Noise Junkies - Vanity Projects

Good evening and welcome to Night Gallery. Thank you, Rod, and I want to welcome everyone to Midnight Viewing, where once a month we talk all about your follow up to the Twilight Zone, Rod Serling's Night Gallery. They say it's Rod through Ling Night Gallery, and it isn't really Rod through Las Night Gallery. It's somebody else's. Oh we know, we talk about it a lot.

Your curators at Midnight Viewing are the projection booths. Mike White. What can happen to human beings when trust is wiped out by suspicion and culture casts? Chris Stashue small boy incased in the Crystal Ball, and I'm father Malone a kind of thing that usually infest nightmares. Join us monthly at Midnight Viewing.

The Night Gallery podcast at Weirdingwaymedia dot Com doesn't remotely belong to me. I have no proprietary interest in that at all, Weirdingway Media. Vanity and pride are different things, though the words are often used synonymously. A person may be proud without being vain. Pride relates more to our opinions of ourselves, vanity to what we would have others think of us.

Jane Austen said, that about vanity. Ambrose Beers put it another way, a little more succinctly. They say that hens do cackle loudest when there is nothing vital in the eggs they have laid. Oh yeah, it's noise. Jugi's baby, and we are talking of vanity here today, speaking of which I'm father Malone, and you are listening to the greatest musical podcast on this network.

But I don't do it alone. Oh, We've got co hosts of plenty. That means too straight from Mondo realm. Wouldn't you know it? Heather drain good evening.

I like to think that we're the pips to your gladys tonight. Oh I appreciate a good pip now and again, I think we're the pippiest. And he is my truthself. He makes all my podcasts sparkle with his musical ingenuity. Best taxi podcast of all time on any network night, mister Walter's own HP.

I can't possibly live up to that introduction, Thank you very much. Botherm alone, You can't now because you just undercut yourself. Come on, man, there you go. Thank you. Good to be here.

Hey, you're the You're the ship. I wouldn't do this with two uh mamma jammos that aren't worth my time. Fiddle fattle, come on, a fiddle fa fattle. Isn't that? Isn't that?

A tasty snack with porn and caramel corn? Is the Devil's vegetable. Everybody knows this. We're gonna have a little bit of a segment here, a little show intel. I'm going to ask each of you, what have you been listening to this week?

Could be an album, an artist, or a song, anything particularly on your mind. Go hp hey. So this week, what I'm listening to is the fragments Time out of Mind Sessions album by the one and only Bob Dylan. Time out of Mind. I'm a I like Bob Dylan, but I admit to being a casual listener, and I wasn't.

I didn't really hop on to the sort of Time out of Mind train when it came out back in ninety seven. Oh, by the way, this is the album. It's the latest in his bootleg series. I think it's been happening for like the better part of twenty years, but this is the latest installment. Anyway, I wasn't so familiar with this album.

The only thing I knew about it was I think it was that the Grammys that year was the year that he was performing the song Love Sick, and that guy who called himselfs Soybomb came out. Do you remember Sobb? It was great and I actually, in listening to this, I revisited I at the time. I loved his version of love Sick that he did on that Grammys performance, and it's still on YouTube. You can check it out.

But I didn't know much about the album beyond the fact that he did it with Daniel Lenois, who was very, very popular at the time. He did obviously the YouTube albums and a bunch of other stuff. So that's what I'm delving into, is the making of and the history behind Time out of Mind. Good stuff, delicious and delightful Heather speaking of well, I don't know about delicious, but I like to think my picks are delightful. Um, but yes, it's me.

It's been sort of a two way combo between Dick Valentine has a new solo album called This is Hell and for those stuff Dick Valentine's probably best and Felix singer of the Electric six and this album just it sparks it's fun, you know, to quote why is and it kicks ass Uh, It's it's tremendous, tremendous fun. And the flip of that, I've been listening to a lot of um just different tracks from The Call from the which with Michael Bean, who's just become like the more like learning about him. What an art hero. Michael Bean is the vocalist, bassist and songwriter for The Call. It just tremendous, tremendous talent and unfortunately, like if you guys seen Lost Boys and everybody knows that Tim Cappello, I still believe that is the Call ternally that was the Call originally and the Calls version, and that to I mean, the Tim Capello thing's fine with the Lost Boys and he seems like a nice man, but when you actually hear Michael Bean sing it that power like that that man had such a voice in such heart.

I highly recommend everybody check out The Call. Um the most popular album, Modern Romans is not on CD, which is ridiculous. Um, they really need I think they're right for read discovery. Also, he was in Less Sempation at christ so Anne was good friends with her Reading Stanton, so you know the man's legit when the Stanton gives his thumbs of So so you're saying, Michael Michael Bean, that's not that's not the actor, not the actor in my head. Yeah, no, no, I love that Michael Bean too.

Now Michael Bean, b e n um. Their best, like their singles. Probably to check out would be the uh the walls, Uh, the walls come down. I still believe everywhere I look, uh, but just check out their stuff. They're really really good.

And Peter Gabriel was a fan of his too, so yeah, got the talent backing up. But yeah, him and Dick Valentine. It's my person my duality. Yea version of I still believe. It's gorgeous.

It's so good. It's so good. Like um, I've only known the Tim Cappella version, which I was a fan of. That's because it's a great song. It's it's a great song and it's faithful.

I mean the version of the movie is faithful. Yeah, but like it lacks what what the Call brings to it, which is an urgency and a passion. That is there's no there's no whiff of cheese in the Calls version of the of the song, whereas the tim Cappella arson is like lathered in velveta, the tim Capella version straight up mozzarella sticks and TGI Fridays like and I'm not saying that's a bad thing, but it is what it is so awesome analogy and what sect of awesome? What have you been listening to? What's been tickling your your your your ear your ear holes?

I hate that. I'm sorry. Are either of you familiar with a Norwegian rock gun by the name of Ida Maria. It looks like i'd apparently she pronounces it Eta. Maria hit the scene back in two thousand and eight with an absolutely fucking killer debut called Fortress Around My Heart.

There are a couple of singles that had a little bit of airplay off of it. The most this one is I Like You So much Better when You're naked. That kind of got some airtime. And then she has a song called oh My God, which to me, it's a song about like falling in love and it's just her shrieking oh my God, like over and over. Anyway, check that album out.

She followed it up with a very similar, like awesome album that was a cot Lie I believe, And then and then the next album, which is twenty sixteen she put out it was it was like slow and deliberate and steeped in American spirituals, which was fine but not all that electric. But evidently she put an album out like two years ago or yeah, two years ago, in twenty twenty two, an EP just five songs called Dirty Money, and it is fucking righteous. I highly encourage everyone to go check out Eata Maria looks like Ida Maria. Guys, we are talking about vanity vanity projects, not vanity like in your attached to your bathroom, although if you look up vanity projects, man, you'll find lots of diy stuff on how to recock your vanity and retile your backsplash.

We're talking about music of vanity projects. I asked you guys book a question off air and basically what constitutes a vanity project. I'm gonna read what I wrote to you, guys, which is I tend to air on the side of it originating with the one who's putting it out. If it's Bruce Willis putting out The Return of Bruno, I want to know that's because Bruce Willis had been harboring this desire to put out an album in this character singing these songs right, and then he got some fame and then he made that happen. That's definitely a vanity project.

But it gets a little murkier with some of the more camp and culti versions or examples rather of vanity projects, like the big one for me is William Shatner and his entire uber. But in those cases, I wonder did it start with Shatner or did somebody have an album worth of material and thought, if I can't William Shatner to record this, then I can sell this many copies And is that a consideration? Does that even matter? I'll give my definition, but to speak to the Shatner thing, I don't. I don't my I don't have any direct evidence to back this up.

And my assumption is based on we're talking about the transformed man, you know, primarily here, because that was really what put him on the map as a as a you know, kuki kind of crazy, vanity filled kind of thing. I can't imagine that wasn't something that he came up with on his own, because it's such an oddball mix of you know, theatrical monologues with kind of music popular music of the day, um like mister tambourine man, but a soliloquy from Sierra to Bergier act that in my mind, knowing what I know about Shatner and observing him over the course of my lifetime, I can't imagine that didn't spring from his wacky Canadian brain that Okay, I'm gonna make this artistic statement that's a mix of you know, popular music and theatrical ambition, and it's going to be It's going to blow people's minds.

