Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, Welcome to Movie Crush. Charles W Chuck Bryant
Speaker 1: here in the home studio Pont City Market into an
Speaker 1: outro guests recorded by Jerry. A exciting is that everyone,
Speaker 1: first time she's been involved in this show because she
Speaker 1: didn't really doesn't care about it, otherwise it's not true.
Speaker 1: So this week, everyone, I had another drummer in which
Speaker 1: was great. I had Mr Eric Slick of the great
Speaker 1: band Doctor Dog, Philly's Own Doctor Dog, one of my
Speaker 1: favorite groups, and this is one of those where I
Speaker 1: was like, Hey, I love Dr Dog. They're coming to Atlanta.
Speaker 1: Wonder if anyone from the band would want to be
Speaker 1: on the show. And as it turns out, Eric Slick
Speaker 1: is a big movie fan and is a big Big
Speaker 1: Lebowski fan, and I got back in touch and said
Speaker 1: I'd love to come on and talk Big Lebowski and
Speaker 1: we did that. What a great, great movie and I
Speaker 1: know a lot of you are very excited about this.
Speaker 1: So Eric and I sat down and talked about music
Speaker 1: about Dr Dog, very interesting story how he got involved,
Speaker 1: and he's just a really cool, interesting guy overall. And
Speaker 1: then we dive in deep on The Big Lebowski and
Speaker 1: it was a lot of fun. So, without any delay,
Speaker 1: here we go with Eric Slick on The Big Lebowski. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I do a formal intro before and after, so I
Speaker 1: checked in yesterday. I wanted to make sure that I
Speaker 1: wasn't gonna be totally unprepared. Also, ASO rewatched The Big Lebowski. Yeah,
Speaker 1: well that always helps. I had, um, do you know
Speaker 1: The Walking Dead the TV show? I had you know
Speaker 1: the guy who plays Aaron rossmar kwand had him in
Speaker 1: yesterday and uh for die Hard and we've both seen it.
Speaker 1: We were kind of laughing. We've both seen it dozens
Speaker 1: of times. But there's something different about watching it analytically
Speaker 1: for something like this and taking notes. And he did
Speaker 1: the same thing. He came in with notes and those
Speaker 1: are always the best ones. So, yeah, thanks for watching Lebowski.
Speaker 1: Well it's not like that's a chore, but it's not
Speaker 1: a chore. And it's one of those movies I could
Speaker 1: watch over and over again and it's like a tattoo
Speaker 1: on my forehead, it really is. So you were from
Speaker 1: Philly originally, I'm from Philadelphia. Nice, Yeah, and r a
Speaker 1: great town. Oh man, Philly is the best. It's changed
Speaker 1: a lot much like Atlanta has changed a lot. Sure, Um,
Speaker 1: but Philly is amazing and uh it's a huge part
Speaker 1: of my cultural and just my DNA. I can't I
Speaker 1: can't take the Philly out of me. It's one of
Speaker 1: those towns I think too. There's a lot of pride.
Speaker 1: Yeah for a city, yea, some would argue and then
Speaker 1: in uh pride in excess. Uh, we're you know, we're
Speaker 1: a town that really thrives on the pride of its
Speaker 1: sports teams, even when it's sports teams have been utter failures.
Speaker 1: I've got a couple of really good Philly friends that
Speaker 1: are you know, lifers lifers. Are you into the sports
Speaker 1: at all? Or I too? I'm a fair weather fan. Unfortunately,
Speaker 1: Well you're doing pretty well then lately. Yeah, well this
Speaker 1: year is a great year for us. You know, my
Speaker 1: dad was like crying tears of joy when the Super
Speaker 1: Bowl happened. Um, but you know it was like the
Speaker 1: first Super Bowl I watched in full, probably in like
Speaker 1: five years, and I was like jumping around my house.
Speaker 1: I mean I was excited. Well, you had the same,
Speaker 1: well not the same experience as me as a Falcons fan.
Speaker 1: But uh, up until it all went bad, we had
Speaker 1: the same experience where I feel like the whole world
Speaker 1: was on your side, the whole world was on our side.
Speaker 1: Unless you're a New England fan, nobody wants to see
Speaker 1: them win, unless you are literally a New England person,
Speaker 1: like everybody wanted Philly went. We are. Yeah, we we
Speaker 1: have a reputation for being underdogs and we also just
Speaker 1: seem to have a lot of curses against us. I mean,
Speaker 1: we haven't won a Stanley Cup since nineteen seventy four.
Speaker 1: The Eagles have never won a Super Bowl. I don't
Speaker 1: even know. I don't think the Sixers have ever won
Speaker 1: a championship to my knowledge. The Phillies, obviously we had
Speaker 1: nineteen eight. We got really close. Ironically, I was in Vilnius,
Speaker 1: Lithuania when we won and I was so bummed. And
Speaker 1: actually the rest of the Doctor Dog dudes were in
Speaker 1: Australia when the Phillies won, and we were all just
Speaker 1: like pretty heartbroken. Yeah, well the Phillies are looking good again.
Speaker 1: Sixers are better than they've been in forever forever. Yeah,
Speaker 1: but the Sixers, we we got close, but we didn't
Speaker 1: make it. Yeah, that was that was a disappointing playoff run.
Speaker 1: But it's the first of what would be many, So
Speaker 1: I hope. So yeah, I mean as a you know,
Speaker 1: as a Philadelphia but I'm I'm an expat, Like I
Speaker 1: don't live in Philly anymore. I live in Virginia now,
Speaker 1: but as a Philadelphia and I want us to succeed
Speaker 1: in every possible way. Like I grew up with Billy
Speaker 1: being like working class. You know, it's different now it's
Speaker 1: very European or something. I don't know even how to
Speaker 1: describe it. There's like five coffee shops per block, right, um,
Speaker 1: But I grew up with it being of course, I
Speaker 1: grew up being a very working class place. Like, so
Speaker 1: whenever any victory has happened, we are just like, oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: you know, we would burn the city down right in
Speaker 1: a good way. In a good way. We burned the
Speaker 1: city down. Yeah. Where is um? Where's the band spread out?
Speaker 1: It sounds like everyone lives in different places? Yeah, so
Speaker 1: are Scott mcknickin, our singer songwriter, lives in Tucson, Arizona. Now. Uh, Frank,
Speaker 1: our guitar player, lives in Jersey. Um, and hopefully I'm
Speaker 1: not blowing up anybody's spot. Toby lives in Delaware, Zach
Speaker 1: is the only one left in Philadelphia because he's the
Speaker 1: old dude hanging on to Philly. It seems some of
Speaker 1: my favorite bands are spread out bands and don't like
Speaker 1: all live in the same town together. Absence makes the
Speaker 1: heart grow fond got the payment shirt on that you
Speaker 1: were marked about. They very famously didn't ever live together. No, no,
Speaker 1: over the place. They are all over the place. And
Speaker 1: and you know what, the more I tour and the
Speaker 1: more I hang out with bands that, like, it's just
Speaker 1: becoming a thing. You know, like people want to feel
Speaker 1: comfortable and maybe like their hometown doesn't make them feel
Speaker 1: super comfortable. Um, Philly eventually for me became a place
Speaker 1: where I was a drummer in thirteen or fourteen different bands. Seriously, Yeah,
Speaker 1: that's such a drummer troupe, such a drummer trope. But
Speaker 1: but good drummers are in short supply, yeah, exactly. So
Speaker 1: I was like in an absurd amount of bands, and
Speaker 1: one day, you know, I realized that my tour life
Speaker 1: and my home life were the same thing, and it
Speaker 1: just was exhausting. You're always out with somebody I was
Speaker 1: always out with. I mean, I'm still always on tour
Speaker 1: but like I wanted my home life to feel distinctly
Speaker 1: different than my tour life, because tour is insanity and
Speaker 1: when you come home and then you're like, all right.
Speaker 1: I remember I came home from vacation. I was on
Speaker 1: vacation in the Virgin Islands, came home and I played
Speaker 1: a gig like you had to cut it short or
Speaker 1: you know, like like I was on vacation for a
Speaker 1: week and then we landed in JFK and then I
Speaker 1: drove down from JFK to Philly and then immediately played
Speaker 1: a show. I can even like go home and have
Speaker 1: that unwind experience nothing, you know. I remember at the time,
Speaker 1: I was like I should turn my phone off during
Speaker 1: this vacation, but then the better half of me was like, no,
Speaker 1: what if there's a call. What if there's a call,
Speaker 1: you might need to take the call. Um. I think
Speaker 1: that So, speaking of Philly being working class, I think
Speaker 1: that working class attitude is instilled in the people who
Speaker 1: are really and like, you know, it's like you, I
Speaker 1: don't know, it's not like fake it till you make it,
Speaker 1: but it's just like you just have to keep working
Speaker 1: and working and working. What. Um, So you guys h
Speaker 1: how did you How did you come to be in
Speaker 1: the band, because we we talked a little bit of
Speaker 1: that about on the elevator, but I want to hear
Speaker 1: that story because I've been with Dr Dog as a
Speaker 1: fan from the beginning. My friend Ryan shout out to
Speaker 1: Ryan turned me onto them when I lived in l A.
Speaker 1: And I guess like two thousand one ish too, maybe yeah,
Speaker 1: um early, yeah, you were on board early. Well he
Speaker 1: was on board early. Oh sure, sure, but you both
Speaker 1: were ye yeah, give yourself some credit. That's amazing. So
Speaker 1: the I joined the band in two thousand and ten,
Speaker 1: but I had been a fan of the band for
Speaker 1: a long time. Yes. Uh. My friend Dan uh uh
Speaker 1: was like, you got to hear this band, Doctor Dog
Speaker 1: or West Billy Band, And I was like, alright, great.
Speaker 1: I listened to it totally blew my mind and then
Speaker 1: I was on This is how long ago it was.
Speaker 1: I was like eighteen years old. I was on vacation
Speaker 1: with my family and Dr Dog happened to be playing
Speaker 1: in the in Atlantic City. I was in Ocean City,
Speaker 1: New Jersey, and they were opening for the rock on
Speaker 1: on tours, Jack White's side project band, and uh, I
Speaker 1: was like, oh, great, this band I just heard about
Speaker 1: is playing a show. We should all go. So we
Speaker 1: like got a huge group of friends together and we
Speaker 1: saw Dr Dog play in the House of Blues in
Speaker 1: Atlantic City and it was I mean it was like
Speaker 1: transcendent yea and those early Doctor Dog shows. Like then
Speaker 1: I would go see them play locally like forty people,
Speaker 1: twenty people, and at the end it was like every
Speaker 1: time I saw them, I'm like, man, that's the best. Yeah.
Speaker 1: My whole thing early on was like, man, why aren't
Speaker 1: these guys bigger? Like why am I in a room
Speaker 1: WITHO right now? Um? Yeah, and and and then the
Speaker 1: selfish part of me was like, yeah, don't tell anyone,
Speaker 1: you know. The sudden the selfish part of me was like,
Speaker 1: don't tell anyone, And the other selfish party was like,
Speaker 1: I want to play drums in that. So I became
Speaker 1: fast friends with them, and uh, you know, we were
Speaker 1: playing a couple of different shows together, and uh, the
Speaker 1: big one was I was playing with a belly dance
Speaker 1: troupe and a boom had somehow got roped into this,
Speaker 1: like because you always answered the phone, because I always
Speaker 1: answered the phone, I got roped into this belly dance
Speaker 1: group gig where I'm playing like a doom back, like
Speaker 1: a belly dance drum. Yeah. And it was at the
Speaker 1: soul Or stage at Baru and it was like this
Speaker 1: Knox Bill belly dance band. Yeah, they're not even a
Speaker 1: Philly band, but I somehow got connected with these guys
Speaker 1: and U I Uh, we pull up to the park,
Speaker 1: the camping area, the parking area for camping, and uh,
Speaker 1: a big van pulls up next to us and it
Speaker 1: was dr Dog and they were like, oh slick like
Speaker 1: Philly and We're like, uh, you know, it was this
Speaker 1: big moment. And ended up hanging out with them all
Speaker 1: weekend and uh just became really close with them and
Speaker 1: the drummer and I poisoned their drummer and spiritually, No, no,
Speaker 1: it wasn't like that. It was more just like I
Speaker 1: had so much respect for them and I loved that
Speaker 1: band with all of my heart. You know. I listened
Speaker 1: to their first record, Easy Beat to Death, and then
Speaker 1: they had Takers and leaver z Ep and then we
Speaker 1: all belonged came out and it was like a game
Speaker 1: changer in Philadelphia. Man, such a great record, such a
Speaker 1: great record. So uh, then they took me out for
Speaker 1: my twenty one birthday. Um, Zach the keyboardists had this
Speaker 1: like little piece of paper with a bunch of numbers
Speaker 1: and chicken scratch and uh at Boro, he was like,
Speaker 1: give me your phone number. He didn't have a cell phone.
Speaker 1: He's like, give me your phone number, and on your
Speaker 1: twenty one birthday, I'm gonna give you a call. We're
Speaker 1: going to hang out no matter what the situation is.
Speaker 1: And I was like, Okay, writes my number and like
Speaker 1: the tiniest handwriting I've ever seen on this crappy little
Speaker 1: card that looks like it's from but in his wallet.
Speaker 1: And then a day before my twenty one birthday, I
Speaker 1: get a call from Zach. He's like, hey, Black Keys
Speaker 1: are playing tomorrow. We're all going. You're you're with us,
Speaker 1: coming with us. And that was my twenty one birthday.
