Ep. 97: "With Buckethead"
John: What's a little lady suffer a jack?
Yeah!
John: Hold on.
Merlin: Hold on.
Merlin: Hold on.
Merlin: I'm searching.
Merlin: Slow down.
Merlin: Slow down.
Merlin: But that's the way it's over.
John: Sometimes he sounds like Barry Gibb to me.
John: And then other times, like 98% of the rest of the time, he sounds like the songs the Beatles should have done instead of breaking up.
Merlin: This was the overt mission statement of the move.
Merlin: The move said when, well, not the move, excuse me, ELO.
Merlin: So after the move was, when the move was breaking up, Roy Wood and him said that they thought they would be basically picking up where the Beatles should have kept going.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Well, I think more appropriately, they're picking up where the Beatles would have been if they'd stopped in 1967.
John: Uh-huh.
John: If they had alternate universe Beatles in 67 had decided to follow George's impulses.
John: Hmm.
John: They would have ended up being yellow.
Merlin: If they decided to keep making a better version of Magical Mystery Tour, maybe.
John: I don't know.
John: There are a lot of better versions of Magical Mystery Tour.
Merlin: The Beatles made three of them, probably.
John: That was a weird time.
John: I was thinking about this the other day.
John: Was there any one Beatle who had the creative...
John: Is that the question?
Merlin: That's the question.
Merlin: Okay, first of all, I already really like this episode.
Merlin: Second, I think you could argue it would have been Ringo.
John: Interesting.
Merlin: Because he already had a career with Rory Storm and the Hurricanes.
John: That's right.
John: He was the catch.
John: He was the big cheese.
John: Yeah.
John: He could have gone to London and been a session guy.
John: Easily.
John: You just drive right there.
John: But, like, Lennon was a self-sabotager.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: He would have...
John: Never, ever, like, independently become a musician.
John: Certainly no bigger than Rory Storm, who was a much better looking guy.
John: Better suits.
John: You know, Rory Storm put on a show, for Christ's sake.
John: He's a gentleman.
John: Lennon would have been...
John: Lennon would have been, I'm not going to do that or whatever.
John: It's, you know, I can't really do a Lennon.
Merlin: I think it's a really interesting idea.
Merlin: And, you know, we talked about before, like how, you know, a lot of people even who are like kind of intermediate Beatle fans don't know exactly like how much of the time.
Merlin: john lennon was unhappy he was a very unhappy guy mad mad and like but but after i mean i i had not prepared for the beatles episode as well as i probably would have but i would say that if you look at the first couple records oh man i think the heart and soul of the band clearly the best songwriter pound for pound was john oh yeah he was running the band to start
Merlin: I mean, I know you'll side with me on like not slagging Paul in any way at that point.
John: No, no, no.
Merlin: But Paul didn't – I mean the band bloomed when Paul started really finding his own.
Merlin: When John got super depressed and started smoking weed, I think Paul really ran with the ball.
Merlin: But if you go back and listen to those first few records, the most distinctive stuff about what made the Beatles –
Merlin: The Beatles was songwriting, but I think John really propelled that on the first couple records, especially.
John: Sure.
John: John made their teen pop music sound compelling through the application of his anger.
John: Teen pop music is not interesting unless there is...
John: anger and desperation behind it and john had all the anger and desperation paul you know and he was a year older than paul but i mean i think you could i think if certainly if sean nelson were here
John: he would be mad.
John: He would be mad.
John: He would be standing here with his hands jammed in his jacket pockets, trying to figure out a polite way to excuse himself.
John: But if he were here and engaged in this conversation, he would make the case that Paul had the talent, Paul had the possibility, the capability of getting out of Liverpool on his own.
John: but I would argue that he didn't.
John: I think without, I think, I think you're absolutely right.
John: I think Ringo probably could have made a, made a go at it as a, as like a player, but you know, George was going to be a junior high teacher and,
John: John was going to be a guy at the end of the bar.
John: I was going to say, John was going to be an alcoholic.
John: He was going to be an angry alcoholic at the end of the bar who worked at a shop, or who worked at a manufacturing.
John: Paul would work in a nursing home playing piano.
John: That's right.
John: That's absolutely right.
John: Paul would be probably, yeah, at the other end of the bar, you know, playing his father's favorite songs.
John: And Lennon would have hated his guts.
Merlin: Yep.
Merlin: But I think you could say – I mean really up – what I consider really the classic period, everything really up to around the time of Magical Mystery Tour.
Merlin: They really – Let's just establish.
Merlin: Magical Mystery Tour is a light in sand.
Merlin: Here's the way to tell if a Beatles record is good.
Merlin: If you take away the singles, is it still really an album?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: And they've got that and Yellow Submariner a couple where you're like, hmm.
Merlin: Yeah, not really albums.
Merlin: A lot of vinyl had to die for no reason.
Merlin: But the thing is, the two of them really did propel each other.
Merlin: I am an amateur student of this.
Merlin: I've read books about this.
Merlin: I've read the whole attribution of who different people think should get which credits on which songs.
Merlin: But I think the fairly incontrovertible thing is, even up through the time of, I'm going to say, let's just say, I think we can probably see through Revolver, they were still hugely influential on what made it onto the vinyl.
Merlin: Back in the day, I think there was a...
Merlin: If you listen to the Ed Sullivan kind of stuff that everybody's listening to right now, when they got their mics on and everything, you could hear how much they wrote that song together.
Merlin: And then soon enough, you start noticing, oh, John definitely wrote the bridge on that, or more often.
Merlin: Paul definitely wrote the bridge on that.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: He probably didn't write the verses.
Merlin: But the performance, they just push each other so far forward.
John: Yes.
John: Yeah.
John: Don't you think?
John: And even after it's evident that they are writing independent of one another, they're still writing to impress one another.
John: You can hear Paul... Like, Paul...
