In Place of Real Insight by Karate - 344

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In this episode we explore the eclectic stylings of the band Karate. We break down their shift from post-hardcore roots to embracing jazz influences, focusing on the standout album 'In Place of Real Insight.' And we get there, in the usual fashion, by chatting extensively about their back catalogue. We also theorise that perhaps Karate fans may have split into two camps when they moved the focus almost exclusively to jazz. Our weekly Nexus challenge takes us from Karate to the late John Prescott through a convoluted but fascinating path involving jazz, punk rock, and the peace symbol. Expect deep musical analysis, unexpected links, and a few laughs.

Karate background: 08:05
Chris' Theory on Karate fans: 15:13
Early discography and eponymous debut: 19:18
Bed is in the Ocean, Unsolved & the journey to jazzcore: 29:53
Some Boots & Pockets: 41:20
595 & Make It Fit: 48:20
In Place Of Real Insight: 53:28
Summing up the album: 75:51
The John Prescott Nexus: 80:36

Transcript

Mark: [00:00:00] Hey folks, welcome to Unsung Podcast. My name is Mark. This is not the first time we've done this today. I promise. Listen, don't let them see the sausage. Yeah, man.

Chris: In a number of senses. Yeah,

Mark: we're actually doing this. Yeah, we're leaping forward into a brave new world. The first time we've ever tried [00:01:00] this.

It could go terribly wrong.

Chris: It's a last stroll of the day. It needs to be seen. We need to do something to get rich urgently. Urgently. So let's just finally just use our faces. We always say we wouldn't resort to it, but if that doesn't make us rich, then nothing will. Nothing. Seven years of podcasting just got us seven years older.

You know, and some lovely new friends, but you know, friends don't pay the bills.

Mark: Yeah, but on the, on the, on the plus side though, right? It means no one's seen us like age seven years. So, you know, depending on how this goes tonight, they could watch his age seven years just in the course of this podcast.

That's true. That's true. So yeah, first time we're doing this in video, most of this video is not going to be seen by anyone. Just little clips of it. Maybe that's part of make it into our new tech talk feed. Maybe we'll. Put this up for subs.

Chris: Maybe this will be your special treat. What a treat. What a treat.

Wow. Yeah. Top shelf. It's like American Express platinum kind of shit right there.

Mark: It really is. You know what? If [00:02:00] you're a subscriber, right? And you'd like to see this, let us know. Cause I'm not going to edit it. I'm not going to do the video editing unless we get told to do it. Cause it's going to take

Music: so fucking

Mark: long.

Yeah. Mark doesn't want that job. I'm going to have to do that job eventually, but I'm trying to put it off as much as possible.

Chris: I'm going to do this and so the more we babble on and cross talk the harder my life gets.

Mark: Yeah, okay.

Chris: Let's be more disciplined. I tell you what though.

Mark: Hang on. Do you know what takes discipline?

What does? Guess. Jazz? A martial art. Jazz is also apt to

Chris: guess. Martial art. Yeah, I should know that. You should know that. Yeah, but I don't know much about karate. Karate! What is it you do? Uh, I do kung fu. Okay. I don't know that for. Different country. To be honest, I've been slacking as of recently. But, uh, since I was 23.

Wow, that's a long time. That's longer than I thought. Yeah, that I've said it out loud. That's like 20 years. I mean, there were some big gaps. I mean, the club got closed [00:03:00] down by covid since then. It's been pretty rough to try and get any consistency, but hey, this is not a martial arts podcast. Joe Rogan already has that.

But that's something people don't know about you though. It is something people don't know about me and probably many don't believe. Then they can see it in person to know if they can believe it or not. I had to pick like one of the silliest martial arts as well. I mean I love it, but it is a sort of like kung fu.

You mean like In the movies, as opposed to, you know, judo or taekwondo or karate or fucking what's the jiu jitsu, which everyone takes very seriously, but kung fu people just think that's for films and that, and it's like, well, I mean, it's a wee bit older than that, but, uh, yeah, there you go. Um, you know what else?

We did come up with an idea for our, uh, admin section this week. We did. Yes. So. We usually try to upsell subscriptions as do most podcasts. Uh, [00:04:00] you can subscribe by going to patreon, uh, forward slash unsung pod. That's right. Right. One of the reasons to do that is because a lot of people have heard about our Christmas episodes.

It's not just that they've heard them. It's that they've had those reference them and they're kind of car crash nature. You're loving them for me. Yeah, exactly. So that time is approaching and that means two things. The first thing is we need questions. We need questions. Yeah. So start the easiest way to get his questions is to be part of the triple a group because we interact on there all the time.

And if you put stuff on there, when it gets towards Christmas, I will literally go through it and write them all down, put them in a spreadsheet and more or less pick all of them. But sometimes we omit the most. obnoxious ones. Um, but the other thing that's happening this year is that the Christmas episode is going to be for subs only and it's going to be more than one episode as is normally the case for the general public.

We'll probably just do a from the vault thing over Christmas and just put out some of our best episodes from, you know, a few years ago. So you've got [00:05:00] less chance. You've already heard them. Uh, but yeah, Subs, you'll be getting the Christmas episodes and all the shenanigans and hilarity and potential cancellation that entails.

And you may also get them in full HD. You may also get them in full HD and we'll have a certain Northerner rejoining us for it as well. Oh, Dave's sadly no longer with us, but he will be with us for this one episode or two episodes. David John Weaver will be resurrecting himself for the Christmas episodes.

Like Jesus himself. Exactly. David Jesus Weaver. And, uh, yeah, so We'll need your questions, but if you want to see the Christmas episodes, and believe me, you do want to see the Christmas episodes, or at least hear them, you need to go and subscribe and that way you'll be granted access and you will be in on the joke then for the rest of 2025, as long as that year goes on, um, when we constantly reference it.

So please consider that. We're dangling a pretty big carrot there because the Christmas episodes are silly [00:06:00] because we, we have a tradition of getting drunk during them, which, you know, loose lips sink ships.

But we'll be doing that and I think you'll enjoy it. So the starting entry level is just four bucks. month to get access to unsung pods, triple a group to get access to all the bonus episodes, the full back catalogue, not just the public back catalogue. You get the podcast a bit early. Um, what else did they get?

No, no adverts. They get that

Mark: as well. You get no adverts. Yes. Uh, you also have a bit of a say. Oh, you will have an increasing saying how this podcast kind of goes going forward. The last few episodes, the last episodes, in fact the last two episodes really have been as a result of contributions. This one this week is as well.

Next week's might very well be too. And we've got a list and the AI is telling us which to do next in this list, which I

Chris: will review later on, by the way. Oh, interesting. Um, so yeah, so basically we take suggestions. every so often and if you suggest something on the AAA group then [00:07:00] there's a decent chance that we will cover it or at least something akin

Mark: to it.

Yeah and I'd also like to say that if you'd like to see this happening live then we could maybe facilitate a live stream if people are interested in that who are subscribers. That'll be for subs only for the foreseeable until unless we get suddenly really rich and famous and go on Twitch which you know, we'll see.

It's always possible, I

Chris: suppose. I need to get used to this. I'm already struggling with the etiquette of it, such as don't scratch your neck repeatedly and look like you've got hives.

Mark: I'll be sitting in my hands for the rest of the show. I was also told that if you're going to be on YouTube, which this may very well end up on YouTube, is that you should be 10 percent more you.

So you need to be 10 percent more you.

Chris: My hair is 10 percent more me just to start.

Mark: Yeah.

Chris: I mean, I'm outing myself properly now.

Mark: It's quite stark actually, the blonde and the black hoodie.

Chris: It's, yeah, it's cool. I did learn pretty quickly that I could no longer wear my white t shirts because you just don't look well.[00:08:00]

Right. Okay. So why did you reference

Mark: martial arts? They are asking. Well, because this episode is on the band Karate, who are from, I believe, Boston area, Massachusetts. Is that right? That's right. Correct. That's exactly right. Yeah. And tying back into our last point, um, this was chosen by Tommy, our long time sub, uh, and he, uh, didn't actually specify which album we just said.

You should do karate. That was up to me. So that was up to Chris. Yeah,

Chris: I'm actually going to see karate on December the 18th. It's my mom's birthday. An otherwise undisclosed classical venue. I have misplaced my tickets. So, uh, you can get in for free though, right? Not there. Those bridges are definitely still smoldering.

Um, yeah, uh, I'm going to go and see them hopefully. Uh, but. The timing was kind of perfect and for me there was no question which album we were going to choose and that is [00:09:00] In Place of Real Insight from 1997.

