Yes, Always
Yes, Always
Text of Pleasure, Text of Bliss -- with Michaela Angier
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Yes, Always, has now been fused with my show of the same name on WXTI Tivoli Community Radio, 97.3 FM. If you happen to be in or near Tivoli, NY, on any Sunday from 6:00-9:00 PM, please listen, or stream it here. This is my first reprised episode of Yes, Always, after a long hiatus. Back in June I had a great conversation about music (mostly, and a few other things) with Michaela Angier.
Yes, always. I'm always defensive.
SPEAKER_08Hello, everyone. Welcome to Yes, always. It's uh June 14th, 2026, in Tivolu, New York, and also all around the world. Um, well, no not on the in much of the Eastern Hemisphere, actually. Uh they've moved on to the next day. But uh here in the Western Hemisphere, we're still on June 14th, uh Sunday, and uh I have uh uh a special treat for our listeners tonight, uh, which is that uh I have here with me uh Michaela Angia, who is uh one of the most uh uh musically intelligent and well one of the one of the most fun people I know of to talk about music, who always has lots of fantastic and uh interesting and weird things to recommend. And uh I'm looking forward to the the conversation for the next uh couple of hours.
unknownThank you, Ben.
SPEAKER_04So happy to be here.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, no, talk directly into the microphone.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, I think I hope that's a little bit better. I can't actually hear myself, so I'm I'm guessing as far as what the distance is.
SPEAKER_08It's better when I turn the microphone on.
SPEAKER_10So I think I'm gonna start with some like cold chromatic post punk from Preoccupations. I was thinking I was gonna start with a longer track, but I just kind of want to dive right into this thing that I've been obsessed with recently.
SPEAKER_01Sure. Well, wait, what is it? Is it so uh uh can you say something about this?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, absolutely. So this is post punk um that's a little bit newer. Um postpunk is not a genre that's defined by time. It's sort of more so leaning toward a definition that is um centered in process, ethos, and sound.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10So I you know, I was obsessed with post punk at Bard.
SPEAKER_08What defines postpunk, in your uh in your opinion?
SPEAKER_10Uh well, it's it's a whole lot of things. It's an extremely varied genre, sonically, and as far as personalities go. I mean, it's really all over the map, but the basic thing I would like to say that there there is a there's a center, there is like a core that like you know set things in motion, and that there's like a domino effect of people doing different projects that like vary from the center. But originally it's a response to punk and it's an attempt to use difficult imagery sound abrasive stuff in order to uh make a point that matters. And this has a lot to do with, you know, the political climate in the late 70s, particularly in Britain, which is, you know, these are the projects that I know most about as far as post punk goes.
SPEAKER_08So this this thing that you're about to play is uh uh uh new.
SPEAKER_10It's yeah, it's newer. I mean, post punk originated in um I would say the first year for it. As far as I know, I mean I'm thinking about England most specifically.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10I do believe that they were the first um first musicians and groups to be categorized as post punk by critics. Um, I could be wrong, I d totally don't know everything, but that was my subject when I was in school, and that's sort of what I you know know how to say. So uh I would say the first year, the earliest year as far as released music for post punk was 76. And this, if I'm not mistaken, was released in the early 2010s.
SPEAKER_08Aaron Powell Well, you know, I've I uh uh somebody once told me uh a music critic said this, not like this being a music critic uh gives you any special, you know, uh credentials that the ordinary human who listens to music doesn't have. But I remember this guy special permissions, maybe. Yeah. But I remember this guy telling me that the only true punk, as if uh like like an entomologist defines a true Beatle. He said the only true punk had to have been recorded in 1977. If it's before 1977, it's protopunk, and if it's after 1977, it's post-punk.
SPEAKER_10There are a couple of post-punk bands proper that are defined as both protopunk and post-punk.
SPEAKER_08So they were pr they were before and ahead of their time, but not of their time.
SPEAKER_10You know, I actually kind of agree with that like pendulum swing. I mean, I've used that, I'm sorry, I've heard that um used critically to describe wire and this heat before. And uh goodness, I mean I can't I don't know if I can really explain why that feels correct to me.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10Well, like uh, but I'd like to get to that.
SPEAKER_08Okay, like is is Joy Division post-punk?
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Okay.
SPEAKER_10Absolutely.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. And how about like talking heads?
SPEAKER_10I don't know if I I I I wouldn't say that. I think they're more like art pop, but probably like a more definite genre that's like bigger than I'm blanking up at the moment.
SPEAKER_08Okay, like is would Fugazi be post-punk?
SPEAKER_10Fugazi is um post-hardcore, if I'm not mistaken. But also, you know, projects vary. Like albums are genre categorized different ways.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_10I mean, the Fugazi that I'm familiar with is called post-hardcore is like the big one, and then of course there are subcategories.
SPEAKER_08Oh, wait, wait, talk closer to the mic.
SPEAKER_10The Fugazi projects that I know, I mean, I'm most familiar and like most inspired by their album called In On the Kill Taker. And if, you know, I could be wrong, I'll have to look it up later, but I believe that the overarching genre to qualifier for that project is um post-hardcore, which is a genre that I love, but I'm still learning more about now.
SPEAKER_01Right.
SPEAKER_08Well, you know, I mean like punk and the you know, I I I don't I've never really been into metal. I don't know if uh uh if if you ever have. You know, I just don't have that gene, you know. But like but people who are seriously into metal, like my friend uh Art Carlson, who's a a very like you know, scientist of uh, you know, uh uh the the different categories of metal. There's like there's black metal and doom metal, and like there's just like a zillion subcategories within the, you know, like categ subcategories within subcategories, and like punk or post punk is kind of like that too, right?
SPEAKER_10Yes, absolutely.
SPEAKER_08Uh huh.
SPEAKER_10Absolutely. I am a very dedicated member of a music archiving website called Rate Your Music, and I'm kind of using it as like my informal blog now to publish writing and poetry and whatnot. I I do reviews, it's really fun. The point of the website, it's it's called Rate Your Music. You're supposed to like tier rank things that you listen to. I disagree with that philosophically. I mean, I d I don't like ranking projects against each other. I think it's far more wide than it is um tall, you know, the way that I interpret things. But uh yeah, so I only ever give things five stars. It's like a comment on a special experience. But uh, what was I gonna say? Yeah, occasionally for fun, if I find like albums that feel like they have a sonic or conceptual connection to one another, or you know, whatever it may be, I like and I don't feel like there's a genre, micro genre that like nails that yet. Sometimes I will like suggest things on the website. Like, oh, I don't have many friends on that website. Three upvotes, yes, but of course it's not enough to formalize the micro genre. But I like write your music because they'll do like the umbrella one larger boulder text, and then a few subgenres perhaps underneath it. And then they have um I love this website. They have um uh hashtags that relate to sound.
SPEAKER_05Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10Like gritty, angular, sorrowful.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10It's amazing. They're hyperlinks too.
SPEAKER_08Like, I maybe I should check that out. It's like um, you know, back when Pandora started, like 15 years ago or something, um and and now, you know, if you just play something on like, you know, Apple Music and let it just run and do its own thing, it does a very Pandora-like thing of like selecting, you know, the the the next thing that it pops up with is uh often like uh you know, the like uh bands that are r kind of related in some way to the music you were just listening to, like like the you know, a scene, like people who knew each other and stuff like that. Like the the algorithm is good at doing stuff like that. Whereas what I wanted, you know, and I'm sure it wouldn't be difficult to create this the thing, is like a Pandora that only takes into account things that are in the music that are similar to each other. Because what I wanted was like, I want uh like the thing that I might like a lot of manpower. The thing that I like might like about this track is like a very particular like you know, movement from like this key to this key, and like this you know, track also has this, regardless of the fact that like this is postprunk and this is metal or whatever.
SPEAKER_10Well, I'm gonna attempt that right now. We'll see if we can pull it off. I mean, I'm like a big admirer of like the slow inspired man-made choices, you know, yeah. Lend themselves to that outcome. But uh yeah, I don't know, like I'm a Spotify user because the UI is really nostalgic, but I will admit that Apple Music had its advantages for a long time and it still kind of does. I think the algorithm suggesting things on shuffle is a lot more exploratory than Spotify is. I've felt that way for a long time. This continues to be true in my opinion.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Um and Apple Music streaming was the first to have, I think, between the two of them, you know.
SPEAKER_08Right. The two big ones.