John: being deeper than he maybe was on the first pass he did the first pass right he was like this is amazing i love the melody but then he added an element of he you know he added an element of tension narrative tension to impress john and you can hear that in there oh yeah and then you know john less trying to impress paul but more trying to compete with paul
John: And, you know, and trying to trying to shove yesterday back down his throat.
John: And I think ultimately failing, failing to compete with Paul's like pop generating like madness and ultimately in failing to do that.
John: resenting Paul turning in that turning in that direction of like accusing Paul of doing the same old thing of crazy music accusing Paul of being predictable and of being all these kind of like bitter accusations that are really because he couldn't match he couldn't match yesterday
Merlin: Well, yeah, I agree.
Merlin: And also two things.
Merlin: First of all, like, I think there's always, whenever I think about them songs, they're writing songs together, I always think about one guy coming in with, you know, a part, like good parts, maybe a verse and a chorus, maybe something like a bridge.
Merlin: And I always imagine in a lot of my favorite Beatles songs, the other guy, maybe, because a lot of my favorite songs are primarily Paul songs, but I imagine John coming in going, not so fast.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Or Paul coming in and going, not so fast.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: And then, because like, it's almost like a debate.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: We're like some of my favorite Beatles songs.
Merlin: I'm trying to think of some off the top of my head, but like Paul has written this beautiful, like thing that works as a unit, but then the bridge, the turn, if you like, is John giving a rebuttal.
Merlin: And that's where that, that's where the, like the perfect amount of cynicism comes into it.
John: And that's why the, that's why those wings records are such turd piles.
Merlin: That's part of it.
Merlin: And the bass got louder and louder.
Merlin: But this is really, really reductive.
Merlin: But if you think about a good pop song, like so many pop songs, there's got to be a part that's about building tension, and there's got to be a part about releasing tension.
Merlin: And the most reductive way to put that, I mean, is that a lot of times, especially I'll say in things like New Wave and indie rock, maybe, you'll have this kind of...
Merlin: minor chorus uh verse that's all about you know kind of like tension building and then there'll be this then the poppy explosion comes on the court pop explosion but it could be you could invert that but you know i'm saying if you have all if you have all like a three chord song that's all major all the way through no miners on the bridge no nothing like that it just you get the ramones which is fun for its
Merlin: tight but even they knew when to throw in a minor chord you've got to build it up you need to have like uh you take a car you take a touch and go right all i need is what you got this incredibly angular you know something i'm talking about okay you're thinking this has got to be the weirdest sounding verse of a song i've ever heard and then the course goes uh no and you're like how could this be the same song but it kind of works yeah
Merlin: You know, Sonic Youth.
Merlin: Sonic Youth songs are like this, too.
Merlin: There'll be this kind of symphonic explosion in the choruses after all this angular stuff going on in the verses.
Merlin: And it happens in pretty much every Beatles song that way, too.
John: When I'm sitting and trying to write songs, which I have been doing for the last six years and failing, part of what I aspire to...
John: Because I think if you listen to the Long Winter songs, the verses are... The life of the tune is all in the verses.
John: The verses are expository.
John: They're kind of like...
John: listicles they are not listicles i don't i don't i don't see that at all and then it comes to the chorus and there is there's an attempt to have this explosive pop you know indie pop like and now here's the chorus and half the time
John: It ends up being a pre-chorus to a later chorus where I try it again.
John: But I mean, the verses are where I really express everything I need to express.
John: And then I'm trying to tie it together with a fun chorus.
John: Mm-hmm.
John: And what I've been trying to do for the last six years and failing is making the verses as catchy as the choruses and making the choruses as important to the song as the verses.
John: Oh, where it's not just the same refrain.
John: Right.
John: It's not just one word over and over.
John: Be kind to the new girl.
John: teaspoon teaspoon teaspoon I'm I when I was when I was writing that song I really felt like each iteration of the word teaspoon
John: I was conveying a different aspect of how a teaspoon played into the narration, right?
John: I mean, a teaspoon as an item to cook your heroin, a teaspoon as the most diminutive of all the silverwares, etc.
John: But I did not...
John: But that's pretty... I was counting on someone writing a dissertation on it later.
John: I did not actually put all those different meanings in the lyrics.
John: I tried to communicate those different meanings in the different ways that I sang this one word.
John: And that's frustrating to me as an artist because my meaning...
John: will never be clear unless i explain it and what's what's great about great pop songs what's great about the beatles of course is that yeah they come in and say oh we didn't mean lsd lucy was paul's aunt and the diamonds were his you know and it's a lot of unnecessary explaining that's just obfuscating
John: trying to make something that's simple seem more difficult.
John: And in, and my problem, I perceive my problem as a songwriter to be that my songs are impossibly more difficult than I could, than is evident.
John: And explaining them is just like a dumb or after the, after the fact that,
Merlin: you know you're like you you had a chance to put it in the song and you and you're you're hoping that people are telepathic i like that about your songs i like that they you know you wouldn't say that you know this is a song about that and or this is a song about this feeling i i like that about it and i it doesn't read as and to just go to the other end of the continuum i don't i don't think they're they don't feel like they're deliberately opaque
John: no no no no right but yeah no i mean some of them are very puzzling little puzzles but uh i i don't ever feel like there's some kind of like they're like a mystery song like oh actually he was dead all along or something like that that's right now yeah there's no there's no trick yeah i don't know anyway i've been trying to write songs that are like here's the here's the verse it's just as poppy and melodic as a chorus
John: And then here's the chorus.
John: And boy, is it melodic and poppy.
John: Wow, is it melodic and poppy.
John: And also tells you stuff.
John: It also tells you stuff about the song and the ideas.
John: you know the thing about the thing about wings is that paul stopped caring whether his songs meant anything i'm not sure he ever did care there only needs to be one wing song
Merlin: And I had – I mean I personally owned at least probably three Wings 45s, which is a pretty big deal because I was eight at the time.