Tommy, I hope that meets your approval. We are now going to wade through their catalog, probably put your nose at a joint in the process, and then hopefully by the end of it come to the conclusion that As

Mark: usual, I was right. I happen to know that Tommy is actually going to that show, so you may actually see him in person, so if he knows it's at a joint he might put yours at a joint.

He

Chris: might, he might just flip me the bird on his way in as I'm standing outside remonstrating with the door staff and the owner. Come on, I was only joking. You didn't have to come into our bar and rip all the posters off the wall on a Tuesday afternoon.

Which may or may not have happened. Multimillionaire. [00:10:00] Um, yeah, so Karate, formed in 1993 in Boston. Oh, by the way, this is a big reveal. People get to see that I use paper notes. I know I mention it, but They're really going to see how many paper notes I use. I've got a tablet, so I'm, I'm, I'm living in the future, I suppose.

But, uh, the band was originally formed as a trio, uh, Jeff Farina being debatably the main guy. Gavin McCarthy's been in the band the whole time as well. But Jeff Farina was in guitar and vocals. Uh, somebody called Eamon Vitt, unusual name, V I T T on bass. Uh, Gavin McCarthy, a drummer. A fella called Jeff Goddard joined in 1995 on bass which let him and Vitt move to a second guitar.

They actually recorded the album I've Chosen and then Vitt left in 1997 actually to pursue a career in medicine and the band became a trio again. Interesting. Yeah, in the words of Pitchfork They transformed from a typical 1990s post hardcore outfit into something harder to pin down, a rock band guided entirely by [00:11:00] emotion and atmosphere.

Music: Hmmm.

Chris: I would refute a couple of things there. I would refute that they Whatever really a typical nineties post hardcore band, even from the very start, uh, they certainly made creative decisions and went to some very different places musically as time went on. In terms of being guided entirely by emotion and atmosphere.

I suppose that's a vague enough statement that you could say it's accurate. Uh, they basically, for me at points, turned into a sort of loungecore band. And

Mark: became a jazz band. I mean, they were always jazzy, but it became a lounge jazz band, I think. Yeah, yeah.

And, you know, it's really interesting, I was, if you looked at their, your music rankings of their records. Yes, I have, and we'll actually, we'll get to that. Yeah, [00:12:00] we'll talk about that later on then, but yeah, that's, that's also quite interesting. Yeah, I've got a theory. Can I just say as well, uh, whilst I agree with you in saying they're not a, probably not a typical post hardcore band, they're definitely a lot of midwestern emo, you know, in those early records.

Absolutely. For sure. I think some people kind of use those terms interchangeably. Because PMO is technically post hardcore as it came after hardcore as a, as a evolution of hardcore. Um, but they are two completely, they became two quite different things. And particularly by the point when this record came out, they were, you know, very, very different beasts.

Chris: Yeah. I mean, emo became emo and steroids at times unrecognizable from where it started, really. Yeah. But that's a different episode. In fact, there's probably an episode that already exists here to pull one out the back your head that addresses that issue. Yeah. Yeah. Cursive, maybe? Yeah, cursive does have a fair bit of that in it.

That's got a lot of the Midwest. So, Karate, uh, split originally in 2005 after Jeff Farina developed hearing problems, quite, quite acute hearing [00:13:00] problems. Uh, their last show at that point, pre reunion, shall we say, was in Rome. Oh. Yep. Spoiler obviously that they did reform. Um, Geoff Farina has solo records, but spoiler alert again, given where karate goes, I can't really bring myself to go there very often.

Uh, from what I have heard of them, it is exactly what I dreaded, uh, and kind of gave me the heaves at points.

Music: And Memphis as strange as me. Still, I take a souvenir to remember I was here.

Chris: He seems to me like the kinda guy that someone like Nick Hornby would know a lot about. You know, kind of like guided by voices, school of geek kind of music knowledge. Uh, he also seems like the kind of dude that does an afternoon set in mono, you know, wearing his little, uh, bonnet. Aye. He is a bit of a Nemo legend though, is Geoffrey, no?

No, absolutely. But he [00:14:00] has definitely, musically speaking, enjoyed a middle aged spread. Yes, straight from the path, shall we say. You know, I've heard it said that his voice is quite similar to Phil Lynott.

Music: Valentino got a rookie shot And what he takes he gets But what he's got And what he's got he says he has not Stole from anyone It's not that he don't tell

Chris: the truth It's not that he don't tell the truth It's not that he don't tell the truth It's not that he don't tell the truth It was right at the end of my research today that this was dropped out of my lap.

I was like, I've been trying to put my finger on

Mark: that. Yeah, that totally makes sense because their new record in particular has got a lot of straight up rock moments. Brand new one that came out in October just there. And I was like, his voice sounds like somebody. I think it's Phil Lynott. And apparently

Chris: like lyrically there's quite a lot of parallels as well.

I'm going to guess he was a fan of Phil Lynott. I mean, he's, he's a big musical. Connoisseur anyway. Um, but yeah, that does seem quite a relevant touchstone. Up until 2007, [00:15:00] basically their entire album catalogue bar in the Fishtank album came out via Southern Records, which rolled up, shall we say, much of its operation, especially in the USA the following year in 2008.

I mentioned that I have a theory and I do have a theory about karate. I think it's a band with different fan subsets who hold different expectations. The variance on perceptions of the record backs that up. I feel we're about to get to that when we look at some of those lists. Some people like me enjoy the earlier post hardcore stuff and maybe somewhat reject the loungecore.

Others see the loungecore as being very sophisticated. I would use Pitchfork as an example. They're very warm towards that era and can then be dismissive, I would say, are the more youthful and energetic post hardcore releases. I'm not sure I know many people, maybe Tommy's an exception, whose [00:16:00] affections span both eras equally.

I was introduced to them by my friend Robbie, and he was probably the only exception I know, at least so far, to that rule. He did like both, but he liked both for different things. It wasn't like he liked both as in, it's a hard thing to articulate. He didn't like both like, Oh, it's karate. It sounds like karate.

He was like, Oh, these seemed really different. I do like them both, but I like them both in different ways. The best of lists, and I, I, I don't want to preempt here, but what I assumed you were maybe gonna get to is that the listicles on car albums just cannot agree, which, as I say, maybe plays into what I'm saying about the audiences having different expectations.

So I took a couple of notes down. Best of our albums has the album unsolved at number one. Yeah.

Music: Hotels in the middle of the night. I'm calling you out

Flame, [00:17:00] but they burned just the same.

Mark: So does it say about your music?

Chris: No. The Rate Your music list that I looked at, which a different one had Unsolved last.

Mark: Mm.

Chris: So it had at the bottom of the pile. Whereas Best Ever albums had in place of real insight down at number seven on their list where album of the year put in place.

A real, real insight. At number one in their list. Yeah. Now

those are really big differences. I mean, we do the list stuff quite frequently on the episodes and you very rarely get that kind of disparity.

Mark: Yeah. I sorted it by average score and it was that. It was Unsolved. It was first on the average score and when I looked at all the reviews, all the written reviews were like four, four and a half, five, five stars

Chris: for that record.

So Unsolved is kind of notorious in their catalogue because it came out in 2000 and was very [00:18:00] much them committing to the jazz direction, really committing to the jazz direction. Pitchfork, as I said, was very warm in that kind of era. So, uh, and The Bed is in the Ocean got 8. 6 from them, which is a really high score.

It was their release of the month when it came out. Pockets got an 8. 2, Unsolved got a 7. 9, which are all, by pitchfork standards, very respectable scores. Yeah, and beyond that, I think probably the best way to illustrate that is to go through the discography, but did you have any more general observations before we start doing that?

Mark: Not really. No, that was pretty much the one I was going to bring, you know, bring up is that, yeah, the, the, the whole, the fandom seems scattered, shall we say. Yeah,

Chris: I just think that wildly different opinion on what is, not only what is best, but what is worst. And the fact that people can be at the exact polar opposites on both is telling us something.

And I think it's because the sound from the early albums is so distinctly one thing. And whilst tiny elements of that do remain. It becomes so distinctly [00:19:00] something else. They kind of swap places in terms of the 90 10 ratio. You get 90 percent post hardcore with 10 percent jazz, then you end up with 90 percent jazz and 10 percent post hardcore.

I just think the people that came to them in a big way on those different periods are looking for different things from that band. We'll go through their back catalogue, maybe, and get a wee bit of insight into that. Okay, so. They actually have an album from 1993. Yeah, I couldn't, I didn't look for it.

It's not on streaming, um, well, it's not on the kind of audio streaming. It's on YouTube. It's called Sometimes You're a Radio. It was an early cassette release.

