the ventures with spit.
Merlin: Right, right.
Yeah.
Merlin: But here's – what's enduring?
Merlin: What's enduring about it?
Merlin: I mean we take away – sure.
Merlin: I mean I think there's something to be taken away from the culture stuff.
Merlin: But think about this.
Merlin: Think about how much of the enduring legacy that made bands like your previous bands, you know, it might have inspired you.
Merlin: You think about it.
Merlin: You know, a lot of it – some of it is cultural.
Merlin: I mean you're never – you're very unlikely in context to ever get weirder than Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
Merlin: Nobody is ever going to be that weird just given like what he was –
Merlin: alongside in those days.
Merlin: Absolutely.
Merlin: But think about this.
Merlin: Think about the really, and again, I'm certainly guilty of the hagiography here for every one of these, but number one,
Merlin: I don't think people really understand what independent music meant in the mid to late 70s because the Buzzcocks, very few people have been as independent as the Buzzcocks.
Merlin: They practically pressed their own records.
Merlin: They made their own covers.
Merlin: They almost single-handedly invented independent music.
Merlin: What is that?
Merlin: Well, that ends up being a business decision because there was not –
Merlin: There was not a forum.
Merlin: There may have been a forum for promoting them, but there weren't that many people out there who were going to invest in them.
Merlin: And they really did literally do it themselves.
Merlin: Like, say what you will about Ian McKay.
Merlin: But the thing is, we remember Discord for their, like, we won't play a show that costs more than $7.
Merlin: But again, what they did was a business decision.
Merlin: They created a sustainable business by being lean and by supporting artists that they really believed in.
John: And we all live in the...
Merlin: in the aftermath of that like they created that and we and that is why i don't that's why there's a bar souk that's where there's a bar souk that's absolutely true and then finally and again this is going to be the most hagiographic i'm ready to be wrong about this but you know i think this is in some ways extremely true which is the sst bands including especially people like black flag they worked really hard although not as hard as rollins makes it sound
Merlin: Yeah, but I mean at the same time, I mean I only saw the Minutemen once and I saw the band after that a couple times.
Merlin: But I mean I really believe that Mike Watt is a pretty hardworking guy.
Merlin: But the thing is they got in a van and they drove and because of the community that they could develop, they were able to blaze a trail that people are still driving their van down to this day.
Merlin: But again, what is that?
Merlin: It's business and it's work.
Merlin: All of the enduring things in all of this were people who actually decided to be dedicated to doing the work.
Merlin: which is not nearly the same thing as starting out going like, I want safety pins in my jacket or whatever.
John: It's all work.
John: And then that's absolutely true.
John: And it is the lack of ability to acknowledge that it is a business decision, that all of those groups that you just mentioned, I mean, all of those innovations...
John: Really, you could write an article for Fast Company about each one of those crews.
Merlin: They're like a startup that works.
John: They're a startup that works.
John: But threaded through the philosophy of each one of those organizations was a rejection and denial that business was what they were doing.
Merlin: At least not big business, right?
Right.
Merlin: They wanted to have enough to put gas in the van.
John: But that's the thing.
John: They were not proud of it.
John: And if you read that Rollins book where he's talking about being on tour, there's this cognitive disconnect because on one page he's like, so we got to Chicago and we sold out the metro and there was a line around the block, man.
John: But I was riding in the back of a box truck from shows to show.
John: from shows to shows, and I was peeing in a mason jar.
John: And when you have sold out the Metro or played the Metro, you realize that even if you're only charging $5 a head, to sell out the Metro is to have money.
John: You are earning money at this point.
John: It's a big venue.
John: And you're boosting your ego.
John: Well, you're boosting your ego, but more than that, you have arrived at a place where you do not need to go from show to show in the back of a box truck.
John: So if you're doing it, you are doing it intentionally.
John: Oh, they've chosen to be part...
John: And they are pretending it's not there and they are continuing to pee in jars and roll from show to show in a 50-gallon drum because to get your own hotel room is bullshit.
John: And I got picked up at the airport one time by Bob Weston.
John: And big black.
John: Yeah, big black.
John: And he picks me up at the airport in the big black van.
John: And it is a Ford van that is just exactly like you imagine the Minutemen toured in.
John: It is the van that the big black toured in.
John: And it's a 75, you know, or 78.
John: red ford van with no paneling so it's just the you know it's just the sheet metal and there are no seats in the van there's like there's like a a love seat that somebody dragged it's like sitting in steve albini's guitar it's it's like yeah it's like it's like just metallic and uncomfortable it's like sitting in a chair that you that somebody made out of steve albini's earwax
John: And, you know, and, and the thing has 350,000 miles on it and it's got backstage passes from shows, you know, but, but not like self-consciously, but just like haphazardly stuck on the walls.
John: And he's like, Hey man, sorry, I couldn't, you know, I had to get the truck running and here we go.
John: But we're all, and, and it was great.
John: It was super cool to be in this, this van and,
John: But, you know, Bob Weston was first engineer on In Utero.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: Bob Weston is a success.
Merlin: Do you think he got points on that?
John: Well, he got paid for it.
John: Right, okay.
John: And he got a credit on Nirvana record.
John: And if you look at Bob Weston's CV, and I don't mean to throw him under the bus, he's a wonderful man, but he is part and parcel of our entire culture that descends from punk rock, which is that
John: And the thing is, if there was a winking acknowledgement of like, yeah, I mean, isn't this van great?
John: Like, this is a piece of living history.
Merlin: It's like, you might as well drive a Conestoga wagon.
Merlin: Like, I suppose I could afford something a little more modern.
John: Yeah, if any of us, for the last 25 years, were able to wink and say, yeah, I know I could be driving...
John: a better car, but I drive this because I know it's cool.
John: It's a, it's a, it is part of history and it's, and I know that picking you up at the airport in this van is impressive to you.
John: And it's like, it's like something an A&R guy would do.
John: Yeah.
