0:00

Too Much Information is a production of iHeartRadio.

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Hello everyone, and welcome to Too Much Information,

0:12

the show that brings you the secret histories and little

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known fascinating facts and figures behind

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your favorite movies, music, TV shows,

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and more. We are your two power

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poppers of precision podcasting.

0:23

I'm Alex Hegel.

0:24

There's sweater wearing savants of

0:28

That's all I got.

0:29

We've really done.

0:29

We've done enough of these that I'm

0:32

like, really, I'm struggling with the alliteration bit.

0:34

We might have to retire that point.

0:37

There's only so many ways to say trivia, all

0:39

right, I know, not that many different ways to say trivia, minutia,

0:43

fainality. I've been through, but I've been

0:45

through so many

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ye and I'm Jordan run Talk.

0:52

And Jordan.

0:53

Today we're talking about one of the defining albums of

0:55

the nineteen nineties, the slacker masterpiece

0:57

that taught the world heavy metal guitars could easily

1:00

cozy up alongside the more droll and

1:02

quirky side of grunt and father

1:05

figure induced depression. That's

1:07

right, folks, we're talking about Weezer's

1:09

self titled debut aka

1:12

the Blue Album. This band

1:14

is so funny to me, and particularly this album.

1:16

I'm not like a Weezer guy. There are Weezer

1:18

people out there, they are insane. I'm

1:21

not one of them. I think at some point

1:23

when people were like, yeah, there's like seven

1:26

terrible Weezer albums, but then when you get

1:28

to the two good songs on each one

1:30

of those, then you're really cooking. I'm like not interested.

1:33

However, this album is a masterpiece.

1:35

And it's funny because when

1:37

we were growing up, Weezer was like

1:39

the Islands in the Sun band, right,

1:42

and Green album come out, So that's the one

1:44

where they re teamed with Rick Okasik after self

1:46

producing Pinkerton, So that's

1:48

why there hits on that record.

1:51

But yeah, I and hash pipe.

1:53

Whips, but like, yeah, I saw those videos and

1:55

I was like, Okay, this is a perfectly fine rock

1:58

band. And then someone played me their

2:00

car the World has turned and left

2:02

me here, and I was like, oh, this is genius.

2:05

What is this and they're like this is the first Weezer album,

2:07

idiot. And

2:10

then at some point in the seventeen reissues

2:13

that this album has had, you know,

2:15

I found one of the remasters and I was

2:17

like, oh, this thing sounds incredible.

2:21

It's re oquay sic. Yeah, but it's we'll get

2:23

into.

2:23

The what they like. They're actual micing techniques

2:25

and so forth.

2:26

But yeah, I don't know.

2:27

I mean, you know, and it's funny

2:29

because like my appreciation for them falls off

2:31

a very steep cliff. It's like Blue Album,

2:33

top of the heap. I acknowledged that Pinkerton

2:36

has stuff going for it, but I never really glommed onto

2:38

it the same way. And then zero

2:41

to five percent interest in everything

2:43

else that they've done.

2:46

You I, I mean,

2:48

I I feel like I always invoke this

2:50

on the show, and I'm getting self conscious about

2:52

doing so. But I've talked about how I didn't

2:54

really engage with a lot of pop culture or

2:56

contemporary pop culture as a kid.

2:59

But I like Weezer.

3:00

I mean they sung about sweaters

3:03

and they had a video that looked like the

3:05

Happy Day set. Yeah, so I was for

3:07

a nicket night kid who went to private

3:09

school at this time and exclusively wore chinos

3:12

and sweaters.

3:13

I felt very seen.

3:14

And Island and the Sun came

3:16

out right when I got my first guitar and I was

3:18

trying to learn to play, and I went on all those early

3:21

tab sites.

3:22

And good Lord. There were

3:24

a lot of.

3:25

Weezer guitar parts on those

3:27

early tab sites and first song

3:29

I learned to playing guitar was Island in the Sun

3:31

could still nail the solo

3:33

and somewhere there's a tape of me

3:36

and my best friend and I

3:38

believe his dad jamming in

3:40

their basement to Island on the song. So I

3:42

always have a soft spot for Weezer, But yeah,

3:45

no, I agree with you. Weezer were the band

3:47

that all of my friends who

3:50

actually liked rock and roll were into.

3:52

Because a lot of my friends in you

3:54

know, ninety eight, ninety nine, two thousand

3:57

were into the you know, the fred

3:59

Durst of it all, and the ones of

4:01

mine that actually liked rock bands pre Strokes

4:04

were really into Weezer, and they were always trying

4:06

to educate me more onto I like

4:08

the Blue album and I like the Green album.

4:11

They were always trying to get me into Pinkerton never

4:13

really stuck for me. But it's

4:15

too raw for you, it is, It's too

4:18

scary. He also he also

4:20

loves the Beach Boys. He also loves my beloved

4:22

beach Bolls. Yeah, and so I mean beach Boys,

4:24

happy Day sweaters and

4:26

I was always trying to look like the Beatles at that time,

4:28

and I had a haircut just like Rivers Cuomo.

4:30

I mean it had a lot going. You had the

4:32

bolt Oh you did have the bolt

4:34

cut? Seen it?

4:36

Yeah? Wow?

4:39

So really, you know, how could I band?

4:43

Yeah?

4:44

Yeah, I don't

4:46

have the same academic appreciation

4:49

for them as you do. As with most things

4:51

we discussed, I mean, this song Slap,

4:53

that's like really the and it's it is it's

4:57

hard to listen now with ears

5:00

of man of our age.

5:01

How insanely out of touch this

5:03

sounded when it came out, Oh my god, you know, like

5:06

weeks was it months after

5:08

Kirka being killed himself? So we were in like a

5:10

leaderless, a rudderless grunge era,

5:13

but probably like the

5:15

lunkheaded parts of it like Bush.

5:19

I guess I don't know when the first

5:21

Bush album came out, but it feels right to me to.

5:23

Say that, Oh, that sounds about right to me.

5:26

And to just get these massive guitars

5:29

and also man having Matt Sharp double

5:31

the vocals in Falsetto for like ninety

5:34

percent of the record. Such a bizarre

5:36

choice works perfectly, is

5:39

my opinion. I know it's a dividing one. But

5:42

yeah, what a bizarre breath of fresh

5:44

air this must have sounded like. And it's such a dumb

5:48

roads diverging in a wood moment, because

5:50

we could have gotten like a legion of amazing.

5:53

We could have had like a power pop renaissance

5:55

in the mid nineties, and instead this

5:57

idiot country was like, let's

6:00

do swing and third wave

6:02

ska instead and

6:05

rap rock, oh yeah, and rap

6:07

rock. Mustn't forget rap rock. Yeah, man, Jesus

6:09

Christ, we're dumb, dumb country.

6:13

You took a band who was obsessed with the cars

6:15

and flattened them out in favor of sca

6:19

pick it up, pick it up, pick it up, go

6:22

yeah.

6:23

Torment you during band practice.

6:24

By just doing that into any open mic,

6:27

we could find.

6:28

Okay, well, let's not dwell on

6:31

that.

6:31

Uh.

6:32

From Rivers Cromo's Father Issues

6:34

to Spike Jones and a Pack of Dogs,

6:37

and the repeated influence of the Beach Boys,

6:39

as well as the elaborate audio

6:42

collage that threatened to tank the entire

6:44

album. Here's everything you didn't

6:46

know about Weezer's Blue

6:48

album.

6:55

This one. I like to call Mark Rothko's number sixty

6:57

one a rusted Blue.

7:00

That's one of the more high ends ones. Wow.

7:03

Yeah, most of your headings are things like

7:05

Crank and the Hog or things like that.

7:07

And this is come with rothka.

7:10

Well, I googled famous blue paintings.

7:13

Ah okay.

7:17

So the Blue Album and most of Weezer

7:20

is primarily the works of the band's frontman,

7:22

Rivers Cuomo. And since

7:25

most of Weezer's best work is based on

7:28

whatever that man's got rattled around inside

7:30

of his skull, which I know, don't

7:32

envy, here's just what

7:35

led up to the Blue Album in Old Riversville.

7:38

Cuomo was born on.

7:39

June thirteenth, nineteen seventy, in New York

7:42

City. His father, Frank, was a musician

7:44

who played drums on the nineteen seventy one album

7:46

Odyssey of Isca by Wayne

7:49

Shorter. Making his second appearance

7:51

on the pod after the Steely Dan Asia episode,

7:53

shouts to Wayne Shorter rip

7:57

Yeah, yes, he is dead. And there's

7:59

a revealing dispute between his parents

8:01

over the source of his name. That's pretty illustrative

8:03

of his entire deal. Supposedly,

8:06

River's mom, Beverly, christened him after the East

8:08

and Hudson Rivers bordering Manhattan,

8:11

while his father later claimed that Rivers was

8:13

named after three prominent soccer players,

8:15

Rivalino, Luigi Riva,

8:18

and Gihnny Rivera, all of whom were playing

8:20

in the nineteen seventy World Cup. Cromo

8:23

was also born with one leg shorter than the other and

8:25

had to wear special shoes, one with a lift,

8:28

which he has described as just one more

8:30

reason that I wasn't as cool as everyone else.

8:32

Oh this man guy,

8:34

I mean not on one hand, I get

8:36

it, but he does seem to have a very sizable chip

8:38

on his shoulder.

8:40

Is that. Yes, I think he's

8:43

just like beaten down.

8:45

He's a really fascinating guy and like I

8:47

find, honestly like the engagement

8:49

with him and his personality like much more

8:51

interesting than the band, Like how

8:53

he talks about he has like a he I

8:56

guess. At one point there was an interview he was like, I

8:58

have like an obsession with planning things

9:00

out right, So from my Twitter account,

9:03

I have like thousands of banked tweets

9:05

that I just wrote beforehand and like auto

9:07

scheduled. And I think so

9:10

much of his pain is

9:12

coming from this like person

9:14

with a deep inferiority complex and

9:17

like dad issues who grow

9:19

up obsessed with like highly

9:21

technical, aggressive masculine

9:23

music, trying to make

9:26

like psyche plumbing sensitive

9:29

guy rock wow okay,

9:32

and just being like cowed into

9:34

inarticulateness by the vastness

9:36

of that enterprise. Well

9:40

said, I over intellectualized it

9:42

enough.

9:42

That makes a lot, Yeah, it makes a lot of sense.

9:45

Well.

9:45

River's family lived in Rochester, New York, at

9:47

the city's Zen Center until River's

9:50

father, Frank, left in nineteen seventy

9:52

five at the Corney Rivers he saw

9:54

his dad only three times over the next

9:56

twenty years, at ages seven,

9:59

eleven, and sixteen, and

10:01

not again until nineteen ninety five,

10:04

the year when his airing of his feelings

10:06

about the relationship came out in

10:08

Say it Ain't So Weezer song. Frank

10:11

meanwhile became a Pentecostal preacher.

10:15

River's mother, Beverly, relocated to Yogaville,

10:18

and, noticing a theme

10:20

here from Zen Center to Yogaville,

10:22

an ashram in Pumfret, Connecticut,

10:25

and she married a guy named Stephen Kitts,

10:28

and young Rivers re christened himself Peter

10:30

kits Possibly you right

10:32

because it was so close to the name Peter

10:35

Chris Kisses, drummer of

10:37

whom Rivers was a huge fan.

10:39

Are you serious?

10:41

No, but I would postulate

10:43

it way to factored into it.

10:46

Rivers told Magnet magazine in twenty fourteen

10:49

it was a very rural and agrarian environment.

10:51

Only Rivers would describe where

10:53

he grew up as an agrarian

10:56

environ.

10:57

Wow, that's somebody who went to Harvard.

11:00

I know we talk a lot about these VH

11:02

one like talking head as

11:04

you bleep it every time, sucking extravaganzas

11:07

that populated our youth. But do

11:10

you remember the one when Mobi

11:12

uses the word Insussians to describe

11:14

Nirvana and or Kurt Cobain and

11:16

they pull up a chirn with the definition

11:19

of the word.

11:20

Funestly, I think I kind of do remember this, Sash.

11:24

I feel like Moby and Rivers are cut from

11:26

the same insufferably academic

11:29

cloth.

11:29

Well.

11:29

I was just like, oh, so that's what happens,

11:31

Because as a kid who knew way too many, like ten

11:34

dollars words from reading and not

11:36

speaking, I was like, Oh, that's what happens.

11:39

People make fun of you for.

11:40

Just talking like that, and

11:43

somebody in your school says

11:45

your mom gave birth to a dictionary.

11:47

That's true.

11:48

That's both something I would take as a

11:50

compliment at that age and also a

11:52

very highly developed burn for

11:55

a third grader.

11:56

Fifth grader.

11:57

Yeah, I think that kid

12:00

checked him up on Facebook. But I hope he's

12:02

dead.

12:02

Just say he's dead, Okay.

12:03

Shout out to Kolner An elementary

12:05

school bully.

12:09

Uh Yes, Rivers describing the place where

12:11

he grew up as an agrarian environment. I

12:13

had chores like feeding ponies, clearing

12:16

weeds and gardening and cooking and cleaning,

12:19

yoga, meditation practice every day, and

12:21

then some traditional academics and

12:23

a lot of self led creative projects.

12:26

I couldn't imagine a more nurturing, safe

12:28

and supportive environment for a kid to grow up

12:30

in. And yet still he

12:33

turned out like that.

12:34

Yeah. Well, I mean he didn't see anyone in

12:36

uh he didn't have any social interaction

12:39

with his like normal children

12:41

until the first time he's plopped into middle school,

12:44

which you know, I man, the more you

12:46

learn about this guy, were you're like, I'm surprised

12:48

you made it as.

12:48

Far as you did.

12:49

Buddy's like you're the prototype

12:51

for like a lone wolf mass shooter. Basically

12:54

is there.

12:55

I'm sure we'll get to this later.

12:56

I feel like we do sort of touch on it on some

12:58

lyrics to his songs.

