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Okay, quickly before we start, I want to thank our awesome new OSIRIS sponsor, whom you've all heard of, Ben and Jerry's. Thank you, Ben and Jerry's, for the awesome support of Headcount, which we love and who registered so many first-time voters in this last election, and of your support of Fish's Waterwheel Foundation, Clean Water is crucial. Get free shipping using the code OSIRIS when you order $50 or more of Wonderful Ice Cream or Merchandise at store.benjarry.com. That's OSIRIS as your checkout code. And buy the special new "It's Ice Cream" where the proceeds partly support those worthwhile initiatives. Here we go. If you're listening to my podcast, you already know about Fish's epic Halloween gag perpetrated this last Halloween 2018 in Las Vegas. Basically, they conjured up a story about an extremely obscure 80s synth pop band from Scandinavia somewhere, who had released only one album and then became lost in time and essentially forgotten. Fish supposedly had heard this album and decided to bring it to us by not only playing the album in its entirety, but also by taking on the band's persona. The band of course, we all know now, is "Kazvot Voxt" and the album "E Rock, I Rock", which when translated means loosely, possibly in some language between Finnish, Icelandic and Norwegian, "Faceplant into Rock". Fish went deep into this hoax and even seeded the internet with fake album reviews from the past and other references. The internet was going crazy before Halloween trying to guess which album Fish might cover and a suspiciously well placed leak of a text from John Fishman led me anyway and most of my friends into believing it was going to be the resident's album "Mark of the Mole". Now I listen to that, of course, as much as I could anyway and suffice it to say, I was deeply concerned about my ability to enjoy Halloween this year. To my delight, Kazvot Voxt surpassed all expectations and never leaked to the public and in fact pranked noobs and vets alike in possibly their best ever prank. 33 years into Fish we are all stunned by their ability to continue to enrapture, engage and vex us in wonderful ways. Seeing Fish in an all-white setting with white instruments, white amplifiers, cords and cables, mics and guitar stands, all white and it was just so amazing and made me marvel at the depth of the gag and how committed to it they were. But apart from all that, and this is an audio podcast so please immediately go to YouTube and google "Kazvot Voxt" so you can witness this spectacle if you haven't already. Apart from the visual feast that unfolded in their second set of the evening is the more impressive feat that drives this whole prank and that is that Fish had to write an entire album of original material. Now I have this theory that Fish came up with this all in a very limited amount of time, possibly days even and that the result we all saw in Halloween night which included all new lighting props and the aforementioned costumes and set, original dance choreography and of course the original music is the result of a team that is so good at executing wacky stuff like this that they got it all done in a month, that's my theory. How could they do it? Well the songwriting anyway and this is my theory put into a basic sentence. When the band became "Kazvot Voxt" it freed them from all things that bind them to their Fish persona. It was an enabling freedom to act out from behind the disguise of an 80s band from Norway and how does Fish act out? They write songs and these songs are good ones, it is a truly original Fish album which seems to harken from their younger more silly and experimental days. These songs are all written around earworms, a hook that you can't get out of your head and find yourself singing over and over days later. Now of course you figured out that I had nothing to do with any of this. People online assume that I was involved with a songwriting, I wasn't or that I at least knew about the gag, I did not. Fish was so tight lift this year that when I spent time writing some songs with Trey at the end of September he even claimed not to know yet what Fish was going to do for Halloween. Was this a convenient way to keep me from asking him questions or was it true? Did they conceive and execute this prank in a month? Well, I'm a podcaster now, a journalist of sorts so I decided to investigate. This podcast episode is the result of that investigation. Now reporters need sources, I happen to know the band Fish pretty well and I asked each one of them for the scoop. I was rebuffed at every turn, I was brick walled, I was Heisman, I was Fishmaned. The one bit of information I did receive from Trey was the meaning of the acronym, which is part of the title of one of the catch here, Caz Vote Voxed Toons. Say it to me Santos. Now in that title Santos is spelled out letter by letter with a period after each one indicating that there is some meaning there. So as Fish fans we knew that that was an avenue of investigation that had to be followed. Without much journalistic work on my behalf however, Trey simply told me what Santos means in an unprovoked text. Now I'm going to reveal it at the end of this podcast I promise, but first let me tell you what I did after learning that my planned well of information had already run dry before my first drink. I turned to my friends. Caz Vote Voxed Iraq has 10 songs. So I decided to ask five friends to give me their insights about two songs each. Now these are friends that I know experienced Halloween on some level. Some were right there with me in Las Vegas, others streamed the live show and one missed it but caught up with the music the next day and has since found his way to the light. I will say I was so thoroughly delighted and thrilled by this Halloween gag that I didn't even allow into my thinking that there would be real Fish fans out there who didn't like it. I mean honestly I was shocked and served by Fish and the songs and the lyrics and the performance that night and everything that obviously went into it. I left the arena filled to overflowing with even a new level of respect for the awesomeness of 33 years of Fish. Not everyone thinks like me though. Thank goodness right? So my first guest Brian Brinkman is also the host of his own podcast you can find also on Osiris OsirisPod.com called Beyond the Pond. Now before I interviewed him, he and his co-host Dave came out with a remarkably in-depth analysis of Cause Vote Voxed as well. There's his more researched and displays a stronger musical foundation in their analysis than mine which really is just the impression of my friends, their thoughts about the set and then about the songs they reviewed. The reason I chose Brian despite his having done a Cause Vote Voxed analysis was because I saw Brian on November 1st and I could see in his eyes and hear in his voice that he had had a similar experience to mine the night before. That's when I knew I wanted to talk to him. The others are pals I see Fish with or experience Fish with in some way or other and whom I trust implicitly to share their honest opinions. I know those people aren't faking and that's what I want. I want to know what it all means because after all, we are vapor. Okay, so now I'm on with Brian Brinkman, "Hey Brian, how are you?" "I am doing very well Tom, how are you doing?" Doing awesome and you know it's only fitting that to analyze these songs that I get a couple of my friends who are without any doubt fish experts and that's kind of what I wanted. I wanted people that listen hard and you know listen to the nuances in Fish's music because this hoax, this gag that they perpetrated upon us was so well thought out and so deep that it kind of needs that level of analysis to sort of allow me to kind of see what they really did. How overall did you feel when you came out of that Halloween set? What were your impressions? So that was my first Halloween show. It's been kind of one of those shows I've been chasing for pretty much my entire time as a fish fan either. When I started following Fish they weren't really playing. I started following them in like 2.0. They weren't really playing Halloween shows and then I was in between being overseas and being in different parts of the country so I never could make it work. So I was just thrilled to be at Halloween and I loved the aspect of like I walked into the venue, went completely dark on social media and didn't even look to my phone because I knew that you know the play bill was going to go on Twitter, he was going to go to my friend of mine, they were going to text me and be like "Hey have you seen this yet?" I didn't want that to ruin it. So it was like this really organic old public experience where like you're with a group of people and nobody knows you know what the surprise is on the other side of the security gates. And that's exactly what I wanted to maintain as well. Yeah it's I mean how often do we get that nowadays? Everything is leaked. Except the Mueller investigation, everything else leaked. The guy's got whoever's working with Mueller and Fish on Halloween has to be the same guy. It means he's here in detail. So you know that all is to say that I went in with incredibly high expectations already and I walked out of it you know six hours after showtime started, it was one of my favorite fish experiences ever, I feel like they completely fooled the fan base and then from my conversations with both David who I record Beyond the Palm with, with a number of friends who were both at the show, who rent out the show, everybody was so happy that the band was so creative and the quality of music that they made just elevated the stunt and the gag to a whole mother level. And where did you watch from and who did you, you also told me the night of you were with a very special person? Yes, so I had tickets, mic side just kind of slightly behind the stage kind of on an angle which is turned into my favorite spot to see Fish out, I've seen them either on mic or page side from that spot from that vantage point, now going on probably 10 shows and I love how you can almost see the band as if you're just peering in on rehearsal and then when Corota goes crazy with the lights you're able to see the reaction of the fan base and it was particularly cool for this show because I could see the entire stage set up for set two, I could see the stage lighting up and I had a really cool vantage point. So I was going to Vegas solo, I had an extra ticket and my dad just happened to be in Vegas for a trade show and he'd seen Fish once back in 2014 and I was like, do you think you want to go and try it again? It's going to be a probably an intense show but I think you'll enjoy it and he was totally game for it and we had a phenomenal time together. That's