Welcome to Raw Impressions Monday's Music Mini episode. Hi! Thump Thump. I'm sitting...
I'm sitting... Squeak Squeak. Direct. Adjust, Adjust.
Ugh, upright. I'm not leaning today. I thought, oh, what would it feel like if I sat up? Well, that's, yeah, that's very, uh...
I wouldn't say rigid posture, but you're definitely... It looks healthy. Oh. Like, I'm just, like, always slumped over this microphone.
I just was curious. I'm like, what would it feel like to... Record the podcast from a new position. Regal.
Yeah, it's good to look at things differently. Sit differently. So, you informed me yesterday via a Instagram alert from what, Magnet Magazine? Uh, no, it was Stereogum.
Stereogum says, it's been 30 years since Bubble and Scrape, Sabados, Bubble and Scrape came out. People love to do these anniversaries for album releases. Hey, it's been 30 years! I'm always kind of like...
I mean, I'm sorry, I'm always like, who cares? It doesn't mean... It just reminds me that a lot of time has passed. It's not a bad thing, but this one, 30 years since I did Bubble and Scrape with Sabados.
That sounds like a long time ago. That actually... I mean, I don't want to say it hurts because I don't have any problem with getting old. I don't have any problem with the passage of time.
I don't even have any problem with the multitude of regrets I have. And ghosts, that this information carries. But this one kind of hit me on a physical level, like, ahh! 30 years?
It was 30 years since I was in Hadley, Massachusetts, at the slaughterhouse. I believe it's in Hadley, if not Hadley, then right on the Amherst Hadley line, kind of out near the field surrounding the University of Massachusetts. It was this big concrete building that used to be a little... a little...
a petite slaughterhouse. So you were 26 or old? Probably. It sounds about right.
56 minus 30? Oh yeah. I was 26. And you know, people often say that 27 is kind of the peak for an artist.
And when you're 27, I mean, that's like, it's when Jimmy died. Yeah, it's a classic sort of... Yeah, I think. Stereotype?
Did Kirk die when he was 27? God, I don't know. That's Joblin. But anyway, it's supposed to be like, it's kind of your peak.
And I gotta say, my song's on Bubble and Scrape. Song! Commencing! It's about five minutes.
Alright. Three of the room mic. Turning up the room mic, okay. Okay.
Did you think I was dead inside? There was no room to grow. And if I loved you still, I didn't let it show. But I've always loved you.
Though you think I didn't love you. What you were free to leave me, if you didn't believe in me. Don't, don't mind. I didn't know what had till it was gone.
I let show good love slip away. Cliche, cliche. But I had good time. So remember the good times.
Before it had to happen. Oh, what had it been? Don't worry about me. It wasn't up to you to set me free.
It never is a good time, so they say. Cliche, cliche. What's the name of that song? Cliche.
Oh, I didn't know. I didn't want to assume. It's the most, the most, the oft-repeated word in the song. Which is not always an indication of the song title.
Exactly. That's why I didn't want to assume. Especially Nitty Rock. We 90's indie rockers like to throw in arbitrary titles for our tunes.
We would repeat something over and over again. I was like, well, it's the name of the song. I don't want to go there. It's like, no, it's actually gerbils.
I just didn't know. I don't want to assume. I don't have the track list in front of me. I've heard a lot of those songs live.
A really good example of that. Raisins. My name is our junior. Amazing pop song.
The word raisins is not in the song. See, there we go. See, so it's fine for me to ask. It is.
I heard you were there in the 90's. Yeah, I sure was. You heard some things. I saw some things.
Sabine was not on your radar. Yeah, I don't know. You guys slipped by me. But there was a lot of bands.
You could only really concentrate on two or three bands at a time. There was a lot of, you know, in Minneapolis and St. Paul, you were just required to really play. You were in high school.
Yeah, I was in high school. You were going to see shows at First Avenue. All the time. I loved it.
It was such a great place to see all of each of the shows. I'm not sure if they still do that. I'm assuming they do. Of course they do.
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I've got to, you know, we wait for the announcement. Oh, I didn't know that's all.
Okay. I mean, I could not just play one. Yeah. The other announcement might pop in while I'm doing this.
Well, so 30 years ago, wow, you're 26. Thinking about you as a 26 year old. Well, I had broken up with my girlfriend. My parents came and rescued me or my parents, my dad came and rescued me in Boston and he drove me home and I lived in my parents house for a while, licking my wounds and writing tunes.
