Completely Conspicuous

This week, it's part 3 of my discussion with Brian Salvatore about musical blindspots. Brian will learn about Iron Maiden while I dig into Frank Zappa. Show notes: - Brian listened to Somewhere in Time, Jay listened to Sheik Yerbouti - Deja vu all over again - Brian: Somewhere in Time is the most dated, least raw of the three albums I listened to - Band didn't play to its strengths - Victim of mid-'80s production - Dickinson vs. Di'anno - The disappearance of metal in the '90s - Bon Jovi has thrived over the decades - Not their best, but some Maiden classics - Jay: Saw Maiden live a few months ago - Zappa's Sheik Yerbouti finds him exploring the wackier subject matter in depth - Released three albums in '79 alone - Musicianship is incredible, feat. Adrian Belew on rhythm guitar - Zappa released a ridiculous number of albums - Xenochrony technique took parts from different songs and spliced them together - Brian: Not in his top 10 albums, but

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss our uncertain world. Show notes: - Check out Matt's book Echo and the Sea - Escapism is tempting - Shopping by alcohol content - Is ignorance bliss? - Dumb and happy - Cynical about politics at all levels - Corruption is rampant - Appearances count - Politics have never been this divisive...or have they? - Internet comments are the worst - Social media enables morons to spout off - Journalism burnout - Shooting a guy in the face is quaint now - Does uncertainty = depression? - We haven't given up yet - We solved nothing   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss our uncertain world. Show notes: - Check out Matt's book Echo and the Sea - Recorded before the Las Vegas incident and Trump's visit to PR - Everything's uncertain - Don't know what to expect from the news - Trump: Savvy or master of chaos? - Twitter as distraction - Social media amps up the anxiety - FB as the center of vitriol over every conceivable public issue - The weather is slamming us with unpredictable events - Selling the BS - Clickbait's gonna get ya - Much ado about kneeling - Scandal recovery - Controversy du jour - Punisher fans can be scary - Twitter roulette - Ah, the threat of impending nuclear war - The relentless news cycle - The difficulty of just enjoying life - To be continued   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants"

This week, Brian Salvatore and I discuss more musical blindspots. Brian will learn about Iron Maiden while I dig into Frank Zappa. Show notes: - Brian listened to Number of the Beast, Jay listened to Apostrophe - Brian: No surprises on Number of the Beast - Familiar with half the album - Liked the fast and heavy stuff, not the slower songs - Jay: This was my introduction to Maiden - The transition to more epic material - Ozzy transcended the metal downturn of the '90s - The power of album covers, good and bad - The beginning of Maiden's prime - Jay: Apostrophe was Zappa's 18th album - "Don't Eat the Yellow Snow" was a hit - More straightahead rock than jazz fusion - Memorable songs: Cosmik Debris, Uncle Remus, St. Alfonzo's Pancake  Breakfast - Zappa live albums are different experiences - High-level playing countered by sometimes dumb lyrics - Zappa pioneered sampling and recording techniques - Next up: Sheik Yerbouti for Jay, Somewhere in T

This week, Brian Salvatore and I discuss more musical blindspots. Brian will learn about Iron Maiden while I dig into Frank Zappa. Show notes: - Jay: Somewhat familiar with Zappa's hits and guitar work - Intimidating catalog; more than 100 albums released - Brian: Knew a few Maiden songs but never a fan - Listened to 1980 self-titled debut - Liked the faster songs and Paul Di'Anno's vocals - Enjoyed punk-inspired energy and Steve Harris' bass - Production sounds good - Maiden's sound has evolved over the years - Jay listened to Zappa's 1969 album Hot Rats - Only one song with vocals, and those are by Captain Beefheart - Ian Underwood is major contributor, playing all keyboards and horns - Very different sound than Zappa had in mid- to late- '70s - Next up: Apostrophe for Jay, The Number of the Beast for Brian Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of