Speaker 1: So it's just like a lot of like they kept
Speaker 1: just being so generous and then uh, their drummer quit
Speaker 1: in two thousand nine, and Um, I ran into Zack
Speaker 1: on the street because Zack is a big figure in
Speaker 1: this story. But I ran him down the street and
Speaker 1: I was so I had been on tour playing like
Speaker 1: progressive rock music. I don't know if you know this,
Speaker 1: but like I was, I was like deep frogue. I
Speaker 1: was playing with Adrian Blue from Crimson. Yeah, that was
Speaker 1: my gig. I was playing with Adrian Blue, and then
Speaker 1: I was playing in a Zappa band with all the
Speaker 1: Zappa Xappa musicians. So I was doing some nerdy drumming,
Speaker 1: like very like intense, like your whole life is consumed
Speaker 1: by Zappa music and Crimson music. Yeah. Stuff, It's really tough,
Speaker 1: and when you're in that world it can get kind
Speaker 1: of like claustrophobic. And then eventually like the you know,
Speaker 1: I I just had desires deeper than playing complicated music.
Speaker 1: I wanted to play like song like song songs, you know.
Speaker 1: And that's no shade to Zappa. He has plenty of songs,
Speaker 1: but it's just like no Zeppa Zeppa everyone could set. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's not like put it on at the party music,
Speaker 1: you know. It's like I'm a headcase. A lot of
Speaker 1: people listen to Zeppa alone in a room. And I
Speaker 1: love Zappa. Zappa will always be one of my favorite musicians,
Speaker 1: but it's just I had yearnings the fer than that.
Speaker 1: So I quit all those bands and then I was like,
Speaker 1: you know, what I'm gonna quit drumming. I had to
Speaker 1: sit in my head that I wasn't cut out to
Speaker 1: be a drummer, and I sold all of my drums
Speaker 1: for DJ equipment. Oh my god, it's not even thinking
Speaker 1: about it. I'm like, what was I thinking? But so
Speaker 1: I ran into Zack on the street and he's like, hey,
Speaker 1: what do you order? Life crisis? Quarter life crisis. He's
Speaker 1: like he's like, hey, what are you up to? And
Speaker 1: I was like, nothing, I'm doing nothing. You didn't say
Speaker 1: I'm DJ slick. I was just like, I'm gonna DJ
Speaker 1: in New York. And he like chuckled and he was like, oh, well,
Speaker 1: you know, it's a good running into you. And then
Speaker 1: I like said goodbye, and as I walked away, I
Speaker 1: walked directly into a poll like as hard as I could.
Speaker 1: And Zach was just like like we had that like
Speaker 1: movie moment when he was like, are you okay? And
Speaker 1: I was like yeah, man, fine, see you later. Uh so,
Speaker 1: but again, uh this is another weird coincidence. Like as
Speaker 1: I was buying the DJ equipment from a Craigslist dude,
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, you hear dr drugs, drummer quit?
Speaker 1: And I was like so out of it. I was
Speaker 1: just like, oh, cool, whatever, Like I didn't even think
Speaker 1: of it. And then the day after Christmas, I got
Speaker 1: a call from Zach and he was like, hey, I
Speaker 1: ran into you. You're not doing anything. Do you want
Speaker 1: to join the band? And I was like just just
Speaker 1: straight up in right now, just a straight up like
Speaker 1: you want an audition? Okay. But I've later found out
Speaker 1: that I got to the studio and they didn't. Nobody
Speaker 1: else was there. They were really banking on this thing working.
Speaker 1: It's great, but I think there was an inherent trust
Speaker 1: because we had built up a friendship over the course
Speaker 1: of like four years. It just all kind of worked.
Speaker 1: It all kind of worked, and I mean it was cute.
Speaker 1: You know. It's like they're like learned five songs and
Speaker 1: in the back of my mind, I'm like, I know
Speaker 1: your whole catalog the back, and I'm like, I'll put
Speaker 1: some time into it, you know, just yeah, like actuality.
Speaker 1: It's like, oh, I know your whole catalog back there.
Speaker 1: So we played you know, four or five songs. I
Speaker 1: think we ran through like Alaska. So and uh they're
Speaker 1: like okay, this is good. They're like, can play anything else?
Speaker 1: And I was like, let's run all the records down,
Speaker 1: and they were like real and we went from easy
Speaker 1: beat all the way up until Shame Shame, and we
Speaker 1: we played every record and it was so fun. Yeah
Speaker 1: that might that still might be like my favorite rehearsal
Speaker 1: I've ever been a part of. Bet man. Oh. So
Speaker 1: it was a dream and it felt so natural because
Speaker 1: I already knew the songs. I knew them as people,
Speaker 1: I knew they were I knew that they were sweet,
Speaker 1: and there wasn't any of that awkwardness when you're like
Speaker 1: approaching a gig and you're like, man, I doing what
Speaker 1: you are? So uh yeah, it was amazing. And then
Speaker 1: of course like yeah, you have that like first thought,
Speaker 1: best thought practice, and then I had to like go through,
Speaker 1: you know, three years of getting to really know everybody
Speaker 1: and really know what the personalities are and how to
Speaker 1: work with them, and like the honeymoon periods over and
Speaker 1: well yeah, I remember after the fourth show we played
Speaker 1: together in Syracus, Toby took a look at me and
Speaker 1: he was like, yeah, man, I don't know, I don't
Speaker 1: know it's gonna work. And I was like really, I
Speaker 1: was like I thought I'm doing Okay, it's like yeah,
Speaker 1: but you know, like you come from a then provisational
Speaker 1: progressive rock world like and we need everything to be
Speaker 1: like solid. Yeah. I was like, oh, so they really
Speaker 1: I mean, you know, like I appreciate them for giving
Speaker 1: me a chance, but it was hard, and of course
Speaker 1: you know, they had another drummer before I did. And
Speaker 1: then the big secret is that Scott is a monster drummer.
Speaker 1: And Scott plays drums on Shadow People. Uh, he plays
Speaker 1: all the drums on We All Belong. Yeah, Scott Um,
Speaker 1: he's a He's a phenomenal drummer in a very like
Speaker 1: Jangkie way. He's very like um, a lot of character
Speaker 1: his drumming. Um, I wouldn't call him like a guy
Speaker 1: with like a lot of technical prowess, but his tone
Speaker 1: is really good and his ear for drums is like incredible. Um.
Speaker 1: Some of the drums he did on Easy Beat were
Speaker 1: recorded one drum at a time, likely Yeah, like super
Speaker 1: cool approach, very kitchen sink approach to recording. So I
Speaker 1: learned a lot from them, and I also had to
Speaker 1: be like respect for the old drummer Justin and Scott
Speaker 1: drumming while also trying to add something different through the conversation.
Speaker 1: So when we made be the Void the first record, uh,
Speaker 1: that was my first record with the band, it was
Speaker 1: sort of like listening back to it, I'm like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: you could totally hear me like shaking off the progue.
Speaker 1: Really yeah, there's a lot of there's some complicated drumming
Speaker 1: on that record. But like sometimes I'm like, I listened back,
Speaker 1: I'm like, was that unnecessarily complicated? You know? It was
Speaker 1: a bit of a mental shift, I guess well, and
Speaker 1: you know, talking about payment, like those guys Toby and
Speaker 1: Scott in particular, grew up obsessive with payment, obsessive to
Speaker 1: the point where if like I start playing Shady Lane
Speaker 1: right now, they'll be like, Okay, let's play all of
Speaker 1: you know. Or I played range Life the other night
Speaker 1: on our bus, and uh then it was like, okay,
Speaker 1: can we go into all can we just play all
Speaker 1: of Wawie's Awe? Like we play or what what that's
Speaker 1: not on whow He's Awe? But you know, um, those
Speaker 1: guys like that's the world they're coming from. And Pavement
Speaker 1: had some there's some shared influences like Can and Um,
Speaker 1: like the more crowd rock stuff like when you start
Speaker 1: going back with the Pavement, it's like, oh, there's like Us,
Speaker 1: Maple and all these bands that influenced them, and that
Speaker 1: then I got really into those bands and recognized that
Speaker 1: there was common ground, and so I could be like, oh,
Speaker 1: like Pavement, I could take the things I love about
Speaker 1: payment and the things I level about progressive rock and
Speaker 1: like kind of smashing smashing together in a way that
Speaker 1: could be really a different um. But yes, Scott and
Speaker 1: Toby are like huge Pavement dudes. Same here man and
Speaker 1: I'm in an old man band. Uh. I got in
Speaker 1: my first band when I was thirty eight years old,
Speaker 1: and it's just old friends from high school and college
Speaker 1: that we all lived in within two miles of each other.
Speaker 1: And it was like, wait a minute, you play guitar
Speaker 1: and I play guitar, and saying you played drums, you
Speaker 1: play bass, Like why don't we just get together and
Speaker 1: it's the most fun thing in my life? And we do.
Speaker 1: We do. We only do cover songs. We don't we
Speaker 1: don't have time to write. We've all got kids and
Speaker 1: we're all z but uh, we played like one or
Speaker 1: two shows a year out when a friend calls and says, hey,
Speaker 1: we need some money to do thirty minutes and uh
Speaker 1: my buddy was doing U and he's in a Weezer
Speaker 1: tribute band and he said, hey, we're doing a nineties
Speaker 1: night and we have us and uh, I think that
Speaker 1: was like a primus thing. He was like, would you
Speaker 1: guys be up for learning like twelve Pavement songs? Oh man, yes, yeah.
Speaker 1: So we did that and we played like our Pavement
Speaker 1: dream set two drummers. Uh no, we didn't have in
Speaker 1: the stand of it. I tried to, and I actually
Speaker 1: have gotten an obob a little bit because of the podcast,
Speaker 1: and so that's kind of like it was one of
Speaker 1: my like big moments in life. I was like, wait
Speaker 1: a minute, you listen to this thing. You gotta get
Speaker 1: Malchimus on here. I and emailed him actually because Bob
Speaker 1: getting his email, and uh, I've never heard back. His
Speaker 1: new record came out today Hard. Yeah, I know it
Speaker 1: sounds great. I haven't listened to you. Oh it sounds
Speaker 1: great after I'm a Malchemist for I'm a life right now,
Speaker 1: you know. I just read uh his Uh there's a
Speaker 1: New York Times interview and a uh Washington The Washington
Speaker 1: Post interview is really good and I can relate to
Speaker 1: him in a lot of ways, like we're kind of
Speaker 1: you know, He's like, I feel really awkward. I feel
Speaker 1: like I don't have a good voice, but like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I cracked myself up with my music and like hopefully
Speaker 1: that's enough. You know, he's one of my favorite guitar
Speaker 1: players of all time. YEP, there was a moment at
Speaker 1: the I saw them quite a few times back in
Speaker 1: the day, but then I went to the reunion gig
Speaker 1: at the Tabernacle actually where you guys here tonight, and
Speaker 1: there was a moment uh after the first right before
Speaker 1: the first uh inn or not intermission, but encore, when
Speaker 1: everyone walked off stage mountainous waff off stage, but we
Speaker 1: were sitting kind of to the side on the upstairs
Speaker 1: of the balcony, and he was he never took his
Speaker 1: guitar off, and he was sitting in the wings on
Speaker 1: a box, noodling. And if you were out in the
Speaker 1: audience and you weren't on the side like we were,
Speaker 1: you couldn't see that. You just heard this stuff. He
Speaker 1: never took his guitar off, And that three minutes was
Speaker 1: one of my favorite parts of the show because he
Speaker 1: was just sitting there in the dark in the wings
Speaker 1: doing his malcolmus noodling and it was fucking gorgeous. And
Speaker 1: that's the thing about him too, is like he uh
Speaker 1: in this Washington Post interview, and I can relate to
Speaker 1: this because I get like I get performance anxiety as well.
Speaker 1: And he's like, you know, when we were on Late
Speaker 1: Night in the nineties doing cut your Hair, He's like,
Speaker 1: I closed my eyes for half of the performance, and
Speaker 1: he's like, because I didn't feel like I just I
Speaker 1: was like, when is this going to be over? Even
Speaker 1: when payment was playing coach, He's like, I closed my
Speaker 1: eyes and I was like, when is this going to
Speaker 1: be over? And I understand that because, like, you know,
Speaker 1: you can when you're at home writing, you can just
Speaker 1: live in your own world and like, yeah, you can
Speaker 1: crack yourself up with your music, like play all kinds
Speaker 1: of hilarious stuff. And right, I mean some of the
Speaker 1: Pavement lyrics are so funny. Rattled by the rush caught
Speaker 1: my dad crying. I mean I think about that line
Speaker 1: all the time, and then the way that it's juxtaposed
Speaker 1: where it's like, uh, you know, brush your teeth, shirt smell,
Speaker 1: you know, it's like like caught my dad crying. That's
Speaker 1: such a vulnerable thing to say. And then like the
Speaker 1: rest of that song is like we call her Barbara
Speaker 1: Larva Larva. Barbara rhymes like, oh yeah, I'm sure a
Speaker 1: lot of times he's his tongue is firmly in cheek,
Speaker 1: so that rhymes rhymes yeah. And the actually the rattle
Speaker 1: by the rest story I love the most is that
Speaker 1: it's like I can't believe when we went back to
Speaker 1: relearn it, like how like how slow that song is
Speaker 1: because of how high we were really like that songs
Speaker 1: like seventy beats per minute, just like slow. You know,
Speaker 1: it's slow, man. We don't want to listen to that now,
Speaker 1: I know, right. Yeah. So we were talking a little
Speaker 1: bit on the elevator on the way up here about um,
Speaker 1: the organic growth of Dr Dog And I've seen it
Speaker 1: with my eyeballs as a fan going to see uh
Speaker 1: from like the vinyl at the center stage to the
Speaker 1: masquerade to the bucket theater to shaking knees and uh,
Speaker 1: which obviously that's a festival, but I feel like those
Speaker 1: festivals earn a lot of fans that way. Is that
Speaker 1: is that a strategy or is it? I mean, the
Speaker 1: growth has been so organic and natural, it seems like
Speaker 1: because it was not like, oh, we played this hundred
Speaker 1: seat venue and then the next year we were doing
Speaker 1: hundred seat theater. No, it's not like that. And actually,
Speaker 1: like the more I see bands like immediately go from
Speaker 1: playing a hundred capacity rooms to playing eighteen hundred capacity rooms,
Speaker 1: I'm always wary because I'm like, you're not gonna be
Speaker 1: able to deal with this. Uh, the slow growth is
Speaker 1: so much truer, and uh, yeah, you're right. It's like
Speaker 1: when even when I first joined the band, around the
Speaker 1: time that Shame Shame was being finished, Um, we were
Speaker 1: only playing a hundred to three hundred capacity rooms on
Speaker 1: that first tour, and you know, somewhere sellouts, somewheren't even sellouts.
