Episode 54: Botch's "We Are the Romans"

Episode Transcript
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Cliff (00:00):
Today we're talking about We Are the Romans by Botch.

(00:03):
So, Kyle, I know that many of ourillustrious fans have messaged us
directly and said, thank you so muchfor expanding my palette with things
such as Alain Goresje and Ravi Shankar,but this time, would you mind doing
something that's more accessible?
to normal people to immediately pick up.

(00:26):
And the answer to that is aresounding, um, no, sorry.
No, no, not this time.
Unfortunately, it's still importantand, uh, we need to pull your
palate in another direction for fun.
Although for spoilers that itwill be significantly different
than the previous two vibes thatwe've asked you to get down with.

Kyle (00:46):
Imagine if we'd gone from Marvin Gaye into this one.

Cliff (00:50):
There are threads that we could pull there too.
So why not?
the whole thing of this podcast is lookat how all these things interconnect.
This record is really, reallyimportant to us, to a lot of people.
And in the moment that we'rerecording this session together,
which is a little bit before itwill be released in the appropriate

(01:11):
month relative to the calendar.
But in this particular moment, Botchis about to finish its, well, what
it says is its final, final show.
Although as we'll discuss, I'm sure thisis a band that would agitate promoters
by consistently saying that they wereabout to play their last show ever

(01:32):
for years and years and years on end.
Um, and so even in this moment, it'sgoing to be a little difficult to
try to figure out whether that'sactually what's happening or not,

Kyle (01:41):
I kind of believe

Cliff (01:41):
I do too.

Kyle (01:42):
Yeah.
So like, thanks for all the wind up.
But also they'll, if time is anyindicator, they'll be in their 60s the
next time they choose to resurrect.
Um, I just.
I don't know.
Anybody can do anything at any age.
Just look at Iggy Pop, but

Cliff (02:00):
Yup.

Kyle (02:00):
I don't, know that they'll want to.

Cliff (02:02):
No, they seem to enjoy Charlie Browning the football away from
people every time they go to kick it.
So I would imagine that this momentis probably probably, if I had to bet,
sincere for the purposes of being like,did you ever expect us to be sincere
here at the last moment of our career?

Kyle (02:19):
yeah.
And the other thing that's different thistime is they are sincerely, undeniably,
kicking everyone's ass like the peoplewho knew knew back in the day and then
other people had 20 years to catch up andthey've been at the full height of their
powers for the what 14 plus months they'vebeen torn on this record since the whole

(02:44):
thing sort of started on a whim it's awhole fun story but here we are the thing
for me Going into this one was it's likethe water right in front of our face.
The, this is, we've talked about converge.
We've talked about me without you, butI would say if there's like a Rosetta
stone record, the whole reason we startedmusic grid before Tundig was because of

(03:07):
a little band called the chariot thatabsolutely wouldn't exist without Botch.
And I would say the majorityof the like center of the Venn
diagram of our musical friendship.
owes everything to Botch andto this record specifically.
So it's a bit like, any anyone who alreadyprobably needs to know knows and then

(03:31):
everyone else, why would you even bothergoing about Convincing them, you know,
how do you jump from Ravi Shankar to this?
Where it's like it's so intensely personaland it's so about seeing the niche and
whatever but I think there's some reallygood universal stuff to unpack here that
I hope we avoid trafficking in the clichesthat so many people have done in talking

(03:55):
about This band and this record and whatit ostensibly means But I do think there
is a fair amount of stuff to take awayonce you take the cannonball to the gut
of the opening sounds of this record.

Cliff (04:07):
Yup.
To that end, the Bandcamp summaryfrom the reissue of this record.
It's good enough to just say asan intro to talking about this
thing, cause it's hilarious.
Begin quote.
Unless you've been living under a rockthat's underneath an even bigger rock
in a cave in the middle of nowhere,you probably already know what's
up with this milestone of an album.

(04:28):
Initially released in the year two grand,Baja's final full length was slash is
the kind of devastating metallic hardcoreexplosion that the term quote metallic
hardcore could slash can only aspire to.
In fact, these dudes nailed itso hard that the bands that came
after them had to start callingthemselves Metalcore out of respect.

(04:51):
even that little synopsis is born ofa time that has now passed, but was
the moment that we learned about weare noodley hardcore right around
this exact time when all of a suddenblogs and threads and thoughts that
people were beginning to have aboutlineages of bands were beginning to

(05:11):
be documented on the internet in waysthat we could chase down, figure out,
learn about, and then download all of.
And I think even that attitude that weheard in that writing used to be the way
that a lot of bands would write aboutthemselves and their albums, even in that
time, trying to figure out how to givethe most kitschy MySpace bio that would

(05:33):
cause you to play some tunes and then hoparound on similar artists or whatever.
But like, it's both that quote itself isa good introduction to this band and this
record because it's both in some ways.
manner, factually more or lessaccurate, and also just like
wildly inappropriate tonally.

(05:54):
And both of those things just livetogether with glee, uh, anytime
this band pokes its head up.

Kyle (06:00):
There is a definite you know, two types of people, people who get it
and people who don't thing that liveson in the posture of this band and
is sort of exemplified by this quote.
And that's a theme that kept popping upfor me and, you know, if you're under the
age of 25 first of all, welcome, crazythat you're listening to this second of
all it probably sounds farcical on itsface, you know, cause if you grew up in

(06:25):
flattened, the flattened cultural contextof the internet, like it's, it's almost
passe to say like genres are irrelevantor, you know, you know, regional scenes
are, or whatever, but I guess restassured at least that I, an older, pit
retired person have always hated thiskind of stuff as a word person, and

(06:46):
the like, imagined Berlin Wall betweenmetal people and punk people, and just
like, the word metalcore makes me,makes me want to jump in front of a car.
Um, And it does such a disservice,like so much of the stuff around this
does a disservice to the smartness ofa band like Botch and the people in it.

(07:11):
And I think that's where a lot ofthe pushback and the bristling on
the record came from is like, we'reoutsiders to the world already.
That's why we've sought out thesevenues and these weird sounds.
Like why are we doing the sameshit inside this room that they're
doing out there outside the doors?
Like guys, can we, can we takea minute and pause until we
can figure out what's going on?

(07:32):
So I, all that to say, no matterwhat your age, if you're if you're
a little bit of an antagonist or amisanthrope, No matter what the sounds
do to you when you press play on thisrecord, You can at least start with a
posture that there is to appreciate.
That's a little different than anythingyou're going to get anywhere else.
Cause it's antagonistic, butit's also smart and self assured.

(07:55):
And I think you cansense that in the music.
It's like impossible to separateinto any kind of an objective first
impression for us at this point.
But I, I think I want to ascribe thatsort of posture and being able to sense
that feeling, connecting to that feelingimmediately, tell me more about Botch.
paint more of a picture about this band.

Cliff (08:16):
We go to the 90s in the Pacific Northwest where nothing was happening in
music at all during that time, for sure.
Certainly nothing that would goon to influence American music.
Uh, in any degree, but yeah, to this,what you just brought up will keep playing
itself out over the history of this band,uh, both in their original active moments

(08:38):
and then in the followup since then butthey were formed in Tacoma, Washington in
93, which I always really want to impresswhen we are talking about bands from
the nineties who were doing sounds that.
Created new genres 10, 20, and 30 yearslater, because it's very, very difficult

(09:00):
in my opinion, at least I was only oneparticular age in the 90s, but it's
very difficult to imagine this band,Meshuggah, Dillinger Escape Plan, making
the types of records that they didin a year that started with 19 in it.
It, it feels out of time and strange.

(09:20):
So it's.
Cool enough to think about how outof left field seeming any of this
stuff would be but I have a feelingthat it's sort of doubly or triply
the feeling that we're getting thesedays to have experienced it back then.
You must have felt like a madmanlistening to something like this
the moment that it came out.

Kyle (09:39):
totally, it's, are you experienced in 67, right?
Where you're like an alien gave themthe, the blueprint for the pyramid.
There's no way this cameout of a fucking human body.
And just like 93, man, like Tacomaright down the road from Aberdeen.
Nirvana is blown up.
The Melvins are, I think.

(10:01):
this would have been right beforestoner, which so, but like Pacific
Northwest is fully poppin atthis point, but not in this way.
Like it's, it is the grunge momentand they started and were influenced
by like more 80s stuff, but the holdthat like punk, truly punk culture,

(10:22):
uh, and like post punky stuff.
almost had on this area is, is like justanthropologically really cool to me.
You know, they were all, allfighting back against the rednecks
up in that area at the time.
It's, it's a culture of a bygone era.
It's just, it's so interesting.

Cliff (10:41):
For sure.
And like Melvin's, which, youknow, we spent a lot of time in
the episode about Melvin Melvin'sthat we did years ago about how
much of a Rosetta Stone they are.
And so here that is again rightinfluencing bands that don't
necessarily sound like them, butcertainly share a certain approach
to antagonism at all possible times.

(11:04):
Because yeah, like, like you werementioning, you know, in the early
90s, that would have been, you know,Stoner Witch was 94, Houdini was 93.
So they were already uh, gaining whatthey would gain as the band Melvins.
But for like Botch specifically,it was sort of a double edged
sword and you read a lot aboutthis in retrospective now, but.
Effectively, at the time, like, they wereseen as not playing especially accessible

(11:29):
music, which will not shock a lot ofpeople who may not be familiar with the
band, right, but like, the degree towhich you become inaccessible when you're
already an offshoot of a burgeoning punkscene is, like, An interesting threshold
to kind of figure out, like, who, holdon if punk is a whole collective thing

(11:49):
where we're sort of saying there's nothingthat doesn't belong, who is it that's
all of a sudden making the wall thatsays Botch is on the other side of it?
We, we don't really know, but whatwe see from Botch in those years is,
they were pissed at whoever it was.
Whoever defended that wall,they fucking hated them.
And so they were consistently sort ofbeing treated as outsiders and then also

(12:14):
Made sure to act like outsiders, uh,at every possible chance they could.
Made fun of overly serioushardcore and punk scenes.
I mean, there are a milliontouchstones for all this as we talk
about this record and this band.
But I mean, everything from the wayshows were booked to the way that
they made merch and sold merch.
The designs of their t shirt.

