0:20

Hey, and welcome to What Future. I'm

0:22

your host, Josh Witzapolski, and I

0:24

have to say today's

0:27

show is a unique treat

0:29

for me. Our guest,

0:32

who I'll tell you about in a second, has become

0:34

a iconic, really a

0:37

member of the family in a way. I mean

0:39

I don't actually know him at all

0:41

personally or in real life, but he

0:43

has in some way become a

0:46

voice in our house that I hear

0:48

on a regular basis, of course,

0:50

talking about the music journalist

0:53

and critic Rob Harvilla. He

0:56

hosts a show that you can find

0:58

on I believe it's on Spotify. It's a Ringer

1:00

podcast. It's called Sixty

1:02

Songs That Explain the Nineties. It

1:05

is way over sixty songs at

1:07

this point, and it is sort

1:09

of one man's travelogue

1:11

through the songs

1:13

that for me were very much and for

1:16

my wife were very much a part of

1:18

our youth and a part of our growing up and

1:20

sort of are incredibly resonant

1:23

and important to us. And actually,

1:26

to begin the conversation with Rob, a

1:28

real member of my family is

1:30

going to join me, my daughter Zelda

1:33

June. So let's just let's

1:36

get into it. Okay,

1:56

wait, there, you go. It's just that the seed is

1:58

like not designed for a man in a child

2:01

to sit on at the same time. Can

2:03

you live talking to the mic and you hi?

2:06

You know?

2:06

I mean you definitely definitely was better when you were like up high.

2:08

I guess I could tilt the mic your way like that. Oh

2:11

yeah, so better? Yeah that works. Okay,

2:13

I can hear myself. Hew, there

2:15

he is when I got to get Zelda in frame. Okay,

2:19

this is very exciting. This is Zelda.

2:21

Hi, Zelda. I'm Rob. It's nice to meet

2:23

you. You are nine years old? Am I

2:25

correct? Since stated you're nine?

2:27

Yeah.

2:27

I have a nine year old son named Griffin,

2:30

so he's this is old.

2:31

They should meet.

2:32

I have some nine year old experience.

2:34

So you're familiar with nine year olds, is what you're saying.

2:36

That's what I'm saying. Yes, good.

2:37

So Zelda's mom, Laura, my

2:39

wife, introduced her to your show and

2:43

she is a huge fan.

2:45

That's very flattering, right, would.

2:46

You say it's your favorite podcast?

2:48

You don't have to say that. It's not true.

2:49

And she's listened to a lot of very inappropriate episodes

2:52

with a lot of bad lines.

2:53

I was going to say, I was going to apologize

2:56

for the language, which is rude

2:58

of me. And had I known this Elda

3:00

was listening, of course I would not have said

3:02

any of the many inappropriate things

3:05

that I've said.

3:05

Well, you know what, I don't think you should

3:08

edit yourself, Flda. So

3:10

Zelda put some questions together.

3:12

She wanted to talk to you, and she made a

3:14

list of questions here and we've highlighted

3:16

two of them.

3:17

Yes, all right, I'm so excited about

3:19

this.

3:20

Okay, take it away. This is all this is all yours.

3:23

Hello, Zelda. Hit me.

3:26

What is a song from the nineties that you like

3:29

but you are not going to do on the podcast?

3:32

Wow, okay, that's a very good question.

3:35

It's a good question.

3:38

Let me think about this for a second. I

3:40

really like a band called Morphine

3:44

h. They were from Boston. It

3:46

was a dude playing bass, but I think there were only

3:48

like two strings on the bass, if I remember correctly,

3:51

and then a dude playing saxophone and a dude on drums.

3:53

There was sort of like a jazz rock type

3:56

band that had a few modest hits

3:59

on all alternative rock radio in

4:01

the nineties. And I really really like them, and

4:05

I listened to them a lot, and I've thought about

4:07

doing an episode, but it may be they may

4:09

not be quite huge enough to

4:12

do a whole episode about. The huge

4:14

problem I have with this show is there's too many

4:16

songs. Right, Like, it's called

4:18

sixty songs, but then I did like fifty

4:20

songs and I was like, oh my gosh, I have way too many

4:22

other songs. And I keep adding new

4:24

songs and that's very obnoxious. And

4:27

now the title of the show is wrong. It's

4:29

and the seo is ruined. This is a terrible

4:32

situation, and so I have

4:34

to cut it off somewhere. And

4:36

so I fear that I will not get

4:38

around to doing an episode on Morphine.

4:41

On a song, what would I do if I did Morphine,

4:43

I would probably do the song Buyna,

4:46

which is I think the first song that I ever heard

4:48

by them. I really like it. That means good in

4:50

Spanish. You probably know that nine year old's

4:53

are really smart tu That's one

4:55

song that I really really love. And

4:57

if every episode of this show is just me being

5:00

super indulgent in doing whatever I wanted

5:02

to do, like, I would for sure do an episode

5:05

on the band Morphine. But because I'm I

5:07

care about the people you know, and I have a mission

5:09

here and I have people to answer to

5:12

besides myself. I am I

5:14

am gonna have to graciously not do

5:17

the Morphine episode that I would really love

5:19

to do.

5:20

My follow up is I feel like, unfortunately, now

5:22

that you've said it, now you've put it out into the universe,

5:25

it seems almost inevitable that you'll have to do the

5:27

episode. I know what you're saying now,

5:29

it's like, well, if you don't do it, maybe

5:32

you've missed an important moment for

5:34

yourself and for the show.

5:35

I don't know, well, I think this is the first time

5:37

that I've ever said that, like,

5:39

I'm probably not going to do this song. Like

5:41

I've tried to keep it open ended. I've tried

5:43

to be really arbitrary. I've ended

5:46

up doing other songs that I thought that I wasn't

5:48

going to do. And so you're absolutely right

5:50

that, for all you know, that could have been just an ingenious,

5:54

you know, head fake to make you think that

5:56

I wasn't going to do it. But I'm going to do it immediately

5:59

now that I've said I is I gonna do it. That's just

6:01

how I roll.

6:02

I'm unpredictable, also

6:04

interesting, that Zelda maybe got

6:06

the first you're saying maybe the first

6:08

ever. You're not going to do.

6:09

It, that's right. Yeah, it's it's just that that's just

6:11

the kind of interviewer she is. This is

6:14

very very aggressive, and I just you

6:16

freaked me on and I just hit answered. Honestly,

6:18

it's it's really remarkable.

6:20

I feel like I'm watching Jonathan Swan and Trump

6:22

right now, and uh.

6:23

There you go, Frost Nixon.

6:25

She isn't exactly, she's another one

6:27

here. Do you want to read that one?

6:30

You don't know how to phrase it? No, this is good,

6:33

this is good. Just read it. Just read

6:36

it.

6:37

It's a good question too.

6:38

I will dying to know the answer to this. Go ahead.

