Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm your host, Josh Witzapolski,
Speaker 1: and I have to say today's show is a unique
Speaker 1: treat for me. Our guest, who I'll tell you about
Speaker 1: in a second, has become a iconic, really a member
Speaker 1: of the family in a way. I mean I don't
Speaker 1: actually know him at all personally or in real life,
Speaker 1: but he has in some way become a voice in
Speaker 1: our house that I hear on a regular basis, of course,
Speaker 1: talking about the music journalist and critic Rob Harvilla. He
Speaker 1: hosts a show that you can find on I believe
Speaker 1: it's on Spotify. It's a Ringer podcast. It's called Sixty
Speaker 1: Songs That Explain the Nineties. It is way over sixty
Speaker 1: songs at this point, and it is sort of one
Speaker 1: man's travelogue through the songs that for me were very
Speaker 1: much and for my wife were very much a part
Speaker 1: of our youth and a part of our growing up
Speaker 1: and sort of are incredibly resonant and important to us.
Speaker 1: And actually, to begin the conversation with Rob, a real
Speaker 1: member of my family is going to join me, my
Speaker 1: daughter Zelda June. So let's just let's get into it. Okay, wait, there,
Speaker 1: you go. It's just that the seed is like not
Speaker 1: designed for a man in a child to sit on
Speaker 1: at the same time. Can you live talking to the
Speaker 1: mic and you hi?
Speaker 2: You know?
Speaker 1: I mean you definitely definitely was better when you were
Speaker 1: like up high. I guess I could tilt the mic
Speaker 1: your way like that. Oh yeah, so better? Yeah that works. Okay,
Speaker 1: I can hear myself. Hew, there he is when I
Speaker 1: got to get Zelda in frame. Okay, this is very exciting.
Speaker 1: This is Zelda.
Speaker 2: Hi, Zelda. I'm Rob. It's nice to meet you. You
Speaker 2: are nine years old? Am I correct? Since stated you're nine?
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: I have a nine year old son named Griffin, so
Speaker 2: he's this is old.
Speaker 1: They should meet.
Speaker 2: I have some nine year old experience.
Speaker 1: So you're familiar with nine year olds, is what you're saying.
Speaker 2: That's what I'm saying. Yes, good.
Speaker 1: So Zelda's mom, Laura, my wife, introduced her to your
Speaker 1: show and she is a huge fan.
Speaker 2: That's very flattering, right, would.
Speaker 1: You say it's your favorite podcast?
Speaker 2: You don't have to say that. It's not true.
Speaker 1: And she's listened to a lot of very inappropriate episodes
Speaker 1: with a lot of bad lines.
Speaker 2: I was going to say, I was going to apologize
Speaker 2: for the language, which is rude of me. And had
Speaker 2: I known this Elda was listening, of course I would
Speaker 2: not have said any of the many inappropriate things that
Speaker 2: I've said.
Speaker 1: Well, you know what, I don't think you should edit yourself, Flda.
Speaker 1: So Zelda put some questions together. She wanted to talk
Speaker 1: to you, and she made a list of questions here
Speaker 1: and we've highlighted two of them.
Speaker 2: Yes, all right, I'm so excited about this.
Speaker 1: Okay, take it away. This is all this is all yours.
Speaker 2: Hello, Zelda. Hit me.
Speaker 3: What is a song from the nineties that you like
Speaker 3: but you are not going to do on the podcast?
Speaker 2: Wow, okay, that's a very good question.
Speaker 1: It's a good question.
Speaker 2: Let me think about this for a second. I really
Speaker 2: like a band called Morphine h. They were from Boston.
Speaker 2: It was a dude playing bass, but I think there
Speaker 2: were only like two strings on the bass, if I
Speaker 2: remember correctly, and then a dude playing saxophone and a
Speaker 2: dude on drums. There was sort of like a jazz
Speaker 2: rock type band that had a few modest hits on
Speaker 2: all alternative rock radio in the nineties. And I really
Speaker 2: really like them, and I listened to them a lot,
Speaker 2: and I've thought about doing an episode, but it may
Speaker 2: be they may not be quite huge enough to do
Speaker 2: a whole episode about. The huge problem I have with
Speaker 2: this show is there's too many songs. Right, Like, it's
Speaker 2: called sixty songs, but then I did like fifty songs
Speaker 2: and I was like, oh my gosh, I have way
Speaker 2: too many other songs. And I keep adding new songs
Speaker 2: and that's very obnoxious. And now the title of the
Speaker 2: show is wrong. It's and the seo is ruined. This
Speaker 2: is a terrible situation, and so I have to cut
Speaker 2: it off somewhere. And so I fear that I will
Speaker 2: not get around to doing an episode on Morphine. On
Speaker 2: a song, what would I do if I did Morphine,
Speaker 2: I would probably do the song Buyna, which is I
Speaker 2: think the first song that I ever heard by them.
Speaker 2: I really like it. That means good in Spanish. You
Speaker 2: probably know that nine year old's are really smart tu
Speaker 2: That's one song that I really really love. And if
Speaker 2: every episode of this show is just me being super
Speaker 2: indulgent in doing whatever I wanted to do, like, I
Speaker 2: would for sure do an episode on the band Morphine.
Speaker 2: But because I'm I care about the people you know,
Speaker 2: and I have a mission here and I have people
Speaker 2: to answer to besides myself. I am I am gonna
Speaker 2: have to graciously not do the Morphine episode that I
Speaker 2: would really love to do.
Speaker 1: My follow up is I feel like, unfortunately, now that
Speaker 1: you've said it, now you've put it out into the universe,
Speaker 1: it seems almost inevitable that you'll have to do the episode.
Speaker 1: I know what you're saying now, it's like, well, if
Speaker 1: you don't do it, maybe you've missed an important moment
Speaker 1: for yourself and for the show.
Speaker 2: I don't know, well, I think this is the first
Speaker 2: time that I've ever said that, like, I'm probably not
Speaker 2: going to do this song. Like I've tried to keep
Speaker 2: it open ended. I've tried to be really arbitrary. I've
Speaker 2: ended up doing other songs that I thought that I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to do. And so you're absolutely right that,
Speaker 2: for all you know, that could have been just an ingenious,
Speaker 2: you know, head fake to make you think that I
Speaker 2: wasn't going to do it. But I'm going to do
Speaker 2: it immediately now that I've said I is I gonna
Speaker 2: do it. That's just how I roll.
Speaker 1: I'm unpredictable, also interesting, that Zelda maybe got the first
Speaker 1: you're saying maybe the first ever. You're not going to do.
Speaker 2: It, that's right. Yeah, it's it's just that that's just
Speaker 2: the kind of interviewer she is. This is very very aggressive,
Speaker 2: and I just you freaked me on and I just
Speaker 2: hit answered. Honestly, it's it's really remarkable.
Speaker 1: I feel like I'm watching Jonathan Swan and Trump right now,
Speaker 1: and uh.
Speaker 2: There you go, Frost Nixon.
Speaker 1: She isn't exactly, she's another one here. Do you want
Speaker 1: to read that one? You don't know how to phrase it? No,
Speaker 1: this is good, this is good. Just read it. Just
Speaker 1: read it.
Speaker 2: It's a good question too.
Speaker 1: I will dying to know the answer to this. Go ahead.
