Modern Influence and Closing Remarks

What's with this band anyway I don't get it, can you please explain? Wait, like, band slain? Mm. S! Hi guys. Hello and welcome to Bandsplane. How are you? What's up, Boisey? Is it Boise? You guys, I'm so sorry. It's so inappropriate that I don't know that yet. Who did? Jewel, like my hands are small, I know. That one? I feel like it's like slightly inauthentic for us to hit it with Boise. Like when people say Los Angeles like that. Well Yeah, kind of. I don't know. I don't know if there's an ethnic flair to it being boisey or boisey. Well It's French. Okay. You can't be racist against French people. That's not possible. Okay, true. Um really loving the vibes here, you guys, I gotta say. Um Okay. Proud, proud town. Um all I did today was shop, if I'm being honest, but Fucking I scored. I went to Graveyard Vintage. Shout out Graveyard Vintage. Got an amazing urge overkill shirt, which I genuinely feel like I stole from them because the price was so low. And you bought me a sweatshirt. I bought you a sweatshirt. It said talentless. And then the back said please wash your hands. Yeah. In fairness, I send it to you being like, This is my sweatshirt of my life and you were like, Can I have it? I was like you could buy it for me instead of famously Talent Ted, but yeah, you can have it. Um What else did I do? I ate at Jersey Mike's Sampled I sampled the local cuisine. I'm s I didn't have time. I'm sorry. Someone sent me a really long list of good restaurants and I was like, There's a Jersey Mike's right here, so we're just gonna get a quick Mike's way and hit the road. Um, thank you guys for coming out. I'm sure there's like eight really cool bands playing right now and you guys made the choice to come listen. Life without buildings. That's what we're talking about today. Okay, was that like you guys are just clapping because you're just happy to be here, or you actually know what this band is? Okay, amazing. And who Who caught uh producer Dylan live and in the building just before us? Another fabulous podcast music people. Um shout out Producer Dylan always. The wind beneath my wings still. Um all right, Sabrina, should we get into it? Yeah. Oh you guys, I'm so sorry. This isn't gonna be five hours. I hope you didn't make plans. Well, you're gonna be here at the the turn of midnight. With the extensive discography. Yeah. Imagine, imagine like actually we're doing Guided by Voices. We're gonna be here till Sunday. Hope you brought snacks. Just analyze every single word of that one album. Sabrina Yeah, see. Can you tell me about your personal history with Life without buildings. Did I even say that you do blonde shell? She's also known as Blonde Shell, I'm sorry. Um, okay, so my personal history is basically I was on tour like four years ago and we were in the van and somebody else who's not me was sitting in the front Picking the music. And It was Juno and I was like what is this? I really like this. Um but I didn't look into it. I didn't listen to the record. Nothing. I just was like, Oh, I really like the song and has like a weird name and it's stuck in my head. And then I would say like two years later, I was walking my dog and for some reason I was like, Oh, I'm gonna revisit that album that I heard on tour. It just came into your mind. Yeah. And I listened to Sorrow, which I think is like maybe the last song on that record. I'm not I'm not a kind of listener like I go through every song in order. Okay. I just like bop around based on the title. It's totally fine that they meticulously sequenced that album. Um probably took hours of days to do it. I myself care about album sequencing. Not even your own? Like No, I do care about like w when it's my own, like I care about you better you better be listening to the third. But when I do it I can do it. Yes, like the seconds at the end matter how long it is from one to another. When I'm listening to someone else's I'm like I like that title Or I don't like that title and that's how I'm gonna listen. So um I listened to Sorrow. Yeah. And I was walking in the old Los Feliz. Los feliz. Correct. And I was just like Holy shit, this person's voice is it's not like an intellectualized thing. You just listen to something and you're like, Oh, my life is suddenly better. Yeah. I've gone from having a horrendous day to life is beautiful and every step I take is peace. Wow. And it was just simply one of those things. And then from there it went back and was like, Okay, now I actually have to listen to the record. And then had the sad discovery that there is only, in fact, one record. Simply one. There's simply one record and a live. Yeah. Record. For like an overview, guys, Life Without Buildings is a Scottish band. They're from Glasgow. Um they formed in ninety nine, released one album and broke up in two thousand two. But I think there's a lot of merit to talking about them today because This one album is actually really Well, as Sabrina said, incredible, but also like Kind of unlike anything I think that had come out. at the time, like and I think it kinda launched a bunch of ships. different artists that Coming into the two thousands I can really hear bit of that influence, or if it's not influence, at least like the wave of a thing that was starting. Also a reason to talk about it is because they went viral on T. Um and are reuniting. And our reuniting uh I don't know if it's because they went viral on TikTok, although I'm sure When did they go viral on TikTok? Twenty twenty one. So it's been they're reuniting because They were on a subsidiary of Rough Trade and it's the Rough Trade fifty year anniversary in November, so they're reuniting. But I'm sure the TikTok virality didn't hurt. Like I'm sure Rough Trade's not like phoning up XYZ band that made one album and no one gives a fuck about it. Yeah. No so true. Well let's take it let's take it from the top, Ben. Okay. As we do. Nineteen ninety nine. It's the summer. There are uh a few men. Will Bradley, Chris Evans, and Robert Johnson. Johnson. Chris Evans, isn't that also an actor? Yeah, it's a Captain America, is it not? Same guy. Same guy. Yeah, he was also in Life Without Buildings. He has a diverse and storied career. Looks amazing. Does is that does when you look at Captain America, is it giving like you made some like bizarre post punk in nineteen ninety nine? No. You know my favorite one of this, we were talking about it. You guys watch The Pit? Hell yeah, brothers. So tonight. I know. I kinda gotta rush home right after this. I also can't see anybody after wrap it up early. Um but Dr. Abbott, Sean Hattie, was in bands before he was acting. Like were they good? I c I even with my exceptional skill set. I could not unearth any audio. If anyone out there listening to this podcast just by a miracle was in a band with Sean Hattie in the nineties, he said one sounded like Tool Bang my line, babe. I need to hear these. Desperate to hear it. Desperate. Um anyways, we've digressed. So these three men uh were ex students of the Well, I think two of them were ex students of the Glasgow School of Art, but they were still kind of banging around Glasgow. Decided to start a band. Um, they named it Live Without Buildings after a song it was in nineteen eighty one B Side by the group Japan, the English New Wave band. They didn't actually particularly like Japan, I think. They just liked the name Of that song. Fair enough. Do you feel that's a good band name? Life Without Buildings? Mm-hmm. Um Yes? My here's my problem. This is my only problem. Life without buildings and their one album name any other city. Yeah. Are confusing because they're both have that like municipality. City concrete Vibe comes to mind. So for a while there I was like, is the band any other city? Or or is the band. It's good though. I'm traditionally a huge fan of like sentence band names. 