Speaker 1: And this was that like Dr Dog was doing well, um,
Speaker 1: and people were a aware of us. But you know,
Speaker 1: then the next time we play like Iowa City or whatever,
Speaker 1: it's like, yeah, you play the hundred and fifty capacity
Speaker 1: your room for three years, and then the next time
Speaker 1: you play the three hundred, and then the next time
Speaker 1: you play the five hundred, and then like you play
Speaker 1: the five hundred for what seems like forever, and then
Speaker 1: you're at the thousand, and it's like and it feels
Speaker 1: like such a tangible like like we can all breathe
Speaker 1: a side of really like we did it, you know,
Speaker 1: by working hard. Like I always got the sense that
Speaker 1: you some bands give up when they don't hit that
Speaker 1: certain level. And Dr Dog always seem maybe it's at
Speaker 1: Philly work ethic. Seemed like you guys are gonna go
Speaker 1: out and fucking earn each show. You're gonna earn that
Speaker 1: fan to tell ten more people, and and it never
Speaker 1: goes away. Yeah, And I would so much rather be
Speaker 1: in a position where it never goes away instead of
Speaker 1: the you know, instant like boom, we're done. And I've
Speaker 1: I've seen it happen with friends bands where they just
Speaker 1: comes so jaded. Uh. Now that's not to say that
Speaker 1: we're not like you know, we we have a sense
Speaker 1: of like okay, like playing this room again, but um,
Speaker 1: when we go on to play the show, we we
Speaker 1: never lose a sense of a love for the thing.
Speaker 1: And I totally agree with you. I think, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: it is our Philly work ethic, and it is our
Speaker 1: relentlessness and even um, you know, last night we were
Speaker 1: starting to have kind of a weird show and then
Speaker 1: we like have little tricks that help us get out
Speaker 1: of it, and then like humor can be one of
Speaker 1: those tricks. So like we're in the middle of playing
Speaker 1: the show and uh, Toby looks at me and he
Speaker 1: looks like kind of crazy, Like you know, he's like,
Speaker 1: we're all we're both just exhausted because we've been on
Speaker 1: tour since April. Well I've been on tours since January,
Speaker 1: but I get that later. I've been touring with two bands.
Speaker 1: So he looks at me and he says, hey, if
Speaker 1: you think if we leave now, do you think we
Speaker 1: can beat the traffic? And it just killed it killed me.
Speaker 1: He has a lot of one liners like that. He
Speaker 1: like my deep secret is like he's he's my guy.
Speaker 1: That's okay. Everyone has the secret weapon, everyone has their guy.
Speaker 1: His voice is amazing. But Toby looks at me and
Speaker 1: just goes so dead pan, and I like lost it
Speaker 1: because because I knew he wreck. He saw in me
Speaker 1: that I was tired, and I saw in him that
Speaker 1: he was tired, and we were just you know, we're
Speaker 1: playing fate or you know, it's called the Beach on
Speaker 1: the record, but we call it fate. We're playing through
Speaker 1: this song and we're all we're we're all just like
Speaker 1: hanging by a threat. Tours over in two days. We're
Speaker 1: all ready to go home and see our significant others
Speaker 1: and our friends. So it's just like just that little
Speaker 1: moment of like, I know, like I'm aware of what
Speaker 1: you're going through. Let's let's laugh about it. And then
Speaker 1: the rest of the show was so funny, and then
Speaker 1: we walked down stage like all like, you know, arm
Speaker 1: in arm, and that's how that's how we get over
Speaker 1: those things. Um, so you would be a good feeling,
Speaker 1: you know, because you worked through something together. It yeah,
Speaker 1: it is, and uh yeah, I would tell any young
Speaker 1: musician like, if you're on a slow route, just like
Speaker 1: don't give up even you know, even if you like
Speaker 1: aren't making a living yet doing it like it's so
Speaker 1: much better. And someone who's like I'm famous immediately, you know.
Speaker 1: I've heard stories of people who are like Instagram celebrities
Speaker 1: who are like sixteen years old with like a million
Speaker 1: followers doing like cart wheels when they find out that
Speaker 1: they've had a million followers. And I'm such a thing
Speaker 1: now to the expectation of not having to wait for stuff,
Speaker 1: whether success or the download of a film, and and
Speaker 1: there's merit to uh certain things, you know, certain things
Speaker 1: becoming more efficient and uh communication getting more efficient. But
Speaker 1: when I see somebody like celebrating over getting a million
Speaker 1: Instagram followers, I'm just like, oh man, it's all downhill,
Speaker 1: you know, like if that, if that's if that's the
Speaker 1: high if you're considering that the high water mark of
Speaker 1: your success, and like the rest of your life is
Speaker 1: going to be disappointing because there's so much about life
Speaker 1: to celebrate. Um. I often tell people like Dr Dog,
Speaker 1: we like try to be like a life celebration band,
Speaker 1: you know, like that's what the show is like, that's
Speaker 1: what the shows are like, and that's what we're trying
Speaker 1: to convey, Like we're and and and humbly. It's not
Speaker 1: like we think that we are like yeah, we're here
Speaker 1: to help you celebrate life. It's more just like no,
Speaker 1: I mean, like our lyrics are about view viewing negativity
Speaker 1: in a positive fight and try and trying as hard
Speaker 1: as you can to be like yeah, life is suffering,
Speaker 1: but like yeah, well we'll make it through. It's always um,
Speaker 1: I mean, you get something out of every band that
Speaker 1: you see live. But Doctor Dog shows are always fun awesome,
Speaker 1: like it's just and I saw it at Shaking Knees.
Speaker 1: You know, when you play a big festival with a
Speaker 1: lot of people who don't know who you are. I
Speaker 1: was walking around and literally hearing people like who the
Speaker 1: funk are these guys? Like this is great? Who are
Speaker 1: these guys? Who are these guys? It still happens, although
Speaker 1: the the polar opposite of that. As we played jay
Speaker 1: Z's festival in l A, The Made American Festival, We're
Speaker 1: one of two rock bands on the bill. We had
Speaker 1: a noon flot Who is the other rock band Weezer?
Speaker 1: Who I uh yeah, I mean we can have the
Speaker 1: Weezer conversation, but like you know, blue Out and Picker Tinner,
Speaker 1: Masterpieces and the rest I can you know, I'll take
Speaker 1: or leave. But we uh were with the other rock band.
Speaker 1: But they have a following and they also have like
Speaker 1: a rock radio, Like people are aware of Weezer. But
Speaker 1: we go on stage at noon and like the curtain
Speaker 1: dropped and the crowd is just like bewildered, like what
Speaker 1: they had no idea what to do? They I just
Speaker 1: remember like staring at people in they're like they're like
Speaker 1: looking at the guitars, like, what's a guitar? What's that? Guy?
Speaker 1: Are they in the wrong place? Well, and you know
Speaker 1: it's not, because I mean, it's just the festival is
Speaker 1: so E D M heavy. So the changeover between sets
Speaker 1: fifteen minutes, which if any musicians are listening, like, is
Speaker 1: a nightmare. You need at least like a half an
Speaker 1: hour if you have a lot of gear, and we
Speaker 1: have a lot of gear. Uh. So we had a
Speaker 1: fifteen minute changeover and it was televised like worldwide broadcast,
Speaker 1: and we're like we didn't even have our monitors on,
Speaker 1: Like we're like, okay, and then you have our set
Speaker 1: was a half hour. We played like six songs and
Speaker 1: then we were done. Like I just remember like it
Speaker 1: sounded as if you know, there's like that zen trope
Speaker 1: of like the one hand clapping. It sounded like one
Speaker 1: hand was clapping. I thought, this is gonna end in
Speaker 1: a victorious and we want them all over. No, no, no,
Speaker 1: So much of playing live is falling flat up, flat
Speaker 1: on your face. Uh. And it's knowing that tomorrow will
Speaker 1: be might be better, you know, um, but it's it's true.
Speaker 1: We go out there and we try and I would
Speaker 1: hate it if I went up and played a set passively,
Speaker 1: and I think the rest of the band feels that way.
Speaker 1: You always get a sense that you guys are working
Speaker 1: your asses off up there to like deliver a fun experience,
Speaker 1: and we tried to make it easier, and I don't
Speaker 1: think it's ever gonna happen. Even with our new record. Um,
Speaker 1: we tried to pair things down and even simplify further,
Speaker 1: and it's still like, it's not a walk in the park.
Speaker 1: I love the new record. Um, it's so chill and
Speaker 1: so um. It's like because I kind of know Dr
Speaker 1: Dog is sort of the rollicking bar band thing and
Speaker 1: there are a couple of tunes on there like that
Speaker 1: for sure, but I really like the vibe of this one.
Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah. It was a conscious choice, Yeah, trying
Speaker 1: to be a little bit more ethereal with the last
Speaker 1: two records because we've done the rock record a last
Speaker 1: two meaning because you guys have put out a couple
Speaker 1: of interesting things lately. Yeah, to talk about that, I
Speaker 1: mean it's like we've got so we recorded a band
Speaker 1: of Mansions first, so that was two thousand fourteen, and
Speaker 1: then that project got shelved for a while, got shelved
Speaker 1: until the end of two thousand sixteen because an opportunity
Speaker 1: came along. We got a grant to finally put on
Speaker 1: a stage show for a record called The Psychedelic Swamp,
Speaker 1: which just like the first thing ever, right, it's the
Speaker 1: first thing that Scott and Toby recorded as Dr Dog.
Speaker 1: They had another band called Raccoon that was like more
Speaker 1: popular around Philadelphia, but Dr Dog was like their home
Speaker 1: recording project, and they made this crazy like actually a
Speaker 1: Zappa reference. It's almost like the Zappa record Uncle Meat,
Speaker 1: like it's really Collagi And they made this weird tape record,
Speaker 1: like there's like twenty five copies of it out there.
Speaker 1: There's some of it's on YouTube, like a dilapidated tape.
Speaker 1: And then, uh, we got this opportunity to do a
Speaker 1: stage show with the Pig Iron Theater Company in Philly,
Speaker 1: and The Swamp was just the right thing and had
Speaker 1: a full concept. It almost had like a full libretto.
Speaker 1: So we got money to do that, and then we
Speaker 1: did a stage show in Philly for four nights with
Speaker 1: a full theater troupe, and it was one of the
Speaker 1: most creatively satisfying things like I've ever been a part
Speaker 1: of which is great. But we had this great record
Speaker 1: I like, I love a band of Mansions, and I
Speaker 1: was like, man, when does the band of Mansions that
Speaker 1: we're going to come out? Swamp took the precedence. We
Speaker 1: made a companion record to the theater show, and so
Speaker 1: when we released it, our fans were like, what is this?
Speaker 1: Like you real wait, you re recorded an album? So
Speaker 1: I think it was confusing for people. And then we
Speaker 1: toured it but we didn't really like play any of
Speaker 1: the songs from it. And then at the end of
Speaker 1: two thousand and sixteen, we lost the member that year
Speaker 1: he quit and it's all good. He It was just
Speaker 1: like he was a really important member and fan and
Speaker 1: uh then uh Trump got elected and we were like, uh,
Speaker 1: like we had plans to release a band of Mansions,
Speaker 1: and then we were like, well, it doesn't feel right
Speaker 1: to do anything now, it doesn't feel right to live.
Speaker 1: Like I were just like, yeah, you know, like some
Speaker 1: of the band members have kids, and they're just like,
Speaker 1: what's our future looking like? So we decided to put
Speaker 1: out Mansions and it was already set in stone, but
Speaker 1: then we made the decision to make it um all
Speaker 1: we donated all the money to the Southern Property Law
Speaker 1: Center and a sort of a great, Okay, we can't
Speaker 1: take money from people right now, there's so much suffering happening.
Speaker 1: Let's donate it to a cause that could hopefully help people.
Speaker 1: And then we took a year off from doring, which
Speaker 1: we haven't done since I joined the band. UM. So
Speaker 1: that's where that's kind of where we got to critical
Speaker 1: equation UM. And then taking that year off, it's uh
Speaker 1: you sort of realized like, Okay, maybe the band could
Speaker 1: be functioning a lot better, UM, and the band could
Speaker 1: be communicating a lot better. So the whole emphasis behind
Speaker 1: this record was to uh find a way to get
Speaker 1: better at being a band. Uh. I hesitate to say
Speaker 1: in some kind of Monster your Metallica documentary way, because
Speaker 1: we didn't we didn't hire a therapist, but we've been
Speaker 1: acting as our own therapists for this for this record,
Speaker 1: which you made a concerted effort. It was a concerted
Speaker 1: effort to do something uh more more in the ethereal
Speaker 1: zone because abandon Mansions had started to touch on that,
Speaker 1: and then The Swamp had had some elements of that,
Speaker 1: but it was still very much like a really like
Speaker 1: abstract and brash record. Yeah. I listened to that this morning.
