‘Slow Horses’ Season 6 Is an Energetic Return to Form. Plus, Chuck Klosterman!

I need support staff to clear the room. Stand up and walk now! Hello and welcome to The Watch. My name is Chris Ryan. I am an editor at TheRanger.com and joining me in the studio after stiffing me for the bill at an Italian restaurant. It's Andy Greenwald! We did have a nice Italian meal in London recently. We did. Yeah, we split it though. We did. We did. It is Thursday and today we are talking about the first episode of the 60's and of Slower Horses. Yeah. And then later in the episode, I talked to Chuck Closterman about his new book, his upcoming new book, Rock. It was a great conversation with Chuck. It was a known Chuck for two decades now, more than two decades. And it's awesome that he is still writing books that provoke and intrigue. I love this premise. And the premise of his book is really fascinating. It's what if the valid underground had essentially flipped positions with the Beatles in 1967 and become the biggest band in the world and how would the world have changed going forward? We have talked about this in different contexts on this podcast, but I think of everyone that I've ever met in this long and winding road of life. There are only two people who are exactly consistent and exactly the same on the page, on the pod, and in person, and they are Chuck Closterman and Bill Simmons. Oh, yeah. Do you think I have like a weird dark side that I don't show on this, the page or the pod? No, it's weird. You're kind of more musical theater off the pod. You're very merry. I do. So, so excited to be alive. Jazz hands all the time. I am excited to be alive. You want to know why? Because I still get consistent pleasure, like, slow horses in my life. So we're going to talk about this first episode, spoilers for the first episode. But do you want to say also just no spoilers for life because we are recording this early. So like, what if something crazy happens in TV on Wednesday or Thursday? You're going to drop in some news. Maybe. Yeah. We don't have to be pretty significant. Okay. I'm really excited to see what fits the bill. Yeah. There's usually like, it's like the same thing with like, if an all-star gets traded, it's an emergency post, but not if it's like the 23rd best player in the league. Should we just run through some like reusable headlines, you know, like Paramount Warner Brothers mergers hit another speed bump on the road to approval. I don't think that would that would not bring me into the office. Should we do some obituaries? No. Okay. All right. I'm just trying to be helpful. I'm not going to be here. All right. Let's do sort of broad strokes. Yeah. There's some important things to note about series six, season six of slow horses. I would say probably one of the most consistently rewarding television shows of this decade. And certainly the most consistent rate productions of this decade. I would say the idea of adapting a long-running spy series by Mick Heron and using a book per season, although this particular season uses multiple books, has just been an absolute boon. I think it's a show that I anecdotally feel like grows over time that people go back and rediscover or discover as they more and more people inevitably wind up using Apple TV as they're like, either as they're set top box or as like a streaming service of choice. And I think Tony Lee is probably for too long been thought of as just one thing. And one of the cool things about this season is I think it's going to explore some darker corners of the slow horses world. Right. And I think you could see that in the first season, first episode. I think it's also worth noting, and I apologize if you did. I've just fallen down a Google rabbit hole about Spanish golfers shouting out our Monday podcast. It's a much richer text than you might have believed Tuesday podcast. Sorry. Tuesday podcast. This guy is it. Yeah. Quick question. What day is it today? It is still Tuesday. We're just recording it for Thursday. We're rushing this. Unstuck in time. Not Penny's boat. Yeah. That there's a new showrunner. Yeah. That was my next big big thing. That Smith who had guided the first five seasons and not that Will Smith and also not the other one. The catch Dodgers catcher. Yeah. Yeah. Not the catcher for the Los Angeles Dodgers. Yes. He did not make slow horses. Well Smith, it was has been on our podcast. The writer. Yes. And showrunner for slow horses. And he did. Yeoman's work running five seasons pretty much back to back to back to back to back to back. And has has left the show for practical purposes and also because he's working on other things. And Gabi Chiappi has come on and done season six. Yes. And I believe a different writer is show running season seven. Ben Van Stone. And it sounds like they are now kind of settling into a there's one crew that works on the odds and one crew that works on the which is what happens also with the directing because Adam Randall who's directing this season directed season four. Paul Metstein who won an Emmy this week for directing season five also directed season three. So it is funny. I mean, I can speak from experience, but it is just remarkable how there actually are ways to quote unquote make this work consistent television, yearly television. But you have to plan for literally things like this like one person can't do to let alone three seasons all at once. And it is funny how in every example other than the pit, which I think is more explicitly on like in 90s model, like it's taken a lot of these shows multiple seasons to figure it out. Yeah. And this speaks very well of their operation and what they have going forward because this is no slight at Will Smith who as you said has done something amazing in adapting the show and getting it up to this level for five straight seasons. But I have to tell you in front of you and Chia and Chia and if anyone's listening, you know, they don't know what day it is anymore, I thought the last season was kind of the weakest. Okay. And I am not sure if that is like qualitatively the case, but I was less taken with it. I found its attempt to get its arms around some real world stuff in modern London and politics and right wing journalism just felt a little more ham-handed with the overall comic tone of everything. I also have to say my previous weakest season was the one before which lurched in the opposite direction and introduced darkness played by Hugo Weaving as like the Darth Vader character that's haunting this whole thing. So I was kind of in a place with a show where I was like, it's always a B to B plus, but I am not sure if I'm deeply in love with either the broader comic version of it, ripped from the headlines and having a laugh or the like, actually, it's all one story and there's darkness. And then Chris, I fired up season six. Yeah. And this show fucking rips again. Do you? I loved it. I watched the first two. We won't spoil it. Yeah. But I was so excited by the first one I had to keep going a little bit to see where we were headed. You put your finger on something really interesting. I think I was higher on the other two seasons that you just mentioned. Right. And they were good. I just met in terms of my relationship to the show, but they were kind of doing something that I guess, you know, I've read some of the McCarran books. I have not read all of them. I think that there is a common kind of twist in them where it starts out with you think it's this adversary, but it turns out this adversary is the one pulling the strings. And, you know, you basically, you'll think, oh, the Libyans are attacking London. Why? And then it's like, oh, it's white, white nationalists are actually doing it. Gotcha. Um, I feel like that move had been pulled a couple of times in various ways. What I also noticed was that it was maybe breaking under the, we're going to just put these people in their roles and they never deviate from established behavior. In every scene, Roddy will say this, um, River will do this and they're stuck. Yeah. Much like the characters are stuck in slas. And I, I thought that there were some like reasons for real hope because, you know, River's constant moaning about why is he at Sloughhouse? He wants to do real work and get out of this place. And, you know, there, there had been some steps towards like three-dimensionality that I think was really helpful. Mm-hmm. It explodes in the season. I think that this season is, is among the best of, of the lot, if not since the beginning. I know I've, I, I think I said last season, like, Sloughhouse is just fucking back. And I will admit that I have no self control when it comes to Sloughhouse's screeners that I watch them, I tend to watch them in a bit, basically a binge. My secret shame is that I think Sloughhouse's would be the, like, an elite binge show. Six episodes, I think people could watch them in three or four nights and maybe even, like, understand the totality of the stories which is better. Which I struggle with. And this is a one crazy night season. And I think it would almost be better ingested that way. I know that there are a lot of people who also wait several weeks for Sloughhouse's to be done airing so that they can watch in this a fashion. It's just a note. I thought that this first episode was wonderful. First of all, even though Randall has previous experience directing this show, I thought that there was a noticeable difference from the visual palette of the show. Yes. There was more handheld. This felt less like I was on a set or like a pre-established group of sets in London. And more like a, I'm hunting around this city with these people as they try to figure out what's going on. I mean, the show has been elite at saying, well, now we're going to shoot Hackney this way or we're going to use the barbecue in that way or even in this season, like Topath Cafe in the small boats. Like, it's a beautiful, characterful slice of London that isn't always