6:42

So if you are going to end the

6:44

podcast, are you just gonna stop? Or

6:46

are you gonna do a different era of music?

6:52

Credible stuff?

6:53

Are you just gonna stop? It's that's

6:55

that is incredible. Yeah.

6:56

She actually she actually said are you going? She

6:58

actually wrote are you going to stop podcasting?

7:01

Specific I'm going to retire?

7:05

Yeah, I like this.

7:06

She started with it, so is great. It's

7:08

very Yeah, it's jocular. Okay,

7:11

I would I would love to and

7:13

I have every intention to do another podcast

7:16

after I stop doing this podcast.

7:18

I have to stop at some point. It's

7:20

going to get obnoxious if I do too many

7:22

songs. I am almost certainly

7:25

actually going to stop at one hundred

7:27

and twenty songs, which means

7:29

I have sixteen left, which

7:31

will take me through the end of the year or maybe a little

7:33

into January. But I really want

7:35

to do something else. I am not quite

7:37

clear on what that is yet. I have thought about

7:39

doing the eighties. I'm

7:42

sure you're very familiar with Delda with the eighties.

7:45

I thought about doing the twenty one.

7:47

Big problem here is I hate the term the

7:49

aughts, like I just, I just I don't

7:52

like that specific way

7:54

to describe the first decade of the two thousands,

7:56

right, like just.

7:58

The yeah yeah, she doesn't you know when

8:00

when the two thousands were just originally just the

8:02

thousands. People call me a lot because

8:04

that's an old timey that's an old timey

8:07

word for zero for zeros.

8:09

Zeros is excellent. Dadding that you're doing

8:11

right now that I'm getting to it is I

8:14

would like to do it. I would like

8:16

to do another show. I have every intention

8:18

of doing another show. I should know what

8:21

that is. I should be more prepared

8:23

than I am. But I don't know what it is.

8:26

But I do know that it's going to be something.

8:28

I'm going to come up with it anytime

8:30

now. But I do not intend

8:33

to retire from podcasting.

8:36

I should probably keep doing this.

8:39

That's good. I mean, that's very good to know. I just want to

8:41

just say, I mean, I mean, this is I've actually never seen

8:43

zou to do this. Okay, she's right taking

8:45

she's taking notes.

8:49

It's like a therapy.

8:50

If she really originally wrote down one hundred twenty songs and

8:52

then she said, put left. But it's not one hundred

8:54

twenty songs left. I think, no, you don't have to race. It's fine. But

8:56

she wrote one hundred twenty songs and then wrote down another

8:59

show, which I guess has heard is confirming making

9:01

sure she got the confirmation that you will be doing

9:03

another part.

9:03

It's in writing, which I if

9:06

I told Zelda, now I have to do it. Zelda,

9:08

can I ask you a question? Yeah,

9:11

what is your favorite song from the nineties?

9:13

So oh, I

9:15

think you probably have an answer to this. What's

9:18

your favorite song from the nineties? You

9:22

just did your your School of Rock showcase was

9:24

on nineties. Right, Oh yeah,

9:26

is there one of those songs that's your favorite?

9:31

Yeah?

9:31

What is it?

9:32

Buddy Holly?

9:33

Is it from the nineties? It is?

9:35

Is it? It is Buddy Holly

9:37

from by Weezer. Yeah, Weezer's

9:39

Buddy Holly is an excellent nineties you're

9:42

saying you just played that song. You're in the school

9:44

of Rock program.

9:45

Yeah, she sang lead vocals

9:47

on that song.

9:48

You sang lead vocals on Buddy

9:51

Holliday. Yeah, so cool.

9:52

You you noticed she did lead vocals on

9:55

Epics by Faith No more.

9:57

No, she did not. That's it

10:00

was ever heard a nine year

10:05

Oh my, is there video? Is that available?

10:08

I think I have video? Yeah, I definitely

10:10

have video of it, and I'm happy to produce it.

10:12

And you gotta drop the SoundCloud, drop the

10:14

lake. You were one of the coolest

10:16

nine year olds I know. I guess I have a nine year old as

10:19

well. You would be, you can't

10:21

you and my You and my son are the two coolest

10:24

nine year olds around. You sang lead

10:26

vocals on Do You Like Epic? Is that a

10:28

hard song to sing?

10:30

Well, I mean, when you hear it it's hard,

10:32

but when you actually like learn it, it's pretty easy.

10:35

Okay, she was excited.

10:37

There's it's essentially a rap, and she was very excited

10:40

it is.

10:40

That's yeah, it's so cool man,

10:43

it's at it. Oh my gosh, that's the neatest

10:45

day I've ever heard.

10:46

I mean, all of it was just seeing children play those

10:48

songs, just completely.

10:49

Did someone play the piano part at the end?

10:51

Oh yeah, Yeah,

10:55

that's the best part of the song for me, is the

10:57

piano part of the wait, did you do epic?

10:59

I didn't because it's eighty nine. It's

11:02

one of the songs that's not actually

11:04

from the nineties. Oh wow, it

11:07

barely, isn't it barely? Isn't

11:09

it? It was like popular in ninety maybe

11:12

let's say that's right, that's exactly right.

11:14

It peaked in nineteen ninety,

11:16

but did not.

11:17

Wow, yeah,

11:19

so did that was a nineties thing,

11:21

though, wasn't it.

11:22

Yeah.

11:22

You gotta go in there and tell them they messed up. I'd

11:24

be like, guys, here's the one problem with our showcase

11:26

that we did is that thatens technically

11:28

from the eighties.

11:29

Oh so yeah, that's

11:31

you gotta fact check the school, you gotta

11:33

you.

11:34

Gotta hit it, get hit with the facts. All right, Well,

11:36

Zelda, I think you got to go back in. Right.

11:38

Do you have anything else, any other question you want to ask Rob

11:41

or any other thing, anything you'd like to say, you

11:43

want to do that one? Okay, go ahead.

11:46

How did you think of a name for your podcast?

11:50

We were trying, We

11:53

were trying to think of the right number of

11:55

songs to do, and ninety

11:58

songs would have made more sense.

12:01

But I was it would have made a lot

12:03

more sense, right, But I was worried

12:06

that people wouldn't like this show and

12:08

I would be embarrassed if

12:10

the name of the show was ninety songs.

12:12

They explained the ninetes, and then after like three episodes,

12:14

people like, this show is terrible, you need to stop.

12:17

And then I was the guy who got

12:20

like who got a show canceled with

12:22

ninety in the title, right, and

12:24

so sixty but then thirty songs

12:27

was too few songs, and so sixty

12:29

which is still an embarrassing amount of songs.

12:32

If I had been canceled after three songs, like

12:34

but sixty was between.

12:36

Sixty and ninety, I feel like the embarrassment

12:38

would be pretty right.

12:40

Yes, mistakes were made in this

12:42

in this thought process.

12:44

Okay, Zelda, great

12:47

job and now you're going to

12:49

go.