'Cause it's like a little bit giving like we're playing third stage at the Warp Tour, come on down. Do you know what I mean? Like Yeah. It's a little like intellectualized. Yeah. I've I've talked about it here before, but if I had a band like that, Third Stage at Warp Tour, my band name is Corner of Solace. I'm shocked that that doesn't exist. I know. Don't take it, you guys. There's still time for me to form my um third stage warped tour band. Okay, so Robert said, I was at the Glasgow School of Art around the same time as Sue. Sue Tomkins, the singer. But didn't really know them very well until later when we're all involved in the scene. So that Sue Tomkins was in An art collective. It was called Elizabeth Go She had a couple of other female. women with a Y artists, um, with her, including her twin sister Haley Tompkins. And you from what I understand, she was already doing a similar form of the art she continues to do this day. It's a performance art which involves spoken word. Which so they saw her kind of doing this and they were like She should we need a singer. She should be our singer. And the reason they needed a singer was because they had started a band just in theory, like I often do, um, with not writing one note of music, rehearsing, or doing anything. And they got asked to play a show. And they're like, Oh, okay, we're gonna need a few songs and also probably a singer. They also said Robert said. Drunken conversations about the go betweens. Love them. And that kind of thing. And the ho Red House painters. Love. Tarnished, I know, but you can we can still target we like the music. The artist from the artist. Yeah. Um which I famously am quite comfortable doing. And Nick Drake and that kind of stuff. So they were kind of inspired by this world of music. And then also there was a lot of talk about joy division. Which, by the way, every single one of the bands and artists you just named are entirely different. Yeah. I guess there's like the Red House painter's Nick Drake. Kind of similarity in a way. Beautiful sounding man. Sad music. Sad, clear guitar tones. Without you is on my life amounts to Go betweens is so ha like I mean, it's not happy music, but like upbeat acoustic driving stuff. S And then Joy Division is obviously entirely different post-punk guitar tone sound. Something you said to me before we came out here was that you feel like the thing with those references, even though they're so different, is that they all kinda have that same vibe. Yeah. They give you a similar feeling. I think that like they were taking feelings. And also like w I mean we'll get into it when we talk more about the album, but there's like An austerness to the production that reminds me a little of Joy Division, even if doesn't musically sound the same. Anyhood, you guys, we've just formed the band though. We're we're forming the band. And they play their first show. They they write a couple songs. I believe it was three. And they have their first show in Glasgow. And then they've started playing a couple of shows here and there, and they play their first show in London in late ninety nine. They Robert said, like, Oh, we just did it because people asked us to. They're ever real forest gumpass story over here where they're just like, We made a band, it had a cool name. Then we found our singer and then people. Also, like we have three songs and we're playing a show. Only in the nineties or before that could you play a show and have your set length be twelve minutes. Yeah. Like that would not happen today. It's like forty minutes, no less. Because people want their money back. Yes. 'Cause they're like, could you just do it twice? Yeah, I mean I really like it when a band plays the same song twice. I don't know that I've actually ever seen that happen. Military Gun does it all the time and I love it. I believe I love God God Owes Me Money. I would want them to just play it over and over again. But I feel more bands to do this if you guys are listening. Maybe I'll do that. Do it. Like what's your like m hit? I mean if it was me picking, I would say do Olympus twice. It's kind of a downer. Yeah, downer. Anyways. You can't do it, depressing music. Play the jam twice. Everyone loves it. Um I don't th this is not what they did though. They played it, I believe, a thirteen minute set. Anyway, so they do this London show and I did some digging, as is my want. 'Cause in the store in the greater story it's like and then they just wrote they got a rough trade single and I was like that's something that's doesn't that doesn't not even in nineteen ninety nine does that happen. Like you just play one show in London, someone's like, Would you like to put out a seven inch? Will Bradley, the drummer's old roommate and bandmate, this guy Glenn Johnson was the label manager at Rough Trade. And so he was like What up, Glenn, bro? Not talked in a while. Uh I have a band. And Glenn was like Okay, I'll listen. And he said, This is his quote. My initial reaction to that tape was one of perplexity. Sparse cable tight songs with complex angular signatures that reminded me much of the go betweens before Hollywood album a lot. Glenn heard go betweens. A loft though. What I perceived to be some kind of Karawakian stream of consciousness and poetry spat with tigger like enthusiasm by vocalist Sue Tomkins. Man, he described it way better than I could have to be T BQH. Um Was it good, was it bad, was it genius, and needed a second opinion. I kinda love that though because this is a polarizing band. I do feel like when you hear this band for the first time, it's not like Some other bands where you're like, Okay, like this is very legible to me. It's immediately kinda like, Wait, what? I have a hot take. Please. I think if you have good taste and you hear this band, it's not polarizing. I think if it's twenty twenty six. That's my hot take. It's amazing guitar parts and guitar hooks. And every tone is fantastic. It's just a band in a tight room. Everybody's in one room. Yeah. Vocals are great. Lyric are great. The vocals are great, but they are odd. Odd in that they're spoken. But it's not like Bjork singing. No, no, but it's like remember like there's no dry cleaning yet. You know what I mean? Like I think it's it's impossible to like maybe hear it Before this was like so much of a thing. Although I mean it reminds me a little, it's a little slitzy too, which no one mentions, but I don't know. Tell me if I'm being crazy, because you know famously I don't actually understand music, which is absolute fucking miracle that this is the job that God gave me. Like when I'm listening, I hear American football. Like in the the music part. Like the guitar parts to me sound really kind of American football. Am I crazy? You're not crazy. They're also both like I know. from reading that the guys in the band don't want to be called math rock. Right. But but that's what kind of American football was doing too, right? Yeah, both of them have like odd time signatures. It sounds right as a listener because even if something has an odd time signature, it should still feel right. Right. You should never listen to music even if it's math rock and be like Okay, now I'm following along. Now here we are again. Like it feels normal. So you've come out against Noise Rock here on this podcast. Yes. You've come out against Shellac. Yes. But what I'm saying is like Both of those bands have complicated, sort of intricate time signatures and arrangements that sound very natural. Yeah. And guitar tones are something that's like. Yeah, I really hear that. Anyways, back to good old Glen. Glenn was like I needed a second opinion, so I handed the tape to Jeff Travis. Famously head of Rough Trade, signed the Smiths, et cetera. Um, and waited. It didn't take long. What is this? Where did you find it? Followed by a sharp volume increase on the stereo, which was back then rough trade shorthand for Pass the Checkbook. I like that. I like that. That's Yeah. I like that a lot. So they passed the checkbook on over and they put out the first single, which was The Lean Over. B slash W Miss Viral. New Town. Lil Lily Nover if if you guys don't know is the song that went viral on I mean I'm not a TikTok anybody, but I just m myself just recently made a get ready with me video. I see you on there with that camera all the time. All the time? Yeah, it's like back on the front facing camera. I love the front facing camera. Not enough that I'm good at it, but enough that I will ask you to get ready with me for the Angel Dust show. I feel like if you're Above seventeen. It is not natural to make TikToks. Yeah, I agree. Also I'm like, What are these people? Fucking Steven Spielberg? Like I don't have time to edit this. Like how do how much time does it It takes me like three hours to edit one. Also I feel like they just have these like suction cups and then the camera will be like On the ceiling or on the computer. Do you have it? I bought some suction cups. How are you gonna how are you gonna get ready with me if it's not on the mirror? Um anyways, back to the leanover. I don't I don't wanna talk about the songs right now 'cause I wanna do it in the context of the uh album, but I'll just know they put out three singles and they were all produced by a guy named Andy Miller. Who has done a lot of stuff, but prior to that, I think maybe the biggest things he had done was he worked on the first three Mogwai albums. Yeah. Glaswegian legend. Um Right before the album comes out, I I believe it was right before Life without buildings open for the strokes. The stroke's first ever, I believe, headlining gig in London. There's like a whole myth of It was supposed to be life without buildings, headlining, and the strokes like bumped them down, but they say that's not true. They did say that, um, this is Robert said, All I remember is breaking a string. The drummer guy was nice and the others were a bit Marty. What does Marty mean? Marty's like bad attitude like Well of course like we know that like little bitches basically. Yeah. I'm just I'm simply quoting, um I wasn't there. I don't know what Julian Casablancas was getting up to, uh at the Camden Monarch in February of Two thousand one. Will Bradley was like, We didn't play with them