13:00

Is there anything you know a lot more about

13:02

him than I do?

13:02

Is there anything problematic

13:05

about Rivers?

13:07

The women stuff?

13:08

Yeah, okay, I guess we'll

13:10

get more.

13:11

We'll get to it. We'll get to it well.

13:14

River's unique childhood meant that the first time

13:16

he was exposed to non ashram

13:18

or Yogi lifestyle at the age of

13:20

eleven was when he entered public school

13:22

for the first time, as you just mentioned. But

13:24

despite this, Rivers was a member of the high

13:26

school choir and performed in a school production

13:29

of Greece at one point. I would

13:31

love to have a tape of that if

13:33

that's on YouTube. And while growing up

13:35

a medal kid, he worshiped at the era

13:37

appropriate altars of the aforementioned

13:40

Kiss, Iron Maiden, Slayer.

13:42

And Judas Priest.

13:44

That's an interesting marriage

13:46

of theater kid and

13:48

heavy metal kid. I guess they're so far around

13:50

the circle that they almost touch. Consequently,

13:53

one of his first bands was a glam metal

13:55

group called Avant Garde.

13:57

Who he moved to La with in nineteen

13:59

eighty nine. At the age of nineteen.

14:01

All five members of the band lived in the same

14:04

studio apartment, and Rivers was

14:06

the lead guitarist, having no designs

14:08

on the front man position. He told Rolling

14:10

Stone in twenty nineteen, I could have seen

14:12

myself in the NBA.

14:13

As easily as being a lead singer in a metal

14:16

band.

14:16

That was just like unthinkable. Yeah,

14:18

and you know, they were just victims of bad timing.

14:21

It was not a good time to be an aspiring hair metal

14:23

band in LA. The scene reached

14:25

peak saturation in the late eighties

14:27

and quickly I think

14:29

found its biggest export in

14:32

Guns n' Roses and then later on like Poison,

14:34

But the specter of grunge was already

14:37

holding up its rusted scythe

14:39

to the throat of the hair metal genre

14:41

as a whole. Also, I

14:43

find this hilarious Cuomo. I think

14:47

before like regular

14:49

college, he enrolled at the Guitar Institute

14:51

of Technology, which is a

14:53

for profit college in LA that I think

14:55

is now just the Musicians Institute, and

14:58

it is just like the place that produced like

15:00

every hair metal band Shredder of

15:02

the eighties. Jennifer Batton, who is Michael

15:04

Jackson's lead guitarist. The

15:07

guys in Steel Panther. I think

15:10

some of the guys who were in the Mars Vault like session players.

15:13

It just teaches you how to shred.

15:15

But sadly he flunked out. So Avant

15:18

Garde was renamed Zoom, which is funny.

15:21

So he got into g t but

15:24

he basically he said I couldn't bring myself

15:26

to get into diligent student mode and

15:28

was basically expelled. He

15:30

said, I was thinking of myself as a lead guitar player,

15:33

thinking that faster harmonic minor scales

15:35

equals better, which is

15:37

true, thinking

15:40

that I could move out to La with Avant Garde and

15:42

we were just going to be huge rock stars. Then

15:45

seeing one band member after another leave abandoned

15:47

me and not being able to hold it together or put

15:49

it back together. And then he had two

15:51

back to back breakups, which frustrated

15:54

metal guitarist to

15:57

again loan tudo profile like frustrated

15:59

metal guitarist, two bad breakups, and

16:02

instead he started working at

16:04

a Tower Records, Yes, which was his

16:06

inflection point.

16:07

Not only a Tower Records, well, he was the Tower

16:09

Records on Sunset right. There's like a documentary

16:11

about that plays a very famous La Landmark,

16:14

right.

16:14

I believe so I don't

16:16

care about La Well.

16:19

I believe that to be true. In fact, my brother recently

16:21

told me that's true. So I'm gonna take that as gospel.

16:23

He's a big weezerhead. Oh

16:26

oh oh god, I'm sorry. You should have told me that beforehand.

16:28

Man, Why Well,

16:31

I don't know. I'll probably say something mean at some point.

16:33

No, okay.

16:38

And also, in addition to working at Tower Records,

16:41

he met Weezer drummer Pat Wilson

16:43

through a coworker at this store, and

16:45

the job meant that Rivers could expand his

16:47

palate beyond a strict diet of shred

16:50

metal and into the occasional eighties

16:52

pop.

16:52

Like Madonna, which he had a weakness for.

16:54

I love that, and this is something that I love about him too.

16:57

I also don't have sophisticated

16:59

taye in music, like We've talked about this in the Britney

17:02

Spears Cross Road episode, Like I have this deep

17:05

underside of Probably the contemporary

17:07

music that I love the most right now is probably

17:09

like pop, like I

17:12

love Olivia Rudrigo, I

17:15

love I want Rihanna to come back

17:17

with a new album. It's been eight years, so

17:19

I like that about him.

17:21

I just think it's funny how all the guys in Weezer have

17:23

like the most boring names ever except for

17:25

Rivers Cuomo. Yeah, their drummer

17:27

is named Patrick Wilson, which makes him the most

17:29

second famous Patrick Wilson, after the movie

17:32

star Brian Bell,

17:35

Matt Sharp, Scott

17:37

Schriner. Now, like just

17:40

white guy names.

17:41

I had it.

17:42

I kept writing this and confusing Brian's

17:45

with Matts, and I know, I'm

17:47

sure they all have very distinct and wonderful personalities.

17:50

But you're in a band with a guy named Rivers

17:52

Cuomo and you're all just you

17:54

should have picked different names, guys,

17:58

go forget someone call it call you snake

18:02

or maybe he does or

18:05

the cat ringo.

18:11

I mean, controversial.

18:13

Point, especially considering I'm discussing

18:16

my favorite human being non family

18:18

category on the planet, Joni Mitchell.

18:21

No, Paul McCartney is like not a very famous

18:23

sounding name, you know what I mean.

18:25

McCartney though it has like a swing to it,

18:27

a r it rings, but it's

18:29

not.

18:29

Like Freddie Mercury or

18:31

like Brian May even

18:34

or like, no, there's a great name, Like

18:37

that's a great name. Yeah, Robert

18:40

Plant even even though it kind of lands

18:42

with a thud.

18:43

Someone who's not white and British.

18:45

British, Right, you're right, you're right, Elvis

18:48

Presley, that's your famous

18:51

name.

18:52

Well, I mean yeah, but even like rock

18:54

star names like, I do have to you know, what

18:56

I do have to say is that No, I'm going to take

18:58

this back. I thought gave Rossdale was a

19:00

good British name, and I was wrong.

19:03

It sounds like an American rock star name.

19:05

No, it sounds like a poncey little private

19:07

school pratt.

19:09

Those are some great, great

19:11

English insults right there, though.

19:14

I'm very so the guy cheated on Gwen Stefani

19:17

so like.

19:19

Dips right

19:21

wing.

19:23

Oh yeah, And that is what happens with women

19:25

from Orange County, especially

19:27

women who were into third wave ska and pop

19:29

punk. They all start out as like cool punk

19:32

rock chicks, and then they end up as conservative

19:34

women married to country people or

19:36

guys who wish they were country people. It's

19:38

the natural evolution of things.

19:40

Are there any other examples?

19:42

No? Moving on, I'm

19:48

sure. I'm sure probably everyone

19:50

who dated someone in a ska band in

19:53

Fis County, every single woman who

19:55

ever knew in the biblical

19:57

sense. A SKA musician has

20:00

become like a raging conservative, and

20:02

I can't blame them for that.

20:04

Being that close to Disneyland, man, what the

20:06

hell are you talking about? So Rivers.

20:08

He's working on Tower Records, and it broadens

20:10

his musical diet into

20:13

you know, things that are in the charts,

20:15

like eighties pop, like Madonna. He

20:17

would later say, At first, I

20:19

just could not get into other music. It sounded

20:22

like garbage to me. Velvet Underground

20:25

Pet Sounds was reissued around that time,

20:27

Thirteenth Floor, Elevators, Pixies,

20:29

Sonic Youth. It all sounded

20:31

like noise. I thought none

20:34

of this is catchy, but I came

20:36

to love.

20:37

It all now. I don't understand

20:39

how I missed it.

20:39

Yeah, and again, to be clear, he was avoiding all this

20:42

stuff in favor of like Dawkin, right,

20:47

Okay, all the Dawkin whips.

20:49

Yeah, you do love Dawkin, I do.

20:51

Another current release that made it impact on him

20:53

was Nirvana's Bleach and specifically

20:56

the song Silver. He recalled

20:58

thinking this is so beautiful to me, and I

21:00

identify with it so much. Hearing

21:02

him sing about mom and dad and Grandpa

21:04

Joe. These personal family issues and

21:06

a really heartbreaking, kind of innocent, childlike

21:09

way over these straightforward chords

21:11

and a major key. Then the distortion

21:13

kicks in and he starts screaming.

21:16

I would imagine that.

21:17

Would have a big impact on writing something

21:19

like say it Ain't so about his dad?

21:21

Right read

21:23

on.

21:27

Cuomo and Pat

21:29

with Patrick Patrick pals That's

21:31

correct.

21:32

Got The actor.

21:33

Started a band called Fuzz, which

21:35

unfortunately fizzled out after a few shows.

21:38

Fuzz then morphed into a short lived group

21:40

called this is one

21:43

of the worst early early band

21:45

names I have ever heard,

21:47

sixty Wrong Sausages, which

21:51

featured Rivers Tower Records coworker

21:53

Pat Finn on bass and another

21:56

friend of Pat Finn's, Jason Cropper on

21:58

guitar, related to Steve

22:00

Cropper of.

22:01

Musclache of Stacks.

22:04

They broke up, unfortunately after just a

22:06

single gig at the Phoenix Theater

22:09

and Pedaluma on Thanksgiving weekend

22:11

nineteen ninety one. Petaluma. That

22:13

sounds like a punchline, you know

22:15

what I mean? It sounds yeah, it's the name.

22:18

It's just one of those like it's like a Bay Area

22:20

bedroom community.

22:21

At this point, it just sounds like one of

22:23

those things.

22:23

It sounds like, you know, Chattanooga chu Chuo,

22:26

like taking the taking,

22:28

the taking, the p train, the Pedaloma.

22:30

I don't know, it just just seems like something

22:32

that somebody would be waving a scar around

22:34

and singing about.

22:35

Petaluma. Yeah.

22:37

I mean, that's the entirety of California, right, It's

22:39

like built on the bones of you know,

22:41

a bunch of migrant workers, robber

22:43

barons, and everything's only like

22:45

two hundred years old. Like this in

22:47

state is brand new by

22:49

comparison to like Massachusetts,

22:51

So why are we talking about Pedaluma?

22:55

Finished the side side sigh.

22:59

Rivers was so so disturbed by the succession

23:01

of events that he decided he was gonna write

23:04

fifty songs before he play

23:06

live with a band again.

23:09

But don't worry, kids, he only got to around

23:11

thirty. It sounds like the songs weren't

23:13

the problem, it was the bands. But okay, whatever,

23:16

that's what happens when you have no interpersonal

23:19

skills. I'm just gonna focus on

23:21

me and he enrolled at Santa

23:23

Monica College and started cranking out

23:25

demos, and allegedly

23:27

he also recorded an entire unreleased

23:30

vegetarian themed rap album

23:33

under the name veget

23:35

Terrorists around this time,

23:37

which is I think the

23:39

only thing that gives

23:42

sixty wrong sausages a run for

23:44

its money.

23:45

That's bad.

23:46

That's a terrible ma name. So is this making

23:48

the rounds on YouTube or anything?

23:50

No, I don't think so. According

23:52

to Weezerpedia, which has been like

23:55

just a real, a real

23:58

godsend writing this episode,

24:00

it's never seen the light.

24:01

Of day he's

24:03

waiting for.

24:05

There is apparently a song called Black Fur

24:08

in the Hour of Chaos, which

24:11

I assume means it

24:14

is like an anti fur industry thing.

24:16

But that is a riff on a public enemy

24:18

song called Black Steel in the

24:20

Hour of Chaos. So

24:23

maybe it's better that we don't actually

24:25

have to hear that.

24:26

Yeah that sounds awful, Yeah yeah,

24:29

Cuemo told Rolling Stone in two thousand and nine.

24:31

The Sweater song was the first Weezer song

24:34

I ever wrote. Back in nineteen ninety one, I

24:36

was trying to write a Velvet Underground type

24:38

song because I was super into them, and

24:41

I came up with that guitar riff. It wasn't

24:43

until years after I wrote it that I realized

24:45

it's almost a complete ripoff of Welcome

24:48

Home. Sanitarium by Metallica.

24:50

It just perfectly encapsulates Weezer. To

24:52

me, you're trying to be cool like Velvet

24:55

Underground, but your metal roots just

24:57

pumped through unconsciously.

24:58

That's great.

25:00

Drummer Pat Wilson recalled in John D. Lewson's

25:02

book River's Edge the Weavers the

25:04

Weezer story. Just read

25:06

that out loud for the first time. It was

25:08

so bad.

25:09

I love that.

25:12

You'll never step in the same river twice. The

25:14

Weezer story. Many

25:18

Rivers to cross. Wow, the tale

25:20

of Weezer. I could do this all day.

25:23

Uh.

25:24

Rivers said, Look, we're gonna write fifty songs

25:26

and then we're gonna have our first rehearsal. As

25:28

mentioned earlier, they got to around thirty. My name

25:30

is Jonas dates back to around this time. Samoth

25:32

Wortles turned and left me here other stuff that would

25:34

make it onto albums later and Wilson

25:37

sent some of Rivers demos to his old

25:39

roommate, bassist Matt Sharp, and

25:42

I love this story. It's super cute. Matt

25:44

Sharp became obsessed with this band. He

25:47

had moved to the Bay Area and immediately

25:49

moved back to la and like appointed himself

25:51

the guy who would make Weezer happen. He

25:54

told Rolling Stone. I thought, I'm doing this no

25:56

matter what has to be done to make it happen.

