We'll edit for the moment that I think Jimmy Buffett's real missed business opportunity could have been something called Jimmy's Buffet (just trays, warmers, cheeseburgers, presumably. Margarita machines).

Admittedly, some of these episodes are excuses for us to take a ball peen hammer to the material, and there's some of that exercise here, but there are undoubtedly aspects to Buffet's ascent that defy logic and encourage chatter. There's a bit of an Austin angle to his gold strike, too.

Indeed, as incredulous as we often seem throughout this episode that we actually listened to it (with the possible exception of Mark, who made a conscious decision not to torture himself), we tend to agree that it's unusual that career rocketships launch cocktail in hand.

If you squint hard enough at sunset, you may see Just Another Island from here.

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

CW McCall - Convoy

A Current Affair

The Last Dinner Party - Nothing Matters

Let's just get something incredibly obvious out of the way up top about this episode - there was a hiatus in between the time Ryan selected this LP and the time we were actually able to convene and record it, and by contrast, Fontaines DC are actually hyper prolific, meaning, by the time we laid this bad boy down, they had turned out an additional avalanche of tracks.

Nevertheless, there is something refreshing yet acerbic about this band's point of view, and it's not terribly surprising that they've been so beloved by their homeland (and those who appreciate an Irish perspective, perhaps).

They are as Irish as a somewhat damp, extremely heavy cable knit sweater and believe me when I tell you that I did not know the origin point for those sweaters was Irish, but I looked it up and turns out it is. Sometimes the world just lines up right.

And there are so many stories lurking here, from the neighbor kid who stomps through the streets of a 'pregnant city with a catholic mind' to the open question of why punk needs saving, exactly. Conundrums, half-truths, attitudes that pull on longer yarns to come.

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Glen Hansard - Lowly Deserter

A Current Affair

Sir Chloe - Know Better

So, to be obvious about it, we talk about Canada here, like a LOT.

Entirely too much. The Guess Who will do that to you.

All of the usual and a few unusual bits are trotted out. We are aware, and we are fond of Canadians. But the deep dive in this case is kind of unavoidable. Apologies to all the Gords north of the border. Maple! For all my friends.

We canvass the practice of the forty-seven minute drum solo, what it's like to sound a third angrier lyrically than is necessary, fake zombies, and something that comes across like Elvis covering Van Morrison.

This band represents another one of those acts who rocketed up the charts, encountered weird touring issues, and was typically driven by a couple of core dudes and a rotating cast of players.

The public took notice.

Tune in as we examine a quirky and occasionally accidental ascent.

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Chemical Club - Spring

A Current Affair

Lana Del Ray (ft. Father John Misty) - Let The Light In

Marc Bolan went out like a Roman candle or a speed bump or in some such way an incandescent rock star dies at twenty-nine, and left in his wake a glitterbomb of glam stardust and swagger a mile wide and a few albums deep.

It's hard to overstate his impact: T Rex enjoyed a run from 1970-73 where they charted like the Fab Four. Eleven singles in the UK top ten, among them 'Get It On,' cornerstone of Electric Warrior, touchstone of myriad covers since.

Weird stories abound: Bolan and Bowie once painted their shared manager's walls and scavenged outfits from dustbins together, and years later Bolan grabbed camp and androgyny and sexy sheen by the scruff of the neck. It's very easy to get this kind of thing wrong, but there is something no doubt fundamental at play here. It is, as Ryan suggests, both 'dirty and sweet.' The flashpoint of an attitude.

Bolan was a guy that couldn't drive but owned several cars and died in one. Life and death are funny sometimes. But in the time we're here, there's still time to start something. Something that echoes and reverbs through the ages.

(Recorded May 30, 2022)

In This Episode:

A Few Minutes With:
Roger Miller - Dang Me

A Current Affair:
NKTOB (Feat. Salt-N-Pepa, Rick Astley, En Vogue) - Bring Back The Time

Listen to the album on Spotify

I'm not sure what that has to do with the band 10 cc exactly, what with their high highs and low lows, the same band capable of trotting out a perfect all time classic like 'I'm Not In Love' along side some sort of song about Minestrone (which somehow actually charted).

'I'm Not In Love' alone could have made for a solid hour of chatter, what with the story about how they laid down layers upon layers of voice tracks, the true aesthetic which could be best felt by laying down on the ground in the studio and letting the track wash over them, which they actually did.

Don't get me started on the fact that eventually the band broke up into two equal halves, a pop half and an art half, and that the art half (I think?) was responsible for an all time ditty of their own, and one of the weirdest album covers ever. Swing for the fences, I guess.

No, don't get me started on any of that. But do lend an ear. There are plenty of yarns to spin.

In This Episode:

A Few Minutes With:
Rex Orange County - Loving Is Easy

A Current Affair:
Silk Sonic - Fly As Me

Listen to the album on Spotify

Let's say you have a band. It's mostly you, though you bring in a rotating cast of characters to help you fill it out. You don't love touring, but do love snapping together pop punk ditties with a surgical top-down-in-the-summertime sonic aesthetic. You tend to pair these with dada-esque videos, and somehow it makes sense.

Though it's your act, your last name is a nom de plume.

You may understand the difference between the 'emo' and 'scene' scenes, and you may churn out catchy harmonies like they're growing on trees, but beneath the surface of incandescent melodies lurks melancholy.

