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take care of the baby. It

6:00

was an incredible introduction to a lot of these

6:02

people. Okay, I might push

6:05

back on that, but we can

6:07

do it when we get to the songs. There's

6:09

just two things where I'm like, not

6:11

the best, but they're up there for me. I

6:14

think that there's definitely a conversation, but for me,

6:16

probably not, yeah. So what made you

6:19

purchase this compilation?

6:22

It seems like the right thing to do. Yeah,

6:24

honestly, it was grippingly cool, the cover. If you

6:26

were 13, 14, 15 years old and

6:29

you saw the word alternative with this

6:32

cool font with the little target-y

6:34

thing and the kid with the eyes, it's

6:37

an instant yes for me. Yasi, was this

6:39

your first introduction to a compilation album? I

6:42

was trying to remember this. What would have

6:44

been... We talked about this in the Pavement

6:46

episode. I don't know if you remember, because

6:48

it was 500 years ago. I

6:50

don't remember at all what we said, but I know we

6:52

talked about it because of the Pavement song on here. Yeah.

6:54

I think it must have been, besides

6:57

soundtracks, if we're not counting

6:59

soundtracks. That's right. So

7:02

there was Judgment Night and stuff like that

7:04

in a single soundtrack. It was

7:06

sort of a very

7:09

ripe time for compilations. This

7:11

was peak comp time. Sure.

7:14

Let me just get into it. Yeah, do you

7:16

think I did a little research? You bet you're

7:18

a fucking bottom dollar, bitch. Let's get started. Okay,

7:21

so this is actually, which I wasn't aware

7:23

at all when I bought it, that this

7:25

was part of the Red Hot series of

7:29

compilations that raised money for

7:31

AIDS awareness and AIDS

7:33

charities. The first one being Red Hot and Blue

7:36

in 1990, and the

7:38

second one being Red Hot and Dance in 1992. Let's

7:40

give you a little background. Not me

7:42

being on the fucking Wikipedia page of

7:44

Ronald Reagan. When I was researching it,

7:46

I was like, honey, you need Jesus.

7:48

Why are you on Ronald Reagan's Wikipedia

7:50

page? We're talking about no alternative, but

7:52

I gotta be me. Obviously,

7:55

throughout the 80s, this is when the

7:57

AIDS epidemic was becoming more...

8:00

and more pervasive, got its name in 1982,

8:02

1983. There

8:05

were cover stories in Time and Newsweek,

8:07

however Ronald Reagan, cursed president of 1981

8:09

to 89, basically

8:12

just did not publicly acknowledge this until

8:14

85 and

8:16

didn't give like a full, you

8:18

know, speech. What if I stormed off the podcast?

8:20

You were like, oh, we're

8:22

fucking maligning Reagan, bitch. I'm

8:24

out. That man gave us goonies. We're

8:27

done. Anyways, he

8:29

wasn't really awesome in the AIDS

8:32

realm and the helping with the

8:34

awareness and policy. Basically

8:36

what happened, this is like the most

8:38

TLDR of the

8:40

AIDS crisis, but- Of the 1980s, yeah. Of

8:42

the 1980s. But, you know, the gay

8:44

community activists, they took it

8:47

upon themselves, mobilized to spread awareness, information,

8:49

promoting safety. There was an organization formed

8:51

in 87 called ACT UP that

8:54

started to do demonstrations and targeting

8:56

the pharmaceutical industry because they were selling

8:59

HIV AIDS treatments at insane,

9:02

crazy, unjustifiable prices and also

9:04

like not really doing any research to like

9:06

find any sort of cure. And

9:08

a member of this group, an entertainment lawyer named

9:10

John Carlin, he was like a hip guy

9:13

who had gone to Columbia and like hung out

9:15

at CBGBs all the time to see like Patti

9:17

Smith and the Ramones and all this stuff. And

9:19

he would work with Keith Haring and Basquiat. He

9:22

was also an art critic for Paper Magazine. He

9:24

did pro bono work for like Richard Hell and

9:26

Kathy Acker. He was cool as hell. He,

9:28

you know, was in the downtown New

9:30

York art scene and he himself had

9:33

many good friends that he watched Contract

9:35

AIDS and pass away. So he got kind

9:37

of involved in this cause. And

9:39

then he decided while he was like at this

9:41

big firm in New York to make an AIDS

9:44

charity album and he partnered with this woman

9:46

named Lee Blake who we actually randomly talked about

9:48

in the Talking Heads episode because she was like,

9:50

hmm, this woman who had followed the who around

9:52

as a teen and then gotten really into the

9:55

punk scene. She allegedly is the one who told

9:57

Brian Eno to go see the Talking Heads on

9:59

the show. their first England tour, making that

10:01

connection happen. I know, isn't that crazy? She

10:03

also has randomly best friends with Bono. Anyways,

10:05

whatever, it doesn't really matter. She

10:07

got involved, they wanted to do this project

10:09

together. They decided it would be themed around

10:12

Cole Porter songs. And

10:14

the first big artist they got on board was

10:16

David Byrne because if you'll

10:18

remember, his sister-in-law at the

10:20

time was Tina Chow, who was HIV positive. So

10:22

he was also invested in the cause. And

10:25

that opened it up, all these other artists came on. They

10:27

called it Red Hot and Blue because that was a Cole

10:29

Porter musical from 1936. This

10:31

album was produced by Steve, I didn't

10:34

know any of this actually, Chris. Steve

10:36

Little White, Africa Bombata. Those

10:38

were the two producers. And it had

10:40

songs from Sinead O'Connor, Nana Cherry, Tom

10:43

Waits, Debbie Harry, and Iggy Pop. You

10:45

Too, Erasure, The Jungle Brothers. This shit

10:47

goes crazy with Cole Porter

10:49

songs. You remember it,

10:52

did you watch the TV special? I remember

10:54

the Nina Cherry song. I remember the Nina Cherry

10:56

song and I remember the TV special. Just

10:59

because I think Nina Cherry does I Got You

11:01

Under My Skin. Yes. I

11:03

got you under my skin, pure

11:05

pain to give me. But

11:11

I remember these compilations being

11:13

something that, because MTV

11:15

did a fair amount

11:17

of broadcasting about the AIDS epidemic.

11:21

And then more into the 90s, it kind

11:23

of became a safe sex.

11:25

Totally. Like a more

11:28

of a blanket. Yeah,

11:30

but there was a, like if you watched MTV for 12

11:32

hours a day, like I did in the early 90s, you

11:35

were engaged with this stuff quite a bit. And

11:38

yeah, so I was very aware

11:40

of this album, the Nina Cherry song,

11:42

I think had the video. If

11:44

I'm remembering correctly, I think it was Black and White. I

11:47

can't remember, but it was just one of

11:49

those things that was like a staple of early 90s MTV.

11:51

Totally. So this happens, fucking

11:53

insane. And they're like, okay, cool, we're done.

11:55

But then George Michael was like, no, you're

11:57

not bitch. I have three songs that I'm...

11:59

I'm gonna give you, you're gonna make another

12:02

one. And then they made Red Hot and

12:04

Dance, which includes Too Funky. That was one

12:06

of his songs that he's like, here, have

12:09

this for the comp. And that's like that

12:11

fucking incredible major iconic music video we all

12:13

know at the supermodels. Hey, just

12:16

too funky for me. I

12:19

gotta get inside, I gotta get inside. This

12:21

one had Madonna, Seal. So things

12:23

are going well. Now, Paul

12:26

Heck. Paul Heck, he was a

12:28

cool guy, babe, okay? He was a skater in high

12:30

school. He was into Husker doo in The Minutemen. I

12:32

would've dated him. He was in a band

12:34

called the Nelsons, those named after his cat. He

12:37

started the AIDS Music Project

12:40

in 1991, after he was out

12:42

of college to raise awareness

12:44

about HIV AIDS and normalize discussing

12:46

safe sex. He was

12:48

like, I'm gonna make a compilation. But

12:51

first, he was a Verlaine's super fan.

12:53

So he was already in touch with

12:55

Graham Downs because when he found his

12:57

first Verlaine's CD and got really into

12:59

it, he noticed there was an address

13:01

on the back. And so

13:03

he wrote Graham Downs a letter, and

13:05

Graham Downs would write him back. So

13:07

they were like incommunicado. That's

13:10

incredible. Isn't that great? Like we used to

13:12

be such a proper society, and

13:14

now that's not a thing. Now it's just people

13:16

telling you to kill yourself on Instagram. But anyways,

13:18

it's just a different vibe. So

13:21

he would write back, they're friendly. He asks him, I guess

13:23

like, the Verlaine's came to New York, they hung

13:25

out, and he was like, would you be part of this? And he was

13:27

like, yes. So then once he like

13:29

kind of had a band on board, and I

13:31

think maybe he also went to a pavement show

13:34

when they were opening for My Bloody Valentine and

13:36

went up, it's very funny, I think he went

13:38

up to Scott, What's His Face, and was like,

13:40

hey, spiral stairs. And Scott was like, nobody calls

13:42

me that. He's like, oh, sorry, do you wanna

13:44

be on this compilation? And so

13:46

once he like got a couple of bands involved,

13:48

he had gone to college at Brown with Chris

13:51

Mundy, who by this point, who was a

13:53

little older than him and had graduated, and he had become

13:55

a writer at Rolling Stone. He

13:58

actually like interviewed Nirvana. to

16:00

choose with that B side of theirs called HIV

16:02

baby, which I guess was like kind of gauche

16:04

to put on the, um, yeah,

16:06

the AIDS, um, AIDS benefit

16:08

compilation. Did not even realize

16:10

we didn't talk about an episode that there's that pavements

16:13

on Greenlander. Oh yeah. Which winds

16:15

up on the B sides

16:17

and yeah. Or

16:19

reluctant redux or whatever. Anyways,

16:21

this is very cool. Like this was just

16:23

cool. The fact that like still

16:25

to this day, the songs

16:27

from these compilations do not appear

16:30

anywhere besides on these compilations or

16:32

on like YouTube is, is so

16:34

interesting. Like I guess like they

16:36

just felt like we

16:38

can do this and there was such a legality involved, right?

