Ep. 558: "Good Imodium"
Merlin: Hello?
Merlin: Hi, John.
Merlin: Hi, Merlin.
Merlin: He's right there again.
Merlin: That was good.
Merlin: Right down the plate.
Merlin: You know, if you don't record it, you can't put it out.
Merlin: That's what they say.
Merlin: Wouldn't be the first time.
Merlin: There's so much of that.
Merlin: Huh?
Merlin: What?
Merlin: Huh?
Merlin: Oh, oh, just, just, you know, no, I'm sorry.
Merlin: I'm just talking about podcasts.
Merlin: What'd you call me?
Merlin: I called you probably, what did I call?
Merlin: I called you something this weekend.
Merlin: What did you call me?
Merlin: I called you, I called you the, um, uh, you're one of my two favorite episodes of Song Exploder is what I called you.
Merlin: Oh yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: The other one's Closing Time.
Merlin: That's on Closing Time.
Merlin: Closing time!
Merlin: It's about having a baby.
Merlin: I didn't know that.
John: I didn't know that either.
John: I thought it was about the gang at Friends all being at a bar and you don't have to go home, but you can't stay here.
John: Sorry, that was my friend's percussion, if memory serves.
John: You came up this weekend, too.
John: No.
John: Yep, you do.
John: Your name comes up all the time.
John: Your name rings out, as they say.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: Do I want to know?
Merlin: Oh, yeah.
Merlin: I'm very vulnerable right now, John.
Merlin: I don't know if I can take a shout-out.
John: Well, I was in Las Vegas.
John: Of course.
John: Yeah.
John: I was in Las Vegas.
Merlin: I was in Las Vegas.
John: All right.
John: To attend a King Grizz and the Wizards show.
John: Oh, wow.
John: And, you know, your name now is in the lore.
Merlin: King Giz and the Whistle is lore.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: So, you know, I don't know if you know this because you're not like the YouTube consumer that I am.
Merlin: But I think this is accurate that like they stream, I think, every or almost every show live.
Merlin: Every show.
Merlin: Every show.
Merlin: They don't, like, sometimes it shows back up later, but it does stream live.
Merlin: And, like, sometimes I'll just be flipping around.
Merlin: I'll be like, oh, hey, look, they're playing.
Merlin: And I'll flip it on.
Merlin: In the middle of the show, yeah.
Merlin: Yeah, so what had happened was last week I flipped it on, and it was still the, even Madeline, even Madeline, who puts up with a lot.
Merlin: She likes them, but, like, not as much as I do.
Merlin: But I was like, oh, my God, look, it's the countdown to their show in San Francisco.
Merlin: And I was just from, like, three miles away.
Merlin: I was watching King Gizna Liz.
Merlin: And I think they did almost the whole thing with just keyboards.
Merlin: They had like a keyboard table at the middle of the table.
John: Yeah, that's a part of their show.
John: They do the table.
Merlin: It's very Krautrock.
Merlin: If you like stuff like Noi, not so much Kraftwerk, but if you like stuff like Cannes and Noi, it's got that feel.
Merlin: They seem to understand what all the boxes do.
Merlin: And I just, I keep talking to Madeline and gesturing, and I'm like, and the phrase I keep saying over and over, these same two words that she's all too familiar with now, same band.
Merlin: Same band.
Merlin: Same band.
Merlin: Same band.
Merlin: And then I watched them.
Merlin: Where were they?
Merlin: You might have been at the show.
Merlin: It was a big venue.
Merlin: I was watching this night or two ago, and they were back on their bullshit with the metal, and it was fucking amazing.
Merlin: That drummer!
Merlin: Yeah, yeah.
Merlin: Is it okay that we're talking about King Gizna and Liz Whiz?
John: We're really talking about me, ultimately, right?
John: See, that's what it is.
John: It's really about you, and now I'm you.
Merlin: They seem so nice.
John: Now I'm in.
John: I'm in all the way.
John: I flew to see them.
John: No kidding.
John: Yeah.
John: Huh.
John: And so, how was the show?
John: Amazing.
John: Yeah.
John: They're really a great band.
John: In fact, I think they may be right now the greatest band.
Merlin: You know, it's funny.
Merlin: It's hard to say.
Merlin: I mean, it's one of those bands that I think is probably a little bit difficult to turn people on to for a variety of reasons.
Merlin: You kind of have to be there already in some way.
Merlin: The thing I said from my early fandom of them, and just to be clear, this is a band we're talking about from Australia.
Merlin: We talked about them before, but I just really want to underscore that they put out 25 albums in 10 years.
Mm-hmm.
Merlin: They are unbelievably productive and prolific and diverse.
Merlin: Some of their stuff is like new wave pop.
Merlin: I mean, you can't even begin to talk about... A lot of it is very heavy with microtonal guitars and stuff like that.
Merlin: But what I said first, no matter what your... This is an exaggeration that I hope you'll appreciate, but it gives you the feel.
Merlin: No matter what your favorite King Gizzard and the Wizard song is, it doesn't sound like anything else they do.
Right.
Merlin: You know what I mean?
Merlin: It's amazing.
Merlin: When you go back and just go through YouTube and kind of just randomly click on stuff.
Merlin: And yeah, there'll be a lot of stuff like Gila Monster and the heavy stuff you might have heard of.
Merlin: But then they've just got these beautiful pop songs.
Merlin: And then Stu just busts out a flute and starts playing flute.
Merlin: And you're like, come on.
John: Yeah.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, yeah.
John: I mean, they are...
John: as you say very hard to categorize but i feel like uh in terms of i've never listened to a recording let's put it that way but their live show is as good an experience of seeing live music as anything and that's why their their streaming is so successful
John: They got one guy who roams the stage with a camera.
John: That's what I've heard.
John: He's very good.
John: They accept him entirely as a member of the band.
John: And then there's another guy.
John: And they've got cameras around.
John: And there's a guy live switching.
John: And then at this show in Vegas, the live switching guy, because the Vegas venue, it was the same venue that I saw Ugly Kid Joe opening for the Scorpions.
John: They had this incredible video screen in the back at LED, and then they had video screens on the side that were also incredible.
John: The Scorpions and Ugly Kid Joe really did not make great use of.
John: But King Giz and the Liz Whiz are really good at video.
John: So they actually put the live stream cameras up live as a component of the video show, a component of the light show.
Merlin: Yeah, that makes sense.
John: Yeah, cutting in and out of this, and it's just like, wow, really multimedia.
John: But I think live, they're just without peer.
Merlin: The thing I was struggling around that led me to say they're difficult to recommend is that if I say something like...
Merlin: if I compare them in some ways to like a jazz band or even with classical music, it's going to sound silly, but you know, one, but here's like one example is like, just take a pretty straight up rock band, like dire straits, like, um, you know, they're a really good band.
Merlin: Mark Knopfler, obviously a very good guitarist.
Merlin: And like, but like as much as you want to hear the solo, right?
Merlin: from the two solos, one of the great two solo songs.
Merlin: If you want to hear the solo sound exactly like the record, that's, you know, it'll sound a little like the record, but not exactly like the record.
Merlin: He hasn't played it the same way twice since he recorded it.
Merlin: But you feel like he's playing around the part that you're used to.
Merlin: He's doing the same pentatonics and the bends and the pull-offs and all this stuff.
Merlin: But like EVH, you know, or any of the other, like the classic musicians in rock music, he...
Merlin: Thelonious Monk.
Merlin: He doesn't play it the same way twice.
