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In this engaging podcast, a dad and his two sons explore their personal interests while rating a variety of alcoholic beverages. They dive into discussions about nerd and geek culture, travel experiences, and an array of intriguing topics that pique their curiosity. Join them for a fun and lighthearted conversation filled with laughter, insights, and, of course, plenty of drink reviews!
Hey, team. Welcome back to another episode of the three hamster boys podcast. Yeah. It is a beautiful evening. We've got some wonderful drinks and the topic for this episode is music.
Alexander:I feel like we've had music or at least I've had music on the brain for a little bit. I just came back from an EDM festival in Orlando, Florida. And then Nick and I went to a baby metal show So good. In DC. So really music, I was like, oh, I wanna talk about music.
Alexander:And so that's kind of where we headed It's
Nick:on the brain.
Alexander:Yeah. For the direction of this episode.
Jeff:Although it's on the brain, you picked a topic that is surprising for your generation.
Alexander:Interesting. It's so interesting that you say that. Why why do you why do you say that?
Jeff:Because I grew up with albums. Okay. You know, I grew up having to go to the store and pick out the album. Although I will tell you that that's not how I got my albums.
Alexander:Stealing them?
Jeff:No. So we haven't introduced ourselves. What?
Alexander:Oh. Sure. I'm Alexander. To the left is my father, Jeff.
Jeff:Jeff dad.
Alexander:And to the right is my brother, Nick.
Nick:Hello. We are now introduced.
Alexander:Yeah. And the the topic for today's episode is a little bit further than music. We're talking about, I think, our top three or at least three of influential albums in our lives. And I I think we we we all have relatively similar music taste, but it also diverges in in very kind of unique and interesting ways. And I wanna kinda touch on that and kinda see some of those touch points as to where did our music kind of evolve and change into being a little different.
Jeff:But before before
Nick:we get into the topics of whatever, alcohol. We are back with liquors. We had a incredible little stop last week or last time where, we enjoyed the the Bold Mariner.
Jeff:Yeah. Bold Mariner.
Nick:Yeah. Which was very, very good.
Jeff:Very good.
Alexander:You could you could say it again. We definitely very much enjoyed those beers.
Nick:But we're back with Chesapeake Bay Distillery. As we said previously, our incredible family friend picked up a few bottles. We're just taking a tour of a little bit of what they offer. Last time from Chesapeake Bay Distillery we had the ghost pepper infused tequila.
Jeff:Which was fantastic. Was
Nick:really good. Fun and interesting. And so we are back to back with ghost pepper infused vodka now.
Jeff:Which should be interesting.
Nick:Which should be interesting. I don't I will say when you were
Alexander:pouring it, it didn't really like smell like ghost peppers. Yeah. I think the other one we could you could like smell it a little bit. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. But but I think that might be also a a factor of the tequila. The tequila just, I think, goes with that smell.
Nick:I think so as well.
Jeff:I think I think it's a complimentary as well, where the vodka is a very strong smell to begin with.
Nick:It's hard to overpower vodka.
Alexander:Yeah. At least in the smell department. I feel like vodka goes with everything Yeah. Because it's like a it's a base. It's a neutral.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Nick:Yeah. But anyway, like usual, we start with a more neutral drink to actually just taste the spirit itself. This one is not vodka on the rocks, unfortunately. Maybe
Alexander:in What do mean, unfortunately?
Nick:But we are drinking just a lovely dry martini. We have It's Just Vodka and Vermouth.
Jeff:Dry Vermouth. Yep.
Nick:Yeah. Shaken, not stirred.
Alexander:Yeah. It's true. Yeah. It was shaken. Well, great.
Alexander:Not much more to say about this.
Jeff:Just Tink. Tink.
Nick:And got to have it in the martini glasses.
Jeff:Oh. So you can definitely taste the ghost peppers. I yeah. Because you you think that that's the alcohol burn, but that's really the ghost pepper burn.
Nick:Oh, he he took a small sip.
Jeff:And the the dry vermouth adds a sweetness to
Nick:it. It's true.
Jeff:Which I really like.
Nick:It's it's very similar to the tequila like last time where I feel like I can feel it more than actually taste it right now.
Alexander:Mhmm.
Nick:It still has that ever present, like slight burning on your throat Yeah. Which I think is already vodka.
Jeff:So Actually, know, my throat's not burning at all. It's only the top of my mouth that I get a little
Nick:bit of burning.
Alexander:I feel like I'm having
Nick:so different sensations We're having three different moments.
Jeff:Yeah. So for me, what I would love to see here is a twist of a lemon or lime in it just to get a little bit of citrus taste to it.
Nick:So it was recommending we were talking about this while I was mixing it. It's always recommended for an orange. Like orange bitters. Yeah. Specifically for the one that I was looking at.
Alexander:We surprisingly don't have orange bitters.
Jeff:No, do.
Alexander:Oh, no. Oh, no.
Jeff:We do?
Alexander:We thought we just had normal bitters and chocolate bitters.
Nick:We have chocolate bitters.
Jeff:Chocolate bitters, but the other oh, maybe
Alexander:We might not.
Jeff:We may might not. In any any
Nick:case, as you can see, every episode behind us, we're growing a collection of a bar. We're basically starting from zero and just building up from there so that's just basically the resources we're working with looking for a lot of replacements and supplements But honestly, it seems pretty solid. I like the feel.
Jeff:I do. I like it a lot. And this is the perfect starter to a dinner. I can see drinking this and then go and sit down for your appetizer and whatever.
Nick:I was about to say, I think I would love it with an appetizer. Like, I think calamari with, like, a A marinara sauce.
Alexander:Yep. Team, we just ate, and I'm hungry again. We do this every time. Every time.
Nick:Feel like eventually we need to have an episode where we just go through all of the drinks we've had. Yeah. Not drink them again, but just talk about them and then our our perfect, like, food pairing
Jeff:with No.
Alexander:I think we gotta have an episode where we have drinks and we have food.
Nick:We have a little mukbang on Okay.
Jeff:It'll be so loud us chewing. Anyways anyways,
Alexander:back to our topic. Yeah. So as we were mentioning before, the topic for today is we're talking about impactful or influential albums in our life. Dad, you were you were going off here talking about how you think the the younger generation and like, albums might not necessarily be the way that they think of music.
Jeff:When when you're streaming, you're I don't think you're thinking I'm streaming one album. Mhmm. You know, usually, I'm streaming a collection of songs or I'm looking at brand new songs or whatever. I mean, I like looking at a single album, but if I'm if I'm listening to a group, I wanna hear their greatest hits or ACDC top 100. Yeah.
Jeff:You know? And or if I'm listening to the ACDC station, then it's all these other groups that are involved with it. But what I was saying is the reason why I think this is generational is because, I got my first album when I was 11 years old. And how I got it was I sent a penny to Columbia Records and was able to pick 14 albums out of that. And the only requirement was in that is that in the next three years, you had to buy at least eight albums at full price.
Jeff:And so every month, you would get a catalog of that month's offering of albums. And there would be a highlighted album or whatever. And it wasn't the whole collection of albums. It was a limited selection of albums. So there may be times when you said, I don't see anything here that's something I want.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:But it it exposed you to a full range of different it was everything from classical to country to in this in this way, seventies rock and and disco and all that. So you saw a whole collection. And then they would have older albums in there too. And so basically, the rule was you had to buy full price albums, but they also had half price albums in there. And so me and my brother Steve, who both had a paper route at that time, were using that money to just build up our album collection.
Jeff:And if we were going anywhere, we would save up our money and we would go to a record store. So in Charlottesville, there was a couple of really good ones. One place was called Back Alley Disc, which was by the university. And this one had a lot of import albums and a different collection. It definitely wasn't a popular album place.
Jeff:It was kind of where the university music students went and and it was like that. So Gotcha. But but that idea of a record store, when's the last time you guys went into a record store?
Nick:This summer.
Alexander:It's been a little bit for me.