Speaker 1: Actually it's weird. Yeah, it's a weird record. Every song
Speaker 1: has the lyric Swamp in it. Uh notice that. Yeah,
Speaker 1: we'll go back and listen to it. It's weird. Um,
Speaker 1: but it's also trying to tell this story. Like if
Speaker 1: we had done the Swamp again, if if I could
Speaker 1: George lucas the situation, I would uh, I would have
Speaker 1: like included a full, like forty page libretto with that record,
Speaker 1: explaining why we did it. But instead it's like you
Speaker 1: get the vinyl and then you're like, what is the
Speaker 1: song about? Whose phrases? And what is the swamp? Like
Speaker 1: there's all these characters that I mentioned in the lyric,
Speaker 1: but there's nothing in the book the booklet would describe that.
Speaker 1: So to anyone who's listening who's a doctor doc fan,
Speaker 1: I'm sorry, and uh, if you ever want to know
Speaker 1: this story, um, just ask me and I try to
Speaker 1: tell you, but you might have to be real high
Speaker 1: to understand it. Right. Well, it might not be a wrong. Well,
Speaker 1: I love the new record. It's really great. It's it's
Speaker 1: got such a cool jill vibe and it. It feels
Speaker 1: like a record made with a bunch of guys in
Speaker 1: a room. That's it. That's what we're trying to go for.
Speaker 1: We did, and we did. We were in a very
Speaker 1: small room with a guy named gust Staffert. Okay, I
Speaker 1: was gonna I saw that video that your folks sat
Speaker 1: that kind of just short making of I wondered who
Speaker 1: that guy was, Gust Staffert. He uh. I first became
Speaker 1: aware of him. I went to go see back and
Speaker 1: there was a good dude place. I saw him like
Speaker 1: two weeks ago, man at the Tabernacle. Man Back. He's
Speaker 1: I see back every time I can. Do you know
Speaker 1: the what Torres did she open? We didn't uh go
Speaker 1: for the opener? It's okay, busy people. Yeah. Um Beck
Speaker 1: is phenomenal. I saw him a couple of years ago
Speaker 1: at the Rheman and it's like you could focus on
Speaker 1: any member of the band and be like, oh my god,
Speaker 1: oh my god, oh my god. Smokey Hormel a guitar player.
Speaker 1: Well they're also nimble, like like, okay, are we gonna
Speaker 1: be the bluegrass band? The James Brown Band or the
Speaker 1: and like weird p FU. Yeah, yeah, totally so like
Speaker 1: you know, I'm what you could focus on just the
Speaker 1: metal Johnson the bass player, Joey Warrenker the drummer. Um,
Speaker 1: oh is that Joey. I didn't know that Joey or
Speaker 1: not on the not the gig you saw it was
Speaker 1: named Chris Coleman. Jelley Warnker is bex dude whenever he
Speaker 1: can because he's he's been around forever. Oh my god, yeah,
Speaker 1: totally so. And then Gus was playing auxiliary and he
Speaker 1: was like playing cello at one point. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just like an all around he can do everything guy.
Speaker 1: And so that's how I became aware of him. I
Speaker 1: didn't know that he was like a production guy rum
Speaker 1: and then I became even more aware of him. My
Speaker 1: my girlfriend Natalie Prass recorded some tracks with him in
Speaker 1: l a UM and she used Becks Band as the
Speaker 1: backup band for some of the tracks. And I just
Speaker 1: kept hearing about him, you know. Um. And then he
Speaker 1: got the gate with Roger Waters, so now he plays
Speaker 1: really so now he plays bass with Roger Waters and
Speaker 1: Joey Warnker is the drummer, and uh, Roger Waters not
Speaker 1: playing bass. Roger Waters likes like he does on some songs.
Speaker 1: But he also likes to play acoustic guitar, and then
Speaker 1: there's also parts where he's got like a headset microphone.
Speaker 1: He's acting out the wall. He's doing the Roger Water
Speaker 1: He's doing the Roger Waters thing. He's like a wall.
Speaker 1: So it was cool because we started working with Gus
Speaker 1: like in the in a break of Roger Waters touring.
Speaker 1: So like, I feel like this record is kind of floety. Yeah. Man,
Speaker 1: there's some like realte to say trippy because it's such
Speaker 1: a it is trippy, though it's okay to sage trippy
Speaker 1: because it's one of those like I do with my Uh.
Speaker 1: I had my regular listening at home on the so
Speaker 1: nose of course, But anytime one of my bands comes
Speaker 1: out with a new record since I was in high school,
Speaker 1: I do a serious headphone listen by myself in a
Speaker 1: room hopefully dark with the headphones on. And that's really
Speaker 1: where you get the full experience with the ship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and I did that with this one, and I was like, man,
Speaker 1: there's a lot a lot of trippy ship going on
Speaker 1: in this one. It's a trippy record and uh we
Speaker 1: you know, we recorded it and it's like his his
Speaker 1: like a converted home studio that has like you know
Speaker 1: that there's a Portland a joke about like this is
Speaker 1: the microphone from pet Sounds. So the first day of recording,
Speaker 1: like there's this Celeste or Celeste. It's a like a
Speaker 1: very specific instrument. Um that's like it's almost like a
Speaker 1: it's like a unplugged Fender rhodor something. Yeah. Or it
Speaker 1: has like a kind of like belt like tone. And
Speaker 1: I go to play it and Gus it's like, oh,
Speaker 1: that's the Celeste from pet Sounds. And I'm like, ha
Speaker 1: ha Portland, right. He's like, no, that's that's the one.
Speaker 1: I was like, did you take your hands off of it?
Speaker 1: I was just like and then I look at it.
Speaker 1: I'm like, oh, yeah, this totally has to be I
Speaker 1: mean it's just like, yeah, beat the crap. He's like yeah,
Speaker 1: He's like Roger Water's money. That's great. This Roger Waters
Speaker 1: when he went and bought this the less from pet
Speaker 1: Sounds great. I could never even imagine being in that position.
Speaker 1: I've always gotten a bit of a beach boise vibe
Speaker 1: from Dr Dog too. Oh it's beach boys worship. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and um yeah, totally every time I see you know
Speaker 1: that you described as a psychedelic rock band. Ago, They're
Speaker 1: not a psychedelic rock band. But then when I was
Speaker 1: listening to the headphones at sea and I was like, oh,
Speaker 1: they are kind of a psychedelic rock band. Yeah, because
Speaker 1: I think of something different when I hear that. No,
Speaker 1: that's a stude. I like we you know, everyone tries
Speaker 1: to define Dr Dog by some something. Yeah, we just
Speaker 1: say we're a rock and roll band. Yeah, like I
Speaker 1: think of Black Mountain. When I think of a psychedelic
Speaker 1: rock band, I think of something much heavier. Yeah, Sleep Yeah,
Speaker 1: Sleep is a is a psychedelic band, yeah, exactly. Uh.
Speaker 1: But we we your Doctor Dog. That's how I describe
Speaker 1: you as. Like, you know, you always reminded me of
Speaker 1: the Beach Boys meets the band uh, with some little
Speaker 1: Beetles thrown in. We get we get the Three Bees
Speaker 1: a lot Beach Boys band, Beatles. Oh yeah, and and
Speaker 1: and rightfully so, I mean like those are all bands
Speaker 1: that we've grown to love and and and uh last
Speaker 1: night we were playing through like I mean, we were
Speaker 1: playing through Beatles songs last night. We had like a
Speaker 1: big campfire type vibe after the show Birmingham, and we
Speaker 1: were playing through like but we're also playing like will Berries,
Speaker 1: we were playing a lot of stuff last night. Uh,
Speaker 1: we're playing some All things must Pass Like yeah, um,
Speaker 1: but you know we get those three be's a lot
Speaker 1: and Beach Boys are obviously a a point of fascination
Speaker 1: for all of us. But Steely Dan, I would I
Speaker 1: would actually say, if you listen to Toby songs, really
Speaker 1: try and catch the Steely Dan influence. I'm not joking,
Speaker 1: like I love Steele. We have and I and I'm
Speaker 1: I'm a Steely Dan look obsessive. So I really feel
Speaker 1: like we're at a point now where we're in a
Speaker 1: little bit of a Dan zone, Like especially working with Gus. Um,
Speaker 1: Gus is so hot. He's like constantly talking about high
Speaker 1: fi gear and like you know, like this board was
Speaker 1: used for this classic recording. Like we're we're starting to
Speaker 1: enter this like our Steely Dan phase and I'm like
Speaker 1: so psychic. Great. So it's like, oh man, well I
Speaker 1: could do this all day, but we need to talk
Speaker 1: about the big Lebowski we do. Um, I can't wait.
Speaker 1: I appreciate you indulging me. It's funny. My my lead
Speaker 1: guitarist Eddie is coming tonight. We're both very excited and
Speaker 1: out of the corner, and I saw him texting me
Speaker 1: right now are you talking to him? So, oh yeah,
Speaker 1: you're talking to me, and we're about to get into
Speaker 1: my favorite uh you know, I would love to say
Speaker 1: like eight and a half or like, uh two One
Speaker 1: of Space obviously is my favorite movie. But this show
Speaker 1: is let's let's put all of our pretensions aside and
Speaker 1: talk about The Big Lebowski because movies that have been
Speaker 1: picked for this have been like die Hard, Tron Tron,
Speaker 1: Big Lebowski, Billy Madisvengerson. Billy Madison is the only other
Speaker 1: one I could talk about with the same kind of
Speaker 1: really well, just because I've seen it. Next year, when
Speaker 1: you guys come back around, yeah, back in So I
Speaker 1: watched this again last night. I'm a Cohen Brothers um
Speaker 1: fanatic um. The only other film I've covered so far
Speaker 1: on this has been Miller's Crossing with a with a
Speaker 1: comedian named Ben Acker, a good friend of mine, and
Speaker 1: um Surprice. I't din't Fargo yet. Someone will pick that
Speaker 1: at some point, But Big Lebowski I think followed up
Speaker 1: far Ago if I'm not mistaken, which uh you know
Speaker 1: they make this Oscar winning UM crime caper followed up
Speaker 1: by this crime caper, Like they do crime papers better
Speaker 1: than anyone if they didn't kind of convoluted crime capers. Yes,
Speaker 1: but Lebowski had such a different tone, and they established
Speaker 1: it right off the bat with the drifting, tumbling tumbleweed
Speaker 1: song and the literal tumbleweed tumbling towards Los Angeles. You
Speaker 1: get Anglis, Yeah, you get Sam's beautiful, rich baritone doing
Speaker 1: this sometimes there's a man. Man. It just sets that
Speaker 1: tone right up the bat. Oh, and uh, you know
Speaker 1: you've got the tumbleweed. But then you're at Ralph's. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it's such a jarring juxtaposition. And then you're at Ralph's
Speaker 1: fluorescent lighting of her else and like why is this
Speaker 1: guy in the dairy section? Yeah? And like why is
Speaker 1: he in the dairy section? And why is he writing
Speaker 1: a check for sixty some cents or whatever? Yeah? Uh,
Speaker 1: and he's like trying, obviously trying to flirt with the
Speaker 1: cashier and she's not having it. And um, that opening scene,
Speaker 1: you know, it's funny. I remember when The Big Labass
Speaker 1: he came out, and I remember reading a review of
Speaker 1: it in the Philadelphia Inquirer that was sort of like
Speaker 1: why did the Coen Brothers make this film? It's enjoyable,
Speaker 1: but why did they make this film? What is this film?
Speaker 1: And um, you know, uh, I think about weird Al
Speaker 1: Yankovic actually because he's like, he's like, for me, it's
Speaker 1: every other record that seems to be the one that
Speaker 1: touches people. He's like, he's like, I'll have a huge
Speaker 1: record that does really well, and then the next one
Speaker 1: will be one that's very personal to me and the
Speaker 1: and the public might not understand it. So he had
Speaker 1: like Running with Scissors, which was like a huge record
Speaker 1: for him, and then it's like Poodle Hat and you're like,
Speaker 1: what's poodle had? You know, it's like a really weird record. Um,
Speaker 1: he's like, but he loves that record. And that's kind
Speaker 1: of the way of view Lebowski because Lebowski is in
Speaker 1: between Fargo and Oh Brother were out though, two massively
Speaker 1: successful Coen Brothers films, and then you have this like
Speaker 1: what is this weird child that they've created, Like it's
Speaker 1: uh oh. So the first time I watched The Big Lebowski,
Speaker 1: I was on a my first tour because seventeen years old,
Speaker 1: and uh, I was on a tour with a bunch
Speaker 1: of other seventeen year olds playing playing rock and roll
Speaker 1: music for this thing called the School of Rock. It
Speaker 1: wasn't had nothing to do with the movie School of Rock.
Speaker 1: It was a program in Philadelphia and we were like
Speaker 1: doing a summer tour playing like classic rock songs, and
Speaker 1: somebody was like, we should watch The Big Lebowski. Remember
Speaker 1: watching it and be like, I don't get it. I
Speaker 1: don't get it. I don't understand what this movie is about.
