mythology that's beautiful best singing best singing starts off
debaser debaser i like this record we're gonna do pictures do little yes neil chris
oh sorry yeah i'm neil you're chris this is riffology yeah welcome if you're listening to us
website website is riffology.co is you can do riffology it's like a plectrum with riff
written on it it's great logo you love you love it just get on that it's good um this album
uh i didn't understand the pixies for a long long long long time
the pixies to me were a band that other people loved yes like absolutely like my some of my
friends were so in love with the pixies and i was like i don't i'm not really sure i get at the time
like in the kind of the late 80s yes um like this for me would have been a time of metallica yeah
and slayer yeah um and there was a bunch of like kind of death coming out like obituary and so there's
a bunch of like stuff that's what would have been my mainstay yeah and we didn't mix with i had lots
of friends at school who like were nice people yeah yeah but like i do know another band that was like
that for me nine inch nails right okay yeah other people listen to nine it's not me did you have the
thing where it's like when when it's like telly where where they go you you'd love the pixies i had
loads of that because i was yeah because i was into the pumpkins oh yeah they're exactly the same
aren't they no um and they said oh no you should definitely listen to the pixies you're going to
love the pixies you're nice and i listened to it and i went where where all the fuzzy guitars like
where's the screaming lead breaks where's the snarling vocal yeah and it's like it's i don't
know why someone would have said that to me because at the time i like the big warm big thick guitar
sounds this is quite chorusy thin kind of sharp sounds don't like being told what to listen to
but i do it all the bloody time you do what so people yeah i'm constantly saying oh you've got to
listen to this someone did it to me i'm like i'm not really sure about that there's like two people
on the planet i'll be like okay i'll listen to that most people i'm like no not um but it's
like it's interesting for me doolittle is like i mean i'm trying to think when i really really this
hit me it was probably like 2010 or something like that where i kind of realized that you know
it's probably a little bit of an arrogant little dickhead when i was that you know with that age
in 1988 um and i don't know i would have been 14 all 14 year old boys are dickheads
and i do you know i didn't i didn't connect with it but then no later on in my 20s yeah
it made sense to some degree it was kind of like oh it might have been my 30s actually i was kind of
arch yeah i get this i think it was like monkeys this monkey's gone to heaven for me the first one
that did it and i was like oh this this is really cool yeah and then as you go through the rest of
the record it kind of pulls you in a little bit and it's an album that i've listened to countless
times over over the years and i've always loved it never owned it never you know it's only really
since you know when kind of streaming got good enough that you could kind of listen to anything
you wanted yes it's kind of around that time really for me that i i kind of fell in love with
this but it it listening to it this week again preparing for the show i went back and listened
to surfer rosa right okay yeah that's the first one isn't it yeah yeah now the early one yeah before
this uh yeah that's the one before yeah um and it's interesting it's it's that's got like um
it feels like a live album you know we've talked about this before
with some of these where they sound a bit like a live album it's it's yeah it's it sounds um
like a live room yeah feel yeah whereas this this doesn't this feels really um like meticulously
engineered yes i think yeah it's not it's i don't think surfer rosa has seen a compressor i don't think
there's i think you know if there was a compressor involved in that it was on the floor not plugged
in yeah i don't think it was involved in surfer rosa very much all whereas here i think you can hear
the compressors you can you know it's a bit bigger a bit thicker yeah um than than surfer rosa was
um and and it feels like this like natural evolution this natural step if you like between
where surfer rosa was and kind of the albums that were surrounding that at the time yes and where we
would get to with nirvana and grunge yeah you know do you know i mean it feels like there's this
um like evolutionary step between them and that's what do little is and i think that's why people
would have asked would have said to me you'll you'll love this because it's like the earlier part of the
family tree to all the music that you like you like yeah yeah and i didn't get that i was like no i
want i like the fuzzy i like what it is like this now yeah yeah yeah yeah and but for me it was about
um because i used to teach guitar while i was at when i was at uni and yeah college and things like
that like for pocket but only to people that like smashing yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah and i used to teach
kids like some really great guitar players loads like there's there was loads of guitar players that
are better than me yeah you know by the time i'd sort of done with them and i was like i can't teach you
anything anymore too good yeah yeah yeah you're doing really well but they actually like jamming they're
like hanging yeah you know that sort of thing anyway this one lad um he was like i just want
i just want to learn the pixies and he reminded me of me because when i went to guitar lessons all you
wanted was the pumpkins no it was bon jovi at the time oh yeah these days uh no before there was a bit
of that but it was a bit before that new jersey yeah yeah yeah exactly new jersey yeah and um
my guitar teacher because it was like a classroom based group where there was like loads of people
that went and it was because it was quite it was a bit cheaper if there were loads of you like right
rather than like rather than like one-to-one guitar yeah so they basically just like used to put me in a
room on my own because i didn't do as i was told i bet you were a horror to teach actually yeah yeah
but but no i was always really enthusiastic about something else yeah yeah exactly yeah oh god and
um and it was like can you teach me how to do this and he just you know he was such a kind man he was
very you know really nice guy and he used to come in and show me show me the bits um and then go and
and then go and teach the proper stuff you know right and and i was just like still wanting to learn
you know richie sambora that was it really and um where else i came with that oh yeah no so when i
talk guitar yeah there was this lad that that i wanted to teach but you know all he wanted to learn
was he didn't want to learn anything else other than the pixies so i had to learn the pixies to teach him and it was
only then that i really went this is actually really good because it because it's not like
you know trying to teach someone debates or teaching someone you know here comes your man or what those
sort of things you know that you sort of get into the what the songs are and and for me it's all about
the color like the tone the tone of the song and and and that's what i really fell in love with with
the pixies i uh it's it's an album as well i think that really teaches you what the bass guitar brings
yeah to a song yeah you know like kim deals like she brings and her voice i think is it makes a big difference
to this record too but i think um you know she
she brings the these like phenomenal bass lines which like really elevate the the songs but what i think
as well so you you kind of got these these like bits of like uh like baseline brilliance really yeah
yeah but then you've also got bits in there where the bass lines kind of just hiding away a little
bit and i think it's interesting like something especially like the the really thick heavy rock
that i really like yes like you often you didn't know what the bass guitar was doing it's always just
hitting the roots yeah so if you like if you if you go and listen to um i don't know stuff off
uh like like acdc they're just playing a
you have to play at the right time though and there's the rhythm it's all about the rhythm
but if you like listen to rain in blood or you know any of that kind of thick heavy yeah yeah you're not
listening to the bass is really weird and and this that was what really hit me with this it was kind
of like hang on a minute this is you know the bass is actually changing the tone and shape of the song
and if yes like if you remove like i mean metallica famously with unjustice for all removed the bass
from yeah yeah you still got metallica album you still got like uh uh you know what what you what
you expected really it's a weird tone but you still kind of it was still very definitely was of that of
that genre um i was just thinking about the lineup yeah as well because they've all got really good
names so you've got kim deal on the bass yeah you got charles thompson who goes under the name of
black francis do you know where that came from what black francis yeah uh no so because it wasn't he
called frank black for a bit as well is that somebody else yeah yeah well yeah that name for a bit so
it's i think it's really interesting right so manic preacher in chief he was called charles thompson
yeah that was his that was his name his dad christened him with and he went by the name of
black francis for the pixies yeah the name black francis was what his dad was going to call the next
child that they had really didn't have right and then so when he was looking for a stage name his dad
was like try this yeah yeah and that's what happened according to wikipedia yeah which has got to be
right yeah so there you go do you know paddy i know paddy he was going to be called oh god no
honestly he was going to be called um uh john wayne oh that didn't play better yeah he's going to be