(12:36):
The way that they releasedrecords after they broke up as a

Kyle (12:38):
go Google the, go Google Botch boy band shirt right now.
So merch in punk history.
That and the chat pile, glass, grimace,smoking a bong are my two favorite pieces
of merch probably ever in punk history.

Cliff (12:57):
Neither of them currently approved for working remotely
where my shirt is in the camera.
But I can wear

Kyle (13:06):
I'm off camera and I can't tell you why.

Cliff (13:10):
My shirt is too cool for this meeting and I'm very

Kyle (13:13):
Isn't it pride month?
Fuck you guys.
Doesn't Lockheed Martin support?
Don't we have a rainbowLinkedIn right now?

Cliff (13:25):
So even back then, right, some, some other examples of this Me and you
laugh about this a lot because it hasbecome such a normal thing that it's no
longer a surprising bit But like we'llsee weird bands weird local or small
or heavy bands or whatever play showsAnd especially if they're the headliner
and seem to have any control overThe music that gets played in between

(13:46):
before the band comes up like nowadays.
It's just like that Basically, as ironicas you can possibly be is the move, right?
You are either at that pointmaking a sincere statement about an
obscure piece of music, or you'rebeing intentionally obtuse and
playing something that doesn't fit.
And like, that's becomea normal, expected move.
This is the kind of shitthat Botch did then.

(14:08):
In the 90s, intentionally to like,throw off any vibes of like, overly
serious pretension towards whatit is that we are about to do.
Which is basically to make well,discordant noise at seemingly random
intervals for a really long timewith high energy until we're done.

Kyle (14:28):
But it was a signal that it's about energy and momentum and release, not about
aggression or, masculinity or whatever.
And, and we have two really recentexamples, like the big one that I think
about a lot is turnstile playing, I wantto dance with somebody and everybody's

(14:48):
singing along right before they go on.
But then we saw he is legendfor the I am Hollywood shows.
Like a week or two ago and theyplayed, um, what's that Shania song?
Man, I feel like a woman andeverybody's saying along there too.
And like

Cliff (15:03):
course we did.

Kyle (15:04):
Only with, with forebearers like Botch, would that moment be
not only acceptable but commonplace.

Cliff (15:13):
Then, kind of contextually, for Botch as a band, but also the
type of music that they were creatingthat was considered to be not entirely
accessible to those scenes even then.
1999 and, right there at theend of 99 and then into 2000.
Again, this record was technicallyreleased like right at the end of
99 but seems to have had a littlebit of a period to where people will

(15:37):
talk about it being released in 2000.
But either way.
Right at that time you've got Man,here's a real like vignette into my life.
We're gonna list off some things that somepeople will know deeply and other people
will go, What in the hell are you talking

Kyle (15:51):
First group is small, but deep.
Second group is much

Cliff (15:55):
ha ha!
ha!
Yup!
So, 1999 especially wasreally crazy for hardcore.
In general, we have, we are theRomans, we have Calculating Infinity.
We have the Red Sea from ISIS.
We got the Poacher Diaries fromColette or, uh, from Converge.
Sorry.
And then not long before that,right, was, were Coalice Records.

(16:17):
Candiria was another band thatcame out during this time that
was doing some pretty crazy stuff.
Bands were experimenting with finding waysto become technical, but without having
to explain the technical complexity of it.
They were exploring ways to makecomplicated music without ever
having to have really a rubric fordeciphering it on the other end.

(16:40):
It just sort of like, the more youhear about the way Botch wrote this
record and then a lot of the otherbands who were writing similar music
people just got a weird itch and thenmade it weirder and weirder and weirder
and weirder until something had avery odd time signature that felt cool
overall and then put that shit on tape.
We're done.
no one is counting out all the beatsto start with and then subdividing

(17:00):
them up with intention in asongwriting or composition type manner.

Kyle (17:04):
You know, when you put this point in the outline, it got me thinking, like, was
it just hardcore that had a moment in 99?
But it's easy to forget becausewe're a quarter century on from
it, but like 99 was sort of aFeeling culture change moment in
general and like popular culture.

(17:25):
And Brian cook mentioned thisin an interview when they were
recording, we are the Romans.
Nuki was on MTV like every half hour.
He said, he was like, it was astonishingto me that this song was popular, but like
heavy music, that heavy music was popular,but also that it was like the dumbest
shit you'd ever heard in your life.
I caveat my biscuit fan, whatever.
Yeah.

(17:45):
But it reminded me also of when wetalked about Rated R by Queens, like, you
know, my probably favorite record ever.
And that was sort of a pushback toNu Metal as well, and like a sort of
a coarsening of the cultural sphere.
That that came out in mid 2000.
And then Stankonia by Outkast came out.
October of 2000, sort of in response tothe narrowing over 10 window of what was

(18:11):
acceptable in hip hop music at the time.
And so it's really interesting to methat you have this like end of the
millennium sort of fear and paranoia aboutwhat the next century is going to be.
And we squeeze all this juiceout of the end of the millennium,
like right at the wire.
And that goes for like artistsand counterculturists of all
stripes and, and punk is like peakcounterculture in our opinion.

(18:35):
So, I like looking at it throughlike more of an intersectional
lens too, but yeah, holy shit.
Just in the heavy music we did 30 or 40years worth of progress in heavy music
and a calendar year, which was awesome.

Cliff (18:48):
Yeah, I had never thought of it before this moment but yeah you're
right I can see lots of other examples,including the moment that was weird
for me when I, even though what I mean,1999 we're in middle school right.
So, my brain is.
Pre waking up to reality I wouldstill say at that point, but like I

(19:09):
remember that this'll This will knockme down a few pegs in anyone's brain.
In 99, the fundamentalelements of South Town by P.
O.
D.
came out, and if anyone just respondedviscerally to that, mention just
for a second, hold on, I'm notsaying the whole thing was crazy.
What I recalled in that moment, though,was like, South Town, the song, was big.

(19:32):
And it's a hardcore song.

Kyle (19:35):
Mm hmm.

Cliff (19:35):
it's hooky, yes, it's got DJ stuff, all that, for sure,
but like, it's a heavy song.
And like, they were sneaking in somekind of slammy metal type stuff.
Not only into, again, not onlyinto the sort of popular, But at
that point, I mean, they're shovingthat into Christian music stores.

(19:56):
And so all of a sudden now that'smeeting up with, you know, and if you
want to know about this little branch,right, we did the Norma Jean episode and
we'll walk you right up to that line.
And you can take that line furtherin our other episode if you want.
But like, yeah, to your point, like allof a sudden heavy music started finding
footings in a bunch of different places.
And even though we're maybeprojecting this onto it, it does

(20:18):
seem like all of a sudden a lot ofbands went, nah, I can be weird too.
Let's do it.
Let's get especially odd.
Right.
And then we had Behold the Arctopus,which is what happens when you
don't let people reel it back in.

Kyle (20:32):
Did you know, I didn't realize until just this exact moment, the Battle
of Los Angeles by Rage was releasedthe same day as We Are the Romans.

Cliff (20:39):
Yep.
Okay.
We're putting some pieces togetherin this puzzle, aren't we?
Yeah, for sure.

Kyle (20:43):
but again, internet convergence culture makes it so easy to see how a
bunch of stuff stacked up in a day, butwhen all we have is our like, pubescent
memories of these things, they allexisted in separate cultural lanes.
And so it's like, the Slim Shady LPcame out around the same time, came
out around the same time as Battle ofLos Angeles, and then came out around

(21:06):
the same time as We Are the Romans.
Crazy.

Cliff (21:09):
Yeah.
But then specific to, you know,that, whatever kind of subgenre or
scene you could discover, you know,to that point about the internet and
the way that it was changing then,finding Botch specifically, and
to this day, I think it's hard tothink back to this moment, right?
When I heard transitions frompersona to object, I was like, THIS?

(21:34):
Makes sense to me.
I know we've talked about this beforein other episodes like with Meshuggah,
but like, there was a part of me thatconnected to music in a new way the
first time I ever heard that reallyparticular riff in a really similar
way that like 43 percent burnt byDillinger's skate plan will do it.
all of a sudden you realize likesomething in my body and my psyche

(21:57):
loves The way you just did a rhythm

Kyle (22:00):
Mm hmm.

Cliff (22:01):
The way you just made that unnecessarily hard to follow, but then
I figured out how And now I can justrepeat it and repeat it like I felt dialed
into something In a way that I Reallyhadn't dialed into music before then
despite wanting to study it and love itand learn from it already It's like the

(22:22):
closest I would get to something likethat before that point was like, you
know, led zeppelin something that wasabout depth and mastery and proficiency
and production and like Things that justhad you know stories and thought and
complexity for days and years and insteadthis was like This doesn't feel like
that, though, but it's still really cool.

Kyle (22:43):
Yeah.

Cliff (22:44):
Thank you, Blox.
And As well, like during that timethis actually came out from Hydra
Head Records, which is another, again,moment to see all the places that
things were spiderwebbing out, right?
Because Hydra Head was started byAaron Turner, Aaron Turner having
been the frontman of ISIS and nowSUMAC and a lot of other really cool

(23:05):
projects, who's also just like areally cool artist in his own right.
But you know, Hydra Head at that time wasputting out, again, Check this list, man,
like Isis, Botch, Converge, Coalesce,Boris, Jesu, Kayo Dot, Cave In, like
just records on records on records thatwould become if you just took that list

(23:26):
and you took every record from the everyband I just mentioned in five seconds you
can find Hundreds or thousands of peoplewho are like, that's my favorite record
and I love it so much I would die for
it.
Like it's an important piece of music tome And in some of these just a handful of
record labels were just like putting outthings that would you know have all this

Kyle (23:49):
It's, I mean, there were a lot of great labels, like, Ipecac, amphetamine
reptile, like cool, cool, heavy,weird, whatever stuff in the nineties.
But for my money, Hydra head was likethe a 24 of seen stuff at that time.

