Columbia House Party
The Ugly Organ: Emo Adds a Cello (ft. Alyssa Laessig)
In the latest episode of Columbia House Party, hosts Jake Goldsbie and Blake Murphy are joined by Alyssa Laessig of Guardrail (@guardrailsucks) to discuss Cursive’s 2003 album The Ugly Organ. And be sure to check out Guardrails’ new EP Yikes when you’re done hearing Alyssa break down one of her influences. Find out more about Jake’s and Alyssa’s deep connections to Cursive, how the cello gets accounted for in the songwriting process, and whether The Ugly Organ qualifies as a concept album on this week’s podcast.
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- Duration:
- 1h 1m
- Broadcast on:
- 29 Jul 2024
- Audio Format:
- mp3
(speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) (speaking in foreign language) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - And now, we proudly present Songs Perverse and Songs of Lament, a couple hymns of confession and the latest episode of Columbia House Party. Jake, what's up, man? - Oh, you know, just sitting here in my living room/kitchen, ready for another exciting podcast. - Why do you always say, every time I kick to you on intro, it's so under enthusiastic, like you hate this podcast or something. - No, it's just been like, we're like several episodes deep and there's only so many, like, I'm good. How are you? I can, you know, I'm trying to change that a little bit. - I don't know. - This is the second one we're recording, come on, man. (laughs) - Unbelievable. Unbelievable. - I'm gonna start leaving Easter eggs in, like, each episode that we recorded at the same time and see if people can figure it out after. - Oh, I like that. - For example, the rainy day story. Yeah, yeah, there are. There's insane clown posse in all of them. That would be hard to figure out. It's 51 straight episodes of insane clown posse talk. What do you have for us today, Jake? - So today, we're talking about a band that's very important to me. I don't think I would ever consider this band my absolute favorite band in the world, but they were definitely way up there, especially when I was in university. I think I had literal months at a time when I would listen to nothing but this band. They were, I think I mentioned before when I was younger, I used to just, like, listen to, find and download and listen to live shows by bands. And this was a key live show band that I listened to all the time. This album that we're talking about today is definitely considered by, I think, a lot of people at large, sort of the apex of this band. And I won't disagree with that, but it is not my favorite album of theirs, but we'll talk with that later. But when we first started doing the show, this is definitely a band on my list of, like, we gotta do this band. So today, we are talking about cursives, the ugly of all of you. (upbeat music) ♪ And now we proudly present ♪ ♪ Socks perverse and songs of love, man ♪ ♪ A couple hymns of confession ♪ ♪ The songs that recognize our sick concessions ♪ ♪ See the one I'm on together ♪ ♪ We all again, all again ♪ ♪ See the one I'm on together ♪ ♪ See the one I'm on together ♪ ♪ See the one I'm on together ♪ ♪ There's no use to keep a secret ♪ ♪ Everything I hide has something to embrace ♪ ♪ Three out of two's me when you're done ♪ ♪ Every time's like I did you wrong ♪ ♪ Whoa-oh ♪ (upbeat music) - So, Jake, we have a planning spreadsheet, and you're right, cursive was on the early, early brainstorms. A guest today kind of opened up the opportunity for you to finally get to a cursive episode. Today, we're joined by Alyssa Lessig, the basis of "Guard Rail." Follow them @Guard Rail sucks on Twitter. Alyssa, thank you so much for coming on. How are you? - Hi, guys. It took everything in me not to cheer when you were doing this cursive intro. I'm so excited. (laughs) - So, Alyssa, you gave us a pretty good list of, usually like when we hit up a gas and we're like, yeah, give us a couple of albums. The person will send like two or three, or they'll send a bunch, but they're all like the exact same kind of episode. And I really appreciated the versatility in your list. I was pushing for Emotion City soundtrack. We've already done Emotion City episode, and we haven't doubled up on a band yet and gone to like a second album from the same band. I kind of wanted to do that. I lost, Jake is very passionate about cursive and has been wanting to do this since we started the podcast. So, Jake, thanks to you. - We're in the same boat, Jake. Man, I feel like you guys are here. - That's right, that's right. - You guys are like my music soul mates 'cause I do really appreciate that versatility in your episodes too. It's kind of, it's kind of perfect. And you know, that stems to "Guard Rail" as well. We're just a bunch of mishmashed stuff. - I was going to ask in the "Guard Rail" sucks Twitter bio, you guys refer to yourselves as diet punk. And I'm just, like we've joked at times on this podcast about like if you go on the emo subreddit, like they'll argue about all these like narrowly, narrowly defined subgenres of emo. And I'm just curious what qualifies as diet punk or is that just a joke? - It totally started as just a joke. It was more of a pun. We were like writing a Twitter post and it was like support, local music, like low calorie. And then we did hashtag diet punk and then it literally just took off from there. But you know, we're not punk, we're like lighter punk. We're kind of pop punk, but we have some like metal in there. You know, I play cello. So I'll try and get that on our stuff when I can sell it. - That's great. Alyssa, before we dive into the album, I mentioned that you kind of threw a couple different options at us. And I'd imagine you playing the cello has something to do with this. Why the ugly organ and why cursive for you coming on this podcast? - Oh boy, this was just a monumental like discovering cursive, especially this album with the cello was just like a totally new sound for me. And I think Tim Cashor's like poetic lyrics really resonate like deeply with people, especially like, you know, high school college age when you're just like starting to discover these like, ugly depths of being a human being. So, you know, I really latched onto it. This was one of the reasons that I learned cello in the first place. I didn't start playing till high school and I totally wanted to be Greta. - That's great. Jake, what about you, man? 