in any meaningful way. It was a booking accident. I remember watching them for a few minutes, then I remember leaving. Damn, drag their ass to hell. He was like, That's fine. Sometimes we really connected with brilliant bands we met on tour, like Ninety Nine from Melbourne or the Desert Arts from Belfast. I like how he's just like fuck the strokes. Um He he even said, Whatever the strokes were, in my mind, at least, we were a fundamentally different kind of thing. If we were where they were, then we were clearly in the wrong place. That's true. I think so. You know, I didn't see it mentioned anywhere, but another band I hear a lot of that I guess I'd have to I should've looked this up before, but I think was either contemporaneous to Life Without Buildings or a bit after is Block Party. I think of them as a bit after, but maybe that's just because they're industrial sounding and Life Without Buildings is so not. Formed in nineteen ninety nine, same time. That's crazy. They feel so much later to me because well, I guess also maybe it's just an em I don't know, they feel more like they played so many American festivals. Well they l they lasted much longer than Life Without Buildings, but I I hear a similar You know, like Yeah. When did Silent Alarm come out? This is like a real cool T shirt Name Three Songs moment for me. Um, this is why I feel like they're later because Life Without Buildings had already put the record out and broken up. Yeah by the time that block party had silent alarm, which was really like kind of the big record. Totally, which actually bolsters my theory that perhaps they were influenced by them. 'Cause they would have definitely I think known about life without buildings. I I don't want to put words into Bloody's mouth, but for a second that Block Party existed, they were covered by Yeah, I could see it. Alright, any other city is the singular album. February twenty sixth, two thousand one, Tugboat Records, subsidiary of Rough Trade, Andy Miller is producing. Um I want to talk a bit about what they said about the inspiration. Robert Johnson said, I was listening to a lot of American kind of post rocky stuff. And earlier postpunk stuff. Things like Don Caballero, Mission of Burma. But we all had very wide taste and a pretty keen ear for pop. Sue listened to TLC and a lot of R B stuff. So basically Sue Tomkins said multiple times, like Oh, that's cool that you guys like the fall. I don't know who that is. Like she was not into this kind of music. She really just liked pop music and TLC. Do you feel like as a vocalist knowing that that was her inspiration, like Does it make sense to you to hear what she does with that? It literally makes no sense. Even th even a little bit that it sounds like rapping? It doesn't sound like rapping to me. It sounds sort of like Getting. To me? How come it's cool when she does it and not when Anthony Kitas does it, I must ask you. It's so true. You know what? I think it's cool when Anthony Kitas does it. I'm just asking the broader question. It feels so Of a lineage of I'm sorry to bring it here, but just like Women vocalists having that sort of um attention to detail that you just don't really get from men vocalists from that time. Was like a really inspired use of wordplay. Very, very. But I feel like there was sort of that like okay, we're not allowed to do a lot of stuff, but what we are allowed to do is be like really esoteric and Kind of a stream of consciousness. Consciousness way of Writing very interesting. She's said it wasn't at all stream of consciousness. It's all very carefully crafted. She wrote and rewrote and made like which m actually makes so much sense to me because like you were saying earlier, like when you hear this, it doesn't contradict itself, like the music itself, but also I think the combination. It's because the way she places the words atop the music. is like in conversation to me. I like that is like supposed to be there. You know? Yes. That's the only element that to me makes the rap reference make sense. Because she's a rapper. She's basically a rapper. But it's sort of like you listen to it and when I started hearing that record for the first time, I was like, There's just no way that any of this is planned out. You say the same word fifty times, and every time you say it, it's a different delivery. And so I was like, This is obviously just like she's scatting on top of this stuff, whatever comes to mind. But it's not a freestyle thing. It's very planned out. And that's the only thing that sort of reminds me of some types of rap because I feel like it's made to feel off the cuff and it completely works. All the diction, all the delivery makes it feel so off the cuff. That's a that's the TikTok barrel song FY. It's so random 'cause that's not like a stand out song to me. From the rest of the song. I think it's a stand out song to me, but it lends itself to girls lip syncing and it's mostly women lip syncing. I mean, I'm like what I was just doing. Like that part, you know? Uh it's sassy. Um I'm sorry. Okay, so back to their influences. They also said Bit of the Smith, The Fall, Velvets, which we were texting earlier, burning podcast material. Um, that a lot of their guitar and especially drums, I think kind of simple drum sound like Mo Tucker's Bove and Underground. Um Modern Lovers, Television. Um He also said we were really anxious not to be perceived as an art band, and it's like, Well good fucking life. Did you can you hear yourself? Literally that's literally what it is. What did you think you were gonna sound like? Metal? Like this is this is the definition of an R Rock band. Yeah. He also said Sue had never heard Patti Smith or the slits before she joined the band. D why would she lie? Well, I don't think she lied. I'm just like, does he have the story straight? Because it sounds like horses. Things can sound like a thing while being in a vacuum. It's not like somebody today being like, Oh, I haven't heard of this band that had. She had heard of Patty Smith, but she would have had to like go and sit and listen to it and she was busy listening to the radio. I just feel like maybe it's one of those things where like she wasn't a fan, but it was just In the ether. sort of like big songs were just around. Maybe in nineteen ninety nine. Eighty nine? Ninety nine? Well if you're gonna be nineteen ninety nine getting points. You grew up with that music getting it. Yeah, she was born in seventy one, so in ninety nine she would have been like twenty eight or whatever. So the timing kind of checks out. Yeah. Okay. So you're calling her a liar. I'm not calling her a liar. I'm saying that's the thing. Sabrina Tidelbaum from Blonde Shell Claire. No Sabina Tidelbaum from Blonde Shell literally loves you. She would like to do a change in her life. Um Okay. Stop lying. This is a quote from Sue. I've not really heard the fall, but I saw Marky Smith do a song about a telephone on the old gray whistle test with Cold Cut, and I thought he was pretty great. That was cute. That was like in in 2001 or Whatever. Um It's interesting, they were also really into like techno and like warp records and stuff, but I also don't hear any of that in here. I don't think they did it. I think they were gonna they were thinking about putting synth or put drum machine, they just didn't ever do it. I can hear that. Another band they referenced was Noi, and that actually makes so much sense to me. Okay, say more. Are you a Noy girl? Not really. Not distinctly not. Anyways, I like Noy a lot. No is like for me very like smooth brain lobotomy music sometimes, even though I know it's very complicated, but I just put it on and I'm like, that's right. No thoughts. I could hear that in the drums. Yeah. Yeah. Thank you for bringing it back to music. Um they also listen a lot to Missy Elliott rap. Really? I just have no concept of time because Missy Elliott feels okay you know why it is? It's because when I grew up I was listening to Missy Elliott. It's also because how old were you in nineteen ninety nine? Two. Yeah. I was listening to Missy Elliott, and that was my shit, and I didn't find Life Without Buildings until like two years ago. Yeah. So in my mind I'm like, they're it's entirely different things. No, this was big, big thing. Thanks for bringing that timeline. It was a little different. P post her like I can't stand the random TV big moment. That was like more mid nineties, but So Sue had taste. Sue had great taste. You mentioned uh esoteric, she was very into esoteric quote literature. Queen. I thought it was really interesting the way they write the songs. So Basically Will said, Rob, Chris, and me would jam out more or less finished tracks. Then Sue would come down and listen. If she was feeling it, a song could come together quickly with maybe a few easy changes. If she wasn't, the only option was to ditch the whole thing and start again. She was kind of the boss. Big time. Well, kinda makes sense, because if you're gonna write lyrics in that way and you're like, Oh I'm not fucking with this song, like