That's my impression. Anyway, Heather, do you have any thoughts on that on Shatner in particular before we talk about our definitions. I mean, Shantner is such a bomb of mars like he is, I get one hundred percent seeing it actually being him. This isn't the same man that learned Esperanto. It became flut in espronto and it was in the movie Incubus, which is a really underrated movie.

I know a lot of people just view maybe probably use a novelty, but it's actually really good and has gorgeous cinematography. And plus I mean shatter speaking Esperanto, I mean and the and the selection actions on that album I think also speak to just how bonkers because even by then, I mean, we're already starting to see like people that were better known as actors doing music and uh, I mean, and even go into genres they're not associated with. I mean, like I know, off off record, we had talked about the Golden Throats compilation from Rhino, which is classic, and we will get into that later, but I mean, you know, Maywest doing twist and shout and stuff like that. But Shandner is so like earnest and that's what sort of makes it stand out.

I mean, Telly Savalas, but nobody really talks about Telly Savalis's album, and he did do an album. But Telly Savalas did a musical album, so did um Chad Everett. I mean, this was this you know the guy that played uh was it, Sebastian Cabot. Sebastian Cabot did an album. All kinds of weird actors took this foray in this era the sixties and seventies.

Shatner stands out because it's so bizarre and it's so sort of like heartfelt, like this is the guy you will not forget at the open mic night. But the word. The word that you used, which I think is really the key to his whole thing is is earnest. Like I never get the sense that it's a put on, like like some of those songs off of Golden Throats and just as some background. That's something that I picked up, you know, whenever it was I guess was high school, and it was kind of ground zero for this idea of sort of kitch or camp, you know, musical covers and what have you.

And a lot of the stuff on that album is just it's frankly, a lot of it's kind of unlistenable from a purely musical perspective. But I think the differences when you're talking about a Sebastian Cabin or a Tony Randall or Maywest, like my impression is that that that's something that they had external influences, perhaps saying like yo, you should really cover you know, the song, or you should really try to get you know, more more of a youthful audience by doing this, even someone like Leonard Emoy who've had his own forays into sort of singing. But Shatner is just so off the wall, like you said, Heather, but so but yet so U you know, honest and it's sort of objectives. I mean, you can tell this wasn't something that he did just as a goof or a campy thing.

He really believed in this. When you hear him, he's giving it his all as an actor and as a performer. So let we'll just consider Shatner a loadstone, a north star if you will, film of vanity projects. But my question remains, does it matter if you were approached? Can you cry that's not my fault.

I was just a hired hand, Like is that escape clause available to these people? Or or does it even matter, Like do you define a vanity project as it originated with them? Or it it has no bearing that it's the product we're judging. So my definition of a vanity project is a little bit and honestly kind of for some of the reasons you guys have touched on particularly UHP is you know, to some degrees you're going to have shades of sort of subjectiveness because it's creative. Anything creative is going to be subjective.

I mean, for me, I was thinking of the ones the vanity projects where it ends up really becoming the vanity aspect is the biggest I think or maybe when people tend to sort of outreach their limits a little bit and not in an interesting sort of like I'm going to challenge myself creative ways, but sort of like when Hubrists, it's almost like this sort of like Hubrist takes control. I mean like if I was going to say, like a musician going into film world, perfect example would maybe be like when Madonna was then her and Guy Ritchie remade Lena wort Miller Swept Away, and it's like, you know, Matzanna. I mean, it's easy to hate on her as an actress, but I mean there are films that where she was she was fine, and I mean she's not Nobody's ever gonna mistake her for you know, I think a master thespian.

But you know, there are certainly worse out there. But I mean, yeah, remaking Lena Wertmuller definitely out stepping one's boundaries. And um, so maybe that is maybe when you're just sort of um, you know, or Bruce willis trying to do a motown album, even if it is a character like that's that's a reach. That's a reach. Don Johnson, no, no, Don Johnson making music with people that actually are really talented, ranging from Derezel Zappa to Paul Shaffer.

But I mean, but Paul Shaffer salented no, and I mean and he plus plus he played already fun and and and spinal taps. I can't really that to me, that's when the vanity, you know, because honestly, when it's good, I don't think you'd think of it as a vanity project. That's why you I mean, and for also for the reasons you mentioned too, father, I'm like, yeah, Purple raised on a vanity project. But also you know, I don't even think as Set of the Train Mune as a vanity project personally. But I realized that's because I like it, and I think it's actually a really good movie.

I'm not saying it's perfect, but I think people are a little too hard on it, you know, But I think, but I think the thing that we're going to explore here a little bit down the road is a vanity project doesn't have to be bad to be considered. I mean, I have several examples here and we'll get into them of vanity projects, and I think work really well. I mean, we're gonna put Shatter aside because it's a very that's the as father alone said, that's kind of like the like. But but I but I, I don't. I don't equate.

For me, I don't equate a vanity project with something like bad and negative right off the bat um you know where, you know, because I think we're can to thinking of like, you know, like I said, a hubrist like that was a great another great way of describing this. Somebody's hubrists outstripping their you know, natural talents or their ability to excel in a creative venture. So I I, like I said, I'm I'm I'm reluctant to label of vanity projects as bad on the face of it. Okay, but do we peel it's a good question. Do we peel the vanity label off of it?

If it's good? Do we not even know it's a vanity project anymore? I don't think so, just because, like I said, it's from again, my personal definition that I cooked up just for the show is that it's it's It could be coming from a place of ego or maybe dissatisfaction with their current sort of lot in life. As far as you know they're creative, maybe they're stagnant creatively and they need something to kind of jump start that, so they strike out in a totally different way or a totally different you know, milliaire. And it could.

It's some cases, it might be successful in some case. In a lot of cases, probably more often than not, it's it's not. And I think it's easy. But I think it's easy to point the finger and say, well, you know, you shouldn't have, you know, put yourself out there so much. Well, you know, sometimes they can.

People can do that. Artists can do that, and you get something, you know, perhaps better than you expected or even downright magical in some cases. In some cases you're really glad that they decided to, you know, put themselves out there, put themselves out there and and try something new. Right. No one's ever going to call guerrillas a vanity project, right because it's fucking massively successful artistically and financially terribul failure.

Would we be thinking, oh, damon Albarn's a little vanity project there gorillas, remember that thing? And I think that's but I think that's a that's a wonderful example, uh father alone because it and you'll see this reflected in some of my topics of discussion here is that I could see that. I didn't think of it, But that's a good example. That is something. Damon Albarn kind of had this idea in his head with this artist and said, I'm gonna you know it's it's a totally wacky idea to have the sort of virtual band that he's kind of writing songs through, and it's a very ambitious idea, but god damn it, he pulled it off for several albums and he brought in some wonderful guest artists.

I mean, but I but I do at the core of it, I do think it's vanity. I think it's him saying I can do this, and I'm going to put this out there. We're gonna I think we have a dive headlong into all of the varying vanity projects that are out there, both laughable and laudable. But I do want to start positive. I want to get into some of those laudable ones.

Mine was Guerrillas. There you go, Oh, look at this great example. Yeah, that's a good one. It's the best one I could think of after HPS, which I already have pretty knowledge of. Yeah, I think that's a worthy example.

I think, as you said, HB this him in his flatmate Jamie Hewlett, who is a fucking genius by the way, Tank Girl. For God's sake, If I would ever get another artist a tattoo of their artwork, it would be Jamie Hewlett. Anyway, That very well could have been all vanity, like just a FUCKERU where he's got a bunch of cartoon characters stepping in for his band, and he's not going to actually like promote it as himself all that much. You know, he's just going to put it out and if you recognize the voice, you dude. If you don't, well whatever.

But turned out that first Girl Ins album is one of my favorite albums of all time. It's a perfect album as far as I'm concerned. A couple of them approach it, but nothing like that one. She's a stage christ jam They may kill myself come on. So anyway, that's my example of a positive one.

