MLD News - Future Ruins

Graham and John Paul talk about the cancellation of Future Ruins and the new Taylor Swift record.

Wanna watch MLD on YouTube?
Need an MLD t-shirt or mug?
And everything else from Major Label Debut!

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:04):
From the major Label Debut podcast network. This is MLD News.
I'm your host. My name is Graham Wright, and joining
me as always my co host and producer of the podcast,
John Paul Bullock.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
John Paul, how you doing?

Speaker 3 (00:17):
I am doing well, Graham, how are you?

Speaker 2 (00:20):
I'm doing pretty well.

Speaker 1 (00:22):
I'm feeling some Toronto Blue Jays baseball spirit now when
this is being recorded, Game three hasn't been played yet,
but when it airs, game three will be played, so
we'll just have to dub in. I'm so happy, sad
that the Toronto Blue Jays won the series lost to
the perfidious New York Yankees, and Josh will just edit
that into being some kind of contemporary and accurate thing,

(00:45):
so I feel great about that. I had a great
show this weekend with my Oasis cover band, park Life,
opening for a Strokes cover band called The Brokes. It
was a sold out show at Lee's Palace, and I
think I've sat Lee's Palace a Toronto legendary venue. I
think I've said here before how I had to get
used to when playing these cover band shows that like
people didn't look at us or care about the musicians

(01:06):
on stage, which in Tokyo Police Club. You know, I
was treated with the kind of reverence that I assume
I deserve, and when I'm just filling in for Noel Gallagher,
less so. But at this show, people were rocking out
at the stage as though the real Oasis and the
real Strokes were up there, and I found it very
profound in a way, especially watching the people go crazy

(01:26):
for the Strokes. I was like, this is like the
process of the songs starting to like break away from
the people who made the songs, like the personality and
the music beginning its long historical process of separating is
like happening in real time at this show, And from
a analytical Chin stroking MLD perspective, I was very interested in it.

(01:48):
Or maybe it was the Seven Beers.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
I wish I could have been there. I would have
loved to have seen that. I cannot wait to see
park Life. Hell yeah, by the way, I think you
have one park Life T shirt still held for me
somewhere please. I hope you bet.

Speaker 2 (02:04):
Nobody put any at the show. Don't worry.

Speaker 1 (02:07):
Really did they get as we still two T shirts?
I don't think people as many people get it as
we assumed they would.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
We were like this is the slammed.

Speaker 1 (02:18):
Even if the band crashes and burns, the T shirts
will sell themselves. It is so funny, and there is
a select group of people for whom it is very funny,
but unfortunately most of them are in park life.

Speaker 3 (02:29):
Yeah. I mean, I think that's the same thing that
went on with this Trent Reznor Future Ruins thing that
just happened. I mean not to make this a Nine
Inch Nails Part two major label debut news episode, but.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
I welcome back to pod like a hole for nine
Nail news and rumors.

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Yes, I was crushed to see that they canceled Future Ruins,
a festival that was one of the most unique ideas
as in the sort of like festival landscape in a
very long time. It was the music and arts festival
focused on film and TV composers, and had Danny Elfman

(03:12):
and Goblin and John Carpenter, and of course it was
run by or created by Trent Residor and adkis Ross
of Ninege Nails and it was going to showcase all
this great TV and film music that has been made
by themselves and by other people over the last few years.
And they pulled the plug on it. I think yesterday,

(03:34):
maybe sometime in the last few days, and I had
a very strange experience. This was one hundred percent built
for me, Like I was so excited as a person
who's worked in TV for twenty years and worked with
a lot of composers and loving all many of these bands.
I'm a huge Devo fan. I love John Carpenter. It's
you know, how could you not? And of course Nine

(03:55):
Nails And I tried to buy that because I'm very
fancy the VIP tickets and they were hard sold out,
and then I was like, I don't know if I want,
Like I'm an old man, I keep going to the
old man well on our imaul, but I wanted the
clean bathrooms. I wanted access to, you know, a craft
cocktail or what have you a night an overpriced taco

(04:17):
and I could not get that that it was sold
out and then it stopped me from buying tickets with
the regular general population. And then it went away, and
I hope that it will come back. What do you
think about the whole Future Ruins concept? I, like you,
was really excited by it.

