Completely Conspicuous 667: Everything In Its Right Place

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we pick our favorite songs released in the 21st century. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• We're a quarter through this century
• Phil: Thought this would be easy but came up with a long list
• What about a song grabs you?
• Jay: Original top 10 list was all songs from the 00s
• Songs that didn't make our top 10
• Phil: Tribe Called Quest, Vampire Weekend, Meatbodies, Wilco, Ryan Adams and the Cardinals, TV On the Radio, Wet Leg, Franz Ferdinand, Michael Kiwanuka, MJ Lenderman, U2, Frances Forever, Patrick Sweeney, Mudcrutch, Sufjan Stevens, Shearwater, Jason Isbell, Songs: Ohia
• Jay: Radiohead, Bowie, At the Drive-In, Drive-By Truckers, Sloan, Sleater-Kinney, Death from Above 1979, Jay-Z, Hold Steady, Gord Downie, Tragically Hip, Living Colour, Outkast, Wild Flag, White Stripes, PJ Harvey, Parquet Courts, Spoon, M.I.A., Kaiser Chiefs
• Jay: Found out about a lot of new music from MP3 blogs in the early 00s
• Phil's #10: Spoon breaks through
• Song was a cover of a song by The Natural History
• Jay's #10: Last song from Bowie's iconic farewell album
• Love the album but it's hard to listen to because of the sadness
• Phil's #9: Mournful ballad from Mark Lanegan
• Jay: My favorite Lanegan song
• Mixing bubblegum and chewing tobacco is a bad idea
• A duet with Chris Goss of Masters of Reality
• Jay's #9: A fiery hip hop blast from Run the Jewels and Zach de la Rocha
• Waiting for their next album; last one was in 2020
• Phil's #7: Bluegrass turn from Billy Strings
• Strings is winning over a lot of fans of other genres
• Phil's #8: Protest song from Drive-By Truckers
• Band chronicles a lot of real-life injustices
• Jay's #8: Angry ripper from Superchunk
• Commentary on the political climate of 2018
• Sometimes fans don't like the message
• Jay's #7: White Stripes hit the mainstream
• Took a year for their third album to become a hit
• To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through wherever you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 666: Playing Favorites

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we pick our favorite songs by randomly selected artists. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as"). [NOTE: Something weird is going on with the Libsyn player but the episode definitely exists. You can still download it and it's in all the podcast catchers of choice.]

Show notes:

• More of our favorites from artists picked out of a hat
• Phil: Pretenders
• Overcoming the deaths of half the band
• Jay: James Brown
• Love the '70s funk era
• Prince was able to replicate JB's dance moves in concert
• Phil: Parquet Courts
• Built a great catalog over the last 13 years or so
• Influenced by the late '70s NYC CBGB sound
• Jay: Beatles
• How do you pick a single Beatles song?
• Phil: Sleater-Kinney
• Powerful band
• Janet Weiss is a powerhouse drummer
• Jay: Led Zeppelin
• Favorite song depends on the day
• Phil: Prince
• He could play any style
• Jay: Hoodoo Gurus
• Saw them for the first time last year
• Caught the mid-80s college rock wave
• Phil: The Police
• Ghost in the Machine was one of the first albums Phil ever bought
• Early Police is untouchable
• Jay: The Clash
• Political rock that still holds true today
• Covered a lot of musical ground
• Phil: R.E.M.
• Was introduced to the band by his uncle
• People who jumped off the bandwagon after they went to a major are missing out
• Jay: Elvis Costello
• EC has been all over the map musically, but his lyrics are always on point
• Phil: Squeeze
• Difford and Tilbrook were great songwriters
• Amazing string of classic songs
• Jay: Joe Jackson
• Easy choice 
• The first few albums were outstanding
• Musical chameleon

Completely Conspicuous is available wherever you get podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 665: Choose Your Fighter

