iPod Roulette with Chris

Been a while, but the shtick is the same: The shuffle goes on and the first six songs (no cheating) have to be discussed or defended or disowned. Yesterday, over a plate of Chinese food, my subject was Chris.

Jeff: Okay, so now we're recording.

Chris: Okay.

Jeff: So. So what you've gotta do is -- you have it paused, on shuffle, ready to go, right? So now you press 'next song' or whatever and then you do that six times and then I'll talk to you about those songs and you have to --

Chris: All right.

Jeff: -- you know -- if they're awful, you have to defend them and if they're good, then you have to talk about why. So, when you're ready, go ahead and do it.

Chris: Here we go.

Jeff: Yeah, make sure to get a mouthful of food first.

Chris: Haha. And the first song is . . .

Jeff: K.

Chris: "Virgo Self Esteem Broadcast" by the Flaming Lips.

Jeff: Yikes! What album is that on?

Chris: It's on Embryonic, which is their most recent.

Jeff: Right. I don't have that one. Do you like it? Do you listen to it?

Chris: I only have like half this album, and most of it is a lot like Yoshimi, except with more LSD.

Jeff: HA! Which is not what that band needs!

Chris: No.

Jeff: Haha. Is this the one that has the cover where it looks like this hairy bowling ball is giving birth to a screaming face?

Chris: Yeah. So it's like LSD and a little bit of speed.

Jeff: Hahahaha.

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: Is this song in particular memorable to you -- do you really have any idea what song this is?

Chris: This song has got a really good pace to it. I like this song. But it . . . it has this really good pace, and then it slows down . . . it's just classic Flaming Lips, you know? The second half of Flaming Lips, not the first half of Flaming Lips.

Jeff: Right. I know what you mean. The Wayne Coyne with hulk fists period of their oeuvre.

Chris: Right.

Jeff: So I don't have this album and I have never heard this song, but so far it sounds, to me, like the soundtrack to a 1970s science fiction film. Like a pre-Star Wars science fiction film. This is like incidental music from the Flash Gordon movie to me, even if that was after Star Wars. You know what I mean.

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: Okay, yeah. Fair enough.

Chris: Yeah, this is like the soundtrack to, uh . . . what's that movie? That sci-fi psychological thriller about the planet?

Jeff: Forbidden Planet?

Chris: No.

Jeff: I don't know what you're -- Solaris.

Chris: Solaris.

Jeff: Yes. Right. A journey into the human soul.

Chris: . . .

Jeff: All right. Good. I think I've heard enough about that. And enough of this song. Seriously. It is like I'm being pinged by some sort of psychedelic submarine of the unconscious. Go to the next song.

Chris: All right. Second one.

Jeff: Yeah.

Chris: Modest Mouse. "So Much Beauty in Dirt."

Jeff: What album is this on?

Chris: This is on Everywhere and his Nasty Parlour Tricks. Which may be one of my favorite albums from them. Because it was short and sweet; only like eight songs. And this song has a MASH reference in it, which thrills me.

Jeff: Hahaha. MASH the movie or MASH the TV show?

Chris: The TV show.

Jeff: See? That thrills me less.

Chris: . . .

Jeff: Um. Yeah, all right. So far, I feel like this is going well for you.

Chris: It is.

Jeff: I'm a little worried that  what's happening here is that you have been culling your music library of all the crappy stuff.

Chris: No. there's some bad shit on here.

Jeff: Because what I'm  really hoping for, to be honest, is the stuff that you drunk-bought on iTunes one night, right? I'm looking for Loverboy.

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: Loverboy album tracks. not singles. That's what i really want out of this, truthfully.

Chris: Well, let's see if the Style Council comes up.

Jeff: Haha. Perfect. Okay, so what's next?

Chris: Yo La Tengo. "Point and Shoot."

Jeff: See, I feel like this is rigged or something.

Chris: Hahahaha.

Jeff: Seriously. have you looked at the other iPod Roulettes? They have had ridiculous things happen and you're getting three totally defensible great bands. Of this decade, by the way! I mean, what?

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: Tell what album this is on.

Chris:  This is off of I'm Not Afraid of You and I Will Beat Your Ass.

Jeff: From the end of the album, right? Right before the other really long one.

Chris: Yeah. I barely ever get to this song. That album is a juggernaut.

Jeff: But it's not only that, right? It's that the first song, "Pass the Hatchett, I think I'm Goodkind," is like seventeen minutes long all by itself. And as much as I love that song, by the time it's over, I'm a bit worn out.

Chris: Sometimes I don't get these guys; they'll have these rusty jams that last for twelve minutes, and they'll have like quirky little dance songs that annoy the living shit out of me.