This is the year they formed. It's got eight tracks. But for Carite that's, that's an album by their standards. It's very much in keeping, sonically, with the discord school of bands like Smart [00:20:00] Went Crazy and Farrakeh. It's interesting insight because it's clearly more dissonant and aggressive in a more, in a Fugazi vein, shall we say.

Jeff has described Fugazi as quote, the best band of our generation, and he elaborated that scene both live and on record. I think he said he'd seen them 25 that. Uh, he singled out their album The Argument as their classic and the most overlooked.

He also sees Guy Picciotto as one of the most outstanding lyricists that was working at [00:21:00] that time. Although he also puts Scott McLeod of Girls Against Boys in there too, which gives you an idea of the kind of thing that he warms to. Um, That's Sometimes You're A Radio album. As I say, it's not available on the typical streaming sites like Apple Music, Spotify, but it really deserves more attention.

Um, I think had it been recorded properly, it would probably have been a better, yeah, a better album than most of the recorded output. It's very raw,

and I don't know where it's been done, but it's very rudimentary. The music's great on it, especially if you're a fan of early discord, sort of rambunctious post hardcore type stuff. They followed that in 1995, January of 95, with the Deathkit EP.[00:22:00]

It's just two tracks. They're darker, they're a bit rockier, there's elements of codeine like slowcore. with a touch of math here, guitar. Now they really were vying for the tag of a slowcore band there, which again is quite different. So we've spoken about slowcore in the past, bands like Codeine, bands like Low are kind of obvious examples.

Galaxy 500, things like that. They're not quite as maudlin as those slowcore bands. No, they're not. Um, Jeff is on record as being a big Codeine fan though, and says that the Frigid Stars record by them was inspirational.[00:23:00]

He describes Karate, and in particular this Death Kit EP, as having been a Codeine rip off project for quite some time. He actually had a band with the drummer from Codeine, Chris Broca, for a short while. This EP's got a really low key, mixed down vocal approach, which is quite different. You know, he sings in a much lower register.

Music: And

Chris: there's some really nice lyrics in it that pop out as well. There's, there's one chorus which goes, Today I'm 17 again, again. Uh, they followed that with their debut album, 1995 as well. Well actually, it's either late 95 or January 96, different sources couldn't agree.[00:24:00]

An album with a really nice, dynamic, open sound. Which came courtesy of the producer Wally Gaggle, uh, we've actually mentioned him before, uh, on the Harmacy Sebedo episode. He did that record. He also worked with some of the 90s kind of diehards, the alternative diehards like Belly, a band that a lot of people will know from that era.

In terms of the Karate album I picked out, well, I picked out a few tracks. It's mainly the first half of the album that I wanted to comment on. Gasoline is a really strong opening track with a big, slow, gainy ring off.[00:25:00]

Again, kind of nodding to the slow core roots, but also has a really dramatic dynamic drop. Like it goes for this big rung off chord too. almost imperceptible muted guitar, which is kind of on a par with bands like Slint at the time. They do get a bit post rocky from time

Mark: to time. Very much so, especially post rock in that air light sense.

Yeah, but I found that song to be quite emo y as well. It gets very 90s in that regard, you know.

Music: Sugar, sugar,

just to watch you sleep.

Mark: The vocals are just perfectly pitched for that genre, I find.

Chris: The vocals on this one are very different to that previous EP, you know, the Deathkit EP. They're higher in register and they're a bit more brave. more pronounced and also just I think in the decisions they make as well, they go for something a little bit more ostentatious.

But as I [00:26:00] said, I think this is definitely not a typical post hardcore act at this point. The timing and flow of the vocal parts is very unorthodox and also very mature. This is a band doing it's first album, well, technically it's second album, but you know what I mean. And I think at this point as well, just on the basis of this first track, you kind of come away from it thinking this could be a record for slant enthusiasts.

And then they come in with the second track, If You Can Hold Your Breath, and they whip out this funky rolling bass line, a la, like a jazzier version of Waiting Room or something like that. Yeah. And it's really different, really immediately. The third track on this is

much more aggressive and much more directly post hardcore.

Music: [00:27:00] The

Chris: fourth track on it What is sleep?

This is one that really elicited the strongest feelings from me and not really in a good way. It absolutely epitomises a certain kind of overly earnest, tender post hardcore that was rife from the mid nineties. Basically right the way through the turn of the millennium, I remember playing in my band in the early days.

We were constantly on builds of bands that sounded like this. I mean, it persists today as well. It's had like a new incarnation and it just leaves me absolutely cold. This sort of like emo angst, it feels very performative to me. Um, and maybe there is, you [00:28:00] know, really sincere, deep emotion in there somewhere, but for whatever reason, I could just never connect to it.

You know, like some sort of plaintive. It's got a positive kind of, come on, we've got to make things better kind of undertone to it, but it's also dead whiny.

Mark: Just never worked for me. I actually enjoyed that song, the vocal melody in particular, but that's the kind of thing I like, you know, um, but the chord progression was pretty nice as well. Um, they do always, not always, but a lot of the time, even when they're doing jazzy stuff, he's got a good ear for picking an interesting.

slightly unconventional but still quite melodic chord progression. Um, and the bass playing over the, it's just a, in what I sleep, it's just a bed of chords pretty much for the most part. And there's some lovely bass playing, I think, over [00:29:00] that, which is a core tenant in this band that all three of them are on, always on fire whenever they're playing, you know, and they have to be because they're a power trio and they're doing this kind of weird jazzy mathy sort of thing.

Chris: Uh, by contrast, I actually think the fifth track, which is just titled dash, dash, dash. Do you speak, uh, Morse? Do you know what that is? No, sorry. Well, dash, dash, dash, the fifth track for me has by far the best melodic moments of the album, especially in the verse. The verse in that tune is really good.

Music: Kick out my spokes and send me sprawled on the schoolyard.

I'm not too broke, I'm just relaxed cause I work hard. Well you know, I can't imagine things from her side of the sidewalk. If I just ride right through that, what is a neighborhood?

Chris: And the band, overall at this point, are good enough to make me listen, but not good enough to make me listen repeatedly. And then, as I said earlier on, then comes a new bassist which frees up Vitt to go on to second guitar duties.

And [00:30:00] that gets us the main album today in place of Real Insight which came out in 97. Obviously we'll come back to that in some detail. Then VIT leaves the same year that comes out, 97, and we're back to a single axe man.

Music: And

Chris: we move on to The Bed is in the Ocean the following year, 1998.

And to be clear, that record got some rave reviews. Already mentioned that it was like the release of the month, 8. 4, 8. 6 on Pitchfork. Really good reviews. The first one in that, There Are Ghosts, uh, is their most streamed track overall.

Mark: Yes, it's a really great song as well, to be honest. That reminds me in places of Cursive or Bright Eyes, but a bit more technical.

Music: [00:31:00] Um,

Mark: it's a real good middle ground between the emo, the jazz at this point it's becoming more and more of a flavor as opposed to just a little side note, any other sound. yeah, rather than a tint. yeah it's got Um, it's got a really good guitar solo and a big rock ending as well. and the Thin Lizzy thing, now that I think about it, it does make some sense because they did a big rock ending all the time and this band are a part of that.

Chris: Uh, this tune for me is totally fine. It does avoid overindulging in jazz, but I just felt it was quite forgettable. The second one, The Same Stars, I mean, just leaps Winklepicker first into the world of smooth loungecore. Yeah, it's very, very loungy.[00:32:00]

Mark: I said it sits on the side of lounginess that I like, just because there's a lot of nice blues guitar in it. The solos are quite bluesy, which is not super, super jazz. But the whole thing is just kind of built around that bluesy noodling. Um, you know, and there's some lovely bass playing in it too, to be fair.

Chris: What I didn't expect was that the third one, Diazepam, would have such a good chorus. And I mean, like, one of their best choruses across their entire career, full stop. Really

Music: does

Mark: have a great chorus in it. Yeah, another highlight for me I guess was Up Nights.[00:33:00]

Which feels more bluesy again to me. The verses are kind of full of big jazz chords but it builds up to a nice bass led bit and then it ends with octave guitar solo which I'm just a sucker for as everybody in this podcast knows.

Chris: There's a bit of a fan favourite in this one as well in the 5th track bass sounds.

Uh, that's got a kind of chilled out Fugazi flavour to it. That is a cool

Mark: song. I remember that standing out to me as well. I just, I don't have notes on it, but I do remember thinking, oh, that's quite interesting.

Chris: Eh, honestly though, I just cannae really be fucked with this record. I get the feeling there may be more hidden good moments like that Diazepam chorus, but nothing about it feels bad.