great and as far as like once you got that play bill your dad being a little bit of an expert at music from the past, what did he think about a band that he'd never heard of? His reaction immediately was how did I miss this and our conversations together as we were getting to our seats and sitting down and reading the play bill and going back and forth was like the lore of this band is everything that we love about with music. He's the type of person that he taught me why albums were like an artist slaved over a record in a studio for a year or so. Those tended to be like the most monumental records that you could listen to and so for him to hear, to read about this band that supposedly came out of nowhere, over a Christmas record disappears and then the lead singer songwriter goes insane. I gather they were scientists and they met doing some sort of reality perception type experiments together. Yes. Which is perfect groundwork for some of the lyrics we were about to experience. Exactly. For us to go back and forth, he was calling friends of his and being like have you ever heard of this band? Friends of his from college and who he goes to concerts with still. He was totally in on it. I was totally in on it and that just set the tone from the moment that they walked on stage and played Derry the Live. I think he went into a fish show at a level up that he did his first one. He was already totally sold on it. Good. That's great. I've already talked in my intro a little bit about the stage and everything and how blown away I was and totally willing to believe that it was a cover of an obscure album and yet inside I know fish and I've known fish forever and so my am I being pranked meter was of course right at the very you know 99 and so I kept listening for little clues as to did my songwriting partner of 40 years write this song and I thought that I would be able to perceive that and I think I was distracted. There were so many shiny things to look at right that that was part of that part of the gag and the depth of the gag. I mean their commitment to the gag just the fact that like even the wires were white everything spoke to an incredibly amazing commitment to this gag and I guess the one thing they missed is they probably lacked time and so they were unable to create the myth on the internet for the Googlers. Right. I think so I was I went on Twitter before the show and then between first and second set because I was just so curious about the record and I want to see what the community was saying and so I found out before the second set that it was a gag and that it was these were all fish debuts and that added another layer to it. But yeah I wonder if they had had you know a little bit more time if they if they would have read into the fact that some of their listeners would immediately go to the way back time machine and see how many references to CASVOT Vox there were because I think that was would ultimately take people off that and the Google Maps image but well I got to say even though I knew when they walked on stage and started playing Turtle in the clouds I knew it was a fish song there was also this part of me that was like wait is this like another layer to the gag like like that song in particular sounded nothing like I've experienced with fish songs recently and so I was kind of like thrown off but you know by midway through this set I was very much enjoying the fact that we've got 10 new debuts I really love. That's pretty cool that there's even another layer to the gag that even the hardcore vets that that went out onto the internet and knew that it was a gag we're still possibly pranked thinking you know could we be being pranked again is this actually yeah is this actually an album that isn't fish and the first song like you said they offered no no real clues to its fishiness until possibly the second half when Trey picked the guitar out. But we're not going to talk about those two songs you chose to to do a quick review on yeah and what are those Brian. So the two songs I kind of want to talk about are everything is hollow the third song in the set and play by play which transitions to the back half of the set. These two songs I don't know if they're my favorites from the record but I think that they're really interesting in the sense that they both feel to me as though they could have been pulled out of the story of the ghost sessions. They were thrown in a lot of cases like fish songs from that era to a certain degree especially everything is hollow that riff the intro you know the take it down they sound like they could kind of come out of like a songwriting session for a saw to dim. It's very eerie it's kind of late night 70s arena funk the kind of stuff that you were hearing from fish in 1997 and early 1998 and I can just imagine Trey you know back at that in that era just on the wall pedal throughout that song. The other thing I hear is and this you know is very fitting for the time is remaining light and start making sense and I feel like these songs could be talking head songs and overall structure the kind of simplicity but like the kind of dark like funk to it. I feel like that song if they play it in the right spots next summer is just going to be a dance party and whatever amphitheaters they play it in. Yeah I feel the same. Everything is hollow could come back and be a fish staple next tour easy. I love the beginning like you said the take it down. Yeah and the harmony and the way that that song starts is great. The bright white light is kind of interesting that you say remain in light and I hope that page does also wear that bright white light at the very end that he did. I don't know if you saw it from your angle but he had a really bright light right between his eyes. I know I loved that he added that to it. It's to me like the sound effects for the chilling thrilling songs like that is something kind of like gimmicky that should just remain within that song. And then yes absolutely and then toward the chord progression sort of in the instrumental part all of a sudden I kind of heard trays guitar poking through. Yes. And some of his signature chord progressions and I was thinking a little bit like a squirming coil or horn the way the instrumental parts kind of modulate. [Music] [Music] I definitely hear that and I think like to what you were saying earlier that was kind of the first time where I felt like I heard fish in these songs. Right. Like I think turtle in the clouds was so different. Stray dog sounds to me like almost like a velvet underground song to a certain degree. This was the first time that like I heard a song where I was like okay this still fits with the overall theme of the album but then like there's like you said there's trays guitar poking through. Let's move. I'm trying to move quickly because I promised every one of my guests will analyze two songs and we're going to try to do the whole thing in 15 minutes you and I might have already gone over but your next song is called play by play. My next song is play by play and this is a song I think it's one of the more controversial ones on the record I've heard like totally opposing. I love this song to the song did not do it for me at all. I personally loved it because this song to me tracks fish's inspirational evolution from Brianino to David Bowie to the talking heads. Wow. And it sounds like something that could have come off of another green world. It sounds like something that could have come out of the Berlin era for Bowie. It sounds again like remaining light. I mean both of these songs I hear them kind of reaching back to that era of their inspiration being like in the 90s for these three artists. Down below my feet as forever long below my feet as forever dark and scary. I doubled down. I was there. I ran away. I was in the news. When I heard the play by play I wanted to be you. I was there. I ran away. I was in the news. When I heard the play by play. Are you tired of being tired? Are you ready to get eight hours of unbroken sleep? If you answered yes to either of those questions today's sponsor may be able to help. 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Sleeps sound knowing that they stand behind their products. Sunset Lake CBD, farmer owned Vermont grown. Hi, this is Henry K. Host to the number one music history podcast, Rootsland. Come with me on a journey to Kingston Jamaica where we explore the world of reggae music and the untold stories of some of the genre's greatest legends. From the ghettos and tenement yards where the music was born to the island's iconic recording studios, we are so excited to team up with Osiris Media, the leading storyteller in music. Because as you'll hear, sometimes the story is the best song. I was always attached to and it immediately just clung to me as I've re-listened to this set over and over again. Just the line, I hope someone notices and how it goes out into this. Nothingness in the music really quieted that point in time. What else does fish need to accomplish? Clearly, they had this inspiration to write these new songs outside of the style of a lot of recent fish songs. This idea that they're incredibly successful musicians who can book almost any venue that they want to play at and just thousands of fans will descend upon them. Yet, they still want people to notice these new subtle shifts in their creativity. I just love that. They're playing to the fans. I hope someone does notice this. That was my take from it. I feel like without what they did in 2013 with Wingsuit and then the next year with Chilling Thrilling, there's no way that the band has the freedom to craft a 70s, crowd rock Swedish album that's totally fake to debut 10 songs. What a cool thing for them to do. To hope that the fans still notice these subtle and dramatic shifts that they're taking them on, it makes me fall in love with them all over again. Me too. I'm excited. Me too. There was just so much to grab a hold of. I really agree with you. I think if you dig into those lyrics and the freedom that fish was given by being able to create behind the mask of this band, I think allowed them to push boundaries that they... Now you can be anonymous. That's the whole point of a mask. You go to a costume party and you don't necessarily have to be yourself. You might be more audacious and ask that beautiful man or woman for a dance that you might not have as yourself. I think the same thing is happening with their writing, but also their lyrics for sure because if you remember in the playbill, this was translated from a combination of Swedish finish and Icelandic and stuff was lost and gained in translation. Fish is never really to blame for these lyrics. They could say whatever they want. I totally get that and to your point in terms of putting a mask on, you know this from