12:49

It was great to me, U Zelda. You are my

12:51

youngest fan or a person who's

12:53

ever listened to this podcast, and I'm honored.

12:56

It's very great to me.

12:57

Congratulations on the faith no more weezy

13:01

thing. That's awesome. Good

13:03

luck to you.

13:03

Do you want to sign off?

13:06

Yeah?

13:07

How would you sign off here? From this conversation?

13:10

Bye? Bye?

13:22

Well that was delightful.

13:24

I consider to be one of the most delightful

13:26

people that I know, so as

13:28

is obvious, I think we are huge fans

13:31

of the show and huge fans of you. And

13:33

I shouldn't say this because I'm a podcaster,

13:36

but I don't listen

13:38

to a lot of podcasts, and I think your

13:40

show I just don't like. I just I'm very you know, I'm

13:42

very busy multitask space and

13:45

it's a safe space for us, and

13:48

yours is one that I find to be

13:51

consistently entertaining

13:53

and educational and hilarious. And

13:55

just like I'm very charmed by you and I

13:57

listened to you. I'm like entering

14:00

as a fan and uh

14:02

and an appreciator.

14:03

Of that's tremendously kind of you. It's all a

14:05

facade.

14:06

So I mean, you're you and I must be close in age.

14:08

We are we are I'm forty five.

14:10

Oh I'm forty five also, so we're

14:12

actually the exact same age. All right, that's great.

14:15

You said you think you're gonna do one hundred and twenty episodes

14:17

total of this podcast. You're

14:19

on what number? Now?

14:21

I am thinking about

14:23

episode one oh five. I have sixteen

14:26

episodes remaining, you

14:28

know that shows on a little break right

14:30

now. We'll return, I believe on October

14:33

eleventh, and we're going to go straight through. You know,

14:35

so the holidays accepted, et cetera. But like

14:37

the last sixteen are

14:39

a block that we are thinking

14:41

about now, and

14:44

it is vexing. This

14:46

is a vexing document.

14:48

To me, because there are too many

14:50

songs that you want to do.

14:51

There are too many saws, and it's just it's not flowing.

14:54

Like I just there's like a harmony and like

14:56

a beauty that I really want to concoct

14:59

right of this Excel chart, and I just

15:01

I haven't gotten there yet. It's as I look

15:04

at it, and it just it doesn't look quite right.

15:06

You know.

15:06

I don't know if you ever have that feeling, but I'm just I'm

15:08

not sure exactly what I'm.

15:10

Doing, Like you're missing something or you just don't

15:12

feel like the order the flow is correct.

15:15

Both really, you know, it's it's it's we

15:17

you know, we have you know, the list

15:19

of songs that we probably are not

15:21

going to do at this point is very

15:24

disturbing right to me because there's so much

15:26

cool stuff on here. But all of those are still technically

15:28

possible. But like, yeah, it's a combination of

15:31

like, you know, for every song

15:33

that we add now you know, there are five

15:36

that de facto are being left off. Right.

15:38

This is the point I would get to previously

15:41

where I would then go to my to

15:43

my friends and masters at the

15:45

Ringer and be like, can we please do more episodes? They're

15:47

like fine, all right, you know

15:49

it's and then like that's what we did when we got

15:51

close to sixty, That's what we did when

15:53

we got close to ninety, you know, and

15:56

like they're not going to let me extend again,

15:58

Like I I probably should bring a

16:00

somewhat dignified conclusion,

16:03

but it's not a good feeling to try

16:05

and orchestrate that, right.

16:07

I feel like there is this kind of symmetry though,

16:09

with one hundred and twenty. I mean it immediately

16:11

evokes one hundred and twenty minutes from MTV,

16:14

which of course was I

16:16

mean a very much a nineties product,

16:19

and like probably the place where so many

16:21

many of the songs that you've talked about were

16:23

sort of not discovered exactly a bit

16:25

discovered by the masses or much much

16:28

larger audience.

16:29

Discovered by me. Certainly, Yeah,

16:31

absolutely is huge for me.

16:33

So I think one twenty sounds right, does I

16:35

mean, what you were talking about, this idea that

16:37

you know went from sixty to ninety and now you have one hundred

16:40

and twenty. I had some idea in my

16:42

head when I when I started listening to it

16:44

that like, because you hadn't done pretty

16:47

far into the show, you hadn't done some songs that I

16:49

thought were like really important. I mean one, I think

16:51

the one that stood out with smells like teen Spirit, which,

16:54

which, like I guess I think from my money.

16:58

I don't know if this is a globally

17:00

considered truth or not, but I feel like it's

17:02

probably the most important song from the nineties.

17:05

Like, I don't know if that's.

17:06

I agree with you, Yeah, to

17:08

the extent that there's a consensus. You know,

17:11

if if rock, if guitar music,

17:13

et cetera, is a thing you're at all interested

17:16

in, I think that's a safe bad.

17:18

Yeah. I guess I should say yeah in the rock space,

17:20

but also like more but also beyond rock

17:22

into like pop, because I think what was

17:24

interesting about it, which is

17:26

it seems like nothing now,

17:29

seems like no big deal, but it was like

17:31

a song that should not have been

17:34

as massively popular as it was, like to

17:36

a broad set of people, and

17:39

yet it was like a defining point.

17:41

And that's early nine. That's like it came out what ninety

17:43

one, ninety he.

17:45

Came out in ninety one, you know. And I

17:47

think people, you know how they say,

17:49

like a decade doesn't begin like you know, on

17:51

January first, nineteen ninety like culturally

17:54

right, I think a lot of people would fix the beginning

17:56

of the nineties, either so when it came out, which

17:59

I think was September ninety one, or the

18:01

moment when it kicked

18:03

Michael Jackson off number

18:05

one on the Billboard charts, you

18:07

know, as as you say, when it became

18:10

pop and no one when this song

18:12

came out, I expected it's ever become pop,

18:14

like that's the moment when the nineties begin.

18:17

Yeah.

18:18

Culturally, yes, I.

18:19

Mean it is insane to think about that, just as conceptually

18:22

knowing the band, you

18:24

know where they came from and who they were, surrounded by the

18:26

idea that you would that they're one of their songs would

18:28

knock Michael Jackson off of the from

18:31

the you said number one spot, right, m

18:33

h.

18:34

I think it was the album? Yeah, yeah,

18:36

I think I think it was like the Kicked.

18:39

I believe Dangerous was the Michael

18:42

Jackson album. Yeah.

18:43

Well, you know that's you know, I'll say that it's

18:45

probably that's not his best work, so you know, they

18:48

had.

18:48

A little bit of an edge, that's true.