on our American screens and it always takes good advantage of that. but I'm completely on board with what you're saying because there is a different visual language already, which is a cool idea for a show that has different personalities season to season and is telling a single story each season. But some of the, just the shot composition and the framing, like in the, not the trailer park, but the, what would you call it? The storage container park that begins the action is, like I paused it. Slow horses, despite it winning an Emmy for directing, has never been a show where I'm like, boy, the visual storytelling is what brings me back. - Yes. - And the season was artier. - I also think there's this interesting line where some people come to shows and they want that show to be a repeatable pleasure. And I think that this has been that for several years. If they had continued to just do the exact same thing and obviously they're adapting books, these, this season, I believe is, Sloughhouse and Joe Country, I want to say. - That's right. - Yeah, Joe Country and Sloughhouse, the two McHaran novels that this season is drawn from. And it's already been renewed for season eight. And I would, like I said, I think they'll go for 10, but who knows? It's really as long as Oldman wants to do it. The reason why the new director, the new direction for the show or the new visual-like language of the show worked, is that you can't just do what these people do forever and not have your worldview changed. And so the show needs to reflect that. And I felt like you could just look around London, and it just felt like decay. - Yeah. - It's pissing rain constantly. The sky is completely washed out white. Like there's no skyline. There's no-- - Sorry, this all felt quite familiar because of the scenery. - And I think that we're more in like, like you mentioned, the opening scene takes place in this port district of shipping containers, stacked on top of one another. Where an ex-Slao House agent has retired to teach karate to children and try and pitch people on his idea of like vertical integrated shipping containers as apartments, the new flats of the future. - Now, I'm curious your opinion on this. It's either the beauty of the show or the challenge of the show. So I remembered, I've not re-watched the series. I remembered that there was a Scottish slow horse in the first season who got fired. I assumed when the season began on him that that was the same guy, but I can't say I carried a lot of institutional memory of Stru and Lloyd or had feelings about him, which is maybe the point. Later in this episode or in the episodes that we've seen, another character that has made a similarly brief appearance on the show is brought back, but another character who I believe we've never seen is also targeted. Because we could say this conceit for the season, I'm sure other shoes are gonna drop, is that there is a targeted, a team of assassins, one of whom excitedly, I would say, is played by Kyle Stoller, who we adore from Handor, are tracking down ex-- - Solar. - Kyle Solar, sorry, ex slow horses and killing them. - Yeah. - So I have to say, I've never watched slow horses with that kind of encyclopedic, like Sopranos-esque, like, oh, I remember, that's the capo of Jersey from season one, I can't believe he's stepping up into this big role. - I don't think it asked too much. - But I don't think it needed too. - Yeah, but you may have experienced that as a viewer of a little bit of disorientation of, like, am I supposed to know this? The show makes it okay for you, but if you, it does, I guess, reward the memory. - Yeah, and Paul Higgins, who plays Stru and Lloyd, was most notably, like, one of the funniest characters of all time on the thick of it. - Yeah, he's a great comedian, comedic actor. - And I just feel like you can feel, Nildew Rust, this is, and this is reflective, I think, of England's kind of constant identity crisis of, like, are we an imperial country? Are we still, you know, a powerful intelligence service? Are we influencing the world around us? Or are we just lucky to be here, you know, this small island that doesn't make anything anymore? You know, and that came across in the visual language of this episode, I thought. - And there's a great scene that does this in the first episode that accomplishes so many things, but it's the first time we see River this season in a Diana's new office, as first desk, and the combination of the rain and the giant windows, which play quite differently than the giant windows in another region's park set, spy show, the agency, the dampness leaking through the windows, as the scene is an attempt at being emotional, but fails. - Yeah. - It's operating on a higher level. - Yeah, and I thought, like, you know, Jack Loudon, who may or may not become James Bond soon, I think he had been underserved as, River has been underserved as a character, perhaps over in the last couple of seasons, specifically last season, even though I was enthusiastic about the season itself. - Right. - I felt like you could see over the last couple when they had to shoot Jack Loudon out. - Yes. - And that his schedule, because he is obviously a pretty popular actor and is in Pride and Prejudice coming up and, you know, maybe scarce if he is James Bond, that you could see certain scenes where certain sequences or certain storylines that felt like, this is how much we have three weeks with him, we have to shoot his stuff, he's gonna be in France. - Look at wearing, like a super sick, all black, like travel ensemble. - Some of that is probably from books, some of that is creative choices, but some of it I think is, this is how much time we have this person. When you're shooting a show basically every year, you have to work around the schedules of the actors. And if it's gonna go on for this long, and these actors are starting to get bigger and bigger, Rosalind Elazar is now like the star of the Chris Rock movie. - And she was absent last season. I mean, she had one moment and then was gone and now it's gonna be back. - Yeah, Gary Oldman is really the most consistent figure in this entire scenario. So it was exciting to me to see River with Diana. River with Jackson, River in the office again, like River moving around and this show kind of relocating itself around his character. - And, you know, I don't know for spoiling the first episode, I'll refrain from it, but putting him in a different position emotionally, starting from the first episode. - So in the first episode, it's established that his grandfather, played by Jonathan Price, has died between seasons. Now he's still appearing flashbacks and I think Jackson has like shown me the body. But it gives Jack Loudon different notes to play and also allows him to be kind of disgusted and over all of it, not ping-ponging between what he wants the park to be and what he knows love has to be. He's just kind of sick of it and moving at his own tempo. But then also just the stakes are super high. Like it is, you can't pull this card every year in a show like this, but this is the season where they like pull a trippin' alarm and they're like code black, like turn off your phones. Like we're going dark. - And we all have to go to save houses. - And we all have to like, and it's incredibly exciting. And again, I don't necessarily want to credit the new showrunner, but maybe I would credit some more time and space for this unit to work on this season. But the integration of, for example, Roddy's demeanor and his one-liners and his complete oblivion. - Much more seamless. - It's much, it's toned down a lot. Like last season, at its best I think was a situation comedy and I say that as high praise. But it was like four people standing in a room and River would say the Riverline, Jackson would pass gas and then Roddy would be like on a different planet and on a different show without any reality of like, I almost died tonight. - And I also, you know, they have a nice big ensemble but they don't always have something for everyone to do. Or they'll have like a, you know, I enjoyed River and Co kind of being off. - That was good last year. - Doing stuff together, there was a lot of really good stuff from last season, but everything seems to be playing in harmony this season and everything is in its right place. And I do wonder if they, if they kind of like, turn the knob down on Jackson, one or two slots, not necessarily in terms of like his behavior, although it's, you know, it's still grotesque. But he was in so much, I feel like over the last couple of seasons that I was starting to be like, is this like a comedy about this guy, you know? - Yes. - And it's about like, he's the smartest guy in the room, but first he's gonna fart in it and then he's gonna drink everything and then he's gonna smoke indoors. - It always be right. - Yeah, and always be smart. - And that became a little bit of a crutch. Yeah, there was just something that was just really bracing about the A to B to C of this episode in which the streonloy is killed. Flynn, who's the head of the dogs, finds out about this and asks, what's that? - Flight. - Flight, sorry. I'm watching, like, it slightly wofes me. So I'm getting the name's just like one. Or I'm just testing you. You know what I mean? It's the Mandela effect. - That's a very big flight fan. - But on my version, it's Flint, you know? - Yeah. - Like the baronstein bears with an E. She goes to Diana who says, don't say, maybe we should tell Lamb and Diana says, no. And then she does go to Lamb. And what I liked about it was, there was no, Lamb's gonna behave the way he's gonna behave, but it didn't go through the comedic motions of him not caring about this. - Yes. - Like, clearly this is significant and concerning. And it's just pushing those emotional chips forward in a way, like you said, it's subtle. But like, his treatment of stand-ish, you know, his history with stand-ish that is a spotlight is shown on it this