Merlin: But, you know, you set aside something great like Live and Let Die, Crazy Whackadoodle Song.
Merlin: There's really only one song you need to hear to understand Wings, I think.
Merlin: Well, there's probably several one songs you could hear, but I'm going to say – The major was A Little Lady.
Merlin: uh oh man suffer a jet jet that's such a good song i was gonna say i was gonna say silly love songs oh first of all a is the bass deafening check
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: The bass is way too loud.
Merlin: It is a canonical three-chord song that would not have gotten past a first table read in the Beatles.
Merlin: And the bass line's great.
Merlin: And you can sure hear it, because it's nice and up front.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: So you think that people would have had enough of Silly Love songs, and it's just pretty much straightforward, Silly Love songs.
John: Oh my god, I'm already seven years old.
John: As soon as you start singing it, I'm just like...
Merlin: What's wrong with that?
Merlin: I'd like to know.
Merlin: Cause here I go.
Merlin: Again.
Merlin: And then, ready for the chorus?
John: I love you.
John: Now that's where John arrived upon the scene.
John: Drunk as hell.
John: Right there.
John: Yeah.
John: What's wrong with that?
John: I'd like to know because here I go again.
John: And then John would have said something to the effect of... Why do I keep going again?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: He would have brought a counterpart to that to go, well, wait a minute.
John: Yes.
Merlin: Here's what's wrong with that.
Merlin: Yeah, I do have a problem.
Merlin: I got a big fucking problem with silly love songs.
Merlin: It's a lot more complicated than that.
Merlin: And then, at the end, you've got that little, like, kind of coda.
Merlin: The instruments drop out, and they do it again.
Merlin: And you get just a... I love... I gotta explain the feeling that you about my love.
Merlin: Oh, black water, keep on rolling.
John: Hand, hand.
John: Take me by the hand, pretty mama.
John: That's... Because at that point... At that point, Paul...
John: felt that every idea that he had was the greatest idea and he was so high he did not need a second idea he just needed the one idea oh 100 100 there's no b story to it you know it's and everybody was like okay that sounds good sure let's uh sure paul sure whatever you say buddy i was thinking about billy jean
Merlin: We're simply having a wonderful Christmas time.
John: That's like the biggest selling single of all time, right?
John: Or is that Mull of Kintyre?
Merlin: Oh, Mull of Kintyre.
Merlin: Oh, that's a good song.
Merlin: Mull of Kintyre was like the hugest UK, I think, until Bohemian Rhapsody, probably.
John: But if you think about Beat It.
John: No, no, no.
John: I'm sorry.
John: Billie Jean.
John: That's a great song.
John: All right.
John: Dynamite.
John: Dynamite bass line.
John: And you listen to the way it's recorded and the way it tucks into the tune.
Merlin: It's really menacing.
John: It's super menacing, like super dark.
John: And the bass tone is shaped in such a way that it can just... It's not in your face, right?
John: That bass line could have been...
John: Like, Quincy Jones could have doubled the volume on that bass line.
John: And probably when they were mixing it, they tried it.
John: You know, like, let's put this all the way forward.
John: Like, this is dynamite.
John: But, like, part of its menace is that it's, like, it's kind of subsumed.
John: Like, over time... What got me thinking about this was... I was walking along and I was singing Billie Jean...
John: And I said to myself, wait a minute, what's the bass line to this song?
John: It is the greatest bass line of all pop music, but I'm having a hard time remembering it.
John: And I'm walking along and I'm like, Billie Jean is not my lover.
John: And I couldn't recall how the bass went.
Merlin: Is it that same rough kind of figure through the song?
Merlin: It starts on a weird wackadoodle note, so it's kind of always unresolved.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: That's so good.
John: So good.
John: And a thing, like, where in the Paul McCartney arc, creative arc,
John: would he have left behind any chance of writing billy jean like it it was 60 i don't know i feel like there's so much wonderful stuff at the end too like but i just feel like there was the restraint the restraint that is on those first couple of michael jackson solo records
John: I mean, I guess it's that Quincy Jones still had some authority in the picture where probably the last three Beatles records, there was no authority left.
Merlin: You know what it also is?
Merlin: I was going to say this about Paul, but it's even truer of Michael Jackson was, well, first of all, they're both just natural musicians.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And musical people.
Merlin: I mean, I really think Michael Jackson probably had something almost like a four track in his head where he can imagine what that stuff is like.
Merlin: He's doing a dance.
Merlin: He's singing a song.
Merlin: He's going, he's like figuring it out.
John: It's like Stevie Wonder making those records where he would play the drums.
Merlin: I don't, I just, that's completely mind blowing to me.
John: He would go in and play the freaking drums to the songs.
Merlin: I forget to pay my electric bill.
Merlin: No, but think about the timing on that, though, because you got Off the Wall and – which is also amazing.
Merlin: Off the Wall and Thriller are both pretty great.
Merlin: But, you know, it's – you know what it was?
John: That's generous of you.
Merlin: They're pretty good.
Merlin: But, you know, the thing about both of those, as with Paul's rise to power circa 65, was the timing, was the taste that Michael Jackson had –
Merlin: In the context of having Quincy Jones as a producer, his taste got channeled in the best conceivable way.
Merlin: So Paul – I mean Paul wrote You Won't See Me.
Merlin: Like what a fantastic song with great edginess and like every part of that song is pretty much – I mean it's – I think it's just about a perfect song.
Merlin: I think that a lot of Beatles songs.
Merlin: But the thing is he had to channel that through a room with those guys in it.
Merlin: and with john in it and with you know and with um george martin right sitting up in the sitting upstairs but the kind of taste that makes one of the richest man men in the world right simply having a wonderful christmas time the timing the taste is off the timing is wrong and there's nobody there he's getting all he's like george lucas there's nobody there telling him like you know you've got to stop you've got to stop doing this yep i was i was listening to the
John: This is the mouth bass show.