Speaker 1: And then two thousand and thirteen came along and I
Speaker 1: was on a Doctor Dog tour and I was going
Speaker 1: through kind of a hard time, like I was, I
Speaker 1: was moving away from Philadelphia and uh, I wasn't kind
Speaker 1: of in a relationship, but it wasn't really going that
Speaker 1: well and I needed something to put my mind off
Speaker 1: of things. And we had a copy of The Big
Speaker 1: Lebowski on DVD on the tour bus, and I just
Speaker 1: put it in one day and I watched it every
Speaker 1: day for six weeks. Yes, it was. It has become
Speaker 1: such an important movie to me, as like it's there's
Speaker 1: like a zen books written about Lebowski. Uh, there's even
Speaker 1: a book like that's like co authored by Jeff Bridges.
Speaker 1: Like the Dude and the Dude in the Zen Masters
Speaker 1: It's called which I've read It's fantastic book. Um, and
Speaker 1: the movie became part of my zen training. I also
Speaker 1: practiced meditation twice a day, so like watching this movie
Speaker 1: and meditating, like it all became the same thing. And
Speaker 1: I got so immersed in The Big Lebowski, like to
Speaker 1: the point where by the end of week six, like
Speaker 1: I'm watching the movie and saying lines along with it,
Speaker 1: and it's like I know the script now. Yeah, so okay,
Speaker 1: I drifted for a second, but back to the movie.
Speaker 1: No, no no, no, that's that is That is the drift
Speaker 1: you know of The Big Lebowski. It will do that.
Speaker 1: It is more than a movie. I mean, clearly they're
Speaker 1: in there. I believe this is gonna be the seventeenth
Speaker 1: year of Lebowski Fest. Have you ever been by the
Speaker 1: way Dr Doc has played Lebowski Fest? What Dr Dog
Speaker 1: played the Louisville Lebowski. No shit. And we had to learn, uh,
Speaker 1: we had to learn. Just dropped in to see what
Speaker 1: you know? The can you under Roger? As we learned, Uh,
Speaker 1: the Captain Beefheart song from the movie where he's where
Speaker 1: he's lying on the floor and uh, Smokey calls him
Speaker 1: and he leaves in the voicemail. Ye, the song that's
Speaker 1: playing there, we learned that song and Smokey is uh
Speaker 1: what's his name to gi? Yeah, yeah, one of my
Speaker 1: one of the I mean, see, that's the thing I
Speaker 1: could say, Like, it's one of my favorite scenes in
Speaker 1: the movie when when he says market zero or you know,
Speaker 1: market eight, market zero marketing and then you're ending a
Speaker 1: smoky yer and entering a world of pain. Uh. You know,
Speaker 1: such an intense scene. My wife last night was like,
Speaker 1: oh my god, but there's something it's so intense. But
Speaker 1: there's something about Smokey's uh one over one over, like
Speaker 1: he's so his character is so believable. Yeah, uh in
Speaker 1: a in a situation where so many characters are unbelievable,
Speaker 1: like uh, to turo as the Jesus, like like, who
Speaker 1: does that guy exist? Or uh, I mean Walter definitely exists,
Speaker 1: which is he's based on the filmmaker John Millius. Oh
Speaker 1: I didn't know that. Yeah, And actually the dude is
Speaker 1: based on a guy named Jeff Doud, So they were
Speaker 1: both based on two dudes in reality. And John Millius
Speaker 1: is a there's a great documentary about him actually, but
Speaker 1: he's the guy who wrote did he write Apocalypse? Now?
Speaker 1: It's something to do? He wrote and directed Red Dawn.
Speaker 1: He was very right wing, but very I mean he
Speaker 1: was Walter Subjeck. You know. He would he was famous
Speaker 1: for going into offices and like pulling a gun on
Speaker 1: a studio exec and he would wear those aviator like
Speaker 1: shooter glasses and touch of Phil Specter in there. Yeah. Yeah,
Speaker 1: just a guy who's paranoid but like has does have
Speaker 1: a big heart, but doesn't quite know how to express
Speaker 1: himself and it comes out in rage. Um. Such an
Speaker 1: interesting character. But something I say to every fellow Lebowskiite
Speaker 1: is like, there's a little bit of their character in
Speaker 1: you too. Like when I watched the movie, I'm like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's times where I'm irrational like Walter. There's times where
Speaker 1: I'm like totally passive and like Donnie and like I'm
Speaker 1: just like positive, but it's you're like why is he
Speaker 1: so positive? And then sometimes you're like the dude where
Speaker 1: you're like passive aggressive, where you're like this aggression will
Speaker 1: not stand man. You're like you're like you know, you
Speaker 1: just like don't you don't quite um know how to
Speaker 1: express yourself or something. I don't know. Actually, I don't
Speaker 1: know if I could ever relate to the night. That
Speaker 1: could be a little nihilist sometimes, but and and Lincoln
Speaker 1: Berry pancakes do sound good right now. One thing I
Speaker 1: noticed last night that I've never noticed before, and I've
Speaker 1: seen this movie quite a few times too, um, is
Speaker 1: that dude, the dude has so many funny one liners.
Speaker 1: He's as a person. If you just forget about you're
Speaker 1: watching movie. Let's say you know this guy, he's fucking hysterical,
Speaker 1: but no one ever laughs at him. He throws out
Speaker 1: all these funny one liners, like genuinely, like clever wit,
Speaker 1: and no one ever laughs at these jokes in the movie.
Speaker 1: And the Last Night is like, that's kind of funny, man.
Speaker 1: These are great lines. Oh, I mean the line where
Speaker 1: clearly you're not a golfer, like, of course they're not
Speaker 1: gonna laugh because of the situation, but at least some
Speaker 1: house training. Of course you know you can. Also, that's
Speaker 1: something I've noticed, like the second time I watched the movies.
Speaker 1: He never calls anybody else dude. He always says man. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think he said man like two hundred times he says,
Speaker 1: he says man, but he's the dude, so no one
Speaker 1: else has ever dude. Yea, yeah, he says man. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So that was something I noticed early on. But he
Speaker 1: does have a lot of funny one liners. There's that
Speaker 1: great line when they're you know, the classical music is
Speaker 1: playing and Lebowski is at the fireplace and he's like,
Speaker 1: what makes him man? Yeah? And he says, you know
Speaker 1: that in the parataesticals exactly, and he just goes, perhaps,
Speaker 1: you're right, he's great. Uh what's his name? Shout out
Speaker 1: to David Huddleston and well, he is the Big Lebowski.
Speaker 1: He's the Big Lebowski, which is funny. I think a
Speaker 1: lot of people think that's the dude, but no, he's
Speaker 1: he's the deadbeat Lebowski or or or is the dude
Speaker 1: the big Lebowski you know, philosophically or is it him? Uh? Yeah,
Speaker 1: I think that. I think at times the Big Lebowski, uh,
Speaker 1: you know, the real Jeffrey Lebowski or the famous Jeffrey
Speaker 1: Lebowski is the Big Lebowski. And then there's other time
Speaker 1: when the other times when the dude really tries to
Speaker 1: transcend himself and he's trying he's trying to be a
Speaker 1: big he's trying to be a big person. Well, he
Speaker 1: always The other thing I noticed too, is he's always
Speaker 1: on the path to doing the right thing and he
Speaker 1: has figured it out. Walter is the one that sucks
Speaker 1: everything up constantly. You fucked it up. But but Jeff,
Speaker 1: but the dude is is kind of way ahead. He's
Speaker 1: he's one step ahead of everybody. Despite his stoner slackness,
Speaker 1: he's kind of right the whole time. Yeah, especially when
Speaker 1: he cracks. The whole case is just going on. He
Speaker 1: does know what's going on, but he's just there's the idiot. Yeah,
Speaker 1: Walter is an idiot, and uh, you know only hammered
Speaker 1: him by everything that he tries to. You know, the
Speaker 1: briefcase full of his undis just the whites. You know,
Speaker 1: it's like the ring whole, the whole ring, your angle.
Speaker 1: And then of course, like h you know, this is
Speaker 1: what happens when you stranger in the ass and he's
Speaker 1: yea with the kid with the with they're chasing that
Speaker 1: kid down, and then there's the guy in the iron
Speaker 1: iron lung, Oh my god, and that whole that whole
Speaker 1: side story is so fascinating to me, and like that
Speaker 1: movie in the movie is about an hour, it's almost
Speaker 1: two hours long. So sometimes when I get into the
Speaker 1: third act of the movie, especially when he's getting chased
Speaker 1: by the scissors with the scissors, sometimes I feel like
Speaker 1: I'm lost in the lost in the dream a little bit. Um.
Speaker 1: It's kind of how I feel when I watch Inherent Vice.
Speaker 1: Like I've watched Inherent Vice a couple of times now,
Speaker 1: and I can't necessarily tell you anything about it because
Speaker 1: it's so druggy. Yeah, and I feel like Paul Thomas
Speaker 1: Anderson was trying to make you feel that, And I
Speaker 1: feel like the Coen Brothers are like, you're you're getting
Speaker 1: in the dudes headspace. Yeah, and they had never done
Speaker 1: these weird fantasy sequences and stuff like they did with
Speaker 1: uh gutter Balls, the dream sequence after he gets drugged
Speaker 1: by Jackie Treehorn Jackie Treehorn and the great Kenny Roger
Speaker 1: song of course, of course, but I didn't realize this.
Speaker 1: I looked at the trivia that in that sequence is
Speaker 1: when he's helping Maud bowl. Uh, that's the only time
Speaker 1: you see the dude bowl actually, Oh yeah, he's always
Speaker 1: sitting around you never actually see him throw a ball
Speaker 1: down the lane, which I never noticed until I read
Speaker 1: that this morning. It's like, holy shit, it's a movie
Speaker 1: sort of about bowling. Yeah, there's tons of stuff like
Speaker 1: that in the movie that, like, I mean, there's more
Speaker 1: obvious things the more you watch it, like the whole Chinaman, Like, yeah,
Speaker 1: there's the first chinaman and then Walter says you shouldn't
Speaker 1: say that, but then he says it's not to prefer nomenclature.
Speaker 1: But then Lebowski says, a chinaman took my legs in Vietnam,
Speaker 1: and you're like, did why they Like that must have
Speaker 1: been some inside joke because that went too far. Also
Speaker 1: in that same sequence, um, when Philip Seymour Hoppin is
Speaker 1: showing him around the place needs such a great scene,
Speaker 1: he goes yes, yes, and then uh, but then Lebowski
Speaker 1: says yes yes and the next scene so like they
Speaker 1: like mirror each other. And I don't know, I wonder
Speaker 1: if like the Coen Brothers were like cracking up over
Speaker 1: like when people go yes, yes, I bet. I mean,
Speaker 1: they're they're very famous for, uh, their movies being very
Speaker 1: heavily scripted and like you don't improv they wrote every
Speaker 1: yeah sure in Fargo, like it was all on the page.
Speaker 1: Same with Lebowski. There's no there's no improvisation. They said.
Speaker 1: The biggest or the closest they got to improvisation was
Speaker 1: allowing John t Turo to just be that character because
Speaker 1: that character was his character, Like like he I think
Speaker 1: he like owns the copy right, He's making a movie
Speaker 1: as Jesus. That's I heard that, um because it's his,
Speaker 1: it's his thing. It feels like a non sequitur in
Speaker 1: the grand scheme of the movie, but like, I'm so
Speaker 1: glad that they included it, and that especially because you
Speaker 1: don't realize that the song that's about to play as
Speaker 1: Hotel California. And I feel like it gets me every
Speaker 1: time too. It's like that beautiful like classical guitar comes
Speaker 1: out comes in and you're like, ah, like this is
Speaker 1: the perfect setup for the scene, and they're like, oh, yeah,
Speaker 1: it's Hotel California, which also ties into the yeah well.
Speaker 1: Another great part is the fucking cab driver is so
Speaker 1: aggressive and angry that he wouldn't like like rips his
Speaker 1: ass out of the cab. Is so funny, do you
Speaker 1: know they do you know that piece of trivia. The Eagles,
Speaker 1: the fucking Eagles part so uh. The Coen Brothers approached
Speaker 1: the Rolling Stones about using Dead Flowers in the movie
Speaker 1: Dead Flowers is in the closing crowd. They approached the
Speaker 1: Rolling Stones manager, who was like the biggest hard ass
Speaker 1: of all time, and he's like, give me half a
Speaker 1: million dollars and I'll let you use dead Flowers in
Speaker 1: the movie. And they're like, oh, well, let's just like
Speaker 1: invite him over and we'll show him a rough cut
Speaker 1: of the film. They show him a rough cut cut
Speaker 1: of the film. The Eagles line happened and he burst
Speaker 1: burst out loud laughing, And at the end of the
Speaker 1: screening he goes up to me. It's like, you can
Speaker 1: take the song for free, and he's like, us, but
Speaker 1: you have to use a cover. He's like, he's like
Speaker 1: that Eagles line. He's like, that's the truest thing in
Speaker 1: the movie. Like he was just like that was amazing.
Speaker 1: I think I saw where it was either. I think
Speaker 1: it was Glenn Fry was a little salty about that.
Speaker 1: I think the Eagles are a little salty. I mean
Speaker 1: in the song a person steely Dan Nursery trivia in Hotel, California.
Speaker 1: There's a lyric they can stab us with their steely knives,
Speaker 1: but they just can't kill. It's a reference to the
Speaker 1: Steely Dan record that came out a year before. There's
Speaker 1: a there's a derogatory line about the Eagles, so they're yeah,
Speaker 1: they're they're a little defensive. Well, yeah, Don Henley sort
Speaker 1: of a well known tick. Yeah, I know, let's get
Speaker 1: into it. Yeah, well, I know where heard it was
Speaker 1: Jeff Bridges interviewed and he knew Glenn Fry and he
Speaker 1: said that he always kind of gave him a hard time,
Speaker 1: and you could tell it sort of bugged him a
Speaker 1: little bit, like he didn't want to appear as though
Speaker 1: he was taking it too seriously. But he was like, yeah,
Speaker 1: he kinda. He kind of didn't love that, you know what.