SPEAKER_10Exactly. Yeah, it won out as far as like um launching uh lossless digital files.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10So really, really great audio quality in comparison, but I was so stubborn because like, oh, I like the black and green.
SPEAKER_08Right. Of course. So the the the audio quality is generally better on uh Apple Music than on Spotify?
SPEAKER_10Spotify now has lossless, but I don't know about it.
SPEAKER_08So they're about the same now.
SPEAKER_10I haven't really compared them, but yeah, sure, I think so.
SPEAKER_08Well, we're about to play this on Spotify, so you know I uh I haven't been able to tell that much of a difference in the audio quality between Spotify and and uh uh uh Apple music. But you know, anyhow, we've been talking for a while. Let's uh let's hear this. Uh wait, can you intro can you introduce it? What are we about to listen to?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, absolutely. This is the first track of an album called Viet Cong by the band called Preoccupations. Uh it's called Newspaper Spoons. I love it so much. It's very like, oh, well, I'll I'll play it and then I'll talk about it.
SPEAKER_08Great. Is it um pardon me? I I played the very beginning of uh the next thing that you wanted to play. Or maybe I don't know if it's a the next thing, but uh thing.
SPEAKER_10I got serious cred for naming this track at a bar in the city once.
SPEAKER_08Oh, the the one that we just played the first two seconds of?
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08I am looking forward to hearing this, right?
SPEAKER_10Uh it's a weird thing to know.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. So what can uh can you tell us something about what what we what we just heard? I've never heard of this. Uh newspaper spoons is the name of the artist.
SPEAKER_10I find it difficult to talk about, honestly. Um where do I start? I don't know if I can say anything about it. I'm just gonna comment on the aesthetics that I enjoy. Yeah. So there are a lot of delicately composed and performed lines of melody that overlap and circle each other in, you know, a triply delicate way in the end. And it's like sort of glistening almost like music box, and it comes out of this like really abrasive, really like kind of like um abrasive, fuzzy, colorless, big and destructive, honestly, sound that feels like closure. It feels like um I don't know, like talking about music is just, you know, I'm I'm I'm inserting myself as a character when I talk about this stuff. But um that's my take on it. I I think it echoes something that I like and attempt when I make visual art. I do some paintings and drawings sometimes. I if if you look up the um album cover, it's quite beautiful. It looks like this grayscale graphite drawing of two hands that are sort of interlocking, and it references I mean, obviously, you know, the title it references war.
SPEAKER_08Right. The title of the album is Viet Cong.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. But I like chroma as in like chrome tonal color schemes. Chroma without the chroma. Graphite Grace Del stuff, and I like the fuzziness, I like images of um atmospherics gone awry.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh. Yeah. I like the there's something in that uh um we we were uh uh spent much of that song uh scrambling to determine how good it was sounding on the radio. Um and uh and I I I wasn't able to listen to it as uh uh uh uh closely as I would have liked to uh because of that. But there was something that I noticed in it that uh that is something that I like a lot about um you know, when it when there like the combination of r something really uh dark and grinding and sludgy and nasty sounding, which is sort of the overwhelming uh, you know, force of the of the track. But then there's also this very kind of delicate tinkling kind of melodic thing sprinkled over the top of it. And I I always uh am a sucker for that combination.
SPEAKER_10Absolutely. There's a music um writer. Um I think he's most famous for his books, but he's also a he used to be a columnist for The Wire. I forget which years he was writing for The Wire. His name is David Caenan. And he's a book that uh two books that I really, really, really am very fond of. The first is called um Oh goodness, what is the first one called? It's it's a fiction about this like fake post-punk scene. Oh it's escaping me now. But the second one, which is the one that I wanted to talk about, is called England's Hidden Reverse.
SPEAKER_08And um England's Hidden River.
SPEAKER_10Reverse. Reverse. Reverse, yes. And it's about um really outre projects that sort of followed post-drunk. I'm sorry, post post-rock after post punk. That was a funny post-drunk, yeah. Joining it for it. Post-rock after post-punk, that they weren't considered that genre. Like music that feels like it's talking about something subliminal and scary and who were never well received. So he talks about power electronics bands, but anyway. Basically, he has this incredible thesis that he starts with uh in in in the preface of the book, and um I'm gonna do my best to sum summarize this thesis. It's not a thesis, it's a comment on the personality, actually. So he's talking about um Power Electronics very scary sounding band called White House. I don't know if you're familiar. Okay, so they have like really, really like offensive song titles that reference like terrible things that happened and you know, whatever, and uh obviously that didn't, they weren't received well, they were never very popular. And I think like David Keenan is revealing the um like how off marked the assumption is that like people who talk about the truth in all of its glory and try to like reflect that back are heartless and um crass and they want to like provoke violence. David Keenan is saying this is not the case. We actually owe it to the world to not dumb ourselves down when we're talking about things that have happened that really, really matter that we need to carry with us and like all of their effect. And uh yeah, no, he was personal friends with some of these guys, and uh I remember this remark um like one or two sentences like, oh, these are the most sensitive, most moral, uh most considerate people I've ever met. Soft spoken too, like like delicate with their the way that they move through the world. And I just think that's like you know, that's something.
SPEAKER_08Not so familiar, so I can't say but the the the the basic basically in in Aristotle's On Poetics, uh which is kind of some uh often considered the very first work of literary criticism ever written, you know, at least that we have, you know, there's may have been other stuff that had didn't survive. But uh but he's talking about uh uh uh uh plays, you know, he's talking about tragedies and in in comedies. When he's talking about tragedies, uh Aristotle is like, why do we like to why do we ancient Greeks like to see plays where people you know uh murder their fathers and marry their mothers and you know g murder their children and all these things that happen in you know in Greek uh tragedies? And he says it's because we don't want we there's a part of us that kind of wants to do this like violent, crazy taboo behavior, but we don't do it. We kind of keep it under wraps most of the time. But art is what allows us to kind of get our yayas out.
SPEAKER_10David Keenan references pre pre um pre-art history with cave paintings, and he actually came up with this word. Uh uh No, he's referencing a um um an archaeologist friend. But anyway, the term is uh testosterone moments which refers to like like you know, if we're like measuring, you know, like our development of like an ethical code within the individual and like within the culture as well. Uh huh. As an echo, like there's like an adolescent. Right. Where maybe it's like where it's like most appropriate to express these things. I'll do my best to listen well.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. And I'll be back in just a few moments. Sorry for the uh you'll get you'll be able to get this back on you.
SPEAKER_10Is my mic still live?
SPEAKER_08Well on both your mics are live.
SPEAKER_10Okay, so yeah, I have this shirt that I miss very much. It's um it's really bad. Um it's like a it's not like authentic merch, but it has like a really bad decal, like really, really too large um of um filth by swans.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. A classic. I love that record. Something that I find uh uh inter one of the many things I find interesting about swans is that like, you know, swans were they were in that whole uh uh scene in New York in the 80s that also included uh Sonic Youth and like, you know, uh Teenage Jesus and the Jerks and so on. But like something that was weird about uh Michael uh Gira. Gira, thank you, is that um he was a lot older than everybody else in that scene. Like he he was like a good yeah, he was a good like almost 15 years older than everyone else.
SPEAKER_10How old was he in the 80s?
SPEAKER_08Oh he was when he when they started, he was like 82 or like eighty.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_08When they started, he was not a young man. Like he was like a crazy life, too. Yeah, yeah. Like he'd been a construction worker for a long time, and uh, you know, and when they got into it, he was kind of like an elder statesman. He was a good like decade older than everybody in Sonic Youth and all those bands. Uh and then like Swans, you know, went away for a really long time, and then this album, which is from 20, this is the first No Words, No Thoughts, which is the uh the first track from their album from I think 2011. It was the first album they've made in a very long time.
SPEAKER_10I haven't heard this in so much. Oh, it's so good. I'm so excited.
SPEAKER_08All right, and and like they keep on, even though they're like aging, this is a band that keeps on like artistically evolving. They're not one of those bands that just like hit a uh a plateau and that they've just been skirting ever since.
SPEAKER_10No, they're touching God. I mean, there's a really great article, I forget who wrote it and where it was published, but like about like Michael Giro was actually speaking when he was being interviewed and he was offering something really amazing. He's like, Oh yeah, no, this is transcendence for real about like his position on stage and the music in this context of performance and you know, in the context of composition, whatever, collaboration too. I forget the words, it was really well said. I have two really funny points or remarks about Michael Kirash.