called john wayne
that's on record on i'm sure it's on the blind when he did the blind boy podcast oh did he yeah i remember
him doing the blind boy i'm sure he said it on there so i'm not saying anything that's uh
yeah that's brilliant yeah yeah yeah that's but i still remember a song about that i remember doing
that cover shoot for um um a ride in the lower here to save the neighborhood yeah yeah just like
turning up in his turning up at his family home and just kind of taking the shot of him looking out of
the window and it was just i i just it was just really really cool yeah really really cool thing to
do it's become quite that that that looks become quite iconic you know the baseball that's a big part
of the show now and everything it's mega yeah it was such a good laugh to do that was yeah it was
really really cool i just love the fact that he hadn't told anybody he was coming so we all just
burst in the door with like camera gear and he was just like can we just go upstairs for a bit and it
was just like everybody's like yeah all right and it was like that's what that that's the culture
isn't it yeah yeah it's like you grew up in winter that the culture is just like yeah all right
fine don't everyone like if you if i just burst into my old family home my dad would call the police
probably so so that that's kim deal black black francis yeah david lover david lovering on the
john's a good name yeah and the best name i think probably in the world ever joey santiago porn star
yeah it is isn't it isn't it yeah it's totally yeah yeah yeah yeah we were we were we were laughing
at my friends from school earlier yeah and the two the two that really stuck out everyone's got like
porno chris everyone's got mates with like great nicknames um i remember i remember being at work
in a i worked in a bank i had a proper job i had to wear like trousers and everything um and my two
best mates were mad tony and porno chris so great nicknames brilliant aren't they so we'd all go out
every thursday yeah and then like my mates from leicester like we used to go out in burton so my mates
from leicester would be like oh shall we are we all right to crash at your place tonight and we'll go
out with porno chris and matt tony he's like yeah of course you can of course you can i never did you
ever have a cool i never had a cool nickname no i didn't know although my one of my favorite nickname
stories ever yeah is uh it is um i'm sure it was on it was on one of these things like festival or one
of these like one of these things like that it might or or it could have been a um one of these panel
comedy shows i can't remember it was something like that that but um it was the the idea they were
talking about like the mad names that they give yeah you know people with nicknames and stuff and
blind boy actually there's a few where he talks about really cool nicknames for the most ridiculous
ridiculous reasons um and uh there was one way it was about um
the the the lad that was called um wayne bruce right and
yeah and his nickname was man bat
which i think is possibly the greatest nickname ever created i i um man bat we our team is split
into three right we've got the us team the emir team and then the apj team out down but the aussies
oh my god they are brutal absolutely it's really funny when you know when the dni thing came across
everywhere like so about 10 years ago we all had to sit in meetings and learn you said to ban the
australians and honestly the aussies were just like well so what i'm like what what am i allowed to say
to people they were like we don't get it we're not allowed what what if i say it in like a nice way
i remember that was brilliant i i uh yeah i do i love i love my aussie mates they're mega
um whilst oh so sorry you were talking about bass and i rudely interrupted you and went really off
off piece you did yeah uh so okay so kim deal did did the did the bass she did uh harmonies as well
she did um uh bits of slide guitar as well on there so she did all kinds of stuff um i think she strikes
me though as like i think her influence on this album is more than the playing yeah yeah because there
was like there's pretty significant turmoil i think like i think um was it uh was it kim and
joey santiago didn't get on particularly well actually right right um and well that explains
because she went on to form the breeders didn't she yeah yeah i i don't think they got on particularly
well and there's lovely bits in in their interviews and stuff with uh gil norton yeah like having to
almost mediate right but like calm things down yeah um and i mean we've talked about this before
where sometimes that kind of uh like combativeness sometimes it makes it worse yes sometimes it makes
it better sometimes it kind of you know like we picked floyd and so it made it a bit better i like what
you put on the on the blog on this way where gil was kind of like all it was all it was like a big
puzzle that he had to solve yeah like the making of this record for him was like from the song
perspective but it sounds like from the band perspective as well it was almost like trying
to solve this problem i think so i think and so gil talks about a lot of the recording process being
almost in silence so yeah so the whole band would be in the room and between takes i mean you know
what bands are like there's always stuff happening there's always something you know there's always
somebody's like you know when you've got a bunch of people a bunch of mates together in a room there's
always you know someone's always doing something stupid yeah yeah yeah um but it was silence yes in
between takes and then they would just do it again and then they would just do it again yeah um and i
don't know i just i find it like a bit say a bit weird but like the album itself it sounds quite um
like it's pop album yeah but hot yeah and i think like surfer rose it wasn't that doesn't sound like
a pop album to me this one's got more melody to it and it's got the song structures a bit better
that's uh gil norton i think yes and then like you say it's engineered that each each song feels like
it's been engineered it feels like it's had um do you know what i mean it's had it's had a structure
applied to it yeah well there's a chorus here and there's this bit here and there's this bit there
this is how we're almost like it's been dissected then put back together yeah yeah definitely some
of that it's more vague when it comes to rock music it's more vague i think we just have a bunch of
chords and we gotta fill up spaces and put some words in there and um i don't know i'm in a naive
kind of way i'm trying to like be like surreal or dada sometimes it's really crude and it's hardly
anything there sometimes it's more developed than other times you know just sort of uh i don't know
whenever we all get over to dave's garage and plug everything in uh and i was kind of getting on to the
to kim deal's um influence i'll say influence on it but uh you know that the the way she changed the
tone of this just by her her vocals and stuff yeah yeah yeah um but like you know the the the vocals
black francis vocals and the lyrics are like super weird yeah there's like bits of the bible in there
there's kind of you know like surrealism there's like each track is like this world yeah i mean it's
like it's like a universe that he kind of creates and builds um and and it's all really quite dark
yeah yeah but then kim deal's vocals the backing vocals the melodies yeah they're quite sweet
sounding yeah um and it's interesting i know i wonder if it would have been as well received
if it wasn't for her her vocal style and kind of bringing that balance yeah yeah yeah to it because
the whole album is really dynamic it's like this course like you get these lovely quiet parts like
the verses are quiet and the choruses are really loud it's like we've talked about the dynamics before
and almost that gets lost with modern records you know where the compressors are wound up and
everything's kind of new nudging the limits of everywhere yeah this has got tons of space in
there but also there's space within the space right so there's like there are gaps in it there's like
there's a like pauses there are bits where the the vocals are like super quiet and then it like
builds and you can feel the dynamics rising and then the then the the the chorus will kind of kick in
yeah yeah yeah um so it's an it's an album of that this kind of dark and light i think yeah um and
kim deals a big i think she's a big part of of that i think without her vocal in this i don't think it
would have been no the same record you spoke before we hit record about um and you alluded to it there
about the the sort of bible stuff and the and this idea of um there's something that's quite
religious about it particularly that's like the old testament there's a lot of it's got a lot of
it's from the old testament i gouge away i think is samson and delilah yeah
gouge away you can gouge away stay all day if you want to
guitar solo
Some sacred questions
You struck my locks
Some marijuana
If you've got some
Count your way
You can count your way
Stay all day
If you want to
La la la
guitar solo
Sleeping on your belly
You break my arms
You screw my eyes
Been robbing a bad truck
We're holding fingers
Count your way
You can count your hate
Stay all day
If you want to
Train to the pillows
A three-day party
I break the walls
And heal us all
With holy fingers
Count your way
You can count your way
Stay all day
If you want to
I'm mostly just
In the memories of
Bible stories
Of the Old Testament
And things like that
You know
And the lyric references
You know what I mean
You know people could say
That like you know
He's got that preaching
Kind of vocal style
But I don't know
If it comes from
Watching a lot of that
I certainly have seen a lot of that
And been around a lot of that
But I don't know
I listen to like
Maggie Pop albums
About a zillion times too
So then I ask them
To do it too
You know
I really don't know
Which it is
It's just entertainment
I think I'm really