Aheather, what's yours? Because I know what HPS is, but I'm curious what your favorite vanity project out there, one that should be raised above maybe peel the label off a little bit one hundred percent. The first one that came to my mind, ALTAF is for an actor who I haven't really seen a ton of his work, actually very little of it, even though he's probably one of the biggest stars on the planet right now. But Ryan Gosling's band, dead Man's Bones is phenomenal and they and they've only done like one LP. But I really, really, really really recommend seeking Get Out, especially if you're someone who's into very sort of mccab music, if you love like soundtracks, old horror movies, if you like things that are kind of on the gothic.

There's a like a Silver like I think it has the Silver Lake Conservatory Kids Choir on it, so you have that sort of eerage children's choir, which is so cool. It's tremendous. It's just him and like one of his best friends. It's just like the two of them making this incredible music um that I think is beautiful and airy. Um.

I listened to it all year round. It's really you know, a lot of people tend to kind of I think it's showing up more and more like people sort of like Halloween lists for understandable reasons. But of course, if you're like me, you can listen to this all manners of the mccab you're around. What in our blood it does we have? We're monster kids, And so I think, um, I love it.

I love his vocals on it. Um, I think it's so cool that he did it, because this is obviously when you're doing that kind of thing, you're clearly not trying to get on the charts or you know, amplify your fame level by any means, which I think is probably you know why we could pill the label off a little bit, because you know, he's even on the album art. You know, you kind of have to look for him, look for his face. It's there. But um, it's not all about him.

But I think I think it's a great record. Honestly, I will always have love in my heart for for Ryan Gosling, for this album and specifically because of this album. Wow, high praise. Indeed, I'm definitely going to check this out. It's so good.

HPD hit hit us with the old school, all right. So this was one of the when when we were sort of tasked with this assignment and think of, you know, some good and not so good vanity projects. This is one of the first ones that I thought of as far as a successful vanity project. And that is the Blues Brothers. Uh not the Blues Brothers two thousand, because I think by then it was just sort of sad.

But the original idea there's there's the original Blues Brothers, the the the sort of band that grew out of that famous B's sketch where they were performing on a King beet um. This to me, well, it's obviously it's it's successful because the Blues Brothers kind of became a household name. They had, you know, the amazing John Landis movie that is, you know, pretty much unimpeachable. But what where I think it's actually very very successful. It may be tricky, like if you were to make try to make up Blues Brothers today and have basically two you know, white guys who are kind of performing the blues you know on ironically, perhaps it may be a tougher sell.

But I think for me, the reason why I think it's it's it's extra extra successful is two reasons. One, they were smart enough to pack the Blues Brothers band with incredible musical heavyweights like Steve, A lot of guys who came out of you know, staxed Steve Cropper, Donald Duck Dunne Iconic on bass, Blue Loo, Marini on saxophone, my cousin bones malone. That's right, and that to me gave it already gave it a lot of authenticity instead of like if they had just populated the Blues Brothers Band with a bunch of anonymous sort of like session musicians, it wouldn't have that grit. She jumped Jaen. The big reason why I think it's so successful is, if nothing else, it shone a light on artists at the time who at the time weren't at a very popular point in their careers.

Folks like James Brown, John Lee Hooker, even Aretha Franklin who maybe that wasn't you know, the height of her career, or any of their careers for that matter. They shone a light on all of their music. They appeared in the movies, and if they can put the word out there that hey, the others, these amazing blues and R and B artists that maybe you ought to check out, that's a win in my book. And the music was great. Obviously, dan Ackroyd had a passion for the blues and he brought that to this and he kind of brought in, you know, I think John Belushi was kind of like an omnivore where whatever he was interested in at that time he dove in with both feet.

He started kind of you know, with the blues and then he ended up getting more into a punk thing later. But to me, like I said, the band was fantastic and the music was great, and it gave you know, notoriety to a lot of really deserving artists at a very vulnerable point in their careers. That's why I think it's successful. It's hard to top. Like it's one of vanity project.

These two guys got a club that they go that they own, that they go to after they're working on Saturday Night Live. They're getting up on stage and dicking around and playing as rock stars or bluesmen or whatever. They forced that onto TV because they get so famous that they can kind of get this sketch. This They forced it on as a sketch first, and then they start appearing as musical guests as if they're an actual band. This is one vanity project, and yet it all worked.

It was great. There's there's very very little that you can say about it beyond the fact that, like I said, Blues Brothers two thousand is its own thing. But like as a concept and as a musical force at the time, I mean, they were they were so successful with it. They could basically because they were so famous and so popular, Like you said, Father alone, they could kind of you know that they could they could force that on the viewing public by featuring them on their very popular show The Rest is History. They performed at the Hollywood Bowl, they had several like platinum albums.

It's incredible, and they were on a mission stuff. You know why, because as you mentioned, that was definitely this lily white kid from the Suburb's first introduction to James Brown and John Lee fucking Hooker and Aretha Franklin and just that it goes on and on and on in that movie, Sam and Dave forgotten. It's not even on the It's great, it's just playing on the car radio and I'm like, what is that thing they're listening to? So, yeah, they did good work, those those Blues, those Brothers Blue. They had respect for the music and it really showed.

Are there any other examples of a good vanity project we'd like to mention because I'm I'm I definitely want to get into the really terrible ones out there. I have several, but I and there's one that I'm dying. I'm dying to mention this because I actually think this one, I'm gonna go ahead and go out on a limb here and say this is I'm gonna call this one an anti vanity project? Is that possib where it's actually somebody who tried to almost do the opposite he kind of so in the example, I'm gonna I'm gonna give and this may not be totally germane here, but I just thought it was a great twist on our discussion. Is the band Tin Machine?

Oh? Yes? Right? So so so at the time, you know, David Billie was coming off a series of very you know, he had Let's Dance. This was an area that he wasn't He was never entirely comfortable being like the super mainstream popular singer.

Uh. He had just come off of the last album that he had done at that point was Never Let Me Down, which wasn't really a successful album. Uh. He was kind of eager to make music, but not a weight of loving the loving. The album was off of Tonight that was that was a couple of that was a couple of that was after Let's Dance, but before uh never let Me Down in Glass Fighter and all that stuff.

The Glass Spider Tour is just more it's like like an attempt at an extension of Let's Dance, don't you think, and like a love diminishing returns in that regard, I completely agree father it alone. It's I like some tracks off of This is a side discussion, but I love some of I mean the song Loving the Alien and the song Blue Jean and a few other songs I like off that album. But you're right, it was the law of diminishing returns and this was what was leading David Bowie down this path of dissatisfaction with how his career was going. And it kind of, like I said, culminated after the Glass Spider Tour, and he basically was eager to make music that got away from the mainstream and kind of, you know, reinvigorate his interest in making music again because he was getting to the point where he just wanted to hang it up and just be an artist or something.

So the reason I call this an anti vanity project is because he insisted. Because the temptation is very you know strong that this was going to be a Bowie project, right, Bowie is like the biggest name. I mean, no one's going to be clamoring to know what Hunt sales, uh, you know, son of Soupy sales. His involvement in the in the band is or Reeves Gabrells. But he was insistent.

Bowie was insistent that the rest of the band, they weren't sidemen. They were all equals in this band, and the interviewed that was done they all had equal shares and discussing the projects and writing the songs and everything. So what Bowie did, which I think is very interesting here is he really kind of like you know, took you know, he subsumed his own like ego and his own sort of van because he could have very easily just said this is my next project, this is a David Bowie project. But he said, no, this is tin Machine. This is a different thing.

It was a very much a back to basics affair the tour. It wasn't a theatrical extravaganza like he had been sort of accustomed to doing. The debut album is great. I enjoy it. I don't think it's his best work, but I respect what he was trying to do, which is get away from the polished mainstream.

He really almost kind of presaged grunge a little bit in a way because a lot of it is very strident. The music is aggressive, sometimes lacking in melody. But but this is where his head was at. He wanted to, like I said, bury himself into a band that he wasn't the main focus. So that's to me, that's why it's almost the op it's kind of a vanity project, but in a way it's anti vanity because he wanted to do He did his best not to be sort of the main focus of the b and those other band members must have been so stoked to be in a band with David Bowie where he refused to give interviews or promote the band in anyway.

