Ep. 408: "Cool the Tubes"
Merlin: Hello.
Merlin: Hi, John.
John: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: How's it going?
John: Got a little bit of an AV issue.
Merlin: Might be your pre-PC.
Merlin: You might want to check that.
John: Yeah, let's see.
John: Audio and video settings.
John: Audio and video settings.
John: Do I want a background effect?
John: No.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: What is it that changes your inputs?
Merlin: Are you working on your shoegaze tunes or what's going on?
Merlin: Why does it change?
Merlin: Is that a personal question?
Merlin: You can feel free to skip it.
John: No, no, no.
John: Things move around.
John: The laptop gets unhooked.
John: move to different places oh you're on a laptop that's cool unfortunately i just i just restarted and the microphone is working it is i can hear you yeah but i mean i'm not i'm talking into the
John: I can hear the microphone, my mic, in my cans.
John: So part of the system is working.
John: Unfortunately, I'm going to switch over to built-in microphone.
John: I'm going to switch back default device.
Merlin: Sleep like a pillow, no one there, where she won't care anywhere.
Merlin: Soft as a pillow touch her hair, where she won't dare somewhere.
Merlin: I've enjoyed the song Only Shallow by My Bloody Valentine for a very long time.
Merlin: I've never known the lyrics.
Merlin: I thought it might be one of those cocktail twins things where they're not really words.
John: Say those lyrics again.
Merlin: Sleep.
Merlin: So I think it's sleep like a pillow.
Merlin: No one there.
Merlin: Where she won't care, anywhere.
Merlin: Soft as a pillow, touch her hair.
Merlin: Where she won't dare, somewhere.
Hmm.
Merlin: Then you've got verse two.
Merlin: And they identify here.
Merlin: I'm on the Genius.com site.
Merlin: Each time they indicate that my shoegaze girlfriend Belinda Butcher is the singer.
Merlin: It says, verse two, colon, Belinda Butcher.
Merlin: Sweet like a mallow.
Merlin: Softer.
Merlin: Fair.
Merlin: It's getting better.
Merlin: Feel like you grew stronger.
Merlin: Sleep going to tremble.
Merlin: She's not square.
Merlin: Soft like there's silk everywhere.
Merlin: These are terrible lyrics.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: It works in the context of the song because it's just mouth sounds.
John: I'm having a hard time getting my sound.
Merlin: Do you want to fix your things and then I'll call you back?
John: I mean, I just restarted it right before the call.
John: And I don't know what.
John: Let me just do that again.
Merlin: My two tips would be unplug and replug whatever your mic is and then check the system settings and then check Skype.
John: Let me just hotbox it right now.
John: Don't hang up.
John: Hotbox out.
John: Hotbox it.
Merlin: Hotbox.
John: What about now?
John: Same.
John: That's all it needed.
John: Okay, is this the show or do you want to restart?
John: Oh, no, that was the show.
John: Okay.
Merlin: What's in the show is in the show.
Merlin: Verse three, Belinda Butcher.
John: Go on.
Merlin: Sleep as a pillow, comfort there.
Merlin: Where she won't dare, anywhere.
Merlin: Look in the mirror, she's not there.
Merlin: Where she won't care, somewhere.
Merlin: End of song.
Merlin: You know, I think our friends like Paul and Storm and probably Jonathan Colton would be pretty proud of us if we started an acapella group and we did things like shoegaze songs.
Merlin: All we did was acapella shoegaze?
Merlin: Yeah, we'll do Ford Mustang.
Merlin: We'll do Ford Mustang.
Merlin: Ray Down.
Merlin: Would you count them as Shoegaze?
Merlin: Would you count that band?
Merlin: What's that band called?
Merlin: The one I like.
John: I was talking about this.
Merlin: Power Driver?
Merlin: What are they called?
John: Screwdriver?
John: Screwdriver?
John: Swerve Driver.
John: Swerve Driver.
John: Yeah.
John: I referred to Swerve Driver just the other day.
John: I was trying to explain how we went from the Happy Mondays to Blur.
John: Blur.
John: To someone that didn't know how that had happened.
John: how that ground was covered.
Merlin: That's like me trying to explain how Lucille Ball's work at Desilu Productions saved Star Trek.
Merlin: It requires so much explanation that eventually leads to something that literally no one cares about.
John: Well, and that's the thing.
John: I was using all these terms like, well, that wasn't exactly shoegaze.
John: Yeah, it was more like we'd come out of the pop C-86 stuff and what was going on in Australia, Teenage Fan Club.
John: That wasn't exactly shoegaze, and that wasn't shoegaze.
John: And then that was...
John: shoe gaze just for a second but i wouldn't call it shoe it was very frustrating and the person i was talking to didn't know any of the bands so i was like ah i mean i don't know what and then i and then i realized like oh everybody knows fool's gold yeah so then i played her fool's gold
John: And she was like, huh, yeah, I think.
John: And I was like, really?
John: This song didn't completely change your life when you heard it for the first time?
John: And she was like, I don't think so.
John: I mean, I remember it kind of.
John: I was like, wow, because Fool's Gold changed everything, man.
John: I like that first song.
Merlin: What's the doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon, doon?
Merlin: Oh, I want to be adored.
Merlin: I always like that one.
John: I want to be adored.
John: Yeah, that's...
John: That one changed everything, too.
Merlin: Everything changed everything in the show.
John: Yeah.
John: How many times can you change everything?
Merlin: You can't land on a fraction.
Merlin: That's right.
Merlin: It was confusing to live in the United States then because there's really different things going on for a while.
Merlin: I think it could be argued that the time from, I want to say, let's say starting around 89 to about 96 years.
Merlin: And mostly there was so much different stuff going on.
John: You know what I mean?
John: There was a lot of stuff coming from... Like the first time somebody played me Park Life, I went, did they not get the message about what's going on right now?
Merlin: Yeah, this is not what's going on.
Merlin: This is something entirely different.
John: What am I supposed to make about this?
Merlin: A little later you get the Woohoo song and everybody liked that.
Merlin: And I think that's when the timeline started to...
Merlin: re-merge would you would you read the lyrics to the oh yeah that's what's it called song number two song number two which is uh not from park life okay let's see here's the lyrics to the it's called song two by blur uh and the song goes like this intro woohoo
Merlin: Mm-hmm.
Merlin: Woo-hoo.
Merlin: Sure.
Merlin: Woo-hoo.
Merlin: Woo-hoo.
Merlin: And then he says, I got my head checked.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
Merlin: That guy's a really good guitar player.
Merlin: I think he had a heroin problem, but he's a very good guitar player.
Merlin: Yeah, that's what I hear.
Merlin: I got my head checked by a jumbo jet.
Merlin: It wasn't easy, but nothing is.
Merlin: No.
Merlin: Woo-hoo.
Merlin: When I feel heavy metal, woo-hoo.
Merlin: And I'm on pins and I'm needles.
Merlin: Woo-hoo.
Merlin: Well, Lion, I'm easy all the time, but I'm never sure why I need you.
Merlin: Pleased to meet you.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: I was not a fan of Oasis.
Merlin: I think that's partly because I'm American.
Merlin: I did like Blur.
Merlin: I like that song that you were just saying.
Merlin: Yeah, you got to get your park life right.
Merlin: You know that song?
Merlin: I like that song.
Merlin: Yeah, get your park life right.
Merlin: Oh, you know what?
Merlin: I like the boys who, the girls like boys and the girls.
Merlin: That song, I like that song.
Merlin: I think it might be called Boys and Girls.
John: I like that song.
John: Do you remember all the bands that were called Boys and Girls at one point?
John: Boys versus Girls.
John: It was Girls Against Boys.
John: Girls Against Boys.
John: There was Girls slash Boys.
John: Spice Girls.
John: uh i guess so yeah i mean that's also that that's kind of from that like middish slightly post middish 90s merge and matador bands and like drag city bands and a lot of them have very silly names i also did not like oasis and cannot be brought into the oasis camp no matter how many teams of horses have been hooked to me yes by people and you know and i'm and i'm not even digging my feet in i just cannot be moved i'm like a
John: I'm like an obelisk.
John: Obelisk being dragged by horses.
John: I'm like an obelisk that even Elgin cannot displace from my rightful spot next to the Sphinx.
John: You've got to latch yourself to the mast.
John: Not liking Oasis.
Merlin: Well, here's the thing.
Merlin: I'm the worst kind of not a fan in that case, which is I think I understand what people like about them.
Merlin: And if I do understand that, that's not what I like.
Merlin: And I especially don't like them.
Merlin: And I think they... I don't want to rag on them because I know a lot of people enjoyed their music.
Merlin: There's always like Oasis versus Blur.
Merlin: And I'm like, are you kidding me?
Merlin: First of all, why do we have to do these things?
Merlin: It's so English to have this band versus that band.
Merlin: It's so dumb.
Merlin: But...
Merlin: But Blur's a better band, hands down, no question.
Merlin: It's like, they were so boring.
John: They were so pleased with themselves.
Merlin: They're like the anti-kinks.
John: I was always so bummed that the British music press seemed to have an us versus them thing going on with my band.
John: which was my band versus literally any other band that they would prefer to my band.
John: Really?
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Did anybody deserve that?
Merlin: Is there anyone that you would consider to be a worthy nemesis in that lineup?
John: Oh, well, I mean, sure, there were great bands in that era that the English press preferred to us, but there were also terrible bands that they preferred to us.
John: Yeah.
John: They preferred everyone to us.
John: It was one of the colossal disappointments, I think, of my mid-period in rock that I could not get the British to like my band.
John: And I spent, it may surprise you, it may not, that I expended a lot of ordinance, spent a lot of money and a lot of time trying to click on
John: With the UK.
John: Because you make choices, right?
John: You're talking to somebody and they're like, well, we have a $10,000 budget.
