Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
Speaker 1: dot com straight because knowledge is power. Hey, and welcome
Speaker 1: to the podcast. I'm Josh Clark, There's Charles W. Chuck Bryant,
Speaker 1: there's Jerry and this is stuff you should Know. Chip
Speaker 1: off the block of your favorite schoolhouse. Yeah that was
Speaker 1: we just heard the theme song. If you're between the
Speaker 1: ages of well, were you into it? Yes? Okay, so
Speaker 1: you're what forty one? I'm forty, so probably younger than
Speaker 1: you even a bit. Let's say if you're between, I
Speaker 1: was definitely towards the tail end of it. Let's say
Speaker 1: thirty eight to fifty years old. Actually, yeah, that's not true.
Speaker 1: So let's say it was up to yeah nine, Yeah,
Speaker 1: so iwhere in that rain fifty ish? All right, that's
Speaker 1: what you agree on a little more. Maybe so that
Speaker 1: fifteen year period you were lucky. Yeah, Like if you
Speaker 1: just heard that theme song and like something inside your
Speaker 1: body happened emotionally in your brain, then that means that
Speaker 1: that you grew up in the seventies and eighties. Uh.
Speaker 1: I think the heyday of Saturday Morning cartoons personally, uh,
Speaker 1: as a fan of schoolhouse rock, one of my favorite
Speaker 1: favorite favorite things in the world. Yeah, it was pretty great.
Speaker 1: I still love it. Yeah, Like I still listen to
Speaker 1: this stuff semi regularly. Oh do you. Yeah, it's been
Speaker 1: a little while. When I went back to UM to
Speaker 1: research this, I listened to or watched a bunch of them,
Speaker 1: and they all just came flooding back. Yeah, and them.
Speaker 1: The writer of this article actually interviewed, didn't he Bob Doro?
Speaker 1: It's it sounded that way unless he's a big fat
Speaker 1: liar in his author's note. Well, I just remember when
Speaker 1: this article went around, Like the first thing we do
Speaker 1: when there's an article at how SUF works is there's
Speaker 1: a UM email that goes around everyone where people kind
Speaker 1: of suggest kind of questions you can answer and stuff
Speaker 1: like that. Um. I don't think we ever really talked
Speaker 1: about that, did we don't think nine years in that's
Speaker 1: a secret. Uh, And people say, hey, you should think
Speaker 1: about this, you should do this, And I said, somebody
Speaker 1: should try and interview Bob Doro. It's like he's ninety
Speaker 1: three years old, and you know, you can still get
Speaker 1: in touch with a guy, I think, and apparently this
Speaker 1: dude did. And sadly, I think all we got was
Speaker 1: like one quote. Yeah, well, he was on his way
Speaker 1: to like a jazz gig in London when he caught him.
Speaker 1: I bet you that was more in there than this.
Speaker 1: I was all disappointed. Oh, you're saying I wanted like
Speaker 1: more more select quotes from Mr Doro. You wanted like
Speaker 1: I called Mr Doe. He answered, hello, said Mr Doro.
Speaker 1: We should have interviewed him for this. I don't know
Speaker 1: why we didn't. I don't either. Apparently it's easy to
Speaker 1: get to uh and there's well, I'll get to that.
Speaker 1: Never mind. Should we get in the way back machine? Yes,
Speaker 1: let's go back to the seventies, the greatest decade history
Speaker 1: of humanity. Probably, I'm not joking. I'm a fan of sixties. Seventies,
Speaker 1: and eighties would be tough for me to decide. Sixties
Speaker 1: were a little too hippie for me. I love the seventies,
Speaker 1: so I mean, I had loved the seventies, and not
Speaker 1: even as a Golden age. There was a lot wrong
Speaker 1: in the seventies. Nixon was president during the seventies. Okay,
Speaker 1: lots of stuff we're wrong in the seventies, but something
Speaker 1: about that decade just hit all the boxes. I just
Speaker 1: love it, and it reminds me my childhood, which is
Speaker 1: great because you know, I had a good childhood. It
Speaker 1: was fun. I a lot of We talked about that
Speaker 1: in the Nostalgia episode on how nostalgi just the correct
Speaker 1: path in life, even though John Hodgman doesn't think so.
Speaker 1: So early seventies, there's a gentleman named David McCall and
Speaker 1: um he was. He co owned an ad agency called
Speaker 1: McCaffrey and McCall and as the story goes, he was
Speaker 1: on vacation with his family and he knew his son
Speaker 1: was having some trouble in math um remembering specifically multiplication tables. Yeah,
Speaker 1: no matter how much he yelled at him every night,
Speaker 1: he couldn't get multiplication. But they're in the car and
Speaker 1: this kid was singing, as the story goes, rolling Stones,
Speaker 1: rolling Stone song, and he was like, well you know that,
Speaker 1: Why can't you remember the other stuff? I don't think
Speaker 1: he was that gruff, but it did hit him. He
Speaker 1: was like, you know, my son, remember, he has no
Speaker 1: problem memorizing things, but there's something about these multiplication tables.
Speaker 1: So I wonder if there's something too. Uh sing song
Speaker 1: and turning learning into not only just music, because that's
Speaker 1: not a new thing. People have been doing that forever,
Speaker 1: but popular sounding music, right, and like pairing them with
Speaker 1: concepts to teach, right, to to make kids understand difficult concepts, right,
Speaker 1: And it's it's so weird now, especially if in the
Speaker 1: post school house rock world that that, yeah, of course
Speaker 1: people do that, Like that's a technique that you used
Speaker 1: to teach kids, but apparently no one else is doing this.
Speaker 1: At the time that this was a pretty interesting idea
Speaker 1: and it really it germinated in just the right guy's mind,
Speaker 1: because this guy McCall was, like you said, he was
Speaker 1: a partner in this advertising firm and they basically specialized
Speaker 1: in in doing the same thing but get you getting
Speaker 1: you to buy something. He was, maybe we could do
Speaker 1: the same thing that we do to sell people stuff,
Speaker 1: but to basically sell education to kids, to teach kids
Speaker 1: using the same techniques that we use in advertising. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Like they would see a jingle for a product that
Speaker 1: would get lodged in someone's head, and they would say,
Speaker 1: you know, why can't we do that same thing, Like
Speaker 1: it would get lodged in a kid's head and they
Speaker 1: would have learned something instead of bought something. Right, But
Speaker 1: you could also buy stuff. If you learn enough stuff,
Speaker 1: you can buy even more stuff. Uh. So he went
Speaker 1: to UM. One of these Uh I think he was
Speaker 1: a creative director or co creative director named George Newell
Speaker 1: ran it by him. He said, great idea, get someone
Speaker 1: on it, and he threw a cigarette at him, got
Speaker 1: out of the office and commissioned a one of their writers.
Speaker 1: They had jingle writers on staff or at least working
Speaker 1: with them, and they said, go write something. Uh. It
Speaker 1: wasn't very good. Didn't you feel bad for this person?
Speaker 1: I did, But you know what, it could have died
Speaker 1: there right, never would have a Schoolhouse Rock. But this
Speaker 1: person went down in history is the contributor to Schoolhouse Rock.
Speaker 1: Who who didn't it didn't make it? Yeah, or the
Speaker 1: person who almost killed Schoolhouse Rock. I guess so. But
Speaker 1: McCall was like, no, this idea is too good for
Speaker 1: this Yeah, which is really, you know, a great thing
Speaker 1: and a lesson in persistence. So he went. Newell was
Speaker 1: a jazz piano player and he went to his buddy
Speaker 1: one Bob Doro, one of my heroes, who was was
Speaker 1: a and is a great bebop jazz pianist and composer,
Speaker 1: and said, you can write a jingle too. Why don't
Speaker 1: you try this out? And here's the one quote we
Speaker 1: might as well read it from ninety three year old
Speaker 1: Mr Doro. I don't know how I looked out. Apparently
Speaker 1: they tried other songwriters, but most of them wrote down
Speaker 1: to kids. When I met McAuley said here's my idea.