how could you do what she does over it? Yeah. Okay, I wanted to ask you a question. So you guys heard Lean Over. I want you to know that's like five full minutes of like Uh-huh. Uhhuh. If I lose you, if I lose you. Uh huh. Uhhuh. Uh-huh. Uhhuh. How do you do that live the same all the time? She doesn't. So here's the thing. Everybody thinks it's so stream of consciousness because there's so much repetition. Yeah. But I think It's structured that way with all of the repetition and all of the Bring stuff back that started the beginning of the song at the end of the song because it creates the freedom for her to do a different delivery every time. Like I think if she played ten shows She might have that structure to fall back on of like here are the lyrics. But she would be like, Okay, my freedom for performing this song and the performance art aspect of it is me being able to do like uh versus uh huh. You know what I mean? Kinda. Her delivery, the lyrics are the same. She'll know the structure. Like you're learning a song. Okay. But the delivery each time is like I felt like saying it this way. Right. No, I felt like saying it this way. I think it's just more like keeping up. Like she's constantly There's like no real breaks in her delivering her vocals. How do you rem how do you rem like you can't say a totally different thing. Like yeah, you can say a haunt differently or if I lose you differently, but you have to say the thing and there's so many lyrics. I saw a video of them playing live and she had she has lyrics next to her. She like is going through the sheets. Like she can't do it. I don't think she could do it without referencing. But I think that's the scaffolding basically for her performance. And then the art for her is being like, Okay, now that I have these parameters, I can play play around. Right. Yeah. And there's a muscle memory aspect to it too. Right. Where like the if a los, if a loss, if you lose, uh huh, uh huh, uh huh. Like You don't just think about it. You just remember that. Your brain just remembers it. Right. It it it it does it's like percussive. It almost feels like playing an instrument. Yeah. So maybe it feels like the same way you always remember how to play your guitar or whatever. I think so. Here's what Sue said. When we were in rehearsal, the way we used to work with the guys would do the music and play it constantly to me. But I used to really enjoy that. It was no pressure. Looking back, they were incredibly patient and natural about it. It was a very natural thing. It's like they let me absorb. It was the only way for me to get into what they were doing. Could have been electronic, could have been more percussive, could have been anything. They let me absorb myself in it and then be able to start to go. Okay, I've got an idea in my head that goes with that. And then I would make notes about that and then type them all up and then go to the guys with just mega piles of A4 pads of stuff. A four. UK. Absorption, I think, is such a good word. Cause as much as I think she is very particular, clearly and refined refining about exactly what words go where. It feels a little bit like s like speaking in tongues. You know what I mean? Where you get caught up in a thing and then it's just like she's like, Oh, I'm ful and this is what came out, you know? Yeah. I mean, I think that's the sort of hypnotic element of it for us listening. But maybe not for her doing it. I don't know. I I have to imagine I don't know if she said anything about it, but I have to imagine that if it feels so comfortable to us that hypnotic part of it that makes us feel like we're not like I wouldn't listen to one of those songs and think to myself, Okay, this is the forty sixth time I've heard this word. You're just like in that world. And so I think that that has to be sort of intentional, but not in like a calculated, I'm trying to get people to like my song by making them hypnotic way, more in like a I need to create this world for myself to survive for some reason. How much you like dissociate from reality when you're doing that, you know? Or from like even the words. Like you know when you say the same word over and over again and it's like no longer a thing. When you listen to the lean over all the way through You start to hear different things. Like if illusia starts to sound like illusion. Some people thought it sounded like fluja street yeah, illusive. It just starts to completely t every time you listen to it, it's like different words are just so cool. I can't think of another type of artist that I hear that in. I kind of feel like that with some of the Pixie stuff where I'll think I knew what the lyric was and then eight years later I'll be like, Oh, this is what they were saying. Yeah, I guess Black Francis is also kind of percussive in the way he's he Punctuates. But like also kind of lazy with pronunciation. Yeah. Will s Will Bradley said about Sue, she's a genius, but beyond that, she has killer timing. She was never in the wrong place, never on the wrong beat. So much preparation and then also so many freestyle calculations. Nobody but Sue could explain how she does what she does. I think that's so cool. And it's like it's so cool. When you hear it's like it sounds like she's stuttering, but those are written stutters. She planned those. It also feels like Today, most music that you hear is very I think part of it is just like the collapse of the industry and the fact that the artist has to think about how to get people to hear the music constantly. Artists have to wear nine million hats and so it's kind of like so it's kind of like impossible to separate the fact that you're making music that you know you want people to hear. Right. But when I hear this and when I hear like sorrow and there's the line that's like your eyes are like lotus leaves. Yeah. There's it's kind of like you're looking at two people having their own thing. You're like looking through the window. Yeah. And she's there is zero semblance of her writing this music thinking, oh, people are gonna hear it. I don't think they did think people were gonna hear it. I think that's like a big part of the story of the band and also a big part of why they end up breaking up because I think this was just like a a fun laugh for them. And then it got like again, for us gummed its way into being like really serious all of a sudden. And then they they were like, Well Or not they, Sue Tompkins in particular was like, I don't think you I don't want to do this. Huh? Fire. So sick. So so sick. Imagine like them being like, you're in a cool band now. Me? I'd be like, thank you. Yes, but it would be like really felt it. Yeah, she was like, I want to go back to doing um spoken word performance art. So cool. We talked about a little bit about the austere nice of the production, but Robert said we didn't want the record to be quite unadorned. We were thinking about things like Marky Moon television. That very dry hard sound. I think we were too green to get that by the time of the album. Someone called the record mid fi, which is probably accurate. It was high fi recordings of a low fi band. Let me tell you what, when it came out, it had some mixed reviews. Very famously the enemy, the paper of music record. Give it a four out of ten. And said stuff. For some the scrape of fingernails on a blackboard is an exquisite sensation. Dentist drills provide a satisfying tingle. Animals dying in agony make a heavenly choir. And Sue Tomkins, idiosyncratic front woman of Life Without Buildings. Makes a beautiful noise. Are you at least happy that they're not really allowed to be this mean anymore? Oh my God. Thank God. I've thought about it so much. Thank God. Well they're like, and she's ugly. No, literally. I mean, they still do that to some people. Do they? Yeah, but it's rare, which makes it like kind of more impactful in all this. Who even cares about who even reads music criticism so much love and respect. There's like three music critics that anyone cares about and everyone else is like I didn't I'm happy for you or I'm sorry that happened, but everyone's a tough review. It's really mean. Okay, it's totally fine to be like, I hate the sound. Ca it is polarizing. But then at the end he's like Plainly she thinks she's Patty Smith reborn with an estuary accent. It's giving jealous. I was like It's literally giving jealous, don't you think? Well what are you fucking mis mis what was what was the psychic? Miss Cleo. I almost said Miss Claro and I was like no clear a beloved and wonderful uh pop uh beautiful artist. Um but maybe Miss Claro would be a really sick marketing thing for her to do. I bet you Miss Claro loves life without buildings. I see her Instagram post and she has good taste. She has great taste. We love Clara on this podcast. Anyways, Miss Cleo Like I'm like, why d how do you know what she thinks she is? Do you know her? No, literally. It's that it's that classic thing of a man being like, I know what this woman's trying to be. What mean while she was like, I've never heard Patty