John: And this band comes on, and I was like... You just sang a Bruce Springsteen song.
Merlin: You were probably singing a Pointer Sisters version of a Bruce Springsteen song.
John: A song comes on, and I'm having this same experience that I'm having a lot now, listening to modern music, which is, I said...
John: These people are probably retarded.
John: I said, this is either a Jane's Addiction outtake I had never heard before, which I know it isn't, because there is no Jane's Addiction outtake I haven't heard.
John: Or it is some new version of Jane's Addiction that Perry Farrell has recently put together with Buckethead and Michael Schenker and Sleeve.
John: That could so happen.
John: That would so happen.
John: Which I haven't heard anything about, but that doesn't mean it hasn't happened.
John: I bet they've taken some meetings.
John: I bet they have.
John: I bet Flea sat down with Perry Farrell and was like, who can we get?
John: Imagine that scene from Godfather 2 with the gold telephone.
John: I'd like to thank Mr. Schenker for coming here from Germany.
John: When I wake up, if there's a bag of money on the table, I know I have a partner.
John: Or this is another example of this sort of Owl City situation where a band is just staking their claim on...
John: reproducing with no imagination, reproducing the sound of an earlier band.
John: And in a way, like, ELO... It is amazing.
John: No, that's bad.
Merlin: That's like somebody who has an Instagram account taking pictures of Annie Leibovitz's pictures.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: I mean, ELO had this overarching concept, like, let's go in the direction that the Beatles would have gone...
John: If they had, like, stuck around, kept taking acid.
John: Maybe had listened to George a little more.
John: Listened to George a little more.
John: Had a 24 track.
John: And a white cello.
John: And a white cello.
John: Like, basically went, yeah, right.
John: Went into, like, basically expunged the Blue Meanies.
John: and went into a kind of magical mystery tour that was not characterized by total dread.
John: Like, let's say, okay, magical mystery tour, if magical mystery tour was not a response to the death of Brian Epstein.
Merlin: Ugh, yeah.
John: Right?
John: Let's say that.
Merlin: Tough, tough year.
John: Anyway, but this band, so I do the Shazam,
John: oh right i saw this on the tutor yeah and it turns out that it is a band that is like a young band on on a record label and they are making it's basically like and this is the thing about jane's addiction like jane's addiction was already influenced by the doors enough let's say jane's addiction was already influenced by the doors enough by 10 too much
John: But this new band, their insight, their innovation, I guess, was to hear that there was already too much doors in Jane's Addiction and to just add more doors.
John: It's just everything about Jane's Addiction.
John: This sounds like my Guantanamo band.
Merlin: This sounds like my stress music.
John: Yeah, how about this?
John: We take this.
John: They chain you to the floor, hit you with some cold water, and then play this really loud all night.
Merlin: We take a little more, take some Venkat stealing.
Merlin: We add a little more Brecht vial to it.
John: So all of Perry Farrell's, all of like the tragedy in Perry Farrell, that he is a junkie, that he is a freak in a world that doesn't accept freaks...
John: that he is like a sex uh he's like a set he's one of these sex people that we've talked about like a gothic pan person he's a gothic pan person and so in inherently going to be unhappy the rest of his life because it's just you can't be a pan person and find and no true happiness all of that is gone it's erased because the singer of this new band is 22 and has no pain
John: And then add more doors.
John: And I'm just, I'm driving in my car and I'm like, who?
John: I mean, I don't blame the person that signed it.
John: I don't blame the label that's putting it out because that is the state of music today.
John: It is that I heard that Owl City song on the radio and I did that Shazam where I was like, all right, this sounds like... Did I guess right?
John: It was Owl City.
John: It was Owl City.
John: It sounds exactly like...
Merlin: Like a song the Postal Service would probably not put out.
John: That's exactly right.
John: A song that the Postal Service would have rejected.
John: Yep.
John: That Ben would never have done, and yet all of his vocal mannerisms are there, but none of the vocal character is there.
John: None of the qualities.
John: Yeah, none of the things that make Ben an interesting or quirky vocalist.
John: It's all been smoothed out.
John: It's all been pro-toolsed away and shaved down.
John: And yet there isn't any new, there's no new creative information.
John: It doesn't sound like an evolution of it.
John: It's just a, it's just a polished.
John: It's like all the good parts are smoothed off.
John: And so when I'm thinking about the music that I'm trying to make now, which is...
John: Like, unlike Michael Jackson in 1982, I mean, this is what's crazy about that.
John: Trying to think about the Beatles in 64 or 5, Michael Jackson in 1980 or 81, were they aware that they were...
John: Like in such like kinetic communication with their time that they were like that they were one step ahead, but not two steps ahead of their moment.
John: Or were they thinking to themselves, we are so far out right now.
John: We are so far out.
John: And it was just that we were ready for it.
John: And the first time we heard it, we were like, what is this crazy music?
John: But by the fifth time, the world had changed.
John: You know what I mean?
Merlin: I do.
Merlin: I don't know the answer, but I'm trying to figure it out.
Merlin: I think with Michael Jackson, I mean, just knowing what we know and kind of reverse engineering it, I bet he wasn't thinking of it that way.
Merlin: You don't think he was thinking, like, I am going to change the... I don't know.
Merlin: He just strikes me as a guy, like, as weird as that guy was, like, he seems really admirable, especially at that age where, like, he just seemed like he was such a creative, like, wackadoodle guy.
John: He just wanted to make people dance and he wasn't...
Merlin: Yeah, real dedicated to the craft of making – in the same way that the Beatles were making music at a time when a lot of people thought rock and roll was dead, even then.
Merlin: I mean Michael Jackson comes out, even with Off the Wall, comes out with like the greatest disco album of all time when disco was dead.