25:59

We're on this journe together. And

26:01

this was a needed shot in the arm for Cuomo, who

26:03

recalled I think Matt called me and said, you're

26:06

a genius. I'm going to be a bass player.

26:08

We're going to be a band. It confirmed

26:10

all my greatest hopes for myself. Tremendous

26:15

phrase. Knowing he felt

26:18

so strongly about the songs was all the confidence

26:20

I need. Another needed confidence

26:22

boost came from rivers quasi girlfriend at the time, Jennifer

26:25

Chiba, who looms large in the Weezer

26:28

lore, and she introduced him to bands

26:30

like Lou Barlow's post Dinosaur

26:32

Junior or concurrently with Dinosaur

26:34

Junior project, Sebido, and

26:37

the Flaming Lips. And she also crucially

26:39

encouraged him to cut his hair because at

26:41

this point I think he was still rotting like

26:43

extremely long metal head or mullet hair.

26:45

Yeah, and Cuomo had actually

26:47

done so well at Santa Monica that he'd

26:49

gotten a lucrative postgrad offer

26:52

from UC Berkeley, so he gave

26:55

sharp like a year. He was like,

26:57

ye, break this band in a year, or I'm

26:59

gonna go enroll at UC Berkeley, which

27:01

is hilarious and

27:05

basically Sharp achieved

27:08

this by telling Rivers like, hey, forget

27:10

about metal and grunge. Our new thing is the

27:12

Beach Boys.

27:13

Hell yeah, see this is why I love these

27:15

guys.

27:17

Yeah, but Loud, Oh sorry

27:19

that I forgot to even finished the most crucial

27:21

part of the pitch. Let's be like the Beach

27:23

Boys. But Loud sold.

27:25

Yeah.

27:27

Now we're going to talk about a major day in

27:29

Weezer Lore March nineteenth,

27:32

nineteen ninety two. Not

27:34

only did the band play their first ever gig

27:36

at Raji's on Hollywood Boulevard

27:38

as a last minute opener for wait

27:41

for it, Keanu Reeves Band

27:43

Dog Star, but

27:45

they also got their name. This

27:48

occurred while on a phone call with the booker

27:50

for that very gig. Rivers would later say,

27:52

I kept harassing this guy Casey at Raji's

27:55

in Hollywood to give us a gig. Finally,

27:57

one day he called and said, the opening

27:59

band for Keanu Reeves Band Dog Stars

28:02

just canceled. Do you guys want

28:04

to play? And I said yes, And

28:07

so he said what do you guys called. We

28:09

didn't have a name yet, so I told them we were called

28:11

Weezer, which was my dad's nickname

28:13

for me. When I told the guys,

28:16

hey, guess what we're called Weezer, they

28:18

weren't super excited about it. Interesting,

28:22

I never really thought it, because I've definitely heard the

28:24

story before, but I've never really thought about the

28:26

implications of naming

28:29

your band the nickname

28:32

from your estranged father.

28:35

Yeah. Super weird. That's a lot

28:37

to unpack, Huh.

28:39

It's like naming your band Old Yeller or something.

28:43

Ah.

28:45

Hey, everyone, We're Lenny from of Mice

28:47

and Men, just like famous

28:51

sad stories.

28:54

Adding to the moment, the band also

28:57

obtained their longtime headquarters on Amherst

29:01

Cuomo and Sharp moved in with friend Justin

29:03

Fisher after convincing the landlords that they

29:05

were a group of UCLA film students

29:08

and emphatically not a noisy rock

29:10

band. The focal point of the

29:12

house quickly became the garage, which

29:14

was promptly transformed into a rehearsal

29:16

space and be decked with posters

29:19

that would define the blue albums in the

29:21

garage. What follow

29:23

up next was a period of slogging it out in

29:25

La among the detritus of the hair metal

29:27

scene and the grunge Explosion,

29:30

which a band full of guys who looked like record store

29:32

clerk's playing high volume power pop wasn't

29:35

the most natural fit for drummer.

29:38

Pat Wilson wound up living in a garage

29:40

with no running water, where he

29:42

probably recalled the rolling stone

29:44

in a bag, not

29:47

even a bucket, not even a box,

29:50

a bag.

29:51

He seems like a weird guy. When

29:53

Brian Bell joined right after

29:55

they fired Jason, he

29:57

said that the he went

30:00

and met Rivers at the hotel and rivers

30:02

first word to him, He's like, you're going to need

30:04

to grow mustache to be in this band. We're

30:06

all gonna have mustaches, and Brin Belt was like

30:08

really, Rivers

30:11

was like, no, but grow

30:13

it anyway. And then he went to introduce himself

30:16

to Pat Wilson, and Pat Wilson was moved,

30:18

like, had his pants down and was mooning him as

30:20

he came in the door. Ah,

30:22

weird band.

30:24

You were ahead of our band. I'm sort of surprised you didn't

30:26

make us well. You you asked us to wear like Hawaiian

30:30

shirts, yeah, or like striped shirts.

30:32

That was like five years into the band when I was like,

30:34

everyone just start wearing Hawaiian shirts.

30:36

And we did. And it was good.

30:39

Yeah, in the biblical

30:41

sense it was good. Not

30:44

in the biblical We did not just to everyone listening.

30:46

We did not know each other in the biblical sense.

30:48

No, what the hell are you doing now? The

30:52

bag left off.

30:53

In the meanwhile,

30:56

Cuemo doubled down on his ultimatum to

30:58

his bassist. He said, you get us, could

31:00

deal in nine months, or I'm going back to

31:02

school.

31:03

Damn.

31:04

Things were easier back then.

31:05

Ah. Consequently,

31:07

by November, Weezer.

31:08

Had recorded a demo that made it into the hands of

31:10

Todd Sullivan, an A and R guy Geffen,

31:13

which became the lone major label to show

31:15

interest in Weezer, although they did have some

31:18

biddings from a number of indies.

31:20

After securing a deal with the Geffen subsidiary

31:22

DGC in nineteen ninety three, Weezer

31:25

planned to act as their own producers and recorded

31:27

their longtime home on Amherst Avenue

31:29

in the Sawtel district of La their

31:32

cozy garage had been where they cut a number

31:34

of demos, and consequently bassist

31:37

Matt Sharp said in November nineteen ninety four interview.

31:39

Our first thought was that we should do it in our own element

31:42

and have nothing be different, and make it as little

31:44

of an experience as possible. Do it in LA

31:46

and we'll produce ourselves and get an engineer.

31:48

We like to do it that way, but the Geffen

31:50

A and R team had bigger ideas and urged the

31:53

band to hire an established name to oversee

31:55

the sessions. Cuomo happened

31:57

to be in a supermarket where he overheard the Cars

31:59

All Time Great, one

32:01

of the greatest songs of all time. Just what I needed, he

32:04

explained. On the worst podcast name

32:06

I've ever heard in my life. I think it's music

32:08

or guitar themed, hosted by Chris Shifflett,

32:10

called Shred with Shifty, mostly

32:14

because I remember the lead singer of crazy Town's name was

32:16

Shifty shell Shock, so that's

32:18

all I can think of now.

32:19

Oh wow.

32:21

So anyway, he told Shifty, I was like,

32:23

Yeah, that's kind of what I want the Weezer record

32:25

to sound like, So let's get that guy. The

32:28

record company was really pushing us to work with the producer,

32:30

Cuomo told their biographer Larsen, and

32:33

so we figured, I don't know how you pronounced that guy's name,

32:35

Lewison. Lewison works

32:37

for me, So we figured that if

32:39

we had to have somebody in the studio with us, it might

32:42

as well just be someone who writes good songs. And

32:44

the Car's first record just rules. That's

32:47

Matt Sharp speaking. We got into the early

32:49

Cars thing and began to notice a musical similarity

32:51

between us and them. Our use of chords,

32:54

downstrokes, and melodies shows the same economy

32:56

and tightness as a Cars song. Buddy

32:58

Holly is not that far off from just

33:00

what I needed. Lucky for the fledgling band,

33:02

the feeling was mutual. I got their

33:05

tapes from Geffen Records when I was out in LA working

33:07

another project. Cars songwriter and

33:09

producer Rick Okasik told Magnet in twenty

33:11

fourteen, I listened to it in the

33:14

car and I just thought it was phenomenal. Having

33:16

no idea what they looked like, I thought they were a heavy

33:18

metal band that had really good melodies. Okaysick

33:21

was in town working on Bad Brains God of Love

33:23

album and decided to visit Weezer

33:25

at their rehearsal space. Hilarious

33:28

and fascinating footnote to Okay six careers

33:31

that he was the Bad Brains producer. Bad Brands,

33:33

for those of you who are not aware, are the most virtuosic

33:36

hardcore punk band out of the eighties. They

33:38

were a bunch of African American

33:40

gentlemen who grew up steeped in reggae and then

33:42

became jazz fusion dorks listening to like

33:45

Weather Report and Return Forever

33:47

and then found the Ramones like after that

33:50

and were like, I didn't know, but we can do this,

33:52

yeah, yeah, And so they were like they

33:55

like late seventies too, like early

33:57

eighties, and they were like, yeah, we can, we

34:00

can do this, and we'll just make it Shred and

34:03

Rick Okaseik produced their album Rock for

34:05

Light, and I guess was

34:08

still hanging out with him into the early

34:10

nineties, which is just amazing. The

34:12

record company called us up and said, Rick's coming

34:15

to your rehearsal today. Matt Sharp said

34:17

in July nineteen ninety four interview, we

34:19

were like, yeah, right, he's coming to our rehearsal.

34:22

But that day our drummer Pat saw him

34:24

in a guitar store and he goes, oh my god, maybe

34:26

he is coming in anticipation of Okay

34:28

Sick's arrival, Weezer made a special addition to their

34:30

repertoire. We had prepared a cover

34:33

of just what I needed first. Weezer

34:35

guitarist Jason Cropper remembered, you

34:37

know, sort of just goofing around and honoring him

34:39

at the same time, and Okay Sick later admitted

34:41

that he found their impromptu tribute quote pretty

34:44

cute. Okay Sick must have been so scary.

34:47

He's like six five ninety

34:50

pounds, looks like the grim Reaper, always

34:52

wearing sunglasses.

34:53

He may have been scary, but he was pretty laid

34:55

back, and he quickly allayed any fears

34:58

that the BAM may have had about handing over the

35:00

producer role to an outsider. He

35:03

says in River's Edge. My impression was just

35:05

that they should be recorded the way they were. I

35:08

didn't want to tamper with it much. He

35:10

did, however, have one suggestion, a

35:12

not bad one. Get out of the garage.

35:16

I talked them into coming to New York and recording

35:18

an Electric Lady. I thought it would

35:20

be inspiring, get out of this garage

35:23

and into what's on the

35:25

short list of the most iconic studios

35:28

and yeah, Rick Bill, Okay, Yeah, I

35:31

guess. Another reason Okaysik wanted to go to New York

35:33

was that his then wife Paulina Poritzkova,

35:36

the supermodel, was pregnant with the couple's

35:39

first son at the time, so he wanted to be

35:41

close to her as well. So the night before the band

35:43

decamped to New York City to record at Electric

35:45

Lady Studios, they did one last thing in

35:47

their garage. They raged,

35:49

specifically at August seventh, nineteen ninety

35:52

three. Carl Koch aka

35:54

the Fifth Wheezer, later wrote

35:56

of this magical evening in the garage right before

35:59

they left for New York. The excitement and

36:01

giddiness was tangible and erupted

36:03

into a going away bash. Needless

36:06

to say, the party stretched into the weeest

36:08

of hours. We were awoken after

36:10

about forty five minutes sleep by dgc's

36:13

David Geffen Record Companies Denise McDonald,

36:16

who picked us up in label exec

36:18

Tom Zutto's range Rover and

36:20

took our ragged forms to Lax.

36:23

I think Carl Koch is like the band diarist

36:25

if I recall, Yeah, he's just like.

36:27

One of their buddies, in like their historian.

36:30

I like he like works behind the scenes, but

36:32

he's also like in the street. He's also

36:34

heard on Blue album. Oh right,

36:36

it's just kind of a man. That's their

36:39

man Friday, which is why I referred

36:41

him as the fifth Weezer, the

36:44

fifth Weeze.

36:46

One of the label representatives, Denise McDonald,

36:49

took great care to step

36:51

over unconscious figures asleep

36:53

on the lawn. Their

36:55

departure, mercifully wasn't delayed

36:58

by the discovery that the residences won and

37:00

only toilet have them pulverized

37:02

at some point during the night, and

37:04

presumably Pat Wilson was like, I

37:07

got a bag, only

37:10

been used a few times.

37:12

As

37:16

you meditate on that, we'll be right back

37:18

with more too much information after these

37:20

messages, Wow,

37:31

okay, So spend some time routining the band

37:33

at a New York rehearsal studio. He

37:35

told their biographer, I had them in a pre production

37:38

for at least a week, trimming it down. I

37:40

wanted it to be a concise record that had a focal

37:42

point. They attempted fifteen

37:45

songs during these early sessions, including the

37:47

ten that made the final cut. Michael and Carly

37:49

became one of the most famous of these. It was re recorded

37:52

in its official forum, but you can hear the demos

37:54

on one of the Insane Long

37:56

Blue album reissues. We

37:59

will get to that. It's

38:01

very sad.

38:03

When they hit the hollid halls of Electric

38:05

Lady Rivers was suitably

38:07

cowed. He told the La Times

38:10

this year. I was beside myself.

38:14

Because I knew Kiss had recorded there.

38:17

Na Hendricks. Kiss

38:20

was the one that he named dropped. I remember

38:22

going to the.

38:23

Bathroom for the first time thinking Ace

38:25

Freeley sat on this toilet that I'm about

38:27

to sit on. Honestly, I did that

38:29

when I went to Village Vanguard and thought

38:32

about everybody old famous

38:34

asses that had shot up. I

38:36

think I took a picture of it and sent it to you. If I recall

38:38

you did I did?