Smith bitch? Literally Also Estuary for you guys, I had to look it up. It's like a specific accent of a part of England. Just in case you were wondering what that word meant. It like actually makes me so annoy to hear this. You're retro I've been retroactively, like extremely angry at a review written twenty five years ago and like publicly dragged the person on the podcast. It's just like obnoxious intellectualizing of something that clearly just makes people feel good. Period. Well, I mean it was their kind their job to give reviews, I guess. Yeah, but this way of intellectualizing it and being like she has an estuary accent. Yeah. Just feels like it's missing the point. Hers is the sound of a performance artist having a self conscious breakdown. Which again, it's like so wrong. We just talked for like ten minutes about how non self conscious it sounds to us. I don't wanna say it, but No, literally, that's what I'm trying to say. Hashtag not all men, but definitely this man. The Guardian liked it, gave it three three stars, kind of, you know, invoke Oh we didn't silence our grandma Literally. Grandma's grandma's should we call should we phone her in? Fuck no. Does she like your music? Yeah. And she comes to some shows. Do you feel weird to talk about sucking dick in the bathroom when your grandma is at the show? Distinctly, yes. But she told me not to worry about that. Oh like a cool girl. Literally literally I didn't bring it up. Because why would I do that to myself? And then one day she was just like, you know, you don't have to feel weird about that stuff. She also separates the art from the artist. No, the but the thing is, like my set just top to bottom is full of um things you don't want your family to hear. Yeah. So I actually try to get them to not go to the shows. That's I think that's smart. But then if the show goes really well, I'm like oh should have invited my family. I've talked about doing math on this podcast, but famously your parents listen? Absolutely They don't know what I'm on about. So I think they've tried, but they're like, okay. That's that's lovely. Do they have the same music taste as you? Are like similar? My parents? Some people have cool parents. Yeah, my parents love guided boys. No, my parents are Iranian immigrants. Um my mom loves Madonna and Hadaway. That's cool. My mom's like basically a gay man. Um and my dad I actually my dad Loves like Anne Magnuson. Randomly and like Persian funeral music. Alright, let's talk about the album. It opens up. I know you don't care about sequencing, but we're gonna do it in order, if you don't mind. Let's PS exclusive. I wanna m just mention this song is a jam. It's an incredible opening song. And also within it, Sue Tompkins repeats the words the right stuff forty four times. The right stuff I do feel like it's kind of no skips. I agree. Yeah. Um also I was reading about her saying which ones are her favorite. Yeah. And it's they're not the ones that are other people's favourites. No. She's like I like the short ones. Well it's 'cause she doesn't want to listen to herself. Oh right. Yeah, right, right, right. Do you relate to that? Or do you just like bang Von shell at the h at the home? I have a very complicated relationship with it. So it depends. So sometimes you're like hell yeah. Sometimes I'm like God sent me here to rock and roll. And sometimes I'm like Uh, why do I do why am I doing this? Yeah, I think that's I think it's normal. I can never listen to my own voice literally ever again. But there's a whole thing about that, like people are very uncomfortable. I'm very uncomfortable hearing my speaking voice. But not your singing voice. I've had to hear my singing voice a lot because when you record you just have to like pop vocals, which takes hours of listening to your own voice. Yeah. It's more like I think of it like utility. But with my speaking voice, I'm like I it snails on chalkboard. I recommend doing what me and Prolen had to do. I mean Pro Dillon didn't have to do it with her own voice. She unfortunately The first like three years of Band's plan we had to listen to every episode multiple times before it came out, and I think my ego died. Yeah. Like completely. It was I was just like I was like literally dissociating. I was like, I say like so many times. I had you know that galaxy brain meme? I was like Oh my god, my voice is annoying. And then it was like, Oh interesting. All of my thoughts and feelings are annoying. My personality is terrible. Everything about me is Unbearables. Yes, I'm not sure. And I should probably just walk into the ocean with the rocks. And then I transcended. And then I was like, who guess what? Who fucking cares? That was your ego death. You like it? Ego death via podcast. Listen, you don't like it? Leave a comment. I don't give a shit. Juno was the first song you heard. That's like interesting. Juno. Mm. It kind of sounds the most normal on the album, actually. Yeah, I think I agree. It kind of sounds the most like that time and the most like kind of Scottish, kind of post punky. And doesn't feature as much of that kind of repetition. It sound more like vocal melodies. I mean she does repeat a lot, but not as much as in the other ones. I like the one some like one of the three lines on here is my lips are sealed. Okay, let's talk about the leanover now. I couldn't really get obviously how can you ever get to the bottom of why something goes viral on TikTok or how, like who patient zero was. It's g just up to God. God picked some weird ones then. I know. In my none of that makes it to my algorithm, by the way, you guys. My algorithm is so fucking unhinged. Like if someone looked at my TikTok feed, I would be s humiliated. No, me too. But sometimes I'm like, How did this happen? And then I look at the comments and it's like I don't know what I could have possibly done to get me here on my FYP. Mine's like Do you want a quantum leap? And I'm like, I do want a quantum leap. Or it's like absolute like brain dead content of like, I don't even know where these apartments exist where everything is white and like a girl is just cleaning Nightly reset. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. And like the bowls of ice, like ice in different shapes, and it's like And I'm like you do this every night? And I like it. I want to it literally it feels like it feels like they've removed six lay of my fucking brain and it's just like Beautiful, smooth, not a hair as much as dolphin branch. And then I'm sitting on the couch being like, I know I should go wipe my fucking kitchen counter because that shit needs a wiping, but I'm just gonna watch this bitch reset her life for the next day. Do you ever see those like make my nighttime cocktail? Oh my god. Tart cherry juice. It's always tart cherry juice, babe. Magnesium powder. My nightly mock tail. I'm like God please, why can't I be like this? I desperate to be that. Remove a chunk of my brain so I can in my Stanley Cup. Um yeah, that's my that's my opinion. Like do you ever get the I'm gonna mess it up to like This is my five to nine before my nine to five. Oh, totally. I love that shit. Some of those are really depressing. Sure. But the I hate again, I hate to be a massandress, but when it's a man, it's always so fucking disgusting. It's like some guy who's like in the saddest apartment you've ever seen that looks like housing And yeah, like like preparing their like Tupperware of like ground beef and rice to like going on a r yeah, literally going on a run before they like pack their briefcase to go to their like mid level financial. And I'm like Why are you making con tell anybody about this? That's disgusting and sad. And when women do it, it's cute and fun. It's it's something when women do it, but it's definitely not obsolete. I should start making my The sad my five to nine. You can't do it. The sad thing about it to me, even though I am a massive consumer of those TikToks, is the like I'm optimizing my life in every waking moment. Absolute optimization. Like corn. Yeah. That is evil. Yeah. I al but then I also have a lot of TikToks about undoing the grip of capitalistic optimization on yourself. So I have a nice balance. Okay, put me on because I'm I'm not on too side of TikTok. Anyways, back to this TikTok Can you help me say this? Beeba dooby? Thank you. You like Beeba Doobie. Yeah, I've heard it. It's it's good. She's good. She's good. And she's cool. She has incredible taste. She also covered a Sundays song which brought a resurgence of the Sundays. I just haven't spent a lot of time listening to her music, but I in like I'm saying in the She had that song that's like I wish I was Steven Malcolmus. Exactly. She has phenomenal taste. She's cool. And she I do think she was like a big driver of this going viral because she did the lip sing to it. And I think it like upticked like crazy after because she has a huge following. Yeah. Sue Tomkins said, I was immediately struck by the fact that it was predominantly young women getting into it and sharing their videos. I was really moved by