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45. Arrogant Sons of Bitches (w/ Indica In Decay)
366 Plays2 years ago
Time to re-enter the Jeff Rosenstock-verse as Checkered Past dives in on the highly influential and brief run of Long Island Ska Punkers, Arrogant Sons of Bitches! To do this, Rob and Celine welcome Ilan of Indica In Decay and Sad Snack to break down the band's entire run from their rough hewn debut, to their flurry of EPs to their problem-riddled final record and the lasting influence they had on the genre. Before they do that, Ilan discusses their comic meets synth project Indica In Decay, the Long Island Ska scene and the glory of concept albums. The episode is capped off with a game of That's F**ked/You're Sh**ting Me.
Hosts: Celine and Rob
Engineer: Joey
Editor: Arianne
Patreon: www.patreon.com/checkeredpast
Merch: www.checkeredpast.ca/merch
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Transcript
Introduction to Ska & Hosts
00:00:00
Speaker
on this episode hip hip hooray hip hip hooray hip hip hooray that's three cheers for sweet I mean disappointment as checkered past digs in on the off-the-wall antics of long beach sky icons the arrogant sons of bitches all this and more on checkered past the sky cast
00:00:39
Speaker
What up checkerheads welcome to checkered past the scot cast of salin and rob the show or a kid ska and Okay, boom pewter explore the history and impact of a different band each episode and hope to bring in new bands along the way I'm robin. This is my sister and co-host salin. Okay, so let's
Playful Banter & Birthday Plans
00:00:57
Speaker
break it down. What was the first thing again? Kid ska kid ska k. What was that?
00:01:03
Speaker
Kid Ska? Kid A? Yeah, Kid Ska, but Kid A, yeah. I don't know what Kid A is. Oh, and then OK Boom Pewter. Hey, somebody just spoke. Sorry, hi. Radiohead. Those are both Radiohead references. Oh, OK. And also I said OK Boom Pewter, and it made me laugh so hard when I wrote that down. That's funny. That's just good. I don't need to get into that. Like, that's just a good joke. Yeah, this is a good joke. Like, Ska related or not, that was very funny. I accepted that one as is.
00:01:33
Speaker
Should we pick it up where we left off? Sure. Talk to us about the birthday shenanigans that are coming. I thought I would leave this for this episode because I thought it was in theme of our guest that we will announce soon.
00:01:54
Speaker
And reminder, this episode comes out late June. Yeah, well, whatever. People will figure it out. It's fine. They're smart. I'm having a birthday party this weekend, and it's a very silly situation. So it's Rocky Horror Picture Show themed, and it's a costume party. And I'm asking that people do pick characters, and people can dress up whoever they want, but if they want to be a part of this portion, they have to pick one.
00:02:21
Speaker
So I'm doing a karaoke rock your picture show party where I'm doing all the songs in order of the movie. So basically, I'm convinced that I'm tricking all my friends into doing just a light local theater production of rock your picture show for my birthday in your basement or in my basement. Oh, okay. No, absolutely not now too far.
00:02:41
Speaker
You did say you were thinking about it a lot. I thought about renting a hall, but it was too much for me. You said you were just going to go to H2O or whatever. You wouldn't be able to get it in order. There's no way you could convince them to do that. You would have to do a song, let three bikers do songs, and then come back and do something. But I might choreograph a light murder scene. Just a light one. Because there is light murder in that show. There is light murder. Yeah.
00:03:08
Speaker
And you are? I'm Dr. Frankenfurter, of course. And your partner is? I'm Rocky. Okay. And I think he will be bronzed. I think he will be bronzed. I'm definitely going to pam me up. You're definitely going to get pammed, engineer Joey. What does that mean? And maybe a little bronzed. You just got to shine them up like pan, like the oil spikes are cooking. Oh. That's what people use for like photo shoots to like get you like looking shiny. So yeah, you just got to oil. That's like his whole thing. He's like oily and bronzed and little gold shorts.
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, that's his whole thing. That's his whole thing. One-dimensional character. Yeah. Actually, they're all kind of one-dimensional characters. We can't have this conversation right now. I absolutely do not agree. There's a few of them. So, Curry is incapable of playing a one-dimensional character. He speaks and it has like 30 dimensions minimum.
Movie Talk & Video Store Stories
00:03:59
Speaker
nuanced, uh, performance. How do you do I? So you've met my, he thought you were the candy man. You have to do the little, I know you're ready. I know you're ready.
00:04:12
Speaker
That's what you practice. I've been ready. I've been ready. I've been ready my whole life. So who else is coming? So who else do you have convinced to do? My friend Maz, who is genuinely a vocalist in several bands, which is really funny because the whole thing. So she's meatloaf. So she's truly a better vocalist than us both. Is she going to run in with a saxophone, do that whole thing? No. OK.
00:04:33
Speaker
And then we have several riffraffs. I'm curious who's going to be riffraff. We have at least three riffraffs because he's the coolest, most badass motherfucker in the room. He's like the rock and roll guy with a bald cap. And my friends are little weirdos and they all want to be little rock and roll guys with a bald cap. That is one dimension, is that he wears a bald cap. My friends' vibes are riffraff.
00:04:56
Speaker
Most of them. Not the rapper. I think I have like a pretty cute friend who's going to be magenta. Okay. Yeah. And I don't know, I want someone to be Dr. Scott. Oh, my friends Cody and Travis. Nobody wants the most generic white guy who just like walks around. They're going to be Brad and Janet and Travis who's going to be Janet is like a big Neanderthal of a man. Like he
00:05:18
Speaker
is like a little sweet gay man but he's in a big meanderthal body and he's gonna be uh i always say susan because susan's surrounded but he's janet so that'll be funny yeah he hasn't decided yet if he's gonna sing high or low i'm going falsetto like use your head voice babe use your head
00:05:37
Speaker
Hi, Joe. I don't think you turned up to say that. That's pretty much the whole thing. Well, I'll keep you all in the know. Are you going to take videos, pictures to share with? I'm sure. I'm sure. I'm sure. I think everybody will be on the Discord. That's it? Yeah. I feel like everybody should see this. Yeah, it'll be up. It'll be up. It'll be up. Yeah, that's right. I don't have anything. So let's invite a guest. I think it's time. Our guest is...
00:06:03
Speaker
We are absolutely thrilled to introduce our guests. They're the drummer for Past Guest Sad Snack and the mastermind behind the Synthrock Opera, Indica and Decay, whose debut EP, Act One, is available everywhere right now. Elon is here. Hello, friend. Welcome back. Hey, how's it going? This is your first time talking to Celine on Pod because in the last episode, it was just me and Joey. But the second time talking because we met at SBI, that's smoking weed.
00:06:29
Speaker
We meet again for the first time and the last. Sorry, I had to do the Spaceballs reference. Oh yeah, and I like Spaceballs. Yeah, let's keep them going. There's a comedian that has a joke, which I appreciate and relate to, is that I saw Spaceballs first, so when I saw Star Wars, I was like, where's Dark Helmet?
00:06:53
Speaker
I had that happen. Where's Barb? And why is this not as funny? Yeah, I believe it's yogurt. Because it's a less funny space ball. It's a less funny space. Yeah, Star Wars is a less funny space ball. Where are my friends from my childhood? Barb from Dark Elvin. I had that happen with Flash Gordon. I used to buy West Coast videos going out of business videos, and I didn't realize that my friend and I had bought a copy of Flash Gordon, which is a porno.
00:07:19
Speaker
And so it's a pretty ludicrous- I've seen Flash Gordon. Yeah. And somebody could tell me, like, yeah, Queen does the soundtracks in that movie. I'm like, bullshit Queen does the soundtracks of Flash Gordon. That's just a bunch of people having sex in outer space. There's a lot like the real movie would be better if they just solved their problems logically like that, as opposed to throwing more costume and weirdos at it. I don't know. I don't like Flash Gordon. But Flash Gordon's a classic. They could have gotten Queen.
00:07:48
Speaker
Much like how One Night in China is far superior to One Night in Paris. If we're throwing around classic porn references. So I worked at a record store in my hometown of St. Paul.
00:08:04
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Like I watched a cannibal Holocaust porn. Wait, what? It was called. Yeah. And now I want to like, it was, I know, I know it was a Holocaust already a porn video. All right. What are we talking about? I was saying about how in, in St. Paul, I worked at sunshine video music station, the video rental place. And I got a job there when I was 14, I believe. Um, but I still had to stalk porn. So cause it had like one of those like revolving door porn sections.
00:08:34
Speaker
Which if you've never worked or been in one of those, they smell terrible. Like worst smell I've ever smelled. But I also worked with all these like potheads who are in their mid to late 20s. And so they were like twice my age. So they thought it was hilarious to whenever they found a hilarious porn to play it on the TVs. And so I got to watch a lot of very strange porn.
00:08:59
Speaker
Yeah, they weren't good. Like, I wasn't like, Oh, cool. No, like, I did. Okay, I will say I have watched porn with friends and been like, like in the background without it like sounds weird. But I don't know that was a thing. It was a thing. It was a thing. It was a thing. Silly porn in the background hanging out drinking beers like talking and just having it as background like sounds weird.
00:09:27
Speaker
Some bars, some bars. Yeah, totally. You know, you just walk it. It depends on the vibe and it depends on the kind of porn you're watching for sure. Well, we had this one that was like golden showers and it was the acting and it was like so good that we would like quote it all the time.
00:09:46
Speaker
Well, Debbie Does Dallas has really good acting. Yeah, there's some classic quotes. There are some classic quotes. Cruzen has good acting, right? My great uncle, that was the last thing he did while he was alive. It's like a true story. He waited until his last son got married and then rented a copy of Debbie Does Dallas and bought, like, I don't know how much Cutty Sark, let's say a fifth for the hell of it, and then just went up to a hotel room, jerked off, got drunk, and died. That's actually not the worst.
00:10:15
Speaker
And that's classy. That's actually like a classy porn. That's a good one to go out on. Yeah. Like you wouldn't be embarrassed, right? Like misty eyed like, yeah, dad, Debbie does Dallas. And I'll be like a moment of somber silence. You know, it's just like one more D for the take your hat off because Dallas died. Yeah.
00:10:41
Speaker
Weird tone we've set for the pod. Weird tone we've set for the pod. And I'm partly responsible for sure. For sure. I know what
Drag Scenes & Festival Experiences
00:10:53
Speaker
I've contributed. I know who I am as a person. This is great. Before we talk about your project indicator, I just do want to talk about Sad Snack for a second.
00:11:08
Speaker
Tell us about SPI fest we were we just did our special it just came out recently where we talked about it But how'd you find the festival? What did you get up to when you're down there any any great stories to tell? We kept running into plastic presidents. They're just like the nicest band ever We had like a hotel next to them, but like the shows would go till like 3 in the morning So instead of like getting up to some mischief, we'd just be like
00:11:31
Speaker
Hey, good to see you. I'm falling asleep. You guys are the best. I feel like, you know, with that many bands in one place, you'd think like, I guess like with the South by Southwest tech event going on around it, everybody else was just such a drunken douchebag, but it was like just wholesome times with the SPI crew, you know? Yeah. Did you venture out onto the block surrounding where the venue was at all?
00:11:57
Speaker
We did a little bit of a circle and we found out that, who was it, Earl Sweatshirt? Was like right next to us smoking the biggest blunt in the world. Yeah, we went outside. What? We went outside and the guy that runs the venue, sorry, I can't think of what the venue SPI Fest was at. Cantina, Flamingo Cantina. The guy that runs the place was standing at the door and I went outside to get some air and he points down the street and he goes, do you know who Earl Sweatshirt is?
00:12:26
Speaker
I don't like, I'm not a huge fan, but I know who he is. He's like, that's him right there. And he was just standing there smoking a really, really big joint. It was pretty cool. Did you see the coyote ugly that was next to the cantina? I have a funny story about that. Yeah, I was excited. I was pretty excited. You have a story about that? I've been in the mood light.
00:12:48
Speaker
Not like a big story, but I was like out there, like walking around, get some air because, you know, it's like between I wanted to get more pollen inside of my face to feel worse. Clearly, like you could visibly see the pollen in the air. It was crazy. You just see these like yellow clouds going by. I don't know how people in Texas live with it, but like the barbecue is good. I guess that's the compensation. But there was like one person in coyote ugly and like, you know, that moment when you look into a bar and you're like, I'm not going in there and then something happens. You're like,
00:13:15
Speaker
I didn't go in there, but I just wish, I'm glad I witnessed this from afar. It was, you know, all the girls get on the bar to dance, but like there are no customers. So they're very much just berating the one guy that's there being like, we're doing this for us. We have to do this every hour. And they're playing Celine Dion's, My Heart Will Go On, and like doing a Coyote Ugly dance. The guy at the bar is just literally like uncomfortable.