Speaker 1 (04:36):
It just seemed like a really interesting and brilliant way
to present music and as things you know, I think
the streaming world and like the you know, chill music
to study relaxed to thing, has really brought film scores
more and more into people's regular listening habits. You know,
you'll listen to I'll get an algorithmic playlist made and

(04:59):
it will have a radio head on it, and then
later it will have like a Johnny Greenwood soundtrack song
on it, and then it will have a Trent Reznor
soundtrack song. And it seems like more and more those
two worlds of you know, rock music broadly construed and
film scoring have cross pollinated more and more.

Speaker 2 (05:16):
Not invented by Trent Reznor Attics Ross obviously, but very
popularized by them.

Speaker 1 (05:20):
Perhaps I think people were buying like he was putting
out that Social Network soundtrack and that Girl with the
Dragon Tattoo soundtrack like it was the.

Speaker 2 (05:27):
New nine inch Nails record.

Speaker 1 (05:28):
There was a pre order and a limited vinyl and
bonus tracks and singles and like a slow trickle release strategy,
and it seemed like it was really hitting and people
like that music and it's just as viable artistically obviously
as a quote unquote record would be. But at the
same time, I think you kind of already hit the
nail on the head that like the entire target market

(05:48):
for that festival is people who want to pay four
hundred dollars for the VIP experience, and your more casual,
you know, Coachella goer or festival attendee is maybe not
as psyched about the possibility of going to listen to soundtrack.

Speaker 2 (06:03):
Music in person.

Speaker 1 (06:04):
And that's where it kind of like it had a small, committed,
intense audience and they sort of created it to serve
a larger, broader audience, and they're going to have to reconsider.
So I hope that it does come back, and I
think that maybe if they just tweak the idea, there's
like a version of it that will be that could
last forever. That could be, like, you know, forty years

(06:24):
from now, we could be talking about how in twenty
twenty seven the Future Ruins festival kicked off and was,
you know, an immediate success, and this is just a
Hiccup's that's what I'm hoping.

Speaker 3 (06:34):
I think it was pretty confusing too to people to
not have a headliner. I think people are now so
used to seeing the poster, seeing the big band, seeing
who else is in the smaller type below the big
band making a financial decision based on that, Like I
think if they had explicitly married it more also to
live scores or other visual artists, where they you had

(06:58):
some more of an understanding of what the thing was
going to become, you know. They There was a quote
in the Pitchwork article from Trent Reznor that was basically like,
there are no headliners. This is something probably that it's
only going to happen once, you know, And I think
unfortunately that was confusing to some folks, I mean confusing
to me. I was kind of like, what is this
going to be? Am I going to be? I thought?
I mean with that general admission ticket, I was like,

(07:21):
is this going to be comfortable? Are my old bones
going to be able to rattle around this place? Or
you know? And also a lot of this music seems
like no offense to these incredible artists, but sit in music, Yeah,
you're not standing there locked into a trans dance or
whatever it is. You're you're walking around, You're you're kind

(07:41):
of contemplating your own life an inward journey, and I
don't I don't know if if that was expressed properly
through the promotion of the event. But I really genuinely
hope it comes back. Man, I think there's this would
be so cool. It's been on my calendar since the
moment that it and I was I was literally thinking, like,

(08:04):
I think at least twice I send up for the
let me know if there are any more of the
fancy tickets because I am interested, and it was like
four hundred bucks or it's like for a lot of
for what I assume is mostly instrumental music, for a
lot of artists that I've seen before in other contexts,
you know, like I've seen Danny Elfman before, I've seen
John Harpner before, I've seen Devo, I've obviously seen nine

(08:27):
Dale's and I'm very familiar with a lot of the
music too because of the like you know, study beats,
energy of it and the way that music gets served
to us now. So and I just really really hope
that Future Ruins comes back. And yeah, I'm super bummed
about it.

Speaker 1 (08:42):
It's a tough needle to thread, you know. You called
it cool, and I agree, it seemed cool. And all
of the ways that I've seen film music seemingly successfully
presented in a live format are pretty uncool. It's like,
you know, I'm sure they have this in La too,
but here in Toronto the Symphony Orchestra once or twice
a year and apparently they hate doing it, but they
do the pops thing ory like, Okay, we'll play the

(09:04):
parts of the Caribbean theme song while we play the
movie on the big screen, and it moves tickets. People
want to see that because it's it makes sense. It's
the movies music and the movie presented at the same time,
but with this sort of added exciting, you know, element
of liveness. Other producer, Josh Hook, skipped our high school
prom to go see the music of Star Wars performed

(09:25):
by the Toronto Symphony Orchestra, not with the movie being played,
but with Anthony Daniels, the actor who plays C three
po in literally any Star Wars media that we'll have him.
He was there and present in doing narration. Or maybe
he skipped ProMED to go see the Blue Man Group
and the Star Wars thing was different. Josh went to
a lot of cool shows and did not go to form.
Those are two facts that I can certainly tell you anyway,

(09:45):
The notion of a cool movie music festival that like befits.
Trent Reznor's cultural status is a little trickier to marry
to the like, you know.