John: Let's all sit here and like, and just like, just like give ourselves a little bit of, of crotch pleasure.
John: Let's just gently stroke ourselves knowing that we're in big black van and
John: Mike watched Shatner once.
John: But in fact, for the last 25 years, we have not.
John: Let's be honest.
John: If you think that there has been that element of fun in our culture, you are misremembering it.
John: Because Bob Weston picked me up in that van.
John: with the pretense that that was his car and that was what he could afford and that was how he kept it you know and and and so and that's been true of everything we've done as a as a youth culture that's now moved into middle age where it's just like oh yeah sorry man i couldn't you know i would have been here earlier but i had to
Merlin: I was out giving free vegan food to poor people.
John: Yeah, I was working at the Needle Exchange, and it's just like, wait a fucking minute.
John: No, you weren't.
John: And that – so the thing is when I look at the kids now, I see they have taken all of that.
John: They've adopted the fashion.
John: They've taken the fun parts of that.
John: And it's why they're a little bit incomprehensible to us because it's like, wait a minute.
John: Why are you having fun?
John: You don't get to have fun.
John: You're making rock music.
Merlin: It's not so different for me being 46 and choosing to wear a shirt with a comic book character on it.
Merlin: I have the means.
Merlin: You're finally having fun.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, I am.
Merlin: But it's partly nostalgic.
Merlin: It's partly something I feel like I miss.
Merlin: But you said something about being middle-aged, and I think that can't be overlooked.
Merlin: I mean, when you're younger, you sure have more energy.
Merlin: You can put up with more.
Merlin: You are creating memories that you will someday be nostalgic about.
Merlin: But think about how many of those bands – again, going back to a time when you – let's say you start – I can't think of a specific band.
Merlin: The Buzzcocks do come to mind.
Merlin: Joy Division comes to mind.
Merlin: I mean, a lot of that was you didn't have – nobody came in with the suitcase full of money.
Merlin: But when you had the opportunity, I mean, Joy Division became New Order and New Order became huge.
Merlin: And the thing is, you might have gotten signed to mute or you might have gotten signed –
Merlin: I mean, you know, A&M was an independent label for a pretty long time.
Merlin: And, you know, and thank God they put out the police.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: And then they became a major.
Merlin: All I'm trying to say, though, is that when you do, for lack of a better word, grow up a little bit.
Merlin: You might think about something like, well, you know what?
Merlin: If I really care about what I'm making, A, I'm going to need the means to do that for a living and not have to work at Haagen-Dazs.
Merlin: And then B, when you no longer have to work at Haagen-Dazs and that's all just kind of a put on, you start to realize the extent to which you are a white kid –
Merlin: Right.
John: But you are making the arguments, I feel like, still from within the punk rock mentality.
John: The idea that we even need to explain that it's okay to enjoy success...
John: Is we we we've we've been doing it our whole lives so that we feel we feel like we forget that it is a technology.
John: And I feel like punk rock came punk rock came up not just in the blighted like like shitscape of Manchester and to a lesser extent Los Angeles in the late 70s.
John: But also, not to just always be hammering on this, but in the Cold War, you know, during a time when it seemed like it wasn't just that the rich people, like they are now, the rich people just seem like they're greedy, they're stealing, they're just sucking bone marrow, and they're just lame.
John: They're ugly, they're coarse, but
John: But we forget that 35 years ago, 40 years ago, those people also, we perceived them, I guess maybe mostly we perceived them, as having their finger on the red button that was going to annihilate all of human life.
Merlin: They were part of, we perceived, and probably true, that they were part of a system that elected the people who were keeping us really close to the football getting opened.
John: Right.
John: And so...
John: That paranoia, I could see and understand why initially punk rock had this we're anti-everything mentality.
John: Because to join that world at all, even to go so far as to eat a hamburger at McDonald's, you were contributing not just to a world where there were rich people who got to have swimming pools, but you were contributing to a bankrupt world.
John: a morally bankrupt world that was teetering on the edge of mutually assured destruction.
John: So there wasn't a way to participate where you weren't complicit.
John: And so punk rock was anti-everything.
Merlin: So you had to make something that was kind of ugly.
Merlin: You had to.
John: It was the only moral choice.
John: But that has not been the case for 25 years.
John: And so...
John: And the reality is, looking back, punk rock's response to the Cold War, really, when you broke it down, when you really read the zines, was just a garbled mix of revolutionary Marxism.
John: And, I mean, it was nothing new.
John: It was just the dregs of a city college education.
John: Like, Sandinista?
John: Really?
John: Do you know what the Sandinistas were up to?
John: It's not a great record.
John: And the Sandinistas sucked, you know?
John: And to wave that flag was to exhibit how little you knew and how mute and impotent your response to it really was.
John: Like, punk rock did not smash the state.
John: It did not end the Cold War.
John: Punk rock did not...
John: save us from from basically 12 years of imperial bush family punk rock did not do shit except you know and and when it when it turned into grunge when punk rock made that transition into grunge it continued to not do shit we did not even defeat ticket master like
John: All we did, all it did is what you're describing, which is it started an alternate model for financing music and culture.
John: The DIY concept is the only positive product aside from the fact that some great music got made.
John: But philosophically, DIY is the only thing that came of it.
Merlin: And we thought we were going to whatever China.
Merlin: But what we really discovered was the maps weren't reliable and, hey, West Indies.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But unintended consequences that you start out with this ethos.
Merlin: And I don't want to say it's a fake ethos.
Merlin: I wasn't there.
Merlin: But, I mean, you start out with an ethos and you're young.
John: You weren't far off from it.
John: You really weren't.
John: I mean, we were there.
John: When did we join that culture?
John: 1980?
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, everything, and this is another old man point, but also everything, so many of the things that we get to enjoy, even starting when I was there, were filtered already two or three times through, let's put it this way.
Merlin: I would not have discovered a lot of that music without community radio but also like independent record stores.
Merlin: And a lot of times it was pretty easy to go buy a copy of Nevermind the Bullocks at a record bar.