your songwriting sessions with Trey. I think based on just life in general, a lot of the songs recently have been very, very personal in a lot of cases. I think for them to step outside of that and just throw ideas at the wall and see what clicks in terms of where their twisted creative brains take them almost took a leap back to the lyrics and the songwriting that you heard from the band 30 years ago. And to me it was like this connection between where they were as these 18, 19, 20 year old, just like super nerds in the winter of Vermont trying to break all these musical rules to where they are now as mid 50s, dads, husbands who have seen a lot of shit in their lives and have realized on the other end like, you know, their friendship, their creativity is what really binds them together. Yes. And that was a huge, huge takeaway for me. Brian, I'm asking every of my guests to give me either their favorite interpretation of what, or what they think Santos actually means. So I took this in terms of like breaking down S-A-N-T-O-S. I believe that this is what you were looking for. And I took it as the phrases, and this ties with my love for the song, sense and subtle sounds. Stop and notice the outdated simplicity. Oh my God. That's fantastic. Now that's your own, right? You didn't pull that from somewhere? Right. I came up with that like 10 minutes before we got on the phone. I was thinking about it as I was walking my dog and I was like, you know what? This whole record, this whole concept is about, you know, this isolation that this band supposedly felt and, you know, what the band was going for was this like concept that this like gag that they could get over on the fan base before the internet was ever, you know, there it's just like these pure songs. And you know, so the simplicity being outdated was something that really struck me. I love it. I love it. And I'm going to tell it at the very, very end of this podcast. Oh, I want to get everyone's impression and see if someone gets it correct. My favorite one that stuck with me. Some acronyms neglect to offer substance. It's like most shows tell something. Exactly. Exactly. Yep. Amazing. Well, thank you, Brian Brinkman. Thank you very much. Of Beyond the Pond. Check out. Yeah, check out the podcast. Thanks for your incredible insight, Brian. And now we're off to our next set of reviewers, our next pair of songs. And again, thank you so much. Thank you, Tom. All right. So David Steinberg is my second guest talking about this incredible cause vote voxed Halloween set. Hi, David. How are you? Hi, Tom. I'm fine. And I appreciate you're coming on with me to discuss two songs that you chose. And my first couple of guests had the luxury of choosing which songs they wanted to review. The last ones, of course, got stuck with ones that, you know, that no one else had chosen. But I never told them that part. And I won't until they won't find out until the podcast comes out. But they also won't find out until I'm talking to them that I am going to reveal the actual meaning of Santos S A N T O S at the very end of this podcast. But I am very curious, David, as to what your interpretation, either favorite interpretation you've seen subsequently, or that you've made up yourself or anything along those lines of Santos. Well, I true theories. One is simply that it was that you are not involved. So it's songs, absolutely no Tom's original sentences. Well, that absolutely if you if you thought that or maybe that came later, but I had so many people thanking me for my part in this Halloween set. And I had to, you know, disabuse them of that notion just because, you know, I've had absolutely nothing to do with it. I was as in the dark as the rest of the fish community. The other option is if you buy into the whole nine cubes theory, that this is a super secret government project where this band formed. Right. Traditionally, what do super secret government projects do like Area 51? They're about aliens. Okay. So obviously it's super conducting alloys of nibobian tatulum to outer space in that they've discovered some alien spaceships that have this element. And they're reverse engineering to build our own spaceships of the office planet. And apparently didn't work very well, because here we are 20 years later, 30 years later, my God. I will say yours is not correct, but you so far have come the closest. Well, that's good to know. But see, I've heard that if you listen to the lyrics, it really is a secret design on how to build a spaceship. That's what I've heard. I don't know if that's true. That's what I've heard. Everybody was studying carefully the playbill. And there was such a funny kind of, you know, scientific misdirection, if you will, and funny pictures of these guys who are supposedly scientists who who wrote this album as a diversion from their, their, their main pursuit, which is some sort of extra sensory perception type scientific experiment thing. So maybe that's what it is. Maybe we just need to hear the original version, not the translated one. We'll learn all sorts of things. So David, really quick, just for my audience, I know there's an entire under the scales podcast that that's dedicated to you. And it's called timer. And I implore people to go and check that out to learn more about David Steinberg. But David, please just tell a little bit about fish stats if you would. It started as just me curiosity thing that I was working on that kind of has grown over the years to let people input their shows and see how many time they've seen each song, what they haven't seen yet. Like, for example, I have still yet the C alumni blues. And it just, if you feel like just finding out just, you know, if you're like, you know, I've seen this song so many times and you just cover, Hey, you know what, I've only seen like 12 times. I feel like I've seen it more. Sometimes it makes you feel better. Sometimes it makes you say, Oh my God, I really have seen the song way too much. But I can't help you then. And the way David does this is, of course, you go to his site fish stats or or Z, wait, tell me your eye has calm I H O Z calm. There actually is a computer company called the zidix computers, which stole the zidix calm before it could get to it 1996. So if you go to I has calm, you can type in, you know, you go through a list of shows, fill in the ones that you've gone to and voila, all these stats pop out about the particular shows and songs that you've seen. And so David was among the first who really started being very interested in in fish statistics. Of course, it's turned into a, you know, a secret closet industry since then. But Dave is the founder of that, I would say, and has a Facebook page called fish stats. But anyway, in keeping with the people that really listen hard to fish and really understand, you know, and are unlikely to be taken in by a practical joke, because we've seen and been part of so many. I wanted to analyze with no help from the band, the Halloween set. And when I say no help, the only thing I know from the band at all is what Santos means, because Trey told me without asking, I didn't ask. But so in my mind, the joke still lives on. But so you were watching from the floor on page side, I could see from your your photos. Yes. And should I tell you the story, how that happened? Or should we let this be a mystery? That was funny. Okay, sure, please. I was actually unlucky on both the on sale date and the mail order. And my ticket was in the very, very back row of the upper deck extreme side stage. I would not have seen being able to see the anything pretty much from where I was. And a friend of mine, who's the side I should be down on the floor, as they're putting on her wristbands, she literally grabbed another one out of the box. And that'll mean gave it to me. That's how I get down to the floor. I don't know if you've been crazy. I don't know if you've been encouraging this, but. Well, maybe, maybe not necessarily encouraging that. And yet, somehow I feel that you deserve that. So, so it's okay in your case only. And the odd thing is, I was actually in the same exact spot on the opposite side of the venue as I was for the haunted house set. Oh, wow. Okay. So now you're on the floor and you've studied more than anyone. The, oh, actually, you're probably one of those people who did go on the internet and research and were willing to have the jokes spoiled a little bit. But no, it was actually even weirder because I spent the 90 minutes beforehand. It's like, my friends, I came on top of me. No, I want to deal with this album because those websites that popped up were their reviews from this, but back in 2004. So like, I'm like texting my wife who was unfortunately wasn't able to make it. And she's like, no, no, I'm seeing these websites. There's reviews like they're from like decades ago. And then other people are like, like, went back to the way back machine on archive.org and they're like, no, I'm pretty sure they disappeared in the last couple of days. And like, people were waiting back and forth. And first, I was reading these things. I'm like, these articles make no sense. I mean, they're hilarious, but there's no way, but I think we're going to talk to the other, via the other podcast we did, the Joe Jack Arkansas thing might made up. Yes, the same sort of thing, which I know Joe Arkansas isn't a real basis. Right. But I still don't necessarily 100% know some part of me still is like, well, maybe this whole thing is real. That's exactly how I listened to this set. And as I told my previous guest, Brian, I was listening to it very carefully for clues as to, you know, if this was a fish composition, I would be able to tell, right, having written a lot of songs with Trey. But I think, you know, there were lots of, like I said, shiny objects. And there's some distractions. And my brain never kind of really put together. Well, actually, there's one exception. And that's the second song that you are going to talk about to today, where I did start thinking, you know, at this one really could be by Trey. But, but turtle in the clouds, the first one, when they came out, no way, that to me was a cover of a weird Norwegian band, and that's the one that they definitely completely bought into the joke, lyrically, musically, dance moves, Lee, everything. And, you know, so I, you know, I'm Scandinavian. I lived in Sweden for three years, and my mom's pure Swedish. And lots of my relatives don't have English at all as their first language. And so I've been subject to English that's been translated from Swedish and vice versa. And some of these lyrics actually kind of felt that way to me. The other thing about it, at least with this song, all the analogies they were using on the metaphors, they all were very bleak. They're very, oh, it's another long dark