White rap has never been better
Sam didn’t write the intro and then it was just announced that Steve Albini died, and that feels like something we should comment on even though I feel very ill-equipped. I always make fun of how rocker journo types love to fish out the old selfie or interview they have with a musician within minutes of their death being announced and post it. But maybe writing a lukewarm intro about someone who’s music I never really listened to is even worse. It’s sad that he died, especially when he was relatively young. And, aside from some of the nasty stuff he said, it’s awesome how much of a hater he was. And there’s not that many alt celebrities who go by “Steve,” which is an abbreviation I love for some reason. I think Sam could have done this a lot better than me.
Here’s some stuff we’re listening to this week.
Zack Bia and Teezo Touchdown “DAMN!”
Sam: No idea who Zack Bia is and not about to start learning new things at this point, but as this is the most recent Teezo track and I just want to talk about Teezo today, here we are. “Social Cues” was such a big late-era pod track that the two are forever intertwined in my soul, so when friend of the pod Chayne Japal told me to buy a ticket and join him and his whole-ass family at the show for what would be his 10 year-old son’s first concert I was like, “yeah.” Guys, Teezo rocks. Yeah the songs are good and the looks are gooder, but this show contained the most remarkable live conceit I’ve ever seen - after the DJ hyped up the room with a few badly-sequenced tracks, they introduced… an interview with Teezo. Conducted by them. So after a few minutes of hard-hitting questions like “how do you do it,” the man himself emerged. Room went nuts. A few songs. Off stage for a costume change. Interview is back. This happened four or five times. Energy would be cresting and Teezo would just walk off stage and this incredibly straight-faced, boring interview with a fake VHS filter over it would play. On the way home I found out the DJ / interviewer is a mid-tier influencer that I have never heard of, but that’s not really surprising. Of course watching someone experience their first show was the real highlight, especially when a cool security guy brought him up to sit right on the barricade and Teezo grab him and they sang an entire verse of “Impossible” to each other. But this interview was a close second. There was even a credit roll at the end listing all his managers.
Jos: Sam is saying this “Social Cues” song is a late-era pod song, but I’ve never heard it in my life? Was I really that bad at listening? I think the answer is yes. I love the idea of doing little awkward pod interview breaks in between songs at a concert. This song sucks in the same way that something I’m going to post in here is good. It’s definitely like “VH1’s attempt at an indie show” kind of music. But I just saw a video of Chayne’s kid shaking hands with this Teezo fella, and it’s very adorable. So thanks for showing me whoever this is for the first time, Sam.
Macklemore “Hind’s Hall”
Sam: Being from Toronto there is some technically bigger rap news happening across town, but there is also an encampment at U of T that is eliciting the same deranged discourse as its American counterparts, a Prime Minister giving speeches in defence of Zionism, a deeply complicit corporate media ecosystem, and here comes fucking Macklemore. There is nothing I can say that hasn’t been said on Twitter in the last few days since this dropped, but being that Josiah and I talk both on Gchat and here about how awful it would if we were still trying to do the pod through this conflict when the only thing anyone should really be saying is exactly this, I just genuinely can’t believe it’s Macklemore out here putting in the work to learn and grow in public and then using his brazenly centrist credentials to put out a song like this. It’s cool. I like the song. And we are now free to admit that “Thrift Shop” genuinely bangs.
Jos: Man I was going to put this song in here too. It’s so awesome, and so much better than Drake saying like, “You say I’m a pedophile, well I say your gay!” I think Macklemore has the invincibility that comes with having a lifetime of being cringe, like no one really thought he was cool so now he’s untouchably cool. I tried explaining this to a coworker but I could tell halfway through the convo with him that he’s always liked Macklemore. Fair enough, I was just late to the game. Have you seen his Adidas golf collab? What an awesome guy. White rap has never been better.
Bodysync “Rock It”
Jos: See this kinda feels hand-in-hand with the Teezo thing Sam shared earlier, in that it feels like something you’d see late at night on Much where you can’t tell if it’s a commercial or a music video. In a good way. Bodysync is Sam’s friend Ryan Hemsworth and Giraffage, and they’ve already made a full LP, with their second one coming next month. According to a press release, their influences are “Venga Boys, Daft Punk and Mad Magazine.” Mad Magazine mentioned, gotta include.
Sam: I really appreciate that last week Josiah didn’t want to be mean about Creeper because he thought they were my friends and not a (I think pretty popular?) British band. Calling Ryan Hemsworth my friend is less of a stretch in that he lives in the same province as me and one time after we interviewed him for a TV show he and friend of the pod / series director Justin Taylor met up so their same-age kids could hang out, which I thought was very cool and was jealous of. As someone who had a non-ironic Venga Boys poster up in their high school bedroom alongside the Army of Darkness and Blink ones, hearing that very “Venga Bus” synth pop in as “sending me.” I am sent! This is so sick.
Supercrush “Lost My Head”
Jos: This one goes out to hardcore. I’m never not thinking about Go It Alone’s “Our Mistakes,” so you know I gotta hand it to Mark Palm for another Supercrush summer strummer. I guess they’re doing a compilation of Seattle underground bands, which is a cute throwback idea for 2024, and also the Stereogum comments are making me laugh because they’re surprised that there’s a band called Shook Ones. C’mon guys, I’m a poseur but that’s a bit too far. This is a great Supercrush song. As usual it sounds a little bit like this and a little bit like this, but the guitars are crunchy and the Rentals-esque synths are delivering big time. The music video is cool, if a little literal, but it’s especially the noodles that are delivering all over the place here. Shout out hardcore.
Sam: Sometimes Josiah doesn’t update the song links so when I first scrolled down this still had “PorterRobinson” in the URL and I thought, dude, I have nothing left to say about this man. I don’t have much else to say about Supercrush, either, but this rocks and makes me happy I didn’t put in the Superchunk song I was considering. That bridge is something else! The Rentals were so good.
Millaze “Override” (and It’s a Beautiful Day in the Gulch interview)
Jos: I was thinking of including the new Washed Out video that is all AI because everyone was freaking out about it (my thoughts: Washed Out just sucks a lot, is the problem), but instead I’d rather focus my energies on things that occupy a similarly uncanny but entirely human-made vibe. If you don’t know Millaze, she’s soooo cool. Her music sounds like someone trying to remember a Taylor Swift song fresh after waking up from a coma in the middle of a music conservatory. Like there are simple melodies in there, but also so much going on, it’s so overwritten but also, ahem, “Unwritten.” It’s what I wish AI music sounded like. I was so thrilled to learn that she was from Bloomington, and when I asked Miles and Alex about it they told me she was appearing on It’s a Beautiful Day in the Gulch. And that episode, which I’ve already heard, is officially out today! It’s a warm and human conversation about music, trauma, and, as Alex so sweetly puts it, fans who “came to mock but stayed to rock.” Check it here!
Sam: I'm going to see Six tonight (your tonight, not my tonight) with my family, which I expect will sound exactly like this. When did every musical start sounding like this? I haven’t seen Dear Evan Hansen or Spring Awakening but I get the impression this is their whole vibe. To be clear, I love it, I just haven’t seen those musicals because I would love them too much and probably cry and my mom would be embarrassed. I just became a crier at some point. Saw Rent last summer, cried (Angel’s funeral). Saw Hamilton, cried (Eliza’s gasp). Millaze didn’t make me cry but I’m sure if I was in a dark room in public knowing that it would be kind of weird I wouldn’t be able to help myself.