Speaker 1: I give it a try, but don't write down to
Speaker 1: the kids. And when he said that, I gotta chill.
Speaker 1: I have a high opinion of children. And that was
Speaker 1: sort of the key right there. They weren't uh songs
Speaker 1: like written in a remedial way because it was children.
Speaker 1: It's a bitsy spider, give me a break. Oh that's
Speaker 1: a classic. So um, but you're right. But so this
Speaker 1: idea germinates in this right guy's head. He happens to
Speaker 1: end up indirectly getting in touch with this guy who
Speaker 1: has a high opinion of children, and he happens to
Speaker 1: be a jazz composer. Things are starting to like happen.
Speaker 1: There's basically the hand of the Almighty at work here.
Speaker 1: That's right. Uh So Dora goes home. Um, he has
Speaker 1: a daughter, gets out of textbooks, and the first thing
Speaker 1: he comes up with to me one of the best man.
Speaker 1: It is far out. Three is a Magic number was
Speaker 1: the very first Schoolhouse song written because the first thing
Speaker 1: they wanted to tackle was math. Because of uh McCall's son. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this this composition that he came back with, three is
Speaker 1: a magic number. Um, it's a I when I hear it,
Speaker 1: it's super cool. But I don't. I I'm really surprised
Speaker 1: that everybody was like, this is, yes, figure something out
Speaker 1: from this. Man. I loved it. It is, it's cool,
Speaker 1: but it just doesn't seem like the basis the keystone
Speaker 1: of Schoolhouse rock to me. I'm surprised. Well, it's one
Speaker 1: of my favorites. That's great because it dealt with multiplication. Uh.
Speaker 1: And not only that, but uh, like you said, got
Speaker 1: a little trippy with the symbolism faith, hope and charity,
Speaker 1: heart and mind and body. Uh, it was about and
Speaker 1: I wanted to do a podcast on three, the number three,
Speaker 1: because it's very special. It is very special. It is.
Speaker 1: We did one on zero, Why not three? Man, I
Speaker 1: forgot about that. Remember, I think my brain melted a
Speaker 1: bit there. One it's tough. Zero is tough. It is tough,
Speaker 1: um and not at all magic, right, not really? Um?
Speaker 1: So regardless, if you would have been working there, you
Speaker 1: would have been like and everyone else enjoy I did,
Speaker 1: You'd be like, I'm gonna go get a bagel. I'm
Speaker 1: not gonna even work on this process cheese account. Um.
Speaker 1: I did think of Madmen quite a bit when I
Speaker 1: was researching this. It was sort of that same time
Speaker 1: period or I guess towards No, Madman didn't make it
Speaker 1: into the seventies. Yeah, I thought he did, because it
Speaker 1: wasn't he supposed to be dB Cooper at the end,
Speaker 1: and that was yeah, early, I guess that was seventy one.
Speaker 1: I think it did crack into the seventies, not like
Speaker 1: Boogie Nights did. That was all seventies. The No, that's right,
Speaker 1: it cracked into the eighties with that cheese that that
Speaker 1: song you recorded. Well, no, I was, well, yeah, that
Speaker 1: for sure. But I was thinking about when it when
Speaker 1: the the Party, the New Year's e Party Girl nineteen
Speaker 1: with Bill Macy. Yeah, man, what a great movie. That
Speaker 1: was wonderful. Yeah, movies almost like twenty years old. I
Speaker 1: believe it. We're old, Chuck, I know. But those those
Speaker 1: pop culture references are the ones that really hit home
Speaker 1: for me. What the ones from the seventies. Well, when
Speaker 1: I think of like Boogie Nights, I was like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: that was just like a few years ago, right. And
Speaker 1: then someone says it's celebrating its twentieth anniversary and I'm
Speaker 1: like what, Or like when I see an athlete's son
Speaker 1: or daughter. Yeah, it's weird to see that it is
Speaker 1: playing the same sport. The rookies are now like the
Speaker 1: old coaches and managers in the sports now man bizarre. Uh.
Speaker 1: So everyone's impressed at McCaffrey and McCall um. Then they
Speaker 1: did a pretty smart thing. They went to um. McCall
Speaker 1: was on the board of the Bank Street College of
Speaker 1: Education uh in New York there, and he took it
Speaker 1: to them. It was just a song at this point
Speaker 1: he said, what do you think is a learning tool? Uh?
Speaker 1: They used it, played it for the students and they
Speaker 1: were like, this is awesome. They're responding again, little job.
Speaker 1: He's just sitting there with his arms across the scowling.
Speaker 1: I've never seen him so mad before. Uh. The students
Speaker 1: liked it. The agency liked it, so they knew they
Speaker 1: were onto something. They got their art director, Uh Tom
Speaker 1: yo y o h e, oh you're going with Yo.
Speaker 1: I'm going all out with yoh okay Tom YOHI and
Speaker 1: UM said, put put some animation to this, draw out
Speaker 1: some storyboards, because that was the beauty of Schoolhouse Rock
Speaker 1: to me was Uh, it was a combination of everything.
Speaker 1: It wasn't just the song, like the songs are great, um,
Speaker 1: and we'll get more to the music here in a bit,
Speaker 1: but it was the combination of the visuals with the
Speaker 1: song and the fact that you were learning something in
Speaker 1: such a unique way. It was just like the perfect
Speaker 1: storm of awesomeness. Yeah. The songs on their own would
Speaker 1: have stood up on their own. Oh yeah. And initially
Speaker 1: like they they planned to just release an album of
Speaker 1: cool songs like this. Yeah, but it was when Yo
Speaker 1: he started sitting there right like drawing some of this
Speaker 1: stuff out. That's I mean. School was Rock is not
Speaker 1: one or the other. It's the combination of those two things,
Speaker 1: and they play off each other. So well, I agreed. Uh,
Speaker 1: So they took UM. Now they have these storyboards. Uh.
Speaker 1: They take this to a guy named Radford Stone. He
Speaker 1: was their account supervisor of the vp UM for ABC,
Speaker 1: and they said, there's this young upstart at ABC for
Speaker 1: their children's programming named Michael Eisner that if he's ever
Speaker 1: going to go anywhere, but right now he's running the
Speaker 1: kid's shop over there. Um, and let's bring in because
Speaker 1: this guy knows a lot about kids programming, Let's bring
Speaker 1: in Chuck Jones to the meeting. Shout out to her
Speaker 1: from Jessica, granddaughter of Mr Jones, and uh sat down
Speaker 1: in a meeting, played the demo tape, showed him the
Speaker 1: storyboard they helped. Turned to Chuck Jones, so what do
Speaker 1: you think? And he said, buy it? By it that's
Speaker 1: how Chuck Jones do that. He didn't and Michael Eisner
Speaker 1: bought it and uh, before you knew it are own business.
Speaker 1: We're gonna take a break, I think we should. Josh
Speaker 1: is gonna go collect himself and we'll be right back
Speaker 1: you all right, all right, we're back. So strange. Um, So,
Speaker 1: Schoolhouse Rock started on ABC Saturday morning. Is that what
Speaker 1: they call an interstitial? Yeah, we had some of this, Yeah,
Speaker 1: it was. It was. It's programming between the programming that's
Speaker 1: not commercial. When the creators of the program you're actually
Speaker 1: watching weren't good enough to make twenty two full minutes,
Speaker 1: you round it out with interstitial program Yeah, exactly. Uh,
Speaker 1: this is January six and seven was the first weekend
Speaker 1: in ninety three, so I was but two years old.
Speaker 1: Well three, yeah you you were in the upper atmosphere
Speaker 1: just playing my liar, coalescing, waiting to be born, flapping
Speaker 1: my wings. Uh. And this was before like like you said,
Speaker 1: this is the original thing was. It was just gonna
Speaker 1: be an album called Multiplication Rock um, until they realized
Speaker 1: that the visuals were important they could put it on television.