season. And, you know, her own struggles happening in the midst of this night from hell. It's just smart pacing and structure to give everyone a chance to do something a little bit deeper and more surprising. - Yeah, I mean, I don't, I don't remember feeling this reinvigorated about a show hitting season six in a while. - That was my next one. - I mean, you can have breaking bads and madmen's and what have yous that remain consistently like on an upward trajectory, but it's hard to remember a show. Well, first of all, I, you know, the way that they are doing the British television model at the scale they're doing it at with the amount of acting talent that they have and the sort of treasure chest of IP to pull from is stunning. It would be fascinating to me. I believe there are some prequel novels. I believe there, I think that they're, and there are also some side stories in the MacHaran universe and I wonder whether or not they would either wait for slow horses to be over or would they ever do a, hey, actually season eight of slow horses is going to be a flashback season. - I'm fascinated too. I mean, you know more than I do about it, but that they would actually chew up two books in one season. Does that mean there's going to be bits of these books left over for them to revisit? - I believe you. - Because where we are in terms of the writing of them, this leaves three books still ahead of them. Now he's continuing to write. So as long as he, it's the anti-Georgiar Martin here because he's written I believe four books since the show was an active development production. - Yeah, which also I think helps keep the show pretty relevant. One of the things that's tough about spy series and spy novels is that sometimes you finish them and they're like, well, this is the genius of like setting your spy show or spy movie in the recent past is, because you don't want to be too contemporary, because contemporary world changes every day. So drastically. - I didn't know that he wrote a slow horses novella called the Marleybone Drop, which is what I refer to the time that Kaya arranged for me to get a podcast microphone and what happened to me when I was trying to carry it back across Oxford Street. - Did you find it difficult to carry a podcast microphone? - I was carrying a lot. - Don't you go to like Pilates five times a week? - It wasn't, thank you. (laughing) Thank you for noticing. After all these years, it wasn't the weight. It was the emotional labor. - Well, no, I was just crushed under like, I assume your gratitude for continuing the podcast from such a vast distance. It was an ungainly box and I had other bags 'cause I probably hadn't been able to finish my steamed fish and lentils and I'd probably gotten it to go. So, do you want to talk more about that? - I mean, nothing ages better than steamed fish and lentils. - Yes. - In a box in your backpack. - I feel like the gentleman and the elevator with me agreed. - Where, to your previous criticism of the past episodes, seasons of the show, did you blanch at Hugo Weavings' Harkness character reappearing at the end of the first episode? - Well, I think everything else was so exceptional and felt like a collective step into a different version of the show. I mean, also, I knew it was coming 'cause like you don't create a character like that and not to bring him back. But tonally, the show had done such work in the first 50 minutes or whatever it was to prepare the entire series for his return as an existential threat to everyone that it made me interested. Now, how they play him and is it just more bad dad is more violent than anyone else? Like, that's not as interesting to me, I would say. But everything feels stakes here and less clever. - Yes. - And so that character potentially can jive more. I mean, it's not that different than what you were saying about Roddy, but from a different extreme. If you just move the little window a little bit, people fit more into it. - Exactly right, exactly right. All right, well, we're gonna have fun talking about this show this year. - Yeah, I'm super into it. - The six episodes, one for week. We should get into my interview with Chuck. - Yeah. - This is an extraordinary book that Chuck wrote called Rock. It's not only just because of like the imaginative sort of breadth of it and to rewrite rock history through this, what if, you know, this slight turn of events, although I guess it's massive turn of events if the Velvet Underground had become the biggest band in the world in 1967. But the reverberations it has through politics, society, culture, youth culture. It's just really like every chapter is invigorating 'cause you just never know where he's gonna go. I also thought it was really interesting because it feels like a really personal book for Chuck in a lot of ways, just because I know his relationships through a lot of these bands and his relationship to writing about music professionally anyway. And it was great to talk to him about it. It's, I highly encourage everybody to pre-order it and to go out and get it when it comes out. If you've read all of Chuck's books, if you've never read any of Chuck's books, you know, I think it serves even though it is in a speculative history of an almost science fictional world. It still is actually like a great rock history book and it was really awesome to talk to Chuck. So let's get into my interview with him. - One of our oldest friends. - One of our best. - One of our best. - Thanks to Kai and Kyle. We'll be back next Monday with some lanterns and some other stuff and can't wait to do it. - Do you think we should hit the Emmys again? I know you love it. - Yeah, I really, I thought we left a lot on the table. - Emmys' 2026 rewatch. - Talk to you guys soon. - My guest today is Chuck Closeron. What's up buddy? - Not too much, my friend. Chuck has a new book called Rock Asterix. And how do you prefer to this book, just rock? - I just call it rock. - The Asterix almost is a design element. - Okay. - Early enough in the process, I was like, I think I'm just gonna keep it as the title as well. Although I suppose this could make it complicated for people to search for. - I was gonna ask you about SEO just right off the bat. - Yeah, but you know, it's not, you know, but I can't worry about such things, you know. - How? - People will find this book through fine podcasts like this. - Exactly. - Well, this will go up, I think with a few days before the book is available in order to rally the troops to come send you into some kind of bestseller vahalo. But how, how spoilery do you feel? I mean, this book has elements of surprise to it. There are, as you go through the book and we can talk about the concept of it, there are aspects of it that I found to be delightfully surprising and I'm curious whether or not you're like, I wanna talk about that publicly or I want people to discover it on their own. - Well, it's a strange deal because it's a fiction book involving almost exclusively non-fictional characters. - Yeah. - So there's this temptation to talk about it like it's actually real. Like if I had written an actual history of rock, he would be very sensible for people to be like, well, why do you think this happened with punk rock in 1978 or like what was your feeling about Durand, Durand at the time? Now, because it's not real, it does seem strange to do that. I don't, I'm kind of going to lost on how to talk about it in some ways, but I have to try and learn the list. - Well, it's funny, it's like, so Chuck's book is essentially an alternative or speculative history. What do they call these? And like when they have, is it speculative sci-fi or speculative histories when it's like, what if Franklin Delano Roosevelt never became president? - Yeah, well, okay, so, you know, I think probably that's what it would be classified. Is it science fiction? I guess there's no science to it. - No, I mean, it's just, it's like an alternative reality. I mean, you know, the, there's, you know, historic fiction where it's like, you know, what was like John Adams talking about or whatever. It's like the things are real, but we just sort of imagine how the conversation would have happened. This isn't that, obviously, because people are saying things that they either didn't say or they said in a totally different context. It's just sort of in a, like, just an imagined world that is our world where everything is different except the release of music. - Yes, and in this world, the Velvet Underground's debut album in 1967 becomes the biggest rock record of all time has oceans of influence over American culture, of significant impact on American history, global history, and impacts all these other bands around them, sending the Beatles into essentially the dustbin of history, changing Elvis's career, and impacting a lot of behaviors and events in American history. It's a fascinating book, but I, you know, I did read it as if it was a history. And I fell myself at times being like, I feel like the Rolling Stones have been underserved in this book that's about something that didn't happen. And I was curious whether or not you basically approached it as such. Did you approach it as if you were writing like an almost objective history of something that didn't happen? - Well, that's an interesting way of saying it, an objective telling of something unreal, because what would that necessarily be? - Right, I guess that's what this is. I will say it was a complicated book to write, because I had to essentially write a nonfiction history of rock and then reverse virtually everything. But so it was almost like writing a book on top of another book, 'cause it's kind of, you know, sort of delivered like it's a kind of encyclopedia of music, and if you got an encyclopedia of music, you probably would not read it straight through. - Right. - You people will read encyclopedias straight through, But because this is fiction, it kind of necessitates that. The other tricky