John: We can spread that money around $2,000 a territory and get your music on the radio in Belgium and in Luxembourg.
John: Or we can spend $8,000 of it in the UK in the hopes that
John: If your band takes off in the UK, that does a lot of work toward making it big in Luxembourg, because everybody watches the UK.
John: And I always made the...
John: Maybe not error.
John: I didn't say use at all in the UK.
John: I said save a little for Luxembourg.
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: But you were open to spending more than might be logical because it was important to you to break through there.
John: Given the amount of money we made on shows relative to the cost of hotels, petrol, transport –
John: And ferry boat rides.
John: Lori, if you want to let a lorry.
John: Yep.
John: Given the amount of time I spent doing interviews with the British Trouser Press, relative to their sneering lack of interest in me...
John: Um, what I should have done looking back is never play a single show in the UK or give them a moment's time because.
John: Yeah.
John: We're very interested in the long winters.
Merlin: The Germans are very interesting people.
Merlin: They loved podcasts before a lot of people.
Merlin: And also they have extremely strong and vocal opinions about both the content and technology behind podcasts.
Merlin: It is known.
Merlin: Germans and podcasts are like peas and carrots.
Interesting.
Merlin: It's absolutely true.
Merlin: John, hang on.
Merlin: Before we move any further here, I have to ask you two questions.
John: Okay, go for it.
Merlin: And feel free to say no.
Merlin: Number one, is it okay if we talk about music this episode?
John: Well, you know, when I woke up this morning, Merlin, I had a little bit of a sore throat.
John: Mm-hmm.
Mm-hmm.
John: And I thought as I was coming downstairs, you know, I never think about our show before we do the show.
John: But as I was coming downstairs, I was like, what's going to happen if my throat is a little sore and it's hard to, and it's not a sickness sore, it's a shouting sore.
John: But like, you know, I can't really keep up, you know, with Merlin if my throat is scratchy.
John: And as I walked into the room, I was like,
John: But if we do a music episode, if we talk about music, Merlin doesn't need me.
John: All I have to do is just go, yeah.
Merlin: I appreciate you saying that, but I'd love for you to be here.
Merlin: I don't want to worry about it.
John: Oh, geez.
John: Come on.
John: Yeah, I know.
John: It's terrible.
John: But it's not the coronavirus.
John: I know exactly what it is.
John: Shouting sore.
John: Yesterday was a shouty day.
John: Okay.
John: And I knew when I was doing it, I was like, oh, wow.
John: When was the last time you blew out your voice?
John: Let me ask you that, Merlin.
John: When was the last time you blew out your voice?
Merlin: I can't remember specifically, but I can tell you the way in the last few years, the way I most consistently blow out my voice is going out.
Merlin: Well, I'll just be honest, like being in a loud bar with friends and me having a lot to drink.
Merlin: I will frequently be very hoarse the next day.
Merlin: Well, back when I would do those sorts of things.
Merlin: That was it.
Merlin: Before that, it might be performing, but no, that's mostly it.
Merlin: Even like anywhere where like the thing is, you can hear me, sometimes not you, but one who listens to podcasts will often hear like on an episode of a show, I seem like pretty okay.
Merlin: But then in the ads, I sound really weird.
Merlin: And that's usually because I think my voice is tender.
Merlin: And sometimes it's a little bit, no, you know, I recorded like four hours of podcasts the other day and I could barely talk at the end.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: But no one's the last time.
Merlin: So you had a shouty day yesterday.
John: Yeah.
John: And the thing is that, you know, losing your voice is just one of the things that happens in the rock business.
John: You try real hard not to do it.
John: But every once in a while...
John: You know, a combination of things comes along, you throw it out.
John: Yeah.
John: It's been a while since I've thrown it out.
John: Anyway, so I am all the way there on doing a music episode.
John: I'm really curious about the Germans and podcasts.
John: Oh, you know we'll talk about that.
John: I know the Australians and podcasts.
Yeah.
Merlin: Well, given that – Let's talk about the New Zealanders.
Merlin: The two-part – I'll talk about – John, I'll talk about – this could be the beginning of a multi-series arc as far as I'm concerned.
Merlin: Really, the entire series is a multi-series arc.
Merlin: Sure, sure, sure.
Merlin: The whole show.
Merlin: Let's take it there.
Merlin: Let's take it anywhere.
Merlin: The second question is I can't remember where we – you, we have talked about this.
Merlin: It might have been in my yard.
Merlin: It very much might have been on the Back to Work Backdoor Pilot, pardon my saying.
Merlin: Or it might have been here on Roderick on the Rhine.
Merlin: That's a – that's a –
John: God damn it.
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Merlin: You know, seriously, our thanks to Mack Weldon for supporting Roderick Online and all the great shows.
Merlin: And that moment with that particular ad is a reason, in part, that Germans love chapter markers in podcasts.
Merlin: Did you know that?
Merlin: They're very vocal about it.
John: So they want invisible markers that say like, and then the show transitions to here.
Merlin: Unfortunately, that's exactly what they want, which is the problem.
Merlin: Now, if you had the kind of show that was like, for example, think about the CBS TV show, the beloved TV show, 60 Minutes, where it's very clear at the very beginning of the show, they say, hey, look, we're 60 Minutes, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, tick, or similar.
Merlin: Five episodes today.
Merlin: And then they play you excerpts from exactly three segments of equidistant length.
Merlin: And then maybe say later on, Andy Rooney gets mad at his desk drawer or whatever.
Merlin: Whatever they do now.
Merlin: Marilyn Vos Savant.
Merlin: I don't even know.
Merlin: But the point is...
Merlin: That makes a ton of sense because you go, oh, I want to see the one about the guy who fixes sewing machines, but I don't want to see the one about table tennis.
Merlin: And you know what part you're in.
Merlin: It's very clear.
Merlin: Now, that makes sense.
Merlin: Chapters make sense there.
Merlin: It's more difficult when you're doing a more discursive Lenny Bruce thing.
Merlin: And you're shucking and jiving.
John: Right, sure, fuck the man.
Merlin: How do you split that up?
Merlin: Was that?
Merlin: I said, fuck the man.
Merlin: Fuck the man.
Merlin: Oh, man.
Merlin: Yeah, it was tough for him.
John: How would you put chapters into an episode of our show because—
John: It's like a tone poem.
Merlin: I totally agree, John.
Merlin: I totally agree.
Merlin: I'll tell you how I do it in a moment, and we're pretty deep in the stack here.
Merlin: But what I will say to you is, no, I will not do chapter markers in most of the programs that I do because it wouldn't make any sense.
Merlin: I want you to listen to the whole thing.
Merlin: If you're listening to it, and thank you for listening, please listen at 1x, and please listen from the beginning to the end.
Merlin: And don't go straight to the sewing machine guy.
John: You've never said that before, Merlin.
John: You've never come out in favor of 1X.
John: I guess I didn't even know –
John: to know whether I was curious about whether you believed in 1X or 1.5X.
Merlin: I don't like to talk about it too much because it's a bit of a bit.
John: Right.
Merlin: But you're pro 1X.
Merlin: You're pro real-time listening.
Merlin: I'll tell you what, I'm pro and anti.
Merlin: Here, let me just lay this out, and then we'll get back to the Germans, and then we'll get back to music, and we'll do the second part of the question, which is going to be the difficulties and vagaries of trying to organize a tour in the UK and Europe, which I think is a fascinating anecdote of yours.
Merlin: So, here's the thing.
Merlin: What I'm against is, unless you have, like, if you're the sort of person who has, like, a sight disability and you're real good at hearing stuff fast, like, you know, don't listen at 3X.
Merlin: You know, don't listen at 2X.
Merlin: I mean, if you enjoy it, do it.
Merlin: You know, it's the holiday season, Hakuna Matata.
Merlin: But, like, what I will abide is my friend Marco makes my podcast app, and it's called Overcast, and
Merlin: And that has something called Smart... I think it's called Smart Speed.
Merlin: And all that does is just very... It's very intelligent about not speeding it up exactly, but more like removing micropauses.
Merlin: But even then, the pauses are important.
Merlin: You know, the rest are just as important as the notes.
Merlin: That's what I always tell my wife.
Merlin: The pause is in the house.
Merlin: The pause is coming from inside the podcast.
John: Well, yeah.
John: So I've never said one word about it because I don't...
John: Listen to podcasts.
John: I don't even have a TV.
John: But my sense is that if you're listening to this, it's hardly because you're gathering information.
Merlin: You're not trying to get to the part where... It's like buying a dictionary for one letter or even for one word.
Merlin: You need the whole dictionary, really.
Merlin: My people use every part of the dictionary, and that's the point of the show.
Merlin: If you're learning something, you just may not realize it yet.
Merlin: You'll know.
Merlin: It's like when you got to defend yourself in that alley and you're glad you took jujitsu.
Merlin: You're going to find wisdom in what we've had to say, if not today, if not tomorrow, someday.
Merlin: And if you're doing that at double speed, you're really getting half of the benefit, let's be honest.
Merlin: But you listen to a lot of podcasts.
John: I listen to a lot of podcasts.
Merlin: I was listening to a podcast literally when we started our discussion.
John: How long into our show were you still listening to the podcast?
John: I was still listening to it in this can over here.
John: So how do you fit them all in without listening to them at 2.5 speed?
John: I have excellent taste.
John: Oh, you don't listen to bad podcasts.
Merlin: I don't listen to bad podcasts.
Merlin: And it's mainly like if I develop a relationship with a podcast, which I very much do, then that's the kind of thing where like, I mean, I get really into it.
Merlin: Just to close the loop on one thing.
Merlin: This is not important, but a few weeks, months ago, I started doing chapter markers for our show.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: For no particular reason.
Merlin: And there's only one logical way to do that that I'm aware of.