Speaker 1: I look, I have a problem with humorist people. So yeah,
Speaker 1: if you can't have a sense if if that line
Speaker 1: was like fucking doctor dog, I would be like honored, Yeah,
Speaker 1: for sure, for sure. Uh. And of course, making Jesus
Speaker 1: say a pedophile was such a weird Cohen Brothers thing
Speaker 1: to do. Yeah, peders, there's no reason to whatsoever, But
Speaker 1: you get that funny as Hell's shot of him knocking
Speaker 1: on the door and that big dude just comes and
Speaker 1: it's such a Cohen Brother's cut to like not show
Speaker 1: what happens, Oh, you just show that uncomfortable moment he's
Speaker 1: wearing those horrible short like those daisy dudes. Like, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that scene is so real. Apparently he stuffed
Speaker 1: his his crutch with a bag of bird seed for
Speaker 1: that for that shot. That's such a good thing to learn. Yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: I can't wait to tell everyone that that's amazing. Uh.
Speaker 1: Julianne Moore and David Sulis. One of the funniest scenes
Speaker 1: in her entrance, that crazy entrance when she goes flying
Speaker 1: through the air with that Banshee screen painting. Uh yeah,
Speaker 1: they put on log jam and then of course with
Speaker 1: Dina Cobbosa Cobbol and then there's like that Kraftwerk reference
Speaker 1: that the base the band's called auto bottom one. Uh. Well,
Speaker 1: that's another funny line though, speaking of his clever one liners,
Speaker 1: when she says, you know, you can imagine what happened
Speaker 1: after that and he goes he fixes her cable and
Speaker 1: like no one laughs, and man, that's hysterical. Yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a good he's a good man. Yeah, and then there's
Speaker 1: that whole ridiculous conversation happening, the phone conversation where he's
Speaker 1: just like, yeah, you're speaking in a different language in
Speaker 1: front of me, you know, Like he's always left out
Speaker 1: in some way. Yeah, and he's always being forced to
Speaker 1: just be like it's it's almost like an old Bunuel
Speaker 1: film where you're, um, yeah. The song the band song
Speaker 1: the Weight is actually based on a Bunuel film, and
Speaker 1: the common trope in Bunuel films was like you're like,
Speaker 1: you're just trying to do your best and people just
Speaker 1: keep putting weights on your back, you know. And I
Speaker 1: think about the dude in that way a lot, where
Speaker 1: it's just like, man, this guy just can't get a break.
Speaker 1: But like it's a it's a testament to his dudeness. Yeah,
Speaker 1: you're being very undoe. Yeah, you kind of wonder what
Speaker 1: his I mean, this is a week in the guy's life,
Speaker 1: and you kind of wonder what the rest of his
Speaker 1: life is usually like, because you get the picture that
Speaker 1: nothing ever happens to him and he's all caught up
Speaker 1: in this thing and his poor car is just getting
Speaker 1: abuse to the whole movie that piece of ship car.
Speaker 1: You know, we gotta we go to the line. We've
Speaker 1: got a team of people working night and day. They're
Speaker 1: working in shifts, so you got any leads leads. But yeah,
Speaker 1: there's that aspect to it, and there's also the there's
Speaker 1: the part of it. There's like he is a dead beat.
Speaker 1: I mean, he's not paying rent on time, he's writing
Speaker 1: a check for for landlord's you know, he's he's writing
Speaker 1: these checks for under a dollar so you can make
Speaker 1: white Russians. You know. It's like his life doesn't seem
Speaker 1: that remarkable. And he also he's also laziest, which would
Speaker 1: put him in the running for laziest worldwide. Yeah, well,
Speaker 1: and he's a very Um you haven't lived in l A,
Speaker 1: have you? I will. I don't think I could ever
Speaker 1: live in l A. But do you feel like you
Speaker 1: know l A? Oh? I know. We were just recorded
Speaker 1: our new record there, so yes, I do. It's uh,
Speaker 1: I lived there for like five years and I lived,
Speaker 1: like I said, on the street from Lebowski Lanes in
Speaker 1: a little apartment kind of like that. And there that
Speaker 1: character is a very l a kind of guy, like
Speaker 1: these dudes that uh just burn out in the sixties
Speaker 1: and stayed there, paying five hundred bucks a month in rent,
Speaker 1: wearing his housecoat to Ralph's Like I saw those people.
Speaker 1: Oh I bet you did, especially if you were you
Speaker 1: were living there in the late nineties early yea. So
Speaker 1: now I mean now l A is like, yeah, it's
Speaker 1: a little shiny man. Yeah. For the listeners, I'm like
Speaker 1: pretending to boat talks my face right now. Um there.
Speaker 1: So there's that aspect of l A. Then there's also
Speaker 1: like the the health nuts of l A. Um, but yeah,
Speaker 1: that old bohemian like, yeah, man, I moved out here,
Speaker 1: actually moved up to Frisco for the dead and that
Speaker 1: we've never seen kind of driving up, moved down to
Speaker 1: l A. And absolutely, man, they're those dudes are out there.
Speaker 1: Yeah they're fried. Yeah, I call I call it sunburnt brain. Yeah,
Speaker 1: the l A like the old l A dude brain.
Speaker 1: It's like you're just you're you're mind is soaked by sunlight. Yeah,
Speaker 1: and too much melatonin. Too much melatonin. Good for a bit.
Speaker 1: But yeah, but I'm an East coaster, so I'm in
Speaker 1: l A. I'm like, you know, I always see the
Speaker 1: difference between East Coast and West coast people was like
Speaker 1: and on the East Coast, if I ever said like, hey,
Speaker 1: I really think I should go to therapy and be
Speaker 1: like what the fuck is wrong with you? Why are
Speaker 1: you going to therapy? And then I'm like I'm going
Speaker 1: to therapy, Like that's just so great. Yeah, you just
Speaker 1: do that, right, you just be you just do that,
Speaker 1: Like your dog goes to therapy in l A. Your
Speaker 1: dog gets your cat gets massages in l A. It's
Speaker 1: such a weird place and it's so not real and
Speaker 1: it is weird out there now, like Hollywood is. It's
Speaker 1: not like I want everything to remain a piece of ship,
Speaker 1: Like I'm all for cleaning things up, but it's weird
Speaker 1: at being in Hollywood now, Well there isn't. There is
Speaker 1: like a mad Max vibe happening in l A. Now
Speaker 1: that's a little like a tense city. There's like a
Speaker 1: sub city to l A that's like just people on
Speaker 1: the streets. Yeah, it's very it's weird that it's weird.
Speaker 1: It's very like post apocalyptic and and it just goes
Speaker 1: to show you like the infrastructure, they're like the money
Speaker 1: is not going to the right places. You know, it's
Speaker 1: like them you have like this immaculate Church of scientology,
Speaker 1: and then you have like these tent people you know,
Speaker 1: and like there should be more of an effort to
Speaker 1: to help. Yeah, I don't know if there is. It's
Speaker 1: it's l a, it's a weird place. It's brutal. Um,
Speaker 1: we should talk really quickly about the Chief of Police
Speaker 1: of Malibu scene. One of the great scenes because at
Speaker 1: one point it's someone like the dude would have been
Speaker 1: welcome in Malibu, like in the sixties probably definitely, but
Speaker 1: now it's you knows, out of my beach community, out
Speaker 1: of my beach community. He's so aggressive and angry. Oh man,
Speaker 1: when he when he whacks them, it's like, oh, it's
Speaker 1: so good again. It's it's totally boone. Well, it's totally
Speaker 1: like the Coen Brothers referencing this like classic filmmaking, but
Speaker 1: through the lens of like slapstick. But you do feel
Speaker 1: for Himulre like he's only four of identification is a
Speaker 1: Ralph's card. He's got no idea this guy's and that's
Speaker 1: always been good enough. Um yeah, yeah, yes, that that
Speaker 1: scene is unbelievable. He's already been through so much he
Speaker 1: thinks he's figured it out. He's in the Belly of
Speaker 1: the Beast, you know he's at the house and then
Speaker 1: going over to the post it pad Jackie coll Like,
Speaker 1: how did they do that? What were they thinking? How
Speaker 1: could they think on that level? It's perfect. He's like,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna bust the crime now. Oh what And the
Speaker 1: only time you see him move quickly in the movie too,
Speaker 1: and he like runs back over and sits down. Oh
Speaker 1: it's such a funny juxtaposition to his usual gait. It's
Speaker 1: it's brilliant. Um Man, there's so many, so many sections
Speaker 1: of the movie I want to get a handle on.
Speaker 1: I mean the fact that his landlord is doing a
Speaker 1: cycle and and it's Strivine key, Yeah, I saw. I'm
Speaker 1: a composer, um when I'm not playing drums, I like,
Speaker 1: right for I just for a string quartet. So that
Speaker 1: scene like got me, like the first time I said,
Speaker 1: I'm like, there's no way they're referencing Stravinsky right now, Like,
Speaker 1: there's no way. How is how are they getting away
Speaker 1: with this? Like, uh, you know, the music in that
Speaker 1: movie is already incredible. I mean opening with man in me.
Speaker 1: Tebon Burnett's music supervisional on the movie is like it's
Speaker 1: very soundtrack heavy for Cohen's it's soundtrack heavy, but it
Speaker 1: never it always feels an integral to what's happening. In
Speaker 1: the fact they used The Man in Me as like
Speaker 1: the theme for the movie, such a great music cue,
Speaker 1: oh my God, it's so good. And but then you
Speaker 1: have like you have the Man in Me and then
Speaker 1: you have this like you know, forgotten about Kenny Rogers,
Speaker 1: but for by people don't even know that that's Kenny
Speaker 1: Rogers song. You know, like he does this song live now.
Speaker 1: I bet he does. I don't. I don't know if
Speaker 1: he took it back out, but I get the feeling
Speaker 1: he probably did that he does. I mean, it's such
Speaker 1: an outlier for him, becau when you think Penny Rodgers,
Speaker 1: you're like, oh, chicken then right right, a general like well,
Speaker 1: Kerry Rogers, it's like an icon. But he wrote this
Speaker 1: great psychedelic song. Um but the Stravinsky que like when
Speaker 1: he's on top of the chair and there's and there's
Speaker 1: like there's like four people there. That's such an l
Speaker 1: a thing to to well. And the dude is so
Speaker 1: sweet when he asked him, you know about the ranch
Speaker 1: or whatever, and he says, you know, I get the
Speaker 1: performance or whatever. And he's such a sweetheart. He goes,
Speaker 1: I'll be there, man, and he's there, and he's there.
Speaker 1: He showed up. Yeah you know, aren't they talking about
Speaker 1: burgers in that scene too, like let's do let's go
Speaker 1: get a burger or let's go or yeah, I think so.
Speaker 1: And he's a good guy. He's a good guy. He
Speaker 1: just wanted that rug. He just really just wanted that rug. Um. Yeah,
Speaker 1: all right, what else you got for me? Well, I'm
Speaker 1: looking to see what else we should cover, of course,
Speaker 1: have log jam in on here. Oh well, some of
Speaker 1: my favorite lines, hell, I can get your toe by
Speaker 1: three o'clock this afternoon with nail polish when they're talking
Speaker 1: about in the diner with the toe that I have
Speaker 1: completely Oh yeah, I can get you to by three
Speaker 1: like to do that was the the evidence, like, no, man,
Speaker 1: there was a toe and while just like, yeah, oh
Speaker 1: my god, that is a funny line. But that's what
Speaker 1: you know, you um, you you. I've seen this movie
Speaker 1: so many times now and there's always a line that
Speaker 1: gets me. Last night, the line that got me was
Speaker 1: the aggression will not stand because because you see the
Speaker 1: beginning of the movie and there's George Bush on the
Speaker 1: TV says this aggression against Kuwait will not stand. And
Speaker 1: so it's like the dude will often repeat things that
Speaker 1: he's heard later. Um, he does it again later in
Speaker 1: the movie when they're in a limo and he's like, uh,
Speaker 1: she's a trophy wife, you know, like he he he
Speaker 1: heard somebody else say that and is now using it
Speaker 1: as his statement. He does that a lot. And I
Speaker 1: love that little detail because he's like he is still
Speaker 1: kind of aloof and like he does he's like still
Speaker 1: like I don't know what who I am. So like
Speaker 1: he hears these things and then uses them, like tries
Speaker 1: to confidently use them, but in the limo it's not working,
Speaker 1: and he's just stumbling through the whole scene. He says
Speaker 1: trophy wife in the parlance of our time, well, which
Speaker 1: is another line that Walter used. Walter, he steals it
Speaker 1: from Walter and the parlance of our time. It's so funny.
Speaker 1: I didn't really notice that. Yeah, he repeats a lot
Speaker 1: of things that he's heard, and Uh, it's it's great.
Speaker 1: It's a it's a subtle detail. Yeah. Well, and that's
Speaker 1: so Cohen's too. They're so precise, like there are no accidents,
Speaker 1: no accident in their movies. No. The only line I
Speaker 1: read that was literally the only line that was improvised
Speaker 1: that they allowed was human paraquat human paraquat, which I
Speaker 1: hadn't even looked up. I didn't even know what it was.