thing. was. So, a lot of obviously, they just developed underground, become a big span ever, completely changes the monoculture of the 70s and the 80s. And I had to write about sort of these insane things, but I couldn't write about them as if they were insane, because that's not how nonfiction would work. When we write about, like nobody writes like a history of rock and they mention the 80s, and they go like, can you believe Reagan was president? It's like they just are like, well, that happened. So I had to write everything as if these are things the reader should already know that these should be obvious things, that you know, that you know, that you'll attend a huge or whatever, and they would just know this automatically. But so that, I think that they're like, I mean, it's certainly unlike the other books I've done. When you were deciding like the cause and effect of things that happen in the book, how did you go about doing that? Because obviously like the Rolling Stones still make it's only rock and roll. Like the songs are all the same songs. The reception of those songs are different. And even the artist's relationship maybe to their music is different. But I was curious when it gets outside of music and you start playing around with what would be different about the world if the velvet underground had assumed the central place in culture that the Beatles did. How do you decide? I mean, I have a very specific example in this, but like how do you decide how those ripple effects hit people and hit these events and these historical moments? Well, I mean, what's tricky about it is that when you're working in fiction, there is an expectation that events will happen for almost purely logical reasons. You know, that's just that we expect that. Like in a nonfiction story, we're not surprised if something arbitrarily happens or if somebody does the exact opposite of what sort of logic would dictate. But in fiction, that makes people bristle. They're like, well, he wouldn't have done that or he wouldn't have said that or that wouldn't have happened. So I was always just, you know, basically say I'm writing about what's going on in 1972 or '73. I'm kind of recreating these events and then trying to think like, well, if that happens, you know, what would be the consequence of that with the idea always being that as you move through time, the events get kind of more and more absurd and more attached from the react like the beginning of the book from like 67 to 72. That's just like an alternative history. It reads to someone like, oh, he's just sort of saying what if this happens instead of that. But as it goes through time, these things kind of sort of alter everything. It's, I do, like, how do you go about doing it? I mean, I guess that's just the creative part. No, I think what I was curious about was whether there were certain things like, for instance, there, if there was like a master key of what has happened. And then like, there are certain things that are different like GGL and becomes hugely famous. But then there are certain things that remain the same, which is Mark David Chapman still assassinate someone famous. It's just a different person. So do you sit around for an afternoon thinking was Mark David Chapman always destined to do something like this? And it was just a matter of replacing John Lennon with somebody else. It's the way that's hard to answer because there's also elements in this book where, you know, a lot of careers are completely reversed, you know, like Led Zeppelin is not like a critics fan that has no almost no commercial success. But like Celia Dan's career is exactly the same as it is. Yeah, I know. It's exactly the same. They chart all the same. Everything is the same. So what, you know, I mean, I guess I was kind of thinking about, I mean, you know, because the main thing I want is for this book to be entertaining and funny. That is my main goal. I'm not going to pretend that that isn't the main thing. My main motive for doing this is that people who really like rock music, will be able to read about bands that they've read about a hundred times before in this kind of this funny new way. But there are some questions I did think about. I mean, a big question that I thought about my life and that we have talked about many, many, many times. Just sort of like, well, why do things happen the way they happen? Why are things popular and why are certain things unpopular, even if you listen to them in a vacuum, they might sound the same. And, you know, it's this, it's a strange like three-pronged thing. To some extent, it is marriage. To some extent, it is just chance. But then the largest part is that we're kind of third rail, where it's a little bit of both of those things that we have to sort of look back historically as reasonable, or this was obvious, how it had to happen, or this must be true. When it's, you know, it's, it's just, I'm just kind of fascinated by how these, like when we talk about history, we talk about sort of the outcome. But I'm always sort of obsessed with sort of what made that outcome even possible and how capricious it was. Right. And how much can, how organized it was, you know? Do you feel like the binary of the Beatles and the Velvet Underground is something that's as, um, capricious as a coin toss, or as, as, as a, if, if weather systems had been different, if it had been a different situation, presidential, like political environment that these bands were entering into, like, the, the, the planes could have been flipped like that, like, that we could have been on a different axis, or is the point to make the Velvet Underground the sort of central, like, dominant force, kind of to point out like how absurd all of it is, you know? I would say closer to that, and also just, I mean, maybe you would disagree with this, but I really think of the Velvet Underground as the beginning of the idea of a critic's band, of a band that is more appreciated by sort of the serious consumer, or the person in the media who talks about music, you know, as opposed to just the consumer at the time. Now, that doesn't feel that way now. It is kind of, I haven't kind of curious how this book will be received by somebody, a younger person reads it, who I think probably in their mind feels like the Velvet Underground are a super famed band. The likelihood that they would have heard about or be familiar with the Velvet Underground is not that different than the likelihood that they would be familiar with the Rolling Stones or something like that. That was not the case when we were younger. It certainly wasn't the case when we first got into music. It was still sort of seen as this kind of ever in thing that was like, you know, like this transgressive thing that, you know, what happens in this book? I'm not saying like, this could have been our reality. This couldn't happen. If we talk about the Beatles, I think it is, you know, a good question about like, did it have to be them or what's going to be somebody? But what is some band in the early 60s going to sort of make rock and roll an idea of the counter culture, the mainstream culture? It did have to be them. I think people love the Beatles. I always want to say yes. I think a lot of people would be like, well, it could have been someone else. It was like, it's the ultimate time. I don't see a scenario where what happens to the Velvet Underground could have happened. But, you know, I'm just saying like, you know, like it's not. There is an aspect to this that is, you know, fancy, you know, like this is, you know, and I just, the whole idea that rock music becomes so important to the culture. I mean, that's like, that's kind of a fantastical way to look at, you know, writing about music or thinking about music. But it's almost like, you know, we talk a lot about rock bands and we talk about, you know, what do they mean politically? What do they mean symbolically? For the most part, those are just kind of interesting ways to describe something. And this book is like all of those things we say actually are happening. Yeah. Like the political meaning of these bands is a universal political sentiment in the entire, you know, Western work. We were scratching at something that, I mean, this book was very nostalgic for me because it felt a lot like arguments and conversations that we had when we first met back in the early 2000s. I feel like I invented the first watch podcast. Did you really? I mean, you and Chris, you and Andy, at Greg builders, Bargu, and then you had to walk a Greyhound and then went to the bar. I did. That's not a metaphor. I actually did have to walk a Greyhound. Trying to convince me to watch Oz or something. But, you know, I know what you mean sort of, it's sort of like it does seem as though we've kind of had playful conversations like this. Yes. And in some ways, like, I think this book is almost a, it's a reminder that there was a time in my life where I think I thought I understood what other people thought and that I had a grip on the idea of like what my fellow person enjoyed or didn't enjoy or thought was cool or didn't think was cool. And even though that sample size was like literally like 27 dudes in New York City, it felt like because we were discussing a lot of these things that are in the book that I, I had like an idea of like a curriculum and a continuum of culture rather than just guessing like it seems like 20% of people think geese is Jesus, 20% of people have never heard of them, 20% of people think they're a sly off, you know, like, and et cetera, like you just have like this fractured landscape now. But it was it, it wasn't an nostalgic book for you to write. Yeah, you say like you mean was just like 27 dudes, but it was different. It was 27 dudes all operating from the perspective that there was a pre-existing consensus that they agreed with or disagreed with. Yes, well the technical ideas were pretty much, you know, the book ends in 2002 and part of