John: But independent record stores were a thing not because they were a response to the corporate record world.
John: Independent record stores were just a business model.
Merlin: Because it was a specialty store.
Merlin: It was like a comic shop.
John: Yeah.
John: And what we're discovering now, what I'm seeing now, is that DIY is finally divorced from the idea that it is against business.
John: And DIY is just now a business model.
John: And taking it away from this idea that DIY is against business, you don't have young bands who are like, we don't do interviews.
John: We don't want your filthy lucre.
John: I'll say everything I've got to say on Facebook.
John: Yeah, that's right.
John: Thanks for the ad.
John: And it's like, fuck, fuck, wait a minute.
John: It never was.
John: DIY was never.
John: an alternative to business.
John: It was just a form of business.
Merlin: If you put out a record, it's because you want people to hear it.
Merlin: You want them to essentially buy it.
Merlin: Otherwise, you would have pressed those records and given them away.
Merlin: But here's the other thing.
Merlin: You can tell me if this is BS, but punk rock is, if nothing else, extremely subconscious – or excuse me, extremely self-conscious.
Merlin: As we stipulated, you are actively reacting to something else, mostly in a negative way.
Merlin: But I mean – whatever going on about people like Duchamp or whatever.
Merlin: But there's always been a self-consciousness in art –
Merlin: But you can produce something of enduring value with that self-consciousness.
Merlin: If Picasso is reacting to Saison, well, he came up with some pretty good stuff and figured out how to make a living out of it.
Merlin: You've got to create more than just a poorly written manifesto.
John: Right.
John: And the thing is, Picasso rejected...
John: The artist that had come before him and poured a brilliant new outlook.
Merlin: Yeah, but look at this.
Merlin: How about this?
Merlin: He didn't just go meh.
John: But what he didn't do was say, I no longer am represented by a dealer in Paris.
John: My artwork should be free.
John: You know, Picasso used the same dealers that is that is for and was proud to uses the same dealers that is that the guys that came before him did.
John: It was punk rock was the first real thing that said we reject the we reject commerce because commerce has produced the bomb.
Merlin: Or the class system or it's responsible for hunger or like any ill you can find, you can strap on to this quote-unquote big system.
John: Absolutely.
John: And if you collect 80s punk rock zines like I do and read the screeds in there, there is no liberal cause that punk rock won't attach itself to.
John: Yeah.
John: and i don't i don't mean liberal because punk rock ultimately really it's extremely conservative was a libertarian philosophy like anarchy with the big a in a circle is just tea party
John: you're saying it's it's gun gun nuts in leather jackets basically you know it is it is leave me alone why should i have to do that right why should we do but you're not the boss of me you're not the boss of me it is a bratty teenage philosophy that is you know now of course promulgated mostly by these people with pt cruisers
John: But at the time, you know, I swear to you, the people who were reading Ayn Rand in 1984 were all...
John: I mean, either the drummer of Rush or this subset, the place where ponytails and punk rock meet.
John: Thank you.
John: Is anarchy slash libertarianism.
John: Right.
John: So, anyway, I feel hopeful for the future, but I really feel like we need to look back as a people, and I'm talking about our generation in particular, look back and say, wait a minute, this was bullshit the whole time.
John: We did not need, or maybe not the whole time, but we inherited a thing that we did not understand.
John: We adopted...
John: We adopted this mentality that for things to be good, they had to prove they weren't shit.
John: And that money and business were intrinsically, inherently immoral, right?
John: And it was garbage and it handicapped us.
Merlin: But it also – but you know how you're talking about people who would think – or we were both saying about how would Johnny Rotten approve of this?
Merlin: You also, as creative as you might have thought you were, you had a clear progenitor that you wanted to please.
Merlin: And that self-consciousness might lead you to make this something with this certain drumbeat and you go, oh, you recognize that that's actually a drumbeat from Noy or whatever.
Merlin: There's this – when you say there's this doctrinal conservative thing, I look at somebody – I don't know what your feeling is on Captain Beefheart.
Merlin: I really like Captain Beefheart.
Merlin: And I think the guy is too generous.
Merlin: And he, I don't know, he was certainly probably self-conscious in his way.
Merlin: He was definitely insane.
Merlin: He wouldn't wear headphones in the studio.
Merlin: But to me, that's something really, really new.
Merlin: Like when that came out, I mean, the New York Dolls were like Rolling Stones in dresses.
Merlin: I should do this for a living.
Merlin: I'm pretty good at this.
John: You are good at it.
Merlin: But I mean, again, you go back to something like Screamin' Jay Hawkins.
Merlin: I don't know why I'm thinking him in particular.
Merlin: But like the kind of people who would really produce Charlie Parker or somebody who went out there and really – I mean Charlie Parker was playing and Dizzy Gillespie were playing in –
Merlin: the contemporary like big bands at the time during the day and like reinventing what we thought about music certainly with progenitors but like their response was not to go screw you we're just gonna play this just play this faster like they kind of rebooted the whole idea of jazz in a lot of ways they made they made something new that in its way we came to realize was beautiful it was at the time keb calloway called it chinese music no one worked ping pong but but like we came to realize that you know that was something substantially new
John: And we need to be able to separate all of the amazing artwork that got made under the rubric of punk rock from what is the kind of virus.
Merlin: I'm on board.
Merlin: I get what you're saying.
Merlin: Who's your favorite punk rock band?
Merlin: The Sex Pistols.
Merlin: Really?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Because that really is, that has antecedents in the kind of rock and roll that you really love.
Merlin: In some ways, the Sex Pistols are not really that different from ACDC in a lot of ways.
John: The Sex Pistols and the romantics, if you put blindfolds,
John: on people from outer space.
John: If you blindfolded my pillows and played them the Sex Pistols and the Romantics, I think the pillows would say, I don't know, the guy from the Romantics has kind of got a pretty cool little lisp.
John: The Sex Pistols guy's a little bit screamier, but they're both amazing.