Merlin: The only way I will, unless you disagree, is to have the part of the show where we talk and the part where we have an advertisement from one of our beloved sponsors and then another talking part, et cetera.
Merlin: And I break those up.
Merlin: And then it's cool, though, because then also I can do stuff like put in the URL.
Merlin: So if somebody wants to click on learn about Mack Weldon and their One Mile Slippers, they could do that right in the midst of the podcast and click on a link.
Merlin: So I think that's kind of cool.
Merlin: But to your point from before, though, it's like...
Merlin: I don't... Okay, first of all, real talk.
Merlin: Jokes have left the room.
John: I don't actually care.
John: Break it down.
Merlin: Do it however you want.
Merlin: I don't care.
Merlin: It's fine.
Merlin: Thank you for listening.
Merlin: It's cool that you're listening.
Merlin: I appreciate it.
Merlin: But I also know that, for example, and this is going to sound random, but...
Merlin: Think about- Random!
Merlin: Random!
Merlin: Think about improv.
Merlin: Oh, do I have to?
Merlin: Hang on.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I used to think I liked poetry, but then I realized I only really like a few poems.
Merlin: Now, improv, the point is there is very good improv.
Merlin: And what do you not want to do?
Merlin: You don't want to come in in what would be the third act, at the end of the Herald or whatever.
Merlin: You don't want to come in at the end of long-form improv because you're busy.
Merlin: That's the point is, that's the ultimate example to me of like, I'm living in what's unfolding on stage right now.
Merlin: And like, I am 100% devoted, my attention is entirely devoted to this.
Merlin: And in the case of something like, you know, something from the COVID times that I love, Middle Ditch and Schwartz, like, you have to really pay attention.
Merlin: I think one reason some people are confused by that show is they're not paying enough attention.
Merlin: And if you're not paying attention, you're going to say, why are these guys running around and sitting in different chairs?
Merlin: Well, here's the spoiler.
Merlin: They're playing different characters and then they're picking up on the character that the other person did and they're adding something to it and they're changing places and they're doing all the things.
Merlin: So in that case, yeah, don't listen, don't watch that at 4X, but also don't jump in at the end because you're missing the whole point of it is that you're in that moment with them.
Merlin: That's how I feel about the podcast I love.
Merlin: I could skip around to save my life.
Merlin: It would kill me.
John: If you weren't there at the beginning when they asked for an animal in a state capital, none of the jokes later would make any sense.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I'm going to need a rank of police officer, a pizza topping, and a two-door car.
Merlin: Okay.
John: Go.
John: Here we are in Spain.
John: Go, Sergeant Peugeot.
John: Sergeant Peugeot.
John: Hello.
Merlin: Nicky pepperonis.
Merlin: Bobby's love pepperonis.
John: I it makes perfect sense to divide this show up via commercial break.
John: Right.
John: That's how most most entertainment is divided.
John: You go for a while and then there's a break and then you go a little bit longer.
Merlin: Can I say one more thing about this that nobody cares about?
Merlin: I think it's especially important because no one cares about it.
Merlin: I care because you and I never talk about talking about.
Merlin: We don't talk about the show in the show or the industry inside the industry show.
John: We don't.
John: We don't talk about it off the show.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: Here's the thing.
Merlin: I think one thing that's confusing.
Merlin: The example that always comes to mind for me is, for example, think about the way it used to be.
Merlin: I've said this before, but this makes sense to me.
Merlin: There was a time when, like, if you were a vegetarian, first of all, you were a weirdo.
Merlin: Everybody thought you were a weirdo.
Merlin: And the thing is, if you met another person coming through the rye.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Which you could eat because it's a vegetable.
John: A grain.
John: Rye, you could, but not the other person.
John: Just to be clear.
John: Oh, that's a good point.
Merlin: Unless they're a life model decoy.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: You couldn't eat.
Merlin: My thinking is if you encountered, especially somewhere, like let's say you're somewhere in the Midwest, like you even say in Ohio, in 1975 and you run into another vegetarian, like you're going to find so many more similarities than differences, I would conjecture.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: If you drove a British sports car at any point in time between 1949 and 1975 in the United States, you would honk and wave when you pass someone else in a British sports car.
Merlin: Okay, maybe ham radio or similar?
Merlin: Like the kinds of things where you're doing or like stereo like hi-fi dads?
John: Hi-fi dads.
John: You know, my house was – the guy that built my house was a hi-fi dad.
Merlin: God, I got to see this house.
Merlin: The point I'm trying very poorly to make is that when you're in the out group or interested in something that most people don't know about, you find a lot to bond over.
Merlin: Eventually, maybe if it's something like a nerd thing, like you find a lot to disagree and argue about, you know, would Superman kill Lois Lane if they had intercourse, that kind of thing.
Merlin: So does he also have super control is the question, right?
Merlin: There's those kinds of things.
Merlin: Now, today, the reasons people are vegetarian are a myriad and sometimes, dare I say, conflicting, right?
Merlin: Some of it's for health.
Merlin: Some of it's for ethics.
Merlin: Some of it is for environmental stuff.
Merlin: And like there could be two people that eat a very similar diet for extremely different reasons.
John: That's still just to make dinner time a trial for your parents.
John: Oh, God, yes.
Merlin: The other day my daughter said, I really don't want to eat a protein with pasta anymore.
Merlin: Because that's the kind of stage that she's in right now.
John: Just saying mouth words like that.
John: You know, Ken Jennings has two kids.
John: One of them will not eat.
John: One of them's a vegetarian who also won't eat, I don't know, tomatoes.
John: And the other one is a carnivore.
John: but who won't eat cheese.
John: Is he got a real Jack Spratt type situation?
John: And having dinner over there is just like, okay.
John: And you watch the casseroles just keep coming out of the oven.
John: Like, and then this one is the one in case you like me, but not cheese.
John: Here's the one the rest of us are going to eat.
John: Oh my God.
John: This sounds like a blue book word problem.
John: This one is vegetarian, but without tomatoes and no salt or whatever.
John: And you're just like, wow.
Merlin: A friend of the show, John Syracuse talked about this with one of his kids who like on the one hand is a vegetarian, but also doesn't like many vegetables.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Well, that's my sister.
Merlin: I think the vegetarianism or owning an MG or having a ham radio, that's where podcasts were a few years ago, however long ago, which is like, oh, podcasts are cool.
Merlin: And for me, like, it didn't even need to be stated that a pod – this is from a very long time ago.
Merlin: To me, a podcast is where a bunch of people talk about a thing, usually three white guys talking about Linux or whatever.
Merlin: But –
Merlin: If one liked the medium, you know, that was a cool thing and you could bond over it.
Merlin: And there were certain podcasts a lot of people liked.
Merlin: A lot of people's first podcast was that Ricky Gervais podcast that was, I think, somewhat, maybe arguably, one of the first big podcasts.
Merlin: Now, today, you have so many different people who like different kinds of podcasts for different reasons.
Merlin: They're just saying podcast.
Merlin: That's not that meaningful.
Merlin: Because a lot of people now, what they really like is fancy people who used to be on public radio.
Right.
Merlin: Oh.
Merlin: Now, that's a very different, listening to a 23-minute episode of Planet Money is very different from listening to a 35-minute You Look Nice Today or a two-hour Reconcilable Differences.
Merlin: All those shows, like, they have a different Weltanschauung going on.
Merlin: And just to land on this final point, God bless you, Germany, chapter markers don't fit for all of those things.
Merlin: Chapter markers don't fit for improv.
Merlin: You know, they barely fit for prog rock.
Thank you.
John: Boy, I mean, for side two of any prog rock act, right?
John: You're just putting song titles in there with like semicolons and then it's like third heading, fourth heading.
Merlin: But if you're going to listen to Supper's Ready, you know, it's a whole album side.
Merlin: You can't jump straight to the end.
Merlin: Locking across the sitting room.
Merlin: You know what I'm saying?
John: I have spent a lot of time in my adult life trying to figure out
John: What the Germans want.
John: Oh, what do the Germans want?
John: How to deliver it to them.
John: How to please the Germans.
Merlin: Because I figured out... Danke schön.
John: Bitte schön.
John: I spent so much time trying to please the Brits and I realized you cannot please them.
Merlin: If you try... They're like, oh my God, John, John, John.
Merlin: They're like vegetarian teenagers.
Merlin: They absolutely are.
Merlin: They're mad about something and they'll figure out what it is later.
John: But they're 100% also like, if they feel like you're trying to please them, they're like Seattle punkers in 1990.
John: If they feel like you are trying, they will hate you more.
John: And the more you appear to not be trying, the more they will suss out that you're secretly trying and hate you.
John: There's no way around it other than to be...
John: I mean, the only way to please them, really, is to be beautiful and talented and arrogant and...
John: louche or whatever, you know, like there's no, you just have to be perfect and then they will love you for a week and then they'll turn on you too, right?
John: There's no.
Merlin: Well, might they, might they think that if you're too pretty and you're too, whatever that word was, if you're too that, like then they're going to think, oh, you're getting over your skis a little bit.
Merlin: Like, cause, cause there's so many different sins in England and it isn't one of the sins to like think that you're more of, as they say, posh than you actually are.
Yeah.
John: Right, or to be posh and slumming, right?
John: I mean, you can break so many rules in Inglang, and it beats the shit out of me.
John: But at the same time, they think the guy from Baby Shambles is amazing, and just shower him, and he just seems like such an affected fucking loose douche to me.
John: But the Germans...
John: Very differently.
John: If you try to please the Germans, they respond.
John: They want you to try to please them.
Merlin: They're very civil, and the Germans, I know, are very humane.
John: But if you try, and they notice you're trying, they go...
John: Ah, yes.
John: You have not done it yet.
John: You know, you are trying.
John: I am not pleased, but your effort is noted.
John: Yeah, you are trying, which is good.