the reason that that's when I picked at the time I picked is because so that's when I moved to New York. So I had that whole first part of my life in North Dakota and in Ohio where my relationship to rock music was heavily mediated. Like I was listening to music and having no experience with that was my own, but I was sort of reading what, you know, what, you know, the Rolling Stones meant. And sort of being like, well, okay, I don't know if I'm necessarily to believe this, but this is what they are viewed to mean. This is what the Clash are viewed to mean. This is what Mardin is viewed to me. And I had to sort of kind of triangulate that information, my experience, and then sort of whatever the third kind of thing is that was to getting this. And then when I moved to New York, I realized or I kind of saw how that mediated process worked. Yeah. I had kind of, I think I had sort of a naive view. I think prior to moving to New York, I was of the perception that we overrate the difference between, you know, life in New York and life in the rest of the country. And then I moved there and I was like, actually, I think it's underrated. And I think it's very strange how so much of what is understood to be true does call from, come from a small group of people who are not like some, they're not qualified or something. It's just that it starts there. And because that's the inception point, every reaction from that is an interpretation of this, whatever, you know, what the original idea they express is. So that's, I felt like that in some ways this book is, is it an assault, it's kind of an assaultive for me. I mean, because an assaultive to me is when you look back on something and you inject your own experience into it, and then here's something back that's different. Or you think of, you inject something into a movie, you watch an old movie, you remember your life from that period. So then you kind of re-experience in this different way. That's not really what this is, I guess, because when I'm talking about these things from the past, you know, many events which certainly predate my life for, you know, it was, it was almost more like what I would imagine in my mind listening to these albums, if I mean nothing about them, like if I some, you know, and I do in some ways miss that experience. Yeah. Yeah. Do you feel like you wanted to settle any scores that were like in your head? Do you think your treatment of certain bands in this book are consistent with how you actually feel about them? Like when you're a little bit dismissive about like the who or something like that, like, is it because you're like deep down? I kind of think these guys are jokes. Absolutely not. Okay. I mean, I would say in fact, if I talk about a group in this book, or I talk about an artist in this book, it does mean to some extent I like that. GGL and maybe not. But you know, but at the same time, I like that GGL or something like that did exist, even though I had absolutely no interaction with it. So that was, you know, because you know, I'm glad I'm glad to ask that because in some ways, I was worried about this. Because you know, I mentioned it's also like a lot of writers. I mentioned in this book and I have, I kind of turned my like David Elderstand becomes a rock critic. You're amazing to us. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. You know, or like, you know, like get all these different people, you know, like Pauline Kale becomes a rock critic. And so I had this fear that it was like, well, are people going to see this narrative thinking that I'm like trying to mock these people their way and that's, that's not what it is. I mean, I did try to pick people in fact for the most part writers who were dead. Yeah. Because I think, you know, I was sort of like, you know, and I, and in a way, I guess it's a compliment because I'm saying that even in this alternative reality, you're still famous and successful. But, you know, and I'm kind of you're trying to write in their style, but it's not exactly in their style because I just, it went one thing that was the one easy part about this book is because it was all made up. If something was like not fitting together perfectly, I was able to be like, well, I can do the best I can on this, but sometimes things don't fit together. Sure. Yeah. Like there are, you know, there are puzzle pieces that don't fit. Yeah. I was curious whether the book changed your relationship to the Velvet Underground or what relationship you had with the Velvet Underground going into it. Well, you know, I, do I, do I like the Velvet Underground? Absolutely. Are they one of my 15 favorite bands? Probably not, although somewhere close in that area, but they would be, you know, they just outside the top 25 or whatever, you know, in part because, you know, there's just a lot of bands that I like. I mean, it's like, you know, it really is to say that you're not want something that you're 25 favorite bands is not a criticism if you like a lot of other bands. Um, this book did probably, of course, you got more research about their origin, you know, and there is a insane amount to be found about that. In fact, there was a book about the Velvet Underground that came out earlier this summer. Yeah. And a couple of years ago, Todd Haines did the documentary. Yes, just great. I would ask. Like that, because you know, I, I started writing this book before I wrote the football book. All right. This book, this book was written in like, you know, and it was delayed and didn't come out till now. Um, so like when that Velvet Underground documentary came out, like I was already heavily into the book and I was, you know, and I was, um, you know, I liked that film a lot. I thought it was really good. Although it wasn't exactly, uh, you know, it didn't get, you really changed my perception of the group at all. Um, I went back like, you know, I really like the book and the Andy Warhol diaries and stuff like this because it was like, now Andy Warhol because he's technically the producer of that first Velvet Underground record then kind of becomes like a 10-templeman producer of the 70s is like the super producer. So it's trying to sort of think about how, like where his interest would lead to, like what he would be interested in producing. Right. Sort of what his interest is in visual art. I, I, I, I listened to Velvet Underground and Niko yesterday for the first time in earnest, like outside of like playlists or, you know, this some song randomly coming on in a long time. Like maybe I listened to it back when the Haynes documentary came out. It's so funny to go back and listen to it because there's about 60% of it that you're like to my modern ear sounds like pop music. Um, and you know, it is plausible that something like this could be much bigger than it is. And I think a lot of like, when I moved to New York like, like you, there was a lot of conversation about like in a more just world X band would be much bigger, you know, big star, teenage fan club, the poses, you know, what, you know, like, you know, we've listened to Williams or Jillian Wolch would be as big as Madonna. Like they were just, there was a lot of effort put towards that. And I think in some ways, like that kind of thinking probably like ushered in. I was among the reasons that Poptimism got ushered in. Like was like this sort of like not only are the, the Muzo bands that write their own songs great, but there's a whole other tier of these bands that should be even bigger than, and then I think it was that kind of rhetoric that probably among other things helped Poptimism come away. That's sides point. I was struck by this film and underground record that femme fatale and Sunday morning and Ron Ron and waiting for the man even in its own way, you're like, this is just like a really good solid pop song. Like, I mean, it's a really good, you could imagine in a different world this being much more popular than it was. But the thing that you point to as this kind of near religious conversion moment for the country in the world is Venus and first, which is way the fuck out there, both sonically and is about a dominatrix relationship. And I was curious whether you spent a lot of time listening to that record and what brought you to Venus and first to identify that as like the page turning moment for like all of culture. Well, okay. One thing I will say is I feel when I listen to the belt underground now, I think it holds up remarkably well. Me too. Me too. I mean, you know, while I wouldn't necessarily say that one of you are one of my 10 favorite bands, if you ask me what 10 bands from the you know, from the 60s or even pre 1975 or whatever that sound contemporary, I feel like that record really does at times in a surprising way. The thing with Venus and first is, you know, that was that within even on the cell, that's like the most transgressive thing. And I was kind of looking for the most transgressive thing. But what is, is I guess a little strange is that, you know, so when the Ville underground come out in 1967, they seem completely disassociated from what music is popular at the time. Yeah. Compared to the Beatles or Creedons or things like that, you know, we're coming out in all these things. I'm trying to think of other bands from that area, you know, that were that were you know, that stones and we successful groups. Like it seemed much more disinit the drone aspect to it was what it would have been seen as like very kind of adversarial or conflict. Like it does all that music now when you get in long enough time, when you move far enough away from it, it all sort of together like the Kings don't seem that distant from, you know, the Beach Boys in some ways now, but they really did. So I'm not exactly sure why, you know, that song, I just, I guess in a way because a big part of this book, the non-musical part of this book, is the idea that if the velvet underground were the biggest thing in the culture in the late 60s, the monoculture of the 1970s would advance basically to the point where it is now. Like a lot of the ideas that we're talking about in culture now are talked about on these velvet underground. Right. So I was sort of trying to, like, I was looking for the opportunity to have that happen. Well, this gets into that, I mean, we've had this conversation about Mark Fisher before and about like, you know, there's, there's the guy from the 1975 has that quote about how if you play music for somebody in 2000, what was his point? It was like 2010, if you play them music from 20 years before, they're listening to like Autecra and Björk and, and all these like different kinds of like EDM and music that sounds so different up into a certain point, if you go back 20 years, the people of 20 years ago would be mind blown by what they were hearing. 