Just trying to entertain
I'm not particularly big
On the Bible
So I'm kind of relying
Heavily on Wikipedia
But yeah
There's a ton of that
Kind of stuff
Where
You know
It's kind of quite
Surrealist
Or
You know
Or based on
The Old Testament
Yeah yeah yeah
I think it's interesting
It's quite
It's all quite dark
Yeah
You know
There's like
This monkey's gone to heaven
About the environment
And you know
Almost like
It's almost like lost
It's a lost cause
We're kind of just doomed
It's interesting because
We've had that narrative
For a while
Around that
And it's
It's amazing to think
That you know
Even back in the sort of
80s and 90s
You know
These climate based
Conversations
Were happening
It was the ozone
Remember the ozone
Oh yeah yeah yeah
I remember we had
We had an assembly at school
About the ozone
Yeah
And so
I still remember it
To this day
Captain Planet
Oh god
Honestly we
We had
Oh god
It's just brought back
This horrific memory
So we
I don't know how old
I'd have been
I was at junior school
Yeah
And we had
The head stood up
And you know
They did that
You know
When
As a grown up
You realise
That these
Assemblies
Are kind of
Literally made up
On the journey
Into school
Or like
You know
As they're
Kind of
Oh shit
I've got an
Assembly
Yeah yeah
That was my
Entire career
We had
An assembly
About the ozone
And so the head
Just kind of
Did this thing
And showed
A thing
You know
The overhead
Projector
Yeah yeah
Showed us what
The ozone looked like
And showed a
Round ball
And the earth
And this is why
It's really bad
And it's all
Going to get hot
And that's why
You know
It's going to be
Terrible
And the culprit
Are these
And she brought
Like a can of
Hairspray
And then proceeded
To just spray it
All over the stage
And we were all
Just
Oh god
So the only thing
The only thing
That was missing there
Was the lighter
Yeah
But the thing is
Like you wouldn't
Be allowed to do that
Anymore
No
But
What make a
Flamethrower out of
Yeah
But it stuck in my
Memory
I remembered it
Yeah
Do you remember
Oh god we're going
To go off piece
That was the thing
You know
Like for a while
Set a fight
Yeah your kids
Were doing things
And then
I'm sure there was
One where like
Someone had their
Hand blown off
Or something
Or like really
Damaged their hand
Because it
Kind of
What in an assembly
Head teachers
Blowing themselves up
Yeah
No I remember
I seem to recall
It being a thing
Where it's like
God we've got to
Get these kids
To stop
Setting fights
I've got to
Offload some
Memories from
Junior's Corner
So the other
The other
Assemble
I can only remember
Two assemblies
Is that one
Where she sprayed
Hairspray
The second one
Is it primary school
Yeah primary school
The second one
Was where the police
Came in to talk to us
About drugs
Right okay
Because the village
That we live
I lived in Misham
Yeah
And the village
That we lived in
They had a problem
And they had a problem
With teenagers
Getting high
On lighter fluid
Yeah
And so there was
What they would do
Is they would put
A plastic bag
Over their head
Yeah that was a
Thing to do with
Geodrine cans
And that
Yeah
They were spraying
All this stuff up there
And then
They would pass out
And then suffocate
So we literally had
Like a police officer
Got somebody out
Yeah
And showed us
What it was like
With a plastic bag
Over your head
Like a six year old
And I just remember
Thinking
I would have been
Like what seven
Yeah yeah yeah
Are you sure
This is a good idea
I mean
Do you reckon
They ask permission
I don't know
But it was really
Because I used to pull
Like not that
But
But there were things
Where I was trying
To make a point
To the lesson
I think there was one
About racism actually
Yeah
Or like
No it wasn't
It was to do with like
Even if you see
Someone doing the wrong thing
Even if they're in a position
Of authority or power
Yeah
You have to challenge them
Yeah
If they're doing something wrong
So there was one
Where I
But I made like
I had a word with a kid first
I was like
I was going to be
Really mean to you
Because I want to see
Whether anyone else
Kind of started
Are you alright with that
Are you quite happy with that
Yeah yeah cool cool
So we did that
She started crying
And then I got worried
Because I thought
Oh no maybe I've gone too far
She's just acting
No she's brilliant
She's just acting
How cool is that
Yeah yeah
They'll remember that though
They'll remember that
Yeah yeah yeah
When they have a podcast
In ten years time
Yeah so she was wicked
And then
And then that's
And that's
But you plan it
With the children
Before
Yeah I don't know
Whether they've done that
But you know just
Put the bag over there
This would have been
In the 70s
I think you could do
What you like
Back in the 70s
And then the third thing
That I wanted to talk about
Do you remember
We might have to go
This might have been
Before your time
So we might have to
Go back on YouTube
And show you some
Of these things
Yeah
Do you remember
Some of the adverts
Yeah
That they had
And there were
There's a few
That I think were epic
One of them was
About wearing seatbelts
In cars
Right right
And they have an accident
And the little girl
In the back goes
She launches through
The windscreen
Yeah
And then there's
All the ones with fireworks
Like Mad Tony
Why make Mad Tony
But do you remember
All the ones with fireworks
Where they
Yeah
And it would be
You know
And then there was
The one where
The little kid
Kicks his football
Into the substation
Yeah
Oh I've got my thing
I see the little kid
Kicks his football
Into the
Power station
Electrical
Yeah
And then he goes
And then he gets fried
Yeah
You can't
You don't get like that
No no
No
I feel the need
To go and watch them
Yeah
Do you remember
Young Einstein
Did you ever watch
That film
No
That had a bit
About electric union
Did it
Yeah
Was it good
Well I was
It was quite upsetting
For me
But it was quite
A funny film
Oh
While we're talking
About films
And we're so off
Piece
That there's no
I don't think
There's any recovering
For this particular
Section
I watched a movie
This week
Right
So what
My bedtime routine
Typically
We were going to
Go watch a film
And we haven't
Oh we were going to
Watch
Tron
We should do that
We'll go and do that
I will book it
It's been a bit
Busy this week
Yeah
We'll try and fix that
Anyway
My bedtime routine
Typically
I do all the things
Tidy up where I can do
I don't like
I don't like leaving mess
When I go to bed
So I tidy up
Put the dishwasher on
Yeah
That makes me feel better
Yeah
And then
And I go up to bed
And then I normally
Watch like
A YouTube
About like
Mending wristwatches
Yes
Or Porsche
I really like Porsche
So I watch a video
About like the history
Of Porsche
Oh right
Okay
No
Sometimes it's mending
I like people
Working on Porsches
I like
I just
I like that
Right
Yeah
Anyway
Wednesday night
Going to bed
And I thought
I'm going to watch a film
Yeah
Because it's a little bit early
Yeah
So I saw this film
On Netflix
Called
The House of Dynamite
Yeah
And it gave me
Really bad nightmares
Really
And it's about
Nuclear war
Right
So it's about
A nuclear missile
That gets sent to America
But they don't know
Where it's come from
They just like detect it
And it's like mid flight
Yeah
And it's going to land
In Chicago
And kill loads of people
And it gets told
From multiple different
Perspectives
It gets told
First of all
From the perspective
Of
Like the team
Like the American
Military team
Who are sending up
Missiles to try
And bring it down
Yeah
And it fails
And they all kind of
You know
That's why I start
Vomiting and crying
And then you get
Like the strategic advisors
Giving advice to the president
Of what he should do
And blah blah blah
Right
So they're kind of
All following the process
They've all got lots of
Processes to follow
And they're just
Following the process
And doing
There's no questions asked
They're just doing
What's in there
And then the final bit
Is about the president
Trying to make the decision
Of how we should retaliate
And who to
And he's got this
List of thousands
Of nuclear weapons
And you know
Do you want to
Completely destroy China
Do you want to
Completely destroy
Blah blah blah blah
And all this kind of stuff
And
And you still don't know
Where it's come from
No
Yeah yeah
And so the whole thing
That's interesting
The whole thing
Is about the proliferation
Of nuclear weapons
And you never find out
By the way
You never find out
Whether the nuclear weapon
Explodes in the US
And you never find out
What happens
So it kind of cuts off
Like while they're
Making these decisions
Yeah
And I then
So I fell asleep
And then I woke up
Like three times
And I kept waking up
Like in a
Nuclear apocalypse
Really
That really got you then
Yeah yeah yeah
It just absolutely
I went back to
Watching videos about
Wristwatch
Oh and Mend It Mark
I love Mend It Mark
Or welding
One of those things
And I've been watching
Those ever since
Yeah
I'm quite fragile really
Yeah yeah
Do you know what
Hit me with it though
Is you can't control it
Can you
No
Do you know what I mean
And there's nothing
Horrific in this movie
It's not like an
R rated
Yeah yeah yeah
It's not like threads
Yeah you don't see anything
Yeah it's not like threads
I still have nightmares
About threads
And I watched it
30 years ago
Right I don't know
What that is
Watch threads
Okay
Just go
Yeah yeah
Threads is one of the
Most harrowing
And like unnerving
Apocalypse movies
Really
Like ever
Yeah
Like everything
You'll judge back
Against threads
Of how
It's really like
Yeah properly weird
Unnerving movie
But it's not like that
It's all kind of nice
It's all people in
Army fatigues
Yeah
Discussing the order
But it properly
Went mad in my brain
Yeah yeah
Planting seeds
Isn't it
It is
Yeah
Got hips like Cinderella
Must be having
Good shame
Talking sweet about nothing
Cookies and then I'm making good friends with you when you're shaking your good frame
I'm making good friends with you when you're shaking your good frame
Fall on your face on your face and you're shaking your good friends with you when you're shaking your good friends with you when you're shaking your head
Fall on your face in those bad shoes.