16:40

Cause these artists were all on different labels. And so they

16:42

had to have like permission to

16:44

like put their song. Do you think that's

16:46

why there's so many covers? I

16:49

think that there's probably that there's also like

16:51

these artists probably understood. This was a moment

16:53

as underground music and as like alternative music

16:55

was sort of starting to push into the

16:58

mainstream after Nirvana kicked the door down where

17:00

they were like, I don't really know how

17:02

long this is going to last, you know,

17:04

like in terms of our, our moment in

17:06

the sun here. So maybe the material wasn't

17:08

so abundant that they were like, let's,

17:10

let's give you my good song. That was

17:13

going to be the lead single for our

17:15

next album. I would rather let, let's cover

17:17

sexual healing or let's cover like bitch by

17:19

the stones or something like that, which we'll

17:21

get to, but it did seem like these

17:24

were like little class pictures. Like when these,

17:26

when these compilations would come out and because

17:28

of like kind of the less signal to

17:31

noise ratio that you're talking

17:33

about, you're describing the early nineties where somebody could like

17:35

write an artist a letter and be

17:37

like, would you be interested in doing this? And

17:39

that artist may actually take that seriously. That's

17:42

why you get, get compilation records like

17:44

this. I mean, in fairness, I

17:46

love the Verlains. It's not like they were like on

17:49

the cover of Time magazine. No, but

17:51

you were like somebody who liked the

17:53

Verlains. The Verlains seemed huge. Totally. Oh

17:55

my God. Okay. So

17:58

most importantly, I

18:00

mean, Aristotle is probably most importantly, but second

18:03

most importantly, they partnered with MTV,

18:06

who like you said, that was fully the

18:08

monoculture back then. Babe, we used to be a

18:10

fucking proper country. We used to

18:12

have a relationship with MTV. It

18:15

raised us. Chris, all I could think about, I mean,

18:17

all I've been thinking about for months and frankly

18:20

years is like, what I wouldn't give,

18:23

I would give anything to go

18:25

back, be 12 years old in

18:27

my thrifted corduroy pants, my baby

18:29

tea, an ice cold jolt cola

18:32

in one hand, fresh bag of

18:34

peach rings in the other, sitting

18:36

my ass down in front of

18:38

alternative nation, ready to fucking spend

18:40

the afternoon with my TV rock

18:42

friends. I would

18:45

kill like a squirrel.

18:47

Yeah. Like even a raccoon or possum. I

18:49

mean, I think that the, you know? It

18:52

was a occasionally, like it was a very like,

18:54

I don't think very efficient use of time. Like

18:56

when you think about how easy it is to

18:58

just get in touch with, oh, I like this

19:00

obscure band. I will now listen to their entire

19:02

discography on the playlist that was made for me

19:04

about that, like to solve that very problem. Whereas

19:06

with MTV, you were like, I will watch this

19:08

for 14 hours and

19:11

sit through black hole sun 122 times just

19:14

to get to that one Beck video I wanna see

19:17

or whatever it was your jam at the time.

19:20

You know how dopamine works. Okay, let me

19:22

hit a little sidebar on dopamine. If

19:25

you don't work for the

19:27

dopamine, this is when you cause

19:29

problems. You deplete your dopamine levels.

19:31

That's right. Some of us are still listening

19:33

to the Huberman lab despite

19:35

certain things. And

19:38

I'll tell you what, in order

19:40

to have a boost in

19:42

dopamine that is not depleting your dopamine

19:44

well, you must work hard to get

19:46

the thing. That's the activity

19:48

that boosts your dopamine. You

19:51

go to the fucking- That's sitting through black hole sun.

19:53

That's what I'm saying. That's sitting through fucking that cursed

19:55

black hole sun. Honestly, the video is good. The song

19:57

is just harrowing. But

19:59

like- We put on that playlist

20:01

babe. That's like fucking smoking crack. That's

20:04

that kind of dopamine. It's

20:06

not the same Yeah, it's not the same.

20:08

We crack heads work. Well, not me. I

20:10

still live here, babe I still buy I

20:12

still no one can see his audio only

20:14

podcast. I'm literally holding off the

20:16

literal CD I have my Subaru we're gonna

20:18

get into this because it actually plays in

20:20

my 2022 Subaru having

20:23

a CD player gorge Pop

20:26

this no alternative bad boy just to do

20:28

a little testing of the hidden track and

20:30

stuff to make sure I was speaking Properly

20:33

to it. It was the best. I

20:36

felt good. Can I just also just say something

20:38

nice about my generation? Yeah, it was that while

20:40

we were sitting there watching TV for 13 hours

20:44

I feel like the lessons that we were

20:47

taught while not particularly erotic

20:50

were Good, you know,

20:52

I mean I feel like like the the

20:54

amount of like do you say particularly ironic?

20:59

Yeah, it was it was it was

21:01

not exactly fast times at Ridgemont High

21:03

sure it was probably like good

21:05

Ultimately for the like emotional education

21:08

of a generation of people to

21:10

be like be compassionate for other

21:12

people like practice

21:14

safe sex Support

21:16

a woman's right to choose like all these

21:18

things that were really drilled home through like

21:21

the most mass of mass Entertainments, which was

21:23

this cable channel We watched all

21:25

day and night if our parents let us Was

21:28

like of all the things

21:30

that you see people being like, what are

21:32

you doing? And you're like, oh I am

21:34

leading a Navy SEAL mission into like a

21:36

unnamed nation For 14

21:38

hours with some guy on my

21:40

headset. I mean, I'd rather

21:42

they watch MTV, right? Learning

21:45

to become pro choice It's

21:47

really true and I've been thinking about this

21:49

a lot as I've clearly been immersed even

21:52

more than normal in the early to

21:54

mid 90s and I'm just like wow

21:56

like it was such a beautiful moment

21:58

of like This

22:00

shift from, I like read

22:03

the 1989 Axl Rose interview have

22:07

you ever read this Rolling Stone one where he like defends

22:10

one in a million? No,

22:12

no, I haven't. It's

22:14

brutal. Like it's like all

22:17

of the ideology, like the like anti-gay sentiment,

22:19

the like anti-immigrant sentiment that was just normal

22:21

for rock stars. They would just print that,

22:23

no one cared, you know? Like, and

22:26

I'm just like, you get into the early 90s and there's

22:28

this whole shift of these like more

22:30

sensitive, more forward thinking artists

22:32

and like the vibe, but

22:34

it didn't, hadn't become punitive

22:37

yet, which is like where we are

22:39

now, right? Where it's like, they're gonna

22:41

drag your ass to hell if you say like

22:43

the wrong thing by 10%. When,

22:45

you know, like, I don't know how to say it other

22:48

than that. It's like, I don't wanna say cancel culture, but

22:50

cancel culture, you know? No, it would be, I think

22:52

that, I think you're right. I think

22:54

you're right. I think that there was that, but

22:56

there was only also one way traffic. So I

22:58

don't think that we would

23:00

watch Pearl Jam unplugged and

23:03

then be like Eddie Vedder putting pro choice

23:05

on his arm and a Sharpie at the

23:07

end is virtue signaling. Yeah. Like

23:10

nobody, there was no way to like communicate that.

23:12

You know, so you were just kind of like, this is amazing. And

23:15

it wasn't virtue signaling, I don't think, you know?

23:17

I don't wanna speak for Edward Vedder at the

23:19

time, but I mean at the time that was like a big

23:21

deal. That was, that was brave. It was

23:24

huge. It was huge, yeah.

23:26

I had not seen anybody do that

23:28

before. Frankly, I haven't seen that many people do it

23:30

since. Literally. Anyways,

23:33

yes, we used to be a

23:35

proper country and I want

23:37

my Joel Cola and 12 hours of MTV. I

23:39

mean, we also, I don't know about you, but like

23:42

we also played outside. There was like a, it was

23:44

like a really beautiful balance

23:46

of things. Like my parents would make me go outside

23:48

and I would, there was nothing to do. So if

23:50

you're not allowed to watch TV, you have to get

23:52

on your fucking bicycle and

23:54

go find, round up some neighborhood kids that are not

23:56

your age and just like figure out a game to

23:58

play with them. Go to the

24:01

park, hang on a tree, you know, come back home,

24:04

put on my so-called life, get

24:06

indentations. My parents, we had a TV in

24:08

the, this is a very 90s, we

24:10

had a TV in the kitchen where we ate

24:12

dinner and then there was a living room TV

24:14

and then I had to watch my so-called life

24:16

alone. Obviously they're not watching that in

24:19

the kitchen. So, and I would sit in

24:21

those, you know, those chairs that are now

24:23

like somehow like people pay $700 for them

24:25

because they're like a metal, what

24:28

do they call it, a brass gear chairs? They

24:30

have like a rattan. Those are

24:32

now popular? Those are now

24:35

like super cool, popular design items where

24:37

it was just like my lower middle

24:39

class family's kitchen chairs and I would

24:41

have those like that rattan was like

24:43

burned into my like legs because I

24:46

was just sitting there in shorts for

24:48

hours, there's no couch there, watching Jordan

24:50

Catalano and Angela Chase. Anyways,

24:52

I actually, my big MTV marathons

24:56

would take place in West Palm Beach,

24:58

Florida when my mom and I

25:00

would go visit my grandmother because I didn't have cable for

25:02

a while. So I was still pretty novel. Whoa. And

25:06

I would sit in

25:08

my grandmother's lazy boy planner as

25:11

like a 13, 14 year

25:13

old, like fully. Living the

25:16

dream, honestly. Fully like supine

25:18

and just watching Chris Conley on

25:20

MTV news and taking notes and what he

25:23

would tell me. You took notes, you had

25:25

like a notebook. I would

25:27

write down like the names of bands that

25:29

I like so that I could go buy them at strawberries.

25:31

Sure, sure. God. Why

25:35

can't we go back? I hate it here. I

25:38

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25:40

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27:12

here are a few fun facts

27:14

about the compilation before

27:16

we get into the actual songs. So

27:18

the design of the

27:20

first of all, they almost called it alternative belief.

27:22

Would you have bought it? It was called alternative

27:24

belief. I probably would have bought it

27:26

either way because I was being told to. Yeah.

27:30

But the song actually comes from a Verlaine

27:32

song overdrawn or the title, no

27:34

alternative is a from that lyric. Now

27:36

the design was done by a woman named Claudia

27:38

Brandenburg. She was a young woman at the time.

27:41

She was like, Oh, I think it would be cool to have little

27:44

kids on the cover. But we're not,

27:46

we have no budget. We're not going to pay for like models.

27:48

So she called her mom and was like,

27:50

can you mail me, me and my brother's

27:52

school photos? And that's her and her brother

27:54

on the cover. The girl with

27:57

the pigtails and the little boy. And this is a great

27:59

era for us. and kids on album covers

28:01

as the Afghan wigs can attest to.

