The Kurt Russell Skin Diving Massacre with JESSE VALENCIA

Portland’s Jesse Valencia is many things: musician, activist, filmmaker, author, raconteur. But this week, he adds perhaps his most prestigious appellation: Haute Garbage podcast guest. Jesse’s seminal Arizona (now PDX) band Gorky is celebrating 25 years of killer tunes, and Jesse joins the show to discuss his approach to music, UFO encounters, the origins of his book Keep Music Evil about the Brian Jonestown Massacre, the fight for Portland independent music, and the legacy of the late, beloved Gorky co-founder Ben Holladay. 

Music this week:

• “Action Pants” by Gorky (22:39)
• “First Blood” by Moderator (49:50)
• “AM Radio” by Gorky (1:01:54)
• “Shopping” by Rayon (1:26:04)
• “Swinger” by Salo Panto (1:44:49)

Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

You're listening to Hot Garbage.

SPEAKER_05 0:13

Hello and welcome to another episode of the Hot Garbage Podcast, Portland, Oregon's premiere music, discovery, and interview show. My name is Drew. I'm one of your co-hosts, joined as always by my dear friend, the people's co-host, Andy.

SPEAKER_06 0:28

Right up to your face. Right up to my face. And dis you. Wow.

SPEAKER_05 0:32

Our Sunlet partner Nate is with us, Andy. He's making the sound happen. Andy, people are in for a real treat. It's it's the rare podcaster who has the guts to just shit all over Langston Hughes.

SPEAKER_06 0:44

But you get right you cut right to the core. I had some things to say today about Langston Hughes' ABC book for children. So stay tuned.

SPEAKER_05 0:52

That's a cliffhanger. Not a positive review. We're probably going to get a lot of people who know all about the context of that poem correcting us and rolling their eyes out.

SPEAKER_06 1:05

But I think it's just like wet trash.

SPEAKER_05 1:09

I welcome anyone who wants to expose our ignorance publicly that, you know, we're in the all all press is good press stage of this this show, I think. Which is a great thing because we have a banger of an episode tonight. We have Polymath Jesse Valencia on the show. He uh is a founding member of the band Gorky, which is celebrating 25 years as a band with a brand new vinyl release. We talk a lot about that. He's also a published author. He wrote a book about the Brian Jonestown massacre. We get into the genesis of that book. It just sold its 3500th copy. So he's moving units of that one. Yeah, that's a great read. He's also done a lot of sort of community engagement around bolstering the Portland music scene. So we talk about Buttonheads with Live Nation, what a great scene looks like here in Portland, and what he's doing to help protect it. So we cover a ton of ground. Jesse's super interesting. He is uh putting together a new lineup for Gorky, so you're gonna hear some new music from them soon, we hope. Um, but check him out, he's got a ton to offer. Check out his Instagram. The link section there has links to his Substack, to his movies, to his book, to Gorky music. So it's a one-stop shop, but there's a lot going on there. I think you're gonna want to check it all out after our conversation with Jesse Valencia on this week's episode of Hot Garbage.

SPEAKER_06 2:45

I bet you did see a UFO the other night because like they have come out and been like, no, no, no, no, don't look at the war, don't look at all the bad shit we're doing and all the evil pedos that we are pardoning. Aliens are real. So yeah, for sure. We've been doing it.

SPEAKER_05 3:01

So, what was your encounter, Jesse?

SPEAKER_03 3:02

Well, this one wasn't an encounter. I've had an encounter, but um last night I I was just outside on my porch and I looked up and I thought I saw like a meteor. I was like, oh, it's a uh shooting star, right? Like you think you see a shooting star, and then I saw more, but they were in the other direction, and then so I was like, Well, why? And then I I looked closer, I started to pay attention at that point, and it seemed to be the same dot kind of zigzagging. Cool, and then I I just paid attention and it stopped, but I I timed it in my head as I was watching it, and it was a couple seconds of of movement back and forth across the sky.

SPEAKER_05 3:47

Wow, that's fucking crazy. Then it winked at you and then got it.

SPEAKER_06 3:50

Yep, and then it took off. Maybe that was like um flight of the navigator, and that kid was just like on it, it was kind of like one of those situations, and he was learning to drive the UFO. He had just found it, took it from a government installation, and he didn't quite know how to keep it going straight. So he was zigzagging all over the place, giving away his location. Man, the hijinks.

SPEAKER_05 4:11

I've never had a UFO encounter, I've never seen something that like totally you know unmoored me from certainty before. Have you ever seen a satellite? I've seen what's the what's the fucking Elon Musk thing? The Starlink. And the first time I saw that, I was like, well, that's pretty fucked up, but I didn't know what Starlink that was. That caught my eye and uh made me uncomfortable, but it was immediately explained to me.

SPEAKER_06 4:33

So um me and Nate were driving to Spokane one time and we drove through. Or wait, no, no, this is a different time. I was driving with my family, and we were driving to Tacoma. We're driving through Tacoma by the Air Force Base, and there was like a plane that didn't look like it could hover, hovering next to the highway. I know it was probably an obstacle illusion, and we were going this way this fast, and it was going this way this slow, and it was slowing down. But that motherfucker was just stuck in the sky like a glitch in the matrix. I think that was probably a hundred feet off the ground, but it felt like five.

SPEAKER_05 5:05

I think I would attribute that to the the mind-numbing drive between here and Spokane. I guess it warps perception through its just like utter mundanity.

SPEAKER_06 5:14

I thought it was one of those things like when you're sitting still and like a train is going by next to you and you feel like you're moving. Yeah, yeah. But with my eyes and an airplane that was landing and it was thrown on the brakes, but we drove like a 360 around it and it didn't move from where it was at, so man, it's all simulation.

SPEAKER_03 5:32

I I could see that. I I've taken that drive to Spokane recently, it's my first time, and I I actually really enjoyed it. I I love that part of the country. It seemed to be so weird.

SPEAKER_06 5:42

That desolate wasteland of hell.

SPEAKER_03 5:44

Well, I came from a kind of a desolate place, so to me it was it was a lot more interesting. And now that I've been while I was listening to you talk, I realized I've had more than one UFO encounter, and I think my my first one was the Phoenix lights, because I grew up in Phoenix, and I saw those lights uh while I was out riding my bike. I didn't know until later that it was a thing. It's like a known phenomena? Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 6:11

Oh, you should look at it.

SPEAKER_03 6:12

Yeah, I look it up. The Phoenix lights, there was like this, well, and it it kind of ties into the second one I saw, which was a lot more recent. So that this was that was in the 90s. If you Google Phoenix Lights, it was like these this uh like a not a full triangle of lights, but it was like very much a V shape, and it was it had blacked out part of the sky. Sick. And that and people had called in. Actually, the first person that called in on it was Kurt Russell. Of course. And his he was flying with his son. Yeah, he was flying with his son. He was a he's a pilot. Oh and he's the first one that saw it and called it in first, and then there was all kinds of 911 calls and stuff.

SPEAKER_06 6:52

Dude, of course, Kurt Russell's a pilot. Like he seems like a pretty down ass dude. He seems like he's really nice and cool. He was here recently. And now he knows how to f he knows how to fly planes, too. I bet he does like deep skin diving too, or something else, rad. He is Kurt Russell. Down in the water.

SPEAKER_05 7:08

Yeah, known skin diver.

SPEAKER_06 7:10

One of those like most interesting people in the world. He's on the high high for my list personally.

SPEAKER_03 7:15

He's like left-wing Chuck Norris.

SPEAKER_05 7:17

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_06 7:18

Hey, you're fucking right. It's true.

SPEAKER_05 7:22

Tombstone, my favorite movie.

SPEAKER_06 7:26

The most interesting, famous actor in the world. Yeah, it should be him, actually.

SPEAKER_05 7:30

Do you think that there are certain people that are in some way predisposed to have these encounters?

SPEAKER_03 7:35

Maybe.

SPEAKER_05 7:36

Because you've had a couple. Maybe it's just right place, right time, maybe it's just dumb luck. But do you ever think that there's something about your perhaps inquisitive nature, open-mindedness? Is there something that you think makes you kind of uh an avatar for these encounters? Just a few degrees more than maybe someone like me who is a little more closed off. Well, it might not be that way.

SPEAKER_03 7:56

Uh, you know, in my I'm actually I'm Yaqui actually in uh Yoami and our culture, uh we in our cosmology, we have like what we call different worlds that kind of overlap. And in the liminal places that you have like wilderness world, uh flower world is kind of like our term for heaven, and so there's liminal space, they all interact with each other, right? So sometimes I feel like that might be part of it, you know.

SPEAKER_06 8:25

Like I feel like too, a big part of it is just people that are more perceptive, like you're just you're just paying more attention. Those are the people that see weird shit. That's true. I don't see very much weird shit because I am not looking at anything. Yeah. I am barely.

SPEAKER_03 8:40

Well, and then there's also there's a lot of light pollution here. I mean, where where I where I spent my teenage years, have you guys seen that movie Fire in the Sky? Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 8:49

Terrified me when I was a kid.

SPEAKER_03 8:50

Yeah, that's my favorite movie. So that's where I that's kind of where I grew up, is is that part of Arizona. And it what was funny about that is the it would that movie takes place in Snowflake, Arizona. The story does, but they filmed it here in Oregon. What isn't that weird?

SPEAKER_06 9:07

I could be taking a film tour of the set of Fire in the Sky.

SPEAKER_03 9:11

Actually, that's what that's a good idea. There is a there's an initiative right now with the Oregon Film Office to bring more film tourism for things like that. That's something that we should be.

SPEAKER_06 9:19

We've got a lot of cool ones in our state. We've got the short circuit house, we've got the Goonies House, we've got the Ninja Turtles 3, Turtles in Time, the Barn. Oh no shit. Well that this all happened in and that's one city.