SPEAKER_08I'll say um, I'll say another one. We're gonna say after. Uh so this is uh uh uh you know, he w he was uh older than everybody else. When Swans first started in the 80s, and then by the time they came out with this album, he was really uh, you know, uh far along in age, but it's still just uh, you know, uh uh uh rocks for you know uh uh uh lack of a better, more descriptive word. And the reason I thought of this, one is because it's long, and two, because it also has this sort of like violent, angry kind of you know, uh uh uh major theme, and then kind of this the the the melodic, sprinkly theme kind of you know, dancing on top of it. Uh I actually I saw them do this at uh at Basilica the first year that I moved here. Oh, that is so cool. Yeah, and it was an incredible show. Oh, I can imagine. But it starts out with this the what one of these guys is uh the most incredible thing about this uh this long track, in my opinion, is these uh bells. You know, the the the there was I don't know there's probably a word for this instrument, but this guy was like had this kind of tower of the of the bells and chimes that he was playing with hammers. Uh you'll hear it. It's incredible. This is uh swans, no words, no thoughts.
SPEAKER_02Maybe live long, maybe live, long may it chill, drive, drift through the wind. The thing is a sin, the thing is a sin. Long may it woe never before.
SPEAKER_10Actually, two and a half because I started talking about the shirt. It's not really like I mean, I'm really bad at flat, right? Okay. So the shirt went through the laundry once, and instead of saying filth in red oversized decals letters across the bottom, it said, well, the H tore off, and it said filthy.
SPEAKER_08Or just filt.
SPEAKER_10Filthy, no, it had a it had a leg left. Um and it just became one of those things where I like, I know how to pronounce it, but I insist on calling it filty. Same thing with the um kind of post-rackish uh Chicago band called Tortoise.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh. Yeah. No, I've I've heard of Tortoise. I know.
SPEAKER_10Oh goodness, yeah, I know we gotta talk about Tortoise for sure. I have a really crazy story also associated, not to ramble too much, um, with hearing um my favorite album album of theirs, which is called A Million Now Living Will Never Die. Will Never Die. A million Oh my goodness. A Million Now Living Will Never Die. A lot of words. Um I'll talk about that some other time when we get to play it. Um but yeah, I insist on calling Tortoise for no good reason at all Tortoise.
SPEAKER_01Well, you know, like have you ever read uh The Lord of the Rings?
SPEAKER_09No.
SPEAKER_08You know, like it's it's all these made-up place names, and every everybody who reads The Lord of the Rings pronounces them differently in their heads. You know, but there's really I don't think that there is uh a correct or an incorrect pronunciation for uh for who says drive me crazy.
SPEAKER_10They drive me crazy. No, I'm just kidding. That's really cool. Um yeah, second anecdote is um I had one viral internet moment. It was a YouTube comment on Michael Gira's solo album called Drain Land. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_08I haven't heard it. Is it good?
SPEAKER_10It's great. I mean, there are a couple songs that I really love on there. It's very Michael Gira. It's very scary stuff, but I love scary stuff. And the in the the image looks like this rainbow stalactite, stalagmite, I think that's the one that comes up from the ground, right?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, stalactite hangs from the top of the cave because they hang tight, and stalagmite is the one that comes up. Yeah. Yeah. Okay.
SPEAKER_10So it's like that, but like rainbow drippy, very grotesque looking stuff.
SPEAKER_08It's a rainbow drippy stalagmite.
SPEAKER_10Basically. I am not super familiar, and I have this like weird thing that happened to me last week where um my partner was wearing a Solowit design shirt, and I'm like, that doesn't look like Solowit. And he's like, oh yes, it does. And then there's a whole world that I didn't know.
SPEAKER_08There's something something that's kind of interesting about Solwit is that his whole for his whole life in career, most of it, his whole thing was boxes. It was uh extremely like right angles, kind of geometric designs.
SPEAKER_10No, no, I was looking at that exhibition from DM photographs last night.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, so Solwit's sculptures basically look like like uh children's jungle gyms that like aren't wouldn't be fun to play on. You know, um that was mostly what he did. He he did these sort of like rectilinear, grid-like sculptures. But then but then uh at the very end of his life, the very last uh exhibition that he did, I I saw it. It was like 20 years ago, it was right before he died, and it was it was an exhibit of this stuff that was on the roof of the mat. And there were these enormous sculptures that were basically rainbow drippy stalagmites. Because like what he would do is he pour some paint, uh bright yellow paint, like bright primary colors, pour some paint, let it dry, pour some more paint on top of that, and basically like create a rainbow uh striped stalagmite.
SPEAKER_10We gotta get on a podcast and pull up some images. I remember that.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, well, and then and then he would like sand them smooth so that they had this real it was a really trippy effect. And then sometimes he would like take a saw and chop them in half so you can see the inside of them like tree rings, you know? And it was just yeah, and it was just like something that was kind of interesting about it is that he spent his whole life doing this very like aggressively uh boring art and it's all right angles and I wouldn't call it boring, but it's very it's very astute. And I am I am in love with his um his drawings, his wall drawings, and it's like but I think you know there's there's uh there's a line in uh in Roland Barth's Pleasures of the Text where he says something like you know, he draws a distinction between the text of uh uh pleasure and the text of bliss. And the text of bliss is a subcategory inside the text of pleasure, right? He says the text of of pleasure uh grants euphoria. It it grants euphoria without uh uh breaking from culture, right?
SPEAKER_10Which is pre-Hedonist Barth.
SPEAKER_08I don't know. Uh pleasure the pleasure of the text is one of my favorite things he wrote.
SPEAKER_10I haven't read it, I guess.
SPEAKER_08Oh, it's so good. It's sort of it's a masterpiece.
SPEAKER_10I only read his mythologies, that's it.
SPEAKER_08Oh, I love that too. I I've I've read most of it. Like my Roland Barth is there there are only a few authors that are like on in my on my bookshelves at home. There are only a few authors that take up more than entire an entire bookshelf. I've like read so much of his stuff, and Roland Barth is one of them. But in uh in The Pleasure of the Text, he says, the pleasure of the text uh the the text of pleasure grants euphoria, it uh uh it gives pleasure without it it is of culture without breaking from it. Whereas the text of bliss is the thing that is like a a work of art that just blows your mind, that kind of discomforts you, that makes you question your tastes and values, and uh and and and he says brings to a crisis the reader's relation to language, and then he says, in parentheses, even perhaps to a certain point of boredom.
SPEAKER_09Goodness me, that's beautiful language.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_09I have to read that. That's amazing.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it's uh it's a a really uh uh beautiful paragraph in which he says sometimes gr greater works of art are boring, and that's part of the experience.
SPEAKER_10I still don't think the wall drawings are boring. I wouldn't use that word, but you just put me onto something so much better than that silly little opinion.
SPEAKER_08Well, but but I it makes but the but the but the the rainbow stalagmites, like that was what Saul Lewitt was doing at the very end of his life. And it was like the interest kind of the interesting thing about it is that he was like Mr. Right Angle for his whole life, and then at the very end he did these weird, gloopy, brightly colored stalagmites.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, Saul Lewitt doing organic forms before he died. I mean, that's crazy. Yeah, yeah, but still ranks with the tree. I mean, how many different ways can you do rainbow layered stalagmites and stalagdes?
SPEAKER_08Okay, so the it's the a a rainbow stalagmite that might be a Saul Lewit piece, or it might just be inspired by it, or maybe Michael Gira came to it, it came to the same idea independently.
SPEAKER_10Well, my viral moment was a YouTube comment.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10I deleted it. The album's called Drain Land, and I was listening to it on YouTube at the time, and I said, this is where Michael Gira lives. It's not even that funny or clever at all, but it blew up. It was too intense for me to hand. I deleted it immediately, and then my other little quip about Michael Gira is that when Adrian Lunker, um, and I love her, I love Big Thief, released a solo project, she's got this big white cowboy hat on. And I always think it's Michael Gira.
SPEAKER_08Well, cause because Adrian Lunker and Michael Gira are both well known for wearing cowboy hats.
SPEAKER_10Well, it's like almost the same hat, and it's very, very um the gays, the front on like it's just um I think of a certain personality that I see.
SPEAKER_08That could be a whole playlist of people who are not country singers who are known for wearing cowboy hats.