28:03

Oh my God, that was

28:05

like the child of their like publicist, wasn't

28:08

it? Yes. Yeah. And

28:11

then up until the last like 11th hour, there

28:14

was supposed to be a Red Hot

28:16

Chili Peppers song on here, which was

28:18

a live version of them performing Give

28:20

It Away into One Nation

28:22

Under a Groove with Parliament Funkadelic

28:24

at the Grammys with George Clinton.

28:27

And at the very last minute, the Grammys were like, no, remove

28:29

it. That's what we could have had. So do

28:31

you think that that kind of contractual problem

28:34

or brides issues is another reason why

28:36

we get a lot of covers and

28:38

live songs on some of these things?

28:40

Because it's like, you know,

28:42

we'll get to Nirvana, but like the idea that they're

28:45

not gonna let a wrist to put a Nirvana song

28:47

out, like that's, those are our guys. I think a

28:49

million percent. And they don't wanna lose money. Like they

28:51

don't wanna leave money. Because I

28:53

bought this because of the Nirvana

28:55

song. This was like peak Yossi

28:58

Nirvana standom, where I was like

29:00

going and buying like import singles

29:02

and like whatever that I could

29:04

find. And I knew that that

29:07

song was the hidden track. Cause

29:09

that was like just widely spread around very

29:11

quickly. And I was like, on my way.

29:15

We'll be picking this up. It actually

29:17

like, I think worked in there for

29:20

it to be sort of like a Whisper

29:22

Network hype thing, like worked in their favor

29:24

as opposed to like maybe just being on

29:26

there. Yeah, well, I think that there was

29:28

like a degree to which a

29:30

lot of underground music built

29:33

up mystique through secrecy and obscurity.

29:35

Totally. And they used that

29:37

to their advantage when it was just like,

29:39

oh, wait, did you hear there's a hidden

29:41

track? Did you hear there's like, this band

29:43

is using a fake name on this, but

29:45

it's actually these guys. Once again, shouldn't we

29:48

go back there? Like not every band making

29:50

TikToks. Stop, it's

29:52

humiliating. Fine,

29:54

you're natural digital natives. It's good. Some

29:57

of you, I can tell your ass is doing it cause your

29:59

label told you. And it's. It makes

30:01

me upset and sad for you. Yeah,

30:03

yes, I understand. You know, like you're supposed

30:05

to be a cool rock band. Don't do this. Yeah,

30:07

but I agree. I think that's exactly why. I

30:10

didn't see the special in real time. I think it

30:12

was only on maybe that one week and

30:15

I somehow missed it, which is crazy, but did you

30:17

watch it in real time? I had no recollection of

30:19

it until you sent me the Vimeo link and then

30:21

I was like, I've seen this before. So I don't

30:23

know why I would have watched it since it's

30:26

airing and now. Right. But

30:28

I remember the Smashing Pumpkins performance and I

30:30

remember the Buffalo Tom performance. And I actually

30:32

also remember the. Short film. The female centric

30:34

passage that's like Courtney and a bunch of

30:37

other people. Yeah, the Tamara Davis, no alternative

30:39

girls. I had seen that part because someone

30:41

had sent it to me separate like as

30:43

a YouTube. So like, I just didn't even

30:45

know that it was from this. This

30:48

is where I really wanted to kill myself watching this.

30:50

Where I was like, this.

30:52

In a good way. Yes, in a good way. In

30:56

the positive way that you want to kill yourself.

30:58

I was like, this is what we had. Let's

31:00

just talk about it for two seconds. Okay. There

31:03

are short films interspersed

31:06

into these live performances. One

31:08

by Hal Hartley. My

31:11

favorite film. I didn't even know about it. Which is. Directing

31:13

the Breeders. Well, yeah. It's the music is

31:16

the Breeders with Parker

31:18

Posey and

31:20

Sabrina Lloyd, just like artfully

31:23

repeating the lyrics to the song and

31:25

then also having this like bizarre random

31:27

dialogue. It's filmed in his Manhattan home.

31:30

It's so fucking cool. There's also

31:32

a fucking one

31:34

by Michael Stipe. All those kids

31:36

talking, Michael Stipe and Jim McKay

31:39

directed that. That was in Athens, Georgia. There's

31:42

a, the Sarah McLaughlin one is directed by

31:44

a guy named Nick Gomez, who

31:47

directed an early 90s

31:49

independent crime movie called

31:51

Laws of Gravity, which was like mind

31:54

blowing at the time. Cause it's basically like

31:56

a handheld Veritas. Like it

31:58

feels like you're watching. like a French New

32:00

Wave movie or a documentary or something. And

32:02

it was like a huge deal, like in

32:04

the independent film. I remember this movie being

32:07

out and being like, Nick Gomez, Nick Gomez.

32:09

And I think he directed some episodes of

32:11

Homicide Life on the street. He was so

32:13

fucking good. He's just like doing this Sarah

32:15

McLaughlin short in an alternative

32:17

compilation that's on MTV

32:19

twice. Babe, well, guys,

32:22

they paid Greg Araki to do

32:24

a video, $5,000 for the Bob

32:26

Mould song, but he turned in three minutes of footage

32:28

of his boyfriend and they rejected it. And he just

32:30

took the $5,000 I want on vacation. That

32:34

was probably a great vacation back then. Oh my God.

32:37

There is a Jenny Livingston

32:40

short here. She's the woman

32:43

who did Paris is Burning, that

32:46

Hot Heads, which is, it's a very

32:48

interesting special because it does like,

32:50

it's really true to the spirit of the comp,

32:52

which is like this comp went like kind of

32:54

beyond just AIDS awareness and went also into safe

32:56

sex. Like it was like a kind

32:58

of a duel and also like into

33:01

like a sort of

33:03

like LGBTQ like rights thing.

33:06

Oh, that was like a little more latent.

33:08

And her short is with this woman named,

33:11

is it Dana DeMasa who

33:13

had made a comment called Hot

33:15

Head Paison, Homicidal Lesbian Terrorist. And

33:19

also another lesbian comic named Reno. And

33:21

they're just talking about their experiences and

33:23

like sexual assault. The No Alternative Girls is

33:26

so cool. It's Courtney Love, Free Kitten, Kathleen

33:28

Hanna, who was under her media blackout, which

33:30

is why she is in a balaclava the

33:32

whole time. She would only do it in

33:35

disguise, which made me think, is that where

33:37

Pussy Riot got the balaclava idea? Entirely

33:40

possible. Entirely possible. Because there's a world in

33:42

which like this is one of three things

33:44

that Pussy Riot gets a chance to see.

33:46

You know what I mean? In Russia, yeah.

33:48

And also clearly they're Riot girl fans. Tamara

33:51

Davis was married, I don't know if at the time,

33:53

but she married a Beastie boy. She

33:56

married Mike D. She

33:58

had done CB4. for the

34:02

Chris Rock movie. And

34:04

then she did the Bull and the Heather video after

34:06

this and put Kathleen Hannah in it. Which is

34:08

why she did Kathleen Hannah. Fucking incredible, fucking incredible.

34:11

Also, last thing I'll say about that video, you can watch

34:13

it, it's on Vimeo you guys. It

34:15

has the last ever work

34:18

of Derek Darmon, the filmmaker, the

34:20

British filmmaker, because he does the

34:22

piece that goes, the Patti

34:25

Smith, yeah, exactly. Also, randomly,

34:28

he's in it kind of in two ways, because there's

34:30

that live suede song, The Next

34:32

Life. Oh, The Next Life, no, I

34:34

don't know that one. It was a

34:36

red hot benefit in London, but behind

34:38

them, they're showing clips of

34:41

Derek Darmon's work. Oh, wow.

34:43

Okay, Matthew Sweet, super deformed,

34:46

that's track one. What's

34:48

your vibe on this song? Love Matthew Sweet. Me

34:50

too. Love the, was this from

34:52

Beast? Like that era, and then 100% is

34:54

my fucking. That's

34:58

the jam. This

35:00

is a strange Matthew Sweet song, right? Because

35:02

it gives you the wrong idea about Matthew

35:04

Sweet. You're like, are you gonna fucking knife

35:07

me in a bar? Yeah, totally. And

35:10

then when you listen to Matthew Sweet, really, you're like,

35:12

oh, you're Big Star. Yeah, you just love Big Star,

35:14

and you're like a nice sweet. You know he was

35:16

in a band with Michael Stipe's sister? I

35:18

didn't. I literally cannot help myself. This is

35:20

why everything takes me so long, because I'll just fall into

35:22

these dumb rabbit holes, and I'm like, I don't need to

35:24

know. Did you listen to that band, or can you listen

35:26

to that band? No, I didn't get that far. Maybe you

35:29

can, it's probably on YouTube, but I

35:31

didn't have time, because I had to read the

35:33

fucking entire full length book about this compilation, which

35:35

love and respect to the author seemed a little

35:37

unnecessary, because there's a lot of it that's like

35:39

the history of Nirvana, and I was like, okay,

35:41

that's just my lane to put too much backstory.

35:44

Not in a book. But yeah, it's a

35:46

good song, though, super deformed. You

35:49

know I'm super deformed. My

35:54

blood is still wrong, but I'm super

35:56

deformed. All the songs on this,

35:58

also I have so much. Sure,

52:04

but I can tell you as a

52:06

teenage man in America, I was

52:08

like, don't know who this guy is or who

52:10

this band is. And I don't even know if

52:12

I was like that deeply familiar with bitch as

52:14

a song outside of like the opening riff for

52:17

the classic rock music station that we had in

52:19

Philly. So I was just like, I'm

52:21

good, man. No, this was a skip. This

52:24

was an absolute skip. But I did learn

52:26

a very touching anecdote,

52:28

which is that when Lance Diamond

52:30

passed away, Robbie and

52:32

Johnny Resnick did perform name at his

52:35

funeral. Oh, that's awesome. I know. I

52:38

won't tell him your name, which incidentally is

52:40

about Kennedy. Did you know that? Do you know

52:42

the songs about Kennedy? I did not. Because

52:44

they have. How badly do you want to do a Google?