John: I mean, let's say my favorite cool punk band, because most people can't get their heads around the fact that the Sex Pistols are even...
John: are even a punk band anymore but my favorite cool punk band is the bad brains and the bad brains in spite of the fact that their records don't sound good and i got a pretty bad attitude they got a really bad attitude then their records are pretty hard to work with their records don't really sound good like they're you put them on and you're like oh god i wish i could re-record this
John: even even using the technology that they had available that's me that's me and who's good too i don't know how they let that spot guy anywhere near a fader and that is absolutely true of who's good too and i mean it's true of a lot of those if you listen to well anyway not to go back if we could go back in time and re-record those records the world would be a better place and that is one thing about that sex pistols record that it sounds it is solid gold sounding it sounds like a freaking abba record it's recorded so well
John: And you put that side to side with the Bad Brains record, which was, you know, one of those was made by Rico Kasich.
Merlin: Bad Brains sound like they're in a men's room.
John: Yeah, it sounds like it was recorded through one headphone speaker.
John: But those guys are putting together so much music.
John: out of out of like a grab bag of nuts and bolts and the and the overlay of like i mean what i don't like about the clash is that they are a white reggae band what i love about the bad brains is that they are a fucking reggae band they are they are doing shit that nobody did that nobody has done before or since and it's not like any aspect of it was new um
John: but they put it together in a way that it still inspires me.
John: Right.
John: And, you know, and I was not able, I was never a Fugazi person.
John: I did not make that transition.
Merlin: Yeah, me neither.
Merlin: I mean, I liked Minor Threat a lot, and there are a couple of Fugazi songs I was familiar with, but I thought Minor Threat was really, really good.
Merlin: And I've seen, I never saw them live, but I've seen some of their videos of their live stuff, and man, they were some working men on stage.
Merlin: They were.
John: And the thing is, I love those early Black Flag records.
John: Love them.
Merlin: Early Black Flag.
Merlin: The early Black Flag records.
Merlin: Everything before they weren't allowed to record anymore.
Merlin: Are you talking about Des Kadena?
Merlin: You're talking like old school, pre-Henry Rollins.
John: Yeah, and I used to go see all... I mean, I had a wonderful time in the punk rock years.
John: Suicidal tendencies, loved it.
John: But by the time it turned into bad religion, by the time Circle Jerks turned into bad religion...
Merlin: That was my first punk rock show was when circle jerks had turned into bad religion.
Merlin: Seriously, literally, 1986, my first – I went to a circle jerk show.
Merlin: I was totally terrified by the skanking and it was all like clove cigarettes and things people had seen in magazines.
Yeah.
Merlin: It's true though.
Merlin: It really is true.
Merlin: You can, you can seem like your guys, like you talk about those guys who walk around with the sink stoppers acting like they're real tough and they're in their dirty clothes.
Merlin: But you know, that's, that's still a reaction to what you've seen other people do.
Merlin: And in three years they won't dress in two years, they won't dress like that anymore because they, they are following a certain, no, I'm not in punk rock.
Merlin: They are following a certain kind of fashion.
John: From 1983 to 1987, if I came out of a concert and I was not covered in blood, I felt like it was a shitty show.
John: Like a one-man G.G.
John: Allen.
John: No, I mean, it wasn't all my blood.
John: I mean, it was... You took some bitches out.
John: It wasn't that.
John: We were all taking each other out.
Merlin: But it was in a spirit of, you know...
Merlin: People would help each other up and stuff.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Get in the middle and beat the shit out of you.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: I was so scared of that.
Merlin: I was up over by the bar.
Merlin: Oh, no.
Merlin: I wanted it.
Merlin: I thrived on it.
Merlin: It hit me hard.
John: Hit me harder.
John: You were allowed.
John: It was encouraged.
John: And then if somebody fell, you did pick them up.
John: And I mean, one of the most traumatic experiences I ever had was at an all show.
John: A guy jumped off this, you know, stage dove and he just went into a hole.
John: Oh, my God.
John: And he was he was out cold.
John: And, you know, the band stopped.
John: We all stopped.
John: We helped this.
John: We got this guy into an ambulance.
John: And then the show started up again.
John: Like that is so punk rock.
John: It was great.
John: But but but really that transition.
John: circle jerks into bad religion i stopped believing that there was a thing called punk rock anymore i just didn't i mean i didn't i looked around and i was like well this is i don't even know what this is and really that was the last moment that it had any relevance because then it was all then the next generation was all punk rock through through punk rock through punk rock it was it was it was four i mean because of course being 21 is like being 87 in punk rock years yeah
John: By the time we got to 1990, it was like, really?
John: We're taking our music from these guys from Aberdeen, Washington now?
John: Is that how far out we had to go?
Merlin: I better name check the raincoats, too.
John: To find some monkeys that still have a little bit of life in them?
John: Right.
John: We're pulling these ding-dongs out of trees now.
Yeah.
John: And they're making, and grunge is what, that's what we're going to, that's what we're going to call it, grunge.
Merlin: Talk about not, not enduring.
Merlin: Oh my God.
John: We have fallen so far.
John: This is not even, this is just not, this is something else.
John: And, and, you know, I got into music because I was watching the grunge bands.
John: I came to Seattle and wanted to be in a band, you know, and I was playing, I was playing jingle jangle, R.E.M.
John: Tom Petty rock.
John: Because to me, that was where it seemed like we were headed.
John: That was where the good music was coming from.
John: And I show up in this town and there are all these...
John: swamp monsters you order a jagermeister and get a record contract yeah and they're playing you know really what sounded to me at the time like retro music and what i'm meaning i'm sorry but what a meaningless genre like how can you put mud honey and the melvins and nirvana and pearl jam in the same genre it just does not make a lick of sense
John: Well, it's just the same as punk rock.
John: If it's good, it's rock and roll.
John: If it's bad, it's grunge.
John: And Nabeel and I, we DJed the sub-pop 20-year anniversary party several years ago.