Lionel, love your pain.
We don't like go, oh wow, how loud can we make the song?
We just, that's not the experiment.
The experiment is just, wow, this is going to be another song.
We try to reduce it to what it was like when we were 13 or 14.
You start, first start playing guitar in your friend's garage and you just make a bunch of
noises and it's fun and that's sort of what we do.
We try to keep that same mentality.
You know we're not at that age anymore and we're certainly not as immature as that.
We're very mature now.
So the way we normally do these things is, these podcasts.
Oh yeah.
So the way they normally, by accident rather than by design, is you do the blog.
Yeah.
And then, well we choose the album.
Yeah.
And then you kind of do the blog and you've got your sort of thing that you, you plan quite
meticulously.
Meticulously.
And it's all there.
Yeah.
And then, and then we rock up at the thing and I don't really know what I'm doing.
And then I find some videos that we then put in the thingy.
Yeah.
In the podcast.
And sometimes we enhance the audio.
You're like totally giving away all the secrets.
But tonight, because normally we've, we look, we look through the videos.
Yeah.
Of like, um, what, you know, like interviews of, from that era or about that era.
But this one is the first one where we've actually got a different artist talking about
the Pixies.
Oh, the David Bowie bit.
Yes.
I love it.
Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
And he's got some really interesting things to say about the Pixies.
In that interview, he mentions another band that I did not like at the time, but then
did.
And that's Sonic Youth.
Yes.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I feel like I need to go and do a Sonic Youth album in the future.
We actually, I don't understand Sonic Youth still.
So we should.
Yeah.
Sonic Youth, Fagazi.
Like, so that sort of, you know.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a big, big group of those.
Do you know, oh, yeah.
There's a, yeah.
Sisters of Mercy as well.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're still going, aren't they?
They still do stuff.
I didn't kind of get it at the time, but now are quite like, it's weird, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah.
Everyone, yeah, yeah.
The first time I heard the Pixies would have been around 1988.
I found it just about the most compelling music outside of Sonic Youth in the entire 80s,
I think.
In America, they just didn't ignite people the way that they ignited them in Europe.
There was such a lot of sludge in America at the time.
I think Pixies had a real hard time pushing their way through to the surface.
Three elements, I think, made them important as a sound band.
One was their pure dynamics.
The very obvious now, but not obvious at the time, dynamic of keeping the verse extremely quiet
and then getting, erupting into a blaze of noise for the choruses.
That was one element.
The second element was the interesting juxtapositions that Charles brought together
of quite sordid material at times, I suppose.
Charles' lyrics actually dealt with commoner garden kinds of subjects, but the way he, the permutations
that he created within the different subjects that he dealt with were so unusual that it caught
my ear immediately.
It was the sense of imagination, and I use imagination not lightly, not in terms of it being a fantasy,
which most people define imagination as, but being able to understand the affinities of something
and have those affinities illuminate a subject.
It's done so effortlessly, and it's done with such a sense of fun and enthusiasm.
There's a great sense of humor underlying everything that Charles does.
Three were the colors that Santiago provided as a guitarist.
I think as a guitar player, he's terribly underrated.
It's much more about texture.
He supplies extraordinary texture.
One of the strongest songs that I heard at the time was De Basa.
Space of Religion, two very basic American subjects.
The two subjects closest to the American heart, I think.
The pure strength of him on stage, this kind of mass of screaming flesh, this kind of very imposing figure.
I always thought there was a psychotic Beatles in there, you know.
There's a great reverence for earlier rock music with Charles.
One of them was UMass, I like UMass.
What they've done is changed the format for delivering harder rock.
I don't think that format really existed before they came along.
It's a cliche, but somebody once said that Velvet Underground didn't sell many albums,
but everybody who bought a Velvet Underground album formed a band.
And I would have to suggest that the same thing really applied to the Pixies.
Once you heard them, you wanted to have a band.
Outside there's a boxcar waitin'.
Outside the fan list, ooh, ooh, ooh, ooh.
Out by the fire breathin'.
Outside we wait till face turns blue.
I know the nervous walkin'.
I know the dirty bit hangs out by the boxcar waitin'.
Take me way to nowhere place.
It is a wait so long.
So long, so long, so long.
You never wait so long.
Here comes your man.
Big shake on the boxcar movin'.
Big shake to the land that's fallin' down.
It's a wind makes the palms stop blowin'.
A big, big storm fallin' break my crown.
There is a wait so long, so long, so long.
You never went so long
Here comes your man
Where is it wait so long
You never went so long
Here comes your man
I want to talk a little bit about them
not being that big in the United States of America.
Even though they're an American band?
Yeah, so the UK
It landed at number 8 in the UK charts
and stayed in charted for 11 weeks.
It beaked at 98 in the US
Yeah, yeah.
On the Billboard 200.
I think we only had 40
on our chart.
Yeah, top 40.
Whereas in the US I think there were 200.
So it was staying there for 27 weeks.
Yeah, it's interesting.
It was platinum in 2018
in the US.
It was platinum in the UK
fairly soon after launch, I think.
Oh, wow.
So it took that long to...
Yeah, it's really...
I think it's really interesting.
That's so...
Yeah, because they were...
They were big in Europe, weren't they?
They were big in Europe.
Yeah.
They just didn't...
Just didn't land in America.
But I think it's interesting.
We talked about this.
We hinted at this a little bit earlier.
Mm.
But they were like a necessary stepping stone, I think.
I think they were a massive influence
on Kurt Cobain.
Yeah.
I don't think Nirvana would have been Nirvana
without the Pixies.
Mm.
It feels like this evolutionary next step.
It feels like in my brain,
this album, this one album...
Yeah.
...kind of...
It's like that you've got to cross a river
and this is in the middle.
Yeah.
And then by this getting over there,
you ended up with Nirvana being...
Yeah, the grunge stuff it is.
Yeah.
So what was on the other side of it then?
Would that have been like your Grateful Dead
and those sort of things?
Probably, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, probably.
Yeah.
And it's kind of...
Yeah, yeah.
I think so.
Because it's interesting.
I like lyrically and...
Because where in America are they from?
Because is it the Seattle-y bit
that sort of Washington-y kind of...
That's a good question.
I don't know.
Well, I should say to the listeners,
I've forgotten my glasses.
Which means...
You've really struggled.
I can't read a bloody thing.
It's...
But I've got my...
I've got my...
I've got my Galaxy tab turned up to full blast.
Oh, they're from Boston.
Boston.
Massachusetts.
Okay, right.
Okay, so the other side completely then.
We work in Boston.
I like it.
Yeah.
It's really good.
Do you know other things I like about Boston?
Yeah.
Have you ever watched Fringe?
No.
Oh, it's not going to work.
In...
There's a...
There was a big...
Is it where...
Is that middle America?
I don't even know where.
Yeah.