Speaker 1: And the first four songs that first weekend were some
Speaker 1: of the greatest, aside from threes, magic number four, legged Zoo, Elementary,
Speaker 1: my Dear, and my Hero zero great song uh zero
Speaker 1: again yeah, not magical, but it is a cool number.
Speaker 1: Such a funny little hero came along. They counted on
Speaker 1: their fingers and so that when was that check three?
Speaker 1: And um, I think that first one had quite was
Speaker 1: so it was up to third. There were thirteen episodes
Speaker 1: that if it went from zero to twelve. Yeah, I
Speaker 1: think what they settled on was, um almost like seasons,
Speaker 1: uh themed season, so that the first season was going
Speaker 1: to be math related. Yeah. So um. Apparently Bob Darrow
Speaker 1: had been off like coming up with songs, didn't realize
Speaker 1: that they wanted a song for each number, and he
Speaker 1: had started to combine several numbers in a different song,
Speaker 1: so he didn't get the memo. He didn't and he
Speaker 1: finally did and um he uh. He was trying to
Speaker 1: figure out how to like break the songs apart, and
Speaker 1: he came up with one called the four Legged Zoo.
Speaker 1: Have you heard that one? Yeah? It's fine, so so
Speaker 1: not one of my favorites, but I mean they're all great.
Speaker 1: It's just some standout a little more than others. So
Speaker 1: what's your favorite of the multiple k rock Three is
Speaker 1: a magic number? Okay? Yeah? And and that was something
Speaker 1: else I noticed about this. There are um for each season.
Speaker 1: There were at least one standout song per per season
Speaker 1: that just about everybody knows. And I would guess three
Speaker 1: is the magic numbers. Probably that one, yeah, or maybe
Speaker 1: my Hero zero. That was a big one. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was a hit, so much so that um Bob Doro
Speaker 1: was up for Grammy in nine four for um, I
Speaker 1: I think the whole album, right, yeah, but the those
Speaker 1: jerks at Sesame Street one, if you're gonna lose, lose
Speaker 1: the Sesame Street. Yeah, And Dora is like writing and
Speaker 1: singing these initial first few songs. I think he's saying, yeah,
Speaker 1: all of them except two, and he hired two other
Speaker 1: jazz musicians, Grady Tate and Blossom Deery, Grady Tate saying
Speaker 1: Naughty number nine and Blossom Deery saying figure eight. But
Speaker 1: all the rest of them, the other eleven, Bob Durrow
Speaker 1: sang and he wrote all of them. So yeah, they
Speaker 1: really struck gold with that guy. Yeah, I mean he
Speaker 1: was he was that initial genius behind this whole thing. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and this is another cool thing about Schoolhouse Rock that
Speaker 1: I noticed, Um, the people involved stayed on for basically
Speaker 1: the whole run. In the initial run from seventy to
Speaker 1: eighty five, Yeah, it seemed like a project that everyone
Speaker 1: enjoyed working on, and that was highly collaborative, and it
Speaker 1: just seemed like a good experience. I don't think there's
Speaker 1: like the v H one special like the Dark Side
Speaker 1: of the school House rockyears. You know. Uh, so they
Speaker 1: move on to I don't know which one is my favorite,
Speaker 1: Grammar Rock or History, Um, but they moved on to
Speaker 1: Grammar Rock next yea seventy three to seventy four, And
Speaker 1: we should say I don't think that these were, Um, Like,
Speaker 1: I don't think there are breaks in the season. I
Speaker 1: get the impression that from three till when they had
Speaker 1: enough episodes, they were just running on like every Saturday
Speaker 1: morning during cartoons. Yeah, I certainly don't remember like breaks,
Speaker 1: like it just seems like every week they were there. Um.
Speaker 1: So seventy three and seventy four you have Grammar Rock,
Speaker 1: which um debuted. Some people will probably say the biggest
Speaker 1: of all time Conjunction Junction. Yeah, that's so, and everybody
Speaker 1: knows it's a great, great song, uh song, as he's
Speaker 1: sang many others, including my all time favorite, which I'll
Speaker 1: get to later. Okay, but I know what it is.
Speaker 1: I bet you don't. Um. He was MRF MERV Griffin's
Speaker 1: trumpet player, Jack Sheldon, who just had this voice that's
Speaker 1: just like it's the conjunction Junction. Yeah, it's unbelievable, very
Speaker 1: unique guy. And he kind of looked like Will Ferrell
Speaker 1: to me, like he should play him if they did
Speaker 1: a movie about they should do a movie about the
Speaker 1: whole thing. If she asked me, Yeah, I think there's
Speaker 1: no controversy or conflict. It's just two hours of everybody
Speaker 1: getting along doing great stuff. He wants to see that, right, Um,
Speaker 1: so Jack Sheldon came along, uh sank in junction junction
Speaker 1: and did you go back and listen to that? Like
Speaker 1: for this, listen to a lot of these, So that
Speaker 1: is a sophisticated song. If you listen to like that,
Speaker 1: we remember our poetry episode. If you listen to like
Speaker 1: the meter and the um, the rhyming pattern, the rhyme scheme,
Speaker 1: and the slant rhymes they use, like for something that's
Speaker 1: made for kids, it is not just rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme, ryme, rhyme, rhyme, rhyme.
Speaker 1: You know, like it's a sophisticated song. Um. And it's
Speaker 1: pretty pretty cool. Yeah, I think that's I mean, I
Speaker 1: think that's why it worked. That was a secret is
Speaker 1: um it's I guess it's that not not talking down
Speaker 1: to kids. Yeah, And like the music was was good,
Speaker 1: Like if you listen to um, I mean those are
Speaker 1: a little sing songy, but like some of them were
Speaker 1: like pop music at the time, like the Verb song
Speaker 1: some one of the funkiest songs I've ever heard. Verb
Speaker 1: That's What's happening, And especially that one, like I read
Speaker 1: I read this great blog post by this African American
Speaker 1: guy that was talking about how verb was like meant
Speaker 1: so much to him because at the time, you know,
Speaker 1: they didn't have a lot of like cartoons and stuff
Speaker 1: that but addressed the black community at all. And so
Speaker 1: all of a sudden, you get this cartoon. It's got
Speaker 1: the super funky music and this kid that looked like
Speaker 1: him having this great adventure uh in the city, and
Speaker 1: uh it just kind of it's pretty pretty neat thing,
Speaker 1: I think. Yeah that was season two, was Grammar, right, Yes,
Speaker 1: So apparently in that same season, lady named Lynn Aaron's
Speaker 1: um was a She was a copy copy department secretary. Yeah,
Speaker 1: this is where it reminded me of Madman, and she's
Speaker 1: like basically took Peggy's journey from like secretary to superstar.
Speaker 1: I've never seen mad Yeah it's good. I'm rewatching it
Speaker 1: right now. Really, yeah, it's that good. Yeah. So, um,
Speaker 1: Lynn was she was a secretary at the advertising agency.
Speaker 1: And apparently she was playing her guitar on lunch break.
Speaker 1: Another reason the seventies were great exactly, And um, who
Speaker 1: was it that Founder Newell, the creative director guy. Yeah,
Speaker 1: like in the movie, he's just walking down the hall
Speaker 1: and here's this beautiful music and stops. It's like, what
Speaker 1: in the world's going on in there? Right? And it
Speaker 1: was Lynn Errands, And so they took her and put
Speaker 1: her on I guess part time on the project um
Speaker 1: and they, I guess eventually made her a full time songwriter,
Speaker 1: which is pretty cool. That was her gig. Fifteen of
Speaker 1: the songs, including some of the biggest ones. Now and
Speaker 1: as a person plays her thing great song in Her Planet,
Speaker 1: Janet interjections to good one a Victim of Gravity about
Speaker 1: Isaac Newton in Her Planet Janet, sounds like Rocky Horror
Speaker 1: if you go back and listen to it, kind of
Speaker 1: does it bears a real resemblance to it? Or Rocky
Speaker 1: Horror sounded like inter Planet Janet. I went and looked.