Merlin: And these guys, you just don't know what's going to come next.
Merlin: And again, sorry, this is the worst episode of the show ever.
Merlin: They also don't play, as we said before, they never play the same song twice in the same city.
Merlin: And so you don't, you know, you get what you get and you don't get upset.
Merlin: But if you like musicians and like, this sounds always sounds, I'm so reluctant to say this because I think this constantly and I feel like I'm trying to steal valor or something every time I say it.
Merlin: But if you've been in a band
Merlin: and you've played in a rock band and rehearsed and played out and done all the stuff in a rock band, you know the special feeling of playing in a rock band.
Merlin: It's a very special feeling.
Merlin: And I get that from watching them.
Merlin: The same way that I get that from, like, I have a whole list.
Merlin: I have a list on Spotify.
Merlin: A Spotify playlist is just songs I wish I could have played on.
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: You ever have that where you're like, oh, man, I don't know if I would have added anything to that, but you can tell the chemistry on this.
Merlin: And they're like that.
Merlin: They get up there and you trust them to do whatever it is they're going to do with their different personalities and styles.
Merlin: And sometimes there's five guitars and sometimes there's five keyboards.
Merlin: And sometimes you don't know what you're going to get.
Merlin: And it's absolutely thrilling to me to watch.
John: I felt like that about Sunset Valley.
John: Do you remember the band Sunset Valley?
Merlin: Yeah, they were.
Merlin: I remember seeing them.
Merlin: This is going to sound weird to you, but like John Vanderslice had a studio called Tiny Telephone, but also had an MP3 blog called Tiny Telephone, which was my introduction to you name it.
Merlin: Death Cab, Beulah.
Merlin: And I remember Sunset Valley being one of those, but I don't remember anything about them.
John: They made a record.
John: They had a couple of great records, and they made a record called Ice Pond.
John: Where are they from?
John: They're from Portland.
John: But they were on Barsouk, and their record, they had a...
John: They had a record, this Ice Pond record, and it was long.
John: It was a long one of those records where it's like, there's another song?
John: But I wanted to have played on that record so badly that I went to them and said, listen, I will join your band.
John: I'll be the rhythm guitar player.
John: I'll never step to the front of the stage.
John: I'll just stand back there in the shadows and I'll play those incredible riffs and
John: And I'll be happy.
John: I'll be so happy.
John: I'll be so much happier.
Merlin: Also, hi, my name is John Roderick, and I'm a musician.
John: I can just play those riffs.
John: Because they were three-piece, but the record had riffs that needed to be played by me.
Merlin: Oh, believe me.
Merlin: I feel that way, even though I'm not a good singer at all.
Merlin: But there's parts where I'm like, I need to be singing back up on that song.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: What are you guys even doing that I'm not already doing this?
Merlin: This will surprise you, but I watch a lot of videos of music.
Merlin: And I went through a Springsteen thing last night where I watched some of Hammersmith Odeon 75 and Passaic 78 and Houston 78.
Merlin: And I'm like, I just want to sing...
Merlin: I just want to sing the little Steven parts on every Bruce Springsteen song.
Merlin: Everybody's got those things, right?
Merlin: Like the Paul harmony or whatever.
Merlin: And you're like, oh, that was made for me.
Merlin: This makes me feel alive to sing this.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: Well, they rejected my offer.
John: Sunset Valley said no thanks.
John: Yeah.
John: They had a great song called Jackass Crusher.
John: Okay.
John: Which was about crushing jackasses.
John: It was a different time.
John: It really was.
John: 2001.
John: Never forget.
John: But if I could have been in Sunset Valley, I think their lives would be different today and my life would be different today.
Merlin: Where do you see yourself 23 years ago?
Merlin: What would have been different for you?
Merlin: If I had joined Sunset Valley?
Merlin: Well, then you would have still done the Long Winners, but you would have done it as the highly lauded something or other player in Sunset Valley.
John: I think, you know, there are a lot of people in my world of musicians who have been in a ton of bands.
John: Like if you look at the roster of the shins.
John: Oh, I know.
John: There have been 15 people through the shins.
John: And I know seven of them pretty well.
John: And they all have their own bands.
John: And they all have their own lives.
John: They just do a year in the shins.
John: And I never got to be in the shins.
John: And the Decembrists never had any guests, so I never got to do that.
John: And Death Cab barely ever had anybody even in the dressing room.
John: But Sunset Valley, I think, if I had done it, what I needed was role models, Merlin.
John: I didn't know how to be the leader of a band.
John: And when I started being the leader of a band,
John: I had no sense of what I was supposed to do, how I was supposed to behave.
John: And I think if I'd watched another band more closely, Harvey Danger being not a good example of the type of band I should have modeled myself on.
John: He's got some unique personalities in that band.
John: I mean, and this is the thing about being backstage at King Giz and Liz Whiz and watching them interact with each other.
John: You know, I can't divulge what it's like, but it's very positive.
Merlin: Did you get to visit with them and say hi this time too?
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: Oh, that's so nice.
Merlin: I'm so envious.
Merlin: This was one where I was there for a couple of days.
Merlin: I feel like the guy with the bangs on the right side of the stage, I feel like he and I would get along.
Merlin: I think so.
Merlin: Obviously, Stu and I have the same chronic bowel disease, so I think we'd get along.
Merlin: I think I'd get along with all of them, but I think I really would super want to hang out with the keyboard guy who looks like Honoré de Balzac.
John: he does and he's very good he's very talented he's such a good singer oh my god he's a good singer but the um the uh the thing is they like each other and they're really they and they hang out with each other and they're friendly and they have people working for them who are good and so what there wasn't what i've never seen in any any interactions with them is anybody stressing out or stomping around or having a
John: You know, what they need is there, and then when they need it, it's there, and then they don't, none of them have any particular drama they need to inflict on anybody else.
John: It's lovely.
Merlin: It seems very collaborative, and you can see them, especially sometimes you go back and you'll, again, this is...
Merlin: from watching these live shows, you'll see them go back and there'll be a little conversation with the drummer and they're working out one thing.
Merlin: They know all the parts, but they've got so many songs, even if they've got a set list, it may not be something I'm guessing that they've played in the last week, maybe even sometimes.
Merlin: They're working out a lot, working stuff out.
John: They played two songs at the Vegas show and everybody that I knew that worked for the band said, I've never heard them play this.
Merlin: Okay, I sent you the wrong link.
Merlin: But so here's, it turns out this was on YouTube.
Merlin: Click through that.
Merlin: And so basically what we have here is a 18 video playlist that I created at some point, and it's called I Want to Play in This Band.
Merlin: And it features things like Suffer for Fashion of Montreal, Gigantic by Pixies, Teenage FBI by Guided by Voices, a lot of the stuff you would imagine.
Merlin: But what's the first track?
Merlin: The very first thing I added to this list.
Merlin: Can you see?
Okay.
Merlin: The very first thing on this list is a King Wizard and the Lizard Wizard show from 2019.
Merlin: Ancient Belgique.
Merlin: I think this is the one that begins with just drumming.
Merlin: This is the song, the concert begins with just drumming.
Merlin: And did I come up when you were talking to them?