SPEAKER_05 9:32

That's just Perry and the Henderson's. That was most Washington.

SPEAKER_04 9:37

I love Ninja Turtles 3.

SPEAKER_03 9:38

Ninja Turtles.

SPEAKER_05 9:40

Underrated, I would say.

SPEAKER_04 9:41

Yeah, and that all the two guy like dies at the end.

SPEAKER_03 9:44

Oh, when he like falls out of the thing. Or how does he die? How does that guy die at the end of Ninja Turtles 3? Does he sacrifice the colonizer guy? Does he get shot with a cannonball?

SPEAKER_05 9:55

I don't remember it in that detail. Didn't like Casey Jones come back from that movie, but he's basically sidelined in the present. Yeah. Okay.

SPEAKER_03 10:02

Yeah, but the bad guy was the guy who was trying to bring guns to the Japanese.

SPEAKER_05 10:07

Yeah, I think time for a rewatch.

SPEAKER_03 10:10

Yeah, and he's like this British capitalist dude. Oh, that's gotta be a terrible. Ahead of its time. Oh, yeah, way ahead of its time. But you can go see that barn right here in Astoria.

SPEAKER_06 10:20

Yeah, you could go there. I know there's more too, but yeah, that's I got I gotta tell you that that Fire in the Sky was a very formative movie for me as a kid. You know, back in the day when you would like have to go to the video store and rent a movie? Of course. And I was one of those annoying kids that would rent the same movie a lot. And Fire in the Sky. Man, I must have seen Fire in the Sky twenty times at the same place. No, I've never read the book.

SPEAKER_03 10:46

So the so the the the actual guy, I know him, I'm friends with his family, and uh they're well known in that area. And uh he has come to several events and talk and shown the book that was based off the movie, or that the movie based was based on, and he wanted to remake it uh to be more accurate to his actual experience, which wasn't as scary as the as the movie ended up being.

SPEAKER_06 11:14

It was scary as fuck.

SPEAKER_03 11:15

Yeah, and scary, but his his ex actual experience wasn't that scary.

SPEAKER_06 11:19

And they did not do him uh very good. I feel like if I was him no, like the public the the movie itself kind of made him look kind of like shitty. The main character. Yeah. So as a real story and the real person, I would be real pissed too and be like, I want to remake it and make me seem a lot cooler than I was because it made I mean they were trying to show that people didn't believe him that this happened and he felt like it really happened to him. Yeah. But like, man.

SPEAKER_03 11:44

Actually, all of all of the guys that accompanied him that witnessed it and like told everybody he was taken or whatever, they all took polygraph tests and several, and they were interviewed by people because they all thought that they had murdered Travis. Travis Walton is his name. And uh uh to this day it's like the only or it's like the most like solid UFO case, like, or at least abduction case, it's like has no holes in it, like as far as like what people have been able to try to break them on, or yeah, no changes to the stories, there's just some consistency and and enough unexplained things to leave the door open.

SPEAKER_05 12:28

You know, I was you to talk about those liminal spaces from your culture, and it made me think that well, I mean, obviously the nature of reality is up for debate, but I also think whether you're a person who attracts this kind of stuff or nature of reality, or you're a person that you know whatever you happen to believe, I do think that the power of the mind is unfathomably vast. Vast beyond, you know, our you know, our ability to describe what it is. And I think our minds conjure a lot of these kinds of experiences under moments of stress or high emotion or meditation or through drugs, and I don't think that makes them any less real. It just makes them liminal. I think like, you know, that's a perfect way to think of it.

SPEAKER_06 13:14

Man, you keep saying liminal, and all it makes me think of is that movie that just came out last weekend, The Backrooms. Oh, I haven't seen it yet. I want to see that. They're calling it liminal horror because it's all about liminal spaces, but it's also that movie and oblivion, even more so, are really giving me hope for the future of horror cinema right now. They are fucking having insane weekends. You mean obsession? Obsession, yes, obsession. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 13:40

I don't think horror cinema is ever gonna go away because uh when I was at actually you when you were talking about mind, it reminded me of uh I was at the Dave this ties in to what I'm about to say about horror, but uh it reminded me at the David Lynch school, uh we learned transcendental meditation.

SPEAKER_06 13:59

Oh, that's so cool that you can go to fucking David Lynch school. I'm a huge fan of that.

SPEAKER_03 14:02

Yeah, that's awesome. Well, but he we talk a lot about consciousness, and so the same thing like the different worlds or different, you know, perceptions of reality or different understandings or cultural filters or different way you know, linguist the way our language shapes so much of how we shape thoughts that uh you know we don't even realize it. And so um, but I think it's all various layers of consciousness consciousness, and one of those is fear, which uh you know, with a horror story, the reason why horror will always be is because all you really gotta do with a horror movie is scare someone. Right. So you I mean it sounds so simple. I mean, there's ways to not scare somebody and make yourself look ridiculous, or there's other way you could or you could totally scare you as a child with fire in the sky. Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_06 14:52

Absolutely. And nowadays, I don't know, not nowadays, but it seems like in the last year, a lot of new directors have been given their chance to take a swing at it and have made really interesting movies. Uh most of my favorite movies from the last couple of years have been like relatively new directors to me at least, like weapons. That wasn't like a huge high budget film, and it made a lot of money. Yeah, but Obsession is the one that's like really blowing everybody's minds because it's I wanna I think it made like cost like 750 grand to make this movie.

SPEAKER_05 15:18

Yeah, I think it made like 72 million dollars or well, like over a hundred million, maybe at this point. Something absurd. But that and that guy's I think the person that made that is 26. And the person who made bad.

SPEAKER_06 15:31

He's always coming up in my feed. I've been following that shit since uh the whitest kids you know. Oh, sure. He's from that whole crew, so uh good fucking job. I'm stoked for that.

SPEAKER_05 15:41

Well, I wanted to since you brought up your your film school um experiences and some of the things that you learned there, I'm curious about how it will pivot to you as a creator, because you're a creator across a lot of different media.

SPEAKER_03 15:54

Yeah. Totally.

SPEAKER_05 15:56

When you think about the fact that I guess you you were saying you were learning that it's all about representing different kinds of perspectives. That a part of making film art, at least, from your education is like representing all these different points of view and perspectives. Do you think that there is any part of art's responsibility to pursue some kind of truth, given that everybody's perspectives are so vastly different? Like, where do you think the role of truth is in the pursuit of art? Given how like kaleidoscopic everybody's perspective really is.

SPEAKER_03 16:28

I've been thinking a lot about truth recently because uh, you know, uh Michel Foucault, uh who was a theorist back in the 60s and 70s, talked a lot about how uh power is what shapes truth. That that there is no objective truth, that it's one's power that shapes what is true and what is norms, and and he's got a really great argument for it. But at the same time, when I think about power itself, and I've seen power in play in various ways, and you know, across different institutions and things, whether it's the arts or politics or the legal system or corporations or whatever, it's uh uh power shapes the the perception of objective truth, I think. I think there is a true an objective true thing. I mean, we're here, we're physical beings, we're talking, right? That's there's the sky is blue, and so you could start from a basic level and then move on, and then different perceptions of truth. I mean, what is true for different people is uh, you know, that has to be factored into it. So like there's different worlds, right? There's different cultures, there's different perspectives, right? So I think uh what I tell uh actually what uh this is a good this is great because I've been teaching this screenwriting class at PCC and seeing different stories, right? From different backgrounds and different uh different kinds of people, you know, and so uh what I tell them is that uh your theme to your movie, your theme to your story, and this goes across stories, you know, whether it's a film or whatever, is that your the theme, the core of your of your protagonist, the core of your story, the thing that's dr that we're following, right? That has to represent ultimately your value system. And yes, that is subjective. That's a subjective thing. That's what that's what the the art is, right? So I mean, maybe you are in pursuit, whether it's of your own truth or of objective truth, or even the idea of truth. Um, I think you have to be true to yourself, you have to be true to the ideas. David Lynch talked a lot about being true to the ideas that you have, especially the ones that you're in love with. Uh if you fall in love with an idea, you have to be true to it, or you know, it'll turn into a big pile of shit, is what he would say. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 19:09

Do you well? I mean, that there's so many things we could that's that's a great, that's a great little cliffhanger, but one of the ways you express yourself is through music. And since we are nominally a music podcast, I thought we might kick off the the tunes tonight. You playing a band called Gorky. Yes, that's correct. And um deep catalog. There's there's a lot of music there for people who are maybe haven't heard of you before. So there's there's years and years of it. It's all great, it's very diverse, there's a lot of different kinds of sounds. Um What is something you'd like to start us off with? What's like the first song you'd you'd like to play from your collection?

SPEAKER_03 19:44

You know, uh the one my my I'll I'll recommend my favorite one is Action Pants. Um and thank you. Uh so we played for this is our 25th year, actually. Amazing. And our sadly, our our co-founder, Ben Holliday, died in 2023 of Alpha 1 N trypsin deficiency, which is a rare genetic lung disease that he didn't know he had until he caught COVID a couple years earlier, and they diagnosed him with this because they couldn't figure out how that why they weren't draining his lungs. And what it is is that what that deficiency is, is that in mo in all of us, there's an enzyme that our bodies produce that goes either our lungs produce it or it goes to our lungs. I'm quite not quite sure on the science, but it's what breaks up uh particles in our lungs uh into mucus so that we can cough it out. So when we breathe in smoke or we go ha and like and get it out, that's what that enzyme is for. And so his body didn't produce that. So every particle he breathed in would oxidize on his lungs and eventually solidified, you know. Holy shit. So uh we Action Pants was a song that we recorded in 2019 or 2018, and um it's my favorite single of ours, and Ben's drums sound like Keith Moon on it to me. I mean, uh when I heard we have it's coming out this record, Gork Mania, is coming out um in July. I think it's July 10th. Uh it's available for pre-order right now, and it's kind of like a greatest hits record. And Action Pants is one of the songs. When I heard it on the on the test pressing, uh I it was so fast. I was like, this is so fast. Like I to I wasn't you hearing your songs on vinyl versus digital is so different. Uh after having mastered it for vinyl years ago and never being able to have like a vinyl record, yeah. Finally having one, hearing it, it was like, oh my gosh. But um the the idea for the song came from going back to Chuck Norris, he had This advertisement for action pants where he's where he's kicking in the air and encumbered by his pants.