00:13:36
Speaker
I know I actually said this the other day. Sometimes like you're like the audience to something that there's like you kind of have to perform for the person performing because you're just like, yeah, that's good. I'm yeah. And you're just like smiling at them because you don't know what else to do. And you're like, I can't leave. And that's been a few burlesque performances I've sat through, unfortunately, all of them and drag. And I love all performance art. And it takes a lot to get up there. But sometimes you got to smile.
00:14:05
Speaker
Well, I mean, I've only been a few drag shows. Sometimes you got to smile gently. I don't know if I've been to one where it was usually they're big shows. And usually I feel like the drag performer is saying fuck you to the audience. That's good. That's what it's good. That's better. Yeah. Anyways, that's sad. Simon from Blue Hair has a troop, a non-binary burlesque troop out in San Francisco called Om Nom Nom. That's pretty delightful. It's it just like San Francisco drag and burlesque is fantastic. There's I can only imagine.
00:14:35
Speaker
Yeah, unfortunately Edmonton is a bit of a different... Yeah, San Francisco is known for its drag in burlesque. Even Calgary has a better burlesque than Edmonton does. What's Edmonton known for? Not that. Wayne Gretzky. Like really agro hardcore punks with bulging heads. Did you go, Elon, go to the El Casino Camino? The bar next door to Flamingo Cantina that was like really, really fucking punk?
00:15:05
Speaker
No, what? Or is that the one that was making cool burgers? Yes. The burger place, yeah. Word. No, I missed that. It was pretty, it was dirt baggy and punk as fuck. Like, it was one of the punkest bars I've ever been to. Take Today ate there twice. It was fucking good. It was very good, but you have, but actually apparently the veggie burger was really good. Fuck, Take Today eats there? I gotta go back. Shit.
00:15:31
Speaker
Right? That's why I went. Twice in a day. Joe said it was the best burger he ever had. Honestly, that is why I went, is because Joe said it was the best burger. Honestly, that was after our interview with him when he said he doesn't do fast food. And so I was like, all right, well, whatever you're getting a burger would be pretty good. I made a joke, but I literally went to eat the burger because take today. Yeah, seriously.
00:15:51
Speaker
I wouldn't eat on the road if not fast food. You just have peanut butter. I've done the peanut butter and bread tour. And that sucks. And you start to fantasize about anything else. But I can't imagine just being like, all right. Because tour is the one time where you can try. I'm going to eat a McDonald's burger. I'm just going to do it. If you have other options and you eat that, maybe that's not the best move. But if you have no other options, tour makes that. What do you eat? What do you eat besides fast food? Is there a secret? There's got to be.
00:16:21
Speaker
There's got to be a secret. I don't have it. Weird heap, like little sandwiches from convenience stores. Oh, that's a death. That's even worse. It is much worse. Sushi. Oh, people started sushi on a highway.
00:16:38
Speaker
I'm trying to think of what we ate. We mostly ate fast food. Did you guys go to a bunch of Bucky's as well? We got pulled into the same Bucky's three times. It was great. Oh yeah, we went twice. I saw a picture of Earl from plastic presidents in the Bucky's onesie and then I had to go back and get my own.
Musical Inspirations & Personal Stories
00:16:55
Speaker
Oh, I saw that your Bucky Swansie's great. If you want to take it or come and take it, flags they had were, I guess it's supposed to be a cannon, but it looks like a really fat baseball pre-roll like come and take it. It's like, yeah, dude, I do like Bob Marley. Come and take it. That's funny. Come and take my weed, man. Come and take it, man.
00:17:21
Speaker
And then pass it back, yeah. It's like getting the rotation, bro. Gonna stand up against all these liberals and get way more stoned than them, you know? Hey, if that's how they're protesting, the world would be a better place. I hard agree.
00:17:40
Speaker
It starts the protest that everybody's just enamored with all the colors at the drag show. Like, you know what? Sorry, we got very stoned. You know what would really stick it to us? Classy use of paisley. The right side. If you started microdosing, that would really piss us off. I would hate that. Yo, for real. And like also like if the right wing got super gay, I'd be so weird. I'd be so mad. I'd be so mad if everybody just like, if the right wing just got really into being like,
00:18:07
Speaker
trans and openly gay and accepting I'd be pissed off. I would hate that. You guys would be so owned. They should do that to spite me. Do you know what it'd be the worst? It'd be the worst if they like were pro-choice. That'd be fucked up. That would really grab my gears. Everybody who is pro-choice now would have to pretend like, oh, no, we're not into that. No, no, no, no. I don't want to look at it.
00:18:32
Speaker
What you're doing is pissing us off. Can you make the decisions for my body? I'm just a dumb lady. I can't be trusted. Let's shift gears.
00:18:49
Speaker
Elon, let's talk about Indica and Decay. A lot off the presses as of us recording here. So tell the listener about the project. What were you inspired to start this? What should we get to know about? And maybe a little spoiler on the story that it tells? Sure, yeah. So Indica and Decay is a synthesizer rock opera that I do with, let's say, a handful of synthesizers. I could explain the set up, but it's less than five synthesizers in a drum machine. It's a live thing.
00:19:19
Speaker
I've got like two stands. One of them is an ironing board. It's just straight up like I came up with this during the pandemic. I was in a few bands and everything kind of dissolved. And I had this moment to think like, what would I really want to do? And the answer was to pesh mode playing Billy Joel's scenes from an Italian restaurant. I mean, that sounds amazing. I wish I could do. I'm working. I'm working on the back burner one. The actual back burner one is always I am the Sky by Alan Parsons. I love synth stuff.
00:19:50
Speaker
Sam from the wipers, who are a Portland band. Years ago, I was working at this dive bar. It was like a biker bar. And Sam Henry from the wipers and Jenny Delvin, the Spurs, would always come in and just play like all the synthy prog rock. And like, there are like a handful of people that I really get down with and talk about synthesizers. There's like a ton of people that play synth and it's fucking awesome. It's really cool to be able to like,
00:20:12
Speaker
create music in such a way, because I felt like, especially playing punk and ska and metal and all these things, as a drummer, a guitarist, everything else.
00:20:21
Speaker
I just kept moving further away from this opportunity. I love Depeche Mode. Don't even. That's one of my top favorite bands, Depeche Mode. I cried when I saw them live. I love them so. I would write a love story about Depeche Mode. I love Dave Gunn. I love his sad little heroin.
00:20:46
Speaker
No, he was very sexy Leather Daddy back in the day too. Anyway. Oh my God. With the fucking Flocka Seagulls haircut, but you can't follow that. Yeah. Yeah. Um, anyway, I just want to, policy of truth was life changing to here. That whole album, that was like, um, let's see, like that one. Um, I was really super into, uh, Adam and the ants when I was younger. Um, Jumbo Wamba actually like, uh,
00:21:12
Speaker
I remember coming back from an Eric and Sons of Bitches show. My friend had bought a Chumbawamba CD, ironically, and it was like my favorite album. He was playing it. And he's like, I love this album. And it was like in high school. He's like, you can't like cheesy music like this. It's like ironic. And that stuck with me my whole life where it's like, what is irony at a certain point? If you like, like.
00:21:31
Speaker
I feel like it's camp a little. Yeah. I feel like the Fresh Mode is camp. Chumbawamba is camp to me. Indica and Decay is camp. Rocky Horror is camp. You can't really hit that ironically though. Like you can do it tongue in cheek. You can kind of have like... I don't think camp is irony. I agree. Camp is tongue in cheek. Yeah. There's a level of self-awareness, but I think that once things become fully ironic, they almost tend to attack the source material as opposed to celebrating it. You know what I mean? Yes.
00:21:58
Speaker
John Waters, camp, not irony. Speaking of Rocky Horror, and not to digress, but have you seen the sequel Shock Treatment?
00:22:08
Speaker
No. They made a sequel within the first couple of years of putting out the movie. It doesn't have Tim Curry, but it's about Brad and Janet. It's got, oh, shoot. I forget the butler's name. Is it still like Riff Raff and Magenta? Like Richard O'Brien? Riff Raff and Magenta are the same actors. Yeah, because they're the creators. Yeah, it's got like a new wavy soundtrack. It's got more synthesizers. That's kind of fun.
00:22:32
Speaker
They swapped Janet out with the actress from Phantom of the Paradise, which was one of those clincher movies. I was watching a lot of opera trying to write this thing for the first act, and I got super into Phantom of the Paradise. If I could make any... Well, okay, a lot of that soundtrack is just weird ballads, but it's the dude that did all of the Jim Henson music, all the Muppets music, making Brian De Palma horror, Rocky Horror-style musical.
00:22:58
Speaker
I realized a lot of what I was trying to do, in addition to doing this Depeche Mode thing, was trying to integrate a lot of ragtime piano. I grew up in a household with a lot of jazz pianists. I learned to play piano during the pandemic. I have a background playing percussion. I can physically play piano. I've played marimba a lot of my life, but it's different. Drums were my first instrument, and you hit a certain point, and Indica is this character.
00:23:24
Speaker
So me and Indica kind of go along a similar path where it's like she's a messy drummer trying to find something to glom onto, like a band or a project to glom onto, which will allow her to live these dreams. You know, you grow up and you see, you love music and you see bands and
00:23:40
Speaker
Rolling Stone and stuff and you think like, wow, that's a fucking lifestyle. But the reality of it is you're just out there expressing yourself. In Indica's case, she isn't somebody that rehearses too much. She's always around her instrument, but the concept of it's a party. It's a lifestyle. It's not a craft or something she's working so hard on. So she realizes there are these
00:24:03
Speaker
there's this magic guitar Excalibur that will write songs for you and they're perfect. She meets and falls for Arthur and plays music with him in his band, The Holy Grail. It's just upset that even though he's got all this disability to play perfect songs, people still don't give a fuck, which is true in music. You can write the best songs in the world and somebody will just show up and be really charismatic and have awful music and do great. It's not a contest in any way,
00:24:33
Speaker
You know, that feeling of why isn't it working for me, that, you know, negativity kind of permeates outwards and affects his crowds.
00:24:41
Speaker
becomes very successful, he winds up killing himself. After Indica quits the band, she realizes that even though it is what she's always wanted, and it's that path to success or whatever that means for her, but just being able to maintain playing music and not feel helpless. But she has to quit because she realizes that this person is just dragging himself down. And she's not surprised when he kills himself.
00:25:03
Speaker
But she's approached by the Lady of the Lake, who's the mythical character that gives King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table, well, not all the Knights, but really just Arthur. Merlin introduces Arthur to the Lady of the Lake to get the sword Excalibur. Yeah, classic. Yeah, so like the first act is into getting the sword. But the reason why I'm kind of going through the plot is like the gist of it is she doesn't
00:25:27
Speaker
figure out how to solve her problem. She gets handed a solution and it doesn't evolve her as a character. She, in the next couple of acts, has to deal with the repercussions of not having to evolve as a person and being able to play music, but it's not really solving her problems. Because I think that where I started as a drummer for years, I felt like I didn't have control over the music I was making as much because you're kind of a set of hands for
00:25:50
Speaker
Like, you can't copyright a drum beat. Let's just start there. You can't. Like, drumming is the most important thing, but also just taken for granted, humongously within music. For sure. I mean, like, you're telling me that the guys who wrote We're Not Gonna Take It have copyrighted everything but the drum beat? The drum beat is the song. Yeah. But like, the gist of it is like that feeling of helplessness that she has. Like, I doubled down and got really...
00:26:18
Speaker
I taught myself guitar, I taught myself piano, I taught myself all these things to try to not feel like I was waiting for the opportunity to find the right group of people to play with and try to have more control. And that I think is something that exists within the first act of Indica a lot is that vibe like, well, I want this, why do I want this?
King Arthur & Rock Opera Themes
00:26:41
Speaker
I mean, she doesn't think about it so much, but it's like the underlying thing. Like the characters within this rock opera don't think too deeply.
00:26:47
Speaker
the stuff surrounding them fills in the blanks. I like characters that have these flaws, like all of us have these flaws. We've got this sort of sensory gate around seeing what's a good idea and what's a bad idea. You want something really hard. In Zica's case,
00:27:03
Speaker
getting out of the suburbs and moving to a big city to play drums and follow through on some Rolling Stone magazine fantasy is what she wants. And when she gets it, she sees it tearing people apart, still goes for it. You know, like the Lady of the Lake is giving people these powers, kind of just watch them fall apart. Like she gives King Arthur this Excalibur sword so that what, Lancelot can steal his wife? And then he goes off and loses against his own son, who
00:27:26
Speaker
is a weird inbred wizard, it's a mess. There's nothing good that happens to the people that gain these powers. But I think that's something I try to do in general with my goals and dreams is dissect why I want it. I think that's just an important thing to explore in anything. Did one of you in the back say Mordred? Mordred? No. No? I thought somebody said. It's Mordred. Oh, I said Mordred. You did? Yeah.