(24:10):
Where it's like, I will go check it out.
Sight unseen.
Because it's so wellcurated and it's so good.
So like, shout out to AaronTurner for being a consistent
tastemaker for over 20 years.
And being reallyuncompromising about that.
Like, Hydra Head, you andI personally owe a lot.

(24:35):
And I know, to your point, thousandsof people would say the same thing.
And like, that kind ofan impact is so cool.
So cool and seismic.

Cliff (24:44):
It really is.
It really is.
And you know, Man, moments like this,sorry for an overly earnest aside,
so early in the episode, but like,Thinking about moments like this Will
sometimes, like, really kind of throwmy spirit into a weird moment Of What
is the little small thing that I havean itch to do that feels like it won't

(25:05):
matter but could potentially have likea seismic dent in the universe level?
Type of shift or cause people tosee things or experience things
differently in such a cool direction.
And like Aaron Turner and Jake Bannon,both are people who are like, you
just watch them having done things.

(25:28):
And you go, Oh my God, like you'vecreated more culture than I'll ever
experience in my whole lifetime.
Just

Kyle (25:35):
He says with a Jacob Bannon artwork directly behind his head.

Cliff (25:40):
Yes.
Yes.
Be because in, in a in a sincere way,people like that really inspire me.
Like the, there doesn't seem to be a highthreshold for the pretense of the thing.
The thing doesn't have to beso important before you do it.
They just sort of do it because it'sin the lane of the art that they've

(26:01):
created or that they want to create.
I don't know.
I just I have a sinking feelingthat if you talk to either of
them about it They would neverhave the foresight to tell you.
Yeah, I knew that was going to make ahuge difference I knew I should start
hydra head records and put these weirdbands out because I knew it would
Change the landscape of music Overthe coming decades, but it happened

(26:25):
because they wanted to and then it did

Kyle (26:27):
I, it resonates with people because the start and end of the ethos is I
want, I wanted to find a little bitof a lane that didn't exist that like
spiritually evokes some of the things thatI grew up loving and being inspired by.
But like, I want to find my own way Toexpress those things, and I just want

(26:49):
to do it, I will do it, no matter what.
It's not product market fit bullshit.
It's not tech guy on LinkedIn.
Sociopathic depravity.
It's, I would do this if itput me in a tent, and I had to
live on the streets to do this.
They all, All the guys like that haveevolved really beautifully and they're

(27:12):
like, there is a mix of pragmatism orwhatever that allows them to keep evolving
and growing and finding new ways toreach people and connect with people.
But I think at the end of the day, it'slike, I just want to be around things
that I really believe in and I want tomake things that I really believe in.
One of the, one of the dudes in Botchin one of the interviews had the quote,
you know, I, I'd rather be proud ofwhat I did than rich in my twenties.

(27:37):
And they're like all the Hydra headbands.
I, there is a sense of pride of like,well, no matter what happened, we made the
best and most original stuff we possiblycould and didn't cave into a zeitgeist.
We tried to find our own voiceand, you know, at the end of our
lives, that's all we can ask for.

Cliff (27:55):
Yeah, so we can take that little nugget with us, but even that plays out
in the way that Botch got connected toHydra head at all to create this record
and then we can kind of talk some moreabout the music itself but Aaron Turner
contacted Botch and asked him to put asong on a compilation that Hydra Head
wanted to put out called In These BlackDays, which is a whole bunch of Black

(28:19):
Sabbath cover albums, uh, released asa series of split singles, which for
what it's worth was more innovativeback in the day than our current,
uh, hellscape of music distribution.
But, so, Botch recorded a cover of TheWizard, which is just, uh, Unironically,
my favorite Black Sabbath song anyway.
But they recorded a cover of that, sentsent it to Aaron Turner along with a demo.

(28:40):
And now we, uh, now we're goingto release a Botched record.
Okay.
Yeah.
Like whatever this band is doing,everybody was on board with.
But like, so many earnest, tinyconnections like that are cool and have
such a uniqueness to them down to like,The fact that, uh, a Black Sabbath cover

(29:01):
would connect these people when, youknow, one of the ways that Coalesce got
through certain periods of their careerwas from a Led Zeppelin's cover record.
There's just a, you, if you makethe mistake, as we go along,
of thinking everything here isnon serious, you'll miss it.
But if you think everything is serious,you'll miss it too, because it's not.

(29:23):
But like, You don't record Black Sabbathand Led Zeppelin covers, you don't talk
to people in the scene who clearly careabout bands and putting out innovative
material, unless you, at some particularand personal level, give a deep shit
about something that you're doing.
But Botcha's ploy seems to have alwaysbeen We're never gonna quite let you

(29:46):
in on exactly what that means, and youronly invitation is to come to a bot show.
At which point we'll probably troll youbut that's still the only place to get it.

Kyle (29:56):
Agreed.

Cliff (29:58):
Ah, carrying on the vibe of the Melvins, no matter what, in
every possible aspect of reality.
So Okay, one thing we've been doingin recent Toondig episodes that
will work really cool here, I think.
One of the things we talk about is howdo you start by taking in a record like
this, especially if it's one that youhaven't heard before, or you haven't

(30:22):
heard in a long time, or isn't generallyin your kind of sphere of things you're
naturally going to turn on, unless wemake you and, I think this one's, this
is a really important aspect of musiclike this, and we sort of talked about
it a bit with Meshuggah but, you know,being able to approach this with an open

(30:42):
mind is important but there are someways I think we can kind of guide your
open mind through it as, um, experiencedlisteners of well, just perversely
decadent music I think we can help.
So.
To that end, I'd be curious then Kyle,like what either kind of surprises
you about this record, thinking aboutit as someone listening to it for the

(31:04):
first time, or like paying a lot ofattention to it, uh, as we have in prep
here or otherwise like some guidance orcontext on thinking about this, if it's
not normally within your wheelhouse.

Kyle (31:15):
Yeah I think for a number of reasons, this exercise is especially
important in this episode with thisalbum for a couple of reasons, One,
like if the Olivia Rodrigo episodebrought you to this point with us
in some rare way or something elselike that sun house, I don't know.
You're gonna, maybe there's a chance thatyou'll turn this on and within 10 seconds

(31:39):
hit the pause button and be like, Nope.
I'm going to go get a beer.
Keep on living my life.
on the other end of the spectrum.
There is a lot of hype.
There's a lot of cliched writing,which I, you know, have already talked
about my disdain for, but this albumis enshrined, you know, like you, you
mentioned to me before how many placesthis appears on like best albums of

(32:02):
the end of the millennium or whatever.
Like they've been called revolutionaries.
It, it has a true hall of fame place.
So it's like very easy to throwall that in, into your like goggles
before you listen and be like, there'ssomething I'm supposed to get, like
a lot of other people get this thing.

(32:24):
I need to get it, whatever, whateverhappens when I listen, I need to
get it and then go to a show and belike, yeah, of course I love Botch.
I would do my best to do away with.
Any of those preconceived notions and tryreally hard to listen for the first time.
Even if you have listened to thisbefore, even if you're a Botch fan,
like even if you're listening to thisepisode because you love the band

(32:46):
because you saw the reunion tour.
If you're in the camp like us wewish we could, I would dare to
say, experience the feeling of thisrecord for the first time again.
I think there's three thingsthat stand out for me.
The first thing is the energy, right?
At the risk of, at the risk ofsounding like all the writers that

(33:06):
I, I hate talking about this record.
The first thing that you're going tonotice is like a force of nature feeling
right, like immediately first notesright out of the gate, and it's just,
it's like downhill skiing on a blackdiamond or something, or like having a
hurricane come directly at your face.
Um, and I won't, I promise Iwon't do any more shitty similes.

(33:30):
but like.
To be able, the human ability to beable to bottle a thing like that, that's
inside of you and just like throw alightning bolt with your hand is amazing.
And no matter what kind of musicyou're into or what kind of stuff you
like in the world just try to hop onthat horse and grab it right away.
The second thing is like, there'sa lot going on noise wise.

(33:52):
But there's a tightness, you, I, I willuse an I statement, never doubt the band's
control over the chaos for a second.
Frequency Ass Bandit is a really greatexample of that for me where it like,
it can be really choppy and abrupt.
But they're, they're in control.
They're riding thelightning the whole time.

(34:14):
And then similarly, the third thingis, is dynamics and space and tone.
One thing that sets them apart from alot of their peers of the time was not
only the like nirvana, loud, quiet, loudthing that they do so well, and it doesn't
feel jarring to go from a loud part toa quiet part but the space they create

(34:36):
and the tone that, that like creates afeeling of bigness throughout the record
because a lot of it is not recorded ina big Led Zeppelin four kind of way.
It's close mic'd, it's tight.
You know, there's some DI stuff.
Dave's vocals are very tight.
The drums are very tight and dry.
It sonically is not necessarilya record that I would think of as

(34:59):
big, but there's just like sucha torrent of shit coming at you.
That the dynamic stuff helpsyou zoom out and it sort of
creates space in the recording.

Cliff (35:11):
Yeah, a hundred percent.
I, uh, I remember that surprising me,specific to the sound of it, back hearing
it, even back then, for the first time,in, you know, probably, 48k on my iPod,
or whatever, um, or probably, yeah,

Kyle (35:29):
It just, it sounded like a monophonic ringtone.
Yeah.