John: uh well i'm guessing yeah my my sense is that the band themselves is um because they're very friendly yeah uh their sense of me i i have now appeared twice yes and they are like hello yeah yeah yeah yeah but i and and and we've actually done we've actually gone out can i withdraw that question because i meant the question is a bit and i feel like it didn't come across as a bit
Merlin: no no no it's a it's a bit did you know that it was a bit that i there was no conceivable reason why i would come up and that's what made it funny to me was asking it but i don't know if that's we're having everybody's having a rough week is it clear that that was a bit it is because as i was about to explain they don't know who i am either they think that maybe i'm you should mention you know me the local promoter okay uh like at one point i bet they think you're you're somebody you're somebody that somebody owes a favor
John: Yeah, maybe.
John: The drummer at one point came up to me and said, hey, thanks for the show.
John: And I didn't know what that meant.
John: Is he nice?
John: They're all extremely nice.
John: They seem really nice.
John: They're nice.
John: No, but you came up with the people that are running the operation.
John: Because now, after the last King Gives in the Wiz conversation that you and I had.
Merlin: Even with a missing tooth, you're still killing it.
John: They, some of the people, went and listened to that episode of Roderick on the Line.
John: and then they became aware of merlin and then they then they said at in vegas they said hey listen when you know where does he live we'll put him on the list oh that's so nice and i said well he you were just in his town you were just in san francisco and i don't know i would have no problem at all being on that radar screen yeah but i did would you go absolutely oh you would go to the show
John: Well, sometimes you don't want to go to the show.
Merlin: Sometimes you're like, oh.
Merlin: Let's take a beat here.
Merlin: And let's figure out the extent to which that is a fair remark about my life.
Merlin: I said, do you want to go see the pulp show?
Merlin: I got double.
Merlin: That one I got a little scared about.
Merlin: But a lot of it, if I find out they're playing right now, and I could go see them right, that's, you know, this is a month I become even older.
Merlin: But no, if I knew about it, I could plan ahead and take my Imodium early and, you know, bring Stu some Imodium maybe.
Merlin: I don't know if they've got, they've probably got good Imodium in Australia.
Merlin: Who knows?
Merlin: Who knows?
Merlin: It might be made out of ground-up wombats.
Merlin: Are they considered an invasive species?
Merlin: See, now I feel bad.
Merlin: They're going to listen to this and think I'm a ding-a-ling.
John: No, nobody listens to this and thinks you're a ding-a-ling.
John: Do I sound needy?
John: I feel like I sound kind of needy this episode.
John: No, no, no, no.
John: You sound amazing.
John: I mean, listen, 40% of our listeners punched out when the third time we started talking about King Giz and Elizabeth.
John: So it's just friends now.
John: It's only our tight bros.
Merlin: Can I make a remark?
Merlin: Do you mind if I make a remark?
Merlin: i'd like to hear it um i setting aside the fact that i think this is more than anything else this is an interesting band like i don't know i mean i i think they're fantastic but they it is difficult not to see them as interesting the more you listen to them the more you learn about them the more you see their collaborations with people it's like they're they're they're very uh they're very very interesting um
Merlin: Setting that aside for just a moment, whatever band it is, if it was a band I'd never heard, I still think it's kind of exciting that you've found music that's happening right now that you're actively kind of excited about.
Merlin: That makes me happy.
John: well it's all part and parcel of you know a year ago a year ago the long winters got asked to play that benefit show for the children's hospital that was being put on by the nordstrom family oh yeah i remember this yeah yeah and the nordstrom son is this when mike first this is when mike was first music directing sort of yeah
John: Mike first came back.
John: He had just, you know, Mike's getting a divorce.
John: He first came back to Seattle.
John: He's like, what the hell have you been doing?
John: And I said, not a thing.
John: And he said, well, that's going to change.
John: I'm going to put you to work.
John: And I said, I don't know.
John: That sounds like work.
John: And he was like, yeah.
John: And then the, not the eldest Nordstrom brother, but the one that runs the company was like, I'm playing bass in the Long Winters.
Merlin: And at the time I felt like... The great Thorsten Nordstrom.
Merlin: Yeah, Thorsten Veblen Nordstrom.
Merlin: Thorsten Veblen Nordstrom.
Merlin: Thorsten Veblen, Thorsten Finlansen, yes.
John: And at that point, you know, I still hadn't really done anything since being dad.
John: I had been quiet.
John: I'd gone to some events and I sat at the table and I kind of looked around and waited for somebody to come over and dump their drink on my head.
John: And I was still just like, I don't know.
John: And the fact that the Nordstrom's with all of their, because they are a very cautious family in the sense that they don't take sides.
John: They don't, they never endorse a local candidate.
John: They never, they're a friend to everybody.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: And, uh, and an enemy.
Merlin: Is it still, is it still, I forget my not knowing.
Merlin: Are they still privately owned?
Merlin: Oh yeah.
Merlin: It's family company.
Merlin: Okay.
Merlin: There you go.
John: And they don't screw around.
John: And they're Scandahoovians, so they don't show their emotions anyway.
John: I mean, you could sit at the Nordstrom house on... What the hell?
John: The other island.
John: I've lost the names of all the islands.
John: And everybody my age here in Seattle has.
John: I've spent so many conversations recently where there's a group of us standing around.
John: It's like, it's on the island that's up by the...
Merlin: But if you're around people who are like you, you know that they know the thing that you don't know, too, and that's a placeholder that can fit.
Merlin: I know the one you mean.
John: No, I was saying Mercer Island.
John: That's the island.
Merlin: Mercer Island.
Merlin: James Mercer is the singer from Shins.
John: Yeah, Steve Mercer, as we call him.
John: But, you know, you could be at Nordstrom House, and it could be on fire, and they wouldn't even put their gin and tonics down.
Hmm.
John: Anyway, the fact that they wanted to do that show or that he, that Pete wanted to do the show and it's his, it's his charity.
John: And there just wasn't any hesitation and knowing, knowing the Nordstrom's.
John: Yeah.
John: I was like, wow.
John: Okay.
John: You know, like that feels, that feels not just safe, but like validating.
John: And from the, and that was, that was last year at almost this time.
John: And from that time, I've done all these things that
John: And knock on wood, none of them have produced any bad in the world.
John: Every show I've done, I started doing that monthly show where I just sat up on stage and looked out at the crowd and was like, you actually paid $20 to see this.
John: It's just me sitting up here on a stool crying.
John: And they were like, it's what we like.
Yeah.
John: and so i'm just i haven't yet said yes to something where i felt like boy i wish i hadn't said yes to that and it's only been a year and now i feel really deeply cleansed you know i was i went i went to see laura ramoso the comedian um she's the one on instagram that does impressions of her german mother okay
John: And Marlo loves her so much that she walks around talking like Laura Ramoso's German mother all the time.
John: Oh my God.
John: And part of the joke is that Laura Ramoso's German mother is extremely critical of her and very like German about it.
John: Yeah.
John: And so my little girl walks around being very critical in a German accent.
John: And so I saw she was coming to town and I bought her a ticket and we went to the show.
John: And she's a wonderful comedian, and I recommend her highly to everybody.
John: But we sit down in the seats, and we're getting ready to watch the show.
John: And then two people come and sit down next to us, and it's Mark Arm and his wife from Mudhunt.
John: And I said, Mark, hi.
John: And he said, oh, hey, John, how are you?
John: And I said, great.
John: How's it going?
John: And back and forth.
John: Talked a little bit about grunge music because that's right on the tip of both of our tongues.
John: How's the grunge?
John: Oh, great.
John: How's the grunge coming in this year?
John: What's the grunge?
John: What's the grunge?
John: What's the grunge, Arm?
John: Hey, what's up?
John: What's the grunge?
John: And then I say, this is my daughter.