SPEAKER_10I need more followers on Ray Your Music so they can back up my micro genres. Speaking of, can I pick a song? Yeah, please. Okay, so this um next track that I'm gonna play, I have been obsessed with it for the better part of six months now. Oh, it's between two. I think I'm gonna do uh the the first one that I added to this play. That's okay. So the band is called Ludus. Uh-huh. You should totally look up their album called The Visit Slash Seduction. It's got this really, really crazy little character on it, very really really interesting, very, really interesting graphics. Um That I'm gonna play is called Lullaby Cheat. And the genre that I wanted to like name for it, you'll hear the lyricism is really smart. Is that of course it didn't pass? Hyperliterate, whimsical post punk.
SPEAKER_08Okay, hyperliterate whimsical post punk.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, like the qualifiers are like operatic female vocals, whimsy, oververbosity, like formal, like literary, you know, you know, academic references and stuff, and like kind of speeding it in.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_10And then, you know, whimsy in the sense of like you can't really predict what's coming next. I love the stuff. But then I thought, like, is this just Zolo?
SPEAKER_08Zolo.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. I gotta look up the definition for that. I don't know it off the top of my head, but I think it's Zolo.
SPEAKER_08Oh, wait, can you can you tell us what Zolo is?
SPEAKER_10I can. I'm gonna look it up real quick. Let's see. But this is like more of like the female operatic stuff is like, I think the thing that makes it distinct.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Oh, and uh w when is this from?
SPEAKER_10Ooh, that's really tough. I don't know. I love playing Guest of the Year. You want to guess after we listen to that?
SPEAKER_08Sure, yeah.
SPEAKER_10I'll guess too, because I don't know.
SPEAKER_08Oh, and uh are they uh uh American, British?
SPEAKER_10Uh I have no idea.
SPEAKER_08Okay.
SPEAKER_10I think they're Midwest.
SPEAKER_08Okay.
SPEAKER_10But we could play Guest of the Year and guess the Guess the nationality, yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yes.
SPEAKER_10You wanna play it? Sure. I'll look up Zolo while we do it. Okay, so this track is by Ludis, it's called Lullaby Sheep.
SPEAKER_05I like to bite to buy to tight on the fool, watch the triple, has the ripple, trickle, trickle, switch by the sky, I like to punch to fight to take on the fool, watch the trickles, the ripple, trickle, trickle.
SPEAKER_07Make you cry.
SPEAKER_04Be a mommy kiss your better Try to suck your breath away Touch me, not mine, that it's fixed me. Touch me, not mine, that's fixed me. Let's be up and put me on this day. So I stick you looking at you, try to touch my brand new shoes, brand new shoes, brand new shoes, brand new shoes, so bred, so bright, so bright, so bright, so red, so bright, so bright, so bright Touch me not moving, but it's sticks me Touch me up, moving, let us take me all display So I should look and brand to try to touch my brand new shoes, brand new shoes, brand new shoes, brand new shoes, so bright, so bright, so bright, so bright, so bright, so bright, so bright, so brightness.
SPEAKER_08Oh, I lost it. Where is it?
SPEAKER_09Um Lullaby Sheetus.
SPEAKER_08Lullaby sheet by Ludus. Uh so uh we were talking about Zolo uh in the interim. What what what is Zolo?
SPEAKER_10Um let me give you the definition from radio music. I should really work for cinematic. It should put me on some ads.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Oh, just uh yeah, there you go.
SPEAKER_10I love rate your music. Okay, so sorry. Okay, it's a style.
SPEAKER_08Zolo is a style conceptualized by Terry Sharkey in the late 1980s and popularized throughout his uh his live uh live college radio show, the the Zany Zolo Music Hour, which premiered in 1995. The style, as codified by Sharkey, encomp encompasses obscure music from different time periods, which nonetheless shares some similarities. It is characterized by features such as jerky staccato rhythms, boingy guitars, and wobbly keyboards.
SPEAKER_10I actually prefer um like referencing visual things as far as speaking about music. You can talk about it like a dance or um like a narrative.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. I mean, you know, like the that uh I've uh does that read clear, you know?
SPEAKER_10It's really interesting to me because it's it's obvious that that's correct. You know, after that.
SPEAKER_08I'm sure that um this is this is something that I a thought that I have often had about writing about music, you know, which is that somebody, you know, there there's an an idiom that gets said uh pardon the passive voice, that that writing about music is like dancing about architecture, meaning that like you can't really do it. It doesn't make sense.
SPEAKER_10When I was 21 years old, I was like, oh, what do I do?
SPEAKER_08Well, I like uh you know that that I I I had a r a really great uh uh writing teacher, uh a really interesting novelist who I talk about all the time, uh William Malvin Kelly, who liked to say that the only things and he was a musician too. He was a very like musically uh uh uh savvy, intelligent person who knew a lot about jazz. And he said that like the that in his opinion, the only two things that writing just can't touch at all are music, listening to music and sex. That like you those are the two things that just cannot like be uh are are do not are not available to be captured in writing.
SPEAKER_10It was completely transcendental when I first moved to Kingston, which is not all that long ago, first started like talking to people who were working as musicians and playing all the time, like in a significant way, like working creatives, people like players, you know. I I grew up playing music, but I never had any hopes to do that. But it is so my thing, if that makes any sense. I sort of like want to be a producer, like I just I'm a fan, you know, and I want to talk to musicians and I want to get under the skin and just know the thing and conceptualize, but like prompting these conversations with that like goal, yeah, it was like so much more often than not, like this no-go, like a you know, brick wall. And it was like, oh my god, like I evolved. You know what I mean? Because okay, I don't have to explain I'll I'll tell I don't know how much time we have, but I'll I'll tell a little story if if I do.
SPEAKER_08Sure, go for it. We've got an hour and eight minutes left.
SPEAKER_10We have an hour and eight minutes left. It's two oh good, okay. Uh so I'll I'll still keep it quick. Um yeah, I when I moved to Kingston, I also started like kind of um training myself to be more comfortable with like dancing in public.
SPEAKER_04Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10I love to dance and I love seeing live music and everyone's dancing, you know, so you gotta do the thing.
SPEAKER_04Right.
SPEAKER_10And I was always, you know, I'm a very self-conscious person and I'm a very clumsy person, you know. So it's like, hmm, that was never something that I chose to do.
SPEAKER_08I mean, would you dance uh alone?
SPEAKER_10Oh, I dance alone all the time, yeah, for sure.
SPEAKER_08But it's just like dancing in public.
SPEAKER_10Different if you're being observed.
SPEAKER_08Right.
SPEAKER_10But that's a layer that comes off when you know what the whole point is.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, well, that's that stupid bumper sticker, dance like no one's watching. Right.
SPEAKER_10It's there's some truth in that. There's truth in every bumper sticker. All right, so yeah, so I I was observing people I'm sorry, I'm sorry. I was observing like really savvy dancers. Um, my former roommate was a very gifted dancer. She was trained and uh, you know, she was having so much fun and she was sort of like a leader, you know, like very um exquisite expression of dance, you know, in a party setting, which I thought was awesome. But like we were at this um minimal house show at Tubby's last summer.
SPEAKER_05Yeah.
SPEAKER_10And I was observing her movements for like a second, like my eyes were just sort of like in a place, and I hadn't started dancing yet. And I like the thing that I um observed was that oh some of these dancers are predicting minutia in the future and responding to it in the time that the thing happens musically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_10And like, how do you um diagnose that skill?
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10How do you teach it?
SPEAKER_08Right. How do you um Well, I You know, you maybe you can learn it, but I don't know if it can be taught, you know.
SPEAKER_10But how do you know what's gonna happen if you don't know the track?
SPEAKER_08Um Is it practice?
SPEAKER_10Well, you know, some there are I think I I It's an interesting it's like there's a lot of creative space for that answer.
SPEAKER_08Like I'm not like actually I I believe that there are um I okay, I don't quite believe this. Uh part of me, uh the most sort of like woo-woo, quasi-mystical religious part of me kind of. Which is that that that we we uh have kind of that that are that that human consciousness lags like a a millisecond behind what the actual present, you know, and created the distinction between consciousness and something else. Yeah, because I I think This is exciting. And I think it it's there in in music because like um okay, for example, uh I have two examples here. One is that uh uh I had uh uh a middle school teacher who told this uh fascinating anecdote about how uh oh you were uh uh sure I asked, I gestured if I could point the fan at me because it was so hot in here. Yeah, it is it is it's getting a little uh sweltering in here, you know.
SPEAKER_10It's not gonna affect the mic, right?
SPEAKER_08Uh it doesn't seem to. Um and it didn't thank you for angling over the case.