Speaker 1: Rocket Horror was three years before In A Planet Janet
Speaker 1: the movie or the play the movie? Okay, so the
Speaker 1: play was even before that? Was it a play first? Uh?
Speaker 1: Meat Loaf was even in the play, oh yeah, before
Speaker 1: the movie, right, and not a play I guess, musical
Speaker 1: which play with songs and dancing. Uh So. The next
Speaker 1: one to come along was America Rock or History Rock,
Speaker 1: which kind of vised for the best to me with
Speaker 1: Grammar Rock, and that one tied into the bi centennial.
Speaker 1: Yeah that was a big deal, which you don't remember,
Speaker 1: but I remember being a little kid, being five years old,
Speaker 1: and uh, it took over the country for you know,
Speaker 1: that entire year. Yeah, I know there was like a
Speaker 1: resurgence and colonial emblems and stuff like that. You know
Speaker 1: that if you ever walked past like a very very
Speaker 1: old person's house today, you might see like a flag
Speaker 1: holder that's a black metal eagle holding like some arrows
Speaker 1: maybe or that is from still there, like a resurgence
Speaker 1: and Betsy Ross and colonial like knick knacks and stuff.
Speaker 1: I wasn't I was just born, but it was there
Speaker 1: was a it created like a high water mark that
Speaker 1: I was able to see even you know, four or
Speaker 1: five six years later. So, uh, History Rock or America
Speaker 1: Rock um featured some of the best songs Mother Necessity
Speaker 1: Shot heard around the world. Uh and No More Kings,
Speaker 1: which is maybe my second all time favorite. Yeah, and
Speaker 1: that's the one that um. There was an album that
Speaker 1: came out in called Schoolhouse Rocks Rocks, Schoolhouse Rock Rocks,
Speaker 1: where they got contemporary artists to cover these songs and
Speaker 1: did you ever listen to that. I listened to the
Speaker 1: Pavement win to day. So I emailed Bob Nistanovich today
Speaker 1: from Pavement because, as I said in the previous episode,
Speaker 1: I tricked him into being my email friend. Um, and
Speaker 1: I said, hey, dude, I would love to hear if
Speaker 1: you have any thoughts on them, more kings, how you
Speaker 1: guys were approached, if there any stories, what it meant
Speaker 1: to you, what it didn't mean, whatever, let me know. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: He emailed back. Uh. And then I said, I'll call
Speaker 1: you on my way to work, called him the way
Speaker 1: to work. Crickets. Yeah, I got his voicemail, and then
Speaker 1: as I was coming in the studio, he called him
Speaker 1: left the voicemail saying he was in his minivan rocking
Speaker 1: out and he didn't hear the phone ring, which is
Speaker 1: very funny to me. But um, I told him I'd
Speaker 1: like to hear what he has to say, because he
Speaker 1: said he has a tale to tell about that experience. Man,
Speaker 1: we're gonna have to record it after this. Well yeah,
Speaker 1: or if it could be like a listener mail, Yeah,
Speaker 1: like if I can get him on tape, then we'll
Speaker 1: tag it at the end. If not, if it ends
Speaker 1: up being an email version or something. I'll just maybe
Speaker 1: recount it in my own dumb words, or you could
Speaker 1: ask him if we could read the email and make
Speaker 1: a listener mail. Oh for real, like a real listener mail.
Speaker 1: All right, it's not about it so anyway, uh So,
Speaker 1: listen up for the end for Bob Nistanovitch story about
Speaker 1: No More Kings, because if you listen to that CD,
Speaker 1: it's like the lemon Heads and uh ween, it's the
Speaker 1: super ninety c D Mob Moby and they're all most
Speaker 1: of them are pretty straight ahead, and so you get
Speaker 1: to the Pavement song and it's just all pavement. Like
Speaker 1: Malcolm has changed his words. He there's like laser guns
Speaker 1: at the end, and it's just wonderfully pavement, like quintessentially pavement.
Speaker 1: Like leave it to them to just kind of throw
Speaker 1: it all out the window and do their own thing.
Speaker 1: I liked a lot um three ring Government. I didn't
Speaker 1: really know that one that was good, and apparently they
Speaker 1: um So it basically talks about the different branches of
Speaker 1: the government but puts in the context of a three
Speaker 1: ring circuit us and it's um really, I mean, aside
Speaker 1: from the fact that it compares to the government to
Speaker 1: a three ring circus. It's not at all offensive. Apparently
Speaker 1: they said on that one for years and didn't release
Speaker 1: it until nine nine because they were worried about offending
Speaker 1: the government, which is a strange thing to worry about
Speaker 1: through today's lens. Yeah, but even still, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is like post water Gate. It's not like everybody was like,
Speaker 1: oh right, you know, we we couldn't possibly call the
Speaker 1: government a three ring circus. Yeah, that's true. That is weird.
Speaker 1: It seems like that would have been a good time
Speaker 1: to do it. Yeah. But the most famous song, um
Speaker 1: from that year by far was Sheldon's on just a Bill?
Speaker 1: Is that your favorite? No? Okay? Um? That was composed
Speaker 1: not by Mr Doro but by a man named Dave Frishburg.
Speaker 1: And Um, I mean that one was just a mega hit,
Speaker 1: straight to number one on the Billboard charts. It's it's like,
Speaker 1: as far as Schoolhouse Rocks goes, that's the that's the
Speaker 1: that's the cultural icon, that signifies the whole thing. I
Speaker 1: think close close second would be conjunction junction. Maybe they're tired,
Speaker 1: I don't know, but I just feel like I'm I'm
Speaker 1: just a bill is the most readily recognizable. One. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and it's just amazing when you look back, though, like
Speaker 1: the learning that was going on and the teaching that
Speaker 1: was happening these kids us, we were learning how a
Speaker 1: bill becomes a law right in the in the best
Speaker 1: way possible, like better than any well, not any teacher.
Speaker 1: They were great teachers back then, let's say, like any
Speaker 1: dump teacher that's boring their kids. But it definitely struck
Speaker 1: a chord with me, you know, And that's how I
Speaker 1: remember a lot of this stuff. And apparently two adults
Speaker 1: were also noticing Schoolhouse Rock at the time. Supposedly there
Speaker 1: were plenty of orders. This is before video, because before
Speaker 1: they were widely available, I guess in the home. I'm
Speaker 1: trying to think of how they would have played them
Speaker 1: if they didn't have video cassettes. But anyway, apparently lobbyists
Speaker 1: and legislators would get in touch with ABC and be like,
Speaker 1: you gotta get me a copy of that I'm a
Speaker 1: Bill thing and give me a beta MAX because I
Speaker 1: want to show it to my staff to train them
Speaker 1: on this kind of stuff. Well, I think they asked
Speaker 1: for cassettes, at least the very least, so they could
Speaker 1: play in the music. I see, maybe that's what they meant.
Speaker 1: Probably okay, an eight track. Um. And then there was
Speaker 1: Science Rock was the year after that. That was seventy
Speaker 1: and seventy nine, which is pretty good. InterPlaNet Janet, Victor's
Speaker 1: so weird? What InterPlaNet Janet? Yeah, it's a good one.
Speaker 1: And then the telegraph Line song, which um, I think
Speaker 1: that was written by this Arns too, I think, And
Speaker 1: that one was really like, I mean it was you
Speaker 1: literally learned about the erb A system and how the
Speaker 1: body communicates uh to the brain by listening to that song.
Speaker 1: And that's the one that they wanted to play for
Speaker 1: med students and they did amazing some of them. All right,
Speaker 1: well let's take another break, and um jeez, we'll we'll
Speaker 1: cover the the sad last season of Schoolhouse Rock after this,
Speaker 1: so chuck. Schoolhouse Rock for the first four seasons was
Speaker 1: the epitome of creativity. Even their process was creative, Like
Speaker 1: the songwriters would I guess they would say, this season
Speaker 1: our theme is, you know, it's going to be science,
Speaker 1: are gonna be grammar or whatever, So go go forth
Speaker 1: and figure this out. The songwriters would come up with
Speaker 1: songs and they'd pitch them to the creative team. And
Speaker 1: so there was this process of creativity and it started
Speaker 1: with the creatives. That's the key here, That's what made
Speaker 1: it just so legitimate and so wonderfully creative this whole time.