18:50

I want to ask about the way that you do

18:52

your shows. So first off, like, there

18:54

are a lot of your episodes and

18:56

I do encourage anybody who's listening to this to go and

18:59

listen to to Rob show because it's really fucking

19:01

entertaining. But there are episodes

19:03

where you're like, I don't know, well, I

19:06

do know thirty minutes in or something, or forty minutes

19:08

in and and and often not

19:10

always, but often it is you're

19:13

sort of telling a story about your life and your

19:16

your youth. I'm like, I thought this episode

19:18

was about, you know, play Bone Thugs

19:20

and Harmony or I don't know if you did both Thugs a harmonyone.

19:22

But I haven't looked in every episode, but but

19:24

I'm like, I'm like, I thought this was like I

19:26

thought this was about Bone Thugs in Harmony, but I have

19:29

to look. I have to check sometimes because

19:31

I'm like, is he still is that still

19:33

one of the one I'm listening to? But you do get

19:35

to it. I mean, you you find your way

19:37

into the song and the reason

19:40

and there's often not often

19:42

always rationale behind the story, but

19:44

like, here's what I want to know. Here's what I'm dying

19:46

to know. Because when we started doing this podcast, I

19:48

was like, you know, they were like, what podcast do you like? And I was like,

19:50

yours. I was like, I think that's great, And

19:53

a big part of what I liked about it was you

19:55

were just fucking talking, you know. You were just

19:58

like it's like it's like I'm I'm

20:00

not just saying I'm not saying it's like low effort or

20:02

anything. But I was like, you know, I could

20:04

talk really well, so if

20:06

I could just talk as much as possible,

20:08

that would be my ideal podcast. Do

20:11

you write that shit or are you doing

20:13

that just from memory

20:16

or from your you know, ability

20:18

to speak?

20:19

Oh a billion percent, I write that shit. These

20:22

things are scripted down to

20:24

the word and like almost really

20:26

inflection really yes, yes.

20:28

Oh wow, Okay, that's crazy.

20:30

Yeah, it's just I just opened up the Google

20:33

doc and I'm one of I think this has always been true

20:35

of my writing. But I'm one of these people

20:37

who I reread the first

20:39

paragraph as I'm writing the second, right,

20:42

Like, in the course of writing a piece, I end up

20:44

rereading it like fifty times, just

20:46

because I started at the beginning, and so that applied

20:49

to this. And so now I'm sort of talking out

20:52

loud and like just the delivery.

20:54

You know, I didn't start this show thinking

20:56

that it was going to be and I still don't really think of it

20:58

as a performance, right, Like I'm

21:00

not an actor, you know, Like monologue

21:03

is probably accurate, but always felt a little

21:05

like pretentious to me. But like, right,

21:08

it's it's just it's always the way I've done it. But no,

21:10

absolutely, I cannot add lib

21:13

at all, at all, at all. Yeah,

21:15

So this is these are just eight thousand

21:18

or more word Google

21:20

docs that I am reading verbatim

21:23

and trying not to have it sound like

21:26

that.

21:26

Yeah, I should have expected the answer

21:28

that you were writing them. But I think that there's

21:31

something about the way that you present

21:33

these narratives that feels

21:36

I mean, maybe it's the way you're writing them, obviously, it's

21:38

just like this kind of feels like a stream of consciousness,

21:40

like someone's just going through this, like you

21:42

know this obviously. Obviously there are many

21:45

moments that are that have to be like you know,

21:47

you've got these sort of where you where

21:49

you throw to things right, So those I always assumed

21:51

were like, you know, planned in some way, But the

21:53

rest of it always feels very like freeform to me, and

21:56

to the point where I guess what I'm I guess what's

21:58

so interesting about it is you get kind

22:00

of lost in the story so much that you you sort of

22:02

like are like, is that you know, are we heading? We heading

22:04

to the right place? Yeah? Now, in retrospect,

22:07

I feel stupid for maybe not saying like,

22:09

oh, obviously these are written. I

22:11

don't know, it feels unique to me. Again, I

22:13

don't listen to every podcast, but what's your

22:15

longest sort of you know, lead up

22:17

to do you do you have like a record

22:20

holder, you know, for like the longest lead up

22:22

to the to what you mentioned the song? Do

22:24

you know?

22:24

It's a good question I have like an I

22:27

have like a vague sense of it, and certainly

22:29

like it's it's getting worse. That

22:32

problem is getting worse. Like the longest

22:34

episode of this show ever, like

22:37

from a from a script perspective at least,

22:39

is Pantera. I don't know

22:41

how that happened. I just talked about Pantera

22:44

forever for ten thousand

22:46

words, but I don't know what happened. But

22:48

they're cool, They're great, but like I would not

22:50

have predicted that, Like the Nirvana show,

22:52

I think to Facto because Courtney Love was

22:55

on it and spoke herself for about

22:57

two hours. Okay, so yes,

23:00

I should be keeping track

23:03

of exactly when, Like okay, so a script

23:05

is like eight thousand words. I

23:07

feel like I've several times recently

23:09

have gotten to like the three thousand or

23:12

four thousand word mark and I'm

23:14

still not out. My name is Rob Arvilla, and this is like

23:16

and I'm like, oh no, like what is happening?

23:18

Right? And so let me just here. I've got this

23:20

arguous thing.

23:21

Yeah, here we go.

23:22

I'll just get to day if I can. Trying

23:24

to see if I can eyeball it and

23:26

say the Fugazi episode,

23:28

I talked about pee Wee Herman to

23:31

start off, like because he had passed, and I

23:33

was like weirdly affected by that. Like I talked

23:35

about pee Wee Herman at sort of unnecessary

23:37

length, fade into

23:40

you. The Mazzie Star episode, I

23:42

ended up talking about this band Low from

23:45

Minnesota, the slowcore band for a

23:47

great deal of time, Daft

23:49

Punk. I was, I don't

23:51

remember what I was talking about it.

23:53

Oh, the daft Punk episode. It's around the world,

23:55

right, I think I just listened Repetition, Yeah,

23:58

repetition and you Yeah that was that

24:01

Actually was one of the episodes I think

24:03

where I was like, what's

24:05

is this about daft punk or not? You

24:07

know, but no in a good way.

24:09

I think my editor had the same question,

24:11

and maybe not as much in a good way

24:13

in his sense He's like, you know, there's not a lot

24:15

of deaf punk.

24:16

Yeah no, but but the

24:18

content, Yeah you're talking about you You're talking about dance

24:21

music. I mean I used to make dance music, like and DJ

24:24

for a living. In the actually in the nineties and

24:26

early two thousands. So so yeah, you're

24:28

talking about and you go into like fat boy Slim

24:31

and shit like that, and yeah,

24:34

I believe you touch on like all of the kind

24:36

of weird popular techno music that existed,

24:39

but all written all on purpose,

24:41

not just randomly off the off the off the day.

24:44

On purpose. Yeah, it's like it's

24:46

all on purpose.

24:47

But you're writing. You have written a book. You're writing

24:49

a book. It's coming out. Is it out?

24:50

No, it's coming out November.

