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Speaker 1: Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Speaker 2: Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information, the show

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Speaker 2: that brings you the secret histories and little known fascinating

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Speaker 2: facts and figures behind your favorite TV shows, movies, music,

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Speaker 2: and more. We are your two NYC rock renaissance men.

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Speaker 1: Phone Day and I could have done a bunch of

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Speaker 1: more lyrical references.

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Speaker 2: I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Roun Talk and today, Jordan,

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Speaker 2: we are talking about one of the turn of the

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Speaker 2: century masterpieces of modern rock and roll, a shot across

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Speaker 2: the bow of new metal that helped usher in what

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Speaker 2: we think of the l train centric musical vibe of

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Speaker 2: Post nine to eleven NYC, A dirt bag indie rock

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Speaker 2: opus that taught us all that rich kids could, with

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Speaker 2: the right tunes and production, convincingly cause play as legitimate

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Speaker 2: scuzzbags if the songs were good enough. That's right, talking

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Speaker 2: about the strokes?

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Speaker 1: Is this it? I love this record, I love this band.

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Speaker 1: I love how much you love this record?

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Speaker 2: Well, you know, for a long time I thought I

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Speaker 2: was labored under the delusion that I was unique, which

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Speaker 2: sounds like an LCD sound system lyric. But I'm saying

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Speaker 2: it seriously.

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Speaker 1: I know I can tell by your glasses you think

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Speaker 1: you're unique.

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Speaker 2: For a long time, I held this album so dear.

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Speaker 2: It is like like a record that and this was

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Speaker 2: stupid of me. I'm fully admitting that I'm a stupid

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Speaker 2: person for thinking this. I was like, this record is

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Speaker 2: speaking to me about how cool it is to be

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Speaker 2: in New York and how cool it is to be

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Speaker 2: a musician and play bars and hang out with your friends.

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Speaker 1: And we did all those things together though well we

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Speaker 1: did all those things together.

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Speaker 2: But also I researching this episode, I realized that's what

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Speaker 2: it did for literally everyone in the world, Like like

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Speaker 2: that whole Briany you know thing about only a thousand

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Speaker 2: people about the Velvet Underground record, but a thousand people

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Speaker 2: that did started a ten thousd bands or whatever.

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Speaker 1: That is so true for this record and and anyone

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Speaker 1: within plus or minus five to ten years of our generation.

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Speaker 2: Like I I you know, we talked about a little

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Speaker 2: bit on a previous episode. We talked about MTV two

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Speaker 2: as like a channel MTV two took over or launched

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Speaker 2: or whatever, and it took over from the box like

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Speaker 2: the request music video line, and for like the first

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Speaker 2: couple of months to a year of their launch. They

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Speaker 2: were broadcasting anything to fill airtime, so you wouldn't just

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Speaker 2: see current stuff. You would see like I saw like

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Speaker 2: the Beatles Penny Lane promotional clip. You would see like

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Speaker 2: the Rage Against the Machine video from like nineteen ninety two.

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Speaker 2: You would see like Primus, you would see old Ramones

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Speaker 2: music videos. And it was into this milieu that when

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Speaker 2: I was thirteen, I saw the Strokes video for Last Night,

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Speaker 2: shot by Roman Coppola on a sound stage live, and

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Speaker 2: I literally did not know what where. I thought it

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Speaker 2: was an old music video. I literally thought it was

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Speaker 2: something from the seventies. I would say that was the

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Speaker 2: family food style video. No, that's that's someday, which is

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Speaker 2: also very good because Someday gave me, oh, I want

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Speaker 2: to go hang out with a slash in a bar,

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Speaker 2: and that's what jump started my nascent trip to alcoholism.

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Speaker 2: But the Last Night video where they're shooting it on

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Speaker 2: a sound stage and it like literally looks like it

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Speaker 2: was shot for like five dollars, like straight to video.

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Speaker 2: It is live audio. You can hear when they knock out,

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Speaker 2: he knocks over the drum mic. You can hear his

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Speaker 2: his fabs drum stick hit the cymbal stand like everything

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Speaker 2: about that video, I was like, holy, what is this

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Speaker 2: band from the seventies. I had no idea that they

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Speaker 2: were a current band. And then my cousin Emily, who

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Speaker 2: has been like my big cool older cousin, she told

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Speaker 2: me about Tom Waits. She like lived in France and

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Speaker 2: Senegal and Shanghai. She when I was like thirteen or fourteen,

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Speaker 2: she gave me a copy of his this hit on CD.

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Speaker 2: It was the international version, so it had New York

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Speaker 2: City cops and I was just hook line and sinker.

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Speaker 2: Between the music video and the record, I was like,

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Speaker 2: this is the coolest anyone has ever been or ever

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Speaker 2: will be. And this is all I want to do

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Speaker 2: in my life is where ska jeans and retro T

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Speaker 2: shirts and get drunk in a bar and play in

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Speaker 2: a rock and roll band. And it ruined my life

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Speaker 2: and nothing has ever been the same since. And full

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Speaker 2: stop the Strokes? Is this it episode over? JOm I

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Speaker 2: said jokingly before the episode, this entire I'm going to

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Speaker 2: record all my audio for this on an.

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Speaker 1: Extremely hot mic, like I'm Jane cast Obanco in two

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Speaker 1: thousand are cool. It's really interesting for me to hear

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Speaker 1: all this, having gone through a lot of that with

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Speaker 1: you over the last like five six years playing in

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Speaker 1: your band. I played bass in the Heigels band. You

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Speaker 1: joined me like ten fifteen years into this journey, did yeah,

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Speaker 1: And it never really occurred to me. Just in time

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Speaker 1: for the alcoholism and the death of music. Yeah, and

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Speaker 1: the part where no one has any money. Oh yeah,

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Speaker 1: yeah that's true. And right before the global pandemic shut

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Speaker 1: down all venues. Yeah yeah, we sure came in at

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Speaker 1: the right time. And you know what, all the time

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Speaker 1: we played together, we literally played like Mercury Lounge. And

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Speaker 1: I never talked about this band. Never talked about this

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Speaker 1: band together. No, no, no, because it's weird to me.

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Speaker 2: Like I never I got into them, like right as

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Speaker 2: I was getting into punk rock, and for whatever reason,

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Speaker 2: punk rock was so much more just became like my

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Speaker 2: musical thing. Like I wouldn't say that anything that I

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Speaker 2: do musically is really like I'm trying to be the Strokes.

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Speaker 2: I just like it was like I love those songs

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Speaker 2: and the songwriting and I just love like that was

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Speaker 2: like my image. That was just like the poster on

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Speaker 2: my wall, like kids in the seventies grow up with

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Speaker 2: like Thin Lizzie and Black Sabbath and led Zepplin and

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Speaker 2: the Stones, and I was just like I had like

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Speaker 2: the Spin and Rolling Stone where it was like the Strokes,

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Speaker 2: like because I was into new metal like as an

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Speaker 2: idiot in central Pennsylvania.

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Speaker 1: And but but all those bands.

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Speaker 2: That I saw, like you know, like Limp Biscuit and Corn,

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Speaker 2: like they they tapped into that like hip hop maximalist

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Speaker 2: strain of like finances where it was like, you know,

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Speaker 2: they were all comparing their watches on MTV cribs and

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Speaker 2: they all dressed like like all their videos look really

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Speaker 2: expensive and stuff. But the Strokes were like the first

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Speaker 2: band where I was like, oh, this looks like they

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Speaker 2: could be like practicing down the street from me.

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Speaker 1: Which is ironic because they were all very very rich

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Speaker 1: and came to the music industry very rich.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, exactly. Most of them were extremely better off than

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Speaker 2: the guys in Corn who grew up in Bakersfield, which

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Speaker 2: is like a dusty, sun blasted hellscape.

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Speaker 1: You know. Yeah, I don't know, it's funny.

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Speaker 2: I always you have vaguely alluded to being a little

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Speaker 2: bit more of a white striped sky.

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Speaker 1: Is that is? That is that accurate.

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Speaker 2: It was my Martin short as as Jimny a little

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Speaker 2: bit of a white.

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Speaker 1: Correct I mean overall, yeah, but I think I discovered

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Speaker 1: the Strokes first. I mean, as a guy. I've said

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Speaker 1: this on many occasions on this show. I basically spent

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Speaker 1: the nineties and early two thousands pretending like it was

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Speaker 1: the sixties. So I you know, at that time, I

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Speaker 1: had no idea what was going on in pop culture

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Speaker 1: at all. I mean, I definitely did not have my

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Speaker 1: finger on the pulse of the music scene at the

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Speaker 1: dawn of the twenty first century. But I do remember

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Speaker 1: the Strokes getting my attention because I was an am

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Speaker 1: an extremely massive Beatles fan. So seeing a full on

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Speaker 1: band with guitars with like sort of a vaguely unified

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Speaker 1: look like the Beatles in Hamburg, I was like, this

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Speaker 1: is thrilling, this is I mean, they were really to

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Speaker 1: me the first group that fit that description that I

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Speaker 1: remember seeing on MTV or hearing on the airwaves. I

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Speaker 1: mean here that it was like you said, new Metal,

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Speaker 1: Limp Biscuit or like team pop stuff like the Backstreet Boys.

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Speaker 1: I don't know, maybe Weezer. I dimly remember them being

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Speaker 1: around with the Buddy Holly video. Who in Corn was

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Speaker 1: the quiet one? Did you know I interviewed Corn. Isn't

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Speaker 1: that weird?

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Speaker 2: They seem like they've gone through a lot of therapy

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Speaker 2: and come out the other side as better people.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, no, they were very nice, but it was

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Speaker 1: I was. I was very frightened.

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Speaker 2: Nonetheless, did they do that on the call? Is that

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Speaker 2: the band that did the I can't There's no way

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Speaker 2: I can do that. No, that's disturbed.

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Speaker 1: Thank you. Yeah, I'm so amazed you figured out what

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Speaker 1: I was doing based on the cat.

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Speaker 2: Cough that I just did. Oh uh yeah, No, disturbed,

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Speaker 2: that was down. Disturb it down the sickness, the that

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Speaker 2: that's from frequent leech. That's a breakdown from frequent leech.

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Speaker 1: I love vocal tics. That's one of my favorite things.

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Speaker 2: And I didn't realize with the strokes, so when they

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Speaker 2: were doing all the little like sounds that you hear

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Speaker 2: him doing, like off mic, like in New York City

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Speaker 2: Cops when he's like, ah, you can tell, but he goes,

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Speaker 2: he goes, he goes. Ah, I didn't. I didn't mean

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Speaker 2: to say that. I meant oh no, no, I didn't

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Speaker 2: really mean that at all. That was all so fucking

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Speaker 2: funny to me, Like everything about this band just hit

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Speaker 2: me as just like I was like, oh you give

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Speaker 2: me this like loosh kind of casual, like too cool

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Speaker 2: for school guy, and it just hit me at.

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Speaker 1: The right time. It's ugh, I love it, love it

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Speaker 1: so much. Take us there, High Goal.

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Speaker 2: Let's dive in well, from the album's genesis in a

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Speaker 2: literal Lower east Side basement under a methadone clinic, to

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Speaker 2: the technical aspects of the band's retro future sounds, to

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Speaker 2: the fist fights and drug addictions that followed. Here is

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Speaker 2: everything you didn't know about The Strokes, And is this ito?

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Speaker 2: It is impossible to talk about the Strokes without talking

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Speaker 2: about New York.

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Speaker 1: New York is a character in The Strokes.

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Speaker 2: No, I mean this is like if honestly, if like

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Speaker 2: Manhattan and like Annie Hall are like the image of

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Speaker 2: New York in a certain strain of generations popular consciousness.

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Speaker 1: Is this It is like in.

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Speaker 2: Other groups you know, I swear specifically New York immediately

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Speaker 2: pre nine to eleven, you know, fifteen twenty, whatever you

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Speaker 2: want to time it out years on from its nadier

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Speaker 2: in the late seventies, the whole Taxi Driver era where

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Speaker 2: you got punk rock, you got CBGB's, you got Son

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Speaker 2: of Sam, all the stuff that people love about New

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Speaker 2: York in the late nineties, For all of its other virtues,

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Speaker 2: the city was not.

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Speaker 1: A hotspot for rock and roll.

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Speaker 2: Dance music coming from the dance Aterria days and sort

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Speaker 2: of the and hip hop coming from kind of the

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Speaker 2: heyday of the Tunnel following the commercial dominance of Wu

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Speaker 2: Tang Clan coming in from Sad Island and the shiny suit,

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Speaker 2: bad Boy, Puff Daddy era of hip hop. That was

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Speaker 2: the commercial, commercial dominant sound of New York. Rock and roll, meanwhile,

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Speaker 2: had just come out of a phase of being dominated

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Speaker 2: by sounds from the other side of the country. Through

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Speaker 2: the eighties, it was hair metal. Really, the only East

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Speaker 2: Coast hair metal band was like bon Jovi.

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Speaker 1: Is that broadly accurate? Yeah, I don't know if I

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Speaker 1: characterized them as hair metal, glam metal, pop metal, yeah,

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Speaker 1: git me ass metal. I hate bon Jovi. Um.

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Speaker 2: So the eighties were hair metal right Sunset strip La

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Speaker 2: and the nineties. Conventional wisdom is that grunge came in

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Speaker 2: from the Pacific Northwest in a hale of flannel and

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Speaker 2: stubble and killed hair metal dead. And then probably concurrently

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Speaker 2: or a little later on, maybe a year or two,

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Speaker 2: you had the so Cow pop punk ska people coming

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Speaker 2: in from you have Green Day coming in from the

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Speaker 2: East Bay of the San Francisco region, and then you

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Speaker 2: also had like the so Cow stuff as typified by

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Speaker 2: let's say No Doubt. And so consequently, alternative was not

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Speaker 2: a New York centric thing at all, says Galaxy five

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Speaker 2: hundred and Luna guitarist Dean Wareham. Lizzie Goodman's monumental tone

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Speaker 2: Meet Me in the Bathroom. It's an incredible book, done

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Speaker 2: oral history style. She talked to everyone. Uh, it's it's

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Speaker 2: a great book for anyone interested in this era of music.

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Speaker 2: We're gonna quote from it a lot. Sorry, Lizzie, shoot ahead,

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Speaker 2: you on. Uh, but we don't We're not we don't

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Speaker 2: do that. We don't plan ahad jan. By the nineties

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Speaker 2: it was all about Seattle. Bands were moving to Seattle.

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Speaker 2: That is Gordon Raphael, who produced the Strokes Modern Age

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Speaker 2: EP that directly precedes Is This It? Then he produced

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Speaker 2: is This It? And then he produced Room on Fire.

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Speaker 2: He told Weiss in New York, it seemed like guitar

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Speaker 2: music was on the way out. It was mostly house, jungle,

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Speaker 2: drummond bass, hip hop. I remember an article in the

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Speaker 2: New York Times celebrating the death of rock and roll

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Speaker 2: the old man, that was the feeling in town. In

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Speaker 2: a different interview, talking about the same thing, he recalls

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Speaker 2: that New York Times feature having a cemetery headstone with

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Speaker 2: a guitar carved in it. So that was presumable that

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Speaker 2: that was the tenor of the times. And while there

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Speaker 2: was a thriving punk metal scene at the time in

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Speaker 2: places like C Squad and ABC No Rio, those were

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Speaker 2: bands like Nausea, like crusspunk bands, and then a bunch

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Speaker 2: of like NYC hardcore bands like Life of Agony and

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Speaker 2: Sheer Tear, these tough guy hardcore bands. They were not

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Speaker 2: gonna make it to TRL, so they were just not

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Speaker 2: even in the mainstream conversation at all. And then of

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Speaker 2: course you had CBGB's, who was also located on the

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Speaker 2: Bowery in Lower Manhattan. But CBGB's was honestly, at this

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Speaker 2: point kind of a diminished consideration at least as far

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Speaker 2: as major label music was concerned.

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Speaker 1: Did you ever make it there? Nope? I closed like

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Speaker 1: the month after I moved to New York for school

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Speaker 1: in two thousand and six, and a bunch of my

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Speaker 1: friends went, like I think it was the last night

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Speaker 1: that it was in operation, and they went to just

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Speaker 1: kind of pay tribute as with you know, I'm sure

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Speaker 1: half of the eighteen year olds just moved there from

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Speaker 1: the suburbs like me. I didn't go because, honestly, I

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Speaker 1: think I was still fearful. You were afraid of a

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Speaker 1: lot of things. Yeah, I was, Yeah, and I deeply

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Speaker 1: regret it to this day. Honestly, I don't even know

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Speaker 1: what I would have worn to that really, which I

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Speaker 1: know shouldn't have been the biggest concern, but sure I

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Speaker 1: couldn't have worn on our gull sweater to CBGB's On

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Speaker 1: this last night.

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Speaker 2: We recorded an EP with a guy who blamed Hilly

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Speaker 2: and CBGB for tanking the New York City music scene

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Speaker 2: because he realized that instead of he said he basically

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Speaker 2: his theory, which is kind of a sound one and

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Speaker 2: had legs, was that in the seventies and up and

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Speaker 2: into the eighties, up until the DJs took over, you

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Speaker 2: had a band. A band would come into a club

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Speaker 2: and the onus would be on the club to promote

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Speaker 2: the gig. The club would be like, we have Blah

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Speaker 2: Blah Blah and the Blooty Blas there for five nights,

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Speaker 2: and the club would go out and promote all of it,

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Speaker 2: and the band would just show up and play, you know,

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Speaker 2: two sets a night, and that was it. And then

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Speaker 2: Hilly kind of Hilly Crystal, a guy who owned G's,

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Speaker 2: They would kind flip the calculus where they would be like, Okay,

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Speaker 2: here's six bands that we shoved on to a single

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Speaker 2: afternoon into evening show, and we're not going to promote

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Speaker 2: it at all, and every band has to go out

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Speaker 2: and flyer and do all the promotional work for us.

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Speaker 2: I thought that was very interesting and also sad.

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Speaker 1: Well, now CBGB's is closed and it's a very John

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Speaker 1: Varvadas store and you can see the CBGB's.

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Speaker 2: Storefront and I think Newark International Airport not the actual storefront. No,

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Speaker 2: they've recreated it. But anyway, just one of many tears

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Speaker 2: will shed this episode for an era of New York

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Speaker 2: City that has passed us by spy. Part of this

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Speaker 2: was that then mayor and now absolute insane person Rudy

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Speaker 2: Giuliani hadn't quote unquote cleaned up the city yet. Parts

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Speaker 2: of the Lower East Side were completely off limits if

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Speaker 2: you didn't have a serious drug habit or a pistol.

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Speaker 2: The various acronyms for Alphabet City, which is part of

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Speaker 2: Lower Manhattan east of the numbered avenues were Avenue A

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Speaker 2: alcohol or adventurous, Avenue B, bold blow, Avenue C crazy, crack,

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Speaker 2: and Avenue D dead, those being, of course, the terms

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Speaker 2: for what you were looking for or what you were

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Speaker 2: if you went there.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, that would have been helpful to know in my

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Speaker 1: college years. I'd never heard that very helpful series of acronyms.

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Speaker 1: And also I remember getting to New York in the

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Speaker 1: summer of two thousand and six and Alphabet City at

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Speaker 1: that time was still a place where you didn't go.

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Speaker 1: It's still so it's so weird to think back on

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Speaker 1: a time when there were parts of Manhattan that were like,

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Speaker 1: not okay to go to. Oh yeah, because that's not

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Speaker 1: the case anymore.

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Speaker 2: Now there's like an air an American apparel, well not

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Speaker 2: anymore American trader jokes.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Now it's like a.

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Speaker 2: Lot of politicians Giuliani side note, Rudy he basically got

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Speaker 2: credit for plans that were put in place by his predecessors.

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Speaker 2: His big show piece as mayor was the disnification of

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Speaker 2: Times Square. You know, so much pop culture that we

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Speaker 2: take for granted nowadays sprung from Times Square being disgusting.