52:46

I did one, but it was early on

52:48

and it's one of the shorter ones where I didn't

52:51

really give it my all. I am

52:53

dying to redo the Google dolls because

52:55

are you kidding? That's

52:58

awesome. Johnny Resnick dated Kennedy and the song

53:00

is about how I won't tell him your real name. I'm

53:03

screaming. You're welcome, everybody, for

53:05

that piece of information. It's

53:08

time for Chris Ryan to shine. You guys,

53:11

this is actually so timely and topical. Pavements,

53:13

Unseen Power of the Picket Fences. I'm sure

53:15

you've noticed. I know you're not heavily on

53:17

x.com these days, but if you if you

53:19

do, I'm aware that REM has returned to

53:22

the public eye. There's a discourse. Yes. Are

53:26

we thinking that this is like fully they're coming

53:28

back or is it just like these guys did

53:30

the Songwriters Hall of Fame played Losing That Religion

53:32

and we're like, thank you. Thank you for everything

53:34

you've done for us. Hard to say, right? If

53:37

I had to guess and this is just

53:40

going off vibes. No,

53:43

Michael Stipe seems like the kind who's like,

53:45

I'm not going back there. Like

53:47

loving. Yeah, love and respect. And

53:51

it's kind of, there's a, I won't

53:53

name names, but I saw some discourse

53:55

on x.com maligning the

53:58

decision to get to not topic

56:00

for underground music fans for the better

56:02

part of 40 years where

56:04

it's just like, where is REM? What

56:07

label are they on? I

56:09

mean, there's no overstating

56:13

REM's impact on alternative

56:17

indie, any kind of music, Nirvana,

56:21

like any major sort of

56:24

like music that we

56:27

became iconic in the 90s, 95% of it owes a

56:31

debt to REM. Would you agree?

56:33

Of course. Yeah. Yeah. It's like,

56:35

there's no getting around that. And it's

56:38

very amazing. This Pavement

56:40

song is so Pavement-y

56:42

about it. And

56:45

ironically, like Pavement just like basically

56:47

follows the same trajectory. Like

56:50

in some ways, like, and even now

56:52

it's almost like kind

56:54

of funny to think that like Terror Twilight is

56:56

like a TikTok hit. And that's why like all

56:59

these random Terror Twilight songs are like the

57:01

most played Spotify songs from Pavement's catalog. What

57:04

REM song could become a TikTok hit that would

57:06

also make them all want to die? Well,

57:09

I was wondering for a minute because of Strange

57:11

Currencies being so heavily featured in the

57:14

bear, whether that like, wouldn't give us

57:16

a little monster revival. Speaking

57:18

of a great time to be alive in this country

57:21

was when Monster was coming out. But weirdly, do you

57:23

remember, did you work on a record store? I can't

57:25

remember. I did. I did for, for quite

57:27

a few years. Do you remember

57:29

Monster for whatever reason being the

57:31

number one most used

57:34

CD? Yeah. Because when I worked there, I was like,

57:36

why do we have 25 copies of Monster for two

57:38

90s? I wonder whether they

57:40

made too many copies of Monster. Yeah.

57:44

I have no idea, but like, I think that was

57:46

one of the great all time, like MTV is dedicating

57:48

a week of programming to promote the release of Monster.

57:51

And like, what's the frequency? Kenneth is the

57:54

lead single frequency. And they have to fucking

57:56

explain what we, what's the frequency Kenneth is

57:58

about? didn't remember. I

58:01

mean, it's a very dark. They weren't up on their

58:03

damn rather history. Yeah, it's a very dark, it's a

58:05

very dark reference, if we're being honest.

58:08

Automatic for the people was so

58:11

massive, was such a

58:13

massive hit that they probably

58:15

overproduced Monster because of it. Yeah.

58:18

Which makes sense. I mean, I know it was a monster

58:20

was at times

58:22

like it was, it was definitely like for his

58:25

accessible and like they made it to be toured

58:27

in stadiums and everything. It'd be a loud record.

58:29

I don't necessarily know how many losing my religion

58:31

fans were like, Oh yeah. Like, uh,

58:34

crush with eyeliners my jam. Losing

58:37

my religion. I don't want to say it's a bad

58:39

song cause that's not correct. That's that's not correct. But

58:41

there is just a category of song that I

58:44

do not like. Well, it's like, you can't hear

58:46

it anymore either. It's not even that even when

58:48

I first heard it, I tried to describe this

58:50

on the stone double

58:52

pilots episode about Sean was absolutely

58:54

really angry with me. What's the

58:57

one that's interstate love song? Yeah.

58:59

Okay. Interstate love song. This song

59:02

runaway train black hole

59:04

sun. They all have this

59:06

feeling of Sunday fucking evening

59:09

where you're like, Oh

59:12

God, I don't want to go back

59:14

to school. Like it is that feeling

59:16

in a song and I don't want

59:18

it. I don't want to feel that

59:20

way. Go away from me. I know

59:22

exactly what you mean, but would extract

59:24

interstate love song from that group. No,

59:26

it feels like that. I know exactly.

59:28

Black hole, son runaway train. I

59:30

felt that way about Nirvana and plugged as well. Well,

59:33

that's different. Nirvana plug is just like affecting.

59:35

It's a wake. That's why it's so, it's

59:38

so harrowing. Like was so constantly

59:40

on, you know, that like, I

59:43

was like, this is somehow a harbinger of my,

59:45

my school week to come. For me, it's not

59:47

even the repetition of it. It's just the quality

59:49

of the song. Like losing my religion is just

59:51

like these songs are, I think

59:53

they're meant to do that. And I think in

59:56

that sense, they're effective. Anyways, I wanted to tell

59:58

you something about. Well,

1:00:00

of course we need to say that this this

1:00:02

is a pavement song about Aria Aria's

1:00:07

earlier career and their trajectory from

1:00:09

like the American underground into a

1:00:11

larger kind of mainstream

1:00:13

success in the most arch ironic like

1:00:16

they can't eat they can't even bring

1:00:18

themselves to be Like

1:00:20

earnest fans of a band. They're

1:00:22

actually earnest fans of like southern

1:00:25

boys just like you and me honey You

1:00:27

are from Stockton, California Time

1:00:29

after time was my least favorite song Off

1:00:35

of reckoning I mean It's

1:00:37

not a bad song So this is wrong then

1:00:39

the weirdest part of this song in the most

1:00:41

pavement Which I think we sort of got into

1:00:43

this on the pavement episode is like Malcolm This

1:00:45

is bizarre obsession with the Civil War verse

1:00:48

for is just well. Yeah I mean he was like going

1:00:50

to school in Charlottesville Yeah I think he

1:00:52

was just like I think it was just like a really Easy

1:00:55

way to like kind of make these historical references

1:00:57

also the Civil War is really interesting sure But

1:00:59

the Lincoln entire verse of your REM song is

1:01:01

all of a sudden about Sherman and his mates

1:01:04

and they're marching through Georgia And then there stands

1:01:06

REM honey. Why are you talking? Now

1:01:16

here's a fun fact that I I'm actually

1:01:18

glad that I read the Kindle version of

1:01:20

that no alternative It was very useful it

1:01:22

had it had a lot of information that I

1:01:24

wouldn't have known otherwise This

1:01:27

was originally delivered as a

1:01:29

three-part eight-minute song

1:01:33

The first part was the unseen power a second

1:01:36

part was a sound effects

1:01:38

interlude With pavement pretending

1:01:40

to be Civil War soldiers, okay?

1:01:43

The third part was a cover of camera,

1:01:46

which is I believe ended up on

1:01:48

a another Single six a

1:01:51

B side yeah, however if

1:01:53

you'll remember you guys see these are

1:01:55

finite in time And

1:01:58

they were like oh my god just thank you

1:02:00

so much for this Pavement, but like eight minutes

1:02:02

is kind of like a big chunk

1:02:05

of our- Cause we only have 80, right? Like

1:02:07

on the C. Exactly. And we have like,

1:02:09

you know, whatever, 15 bands. So basically

1:02:12

Pavement took the unseen

1:02:14

power, which was longer in

1:02:17

the original edit down to four minutes,

1:02:19

which is still, I think, the longest

1:02:21

song on this compilation. So there

1:02:23

was a fun fact for you. I love it.

1:02:25

Second fun fact is Paul Heck was like, I know

1:02:27

you guys, what if Michael Stipe directs a video for

1:02:30

this and Pavement was like, no. And

1:02:34

he was like, okay, just kidding. Sorry, I'll go,

1:02:37

just kidding, I'll go. This is also

1:02:39

a band who for their most commercially

1:02:41

appealing song that they'd ever written, Cut

1:02:43

Your Hair did a music video with

1:02:45

people having lizard heads. One of the

1:02:47

best videos of all time in my

1:02:49

humble opinion. You know

1:02:51

what, bitch? Actually I'm gonna push back

1:02:53

again. This might

1:02:56

be the best song on this entire fucking bit. It's

1:02:58

entire, it is the most like I go. Smashing

1:03:00

pumpkins, glinnis. Oh, you're gonna say that. I'm not

1:03:03

talking about Pavement, unseen power, which is a great

1:03:05

song. But for me in the like canon of

1:03:07

Pavement, it's a little too, it airs

1:03:10

a little too much on the side of like, hmm

1:03:12

hmm. And a little. Yeah, it's

1:03:14

a little, it's like a curio rather than like

1:03:16

a jam. Yeah, and it's like the best Pavement

1:03:18

songs for me mix like a

1:03:21

raw emotion that you can't help but feel

1:03:23

with the archness and this one doesn't totally

1:03:25

do that. Right. Did we talk

1:03:27

about this? Are you not a Smashing Pumpkins fan? Were you

1:03:29

so radicalized by the Pavement song with that shit on them

1:03:31

that you just like forever were like, actually I don't like

1:03:33

that band? Oh, like kind of

1:03:35

like it was either Down With Mobb Deep

1:03:37

or Tupac. No, I just,

1:03:40

I never became, I was never a huge Smashing

1:03:43

Pumpkins fan. I don't know whether that's because of

1:03:45

Billy Corgan's voice or just because I chose, I

1:03:48

chose not to. But like, glinnis is

1:03:50

sick though. Like, there's

1:03:52

several Smashing Pumpkins songs where I'm like, this

1:03:55

could be best in class, honestly. He's

1:04:05

one of the most talented songwriters

1:04:07

of my generation and it's truly

1:04:10

crazy. When you look at the cat, like

1:04:12

when Rob and I did that

1:04:15

episode, I was like, this is insane how

1:04:17

many like just god

1:04:19

tier songs this person has written. Yeah.

1:04:22

His personality made it, I think maybe a

1:04:25

little more unpalatable. But

1:04:29

then this like, okay, this

1:04:31

is awesome. My first note

1:04:33

on here just says yes, yes. Siamese

1:04:35

Dream had just come out. It was three months

1:04:38

old. So they were like, like

1:04:40

really breaking at this point because

1:04:42

Gish wasn't commercially successful in any

1:04:44

meaningful way. But like, you

1:04:46

know, it's funny today might fit into the category of

1:04:48

the songs that I talked about before, but for me

1:04:50

it doesn't. For me, I still love it. Oh,

1:04:52

of the like overplayed kind of. The dready

1:04:55

songs. But like. Not at your

1:04:57

frequency. Oh my god. The fucking ice cream

1:04:59

truck. Well, they and they played today

1:05:01

on the no alternative special. Yeah.