John: By the way, he's now the head of a label.
John: He's a label head.
John: That's right.
John: A British label head.
John: But he and I were at this bar, Linda's, and we had two turntables and we went to all of our friends.
John: And of course, Nabeel owned a record store.
John: He had some resources and I had some stuff.
John: And we collected all the iconic grunge vinyl that we could find.
John: And I don't mean really any of the major label stuff, but this was all the bands that were really making the scene 89 through 93.
John: And we sat at Linda's, which did not at the time have a very good stereo system, which was appropriate thematically.
John: aesthetically appropriate and we played this vinyl and we would you know one of us would pull a record out and the other one would go oh my god yes cat butt yes they are awesome i never i never heard a cat butt did you make that up no cat butt was real
John: Hell trout, dude!
John: Hell trout!
John: Get that shit on there!
John: And we would cue up this record, and we'd be like, this is going to blow people's minds that we have, because the room was full of people that were there.
Merlin: And they're waiting for Green River.
John: Yeah, and Phil Leck is sitting right in front of us, you know?
John: And I think Phil Leck even came with some records.
John: Like, everybody was so excited.
John: And then you cue this shit up, and here it comes through the speakers, and within...
John: And everybody goes, yeah, woo!
John: And then within a minute, we're all looking at our fingernails.
John: Because it sucks.
John: Like, it's terrible.
John: It's badly recorded.
John: It's badly played.
John: It's badly written.
John: most of that music was just bad.
John: And that's true of every music scene anywhere.
John: But the good grunge bands you have heard of, there was no secret stash of like, oh, yeah, you've never heard of these guys, but they're going to kill you.
John: I mean, there were a couple.
John: There were a couple.
John: But for the most part, that stuff was just...
John: It was like, it was like a pair of converse that were full of vomit.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Did you ever read, have you read any contemporary reviews of early black Sabbath records?
Merlin: They are a riot for so long.
Merlin: I mean, you know, I'm not saying everything Black Sabbath did was fantastic.
Merlin: Well, I'm going to say that.
Merlin: I'm going to go right ahead and say it.
John: Well, at least first six years.
John: First just six years.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Where's that one?
Merlin: 69 to 75.
Merlin: Well, yeah, and there's that last Aussie record that sounds like Sloan.
Merlin: Wow, that was quite a statement.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Well, there's a Sloan song that basically takes – what's that?
Merlin: You know the one I mean?
Merlin: It's like a G-A-C-D song.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: You know the one I mean?
Merlin: Oh, the one with the gas masks.
Merlin: That one on the cover.
Merlin: But it was the last Aussie record.
Merlin: He was pretty gone at that point.
Merlin: But it's funny because like today – well, especially like I happen to really like the Melvins.
Merlin: And I think they're great.
Merlin: They're incredible.
Merlin: Okay, all right, cool.
Merlin: Cool, cool, cool.
Merlin: But, you know, and unlike you, I'm given to believe I did not sit around and get super-duper high and listen to them.
Merlin: I kind of regret that.
Merlin: But, like, what's that song, Honeypot?
Merlin: Like, I guess that's one of their hits.
Merlin: But, I mean, like, that song is a triumph.
Merlin: It's so great.
Merlin: But, like, you would never have had a Melvins.
Merlin: Melvins is definitely, I think, one of those bands, is what you're describing, which is, like, it's cool to like the Melvins.
Merlin: But they were really good.
Merlin: And I don't think there ever would have been a Melvins without a Black Sabbath album.
Merlin: Not at all.
Merlin: No chance.
Merlin: I mean, that may sound, like, patently obvious, but it's funny.
Merlin: If you go back to the time, man, nobody, especially, I guess, in criticisms, nobody liked Black Sabbath.
Merlin: They were like, this is ridiculous.
Merlin: It's the same way that I make the joke about Mike Anthony, which is, you know, a joke.
Merlin: But, like, they're like, this is... What they are playing is asinine.
Merlin: Especially the bass and drum parts, you know?
Merlin: The bass and drum parts to people who were used to hearing Ginger Baker.
Merlin: Like, it was...
John: It was not... Yeah.
John: Well, picture, I mean, picture Sabbath in 71.
John: They were so weird and so dangerous.
John: Was there a dumber looking... I mean, they looked like... If you saw them on... If you saw Ozzy
John: in a bar, you would sit as far away from him as you could.
John: He was the archetypal dumb white northerner.
John: He just looks dumb.
John: And the fringe.
John: He looks like the type of guy that's going to throw a pint glass over his shoulder.
Merlin: This is a guy who's never made a good decision in his whole life.
Merlin: Haircuts, tattoos, down the line.
Merlin: He has Ozzy tattooed on his knuckles.
John: Probably doesn't help him remember.
John: In 69 or whatever.
John: Right.
John: That was not a thing he did later.
John: That was his first statement to the world.
John: Like, right, I'm all Z. See?
Merlin: Says right here.
Merlin: But like even in 1980, as far as I know, there is exactly one video that I've seen of –
Merlin: crazy train in what looks like a cable access studio and I guess he was pretty dried out mostly at this point he was pretty dried out around Blizzard of Oz right he met his lady by then his lady was fixing him up yeah but anyway and of course Randy Rhodes is from another planet but Ozzy even in 1980 he still looks like he has no idea what to do on stage he walks around he walks around and he claps he claps he looks nervous and requests repeatedly that everyone go fucking crazy
John: Yeah, stomps his one foot and then walks over and then stomps his other foot.
John: But he looks like an autistic electrician.
John: He holds his hand up and then he remembers that that's the hand that he's holding the microphone in.
John: And he's like, I'll be singing.
John: Did I ever tell you?
John: Ozzy came to West High School.
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: Tell the story again.
Merlin: This is a classic.
Merlin: He went to the other high school, right?
John: The other high school.
John: Randy Rhodes was in the band.
John: They played.
John: I was in my orange jumpsuits.