Speaker 3: So if you are going to end the podcast, are
Speaker 3: you just gonna stop? Or are you gonna do a
Speaker 3: different era of music?
Speaker 1: Credible stuff?
Speaker 2: Are you just gonna stop? It's that's that is incredible. Yeah.
Speaker 1: She actually she actually said are you going? She actually
Speaker 1: wrote are you going to stop podcasting?
Speaker 2: Specific I'm going to retire?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like this.
Speaker 2: She started with it, so is great. It's very Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's jocular. Okay, I would I would love to and
Speaker 2: I have every intention to do another podcast after I
Speaker 2: stop doing this podcast. I have to stop at some point.
Speaker 2: It's going to get obnoxious if I do too many songs.
Speaker 2: I am almost certainly actually going to stop at one
Speaker 2: hundred and twenty songs, which means I have sixteen left,
Speaker 2: which will take me through the end of the year
Speaker 2: or maybe a little into January. But I really want
Speaker 2: to do something else. I am not quite clear on
Speaker 2: what that is yet. I have thought about doing the eighties.
Speaker 2: I'm sure you're very familiar with Delda with the eighties.
Speaker 2: I thought about doing the twenty one. Big problem here
Speaker 2: is I hate the term the aughts, like I just,
Speaker 2: I just I don't like that specific way to describe
Speaker 2: the first decade of the two thousands, right, like just.
Speaker 1: The yeah yeah, she doesn't you know when when the
Speaker 1: two thousands were just originally just the thousands. People call
Speaker 1: me a lot because that's an old timey that's an
Speaker 1: old timey word for zero for zeros.
Speaker 2: Zeros is excellent. Dadding that you're doing right now that
Speaker 2: I'm getting to it is I would like to do it.
Speaker 2: I would like to do another show. I have every
Speaker 2: intention of doing another show. I should know what that is.
Speaker 2: I should be more prepared than I am. But I
Speaker 2: don't know what it is. But I do know that
Speaker 2: it's going to be something. I'm going to come up
Speaker 2: with it anytime now. But I do not intend to
Speaker 2: retire from podcasting. I should probably keep doing this.
Speaker 1: That's good. I mean, that's very good to know. I
Speaker 1: just want to just say, I mean, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is I've actually never seen zou to do this. Okay,
Speaker 1: she's right taking she's taking notes.
Speaker 2: It's like a therapy.
Speaker 1: If she really originally wrote down one hundred twenty songs
Speaker 1: and then she said, put left. But it's not one
Speaker 1: hundred twenty songs left. I think, no, you don't have
Speaker 1: to race. It's fine. But she wrote one hundred twenty
Speaker 1: songs and then wrote down another show, which I guess
Speaker 1: has heard is confirming making sure she got the confirmation
Speaker 1: that you will be doing another part.
Speaker 2: It's in writing, which I if I told Zelda, now
Speaker 2: I have to do it. Zelda, can I ask you
Speaker 2: a question? Yeah, what is your favorite song from the nineties?
Speaker 1: So oh, I think you probably have an answer to this.
Speaker 1: What's your favorite song from the nineties? You just did
Speaker 1: your your School of Rock showcase was on nineties. Right,
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, is there one of those songs that's your favorite?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: What is it?
Speaker 3: Buddy Holly?
Speaker 1: Is it from the nineties? It is?
Speaker 2: Is it? It is Buddy Holly from by Weezer. Yeah,
Speaker 2: Weezer's Buddy Holly is an excellent nineties you're saying you
Speaker 2: just played that song. You're in the school of Rock program.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she sang lead vocals on that song.
Speaker 2: You sang lead vocals on Buddy Holliday. Yeah, so cool.
Speaker 1: You you noticed she did lead vocals on Epics by
Speaker 1: Faith No more.
Speaker 2: No, she did not. That's it was ever heard a
Speaker 2: nine year Oh my, is there video? Is that available?
Speaker 1: I think I have video? Yeah, I definitely have video
Speaker 1: of it, and I'm happy to produce it.
Speaker 2: And you gotta drop the SoundCloud, drop the lake. You
Speaker 2: were one of the coolest nine year olds I know.
Speaker 2: I guess I have a nine year old as well.
Speaker 2: You would be, you can't you and my You and
Speaker 2: my son are the two coolest nine year olds around.
Speaker 2: You sang lead vocals on Do You Like Epic? Is
Speaker 2: that a hard song to sing?
Speaker 3: Well, I mean, when you hear it it's hard, but
Speaker 3: when you actually like learn it, it's pretty easy.
Speaker 2: Okay, she was excited.
Speaker 1: There's it's essentially a rap, and she was very excited
Speaker 1: it is.
Speaker 2: That's yeah, it's so cool man, it's at it. Oh
Speaker 2: my gosh, that's the neatest day I've ever heard.
Speaker 1: I mean, all of it was just seeing children play
Speaker 1: those songs, just completely.
Speaker 2: Did someone play the piano part at the end? Oh yeah, Yeah,
Speaker 2: that's the best part of the song for me, is
Speaker 2: the piano part of the wait, did you do epic?
Speaker 2: I didn't because it's eighty nine. It's one of the
Speaker 2: songs that's not actually from the nineties. Oh wow, it barely,
Speaker 2: isn't it barely? Isn't it? It was like popular in
Speaker 2: ninety maybe let's say that's right, that's exactly right. It
Speaker 2: peaked in nineteen ninety, but did not.
Speaker 1: Wow, yeah, so did that was a nineties thing, though,
Speaker 1: wasn't it.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: You gotta go in there and tell them they messed up.
Speaker 1: I'd be like, guys, here's the one problem with our
Speaker 1: showcase that we did is that thatens technically from the eighties.
Speaker 2: Oh so yeah, that's you gotta fact check the school,
Speaker 2: you gotta you.
Speaker 1: Gotta hit it, get hit with the facts. All right, Well, Zelda,
Speaker 1: I think you got to go back in. Right. Do
Speaker 1: you have anything else, any other question you want to
Speaker 1: ask Rob or any other thing, anything you'd like to say,
Speaker 1: you want to do that one? Okay, go ahead.
Speaker 3: How did you think of a name for your podcast?
Speaker 2: We were trying, We were trying to think of the
Speaker 2: right number of songs to do, and ninety songs would
Speaker 2: have made more sense. But I was it would have
Speaker 2: made a lot more sense, right, But I was worried
Speaker 2: that people wouldn't like this show and I would be
Speaker 2: embarrassed if the name of the show was ninety songs.
Speaker 2: They explained the ninetes, and then after like three episodes,
Speaker 2: people like, this show is terrible, you need to stop.
Speaker 2: And then I was the guy who got like who
Speaker 2: got a show canceled with ninety in the title, right,
Speaker 2: and so sixty but then thirty songs was too few songs,
Speaker 2: and so sixty which is still an embarrassing amount of songs.
Speaker 2: If I had been canceled after three songs, like but
Speaker 2: sixty was between.
Speaker 1: Sixty and ninety, I feel like the embarrassment would be
Speaker 1: pretty right.
Speaker 2: Yes, mistakes were made in this in this thought process.
Speaker 1: Okay, Zelda, great job and now you're going to go.
Speaker 2: It was great to me, U Zelda. You are my
Speaker 2: youngest fan or a person who's ever listened to this podcast,
Speaker 2: and I'm honored.