79, if you played the music in 89, they'd be like, what the hell is this? If you, if you played people music from 1999 to somebody from 1979, they might say like, this doesn't even seem like music to me, you know. And now if you played somebody for the most part, I think there are some exceptions to this rule. But if you played somebody from 20 2006, if you played them 2026's top 10 or even maybe the critical most critically adored records of this year, they would largely be like, I'm familiar with this music, like that there's been this some kind of like slowdown of cultural discovery or innovation or that are kind of, we are now in a recycle mode of like going back through genres and going back through stances. And I, that was what really left out of me by reading the book was like the idea that developed underground could have this profound effect on things being pushed up from for lack of a better term, the underground. Like even widespread a heroin usage, you know, it was like, that was like one of the most amazing parts of the book to me because I was like, this is kind of a provocative idea, but I do think it's it's quite quite possible. Well, you know, it is like all like this, like this slow cancelation, the future stuff, which I realized I kind of seem like I talked about in every podcast. But it is, I am obsessed with it. I just think it's the most important idea in culture right now. And the thing that people will often, you know, when they hear that, they initially always want to push back against it. And what they'll push back on is they'll say like, well, you know, some music that's popular right now, that that sounds different than the music did 10 years ago. Or that sounds different than like me, I mean, in the internet, but what has changed is sort of the idea that the sequence of those records kind of needed to happen in a linear way that like, you know, like the the difference between music in like 1975 and 1985 and 1995. There is almost like this was attempted and then this went a little farther. Yeah. And it was tempting. This went a little farther still. And we sort of moved along as it's like cultures like this river. But now it's not. Now it's like the shell ocean. So yes, like music and film and books and a lot of these things in 2026, it they're different than they were in 2006. But there's no reason that order has to be as it is. You could swap the stuff from 2006 to now. And you could take say, you know, you know, Taylor Swift and Olivia are you going to stuff and move that back. And there's no way that there would be like, well, that couldn't happen now. Like it has less to do not that things don't change. It's that the changes are not built on the past. That's why everything kind of feels sort of retro now because it's not something that is sort of moving on from the last thing we had. It's just sort of going back taking part of it, taking part of something else and putting it together. You know, I was thinking about this a lot this weekend because I went and saw a new ash or a contemporary band on Friday night and it was a fucking blast. And I realized, you know, I mean, this isn't and this is not like a unique perspective. But how much energy I get from like seeing bands that are active, you know, not just bands that are like we're touring or the 10 year anniversary of this. It's like bands that are like actively putting out records and changing their sound. And I was like, new music really does give me something. If the internet had never come along in the manner in which it did. And in your book, you address Napster. There's a section of the book about Napster. But I do think that part of the issue for a lot of people is that there used to be like, you'd have this period of your life where you were actively a music fan and you were seeking out new music. And then probably at some point, whether it's when you have kids or maybe you move somewhere or whether it isn't like a really vibrant scene. You're like, I have my records and my my musical taste is essentially going back through the music that I already know I like and listening to that. That's what my parents were like. They were just listening to Billy Joel over and over and over again. At a certain point though in their lives, they were big new music fans. It's just a certain point that they stopped. And I think that if my mother or if anybody in 1989 had had all music at their fingertips, plus a constant stream of information about new music that they would have probably been pretty overwhelmed, but you would have seen a different kind of musical behavior that kind of collapsed what was new with what was old. And that's what I think is kind of happening now is that I often will be like driving into work and I can't decide between a brand new record or a steely Dan record or a radio station that I found on the internet that plays like old BBC jungle mixes. And it's like, that's an access to music that I think is unique in human history. Oh, it absolutely is. I mean, I kind of, this is kind of a simple simplistic maybe thing to express, but I observe of the opinion that every social change is ultimately economic and every cultural change is ultimately technological. And I think that the way the relationship to music that has shifted with people is solely an extension of these technological changes. I mean, because of me saying if you go to see a show, that is as close to the old experiences you can get their playing here. I am, you know, so that the way music feels to you actually is the same. But when you're in your car and you have this different situation where now you have the ability to listen to anything in the world, any music you want, it does, I think, sort of depress how meaningful that is. Yeah. You know, the personal meaning goes down because, you know, it would just be like, if, with anything, if you have like, if someone had the ability to like, you know, today, any person they want to do it, just do it, just day in person they want, I think that would change the depth of the relationship they have with the person they select. Yeah, it would probably also change what they were looking for from relationships. Yeah. And there's like, you know, you can sort of have like, like buyers regret just from listening to a song on Spotify. Yeah, listening to a song will be like, I should have listened to something else. And I'm going, you know, I don't like that feeling. It's something else. And also, I do think that the one thing that people underrate when they say like, well, you know, everybody's weird. However, everyone seems to think music got bad when they were like a sophomore in college or that they stopped finding music in their 26th. I think part of that is that the changes in the way the music is recorded, which might not seem on the top of your mind, you're super visible are there. And people feel distanced from music sometimes. They're not sure why, because in their mind, they're really like, what is it actually, you know, this, you know, just go back with like, let me, when Ace of Bass came out, people would be like, well, I don't like Ace of Bass. I like Abba or whatever. And then it was like, well, they're from the same country. They're in the same thing. Why would you be different? And the thing that was different was how those records were recorded. And a lot of sort of the the intangible terms that we use like all the warmth of something or the urgency of something, it's like, I feel like that as technology improves, the main thing it does is shave those aspects off. Yes. We're now sort of in a situation where the expectation of a song is that because it can be made perfect, we should do that. Now, like we were talking about Steely Dan, they had that same attitude, but it was very strange. We would hear like Galcio and it wouldn't be perfect because that meant it took two years to do it over and over and over again. It was almost like novel and sort of like just weird that you would do it. But now that is how things can sound because you can do that entire two-year process in afternoon. Yeah. Yeah. And I think that a lot of the reason that a lot of people feel like that even young people sort of feel like the music they're consuming might not, like it doesn't seem possible that music necessarily will have the sort of the length beyond itself the way, like, say, rumors from Fleetwood Mac or some of these are girlfriends, tapestry or whatever. I do wonder if paradoxically it is the removal of the mistakes and therefore the removal of the humanity of these things that make them feel more disposable to people. It's impossible to say because I don't, I'm very nervous to say that anyone's relationship to contemporary cultures in any way less significant than my relationship was to what contemporary culture was when I was their age, right? Like I want someone to basically feel the way they feel about turn style the way I felt about Fugazi, you know. I do think that there's some truth to what you're saying. I also think that playing music now is like a much longer career than it used to be. So there's a good possibility