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey as we pick our favorite songs by randomly selected artists. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Phil's idea: Blind rankings
• We each pick 10 artist names out of a hat and name a favorite song for each
• Phil picks names from N-Z, Jay gets A-M
• No prep time for our answers
• Phil: Velvet Underground
• Plenty to choose from
• Trying not to choose popular songs
• Jay: B-52s
• They made the "no play list" at Jay's wedding
• Great catalog of bangers
• Phil: Talking Heads
• Band had different phases
• Mixed Afro rhythms, funk and skronky guitar from Adrian Belew
• New David Byrne album is good
• Jay: Living Colour
• Band played many different styles well
• They still bring the heat
• Phil: Neil Young
• A musical chameleon
• Amazing solo or with Crazy Horse (or other backing bands)
• Jay: Grateful Dead
• Easy choice
• Always had a favorite song by them
• To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 664: Time Stand Still

This week, I'm joined by fellow podcast pioneer Brian Salvatore as we discuss the first 20 years of podcasting. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Brian: First heard about podcasts in 2004
• Started making the FrankBlack.net Podcast in 2006
• Jay: Got my first iPod in 2004 and then learned about podcasts
• Brian: The internet was so much better 20 years ago
• Great for digging into niche interests
• Jay and Brian met through the Frank Black podcast in 2010 and realized that Brian lived near Jay's brother-in-law
• Jay: The start of CompCon in 2006
• Always loved radio but never worked at the college station
• First few years were just me talking about pop culture
• Eventually started bringing on guests after a few years
• Podcasting got an early boost when Apple started a podcast directory
• Early podcasts I listened to were by Adam Curry, Ricky Gervais
• Marc Maron started his podcast in 2009 and is airing his last episode next week
• Now everybody's got a podcast
• Brian: Before podcasts, blogging was a thing
• Brian produces podcasts for other people in addition to his own
• Podcasting never became a career for us, just a hobby
• But some people have made lots of money from them
• Brian: Not much innovation in the podcast space lately
• Music podcasts were hampered by copyright issues
• Podcast networks started popping up
• Conan O'Brien created a great podcast after his TV talk show went away
• Podcasting is much more interesting than commercial radio these days
• Brian: Grew up loving radio, especially WFMU
• Jay: College radio is still good, but commercial radio blows
• DJs used to be dependable arbiters of taste
• Now everything's heavily formatted
• Jay: Been doing my own radio show on BFF.fm for the last 12 years
• Brian co-owns a sports podcast company
• People have trouble committing to a show once they start it
• Listening habits have changed
• Jay: Currently listen to WTF, The Best Show, sports shows about Toronto teams, The Lonely Island and Seth Meyers
• Brian: Election Profitmakers, Song Exploder, Never Not Funny, Conan, Indiecast, Who Cares About the Rock Hall?, Mets podcasts
• So much content to wade through
• Just like with music; it's much easier to release an album now but there's so much out there
• Tough to make it as a musician now
• Podcasts have gone beyond a niche thing
• Jay: I love listening to audio
• The value of playing songs people haven't heard a zillion times
• Every celebrity has a podcast
• Will podcasts go back to the indie days at some point?
• Jay: I do two podcasts for work
• The bubble will burst at some point
• AI could have a strange, negative effect
• Connections formed via podcasting
• Brian: Start a podcast, people

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 663: Shadow Dancing

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about songs we hate to love. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Our top 10 songs we hate to love in no particular order
• Phil: A song from the infamous Great White
• One of the many bands who tried to sound like Zeppelin
• Jay: Rupert Holmes somehow got cheesier than the "Pina Colada Song"
• Classic AM gold shizz
• Phil: A big hit for the Carpenters
• Originally written for a bank commercial
• Jay: Monster disco one-hit wonder from Patrick Hernandez
• Phil: Britney with an earworm
• Jay: Raspy pop smash from Kim Carnes
• Crossed over to MOR stations that our parents listened to
• Phil: Digging into the Jefferson Starship ballads
• Marty Balin got on the wrong side of the Hell's Angels at Altamont
• Jay: Phil Collins did a lot of soundtrack music in the '80s in addition to everything else
• A patented Collins Angry Ballad
• Phil digs that calypso beat in one of Lionel Richie's biggest hits
• Richie was one of the driving forces behind "We Are the World"
• Jay: A synth pop cover of "Lean On Me"
• Phil: Secretly loved the Saturday Night Fever soundtrack as a kid
• Yvonne Elliman sang backups on several Clapton albums
• Jay: Non-English hit by Falco
• Only German-language #1 song in America
• Phil: Frankie Valli's disco song in Grease
• Written by Barry Gibb, who was unstoppable in the late '70s
• Jay: Early '70s soft rock jam from Albert Hammond
• Phil: John Mayer's wuss rock moment
• More familiar with his work in Dead and Co.
• Jay: Rediscovered recently his love of Little River Band
• Australian purveyors of catchy dad rock
• Original members lost the rights to the band name
• Phil: Shout out to the Weather Girls
• Catchy and co-written by Paul Shaffer
• Jay: Another huge hit from the Queen of Disco, Donna Summer
• Phil: An apparently ironic love ballad from the Captain and Tennille
• Jay: Another hit from the Gibb family, this time younger brother Andy
• Too much cocaine, apparently