1:05:04

Okay. Glynis is about

1:05:06

a woman named Glynis Johnson who

1:05:08

was in another Chicago band called

1:05:10

Red Red Meat. Did you know this?

1:05:12

I did not know this, but I am very familiar with

1:05:14

Red Red Meat. And she died of AIDS. I

1:05:17

didn't know that. I did not know that. She

1:05:19

was originally in a band called Friends of Betty with

1:05:22

her then boyfriend, Tim Rutile, who was also

1:05:24

in Red Red Meat and Blackie Onassis of

1:05:27

her job. And also Chicago band. But

1:05:29

yeah, I guess her and her boyfriend had broken

1:05:31

up and she was, it's kind

1:05:33

of speculative in the book, but like either she

1:05:36

was getting into drugs or I don't know what

1:05:38

happened, but she got very sick. No one was wrong with

1:05:40

her. And then she was diagnosed with AIDS

1:05:42

and died like very quickly after. And it was like a very

1:05:45

sad and horrible thing for

1:05:47

that community and smashing pumpkins and red red meat

1:05:49

were like friends and toured together. And

1:05:52

he says in the special, I think you saw that he

1:05:54

wasn't that close with this woman,

1:05:56

but he was really affected

1:05:58

by her death and even more. he was

1:06:00

super affected by the reaction to her death

1:06:02

because there was like a ton of Moralizing

1:06:04

and judgment right so we have

1:06:06

stumbled from grace. Are we being punished for fate?

1:06:09

My god is subtle and great He can't be

1:06:11

wounded by the gossip and the hate of the

1:06:13

frightened. It's amazing. It's amazing

1:06:22

Frederick meet put out three classic records in the middle of

1:06:25

the 90s Jimmy wine majestic

1:06:27

and and pony gets paid and star above

1:06:29

the manger are all awesome Really

1:06:32

underrated banter I gotta say yeah,

1:06:34

and then califone the band that they sort

1:06:36

of become after red Which is also really

1:06:38

awesome. Yes, Tim Ritali I don't know why

1:06:40

I didn't have a comment on smashing pumpkins

1:06:43

This is I mean this is

1:06:45

this is as good as as

1:06:47

it gets on this record I just was not a huge

1:06:49

smashing pumpkins fan, but I was always like I

1:06:52

always like respected it and what it did

1:06:54

click for me 1979 or

1:06:56

whatever. I was like yeah that

1:06:58

song also goes on 12 to 15 times a

1:07:00

drop mayonnaise bitch rhinoceros

1:07:03

Goodbye Drown

1:07:06

oh speaking rounds awesome drown is one of

1:07:08

the anyways we could we already

1:07:10

did a smashing women's episode This

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America and a member FDSE. Okay,

1:08:16

perhaps I remember 1993 through the eyes

1:08:18

of a child cause

1:08:22

I was 11. I

1:08:24

don't remember so

1:08:26

much sugar and Bob mold, but apparently

1:08:28

there was so much sugar and Bob

1:08:30

mold happening in the culture, which is

1:08:32

amazing. So this predates

1:08:35

file under easy listening, which

1:08:38

was sugars, huge like swing

1:08:40

for, I think basically like

1:08:42

mainstream recognition.

1:08:45

And with that swing came like a

1:08:47

lot of cause a beaster

1:08:49

and copper blue had already come out and

1:08:51

like those were sick records. But I think

1:08:53

everybody was like this guys

1:08:55

in who screwed was in who screwed who was one of the

1:08:57

best songwriters like he deserves a

1:08:59

hit like he deserves to get some of

1:09:02

this Nirvana cash and all this stuff. If I can't

1:09:04

change your mind, isn't it hit? What are we supposed

1:09:07

to do? Like what is wrong with everybody? But

1:09:10

I think G Angel on file under easy

1:09:12

listening wound up being successful. I

1:09:14

don't know if it was like a hit or how

1:09:16

that record wound up doing, but like I

1:09:18

thought sugar was incredible. And so this

1:09:20

was kind of probably my first introduction

1:09:23

to Bob mold, if I am being

1:09:25

honest. I had

1:09:27

just started listening precociously to,

1:09:31

I don't know if it was here or maybe it's

1:09:33

some somewhere within the year of this started listening to

1:09:35

Husker do thanks to Gina Arnold and her book, which

1:09:37

also came out in 1983 about root 666 on

1:09:40

the road to Nirvana because they talk heavily

1:09:43

about his review, but not not sugar or

1:09:45

anything. But yeah, this randomly is

1:09:47

just a Bob mold solo song. Can't fight it.

1:09:49

It's a great song. It is awesome. It's

1:09:52

gone and I can't fight it. You're

1:09:55

gone and I can't fight it.

1:09:59

He had recorded it too. years prior and he

1:10:01

I guess the label gave every artist $5,000 to record

1:10:03

and he just taught

1:10:05

them donated to an AIDS charity. Well I

1:10:08

thought it was interesting I didn't know this

1:10:10

it wasn't until 94 in

1:10:12

a spin interview that he actually publicly confirmed that

1:10:14

he was gay. Did you know that? I

1:10:16

didn't know. I didn't I did know that he came out

1:10:19

later in his career. Yeah and Dennis

1:10:21

Cooper did the piece. Yep

1:10:24

but I remember this piece. And being

1:10:27

you know sassy about wanting

1:10:29

I don't know it's not even clickbait like what

1:10:31

are you doing with a pull what's a pull quote

1:10:33

gonna get you but they took an out of

1:10:35

context pull quote that said I'm not a freak

1:10:37

and Bob Mould was rightfully

1:10:40

enraged and didn't speak to that magazine again

1:10:42

for 15 years. Yeah. Anyway it's a great

1:10:44

song. Also there's a there's a video for

1:10:46

Copper Blue that I didn't remember and I watched

1:10:49

doing this research because in it he holds up a

1:10:51

Polaroid of himself and his partner and then flips it

1:10:53

around and it says this is not your parents world.

1:10:55

I didn't remember that. Oh wow. Yeah. So he'll remember

1:10:57

that. So it's sort of like I think he wasn't

1:11:00

like hiding but he wasn't like shouting.

1:11:02

Oh my God. Maybe

1:11:04

the weirdest inclusion on this album

1:11:07

but also fantastic. The Sarah

1:11:09

McLaughlin song. Yeah.

1:11:13

Right. Were you a little bit like I

1:11:15

didn't. This was like kind of like I

1:11:17

got the boy. First of all I

1:11:20

was it's cool that she's on it

1:11:22

but I think this was like the

1:11:24

effort to merge multiple scenes into a

1:11:26

coherent underground in a weird way or

1:11:29

continue a coherent statement

1:11:31

of like yeah alternative music.

1:11:34

I think it was even like more basic

1:11:36

than that which is that she was signed

1:11:38

to Aristide and about to put out funding

1:11:40

through towards ecstasy and

1:11:43

they were the A&R was like hey guys

1:11:45

and they actually really liked

1:11:47

it so they were like sure we'll put it on. Also they

1:11:49

probably were like we don't have any women on here

1:11:51

because this is the first woman on the comp. There's

1:11:54

one more but you know we have to

1:11:56

have a couple women on here and you know

1:11:58

if you look back. She honestly is kind of

1:12:00

like, she's like Tori Amos

1:12:03

adjacent. You know, she's not that not

1:12:05

alternative. When's Lillith start? Late

1:12:08

97, isn't it? Late. Yeah,

1:12:11

I always think of it as being in

1:12:14

this timeframe, but it didn't happen till 97. But

1:12:17

it's 98, isn't it? It's like college or

1:12:19

college for me. I mean, it's like, it's later

1:12:21

in the 90s, you're right. Yeah,

1:12:23

it's 97, that was the first one, yeah. It

1:12:26

wouldn't have started yet. Because there

1:12:28

wasn't, those artists weren't big enough.

1:12:31

Like Sarah McLaughlin hadn't even put out Fumbling

1:12:33

Towards Ecstasy. Title comes out in

1:12:35

96. Yeah, none of

1:12:37

this stuff had really like popped off yet, you know? Yeah.

1:12:41

But this is a fucking major Sarah McLaughlin

1:12:43

song. It's also directly

1:12:46

sort of about AIDS because she, I

1:12:49

love this about Sarah McLaughlin. I only know two

1:12:51

instances like this, but it does seem like that's

1:12:53

enough that it must be a big part of

1:12:56

her songwriting process. So

1:12:58

she got inspired to write this song because she

1:13:00

was watching a Canadian documentary called A Promise Kepp.

1:13:02

And she said, I saw a documentary on a

1:13:04

woman whose husband contracted the HIV virus and it

1:13:06

was a great and tragic love story. She took

1:13:08

care of him up until he

1:13:10

died and her passion, empathy and strength was inspirational.

1:13:12

So she wrote this like based

1:13:15

on just watching this documentary

1:13:17

and being moved. Hold on,

1:13:19

hold on to yourself. Hold on

1:13:22

to yourself. Much

1:13:24

like, and I really jump at

1:13:26

the chance to tell this little anecdote, because I

1:13:28

love it. This is again, why I'm not fun

1:13:30

at parties, but in the arms of

1:13:33

the angels, you know,

1:13:35

the dogs are gonna die, you fucking monster, you

1:13:37

better cut them. Donate some fucking money or we're

1:13:39

gonna kill these puppies. That

1:13:41

song was written for Jonathan Melvoyne, the touring

1:13:43

keyboard player of the Smashing Pumpkins. That's right.

1:13:45

But her and hers and she just saw

1:13:48

in her hotel room an MTV News report

1:13:50

about it, didn't know him, didn't know the

1:13:52

band, wrote that song. And wrote that song.