00:27:55
Speaker
I had to take a second that I was like, oh yeah, from King Arthur. Yeah, no, so that made my day. He was my favorite weird character in all those. Also, he's now an X-Man because X-Men is all about King Arthur for some reason. Our mom was really into King Arthur. Oddly enough, one of the reasons why- Yes, our cat was named Guinevere.
00:28:19
Speaker
When of your Galadriel, Gigi. So Lord of the Rings and King Arthur. She was obsessed with the story of King Arthur. Yes, that's our mother. Her favorite book is Miss of Avalon, which is like, it's a story about when... She also loves Lady of the Lake and everything. So Miss of Avalon is, when the Knights of the Round Table are off on a quest, it's the ladies that are left behind and their little
00:28:45
Speaker
whatever, they're trying to solve the politics that are left behind in the kingdom. How did they miss this? The mess that the men left behind. Yeah, the mess of Avalon. It's a really good book. It's awesome. Yeah, we had a bunch of books to kind of get the vibe. I read the two or three of the big compendiums of King Arthur stories. The Once and Future King. That's a really big one. Yeah. Also, I really enjoyed, well, Connecticut yanking King Arthur's court's got some weird shit going on.
00:29:15
Speaker
That's not one that I use for any kind of basis. In fact, I'm just fascinated with the idea that in Mark Twain's time, anybody off the street could assemble a telephone. Can you imagine? He goes back in time and he's like, well, it's a good thing I know how to wire a telephone. Back in the day, you'd get a pamphlet on how to set something up electronically in a box full of it and you'd have to do all the repairs yourself.
00:29:38
Speaker
Interestingly enough, a lot of what I know about King Arthur was from a rock opera. What? Home movies? No, from the album Excalibur by Grave Digger, which is a concept album about King Arthur. I was going to ask Elon, did you see the rock opera episode of home movies? Yeah, not in a long time though. That's very good. I also was going to ask you about Repo, the genetic opera.
00:30:03
Speaker
I don't like the music to that one. I didn't when I saw it years ago and I can't say... What are your go-to rock operas? Especially when you're preparing for this, what were the ones that kind of stuck out that you were trying to go for? So to begin with, years ago I found... So the Kinks have a really good rock opera period. They may or may not have invented the rock opera with Arthur, but
00:30:29
Speaker
Oddly enough, another Arthur one. That wasn't intentional, but Arthur, the decline and fall of the Victorian era is a pretty solid one. I absolutely love what they did with preservation societies, part one and two. I don't necessarily think that it's like the greatest rock opera, but I really love that it's like they switch perspectives around and it's a fucking mess. Anything that isn't
00:30:52
Speaker
based on the wall or the who. There's this thing with rock operas where it's about finding a voice, which I tried to play around with where it's like, Tommy, you got this guy, he's deaf, dumb, and blind, but he develops a cult around him, but it has something to do with him personally. At the end of it, he finds his voice, the wall. This guy gets isolated from everybody else because of childhood trauma and then becomes really hateful after becoming a rock star and then finds out who he is.
00:31:19
Speaker
saying anything is a real boy is a fucking rock opera. I love growing up. It's about a guy who can now express himself perfectly through music and becomes famous, but ultimately his self-expression is the problem that he has because it tears people away from him. There's this thing about rock operas where it's ultimately a bit navel-gazy about making music. It's always about music, yes. Yeah, in a weird way.
00:31:41
Speaker
I mean, I think the other thing with rock operas is they're just not as, it's not as prolific, right? Like you kind of have to find, they've been around for a long time. I know, it's an interesting genre to think about actually. The concept album. What about meatloaf?
00:31:57
Speaker
Ooh, Paradise by the Dashboard Lights. Yeah, right? That's what I mean. Yeah, Elon got it. Yeah. That's my bad. That's an operetta vibe. I mean, Billy Joel's scenes from an Italian restaurant, when I was a kid, that was my favorite. It still is. Regionally, they used to play that one on the radio where I was growing up, so you'd get a seven-minute Billy Joel song on the radio because New York,
00:32:18
Speaker
I fucking love the shit out of that. I miss it. In other cities, people be like, I have to ask you, you've never heard that seven minute Billy Joel song? They don't just play that out here for no reason because they're worried there might be some kind of a riot if they don't. Whoa.
00:32:34
Speaker
I got to pop in and say for a Canadian awesome rock opera Boys' Net Out train wreck is really good. It's an emo album, but it's about a guy that kills his wife in a psychosis and then cuts off his own hands and then his recovery. Fuck, yeah.
00:32:56
Speaker
it's fucking it's super gnarly and it's really it's a really tight early aughts emo record and it fucking it fucks so listen to it it's good there's a taxpayer sorry there's a taxpayers folk punk rock opera i forget what it's called i'm looking it up now as uh they're great they're a portland band uh that was on quote unquote jeff rosenstock's label for a minute for one of their albums um
00:33:23
Speaker
to bring it back home. Can I use that as the best transition ever? Yes. We're going to talk about Eric and Sons of Bitches today. Why did you select that band for us to cover? What's their significance? I think I've seen that band more than any other band I've ever seen on stage. I was just obsessed as a kid. I caught them at
00:33:45
Speaker
a good point. I saw them steadily pretty much every weekend for about four years between 2003 and 2007, and they're still just top tier Scott Punk. I can say it. I don't have to be objective. They might be the best. This was an interesting band to go back and talk about.
00:34:09
Speaker
part of Bomb the Music Industry already once before. So this is almost like a rewind from that, like a story within a story like The Odyssey, where we're like going into the story a little bit and then pulling back to show where it all kind of came from. I think I told you last time I got offered to be the drummer in Bomb the Music Industry, like offhand, but like by Jeff one time after his show. That's for you.
00:34:36
Speaker
I was like 17 and the arrogant sons of bitches had just broken up and bomb the music industry was playing with. It wasn't like he offered. I very much inserted myself in a conversation and he was like, he cleaned up his merch table and I was like, I noticed you don't have a drummer. I'm good. He's like, yeah, I can hit play on my iPhone. Yeah, all right. You made a good point. You are good.
00:34:59
Speaker
Like if you want to, I'm gonna go move down south and record an album in Georgia and I've got like a spot I'm gonna move to, just drop everything and move in with me and we'll do this. And like, I don't know if he was just giving like a worst case, like a, not like a worst case, but this is the, I think it sounded like this is the commitment level I need from somebody. Does that sound good? And at the time I was like, no, I'm gonna go to college. And I have a degree of dope juice. And he's just like, another one?
00:35:28
Speaker
You've gone to college. I don't think I would have been a good drummer at that point for what he was doing. The person that showed up and did it was great. When I was younger and I was playing drums, I was indica. I was just like a messy, I don't know, I was institutionalized as a kid. I was like fat. I had all sorts of problems. I hadn't come out yet. And like it just having people accept you as who you are and being a part of a party and feeling as though
00:35:52
Speaker
You're normal met more to me than really trying to take music to the next level so as much as i really love going to the shows i don't know that i would have been any help anybody that point is a drama.
00:36:03
Speaker
I know. There's a lot of things that you're like, oh, like I've only had like at the time you're like, wanted that opportunity and you realize later on, you're like, thank God I didn't do that. Like, oh my God, I wanted it so bad. And like, thank God that didn't happen. Like I was not in the right place to do that. That was not the right version of me to do that. No, no, no, no. Should we head into the time, Skashine? Let's do it.
00:36:37
Speaker
All right, so for today we're talking about the arrogant sons of bitches and I pulled a lot of material from the internet, mostly from things like Last FM, the quote unquote website. Punks in Vegas did a retrospective with Jeff on arrogant sons of bitches and then there's an awesome Village Voice interview.
00:36:58
Speaker
that he did that has a lot of really good stories about this time of their about his career who I'm talking about we'll talk we'll discuss in a second realize I didn't actually talk about who Jeff is I just mentioned his name a couple times um so one thing I'll mention
00:37:13
Speaker
is that this band's material is a little challenging to get online. You can definitely stream their last album.
Arrogant Sons of Bitches' Impact
00:37:23
Speaker
You can get a couple records by donation on the quote unquote website. YouTube has the complete discography to play that's like an hour long, all disconnected.
00:37:38
Speaker
But the thing is, all their music was released in spits and spurts. So what I'm going to try to do is try to be chronological with the material. So we're going to start at the beginning and work our way to the end as things do. But I'll be pulling out from various little releases here and there so that we can hear their growth as a band. But if you're trying to listen at home, this won't be that easy to find.
00:38:25
Speaker
Over time, the duo's love of Ska Punk, DC Hardcore, and early emo indie rock convinced them to bring on more and more members, including Chris Balchus on the bass, John Domenici on the drums, Dave Dickerman on trombone, Steve Connolly on the trumpet, and then Jeff taking over Sax and Joe on guitar.
00:38:32
Speaker
Um, but if you can find it, good job.
00:38:46
Speaker
Jeff handled most of the vocals, but obviously this band had a lot of people singing and shouting all the time, so there was kind of everybody all at once. Here's what Jeff said about this early moment. I remember there was this kid who I used to take swim lessons with, or my brother used to take swim lessons with, and when I got to high school, he was friends with some of my friends, and we're kind of punk people, but the punk rock kids in my high school really didn't like me that much because I was a weirdo.
00:39:10
Speaker
I was socially awkward and wasn't like a tough guy. And there was a lot of tough punks in high school. So this would have been in the early 90s, right?
00:39:24
Speaker
That's all blown over and I was probably imagining that. But this kid who my brother used to take swim lessons with would go to lunch. So me and his friend were eating Chinese food and thinking, I was trying to be a cool guy. I was like, yeah, I'm gonna have a band and we're gonna be called the arrogant sons of bitches. We're gonna have a curse word in our name and it's gonna be fucking awesome. And he's like, okay, whatever, dude. And that was then and that was it. He said, that guy's name is Sean Cooper who's from Taking Back Sunday.
00:39:54
Speaker
which I thought was a fun little turn. During this time there was a revolving door of musicians and one story goes that former drummer Patrick Santiago was forced to quit after one of the band members broke into his house and stole all his amplifiers. Since they were in high school he was still living with his parents and they weren't too pleased about the situation and told them to quit all of his bands.
00:40:16
Speaker
Um, so Jeff said this about these early days, a lot of Jeff quotes, there were no parameters. We didn't start out saying that we wanted to be a ska band. It was just me and Joe. We're hanging out with each other and writing songs and playing with other drummers who would quit every three weeks. That never stopped. We really wanted to hang out with each other and play some music.
00:40:34
Speaker
I know I talked about boss tones a lot, but Everclear was just as important to both of us when we were starting. There wasn't like a let's be a ska band kind of thing until we were writing songs. It was like, oh, all our songs kind of sound this way. The really early stuff, which hopefully we'll never see the light of day. There wasn't that much ska happening. Then we brought in Chris, the sax player, who was also a good buddy when we were kids. And when we talk about music, it'd be like, if you have horns in every song, you're probably going to have some ska songs.
00:41:03
Speaker
So fast forward a few years and the band cobbled together its demo recordings to issue the album Built to Fail on a $1,000 budget. Its crude recording masks the band's innovation with wild over-the-top arrangements, getting comparisons to Catch-22, Big Day in the Kids Table, and Slapstick.
00:41:21
Speaker
Coupled with their infamously wild live shows, they began to tour New England aggressively in the waning years of the summer of Ska with tri-state favorites like Edna's Goldfish, the Toasters, and the aforementioned Catch-22. Let's listen to a built-to-fail song. This is called, I Pissed in Your Mountain Dew. And told you it was raining. That's my rock-off.
00:41:51
Speaker
It's good if you can judge Judy Rock opera. Oh my god, wait, Judge Judy Rock opera's genius. Do you know that the studio pays for all the settlement money? I've had some friends. Friends of Friends ran a scam on the People's Court for that one time. It's actually the best thing I've ever done.
00:42:15
Speaker
But you can do it just when you have a conflict with somebody else. You have to sign non-arbitration forms, so they can't record afterwards. So I remember playing Built to Fail for my wife one time, and she said, this sounds like shit. That was her review. It somehow sounds better than pornography, though.