No, it's made with that period of David Boy. David Boy's career and is that ten Machine to me is almost sort of like the pre almost like the Creamble or the intro to the to the resurrection that we're going to get when he reconnects with Eno and we get outside um, you know, and we really get his next renaissance, which is really because the eighties I think were was a little bit of a dodgy period. And I mean this is somebody who is a diehard David Boy fan, as I think a lot of us are. Um, what's interesting is with Loving the Alien, I always felt like he was kind of channeling Brian Ferry a little bit, especially if you see it in the video because even like the mannerisms, because yeah, spoiler, I'm also a diehard Roxy music fan.

And what's interesting is with Ten Machine, of course they covered I believe if there was something which is off the first Roxy album, I'm a little rusty, I'm a tin machine. I remember that album well they did too, um, the first one being really good. I don't think I heard the second one, but they covered a Roxy It was okay they I don't to be honest, I have to go back to the cover I remember off the first one was they did a cover of Working Class Hero by John Lennon, which was was my like at the time. That was my hook into the album because it was such a John Lennon fan at that time, and I thought it was a good cover. Um, probably the best, I would say the best thing that Tim Machine, well not really Tim Machine, but the thing that was the preamble to Tin Machine, which you may may not know, was he did a cover of his own song look Back in Anger with with With With.

It's a great song, but the remake he did with with with Reeves Gabrels on guitar and Urdle Kazil Kay on drums and bass u is killer. It's like, I love that original song and the remake is better. Oh, that was what led him into It's fantastic. It's it's a it's a it's a bonus track off of If you get the Lodger album, the reco disc version, it's a bonus track off. See I have the Lodger by don't have the record is, so I'll have to sneak that out.

Also with Hunting sales. They actually uh are on a lot of Iggy solo albums from um. I'm trying to think the period. I didn't know they've They've been on a lot of stuff, but I don't trying to which Iggy. I almost want to say it's like the Soldier era, like the late seventies early eighties, but I'm admittedly I could be wrong on that, but they the dudes have cred um credibility for sure.

I forgot they were in ten Machine, which is why that's why it's so cool doing doing the shows, like we can get like all of our little synapses, you know, refired up on some of the stuff. But uh, but yeah, I mean, weirdly enough, like Moon Aged Daydream, but Boy Documentary, there's just like no mention of ten Machine or Iggy, you know. Speaking of Iggy, I mentioned Eda Maria at the top of the show that song. I mentioned, Oh my God. She had recorded it as a single in two thousand and seven, but when she recorded the album, the backing vocals are by mister Iggy pop.

Oh I wrote, by the way, I literally I wrote that down. I'm gonna be checking that out anyways, but now I'm even more impetus, like um, but yeah, I mean David Boy like and he's another one that like crossed into over the movies. But it never felt like a vanity project because it just felt like an extension of just his creative you know, just sort of stirhm and drawn. You know, it's like, oh, of course he's in he's working in Nicholas Rows. Of course, if he suddenly came out with a line of sculptures, we would have been like, oh, cool Bowie's doing sculpture now.

You know, like nothing felt vain with David Bowie. I know, it's just you're just happy to have it. You know, you're just like and some things are better than others. But I mean it's David boy. It's like, oh, it's got that sparkle dust on it.

We're good. Give us more, please, I'm gonna mention a good van No it's not. Listen, it's not a good vanity project. But before we get to the darker ones. Uh.

In my in my research to find the the the nuggets of of of juicy morsels of terrible vanity projects, I looked into uh, mister Steven Seagal actor Espion Extraordinaire that I have it on my list. That's where, okay, go ahead, And that was a late addition to mine. He's a lahman these days, so I'm a little trepidacious to slag him off. But no, here's here that's so funny. So he's got two albums.

One is sort of just adult contemporary nonsense with he's got a close up of him with a guitar and it's some crystal cave or something like that. We're not talking about that one. We're talking about the blues album here, right, So he put on an album of blue and I was like, this is going to be a fucking hoot. And then I started listening to it and the music was really fucking solid, and I looked at the artists and they're all fucking super skilled, fucking blues men, bluest blues women, and Steven Seagal has a pretty passable singing voice. So no matter how much I wanted to hate on that blues album, it's just a pretty good blues album.

I couldn't say anything again it. And then I'm like, okay, well the Crystal Cave one, this is going to be like sharpening my knives. I'm rubbing my hands, I'm tenting my fingers, and it's the same. It's like it's you know, that music ain't for me anyway, this sort of adult contemporary bullshit. So I can't say that that's bad.

And he can sing, so so I am so impressed that you because I had the same rea action. Father ma alone like I'm like, oh, because I listened to the song. It's called Songs from the Crystal Cave. It came out in two thousand and eight. It was never released in America, and I'm like, oh, this is gonna be so bad, and I the worst thing I can say about it is it's just it's like you said, it's adult contemporary.

There's nothing like it's. It's capably produced. He doesn't have a terrible singing voice. He actually plays guitar rather well because he plays all over the album. He look at there's a song on that album featuring a harmonica solo by Stevie Wonder, which I'm like, why the hell would you know if it's if it's that bad in musical circles, how the hell could Stevie Wonder deign to put his stamp on it?

So yeah, I shared that opinion father alone. I think it's not my cup of tea. But I couldn't hate on it for being like tuneless. I guess right, Okay, now, hold on, hold on, okay. Songs.

Chris la Cave has a song called Stripe where Stevens had called us a Jamaican patois when oh no, no, it's more. It is more than regretible because and the sad thing is the woman with him, Lady Saw is actually like this very respected musician in that like genre, and that song is filthy and it makes me think of Steven Signal wanting to rub his little sweaty nads on some poor woman makeup, which is just sitting. But it also makes me laugh. So I'm kind of torn because it doesn't entertain me. Um, but I feel kind of gross about it.

You know. It's kind of like, I don't know, it's like seeing an old teacher at a strip club and they're it's just weird but funny, but you can't it grossed out and you know, or like or if you're back in the video rental days, like hey, my old, my old pastor's in here writing like you know, like some porno with women that are like that's all pregnancy theme. I don't know. My brand goes to dark places, but I respect. I respect the insight you guys are throwing for the skull and his amazing widows speak of love, so thank you, thank you both.

He's not above the law. I have marked him for death, but this album's okay, now's the time. What time is it's time to get ill? Let's talk beasties for a second, okay, because I'm I'd like to start if y'all don't mind in the drag category. Now, I'd like to take you all the way back to the early nineteen nineties glide girls and flannel as far as that I could see.

Okay, So, now hip hop, which had always been overshadowed by it's sort of emergent. At the same time, big brother of punk rock has finally kind of gone everywhere. It's it's it's infiltrated everything right. It's no longer a fat it's not a flash in the pan. It's seer is and it's here to stay right, And it's been around long enough now that we're get the new school.

A whole new generation of rappers have sort of come up with a BDP and Big Daddy Kane and De La Soul and NWA and on and on and on and on. White people had not figured it out yet except for the Beastie Boys, but they are just the exception to every musical genre. They were going to fit in no matter what they did, So they technically don't count and are in a category by themselves. But there was Third Base much loved to Third Base Base. They don't get the gas.

Now the gas my heart just girts like three times its own size. With the gas faces mentioned, we HB and I have a deep, deep love for third base. Prime Minister Pete and Nice is my particular favorite, but of course he's my favorite too. Ohay, see okay, all right, good good good, Yeah, because Searches is fun, but like he's not as lyrically as skilled as Prime Minister Pete and Ice was Wow. I feel so old having this conversation right now.

I think the word is seasoned. So the other day I was just watching a video with featuring mc search. He tells the story. I don't know if you ever heard this story about how mc hammer took out a hit on him on third base. I'm gonna watch everything with him.

He is. He's a racking tour man. I can watch him very good at telling the story. Yeah, he's very good. Yeah.

And the White Rapper well, and the White Rapper Show is of course a classic. We're going down a third base rabbit hole. No, we're talking about the early nineties right here, and they are the actual exception to the white Rapper rule because the only other one, the real face of it at the time is Vanilla Ice, who does get the gas face. But one man sought to change at all. He had the cred and he had the skills that's with a Z, but most of all, he had the rhymes ready for him.

I got some you can't get ladies and gentlemen. That's David Faustino's Holy Shit mad Science. That's Bud Bundy from Married with Children in his band Ballistics and his nineteen ninety two that's his single. I told you it doesn't get any better than what you just heard, and what you just heard is fucking horrible. Whoa I I'm floored.