John: Let me help you with like three other examples of what you could do.
John: And then they give you three examples which are completely implausible, absolutely not a thing you could possibly do.
John: I've told you about the guy that came up after the show and told me I should write more songs about football.
John: And, you know, he had just sat through a two-hour long winter show, came as a fan, you know, was there to hear the music.
Merlin: Is it because you've done a song about football or because you hadn't done any songs about football?
John: Never done any songs about football.
John: What he was trying to do was give me some clues about how I could be more popular with his countrymen.
John: I see.
John: Because you're talking about soccer or football?
John: They love soccer.
John: Okay.
John: And he felt like if we had even one song about soccer—
John: that's better than having no songs about soccer.
John: And it's, you know, as somebody who makes things in the world, Merlin, you know that every once in a while you have a conversation with someone who...
John: I give you a little note.
John: Well, but who professes to really love your stuff.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Big fan.
John: Who clearly knows everything you've done.
John: Yeah.
John: And can quote it word for word and then makes a comment or a suggestion that suggests that they have just fallen to earth, have never heard a word you've said.
Merlin: They've just emerged from their pod and learned enough to say something completely ponderous to you.
John: What would be amazing, Merlin, is if you did a whole show on productivity or whatever, where you're just like, what?
John: What did you just say?
Merlin: I feel like it would be like me going to a baker.
Merlin: I don't eat a lot of baked goods, but I could imagine me going to my favorite bakery and saying, your stuff is really great.
Merlin: Hey, big fan, I've been coming here for a long time.
Merlin: You probably don't know me, but you signed my role one time or whatever.
Merlin: But anyway, and I say to them, you know, your stuff is really good, but have you thought about using more things that require the half teaspoon?
Merlin: Have you thought about using things, making more things that would use a round plate?
Merlin: No, but that's the weird ones for me.
Merlin: Saying to you, you should write more soccer songs, I kind of get it, but it can be so outlandish when you come in with your file card on something.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And sometimes it can be fun, though.
John: Well, I was never going to write a song about soccer.
John: But what stunned me about trying to please the Germans...
John: Was that they were very upfront about the fact that what they thought was authentically American was very important to them.
John: Like there was an authentic American-ness that the Germans and by extension kind of the Dutch.
John: I was going to say, yes.
John: This idea that there were good things about America.
John: and there was and and and a big part of that is the kind of cultural movies music marshall plan right but the the sort of cowboys a lot of cowboys they love cowboys right they still love cowboys cowboys and bikers but there was a truth that came from america yeah and that truth
John: they believed in, even as they knew it was a, a funny hat, you know, they knew that it was a, that it was a cowboy hat with feathers on it, but they believed in it so much that they, that they were not shy about saying like, have you ever thought about wearing a cowboy hat with feathers on it?
John: And I, you know, cause I'm standing around after the show and
John: Month after month, year after year, like hoisting my little fruity pleaser and listening to people say, like, the thing about America is million of those conversations, you know, with good friends.
John: Yeah.
John: And I'm always like, yeah, but that's just a hat with feathers on it.
John: And they're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: Yeah, a hat with feathers, yeah.
Merlin: And maybe it's a slight gesture to indicate where the feathers are.
John: Yeah, feathers.
John: But it's not just a hat with feathers.
John: And I'm like, well, it kind of is, though.
Merlin: To you, it would be a hat with feathers, yeah.
John: Yeah, all the people that you're talking about, they're all from Los Angeles.
John: They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: But...
John: But these ones were from Toronto.
John: And I'm like, yeah, that Toronto is Los Angeles of Canada.
John: There's nobody there that's – like all of the skinny guys in blue jeans that you're talking about with long beards that have feathers in them, like those feathers were put there by a stylist.
John: But you could not convince them.
John: And the thing is I didn't have to convince them because they knew.
John: It was true.
John: It just didn't matter.
Merlin: It's so interesting to me what ends up being or not being a non sequitur.
Merlin: Because to the person who's talking about the half of his fezos, that probably is not a non sequitur at all.
Merlin: I'm thinking of a time that I actually do remember the one time we were playing The Cow House, as we did.
Merlin: Bacon Ray did a soundcheck.
Merlin: They had a new guy there.
Merlin: And the new guy was not very good.
Merlin: And it's one of those things where you just couldn't hear anything on stage.
Merlin: And it all sounded so weird.
John: Often true of the new guy.
Merlin: Well, you know, you've done this a thousand times more than me, but like, anyway, at the, at the end of the sound check, um, you know, you, you learn not to, what do you want to do?
Merlin: You never want to piss off the sound guy.
Merlin: So even if the sound person is not doing a very good job, you're going to be as, you know, also, you know, you're a guest there.
Merlin: You want to be as nice as you possibly can and kind.
Merlin: And even though you've been in that place a thousand times more than that fella, um,
Merlin: Anyway, at one point, he walks up, and I think he might have said this to Mike, or it might have been to me, but he walks up.
Merlin: Apropos of nothing, he walks up and says, you know, if you played with your fingers, you'd sound more like Stanley Clark.
John: If you played with your fingers?
John: You'd sound more like Stanley Clark.
John: He's talking about the bass player.
John: If you played with his fingers, he would sound... If you played with your fingers, you'd sound more like Stanley Clark.
Merlin: More like Stanley...
Merlin: Now, I mean, now to somebody else out there, that's going to sound like just another fun anecdote, like the doorman at the gay bar on New Wave Night who said, as far as I'm concerned, all you New Waves are in purgatory.
Merlin: It sounds like just another non sequitur, except there's several layers of non sequitur to that.
Merlin: It was utterly unbidden.
John: Right.
Merlin: We were playing a drunken GBV-style 90s indie rock with some beef heart flavor.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: But it was just so strange.
Merlin: And so what do you say to that?
Merlin: You say something like, oh, thanks, you're probably right, right?
John: Sure.
Merlin: But to me and to Mike and Brent and Bruce and everybody, that really did kind of seem like a non-sequitur.
Right.
John: Well, yeah, 100%.
John: It probably makes sense to him.
John: I mean, he's got – he obviously has Stanley Clark as a reference.
John: And he – I think what it is – Well, that's his file card.
John: But you get – when you're talking to bass players, right?
John: I think when you talk to musicians –
John: There's a process of evolution, right?
John: And at one point in your life, you become aware of the fact that there are bass players that play with their fingers and bass players that play with a pick and that within bass player worlds, that's a dividing line.
Merlin: Okay, fair.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Within bass players... Or like drummers and grips.
Merlin: Like, you know, people you get about Bevan's... Open grip, close, you know... Yes, yes.
John: Left-handed drummer on a right-handed kit, you know, guitar player that palm mutes.
John: Like, there's all these things that as you learn and you cross a threshold and you're like, oh...
John: Oh, I get it.
John: That's a bass player playing with his hand.
John: This is a bass player playing with his pick.
John: Oh.
John: And the tendency, especially if you're like a guy in his 20s, is to think that now you get it.
Merlin: And this is true across the spectrum.
Merlin: Oh, so you're a little early at claiming the skeleton key.
Merlin: You don't know enough yet to know that that's not a skeleton key for – it's a skeleton key for fewer things than it feels like given your level of expertise now.
John: Right.
John: It decodes a thing, but it does not decode anything really.
John: I mean if you said that to Stanley Clark, he'd be like, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: No, you know, like it's, it would be meaningless past a certain point because some of the best bass players you ever heard play with a pick.
John: And there are a lot of people playing with their fingers that are not super good bass players, right?
John: It's not a divide.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: If you played a fretless, you'd sound more like Pino Palladino on that one.
Merlin: Paul Young song.
John: Yeah.
John: Right.
John: Or if you played a Chapman stick, right?
Merlin: You would be a ball guy with a mustache and King Crimson.
John: Right.
John: But that kind of thing, and that's the myth of – or that's the problem with young people gaining a toehold in expertise.
John: Sing it, sister.
John: It's just like, oh, now I get – and it's why people come up to you at shows and want to talk to you about your amplifier.
John: They're like, oh, is that a pre-CBS?
John: Oh, yeah, sure.
John: And you're like, oh, pre-CBS, really?
John: Well, yeah, let's talk about that because that is interesting.
John: It's an interesting thing.
Merlin: I noticed you're not using a ring modulator.
John: Yes, you did.
John: Thank you.
John: That's very good.
John: Is that an original or a reissue?
John: Is that a post-CBS rat pedal?
John: The thing about that stuff is it's really interesting to talk about if you find somebody else that kind of knows the same stuff that you do and you want to talk about it as a kind of game.
Merlin: You could talk about tail pieces all night.
Merlin: The thing is, the truth is that there are things that are obscure and stupid, and even somebody who knows as little as me find that interesting.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: It was a real pain in the ass.
Merlin: It was a real pain in the ass, and it was old, and it was bad.
Merlin: My Rick, that's different.
Merlin: That's different from a Floyd Rose.
Merlin: There's all different ways you could talk about frets, bridges, tailpieces all night long.
John: Yeah, right.
John: I have probably 10 Instagram accounts I follow where...
John: The level of knowledge in the people following it is just fun because they'll post a 54 Telecaster and there will be all these comments that are like,
John: whoa wait a minute the you know the like adjustment screw on those on the tone knob right is wrong and then the people at the at the place will be like we thought so too but then we realized it was factory because for two weeks in 1954 they ran out of the ones and you're just like
Merlin: Oh, touchdown!
Merlin: But it can also be like the people in the quote-unquote goofs section of IMDB.
Merlin: It's so fun to find somebody who's got, I won't say a fetish, but definitely like an area of interest.
Merlin: One that I discovered not long ago is a guy who has a lot to say about military insignia.
Merlin: He's constantly pointing out in different movies when some form of like a uniform, a medal, like that medal had not been issued at this point.
