Everyone’s going to be mad at me
It’s Green May week two! And we’re talking about “Father of All….” Guess what comes after that ellipses? It’s naughty! We’re also joined by rocker and cultural critic Zachary Lipez, who offers some wonderful context on cringe, relevance, generational divides and, of course, Green Day.
Listen to the new ‘sode of 155 here.
Here’s some other stuff we’re thinking about right now:
Miami “Hey Y’all We’re Miami”
Sam: Last week as the temperature hovered just above freezing and Toronto continued its devolution into a gray wasteland of seemingly endless hail and rain, I had the immense spiritual pleasure of leaving to visit Miami for about 36 hours. We were traveling light and had to hire a local shooter who was very nice and cool and mentioned having just picked up The Party Freaks by long-forgotten local funk troupe, Miami. From the cover alone, you already know this is going to be quite sick, and it became the ideal soundtrack to barely two full days of ripping around South Beach (when not listening to “In the Air Tonight” and doing the Miami Vice thing) and driving to and from the airport. I wish I lived in a city where this was reasonable music to make and enjoy.
Jos: This is sick as hell. And I love that this YouTube upload includes an Obi strip on the JPEG. Sam’s really in his Obi strip era. Love that for him (<--- using zeitgeisty parlance). Maybe we will end up becoming a classic music pod one day, if we don’t die this week. I watched the Michael Mann Miami Vice last weekend and kinda hated it. James Wilt told me to watch it because I only recently saw Heat. But he didn’t give me the right context that it’s basically The Room with Colin Farrell dressed as that streamer guy Hasan. So I was expecting it to be good, not bad good. And then I saw there’s an Uproxx article about how that movie is being reappraised. But you shouldn’t have to read an Uproxx article to enjoy a bad good movie.
Warren Zevon “Hit Somebody! (The Hockey Song)
Sam: With all the hullabaloo around the recent Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductions, I have been going beyond my usual stable of Warren Zevon albums (the first two) to explore the full career of someone who has made exactly two albums that I probably listen to… weekly? I love those albums. But everything after is so inconsistent that I’ve never really bothered. Turns out David Letterman sings on this song so I gave it a spin and… yeah the first two albums are the good ones. Still, pretty cool! The last Letterman appearance from Zevon is one of the most affecting pieces of television I’ve ever seen and I love that they were such nice friends and I’m glad they have this together.
Jos: Is that why everyone’s talking about Warren Zevon lately? Because of the Rock Hall of Fame? It’s a name I keep seeing pop up. John Cullen even mentioned it last week on the pod. I’m not sure I’ve ever really listened, but I’m gathering he’s like a classic rock Gecs, a replacement for when ppl were name-dropping Searching for Sugarman — a guy you namedrop because you all listened to the same episode of a music podcast and have the same slightly obscure knowledge. But I love a weirdo with a large, mostly bad catalog. This might be the first Warren Zevon song I’ve heard. It sucks. Sounds like a National Film Board cartoon I must’ve seen when I had a stomach ache as a child.
Jury Duty
Jos: I’ve seen every golden era Pauly Shore movie at least twice, but I can’t really remember Jury Duty. I don’t think it was very good, but I was still pissed off when I saw there was a new show with the same name. I was also pissed off when I watched the trailer and it looked like the final Michael Schur-esque step in the normiefication of whatever genre The Rehearsal and Paul T. Goldman are. But having binged the entire season, I can now say that Jury Duty is a damn treat. It’s like if Punk’d was all about kindness. So yeah, it is normie as hell, but I gotta admit something’s good when it’s good. And James Marsden rarely misses.
Sam: Okay so they made The Joe Schmo Show but with the unexpected warmhearted vibes of Bad Trip?? And it’s on something called “freevee???” I just messaged Josiah to ask how to watch this. I even watched the whole trailer. Justice for Joe Schmo.
MTV’s The Exhibit
Jos: I’m not sure why I’m recommending a bunch of TV shows during the writer’s strike, is that even allowed? (TBH I would love to scab an opening monologue for one of the current talk shows. I will donate my fee to charity.) Anyway, this MTV reality show called The Exhibit should not work nearly as well as it does. They took Project Runway and The Great British Bake Off, made it about contemporary art, and added a classic MTV host who seems like he’d be equally at home hosting one of those horny bus dating shows from 2003. There are painters, people who make sculptures out of garbage, and awful video installations. And no one is sent home, instead they’re given the full run to build a body of work. And one of the guest judges is Kenny Schachter, a man who wears ill-fitting business casual on top, tucked into different baggy Adidas tracky bottoms on every episode. He’s my new celeb crush, and he followed me back on Twitter. Kenny you rule!
Sam: It’s so cool that Sheila Nevins went from running HBO docs for almost 40 years to running MTV’s doc division. They’ve acquired some amazing movies and commissioned a bunch of cool shit and I have no idea if this falls under her purview (probably not) but it feels like a reflection of how MTV is using its legacy status to do some really interesting thing! I think that’s really neat!
MGK: Mainstream Sellout Live from Cleveland
Jos: We’re definitely at peak burnout, where all of our projects and upcoming plans have culminated in an endless amount of work. Every day is a series of checks and balances, little tasks that need to get done so that we release multiple hours of us talking about pop-punk every week. And I know Sam’s mad at me about it. But he’s going to be even more mad at me when he’s hungover, exhausted and drained, and he’s forced to go to an MGK concert film because I thought it’d be funny. Everyone’s going to be mad at me. But if you live in Montreal and want to come, we’ll be at Quartier du Latin watching this shit. Get your tix now via Cineplex.
Sam: It is one night only. How could I not.
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The thing about making this into our horrible, draining art practice is that we are definitely dropping iconic content multiple times a week. And the “Edging” words series is the kind of shit that we will be remembered for forever.