Completely Conspicuous

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about our favorite music of 1987. Show notes: - Recorded in the backyard of CompCon HQ - Jay's non-top 5 albums: Terence Trent D'Arby, Pixies, The Cure, Prince (The Black Album), Sonic Youth, Def Leppard, Guns N' Roses - It's easier to listen to bro-country or classic rock than look for new music these days - Phil's #5: GNR's debut took a few years to really take off - Jay's #5:  The Cult goes for a hard rock sound - Jay's #4 and Phil's #1: U2 with a massive mainstream breakthrough - Phil's #3: The Cure with a killer double album - Jay's #3: R.E.M.'s last album on IRS, embracing a big rock sound - Phil's #2: The Grateful Dead go mainstream - Jay's #2: The Replacements' last great album - Jay's #1 and Phil's #4: Prince tries out many styles, makes social commentary - Favorite songs: "One Tree Hill" (Phil), "Sign O' the Times" (Jay) Completely Conspicuous is available

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about our favorite music of 1987. Show notes: - Recorded in the backyard of CompCon HQ - In '87, Phil was 17 going on 18, Jay was 19 going on 20 - The Bangles had the #1 single of the year with "Walk Like An Egyptian" - Another big year for movie soundtracks - A lot of female pop artists hit big - Jay: Concerts I saw included Genesis, Peter Gabriel, Motley Crue, Jon Butcher Axis and U2 - Phil: Saw INXS, U2 twice, Sting, Smithereens - Bruce Willis released an album - Starship churns out the crap - Many bands changed their sound in the '80s to stay "relevant" - Phil's non-top 5 albums: INXS, Hoodoo Gurus, the Smiths, Husker Du, Dinosaur Jr., Jane's Addiction, Midnight Oil, 10,000 Maniacs, George Harrison, Sinead O'Connor, Bowie, The Tragically Hip - The meteoric rise and quick decline of INXS - That time Husker Du went on the Joan Rivers Show - To be continued Completel

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about our favorite music of 1986. Show notes: - Recorded in the backyard of CompCon HQ - Phil's #5: Solid effort from the Pretenders, which was basically just Chrissie Hynde at this point - Jay's #5: Metallica hits their high point - Neighborhood dogs start chiming in - Phil is a big fan of Ratt n' Roll - Phil's #4: The debut of the Van Hagar era - Eddie fully embraces synths, poppier sound - Didn't realize until recently that the riff of "Best of Both Worlds" is identical to Kool and the Gang's "Celebration" - Jay's #4: David Lee Roth's out VH's VH - The best Dave solo album - Phil's #3 and Jay's #2: R.E.M. starts embracing power chords - Jay's #3: John Lydon teams up with studio musicians to create a classic - Steve Vai, Ginger Baker and others show up - Phil's #1: The Smiths in the middle of a strong run of albums - Johnny Marr elevates this album - Phil's #2 and Ja

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about the music of 1986. Show notes: - Recorded in the backyard of CompCon HQ - Jay was 18 going on 19 in '86, Phil was 16 going on 17 - Nine of the top 10 selling albums of '86 came out the year before - Older artists make comebacks - Pop and hair metal were big - Boston finally released its third album - Phil's non-top 5s: Talking Heads, Smithereens, Prince, Run DMC, Beastie Boys, XTC, Bad Brains, Gene Loves Jezebel, Love and Rockets, World Party, Dead Milkmen, B-52s, Luka Bloom, Feelies, Joe Jackson, Pet Shop Boys, Sonic Youth, Rolling Stones, Dylan, Steve Earle, DLR - Jay's non-top 5s: David & David, Peter Gabriel, Iron Maiden - To be continued Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy

Celebrating the show's 15th birthday with a look back at some key moments over the years. Show notes: - Going the clip show route - Episode 2: The early days - Episode 72: The first guest, featuring Jay Breitling - Episode 141: Talking about mixtapes, including recordings I made when I was 13-14 - Episode 146: Talking to Amanda Guest about college radio - Episode 186: My visit to Seattle, which got off to a strange start - Episode 253: Ric Dube and I break down "Smokin' In the Boys Room" - Episode 315: Brian Salvatore and I torture ourselves by listening to Van Halen III - Episode 494: Talking about drug-related concert experiences with Phil Stacey. Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about growing up as sports fans. Show notes: - Recorded on the way home from Tree House Brewing - We still don't get esports - Bands who sing songs about sports - Weezer at the Winter Classic - Short attention spans and sports - Sports gambling is big business - Super Bowl prop bets are popular - Shohei Ohtani is the greatest baseball player we've seen in a long time - Luck is a big factor in fantasy baseball - The occasional Toronto championships - Some people don't like sports - Getting blown off by Rickey Henderson - Jay: Both daughters played competitive sports - Roped younger daughter into becoming a Leafs fan - Watching your team lose sucks, but it's not the end of the world Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about growing up as sports fans. Show notes: - Recorded on the way to Tree House Brewing - Phil: Grew up watching sports with his dad, playing sports with his brothers - Watched a lot of tennis in the late '70s/early /80s - Both read the sports page of the local paper - Collecting sports cards was a big hobby - Jay: Began watching hockey with dad, quickly became obsessed - Played street hockey with the neighborhood kids - Phil: We played outside with no supervision all day - Now we don't let our kids go anywhere on their own - Imagining you're a pro athlete - Memories of church league hoops - Jay: We played "foot hockey" (aka soccer with a tennis ball) every day at recess - Street hockey got serious, playing teams from across town - No fun playing sports against your boss - Jay: Parents wouldn't let me play organized youth hockey - Didn't play sports the first two years

Part 3 of my in-person conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of 2021 so far. Show notes: - Recorded at CompCon World HQ - Still with the fan noise - Kumar's #7: Sleaford Mods with perennially pissed off minimalist post-punk - Breitling's #6: Multi-instrumentalist Colleen with hypnotic ambient album - Kumar's #6: More IDLES-y post-punk from across the pond with TV Priest - Breitling's #4: More Slumberland bedroom pop goodness from the Reds, Pinks and Purples - Kumar's #5: St. Vincent goes for a late '70s Bowie vibe - Kumar's #4: Jeff Rosenstock revisits his ska-punk roots with a remake of his 2020 album No Dream - Breitling's #3: Blue Ocean with release combining two EPs of shoegaze - Kumar's #3: Excellent guitar-heavy ripper from Juliana Hatfield - Breitling's #2: Pardoner with a hot rock release reminiscent of Pavement and Parquet Courts - Kumar's #1 and Breitling's #5: Kiwi Jr.'s second release of s

It's part 2 of my in-person conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of 2021 so far. Show notes: - Recorded at CompCon World HQ - Still with the fan noise - Kumar's bubbling under picks (aka "Bubblahs"): Lots of cool UK post-punk (Black Country, New Road; Squid; Yard Act; Sleaford Mods; TV Priest,; Dry Cleaning), The Hold Steady, Mdou Moctar, Guardian Singles,Nick Cave & Warren Ellis, Teenage Fanclub, Iceage, McCartney, Ex-Hyena, Fridge Poetry, Glitterer, The Dirty Nil   - Breitling: We're living in Blade Runner/cyberpunk times - Regional lingo - Minor sax resurgence - Difference of opinions on The Weeknd - Breitling's #10: Stomp Talk Modstone with a collection of Chinese shoegaze - Kumar's #10: An EP of lost songs from The Tragically Hip's 1991 Road Apples sessions - Breitling's #9: Floating Points/Pharoah Sanders/London Symphony Orchestra with a cool collab - Kumar's #9: Shame's second release is fu

It's part 1 of my in-person conversation with guest Jay Breitling as we discuss our favorite music of 2021 so far. Show notes: - Recorded at CompCon World HQ - Apologies for the loudness of the fan! Pretend you're skydiving! - First time together since December 2019 - Kumar: Check out Mdou Moctar, West African guitarist on Matador - Rollins and his listening habits - Breitling: Watching a lot of rock docs - Concerts are coming back and we're going to some - Oh great, the Eagles are touring again - Plenty of reissues out; gotta make money somehow - Streaming continues to be the main way to listen to music - Remembering the days of the Walkman and then later MP3 players that held 8 songs - Breitling's still producing a weekly radio show called Parcheesi Redux - Internet radio shows and podcasts are filling the gap left by commercial radio's stagnancy - I'm still doing my radio show Stuck In Thee Garage on BFF.fm - Breitling's bubbling un