Speaker 1: It's very great to me.
Speaker 2: Congratulations on the faith no more weezy thing. That's awesome.
Speaker 2: Good luck to you.
Speaker 1: Do you want to sign off?
Speaker 2: Yeah?
Speaker 1: How would you sign off here? From this conversation? Bye? Bye?
Speaker 2: Well that was delightful.
Speaker 1: I consider to be one of the most delightful people
Speaker 1: that I know, so as is obvious, I think we
Speaker 1: are huge fans of the show and huge fans of you.
Speaker 1: And I shouldn't say this because I'm a podcaster, but
Speaker 1: I don't listen to a lot of podcasts, and I
Speaker 1: think your show I just don't like. I just I'm
Speaker 1: very you know, I'm very busy multitask space and it's
Speaker 1: a safe space for us, and yours is one that
Speaker 1: I find to be consistently entertaining and educational and hilarious.
Speaker 1: And just like I'm very charmed by you and I
Speaker 1: listened to you. I'm like entering as a fan and
Speaker 1: uh and an appreciator.
Speaker 2: Of that's tremendously kind of you. It's all a facade.
Speaker 1: So I mean, you're you and I must be close
Speaker 1: in age.
Speaker 2: We are we are I'm forty five.
Speaker 1: Oh I'm forty five also, so we're actually the exact
Speaker 1: same age. All right, that's great. You said you think
Speaker 1: you're gonna do one hundred and twenty episodes total of
Speaker 1: this podcast. You're on what number? Now?
Speaker 2: I am thinking about episode one oh five. I have
Speaker 2: sixteen episodes remaining, you know that shows on a little
Speaker 2: break right now. We'll return, I believe on October eleventh,
Speaker 2: and we're going to go straight through. You know, so
Speaker 2: the holidays accepted, et cetera. But like the last sixteen
Speaker 2: are a block that we are thinking about now, and
Speaker 2: it is vexing. This is a vexing document.
Speaker 1: To me, because there are too many songs that you
Speaker 1: want to do.
Speaker 2: There are too many saws, and it's just it's not flowing.
Speaker 2: Like I just there's like a harmony and like a
Speaker 2: beauty that I really want to concoct right of this
Speaker 2: Excel chart, and I just I haven't gotten there yet.
Speaker 2: It's as I look at it, and it just it
Speaker 2: doesn't look quite right.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: I don't know if you ever have that feeling, but
Speaker 2: I'm just I'm not sure exactly what I'm.
Speaker 1: Doing, Like you're missing something or you just don't feel
Speaker 1: like the order the flow is correct.
Speaker 2: Both really, you know, it's it's it's we you know,
Speaker 2: we have you know, the list of songs that we
Speaker 2: probably are not going to do at this point is
Speaker 2: very disturbing right to me because there's so much cool
Speaker 2: stuff on here. But all of those are still technically possible.
Speaker 2: But like, yeah, it's a combination of like, you know,
Speaker 2: for every song that we add now you know, there
Speaker 2: are five that de facto are being left off. Right.
Speaker 2: This is the point I would get to previously where
Speaker 2: I would then go to my to my friends and
Speaker 2: masters at the Ringer and be like, can we please
Speaker 2: do more episodes? They're like fine, all right, you know
Speaker 2: it's and then like that's what we did when we
Speaker 2: got close to sixty, That's what we did when we
Speaker 2: got close to ninety, you know, and like they're not
Speaker 2: going to let me extend again, Like I I probably
Speaker 2: should bring a somewhat dignified conclusion, but it's not a
Speaker 2: good feeling to try and orchestrate that, right.
Speaker 1: I feel like there is this kind of symmetry though,
Speaker 1: with one hundred and twenty. I mean it immediately evokes
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty minutes from MTV, which of course
Speaker 1: was I mean a very much a nineties product, and
Speaker 1: like probably the place where so many many of the
Speaker 1: songs that you've talked about were sort of not discovered
Speaker 1: exactly a bit discovered by the masses or much much
Speaker 1: larger audience.
Speaker 2: Discovered by me. Certainly, Yeah, absolutely is huge for me.
Speaker 1: So I think one twenty sounds right, does I mean,
Speaker 1: what you were talking about, this idea that you know
Speaker 1: went from sixty to ninety and now you have one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty. I had some idea in my head
Speaker 1: when I when I started listening to it that like,
Speaker 1: because you hadn't done pretty far into the show, you
Speaker 1: hadn't done some songs that I thought were like really important.
Speaker 1: I mean one, I think the one that stood out
Speaker 1: with smells like teen Spirit, which, which, like I guess
Speaker 1: I think from my money. I don't know if this
Speaker 1: is a globally considered truth or not, but I feel
Speaker 1: like it's probably the most important song from the nineties. Like,
Speaker 1: I don't know if that's.
Speaker 2: I agree with you, Yeah, to the extent that there's
Speaker 2: a consensus. You know, if if rock, if guitar music,
Speaker 2: et cetera, is a thing you're at all interested in,
Speaker 2: I think that's a safe bad.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I guess I should say yeah in the rock space,
Speaker 1: but also like more but also beyond rock into like pop,
Speaker 1: because I think what was interesting about it, which is
Speaker 1: it seems like nothing now, seems like no big deal,
Speaker 1: but it was like a song that should not have
Speaker 1: been as massively popular as it was, like to a
Speaker 1: broad set of people, and yet it was like a
Speaker 1: defining point. And that's early nine. That's like it came
Speaker 1: out what ninety one, ninety he.
Speaker 2: Came out in ninety one, you know. And I think people,
Speaker 2: you know how they say, like a decade doesn't begin
Speaker 2: like you know, on January first, nineteen ninety like culturally right,
Speaker 2: I think a lot of people would fix the beginning
Speaker 2: of the nineties, either so when it came out, which
Speaker 2: I think was September ninety one, or the moment when
Speaker 2: it kicked Michael Jackson off number one on the Billboard charts,
Speaker 2: you know, as as you say, when it became pop
Speaker 2: and no one when this song came out, I expected
Speaker 2: it's ever become pop, like that's the moment when the
Speaker 2: nineties begin.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Culturally, yes, I.
Speaker 1: Mean it is insane to think about that, just as
Speaker 1: conceptually knowing the band, you know where they came from
Speaker 1: and who they were, surrounded by the idea that you
Speaker 1: would that they're one of their songs would knock Michael
Speaker 1: Jackson off of the from the you said number one spot, right,
Speaker 1: m h.
Speaker 2: I think it was the album? Yeah, yeah, I think
Speaker 2: I think it was like the Kicked. I believe Dangerous
Speaker 2: was the Michael Jackson album. Yeah.
Speaker 1: Well, you know that's you know, I'll say that it's
Speaker 1: probably that's not his best work, so you know, they had.
Speaker 2: A little bit of an edge, that's true.