Jeff: See? This is where I am not with you. Because I think this is what keeps Yo La Tengo from being a kind of Sonic Youth knockoff. They definitely began life as a -- you know -- as a Velvet Underground meets Sonic Youth kind of a knockoff. You know, if record store clerks ran the world, that is the only kind of band there would be, but nevertheless, what keeps them from being that in toto is that they're willing to be innocent in a way that Sonic Youth would never -- were not willing to be.

Chris: Right.

Jeff: Right? And what you're talking about - those kinda early 60s dance jives or the occasional bossa nova number are sort of what makes them, to me, what brings them together.

Chris: Well, those are cool. I mean, "Let's Save Tony Orlando's House," that's a great song.

Jeff: Well, but I think what you're talking about is "Mr. Tough" --

Chris: Yes!

Jeff: -- on this same album. But I think that's a great song. I think you're outta your mind. So, you know, Eric went to go see them the other day and you know what they're doing now on tour, right?

Chris: No, what?

Jeff: They're doing this wheel of fortune thing --

Chris: Oh yeah?

Jeff: Yeah. So Yo La Tengo comes out on stage and they have this gigantic wheel, classic wheel of fortune like; the whole thing is divided into wedges and every wedge has something different written on it. So, one might say "All Songs That Begin With The Letter 'S'" and another might say "All Track Sevens" or "Songs From Movies." And one of the things on the wheel of fortune is "Classic Sitcoms." And, so anyway, an audience member is invited in stage to spin the wheel and whatever the wheel decides is what they do that night.

Chris: Oh, no way.

Jeff: Yeah, so, if you get "songs with the letter 'S'" then that's all they play for the first set that night. So Eric's at the show the other night and they spin the wheel and it comes up "classic sitcoms." Haha. So, so, the band comes out, and all of them have scripts from a Spongebob Squarepants episode.

Chris: Nice.

Jeff: And so then they literally do a script read of the entire half hour Spongebob episode. No music, nothing; just Spongebob. In the beginning it's funny, but, you know, after a little while people are sort of getting upset. In Chicago they did this and they did an episode of Seinfeld. They did the "Chinese Restaurant", appropriately enough, for you.

Chris: Haha

Jeff: See, and in a way that's a metaphor for what I'm talking about with their entire, you know, thing.

Chris: Right. Were you with us at the Yo La Tengo show all those years ago on campus?

Jeff: No. No, the first time I ever saw them was in 2006. That was the best rock show I ever saw.

Chris: Well, at the end of that one on campus that I went to, they did this hand jive encore and that was great.

Jeff: When i saw them, in 2006, they did two encores and the second was all requests. So that was nice. All right, that was your third song. What's next?

Chris: Uh-oh. We hit one.

Jeff: What is it?

Chris: "Into the Light," by jj.

Jeff: But that's not embarrassing. Again, this isn't -- that's got indie cred. It's Balearic and summery, whatever.

Chris: Yeah, but when i think about this now, this is probably a song that I won't listen to while I'm single. Hahaha.

Jeff: Right. I sorta get that.

Chris: Hahaha. I don't know why, but I couldn't put this on and clean the kitchen.

Jeff: You should put this on a playlist and call the playlist "Makeout Music for Making Out with Desperate Girls I Met on Match.com."

Chris: Hahaha

Jeff: You should make sure those girls never look at your computer, by the way.

Chris: Hahaha. Right. But it is just that sort of song that you have to have around in case a girl comes over that wants you to listen to that. Sort of make a quinoa dinner for them . . .

Jeff: Oh, god.

Chris: Hahahaha. And it's jj.

Jeff: Yeah, all right. So that was your fourth song. Fifth song, here we go.

Chris: Here we go. Richmond Fontaine.

Jeff: All right. What song is it?

Chris: "The Incident at Conklin Creek," which is basically --

Jeff: An Ambrose Bierce short story.

Chris: -- every single Richmond Fontaine song; they all have to do with someone who died prematurely . . . but had nothing going for them anyway.

Jeff: Hahaha. Yeah, that's fair.

Chris: So.

Jeff: Because alt country. Characters who work at a gas station in rural Nevada.

Chris: Or at a Casino.

Jeff: What album is this on?

Chris: The Fitzgerald. Which is by far their most depressing.

Jeff: Which is saying something for this band.

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: Do you listen to them a lot? You used to, I feel like.

Chris: I used to, yeah, for like five years.

Jeff: All right. You don't seem to have much to say about this one. I certainly don't. Or, anyway, all I would tell you about Richmond Fontaine is this:

Chris: K.

Jeff: I have three Richmond Fontaine albums, I think. I like them all fine.

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: To me they are the band that doesn't exist, in some ways. Like, I know you really liked them at one point --

Chris: Uh-huh.

Jeff: -- for me they are a band that is like a space-saver in my library. They are the beige hotel furniture in my iTunes.

