Episode 26: "THINK DIFFERENTSTYLE" feat. Jack Callahan, Jeff Witscher, Nick Malkin *FULL EP ON PATREON*

You're listening to the free version of Clout Farm for the full episodes of the Patreon geezer. What are some other controversial quotes you want to say um that other people have said don't look at me don't turn your head i didn't i didn't i didn't turn my head to you um turn my back to you uh yeah i don't know what could yeah controversial controversial quotes um maybe something with swear words yeah let's see like um music is um messed up. That's a good one. Yo, chill. Chill with the language. Do you guys want to maybe intro yourself to the uninitiated? Sure. Take it away. My name is Nick Malkin. I am joined here by Jeff Witcher and Jack Callahan. That's good. Well, Nick introduced us once. Nick has no stranger to introducing us before we give a performance in the... Den Haag? Den Haag. Yeah, The Hague. Oh, I saw a video of that. He did a whole introduction for us. It was like the fucking Rolling Thunder review. What was the content? Remind me. Well, they were getting tried for war crimes. Oh. Or cultural crimes, as it were. The treaty. Oh, yeah. The Hague. The Hague trial. Yeah, they have the war tribunal or the international court for war crimes. Before you guys overstep, I should note that this is a staunch anti-genocide.

podcast yeah respect yeah i'm like that's that's awesome um how uh do you guys want to explain to people how do you define success other than ourselves what um random gear fest is oh yeah so you joined us you you played yeah you played random gear fest um random gear fest is a concept that our friend ren schofield came up with container yeah and we on the post-it i feel like a few years ago jack and i were just talking and we were like this is actually a really good idea and we should see if he is into like starting to do it again yeah because he would do it in providence like 10 15 years ago and he hadn't done it for like quite a while yeah you know um but yeah so the idea is you just assemble like random bits of gear you know uh instruments non-instruments and then you have you get a bunch of performers who agree to participate and then you just come up with random durations of time that they'll play for yeah and then you kind of you know you pull them all out of a hat and then it's just kind of on site people like you i think you were paired with with nick and fielding oh right that was the third person i think it was he was not informed until we said his name yeah he was participating oh that's cool and it was a historical moment for him because he said that's the first time that he ever performed at the venue. And you guys had a keyboard, a pineapple pizza. I can't remember what the last thing was. I think maybe it was just those two objects. Two objects among three, that's all I think you're right. I think it was just two across three, which is amazing. It's like, yeah, it's definitely not. There's no, like the instruments, the people who get paired, we definitely like, it's random, but it's...

I would say it's definitely rigged. To pull back the curtain, we definitely find combinations of people and instruments that might make sparks fly a little bit. Exactly. Sparks are flying. Yeah, sparks are flying. Like the one in New York, I could see in the bag and I could see fish was on this one. And then it was like Nick Scott was like, oh, it's like Nick's definitely getting the fish. Yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. 100%. I think the most brutal one was some guy got given toothbrush and a toothpaste and a toothpaste. Yeah. And a drum machine. And a drum machine. And he had to go for like 10 minutes. Yeah, it was 10 minutes. That's like the longest duration in the bunch. That guy, and you had to do a solo. Who was that? It was that guy, I think it's like, I think he makes computer music. Yeah. On his own. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, he sort of ended up inadvertently headlining. Random Gear Fish. I think that was the most noteworthy performance. At a certain point, it was just like, I don't know. And then he would just press play on the drum machine. Well, there's just a way that you can get away with being a little noncommittal when you employ total chaos. Especially when it's a shorter duration, too. But he had this very kind of measured, disciplined performance. And it was nine minutes long. And so you have to kind of respect that versus just a big show. But it's hard because, you know, I think a lot of people's instinct is just like, I'm just going to, like, break this shit. I'm just going to break stuff or, like, destroy. Everything's going to be wacky. We're going to be wild. Everything's going to be crazy. And, like, we're, like, not like we're ass, not like we're, like, serious about it, but we're, like, obviously it's fun and funny. But it's, like, at a certain point, it's, like, we would hope that people wouldn't just resort to the, like... Smashing shit. Yeah, like, right off the... We were talking about this. I mean, it's interesting because it's the people that you gather to perform at Random Gear Fest are, broadly speaking, people who probably don't have a great deal of fun.