Speaker 1: I want to ask about the way that you do
Speaker 1: your shows. So first off, like, there are a lot
Speaker 1: of your episodes and I do encourage anybody who's listening
Speaker 1: to this to go and listen to to Rob show
Speaker 1: because it's really fucking entertaining. But there are episodes where
Speaker 1: you're like, I don't know, well, I do know thirty
Speaker 1: minutes in or something, or forty minutes in and and
Speaker 1: and often not always, but often it is you're sort
Speaker 1: of telling a story about your life and your your youth.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I thought this episode was about, you know,
Speaker 1: play Bone Thugs and Harmony or I don't know if
Speaker 1: you did both Thugs a harmonyone. But I haven't looked
Speaker 1: in every episode, but but I'm like, I'm like, I
Speaker 1: thought this was like I thought this was about Bone
Speaker 1: Thugs in Harmony, but I have to look. I have
Speaker 1: to check sometimes because I'm like, is he still is
Speaker 1: that still one of the one I'm listening to? But
Speaker 1: you do get to it. I mean, you you find
Speaker 1: your way into the song and the reason and there's
Speaker 1: often not often always rationale behind the story, but like,
Speaker 1: here's what I want to know. Here's what I'm dying
Speaker 1: to know. Because when we started doing this podcast, I
Speaker 1: was like, you know, they were like, what podcast do
Speaker 1: you like? And I was like, yours. I was like,
Speaker 1: I think that's great, And a big part of what
Speaker 1: I liked about it was you were just fucking talking,
Speaker 1: you know. You were just like it's like it's like
Speaker 1: I'm I'm not just saying I'm not saying it's like
Speaker 1: low effort or anything. But I was like, you know,
Speaker 1: I could talk really well, so if I could just
Speaker 1: talk as much as possible, that would be my ideal podcast.
Speaker 1: Do you write that shit or are you doing that
Speaker 1: just from memory or from your you know, ability to speak?
Speaker 2: Oh a billion percent, I write that shit. These things
Speaker 2: are scripted down to the word and like almost really
Speaker 2: inflection really yes, yes.
Speaker 1: Oh wow, Okay, that's crazy.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's just I just opened up the Google doc
Speaker 2: and I'm one of I think this has always been
Speaker 2: true of my writing. But I'm one of these people
Speaker 2: who I reread the first paragraph as I'm writing the second, right, Like,
Speaker 2: in the course of writing a piece, I end up
Speaker 2: rereading it like fifty times, just because I started at
Speaker 2: the beginning, and so that applied to this. And so
Speaker 2: now I'm sort of talking out loud and like just
Speaker 2: the delivery. You know, I didn't start this show thinking
Speaker 2: that it was going to be and I still don't
Speaker 2: really think of it as a performance, right, Like I'm
Speaker 2: not an actor, you know, Like monologue is probably accurate,
Speaker 2: but always felt a little like pretentious to me. But like, right,
Speaker 2: it's it's just it's always the way I've done it.
Speaker 2: But no, absolutely, I cannot add lib at all, at all,
Speaker 2: at all. Yeah, So this is these are just eight
Speaker 2: thousand or more word Google docs that I am reading
Speaker 2: verbatim and trying not to have it sound like that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I should have expected the answer that you were
Speaker 1: writing them. But I think that there's something about the
Speaker 1: way that you present these narratives that feels I mean,
Speaker 1: maybe it's the way you're writing them, obviously, it's just
Speaker 1: like this kind of feels like a stream of consciousness,
Speaker 1: like someone's just going through this, like you know this obviously.
Speaker 1: Obviously there are many moments that are that have to
Speaker 1: be like you know, you've got these sort of where
Speaker 1: you where you throw to things right, So those I
Speaker 1: always assumed were like, you know, planned in some way,
Speaker 1: But the rest of it always feels very like freeform
Speaker 1: to me, and to the point where I guess what
Speaker 1: I'm I guess what's so interesting about it is you
Speaker 1: get kind of lost in the story so much that
Speaker 1: you you sort of like are like, is that you know,
Speaker 1: are we heading? We heading to the right place? Yeah? Now,
Speaker 1: in retrospect, I feel stupid for maybe not saying like, oh,
Speaker 1: obviously these are written. I don't know, it feels unique
Speaker 1: to me. Again, I don't listen to every podcast, but
Speaker 1: what's your longest sort of you know, lead up to
Speaker 1: do you do you have like a record holder, you know,
Speaker 1: for like the longest lead up to the to what
Speaker 1: you mentioned the song? Do you know?
Speaker 2: It's a good question I have like an I have
Speaker 2: like a vague sense of it, and certainly like it's
Speaker 2: it's getting worse. That problem is getting worse. Like the
Speaker 2: longest episode of this show ever, like from a from
Speaker 2: a script perspective at least, is Pantera. I don't know
Speaker 2: how that happened. I just talked about Pantera forever for
Speaker 2: ten thousand words, but I don't know what happened. But
Speaker 2: they're cool, They're great, but like I would not have
Speaker 2: predicted that, Like the Nirvana show, I think to Facto
Speaker 2: because Courtney Love was on it and spoke herself for
Speaker 2: about two hours. Okay, so yes, I should be keeping
Speaker 2: track of exactly when, Like okay, so a script is
Speaker 2: like eight thousand words. I feel like I've several times
Speaker 2: recently have gotten to like the three thousand or four
Speaker 2: thousand word mark and I'm still not out. My name
Speaker 2: is Rob Arvilla, and this is like and I'm like,
Speaker 2: oh no, like what is happening? Right? And so let
Speaker 2: me just here. I've got this arguous thing.
Speaker 1: Yeah, here we go.
Speaker 2: I'll just get to day if I can. Trying to
Speaker 2: see if I can eyeball it and say the Fugazi episode,
Speaker 2: I talked about pee Wee Herman to start off, like
Speaker 2: because he had passed, and I was like weirdly affected
Speaker 2: by that. Like I talked about pee Wee Herman at
Speaker 2: sort of unnecessary length, fade into you. The Mazzie Star episode,
Speaker 2: I ended up talking about this band Low from Minnesota,
Speaker 2: the slowcore band for a great deal of time, Daft Punk.
Speaker 2: I was, I don't remember what I was talking about it.
Speaker 1: Oh, the daft Punk episode. It's around the world, right,
Speaker 1: I think I just listened Repetition, Yeah, repetition and you
Speaker 1: Yeah that was that Actually was one of the episodes
Speaker 1: I think where I was like, what's is this about
Speaker 1: daft punk or not? You know, but no in a
Speaker 1: good way.
Speaker 2: I think my editor had the same question, and maybe
Speaker 2: not as much in a good way in his sense
Speaker 2: He's like, you know, there's not a lot of deaf punk.
Speaker 1: Yeah no, but but the content, Yeah you're talking about
Speaker 1: you You're talking about dance music. I mean I used
Speaker 1: to make dance music, like and DJ for a living.
Speaker 1: In the actually in the nineties and early two thousands.
Speaker 1: So so yeah, you're talking about and you go into
Speaker 1: like fat boy Slim and shit like that, and yeah,
Speaker 1: I believe you touch on like all of the kind
Speaker 1: of weird popular techno music that existed, but all written
Speaker 1: all on purpose, not just randomly off the off the
Speaker 1: off the day.
Speaker 2: On purpose. Yeah, it's like it's all on purpose.
Speaker 1: But you're writing. You have written a book. You're writing
Speaker 1: a book. It's coming out. Is it out?
Speaker 2: No, it's coming out November.
Speaker 1: November, just in time for your holiday shopping. What was
Speaker 1: the date, right?