Merlin: Maybe not the greatest, but it's definitely one of the most creative and like that album, Off the Wall –
Merlin: I think off the wall, you know, because it wasn't quite as ambitious, I think in some ways is a – I don't know.
Merlin: You know, the thing is thrillers sound so dated in some ways is the problem.
Merlin: Interesting.
Merlin: See, you and I go around on these production things.
Merlin: But the songs, I mean, you think about – what did he have, like six, seven singles from that record?
Merlin: Something like that?
Merlin: I mean, you know every song on that record.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: So I don't know.
Merlin: I mean the problem seems to come later on in a career when somebody – following your point, the problem seems to come later in a career where somebody thinks, I think it's time to really – I think it's where you are.
Merlin: They're thinking, how do I get ahead of the curve?
Merlin: What do I do?
Merlin: It's not rock.
Merlin: It's not roll.
Merlin: But that's – and that's why sometimes like every time there's a new Paul McCartney thing out –
Merlin: So tonight...
Merlin: Gotta leave that 95 up on the shelf.
Merlin: And just enjoy yourself.
Merlin: Let the madness in the music get to you.
Merlin: I feel so bad at all.
John: Living off the wall.
John: Living off the wall.
John: Living off the wall.
John: You couldn't sing that.
John: Okay, do the bass line.
Merlin: Ready?
Merlin: Like, how great is that bass line?
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: I mean, they're tremendous bass lines.
Merlin: Tremendous.
Merlin: I love you.
John: And the thing is...
John: He's talking about Linda and I can't listen to the songs.
John: Like I think, I think that music was the music of my youth.
John: And so I had no awareness of Linda really, or like Linda represented nothing to me then.
John: So I have that sympathy for them because it's the, it's the, it's the songs of my childhood, but the overlay, my, my adult overlay of like Paul and,
John: and linda with their simpering romance and they're like oh i just picturing them vegetarian meals oh just just canoodling together on their like fake sheepskin rug
John: paul playing i love you to her and her i i don't know what clasping her hands under her chin with cartoon hearts floating around her head even then he turned her down in the mix i mean what i what like linda is such a cipher to me i i i have no sense of her i i believe i i have to say i really believe that they that that it matters this is a really dumb thing to say but i think they really loved each other
John: Except I have known enough people who became famous in their early 20s.
John: To know that it destroys humanity.
John: To be famous before the age of 28 is a burden, a psychological burden on a person that handicaps their emotional development.
John: And Paul McCartney was the most famous of all people.
John: And clearly an emotionally handicapped person anyway.
John: So, although I do believe that he and Linda loved each other, because that is the story that I have been told by them, I cannot imagine Paul McCartney loving him.
John: really because of his humanity being crushed because yes because because he sat in that hotel room in new york city after the ed sullivan show with a cold right didn't he have a cold i don't know he had a cold i think and the streets around the hotel were thronging with
John: screaming girls and although he was sitting in bed with a with a ice pack on his head and a thermometer in his mouth because he's clip art there were like four photographers in the room like he couldn't even be sick without right without life magazine john do you know uh did they break up in 1970
John: The Beatles?
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Yeah, 69.
Merlin: 70s, 71, something like that?
John: No, no, it was before 71.
Merlin: 1970, Paul McCartney turned 28.
Merlin: Put that in your bass and turn it up.
John: I remember Duff McKagan was... When he first started writing for the Seattle Weekly...
John: He was also going to Seattle U, getting his degree, I think.
John: Or maybe even a master's degree, I'm not sure.
John: But he was taking classes.
John: He was writing this column for The Weekly.
John: It just started.
John: And I feel like Duff was in rock and roll from the very beginning of his life.
John: He was in bands from 14 on.
John: he was in Guns N' Roses and then he kind of hit this there was this period of his life where GNR was over he was recovering from the drugs and everything and there was a kind of period of quiet in Duff's life where he was able to say like go back to college and like I'm going to write for the Seattle Weekly and like you know kind of take another stab at life
John: From what I think is an amazingly humble place.
John: Can you imagine another guy with Duff's stature showing up for class at Seattle U?
John: Like a little kind of Jesuit college in the middle of the city?
John: He went to class and sat there with his... I mean, presumably not in leather pants.
John: And taking Sociology 101 or whatever.
John: I mean, very...
Merlin: The fact that I can't imagine that is what makes it so interesting is because when he's – I realize that he's a guy who had a life before and after Guns N' Roses and you're pals with him and he sounds like an amazing, weirdly down-to-earth guy.
Merlin: I mean, especially given what his body's been through.
Merlin: But no, I can't because I picture it being like a Saturday Night Live sketch where somebody – there's a headline somewhere about a guy from Guns N' Roses goes to college, and that's going to be like a terrible sketch where there's a guy with a bandana with his base leaning on the desk.
Merlin: More cowbell.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, and I think it was just enough time had passed that most of the students in his class were not really – I mean they had heard of Guns N' Roses, but it wasn't like he was in class with a bunch of people that were –
John: pawing at him but anyway in during this process he forms velvet revolver and so he's at one point he tells this story where he's in a hotel in rio de janeiro and he's trying to finish his term paper and
John: So he's up in the hotel on the 40th floor or whatever, typing his term paper for his class at Seattle U. But he can't concentrate because 200,000 people are chanting his name, thronging the streets.
John: Because they just played rock in Rio for a million plus people.
John: And so he goes to the window and he looks down and the streets around his hotel are all barricaded.
John: And all these Brazilian fans are like chanting and screaming.
John: And he can hear it on the 20th floor or something.
John: And he just wishes that they would be quiet so that he can finish his term paper.
John: Yikes.
John: And like, come on.
John: Where do you start?
Merlin: It must be hard to get people sympathetic about that situation.
John: Check your privilege stuff.
John: It's really a check your privilege situation.
John: But imagine Paul McCartney going back to college in 1974.
John: I believe it would go a little something like this.
Merlin: I'm back to college.