Another installment of Driving With Kumar as I discuss my recent European vacation. Show notes: - Spent over two weeks in London, Paris, Belfast and Dublin - Went to London in '96 - Less drinking on a family vacation - Elderly passenger in distress - Hotel room in London was tiny - Walked nearly 100 miles the entire trip - Ran along rivers in the four cities we visited - Ate a lot of pub food - London has a lot of great history and architecture - Paris was beautiful - Hit the Eiffel Tower on the first night - Major military/police presence at tourist attractions - Several terrorist incidents before we went, but nothing happened while we were there - Only three days of sun the whole vacation - More daylight - Out of the U.S. news cycle - Being aware of your surroundings - Wary while running in Paris and Dublin - Missed American beer - Visited my brother in Belfast - Explored Northern Ireland scenic sites - Saw several Game of Thrones filming locations - Went to th

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of the year so far. Show notes: - Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ - JB: The Orb released a remix EP - JK: The prolific Ty Segall does it again - JB: Vagabon brings fresh take to indie rock - JK: Boss Hog's first album in 17 years - JB: The evolving sound of Spoon - JK: The consistently excellent New Pornographers back with another winner - JB: Juana Molina returns with a strong, out there release - JK: Mark Lanegan incorporates electronic music into his sound - JB: Snowball II with a release that recalls The Lilys - JK: Afghan Whigs release their best record since reuniting - JB: Tommy Stinson brings back Bash & Pop with hooks galore - JB: Slowdive's reunion album gives the people what they want Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants"

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of the year so far. Show notes: - Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ - Plenty of great rock music, but not on the charts - It's all about playing live; rock radio exposure is nonexistent - Billy Squier still gets the airplay - Nobody's figured out how to make money from streaming music - Get pumped for Husker Du bootleg box set - More rock deaths: Berry, Cornell, Allman, Geils - Rise in musical activism - Albums we want to hear - Breitling: Ride, Palehound, Wet Trident - Kumar: Kurt Vile and Courtney Barnett, Ted Leo, Buffalo Tom, Queens of the Stone Age, Deer Tick, LCD Soundsystem - Bubbling under albums - Breitling: Tara Jane O'Neil, Opin, The xx - Lubec's coming to Boston in August - Kumar: Chastity Belt, Bash and Pop, Cloud Nothings, White Reaper, At the Drive-In, Black Lips - Our favorite albums so far - JB: Spirit of the Beehive combines psych and shoegaze - JK: Run the Jewels keeps o

Part 3 of my conversation with Brian Salvatore about musical blindspots. Brian listens to another Sloan album while I check out a third record from Ween. Show notes: -Win-win situation - Brian had Sloan's "The Double Cross" and Jay had Ween's "Quebec" - Brian: My favorite of the three I listened to - Beatles comparisons - Brian will go back and check out rest of Sloan catalog - No solo albums, but Murphy had TUNS project - Jay: Really enjoyed Quebec - Most cohesive of the three Ween albums Jay heard - Dean and Gene were dealing with some issues - "If You Could Save Yourself (You'd Save Us All)" is an epic album closer - Next up: Jay will listen to Frank Zappa and Brian will check out Iron Maiden   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. 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 Brian Salvatore about musical blindspots. Brian listens to another Sloan album while I check out a second record from Ween. Show notes: - Brian: Impressed with the progression of Sloan's sound - Jay: Hadn't heard anything from The Mollusk previously - Plenty of genre jumping - Nautical theme - Elements of prog, psych - Brian: My favorite Ween record - Ween varies playlists from show to show - Brian: Between the Bridges is steeped in the '70s: Big Star, Sweet, T. Rex, Fleetwood Mac - Interesting sequencing and flow - Confusing the title with Between the Buttons - Last Sloan album gave each band member a side's worth of songs - Brian: Almost exclusively listen to albums in full - Jay: Will listen to albums, but also use shuffle mode on iPod - Brian: Also listen to a lot of music on Spotify - Next up: Quebec for Jay, The Double Cross for Brian Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory.