that. And mostly how you could see them just purely expressing themselves and hopefully feeling loads of freedom. That's the cutest thing I've ever heard. I love that she was like these girls wearing like a bra and like goth makeup in the mirror like tree themselves as a beautiful and pure expression. Maybe your band name could be Loads of Freedom. I feel like that has like a little entendre that I'm not. It definitely does. But that's what's kind of nice. Like whole. Yes. Different though. Although I know that wasn't in that wasn't the philosophical the void. She said that makes me feel really excited. They feel they can do that and be seen so easily and accessibly. Everything is open and somehow seems incredibly sensitive and sincere and transparent at the same time. When I sang the song live in any context, really, whether it was in rehearsals with the band or actually recording it in the studio or live on stage, I think deep down I always felt a sense of freedom and energy. And I used to like that. Yeah. Very moving. I wanna say something. And I hope this doesn't make certain swaths of the population feel bad. Um but my we were talking about this off stage, but my favorite sects of the band's playing fan base. I have two. twenty-two year old girls who message me and are like, I love pavement now. And I'm like, I'm absolutely doing God's work on this planet. You're gonna say that existing. I am I am um a just as simply a a mouthpiece of God here to get twenty-two year old girls to know about pavement. And then also there are a a m a much smaller but also mighty population of clergymen that listen to this podcast. That's right. There are multiple reverends and a Catholic monk who have reverence. Just saying. They they too seem to think I'm doing God's work. Another cool thing about the lean over, I I dug around the other songs and there are some here and there, but this one seems to have the most. There's a bunch of music references. We we were also talking backstage about how I love it when a song references other bands like that Red House Painter song that's like we're driving around listening to Han Oi Rocks and Social D. Like I I just love that. So in this one, she's like, What's up? What's up with you? What's up with your friends? High heels, high heels. Oh I MBV, MBV, MBV. You think that's my body valentine? A hundred percent. Yeah. Why was it just randomly repeat MVV five times? Was it confirmed? No. Oh, she was just like, What sounds really cool is those three letters. It could be anything. It could be anything. But you're probably right. This is your sleuth work. And then there's a later part where she says, Days like television, days like television, did it days like television. Not only is she talking about television, there's a literal television song called Days. Yeah, off Adventure. Timing sounds. Couple of these were called out on Genius, but I just want you to know the couple of them I came up with that they didn't know the annotators of Genius missed. And I did not go and annotate because that's freak shit. Because you're gatekeeping it for Pan Splane. That's right. Yeah. Now someone else can listen to this and go And then the last one is twelve o'clock, one o'clock, no pretending. Virginia looking at it last night, Virginia Plain. First single by the band, Roxy Music. Virginia Plain. Thought that was cute. I think that's very cute. That's my band's plane moment. I really like Young Offenders. I r love Phillip. Her the the thing about you would think that And maybe you wouldn't think this but I would have thought that sort of like scattered vocals would not possess emotional resonance. Do you know what I mean? Like But there's so many beautiful phrases in her lyrics and they always get me. That's kinda like the whole thing about jazz. I don't know about jazz famously. And I'm the whole shtick. That's literally the whole thing. is like you tell me right now that you know about jazz um I studied jazz in college because my boyfriend liked jazz and then my teacher pulled me aside and was like you gotta stop wasting your time You don't give a fuck about this. And I was like Many such cases. Thank God someone said that. I like that your boyfriend led you to jazz and mine led me to Mob. No, literally my boyfriend was Dad earbuffs if you got to this part of the podcast. I didn't know you were on that wave. Just briefly. Wow short twice. I've had a I've had a rich life full of varied experiences. And it's made me who I am today. Of course. Judgment from you. No, I don't know. Judgment No. I'm just saying That's their whole thing. Is like you're not thinking about it, but it's also kind of methodical, but you're also just like working within a framework so that you can actually be free within that framework. It's that whole idea of like a blank page is not liberating for writers because you're like limitations within which to be creative. Yeah, we always talk about it. That's kind of like Jaz and that kind of is like This too. Yeah, okay. I like that. See, that's why the guy was so mean. Shouts to your college boyfriend. Whiplash. Oh sure, great boy. Yeah. Gotta you gotta learn the rules to break them. How come you're so pretty? You too, but that's the lyric of the song. I literally was like, I know there's a catch. Sounds so nice. There's also a lyric in that one that says couldn't understand science, darling. Same bit. Once again, not a woman in stem. She was ahead of the times. Okay, this is the question I wanted about guitar things. On voice. Are you very familiar with this song? You want me to play a little bit of it? Can you play it? Yeah. Throughout the whole album. It's like they are experimenting with different tones that sometimes come in and are like, Boop, I'm just a voice that's coming in for this song. I'm a voice because you need another texture on this song. But like the core like if we're baking a cake The flower is that guitar tone. Okay. I would say. And I think there's nothing about that that is like, wow, this is such a unique and special tone. It's just very unfiltered, like sounds like strats going through a fender deluxe for the nerds. And it's just Fender if you're listening I would love a guitar as I'm forty three and wanting to embark on the new phase of my life where I'm in a band. Let Yassi learn guitar. Let Yossi rock. Let Y's see Rob. Okay, yeah. It's just like a classic like I think they're just You know, like on an amp. You'll have a reverb dial and you can literally have reverb that's built into the amp. Right. It sounds like they're using that and they're not even like I I don't know. This is just what I think. But I think they're not going through a ton of pedals. There's not a lot of effects. It's the same on the vocal and on the guitars. They're both like super kind of like Albini Raw. And that's what shout out. And that's what makes the voice and and the guitars as well feel like they're right there. Yeah. There's a like which also makes it a little more vulnerable, right? Because you feel like you're just like Yeah, you're like oh I'm in the same room as well. Um Also part of what I think makes those guitars sound so good is that everything you hear now that comes out now is overdubbed and overdubbed and overdubbed and has layers upon layers upon layers of stuff that you would never see live. Like But why do they do that? 'Cause it makes it sound fat and good. Okay. Do you do that? Hell yes. Okay. Hell yeah. There are not enough guitar players on earth. to be on stage for like all of the overdubs. Because you just sometimes not for every song, but sometimes you just want a wall of sound. Okay. Yeah. Exactly. Apart from the artist. Uh all comes back back to me. Um but it doesn't sound like there's any overdubs or like Frankensteining of oh I'm gonna take this piece and put it here. It's all just like performance. Like it's a lot of performance. I it feels to me like her vocals would just get lost And totally a wall of sound, if you will. I totally agree. Like they're so they're not fragile. I don't listen to her voice and feel like Oh, you have a fragile or delicate voice? But I think it would get lost. It's not like Like Dolores from the cranberries. Where it would like cut through. Yeah. It's not like that. But I think it could get lost. I love fourteen days 'cause just 'cause the premise is really funny, which she's like doing a countdown to when she's gonna break up with this guy. Okay. She thought it was really funny to say I'm leaving you in fourteen days. A fortnight. A fortnight. She said it. She was like it's but you wouldn't say a fortnight. Taylor S said a fortnight. Well. No comment. Do you know I'm gonna use Just means nothing else Alright, Newtown. Let's fucking go. See, I think New Newtown and Leanover being the two on the first single are also I think two of the kind of the polarities of this album. Newtown is more the fall. To me, like more leans a little more here. And lean over is like spring summer? Yeah. That's not what I meant. I meant the fall the band, but yeah. Sorry? I was like okay, I