Merlin: Nobody would ever actually wear their captain stripes, you know, like that, et cetera, et cetera.
Merlin: But like, but in a place like what you're describing, that can be so fun.
Merlin: And again, in comics, that can be so fun, you know, like super fun.
Merlin: Talk about all the different ways you could ink this particular thing that was penciled the same way.
Merlin: But the question is, is it going to be constructive and generative?
Merlin: Or are you not even realizing how much this is not as profound as it feels in your head?
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: Because there's a difference between being on Instagram and being in a community of people who no one in that community is claiming that that Telecaster is
John: Think about putting a Floyd Rose on there.
John: Yeah, but they're not claiming anything about the way it sounds or the way it – I mean they will make claims about it sound.
John: But people in a forum like that recognize like, yeah, but what it sounds like is super personal and up to you.
John: Right.
John: What we're talking about is this screw that –
John: what the guitar sounds like, come in and try it is, is basically the attitude.
John: But what you get when you're coiling your cables at the end of the night in a, in a venue, um, you know, in, um, you know, outside of Munster is a kid that comes up, stands at the foot of the stage and says, is that a 64 or 65?
John: And what,
John: Or the sound man says, like, if you played your fingers, you'd sound more like Jaco Pastorius.
John: And what you're getting there is something different.
John: Somebody who wants to start a conversation, basically.
John: But what they have to work with are some kind of false dichotomies, is what they are.
John: You get a little bit of a, you know, Mr. Mom, 220, 221 conversation.
John: Yeah.
John: And what they're hoping to do is enlist you.
John: in an agreement because if you're like, oh my God, bass players that don't play with their fingers, am I right?
John: Then they're like, well, I unlocked it.
John: I have the skeleton key for what this musician or what good musician is like.
John: I've fallen for it.
John: I've been the young guy that wanted to talk to somebody and was like,
John: Wow, you know, is that a black beauty snare?
Merlin: Intention means a lot.
Merlin: It's like I like to say, sometimes emails are not to communicate information.
Merlin: They're to say I love you.
Merlin: There's a big difference between a call just to check in.
Merlin: In that case, somebody who's looking for an inroad to just say, hi, I'd like to visit with you for a minute.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I think that's lovely.
John: It is.
John: It's just that so much of that stuff is code for a language that used to be, I think, a lot more popular.
John: Yeah.
John: which is that there's authentic and there's fake.
John: There's honest and there's lying.
John: There's music that lies.
John: There's music that lies to you, and that's what you have to be on guard against if you are a 24-year-old punker.
Merlin: In the case of you're being tested by the person to gauge your authenticity?
John: Yeah.
John: That there's fake music.
John: That there's real punk and there's fake punk.
John: There's real country and there's fake country.
John: Right.
John: That there's real, you know.
John: Yeah, real jazz and fake jazz.
John: Exactly.
John: Yeah.
John: And that, I mean, people died over that shit at some point, as crazy as it sounds.
John: um mostly by od yeah like people died over whether or not the jazz they were making or that they loved was real enough and now in 2021 um looking back at it i don't even remember what
John: I mean, I can remember what it felt like to be in the room.
John: I can remember what it felt like to stand and talk to somebody who was kind of casting an aspersion that the music that you're making isn't real.
John: according to some, according to the fact that your bass player doesn't play with his fingers or whatever.
Merlin: But sometimes the rubric is not always clear.
Merlin: Like sometimes it's like, it's difficult to know, like when somebody comes up and says something like any of these things at first, I think it can be difficult to gauge, not just intention, but like, do you know what I mean though?
Merlin: Like it's, it's sometimes it's just that I feel like it's, it's, it is a challenge in some ways, like to come up and like make a reference or something and see how somebody reacts.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, well, I want nothing more than to walk up to my hero...
John: And say something that says... I'm in on it.
John: White sauce, not a problem.
John: And, you know, the number of times that I've walked up to Doug Marsh from Built to Spill in the, you know, in the hot case line backstage at a festival where we both got a tray...
John: and a meal ticket and somebody is about to put some chicken cacciatore on our little prison plates.
John: And, you know, and Doug, Doug Marsh is a little bit younger than me, but has been, uh, has been a musician I've admired since before I had a pot to piss in.
John: Like he was making music that I adored before it was even clear to me that I, isn't he a pretty introverted guy?
John: introverted and you know like at least in my case impossible to parse because the number of times i've said hey doug it's a john roderick we've met before uh i'm in the long winters i just wanted to say great show today or like you know hey your new album really great or you know like hey oh hey you know i just was talking to
John: Your bandmate, a guy I've known for 20 plus years, and he was saying that you guys were going to, you know, do some shows or, you know, just like – and to get –
John: to get more of a reply from his chicken cacciatore than from him.
John: Oh, geez.
John: Over and over this has happened, right?
John: But it seems like that's maybe not about you.
John: Do you see him being – Well, I know, but it sure feels about – I know, I know, I know.
John: And that's the hard thing because I'm standing there and I know that somewhere on the festival grounds there's somebody who wants to do that to me, probably less –
John: Less or fewer.
Merlin: But also, it's nice to be nice.
Merlin: And when you can have just even a little moment.
Merlin: And you don't seem like a creep, right?
John: You're not coming off as a creep.
John: I mean, I'm a little bit of a creep, sure.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: I mean, who among us isn't a creep, really?
Merlin: You couldn't even remember, what's his name?
Merlin: Joel McRae?
Merlin: What's his name?
Merlin: You couldn't even remember his name.
Merlin: Yeah, Joel McRae.
Merlin: And the blonde girl who knows about architecture in LA.
Merlin: The blonde girl.
Merlin: You know that gal.
Merlin: That gal from this thing.
Merlin: The one that knows about architecture.
John: Yeah.
John: Jeff Chase, I've seen him in movies.
John: What I don't have in that situation, though, is anything I actually want to say to Doug.
John: The only thing I want to hear him say, really, is, oh, hey, man.
John: Yeah, I really like that last Long Winters record.
John: Thanks for saying hi.
John: Be nice.
John: That's what I'm desperate for.
John: But I never really even got the hey, man...
John: And that's fine.
John: I realized I need to stop trying and just let go and let God.
John: I've tried to talk to Brit Daniel from Spoon multiple times.
John: Yeah.
John: But Brit Daniel...
John: Sometimes he would step down off of his hoverboard just to like spill a drink on my pants and then step back on it and just hover just very slowly.
John: It's not like he would speed away.
John: He knows what he did.
John: Very, very slowly hoverboard away.
John: Like at a speed that if I wanted to walk along kind of fast, I could keep up.
John: He just keeps throwing drinks.
John: Hey, hey.
John: It's a bandolier full of half-managed drinks.
John: so that's you know that's never played out for me but but i still and i don't know whether how how you fell on this whether you were whether you were deep enough into indie rock to have i know that you've been internalized a lot of it but like i did not ever feel like i was like i had a i could make an argument with
John: That what I was making was pure and unaffected and honest and true and all the things that my girlfriend in the 90s believed about music.
John: Right, right.
John: That Neutral Milk Hotel was...
John: Unaffected and true and honest and deep and profound and real.
Merlin: Almost like Alan Lomax just happened into a barn in Louisiana and just turned on the recorder and got it.
Merlin: So pure.
Merlin: You know what I mean, though?
Merlin: Like an Alan Lomax prison gang song or something.
Merlin: Or going into the interiors of Africa with a recorder and the only really pure music.
Yeah.
John: Yeah, the music was already being made, whether he had his microphone there or not.
John: And it was being made for a reason, which had nothing to do with being recorded or you ever hearing it.
John: It was being made for a practical reason, like the guitar was a spinning wheel or a hoe.
John: And the music was there to serve a purpose before God.
Merlin: Everything that one knows about the entire, not just music industry, but music as a whole thing, would seem like, not only can you just not imagine Jeff Mangum listening to, say, Missing Persons, but also that you would tell him the story of the Buzzcocks literally making their own covers for 45s and stuff like that.
Merlin: And you go like, God, you're going to put music on plastic and sell it in paper?
Merlin: Gross.
Merlin: That's so weird.
Merlin: I just sit here and play my hoe in the barn.
John: It's the crazy thing about hi-fi dads, right?
John: Because Alan Lomax records this music and then it goes to hi-fi dads who are like, oh, I always take the tubes out of my amp and put them in the freezer overnight because it chills the vibe down or whatever.
John: And the fact that the tubes take that much longer to heat up is the tone that I'm going for.
Merlin: And, you know, that's the only way you can really appreciate Robert Johnson, for example, Charlie Patton.
Merlin: You need to really get those tubes at the right temperature.
Merlin: Cool the tubes, is what they say.
John: Cool the tubes.
John: But, you know, those guys are feeling somehow, I mean, it got introduced into the water supply somehow.
John: Did those guys feel insincere or inauthentic, like culturally consuming stuff that
John: What they prized about it was its honesty, but that they were being voyeuristic somehow and that they had to – this is the problem, right?
John: Like is Jeff Mangum –
John: Mentally ill or not?
John: That was the question all through the 2000s where it was like, is it okay to listen to this?
John: Is it okay to listen to Bonnie, Prince, Billy, or Cat Power?
Merlin: Or what's his name?
Merlin: The Austin guy.
John: Yeah.
John: Johnston.
John: Not Brian Johnson or Robert Johnson, but Johnston.
John: Johnston.
John: Daniel.
John: Daniel Johnson.
John: Thank you.
John: But at the same time, like the exact same – like the flip side of that is like this is the only real music.
John: Like these people are the only truly gifted – they are the witches and warlocks of –
John: folk music yeah it's like folk art or like like a practically like feral art like anything right and anything short of that or any anything that with more artifice every additional bit of might as well be slayed yeah right you might as well just be like oh sure put you know why don't you write some songs about football in that case
John: If you're going to be able to give an intelligible interview or whatever.