00:42:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah. I actually love how rough built a fail sounds. I think it's in degree. Yeah. I love how they just are like playing as fast as they fucking can. Yeah, absolutely. And just like stop starting, like changing tempos midway through the song. They just do not give a fuck. No. Why should you? It's like way more broke than other bands.
00:43:04
Speaker
I mean, it's broke as fuck, but Baroque in this way, where it's like, you know, a lot of other Scott bands, especially on the scene, we're playing like these like, chunky ass fucking third wave Scott punk songs, you know, you got upstrokes on the verse, fucking distortion pedal on the chorus, you wrote a song, but like, that's everywhere. That song is.
00:43:20
Speaker
Yeah, and they would just like go. That's more fun to me. It'd be hard clean, hard clean, hard clean. And you just couldn't predict where the song was going to go. It would end in a weird place. Some songs will be a minute and a half, and you're like, oh, OK, it's over now. So I'm not familiar with them.
00:43:36
Speaker
No, this is your first time listening? Yes. Oh, interesting. Yeah, it's good. I feel like I need like I feel like I'm having a hard time processing it. I feel like I want to know like so it like like, you know, more background. Can I tell you what we used to tell people when so we would go to high school like we when we got into this band, we would just grab as many people as we could and we drive down to the venue and people would say the same shit like, what are you bringing us to? Like, we're excited to go see a show. But what is this? Yeah, what is it? What is it?
00:44:05
Speaker
Every time we'd be like, you know, you're gonna, you know, when you hear it, it's absolutely nuts. Like, everybody dives off the stage, but like, there's one song and they say, everything is always falling apart. If you get in on that one, you got this. And like, that was like, so let's go nowhere is very much like the their single.
00:44:23
Speaker
Can you describe what a set would have been like to see? I'm envisioning a wild band, but I've seen some wild bands and this band is prolifically wild. Can you describe what a set would have been like? Yeah, okay. There's two different sets. Every year they do a Halloween show where they dress up as a famous band and cover as many of that band's songs as they could while pretending to be that band. Put a pin in that because that will come up much later in the podcast.
00:44:49
Speaker
I have some of those albums and I was on a few shows. But basically, you'd get as many people as you could cram onto a stage. And the trombone player was a bigger dude who would hold the microphone between his chest, push together, and keep fucking… Dave would just fucking wail. And then JT would do this stuff. The keyboard player would do handstands on the keyboard and then give people the keyboard and run around the audience. And then
00:45:15
Speaker
Have a moment where you look back on stage and like he was backing up Jeff's vocals JT and you can always seem to be like oh no I've gone too far need to get my instrument back and like crowd surf and try to like grab it out of people's hands and shit like it was fun it was okay I would definitely sell me yeah I guess like I don't think this is an album you can like appreciate with a quick run through.
00:45:38
Speaker
No. Or some albums you can. It's still fun and it's fast and like I enjoyed it, but I feel like I need to give it more time. What it is is what the complete disc... So if you've got the complete discography or the self-titled however you want to call it, the Built to Fail is not on the physical version of it. It's on the MP3 attached.
00:45:56
Speaker
to the physical version of it uh so you have to like actually dig even deeper to find it like it's like a an add-on to a thing that you have to acquire it was so cool too the the fucking cd and shit like i don't know like they had like maybe like five or six cds ever and that one had like everything on it and they were still selling the other cds it was like uh i'd love to but i've got them all right here
00:46:21
Speaker
And Jeff said that he was shocked to find out that people would buy multiple versions. He's like, we sold like 6,000 CDs when we were still around. He's like, it's like kind of wild to think about because a lot of those albums have like the same three songs. I have like three different copies of Pornocracy for sure. Like there's the main one, there's the one on the discography. I take it back only two and then there's like two or three songs that are still on a band camp or
00:46:52
Speaker
MySpace? Pure volume. There's a pure volume page out there with the unreleased ones. They're on YouTube now, but for a while that was like gold, being like, all right, well, here are the ones that never wound up on an album.
00:47:06
Speaker
I got into this band when the Three Cheers came out. So, well, I guess I'll save for when I first heard them, because Myspace played a big part into how I discovered this band. Okay. Really? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Very strange thing. My entry points in Descartes can be kind of strange, mostly internet. I'm going to tell you my Myspace username, and then you all have to guess what... Okay, just a line, because you already know. It has to guess what genre of music I was into at the time. Okay, go for it.
00:47:35
Speaker
Horror peep show. Ooh, I'm going to say whatever bands are playing behind a Suicide Girls show. Yeah, so psychobilly. Psychobilly. I miss the horror pop so much. I love the horror pop. I actually have relistened and honestly, it holds up.
00:47:56
Speaker
I feel like if I play it for someone else, they're like, what is this? And I'm like, no, it's good. You walk like a zombie, you talk like a zombie. It's not in your head. You're living dead. Indica might like horror pubs. I mean, I think you you really relate to Indica.
00:48:17
Speaker
I do relate to Indica. I've always been relating to Indica. As a character? As a character. That's great. Whenever things go wrong, whenever I'm shook out of any comfortability lately, because I haven't had any level of comfortability in years, it's been fantastic to be like, whoa, cool. This is just another day. I'm like, ah, some Indica stuff. Literally waking up and sitting there with a hangover and a cigarette is like an Indica moment. She's a five.
00:48:47
Speaker
Actually, my early 20s. I was in Dica, basically.
Local Shows & Music Industry Challenges
00:48:50
Speaker
I was like, I'm 33 now, so things are a little different, but like 16 to 23, I was in Dica, basically. I did the math on it a little weird when I was writing it, but the 15 years of mop water was me doing math about how long I'd been mopping floors in one way or another. I mean, I've had every job at this point. Well, not every job, but good jobs.
00:49:12
Speaker
I realized she'd be in her mid 30s and that's where a lot of the desperation is kind of coming from at that point is she's been doing that for too long. Maybe her liver's going to get out. Oh, yeah. That sounds so tiring. I was doing that this whole time. Man, it wouldn't be good. Yeah. Sometimes you see that stuff where you think about doing it and you're like, I just feel tired. I am tired. I'm just tired all the time anyway.
00:49:34
Speaker
When you were younger and you heard people say stuff like, oh, I had a cigarette last night. Now I feel like shit. I don't know about you. I always thought that was laughable. And now I'm like, I get that. Well, I smoked one and I feel like shit. What about that? Joey's looking at me because I don't smoke, but I do smoke. I also don't do shots. But every time I'm drunk, I want to do a shot. Every time I'm drunk, I want a cigarette. You do shots. I know everyone. This is everyone. Everyone's like, you're the one who does the most shots. I know. And I'm like, I don't like shots.
00:50:06
Speaker
I'm not that hungover because they didn't do shots last night. And then Chris was like, you did a shot with me. You gave me a shot. I saw you doing shots at least two other times. Did y'all do shots with the dev Scott morph suit dude as well? Because that was like hanging out with me. I don't know. It made me so happy. I don't. Probably, yeah. Probably, yeah. I think I did.
00:50:30
Speaker
That was such a good week. The whole thing was so jacked up with sinuses that it was like, just take more cold medicine. When we hung out with the smoke and I was like, this is great. I ate too many edibles and I'm on a bunch of cold medicine. We all have the nicest. Vibe. So Texas. So Texas to have a bunch of cold medicine. It was a write off after the fourth shark bite. They sell it to you in a cowboy hat.
00:50:58
Speaker
It's the NyQuil cowboy hat. It's a stupid thing. That's lean. No, it's Texas is bigger.
00:51:08
Speaker
So while on the road, the band recruited more and more members with John moving to co-guitar and Mike Costa taking over on the drums. There's a bunch of other drum changes, but I don't want to, there's so many. This was around the time when Chris Valentino joined on the sax and JT came on for the keyboard. So he didn't record on built to fail, but from then on he would record on everything.
00:51:31
Speaker
This massive multi-person unit, which I lost count, they have like big D at this time, had the same thing when you'd look at the list of members and it would be like 15. And some people would be on this track and not this track. It was wild.
00:51:47
Speaker
So they released their sophomore album Pornocracy, self-released and issued regionally. Production was about as large as you can imagine for this kind of a group. 17 tracks, pretty, pretty, yeah, anyway. The bulk of the complete discography is Pornocracy plus extra.
00:52:10
Speaker
And this is what Jeff had to say about it. So Jeff said this on Pornocracy, I'm just saying the word bitch and slut so much on that record. I'm saying gross stuff. I was such an angry kid.
00:52:25
Speaker
I wouldn't say those words now, and it would be weird when I have to say those words at shows. And it just kind of is what it is. It's like, all right, I guess that's what that's going to be. I don't feel too bad about writing bad rhymes, but calling shit gay or what's up, bitch, or that girl's a slut. That's the kind of shit I got over in high school. But lucky for me, all of my adolescent feelings are recorded and played back to me later.
00:52:47
Speaker
I wish Aaron Barrett would say this. I had that album. I went to go see them with this girl I was super into in high school, freshman year. And you're awkward. You don't know how to tell somebody you like them. And the opportunity slips through your fingers if it ever was there. And we'd gone to the show with one of my best friends at the time. And I just bought that album. And I was walking through past the ubiquitous couches that you see at all age of shows. And there was like,
00:53:13
Speaker
my friend girl I'm really into who's also my friend like we're friends or we I don't know I've lost touch with everybody but like and they're hooking up and I'm like fuck
00:53:22
Speaker
Fuck, life is so shit at high school angst. And I remember going home and being in a dark room. And when you're a kid and you're dealing with heartbreak or whatever, whatever you want to call that feeling, you don't know how to deal with it. And so I remember just sitting there and I had this brand new copy of Pornocracy and I was like, this will cheer me up. And I'm listening to it on the stereo in the dark room being like, this is not helping in any way.
00:53:47
Speaker
Like, can you imagine like sitting there and being like, you know how like when you're like sad, especially as a kid, sometimes the world slows down around you and then you're playing the most abrasive, up-tempo, angry scum music you could buy at that point? Man, like back in the day you have to go to like Inner Punk. I got all the big D albums to like Inner Punk because
00:54:07
Speaker
Fucking virgin megastore I went there one time wearing this arrogant sons of bitches shirt that I had I grew up in New Jersey like 40 minutes from New York and you could catch a bus From where my folks house was to Times Square. I would take like two hours
00:54:25
Speaker
And like my folks were both New Yorkers. They were born and raised. And so they moved to New Jersey because they, I mean, like, I can imagine, like, intercity kids have the craziest fun. They have these amazing lives. My folks are like, we think we can manage suburban kids. We don't know if we can handle having kids that like have access to a whole city all the time. So we're just going to. So they hate New Jersey, but they still live there. And I would go to New York and
00:54:51
Speaker
I was wearing an arrogant sons of bitches shirt. I think I was going to go see a street light show or something. I was with two of my friends and this crew rolls up on me. I was buying a copy just for the Scott thing. I was buying a copy of Metalliska. Do you remember that compilation? You talked about it in a recent episode. That's so funny. That's a good comp. I love Thumper's version of The Trooper where they just don't remember the words as they're going.
00:55:15
Speaker
At one point they change lyrics to you get so funky yeah you get so funky it's all so good. But like somebody tap me on the shoulder is like hey you like that band and I was like on my shirt yeah you're like you know who I am and I was like.
00:55:34
Speaker
No, because I don't know. When you're younger and you go to a lot of shows, I never worship people as heroes. They're my heroes musically. When I put the music on, it's the most important thing. I know some people, but I don't have music heroes. I like that too. Sometimes I'm like, it'll take me a couple years. I'm like, oh, that's what they look like. I think it's a better attitude to have.
00:55:57
Speaker
Like when I see people propped up as front people in groups, a lot of the time I see them as moving targets in a way where it's like, you might look good doing what you're doing now, but eventually, like, I don't know how to express it, but it's like, it's so performative in a way where it's like, I don't know, it's somebody that I think of all the time where it's like, they prop that guy up for his, he got really into the idea of his band got stolen for bow wow wow. He was going through electroshock treatment in a sanitarium.
00:56:26
Speaker
Broke out started a band they're awesome and then they got stolen by malcolm mclaren but from the sex pistols and created bow wow wow this guy's. Die hard set on getting famous he starts lip syncing really hard get super famous and eventually place for the queen of england and his guitarist get sick of it.