see it, like people are going back to school. It starts I forgot, I forgot, I forgot, I forgot, I forgot. Extremely Yossie and Perimenopauses. Can you explain that to me? Oh my God, you have so much to look forward to. Let me illuminate you, babe. A cool thing that happens in Perimenopause, a word I believe they just invented two years ago. Um is that you start to completely go brain dead. Oh great. And then you're like, Oh, that's really cool because my job is talking in in thoughts and sentences where I need to remember words. So that's an amazing thing to happen. I have only ever been exposed to perimenopause through one thing, and it's that Miranda July book. Yeah. That's the only frame of reference I have. We're not all like that. Okay. Yeah. But um Do you think this is the only rock music podcast that has mentioned Perimenopause this many times? No. I feel like this could come up in in other rock printing proteins. Do you think Zayn Lowe ever mentions Perry Menopause? You know what? I wouldn't put it past him. You're right. He I feel understanding. He's an ally. He's a total ally. He's totally an ally. No, I know, I'm being serious. He is. Hashtag not all men. No. Um This one yeah, this one just has so many good lyrics. I saw you today, you were like snow. Show me today. You were like snow, you're you're temp temporary. You're gonna you're gonna be gone, you're gonna melt away. Or also maybe you're gonna be a poet. Wait till delicate slipping through my fingers. Let y'all see rock happens and you see what beautiful lyrics. Interesting. So it's either gonna be a hardcore band or it's gonna be a scatting band. It could be bad. Or it might be a weird hybrid scattering and hardcore. Do you want to talk about sorrow, the a b uh song that you've been extremely preoccupied with? Yeah, play a little bit. So uh no Sorrow. She also kinda sings more in this song, right? Like a a little more v like normal vocal. Yeah, which I think is why it feels a little bit like a good access point. Yeah. But you guys the thing the thing about that to me is like the way like the tone of her voice, even though it's speaking It sounds like if you're talking to somebody like your friend comes over and it's been a long ass day and there's like the new past, blah blah blah. It's not like I'm going into the studio to sound good. And whatever, it's like the to actually achieve a vocal take that sounds like you're talking to a friend or someone you love. Yeah, yeah, intimacy, right? We're talking about it. There's a real sense of intimacy. I don't feel like Eddie Vetter is talking to me when he's like Jeremy spoken. I don't feel that was the opportunity to do my Eddie Veter. There was no reason for it. But I think Lou Reed had that. Hundred percent. Hundred percent. And I kind of think John Cale has that. Okay. And I feel like maybe more toxic people have that because it's That's true. That's true. Cohen has a bit of that. Leonard Cohen big time. But even Leonard Cohen, like First of all, the lyrics are actual poems. Right. So it's like doesn't feel like you're being spoken to in that way. But for Leonard Cohen stuff, it feels like okay, he went in and got a bunch of takes and was at the studio in New York sounding great and then left. This Probably. This sounds like It was not recorded with that in mind, genuinely. It just sounds like you have access to it's like a little window into somebody's life. This is really the way I would love to approach all of my life. With my therapist I call law. Okay, tell me more. Just go in troll mode. When you're like Okay. Just You know, you guys know what I'm saying. Like you just like Like when you're busy and your day is just like nothing. So with everything gets like who cares? You know, like and not in a who cares where you don't value what you're doing and try to do Properly with with a sense of like you know, intention and whatever, but it's more n like not getting I think there's like what's that that physics uh theory of like the observed versus the like unobserved, how things change when they're observed. Like I think we're all now constantly thinking about everything in the sense that it's gonna be observed. Yeah. Because of social media, maybe because we make things that are meant to be observed, but it's like, fuck, I can't think about that all the time because it makes me feel insane and terrible. Totally. And so I feel like going tralla la mode is like separating out of that and just being like, I'm just doing the things I'm doing tralla throughout the day. And like It exists outside of whatever it is gonna be to other people or to their observation, to their judgment. You know who really fucking I know this is corny, but that figure skater Lou That girl is like my Buddha. I'm like, did you see the Are you gonna drag her now? No, no, no. I love her. I love her But I just think it's interesting and was thinking about it in terms of like performing and performance anxiety and like stage right and all these things. Did you see the interview that her coach gave? And he was like, I tell Alyssa all the time There's something different about her brain. And to be an Olympian, you have to just have this like, Oh, the plane's going down. Okay, I got this. No problem. Boop. I'm just locking in. Like that piece that would go in your brain or I'll speak for myself, my brain, holy shit, I'm at the Olympics and everything is on a razor thin edge. And if I'm off by like this much, I'm gonna fall and eat shit and my dreams are crushed. Right. She doesn't have that piece. Yeah. Which is so fascinating. And just like I don't know, I just was like, Holy shit I don't know how that's possible. But Well yeah, I think it's cultivated. Because I do think there's other Olympians or athletes or whatever that just do well under pressure, right? Which I do think is a a skill, but a different skill. Whereas I genuinely think she has like cultivated a worldview where she's like she's there was a thing I l listened to her saying and I was like, This is tralla mode, where she was like, It doesn't matter if I win or lose. It literally materially doesn't matter. Like it doesn't matter if I go in the championship or if I don't go in the championship. None that just doesn't matter. Like Yeah, and every day is just the day. And like I feel like the perspective of having like taken years away and been like maybe this isn't what's making me happy. Yeah. And then be like, oh actually I'm missing it in my life and coming back to it is like kind of tralla la Like perfect soil for traveling. Yeah, totally. To take some time and be like, oh, what do I miss? Now I actually enjoy it. Yeah. And like what what is important and what is not. And I don't know. I think it's just like if And I'm sure there are people who are thriving in this world who cared very deeply what other people think about them. And I'm not saying I don't, but like I I do better mentally if I'm just like, Okay, this podcast sucks. This podcast sucks. I'm sorry. Like I'm just gonna keep God make me small. God make me small, yeah. So um I'm we've but I okay, well I can bring it back. I feel that part of the experience of listening to Life Without Buildings is you feel that that was very much the energy Of at the very least, Sue Tomkins, but maybe all of them. And it is so imbued with that that when you listen to it, you feel it too. I completely agree. Like this thing that you have that you pulled an interviewer asked Basically like What are your goals? They were like, What are your plans after this album? 'Cause this is when they were still a band. They hadn't broken up yet. So like career wise, what are you trying to do? And she straight up said, I think I'm not ambitious enough. So I find that question hard. Like that is exactly what you're talking about. Exactly what I'm talking about. And I have a real I found Interesting. You guys I'm gonna reveal something to you. I hated Martin Supreme. Mar it's called Marty Supreme. I'm just saying the government name. But I I was like, okay. Very confusing because like so beautifully shot, everything gorgeous. Like OPN soundtrack. OP and soundtrack hitting like costume design Fuck perfect. Production design perfect. Even the way it was shot, gorgeous. Performance is amazing. I don't care about this story because the whole thing was like ambition is a virtue. And I don't think ambition is a virtue. To me it was presented that way. And I it was just like I don't care if Marty falls off a building in minute six. Because I don't care about him as a person because he has one note. I don't just know that ambition is a virtue. Yeah. But I do think it's a reality for a lot of people. Yeah. And I think you're born with it or you're born without it. I think it's one of those things. And you don't Do you think so? I th I think so personally. I think you kind of have to like monitor the situation. I think ambition is egoic. So like Yeah. I think you just have to be very aware of like to what end. Yeah, of course be I mean that's the thing of like people who their whole life is to