Cliff (35:31):
Jesus.
Yeah, so, actually, yeah, so, atthat time, that would have been, I
would have been downloading this onNapster, playing this on the old Family
Computer Speaks, uh, with whatever,uh, headphone I could find nearby, and

Kyle (35:44):
crackle, needless to

Cliff (35:45):
yup, and even then, you'd be like, Well, this sounds like it was
recorded in a toilet paper tube, uh, why?
and I do want to call out like I Speakingfor myself, I guess I I don't love the
production of this record And I don'tthink that the reason that most people
love this record is because of theproduction of it but It was a move,

(36:11):
and I didn't realize that it was a moveuntil, and we might mention this later,
but Norma Jean, we, we covered that, youknow, we did an episode on their first
record, Bless the Martyr, Kiss the Child.
If that sounded like an ISIS record,the next record they, they had,
Oh God, the Aftermath, soundedexactly like a Botch record.

(36:32):
And it freaked me out when I heard it thefirst time because I was kind of looking
forward to that record And I didn'tunderstand it and then it didn't take
but even back then a pretty quick likeSet of googles to quickly understand.
Oh matt bales did.
Oh, he Oh, this is him, in both places.
Now I understand.

(36:53):
This is a very particularway to do hardcore, and it
sounds this way on purpose.
And, so, I think, trying to avoid

Kyle (37:02):
but it's not like a whole, it's not, it's not like an
injustice for all thing where you're

Cliff (37:07):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly.

Kyle (37:08):
this sucks.
do I love it?
Like if I was in a heavy band, wouldI want my record to sound like that?
No.
Would I change it?
Absolutely not.
Like it, it adds to,it's the fifth man thing.
It adds to it.
And I think some of thebite of it would be lost.

(37:29):
It sounds good.
And I don't, I don't really knowhow to convey like like objectively,
if you're a Nashville person, whichMatt Bayless was, that's where he
interned and he worked with countryguys on straight to tape all day.
So again, it was a move.
He knew what he was doing.
They knew what they were doingwhen they produced this record.
is it objectively good?
No, probably not.

(37:51):
But, but it is, it is intentional.
It is deliberate.
And it is good.
It is good in the way that it wants to be.
It's not like there's nothingabout it that you hear it and
you're like, this sounds like shit.
It's, it's dialed into whatit is, but it's different.

Cliff (38:07):
to all that.
It's important to point out though,because it has an outsized impact on
how it sounds in certain contexts.
This record changes the most tome, depending on what type of
headphones you're listening to.
Car, not bass subwoofer, not right.

(38:27):
Like there's a, there's a veryparticular little alley that
the bass guitar is driving down.
And if your headphones arenot good at that little.
You just won't hear it.
You just won't hear it.

Kyle (38:39):
I agree.

Cliff (38:40):
And.
But, to your point, it begins to feelintentional if you'll let yourself hear
it, because what does happen by doingthat is guitar merges with vocals, and
everything becomes an extreme downbeat.
Push like everything has an energy toit when everything's kind of coming

(39:02):
down at the same time that Disconnectsa bit I think from the rhythm that's
otherwise setting it up And thatcreates a really cool dynamic and
it's part of what makes it reallydifficult to find doing rhythmically.
And we'll probably talkabout this some more as well.
But like the alternations betweenwhat designates a downbeat in

(39:24):
this music will send you spinning.
And It's an aspect of what makes you feeloff kilter and what makes it feel like
it lacks like resolution and things likethat it's all kind of working together
and doing something interesting that alot of other music never really tried
to do and for me, especially Goingback and trying to both remember what

(39:47):
it felt like at the time and thinkingabout it now like it still Shocks me
how little any of these songs resolvein a traditional musical sense Period.
Root notes, choruses,payoffs in general, no, no.
And it becomes even clearer thatthat's the case when you listen to

(40:09):
bands who were heavily inspired bythem and took more melodic directions
and turned those into like resolvingchoruses and things like that.
And so to me, this just like continuesto kind of stand out as like, it's It
was a unified approach to somethingin particular that is very, very
hard to execute unless your brain isalready kind of preconceptualizing it.

(40:32):
But if you want to hear what I thinkfirst of all, to be even clearer, like
there has already been a remaster ofthis record that came out, which is
for the most part, the one you're goingto listen to when you're streaming.
And I think that got released in 2006or 2007, something like that, maybe.
And yeah 2007 and so that's alreadyimproving for sure but then The two

(40:56):
minutes to late night guys did a coverof to our friends in the great white
north and curbaloo's playing guitar onit and Presumably had something to do
with maybe the production or how someof that sounds and I thought it gave an
interesting um insight into how woulda whole bunch of people who definitely
respect what was being done on this recordtreat the first song from this record?

(41:21):
Like the most recognizable soundin some hardcore sub genres at all
is the beginning of this record.
And so it was an interesting bit tolisten to there, but to your point, like
you can even see that Even though I feellike I can tell some tonal differences,
especially maybe in drums and things likethat, they are still trying to achieve

(41:41):
that same unified sharpness that wouldcome down with angular guitar riffs and
vocals happening all at the same time.
So it's a fun thing toexperiment with and think about.
So that, that continues to catch meoff guard a little bit these days
as I think about and listen to it.
But being less of a fucking dork for asecond, uh, you know, we, uh, we talk

(42:05):
a lot about the, uh, everything's infour, four, if you're not a huge dork
challenge I want you to kind of applyit here, especially if you are someone
who's new to this record or doesn'tlisten to a lot of music like this,
if you have trouble, like latching in.
Just go straight to transitions frompersona to object in the very beginning.

(42:30):
It is five beats over fourbeats And then every 20 beats,
these two things come together.
If you'll just kind of sit with thatpart of that song for a second and try
to count out those notes and hear it,maybe, not for everybody, but maybe,
some people it will like, click in.
You'll find out there's like acodex to this thing in a lot of

(42:52):
the cases that makes you, like,it's what makes the hook worth it.
In a lot of these records is because onceyou get where that downbeat is you hear
it differently And then you're locked in

Kyle (43:06):
I have listened to this record and thought, How would I be able to keep up
with the changes if I were in this band?
And they're definitely one of those.
Well, I would just have to memorizeparts until they became muscle memory.
Because to your point, I do think a littlebit of it is inherent to them and the
different influences that they broughtto the room and like some of the weird

(43:28):
tensions in, in lots of different ways.
It's definitely not Polyphia or one ofthose bands where it's like the math is
the point and it's like it's this andthen it's this and I went to berkeley and

Cliff (43:41):
Yeah with very clean playing and everything.

Kyle (43:44):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, it's just uh a little off, youknow, I'm going to take, I'm going
to take this thing that's regular andthen I'll, I'll take out one little
chunk here and I'll stick it underneathover here on this other side until it
starts looking kind of funky, but itdefinitely starts from a like, just what's

(44:05):
a cool basic idea type of framework,

Cliff (44:07):
Yeah, there's a, I'm not one for these videos normally, but there
is a cool reaction video on YouTubeof someone who's clearly like very
well versed in music theory andis a composer reacting to is it C.
Thomas Howell?
It was one of, one of the songs fromthis record and he is, no, I think it was

(44:29):
transitions for persona to object, but

Kyle (44:31):
which, which, by the way, multiple interviews, different band members
have said, like, I think that's thehigh watermark of the Botch sound.
So if you start with to ourfriends and that's too much, like
skip straight to track three,that's my favorite Botch song.
Cliff, obviously youhave an affinity for it.

(44:53):
They played it pretty late inthe set in the reunion tour.
And it got quite a reaction.
So there, there is something there.
It's, there's like a core Botchthing, which is interesting because
it's one of their weirder songs.
It's not like a Botch fastball.
It's a Botch change up.
Ha ha

Cliff (45:15):
this reaction video is funny because it ends up being,
um, and we know how this feels.
This guy says pretty late in thevideo, holy shit, this song was
like a seven minute song and I'vetalked for 45 minutes about it.
How did that happen?
Like, yeah, I feel you.
Let's get another white guy in here andwe'll add another hour to every episode.

(45:36):
It'll be sick.

Kyle (45:39):
Director's cut.

Cliff (45:44):
the

Kyle (45:45):
I put three white guys in a room and all I got was this shitty DVD commentary.

Cliff (45:52):
just a lot of, wow, that's so interesting, yeah,

Kyle (45:55):
Dude.
Bro.
Bro.
Wait.
Bro.
Wait.
Babe.

Cliff (46:00):
listen to this guy who's clearly smart about music, like try
to kind of chronologically trackin real time, the time signatures.
He's clearly very good at it andhe does it right at the beginning,
right in that part I'm talking aboutwhere it's like a 5 4 over 4 4.
And he's, he's easily doing it.
And then as it goes along,he's like, no, I got it.
And he's naming them and he's countingthem out and he's naming them.

(46:23):
And then it starts to get toseveral places and he's like,
I don't know what they did.
I don't know.
I don't know.
And it, but he kept, it was thiscycle, which I think is a cycle
that's worth having for people maybelistening to this for the first
time, which is like, that didn'tmake any sense, but it wasn't wrong.
That didn't make anysense, but it wasn't wrong.

(46:43):
Hold on.
Okay.
That did.
Okay.
I don't understand what happened.
It feels random, but at the same time, itworks if I keep in here and listen to the
next thing that it's connecting to you.

Kyle (46:53):
For other non musician fans of that Michael Palomino guy,
the guy who always plays the PRSguitar and reacts to different
Pieces of

Cliff (47:02):
yeah.
That guy seems so sweet.

Kyle (47:04):
It's a, I agree.
Like, I love watching his videos.
Watching that guy when you sent methat was a lot like the satisfaction
of watching a Michael Palominovideo where he can't immediately
find the phrasing of a thing.
It's satisfying if you likethe piece of music and he can't
figure it out immediately.

(47:24):
Cause it's like, there'sa smartness to it.
If he can't, if this guy withperfect pitch and whatever,
can't get right to the thing.
So it was cool to watch that guy withbots where he was like, it's so weird.
And so we're like, what?
Yeah,
it's gratifying.
You know, there's somethingthere, but structurally, you
don't necessarily know what it is.