Speaker 2: You know the date November Tuesday, November fourteen.
Speaker 1: Great, that's right before Black Friday. I'm saying, perfect and
Speaker 1: perfect for the music lover in your life, for the dads.
Speaker 2: And nine year olds in your life.
Speaker 1: That's right. So how does the book? How does this format?
Speaker 1: Is it just a collection of the essays that you
Speaker 1: have written? Did you just copy paste into the book
Speaker 1: format and then send it off to the printer or
Speaker 1: you know, how does this turn into a book? I
Speaker 1: guess's what I'm saying.
Speaker 2: That was the plan until I realized that a book
Speaker 2: of that size would be literally six hundred thousand words.
Speaker 2: That would be the grand total if I just copied really,
Speaker 2: and I was informed that that was too long, And
Speaker 2: so what I did instead is I reread all the
Speaker 2: scripts and I tried to sort of concoct like the
Speaker 2: greatest hits sort of you know, sections from those songs
Speaker 2: from those scripts, and tried to combine the songs in
Speaker 2: interesting ways, right like sellouts for example, this concept of
Speaker 2: selling out very popular in the nineties, right. You know,
Speaker 2: you think about Green Day for doing it, you think
Speaker 2: about Fugazi for not doing it, but you also think
Speaker 2: about like ice Cube and coulioh having these huge crossover
Speaker 2: hits in the suburbs, like the white kids in the suburbs,
Speaker 2: you know, and they're sort of openly grappling with what
Speaker 2: it means, you know, to have all these people now
Speaker 2: listening to them who aren't from where they're from and
Speaker 2: like don't know what it's like where they're from, you know,
Speaker 2: that kind of thing. So just trying to find different
Speaker 2: ways of attacking, you know, like the women in Rock question,
Speaker 2: you know, and just the different ways that someone like
Speaker 2: Shinead O'Connor versus Fiona Apple versus like TLC even sort
Speaker 2: of dealt with that, and so just trying to group
Speaker 2: these songs and these artists in these micro eras within
Speaker 2: the nineties just in new ways and just get weird
Speaker 2: songs bouncing off one another, you know, get some cool
Speaker 2: art in there. I'm really psyched about the artists that
Speaker 2: I've got. Tara Jacobe. I worked with her at Gawker Media.
Speaker 2: She worked for Jezebel, dead Spin Walker back in the day,
Speaker 2: and she's wonderful artist, and I'd like the best part
Speaker 2: of the book is the cover and like her illustrations
Speaker 2: for each chapter. So yeah, it's it's sort of it
Speaker 2: was imagined as a companion to the book, and there's
Speaker 2: you know, like there are riffs from the show that
Speaker 2: are fairly verbatim in the book and just sort of adjusted.
Speaker 2: You know, it's like read okay in a book, but
Speaker 2: there's a lot of new material too, and it's all
Speaker 2: sort of recombined in a way that hopefully gets some
Speaker 2: cool sort of alchemy going, you know, between songs that
Speaker 2: you wouldn't necessarily put together.
Speaker 1: Right, No, I mean that sounds great actually, Like I
Speaker 1: like the idea, the narrative structure of finding those threads
Speaker 1: between these songs is actually interesting because maybe I'm wrong,
Speaker 1: and you'll tell me you've got the celaborate plan. Like
Speaker 1: it doesn't feel like you're necessarily rolling these out in
Speaker 1: a very like this. I don't want this to sound insulting,
Speaker 1: but it doesn't, you know, it's fairly I don't say,
Speaker 1: I don't know. Schizophrenic is not the right word. But
Speaker 1: there's like, you know, it's like it's not like, no,
Speaker 1: you do a bit. I think it might be like
Speaker 1: you do a block of like you know, one hit,
Speaker 1: you know, one hit like Chumba one, but like you
Speaker 1: didn't do a block of like weird one hit wonder songs,
Speaker 1: and then you didn't do a block of like grunge.
Speaker 1: You got like sounds like teen Spirit and then shoot
Speaker 1: by Saltan Peppa. You know, like it's not like Ei
Speaker 1: there was a connective tissue between those two songs as
Speaker 1: far as as far as I can.
Speaker 2: Tell, Delightful Chaos.
Speaker 1: Yes, I think the idea that you would take some
Speaker 1: of this stuff and find a link between those things
Speaker 1: is quite interesting, and so that feels like a reason
Speaker 1: for the book to exist. I probably will buy the
Speaker 1: book for somebody for the holidays.
Speaker 2: I would be very kind of you. I appreciate that.
Speaker 1: Might maybe Zelda can Zelda read the book? Is it
Speaker 1: going to be full of swear words? Are there gonna
Speaker 1: be a lot of It's gonna be a lot of
Speaker 1: nasty stuff in there.
Speaker 2: There's a goodly amount of nasty stuff. Yeah. Yeah, parental
Speaker 2: discretion is advised. Unfortunately, that was I didn't think. I
Speaker 2: didn't think that through. You didn't.
Speaker 1: You didn't consider that nine year olds might want to
Speaker 1: read the book.
Speaker 2: What I will do for you and for her is
Speaker 2: I will take a copy here, and I will just
Speaker 2: mark out every objectionable phrase, you know, and I'll mail
Speaker 2: that on to her. Just redact.
Speaker 1: You're gonna you're gonna personally redact in.
Speaker 2: My own book exactly what I'm gonna do.
Speaker 1: I appreciate that, and I assume you'll offer that as
Speaker 1: a service to anybody who needs a clean version.
Speaker 2: Totally.
Speaker 1: You should do the explicit language version and then the
Speaker 1: clean version, which would be I think very reflective of
Speaker 1: the parental advisory, you know. Label The show has a
Speaker 1: voracious sort of appetite for all of the songs in
Speaker 1: the nineties, Like I feel like it doesn't restrain itself
Speaker 1: to like a genre, right, And that's great, But like
Speaker 1: when you were living through the nineties, were you more
Speaker 1: restrained to a genre, were you more focused on one track?
Speaker 2: I'd like to say that I was omnivorous in that way.
Speaker 2: But I think I try to own up to being
Speaker 2: like an alt rock and teenager, right right, Like, I
Speaker 2: don't think there's any question or any point in denying that.
Speaker 2: Like my foundation, you know, my top five bands when
Speaker 2: I was seventeen years old, most likely Pearl Jam, Smashing Pumpkins,
Speaker 2: Nine Inch Nails, Radiohead. They might be giants, you know,
Speaker 2: and so like that's that's a fairly narrow band of experience.
Speaker 2: So I do think I start from a foundation of
Speaker 2: alternative rock. And so when you're talking about Achy Breaky
Speaker 2: Hearts for example, or Selena, you know, are like, I
Speaker 2: don't have the personal like I've listened to this record
Speaker 2: six hundred times in my bedroom sort of experience. And
Speaker 2: I try to be honest about that. But I do
Speaker 2: think that like in terms of pop radio, you know,
Speaker 2: in terms of just driving around listening to pop radio,
Speaker 2: like listening watching MTV constantly, you know, like hanging out
Speaker 2: with my friends, you know, and whatever they were into.