John: And I always felt that we just didn't have the – we weren't – we didn't have the truth because I wasn't powered by –
John: I wasn't powered by my spleen or by my dirty pants or whatever.
John: I don't know what I was powered by, but whatever it was.
Merlin: But you're coming up in that age of distance and irony.
Merlin: I mean, not that irony was invented in the 90s, but I think about somebody like Pavement, who was well-regarded, a band that I like, a critical fave.
Merlin: But they played pretty feral in some ways, but they could not have been more deliberately...
Merlin: at least Malcolmus, could not be more deliberately and ironically detached, which maybe gave him more cred in that way.
John: The first time I saw Malcolmus sing like a regular person, sing like in tune.
John: Sing like he cares.
John: Sing like he cares.
John: I was like, oh, so he can.
Merlin: He can do it.
John: Yeah, he can.
John: And so if he can, that means that the whole thing has just been a
John: I mean, you have to try harder to sing like you don't care.
John: It takes a lot of work.
John: Yeah.
John: It's so much harder.
John: Yeah.
John: It's like, well, I saw a movie the other day.
John: Oh, oh, it was for Friendly Fire.
John: We were watching a movie where David Bowie, it was like a war movie.
John: And David Bowie was in a prison camp.
John: And at one point he starts singing.
John: Oh, Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
John: That's right.
John: Merry Christmas, Mr. Lawrence.
John: He starts singing in the prison camp.
John: And he sings out of tune.
John: He sings in a kind of raucous, flat way.
John: And it wasn't necessary for the character.
John: It was just a characterization that he did.
John: He chose to do like, well, this guy is a British officer.
John: There's no or a South African.
John: There's no reason he would know how to sing.
John: Wouldn't it be interesting?
Merlin: And it was the kind of voice you would hear in like a drinking song, like a boisterous sort of Casablanca, that sort of thing.
John: And to watch him do it and just be conscious of like.
John: How hard it would be, how hard it is as a singer to sing poorly without going over.
John: Right.
John: It's hard to imagine, say, like a Josh Groban pulling that off.
John: Because you can sing poorly.
John: I mean, I can sing poorly like, oh, yeah.
Merlin: But singing like an eighth tone off is very hard.
Merlin: Very hard.
Merlin: Especially if you're a good singer.
Merlin: You can't help it.
Merlin: Your brain is recalibrating to make you sound better than that.
John: Yeah, and in order to sing badly, you sing too badly or you sing – yeah, you sing self-consciously badly.
John: So how it was that Malcolmus managed to – I don't know.
John: I mean it's the strangest thing to attribute to someone as a gift.
John: Like, wow, he had a gift to really sound –
John: like someone he and his band really sounded like some people from Stockton, California who didn't know how to play music, which they were, except they weren't.
John: And I don't, I don't, I'll, I'll go to my grave, not knowing how to live in the same world as that.
John: Uh, because I was just struggling to write it.
John: a good song and sing it and to have enough talent and enough, like, I don't know, like hostility to go into the world and, and feel like writing songs is easy enough that I can also pretend I don't know how to play them and also have it be, have that be real and
John: And not, you know, I'm not like Mr. Bungling it.
John: It's, you know, it's not like I'm not in Ween.
John: It's not, I'm not, this isn't a joke band.
John: It's a serious band.
John: Those guys are very talented.
John: Well, and very serious.
John: I know that Ween is extremely serious.
Merlin: Well, you know, in some ways it makes me think, though, about like, for all of these things, this is a...
Merlin: Let's talk about a dumb rubric, but it's like, you know, like with certain TV shows or certain movies, when I'm sort of failing at explaining what I like about it, it could be bands also, obviously.
Merlin: It's like a phrase that I find myself using is, this movie really knows what it is.
Merlin: band really knows who they are you know what i mean and not like a conceited way but in a way of like you know there's all these different axes we're talking about here so in the case of ween like i know ween's not for everybody but they're extremely serious about how they're not serious like the way mickey plays guitar is just like that that guy's spent some hours in the woodshed getting to where he could play don't get too close to my fantasy in the way that he does where you know what i mean it's like so in some ways my my my
Merlin: guideline for that which is practically useless is like does this does this band know who they are and are they figuring out how to become more like themselves and i think with certain directors you can see that but it's it's just that i think people get a whiff of somebody who doesn't know who they are but thinks they do and that can be rough to watch i must stop you know i i'm watching this latest era of
John: made for TV series, prestige TV, super filmic TV shows.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: Um, because, uh, because it's coronavirus.
Merlin: And even though I don't even have a TV, but you could watch it on, uh, watch it on your Chromebook.
Merlin: Well, but I also, I know people that have TV.
Merlin: Okay.
John: All right.
Merlin: And, um, that's very, that's very broad minded of you.
Merlin: I have to say that you could look past, you know, your own, uh, desire to not have a TV and then, but be, be okay with that and set that aside.
Merlin: I think that's very cool of you.
Merlin: You do that for your friends.
Merlin: You do that.
John: Yeah.
John: And I, you know, I, you know, me, I like to keep my finger on the pulse, but I've been, I've been watching this TV and because I'm not, um, because I'm not a TV watcher,
John: Now, watching it, like a few years ago, I felt like, wow, Black Mirror is some kind of other level of good.
John: How is it possible to be making this other level of good in the regular world where what you're up against is...
John: uh, NCIS or whatever.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: And now it's like after years of watching law and order shows.
Merlin: And then my wife and I watched, you know, the wire and it was like, yeah, these are, these are really, these are practically almost different media.
John: But now it feels like every time somebody says, oh, you should check out the show.
John: And I go watch it.
John: And it's like, well, that how did they that's 10 episodes of like amazing television.
John: Right.
John: Like like amazing.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Like it's a good example where it's like it's not it's not the most groundbreaking thing in the world.
Merlin: But like like by standards of five or 10 years ago, it's like that's all anybody would be talking about right now.
John: Yeah.
John: Phenomenal.
Yeah.
John: And then I go on the internet.
Merlin: Oh, boy.
John: And it's not like I go on the internet to find out what people think about my favorite show.
John: It's just that it's inescapable if you have watched a thing.
Merlin: Yeah, Ted Lasso is a good example of that, where people who have decided that they are not going to watch Ted Lasso, especially with how many people talk about it.
Merlin: Then you start to notice how much it's inescapable, that you must join the zeitgeist.
Merlin: You have to wear the ribbon.
Merlin: You've got to watch the show that your friends are watching.
John: Yeah, yeah, yeah.
John: Kind of?
John: But what happens is then...
John: There's invariably, there's going to be somewhere at least a group of people who decided that they are going to tilt against this show.
John: Oh, right.
John: Oh, this show?
John: Yeah.
John: It's funny.
John: Most people don't tilt against Ted Lasso because Ted Lasso is built around the idea that tilting against it is doing more harm to yourself.
Right.
John: The whole premise of Ted Lasso is if you want to hate this show, by all means.
John: But like how does that make – does it make you feel better?
John: But most shows that are serious about themselves, that take themselves seriously, are also open to being accused of a thousand other things, right?
John: And watching people that want so badly to hate a TV show –
John: That to me, watching it as a noob, I guess, and feeling like, look, I've watched TV.
John: I'm 52 years old.
John: I fucking grew up on TV.
John: And this, whether you like it or not, is inarguably great.
John: I mean, it's amazing what got made here.
John: Now, maybe I'm not inside it enough.
John: I can listen to an album.
Merlin: Yeah, but there's always this sort of, like, when I run into that, and I think I know exactly what you're talking about, but you'll run into this thing, and I'm like, well, you know, B, I'm not going to find out, but A, I bet there's something, an inter-Nicene war problem.
Merlin: about something I don't currently understand behind this.
Merlin: And that could be like my kid.
Merlin: My kid has so many reasons that she won't watch Mandalorian.
Merlin: It's really frustrating to me.
Merlin: And of course, one of them is that, what's her head?
Merlin: You know, the gal, the gal from Rent, the gal from, you know, what's her name?
Merlin: Oh, Rosario Dawson.
Merlin: Apparently her family did some problematic things involving a trans person.
Merlin: And so my kid will not even allow Mandalorian to be on the screen.
Merlin: Which, no, I get that.
Merlin: Mandalorian.
Merlin: Oh, because she's Ahsoka.
Merlin: She's Ahsoka Tano.
John: I see.
Merlin: Who's now got her own show also.
Merlin: Now listen, I'm not saying that for any reason apart from, on the face of it, I mean, this happens all the time.
Merlin: And again, this is her version, I think, in some ways, of, oh, what was my example from earlier?
Merlin: But it's going to be so difficult for me to explain this to you without explaining five other things first.
Merlin: You know, we can't bake a cake until we've invented the universe.
Merlin: And she's going to have to explain some kind why people make fun of Lin-Manuel Miranda for a photo where he bit his lip once.
Merlin: Oh, yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Well, but like, you know, I guess when I say I want to know, what I mean is I really don't want to know.
Merlin: But is that kind of possibly what you're talking about?
Merlin: Do you sometimes feel like there's more to this than this person just didn't like the last season of Game of Thrones?
John: Oh, yeah, always.
John: And I don't speak the language fluently enough to...
John: be like if i listen to an album and i feel like the bass player is uh is to stanley clark i've got you know if you played with a pick you'd sound more like mike coleman yeah like if you played with a pick you'd sound like i belong in this band like i have some feelings about it right but i don't have any relationship to online um
John: that would compel me to go on there and have anything to say about this band.
John: I mean, I will go online every year and make some disparaging comments about the catalog of Billy Joel, but I do it only to get...
John: People riled up because I feel like... You have so many friends that love Billy Joel.
John: This is a sweeps week or whatever.
John: Oh, I see.
John: You've got to really bring in the big ratings.