Go on, no.
Boston's...
It's near New York.
I was going to say, it's that side, didn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
That side, east coast.
New York.
That's how they say it, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So Chicago, New York, Boston, that's all the same sort of bit.
Oh, kind of.
Chicago's a little bit further over.
Is it?
More middle America, yeah.
Oh, is it?
I don't really know.
Boston's coastal, New York.
Yeah.
But anyway, there's a company called Massive Dynamic in Fringe.
You'd like Fringe.
How can you not have watched Fringe?
I don't know.
What?
What is it?
It's dead good.
I'm going to make you watch Fringe.
We're not finished.
This is going to be a thing where you go, you'll love this.
You'll love this.
And I'll go, it's crap, mate.
I don't like it.
You're not going to...
We're not moving until you've watched it.
No, genuinely, you'll love it.
Fringe, right.
Someone else has mentioned that to me before, yeah.
Fringe is brilliant.
Okay, yeah.
Is it one where there's loads of series, though?
Oh, six.
Seven.
Yeah, that's going to take six months of my life, isn't it?
It is.
It will.
It's about...
It's as good as Sons of Anarchy.
I like Sons of Anarchy.
It's about two universes connected together.
Oh, wow.
And stuff kind of hangs, and stuff from one universe goes in and impacts the other universe.
And it slowly unveils.
It's like a whodunit.
Yeah.
It's like, it slowly unveils what's happening.
And it's like X-Files-y.
Very, very X-Files-y.
Wow, wow.
Anna Torv is in it, who's awesome.
I have a massive crush on Anna Torv.
She's awesome.
Yeah, yeah.
Loads of that.
It's brilliant.
Yeah.
It's just dead good.
Yeah.
It's like science-y, and like, it's got the FBI in it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's dead good.
It's just dead good.
Yeah.
In fact, if you want to stop right now and go and watch it, in fact, if you've not seen
Fringe, go and watch it.
Go and watch it.
So is that based in Boston?
I bet the Pix is.
Yes.
So, well, I say it's based in Boston.
Yeah.
The headquarters of this fictional organisation called Massive Dynamic, the building that they
show is the same building from Boston.
And when we first went to work in Boston, that was the first building that I went to go
and see.
Oh, really?
Is that Boston Dynamics, then?
Is that that?
That's a thing, isn't it?
Oh, yeah, yeah.
But that's not the same thing.
No, no, this is Massive Dynamic.
Oh, Massive Dynamic.
Evil Corp.
Oh, okay, right, right.
They're really good.
Because Boston do the robots, don't they?
They do, yeah.
Yeah.
Not that, though.
No.
This is, imagine.
I met a robot the other day.
You met one?
Yeah, like a dog one.
A dog bot?
Yeah.
We had them at the, we did a STEM evening at the school, and we had dog robots.
Yeah, I bet it was the same one.
Was it?
Yeah.
They kept pushing it, and it wouldn't fall over or anything.
Yeah, yeah, and they've got a little camera on it and stuff.
That's it.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
There's a little bit of me that wanted to go just a bit of Black Mirror.
You know.
Yeah.
I read an article this week.
We did lots of it.
Just punch one.
Punch one, and then.
Don't punch them.
Have you seen?
No, no, it was in the robot.
Just like, lose it a little bit.
Yeah.
Just lose it a bit.
Go and punch one, and then come back to its normal place.
I have to be nice to computers, because in The Hitchhiker's Guide for the Galaxy,
there's a robot uprising.
Yes, yeah.
And they go and kill everybody, and so you have to be nice to them.
That's the law.
Yeah, because they remember.
Yeah.
They have hard drives.
I watched, I read, we'll be doing loads of AI at work at the minute, and I read an article
this week that said the AI uprising will last seven minutes before humanity is totally overthrown.
Is that what it is?
Yeah.
Is that how long it'll take?
Yeah.
There we go, then.
It's good, isn't it?
Yeah.
I mean, that seven minutes isn't quite long enough for the first single on the new Young
Blood album.
Which I quite like.
Nine minutes.
It's a single.
Nine minute single.
Nine bloody minutes.
Yeah, that's good going, I think.
Isn't it?
Yeah.
Yeah, you'll like that.
It's like, it's very singy.
Yeah.
Lots of singy, singy songs on there.
I like him.
Would you get him on the show?
Yes.
He'll come on.
Yeah.
He's doing Bloodfest at the minute.
Yeah.
Oh, is that now?
I don't know.
He's always doing, always doing stuff, isn't he?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Do you know, he's one of those people that has too much energy for his own good.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, there are people that you are going to get yourself in trouble because you can't sit
down.
Yeah, yeah.
Loads of kids are like that, I think.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
They're the kids that change the world, though.
Absolutely, yeah, yeah.
I was able to sit down and do, I'm brilliant at doing nothing.
You know, when you've got a long plane journey.
Yeah.
Even without an iPad or anything, I can just sit and do nothing.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
For hours.
Yeah.
And I'm quite happy with that.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I think Youngblood would explode.
But he's going to change the world.
Yeah.
And I'm not.
No, no.
Him and Sleep Token.
And Ray.
Yeah, I bought Leo a Sleep Token hoodie.
Did you?
He loves it.
Yeah.
He loves the Sleep Token.
Good band.
Yeah, he loves the Sleep Token.
It's really good.
It's a shame they're not old enough for us to cover, actually.
We should be able to do that.
There will one day.
One day there will be.
We'll be dead by then.
Yeah.
I don't know how long we'll.
Well, the AI uprising will have finished.
What do we do after that?
What, after the AI uprising?
Yeah.
Is it like The Matrix?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Will the sky go funny?
Yeah.
And there'll be an architect.
If there's an opportunity to be the architect, I want the big voice.
Yeah.
You know the architect and the matrix.
Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I like that.
Yeah.
He had all the little TV screens and everything.
I think that's dead good.
Yeah.
I'll be the architect.
Although I think he was a computer.
He was a program.
I can't do that.
No.
I don't know what I don't know.
What do we do?
Well, we're a simulation anyway, so it's fine.
Oh, I didn't realize that.
That's all right then.
Yeah.
Do you want to tell everybody about your disappointing fruit pastels today?
So, earlier in the week, I was in Aldi and I bought, oh, I had a week where I, so what I do sometimes
is I'll go to the shop and I'll just get loads of a particular kind of food and then, you know,
that'll be my food for the couple of days.
Yeah.
And this week it was seafood.
So, I just went mad.
Just went like prawns and salmon and like different things like that.
Yeah.
So, I had like a bag full of that because I was on my own this week.
Yeah.
So, and then.
You go a bit feral, don't you?
Yeah.
The food of choice was fish or seafood.
And then, so on the way out, I went, so obviously in Aldi, you go past the middle Isle of Doom,
which is where you can buy like a chainsaw and that.
Yeah.
And then you go to the other side, which is where all the sweets are.
Sweets are, yeah.
That's my favorite.
So, I walk down there because I sometimes get the Enchanted Mix, which is vegan.
Oh, yeah.
So, they're going to have gelatin in.
Oh, I like them, yeah.
Yeah.
And they're fizzy.
Yeah.
Fizzy Sweets.
I sometimes have the worm ones, which are like that.
So, but this time I looked underneath because we obviously, when we come and do our podcast,
it's two cans of Diet Coke Zero and fruit pastels.
And that's it.
If we didn't have that, we wouldn't be able to do the podcast.
No, it wouldn't work, would it?
So, they're in the, and the fruit pastels have to be the red and black ones.
Yeah.
Because they can't be.
It doesn't work quite.
No, we added one week, didn't we?
I like the green ones as well, but it doesn't work quite the same way, no.
So, in Aldi, they've got, in the same color bag.
Yeah.
With a similar colored scoop.
Blatant ripoff.
Blatant ripoff, isn't it?
Yeah.
But they've got the black and red fruit pastels, called something else.
Yeah.
Whatever.
And they're not very good.
Oh.
I was disappointed.
You were disappointed, weren't you?
Well, they taste all right, but the texture was totally wrong.