Speaker 2: I think that I got, you know, that's helped fill
Speaker 2: into the gaps to some degree, right, you know, I
Speaker 2: can talk about rap music, pop music, country music, you know,
Speaker 2: with some degree of personal experience, but it's not quite
Speaker 2: the same. Like this is my soul, you know, made
Speaker 2: manifest in arts, you know, the way that the alternative
Speaker 2: rock of the nineties was, And I just I try
Speaker 2: to be honest about that, you know, And I try
Speaker 2: to be honest about, you know, the places where I am,
Speaker 2: perhaps for the first time, doing the deep dive that
Speaker 2: I didn't do when I was fifteen, and I certainly
Speaker 2: respect you know, like Tori Amos for example, right, Like
Speaker 2: she's someone who I always love hearing her on the radio,
Speaker 2: always really wanted to go see her play. You know,
Speaker 2: I regret not seeing her live in the nineties, but
Speaker 2: I wasn't like a super fan of hers, you know.
Speaker 2: And then like two years ago, I wake up and
Speaker 2: suddenly I want to listen to Tori Amos for a week,
Speaker 2: you know, to the exclusion. And I do, and I
Speaker 2: understand that that's to listen to her that deeply for
Speaker 2: the first time as a forty year old man is
Speaker 2: a very different experience, right than as a sixteen year
Speaker 2: old girl especially, and so I just try to be
Speaker 2: honest about that, you know, when I'm coming when with
Speaker 2: a lot of personal baggage and when I'm not necessarily.
Speaker 1: Right well, but also I mean the nineties by by
Speaker 1: the very function of how you could discover and purchase
Speaker 1: and enjoy music. I mean, I think your show has
Speaker 1: an omnivorous you know, bent to it in the sense that,
Speaker 1: like we're talking about it's not just focused on like
Speaker 1: the you know, the alt rock shit that you liked
Speaker 1: when you were a teenager or whatever, but partially, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's even possible to have a thing like that
Speaker 1: because we now live in an era where the barrier
Speaker 1: to all art or all music, let's just say, is
Speaker 1: non existent. Like we lived in a time when and
Speaker 1: tell me, if this was an experience that you share,
Speaker 1: it must have been where you might have heard a
Speaker 1: song or somebody played you something and you're like, that's cool,
Speaker 1: what is that? And they're like, oh, it's this band,
Speaker 1: and you were like, I want to hear more of it.
Speaker 1: So you had to go to like a record store,
Speaker 1: and I mean you could go to one in the
Speaker 1: mall obviously, and find that band's album a lot, right, Like, Like,
Speaker 1: I saw the movie Killer Clowns from Outer Space. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if you're familiar with it.
Speaker 2: HBO, My friend, I've watched that movie on HbA and
Speaker 2: it's a bad movie.
Speaker 1: It has a song by the Dickies in it. I'm
Speaker 1: not sure if you're familiar with the song. It's the
Speaker 1: song is called Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Do you
Speaker 1: know the Do you know the tune? Yeah?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's kind of Dickies. That's that's the Dickies.
Speaker 1: That's the Dickies. Wow. So the thing is I had
Speaker 1: never fucking heard of the Dickies. Yeah, And I was like, ooh,
Speaker 1: Like I like the song because I'm like thirteen and
Speaker 1: dumb or whatever, and it's it's the song is literally
Speaker 1: about the movie about Killer Clowns from Outer Space. I
Speaker 1: like it. By the way, I love a song that's
Speaker 1: about a movie. It doesn't happen that often, especially not anymore.
Speaker 1: But like when somebody's written a song for like what's
Speaker 1: happening in the movie, I think is a really special
Speaker 1: and amazing thing or about what has happened in the movie,
Speaker 1: which I think is incredible, Like like what is the
Speaker 1: Bobby Brown song from Ghostbusters too, which.
Speaker 2: All right, yeah, I love that song.
Speaker 1: It's so good, like he he but he raps.
Speaker 2: People, Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: Like you don't. You don't hear a lot of raps
Speaker 1: about Vigo in recent in a recent era of music.
Speaker 1: It is a drag. But but I was like, so
Speaker 1: I like it was like, Oh, the Dickeys, they're interesting.
Speaker 1: I think I actually ordered like an EP that that
Speaker 1: song was on at like something like a a Sam
Speaker 1: Goodie or whatever, and I waited for it to come
Speaker 1: in and then I was like and then I like,
Speaker 1: then I heard some other Dickeys, So I had never
Speaker 1: heard of the Dickies before. But the but the other
Speaker 1: version was that you know, you would go to a
Speaker 1: place that was and I don't know if you had
Speaker 1: this experience. I think you got must have, and you
Speaker 1: probably talked about it and I'm just misremembering or not remembering,
Speaker 1: but you know, you go to like one of these
Speaker 1: stories that sold like really good ship, where like there
Speaker 1: were a bunch of record or working there, and he
Speaker 1: was like an incredibly intimidating experience if you like went
Speaker 1: in and you're like you had heard of Slint or
Speaker 1: something and you're like wanted to find out more about them,
Speaker 1: and you know, you had to confront some guy who
Speaker 1: thought you were a shithead, who didn't even want to
Speaker 1: tell you because that's his thing and not yours. You know,
Speaker 1: so our barrier was very high. So it's like sort
Speaker 1: of understandable. I'm working my way back to the question,
Speaker 1: which is which is I guess to my point about
Speaker 1: the question about the show being omnivorous, but you maybe
Speaker 1: not beginning in your sort of musical life like that,
Speaker 1: but it was much harder, Like it was not a
Speaker 1: thing right in the nineties that you would be. It
Speaker 1: was very rare for a person to be have access
Speaker 1: to and understand like a wide variety of music. Does
Speaker 1: that seem like a fair assessment or am I just
Speaker 1: is that just people from Pittsburgh.
Speaker 2: No, that's just Pittsburgh's very Pittsburgh specifically. Absolutely, I agree
Speaker 2: with you, because the thing is like, Okay, so I
Speaker 2: hear Undone the Sweater song by Weezer on the radio,
Speaker 2: and I try and tape that song off the radio
Speaker 2: and take I had just sitting there listening to the
Speaker 2: radio with my hand hovering over the record button, like
Speaker 2: you're reported onto a blank tape. But to own that song,
Speaker 2: I got to buy the Weezer record for twenty dollars
Speaker 2: and what if it's bad? Right, Like this is the
Speaker 2: eternal conundrum. And I try and limit the number of
Speaker 2: times that I do this rant on the show, but
Speaker 2: I have done this rant on the show five to
Speaker 2: seven times, probably over the course of one hundred plus episodes.
Speaker 2: Now where it's like you go, as you say to
Speaker 2: good Sam Goodie or Camelot Music, and you have this
Speaker 2: wall of CDs and you have twenty dollars in your
Speaker 2: pocket and you have to pick one, right, you have
Speaker 2: to pick one, and it has to be good. And
Speaker 2: you're gonna listen to that record two hundred times because
Speaker 2: you are going to extract the value from it. You're
Speaker 2: gonna get your money's worth, right, And it's like, do
Speaker 2: I risk it on cakes, fashion Nuggets? Do I risk
Speaker 2: it like Teenage Fan Club's Bandwagon ass? Do I risk
Speaker 2: it on Pablo Honey?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: Right? Because I really like Creep And so it's extremely limiting,
Speaker 2: Like I.