24:52

November, just in time for your holiday

24:54

shopping. What was the date, right?

24:56

You know the date November Tuesday, November

24:59

fourteen.

25:00

Great, that's right before Black Friday. I'm

25:02

saying, perfect and perfect for

25:04

the music lover in your life, for the dads.

25:07

And nine year olds in your life.

25:09

That's right. So how does the book?

25:11

How does this format? Is it just a collection of the essays

25:13

that you have written? Did

25:16

you just copy paste into the

25:18

book format and then send it off to the printer or

25:21

you know, how does this turn into a book? I guess's

25:23

what I'm saying.

25:24

That was the plan until I realized

25:27

that a book of that size would be literally

25:30

six hundred thousand words. That

25:32

would be the grand total

25:34

if I just copied really, and I was

25:36

informed that that was too long,

25:39

And so what I did instead is I reread

25:42

all the scripts and I tried to sort of concoct

25:44

like the greatest hits

25:46

sort of you know, sections from those

25:49

songs from those scripts, and

25:51

tried to combine the songs in

25:53

interesting ways, right like sellouts

25:55

for example, this concept of selling out

25:57

very popular in the nineties, right. You

25:59

know, you think about Green Day for

26:02

doing it, you think about Fugazi for not doing

26:04

it, but you also think about like ice

26:06

Cube and coulioh having

26:08

these huge crossover hits in

26:11

the suburbs, like the white kids

26:13

in the suburbs, you know, and they're sort of

26:15

openly grappling with what it means,

26:17

you know, to have all these people now listening to

26:19

them who aren't from where they're from

26:21

and like don't know what it's like where they're from,

26:24

you know, that kind of thing. So

26:26

just trying to find different ways of attacking,

26:29

you know, like the women in Rock question,

26:31

you know, and just the different ways

26:34

that someone like Shinead O'Connor versus

26:36

Fiona Apple versus like TLC

26:38

even sort of dealt with that, and

26:41

so just trying to group these songs

26:44

and these artists in these micro

26:46

eras within the nineties just

26:48

in new ways and just get weird songs

26:50

bouncing off one another, you know,

26:52

get some cool art in there. I'm really psyched

26:54

about the artists that I've got. Tara Jacobe.

26:57

I worked with her at Gawker

26:59

Media. She worked for Jezebel, dead Spin

27:01

Walker back in the day, and she's wonderful

27:03

artist, and I'd like the best part of the book is

27:06

the cover and like her illustrations for each

27:08

chapter. So yeah, it's it's sort of it

27:10

was imagined as a companion

27:13

to the book, and there's you know, like there

27:15

are riffs from the show that

27:18

are fairly verbatim in the

27:20

book and just sort of adjusted. You know,

27:22

it's like read okay in a book, but

27:24

there's a lot of new material too, and it's

27:26

all sort of recombined in a way

27:29

that hopefully gets some cool sort of alchemy

27:31

going, you know, between songs that you wouldn't necessarily

27:34

put together.

27:35

Right, No, I mean that sounds great actually,

27:37

Like I like the idea, the narrative structure

27:39

of finding those threads between these

27:41

songs is actually interesting because maybe I'm wrong,

27:44

and you'll tell me you've got the celaborate plan. Like

27:46

it doesn't feel like you're necessarily rolling these

27:48

out in a very like this.

27:51

I don't want this to sound insulting, but it doesn't, you

27:53

know, it's fairly I don't say,

27:55

I don't know. Schizophrenic is not the right word. But there's like,

27:57

you know, it's like it's not like, no, you do a bit.

27:59

I think it might be like

28:01

you do a block of like you know, one

28:04

hit, you know, one hit like Chumba one, but like you

28:06

didn't do a block of like weird one hit wonder

28:08

songs, and then you didn't do a block of like grunge.

28:12

You got like sounds like teen Spirit and then shoot by

28:14

Saltan Peppa. You know, like it's not like

28:16

Ei there was a connective

28:18

tissue between those two songs as far as as

28:21

far as I can.

28:21

Tell, Delightful Chaos.

28:23

Yes, I think the idea that you would take

28:25

some of this stuff and find a

28:27

link between those things is quite

28:30

interesting, and so that feels like a reason

28:32

for the book to exist. I probably will buy

28:34

the book for somebody for the holidays.

28:36

I would be very kind of you. I appreciate that.

28:38

Might maybe Zelda can Zelda read the book? Is

28:40

it going to be full of swear words? Are there gonna be a lot

28:42

of It's gonna be a lot of nasty stuff in there.

28:44

There's a goodly amount of nasty stuff.

28:47

Yeah. Yeah, parental discretion

28:49

is advised. Unfortunately, that was I

28:51

didn't think. I didn't think that through.

28:54

You didn't.

28:55

You didn't consider that nine year olds might want to read

28:57

the book.

28:57

What I will do for you and for her is I

28:59

will take a copy here, and I will just

29:02

mark out every objectionable

29:04

phrase, you know, and I'll mail that

29:06

on to her. Just redact.

29:08

You're gonna you're gonna personally redact in.

29:09

My own book exactly what I'm gonna

29:11

do.

29:12

I appreciate that, and I assume you'll offer that as a service

29:14

to anybody who needs a clean version.

29:16

Totally.

29:17

You should do the explicit language version

29:19

and then the clean version, which would be I think

29:22

very reflective of the parental advisory,

29:24

you know. Label The

29:36

show has a voracious sort of appetite

29:39

for all of the songs in the nineties, Like I

29:41

feel like it doesn't restrain itself

29:43

to like a genre, right, And

29:45

that's great, But like when you

29:47

were living through the nineties, were you more

29:50

restrained to a genre, were you more focused

29:52

on one track?

29:54

I'd like to say that I was omnivorous

29:57

in that way. But I think I try

29:59

to own up to being like an alt rock

30:01

and teenager, right right, Like,

30:03

I don't think there's any question

30:05

or any point in denying that. Like my

30:08

foundation, you know, my top

30:10

five bands when I was seventeen

30:13

years old, most likely Pearl

30:15

Jam, Smashing Pumpkins, Nine Inch Nails,

30:18

Radiohead. They might be giants, you know, and

30:20

so like that's that's a fairly narrow

30:23

band of experience. So

30:25

I do think I start from a foundation

30:27

of alternative rock. And so when

30:29

you're talking about Achy

30:32

Breaky Hearts for example,

30:34

or Selena, you know, are

30:36

like, I don't have the personal

30:38

like I've listened to this record six hundred

30:41

times in my bedroom sort of experience.