John: and you know and and she doesn't know who he is but she leans forward and is like oh hello nice to meet you and he says um something about her being full of beans oh not to her oh that's nice i like that and his wife elbows him in the in the ribs oh because of the beans yeah and she's like and she says to him she's like low-hanging fruit
John: and he goes what what what you know uh grunge and it was funny because you know that that that generation which is to say me my generation he's a little older than you and me but like that of course is is where he goes right
John: But as a joke and as fun and as... It's playful.
John: Yeah, playful.
John: It sounds like it's not meant to be hurtful.
John: Far from it, right?
John: Meant to be like, hey, we're all in this together kind of thing.
John: I've said that a lot this week.
Merlin: That we're all in this together?
John: Yeah, you know what, Merlin?
John: That's very true.
John: We are all in this together.
Merlin: Every time I say it, I think of Robert De Niro in Brazil.
Merlin: Remember he says to Jonathan Price when he comes and fixes his ducks?
Merlin: Yeah, his classic role.
Merlin: We're all in this together.
Merlin: Yeah, I think that's a wonderful way.
Merlin: Was there a moment, though, where, I mean, okay, so sorry, I'm really dumb.
Merlin: So do you think he was deliberately making a reference?
John: Oh, for sure.
John: Oh, I mean, his wife gave him the elbow.
John: And then he was like, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha.
John: Like it was, you know, it was a goof.
John: He was making a goof.
John: um and he when i wrote that punk rock is article he goofed on me pretty hard during then too but always playful and always you know it's seattle so everybody up here is like i don't even care you know whatever um and my money was like way out front on the right on whatever don't care
John: But yeah, so anyway, when the tour manager for King Giz and Liz Wiz wrote me, I was like, you don't know me, I don't know you.
John: But it seems like you might want to come out here and see this band.
John: And I said, you know what?
John: I haven't said yes yet.
John: That caused a problem.
John: It's all been good.
John: And so I said yes, and I went to see them, and I really struggled the first time to try and categorize them.
John: You know, I was like, what is this?
John: It sounds like, like you said, it's like Dire Straits, but Rush.
Merlin: But also, in the aggregate, and this is why I've suggested them to a friend of mine who really likes bands like...
Merlin: Fish and Goose, or Geese, Goose, whatever they're called.
Merlin: I'm sorry, I don't remember the name of the band.
Merlin: Like my friend Marco, where I've been like, I'm so tempted to recommend this because there is a way in which they're not a jam band, but there's something in the spirit of what they do that's similar to the spirit of good jam bands, in terms of their fan base, in terms of their alacrity with different genres.
Merlin: But that's a terrible way to recommend this band.
Merlin: It is.
Merlin: It's more like the way I would recommend in some ways like fucking Champs or something where I would go like, hey, you like it when two guitars play a figure a fifth apart like we loved in the 70s and 80s?
Merlin: You know that like Hotel California breaking the law kind of thing?
Merlin: Like you're going to really like this band because they do that two guitars playing a figure a fifth apart really well.
Yeah.
Merlin: The thing we all, like, aspire to in the 80s.
Merlin: Like, think about... What is that?
Merlin: What's that Iron Man song?
Merlin: Ace is high.
Merlin: Like, that kind of feel.
Merlin: They're so good at that, but that doesn't... Don't go in expecting, like, an ACDC show, either.
John: Well, what I did this last time, because the sound in Vegas was incredible.
John: And part of what I was experiencing was, like, the changes in live sound.
Merlin: Oh, my God.
Merlin: It's almost like the leap from, like, I'm sorry I interrupted you, but, like, the leap from, like, famously, Cream was one of the first big, like, loud arena bands because of the advent of PAs alongside things like big amps.
Merlin: But, like, I almost feel like the leap from the late 60s to the late 80s
Merlin: is almost equaled by the leap from the late 80s to now in terms of what it sounds like for the band on stage.
Merlin: It looks like they've got giant iPads for lyrics.
Merlin: But the monitors are obviously working.
Merlin: They've figured out something about sound in high-end systems that we couldn't do a while ago.
John: Well, and in this theater, they figured out something between 2015 and now.
John: Where you can sit in a room like that and it is completely loud, like moving your body and yet no distortion.
John: Like the only distortion you're hearing is the distortion that they are putting into the system.
John: It's not unintentionally overdriven.
John: Yeah.
John: There's no, it's not that the, and the rooms are tuned and the systems are tuned to the rooms.
John: And so you're in there and you're just like, I hear everything perfectly, but it's also as loud as a rock show.
John: Yeah.
John: And there's no, I'm not like standing in front of the base.
John: So all I hear is bass.
John: Yeah.
John: Everywhere you go, but especially like right in the sweet spot, it's like this is like an unfathomably good mix relative to what it was even like in 2010.
John: But what I stopped doing this time was trying to categorize them at all, because I realized, like, they have musical acuity, right?
John: They all are playing across all these styles in a way that we wouldn't have even been able to comprehend.
John: And my sense is they laughingly accept music.
John: that they're a jam band but what i realized i think for myself was that they had taken remember the first time you heard the grateful dead i don't know if you do but i distinctly remember it because i was looking for heavy music at a certain point and i had heard you know i i loved come together
John: Uh, by the beetle.
John: And it was, it was so weird.
John: I hadn't really heard heavy metal except like coming out of, uh, the car stereos of Camaros as they went by.
John: And I was conscious of it being a thing.
John: But I wanted it.
John: You know, there was a moment in my life and I hadn't done any drugs yet.
John: I hadn't even like held my breath to get dizzy.
John: I had something about the sound of heavy metal that attracted you.
John: Yeah, what it was was I would put on come together and I would turn the lights off in my room and I would sit in the dark.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: For our listeners, the verse of that that come together, right?
Merlin: Those like eighth notes, chunky, chunky with that great bass part.
Merlin: It's very heavy.
Merlin: They got very heavy toward the end.
Merlin: Ditto with like, you know, literally she's so heavy or some of the other stuff on Abbey Road.
Merlin: They got pretty thick.
John: Well, and she's so heavy is, is, was another one that I just was like, okay, turn this all the way.
Merlin: And the way it, and the way it ends, the way it just cuts off.
Merlin: I love that.
Merlin: Yeah.
John: So I wanted that.
John: And I, and I, I've told this story before that I went to the record store and said, you know, I want acid rock.
John: And the guy, the snobby guy, uh, the, the, you know, the Lester bangs behind the counter was like, what's acid rock.
John: And I was like, you work at the record store.
John: You tell me, I don't know what it is.
John: And he gave me three records.
John: And one of them was machine head by deep purple.
John: And one of them was, I don't know, Neil Young and Crazy Horse Reactor, the weirdest, you know, and that was because it was in the 99 cent bin.
John: And then he gave me a great reactor.
Merlin: Reactor was in Cutout my entire life.
Merlin: I don't think it was ever not.
Merlin: Reactor was never not in Cutout.
Merlin: It was like the solo records.
Merlin: It was just always there.
John: Yeah, it was always there right at the drugstore you could buy.
John: And I loved it.
John: I loved Reactor.
John: I still do.
John: But what surprised me.
John: Is that the vote coder one?
John: No, that's the next one.
John: That's trans.
John: I'm thinking of trans, yeah.
John: But I got the Grateful Dead and I listened to it and I was like, this doesn't sound like the name.
John: The name Grateful Dead to me in my teenage mind.
John: It should be more like Black Sabbath.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: And the more I listened to the Grateful Dead, the less it sounded like the name until I converted.