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Speaker 2: I mean that was like the grindhouse era of Times

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Speaker 2: Square is where like you know, we get like the

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Speaker 2: Quentin Tarantino esthetic of modern brought yeah shaft and it's

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Speaker 2: like the Wu Tang clan went in there to see

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Speaker 2: Kung Fu movies. But the plan to clean up Times

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Speaker 2: Square was in the works in the nineteen eighties when

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Speaker 2: state officials and then Ed Cock, who was then mayor,

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Speaker 2: they used eminent domain to condemn and take control of

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Speaker 2: a lot of the vacant, decrepit buildings, which coincidentally housed

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Speaker 2: a lot of theater artists, musicians, and then the city

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Speaker 2: Council around that time instituted a study during the pre

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Speaker 2: Giuliani David Dinkins administrations that would allow them to pass

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Speaker 2: rezoning laws if they could prove that there were sex

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Speaker 2: related businesses harming residential areas. So as a result, the

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Speaker 2: city Council drew up stricter zoning laws that prohibited sex

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Speaker 2: oriented theaters, bookstores, massage parlors, dance clubs, all that from

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Speaker 2: operating within five hundred feet of homes, houses of warships, schools,

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Speaker 2: or even one another. And that law passed in nineteen

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Speaker 2: ninety five, two years into Juliani's term. So everything that

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Speaker 2: Juliani's credited for was basically except for nine to eleven, which.

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Speaker 1: I can't approve he had anything to do with. I mean,

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Speaker 1: here's a question for you, how do you define or

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Speaker 1: quantify sex oriented businesses, harming homes and all the other

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Speaker 1: things you just mentioned, laces of worship, etc. The stains,

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Speaker 1: commercial break lett that.

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Speaker 2: But you know, as you mentioned earlier, not a lot

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Speaker 2: of this gentrification, urban renewal, whatever you want to call it,

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Speaker 2: had trickled down into the East Village and Lower east Side,

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Speaker 2: and even less of that trickled across the bridge into Williamsburg.

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Speaker 2: Williamsburg in this era, even though it birthed bands like

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Speaker 2: TV on the radio and LCD sound System, and LCD

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Speaker 2: sound System might have been Lower east Side band. But

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Speaker 2: you know, popularly we think of this whole NYC rock

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Speaker 2: renaissance of the two thousand and sis being a province

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Speaker 2: of the Lower east Side in Williamsburg. But at the

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Speaker 2: time that was very much not the case. There was

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Speaker 2: a famous bar in Williamsburg around the time that I

366
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Speaker 2: used to go to when it was called the Levee

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Speaker 2: and it was just then like a metal dive bar.

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Speaker 2: But back back in the day, twenty three years ago,

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Speaker 2: it was called Coke's and they literally sold coke out

370
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Speaker 2: of it. You could just go and buy coke out

371
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Speaker 2: of their coke their coat closet. Try and say that

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Speaker 2: five times fast. You could buy coke at Cokey's out

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Speaker 2: of their coke closet.

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Speaker 1: And they were never busted. Yeah, question mark. Yeah, Wow,

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Speaker 1: It's it weird that I've seen Heroin a bunch of times,

376
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Speaker 1: but I've never seen coke. Yes, I think my whole

377
00:20:01,840 --> 00:20:04,760
Speaker 1: NYU experience must have been a total failure. Maybe I

378
00:20:04,880 --> 00:20:07,840
Speaker 1: just need richer friends. You hang out with a very

379
00:20:07,840 --> 00:20:10,640
Speaker 1: specific crowd if that was the Yeah, a bunch of screenwriters.

380
00:20:10,720 --> 00:20:13,640
Speaker 1: Yeah no, the filmmaking department are the probably the ones that.

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Speaker 2: Had the coke hanging out with Jerry Saltz, Like, uh,

382
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Speaker 2: William Burrows wannabes.

383
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Speaker 1: Why did you see so much Heroin? That's alarming anyway.

384
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Speaker 2: All of that said, the story of the Strokes begins

385
00:20:26,440 --> 00:20:30,399
Speaker 2: not in disgusting times Square, drug ridden, Alphabet City or

386
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Speaker 2: coaxlinging Williamsburg.

387
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Speaker 1: But uptown.

388
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Speaker 3: Up.

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Speaker 1: What's the Motown's is the pop song uptown punk? No, No,

390
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Speaker 1: I'm thinking whatever. I think there's a runette song up

391
00:20:44,280 --> 00:20:47,199
Speaker 1: ten girl, That's what I was thinking of, Bill Jo.

392
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Speaker 2: That's that is not a motown song. Nope, and I'm

393
00:20:50,280 --> 00:20:56,680
Speaker 2: keeping that son. Now it's just turning into Jim Morrison.

394
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Speaker 1: Earlier, I was gonna say, yeah, it sounds like Jim

395
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Speaker 1: Morrison's singing through a cell phone.

396
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Speaker 2: I was gonna say, we didn't get to your great

397
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Speaker 2: quote about Julian Casablancas sounding like Jim Morrison singing through

398
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Speaker 2: a Nokia flip phone, which I loved.

399
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Speaker 1: I'm sorry, I didn't mean to cut that off. That's okay,

400
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:11,760
Speaker 1: but that's that's it was funnier coming from you.

401
00:21:12,520 --> 00:21:18,879
Speaker 2: Strokes bassist Nikolai Freicher meant, Julian Casablancas at a bilingual

402
00:21:19,040 --> 00:21:22,639
Speaker 2: French school on the Upper East Side, which is either

403
00:21:22,680 --> 00:21:26,920
Speaker 2: a setup to a Wes Anderson movie or a joke

404
00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:28,720
Speaker 2: about some of the worst people you've ever heard in

405
00:21:28,760 --> 00:21:32,040
Speaker 2: your life. And they all met the Canopy both you

406
00:21:32,160 --> 00:21:34,280
Speaker 2: sure can, and they all met the other members of

407
00:21:34,320 --> 00:21:37,280
Speaker 2: the band at Dwight School on the Upper West Side,

408
00:21:37,480 --> 00:21:39,640
Speaker 2: or as someone puts it in, meet me in the bathroom,

409
00:21:40,160 --> 00:21:42,439
Speaker 2: dumb white idiots getting high together.

410
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Speaker 1: You can't call your school the Dwight School and get

411
00:21:47,040 --> 00:21:51,480
Speaker 1: away with it. Paris Hilton went there, and so did

412
00:21:51,560 --> 00:21:56,000
Speaker 1: Robert Moses, terrible, the yin and yang of New York City.

413
00:21:56,200 --> 00:21:59,920
Speaker 2: See, yeah, right, it was always pretending to be a

414
00:22:00,200 --> 00:22:04,679
Speaker 2: good school. Strokes drummer Fabrizio Mornetti told Lizzie Goodman in

415
00:22:04,680 --> 00:22:06,960
Speaker 2: the book maybe in the bathroom, it's just a bunch

416
00:22:06,960 --> 00:22:10,680
Speaker 2: of rich people, And the Strokes, as practically everybody knows

417
00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:14,399
Speaker 2: by now, were in fact mostly a bunch of rich people.

418
00:22:15,000 --> 00:22:18,359
Speaker 2: Lead singer Julian Fernando casa Blancos was born in New

419
00:22:18,440 --> 00:22:21,200
Speaker 2: York City in August of nineteen seventy eight to John

420
00:22:21,280 --> 00:22:24,679
Speaker 2: Casa Blancas, the founder of Elite Model Management, which, for

421
00:22:24,680 --> 00:22:26,440
Speaker 2: those of you not in the know about the ins

422
00:22:26,440 --> 00:22:29,240
Speaker 2: and outs of New York City modeling management.

423
00:22:29,400 --> 00:22:34,200
Speaker 1: Was a big deal. Naomi Campbell, Cindy Crawford, Stephanie Seymour, Giselle,

424
00:22:34,600 --> 00:22:35,760
Speaker 1: Alexandro Ambrosio.

425
00:22:36,000 --> 00:22:39,320
Speaker 2: Yeah, big names, and his mom was nineteen sixty five's

426
00:22:39,320 --> 00:22:44,480
Speaker 2: Miss Denmark, the hell of a pedigree. Julian was sent

427
00:22:44,520 --> 00:22:49,199
Speaker 2: to the Institute Lerosi boarding school in Switzerland to improve

428
00:22:49,240 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 2: his grade his grades, to improve his grades when he

429
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:57,159
Speaker 2: was thirteen, because he was just an underachieving delinquent, and

430
00:22:57,200 --> 00:23:00,880
Speaker 2: that's where he met Strokes guitarist Albert Hammond.

431
00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:03,760
Speaker 1: I'm gonna send you little brats the Switzerland. I can't

432
00:23:03,760 --> 00:23:07,679
Speaker 1: believe he literally went to Switzerland. I think Sean Lennon

433
00:23:08,080 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 1: went to that same school. I'm pretty sure that they

434
00:23:10,640 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 1: all met there. I know that Sean Lennon guested on

435
00:23:14,040 --> 00:23:17,560
Speaker 1: Albert Hammond Junior's solo album Yours to Keep Back in

436
00:23:17,600 --> 00:23:20,359
Speaker 1: two thousand and six, and I think that Albert Hammond

437
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:23,560
Speaker 1: Junior also is on one of Sean Lennon's solo albums.

438
00:23:23,560 --> 00:23:26,040
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, there's a god.

439
00:23:26,080 --> 00:23:27,639
Speaker 2: I didn't think to jot it down, but when I

440
00:23:27,680 --> 00:23:29,760
Speaker 2: was doing this, Shan Lennon popped up in one of

441
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:32,320
Speaker 2: the in one of these oral histories, is having made

442
00:23:32,359 --> 00:23:34,960
Speaker 2: like a crucial introduction in the band's history. They were like,

443
00:23:34,960 --> 00:23:39,119
Speaker 2: oh yeah, Sean Lennon introduced us anyway. Albert Hammond Jr. Is,

444
00:23:39,480 --> 00:23:43,360
Speaker 2: of course, the son of singer songwriter Albert Hammond, best

445
00:23:43,440 --> 00:23:45,760
Speaker 2: known for his nineteen seventy two hit single It Never

446
00:23:45,880 --> 00:23:49,280
Speaker 2: Rains in Southern California. Jordan, what else is Albert Hammond

447
00:23:49,560 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 2: Senior written?

448
00:23:50,960 --> 00:23:54,280
Speaker 1: He wrote one More Time for Whitney Houston, among other

449
00:23:54,320 --> 00:23:58,040
Speaker 1: things that I don't know. And Albert Hammond Junior's mom

450
00:23:58,280 --> 00:24:01,800
Speaker 1: was another model. He had that going for him as well.

451
00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:05,959
Speaker 2: And beauty queen uh drummer Fabrizo Already's dad was a

452
00:24:06,080 --> 00:24:11,639
Speaker 2: nuclear engineer and rounding out the yeah, the millieu of

453
00:24:12,560 --> 00:24:16,440
Speaker 2: high paying jobs. Nicko lenci I wasn't able to track

454
00:24:16,480 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 2: down exactly what his parents did. I found a twenty

455
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:24,840
Speaker 2: eighteen interview with the Jewish focused online publication The Tablet.

456
00:24:25,040 --> 00:24:28,440
Speaker 2: He said his dad was in the import export business.

457
00:24:30,280 --> 00:24:32,240
Speaker 2: He said, basically, I'm pretty sure that it was some

458
00:24:32,440 --> 00:24:37,320
Speaker 2: illicit illegal Out of the whole band, Bassis Nikolai Freischer

459
00:24:37,440 --> 00:24:40,199
Speaker 2: seems to have been the only outlier. His dad was

460
00:24:40,280 --> 00:24:43,520
Speaker 2: a security card at the department store where he was

461
00:24:43,560 --> 00:24:47,480
Speaker 2: once caught shoplifting a Luke Skywalker doll aw.

462
00:24:48,480 --> 00:24:50,480
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're going to shoplift from anywhere, shoplift

463
00:24:50,520 --> 00:24:52,640
Speaker 1: at a place where your dad's security guard at very

464
00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:53,919
Speaker 1: least will give you a head start.

465
00:24:54,000 --> 00:24:55,680
Speaker 2: You can tell him then that you don't have to

466
00:24:55,720 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 2: take your allowance this week, and he can keep it

467
00:24:57,520 --> 00:25:03,639
Speaker 2: as a bribe. Casablancas Valenzia disturbed with how quickly you

468
00:25:03,680 --> 00:25:08,560
Speaker 2: came up with that. Casablancas, Valenzi and Moretti. They sound

469
00:25:08,640 --> 00:25:14,640
Speaker 2: like a very sexual law firm.

470
00:25:14,920 --> 00:25:17,160
Speaker 1: Casablanca's Valenci Moretti, how can we direct your call?

471
00:25:18,240 --> 00:25:21,240
Speaker 2: They started playing together as teenagers while attending Dwight School

472
00:25:21,240 --> 00:25:24,000
Speaker 2: in Manhattan. They later added Fried Shirt and in nineteen

473
00:25:24,040 --> 00:25:26,800
Speaker 2: ninety eight Albert Hammond Junior, who'd moved to New York

474
00:25:26,840 --> 00:25:30,439
Speaker 2: after finishing school in la The band played their first

475
00:25:30,480 --> 00:25:32,760
Speaker 2: gig in September of nineteen ninety nine, which is a

476
00:25:32,840 --> 00:25:34,680
Speaker 2: date that I want you all to keep in mind

477
00:25:34,720 --> 00:25:39,280
Speaker 2: when you consider their rise to stardom. Before the Strokes

478
00:25:39,320 --> 00:25:42,720
Speaker 2: had anything else going for them, they had chemistry. We

479
00:25:42,760 --> 00:25:45,960
Speaker 2: didn't play very well and Albert didn't sound great. We

480
00:25:46,040 --> 00:25:48,920
Speaker 2: didn't sound great, but there was a vibe there. Nick Valenci,

481
00:25:49,119 --> 00:25:51,639
Speaker 2: who everyone agrees was far and away the best musician

482
00:25:51,640 --> 00:25:54,280
Speaker 2: of the group, told Lizzie Goodman in me being in

483
00:25:54,280 --> 00:25:57,119
Speaker 2: the bathroom, I love Albert Hammond Junior. He seems like

484
00:25:57,160 --> 00:26:00,520
Speaker 2: a very sweet man. I interviewed him once for People magazine.

485
00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:05,199
Speaker 2: He was very, very cool and very low key. But

486
00:26:05,280 --> 00:26:08,000
Speaker 2: it is funny how everyone essentially sh on him when

487
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:10,119
Speaker 2: he first joined the band. They were like, oh, Albert

488
00:26:10,160 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 2: couldn't play at all, but he was cool. But Nick Valenci,

489
00:26:14,880 --> 00:26:17,160
Speaker 2: by contrast, had like learned a bunch of like slash

490
00:26:17,200 --> 00:26:19,600
Speaker 2: guns n' rosa solo. It was just like a shredding

491
00:26:19,640 --> 00:26:20,959
Speaker 2: guitarist right off the bat.

492
00:26:21,320 --> 00:26:23,720
Speaker 1: I have no idea that you interviewed Albert Hammond Jr.

493
00:26:23,800 --> 00:26:26,080
Speaker 1: That's really cool. I'm glad that you got to talk

494
00:26:26,119 --> 00:26:28,200
Speaker 1: to one of your heroes. That's great. It was for a.

495
00:26:28,160 --> 00:26:32,119
Speaker 2: Solo record, and I believe the launch of his sock

496
00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 2: and tie line.

497
00:26:34,080 --> 00:26:37,680
Speaker 1: Oh I bet you that wasn't part of your fantasy,

498
00:26:37,840 --> 00:26:39,359
Speaker 1: was it. Nope, sure wasn't.

499
00:26:40,800 --> 00:26:43,920
Speaker 2: Anyway, Just in terms of how Albert looked and how

500
00:26:43,920 --> 00:26:45,920
Speaker 2: he played and how he fit in with the group,

501
00:26:46,160 --> 00:26:49,239
Speaker 2: the dynamic was there from the get go. One thing

502
00:26:49,240 --> 00:26:50,959
Speaker 2: that I picked up on with these interviews is they

503
00:26:51,000 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: talked about how they made sure to hang out in public,

504
00:26:54,760 --> 00:26:57,360
Speaker 2: all four of them at once, for like that Beatles dynamic.

505
00:26:57,359 --> 00:26:59,320
Speaker 2: They were like, oh, you guys are going to like

506
00:26:59,760 --> 00:27:02,159
Speaker 2: you know two A or the library or like this

507
00:27:02,240 --> 00:27:04,959
Speaker 2: lower east side bar, like will go too. We have

508
00:27:05,040 --> 00:27:07,560
Speaker 2: to be seen as a group, and they would hand

509
00:27:07,600 --> 00:27:12,280
Speaker 2: out flyers together. They mailed postcards with like really like

510
00:27:12,280 --> 00:27:15,040
Speaker 2: like hand drawn stuff. And they grew up in this,

511
00:27:15,160 --> 00:27:17,720
Speaker 2: you know, the pre social media, pre digital era of

512
00:27:17,840 --> 00:27:20,240
Speaker 2: music promotion. So that was a big thing. They really

513
00:27:20,280 --> 00:27:25,919
Speaker 2: benefited from actual like on the ground technically in bars, networking,

514
00:27:27,080 --> 00:27:29,960
Speaker 2: and they got some connections from Julian casablancause his dad

515
00:27:30,000 --> 00:27:32,600
Speaker 2: owning a model in the agency. They would have models

516
00:27:32,600 --> 00:27:35,200
Speaker 2: occasionally show up to their shows, which is helpful.

517
00:27:36,440 --> 00:27:39,280
Speaker 1: Obviously we didn't have that. We didn't know. We didn't

518
00:27:39,280 --> 00:27:41,760
Speaker 1: have that. We had Fleming, we had Mario's parents, we

519
00:27:41,800 --> 00:27:45,880
Speaker 1: had Fleming. Oh yeah, we had Chris Fleming, my friend. Yeah.

520
00:27:46,040 --> 00:27:48,160
Speaker 2: But still this didn't really help in their early days.

521
00:27:48,520 --> 00:27:51,440
Speaker 2: Nick VALENSI were called to Pitchfork in twenty thirteen. We

522
00:27:51,440 --> 00:27:53,920
Speaker 2: were playing to nobody every two week in New York.

523
00:27:55,480 --> 00:27:57,919
Speaker 2: He estimated in that interview the band did up to

524
00:27:58,000 --> 00:28:01,399
Speaker 2: one hundred shows with fewer than a hundred people, to

525
00:28:01,480 --> 00:28:05,280
Speaker 2: which I say, try doing it for five years, you yachts.

526
00:28:07,400 --> 00:28:11,800
Speaker 2: Splitting fears of my life. Yeah, splitting forty bucks among

527
00:28:11,920 --> 00:28:12,560
Speaker 2: five people.

528
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,720
Speaker 1: Well, it must be said that the band's look also

529
00:28:18,800 --> 00:28:22,240
Speaker 1: did them quite a few favors as well. Julian Casablancus

530
00:28:22,320 --> 00:28:25,160
Speaker 1: later told GQ, when The Strokes first started playing gigs,

531
00:28:25,240 --> 00:28:27,719
Speaker 1: instead of getting into a costume for the shows, we

532
00:28:27,760 --> 00:28:30,280
Speaker 1: talked about how we should dress every day in real life,

533
00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:34,679
Speaker 1: like we're playing on stage, which I mean, granted, was

534
00:28:34,720 --> 00:28:37,040
Speaker 1: sort of how they were already dressing because apparently the

535
00:28:37,080 --> 00:28:39,320
Speaker 1: first time Albert Hammond Junior showed up to play with

536
00:28:39,360 --> 00:28:42,280
Speaker 1: the band, according to Nick Falensi, he was wearing a

537
00:28:42,320 --> 00:28:45,120
Speaker 1: puk suit. We were all wearing jeans and T shirts

538
00:28:45,120 --> 00:28:49,000
Speaker 1: and new balanced sneakers, and Albert showed up in a suit. Yeah.

539
00:28:49,040 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 2: I think they talked about it being in the Music Building,

540
00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:54,640
Speaker 2: which is a big giant industrial rehearsal space in like

541
00:28:54,720 --> 00:28:59,000
Speaker 2: midtown New York where all of your favorite bands practice

542
00:28:59,200 --> 00:29:01,360
Speaker 2: and they all day jobs at that point. So the

543
00:29:01,440 --> 00:29:05,560
Speaker 2: practice was at like eleven thirty or midnight, and Albert

544
00:29:05,560 --> 00:29:08,280
Speaker 2: Hammond Junior showed up and everyone unanimously agreed that he

545
00:29:08,320 --> 00:29:10,680
Speaker 2: had a fever that night, but he was still wearing

546
00:29:10,720 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 2: a suit for their for his first rehearsal with the band,

547
00:29:13,440 --> 00:29:14,200
Speaker 2: which I love.