Speaker 2 (09:54):
Populist ideal agreed, agreed, and if anyone can do it.

Speaker 3 (09:59):
Yeah, no, maybe it's possible. I hope it's possible. I
really I desperately want it. So please come back. Future
Ruins do not go away. You are beautiful. I know
you are.

Speaker 1 (10:10):
Major label debut supports future Ruins. We would sponsor future
ruins if our twenty dollars and ad dollars ever gets
released from the Google Verification Nexus as you called it
before we turned on the microphones and made me laugh.
We will put that twenty dollars right towards future ruins too.
We're happy to be a presenting sponsor as long as

(10:31):
twenty dollars will do it for you guys, So you
get at us.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Yeah, MLD fans, if any of you understands YouTube and
wants to give us some advice about how to properly
engage with this robot, like, please let us know because
it is tested. Mind, it's all my last nerve, That's
what I'm.

Speaker 1 (10:52):
Saying, speaking of last nerves. I feel that we would
be remiss on this. You know breaking news music industry
has podcast if we don't at least acknowledge the existence
of a new Taylor Swift record, which is sucking up
all the you know, dialogue oxygen around music everywhere.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I look.

Speaker 2 (11:11):
I haven't listened to it and probably won't.

Speaker 3 (11:15):
Nor have I. And I keep seeing these headlines about
that she's like has some kind of clap back at
Charlie XCX and speaking of Blur and Oasis, I love
the idea of these two going at it publicly, but
I really I saw someone in the comments somewhere had
said Taylor Swift is party music for cops wives, and

(11:37):
I was like, that's pretty pretty mean. And I think
that I think that Charlie's fans will defend her. I'm
not sure if she's gonna come back. She seems savvy
enough not to engage and to know that there's not
a lot of any kind of benefit really to growing
this dispute between the two of them. I don't know.

(12:00):
I mean, I look, I I gotta be honest with you.
I also need someone in the MLD fan base to
explain to me what is the good output from Taylor
Swift over the last like a few years I don't.
I'm just not It seems like very mythology rich and
and kind of in that way is preventing me from

(12:22):
engaging with a lot of it. But I don't know.
I mean, I I guess I'm technically team Charlie, but
I don't know if I if that's even possible for
me to say. At this again, at this advanced age,
I was like a creepy old man. She was.

Speaker 1 (12:40):
These young women here on major label debut. We are
team Scooter Braun, steaking out, steaking out some clear territory
over in the corner where nobody else is.

Speaker 2 (12:52):
I just think he's a good business man.

Speaker 3 (12:54):
It seems seems great, seems great.

Speaker 1 (12:56):
You know, Sidney Sweety, she's beautiful, they're they're probably having
a great time out there, but they go to excellent restaurants.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
I don't know anything about any of those people, and
I wish them all well. I guess what I should.

Speaker 1 (13:06):
Say, Yeah, it's so funny. I feel like obligated to
mention Taylor Swift. But also I don't know how to
talk about it without sounding like I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I don't even own a TV.

Speaker 1 (13:16):
Ye listen to it or not listen to it without
it feeling like you're staking out some kind of like
hot take turf. And I think that that's what's fascinating
about it is how it's just sort of this like
colossus of poptimism that like just eats everything around it
and absorbs it into its own perpetual motion machine of ubiquity.

(13:39):
And here we are participating, So Taylor, you can send
you my check.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Well, when Taylor and Charlie make up or or become
friends publicly at future Ruins in twenty twenty seven, I
do think that that will be that they together score
the next Paul Thomas Anderson movie, I'll be excited. But
until then, I don't know. Maybe this is one of
those other podcasts we can do we learn about Taylor.

(14:05):
I actually know a shocking amount about Charlie XCX and
have seen her perform live and she's awesome, And I
still don't I don't know about Taylor, and I know
that there are listeners of this podcast that love Taylor.
So please also feel free to educate us in the comments.

Speaker 2 (14:21):
Or yeah, please don't like mail us letter bombs.