Merlin: Your orange pants.
Merlin: They were simulcasting from the van outside.
John: Oh, I'm still so brokenhearted.
Merlin: And, of course, I've told you my REM, the DB story.
Merlin: Yeah, that's terrible.
Merlin: Jefferson...
Merlin: At that point, Jefferson Fuckstain with Night Ranger opening.
Merlin: That's what I chose to go.
John: Jefferson Fuckstain.
Merlin: Oh, that's an awesome punk rock name.
Merlin: Sabbath Bloody Sabbath was a good record.
Merlin: And I wish it had been produced differently.
Merlin: Hang on real quick.
Merlin: i don't have any drumsticks here but but you know what a la um especially zen arcade to an extent new day rising is better but like actually i i am not a giant robert chris gow fan by any stretch of the amount talk about self-involved but his review of zen arcade is is really funny he says something like something along as if it's such a such a pity to hear bob moves guitar gathering dust between the amp and the speakers
Merlin: that's how i feel about every time i sabbath bloody sabbath and what could be a on the face of it a stupider song a stupider bass line it's like what is it like like e e b b flat a it's something like it's something ridiculous like but it's so good and then that breakdown sorry to talk about music but the breakdown on that is like oh i love that is that's probably my favorite black sabbath song
John: The next record, Sabotage, is where it starts to go off the rails, and then after that, it gets a little crazy.
John: Okay, now what about Heaven and Hell?
Merlin: We talked about this.
Merlin: You're a fan.
Merlin: You like Heaven and Hell, right?
Merlin: Dio?
Merlin: I think Heaven and Hell, I won't say... He's a great dude.
Merlin: You and I almost argued about whether that's the best pound-for-pound Black Sabbath record, which is probably not.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: See?
Merlin: It's on the list here.
Merlin: The things we don't talk about.
John: Bastard of Reality is the best Black Sabbath record.
John: Is that the one with Sweet Leaf?
Yes.
John: you know the first time Eric Corson auditioned for the Long Winters I've told this story where he shows up with a five he didn't own a bass and I said how did you learn the song and he said well I have an acoustic guitar that has five strings on it
John: and i said okay great and he came no it was just one was broken and he showed up uh and so i i we had a bass there i handed it to him it's like a bass banjo and i gave him two i gave him two songs to learn and he played them flawlessly and i was like well great uh that was pretty cool why don't you go home learn the rest of the record come back in a week or two and and we'll rehearse again and he was like oh i mean uh i know that i learned the other songs
Merlin: And this began, oh, he had already learned.
John: I'm like, wait a minute, you learned the other songs?
John: You've only had the record for two days.
John: And he was like, oh, yeah.
John: That's the best Eric Corson impersonation I've ever heard.
John: He proceeds to play the entire first Long Winters record flawlessly.
John: What a dick.
John: On the bass.
John: So he's never played a bass.
John: He didn't have a bass when he learned it.
John: He learned it on the guitar.
John: And I'm like, okay, kid, that's pretty impressive.
John: having never played a bass until you were on national tv you must have appreciated this i did and i was like you know that's that's okay uh you know that that'll do pig and then we started just like we're we're kind of we don't know what to do next we played all the songs a couple of times through and then we started i just i think i i just picked out sweet leaf
John: on the guitar and the band kind of picks up the, the jam and, and, um, it was, they were simple enough chords that, that, uh, both Sean Nelson and Chris Canelia could manage to find something to do on their respective keyboards.
John: And we, and, you know, and Michael Schilling, our, our former drummer was a big Sabbath fan.
John: So we start rocking out and Corson is just rocking the baseline of Sweet Leaf.
John: Obviously not that hard.
Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, but that's where you really shine.
Merlin: Ringo's parts were not always crazy, but you shine on the simple stuff.
John: Yeah, and so he and Schilling form this, like, Sabbath-y backbone, and I'm like, this kid is incredible.
John: I mean, he looks like somebody's dirty pile of laundry.
LAUGHTER
John: He looks like a free pile at the bottom of a dorm.
Merlin: Yeah, those haircuts look like they came from the bars lost and found.
John: But he is nailing this, and we get to the end of it, and I'm like, wow, dude, kid, you've got the job.
John: Sabbath fan, you learned all the records, or you learned the Long Winter's record, and you know Sabbath.
John: You've got the gig.
John: And he looks at me, and he goes, oh, is that Sabbath?
John: and i said yeah it was sweet leaf we did the whole song like i sang it we did the whole and he was like oh yeah i just was playing along
John: And he just, he just intuited it because really it is intuitive what they're going to do next.
John: But he didn't, he did not know that that's what we were playing.
John: He just played it.
Merlin: I used to, there's a moment that I would always enjoy and I suspect, I don't know, I doubt you enjoyed as much as I did.
Merlin: And I don't know if it was, it wasn't just sound checks.
Merlin: It was, I get some, no, it wasn't in the shows.
Merlin: It was during a sound check, but sometimes I,
Merlin: completely apropos of nothing, as you know, Eric and Nabeel would suddenly burst into like a perfect note for note spirit of radio.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, they would do it during shows.
John: Particularly in Europe, sometimes when I would talk too long and I'd be like, listen, here's the problem with Denmark.
John: Do you want to know the problem with Denmark?
John: I'm going to break it down for you.
John: They would launch it.
John: They would launch it to the spirit of radio.
John: And I'd be like, all right, all right.
John: Okay.
John: Now we're rushed.
John: We're rushed for a minute.
John: They would ding you out.
John: They would.
Merlin: One, you know, when you're younger, you do, you do silly things.
Merlin: And when I was about 18, 19, it's just after, just after high school in, in my gap year, I,
Merlin: I was hanging out with my ex-girlfriend and my pal and we'd stayed up all night just being stupid and probably taken vibrant.
Merlin: And we were all at the same time.
Merlin: We're like, oh, my God.
Merlin: You know what you should do?
Merlin: We should drive to Clearwater Beach for the sunrise.