548
00:29:15,440 --> 00:29:18,880
Speaker 1: And Julian Casablancis later said, you know, if anything, Albert

549
00:29:18,880 --> 00:29:21,240
Speaker 1: Hammond Junior influenced the style of the band. He was

550
00:29:21,360 --> 00:29:23,560
Speaker 1: nice and he had cool taste.

551
00:29:25,640 --> 00:29:28,120
Speaker 2: As you meditate on that, we'll be right back with

552
00:29:28,200 --> 00:29:43,560
Speaker 2: more too much information after these messages. Wow, wow, unsurprisingly

553
00:29:43,840 --> 00:29:47,640
Speaker 2: for a bunch of you know, pretty tall, good looking guys. Again,

554
00:29:47,760 --> 00:29:50,080
Speaker 2: and I just want to say, I love the fact

555
00:29:50,120 --> 00:29:53,360
Speaker 2: that the Strokes are the New York City band that

556
00:29:53,400 --> 00:29:56,160
Speaker 2: you could pick out of a lineup of every other

557
00:29:56,240 --> 00:29:58,840
Speaker 2: band of this era. I don't know if you could, like,

558
00:29:58,840 --> 00:30:00,360
Speaker 2: I couldn't look at the White Stripe and be like,

559
00:30:00,400 --> 00:30:02,800
Speaker 2: they're from Detroit, but I could look at the Strokes

560
00:30:02,840 --> 00:30:05,479
Speaker 2: and be like, Oh, that band's from New York. You know,

561
00:30:05,880 --> 00:30:08,160
Speaker 2: that band has never seen west of the Susquehanna.

562
00:30:08,920 --> 00:30:12,440
Speaker 1: What is it? Is it just the pasty white skin

563
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:13,960
Speaker 1: and the dark hair and the leather.

564
00:30:14,440 --> 00:30:17,280
Speaker 2: Yeah, they all look like they don't go outdoors that much,

565
00:30:17,320 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 2: and they're all like they all have cool, tight leather

566
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:24,320
Speaker 2: jackets and disheveled dark hair, not a blonde hair on

567
00:30:24,440 --> 00:30:28,560
Speaker 2: a single one of them. But they partied a lot.

568
00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:31,760
Speaker 2: Let's just say, and they made a lot of female fans.

569
00:30:32,480 --> 00:30:35,680
Speaker 2: There was a band called Girl Harbor who once put

570
00:30:35,400 --> 00:30:39,600
Speaker 2: an image of Nick Valenci's naked butt on one of

571
00:30:39,640 --> 00:30:42,400
Speaker 2: their show flyers because they'd opened the curtain as a

572
00:30:42,480 --> 00:30:44,680
Speaker 2: show that they were playing and found him having sex

573
00:30:44,680 --> 00:30:48,760
Speaker 2: with a girl on their drum riser, and they just

574
00:30:48,800 --> 00:30:51,240
Speaker 2: put that on their flyer, and everyone talks about it

575
00:30:51,240 --> 00:30:52,959
Speaker 2: in all the interviews. They're like, yeah, that was the

576
00:30:53,040 --> 00:30:54,840
Speaker 2: flyer image for many many years.

577
00:30:56,760 --> 00:30:58,560
Speaker 1: Now was it before the show or after the show?

578
00:30:58,880 --> 00:31:01,680
Speaker 1: I just hope it wasn't durrant or during. Yeah, that's

579
00:31:01,720 --> 00:31:02,400
Speaker 1: my next question.

580
00:31:02,880 --> 00:31:05,760
Speaker 2: A small sampling of quotes from Meet Me in the

581
00:31:05,760 --> 00:31:09,200
Speaker 2: Bathroom about the band's pre fame era. I'm sure they

582
00:31:09,200 --> 00:31:12,840
Speaker 2: had better coke than I did. They were naughty. Those

583
00:31:12,880 --> 00:31:15,080
Speaker 2: guys knew each other before they even had sex for

584
00:31:15,120 --> 00:31:18,200
Speaker 2: the first time, which, if we're talking about Nick Valenci

585
00:31:18,560 --> 00:31:22,040
Speaker 2: was probably seven or something. He was thirty year olds

586
00:31:22,080 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 2: when he was seven. They're characters. I think Albert put

587
00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:29,120
Speaker 2: his balls in Nick's mouth. Albert loves to pull his

588
00:31:29,160 --> 00:31:31,760
Speaker 2: balls out. We knew it was a fun party if

589
00:31:31,800 --> 00:31:35,800
Speaker 2: Albert's balls came out at some point and lastly, boyfriends

590
00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:40,480
Speaker 2: didn't like The Strokes. I'm getting like slightly less problematic

591
00:31:40,520 --> 00:31:42,600
Speaker 2: Maddy Healy vibes from the Strokes.

592
00:31:42,600 --> 00:31:44,960
Speaker 1: In this era circond ninety ninety.

593
00:31:45,440 --> 00:31:47,760
Speaker 2: One, they would not have made it through the modern

594
00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,320
Speaker 2: social media era. There's an interview a couple of years

595
00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,560
Speaker 2: back where Julian Kazemlankus gave to Vulture where he was

596
00:31:55,800 --> 00:31:57,880
Speaker 2: just coming off as like the worst college freshman in

597
00:31:57,920 --> 00:32:00,920
Speaker 2: the world. He was talking about having read Howard's in

598
00:32:01,120 --> 00:32:02,960
Speaker 2: Like the People History of the United States for like

599
00:32:03,040 --> 00:32:06,080
Speaker 2: the first time, and the big thing that I remember

600
00:32:06,160 --> 00:32:08,120
Speaker 2: was he was like yelling at the interview, or not yelling,

601
00:32:08,200 --> 00:32:09,680
Speaker 2: I shouldn't say that, but he was talking with the

602
00:32:09,680 --> 00:32:13,040
Speaker 2: interview about how much he loves Ariel Pink, who I

603
00:32:13,120 --> 00:32:16,080
Speaker 2: believe within a few years would be outed as a

604
00:32:16,200 --> 00:32:23,080
Speaker 2: January sixth like Trump troll. But Casablancas' position that the

605
00:32:23,120 --> 00:32:26,400
Speaker 2: only reason that Ariel Pink wasn't accepted as a genius

606
00:32:26,520 --> 00:32:30,600
Speaker 2: in modern indie rock was that was social conditioning. And

607
00:32:30,640 --> 00:32:33,959
Speaker 2: he kept comparing him to David Bowie, and the interviewer

608
00:32:34,040 --> 00:32:36,760
Speaker 2: was like, Uh, yeah, man, I don't I think the

609
00:32:36,800 --> 00:32:39,400
Speaker 2: reason that David Bowie is considered David Bowie is because

610
00:32:39,440 --> 00:32:42,160
Speaker 2: he was David Bowie and Arial Pink is not David Bowie,

611
00:32:42,240 --> 00:32:45,800
Speaker 2: and Casablancas was like it just everything you're saying sounds

612
00:32:45,840 --> 00:32:48,160
Speaker 2: like one hundred percent social conditioning.

613
00:32:49,760 --> 00:32:51,360
Speaker 1: See if I found that interview.

614
00:32:51,080 --> 00:32:55,040
Speaker 2: I had no idea about Ariel Pink. Oh yeah, yeah,

615
00:32:55,120 --> 00:32:56,680
Speaker 2: I can't remember if he was Indie. I think he

616
00:32:56,760 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 2: might have been in DC. I don't know if he

617
00:32:58,760 --> 00:33:04,080
Speaker 2: was at the Capitol. Whoa yes in conversation joining Casablancas

618
00:33:04,120 --> 00:33:07,240
Speaker 2: in twenty eighteen. Oh wait, yeah, this is the quote.

619
00:33:07,440 --> 00:33:09,640
Speaker 2: This is the uh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

620
00:33:09,680 --> 00:33:11,280
Speaker 1: Well, I don't know. Maybe, I mean, you can talk

621
00:33:11,320 --> 00:33:12,920
Speaker 1: about this jewing.

622
00:33:13,000 --> 00:33:15,680
Speaker 2: Casablanca says, everyone knows David Bowie now, but I bet

623
00:33:15,720 --> 00:33:19,200
Speaker 2: he was pretty underground in the seventies. I think Aeriel

624
00:33:19,240 --> 00:33:21,400
Speaker 2: Pink will be one of the best remembered artists of

625
00:33:21,440 --> 00:33:24,840
Speaker 2: this generation and now nobody in the mainstream knows him. Well,

626
00:33:24,880 --> 00:33:28,120
Speaker 2: that didn't pan out, Uh, I don't know.

627
00:33:28,200 --> 00:33:31,640
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean Bowie I think was smaller than we

628
00:33:31,880 --> 00:33:35,960
Speaker 1: expect prior to like the Let's Dance era in like

629
00:33:36,080 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: eighty three, when he really embraced MTV. Yeah, I think

630
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:41,880
Speaker 1: he was more of I really know what the equivalent

631
00:33:41,880 --> 00:33:44,120
Speaker 1: would be these days. I mean, I guess it's an

632
00:33:44,120 --> 00:33:46,480
Speaker 1: Apple's the Oranges comparison, given the way that you know,

633
00:33:47,360 --> 00:33:49,880
Speaker 1: the music industry has evolved, so I guess there really

634
00:33:49,960 --> 00:33:51,840
Speaker 1: is no modern comparison. But yeah, I think he was

635
00:33:51,880 --> 00:33:54,520
Speaker 1: smaller than in terms of sales and in terms Oh

636
00:33:54,560 --> 00:33:57,200
Speaker 1: I forgot about this. Oh my god, I forgot.

637
00:33:57,000 --> 00:33:59,960
Speaker 2: About this exchange. Oh my god, I forgot about this.

638
00:34:00,400 --> 00:34:03,280
Speaker 2: Julian Casablanca says, Jimmy Hendrix. People don't realize that it

639
00:34:03,320 --> 00:34:05,360
Speaker 2: took years for him to get the acclaim that he has.

640
00:34:05,440 --> 00:34:05,680
Speaker 1: Now.

641
00:34:06,000 --> 00:34:07,600
Speaker 2: You look at the charts back then, and he was

642
00:34:07,640 --> 00:34:10,640
Speaker 2: at number three hundred. He didn't have hits. And the

643
00:34:10,640 --> 00:34:14,000
Speaker 2: interviewer says, Jimmy Hendrix was very popular during his lifetime,

644
00:34:14,320 --> 00:34:16,960
Speaker 2: and Julian Casablanca says, no, you're seeing it through the

645
00:34:16,960 --> 00:34:20,520
Speaker 2: review mirror. The interviewer says, but Electric Lady Land was

646
00:34:20,520 --> 00:34:23,920
Speaker 2: a number one album, and Julian Casablanca says, I don't know.

647
00:34:24,280 --> 00:34:26,080
Speaker 2: From what I've seen, I thought he never had any

648
00:34:26,120 --> 00:34:32,560
Speaker 2: commercial success, and the interviewer says he closed Woodstock, and

649
00:34:32,680 --> 00:34:34,400
Speaker 2: Julian Caussublankaz just says.

650
00:34:34,560 --> 00:34:38,000
Speaker 1: Okay, it's a terrible interview.

651
00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:39,960
Speaker 2: And my point is that had this band come up

652
00:34:40,000 --> 00:34:43,360
Speaker 2: in the era when people were constantly having pressure to

653
00:34:43,360 --> 00:34:45,200
Speaker 2: come up with soundbites, I don't think it would have

654
00:34:45,200 --> 00:34:47,120
Speaker 2: worked out for them anyway.

655
00:34:48,000 --> 00:34:50,680
Speaker 1: Sorry, where were you? Yes in this? This is the

656
00:34:50,719 --> 00:34:55,640
Speaker 1: millu This cocaine and sex on stage and putting balls

657
00:34:55,640 --> 00:34:58,520
Speaker 1: in your bandmate's mouths and all the things that our

658
00:34:58,600 --> 00:35:02,239
Speaker 1: band never got up to. This is the milieu in

659
00:35:02,320 --> 00:35:04,560
Speaker 1: which the songs that would become this is it start

660
00:35:04,560 --> 00:35:07,879
Speaker 1: to coalesce. The first songs that really stand out are

661
00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:11,680
Speaker 1: Last Night, of Course and the Modern Age, both of

662
00:35:11,680 --> 00:35:14,360
Speaker 1: which Casablancas wrote under the thrall of lou Reed and

663
00:35:14,440 --> 00:35:17,719
Speaker 1: The Velvet Underground. And before long the band started to

664
00:35:17,719 --> 00:35:20,879
Speaker 1: pick up steam in terms of both confidence and competence.

665
00:35:21,440 --> 00:35:23,120
Speaker 1: That's a great sentence you wrote.

666
00:35:22,880 --> 00:35:26,640
Speaker 2: That exactly think this final Tap thing. They impressed me

667
00:35:26,719 --> 00:35:30,600
Speaker 2: with their musicality, their confidence and their punctuality.

668
00:35:33,760 --> 00:35:36,359
Speaker 1: And around the same time Albert Hammond Jr. Who, as

669
00:35:36,360 --> 00:35:39,880
Speaker 1: you mentioned earlier, little help on the old six string

670
00:35:39,920 --> 00:35:43,400
Speaker 1: there wasn't wasn't all that proficient. He wasn't all that competent.

671
00:35:43,480 --> 00:35:45,720
Speaker 1: As you said, he met a guitar teacher named Jp

672
00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:50,279
Speaker 1: Bauersack at Richie's Guitar Shop in the East Village, and

673
00:35:50,320 --> 00:35:53,279
Speaker 1: he became their guitar teacher, Albert's guitar teacher and Julian

674
00:35:53,360 --> 00:35:57,280
Speaker 1: Casablanca's guitar teacher and Bowers. He talked to Lucy Goodman

675
00:35:57,320 --> 00:35:59,840
Speaker 1: for meet me in the bathroom. He said, well, Julian

676
00:36:00,120 --> 00:36:02,120
Speaker 1: was mostly leading on me for was that he wanted

677
00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:05,359
Speaker 1: every note planned out, nothing left the chance. They were

678
00:36:05,360 --> 00:36:07,279
Speaker 1: one of the first bands I knew that practiced and

679
00:36:07,320 --> 00:36:10,960
Speaker 1: their rehearsals to a click track, which basically is a metronome,

680
00:36:11,200 --> 00:36:13,239
Speaker 1: and not only once a week, but four or five

681
00:36:13,360 --> 00:36:16,279
Speaker 1: nights a week. They were deadly serious about being super tight,

682
00:36:16,360 --> 00:36:19,080
Speaker 1: so every note had to be worked out. Julian wanted

683
00:36:19,120 --> 00:36:21,319
Speaker 1: to work out every note of the guitar solos too.

684
00:36:21,640 --> 00:36:23,799
Speaker 2: It's really interesting when you think about the band being

685
00:36:23,840 --> 00:36:27,600
Speaker 2: this New York City rock icon, because so much of

686
00:36:27,640 --> 00:36:31,680
Speaker 2: their rhythmic feel comes from the idea that the drums

687
00:36:31,680 --> 00:36:34,680
Speaker 2: should sound like a machine, not just in terms of

688
00:36:34,719 --> 00:36:37,200
Speaker 2: the pulse, but in terms of the actual sound of

689
00:36:37,239 --> 00:36:38,720
Speaker 2: the drums, as we'll get to in a minute.

690
00:36:38,719 --> 00:36:41,200
Speaker 1: But it's fascinating.

691
00:36:40,760 --> 00:36:42,719
Speaker 2: To me that they did come out of this New

692
00:36:42,800 --> 00:36:46,000
Speaker 2: York They came out of this milieu of New York

693
00:36:46,040 --> 00:36:49,360
Speaker 2: City being dominated musically by hip hop and dance music,

694
00:36:50,120 --> 00:36:52,520
Speaker 2: and that they're credited with like this rock revolution thing.

695
00:36:52,600 --> 00:36:54,239
Speaker 2: But they were like, they were like, oh, we got

696
00:36:54,239 --> 00:36:55,880
Speaker 2: to play all these songs to click, and the drums

697
00:36:55,880 --> 00:36:58,600
Speaker 2: have to sound like they're processed, which is like a

698
00:36:58,640 --> 00:37:01,920
Speaker 2: thing that goes back to like ZZ Top Records of

699
00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,759
Speaker 2: being like, oh, we have a live drummer, but we

700
00:37:04,800 --> 00:37:06,640
Speaker 2: want this to all sound like a drum machine.

701
00:37:06,920 --> 00:37:10,640
Speaker 1: You know. Well that's what I remember. Dave Grohl was

702
00:37:10,760 --> 00:37:14,319
Speaker 1: being interviewed by I think it was Pharrell, and he

703
00:37:14,840 --> 00:37:17,320
Speaker 1: was demonstrating his drumming on it might have been smells

704
00:37:17,320 --> 00:37:20,080
Speaker 1: like Teen Spirit. It was some big Nirvana song and

705
00:37:20,160 --> 00:37:22,560
Speaker 1: he was like, no, that's a that's a disco drum

706
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:26,400
Speaker 1: and he started playing it and singing whatever the Nirvana

707
00:37:26,440 --> 00:37:28,239
Speaker 1: song it was, and then he started playing it and

708
00:37:28,320 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: it was some huge disco track I forget which and

709
00:37:31,160 --> 00:37:33,839
Speaker 1: it was the exact same drum passage. Yeah, I love

710
00:37:33,880 --> 00:37:36,719
Speaker 1: the drums on this were on the record are so good.

711
00:37:36,800 --> 00:37:41,759
Speaker 2: Also, playing to a click is hard, not just as

712
00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:45,239
Speaker 2: yourself practicing your instrument, but as a band, getting four

713
00:37:45,320 --> 00:37:50,160
Speaker 2: or five people's rhythmic feels bock together, that's nuts. Gordon Raphael,

714
00:37:50,719 --> 00:37:53,560
Speaker 2: who as I mentioned earlier, produced the band's first EP

715
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:57,440
Speaker 2: and their two full length, told Weiss. I went to

716
00:37:57,480 --> 00:37:59,759
Speaker 2: a show at Luna Lounge in New York and there

717
00:37:59,800 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 2: were two new bands playing. The second band that played

718
00:38:02,640 --> 00:38:05,279
Speaker 2: was The Strokes. Because I had my own studio and

719
00:38:05,320 --> 00:38:08,080
Speaker 2: I was a relatively fresh producer, I had a business

720
00:38:08,120 --> 00:38:10,799
Speaker 2: card and I approached them after the show. The first band,

721
00:38:10,800 --> 00:38:13,040
Speaker 2: which I actually liked a little better, didn't call me,

722
00:38:13,520 --> 00:38:15,640
Speaker 2: but Albert came to look at my studio and as

723
00:38:15,640 --> 00:38:17,960
Speaker 2: they're playing their music in the studio, I'm going, wait

724
00:38:18,040 --> 00:38:20,839
Speaker 2: a minute, this is really good. I didn't get that

725
00:38:20,880 --> 00:38:23,240
Speaker 2: feeling when I saw them live, but in the studio

726
00:38:23,400 --> 00:38:26,880
Speaker 2: it came together. They told me, in very cryptic form,

727
00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:30,439
Speaker 2: what sound they wanted, like, imagine taking a trip into

728
00:38:30,440 --> 00:38:32,960
Speaker 2: the future and finding a band from the past that

729
00:38:33,000 --> 00:38:36,400
Speaker 2: you've never heard before. What would that sound like? I

730
00:38:36,440 --> 00:38:37,560
Speaker 2: sort of drew a blank on that.

731
00:38:39,400 --> 00:38:42,239
Speaker 1: I kind of love that description. I know it's kind

732
00:38:42,239 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: of pretentious, but I really enjoy that. I had a

733
00:38:44,840 --> 00:38:46,640
Speaker 1: radio show in college and it was kind of the

734
00:38:46,640 --> 00:38:50,520
Speaker 1: same premise. We leased our station airwaves from the un

735
00:38:50,960 --> 00:38:54,280
Speaker 1: so it had to be, you know, in quotes, educational radio,

736
00:38:54,320 --> 00:38:57,480
Speaker 1: which translated to stuff that you couldn't hear anywhere else.