38:39

Okay good. Yeah.

38:41

The bandon Okasik put some outlines in place

38:43

for the album. There was to be no reverb, the

38:45

guitars were to play only downstrokes

38:48

Wow, there would be no effects pedals

38:51

used. He asked them to

38:53

switch to their guitars bridge pickups,

38:55

which gives generally a brighter, more

38:57

troubly sound than the neck and

39:00

the band also gained access to Okay six

39:03

collection of vintage guitars, among them

39:05

a few less pulled Junior Specials and

39:07

a red sixties Fender Jaguar.

39:10

There's been a lot of debate amongst Weezer nerds

39:12

about which guitar actually tracked

39:14

the album because Rivers is famous for

39:17

a blue stratocaster like a Franken Caster

39:19

that he has, but Jason Cropper

39:22

had a red stratocaster that people

39:24

often think is on the record, but it is I believe

39:26

has been settled to be mostly okay, six

39:29

guitars. Uh, this is my favorite

39:32

bit about how they did this record. They tracked

39:34

everything by keeping the gain, which

39:37

is like the the input level

39:40

that's going into an amplifier, right, Like it's

39:42

it's essentially how you turn the

39:46

signal that's going into something.

39:48

Up until

39:51

he gets distorted or something there.

39:53

Well, Sue, I mean, god, how do

39:55

I explain this? On amplifiers

39:58

and most audio equipment, there's gain

40:00

and then there's master volume.

40:02

Right, Gain just.

40:04

Increases the input of whatever

40:06

you're putting into the

40:08

device. Master volume takes

40:11

that signal and turns it up. And yeah,

40:14

and the just the actual

40:16

volume of what you're hearing, the way that those

40:18

old tube Bamps worked was that they had a

40:20

really interesting relationship between gain and volume

40:23

because of the relationship between the power

40:25

tubes that were driving the amplifire, so

40:28

you could what they did on this record was crank

40:31

the gain, so you get that chewy,

40:34

like thick crunch distortion out

40:36

of it. But then they actually set the master volume

40:39

very very low, so you're getting

40:41

all of that tone, but it's not out of control.

40:44

And then you're playing with you know, downstrokes.

40:46

There's no reverbs, so it's all that distortion, but

40:49

very crisp and like controlled.

40:51

I mean the sound that I'm thinking of, I mean, I'm

40:53

nowhere near as technical about this as you are,

40:55

but think of the opening to Buddy Holly, just

40:57

that just.

41:00

That big wall of guitars strumming.

41:02

Oh.

41:03

And it's fascinating what they did, how they thought

41:05

of it, you know. And this is one of their engineer. The

41:07

engineers on Blue Album guy named Chris Shaw.

41:09

He said there was one overriding concept

41:12

to the album, the idea that the guitars

41:14

and the bass were one huge ten string

41:16

instrument. There's very few songs

41:19

on the record that actually have a bassline that

41:21

drifts away from what the guitar is doing, so

41:24

everything was in this lock step to

41:26

create these big walls of

41:28

hugely distorted sound. And another thing that they

41:30

did that I thought was really interesting that I only learned

41:33

about on This is what it's

41:36

They called an inverted power chord, but

41:38

that's just an overly over complicated

41:40

way of talking about a power chord was

41:43

introduced by I think link

41:45

Ray, oh maybe,

41:48

but it gained prominence in the fifties, right because

41:51

like when people started cranking their amps

41:53

in the fifties, link Ray and Dave Davies on

41:55

you really got me and creating the kind of template

41:57

for guitar distortion. One of the things that they found

42:00

it got really muddy really quick when you were using

42:03

traditional chords or like what they call cowboy

42:05

chords down at the bottom of the neck, or even

42:08

bar chords thicker up. So they simplified

42:10

all of that by having chords that only had

42:12

a root, a fifth, and an

42:15

octave, which are the most consonant intervals

42:17

you can have in the Western tempered scale because

42:20

they don't introduce the same harmonic

42:22

inconsistencies into the waveform that a third

42:24

does. Anyway, you

42:27

play a power chord with essentially

42:29

just three fingers or even two on

42:32

a guitar. And Weezer's thing that they did on

42:34

this album was instead of playing power chords

42:36

on the bottom string, the thickest string of the guitar,

42:38

the lowest one, the lowe like

42:40

Tony Eomi did in Sabbath,

42:43

all the power chords are played on the

42:45

low e string to make it just sound lower at

42:47

all times. So what they did was they would

42:50

play these power chords on the A string, which is the

42:52

second lowest string, and then just bar the

42:55

note under it on the E string. So

42:58

basically you have a chord that's just two

43:00

fifths and two roots.

43:03

It is just basically the non musical nerd

43:05

explanation for this is it makes the

43:08

chords sound thicker and louder. Anyway,

43:11

I don't know that's cool. Probably didn't

43:13

come across well. And then they

43:15

just decided to mix it all super loud.

43:18

Their template was the guitars on

43:21

Radioheads Creep, so they were

43:23

like, the guitars must be as loud or

43:25

louder than this relative to the mix Creep

43:28

precated.

43:29

Blahh, I guess it must doesn't creep ninety

43:32

two.

43:33

They were one of the Bends by ninety five.

43:35

That's true.

43:37

All that said, there's still one thing that got

43:39

away from them during the recording The Accursed

43:42

Human Element. Guitarist Jason

43:44

Cropper from the band's days as sixty

43:46

Wrong Sausage Is, How dare you keep making

43:49

me say that, claims he was fired

43:51

by the band during recording because of his relationship

43:54

with his then girlfriend now ex wife.

43:57

Who was unpopular with his

43:59

bandmates.

44:00

I mean poor woman. Yeah, honestly, Oh

44:02

I know.

44:03

Carrokoch later told Magnet magazine

44:06

Jason had a girlfriend back in LA and

44:08

one day she called him and said, oh, I'm pregnant.

44:11

And from that day onward, Jason's personality

44:13

became really intense and frantic and no

44:15

kidding, he wasn't handling it well.

44:18

A couple times the band would pull him aside

44:20

and be like, are you okay? Are you sure

44:22

you can do this? And he always said he was

44:24

fine, but then twenty minutes later he'd be

44:26

up on the roof of Electric Ladies screaming or

44:28

something. The

44:31

final straw was when defining Cuomo's

44:34

no girlfriends who were recording at the studio rule

44:36

ooh, Jason Cropper's girlfriend

44:38

flew to New York unannounced with no place

44:41

to stay.

44:42

I think the band were all staying in one

44:44

place, if I recall, I think they.

44:46

Were in a hotel.

44:47

Yeah, yeah, This all came to

44:49

a very predictable head. Treper

44:51

Cuomo felt that Cropper was about to leave Weezer

44:54

anyway, so they figured they just

44:56

beat him to the punch and remove him before

44:58

the release of their debut, and according

45:00

to Cropper, at one point Rivers told them he

45:02

could not allow him to jeopardize the

45:04

work and ask them to leave on

45:07

the day the first mix of the record was

45:09

completed. In fact, and the

45:11

bitterness lasted for several

45:14

decades but has since faded. In twenty

45:16

fourteen, Cropper admitted that Rivers had made

45:18

the right decision.

45:19

There's a theme in this band. It hasn't

45:21

continued for a while. Fortunately they've

45:23

hung under the same stable, I should say. But I

45:26

think both Matt Sharp and Jason

45:29

have said before time healed

45:31

all wounds that they were like. Rivers

45:34

will say that I left, but I was fired,

45:37

So I think Matt Sharp was too busy

45:39

with his side project among other things. But

45:42

like, yeah, I mean,

45:44

you're working with an autodid act with

45:47

dad issues, so get

45:49

what you pay.

45:49

For and then Asiah Complex I would guess.

45:54

But yeah, I mean they've both come out of the other end

45:57

pretty sanguine about it, which

46:00

is nice. I guess, no long standing bitterness

46:04

unless they signed papers. Oh,

46:06

they definitely signed papers. I mean there was definitely.

46:09

I think at one point either

46:11

Cropper or Sharp made reference to an Nda.

46:14

Oh yeah. It is

46:16

fascinating, like when you get to this era

46:18

of band, when you know there

46:20

was real money being thrown around and then you would have to

46:22

incorporate the band and like the band

46:25

becomes a business and then you can pull people on and

46:27

off the payroll.

46:28

You know.

46:29

The whole machinery of these bands is so fascinating

46:31

to me because, like I know, Motley

46:33

Crue has like fired their

46:35

guitarist and are denying

46:38

him credit. Bon Jovi is famously

46:40

like ruled by John

46:43

with an iron fist, And it's

46:45

all this stuff that people don't really think about when they think about

46:47

like, oh, yeah, you're gonna have like we're gonna.

46:49

Have a band.

46:49

It's gonna be like a street gang and we're gonna be cool

46:51

and play music. And it's like no, there will be a lot of paperwork,

46:54

and then you will have to deal with someone's health insurance, and

46:56

then you will be put in the position of firing them

46:58

at some point. So enjoy

47:01

next time you're getting together with your pals and dreaming

47:03

with guitars.

47:07

What was I saying, Well, this is after

47:09

the departure of Jason Cropp with a guitarist.

47:12

This left a very guitar heavy band

47:14

without a second guitarist slash backing

47:16

vocalist.

47:17

So we's a recruited a guy named Brian Bell

47:20

just in.

47:20

Time for him to add vocals to the Blue album,

47:23

but there was no time for him to learn the guitar

47:25

parts and re record them, so Rivers

47:27

took it upon himself to do that. Rerick

47:30

Okaesik told Rolling Stone in twenty fourteen,

47:33

after it was completely recorded, Rivers

47:36

came in and said, I'm firing the guitar player

47:38

and I'm going to do all his guitar parts over.

47:41

I said, you can't do that, but

47:44

he did in one

47:46

take.

47:50

Yeah, dumb talented

47:52

guitarist man. And you hear it. I

47:55

mean, I don't think we've really gotten to that. We will when we

47:57

get to the songs, but.

47:59

You hear it.

48:00

He admirably tamped a

48:03

lot of his chops down, but he's still in corks

48:05

a few.

48:07

That's nuts.

48:08

Uh yeah, Okay, good segue. Now we're going

48:10

to talk about the songs.

48:11

Album opener.

48:12

My name is Jonas was described

48:15

by Cuomo to his biographer

48:17

Leursen as explaining

48:19

how quote the plan is reaming

48:22

us all well said, especially

48:25

my brother, Cuoma's younger

48:27

brother birth name.

48:28

Leaves pause

48:33

for applause. Birth

48:36

name leaves this

48:39

thing on.

48:40

Yeah, was seriously injured in a September nineteen

48:42

ninety two car accident while attending Oberlin

48:44

because of course he was, and

48:47

he submitted a claim for recovery cost, but

48:49

his insurance refused to pay because the accident

48:51

had occurred in his friend's car. Leaves

48:54

aka James filed a

48:57

lawsuit against his insurance provider and was presumably

48:59

laughed out of court when he showed no he

49:02

lost.

49:03

Yeah, insurance sucks, dude. This

49:05

is where the Cuomo genius comes.

49:06

In, though he matched this up with Lois Lowry's

49:09

nineteen ninety three dystopian ya novel

49:12

The Giver, which centers around

49:14

a twelve year old named Jonas. Throughout

49:16

the course of the book, Jonas uses a sled,

49:19

and in River's brain he thought

49:22

I had a childhood's sled, and the

49:24

name of my childhood sled was Weepill,

49:27

weep heel. So when

49:29

he says the thing that I've never under at

49:32

the top of the second verse, when he's like, my name

49:34

is Wheetpill, that's the name of Rivers

49:36

Cooma's childhood sled, which he inserted

49:39

ended the song because the song already

49:41

had a reference to the giver.

49:44

Are we clear? Is there a Rosebud

49:46

Citizen Kine connection here too with

49:49

this?

49:49

I didn't get into that. No, I don't think so. The

49:52

nimble, fingerpicked intro Jason Cropper

49:54

worked out for the song earned him his Soul Weezer

49:57

compositional credit, which I think is interesting.

50:00

Ah, we touched on this earlier.

50:01

But the other than he's like jarring

50:04

enthusiasm for the project and also

50:07

just performing. I mean, it's

50:09

hilarious seeing clips around this time because it's

50:11

like motion literally motionless,

50:14

Rivers Cuomo singing and Matt Sharp

50:16

just like leaping around in the background doing

50:18

Pete Townsend windmills on his bass while

50:21

singing falsetto vocals. But

50:23

those falsetto vocals make him I think

50:26

the secret MVP of this record. He had

50:28

never really sung lead before joining the band,

50:30

and then they decided they were gonna do this Beach Boys

50:33

thing, and rather than it's

50:35

such a genius idiot move, rather

50:37

than learn actual harmonies, they

50:39

were like, oh, just do everything an octave up, like

50:42

singing your falsetto, and so they were

50:44

just And it's really funny hearing

50:46

it evolved because like on some of the early demos,

50:48

he's kind of it. They're they're almost

50:51

it's like the band, there's like a really loose

50:53

like they're singing Unison but not really. And

50:56

then by the time they made it to Blue album, he's just

50:58

like locked in Simon and

51:00

Garfunkle style to rivers

51:03

vocal melodies. I always think it's the funniest

51:05

thing in saying so when he's like, like,

51:08

that's that

51:12

is such a hard series of pitches to

51:14

hit in a falsetto register is would you almost

51:16

say that it's like the vocal equivalent of the power

51:18

chords.

51:19

I guess it's just actives never mind, Ah, yeah,

51:21

sort of.

51:22

Yeah, I mean your traditional vocal

51:24

blend is probably like a fifth and a third. Yeah,

51:27

Uh, in some kind

51:29

of inversion, he told the

51:31

blog perfect sound forever. Somewhere

51:33

in there is the desire to want to be like Smokey Robinson.