Cliff (47:45):
yeah And so let's dig in a little bit more there because there's still,
there's intentionality and there's somecool, I think more, more than almost
any other records we've talked about.
This one has nice little vignette quotesthat'll help kind of box you in to like
we said, it's always going to alternatebetween overthinking and underthinking.
So bringing out little vignettes aboutwhat they were actually trying to

(48:07):
do versus the meaning that you couldproject onto it in reverse is hilarious.
As a spoiler, soon we will talk about C.
Thomas Howell as the soul man, the titleof the song, and how How hilarious it
is that that is the song title, and howit is not as serious as you think it is
once you figure out why it's hilarious.

(48:29):
It's all amazing.
But, one quote that's great was,The point of Botch was as Tim
always put it, apparently Keep itin a weird time signature so when
they're banging their heads, they'rebanging them on the wrong beat.
And it's like a Okay, that can actuallyhelp me kind of figure this out.
And you would see then from all thebands that these folks would go on to

(48:52):
make, because this was actually theirlast studio record because apparently
they didn't get along super well.
But like, they would go on to, you gotMinus the Bear and Russian Circles and
These Arms are Snakes, uh, and Roy,which is a, a definite fun offshoot
but like, they would always continueto play with weird time signatures
in a lot of those other bands, butspecifically within Botch, like, it was

(49:14):
very antagonistic intentionally from theperspective of, of the actual rhythm.
And then the guitarists were.
I found reading about it fascinating,especially reading it now and hearing
it from grown adults thinking about howthey played guitar, 20 years ago or 25
years ago, and hearing them basicallytalk about, like, the thought that they

(49:38):
put into it was, Well, we want it tobe more complex than our last record
because we were kind of just fuckingaround with one finger drop detuning
chord things then So we wanted it to bemore complicated than that But at the
same time anything kind of beyond thatno like they weren't thinking harder.
It was more just like I want to play itdifferently than I played it last time

(50:00):
and I need it to be weird and mash up withall the weird stuff that we're doing, uh,
so that it's like, you know, sharp andangular and that's going to sound right.
There's no grand scheme.
Uh, there's no like magical complexmusic theory approach to how the
stuff was written which I thinkmakes it all the more fascinating
that it came out this way at all.

Kyle (50:23):
And then you add in the layer of you know, they said it was kind of a fluke.
They, this band was slow at writing.
America Nervoso took along time to put together.
Some of the songs were five and six yearsold by the time that record came out.
So they did a big tour on nso then itwas what's our next tour going to be?
That gave them sort of an endpoint for, okay, well we need new

(50:46):
music for when we go on that tour.
And they booked some studio timeand just so happened, I don't know,
cos call it cosmic whatever, to havea really fruitful writing phase.
NSO took two years to write.
And then Romans came out in lessthan six months The thing that I love

(51:08):
that they said about it just as aself professed creative, they said
it was a flurry of creative activity.
And it was almost like one ofthose things where once we'd given
ourselves a few parameters, once we'destablished that we were not going
to do standard palm muted mosh parts,just cutting that completely out.
So then it's, what can we do?
That's way more satisfying than that.

(51:29):
So by creating boundaries andlimitations, it opened things up for us.
Made us think a little moreaggressively and thinking outside the
box made things a lot more exciting.
Doing things like looping guitar partsand transitions from persona to object.
We were by no means the firstband to come up with that.
You can listen to Self Pity by NoMeans No from 1981 and they do a
very similar thing in that song.

(51:50):
But for us, that kind ofmusical technique was uncharted
territory and super exciting.
I love One of my favorite creativeexercises is more constraints, like even
within the context of this podcast, goingfrom what do you want to talk about into,
context, what to do on first listen, uh,what to think about influence, just, Just

(52:13):
like three, three or four really specificthings has been really liberating too.
So like any, anybody who's looking to tryto do anything new impose a limitation.
What can I do in 24 hours?
That's why I love, I've mentionedit before the Brian Eno card deck.
Oblique
strategies.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
That's why I love it so much imposing alimitation or a dimension or whatever.

(52:35):
Just like, push the physicsof your imagination, of your
creative being, in a direction.
And they were definitely doing that here.

Cliff (52:47):
And I think maybe another thing that you specifically and personally
would probably align with that supportsthat same creative energy is when you
find a thing though that really captureswhatever part of you that's like, um,
This fucking sucks, and I hate it, and Iwant to make it better, and I'm going to
keep pointing at it until it gets better.

(53:08):
That also motivated aspects of whatthey did, specifically with like, we
mentioned they were sort of immediatelyantagonistic towards and from the scene
itself that they were maybe attached to.
But they also had a really, they werereally hot on this thing back then,
and then they still talk about itnow, where One of the things they were

(53:29):
respec Repelling so strongly againstThat punk had And, and Hardcore had
tried to become self serious in a waythat made them really uncomfortable.
And they have, I mean, they're, they'reon record in a number of places, and I
don't just mean musically, they're onrecord in interviews basically being

(53:50):
like, we hate the band Race Trader andeveryone else who's like them, who was
at that time, like a band who you like.
It's pretty easy to go back and, andfind the edges that Botcha's pointing
at and saying that's stupid now.
But like, you could also see andempathize how bands and movements like

(54:12):
that emerge from punk and hardcorescenes where people People care
people care about a lot of stuff.
That's we talk endlessly about peoplewho are kind of outside of that
scene or who have never come intoit for a moment just to look around.
It comes across as somesort of like, aggressive.
Nihilistic anti community thing whenreally the only thing that's right about

(54:36):
that is it's nihilistic But in a waywhere we take care of each other and we
care about things really deeply and weyell about them Until they go away or
we keep yelling and like so Seeing bandsrespond so early and so harshly to the
idea that you needed to become very veryserious if you're going to become a punk
or a hardcore aficionado who cared aboutpolitics and things like that was Part

(55:00):
of what played into, not only their wholevibe, but really specifically, songs here,
including the song See Thomas Howell asthe Soul Man, which basically has lyrics,
which, maybe we can talk about this if weneed to on this episode, but, even when
you talk to the vocalist about the lyricshe wrote, he's not super like, these are

(55:24):
important, and I thought a lot about them.
It's pretty much nope, Iwrote them at the last minute.
I'm a terrible procrastinator.
And, they themselves would go onto inspire decades of vocalists who
then would just say vague, obtusephrases, uh, over and over on top
of riffs and it became vocaling.
But here in this song, part of the vocalswere basically piping in this message

(55:49):
where they painted really specificother bands in portions of the scene.
But an extremely Botch vignetteof this whole thing, right?
C.
Thomas Howell was a person, a human being.
Is a person?
I'm not actually sure at this moment.

Kyle (56:03):
He's still very

Cliff (56:04):
actor.
Okay, great.
You never know anymore, right?
This person was an actor.
He acted in the movie Soulman.
In the movie Soulman, he portraysa character who, and I'm gonna mega
shorten this, he plays a character whowears blackface to get ahead in society.
And so, so if you stop in this momentand you take that information and you

(56:29):
go, well, that's quite a statement.
Right?
Look at what they named that song.
What?
Okay.
So they're pointing at specificbands saying don't put on an act
of self seriousness in order toelevate yourself above other people
because all you're really doing isreinforcing the systems of oppression
that you're trying to rebel against.
And you can write this whole storyabout how genius it is that they ended

(56:53):
up, titling the song like this andhow it highlights something so maybe
insightful about their perspective.
When actually they ended up namingit that because there were tapping
parts on the guitar in the song.
So they started calling itTaps, and they thought C.
Thomas Howell was in the movie Taps.

(57:13):
So they started calling the song C.
Thomas Howell, but then they realizedhe wasn't in TAPS, but he was in
Soulman, so the title of the song is C.
Thomas Howell as the Soulman.

Kyle (57:27):
There's so many moments that remind me of Donald Glover's Wu
Tang name generator moment wherelike everybody was messing around
with it and then Childish Gambinocame out for and he was like, wait.
I have to be a rapper now because of this

Cliff (57:43):
Yep,

Kyle (57:43):
weird party trick.
I mean, the name of the albumkind of came from an it's not
serious till it is thing, right?
They said we had the song, man,the ramparts, which is the great
closing track on the record.
And I had just written the line.
We are the Romans.
Dave Rowland said Brian thoughtit'd make a great title.
And Brian determined many ofthe song titles crediting JG

(58:07):
Ballard's atrocity exhibition.
Great.
Danny Brown album title.
Shout out JG Ballard foryears of inspiration.
Um, the atrocity exhibition asinspiring themes of the human body as
a landscape and the way that cultureand entertainment sort of dictates
the human body and vice versa.
So Brian cook very much acerebral core of the band.
Um, we'll, I'll talk a little more abouthim later anyway, on man, the ramparts.

(58:31):
The line, we are the Romans Brian thoughtwould make a great title, but Dave
thought it was a totally silly gladiatorsong because the riff is kind of huge.
So he was thinking about chariotsand fire and stuff like that.
And it sounded like I pulled the wordsout of Conan, the barbarian, but then.
We in the band started talkingabout the social decline of Western
civilization and how Americans are thenew Romans, it's all slaves and Caesars.

(58:54):
So we made it work.
And then Brian said, I don'tthink Dave was originally trying
to make some grandiose statement.
I think he was just singingabout Romans and using all of
this cheesy medieval imagery.
At the time, it seemed like sort of ajoke, but when we went into the studio
and actually finalized everything, itactually kind of worked as a metaphor
for America as an empire and decline.
So if you're looking around the scene andyou see all these self serious shitheads,

(59:16):
And you look at the larger world, andNookie's playing every 30 minutes.
And, everybody's falling for thesaxophone playing dipshit in the
White House who's doing war crimes.
Uh, and criminalizing poverty.
Then, of course, a little bit, you'regonna, you're gonna be like, I don't care!
Unbuckle me from that rollercoaster!
Until you lock into somethingreally interesting, and then

(59:37):
you're like, Oh, no, wait.
Hold on, actually,

Cliff (59:40):
and apparently for practically every song title on this record, it was
pretty much seemingly just Brian Cook.
Coming

Kyle (59:52):
I don't, I don't think, I think Dave said I, I didn't come up with any of
those and that's why so few of the lyricshave a connection to the song titles,

Cliff (01:00:02):
Yep,

Kyle (01:00:02):
which, which became a cliche in heavy music later as well.
Um,

Cliff (01:00:09):
about to say, yeah,

Kyle (01:00:09):
yeah, more, more farcical titles and yeah, yeah.