737
00:38:57,520 --> 00:39:00,239
Speaker 1: So you had to play like really obscure stuff in

738
00:39:00,320 --> 00:39:02,400
Speaker 1: order to not get in trouble with I don't know,

739
00:39:02,480 --> 00:39:05,080
Speaker 1: the FCC or the un or somebody that some big name.

740
00:39:05,120 --> 00:39:07,520
Speaker 1: We didn't want to piss off, and so I played

741
00:39:07,640 --> 00:39:11,480
Speaker 1: super obscure oldies that were super super catchy because I

742
00:39:11,480 --> 00:39:13,959
Speaker 1: wanted to create the effect of an alternate universe Top

743
00:39:14,000 --> 00:39:17,440
Speaker 1: forty show from the sixties. That's where Dick Duve comes from. Right,

744
00:39:17,480 --> 00:39:19,520
Speaker 1: That's where Dick Duve came from. That's my DJ alter.

745
00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:21,839
Speaker 1: You go, yeah, yeah. If you could go to www

746
00:39:21,920 --> 00:39:24,080
Speaker 1: dot Dick Dubay dot com and see a lot of

747
00:39:24,080 --> 00:39:28,759
Speaker 1: my old old radio show recordings and playlists, plug Dick

748
00:39:28,840 --> 00:39:31,840
Speaker 1: Dubay there happy too. Anyway, the band had attempted to

749
00:39:31,880 --> 00:39:34,760
Speaker 1: record before, and they'd shop the results around to labels

750
00:39:34,840 --> 00:39:38,319
Speaker 1: but didn't pan out. Albert Hammond I love this. He

751
00:39:38,400 --> 00:39:41,040
Speaker 1: kept a small collection of rejection letters, some of which

752
00:39:41,040 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: he framed and hung on his wall. John Lennon used

753
00:39:44,840 --> 00:39:46,680
Speaker 1: to do that too, But apparently when he was coming

754
00:39:46,719 --> 00:39:51,480
Speaker 1: back from his five year period of semi retirement in

755
00:39:51,520 --> 00:39:54,640
Speaker 1: the seventies where he was raising Sean again, all roads

756
00:39:54,719 --> 00:39:59,560
Speaker 1: lead back to Sean Lennon in this episode. Some label

757
00:39:59,680 --> 00:40:02,239
Speaker 1: thought he was pasted it and they sent him a

758
00:40:02,239 --> 00:40:05,440
Speaker 1: note that was like, all right, John, quit messing around

759
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,799
Speaker 1: ten thousand dollars midimum guarantee for a beatle, and he

760
00:40:09,880 --> 00:40:11,799
Speaker 1: just thought that was hysterical. He framed that and put

761
00:40:11,800 --> 00:40:15,040
Speaker 1: that on the wall. Anyway, when the band arrived at

762
00:40:15,080 --> 00:40:19,040
Speaker 1: the studio, producer Gordon Rafael told Pitchfork, Julie let me

763
00:40:19,080 --> 00:40:20,799
Speaker 1: know up front that they never had good luck with

764
00:40:20,920 --> 00:40:25,880
Speaker 1: recording and didn't like the process. And Rafael was admitted

765
00:40:25,880 --> 00:40:28,000
Speaker 1: repeatedly over the years that he didn't really think that

766
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,520
Speaker 1: the band was anything special or onto anything. He said,

767
00:40:31,560 --> 00:40:33,600
Speaker 1: when the Strokes first came to my studio, I thought

768
00:40:33,719 --> 00:40:36,040
Speaker 1: this is really cool music and just shook my head

769
00:40:36,040 --> 00:40:39,560
Speaker 1: and thought, sadly they're about twenty years behind. Why were

770
00:40:39,560 --> 00:40:42,279
Speaker 1: they doing that with their guitars. Everyone knew the guitars

771
00:40:42,320 --> 00:40:43,000
Speaker 1: weren't cool.

772
00:40:43,360 --> 00:40:45,640
Speaker 2: It's funny because as much as they got this immediate

773
00:40:45,640 --> 00:40:48,000
Speaker 2: backlash of being like rich kids and everything a lot

774
00:40:48,040 --> 00:40:51,440
Speaker 2: of people just talk about how hard they worked. They

775
00:40:51,440 --> 00:40:53,400
Speaker 2: were all really committed to it in terms of just

776
00:40:53,880 --> 00:40:56,560
Speaker 2: the rehearsal and coming into the studio and hitting it

777
00:40:56,600 --> 00:40:58,680
Speaker 2: really hard and playing live and you can hear live

778
00:40:58,680 --> 00:41:02,720
Speaker 2: bootlegs from the time. They were really serious, hard charging band,

779
00:41:02,760 --> 00:41:06,080
Speaker 2: even though they did kind of have this dissolute area

780
00:41:06,160 --> 00:41:06,840
Speaker 2: of being.

781
00:41:06,800 --> 00:41:08,040
Speaker 1: Just dirt bags.

782
00:41:08,680 --> 00:41:11,600
Speaker 2: But the results of that session, the Modern Age EP

783
00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:14,919
Speaker 2: was picked up by the legendary UK indie label Rough

784
00:41:15,000 --> 00:41:18,040
Speaker 2: Trade in the latter half of the year two thousand,

785
00:41:18,320 --> 00:41:22,080
Speaker 2: a year after they played their first show. By December,

786
00:41:22,280 --> 00:41:26,440
Speaker 2: following some local out of town touring, the Strokes kickoff

787
00:41:26,520 --> 00:41:30,280
Speaker 2: a residency at the Lower East Sides famed the Mercury Lounge,

788
00:41:30,320 --> 00:41:32,960
Speaker 2: which was pretty much a de regular hot spot for

789
00:41:33,040 --> 00:41:35,799
Speaker 2: any of these bands that you all know and love

790
00:41:35,880 --> 00:41:39,680
Speaker 2: now the aias Inner Paul, like with Arlene's Grocery, it

791
00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:42,080
Speaker 2: was just like where everybody hit and pretty much everybody

792
00:41:42,080 --> 00:41:45,560
Speaker 2: interviewed remembers this residency that they did as just like

793
00:41:46,080 --> 00:41:48,799
Speaker 2: the calm before the storm, like the high point of

794
00:41:48,880 --> 00:41:50,640
Speaker 2: their of their pre fame career.

795
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,080
Speaker 1: We played there. That was the high point for us,

796
00:41:53,280 --> 00:41:57,480
Speaker 1: our pre fame career. I thought our high point was elsewhere.

797
00:41:57,840 --> 00:41:59,319
Speaker 1: I thought that was a good show. That was a

798
00:41:59,320 --> 00:42:00,920
Speaker 1: good show. Yeah, it was a big There were a

799
00:42:00,960 --> 00:42:02,719
Speaker 1: lot of people there that felt like a beast, like

800
00:42:02,719 --> 00:42:03,480
Speaker 1: a couple hundred.

801
00:42:04,760 --> 00:42:07,759
Speaker 2: I think it was like forty again, I believe a

802
00:42:07,800 --> 00:42:14,360
Speaker 2: show for which we were paid like forty dollars.

803
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:13,359
Speaker 1: Despite filling the room.

804
00:42:13,880 --> 00:42:16,240
Speaker 2: I don't have figure. I didn't keep figures on our shows,

805
00:42:16,280 --> 00:42:19,000
Speaker 2: thank god. Yeah, Jordan tell us about the Mercury Lounge.

806
00:42:19,080 --> 00:42:22,880
Speaker 1: Yeah, Mercury Lounge, a legendary Lower east Side venue, apparently

807
00:42:23,120 --> 00:42:25,920
Speaker 1: has an interesting history. The building that houses it was

808
00:42:25,960 --> 00:42:30,000
Speaker 1: once the home to servants for the Astor Mansion, which

809
00:42:30,040 --> 00:42:33,440
Speaker 1: was located not even that nearby over on Fifth Avenue,

810
00:42:33,440 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: and it was connected to this mansion by a underground

811
00:42:36,800 --> 00:42:38,000
Speaker 1: labyrinth of tunnels.

812
00:42:38,440 --> 00:42:45,359
Speaker 2: Jesus Christ, I think your commute sucks. Imagine walking under

813
00:42:45,400 --> 00:42:47,759
Speaker 2: the Lower east Side to get you a tunnel. Yeah,

814
00:42:47,880 --> 00:42:52,919
Speaker 2: clean your rich person toilet bowl. I'm just really proud

815
00:42:52,960 --> 00:42:56,040
Speaker 2: that I titled this next section in It.

816
00:42:56,640 --> 00:43:00,480
Speaker 1: In It It in it because.

817
00:43:00,239 --> 00:43:02,360
Speaker 2: It's about the UK, it'sbout the bridge, it's about the

818
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,960
Speaker 2: British people loved the Strokes, especially at the.

819
00:43:05,960 --> 00:43:09,920
Speaker 1: Time that scans. It's kind of got a glam vibe.

820
00:43:10,640 --> 00:43:13,200
Speaker 2: Oh they just love I mean, you know they start

821
00:43:13,320 --> 00:43:15,759
Speaker 2: this as much as you and a lot of other

822
00:43:15,800 --> 00:43:19,040
Speaker 2: people are Anglo files. The British music press are New

823
00:43:19,160 --> 00:43:23,239
Speaker 2: York of files. And thanks to the strength of The

824
00:43:23,280 --> 00:43:25,920
Speaker 2: Modern AGP, which was released in January of two thousand

825
00:43:25,920 --> 00:43:28,880
Speaker 2: and one by Rough Trade, and a big picture spread

826
00:43:28,880 --> 00:43:31,760
Speaker 2: that was in NME, one of the big influential weekly

827
00:43:31,840 --> 00:43:35,120
Speaker 2: music publications in the UK, the band basically sparked a

828
00:43:35,160 --> 00:43:39,279
Speaker 2: bidding war for their debut record again like a year

829
00:43:39,280 --> 00:43:42,759
Speaker 2: in change. After they played their first show, NME put

830
00:43:42,760 --> 00:43:46,240
Speaker 2: out The Modern Age the song on a free CD sampler,

831
00:43:46,320 --> 00:43:49,759
Speaker 2: back when there were such things. By the time the

832
00:43:49,760 --> 00:43:53,160
Speaker 2: Strokes hit the stage in the UK, they were already superstars.

833
00:43:53,520 --> 00:43:56,759
Speaker 2: Leslie Lyons told Lizzie Goodman. The pictures were already all

834
00:43:56,800 --> 00:43:59,120
Speaker 2: over the English press and their shows were backing up

835
00:43:59,120 --> 00:44:01,600
Speaker 2: what people were seeing in the pictures. It's like the

836
00:44:01,640 --> 00:44:04,960
Speaker 2: Mercury Lounge residency was a big bang and the particles

837
00:44:05,000 --> 00:44:08,000
Speaker 2: just started spreading far and wide at an accelerated speed.

838
00:44:08,719 --> 00:44:11,239
Speaker 2: They played a show in Camden on that tour and

839
00:44:11,280 --> 00:44:14,719
Speaker 2: the band's UK publicist, Jacob Blackman told Wece they came

840
00:44:14,760 --> 00:44:17,120
Speaker 2: on about forty five minutes late, and everyone was like, Oh,

841
00:44:17,120 --> 00:44:19,440
Speaker 2: they're just trying to be super cool New Yorkers, but

842
00:44:19,520 --> 00:44:23,400
Speaker 2: actually Julian was absolutely shitting himself. Of course, that was

843
00:44:23,400 --> 00:44:25,720
Speaker 2: a super special show and pretty much half the media

844
00:44:25,760 --> 00:44:28,359
Speaker 2: in London turned out for it. At that stage, there

845
00:44:28,400 --> 00:44:31,000
Speaker 2: weren't loads of celebs there. I remember the bloke who

846
00:44:31,040 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 2: played Norman Cheers was there, George went George Watan in Camden.

847
00:44:39,000 --> 00:44:41,840
Speaker 2: I wasn't able to verify that. He continued, but the

848
00:44:41,880 --> 00:44:44,919
Speaker 2: celebrities and the models followed very quickly. It wasn't long

849
00:44:44,960 --> 00:44:47,279
Speaker 2: before Kate Moss and Sadie Frost and all that lot

850
00:44:47,320 --> 00:44:51,120
Speaker 2: were begging to get into their dressing room, but Blackman continued.

851
00:44:51,400 --> 00:44:53,280
Speaker 2: One of the things I really remember about that first

852
00:44:53,280 --> 00:44:56,399
Speaker 2: tour was the fights. There was a fight almost every

853
00:44:56,440 --> 00:44:59,480
Speaker 2: single day. There were a lot of jealous people. I

854
00:44:59,520 --> 00:45:02,680
Speaker 2: was sitting to Fab, the drummer, in the venue, and

855
00:45:02,719 --> 00:45:05,920
Speaker 2: some guy made some comment like, you see New York wankers.

856
00:45:06,400 --> 00:45:08,680
Speaker 2: The next thing I knew Fab had decked the guy.

857
00:45:09,239 --> 00:45:13,239
Speaker 2: That happened all the time. Whatever happened overseas, the band

858
00:45:13,280 --> 00:45:14,880
Speaker 2: came back to the States, and they were pretty much

859
00:45:14,960 --> 00:45:18,840
Speaker 2: immediately beset by label attention. Great quote from Nick Valenci,

860
00:45:19,360 --> 00:45:21,320
Speaker 2: I don't know who was paying for the drugs.

861
00:45:21,800 --> 00:45:24,920
Speaker 1: It wasn't me, as it should be.

862
00:45:25,560 --> 00:45:28,400
Speaker 2: Band manager at the time, Ryan Gentles, a guy who

863
00:45:28,600 --> 00:45:33,040
Speaker 2: uh whose nickname was Weezer from everyone because he had

864
00:45:33,080 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 2: horn room glasses, which is just like that kind of

865
00:45:36,280 --> 00:45:38,600
Speaker 2: tragic thing that happens to you in high school and

866
00:45:38,600 --> 00:45:41,680
Speaker 2: sticks with you your entire life. They said they ultimately

867
00:45:41,680 --> 00:45:43,960
Speaker 2: went with RCA because they were the only label that

868
00:45:43,960 --> 00:45:46,480
Speaker 2: would let the band own their record outright when they

869
00:45:46,480 --> 00:45:49,760
Speaker 2: were done with it. Famously, they signed a five album

870
00:45:49,880 --> 00:45:56,879
Speaker 2: contract with RCA, resulting in at least two contractual obligation records,

871
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:01,000
Speaker 2: Looking at You, a record called Calm Down Machine possibly

872
00:46:01,000 --> 00:46:05,359
Speaker 2: also angles another record that isn't very good, but we're

873
00:46:05,360 --> 00:46:07,319
Speaker 2: not talking about that. We're talking about is this It,

874
00:46:07,440 --> 00:46:09,920
Speaker 2: which came together in March and April of two thousand

875
00:46:09,920 --> 00:46:14,400
Speaker 2: and one with Gordon Rafael at Transport Terrom was the

876
00:46:14,480 --> 00:46:17,279
Speaker 2: name of his studio in Alphabet City on the Lower

877
00:46:17,320 --> 00:46:23,320
Speaker 2: East Side, located again under a methodone clinic, but Rafael

878
00:46:23,360 --> 00:46:26,040
Speaker 2: was actually the second producer on the scene. He told

879
00:46:26,080 --> 00:46:28,759
Speaker 2: The Guardian in twenty fifteen, Julian took me to dinner

880
00:46:28,760 --> 00:46:30,680
Speaker 2: and said, rough trade one of them to record an

881
00:46:30,680 --> 00:46:34,600
Speaker 2: album with Gil Norton, who'd produced Pixies and Foo Fighters

882
00:46:34,880 --> 00:46:37,839
Speaker 2: and sold six million copies of ever recording he'd made.

883
00:46:38,600 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 2: Julian said that if I told him I was a

884
00:46:41,000 --> 00:46:44,759
Speaker 2: better producer, I could record the album. I couldn't do that,

885
00:46:45,320 --> 00:46:47,600
Speaker 2: so he stood up and said, phew, now we have

886
00:46:47,680 --> 00:46:51,880
Speaker 2: to use Gil Norton. A few weeks later he called

887
00:46:52,280 --> 00:46:55,000
Speaker 2: it hadn't worked out with Gil and.

888
00:46:54,840 --> 00:46:57,120
Speaker 1: Mark Ronson spoke to Lizzy Goodman for meet me in

889
00:46:57,120 --> 00:47:00,440
Speaker 1: the bathroom and he had kind of a tangent run

890
00:47:00,480 --> 00:47:02,839
Speaker 1: in with the Strokes and Mark Ronson around this time

891
00:47:02,880 --> 00:47:05,440
Speaker 1: in the late nineties and early two thousands was a

892
00:47:05,640 --> 00:47:09,480
Speaker 1: huge hip hop DJ. He played it at the Tunnel,

893
00:47:09,600 --> 00:47:12,640
Speaker 1: which was a very famous hip hop club. I believe

894
00:47:12,719 --> 00:47:17,880
Speaker 1: he was the first person to ever play Hypnotize Biggie's

895
00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:21,200
Speaker 1: Hypnotize in public. You mentioned that, yeah, I think yeah.

896
00:47:21,200 --> 00:47:24,239
Speaker 1: Biggie gave him like a white label promo copy of it.

897
00:47:25,560 --> 00:47:29,280
Speaker 1: He had a small recording studio on Second Street between

898
00:47:29,360 --> 00:47:32,000
Speaker 1: Avenue A and B, which was in the same studio

899
00:47:32,000 --> 00:47:34,319
Speaker 1: where the Strokes had just recorded talking to Lizzie Goodman.

900
00:47:34,400 --> 00:47:36,759
Speaker 1: He said, there were these jazz guys. They had two

901
00:47:36,800 --> 00:47:38,920
Speaker 1: other rooms in that same basement, and they said, I

902
00:47:39,000 --> 00:47:40,839
Speaker 1: hope you were a little better neighbor than the last

903
00:47:40,880 --> 00:47:43,800
Speaker 1: kids we had. And I said, who were they? They said,

904
00:47:43,920 --> 00:47:48,320
Speaker 1: this fucking man, these kids, they were just pizza boxes everywhere, beer,

905
00:47:48,440 --> 00:47:51,600
Speaker 1: their friends coming in. They're making massive amounts of noise.

906
00:47:52,000 --> 00:47:54,080
Speaker 1: And I asked what were they called? And he said

907
00:47:54,160 --> 00:47:58,799
Speaker 1: The Strokes. He sampled someday, Mark ronson, Yeah, the drum beat,

908
00:47:59,280 --> 00:48:03,799
Speaker 1: Oh for what rhyme fest them blue Collar, a song

909
00:48:03,880 --> 00:48:07,439
Speaker 1: called Devil's Pie. I mean anything to you. You made

910
00:48:07,440 --> 00:48:11,200
Speaker 1: all those words up. But these sessions for the Strokes

911
00:48:11,239 --> 00:48:14,399
Speaker 1: may have been messy, but they weren't exactly fraught. Ryan

912
00:48:14,480 --> 00:48:16,960
Speaker 1: Jensel's The Strokes manager, says that he remembers watching a

913
00:48:16,960 --> 00:48:20,400
Speaker 1: lot of mall rats in that basement studio. Gordon Rafael

914
00:48:20,480 --> 00:48:23,200
Speaker 1: smoked a lot of weed, and Julian Casablancas wanted to

915
00:48:23,239 --> 00:48:27,120
Speaker 1: go at like sixteen hours at a time, and those

916
00:48:27,160 --> 00:48:29,040
Speaker 1: off of been reported that most of the songs on

917
00:48:29,080 --> 00:48:32,040
Speaker 1: the record are first takes. Rafael told NM that that

918
00:48:32,239 --> 00:48:32,840
Speaker 1: wasn't true.

919
00:48:32,960 --> 00:48:36,040
Speaker 2: Instead, much of the drama came down to Julian Casablancas's

920
00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 2: gnostic explanations for music production. I love this, Ryan Gentel's

921
00:48:41,480 --> 00:48:44,960
Speaker 2: told Lizzie Goodman. Gordon is such a great interpreter of musicians.