51:36

Ah, a part of me that never ceases to enjoy

51:38

singing in a sort of Southern falsetto voice.

51:41

It reminds me of an old Southern woman. It's

51:43

always a joy. That was actually how my vocal

51:46

teacher in New York taught me. That told me

51:48

to think of a falsetter. He's like, you know, you

51:50

just gotta think like you're an old, sassy black

51:52

lady. Really, yeah,

51:55

here's a weird guy.

51:57

Well.

51:57

The second song on the record, no One Else, is

52:00

supposedly written about one of Cuomo's ex

52:02

girlfriends, a woman named Petra,

52:05

and Uh. We touched on this at

52:07

the top of the episode. As

52:10

you write, let's just say, if

52:13

it wasn't intended as a prescient indictment

52:15

of in cell culture, it's such.

52:17

It wasn't. I don't think so. It's

52:19

pretty bad.

52:20

The songs chorus, I want a girl

52:22

who will laugh for no one else When

52:25

I'm away, she puts her makeup on the shelf

52:27

when I'm away, she never leaves the house

52:30

is basically the calling card of creepy return

52:33

to tradition men's rights guys on Twitter

52:36

these days?

52:37

Have you seen those guys?

52:38

Like I always, oh, so you

52:40

okay, I think just through like some

52:42

of the lefties that I follow, they dunk

52:44

on these guys.

52:45

But they're all dudes who have like Roman.

52:47

Statues as their profile picture, and

52:49

they are constantly like advocating like,

52:52

you know, we just need to return to the

52:54

tradition of like the nuclear family

52:56

unit, and like my wife will you know, raise

52:59

chicken on a farm and our kids will

53:01

have one hundred percent green and pure food.

53:03

And then like trad wife culture. Content

53:06

has become a thing. So there's like Instagram influencers

53:09

who are like these beautiful women but like

53:12

dressed like the Amish, or in

53:14

like high end Jivanci, like handmaking

53:17

cocoa crispies for their children, and

53:20

they all talk like this where they're like, oh, you know,

53:22

my wife shouldn't wear makeup in public, like

53:25

that's just for me. You know, it's

53:28

as a whole insane. I

53:30

can't believe you haven't bumped into any of it. They're all

53:32

called like Western man

53:35

inspiration or like you know, musings

53:38

of Aurelius and then

53:40

it'll just be a guy being like, yeah, I want my wife

53:42

to be like super hot, but not for

53:44

anyone just like me. We're gonna have like

53:46

six kids and we're gonna raise EMUs

53:49

and live on a farm.

53:50

And what's

53:52

the Rome connection.

53:54

I think they just think that, like the

53:57

Roman like intellectual and war

54:01

culture contributions is like the

54:04

ideal state of I guess Western

54:06

civilization, and think it needs to

54:09

be like, yes,

54:11

the return art with a V in

54:14

place of the U. Return to tradition

54:16

is like the calling card.

54:18

Huh, yeah, I haven't come across that in

54:22

that form.

54:23

I'll send you some stuff.

54:24

Yeah, please. Quollo

54:29

would only get worse and weirder in.

54:31

This vein on Pinkerton, the band's

54:33

sophomore record, Would you like to elaborate more

54:35

on that?

54:36

Well, sure, you know. There's the line

54:39

damn you half Japanese girls do it to me all

54:41

the time. There's the song pink Triangle, which

54:44

is entirely about a man being in love

54:46

with a lesbian, which was admittedly a theme

54:48

at the time Chasing Amy had come out in

54:51

a hilarious Rivers twist. He

54:53

later found out that the woman that he was writing the

54:56

song about was not actually a lesbian

54:58

and was simply an LGBTQ ally,

55:01

But yeah, pincertain is the weird one. I mean, there's that

55:03

letter across the sea where I think he the one

55:06

across the sea where he's talking

55:09

about Uh yeah,

55:12

he got a letter from like a Japanese fan

55:14

and like like started fixating on

55:16

her. Tired

55:18

of sex is all about like all

55:21

the passionless sex he had on the Blue

55:23

album tour. But

55:25

it's all very like creepy orientalist

55:28

stuff. It's just like, yeah, it's like a

55:30

straight white. That guy had

55:32

a thing for Japanese culture via I

55:35

must always add puccini. Yeah,

55:37

I mean, well, I don't even know how you're gonna edit

55:39

this together to make continuity. But at

55:41

some point Rivers became obsessed with musical

55:43

theater and like cats and Andreloyd Weber

55:46

stuff. I don't know if it was specifically

55:48

Angeloyd Webber, but it was like he became

55:50

obsessed with like big, grandiose things

55:53

and he mandated that he he was like, I'm gonna

55:55

practice piano three hours a day, so

55:58

he brought a piano like a digital keyboard on

56:00

one of their all I think all their tours up until

56:02

Pinkerton and would just like lock himself

56:05

in a room playing piano. And so

56:07

the follow up to Blue album as You As

56:10

You Once, where it was destined to be a

56:12

rock opera set in space called Songs from

56:14

the Black Hole, And

56:17

at some point he gave that up

56:20

as a fixation and got onto

56:23

Madam Butterfly by Puccini, And

56:26

so Pinkerton is a character from

56:28

Madam a Butterfly, and that

56:31

whole opera is viewed as this

56:33

sort of orientalist view of

56:35

like how straight white men view the Japanese

56:37

women as like fragile but still

56:40

sensual. And so

56:42

when you get like a metalhead, like a deeply

56:45

insecure, nerdy metalhead glombing

56:48

onto that, it's basically like proto web

56:50

culture.

56:51

You're familiar with the term web

56:53

I'm not no, but I don't like the sound of this.

56:56

It's a derogatory term for people like white guys

56:59

who were super inm anime and manga.

57:01

It's like, I think it comes from a Japanese word

57:03

for like nerdy white guy who is into.

57:07

Hang on.

57:08

Yeah, mostly derogatory slang for a person who's

57:10

obsessed with Japanese culture. I

57:13

was not a Japanese word.

57:14

I was wrong.

57:16

But yeah, Rivers became

57:18

a web and wrote weird

57:20

stuff about women on Pinkerton and

57:23

somehow was disappointed that that was not

57:25

a hit. Later on, he talks about his bitter

57:27

disappointment in not being like his

57:29

fixation on Kirk Cobaina. Nirvana is really

57:31

fascinating because he's like, truly

57:34

he seemed truly baffled when they came out and

57:36

people were like wow, nerd rock, Like he thought

57:38

that they were writing like that they were going to be

57:41

received as the next Nirvana. It's

57:44

like, yeah, dude, with the cassio

57:46

keyboard song Dame Dropping Buddy

57:48

Holly, It's like, that's what

57:51

you thought was gonna go. So there's like a there's a disconnect

57:53

somewhere between what he's putting out and what he

57:56

thinks it is. That is endlessly fascinating

57:58

to me.

57:59

I mean, the grace of God go all

58:01

of us.

58:02

Yeah, exactly right, Like it's

58:05

it is funny because like so much of their stuff that's

58:07

dated is just like, yeah, that could

58:09

have been any weird guy's trajectory

58:11

in the nineties, and is a lot of weird Guy's trajectory

58:14

in the two thousands. It's just one

58:17

of them. One weird guy who had all

58:19

of these hang ups happened to become one of the

58:21

last rock stars on the planet. Like, oh

58:24

well, it's just funny

58:26

to me that we spend all this time pouring over this and like,

58:29

you know, soft canceling him or whatever,

58:31

and like Anthony Keatis is

58:33

still just running around out there, uninhibited,

58:36

like the ultimate offensive male

58:38

idiot of nineties rock, just

58:41

having a blast.

58:45

I bet that guy, I

58:48

know you do, Bud, I'm sorry, I

58:50

know where

58:53

were we next

58:56

up? We've got The World has Turned and Left

58:58

Me here? Tell us about that.

59:01

As another song that, like my Name is Jonas, contains

59:03

some deft fingerpicking courtesy of Jason

59:05

Cropper. Cromo told the La Times,

59:07

I still sweat if I have to play those songs at

59:09

an acoustic show, and then

59:11

he gave a deeply weird quote

59:14

about this song, specifically to Chart

59:16

magazine in December of nineteen ninety four, aggregated

59:19

on weezer Pedia. I'm

59:22

tempted to think that our song the World Has Turned

59:24

and Left Me here is about the day my girlfriend left

59:26

me. I remember that sad day I picked

59:28

up my guitar and spilled tears of grief over those

59:30

four sad chords. But if I

59:32

think very carefully, I also remember that

59:34

a week later I met this new girl named Sonia

59:37

who speaks Spanish, Italian and Portuguese,

59:39

and forgot all about the first girl. But

59:41

still, to this day that song makes

59:43

me sad and it still rings true.

59:46

So maybe it wasn't about what's her name after all? Maybe

59:48

it's the sublimated tale of how my mom refused

59:51

to suckle me one night in my infancy. Who

59:53

am I to say anyway? Fifth

59:55

Weezer Carl Cock has a funny story about

59:58

Rivers recording the guitar solo to the song, which

1:00:00

he wrote in a set of liner notes to a reissue

1:00:03

four Blue album. Six hours

1:00:05

into trying to Nail The World Has Turned Solo,

1:00:07

Rivers was laying on his back in the tiny twelve

1:00:09

inch space between the two soundproof doors between

1:00:12

the live room and the control room, with his guitar

1:00:14

perched up on his chest, his legs squished

1:00:16

up the walls. About one hundred tries

1:00:18

into it, he'd given up when Rick

1:00:21

Okasick hummed a little melody over the talkback

1:00:23

mic. How about something like da

1:00:26

da da D D D, And in

1:00:28

five minutes the guitars were finished Buddy

1:00:31

Holly, moving on to Buddy the Greatest Songs

1:00:33

the nineties. The lyrics to Buddy Holly

1:00:35

were taken from a real life incident that occurred when

1:00:37

some of Rivers, Buds and Weezer were mocking

1:00:40

his friend Young He, a

1:00:42

classmate at Santa Monica Community College,

1:00:45

for her haircut. They were

1:00:47

the homies disin my girl. He wrote

1:00:49

in a set of liner notes. I rarely wrote

1:00:51

lyrics about the tension between me and the guys and the band

1:00:53

because I thought it would be awkward for all of us to perform

1:00:56

those songs together. In this case, though

1:00:58

it didn't seem like a big deal. Cuomo

1:01:00

was simultaneously messing around on a friend's new

1:01:02

coord keyboard and attempted to write a quote

1:01:05

neo new wave song inspired by some

1:01:07

of the presets on there. I love how it has

1:01:09

the it's got the like Ennio morri

1:01:12

County good Man, and the ugly interval in there.

1:01:15

Oh yes that's fine, which

1:01:17

is very carzy too.

1:01:19

I feel like, oh yeah, yeah, since

1:01:21

a super super carzy uh

1:01:25

the chorus melody, he said, the chorus melody

1:01:28

I came up with as I was walking through the lawns

1:01:30

of a campus. The melody was in time

1:01:32

to my steps. The lyrics I struggled

1:01:35

with trying to find the right reference point. An

1:01:37

early version read ooh, Wi you you

1:01:39

look just like Ginger Rogers. Oh

1:01:41

oh, I moved just like Fred Astaire. Again,

1:01:44

this is a guy who thought he was about to become the new

1:01:46

Kirk Cobain. Just

1:01:51

so bizarre.

1:01:53

Producer Ric Okasik was the one who went

1:01:55

to bat hardest for Buddy Holly. He

1:01:58

would tell Clomo's biographer, I remember at

1:02:00

one point he was hesitant to do Buddy Holly,

1:02:02

and I was like, Rivers, we can talk about

1:02:04

it, do it anyway, and if you don't like it when it's

1:02:06

done, we won't use it. But I think you should

1:02:08

try it. He did write it, and it's a great

1:02:11

song. He didn't leave it at

1:02:13

that though, where he's to remember. Matt Sharp recalled

1:02:15

on a two thousand and eight interview with Blender, We'd

1:02:18

come into the studio in the morning and find these little

1:02:20

pieces of paper with doodles on them. We

1:02:22

want Buddy Holly, presumably

1:02:25

left by Rick okasik.

1:02:26

I love that. What a nerd. That's cude, sweet

1:02:28

nerd. I enjoy that a lot. Yeah, don'

1:02:31

worry talking about this.

1:02:32

It was the Billy Joel episode about

1:02:34

how he wanted to leave I mean that's holistic,

1:02:36

all right. There of artists who wanted to leave their

1:02:38

big song off of the album. I wanted

1:02:41

to believe just the way you are

1:02:43

off of the Stranger because

1:02:45

he thought it sounded like bad cruise ship rock,

1:02:48

which I mean, yeah, he's not wrong.

1:02:50

And then when the Ronstadt stopped by the studio and

1:02:52

was like, no, you should you should do.

1:02:54

That another way, in which she is like the

1:02:56

Forest Gump of twentieth century American music.

1:02:59

Yep, I forget what episode was it the Eagles

1:03:01

when we ran down how she's been like a collaborator

1:03:04

of virtually every developed nation

1:03:06

and some undeveloped ones.

1:03:08

That nich was it was I Will

1:03:10

Always Love You, because it was her version of I

1:03:12

Will Always Love You and not Delly Partons that

1:03:15

got the attention of Kevin Costner, who gave

1:03:17

it to Whitney Houston. And

1:03:20

then you went off on this incredible tangent about

1:03:22

exactly what you just said. She's the lynchpin

1:03:24

of twentieth century music.

1:03:26

Yeah, at least since the seventies. I mean just all of

1:03:28

her stuff in the Laurel Canyon and the Nextees

1:03:30

too. Mike Nesmith, Oh, that's true,

1:03:32

so sixties and seventies. But then like you go through your

1:03:35

discography and it's like she's done an album

1:03:37

in like every genre of quote unquote world

1:03:39

music and blessed her and Sullivan

1:03:42

bless her like with those actual

1:03:44

musicians.

1:03:45

Yeah, yeah, you know, yeah, of

1:03:48

course.