What do you think they were made of?
It's best not to ask.
No, I don't know.
But yeah, I won't be buying those again.
Oh.
That's, yeah.
So-called Aldi.
I think that if I wouldn't have had fruit pastels, the proper ones.
Oh.
Oh, so you think you've been, you think you've been spoiled a little bit by them.
Yeah, I think that's what it is.
I've got cramp in my foot.
I'm going to have to stretch.
What did you get cramp?
Do I get cramp?
Yeah, cramp.
In my thigh.
In my calf and my thigh.
Yeah, I get it there.
Just that bit.
I get it there.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Just there.
I'm pointing on the podcast to my, whatever that bit's called.
This is a great episode, isn't it?
Isn't it?
Yeah, this one's off-piste.
It is.
It's going to be great.
You can imagine people are like a really hardcore Pixies fan.
They'd be like, you would get that kind of dear so-called podcast.
I can hear.
And if that's you, we're really sorry.
Yeah, yeah.
But, you know.
You could just get the Aldi fruit pastels.
It's just the way it is.
But shall we come back on track?
Oh, yes.
I'd like to talk about the critical reaction.
52 minutes in.
Critical reaction to this album.
Yes.
Guess what everyone said.
I don't know, actually.
Because it's one of those where it's either going to be the greatest album ever,
and it's going to open the universe to a new genre of stuff,
or people are going to go, I don't get it.
It's a bit weird.
All loved it.
So, Melody Maker loved it.
They all loved it.
Loved it.
NME gave it 10 out of 10.
All English, though.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
NME gave it 10 out of 10.
Rolling Stone and Village voice placed it in album of the year.
Modern Praise.
Pitchfork put it as the number four best album of the 1980s.
Rolling Stone, 144 of their all-time 500 list.
NME put it as number two on their 1980s.
Number eight of all-time albums of all-time.
Mojo.
This is the difference, isn't it?
All-time albums.
Yeah.
That's the one, isn't it?
That's where it's landed in history.
It's like...
But it's interesting to me that it wasn't massive at the time.
So, it didn't land commercially.
It wasn't like Nevermind.
No.
Which is like, or Back in Black or, you know, it wasn't like One of Those or, you know, Dark Side of the Moon.
But I think it's interesting for me.
It's what you said about it being a stepping stone album.
It changed stuff, didn't it?
It's a landscape shifter.
Yeah, it did this kind of thing, like, changed.
And then there was just a whole bunch of stuff that happened, like, on the back of it.
And they're always interesting for me, these albums, because you kind of never really know.
Like, if the Pixies hadn't made it, would somebody else have made it?
It almost gave a lot.
It gave permission for other artists to sort of do the thing.
I guess what I'm getting at, is it a function of its time?
Or is it, like, a bunch of other stuff that was happening around the same time, and that's what gave birth to this record?
Or is it, which is my personal theory on this, is it's just a function of the right people at the right time.
So, it's Gil Norton, and it's kind of, you know, it's having all these people in the studio.
At the same point in time, the fact that...
It's interesting that Bowery called it, was it a psychotic Beatles?
Is that what he said?
Psychotic Beatles!
It's a lovely description.
It's a great analogy, but you always hear that said about the Beatles, in that that's the product of those four guys and the producer coexisting at the same time.
And just sort of, like, stumbling across each other.
And that's the product of that relationship, and that time, and that technology.
And that's perhaps what this is.
Yeah, yeah.
You might be right, actually.
I think...
Yeah.
It's...
There is...
I think that's why music's so beautiful as well, though, because it is a capture.
It's a snapshot.
It's a capture of a particular...
That's kind of where I was going with it.
It's a point in time, isn't it?
It's something that couldn't be reproduced.
You know, like having, like, Kim Deal in a grumpy mood kind of thing.
Yeah.
Do you know what I mean?
Yeah.
And the band, like, sitting in silence a little bit.
Reminds me a little bit of Rumours, where Fleetwood Mac were.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, and Pink Floyd with...
Yeah, Pumpkin's another example of that.
Yeah.
Yeah, very much so.
But the band are just not functioning very well.
No, no.
Just well enough to kind of get an album out.
And, like, you're replicating that is...
Because, like, I mean, you've always talked about this, but it's like...
It's like the way you play, almost, you know, and the music that comes out of you is kind
of part of who you are and how you're feeling at that time.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Like, you can't replicate that.
Like, you know, plucking the same band, putting them back into the studio a year later, you'd
have got a completely different record.
Very true.
Or, like, you know, a few albums before that, you know, obviously you've got Surfer Rosa.
But it's, yeah, it's not necessarily, like, the impact it had on the charts.
No, no.
I think it's the impact it had on other people and other musicians.
And, like we talked about before, you know, Kurt Cobain said that, like, massively impacted.
Yes, yeah.
And Smells Like Teen Spirit, he said, that was, you know, unashamedly trying to write a Pixie
song.
Yeah, yeah.
And I don't know.
But there is, there's a bit of me that kind of thinks if this album hadn't been made.
Yeah.
You know, what, the gap it leaves is so big.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That, you know, what happened after it may not have, yeah, may not have happened in the
same way.
Yeah.
I mean, may not have happened in quite the same way that it did.
So, yeah, there is weird.
It makes you kind of, it makes you kind of want to draw this, like, like musical tree.
You know, I'm sure, I'm sure people have done it.
Yeah.
I'm sure it exists out there on the internet already.
Yeah, just where, like, where it fits in the ecosystem.
No, the genealogy, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yeah, of kind of where these things came from and the influences.
And, you know, I think it's, it's, I don't know.
Yeah.
I think it exists in kind of every genre, I think, where the branch splits.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, and it just changes or, and it's like, sometimes it splits, like, really hard
where you've got, like, you know, you're tracing, like, Kublai Khan and Spite and, and, you
know, these kind of, like, modern hardcore bands.
Yeah.
And metal, like, metal hardcore bands.
Yes.
Back to actual hardcore and back to punk.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, I mean, you can kind of, sometimes you can, like, you can split, you can split
it based on the album directly.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
I know there's, it's more subtle.
It's like, you can't quite, you can't quite see it.
But I think this is one where there's a, there's a bunch of subtle stuff happening behind it.
And then this is a really hard.
Yeah.
This is like a spike.
This is a big fat node where after it, like, you know, a bunch of big, like, all that big
Seattle scene.
Yeah, yeah.
It just opened the door to that.
Yeah, the old rock scene and the grunge.
And I just, it just feels like without this record, that, that still probably wouldn't have
happened.
We've, we've spoken about like, um, gateways.
Yeah, yeah.
About bands being a gateway for other bands.
Yeah.
But from a taste, musical taste perspective, but actually from a creative perspective, that's
probably true as well.
Yeah.
And then it just opens the floodgates to this whole new kind of era of stuff.
Yeah.
And again, this is something you've talked about where you like it, like your playing is,
was influenced by what you learned as a young guitarist.
Yeah.
And that was Jon Bon Jovi and Smashing Pumpkins.
Yeah.
And so like your style and the way you play and the, you know, that's influenced by that
stuff you first learned.
Yeah.
And so, you know, somebody who first learned the guitar to Pixie's songs is, is, is going
to have a different thing going on.
Yeah.
And that, that, that genealogy, those influences, it's funny because then you get, but then you
get four different people or five different people, six different people with different
influences and then you put them together in a melting pot and then a thing happens.
And then that then becomes, oh, that's great.
That's so cool.
It's really organic.
Yeah.
Do you remember Pandora?
There was a website called Pandora.
Yes, I do remember that.
Yeah, I thought all about it.
Music genealogy.
I always remember loving that and thinking that was such a cool thing to do.
I mean, it got used for like radio and finding music that's similar.
But I, I, I always felt that that could have been bigger and different.
Yeah.
You know, but yeah, it is, it's all about that, isn't it?
It's all about trying to.
That's what I quite like, you know, when you find a new thing and you quite like, and then
suddenly you've got those bits at the bottom where it's, you know, if you like this, here's
a load of recommendation.