Merlin: I'm sitting at the desk.
Merlin: I got to correct something before another moment goes by.
Merlin: Mulligan Tire actually came out in 1977.
Merlin: I don't know what I'm thinking.
Merlin: Later.
Merlin: That's two years after Bohemian Rhapsody.
Merlin: I don't know what I was thinking.
John: No, I think it is one of the biggest.
Merlin: According to Wikipedia, which is never wrong, Wings' 1977 release, Mull of Kintyre, is one of the all-time best-selling singles in the UK.
Merlin: It's a great song.
Merlin: It's a sing-along.
Merlin: It's a big sing-along.
John: It's a sing-along.
John: That's right.
John: It's like that one by Chumbawamba.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: Macarena.
Merlin: Yeah, the Macarena.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Get knocked down again.
Merlin: Get knocked up again.
Merlin: Who let the dogs out?
Merlin: Who?
Merlin: Who?
Merlin: I love.
Merlin: You know, though, I also like listening to what the man said.
Merlin: I had that on a 45, too.
John: Very good song, but I come back to Jet.
John: Anybody wants to talk to me about Paul McCartney?
John: They got to get through Jet.
John: Exhibit A, the lyrics of Jet.
John: Jet is an incredible pop song.
John: Incredible.
John: But you just have to, you just parse those lyrics for me and tell me what that song is about and tell me that the lyrics of that song are not indicative of a rot.
John: Didn't he smoke like a lot of pot?
John: I think Paul McCartney probably smoked a lot of pot.
John: Okay.
John: If you listen to Paul tell it, it wasn't John that was smoking.
John: He was holding it for a friend.
John: Paul was smoking pot and going to art galleries when the rest of those guys.
Merlin: Oh, back then.
Merlin: Now, back then, this is the story that you and I know, that everybody should know.
Merlin: You know, oh, tomorrow never knows.
Merlin: Oh, oh, that's all John, right?
No.
Merlin: Uh-huh.
Merlin: I'm the walrus.
Merlin: That's all John, right?
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Wrong and wrong.
John: Wrong.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: It's very frustrating.
Merlin: You know, we've been threatening since very early on.
Merlin: In the seven years we've been doing the show, we've been threatening to have our Paul McCartney episode.
Merlin: Because as much as he is a frustrating character, that band would not have been that band.
Merlin: I mean, he... He didn't even play the Rickenbacker bass that long.
John: And yet...
John: The Rickenbacker bass forever.
John: Hoffner?
John: Well, the Hoffner bass, of course.
John: The Hoffner bass is the early Beatles, the super... I mean, no one else.
John: Who's going to play a Hoffner violin bass now?
John: You'd have to be a real ding-a-ling.
John: It's like you lost a dare.
John: Yeah, right.
John: It is so inextricably Paul McCartney.
John: But for me, the Rickenbacker bass that he started playing at the end and then played in wings, the Rickenbacker bass, which admittedly, Geddy Lee made a run at having the Rickenbacker bass be his signature instrument.
John: But I mean, I still think the early days of the Long Winters,
John: Eric played a Rickenbacker bass that was given to me by Aaron Huffman of Harvey Danger.
John: And I gave it to Eric.
John: It was, I think, at the time, not only the most expensive thing that Eric owned.
John: The most expensive thing he'd ever touched.
John: The most expensive thing he had not only ever touched, but I gave it to him for free.
John: I didn't just give it to him.
John: I gave it to him for free.
John: Wow.
John: And it was like... I think it was like somebody handed him Excalibur.
John: He didn't even have to pull it from the stone.
John: He just had to get it out of the case.
John: That's right.
John: And this Rickenbacker bass and Eric playing that Rickenbacker bass, I swear to you, it was all... I was just trying to... I was trying to capture some of the stardust...
John: Of Paul McCartney.
John: And this was the way that I... This is the closest that I could come.
John: Like, Aaron Huffman had 30 bases.
John: But the Wickenbacker base was the one that I zoomed in on.
John: And, you know, Aaron, obviously very generous guy.
John: And at that time...
John: I think about this a lot.
John: The Longwinners owe such a debt of gratitude to Harvey Danger because they let us use their practice base.
John: They let us use their van.
John: Aaron gave us our base.
John: We couldn't have even gotten out of the starting gate if Harvey Danger hadn't just sort of handed us the key and said, oh yeah, go ahead, use the...
John: Use our PA and our big practice space and our instruments.
John: I should write them a thank you note.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Aaron, I mean, I've only visited with them just a little bit, but they strike me as very nice men.
Merlin: No, they're pricks.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: You get that when you play keys with them.
John: Yeah, well, all people in music are desperately broken.
John: Except for me and Duff McKagan.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Maybe he can help you with your songs.
John: And Quincy Jones.
Merlin: And Quincy Jones.
Merlin: God bless him.
Merlin: Boy, if you could get him to produce you, wouldn't that be something?
Merlin: You should go to him.
Merlin: You should pitch him a bass line.
Merlin: Well, he's 90 years old now.
John: Is that right?
John: Well, or something close to that.
John: I'm not sure that he would know.
John: Although maybe, you know, maybe Quincy.
John: It would be expensive.
John: Did I ever tell you about the time I had dinner with Alan Partridge?
John: Nope.
John: So Alan Partridge came to Seattle too.
John: I think Alan Partridge is a TV character.
John: Oh, yeah, no.
John: Are you thinking of... Alan Parsons.
John: Pink Floyd.
John: Alan Parsons, that's right.
John: Alan Parsons project, not the Partridge project.
Merlin: That's pretty good.
John: i can read he also yeah oh he also does that one song that that one song they play uh at a sports at sports events yep they they i thought that they were a great sounding musical act oh it's amazing you know he doesn't sing those songs he has a vocalist his people yeah but anyway so i'm sitting next so so he comes to seattle he's given a talk about recording uh dark side of the moon
John: And he worked on some Beatles records, too.