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we count down our favorite albums of 1985. Show notes: - Recorded IN PERSON at CompCon world HQ for the first time since February 2020 - Phil and Jay's #5: R.E.M. follows up two classic albums with a quirky effort - Band gradually grew in popularity - Phil and Jay's #4: The Cult hits the right combination of goth and hard rock - Ian Astbury's lyrics were appropriately cryptic - Phil's #3: An out-of-left-field pick with the Dead Milkmen's debut - "Bitchin' Camaro" was the "hit" - Jay's #3: Pete Townshend's solo peak - He's mainly focused on Who tours since then - Phil's #2: Talking Heads delve into Americana - Surprisingly, their best-selling studio album - Jay's #2: Husker Du continues their hot streak - First of two releases in '85 - Robert Palmer covered "New Day Rising" - Phil's #1: Conflicted about picking the Smiths thanks to Moz being a d-bag - Phil was an early

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the music of 1985. Show notes: - Recorded IN PERSON at CompCon world HQ for the first time since February 2020 - We were scheduled to record a podcast the weekend that everything shut down last year - In '85, Jay was 17 going on 18 and Phil was 15 going on 16 - Jay: Finished high school, started college - The year of rock charity - We are the World featured a disinterested Dylan - Dylan starred in the movie Hearts of Fire a few years later - Live Aid was a huge event on both sides of the Atlantic - Also, Farm Aid, Sun City and Hear 'N Aid - DLR left Van Halen - The PMRC hearings led to those Parental Advisory stickers that told kids where the good stuff was - Lots of pop on the singles chart - Phil belted out "Easy Lover" under hypnosis - Phil's favorite non-top 5 albums: Hoodoo Gurus, INXS, Tears For Fears, Dire Straits, Jesus and Mary Chain, Tom Waits, The

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the music of 1984. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Phil's #5: A strong return for the Pretenders - Half the band died after the previous album - Jay's #5 and Phil's #3: An interesting new direction for U2 - Moody, atmospheric production from Brian Eno and Daniel Lanois - Phil's #4: Audacious debut by the Smiths - Another influential college rock act - Phil as the edgy alt-rock kid at freshman orientation - When bands split up into two versions and keep touring - Jay's #4: Another great record from the Replacements - Paul Westerberg's songwriting continued to mature - Jay's #3: An epic double concept album from Husker Du - No fancy reissues for SST releases - Phil's #2: A classic live album from a band that released a great one only a few years earlier - The expanded version's better than the original - Jay's #2: R.E.M. continues building their legacy with a

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the music of 1984. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Phil was 14 going on 15, Jay was 16 going on 17 in '84 - Phil: Watched a lot of MTV - "College rock" was emerging - Music was drenched in synths - Jay: Saw my first concerts - Hair metal was making a splash - Thrash metal was new and exciting - Billy Squier's tough year - Phil's non-top 5 albums: Bowie, Kinks, Deep Purple, Dio, Van Halen, Ratt, Springsteen, Los Lobos, Sade, Meat Puppets, Husker Du, Minutemen, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Replacements, R.E.M., Run DMC - Phil loves him some Ratt - Jay's non-top 5s: Rush, Iron Maiden, The Cars, INXS - Saw INXS a few years later at Radio City Music Hall - To be continued Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the music of 1983. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Phil's #5: U2's second release of '83 - Captured the band's fiery live show - Jay's #5: Iron Maiden continues its U.S. breakthrough - Part of the mainstream acceptance of metal - Phil's #4: The solo debut of Stevie Ray Vaughan - SRV got a lot of comparisons to Hendrix - Jay's #4 and Phil's #3: Talking Heads' highest-charting album - Several songs were overshadowed by Stop Making Sense versions -Jay's #2: Replacements start hitting their stride - The start of a great run of albums - Jay's #3 and Phil's #1: U2 busts out in the U.S. - Phil: Still disappointed to miss them on this tour - Phil's #2 and Jay's #1: R.E.M.'s studio debut was massively influential - Jay: Saw them on Letterman making their network TV debut - Favorite songs: "Surrender" (Phil), "Talk About the Passion" (Jay) Completely Conspicuous is avai