I'm flummixed and floored and in awe of that cut that I like, I'm bound down to it, like holy shit, that's that's That's the one nobody talks about with good reason, I guess. But it'll it, you know, and I think it should in the way that Golden Throats sort of was crystallizing our thoughts about crooners and just these sort of vanity projects in general, and the early nineties when that came out, like, I'm sure there's an version of that with people from the nineties on that we can eventually get into. But evidently, okay, So Festino gets on Married with Children when he's like seventeen. By the time he's nineteen, he's got a club called Ballistics that he's running and it's a hip hop club to his credit, and I'm and I'm sure the club featured tons of actual, really good hip hop artists and got them notice.

And he did good in that way. But he also, for some motherfucking reason, thought he could rhyme. And not only is his delivery fucking terrible, but his lyrics. You heard it, I'm playing it again. Let me know you can't get oi yi yi oiii there that Yeah, that was I mean when when Vanilla ICE's flow is sounded tight.

Yeah, say what you want about about Rob van Winkle, but he could fucking spit right all right, Well, and he's got the attitude I don't. This is why I was talking earlier, where people outstepped their limits in a way that isn't you know, you don't feel like they're like pushing themselves creatively. But it's more just like the Hubrists. This is Hubris, This is little little little Festino thinking he could be up there and I, oh my god, like wow, I feel like people doing rap badly is one of the most cringe It's almost like bad stand up comedy where it makes you kind of die a little on the inside for some reason, especially why white people like I don't know, it's like, I don't know, it's like, oh, like you better be like third base if you're gonna do this.

You know, a decade before that album came out, that song, that clip that I played you on Saturday Night Live, Jim Belushi Future Blues Brother two thousand does count anyway. He did a sketch on Saturday Night Live with Alex Carris and this is that that Well, what guys, when we deliver what In nineteen eighty two, Jim Belushi was saying, Hey, white people don't do this. Ten years Faustino like fulfills that prophecy. First thing that I thought of it. I don't know that this can lay claim to to pre date that David Faustino rapped, But the first thing I thought of when you played that was Brian Austin Green on Beverly Hills nine two and no doing fush Nickins raps at the at the Beach Club.

The reason why I'm asking so you may have a precursor to Fustino kind of busting a rhyme. I think I think David Silver was probably he might be the first sort of you know, exponent of that type of cringe rap. Right. Well, that was the producers of a television show in the narrative of their shows, making him do that. This is David Faustino going, world needs to hear this.

I'm going to put on record. I'm going to press them. I'm going to get me some of them new CD things, and I'm going to sell them and people will I'll have another career. I won't need I won't need to. Peggy and uh Al and that dog whatever the fuck its name was anymore.

I always loved it when he liked the dog would have a vo that was always sorry, I love every with children, but h okay, I was gonna see you guys. Though, As far as like cringe levels, what do you think is more cringey though? Faustino or Rappin' Rodney? Does anybody remember that? Of course?

I remember that. Yeah, I think I think that was robustin because that wasn't look it was called Rappin' Rodney. But but he didn't rap. I mean, he just basically did his stand up while a chorus of women kind of wrapped behind him or saying behind him, it's not my idea of like a hit single or anything. I'm not going to listen to it for fun.

But but you know, Faustino, because that to circle back to the original idea of vanity, like that wasn't That's not Rodney Dangerfield doing something out of vanity. That's him doing something that's I'm sure that's some like his manager saying like, hey, uh, the you know, the the Hippote hop is pretty pretty out of sight. Now, let's do something to get the kids, whereas Faustino's is purely like, hey, I can do this. I'm cool. I can wrap, so I can't.

I can put him in the same category. Unfortunately, Well, no, I'm not saying I'm not saying one's vanity. I'm not talking about vanity levels. I'm just talking about cringe level fast for me. Really, yeah, because I don't think rapid Rodney's funny, right, it's a failure, but it is.

It's it's a novelty record, you know. It's like, yeah, like it's I agree with you, it's not a vanity thing. We're not judging it on that. But I don't think his intent with it was as a joke and just because it failed. It failed, but like David Faustino syrious man, but that but that somehow is funny about fun failed comedy.

NWA, Like I was in La at this time, and actually it was by then it was ice Cube Cube was was everywhere and everything at the time. Could you imagine putting like dre put out the chronic and this kid put out it's like running a club that like is featuring prominent hip hop artist and new emerging artists and like where how where is that disconnect in his brain that he thought, Yeah that mine is as valid them. And let me let me ask you this thought. Let me let me ask you this, like what what is more authentic? Uh?

Faucino doing whatever he's doing or snow doing? Informer, this Canadian white rapper who's affected a patois you know, rapping about like being a you know, like you know, an informer, a drug dealer guy? Like I think that's equally cringey to me? Was this song the Informer? Was it good?

What did did they have to investigate to figure out that this person was was a white guy from Canada? But he was in prison when that song hit, Like he actually did snow hats. There you go, I stay corrected, but I I for me, yeah, I look, I could see that. But I also don't think he's from Jamaica. He may have done a lot of stuff, but I don't think.

I don't think he can lay claim to like being like a rastaman. Who can you know you can Harry bet Lafonte he was from fucking Queens. Yeah, but he had we had family that he would spend time with in the Islands, in you know, the West Indies. So I give him credit for that. He had lineage that dated back to that.

That style of music. I think it doesn't hear very bother go and say fucking Queens. It's like it's my new favorite thing. That was beautiful. Um, I will say this, so you guys awakened a beautiful memory for me.

An example of mid eighties good white wrapping that not enough people talk about unless you've seen the movie tape Heeds. But I got to talk about King Cotton's Roscoe and shaken waffles and word wrap, which is amazing, beautiful. It's a thing of beauty, right, I seriously love it. It's great. I had the videotape, I had a pirated videotape of taps, which I think they would have appreciated, Mike Nesmith would have appreciated.

And from that I recorded the audio of his Roscoe's Chicken Waffles wrap to like put on mixtapes. That is amazing, Oh my god, because you know why, because waffles just pancakes with little squash girls, and waffles just pancakes with little squas. Do you guys have feel a little bad though, like punching itself artists, because like I do, think he's no you know, look like I appreciate the earnestness and a for effort, but get the fuck out of here with this nonsense. This is something that you play for your friends. And that's where do you guys think.

Brian Austin green Ever referred to himself as the notorious PhD. Suddenly proud of myself father in that I have not considered Brian Austin gained for like twenty five years. I'm so jealous. Apparently he's the living right free in our minds projects. Try and top Faustino.

It's a faust Oh, I can top Faustino in three notes, my my one of my bad I have several bad. One of my bad is a recent discovery. It is you know him, you love him, from such films as Good Fellas You Loved Him? Uh in uh home Alone. This is Joe Peshi with his nineteen ninety eight album Vincent LaGuardia Gambini sings just for you?

Dare you do you? Guys? Did you? Guys? This is this on your list now?

Heather, Heather and I on occasion drop onto Chris Stashue's podcast, The Culture Cast, and Peshi is a free fu likewise, and this particular period of his artistic endeavors comes up frequently. Okay, but I was not ready. Oh my god, I'm so glad you didn't tell me HP. I'm so glad the surprise. Oh.

In fact, and I told Stashia we were doing this topic. He said, oh, you're going to do the PI album like I'm sure I thought. I had thought you were going to bring it up only as a good one. I mean, how much comedy, how much comedy legit? Have we?

Mind alone? From the you see h for anybody listening for in for Harris Um Chris and I don't think this original instant made it on any episode. I think this was we were just bullshitting after we got recorded, and I think it was the Dragnet episode that was the origin. Uh, And Chris was like, oh, I got some shit for your guys's ass and plays this Joe Pesci track from this album you just mentioned and which there's he says what I can't remember the actual lyricist, but it sounds like he's opening the song sing eat my ass, he eat eat out. It sounds and he sounds like it's a threat, like he's like, that's an and the way he does it and the way Chris would then do it, like Chris's Chris Statue's Joe Pescia.

You can't plast if you move to fast. Tell me you have stats on this album, because we so. Information is unfortunately a little bit hard to come by on this. I do know it came out and I I know I listened to it, so you don't have to. And that's so that's a warning.