922
00:48:45,440 --> 00:48:48,520
Speaker 2: Julian won't say that high hat is too trebly, turn

923
00:48:48,560 --> 00:48:51,160
Speaker 2: the bass up or the trouble down. He'll say, I

924
00:48:51,239 --> 00:48:53,120
Speaker 2: need the high hat to sound like the rich guy

925
00:48:53,120 --> 00:48:55,560
Speaker 2: who hangs out at the party and doesn't talk to girls,

926
00:48:55,960 --> 00:48:58,359
Speaker 2: waits for them to come and talk to him. Or

927
00:48:58,880 --> 00:49:01,319
Speaker 2: it's too much like the way sleeping bum smells on

928
00:49:01,320 --> 00:49:03,759
Speaker 2: a Friday night when he's had too much booze. I

929
00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:06,120
Speaker 2: don't want it to smell like that. Gussie it up

930
00:49:06,239 --> 00:49:09,200
Speaker 2: and shave him. That's the snare drum sound I want.

931
00:49:10,200 --> 00:49:13,440
Speaker 1: I'm going to do a quick sidebar on inarticulate musicians

932
00:49:13,480 --> 00:49:15,960
Speaker 1: who made producers want to tear their hair out and

933
00:49:16,120 --> 00:49:19,200
Speaker 1: or strangle them. When the Beatles were recording Being for

934
00:49:19,239 --> 00:49:22,479
Speaker 1: the Benefit of Mister Kite on Sergeant Pepper, George Martin,

935
00:49:22,520 --> 00:49:24,880
Speaker 1: the Beatles producer, recalled this bit of direction from the

936
00:49:24,920 --> 00:49:29,479
Speaker 1: song's composer John Lennon. He'd make wooshing sounds and try

937
00:49:29,520 --> 00:49:32,759
Speaker 1: to describe as the best part and try to describe

938
00:49:32,800 --> 00:49:35,279
Speaker 1: what only he could hear in his head, saying that

939
00:49:35,320 --> 00:49:39,120
Speaker 1: he wanted the song to quote sounds like an orange yep.

940
00:49:39,320 --> 00:49:41,880
Speaker 1: That's acid for you. Yeah. Tom Waits would do that

941
00:49:41,920 --> 00:49:42,560
Speaker 1: a lot. I think he.

942
00:49:42,719 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 2: I think he once said that he told the he

943
00:49:45,560 --> 00:49:48,000
Speaker 2: told the bassis to play like your hair's on fire

944
00:49:48,120 --> 00:49:48,960
Speaker 2: or something like that.

945
00:49:49,160 --> 00:49:52,680
Speaker 1: I like, okay, that that that actually like is instructive,

946
00:49:52,719 --> 00:49:57,319
Speaker 1: though I feel at least as your bassist was a

947
00:49:57,400 --> 00:49:59,759
Speaker 1: high strung I never told you that. You never told

948
00:49:59,760 --> 00:50:04,520
Speaker 1: me that, but it was imploied. And Brian Wilson, another

949
00:50:04,560 --> 00:50:06,520
Speaker 1: one of my heroes, was a little more together in

950
00:50:06,560 --> 00:50:08,439
Speaker 1: the studio, but he would say things like I want

951
00:50:08,440 --> 00:50:11,239
Speaker 1: the strings to sound like they're crying, or I want

952
00:50:11,280 --> 00:50:13,239
Speaker 1: the percussion to sound like jewelry.

953
00:50:14,880 --> 00:50:18,799
Speaker 2: This record was pretty bare bones, honestly, for becoming such

954
00:50:18,840 --> 00:50:23,239
Speaker 2: a huge tone for mic indie rock. But you know,

955
00:50:23,280 --> 00:50:24,640
Speaker 2: a lot of people would say, like, of course, it

956
00:50:24,640 --> 00:50:26,240
Speaker 2: sounds like it was made in a basement. It sounds

957
00:50:26,239 --> 00:50:27,520
Speaker 2: like the whole thing was made in the trunk of

958
00:50:27,520 --> 00:50:31,319
Speaker 2: a car. But you know, whatever, man, people pay a

959
00:50:31,520 --> 00:50:34,279
Speaker 2: load of money to get that sound these days. But no,

960
00:50:34,360 --> 00:50:37,359
Speaker 2: this was actually just done an abasement twenty grand this

961
00:50:37,440 --> 00:50:43,359
Speaker 2: record car Wow, which is nothing you're ass that, No,

962
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,200
Speaker 2: they come in less than that. But for a major

963
00:50:47,280 --> 00:50:52,200
Speaker 2: label record back in the day, I mean Santana Supernatural

964
00:50:52,280 --> 00:50:54,279
Speaker 2: cost into the millions.

965
00:50:54,600 --> 00:50:56,520
Speaker 1: Oh sure, yeah. I think.

966
00:50:58,040 --> 00:51:00,680
Speaker 2: That was the record where Clive Davis was like flying

967
00:51:00,719 --> 00:51:03,279
Speaker 2: in people to work on, like engineers to work on,

968
00:51:03,320 --> 00:51:05,319
Speaker 2: like twenty four hour shifts, so that no one would

969
00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:08,960
Speaker 2: ever not be working on it. None of the songs

970
00:51:09,080 --> 00:51:12,400
Speaker 2: used more than eleven tracks, which is so interesting because

971
00:51:12,440 --> 00:51:14,799
Speaker 2: that meant, you know, if you think of in terms

972
00:51:14,840 --> 00:51:17,719
Speaker 2: of studio technology, the way things have progressed in this

973
00:51:17,880 --> 00:51:20,560
Speaker 2: the last century of recorded music, from four track to

974
00:51:21,280 --> 00:51:24,120
Speaker 2: eight track to sixteen track to twenty four track. None

975
00:51:24,120 --> 00:51:27,040
Speaker 2: of the songs on this record used more than eleven tracks.

976
00:51:28,280 --> 00:51:32,520
Speaker 2: Accounts differ whether they used three or four drum mics

977
00:51:33,880 --> 00:51:37,520
Speaker 2: plus one mic in the room and then they close

978
00:51:37,600 --> 00:51:40,839
Speaker 2: micd all the amps obviously, but you know, to get

979
00:51:40,920 --> 00:51:45,080
Speaker 2: that drum sound, Raphael had come in from like industrial

980
00:51:45,200 --> 00:51:47,800
Speaker 2: electronic music, so he put a lot of distortion pedals

981
00:51:47,800 --> 00:51:51,120
Speaker 2: on the drums. He's like rat guitar pedal, that's an

982
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,560
Speaker 2: actual model of guitar pedal the pro co rat to

983
00:51:54,640 --> 00:51:58,160
Speaker 2: try and blow stuff out, and they would even at

984
00:51:58,160 --> 00:52:02,120
Speaker 2: some point rearrange the drum set for better separation, which

985
00:52:02,160 --> 00:52:04,680
Speaker 2: is an interesting technique that goes back to Joy Division.

986
00:52:05,080 --> 00:52:11,000
Speaker 2: When Joy Division was recording Unknown Pleasures, Martin Hannett made Stephen.

987
00:52:12,680 --> 00:52:14,000
Speaker 1: Morris Steven Morris.

988
00:52:14,200 --> 00:52:18,040
Speaker 2: Yes, When Joy Division was recording Unknown Pleasures, Martin Hannett,

989
00:52:18,080 --> 00:52:21,600
Speaker 2: the producer, made Stephen Morris record the drum parts individually

990
00:52:22,600 --> 00:52:26,080
Speaker 2: to a click, so that meant not record by yourself,

991
00:52:26,080 --> 00:52:29,759
Speaker 2: that meant record literally each drum separately. So he talks

992
00:52:29,760 --> 00:52:33,439
Speaker 2: about having to keep time on his like thigh while

993
00:52:33,480 --> 00:52:37,880
Speaker 2: he played just the tom part, just the floor tom part,

994
00:52:37,960 --> 00:52:40,280
Speaker 2: just the snare part, and the way that by recording

995
00:52:40,280 --> 00:52:43,560
Speaker 2: them separately they could achieve maximum separation. But what Gordon

996
00:52:43,640 --> 00:52:46,840
Speaker 2: Raphael and Fab Moretti did was and he said, this

997
00:52:46,960 --> 00:52:48,880
Speaker 2: was Fab's idea. He said, maybe if I put the

998
00:52:48,920 --> 00:52:52,040
Speaker 2: high hat four feet away from the snare, mic, I

999
00:52:52,080 --> 00:52:54,799
Speaker 2: can play the high hat with another hand and still

1000
00:52:54,880 --> 00:52:57,880
Speaker 2: keep time, but there won't be any bleed. So he

1001
00:52:57,960 --> 00:53:00,479
Speaker 2: literally rearranged the drum set so that he could play

1002
00:53:00,480 --> 00:53:04,040
Speaker 2: the high hat with more separation. Uh, And that was

1003
00:53:04,080 --> 00:53:07,000
Speaker 2: how they got this sound of the whole kit being

1004
00:53:07,040 --> 00:53:10,360
Speaker 2: played live but still achieved that separation of the sounds.

1005
00:53:10,560 --> 00:53:12,879
Speaker 2: There's another great quote he talks about for making Room

1006
00:53:12,920 --> 00:53:15,520
Speaker 2: on Fire, and I didn't include this in here, but I.

1007
00:53:15,480 --> 00:53:15,880
Speaker 1: Just want to.

1008
00:53:16,040 --> 00:53:17,800
Speaker 2: I want to read it out now where he talks

1009
00:53:17,840 --> 00:53:22,839
Speaker 2: about there's a track on there that uh, he said

1010
00:53:22,840 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 2: the high hat sound wasn't quite right, and Julian Casablancas

1011
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:28,319
Speaker 2: was needling him about the high hat sound, so he

1012
00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,920
Speaker 2: was like, all right, uh, Fab go in there and

1013
00:53:32,000 --> 00:53:35,440
Speaker 2: hit the crash symbol once. So Fab goes in there

1014
00:53:35,480 --> 00:53:38,200
Speaker 2: and hits the crash symbol exactly once, and he and

1015
00:53:38,360 --> 00:53:41,200
Speaker 2: and so Gordon Raphael digitally you know, routes it so

1016
00:53:41,239 --> 00:53:44,400
Speaker 2: that every time the high hat hits in this song section,

1017
00:53:45,080 --> 00:53:48,760
Speaker 2: that single crash hit would also hit as an overdub.

1018
00:53:49,280 --> 00:53:51,560
Speaker 2: So it's like, it's so fascinating to me. I love again.

1019
00:53:51,560 --> 00:53:52,799
Speaker 2: And this goes back to this stuff I was talking

1020
00:53:52,800 --> 00:53:54,600
Speaker 2: about with Wolfpeck and the stuff I was talking about

1021
00:53:54,600 --> 00:53:56,640
Speaker 2: with Dap Tone, where it's just like this stuff that

1022
00:53:56,680 --> 00:53:58,720
Speaker 2: you hear that you initially are like, well that sounds

1023
00:53:58,760 --> 00:54:01,480
Speaker 2: like garbage. There's so much thought that goes into it.

1024
00:54:02,040 --> 00:54:02,560
Speaker 2: I love it.

1025
00:54:03,400 --> 00:54:08,040
Speaker 1: Both guitarists played through two twelve inch speaker Fender hot

1026
00:54:08,120 --> 00:54:12,319
Speaker 1: Rod Devill's, which became the absolute bog standard guitar amp

1027
00:54:12,360 --> 00:54:15,360
Speaker 1: you saw everywhere in Brooklyn for the next twenty years.

1028
00:54:15,960 --> 00:54:19,440
Speaker 1: They played through Jekyl and Hyde overdrives, the pro Coo

1029
00:54:19,560 --> 00:54:23,680
Speaker 1: rat distortion pedal, the MSR microamp. Albert Hammond Junior played

1030
00:54:23,680 --> 00:54:26,600
Speaker 1: a Fender Strat. Nick Valenci played an Epiphone Rivera. But

1031
00:54:26,719 --> 00:54:29,320
Speaker 1: other than that, their guitar setups were pretty similar. I

1032
00:54:29,600 --> 00:54:33,800
Speaker 1: love the guitar sound on this record. They talk about

1033
00:54:34,000 --> 00:54:37,240
Speaker 1: how to build these parts. Neither of them would play

1034
00:54:37,920 --> 00:54:39,480
Speaker 1: complete chords. You know.

1035
00:54:39,560 --> 00:54:42,400
Speaker 2: They talk a lot about how they were influenced by television,

1036
00:54:42,560 --> 00:54:45,960
Speaker 2: which whenever you hear bands talk about like interlocking guitar parts,

1037
00:54:46,000 --> 00:54:49,320
Speaker 2: they're usually talking about like the first television record, and

1038
00:54:49,440 --> 00:54:51,560
Speaker 2: you can see it in live videos. They're both like

1039
00:54:51,640 --> 00:54:53,680
Speaker 2: when they're playing last Night, which is a song that

1040
00:54:53,760 --> 00:54:57,960
Speaker 2: ostensibly has kind of like the same guitar rhythm through

1041
00:54:58,000 --> 00:55:00,239
Speaker 2: a lot of it, they're playing different voicing of the

1042
00:55:00,280 --> 00:55:02,680
Speaker 2: same chord, or they're playing one person will play like

1043
00:55:02,760 --> 00:55:05,560
Speaker 2: a partial voicing on the lower strings and the other

1044
00:55:05,640 --> 00:55:09,000
Speaker 2: person will play a different voicing on the higher strings.

1045
00:55:09,920 --> 00:55:12,160
Speaker 2: And what that does is kind of creates the effect

1046
00:55:12,400 --> 00:55:16,120
Speaker 2: of like a pianist playing where one guitarist is playing

1047
00:55:16,239 --> 00:55:17,839
Speaker 2: like the left hand of the piano and the other

1048
00:55:17,880 --> 00:55:20,400
Speaker 2: guitarist is playing like the right hand voicing of the piano.

1049
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:24,520
Speaker 2: And anchoring all of this is Nikolai Freischer playing bass.

1050
00:55:25,320 --> 00:55:28,120
Speaker 2: Although I think in this in the Last Night No

1051
00:55:28,280 --> 00:55:30,799
Speaker 2: in the Sunday video, I think he's playing a Rickenbacker bass,

1052
00:55:30,880 --> 00:55:33,600
Speaker 2: but he's playing a Fender Jazz for this recording through

1053
00:55:33,680 --> 00:55:38,520
Speaker 2: the iconic setup of an Ampeg SVT head and an

1054
00:55:38,560 --> 00:55:41,920
Speaker 2: Ampeg eight x ten cab. While we're talking about the

1055
00:55:42,400 --> 00:55:44,560
Speaker 2: bass on this record, it's fun to note that Julian

1056
00:55:44,600 --> 00:55:47,640
Speaker 2: Casablancas would later said, there are some basslines on our

1057
00:55:47,680 --> 00:55:50,200
Speaker 2: first album that Will were one hundred percent ripped off

1058
00:55:50,239 --> 00:55:50,879
Speaker 2: from the Cure.

1059
00:55:51,640 --> 00:55:53,719
Speaker 1: We were worried about putting out the album because we

1060
00:55:53,800 --> 00:55:57,399
Speaker 1: thought we'd get busted. Which I don't think you can

1061
00:55:58,120 --> 00:56:00,680
Speaker 1: copy a bassline, because the bassline too, I saw her

1062
00:56:00,760 --> 00:56:04,160
Speaker 1: standing there. The Beatles song is a direct rip of

1063
00:56:04,239 --> 00:56:07,799
Speaker 1: Chuck Berry's I'm talking about You. It's the same bass bar.

1064
00:56:08,360 --> 00:56:12,000
Speaker 2: Well, it's funny you say that because I just did

1065
00:56:12,080 --> 00:56:13,960
Speaker 2: some googling. Well, I saw you put that note in,

1066
00:56:14,160 --> 00:56:18,600
Speaker 2: and I was reading from Bass Musician magazine about the

1067
00:56:18,719 --> 00:56:23,000
Speaker 2: Blurred Lines copyright case and about how they brought up

1068
00:56:23,040 --> 00:56:26,480
Speaker 2: the baselines in those two songs to try and prove

1069
00:56:26,560 --> 00:56:29,560
Speaker 2: copyright infringement and arguing about how the feel of the

1070
00:56:29,600 --> 00:56:34,280
Speaker 2: baselines and the rhythmic anticipation that the way the baselines

1071
00:56:34,280 --> 00:56:39,200
Speaker 2: were structured were enough to constitute copyright infringement, and one

1072
00:56:39,239 --> 00:56:42,600
Speaker 2: of the lawyers pointed out, no, they're both just kind

1073
00:56:42,640 --> 00:56:48,200
Speaker 2: of doing the the Curtis Mayfield Superfly. They're both just

1074
00:56:48,280 --> 00:56:54,680
Speaker 2: doing this Superfly basedline. Oh yeah, boom boom boom, boom boom.

1075
00:56:54,960 --> 00:56:58,799
Speaker 2: So that you can copyright baselines in certain instances when

1076
00:56:58,840 --> 00:57:01,960
Speaker 2: they constitute feature of the song, like you could probably

1077
00:57:02,040 --> 00:57:05,640
Speaker 2: copyright the come Together bassline because it's such an iconic hook.

1078
00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:10,719
Speaker 2: You could possibly copyright. Well, no, I don't think you could.

1079
00:57:10,800 --> 00:57:12,160
Speaker 2: And this is where it gets so blurry, And this

1080
00:57:12,200 --> 00:57:15,200
Speaker 2: is where it gets so interesting about this horrifying future

1081
00:57:15,239 --> 00:57:16,920
Speaker 2: that we live in where you can litigate this kind

1082
00:57:16,920 --> 00:57:19,800
Speaker 2: of stuff, because like, let's talk about a bassline like

1083
00:57:20,600 --> 00:57:29,520
Speaker 2: cheks good Times, you know, boom boom boom, that bassline

1084
00:57:30,000 --> 00:57:33,640
Speaker 2: is also another one bites the dust right boom bomb bomb.

1085
00:57:33,880 --> 00:57:36,680
Speaker 2: That bassline is also in a Lizo song, but all

1086
00:57:36,720 --> 00:57:39,600
Speaker 2: it is is those three quarter notes. And then Wolfpack

1087
00:57:39,640 --> 00:57:41,840
Speaker 2: wrote their own song that's a response to it called

1088
00:57:41,960 --> 00:57:45,960
Speaker 2: three on E, which is literally just bump, bump, bump,

1089
00:57:46,360 --> 00:57:48,640
Speaker 2: and then you do a variation on that. So there's

1090
00:57:48,680 --> 00:57:51,479
Speaker 2: all these instances of how you can take like something

1091
00:57:51,520 --> 00:57:55,640
Speaker 2: that is a recognized piece of musical common language and

1092
00:57:55,720 --> 00:57:57,200
Speaker 2: put a twist on it, but you might not be

1093
00:57:57,240 --> 00:58:00,840
Speaker 2: able to copyright it exactly. Something like Day's long View

1094
00:58:00,920 --> 00:58:03,640
Speaker 2: is really interesting because that's such an iconic bass hook,

1095
00:58:03,680 --> 00:58:09,280
Speaker 2: but that's such a common way of navigating those chord

1096
00:58:09,360 --> 00:58:11,360
Speaker 2: shapes that if you've got a really good lawyer who

1097
00:58:11,440 --> 00:58:13,400
Speaker 2: is maybe also a bassist, he could just say there's

1098
00:58:13,440 --> 00:58:15,560
Speaker 2: no way you can copyright that as a baseline, because

1099
00:58:15,600 --> 00:58:16,880
Speaker 2: it's just outlining.

1100
00:58:16,440 --> 00:58:17,560
Speaker 1: A chord a specific way.

1101
00:58:18,320 --> 00:58:20,040
Speaker 2: One of the things I was reading about is really

1102
00:58:20,120 --> 00:58:24,240
Speaker 2: interesting with this the Blurred Lines case is that the

1103
00:58:24,440 --> 00:58:28,919
Speaker 2: lawyer in that case, uh is this guy Howard King,

1104
00:58:29,560 --> 00:58:35,160
Speaker 2: and he actually represented zz Top when John Lee Hooker

1105
00:58:35,400 --> 00:58:40,040
Speaker 2: sued them over the song Lagrange, which is the John

1106
00:58:40,120 --> 00:58:47,840
Speaker 2: Lee Hooker pattern and in that case, zz Top won

1107
00:58:48,000 --> 00:58:50,320
Speaker 2: that case by successfully saying, oh, this is like a

1108
00:58:50,400 --> 00:58:53,720
Speaker 2: blues rhythmic idiom, Like, you can't copyright that rhythmic feel.