Speaker 1: It started with the creatives, right, yeah, and they would
Speaker 1: pretty cool. They would get them vetted by that Bank
Speaker 1: Street School of Education, so they would get to make
Speaker 1: sure everything was like, you know, it was right yeah,
Speaker 1: and then ABC, oh, let me say it. And then
Speaker 1: they'd say, oh, I guess it's fine, and then they'd
Speaker 1: start the storyboard it once they had the lyrics set
Speaker 1: in stone, right. That was the first four seasons. The
Speaker 1: fifth season they said, died, Creativity Die, and they reversed
Speaker 1: the process and they said, hey, songwriters, here are your
Speaker 1: assignments now where we we think kids should know more
Speaker 1: about computers. So we're gonna just screw this whole thing up. Okay, yeah,
Speaker 1: this is the part I don't get it, says the
Speaker 1: ABC program exact Squire Rushnell commissioned this because that was
Speaker 1: the idea that children were afraid of computers. I can't
Speaker 1: I don't remember anything, but they're being like excitement about computers.
Speaker 1: I don't remember any kids being like I don't want
Speaker 1: to go near that. Yeah, I remember kids being like,
Speaker 1: oh that's cool, let me sit down, And usually it
Speaker 1: was the parents that were afraid of computers. Well, I
Speaker 1: think here unless the problem. Yeah, with season five, so
Speaker 1: we should say season five two. If you notice we
Speaker 1: jumped quite a bit from nineteen seventy nine and nine
Speaker 1: eighty five. Schoolhouse Rock was running all those years on
Speaker 1: Saturday mornings. They just weren't any new ones. They were
Speaker 1: the same ones that they were rerunning. The Class five
Speaker 1: Squire Rushtional says, give me give me four episodes or six?
Speaker 1: Is it four or six? On computers? Yeah, and we're
Speaker 1: gonna call the season a Scooter Computer and Mr Chips
Speaker 1: what do you think of that? So it's what like,
Speaker 1: uh computer with a bag of chips. It's like, no,
Speaker 1: Mr Chips is a computer? Well, what's Scooter computer? It's
Speaker 1: just a kid. And they said, well, what about the
Speaker 1: Goodbye Mr Chips? That great book? And no one's ever
Speaker 1: read that? What's a book? So, uh, it was a
Speaker 1: little confusing disdain for him. It's a little weird. I know,
Speaker 1: I feel bad if that's not really how it went down,
Speaker 1: but it sounds kind of like that classic story, you know,
Speaker 1: like an executive takes over the creative and it just
Speaker 1: goes downhill. It's usually how it happens, UM, And I
Speaker 1: do feel a little bit bad because you know, the
Speaker 1: originals were still involved. They got Mr Doro back on board,
Speaker 1: and uh, I think they did the best they could.
Speaker 1: But I think one of the issues is UM, all
Speaker 1: the other seasons, you know, math and science and history,
Speaker 1: it's all civics. It's all baked in like that stuff.
Speaker 1: It's classic and didn't change when you're writing songs about uh,
Speaker 1: data processing and basic computer language a couple of years later, like, no,
Speaker 1: it's not relevant anymore, you know. So it's sort of
Speaker 1: that's why no one's ever heard of it. Plus again
Speaker 1: they were like, so wait, Scooter computers the boy or
Speaker 1: the computer he's hanging out with, right, And why is
Speaker 1: the computer on roller skates? Yeah, just stuff like that,
Speaker 1: you know. It was it was an undignified into something
Speaker 1: really great. And so they pulled the plug on the
Speaker 1: whole thing. In They said, Hey, this Mary lou Retten lady.
Speaker 1: We like her. She's got gumption, she's got apple pie
Speaker 1: coming out of her ears. Um, we love her, and
Speaker 1: we want to put her on TV, so they put
Speaker 1: her interstitials on ABC Fun Fit. I'll bet that was
Speaker 1: the same time when Reagan made Arnold Schwarzenegger. Is like
Speaker 1: fitnesses are that? Bet totally remember that the Presidential fitness Test, right? Yeah? Man?
Speaker 1: I failed that so many times. Yeah, I think I
Speaker 1: was always sick that day. It's like I gotta climb
Speaker 1: a rope. Still to this day, I've never climbed a
Speaker 1: rope in my life. I made it this far. You know,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna be chased by a tiger on the way something.
Speaker 1: I was gonna say, that's how you're gonna meet your
Speaker 1: demise one day, just gonna be in like a burning
Speaker 1: building and a rope's just gonna fall from the ceiling
Speaker 1: like a cartoon. Good. Uh. In the late eighties, UM,
Speaker 1: there was a student at Yukon Go Huskies that said,
Speaker 1: I want to bring Schoolhouse Rock back. They started a petition.
Speaker 1: I could not find this person's name for the life
Speaker 1: of me, but ABC said, you know what people want
Speaker 1: this um, and I guess it took him a little
Speaker 1: while to get around to it, but nine they brought
Speaker 1: it back, rerunning UM all those classic tunes and cartoons
Speaker 1: and added some new stuff by Bob Doro in the Gang. Yeah,
Speaker 1: they brought back the originals and this this season was
Speaker 1: called UM Money Rock and they did a substantial number
Speaker 1: of new episodes, but again written and performed by all
Speaker 1: the original people. But a good starting or twenty years
Speaker 1: later um and they had things like UM seven fifty
Speaker 1: once a Week, which is about maintaining your budget, Tyrannosaurs
Speaker 1: Debt which is about the national debt, UM and plenty
Speaker 1: of others. Remember the Tale of Mr Morton. That was
Speaker 1: another Lindon Errand's offering. What was that one about? I
Speaker 1: can't remember exactly. I didn't go back and rewatch it,
Speaker 1: but I remember he's like, they'll sell his money on
Speaker 1: Scratch Office or something. I don't think so. Um. But
Speaker 1: you know, again, the reason why this was that it
Speaker 1: works so well, It's because these were men and women
Speaker 1: who were used to selling products for a living and
Speaker 1: it was just sort of a natural, uh, a natural
Speaker 1: thing for them to do as an ad agency. It
Speaker 1: seems weird at first when you're like an ad agency
Speaker 1: came up with Schoolhouse Rock, it kind of makes perfect
Speaker 1: sense when you think about it. Yeah, yeah, I mean,
Speaker 1: they they were selling this these ideas to children in
Speaker 1: ways that were comprehensible the children, that were approachable by children. Um,
Speaker 1: and they just kind of took the kids point of
Speaker 1: views and packaged it for them. I think it's a
Speaker 1: good way to put it. Yeah, So besides the Schoolhouse
Speaker 1: Rock Rocks c D, which I still have. Actually, yeah,
Speaker 1: that nineties thing created a bit of a resurgence of it.
Speaker 1: The resurgence in popularity for sure. Boy that Blind Melon
Speaker 1: Three's matchic number. It was great. Yeah hear that one?
Speaker 1: Did you like them? I think Soup, their second album,
Speaker 1: is one of the great underrated records of the nineties.
Speaker 1: I don't recall that one man, It was think I
Speaker 1: only heard their first album, but they that was the too.
Speaker 1: They I think they made like the pop charts right
Speaker 1: out of the gate and just kind of were unfairly
Speaker 1: labeled as a pop group even though they really weren't.