Merlin: And so we – you can see where this is going.
Merlin: We literally got into his car and drove 45 minutes to Clearwater.
Merlin: And it was just gorgeous watching the sun come up behind our backs.
Yeah.
Merlin: because we've forgotten that we were on the west coast of florida i i don't know i don't know i was vibrant man boy i could put down some vibrant before i discovered ephedrine and took it to the next level yeah you know i discovered reading that bob move biography i knew i knew mostly secondhand in some cases firsthand uh about you know the stories about them but i
Merlin: I always assumed that they were taking whatever, dexedrine.
Merlin: I thought that they were taking – and I always hear that they took a lot of speed.
Merlin: Land Speed Record is called that for a reason, not a great record, in my opinion.
Merlin: But I had always heard that especially Bob was taking a lot of speed –
Merlin: Turns out.
Merlin: Turns out.
Merlin: Trucker speed.
Merlin: He was popping ephedrine just like me.
Merlin: Boom.
Merlin: Punk rock.
Merlin: Wow.
Merlin: Look at that.
Merlin: You are punk rock.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: I knew that all along.
Merlin: But now I've got a doctor.
Merlin: I've taken it to another level.
John: Yeah.
John: Dr. Feelgood.
Merlin: Hey, John.
Merlin: Hey, John.
Merlin: Let's stay up late and watch Mr. Show.
John: Feelgood.
John: Make it all right.
John: Feelgood.
Merlin: When I first met you.
John: Talk about a shitty band.
John: That thing Scott Simpson set around to that guy playing a 100 guitar riffs all in a row.
John: He didn't like that.
John: I loved it, but he got to the 80s and he threw in like four...
John: Motley Crue tunes.
John: In a row.
John: He played at least a couple in a row.
John: And then he came back to them later and it was like, dude, your 80s and my 80s?
Merlin: That's what you chose to highlight.
Merlin: You chose to do like four bars of a Cream song and then you did like three or four Motley Crue songs.
John: If that was your 80s, then I'm sorry.
John: Motley Crue was like the Burger King of metal.
John: I should do this for a living.
John: I really should.
John: You should.
John: You should have a podcast where somebody just names an album and then just... Or a band.
Merlin: Can we just try a couple?
Merlin: Go ahead.
Merlin: Just shoot me one.
John: I'll see what I can do.
John: The Guess Who?
Merlin: Um...
Merlin: Oh, wow.
Merlin: Stoked you.
Merlin: Guess who?
Merlin: That was B-B-B-Baby.
Merlin: You ain't seen nothing yet?
John: Well, no.
John: So, yeah, it was Bachman from Bachman-Turner Overdrive.
John: They stopped overdriving.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Randy Bachman?
John: Yeah, he left the guess who because he said they just wanted to party and they didn't want to work.
Hmm.
John: I was listening to American woman the other day, which is a tune that is, that has entered into the land of cliche.
Merlin: So it's like throwing the devil horns.
Merlin: It's really, it's yes, absolutely.
John: But I was listening to it on a, on one, you know, sometimes you, you're listening to a tune on an unfamiliar stereo and you hear the mix differently.
John: And I heard two things really profoundly one for most of the track and
John: The band is really not in sync at all.
John: It's that era of, like, good enough.
John: It's pretty floppy.
John: Like, nobody's really tight with each other.
John: But those drum breaks...
John: You hear the room in the emptiness.
John: Because the rest of the man shuts the fuck up for a minute.
John: Yeah, and you hear the squeak of his kick pedal or whatever.
John: And I was suddenly drawn back into the tune.
John: Because it was no longer a cliche that made it unlistenable.
John: I was hearing the early 70s, late 60s recording technology.
John: I was hearing these guys write this classic tune and bring it into the studio like, let's do this one.
John: And it was fun again.
John: It was fun to hear it.
John: It was like listening to...
John: Those Beatles mixes where you're like, oh, my God.
John: Right.
John: You can hear the carpet rustle.
John: I mean, if you can find something new and interesting to hear in American Woman, I will put in with you.
John: But it was there.
John: What about Steppenwolf?
John: Steppenwolf.
John: I went through a heavy Steppenwolf phase right about that time when I was trying to figure out maybe Jethro Tull was my band.
John: What did you decide?
John: I decided no.
John: For one day, I was driving around super baked in my car with my friend Peter Nosek.
John: And we were listening to Jethro Tull because Peter had this really unusual music taste.
John: His favorite band was the Talking Heads.
John: But he also loved the Doors.
John: And he would show up sometimes and like, Jethro Tull, what do you think about this?
John: And put the tape in.
John: And we'd drive around.
John: And I was baked.
John: And I was like, Jethro Tull.
John: Yes.
John: Why have I not given these guys their due?
John: Jethro Tull is my new band.
John: listen listen listen listen to the flute and then you know it lasted about a day and then the next day i heard them and i was like oh fuck i was just baked but i went through a steppenwolf phase at that same time and actually saw steppenwolf i believe you saw john k and steppenwolf john k and steppenwolf right i saw them on their first reunion tour this would have been 86 probably
John: They played a bar in Anchorage called the Grand Central Station.
John: And we all went.
John: And it was cool and amazing.
John: And when you think about it, John Kay was probably 39 or something.
John: You know, like 1986.
John: It wasn't that far off.
John: He probably was 35.
John: We were like, oh, this guy's really old.
John: He's coming out of retirement.
John: And we listened to Steppenwolf all that summer.
John: And it was great drinking party music, like psychedelic party music.
John: So I was pro Steppenwolf, and that stuff actually, if you listen to deep Steppenwolf cuts, Steppenwolf.
Merlin: I didn't know Steppenwolf had deep cuts.
Merlin: They do have deep cuts, and they're great.
Merlin: If you sit down there and you drive into the valley, into the deep AOR cuts.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: It's not like listening to the flip side of In a Gata DeVito, where they have three or four songs, and you're like, okay.
Yeah.