Speaker 3 (14:24):
Yeah, yeah, like a severed hand, like.

Speaker 2 (14:26):
We don't we don't mean anything by it exactly.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
All right, So how about this, how about this? I
challenge you by the next MLD News episode to have
listened to it's called Life of a Showgirl, right, Life
of a Showgirl, and to have a take on it
that is not a personal attack, that is about the
music itself and what she's doing as an artist at
this point. And maybe the next episode of the show

(14:53):
can be a blowout Life of a Showgirl specific episode.
Are you cool with that? Is that a thing to do?

Speaker 2 (15:00):
Yeah? A textual analysis?

Speaker 3 (15:02):
Yes, okay, yeah, all right, Life of a show Girl.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
There you go.

Speaker 1 (15:06):
Major label debut is boldly going wherever literally every other
every other person yesterday. We'll see it in two weeks
with some cool takes. Okay, that could be our series
cold Takes.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
Well, gold Takes.

Speaker 2 (15:21):
Cold Takes is a good idea, all.

Speaker 1 (15:23):
Right, Taylor Swift, Life a show Girl come in two weeks. Great,
all right, This is how the sausage gets made. See,
it's just like making a record. You gotta you gotta iterate.
Well that's the MLD News and the MLD Brainstorming Session.

Speaker 2 (15:38):
All rolled into one. This week's podcast, Future Ruins.

Speaker 3 (15:43):
Yes, we love your Future Ruins. Come back to us.

Speaker 1 (15:46):
Please jump Paul, It's always such a joy potting with you.
More and more, I just I feel I feel loose,
I feel like I'm in the groove with you. I
feel like we've got a good jam going.

Speaker 3 (15:55):
Thank you for having me. I feel the exact same way,
and I'm looking forward to next time doing this. We've
got a great episode coming next week too. Hell yeah,
so like lots of very cool stuff becoming your way.
Thank you for listening.

Speaker 1 (16:08):
Yeah, it's almost been one year of major labeled debut
and we really appreciate everyone who's stuck around. We're having
a blast doing it. And yeah, there's some wicked episodes
still in the hopper. And if you haven't checked out
Dave Alvin yet, we were talking before we turned on
the recording that it was a great conversation from a
external facing podcast perspective, but I think we both also

(16:29):
really got a lot out of it, like personally in
terms of helping encourage us as two people who try
to make a living doing creative work and making art
and that sometimes is fun and easy and sometimes it
is heavy and hard. And Dave Alvin has been through
every version of it and seems to kind of like
know some secrets about it. So even if you're not
familiar with his music, his philosophy and his just his

(16:54):
whole way about him is really wonderful.

Speaker 2 (16:56):
So please check out the Dave Alvin episode of Major
Label Debut as well.

Speaker 3 (17:00):
In fact, I just bought tickets to see him. It's
a good pitch, and I'm going to do another pitch
for Dave Alvin, which is personally I just bought tickets
to see him on New Year's Eve in Long Beach
where he is headlining a huge show of really interesting artists.
Check it out, Come see me, Come hang out with me,
ondo yours even Long Beach.

Speaker 1 (17:20):
Hell yeah, go up to Paul and explain to him
about Taylor Swift. Please, you don't have to introduce yourself,
just start talking.

Speaker 3 (17:26):
Just a one sharp punch to the gut.

Speaker 2 (17:31):
You're allowed one. It's the MLD guarantee. Yes, all right.

Speaker 1 (17:34):
Major Label Debut is produced, as always by the aforementioned
and much beloved John Paul Bullock. Hello, also by the
aforementioned Josh Hook non prom attender. Our theme music's by
the great Greg Alsop, who I actually hung out with
any Dream last night, So Greg, I miss you. Buddy.
Apparently my subconscious misses you as well, Miss to Dude.
Subscribe to MLD after hours for all the sexy that's

(17:57):
our only fans feed. Please like, subscribe, find us on
social media. We're posting clips, we're posting takes, we're posting
front face and videos. We love doing the podcast, and
the more you click on stuff about the podcast, I
think the more we get to do it is how
it works.

Speaker 2 (18:11):
So thanks for listening.

Speaker 1 (18:12):
Major Label Debut and MLD News will return with more tales,
news and chin stroking from the intersection of art and commers.

Speaker 3 (18:19):
Go Blue Jays, also Go Dodgers, Go.

Speaker 2 (18:22):
Blue Jays, and sure go Dodgers. See in the world series.

Speaker 3 (18:24):
Bye Bye,