Speaker 1: They were because a lot more to them. No rain
Speaker 1: song and the catchy video with the whole girl and everything. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Soup was good, man, you just checked that out. Well,
Speaker 1: it's very good, very sad what happened to him? Hey
Speaker 1: O deed and they didn't find him for a while, right,
Speaker 1: I don't remember that part, but maybe I think I
Speaker 1: think no nobody missed him for a little while or
Speaker 1: something like that, but a waste um in though there
Speaker 1: was another resurgent. I guess I was before the CD
Speaker 1: uh when they took it to the stage with Schoolhouse
Speaker 1: Rock Live, which kind of started out as most great
Speaker 1: theater like this in a in a sort of a
Speaker 1: basement black box theater in Chicago, and it just grew
Speaker 1: from there to eventually an off Broadway run. Yeah, not
Speaker 1: just that. It started in the basement theater of a
Speaker 1: vegetarian restaurant in Chicago. Just to add that extra little
Speaker 1: dose to it. Yeah, why not made it on to
Speaker 1: Off Broadway. Yeah, it ran for four solid years and
Speaker 1: then they had a touring version. Um. I remember wanting
Speaker 1: to see it, but and I think I was living
Speaker 1: in New Jersey at the time. I should have gone
Speaker 1: and seen it. I think I had no money at
Speaker 1: the time. I think it still might you still might
Speaker 1: be able to catch it. There's a group called the
Speaker 1: Theater Bomb Theater Bam Chicago, Theater Bam Chicago, and they're
Speaker 1: still doing shows. They're still touring. As far as I know,
Speaker 1: I need to do my U Free to Be You
Speaker 1: and Me live show. That's one of my dreams. I
Speaker 1: talked about that before. There isn't that Rosy Greer one? Yeah,
Speaker 1: but did he do the whole album or just that
Speaker 1: one song? Just the one? It was conceived by Marlo Thomas.
Speaker 1: That's pretty great. But um yeah, that was another like
Speaker 1: that one hits me square in the face, still from childhood,
Speaker 1: right in the bread best right in the breadbasket. Uh
Speaker 1: ninety seven they had a twenty fifth anniversary UH package
Speaker 1: of VHS tapes. So think about this, like it goes
Speaker 1: up the air in n then all of a sudden
Speaker 1: ninety ninety seven, there's like schoolhouse Rock everywhere. It will
Speaker 1: never die, no, And I think like this was one
Speaker 1: of the first instances because dude, admittedly Generation and X
Speaker 1: is extremely nostalgic as far as generations, Yeah, very nostalgic.
Speaker 1: I would propose that Schoolhouse Rock was the thing that
Speaker 1: kicked it off as far as gen X nostalgia goes. Well,
Speaker 1: it definitely was something that was so drilled into our consciousness.
Speaker 1: It gets a touchstone, right, But I mean, the surgeonce
Speaker 1: of it, I think is the is the first example
Speaker 1: of just how nostalgic as a generation generation exists for sure,
Speaker 1: that's that's mine. You got Sharknado. I'm predicting that that
Speaker 1: will be rooted out by historians and years to come.
Speaker 1: Dig that one out of the vault. Uh. Maybe at
Speaker 1: the place of your death, like a plaque next to
Speaker 1: that rope that you couldn't climb will be a memorial,
Speaker 1: will be like rope Jeez, you already forgot. Uh. Kennedy
Speaker 1: Center had a sing along for the fourtieth anniversary, two
Speaker 1: thousand people in attendance. UM. Pretty amazing. I would have
Speaker 1: done anything to have gone to that. UM. And then
Speaker 1: it's been parodied and homaged over the years and everything
Speaker 1: from The Simpsons to Saturday Night Live. Did you see
Speaker 1: Conspiracy Rock? Conspiracy Theory Dude? That was a TV fun
Speaker 1: house bit, right, yeah, by Robert Smigel. It's one of
Speaker 1: the all time great man. He nails nails the conspiracy theory,
Speaker 1: Nail's Schoolhouse Rock. But it's all about how these major
Speaker 1: corporations like GE and Westinghouse own the media they owned
Speaker 1: like ABC, NBC, all these um media outlets, and how
Speaker 1: they can use it to shape opinion and squash UM opinions.
Speaker 1: That disagree with them or their products, and um choose
Speaker 1: what to report on. It is so good. Go watch
Speaker 1: it right now. It's on YouTube. Um. But apparently there's
Speaker 1: a bit of a conspiracy theory around it as well,
Speaker 1: because it aired on the actual Saturday Live episode. But
Speaker 1: then when they reran it and I think released that
Speaker 1: episode on DVD, it wasn't there. They they edited it out,
Speaker 1: and um, supposedly it was just because Lauren Michaels didn't
Speaker 1: think it was funny. There's just no way that that's
Speaker 1: all it was. It was so I'm thinking, no, it
Speaker 1: was such a smack in the face too NBC and
Speaker 1: like all the other ones that, yeah, well, and they
Speaker 1: just had one a couple of years ago on that
Speaker 1: it wasn't homage. I'm just a bill that was pretty
Speaker 1: great too. Yeah, this was better. You gotta see it, man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I have a feeling I have and I just don't
Speaker 1: know it. He nailed it. I'll let you know all
Speaker 1: text you and say I have seen it, and you'll say,
Speaker 1: who's this. I don't have your number. So I actually
Speaker 1: ran across a little bit as great as Schoolhouse Rock is.
Speaker 1: Actually ran across criticism of it. What yeah, boy, are
Speaker 1: you gonna should just leave the room. Maybe I'm about
Speaker 1: to get angry. You might want to, all right. So
Speaker 1: they were teaching very broad concepts to kids in ways
Speaker 1: that kids could understand, and when you're when you're coming,
Speaker 1: when you're coming at them with multiplication or grammar whatever.
Speaker 1: But apparently especially with the History Rocks or America Rock Season,
Speaker 1: depending on what you want to call it, that's where
Speaker 1: the criticism tends to come out. So there's one called
Speaker 1: elbow Room. Did you remember that one? Got that got
Speaker 1: to get you some elbow Room where it's about there's
Speaker 1: so many white settlers that we just got to spread westward. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'll see where this is going. Not a single Native
Speaker 1: American is shown in this westward westward spread. They actually
Speaker 1: mentioned that it's God's will manifest destiny. So the whole
Speaker 1: thing kind of I don't want to say it came
Speaker 1: under fire because it's not like everybody's like, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: elbow Room forget Schoolhouse Rock. Very few people are. But
Speaker 1: there's criticism of Schoolhouse Rock and that it really kind
Speaker 1: of fed American children. This the the popular line on things,
Speaker 1: and it was just exactly the kind of stuff where
Speaker 1: when you grow up you're like, wow, I was really misled.
Speaker 1: This was first explained to me as a child. Ye.
Speaker 1: So well, we talked about that a lot too, about
Speaker 1: how schools, especially in like the seventies and eighties, uh,
Speaker 1: whitewashed a lot of stuff. So this was part of that.
Speaker 1: I can see that. I mean it was and I'm
Speaker 1: not justifying it, but it was definitely of the times
Speaker 1: for sure, you know, which is why you know, I
Speaker 1: think that they that these creatives were like, we can't
Speaker 1: say this to kids, you know. I think that there's
Speaker 1: definitely been more of an awakening in recent years. But
Speaker 1: I was right, yeah, and this is another name for
Speaker 1: what they were talking about, Like forced removal was turned
Speaker 1: into get you gotta gives some elbow roof. You know though,
Speaker 1: I want to know, um chuck, because I'm not in
Speaker 1: school and I don't have a child in school. I
Speaker 1: don't have a child at all. I have a four
Speaker 1: legged child. But are they still misleading kids like they
Speaker 1: did when we were young? Do we just assume now
Speaker 1: that we know the deal that they don't do that
Speaker 1: any longer or are they still doing it? So any
Speaker 1: history teachers out there that are like fifth six seventh grade,
Speaker 1: because that's what I remember really being just overtly lied to.
Speaker 1: And then as we got a little past that, they
Speaker 1: started to be like, well, maybe the Native Americans didn't
Speaker 1: really want to leave, and then it just got a
Speaker 1: little more legitimate. So I want to know, teachers out
Speaker 1: there let us know. I bet the answer will get
Speaker 1: is that we've come a long way, and it probably
Speaker 1: depends on your district. Oh yeah, and maybe even your teacher. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I can see that. Um. I bet there's not like
Speaker 1: a one sweeping answer for that one, but there's definitely
Speaker 1: been progress, you know, I would guess, yeah, who would
Speaker 1: let us know? As Tyler Murphy let us know. Well,
Speaker 1: I know what he's doing. He's doing all the right things.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, he's up on the desk opening minds. Uh
Speaker 1: so you're ready for my favorite? Uh rufus Xavier Sasaparilla.