1:13:54

Incredible. This

1:13:56

is why we watch MTV all the time. This

1:13:58

is why, look at what we've lost. without watching

1:14:00

MTV. Okay, apparently I

1:14:02

read that they were, the

1:14:05

label was hugely pushing, like you have to get

1:14:07

Soundgarden or Pearl Jam because they were so big

1:14:09

at the time, you know? And

1:14:11

I presumably Pearl Jam passed, or maybe

1:14:13

they, I don't know the label did, I have

1:14:15

no idea. There's no, I

1:14:17

don't wanna put words into Pearl Jam's mouth, I don't know why they're

1:14:19

not on here, but Soundgarden was like, okay, yeah, sure. This

1:14:22

is also a B-side, it was the B-side of

1:14:24

the Rusty Cage single, it was called Show Me,

1:14:26

Ben Shepherd, The Basis Wrote It. It's a good

1:14:28

song. It's a nice little bluesy. Really good, just

1:14:30

like, this is fucking like Soundgarden

1:14:33

cranking out, like a very

1:14:35

good Bats 275 batting average song. Totally,

1:14:39

100%. Show

1:14:41

me, show me, show me the name,

1:14:43

show me, show me. This

1:14:47

is the one that Greg Orocki was given, the

1:14:50

$5,000. And he just was like, okay. And here's

1:14:52

three minutes of my boyfriend in bed, and they were like, no thank

1:14:54

you, we don't want that, but here's the $5,000. This

1:14:57

is pre Super Unknown. Yeah, Super Unknown comes out in

1:14:59

94. They're cool,

1:15:02

like, Ultra Mega Okay,

1:15:05

doing good. Like, they're on MTV. Like, I

1:15:07

think not Jesus Christ Pose, because that

1:15:09

wasn't allowed to be on MTV, because of the crucifixion

1:15:12

of a woman. Outshined was pretty

1:15:14

big. Outshined was like a big, like

1:15:17

a decent size hit for them. It wasn't

1:15:19

fucking, you know, Black All Sun, but it

1:15:21

was a major, major moment. Great song. I

1:15:23

asked because it's like this

1:15:26

compilation album was obviously curated,

1:15:28

you know, it had to deal with a bunch

1:15:30

of like, oh, you can't do this

1:15:32

because you're on this label or whatever. But

1:15:35

when you look at the generation

1:15:37

of artists that they've got here, despite like

1:15:39

their age differences, they're the same generation in

1:15:41

terms of like, many of them

1:15:43

are major labels, but they're still working up towards

1:15:46

what will be their commercial and maybe even artistic

1:15:48

peaks. So that's kind of an

1:15:50

impressive feat, but this record to

1:15:52

have Soundgarden, pre super unknown

1:15:54

when they pretty much vault to like

1:15:56

biggest band in the world briefly. And

1:16:00

that's and so they're just be like we

1:16:02

got these dudes rusty cage beside bang like

1:16:04

it's on here smashing pumpkins Glennis on here

1:16:07

like yeah, you know even Matthew Sweet who

1:16:09

would become pretty big off of girlfriend and

1:16:11

stuff like it like it's it's all On

1:16:13

here. Well, I think it speaks I think

1:16:15

it speaks in a way to like the

1:16:17

meat the labels were printing money at this point So

1:16:19

they were a little bit like okay, you

1:16:22

know like this is cool. It makes our artists look

1:16:24

good It's good marketing, you know, whatever if they want

1:16:26

to do it We want to keep them happy and

1:16:29

also like what we're not gonna make money off the fucking rusty

1:16:31

cage b-side, right? You know, we're not gonna

1:16:33

make money off Glennis a song

1:16:35

that they literally just wrote for this So

1:16:39

and for Sarah McLaughlin and all

1:16:41

I mean those were arist artists They were they were

1:16:43

it was in their best interest to promote have

1:16:45

them be promoted in this context

1:16:47

Yeah, okay, then we get to the Paul

1:16:49

heck of it all some some

1:16:51

straight flying nunchit Straight flying

1:16:53

nunchit straight jacket fits brittle. I

1:16:56

will say for most people probably also Sarah

1:16:58

McLaughlin But this is like a big whomps

1:17:01

moment When they were

1:17:03

listening to this myself for sure because I was I'll

1:17:05

tell you what I was a precocious 11 year old

1:17:07

But I was not up on the flying nun scene.

1:17:09

Yeah No, but

1:17:11

it didn't how do you say that done it in New

1:17:13

Zealand? Didn't it didn't didn't I didn't but I

1:17:15

didn't I don't think I learned

1:17:17

about flying none through this Yeah, this

1:17:20

is probably the first time I heard the Verlaine Which

1:17:22

I don't even have their own flying though. I can't remember clean

1:17:25

Yeah, they were yeah, so clean is the for me the

1:17:27

the goat of fine I think I learned about a lot

1:17:29

of these bands from the spin alternative record guide Wouldn't

1:17:35

have read for a couple more years But

1:17:38

then going back and be like oh there's a Verlaine song

1:17:40

on this You know those guys made death in the maiden

1:17:42

which is like one of the best songs ever if they

1:17:45

weren't directly in the lineage Of Nirvana, I didn't

1:17:47

know her until later Yeah,

1:17:49

you know that wasn't her Cobain wasn't like please

1:17:51

listen to the Melvin Exactly if they

1:17:53

weren't in the 50 the 50

1:17:55

bands that Kirk O'Bain reference. I was not

1:17:57

checking for them But

1:17:59

this This is a great song. I

1:18:08

must say their album, 1993 album

1:18:11

Blow was on Arista. For

1:18:13

you the song is Who Cares? It's

1:18:15

not Who Cares. Straight to Akafits were not ever a

1:18:18

big band for me. I think this is a really

1:18:20

cool song and this sort of section of the

1:18:22

album is like damn go off. I

1:18:26

had a Berenstein Bears moment where I

1:18:28

didn't even remember this song existed. I

1:18:31

was like what? This was on here? No

1:18:34

memory of it. But it's just kind of

1:18:36

wild to see Barbara Manning is on a

1:18:38

compilation with Sarah McLaughlin in Smashing Pumpkins. I

1:18:40

know. And doing the,

1:18:42

I mean probably because it's the Verlaine's

1:18:45

cover, that she had made popular prior

1:18:47

to popular such an overstatement. But it

1:18:50

was part of her repertoire and her touring

1:18:52

set and obviously Paul Heck being like this

1:18:54

Verlaine's mega fan and probably knew about it.

1:18:56

And maybe the Verlaine's brought

1:18:58

her in because they collaborated together. Yeah,

1:19:01

you're right. It starts to get weird

1:19:04

in this back half of the city.

1:19:07

It seems like the first half of

1:19:09

it is to pay for the compilation.

1:19:11

This back half is like here's my

1:19:13

personal taste which is New Zealand pop

1:19:16

and indie rock. Yeah. I

1:19:18

mean the Joed out cover is amazing.

1:19:21

Yeah. Dude, I love, I mean these songs

1:19:23

are really good. I mean the Heavy

1:19:26

33 which is the Verlaine song

1:19:28

that comes after Joed out is. Yeah, having a

1:19:30

Verlaine's cover go straight into a Verlaine song, a

1:19:32

particular inspired sequencing touch. Yes.

1:19:36

And, but it's like it's really cool. Like

1:19:38

that's what this guy's taste was and he

1:19:40

decided to shove in like

1:19:42

a little rock block of Flying None. They

1:19:44

wrote Heavy 33 in like five minutes apparently

1:19:47

because they don't, the guy was like, yeah,

1:19:49

I don't know about these other bands that

1:19:51

have these like leftover, we don't have leftover

1:19:55

songs every song we write goes on the album and that's that. Like

1:19:58

we do it like, you know. So this

1:20:00

was just written all this leading

1:20:02

up to uncle Tupelo which This

1:20:06

is a cover of Credence clear

1:20:08

water revival one of

1:20:10

my favorite credence songs. Yeah anti Nixon right

1:20:12

anti war song much like Reagan They were

1:20:14

mad at Nixon for remaining quiet on the

1:20:16

deaths of the youth in the war Is

1:20:19

that yeah, does that right talk to me

1:20:21

about how you feel about uncle Tupelo? I

1:20:23

I prefer uncle Tupelo to Wilco and I know

1:20:25

I'm gonna get literally hate mail Like I'm

1:20:27

gonna someone's gonna send me not from this

1:20:29

corner of Los Angeles But

1:20:32

because me famously I love uncle Tupelo and the first

1:20:34

like to Wilco albums when they sound like the gin

1:20:36

blossoms and like the rest of it is Like none

1:20:38

of my business I think it's okay because you can

1:20:41

also you also need to know that like when Sun

1:20:43

volt Came out people were

1:20:45

like Sun volt is the one and

1:20:47

seems like CR core to me the

1:20:51

days of having a.m. By Wilco

1:20:54

and the first son won't trace by Sunwell I was

1:20:56

like, this is the only two albums I will ever need

1:20:58

for the rest of my life. I am is so

1:21:00

good Yeah, it's so good. But

1:21:02

yeah, I love uncle Tupelo. I'll say it off

1:21:04

I can start from the rooftops and this particular

1:21:07

cover is Gorgeous

1:21:10

awesome Also,

1:21:18

it is the last ever Released

1:21:22

a gluvalo song It's

1:21:24

crazy. This is it's great. This is actually

1:21:26

a band that went out fucking on top

1:21:28

like the anodine is awesome Yeah, which came

1:21:31

out just like two weeks. I think before

1:21:33

this compilation and then this is their last

1:21:35

song Yeah, then effigy comes out and then

1:21:37

like very soon after their breakup both the

1:21:39

guys get their records out I think they

1:21:41

really fucking kept it moving Okay,

1:21:44

here's where is this is

1:21:46

a more CR moment than a yasi moment

1:21:48

the Beastie Boys the new style. Love this

1:21:50

song This is a live rendition Live rendition

1:21:52

that is randomly shortened to only two of

1:21:54

the four verses. It's only the first and

1:21:56

the fourth verse Not really sure

1:21:58

what's going on here. Like in terms of its

1:22:00

inclusion. I mean, I think it's really cool Tamara

1:22:02

is obviously involved in this project. And they probably

1:22:04

wanted a B.C. voice on these. He was like,

1:22:06

okay, here is a song from we did live

1:22:08

from license still you can have it. We don't

1:22:10

care. Yeah. And it's it's

1:22:13

two minutes long as opposed to

1:22:15

I just didn't really. Yeah. I don't know why

1:22:17

it's like shortened this way. You never know. Maybe

1:22:19

they look literally had 78 minutes of

1:22:22

music and they were like, honestly, sometimes it feels

1:22:24

like that where you're like, I can put a

1:22:26

guided by voices song in the end here because

1:22:28

it's only 90 seconds. I think Beastie Boys on

1:22:31

the album is a big deal. They

1:22:33

were huge at this time. This is like very

1:22:35

huge Beastie Boys era. So it was a smart

1:22:37

move. Whoever was in charge of it. Now

1:22:47

we're fucking cooking with gas though, babe.