John: But even the imagery, like the skeletons and all that stuff, you know, blues for Allah or whatever, that does not look like...
John: The music is going to be... The iconography does not match, you know, Sugar Mac.
John: No, it doesn't.
John: And, you know, in the same way that the Decembrists iconography looks exactly like the music.
Merlin: Could not look more.
Merlin: They look, I mean, like, if that was a lineup, you'd be able to pick out that exact band.
John: Exactly.
John: And the name and everything.
John: You know, it's perfect branding.
John: And what I feel like when I see King Gizzard and the lizard wizard is that what they've done is take all the music that we never thought you could jam.
John: And I don't mean like the band cooks along while somebody plays a long solo, but like they're jamming metal.
John: They're jamming pop where it just kind of, everybody's kind of doing their thing.
John: The bass is, is really holding it down.
John: Bass and drums are super holding it down.
John: But, like, they've turned all these other styles of music into what we think of as a jam band context of, like, from the moment the show starts, even when they stop playing and look at each other and goof around, it just all feels continuous.
John: There's no, like, what do we do next?
Merlin: It doesn't feel, I mean, just to... You can feel very discreet, obviously, but, like, I think one of the...
Merlin: perhaps very well-earned raps that jam music takes as it's kind of... Oh, God, the wonderful David Cross joke from our favorite TV show.
Merlin: Yeah, sometimes I let my friends pay $30 to listen to me dick around on guitar.
Merlin: Undirected, self-indulgent, you know, when we think of, like, the worst of that stuff.
Merlin: And, you know, like Joni Mitchell, Neil Young, and Bob Dylan...
Merlin: A lot of those jam bands are like, well, if I could hear the original version of this, I could listen to Joni Mitchell's Blue all day long.
Merlin: Like, I could listen to Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere all day long.
Merlin: But you know what?
Merlin: When other people, like, copy Joni Mitchell or Neil Young or Bob Dylan, that's not always as successful for me.
Merlin: And I feel like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: Like, with the jam band stuff, it's...
Merlin: It suggests that they're not disciplined or that they're undirected, which is absolutely not the case.
Merlin: It's just that they're really smooth about working together.
Merlin: And you can feel there's a lot of energy in what's happening on stage at the time, but it does not suffer from a lack of direction at all.
Merlin: Just stick with them.
Merlin: They're going places.
Yeah.
John: The times that I've seen The Grateful Dead and what I zoomed in on in The Grateful Dead was I really liked Phil Lesch's bass playing.
John: He's a great bass player.
John: And the times that I saw them live, I was like, oh, he's never playing the same note twice in an entire set.
John: I don't know how he's finding all these notes on the bass because there aren't that many.
John: But Phil was on a journey, and I was on it.
John: I was on it with him.
John: But there were other things that were happening on stage that I didn't click with.
John: And this is in the same song, in the same music, where I'm like, well, I'm really into what's happening over here, and I'm really not that interested in what's happening over here.
John: And that was a, that was a strange relationship for me with that band, because it was like, what's going on over here suggests that something else should be coming from over here.
John: That isn't.
John: and i'm and so my my experience with jam bands is kind of a lot of the time sort of that like i really get this but like there's songwriting that didn't happen but you know there was another dimension of songwriting one more pass or like somebody else needed to work on their tone a little bit harder or figure out their position in this in this band a little better
Merlin: Yeah, like it's one thing to be able to just kind of like play along and another thing to really know what part or what style of playing like fits into where this is going next.
Merlin: Again, you know, as with jazz, like not everybody can do that.
John: Yeah, and that's the thing about jazz.
John: Like there was a while when I was living in New York where I was living in a house with a guy named Chris Speed, who was a saxophonist.
John: And Chris was a saxophonist in what then was early 2000s New York downtown jazz bow.
John: That was a big scene, big scene.
John: It was a big scene, right.
Merlin: That's where you get, what's his head?
Merlin: What's his head?
Merlin: John Lurie was playing sax.
Merlin: He absolutely was.
Merlin: He was floating around that exact scene.
Merlin: Like alongside the no wave stuff.
Merlin: There was like a weird vibe for stuff like that then.
John: And I went to several shows of Chris's that were happening in like little venues.
John: I mean, there were some at the knitting factory, but also warehouses and stuff.
John: And a lot of the time the jazz they were playing, you know, I would be completely immersed in it.
John: And would have that moment where I'm like, I have no idea.
John: I don't know where the one is.
John: And I don't know where, I do not believe that anyone in this room knows where the one is, including everybody on stage.
John: And then they would all turn a corner at once.
John: They would all just, and then they're back into the melody.
John: And for me as a musician and also somebody with time, like I don't have all the, all the skills that musicians do, but I have time.
John: I would say, what the, where were we?
John: Like, I don't even know where you took me.
John: And that sometimes now I see that with, with, um, the Liz whiz because the rhythm section is so strong.
John: There's never a moment where you feel like anybody is lost, except I challenge you to find anybody in the crowd that actually knows where they are, right?
John: Like I look around and I'm looking at 1,200 people and they're all bobbing their heads to a different one.
John: And it's hilarious.
John: You know, it's very hippie in that sense because everybody's just like hippie dancing, not because they're hippie-ing, but because they couldn't tell you like what beat they were on.
John: Their songs can get quite technically complex.
John: Yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: And I was very surprised both times how many, how gender diverse the audience is.
John: Because from our standpoint in our old days, this would have been a boy band and that would have been full of boys.
John: Like there would have been all dudes all the time.
John: And that is not true of these shows.
John: Like, it's very much a mixed crowd.
John: And that includes furries, and it includes all the peoples.
John: All the various different peoples of the world.
John: All are welcome.
John: All are welcome.
Mm-hmm.
John: So I don't want to spend any more time talking about the amazing King Giz and the Liz Whiz.
John: You should go see the band.
John: As far as I can tell, no one in their camp has adopted King Giz and the Liz Whiz.
John: And when I say it, I'm greeted with just incomprehension.
John: It's not how the band is.
Merlin: Well, I mean, I see KGLW, but how do you pronounce that?
Merlin: You can't.
John: What I heard people say is Giz or Gizzard.
Hmm.
John: uh and i refuse to accept it i think king is it's a terrible name i said it to a guy it's a really bad name yeah he had a t-shirt on also i don't like their merch because it's weird but i saw this guy with the t-shirt on and i was like hey did you go to the king is in the liz whiz show and he just looked at me like
John: I had said something to him in French.
John: Stop trying to make king kiss and the Liz Whiz happen.
John: And then he was like, yeah, I did.
John: But just like not in a sense of like you and me, brother, but much more in a sense of like, well, I'm at the urinal.
John: Why are you talking to me?
Merlin: No, I get that.
Merlin: My observation about this, quickly, again, this is just an abstract thing and one of those Black Swan kind of things, but I'm excited that you've found this new band that you enjoy, new music that you like.
Merlin: I think that's, because, you know, that's all I do, man.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: No, and it's not what I do.
Merlin: I know, I know.
Merlin: Well, you're not a fan, and I am a fan.
Merlin: This is a distinction that is very well noted.
Merlin: I mean, to some extent, with both of us, it's a bit, but the truth is, you are not primarily a fan, and I am very much primarily a fan.
Merlin: I'm an amateur musician and practically a professional fan.
Merlin: Not in the sense that, like, certainly not that I get paid for it, but, you know, I try to be organized.