'Cause I know this was early, early on the brainstorming sheet for you too. What is it? You talked about it like very quickly off the top, but why, why does cursive mean so, so much to you? And I guess, I mean, if you want to talk now about why you lean toward another one of their albums, instead of the other organ, or we can save that till later. - I'm so interested in what that is. - Funny enough, I actually got into cursive through another band that was on Alyssa's list, which is Murder by Death, who are still in my favorite bands. I think I was in my last year of high school or my first year of university, I forget which, but I was browsing the Murder by Death Internet forums as you do, and someone had posted to like, what are other bands I might like that are like Murder by Death? And one comment was just something like, they sound nothing like them, but they also have a cello, and they were referring to cursive. I had heard the name cursive for years in just being a fan of this kind of music, but I never really given them a go. So I was like, okay, I'll check that out. And so the first album I checked out, which very much confusing, 'cause there's no cello on it, was Happy Hollow, which is my favorite cursive record, but I will also grant that it's probably not like objectively the best one, but at a second, I heard it. I was just like, oh, so this is my favorite band. Like they were so, I found both there like very, we've talked with this before, like they're like the theater kid aspects of cursive, considering it more than half their music is concept records, which I love, obviously. And the style of music, I found just so interesting. And it was very similar to the stuff I was listening to, but like different enough to intrigue me. And then also kind of like what Alyssa was saying, I was really drawn in by Tim Casser's lyrics. And he became sort of like my, through university, he was sort of my favorite songwriter lyricist, like even his solo stuff, when "Game of Monogamy" came out, I listened to that constantly as a sad boy in university, but yeah, I just, they're a band that, it happens every now and then, where you just find a band that like immediately you just latch onto for various reasons. And I just took it upon myself to devour all of their music I could, and unfortunately, they very rarely tour in Canada. So I've only seen them a couple of times and not for a very, very long time. But they just turned, yeah, they just turned one of those bands for me. - That's awesome. I feel like it's very easy to feel connected to them being from, I'm from Chicago that's in the Midwest. So it all feels very close to home for me. You're not that far, but it's cool. You get that feeling in Canada too. - Yeah, Chicago's the closest thing to Toronto outside of Toronto, so. - Yeah. - It's not like physically closest, like in terms of the vibe of the city and the layout kind of. - Cool. - All right, actually, I have a question. Obviously, if you listen to the lyrics in like four seconds, you realize what the album is about. But I always kind of thought the ugly organ was like a great tongue and cheek name for your heart also. - Anyway, that's a. - Oh, I think it's a great tongue and cheek name for like your genitalia. - Yes, that also. - Knowing some of Castro's writing, I feel like that skews more towards his style. - Yeah, and I mean, either one of those things, I guess depends on the type of person you are. Like if you are dealing through some complicated feelings as a lot of these lyrics do, you know, some people might think the organ that's being ugly in those cases are the heart and some might think it's something else. We're gonna get into that. We're gonna get into cursive and everything that makes them cursive, including the cello and those very poetic lyrics. After this. (upbeat music) All right, Jake, I gotta hand the reins to you from here. This is a very Jake album. So take us through kind of the pre-ugly organ cursive and get us going into this album. - So cursive was formed out of the wreckage of a few bands, one of which we've sort of talked about before in our Desaparicidos episode, which is Commander Venus, which Tim Cash was in with Connor Oberst. But cursive was officially formed in the spring of 1995 after the breakup of a band called Slow Down Virginia. That band was made up of Tim Cashier, Matt McGinn and Steve Peterson. When that band left, they wanted to give music a real shot. And as Cashier told Evol in 2003, we decided with cursive that we would write the best we could believe in it. And if everyone ended up hating it, well, we would deal with it. They added Clint Schnace, never known how to pronounce his last name, who played in a band with Peterson called Smashmouth, all one word and not that Smashmouth. But he joined as cursive drummer. - Disappointing, if you had revealed right now that one of the people from cursive was in Smashmouth, I would have, well, first of all, I would have needed to re-prepare for this episode, yeah. The list of terrible Smashmouth puns I'd have in my notes instead of what I do have in there. - I wish. They released the Disruption EP in 1996, followed by the sucker and dry EP in 1997. They would release their debut full-length such blinding stars for such starving eyes in September of 1997 for crank exclamation mark records. It's not like the best cursive album. It's very like post-hardcore Midwest emo, but it's aged pretty well compared to a lot of stuff from 1997 in this genre. In review for Sputnik music, the cat's brothers called the album 11 Distortion Soaked Emotion Written Songs that come off as a younger, worse version of the band's Breakthrough Domestika, which I think is pretty accurate. They announced they were breaking up in 1998 because Tim Cashier was getting married and moving to Portland, Oregon, and Peterson also wanted to leave the band to go to law school. They recorded the storms of early summer semantics of song intending that to be their final record. It was released in November of 1998. Unlike such blinding stars, I think it's still extremely good and very much stands with the rest of their stuff. It also received an eight from Pitchfork, which from for a late '90s emo band seems kind of odd. It also means it's actually bad now. Yes, that's right, they have to reverse it. It was an eight. The Pitchfork rating now is 10 minus whatever the Pitchfork rating was then. Yeah, or plus depending on who