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Episode 252: 60 Songs that Explain the 90s ... and The Ringer's Rob Harvilla
475 Plays4 years ago
There's a stealth memoir quality to The Ringer's Rob Harvilla on his incredible podcast "60 Songs that Explain the 90s."
Yes, they are songs that define the decade, but they are also songs that define him.
Keep the conversation going on social media @CNFPod and subscribe wherever you podcast.
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Transcript
The Stealth Memoir Concept
00:00:01
Speaker
A few years ago, I heard about this term at a writer's conference. This idea of the stealth memoir. It's basically a memoir that sneaks up on you. You think you're reading or listening to something else, but behind it all is a personal story. You didn't know it was there at all.
00:00:23
Speaker
It can also mean that you're writing an essay or a book about something, and then your own personal relationship sneaks into the story, just kind of like creeps up in there, like some weirdo at a club, and the reader is none the wiser. And so enters Rob Harvilla's 60 songs that explain the 90s, part of the Ringer Podcast Network. I feel like there is a precise quantity
00:00:51
Speaker
of myself and my personal memories and my super frivolous personal memories that can sort of elevate this a little bit, even if it's just sort of offsetting more of the critical analysis or the historical aspect. That's Rob. I'm Brendan O'Mara. And this is Creative None Fiction Podcast.
Brendan's 90s Music Connection
00:01:19
Speaker
That's right, this is the show where we talk about the art and craft of telling true stories where I speak to badass people about everything I just said. Rob Hervila is a staff writer for the Ringa and his podcast 60 songs that explain the 90s hits a particular cross section of nostalgia for me.
00:01:41
Speaker
I was a bit of a rare bird in that my entire middle school and high school careers were wrapped in one button-down flannel that was the 90s. I enrolled in fifth grade in the fall of 1991 and shot out of the Freetown-Lakeville public school system in June of 1999. It started with Do the Bart Man and ended with Woodstock 99.
Rob Harvilla's Journey into Music Criticism
00:02:05
Speaker
Speaking of that, go check out Steve Haydn's great podcast Break Stuff.
00:02:09
Speaker
about Woodstock 99. You can also hear him talk about it on this very podcast. Yep. And you ought to know that the entree into the Harvillian world of 90s nostalgia, the fulcrum that made me a true believer, was his take on Enter Sandman, Metallica's IPO.
00:02:33
Speaker
It's an episode I've listened to not once, not twice, but three times.
00:02:41
Speaker
And so we talk about Rob's desire to be a music critic ever since he was a kid and the origins of this podcast and how he thinks about it. What was that reference to the Battletoads in there? That's in here somehow. We talk about the best 90s vocalists.
The Conflicted 90s Rock Stars
00:03:00
Speaker
When I think about 90s rock stars, like they didn't want to be rock stars or they're real conflicted about it. And that's an Eddie Vetter thing primarily. And that's what sort of set him apart from Billy Corgan.
00:03:12
Speaker
You know, that's what set Billy Corrigan apart from Pavement is like that Billy wanted it too bad.
00:03:28
Speaker
And I find that wildly entertaining.
Supporting Writers and Podcast Quality
00:03:32
Speaker
Before we get to Rob, consider keeping the conversation going on Twitter or Instagram at cnfpod and go window shopping at patreon.com slash cnfpod where you'll get access to the forthcoming audio magazines, transcripts, and coaching.
00:03:47
Speaker
Being able to pay writers for their work comes from the subscriptions. And your dollars help with the production of the show and putting money in the pockets of artists so they can continue doing the thing. And we can attract more and more writers to the show. They'll be like, oh wow, they're paying people over there. And so the ratchet cranks and the work will keep getting the body of work, will get better and better and better.
00:04:22
Speaker
I know how to work out. I know how to eat well. I don't always eat well or drink well, but I know how to. And I know how to measure macros and measure out meals. I'm somewhat of a strong dude, built like Gimli from Lord of the Rings, if you've ever seen me in person. I can draw up a program, but it's not the same as hiring a personal trainer. You trust someone to hold you accountable.
00:04:41
Speaker
Yeah, we want to do something. We want to make something worth talking about.
00:04:48
Speaker
That's why I work with a trainer and that's why you should consider working with me on your essay or your book. To work with someone who can see what you can't see. To hold you accountable and to get you where you need to go.
Guidance and Growth in Writing
00:05:00
Speaker
So if you're ready to level up, shoot me an email and we'll start a dialogue. Sound good?
00:05:06
Speaker
stay tuned for my parting shot at the end of the broadcast and oh my god I just made the connection right now in real time the connection between podcast broadcast oh okay so while I run out in the backyard and do cartwheels enjoy my grunge late in conversation with Rob Harvilla
00:05:51
Speaker
The first records are tapes. It was tapes that were mined first, cassette tapes. And I'm trying to remember which one of those I bought. I'm going to say, honestly, the vast majority of those were probably bought for me.
00:06:03
Speaker
by my parents. I remember getting Bon Jovi's New Jersey and that being a very big deal. I remember getting They Might Be Giants Apollo 18 and that was a very big deal. I had CNC Music Factory. I had MC Hammer.
00:06:21
Speaker
But I don't know if I bought any of those. When I got a CD player, I can't remember now which ones I bought and which ones were Columbia House runs. Remember like the 90s for a penny or whatever it was. Then they get you, the next one's like 30 bucks. Exactly. Then you buy a random Santana record for $35. Yeah, that is how they get you.
00:06:44
Speaker
The first CD I ever owned, which I'm almost positive was a Columbia House deal, was Spin Doctors, a pocket full of kryptonite, which remains very important to me just by default, I suppose. The first one you bought with your own money is such a landmark. I don't know exactly which one that is, and I really wish I did, because it all just sort of runs together. I remember my parents bought me the Wham record,
00:07:12
Speaker
probably through like the vinyl version of Columbia House. And I remember like sneaking under my parents' bed and opening the package that it was in, that they were saving it for me. And it's like opening it like it was contraband and it was the way I'm record. Like that was a big moment for me. Obviously I didn't buy that. And so all those memories jumbled together, but I am struggling
Greg Dooley and the 90s Rock Scene
00:07:34
Speaker
to remember. It was probably from like a Camelot music in the mall or whatever.