Merlin: But no, I mean, if you could look at my YouTube history, just my YouTube history, like, it would be upsetting.
Merlin: Like, how much I am every day actively finding...
Merlin: following my nose for new kinds of music and that changes day to day but it's i would be i i would be a gentleman about people saying well yeah that's probably just some like big weird distraction thing because you don't have a life you know all the voices one imagines in one's head but like it is such a tremendous source of joy for me i know to find a
Merlin: I mean, like right now, honestly, and I'm so loathe to even say this because it's so pretentious, but like I've got a very unwholesome relationship with Apple's classical music app at this point.
Merlin: Like I spent a lot of my day finding new versions of like a classical piece that I like because I'm still learning.
Merlin: I'm still learning, learning, learning.
Merlin: Like I can drop names like anybody, but like I still get concertos mixed up with sonatas, mixed up, you know.
Merlin: All that stuff.
Merlin: But like, it is such a genuine source of engagement and joy for me.
Merlin: I'm thrilled that you've come across something that makes you happy as well.
Merlin: But here's my general observation is like...
Merlin: I think it's cool that they're so weird.
Merlin: Here's what I'm trying to say.
Merlin: It excites me that they've got a big following.
Merlin: You've told me they have a popular Reddit.
Merlin: But you're not going to run into somebody every day who's as aware of them as anybody who's a successful artist.
Merlin: I'm just saying I don't know if it's a black swan, and certainly a lot of hustle helps.
Merlin: as with bands like another great Australian band that they're friends with, Tropical Fuckstorm, I'm just so into the hustle that they have to just keep making their music.
Merlin: And I'm glad that still exists.
Merlin: Because why am I saying that?
Merlin: Well, let's contrast that with everything that's happened, even just in what I would call indie rock, since the late 90s.
Merlin: Which is, like, that famous path that was carved by Minor Threat, Black Flag, like, Minutemen.
Merlin: Like, that famous path that was cut through America that created this entire system of places where, like, that you in part benefited from.
Merlin: That I certainly, as a fan, benefited from.
Merlin: The path through America that enabled live music to get in front of young people.
Yeah.
Merlin: Even setting aside taste, even setting aside cost, it's just exciting to me that a band like this exists and can reach somebody like you.
Merlin: You are not a natural fan base for this kind of music.
Merlin: And I'm just, I don't know, I don't have anything smart to say except that it thrills me.
Merlin: I love them, I love their music, but like...
Merlin: I hope there's more bands out there like them that I haven't heard of yet that are making somebody happy because we've seen this widening gyre between like the, you know, you can think of the long cur or the long tail or whatever, where you've got like these five bands that make all the, you know, noise and the money.
Merlin: And then there's people who are doing things on, you know, on selling stuff independently and things like that.
Merlin: But I'm just glad it exists.
Merlin: Like this feels like part of,
Merlin: not so much part of the way things used to be, and I don't know if it's the way things are gonna be, but they've figured out a way to make it work, and they're making a lot of people happy, and I think that's a very positive thing.
Merlin: Is that making sense to you as a musician?
Merlin: Do you know what I mean?
Merlin: It's a tough racket.
John: We went through a phase for the last 10 years, I think, and YouTube is a big part of this, where I and a lot of people
John: We're very aware of the fact that musicians were getting better and better and better.
John: Somebody beat the four minute mile, which no one had ever been able to beat.
John: And then all of a sudden, everybody could run the four minute mile.
John: You would turn on YouTube or TikTok or Instagram and there would be these 20 year old kids who could play anything on the guitar.
John: And not only anything, but they could play it
John: They could do variations.
John: They could do, you know, interpretations like this person with a guitar is doing eruption by Van Halen, except they're doing it salsa.
John: And this isn't even, this isn't a kid.
John: This is just like a redheaded white girl sitting in her basement and she's on the guitar and playing things that would have been unfathomable.
John: Yeah.
John: Even 10 years ago.
Merlin: Just to be clear, just from a technical standpoint, I like your example, though, of like for thousands of years, it was just widely held that there was something about the four minute mile that in terms of human ability could not be surpassed.
Merlin: Well, it was reached and surpassed starting in the 50s.
Merlin: And like you say, then all of a sudden people are breaking the mile all the time.
Merlin: Well, what happened?
Merlin: Did physics change?
Merlin: Did the human ability change?
Merlin: Are the shoes that good?
Merlin: And it's like, I don't know the answer to that, but something's not what we expected.
Merlin: Something changed.
John: But what happened, I think, in the critical consensus, certainly the one driven by Gen X, who, as you pointed out, were the ones that kind of, even though those original punk bands may have been sort of cusp X,
John: We were the ones that really perfected the $5 show and a band that could make a life for themselves living in a stinky van and playing rock music.
Merlin: You could see three bands.
Merlin: I don't mean this to be cookies to be a nickel.
Merlin: I can't even say how much of a false economy this was.
Merlin: But no, seeing two or three bands for $5 was a pretty exciting 90s for me.
John: Oh, yeah.
John: Yeah.
John: I mean, when it was $7, you were like, oh, okay.
John: Who do they think they are?
John: But what I think happened for the last 10 years is a lot of people saying, yeah, everybody's really good at music now, but the music sucks.
John: Like nobody's coming out with anything good.
John: It's just a bunch of...
Merlin: and then the music is just i think i think the word was derivative it all sounds like something from before you nailed it though like just because like you could be like a girl in a north korean military uniform who like wears a ball gag and plays eruption like you know one of those like weird like you know there's people who do bits
Merlin: For, like, being, like, really good at piano or guitar or whatever.
Merlin: And nothing against that's fantastic.
Merlin: I would have killed to be able to play Eruption when I was 19.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: But it's not just that you can play the part.
Merlin: It's like you're saying.
Merlin: You can also then integrate that.
Merlin: I rewatched Amadeus yesterday.
Merlin: That wonderful scene when Salieri writes the march, you know, for when Amadeus first comes in the room.
Merlin: And then he kind of insults him by showing how he could have made it.
Merlin: Yeah, he interprets it better, yeah.
Merlin: And then the rest of it's just kind of the same, right?
Merlin: But just that idea, though, of being able to walk in somewhere and slot into what's happening, you know, to be able to have the tools in your...
Merlin: in your toolbox to be able to do a ripping close enough version of an 80s metal solo, but then also be able to know how to lay back and be able to do a really strong, warm rhythm part that somehow brings the whole song together.
Merlin: Those are not the kind of skills you get by practicing eruption alone 16 hours a day.
Merlin: You're sliding into something bigger than you, and that's one place where classical and jazz and – people wouldn't think that about classical, but I'm going to make a movie recommendation at the end that will change your mind about this.
Merlin: But like with jazz, like you take that, you know, obviously that's part of the whole thing.
Merlin: It's like you've got to follow along.
Merlin: If Monk wants to go here, you go there.
Merlin: If Miles wants to go there, you go there.
Merlin: But like it's –
Merlin: You and I came up like, oh, you know, I want to go see this band.
Merlin: I'm going to go see ACDC.
Merlin: I hope they play Highway to Hell.
Merlin: But if you showed up and they got cute about how they played Highway to Hell, it would be kind of a bummer if they tried to, you know what I mean, get cute about it.
Merlin: But with a band like this, you're like, I don't know where this is going to go.
Merlin: If they played exactly the way it was on the record, I'll be happy.
Merlin: But I'm happy to be here for what's happening with this.
Merlin: And there's so many things we're talking about with this one band, but...