SPEAKER_10You guys call in. Tell us.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, uh thank you for angling that over here. It it that does feel much more uh pleasant.
SPEAKER_10Let's not derail this thing anymore. I'm very excited to hear it.
SPEAKER_08No, okay. So he said that uh he woke up, he had a dream where in this dream uh he was like, you know, a gunslinger in the Wild West, and he was like facing down Black Bart, like you know, the two cowboys who are about to shoot each other in the duel in the town square at high noon, and like they drew they draw their guns and shoot, and uh and the and the the sound of the gunshot, he woke up and he was awakened by the sound of a heavy book that had been jostled by construction that was going on outside of his house that fell on the floor and made a loud woman, and that was the gunshot in his dream that woke him up, you know. And so it's like in between hearing that sound and actually waking up, his brain had arranged this whole scenario around it to make the loud sound make sense.
SPEAKER_10Is it something that was studied, or it's just this story? Well, that's what happened.
SPEAKER_08It's all it's all anecdotal. I mean, that's that's the that's just his theory, you know. And then there was this one time, and it this is like w when um I was uh I I I was probably about 17 or so, and I was on a lot of acid. I was like Oh no. And and I it was the first the first time that I ever uh I haven't done this in in a very long time, but like when I was very young, I used to do it a lot, um, which is that you know, like the very first time I took uh acid, I was like, you know, the the the the guy giving it to me was like, oh, you're a newbie, you maybe you just have like like half a dose or something. I was like, no, like I'm not I don't want to just dip my toes in the pool. Like if I'm gonna do this, I want to do it. I want to like I want to see God, you know, give me like 10 hits. It was like, all right, so he gave it to me. And like and I spirits, yeah. That's crazy.
SPEAKER_10Crazy 17-year-old. I was so straight at somebody. It's like, let me practice the violin and not look at people who are drinking. Yeah, very different ext adolescent experiences.
SPEAKER_08But so but I was at but I was at this party and I was like deep into the, you know, like like 10 hits of acid, and I was I was just like uh on on and seeing things that were like so I was sometimes look around and be like, oh my God, I can't, I don't know if anything in my entire line of vision is real right now. You know, and but I was I was at this party and there was music playing. Uh it was uh I remember that what was playing, it was Pink Floyd's Piper at the gate. Oh my god, that is so classic! That's beautiful. I think that's beautiful.
SPEAKER_10And uh I wish it was me, you know? Like it's it's perfect.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, but also, I mean, you know, it was a it's a very like like dropping acid and listening to Pink Floyd. It was like I just wanted to be like of my parents' generation, you know. I should have I should have uh That's a crazy complaint. Well somebody else had somebody else had put the music on. I it wasn't, you know, it wasn't my choice, although I do enjoy that album. But like, you know, okay, side by that, the the when when I was in college, there was this a really hilarious professor that just said the funniest uh we FCC rules we can't uh use profanity. He said funny things, and everybody would write them down and everybody would pass around this like We can't use profanity on air. No, no, we can't.
SPEAKER_10I'm so sorry if I did that.
SPEAKER_08No, you haven't. No, I said that because I was about to. Uh but uh but people would write down these crazy, hilarious things that Danny Kaiser said and pass them around in this like ever-expanding email chain. And one of my favorite Danny Kaiserisms is um we he came to class and we were all waiting for him to like, you know, take off his sweater and begin class. And uh uh and and somebody had just been busted for selling acid, and it was kind of like the gossip of the campus at that moment was uh this this guy had just been busted uh and he had to go to jail, and it was like it was everything, it was it was what everybody was talking about, and apparently the faculty had heard about it too. And Danny Kaiser came to his uh you know literature class and said to everyone and this is what he sounded like if you're going to drop acid, don't do it now. Do it in the sixties. Doing it now would be like doing it in a bus station.
SPEAKER_07He's a genius.
SPEAKER_08It's like we all right, we'll just travel back in time to the 60s so that we can drop acid in the proper zeitgeist.
SPEAKER_10Of course not. Right. Of course you can't do that. But you still have to do, you have to follow instructions, you know what I mean? He knows what he means. We used to get our acid from this guy called the scientist. The scientists. The scientist scientist, yeah, no. And he was like a kid.
SPEAKER_08Oh yeah.
SPEAKER_10He was like 15 years old. So funny. Uh but in your days.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, so I was I was uh it was it was out outside, and I was sitting in this uh uh uh uh folding chair, much like that one, and this folding chair was in a parking lot where it was it just happened to be positioned right above a drain uh in the park in the the bottom of the parking lot, and I knew that this drain was underneath the chair, and I just kind of like zoned out as the music was in a very kind of like slow drony place, and uh I saw everything in my line of vision melt uh into as if it was made of wet paint and trickle down into the parking lot and spiral into an eddy that was emptying right below my chair. And I was watching this happen, and uh and then all of a sudden, uh for some reason everything receded be unmelted and receded back into place, and at the exact moment that everything went b back into reality and it and everything reset itself, at that moment the music stopped. Not uh because of anything that was happening in the music, but because somebody had pulled the plug accidentally, like somebody had tripped it, right? And like my my brain knew that before my consciousness did, you know. Serendipity is a mode that you can work with.
SPEAKER_10And I'm I'm like, I know it sounds woo-woo, and you know, I don't really care so much if I do that anymore. It's okay. I choose to believe in the story for my head. And also, like, you know, I'm getting older, you know, I have to have fun. Yeah. Why not indulge in archetypes and fictions and things like that? And like, why not choose to believe this mythos about this like confusing thing about how we like perceive things and how it's not stacked up like perfectly with like an empirical reading on what happened.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I think I think I love stories, you know. I I I think that when we listen to music, which is an experience in time, right? That there is a part of us that kind of can foresee the future by a few seconds, you know, because we're music is about expectations and sometimes it's about subverting those expectations, right?
SPEAKER_10Yeah, so my tone for that thing, I forget what I called it. Goodness me, I'm gonna have to look it up. I actually have it in the in the green moleskin that I brought with me here. Something about um anticipatory response at Dancers at the minimal club show. Minimal techno show. Um sorry, minimal house show Anticipatory response in dancers at the minimal house show.
SPEAKER_08Ah, yes. That's the title. Yeah. Wait, and you there's more of this any note to go.
SPEAKER_10It's like Or was that it? That's the title, and the piece is I don't know what the form is, but it's just this investigation that tries to get us close to the truth about like detailing the um mysteriousness of the mystery. Right. You know what I mean? And the point is not to answer it, it's just to like describe the shape that the mystery fills, you know, the whole. Well, I mean, like, you know, the And you can do what you want with that.
SPEAKER_08Well, well, like like I have um uh I have heard mu many musicians say something like this, and I've also heard um heard this from uh athletes or basically anybody who has to do something with their body.
SPEAKER_10It's a great comparison.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, like like whether that's um, you know, uh uh the the the example that I have because this was a sport that I did when I was uh a teenager is fencing. You know, like when you're in the moment, when you're either playing music or you are uh uh uh uh uh doing the athletic feat, whatever it is, like if you're if you're throwing a fastball.
SPEAKER_10Also, there's a through line in the verb performance at stake.
SPEAKER_08You know, I mean, well, like if you you've seen, you know. Practice performance. Yeah, like like uh uh uh uh uh footage of James Brown concerts. Like, you know, I've I I've heard that James Brown would lose like five pounds every time he put on a show.
SPEAKER_10But uh There's a really great James Brown interview where he's like, I feel good. That's what it's in the song. How are you feeling, James? I feel good. Uh nothing's wrong.
SPEAKER_08Uh huh. He was uh you know uh uh uh uh uh uh God, I love James Brown. Oh yeah. But um the uh who is it? Oh yeah, but which is that like you you you you you the the the best way to not screw it up is to not think. Like you have to be in the moment and you can't let your mind wander because that's when you'll, you know, uh uh screw up the piece.
SPEAKER_10So this is a left brain directive covering a basis kind of question? But like is there can you designate an alternative responsible party that's not thinking, you know, that's where my brain goes. Yeah. Well, because like, you know, when you I know it's not the right way to respond.
SPEAKER_08No, no, when you when you get when you get self-conscious, you know, that like and and I think that when, you know, you're in that sort of, as a psychologist would say, in the flow state, then in a you're in a way that you can kind of like anticipate the future a little bit, like when you're in that state. Uh anyhow.
SPEAKER_10Just kind of like join arms and you know, go with people who I have been able to do this.