you are. This album was released on Saddle Creek Records, which makes sense 'cause they are in Omaha, of which Cashier and many of the members would become entrenched in the Saddle Creek world, which we have talked about in the past, especially regarding Bright Eyes and Rylo Kylie. It was also cursive's first attempt at writing a concept album, something they would do many, many, many, many times in the future. The first half of the record was categorized as man-first nature, and the second half was man-versed self. In the summer of 1999, Tim Cashier got divorced and returned to Omaha, Nebraska, would reform cursive with the same members, except with Ted Stevens of the band Lullaby for the working class, joining on guitar and vocals and co-writing songs. Within the year, they had recorded the album Domestika, which if you're listening to this show, you've probably heard about. It is also a concept album about the dissolution of a marriage, and in my opinion, it is one of the underlined the breakup albums of the early 2000s emo scene. If you did not listen to this album, after you got broken up with, you probably weren't into early 2000s emo. - Or Jake, what if you fired it back up in 2020 when going through a breakup? - I mean, it works either way. - Yeah, it sure does. - I can attest to that. It holds up in that regard. - As we were sort of talking about a couple of minutes ago, this is, I think, really where you see the beginning of Tim Cashier's songwriting and lyric writing. Most of the songs, his lyrics are way too long for the meter of the songs themselves, and it's too many words, which is really hard to replicate as someone who tried to replicate it many times in my 20s, which just speaks to his talent. And I think a good example of that is in this song, "The Game of Who Needs Who the Worst." (upbeat music) ♪ A little bit closer, I know you're not bashful ♪ ♪ Then that's not so bad is it ♪ ♪ So what was that secret ♪ ♪ What did that prick whisper to you ♪ ♪ Was it playful and dirty or degrading and dirty ♪ ♪ I know you like it both ways ♪ ♪ So what did he say ♪ ♪ To make you so goddamn defiant ♪ ♪ So fucking try a thing ♪ ♪ A secret ♪ ♪ But you can't keep it ♪ ♪ So secret ♪ ♪ Relations ♪ ♪ Without hesitation ♪ ♪ Or social tax ♪ ♪ As it occurs ♪ ♪ In a country of burial ♪ ♪ Come this home ♪ (upbeat music) - So, Alyssa, you're, I think, a little younger than Jake and I, were you in-decursive as far back as Domestika or are they a band that, like, you went back to and kind of had to, like, retro-check out? - They were a band. I learned of them in high school. - Okay. - I was far too young when Domestika came out to-- - Well, I'm not trying to, I'm trying not to age Jake and I that badly here. - I mean, I was 12. It's not like I wasn't there to answer her. - Okay, yeah. I was gonna say, I must have, I was-- - Okay, well then I'm not trying, I'm trying not to age myself, then. - I would have been nine years old in 2000. - Okay, that's not bad. - It's, right, but I think-- - Both of us probably not ready for a divorce album. - No, not quite getting it yet. - Okay, so now that I've derailed us talking about our divorce at 14 and nine, respectively, Jake, where'd they go from there? - So Domestika sort of broke the band in the good term of breaking. It was extremely well received and also got an eight from Pitchfork. And that review is a very important review in my life, which I know is a weird thing to say, but as I said, I got into cursive right around my first year of university, which is peak only listening to Pitchfork review time in a person's life, especially if you are a straight white male. So this album getting a good review from Pitchfork made me think that it was worth listening to. And it was David Anthony with Vice did a Ranky Records call him with Tim Cashier about cursive records. Tim Cashier actually ranked it fourth, which I thought was surprising and said, "Most of what I like and dislike about Domestika "is the rawness of it. "I really appreciate it and I listen to records "from other bands love when something is raw, "but when it's your own stuff, it comes with this idea "that maybe it could have sounded a little better "than maybe we could have done more." Which I think is fair. In 2001, the band added Greta Cone on cello and recorded the Burst and Bloom EP, which in my opinion is the best thing the band's done, but it's too short to get you to consider an album. And they also released the eight teeth to eat you EP in 2002. The band would tour pretty much constantly between 2001 and 2002 to the point where they ran into exhaustion, which culminated in Tim Cashier suffering a collapsed lung, which sounds horrible if you're singing every day. They would return home from tour to Omaha and began raiding what would become the ugly organ. And that brings us-- - Jake, I have a question for you or maybe Alyssa knows. The adding of Greta as a cellist, was that like what was the thinking there? 'Cause that's like a pretty out of the box move to throw some cello in. So I guess Alyssa, you mentioned that you try to work some cello in to what you guys are doing with guardrail because that's not a standard instrument in this genre. What's a process like for working that unique sound into what a band is doing? Whether that's you guys or whether that's going back and listening to how cursive changed when she was added. - Yeah, well, guardrail being more pop punk. The cello is really only in our acoustic stuff, but I think when you listen to a lot of cursive and a lot of murder by death, you kind of start to hear the potential of the cello as a really powerful force and songwriting. Like it can really lead parts. It can really add a total new layer of emotion. So you start to like think of the cello not as an accent instrument, but as a lead instrument and that makes all the difference. - Yeah, I agree with that. I think that kind of hits on the headway. I think cursive and murder by death work better because the cello can sort of do exactly that rather than the violin, which I feel like is more of an accompany instrument. - And especially with the range of the cello, you can get those really low bellowing notes and you can add them together and turn them into chords. And they're just like so big and you can also do the like really high up stuff for that like delicate sound. It's just an amazing instrument. I love it. - Well, it certainly works for cursive. They