when they're making or performing their music. And there's not really like a big showy performative element to what they're doing. The people sitting at laptops are hunched over gear. So I think that like there is this performative punk spirit that comes out that manifests maybe in like a crude way. But you can't blame them for it. It's like this really rare opportunity for like chaotic catharsis. And in the moment, I think people kind of, in the moment, they kind of panicked. They're like, shit, should I do this seriously? should i like treat it as a joke will i be stupid if i'm like actually like talking to the toothbrush you know i just think people kind of they're just like a little confused or something and also when the audience is it was great i mean the show was sold out which was really very cool and flattering in the way but like you know once people started going in the beginning like the audience was like so engaged with it that when something insane would happen everybody would go oh yeah like you know 150 people in the crowd were like pinpointed on like some insane thing that was happening on stage and so i feel like as it went on people more and more would be like how do i get like a rise from the crowd yeah and so it's like of course you get that and it's it's fun like regardless of what happens something is happening on stage it doesn't matter but you also didn't overstate your welcome no i never felt like it dragged it was like an hour and a half total for like yeah i gotta say i made a bit of a faux pas because well i i broke one of the cardinal rules by vocalizing Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. That was like a... I feel like Ren has... I mean, it's Ren's thing, and he's welcoming us into the curation, but I think he has some rules that clearly don't actually matter. Well, I mean, so I was stuffing pizza into my mouth. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I started going, mmm. I thought it was great. Oh, I was doing the same thing. I was... Yeah, I was like chewing loudly. I'm surprised you guys ate that pizza because I saw them make that pizza. No, I wasn't eating it. I was starving on it. It totally killed two birds with one stone. It was like a six pound pizza. It wasn't necessarily the most joyous. It wasn't food experience in my life. No, when I got the pizza, that guy's shop was catching on fire.

and there was all this smoke inside and i kept being like uh and then it was just taking too long so i was just like hey i was like you don't you don't need to actually like finish cooking that and he was like what and i was like yeah we're not going to eat it like you don't need to finish cooking it and then he was like Oh, yeah, totally, totally. I was like, wait, what is he doing? I was like, what is he doing? So then he just, because it's on like a conveyor belt, right? And he just, so then he grabbed it. It was taking too long. And I was like, dude, we're not going to eat this. That seems like a health code violation. Yeah, yeah. That seems like actively dangerous. Yeah, absolutely. And we're snitching on his ass right now. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're taking him down. How was Europe for you guys? You guys had a crazy tour. It was crazy. It was really good, though. Yeah. Yeah, it was a lot of fun. It was a good... I mean, it was too many shows in once. We didn't have any days off. That was my bad. It was great. It's just like the travel was pretty intense. But the shows were really good. I thought the music started to get pretty good. No, it was cool. What was the set like? I mean, it was basically we did... We did the coffee shop version of these pop songs that we've been writing, where instead of the full backing tracks with drums and bass and all these... It was just basically like guitar. and our vocals and then the samples on top. And so it was like stripped down, like kind of like unplugged, very much like unplugged style, which was cool. Cause I don't do this kind of look. The venue, if it's not like a rock club or something like that, if you're trying to like do these like songs, big songs with backing tracks, they're like kind of like boombastic, like trying to like real, like it kind of like falls flat. If you're not like, you're not that guy. Like if it's not the right size. sound system or like vibe it like the the more it tries to be like this like imitate like playing like a real rock band playing or something the more it's like obvious that it's so it's not that at all yeah like it appears like karaoke or something yeah it's just like so much more like awkward and weird and so we definitely like we played like the the intimate like gallery versions of it there was a good moment in london where when