Cliff (01:00:12):
Well, yeah, and especially the super long ones that basically
had no correlation with anythingthat was actually being said in
the song, so that everything on thetrack listing looked ridiculous.

Kyle (01:00:23):
Everything is alive.
Everything is breathing.
Nothing is dead.
Nothing is bleeding.

Cliff (01:00:29):
So did this end.
We often also talk about if you cangive yourself over to a thing enough
to let it get in your bones a littlebit as you're listening to music and
letting it expand you on the inside.
What can you then focus on when you tryto listen to this music really actively?
And how can you start to interpret it?

(01:00:51):
Think about it?
Uh, experience it innew or interesting ways.
I, I found, I, I kind of felt selfconscious about saying this statement.
And then I listened to an offhandedother podcast episode where two people in
Australia were talking about this record.
And this, uh, the, the woman who wasbeing interviewed, um, Had listened

(01:01:16):
to this record a lot after not reallybeing exposed to it and was sort of
talking about her experience withit Very interesting premise for our
podcast Um having comedians listen toseminal hardcore records and then be
like, what did you think about that?
Be funny Was really fun.
But she was basically

Kyle (01:01:33):
Hello, Line Cook!
Let's talk about the stock market!

Cliff (01:01:36):
But she was like, you know, I ended up enjoying this most laying down
flat doing nothing else just listeningShe's like every time I try to put it on
doing something else It fell off and Icouldn't get it and I couldn't lock in
and I couldn't appreciate anything aboutit She was like, you know, this is not my
normal type of music at all But I came toappreciate it But it didn't click in until

(01:01:59):
I decided to just lay down and listento it without doing anything else at the
same time And I think There's somethingunique that I have no good explanation for
about this record and in some other ones.
In fact, actually the Chariot recordyou just mentioned is like this for me.
They cross some sort of threshold wherethey go from becoming a super energizing

(01:02:23):
thing to me, to becoming more of a likerelaxed locked in thing and I tend to
I really enjoy this record doing muchcalmer things than I normally would
integrate this type of music into.
And I, I don't know why, butsomething about it feels different.

(01:02:46):
Uh, and I wanted to at least say itout loud so that if someone else had a
similar experience, you could try it too.
Cause like, doesn't feel like a put thison and chill at the pool type record.
And yet I have a feelingthat would work pretty well.
And I don't know why.

Kyle (01:03:01):
I don't want to ascribe too much of their intent to why that works.
But I had the same thought.
I was walking in my neighborhood,listening to this record, and I was
like, I love Like looking at the birdsin the trees and smelling the fresh
cut grass to this record, it likeit gives me a piece in a weird way.

(01:03:24):
I think it's I also don't like it forthings like going for a run, or trying
to exercise, or like getting pumped up,or anything like that, and I think it's
because there's so much like fallingapart happening, you know, you can't,
you can't build too much momentumbecause then the train will, fall
off the rails or something like that.

(01:03:46):
I got to feel like it's, it's somethingaround the way that they designed it
to like, not be locked into one thing.
Um, and, and the second you want it tobe one thing, it's not that anymore,
but if you can just like absorb it andappreciate the multitudes of it for
what it is, It like makes you feel morepresent, it's like, uh, it's like walking

(01:04:11):
around the High Museum with really brightlights on and all the art looks a little
different in the collection, but like,you really want to be, you're pumped to
be there, but you have more of a likesustained soul chakra thing than just
like a lot of energy to do a lot of RedBull energy to be exercising or whatever.

(01:04:33):
I don't know,

Cliff (01:04:34):
Yeah.
What you did though, I'll askyou to share some more though,
cause you shared a ton of moments.
This is a very like, wow, I guess the wordwould be momentous, but it's not quite
what I mean.
Yeah, like you pulled out a ton of justlike moments, and those are true for me

(01:04:54):
too, but I thought your list was awesome.
Like how, like what happens whenyou hit moments that you identify
as such when you have the contextthat you just shared about how
you kind of feel about it overall?

Kyle (01:05:07):
Yeah, I normally think parts don't work in a record when it's
like part and part and part and part.
And you know, one of my favorite bandsof all time was Every Time I Die, and
Andy Williams talked one time abouthow At first they were a band that just
wrote parts and then they wrote wholesongs and then they wrote songs that

(01:05:27):
worked together linearly as a record.
And I I've always seen thosebuilding blocks as the way you
get to being a better and betterband because you can just string
together more time more smartly.
And maybe there's, Maybe it's lessparty and more songy than I give it
credit for, but it seems like the waythe dudes in the band talk about it,
you know, this being only their secondfull length record that they're trying

(01:05:50):
a bunch of stuff and seeing what works.
And they're trying fragments,you know, fragments add up into
like a movement or whatever.
But I think the record, I love the recordbecause it's full of moments that 20 plus
years on still make me go totally feral.
Yeah.
It's underpinned by Dave's vocals.
I don't think Dave doesn't getenough credit as like one of the

(01:06:12):
best vocalists in the historyof, of the genre or the approach.
Everyone's really at the topof their game on this record.
Great drums, great bass, obviouslykiller guitar, but Dave's vocals,
there's the perfect amount ofrawness in the capture and like just
some delicate distortion applied.
So I think throughout vocals are acool thing to focus on and isolate.

(01:06:34):
And then here.
how much of the vocal and lyricalstyling is clearly influential
on stuff that came after it.
But starting in the first song it's got amove that you and I have always loved to
the point of joking and laughing about.
There's a cymbal ping, just a boom,and then they go into the last rip.
Yeah the ting you and I and ourbuddy Stuart Roan used to comment on

(01:06:54):
the ting and how we would, we wouldlook out for that move in bands.
And that was like, that was a signal.
That was a That was a conch shellto lose your shit in the pit,
just like a real quick move.
So I love it when I hear it.
And I, I didn't realize thatthis had those in there, but like
such a signature move, love it.

(01:07:15):
Then you go into Mondrian that's got.
A weird count, but it always hits.
I think it's the first time also that Ireally noticed Brian Cook's bass tone.
He does a really like gnarly,nasty, gritty but cool,
tuneful, melodic bass tone.
And then you get to about a minute15 and they do that big atonal chord

(01:07:37):
in a groove that again has beenripped off a million times since.
And then about a minute later.
They go into a groove,a sort of Latin groove.
And I think the demo.
For this one was called Latin song, orone of the demos was called Latin song.
I want to say it was thisone, but there is a groove.
That's great.

(01:07:58):
If, if you are on Tik TOK and you lovethe way people are doing like Bachata
dances to knock loose suffocate there's alittle cool rhythm stuff happening there.
We've talked about transitions at length.
You can obviously see where the guitarhere evolved into minus the bear and
shout out to our boy, John Asante,who's a long time, minus the bear fan.

(01:08:19):
And he and I, I like.
parallel pathed our way in collegeinto being like, Oh, we both
love Dave Knudsen's guitar inreally, really separate contexts.
He got, he got me into Minusthe Bear because he was like the
guy from Botches in this band.
Initially I was like, I don'tknow what this goofy shit is.
but I really, really loved them andthey became a band that I, I love a lot.

(01:08:42):
So there's some reallycool mathy tappy parts.
And then he does a crazy like robot deathrattle solo with some sick pedal work at
at about five minutes into the song, then,uh, channel channel sort of interlude
thing shows how good they are with space.
We talked about dynamicsearlier in the episode.
They like oscillate throughdynamics really naturally.

(01:09:05):
And then if I, if I recall correctly,there's some like recorded.
Audio like an audio segment or fragmentthat they work in which became sort of a
staple or a cliche in the genre c thomashowell we talked about the what they call
the ending the the big huge chord partwhich is actually like two thirds of the
song starting at about a minute and ahalf it's the ascending bass notes and

(01:09:29):
the guitar taps with delay that goes intoSort of big triumphant part and everyone
in the band was quick to be like, yeah,Brian came up with that chord progression.
He's great at writing those things.
So like the fact that that song isso resonant with their fans, partly
because it's a, it's a fuck yousong to other bands in the scene.
And partly because it's just like,kind of got a cool triumphant energy.

(01:09:52):
A lot of that comes from Brian cook.
Then a little later on, or I guessright after C Thomas Howell is St.
Matthew returns.
I, I called this the LimpBizkit clunk splat note, which
I know is just a helmet thing.
It's just a, like everybody flattens outinto a really dissonant low end thing.
But when they all hit it to yourpoint, the downbeat thing, I think St.

(01:10:13):
Matthew is where you can really hear thedownbeat because it sounds like Wile E.
Coyote splatting onto thepavement from great heights.
I, that's like my favoriteaspect of that song.
And then I was like, is there aguest vocalist on this punk style?
But it's just Brian cook.
It's so different than Dave.
That I was like, thissomebody from another band.

(01:10:35):
I don't, you know, maybe theygot, um, maybe they got somebody
from a, from a band that theylike, but it's just Brian Cook.
Not just, but it's not Dave.
And then in, uh, in frequencyass bandit the super ripped
off move, is it three minutes?
The, the panic chords, the meh,meh, meh, meh, going into then
like a super fast chug part with.

(01:10:57):
Like repeated lyrics that make you want tojump up on somebody's shoulders and scream
it directly into the mic like it That isit's like the part of all parts in this
like smart hardcore music and the lyricsare Who holds my fate in their hands?
Not you after the refrain of who holdsmy fate all the lyrics, all the breakdown
lyrics that I've ever loved in hardcore.