SPEAKER_08I I'm going so we we've you've heard about uh Zolo, and I and uh Zolo is apparently defined by here are some uh examples, uh the residents Devo, they might be Giants, Frank Zappa, Gentle Giant, Todd Rundgren, Talking Heads, Moon Riders, uh, Wahaha. Wahaha. Oingo Boingo. It's like the I think what all these bands have in common is a uh not taking themselves too seriously. There's definitely a sense of humor in all of this stuff.
SPEAKER_10It's all it's kind of like the reaction that like alternative rock developed from, but in the early 80s. Does that make sense?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, but also, I mean, you know, Frank Zappa was doing his uh thing way before all those bands.
SPEAKER_10Well, like I I think it's more complicated sonically than that. Yeah, actually that's a really bad tape. Forget I said that. Oh no, that's fine. Sorry, guys.
SPEAKER_08Um, okay. Oh, you're playing Captain Be Oh man. Because I think that Captain Beefheart is sort of uh um uh uh of of a piece with uh um Wild Life Yeah, on on uh on Spotify, if I No that how do I make this album? I want to see all the songs on it.
SPEAKER_09So you're gonna click on um that one at the top. Uh-huh. Uh-huh. And I got that.
SPEAKER_08Oh, here we go. Yeah. Um I think the song I wanted to play is uh the first track on this album.
SPEAKER_10This is a cool interaction. I'm into it. I'm into it.
SPEAKER_08Oh, uh this is uh this is the first track on uh Captain Beefheart's first album, Safe as Milk. Uh I think this is like 68 or something like that. Enjoy. I think this is I think this would qualify as a Zoldo. That's the reason why I'm playing it.
SPEAKER_14I wear around all day with some stickers in my eyes.
SPEAKER_15I got a plane, got around the big sample, show the big up Hey, hey, hey, oh, you don't know what everyone you dumb that was uh sure enough, yes I do.
SPEAKER_08The first uh track on uh Captain Beefheart's first album from uh uh I think 1968. It was like late, definitely late 60s. I'm not sure exactly when. Oh, we never looked up when uh when and where uh the uh visit slash seduction by Ludus was produced. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_10I'm gonna guess.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10I might be way off, but I'm gonna say 82.
SPEAKER_08Okay. Um it sounded more recent. Uh oh no, I I don't think it's like over over the I don't think it's younger than the 90s, but like sometimes uh, you know, I'm really impressed sometimes when I hear something that's like brand new that like sounds like it's from the 70s.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, there are some kids in Chicago who are doing stuff like that. They're so smart. They're so young, it's amazing. So Ludis, uh the visit slash seduction.
SPEAKER_08Uh visit slash seduction.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, it's the one with a little critter on it. Or maybe a mask.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, theater mask. Uh 2006.
SPEAKER_10What? No way.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_10What? No way.
SPEAKER_08It's uh uh Wait, way yeah, it says that this album was made in 81. Oh 81, okay. I guess it was like remastered in the city.
SPEAKER_10Also, doesn't the title stylization in the square look like a cigarette pack, but that's scary?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it does. I I really like that album cover. A great conversation for the radio, isn't it? Right.
SPEAKER_10Uh yeah, you guys like just imagine this image. We're not describing it. Right.
SPEAKER_08Or you can or you or you can look up the album cover of The Seduction by uh uh Ludus, which was uh recorded and it was released in 1981, and they are English.
SPEAKER_10They are from England, Ohio?
SPEAKER_08I don't know.
SPEAKER_10Well, the only songs that I can think of to play now are very sappy.
SPEAKER_08That's fine.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, are we into some sappy stuff?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, I mean sappy is uh sappy is great.
SPEAKER_10We can do sappy or funny. It's track one or two on um Wichita Lyman by um or Gene Campbell. I told you about this last time we spoke.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, it was uh uh go for it. This is a classic.
SPEAKER_10And then we'll get you know, we'll get we'll get um prettier later, I promise.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Right. Well um whenever you're ready, but we can talk a little bit free. This is the undying classic, uh Glenn Campbell's Wichita Line.
SPEAKER_10Oh goodness, like for the year the production is insane. Oh, I am so in love with it. I think it's my favorite song now.
SPEAKER_08I uh it's uh I I have I don't know if we'll have time for this, but I have uh a funny anecdote about the Wichita lineman.
SPEAKER_10You want to say now?
SPEAKER_08Okay. The the the the Caitlin discovered this, which is that um there is some county in way upstate New York. I think it's one of those counties that like borders Canada. It's it's way the hell up there.
SPEAKER_10Directly north of us?
SPEAKER_08Yeah, yeah, like but way north, you know. Uh for for our listeners here in the Hudson Valley. Um it's up near like uh you know, uh uh up near the border of Canada. Oh, it's it's way there. I mean, there are a bunch of them. It's this is we're talking we're talking about like that area where you you remember when those two prisoners escaped uh uh the from the Danamora correctional facility.
SPEAKER_10Nodding my head, no, I'm not up on this, unfortunately.
SPEAKER_08Yeah. Uh but uh but it's it's it's way the hell up there. And uh and and Caitlin found um a video that this guy who is uh a plow uh you know uh plow truck operator had um uploaded to uh YouTube and this guy is a he drives a plow truck and plows your driveways and the highways in the winter, but he's also an amateur opera singer. And he m he recorded a video of himself singing a modified version of the Wigita lineman, but he he changed it to the whatever county plowman.
SPEAKER_10That's deranged. It's like, oh no, no, no, no, no. I feel like at least you know, it's like if we're going to like comment on this in in a way that feels exalted and honorific, like we're gonna like raise ourselves, you know, like go closer to the atmosphere, closer to heaven, but like he's going down into the dirt.
SPEAKER_08It's really funny, and also the and also the guy just had a really beautiful voice. But anyhow, this is without further ado, uh the undying classic Glenn Campbell's Wichita lineman.
SPEAKER_06Yes, I am a lineman for the county, and I drive the main road, searching in the sun for another overload. I hear you singing in the wire. I can hear you through the wine, and the witcher tall land is still on the line. I know I need a small vacation, but it don't look like rain, and if it's nose that stretch down south won't ever stand astray, and I need you more than won't you, and I want you for all time, and with your tall man is still on the Hey, this is Willie Hutch to Matt.
SPEAKER_13Gonna do a little something, something with three six Don't you get mad at me, cause your brother chose up Glad to see the trunk when I pulled up the gold pop the locks, big booty hoppin' in that dogs in gold teeth. Man, you know we eat and that. I know that's your baby mama, I know that it hurts up. You know when we get together, I'ma let her throw some, let her hit the blocks of no time of the month's um, pull out a condom, then I make a run, some Rick it if she wanna be, I'ma let her don't be. She can be herself anytime if she get with me. Back seat, action, rivers are relaxin', make it the DVD, that has some waxin'. I'ma keep it real with you, I'ma let her deal with you. I don't fight over holds, I'ma let the steel hit you all on the town, talking bad, turn it down me in your heart really sad. Boy, you better crown me. You fuck me with my loot when you're late on your chassis both. She always give me half a fat on my card, no, hold a smoke. We're um sitting slick on the escalate. Funna been the king of heart, mate. Baby, got me paid. First of the year, tax time, keep me wrong, smile. I'ma get an extra couple of G's, clay, meet your child, yeah, it's wow. But this is the world that we livin' in. Don't get hot, stay up on my game, equipment, peddle mini speed sacks. Niggas give me feedback. I don't need no skin, dog. You can keep the seed back. Always win a hustle up. That's what she is digging. Do just like a teller too, and with no renegin'. Hold looks in my brain. We can go a long way. Hold on, my name got that for a birthday. I say that's the only way I gotta have it. Brandy for life, all the ass, I'ma grab it.
SPEAKER_08That's that's the feedback symbol. Oh, goodness, I was learned and I Yeah, that's the feedback that happens when we have the radio on in the studio and the microphone is on on at the same time.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, super context, I had to dance to that Project Dad song, so I turned on the radio thing, like at the highest possible volume, and I was just like, Yeah, no, goodness me. I keep apologizing. Sorry, guys.
SPEAKER_08No, that's right. Um, so uh uh that was uh uh Project Pat. Uh can you can you say a few words about that?
SPEAKER_10I can just like talk about how it affects me and why I like it. I I really can't like I don't know, I'm not super familiar with the dude. I don't really know like what the project's about, but I don't know, is that is that useful? Like what are you looking for?
SPEAKER_08Uh just just uh be a little bit more specific.