start picking up some steam from here. Jake, it's ugly organ time for this band. - So to answer your question about why the cello, it sounds like the band just wanted one. Dan Ozzie did a big ugly organ oral history for vice in 2014 for the 11th anniversary of which they released an issue, reissue, deluxe edition. Then Greta Kohn said that I was in college and playing with a couple of bands here and there. We became the default opening act. I graduated and moved back to New York. Then a year later, my parents called me and said, there was a message on our answering machine from this cowboy and we really don't know what it's about. It was Ted Stevens calling me just to say, we met you and remembered you and we're looking for a cello player, are you interested? And that is literally how she joined the band. - Easy enough. - She got to move to Omaha. - Yeah, exactly. In that Rank Your Records interview with Dave Anthony, Tim Cashier said that the ugly organ was another exciting time because I think it's the first time looking back at the catalog. It's really us getting our footing and it's the record where it sounds the most uniquely like us. However, because of that, the band did not expect it to be a success at all. Cashier told Dan Ozzie in that oral history in 2014, it just seemed really queer and perverse to me. And I thought it was me internalizing in such an obnoxious way that it wouldn't translate and it made me feel a little selfish. But it all ended up being this big, weird, wild surprise, which is kind of exciting but also leaves me perplexed. When they were writing the album, apparently they wrote a lot of it on the road, which they road tested on those exhausting 2001, 2002 tours. Matt McGinn told Dan Ozzie, "We played some of the big ugly organ songs like 'Gentlemen Call Our Art Is Hard' red-handed sleight of hand on the plea for peace tour. And I feel like the reaction was really good. It's kind of a road testing you want out of a song. The crowds are pretty open-minded." And in regarding the addition of Greta Cone, Matt McGinn said, "She did the burst in Blue Me Pea, but that was different because those songs were mostly written before she joined the band. So the cello was added as a layer after the fact rather than written together the way the ugly organ was written with her as a participant." And Cone would add, "I was working a job I wasn't excited about and it seemed like an adventure. So I flew out there with a suitcase, a cello case and my cat. I'm so glad I did. I learned a lot about myself. I got to go on tour and travel the world and be part of this thing as it grew. I feel like I was an Omaha for a pivotal point of "Saddle Creek's history." I took a leap. At the time I said to myself, "Maybe I'll go out there for a year or two and see what happens then move back home." And it ended up staying there for years, which fair enough. To our earlier points about what the cello adds to any song, but especially cursive song, I think that this song probably we're gonna highlight it the best in my opinion, just my opinion. So this is a song called "Blitcher of the Song." There's a time and a place. This is neither the time or place. Where do I fit in? In this chit song of a radiation ship, why should I play the foggy to your love? I keep getting smoked. What done, what? What done, what? So rub it in your tumb lyrics. Yeah, that's the time and place to wring out your bullshit. An inch out of blue, I can shit on a little more. Who still has plans? Get what's been said in the skid. I can't share the swings in my ears. I'll get out the butcher's line. I've been screaming for years, but it gets me nowhere. Just get out the butcher's line. Where do you get out the butcher's line? Get out the butcher's line! So not exactly Saddle Creek's normal sound at that time, Jake. No, and because of that, the expectations for the record were pretty pretty low. Rob Dansel of Saddle Creek told Dan Ozzie that I don't actually remember hearing it for the first time. That period was so crazy for us. The faint had done Donce Macabre and that was really something resonating on an international level. Then Bright Eyes had lifted, and each time any of those guys made another record, everyone was trying to put one up each other. Or, as Matt McGinn put it, "I was married at the time and we were in the living room listening to the record for the first time. The whole record played through and staying alive just finished," which is the final song on the record. I remember saying to my wife, "I don't think anyone's going to like this record except for that last song." And I remember having a similar conversation with Tim. Like, this is a really weird fucked up record. We were super excited about it, but it was a bit different. We thought people would think we were spazzes and it was just too weird. So, this is where I want to turn the discussion to the both of you, whereas thinking about other albums in the Saddle Creek world at this time, any Bright Eyes or Rylo Kylie or The Faint, or any of those sort of approaching mainstream indie records, how the hell did this get made? Like, how does it fit in with that sort of world? Man, that's such a good question. This album is, it is, it's interesting because it's like not such a tight concept album, and I feel concept albums were like pretty, they were pretty in at this time. You know, I guess, you know what resonates is it's, you know, when I listen to it, it's almost like a film soundtrack or like a play soundtrack that has like the vocals on top of it. Like, I don't know, it really draws you in from that standpoint. It's infectious. I, you know it and it doesn't really compare to any of that stuff. What are your thoughts on this? Yeah, I think, I mean, in terms of Saddle Creek, like, it does seem like it would be up Connor's alley at least, and maybe that's how it gets that momentum and gets put together. But yeah, I mean, I like what Alyssa's saying, and where it like, it kind of, over the course of the album, it builds this environment that, like, it's not a hard concept album, but, like, it's very, I guess, self-contained is the term, where, like, stuff that's happening later in the record, especially when you get to staying alive, has been laid out over the earlier parts of the record. And obviously they do that with, like, the constant refresh back to the ugly organ. But it's, uh, yeah, I don't know, maybe, maybe that's it, that it's