SPEAKER_04 22:08

You can't do that in tight down. No.

SPEAKER_03 22:10

Yeah. And um uh and then Courtney Taylor from the Dandy Warhols uh advised me on on the chorus, which is when he when I changed the chorus how he told me to, it made the song, and so I was like, Alright, I love singing this now, and it became so fun. And so it's like a fun song. I want to say it's like I I would say it represents the spirit ultimately of what what we are.

SPEAKER_05 22:38

That's awesome. Awesome. And I'm glad we get some Keith Moon drums to Ben. Yeah, that's great. All right, let's give it a spin.

SPEAKER_03 26:15

It was it was Courtney's uh uh Courtney Taylor. I sent I emailed him the song and I was like, check this out because it kind of had that vibe to it. And I was like, What do you think about it? And he was like, you should do this, and I can't remember what it was. It might have been holding the holding the note like I did. I I think it was that, and then uh yeah. When I when I finally went into the studio and changed it, because I was like, something's missing. It was this chorus just ended too soon. And uh there was like dead space, I didn't like it. But um but yeah, I I I really enjoy the bounciness of that track.

SPEAKER_06 27:01

And um yeah, it's good. It's objectively good. I don't think what your truth is. That is that is true, yeah.

SPEAKER_05 27:09

That is not yeah, that's not a matter of perspective. It's truth. It's hard to find someone who would be like, yeah, that that sucks. That would be a very unpopular opinion after hearing that song.

SPEAKER_03 27:19

But uh yeah, um oh, so then I had one more thing to say about Alpha One, is that uh this record, we're actually using it to raise awareness for Alpha One and uh that's great, try to bring attention to it and fun little resources to it because Alpha One Foundation, uh, which is an organization that uh is financing research and and things, is working towards a cure. So we're trying to uh we're trying to use Ben's story and our back catalog uh from before this last 25 years of music really to bring attention to Alpha One ultimately.

SPEAKER_05 27:56

It's a win-win because it's a great cause, but also the people are gonna get this kick-ass record out of it. Yeah, yeah, totally. Um everyone should do that. Um we'll give people info at the end of the episode about how they can get their hands on it and pre-order it and all that kind of fun stuff.

SPEAKER_06 28:10

Oh, I got a trivia question for you guys. We'll see. What is the only mammal with a prehensile penis?

SPEAKER_05 28:19

Oh, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

What is prehensile pen?

SPEAKER_06 28:21

Like a duck. It means that they can like grab things with it, they can hold on to things with it. It's kind of like a like a monkey's tail.

SPEAKER_03 28:27

Whoa.

SPEAKER_06 28:28

And it's a mammal. It's a mammal, huh? Platypus is a you know that's a marsupial. What I would have guessed. Platypuses are mammals, but they are fucking weird. They do some wild shit.

SPEAKER_03 28:40

You just think of the weirdest animal, and you're like, it has to have a weird penis.

SPEAKER_06 28:44

Yeah, I think they have like a uh forked penis.

SPEAKER_05 28:46

It's it works for people and it works for mammals. Yeah. I believe they have a forked penis and weirdest dudes, weirdest penises.

SPEAKER_06 28:52

The female platypus uh secretes milk through her sweat glands and doesn't have nipples. Oh, nice.

SPEAKER_03 28:58

Just comes out like uh like an alien, the queen mother, the xenomorph, right?

SPEAKER_04 29:03

Like just so what's the answer to your question, Andy? It's a fucking dolphin.

SPEAKER_05 29:09

Oh, a dolphin.

SPEAKER_04 29:10

Well, it's slippery.

SPEAKER_06 29:12

They live in a slippery world. And they're they're just creepos, is unfortunately what it is, because they're um gives a new meaning to flipper. They're one of the only mammals that has sex for pleasure, too. So they're nasty dudes. Oh, I mean that's their penis is like half the size of their body, so it really acts as a prehensile tail.

SPEAKER_03 29:33

Maybe that's why they went into the ocean in the first place. Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 29:36

They were just gra dragging around this giant dick.

SPEAKER_06 29:38

Yeah. It was like an elephant's.

SPEAKER_03 29:40

They needed elephants always dirty. We should just stay in this water. New flesh.

SPEAKER_05 29:46

What if we just stayed in the water? Yeah, our dick is so much lighter here in the ocean. Well, good for dolphins. You know, the unpopular opinion that I have about nature is it's just disgusting. I'm pro. I'm in favor.

SPEAKER_03 29:58

Well, it's gross.

SPEAKER_05 29:59

But the more you learn, it's gross. Or learn, I mean, I guess about anything, the grosser things get. Any living thing. People. Yeah, likes and hues. Heroes, heroes, like we all likes and hues. Disgusting.

SPEAKER_03 30:10

Well, I mean, like, that might just be part of evolutionary psychology because as we as humans, you know, cohabitate and create cities and you know, advance our own hygiene and our own standards of living and stuff, we just we tend to uh separate ourselves from certain things that we don't want to be in that. We want to kind of create this reality. Right. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_05 30:30

Yeah, we have to contrast ourselves with something worse.

SPEAKER_03 30:33

Yeah, and then the norms reinforce it and then fucking norms. But they're good. They're norms aren't necessarily bad. I think we gotta have them. I'm thinking of norms as like people. Fucking norms.

SPEAKER_06 30:44

Never known a norm. Um I used to call my friend Marshall Norm. But I don't know where that nickname came from exactly. It doesn't really fit. Yeah. That was his last name, though.

SPEAKER_05 30:57

Um Well, speaking of Dandy Warhol's somewhat adjacent to another one of your major creative endeavors. You're an auth author. Uh you've written uh would you call it a bio or uh like an oral history of uh the Brian Jonestown massacre?

SPEAKER_03 31:11

Uh I would definitely call it more of an oral history. There's there was definitely an intention behind it technically that maybe was missed when it came out, but then the the pandemic happened like right after it came out. So I don't bad timing. Yeah, it was pretty bad. Well, it was like great timing, but what sucked, well, it was great timing because it was like right before. So it was like in that time period where like nothing had quite happened yet. I think where things were going on great, and like before things crashed, right? But so I wrote that. It took me 10 years to write that book. I started it in 2009, and uh it was after I watched Dig. I got in this car wreck, um, this DY car wreck when I was 23 in 2008, and uh the Brian Jonestown was like the la the dig, and Brian Jonestown was the last thing that I had like surviving from that crash because I had my CD collection. And um I ended up going to uh side story that is you know also a thing we could talk about. I was on probation for five years uh while I was an uh MP in the army.

SPEAKER_04 32:22

Really?

SPEAKER_03 32:22

Yeah, yeah. Uh I went to jail for a month for this crash and ended up having to pay restitution and do go through the whole legal system. And writing the book became kind of my escape from that. Yeah. And also uh kind of a driver to get out of the situation I was in because uh at first it started as an escape because I was like 23, 24. I was like hot-headed writer, kid, right? Like you're all into Kerouac and Hemingway and Hunter S. Thompson and shit. Sure, yeah. And then so I used that to get into school. Uh that bluster, I kind of like used that energy again because I was like, I don't know how to how to write this. I know I have a talent for writing, but I don't know how to put it together, right? Like putting a book together. So it's daunting, yeah. Yeah, and so I was like, I need the the the I need the technical know-how of what how what the pipeline is. And so I went to the MFA and creative writing program at NAU uh while I was on probation, and while I was working on this book, and uh make going doing the band working, trying to survive in SHOLO, Arizona, you know, way out in the middle of nowhere. And uh I interviewed over I think 150 people over that time, and some of them several times, and some of them cross because you have to like cross check some stories because some people have the same story but different versions, and so you figure out what's probably true.

SPEAKER_05 33:51

Yeah, you go back to the discrepancies and you're like, here's what they said, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 33:55

And so what I wanted to do at first is in that program they taught me creative nonfiction, uh, which is like it's kind of like a Hunter S. Thompson thing, or like, you know, like a nonfiction narrative. Like I wanted to do almost like a Hunter S. Thompson, like fear and loathing.

SPEAKER_06 34:16

Like you're part of the fucking story, too. Yeah, because you're in with it, you're part of the Hell's Angels now.

SPEAKER_03 34:20

That's exactly what happened. But um, what ended up happening is uh long story short, on that, when I f found the final publisher and we developed it, it was just so big. It was like the unabridged version was like would have been like 500 pages, and it was it had all of my own stories. Because it was ultimately I had to do that because um key members of the Brian Jones Time Masker didn't really want to participate, and it was like uh Anton Newcomb, he gave me the idea first. He's the one that told me to write it, and then I wrote it, I wrote a version of it, and I drove to Denver in 2010 where they were playing to give him my manuscript, and I met, introduced myself to everybody, and then after that I just started interviewing as many I went through the all the album notes, found made lists of people, found him on Facebook, tracked them down, called them, emailed them, said this I'm building this book. I had nothing. I had no deal. Does it start as like you know the crazy as just a fan? It was I was just a fan, it was like almost famous. You remember that movie? Uh like the you know, the series.