SPEAKER_10I'll see if I can answer.
SPEAKER_08Well, okay, like when when was the first time you heard that? Do you have a memory?
SPEAKER_10Yeah.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, yeah. I was um goodness me, I was surfing around Kingston. I had found a place to live for a month. I had this sublet that was new, and uh first time I put this on Spotify, it was because um DJ screw, like the children screwed stuff, like went off Spotify suddenly.
SPEAKER_08Uh huh.
SPEAKER_10It broke my heart.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10And um I was like busy, like find something, find something on Ray Music because I was looking for a streamable thing that kind of filled that um like thing that I need to hear, desire, whatever.
SPEAKER_08Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_10Like fix. You know, I was looking for another fix that was that was streamable.
SPEAKER_08So you were looking for something in the general um uh uh vein of DJ screw.
SPEAKER_10And I'd like to clarify, I know it's 2002 as listed on Spotify, but I don't know where this dude is from.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10I think his process is very different. I mean, it's not comparable in a lot of ways, but like I don't know a lot about Project Pat, honestly, do you?
SPEAKER_08No, I don't know anything about him.
SPEAKER_10Yeah, so we'll research and hopefully I get back on air again.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, maybe we'll do some research. He might have some connections to the, you know, uh uh infamous uh like uh Houston hip-hop scene that um DJ Screw uh was uh was is.
SPEAKER_10I mean DJ Screw is probably still alive, still like the the you know Man, if his stuff was streamable, I would play his um his track with ESG Ballin.
SPEAKER_08Well either you can't get DJ Screw you can't stream DJ Screw. Can I play YouTube? Uh yeah, you could.
SPEAKER_10Oh my god, it's so much fun. Do you want to?
SPEAKER_08Uh well yeah, let's see. Um well let's uh let's see.
SPEAKER_10Well this reference is like my nascent record label.
SPEAKER_08Okay, all right, go for it. Let's hear something about uh DJ Screw.
SPEAKER_10No, we don't have to. I don't mean to. Yeah, I think we should take turns more so than being taken taken over.
SPEAKER_08Well, let's let's think about DJ Screw. I will. I will manifesting. Um about the, you know, like like uh I guess the Houston hip hop scene uh scene is like uh a sub-genre of the dirty south hip hop.
SPEAKER_10Like I am I have a lot of holes in my history as far as like you gotta listen to it and then read around it, but the readings are tough to find, honestly. You know more than I do.
SPEAKER_08Well the the Houston, you know, the Houston hip-hop um scene is like DJ Screw is kind of like if you were to if you were to paint a portrait like a medieval uh you know um allegory painting of Houston hip-hop, DJ Screw would be in the middle of it.
SPEAKER_10And like Because he spins off the universe.
SPEAKER_08And like and and and UGK and the ghetto boys would be like the other most prominent uh fe uh figures.
SPEAKER_10That's why my why my record label is called Turnnet. It's because of this cosmic image that DJ Screw has, for lack of a better word, not to be redundant, but imaged on many of his album covers. It's the record, you know, but he's reified it, if that makes sense.
SPEAKER_08I can I understand that.
SPEAKER_10So like the directive is really, really cool. You know, I can maintain my position as a wannabe, you know, I hope to be cool. You know, turn that, of course. You know?
SPEAKER_08I'm I'm going to play uh some other this is this is New York hip hop, also from the 80s. Okay. Uh but uh this is uh something that I've been listening to uh a lot uh lately. You know uh Cool Keith? aka Dr. Octagon. No, I don't. Oh, he was uh fantastic.
SPEAKER_15Yes.
SPEAKER_10Um is this guy known?
SPEAKER_08Like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Cool Cool Keith is an incredible uh rapper. This is uh um uh from uh the uh uh uh the the uh ultra magnetic embassy's first album. The track is titled Give the Drummer Some.
SPEAKER_12One, two, one, two, ultra magnetic team full of effect. We talk about giving the drummer some. You know what? Yo, cool, keep tone what's on your mind.
SPEAKER_00I'm ready, and now's my time to build, uplift, get swiped, then drip, off, and do my own thing. Switch up, change my picture, smack my picture, like a pet for any rapper who would take a red boot and step on my path. I'm willing as an A-word federal rhyme enforcer. 235 on a rhyme test, whatever group of vests and line, I put a more behind. Flames the ultra as a warning sign of my skill, and what my mind deserves. I smell a great in the dark for turbs. And who deserves the right to be a fan of the screen? And start whack poetry. What are you fucking turns that wanna lower me? Quit it before I heat your ear off, let your burn deduct another year off wrappin' for a face I'm slappin'. Give me applause when hands stop clapping. Let's get the dumbest up.
unknownGive the bummer.
SPEAKER_12Get the door to the bottom, the fucking rope. The rhyming for delta. When I enter, you better take delta. Cause I'm full, and yes, I will melter. Anyone who tried to even filter, I thought that they're with me. I cut you off because you are my enemy. Or my stage interfering with my benefits. So step back, cause I'm a step of breath. And great, great. You're a germ, filthy like eggs, I'll clean. You up with me, vapors, rubbing and scrubbing, like a mistake or paper, I'm rubbing erasing. You out like the air, got you dirty. You're ride the floor like garbage. I have to put you in a head. Or instead, that is last three. We can see accumulate like dust. Take out my dust dust, dine them up and respect. Look them up, just like a tech mono of three-o. With a cameo. I'm about to let it go. You know what? But get the trumpet off.
unknownGet the full, get the full, get the foot, get the full, get the foot, get the dumbbell so, get the full, get the fur, get the dump stuff.
SPEAKER_00Get the rapers out of wake nuts, some are hate nuts, some are talking, some debating us critically. But physically, my mind is still talk like a rap, bro. Designed that the matter MC's and toys with flame. 500 degrees of rhyme, that heat and quick and system. Your brain is on the grill at nighttime. And what about the daytime? I hear the whack ones, they get a lot of playtime. Saying they're whackin' wasting my airtime. Your number two, and next to my spare time. Another rhyme has to be controlling. And for your brain, that must have been stolen. Troken, yes, taken away. I'm on the court and I'm fading away. Whip a jumper. I shoot a rhyme in your face. Add the points while I ride the base. Incredible. Come in three dimensions. Parallel with the funky extensions. I'm cool, keep running rap conventions on time. Let's give the jumper some.
unknownGive the draw a summer. Give the jumper summer. Give the draw a summer. Give the drum a summer to spot the summer.
SPEAKER_10That was Oh my God, but we did it again. Sorry, the dance takes over, my body stops before I hit the radio.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, that was uh the ultra magnetic MCs uh give the drummer some, uh, which I was reminded of just because we were talking about hip-hop and I was uh thinking about uh, you know, uh Hades hip hop. Uh no.
SPEAKER_10Something's uh sorry, there's some ambient YouTube video playing. I'm gonna pause that.
SPEAKER_08Oh god, yes.
SPEAKER_10No, it's terrible.
SPEAKER_08No, I hate YouTube.
SPEAKER_10We need to get hardcore right now.
SPEAKER_08You know, there's there's all like ever anyhow. Um so Rugu, can you can you uh talk a little bit about DJ Screw and just place us historically? Like who is DJ Screw?
SPEAKER_10I'm gonna try to find my um my my vignette, my my like fiction about DJ Screw that I Oh Oh no, I thought the audio would cut for a sec, I just got quiet.
SPEAKER_08No, no, I I uh we're we're we're all here.
SPEAKER_10Figures. You talk, I need like maybe five seconds, I'll be able to find it. Is in a zine that I publish called Mathematical Glock.
SPEAKER_01Okay.
SPEAKER_08Um we're about to hear a track by DJ Screw, uh, who is uh from what I understand, sort of uh, you know, the the the uh underground, you know, impresario of the uh of Houston hip hop. And that there's a a whole subculture in Houston that is, I believe, uh uh organized around the music of DJ Screw.
SPEAKER_10Yes.
SPEAKER_08Uh what's that subculture called? It has a name, I think.
SPEAKER_10Well, there's a process that has a name that's very famous called Chopped and Screwed.
SPEAKER_08Right, right, chopped and screwed.
SPEAKER_10And that has a lot, like it's relevant right now because they're like, I mean, I've aged out of like slang that's being like put forth and invented like on social media platforms. I mean, uh-huh.
SPEAKER_08Hey, you have to push.
SPEAKER_10But I I'm interested.
SPEAKER_08You're you're you're you're over the hill at uh and hip hop is like the 28?