30:43

And I try to be honest about that. But

30:45

I do think that like in terms of pop

30:48

radio, you know, in terms of just driving

30:50

around listening to pop radio,

30:52

like listening watching MTV

30:55

constantly, you know, like hanging

30:57

out with my friends, you know, and whatever

30:59

they were into. I think that I got,

31:02

you know, that's helped fill into the gaps

31:04

to some degree, right, you know, I

31:06

can talk about rap music, pop music,

31:08

country music, you know, with

31:10

some degree of personal experience,

31:12

but it's not quite the same. Like

31:15

this is my soul, you

31:17

know, made manifest in

31:19

arts, you know, the way that the alternative

31:22

rock of the nineties was, And I just I

31:24

try to be honest about that, you know, And

31:26

I try to be honest about, you know, the places

31:28

where I am, perhaps for the first

31:31

time, doing the deep dive that

31:33

I didn't do when I was fifteen, and I certainly

31:36

respect you know, like Tori Amos

31:38

for example, right, Like she's someone who I

31:40

always love hearing her on the radio, always

31:43

really wanted to go see her play. You

31:45

know, I regret not seeing her live

31:47

in the nineties, but I wasn't like a super

31:50

fan of hers, you know. And then like

31:53

two years ago, I wake up and suddenly I want

31:55

to listen to Tori Amos for a week, you

31:57

know, to the exclusion. And I do, and

32:00

I understand that that's to listen to her that

32:02

deeply for the first time as

32:04

a forty year old man is

32:06

a very different experience, right

32:08

than as a sixteen year old girl especially,

32:11

and so I just try to be honest about

32:13

that, you know, when I'm coming when with a lot

32:15

of personal baggage and when I'm

32:17

not necessarily.

32:19

Right well, but also I mean the nineties

32:21

by by the very

32:24

function of how you could discover and

32:27

purchase and enjoy music. I

32:29

mean, I think your show has an

32:31

omnivorous you know, bent to

32:33

it in the sense that, like we're talking about it's not just

32:35

focused on like the you know, the alt

32:37

rock shit that you liked when you were a

32:40

teenager or whatever, but partially,

32:43

you know, it's it's even possible to have a thing

32:45

like that because we now live in an

32:48

era where the barrier

32:51

to all art or

32:53

all music, let's just say, is non existent.

32:55

Like we lived in a time when and

32:58

tell me, if this was an experience that you share,

33:00

it must have been where you might have heard

33:02

a song or somebody played you something and you're like,

33:04

that's cool, what is that? And they're like, oh, it's this band, and

33:06

you were like, I want to hear more of it. So you had

33:08

to go to like a record store, and

33:11

I mean you could go to one in the mall obviously,

33:13

and find that band's album

33:16

a lot, right, Like, Like, I saw the movie

33:18

Killer Clowns from Outer Space. I'm not sure if you're familiar

33:20

with it.

33:21

HBO, My friend, I've watched that movie

33:23

on HbA and it's a bad movie.

33:25

It has a song by the Dickies in it. I'm not sure if

33:27

you're familiar with the song. It's the song is called

33:29

Killer Clowns from Outer Space. Do you know the Do

33:31

you know the tune? Yeah?

33:36

Yeah, it's kind of Dickies.

33:39

That's that's the Dickies.

33:40

That's the Dickies. Wow. So the thing

33:42

is I had never fucking heard of the Dickies. Yeah,

33:45

And I was like, ooh, Like

33:47

I like the song because I'm like thirteen

33:49

and dumb or whatever, and it's it's

33:51

the song is literally about the movie about

33:54

Killer Clowns from Outer Space. I like it. By the

33:56

way, I love a song that's about

33:58

a movie. It doesn't happen that often, especially

34:00

not anymore. But like when somebody's

34:02

written a song for like what's happening

34:05

in the movie, I think is a really special and amazing

34:07

thing or about what has happened in

34:09

the movie, which I think is incredible, Like like what

34:12

is the Bobby Brown song from Ghostbusters too, which.

34:14

All right, yeah, I love that song.

34:16

It's so good, like he he but he raps.

34:21

People, Yeah, yeah.

34:23

Like you don't. You don't hear a lot of raps about

34:25

Vigo in recent in a recent

34:27

era of music. It

34:30

is a drag. But but I was like, so I like it was like,

34:32

Oh, the Dickeys, they're interesting. I think I actually ordered

34:34

like an EP that that song was on at

34:36

like something like a a Sam Goodie

34:38

or whatever, and I waited for it to come in and

34:40

then I was like and then I like, then I heard some other

34:43

Dickeys, So I had never heard of the Dickies before. But

34:45

the but the other version was that you know, you

34:47

would go to a place that was and

34:50

I don't know if you had this experience. I think you got must have, and

34:52

you probably talked about it and I'm just misremembering

34:54

or not remembering, but you know, you go to like one

34:56

of these stories that sold like really good ship, where like

34:58

there were a bunch of record or working there, and

35:01

he was like an incredibly intimidating experience

35:04

if you like went in and you're like you had heard of

35:06

Slint or something and you're like wanted to find

35:08

out more about them, and you know, you

35:10

had to confront some guy who thought

35:12

you were a shithead, who didn't even want to tell you

35:14

because that's his thing and not yours. You

35:17

know, so our barrier was very high. So it's like sort

35:19

of understandable. I'm working my way back to

35:21

the question, which is which is I

35:23

guess to my point about the question about the show

35:25

being omnivorous, but you maybe not beginning

35:28

in your sort of musical life like that, but

35:30

it was much harder, Like it was not a thing right

35:33

in the nineties that you would be. It was very

35:35

rare for a person to be have access

35:38

to and understand like a wide variety of

35:40

music. Does that seem like a fair assessment

35:42

or am I just is that just people from Pittsburgh.

35:45

No, that's just Pittsburgh's very Pittsburgh

35:47

specifically. Absolutely, I agree with you,

35:49

because the thing is like, Okay, so I

35:52

hear Undone the Sweater song by

35:55

Weezer on the radio, and I try

35:57

and tape that song off the radio and

36:00

take I had just sitting there listening to the radio

36:02

with my hand hovering over the record button,

36:04

like you're reported onto a blank tape. But

36:06

to own that song, I got to buy

36:08

the Weezer record for twenty dollars and

36:10

what if it's bad? Right,

36:12

Like this is the eternal conundrum. And I try

36:14

and limit the number of times

36:17

that I do this rant on the show, but I

36:19

have done this rant on the show five

36:22

to seven times, probably

36:24

over the course of one hundred plus episodes. Now

36:26

where it's like you go, as you say to good

36:28

Sam Goodie or Camelot Music, and

36:30

you have this wall of CDs and

36:33

you have twenty dollars in your pocket and you have to

36:35

pick one, right, you have to pick

36:37

one, and it has to be good. And you're gonna

36:39

listen to that record two hundred

36:42

times because you are going to extract the

36:44

value from it. You're gonna get your

36:46

money's worth, right, And it's like, do I

36:48

risk it on cakes, fashion

36:51

Nuggets? Do I risk it like

36:53

Teenage Fan Club's Bandwagon

36:55

ass? Do I risk it on Pablo Honey?

36:58

Right?

36:58

Right? Because I really like Creep And so it's

37:00

extremely limiting, Like I.