(01:11:18):
Um, and I know this is cause wegrew up in the South around like the
pseudo Christian bands and whatever.
They have a little bit of a likebiblical apocalyptic thing to them.
You know, there's a littlebit of a literary reference.
It's a little bit biblical.
It's a little bit probably morecerebral than like a throwdown
or hate breed type thing.

(01:11:39):
And frequency is an example.
That I, I look too often in termsof like a, a good smart, but not
too smart for no reason refrain.
And then you go into man, theramparts and there's the refrain of
we are the Romans and just the hugebig chord that starts and repeats
throughout man, the ramparts is.

(01:12:00):
is sick.
It's a great, huge, Ilove a huge album closer.
I love it when bands goout on their biggest note.
And they certainly do here.

Cliff (01:12:09):
Yeah, breaking out chants was a cool move.
Which will surprise you if youlisten to this whole thing,
especially straight through.

Kyle (01:12:18):
Mm hmm.

Cliff (01:12:20):
and I bet I bet if I had to challenge you you could do another 10
moments that you pulled out of nowherewith another singular listen through the
record because these are the types ofjust like you can just time stamp stuff.
That's like well, that was fucking cool.
That was crazy All right.
That was shit.
That one got me go back do it again.
Okay, I got that now I'm gonna be readyfor that one next time it comes around

Kyle (01:12:43):
I think when you listen for parts, you understand why
so many bands rip this band off.
Because if you just isolate it to anatom, you're like, I think I can do that.
But what made Botch great is they puttogether 45 minutes of them straight.
and they work much better in thecontext of each other than isolated

(01:13:04):
and other bands tried to take them andlike make them their thing but it's
it's just 45 minutes of pretty singularmoments that they mash together in
really dynamic ways it's a it's justa like a shit ton of one and one make
three just for a long time over andover very very alchemic in that way

Cliff (01:13:23):
Yep.
So we've talked about this a ton,but I think it would be helpful to
do, we've done this once or twicein past episodes, we want to kind
of talk about the constellation ofthings that this created as a result
of existing at the time that it did.
And We've mentioned a ton of these, butthis is a good, like, let us be your

(01:13:47):
related artists in your streaming appthing, because they suck and we're good.
So, one, one avenue that we've talkedabout a number of times, right?
If something in thisconnects with you, welcome.
Welcome.
You, you are a person likeus, and we welcome you.
We don't know what that meanseither, but we welcome you.
And, you, especially if you're new tothis journey, there is, I have good news

(01:14:11):
for you, you will never run out of music.
So, not only other Botch stuff, yes,but also, Isis, Coalesce, Converge,
Dillinger Escape Plan, the Blood Brothers.
Okay, all bands who Like, we'renot even talking yet about
bands who were inspired by them.
We're just talking about bands thatexisted at the same time as them, and

(01:14:33):
were connected to a similar zeitgeist,uh, and went in different directions.
And, you know, we mentioned wementioned a few episodes we've done.
We also did a Converge episodein the past, so, we'd encourage
you to check that one out.
We love Converge.
Both of us just love it.
Undyingly but all those are bandsthat were sort of doing really similar
when I say similar, I mean similarly

Kyle (01:14:55):
ethos

Cliff (01:14:56):
Yeah Yes, similar ethos and similarly abstracting from similar ideas
so I don't mean to say that all thesebands will sound the same but they all

Kyle (01:15:08):
They, they don't even a little, yeah.
Mm

Cliff (01:15:11):
but they take off in interesting directions from a singular point and
you can start to pick out which, which,which parts, you know, you really dig.
Just a pure example, like even from thebands that we just mentioned, right?
Like, Coalesce is an inherently, tome at least, like vocal fronted band.
If you really, really like the sound ofvocals in hardcore, you get A lot of what

(01:15:34):
you get in Botched, but with a frontmanwho was scary and large and approached
the whole thing really differently, right?
Whereas, like, Converge, as we talkedabout killer frontman there, obviously,
but the approach is very different.
They are making singular noiseit is intentionally Not complex,

(01:15:55):
but intentionally, I meancomposed they are very smart.
They're doing a lot of things on purposeum, whereas on the other hand like, you
know, we mentioned the blood brotherslike that's that's going to be in the
we are endlessly antagonistic Directionof things right like I like the blood
brothers, but it's not the same typeof experience you get listening to

(01:16:17):
this record so They're just like, andI mentioned earlier, Candiria 2 was
another band that was around duringthis time doing really similar stuff.
And that was the sort of, for me, thatwas the handful of bands that I discovered
all at one time and went, Well, fuck.
I like all of this now,and this is who I am.

(01:16:39):
Related to that, then, are bandsthat resulted from these people
being in Botched to begin with.
So, these arms are snakes, minusthe bear, which you mentioned.
Russian circles, sumac.
Again, all very different bands, actually.
Especially in that group,that's really fascinating.
Minus the bear is the
standout from

Kyle (01:17:00):
And, then do the bands that those guys were in.
So like these arms are snakes.
I still think is one of the coolest.
There's no band that ever soundedlike these arms are snakes.
I think they're really, really rad inthe way that like latter day poison.
The well was just like, oh my God,they were breaking out into something.

(01:17:20):
Yeah.
That nobody else was doing.
They were really thrillingto me and I'm sad.
I never got to see him live.
Um, sumac though, inparticular, I'm thinking like
Aaron Turner is in that band.
So obviously that's cool.
But Nick what's his face from Baptistis the drummer and Nick is like one
of the Dave Grohl posted a Baptistlive video because he was like,

(01:17:43):
this is one of the best fuckingdrummers I've ever seen in my life.
And.
For the few on the proud who knew andsaw Baptist, they were like, Oh my God,
they were different and they were good.
And they, and then they get over intothe converge side of things because
they were a God city recorded band.
So like between Hydra head and deathwish God city converge, you know, but

(01:18:04):
between the Botch guys on the West coastand the converge guys on the East all
the good heavy stuff ever of the past 25years has a root on this tree somewhere.
The other part of that being MattBayless, who, engineered this record,
was briefly in Minus the Bear,produced a lot of other stuff, like
you, you mentioned him earlier.

(01:18:25):
Uh, the big ones for me, though, arethose seminal first three Mastodon records
Remission, Leviathan, and Blood Mountainthat like, if you were coming of age and
having music in the early and mid 2000s.
Those are still like, titanic, smart,oh my god, heavy music is breaking
into exciting new places type music.

(01:18:49):
Um, and he was at the helmof the truckers as well.
I sent

Cliff (01:18:52):
wear my Blood Mountain shirt anywhere.

Kyle (01:18:55):
It's hard in Atlanta.
There,
I mean, we could do We've never coveredMacedon on this because we would have
to talk about it for a minimum ofsix hours just being from Atlanta.
But I sent you Matt Bayless's, he haslike a word document saved on his.
com on his own website of all thestuff that he's produced or engineered.
And it's like a two column thing.

(01:19:17):
That's one, two, three full pages.
It's an insane amount ofstuff like burnt by the sun.
He also worked with Brendan O'Brien.
That's where he cut histeeth after Nashville.
He was an assistant on Aroundthe Fur, The Deaf Tones.
He's, uh, seen it all, done it all sothere's, there's a lot just to go, if you

(01:19:38):
go down the Matt Bayliss rabbit hole byitself that's enough for quite a while,

Cliff (01:19:43):
It would be cool to be cool enough to have a rabbit hole about me.
That sounds neat.
So we thank you for your work, Matt Bales,and everyone else who has rabbit holes
that we get to go down in podcast form.
Similarly, I mean that, first of all,just the two directions we just gave
you will, you know, Take you the rest ofyour life anyway, but other ones to add

(01:20:05):
into the mix um, we mentioned earlierlike melvins were effectively a A bit
of a forebearer forebearer godfathers ofthe scene type deal but close enough to
kind of be considered peers I think ontop of the other bands we talked about
both melvins and harvey milk and thosetwo bands's Influence and impact in a

(01:20:25):
similar time frame in a similar moment

Kyle (01:20:29):
and desire to antagonize
actively, yeah.
Yeah, I, I would add on, you know, moremodern descendants of that same, uh,
trolling, shitty, toxic dude life wouldbe like Viagra Boys, who are one of my
favorite bands of the moment, and KalisdaoBoys, who are one of yours, who take

(01:20:50):
very different tacks on the I, I wantto put a finger in the eye of all of the
worst things of this scene, who, that issupposed to be inclusive and an oasis from
all the bullshit of the rest of the world.
There's not enough of that kind ofstuff because it's very hard to do
well and smartly and not be like ahack, um, but those are a handful of

(01:21:11):
bands that are exceptional becausethey, they toe a line very delicately
and humorously and the music islike inarguably great in my opinion.

Cliff (01:21:22):
Yep we'll, plus one, callous dowboys for anyone who
hasn't taken our word for it yet.

Kyle (01:21:27):
Go to a show.
The records probably won't make sense.
Go to a show.
Go see them at a show.
It's

Cliff (01:21:32):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:21:33):
I haven't like scratched my head at a thing in a while, but
I walked out of there last set.
Like I'm so glad that I'm notgoing to go put that on in the
car right now, right this second.
But that was one of the coolestthings I've seen in a while.

Cliff (01:21:46):
That makes sense, although I am somebody who puts a song in the car.
For sure.
But, to that point, like, I mean,just to connect dots, right?
Like, we are gonna go see them soonbecause we're going to see Dillinger at
their calculating infinity reunion shows.
And whatever in New York and likeso Dillinger put together a killer
lineup Uh in several shows, but likecalloused owl boys will be there and

(01:22:08):
it will work perfectly it will fit

Kyle (01:22:11):
Who else is on those car bomb candy.

Cliff (01:22:14):
and car

Kyle (01:22:15):
Yeah.