00:07:38
Speaker
When's the first time I paid $20 for an album? I'd really like to know that, and I don't know that I do.
00:07:46
Speaker
I can admit, and this actually makes me sound way more musically savvy than I am, but the first one I ever purchased was Nirvana's Insecticide. Whoa, that's good. Like right around the time, never mind when it was very popular, but when I got a little Discman and I had two little speakers that I plugged into it in my room, and a friend of mine was really, he had gotten into Nirvana, you know,
00:08:16
Speaker
it right around, you know, right around bleach, I think even before, yeah, like before, nevermind. And then he turned me on the insecticide. And I remember
Influences and Music Criticism Obsession
00:08:24
Speaker
getting that. And then of course, nevermind. And you're in utero from there. But insecticide just makes me sound like I'm like, Oh, wow, that this kid must be really know what know his music as a 12 year old. And I was like, I have no idea. It's just a pretty wacky cover. And I like Nirvana.
00:08:38
Speaker
I'm impressed now. Sliver is one of my favorite Nirvana songs. That's on Insecticide, I think. He's being babysat by his grandparents, I think is the whole point of the song. That's a really good one. That's extremely hip as a first CD. I'm very impressed.
00:08:57
Speaker
And so you grew up in Ohio and so what was, what were you like as a kid and what were things were you into when you were growing up?
00:09:09
Speaker
Okay, what was I into? When I was a kid, until like nine or ten or so, I mostly lived in St. Louis, Missouri. The first album I ever really emotionally connected with was the Cars album, the first Cars album. I think it was 1978. It's probably just what I needed and you're all I've got tonight and best friends girl and stuff like that.
00:09:33
Speaker
And I used to listen to the record and I would hold the vinyl or the sheet that it came in, like the slip cover, and I would run in circles around my living room.
00:09:46
Speaker
And I held the slipcover for so long that I tore it and so they bought another copy of the album just for what I was by then calling Cars Paper. I had to hold the Cars Paper while I listened to the Cars. So that's the first record that I ever really vibed with as a wee lad. I was sort of a music obsessive pretty early on.
00:10:07
Speaker
you know, moving from vinyl to tapes to CDs, et cetera. You know, I knew that I wanted to try and be, you know, a rock critic and music journalist by the time I was in high school. You know, other than that, you know, played a lot of video games, I guess, you know, read a lot or tried to or fancied that I did. You know, I was tall and played basketball for like the first half of high school, but really sucked at it, you know, and finally I just said I definitely
00:10:36
Speaker
oaf tendencies, unfortunately. And so, yeah, I think I was a fairly normal high schooler, teenager, pre-teenager, as these things go. But definitely this music was sort of what revolved around me or what I revolved around. And when you wanted to walk into music and music criticism, who were you reading at the time that might have given you the kind of example that you wanted to pursue yourself?
00:11:06
Speaker
Well, I was definitely a Rolling Stone. I mean, I've said that I started reading Rolling Stone back issues in my orthodontist's waiting room. And that's what I knew. That's what I wanted to do with my life. I went to Ohio University, which has a really good journalism program. And I went for magazine journalism, which I assume you can't do anymore. I started 96 to 2000.
00:11:33
Speaker
difference between before 2000 and after 2000, in terms of how they teach journalism, I'm imagining was super severe. So, but yeah, it was rolling stone to start with as I got into college, you know, more into spin magazine, you know, as I got out of college, pitchfork was starting to rise up, you know, and just the earlier web.
00:11:55
Speaker
message boards and everything like that, but it was definitely a rolling stone as a kid, as a teenager, and that's what sort of set me on the path that I'm still on, I suppose.
00:12:07
Speaker
And when I got into, I was always growing up playing sports and then became a sports writer. And in so doing, it kind of ruined sports in a way. And I was even into horse racing a lot, of which I still write about horse racing quite a bit. But writing about horse racing, covering it, kind of took the sheen off it. And was that ever a concern or a worry or an experience you had when
00:12:36
Speaker
you know, having loved music for so much and then getting into the criticism of it. Did that take the shine off it for you? I don't think so, which I'm very fortunate, I guess. But it's just it's never quite felt like work to me, you know, and it's there are times when I'm reviewing a record and I don't want to play it for the 15th time or whatever. Like there are sort of when I have a big stack of music that I have to listen to, like I suppose that takes the shine off it. But I
00:13:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I played in bands like bad bands, honestly, like high school for part of college. Scannily Plaid. Scannily Plaid. Scantily Plaid, that's correct. My mythic, yeah, I was going to scrub it for a little while there. And even then, yeah, I know exactly what you're talking about. You know, in sports writers, other sports writers that I know sort of talk about that, but it's never quite
00:13:31
Speaker
felt like work that way. There is definitely a difference in vibe even now between listening to music purely for pleasure and listening to music for some kind of work. Either it's a thing I'm immediately working on or something I think I'm going to be working on down the road. It feels different depending on my motive, but I don't know if I'd go so far to say as it's ever ruined it, which is nice to have gotten to 42 and still
00:14:01
Speaker
Still don't feel like it's ruined. About a year and a half ago, for my wife's 40th birthday, we we got a just an Airbnb on the Oregon coast, you know, close to where we live. And there's no Wi-Fi, nothing was great just to unplug. But this little cabin had Sirius XM radio.
00:14:21
Speaker
And whenever we have that, we always plug into lithium because it's just great. 90s all rock. That's the 90s, right? 90s on 9, right? Yes, that's it. And so we're listening to that and we're just vibing on that. And I swear in the almost 17 years we've known each other, I think we had our most, like the greatest conversation we've ever had just talking about trying to rank the best vocalists of the 90s.
00:14:48
Speaker
And specifically in grunge because we just love that grunge and that whole scene and so we were just, it was like two hour conversation of us just vibing on vocalists from the 90s and it was so great and furtive and we can ping pong off of that in a second because I bet you have some things to say about that.