37:02

Know, it's nuts to think about that. It's

37:04

like like like I remember I heard like an inspiral

37:07

carpet song on one hundred

37:09

and twenty minutes, and I was like, this is cool.

37:11

And then like, you know, I think I kind

37:13

of almost remember this experience of going to the

37:15

record store and looking at the record and going

37:17

like, you know, it was probably a CD at this

37:19

time, but still they were like twenty bucks or something. They weren't

37:21

cheat, you know, they weren't And I was like, I

37:24

don't know, like what's on

37:26

here? And often like you'd buy some shit, you'd

37:28

buy a record and it would suck right. All the rest

37:30

of the songs would just blow, like you had one

37:32

song and twelve others that were completely

37:34

not interesting at all to you. But jumping

37:37

off of the thing that I was asking about, like about the show

37:39

being omnivorous, but you maybe not, like those

37:42

episodes that you're doing that are not about

37:44

something that you kind of grew up with. I mean you already

37:46

said right like you don't obviously you can't tell

37:48

the story around it the same way because it's a different story

37:50

for you. But are there other people when you're writing

37:52

those episodes that you're collaborating with? I mean, are

37:55

you are you talking to other people about

37:57

that moment for that particular genre

37:59

or that artist or whatever, or is it just you just

38:02

researching and kind of putting it into into

38:04

into a narrative.

38:05

Yeah, I'm just trying to read as widely as

38:07

I can. You know. Every episode starts,

38:09

you know, with my endless monologue, and

38:11

then I talked to a guest, right right,

38:14

and we just have a you know, like a twenty minute conversation.

38:16

And the idea there is that the guest has a completely

38:19

different perspective, you know, if it's

38:21

not something that I grew up, you know,

38:23

with a mind meld and a smashing pumpkin

38:25

sense, like I try and talk to someone who did right

38:28

right, you know, and just and and so in that

38:30

sense, I try and talk to somebody with

38:33

a more personal connection to whatever

38:35

I'm talking about. But if it's something

38:37

like say like low stell real like the Mocherina,

38:39

right, like the Macharena is something I know as

38:42

like a cultural force or like a scourge

38:44

or whatever, you know, but I can't

38:46

say that I'm familiar with like where the Mockerena

38:49

came from, and like the scene that

38:52

it grew out of, and like what those guys were

38:54

doing before the mocharina blew up et cetera, et cetera.

38:56

So I'm reading books, right, and I'm just going

38:58

back and reading articles from that time, and it's

39:01

more of a research thing, I

39:03

guess, and then I just try and bring in, you

39:05

know, like I have plenty of experience like a junior

39:07

high dances, you know, like watching

39:09

people do the macarena and like having this

39:11

mixture of like, I hate this song. I

39:14

wish I was out there having fun dancing

39:16

to this song, like that very complex, right,

39:18

series of emotions that you have interested

39:20

and you're in an eighth grade after school junior

39:23

high dance. But yeah, I just it's not

39:25

necessarily that I talk to somebody

39:28

to sort of manufacture that personal

39:30

connection. But like the show hopefully

39:33

does involve me interviewing somebody

39:35

after I've done my bit about

39:37

their more personal story relating

39:39

to the song.

39:41

I don't know. Your audience must be made up of people

39:43

like our age, right, I mean there must be a lot of sorry,

39:45

it's not all it's not sorry, it's not all people

39:48

our age. But I'm just like it's sort of like,

39:50

you know, I mean, the appetite

39:52

for nostalgia is high, and I

39:54

feel like there's something about

39:58

this this era and

40:00

maybe this is just the gen X guy.

40:02

I'm just like it seemed really important, and

40:04

like maybe every decade seems really

40:07

important. But when I listened to the show,

40:09

I'm like, oh, yeah, because a lot of times

40:11

you're talking about politics or you're talking about culture,

40:13

you know, outside of music or societal

40:16

things that we're shifting. And do

40:18

the nineties actually stand out as a

40:21

outsized moment in cultural

40:23

sort of history or is that just because

40:26

I'm old now and I lived through

40:28

it.

40:29

I do think that both

40:31

things can be true. I think it is absolutely

40:34

true that the music that you

40:36

loved when you were a teenager is the

40:38

greatest music you'll ever hear. I

40:40

do think the emotional connection that you

40:43

form with that music it's it's

40:45

it's the music you love the most. It's the most

40:47

important music to you,

40:49

you know. And so in that sense, it is sort

40:51

of a gen X thing, right, Like we think the nineties

40:54

are the best because we were teenagers in the nineties

40:56

and that's the end of it, you know. And like if you were

40:58

a teenager in the sixties, if you were

41:00

a teenager in the twenty tens, then

41:03

that's the most important music to you. And

41:05

everything else sucks, Like everything else is

41:07

just old or it's new fangled

41:09

and it's not as good. I do think that

41:11

the nineties. You know, when we started

41:14

this show, we were just like, let's do a show

41:16

that's like songs. Every episode is about

41:18

a song, you know, like what is

41:20

a framing that works

41:23

here? And the nineties jumped out immediately,

41:25

Like I guess my standard stick is like it's far

41:28

enough that it's the past,

41:30

but it's recent enough that it's still imprinting

41:33

on the present, you know, like you can still hear,

41:36

see, feel a lot of nineties

41:38

energy, you know, in the culture being

41:41

made today, Like it's it's present tense

41:43

enough, right, but it also feels like a

41:45

distinct period of time to possibly

41:48

a greater degree than the aughts do. Like

41:51

that's the way it feels for me. And I try

41:53

and filter out again the fact that I was a teenager,

41:56

Like I try it and acknowledge

41:58

that, like the nineties are always going to be the ultimate

42:00

for me. But is there something about

42:02

this decade? Is there something about the pre

42:05

internets, the immediate

42:07

pre Internet of this decade

42:10

that makes it distinct? Right? You know, this is

42:12

the last decade that will not be

42:15

dominated by the Internet

42:17

the way you know, as you're saying this whole thing, we're

42:19

saying with the record stores

42:21

and buying one CD for twenty bucks, like this

42:23

is the end of the line for that shit, right right,

42:26

And that matters, And that makes the

42:28

two thousands as a block feel

42:30

completely different from a musical perspective,

42:33

because that's Mapster. You can listen

42:35

to everything and you can be omnivorous

42:38

on a budget now in a way

42:41

that you just couldn't in the nineties.

42:43

So it's it's but I think both things are

42:45

true. I think there is an undeniable

42:48

bias that you and I both have for

42:50

this decade. And when we say, oh, it's the greatest

42:53

day, like music will never get better than this's like

42:55

we're being old men, undeniably.

42:57

But I do think that there are actual

43:00

objective aspects of the nineties

43:02

and where it falls and the scope of human

43:05

history that make it distinct

43:07

and make it like remarkable, as

43:09

like a block of time, you know, with

43:11

qualities that were never repeated before

43:14

or since.