1:03:48

Buddy Holly is followed up by perhaps Wheezer's

1:03:51

defining statement undone parentheses.

1:03:54

The Sweater song.

1:03:56

As mentioned earlier, it was Cuemo's attempt at

1:03:58

writing a velvet onunderground type song,

1:04:01

only to be steamrolled by his innate love

1:04:04

of Metallica.

1:04:06

For a feature on the ten.

1:04:07

Best Weezer Songs in Rolling Stone, Rivers

1:04:09

explained it this way. I took typing

1:04:11

psych one on one and English one on one

1:04:13

that semester. It was in my English

1:04:15

class that I heard the analogy of the unraveling

1:04:18

sweater. Doctor Eisenstein

1:04:20

used the image to demonstrate the effectiveness

1:04:22

of a focused thesis statement in an essay,

1:04:25

All I have to do is hold a single thread in your

1:04:28

sweater and it will unravel as you walk

1:04:30

away.

1:04:32

See other guy royalties or something. Hey,

1:04:35

I guess. For the album's

1:04:37

press kit, Rivers was more subtle.

1:04:40

Undone is the feeling you get when the train

1:04:42

stops and the little guy comes knocking

1:04:44

on your door. It was supposed to be a sad

1:04:46

song, but everyone thinks it's hilarious.

1:04:50

I don't get that analogy at all.

1:04:52

He's a weird guy. Okay man, Yeah,

1:04:54

okay man.

1:04:55

The original version of Undone, though, threatened

1:04:58

to tank the entire record. This

1:05:00

is because Rivers had envisioned the song having

1:05:03

a stereopanned conversation between

1:05:05

two people run throughout the entire

1:05:08

song, with one side representing

1:05:10

the positive and the other side representing

1:05:13

the negative, so one coming out of one side

1:05:15

of the speaker channel, the other coming out

1:05:17

of the other side.

1:05:19

As Karl Koch.

1:05:20

Explained in the liner notes of the Blue album

1:05:22

reissue, this idea had been sort

1:05:24

of lost when the band recorded their demos

1:05:26

back in nineteen ninety two, and I'd

1:05:28

been asked to come up with an audio collage

1:05:30

of samples for the first two verses instead.

1:05:33

It turned out pretty silly, but for the album,

1:05:36

Rivers wanted to try and merge the two ideas

1:05:38

a collage of samples that collectively had

1:05:41

that positive.

1:05:42

Negative argument going on.

1:05:44

I obliged, gathering two

1:05:46

hundred potential samples of

1:05:49

everything from Humphrey Bogart to Christian

1:05:51

radio dramas, the Peanuts Gang and

1:05:53

story dialogue from the Black Hole, pairing

1:05:56

it down to two fifteen sample sequences

1:05:59

that I played out on a mini keyboard, creating

1:06:02

the stereo conversation. In

1:06:04

the end, it was this conversation that Geffen

1:06:06

didn't want to deal with over fifteen different

1:06:09

sample clearances for a debut rock album.

1:06:11

Not gonna happen. What a terrible

1:06:14

idea, deeply awful.

1:06:18

What did happen, though, was the now famous conversation

1:06:20

between two very different personality

1:06:23

types at a simulated party. This

1:06:25

being the early nineties, it was a pain in the ass.

1:06:28

As fifth Wheez Carl

1:06:31

Kotch explained. This was done

1:06:33

on Rivers eight track back in the Garage on Amherstave

1:06:35

in LA with Michael Allen,

1:06:38

band supporter, bassist Matt Sharp,

1:06:41

myself, Carl, and a crowd

1:06:43

noise sound effect CD A

1:06:46

mix of undone with the samples removed

1:06:48

was made to a DAT digital audio tape

1:06:51

at Electric Lady, which was then sent

1:06:53

to LA where Rivers copied

1:06:55

it onto two stereotracs of his eight track

1:06:57

cassette recorder. Onto the un

1:07:00

U tracks of the cassette recorder went the party

1:07:02

noise from the CD and the conversation, and

1:07:05

then that was mixed down to another

1:07:07

DAT tape, which was then sent back to

1:07:09

New York. The finished party dialogue

1:07:11

scenes were then flown into the final mix

1:07:14

just in time to get mastered. Insane.

1:07:17

A lot of work for a not that great

1:07:19

idea.

1:07:21

I mean, it's just so funny that it's like the

1:07:25

workflow to just get the sound

1:07:27

of people like acting like nineties

1:07:29

stoner cliches at a party. You

1:07:31

know, surely that could have been accomplished

1:07:34

at Electric Lady Studios.

1:07:35

Yeah.

1:07:38

One of the voices you hear on that song, the aforementioned

1:07:41

Michael Allen was one half of

1:07:43

the Weezer super Friends and Fan Club

1:07:45

co founders. Her sister Carle

1:07:48

was the other, and the two were fans of

1:07:50

the band since their first days as a group.

1:07:52

They'd seen the band at Club Dump,

1:07:55

which was later transformed into the infamous

1:07:57

Viper Room in Los Angeles in July

1:07:59

nineteen ninety two, and they were some of

1:08:01

the biggest boosters of Weezer. As

1:08:04

fan club founders, they spent hours organizing

1:08:06

mailing lists and stuffing envelopes with

1:08:08

their own membership cards.

1:08:10

Reading zero zero zero one

1:08:13

and zero zero.

1:08:14

Zero two, forever earning them.

1:08:16

The title was Weezer's Top Fans. Sadly,

1:08:20

as Koch recalled the Magnet magazine, the

1:08:22

last show of the Pinkaton tour, the last

1:08:25

show before going dark for three years, was

1:08:27

a memorial concert for Michael and Carly,

1:08:29

the two sisters that ran our fan club, who

1:08:32

were killed in a car accident. They were

1:08:34

traveling with us organizing fan club

1:08:36

meetups at shows, driving from

1:08:38

Denver to Salt Lake. Whoever was driving

1:08:40

fell asleep. We decided

1:08:42

to schedule a memorial show at the end of the tour

1:08:44

in Los Angeles to help the family out.

1:08:47

Three of their daughters passed away, Michael,

1:08:50

Carly, and the sister who was in the vehicle

1:08:52

at the time.

1:08:53

It was brutal. The next

1:08:56

Weezer album, released in two thousand and one, would

1:08:58

be dedicated to them. The album

1:09:00

I didn't realize that that's awful.

1:09:03

Yeah, really really sad because

1:09:05

I think they Weezer didn't write this

1:09:07

song as a tribute after they died. They wrote

1:09:09

it like in their early days. And one of them

1:09:12

in an interview had talked about like Rivers

1:09:15

like calling them up and being like because they were

1:09:17

just butts, they were just friends of the band, and

1:09:20

so Rivers would call them up and be like, Yo, what street

1:09:22

did you grow up on? Like what was your childhood

1:09:25

like? And all that went into this this

1:09:27

song. And then the first time they played it for them, they

1:09:29

like wept openly in the crowd. May

1:09:32

all bands have at least one fan like

1:09:35

that, you are

1:09:37

ours? You were ours?

1:09:41

Uh?

1:09:41

Surfwaxs America great song, another

1:09:43

one with an intro riff that Cuomo has acknowledged

1:09:45

came from Jason Cropper, although he did not get a compositional

1:09:48

credit on it, and did an interview with bill

1:09:50

Board in twenty nineteen. Pat Wilson, the

1:09:52

drummer for Weezer founding member, not

1:09:54

the actor, called he

1:09:57

called surf Wags America another desk

1:10:00

needed up tempo number. Rivers

1:10:02

especially really loved the Beach Boys, and I think he tapped

1:10:04

into that vibe a little, but in a more punk rock way.

1:10:07

I don't believe any of us had ever surfed. At

1:10:09

that point, we were painfully lacking in

1:10:11

self awareness. Ah, the

1:10:14

Weezer mission statement, it's

1:10:16

a young person's take on the world saying this

1:10:19

is all bull I'm just gonna do whatever I want

1:10:21

to do. I think it's a rejection of

1:10:23

paths chosen for you. Other

1:10:25

fun facts about the song from Weezer Pedia. The

1:10:28

song's first verse contains a reference to the song

1:10:30

Round and Round by American Hair

1:10:32

Metal also RAN's rat with

1:10:35

two te's, and it's become a niche

1:10:38

fan ritual to yell smoke dope

1:10:41

at live performances of the song

1:10:43

when it goes into the breakdown section in the middle, solely

1:10:46

because there is an

1:10:48

oft circulated live

1:10:50

recording of Surf Wax America

1:10:53

in which a guy in the crowd yells smoke

1:10:55

dope. So that is a lesson in the

1:10:57

intensity of Weezer fandom. They have started

1:11:00

recreating at

1:11:02

shows currently happening live

1:11:05

bits from what were initially

1:11:07

like bootleg only live recordings.

1:11:10

I appreciate that. I applaud that.

1:11:13

Yeah, I bet you too, he

1:11:16

said rudely. Up

1:11:20

next, we have again another defining

1:11:22

statement say it Ain't So. I

1:11:25

found it really interesting going back and listening to some of the

1:11:27

demos of this song, where you can

1:11:29

absolutely hear Rivers Cuomo doing John

1:11:31

Frisciani and like all the stuff that John

1:11:34

Frusciani lifted from Hendrix to

1:11:36

do in the red on chili peppers, and

1:11:38

then they paired it all down for the recording, which

1:11:40

is good choice. This song's

1:11:42

imagery comes from his teen years when he saw

1:11:45

a beer in the family refrigerator, which

1:11:47

prompted him to panic that his stepfather

1:11:50

was planning to leave the family. Also because

1:11:53

Rivers had mistakenly connected

1:11:56

his birth father's abandonment of

1:11:58

the family with alcohol. Jordan,

1:12:01

please delve into this fascinating dynamic

1:12:03

that spawned a hit song.

1:12:05

Yes, Rivers explained to the La

1:12:07

Times, my birth father only had

1:12:09

a fax machine at the time, and out

1:12:11

of the blue, I got this fax from him, Weezer,

1:12:14

give me a call.

1:12:15

We need to talk. So I got in touch

1:12:17

and explained where I was coming from in the song.

1:12:20

But I'm kind of morrified that a lot of say

1:12:22

it ain't So, as powerful as it is and

1:12:24

as true as it is, is based on a misunderstanding

1:12:28

the root of it is this photograph I have of

1:12:30

my dad and my mom where he's wearing

1:12:32

a sleeveless undershirt and smoking

1:12:34

a cigar and holding a Heineken.

1:12:37

He looks so intimidating.

1:12:39

Years later, I was talking to my mom about it,

1:12:41

and she said he wasn't an alcoholic.

1:12:44

He didn't even drink or smoke. He was like

1:12:46

a zen Buddhist guy. We were just goofing

1:12:48

around in that picture. Those were just props.

1:12:52

Wow, Yeah, just

1:12:55

like misinterpreting your entire

1:12:57

familiar dynamic for

1:13:00

decades based on a snapshot, yeah,

1:13:02

and then making a hit song out of it and having

1:13:05

your dad like,

1:13:07

get back in touch with you because yeah, yeah,

1:13:09

one of the three times you spoke with him

1:13:12

were like four times you'd ever spoken with him, to

1:13:14

be like, thank you for doing that. It

1:13:16

was incorrect.

1:13:20

The line you cleaned up found Jesus,

1:13:22

though he is addressed to his birth father, who,

1:13:24

as you mentioned earlier, became a pentecostal

1:13:26

preacher. In a twenty fourteen

1:13:29

Rolling Stone interview, Rivers talks about watching

1:13:31

his father preach sermons and how

1:13:33

it made him feel better about being an introvert

1:13:36

fronting a rock band, seeing himself in

1:13:38

his dad's movement and speech, which

1:13:41

is sweet in its own way.

1:13:42

Did they ever yeah, like reconcile in any

1:13:45

meaningful way? He said that he's yeah, he yeah.

1:13:47

I think his quote in like twenty fourteen was like,

1:13:49

now that I'm a father, I've forgiven my dad, which

1:13:52

story of everybody's like again again, just

1:13:54

such a fascinating guy man, Like you

1:13:57

know, he's talked so much about how like

1:13:59

like he metates every day, which

1:14:03

is not a weird thing, a lot of people do that, but just this

1:14:05

whole he's described a lot of

1:14:07

his like way of being as like

1:14:10

being steeped in these Eastern philosophies growing

1:14:12

up like meditation and zen thinking and everything,

1:14:14

and also being very much like a product

1:14:16

of like straight man rock, like

1:14:19

growing up in the seventies and eighties. And this

1:14:21

detail, well, the Jimmy

1:14:24

in the song is also his brother Leaves by

1:14:26

the way, And here is my the most

1:14:28

crushing detail about say it ain't so that

1:14:31

you will never ever be able to forget unless

1:14:34

you are already a Weezer fan and have internalized

1:14:36

it. The single, back

1:14:38

when they were CD singles for this song

1:14:41

was released with artwork that was

1:14:43

a childhood drawing Rivers made

1:14:45

of he and his birth father playing soccer.

1:14:48

You may remember that his dad supposedly named

1:14:50

him after a bunch of World Cup soccer players,

1:14:53

and the art focuses on a young Rivers

1:14:55

scoring a goal, which is given

1:14:58

the childlike phonetic spelling of g olll

1:15:01

and his father cheering him on with lines

1:15:03

like yay, my son, Wow,

1:15:05

cat's in the cradle slowly faded.

1:15:07

Oh my yes, yes,

1:15:09

yes, yes, I know.

1:15:11

So speaking of that single release, the version of Sad

1:15:13

and So that went out on the on the original

1:15:16

version of Blue album didn't have that awesome

1:15:18

feedback that comes in right before the right

1:15:21

before the chorus kicks it. I'm getting goosebumps talking

1:15:23

about it's such an awesome part of that song.

1:15:26

And then when man heard it with the feedback in, they

1:15:28

were like, no, that should have been there all along.