Jeff:This summer? Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. So what what I will say is and I'll I'll gently push back against this. I I think surprisingly we're seeing a resurgence
Jeff:Yep. Of
Nick:Vinyls. Vinyls
Alexander:coming back. And I say that as two different friend groups of mine have vinyl players, have record players in their homes. And every time I go and I hang out with them, I'm like, do I want a record player? I think I kinda do.
Jeff:So there is a record player downstairs?
Nick:We Wow. We can discuss this later.
Jeff:But but yeah. No. I think the the the comeback of Vinyl is something that I love seeing because there's nothing like an album playing. Yeah. You know?
Jeff:I was in the age when eight tracks came in
Nick:Mhmm.
Jeff:As a convenience, but it never had the good sound. Mhmm. Even cassettes didn't have the good sound. CDs, on the other hand, are really, really good.
Alexander:You gotta, like, turn the cassettes back. Yeah.
Nick:But no, I I was in a record store, for camp. Oh, okay. Because I bought just a little side tangent. I bought Flower Boy, by Tyler, the Creator. I bought a huge variety of albums.
Nick:I I have built up a weird CD collection because at camp we're not allowed to have access to the Internet, but we do have access to CD players. So I bring just a collection of music for the campers just to get away and just hang out in the space. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. I I know you do that, I think that's great because, mean, I think that it it allows you the ability to expose them to something probably they may or may not listen to.
Nick:Yeah. Most of the time, it's it's just like a comfort music
Jeff:for some
Nick:of them. Like, I'm like, hey. I have this variety, and they're like
Jeff:It's it's always crazy because they'll be like, hey. I've got that Queen album.
Alexander:Yeah. Well, you know, normally, it's a comfort. I was playing Sounds of the Sea, which is again, it's just like ambient sounds of the ocean. And some of my kids hated that. I learned which kids are scared of whales immediately.
Alexander:But I I think you do make some good points in the fact that streaming makes it a little like, makes it very easy to listen to songs independently. Yeah. And I think a lot of, like, time and I'll talk about this a little bit later, but, like, I used to get a lot of my music from TikTok surprisingly, where people just be like, hey, I found this one song that sounds really good. And I'd be like, well, I think that song sounds really good too. I'm gonna add this to my playlist.
Alexander:And, like, not really going into more depth of, like, that artist. I'm just listening to that one song because I like that one song Yeah. And not really going into albums. But I I think there have been some some big albums. And I think with streaming, it also makes it more intentional if you're listening to an album because then you're like, I am specifically going to sit down and listen to this album rather than just like one offs that I I'm seeing.
Jeff:Yeah. I think that you do a disservice to a band if you're just listening to their pop song. You know? Because I think that that we'll ding that glass. I think that, if you really wanna if you really wanna see if you like the band, it's always the b side.
Jeff:What is what else do they play in besides the popular song?
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. But I think we are we're talking so much about music. We like music. Yeah.
Nick:We could spend hours discussing.
Alexander:We haven't even we're talking about, like, the high cons. We haven't even talked about albums here. So let's go ahead. And, dad, I'll have you you kick us off here, with album number one. They don't necessarily need to be in any order, just kind of an album that you wanna start by talking.
Jeff:So mine will be in order because it's a progression and a growth of my music. Okay. So the very first album I got was by ELO, Out of the Blue. It was a two record album. It was considered an out of the box rock album because it had a lot of orchestra.
Jeff:It was two albums which, you know, two album sets were just not pop were not common at that time Yeah. Unless you were doing greatest hits or whatever. And it also had a storyline. So the songs in there carried a storyline through all the songs. Mhmm.
Jeff:And it was and you would get songs that would be five, six minutes long, and half of it would be music. Just music.
Nick:It would just be Just instrumental.
Jeff:Just instrumental on it. So and it was for me, it was the first time where I was exposed to a very complex music. Growing up, my dad listened to Elvis, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Cash, kind of that level of music. My mother would get 40 fives, which is the small single song albums.
Nick:Nice.
Jeff:And she would get those, and those would be all the pop songs. So my mom listened to pop songs. My dad listened to that. So me getting ELO was outside of all of their comfort zone because they had not ever heard of this band. And it was something that Steve and I when I got the album and Steve and I went down this road of buying new albums and trying new music.
Jeff:So it was the first step of my music journey. Wow.
Alexander:Very fun. Do you still listen to ELO or listen to the album? Obviously, I don't think you still have, like, the the physical copy
Jeff:I do have the physical copy.
Alexander:To the physical copy.
Jeff:I'm not listening to the physical copy. But this is what it did. Whenever we got the Columbia record thing, we wanted to buy every ELO album. So this is how Steve's thinking is is that you buy all of them. Yeah.
Jeff:And there was, like, 11 albums.
Nick:Golly. Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:And so we would just do they'd be half price, whatever, so we'd just buy it. So we end up having all but, like, one or two of the albums that they they made. Wow. So that was part of the journey that we did.
Nick:For sure.
Alexander:I think it's a really interesting program that you're talking about earlier to give a penny for 14 albums and later you just need to buy eight of them full price. It's a good way of like getting people to like get into music, I I think. And back when pennies actually meant anything.
Jeff:The the the it wasn't a value of a penny. They just had to have some value to get you started. Mhmm. But you were signing really a three year contract to buy these full price albums.
Alexander:Yeah.
Jeff:Which were probably a little bit more than you could that you would have to pay in a record store.
Alexander:Right. Oh, okay. So it's a little more expensive.
Nick:Yeah. Okay. Okay. Makes sense.
Jeff:But they would they would do record of the month. Mhmm.
Nick:Yeah. And they'd also send you catalogs and like Yeah. It's like a weird subscription model that they
Jeff:It is a subscription model. Exactly.
Nick:Yeah. Pretty cool.
Alexander:Interesting. I I love that. Cool. I will go next.
Nick:But Okay.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hey. Look.
Alexander:Changing it up. Yeah. Yeah. We we can't always do the same thing every time. Plus, I really wanna talk.
Alexander:Send it. We're gonna talk. I was about to say that there isn't any particular order, but I think we're also going in a particular order with my albums as well. This album that I think was very impactful for my music taste and the direction of the music that I was listening to and am listening to is Denzel Curry's twenty eighteen Taboo. It is a dark rap album that is very thematic in many ways.
Alexander:But also for me, it kind of opened me up to listening to different kinds of rap and music at the time. I was listening to a lot of Christian contemporary music, a lot of Christian metal, and then also, like, a lot of just random white rappers like Logic, Eminem, G Eazy, that sort of stuff. And I think Denzel Curry's taboo album was not only very thematic, so it felt like the album itself had a had a direction, but it was also just so good. There's so many bangers, on the album itself, and so many features as well.
Jeff:And then when did he sing for League of Legends?
Alexander:Did why? He he
Nick:did he for Arcane, he did do Diamonds and Dystopias.
Alexander:Yeah. Diamonds and Dystopias. Yeah. Yeah. Because that's
Jeff:It always comes back to League of Legends.
Alexander:I I guess so. Not not necessarily. We've been exposed. I don't think we need But I like it also like he's a very popular artist. Yeah.
Alexander:So it kind of makes sense that League of Legends would would have So
Nick:popular that there might be another album of his to show up
Alexander:later in this episode. But, again, like, I think it it was a good kinda eye opening and oh my gosh. Some of like the the songs just kinda like hit hard. Like they are I don't know. I feel like with some of the other rap that I was listening to like Jeezy and Logic, it was kinda like more party rap and kinda just like more poppy.
Alexander:And I think Denzel Curry kind of opened a world of like, you can scream and rap at the same time. Like, you can you can be yelling. You can be like aggressive with it.
Jeff:Like corn.
Alexander:Yeah. Like like, I guess, like corn. I don't know if I agree with that. Corn. And then also, it kinda opened Maya's up to some other artists.
Alexander:JID is a big feature on this. JPEG Mafia, Zillakami, and even I I was looking up, even Billie Eilish has a feature in this album as well Yeah. Which I didn't even realize.
Nick:Yeah. It's like it came out 2017 where like Billie Eilish was just making a name.
Alexander:Right. Yeah. Yeah. Even before then actually. Yeah.