It was yet to be revealed if you were going to get a guitar or not in time for the set that you were noodling around on the piano. I was like, oh, you should maybe do this like lounge jack. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, for sure. Jeff laying on top of the piano and you're sitting there. We have, yeah, we've done... Music's just crazy and you can do anything you want and no one can tell you that you can't do it. Yeah, and the way that it sounds is often pleasing. Exactly, exactly. And you know what? You know exactly what I mean. And then sometimes it's not, and then it's, that's okay too. And it's a learning experience. Yeah, that's what you said the last time. You might learn that you don't like, you like music that doesn't sound good. That's what we're hoping for our audience every time we play. It was a little, it was a little like challenging though, because, you know, we just have these songs and we're just speaking in English the entire time. So like some cities, it's a little bit. I think the audience maybe is really confused. They're just like, what the fuck are they talking about? It's like these niche topics about American music. It's very American. You guys love referentiality. It's true. That's our lives. We don't really have a lot going on for ourselves. It's all external. Other stuff. We talk about other stuff. I think it's good to be... Confusing. Tell me how that's a good deal for you. We were traveling together for a little while. Our tours were kind of like weaving in and out of each other. And, you know, we were having these conversations about... What are we having for breakfast? Like, incoherently structured bills at shows. Oh, yeah, man. Where there's kind of like... I think there's like an entry-level curatorial approach to putting shows together sometimes or some well-intentioned... but maybe unimaginative person. Now we're getting into it. We can piggyback off of this sentiment and just start talking about a lot of more topics. But it's like setting up a show where it's like four acts that all sound the same because you don't have enough faith in your audience or your curatorial sensibility. Because then at a certain point, to just do a little asterisk there, because then at a certain point, it just becomes a lifestyle.

uh brand kind of thing of rather than like it's like oh this all has to because it's if something's out of place it doesn't fit the vibe and the vibe is like this is how you're supposed to it's more about like how you feel than like just seeing music yeah well those curators they're too like they don't put enough faith in the audience they're too gentle with them they're afraid of the precariousness of it instead of kind of like but how did this writing what give me like how did this manifest well just because on any given night on you know when when our dates were lining up it would kind of be like you know maybe a three or four act bill and it's like someone doing like even just you know using london as the example it's like um jack and jeff are doing their thing i'm doing my thing which is this more of instrumental like jazzy post-ambient kind of thing then joanne robertson's playing just ethereal singer-songwriter kind of music number shot does like 75 minutes of like kind of like harsh hardware stuff yeah and It was a great night. Oh, it was great. And more shows should be like that, where it's like... A heterogeneous bill, you know? Yeah. Someone playing ambient music, somebody doing stand-up comedy, somebody playing solo drums or something. So you want more hetero representation? Yeah, more hetero. Like, I'm so sick of this homo, like, homogenous kind of bill. Yo, clip that. Yeah, clip that one. Yeah, it's like, pause. Yeah, I think, you know, yeah, let me double down on that, actually. I mean, that's where confusion in music is great, though. Instead of worrying, like, you know, well, maybe, you know, tonight in Leeds, no one's going to understand quite what's happening. I mean, personally, if you're listening to the same version, it's about fun. You don't want to be combative. You're just genuinely curious. What the hell is possible?

About what they deal with in their work. But they just stare back at you, like they've seen ghosts. Is this productive? Or are you just a jerk? Look at the cost. Take a full episode of the Patreon Jesus. How are you tonight? I mean, personally, I wouldn't say it's necessarily an experience of everybody, or like where people derive pleasure out of C-music or whatever, but aside from being like, oh, I'm going to see my favorite artist and play my favorite song, and I've gotten a lot of pleasure out of that, aside from that specific experience, if I go to C-music, I am so... jaded of having spent 20 years of going to see you know underground music or whatever it's it's my own problem of just being like so often you see something you're just like you are it's like you know the references and you see it or whatever you're just like you just write it off and you just like i have a hard time like putting that stuff aside just being like putting your prejudices aside just being like oh like i can appreciate this like this is cool it's like it sounds good whatever but it's like But it rarely happens, but when it does, it's so satisfying. Don't forget to pay your friends what happens if they fuck around you. I don't know what this is. I'm confused. It's weird. I might hate this, actually. I might actually hate this, but then that comes, that's the knee-jerk reaction of being like, I don't understand this, so I don't like it. It doesn't fit in with my system of my worldview or something, but then it's like, to transcend that and be like... It doesn't fit into my rubric of taste or something. And I don't know where... it's coming from when it's like actually that's i'm like that's so exciting yeah for me you know what sucks with like experimental music when you can understand it so quickly or something when it's so organized in this way you're like oh like i get it it's like the ambient part and now the field record and like and you know yeah all right yeah so we're transitioning into i'm not like picking on that in particular it could be it could be the computer music you know but when you when when it's like billed as experimental yeah and it's just so organized in this way yeah i mean yeah it's