00:56:43
Speaker
throws the guitar on the ground, smashes it, and the rest of the band has to keep lip syncing. There are all these videos of top of the pops and stuff where you see this guy have to incorporate dance moves. At a certain point, I don't know, like when you see people in the front of bands, they're straw men. They're there to get torn down almost, you know? Like, so I don't see the musicians. It feels a little puppety. Yeah. Yeah. You know, like if you're making music or doing a list, like performance is one thing, but to a certain extent, I like authors. I like people that are a little bit more behind the scenes with it, that like,
00:57:11
Speaker
have this this wealth of knowledge that you see kind of dribbled out in little like increments of art and I don't want to have to see them as like
00:57:19
Speaker
I don't wanna have to know what all these folks have for breakfast, fuck that noise, you know? But like, so like, you know, I don't know this person when they're tapping me on the shoulder. And I was like, no, why you ask? He's like, this is my fucking band. And it was like Jeff Rosenstock and two of his friends and they were there to go see like the Streetlight show too. And I'd been like walking through Tower, the Virgin mega store wearing his band's shirt and like, what the fuck? And like, he wasn't acting hard about it, but it was like very defensive. Like it's a very like New Yorker, New Jersey type thing. Like growing up where I grew up, you couldn't tell people you were from New Jersey.
00:57:49
Speaker
You had to tell them you were a New Yorker, and if they didn't believe you, you had to come up with a place in New Jersey that was just way tougher than where you were from. Larry's just saying.
00:57:57
Speaker
I remember one time I was getting hassled in Manhattan by some douchebag, because I'm a Bridget Tunnel kid. I grew up out there. What are you going to do about it? It's not like I'm going to move out when I'm five and get an apartment in New York to prove a point. But it was like, what the fuck is wrong with you, Bridget Tunnel asshole? I'm like, yo, man, I'm from Patterson, which is a pretty, it was a murder capital for a while. There are a lot of murder capitals. Oh, we're a murder capital. You're a murder capital?
00:58:26
Speaker
That's so cool. Is it like a specific kind? Stabby, stabby, stabby. Very stabby. And we've actually been like extra stabby lately. Anyways, yes. I think I think Patterson is kind of hard. Oh, yeah. All right. Respect. Well, yeah. No, but it is stabby. We don't respect us. Please don't. I think your car stab you. Those are the two. We don't deserve respect. I think I know which one I'd prefer, but like, you know,
00:58:58
Speaker
Anyway. Yeah, so like you would always tell people you're from a tough part of New Jersey. The minute you said key in the car, I thought of, so I'm in San Francisco now and there's that song sell out by No Effects about a punk bar we like here called the Parkside, keying Fat Mike's car with the word sell out. I'm always like, I hope that's a true story. That'd be so funny. Yeah.
00:59:22
Speaker
Could you imagine you're like bartending? You're like, fuck you, Fat Mike. You're like, I bet you he's parked outside. You go outside and just key his car. That'd be funny as hell. Very funny. And you know Fat Mike was going to write a song about it. Like, that's the best part. You're just like, I'm going to do this. I feel good about it. And it'll be immortalized forever. It's a win for everyone. That's right. Josh and you Sat snack has some stories about Fat Mike coming to buy shoes at Josh's little shoe store and just being like, like to random customers like, hey, do you know me? I'm in a punk band.
00:59:51
Speaker
My punk band is so tough. Check out this song. It's called Lies on Louise. The last part was improv, but yeah. That was another person growing up around, seeing the Argan sons of bitches and local ska bands. Before that, it was only like fat records bands and a few other bands on a national level. But getting tapped in to see what local bands were doing was amazing. And having such a caliber of talent moving around, it's like, fuck my head up. I don't know if I'll ever be OK.
01:00:22
Speaker
We should listen to a pornocracy song before we go to a break, so I got koska. Why not? Those wasn't a koska. They like to tell jokes at this point in their career. So fast. And then just slow down.
01:00:47
Speaker
I, like, remember all this mantra. I used to stage dive and, like, when there would be, like, these pits, my friends and I would just ironically go into the middle of, like, people beating the shit out of each other and start doing the Macarena and shit. The biggest form of aggression, doing the Macarena. I mean, if you pulled it up now, I would say that you're doing an at-me, not with me.
01:01:17
Speaker
Have you ever had so many macarena at you and some music? I just was. I was looking at them doing the macarena, probably. That's where the camera would have been. Oh man, we were really missing out on this one. Started all of the guests tuning in with the Patreon stuff. An aggressive macarena.
01:01:35
Speaker
I feel like Mambo No. 5 is the modern Macarena, even though there's no dance. There's no choreography. Really? No. I feel like much later. What about the Scat Man?
01:01:52
Speaker
Pretty sure Macarena was like 92, 93. And then, uh, the other one was like 97, 98. No, Macarena was like early nineties for sure. Cause I remember learning it. Yeah. I learned it in elementary school. That's mama number five, 98. I would have been old enough to like, remember it coming out and I was born in nineties. So it's got to be like late nineties. Uh, Oh shit. I'm so sorry. I found the sample date. The sample is dated as 1950.
01:02:24
Speaker
I know. It's a sample from 1950. Why is this information so hard? It's Rob's also on the Wikipedia. Yeah, 99, 99, 99. 99. So super, super after. According to his Wikipedia, Lubegas started in 1988, so that's 11 years of waiting for Mambo number five.
01:02:48
Speaker
He had Mambo number one, Mambo number two. Jess is like, one of these will do it. I'm just like, yeah. It sounds like a Gabriel Garcia Marquez novel, like a hundred years of waiting for Mambo number five. All right, let's take a break. And when we get back more arrogant sons of bitches.
01:03:39
Speaker
What do you put in your smoothies every morning? Um, well, I am a little spinach bitch and a banana pro tip bananas make every smoothie takes good. Okay. Banana, chocolate, oat milk, and some like legit peanut butter, a little bit of spinach. You're laughing and that tastes like a delicious treat. Well, I just got a blend jet and I've actually been able to make my smoothies fresher because I'll put the ingredients in and take it with me to work.
01:03:41
Speaker
But this episode of Checkered Past is brought to you by BlendJet.
01:04:07
Speaker
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01:04:26
Speaker
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01:04:46
Speaker
I got mine with, like, the black marble. It's like a fancy, like, faux marble thing. Yeah, it's got, like, kind of some dudely energy to it, I guess. Yeah, a little mask. It's a little mask. I'm not always masked. I have a leopard print one. I do some femmes. Leopard print? Talk to me about your leopard print. It's pretty fucking fun.
01:05:03
Speaker
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01:05:32
Speaker
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01:05:56
Speaker
Welcome back to Checkered Past. We're here with Elon of Indica in Decay. Selene is with me and we're talking arrogant sons of bitches. We just finished talking about the Pornocracy album. So up at this point with the band, Jeff has stated on a couple occasions that
01:06:13
Speaker
They are probably a little bit more lyrically juvenile, we'll say. But they still are kind of honing to this idea that anybody can play with them, anybody have a good time, you hop on stage, you go crazy, you go home. That's kind of their vibe at this point.
01:06:32
Speaker
So slowly, the band member commitments become harder and harder as college entered the picture. So remember, most of them are still in high school and the lineup became erratic. A version of the group with, I don't know how to pronounce this guy's last name, Joe Bove? Bove on guitar issued the Apology EP in 2001 and an even more stripped back lineup issued all the little ones are rotting EP in 2002.
01:06:56
Speaker
This year saw them attempt to record a lot of material unsuccessfully, including an unreleased self-titled EP, a re-recording of Built to Fail. This was also the year they played a Taking Back Sunday cover set, which if you read that one, that was pretty fun. But here's what Jeff said before we get into this pair of EPs.
01:07:15
Speaker
Without getting too nostalgic about the old days, it really amazes me how many copies of these songs we sold. I think it was around $5,000 or $6,000, maybe even more. I remember sitting in my parents' living room with snack trays, hair dryers, and cellophane to make shrink wrap on the original presses. I remember getting rejection letters from labels time and time again. I remember that when we had three release shows for each incarnation of these songs and we never had the CD on time for any of them.
01:07:39
Speaker
One time it was because the Glass Master Place was working on Aerosmith's big ones and couldn't do ours at the time. Apology and all the little ones are rotting is what also makes up the complete discography. We have a couple songs here. Let's play RST LNE to kind of kick off the conversation. So they're playing around.
01:08:08
Speaker
And you can see how I got all the synthesizers. I was like, wait, you can do what with what? Also, like, at the bottom of music, it just means stuff that's so much synthesizers. Like, the first two or three albums were like... Oh, yeah. I think Happy Arboretum Day. To Leave or Die in Long Island is like the synthesizer one. That one's amazing. Oh, yeah. I think I said that. That was maybe my favorite one. I really like that record a lot.
01:08:33
Speaker
I don't think I've, like, all of their early ones are definitely my favorites. They're a mess and it's a guy with a laptop, but there's something so good about it. The other ones, the other ones are great. They're great albums. They don't have a bad album. Like, you know what I mean?
01:08:48
Speaker
They'll be more remembered for like, adults and that kind of stuff, because that's the ones that the, like, pitchfork would say in the great albums, right? Yeah, Adult is kind of a blip of doubt in its own way. Like, there isn't a bad song. The synthesizer intro to the first time I met Sanawans kind of almost got the stuff that To Leave a Guy in Long Island does.
01:09:09
Speaker
Is it where you want to be? I got smart cards And I said it's real life or good But it's nothing special It's just a box show and I don't know what I know But man it goes in the backside But you don't last, you don't have to guess What the lady here is really meant to send You made the way to last She knows I got all that I got Cause we're not gonna win
01:09:31
Speaker
Damn. This is a good song. Yeah, this is pretty fun. Listening to that again, I realized, I was thinking about the other day with the new Dev and Kay songs about how the Oregon Sons of Bitches wrote a lot of songs about being in a band. There were a lot of songs about what it meant to deal with record labels and about all these things. And as a kid, as a teen, listening to these, I felt more jaded than I think. Them and Against Me's Searching for a Former Clarity album was out about that time. And you got this vibe where a lot of people were upset with
01:09:58
Speaker
what the record history looked like, and to look at it as having seen change within a couple of years to Radiohead to bring it back to a band that the Aragon Sons of Bitches cover, coming up with a way to sell album, basically coming up with a band camp format and destroying the music industry in its own way.
01:10:18
Speaker
bombing it, if you will. It's fascinating to see these songs, like that song there is about, you know, touring around and being a broke ass band and trying your hardest and it kind of like tearing your shit apart, like most of their songs. The new Devin Case stuff talking about like, you know, changing your style to fit with what people want or all these things. It's like a weird meta narrative about music. You listen to music about music.
01:10:44
Speaker
Yeah, what I like about Jeff's writing style is that it's all very much of the time of his moment in his life at that time. And I think that's what makes it relatable, is that he isn't concerned about making it timeless, if that makes sense. He's authentic, which I think is the... It's very authentic to his feelings at that moment, always. And that's why listening to an early ASOB record versus a bomb record versus a solo Jeff Flader record,
01:11:14
Speaker
Like, they're the same person writing at different moments in their life and in different contexts. And I think that's what makes them endearing. That's my sort of maybe take on it. I think it's a good take. What else did I have there? Do I have radio singles? Is that the other one that I have there? Yeah. Oh, yeah. Definitely lyrical complexity is kind of picking up. It's definitely Dave the trombone player in the background.
01:11:44
Speaker
You can tell JT is the one that's got the cleaner voice, and he's like the same range as Jeff, and then Dave is the fucking dulcet. Yeah, like, JT's right behind there. I know you think I'm getting my arms.
01:12:25
Speaker
I remember reading something that said that Jeff Rose's dog doesn't write sing-alongs, he writes shout-alongs. Which is fun, at a show, to just yell along. Very fun. This was always like the second to last song I said.
01:12:47
Speaker
I really like the vocals on this. I think that one's the last one on all the little ones are rotting, if I'm not mistaken. Yes. Last or second. But yes, it is. It's towards the end. That's that is a perfect album. That's a perfect EP. I think there's only like five songs and there's there's no you know, there's like one just before that one. It's it's got that Nirvana sample from Radio Friendly Pitch Shift or like moderate rock. It's a really good song. But if I had to pick one that's like
01:13:16
Speaker
Cause it's like, so let's go know where we'll fuck the locks. Uh, and like maybe one or two others and then, uh, fucking radio single. Right. I might be tripping on this. I think kill the president. All right. I'll take it back.
01:13:32
Speaker
Almost had killed a president. That was another one I almost threw on here, because that's a really good song. I really liked it. By this point, they're pretty much locked into what their sound would have... If they were still a band, this is pretty much locked into what they would have sounded like for the rest of their career almost. It's more cohesive, not necessarily just everyone just running around doing whatever they want, being kind of random and crazy.
01:13:57
Speaker
There's actually like a sort of a heft or even though it's still wild, it has a vision almost towards it. I think the EP format works best for them. I have a t-shirt from this album still, like in my closet. It's how I met Josh from Satsnack and how we got all this started. It's from Kill the President and that line at the end, expect the worst and you'll be right. And it's a picture of George W. Bush.