This week, Brian Salvatore and I talk about delving into the catalog of bands we don't know much about. Brian will learn about Sloan while I dig into Ween. Show notes: - Each of us picks a favorite artist of the other that we don't know much about - Jay listened to Ween's Chocolate and Cheese, Brian listened to Sloan's Twice Removed - Both 1994 releases - Both of us had heard a few songs before - Jay: First heard Ween on Beavis and Butt-head, wrote them off as novelty act - Brian: Twice Removed starts off strong, flows well - Big power pop vibe - The album that got Sloan dropped by Geffen - Each band member writes and sings - Were signed as part of the alternative explosion of the early '90s - Self-release most of their albums now - No indie rock radio stations anymore - Jay: Chocolate and Cheese is great fun - Wide range of styles, from funk to psychedelic to just weird - Great guitar work from Dean Ween - First Ween album done in a studio - W

This week, I talk to guest Brian Salvatore about the legacy of the late Chris Cornell. Show notes: - Brian: Was never a huge fan of Cornell's early singing style - Rediscovered his love for Soundgarden in recent years - Jay: First heard him when Temple of the Dog came out in '91, then got  Badmotorfinger - The greatness of Mother Love Bone - Soundgarden was perfect bridge between '80s hard rock and the new sounds of the '90s - Jay: Saw Soundgarden in small club in early '92 and then again a few months later at Lollapalooza - Kim Thayil's guitar playing complemented Cornell's voice well - Jason Everman, the Zelig of grunge - The diverse nature of the Seattle acts of the '90s - The pressure of being the "responsible one" - Cornell's final tweets were upbeat - Hard to read into his lyrics - Most of Cornell's songs were dark - His death hit hard because he was ours - Feels like more '70s touring acts have more living members than '90s bands - The dr

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about the evolution of the music blog. Show notes: - Breitling recently shut down his fine music blog Clicky Clicky - Some band reunions shouldn't happen - A whole new target audience for newer live acts - The kids wanna snap - Some bands can make a living selling merch and playing small live gigs - No time for comics anymore - The inflated price of vinyl - Zines were the music blogs of the '80s and '90s - Kumar: A buddy in Washington state got into punk, started a zine - The convenience of blog software - The blog as reference tool - Our work at Webnoize is mostly gone now - Clicky Clicky lives on via Facebook page - The blog had a hardcore audience - Not in it for the numbers - Cutting through the crap on Twitter - Quality, not quantity of posts   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "The

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about the evolution of the music blog. Show notes: - Breitling recently shut down his fine music blog Clicky Clicky - MP3 blogs soon evolved into something less legally risky - Wrote about music for other online pubs: Splendid EZine, Junkmedia - Had a personal page and then launched Clicky Clicky in 2006 - Contributors had other commitments, life got busy - Breitling now writes for Vanyaland - In their heyday, music blogs presented artists who weren't pushed by major labels or corporate radio - The "Celestial Jukebox" is here - Breitling: Listening habits have changed - Used to frantically search for new music; now digging into albums - Peak music blog year was 2007 - Blog bands: Clap Your Hands Say Yeah, Bloc Party, Arcade Fire, Franz Ferdinand - Many people started music blogs to get free stuff - Some bloggers have moved on to mainstream gigs - Podcasting has become commonplace - YouTube stars are now gaining popul

This week, it's my conversation with guest Christian Douglass as we discuss what life would be like without the Internet. Show notes: -  Recorded on the road in a snowstorm - What if the Internet went away? - Back to mid-'90s technology - We'd have to talk to each other - Generational dip - The Lou Grant Revolt - We'd lost a lot of conveniences - The kids and the promposals - People are constantly glued to their phones - #oldmanrant - We need the Internet - Social media has replaced a lot of actual human interaction - Phantom thumb - TV and radio would be more important - Making conclusions based on just the headline - Library book etiquette - The drive home - Things could get bad - Economy would tank - Overcoming the dependency - Not necessarily life or death - Instant info gratification - Are we ready to get primal? - Taking a timeout - Addictive by design - Kids would have a tough time Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes p