that we're going to still be able to have a chance to see Fleetwood Mac in some capacity play, you know. And I think that changes like the idea of what's like who's an old band versus what's a new band because like this kind of constant in there's no there's no retirement anymore. So there's no feeling like that thing is lost. There's nothing to promote. You still have engagement with all this stuff. And I mean, I was curious, you know, you said that you feel like these changes are technological or economic. Did you, do you feel the same way about that classic rock period that 67 to you call the end date period because the romantic idea that I had in my head, especially when I started getting into rock criticism was that these records were all in conversation with each other. And that people heard pet sounds or people heard Sergeant Pepper or people heard what London calling and completely changed what they were doing based on the artistic influence, like the pure wave of creativity that they were getting rather than the way in which it was delivered or what have you. What's tricky? I mean, you wouldn't, when we say like classic rock, which generally moved me and I think like basically post Sergeant Pepper up through, I mean, maybe average restriction is at the end of it. Maybe now, I mean, I know that that almost gets extended out now because of how old we are, but it wasn't back then. So 87 might be too far out or whatever. But you know, that's a period where there was also like the economic side was the realization of how much money can be made doing. Yeah, that would be 84 is like when you're like Springsteen and Madonna and Michael Jackson are happening. And it's like, well, this is bigger than anything ever was before. Well, although there was like, like, things like what Zeppelin and Elton John and all these things, the amount of money they were making from touring at that time was, you know, insane. Like because there was, it was kind of a wild west scenario, you know, and there was some understanding. It's like, boy, if you get involved in the record business, you can make a lot of money. So it is justified to put a band in the studio for two years and buy them drugs and let them know they want to sort of get this thing at the end. That obviously would not be true. Now, it would make no sense to give any artist to give team and Paul or whatever, three years and a bunch of what makes it, what they could do sort of just, you know, on their own or whatever it was sure. So what sort of, what was kind of asking, what was the, like do you think that there was a period where culture was authentically being created by itself rather than outside forces like economics and tech technology. Because I guess it's not when you consider like the cassette comes along and the A track comes along and the CD comes along and all those things change. But my romantic idea of music at that time was that this was a conversation between artists and the works that they made. And even when I first heard the velvet underground in Ernest, which was probably the box set, which I came to because I was told this is going to rewrite rock history. Is that when you listen to all of this music, you're going to realize, first of all, the indie rock and punk that you like, this is the big bang. And second of all, that this is actually as significant as the Beatles album run, the classic stones album run, whatever you want to put up against it. Yeah, you know, that's a complicated thing because in a way what you were describing is the thing that we were kind of talking about earlier, which is this, you know, kind of gap between the mediated world of music and the individual experience of it. The example of records being in conversation with each other, that necessitates that you know about a lot of records, that you're maybe interested in albums. You don't even personally like that much because you know that there's some significance to this. Like there's, you know, where is the individual experience that when you talk about, when you would talk about say you're, when you got in a hardcore or whatever, I always sense from your description of it that it was, it was less a thing like conversation and more something that it was like you had realized something, you felt something or you heard something that was individual to you. Well, actually, it's, it's the opposite. It was the first time I just felt like part of a community in that way. So that was okay. Like in terms of like, and I don't even mean like politically or in terms of like a worldview, it was like literally like when I found out that people were playing music, music in basements or in VFW halls or in garages after the garage had closed at night. And there were 17 people or there are 30 people there in a rented PA. And it was completely unpoliced by like all the stuff that comes along with modern music. I was like, I feel connected to this music in a way that I don't like watching Luna with 700 people, you know. And it was a really, really, really big change for me. Even though I would say I'd probably like Luna's music more than most hardcore. Yeah, you know, it's just, it's interesting to think about this. I mean, because like the experience you had like going to some of the shows and, you know, then your experiences you had like in Boston stuff like that, you know, they, you know, that was a really kind of rarefied experience you had because you were in like a small world couple, you know, my experience because of where I was growing up and stuff, you know, it was really like putting a rat album into a boom box and laying on my bed and looking at the boom box. No, it's like listening to the music. Yeah. And there was no community. So then I'm so listening to this. And if it means something to me, I am forming that meaning. Okay. Like I, maybe I'm reading hit parader and circus and stuff like that. But in the sense, it's sort of like, you know, like I would hear things in the music I was into when I was young that I am certain that the artist had no relationship to. Like I maybe thought because I would just play, I had a limited, you know, there was scarcity. I had like six cassettes or whatever. And I would just play them over and over and over and over again, you know. So I almost had like, like, it was like a community of one. And I think that that is probably why I became the person still who like prefers records to the live experience. I just know. I think maybe, you know, you asked earlier, like, you know, are you trying to like settle scores or whatever? There is. I wouldn't say I am, but there's one section in the book where like the rock media comes together and like almost kind of creates a constitution about like what we're supposed to appreciate about music. And in some ways, maybe those are reflections of my life. Well, it's almost like what would happen if rock critics were who musicians thought they were, which is this cabal of people who decide this is worthy of being in the front of spin magazine or getting best new music and pitchfork or being, you know, at the top of Paz and Jop in the village voice. And that it seems like it's like in some ways, they were right. Like a lot of these people were hanging out together and talking about music all the time, but they were wrong in that we couldn't agree on anything. And the agreement didn't like, I shouldn't say it didn't mean anything because it did sort of, uh, almost sort of craft or curate these artists sort of reputation, but it did have very little effect on how that experience was to the people buying the records. Yes. And it always happens like, and over time, that just becomes real obvious. I mean, it's sort of like, you know, the amount of negative reviews that black set of God brought to you in the 70s, like, you know, it was almost impossible to find positive reviews. Sure. And now that it was like, well, I guess all the people saying that were wrong. The people who loved the music knew what they were talking about, that, you know, that was a real thing. They weren't just like underrated in the past. They were completely misunderstood. And like time kind of, we're like, I mentioned Apple before, same thing. I mean, it was like, uh, I learned about Ava in a weekly reader at school in like third or fourth grade. Like, the little, you can weekly read. Sure. Yeah. For people who don't know, it's like at school, you would get like a little, a little newspaper for kids. And for some reason, when I, in like third or fourth grade, the weekly reader had a story about how disco sucks. And the picture they used was Ava. That was, I, I could still see this so vividly in my mind, this video. I was like, that's it. Uh, but now no one thinks that way. If something is remembered from the disco past in culture, it almost always becomes positive. You know, like, you know, this is like, you know, like a, you know, like a super racist movie from the past. For the right part, though, yeah. That time does make everything seem kind of richer and more valuable. It's interesting to do the rewatchables because even when I go back and read the reviews of movies that are universally beloved, I often don't find the reviews sufficiently positive enough. Like, even when it's like three and a half stars for Empire Strikes Back, I'm like, didn't this person know what they were watching? Like, and of course, they didn't. And of course, it didn't feel like that necessarily in the moment that people would talk about Empire Strikes Back as one of the best sequels ever made, one of the best movies like that ever made. Maybe the best Star Wars movie ever made. And it's only in retrospect that people are able to have that confidence of their kind of clarity of vision of culture, you know, because like, they, they have all of these different, um, all of these different landmarks to point at to say, like, look, what this happened since then, you know, in plus, you know, like if you consider