just this, like, and I mean, from a, like, commercial standpoint, it's like, until you, if you take out staying alive, like, it's a pretty snappy record. It moves quick and it, it's a pretty good energy to it. But I think, yeah, maybe it's- It's genuine, like, catchy as hell. Like, yeah. You want to dance to it, you want to, you want to scream to it. You want, you want to be part of it. Yeah, and I'm glad you guys sort of brought up, or Alyssa, you brought up the idea of it, like, being a play. In the vinyl liner notes of the record, it actually has stage directions in the middle of all the lyrics for different songs, which I find kind of interesting because they tried to do this a little later, uh, with "I Am Gemini," which I don't think it really worked of making it a, like, very obvious play concept record. Um, but this kind of hides it. But, like, in the liner notes before, at the very beginning, right before the sort of red-handed sleight of hand, the stage direction says "Enter Organist." He moves center stage in grotesque costume. He gestures towards an imaginary audience. It also assigns characters, uh, in "Bloody Murderer." After the first verse, it says "Enter Ghost Singing." But there's- but to keep the loose concept going, there's never any story details assigned to any of it. It's just these weird, random stage directions in the middle of songs, which, I don't know if that's why it resonated, but I think it's interesting that it did because it is way less straightforward than a lot of their other work. And while "Demestica" obviously was a big deal, it wasn't as big a deal as this, which I always surprises me. And I do think that, you know, all the things that people loved about "Demestica" and just the- the way that "Tim Cashier" really goes in on the, like, politics of, like, a failing relationship, they come through in this album. It's just in a slightly different light. Mm-hmm. I would agree with that entirely. It's like a different flavor of exploration of, you know, being kind of a pained, misogynistic, like, depressed figure trying to navigate relationships, but really just in the end being, like, a shell of a human and needing to change. Yeah. And I think that's interesting in the way it's also reflected in the sound, the change in sound almost, even though some of it is a little similar. Cashier told Dave Anthony in the "Ranky Records" article, "After doing "Demestica," which was this muscular post-hardcore thing, we went into this more beautifully effeminate record, even though it's still very weird and loud. It just has a lot of that expression that when I was younger, I was scared to express. As we're talking through this, also just that maybe the success of "Demestica" gave me the courage to be weird and just to get something out like that. But then we did the record, and I was terrified that it was too weird, and I'd shown too much of myself, and I thought everyone was going to hate me for it. And the sort of weirdness of it was commented by Jeff Rickley, the lead singer of The Band Thursday, who told Dan Ozzie that they had a few more songs that they were like, "Well, these are kind of weird, they might not end up on the album." One of them was "Driftwood," and that one, when they told me it might not make the album, I thought they were crazy because that was a big highlight. That's my favorite song on this album. Well, that works great, because this is a clip from "Driftwood." Yes. ♪♪ So here we'll talk and drink and mop and cross his arms and hope to die. ♪♪ And then a fairy came one night to bring the sorry boy to life. ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ Oh, that's good stuff. Imagine a world where that wasn't on the album. Yeah, Alyssa mentioned earlier that this album just kind of makes you want to dance, and that's the perfect... Right, like dance, but not in necessarily a happy way, just in a human way. It's very weird. This song really gives me all kinds of feels in a very particular kind of way. I've never had this thought to literally right now, so forgive me if it's a dumb thought. But as we're sort of talking about this and thinking about the stage direction and even the way that song sounds, obviously this was not cursive style at all, so like they specifically wouldn't be. But like the record kind of feels like if it had come out three years later, like they would have been in like the panic at the disco costume get up. And I feel like it would have just like exploded had it done that. I don't know, maybe that's me reading too much into it and ascribing it to like the Hot Topic crowd. Like somewhere between panic at the disco and like neutral milk hotel the Decemberists. Yeah, exactly. So in other words, extremely Jake's shit is what you're describing here. Yeah, basically. They made an album for me. And I love especially like in this song and some of the other songs in this album, the way that Tim can write in dialogue, like he works a lot of dialogue into the lyrics of songs. And you know, like I know he's kind of more like, I think he's more like a fiction writer than like a peer lyricist. And so that's really enjoyable to like read the lyrics and see where their quotation marks are and you start to like think of characters. And so it's almost like, you know, I think one of you mentioned earlier in the episode. This is kind of like, I think he's where it skits a frontic, but it's like, it's just all over the place. So even within songs, he'll be like doing different characters. Jake, just to build because you said panic at the disco. So when panic at the disco had a fever, you can't sweat out, come out. I saw them at Moles and Amphitheater here in Toronto. And like the, I think part of it was that they only had one album to play at that point, but they basically magnified that aesthetic that they had. And it was basically like a vaudeville show as they perform that album. And like you mentioning the stage directions in the liner notes now and opening up this part of the discussion. Like, I absolutely want to see like, I would love to go back and they're touring this album and like these stage directions. And his vision for like the dialogue and the characters are a part of the show as they play this album. I think that'd be really cool. I wonder if anybody has ever tried to do that. That's always been my thought when I was in university as like an English major. I was like, I'm going to write the ugly organ play, but I obviously never did. Yeah. I mean, hey, maybe you can, you can launch that around the same time I do my Blink 182 rock opera. If only. But I think, but to your point with the live thing, I think it's interesting too that as I obviously I never saw them at this time. But I, as I said, I used to listen to a lot of bootlegs of their shows and they like throw even to this day. Anything that's conceptual about their music, they completely throughout the window when they play live and they just turned into a very loud rock show, which I've always found interesting. And never like, like we talked about in our Black Parade episode, how like when they did toward the Black Parade, they play it front to back and draw it away came out on a fucking hospital gurney and like, they did the whole thing. And curse of her just like, no, here's our songs out of order that have nothing to do with anything. I think, just from like what I know about Tim Cash, or I think he's very cognizant about staying away from anything that is like, trite or hokey or like getting pigeonholed into like into being something like I think that's the reason that they took cello off their preceding albums after the ugly organ because he just was like, we don't want to be the cello band. So we're not going to have cello. Like, I respect that in a way, like I wish they had kept in, I know they have cello now, again, which is great, but I kind of respect that like we don't want to do that. And all their albums are very different too, which I find probably it is like impatient brain makes sense to your point earlier about his sort of direct writing and writing dialogue and songs and all that. I think this album also has one of the weirdest pseudo hit songs of the early 2000s emo. Like, I have no idea how this song got decent air play on MTV, but it did. That song is art is hard, which is very direct and is basically continues the song burst and bloom from the burst and bloomy P's way of calling themselves out, but also the music industry. I just, I will never understand how this was successful. ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ ♪♪♪ Jeff Rickley told Dan Ozzie about this song. We were on the plea for peace tour with them. They had fish making it, but it hadn't come out yet. They came on our bus and played us the record and we were like, "Whoa." I remember they played the very piecemeal for us. They played art is hard right away and we were like, "Holy shit, that's the new cursive anthem right there." You call out all this stuff and you make fun of yourself right in the middle. This is amazing. This is so cursive of you, which I hate the quote, but I do think it's true. I mean, it is an objectively hilarious song. Yes. And it's just like, to your like, he's a fiction writer, like his ability to make it catchy, but also these like very long prosaic dialogue things. I don't think he gets enough credit and more I'm talking myself into being mad about it as we do this. I remember the like 31 flavors reference in that song really just like, it just like tickled me in a way where I was like, "Dan, this is hilarious, but also such good writing. It's like sired of entertaining some double dip meeting, a soft serve analogy, drunken angry slur is in 31 flavors." I'm like, "Yes." I've never made the connection before. He goes to the 31 flavors well a lot. He does it on his solo record too, but that's, it's a good, like he's very good at it. It's such a good suburban reference. I think it's not good. Yeah, we don't have it. We don't have 31 flavors here, do we Jake? Yeah, it's best for Robins. Oh, it's the same thing. Wow, I can't believe you didn't know that. Yeah, it's the same thing. I didn't. I thought it was. I thought it was really weird that they marketed the same and like, I thought maybe I was just like, like maybe Baskin Robbins had like five more flavors or five less or something. Isn't it weird to anyone else that they go by different names? No, I think 31 flavors is more of their taglines. Yeah, it's like their advertising. Is their thing? Well, yeah, I get that, but like you guys are referring to it, like the place is called 31 flavors. I feel like an idiot now, but... It's like a nickname. It's like calling McDonald's the golden arches. Nobody does that actually. People do that somewhere, maybe? I don't know. Anyway, I feel stupid now. We need to take a break. We're going to talk about how the ugly organ was received after this. [Music] All right, we're back. While we're off, Jake just told me he really likes it when I'm wrong about stuff. But I said, because you're never wrong, it's a complex salt. This is going to drive me to get Baskin Robbins after this. I'll be so sad that I'll need ice cream to cheer up. Count the flavors. Thanks. Thanks. I have a feeling it's not that you want. Like you'd add a flavor at some point, right? All right, I'm looking it up. Jake, you're supposed to be leading the discussion. I'll look it up while you talk about actual... Fine. The actual album we're doing. Fine. Fine. I'll talk about the album I like. So despite the band's reservations about how the album we received, it ended up being extremely successful, especially for a weird email album that was on Saddle Creek. It got a four out of five rating from Rolling Stone and a cover story in the New York Times Arts and Leisure section. It also sold over 171,000 copies, which, again, for a weird email album on Saddle Creek is a lot. It's one of the most popular releases in the entire Saddle Creek catalog, which is impressive, considering what else is in there. Jeff Rickley commented on exactly this and said, "So Death Cab for Cutie is just like perfect urban outfitters hip. It's just cool enough to be in with that crowd and just not edgy enough to alienate too many people." And Connor, despite the crazy shit he does in music, is still a handsome guy with a guitar talking about his feelings, and that's marketable too. Curse of didn't really have a quick one line that would make you say "done" sold. They were really selling the music on the strength of the ideas, and that's never easy. It's always a miracle when a record as crazy as the ugly organ sells 170,000 copies. I mean, today, if they were selling that, they'd be the biggest fucking band in the world. Matt McGinn commented further, saying, "We always tried to stay positive, but it went way past what we'd hoped. We really wanted our peers to