43:15

Yeah, I mean the framing of that is

43:17

perfect. You're very good at this. You should do this professionally.

43:19

That's my suggestion. You should do podcasting

43:22

as a profession. I think it could be very lucrative

43:24

for you. I know, it's funny you said, like, you know, we

43:26

think that like music in the nineties is the best music. I

43:29

don't know that. I actually mean this is not a knock

43:31

on anyone who does. I don't know that

43:33

I do. But

43:35

I was a huge nerd in the nineties and

43:37

and my like music exposure was really weird,

43:40

and I you know, I think like it

43:42

was. It was definitely a huge part of my life because part

43:44

of it was like me, I used to you know, make money doing

43:47

it and used to you know, that was like a

43:49

focal point of of many years

43:51

of my life. But I had things that

43:53

were going on, like like the Internet matter to

43:55

me in the nineties more than music did. Like I was

43:57

a huge fucking nerd, and where my attention was,

43:59

folks, was like understanding

44:02

what this new thing was called the Internet, which like

44:04

you know, I was online fairly

44:06

young, like before the internet was even the

44:08

Internet. But it's interesting because

44:10

like this was, like music for you is

44:12

not a hobby, right,

44:15

I mean, you became a

44:17

man who writes about music and now has podcasts about

44:19

music. It's like it's bigger

44:22

than that for you.

44:23

Nah, this was my life pretty immediately.

44:26

I have to say I was. I did dial

44:28

up onto the internet, you know, late

44:30

in the nineties, but I was not a man of the

44:32

Internet in the nineties. No, it was pretty

44:35

evident to me by the time I was in high

44:37

school that I wanted to be a rock critic, right,

44:39

I wanted to write for Rolling Stone, you

44:41

know. It was clear to me

44:43

that music was going to be one of the most important

44:46

things in my life from when I was like

44:48

six years old, right, you know, from when

44:50

I became ubsessed with MTV or

44:52

whatever. And so, No, I do think

44:55

that I am printed with music in

44:57

a really intense and unnecessary

44:59

way from the very beginning,

45:01

and it was sort of the prism through which I

45:03

saw and heard and felt

45:06

everything.

45:07

Absolutely, Yeah, I mean, and

45:09

I think that comes through in the show, and I

45:11

think that's what makes it still

45:13

compelling to listen to. I mean, but

45:18

we should say the show is at

45:20

least going to one hundred and twenty episodes, correct.

45:23

Yeah, well we'll stop there.

45:24

But yeah, you're sure you're going to stop a one hundred

45:26

and twenty I'm I'm pretty sure like what

45:28

if, like you get to twenty and then you remember

45:31

this one song that was super important that you didn't

45:33

get to.

45:34

Oh yeah, Robo Humpin' slow

45:36

More, Babe, I gotta do that. Yeah, it's just as

45:39

a possibility.

45:40

It could it could happen. So looking through the

45:42

list, and I have thought about this, like there are songs

45:44

that aren't the obvious song

45:47

or aren't the one that you know which is

45:49

good. But I think it like opens up the question

45:51

in my mind is like it will there be that

45:54

obvious one that that you feel

45:56

like, oh shit, why didn't I do you know X?

45:58

I'm thinking of like Pearl Jam, like not that the song

46:01

that you chose is not perfect.

46:02

Yeah, Pearl Dam was one. Yeah,

46:05

It's like I tried to you know, I did Yellow Lead

46:07

better, but I tried to talk about what like Jeremy

46:09

even Flow like Daughter, Like I

46:12

if I'm doing an episode on an artist

46:14

that has like a huge catalog, like I

46:16

try and get to everything that I can, and

46:19

sometimes you know, it's in the Nervada

46:21

episode for example, like I thought about doing

46:23

Where did You Sleep Last Night? You know, the unplugged

46:26

version? Yeah, you know, but then in the end it just felt

46:28

obnoxious not to lead with

46:30

smells like Teen Spirit.

46:32

It'd be fucking crazy. Honestly, I

46:34

thought, for sure, well when

46:36

you when you didn't do it for so long, I

46:38

was like, okay, so this must be he's going

46:40

to end the series.

46:42

That's what I thought forever, right, Yes,

46:44

that was the plan.

46:45

Okay, because it seemed obvious to me, like to

46:48

do it that way, like, and I'm like, that's why,

46:50

because I'm like, he must have done smells like Teen Spirit and it

46:52

wasn't there, And you're like, okay, well that's

46:54

weird. Yeah, yeah, No, I mean I think it would

46:56

have been. I think people would have been in rage, to be honest,

46:58

maybe I don't know if people get it raged about your show, but

47:01

like you know, like they're on

47:03

the internet, so you're definitely going to get

47:05

the uh you know. I think,

47:07

like, yeah, would have been bizarre at

47:09

least to ignore smells like Teen Spirit

47:12

for you know, actually kind of is kind

47:14

of a record store guy move. When you think about it, to

47:16

do something like that, it's sort

47:18

of like you're like, oh, you get you like smells like teen

47:20

Spirit. That's actually not really their best song.

47:22

I've into their earlier stuff, you know, which

47:24

is not even nineties. But screw you guys.

47:27

Yeah exactly, I mean

47:29

Sliver, Yeah, I mean you have the

47:31

you have.

47:31

You definitely have the knowledge of a record store guy.

47:34

I don't know that. I think based

47:36

on how much you want to share the knowledge,

47:38

you don't have the personality of a record

47:40

store guy. So that's

47:43

very important.

47:43

That's that's very kind of you to say.

47:45

On that nice moment. So sixty Songs

47:47

That Explain the Nineties comes out November

47:49

fourteenth.

47:50

November fourteenth, and.

47:52

Rob, thank you for coming on. And uh, I would

47:54

love to have you back when you when you have decided

47:56

on your next decade, you're going

47:58

to have to come back and explain.

48:00

I would love to come back. I would I would like

48:02

to talk to Zelda again when I come

48:05

back.

48:05

Well, I could almost guarantee that will

48:07

happen because she'll

48:10

be very excited to explore another another decade

48:12

of music.

48:12

You could book it.

48:14

We'll do that, Rob, thanks so much.

48:16

Thanks to.

48:22

Well. That is our show for this week, and

48:24

what a show. I gotta say. I

48:26

feel like I maybe he was a little bit of like a

48:28

fanboy, maybe too much

48:31

in parts of then not really sure, but uh,

48:33

you know, it's fine. I'm going to own it. I'm gonna own

48:35

it. I'm gonna own my fan positioning

48:38

that I may have stepped into during the show,

48:40

and you know, and I'm not ashamed. I think it's great to like

48:43

something and I don't have any I

48:45

don't have any qualms about owning it completely. Anyhow,

48:48

that is our show this week. We'll be

48:50

back next week with more of what future, and

48:53

as always, I wish you and your family

48:55

the very best. Ye