Cultural Impact of 90s Music
00:15:08
Speaker
But maybe first, can you identify maybe one of your most favorite or maybe just a favorite conversation that you've shared over music similar to that, where you're just batting around ideas, power ranking vocalists or guitarists, what that experience is like for you? Right, like the high fidelity thing.
00:15:33
Speaker
I'm trying to think you know because I worked in I was at college radio it's like the main thing that I did in college was on college radio and obviously I'm around a lot of opinionated people I was the music director of our college radio station at OU this was before the internet this is before internet radio and so we were it was very hard to actually hear us we had you had to do something called cable radio and I worked there and I didn't even know
00:15:58
Speaker
what that was or how to do it. And so we were basically playing music for ourselves, you know, as a very pure sort of insular loop of like 30 people or whatever. But I remember it was a big stir when we put the roots, you got me in rotation, you know, because like that wasn't rock, like we were new rock ACRN. And this was very much challenging the definition of rock. You know, this is, of course, years and years and years before.
00:16:27
Speaker
At least I had heard anything about rockism or popism or sort of interrogated ideas of genre at all. But I remember that being like a very destabilizing
00:16:37
Speaker
sort of moment where some people were really eager to sort of reach out and say, like George Clinton is pure college radio fodder. We should be playing him all the time versus people who had, who defined rock is like alternative rock, you know, or maybe hair metal or maybe metal, but like it was, it was a little narrower. And there's, you can see both approaches to that, but I think I did start to tilt a little broader
00:17:02
Speaker
in my thinking right around then, you know, right around college, right around college radio. I'm trying to think of an example of when we just ranked things like that, like the high fidelity thing, and then nothing's coming immediately to mind. Who did you land on as your number one vocalist of the 90s?
00:17:20
Speaker
Chris Cornell. I was going to say, I don't know if that was apparent to me at the time. When I was in high school, my top five, let's see, it was going to be smashing pumpkins, pearl jam, nine-inch nails.
00:17:38
Speaker
pavement, maybe Matthew Sweet, if I feel like stretching a little bit, but I in retrospect, especially like Chris Cornell, definitely was the most rock star ask of all those guys. And he had the best the purists, like just the raddest voice like he was the one who could have thrived in the 70s, just as much as the 90s. And when I when I did an episode of the show on hunger strike,
00:18:05
Speaker
and sort of thought a lot, thought a lot about contrasting Eddie Vedder, who I really loved in high school, and Chris Cornell I liked, but I don't think it was on that level, but just contrasting their styles and their approaches, both in terms of just singing range, in terms of emotion, like that's what makes that song work so well, is that they're both, you know, Seattle about to be mega rock stars, but they're coming from such different places.
00:18:31
Speaker
and they clash and don't clash. They mesh together so perfectly. But yeah, Chris Cornell is a good one. Who's your wife pick? I think she was very much Cornell also. OK, yeah. Who else was in there? I think even like Scott Weiland for STP. Yes, I agree with that. Yes, yeah. As a rock star goes, it's like a pure hedonist rock star goes. It's tough to beat him, yes.
00:19:00
Speaker
Yeah, especially his performance on Core and Purple. It's just, it's really, he's just, he's taken it to a level that's fun to be around. And yeah, but Cornell just, he just kind of takes you on a journey too. I mean, there's the way he sings on, you know, Mailman, which I love that you called that out in the hunger store.
00:19:22
Speaker
Oh man what a grungy dirty just filthy riff on that song and then just the way he sings whether he can just do it he can do it all he's just such range. Mark Lanigan is underrated I just bought his book and I'm really eager to get into that but anytime you hear Mark Lanigan's voice you know obviously on Screaming Trees records he's got a couple of great spots I like Queens of the Stone Age records.
00:19:47
Speaker
in the 2000s, early 2000s, like Mark Lanigan is definitely underrated as far as our Seattle rock star, hulking rock star types go. You know who I like a lot is Greg Dooley of Afghan Wigs, who is sort of another throwback. He's like a super sleazy guy, like he wants to be a soul man and it's very stylized and kind of hard to get into it first. They're like, is this guy serious? And he's like, this guy is very serious. And if you do buy into him,
00:20:18
Speaker
then those 90s Afghan Wigs records are incredible. And he's had a great solo career as well, but he's another one like Wyland. When I think about 90s rock stars, like they didn't want to be rock stars or they're real conflicted about it. And that's an Eddie Vedder thing primarily. And that's what sort of set him apart from Billy Corgan. You know, that's what set Billy Corgan apart from Pavement is like that Billy wanted it too bad and like thought he was a 70s rock star. It's just that contrast.
00:20:47
Speaker
People like Wyland, people like Greg Dooley, who were enjoying themselves and were being these really sleazy, lascivious characters, at least in song, but probably also in real life. They felt like throwbacks. And they seemed a little corny in contrast to the earnestness of what was going on around them. But as time goes on, you do really appreciate the fact that they were clearly enjoying themselves, at least.
00:21:11
Speaker
Absolutely. It's it's funny you bring up Afghan wigs. I'm not real familiar with them, but my favorite movie is Beautiful Girl. Yes. Yes. And they're in that movie in the bar as the band and his voice like when he starts singing, part of what you have to get used to is like Greg Dooley's relationship to pitch is really rocky on purpose. Like he's an emotion guy, not like a technical singing guy. And like what's so funny about that movie is like the band's playing
00:21:39
Speaker
And then he starts singing and it's this rad sort of discordant off notes that just sort of throws you out of the scene, but really throws you deeper into the scene. He's an acquired taste as both a personality and as both a singer. And that moment in Beautiful Girl, I love that movie too. And that moment really crystallizes the appeal of Greg Dooley when you can wrap your head around it. That's awesome.
00:22:06
Speaker
And one of your recent podcasts, when you're talking about Tool, it brought back a really cool memory for me. A few years ago, a fellow sports writer of mine, we were in a small newspaper at Saratoga Springs, New York. We would just sit in his apartment and just drink Budweiser's. Our dogs would be playing and we would just play Tool Records from beginning to end and just kind of like,
00:22:34
Speaker
just experience the whole track one to track whatever and talk about it, try to deconstruct whatever Maynard is actually saying, which you can almost never discern without liner notes or without a lyric sheet in front of you. But it was just like, it's that lost art of actually listening to a record from beginning to end and seeing what the artist meant by tracking them in a certain way.