like it, the bands we had developed with. It was its first time when we got larger press and the first time we'd hired a publicist and stuff like that. We were exposed to things we hadn't been in the past. We were all Midwestern Catholic high school boys, none of our parents were musicians. They were never openly negative about it, but they were definitely like, "What are you doing? This isn't a career." Then getting that New York Times cover, I remember my dad saying something like, "Well, I don't know. You'll never see me in the New York Times." It was nice to have our family think that we weren't just total goofballs. Being a musician in Omaha is not a remotely normal career choice, which I think that's nice. It's always nice when sort of the underdog success story is actually a success. Yeah, pays off. Are you guys ready for the answer to the ice cream question? I was going to say, are you still looking at it? No, I found it almost immediately. Come on. First of all, a little backstory here that, you know, cursive came from the graves of multiple other bands. So did Baskin Robbins. It was a merger between Burt's Ice Cream Shop and Snowbird Ice Cream. What year was this? This was in 1953. That checks. That checks out. Brothers in law had competing ice cream companies and they merged them together. Wow. Yeah. I want the movie of the week about the formation of Baskin Robbins now. So originally between the two, there were 31 flavors. There are now 22 flavors listed as like the main flavors. And then there are seasonal and regional and healthy choice flavors that I guess are up to each location to pick, which ones they want on top of like the base 22. Not as fun an answer as I expected. So not 30, not 31. Well, I mean, I, there might be 31 at each shop. Like maybe they're only allowed to have 31, but it can be a different 31 store to store, I guess. Got it. Oh, okay. I got it. Yeah. Anyway. So the ugly organ reception. Sorry, that's like the second or third last time I'll derail us. It won't be too many more. I got a three and a half from all music, a five out of five from alternative press. Four out of five from blender, a minus from consequence of sound. A seven out of 10 from pitchfork and the four out of five from Rolling Stone. The band toured the album like crazy. They played 126 shows in 2003 after the 2003 tour. Greta Cone left the band and moved back to New York and the band went on hiatus once again, allowing Tim Cashier to make another landmark emo record with his band, The Good Life. So it's a very prolific time for him. However, the impact of the ugly organ lives on the band released an 11th year anniversary edition in 2014 with eight B side bonus tracks, including two that I want to talk about because Tim Cashier says now that they should have been on the album. They were both on a split with a band called Eastern Youth, and Tim Cashier said to Dan Ozie, "I'd probably offer that the second two songs in that split were just additional songs on a split, because as a band you don't want to throw all your best stuff on a split. You're trying to rate a good record and you don't want to give it all away. We wanted to make sure that the split was good, so we gave away excerpts from various notes strewn around the bedroom of April, February 24, 1997, that's the name of one song, and Am I Not Yours?" That's the name of the other song. He said, "I think those songs certainly would have been on the album had they come later in the writing process or had that split CD never surfaced. The only reason I want to talk about these songs is because both of these were two of my favorite songs in university when I was super, super intercursive, and also because excerpts from various notes is one of the best Greta songs, in cursive discography, and so this is a clip from excerpts from various notes strewn around the bedroom of April Connolly, February 24, 1997. ♪♪ ♪ What I should know, why I'm living here ♪ ♪ For help me ♪ ♪ Well I'd see, well I'd see ♪ ♪ Where should I ♪ ♪ Forget it ♪ ♪ Every night you give up by the day ♪ ♪ With all your friends and every night I drink a lot of tea ♪ ♪ Come on, I want it so ♪ ♪ That's a black, pale, and brown ♪ ♪ A nice super, but I see it in the eyes of those girls ♪ ♪ Just fucking 'cause it's my life ♪ ♪ And never I think of it ♪ ♪ I just can't go away ♪ ♪ I'm in all issues ♪ ♪ To the chair, but you're below ♪ ♪ And there is an image ♪ ♪ When you lie you think it next to me ♪ ♪ Violin time ♪ ♪ I wanna fill your hips, press up ♪ ♪ I'll get smiled ♪ ♪ We'll push it to each other ♪ ♪ Close our eyes ♪ ♪ It might be bleeding, but it's us ♪ ♪ It's tonight ♪ ♪ It's so hard to look at ♪ ♪ To the floor of our lives ♪ ♪ You might be lonely ♪ ♪ But I'm still by your side ♪ ♪ You might have to leave ♪ ♪ But not tonight ♪ Normally, guys, when we record these, I give our producer Dylan, who does such great work for us and is greatly appreciated, like a nod or a verbal cue that we're good for that song clip and that sample. I did not give him the cue this time because I wanted to keep listening to it. Dylan turning heel on us here and taking away our cello, our moody cello intro, unbelievable Dylan. - I do think though that song is sort of the culmination of everything we've talked about with this record. Like it has a lead cello line. It's entirely written in dialogue and way too many words and it's loud and it's weird. To me, that's like the perfect 2003 4-era cursive song. - I think you're right about that. - Thank you. So just to finish up cursive's little history, the band obviously did not stay on hiatus. They reunited in 2006 to release Happy Hollow. They released Mama I'm Swollen in 2009, which is what Tim Cashier picked as his number one cursive album in that Rank Your Records column. They released I Am Gemini in 2012, Vitriola in 2018 and Get Fixed, the following year in 2019 on both Vitriola and Get Fixed. They also have returned the cello to their sound, although it's not Greta Cone, but it's crazy how it's the two best records they've made, in my opinion, in a really long time and it has cello again. - Absolutely. - So that's fun. - Meghan Seby would be the cellist on those. - Oh, cool. I didn't know her name, but that's, thank you for doing my work for me. - Yeah, her and I have a lot in common. - How's so? - We're like the same age band nerds and band and choir nerds in high school and then where music education majors in college do in cello. - Oh, cool. - I know, right? I was like, man. - That's awesome. - Rooted for this girl. - A band like this, and obviously, especially with where you ended up going with music, Alyssa, you know, we talked a little bit early on about why you wanted to do this album. Has going through this, like, do you see even more of kind of the influence that it had on you or, like, either as a musician or how your tastes developed from there? - Oh, I think absolutely. Yeah, this is, I mean, this is, you know, deeply ingrained in, like, my heart fibers. So it'll, it'll, it'll, it'll remain extremely important and influential and I can't wait to see what cursive does next. - What about for you, Jake? 