winter, and we're just stuck here. We're here in the Arctic with nothing to do except our scientific experiment and write some music. I mean, they're riding their bikes out in the rain at one point in this song. Right. And they're even a reference to like, I mean, there's a suicide reference in this, which there never is in a fish song, which is like, for the first time in a long time, I want to live another day, which is very Norwegian. And that's a good point. I missed that one. So you and I were, at least for this song, were buying into it. This is a fish found some weird band and they're covering it. Imagine every room, I keep within my hand, don't know where I'm from, all the things and say, so maybe no attention as I blend in with them all. Some people call me clueless. I mean, I was going back and forth. I was pretty sure it wasn't, but I thought, wow, they really, really are selling it hard. Whether it was fake or not, I was, I was blown away and smiling ear to ear. Oh, I took a little video, but I put up on like Instagram in a few places of just the dance move they were doing. And I have yet to ever go to watch like a 20 second video from me on the floor. And I've yet to be able to watch that thing without cracking up. Yeah, I know. There's, you know, it was funny to me and I'm not positive yet. Like I said, I haven't asked anyone anything, anyone that knows anything. I'm not positive, but to me, something about the dance move. And maybe this is just because it's fish coming up with it reminded me of the Gula dance move and the steps and stuff. And so we're actually having some releases about that. Do you want to know or do you want to still be in the dark? Oh, please tell me sure. Mike, put the gun in his hotline that they actually did do have formal like a someone who did some work for the camel tin and some of their other dance projects. They did actually have some do formally help them with the dance steps. Oh, wow. Okay. That's amazing. And they do it so well. They, there's so much practice involved with it. I mean, you know, let alone knowing the songs and the intricate parts of the songs, but also to come up, you know, and be able to pull out those dance moves on demand and not make one misstep as far as I've been able to tell. Yeah, it was, yeah, the reaction I kept on here, I heard from like six different people, like one line, I mean, obviously I'm sitting there like boggles, I'm checking my phone to get whatever else is reacting and reacting to me. I have no idea what it is I am seeing right now. So now that thought that was amazing. Some people thought that was worrisome, but everyone just seemed like, what is going on? Now, for in my time in Sweden, I don't remember a lot of turtles. I actually don't I don't know if they're like an arctic animal at all. Yeah, they're more of a desert animal, not you mentioned that, although he, but they know what turtles look like, though, because he had turtle in the clouds. That looks like a turtle. I mean, not like they are seeing a real turtle. There was there was something funny where it and I remember this during the song when a fisherman took a line and it was like some people call me clueless. My last name is Walab and Paige had just saying something like I blend in with the mob and I was thinking that is a that is a sad rhyme right there. And I could see them just laughing. And then, of course, kind of fish like, you know, in retrospect, I didn't catch it at the time. Of course, they're going to hammer that joke home and the whole, you know, now they repeat cute, clueless, Walab, a hundred times in fish fashion. Yeah, there's definitely, if I ever could get a chance to interview them, the one thing I want to know, other than face plant in the rock, which is the obvious centerpiece of their lyrical masterpiece here, it's just dino, which is like the line that cracked them up the most. Listing and to this song and seeing the dancing, this one so far has my and the fact that it was the opener and everyone was just stunned. This one I think made me smile and still does the most. So what's your second song again that you wanted to. We have come to live our brains. We are come to live our brains. Yes, there's about three songs in a row starting here that have a kind of repetitive, extremely catchy song. Like I said, it's up against the rail. My friend who saw me doing, I started singing along with them. Like I'm the glue in your magnet. And my friend said, "Do you know this song?" Like, no, it's just so catchy. I can't stop singing it. You know, I only heard like three seconds ago. I'm a glue in your magnet. I'm a glue in your magnet. I'm a glue in your magnet. I'm a glue in your magnet. Right. Mind me, I have a lot. And this came up the next night when I played bouncer. So I started singing fishing '89. So bouncing was like my first new song from me that I really loved. Now I was thinking that sort of repetitive, ridiculously hit like the anti-woke part of bouncing at the end there. Oh yeah, where they're doing those different lines. Yes. It seems very catchy, very repetitive lyrics that don't necessarily mean anything, but in the right mood they mean a lot. Yes, exactly. Just like fish. And the curtains like that. And they've still made songs like that. So it felt less and specifically, and again, it's happened later that night. I was just listening to it the other day. I was listening to the hood from that night. And I'm like, wow, this jam sounds a lot like we have come down with our brains. And I'm listening to it. And all of a sudden John starts singing it, singing a line over it. And they basically took the hood jam. It's not literally the same chord as far as I can tell. They took the feel of the hood jam and turned it into a song. A second copy is obviously a song too. Right. And I'm amazing. So, so fishermen started singing the line, the words, so we are come to live our brains in the hood jam. Yes, but they also were kind of playing. They weren't playing the we have like the on the Glunier magnet quite, but they're playing. The feel is very similar to it. It just felt like it. Wow. Yes. That's great. Well, they've probably been eating, breathing and sleeping, you know, the songs. So that makes sense. But you can kind of feel that this is they are, you know, trying to channel the 80s, but in a channel themselves in the 80s. Exactly. Because if you remember, right, exactly. Well, I mean, ultimately, if you buy into this, that it's fish covering them. So of course, it's going to sound fishy. Exactly. Some of the later ones, I definitely are starting to say, Oh, now they're extending the joke where it's like, it's loaded where they're taking the songs and they're jamming them out. But we actually were listening to the album that wouldn't be like that. Well, now someone has gone some some crazy people have even created the studio versions of these songs. Now have you heard that? Yeah, I have heard one of them. It's just unbelievable. It's so good. I think I production values. It's yeah, it's incredible. And they have accents to the singers. Now, someone needs to translate into Icelandic and what are they? There are four languages that they go back and forth between Swedish Finnish Icelandic and there might have been even another one. Danish maybe. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Or Norwegian. Yeah. Great song. I love both of your choices, David. Are these also your favorite? So you just wanted to analyze these. They're definitely one of my favorite turtle, just because I completely bought into it. And I can't stop trying to use I'm the clue in your magnet as a compliment or a way of saying that I respect you as a friend or something. You know, I'm going to be the clue in your magnet. It's just such a great line for that purpose. It's a great line and we'll let you have that as your last word. However, I will say, thank you so much, David, for your analysis and we'll see you soon. Hopefully in New Year's. Are you going to make it out? The 30th and the 31st. The 31st was my 350th, which is why I can't add anymore because I want to make my 31st and my 350th. So just the two. Fantastic. Okay. All right. Well, I'll see you then and we'll celebrate your 350. Okay. Thanks. Under the scales is brought to you by Skillshare. Skillshare is an online learning platform with over 20,000 classes in business, design, technology, and more. You can take classes in music production and composition, video editing, photography, creative writing, you name it, it got it. So whether you're trying to deepen your professional skill set, start a side hustle, or just explore a new passions, Skillshare is there to keep you learning and thriving. So I'm a user of Skillshare. I think I've taken about five full courses and I have about 20 saved that I want to take. And I'm more amazed by the quality and the variety of the courses every time I get on. 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Skillshare is offering under the scales listeners two months of unlimited access to 24,000 classes for just 99 cents. To sign up go to skillshare.com/scales. Again go to skillshare.com/scales to start your two months now. Thanks Skillshare. And now do you have a sweet tooth? Do you have a friend with a sweet tooth? The holidays are right around the corner. What do you get the fish fan who has everything? Ice cream. We're proud to partner with Ben and Jerry's to help raise awareness of the Waterwheel Foundation. Ben and Jerry's has collaborated with fish and the Waterwheel Foundation to create a limited flavor. It's ice cream, a caramel malt ice cream with almond toffee pieces, fudge fish and a caramel swirl. This is and I'm not making this up my favorite Ben and Jerry's ice cream. My family still likes the regular fish food but this one to me this is the perfect ice cream followed by half baked and then followed by fish food. The packaging in a very limited t-shirt were designed by Jim Pollock. A portion of the proceeds for the ice cream and all of the proceeds of the t-shirts are donated to the Waterwheel Foundation. I don't think you can find this flavor in stores anymore. I hope that changes but for now the ice cream and the tees can be ordered at store.benjerry.com. If you use promo code OSIRIS you can get free shipping on all orders over $50 for the rest of 2018. There's also a special curbed ball fish food waterwheel t-shirt created for the cancelled festival that can be purchased online. Thanks Ben and Jerry's. All right this brings us to our third guest who also will analyze with me two songs. We're going to get through this. Right now we're in the middle of our analysis essentially and our third guest is my friend Craig Hillwig. Hello Craig. Hi Tom. I'm so glad that you were willing to join me in this analysis. You're my first guest who was not there