Alexander:So I I think the the album is just kind of it it impacted the way that I was listening to music. It changed, like, what I was listening to, and I started going down this path of, what is who's who's JID? What does this sound like? And I have, again, I have a physical copy. I have a CD of the album and I feel like I have worn down that CD.
Alexander:I know it's not how that works, but I've played the album so many times in my car just like driving from one place or another just constantly over
Jeff:and again. That that's one of the things that from an album, it has to be timeless, I think. When you say favorite album, it has to be timeless. You have to be able to go back to it.
Alexander:Yeah. And I I mean, I don't necessarily think for like this list, I was going for more of like impactful moments in my life. Yeah. That being said, this album is timeless. Like, I I still think that there are a lot of great things to pull from it or just like headbangers to pull from Sumo, Super Saiyan Man.
Alexander:Like, there's so many great songs on this album, Black Metal Terrace. Like, it's just it's just great.
Nick:It's true.
Jeff:Yeah. We better give you some time.
Nick:Yeah. You guys are We had we had a fun little long intro. I shouldn't talk too long. My first album is basically more of a nostalgia, but also just like a sort of beginnings like both of yours. It came out entered my space in like 2012, '20 '11.
Nick:And it is Save Rock and Roll by the Fallout Boys, which is very impactful for me because honestly it defined a lot of the music I listened to in middle school and high school. I bought the whole album, which I think is important for me to say for for like a lot of these conversations. I bought the whole album on iTunes, downloaded it on my little iPod, and I would listen to it, like, basically all the time I I could. I think it is it has so many extremely potent songs. For me, it's their best album.
Nick:I love it so much. They also experimented a lot with the people. They also had a narrative collection to each other. Each track had some sort of connection with each other.
Nick:Yep. And I think, yeah, they just had interesting features when they did. Like they had Big Sean for the Mighty Fall, which was their their sort of capstone song at the end. And yeah, it just mean it meant a lot to me when I was growing up and then every now and then I just really like to revisit it. Yeah. Just like there's so many songs that I listen to and I'm just I it's a comfort to me.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:Just because it it was a making because like like Alexander, most of the music I was listening to was just Christian music, or something really like very tame or mellow. Like there was some exceptions that you introduced us to early on, like the Clash and Eminem. But Yeah.
Jeff:So so yeah. So my brother is definitely the music person out of out of the the brothers here. But I wanted to expose you guys to as much music as I could, but I also wanted to limit the bad language.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:You know, because the music I was listening to, whether it was heavy metal or rap or or punk, just had a lot of bad language. And so the only thing that we really could give you to to listen to is Christian. And the good thing about contemporary Christian is that there are rappers. There are heavy metal bands.
Nick:It's true.
Alexander:There are
Nick:There there is at least a a variety of genres that you can at least get into.
Jeff:And all all we really wanted you to do is listen to it and then make your own decision as you went forward.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. And I think in that regard too, like, I was very close to putting an NF album on this. I was very close to putting, Until We Have Faces by Red, on this list as well. Like, I I do think that that has kinda shaped my my music trajectory as well.
Nick:I mean, there's a few thousand foot crutch albums I could throw in there Yeah. That I
Jeff:Yeah. I I think that I know that my brother was worried that you guys were gonna be stuck in the Christian music stream. And I I I told him, said, no. This is just to get them started. We want them listening to music early on in a a wide variety.
Jeff:And whether you were listening to reggae ska or regular reggae or heavy metal or whatever, we wanted you guys to hear everything because there was still classical music playing. You guys weren't really keen on the classical music. It usually just puts you to sleep.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Well, Alexander's asleep. You never saw I don't sleep. But, anyways but yeah. So I I think that I think that that music is can be so essential to your imagination and your creativity that we just wanted it to be part of it.
Nick:Yeah. I think music is just another art form that can be expressed in a huge variety of ways. And, I think that you can be affected and moved by music of any genre. And I think that's part of the impact that it has.
Jeff:Well, I also think that if you're looking at media Yeah. I think media is much more impactful when there is great music behind it. If you're watching anime or a movie or a cartoon
Nick:For sure. I think it music, it either blends and creates the experience 10 times more effectively or it just almost creates a whole narrative on its own or carries an entire moment just from
Alexander:the music.
Jeff:And I think that because of that, when there is no music, when there's silence,
Nick:it becomes even more poignant. We can discuss, sound
Alexander:feel like this is another concept.
Nick:We can discuss, like, sound theory music idea A lot. A lot.
Alexander:Although I feel like I'm gonna make some people cringe in the in the the video here. I definitely there are several games where I will just turn off the game music Oh. Yep, and play my own. And I feel really bad about that because there are people that worked really hard on that, but sometimes I just want a head bang.
Jeff:Yeah. Well, I think we're done with the first album and the first drink. I think we're all empty.
Nick:Finished the drinks. Finished our topic or our first choices.
Alexander:Alright. On to the next drink and the next album. We'll see you in a second.
Jeff:Alright.
Alexander:Welcome back. We've just had our first intermission and we've got some new drinks in front of us. Nick, what are we drinking?
Nick:This is the Anarchist Pop Shop. Fun name. It's a fun name. It is vodka, cherry liqueur, and Benedictine with soda water filled up.
Jeff:Sounds good. With ghost peppers infused.
Nick:Yeah. With with
Alexander:our with our lovely vodka. I'm interested to see how the ghost peppers come out here because I feel like I wasn't really tasting it. I feel like I was feeling it in the back of my throat, but I'd like to get a little bit more of that.
Nick:I feel like we might just feel it. Yeah.
Jeff:Plus with the cherry and the Benedictine.
Nick:Another note, this was made and it is a considered a bougie black cherry white claw.
Alexander:Alright. I've had a couple of those.
Jeff:It is like a soda. Dude, this is just juice.
Nick:That's very, very good. Oh my gosh.
Jeff:So if you've never had Benedictine, it's basically an aromatic liqueur, an herbal liqueur.
Nick:I'd never had it.
Jeff:I've only had a couple times.
Alexander:I don't think I've had it before.
Jeff:But it's basically if you get a gin with aromatics, it's kinda like that, but it's just the floral liqueur.
Alexander:Mhmm. Very solid. What I will say is I think the problem with this drink, not that it's, like, necessarily a bad thing, but I don't even taste the burn anymore. Like, I think there's faintness near the end as like a final note, but I don't even taste that anymore.
Jeff:I can't even taste the vodka.
Alexander:Yeah. This is just juice. Like, this is a good thing to go out and drink and have fun with.
Nick:It isn't just juice, though.
Jeff:No. No. But but the Benedictine is is giving you that
Nick:It might be a little too overpowering.
Jeff:Yeah. I think it's the cream soda is not what I'm thinking about, but it's giving that sense of or like a root beer.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. You know, that those those spices and whatever. And then even the cherry's not even that dominant in it.
Alexander:I choose the cherry
Nick:pretty well. The cherry is, like, pretty
Jeff:I don't know. I I I'm really heavy into the airbag.
Nick:You like the cherry, though. Yeah.
Alexander:Wow. So good job on this one. I feel like this one is dangerous.
Nick:It doesn't highlight the vodka?
Alexander:No. But like But it's a good drink.
Nick:But like it's just a vodka cocktail.
Alexander:Oh, yeah. That's also true. Alright. Nick, why don't you kick us off here?
Nick:Of course. You brought up Denzel Curry. I did bring up Denzel Curry. I also am throwing my stake into, praising Denzel Curry and his album variety as well as musical prowess This one is a more recent release though. It is his Unlocked album Which I thought was fantastic.
Nick:It was so incredible. Not for the quality of each song, but for the variety and just out there feel that it invited. It was entirely experimental. Along with it came a video that every single song had a music video attached to it that had a different art style.
Alexander:I think you might enjoy this actually.
Jeff:That's what I'm thinking about that. I might need to look this up. Yeah.