become an incredibly successful politician, musician, whatever. And the more successful they get, the goalpost moves and they're less and less happy because the thing they thought they'd always have they Didn't do the thing they wanted. As what someone said this to me a long time ago, and it's always stuck with me that it's like if what f makes you feel fulfilled comes from outside of yourself, there's never enough. You'll never be thin enough, you'll never be famous enough, you'll never be rich enough. never be hot enough. There's never enough. Yeah. I think it in all it it's also a bit of like Like how much Were you bit by the capitalism bug and how much did you believe it? Yeah. Like someone says something re that blew my mind the other day where I was like, I have this whole thing as a singer about wanting my voice to sound the same every single show. I would kill, I would give anything to have my voice sound the exact same. Because it's just reliable and it's it's vulnerable to get up in front of people. and your instrument is inside your body. And your body has fluctuations. And some days it sounds fantastic and you're like I was sent here to rock and roll and some days you're like, I cannot fucking sing, but somehow it's my job. And I was complaining about it and somebody was like, Don't you think There's so much capitalism. And so much masculinity. In the idea that you're supposed to show up and sound the exact same like you're stamping it every single time. Like you're a cog. Like you're a cog not only a cog in a machine, but you don't have um like a cycle that changes your hormones h hormones that literally changes the tissue in your vocal cords. I cried today at the blonde shell set because I'm extremely. I was like, Why don't I cry during this fucking podcast? But if I mean if you're ludial, your the tissue in your vocal cords is Thicker. Do you think Zainlow talks about the Ludial phase making the tissue in female vocals? No, but I bet you if I wanted to talk to him about it, or you want to talk about it. He would be down. I think so. I already said he's making it. I'm just curious the differences between what we do. But I just think Like The амбіцін аспект. If If you're if it if we are thinking about it as like How much of This sort of like virus do you have in you? Yeah. That you're focused on other people and what how they're hearing your music. I think she has had very little of that. And I do think I'm sorry, I'm I don't want to be reductive. Obviously I think it's I have ambition. We all have like maybe not we don't all there's lots of artists I love that I know we were talking off off mic about Billy Corgan, I think one of the more known to be ambitious artists ever, and like he made some of the greatest albums of my lifetime. So like no no Shay, no no no dissing, but just thoughts I had during the research of This podcast. So Life Without Buildings, but that's what we're talking about. Um It pertains. They tore a bunch after the album comes out. They tore the Belle and Sebastian, which apparently turned out to be a huge mistake in their words, because everyone in the audiences were very mean to them and they got heckled a lot. And quote, there are few audiences more conservative than the white indie rock audience. So true. That's Jade. But also It's not really that much. I mean, there's like certain pockets of Indy Rock that are Indy Rock as a whole is extremely white, as you obviously know. I've seen like you've seen it. It's there's just no denying that. It's also incredibly male. So it makes sense that it ends up being kind of conservative in those spaces. Yeah, and again, this is like 2001, but or two thousand and two, whatever. So I'm sure that didn't help that tour, but in two thousand two the band kind of quietly breaks up. Robert said we did want to carry on, but I think at the same time we were struggling to write new material and there were tensions in the band. mostly me wanting to do more noodly stuff. I kind of felt that unless we completed change direction, we wouldn't get another album out. They did they recorded one last song called Love Trinity, um, which actually came out a couple years ago for like a record store day thing. It's on their live album. Um Sue said, When we stopped being a band, looking back on it, I think I stopped for really personal reasons. It was getting too bandy. I'd never done it before and it was just getting too much. Like there were tours to do and T shirts and badges, pins and stuff. And now I think I would actually go with that a bit more because these things become part of what you do, but it was all quite new and it was a bit scary that side of it. This is very much you being like, I don't wanna play shows. I like playing shows. Sometimes I don't wanna play shows. It's just you know, it's like anything where sometimes life's hard for a given reason. Yeah. I think I don't think anybody is like, I wanna go on a hard tour for ten weeks or whatever like I wanna do it but like week eight you're like I'm tired. Yeah. Of course you love connecting with audience. That's not what I was saying. Like I'm playing. But like I can imagine you being Sue Tomkins. Like I started this as a fun lol lulls Apalooza and then they're like, You have to serious now tour with Bell and Smash and there's men yelling at you. Especially like in an opening situation like that. She's like, Okay, I play my set and men yell at me. to like take my top off and then I have to go stand at the merch table with like the money box. Right. Like I don't like this. Yeah. I have to make T shirt. Which like There. That was that's all of Life Without Buildings. They put out a live album in two thousand seven. No real answers as to how this happened. They it was recorded in Sydney at the Annandale Hotel. The band members were like, We had no idea the shit was being recorded, but it's a cool album. I guess we're glad it came out. Don't know. It came out on a thing called Gargle Blast Records. Um I don't I don't know what kind of like Okay, we have a question for you. Gargle blast. If you were starting a label today, what are you naming it? Garg now. Um you can't have that because that's the first band sign. Um what would I call it? Yes, babe. Yeah, this is really hard. Do you have one? Oh. I don't. I was asking you. But you don't have your own answer. No. Okay. Ludial Ludial Records. Actually that's pretty good. Ludio Records. Yeah. I like that. Okay. Perry Menabas. Perry Menobas. You could like Parry Menabas. Perfect. There's a couple songs, by the way, guys, if you want to check it out on the live at the Ann and Dell Hotel that aren't on Uh the regular record, um that are also quite good. I didn't know Frank Ocean was a fan. Okay, yeah, so I did a little research as I'm want to do and I was like who who be name checking Life Without Buildings besides Blonde Shell. Um we already said Bibadooby. No. Beeba dooby. Beeba dooby. I really want it to be Baba Dooby. Be ba dooby. Beeba dooby. Yes, Frank Ocean, who also has deep and wonderful taste, uh played it in twenty eighteen on his Beats One radio show, pre TikTok Viral. Um Maddie Healy from the nineteen seventy five has uh said they influenced uh his music. Cloud Nothings? Wishy. Wishy's a great band. Have you guys heard Wishy? I love Wishy. Yeah, we really fuck with Wishy. Um and then this year, Sleeford Mobs, who are such a fucking cool band, um put out a new album called The Demise of Planet X and there's a song with Sue Tompkins on it. Oh really? It's great. Yeah. And they also have um Elda Hucks Eldus is it Elvis Eld who I love. Me do um she's also on a song on here. That makes sense. That's like a Yeah, the kind of like in a similar um strange woman. I feel like Jessica Pratt would love her. Would love Sue Tompkins. I don't know. I don't know. The weirdness of it all. Um well you guys, we wow, we nearly went we went to seven forty. Um Thank you so much for coming down to The Boise Contemporary Theater. Oh my God. Parametopause. She still got it. Um, and spending your time with us. And we're really happy that uh you guys came out. It was really fun to do this. Thank you, Sabrina. Thank you. And come back next week for a new episode of Ansplane. If you liked what you heard today, subscribe for more episodes of Bandsplane. Our guest today was Sabrina Tidelbaum. This episode was recorded live at Treefort Festival in Boise, Idaho. It was produced by Rob Sunderman and edited by Adrian Bridges with help from Justin Sales. Video production by Mac Sharp. Executive producers for Bandsplane are Gina Dalvach and me, Yassi Salek. Our gorgeous and catchy theme song was composed and performed by Bethany Cosentino and Jennifer Claven, and graciously recorded by Carlos Della Garza in Los Angeles, California. Special thanks to our producer Emeritus, Producer Dylan, aka Dylan Tupper Rupert, and also Sean Fennesse and the Tree Fort Festival. Come back every Thursday for a new episode of Bandsplane on Spotify or wherever you listen to podcasts. Go go's and Funboy Three. That one. Can you do more? Whoa.