and I did want to get your perspective as well. However I you know just from talking with you I was under the impression that you were watching the live stream but you didn't. Right? No I actually I followed along on social media while people got in the show and pulled the fish bill out and then you know the sort of mass googling of of Cosua vox and what it could mean and and what the history of it was while we're all trying to figure out what the gag is and what the thrust of it was. But you know I'm East Coast and and I had to work the next day and I had taken taken kids out for trick or treat and so after the first few songs of fish you know it was after 11 and and I went to bed so I literally did not know what the what the performance was like until the next morning I downloaded the the audience tape from E-Tree and and listened to it audio only on the way to work on the train. Well I should say so so far my other two guests it's it was obvious why I had them on one is a fish podcaster and one is David Steinberg who's fish statistician. Craig is in my eyes anyway equally qualified to stay you know to speak on fish and analyze fish. I call you a grateful dead expert and a fish expert. Craig listens harder than almost any friend. I know down to the instrumentation what amp trays using what distortion box he's using what keyboard page you know Craig will be able to identify that Mike has a new toy or Mike is playing a different bass or has a new cabinet that kind of thing so you're perfect for this analysis and you've chosen the song stray dog and the songs the song final hurrah and before we get into that I should just really quickly ask you your either interpretation or your favorite interpretation of the acronym Santos. Well that's that's pretty controversial there are some some scuttlebutt online that you know maybe this was the the the so-called statement that people were some people were clamoring the band to make after the incident at the gorge. Oh right I heard some of this so and Santos was was a statement about nitrous on the lot something along the lines so stop allowing nitrous tanks on shakedown or something like that. Oh my god wow well I didn't really ever buy into that one even though it would have been an interesting way of making that statement and I do think I at least heard accompanying that rumor that fish was able to get at least one of those victims of violence free tickets or something along those lines and actually I don't even know if that's true so I probably shouldn't be saying it but that that tried that accompanied that rumor and sort of made it slightly more believable. They actually did there was a picture posted one of the victims and a friend of his were I think flown down to Nashville for for one of those shows and backstage and and posed with pictures with with all four members of the band so good you know what they weren't doing publicly they were doing behind the scenes and and trying to you know say something nice in their own way to these fans who went through a lot more than we usually do at a show. Yes usually emphasis on usually yes good good good job fish and that's great to hear so I won't have to bleep out that it turned out not to be a rumor at least that part but so Craig's online persona should you want to follow him a very interesting commentary often during shows when he's home because he's got young kids but also like just interesting observations in general is on Twitter he's chilwig ch-i-l-l-w-i-g and oh it well it is under the scales how many shows have you seen total Craig um somewhere north of 170 nice okay and uh just an overall impression of the Halloween set comparing them to other halloween for you. Oh my well I gotta say like I said when I I my first exposure to the music was audio only so I didn't really have the context of the gag right and and I hated it I thought I thought the songs were terrible oh my god and and and I was you know kind of thinking like well I was a little bit offended by it but and then then I got to the office and I thought you know let me see if there's any video online and I caught a few I think they released like the final hurrah was the first track that they're released on the official video like the next day right and then when I saw the video I couldn't stop laughing exactly it was hysterical so so I figured well maybe that's maybe that's it maybe it's there's a visual component to it and the backstory to the gag that makes it a very cool thing execution in real time but you know maybe these songs won't have any staying power but I think what I failed to realize was the extent to which I and a lot of other fish fans were really really thirsty for old school quirky fish right and and after like three years of of soul-splaining and and uplifting you know what what some people call the the type toll after the the Eckhart toll themed lyrics and things like that which I'm going to yeah well and and it's it's kind of a hearkening back to roots of a different type of song that the band used to specialize in a lot more than they do today right so you're saying you came around on it yeah yeah it's sort of like like the stray dog you know once you know once you look in at it you kind of like what you found a little bit into town yeah baby no attention as I dreamt around holding you down from a chase you down on like a stray dog a little bit into town howling wind in the driving rain once you look cosy you like what you found and I think it's really catching on a lot of people are spouting out you know the earworms and it's usually the silliest parts of the song the repetitive choruses some of the nonsense lines that that are repeated over and over again and it's rapidly becoming part of the fish culture yeah I mean I've heard people say that they feel that this might be the fishiest record that fish has made since story of the ghost and when I first heard that I thought you're crazy but you know I've been I've been listening to this a lot especially for this this project the liberation that I think fish must have felt writing behind the mask of this band enabled them to go to some kind of crazy places that I don't think they would go as fish and so maybe we got to like their crazy place again or wherever some of those wacky songs came from before you know everybody was listening to them who knows well and I think a lot of it probably came from their youth I mean I just turned 50 this year I know you're 50 something all the members of the band are 50 something now so you know and listening to the album I went back to my you know formative music goal discovery years in the early 80s you know early MTV when it actually played music videos and I thought about the new records that I remember buying and coming out at that time that weren't what I usually listen to like Devo and the police and the cars and the pretenders and like you go back and listen to something like Devo's new traditionalists and then causal boxed back-to-back and you hear a lot of the I mean I'm not going to say it's similar or it's evocative but you hear a lot of the same songwriting sensibilities a lot of the song construction techniques that makes the weird fun and that I think they were trying to be I think yeah somewhat faithful to what was going on in the early 80s when a mythical Scandinavian band might have been playing and what their contemporaries might have been doing that's amazing so in you know just given the criteria that you gave they they hit it out of the park if they if you come back at next to Devo back you know back to back to Devo and what else what else is Adam Ant and weird stuff that was happening back then that's pretty amazing they would consider that a win or even even like you listen to what bands like Queen is really big in the news right now because the the movie Bohemian Rhapsody is out right but you go back and listen to what Queen was doing in the early 80s albums like The Game and followed up with that with the album that had radio gaga on that I mean some of those songs you listen to them the first time and you're like what and then all of a sudden you're listening to the whole album and and every song is is really good and it was and it was because Queen was really good but they were were in the context of the early 80s and they were adapting yeah and they were experimenting so I think it's in that spirit and it may you know obviously I can't talk to the band and find out what their intent was so a lot of this is projection but then again I know from living with this band for over 25 years that we all grew up listening and cutting our teeth to the same types of music yep so you know this nostalgia I have to think that they were sharing in it too well that's amazing great commentary and all right song to final hurrah this one this sounds very unusual I mean what do you even what do you even do with this one this this one reminds me you know sitting on the jungle gym the shapes become unhinged this reminds me of Trey's story from December 30th 1997 of the day that he met you and the the infamous the the utter ball dream oh right and and on the playground and and and the voice calling out to him oh Trey oh and this is this has to be some sort of just psychedelic mind trip in a 1980s disco funk outfit I think there's really no other way to describe it no and I agree and I'm gonna let that description stand but one of the other songs at least one of the other songs maybe two other songs they're talking about the objects in mid-air you know dangling in mid-air above you Trey says it in I believe even internal in the clouds there's this one has I am a square dangling in mid-air I think page is saying it this time and this is more references to the mid-air squares you know dangling above the audience and it makes me there was another one that's the nine nine squares nine squares nine squares yeah or also traces yeah exactly and traces shapes hanging above me and then later the very next line I think is shapes hanging above you kind of like the audience this is like evidence that the songs were definitely written in conjunction with the set design I have to think so yeah it's kind of funny it's like it happened all at the same time like they were figuring out how to how to make this set the whiteness of it and and the cubes and all that stuff above and some of that leaked into the writing and then just like all the other songs there there's a couple of just three or four word I don't know hashtag level phrases that you can take with you like taste the humidity and stuff like that oh obviously faceplant into rock faceplant into rock which which I guess kind of feeds in in sort of a comical way to the to the gorge incident again right look at it did not know that part do we have a definitive pronunciation of the I mean you're I'm Swedish