1:15:30

And so that's the new master in

1:15:33

the video for the song, it was the third one that they'd

1:15:35

done for the record, the one that they

1:15:37

didn't do with Spike Jones. They did it with Sofie

1:15:40

Sophie Mueller, and it's

1:15:42

in there old It's a glimpse that you can see

1:15:44

of their their place in l A H.

1:15:47

And there are indeed heavy metal posters.

1:15:50

On the background. You can see King Diamond,

1:15:52

who is the vocal

1:15:55

the first the lead singer of Mercall Fate and then

1:15:58

his own band. So

1:16:00

that's fun in the garage, moving

1:16:02

on to in the garage and other. I god, this

1:16:04

song is so pure to me. Yeah, it's

1:16:06

like toy story or something. Man, it is such

1:16:09

a like cute, like

1:16:12

whimsical song about like the pains

1:16:15

of growing

1:16:17

up I feel, And it's

1:16:19

just you know, it is yeah,

1:16:22

like looking back on like the childhood passions

1:16:24

that you had when you were like safe and secure

1:16:27

before society started telling you you were weird

1:16:29

for them. But again, like

1:16:31

also in nineteen ninety five, coming out of grunge

1:16:33

and like Lane Stalely bellowing about

1:16:36

burnt corpses and rooster and

1:16:39

you know Eddie Vedder singing about Jeremy.

1:16:41

You have little real little rivers coming on

1:16:43

and singing about X Men, comics,

1:16:45

dungeons and dragons and kiss. I

1:16:48

didn't know this until reading about this, but their dedication

1:16:50

to dungeons and Dragons is impressive. They had

1:16:52

a tour where their setlist was determined

1:16:54

by rolling a twenty sided die, and

1:16:59

as with everything we it masks the deep

1:17:01

well of sadness that hides behind

1:17:03

Crooma's sort of impassivity. This

1:17:06

is in his bio sheet for

1:17:09

the record label that came out with for the like

1:17:11

the record label biosheet that came out with Blue album.

1:17:13

He wrote this.

1:17:13

Himself because I'm so terrible at

1:17:15

expressing my feelings directly, and because

1:17:18

no one really cares, and because

1:17:20

anything real is almost impossible to talk about.

1:17:22

I've come to rely on music more and more to express

1:17:25

myself. And then you pair that with

1:17:27

a quote from this twenty fourteen Rolling Stone profile

1:17:29

where he says, I'm often troubled by a

1:17:32

very strong instinct to share everything that's

1:17:34

going on with me. I want to feel that connection,

1:17:36

even with people I don't know. Then there's

1:17:38

this other voice that says that's not prudent.

1:17:41

People will use what you've said to hurt you. Again,

1:17:44

I do not want to live in that guy's head. Holiday

1:17:48

another great song. Just some more great songs,

1:17:51

interesting lyrical concepts under the hood. In

1:17:54

a fan interview in two thousand and six, Quoma

1:17:56

said that he had a big Jack Caroac phase, which

1:18:00

I again, there's like lyrics on this album that I'd never

1:18:02

really parsed until I was researching

1:18:04

this. He does, in fact say on the road

1:18:06

with Krawak in the breakdown to the middle

1:18:08

of that song, and

1:18:11

you'll love this. The opening line

1:18:13

Let's go away for a while is

1:18:16

a direct title of a Beach Boys track on pet

1:18:18

Sounds. And you are holding a copy

1:18:20

of pet Sounds up to me. Do you just have one of those

1:18:22

with you every time you record?

1:18:24

It's like liness with his blanket. Yeah,

1:18:28

it's like I'm recording now, Brian recorded

1:18:30

this.

1:18:31

I can do just as good.

1:18:34

Well, here's another tremendously depressing quote from

1:18:36

Rivers from nineteen ninety seven letter that he

1:18:38

wrote the road of

1:18:40

the song is any form of escapism, be

1:18:43

it beautiful melodies, drinking, drugs,

1:18:45

love art, whatever. However, it

1:18:47

is important to note that even in the song holiday

1:18:50

escape is short lived. Right after

1:18:53

the line on this road will never die come

1:18:55

the ominous crashing chords of fate.

1:18:58

Okay, cool man, this

1:19:03

brings us to only in dreams.

1:19:06

Funnily enough, well, it's easier to assume that

1:19:08

the song's lyrics are a straightforward relationship.

1:19:11

Cuomo told Rolling Stone in twenty ten that the

1:19:13

song is really about his artistic process,

1:19:16

by which you think he means that

1:19:18

attempting to get a song to live up to the expectations

1:19:21

you hear or have in your head is

1:19:23

a lot like building up a romantic partner to

1:19:25

an unachievable ideal.

1:19:28

Yeah, And I mean I think that makes sense he you

1:19:32

know, as any kind of creative person,

1:19:34

right, Like, you start with this idea in your head

1:19:36

and you're like, oh.

1:19:37

It's got to be this amazing dag and I'm gonna problem.

1:19:39

And that the more you work with it,

1:19:42

yeah, and live with it, like,

1:19:44

the more you start to realize this will

1:19:46

never sound, read look

1:19:49

like the thing that I have in my head. And I

1:19:51

think that is a very similar situation

1:19:54

that a lot of mostly single

1:19:56

young men find themselves in with

1:19:59

women from a Fall. But

1:20:02

there's another even more horrible influence

1:20:04

lurking Yes.

1:20:07

In the afore mentioned podcast Shred

1:20:10

with Shifty Rivers said

1:20:12

the long instrumental portion of the song

1:20:15

was inspired by jam Icon's Fish

1:20:17

and their guitarist Trey Anastasia, saying,

1:20:20

I went to Fish shows and had the tapes

1:20:23

and it was like, man.

1:20:25

This is just so transcendent. The

1:20:27

way Trey plays, and that's kind

1:20:29

of what I wanted to do.

1:20:32

The solo in the song has repeatedly come

1:20:34

up as one of his favorites, though Weezerpedia

1:20:36

has hopefully noted that in two thousand and two, Quomo's

1:20:39

quote infamously derided only in Dreams

1:20:42

on the Rivers Correspondence Board

1:20:44

as quote, pardon

1:20:47

me gay gay gay, Disney

1:20:50

gay all one word, and claimed

1:20:52

it made his brother leaves Aca

1:20:55

a Jimmy embarrassed.

1:20:57

Make of that and the offensive language.

1:21:00

What you will I find Disney

1:21:02

gay on a continuity with the

1:21:05

brick and morty guy justin Royland. In

1:21:08

some of his canceled he was

1:21:10

canceled for being like a drunk, useless

1:21:12

idiot and also like a sex pest, and

1:21:15

in one of his grooming dms

1:21:18

to Like a Young Woman, he described himself

1:21:20

as Atlanta drunk, which

1:21:22

I truly think needs to go into the

1:21:25

lexicon. Like more so,

1:21:27

we have to find the opposites

1:21:29

of the level of.

1:21:31

Drunk you get in Atlanta what

1:21:37

I've ever been?

1:21:39

Oh yeah, I mean yeah,

1:21:42

the city run by Coca Cola and strip clubs

1:21:45

like.

1:21:47

You get up there.

1:21:50

Some of there's a continuity of Disney

1:21:52

gay and Atlanta drunk in

1:21:56

the thoughts of canceled white men.

1:21:58

How do you feel about try Anastasia.

1:22:00

I hate Fish. I

1:22:02

understand it, and I will say this for

1:22:05

their fans, they are fing tenacious.

1:22:07

I have never had a subset of music fans

1:22:10

try to bully me into liking their

1:22:12

music that they like, except for reggae

1:22:15

fans. If you tell me, oh,

1:22:19

yeah.

1:22:19

Dude, you've never gotten that.

1:22:21

Like if you tell people like, yeah, I like, I don't really like

1:22:23

reggae, like sort of the I mean, I

1:22:26

guess I've gotten into dub, but

1:22:28

like a lot of reggae, I find that like upstroke

1:22:31

thing really kind of like oppressive and

1:22:34

if it's not done by like the Masters,

1:22:37

to be really grating and sort

1:22:39

of it sounds like poka if

1:22:41

you do it poorly. But yeah,

1:22:43

man, whenever I tell people I don't really listen to reggae,

1:22:45

they'd be like, oh, you just haven't heard Augustus

1:22:48

Pablo meets the Uptown Rockers.

1:22:51

You know, it's King Tubby. It

1:22:53

sounds like it was recorded in like a deep mind

1:22:55

shaft, and it's every song is twenty minutes

1:22:57

long. And Fish fans are like

1:22:59

that you know, Oh you haven't heard

1:23:02

this like idiotic song about

1:23:05

like some idiot cartoon protagonist.

1:23:08

And then the version that they did on like March nineteen

1:23:10

ninety two is thirty minutes long

1:23:13

and has like seventeen covers welded

1:23:15

into it, and just like everybody gets a

1:23:17

great solo, but that's not as good

1:23:19

as the one from like and they like they're like Grateful

1:23:22

Dead fans in that way, like, yeah, I don't really like that. Oh

1:23:24

have you heard this soundboard recording from March

1:23:26

third, nineteen sixty nine, like it'll really

1:23:28

change your life? But not the one

1:23:31

from March second, you know,

1:23:33

nineteen eighty one, completely different band. Donna

1:23:36

Godshaw's in there, not really the best.

1:23:38

It's not really fan of Donna, but you know,

1:23:40

once you get into the Bruce Hornsby

1:23:42

era of Live Dead, they really come into

1:23:44

their own with a new professional sheen

1:23:48

coming out of the keyboard corner.

1:23:49

Like that's all these people talk.

1:23:52

And I like the Grateful Dead not fish

1:23:54

though, what was I

1:23:56

talking about?

1:24:00

You?

1:24:03

You knew that I was going to do that. You baited

1:24:05

me into a fish ramp.

1:24:09

Mons. We call this in TMI

1:24:11

circles Gone Fishing.

1:24:17

We're going to take a quick break, but we'll be right

1:24:19

back with more too much information in just

1:24:21

a moment. Although

1:24:33

mixing Weezer's Blue Album, which you'll

1:24:36

recall us what this episode is actually about, went

1:24:39

over budget, the album Weezer's

1:24:41

Blue Album was done and in the can,

1:24:44

and the band returned to La to embark

1:24:46

on an intensive series of local shows

1:24:49

intended to break in new guitarist Brian bell

1:24:52

Bill has an amazing recollection

1:24:54

of his first show at the band. He would say,

1:24:56

my parents came. It was a big moment. Afterwards,

1:25:00

Rivers and I hugged for the first and last

1:25:02

time. It was the most awkward thing in

1:25:04

the world. I think I told them, don't

1:25:06

worry, that'll never happen again.

1:25:08

Ah.

1:25:11

Meanwhile, Geffen Records kept pushing the album's

1:25:13

release date back, but they did at least

1:25:15

pony up the cash for esteemed pit

1:25:17

up photographer Peter Gowland to

1:25:20

shoot the now iconic cover image of the

1:25:22

album. Cuomo told the La

1:25:24

Times the night before I went to some random

1:25:26

salon and said, give me a haircut, and

1:25:29

that's what they gave me. It totally

1:25:31

sucks, but now that's me for

1:25:33

eternity.

1:25:34

In every meme.

1:25:36

The original conception for the cover was for the

1:25:39

band to be in matching striped shirts, like

1:25:41

my beloved Beach Boys, but they all

1:25:43

ended up wearing basically their street clothes.

1:25:46

What did you read about the specific Beach

1:25:48

Boys cover that it comes from.

1:25:50

No, this is fascinating

1:25:52

because I think you'll connect with it on a granular

1:25:55

level at some point. And they have

1:25:57

the actual picture of this greatest Hits collection

1:26:00

Rivers or I think it was Rivers.

1:26:02

He found like a cassette only greatest

1:26:05

Hits collection that's just

1:26:07

called like best of the Beach Boys or something, and it

1:26:09

was it was never issued on like CD, it

1:26:12

was like or vinyl. It was one of those things

1:26:14

that was like in a gas station, bar

1:26:16

Bin and he carried the CD around,

1:26:18

was like, this is what the album needs to be. So they all

1:26:21

got these matching striped shirts, much like ones

1:26:23

that I assume you own in multiples warm

1:26:25

for our bands, and they played,

1:26:28

they played a whole show in these shirts and

1:26:31

like, but then when it came time

1:26:33

to shoot it, they abandoned the idea and just wore their regular

1:26:35

street clothes. It's

1:26:37

also I think they got for one point, it's also

1:26:40

very similar to an album by the

1:26:42

Feelies, the band had not listen

1:26:44

to at this point, which I get like they

1:26:46

that was That's an obscure band kind

1:26:49

of even now, much less back in than pre internet

1:26:51

days.

1:26:52

But for the blue for the cover, it took them two

1:26:55

days to find the right shade,

1:26:58

which, unsurprisingly, as we've learned

1:27:00

thus far in this episode, it's connected

1:27:02

back to Rivers childhood. He

1:27:04

wrote on his website in twenty twenty. My

1:27:06

parents said I could paint my room any color

1:27:09

I wanted. I painted it my favorite

1:27:11

color, a specific.

1:27:12

Shade of blue.

1:27:14

When I was thinking about a cover for the first Weezer

1:27:16

album, I wanted it to be that same shade

1:27:18

of blue. This mode of nostalgia

1:27:21

for the lost innocence of childhood was

1:27:23

the same source of my look in the blue album

1:27:25

era, the glasses frames, bowl

1:27:28

cut, Dicky's blue T shirt, and

1:27:30

windbreaker for my childhood photos.

1:27:33

Wow.

1:27:34

Man, the

1:27:36

idea for this album cover did not thrill

1:27:39

the record label FNA and r Rep. Todd

1:27:41

Sullivan recalled, I remember that I

1:27:43

had been shown the cover of some Beach Boys album,

1:27:46

and what caught my eye was that they were all in striped

1:27:48

shirts and a blue background. It looked

1:27:50

like some sixty sears family photo.