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1991. Show notes: - Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output - Brian's #3 - The final Pixies album with original lineup - Jay's #2 - Do we need to hear Nevermind again? - Symbolically historic - Raw vs. polished - Brian's #2 - Tribe Called Quest brought a serious jazz feel to their sound - Focused on the groove, not samples - Jay's #1 - Matthew Sweet swings for the fences - Sick guitar work from Lloyd and Quine - Susanna Hoffs doesn't age - Brian's #1 - Mike Mills gets his due - Peter Buck's mandolin phase - Still plenty of great records we didn't discuss - The Costello-McCartney experiment - School of Fish had the song of the summer of '91 - What's next? - The early '90s were chock full of good stuff   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1991. Show notes: - Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output - Albums that didn't make our top 5 of '91 - Brian: Feelies, Slint, Prince - Skipping a Prince show - Jay: Mudhoney, Pearl Jam, Screaming Trees, Temple of the Dog - Brian: Firehose, De La Soul, Cohen tribute, Jonathan Richman - No more "Hallelujah" covers, please - Tribute albums were big in the '90s - Jay: Tragically Hip, Dinosaur Jr., Fishbone, Nation of Ulysses, Swervedriver - Jay's #5 - Soundgarden's game-changer - Brian's #5 - Primus makes its mark - Jay's #4 - The best Smashing Pumpkins album - Corgan's off the rails now - Brian's #4 - Ween's weirdest record - Jay's #3 - Teenage Fanclub went from unknowns in the U.S. to indie darlings - To be continued   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Brian Salvatore as we look back at the music of 1991. Show notes: - Check out Brian's podcast Input/Output - Wrapping up our look at the music of the years 1980-1999 - 1991 really kicked off the '90s musically - Brian was 9, Jay was 23 - Alt-rock took off in '91 - Big year for Metallica - Plenty of pop and one-hit wonders - Bryan Adams and Color Me Badd had strong years - Big efforts from A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, NWA and Public Enemy - Styx had a song land in the top 100 singles - Rock radio was still rooted in classic rock - Billboard switched to Soundscan charts - Freddie Mercury died on same day as Eric Carr of KISS - Van Halen's slide into irrelevancy - Since '91, VH has released three albums with three different singers - Red Hot Chili Peppers hit their peak - Albums Jay liked in '91: RHCP, Live, Spin Doctors - Quintessential '90s tunes - Talking Heads officially split - To be continued   Completel

This week, I've got an installment of Driving With Kumar, in which I discuss the endless amount of entertainment content available to consume. Show notes: - Driving to work - The joys of binge-watching TV - So much to watch, so little time - Book reading has suffered - No time for comics - Tons of music available to listen to whenever you want - More music released now than ever before - Listen to podcasts throughout the day - Again, a ton of podcast content to choose from - Recently cranked through 22 episodes of U Talkin' U2 to Me - Rarely watch shows live - Went to all-streaming setup for TV - Never go to the movies anymore - Glut of content calls for better time management - It's an on-demand world - Plenty of shows I've never seen - It's all about portion control   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in P

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Matt Phillion as we discuss Hollywood's love of reboots. Show notes: - Check out Matt's book Like a Comet: The Indestructibles Book 4 - Docudramas like The People Vs. OJ Simpson are doing well - Reboot of 24 sans Jack Bauer - Why would you remake a perfect movie? - Flip the concept - Matt's book idea - Need to reward original stories - Pixar's doing great work - The Marvel series on Netflix have been good - Experimental episodes can be fun - So much TV to watch now - Luke Cage broke new ground - Watching foreign shows and running out of episodes - Remaking European shows for American TV - Matt needs to watch Terriers and Justified - The greatness of Walton Goggins - Shows that are difficult to watch   Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review! The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out