Speaker 1: That paraquat was a was an herbicide that was used
Speaker 1: to spray like marijuana fields. Very controversially that was banned
Speaker 1: and outlawed. Human baraquad is such a funny thing. I
Speaker 1: want to say something about Lebowski and the Coen Brothers
Speaker 1: in in general that like I kind of feel as
Speaker 1: a lost art and you're you're you're mentioning this to me,
Speaker 1: and I feel like Paul Thomas interesting is sort of
Speaker 1: like the next generation of this, but like just deep
Speaker 1: references like a movie, like a movie becomes infinite jest
Speaker 1: or something like I love I love stuff like that
Speaker 1: where you're like, um, you're just digging, You're like what's
Speaker 1: now You're like, what's a paraquat and how does that
Speaker 1: relate to it? Or like uh, you know, or even
Speaker 1: in like Kids in the Whole Brain Candy, like the
Speaker 1: polidamide reference. Yeah, there's a certain innocence to that sense
Speaker 1: of humor. Uh and and it's brilliant but like it
Speaker 1: reminds me of like Jack Handy's writing for SNL, like
Speaker 1: the golden era of SNL. And there's all these deep
Speaker 1: references like low Thor of the Hill people. You're like
Speaker 1: and then you're like you find yourself like going back
Speaker 1: You're like unfrozen caveman lawyer, you know, like this stuff
Speaker 1: like that where you're like, what is this based off of?
Speaker 1: Like what how if I'm gonna like go back in time?
Speaker 1: Like how do I connect the dots? And the Cohen
Speaker 1: Brothers are like masters of that um and they're in
Speaker 1: uh oh, the if you Will It is No Dream?
Speaker 1: The line that Walter walks in. Uh, he's like Theodore Hurtzel,
Speaker 1: the is the Israeli Leader. You're like, I have found
Speaker 1: myself Wikipedia and Hurtzel about that line if you Will
Speaker 1: it Is No Dream? And then Cohen brothers are Jewish.
Speaker 1: I'm like, I'm wondering, like is that something that? Is
Speaker 1: that a quote that they liked? Why does Walter say that?
Speaker 1: And then you're like, oh, Walter has become Jewish. He
Speaker 1: probably studied up. He's he's like studying up and he's
Speaker 1: like trying. He's like trying his best to be like
Speaker 1: I'm practicing shamashabas, like I don't I don't roll. I
Speaker 1: sure as ship don't roll. You know. It's like it's uh,
Speaker 1: I just love that. And of course, like there's a
Speaker 1: theme of Jewish culture throughout all the Cohen Brothers movies
Speaker 1: like Barton fink Um this sort of like, uh, the
Speaker 1: the insecurities and the anxiety. I'm I'm also Jewish, so
Speaker 1: I can totally like certainly a simple man, Oh I
Speaker 1: got a simple Man's Like that's the whole movie. The
Speaker 1: whole movie is like these the anxiety, the post Holocaust
Speaker 1: anxiety of being Jewish, Like I see these themes running
Speaker 1: throughout the homes and even like it's in The Big Lebowski,
Speaker 1: which like for some people is just like a frat
Speaker 1: guy movie, Yeah, which is a it sells it so short,
Speaker 1: it sells it so short, and I and I do
Speaker 1: it bums me out that it has acquired that sort
Speaker 1: of superficial like call like dorm room. There's a lot
Speaker 1: more going on there. There's so much going on the movie.
Speaker 1: The movie is a work of art. I fully believe
Speaker 1: it's one of their masterpieces. And like again, you could
Speaker 1: books and books upon on, like the minutia that movie,
Speaker 1: and people have done it, and people have done it.
Speaker 1: I finish up here. I mean we could do this
Speaker 1: for three hours. I feel like I finish up here
Speaker 1: with a couple of segments, one called what Ebert said
Speaker 1: and then five questions and uh, I always like to
Speaker 1: go back and see what Roger Ebert thought about these films.
Speaker 1: This movie is a complete disappointment. And he loved Lebowski.
Speaker 1: He gave it four stars and said The Big Lebowski
Speaker 1: is about an attitude, not a story. It's easy to
Speaker 1: miss that because the story is so urgently pursued. This
Speaker 1: is a plot and dialogue that perhaps only the Cohen
Speaker 1: brothers could have devised. I'm thinking less of their clarity
Speaker 1: and Fargo and No Country for Old Men than of
Speaker 1: almost hallucinatary logic of raising Arizona and the Hudsucker Proxy.
Speaker 1: Only a steady hand in the midst of madness allows
Speaker 1: them to hold it together. That and the delirious richness
Speaker 1: of their visual approach. Beautiful, Yeah, very cool. Thank you
Speaker 1: Roger for believing in this movie. It's always disappointing when
Speaker 1: he hates the movie that this movie was was a
Speaker 1: pretty big commercial clunker for them, right, Like it wasn't
Speaker 1: I just didn't really do it didn't do Fargo numbers
Speaker 1: and it did definitely didn't do uh uh. The next movie,
Speaker 1: Brother or Brother didn't do a Brother numbers at all.
Speaker 1: You know those are like claimed, Yeah, it's it's lived
Speaker 1: on more than any other films probably do it do
Speaker 1: I I've I've gotten so deep with Lebaska. I'm like,
Speaker 1: you know, it's kind of like my it's kind of
Speaker 1: like doctor Dog, Like yeah, it's like underappreciated when it
Speaker 1: came out, and then it's just like the Slow Bill, right,
Speaker 1: you know, like DSKI is just like a slow Bill.
Speaker 1: You're the doctor Dog of or White. It's the doctor
Speaker 1: Dog of movies, alright. And then five questions with Eric Slick.
Speaker 1: Here we go. First movie you remember seeing in the
Speaker 1: movie theater? Oh, that would be Home Alone. Okay. I
Speaker 1: saw Home Alone with my family and it was like
Speaker 1: an iconic moment. And I was three years old, so
Speaker 1: I was cognizant and I was aware that the theater
Speaker 1: was erupting in pandemonium. I still stand by that movie
Speaker 1: Home Alone. Oh yeah, I love Home Alone, fun movie.
Speaker 1: It's it's pretty brutal. They those two guys would have
Speaker 1: been dead after the first paint bucket hit their faces.
Speaker 1: Their skulls would have been collapsed. But I remember laughing
Speaker 1: so hard at that sequence to break in sequence, it's
Speaker 1: car it's cartoony. And then you got Home Alone Too,
Speaker 1: which is is the same movie. I don't even know
Speaker 1: if I saw that one. Home Alone Too is the
Speaker 1: same film. Watching again, it's the same film. They just
Speaker 1: farted that one out. They're like, and then He'll be
Speaker 1: a friend. Another lonely old person in the movie, and
Speaker 1: this one at this time she likes pigeons instead of
Speaker 1: salting the sidewalks. First R rated movie you saw? The
Speaker 1: first R rated movie I saw. It was called The
Speaker 1: Groove Tube. My family. My family was very liberal, uh,
Speaker 1: to an extreme degree where they didn't believe in censorship,
Speaker 1: and I I really appreciate that about them, and they
Speaker 1: my parents bonded over this movie called The Groove two,
Speaker 1: which was like a sketch comedy movie. It's Chevy Chase's
Speaker 1: first yeah yeah uh, and it's pretty raunchy. And I
Speaker 1: saw it when I was four, and it became like
Speaker 1: a family class that they fast forward through some parts
Speaker 1: of the movie, like some gratuitous nudity scenes, but there
Speaker 1: was a lot of f bombs and a lot of
Speaker 1: uh you know, there's a whole like stoner heroin sequence
Speaker 1: in that movie. It's like, I can't believe my parents
Speaker 1: showed me that film. Awesome. Uh And then they showed
Speaker 1: me Paining Floyd's the Wall was five wow with the
Speaker 1: meat grinders, and like I was into that in high school.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, who wasn't? Um, I was into it in
Speaker 1: high school also, Uh yeah that Those were the first
Speaker 1: two r A movies I saw, and I was like
Speaker 1: four and five. That's good. My parents are cool, very
Speaker 1: cool people. Will you walk out of a bad movie? Oh,
Speaker 1: I've I've walked out of one movie. And then I
Speaker 1: went back the next day and saw it again. Whoa.
Speaker 1: I was on a date and I saw the movie
Speaker 1: Funny Games, which is a brutal, brutal film, the original
Speaker 1: foreign film or the remake, the remake that was produced
Speaker 1: by the David Lynch actress. Um, I'll remember something. Naomi Watts, right,
Speaker 1: Jaomi Watts like produced it with the original director. It's
Speaker 1: a shot for shot remake. Yeah, but it is so
Speaker 1: violently brutal. But I but I like loved it, and
Speaker 1: my date did not love it, and she was got
Speaker 1: out of there for her got out of there after
Speaker 1: about a half hour and she was like, you know,
Speaker 1: we're not watching this film, and I was like, yeah, cool.
Speaker 1: But then the next day I was like, that film
Speaker 1: ruled uh. And of course it's like soundtrack by John Zorne,
Speaker 1: so I was like, this is this is my bread
Speaker 1: and butter, you know, like murder movie with John Zorn soundtrack,
Speaker 1: Sign me up. And I also knew that the movie
Speaker 1: was a statement piece. So it's fine. But that's only
Speaker 1: time I've ever walked out a movie movie that's good,
Speaker 1: that's it, And it was to be a gentleman of sorts.
Speaker 1: It was trying. I was trying. But the sick part
Speaker 1: of it is that I went back the next day
Speaker 1: and loved it and then bought it on DVD. Yeah.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's a tough movie, but it's I did
Speaker 1: like the movie and I saw both Yeah you got it. Um.
Speaker 1: So this one I usually will tailor to the guest
Speaker 1: who is your favorite drummer of all time? Well, you
Speaker 1: can name a couple, you know, No, my gut reaction
Speaker 1: has to be a Ringo only because he was the
Speaker 1: first drummer I saw on a television and I think
Speaker 1: a lot of people had this experience with Ringo where
Speaker 1: you see him and you can immediately relate. And I
Speaker 1: saw him and he was goofy, but he was beating
Speaker 1: the crap out of the drums and he was like smiling,
Speaker 1: and there was just something about that. And I was
Speaker 1: already interested in the drums, but he was like my
Speaker 1: first icon, you know. And uh, even when I drum now,
Speaker 1: people will be like, oh, you're doing your Ringo thing,
Speaker 1: and it's like it's like I was saying, how things
Speaker 1: can be a part of your DNA, Like Ringo is
Speaker 1: a part of my DNA. I can do. I can
Speaker 1: play Ringo all day. Uh. And then as time we're on,
Speaker 1: I got you know, you go through the laundry list
Speaker 1: of classic rock drummers, and then I got really into
Speaker 1: like seventies soul drummers. Um. So my twenties and now
Speaker 1: thirties like has been dedicated to studying classic soul drummers
Speaker 1: like Bernard Party and Al Jackson Jr. Uh. When I
Speaker 1: was but prior to that, I was also in a
Speaker 1: huge jazz phase. So I was like studying Tony Williams,
Speaker 1: and I was studying Max Roach and uh, just all
Speaker 1: Gernardo Coleman, just like all these drummers who are like
Speaker 1: super important to me. But if if there's an origin,
Speaker 1: Ringo ringoes the origin, but so much has spread out
Speaker 1: from that, and nowadays I would probably say either Bernard
Speaker 1: Party is my favorite, Oregoniam James Gadson, who played on
Speaker 1: all the Bill Wither stuff, just because like there's such
Speaker 1: a refined the quality war Party will also tell you
Speaker 1: that he played on all the Beatles recordings. He has
Speaker 1: this really outlandish thing, like when I Party played on
Speaker 1: ten thousand records, but he still wants to say that
Speaker 1: he played on all the Beatles records may or may
Speaker 1: not be true. I've always heard so much ship talking
Speaker 1: about Ringo not playing on the records and that Paul
Speaker 1: was even a better drummer. I just I don't know,
Speaker 1: I don't I don't believe it. I don't want to
Speaker 1: believe it. I'll tell you why you shouldn't believe it,
Speaker 1: because when you watch Let it Be the whatever rough
Speaker 1: cut is out online, Ringo is playing all those drums
Speaker 1: and it sounds like ringo. Yeah, ringo is that is
Speaker 1: his touch and feel. It is sloshy. It's weird. He's
Speaker 1: left handed playing a right handed kit, so he always
Speaker 1: leads with his left hand. Interesting, so his fills always
Speaker 1: start on a rack tom or or something that's kind
Speaker 1: of unconventional. It's not the drummer like the classic like
Speaker 1: linear way of doing something like it's always yeah, you
Speaker 1: had that little that simpol sweep thing. But if he
Speaker 1: would do he was like it never looked like he
Speaker 1: was working hard because he was such a laid back
Speaker 1: kind of guy. But when you watch those early Beatles performances,
Speaker 1: those drums are about to shake off the fucking riser.
Speaker 1: Oh it's the most punk rock thing. It's uh that
Speaker 1: there's a but he's wearing a suit and he's like,
Speaker 1: you know, there's that DC performance. I think I know
Speaker 1: what you're talking about, where like or it got remastered
Speaker 1: a couple of years ago for the Ron Howard movie
Speaker 1: that was so good Eight Days a Week show. I mean,
Speaker 1: he's just like, they didn't have sound systems back then.