1:27:53

It was a shock, like, oh

1:27:55

okay again all comes

1:27:57

back to his childhood.

1:27:58

Man. Yeah, I've read that

1:28:01

Matt Sharp didn't like I was face looked.

1:28:03

So either the photographer or something that Geffen

1:28:05

like just photo like flew in in an

1:28:07

alternate with photoshop.

1:28:09

But I don't know.

1:28:11

I didn't read that anywhere other than your article

1:28:14

and Wikipedia, So make

1:28:17

of that what you will.

1:28:18

Anyway.

1:28:19

The Blue album finally dropped on May tenth, nineteen

1:28:22

ninety four, a month after Kirk Cobain's suicide

1:28:24

and weeks after Live Through This by Courtney

1:28:26

Love's band Hole and Kirk Cobain's

1:28:28

Widow came out, an album that,

1:28:31

if you believe certain conspiracy

1:28:33

theories, was either co written by or

1:28:36

mostly written by Kurt or Billy Corgan.

1:28:38

Right, is that the that?

1:28:41

Yeah? Anyway. H Wheezer's

1:28:43

out of Nowhere major label deal drew suspicious

1:28:46

looks from the alt rock community, who accused them

1:28:48

of being an industry plant, given that they hadn't followed

1:28:50

the traditional route of heavy underground

1:28:52

touring and the series of independent releases before

1:28:54

signing with Geffen. One review

1:28:56

that they all apparently remember called them Stone

1:28:59

Temple pick which is an extremely

1:29:01

niche pun that I will now explain to

1:29:03

you. Stone Temple Pilots were seen

1:29:06

as the radio friendly, super slick Johnny

1:29:08

come Lately to the grunge trend because Scott

1:29:10

Wiland used to sing in a chesty

1:29:12

baritone much like Eddie

1:29:15

Vedder before they really revealed themselves

1:29:17

as weird seventies fixated like glam

1:29:20

rockers on some of the albums

1:29:22

that nobody listens to. Stone

1:29:25

Teple Pilots are a great band, all

1:29:27

of you. And it could also

1:29:30

possibly be a reference to Pixies

1:29:32

signing with Elektra after the Come

1:29:34

On Pilgrim EP and the wild success

1:29:37

of Surfer Rosa, which was an independent

1:29:39

I think it came.

1:29:39

Out on four A D.

1:29:42

So there's a couple of different things

1:29:44

that you have to go around in your head there. But

1:29:46

then there's the also interpretation that it could

1:29:48

be calling Weezer the Stone

1:29:51

Temple Pilot's version of the Pixies,

1:29:54

which is just so bizarre to me, because how the

1:29:56

do you listen to blue album and think,

1:29:59

yes, this it sounds like Airsat's Pixies.

1:30:03

Like what music critic was high enough

1:30:05

on their own supply to make that connection. Anyway,

1:30:08

That's not a job you can have anymore, so it doesn't

1:30:10

matter shout

1:30:12

out to Conde Nast. Consequently,

1:30:15

the record didn't really pick up until The Sweater

1:30:17

Song started to pick up on college radio back

1:30:19

when there was such a thing and they

1:30:21

were taste makers, and then

1:30:24

hip modern rock radio station like LA's

1:30:26

K Rock and Seattle's The End

1:30:29

started picking it up as well, again a tract

1:30:31

no longer available to up and coming

1:30:34

bands. There were no videos

1:30:36

when the album was released. There wasn't even a single fifth

1:30:38

wheez. Carl Koch told Magnet it

1:30:40

was really hard to get Geffen to spend a dollar without seeing

1:30:43

some potential. And the potential came when Undone

1:30:45

started getting played on the radio in Seattle,

1:30:47

and then modern rock stations all over started following

1:30:49

suit, and Geffen was like, Okay, we need

1:30:52

to make a video. The band was initially reticent

1:30:54

to make one at all, but they wound up in

1:30:56

touch with Spike Jones, who they knew, I

1:30:58

think vaguely from like their circles.

1:31:01

According to the La Times, Spike

1:31:03

Jones told the band, look, a music video can be

1:31:05

anything. It doesn't have to be what you think it is.

1:31:07

It could be as perfect and simple as your album

1:31:10

cover. Just you guys playing against a blue wall,

1:31:12

singing or half singing, or not singing at all.

1:31:15

And Jones's recollection of the phone conversations.

1:31:17

Then the Rivers said, but then what happens?

1:31:20

And Jones says, I don't know. A bunch of dogs

1:31:22

run through at the end, and he said, I

1:31:24

wasn't pitching an idea so much as I was just saying

1:31:26

that you could make anything out of a music video.

1:31:30

But the rest of the pitches that they'd gotten

1:31:32

for music video directors were like apparently

1:31:34

just them being like, all right, we're gonna wrap you up at a giant

1:31:36

sweater and then it's gonna unravel

1:31:39

throughout the course of the song.

1:31:41

You know, get it.

1:31:43

Spike Jones were called the same day he

1:31:45

had that meeting, Matt Sharp called him

1:31:47

again and was like, Rivers wants you to

1:31:49

do the video you pitched, and Spike

1:31:51

joneses like, what video? And Matt

1:31:53

Sharper was like, you know with the dogs running around,

1:31:58

Oh, it's also funny to hilariously

1:32:01

enough, On the day of the video shoot, guitarist Brian

1:32:03

Bell still very much. The new guy in the band

1:32:05

were called to The La Times. I'm

1:32:08

not sure if I was told the dogs were going to

1:32:10

come out. Carl

1:32:13

Kanch recalled, we couldn't get the dogs to do what

1:32:15

we wanted them to do. It was a big room with loud

1:32:17

music blaring, so it was hard to get them to hit their marks,

1:32:20

and you had like fifteen different trainers trying to tell

1:32:22

their dog which way to go. At one point,

1:32:24

one of the dogs came over and crapped on Pat's drum

1:32:26

pedal. At that point we realized this was ridiculous

1:32:29

and we should just let everyone do whatever they wanted,

1:32:31

dogs included, and it will be fun.

1:32:34

The video hit MTV and earned their coveted

1:32:37

buzz clip status, which repelled

1:32:39

them to a second video with Jones at the Helm,

1:32:42

which wound up being their iconic video

1:32:44

for Buddy Holly, which

1:32:46

saw the band intercut into an episode of

1:32:48

My beloved Happy Days. Jones

1:32:51

recalled as creative process for coming up with a video

1:32:53

concept to The La Times, the way

1:32:55

I come up with ideas for videos is I listened

1:32:57

to a song over and over again and write

1:33:00

every idea I have, bad, good,

1:33:03

stupid, whatever with buddy

1:33:05

Holly, I just wrote down Happy

1:33:07

Days.

1:33:07

At some point, Fifth.

1:33:09

Weezer Carl Koch said that Rivers wasn't

1:33:11

convinced, but he was hardly the heaviest

1:33:13

lift for the video. That

1:33:15

was getting all the Happy Days people to sign

1:33:18

off on it, which wasn't easy. Sharp

1:33:20

recalled and Blender Potsy didn't

1:33:22

want to have anything to do with it, and

1:33:24

David Geffen himself wrote Potsy

1:33:26

actor Anson Williams a personal letter.

1:33:30

But the turning point came when Henry

1:33:32

Ponzie Winkler signed off on the idea

1:33:36

and everyone fell in line.

1:33:37

Yep.

1:33:38

Sharp continued to Magnet Magazine.

1:33:40

The cast apprehensive at first, but when

1:33:42

the fawn said I'm in, everyone else said

1:33:45

fawn says, It's cool. It's cool words

1:33:48

to live by. Following

1:33:50

the two day shoot, Jones began splicing

1:33:52

the new footage he shot with vintage Happy Day

1:33:55

scenes, mostly called from episode.

1:33:57

Number fifty three. They call it Potts

1:34:00

Love.

1:34:01

Shout out to my buddy Paul Anka

1:34:03

and the Paul Anka Our White podcast who wrote

1:34:05

they call it Puppy Love.

1:34:08

Yeah there, and I found it. Yeah there

1:34:10

it is. Henry Winkler aka Fawnsie

1:34:12

later told Bunder. I was happy to do it. The

1:34:15

fawns would have had Weezer on vinyl.

1:34:18

I love how Henry Winkler, he

1:34:21

is in no way cool in real life, is

1:34:23

like like a Shakespeare story and actor or something.

1:34:26

Tiny, tiny little man who's

1:34:28

just got great comedic chops and

1:34:31

was somehow the coolest guy on television

1:34:33

for a while.

1:34:35

I feel like John Lennon crashed the happy

1:34:38

Days set in the seventies when he was living out in

1:34:40

la I think he brought his son Julian too.

1:34:42

Like I gotta meet Pozzi, I got I

1:34:44

gotta meet fawns, Fawns and the Pozzi.

1:34:46

Pots and Potzy Ralph Mouth. Why

1:34:49

was he never the.

1:34:49

Pozzi the Fawns.

1:34:52

Yeah, because I already had the one guy with a definite

1:34:54

article.

1:34:55

That's a good question, I guess you can. Really Yeah,

1:34:57

that's probably a big part of it. But Potts

1:35:00

is that was that his last name, Potsy

1:35:02

Weber. It

1:35:04

was just his Nauren Potzy Weber.

1:35:07

No, No, it was Potzy was his nickname?

1:35:09

Is?

1:35:10

Say? Did you get that nickname? Think?

1:35:12

Oh, here we go.

1:35:13

In Deadly Dare's season one episode six,

1:35:15

Potsy revealed how he got his nickname he

1:35:18

was asked, Potzy Webber, what kind of name

1:35:20

is this? He replied, They called me

1:35:22

Potzy because when I was a young boy,

1:35:24

I used to like to make things with clay, and

1:35:26

one day my mother called me Potzy.

1:35:29

That was not where I thought that was going.

1:35:30

I thought it was something evolving a toilet,

1:35:34

how honestly, how deeply uninteresting?

1:35:37

Yeah.

1:35:37

Yeah, Back

1:35:39

to Arthur Fonzarelli, or

1:35:41

Henry Wrinkler as he's known in Not Happy

1:35:43

Day's Lore, he wasn't the only

1:35:46

seventies TV icon who appreciated the attention

1:35:48

from the song. Pat Sharp

1:35:50

said that Mary Tyler sent us each framed

1:35:53

personalized autographed pictures.

1:35:55

I love that. Yeah,

1:35:58

that was cool, A big moment for all

1:36:00

of them.

1:36:01

Spike Jones and his editor Eric Zumbrunnen

1:36:04

reverse engineered the process of

1:36:06

sticking the band into Happy Days. They

1:36:08

spent hours compiling a skeleton

1:36:11

of old Happy Day shots to drop the band

1:36:13

into, but in the end, there's actually

1:36:16

no CGI in this video, just a

1:36:18

lot of clever old school editing techniques.

1:36:21

The only new footage from anyone in the Happy

1:36:23

Days crew is from Al Molnaro, who

1:36:25

plays the drive In's owner, also named Al Aldavecchio

1:36:29

and who introduces the group by saying Kenosha,

1:36:31

Wisconsin's own Weezer. The

1:36:34

clip was one of the most popular of nineteen ninety

1:36:36

five, earning four MTV Video Music

1:36:38

Awards and two Billboard Music Video

1:36:40

Awards.

1:36:42

Yeah.

1:36:42

I remember in one of these interviews.

1:36:44

I didn't put it in, but they talked about how CNN

1:36:47

or ABC somebody ran a special on like

1:36:50

CGI new

1:36:52

trend overtaking Hollywood, and they included

1:36:54

the Buddy Holly video even though there's

1:36:56

no CGI in it. Like that was Jones'

1:36:58

whole thing was just using block and editing

1:37:01

and like all the old school techniques that you would have

1:37:03

to get this and cutting like to

1:37:05

get this effect, and people thought it was CGI.

1:37:08

I would believe that, like it's exactly

1:37:10

I yeah, that

1:37:12

is wild.

1:37:13

The third and somewhat forgotten pillar

1:37:15

of Geffen's promotional strategy for Weezer

1:37:18

was negotiating to have the Buddy Holly

1:37:20

clip included on the installation CD

1:37:22

ROM for Windows ninety five, a

1:37:25

sort of proto U two force installing

1:37:28

an album on your phone.

1:37:29

Move. But I don't remember this.

1:37:31

I remember the arrival of Windows

1:37:33

Me too. I've in my household.

1:37:35

That's so weird.

1:37:36

I was just telling I think I was just telling

1:37:38

my brothers about this, Like I it

1:37:41

was like the way our parents talk about like getting their

1:37:43

first TV or something like.

1:37:44

I remember bringing it home. I remember

1:37:47

that that.

1:37:47

I remember it was Friday night because in the other room

1:37:49

TGIF was playing like Family Matters

1:37:52

or something.

1:37:52

And I remember all that Ryan Eno designed

1:37:54

sound c welcoming you into the new

1:37:57

century that you would then yearn to hopefully

1:38:00

one day escape, and turned back

1:38:02

the clock into a wonderful pre digital

1:38:04

era when we weren't all insane and

1:38:06

stupid.

1:38:08

Do you remember this? This may blow

1:38:11

your attention span. No, I

1:38:13

don't.

1:38:15

Do you remember the like startup

1:38:17

disc they gave you was hosted

1:38:20

by Dennis Miller? Do you remember this

1:38:22

that vaguely?

1:38:24

Like a vaguely, but I don't think I ever watched

1:38:26

it.

1:38:27

Oh, I remember.

1:38:27

We all say it was like the story of like looking

1:38:30

up the TV, put the disc in and let it play.

1:38:32

It was the weirdest we had an MS DOS computer.

1:38:35

Dennis Miller's smarmy pinched

1:38:37

voice tell yeah, yeah,

1:38:40

No.

1:38:41

The fact that there was like anything

1:38:44

vaguely resembling a video on a computer

1:38:46

screen in nineteen ninety five or six

1:38:49

or whatever. It was sure to our minds

1:38:51