it's cool to like listen to the sound and it can sound cool. It sounds cool. For sure. But I think like, you know, especially if that's what you're interested in, you know, it can be like a little disappointing. So do you, do you, do you guys have to work hard to not be preemptively judgmental? For sure. Absolutely. I don't do that. I'm pretty bad at that. Actually, I'm really bad at that. When was the last time your judgment was suspended seeing something live? That's a good question. Actually, I've only one more question. Was it Majestic Casual at Event Fest in London? I think so. I think specifically that... I feel like there was something on that tour that definitely was like... We were just like, oh, this is like... Well, I would actually... I request from you if you tell the story about... I won't do what you tell me! If you want to tell the story, you can let me finish. In Wisconsin, seeing... Oh, Podblots. Podblots, Susie. Well, it's just, like, this idea, you know, where, like, sometimes when you see, you know, you see something and you think it's the worst thing that you've ever seen. And, like, I remember I saw Podblots play in Wisconsin. What is that? How do you spell it? P-O-D. Yeah, I didn't mean to put you on plasmy, like, make sure to tag her. Susie Poling, her email address. Well, I just remember, I mean, I hope this comes off as like... What year was this, first of all? Dude, so long ago. I don't even know. So long ago. She's not listening. Yeah. This should come off as like very like complimentary. But I do remember seeing it at the time. She played in like... We're talking like... You talking to me? Between 15 and 20 years ago. Yeah. And she played this set in like Wisconsin. And I remember at the time I was watching it, she was kind of going from room to room in this warehouse space or something. And she had an amp set up in one room. And it was kind of like another amp set up in this other room. And she was going to the one amp and doing all these things. And nothing was working. And there was just no sound. There was no music. And I remember as I was watching it, I was like, man, this is one of the worst things I've ever seen. This is incredible. And then...

But then, like, a few days later, I was thinking about it more. And I realized it was, like, it was actually so good. Like, it was so amazing and, like, it was so confusing. Would it be possible to do an acapella recreation? No, but it was just, like, no, because there was no sound. There was just no sound, you know? And, like, parts of it was, like, this, like, person. trying to do something very basic which is just make music or make experimental sounds to like turn the power on on an amp you know which should be like very like straightforward and it was just like really long and it just like she couldn't i don't know like wait it was entirely unintentional i don't know it didn't matter that's part of it also where it's like the beauty of it is like that definitely helps when you're just like you can't what the like what is like is this intentional or it's not yeah that doesn't have to be it could be very clear if something is intentional and then and just the sound made or the work created is just like you don't know where it's coming from but definitely the fast track to that is where you're just like i don't know like what this person's trying to do yeah yeah and it's actually really complicated yeah it's not like it's not like i'm like you know it's like she's like opening a beer about you know she's like trying to like make music or something like it's so weird And not everything obviously needs to be like that. You don't need to go to a show and every time it's like, oh, this is the greatest, most subversive thing. But it's just... It just depends on the type of music that we're into. For the stuff we're talking about, it's like... Who the fuck do you think you're talking to? The kind of music or whatever, or context or something that inspires me in the work that I create. But I can also go, like, if I would go to see more, like, singer-songwriter shows and, like, hear, like, wow, this person's really good at writing songs. Like, I really, like, these lyrics are amazing. Or, like, I really love these chord progressions that they do. It's, like, that also, I just don't go to see a lot of music like that live. We're just exposed to so much experience. You guys are kind of on that tip musically, though. For sure. Well, that's the weird, that's kind of the weird, like, flip side of it. Yeah, now you guys go to Cafe Wa, open night or something. Dude, exactly. I'm like.