Nick:We should watch it. It it
Alexander:is a relatively short album slash project. I believe there are eight songs on the the entire thing.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:So it's relatively short, but
Nick:it is so good. Every song is is has a very weird take on it. And, like I said, every it goes from, like, more classical animation to claymation, stop motion. They dabble into more anime looking art styles and shooting and angles.
Jeff:They
Alexander:they make some references to Scooby Doo. Yeah.
Jeff:So, obviously, he brought in some friends that he had and some really artistic people to to make this album.
Alexander:Well, yeah. I'm not not necessarily sure about who did, like, all of the art and the illustration. I do know this is a collaboration project between Denzel Curry and Kenny Beats specifically.
Nick:Yeah.
Alexander:But, man, it It's it's I was floored by
Nick:it when I when I heard it. And then even more impressed when I saw the video itself. Yeah. I think Denzel Curry is just an artist because I didn't want to praise him too much on yours because I knew I was gonna talk about him anyway. Yeah.
Nick:But he feels like he's always trying to break new ground, which is just so refreshing to feel from an artist over and over again. I would say a lot of artists, their own flow and contribution to art is usually just something they stick by. But it feels like Denzel Curry is just digging around at new places over and over again, which always keeps it exciting whenever you you hear that he's working on a new project.
Alexander:Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. I mean, I think that the difficulty is is that, especially for musicians, what I see is that it's hard to repeat that success with their music unless they're not looking for that success. Right? I I mean, I think okay. So I'll give you a a group.
Alexander:Mhmm.
Jeff:You know their one song.
Alexander:Yep. Mhmm.
Jeff:They're still playing together now.
Nick:Of course.
Jeff:Forty years later
Alexander:I was about
Nick:to say how long has that been?
Jeff:Eighty five is when that came out.
Nick:That's tough. Now
Jeff:how many times do you think they've played that, you
Nick:know single concert, every single tour, every single time they're invited to interview. Anything. Yeah. They have probably played it.
Jeff:Now, to give you another example, Dave Matthews, who lives right down the street from us
Nick:That's true.
Jeff:Yeah. He does not follow any script for his concert. Every concert is different.
Alexander:Which is, I think, could be a good thing and can also be a bad thing as Right.
Jeff:But but it's the exact opposite. Right. Where he doesn't wanna repeat songs. He you know, if if it's on his album, why should he play it live?
Alexander:So if yeah. I mean, we're we're getting into some interesting territory here. I Yeah. I think the the live experience is so different.
Nick:Yep.
Alexander:And sometimes, I mean, sometimes you're sitting there and you're like, I just want them to play that one song. Yeah. I need them to play Give Me Chocolate. And when they do, we all go crazy.
Jeff:Well, not yet. I mean, I think you you you're almost always guaranteed that one most popular song is an encore.
Nick:It's true.
Jeff:Because they wanna get their new material out there. They wanna show that they can do more than what
Nick:they're Oh, right.
Jeff:You you talk about Red. We saw Red two years in a row We did. Off of two different albums. Yes. And the look and feel of those songs were very different.
Jeff:Mhmm. Yep. Now at the end of it, I think both times they did the same encore.
Alexander:I think so.
Jeff:Yeah. You know? And so they said, okay. Here here's a here's to the the crowd that's listening to us, but we wanna show you we can do something different and more.
Alexander:Yeah. And I think, like, their set design also kind of represented that too with, like, Until We Have Faces, it was very much like the album cover, which is like a red sheet with like a face kind of pressing through that. And they really kind of went into that kind of aesthetic. And then the sub subsequent album, it was more of
Jeff:Skater Boy. Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. It's it's more like brick wall graffiti, that kind of stuff.
Jeff:Yeah.
Alexander:Which is very fun. But, yeah, Denzel Curry, I feel like a very versatile artist. Yeah. When we're talking about these one hit wonders from bands, Denzel Curry very nearly could have been locked into being the ultimate guy always. Yeah.
Alexander:But I think because of what, you know, Nick's talking about and the fact that he's willing to kind of break out there, be a little bit more experimental, like I was talking about Taboo, the the album release after that was Zoom. Yeah. And that was a drastically different vibe than the dark and grimy taboo that we saw and was more
Nick:of like kind of like weird songs. Weird Weird vibes. Grounded sort of Yeah.
Alexander:Sort of point of view. And I mean and I I think that album didn't get as much of a a claim as his previous albums. And I I don't think it was as good as any the other albums that he's released, but it was still interesting and still that sort of experimental vibe. And then after that was walking. After that was walking?
Alexander:I believe so.
Jeff:No way.
Alexander:And, again, totally different vibe, Switch. Totally different.
Jeff:But see, I love that. I I I want an artist to express himself and say, look. I'm not one dimensional.
Nick:Oh. Yeah. Oh, me too. That's why that's why
Alexander:I have a certain album at number one. But, anyway, that's that's mine. Yeah. No. Great album.
Alexander:I have not yet listened to the entirety of Unlocked volume two.
Nick:Mhmm. Oh, true. True.
Alexander:True. I am a little worried. It's been out for so long now. I'm still a little worried that it will not be the same as the the first time of listening to unlocked for the first time.
Nick:For context, unlocked version two is the eight unlocked songs, but with a musical feature Yep. Attached to it now.
Alexander:Wow. It's basically he remixed his own songs and added more features for all the songs. Is new video?
Nick:No. Unfortunately. But
Alexander:again, there's that magic of the volume one.
Nick:I think I I will say I prefer volume one. Yeah.
Alexander:Great choice. I love that. I love Denzel Curry. I feel like you can't go wrong there. Alright, dad.
Jeff:Okay. So going on my journey. So 76, we have ELO. Yeah. Now we have now we get to seventy nine and eighty.
Jeff:And I know that seems like a long time ago. And I I
Nick:wasn't there. I wasn't there. I don't remember.
Alexander:I wasn't there.
Jeff:But there are two albums that I'm gonna put as one album. Oh, okay. I told you guys this. I had trouble differentiating this.
Nick:Okay.
Jeff:So in '79, I heard ACDC Highway to Hell. Mhmm. One I think it's '81. ACDC Back in Black came out. And the the difference between those albums is that Bon Scott was on the first one, and then Brian Johnson was on the second one.
Jeff:Bon Scott had died, basically due to alcohol overdose. Basically, drink himself to death. And when you look at those two albums some people may say that wasn't the pinnacle, but for me, that's the pinnacle of ACDC. It's when they defined and created their character. Yeah.
Jeff:They they took all of the Australian albums up to Highway to Hell and made a sound that was great. And then they took highway then they took Hell's Bells, they said, we're gonna make it global, a world hard rock album. And it was before that, you were getting the hard rock scene was either like Ozzy Osbourne and Black Sabbath or you were getting KISS Yeah. Or you're getting things like Kansas and Foreigner, which is not really heavy metal. You know?
Jeff:And so this was really, to me, a breaking point. Now I I will say at the same time, the rap scene was just starting. So you had things like Curtis Blow, Run DMC was still a couple years away, but you were starting to get rap into the scene also. So you were looking there was and I was also big into punk at that time, and punk was this was a heyday of punk. Yeah.
Jeff:So you you had Ted Kennedy's The Germs, Sid Vicious and The Sex Pistols. You had all these you know, The Clash was considered tame from a sound standpoint because of Makes sense. The punk punk band. They're a little more But they they were touring with the Sex Pistols and all that.
Nick:It makes sense. I I get it. Even if they are if their sound is a little tamer, their themes are not.
Jeff:Right. The themes are not. They it's they're definitely political like the Sex Pistols.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:But anyway, so this I feel
Alexander:like punk has always been political.
Nick:And That's why it was made. Political. Yeah.
Jeff:Not always. So so there's a bunch of bands. So Dead Kennedy's is a, I think a California band. And, yes, they were political. But you also had things like of the name.
Jeff:But but but Dean also had and this is gonna be be bad. You had groups called the Circle Jerks and Butthole Surfers and things like that.
Nick:But but they they are not they're not political as in, like, critiquing, like Like the Kennedys. No. But in in more of, like, they're breaking out of societal norms.