Cliff (01:22:16):
Very very good vibe collections, uh overall But, to, to several points
you made, just again using Callis Dalvoisas an example, like the, perfectly
executed tonally merch thing is athing they do very well, um, and has
certainly a spiritual connection backto the aforementioned famous bot shirt,

Kyle (01:22:43):
But Botch boy band walked.
So God smiles on theCalistel boys could fly.

Cliff (01:22:48):
I'm thinking of the Cowless Dowboy shirt that says, Yeah
man, I'm gay too, with a bunch ofPunisher logos running down the arm.

Kyle (01:22:58):
I forgot about that one, yeah.
God bless the Kyle Stout Boys.

Cliff (01:23:02):
I've never wanted a shirt that I could never wear more
than I had in that particular

Kyle (01:23:07):
I want to wear that shit to Applebee's, man.

Cliff (01:23:10):
can, you can get away with it, you're two of me, perhaps.

Kyle (01:23:14):
Big, big guy privilege.

Cliff (01:23:16):
Yeah.

Kyle (01:23:16):
Uh, one, one other thing that I, I want to mention is, uh, I'm a huge fan
of Brian Cook more beyond the context ofBotch, and just as like a music figure
in like an Iggy Pops radio show kindof way, he or like quest love for other
people, I guess, basically anythinghe writes about or recommends is like,

(01:23:40):
is worth checking out to some degree.
He talked about Rick Frobergfrom Drive Like Jehu and Hot
Snakes when he passed away.
And like he said, I can't overstatehis influence enough, but he's
also into stuff like Stars ofthe Lids, Silver Jews, Jackson C.
Frank, like folkier stuff.
He has like kind offolk solo side project.
But he's been a role modelof continuing to stretch and

(01:24:01):
evolve as like a, an aging punk.
On a meta level I have appreciatedand taken cues from a lot
over the past 10, 15 years.
He also writes on Tumblr about hisrecord collection, like literally
every record that he owns, addingup into the hundreds, which I think
is a psychotic and very cool and alabor of love that I would absolutely

(01:24:23):
have done In a previous dimension,like 20 year old me would have taken
that on and done about the first 500.
And then I've been like, this is horrible.
Why am I doing this?
And then he's, he's just very eloquent.
Like he writes for a lot of bandsfor like reissues and, and stuff.
And there's a great interview with himon machine music where he, he talks
about evolving and inspiration andlike trying to be timeless instead

(01:24:47):
of tapping into the zeitgeist.
He talks about the band Fugaziand, and how they were a good.
Template for him.
He, he said stuff like theyset a very high bar as to how
bands should conduct themselves.
And I think a part of growing up isrealizing that only Fugazi can be Fugazi.
Only Fugazi had the leverage and thepower to do the kind of things they did.
They don't necessarily needto be rule makers, you know?

(01:25:08):
So I think one of the great things,talking about the serious, unserious
dynamic of Botch, it's like, Neverget boxed into your own, like the
point was to get out of the box.
So never put yourself in your own box.
And that was what made Botch,I guess, like hard or harder to
appreciate widely in their time.
But it's the best lesson that you can takefrom the band too, is like constantly be

(01:25:32):
out running the box that you inadvertentlyaccidentally put yourselves in.
Just by, by like time and repetition.
So that's why I'll always loveand respect the band because they,
they left behind a good template.
And I mean, like they, they blewthemselves up at exactly the moment
where things started to happen.
And I'm a big believer in thingsonly being good because they end or

(01:25:55):
because you know, they're gonna Andlike never overstaying your welcome,
never playing the chorus too manytimes, never being Metallica and
being like, well, I like these parts.
Let's do them for eight minutes.
Like always under say you'rewelcome and leave them wanting more.
And never, never let themguess your next move.
If they can guess your next move, you'vealready lost the war a little bit.

Cliff (01:26:14):
This tees me up well for our last section that we make sure to hit on.
That I really love.
And that is, if in listening to eitherof us, or more importantly, listening
to this record, something happened,something connected with you, what do you
do outside of what we're encouraging youto do with just the music itself, where

(01:26:37):
you can experience it, and learn fromit, and hear new things and all that.
That's music gives you Eternityin itself, so that's always good
enough, but a lot of times like musiccompels you towards something else.
And we, I'm going to channel someenergy from, we did a series of
podcast episodes called Friday Heavy.

(01:26:58):
And we spent a lot of time talkingabout artists in closer to the scene
and particularly ones who are activereleasing records and touring.
And so when I want to encourageyou, and I bet Kyle will agree.
When, I want to encourage youabout what to do when a band exists
in that moment and you like themand they're doing something good.

(01:27:21):
Please go to them and give themyour money and support them now.
Now.
Not because it's all panicky or terrible,but simply because bands are very,
very hard things to keep together.
Even when they're doingmonumentally huge things to an art.
We have to as much as we can capitalizeon moments where you are humanly available

(01:27:46):
and a band that's really good is comingthrough your town or somewhere nearby and
they're going to play a show and like thatshow matters and adds up into the Big Lego
piece that comprises their career, andyou simply do not know how long a band
is gonna last, you don't know what willha I mean, even Power Trip is an example,

(01:28:08):
man, like, everyone who got a chance tosee, who could've seen Power Trip, before
Riley Gale died and did it, regrets it,endlessly, every day, and like, that's
because you could've been a part ofsomething and you could've supported it,
when all those human beings were thereto receive that from you, and like, It
doesn't have to be super important ordeep or spiritual necessarily, but just

(01:28:29):
like we're encouraging you when a bandis available and they're playing shows
and you're connecting with it, find away to be a part of it in that moment
because you're going to get somethingout of that, that you're never going
to be able to go back and get laterwhen you're just listening to it.

Kyle (01:28:45):
Yeah.
The older you get, the more youappreciate the I, I got to be there.
Then moments I bore witness orI, I was part of creating it.
I think the two MA motivators you know,for anyone who's like, I'm pit retired,
I have a kid, I'm too old, whatever.
One is the Riley Gale thing I'm sograteful for the times, I gotta see.

(01:29:06):
Power trip.
And like, sometimes that kind of thing isthe motivator for like, it's a weeknight.
I've had a long day of work.
I'm tired.
What's going to get me off my ass tomake the drive to go see the show.
It's that well, it could be over tomorrow.
Like this band could implode.
Two is in spite of the odds, thescene is really healthy right now.
We are experiencing amoment in heavy music.

(01:29:28):
Um, so like all the openers fromBotches reunion are good fodder.
Like go look.
Every single one of them up and go checkthem out, but like scowl gel Zulu Pest
control like I could name a gazillionwho we've either seen sometime this
year or we will see later this yearat Furnace Fest or something else.

(01:29:48):
It's an absolutely incredible time.
Like the Gen Z kids arestraight up killing it.
So if you want to feel like you are partof a moment, this is the time to do it.
Go to shows, go check stuff out,go to your local watering holes
and watch bands and support them.
There, there are a hundred more comingup that are inspired by those bands.
That like we don't even know about.

(01:30:09):
So be part of it, be different than a,a generation or two ago where like you
have a little more capital now, if you'vegot a little extra scratch to give them,
be a, be a supporter, be a godfather orgodmother or god person of the scene.
Be a person who helps, helpsthe ecosystem flourish.

Cliff (01:30:25):
And related to that, another thing I'm realizing that I, sort of been able to
reflect on thinking about this music too.
When I tried to figure out what itis about it that connects with me,
you end up with thoughts that don'thave a lot of words attached to them.
You can't quite discern the thingthey're trying to think through.

(01:30:47):
But for me, one thing that this remindsme of, because sort of, if you can imagine
the music in this record as a bit oflike a physical structure, it There's
more going on inside of it than anyonesort of actively detects in the moment.
And I mean something morespecific than just, It's greater

(01:31:08):
than the sum of its parts.
Not necessarily.
It's not an equation.
Like, it's not linear, inthat it's more or less.
It's different everytime you listen to it.
You pick up something differentor a different feel, sort of
every time you interact with it.
And for me, I often feel likea person who has more going on
inside than the container on myoutside shows to anybody else.

(01:31:33):
I, I feel like a person made up of amillion polyrhythms and time signatures
that aren't intentional, but they are me.
And they're what I'm experiencing,and frankly, I'm just riffing on them.
I'm just trying to find somethinginteresting and do something a little
bit different and see if this, like,entertains me or gives me energy in life.
And like, Something about knowingthat this music exists and how people

(01:31:56):
connect with it and how they talkabout it Motivates me in a really
strange way to just be more of myselfI actually don't have to explain it.
There doesn't need to be a thesis onthe cover and Honestly, just like this
band just like someone is listeningto this album or this episode right
now going nope And you know what?

(01:32:18):
That's fine You don't have to getit, but if you do, there's something
that unlocks that feels exponential.
The ability to have more to pay attentionto than you have attention to pay is a
feeling, and it comes up for me a lot,listening to We Are the Romans and the
other records that this inspired, andlike, I hope that if that thought connects

(01:32:44):
with somebody that that gives you energythe next time you listen to this record
and that it reminds you that beingweird and playing it by ear as you go
along because you trust yourself and youunderstand that you're making something
that other people don't have to approveof, get some fucking energy from this man.
This is a, a perfect encapsulationof what we're capable of as people.

(01:33:08):
If we'll just.
Stop thinking about it so much andstop trying to explain it and go.
And you've taught me, Kyle, moreabout that than anyone else, probably.

Kyle (01:33:17):
vice versa, for sure.
It's important to do that not only forits own sake, but because the world is
constantly in shitify, the modern world.
The world at large is battling to,to flatten culture into a commodity
and to flatten people into datapoints and things to be transacted.

(01:33:37):
Don't let it, if you don't wantto do it for yourself, do it
out of spite against the world.
Don't let the world flatten you and thepeople and thoughts and things around you
that are, that are beautiful and cool andand as of yet, unwritten, like push, push
back against the world, kick against thepricks and be the boy band of your dreams.

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Episode 54: Botch's "We Are the Romans"

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