John: Yeah.
John: You know?
John: But, for instance, Ahsoka... Now, I don't know what's going on with Rosario Dawson's relationship.
John: You've got to see Clone Wars, right?
John: Yes.
John: So, my daughter is a major Star Wars enthusiast.
John: She has very intuitively, from the very beginning...
John: Had a lot of questions about why there aren't more female protagonists.
John: Good question.
John: And in particular, why there aren't more toys of female protagonists.
John: Right.
John: Yes, you did mention this.
John: Yes.
John: And it was only later that I realized this is actually a thing, right?
John: That the toy manufacturers neglected to make enough toys.
John: toys of their female characters, even as Star Wars branched out into having female protagonists.
Merlin: You can find the most random, because they have to make those decisions long before the thing comes out.
Merlin: But even still, if you know Rey is going to be kind of the star of the thing, why isn't there more Rey stuff?
Merlin: You can find the most obscure, weird alien from one scene as an action figure.
John: But not Rey.
John: And so, you know, my kid is an action figure-oriented player, and she doesn't have
John: the girl character she wants in order to play with her own toys.
John: Now she does have every bounty hunter that lined up to talk to dark Vader about finding Han Solo.
John: Uh, she's got them all and she can, she's got a robot.
John: She's got a robot.
John: She can name them.
John: But when it comes to like – and they made three or four different Padme's.
John: But she's like – That's more like a Barbie though.
John: It's more Barbie, right?
John: She's like, I want more girls.
John: Well, Ahsoka, when she got into Clone Wars and Ahsoka hit the scene –
John: I mean, she is 100% Ahsoka, so much so that I went on the fucking dark web to find an Ahsoka.
Merlin: Ahsoka and who's, you know, Aayla Secura is the blue lady?
John: Yeah, Aayla Secura.
John: You know, finding that action figure.
John: God.
John: Did you go like eBay or something?
John: Yeah, it cost me a lot of money.
John: Oh my God.
John: Because they're not...
John: I mean, there should be Ahsoka action figures papering the Earth, right?
John: She's really cool.
John: It's nuts.
John: So when she appeared in The Mandalorian just recently, like everybody in the house, my sister, like we were all there.
John: And when she appears on the screen, like a giant cheer went up.
Merlin: It was thrilling.
Merlin: First of all, I didn't know that was Rosario Dawson.
Merlin: Second of all, I didn't know Rosario Dawson's family's history with the problematic trans stuff.
Merlin: But I have to say, I'd heard...
Merlin: I try to watch it as quick as I can now because we're getting to a point where there's a quickening of things happening and spoilers and whatnot.
Merlin: And like when she first appeared, I was like, I had the exact same reaction.
Merlin: I was, it was thrilling.
Merlin: Not least because the way they translated her from a cartoon into like a person.
Merlin: Were Aayla Secura in her one terrible, dumb scene?
Merlin: in that one Star Wars movie, you know, Order 66.
Merlin: Like, she wasn't as cool looking.
Merlin: They went more for the sexy thing.
Merlin: But, like, she looked so good.
Merlin: I was like, that's her.
John: Well, she looked like her grown-up.
Merlin: Leonardo DiCaprio pointing at the screen.
John: That's her.
John: I mean, this was the thing about Ahsoka was that she was a little girl or, you know, a teen during the Clone Wars.
John: She's a very pod one, pod one, yeah.
John: And now she's like a grown lady.
John: She's badass.
John: Oh, my God.
John: Anyway, the idea that...
John: That I, that, that my kid isn't, you know, that there would be people in the world that would want to take a Soka away.
John: And I don't mean want to take her away.
John: I mean that there would be problems with the actress playing a Soka that would, that would inspire in the, in the cause of justice, a group of people to say this thing, which is the thing my nine year old has been waiting for is no longer cool.
John: for, you know, for a sort of, uh, uh, cascading series of reasons is, is the kind of thing that I, I, the only thing I can relate it to is band culture at a certain point in time that had nothing to do with the, with social justice that had everything to do with like that, you know, that music is, is,
John: It was never that it was canceled.
John: It was that if you listened to that, it de...
Merlin: Like, it canceled you.
Merlin: Well, sometimes – and sometimes that could be as simple as, like – this is a very, very – I don't know.
Merlin: This is kind of a dumb thing to say.
Merlin: But, like – okay, just dead honest.
Merlin: I'm going to say there have been times in my life where – and I imagine times in your life, you also the listener, where learning that this was a band that somebody liked, let alone that it was their favorite band, their special band –
Merlin: Learning that about a person would lead to a phrase that we've all used at some point.
Merlin: That's all I need to know about him.
John: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: If you met somebody and they, without any prompting, told you their favorite band was Limp Bizkit.
Merlin: There's a time in my life where that's all I needed to know about them.
Merlin: Is that a time in your life past?
John: Is that a time in your life past?
John: Or does that still... Because I feel like if someone were to say, my favorite band is Limp Bizkit, and it's not...
John: And it's not ironic.
John: I don't know if I can recover from that.
Merlin: Well, I mean, insert any band here.
Merlin: Yeah, that's right.
Merlin: How about this?
Merlin: How about you think?
Merlin: Let's really get into this narcissism of small differences.
Merlin: Yes.
Merlin: Let's say you're really into Britpop.
Merlin: Well, the more that you're into Britpop, the more I bet you could say, oh, you like Blur more than Oasis?
Merlin: That's all I need to know about you.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Paul Revere and the Raiders more than the Beatles, really?
Merlin: Or like whatever.
Right.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: I don't know.
Merlin: I mean, I'm not saying that's smart or like savvy, but like there are things like that, I bet, where everybody has their reasons.
John: Well, sure.
John: And we don't – I mean, you and I are from a period of time where it's like you like Elliott Smith.
John: I like Elliott Smith.
John: This person likes Elliott Smith.
John: Who started liking Elliot Smith when and for why?
Merlin: Did you like Nick Drake before the VW ad?
John: Right.
Merlin: There's all these lines.
Merlin: Did you like Elliot Smith before his awkward Oscars performance or whatever?
John: You know what the ultimate one of this is?
John: And we're off the Ahsoka thing now.
John: This is not all a metaphor for that.
John: We're back to talking about music.
John: But Dave Depper, the new guitar player, and when I say new, he's been in the band for six years or whatever, but the new guitar player for Death Cab put up a...
John: Coronavirus boredom based ranking of all the REM records.
John: And, you know, like best to worst.
John: And a guy I know who is a little bit older than Dave Depper, but, you know, five years younger than me, put up his list of all the best REM records, best to worst, about three weeks ago.
John: And John Moe, the Minnesota public radio friend, John Moe put up his list of the best REM records, best to worst.
John: And you can look at those.
John: I could take those three lists and randomize them.
John: and show them to you, and you could tell me how old each person was.
Merlin: I was thinking exactly the same thing.
Merlin: Like, how many people are automatically going to pick up
Merlin: Or like, sorry, or like Automatic for the People?
Merlin: Yeah, sure.
Merlin: Versus like you look at, you say, oh, that guy's favorite album is Reckoning.
Merlin: He just turned 54.
John: That's right.
John: And that's the thing.
John: And basically where Reckoning is on the list is, I mean, if you took everything else and blurred it out.
John: I get it.
Merlin: Oh, that's so good.
John: Showed where Reckoning was because the youngest dude put Reckoning somewhere way down.
John: underneath some REM, some, you know, some post up REM records like reckoning is like, Oh, number eight.
John: And to read a list like that as a 52 year old makes one insane.
John: Right.
John: I mean, there's nothing that makes me want to grab a kid by a shirt and shake him more than failing to appreciate where reckoning belongs in a wrist, in a wrist of REM records.
John: Yeah.
John: Um, but yeah,
John: Maybe the young kid who's able to I mean, so the question is, is he ranking those later records more highly because he has a teenage
Merlin: uh connection to them or is he actually coming later able to listen to all the records exactly i i could see i i mean think about think about uh i'm gonna invoke them think about the beatles i mean i bet there's a lot of people that would say please please me or you know whatever was like was their favorite i mean i i i oscillate between rubber soul and revolver the correct answer is revolver
Merlin: What's that?
Merlin: Is that right?
Merlin: The correct answer is... And White Album's very good, too.
Merlin: But the thing is, I was not alive when any of those albums first came out.
Merlin: And to me, the ultimate example here would be something like Led Zeppelin, where it's like people who... And I'm not casting aspersion, but people who know Led Zeppelin from having heard it exclusively on the radio...
Merlin: But to have come up at a time when Led Zeppelin II was the new Led Zeppelin album, and then when Led Zeppelin III was the new Led Zeppelin album.
Merlin: Being there when those albums came out is such a different experience.
Merlin: You can't...
Merlin: It's really, really, it's pointless, let alone, difficult, let alone pointless to try and explain to somebody, oh, it's, you probably, if you were there for the year, like, Apostrophe came out or Joe's Garage or like, whatever, like, or Shake Your Booty, you'd be like, these albums were so goddamn weird.
Merlin: Imagine being there for Trout Mask Replica.
Merlin: All I'm trying to say is like, you know, my biggest beef with what you just described is the word best.
Merlin: Like, why do we have to say best?
Merlin: Why can't we just say, it changes the, I know this is not as fun to argue about, but it makes so much more sense to go, here's the REM albums I like in order of how much I like them.
Merlin: It sounds like a distinction without a difference, but that versus, here's them in the order of which one's best.
Merlin: And it's like,
Merlin: Ah, please.
Merlin: Are you English?
Merlin: Only English people do things like that.
Merlin: I think that's what they mean.
Merlin: But then there's nothing to argue about.
Merlin: You can't argue with I like Reckoning close to as much as I like Murmur.
Merlin: I mean, I could basically say to you that with Rush, it starts at this point in the graph, it goes up here, it peaks there, and then it goes down from there.