Particularly essential or worth the effort. Yeah, there's [00:34:00] slides begins here doesn't well. Yeah This is where the story of karate like properly begins to change It definitely feels to me like everyone is getting older and dressing differently Playing better. Well, yeah. Yeah, I mean they are only going to get better in that sense But as such I feel the audience also changes here.

This must have been a It's must have been an odd album if you were into them contemporaneously, you know? I think the hardcore kids would fuck off and maybe some of the ex Spin Doctors fans would find their new favourite band.

Mark: Yeah, I think it is a bit of an awkward place for them to be because clearly they've always had some designs in this direction because it's a core part of their identity.

Um, it's what kind of makes them sound different from every other average emo band from that era and different from any even post rock stuff, like in the slant vein, you know, but yeah, you can definitely begin to see how things are changing here. I think I'm just, I'm going off memory. I think this was, if you average their scores, I think this was the second or third best on, or, you know, highest rated on radio music.

Um, it's certainly less controversial in [00:35:00] the

Chris: album that follows it. Yeah,

Mark: unsolved for

Chris: 2000. So it's hugely divisive album in some ways, despite having that kind of high average score, the runtime in this one creeps up. The Bed is in the Ocean is 38 and a half minutes, I think. Now, the one that we're covering is really brief.

30. 30 minutes. Unsolved, they go up to 52 minutes. Now, it's generally seen as their most acute dalliance way, well, out and out jazzcore, I suppose. Maybe even just jazz in places. Definitely just jazz in places. And I get that criticism. That said, I do think it works in flashes and I should, I should confess, I do struggle a wee bit to be impartial with this record for personal reasons.

It was a favourite spin of Robbie, the friend that introduced me to this, who's no longer with us. And when we were high, I used to smoke a bit back then and we'd be hanging out, staring up at his Artex

Music: roof,

Chris: trying to spot faces in it. He studied a version of psychology that was to do with pattern finding.[00:36:00]

He was a bit of a pioneer in that. Paradole Paradolela? Something like that's called. Oh, there's

Mark: a name for it. It begins with para something and it's about finding faces and

Chris: abstract patterns. We would do shit like just sit and stare at those weird artex riffs and look for little faces while we were baked.

And this record would be on quite, quite often.

And I didn't mind it in that context. You know, I mean, Robbie was a big post rock guy and I, I do mean that in the early post rock sense, and I think this can pass . It's like a kinda beatnik slint for the baked ,

Music: you know?

Chris: Yeah.

Music: Within the influence with innocence, people dressed to kill pulling[00:37:00]

styles from the atmosphere.

Chris: It does make sense in that context as a record and. God knows it is the only context in which something like, uh, is it a track number six, which I believe is actually number five in the record, but it's called number six. It's

Music: the

Chris: only way that that song can make sense because it's fucking terrible. Um, There are some really interesting points on it though, I mean, the first track in this Small Fires Even

Mark: though

Chris: I think I shouldn't

Mark: I find this track really likeable. It's a [00:38:00] track, I did actually read about this in some comments and some reddit and stuff like that, and also on Rate Your Music, and a lot of people have said that they've introduced people to the band via this track, and they've went, that's fucking amazing.

Chris: I have to admit, I think it, it, it, They really get it right on this tune. It's a bit sad for sure and it's strewn with these kind of smoky whittlings. You know what I mean? There's like, there's like solo stuff in it that's just a room where like little clouds of like smoke and the smell of whiskey and stuff.

But he

has some of the best stuff. Really nice melodic twists. I think it nails the landing and it feels sincere. I think if you want to go back to this tune and give it a fair chance as well, try it at night because it seems to work much better at night or so I've found anyway. Um, the third track on it, Sever, is a very different [00:39:00] proposition.

It has a preposterous intro, that, that song.

And honestly to me it sounds a bit like Santana, or like some fucking nonsense like that, you know? Vocally, it definitely reminded me of the Spin Doctors. That's interesting.

Music: And

Chris: it's got a really loose, melodic approach to the vocal as well, you know? It's higher in register, and the vocal lines are not exactly Tuneful. Yeah. But they're not exactly tune less either. Yeah. It's a kind of vague, ambiguous vocal pitching that he's going for.[00:40:00]

Mark: I thought that was the only good song on the record, to be honest. What? Sever? Yeah. Jesus, man. You like Santana? There's something really English about that song to me. His vocal reminds me of Igwis Costello in places, in fact, parts of it, some of the guitar parts remind Auturas. And you know what, man, like, fucking, what's his face?

Luke Haynes. Luke Haynes is haunting this fucking podcast, man. That's basically what I'm trying to get at. He's living in your head, Renfrew. He really is. I don't know why. I don't know, like, I found this to be the best song on the record, and the record which I found to be powerfully beige, like, powerfully beige.

It just leans way too heavily into jazz for me, and I was like, come on, man, I'm falling asleep listening to this. I actually text you when I was listening to this, saying this period is hard. You did, didn't you?

Chris: It's hard. Yeah, I mean, when you sent [00:41:00] that text, I was trying to guess, and I had kind of figured that this was probably it.

I mean, I could probably live with this on Especially for the personal nostalgia factor that I feel towards it. But with the best will in the world. Not least since I gave up the weed. It really is not my thing at all. Uh, they followed that in 2002 with some boots. I mean, that's

Music: Yeah,

Chris: first of all, that decision to keep extending the running time continues. It almost reaches the 60 minute mark on this one, and it is a very unrewarding lesson. It's the worst of all worlds to me, really. It's got unsolved jazz. But minus the albeit quite sparse [00:42:00] melodic incarnations, you know, um, it's got a really wimpy approach to rocking out on it.

You know, they kind of do some rocky bits, but it's so pale and meek as, um, and the whole thing just gets very And in fact, downright corny in places. Uh, the first track in this one, Original Spies.

Music: Has one of

Chris: their highest play counts. I mean, I think it's up about 450, 000. Yeah, I thought that was the only decent song on this record.

Well, funnily enough. I thought it's the kind of song that could have seen them on tour with Toploader or Jamiroquai. And as red flags go, man, that's a bit of a belter. And I think the third track in it, Ice or Ground, is an abomination, a beige abomination.[00:43:00]

Mark: Yeah, it's a brutal listening, not in a good way, not in a fun way, it's, it's a chore. And you don't want a record to be a chore. I mean, sometimes you can listen to records that are bad, but at least they're interesting.

Chris: Well, here's, here's the funny thing now, because it's not my least favourite album by them.

Well, yeah. So, Pockets, that came out in 2004.

When

Music: you cranked that last one down, the yellow chip, with the,

Chris: with the, carnival I think as far as I can tell, this is my least favourite album. Uh, it represents a dip in their streams too, so maybe I'm not alone there. It's got a really low play count. The jazz in it is extra beige, and the post hard court is extra [00:44:00] weedy.

Hey,

Music: hey, what you going do when the credit card people start looking for you? Blame on the governor. Say, I'm from pa, won't you please bill me in a later day? You can send it to me.

Chris: The melodies feel just really middle aged. You know, that seems like a stupid reference, but they just feel like the kinda shit that. Old folk dig. And I don't know why, because they're not that old at that point. The overall sound as well is weirdly reminiscent of a bunch of, like, US middle of the road rock.

Like, I honestly think there's a couple of bits that sound very much like Counting Crows. And, and the thing is, There's a few Counting Crows songs I can kind of get with. Yeah. You know, they kind of appeal to that R. E. M. side of me, and this sounds like bad Counting Crows, which is fucking saying something.

Mark: That's not a place you want to be, man.[00:45:00]

Chris: The fourth track in this one, it does have one good thing. Great, it's, it's the best thing in the entire album, right? The fourth track's cacophony has this moment on it, it's a beautiful guitar tone and it's just in the background, I think it's just the first verse, um, the chorus in that tune is fucking stinking, right?

But that little texture

Music: I don't know what you mean because I've heard you say this before But in this semblance of democracy, it's like a vacuum for what you've overheard

Chris: It's almost like it's a gainy guitar where they're not actually playing it. It's like the string has just been rubbed against the fret and you get that kind of weird metallic hum.

It's a lovely little detail, but it is the only thing I was genuinely trying to find things. It was the only thing that really worked for me in the whole fucking record. [00:46:00] The sixth track on that. Tow truck.

Mark: Oh, I was gonna, I was gonna

Chris: pick this up. Should be a fucking lynching offense, by the way. Yeah,

Music: 98.

Can't into my car.