01:14:25
Speaker
Fucking like I think he's on an airplane bombing something And it's like they used to just buy out thrift stores worth of t-shirts and just like screen prints on like pre-existing shirts Like this one's on a weird Road Runner camouflage like running shirt I used to have another one that was like a work shirt like a janitor shirt. They just screen printed on the back of But yeah that like that that album was high school for me in a nutshell. I've like lost it in some band van or another
01:14:55
Speaker
I don't think I still have, I have like one or two of their original CDs, still at my folks place in Jersey, because that's as close to safekeeping as I've got. You said you had seen them do their cover set, so I said that they're taking back Sunday cover set. There's one that most, a lot of people talk about, it's got like a legendary thought. But what other, did you see that one or did you see some other ones? Radiohead, I missed the Nirvana one where he blew his brains out at the end of it, but the Radiohead one where there's six people pretending to be Tom York on stage was the best thing in the world.
01:15:23
Speaker
Which I have a track from there that I'll play at the end. It's so good. It's very funny. There's one point where they're like, hey, you guys, you don't have that much time left. You have two more songs. And Dave is like, we have Radiohead. And we could play for as long as you want. And people will love it. And they just pretend to be Tom York with bad accents. But there's six of them.
01:15:46
Speaker
It's incredible. And they just keep saying, like, teen crumpets and the queen. They just keep saying, like, stupid English stuff. The Nirvana one is just like, I just, yeah. They did that for like a year or two because they would, like, they would arrange all of these songs so intricately that, like,
01:16:05
Speaker
there would be more Radiohead songs than there were ASOB songs in a set, if they really wanted to. But they portion them out, you'd be at a show and they'd be like, all right, fuck it, this is fake plastic trees, we're not doing anything else. But, ugh. They're goofy. They're, yo, man. But you know what? Because they're trying to take the piss out of stuff. Yeah, that's fun. So I think Jeff said that the reason why they did the Radiohead set was because people told him that you're not allowed to cover Radiohead.
01:16:34
Speaker
And they said, no, they're untouchable. They're too good. You can't cover Radiohead. He's what got me into Radiohead. I didn't listen to them before that. Sorry, I didn't mean to talk over you. I didn't listen to Radiohead before that. I was really into punk music. Bunk Rock, not to quote a Minutemen song, but Bunk Rock changed her lives.
01:16:57
Speaker
I was institutionalized at a young age, thrown out of public school, put into a school for disturbed kids where we had a bunch of abusive teachers. Somebody came up to me one day and handed me a Pennywise album and the first Offspring album was like, you got potential. You like Blink-182, you like some 41, but that shit ain't going to last. Look at this.
01:17:16
Speaker
Neither of those albums are in my mainstay anymore, but shortly thereafter, I got into No Effects, all these other bands. If somebody tells you, you can't do something, you can do it type vibe. Just don't let anybody describe what your experience is supposed to be. Man, I don't know. I didn't get into Radiohead because it was overblown corporate rock. It didn't make any sense to me. Why would I support this? Why would I give my time to something that doesn't need me to be there to be good?
01:17:46
Speaker
Like with local bands, it's like you kind of got to be there to support the people who are really good because they're going to get better, but they need somebody to show up, you know, like Radiohead doesn't need your shit. They don't care. They're fine. They got creep. They're going to be OK. Do you want to let Joey? You should play just because I did bring a brand. This is actually a really cool arrangement.
01:18:09
Speaker
This live recording, you can get it. It's on the quote-unquote website and it's on YouTube.
01:18:37
Speaker
And they said they intentionally wanted it to be like, unduanced arrangements, like, they wanted it to be as like, under-headed, hot-star as possible. Is this my favorite song of theirs? This might have been my favorite song I've heard. There's one at the end of that album that's, it's not exit music for a film, it's
01:18:59
Speaker
It's an acoustic song. True Love Weights, their version of True Love Weights is better than the original. Hands down. I went back and heard that song as a Radiohead song. I was like, no. I refuse to accept that this is the song. This is the real song. I'm just going to stay in my fantasy world with the sirens and sons of bitches together.
01:19:21
Speaker
In 2003, the band famously followed the Warped Tour, playing outside the venue to- They followed them? Yes. Not a part of it. No. Followed it. Eventually, the Warped Tour let them join a couple of days, but they would just follow it around and play outside. That's smart. I heard them for the first time at the New York one where they'd eventually been invited to come play and so they were on a stage and it was one of the more violent mosh pits I've ever been in, I like.
01:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, I used to just get smacked around a lot. I still love it, but I'm older now. Me too. I have a metal arm at this point. I have a metal elbow. I got my arm shattered at an ice protest concert a few years back. It's not as cool as it sounds, fuck ice, but that's not- That sounds painful. Yeah. I had to go through a lot of rehab, but when I was younger, I was really into mosh pits more so than I am now and a bit more fearless because I had never broken anything.
01:20:19
Speaker
Fuck, we heard, like, we were at a Mad Caddy set on one side of the Warped Tour and we heard this, like, I don't know how we heard it through everything, but we were like, oh, cool. That was cool. Like, you know, well, maybe catch another Sky Band eventually. And like, you could just hear, so let's go nowhere from like a quarter mile away across the way and just like ran in, got in this pit. And then we realized that they
Band Evolution & Breakup
01:20:37
Speaker
were going to play a show the next night in Long Island. So we got somebody's parents to drive us most of the way.
01:20:45
Speaker
And my friend now, Avi, who runs Spring Man Records, we've met each other through Josh. Avi ran Spring Man and put out the second Big D and the Kids Table album and a few others. They also put out the Rocky Horror Punk Rock show. Yeah. Ooh, I love that. I've listened to that album a lot of times. Also, Tsunami Gama on the record, SBI Fest. Ooh.
01:21:10
Speaker
Shit, I was just just hanging out with them the other day we did a sell the heart records did an event with my group fake publishing millionaires at 94 Gilman and we just kind of hung out and watch the band it was delightful. I can't believe I live in a timeline where
01:21:25
Speaker
Like, I don't know, like I got a work tour comp when I was like, well, I tell them this all the time. I get to tell the bands that I like that I bought their work tour comp when I was 12 and like their song was the standout track for me. Like, it's a really, I definitely wish I could play saxophone and join their band sometimes. Like the rest of my band.
01:21:47
Speaker
They just want like a cool chick to hang around. You know, I'm available. I could, I could pick up a tambourine. The thing is they've already got the synth players. I've always thought like, yeah, you know, I just weaseled my way in that way. You just throw me in.
01:22:04
Speaker
I want to play anything in C or like, you don't just tell me the notes. I got this. I don't even even pay. I'll just be there. Take the rings. This is 2003. The implosions began happening in the band. So Phil and guitarist AJ was brought in to record and apparently didn't do a great job. So they had to rerecord all of his guitar parts. Joe had a panic attack on stage and had to quit.
01:22:32
Speaker
and other Joe, the founder of the band, was fired at this time. The only bright side was the band was able to snag primo tour spots with a fledgling band called Streetlight Manifesto, as well as Big D and The Kids Table. And this was when they got really close.
01:22:49
Speaker
This is in this time, 2003. Yeah, definitely. And this is when they got really close with Steve Foote of the ladder, and he agreed to help them record their follow up. So this is when they would actually have a full recording situation that wasn't just kind of like DIY slap together stuff. So in 2004,
01:23:11
Speaker
The band simply could not stay together. They had sat down to record their most polished effort to date, but could not make it work. They instead cobbled together the entirety of their music up to that point, issued a complete discography, which we talked about, on the Flaming Tsunami's Kill Normal records.
01:23:27
Speaker
The album was packed with an hour of music with anything that couldn't fit on a CD put on MP3s. Jeff Rosenstock had gone on to start Bomb the Music Industry in his bedroom, borrowing songs the arrogant sons of bitches decided were not good enough to put out and releasing them for free in 2005. See our Bomb the Music Industry Part 1 episode for more info on that one.
01:23:46
Speaker
Oh, Future 86 is the one that connects those two, because if you look on the pure volume, it's a technically Nargen Sons of Bitches song. They recorded it in their van while they were touring around, but it's also technically a bomb song. And the story goes that when he played it for them, they hated it. So it's such a good one. I think I'm not covering that one all the time, but I don't know what I would add to it. I don't like doing covers where you just play the song. I cover
01:24:14
Speaker
I, if I'm drunk enough because there's nobody else on stage with me, I cover nausea sometimes, but it's like, I have to be playing another song and then look at the crowd and like vibe on it a little bit and be like, all right, I can pull this off and people will sing. Cause if nobody sings, it's just you playing like a cool piano song and C and try it. Like if it's a sing along and you're trying to get a crowd going, nobody gives a fuck, then it's like, why do it? I mean, you do it for yourself, but then it's just spite. You do it for yourself. That's why that's it.
01:24:43
Speaker
So Jeff would say this about this time, we would play shows, nobody would come to them. We'd go to another show, play it, nobody would come. We'd make no money. We'd have all these shirts and we couldn't sell. And I'd started putting things on my credit card. Dave hadn't gone to school. I had just graduated school and didn't know what I was gonna do.
01:25:00
Speaker
We didn't know what we were going to do and we were in this band that was just ruining our credit, causing us to get into stupid arguments about shit. Just like anybody who spent time with the same group of people for years and years and years, they're your brothers, so you start fighting. Nobody really cared that we were in a band anymore. I don't think a lot of people understood that. Also, we were just really shitty to each other, especially on those last tours.
01:25:22
Speaker
So in 2006, the band formally announced they were breaking up and issued the shelved album Three Cheers for Disappointment on Kill Normal with the vinyl issued on Flood's asbestos records. Indeed, it marked the final iteration of the band at their most fully formed with an air of disenchantment in melancholy. In many ways, the group went on a high note and the release was accompanied by a music video for So Let's Go Nowhere. Let's play that song. That video came out beforehand. That video came out before? Yeah, it was on all the little ones erotic.
01:25:53
Speaker
Oh, it was on like the enhanced version. Yeah. That was also normal. Right, right, right. That's fine. That's very voodoo balls calls to me. Uh, very stinking pickles. Very stinking pickles. Very stinking pickles.
01:26:17
Speaker
It was weird. They didn't, like, address this, like, when they'd be playing live, it was always like, the album's gonna come out. It's weird to think about the turmoil behind it, you know? Because it always just, like, they were still promoting it as a thing that was about to drop. Like, I went to the album release, and it wasn't, like... Like, you knew it was the end of the band, but it was, like, a mystery, the way that they were, like, addressed and grabbed about it. Like, it wasn't, like, a public meltdown, which is kind of nice to see. But it's nice. It doesn't have to be messy.
01:26:46
Speaker
No, it sounds like a fucking mess, which is like nice to hear, you know, like it's it's it's cool that it wasn't like if you were going to see this band and you cared about them, the dynamics between them and all the things that were going wrong weren't really the conversation that was being had with the crowd or with anybody. It just seemed like they had a bunch of releases and one day they were just done. And I don't know. It was it was it could definitely tell like
01:27:12
Speaker
things were tumultuous between the group as they were playing. Like JT would consistently have this thing where he was jealous of Jeff and would try to go and get the mics or take over vocals if Jeff ran into the crowd. And there was other shit that you could see, but it wasn't like the way that the album was addressed and the way that the crowd was being spoken to and whatnot. It was like, hey, there's an album coming. We're recording with Big D. We're working our ass off. It'll be out soon. You know what I mean?
01:27:41
Speaker
I don't know. Some bands, you know, that things are going wrong. Other bands, I just if they had not, they're professionals, professionals who obviously care about their fans enough to not let it like interrupt or affect like the shows they're playing. So I think that says very positive things about them.
01:27:56
Speaker
And to know that they were so, like we get to talk about them a lot right now, and they were so regional. But if it wasn't for sort of the bands that came out after, if it wasn't for quote unquote, kind of having that donation only set up, we probably wouldn't never known about them elsewhere.
01:28:17
Speaker
The way that their music was shared after the fact was at the right point of the Internet so that it could get to the most people at the best time. Right. I think that that's that's why we get to talk about them a lot now. Otherwise, they would have been just another regional Ska band that would have been maybe remembered by the people who were there. Well, it's like people get to listen to them. There's a list of bands that I want to maybe suggest that were from that same scene that just it's like
01:28:45
Speaker
They don't have that same spark. There's something about this particular group, like, okay, like, even if Jeff Rosenstock didn't go on to do Bond the music industry, even if there's no legacy beyond this, there's just so much happening in all these songs. Like, it's packed to the gills. Like, no other band in that scene was working that hard to make something that erratic and sometimes just challenging to listen to.