1:22:51

The Breeders Iris live

1:22:54

from Glastonbury. I'm that meme of the man

1:22:56

out Vince McMahon. Is that who that man

1:22:58

is in the meme with his eyes? Yeah.

1:23:01

He's the he's the Breeder

1:23:03

song. It's Iris. It's live

1:23:05

from Glastonbury. Also

1:23:18

she changes like the words. This is this.

1:23:20

I like the cover, the live version better than the album

1:23:22

version. All of the album version is very good. Are you

1:23:25

a Breeders girly? I can't remember. Love the

1:23:27

Breeders never got to see them live. You

1:23:29

still have a chance. I saw can we

1:23:31

go to Olivia Rodrigo. They're opening. Can

1:23:34

we go to Olivia? I don't even know if we can

1:23:36

get in. I'm on the list. I'll if I have a

1:23:39

plus one, if you want to go first time I saw

1:23:41

Kim deal live was the amps. Oh,

1:23:43

that's sick. I never got to see the

1:23:45

amps. That they were awesome. That album also

1:23:47

tips. Did you just fucking

1:23:50

phenomenal though? Like I'm

1:23:52

at the top of my game and I'm

1:23:54

going to put out an album not called the

1:23:56

Breeders. Yeah.

1:23:58

That is then. criminally slept on because

1:24:01

it's not called The Breeders. Tip

1:24:03

City, fucking fantastic. But yeah,

1:24:05

this, you know, we talked about it a little

1:24:07

bit on The Breeders episode. There was a beloved

1:24:09

children's book by Bernard Weber in 1975 called Ira

1:24:11

Sleeps Over. So

1:24:14

it was kind of taken from that. And

1:24:17

also in a 1990 interview with Melody Maker,

1:24:19

Kim Dale said, Ira is related to something

1:24:21

like a pea pod flowering and then getting

1:24:23

ripe and stinky and connected it to the

1:24:25

surrealists associating women with fish. The

1:24:29

titular iris is often considered the personification of

1:24:31

a menstrual period. That's what

1:24:33

I always thought the song was about. Or at

1:24:35

least I was under that impression. Feminism, babe. It's

1:24:38

back in my body when it's Kim Dale talking

1:24:40

about menstruation in a

1:24:42

fucking weird punk song. Kim

1:24:44

Dale also later did an amazing song with

1:24:46

Guided by Voices for the, I think it

1:24:48

was the next Red Hot comp, which is

1:24:50

Red Hot and Bothered, which is the indie

1:24:52

rock one called Sensational Gravity

1:24:55

Boy. Do you remember that song? Well,

1:24:58

that's the title for every Guided Boy. But

1:25:01

I do remember this. It's

1:25:03

not ringing any bells in my head. Like it's

1:25:05

the melody or whatever. I know I feel crazy,

1:25:08

but every week I get an email from Guided

1:25:10

by Voices publicist that's like, guess what? New Guided

1:25:12

by Voices track. And I'm like, can

1:25:14

you fucking let me rest? I'm never gonna

1:25:17

do this episode. I'm never doing it because

1:25:19

you're just putting the Jenga pieces up and

1:25:21

up and up. I can't do this. Sometimes

1:25:24

I think you sell yourself short.

1:25:29

I don't think you can do the Guided by Voices episode.

1:25:31

I just think you, it would have to be a season

1:25:33

or you'd have to be, I will die after this. I

1:25:35

told you guys, I'm only ever gonna do

1:25:37

it if it's a 24 hour telethon live

1:25:41

with Jolt Cola. Someone

1:25:43

finds me some dead stock Jolt Cola and

1:25:45

then I'll do it. And GBV

1:25:47

plays at the end of it. And like five

1:25:49

other GBV cover bands play. Then

1:25:52

there's the Patti Smith Memorial song

1:25:54

written for Robert Maplethorpe, which is

1:25:56

very beautiful. It's less of a song and

1:25:58

more of a poem, but. Yeah. Pretty

1:26:00

song. Yeah. Interesting. Very interesting couple.

1:26:03

Not not I don't have a ton of takes on this

1:26:05

one either. I mean, not my place to say, you know,

1:26:07

sure. Also, I get it. This makes perfect sense to be

1:26:09

on here. We get it. Great. Little

1:26:11

lamb rolled bird. Wants

1:26:15

to fly away. Here,

1:26:19

this is what I wanted. I wanted to talk to

1:26:21

you to me. Hidden

1:26:23

track means something specific.

1:26:26

And I actually take a little bit of exception

1:26:28

with this being called a hidden track, because when

1:26:30

I popped this bad boy CD again into my

1:26:33

twenty two and two super super. It's

1:26:35

an outback touring. Thank you very much. Oh,

1:26:37

sorry. I just clicked to it and it

1:26:39

and it actually showed up as

1:26:42

what it was in the data. And I'm

1:26:44

like, is not a hidden. It's not

1:26:46

a hidden track. Yes. Thank you. Unlisted,

1:26:48

unlisted tracks, secret track, whatever you want to

1:26:51

call it. But hidden. That means you have

1:26:53

to wait through silence. Album ended. But you

1:26:55

were like, why is the runtime for this

1:26:57

track 20 minutes? Exactly. And you would have

1:26:59

to fast forward five minutes and then a

1:27:01

new song would start and you'd be like,

1:27:04

what is happening? What was your first hidden

1:27:06

track experience? I think that

1:27:08

there was there is like a Texas noise

1:27:11

rock like noise pop band called 16

1:27:13

Deluxe. OK. That were

1:27:15

on Trans Syndicate and then they went on to

1:27:18

a major. But I think if I remember correctly,

1:27:20

like that was the maybe

1:27:22

making this up. If I remember correctly,

1:27:24

I was the first time where I was like, why

1:27:26

is the last track 30 minutes long? This song was

1:27:28

never mind. Oh, I mean, did

1:27:30

Nevermind have it? Yeah. And it was after

1:27:32

something in the way. That was for me,

1:27:35

the first time I ever knew such a

1:27:37

thing would exist. I have

1:27:39

to admit, I don't know that

1:27:41

like I owned Nevermind. Nevermind was

1:27:43

only because Nevermind was just like

1:27:46

you was like a CD. Right. Right. It

1:27:48

was like every so I don't know if I ever

1:27:50

went out and bought my own copy of Nevermind as

1:27:52

a CD. I definitely I might

1:27:54

be the only person who didn't. I think

1:27:56

you you were the only person. I mean, hence

1:27:59

them knocking. Michael Jackson right

1:28:01

out of that number one spot. That's right.

1:28:03

This, like I said before, okay, well

1:28:06

let's talk about it. So it's

1:28:08

called Sappy, although it was originally

1:28:10

held verse, chorus, verse, which famously is the

1:28:13

structure of the little gals, a loud, quite loud. Nirvana

1:28:16

talks at the very end of that,

1:28:21

almost a hidden track of a little interview,

1:28:23

it's like after the credits of that special

1:28:25

about this song, and they say that they've

1:28:27

been trying to record it since the very

1:28:30

beginning of being a band, and it always

1:28:32

sucked, and this time it just sucked a

1:28:34

little bit less. Love

1:28:36

those guys. I mean, to

1:28:38

me it's like major Nirvana

1:28:40

lore, because

1:28:43

if you think

1:28:45

about this song being a very early Nirvana song,

1:28:47

you realize that from the very beginning, which I

1:28:49

think we all, anyone who has interest in Nirvana

1:28:52

kinda knows this now, but like he was always

1:28:54

writing pop songs. Bleach was a little bit misleading

1:28:56

because it was like he

1:28:58

pushed himself more into the grunge of it

1:29:00

all, and like Jack and Dino produced, and

1:29:03

it sounds a little bit different, but he was always

1:29:05

gonna sound like this, because this is what he wrote

1:29:07

like. Yes, yeah, I mean

1:29:09

like the bones to his songs, like especially

1:29:11

if you change some of the minors to

1:29:13

majors, like are just like power pop songs.

1:29:15

Totally, they first tried recording it in 1990

1:29:18

with Chad Channing, I think, and Jack and Dino.

1:29:21

That version is available, it's on the 2005 compilation

1:29:24

Sliver, and they tried it

1:29:26

again with Butch Vague when they were trying to

1:29:28

make Nevermind. There's also, the reason that it has

1:29:30

to be called Sappy is because there is- Because

1:29:33

there is a verse, chorus, verse. Correct, which is,

1:29:35

I don't even know what album was an outtake

1:29:37

on, but it's on with the lights out. It's

1:29:39

not as good, in my opinion, as Sappy. Right.

1:29:42

Sappy is a top five Nirvana song for

1:29:44

me. Sappy's awesome. Yeah. Sappy is

1:29:46

incredible. And if

1:29:48

you fool yourself, you

1:29:51

will make him happy.

1:29:54

Do you have a top five Nirvana? Like

1:29:57

that I keep going in my mind? I

1:29:59

guess not. You know, I always come back

1:30:01

to you and this is like so unpopular.

1:30:03

Drain You is always one of

1:30:05

my, it might be number one. I always go back to

1:30:08

Draining. I agree with you. Okay. Thank you. Speaking

1:30:10

of perfect, like it's like a perfect pop song.

1:30:12

It's just, well, also like one of the great

1:30:14

opening lines and like opening it like one baby

1:30:16

to another, it's like, what the fuck? Oh,

1:30:20

it's so good. I love aneurysm.

1:30:22

Obviously that's a fucking, it's

1:30:25

hard. I mean, I keep talking about it, but

1:30:27

I do still think the Nirvana songs is coming. Like as

1:30:30

much as they've become a hot

1:30:32

topicified, there's so many good songs.

1:30:35

Like, like incesticide,

1:30:37

like no one even talks about

1:30:39

incest anymore. It's full of bangers

1:30:42

that were like not radio hits or whatever. Kurt's

1:30:45

maternal uncle, Patrick

1:30:48

Freidenberg died of AIDS in 1991. Oh

1:30:51

wow. Yeah. And so

1:30:53

we'll talk about why it's a hidden track briefly. I

1:30:55

mean, we kind of know, but you'll

1:30:58

like this. So the band of managers were like,

1:31:00

hell yeah. Geffen was like, and

1:31:02

they were a little mad at Nirvana because

1:31:04

Nirvana had insisted on putting a song on

1:31:07

a touch and go split single with the

1:31:09

Jesus lizard, which was like

1:31:11

a full on like noise. Like it's not a song

1:31:13

that Geffen would have made money off of in the

1:31:15

Nirvana canon, but at this point, Nirvana is essentially printing

1:31:17

money. It's true. And I would have gone and bought

1:31:19

it no matter what, you know? So

1:31:22

they were like, yes, but you can't use their

1:31:24

name. And here's another fun, amazing fact. They

1:31:26

almost, there were like between, I think three songs that they

1:31:29

were going to give them. I can't remember

1:31:31

what the third one was, but the other one

1:31:33

was Marigold, which is a song sung by Dave

1:31:35

Grohl. That was supposed to go on.