That's where we find Jade Lilitri and his erstwhile ensemble, Oso Oso. Let's put the needle in the groove, together, and unpack what it means when an optimist drinks 'half empty cups.'
(Recorded February 14, 2020)

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Matthew Sweet - Thought I Knew You

A Current Affair

Dermot Kennedy - Outnumbered

A quick search online provides many examples of the extreme torture, pain, and suffering inflicted by the heavy metal device known as the Iron Maiden. It's legendary status puts fear into the eyes of even the strongest of humans and caused the slow, excruciating death of thousands.

You will also find pictures of a large 19th century iron coffin device, lined inside with sharp spikes, into which people were imprisoned. One can only imagine it was nearly as painful. 

For this episode, we focus on the former; subjecting Mark to unimaginable anguish and making the coffin with sharp spikes seem like a comfortable respite from the audible shrieks of torture. Memories of high school D&D campaigns flanked by long candles protruding from the mouths of empty beer bottles and sound-tracked by Iron Maiden aren't enough to make one love Somewhere In Time. Truth be told, there are gems to be pulled from this instrument of persecution that warrant a listen. If only once.

(Recorded on February 06, 2020)

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Nine Inch Nails - Closer

A Current Affair

Calexico - Father Mountain

At this point it feels almost antithetical to what we're worrying about in 2022 to talk about the pandemic, like we’ve come to regard it as some sort of distant, fuzzy memory. The scourge wasn't that long ago, and if you judge by my last trip to the supermarket, some folks are still sweating the outcome.

A few months back Ryan and Mark and I put together our pandemic mixtape show, a glorious (and occasionally weepy) montage of the feels we found during those times. But Shane couldn't make that taping, and he proposed that we record a sort of adjunct episode, a Shane-centric one, if you will.

So here we are, dialing up a sublime and occasionally hysterical batch of Shane's memories, from the 'What the hell did I just see' of Thundercat to the modern buzzy throwback of Bachelor to Run The Jewels (which gave me occasion to tell my ACL-TV story) to the nerdy upbeat bliss of Dayglow.

And more. Because pandemic records were totally a thing, and so was pandemic listening. We reveal the escape where we can find it.

Listen to the Spotify Playlist

Watch The Videos

Tamar Aphek - Crossbow
Run The Jewels - Ooh La La
Sharon Van Etten & Angel Olsen - Like I Used To
Anderson .Paak - Lockdown
Thundercat - Dragonball Durag
Goat Girl - Sad Cowboy
Billy Eilish - My Future
Sylvan Esso - Ferris Wheel
Dayglow - Medicine
Bachelor - Stay In The Car
Clairo - Amoeba
Haim - Summer Girl

It is tempting with Marvin Gaye to start with the last chapter. To skip ahead to the tragic end, dog ear the page, and work backwards.

But that robs us of a certain sense of who he was at his epiphany, a competitive and deeply original talent who shone in the spotlight, bucked the trends that made Motown buckets of cash, and crafted what Ryan termed 'a sexy protest record.'

And that's what it is.

Not every moment lands here; just as slivers of Marvin Gaye's days ring cinematic, others hollow, he was still, even in chaos, able to push past destruction and tap into wells of inspiration...that kept his work in focus, never beyond the wanting ears of the public consciousness.

Marvin Gaye's life wasn't always cinematic, it just seemed that way.

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Modern English - I Melt With You

A Current Affair

Harry Styles - As It Was

Given time, pressure, and the varied perspective that arrives with age, we can be forgiven for re-imagining the opinions we formed in our halcyon days.

But as long as music bears the burden of snapping us back to the moment when we first made its acquaintance, it feels, if only for a brief time, like we haven't aged a day.

Ryan's friend Daniel Rich sits in on this show, and he brought us a gift: The Jungle Brothers' Done By The Forces of Nature. And there, in the way back machine, he is...nineteen, staring down the semi opaque business end of a flimsy promotional pressing LP, slapping it on a substandard turntable, and falling hard for whatever bumped and grooved out of the tinny speaker set.

For all that the Jungle Brothers didn't quite accomplish in comparison with the overt popularity of some of their Native Tongues brethren, this album signaled the serious Afrocentric arrival of an act with real chops, and even in a period of volcanic creativity in the genre, the LP rings as fresh today as it did in 1989.

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Cornershop - Good To Be On The Road Back Home

A Current Affair

EASHA - Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Charlie Martin's pandemic experience has been much like the rest of ours, until it wasn't.

Martin, one half of the having-an-indie-moment act Hovvdy, spent much of the first two COVID years huddled up with his Mrs, tethered to extended family from afar, until they deemed such time safe (or safe enough) to venture out.

Imaginary People, Martin's solo LP, emerges as an exploration of perspective, or should we say, 'perspectives, both real and imagined.' Which is to say that the way Martin navigated the slow passage of the pandemic was to conjure stories of characters, examine his own experience, to wonder and encourage himself to create.

Serendipity plays a role here: it just so happens that an 1870s Steinway grand piano has tenure at Martin's Mother-In-Law's house in Mississippi, and those keys flavor the record often.

Ultimately, it's worth noting that the offending review I note during this show came from KOOP (not KCRW). I wasn't sure how this record would land with Ryan and Mark, how we'd identify with this menagerie of hazy sonic portraits, but one thing's for certain. Charlie Martin can spin a yarn. 

Listen to the album on Spotify

A Few Minutes With

Eddie Grant - Electric Avenue

A Current Affair

The Weeknd - Blinding Lights