1109
00:58:54,400 --> 00:58:58,880
Speaker 2: Decades later, this guy is now representing, Uh, he's defending

1110
00:58:59,040 --> 00:59:02,120
Speaker 2: Robin Thicke, And for so I know, music copyright is

1111
00:59:02,200 --> 00:59:03,320
Speaker 2: so fascinating to me.

1112
00:59:03,880 --> 00:59:07,280
Speaker 1: Wasn't that that blurred lines lawsuit? Wasn't the argument from

1113
00:59:07,360 --> 00:59:11,760
Speaker 1: the the Marvin Gay side basically, you you stole the

1114
00:59:12,160 --> 00:59:14,360
Speaker 1: groove and the spirit of the song, you stole the

1115
00:59:15,800 --> 00:59:17,320
Speaker 1: vie of the song. Yeah.

1116
00:59:17,680 --> 00:59:20,720
Speaker 2: So, and that's why thankfully they lost, because if you

1117
00:59:20,800 --> 00:59:27,880
Speaker 2: start copyrighting vibes like you're just everybody's you know. But yeah,

1118
00:59:27,920 --> 00:59:30,360
Speaker 2: it's fascinating and it all comes down to ultimately, anybody

1119
00:59:30,400 --> 00:59:32,000
Speaker 2: who's trying to comment on this from any kind of

1120
00:59:32,040 --> 00:59:34,880
Speaker 2: expert position, you know what it comes down to the judge.

1121
00:59:35,240 --> 00:59:38,080
Speaker 1: It was like what most recently won? Yeah, the most

1122
00:59:38,080 --> 00:59:42,439
Speaker 1: recently decided? Where did Vanilla Iceland on the ice ice

1123
00:59:42,520 --> 00:59:47,960
Speaker 1: baby versus under pressure? That's a great question. Uh, it

1124
00:59:48,080 --> 00:59:49,880
Speaker 1: was settled out of court. Ah.

1125
00:59:50,560 --> 00:59:52,560
Speaker 2: And then and then after the fact that Bowie and

1126
00:59:52,640 --> 00:59:54,320
Speaker 2: Queen were given credit for the sample.

1127
00:59:55,240 --> 01:00:01,400
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, he wised up. He Yeah, wasn't he the

1128
01:00:01,440 --> 01:00:05,680
Speaker 1: one that was dangled out of a balcony by his ankles? Yeah,

1129
01:00:05,840 --> 01:00:07,960
Speaker 1: by Shug, but that was over something else.

1130
01:00:08,440 --> 01:00:10,320
Speaker 2: But he's the one who he's He became like the

1131
01:00:10,680 --> 01:00:12,560
Speaker 2: you know, the big public face of it because he

1132
01:00:12,600 --> 01:00:14,560
Speaker 2: gave that idiotic interview.

1133
01:00:14,240 --> 01:00:17,280
Speaker 1: Where he was like, he was like different. Yeah, he

1134
01:00:17,400 --> 01:00:19,560
Speaker 1: was like, there's goes ding ding ding ing ding ding

1135
01:00:19,960 --> 01:00:22,760
Speaker 1: and ils goes ding ding ding ding ding ding digga

1136
01:00:22,840 --> 01:00:25,560
Speaker 1: ding ding ding diga ding ding. It's different.

1137
01:00:25,680 --> 01:00:28,040
Speaker 2: It's different, right, yeah, And it was like, we're gonna

1138
01:00:28,080 --> 01:00:31,000
Speaker 2: laugh you out of the music industry. But speaking of

1139
01:00:31,160 --> 01:00:32,880
Speaker 2: people that the Strokes ripped off.

1140
01:00:33,080 --> 01:00:37,680
Speaker 1: Yes, the bands knew that last Night sounds like Tom

1141
01:00:37,760 --> 01:00:41,400
Speaker 1: Petty's American Girl, Julian Casablanca said in a two thousand

1142
01:00:41,440 --> 01:00:43,800
Speaker 1: and three Spin interview. People would say, you know that

1143
01:00:43,880 --> 01:00:46,560
Speaker 1: song American Girl by Tom Petty, don't you think last

1144
01:00:46,640 --> 01:00:49,200
Speaker 1: night sounds a little like that? And I'd be like, yeah,

1145
01:00:49,280 --> 01:00:52,800
Speaker 1: we ripped it off. Where you been? And in the

1146
01:00:52,840 --> 01:00:55,560
Speaker 1: same interview, he copped to stealing his phrasing in the

1147
01:00:55,800 --> 01:00:58,680
Speaker 1: Room on Fire single twelve to fifty one from Kim

1148
01:00:58,760 --> 01:01:01,080
Speaker 1: Gordon singing in the song youth song Bull in the

1149
01:01:01,160 --> 01:01:37,320
Speaker 1: heather this He's honest. Yeah, and Tom Petty He's sort

1150
01:01:37,320 --> 01:01:41,640
Speaker 1: of a frequent source of theft for musicians. In addition

1151
01:01:41,800 --> 01:01:45,120
Speaker 1: to the strokes with American Girl, there's the Red Hot

1152
01:01:45,200 --> 01:01:50,400
Speaker 1: Chili Peppers stealing ganking as you wrote, Last Chance with

1153
01:01:50,520 --> 01:01:53,240
Speaker 1: Mary Jane, the guitar part which they then borrowed for

1154
01:01:53,320 --> 01:01:54,240
Speaker 1: Danny California.

1155
01:01:54,680 --> 01:01:59,000
Speaker 2: Egregious, the worst one, not just because I hate that band,

1156
01:01:59,080 --> 01:02:01,080
Speaker 2: but holy do they sound the same.

1157
01:02:01,560 --> 01:02:04,160
Speaker 1: You know what I'm talking about? Right? I actually don't

1158
01:02:04,160 --> 01:02:06,680
Speaker 1: know if I do. Oh my god, I'm a huge

1159
01:02:06,800 --> 01:02:14,320
Speaker 1: Tom Petty guy. Oh few, despite his pension for Rickenbacker's. Okay, well,

1160
01:02:14,400 --> 01:02:16,800
Speaker 1: all right, go ahead, do read the last part. And then,

1161
01:02:16,880 --> 01:02:19,360
Speaker 1: of course, the biggest one that I remember most recently

1162
01:02:19,680 --> 01:02:23,560
Speaker 1: is the suspicious similarity between Won't back Down and Sam

1163
01:02:23,680 --> 01:02:24,520
Speaker 1: Smith Stay.

1164
01:02:24,360 --> 01:02:30,560
Speaker 2: With Me, Stay with Me, and uh won't back Down.

1165
01:02:31,160 --> 01:02:47,720
Speaker 2: So this is Last Dance with Mary Jane and this

1166
01:02:47,840 --> 01:03:02,720
Speaker 2: is Danny California. They just made it dumber, They just

1167
01:03:03,080 --> 01:03:04,840
Speaker 2: jack They made it browier.

1168
01:03:05,480 --> 01:03:12,439
Speaker 1: We talked about sublimes, what I got versus Lady Madonna. Yeah,

1169
01:03:17,360 --> 01:03:18,640
Speaker 1: admittedly this must.

1170
01:03:18,440 --> 01:03:20,640
Speaker 2: Have been so much more complicated when they didn't have

1171
01:03:20,800 --> 01:03:24,040
Speaker 2: like all of recorded music at their fingertips. But some

1172
01:03:24,200 --> 01:03:26,480
Speaker 2: of that stuff is like because the whole thing in

1173
01:03:26,600 --> 01:03:28,520
Speaker 2: copyright cord is that you have to prove that you've

1174
01:03:28,560 --> 01:03:31,080
Speaker 2: never heard the song, right, And I'm like, there's no

1175
01:03:31,160 --> 01:03:34,240
Speaker 2: way in God's green earth that the four straight white

1176
01:03:34,320 --> 01:03:37,280
Speaker 2: men in Red Hot Chili Peppers had never heard Last

1177
01:03:37,360 --> 01:03:39,880
Speaker 2: Dance with Mary Jane when they wrote that, Like, I'm sorry,

1178
01:03:40,040 --> 01:03:44,040
Speaker 2: you guys heard that song, Sam Smith. I buy a

1179
01:03:44,080 --> 01:03:47,640
Speaker 2: little bit more because they're British and there's more plausible

1180
01:03:47,680 --> 01:03:48,560
Speaker 2: deniability there.

1181
01:03:48,680 --> 01:03:52,560
Speaker 1: But like, anyway, though, Petty was cool with it. Yeah,

1182
01:03:52,600 --> 01:03:54,760
Speaker 1: he gave a quote in Rolling Stone in two thousand

1183
01:03:54,800 --> 01:03:57,840
Speaker 1: and six saying the Strokes took American Girl for last night.

1184
01:03:58,000 --> 01:03:59,800
Speaker 1: There was an interview that took place with them where

1185
01:03:59,800 --> 01:04:02,720
Speaker 1: they actually admitted it. That made me laugh out loud.

1186
01:04:03,360 --> 01:04:06,520
Speaker 1: It's like, Okay, good for you, it doesn't bother me,

1187
01:04:06,880 --> 01:04:12,560
Speaker 1: bless them. Yeah, be chill about it. We're gonna take

1188
01:04:12,560 --> 01:04:14,800
Speaker 1: a quick break, but we'll be right back with more.

1189
01:04:14,920 --> 01:04:28,080
Speaker 1: Too much information in just a moment. Wow. Another great

1190
01:04:28,120 --> 01:04:29,360
Speaker 1: thing that I love about is this.

1191
01:04:29,520 --> 01:04:32,439
Speaker 2: It is the vocal sounds, which are just a huge

1192
01:04:32,520 --> 01:04:35,880
Speaker 2: touchstone for kind of a lot of Indie going forward,

1193
01:04:36,200 --> 01:04:40,400
Speaker 2: Indian vocal sounds going forward, just the low fineness of

1194
01:04:40,480 --> 01:04:43,120
Speaker 2: it and grit. And they got that either just by

1195
01:04:43,200 --> 01:04:47,240
Speaker 2: pushing a mic an Audio Technical four three three a

1196
01:04:48,120 --> 01:04:51,959
Speaker 2: very hard through an Avalon seven three seven tube pre amp,

1197
01:04:52,680 --> 01:04:56,480
Speaker 2: or by using a twelve hundred dollars Noyman TLM one

1198
01:04:56,560 --> 01:05:01,960
Speaker 2: oh three on a PV keyboard amp, tiny PV keyboard

1199
01:05:02,040 --> 01:05:04,920
Speaker 2: amp with an eight inch speaker that Julian Casablancas used

1200
01:05:04,960 --> 01:05:06,960
Speaker 2: for all of his home demos. He brought it into

1201
01:05:06,960 --> 01:05:10,439
Speaker 2: the studio and was like, yeah, Mike, this and that's

1202
01:05:10,480 --> 01:05:12,320
Speaker 2: where you get the really out of control like.

1203
01:05:14,320 --> 01:05:17,680
Speaker 1: Kind of stuff. Love it, great vocal sounds. Rafael.

1204
01:05:17,720 --> 01:05:20,080
Speaker 2: One of my other favorite quotes about the recording process

1205
01:05:20,160 --> 01:05:22,360
Speaker 2: of this album is Gordon Rafael talking to The Guardian.

1206
01:05:22,440 --> 01:05:25,440
Speaker 2: He says, Julian had so many ideas and a freakishly

1207
01:05:25,560 --> 01:05:29,240
Speaker 2: controlled concept of rhythm and timing. Even when he'd drunk

1208
01:05:29,360 --> 01:05:32,600
Speaker 2: thirteen beers and was asleep on the couch, one eye

1209
01:05:32,600 --> 01:05:35,200
Speaker 2: would open and he'd go the high hats not right.

1210
01:05:37,760 --> 01:05:39,919
Speaker 2: One thing that complicated the sessions was that the ink

1211
01:05:40,000 --> 01:05:44,120
Speaker 2: on the band's deal with RCA wasn't dry yet they

1212
01:05:44,160 --> 01:05:47,360
Speaker 2: didn't sign fully until a week and a half into

1213
01:05:47,400 --> 01:05:49,760
Speaker 2: their time of Rafael, which meant that they'd already completed

1214
01:05:49,880 --> 01:05:52,920
Speaker 2: stuff by the time that they had officially signed, and

1215
01:05:53,000 --> 01:05:55,880
Speaker 2: the label was not thrilled with what they had. Rafael

1216
01:05:55,960 --> 01:05:59,920
Speaker 2: told Sound on Sound. Having RCA America, a major label

1217
01:06:00,200 --> 01:06:02,440
Speaker 2: coming to see the Strokes recording in a basement with

1218
01:06:02,560 --> 01:06:06,480
Speaker 2: Gordon Raphael, the untested producer, was a very eye opening

1219
01:06:06,560 --> 01:06:08,720
Speaker 2: and interesting process from the get go.

1220
01:06:09,040 --> 01:06:11,560
Speaker 1: They wanted it out of my hands. They did not

1221
01:06:11,800 --> 01:06:14,040
Speaker 1: like the sound of the EP, the modern age. They

1222
01:06:14,080 --> 01:06:16,280
Speaker 1: did not think the album was going to be professional enough.

1223
01:06:16,560 --> 01:06:17,400
Speaker 1: They were very worried.

1224
01:06:17,960 --> 01:06:19,840
Speaker 2: They actually got to hear the new recordings after they

1225
01:06:20,040 --> 01:06:22,360
Speaker 2: signed the piece of paper, and what Julian did was

1226
01:06:22,400 --> 01:06:24,480
Speaker 2: have the A and R guy come down and played

1227
01:06:24,560 --> 01:06:27,200
Speaker 2: him the material on a boombox in the waiting room.

1228
01:06:27,880 --> 01:06:29,720
Speaker 2: Then I watched the A and R guy smile and

1229
01:06:29,800 --> 01:06:32,080
Speaker 2: put his arm around the band members, and he shook

1230
01:06:32,120 --> 01:06:34,480
Speaker 2: my hand and said good job. But I felt the

1231
01:06:34,560 --> 01:06:37,240
Speaker 2: vibe of, oh, what are we gonna do now? How

1232
01:06:37,280 --> 01:06:39,040
Speaker 2: are we going to get this thing turned around right?

1233
01:06:39,600 --> 01:06:41,240
Speaker 2: I could feel that from the moment that we met,

1234
01:06:41,400 --> 01:06:43,880
Speaker 2: and he elaborated on that vibe in an interview with Pitchfork,

1235
01:06:44,200 --> 01:06:51,360
Speaker 2: explaining that at one point RCA's Steve Rabvowski, Sorry Steve,

1236
01:06:52,360 --> 01:06:53,840
Speaker 2: he heard what the band of bit up to, and

1237
01:06:53,920 --> 01:06:57,720
Speaker 2: then Strokes manager Ryan Gentils called Gordon Rafael and said

1238
01:06:57,760 --> 01:07:02,800
Speaker 2: that this guy, Steve rab Blowski told Ryan Gentels, here's

1239
01:07:02,840 --> 01:07:06,200
Speaker 2: a list of producers that if you switch from working

1240
01:07:06,240 --> 01:07:10,360
Speaker 2: with Gordon Raphael, RCA will cover the cost of the

1241
01:07:10,720 --> 01:07:13,240
Speaker 2: went over budget. In effect, they would pay the band

1242
01:07:13,360 --> 01:07:17,720
Speaker 2: to start working with different producers. And he he was

1243
01:07:17,800 --> 01:07:19,720
Speaker 2: mixing this as he kind of went, but then when

1244
01:07:19,760 --> 01:07:23,800
Speaker 2: they got to the mastering stage, they had one more hurdle. Mastering,

1245
01:07:24,000 --> 01:07:27,440
Speaker 2: for the layman is the final step of the recording process.

1246
01:07:27,480 --> 01:07:29,560
Speaker 2: It's where you get the mixed tracks and you basically

1247
01:07:30,080 --> 01:07:32,240
Speaker 2: finalize everything for an album and you make sure everything

1248
01:07:32,320 --> 01:07:35,440
Speaker 2: sounds consistent, everything's eq to a certain way to sound

1249
01:07:35,600 --> 01:07:39,040
Speaker 2: like it's all of a piece. It is the final

1250
01:07:39,120 --> 01:07:44,080
Speaker 2: hurdle to clear in any recording process. And Gordon Raphael

1251
01:07:44,160 --> 01:07:46,320
Speaker 2: told Pitchfork, when we finished is this it, we had

1252
01:07:46,320 --> 01:07:49,560
Speaker 2: to go to Sterling Mastering Labs to master hard to

1253
01:07:49,600 --> 01:07:51,840
Speaker 2: explain the song and the B side for the first

1254
01:07:51,920 --> 01:07:55,440
Speaker 2: single release, I pushed play, and to my surprise, my

1255
01:07:55,560 --> 01:07:59,960
Speaker 2: little eight track basement computer recording sounded stunning. At that moment,

1256
01:08:00,600 --> 01:08:04,960
Speaker 2: RCA's Steve Roblovowski stood up with the head mastering engineer

1257
01:08:05,000 --> 01:08:07,400
Speaker 2: from Stirling and said, guys, this is some of the

1258
01:08:07,480 --> 01:08:11,120
Speaker 2: most unprofessional sounding music I have ever heard. This is

1259
01:08:11,240 --> 01:08:13,800
Speaker 2: not going to sell, and you are really doing damage

1260
01:08:13,840 --> 01:08:16,719
Speaker 2: to your career by trying to release music that sounds

1261
01:08:16,800 --> 01:08:20,040
Speaker 2: this way. My heart just sank because I just celebrated

1262
01:08:20,040 --> 01:08:22,040
Speaker 2: the fact that it sounded exactly the way I wanted to.

1263
01:08:22,560 --> 01:08:25,679
Speaker 2: I wanted to cry. Then the mastering guy, Greg Cowby

1264
01:08:26,120 --> 01:08:28,720
Speaker 2: stood up and said, that's right. They're not going to

1265
01:08:28,800 --> 01:08:31,840
Speaker 2: understand your music in Kansas anyway. Why make it more

1266
01:08:31,840 --> 01:08:34,879
Speaker 2: difficult by having that distortion on the voice? Be sensible.

1267
01:08:35,400 --> 01:08:38,400
Speaker 2: I picked up my computer, said I disagreed, and left

1268
01:08:38,439 --> 01:08:41,439
Speaker 2: the building. But there was one trick from the mastering

1269
01:08:41,520 --> 01:08:44,120
Speaker 2: process that did stick, and it's in fact the sound

1270
01:08:44,200 --> 01:08:47,880
Speaker 2: that opens the record. Raphael told Weiss we didn't use

1271
01:08:48,000 --> 01:08:50,519
Speaker 2: tape during the process of making the record, but the

1272
01:08:50,640 --> 01:08:53,000
Speaker 2: engineer at the mastering lab said, why don't we put

1273
01:08:53,040 --> 01:08:54,760
Speaker 2: it on tape and see if you like what it does.

1274
01:08:55,360 --> 01:08:58,360
Speaker 1: By the second or third song. Julian said, what's that sound?

1275
01:08:58,600 --> 01:08:59,280
Speaker 1: What are you doing?

1276
01:09:00,040 --> 01:09:03,840
Speaker 2: Engineer said, I'm rewinding the tape. Julian said, why don't

1277
01:09:03,840 --> 01:09:04,919
Speaker 2: you stick that on the first.

1278
01:09:04,760 --> 01:09:06,960
Speaker 1: Song of the album. That'd be a really interesting way

1279
01:09:07,000 --> 01:09:11,880
Speaker 1: to start the album. So that that opens is this?

1280
01:09:12,080 --> 01:09:15,479
Speaker 2: It is the sound of the master tape being rewound

1281
01:09:15,600 --> 01:09:18,400
Speaker 2: before a take that they did not use while they

1282
01:09:18,439 --> 01:09:20,960
Speaker 2: were recording. They only came in at the mastering step.

1283
01:09:21,280 --> 01:09:23,160
Speaker 1: And now we've got to talk about the cover art

1284
01:09:23,240 --> 01:09:25,360
Speaker 1: of this is It. There are two main covers for it.