John: It's like listening to, and you know, I have like four copies of Intergata DeVita on vinyl.
John: I don't know how, I mean, I know how I have one, but I don't know how I have four.
John: Just because you occasionally throw it at the wall?
John: I think it's because at one point I wanted to have four turntables and all four copies going at once.
John: Just four copies of Intergata DeVita all started like 30 seconds apart.
Merlin: That sounds like a flaming lips experiment.
John: Right?
John: We should do that.
John: We should do that in a parking garage in San Francisco.
Merlin: I gotta go pick up my kid.
Merlin: I got nothing.
Merlin: God damn it.
Merlin: I love music.
John: I know you do.
John: We should do a music podcast.
John: I mean, we filter it in like Hitler through Roderick on the line, but you could do a music podcast that blew people's minds as long as, you know, it wasn't about guess who.
John: If I had named any band from 1976 on, you could have gone off like a rocket.
Merlin: Yeah, I mean, I really... Or any band, 68 or Earth.
Merlin: I like... You know what?
Merlin: I also like the idea... I don't love that word, meme, which you should always say like that.
Merlin: But I've always liked the idea of trying to generate...
Merlin: like, uh, what?
Merlin: It's like there was that fake Wikipedia page for five years about this fake war.
Merlin: Like I, uh, did you hear about that?
Merlin: The Wikipedia page has stayed up for five years about a fake war.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It made it past the editors for five years, but I always liked the idea of trying to generate like a new catchphrase that literally meant nothing.
Merlin: My, yeah, my, um, my friend Marla in college was, was trying to get us all to start, uh,
Merlin: using pale as in something that you would carry water in and, and the, the, the way you use it, you say, Oh man, that is so pale.
Merlin: It's so pale that it's bucket.
Merlin: And then I started really liking it and actually use it, man, that's, that's a hundred percent bucket.
Merlin: And I think we should do that with the guess who, I think we should get people to, to, to really feel like now, now is that the Todd Rundgren produced them, right?
Merlin: The guess who?
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: Oh, I bet.
Merlin: I, I bet you're right.
Merlin: he's got crazy hair nowadays did you hear you know xtc came around on skylarking that you know they were pissed as hell they felt they feel like they got phil spectered by him they got let it bead where like they had skylarking and it's a bunch of really good songs and then he did all that business he like was like okay give me those tracks and uh he went and did all that business with kind of
Merlin: putting it all together into like a song cycle and uh oh andy partridge was pissed when that record came out i loved it and apparently now they've come around they've they've black sabbath their way into liking it now which i think you know good on andy partridge
Merlin: good on andy partridge i'm super glad to hear it because i think that's a great record fantastic record yeah i like oranges and lemons too i like i like them i like them he had panic attacks on stage you know he had the stage fright i did i ever tell you about the time i i saw him in a train station no um i rescind my ding i want to hear this um
John: I was in the train station.
Merlin: Let me paint you a picture.
Merlin: 1976.
Merlin: I've been sniffing glue and eating automobile tires for three days.
Merlin: I was not in a good place.
John: It was the Reading Festival.
John: And I was in Bath, England, which is down the train line from Reading.
Merlin: You're just pulling out Selena.
Merlin: I was in pockmark on meat pie.
John: And I had gone there because my mother's maiden name is Pretty.
John: And there's a town in the Mendip Hills of England called Pretty.
John: And I hitchhiked there to see this little town, which is really just like, it's just a maypole and a bar and a church and a cemetery.
John: And like 10,000 sheep.
John: So I went to Pretty and I had a beer in the bar and I slept overnight in some guy's Volkswagen in a car park.
John: And then the next day I was like, I'm not hitchhiking back out of this place.
John: There's no one here.
John: It took me all day to hitchhike down there.
John: So what did I do?
John: No, no, no.
John: I got a guy.
John: A guy in a mini drove me back to Bath and I was going to take the train to London.
John: But it was the Reading Festival and I didn't know about it at the time.
John: And I'm at the Bath train station and I'm just there with a bunch of salary men like English guys with umbrellas and bowler hats waiting for the train.
John: And I look down the train platform and there's Andy Partridge.
John: And it's just me, a bunch of bumbershoots and then Andy Partridge.
John: And Andy Partridge, his eyes are darting around the train platform.
John: He is fidgeting and nervous and looking everywhere to see if anybody recognizes him.
John: And I'm behind like these guys in suits and I'm way down the platform and I'm watching him and he's looking around.
John: He's looking to the left.
John: He's looking to the right.
Merlin: Like he's something that's something he doesn't want.
Merlin: Something he definitely doesn't want.
John: He's like, please nobody recognize me.
John: Please nobody recognize me.
John: But he can't stop looking around.
John: If he just sat down on a bench and opened a newspaper, he would have been fine.
Merlin: He looks like a nearsighted butt.
Merlin: I mean, he's very easy to pick out of a crowd.
John: Yeah, he was extremely conspicuous, but nobody was recognizing him because it was just a bunch of normals.
John: And he's looking around, looking around, and I'm watching him, and then he looks over and he sees me looking at him.
John: And he snaps front like now he's staring across the opposite train platform pretending that he didn't just see me.
John: Yeah, and I'm looking at him now, and he is like... And then he looks over, and I'm still looking at him, and he turns and runs.
John: I can't believe Andy Partridge has ever run.
John: Well, I mean, like, hustles off the train platform and out of the station.
John: Like, the idea to him at the time, 1986, the idea of him, or I guess this was 80... This would have been later.
John: This was 88.
John: The idea of sharing a train with somebody who had, because I would have been in a different car.
Merlin: He just bailed.
John: That was it.
John: He just bailed.
John: And I think it looked to me at the time like he was experimenting with, maybe I'll take the train.
John: And he got that far and was like, nope, can't do it.
John: And I don't know what, I mean, he must have gone and hailed a taxi or something.
Merlin: You think that's agoraphobia?
John: Yeah, I think he's afraid of rabbits.