I mean, that's quite cool as well.
I, I, I love, I, there was one of the things I really like about Apple music is I can go to
the artist and then scroll to the bottom and it's, but it's, it's, it's not, it's not
done based on that genealogy.
It's literally other people.
It's like Amazon shopping.
It's like other people who like this, you're like this.
I've also listened to these.
And I always liked that because you, like you click on a band and you go and you like, normally
you know what it's going to be.
Like you can, if you're into music, you kind of know, if you click on pixels, you kind
of know the, the other, other artists, right?
But there's always one that's like a bit left field and you think, what's that?
And you, you dive in.
I can waste an entire day doing that.
Just kind of surfing, um, artists.
Cause then you, like you'll go from one, then you jump to another one and you think, oh,
or it will be, do you know what I mean?
Like for me, uh, the last couple of weeks, uh, I've gone on a real nine inch nails back
catalog binge because of Tron.
Yeah.
And, and I was, oh, that's really, really cool.
But then that spins you off to a whole bunch of other artists.
And, and I know we, we, we, we call music streaming quite a lot in the music industry because obviously
it doesn't, you know, give artists a lot of money.
It doesn't pay any money.
It doesn't, but in terms of as a consumer, it's just incredible, you know, in terms of the
discovery engine that it has and all that sort of stuff.
It is, you know, you just, you just kind of wish, I really wish, um, cause it's, cause
it's all based on streams and what people listen to also listen to.
Like a young art, a new breakthrough artist.
It's really, it's hard.
You can't break through.
You can't get your voice heard cause it's like, you know, needle in a stack of needles.
Um, and you kind of think we've got to be so close to having AI be able to, to fingerprint
music styles and like go, Hey, you've been listening to nine inch nails this week or you've been
listening to, um, you know, whatever.
And, and it kind of goes here, here are some artists that sound really like those and they
might not be massive.
They might not have 10,000 followers a month.
They might be, you know, tiny little bands, but they've, they've, they've put something out.
They're really good.
Yeah.
I think, I think there's, um, the feeling that there's going to be a really nice period of
time just ahead of us for music because of the levy, you know, the, the big, the big,
um, Oh yeah.
From the big artists.
Yeah.
Big artists.
Yeah.
Funding smaller.
Yeah.
Grassroots stuff through, um, the live thing.
Um, and I just think that that's, that's good because that creates more melting pots.
Yeah.
You know, that, that creates more, more of a, more of a supportive environment.
Like if you've seen what Island had done.
No.
So Island have basically given, um, universal basic income to musicians.
Oh wow.
Yeah.
That's quite cool.
Yeah.
So, so, so, so, so a number of musicians are basically, you know, it's not loads of money,
but it's enough to survive.
Yeah.
It's, it's sort of, here's some money so that you can create.
Yeah.
And you haven't got to worry about money while you're creating.
Wow.
Um, and I think that, I think there's probably going to be a wave of this sort of thing coming
now.
It's interesting.
Yeah.
I, yeah.
It is interesting to see where music is going to, going to go.
It's, um.
Because the technology that's around is insane.
It's incredible.
I was talking to one of the, um, I took all the, all the boys from school, not all the boys
from school.
We took 10 of the boys from school to, to, um, Ninja Warriors this week, which was a good
laugh.
Yeah.
But one of the older boys was there.
He didn't want to go and bounce with the smaller boys.
So I was going to have a chat.
I mean, he's a classical musician and we were talking about music and stuff.
And, um, it's really interesting.
His take on it, like being quite young and, you know, uh, it was interesting.
I was asking him what he felt about AI music and stuff.
Um, and he was like, I don't like having AI writing the music.
So that doesn't work for me.
So it doesn't like, I don't, I'm not inspired by it particularly.
And it kind of writes in a really clunky, obvious way.
And it's not very great.
Um, but using AI to help me write music that works.
It works really well for me.
Yeah.
So the system hasn't it?
And having analyzed my music.
So, so he said, I'll write a piece and then have it, have it, uh, like provide critique
and, and, and give me guidance on what's good and what's bad about it.
That I really liked.
That works really well for me.
And, um, I thought it was really interesting the way he, he'd like what, you know, one of
these things was almost the AI doing the thing.
that wasn't, you know, didn't find, find that particularly valuable, but, but him being
in the driving seat and writing these pieces of music, it's an assist.
It's a, it's a, it's a tool to help you to do your thing.
And he said, it just gives you ideas.
Like he said, you're what you said, what I'm getting from it is that you do it and then
it will give me feedback, like, uh, you know, uh, maybe consider, uh, uh, changing the phrasing
or changing the speed here or, and it gives you ideas.
You don't have to take them, but it's like, it's like having, it's like being able to get
a friend and forcing them to listen to your music and then for, but then, but for them to
be able to have, be articulate enough to be able to talk to you in the, in the language
that you need.
I like, I like that.
It was quite cool.
Give us some ideas, give us some pointers, give us some.
Yeah, don't do it for me.
Just help me, help me do it.
Um, I thought that was quite good.
Yeah, definitely.
So who knows?
Music, music might be, we might be in for a, a great time or I might just carry on listening
to, um, Ride the Lightning instead.
We haven't done Ride the Lightning, have we?
No, no, we should.
We should do something.
Shall we play a song and then decide what we're going to do?
Oh, we need to do facts, don't we?
Should we do facts?
Should we do, what should we have?
Should we do, what's the order?
Well, here's the problem about facts.
Yeah.
Uh, I can't read the, because I've not got my glasses.
Yeah, yeah.
Shall I do some basic facts?
Yeah, basic facts.
Yeah, do basic facts and then we'll play a song and then we'll.
Um, so it was released on April 17th, 1989.
Could you say I guess I had a yawn?
It was released on April 17th, uh, 1989.
April 18th in the US.
Right, after.
I think they, they used to release on Tuesday.
Um, allegedly it was $40,000 the budget to record.
That's not a lot of money, is it?
No, apparently they had $10,000 for Surfer Rosa.
Oh, so it's a lot more than what they had before.
Hmm.
Um, personnel, Black Francis, Kim Deal, Joey Santiago, David Lovering and Gil Norton was the producer.
Um, he described himself as the drill sergeant, which I thought was quite funny.
Um, Gil Norton had a big impact on the record.
Um, he slowed down tempos, which I think that's really interesting.
Yeah.
Um, he added a bunch of, uh, tension.
So in DeBasa and stuff, he kind of changed the structure.
Yeah, you can feel that.
Yeah, there was a lot of kind of tension that was added, which I think is really, really good.
Um, layered guitars and used compressors instead of the kind of open room ambience that they were using before.
And there was a big fight about reverb.
Yeah.
And, uh, I think it was.
Oh, there was something about putting blankets over the cabs or something to stop the reverb.
Yeah, so Joey Santiago really didn't like that.
So he was putting blankets over his cabs to, to, to kind of dry things out, which I think is, uh, uh, yeah, really interesting.
Um, Gil Norton spent a couple of weeks ahead of the recording studio, just going through all the demo tapes and stuff to kind of get, getting prepared.
So that's the puzzle bit.
Yeah.
Um, there's a lot of vocal doubling, uh, which they didn't do before.
Um, uh, yeah, which I, I, I think is, uh, uh, it's just interesting how big an impact a producer can have.
Yeah.
I think.
Yeah.
Um, uh, lots of, uh, things here around themes and imagery from this.
So, um, uh, Black Francis was a, I mean, I don't know where he got the information, whether he'd read,
the Bible or whether it was just a, I don't know, frown.
Yeah.
No, there's a piece where it was, I think the household that he grew up in.
Yeah.
Was very religious.
Ah, that would be where it comes from.
So, yeah, I think there was a, there was a lot where it was kind of like, he soaps it up a little bit.
Yeah.
Tons of themes in here about the Bible and, um, Old Testament, particularly, um, dead and gouge away.
Um, environmental collapse in monkey gone to heaven, just talking about the, you know, it's just too late to, to deal with.