SPEAKER_05 35:34

It was like 33 and a third. Are you familiar with that book series? Yeah, where it's an individual writer about an individual album. It's but it's more of just like personal seeing a piece of art through personal lens. So it started like that essentially is what you did. It did, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:47

It did. It was it was gonna be just the records and a timeline of the records, but also there was like what started to happen was like people would think I was wanting more dig type material, and they would tell me like crazy stories, and that or uh sometimes people would try to get at uh back revenge at other people by telling something false, and I'd later, and then people would be like, No, no, let me straighten it out for you, and then before you knew it, I was like in this world, and and then I got kind of too into it.

SPEAKER_06 36:20

That kind of feels like a crime noir story.

SPEAKER_05 36:22

It's a little, it is a little uh noir, but also the almost famous thing where you're you're you're too close.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

No, I that's what happened, that's why I'm like it's almost it's like almost famous. I screwed up a couple times, uh just being naive and green and like kind of a punk ass sure uh kid who wanted to prove himself, you know what I mean? Because I was I was doing gorky already, and when I as I was learning shit about the music industry through the interviewing people in the Brian Jonest time massacre, I was like learning how to record albums and like how to keep a band together and like by learning from that, and so that was happening simultaneously without me realizing it because I was just trying to make both happen, right? And then I finished the book probably 2014, 2015, and then struggled to get a publisher, finally got a publisher, or no, actually I had a publisher, they were um they were gonna be here actually in Portland, University of Hell Press, but uh for one reason or another it didn't work out, but I'm still great friends with them and they have great stuff. University of Hell Press have uh you know great books. But um uh so Anton started me off, like at that time, but then he didn't want anything to do with it. And then sometimes this kind of shit would happen where I would find out about a juicy story and I'd want to more on it, and I would ask some obscure person that no one's ever talked about in any interview or anything, and uh I would ask them, Hey, I'm Jesse writing this Brian Jones Tumbo, and they'd be like, Hang on, I gotta talk to so and so first, and then they'd be like, I can't talk to you. And then I'd be like, Okay, whatever. And then so that would happen sometimes. So then as people depleted, you know, as the less and less key people that I wanted to talk to like didn't end up, you know, being in it, I was like, Well, I have it. It's now the at one point I was like, it's now the book of me writing the book, trying to find the story of the Brian Jones. It's becoming House of Leaves.

unknown 38:31

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03 38:32

Yeah. Well, but then so what's cool ultimately though is that uh it you know, it's actually I'm celebrating it just like recently past 3,500 copies sold fresh market. That's great. And then uh it's influenced uh a whole like Brian Jonestown literary movement now because you've got Joel's Joel has a book now. Actually, he's got two books. Yeah, he's got in the In the Jingle Jingle Jungle, which is his own stories, his own well, like if you've read Keep Music Evil, you'll see places where Joel was or where he left, and he fills in those gaps of where he was gone and tells his own. And then he's got a companion piece, and it's it's a lot more like Dig, where it's like if he kind of goes in a more Kerouacian way, if I was the Hunter S. Thompson, I guess. Okay, let me ask. And there's more books coming out.

SPEAKER_06 39:32

So it's crazy. So what what basically what happened is was you kept trying to write a book about them. They got pissed at each other and said bad shit about each other back and forth, but you probably inspired them all to set the record stereot and write their own individual books. So that's fantastic. That's a that's a fucking great thing to have been a catalyst for.

SPEAKER_03 39:52

Well, that's why you know I'm so well, it's I became here when I moved here uh a couple years ago. Those were who I knew here. Yeah, was you know what I mean? Those are my those are my friends and my people. So it's as what's so crazy about that though is that I had written about these people and their lives, right? Which there was and there's a little bit to say for this, which is which is fine. I understand it now. At at the time there was some tension over it, but uh you gotta remember too, like when I started, it I mean, having it, it took such a long time to get it published. Sure. That like people's lives changed, and we uh kind of had known each other for a long time at that point. When it could have been something that was done in a year or two, maybe, but not really, not realistically. It was like this journey.

SPEAKER_05 40:43

So well, not knowing how to do it at all means it takes as long as it takes, right? Right. It's done when you learn that it's done, which takes however long it takes. Probably the next one you could do in a couple years, but right.

SPEAKER_03 40:54

Oh, I've got plenty of material for the next one now, because I want to use uh, you know, spoiler alert, I want to use a lot of the stuff I didn't get to say in this book that I had to edit out because it ended up being, well, let's just stick to the Brian Jones Town. And it was like, well, yeah, of course, but how are people gotta trust this narrator? Yeah, and so you know, I have to present myself as how I lived it and what it and my insertions into it, because I did end up playing shows and with them, and not with the band itself, not with B Jam itself, but with Joel. Played a show with Joel, played a show with Matt Hollywood, even though he's not in the book, uh, or he didn't want to do an interview, and so uh well your hand is on the scale because you become integrated into this world.

SPEAKER_05 41:42

But I think with I think writing about music is one of those rare places where that subjectivity doesn't hurt the credibility of it. You know what I mean? It's not as if it's not really meant to be some sort of well, there are people who document every day that a band was in the studio and they're just keeping a sort of a historical love, but that's not really what writing about music is meant to be about. But I'm curious what what is your biggest interest when it comes to musicians? What is the thing that like sparks your curiosity to the most when you think about interviewing a musician? Because we do that all the time, but I'm wondering from your point of view. Oh, like when so I used to like who I seek out. Well, like what what did you want to know about these people at first? Like what was the thing when you didn't know them personally and you were just getting into a room with someone who knew them or someone who had a story? What was the thing that you were pursuing initially just from an interest perspective?

SPEAKER_03 42:34

Yeah, you know what it's it had to do with it's kind of a simple kind of goofy explanation, but the answer I've thought of before is that what drew me to them to want me to know more about them was that where I lived, there was no record stores, right? You had to like seek out stuff. We had to drive to a city and then go to a record store, yeah. So that was a special day, right? And so um when we found this stuff, it was like, oh wow, this is our world, you know. But it was like we had gotten into that whole post punk garage rock thing that happened with the strokes and the white stripes and stuff, yeah. And the reason why we had gotten into that and not like emo or pop punk like a lot of our peers were in Arizona was that we liked the old 60s and 70s stuff back then, like with the hipster era, I guess, if you will, or Indy Slea's era. Right. Like we we loved the the 60s and the 70s. We wanted to bring those sounds back, and that's why we liked those bands. Yeah. And that you know, that's why we liked them. And so when I first heard Brian Jonathan's town, Dandy Worlds, I thought, oh, these are the guys that paved the way for all the bands that I like. Yep. And so I was like, and then It just seemed like they had you know, you kinda hear these stories about how creative they are and and how creative Anton was and how skilled and genius he was and how he could do all these things. And my interest as a musician was like, I would love to learn uh some of those things. And I learned a lot. You know?

SPEAKER_06 44:22

But the other side of that was that they were like a dangerous rock band, you know? They partied hard, they like went to excesses, they got in fights with each other, sometimes shows would fall apart in mid-show. There was a spectacle and you didn't know it was gonna happen, and you felt like you committed. It was a fucking it was a drama. It was like a big fucking So that's cool. And I I mean as far as I know, there's still crazy rock bands out there, but this was like the last big one in my mind. The last rock star excess band that was like fully, you know, out there for the world. Now in like the world of like the internet, people are feeling a lot more guarded. You don't hear about it as much.

SPEAKER_05 45:02

I know it happens, and I'm just like not thinking about it, but I feel like um this is just off the top of my head, but I believe that the way people interact with music now just is a it's a totally different point of view. I don't think that there's a like a showcase of excess. I'm not saying it was intentional or contrived in any way, but there were way more opportunities for that. If you experienced a band, then you had to go seek them out, right? You had to go see these guys or drive to another town to get a record or dig through a physical world. And I just think that gave you more opportunity to bump up against the reality of another person, which is often just imperfect. And now there are the immediacy of getting the end product is right in your face. You don't actually have to wade through anything imperfect to get something right away. You don't have to bump up against another person, you don't have to ask an older sibling what they're listening to, you don't have to have like a friend who plugs you in. It's all you. And so I just think that you don't see the rough edges of the world as much, uh, or the art world I guess as much as you used to back then.

SPEAKER_06 46:00

But then you meet a kid like my oldest son, or the kid that I played his bar mitzvah and his playlist was like you know, like Pink Floyd and Sonic Youth and like Japanese experimental jazz and shit that I wasn't listening to. They love swans, you know, like I'm just like, damn, this is cool as fuck.

SPEAKER_05 46:18

That's like the cyclical nature of culture, but that is different than okay, for example, do you think that what you're what the US younger generations are responding to is this idea of danger that you responded to with Brian Jonestown? Or is it just that their dad plugged them into something that they liked? Like, you know, they're not like you're drawn to Brian Jonestown when you're a kid because they're dangerous. Yeah, that's right. But I don't think the danger is part of the love of Pink Floyd for a 15-year-old right now.

SPEAKER_03 46:44

Well, and they created their own world, that was the thing too. Like there's dangerous, but there was there was so much to it because you know it's like the look, it's the the things that they people read and listen to, you know, and you know, I think you're right about how everyone has you know, I you can never say too much access, but I think we gotta be intentional about kind of physical culture and like because honestly, like since I moved here, uh the having DJs that you could go listen to spin vinyl and listen to new music every single night played live. Yeah, I have no I don't need to listen to to streaming or Spotify at all. Like I could just go listen to real music.

SPEAKER_05 47:32

This is like that's this is that's sort of the exact premise of the the show is that if you so chose, you could you could live a very rich and full musical life as a person who could listen to Portland music. You know, and I'm sure that's the case in San Francisco or Memphis or any other mid-sized city.

SPEAKER_03 47:49

Tallahassee.