Jeff:Yeah. So, like, the germs, the lead singer was Darby. And when they found him dead outside of a bar, he had written on the wall, here lies Darby, and then he died there. It was just the punk scene was just crazy at that time. Yeah.
Jeff:It was it was mostly in in LA and all that. But, anyway, so for me, ACDC created a sound and a and a a rhythm around heavy metal that hadn't been there before. Yeah. Now I will say, sadly, Malcolm Young, the brother of Angus Young, passed away two days ago.
Alexander:Oh, wow.
Jeff:And so it was it was it's crazy. It's crazy to think then Does that make you feel
Alexander:a little old?
Jeff:It does make you feel old.
Nick:Well, what did he die from? I think it's
Jeff:It was old age. Okay. Alright.
Alexander:I thought you were gonna be old.
Nick:Like, you went out partying.
Alexander:No. Yeah.
Jeff:He was. He'd been partying the whole time. But, anyways but Years. What's what's crazy about it is that the song that there's a lot of ACDC songs, but think about Thunderstruck, which came out like, twelve years after that.
Nick:It's it is yeah. It's the song you usually think about.
Alexander:Yeah. Actually, you and I were just watching this music video not too long ago.
Jeff:So it's it's it's crazy to think that when they came out with those two albums, it was just groundbreaking. Yeah. Now here's a funny story, and we had talked about this earlier. When they were babies, I listened to punk, I listened to rap, I listened to heavy metal. I did not know any lullabies.
Nick:Yeah. No nursery songs.
Jeff:No nursery songs. So when I would come home, their mother, my wife, would say, Here, take Alexander. He's not sleeping. And I was a full time student. So I would walk with him and sing Hell's Bells to him to put him to sleep.
Jeff:And one of the first times my wife would call down and say, what what are you singing? I said, the perfect sleeping music. AC ACDC Hells Bells. But yeah. So I I I love those albums.
Jeff:I can listen to both of those albums. And once again, what did Steve and I do? We bought every ACDC album. We were going into record stores looking for the plastic covered ones, which were the import albums, to get all of the albums from Australia. You know?
Jeff:Because that's where we were look back alley disc, we would get the the the Australian imports from for ACDC and we just bought all of their albums.
Alexander:I would love to have Steve come down here and be on an episode and us talk about music.
Nick:Just talk about music.
Alexander:Yeah. I I think I'd I think I'd personally love to have him come and talk about like top three best concerts.
Jeff:Oh, because he's gone to hundreds of them.
Alexander:Yeah. So I would love to to hear his opinion on that, but
Nick:And we could talk about this, but I I might introduce you to three by threes as well.
Alexander:Three by Yeah.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. Yep.
Nick:And we could do, like, segments of each of
Alexander:our three by Yeah. That that would be a lot of fun. I love that. Okay. So wait.
Alexander:I we have ACDC. We have Hell's Bells. And what was the other album that you're combining into one? Highway to Hell. Highway to Hell.
Alexander:Okay. Great. Love that. Love love me some ACDC.
Nick:It makes a lot of sense. I Yeah. When we were discussing, I'm like, he's probably gonna put an ACDC or two albums. I was expecting two of your three might be ACDC, but you cheated a little bit and combined two into one.
Alexander:Yeah. Just a little bit. Alright. I'm gonna go in a, I think, vastly different
Nick:direction here. Okay.
Alexander:Continuing my music journey, of course, I talked about Denzel and Taboo, which is dark rap. We are going into something very different in 2022. An artist by the name of Breakins, who I'd never heard of before, released an album called Hypochondriac. And it was a genre of music that I'd never heard before, I've never listened to before. And I sat down and I listened to the entire album and I instantly fell in love with both Breakin's and this genre of music that he was a part of called the hyperpop.
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:And he listens to it a lot.
Alexander:And I listen to it so much.
Jeff:Okay. Explain what hyperpop is for those of us not in the Wait.
Alexander:This is so good.
Nick:I I have He looked up the
Alexander:for you because I think it's really difficult to start talking about subgenres Right. Of music. And I feel like I'm not smart enough oftentimes to really distinguish. Like, if we're talking about dad rock, I don't know how to describe that to you. It's just a genre of rock subgenre.
Nick:That you listen to. So
Alexander:hyperpop is defined as a subgenre of electric electronic music that is characterized by several different things. One is exaggerated pop. So an over the top take on popular music that blends pop, hip hop, dance, and electronic music. Also, it's characterized by intense beats. So a high BPM, typically something you want to dance to, you want to start moving to.
Alexander:Unconventional sound effects. I think this is my favorite part of hyperpop.
Nick:I feel like that is also the defining.
Alexander:Yeah. For me, it's like one of the defining things. So use of drills because Hyperhop originated in UK. They're very famous for their drill sound effects. Not like a literal drill, but like drill beats.
Jeff:Right.
Alexander:It's like a style. Metal pipes and other unusual sound effects. A lot of times, it's
Nick:just like weird noises sometimes. Yeah. Unidentifiable electronic noise.
Alexander:Yeah. And I kinda love it. Distorted vocals, which is another kind of big defining feature. And then repeatable hooks. So exaggerated and repeatable hooks and melodies kind of similar to what what you're getting out of
Nick:pop music as well. Yep.
Alexander:And yeah. So I I think this album was very influential for me because it really just opened my eyes to like a whole another subgenre. And I guess entire genre where I feel like I'd listen to a little bit of like electronic music, EDM. Like, obviously, we'd all heard some dubstep, some some flux pavilion, stuff like that. But it kind of opened my eyes to something very different and unique and I instantly fell in love with this album.
Alexander:So much so that literally my main friend group at the time, I sent them the album and I was like, you have to listen to this, please. And immediately, they were like, this is so good. We are just playing this on repeat. And I think it's very it it was out of the norm for what I was listening to because for the most part, was listening to rock and rap. Mhmm.
Alexander:Mhmm. I'm like, wait a second. This hyperpop stuff is kinda really good. I kinda really like this.
Jeff:Plus it seems it would put me in a good mood if I'm listening to it.
Alexander:Yeah. Well, it it can. It can. Some of it's like very fun and like almost satirical in a way. Mhmm.
Alexander:Like, for instance, one of the songs that I have in my playlist is grandma got run over by a lawnmower. Nice.
Jeff:Rather than a reindeer?
Alexander:The rather than a reindeer. Yeah. And the band is Pop Tropica Sluts, which is yes. What? Yes.
Nick:Pop Tropica is a Flash game that we played in, like, elementary.
Alexander:Yes. Yes. Yes.
Nick:Is it based off of that?
Alexander:No. Maybe. I mean, it probably is based off of Pop Javaco, but
Jeff:that's Not the name.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. That's about as far as it goes.
Jeff:What in the world?
Alexander:Yeah. And I I think, again, it's just like these weird kind of, like, fun vibes, fun fun energy. A lot of it, again, high BPM. So you are you like wanna move. Yeah.
Jeff:But
Alexander:I think the the fun thing about break ins is he is willing to slow it down a little bit. And some of the songs feel very emotional and have these emotional low points, especially in the album. And then we go into, like, crazy songs. Like, I remember showing Nick a song off the album called Caffeine.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:And Nick went, is this still the same song?
Nick:It it was such a variety. And the switch up was so Drastic. Drastic. Yeah. Like, I was like,
Jeff:what?
Nick:Were were you I, like, had to double check. I'm like, yeah. It's still it's still playing the same song. I
Alexander:think something about the kind of wildness and and sounds and unusualness of it really scratches a weird part of my brain when I'm listening to music. I think at this point, I've kind of fallen a little bit off of listening to hyperpop quite as much. There was a period where I was just so invested. I was basically only listening to it, but it is still a fun thing to go back to and just kind of get scratch that that weird itch in my brain for this very strange but enjoyable music.
Jeff:Just need that chaos.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. Sometimes you do just need that chaos.
Nick:It's true.
Alexander:And I think hyperpop delivers that, like, perfectly for me when sometimes I think metal is it's like ordered chaos. Inconsistent. Yeah. Yeah. You're like, okay.