Merlin: And you would know exactly what albums I'm talking about.
John: I mean, from my standpoint, any band that started recording in 1970, if they made it past 1982, I...
John: doubt it i mean rush being one of the one of the main examples of a band that made it past like rush and rush knew who they were rush and rush kept doing it right i mean rush had a record in 1970 but rush also had a record in 1990 that first time i saw them live was probably 2005 or six
John: But by that point in time, I mean, and I do not want to incur the ire of Pink Floyd people.
John: Oh, boy.
John: Because I hear you that the David Gilmour era of Pink Floyd is amazing and absolutely still canonical Floyd, but...
John: It's a different band.
John: You're saying a Pink Floyd without Roger Waters.
John: Without Roger Waters is a different band.
John: It's called Pink Floyd.
John: And David Gilmour is my favorite member of Pink Floyd.
Merlin: I like the one that was called The Pink Floyd and they had a real singer.
John: It's a different band.
John: But like now, I'm sure I remember sitting and arguing with someone, maybe not arguing, but talking about the album Presence.
John: As though there was something controversial about it.
John: Absolutely.
John: And trying to figure out, like, what the fuck about presents.
John: And now we don't live in a world where Led Zeppelin talk is any kind of currency anymore.
John: There's no way that you could go into a room and divide people by how they feel about presence.
Merlin: Definitely nobody under a certain age.
Merlin: I think this is going to be a real boring argument to have with somebody who's 26, probably.
John: Although somebody that's 26 is probably the only people that care.
John: They're catching up on Spotify.
John: Good point.
John: And they're listening to Zeppelin albums and they're going like, oh my God, this one's good and this one's bad.
John: And if you're 54, it's like, oh, which is on presence again?
John: Is that a killer's last stand?
John: I don't remember anyway.
John: Boy, I used to smoke a lot of weed.
Merlin: Presence is the one with the weird cover that was probably by Hypnosis.
Merlin: It's a very Hypnosis cover.
Merlin: With the obelisk, yeah.
Merlin: Oh, wait, I thought it was the family sitting around the table.
John: Yeah, the family sitting around the table with the obelisk, yeah.
John: Oh, see, it's like the gorilla with a basketball.
John: I know, I know.
John: I was thinking a couple of days ago that the number of
John: of bands that we grew up on, because we're early Gen X. I have reconciled myself to understanding.
Merlin: I'm much closer to Boomer than whatever came after us.
John: I used to fight it, right?
John: Yeah.
John: But we were raised where serious young people listened to a kind of music that an awful lot of the purveyors of that kind of music were
John: English and they were presenting themselves as wizards and their music was about Satan.
John: They were English young people who were wizards who were singing about Satan.
Merlin: I can't tell if you're talking about Judas Priest or Rick Wakeman, but in either case it works.
John: It works, right?
Merlin: I mean, if you think about... I was watching Heavy Metal Parking Lot last night for the first time in years.
Merlin: Such a good movie.
Merlin: Such a good movie.
Merlin: It's on YouTube if you want to check it out.
Merlin: Also, the follow-up from 2006 where they catch up with people who were in Heavy Metal Parking Lot.
John: Oh, I hadn't seen that.
Merlin: But, like, you know, but, like, I remember when I was first learning about Rick Wakeman, I was like, he actually really would wear, like, a floor-length cape on stage.
John: That guy's a fucking wizard.
John: Jimmy Page lived in Aleister Crowley's house.
John: I mean, if you just... The number of wizards...
John: A lot of wizards, but also cheapskates.
John: A lot of English wizards are cheapskates.
John: For sure.
John: Well, because, you know, like, they're giving it all to Satan.
John: They're tithing it all to Satan.
John: But then there was a transition somewhere.
Merlin: Hey, hey, hey, who ordered appetizers?
Merlin: Hello, hello, hello.
Merlin: What's all this thing?
John: I'm not going to pay for that.
John: In our lives, and because we're however old, right, we were still listening to wizard music.
John: Yeah.
John: even as the serious young people started to turn to music that was defiantly not about wizards, that, that, that presented itself as being authentically from the streets.
John: And that music was all, I mean, the put on there was that it was a bunch of middle-class kids all claiming to, you know, not care about anything.
John: And then it, you know, it,
John: I mean, our young lives were spent in this kind of conflict between like, wow, this wizard music is really cool, but also it's so uncool.
John: It's just a bunch of like old English dudes pretending to be wizards.
John: I really should be more serious.
John: And that seriousness involves having my music be less fun and more angry.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, I think a lot about the generation that came after us that grew up post-transformation of hip-hop from serious-minded, like, kind of, like, Enlightenment revolution-based to, like...
John: these are the real stories of pimps slinging rock.
Merlin: Wait, so you're talking about going from Boogie Down Productions to NWA, kind of?
John: No, I mean, NWA was the thing that bridged the gap.
John: No, I'm talking about going from an era, the late 80s, where hip-hop went from
John: um, being like a New York phenomenon to being a phenomenon where college educated blacks were talking about, we're, we're giving you the real story of the world in a way that was supposed to be edifying.
Merlin: Oh, so that could be like a, uh, like a Dale of soul tribe called quest kind of period or jungle brothers.
John: But also, also including, um, um,
John: Slick Rick.
John: Also including Slick Rick.
John: But, you know, Eric B. and Rakim, like, that was all serious music.
John: Yes, yes, yes.
John: And it was meant to lay out the truth of the world.
John: Made him clap to this.
John: And also show, you know, it was forward-looking.
John: It was laid out a path, right, to a different world.
John: And then that, through kind of the aperture of NWA,
John: just opened up into a different world, which is like, we're not trying to make it a better world.
John: We're just trying to tell it how it is.
John: The music now is going to be like reportage.
John: And then from there, it goes into basically wizards worshiping Satan.
John: It's just the wizards were this imaginary world of crunk cup.
John: You're talking about getting chopped and screwed?
John: You know, just like all of a sudden.
John: Get your drink.
John: Yeah.
John: But it's still representing itself as reportage.
John: It's just that it's fantasy now.
John: Who's the wizard now?
John: Who's the wizard now?
John: Right.
John: And so like the wizards, the old Satan wizards, I mean, they weren't fun.
John: If you remember listening to that music in the 70s, it was dark and dangerous and scary.
John: Absolutely.
John: Those musicians themselves were dying of heroin.
John: It was plausible.
John: They were actually worshiping Satan.
John: A lot of them were very dirty.
Merlin: dirty it was no not dirty in the blue sense but dirty in the sense of like you get like a not just lemmy god bless them but you know people who are a little bit gritty you get maybe a saxon you get like a new wave of british heavy metal kind of thing which was slick but still a little bit dingy a little dirty and you don't know what's i think a lot of those bands have some wizards there's there's history and wizards in iron maid a lot of history and probably some wizards more wizards than history frankly almost all their songs are history
Merlin: About wizards in history.
Merlin: History.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: All right.
Merlin: I would watch that TED Talk.
John: Jack the Ripper.
John: Okay.
John: Wizard.
John: Right.
John: History.
John: Charge of the Light Brigade.
John: Wizards.
John: Every one of those people was a wizard.
John: So, I mean, if you think about who came... You'll take my orb, but I'll take yours too.
John: Who's zooming who, right?
Merlin: Who's zooming who?
John: Who's the wizard zooming who?
John: Do the wizards look like they're in the charge of the Light Brigade or do the charge of the Light Brigade soldiers, are they taking style from wizards?
Merlin: Exactly the kind of question a wizard would ask.
Merlin: Just because you look like a wizard doesn't make you a wizard.
Merlin: You don't look like a wizard doesn't mean you're not in the charge of the Light Brigade.
John: Right.
John: Just because you're wearing a waistcoat.
John: Are you in a metal band?
John: Waistcoat, I'm going to say you're in a Doctor Who episode.
John: That's the thing.
John: See, you're putting that on.
John: He's a wizard.
John: He's kind of a wizard.
John: He's absolutely a wizard.
John: And I was going to say that's after the fact, but there was Doctor Who happening all the way back.
John: Shit, dog.
John: Right?
John: Yeah.
John: See, I only came to Doctor Who later because they didn't have Doctor Who on my shortwave radio.
John: You didn't even know on TV.
John: But it's from the 70s?
John: Yeah.
John: 60s?
John: When was the first Doctor Who?
Merlin: 1963, November 23rd.
John: No.
John: TV?
John: TV show?
Mm-hmm.
John: So Jimmy Page is sitting in his short pants watching Doctor Who, and he's like, which way do I go?
Merlin: Mommy, mommy.
John: Which way do I go?
John: I mean, I've got this guitar.
Merlin: I want to save money and be serious about my studies.
John: I don't have a TARDIS.
John: What's the next best thing?
Merlin: Lands in a junkyard, and then history changed forever.
John: The next best thing is a cape, right?
John: You put on a cape.
Merlin: It's like a port-a-tardis.
Merlin: A lot of wizards in Harry Potter, literally, they have capes.
Merlin: They're all wizards.
John: The Kennedys own some property on the Cape.
John: There's zero metal in the Kennedys, but there's lots of metal in Harry Potter.
John: Lots of metal.
John: Am I wrong?
John: Don't you find lots of heavy metal?
John: I don't know enough about Harry Potter, but it seems to me that the whole thing is just like a heavy metal magazine from the UK in 1985.
John: Yeah.
John: I'm going to think on that.
John: If you took all of the, if you're like, you're a huggle puff and you're a shmuffin smurfs.
John: You're a shmuffin smurfs.
John: And it's basically just like, name my band.
John: You just take those people and it's like, oh yeah, they're, I mean, they're a little bit fresh faced at first, but.
Merlin: Palladium anorexia.
Merlin: Put a curse on somebody.
Merlin: All right.