John: He's finally agreed to step out and finally talk about that, huh?
John: An evening with Alan Partridge.
John: He was 17 or something when they were making The White Album, right?
John: Didn't he work on The White Album?
John: I think he did, yeah.
John: Anyway, so, but yeah, produced Dark Side of the Moon, and, you know, right, everybody wants to know, like, about the tape loop on money, and he was very generous about talking about that stuff.
John: But then afterwards, a small group of us go out to dinner, and we arrive at the restaurant, and it isn't really a small group.
John: There's like 20 people.
John: who want to have dinner with Alan Parsons.
John: And we show up, and he and I had been kind of talking at the cocktail party beforehand, and he was very much like, we talked for a few minutes, and then he kind of basically said, right, I've talked to you now.
John: I'm going to turn and talk to the next person because this is what I have to do now before I go back to the hotel.
John: I have to give each person two minutes of talking and you have exhausted your two minutes.
John: And I was like, oh, I'm fine with that.
John: Nice meeting you.
John: But he was already talking to the next person, you know, and saying, yeah, right.
John: We made a tape loop.
John: of the cash register.
John: And he's like drinking red wine and he's having a good time.
John: Anyway, we get to the restaurant and it's a long table.
John: So not a situation where Alan Parsons can talk to everyone at dinner.
John: It's just a very long table.
John: And he, rather than sit at the head of the table, moves down to the middle of the table, sort of like where Jesus would sit at the last supper.
John: And so he puts his hand on the back of a chair.
John: And the other 19 people at the event all sort of freeze.
John: It's like musical chairs, right?
John: The music has stopped.
John: Everybody freezes.
John: Alan Parsons has chosen a chair.
John: Now what?
John: Now where do you sit?
John: And there's this pregnant woman.
John: five seconds where no one knows what to do no one's going to take it no one's going to sit down at the end where they can't talk to him but nobody wants to sit directly across from him or and his wife is there with him no one knows what to do and so i said well how many opportunities i mean whatever the social faux pas
John: There are people here at this event who outrank me in a lot of ways in terms of who should sit next to Alan Parsons.
John: But who gives a fuck?
John: And so I just walked over and I sat down in the chair next to him.
Merlin: So his wife's on one side and you're on the other.
John: That's right.
John: And then having sat down, now everybody else has to... I got the catbird seat, so everybody else scrambles to get chairs, at least in earshot of him.
John: And he sits down in his chair, he looks over at me, and he basically... I don't remember exactly what he said, but he basically said, Oh, you...
John: Well, you know, you managed to get to there.
John: You managed to sit there.
John: I mean, I think he was hoping that it would be a beautiful lady or maybe it would be someone famous.
John: But it was me.
John: And so I spent the whole evening basically just chatting with him.
John: And everyone else around us, like, struggling, like EF Hutton is speaking.
John: That's a terrible setup for a one-person-based dinner.
John: It was the worst.
John: And a loud, noisy restaurant.
John: And everybody's leaning in, and I'm just... It sounds like The Last Supper in a lot of ways.
John: It was great.
John: It was great, although no one betrayed him, as far as I know.
John: But at one point, I said, so...
John: what if I asked you to produce one of my records?
John: And he said, money.
John: For the right amount of money, I will produce your record.
John: But it is a question of money.
John: And I said, ah, yes, money.
John: but it's still i still think that i still think about putting together enough cash like to make an offer on alan parsons coming out of retirement and recording an album for me
Merlin: Why would you do that?
John: What would it cost?
Merlin: It would cost $50,000 to $150,000.
Merlin: It would be obscene.
Merlin: I'm guessing.
Merlin: What do you think?
John: What's your guess?
John: Well, that's a pretty wide range.
Merlin: Well, I don't think it's going to cost you less than $50,000.
John: No, it won't cost less than $50,000.
John: And I think 50, it's one of those, like, producing a record is one of those, like, well, what do you mean?
John: Seven days?
John: Right.
Merlin: I mean, will it be all engineered and you just send him a can?
Merlin: Oh, gosh, he looks like Alan Moore.
Merlin: Look at him.
Merlin: He's a very handsome man.
John: Well, he was.
John: Now he looks like someone basically animated a volcano.
Merlin: i love you boy paul could really overdo the horn arrangements too couldn't he i see i am of the opinion that you cannot overdo a horn arrangement you know i love the horn arrangements you you like you said that's when you turn into a real band right when you get the horns showing up that's when you know you're in a band
John: right you said this i and i and i firmly believe i mean have you seen have you seen the footage of the stacks tour uh like england 1965 no no i'd love to it's it's on youtube it's all the stacks artists at the time
John: Like a package tour kind of thing?
John: As a package tour with Duck Dunn, with basically Booker T and the MGs as the band.
John: And then every singer, Sam and Dave... But this is like the Steve Cropper, that kind of group.
Merlin: Yeah, yeah, that's the game.
Merlin: The Muscle Shoals guys.
John: And then every singer comes out and does their two to four signature numbers.
John: Can you imagine that?
John: And it's a... No, no, no.
John: I don't think it was England.
John: It might have been Sweden.
John: It's some kind of scene where the audience is... I mean, it's worth watching just to see how beautiful everybody was in 1966.
John: You know, like, everybody's got the coolest clothes and the coolest dumb hair and their little beatnik beards and their chunky glasses.
John: And they're so excited to see Marvin Gaye and...
John: But musically, it's fantastic, too.
John: But one of the amazing things about this show is that they've got three horn players.
John: They've got saxophone, trumpet, and another saxophone.
John: And these three guys are doing all the horn arrangements of all that stacks stuff.
John: And it's really all you need.
John: You get the, you know, like on the record, you probably had 14 horns in there.
John: But really, when that trumpet comes on, like one trumpet does a lot of heavy lifting.
John: In terms of the emotional impact.