SPEAKER_10I just turned 28, yeah, no, like send me away, you know. Like I like maybe it's just unintelligible, maybe I shouldn't comment, but I am interested in slang and I have been for a very long time. And I like the um I like the stage of social media. I like that it's language powered.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_10I like that a lot of the commentary, a lot of the subjects are just like art in a very basic way. And uh I like also hip hop as a world, as a culture, like as this ambient thing, like that is where the discourse is placed. So I've been interested in hip-hop and you know, slang and tandem for a very long time, and chopped and screwed, like goodness me, you know what chop means right now?
SPEAKER_08Has it has it changed from the you know pilots of DJ Screw?
SPEAKER_10Well, it doesn't reference a record anymore.
SPEAKER_08Oh, okay. What does chop mean now?
SPEAKER_10It's kind of crass, but I'll tell you. So, okay, it goes it goes along with this other word called busted. I've heard of this, yeah. So, okay, think of like slang often comes from this very literal gesture action thing.
SPEAKER_05Right.
SPEAKER_10And that's what makes it funny. And that's what sort of preserves the thing itself.
SPEAKER_08I understand.
SPEAKER_10I can't, I I don't know. I'm really not saying anything very valuable.
SPEAKER_08What's what's trapped in busted mean?
SPEAKER_10Okay, so busted, they both mean ugly.
SPEAKER_08Okay.
SPEAKER_10Basically, like unsavable. You're cooked. You know, you know, cooked with filament.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10Yeah. Although that's also a violent, like you're cooked in a pan, like you're stuck, like you're flat.
SPEAKER_08It's unsalvageable.
SPEAKER_10Exactly.
SPEAKER_08Yeah.
SPEAKER_10You are not a vegetable anymore.
SPEAKER_08You're some like uh you're inedible. You have been burned.
SPEAKER_10You're like a flattened oil uh like um. Okay, so busted, imagine I punch you in the face, you're busted, like I busted your face.
SPEAKER_08Okay.
SPEAKER_10It's that bad. Uh-huh.
SPEAKER_08Like like you you chopped and busted just means ugly.
SPEAKER_10Exactly, but like what gesture do you like couple with busted? Let's start with that.
SPEAKER_08But also, like you know, the origins of chopped and screwed, uh, with uh uh DJ Screw, I think are really funny.
SPEAKER_10Because like there's also there's uh Well, I'm just like really focused on the visual, so so many.
SPEAKER_08Because there's also this subculture, and it probably has a name. I I'm I I I can't think of it right now, but it but pe in this subculture in Houston that I think emerged in the in the the the early nineties, um you you listen to DJ Screw and you drive a low rider. Uh and Oh my god, yes. Yeah, and and you drink this thing that is called purple drank. That is uh purple lean. There might there I've heard it's called purple drink.
SPEAKER_10The only purple drink I know drank, yeah, I know sure.
SPEAKER_08Yeah, but uh uh but it but it's it's it's per it's grape soda mixed with codeine cough syrup.
SPEAKER_10Gotcha.
SPEAKER_08Right?
SPEAKER_10I don't know what that thing is.
SPEAKER_08I've heard it, I I've heard it's called purple drink.
SPEAKER_10I think you know better than me.
SPEAKER_08Well, I this is just what I've heard. I've never But it's like a like is the car like I've never tried purple drink, but it's it's it's codeine cough syrup. Yeah, it's code and cough syrup mixed with grape soda, and what you do is you ride a lowrider while drinking purple drink and driving very, very slowly on the highway. And and also blasting DJ screw.
SPEAKER_10That's what you do when you We're gonna play it, you guys are gonna feel you you're gonna understand, and like first before you do that, I wanna like read this thing that I wrote about the album.
SPEAKER_01Please.
SPEAKER_10Alright. There is an element of becoming one in the world as it turns, two, in the disc as it turns. Here are two definitions for turning. One, to rotate on an axis, readable. A wheel turns, it does not transform into clothes. An object turns into another object. An idea turns into another idea. When data screw manipulates the disk, it turns the sound moment into another flowing the disk turn without modifying it. Does the title As the World Turns Low more concretely for the image of a turning screw, i.e. this universe? Whenever DJ Screw introduces a new sound, it's spinning before he dials the volume up and mixes it, presents it, it's turning before we hear. So is the turning ever even going anywhere? Is the cover a virus? You guys should look at the cover. I think it is. Uh what's it what's the name of this album? Yeah, as the world turns slow, like totally like take out your phones, it's worth it. Name that expression for me. He's got not like actually like Louvian. I'd like to know. Okay, last part. Also, last part. Also, to drop the top all night long exemplifies the core neurotic fantasy located at the center of the screen universe. I capitalized the screen universe. It is the moment of actualization of the player, of the institution, of his ex of his significance in the game. This ritual is a rite of passage. So that's what I wrote about that.
SPEAKER_08That's your introduction to this track by DJ Screw.
SPEAKER_10It needs some work, but yeah, no, the drag covers me.
SPEAKER_08This this might be the last thing we play because we only got six minutes left.
SPEAKER_10Man, really?
SPEAKER_08That's it's that's that's how time works.
SPEAKER_10It's a good closer. Yeah, time, time.
SPEAKER_11You know how to do that. You know how to do that. I do pop us cowin', and think the things fallin' Lickin' ass poppers up the street, bowin', perfect, perfect, cause I wanna bounce too. And boss and pussy is the wrong thing you pick bob do, perfect, cause I wanna bow too. In box and pussy is the wrong thing you pick bob do nigga In the quick trickle, five at your eyes, go for the donor. How the fuck you feel? I rat the tat them, then jack 'em, them bolt and patin' em. I rat attach them, then jack 'em, then patin' em. I rat attach them, then jack em. Them diggity jump my boss be coming, but I got they got the trip that here, watch me bear back. They devil, devil, lift the boat, bust up on his back. Still it very, very easy like a D with a 50 load.
unknownPainless, painless drift that cut my nerves. That's the fucking primo. That fuck, that fuck, like, kite.
SPEAKER_11Different, different levels of my loo, no, no, baggage window, window and both wife. Give me a give me a meal of face to chill and tell my mama from my collar is going down in Hell. I'm nothing but a bowler. Got the butter. Got it, but up and butter. So I've your west and not hurt. Let's stop a book, it's done. Let's make stop on fix it out. Do it more than your hurt. Second verse, it's just work, so I feel us and not hurt. Let's make stop it down. Then I stop convey now. I fuck around and make ya. Shoot them dice off that night. Don't think twice, cause I'm break out. Then I never convey now I fuck around and make yeah. Shoot them dice off that night. So think twice, cause I'm break out. Then I never convey now I fuck around and make ya. Shoot them dice of this night. So think twice, cause I'm break out. Papa, pop up, call it like that, cause I'm about to fade you now. Smoke the dip and to the clip with player haters, come round. Run one down, grab a gun arrow, I bet it ain't too fun now. Move the dip and to the clip with play of haters, come round. Run one down, grab a gun arrow. I bet it ain't too fun now. Move the dip and to the clip with play of haters, come round. Run one down, grab a gun arrow, I bet it ain't too fun now. Subject flux and twenty-one thugs, stage your way, stuff to furn down with a three baby, baby, baby, and the gang becoming a woman of whipped that itch, but with the watch's main pain, in the end it out, fistin, nicknam the glock, make night that bit it night and neck the neckin' the block. And then my hand is the dick, wick got bliss over my neck, a footin' that's flow green, then co-be, then off the play with a full dick. And if my hand is the dick, wick I bliss over my neck. I footin' that's flow green, then co-be, then off to play with a full dick. So fuck this shit. I'm real with that steel. Now pin you powder to make my bill. I'm in hell, it's nothing but a fouler. I'm footin' that's so green, and go beat and auto play with a full dick. Putin that's so green and copy and hard to play with a full dick. I'm footing that slow green and cope-beam and off to play with a full dick.
SPEAKER_08And that that that was DJ Screw, and this has been Yes Always with uh Benjamin Hale and uh Michaela Angier.
SPEAKER_10We promised to keep the punches coming and the references fresh. No, I wish we had more time. Thank you for listening to the video.
SPEAKER_08We've got to wrap it up, and now uh please stay tuned. Thank you very much for joining me, Michaela.
SPEAKER_10Thank you so much for having me.
SPEAKER_08I had the best time, I really keep it going. And uh uh you are listening to WXTI Radio Tivoli.