yourself as somewhat serious critic, you're very reluctant to be as enthusiastic as the thing lately. I was just about like, there was a period in the 1990s, when a lot of times I would look at like the new musical threats, the enemy from Britain, you know, and every, you know, like gay dad is the best band of all time. Over and over and over, they would put a band on there, citing it as the most important music that had ever come out. Like, like, Mac Street Creatures came out and they were like, this is like Guns and Roses and Public Enemy in one band. Yes. Yeah. And after a while, he kind of was like, well, none of this means anything, right? You know, it's like, so the fact that they think everything is sort of changing the world means that the world's not changing, you know? Um, so when, you know, if you, what, well, when I was a movie critic, I, I was, I was much more willing to say a movie was incredibly terrible than to say it was profoundly good. Yeah. It would be more measured because in some ways, like, like, for example, I, uh, do you remember, uh, me, you and your wife going to Benjamin Button? Yes. And then we all walked out and we thought it was like an amazing thing we couldn't believe how good it was. Because we saw a real real script early. Yeah. Yeah. And somehow the next time we talked about it, we were like, like, this was terrible. Yeah. And like, and I'm like, I always wonder about that. It's like, what if everything was like that? What if everything I experienced was only that thing that I didn't hear anything else about it. There was nothing before it, nothing after it, or like, you know, like, right now, I'm just obsessed with this need and feel the movie coming out, right? And I'm going, I'm working so hard to avoid anything about it. Yeah. Like anything, even someone saying, it's interesting. If I know the person, I'm not it. Yeah. I mean, I know what you're like when you would find out, um, because I just, I guess I really crave that still. It's so hard to do. It's so hard to have experiences like that. Yeah. I mean, I think that the closest experience I have to something like that is music because there's just so much of it and there's so little barrier of entry to checking it out that I find that my most sort of like, I don't really give a shit with anybody else thinks I like this or I don't like this. And I'm not going to listen to it anymore. And that's the thing I have the most fun with. I also just have almost zero connection to like what a critical consensus is around any given band, which I guess is a good segue to the last question I wanted to ask about, which was like you mentioned the book ends in '02. I don't I do not want to talk about how the book ends because I want people to happen upon that. But you mentioned you stopped it when you get to New York City and you start participating in perhaps the, uh, the critical hive mind that you know, you lampoon, but also discuss in the book. But is there anything? Did you have any impulse to like take the thread even further and see, oh, you know, what does Al Gore get elected president if we continue this thread? I guess I didn't for a couple of reasons. One, I feel like writing an alternative history about things that are happening in the present is strange. It's strange because it's like, um, you know, it, it's not history yet. And maybe some, I would say that some people will say, "Fuck you, I hate this guy now." Obviously, I kind of feel like that period of thinking about music in the way that we were sort of raised in and did. I think that is kind of over. Oh, I think that's kind of your show. I don't think, like, there are so tons of records coming out. There's tons of good records coming out. There are people writing about it. But it is the, the, the, this, the history of this book sort of requires the old way to be the way that never ends. And it's not like it necessarily ended even in 2002. I think it probably ended before that. And we just kind of kept going in pantomime. Sure. I feel like in the, I mean, this is now no longer controversial. And to say, I think the first time I said it, I thought I was being provocative. Now many people think that. I do think that, you know, in the early 90s with Grunge and Nirvana and some of those acts, rock music did sort of reach a point of self-awareness. Like that, like that, the Grunge artists were very aware of like what had happened in the 1980s in the sunset strip and they started happening to see Edel and the idea of a rock star was not a positive thing. It was a majority. And, you know, that that you needed to have a degree of ironic distance from rocking. Like you, like, you know, sound garden would still rock, but not in the, I remember they were touring with Guns and Roses and MTV was doing a piece out there. They were pre-metal rock. Yes. And they're like, what are you going to do on this tour? And they're like, well, we're bringing these books from the library. That's like really like it. But it kind of kept going because I think that, you know, it was, it was set. Rock was such a kind of all encompassing thing. And it was so, so shared with the idea of what youth culture is. But if you were trying to understand young people, there was this idea that you understood it through rock music that would have been the case in the 70s and the 80s. And I think we kind of just kept going with it, even though as sort of a, like, a lever controlling culture, it that kind of ends in the 90s. But we just kind of kept going and kept doing it. And like, you know, and, you know, I was part of this. I mean, I was a spaniard. We were part of this. We were, we were still kind of, I think, attempting to keep what had happened with the way rock had been as an ongoing concern that was mattered in the same way. And I kind of feel like that's kind of when, by 2002, it still exists. They'll always be rock bands, you know, but it's never going to be the center of the culture again. I don't think there is a center of the culture really. I mean, I think, I think you can have a temporary kind of, like, placeholder, like the Odyssey or, you know, it can feel like something is a center of the culture, like, succession. But in reality, like, the internet, the center of the culture. That's what it is. Because the internet is different in the sense that it's a thing and it's a concept. Like, we're on the internet. It's a, you know, it's computers connected with other computers and stuff. But it's also like, if you say someone's too into the internet or like, they're too online, like, it sort of also suggests the internet can be like a way of being. Sure. Sort of a way that that, that your life is bifurcated between the life you're living in reality in this other life. So, in some sense, I mean, it's sort of a sad idea, in a sense, because when we talk about, say, television is the center of the culture, or rock is the center of culture, or, you know, baseball is the center of culture. In these things, there is like, like, like an artist, there's like something to deal with. When we're talking about the internet, it's almost like we're talking about like a weather pattern. Like, this thing that just sort of encompasses everything. Yeah. It's somehow tied together. But we, we know what it means. When we talk about something only mattering on the internet, we all know what that means. Yeah, I was having this, I was thinking about this this weekend with the AI Doomerism stuff. It's something that I only understand in the most cartoonish aspects of like imagining a sky net happening, or I don't understand it all because like, I don't really know what agents do in AI when you're, you know, like, I don't really understand why people would use it beyond like, can you write a paper for me or tell me like, what happens in chapter five of Moby Dick, you know, like the kind of, like, advanced googling that you would think people would use it for. And I realized like, you can, for most part, and most of your social feeds, if you're, if you're seeing this news, opt out of that. You can just be like, I'm not interested in this. And it'll stop telling you about it. And I was like, so even my relationship to this can be curated in a way that means it's not actually like central, like monoculture, but you're right that the platform that it is happening on is probably. And it's the closest thing we have. And it seems like the platform is essential to what the thing that's produced is like, it can't, it couldn't be in any other way. Yeah. Things on the internet couldn't be in books. Or like, you know, like, you could, you know, there was that I think that period in the early 2000s, when there was this belief that like, okay, we generate all these bloggers, all these, you know, these bloggers, we bring this really kind of work that all these people are reading, that's going to be like the training ground for writing like authors and book writing in the future. But as it turns out, those things were much more different than we realized at the time. The thing about blogging and writing about the internet is that it's just overwritten every single day. But you write something and the next day you can be overwritten. Whereas book writing is a complete opposite. You write something for that and it takes another year to come out. The hope is that someone's going to care in 25 years. So it may have been that blogging in some ways did the opposite. It made people less able to write and possibly read books. And that seems to be happening with nonfiction. Well, I apologize for blogging. Thank you so much for joining me today. This book is incredible. This is this is one of my favorites by you. I hope people check it out even if even if they don't feel strongly about the velvet underground. I think they'll get a lot from the book. Chuck this book comes out on the 22nd, correct? Yeah, next week. Okay. Well, people should should copy it. And thanks so much for coming on, buddy. My pleasure.