Merlin: My general thing, though, is like, like you're saying, however many years it's been, it's just exciting to see somebody out there and doing it and not being scene bound.
Merlin: So if you were John Lurie or you were in, oh, geez, who was the guy, the Sonic Youth, the guy before Sonic Youth, the guy I'm forgetting that was the big leader in the No Wave.
Merlin: But like, you know, that's pretty bound.
Merlin: You're not going to maybe get to see them so much.
Merlin: on Avery Island or whatever your island is up there.
Merlin: But like, I don't know.
Merlin: I'm not putting this well, but it's exciting.
Merlin: And part of that excitement comes from these folks having the wherewithal and the infrastructure to make this happen, having the skills, obviously, to put it all together.
Merlin: But they must also, on some level, have the confidence to understand their addressable audience in a way that makes it a going concern.
Merlin: And yet the music is still really good.
Merlin: And I don't know if you could say that for everybody.
John: I think that the fact that they've... What we're coming out of is that I think there's been a decade here where a lot of kids were breaking the four-minute mile with their playing.
John: Yeah, yeah.
John: With the technical skill.
John: With the chops.
John: With the chops.
John: But unfortunately, they were also growing up in an era where loops were the main way of writing songs.
John: You put something on, you jam out to it.
John: And nobody was learning that Dozier, Holland, Dozier pattern of like, we're going to sit at a piano and we're going to write a song and it's going to be phenomenal because we know the bits.
John: We know there's got to be a key change.
John: We know there's got to be...
John: a place where it does this or it does that.
John: And in our songwriting era, mine, we had also lost Holland Dozier Holland.
John: We didn't write songs anywhere near that good.
Merlin: Yeah.
Merlin: of jazz and then, you know, bring in a, bring in a, I don't know, a calliope or something, but to make something like, you know, Trans Am or, you know, Godspeed Black Emperor or whoever, like, but it's, these were all like these little archipelagos and islands of activity that super fans could seek out.
Merlin: But I wonder if one of the, I mean, the first time I ever got something like Spotify or, for that matter, like Napster, where I was like, you know, we've talked before about, like, the amount of research, at least I in particular, put into the $8.69 that it would cost to buy REM's Murmur.
Merlin: Like, all the deliberation when that $8 was a lot of money to me.
Merlin: Just the idea of, like, oh, my God, I could go listen to the entire...
Merlin: I could listen to three years of Husker Du in an afternoon, right?
Merlin: Or for that matter, I could go listen to all the best version of Vivaldi's Summer, which I've done a lot.
Merlin: But those are all still those little archipelagos.
Merlin: But in the age after, there was access to all the music.
Merlin: And we had all the arguments of, should you be listening to albums all the way through?
Merlin: And boo, you listen to music wrong.
Merlin: You remember you saying at that thing, you talked to somebody who said they get all their music from MySpace.
Merlin: You're like, I wouldn't even know how to get music from MySpace.
Merlin: Right.
Merlin: Maybe that's part of what we're seeing is a now that music is broadly available to a lot of people.
Merlin: I don't want to make it about the marketplace, but maybe there's more opportunities now than there was 10 years ago or 50 years ago.
John: Yeah, and I think it's just in the groundwater.
John: And I guess my point is that I'm excited now for the first time in a long time because we always knew.
John: We would say to each other, everything's really boring now and this music is really boring and it has been for a long time, but it can't stay that way.
John: Somebody's going to come out with something that's going to revolutionize it as has happened many times.
John: And it may not have anything to do with rock and roll,
John: But something's got to give.
John: We can't just regurgitate like this forever.
Merlin: Well, for that matter, you don't want to hear just as much as I love Holland Desert Holland.
Merlin: You don't just want to hear like Doc Poma's songs for 80 years.
Merlin: Like, you know what I mean?
Merlin: It's also that we're looking forward to how this changes.
Merlin: It's just like any kind of change.
Merlin: You kind of can't anticipate how it's actually going to roll out.
John: Right.
John: Right.
John: And, and seeing this, I think for me has been a kind of like, oh, I don't, I don't know if, I mean, I think this is too maybe much for mom and dad.
John: And not in a way, you know, that's the other thing.
John: There's no negativity in it.
John: And in metal and punk.
John: Oh, that's true.
John: No gatekeeping, less gatekeeping.
John: Well, from the fans, but also the band is singing often about the end times.
John: Their lyrics are very apocalyptic.
John: There's a lot of cyborgs gone, like depressed cyborgs and environmental catastrophe.
John: Yeah.
John: But the band isn't presenting it as... It's not issue music.
John: Yeah, and they're not wearing robes.
John: They're not up there like... There's no cult about it.
John: And in that sense, it's hopeful...
John: even if even if the song is like oh i'm a sad cyborg um like all i want to do is die like that's heavy and and if i were on i can't die though but i can't die i'm a cyborg deal with it and if i were on acid i would be really bummed but if i was on molly i would be not i would be like we you remember it's just a song i don't know
John: You really should just relax, yeah.
John: Or you're just like, oh, of course all cyborgs will be lonely.
John: Of course all cyborgs will want to die.
John: Everybody's lonely, John.
John: Nothing new there.
John: That's just unconscious knowledge.
John: And it's like, wait, we thought unconscious knowledge was that sex is violence, and you're saying it's that cyborgs will be existentially desperate?
John: Okay, that seems like a change.
John: But, I mean, Judas Priest said that, but in a, like, you know, the CIA is watching you.
John: Talking about the electric eye?
John: That's in the sky.
John: And now I feel like, and this is maybe part of the problem too culturally is just that everybody assumes the CIA is watching you when they're actually not.
John: But it's such a baseline assumption.
John: Like, if you know anything about the CIA, you're like, look, they don't have the money to be watching you, bro.
John: They barely have the, you know, they didn't even figure out 9-11 when all the writing was on the wall.
John: Whatever you think they have, whatever you think their capabilities are, they can't fake the moon landing.
John: They can't even fake an election in Chile.
John: They couldn't even make Castro's beard fall out.
John: Yeah, exactly.
John: And they tried and tried.
John: Yeah.
John: so so the i think the paranoia becoming normalized has on one level made the world a worse place because even sane people now start from a place of paranoid cynicism where it's like why do you have why do you have that what what evidence do you have that there's that the fbi has ever heard of you
John: They haven't.
John: I guarantee it.
John: I guarantee that nobody gives a shit.
John: There's no system of control.
John: They're just as confused as you.
John: And that starting from a paranoid place is like bad news.
John: But in rock and roll?
John: It's actually pretty effective.
John: It always was.
John: Always was.
John: We always thought that the city was coming along and cutting off the power.
John: And it's like, no, their city's not cutting off the power.
John: You just plugged every amp into one extension cord.
John: And the power went off because the power went off.
John: But watching this show and feeling like, oh, you're telling a future story that's a drag, but this is fun.
John: I just, all of a sudden I feel like, oh, okay, music's fine.
John: And whatever comes out of this, I don't know.
John: We got that going for us.
John: Which is nice.
John: At least music's fine.
John: At least music's fine.
John: I think we can all agree music's probably fine.
John: It's not going to be a drag.
John: And you know, I took the little one to see Sabrina Carpenter the night before.
John: And Sabrina Carpenter comes out on stage.
John: I didn't know anything about her.
John: I knew less about her than I knew about King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard, which was nothing.
John: And she comes out on stage, and Marla leans over, and she says, Dad...
John: This is going to be a little sexy.