so here here it goes ready cause vote right cause vote vaxxed okay so then the second follow-up question was do you think that they picked a Scandinavian motif because their their lead lyricist is is of Scandinavian descent I do not I do not I think they just wanted something semi-believable you know some band that somehow gone under the radar and and and just developed like figured oh my god of course it has to be Scandinavia Chinese wouldn't make sense you know what I mean but this could weird music comes out of Scandinavia and sure sure or they could have picked like like like late 70s Berlin or something like that and done like a trout rock album but I think this was better yep me too I do too well Craig thank you so much for your your point of view and thank you for being honest about your initial reaction oh I'm happy to be the stick in the mud well I mean it's even better that you know they they brought you around just by the power of music I came around and they better play them all over the New Year's run because I'm I'm thirsty all right well don't miss another Halloween don't miss a Sunday show and every other fish thing that I'm supposed to tell you in the from the rule book in our heads thank you Tom thank you Craig so long. Just one thing throughout. Just one thing throughout. [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] Okay we're on segment four out of five in our Halloween analysis and under the scales mobile studio has moved to New York City and I'm here with Jen Bernstein hi Jen it's up Tom and RJB hey RJ. Hey Tom thanks for having me back. Absolutely and we're really excited to discuss your two songs but first I just want to get sort of an initial impression of what you guys thought of Halloween. I was actually at home on the Upper West Side where we are now and it was my husband Scott Bernstein not of jam bass or yem blog the taper and we were watching live and of course it was you know pretty late in the evening or early in the morning as as we were watching here on the east coast and you know right off the bat just my mind was blown everything was white and to watch the you know the nugsnet the live broadcast of it I would think that I had the best of all the worlds you know here I am with my bong on the Upper West Side watching you know this unfold and the bong was necessary right oh yes I mean just you know for for staying up so you know smoking those strong sativas and getting a great buzz no bathroom line but you know seeing the band come out dressed in white having trade start off not having a guitar looking so vulnerable up there and it's it's Halloween and so for me uh you know watching the video direction of this go down was just a phenomenal and I really got the full picture view which you don't necessarily get if you're a rail rider like myself you'd only get to see so much that's something that we did find out and myself as well being a little bit everyone on the floor and everyone just slightly above the floor level did not see that the stage was lit up as well as the people who are at home good or 200 levels right um so I had heard even before earlier in the day so here I am NYC jam girl following at home you know on on instagram and on twitter and watching it all go down so I actually thought it was more fun the discovering of what was going on so I'm watching as uh wombat mat is you know one of the first people in line and gets into the venue and all of a sudden now it's a fish chicks Jen Kessler who's like you know live streaming and she's like we don't have the fish bill yet and uh we're sitting here on the floor you know at the rail waiting for the fish bill and then then she comes back and it's like okay we all have the fish bill what the yeah exactly what's going on you guys the the home contingent were the ones that I was trying to avoid because I knew there was internet like discovery going on and I didn't want the um you know I didn't want any of the secret out I didn't I wanted to learn everything I learned from the music and from the performance so I unlike my previous guest Craig whom you guys know very well in fact Craig introduced me to RJ um was very much a internet digger and found out you know immediately about the hoax and told everyone but I did not I refused to learn now RJ you and I were at Halloween but you were on the floor and what was your impression of of the night the first set Halloween set everything how do you like it well I'll admit to having like a tinge of non-classic rock disappointment which happened to me once before in 2013 for Wingsoo so I should have known better and to just like trust trust the process you're thinking um houses of the holy or physical graffiti right yeah I mean or you know Hendrix or just like something that but looking back like that's a silly thing to have worried about because basically over the course of 24 hours I realized like they wrote an entirely new album their third new album in five years I mean it's totally insane that the amount of music they've written but the whole thing was just I was like distracted by the spectacle and I was laughing and their antics it was just like it's hard for me to process new music hearing it live for the first time but especially when it's just like this ridiculous you know production and I'll thrown at you so fast with so much distraction yeah so I came around I think I think that was the point yeah exactly I may have listened to it dozens of times and I think there's several songs including the ones we're going to talk about that I want to hear hear more of okay before we get into the two songs um you your guys assignment everyone's assignment has been to tell us the best impression of what you think Santos the acronym means and uh I'm going to remind you again that when this podcast comes out at the very end the only thing I've found out from the band about this entire spectacle is exactly what Santos does actually mean so uh Jen you're up all right so you know just trolling the internet and uh you know following twitter everybody immediately thought that it was the band saying something about like saying no to nitrous like don't bring nitrous to the show um so that that was the first guess you know like you know bringing you know some things like nitrous tanks and on shake down right exactly so you know stop the nitrous kids right uh so so yeah I mean plausible you know it works out uh no so some further trolling found or research um found that there is a Simpsons episode that uh Homer uh has something to do with um Santa's little helper uh his dog and uh Homer says something about you know hi ho hi ho it's off to work we go so that would you know relate uh post curve ball right so a lot of these songs were written immediately following curve ball uh there is a buffalo weatherman on channel four and his name is Todd Santos so if you were waiting for Todd Santos to tell it to you uh and say it to me Santos Todd so you could follow him uh he's at Todd Santos four and he's buffalo's weatherman so you'll always remember where you were yeah and then um my third guess theory would be that it's an anagram for Anastasia we just did the math on it and it's it's close yeah it's really close to Anastasia I thought it would have been amazing if Trey Anastasia letters scrambled said say it to be Santa uh that was amazing you blew me away briefly but then it didn't quite line up it was like an extra y and an n and stuff like that yeah but uh really cool okay so so you guys did your homework yes so now we're going to talk about two songs your guys assignments were um say it to me Santos and uh death don't hurt very long and uh yes uh rj why don't we just jump right in so we you're reading the playbill that these this band cast fudvox met as either scientists or subjects while living briefly in a remote research bunker in greenland in the late 1970s they say that it was the cold war many countries were trying to find an edge so they tried some crazy things and you don't know what happened in these experiments there were pictures to prove it so that part's true that part is true so playbill was hilarious because it said that the two guys they weren't sure if they're related or if they just happened to share a very common last name right so I think that this song is about what happened after these these experiments were over which were that these guys from Iceland Norway and Finland it was a three of them that they were did participating in some sort of joint Scandinavian spaces exploration program and they did go into space and this the lyrics here are about what happened as a result um they went into space we know that space is cold my thoughts are frozen um people who are going into space during the cold war were remembered as revolutionary so there's that you will always be remembered this is what space smells like etc i think there are other lyrics from other songs that could one problem just like you know off the top of my head wouldn't we have known if they went into space well that's the whole thing they they did but then it was covered up by these governments oh it's a secret blast off that somehow wasn't detected by the scientists in the united states that is and that is the that is the outcome of the nine cubes project that has not been known until right now so that's that's my theory um but it's a theory about the song and like but how do you like the music too like music i thought the music's great i think this is the most catchy memorable song um evidence by my son always asking to hear it um every time we get in the car which actually that's one of my favorite parts of the about this song is that i always think of your son's video he's hilariously dancing to it it's a great great video it's funny because when kids like latch on the lyrics like that you know that there's something really catchy about it i mean shout out shout out miles yeah immediately was you know he's been saying say to me sent us since since halloween so so i love these songs are sort of characterized by a catchphrase wouldn't you agree well yeah i mean i think for you know any band that has brand new music performing live for the first time not only does it take tremendous amounts of energy and time remembering all those lyrics remembering all new music i mean they would let alone writing it yeah i mean uh all that time spent is just like incredible memory power that you would have to have a memorable line or something to trigger you knowing that oh yeah this is what uh say to me santa sounds like you know how many different songs there are 10 songs and and they uh did an incredible job as far as we know because these were the first times we ever heard them so if they missed a part here and there we there's no way that we could possibly know this one had a nice jam kind of in it there's