I think it's a song about playing ball in the room. It was so pleasing to see Ezra, better known as Lilic, getting the shit beat out of them on video. Oh, dude. It's high time. Ezra's so good. These guys, for their music, they have a song, Hate the Player. Oh, okay. And the music video has Ezra, culminates in Ezra being assaulted by a group of people. Yeah, look at this shit kicked out of him. I gotta check that out. Ezra's like the, like... The antagonist of the source of... Just like... it's like the uh bittersweet symphony video it's like a riff off of the bittersweet symphony and it's like walking down the street like knocking into people and they're like what the like we like everybody comes together we're like we should kick his ass and then we see us i'm gonna kick your ass crazy that you were the first people to parody the bittersweet symphony video i well yeah i haven't ever i haven't seen it it's so iconic and so there's there's no there's no other possible like uh Versions of that. What is it about Ezra that makes you want to assault them? I can't say this on the record, actually. Of course you can. Ezra's the homie. Ezra rocks. Ezra's one of my best, maybe my best newest friend of the last year. Precious out of the womb. Totally. Would you consider Lilac your protege? You know... He's going to really answer this. There's certain moments of egotism where he can see, like, I got some shit that I can, I see what you're doing, and you're doing amazing stuff, and I got some advice that I would love to give on you, but that's this artist ego thing happening, but I would say I'm not an ageist at all, and I think what Ezra's doing is... so advanced in so many ways that i'm i'm learning from ezra frankly i think i'm it's like a who saved who moment you know yeah yeah this is a pro old head podcast so sure but i'm also can you can you can you old head right now i could old head i could all let let let let them know how to make it in the experimental game if you think that's the only anecdote about a show in a warehouse in 2000 how much time you got i mean i would say uh

It's better to be an old young head than a young old head, you know? That's how I feel. That's how I feel. Yeah, old young head. And I feel like something happened over the pandemic where, and honestly, this record that Jeff and I made is a lot about this feeling of having existed in a context and also not having many... of like the signifiers of success like mainstream signifiers of success outs and everything is within the bosom of like the scene that you've been around and part of and like oh you go and play like a little festival and like all your friends are there from all the different cities and it's like everybody's going crazy it's like you got this new stuff and then like everybody ages out of it at a certain point and you like are once the scene is especially like pandemic and all this so you cut like you wake up and you're like this scene that was like this like thing that had been around for so long and you're just like you make the music for like this context or whatever like when that is gone no traditional signifiers of success in any way and you like you like someone who you don't know who doesn't know anything about it they're like oh you make music like cool like can i check out your stuff or like whatever like oh do you do and you're like it literally like to show these people like what you do it like literally is like they would be like Oh, you're just like a, like, you make music in, like, your basement. Yeah. You have, there's, like, nothing to indicate, like, that you haven't had any success whatsoever. And then it's, like, so you wake up, and you're just like, what the fuck, like, am I just gonna be, like, an angry, bitter, like, 33-year-old being, like, all this shit that I used to love is gone, and, like, meanwhile, all of this stuff is happening that I'm, like, aware of or whatever, but didn't really associate myself with, of, like, be, like, in like being like oh this is cool this is like oh they're like younger people like 10 years younger than me are like oh this is the stuff they're into blah blah blah and then pandemic happens and after like wake up and like all you're like i don't know who i am or what i am and then you're like oh like these people are like now like