SPEAKER_05 47:50

And uh somewhere in the panhandle.

SPEAKER_03 47:52

We have enough of it here that yeah, there's something going on every night. There's an app called Near Here, which is spelled N-E-A-R-H-E-A-R. Ah, they got you with the word.

SPEAKER_06 48:04

They really did. That was really good.

SPEAKER_03 48:06

Yeah, where um you just hold your phone out and it picks up vibrations. But you could look up by genre and by venue and by date every show that's happening in town and in different towns.

SPEAKER_05 48:22

Yeah. It's so interesting to tell people also that you like when people ask what I listen to. I'm like, well, I listen to just like a lot of independent music. So I listen across genres, but I've I'm picking a city, I'm picking like a uh a sub-genre, you know. Like I'm not listening to I don't have traditional inputs for my music taste anymore. Um just an input and an output. You're my you're my you're my human algorithm, Andy. What have you been listening to this week? We gotta play another tune.

SPEAKER_06 48:48

I was uh very stoked to reach out to one of my favorite artists who had just recently dropped an album. I've been following this. Uh producer uh DJ for their entire career, as far as I know, and I just loved everything they've done. Their name is Moderator, they're from Greece. And uh they just dropped an album and it's called Silent Cinema, and it is all instrumental, uh kind of trip-hop, hip-hop, beats that just really set a vibe. There's a lot of different stuff across this, and uh I'm gonna play you the one that really spoke to me off of this. It's called uh First Blood and this shit bangs so hard. And tell me what you think this movie is after we listen to it. Is it Rambo? Like First Blood? That's what I would have thought, but listen to what this sounds like. And you tell me what genre this would be.

SPEAKER_01 50:27

Should I draw my gun or something?

SPEAKER_06 53:10

That album is fantastic. You can do all kinds of things to it. You can fuck to it.

SPEAKER_05 53:14

Yeah, I like the versatility of a fuckable album. Among other things. Yeah. I mean, I'm definitely cooked to it. You know, I could really get ready in the morning to that. That would be a real good tone setter for my day, I think.

SPEAKER_06 53:30

It's really good too if you're riding a bike really fast and really dangerous.

SPEAKER_05 53:34

See, I thought it sounded like one of those, you know, the like the director Steven Soderbergh, and he will occasionally make like a big Hollywood movie, but a lot of times he's just making like a little thought experiment kind of mini movie. Like Blackbag or presence, or just like he's like pumping out like I could picture that being a soundtrack to one of the the lesser Soderberg movies. Nice.

SPEAKER_03 53:54

I think he just did an AI movie for Apple TV.

SPEAKER_05 53:58

He did. It's like a documentary about John Lennon's last interview with like some San Francisco radio movies. Oh, he did. Yeah, that's what it was. Well, then they have all these interstitials. Like they have like the pretty traditional stuff, like interview documentary kind of stuff. They talk to a bunch of people, but then they have these like visual interstitials that I haven't seen it but are apparently just like blatant trash AI. So the trash AI is John Lennon? I don't know. It seems like they're like digressions or illustrations of whatever he was talking about or something like that. But you know, Soderbergh's one of these guys, he'll he'll fuck around with whatever tools you leave lying around.

SPEAKER_03 54:34

I like some of his movies a lot.

SPEAKER_05 54:36

I find him a little bit frustrating, but I admire that someone is just like, man, why not why not m shoot a uh a movie about basketball on an iPhone, you know? Like let's back when that was something that was new, you know? People who want to, you know, paint with all the the colors of the wind, so to speak. Like the Pocahontas movies. Like Pocahontas, yeah. Um That's what they call that. So, okay, Jesse, 25 years as a band. Yeah. You know, a lot changes uh as an artist over that period. What would you say let's first start with what is the thing that has held it what's the common thread that remains consistent over those 25 years? Not the people, but like is there something sonically, is there something essential about Gorky that has made it the same thing over that period of time?

SPEAKER_03 55:27

You know, I guess that will that will have to be seen because I, you know, I ended up being able to play everything myself on a record eventually, and I started doing that, and at first I liked it, like how Anton has done it, right? Yeah. At first I really liked it and I was impressed with myself or whatever. And then and it was good or whatever, but then I especially just in the you know, part of processing grief with Ben being gone and stuff, I realized, man, I really loved more more than making the music itself and blah blah blah blah. I mean, or even equally was just doing it with other people. Yeah. Connecting with other people and making a sound together, right? So I think my I've always had if if it's just me, I think the biggest thing I learned about like being about like making my own records without anybody else was like um it was like I know how I sound. I know my sound now. I know what I bring to things, I know where I could fit in, I know what my skill set is. Um, you know, I know the different the way that my m mind thinks about music and how it produces music now. Uh after doing it for so much, you kind of develop a methodology and uh then you get used to it just like you anything other anything else, it's like muscle memory. Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 56:59

Absolutely, just like my intake of Taco Bell. So muscle memory.

SPEAKER_03 57:04

But I'm getting together a new lineup now, and uh, we haven't had a chance to play yet. But we're going to soon. And uh it'll be unfortunately just because of the timing, everything, because everyone's so busy, um it'll have to be after the record is out. But I'm hoping that we'll be able to sometime in the future do a record release party.

SPEAKER_06 57:29

Hell yeah. If you could break into any building in Portland after they closed at night and play your album release party, what would you do? Oh what would you do?

SPEAKER_03 57:39

What venue would I do?

SPEAKER_05 57:42

It could it could be like the Nordic Pioneer Square Mall, too, you know? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 57:46

Oh, any building. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 57:48

But you have to like capture it.

SPEAKER_06 57:51

No, it's it's like You can if you choose. You can break into anybody.

SPEAKER_05 57:55

Oh, you're saying you're saying that this is carte blanche and you're not gonna get caught.

SPEAKER_06 57:58

No, you are gonna get caught, but they're gonna show up and they're gonna be like, fuck, this album's good. You guys are awesome. Yeah. You're we're gonna high-five you, you're not getting in any trouble. We'll actually pay for all the damages ourselves because the arts are what's important. You're gonna bring back to the show. You're gonna play such a good show that the arts are gonna be respected.

SPEAKER_03 58:16

Well, and I don't I just to be just as disclaimer, I don't advocate breaking and entering. But officially. Officially. I do, but for the but for the purposes of this theoretical exercise, sure. I would choose Oh man, to like play a fucking show in. I'd I I'd do it in City Hall. Hell yeah. Or on the roof of City Hall, that'd be super.

SPEAKER_06 58:40

Which we might do one day. I was thinking the ice building.

SPEAKER_03 58:43

Or the ice building.

SPEAKER_06 58:45

I would do the ice building if the you play such a good show that ice disbands.

SPEAKER_03 58:50

But I I am not doing as cool as it would be. It is hard. I gotta say, I've learned the hard way about m merging politics and entertainment together. Uh I got in trouble for it. It only works for VEEP. No, uh, so back in so I did a publicity stunt back in Arizona for one of our records, Sitgreaves County, where I hijacked the Republican Party and got a bill through the legislature to create this fictional county that I lied to them about, about what it was. And uh it was to promote this movie that I was my thesis at the David Lynch Film School, and it was the soundtrack I had made for it. Fuck yeah. And I got in a lot of trouble. The only reason why I didn't get in super, super like legal trouble was because I didn't take any money from anybody. But I was basically a lobbyist and I wrote legislation and I affected things. That parlay, that was it was a mistake. Ultimately, it was a mistake. So, as cool as it would be to go like do an album release party in the ice building and say, Fuck guys, like it's kind of like this weird, like I felt so icky after it the the thing that I did went wrong. And you you Google this, it's like a whole ep it's a whole episodic thing. It was it was ridiculous. It's a whole story unto itself, should be a book by itself. Jeez, yeah. But um it through that actually experience, actually, it it made me realize that I had something I could do in policy or in the political world, which uh that transferred into the live nation fight here in Portland uh a few years ago, which has been vindicated now since the DOJ uh jury you know found them guilty of monopolizing the market.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:38

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:00:40

Oh, another place that would be great to break into is uh the US bank tower downtown, Big Pink.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:45

Yeah, Big Pink would be sick. Ooh, roof of Big Pink would be sick and different angles. It would be amazing. Ooh, and then like point the point the speakers down into the Oh wow.

SPEAKER_05 1:00:58

Then you do a just a Mission Impossible style, like parachute off the top of it at the end. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:04

That would be incredible. Oh, that'd be so good.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:07

Um, I definitely, since you uh so gracefully transitioned us into your policy work here around Live Nation, I do want to uh get into some of that because I've got some questions there, but I would love to hear another tune because I know you you sent over, I think, another Gorky tune to share, correct?

SPEAKER_03 1:01:23

Yeah. Let's play another one of those. Tell us about round two. You know what? Let's play let's play my other favorite one from this record. Just because I love how rock and roll it is. It's called AM Radio. Uh I love playing this song. It's really fun, and uh I can get into the groove of it, and it's it's one of those that as a band, you just kind of got into the spirit of it and it kind of pumped everybody up. Uh one of my favorite guitar solos to play.