Chris: That's musing, lyrically, on xenophobic Southern hicks. And actually I kinda feel like maybe that theme, Oh we wanna write a song about that theme and that dictated the style. But the style is fucking stinking.

Music: Already heard your opinion. Maaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Was

Chris: it worth making the point if this is how it was gonna sound? I don't know as well if they just did it to try and show off because it's got a wild [00:47:00] wee solo in it. Two, two wild solos. And they're very different stylistically from what I expected. So maybe it's just a like literally an opportunity for them to sort of shop window their abilities.

Mark: I think for me, the only song I kind of liked was Water just because it felt kind of sinister. That was beige.

I mean it is, it's quite, it's really laid back but I think the thing that I liked about it, just compared to a lot of the other stuff, it's quite rhythmically sparse which is something I don't really do so in that sense it's interesting. It's kind of aptly named water

Chris: because it's so big.

Mark: tasteless. Tow truck is like a 70s function with that big fat bass.

It is so bad. But it's got that half cocked wah guitar solo sound which and the guitar solos are really well played because he's obviously a great [00:48:00] player. He's fucking brilliant yeah. But the song doesn't really work at all to be honest and even though it's the most rock moment in the record and it has probably got some of my favorite guitar parts on the record just because they are really fucking outrageous.

In

Chris: a technicality sense, yes, the guitar parts are impressive, but and every single other sense.

Mark: Yes, it's not a good, not a good song.

Chris: So 2007 as well, just after breaking up, a live album came out. It's called 595, which is meant to sort of be the number of the show that it was in their career. And funnily enough, It was originally called 594 until one of the members of the band found an old flyer for a gig that they'd forgotten about and they had to update the album's name to 595.

Music: So quiet I can hear that the refrigerator is on and I can hear the fabric from your sleeping bag how it sounds against

Chris: Yeah, I mean it was recorded in Belgium, apparently [00:49:00] the engineer had recorded it and then much later sent the files to the band and they were just blown away by the quality of the recordings so chose to mix it and release it.

That's

Mark: pretty cool.

Music: Yeah, it is.

Mark: I read it was a compilation so I didn't really fuck with it, I didn't know it was a live record otherwise I would have listened to it. So this was the last

Chris: one they did with Southern, before Southern kind of imploded. Yeah, yeah, sort of imploded, I mean it still existed but it just sort of completely contracted its operation.

Yeah, and then you mentioned earlier on, they basically did nothing for 17 years in terms of this band and, uh, brought out an album called Make It Fit this year, just in October last month. It's a bit more high energy and it's definitely not as soaked in those smooth vibes. Smooth with a V. Yeah, I've literally written it with a V.

It gets closer to mid 90s US college rock. It does. And it is a bit M. O. R. But it's kind of amiably bland. I actually think the first track in The Defendants is pretty nice. A

Music: [00:50:00] bouncy, tuneful opener,

Chris: I think if you like R. E. M. or Guided By Voices. It's quite You probably dig that. Quite pop punk y in places, but old school.

Mark: Yeah, yeah. I get Elvis Costello again, as a vocal thing.

Chris: That's a totally respectable tune, it's a little bit plight, but it's totally pleasant. The fifth track in that one, Rattle the Pipes.

It's got this really cool kind of dubby guitar and bass parts, and it kind of harkens back to the more Fugazi esque pre millennium. So a period, but fuck me. My chorus snatch song is a total red.

Music: So on [00:51:00] bars, electric guitars, side of the stage. Hey,

so show me. Gimme your best.

Chris: And if you're not from Scotland and you don't know what already is, listen to the chorus in this and see when you start blushing. I don't know what they were thinking.

Mark: Chris is actually blushing right

Chris: now. I'm blushing right now, Max. I'm remembering it. Yeah. I laughed out loud in the cafe where I was doing my notes.

So, yeah, I mean, there's nothing groundbreaking on the recent album. There's plenty of energy, which I actually didn't expect. Yeah. And there's some nice hooky moments. It feels, it feels To me, like it's more likely to bring a smile to their post hardcore fans because they'll be pleasantly surprised to hear them a bit more upbeat and those fans are older anyway.

They'll probably not be too upset that it's not a pure rager, whereas I think like the jazz contingent will probably see it as being a bit too normie and a bit [00:52:00] disappointing and it's lack of technicality and things like that. So yeah, I kind of feel like it's probably going to appeal more to their earlier audience than their later one, but.

Mark: It's pretty much by every, not by every measure, but by most measures it is their most simplistic record as well, sonically. The song that kind of really hammered that one for me was People Are Folk, which is a proper rocker, but it's very 70s, like it's almost Kissing Places. Get the

Music: garage, lock the door and leave the light on in the lodge.

There were some weapons and a manifesto. The paper said the perpetrators expressed no guilt or regrets, but they had to sweat the DNA, the found DNA on those cigarettes. It rang

Mark: a bell. palm mutant part and have a guitar chord ringing out which is definitely a classic rock vibe but still has the occasional unconventional riff but it does feel very straight you know and it's reflected in this the fact all the songs are really short as well and the runtime as a result of that quite short that's

Chris: that's kind of partly why i got the guided by voices vibe as well you know [00:53:00] just like Melodic, tuneful, guitars there, not too heavy.

Nice and brief, you know, fairly upbeat with the odd little flourish of something unusual.

Music: Yeah.

Chris: that just leaves us to analyze and place a real insight. Came out in 1997. Uh, this is clearly karate's Goldilocks zone, in my opinion. It's also their only record with two guitarists. And I mean, I've grown to realize that plays a huge part.

Mark: For sure.

Chris: Yep. Some things I'll be looking out for as I go through the tracks. Eh, I think that this record serves as a bit of a missing link between a few offshoots that grew into contemporary genres of note. So for example, post rock, for example, emo, for example, post hardcore. Okay. Eh, I think this album, it weaves together the likes of Fugazi's [00:54:00] oddball post hardcore with Slint's post rock.

And I think as a result, it serves as a bit of a case study of exactly how post rock got from the guitars of these adventurous ex punks, but ended up in the delay pedals of like greedy hacks, like explosions in the sky and debatably, mono bands like that. Oh, monos on our list, is it? Yeah. You know, it's, it's somebody that spent a lot of time in mono when I was younger.

I did realize that I did a lot of stupid things when I [00:55:00] was younger. I've really gone off mono since I saw them quite recently. It was absolutely abysmal and I just find it really insulting. How I'm not, I'm going to, I'm going to, I'm going to go off on one. I say that for another episode folks. Um, I think it also, that album, it documents an intersection of that same post hardcore and the jazz rock world but it does it in a much kinder ratio for me.

Yeah, this one just gets the best blend for my personal tastes. So diving into the tracks, the first one, this plus slow song. I do like that they start the album on this low key note.

Music: With pockets full of water.

Chris: This one looks forward to that sort of vibe that we do see them commit to in Unsolved, but it's just way better balanced, much richer in melody.[00:56:00]

It combines the vibes with melody, which is really key. Unlike the earlier Try Hard Emo stuff that I think they were doing on their self titled one, this actual It has an emotional resonance to me, this tune, like the hooks in it, the changes, the lyrics, they actually, I found them affecting. It's a lovely dynamic piece of music, you know, they really use their played dynamics an awful lot.

They do that throughout their career, but on this album, it wasn't. works brilliantly. It undulates the songs ebb and flow. I mean, this one in particular has gone within less than two and a half minutes. It's got a line in it as well. You give them hell, which I think is a standout for me, maybe due to the contrast between the content of the line and the context, you know, seeing a lane like you give them hell.

In such [00:57:00] gentle, melancholy surroundings, I think it's quite bittersweet, it's nice. I like the loungy pace

Mark: of this. I enjoy the Telecaster tone, which I think is the guitar on the right. The way the guitars are mixed is really interesting. The arpand left and right, quite hard. But the one on the left is lower in the mix than the one on the right, and that does create some interesting tension between the playing.

Because there's two guitars on this song, when it builds up, you kind of get more distorted guitar on one side than you do on the other because one is still quite clean, um, but they play off each other and each channel really well.

At first I was like, is that double tracked? Because I, I did see that they had a fourth member for a while, but because he left in 97 I just presumed that he didn't get to record this record and it was just one guitar and Jeff [00:58:00] had just tracked it twice, but if there's two guitar players that totally makes sense because This

Chris: was the only time they did have that.

I have to admit, I mean, I've been in this album for a long time and it's only from doing this show that I've realized that is possibly one of the biggest reasons I do like this album more than their other stuff. There is some great interplay. Yeah. During it. A lot of it is very subtle and we'll go, we'll talk about that as we go through.