they're graduated from college and they're like starting, they're the ones who are, they're the ones who are like doing all this stuff. And you, and you're like, something happened where I was just like, Oh, actually like, like it's like the, like Mr. Burns thing. Or now, or a principal Skinner from like that meme where it's like, am I, am I wrong? It's like, no, it's the kids who are wrong. But it's like the opposite of that where I'm like, Oh no, I was actually wrong. Yeah. And like, it's actually like what, like these like, And I'm not even trying to separate myself from someone who's, like, 10 years younger than me, but it's, like, we're all fucking kids or whatever. But it's, like, something happened for me where I was just, like, shit. Like, this is a humbling moment where you wake up and you're, like, oh, like, this sort of, like, hubris that you have of, like, knowing what's best artistically or something. You're, like, oh, I'm actually humbled because all this shit is way cooler. Or it's just, like, cool also. And it's, like, you can't stop, like. growing and evolving and honestly you know what i have to say never thought i'd do a shout out ian kim judd frankly he is the uh oldest young head i know frankly and it's like uh it's he's uh he's a delight it's scary how much he knows how big of a fan he is of like a bunch of like 21 year old years for life it's crazy i mean men 21 year old men 21 year old none of this would be happening without ian yeah no he set up all the real shit for you this podcast period the reason we reason we started is because i played a show with in eight nine months ago and we i me and dave i think dave had hung out with him properly before but i hung out with him properly and i'd lost my job like two days before and we've been talking about doing a podcast for years we've got interview and this guy this guy's amazing yeah love it so you were talking about this kind of context that you guys had that died over the pandemic yeah what was that for want of a better phrase you're mentioning certain festivals that why don't they have died over the pandemic but it's more just like we realized it yeah it's just like years before that it's just this like you know this is like very it's just like this very underground you know american music that we're all part of in different ways like jeff crossed me on the east coast and sort of the midwest nick on the west coast in the last

15 years or so. And it was very, like, vibrant. Like, how long ago was that? 15? I would say in 2000. I mean, I'm a little younger than... It's like a seven-year span of age between us or whatever. But, like, I remember seeing Jeff play when I was in high school in St. Louis, Missouri. And, like, you know, it was a huge... scene in this was 2007 and you know it's like a huge kind it was like I was just like the noise scene like the American noise themes like Midwest you know it's like st. Louis Chicago like little pockets in these different you know like regions or whatever but then like New York Philly Baltimore Providence especially yeah you know and then like LA SF Portland you know what and then just like It's just there was just something and it kind of I feel like it kind of came off of like sometimes but it was like There is like a scene within a scene of like it was it felt very like Like weird like family type shit. Yeah, who do you consider to be like your your peers and i really do want you guys and it goes it it goes from like yeah wolf eyes i mean that's the only thing but like that's like i feel like wolf eyes was like the progenitors of like specifically not like of that kind of music because they're so many like 10 years removed from or 20 years removed from like industrial stuff and then 190s but they were so thematic during that time and they were like really like Johnny Appleseed. I don't even know if that's necessarily true, but just, like, they're, like, they're, like, the one project that, like, everybody from a certain age group is, like, I have Wolfeyes. Like, they're, like, they also got picked up by, like, you know, like, Sonic Youth and, like, this whole thing. It's, like, early thousands, like, something happened in, like, the culture, like, post 9-11 or something where there was this, it got, it went, like, it crested, like, above the, like, into, like,

the conscious mainstream consciousness or something like that i don't know but like wolf for me i feel like wolf eyes is like the they were like i would say black days too exactly exactly that's the like that's the kind of like the yin and the yang of like that whole thing for sure but i feel like that insane johnny instagram page like introduced, like, everyone my age into that entire world. Totally. I was, like, 16 by, like, Aaron Deleway Records, just having, like, no idea how to contextualize it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You know? It's pretty, that's actually, like, pretty amazing. Yeah. I think, like, that he, like, like, that's, like, their, like, third act. It's not even, like, their second act. It's, like, their third act already. It's insane. But there's a funny power vacuum there that they occupied. 100%. What do you mean? To become the kind of stewards of this kind of thing. It goes back to what you were saying about getting older but not getting bitter about it. Yeah, totally. I think those guys have as much enthusiasm now as they did 10 years ago. It's amazing. It's inspiring in a way. It's like you can be like, everybody goes through the like... That shit's corny. Like, it's not like, I wouldn't, I'm not like putting on Wolf Eyes every, or putting on Blackface or whatever every day, but it's like, it's villains. Or any day. Or any day ever. Yeah. No, it's pretty, I mean, it is like, I don't know, it's like kind of. It still holds up, dude. Oh, my God. Dude, Slicer? Yeah, love that record. You're listening to the free version of Cloud Farm for the full episodes of the Patreon geezer.