I'm not recommending you do it. Because as bad as the journey down some of these vanity projects has been, like this, this is probably the worst um because there's really no there's nothing. I mean, I guess the redeeming feature is that look like he's very foul mouth and he's clearly having fun with what he's doing, but that that fun doesn't extend to the listener. He has Maybe the song you're referferencing is the song Take Your Love and Shove It. Uh.

It could be the song I've Got News for You. Uh. He also has a song called Yo Cousin Vinnie, which he for some reason, it's he does it in English, and he does it in Spanish, and he does it so there's three songs in English, Italian and Spanish. Uh. He does a song called White Wise Guy, which I kid you not.

All he did was take the backing from the Blondie classic Rapture and he raps his own song over it. It's I it's terrible. It's just it's terrible. I will not be listening to it again for any reason other than a podcast or something I have to do. It's bad.

I think it was kind of like you get the sense that he thinks he's being funny and this is big giant joke. But this no one's laughing except for Joe Peschi. Let's be honest, and uh, well, but we have a little bit of an ironic distance from it at this point, I don't know who the audience was in nineteen ninety eight for this. You know, maybe I don't know. Maybe I can make the said it's a comedy album, but it's it's terrible.

The same people who about the California Raisins album California that is great. So the eighties was so terrible. Yeah, it was pretty bad. It was pretty bad, but terrible. Nobody ever want to go back to the eighties.

Trust us, we survived it, and we literally had the The California Raisins were a thing that existed visually and and on audio. What a nightmare those were, those little stepping Raisins. My god, it's Bob Bilthoit's phrasing for them. Hit us with a terrible man a project. Please, I'm just I feel like you guys have taken me on such an emotional brotherer Hoster, the good, the bad, the ugly, the eat out my ass partion of show Oh boy Hattie.

I. My contribution is not even an album specifically, it's one. It's a category and it's this horrible thing that's trending right als a phrase uh nepo kids meaning yeah, people that are basically have careers specifically because of nepotism and nothing else. So it's not like, say, you know, okay, well Miley Cyrus has famous parents, but she has talent in other areas so she doesn't really count. And at this point she's more famous than her parents.

So same name with Rickie Nelson. They're great, like Ricky Nelson, like he actually surpassed that and made some great music. Chet Hanks, the son of Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson, not so much. I feel so bad for those parents and Colin Hanks because you know they're looking at this this, this, this this d bag entitle bagaboo of a child, like you know, you know, that's like the ass baby every even good parents are gonna have that one kid. If you have enough kids, that one kid's gonna let you down and make you question.

They're like, well, Colin, why didn't he turn out like Colin cal It's not a douche bag call. It's not appropriating African American culture and having women turking and breaking bottles on the pavement and is I mean, I hate that I even know who this motherfucker is. I resent it. I have brainspace that could be going for something that will better in my life, and instead, I know who chat Hanks is. It's one time, then it's over with this to give.

She said in my DM, I'm supposed to hit this so thick hard, I'm supposed to fit and I resent that. At least David Faustino was in buried with children. It was really funny in it. At least at least Joe Peshi's a great one of our greatest actors. Joe pesci is as a gym and that album makes me laugh my ass off.

I'm sorry, Harris isn't good. No, I'm not gonna say it's good. Does it make me laugh? You better believe it. Chris Dashy doing it's even funnier for the record, But the NEPO babies, this is bullshit.

I'm sorry. You should be proud to have pride and a talent that you have earned. Ricky Nelson when he buked his parents, Auntie Nelson didn't make that kind of music. He wasn't into the rock and roll. Ricky Nelson, you know, followed his path and and you know, and now you know went to this day.

We know his music, his sons Nelson not so much, but you know what, they they followed their passion and they are I guess talented. The more talented the Chet Hanks, that's for sure. And it's not even just like, oh, I'm gonna dog on the rap guy. Now, rap is a viable music and like anything else, when it's done right, it's powerful and you know, but when you know, uh, fucking Chet Hanks. I hate this to quote Joe Pashi eating out my hats if since we're recording in honor of Chris Stature, because we all love Chris and all of us have been on the Culture Cast together, um, I feel like I feel like Chris will give me a hard time if I don't mentioned two vanity albums because we're both pro wrestling fans.

Now, I don't personally, I feel like there's some merits to both of these albums, faint in a way, faint merits, but I wouldn't call them like the worst, but questionable for sure because Watching Man Randy Savage did a rap album, which is it's I yeah, but I mean but I love watcha Man and hearing his voice, especially when he says like baby girl like and he says he's trying to be romantic, but he's like, girl, I love it. And he has a whole disc track on Hogan, which is I mean, come on, that's wonderful. And then of course Hogan had the album Uh and I'm talking what was that called? But I know, like, but the Mayor's on that is Jimmy Hart, like yeah, basically helped write and produce it. And yeah, I mean Jimmy Hart.

He was really He's a very he was a very good songwriter. Yeah, he did it. He was all over those wrestling albums, like the ones with um like mean Gene and all that. Yeah, the wrestling album. I think I love that wrestling album.

I played out of it. Oh my god. Well and I mean a true American. Oh yeah, well I did get Roddy Piper singing, which makes my heart. I'm Roddy Piper's one, number one, oh forever and always.

So yeah, it was so proud of my Scottish heritage. Okay, listen, my name is Malone, but I'm Scottish because of Roddy Piper. I feel like you were about to go into a rap with that. Oh you don't want to hear me rap. I'm at least wiser than you know, but you know it, Hans.

He said he was like seventeen when he did that. No, he was nineteen when he did that. Oh but still like, I'm so glad. No, no pass for fasting now. No people did stupid shit when we were nineteen, but none of us made a record label, put a fucking album out and pretended to be on par with fucking Doctor Dre.

I've got another bad album, Ladies and Gentlemen. Scarlett Johansson put out an album that's a cover of Tom Waite's records. Oh god, I forgot about that. I think it's because I kind of blocked it out. Yeah, like like if I was molested by a Satanic group.

It's in that sort of cortex of the brain. First of all, who is this spur is Scarlet Johansson. I am a Tom wait sans. It's not for me because he's a fucking gun. But Scarlett Johansson's Anywhere I Lay my Head album cover of Tom Waite songs, which by the way, her interpretations of are like it sounds like air.

It's like it's music for a fucking Sophia Coppola movie. It's it's Tom White's covers which I don't know. Maybe it's a good idea, but the execution is not good at all, And she's not you were I was expecting. She's got a deep voice, Scarlett Johansson. So I was expecting some gravel, because that's what I love about Tom.

That's right on a first name basis me and Waits, Well, she kind of goes for a lilt and I don't know, it's it's it's puzzling. It's puzzling, it's it's not necessarily bad. I think if I just heard the songs, I wouldn't be offended, But like as a Waits fan, I'm offended, and just as a what the fuck were you thinking? Fan? I guess I'm I guess I'm pro in that case.

But yeah, that's that's a bad album. That's a vanity project. I mean points for her for having good taste, you know, I can, I can give her that. I'm not I'm not really a huge scar Joe hater. I don't really.

I always still felt like with the Ghost World cast that I mean, the real talent and that was thorpe Urch. Oh yeah, right about that. Yeah, I feel like we live in I love Scarlett Joetta don't get me wrong. I think she's fucking phenomenally talented. Uh just maybe don't record other people's music.

They did it already, you don't have to, right, I will say that as far as like actress is doing music, she's far less offensive than Gwyneth Paltrow. Right on. Remember when Gwyneth Paltrow we've figured out she can carry a tune, we were all supposed to fucking fall all over ourselves, like suddenly she's a fucking genius, as if every actress in the nineteen thirties couldn't sing as good or better than Gwyneth Paltrow. And then she started showing up on people's like shit, remember when was Celo Green had that hit that fuck you tune? Yeah?

Right, and then she like showed up on some show and like performed to do it with and then like every time he showed up to perform the song, she was there performing, and it seemed, holy god, what a nightmare that was. Gwyneth Paltrow, we get it, you can carry a fucking tune. Nobody cares. She's like a yeast infection. You know, you just can't get rid of her.

It's like you eat all the probiotics, you eat your Greek yogurt. You know, you don't wear super tight pants, you try not to take too many antibiotics. And yeah, there she is. There she is Gwyneth Paltrow with her her vagina candles and her blandess acting and her she's just like God, she's she's awful, Like she offends me with how bland she is. So yeah, I would be yeah, car sco Hinson's way better, but yeah, I don't.