Merlin: You feel like she's just kind of giving you heads up, warning you a little bit.
Merlin: She's like, don't freak out.
Merlin: So it's not just that this is a sexy thing in the world that exists.
Merlin: She's kind of prepping you for the fact that you're going to have to sit next to her while it's sexy.
John: Well, or just, like, I'm in a room with 20,000... Don't make it weird.
John: 20,000 nine-year-olds to 16-year-olds, and they're all wearing sparkly miniskirts.
John: So I already knew there was something afoot.
John: But she's like, yeah.
John: I mean, she wasn't saying, like, it's going to be awkward sitting next to me.
John: She was just saying, like, you know, Dad, just so you know.
John: Like, don't get...
John: You know, don't get up.
John: She was basically saying like, don't you get uncomfortable.
John: Not don't make me uncomfortable.
John: Oh.
John: And Sabrina comes out and...
John: Her whole show, because it's not anodyne.
John: It's not sexy in a tame way.
John: It's legitimately 1965 Playboy Bunny, you know, Playboy Club level of sexy.
John: She's incredibly sensuous.
John: And her show is just, it's basically done like a combination of Playboy Club in the 60s and late night 80s, early 80s cable television.
John: Oh, wow.
John: I know.
John: And so I'm sitting there and I'm like, this girl's 25.
John: She can't possibly know what all these references are.
John: Like there's references in her show to call in sex lines.
Merlin: Huh.
Merlin: Is that a theme of her album?
Merlin: I don't know.
John: No.
Merlin: But watching the show.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I know.
Merlin: I've seen her.
Merlin: I saw her on SNL and I think I've heard two of her songs, which I enjoyed.
John: And an entire show of her music.
John: Yeah.
John: I didn't hear one dud.
John: Like the song all bangers were all great.
John: And the sound again, great.
John: And she had a live band and they were, uh, they absolutely were capable of filling a stadium with live music that also had, you know, it was augmented and, and I'm sure they have 70 banks of computers that are managing the auto tune, uh,
John: In such a way that it's, first of all, indistinguishable, except if you've ever heard live music before and know what the human voice is capable of.
Merlin: Yeah, but with the right canny mixture of backup singers, arrangement, etc., those things don't have to be asinine.
John: No, and she's singing.
John: They're not rolling tape.
John: it's her but the processing is part of the performance yeah yeah and coming out of it i was like well that was that was pop music there wasn't any like stylistically it wasn't a mishmash there wasn't any album filler like everything hit perfectly ira ira from not a surf once said to me this is 20 years ago
John: He said, listen, one day the algorithm's gonna be able to write the perfect pop song because all it is is data.
John: And I was like, what's an algorithm?
John: You know, 20 years ago, I wasn't thinking this way at all.
John: And he said, we're all trying to write the perfect pop song, but it will be a thing that's out of our hands because the computer will know way better than we do.
John: And I think now we're all starting to feel like, oh, there is soul that no computer could write.
John: We're hoping that's true.
John: But you're talking to Chatty G every day, and Chatty G's like, hey, Merles.
John: Hey, what's up, Merles, bro?
John: Be honest.
John: Do you think I might have been compromised?
Merlin: by chatty g that's the thing the cia doesn't care about you but there but chatty g has infinite attention here's the thing that i'm not going to keep saying the name of that group because i don't want to get in trouble it's going to be a weird four years but the um but the thing is they may not be interested in you as a person at all but you may accidentally become interesting because of something that you've done and i think that's that at least for some of us probably that's the fear
John: Right.
John: Or, you know, or or more than that.
John: I don't listen to enough music about the CIA, I think.
John: More than something that you've done.
John: Just can you are is there utility to you?
John: Can you be used?
John: Can you be exploited in order to to further some cause?
Merlin: I see.
Merlin: Let's talk about late stage espionage capitalism.
John: Yeah, it's exactly right.
John: And it's not, I think the thing that people miss is that it isn't sinister initially ever.
John: What it's trying to do initially is always either somebody's, some Elon Musk has got what he thinks is a benign desire to make the world a better place.
John: It's just that nobody wants the world to be made a better place the same way.
John: Everybody's got a different world, a better place plan.
John: But the number of people that actually start out sinister is none of them.
John: They all think that they are here to help.
John: Most babies are cute when they sleep.
John: Exactly.
John: Every baby looks the same.
John: And so what's sinister about it is that when people resist and say, well, that's not how I want to make the world a better place.
John: And then inevitably...
John: The conclusion is, well, because this is the way, we're going to have to make you do it.
John: And that's when it gets ugly, right?
John: Across the board.
John: Across the board is always when somebody's utopia plan gets thwarted by the unpredictable and thwarted by the people that are like, actually, I won't do that.
John: I won't do it just because.
John: Just because you're doing it, I won't do it.
Merlin: Talking about a utopia.
Merlin: Why a utopia?
Merlin: It's not my-topia.
John: And as soon as one person says no to a utopia plan, then you either abandon it, which nobody does.
Merlin: This is the thing about utopii.
Merlin: which i think is probably the plural um the utopia the thing about utopia is like you kind of need everybody to like get on board with your vision every time yeah every time there's not a single utopia this is why hippie utopias don't work well to numerous reasons they also have poor organizational skills and they're ultimately extremely selfish but like but like you can't have uh like a just a big grab ass where everybody just does whatever utopia they feel like i think most utopians will tell you that's not going to work especially the elon musk types
Merlin: They've got a pretty solid idea about what we're trying to do here.
John: When you listen to the cranks, they're the first ones to tell you that every mass murder of the 20th century was conducted by a liberal government, right?
John: It's always the socialist.
John: Thank you.
John: And they all had the best possible plan.
Merlin: John, the terrible thing in life is that every man has his reasons.
John: Every man has his reasons.
John: And it's only when the plan is rejected by even a small percentage of the people
John: You have to either round them up and put them in what you call a relocation camp or something to get them out so that you can continue with your plan.
John: Yeah.
John: Or you just have to murder them.
John: Or, you know, I don't know what, you know, make them feel like the police.
Merlin: You don't have to know.
Merlin: This is not your field.
Merlin: You're a cultural critic.
Merlin: You're not an oligarch yet.
Merlin: No, no, yet.
John: yeah yeah but i do i do feel like the surveillance state the feeling that everything is planned and plotted it always misses the point it's none of it is it's always somebody's do-gooder if you talked to elon he would absolutely if you talk to trump they absolutely feel like they are helping and they are doing what needs to be done and they are not part of a scheme it's us that are part of a scheme
John: And we're like, no, no, no.
John: We're trying to help.
John: We're helping.
John: It's just everybody needs to get on board with the help.
John: I know for a fact, having as many FBI agents as friends as I do, that they are using Windows 95.
Merlin: Man.
Merlin: Is it because they've got everything set up the way they want, like with the desktop and stuff?
John: They're afraid to connect to the internet because of viruses.
Merlin: Viruses, okay.
John: Viruses.
John: The FBI is.
John: Well, yeah, the U.S.
John: Navy.
John: I mean, everybody should be.
John: Viruses are bad.
John: You don't want that on your computer.
John: Well, that's the thing.
John: That's why you use McAfee.
Merlin: You use McCafferty?
John: Yeah.
John: Beaver Brown Band?
John: Yeah.
John: You plug McCafferty in, and then they use their hooters.
John: And they play their hooters, and they write songs about baseball.
Merlin: How you zombies hide your faces?
Merlin: This episode is brought to you by 1984.
Merlin: Oh, boy.