Alexander:Where he's about to hit the and button in pop
Jeff:Oh, he's always about to hit the drums really. Yeah.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. In hyper pop, you're just listening to a song that's called I only like cat boys and you're like, yep. This is what I needed in my for my morning.
Jeff:But I Awesome collection. Awesome.
Nick:And we're putting together a crazy album. Yeah.
Alexander:It's been really
Jeff:When we get the pictures together, it's gonna be like, what the heck? How did these albums get together? Yeah.
Alexander:True. Alright. Well, that's two albums. Our our second album and our second drink. On to our third.
Alexander:See you in a second.
Jeff:Yep. Yeah.
Alexander:Bye. And that was our second intermission. So here we are back with our third drink. And this one looks a bit different. Looks a little cloudy.
Alexander:Nick, what are we drinking?
Nick:So honestly, from from far away, it kinda looks like a Bloody Mary.
Jeff:It does. Which
Nick:Yeah. Makes sense for a vodka one. But we already did the bloody Maria.
Alexander:Maria, yeah.
Nick:But this one it is called
Alexander:the
Nick:Palm Humbug, which is vodka, elder elderflower liqueur, a blood orange juice topped with a little bit of ginger beer. The ginger beer that we had similar to last time. This should be honestly different, but probably similar to the second drink.
Alexander:Here we go. Ding. Oh. I I can really taste the ginger beer.
Jeff:I can really get some of the ghost pepper in my throat too.
Nick:Yeah. There's something that really enhances.
Jeff:I wonder if it's the blood orange because I'm I'm getting a little bit of citrus, but not a lot.
Nick:I think it might be the the The agave. This isn't specific for the one that we used, it is a
Jeff:Oh, you're right.
Nick:A blood orange agave Mixer. Mixer. It might be the agave that accentuates and highlights it more. We were talking about this. We think that the tequila
Jeff:Ghost pepper.
Nick:Ghost pepper one is a little more prominent. Yeah. And I wonder if, like, that sort of nature of the flavors together really enhances it.
Jeff:Because it definitely is feeling different on my on my palate. Like, I'm getting some notes up in the front of my mouth. I'm getting some notes in the back of my throat.
Nick:It really hits the throat.
Jeff:Yeah. It's good. It's very, very different.
Nick:Yeah. Absolutely.
Jeff:I I don't think I've tasted anything like this before.
Nick:No. The flavor that sits on your tongue is very it's it's very weird. It's almost almost like like a sherbet.
Alexander:Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And now that you mentioned, I can definitely see that.
Jeff:Yeah. That's the orange coming through.
Nick:Yeah. But the rest of it, it still feels
Jeff:I mean, you're you're still getting the the ginger in your nose.
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:It's very good. I like that a lot. Yeah.
Alexander:This is a very fun drink. I really enjoy that.
Nick:Yeah. It
Jeff:yeah. It's it's really something that's off the beaten path. This is something very different.
Nick:The one thing that it recommends that I I didn't do, which honestly, thinking about it while tasting it, they said top it off with mint.
Alexander:Oh. Oh. That would be pretty good.
Jeff:Well, you're a big mint guy.
Alexander:Yeah, am. But I think
Nick:it would add another like coolness to whatever's happening. Yeah. Yeah. Which I think would have been very interesting. It was either mint or thyme, which I think both of them would be add a very different flavor.
Alexander:I was about to say, I feel like those are not the same, like, flavor.
Jeff:No. But they're trying to add an herbaceous nature to it.
Nick:Yeah. Something that, like, goes through the entire, like, nose stuff. Yeah.
Alexander:Oh, okay. Alright. Well, what a what a great drink to finish off on here. Yep. Alright.
Alexander:I'll kick us off for albums. This album was released in 2023. Okay. So not too far from hyperchondriac, but I will say what kind of this album evolved in my mind after we saw this band live. So this album is
Nick:I will say
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:There's a lot of bands we've seen live.
Alexander:This year in particular, we have seen so many fans.
Nick:This year and last year.
Jeff:Yes. No, you haven't. Let's talk to Steve.
Alexander:Yeah, but we're working within our
Nick:own At the start of the year, we didn't drop a month until we started working at camp. Yeah. We we saw a lot. We saw basically a band every month or more.
Alexander:Yes. Yeah.
Jeff:I mean And you I mean, and last year, if that festival had gone through, you would have seen
Nick:We would have seen so many groups.
Alexander:I mean, and we already saw a lot even after the festival had a rough time. Yeah. Because I mean, what, three on Wednesday, five on Thursday, five on Friday. Sorry. Eight on Friday.
Alexander:Yeah. And we would have seen more Saturday, Sunday. So very unfortunate here.
Nick:But anyway, you're you which group? Yes.
Alexander:So this album is The Surface by a band called Beartooth.
Jeff:Oh. Oh. Wait. Yeah.
Nick:I did not expect you to choose. It's funny because yeah. I'll let you do it. Yeah. Because I think you're gonna bring it up.
Alexander:Okay. So here here's what I'll say. Right? I mentioned that after listening to break into his hypercontract album, I was obsessed with hyperpop for a good bit, and that was in 2022. The Surface by Beartooth released in late twenty twenty three, and we saw them in concert in the at the January this year of 2024.
Alexander:When This
Jeff:is this year.
Alexander:Wow. Was this year. Yeah. When when we're recording this. Before that, we went to a rock and metal festival called blue the Blue Ridge Rock Fest, and it got insta hurricane ed out.
Alexander:A micro hurricane
Nick:showed up right on top of it in August, Danville. Yep. It was unfortunate.
Alexander:It was it was really bad. But that festival had kind of reignited my my love for metal and rock. And I was looking for more metal to get into and to listen to. Beartooth was not one of the bands that we saw at that festival.
Nick:I don't even think they were.
Alexander:No. I don't think they were supposed to be.
Nick:They were not on the lineup.
Alexander:But for my birthday, one of my friends was like, hey, I'm gonna buy you tickets for this concert. I want you to come with me to go see this band. And I was like, I've never heard a single song by them, but sure, heck yeah.
Jeff:It's a concert.
Alexander:Yeah. It's a concert. It's a concert. Of course I'll And then by lucky happenstance, he had an extra ticket because someone else was supposed to go and they weren't able to make it. So Nick and I went to get in.
Nick:I got I was dragged along.
Alexander:Which was great. And so we saw Beartooth live in person. And what I will say is leading up to the concert, I had listened to or I tried to listen to the album, and I just wasn't into it.
Jeff:Yeah. You'd said that what the just hearing the album just wasn't enough for you.
Nick:Yeah. I I I don't know.
Alexander:It didn't really draw me in. I didn't really like it as much.
Jeff:I think, this is one of the things that I've always said is that I don't like live recordings Yes. But nothing can match a live performance. Good and bad. Yeah. Yep.
Jeff:Because I I saw Pat Benatar in concert. Mhmm. This was a couple years ago.
Alexander:Really?
Jeff:And the sound system was so bad that destroyed any liking I had of her music of seeing her live. Yeah. And I had been told over and over again, great concert. Don't listen to the pop music that you hear. She really does a great concert.
Jeff:And it was a lot heavier metal than I thought. Yeah. But the sound system was so bad and cracking and whatever. It just wasn't enjoyable to listen to.
Alexander:That's so unfortunate. The worst.
Jeff:And so but I also think that I I saw a great concert in a terrible venue, but because the music was so good Yep. I just loved it. Yeah. You know? And there was a group called The Alarm, and I saw them probably five times in concert.
Jeff:Because every time I listened to them, their albums were were good. I I like listening to albums. But at Live, they were just awesome.
Nick:Mhmm. Yeah. Yeah. And I I will say as we were researching this concert Yeah. We were you were more way more interested in seeing the one of the openers, which was The Plot and You.
Nick:Yes. Which I think they put on an incredible show anyway. Yeah. We could have wrapped it up after that.
Alexander:I feel like going into this we only knew that Beartooth was performing. Yeah. And then on our drive down we're like, wait a second, they have three openers Yeah. Which is like a staple for this venue in Norfolk where the Bold Mariner is at. It's a big
Jeff:In Chesapeake Bay.