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss the music of 1983. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Jay was 15, Phil was 13 in '83 - Jay: Moved to NH from WA halfway through the year - Was pleasantly surprised by the variety of radio stations in Boston area - First year CDs went on sale in the U.S. - The U.S. Festival made a splash that summer - KISS took off their makeup - The Police had the #1 song of the year - Some good pop songs among the top 100 singles - Phil's non-top 5 albums: Quiet Riot, Def Leppard, Motley Crue, Billy Idol, Dio, Bowie, Huey Lewis, Yes, Neil Young, Madonna, the Fixx, the Police, ZZ Top, Rolling Stones, B-52s, Genesis - Jay's extremely brief time in a band - Jay's non-top 5s: Robert Plant, Metallica, Kinks, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Ozzy Osbourne Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuo

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Eric Green as we pay tribute to the cassette tape. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Eric with the Mr. Belvedere reference - You had to be sneaky to tape record a concert - Physical media holds its allure for fans of a certain age - Never got into 8-track tapes - Jay: Have a bunch of blank tapes, but haven't made a mixtape since 2000 - Eric: As a kid, made a mini-audio documentary about Van Halen on cassette - Metallica started tapers' pit at their concerts - Then a few years later, they led the charge against Napster - Eric: Still purchase music on vinyl or CD, some MP3 - Don't listen to cassettes as often anymore, but will pop one in when the mood hits - Bootlegs are the big thing he goes back to - Jay: Wrote on my blog about the various mixtapes I made over the years - Tapes definitely transport you to a different time - Do greatest hits albums matter anymore? - Reissues of great albu

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Eric Green as we pay tribute to the cassette tape. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Eric's first time on the show since '15 - R.I.P. to Lou Ottens, inventor of the cassette tape - Eric: Got into music via cassettes in the '80s - You could make your own mixes - Jay: Would tape songs off the radio in late '70s/early '80s - Jay: Currently have hundreds of tapes but nothing to play them on - Tapes were cheaper than vinyl or CDs - Fun memories of browsing in record stores - Tapes were big for bootlegs - Huge in the early days of hip hop (The Get Down is on Netflix) - Home taping didn't ruin the music industry, MP3s did - Guardians of the Galaxy helped popularize cassettes - CDs were initially marketed as indestructible and perfect sounding - Jay: Spent hours listening to tapes in the car or on a Walkman - To be continued   Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss our favorite albums of 1982. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Phil's #5: Steely Dan singer goes solo - Jazzy feel is a logical extension from Gaucho - Jay's #5 and Phil's #3: R.E.M. makes its debut with iconic EP - Influential on many bands who followed - Different sounds coming out of the underground - Phil's #4: His image has been tarnished, but Michael Jackson released a monster album - Videos from this album broke a lot of ground - Being mistaken from MJ - Jay's #4: Peter Gabriel stays weird but starts breaking through in the U.S. - Dark subject matter and interesting sonics - Set himself up for huge commercial breakthrough in a few years - Jay's #3: Mission of Burma's first full-length album - Wasn't well-known, but very influential on alt-rock artists - Played with U2 in Boston - Jay's #2: Another influential debut release, this time from Bad Brains - Feroc

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we discuss our favorite music of 1982. Show notes: - Recorded via Zoom - Callback to the CompCon eps looking at '82-2000 with Brian Salvatore a while back - My lists changed since then - In '82, Jay turned 15, Phil turned 13 - Jay: The only full year I spent in Washington state - Jay: Was big into hard rock and metal, which I listened to on my Walkman - John Belushi died; the woman who sold him the drugs had ties to the Band and Gordon Lightfoot - Top single of the year was Olivia Newton-John's "Physical" - Phil's non-top 5 picks: Pete Townshend, Led Zeppelin, Neil Young, Jerry Garcia, Lou Reed, The Who, Tom Petty, XTC, Talking Heads, Billy Squier, Genesis, Duran Duran, Rush, Dire Straits, Elvis Costello, Robert Plant, English Beat, The Clash, Men at Work, Stray Cats - Senses Working Overtime was almost the name of this podcast - The power of MTV to make or break artists back