00:23:00
Speaker
Would you would you identify that as something that we've lost in the recent years given the all powerful shuffle button? I think that's part of it. I think, you know, album arts, you know, I love doing what you're describing there where you like you go on a journey with a record from beginning to end. And part of what you do is you read along
00:23:21
Speaker
with the liner notes, whether it's the lyrics, whether it's just the credits, whether it's just whatever weird pictures they've thrown in.
The Loss of Album Art in Streaming
00:23:28
Speaker
What's really sad about the streaming era is the loss of album art. Other than the thumbnail of the album cover itself, there's no data. Going back to the cars, part of my ritual with the cars record was the sleeve.
00:23:45
Speaker
you know, that had just pictures of the cars and like random pictures of like foxy ladies and like close ups of different parts of classic cars and stuff like that. And the whole package was a crucial element of that experience for me, even when I was what, like four or five years old. And like the CD era obviously was a much smaller version of that, but there was still a version of that. You know, every time you get the smashing new smashing pumpkins record, there's like a really pretentious
00:24:12
Speaker
artsy, beautiful, you know, I still remember paging through like the melancholy, you know, liner notes, you know, and all this stuff in there. And so I, again, it's, that's, I usually identify that as a private thing, I would really like, you know, I've got some friends who I can totally imagine just sitting around and just listening to tour records.
00:24:32
Speaker
You know, while playing Battletoads or something, you know, with the, with the sound all the way off. But I don't know that we ever did that. And I think that we need to start doing that now. I haven't thought of Battletoads in. It's a worst.
00:24:46
Speaker
in ages, but I have a very foggy memory of that right now. Bring that back to mind because I know it as a thing, but I'm kind of blanking, but I know it's there. It's hard as hell. I mean, it's an impossible game to finish. That's what you need to know about Battletoads. It just sucks. You just lose for hours. That's the whole thing.
00:25:07
Speaker
And what I really love about the podcast that you do, the 60 songs that define the 90s, is this idea that strikes me as a stealth memoir, if you will. It's a term I came across at a writers' conference a few years ago about these things that are just, they weren't necessarily meant to be memoirs, but they actually sort of sneak up on you like that.
00:25:36
Speaker
It seems like as much as you're trying to define the 90s by these songs, these songs are very much defining you. Absolutely. How did you arrive at that? Well, I think the original conception of the show, obviously, the Ringers had a great deal of success with the rewatchables, for example. At its core, this was trying to think of a way to apply
00:25:59
Speaker
that rubric to music and it felt more logical from the onset to focus on one song than one artist or one album and the resulting what we wanted what I wanted was like a combination of sort of critical appreciation and analysis and sort of the historical you know context you know and some of that
00:26:24
Speaker
serious and heavier and some of it more sort of pop up video type frivolity. But another crucial element is the nostalgia of it. And it's it's everybody sort of knows the broad strokes nostalgia of the 90s, you know, and it's like friends, you know, Bill Clinton, etc. But like, I it's been a dance for me, but it's people have reacted pretty well to those sort of biographical asides and stuff that felt very frivolous and indulgent.
00:26:53
Speaker
to me at the onset and I'm sort of leery about it because it's not about me obviously and no one knows who I am and no one really cares who I am. Like the point is to sort of use this song
00:27:03
Speaker
as a way of striking up whatever memories you may personally have about it. But I do think that it's sort of that weird thing of like just telling a very random and specific and pointless to anyone but me memory about a song. There's something universal in that. There's something universal about something so specific to just me because it sort of strikes in you to get to whatever specific memory you have. And so it's something that I always wanted.
00:27:33
Speaker
You know, I I've been on social media what it feels like 10,000 years by now and I'm exhausted and everything and I never really fancied myself at over share in terms of my family, my kids, anything like that, even the sort of the blog blog spot era. And I don't even feel like that now, but it's I feel like there is a precise quantity
00:27:55
Speaker
of myself and my personal memories and my super frivolous personal memories that can sort of elevate this a little bit, even if it's just sort of offsetting more of the critical analysis or the historical aspect of the song. It's a balance I'm always trying to get right, but I'm glad to hear for sure. Thanks that it's working to some extent.
00:28:18
Speaker
Oh, for sure. Specifically, what's popping into my head is in that tool episode, it wasn't just Stink Fist or even listening to Third Eye, but it's you listening to Third Eye in your car and sitting in your driveway as you're coming up on curfew and then coming into your living room and the movie is always the same as your dad's waiting for you to get home. The Blues Brothers, yeah.
00:28:46
Speaker
Unbelievable that little thing that concrete specificity.
How Podcasting Becomes a Stealth Memoir
00:28:50
Speaker
It's not oversharing but it's the one thing that we can latch on to that reminds us when oh when I would get home my mom is watching whatever it is some you know MacGyver reruns as I
00:29:04
Speaker
as I'm coming home late at night a few like just a minute or two pass curfew or whatever like and that is when memoir is really working it just makes us allows us to overlay our own experience and you do that so perfectly well thank you yeah that's what I'm trying to do ideally is is just a little bit of memoir that's supposed to stoke your own personal overlay your own experiences that's the right way to put it but yeah that's great that's awesome to know that it's that's conveyed somehow sometimes
00:29:34
Speaker
It really sounds like you're just having a good time to doing these things. I'm thinking of when you're talking about Mailman and that Hunger Strike episode, you drop in a few grace notes just about, this is the best song on Super Unknown, come at me. You do that two or three times and it's just like, I can just tell Rob's having a good time writing the script.