a beautiful uh a really good uh you know semi-fish-esque but also semi- Norwegian too yeah and i i think i texted this to you tell but the this song and and a lot of the songs in the sounds made me realize again like how good tray is at bringing lyrics to life oh oh oh oh oh oh this is what space smells like in thing you always remember where you were this is what space smells like in thing you will always remember where you were i mean this is the most raging i i felt like you know it's it really does have like classic rock potential this song and uh you know starts off super funky with like page sounding like he's on the clave and you know mike laying this great groove behind it and you know by by the end you're like fist pumping you know kind of like jersey rock style and um you know i'm really looking forward to hearing this one live again this one will come back and the things that you say uh that you remember from this not only uh say to me santos but this is what space smells like which according to uh mike gordon smells like cherry plus bruce and he tweeted that the that's mike awesome we're on to song number two your guys' assignment included the song death don't hurt very long what did you think uh i thought you know clocking in uh you know a little bit over eight minutes this was the second longest of uh the songs and had a ton of jam potential at the end and it really got there absolutely um this one started off a little bit slower fish sung this one all right so you know here uh you know fish in front of his mike and descended from apes you know and it's just it's just great um he's he's always got this like it seems like he wants to go a little like azi Osborne yeah yeah totally and they they do say frozen in place cast into space so i just want to say that this is just more ammo for my theory but this is like the most um transparent satire of an 80s rock song i think of all of them you know just like the the lyrics and the way they're playing it with the way fishman sings it it's like they to me this was like let's make this let's make an 80s rock song yeah yeah a little bit more metal to me the feeling right yeah especially with death don't hurt very you know it's great cast into space transported too fast you know it don't last up from the ground changing my sound descended from ace you'll just change and shake death don't hurt very long death don't hurt very long death don't hurt very long death don't hurt very long exactly so um both of these i mean i haven't found one song that you could say we might not see again i mean i feel this one could come back only because fishman loves singing so much it's great yeah i mean i think i think that you know the the you know the potential for the jams too um and i think that what the band has done is created you know a platform to launch off of or even segues into one another and just you know i think with um chilling thrilling page had his keyboard of samples and now the band has just a little bit more ammo in the arsenal with these songs that they could pull from yeah the uh the one sample that i remember from this is just the uh face a plant interock face a plant interock which we're gonna i think we're gonna hear that throughout the new years run i would assume that sample's coming back yeah it's coming back i just to Jen's point about the jam in this to me it sounded like the only song where they actually kind of went away from the song structure and the improv which i don't know i think this is the most has the most potential right for future improv and maybe could be in an like you know second song and the second set sort of thing and and they could really stretch it out it seemed like they were really comfortable playing it yeah that's great that's great well thank you guys so much for for uh you know doing your assignment as as requested and i appreciate it very much and uh now i'm on to person number five and the last two songs before santos is revealed and hopefully not by re-think before me all right the under the scales mobile recording studio has moved back to Princeton and uh we have a link to tie land and over there is my friend scott gray scott how are you doing i'm doing well and sitting right next to me is a uh many times actually scott you've been on before as well but uh the guy next to me has been on probably has holds the record as co-host tibotomas how you don't see good all right glad to be here this is going to be fun yeah yep so uh you guys are the fifth guests uh and fifth and final and so you guys are going to have the pleasure unlike anyone else of learning the actual meaning of santos after you tell me your guesses um everyone else has told me their guesses um but you guys are going to learn the actual so so how do how are we certain of the actual meaning um you're certain because uh he's telling you so yeah why not but how do you know Tom okay well so um the the whole genesis of this project uh was that i asked um not in this order but i think maybe in this order mike page tray and fish if they wanted to get on under the scales with me and talk about the you know the cause vote vox set and uh in varying degrees of politeness they said no so you're stuck with tibot and scott that's why you're stuck that's why you're stuck with us nothing because of the second choice or anything i totally understand however i thought i got it okay i was wondering but okay yeah all right now you get it and and yeah also you you you seem to have some issue with being the fifth guest as well yeah like okay yeah it's like not only in my second fiddle i'm fifth fiddle of the second fiddler interaction so if you're so you're like second to the fifth power which is it yeah it's a big number but i'm just glad to be in there somewhere that's good yeah no no well thank you very much no so so you know it's like i said second to actually having the band tell me you know the actual story behind it um i wanted to get my friend's reactions and so my closest concert going pals uh have all been recorded i turned to them for their reaction and uh i kind of wanted a smattering of people some seeing it live on tv some not even you know some not even seeing it at all and listening later some being right next to me while we while we watched it together etc so um you guys are kind of split uh tibot is there with me in the audience watching and uh scott you were in tailand watching live right on the yeah fishes official live feed yeah it was about noon here when i was watching it uh that's cool that's really cool um okay well uh since we brought it up already let's uh why don't we go right into the santos discussion before we get into the song discussion you guys have two songs you were assigned um but first let's uh let's get the santos thing out of the way what do you uh think it means or what's your favorite interpretation scott okay mine is swedish and Norwegian translated obscure songs ah okay so more like uh i thought it was a self-referential thing yep okay i came up with one for the haters which was sorry about the new tune sorry sorry about new tunes obviously sucking that was definitely for the haters that's for the haters okay yeah yeah and uh tivo did you have one i really actually didn't have one and i almost thought it could have started off as you know someone's name santos i know it's broken up with periods so it's it's not but right i just like the name santos and then scott right um i think the day after i think uh November 1st you sent me a thread uh of uh people's guesses and some of them were hilarious and the one that i liked the best and i've said this before was uh some acronyms neglect to offer substance sort of perfect yeah in keeping with this just screwing with the fan base entirely but all right well now for the big reveal so this is what it is i think um my guess is tray and uh the gang were researching uh the internet they went deep into uh you know Norwegian and Finnish and polar and above the Arctic Circle research facilities because theoretically that's where this band met right or work together and no kidding this is what santos means subterranean arctic neurotechnology orientation station oh my god so that goes okay so that's what i was gonna guess yeah that was no no no but you know what hold on that goes with the the fake sort of like uh interview yes with the band where they were talking about that uh that how they met how they met at that quote-unquote station that the camera was called the camera was called well that's where they were doing the research on yeah you know but it was like new it was like new togolong or what i don't know like it was it was like some kind of Swedish some kind of Swedish name precisely it involved i think nine cubes or something it did it did exactly nine cubes it certainly did yes so um okay there's that that um okay so you were you were close now it makes total a lot everything makes way sense now so scott what was your overall impression uh anti-bo let's start with scott um of the experience of the gag of everything leading up to it and and as you were watching it unfold what were you thinking so all right so so here okay so first of all i just want to go back to how you and i were texting because the whole thing online was going on about what the album was going to be and like there was this you know and in hindsight obvious set up by by fish fishermen to like where he was saying like oh it's a obscure 1981 album blah blah blah it like it was really influential all this kind of stuff and so everybody sort of like looked to see like what would be obscured 1981 and what did influence them and then like you know i was convinced as you were convinced it was going to be the residents yeah some some terrible residents just oh man and i take like like and i so i went i listened for the first time i live a list of the residents i'm like oh my god this could be nothing but suck you know like there's no way like like to call it like that you know there's something about avant garde it's just not music so i was like oh no like here we go right even even fish can't make this good sure no no he's not there's no way oh yeah yeah it's on tom and i to the residents a live show somewhere in ten years ago and really i don't know if we should say it we we laughed well of course you left everybody would have left the fish show had it been the residents for sure like this didn't have been like okay that was too much for me we'll go see them tomorrow night everything's cool you know whatever but so then then when the whole rounds of the you know i'm sitting at home and like i'm having to wait for everybody show me what the fish bill is i see the fish bill this caswell's vax and i'm sitting at home i got nothing to do but google so of course i'm finding all their frickin plants of the yeah all the easter as