Speaker 1: What was that one about? Oh yeah, I have a
Speaker 1: hard time expressing how much joy this song brings me. Still, Yeah,
Speaker 1: I listened to it a lot. If I'm ever down,
Speaker 1: that's the song that's pretty great. It's amazing, it's the
Speaker 1: word play is unbelievable, and it's another Sheldon song. Uh
Speaker 1: like how it's it's very fast. How he like every Uh.
Speaker 1: I looked up to see if people did it live
Speaker 1: and stuff, and everyone always slows it down because nobody
Speaker 1: can fast. Well, it's just very complex, and the whole
Speaker 1: idea of the song is is the complexity of all
Speaker 1: these nouns that you can replace with pronouns. I got
Speaker 1: a friend named Rufus Xavier Sasaparilla, and you know, they
Speaker 1: go to the zoo and there's an art vark and
Speaker 1: and armadillo and all these big words. He's like, I
Speaker 1: could say that, or could say he did this and
Speaker 1: we did that, and she said this. Uh yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a word that takes the place of a noun like kangaroo.
Speaker 1: Can we play it? You know what? We wouldn't because
Speaker 1: of law. They should make an actually want about copyright infringement.
Speaker 1: It was started out as a bill. Yeah, so we
Speaker 1: probably can't play enough of it to do with justice.
Speaker 1: So I just say, go and listen to that song
Speaker 1: in full, because it's delightful. All right, I'll do that. Man,
Speaker 1: they go to the zoo, there's animals. I'll pile on
Speaker 1: a bus. They Yeah, this girl in Rufus Xavier Sasparilla.
Speaker 1: They yeah, exactly, it's a place now. Uh you got
Speaker 1: anything else? No, but there there probably will be a
Speaker 1: tag on this one with Mr Nastanovich or or with
Speaker 1: me just recounting his tail of No More Kings. So, uh,
Speaker 1: if you want to know more about Schoolhouse ROCKO read
Speaker 1: this article on how Stuff works dot com. And since
Speaker 1: I said that, it may be time for listener and
Speaker 1: mail with Bob nistan Bits, all right, So uh now,
Speaker 1: as promised or as hope fully promised, we have via
Speaker 1: telephone in the studio Mr Bob Nastanovich, who um is
Speaker 1: actually a member of two of my favorite bands of
Speaker 1: all time, both Pavement and Silver Jews, And um, it's
Speaker 1: a real treat to have you here, Bob. We did
Speaker 1: a show on Schoolhouse Rock and talked kind of at
Speaker 1: length about pavements efforts toward that. Uh. I guess late nineties,
Speaker 1: uh c D and got in touch with you and
Speaker 1: you said you had a couple of stories to tell.
Speaker 1: It was a we were in Memphis, we were supposed
Speaker 1: to be making a Silver Jews record, and um, the
Speaker 1: singer of Silver Juice, David Berman, decided he did not
Speaker 1: want to make the record. And he went home and
Speaker 1: we'd already booked a week of studio time Silver Juice
Speaker 1: had and UM. Then subsequently we were Stephen and my
Speaker 1: health and Steve West were unceremoniously fired from Silver Juice. UM.
Speaker 1: That's beside the point. We were kind of like at
Speaker 1: all the studio time that David was supposed to pay
Speaker 1: for it, so to bail him out, Pavement sort of
Speaker 1: took that and made a record so Stephen, Stephen thankfully
Speaker 1: had three songs and we made a specific trimmy p
Speaker 1: But I guess most significantly in in regards to this project,
Speaker 1: Jackie Ferry and dear friend of ours, was supervising the
Speaker 1: Schoolhouse Rock not Blation and Um. She gave us our
Speaker 1: choice of songs, and it was fairly obvious to us
Speaker 1: that no More King's you know um had a lot
Speaker 1: of appeal. It's always our favorite one kids Boston Tea
Speaker 1: party being UM kind of we were able to use
Speaker 1: the vocal style links of Steve West to our advantage,
Speaker 1: I believe, for the first time in band history, and
Speaker 1: it all turned up to be. We were very pleased
Speaker 1: with it, were very pleased with all of it. But
Speaker 1: and I think that it's an outstanding compilation and it's
Speaker 1: one of those things in pavements time that I feel
Speaker 1: like we actually did a good job on. Now, what
Speaker 1: what did Steve West do for that one? He played
Speaker 1: drums and then um all the deep voice rambling in
Speaker 1: the background, mostly him. He's got an incredible voice, speaking voice.
Speaker 1: He's one of the people that you can hear from
Speaker 1: a hundred and fifty feet away and with a win,
Speaker 1: we've got a beautiful deep voice. So um we he's
Speaker 1: doing all like the ranting and raving. Um, it was
Speaker 1: all pretty jubilant. We had a good times. Only time
Speaker 1: the three of us ever recorded together as Pavement, and
Speaker 1: but um, I feel like we made a good choice
Speaker 1: and we just loved that song. And it was one
Speaker 1: take over, yeah, one take on the instrumental and just
Speaker 1: um some vocal dubbing. Probably took eight minutes wow. And
Speaker 1: it was just the three of you, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: just the three of us real, the only ones there
Speaker 1: because we thought it was gonna be Silver Jooes and
Speaker 1: that that was in Silver Jooes. So Camberg and I
Speaker 1: Bold we're at home and I don't even know if
Speaker 1: they were contacted. We made that specific trim ep that
Speaker 1: song Give It a Day during the same session, and
Speaker 1: a couple other songs are on the B side of
Speaker 1: that thing. But um, now the school House Rock was
Speaker 1: the kind of thing pop mind like, well, we have
Speaker 1: anything to do, and seems like I got this one song.
Speaker 1: He's like, well, you have to do this thing for Jackie.
Speaker 1: We have to do someings jack We probably sort of
Speaker 1: planning on doing it anyways. But Jackie at the time
Speaker 1: was a BJ at MTV. Then she later became our
Speaker 1: um so she was she was the nanny for Courtney
Speaker 1: and Kurt, for Francis Bean Cobain, and then she was
Speaker 1: a tour manager for Pavement. In fact, she has she's
Speaker 1: been battling cancer for over a decade. Um but um.
Speaker 1: One interesting artifact that she owns is the actual Cardigan
Speaker 1: Cardigan's um button up cardigan sweater that Kurt Cobain wore
Speaker 1: it in the famous MTV Unplugged performance. So yeah, she's
Speaker 1: quite a character, but it was it was her project,
Speaker 1: and you know, she was a good friend, and um,
Speaker 1: we want to do the best we could for her.