00:30:00
Speaker
It is. It's been fun. I mean, this is my first, you know, I've guested on podcasts, almost exclusively Bringer Podcasts, you know, for a couple years now, but this is certainly my first show, you know, my first concerted effort. You know, I did college radio in the 90s, but again, I was just talking to myself and it was obvious, I think, at the time. And so
00:30:22
Speaker
This is new to me. And it's interesting. These scripts are written. They're completely written. And I just put them in Google Docs and read them right off the page when I record. But it's fun to approach that. And what's the same as writing an article now, and what's different, and how vocal delivery can bring out different sides of the things I write, that there are things I can do that I can't do just in print. But it is fun.
00:30:50
Speaker
It's a fun decade to revisit. We sort of conceived the show
00:30:56
Speaker
last summer, and it launched in October. And I mean, obviously, this is deep into, well, not deep into it, but as COVID lockdown had started by that point, you know, and I had two young kids at home, my wife was pregnant, so we were pretty extensively locked down here. And it's, it was a, it was a good opportune time to, you know, get back to what felt at least at the time, like a simpler time, you know, and to indulge in nostalgia,
00:31:22
Speaker
a little bit, like that was fun just to sort of take me out of the everyday sort of the drudgery and the anxiety of it. And so I think it was well timed in that respect as well. I'm not a professional, you know, podcaster, announcer, anything of the sort, monologue-ist. And so I, but I, hopefully the enthusiasm makes up for the lack of professionalism.
00:31:48
Speaker
Well, I wouldn't say it's a lack of professionalism at all. It sounds like it's very of a certain voice and of a certain mind, which is all we want from any essay or piece of criticism, or in this case when we really get to get quite literally plugged in.
00:32:05
Speaker
to you know how you how you're interpreting one one song as it relates to that song in the era but also that band and what it means to their overall arc to so when you were conceiving the show did you draw up the sixty songs you wanted or is that still an evolving process.
00:32:25
Speaker
It's an evolving process. You know, it's my editor, Justin Sales, who edits all of my writing, was heavily involved. My producer is Isaac Lee, and he's involved as well. But yeah, I mean, you...
00:32:38
Speaker
We made like a long list. I tried to go by year. And I imagine at the onset that I was going to do like six songs from every year, you know, that 1990 had to be as equally represented as 1998 or whatever. And that sort of fell by the wayside a little bit, but it's for a while there.
00:32:58
Speaker
I was sort of just picking songs at random and like the first few I there was no real broader long term plan and then around five or 10 songs and it was like wait a minute I really need to map this out you know so we don't get you know there's five shows left and there's 10 songs that we absolutely have to get to and we finally got
00:33:18
Speaker
that down and like we have way more songs than slots for sure you know i would say there's 15 or 20 songs that to our minds are just absolutely have to happen you know at least artists that absolutely have to happen and then there's sort of a second tier of things that we'd really like to do if we can get to them there's like a third tier of things that i am pretty exclusively interested in but it's my show and like maybe
00:33:45
Speaker
I've got to imagine a few of them will be even more indulgent than usual in that respect. But it's only now, and I'm in the early 20s at this point, that I've started to realize, I would really like to know what my next six shows are, just so I know what I should be listening to and thinking about. And I would really like to know the arc of this thing overall. It's just a trip to think that if I do a show a week,
00:34:12
Speaker
consistently, it's gonna end, I think it's December 15th, you know, like whatever, however many nine months away from when you and I are talking and it's just, part of it is COVID, but just the way time is collapsing and stretching simultaneously where every day is the same, but you can still try and envision yourself nine months
Evolving Podcast Structure and Future
00:34:35
Speaker
from now. It's bizarre, but it's, we're finally, I'm finally imposing some structure.
00:34:43
Speaker
on this thing and it is a very foreign feeling to have any structure at all, but I think I did it just in time. It's flexible. I know a lot of things I want to do and a lot more things that I want to do, but there's a little bit of built-in flexibility if there's a song that just thunderbolts out of the blue.
00:35:04
Speaker
You get what you give by the new radicals would be an example when the Biden weird virtual inauguration thing is like the new radicals are going to reunite and play. You get what you give for the first time and whatever. So it's 20, 25 years. And like, OK, let's do that. I sort of pitched that half jokingly as an emergency episode. But I've built in a little bit of space
00:35:31
Speaker
for random things that happen, but there are plenty of songs that I have to do to my mind and there are plenty more that I want to do.
00:35:40
Speaker
I love the structure of the show too, which essentially the first, I don't know, let's just say 60% is like you talking about the song itself and then you have a guest on and you guys kind of unpack what the song means and you get their point of view and then of course you play the song. So how did you arrive at that as a component of the structure of the podcast itself?
00:36:07
Speaker
I'm trying to think of how that happened because when it started, we weren't sure if it should be me. I should be co-hosting with somebody else, and this song should be not a debate, but a tag team style thing. A lot of Ringer podcasts that I really like, sound only, for example, is Michael Peters and Justin Charity batting things back and forth.
00:36:32
Speaker
I'm here in Ohio, like I'm working remotely and I've been working remotely for seven years now. So even pre-COVID, I was pretty cut off from the rest of my coworkers. And I wasn't sure if I...
00:36:46
Speaker
if that approach was going to work, but I don't know how I arrived at that monologue format. You know, the first one I ever did, first show I ever did was You Oughta Know is Alanis Morissette. And I just, I, again, I had never done anything like this before and I just started writing it like an article, you know, just with the sort of half-assed idea that like, I'm gonna read this out loud, new microphone at one point. And it just, it sort of evolved
00:37:12
Speaker
over time. And the big revelation for me was the clips from the songs themselves. In lieu of a coworker, who what I'm interacting with is the song itself. Just playing little clips and playing little clips from songs that came out around that time or songs that sort of explain
00:37:33
Speaker
the genesis of this song, other examples of that genre, et cetera. It's just a kind of a mixed media approach in that way. That was the big breakthrough, at least for me, is when I realized you could put in a little eight to 10 second clips of the songs and do it that way. As far as the guests, I knew I wanted a guest component because I have a very specific perspective. And sometimes that's useful. And sometimes I really need
00:37:58
Speaker
you know, someone from with a completely different perspective, like the episode I've got coming out in a few days, and I imagine it'll be out by the time this is up, is on Selena, is on Selena the Tejano singer, you know, and I've been listening to her for weeks, you know, but my perspective on someone like that is very different from someone who grew up, you know, sort of Spanish speaking, like in Texas.