Yeah, I mean nobody. If you're gonna cover Tom Waits, you better be on close to the level of a Tom Waits, you better be that cool. You know, hb what do you? Very quieter? Oh?

No, I so I was when we when we brought up this idea of vanity projects. This was the first thing that came to my mind. And I know that Heather also thought of this. This is a bit of a complex legacy that the one I'm thinking of is Chris Gaines. It's called Chris Gaines's Greatest Hits.

It was Garth Brooks is so excited for his ill advised attempt. He had an idea for a feature film. It was going to be called The Lamb and his and it was going to be about this sort of doomed you know, rocker named Chris Gaines, and he was going to be played by Garth Brooks. And it started by he produced a behind the music on VH one, and but it was it was a mockumentary. Was basically him as Chris Gaines and all of the supporting players and talking about how what a great legacy the guy had and blah blah blah blah blahlah.

But anyway, the thing of it is, uh, it's it was not successful and no one could really understand what he was trying to do. His fans were confused. The album itself was received with confusion and and it would received mixed reviews. He actually, I think he was. Also he performed as Chris Gaines on SNL the same week that he was.

He was the musical guest and the host. Remember what the thing of it is? Uh? I went back and listened to it again. Do you remember what he played?

Again? Do you remember what he played? What the song? I mean as far as the character, Yeah, what Chris Gaines? What were his song choices?

On his chance? I don't get to America? What this twisted dark rocker was going to be I remember, I remember. No one will dispute that he's he was a talented, you know, country singer songwriter. The man is a good performer.

He's got a great voice. So the project had that going for it. And in fact, what people forget about the album was it did have a legitimate top forty single come off of it, I'll Lost in You. It hit the Billboard to one hund top forty, and it's it's a good song in the and again in this adult contemporary vein, it's very very good. If if this was produced by anyone else, there was no uh, sort of disguise of a character you're performing behind this.

This was this was a relatively you know, moderate hit, and it's it's performed well, it's it's a good song in that vein. So much like our discussion about Seagal, in this case, you can't I can't alt it on its musical merits or lack thereof, because it's it. He was a good singer songwriter. It's not like the guy couldn't sing and perform and write music. But the issue here is the hubrists, the pure hubrists involved in just deciding, well, I'm going to take on this character and I'm going to produce this opus about this guy that is totally, you know, outside of my comfort zone.

And you know, it was it and maybe in different hands or in a different time and place, it might have been accepted a little bit more readily. But it was wrong place, wrong time, wrong project for Garth Brooks. And it's hard to imagine it's not being the biggest sort of a stain on his on a relatively storied country career. It seemed to me that we were getting advertised to Trent Resner and what we got was Michael Bolton. That's there.

Look, I I can't defend the man on the I mean, on his choice of like it was supposed to be like a dark rocking guy, right, I Look, I don't remember the end. I know that part of it was, well, he wasn't not. Here's the thing, it wasn't supposed to be. There was no this guy wasn't the second coming of Al Jurgenson. That wasn't the character.

It was more, if I remember, this was more in the vein of a moody kind of rocker. Maybe he had some nail polish on, some he colored his nails, but it was more in a in a kind of for lack of a better word, he was like a sensitive kind of rock rock star. But it wasn't. But it was never gonna be Trent Resner or like I said, uncle Al or anything like that. The album doesn't support that thesis because it's mostly you know, mid tempo rockers, some nods to R and B.

But but I again, like musically, if this came from anybody else, or if he just said I'm Garth Brooks and I'm producing an album of you know, I'm going to take a left turn here and produce an album of R and B adult contemporary music, it would have been fine. But to mask it behind this sort of character that just confused people and was you know, maybe Pete Townsend levels of delusion about what the project is going to encompass. That's where things got tripped up. But musically it's fine. I mean, it's you know, I can't fault to him on that score.

I have a friend who posited a theory to me about actress An Affairs who I adore. An Affairs is always comedically naked. It's always a flash of her butt or something or like side boob or something and his attitude is she just wants to be naked on screen but can't commit to it, so she makes it as a joke. So do you think this was Garth Brooks was like, I'm kind of tired of count I'd like to do this other thing, but I can't just do it. I gotta have it wrapped up in this burrito of Trent and movie deals and wasting everyone's time on SNL in which otherwise was a very funny episode.

He was very funny in it. Now, I mean back then he was that was his lane. He was the country guy. He was probably the biggest country star around at that time. So, you know, the prospect of and maybe this was something I don't know what the history is behind the scenes, it could have been.

Maybe he did say I want to do this, but management is like, no, you can't alienate your audience. This was a may perhaps a way that he could have his cake and eat it too much. Not making a direct comparison, but look, you know, Stephen King had a you know, he took another name, was it Richard Bachman? He put up books as as Richard Bachman. Why let me ask you, father Malone being a big Stephen King fan.

Why would Stephen King put out books under an assumed name, Well, initially it was because they didn't want to flood the market. He had already had too many books out, and and he had the luxury because of that situation to judge his works and think like, well, I'm not that totally proud of this, but you know, he would have eventually put them out anyway, and he did obviously, But I think that was the initial epitus. I think that probably came from the publisher more than him, if I'm remembering correctly, and I might not be, because my Stephen King knowledge, although it spans nearly fifty fucking years, it ain't as sharp as it used to be because fifty years, yeah, well it's a lot. I mean, there's a lot that's more prolific.

I think probably, I don't know what you guys think. I think the behind the music probably hurt it the most in some ways, because if you watch it and it's i mean it's comedy, goal old it is, they are playing it definitely serious. It's very very that's the thing. There's no it's very very dour because that was the character, and it's played very seriously. But they don't really have the chops any of them to pull this off.

And the self seriousness of that, I mean, I think people were already sharpening there now when they saw the album cover and and he's wearing the like the guyliner and he's got like a soul patch and a full head of hair. When the guy in reality had okay, it was laughable and he was it was never going to come off after that. But I guess my theory is maybe in a different time, with more accepting you know, public, perhaps he could have just said, look, this is where my head is at right now. I'm gonna put this out. It's not country, but see what you think.

But somehow the wires got crossed and he felt like he had to make a grander statement and I'm not really sure why. Well, the thing about the behind the music that I was going to get to that, to me, the clincher is the whole premise that they have an actor, a younger actor that looks kind of like an Eddie Vedder cast off playing the og Chris Games, and the whole thing is he gets in a quote unquote disfiguringly a disfiguringly bad one for stan plastic surgery and then when he comes out look at like Garth Brooks, which what he had. I'm like is Garth Brooks have some esteem issues. Like it's not like it's not you know, I mean Garth Brooks isn't I mean I have Maybe he's a very upgrade. Okay, he described himself as a thumb and a cowboy hat, so I mean he's not that bad.

There's part of the reason I think he appealed to He's obviously his talent, but also like because I remember going to school, little roper kids and like their dads, some of their dads could look like Garths, Like Garth Brooks has like that every man kind of thing. Like that's not a bad thing. He's not a bad looking guy, but he's not like a pretty boy. He's not really handsome. He's not John Saxon, why I love John Saxon time.

But but it's the whole accident in plus, I'm sorry. The soul patch is a facial hair that is really hard to get away with. Like there there are exceptions, like there are in life. The very few guys, especially in the Garth Brooks age range, are good or not. It looks like a midlife crisis.

It's a cry for help. It's like, I'm still cool, guys. Look I got so definitely ever looked good on Ellwood and Jake Blues. There you go, arcle. It's a big musical wheel we're on.

It's fascinating though, And I'm glad that Garth Brooks did that. I mean, good for him. It was a misstep. He's fine, I mean he's still He had a concert in my parts of the world in Northwest Arkansas last year and there was such a huge turnout that it legit angered me because trying to navigate this town with that many people in a smaller college town was an ass pane and also having to see a bunch of like people yeehaw and Miles Savis, I believe once said something the fact that if you see a bunch of white people in a pickup truck going eeha, get the fuck out because something stupid's about to happen. That's a paraphrase, but I think he's right.