01:29:09
Speaker
their music demands multiple listens because there's so much happening. I can't believe that they sound the way they do and it's still musical. Like this could just easily be a bunch of crazy noise like with all the stuff that's happening at one time, but it actually does. They do sound like songs at the end of the day. So you could put a song on and still be like, oh, this is catchy. I enjoy this.
01:29:32
Speaker
Yeah, there's always a hook, no matter how fucked up it gets. Sometimes they'll just play some straight up hardcore stuff. And then there's usually still a fucking hook. And I don't know, yeah, you can tell that Jeff Rosenstock, even if he didn't rep it so hard in the music industry, he very much isn't like Beach Boys and very classic melody writing. And it just eels. That's a weird one he talks about sometimes. I had never gotten into that band and he mentioned it one time and I started listening to them.
01:30:01
Speaker
Yeah, it's cool to think about the things that inspire the people that inspire you and how it doesn't always connect with the music or art that they make even, you know? Let's throw the last bell I'll ever... This is the first track on the album. I have a couple of more songs here to play, but while we talk some more, it's great. I do would say I recommend anybody who hasn't heard arrogant sense of bitches to at least listen to this, features your disappointment. It's on Spotify and streaming and stuff, easy to find.
01:30:32
Speaker
It's probably the easiest to listen to as well. Like, it's not as crazy. Even though this is very fast. This is the best song about graduating high school ever. I remember hearing about... Move over vitamin queen. Oh no! I forgot!
01:30:54
Speaker
I think they said that they were in a... when they were in the studio that they were recording in there was like a bunch of shelves of instruments and they made it a point to use every instrument on those shelves. That's why there's a lot of like crazy percussion going on. I was gonna say there's like a circus energy but I think it's just so maximalist. Controlled chaos. More is more. Yeah.
01:31:21
Speaker
The drums in this band have always been like my mark. Like if I can do something that's half as good, because there's always like, ah, they hit up like, like even that last section there, he starts hitting the ride bell with what he's doing in such a way where it just like, it becomes the biggest thing in the song. You know what I mean? And they've had like 60 drummers. That's the other thing. It's like, it's not always like my costas in the band for the longest, but they had a lot of drummers, especially at the beginning.
01:31:47
Speaker
Let's put on one more track. I have Disappointment at the Taco Bell. Yeah. It has a great name. It has Big D in it. It's on the Big D. It was under this one, a rocket, rocket, rocket ship. I was like in my folks' car at age like 16 and they were driving somewhere and I couldn't find the album it was on and I realized that it hadn't been released yet and I've just seen them live so many times that I just had the choruses memorized.
01:32:12
Speaker
Would you rather a fire at the Taco Bell or a disappointment at the Taco Bell? I did a combination. Fire at the disco! Fire at the Taco Bell! Thank you. Oh man, fucking... I like it. I'm planning on doing that for when host Rocky Horror karaoke. Oh, it's good. Electric Six karaoke sacrifice.
Album Themes & Breaking Norms
01:32:55
Speaker
Joey's grooving. This is the first time Joey's heard this fan. This one's up your alley. It's pretty good. Thanks Joey. I can't, you're right. I can't believe how many instruments they've been after this thing.
01:33:11
Speaker
And this is them at their smallest band recording. At this point, they only have six members. Not 15 or they were at the maximum. I think we're working at that for a couple of years, too, because it was like all the little ones are running came out before 2003 or in 2003. And then like we're going to see them for like three, three years. And then the new album came out and that was the end of the band. Like the timeline on it's kind of ridiculous. Yeah, I mean, they were really only active for less than a decade.
01:33:42
Speaker
Like, yeah, and they put out this much material and they kind of have this mythos about them. It wouldn't be anywhere without Bond, the music industry in its own way. They're like, if Jeff didn't consistently put out music and like tour and like face the bleakness of maybe nobody caring with like, I mean, he talks about it and it's a large part of like the persona, but if he didn't just kind of stare into that beast and keep going, these songs would not be here. I mean, they would, it's the internet, but it wouldn't be the same deal. No.
01:34:11
Speaker
Oh, sorry. I didn't get your thoughts. What did you think about this album as a whole? It was enjoyable. Again, I feel like I needed more time with it to process it. What? Oh, just being a... Joey's just keeps... Pointing at the mic. Yeah. Look at the mic. Looking at the mic. I'm looking at you. You're talking to me. You're looking at me.
01:34:29
Speaker
Uh, yeah, it's great. I listening to it again. I was like, this is awesome. It's, it's as good as any of the best bomb or Scott dream or like, I don't know, it's on that live. I would be more into them. I feel like seeing them live. It'll be just, you know, for those who are there, they remember you, you know, it's kind of one of those Vietnam.
01:34:53
Speaker
Exactly. For those who were there, they remember. You don't know, man. You don't even know. Yeah. They're hanging out with Robert De Niro. Right. Had to take a boat down the river to get there. The horror. The horror. I don't know why I was looking at you like you would get that. All right. Here's what Jeff said from the original liner notes in 2003 about this record.
01:35:20
Speaker
What I remember is that when I wrote this album, that it was less a series of complaints and a stream of anger than it was a story about something I feel we all go through when we finally get out of high school and we were inundated with the feeling that we're free from rules. We don't have the teacher forcing us to go to class anymore. We're not a part of the system we all hated. Years later, I'm still having trouble dealing with the fact that I'm still a part of the system that we hated.
01:35:43
Speaker
The truth is the minute you feel you're breaking free of the big thing that is holding you down, you're already locked back up again. Advertising, finances, friendship, love, life is business. I try to avoid all the bullshit. I try to be a musician and all I heard from my people is negativity.
01:35:59
Speaker
Scott is dead, lose the foreign, tame the chaos, drop the fucks if you do each of these things. You'll be successful. You'll be commercially viable and saleable to record labels and corporations. This game is called that fuck or you're shitting me. There are a thousand bands who would drop their convictions in three seconds if they were offered $10,000. We weren't one of them, so people moved on to other acts. So there we were. And that's where we are now. Unwelcoming our underground because our underground actually ended up being the system.
01:36:28
Speaker
live everything else. I'd always figured that the underground would be the one place we could break away from that system, but thanks to MTV commodifying punk rock, this has been taken away from us. So I would like to invite you, the listener, the reader, to create a new underground, one where we actually don't have to follow any set of rules, one where we don't have to be controlled by anyone but ourselves. This
Game Segment: Real or Fake Band Names
01:36:48
Speaker
is an album about breaking out of that old system. Hope you enjoy it, fucker.
01:36:53
Speaker
That new system is called fucking Scoutpunk International. And that's kind of where I wanted to stop the story.
01:37:02
Speaker
So that's arrogant sons of bitches. We got it all done in one episode. Let's play a game. I can't even remember what the game was. Oh yeah, this is so fucking stupid. I didn't expect anything. I was embarrassed by the last one. Oh no. We recorded two episodes today. This is the second one and I'm like, this is even stupider than the first one I did. All right, here we go.
01:37:31
Speaker
We all know that Blink-182 has some serious potty mouths, so I'm gonna sing one of their iconic songs, but just sing beep whenever there is a swear word. Sing along if you know the words.
01:38:09
Speaker
In this game, Selenialon and Joey will be given a rapid fire list of band names and they'll have to ascertain whether this is a real band or not. So it's like a true or false thing, right? The catch, all the bands have a swear word or are offensive in some fashion. Cool. I like arrogant sons of bitches. Yes.
01:38:30
Speaker
Buzz in with your name or buzz or scoff, most points wins. If it's true, you have to say, that's fucked. If it's false, you have to say, you're shitting me. Okay. That's fucked or you're shitting me. Now the other catch to this is this one, I co-built this list with artificial intelligence. Oh no. So they came up with all the fake band names. Riders strike, I stand with the WGA. I wrote that.
01:38:58
Speaker
I stand with the WG. Wait, are we going to get AI ready for sitcoms? Yeah, that was the next step, was make this into a sitcom. Yeah. Sorry, where is it? We're the real Jeff Rosenstocks of podcasts. When they said our niche comp podcast wasn't going to make it big, we kept making them. All right, is everybody ready? Yeah.
01:39:26
Speaker
Ready. The bloody beetroots.
01:39:30
Speaker
What do you mean that this exists as a band? Does it exist or not? Is that fucked? Or you're shitting me? So this is supposed to be like, but how is that, is Bloody supposed to be like a? Yeah, Bloody's a swear in England, it's a swear. Okay. How about we all guess and then we get points and we get everything. Oh, I like that. Okay, we'll do a round table. Yeah. Rather than I do. Okay, I think that's fun. Okay, okay. Okay, so Joey. That's fucked. That's fucked. Elon. You shit me.
01:40:00
Speaker
You're shitting me. No, the bloody beetroots are a real band. What kind of music? It looks stupid. Electronic. Cool. I'm going to notice. Bloody beetroot. They are the bloody beetroots. The bloody beetroot. It's the beets. The bloody ones. Oh, yes. Oh, is that the bloody beetroot over there? The beets are from Doug. Yeah, it is. Oh, is it? It's like the metal band from Doug now, though. Oh, my God. That's amazing.
01:40:28
Speaker
Jesus Joey piss jeans That's fucked is the correct one. That's right. Yeah, that's fucked. Okay, Elon. Yeah, it's fucked
01:40:39
Speaker
You're shitting me about those piss jeans. No, that is a real band. What? Are they just all real bands? I don't know. There's only been two. I know, but you're weird. You don't. Do not act like that would be crazy. Actually, that would have been really funny if I make them all true. He's played little games with these games many times. Well, I mean, now this is an idea I'm going to take. Okay. I will forget. Okay, Joey. I'll forget. Shit robot. You got to be shitting me. Elon. That's fucked.
01:41:10
Speaker
Shitting. No, that is a real band. That's fucked. I hate this, Robert. It sounds like a trailer parkourist gag. Something laying around you're talking about. Oh my God, yeah. Joey? Holy fuck. Oh yeah, that's... Elon. Yeah, that's fucked. You're fucked. Yeah, that's true. That's a Canadian band. Holy fuck is from Canada. They're great.
01:41:39
Speaker
Joey, fuck buttons. That's fucked. You alive? Yeah, you shit me. You shit me. No, that's a real bit. Damn it. Fuck buttons? No way. So how many is that? Five. And they're all true. They're all real so far, yeah. And you just made fun of me saying that would be crazy if they were all okay. I don't think they're really using the AI. Dog fuck.
01:42:04
Speaker
You gotta be shitting me. You know what? That's fucked. I have to believe now. I guess that's fucked. No, that's not real at all. Oh my God, I hate it. I hate you, dog. I know that was lazy, but I don't know. It was lazy. This is on a run that was holy fuck fuck buttons and then dog fuck that. Yeah, you can see how we believe it.
01:42:35
Speaker
This is Joey. Raging piss ants. You gotta be shitting me. Elon? You gotta be shitting me. I don't know. That's fucked. No, that's not real. I'm doing very badly. Okay. Joey, easy one for two people at this table. Dayglo abortions. That's fucked. Elon. That's fucked.
01:43:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's fucked. Yeah, that's a that's a real band. Yeah, it's a band. We've probably what's Canadian abortion isn't a swear word. I said or offensive or offensive. Abortions aren't offensive. They're a human right. Day glow abortion. Yeah, nuclear. I'm offended by the day glow aspect of it. I just. Yeah, I guess. I guess you're right. It's supposed to be the yeah, the situation. I don't think the individual words. Well, that's what I was focused on. That's what I was focused on.
01:43:30
Speaker
Joey, smelly fart factory. I know that's what he is, but what's the band you're trying to say? Yes, he is a smelly fart factory. Smelly fart factory. I have the hardest time believing this is real, but now I don't know what to think. Fuck Mike Liberty, man. That's fucked. It's fucked. That's fucked. No, I'm shitting you. It's a smelly fart factory. Wait, you should copyright that now. Get on that. Before app release,
01:43:59
Speaker
Joey, Angry Beavers. That's a TV show. But is it a, is it a band though? You gotta be shitting me. You gotta be shitting me. Elon? Yeah, you gotta be shitting me on that one.
01:44:15
Speaker
That's fucked. It's not real. But also it's not that offensive. I don't know why the A.I. decided that that deserved to be there. It's more like a copyright infringement. Because Beaver is kind of like. I guess so. Another word. It's still not offensive. It's angry. Joey, the fucking Eagles. That's fucked.