they put out there right yeah and i'm convinced there is this band i guess and so i'm i'm absolutely convinced i got no one here i'm in Thailand you know he's talking about fish and Thailand right so i'm convinced i'm absolutely convinced good that it is a band it's your band oh my god and they start they start playing and then i quickly really really quickly i'm convinced well they're doing the music part but the words they're just phonetically matching english to uh whatever it was they're region native language yeah exactly exactly you know like like every and and the more they went on to these songs the more i that reinforced my whole view of that because you know it's like yeah like i'm i'm the glue in your magnet like that sounds on the glue in your magnet i mean that comes across as you know like they were going black you do like you know and they just matched it yeah like i was convinced of that yeah absolutely convinced and it's funny because that's sort of like a thing that that tray for sure does like as a songwriting tool to yeah to to fill in like this is where um some words are gonna go but we don't know the words yet and he just spots gibberish so it's like uh yeah so that is sort of like a thing that they could very well have done and i yeah and i was doing the same thing i was convinced that uh that there was a chance that it actually was a cover of some obscure album and i refuse to look on the internet because i didn't want to see what all the little uh you know research dudes were we're pulling up because i didn't want to right i didn't want the the surprise uh spoiled so i was just there letting it wash over me and i was just grinning ear to ear yeah me too like generally i give the whole damn thing an a plus yeah inside i give it an a plus right now i give it an a plus oh good okay um i don't quite understand like so i don't think i've ever seen something that's been quite so um among the fan base like there's either just like people i love it or people just just can't stand it right yeah and i don't and like so i'm not really vibing with the people who can't stand it i don't because like i'm with you i understand what you're saying and and you know what i was great i was so happy that on this podcast among my friends found someone who was in that category but also was able to come around uh which was pretty interesting uh but there are still people that i know that actually um still don't like it i've been told later uh after i already had selected my my five right uh i think i think okay so like when i discovered fish it was because they did stuff i didn't expect and all of the my most memorable moments of fish is when they did shit i did not expect exactly and this is one of them a perfect version like now they've been around for 30 years how can you possibly do anything that i'm not going to expect now exactly and they did it well said and that's exactly yep that's kind of the whole theme of the only way that we can analyze this without getting a viewpoint from the band itself is that that's kind of like the summation the other summation is uh if you right from behind a mask it frees you to do stuff that you wouldn't ordinarily do that's the other kind of theme oh absolutely yeah absolutely like like dude i almost want them to do this more yeah i was like okay right another album let's try let's try some southern african music you know like let's you know become become oo goo goo you know from nambia you know whatever like is that really where oo goo is from that didn't think oo goo goo sorry because it has to be a cover band um he's right exactly so so tibo um how about you man you were right next to me and uh i saw you um you were you had partied hard the night before yes but but i've had nothing to do okay okay tom and i have have had the joy and luck of seeing every single halloween every single one and to this day i'll go back and play multiple times a year remain light and um exile on main street oh man that yeah two of the very extremely best and even chilling throwing that stuff i love and this i didn't love at first the the real lessons have made me a little more open and and sort of excited to see what three four five songs two whatever that they start to play a little bit more and jam out a little bit more including the two that we're gonna talk about so so have you so if scott gives it an a a plus uh what do you give it grade wise well i had a blast and it was funny and it was cool and it was you know musically it was great it was just i guess i'm part of the that group that wanted to hear you know blood Zeppelin or something that we've all grown up on got it um but anyway that that's irrelevant and the more you talk about it the way you just talked about it with how it's that's why we love this band is because of the craziness or the the surprise yes um and still able to fool even there even the vets right not just the news yeah they fooled all the vets which was great but i like that i you know and the listening to it in the last week and two weeks it's been it's growing yep on me so i don't i grade wise i it starts as a b minus and it's a b plus now okay okay now i will say i do want to i want to get this i do want to say this okay because you have and this is related to one of the songs you asked me to review because i'm fit and because of tebo's fit right okay so so so i do think only two songs don't fit the character of caswell at vax oh and not the two that you chose i mean not the two you were assigned that you chose choosing songs you did but one of them okay so straight dog and amber and mercury are the two songs that don't fit the character of the Nordic 1980s prog rock band you know what i mean right like the first song for sure you know the turtles in the sky yeah totally in the clouds yep turn it in clouds totally fits the character you know the third song what is it hollow everything is hot yep everything's hollow absolutely also i think has come to be probably my favorite i love say it to me santa's as well but uh i think my favorite song is everything i think say it to my say it to me santa's was caswell svax sort of hit that's the hit that's their hit off that's their single that's your single so so scott let's let's have you focus on the two songs uh now because i promised everyone 15 minutes and uh we've already i think okay gotten there so i'm sorry so let's let's go first song was cool amber and mercury beautiful so so it's a beautiful song it's a great song uh again i don't think it's a caswell svax song i think it's a fish song how about you tuba you like that one yeah i like that i like the especially and i can't wait to hear and with both these songs is that first jam break so crucible and interrock yes very nice jams in this and but very fishy jams yeah yeah definitely yes but and they'll become even more fishy jams like that yeah this time goes on yeah but uh it was also a good little piano piano page jam in it too oh yeah very okay not not not to run over all the other guys you know the previous guy whoever they were i don't know they were sure previous people on your podcast right i think the real jam the second set jam vehicle is play-by-play uh yep the end of that the end of that says okay jam this out nice does okay all right well what's your what's your guys uh after um cool amber and mercury you guys had the final song of the of the night which was passing through passing through how'd you like that one i like it a lot anything did it remind you of anything anything fishy yeah okay so it okay the fishy thing it sort of reminds me of that whole okay first of all it sounds like something off of um paul sign in engravesland oh wow you t but you said it it reminded you of something back on the train oh it does it's buried yeah yeah but i'm not here in that you know i'm just i'm here in that oh well well it's got this i don't know maybe even crioli i don't know it definitely sounds you know something south of the equator or something yeah nice nice oh wait it's got that thing that graceland has so i i like that a lot well well well definitely south or uh or or east i don't think north i'm gonna i agree with you yeah it's simply not north right it's not written by guys from new jersey or or swede or yeah or lapland or wherever wherever i do love the title passing through but i think it should be called haywayo wayo yeah yeah exactly and the end is great with it the crowd singing it and yeah sort of a little back and forth and it's really really just enjoyable well this brings us to the end of our analysis thank you guys for taking up the last slot and doing the final analysis of the last two songs certainly a memorable halloween no matter how you slice it and very honored again to have scott you get the distance award being in tie land watching this yeah i'm not sure how you can be further but i don't think you can be geographically further away from las vegas and i live about two miles away i'll try yeah i'll try and then unless they were enjoying it from the international space station i'm not sure yet if i if i heard that although that might even be closer well who knows all right yeah if they're if they're yeah they're right above you and i think it's probably closer like a lot closer all right scott thank you very much and tbo thank you very much and uh we'll we'll wrap and get a wrap scott we're still waiting for that tie food you were going to send us oh it's it's on the way yeah it'll be fresh good all right thanks bye man this podcast is in the loop the legion of asyrus podcasts asyrus is creating a community that connects people like you with live experiences and podcasts about artists and topics you love get in the loop at osyruspod.com what's up everybody i am fin mckanty host of the punk rock nba podcast part the sound talent media podcast network my podcast is all about doing what you love for a living and every week i sit down and talk to people who have done exactly that for example musicians like tommy from between the buried me map from periphery low lotus and shinigami among many others photographers artists designers youtubers like glenn fricker and sera dichy and i unpack exactly how they got to where they are today with the goal of helping you do the same so if that sounds cool you can listen and subscribe at soundtalentmedia.com and i'll see you there hey this is chris swine formerly of the ataris and currently host of that one time on tour part of the sound talent media podcast network have you ever wondered what it's really like on the road the highest can be euphoric but the lows can be crushing join me every week as i chat with industry pros about what it's like living out their wildest dream and in some cases their worst nightmare past guests of the show include 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