Speaker 1: Know, it's nuts to think about that. It's like like
Speaker 1: like I remember I heard like an inspiral carpet song
Speaker 1: on one hundred and twenty minutes, and I was like,
Speaker 1: this is cool. And then like, you know, I think
Speaker 1: I kind of almost remember this experience of going to
Speaker 1: the record store and looking at the record and going like,
Speaker 1: you know, it was probably a CD at this time,
Speaker 1: but still they were like twenty bucks or something. They
Speaker 1: weren't cheat, you know, they weren't And I was like,
Speaker 1: I don't know, like what's on here? And often like
Speaker 1: you'd buy some shit, you'd buy a record and it
Speaker 1: would suck right. All the rest of the songs would
Speaker 1: just blow, like you had one song and twelve others
Speaker 1: that were completely not interesting at all to you. But
Speaker 1: jumping off of the thing that I was asking about,
Speaker 1: like about the show being omnivorous, but you maybe not,
Speaker 1: like those episodes that you're doing that are not about
Speaker 1: something that you kind of grew up with. I mean
Speaker 1: you already said right like you don't obviously you can't
Speaker 1: tell the story around it the same way because it's
Speaker 1: a different story for you. But are there other people
Speaker 1: when you're writing those episodes that you're collaborating with? I mean,
Speaker 1: are you are you talking to other people about that
Speaker 1: moment for that particular genre or that artist or whatever,
Speaker 1: or is it just you just researching and kind of
Speaker 1: putting it into into into a narrative.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm just trying to read as widely as I can.
Speaker 2: You know. Every episode starts, you know, with my endless monologue,
Speaker 2: and then I talked to a guest, right right, and
Speaker 2: we just have a you know, like a twenty minute conversation.
Speaker 2: And the idea there is that the guest has a
Speaker 2: completely different perspective, you know, if it's not something that
Speaker 2: I grew up, you know, with a mind meld and
Speaker 2: a smashing pumpkin sense, like I try and talk to
Speaker 2: someone who did right right, you know, and just and
Speaker 2: and so in that sense, I try and talk to
Speaker 2: somebody with a more personal connection to whatever I'm talking about.
Speaker 2: But if it's something like say like low stell real
Speaker 2: like the Mocherina, right, like the Macharena is something I
Speaker 2: know as like a cultural force or like a scourge
Speaker 2: or whatever, you know, but I can't say that I'm
Speaker 2: familiar with like where the Mockerena came from, and like
Speaker 2: the scene that it grew out of, and like what
Speaker 2: those guys were doing before the mocharina blew up et cetera,
Speaker 2: et cetera. So I'm reading books, right, and I'm just
Speaker 2: going back and reading articles from that time, and it's
Speaker 2: more of a research thing, I guess, and then I
Speaker 2: just try and bring in, you know, like I have
Speaker 2: plenty of experience like a junior high dances, you know,
Speaker 2: like watching people do the macarena and like having this
Speaker 2: mixture of like, I hate this song. I wish I
Speaker 2: was out there having fun dancing to this song, like
Speaker 2: that very complex, right, series of emotions that you have
Speaker 2: interested and you're in an eighth grade after school junior
Speaker 2: high dance. But yeah, I just it's not necessarily that
Speaker 2: I talk to somebody to sort of manufacture that personal connection.
Speaker 2: But like the show hopefully does involve me interviewing somebody
Speaker 2: after I've done my bit about their more personal story
Speaker 2: relating to the song.
Speaker 1: I don't know. Your audience must be made up of
Speaker 1: people like our age, right, I mean there must be
Speaker 1: a lot of sorry, it's not all it's not sorry,
Speaker 1: it's not all people our age. But I'm just like
Speaker 1: it's sort of like, you know, I mean, the appetite
Speaker 1: for nostalgia is high, and I feel like there's something
Speaker 1: about this this era and maybe this is just the
Speaker 1: gen X guy. I'm just like it seemed really important,
Speaker 1: and like maybe every decade seems really important. But when
Speaker 1: I listened to the show, I'm like, oh, yeah, because
Speaker 1: a lot of times you're talking about politics or you're
Speaker 1: talking about culture, you know, outside of music or societal
Speaker 1: things that we're shifting. And do the nineties actually stand
Speaker 1: out as a outsized moment in cultural sort of history
Speaker 1: or is that just because I'm old now and I
Speaker 1: lived through it.
Speaker 2: I do think that both things can be true. I
Speaker 2: think it is absolutely true that the music that you
Speaker 2: loved when you were a teenager is the greatest music
Speaker 2: you'll ever hear. I do think the emotional connection that
Speaker 2: you form with that music it's it's it's the music
Speaker 2: you love the most. It's the most important music to you,
Speaker 2: you know. And so in that sense, it is sort
Speaker 2: of a gen X thing, right, Like we think the
Speaker 2: nineties are the best because we were teenagers in the
Speaker 2: nineties and that's the end of it, you know. And
Speaker 2: like if you were a teenager in the sixties, if
Speaker 2: you were a teenager in the twenty tens, then that's
Speaker 2: the most important music to you. And everything else sucks,
Speaker 2: Like everything else is just old or it's new fangled
Speaker 2: and it's not as good. I do think that the nineties.
Speaker 2: You know, when we started this show, we were just like,
Speaker 2: let's do a show that's like songs. Every episode is
Speaker 2: about a song, you know, like what is a framing
Speaker 2: that works here? And the nineties jumped out immediately, Like
Speaker 2: I guess my standard stick is like it's far enough
Speaker 2: that it's the past, but it's recent enough that it's
Speaker 2: still imprinting on the present, you know, like you can
Speaker 2: still hear, see, feel a lot of nineties energy, you know,
Speaker 2: in the culture being made today, Like it's it's present
Speaker 2: tense enough, right, but it also feels like a distinct
Speaker 2: period of time to possibly a greater degree than the
Speaker 2: aughts do. Like that's the way it feels for me.
Speaker 2: And I try and filter out again the fact that
Speaker 2: I was a teenager, Like I try it and acknowledge that,
Speaker 2: like the nineties are always going to be the ultimate
Speaker 2: for me. But is there something about this decade? Is
Speaker 2: there something about the pre internets, the immediate pre Internet
Speaker 2: of this decade that makes it distinct? Right? You know,
Speaker 2: this is the last decade that will not be dominated
Speaker 2: by the Internet the way you know, as you're saying
Speaker 2: this whole thing, we're saying with the record stores and
Speaker 2: buying one CD for twenty bucks, like this is the
Speaker 2: end of the line for that shit, right right, And
Speaker 2: that matters, And that makes the two thousands as a
Speaker 2: block feel completely different from a musical perspective, because that's Mapster.
Speaker 2: You can listen to everything and you can be omnivorous
Speaker 2: on a budget now in a way that you just
Speaker 2: couldn't in the nineties. So it's it's but I think
Speaker 2: both things are true. I think there is an undeniable
Speaker 2: bias that you and I both have for this decade.