SPEAKER_05 1:01:59

Alright. I'm excited. Let's give AM radio a spin. So Jesse, we were talking about your pivot toward, well not a pivot, but like the additional interest you've had in policy here. I'll give a quick little synopsis of the live uh live nation shit. Basically, they're a toxin for local music scenes, and they have been attempting to build a 3,500 capacity music venue in Inner Southeast. Absolutely. Everything that comes with Live Nation is a just like a big anchor around the ankles of a local art scene, local food scene, local venue scene. Yep. And we're already strapped in those departments. So there's just a dire need for people like you to be working the policy angle to try to protect the city from that incursion. And so really excited that you're doing that and grateful that you're doing it. But the first thing I want to talk about is just like from someone who tackles it from that lens, what is the thing that makes a local scene the healthiest? What are like the non-negotiable elements for keeping a local scene thriving from your perspective? Wow, you know, that's so because I would under I would feel as if so many policy needs policy sh policy is never going to be perfect, but it should at least reflect the values that you're trying to represent. Easier said than done, but I'm wondering what those core values are when it comes to what a scene needs.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:37

Ooh. Well, because there's really I mean, like one way you could see it, there's so many is there's different scenes, right? There's it's like a the way to see it is like an ecosystem. Yeah. Um, so because there's classical musicians, there's what I do, you know, and what my friends do, and there's uh and there's layers to that. And then there's uh people who are educators who are doing something different, and uh so but all and then there's vendors, you know. There's uh I mean one of the important things, one of the beautiful things about Portland is that you could create an entire backline here. Well, we're one of the I think we're the only city that produces has companies that can produce every single thing that you need for a backline here in Portland. Interesting. And so what makes Portland specifically so strong is like the Mecca. I've consistently called it the independent music uh capital of the world, which I think is accurate, um because I helped Washington County or not Washington County, uh sorry, King County, Washington, I helped them when I was working with Music Portland, I advised uh King County on their music census that were they were doing for Washington State and just based on what we'd done with Music Portland and uh their numbers ended up showing that even though they made more money, like comparably like five I think it was like five billion to our four billion in Washington versus uh Oregon.

SPEAKER_05 1:09:11

Which is closer than you would think for a county that is probably three times the size population wise as Multnomah County. Right.

SPEAKER_03 1:09:18

And then oh yeah, so the per cap. And then um the uh was we we dwarfed them and then the majority of our uh the majority of our uh output is really, really like I said, independent. And um that's not uh like in Seattle, it's a lot more corporate controlled, like Live Nation is a lot much stronger hold there. Uh what keeps things strong is keeping it uh dynamic, letting people have their job. You know, you have ticketers, you have venues, you have promoters, you have uh bands. You should let people do their thing and not try to come in and control it and bank bankrupt people and bottom things out because you're trying to corporatize the place or you gentrify it.

SPEAKER_05 1:10:11

What is the response? Because I think there's probably a music fan out there that doesn't that's maybe a surface level music fan. And I don't mean that in a derogatory way, I just mean they listen to what comes across their plate, they like it. Right. For someone like that, a live nation venue might be like, hey, there's six people that are gonna come to my city now that I like that I never would have seen. And not only that, but that information is gonna get to them. Whereas the stuff that happens at, you know, the Twilight Room or something may not ever come across their their their view of the world. Right. So what is the response to someone who's like, I think this sounds pretty good? What's the arg what's the counter argument that you would want to maybe help educate them on that they don't see?

SPEAKER_03 1:10:53

Well, I mean, going back to what we were saying about perception, I mean, I think that if I mean how would you how would you say this? Like go to Seattle then. Well, there's there's something to be said. There's something to be said for just your your casual consumer, right? Like your regular American consumer who's just like going to they're buying things, they're you know maybe there is nothing to be said.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:19

I would I would entertain the argument that their opinions matter less, but that's an unpopular opinion.

SPEAKER_03 1:11:26

They do matter they do matter less, but the reason why isn't because of who they are or what they do or what they say or what they believe. The reason why is because I believe that the labor output itself is more significant than the consumer appreciation of it. Right. So, you know, whether or not they like it or not, or whatever the consumer's needs aren't preference and preferences on something like that that isn't like a life necessity in the same way, doesn't seem to be valid, and you know, it's like that's your subjective thinking.

SPEAKER_05 1:11:59

But so from your point of view, the needs of the creator supersede the needs of someone whose life is not all you know appreciably changed by the presence of this, even if they have three more nice concerts they see a year than they used to be.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:11

Yeah, well, well, because you have to think of it's like well, kind of like with the AI uh thing that's going on with in film right now, right? Yeah. Another parallel you could you could you could put on it is that like like say you have these Marvel movies, right? That have like we could say whatever, you know, they're they're shit or they're good or however you think about them. There's there's unions and workers that are making those films, right? Definitely. That rely on that income, right? And uh you have some guy in his basement that spent a thousand dollars on his, you know, on some AI bot to create a Hugh Jackman versus Mark Ruffalo, like Wolverine versus Hulk thing. But it's porn. Right? Well, but then like and then their argument is look, I can make what I want to see. Why do I need you?

SPEAKER_06 1:12:59

Right. Oh my god, dude. That's their argument, and it's getting out of control.

SPEAKER_03 1:13:04

Well, so then you go, so then is the artist is does the artist then feel like no, you should want to want to consume what I'm making and then be, you know, or do they say, you know, fuck off. Like fuck that guy.

SPEAKER_05 1:13:21

I I I mean, talk about a subjective argument to make, but I think when it comes to things like this, what a scene can help to do. We were talking about reinforcing norms earlier, and that doesn't mean you're a gatekeeper to push people away, but it can it can create an aesthetic awareness that is consistent across a geography and uh a group. And because I think the defense against that is you should appreciate the human-made thing and the local made thing because it is better by definition, right? Not because there's some sort of meaningful quality difference, all of that is totally subjective, but we decide as a an artistic, as an aesthetic unit that this matters more than that, and it becomes it becomes self-evident because those are the norms that the community reinforces, and it almost becomes a moral issue. You you say to yourself, I believe the human-made song is better than the AI-made song, even if I like the AI song, because definitionally that human-made thing is better. Oh, yeah. There's all kinds of uh discussions you have to have about why that's true. You have to be persuasive that that's the case, but I think ultimately it comes down to people deciding that they're gonna care about a real thing more than a fake thing.

SPEAKER_06 1:14:36

Yeah, yeah. And I really like that Portland, the longest time, has been one of the the last big holdout cities that doesn't have a live nation venue. And I think that's part of what makes Portland Portland is all this shit. And they're kind of taking away it has been happening over the years where we've lost a lot of things that I consider to be like key Portland things, like uh landmarks or old buildings, or you know the whole food cart thing downtown, and which is you know it's crazy when you go to a place and you're like, wow, people really like this place. Let's change everything that they like about it and make that all go away. So if you do want to go see a show at a live nation venue, there's a lot of cities all over the place where you can go see one. Let's just keep Portland not one of those ones so we can stay Portland.

SPEAKER_03 1:15:19

Well, one of the things I've observed psychologically about people that I think is interesting too, is that they are when something really bad, you know, is going on politically or whatever, uh there people or groups of people are really invested in boycotting this or that or being intentional about you know, refraining from certain activities or whatever. And it's like, but when it comes to what they love as far as movies, music, entertainment, celebrities, books, that is so hard to pry from people. Yeah. Uh that it's like, well, like these, you know, as much as we as the data center issue right now is about AI, right? Sure. People don't realize that that those data centers, that everything you stream that you're watching on when you're binging shows on Netflix, when you are uh doing anything, when you're watching any sort of anything, it's like going to those data centers.

SPEAKER_05 1:16:22

It's not just AI data centers that well, but the computing power necessary for AI is orders of magnitude bigger than that.

SPEAKER_03 1:16:28

Oh, yeah, yeah, of course, of course, of course. I'm just saying, like, people don't think won't give up certain things that are like that, like these comforts, right? So even in in a political way. It's it's just something interesting I've noticed psychological.

SPEAKER_06 1:16:40

So, because of that, now all open water throughout the United States is just hot. All the water is gonna be hot. Yeah, yeah. Every river, like hot springs everywhere. Yeah, it's gonna be nice. We'll get used to it, but at first it's gonna be kind of gross. It's gonna smell like um like burning rubber a little bit. Well, oh god, just like hot, hot electronics.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:01

This doesn't sound appealing to me at all.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:02

No, it's gonna be one of the mini indignities of the last 40 years of our lives. The fish that do make it are gonna be the ones that rehabilitate themselves to the land and grow legs overnight.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:12

So this is gonna be with such a weird future.

SPEAKER_06 1:17:14

Yeah, it's gonna be fucked up. We're not gonna have any fish for a while. And then the ones that come out are gonna be the ones that can breathe air, like dolphins. We're gonna have to look out for those fuckers with their with their grabby dicks. They will grab you. They will pull that joke where they go to like shake your hand and you're like dolphins. You think you're shaking a dolphin's hand and you look down and you're like, this isn't a flipper. Oh, it's a fucking dolphin.

SPEAKER_03 1:17:38

They definitely did that thing with their dicks where you're looking does give a new name to flipper, like I said.

SPEAKER_05 1:17:42

It's where they come up behind you and you're looking one way and they tap the other shoulder, but they do it with their dick. Yeah. And you look over there like, oh, and then you look back and there's the the dolphin holding its dick. Yeah, he's cheesing at you, you know, he's like, gotcha again. And then he plays piano with it. Yeah, he does play piano, but it's heart and soul. He just plays the left hand of heart and soul. Exactly.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:03

That's just the beginning of big as one person.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:06

It's funny that you mentioned, Jesse, the people's desire to hold on to their comforts and the things that mean the most to them. I honestly think that's probably what the way forward is, if there's such a thing, is that this machine that eats everything also eats our access to the stuff that we end up liking, you know? Like Live Nation coming into town may give you four more stupid concerts that you want to see and stuff like that. Yeah. But that'll go away too. Like something else will eat that because you've left the door open to it. And I do think there's a breaking point for people that we have to be intentional about it.

SPEAKER_06 1:18:36

Yeah. Yeah. So go to your local venues, support Weird Hut and like Azoth and like these cool little underground schools.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:46

Go where you like. Go to the places that you like.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:48

There are over 300 venues in Portland.

SPEAKER_05 1:18:50

And take people with you to those places.