Merlin: Even if you've just got a trumpet and maybe a tenor sax, those two together could fill a lot of space.
Merlin: Really dynamite, yeah.
John: And I feel like the trumpet, because of the whole Elephant Six Nutramilk Hotel Bolero trumpet,
John: thing that happened there was a while there in indie rock early days for me early 2000s where the trumpet was the the equivalent of the of the head and the heart banjo or the you know what I mean like the band the Mumford and Sons banjo is now used on used by every pop band and I really felt in 2001 the Nutramilk Hotel trumpet was the
John: was the signifier.
John: And I, so I was shy.
Merlin: to use it myself because it was so... Well, the way they would do it, I'm thinking, now you've got me thinking of that song against sex song with the big trombone, that kind of stuff.
Merlin: But all that, like you're talking about like Airplane Over the Sea, like anthemic stuff.
Merlin: But you used it like on, shoot, Scared Straight?
Merlin: Scared Straight's like the... What are the songs on Pretend to Fall that have horns?
Merlin: I mean, Scared Straight to me is like the big Motown number, right?
John: Yeah, let's see, what else has horns?
John: Well, you know, Blue Diamonds has French horn, which is the secret weapon of every great pop song.
John: Neil Young?
John: French horn.
Merlin: Neil Young, you got John Entwistle.
John: Oh, that's beautiful.
Merlin: The guy who played on... What's it called?
Merlin: That song.
Merlin: Armor coming, singing something.
Merlin: It's the title of the song from... Bowl of Kintyre?
Merlin: No.
Merlin: I... I'm going to quit singing now.
Merlin: Anyway, French horn.
Merlin: Very difficult instrument to play.
Merlin: You've got to fist it.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: And also umbrusher.
John: Yeah, I couldn't find... At the time, I could not find a young person to play the French horn.
Merlin: It's like getting somebody to speak Navajo.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: I couldn't find a code talker.
Merlin: Oh, no, you're going to have a hard time getting that one.
John: So I actually had to use a music teacher, a high school music teacher that played the French horn.
John: Since that time, now a lot of kids are playing the French horn.
Merlin: Is that a fact?
Merlin: What if you had a role in that?
John: Yeah, well, you know, a lot of people after Baker Street came out, the saxophone regained popularity.
Merlin: I love that song.
Merlin: Also, you know what I used to love from the same time was Year of the Cat.
Merlin: Remember?
John: Al Stewart.
John: And I'm on in front of a Bogart movie.
John: You know, those songs are inextricably linked to... Wait a minute, that's the second time I've used inextricably in this podcast.
John: I'm not going to use it a third time.
Merlin: I'll cut it out.
John: You know, it's one of those things where you use a word that pokes out a little bit.
Merlin: I know, I consider it as being inextricably linked to you.
Merlin: See?
Merlin: Those are snapshots in time for me, buddy.
John: But you know what they're connected to for me?
John: The television show Taxi.
John: What?
John: Really?
John: I don't know why.
John: Taxi?
John: I just think of being a lonely preteen.
John: Taxi and, well, you know, what is lonelier about being a preteen than watching Taxi?
John: It's true.
John: Taxi and Barney Miller.
Merlin: I dated a girl in college that had a Bob James record.
Merlin: It's very strange to be sitting around necking and have the taxi song.
Merlin: Come on.
John: What?
John: I've said it before, but when you are necking with a girl in a dark room and your CD, your six CD changer.
John: you're wow modern day warrior no no no if it flips over to rush you are in but no if you're if you're picking out with a girl and your six cd changer suddenly flips over to john vanderslice's death of an american ford tracker oh but it is like somebody just poured cold water over both the is that right see i would guess there's a certain contingent that would find that very slippery as a record
John: Well, you know what?
John: I didn't give the girl the chance because I lunged.
John: Oh, you were self-conscious at that point.
John: Well, because, listen, I know John Vanderslice.
John: I love John Vanderslice, and you, sir, are no John Vanderslice.
John: No, I did not want to make out with John Vanderslice singing in a British accent in my other ear.
John: I wanted Geddy Lee.
John: Yeah.
John: JV.
John: You don't want to make out to your friends singing?
Merlin: I got to think about that.
Merlin: I got to think about that.
Merlin: I used to like making out to New Order.
John: Oh, that's good make-out music.
Merlin: That's good make-out music.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I haven't made out in a while.
John: I've got to think about it.
John: Honey Drippers.
John: What?
John: Honey Drippers.
John: Honey Drippers.
John: Great make-out music.
John: That record?
John: Great.
John: Great make-out music.
John: That Honey Drippers record.
John: I bet a lot of kids today have never even heard the Honey Drippers record.
Merlin: Come with me, my love.
Merlin: What was the other one?
Merlin: Oh, Good Rockin' Tonight.
Merlin: That was the other big one.
John: Basically, this is one of the main problems of my life.
John: I grew up thinking that my sex life was going to be a Led Zeppelin-based landscape.
Merlin: Soundtrack-wise, you were thinking like Kashmir.
John: That's right.
John: Led Zeppelin established the baseline for what I imagined being a fully adult person was going to be like.
John: I'm going to reach the age of manhood.
John: And I'm going to enter into this Led Zeppelin universe where basically I am having sex on an airplane while all of my friends are ODing.
John: That sounds so cool.
John: And the airplane is going to be taking me to Hefner's mansion.
John: And I'm going to be having sex on an airplane with somebody that I don't even know.
Merlin: The plane might be taking you to someplace like – I don't know where Montserrat is, but that's – I want to be having sex on a plane that's going there.
John: Right.
John: So anyway, the language of my early sex life was encoded in Led Zeppelin runes.
Ha!
John: And then the moment I arrived at my sexual maturity, suddenly the world was written in Alanis Morissette rooms.
Merlin: It was that late.
Merlin: Well, I mean, ironic.
Merlin: I'm very tempted to say stop right there.