00:38:22
Speaker
For example, or in Mexico like I knew I needed to bring on somebody who could speak in a more personal way about what Selena meant to her and what you know Selena meant to Spanish speaking people you know Latin music fans everywhere and so sometimes
00:38:38
Speaker
You know, I saw like hunger strike, right? Like I talked to a guy, like he went, he grew up in Indianapolis. You know, he was big into college radio, I think things like that. Like it's sometimes that conversation is about our similarities. And sometimes it's more about our differences. And I just want to talk to somebody with a completely different point of view on a song or an artist or an era. It just depends on the song. But I, I always knew that I wanted some
Diverse Perspectives in Podcasting
00:39:03
Speaker
other voice in there and it was just a matter of whether it would be the same other voice for every episode or a different one and I we've landed on you know a different guest every time and I've been really happy with it in part because I get to talk to all these cool people.
00:39:19
Speaker
I love that component of it. I love the entire thing. I really admire the one voice on mic. I guess we're just listening to so many podcasts over the years where it tends to kind of be too bros talking.
00:39:36
Speaker
I've come to really appreciate a one voice on mic. And then I love this idea too, where you have a revolving door of other people that offer a different perspective. So it's not just, okay, I'm going to bring on the same old guy every single time and we're going to hash this out. But I love that you deepen it by bringing someone who's got a completely different global view of what Selena might mean or whoever.
00:39:59
Speaker
And so that's just such a great way to round it out that we've got your point of view and you know just through filtered through your taste in your voice and then you get to have a ten twelve minute conversation about it and then get to kind of hear the song and the song. Changes color in a way based on the previous experience which is just a whole new way to elevate this thing that we might have listened to a hundred times already.
00:40:23
Speaker
Yeah, well, that's great to hear. Thanks. Like something like the Gin Blossoms, Hey, Jealousy, for example. I think that was the second one I did. But I talked to Hany Fabduriki, the author, the poet, the critic, the podcaster. And our experience was we're kind of different. We both grew up in Ohio in the Midwest. And we've heard the song on college radio, on alt rock radio over and over again. But he had just such a beautiful,
00:40:49
Speaker
take on in a beautiful perspective on it. And yeah, as you say, like the crucial, there are three elements to the show, like I monologue, I talk to a guest, and then you play the song. Like this, this, this show was part of an initiative, I think it's called music and talk. Externally, I get a bit confused. But like Spotify put this thing together where they wanted to combine
00:41:10
Speaker
podcasting and songs themselves and we launched with like as close to a dozen other shows where the idea was you know there would be a show element but then they would play full songs in the middle
00:41:23
Speaker
of the show, you know, and it's sort of combining regular radio with talk radio in a way. But I really like the way that ours turned out, which is I talked for a while. And then I talked to somebody for a while. And yeah, that's the platonic idea. That's what I hope happens is then the third piece is we just play the song on encumbered like through Spotify. But now that you have all this
00:41:45
Speaker
additional information in your head. I love the idea that it might color the way that you hear the song and you're hearing it in a new way, even if you're also hearing it for the 5,000th time. I love when you were talking with David Chang in the Enter Sandman episode too, and he said something that I thought was so brilliant about
00:42:07
Speaker
an artist killing essentially killing themselves artistically in order to hit another level slash their audience in half in order to grow it by 10 times and you know Metallica's IPO album if you will be in the black album yes very successful in that respect yes
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, like they went public essentially and brought it in and it worked in the hearing him articulate it was really really I thought that was kind of kind of brilliant and that was that like for you having that conversation and hearing him saying that but like oh yeah it's okay to take it to the next level and be a populist when it comes to music or in his case food.
00:42:47
Speaker
Well, right. It was really awesome to talk to him because I couldn't say that prior to Enter Sandman, I knew in the moment, you know, whatever year that was much about Metallica, other than they were like a scary metal band.
Metallica's Style Evolution and Fan Reactions
00:43:01
Speaker
Your perspective on Enter Sandman is radically different if you were a Metallica fan prior or not. Obviously, that song, that record, as you say, was like the introduction to a huge chunk of their audience, but not everyone, obviously. And it's like,
00:43:16
Speaker
If you grew up on Master of Puppets, do you take this as a betrayal? Is this the song that everybody gets into them and you feel like you lost them, like they're no longer yours and they almost betrayed you in a way by getting too popular and bringing in too many people? That was part of what was great talking to Dave about that song is that he could speak to that more. He could speak to Enter Sandman
00:43:40
Speaker
what the experience was as already a diehard Metallica fan prior to that moment, how emotionally complex that feeling was to hear like a song that you knew was going to make them huge, that you knew was going to be played, you know, at sports arenas for the rest of our lives, you know, was going to take them to the other level. But when you go to the other level, like you do, leave some people behind, you know, or some people feel left behind. Some people preferred that you stayed at the previous
00:44:10
Speaker
And those are often your most devout fans. And that's sort of a fascinating arc that applies to a ton of bands, but I don't know of anyone more than Metallica. Like every Metallica reinvention feels like a new IPO or like Metallica 5.0, 6.0, whatever. And it involves a rebuke of everything that came before. And they just piss people off so reliably
00:44:38
Speaker
with whatever new thing they're doing. And it applies to everything. It applies to their haircuts. It applies to their album arts. You know, it applies to, you know, they make a loony documentary about how sad they are a lot of the time and just how bickering, how much bickering is involved in being in this band. And it just demystifies them in a way that I'm sure was dismaying for many hardcore Metallica fans who would prefer that they be mysterious and tough and forbidding for everybody. But like, that's one of my favorite movies
00:45:08
Speaker
of all time. It just depends on how big, how much investment you have in that artist to begin with. And it was great to talk to Dave as someone who had a ton of investment already at that time. Yeah, I can't imagine what it must have been like to have come up on them in the 80s to the early 90s. And then let's say when Load comes out and they have songs like Mama Said and in other songs that almost are like a country twang. Hero of the Day.