1285
01:09:25,800 --> 01:09:28,240
Speaker 1: The one that was released everywhere but the United States

1286
01:09:28,360 --> 01:09:31,760
Speaker 1: was a photograph by Colin Lane of his then girlfriend's

1287
01:09:31,840 --> 01:09:35,160
Speaker 1: leather gloved hand resting on her as ju Heigel wrote

1288
01:09:35,280 --> 01:09:38,560
Speaker 1: dari Air and Hip. Colin Lane told The Guardian that

1289
01:09:38,640 --> 01:09:40,800
Speaker 1: it was late nineteen ninety nine or two thousand and

1290
01:09:40,880 --> 01:09:43,680
Speaker 1: he had a Polaroid big shot with ten photos in

1291
01:09:43,720 --> 01:09:46,120
Speaker 1: it that he wanted to use. His girlfriend was getting

1292
01:09:46,120 --> 01:09:48,000
Speaker 1: out of the shower and they had a Chanel glove

1293
01:09:48,120 --> 01:09:50,880
Speaker 1: left over from a previous shoot and the result was

1294
01:09:51,120 --> 01:09:54,519
Speaker 1: that very arresting black and white photo. Lane said he

1295
01:09:54,560 --> 01:09:56,640
Speaker 1: met the Strokes in January two thousand and one on

1296
01:09:56,680 --> 01:09:59,360
Speaker 1: assignment from Face magazine and hit it off with them

1297
01:09:59,360 --> 01:10:01,679
Speaker 1: after photograph them on the roof of the Lincoln Building

1298
01:10:01,760 --> 01:10:04,080
Speaker 1: in Midtown, New York. And he's he explained to The

1299
01:10:04,120 --> 01:10:06,559
Speaker 1: Guardian a few weeks after they signed with RCA. They

1300
01:10:06,600 --> 01:10:08,639
Speaker 1: invited me to hang out and shoot a few shots

1301
01:10:08,680 --> 01:10:11,440
Speaker 1: around the city. So we piled into an old Winnebago

1302
01:10:11,560 --> 01:10:13,920
Speaker 1: and their art director called to hassle them about choosing

1303
01:10:13,920 --> 01:10:16,560
Speaker 1: an album cover. They were flying out to Australia the

1304
01:10:16,600 --> 01:10:19,840
Speaker 1: following day and the deadline was approaching. Luckily, I'd brought

1305
01:10:19,880 --> 01:10:21,920
Speaker 1: my portfolio with me and they asked if they could

1306
01:10:21,920 --> 01:10:25,360
Speaker 1: click through. When they asked, I love this. When they

1307
01:10:25,360 --> 01:10:27,679
Speaker 1: asked if they could use the ass shot, I couldn't

1308
01:10:27,720 --> 01:10:31,400
Speaker 1: believe it. It's an all time quote right there. However,

1309
01:10:31,479 --> 01:10:33,280
Speaker 1: for the American version of This Is It that was

1310
01:10:33,320 --> 01:10:35,800
Speaker 1: released in October two thousand and one, the cover art

1311
01:10:35,840 --> 01:10:38,280
Speaker 1: of This Is It was changed to a different photograph.

1312
01:10:38,360 --> 01:10:40,200
Speaker 1: This is the one I know, and chances are, if

1313
01:10:40,240 --> 01:10:41,880
Speaker 1: you're listening to this, the one you probably know too.

1314
01:10:42,280 --> 01:10:45,400
Speaker 1: It's a photograph of sub atomic particles tracking in a

1315
01:10:45,479 --> 01:10:49,679
Speaker 1: bubble chamber. And this I didn't realize this the same

1316
01:10:49,760 --> 01:10:52,759
Speaker 1: image appears on the cover of The Scientists as Rebel

1317
01:10:53,120 --> 01:10:56,920
Speaker 1: by theoretical physicist Freeman Dyson, and a portion of this

1318
01:10:57,080 --> 01:11:00,920
Speaker 1: image also appeared on Prince's nineteen ninety app Graffiti Bridge.

1319
01:11:01,000 --> 01:11:04,559
Speaker 1: That's quite a history for that image. ARCAA product manager

1320
01:11:04,640 --> 01:11:07,800
Speaker 1: Dave Gottlieb commented the replacement was quote straight up a

1321
01:11:07,880 --> 01:11:11,920
Speaker 1: band decision, while manager Ryan Gentil said that Julian Casablancas

1322
01:11:11,920 --> 01:11:14,960
Speaker 1: had phoned him just before the Japanese and European versions

1323
01:11:15,000 --> 01:11:17,840
Speaker 1: were released and said, I found something even cooler than

1324
01:11:17,880 --> 01:11:22,120
Speaker 1: the ass picture. Meanwhile, the Strokes two thousand and three

1325
01:11:22,200 --> 01:11:25,600
Speaker 1: biography by Martin Roach mentions that the fear of objections

1326
01:11:25,680 --> 01:11:30,040
Speaker 1: from America's more conservative retail industry like you know your Walmarts,

1327
01:11:30,360 --> 01:11:34,240
Speaker 1: was a major factor in the artworks alteration, but photographer

1328
01:11:34,280 --> 01:11:36,880
Speaker 1: Colin Lane he backed the story of Julian changing his mind.

1329
01:11:37,200 --> 01:11:40,040
Speaker 1: He told GQ in twenty nineteen, Julian fell in love

1330
01:11:40,080 --> 01:11:43,080
Speaker 1: with this new image of the subotanic particles and liked

1331
01:11:43,080 --> 01:11:46,040
Speaker 1: it more than my ass shot. Luckily for me, though,

1332
01:11:46,240 --> 01:11:48,800
Speaker 1: my photograph was already in the printing presses, and I

1333
01:11:48,840 --> 01:11:51,360
Speaker 1: guess they'd already printed a ton of albums, so RCA

1334
01:11:51,600 --> 01:11:53,519
Speaker 1: told Julian they could have the other cover with the

1335
01:11:53,600 --> 01:11:55,960
Speaker 1: Adams for North America, but it was too late for

1336
01:11:56,000 --> 01:11:59,160
Speaker 1: the rest of the world. Yeah. I always assumed that

1337
01:11:59,240 --> 01:12:01,040
Speaker 1: that was a conscious I was like, Okay, America is

1338
01:12:01,080 --> 01:12:04,920
Speaker 1: not going to really want this sort of BDSM style

1339
01:12:05,120 --> 01:12:07,200
Speaker 1: album of cover, so this just covers up a little

1340
01:12:07,240 --> 01:12:09,000
Speaker 1: more abstract. I love both of them.

1341
01:12:09,120 --> 01:12:11,880
Speaker 2: I thought the first one was and I never was it.

1342
01:12:11,960 --> 01:12:14,800
Speaker 2: So I read somebody called it a tribute to spinal Tap,

1343
01:12:14,880 --> 01:12:18,439
Speaker 2: but I wasn't. Couldn't pin that down, but sniff the.

1344
01:12:18,439 --> 01:12:19,960
Speaker 1: Glove or the glove or whatever.

1345
01:12:20,080 --> 01:12:22,920
Speaker 2: Yeah, I also look like a helmet Newton. Yeah yeah,

1346
01:12:23,200 --> 01:12:28,799
Speaker 2: but I love the subatomic particle shot. The bigger problem

1347
01:12:29,160 --> 01:12:31,720
Speaker 2: for is this Its release was, as with a lot

1348
01:12:31,760 --> 01:12:36,160
Speaker 2: of things nine to eleven. The record had originally been

1349
01:12:36,200 --> 01:12:38,680
Speaker 2: released in July two thousand and one in Australia and

1350
01:12:38,800 --> 01:12:41,400
Speaker 2: August of two thousand and one in the UK, remember,

1351
01:12:42,120 --> 01:12:45,679
Speaker 2: not yet two years after the band played their first show,

1352
01:12:47,720 --> 01:12:50,439
Speaker 2: and while it was originally slated for September twenty fifth,

1353
01:12:50,520 --> 01:12:52,760
Speaker 2: two thousand and one in the States, the release was

1354
01:12:52,800 --> 01:12:55,639
Speaker 2: pushed back over the song New York City Cops, which

1355
01:12:55,760 --> 01:12:59,720
Speaker 2: memorably features the chorus New York City Cops, they Ain't

1356
01:12:59,760 --> 01:13:03,840
Speaker 2: too smart. Dave Gottlib, the former VP of marketing at RCA,

1357
01:13:04,120 --> 01:13:06,840
Speaker 2: told Lizzie Goodman, I remember an email coming in from

1358
01:13:06,920 --> 01:13:09,240
Speaker 2: somebody who worked with retail, and he had written this

1359
01:13:09,360 --> 01:13:11,640
Speaker 2: paragraph about how he had put the Strokes record on

1360
01:13:11,960 --> 01:13:13,560
Speaker 2: and it got to New York City Cops and it

1361
01:13:13,600 --> 01:13:15,479
Speaker 2: made him angry because he was looking out of his

1362
01:13:15,560 --> 01:13:18,160
Speaker 2: window and seeing the ashes of the Twin Towers and

1363
01:13:18,280 --> 01:13:20,439
Speaker 2: this song made him take the CD out and throw

1364
01:13:20,520 --> 01:13:23,120
Speaker 2: it away. So, out of a desire to not.

1365
01:13:23,160 --> 01:13:25,679
Speaker 1: Be insensitive, the band pulled the song from the CD

1366
01:13:25,880 --> 01:13:29,040
Speaker 1: release in the States, although the vinyl had been pressed

1367
01:13:29,120 --> 01:13:32,280
Speaker 1: and had actually come out on September eleventh with that

1368
01:13:32,400 --> 01:13:35,800
Speaker 1: song intact. This was on finyl. I feel like two

1369
01:13:35,800 --> 01:13:38,320
Speaker 1: thousand and one was like the era, way before it

1370
01:13:38,600 --> 01:13:41,120
Speaker 1: got cool again to have stuff out on vinyl. Yeah,

1371
01:13:41,120 --> 01:13:42,440
Speaker 1: I don't know the Strokes.

1372
01:13:42,120 --> 01:13:44,280
Speaker 2: Would I guess, yeah, exactly. I think it might have

1373
01:13:44,320 --> 01:13:47,960
Speaker 2: come down to them. Their personal reference is this. It

1374
01:13:48,080 --> 01:13:50,759
Speaker 2: was an immediate critical favorite. Joe Levy of Rolling Stone

1375
01:13:50,800 --> 01:13:53,600
Speaker 2: called it the stuff of which legends are made in

1376
01:13:53,840 --> 01:13:58,120
Speaker 2: early accurate review, and Nammy reviewer John Robinson called it

1377
01:13:58,280 --> 01:14:01,000
Speaker 2: one of the best debut LPs by guitar band during

1378
01:14:01,040 --> 01:14:04,880
Speaker 2: the last twenty years in a perfect ten review. It

1379
01:14:05,040 --> 01:14:06,760
Speaker 2: was named the best album of two thousand and one

1380
01:14:06,840 --> 01:14:12,719
Speaker 2: by Billboard, CMJ, Entertainment Weekly, NME, Playlauder, and Time, while Magnet,

1381
01:14:12,920 --> 01:14:16,080
Speaker 2: Q and The New Yorker notched it highly in other

1382
01:14:16,600 --> 01:14:19,880
Speaker 2: end of year best album lists Mojo, New York Times,

1383
01:14:20,000 --> 01:14:22,200
Speaker 2: rolling Stone, USA Today, the list goes on and on.

1384
01:14:22,640 --> 01:14:25,839
Speaker 2: It was number two behind Bob Dylan's Love and Theft

1385
01:14:26,120 --> 01:14:28,000
Speaker 2: at I Think the Passant Job.

1386
01:14:28,040 --> 01:14:29,600
Speaker 1: Review, which is the.

1387
01:14:31,400 --> 01:14:37,120
Speaker 2: Yearly Village Voice survey of critics music critics reviews, and

1388
01:14:37,200 --> 01:14:39,600
Speaker 2: it was named Best Album of the Year at the

1389
01:14:39,720 --> 01:14:43,679
Speaker 2: NME Awards and Best International Albums at the Meteor Music Awards.

1390
01:14:46,240 --> 01:14:49,400
Speaker 1: As you probably gathered, the press loved the Strokes and

1391
01:14:49,560 --> 01:14:51,840
Speaker 1: What's not the Love. They were young, they were good looking,

1392
01:14:52,000 --> 01:14:54,600
Speaker 1: and in a rock oriented music critic world sick of

1393
01:14:54,720 --> 01:14:58,040
Speaker 1: new metal and not yet adjusted to hip hop's commercial dominance,

1394
01:14:58,720 --> 01:15:02,400
Speaker 1: Strokes were seen as savior. Rolling Stone and Spin fawned

1395
01:15:02,439 --> 01:15:05,200
Speaker 1: all over them, as did the British press, and once

1396
01:15:05,240 --> 01:15:07,479
Speaker 1: the band's touring schedule caught up with the coverage, they

1397
01:15:07,600 --> 01:15:09,960
Speaker 1: really did set down the blueprint for the so called

1398
01:15:10,120 --> 01:15:13,200
Speaker 1: rock renaissance at the time, the Rising Tide of which

1399
01:15:13,280 --> 01:15:16,679
Speaker 1: lifted the White Stripes, Interpol and Kings of Leon, along

1400
01:15:16,720 --> 01:15:20,280
Speaker 1: with also rans like the Vines and the Hives. And

1401
01:15:20,600 --> 01:15:23,479
Speaker 1: I remember this reading the music press around this time

1402
01:15:23,520 --> 01:15:25,439
Speaker 1: as a you know, high school kid, wanted to know

1403
01:15:25,560 --> 01:15:29,040
Speaker 1: more about guitar bands. Around this era, every single band

1404
01:15:29,160 --> 01:15:33,160
Speaker 1: became the blank strokes. Kings of Leon were the Southern strokes.

1405
01:15:33,479 --> 01:15:36,760
Speaker 1: Vampire Weekend were the Ivy League strokes, The Killers were

1406
01:15:36,840 --> 01:15:37,759
Speaker 1: the Vegas strokes.

1407
01:15:38,560 --> 01:15:43,439
Speaker 2: Yeah, other who who else? Was another stroke? I guess

1408
01:15:43,479 --> 01:15:44,840
Speaker 2: that was kind of it. We kind of ran through

1409
01:15:44,840 --> 01:15:47,040
Speaker 2: all of them. Inner Ball were just like the Goth

1410
01:15:47,120 --> 01:15:49,360
Speaker 2: stroke I had to pol were the Goth strokes.

1411
01:15:49,439 --> 01:15:52,519
Speaker 1: Which I'm trying to figure out if white stripes stood

1412
01:15:52,560 --> 01:15:56,680
Speaker 1: on their own though, Yeah, yeah, well it's interesting. Were

1413
01:15:56,680 --> 01:16:02,120
Speaker 1: the ancestual strokes, the incense, the insists strokes? Oh that's

1414
01:16:02,240 --> 01:16:07,160
Speaker 1: terrible strokes. Drummer Fab already briefly dated Drew Barrymore, which

1415
01:16:07,280 --> 01:16:11,920
Speaker 1: is weird. She's an interesting getting history. Got the Tom

1416
01:16:12,000 --> 01:16:17,160
Speaker 1: Green from the Strokes justin long maybe yeah, oh yeah, oh,

1417
01:16:17,520 --> 01:16:19,719
Speaker 1: I think it is David Cross. I think David Cross.

1418
01:16:19,880 --> 01:16:22,120
Speaker 1: He was like, no, no, no, she didn't date him.

1419
01:16:22,160 --> 01:16:24,880
Speaker 1: He opened for them, And I think Irving plause at

1420
01:16:24,880 --> 01:16:26,519
Speaker 1: one point, and I think in me be in the bathroom,

1421
01:16:26,640 --> 01:16:29,639
Speaker 1: I think it's him who was like, yeah, I knew

1422
01:16:29,720 --> 01:16:31,720
Speaker 1: Fab was gonna get his heart broken by Drew and

1423
01:16:31,760 --> 01:16:33,840
Speaker 1: I just didn't say anything. But they dated for like

1424
01:16:33,920 --> 01:16:38,240
Speaker 1: five years. I didn't know that. Wow. Courtney Love also

1425
01:16:38,320 --> 01:16:40,400
Speaker 1: came into the band's orbit and wrote a song called

1426
01:16:40,680 --> 01:16:47,400
Speaker 1: Julian but I'm a bit older than you. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

1427
01:16:49,760 --> 01:16:51,519
Speaker 1: This is the point at which the behind the music

1428
01:16:51,640 --> 01:16:54,720
Speaker 1: narrator's voice would turn grave as he began describing the

1429
01:16:54,840 --> 01:16:57,840
Speaker 1: downward slope of the band's fame. All of their drinking

1430
01:16:57,880 --> 01:17:00,160
Speaker 1: would catch up with them on their European tour, and

1431
01:17:00,280 --> 01:17:03,679
Speaker 1: Albert Hammond Junior's drug use also started spiraling out of control.

1432
01:17:04,360 --> 01:17:07,840
Speaker 1: A lot of people blame Ryan Adams. He's basically the

1433
01:17:08,000 --> 01:17:10,080
Speaker 1: villain of me in the bathroom. Would you like to

1434
01:17:10,120 --> 01:17:13,240
Speaker 1: explain Ryan adams influence on the New York rock scene

1435
01:17:13,520 --> 01:17:14,120
Speaker 1: at this time?

1436
01:17:14,360 --> 01:17:18,320
Speaker 2: Oh boy, Well, Ryan Gentel's also managed Ryan Adams. But yeah,

1437
01:17:18,439 --> 01:17:19,840
Speaker 2: there's a lot of people who make a lot of

1438
01:17:20,200 --> 01:17:22,599
Speaker 2: They basically say that Ryan is just a terrible influence

1439
01:17:22,640 --> 01:17:26,519
Speaker 2: on anyone he came in contact with, you know, not

1440
01:17:26,760 --> 01:17:29,479
Speaker 2: just for drinking but also drugs.

1441
01:17:29,680 --> 01:17:30,920
Speaker 1: I mean, the guy was.

1442
01:17:32,200 --> 01:17:34,280
Speaker 2: Basically Some people have made the assertion that he got

1443
01:17:34,320 --> 01:17:38,160
Speaker 2: Albert Hammond Junior hooked on heroin, which is pretty heavy.

1444
01:17:39,439 --> 01:17:42,760
Speaker 1: But anyway, oh I neglected to mention that Julian Casablancas

1445
01:17:42,840 --> 01:17:45,960
Speaker 1: also punched an RCAA executive in the face because he

1446
01:17:46,000 --> 01:17:48,120
Speaker 1: didn't want to perform in front of a live audience.

1447
01:17:50,760 --> 01:17:56,120
Speaker 2: Who among us rock and roll what's most interesting to

1448
01:17:56,200 --> 01:17:59,000
Speaker 2: me in the review mirror about the Strokes and is this.

1449
01:17:59,200 --> 01:18:02,559
Speaker 2: It is the sense that the record didn't do that well,

1450
01:18:03,680 --> 01:18:05,880
Speaker 2: like given all of these people interviewed, given all the

1451
01:18:05,880 --> 01:18:08,719
Speaker 2: people who talk about it. In my personal life, David

1452
01:18:08,800 --> 01:18:11,639
Speaker 2: Long shout out college roommate, who are my best friends?

1453
01:18:11,720 --> 01:18:14,800
Speaker 2: This is one of his favorite records. It took five

1454
01:18:14,960 --> 01:18:18,840
Speaker 2: years for this to sell over six hundred thousand copies

1455
01:18:18,880 --> 01:18:21,280
Speaker 2: in the UK, which is not that much in a

1456
01:18:21,360 --> 01:18:25,559
Speaker 2: pre downloading, super pre digital world. It took that same

1457
01:18:25,560 --> 01:18:27,360
Speaker 2: amount of time for this to even get over a

1458
01:18:27,439 --> 01:18:31,320
Speaker 2: million units in the US. Put that in perspective. The

1459
01:18:31,400 --> 01:18:35,439
Speaker 2: band had already released another two full length Records before

1460
01:18:35,680 --> 01:18:39,000
Speaker 2: is this it went platinum. This is for a major

1461
01:18:39,080 --> 01:18:42,280
Speaker 2: label band. I think RCA signed them for five albums.

1462
01:18:43,320 --> 01:18:47,120
Speaker 2: According to the somewhat dubious site best Selling Albums dot Org,

1463
01:18:47,760 --> 01:18:51,679
Speaker 2: is this it has now sold one point seven million copies,

1464
01:18:52,160 --> 01:18:55,000
Speaker 2: which is like, I don't know in modern eras, that's

1465
01:18:55,080 --> 01:19:00,680
Speaker 2: like Juana Dell Records first month, right, something like that.