I think as well in terms of the volume in the, in the stereo image, part of that is because so much room has been left for the dynamics of the guitar. They've not compressed it all down and sort of leveled it because they really can go from incredibly quiet and delicate. All the way up to full blown gain and therefore in the mix that the imbalance is there partly because the guitarists are playing with different weight at different points.

The second track, New Martini,[00:59:00]

A really well judged approach to pacing because they come straight in after this slow intro, this understated intro with this, I mean by their standards, a bit of a banger. I

Music: used to know there's boredom, potentially asleep, and I can't feel the rain until it cuts across my cheek. Must get paid

Chris: that Snaps.

Album Life is a really tuneful slice of post hardcore that I think looks back to some of that early Midwest emo stuff, but is also really in keeping me a lot of the Washington DC and Discord movement at the time. It sits brilliantly in the landscape there.

The call and response approach to the [01:00:00] chorus is a great hook. There's a nice subtle use of unsettling dissonance in this one. They use some pretty discordant bits of guitar work. Um, I love the shadows esque breakdown for the bridge. See that guitar part? And

Mark: then Yeah, there's something

Chris: quite

Mark: surfy about this song

Chris: to me. Exactly, yeah, yeah. And then, I think the ending, the last portion of this song tickles that same place that things like PDA by Interpol do for me. See when a band sort of breaks a song down and then goes into a big melodic ending where the guitars are intertwining.

I love it when bands do that. I really do. I think it's a lovely way to end a song because you get into this big unfurling sort of interplay and the bass gets involved as well. It's a brilliant ending.

Mark: Yeah, like I said, there is something surfy about it. And I like the textures in general that are [01:01:00] going on.

Uh, the rhythm guitar in the verses is kind of washy and lacking treble, which is quite a textual difference from the lead guitar. So even then, like, when you have two guitars in a band, they do, they're supposed to have different tones to complement each other, but this is actually quite dramatic in how different the tones are on both these guitars.

Um, I do enjoy the way they sort of bring the pace down and build that back up for quite a big rocky ending. Although it does feel restrained to me just because how clean the guitars are. But I think rock ending, I'm thinking layers and layers and layers of dirt, you know.

Chris: That is, that is one of the things that I see the dynamics are really important.

Again, it's like they've got a gain setting on their guitars that's not particularly aggressive. The weight comes from how they play it. Yeah. The third track in this, Wake Up, Decide,

it's an unusual move because [01:02:00] they, they, They come in with a purely instrumental one here and it used to be a skipper for me basically until I started to warm to the album overall at which point I got more from it.

Again it looks forward to that jazzy post rock world that they were approaching. It's understated and patient. It's a little bit sinister this one and just around about two minutes it sounds a fair bit like which for their palate at the time. was a nice ingredient, I think.

Mark: Yeah, I've written here that it feels quite post rocky, as in the early post [01:03:00] rock, as we've discussed already. Um, there's some lovely guitar melodies though, and they're mixed in a way which means they really pop out the mix. I like the overall push and pull of this song. I mean, when they bring it down and it goes like quiet, loud, quiet.

They do that a lot in this portion of their career, right? They They do loud, quiet, loud quite often, and they also do like long build ups towards the endings. Um, not just in this record, there's quite a few in this record, but the records either side as well. But you know what, I think that's fine, because they can really play in that texture that they have with different playing dynamics, as opposed to just, you know, Overall sonic dynamics does really give it more of a light and shade effect than it would be if it's just loud distortion, quiet, you know,

Chris: so absolutely, uh, the fourth track again playing with the dynamics of the album.

Overall, it's 98 stop, which is just another turn.[01:04:00]

It's classic discord era post hardcore for the first 90 seconds. There's loads of names that could get thrown in the hat. Not least of all the gazzy, the tones. Again we're talking about this are actually fairly restrained energy and this one comes for the performance from the arrangement.

There's a wee bit of spoken word in it, did you notice that? And in the Venn diagram again that's a bit of slant, but then it's after 90 seconds it branches off into something much funkier and groovier.[01:05:00]

The vocals are much cleaner to the fore from then forward, um, it drops in some proper restrained post hardcore style experimentation as well and, and kind of climaxes with something of a rock out by their standards.

Mark: Yeah, I'm really glad they pick up the pace with this song because as much as I enjoyed the kind of, the explorations of the last few songs.

I think at this point it's a really good place to give it a jolt of energy again and this is the highest energetic point I think in the record. I think so, yeah. And it has a proper post hardcore energy as a result of that. They use two guitars to really nice effect each backing one another up with different counter melodies and inversions of the main chords.

I love an inversion, you know, um, it's something that I think more bands should make use of not just having a slab of chords and then like using like a picky part or an octave part but actually using inversions on those chords can really make something quite interesting. When it does that bass and drum section in the middle where they the staccato guitar drops, it's [01:06:00] awesome.

Yeah. And yeah, the rocker and then as Good. But then it rocks out and stops and has a one tiny wee riff at the end and then it's over. That's right, playfully. The fifth one, New New.

Chris: It lands with some unabashed jazz chords, man. Oh man, that, yeah. And yeah, it does. The verses are a bit jazzy. They're a bit elastic in their arrangement. And I think that's why I love the way the chorus snaps everything together into something really direct, albeit quite briefly.

It's got another great post [01:07:00] hardcore workout in the middle section. The song itself neither self indulgent, not too basic. It's got a great bit of rocking out to it. Um, and how about that cheeky wee bass ending on it as well?

Mark: Oh yeah, the bass in general is really great in this song, you know, um, it's great in all the songs to be fair, but it's at the foreground of this one, I think.

Yeah. And I like the energy of that. I think this is actually probably my favorite song on the record. Okay, nice. The dual vocals are actually kind of interesting. The hook is weird. It's not very conventional, but it is quite hooky. And it just kind of rattles along as if it's going to fall apart this song, which is, which is what I really enjoy.

I'm pleasantly

Chris: surprised that that's your favorite because I thought it's maybe it's 98 stop or perhaps the track Die Die that we're going to get to would have been your your highlight. But that's interesting. It's just good discord energy, you know, so the sixth one, the new hangout condition. It's another track on here that I took a bit of time to warm to.[01:08:00]

It's got that same style of sedate melody. We played dynamics, you know, rises and falls a bit, both in volume and in emotion. This is one that actually features the line in place of Real Insight that titled the record. post verse segments. There's like these bits that come after the verses that are really big dose of post rock.

Uh, you get an unfussy wee solo in this one, which is this one of the first solos on this one? Yeah. There's not a lot of them, um, which then leads into a really lengthy instrumental ending. Not unlike bands, uh, such as Billy Mahoney. Now that's a bit of a kind of obscure cut for a lot of people, but I think if you know them, you know them.[01:09:00]

Um, and it makes sense that if you're into this, you would be into Billy Mahoney. Yeah, it's post rock that more obviously wears its hardcore influences. And yeah, as I said, I think this is a bit of a genetic fingerprint when you're analyzing that genre that post rock emerged from post hardcore in a lot of

Mark: ways.

To me, this one actually felt more emo. Um, some of the chord choices remind me of sunny day real estate or Texas, the reason or maybe Maybe even American football. Um, yeah, I don't have that rock guitar solo. That's kind of a laid back and lazy American football is an interesting

Chris: one. I've not, I've not got them in my notes, but that's a really interesting name to drop in there because I do think there's a fair bit of the[01:10:00]

Mark: first thing actually popped into my head was like Joan of Arc or even cap and jazz. But I really, I was really just thinking Tim Kinsella. That's kind of what I was thinking. Joan

Chris: of Arc do get mentioned in connection to karate quite often, but I think it tends to be that karate got the. formula better than them, that they were a bit too hard to chew on.

Mark: Yeah.

Chris: And it was more, it was easier

Mark: to swallow. Um, I just want to say that the Big Melodic Ending totally reminds me of Goodbye Sky Harbour by Jimmy Eat World.

They must have taken an influence from this. Um, because I saw Jimmy Eat World last week and they were fucking brilliant. They sounded pretty decent in the academy, but that's what happens when you've got no arms, right? [01:11:00] You just DI everything and it's just, it's pretty good to go. And they played good by Skyharbour and it was one of those weird situations where the crowd were like, what the fuck is this?

Because they were, the crowd were mostly just there for the bangers. So they played blister, which is like one of my favorite Jimmy world songs and it's on clarity. There's a wee bit at the end when it goes quiet and the crowd's sort of clapping, it's like, come on, like, what the fuck are we doing here? Do your homework, guys.

Chris: Fools. Um, the southern track, On Cutting, I think is one of the strongest here.