Alexander:Yeah. Chesapeake Bay. In Chesapeake Bay. Yeah. I mean, it's a a great metal venue.
Alexander:I know they do a little bit more than metal. I know Hot Mulligan was gonna be there or was there. Chapel Rowan actually performed there as well
Nick:That's true.
Alexander:Right before she blew up, which I'm like, oh my god. I could've I could've seen her live before.
Nick:Saw her.
Alexander:Yeah. Before her tickets for a million dollars. But anyways, that concert was incredible. It was so good. For many reasons.
Alexander:Yeah. For many reasons. I really liked most of the opening bands, Sleep Theory. The Plot N U was like my favorite band. It kind of is my favorite band at the time.
Alexander:And they did such a great job. Invent Animate was good. Not really my favorite, but I understand my my likeness of of certain metal
Nick:They were very Scream. Yeah. Okay. Which it it it's a It's a style.
Alexander:It's a yeah.
Nick:Yeah. It's a it's not everyone's cup of tea.
Alexander:Yeah. Yeah. And then Beartooth had such an incredible set. Incredible. And Nick and I talk about this all the time after concerts where we're like, were they able to bring in people who didn't know every word to all of their songs.
Alexander:Yeah. They utilize their video board so well where like, this is the song, this is the chorus, you're singing this with us whether you know the song or not. And it was great fan and like audience participation and interaction. There's one point where they go off stage and the artist showed up behind us. We were
Nick:right behind right in front of him.
Alexander:Yeah. The lead singer was like right behind us on a box and was doing mister bright side Mister bright killers acoustic just to, like, slow down the the
Jeff:This is the other thing we talked about because you guys have gone to concerts. We all have Yeah. Where we say the artist had great songs, but they didn't put them in the right order. They didn't
Nick:Yeah.
Jeff:They didn't bring the crowd in with them. Yeah. They basically played songs that they just played songs off a playlist, and they weren't bringing the crowd in. They weren't building in in because I think there needs to be ebbs and flows of a concert.
Nick:Oh,
Jeff:yeah. There needs to be times when your your whole high energy I mean, lot of heavy metal concerts, lot of just all
Alexander:in say
Nick:that, but we've been to a bunch of metal concerts, and almost every single one of them have a slower song where everyone pulls out their phones
Alexander:Yeah.
Nick:Turns on their lights, and, like, waves it back and
Jeff:forth slowly. This used to
Nick:be lighters for you.
Jeff:I used to have a friend of mine who who was like he he he listened to Queenswright, Soundgarden, really, really heavy metals in the eighties.
Alexander:Okay. Yep.
Jeff:And he said he would listen to them until they did their first ballad, and then he stopped listening to them.
Nick:That's so crazy.
Jeff:Because he said that's when he knew they were corrupted and no longer heavy metal.
Alexander:Oh my gosh. But
Jeff:every every heavy metal band evolves into a ballad that becomes their song, their theme song, you know, that you go I mean, every one of them. I mean, if you go down the list of decades of heavy metal bands, there's always this one ballad that everyone can sing to and that when you see them in concert and arenas, there's 60,000 people singing a song with them. I think
Nick:that's the magical moment.
Jeff:I think so too. I do too. This guy was he only liked heavy metal.
Alexander:Okay. I mean, I kinda I kinda get it. In a way, you wanna listen to heavy metal. Like but I do think there is an area where you need to slow down a little bit and give everyone a moment to breathe. Especially if this is like a heavy moshing.
Alexander:Everyone's moshing.
Nick:There's already a circle of death.
Jeff:But like we said, has to be there's a rhythm to it. Yes. Because what what that slowdown allows you to do is then you can pick songs and start building back up to the crescendo.
Nick:We we talk about this all the time. Mhmm. Performers and music are really good. That's why we go see them. But when it's all about the show in those moments.
Nick:Right? Yeah. It's like, we know we are gonna play the good music. We already expect that. What are you gonna do with it as your foundation?
Jeff:Like, I saw Talking Heads Can't Stop can't stop music.
Alexander:Is that Yep.
Nick:I would think that would be a fun show.
Jeff:It was there was no warm up band, and it started My gosh. With David Burns coming out with a boombox and singing psycho killer.
Nick:I would love that.
Jeff:So they made a movie of it. So if you ever wanna see that moo movie, it's great. Can't stop making can't stop making music. Anyways but and each song, they added a band member.
Alexander:See, that's so fun.
Jeff:That's how you do it. Me me and Steve went to this concert. It was just absolutely three hours of the talking heads. Oh my god. It was just remarkable.
Alexander:You know, I kinda wish, Slipknot had done something similar. Because they had have like There are million people on that stage.
Nick:12 members. When Slipknot did it, they did it, it was like boom, lights on the first one, and then they were both on the keyboard. So then boom, lights onto the next floor of band members.
Alexander:It's like a apartment building at that point. Yeah.
Nick:But that's what we always look at. Anyway, anyway.
Alexander:Sorry, this wasn't meant to be talking about live music entirely.
Nick:We can talk about that later.
Alexander:But I do wanna have a conversation about live music because I feel like we love live music and it's great.
Nick:And I feel like we
Alexander:can really identify what's really good about live music. Yes. Man, we have so many conversations about this. Yeah. But I want what I wanted to talk about was the Surface by Beartooth.
Alexander:I originally couldn't really get into it. We saw them live. It was such a great concert. Absolutely fantastic. I had so so much more of an appreciation of them and their music and I felt like I connected a lot more with them.
Alexander:Where like a lot of times I feel like we listen to heavy metal and it's like death, destruction, and then like they're like, hey, thank you guys so much for coming out. I really appreciate it.
Nick:Really I really
Alexander:love your energy. Love you all.
Nick:Make sure you all you all get home safe. Yeah. You know, be careful.
Alexander:Exactly. Stuff like that. And I think Beartooth had done such a great job of like, hey, we have made music like that in the past, but we're kind of in this healing arc for ourselves where we're making kind of a little bit more upbeat and more positive metal music. Like Might Love Myself. Yeah.
Alexander:And I really got into it. Mhmm. And so going back home and listening to the album again, I had so much more of an appreciation for it. And the songs, they they slept. They're they're bangers.
Alexander:I just I feel like I didn't really give it the the the fair share that it deserved at first. And sometimes, I think you need to listen to music a couple of times to really start appreciating it.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Alexander:And I didn't. And after that album, after that concert, I was like, oh my god. I need to see more heavy metal stuff. I need to listen to more heavy metal.
Nick:And then we went on a crusade that year.
Alexander:Yeah. And man, this year has been
Nick:so We saw we've seen so many bands.
Alexander:Yeah. And yeah. And I wanna see more. Like
Nick:It it just feels like we're scraping the surface of whatever's nearby. Exactly. Literally anything that's nearby, we're like, okay. Come on.
Alexander:I I have an Excel spreadsheet for all of the
Nick:venues. Upcoming. Yeah.
Alexander:All the venues nearby, all the upcoming shows that are of bands that we know that we wanna see. And I'm just like, okay, can we make that? Can we afford that? Let's get out there. The last day
Nick:of summer, we were up until one a. M. Watching a movie and driving home from our our summer camp job. The following day, we were driving down to North Carolina, Charlotte to watch a giant music concert. Yo.
Nick:Because we were like, send it. We have to watch Yep. Hollywood And Dead, Hailstorm, We The Kings and Yep. I Prevail. Yep.
Nick:And it was fantastic. Wait.
Alexander:Hold on. It's not We the Kings. Oh, That that's that's the other band. You're It's Fit for a King.
Nick:Fit for a King.
Alexander:Yep. Sorry. And then I Prevail. Yeah. And it got stormed out.
Alexander:Our luck for outside venues is so bad.
Nick:I Prevail performed three or four songs?
Alexander:Yes.
Nick:Maybe? And they got rained out. Anyway Okay. Anyways, we're running out of time.
Alexander:But yeah. Alright. Yeah. We'll we'll slide it over to dad, and then we'll end with dad. What
Nick:you got?