SPEAKER_03 1:18:52

Just if you don't want to support Live Nation, don't buy from Ticketmaster and don't see Live Nation managed artists. That's right. But you have to be intentional about it. You have to it's on you to inform yourself who's managing your artists.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:08

I looked at that list and there's a lot of people I like on there. It sucks.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:10

Who's one that you really like that's on there?

SPEAKER_06 1:19:12

Uh Prof.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:14

Um, well, that doesn't really matter. I really like the right.

SPEAKER_03 1:19:16

And the thing is, you know, I have there's people I know or people who are in circles that I go in that have worked with them, that work for them, that their money depends on that. I wish I I do have empathy for that. I wish it wasn't that way. But at the same time, it's like if how else are we supposed to break this model if we're not if we're not intentionally trying to say no, we don't want this here.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:42

Right. Yeah, they say live nation, more like dead nation if we're not careful. That's right.

SPEAKER_05 1:19:48

But also that Dead Nation would be like a really cool cover band of Grateful Dead songs.

SPEAKER_06 1:19:52

Oh, it would be great. But like dub dub step. Or Dead Nation could be like a like a Sonic Youth cover band. Oh, yeah. So just like Daydream Nation.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:01

Don't give them that idea. Grateful Dead. Don't ruin the idea of Dead Nation by equating it with live dreams.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:06

I would love it if Jerry Garcia did covers of uh Sonic Youth songs. I would pay, I wouldn't, I would just drain a legend.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:15

That sounds like my absolute hell. Yeah. That sounds like a waking nightmare for me.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:20

I would evaporate an entire river in California for that.

SPEAKER_05 1:20:23

You would welcome the data centers into your very own.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:26

I'd be like, all right, let's hear it, Jerry. Let's hear this fucking hit me with like the entire sister album.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:32

We do have or we have had a success with music policy though in Portland because Yeah, give us the the the bright the bright spots. Well this past this past or in 2024, that la the last city council election, we elected in this new election, the most pro-music city council and mayor in Portland's history.

SPEAKER_06 1:20:54

Amazing.

SPEAKER_03 1:20:54

And uh um it this passed unanimously. Um Jamie Dunfey introduced uh Councillor Jamie Dunfey introduced a ordinance um uh that repealed the noise code. The the the bat the bunk one, 14A 30, that was a subjective one where anyone could just say that's loud, they're playing loud music. That could be like, you know, us playing music in here and then people calling the cops because it's too loud for the neighborhood. Uh got rid of that and the footloose rule. Yeah. Now they have to go buy an objective actual measurement that was already in place in the Portland City Code. So anyway.

SPEAKER_06 1:21:34

Nice. I want to get one of those decimal decibel readers. Just cruiser your own reference. Yeah. Just to see.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:43

I mean, let's almost like being more responsible about uh how we um you know take music seriously. So we we have to treat it like we treat other jobs. The music sector is just as big as the labor sector if you're our uh the unions here, just as many people employed in both sectors. Yeah, so um yeah, we gotta we just have to see what the needs are. Um one of them, of course, the biggest one is affordable housing, right? Yeah, especially for um if we could have affordable housing tailored towards musicians and artists of different kinds that are involved in those sectors here.

SPEAKER_05 1:22:21

Well, affordable housing is like the keystone of a creative hub because people have to be able to afford to spend most of their time focused on their art while they're building up to a professional level that they can earn their living. Exactly. So there's there's this big income gap where they, you know, you used to be able to come here and tend bar or work at restaurants, and you still can. It's just harder and harder to live that way. Yeah. So affordable housing is like the centerpiece of a lot of different downstream positive things, but yeah. Definitely a music and arts scene. We're getting we're on a we're on a hot streak where we get like a really a quick interruption, just like a secret little Easter egg of uh sweet Andy's fam busting in, and yeah, we were listening.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:04

And like they're getting home like mid-podcast and forgetting at all what's going on, except for that there's frozen corndogs in that freezer right there.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:11

They're like, this is when I usually come in and smoke weed in the summer. Or now dad's doing it.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:17

Or, you know, that was Ollie. I could see that Ollie was coming in here to drop some beats and write a couple rhymes.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:23

Uh well, I I I wish we were not reigning on that parade because that sounds that sounds awesome.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:28

He uh didn't tell me this. I had to find out through school, but for one of his projects, he wrote a rap song about physics.

unknown 1:23:36

Psychology.

SPEAKER_06 1:23:37

Sorry, psychology. Yeah. For psychology. The physics of the mind. Yeah, the physics of the mind. And uh it was all about psychology and like what they learned that year. And then uh another person that was rapping on it with them made a video that went along with it. And uh he was in the running for winning video.

SPEAKER_05 1:23:55

This is a scene needs uh that that's this is a direct result of the hey gabba gabba we were talking about before we were going on air. It is like you know and death grips. And death grips. Um play your kids death grips. Well, Jesse, I'm I'm grateful that you're out there doing this and taking that perspective because I think a lot of people don't know what to do uh with their frustrations and you're you're you're putting them in a real place.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:17

It's really uh it's as simple as you know, people don't realize how easy it is. It's just as simple as hanging out with your friends. You just show up to a lot of these political events where your counselors are and you meet people and you talk about things and you you make your concerns known. Yep. And music, people you we tend to undervalue art and and music and society because of the way that a capitalist society kind of has poached from everything and look at how they it's made people feel with AI with like you know, look at we can we don't need you, we could generate music. We don't need you, we could generate a movie. So, with people being so undervalued, you know, being intentional about it, like I said, is is key.

SPEAKER_05 1:24:58

Well, um I I I I love that as like a punctuation on this conversation, but I want to get in one more song. So like I know there was some debate about whether you had a third song to share.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:07

Yeah, you had some friend stuff to plug, right?

SPEAKER_05 1:25:08

Yeah, we want to make sure we give you plenty of space for some friend plugs, but is there a a friend band that you you definitely want to play? Yes, I really would like to play Rayon. Oh, yeah, we're we're big Rayon. This is this is a Rayon shop for sure.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:22

I love Rayon. They're my favorite band that I've uh followed and heard and hung with since moving here.

SPEAKER_05 1:25:29

Awesome. Well let's Andy, you just you just pick a pick a Rayon song that you like, and we'll give it a spin. They get a lot of they get a lot of real estate on this show. I feel like we played them three or four times. So there's so many good ones. Never a bad idea.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:43

So I can't remember. You're gonna have to remind me. They had a new album, a new like uh single. It was two songs actually that came out back in May. The first song on it is called Shopping, and the second song is called Running. I played one of them. Which one did I play?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:58

I love shopping.

SPEAKER_06 1:25:59

I think I played Running. So let's play shopping. Running's also good. Yeah. But shopping's great. We're gonna play shopping.

SPEAKER_05 1:30:06

Yeah, before we let you go, um, there's a couple quick things. Like, there you're so like if you look at your CV, it's like it's it's everything. You you really do your like we've got we've already covered like film, uh writing, uh music, some teaching, some college teaching that we've touched on. Yeah. Uh you've done some acting, if I remember correctly, and all that kind of stuff. So like in your mind, what what's like your creative hierarchy? What do you see yourself as first and foremost, or am I trying to create a distinction that doesn't matter?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:41

No, no, no. I've struggled with that myself because I've you know, it's like when I try to actually build a resume to like try to, you know, to apply for jobs, it's like you see these things and I'm like, well, I kind of went pretty you know, in with all of these. And so I was like, you're a polymath, you know. Yeah, but is there an overarching thing? It does go back to the music, I gotta say, because it's the thing, but that that has also evolved because it's in bar umbrelling umbrellaing, if that's a word, everything else. Like, you know, especially with filmmaking, because I'm trying to get more I have a bunch of scripts that I want to develop into films, and a lot of those incorporate music, and a lot of them I would like to direct, and I'm not necessarily acting, but direct, write, or develop films here locally. And uh the reason for that is because I mean, having done all those things, it's kind of like almost like maybe I would consider myself just multimedia artist, but also I'm an organizer, I'm a builder, I want to create an alternative system. Like if you if you're a writer and you make a novel, if you write a book, the only one you really need to please is yourself and you're writing for your audience, which is one person reading your book, you know, at a time. And then if you're uh when you're in a band, you're a group of people and you're working together, making one sound together.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:11

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:11

But then when you're making a film, those are several bands playing at once in sync, doing different things at different times and different places to make the the symphony of the film work on a whole other level.

SPEAKER_05 1:32:25

Asynchronous symphony.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:27

So it requires different levels of bitter sweet. It it requires different levels of participation. So I guess I see all of those things as like the toolkit that I that I needed to be able to do this side of it, which is just like generate things or come up with ideas and figure out how to organize people to make certain things happen in in ways uh that would be beneficial to others, beneficial to Portland, especially I love this city, I love our city. Um I would never want to I don't want to live anywhere else. Yeah. It's fantastic here and uh I don't know.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:03

I think it would be cool to live in like a volcano secret lair. Yeah, that's true. If I had to choose a place besides Portland, it would definitely be an abandoned like super villain bar.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:13

When I've left Portland, you kind of get that like break from Portland where you're like, oh, it's kind of nice being out of Portland for a second, and then like a couple days later you're like, get me back home. I I do, I do love it.

SPEAKER_05 1:33:23

Uh I wish I wish it worked a tiny bit better. I think uh, I mean, that's kind of the theme of this episode is like the people who live here uh basically agree on things. Let's just roll in the same direction. We can probably get more accomplished than we do, I say. My only quibble, but that's only because I love the city. I'm like you.