1466
01:19:02,000 --> 01:19:04,120
Speaker 1: And I bet you the seven hundred thousand that it's

1467
01:19:04,160 --> 01:19:06,160
Speaker 1: cleared in the last like fifteen years are all on

1468
01:19:06,360 --> 01:19:10,560
Speaker 1: vinyl from like Urban Outfitters. Yeah. Somewhat depressingly, while I

1469
01:19:10,640 --> 01:19:13,639
Speaker 1: was researching this, I had learned that Julian Casablanca sold

1470
01:19:13,720 --> 01:19:16,600
Speaker 1: his own stake in the Strokes catalog last year to

1471
01:19:16,680 --> 01:19:20,240
Speaker 1: a publishing company. Already it's way too early for that

1472
01:19:20,360 --> 01:19:23,080
Speaker 1: kind of move. Yeah. Uh.

1473
01:19:24,520 --> 01:19:27,400
Speaker 2: JP Bauersock, the band's guitar teacher, who is credited in

1474
01:19:27,479 --> 01:19:29,960
Speaker 2: the liner notes for the first two records as Guru

1475
01:19:30,360 --> 01:19:33,840
Speaker 2: which I Love, told Pitchfork that he thinks the music

1476
01:19:33,880 --> 01:19:36,680
Speaker 2: industry's contraction in the wake of the initial wave of

1477
01:19:36,760 --> 01:19:39,960
Speaker 2: digital downloading may have been to blame for The strokes

1478
01:19:40,280 --> 01:19:43,240
Speaker 2: perceived failure to capitalize on their hype. He said, when

1479
01:19:43,240 --> 01:19:45,679
Speaker 2: the music industry goes into that kind of period, where

1480
01:19:45,720 --> 01:19:47,160
Speaker 2: do you think they're going to put their money on

1481
01:19:47,240 --> 01:19:49,320
Speaker 2: an up and comer or the new R Kelly record.

1482
01:19:49,800 --> 01:19:50,080
Speaker 1: Ooh.

1483
01:19:51,400 --> 01:19:54,000
Speaker 2: When times are tough and profits are down, you focus

1484
01:19:54,040 --> 01:19:56,920
Speaker 2: on the moneymakers, and moving less than a million units

1485
01:19:57,240 --> 01:19:59,960
Speaker 2: is not a money maker. Not helping was the fact

1486
01:20:00,080 --> 01:20:02,320
Speaker 2: that the band was obstinate about a lot of stuff,

1487
01:20:02,360 --> 01:20:05,320
Speaker 2: to the consternation of the people in their orbit. They

1488
01:20:05,400 --> 01:20:08,400
Speaker 2: turned down six hundred thousand dollars for Heineken to use

1489
01:20:08,680 --> 01:20:12,719
Speaker 2: either last night or someday in an ad. They refused

1490
01:20:12,760 --> 01:20:15,360
Speaker 2: to play the two thousand and two MTV Video Music

1491
01:20:15,400 --> 01:20:17,920
Speaker 2: Awards because the network insisted on having them share the

1492
01:20:17,960 --> 01:20:20,880
Speaker 2: stage with The Hives and The Vines. The pitch was

1493
01:20:20,920 --> 01:20:22,479
Speaker 2: that each band would get a minute and a half

1494
01:20:22,600 --> 01:20:25,960
Speaker 2: to play. Ryan Gentles told Pitchfork at the time, no

1495
01:20:26,080 --> 01:20:29,400
Speaker 2: one said no to the MTVVMAS. The producers actually made

1496
01:20:29,439 --> 01:20:31,280
Speaker 2: me get Jullian on the phone to explain why he

1497
01:20:31,320 --> 01:20:33,880
Speaker 2: would not play on the stage with those bands. It's

1498
01:20:33,960 --> 01:20:36,360
Speaker 2: nothing against them, he said, I don't think we're in

1499
01:20:36,439 --> 01:20:38,160
Speaker 2: the same genre and I'm not going to do a

1500
01:20:38,280 --> 01:20:40,960
Speaker 2: band off with them. That was pretty much the last

1501
01:20:41,000 --> 01:20:42,160
Speaker 2: time we were played on MTV.

1502
01:20:42,600 --> 01:20:45,200
Speaker 1: I didn't realize until researching this episode that the two

1503
01:20:45,280 --> 01:20:47,840
Speaker 1: main Strokes videos, and probably more the one for last

1504
01:20:47,880 --> 01:20:51,559
Speaker 1: Night and Someday, were directed by Roman Coppola, France's son

1505
01:20:51,640 --> 01:20:56,280
Speaker 1: and Sophia's brother. That's it, that's it, it's like that. Yeah.

1506
01:20:58,320 --> 01:21:00,800
Speaker 1: Writer Andy Greenwold told Lizzy Goodman for me me in

1507
01:21:00,840 --> 01:21:04,160
Speaker 1: the bathroom, the Strokes really weren't that big. Everyone needed

1508
01:21:04,200 --> 01:21:06,599
Speaker 1: them to be big and desperately wanted them to be big,

1509
01:21:06,760 --> 01:21:10,200
Speaker 1: but they kind of weren't. At Moby, who was in

1510
01:21:10,240 --> 01:21:12,759
Speaker 1: the band's New York City orbit, also added the Strokes

1511
01:21:12,840 --> 01:21:15,839
Speaker 1: never sold that many records, but they made really good records.

1512
01:21:16,320 --> 01:21:18,719
Speaker 1: The reach, the awareness of them was so much greater

1513
01:21:18,840 --> 01:21:21,040
Speaker 1: than the record sales. Again, like you said earlier in

1514
01:21:21,080 --> 01:21:22,840
Speaker 1: this episode, it's the Brian you Noo quote about the

1515
01:21:22,920 --> 01:21:25,599
Speaker 1: Velvet Underground. They may have sold only a thousand records

1516
01:21:25,680 --> 01:21:28,160
Speaker 1: for their debut, but each of the thousand people that

1517
01:21:28,280 --> 01:21:30,680
Speaker 1: bought their debut record went and formed a band or

1518
01:21:30,720 --> 01:21:35,679
Speaker 1: something else that was equally hugely influential. So the Strokes

1519
01:21:35,680 --> 01:21:39,800
Speaker 1: also fell victims to the Classics sophomore album Morass. The band,

1520
01:21:39,880 --> 01:21:41,920
Speaker 1: of course, had their entire lives that come up with

1521
01:21:42,040 --> 01:21:44,360
Speaker 1: material for their first album, and then about a year

1522
01:21:44,600 --> 01:21:47,320
Speaker 1: maybe two tops to come up with something that would

1523
01:21:47,439 --> 01:21:50,639
Speaker 1: at least equal, if not better at all, while being

1524
01:21:50,680 --> 01:21:53,799
Speaker 1: on the promotional hamster wheel of touring and doing interviews

1525
01:21:53,840 --> 01:21:58,400
Speaker 1: and all sorts of not especially inspiring things. So, although

1526
01:21:58,439 --> 01:22:01,240
Speaker 1: you actually like their sophomore album, Room on Fire, Room.

1527
01:22:01,160 --> 01:22:04,200
Speaker 2: On Fire goes, and it's worth noting that they're the

1528
01:22:04,880 --> 01:22:08,759
Speaker 2: I think their third or second biggest sandwiched in between

1529
01:22:08,880 --> 01:22:12,439
Speaker 2: Last Night and Someday on Spotify is Reptilia, which is

1530
01:22:12,560 --> 01:22:14,640
Speaker 2: the song from Guitar Hero that has like some of

1531
01:22:14,680 --> 01:22:18,479
Speaker 2: their best guitar work. Sorry, I'm actually arguing with David

1532
01:22:18,560 --> 01:22:20,160
Speaker 2: Long right now on Instagram.

1533
01:22:21,680 --> 01:22:25,080
Speaker 1: Oh what do you do? What would you do? He's

1534
01:22:25,200 --> 01:22:27,880
Speaker 1: just saying that they're more relevant now than they were

1535
01:22:28,080 --> 01:22:32,320
Speaker 1: since the two thousands because Billie Eilish, I guess, I

1536
01:22:32,400 --> 01:22:35,280
Speaker 1: guess their most recent record one album of the rock

1537
01:22:35,360 --> 01:22:38,479
Speaker 1: of the year, rock something of the year, Rock of

1538
01:22:38,520 --> 01:22:42,240
Speaker 1: the ages, Rock of the ages. That's an interesting point.

1539
01:22:42,880 --> 01:22:45,360
Speaker 1: So I'm still fighting with him. I'm very interested in this.

1540
01:22:46,320 --> 01:22:49,599
Speaker 2: Well, he's saying that like this, this record, the New

1541
01:22:49,720 --> 01:22:53,280
Speaker 2: Abnormal that came out in twenty twenty. I get it's

1542
01:22:53,360 --> 01:22:55,880
Speaker 2: that it has their top streamed thing, their top stream

1543
01:22:55,960 --> 01:22:58,360
Speaker 2: singles from that on Spotify, But I was like, I'm sorry,

1544
01:22:58,400 --> 01:22:59,000
Speaker 2: there's no way.

1545
01:23:00,120 --> 01:23:02,000
Speaker 1: I'm just saying they never topped. Is this it? And

1546
01:23:02,080 --> 01:23:05,160
Speaker 1: he's arguing with me and he's wrong. What was I

1547
01:23:05,240 --> 01:23:05,640
Speaker 1: gonna say?

1548
01:23:05,800 --> 01:23:08,439
Speaker 2: Former A and R executive Brian long Total Lizzie Goodman.

1549
01:23:08,640 --> 01:23:10,920
Speaker 2: I remember when their second record came out. We really

1550
01:23:11,080 --> 01:23:12,880
Speaker 2: liked them and we were championing them, but we were

1551
01:23:12,920 --> 01:23:14,400
Speaker 2: all wondering if they could develop in a way that

1552
01:23:14,439 --> 01:23:17,200
Speaker 2: would make an interesting career. The analogy we used to

1553
01:23:17,280 --> 01:23:19,559
Speaker 2: make was will they end up making a London calling?

1554
01:23:19,920 --> 01:23:20,519
Speaker 1: Could they be that?

1555
01:23:21,000 --> 01:23:22,920
Speaker 2: Or is it going to be just cutting different colors

1556
01:23:22,920 --> 01:23:25,240
Speaker 2: from the same swath of fabric? And that's kind of

1557
01:23:25,360 --> 01:23:28,280
Speaker 2: like what happened. There's this common knock that the band's

1558
01:23:28,280 --> 01:23:30,960
Speaker 2: sophomore record, Room on Fire, was is this it version

1559
01:23:31,040 --> 01:23:31,720
Speaker 2: one point five?

1560
01:23:32,360 --> 01:23:32,920
Speaker 1: Great record?

1561
01:23:33,320 --> 01:23:36,559
Speaker 2: But the band was also disintegrating internally for the sadly

1562
01:23:36,640 --> 01:23:40,559
Speaker 2: common reasons of drugs, alcohol, and ego. In a twenty

1563
01:23:40,720 --> 01:23:44,080
Speaker 2: fourteen GQ profile, Julian Casablanca said a band is a

1564
01:23:44,120 --> 01:23:47,280
Speaker 2: great way to destroy a friendship and a tour is

1565
01:23:47,320 --> 01:23:49,000
Speaker 2: a great way to destroy a band.

1566
01:23:49,400 --> 01:23:53,479
Speaker 1: Oof hang on, but apparently getting into a debate about

1567
01:23:53,479 --> 01:23:56,519
Speaker 1: the Strokes on Instagram dms, it's also a great way

1568
01:23:56,520 --> 01:24:00,719
Speaker 1: to destroy a friendship. Yeah, David's wrong. Whatever.

1569
01:24:04,080 --> 01:24:06,280
Speaker 2: Jack White gave an interesting quote about all this to

1570
01:24:06,360 --> 01:24:09,559
Speaker 2: Lizzie Goodman. He said, sometimes being thrust out there pushes

1571
01:24:09,600 --> 01:24:11,640
Speaker 2: you to hurry up and figure yourself out and do

1572
01:24:11,760 --> 01:24:14,839
Speaker 2: away with years of fumbling. That happened to the Strokes.

1573
01:24:15,040 --> 01:24:17,519
Speaker 2: They had to get it together fast. Meg White and

1574
01:24:17,560 --> 01:24:20,600
Speaker 2: I had three albums out and an almost too realistic

1575
01:24:20,720 --> 01:24:23,519
Speaker 2: view that nobody was ever going to care about our music.

1576
01:24:24,280 --> 01:24:26,160
Speaker 2: We were assuming that we had a life of playing

1577
01:24:26,200 --> 01:24:28,880
Speaker 2: in bars for thirty people in our future. The extra

1578
01:24:28,960 --> 01:24:31,400
Speaker 2: time to get our things together was good for us mentally.

1579
01:24:32,000 --> 01:24:33,720
Speaker 2: All that said, by the time the band got to

1580
01:24:33,760 --> 01:24:36,639
Speaker 2: their third record, First Impressions of Earth, they had switched

1581
01:24:36,680 --> 01:24:40,240
Speaker 2: producers away from Gordon Raphael. He told Pitchfork, I believe

1582
01:24:40,320 --> 01:24:41,880
Speaker 2: they saw all the bands that came in the door

1583
01:24:41,960 --> 01:24:44,479
Speaker 2: behind the first record that were selling three times more

1584
01:24:44,520 --> 01:24:47,080
Speaker 2: than them, and were wondering if it was a production thing.

1585
01:24:47,720 --> 01:24:49,799
Speaker 2: At the time, they were getting married and having children

1586
01:24:49,840 --> 01:24:51,720
Speaker 2: and wondering how they could go higher than they did.

1587
01:24:52,360 --> 01:24:54,600
Speaker 2: That record was made in various fits and starts, in

1588
01:24:54,880 --> 01:24:58,280
Speaker 2: assorted stages of isolation from one another. Most people agree

1589
01:24:58,320 --> 01:25:00,519
Speaker 2: that it is an uneven record with lot of good

1590
01:25:00,640 --> 01:25:03,680
Speaker 2: songs that can sound like they came across from a

1591
01:25:03,720 --> 01:25:06,680
Speaker 2: different band after touring on. The band deliberately didn't make

1592
01:25:06,680 --> 01:25:09,200
Speaker 2: any follow up plans after first impressions and went on

1593
01:25:09,280 --> 01:25:11,519
Speaker 2: something of a hiatus, and then they would take five

1594
01:25:11,640 --> 01:25:15,000
Speaker 2: full years for a follow up angles, during which time

1595
01:25:15,120 --> 01:25:18,439
Speaker 2: everyone went their separate ways. Julian started the voids, everyone

1596
01:25:18,520 --> 01:25:20,080
Speaker 2: recorded solo albums, etc.

1597
01:25:20,320 --> 01:25:20,599
Speaker 1: And etc.

1598
01:25:21,520 --> 01:25:25,240
Speaker 2: But ultimately none of that can take away from Is

1599
01:25:25,360 --> 01:25:28,439
Speaker 2: This It. In two thousand and nine, n Emmy named

1600
01:25:28,479 --> 01:25:31,280
Speaker 2: it as the greatest album of the decade. It placed

1601
01:25:31,439 --> 01:25:35,040
Speaker 2: second on a similar list compiled by Rolling Stone. Two

1602
01:25:35,200 --> 01:25:37,439
Speaker 2: songs of it featured on their one hundred best Song

1603
01:25:37,520 --> 01:25:41,439
Speaker 2: of the two thousands list. In January twenty eleven, Rolling

1604
01:25:41,520 --> 01:25:44,360
Speaker 2: Stone conducted a survey among their Facebook fans to determine

1605
01:25:44,360 --> 01:25:46,680
Speaker 2: the top ten debut albums of all time. Is This

1606
01:25:46,840 --> 01:25:50,400
Speaker 2: It came in at number ten as the most contemporaneous

1607
01:25:50,720 --> 01:25:53,760
Speaker 2: entry on the list, behind Pearl Jam's nineteen ninety one

1608
01:25:53,840 --> 01:25:58,920
Speaker 2: debut which I think speaks volumes and as like Casablanx's

1609
01:25:58,960 --> 01:26:02,439
Speaker 2: beloved Velvet Underground on the record's greatest influence lies with

1610
01:26:02,640 --> 01:26:07,760
Speaker 2: other musicians. Fellow New York City ats icon LCD sound

1611
01:26:07,800 --> 01:26:11,880
Speaker 2: System founder James Murphy called is This It My record

1612
01:26:12,040 --> 01:26:15,040
Speaker 2: of the decade, and Brandon Flowers of The Killers said

1613
01:26:15,040 --> 01:26:17,800
Speaker 2: it was so perfect that it depressed him when he

1614
01:26:17,920 --> 01:26:22,000
Speaker 2: first heard it. Alex Turner of the Arctic Monkeys put

1615
01:26:22,080 --> 01:26:25,000
Speaker 2: his love of the record into song, singing I just

1616
01:26:25,120 --> 01:26:27,719
Speaker 2: wanted to be one of the Strokes in their twenty

1617
01:26:27,880 --> 01:26:32,640
Speaker 2: eighteen song Star Treatment. Meanwhile, Lizzie Goodman in Meet Me

1618
01:26:32,680 --> 01:26:36,320
Speaker 2: in the Bathroom wrote, almost every artist I interviewed for

1619
01:26:36,400 --> 01:26:38,880
Speaker 2: this book from all over the world said it was

1620
01:26:38,920 --> 01:26:42,599
Speaker 2: the Strokes that opened the door for them. Another musician

1621
01:26:42,640 --> 01:26:45,400
Speaker 2: named Ian Devaney summed up is this its appeal for

1622
01:26:45,479 --> 01:26:49,240
Speaker 2: the Grammys website. Their music just makes it so much

1623
01:26:49,360 --> 01:26:51,599
Speaker 2: easier to put up with everything about living in New

1624
01:26:51,680 --> 01:26:55,160
Speaker 2: York that is irritating and tedious. People still moved to

1625
01:26:55,240 --> 01:26:57,680
Speaker 2: New York from very pleasant places that are very far

1626
01:26:57,760 --> 01:27:01,120
Speaker 2: and away, specifically to place themselves inside the world that

1627
01:27:01,240 --> 01:27:02,479
Speaker 2: exists in these songs.

1628
01:27:03,120 --> 01:27:03,320
Speaker 1: Play.

1629
01:27:03,360 --> 01:27:05,519
Speaker 2: A song from is this It in a crowded dive

1630
01:27:05,600 --> 01:27:08,639
Speaker 2: bar late at night, and people lose their minds. It's

1631
01:27:08,720 --> 01:27:11,559
Speaker 2: the apex of their notion of what New York life

1632
01:27:11,960 --> 01:27:15,320
Speaker 2: would be. I'm surprised I made it through that without crying.

1633
01:27:15,880 --> 01:27:20,040
Speaker 2: I know, great record, great band, Okay city.

1634
01:27:22,960 --> 01:27:25,679
Speaker 1: Folks. Thank you for listening. This has been too much information.

1635
01:27:26,120 --> 01:27:29,040
Speaker 1: I'm Alex Heigel and I'm Jordan Runtagg. We'll catch you

1636
01:27:29,160 --> 01:27:37,320
Speaker 1: next time. Too Much Information was a production of iHeartRadio.

1637
01:27:37,560 --> 01:27:40,799
Speaker 1: The show's executive producers are Noel Brown and Jordan Runtogg.

1638
01:27:40,960 --> 01:27:44,439
Speaker 1: The show's supervising producer is Michael Alder June. The show

1639
01:27:44,560 --> 01:27:48,360
Speaker 1: was researched, written and hosted by Jordan Runtogg and Alex Heigel.

1640
01:27:48,200 --> 01:27:51,400
Speaker 3: With original music by Seth Applebaum and the Ghost Funk Orchestra.

1641
01:27:51,760 --> 01:27:53,800
Speaker 3: If you like what you heard, please subscribe and leave

1642
01:27:53,840 --> 01:27:56,800
Speaker 3: us a review. For more podcasts on iHeartRadio, visit the

1643
01:27:56,840 --> 01:28:00,479
Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen your favorite

1644
01:28:00,520 --> 01:28:02,000
Speaker 3: shows and

1645
01:28:07,439 --> 01:28:14,240
Speaker 1: Tahm