I think you got the spirit of the thing, the spirit the tenor Yeah. I just want to take a moment to say, like, you know, as much as I'm kicking David Fustino like he did, put that record out like he did marshal the forces and the creativity, and he produced that thing, and like good for him. It's who am I I'm just some guy a voice in the wilder spot. It is really fucking bad. It's way worse than Christy.

As you said, HP, it's it's ultimately just a passable adult contemporary as the Stephen saigal One was, as the Scarlett Johansson thing is. Really ultimately it's all just passable entertainment. I can't get all too angry about it. Hey, remember the grandfather of all of these. Oh my god, no, no, I can't listen.

I can never hate on this because of Rick James. Party all the Time is a banger, I mean, and it's less of a banger because of Ddie Murphy more because of Rick James being behind it. But it's Rick James. Rick James is legit, leg You don't get much more legit music wise than Rick James. I realize my timing is because we're discussing the worst of the worst with good old Lady Murphy's Party all the Time.

Because as you said, it's a really fucking good song. Ultimately, it's a great album and it is because of Rick James. So those are If Rick James had put that record out, we would all just be listening to Rick Rick James party all the time. I love him. It's a good album.

It is it though, Oh no, I mean it got worse. I mean think Eddie Murphy anything else. Well that Michael Jackson do it he did was really bad. You guys remember that What's Up with You? Yeah?

Yeah, that was that was a choice. Yeah. I find it's funny because I think that I always through the Holy Trinity of the eighties like Vanity projects, because you know, we got Eddie Murphy, as you mentioned, we mentioned Bruce Willis earlier. Of course you had Don Johnson with his LP and long form music video for Heartbeat, uh, which I believe Jones Jones Severance is in that video. Like it's crazy, Like I remember his Dweezel Zappa had like a Neon Green guitar.

Yeah. But that's the weird thing is that SAP like Johnson and Murphy got some really great legit musicians to work with them on those albums. I don't know about the Bruce Willis one. I know Motown released it, which is very nice for the current state of affairs. Okay, I know, but that was originally going to be my pick, but I felt bad and Bruce will was a great actor, Like there's no hate for Bruce Willis.

But he also put out like a long form video of all of those things where it was like an HBO you know, thanks. Some of it is very very funny, um and it's fucking bar music. It's bar band shit ultimately, you know what I mean, Like it's out on Motown. But really it's just like you know, Jay sub Jay Giles band level kind of shit is ultimately, So it's not that offensive. It ain't.

It ain't a Faustino level. I'm I'm I'm I'm angling guys to see which was the worst of the worst, because I still maintain it was Faustino. I think Chet Hanks, Oh yeah, shit, you're right, yeah, I think. I mean, it's Fastino. It's happening like now I know, but it's it's bad.

It's bad. It's like it's it's bad, uh Fastino. Though that cut, this is a musician par excellance going in waters that he should never have gone into. And I'm talking about Keith Moon, the dearly departed drummer from the Who. He put out a solo album before he died called Uh, two Sides of the Moon Moon.

You won't find a bigger fan of Keith Moon era Who then and then. I love Keith Moon. I think he's like as brilliant a drummer as you could ever hope for. But having said that, the man was no singer. Uh, and this and it's really a sad just to sad state of affairs because he just I don't know, this is a vanity project in the sense that I'm sure he just figured, well, I'm Keith Moon, I'm popular and this is you know, maybe I can you know, earn a few bucks off of this and whatever, and I don't need to, you know.

But it's bad. I mean, it's mostly covers I think he did in my life by the Beatles. I think he did some. Maybe there's a Lenin cover on there somewhere perhaps, But it's just not it's just sad, not good. Actually, I'm looking at it here, I'm looking at the producers.

Among the producers, are you ready for this? Father Maloone, Steve the Colonel Cropper. So once again it comes three hundred and sixty degrees all the way back to the Blues Brothers. All Roads lead to Chicago, Sweet Home Chicago. Yeah, so that's so.

Yeah. I don't I don't have any big up on that. I just I remember getting excited when they reissued it because I never heard it and I picked it up and I was immediately disappointed because he just he sounds awful. I don't know if you know that he's playing drums over the whole CD. So it's it's bad, sad, really, you know.

I don't want to end on a sad note, though. Can we have a little bit at least a tiny bit of love for Richard Harris and his musical endeavors? McArthur Arthur Park? Oh yeah yeah? And that gave us a big at the great SETV sketches with Dave Thomas doing his amazing Richard Harris and day like the Long Like Extended Dance Mix pile.

I just saw. I love SETV. I just saw like there was a sketch where they were kind of making fun of M who was Rick Morandis was doing George Carlin because Carlin apparently I had gotten sort of lazy in his comedy rock morandis does an amazing anybody and his Carlin is fantastic anyway, I'm sorry, Yeah, yeah, it's a and you know Richard Harris that I mean Ernest Holy, I mean they he should have changed his name to Ernest Ernest Harris because his his performance of Accarthur Park and My Boy h which our late friend Richard I used to torment with and he would just chuckle and just be like good lords. And I gave the LP to him for his birthday and so I'm an asshole, I guess, I don't know. It was it was fun.

It was fun. Richard Harris is great and uh and MacArthur Park's amazing. Donna Summer's version is technically better, but I have love in my heart for the og. Well, you know, he was he was always an already an accomplished singer. We had him, we had him singing Camelot like, let's yeah, let's get out of the negative into the positive, accentuate the positive of as Dean Martin used to say, uh final spin of the record, Ladies and Gentlemen, HP, Yes, sir, he said, album based it out of how vain you are?

And we all know you are. Would you call that album? I would call that album dim commercial prospects. I love that you used to undercut everything I slagged you down for verse a twist. You want my like?

Do you want the musical genre or the actual album title? Both? The musical genre that would be like, uh, cabaret cabaret sort of gothic murder ballads, and the album would be called erotic clown murder ballads. I think it would be funny. I want to add that my list right now.

Honestly, I think it would be fun I don't say it would be good because I have no unlike Unlike your two gentleman, especially our beloved HP, who is a wonderful musician, I have no musical acumen, but I love music. I got a lot of heart, to quote Sanders loss from a straight to Hell, got a lot of heart. As for me, I went full vein Father Malone, Blessed in the West, Oh shit. And the music would be a sort of a like a TROPICICALI that's what I go for, just sort of a happy beach music with a country Western Mexican flavor. Take take take my money, right, yeah, just take it because I want that and I want I want your dim commercial prospects too.

Yeah, that's the best title I've ever heard. That's like as an album title. I love it. Yeah, that title cries out for massive sort of setting myself up to fail because you kind of figure there must be an irony to it, and it's it couldn't. But now the actual fact is it probably would have very dim commercial prospects.

So what are you gonna do? All right? Then? Listen, ladies and gentlemen, thank you all for joining us here at Noise Junkies and dipping your toe into the ocean that is ultimate vanity. Heather, tell us what you're up to?

Well up on my website Mondo Heather dot com. I just put out a new article about some of my favorite scenes of the various shades of love and cinema, So please check that out and keep up with me there and on social media and Patreon under at Mondo Heather. Yeah, go seek her out. As for you, HP, what are you up to? I am up to no good.

I am the co host of the Wolf and Raisin the Bandit Check podcast with the esteemed colleague to my left father, Malone. We also co host The Night Mister Walters a taxi podcast. I do the occasional spot on Culture Cast with the current Company occasionally and also listen my music appears here and there and the weird Way network. I'm on Astounding Tales of the Public Domain. Can you hear hear me?

Be there and elsewhere, including the Bumpers on this very network. That's me. You've already twice listened to the music of HP did the bumper and our theme song. As for me, if you want to hear anything I do, go to Weirdingwaymedia dot com. HP mentioned Astounding Tales of the Public Domain.

One of the shows I do midnight viewing, the Night Gallery podcast. That's another one. Hey, Chronicles from the Crypt. That's an old one that's already done. You can listen to all of it and it's entirety.

That's about Tales from the Crypt. Everyone loves it right because it was the best. It wasn't If you listen to our episodes you'll you'll understand why. And we're huge fans anyway. Oh also go to Fatherblone dot com that that that'll like you to all the crazy visual bullshit that I'm up to.

Anyway, Thank you all for joining us. Here on noised Junkies. I don't have a catchphrase. I always stumble at the end here. I'll think of it maybe four episodes in