Speaker 2: And when we say, oh, it's the greatest day, like
Speaker 2: music will never get better than this's like we're being
Speaker 2: old men, undeniably. But I do think that there are
Speaker 2: actual objective aspects of the nineties and where it falls
Speaker 2: and the scope of human history that make it distinct
Speaker 2: and make it like remarkable, as like a block of time,
Speaker 2: you know, with qualities that were never repeated before or since.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean the framing of that is perfect. You're
Speaker 1: very good at this. You should do this professionally. That's
Speaker 1: my suggestion. You should do podcasting as a profession. I
Speaker 1: think it could be very lucrative for you. I know,
Speaker 1: it's funny you said, like, you know, we think that
Speaker 1: like music in the nineties is the best music. I
Speaker 1: don't know that. I actually mean this is not a
Speaker 1: knock on anyone who does. I don't know that I do.
Speaker 1: But I was a huge nerd in the nineties and
Speaker 1: and my like music exposure was really weird, and I
Speaker 1: you know, I think like it was. It was definitely
Speaker 1: a huge part of my life because part of it
Speaker 1: was like me, I used to you know, make money
Speaker 1: doing it and used to you know, that was like
Speaker 1: a focal point of of many years of my life.
Speaker 1: But I had things that were going on, like like
Speaker 1: the Internet matter to me in the nineties more than
Speaker 1: music did. Like I was a huge fucking nerd, and
Speaker 1: where my attention was, folks, was like understanding what this
Speaker 1: new thing was called the Internet, which like you know,
Speaker 1: I was online fairly young, like before the internet was
Speaker 1: even the Internet. But it's interesting because like this was,
Speaker 1: like music for you is not a hobby, right, I mean,
Speaker 1: you became a man who writes about music and now
Speaker 1: has podcasts about music. It's like it's bigger than that
Speaker 1: for you.
Speaker 2: Nah, this was my life pretty immediately. I have to
Speaker 2: say I was. I did dial up onto the internet,
Speaker 2: you know, late in the nineties, but I was not
Speaker 2: a man of the Internet in the nineties. No, it
Speaker 2: was pretty evident to me by the time I was
Speaker 2: in high school that I wanted to be a rock critic, right,
Speaker 2: I wanted to write for Rolling Stone, you know. It
Speaker 2: was clear to me that music was going to be
Speaker 2: one of the most important things in my life from
Speaker 2: when I was like six years old, right, you know,
Speaker 2: from when I became ubsessed with MTV or whatever. And so, No,
Speaker 2: I do think that I am printed with music in
Speaker 2: a really intense and unnecessary way from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: and it was sort of the prism through which I
Speaker 2: saw and heard and felt everything.
Speaker 1: Absolutely, Yeah, I mean, and I think that comes through
Speaker 1: in the show, and I think that's what makes it
Speaker 1: still compelling to listen to. I mean, but we should
Speaker 1: say the show is at least going to one hundred
Speaker 1: and twenty episodes, correct.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well we'll stop there.
Speaker 1: But yeah, you're sure you're going to stop a one
Speaker 1: hundred and twenty I'm I'm pretty sure like what if,
Speaker 1: like you get to twenty and then you remember this
Speaker 1: one song that was super important that you didn't get to.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, Robo Humpin' slow More, Babe, I gotta do that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's just as a possibility.
Speaker 1: It could it could happen. So looking through the list,
Speaker 1: and I have thought about this, like there are songs
Speaker 1: that aren't the obvious song or aren't the one that
Speaker 1: you know which is good. But I think it like
Speaker 1: opens up the question in my mind is like it
Speaker 1: will there be that obvious one that that you feel like,
Speaker 1: oh shit, why didn't I do you know X? I'm
Speaker 1: thinking of like Pearl Jam, like not that the song
Speaker 1: that you chose is not perfect.
Speaker 2: Yeah, Pearl Dam was one. Yeah, It's like I tried
Speaker 2: to you know, I did Yellow Lead better, but I
Speaker 2: tried to talk about what like Jeremy even Flow like Daughter,
Speaker 2: Like I if I'm doing an episode on an artist
Speaker 2: that has like a huge catalog, like I try and
Speaker 2: get to everything that I can, and sometimes you know,
Speaker 2: it's in the Nervada episode for example, like I thought
Speaker 2: about doing Where did You Sleep Last Night? You know,
Speaker 2: the unplugged version? Yeah, you know, but then in the
Speaker 2: end it just felt obnoxious not to lead with smells
Speaker 2: like Teen Spirit.
Speaker 1: It'd be fucking crazy. Honestly, I thought, for sure, well
Speaker 1: when you when you didn't do it for so long,
Speaker 1: I was like, okay, so this must be he's going
Speaker 1: to end the series.
Speaker 2: That's what I thought forever, right, Yes, that was the plan.
Speaker 1: Okay, because it seemed obvious to me, like to do
Speaker 1: it that way, like, and I'm like, that's why, because
Speaker 1: I'm like, he must have done smells like Teen Spirit
Speaker 1: and it wasn't there, And you're like, okay, well that's weird. Yeah, yeah, No,
Speaker 1: I mean I think it would have been. I think
Speaker 1: people would have been in rage, to be honest, maybe
Speaker 1: I don't know if people get it raged about your show,
Speaker 1: but like you know, like they're on the internet, so
Speaker 1: you're definitely going to get the uh you know. I think, like, yeah,
Speaker 1: would have been bizarre at least to ignore smells like
Speaker 1: Teen Spirit for you know, actually kind of is kind
Speaker 1: of a record store guy move. When you think about it,
Speaker 1: to do something like that, it's sort of like you're like, oh,
Speaker 1: you get you like smells like teen Spirit. That's actually
Speaker 1: not really their best song.
Speaker 2: I've into their earlier stuff, you know, which is not
Speaker 2: even nineties. But screw you guys. Yeah exactly, I mean Sliver, Yeah,
Speaker 2: I mean you have the you have.
Speaker 1: You definitely have the knowledge of a record store guy.
Speaker 1: I don't know that. I think based on how much
Speaker 1: you want to share the knowledge, you don't have the
Speaker 1: personality of a record store guy. So that's very important.
Speaker 2: That's that's very kind of you to say.
Speaker 1: On that nice moment. So sixty Songs That Explain the
Speaker 1: Nineties comes out November fourteenth.
Speaker 2: November fourteenth, and.
Speaker 1: Rob, thank you for coming on. And uh, I would
Speaker 1: love to have you back when you when you have
Speaker 1: decided on your next decade, you're going to have to
Speaker 1: come back and explain.
Speaker 2: I would love to come back. I would I would
Speaker 2: like to talk to Zelda again when I come back.
Speaker 1: Well, I could almost guarantee that will happen because she'll
Speaker 1: be very excited to explore another another decade of music.
Speaker 2: You could book it.
Speaker 1: We'll do that, Rob, thanks so much.
Speaker 2: Thanks to.
Speaker 1: Well. That is our show for this week, and what
Speaker 1: a show. I gotta say. I feel like I maybe
Speaker 1: he was a little bit of like a fanboy, maybe
Speaker 1: too much in parts of then not really sure, but uh,
Speaker 1: you know, it's fine. I'm going to own it. I'm
Speaker 1: gonna own it. I'm gonna own my fan positioning that
Speaker 1: I may have stepped into during the show, and you know,
Speaker 1: and I'm not ashamed. I think it's great to like
Speaker 1: something and I don't have any I don't have any
Speaker 1: qualms about owning it completely. Anyhow, that is our show
Speaker 1: this week. We'll be back next week with more of
Speaker 1: what future, and as always, I wish you and your
Speaker 1: family the very best. Ye