It's understated and patient, yeah, but it doesn't feel too flabby or anything, especially when it ramps up for the peaks and the choruses.[01:12:00]

Mark: Yeah, the vocal, when it comes in, does give me Cursive Tim Casher vibes and I really enjoy the vocal melody and just a little lead guitar licks that just kind of occasionally dart in and out of the song. It's yeah, the riff kind of for the most part undulates and it's a bit moody but it's kind of livened up with those little

Chris: interludes.

Die Die that I mentioned, 8th track, penultimate track Mark, definitely one of the most recognisable riffs on here.

It's a little bit mischievous and diminished. You can hear moments of In and the Killtaker in this one I think. In and the Killtaker came out about four years before this and I think it's, it's left a bit of a mark. Clearly he was a big fan of the Fugazi stuff, [01:13:00] clearly he would have been a big fan of that album.

There's a wee technical workout about two minutes in there that pumps up the energy for the shouty ending as well.

Mark: This is probably the most obviously math y song technically. time signature wise, but there's something quite James Bond y about it to my ears. I don't know, I don't know what that is. Um, maybe it's some of the chord choices and the note choices, maybe we're in that same kind of jazzy, cause that was big band jazz, wasn't it?

So maybe it's in that. It doesn't really grab me as immediately as the others, but the main guitar riff is certainly fun and the solo is very bluesy, which as we have later going to find out, he tends solos. Yeah. And Lizzie did a lot of bluesy stuff. That's true. Yeah, today or tomorrow

Chris: is the last track, number nine.

Music: Sometimes you [01:14:00] stay inside, here comes my ride, she said, here comes

Chris: my ride. And we are teetering on counting crows at points here. Okay, that jazz rock light that the band meandered into for a while afterwards in their career. I'm not a huge fan of this track to be honest. I. like the song in the sense that I have, I would say I've extended clemency towards it, given that it's part of an album that I feel very warmly about, but in isolation, not it's, it's quite a beige tune.

I think it could have been on one of the inferior releases.

There are some nice guitar parts and sonically it's [01:15:00] lush, but I think I'm being generous even by engaging with it to that extent. It's a bit of an anti climax to me as a final tune. It's the weakest point of the record, I think. In fairness to it though, it gets it done fast.

Mark: Yeah, that's true. It's a very short song.

As

Chris: does the album. That's 30 minutes and what, 13 seconds or something like that. And that is Yes,

Mark: that is the perfect length for a record. Today or Tomorrow is oddly the most played song on Spotify from this record. Why? Which is odd, particularly considering it's a closing track, which is never usually a big hitter, unless it's been a single.

And I don't think this has ever been a single. No. Why would it be a single? Downbeat is kind of half spoken lyric, very sombre. It's unresolved as well. The song doesn't resolve, which I think is quite frustrating too. It does. You do think

Chris: they're about to come back in. You just let it go. Yeah. As I say, the album just over half an hour also serves as an example of how fewer songs can help because by contrast unsolved is well [01:16:00] over 50 minutes and feels it really feels.

Yeah. Yeah. Whilst there are some weak moments in this album, especially that final track, they're so mercifully short. The album itself very rarely feels like hard work, uh, because it's so succinct. And as a result, I have played this album a lot over the years, even though there are better albums out there.

I've played this album a lot. It lasts, it invites repeated lessons because it doesn't burn you out. I wish more bands would actually take note of what Karate achieved in doing that. They did it with a lot of their stuff, actually, in fairness, being quite conservative about how much you put on I think combined with the fact it's an extremely dynamic album, you know, they give it a lot of room to breathe.

They allow their playing to be a really big part of the way that gives it a lot of lasting power. I think the record actually feels quite mapped out and logical as well. For the most part, you know, the fact that they start soft, come in a bit more energetic, mellow out, ramp it up, bring it [01:17:00] back down. It feels quite deliberate.

They've known what they've been doing when they've been constructing this. Um, and it has enough great moments to just quite easily rise to the top of their catalogue for me.

Mark: Yeah, as you know, as everybody knows, if you've ever listened to this podcast before, never watched it before, watched it before that, is that I always listen to the album we're doing last.

So I wasn't really sure what I was going to get. I saw that it was early in their career, second record technically, right? Um, technically third, technically third, but mainly known as a second. Yeah. And I was like, huh, okay, how's this going to play out? And immediately it was the two guitar thing. It was, oh shit, this is different.

Oh, there's actually some more interesting textures there. And that's the thing that you kind of lose when you've got one guitar right, is that unless your bass player is also using some amount of distortion, you're going to start to lose texture. But you can make it up in other ways by basically being really technically proficient, which they of course are, or basically by being really clever with how you craft songs.

When you look over the entire entirety of the choreography, Karate [01:18:00] only really have two or three different types of songs that they write, and two or three different tricks in their toolbox. They deploy them all in this record, jazz to a much lesser degree than some of the other ones, you know, big build up endings like I said.

elements of post hardcore, sometimes quite obvious 70s rock, sometimes a bit of a funky bass, you know, all that's here. But the mixture of it for me is, leans more towards the kind of stuff that I enjoy musically, which is post hardcore or more importantly, and I think more absolutely emo from this era.

That sits quite nicely and with like your American footballs and your Cap'n Jazzy's and your Joan of Arc's, you know, and anything like that. It's not, The same, fully, because it is more jazzy and more mathy and more post rocky in places but over the piece I think it does work really well and I think this is the best record by them.

I think you picked, I think you made the right choice here. I've never heard this band before this, I'd heard the name but I never dove into it but no, I really really enjoyed it.

Chris: Good, good. It's interesting that you say that it fits with those bands because on a number of occasions in the past I've had to remind [01:19:00] myself that this was not actually a Discord record as well.

Yeah, that's totally fair. It really feels of a piece where even like the kind of Cue and Not You stuff and all that kind of thing. Oh yeah, for

Mark: sure. Cue and Not You is a really good reference. Good,

Chris: I'm glad you enjoyed it. Thanks Tommy for suggesting the band. It gave me an opportunity to really hone in on this record.

Hopefully it's the one you would have picked. Yeah, I'm curious to know about people who I totally reject are taking karate and are actually more into the jazzier stuff. So do feel free, especially members of the AAA group, do feel free to take us to task on that. I would love to really know where that's coming from.

Mark: Yeah, I think this track is interesting as well because of where it sits in our overlapping the Venn diagram of our taste, you know, I think where we kind of come together usually is in stuff that's a bit more experimental and post hardcore, post hardcore y, but then obviously we go off in much different directions after that.

This is very squarely in the center of that Venn diagram, and I take emo from it and you take post rock and all that, and [01:20:00] it is all those things. Yeah.

Chris: Uh, okay, well that leaves us one order of business. Yeah, one final order of business. This is the Nexus. The Nexus.

A complicated series of connections between different things. The Nexus. throw in some kind of animation here. Oh shit. Like insane manga dragon balls. Uh, so the nexus for those that are unfamiliar is where we usually, uh, the name is suggested to us by a listener to the show, but this week I've done it based on current events and we then have to try and link the band from this week.

to that person. [01:21:00] Now that person can be real, they can be a character in a story, you know, it can be quite abstract, but we basically just have to get to them that kind of six degrees of separation, six degrees of Kevin Bacon thing. Yes. Uh, this week, I think it was yesterday or was it the day before that John Prescott died?

Was it today? Was it today? I think it was today. Jesus, that's recent. Maybe it was yesterday. Time flies when you're into the Brinkton Nuclear Law. Exactly. Oh, by the way, I never got to show, I can actually show the camera. Look what I got in the post. You got the Ian Cusick forever now. For anyone that's been following the show, Ian Cusick came up in the After the Storm episode recently.

I couldn't resist, man. Only available on CD, I might add. Only

Mark: available on CD. Yes. Throw that over here. There you go. I bet you see this shit. Is that, Rafferty Rafferty like co wrote some of the songs on this? No, I think he's just covered them. That would be much more entertaining if it was Gerry Rafferty though, right?

I mean, Gerry Rafferty's

Chris: Scottish as well. He used to be Paisley. Yeah, you never know. Ian Cusick from Dundee relocated to LA to get into the power [01:22:00] rock pop scene. Fucking love it. I mean, I can't wait to rattle through that. Anyway, I think it's got Firefox on it, by the way. It does, it does. Um, okay. So the nexus we're going to get from karate to John Prescott, the deputy labor leader, two jacks, two jabs, two jabs.

Okay. So, uh, Jeff arena, the guitarist and singer karate says his three favorite bands as a teenager were beefy. Minute Men

Mark: and Dage, you did not mention the fact that they did an in the Fish tank, which was All Minute Men covers apart from I think one song That's right. I, I, I briefly

Chris: mentioned it. I, they did an in the Fish Tank.