Chris: You think so? I don't feel that way about them at all.

Jeff: Like, for me, if a Richmond Fontaine song comes on while I have the iPod set to shuffle, it is indistinguishable to me from any other Richmond Fontaine song and, after it is done playing, there would be no way for me to hum the melody or remember the tune.

Chris: Yeah, ok. That's definitely a thing.

Jeff: So --

Chris: They're quinoa.

Jeff: if you told those guys that you thought they were the quinoa of bands, i think they would take a busted beer bottle to your face.

Chris: Yeah, pretty much. It'd be bad.

Jeff: Chris. I am saying you are boring and so is the music you like.

Chris: Hahaha.

Jeff: God. What if Richmond Fontaine finds my blog? The other day, I posted a video of a song that I like and the artist saw it, I guess, and he "liked" my blogpost. And that was weird.

Chris: Oh, cool.

Jeff: Nooooo. No. Not cool. It was weird. I felt very weird about it. I mean, now I am worried that anything bad I ever said about a book I read or an album I bought or a movie I watched is going to maybe end up in front of the artist. Ugh.

Chris: Haha.

Jeff: I mean, I never thought anyone would see those posts. I mean, I know that's a crap excuse, but it's just that it's one thing if you are Charlie Sheen and you say something on Twitter or whatever, it is another if you're me.

Chris: Who was it?

Jeff: I mean, nobody big, really. But, you know, now I have to put that I said THAT on my blog, too. Ugh.

Chris: A band googling themselves. Whatever.

Jeff: Haha. Yeah. Yeah. All right. That was song five. You get six.

Chris: I do?

Jeff: Well, the metaphor we're working with here is Russian Roulette, right? And I guess I just imagine that being done with a six shooter, for some reason? I dunno, man, you get six.

Chris: Okay, here we go. "St. Augustine." Band of Horses.

Jeff: That's good; that's a great song. I love this song.

Chris: Yeah, it's good.

Jeff: I dunno. You got anything to say about this?

Chris: I dunno. Honestly, I only listen to one song on this album and it's the first one, "The First Song."

Jeff: Is "St. Augustine" about, do you think, the place in Florida? Or do you think it is about the actual St. Augustine? I mean, I don't recall the words to the song, so.

Chris: Well, I dunno; I haven't listened to the lyrics in a long time. But if it's about the catholic, then someone in the band feels guilty.

Jeff: Haha. Chiara and I were just talking the other night about St. Augustine. I was reading about how he is sort of the classic bad boy turns christian or whatever but he wasn't really some great big sinner or anything. How he became this ultimate ascetic person, but his whole thing before that was as this kind of normal guy - not even some hedonist. His mother, apparently, convinced him to become christian and to dump the love of his life, who was the girlfriend he had for like fourteen years or something. She had his baby. And he was completely in love with her. He wrote about it later. He called her like "the One" and shit like that.

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: And he never had any physical relationship after that. He never had any interest in women ever again. You know, and then he invents original sin. So, you know, charming.

Chris: Haha. Yeah.

Jeff: But, I mean, he probably makes the hundred most important humans of all time list, right? He was this great philosopher and writer. Could he have even been great if he didn't give that all up?

Chris: No. Because his Confessions is credited with being the first autobiography. And that's all about giving that all up.

Jeff: What's the famous prayer he says he used to make? "Grant me chastity and continence, but not yet"?

Chris: But not yet. Yeah. That's great.

Jeff: Yeah, I think so too. So, okay, Band of Horses. Clearly you've pulled the best roulette session of anyone. I'm convinced it is because you've simply not drunk purchased on iTunes enough.

Chris: Nah, that's in there.

Jeff: Or you've been erasing the shit music from your library or something.

Chris: Maybe I can find something for you . . .

Jeff: What would have been the most embarrassing thing to have had come up?

Chris: It probably would have been Style Council, actually. Maybe "My Ever Changing Moods."

Jeff: Is that really on there?

Chris: Yeah.

Jeff: So please, play us out with that, would you?

Chris: Yeah. (he finds it and presses play, turns up the volume and begins this shoulder shimmy that is out of this world)

Jeff: HA!

Chris: This is a Stacey band, all the way.

Jeff: Yup.

Chris: Can't you see her and Eric in the mirror, going like this: (he begins a more advanced shoulder pointing maneuver).

Jeff: Oh my god. I wish the audio recording could capture this.

Chris: Hahaha.

Jeff: I don't feel like this is the most embarrassing song.

Chris: It's kind of a guilty pleasure. I wouldn't play it for anyone else, except for you guys.

Jeff: Yeah, all right. I think we can shoulder-point our way out of this, then. On that note, Thank you, Chris.

Chris: Yeah. (continues his aggressive shoulder gyrating, shimmying, and pointing).