00:45:37
Speaker
hero of the day of there are some great songs on that album but there are other ones that are just like wow this is this is weird and this this is a metal and imagine if you're just like you came up on lightning puppets and justice and you're like all right i'll tolerate black album and then load comes along you're like whoa
00:45:57
Speaker
You cut your hair, there's some eyeliner going on here. Oh, the eyeliner, the piercings. Yeah. I worked at a restaurant in Lake Placid, New York, and one of the cooks looked like 1984 James Hetfield.
00:46:16
Speaker
Don't mess with that guy. Yeah, yeah. Just a skinny, wiry blonde hair. And he was just like, I used to be able to play Kill'em All front to back. And then there was another guy, basically his sous chef, if you will. He kind of looked like Cliff Burton. There we go. And he was just like, ever since, ever, when they went to the Black Album in Hetfield, like, whoa. I was like, fuck you. Fuck you, Metallica.
00:46:42
Speaker
I was like, oh my God, I have an entirely new perspective of what it's like to have been completely abandoned in my Metallica. And here I was evangelizing them in the kitchen because I ride or die. But these guys were like, whoa, whoa, and like, fuck you. I was like, OK.
00:47:00
Speaker
There aren't many bands like that that have been around for long enough and have so many phases that like each individual phase has its own sub fandom, like even a band like Radiohead, you know, like the third Radiohead album is so different from the first Radiohead album and like Creep is a song that was huge for them. But like,
00:47:21
Speaker
You're never quite clear of whether it embarrassed them now or whether they embarrassed, you know, the fans who preferred like the sophistication or whatever of OK Computer, but it's nothing compared to Metallica. It's just a full scale reinventions that almost every new album involved. I can't think of anybody else on that level who could make, you know, two cooks in a restaurant in Lake Placid, New York, like feel that strongly.
00:47:48
Speaker
about one era of the band and despise a subsequent era of the band. Exactly. The Onion had a great headline a while ago. It was like Metallica board of directors debates whether new riff will have negative impact on shareholder value.
00:48:07
Speaker
I hadn't seen that one. That's great. That's fantastic. And I'm someone who has a Metallica Christmas sweater that says Enter Santa Man on it, which is just a whole new level of kind of fandom or slash loserdom, whatever you want to call it. But it just goes to show like a song for them has to go through a certain degree of corporate branding. And how can we turn this new song into a T-shirt slogan or a sticker or or a Christmas sweater? It's a
00:48:37
Speaker
It's kind of sad and almost, but also fun at the same time. Did you buy the sweater for yourself or was it a gift? Bought it for myself. Okay. I respect that. That's the way it should be. You got to own it.
00:48:51
Speaker
You got to own the sweater. Yeah, exactly. So I want to be mindful of your time. I just have a couple more things for you, Rob. And I kind of sent you an email about some books that were kind of influential for you, mentor books, if you will, that kind of turned the world from black and white into color and maybe things you reread. I was wondering maybe if there are any of those that kind of resonate with you. I was chewing this over. And yeah, I don't.
00:49:22
Speaker
I'm trying to think of in my high school days or even in my college days. I don't know if I'll get around to it, but I had this really bizarre moment in college where I read Bright Lights, Big City. You know, like Jay Mack, I'm going to mispronounce his name. This is the other thing about podcasting, is you mispronounce things. This is something I've ever had to deal with. I called Mutt Lang Mutt Lange in the Shania Twain episode. What's with the E?
00:49:50
Speaker
You use the E, if you're going to put the E in your name, was my take on it. But it's no, it's Lang. And it's like, now I got to be all embarrassed. Jay McInery is the best I'm going to get. That's probably wrong. But I read that book in one sitting. And I was so emotional about it. I cried afterward while listening to Moby's God Moving Across the Face of the Waters from the first Moby album. It's the song at the end of Heat.
00:50:18
Speaker
like it's the song at the end of the shootout, the final shootout in Heat. And I don't even know if I ever reread that book, but that was just tattooed on my brain as like one of my most intense book reactions that I ever have had. I reread Catch-22 semi-regularly and I just adore sort of the intensity and the hideousness and also just the goofiness
00:50:47
Speaker
of that book and that's a fun one to sort of just dip in and out of, just sort of revisit. I was trying to think of any others and I was drawing a blank, but there's a Murakami, the Japanese author, there's a short story by him that I returned to a lot where like a new newlywed husband and wife, Rob McDonald's,
00:51:12
Speaker
Like they wake up, I don't know if it's the day after their wedding or what, but like shortly after their wedding, they wake up and they're so hungry and they go and they hold up a McDonald's and like neither of them can really explain why they're doing it or why they're so hungry. But I reread that a lot and I just enjoy that as a way, as you know, the surreal reality of marriage and of love where you just do things and you don't even know why.
00:51:39
Speaker
Right. Re-reading things to me is, there are some people who would argue that there's too many things to read, so why bother re-reading things? I kind of take the opposite thing. There's so many things to read you're never going to read at all, so you might as well walk into something and try to teach.
Learning from Rereading Books
00:51:56
Speaker
Yeah, and just kind of deconstruct to get into the bones and maybe even if you have a particular piece you're working on kind of not plagiarize it but model a piece of writing that you want after something like if you've done a matter reporting and that information seems to feed into a certain structure that you admire.
00:52:12
Speaker
why not just really X-ray read that thing and then basically just copy its structure almost scene for scene with your own stuff. It's not plagiarism, it's just doing something that has proven to work. You can only do that by rereading things at a very deep level. Yeah. What's worked for you in that respect? Let's see. I'm just getting into trying to model things, but a book I reread over and over again is The Survival of the Bart Canoe by John McPhee.
00:52:41
Speaker
And actually, Great Gatsby, I read that every year. Sure, sure. One of my favorite, I read Catcher in the Rye quite frequently. It's just the first book I ever fell in love with. And so it still holds up to me even as a, you know, 25 years after I read it for the first time. So it's, yeah, I catch 22 is a book every read every now and again, it's one of the few books my dad's recommended to me. That's a great connection. Yeah, that doesn't happen very often. So you got to hold on to those. Yeah.