SPEAKER_06 1:33:40

We gotta cut some red tape. Got a lot of red tape to cut. And as we're recording this, we're coming up on summer here, and Petopalooza has kicked off, and there's been a lot of really cool festivals announced, you know. Picathon, so things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:33:53

I did my first pickathon last year, and that shit changed my life. Yeah. It's pretty incredible. No, it like like literally changed my life. I was like, I am different after this. It's where that is literally like the the the period I I would say it was distilled Portland energy into like the a spiritual, tribalistic, like pagan.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:14

What was your highlight of the of the festival? What was the show that really got you?

SPEAKER_03 1:34:21

Uh I don't remember what it was. I was on a magical journey. Okay.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:30

It was just the whole vibe and experience of the game.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:32

I was vibing, so I heard a lot of things and I saw a lot of things.

SPEAKER_05 1:34:35

But I was also experiencing ego death at an entire.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:38

And I was experiencing ego death, yeah, at the same time.

SPEAKER_06 1:34:41

Yeah, and you do something. Sometimes you just end up hanging out next to that giant, like there were sculptures that makes sense.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:49

Yeah. Oh my gosh. It was just like and just the beauty of people. Being with people, that's the thing, is like community is so we talk about community a lot, and I think community is misunderstood as a word of just people you identify with that you that you see as yourself, that you share values with. That's not what I mean by community. No. What I mean by community is going into a public space, interacting with other human beings, making uncomfortable, having uncomfortable interactions needfully. Sure. Imperfect, uncomfortable, shitty interactions because those are necessary things in a society to do.

SPEAKER_05 1:35:27

Well, you'll be happy to hear I'm uncomfortable most of the time. So yeah. I'm doing the Lord's work.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:32

I mean, I've stepped in shit so many times since I moved here. I mean, everyone will you know some people listening to this who might be laughing right now about that, but it's like it's like it's a learning experience. It's like a a culture a culturation stress, maybe is what you would call it. Or culture, you know, when you when you move somewhere, you get kind of like a culture shock, but there's stress that comes with it, and you have to learn. And so the only way to really learn is by doing it. I wasn't gonna tiptoe into stuff. Yeah, I wanted to get shit done. So no go to the comfort zone, my man. Otherwise, we wouldn't have fought Live Nation, and you you know, we wouldn't have the city council we have now. So Yeah. Uh I mean, uh to be like Anton, but you're welcome.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:15

That's how I feel every time every time we do an episode, Andy, I'm like, you're welcome, people.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:20

You're welcome. Here it is. You are welcome, Portland, for your for your ProMusic most progressive ever city council. But if you want things to work, folks, you gotta sh we gotta show up and show up together like we have been. We just can't be so decentralized. We have to centralize more.

SPEAKER_05 1:36:37

Well, speaking of showing up, we promised you a little showcase for your your your bandmates' many, many projects. We want to give you before we before we head out, want to give you the give you the floor.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:48

Yes, thank you so much to uh pimp their products. Yeah, so so for so for some context, like um just I guess to close this book on the or close the chapter on the story of what we were talking about before with Gorky is that with a new lineup, you know, these are these are friends that I've made that over time, uh working with them, hanging out with them, doing things with them, having real life experiences with them, and it's been such a joy and pleasure getting to know uh uh you know this community here and being a part of it and having stories and really for the first time ever, I wanted to have genuine people that I wanted to work with. And so it's Eric Rubokava, uh Gwen Stubbs, and uh Derek Longoria right now who are gonna be basses. It's a good crew. It's a badass crew. Derek and Eric are in Sun Adams and Rayon, actually, and then uh Gwen is in uh Clambate and this new band that is playing uh their first show July 18th at uh the six, the midnight to six, uh, which is where we hang out. It's uh actually gonna be celebrating their five-year anniversary soon.

SPEAKER_05 1:38:03

I can't believe it's been five years already, but yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:05

Congrats to June 20th, 2026. Uh yeah, at the midnight we turn five.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:10

Uh we have She just also got off tour with a man that she also plays bass with. What the fuck is it?

SPEAKER_03 1:38:17

Let's see. Gwen plays with Clambait, Scott Yoder, and Nick Gamer. It was Scott Yoder. I really like Scott Yoder. Are you familiar? I am. Yeah. I don't know why she played bass. And then Eric and Derek also play in Sun Adams, which has uh my friend Jason Adams and uh our friend Mars, who plays horns for a lot of us.

SPEAKER_06 1:38:38

And then uh all kinds of different horns.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:41

Yeah, and then uh it has Peter from Dandy Warholes, who plays bass bass in that band. So um Gwen's show with Alamancy, which uh features awesome vocalist Alexandria from The Midnight. Uh their first show is July 18th, Saturday, July 18th at uh The Midnight. Sick. And then uh Sun Adams is going on tour this summer with Modest Mouse.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:09

Oh, fantastic. Oh shit, good play.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:10

Yeah, which is gonna be awesome. Mod uh Isaac uh is Isaac Brock. Yeah. Yeah, he featured on their last record.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:18

Yeah, and I think he was in the video. Yeah. And uh if you guys were at Turn, Turn Turn last weekend, Mattress showed up and played a secret show. Because he also tours with Modest Mouse and opens for Modest Mouse, which is crazy.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_06 1:39:35

Amazing show.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:36

These guys are great musicians, they're incredible people. Um such good hearts, such good souls. Uh I can't wait to make music with them. It's gonna be great.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:48

So yeah, you got some ringers around you.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:51

Yeah.

SPEAKER_05 1:39:52

Well, you know, add yourself to the list of really great people with big hearts. Uh that we are we are touched to know. Thanks for filling in our short notice. Uh just doing them, you know, being here at all. We had a great time. Um love the stories, love all the work that you're doing, and there's a lot for people to absorb uh in your world. Oh yes. Uh so it's Jesse Valencia. There's a bunch of links on Instagram that take you to some really cool places uh about your film, your substack, your book, which people should go buy and read, and uh all your music. We've got what's the best place for people to pre-order that record, the 25 years of Gorky?

SPEAKER_03 1:40:28

Can they still Gork Mania, which uh features 10 tracks, ten selections of tracks that uh from Gorky's back catalog before we go into Gorky 2.0 with this uh with the uh new group. Um you would go to elasticstage.com slash gorky. So that's E L A S T I C S T A G E.com slash G-O-R-K-Y, and you could pre-order GorkMania on vinyl or C D and it'll uh it'll ship directly to your house. Elasticstage is printing they're uh this new eco-friendly company that uh uses wizardry for all I know. Uh effectively. Right, because you know the my old school understanding, my Luddite understanding, I guess, of vinyl pressing is you create plates and then you create the you press the wax, right? And so where do you but where do you do that without plates? And so they're actually printing the vinyl directly from the wave onto the record.

SPEAKER_05 1:41:44

And when I heard it, when I heard it's just like how those old the wax cylinder used to be, which stylists playing with the wave carving exactly the wave.

SPEAKER_03 1:41:52

But it doesn't sound bad. I was so worried it was gonna sound bad. So I w like I got the test copy because I was like, what if it sounds like shit, right? It's just like printed straight from a computer. Like, what if it sounds garbage? Yeah. But no, we played it and like like I said, it sounded sounded fast to me, so so much faster than I remembered it.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:09

Did you check your record speed? Were you at the end?

SPEAKER_03 1:42:11

No, no, no, no. It it was how it was supposed to sound, but the way that the mix that I had made blended together in the way that medium was, my vocals kind of sounded, you know, very chorusy in ways that I don't remember. And the drums just sounded so much faster. It sounded so different on vinyl. I loved it. It sounded like early the energy of early Beatles, like before, like before like rubber soul, like maybe revolver and earlier. Yeah, yeah. Like that the energy of that band, not necessarily like the songs, but the energy that that had through the filter of like indie slees.

SPEAKER_05 1:42:50

That's that's a that's a winning sell right there.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:54

That's kind of like how I would describe it. Yeah, so that's like the core of the sound. And so I'm gonna springboard from there and we're gonna see where we go, you know, once we get into the rehearsal room.

SPEAKER_06 1:43:04

Nice. Pre-order that shit, get yourself that record, and you know what the best part of it is? It gets to come in the mail, and it's mail day, and you can put whatever name you want on that record.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:14

And even better, it's supporting a great cause research. It's supporting a great cause.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:18

All the finances, all the proceeds from the record are going to campaign for Alpha One uh Foundation so that they can help get resources they need to get a cure. I'm gonna have mine be uh Jimmy Dolphin dick. No flipper dicks on this record.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:36

That's what my bumper sticker says. No flipper dicks. Uh well thanks again, Jesse. Uh really appreciate it. Uh this has been a blast. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:43:45

Thanks for having me. This has been awesome.

SPEAKER_05 1:43:47

JDD. We also want to take some time to thank all of you. We appreciate you tuning in. Hope you had a great time with uh Jesse and the rest of us. Yeah. We hope you tell a friend. Just one friend. That's all it takes. Just one friend telling another friend and on down the chain. If you like the music that Andy has curated for this in every episode, you can listen to him on Shady Pines Radio every Friday. He's got a show called Heshair with Mr. Tomorrow from 6 to 7 on Shady Pines every Friday. Mess up your weekend, man.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:12

It will mess it all up, but you know, you've got a couple of days to recover.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:16

Um give him a little taste, Andy. What can uh what are we going out on tonight?

SPEAKER_06 1:44:20

Um you know what? The band, a band I love, we've had on the show before and worked with a bunch of times. Salopanto. They have a new song.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:28

Oh shit, I just talked to Max like last Wednesday. Fantastic. They're gonna play, they're playing a show at Mount Tabor on June 20th. And they've got a new single that's out now.

SPEAKER_06 1:44:38

That's very exciting. We'll definitely go to that. And this new single is called Swinger.

SPEAKER_05 1:44:42

Excellent. Well, for Jesse Valencia, for Andy, for Nate, this is Drew. We'll see you next week on Hot Garbage.