Jeff:Okay. So my last album is ten years later. And, basically, it was I
Nick:really like your progression, by the way.
Jeff:Yeah. Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet. Heck yeah. And people go, what? So I'd always listen to rap throughout the eighties.
Jeff:But early eighties rap, you know, was some commentary, but not really heavy commentary. You had Run DMC who was just kind of Kind of more
Nick:popish. Party.
Jeff:Yeah. Yeah. They're more popish. You had the Beastie Boys coming out with License to Ill, which was really popular. And you just had this evolving rap scene, but it really wasn't political in what they were saying.
Jeff:NWA came out very hard, very Southern California style. I liked NWA, but when I heard Public Enemy, Fear of a Black Planet, I heard what I heard in in punk music twelve years beforehand. I heard the dead Kennedys in Public Enemy, which is such a strange stretch. Interesting. I heard the Sex Pistols.
Jeff:I heard the discontent with how society was and what was going on. And it's kind of strange because this is the same time that I'm getting out of the Navy
Alexander:Mhmm.
Jeff:Yeah. After the Gulf War one. And so it just struck me as it was someone expressing now whether I agreed or not did not matter. It was someone that was using rap to express themselves and not talking about picking up girls, doing drugs, or whatever. They were talking about the things that mattered to them.
Jeff:Mhmm. There was a depth to it. There was a personal part to it, and I loved it. Mhmm. And Chuck D's voice is awesome.
Nick:Yeah. True.
Jeff:You know? And, you know, having anyways, but Flavor Flay's voice is just irritating. But but it but it per it matched perfectly with the smoothness of Chuck D. And I just loved it. And I can listen to that literally, I can be working and just turn on that album and just listen to the whole album.
Jeff:Yeah. I love it. And it it is such a pinpoint time in history because a lot of those songs are related to, the riots in Norfolk, where they talk about when they're talking about, you think I'm just gonna fall down or whatever. The album is just such a social commentary. I loved it.
Jeff:Mhmm. And like I said, it was it hearkened me back to the punk that was trying to make change socially.
Nick:Yeah. Yeah.
Jeff:And I I just, like I said, to this day, I can listen to that album from front to back, just like I can listen to ELO front to back and ACDC, Highway to Hell or Hell's Bells from front to back. Yeah. Mhmm. Very different. Yeah.
Jeff:You put those music to that music together, and you're in chaos
Nick:You're already on a journey.
Jeff:Yeah. You're you're on chaos land. But I I I hate rap that's not meaningful. And so I have a hard time with a lot of the pop rap that comes out. I like a good beat, but there's some pop rap that just doesn't have a good beat and has no message in it.
Jeff:And so I'm usually
Alexander:like You could say about a lot of different Any Yeah.
Jeff:Just listen to pop music is mindless as it gets, you But yeah, but I I like I said, I I love it and it just it hits a spot for me.
Nick:Yeah. I like your progression. Because I think all of them, when I think about you, I think, maybe not of ELO, you haven't talked too much about ELO, especially when talking about recommending music.
Jeff:That was us ten years old.
Nick:Yeah, exactly. Public Enemy and ACDC, when I hear those, I think of you because you introduced us to them and also just constantly do still enjoy and appreciate their Alright
Alexander:Nick, quickly, we're running out of time Quickly. Yeah, quickly. Let's talk about your last album here.
Nick:Okay. This album has, means probably the most to me in regards that my favorite artist who has held that mantle for about four years now, which is very rare because I can't stay focused like my father. But, it is, by Otto. Otto. She is a Japanese music producer, creator, and it is her very first debut album called Kugen.
Nick:It is a album of her singles that she's released within her musical timeline, as well as brand new songs. And it made all of those songs made me fall in love with her just over and over again. When I was living alone in DC, I happened upon one of her songs, just randomly. It was Odo, O D O. So Odo is A D O.
Nick:Her very first song her song that I got introduced to was Odo, O D O. And it was so weird and fascinating to listen to. It's only in Japanese. And the song is so bumpy and jamming that I was so fascinating already already with it but in that song she switches from a pop hook to a hip hop hook to rapping by herself within it of it of herself I was like, woah, I really like this artist. I'll look more.
Nick:And then I got introduced to another song called Gira Gira, which is a heartfelt song about the world and her mother. In Japanese. In Japanese. Yeah. And it it was so crazy because it still felt it was a slower song, but it was still poppy and still carried this, like, weight of emotion.
Nick:And then I got introduced to another one of her songs as I was digging deeper trying to find this artist and it was called, Usaiwa, which, she's just screaming the entire song.
Alexander:Dude, I love her screams. I don't know. There's something about the way she does her.
Nick:She has such passion and such variety in all of her works. I fell in love with her while listening to the singles because I started listening to her before the album even came out. So I discovered her singles one at a time and each time I'm like, this is the same artist? It's crazy. And when, when the album fully released and I got to see all of the songs that I knew and then more, I was so blown away.
Nick:The entire discography, it's 14 songs and almost every single one of them is like branching off to a whole new genre.
Jeff:Feels It's almost like multiple albums put together. It's like a greatest hits album.
Nick:Basically. It is a greatest hits. It is her basically prime music that she specifically worked on, added to songs expected for the album, and all pushed into one. And yeah, is my favorite artist right now.
Alexander:Has been for a while.
Nick:Has been for a long, long time. She makes I don't speak Japanese at all.
Jeff:No, no. You watch anime.
Alexander:Of course
Jeff:you speak Japanese.
Alexander:But in What? Toshuwa?
Nick:But she her music, it's it's I think it's one of the first times I've felt like art transcends language to such a degree. Like, I don't need subtitles. I don't need
Jeff:Because the language is the music. Exactly.
Nick:I don't need the visuals for it. Most of her stuff doesn't have visuals. And when I hear her, her voice cracks. Right? Her voice is pained.
Nick:You know what that means. You know how that feels like. I listened to her while I was going to school and understanding emotional weight and narrative choices. And I feel like as an artist, she gets it for so many degrees. And what's even more fascinating about her, we don't know what she looks like.
Alexander:Yeah. She wears like a little kind of mask. And when she performs
Nick:She she performs in a shrouded box. Yep. So you could only see her silhouette.
Jeff:There's been a couple of people like that. Yeah.
Alexander:There are
Nick:a couple of people
Alexander:like that, but I feel like it doesn't necessarily last for super long. Like for instance, Boy With Uke is a is more of a pop artist. He wears like a Electronic face. Yeah. He's an electronic face mask that will change.
Alexander:He recently like revealed his face Marshmallow. The EDM artist has like a big marshmallow head. Yeah. Yeah, sleep token is another big one.
Nick:That's true.
Alexander:I kinda like the anonymity
Nick:of it all. Yeah. They feel like, to just completely take over Sleeping Bookens, but she feels like a vessel for just storytelling.
Jeff:Right. It's just her expressing the art. She probably feels like her face, her image would just detract from the music.
Alexander:Maybe. Or she just doesn't necessarily want the fame. She just wants to perform.
Nick:Yeah. I feel like admired even more.
Alexander:Really quick. We're running out of time here. I wanna make sure we get out of here at a good time. Dad, then Nick, then me. What was your favorite drink?
Jeff:I think the second one was my favorite.
Alexander:Second one, Bougie White Claw.
Nick:This one. The Pom Pom Boog.
Jeff:This close. I really love this one. This is close.
Alexander:I really like the second one. I think the third one is gonna be my favorite. I I thought it was the second one after taking a couple sips of this, but almost finishing this. This is like my favorite.
Nick:It's so good.
Alexander:It's
Nick:so Two fruity drinks. Yeah. But different. Yeah.
Jeff:Not that I didn't like the martini. I thought the martini was bang. I actually
Nick:really did like the martini as well.
Alexander:I'm gonna say it. I didn't really like the martini as much. Once again, I thought this episode was gonna be quick and we are just about out of time. Down to the wire. Thank you all so much for watching.
Alexander:We'll see you next time.
Nick:We appreciate
Jeff:Next time.
Alexander:Bye. Love you. Love you.