00:53:11
Speaker
Yeah, he recommended that to me. And also Johnny gets your gun or Johnny got his gun. Yeah, my dad's very, yeah, my dad's very anti-military. And so having gone through the military, he just in the air force, he just, you know, had a, just hates the authority and the absurdity of it. So catch 22 and Johnny, Johnny got his gun sort of really resonated with him.
00:53:35
Speaker
Awesome. Yeah. Nice. And I guess last thing I'll get you out of here on. It could be anything. What might you recommend for someone? And it could be anything from a podcast to a book to a new pair of shoes. What is something you might recommend for the listeners out there? Something I might recommend for the listeners out there.
00:54:00
Speaker
I used to ask this a lot. I kind of got away from it. But I kind of want to bring it back. It's kind of a fun way to end the show. No, no. It's a good way to end the show. I'll go lowbrow and say I've been playing a lot, not a lot, but I've been playing video games more lately as just a reprieve, again, from everything. And I've been playing Hades for the Nintendo Switch, which is sort of a mythology-based thing where you've got to fight your way. Hades is your father. You play as Hades' son, and you have to fight your way out of hell.
00:54:30
Speaker
out of the underworld, you know, to try and find your mother, you know, on the surface in ancient Greece. And I just, it's a nice contrast, you know, with a work day and with all everything that I'm reading and all the music that I'm listening to, a larger part of it is for work, quote unquote, in some respect, like, as a way to turn my brain off.
Video Games for Relaxation
00:54:50
Speaker
I found that very enjoyable. It just is the one sort of indulgence thing I do on my every day, not every day, but every week or so. It's sort of a break. I found that to be just intellectually stimulating enough, which is to say not very. Well, it's a great way to context switch and maybe turn your brain off and turn it on to something else. Okay, when I do this,
00:55:17
Speaker
the next phase of the day starts, I can sort of then spend the time I need to spend with other people and turn that part of my brain on and this off. And like, that's a great way to shift the context, if you will. Yeah, that's that's a very intellectual way of putting it. And I appreciate that very much. Well, Rob, this was great talking to you. Thanks so much for taking the time and thanks so much for all the work you do for the ringer and beyond. It's a pleasure to read your work, see your byline and of course, listen to your wonderful podcast. So thank you.
00:55:44
Speaker
Well, thank you so much. It's really kind of saying. I really appreciate you having me out. This has been awesome. Thanks.
00:55:57
Speaker
So that was pretty cool, right? Always nice when I can break into some 90s jams. I still believe the greatest conversation my wife and I ever had in nearly 17 years was talking about 90s lead singers. That and when we were on the same page about not wanting to bring children into this horrible, horrible world.
00:56:18
Speaker
People take it as a personal affront to their moral fiber when we are confronted with having to tell people that. Because people pry. Have as many of those little fuckers as you want. Not in my bag, baby. I'm okay dying alone in state-sponsored hospice. We cool? Good. If you like what we're doing here at CNF Pod HQ, talk the show up.
00:56:43
Speaker
The way I see it is this, and let me use my favorite band as an example.
Focusing on Quality Over Hype
00:56:48
Speaker
Sure, Metallica could be on social media all day, talking about the work, showing the work, linking up to their favorite songs, saying listen to this or that, or they could be in the studio making worth, worth, making, making work, there we go, making work worth talking about, worth sharing, work that take it or leave it can't be ignored.
00:57:13
Speaker
That's where I as a fan want their energy. I don't want to see them on social media all the time. I want them in the studio. I want them writing songs. And so it is with this podcast.
00:57:24
Speaker
I think you want me making a better and better show, not mindlessly blasting it out on social media for next to no one to see, but I keep putting my energies into making a great show. I hope you'll talk it up and maybe share it. If you don't, then that is my great failure as a producer of the show. If I fail to get you to talk about it, then I'll know that I'm making what is akin to Lars' snare drama, Insane Anger.
00:57:51
Speaker
Actually worse because at least people talk about Lars's snare on Sane anger still do if People ignore the show and don't talk about the show then I need to make a better show That's the only way forward if I don't see the action out there Then I'll know in my bones that I got to level up my garbage and so that is my rant
00:58:16
Speaker
Watched Captain Fantastic the other day. Great movie. A few years old at this point. I'm late to the game. I love people who live by a code. Like an unshakable code. That can be taken to perverse extremes. But when corralled by some societal norms, if you will, having a code can bring us a certain measure of valor.
00:58:36
Speaker
Do we really need another degree when we have library's worth of books just waiting to teach us if we just want to have the rigor to do it? There's no prestige or cachet there necessarily, but I guess you could print out whatever you want. You know, if you feel like you've mastered something, you could print it out and put it on your wall on a frame and no one would be the wiser or I think.
00:59:02
Speaker
That's when we need to look inward and be inwardly satisfied and not hoodwinked into thinking that unless I share this to Instagram that it never happened. That unless I see the hearts light up that it must not be worth it. And why must I tweet something clever or funny? Why can't I just scribble it in a notebook, your own private Twitter feed for maybe an essay or a scene?
00:59:25
Speaker
for something there and then let the work carry the day instead of the primitive psychologies that play on the two-pane desktop of a software engineer at Big Tech looking to prey on every insecurity we have. So I love a code.
00:59:42
Speaker
There's another rant. Maybe you'll listen and maybe you won't. If you subscribe to this podcast, then maybe you've run the end around around social media. But maybe the algorithms are keeping this from people like us. Teller of true stories.
00:59:58
Speaker
Thinkers in the non-fiction world, all the more important to tell the others and for me to make something for you that can't be ignored. Power to the people, stick it to the man. It all boils down to my insecurities and how puppeted I felt by social media in the last dozen years or so, but here we are, bound to fulfill Ra's Ogul's destiny.
01:00:27
Speaker
He had another man of code, but corrupted. Code nonetheless. But you can't say the dude didn't have vision. I have a feeling I'll be riffing on codes for a while. Wayward CNF'er. So in the meantime, stay wild CNF'ers. See ya.