1:31:37

Nevermind that they ended up cutting. Imagine

1:31:40

how annoyed, this is

1:31:43

pre-Fu Fighters. Imagine how annoyed a fan

1:31:45

would have been to be

1:31:47

like, yes, I got the Nirvana hidden track

1:31:49

and it's fucking Dave Grohl singing. You've been

1:31:51

like, I'm going to walk my money back.

1:31:53

It's actually a really good song though. I

1:31:56

went, I had, I didn't remember it. With

1:31:58

the lights out, I actually have never spent. that

1:32:00

much time with it, it's like 17 discs long

1:32:02

of like, but this song is really good. It's

1:32:04

like a really pretty cool song. And

1:32:07

then to wrap it up, the

1:32:10

cassette only, did you know there was cassette only tracks?

1:32:12

Of course, Burning Spear, man. Kind

1:32:14

of goes fucking crazy, gotta say. Yeah. That's

1:32:17

a really, that's a really good song. I

1:32:20

know. Sonic, it was like, you can have this one.

1:32:23

Maybe Geffen was like, we've reached our fucking

1:32:25

quota of what you can have for us. Yeah, you guys can't

1:32:28

keep taking an old ass, not Geffen

1:32:30

Sonic Youth song. And they were like, okay, here's

1:32:32

a live version of the Burning Spear. ["The

1:32:35

Burning Spear"] And

1:32:41

then the Jonathan Richmond Hot Nights Live, which is,

1:32:44

it's a nice little ditty. But it's

1:32:46

kind of funny that it's like, because at

1:32:48

this point Sonic Youth is drafting off of

1:32:50

like the explosion of Nirvana anyway. Yeah, yeah.

1:32:53

And soon we'll be headlining

1:32:56

Lollapalooza, right? Yes, I went to the

1:32:58

Lollapalooza 95, we both won. We both

1:33:00

went to that. But they're like on a

1:33:02

rocket ship, maybe not rocket ship, but they're definitely a

1:33:04

send in. That's a washing machine era, right? 95, yes. Because

1:33:08

I wore that t-shirt to Lollapalooza. But

1:33:12

to do Sonic Youth, but it's

1:33:15

an old obscure, like

1:33:17

basically like treasure chest one. And then to

1:33:19

end this whole thing with a Jonathan Richmond

1:33:21

live song is kind of this whole compilation

1:33:24

and a microcosm. It's so true.

1:33:26

Apparently I guess when they re-released the CD, they

1:33:28

put the Sonic Youth song on

1:33:31

and cut the Barbara Manning song.

1:33:33

Oh, interesting. I wonder why that was. Maybe

1:33:36

because no one cared about Barbara Manning and everyone cared about

1:33:38

Sonic Youth. I mean, I'm not a genius or anything. With

1:33:40

all due respect. I

1:33:42

want to read, it got a really good

1:33:44

review in Rolling Stone, but I don't think it's important for

1:33:47

us to read it, because who cares. Oh, we didn't

1:33:49

even talk about Chris Mundy having,

1:33:51

becoming a very like, very

1:33:54

successful TV producer. Made Ozark.

1:33:56

Yeah. But also more pertinent to

1:33:58

my interest was the executive producer of... Criminal Minds

1:34:00

for like four years. Wow. Major

1:34:02

for me. I've never seen it on a Zark, but I'm sure

1:34:04

it's very good. People will say it's very good. You know how I am. I

1:34:07

know how you feel about prestige television. About my

1:34:09

TV watching. Okay, I do wanna

1:34:12

read, to close this out, the

1:34:14

statement. This is

1:34:16

not an alternative rock collection. Alternative, in

1:34:19

quotes, rock does not exist. It is

1:34:21

a myth on par with Elvis sightings.

1:34:23

Quality airline food and stress-free relationships. No,

1:34:25

what you're listening to is simply 19

1:34:28

songs. It is

1:34:30

our belief, however, that these songs simultaneously

1:34:32

create one beautiful clamor and serve as

1:34:34

a soundtrack to the suspended moment in

1:34:36

time. As an oft-labeled seldom understood generation,

1:34:38

we have no better voice than a

1:34:40

community of bands, many of whom you'll

1:34:42

find on this record. It

1:34:45

is the bands making up no alternative, along

1:34:47

with dozens of others, whether they're reinvigorating

1:34:49

rock and roll or helping to transcend musical

1:34:51

and cultural boundaries who have helped awaken

1:34:53

the world to the fact that music

1:34:55

not only has the power to speak to

1:34:57

a generation, but for a generation. When

1:35:00

first listening to this album, it may not

1:35:02

be immediately apparent how the poetry of one

1:35:04

track corresponds with the nods to the past

1:35:07

and the next, or why one band's whispers

1:35:09

are intricately linked to another group's scream. Beautiful

1:35:12

stuff. I'm not done. Closer inspection will

1:35:14

reveal the thread that binds

1:35:16

them all together. Integrity. My

1:35:19

God, forgotten, a forgotten thing. The bands

1:35:21

contributing to an alternative cannot be neatly

1:35:23

nestled beneath one blanket statement. They do,

1:35:25

however, share an emotional commitment and focus

1:35:27

that rings true from this collection's opening

1:35:29

note to its final chord. What you

1:35:31

are hearing is the sound of these

1:35:33

groups putting their music where their mouths

1:35:35

are, reaffirming their dedication not just to

1:35:37

a musical culture, but to a world

1:35:39

community that has been devastated by AIDS.

1:35:41

In the past, the groups before you

1:35:43

were thrown together under the roof of

1:35:46

alternative rock and then ghettoized somewhere left

1:35:48

of a radio dial, rendered immovable with

1:35:50

rigor mortis. Today, the dial has been

1:35:52

loosened. We must learn that labeling music

1:35:54

creates borders, and these borders create factions.

1:35:56

Don't categorize, just listen. This is the

1:35:58

music of your life. in your life

1:36:00

about your life. This is not alternative

1:36:02

rock. It's no alternative. It's not us

1:36:04

versus them. It's just us. And this

1:36:06

is the way we sound. Chris

1:36:08

Mundy wrote that. Very, very writerly. Yeah,

1:36:11

pretty good. I felt pretty moved during

1:36:13

that time. It does make you

1:36:15

feel like it was such a better time, but then,

1:36:17

you know, sometimes I'm like, I

1:36:20

read all things, I'm like, oh, in some ways

1:36:22

it was always the same. Like, do you remember

1:36:24

O.K. Cola? No. I

1:36:27

didn't either, but it was Coca Cola

1:36:29

being like, I know how we get

1:36:31

Gen X to buy. Slackers. Yeah,

1:36:33

they don't want this major label

1:36:35

coke. We're gonna make a fake

1:36:38

indie coke called O.K. Cola. They

1:36:40

had Daniel Close do art for

1:36:42

it. They were always up

1:36:44

to the same fuck shit. Like,

1:36:46

really just trying to, capitalism

1:36:49

their way to ruin everything. But

1:36:52

in this one shining moment in time, it

1:36:54

felt like anything was possible. It felt like

1:36:56

there was integrity. That's all. Unbelievable

1:36:59

stuff. Unbelievable stuff. Well,

1:37:01

Chris Ryan, we did it. I

1:37:03

think we honored this disc in the way that

1:37:06

it deserved. Some people think it might think it's

1:37:08

a curiosity, but I think it's something we

1:37:10

still, to this day, I don't know if I

1:37:12

would like pump it unless

1:37:15

I was doing a Bandsplain episode about it. But

1:37:17

it definitely made me be like, I wanna go

1:37:19

back and listen to a bunch of Herlanes, and

1:37:21

I wanna go back and listen to my

1:37:25

beloved Buffalo Tom. The importance of it

1:37:27

is that it even

1:37:29

existed and that it made

1:37:32

such a meaningful impact on us. You know,

1:37:34

I can't imagine a thing

1:37:36

that has the power to do that in

1:37:38

the same way for teenagers now. But again,

1:37:40

I might be wrong. It might be just

1:37:42

one song, maybe, I don't know. But a

1:37:45

cultural artifact like this is just like, they don't

1:37:47

make that shit anymore. They don't. Or

1:37:50

if they do, it just doesn't have the same sort of centrality

1:37:53

that it used to. I wonder if it's like four percent. And

1:37:57

of young people who listen to this are just

1:37:59

like, there she fucking go again, this old bitch. talking

1:38:01

about how it used to be better and like how

1:38:03

my time is the worst and ugh shut up.

1:38:05

If you feel that way I don't know why you

1:38:07

would listen to Bandsplane. That's true right this is a

1:38:09

real nostalgia jerk-off circle jerk fest it's not for

1:38:11

people who are not of that

1:38:14

vibe and on that note safe sex. Thanks

1:38:16

for having me. Chris

1:38:18

Ryan thank you so much for taking time out

1:38:20

of your day and come back next

1:38:22

week for a new episode of Bandslane. If

1:38:30

you liked what you heard today subscribe for

1:38:32

more episodes of Bandslane. Our guest today was

1:38:35

Chris Ryan. You can follow him on Twitter

1:38:37

at ChrisRyan77. This episode

1:38:39

was produced by Jesse Miller Gordon and edited by

1:38:41

Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Executive

1:38:44

producers for Bandslane are Gina Delback and

1:38:46

me Yossi Solic. Our gorgeous and

1:38:48

catchy theme song was composed and performed by

1:38:50

Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Clavin and graciously

1:38:53

recorded by Carlos de la Garza

1:38:55

in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks

1:38:58

to our producer emeritus producer Dylan

1:39:00

aka Dylan Tupper Rupert and

1:39:02

also Casey Simonson, Robert Adler, Leah

1:39:05

Edwards, David McDonough, Dana Myerson, Jessica

1:39:07

Hopper and the Costco membership I

1:39:09

just remembered that I have. Come

1:39:12

back every Thursday for a new episode of

1:39:14

Bandslane on Spotify or wherever you listen to

1:39:16

podcasts. Do

1:39:24

you mind if I run to the bathroom really fast? You're

1:39:26

not allowed. Thanks. No go.