01:44:36
Speaker
You're on. That's a bit. It's a bit on the bus. Big Lebowski. Somebody actually named themselves the fucking Eagles. That's believable. So you're fucked. That's what that was. You're shitting me. I was doing a bit. No. Yeah. And I can't believe there's not a band called the fucking Eagles. We had to get out of that. That's that's good. Yeah, that one. That one I'm starting. Joey, the fucking profanity lovers, the profanity lovers. You got to be shitting me. You're on.
01:45:05
Speaker
That's fucked, I believe it. That's so stupid. Listen, did I write this? You're shitting me. Yeah, I know. It's false. What? These are so stupid. Honestly, profanity lovers is amazingly bad. It's not bad. It's not bad. I'm having a great time. They're like a new wave band. For sure. Definitely a new wave band. For real. Yeah. Joey fucked up. That's fucked. Yup. Elon? That's fucked.
01:45:30
Speaker
That's fucked. We all know that that's fucked. It's fucked up even. The new album's really
Controversial Music Figures & Final Game Rounds
01:45:34
Speaker
good. I was just listening to it last night. I can't believe I chose... Well, no, I do believe this. I chose to see Joe and the Shit Boys instead of going to see fucked up. I wish I saw Joe and the Shit Boys. Joe and the Shit Boys were sweet. Poor Joe and the Shit Boys. That's such a good name.
01:45:48
Speaker
They're a queercore band from the Faroe Islands. They write like 20 second hardcore punk songs. It was fucking awesome. Their show was incredible. Like one of the best punk shows I've ever seen. Joe and the Shit Boys. That's going to stay in there. I'm like, yeah, I'm going to listen to that later. That's so good. Joey, Anal Cunt. That's fucked. That's fucked. Elon? Yeah, that's fucked.
01:46:13
Speaker
That's fucked. Isn't that, of course, the band people? No, Analcon is Seth Putnam's band. That's a real band. And where are they from? That guy, isn't it? Same guy? From which? It was Analcon. It was Analcon. Was that the, like, finger drum, like, guy with the, like, he recorded it all by himself? The way where he got his friend to drum on the side of his bed. Yeah, that was wild. Wait, what is this?
01:46:42
Speaker
So, okay, so Anal Cunt is Seth Putnam, he's dead, but he's a big piece of shit. And he was friends with Phil and Selmo, noted, also a piece of shit. And so, Anal Cunt is like a grindcore band that would have songs that it's like, you own a store. Like, they just wrote the dumbest- Piece of shit, but it was kind of funny. Yeah, that one was satirically pretty funny sometimes. It was kind of funny. I was gonna embarrassing myself, Phil and Selmo
01:47:09
Speaker
Sl... not slayer. Pantera. That's what I thought, Pantera, yeah.
01:47:13
Speaker
And then two thirds of the songs are like blah, blah, blah is gay. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. Or yeah, you listen to Dishwall and Everclear, you're gay. Yeah. So it's just I know that would be amazing. It would be good if they were gay. Intentionally offensive, but like just over the top. Stupid. You couldn't tell if he was joking or not. Then he had a band called Impaled Northern Moon Forest, which was a joke black metal band where his friend drummed on the side of a bed.
01:47:43
Speaker
Right and then he had a go forward with nosebleed and then he had a band called vaginal Jesus That was a fake hate band that he shocks to hate labels That's so bad like and he got himself signed to a hate label just to show that he could do it Yeah, so he did shit like that Anyway, that's anal cunt
01:48:02
Speaker
That's a whole lot of awesome resume. Yeah, it's fucked What a lot of words one of those things like yeah, like he was definitely the You know the bastard love child of GG Alan, you know what I mean? Like for sure trying hit that's the kind of punk rock he was
01:48:19
Speaker
That makes sense. Because I'm like, why be a piece of shit like that? But I'm like, oh, yeah, Gigi Allen. You know what blows me away is the people that are like, yeah, but Gigi Allen made good music. It's like, really? He did not. He's the product of abuse and trauma. His name is Jesus Christ. I was like, do not look up to this man. No, he's an interesting character from a time in punk rock that allowed that
01:48:46
Speaker
creature to exist. I'm fascinated with him. But he's not something... Yeah, he's a fascinating character. Like the way he died is fascinating. His Wikipedia is very interesting. This is dark to say, but he's best in memoriam. If he was still alive, I'd be horrified. No one should idolize him. He should be a cautionary tale. You know who the hero is? Whenever you see a... I mean, any of the videos you see of him, there's always somebody from the crowd that goes up and punches him.
01:49:13
Speaker
That person's a hero, but they also bought a ticket to a show. I know. And he liked that. How are you offended by it? You go there, you're like, you know what? He liked to piss people off. He loved to be honest. If you were a punk at that time and you were like, you know what? I am going to pay five dollars and I'm going to punch Gigi Allen in the fucking face. And no one's going to stop me.
01:49:35
Speaker
Yeah, and no one would stop you. That's part of the show, right? I think part of his draw probably at the time were punks who hated the shit out of him and would have just paid to beat the shit out of him, which he was into. There's a story about Wayne Coyne from The Flaming Lips and Kurt Cobain going on a road trip together to go visit Gigi Allen in prison, which is one of the wilder things I've ever heard.
01:50:00
Speaker
Yeah, can you imagine those two guys on a road trip together? I was just about to say, the worst part of that story is the two of them in a car together. What a bummer. What a bummer, yeah. I'd watch that movie but it would have to end before they meet Gigi Allen. It's just them in a car talking about it, like a meta film. I mean, but I also just don't.
01:50:21
Speaker
Yeah, that guy is just scum. There aren't very many people that are like a low budget Hitler in a way that is effective in history, but that guy is like, if Hitler had five bucks to his name.
01:50:35
Speaker
Maybe the best. He makes the furor look like a classy. It takes a lot to make genocide look classy, but Gigi Allen does. Oh, I wanted to ask, like, yeah, sorry. There's no more eloquent thing to say about this. I just felt like I was pretty similar. Yeah, I know. You're preaching to the choir.
01:50:54
Speaker
I'll allow all this. This all came from us to us. Yeah. This all came from us talking about anal guns. Oh, amazing. Is there more? Yeah. Oh, my God. What? Joey, badass wolf shirt. Badass wolf shirt is an amazing band. Three Wolf Moon. I do not believe it is really. They're definitely referring to Three Wolf. Elon. Badass wolf shirt. Real band. Not real band. Real band. Fuck. Fuck. Fuck.
01:51:26
Speaker
Joey diarrhea planet That's fucked you're shitting me. No, that's fucked. It's real. I don't like it. Oh, they got that songs ghost with a boner I'm not making this up. That's when we're actually Joey bloody hell
01:51:46
Speaker
Bloody hell. That's fucked. No, you shit me. Elon? That's fucked. Okay, so wait, to assume that the false answers are AI generated, and that sounds AI generated, so you're shitting me. That's correct. That was how I figured it out, too. I love figuring the game out. Only at the end. Joey, concert us.
01:52:16
Speaker
Well, that doesn't sound AI-generated, so I don't know if this is going to work. You should, mate. Go on. I'm just checking. The pronunciation is Cunt-saurus, not Cunt-saurus, right? That's right, yeah. Well, my band is Cunt-saurus. Cunt-saurus looks like Cunt-saurus. What a check here. That's fucked? Yeah, I'm going that's fucked.
01:52:39
Speaker
No, I'm shitting you, that's fine. Really? The AI dropped Cunt? Yeah. Wow, Cunts R Us is actually...
01:52:46
Speaker
Pretty good. This next one is amazing. Joey Prickly Thorns. That's so weird. Prickly. You are shitty. Yeah, that's some lazy. Yeah, that's fake. I'm sorry, that's just shitty. You're shitting me. Yeah, the AI game. You're shitting me. You're shitting me. No offense in the AI game. Last one, Joey Swearing. That's fun. You're shitting me. Elon. Yeah, you're shitting me.
01:53:16
Speaker
That's fucked. Fuck is the first one. Shit is the second one. Swear in band. Okay, here we go. Philadelphia-based musical group. That's what it says so far.
01:53:36
Speaker
If they had a honky tonk vibe, that would be cute. I know, I just was thinking the same thing. They look like cute little indie darlings. They toured with Superchunk.
Upcoming Projects & Closing Remarks
01:53:43
Speaker
That's actually something. Oh, Superchunk's great. We met, what's his first? When we played with the Mountain Goats, they shared drummer's John Worster with Superchunk, and I just geeked out and talked about my favorite drum parts. That was such a fucking treat.
01:53:58
Speaker
Who won? I took, I ran away with it. Good job, Joey. Especially after the last game when you got fucking smooshed. Yeah, it was not good. Selena and Joey got smooshed on the last game, but good job. Elan was very close. Selena, you were getting there. I'm just happy to be here. I pulled it through at the end. Me too. Yeah, you caught up. You're only a couple points behind Elan. Circuit Strange is one of their albums.
01:54:23
Speaker
It's disappointing. I'm sure the music's great, but I wanted boobs to be a song title or something. They got a whole 7.4 on Pitchfork. It's because they don't play Scott. That's right. That's the big thing. Speaking of Scott. That's the big thing. Elon, thank you for joining us today. What have you got to plug?
01:54:43
Speaker
Okay, so Indicate, Indicate Act 1 just came out. It's the first five scenes in the Rock Opera. We're about to start tracking Act 2. We're just gonna be out in the fall when I'm going on tour on the East Coast with Mega Infinity. We're gonna be playing with Take Today and some other really awesome bands. I'm very excited about it. I'm from the East Coast, so it's a nice homecoming. Let's see, another Indicate stuff.
01:55:07
Speaker
Well, fuck it. Yeah, next week we've got an Ike remix with a really cool Car Seat Headrest parody cover. Sorry, it's a parody of an album cover from Car Seat Headrest starring Indica and Ike. But it's an Indica remix that Ike did. And then Hexadecimal's got a remix coming out after that. Should be a cool, fun summer of synthesizer stuff. Where do you want to be found?
01:55:36
Speaker
Oh, yeah, it's a really good point. I can find me in the club, bottle full of I got what you
01:55:45
Speaker
But realistically, indicateintk.bandcamp.com. If you want to see any of the new music videos we just dropped, we just put a new one out with all sorts of, with ghosts and robots. And your videos are fun. Your videos, Indica and Decay videos are sweet. Thanks. The last video we did, I played a character that was doing cartoonish amounts of blow, which we made out of cake powder because I'm not a billionaire. I was laughing.
01:56:11
Speaker
I jacked up my keyboard so bad. Three or four of the audio jacks just got jammed on it. I went to play a Gilman show the next day. Yeah, they're full of coke, fake coke. I went to play a Gilman show the next day and there was an electrical problem, completely unrelated. I thought all of my synths had broke at once and I was so freaked out for a while.
01:56:33
Speaker
To this day, when you see this video and I'm picking up mountains of fake Coke and shown it into my nose, I want you to know that the instruments that I make this music on suffered to get that scene. Oh, no. Everything's great. I played a $50 Casio tone. What I do is I use an old Casio keyboard to get all those cool symphony hits and whatnot. And then I plug it in. I connect it to some other analog synths to get the cool, gritty tones. But I love that cheesy sound. That Casio noise is amazing.
01:57:02
Speaker
And if you like it, you can check out our music videos at the fake publishing millionaires YouTube. Awesome. I do recommend everyone check it out and stay tuned for more stuff. I'm excited for the next installment. I thought this was a really fun listen. So yeah, this is great. Check it past stamp of proof. I did it. It's legitimate.
01:57:27
Speaker
Hang up your hat now. Yeah, I got the approval. I can stop. There's no story. I just want to impress you. It's like the Nintendo seal of approval. But it means so much less. I don't know. We should get the kind of like an Oprah book club situation. Can I get the thing? When you make the physical releases, can I get the sticker that has your seal of approval? Yeah, we'll get you the seal. We'll get you the seal. I need to buy it otherwise. I need this. I have indica and decay and sex.
01:57:54
Speaker
stickers, so many of them. I just kept saying yes and slinking them. I have them both on my base. My base case, sorry. My base case. Thanks for listening to Checkered Past. Hit us up on Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, and TikTok at checkeredpasspod or send us an email at checkeredpasspod at gmail.com. Support the pod and get bonus content, including a full length and unedited video of this episode. Sign up for the Checkered Head Patreon video.
01:58:17
Speaker
Sign up for the Checkerhead Patreon at patreon.com slash checkeredpast. We also have merch available at checkeredpast.ca slash merch, which has our tour shirts. Please pick one up. Checkered Past is edited by Arianne and engineered by Joey. And until next time, I'm Rob. Salen. And in the immortal words of arrogant sons of bitches, fuck that, turn off the new sound.