Speaker 1: I didn't really care about anything else. We didn't even
Speaker 1: realize We didn't know whether there was a good tiny
Speaker 1: thing like a limit edation of like whatever. But yeah,
Speaker 1: funnily enough, my wife that was the first Payment song
Speaker 1: she ever heard because her sister, Yeah, her sister bought
Speaker 1: the school Loss rock thing when her sister was like fourteen,
Speaker 1: and but what my wife went would have been about ten,
Speaker 1: and she heard that is the first time she ever
Speaker 1: heard Payment. That's pretty funny. It We were talking a
Speaker 1: little bit about, um, just your take and kind of
Speaker 1: just the different takes of all the artists on that
Speaker 1: compilation and a lot of more pretty straightforward, and um,
Speaker 1: I think I really like the Pavement one the most
Speaker 1: because it was it was kind of the perfect mix
Speaker 1: of very straightforward at times and then just totally pavement
Speaker 1: pavementized at times. Yeah. Very Um, we don't I mean
Speaker 1: we'd be straightforward. I don't think we're kind of good
Speaker 1: enough to do things straightforward. Like like I think it's
Speaker 1: like you think of like a band like Nickel Creek
Speaker 1: covering our songs been on a stranger they can and
Speaker 1: they kind of American at it or whatever. But like
Speaker 1: in order to do like straight things, you've gotta be
Speaker 1: you gotta be good or else you're gonna come of
Speaker 1: humiliate yourself, like for example, like are am doing like
Speaker 1: Pylon is crazy? They could do that pretty straight because
Speaker 1: they have that sound they just you know, but I
Speaker 1: think that like I've heard a lot of cover songs
Speaker 1: where it's like a great song and like a somebody
Speaker 1: with a great voice, you know, usually like a female
Speaker 1: will we'll sing it pretty straight. And just the fact
Speaker 1: that it's a somebody with a gorgeous voice, you know,
Speaker 1: preferring a classic, it sort of works. But now we're
Speaker 1: none of us are none of us are good enough
Speaker 1: to do that. We had we had to devise our
Speaker 1: own take on it. You know. Well, I thought it
Speaker 1: totally worked. Was the Schoolhouse Rock? Um? I mean, was
Speaker 1: that something that you guys were into or was there
Speaker 1: much decision I mean, besides the fact that it was
Speaker 1: your friend asking was it something that you thought was
Speaker 1: kind of cool or did you feel like you should
Speaker 1: do it? Yeah, it was a great idea. At the time,
Speaker 1: we thought it was a great idea. And at that
Speaker 1: point in our lives, Um, I'm guessing it was like
Speaker 1: somewhere in there we've forgotten you know, you like that
Speaker 1: point where you know that we hadn't seen or heard
Speaker 1: any of that. The only one that I can really
Speaker 1: remember off the top of my head at the time
Speaker 1: was the conjunction Junction. You know, yeah, of course, what's
Speaker 1: your function? But like you know, those are the some
Speaker 1: of the first songs when we were little kids, like
Speaker 1: under ten years old that got stuck in our head.
Speaker 1: So yeah, I just thought it was I mean, if anything,
Speaker 1: the only negative I thought it might be a little
Speaker 1: bit childish and corny. Um. But you know, then as
Speaker 1: it came together, um, it just seemed like a very
Speaker 1: worthwhile project to me. And you know, she was pretty
Speaker 1: earnest Jackie, and and I'm happy it all worked out.
Speaker 1: I kind of I think it's actually become like sort
Speaker 1: of a one of the more significant things that Payment
Speaker 1: ever did, sort of outside the realm of Pavement. Um,
Speaker 1: I'll still being Pavement, Like you know, I don't I
Speaker 1: don't even know. I'm the kind of person in regards
Speaker 1: to that band that would find out about things to last.
Speaker 1: So because I lived in Louisville and I was always
Speaker 1: at the race track, and and you know, people would say, hey,
Speaker 1: you know what, you're gonna be making a new album
Speaker 1: like two months. I wouldn't know anything about it or
Speaker 1: like you know, you're going on tour, you're starting in London,
Speaker 1: I would like you know, I just wouldn't even know.
Speaker 1: And like so anything that rolled through the door there
Speaker 1: like request to do stuff, I never knew about him,
Speaker 1: you know, unless we're gonna knew him, you know, so
Speaker 1: you can see where I was on the pavement A
Speaker 1: payment totem pole. Well man, I always call you pavor
Speaker 1: payment secret weapon. Uh yeah, yeah, yeah, I think that
Speaker 1: was something about your addition to the band that really
Speaker 1: just sort of mixed everything up, whether it was you know,
Speaker 1: the percussive elements are just you coming in uh with
Speaker 1: your your unique take on backing vocals. Yeah, no, I um,
Speaker 1: I think I presented the element really not entirely knowing
Speaker 1: what I was doing, and that was true. And the
Speaker 1: funny thing about it is like even at this point
Speaker 1: in my life and people who are completely unaware of pavement,
Speaker 1: mostly from this industry, the horse racing industry, like heard
Speaker 1: I was was in a band or even a successful band,
Speaker 1: They can't even they just didn't make any sense to them.
Speaker 1: And then they'll also, um, you know, and they'll have
Speaker 1: to like look it up on Google or whatever to
Speaker 1: realize that, yeah, we were actually like a band that
Speaker 1: made records and stuff. And then um, and then the
Speaker 1: funny thing is it's always asked me that, you know,
Speaker 1: if it's musico types or something. I'm like, one thing
Speaker 1: I'm really sort of unaware of in the human race.
Speaker 1: I have no feel for people that like kind of
Speaker 1: collect musical gear and take music really really seriously, like
Speaker 1: playing music really seriously and like jam and like or
Speaker 1: just really like have this incredibly dry approach to like
Speaker 1: like gear heads, like really really serious and like people
Speaker 1: ask me to jam and I don't. I mean my
Speaker 1: idea of I don't. I don't jam. I mean I
Speaker 1: can't imagine jamming, Like what does that even mean? Like, um,
Speaker 1: really awkward, Like it's always awkward, Like people asked me
Speaker 1: to do something, and then I'll be like, oh, man,
Speaker 1: like uh, you know, like I gotta figure out a
Speaker 1: way to get out of this, you know, because like
Speaker 1: a my skills like they're not gonna really not gonna
Speaker 1: believe them in a band. Went like once I show
Speaker 1: up with like whatever, I have two drums or whatever
Speaker 1: and start hitting and they're gonna be like, there's no
Speaker 1: way this guy was in a band like this is
Speaker 1: a fake you know, so very strange, very strange. Well
Speaker 1: you just gotta say no, man, I'm the secret weapon,
Speaker 1: and the secret weapon doesn't Yeah, like this like the
Speaker 1: spice and like some sort of bowl of burgoo or something.
Speaker 1: I don't even know. It was just like the whole
Speaker 1: experience was pretty magical. Um, it still doesn't really make
Speaker 1: that much sense to me, you know, I just I
Speaker 1: really enjoyed it, for sure. But in regards to that
Speaker 1: that specific project, that's something that went like really smoothly,
Speaker 1: like it never got to the point. I mean it
Speaker 1: was literally like Stephen I'm sure probably worked on it
Speaker 1: that morning or something. But when when they press record
Speaker 1: on that lost Rock thing, that thing was a humbling
Speaker 1: or it was in and out the door, Doug Easy.
Speaker 1: It's like that's good, you know, like, yeah, that's probably
Speaker 1: a good approach for something like that because you don't
Speaker 1: want to overthink it and then it becomes a thing
Speaker 1: and it's stressful. Perhaps, so I think that approach to
Speaker 1: just get in there and like knock it out was
Speaker 1: probably the way to go. It certainly worked out in
Speaker 1: this case. Yeah, And it's a song that has no
Speaker 1: history within the context of the band. You know, it's
Speaker 1: not like something that we've been working on or something
Speaker 1: have been sitting there or something that have been played
Speaker 1: live or you know. I mean I think that we
Speaker 1: had to you know, pavement ize it and give it
Speaker 1: a bit of an original spin because that's the only
Speaker 1: way that we can really do it. I mean, like,
Speaker 1: you know, like we were talking about with a straight thing,
Speaker 1: you know, you can't. You gotta have significance. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: not that, like you know, Steven and Steve West aren't talented.
Speaker 1: I'm not gonna like those guys are great, but like,
Speaker 1: in fact, the fact that they're able to like throw, improvise, um,
Speaker 1: something like that's pretty cool. So I remember being really
Speaker 1: really happy that Steve West, who had never really been used,
Speaker 1: um in payment outside of just playing drums, um, that
Speaker 1: he was but he sort of fit fantastically on that recording.
Speaker 1: So I sort of loved that about no Marketings. I
Speaker 1: love hearing him in there. All right, Well, thanks Bob.
Speaker 1: I appreciate your telling us these stories, and um, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna think of about a hundred more reasons to have
Speaker 1: you on in the future. Yeah, anytime, all right, man,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot for more on this, and thousands of
Speaker 1: other topics because it how stuff works. Dot com