Even though it's a promotional thing, like an advertisement, um, the more, I think most people that make videos,
they don't have any respect for the song because they're, they're treating it as a promotional thing and not as,
this is a song and that's the, that's the source documents for this, just like a book or something else.
That's what you're not like showing a snippet of a song.
You're playing the whole song and you're, you're, you're experiencing the whole audio thing of this is their whole song that you're hearing.
And, and, and they, they, they forget about that.
And then also as far as filmmaking or TV hobbyists, something, I mean, I doesn't have a lot of respect for that.
It's, it's not cool enough.
All them budgets and all them cameras, they can't come up with anything better than that.
The lyrical context through the whole record is just all over the place.
It's not, it's not like a theme, but it's all really dark and darkish.
It's dark or funny.
It's, I think it's really interesting.
Um, peaked at number eight on the UK charts and 98 on the US billboard.
Didn't do that well in the United States at all.
Um, did better after a while.
Yeah.
Um, but I think it did better after you had like Kurt Cobain talking about pixies being an influence.
Yes.
But not all the time.
Um, it was the UK press absolutely fawned over it and thought it was the best album ever.
Um, Nirvana quoted it as a huge influence.
So did Radiohead, PJ Harvey and Weezer.
See, I wonder if that's where this notoriety comes from.
This idea of being the greatest record amongst the greatest records of all time is because
other artists deem it to be the greatest record of all time.
And, and, and, you know, those narratives weave themselves in, don't they?
Yeah.
I think so.
I think you're right.
And there's a bunch of stuff in here that I think is like that whispering before screaming.
Yeah.
I mean, that kind of started that, um,
that light and shade thing.
Yeah.
And, and, you know, this, this got copied massively afterwards, but at the time this was like unheard
of to have quiet verses and loud, loud choruses.
Um, and, uh, there are more facts, but I can't read them because I've not got my glasses.
And that is the facts.
Right.
Let's play a tune then.
Tune.
So you can hear all these things in action and then we should talk about what's next.
Okay.
Hey.
Been trying to meet you.
Hmm.
Hey, must be a devil between us or whores in my head, whores at the door, whore in my bed.
But, hey, where have you been?
If you go, I was sure to die with change.
What change, what change, what change, what change, what change, what change, what change, what change.
To make a cool rock tune as our goal and we live for all of that song when we're making
that song and, you know, I appreciate bands that have a, they're very stylistic and, and
remain in their particular corner of sound or persona or image.
which I, I like that, but, um, we're just not real good at that.
Better just think about a one little two minute experience and try and make it good.
Sit the man to the lady.
Sit the lady to the man she adored and the whore is like a choir.
Uh, uh, uh, all night.
And Mary, ain't you tired of this?
Yes, the sound
As the mother makes when the baby breaks
What's your aim?
What do you reckon then?
Because last week we did some planning
We spoke about a few things
What?
Yeah, we said we'll do that
And then we'll do that
I think we spoke about doing Bush next
Bush! 16 stone!
We did
I'm sure we did
Is it legal?
Yes
Is it?
Oh, I don't know now
Who said that
Bush!
I'm sure it is
I'm sure it's 98, 99
94
Oh, way before then
Get in!
It's one of my favourite albums
This album has a track on it
Called...
Well, there are two on here
That I absolutely adore
There is one called Little Things
And...
Yeah, I don't know
I just love it
I just absolutely adore this album
I used to play Come Down quite a lot in sets
That was one of the big singles, wasn't it?
Yeah, but I like the slower version of it
Not the faster version of it
Oh, okay
Is it on the normal track listing?
I'm just looking at the slower version
I've not got my glasses
I can't really...
I can vaguely make out Glycerine
Yeah, that's a good song as well
Everything Zen
Swim
Bomb
Little Things
Come Down
Body
Machine Head
Testosterone Monkey
Glycerine
Alien
Ex-Girlfriend
Right, so where was that
I'm like 50-50
Whether that
50-50 from memory
And I'm squinting at the screen
There's definitely another version of Come Down
Like, there's like a faster than
Out of the normal album version
Yeah
But it might have been a B-side then
It might have been a B-side for something
But there was definitely a slower version of Come Down
Because I loved it
I thought it was really, really good
Yeah, it could easily have been actually
They did a lot of that kind of stuff
For me, they are a band that
Like, are
Because they're playing a lot of festivals
They sum up American
Like alt-rock and grunge
But they're British
Yes
And I remember first finding out
They were like a British band
And I was just like
How's that, yeah
Yeah, horrified
So like, shell
I was like, what?
Yeah, yeah, yeah
What do you mean?
Because it was so American sounding, wasn't it?
I mean, quite clearly
That's not a British band
Like, quite clearly
The production's American
Vocals are American
It sounds like it's got like an American twang
Yeah, yeah, yeah
The vocal style
And, yeah
And we talked about this a few weeks ago
This is an album I would love on vinyl
You just can't get it
It's too expensive
It's like one million pounds
But it's stupid
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Stupid
Yeah
Reissue
Well, I don't think
I don't like the reissues
That's the trouble
But I'll buy one if I have to
Yeah
But I can't even find
Maybe someone could, like, send you it
Yeah, if you've got it
Can you send it?
There's a couple
There's like this
There's like
A couple of Goo Goo Dolls records
Yeah
So, like, I'd love Superstar Car Wash
Yeah
Or
Boy Named Goo
Mm
And you've got all of these
You just can't buy them
Can't buy them
They're stupid
Like the Goo Goo Dolls
Superstar Car Wash
Which we've talked about loads
In the show in the past
And it's one that I would love
It's one of my favourite records
Yeah, yeah
I had a chance to buy a copy of it
For £110
Yeah
And I thought, I'm not paying £110
No
Get lost
Yeah
Do you know how much it is now on Discogs?
About £300
£250
Yeah, yeah
It's crazy, yeah
Stupid
Yeah
Stupid people
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I had that with Melancholy
Yeah
I always wanted a copy of Melancholy
But it was always £400
It's mad
Yeah
But I managed to get one
I thought, what's it, £50?
I think I got it for
That's alright
Three records
Yeah
There's like
So, there are
Like, yeah
£50 is kind of the limit for me
I kind of get to a point where I just think
I'm not paying more than that for it
It's like
It's like shoes
I won't pay more than £50 for shoes
Yeah, yeah, yeah
Like, there's a limit
I'm not doing it
No
Can't do it
It makes me feel, like, sad inside
Right, music should make me feel happy inside
Yeah, yeah, yeah
And like, I don't know
I'm sure that
The other thing is
The band aren't seeing that money, are they?
No
That's the thing
Second-end market, isn't it?
Yeah, yeah
And it's interesting
A lot of it is
Like Earache
They're repressing stuff
Every day
There's like new stuff being pressed
And like
Nuclear Blast are doing similar as well
Yeah, yeah, yeah
And there's a bunch of these that are doing
Like, reissues and stuff
And it's interesting
Because it kind of keeps the prices down
Yes
Because they're constantly being reissued
You've always got those originals
That's, I mean
I'm totally cool with collectors
Having a copy of
Superstar Car Wash
That's worth 500 quid
Yeah
Because it's an original
And it's blah, blah, blah, blah
And I would love to have
You know, I would love to have
That original copy
Yeah
But I'm still totally cool with spending 20 quid on a copy
Yeah
Of it
As long as I can
You know what I mean?
Because like, we've talked about this before
But for me, during the week
Sometimes I just
I love to be able to turn around
Take a record out
And put it on
And I don't know
It just kind of
That's your
Yeah, cup of tea time
And you just
Yeah, yeah, yeah
You know what I mean?
Especially at lunchtime
Because I work from home
So especially at lunchtime
Or, you know
If I'm going through emails
Or whatever else
I'll put that on in the background
And you just
Yeah
You know, it's nice
Yeah, yeah, yeah
I don't want to have to pay 500 pounds for it
Yeah, no, exactly
Exactly
Balls
So
Oh, yeah
Bush
We've decided
Yeah, it's done
Bush
Saw it at Bush
Bush
See you next week
Sorry.