Yeah. And yeah, like that song, Cliche. Soul and Fire was one of them. Others.
Yeah. I think Let Tomorrow Be is on that album. A lot of really cool Eric Gaffney songs. So Eric was still in the band.
He was. It was his swan song. Swan songs. Does that mean that was his last?
His last contributions to Sabado are on that album. Oh, okay. It was Jason. Was it you, Jason?
Yep. We'd kind of really kicked into being a band. Uh-huh. We kind of did.
Yeah. We signed a sub pop records and we put out a record called Smash Your Head on the Punk Rock, which is kind of this, is also an LP, but we called it a mini LP. Can I tell you why? I don't like that title.
You don't like Smash Your Head on the punk rock. We talked about this. Yeah, that makes me hurt inside. You're thinking of a head literally smashing a punk rock.
Don't say that hurts me. Well, I have a hard time being cool and just going, yeah, that's a cool title. I just can't. I don't know.
Well, Bubble and Scrape. Bubble and Scrape is a title. Eric Gaffney came up with that title because it was sort of a kitchen term because he worked in kitchens around Northampton and that was a term for cleaning pots and pans. Or maybe a skillet in particular.
You eat it up. You know, if you've got stuff stuck on the pan, you heat up the pan and then you scrape off. You have to cast iron skillet. Yeah, you scrape that off the skillet.
Bubble and Scrape, not to be confused with Bubble and Squeak, which is an English breakfast food. Wait, first before your thing comes on, is that the one where you did the kind of elaborate artwork for it? Is it like a picture frame? Yeah.
Yeah, is that the one that's still at Subpop? It is. I don't know how they were talking about that. The Subpop actually have the original artwork in their lobby, which I was really impressed by.
I spent a lot of time on that. I made this thing, I layered it and then I burned a hole in it and then I really kind of went for it with that piece. It's like a real piece of song. I'm commencing.
This is great. Oh my God. Room like on. What song are you going to do now?
This is called Two Years, Two Days. Now that you have your doubts, will you always be looking for the way out and if I can dance to you to stay? Two years old, two days from now, I live in the field of losing you. Well, they're not trapping you inside.
Now I understand, I can always have what I'm wanting and now I'm wanting you. But if you don't want me, I have to set you free. I have to learn to live without you. Guilt is a stupid thing, don't let it make you stay.
Leave me if you're wanting someone else, cause I'll be okay. Two years old, two days from now, even though I've been known now. It's a short song. Yeah.
Is it short to the recording and the album? Yeah, I think it's about that short. There's a guitar in the middle of it, but I played that part. Mmm.
Told us about two minutes. I like my short songs. I like short songs. I do too.
Timmy Wendett has a lot of very short songs. Stongs. Stongs. It's a cool word.
Stong. I mean that's strong. It should be something. A song.
Maybe it is something. Oh, look at that. Stong. I think that a lot of those songs on that album are still requested a lot.
I'm familiar with those, cause you play them on your solo shows. That two years, two days is my favorite song of the batch. Is it? Okay.
Okay. The breakup batch. Mmm. I feel like it's the one, I mean, cause soul and fire when I initially wrote it, it was a very, it had a real like sorry for myself kind of tinged to it.
I changed it for the recording. Mmm. But this song I think is the most realistic song. It's kind of like looking forward.
Okay. Maybe this isn't the worst thing in the world. Maybe there's a glimpse of a future in the song. You know?
I'll be okay. Maybe some, no more realism, right? It's like realism. It's actually kind of the way that I was beginning to feel and emerging from this relationship, you know, it was my first relationship that I had and I was kind of like, I was really heartbroken.
You know, it was really my first real heartbreak. It felt very physical. It felt very, very intense and I did a lot of crying. But that song I thought, when I wrote it, I felt kind of triumphant because I felt like I was sort of imagining a life beyond the pain that I was feeling and understanding maybe that relationships do transition and relationships change.
So I do, I really like that song to this day because I think when I initially wrote it, I was on, that was, it's pretty much as it is. You know, I didn't tweak it. Mmm. Bubble and scrape everybody.
I didn't do solid fire. Oh. Oh, another mini music Monday. See you guys.
See you guys. Thank you for listening.