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 662: Songs We Hate to Love

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about songs we hate to love. Listen to the episode below (download directly or right click and "save as"). 

Show notes:

• Surprised at how good the Who were in concert despite their advanced age
• Songs we hate to love, not necessarily guilty pleasures
• Things we were embarrassed to say we liked when we were in school
• Most of our picks were from when we were kids
• Jay: I liked hard rock and metal and would never admit I liked poppier stuff like Duran Duran
• Jay: In doing research, I discovered there was a "rock" version of the Lord's Prayer that was a minor hit in 1973
• Phil: ABBA wrote some pop classics
• When REO Speedwagon had that one huge album
• AOR was huge in the early '80s
• Jay: I loved KISS's disco song, but never got into the band
• Phil: Listened to a lot of Manilow as a kid
• Nancy Sinatra's "These Boots Are Made for Walkin'" captured that swinging '60s vibe
• The pop goodness of the Association
• Phil: The band Boston has been played to death in these parts, but they had their moment
• Controversial choice: Phil likes the worst Genesis song
• Dumb song, dumb video
• When Eddie Murphy became a pop star
• Phil also likes Crazytown's hit
• Released at the height of nu metal/rap rock
• Jay: Begrudgingly liked Animotion's big hit
• First album Jay had as a kid was by Glen Campbell
• Campbell wasn't a typical country singer
• Jay: Got into some of Paul Simon's mid-70s solo work
• Getting into early Loverboy deep cuts
• Billy Joel wrote a lot of bad songs, but a few good ones
• Jay: Always a big fan of "Rump Shaker"
• ABC was good at the foppish synth pop
• Jay: I hate everything about Smash Mouth except their first single
• Totally dig one George Michael song above all others
• Late '70s pop blast from M
• Foreigner struck gold with catchy rock jams
• To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 661: Shakin' All Over

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Phil Stacey about concerts we'd like to go back in time to see. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

• Jay: Bowie on the Ziggy Stardust tour in 1973
• Never saw Bowie
• Phil: Grateful Dead's famous Cornell show 5/8/77
• The Holy Grail for Deadheads
• Jay: Canadian art rock weirdos Max Webster in southern Ontario 8/9/79
• Band split up in 1981 as singer-guitarist Kim Mitchell went solo
• Opened for Rush in the U.S. in the mid- to late '70s
• Phil: The Stones at the Boston Garden, 1972
• Jagger and Richards were arrested in Providence and Boston mayor bailed them out in time for the Garden show
• Mick Taylor era was notable
• Jay: Van Halen at Oakland Arena in June 1981
• A few songs were captured on video; VH fans have hoped for more
• Phil: Zeppelin at Berkeley, Calif., September 1971
• Touring before their fourth album was released
• Playing some of their acoustic songs
• Jay: SST legends Husker Du at the Channel in Boston 9/30/84
• In the middle of a killer stretch of albums; this one was for Zen Arcade
• Two classic albums were released the next year
• Phil: Allman Brothers at the Fillmore East in 1971 
• Original lineup including Duane Allman
• Jay and Phil: The Who live at University of Leeds on Valentine's Day 1970
• Played a show at Hull the following night
• We're going to see the Who at Fenway later this month
• Band was at the literal peak of their powers
• First release of Live at Leeds was only six songs
• Longer versions have come out; full set was 33 songs
• No video of this show unfortunately

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.