'Cause I know that, you know, this, this came, especially at a period for you where your tastes were kind of like a, like a pretty formative transition period for your tastes from what you've said on earlier episodes. So what, what kind of role did cursive play in that for you? - I mean, I was very much influenced by this band, both in, like, musical taste and also, like, maybe not in the best ways in, like, my mood and opinions, being, like, a 20-year-old, like, sad boy listening to cursive is maybe not the best thing to do in a lot of ways. But there's just, like-- - If it makes you feel better, you were gonna end up where you ended up, no matter what, you were listening true. - That's true. - That's true. But I feel like they were just such, they were such a comfort blanket band for me. And like, I can't, they're one of those bands that I know everyone has. Like, I can't listen to any of their material really pre, like, vitriol, which came out two years ago, and not be very much, like, time and placed with it. Like, they're just, every cursive song I can ascribe to, like, walking around this part of Montreal or Toronto when I was in my early 20s doing this. And because I just listened to them so, so much. And it's odd that I listen to them less now, 'cause they're not a band, like, we've talked about some bands, we're like, I like this band less than I used to, where I don't like cursive any less than I used to. But I don't go back them as often as I probably should, which I find surprising and I wouldn't have thought many years ago. But yeah, they're just one of those bands for me that is just so big for me to the point where I still have a t-shirt of theirs that I bought, I think on the "I am Gemini" tour, which is now eight years ago, which... It's just, they're just one of those bands, I don't know. It's very interesting that you say it puts you in a place. I mean, I've always thought that the ugly organ is one of these albums, and one of the only ones that I think has a smell. You can smell what the setting is and what these types of life situations, what you could smell the room, like the vibe of the room, that these songs are written about. It's great. Yeah, and I think that sort of speaks to the specificity of the writing in it as well. Yeah, it smells like sex and alcohol. It's also a vocal difference. Yeah, yes, that's exactly it, a perfect description. Yeah, it smells like a walk of shame is basically what we're getting at. Yeah, totally. That's, yeah. But like a walk of shame that you can't stop thinking about. Wait, in the good way or the bad way? I don't know, in an introspective way, in a poetic way. All right, we're at the part in the podcast where we got to pick a couple of songs from the album and Alyssa, what we do at the end of every episode is we pick one song from the album we discussed to go on our Columbia House Party mixtape. Generally, we kind of let the guest guide that unless Jake feels very strongly against it. In this case, I want to give you guys both a chance. We played a couple of clips, but do you have a top three or so off of this album? Oh boy, do I. Let's hear it. Should I say all three? Yeah, let's go. All right. Driftwood, a fairy tale, number one, number two, gentleman caller, number three, butcher the song. Well, Jake, you hit two out of three with the ones you played. I did. That's actually very similar to my top three on this record, actually. Different order, but similar, same songs. I mine our driftwood as well. Also, gentleman caller and I have Sierra on mine as well. Oh, nice. Oh, yeah. Sierra would definitely round up my top three as well. But I'm happy with either of the two we both mentioned. Well, what I was going to suggest, yeah, as if driftwood, a fairy tale is both of your favorite song off the album. I feel like this is pretty straightforward, right? Great. Yeah. Yes. I think so. All right. So driftwood, a fairy tale, it is. Jake, did you have any more stuff or any more questions for Alyssa before we let her go? No, I think that's about it. It was very cool to talk about this album with someone who has taken it and been influenced by it musically and not just, uh, lifely, which I know isn't a word, but, uh, yeah. This was really fun. Yeah. Are you like, oh, yeah, it's so crazy, like bands like this, where you can barely like put into words, how and why they're so meaningful. You're just like, I don't know, I'm glad we feel the same. It's great. Well, we'll get on a talking medium to talk about how we can't put into words how good an album is perfect for an audio, right? Like, it's music. The thing is, is that anyone who's listening to this episode and who knows, uh, cursive and loves cursive is going to know exactly what you guys mean and feel the same way. And then anyone who doesn't, I would assume that that type of connection that's indescribable to an album is going to drive people to check that album out. So I feel like this is a, this is a win-win-win. Absolutely. Yeah, definitely. Alyssa, thank you so much for coming on. And guys, make sure you check out guardrail, follow them along at guardrail sucks. Alyssa, you don't have your, do you have your own account that people can follow you along on? I couldn't find it if so. On which platform? Either or. I want to Instagram. The handle is just Alyssa Lessig. Okay. Um, oh yeah, you have some very, very nice photos. I like that. Thank you. Alyssa, thank you so much for this. This was great. Thank you, guys. Yeah, this was super fun. I had a great time. Glad to hang out. Listen to cursive. Yeah. [Music] One. [Music] One. One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. One. One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. [Music] One. One. [Music] One. One.