Speaker 1: There a system, so he's like, is trying to be
Speaker 1: heard on the back row. He's trying to be heard. Well,
Speaker 1: people are screaming at a louder decibel level and the
Speaker 1: band is being heard at um. But Ringo, yeah, Ringo
Speaker 1: is so great and uh yeah. I mean then when
Speaker 1: I was like eight years old, I heard John Bonham
Speaker 1: and like then I just tried to do John Bonham, like,
Speaker 1: I studied that stuff so deeply. And then when I
Speaker 1: was fourteen, I got really into prog rock, and so
Speaker 1: I studied all the Neil Pert and Bill Bruford, you know,
Speaker 1: like you just go through the line and you leave
Speaker 1: on Helm in there totally. So when I was seventeen,
Speaker 1: I heard the band, and then actually from my eighteenth birthday,
Speaker 1: my mom bought me tickets for levon Helm's ramble It
Speaker 1: has How did you go? I went on my on
Speaker 1: my eighteen birthday. That's one of my life regrets. Dude.
Speaker 1: I went on my eighteen birthday and my mom just
Speaker 1: bought me a ticket. And this is how cool my
Speaker 1: parents are. They're like, yeah, I just figure out a
Speaker 1: way to go up there. I'm eighteen. I have no
Speaker 1: idea what I'm doing. I took a great hound up
Speaker 1: to Woodstock, didn't get a hotel. I didn't realize that
Speaker 1: I needed a hotel. And after the show's over, I'm
Speaker 1: hanging out with Levan and he's I'm like, hey, man,
Speaker 1: you're my favorite one of my favorite drummers. Like, do
Speaker 1: you know any hotels around here? Do you stay there? No?
Speaker 1: Levan was like I'd offer He was like, I'd offer
Speaker 1: it up, but we already got guest day and but normally, yeah,
Speaker 1: I would let you stay here, you know, Like he
Speaker 1: was like, I'll give you the shirt off my back. Yeah.
Speaker 1: A sweetheart, very Southern gentlemen kind of guy. I was
Speaker 1: able to see him my buddy, uh that is coming tonight,
Speaker 1: Eddie and I saw him on that last tour that
Speaker 1: he did in Atlanta, UM, which was just like bucket
Speaker 1: list ship. But we we always wanted to get to
Speaker 1: a ramble and we thought we had time and we didn't.
Speaker 1: The band that I got to see was really good too.
Speaker 1: It was like lev On and Um Jimmy Vavino from
Speaker 1: the band was playing guitar back when Conan was still
Speaker 1: in New York. This is a long time ago. UM
Speaker 1: and Uh, Hubert Sumlin, who was helen Wolf's guitar player,
Speaker 1: I was playing guitar and then his daughter came out
Speaker 1: Amy and it was just a it was just a
Speaker 1: great night. Like they didn't play they played Evangeline and
Speaker 1: they didn't do any band songs like yeah, they did
Speaker 1: like a bunch of Dylan Saw stuff they did, don't
Speaker 1: you tell Henry. They did a lot of basement tape stuff. Um,
Speaker 1: but it was just a riot. Man, it was so
Speaker 1: fun and I had a blast. Man, he was amazing
Speaker 1: to watch. I wish you like. This was before iPhone,
Speaker 1: so I was just there. Yeah, man, I was just
Speaker 1: present watching Masters. Yeah you know, and there's like a
Speaker 1: picture of Richard Manual and a picture of Tan above
Speaker 1: the stage. But yeah, just you know, I went through
Speaker 1: a heavy Helm phase. Man. Sure, for sure. They're probably
Speaker 1: my favorite band. Good call a altho. Although as the
Speaker 1: time wears on with their stuff, they the records get
Speaker 1: a little bit spottier, but well through their career, the career, yeah,
Speaker 1: whether you get you know, with Northern Light Southern Cross,
Speaker 1: you get it makes no difference. Which I just like,
Speaker 1: one of the most heartbreaking, beautiful songs of all time.
Speaker 1: So well, that's why Dr Dog always kind of reminded
Speaker 1: me a little bit of the band was not even
Speaker 1: so much the music, but the the juxtaposition of the
Speaker 1: two voices of Scott and Toby Uh in the band had,
Speaker 1: you know, like Richard Manual Man, like the maybe the
Speaker 1: most soulful white dude, yeah, and then the southern hill
Speaker 1: billy with leave On and then Rick Danko and like
Speaker 1: your permanently nervous voice. Yeah, what's my favorite one, crazy chick.
Speaker 1: He's just always so nervous. Oh man, I just hate
Speaker 1: that those we lost all those guys. I know me too,
Speaker 1: man uh, and we're left with Robbie. But he was
Speaker 1: a genius, but he probably kind of likes to hear
Speaker 1: himself talk. Check this out. My first concert ever, which
Speaker 1: I don't remember, My first concert ever was Ringo Star
Speaker 1: and his all star band. He always has great people,
Speaker 1: but the first year he did it was I went.
Speaker 1: My parents took me. That was my first show, and
Speaker 1: the band was leave On, Rick Danko and Jim Kiltner,
Speaker 1: who is a famous uh He's like played on all
Speaker 1: the George Harrison record, phenomenal drummer. But that was my
Speaker 1: first concert, so it was Ringo and the band. So
Speaker 1: it makes a lot of sense that I would gravitate
Speaker 1: towards a band like dr dog. That's great, that's just
Speaker 1: in there. You know. The band was always famous for
Speaker 1: other people wanting to be in the band, Like Air
Speaker 1: Clapton wanted to be in the band, and that's why
Speaker 1: he made a blind faith. Yeah, like every time one
Speaker 1: of them they were like, well, that's that's the group
Speaker 1: I wanted to be in. Oh yeah they were a
Speaker 1: musicians band, yeah, because they were really planned and then
Speaker 1: they came up with the Hawks and they were like
Speaker 1: they had their chops, they were players, they could do
Speaker 1: it um. But the Clapton story is that he broke
Speaker 1: up cream when he heard the first band record music
Speaker 1: from Big Bike because he was like, this is what
Speaker 1: I want to do. This is pointless. They were doing
Speaker 1: something so different for the time too. I mean that
Speaker 1: was the band was making that kind of music when
Speaker 1: like Jimi Hendrix was making his kind of music. They're
Speaker 1: kind of like the first hipster band in a way
Speaker 1: because they were doing everything that was antithetical to what
Speaker 1: was happening. So you have this like, you know, there
Speaker 1: was that the line from The Last Walls. He's like,
Speaker 1: they're always bands like Marshmallow over um um Strawberry Alarm,
Speaker 1: Marshmallow And then you have the band and it's just
Speaker 1: so pure and so acoustic sounding. In a time when
Speaker 1: everything was like wow, everything was a wash, you had
Speaker 1: this band. It's like real, like there's no picture of
Speaker 1: them on the album cover. The famous thing was was
Speaker 1: the photographer for the band, Elliott Landy. Um. The label
Speaker 1: Capital was like, we want to get you the best
Speaker 1: photographers because you're gonna be the best band. You're the band,
Speaker 1: and Abbie Robertson was like, can you find the worst photographer?
Speaker 1: And somebody at the label was like what They're like, well,
Speaker 1: there's this guy, Elliott Landy who writes for Cream magazine,
Speaker 1: who this is the worst photographer I've ever seen. And
Speaker 1: he ended up doing the band's photos and he doesn't
Speaker 1: the those iconic photos there on the farm, all those
Speaker 1: photos are Elliot land there, all those iconic photos and
Speaker 1: Nashville Skyline, which is one of the most incredible album covers.
Speaker 1: Uh So it just goes to show you what like
Speaker 1: uh yeah, I mean you just gotta gut, you go
Speaker 1: against the grain as much as you can. And right
Speaker 1: like did you ever see Festival Express Oh yeah, yeah,
Speaker 1: uh I shall be released from the Festival Expresses, like
Speaker 1: top top Notch and you know funny you should mention
Speaker 1: it like every year in New York at the Capitol
Speaker 1: Theater in Westchester. I'm I do ah, I'm part of
Speaker 1: a Last Waltz. We do the complete Last Waltz, all
Speaker 1: four hours of it. Yeah, Toby's done it, Scott's done it.
Speaker 1: Um My girlfriend Natalie's done it. Um Man, I'm gonna
Speaker 1: have to go to that. We're doing it again this year.
Speaker 1: When when is it? It's like a week before Thanksgiving? Okay,
Speaker 1: because they do a similar thing in Atlanta at this
Speaker 1: place Smissile Bar, they do the Last yeahs a bunch.
Speaker 1: Yeah that's awesome. Uh. The complete Last Waltz is fun though,
Speaker 1: because you do all the stuff that's not in the movie. Yeah. Yeah.
Speaker 1: So you're doing like, uh these weird Neil Young like
Speaker 1: sea sides, like uh four strong winds, and then you
Speaker 1: do Joni Mitchell's Coyote, which is the movie. Then you
Speaker 1: do like what Fairy sings the Blues, which is like
Speaker 1: uh court and spark song that's like super long and weird. Uh,
Speaker 1: and then there's a lot of blues jams you gotta do.
Speaker 1: He just biding their time waiting for Neil young to
Speaker 1: finish up is like cocaine, cocaine. He's so twitchy in
Speaker 1: that movie. They you know the well, I feel like
Speaker 1: before you've asked me this last question, you know that
Speaker 1: they edited out his coke Bogger. That's like the Yeah,
Speaker 1: I've heard that he had a like a you could
Speaker 1: see it on film, right or Casey edited it out
Speaker 1: and it did it. Yeah, it's gone coke Booger. That's
Speaker 1: a good band name. Um all right. And finally, boy,
Speaker 1: we just went down the band rabbit holder. No I will.
Speaker 1: That's easy for me to do, so yeah, and I
Speaker 1: brought it up. Yeah. Movie going one on one with
Speaker 1: Eric's like, here we go, what's your what's your ritual?
Speaker 1: Like at the movie theater? Where do you sit? What
Speaker 1: do you get at the concession stand? Oh man, this
Speaker 1: I feel like this is such a indicative of my personality.
Speaker 1: But I walk right up the stairs and I go
Speaker 1: directly in the middle. I go right in the middle
Speaker 1: because I like to be at eye level with the
Speaker 1: screen I've been in. I've had so many situations where
Speaker 1: I showed up late to the theater and I gotta
Speaker 1: sit all the way up front, and I'm like squinting
Speaker 1: to see borat or you know, like or like I've
Speaker 1: been all the way in the back and I can't
Speaker 1: hear everything, so I try to go early enough to
Speaker 1: sit really close. And then you know, if I'm alone,
Speaker 1: I get Reese's pieces. If I'm with easy don't want
Speaker 1: to share, I'm alone, I'm just like I get the
Speaker 1: king size Reese's pieces, and like indulge. I indulge. And
Speaker 1: maybe that's like an e t like a subconscious connection
Speaker 1: to movies and what candy I should be eating it movies. Um,
Speaker 1: but if I'm with Natalie, uh, we either get uh
Speaker 1: popcorn or sometimes we'll even like sneak snacks in our purse. Um,
Speaker 1: but yeah, we there's a that we we live two
Speaker 1: blocks away from the Criterion Cinema and and yes, so
Speaker 1: we're like we're loving it. Reserve seating there, Uh, there's
Speaker 1: no reserve seating, but it's Virginia. And then like like
Speaker 1: not a lot of people are going to the Criterion part.
Speaker 1: Usually they're going to the main cinema and the Criteria
Speaker 1: I started, you know, I'm start house. It's the art
Speaker 1: house one. So like when there's a new Woody Allen
Speaker 1: movie or something we'll go or you know, if there's
Speaker 1: some movie we need to see, we check it out
Speaker 1: and nice. That's our little that's that's about as much
Speaker 1: of a ritual as we can do. It's usually a
Speaker 1: movie is like, well it looks like crap outside, so
Speaker 1: we should go see a movie. Yeah, good stuff. Yea man, alright, dude,
Speaker 1: this is great, so fun. What if I'm talking? Oh absolutely,
Speaker 1: I feel like I could have gone for another four hours.
Speaker 1: I'll have you back in any year. Oh please, I
Speaker 1: would love to come back for sure. Yeah. Man, all right,
Speaker 1: thanks a lot, thank you. All right, everybody, another one
Speaker 1: in the can. That was a good one. Just to
Speaker 1: follow up, Eric was kind enough to put me and
Speaker 1: my buddy Eddie I'm a guest list for Dr Dog
Speaker 1: that night with backstage passes. We went down to the
Speaker 1: Tabernacle and saw the band and they were awesome, went backstage,
Speaker 1: hung out with the boys, and uh, it was a
Speaker 1: lot of fun. One of one of the great nights.
Speaker 1: And he you know, we talked a little bit about
Speaker 1: music and privately, like, you know, what's it like out
Speaker 1: there playing all these shows day after day and don't
Speaker 1: you get bored and sick of it? And they were.
Speaker 1: They were pumped after the show and he came back
Speaker 1: and he was like, dudes, he went, you just saw
Speaker 1: a perfect Doctor Dog show. And he was like, good
Speaker 1: for you. We hit on all cylinders. Everyone had a
Speaker 1: great time. Because I always wonder, you know, when I'm
Speaker 1: seeing a band, you know, it looks like they're enjoying
Speaker 1: it most times. But he was like, you read it right,
Speaker 1: this is a good one. So support that band. They're awesome.
Speaker 1: Go out and get their new album, Critical Equation that
Speaker 1: was out this year, or any of their records are
Speaker 1: all great. Uh, just really really good dudes. So thanks
Speaker 1: to Eric, and thanks to Dr Dog for helping to
Speaker 1: hook this up, and uh, thanks for listening. And until
Speaker 1: next time. I've said it before and I'll say it again,
Speaker 1: why don't you get yourself a musical instrument, learn to
Speaker 1: play it, and go out and make some noise. Movie
Speaker 1: Crush is produced, engineered, edited, and soundtracked by Noel Brown
Speaker 1: and Ramsay Hunt at How Stuff Work Studios, Pot City Market, Atlanta, Georgia.