The in the fish tank became a, kinda a series of collaborations, but early on, uh, in the fish tank was really just bands going at it and doing covers and stuff for this. One particular label, uh, it's fine[01:23:00]

Music: feel,

Mark: I don't listen to it because the, the review from Pitch foot looked, look warm as a, and I was like, I mean, I don't usually agree with Pitchfork, but they say that the fact that it is Ken me means I'm not

Chris: gonna, well, he's a big Minuteman fan. A Minuteman fan, and so he does. He does try quite hard on it.

I mean, it's all right. I just, I'm not a big Minutemen fan, so there's not really that much, uh, to incentivize it. Anyway, Beef Eater, Minutemen and Dane Bramage. Dane Bramage. You know Dane Bramage? No.

The singer and guitarist in Dane Bramage was Mr. Dave Grohl. Oh, no way! This is pre Scream.

Mark: That's the third week in a row he's come

Chris: up. Back to being the Dave Grohl nexus, innit? Yeah. So Dave Grohl appears on the St. Vincent album [01:24:00] All Born Screaming, came out this year. Wow, that's, that's a, you've just jumped a huge period of time there.

Yeah, there you go, it's a good bit of fucking nexus and that's what that is. The artwork for St Vincent's All Born Screaming album was inspired by a visit to El Prado in Madrid, where I was recently actually, you'll remember, with the artist Alex Da Corte. Alex Da Corte collaborates with St Vincent on a lot of our album sleeves.

When they were at El Prado, they probably, uh, went to see El Bosco. Fucking love a wee bit of El Bosco at the Prado. Creepy bastard that he is. God, I love El Bosco. But, uh, they also saw Francisco Goya's black paintings. These are the ones from the end of his life, full of all sorts of bleak shit. That includes Saturn devouring his sons and stuff.

Amazing stuff, although it's not exactly clear whether Goya ever really intended it to be exhibited. I mean, his house must have been a fucked up place because he ended his life surrounded by these black period paintings, really fucking dark stuff. But another famous Goya painting called the third of May, 1808 [01:25:00] also hangs in El Prado.

It depicts men before a firing squad, uh, one of Napoleon's firing squads. This is during the Spanish resistance to Napoleon's invading forces and the peninsula war, which happened, yeah, around about 1806, 7, 8. But he painted it only about five or six years later. Uh, you will recognize it if you see it. Now, a designer called Gerald Haltom used a part of that painting, an image from that painting, as inspiration for a very famous logo.

Do you want to guess which logo? Nike. No. Goya inspired the Nike. That's brilliant, man. That's actually brilliant. Um, I'll give you a clue here, this is him talking about it. I was in despair, deep despair. I drew myself, the representative of an individual in despair, with hands palm outstretched, outwards and downwards, in the manner of Goya's peasant before the firing squad.

I formalised the drawing into a line and put a circle around it. Okay. Any closer to knowing what it is? A line with a circle around it? [01:26:00] Hands outstretched, palm down on the floor, turned it into lines, drew a circle around it. No,

Mark: you're going to, you're going to do it for me.

Chris: This became the internationally recognised peace symbol.

Oh, wow. You know the one, the kind of upside down Y with a line right through it. So it was also the nuclear disarmament logo because the image combines the two semaphore positions for the letters N and D. And since we have video this week I can show that because D is like straight up. And N is down at 45 degrees, and that's where that logo came from.

Mark: It's also weirdly kind of almost an inverse of the nuclear.

Chris: Yeah, but if you look at the Goya painting, you will see that on, well, there's a, there's a guy with his arms up like that standing up, but I think more importantly, there's a guy on the ground who I think is being shot, and he is kind of prostrate.

on the floor with his hands out in front of him and his head as well. So he was inspired by that as well as the semaphore things and that's what became the peace symbol. So that was adopted and used as such in 1958 originally by the Direct Action [01:27:00] Committee and later by the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament, the CND, in opposition to the nuclear arms race.

Now, a Mr Tony Blair. Denied it for years and years and years. But when he was standing for labor originally in 1983 on a unilateral nuclear disarmament platform, he was also a member of CND. So was Jack Straw, but I think, I don't know if Jack Straw denied it, but Blair denied it for a long time. And that was partly controversial because debate still rages about possible Russian funding for the CND in the 70s and 80s as a way to disrupt the UK's nuclear program.

Um, and that is actually that. One of the reasons that debate still rages is because of the testimony of a former, I think it was the head or the assistant head of the KGB in London, uh, once he, I don't know what he did, retired, claimed asylum, whatever, he gave interviews saying that they had been secretly funding it.

Um, so clearly that then throws up loads of problematic questions about who knew what. Yeah. But, uh, yeah, and as we might [01:28:00] already know, Tony Blair's deputy prime minister for 10 years was the late John Prescott.

Mark: Two jabs himself. Okay, mine's just quite long, it's a whole page. Goodness

Chris: me, that's a lot for you.

Mark: Yeah, sit the fuck down folks. Um, Karate had released their early records on Southern Records, as we've discussed already. Southern released a lot of bands across a wide variety of genres, including Chumbawumba.

Chris: Mental,

Mark: but yes, they're best known for their song Tub Thumping, which was taken from their only major label record.

Oh my God. I mean, you could

Chris: have got to the fucking Prescott really easily from here, but sorry, carry

Mark: on. I know I've went a circuitous route. So yeah, that album was released in 1997. In 1992 they released an album called Jesus H. Christ. It was a record that very heavily relied on samples, but they were unable to procure the rights for a number of the songs they sampled,[01:29:00]

and it was largely reworked to kind of defend the artistic intent of the record, but also to criticize censorship. We named it Sh, and the artwork for Sh was all the rejection letters they received from the artists that told them they couldn't use the samples of their songs. So apparently it was considered to be a genre landmark release and that kind of an arco punk, an arco punk dance sort of thing at the time.

Chris: Tell me about one that had some very controversial records and some very controversial album covers. Yeah, for

Mark: sure. This one is just the word shh right on the front. On the original release they had a song called Stairway to Heaven, which is not a cover of the Vlad Zeppelin song. Although a part of the If there's a bustle in your head's roll, it's played on strings in the song.

But the chorus of the song is actually the chorus from the Buzzcocks song, Everybody's Happy Nowadays. So yeah, they eventually used that song and reworked it into a song called Happiness is Just a Chant Away, which is on Shhh. Anyway, Everybody Is Happy Nowadays was a Buzzcocks song, as [01:30:00] I said it was the 8th single they ever released.

It was a non album single, released in 1979.

But it did appear in a singles collection which was also released in 1979 called, uh, Singles Going Steady. That was released on IRS records, which was also in partnership with United Artists, which was the major label they eventually would go on to sign with. Um, IRS Records though was the record label started by Stuart Copeland's brother from the police.

Oh, aye. Yeah. Um, actually came out the back of a record label that Stuart and Miles Copeland had created a few years prior called Illegal Records which actually released the first single by the police called Fallout, but they'd also released like The Cramps and The Flesh Tones and stuff as well. One band that ended up in the IRS label was The Alarm, a [01:31:00] Welsh rock band from Rhyl, North Wales.

Yeah. Yeah. Do you know the alarm? Uh, yeah, I know a bit of the alarm, yeah. Do you know Rhyl? Do you know Rhyl in North Wales? No. You do know Rhyl in North Wales, I'll tell you why. I

Chris: have, honestly, if I've ever been to Wales, it's only ever been cutting across the edge, going somewhere else. I've never actually been anywhere in Wales.

Mark: Yeah, uh, well my family live in Wrexham and it's pretty grim, so. Uh, but yeah, Mike Peters was a singer for Big Country. When they reformed. Yes. And he is a singer on their 2013 and last album to date.

Chris: Yeah, The Alarm

Mark: did

Chris: a tour where it was like the Big Country, The Alarm and fucking other band that they were involved with from before then.

But yeah, yeah, that's what I, they're all connected to that group,

Mark: you know.

Chris: But Rill is also a place. The Skids, that's the other one. Yeah, sorry.

Mark: Yeah, cause, yeah. Sure, um, Adamson was in the skit for it, wasn't he? Yeah, that's right. Royal was also a place where the infamous Prescott punch happened. Is

Chris: that where that was?

Yeah, so

Mark: it happened in 2001, um, and it was when [01:32:00] a pro hunting protester hit John Prescott with an egg, and that's where he got his second nickname of Two Jabs, which was a play on two jags, which was his original nickname in the press, but then he became Two Jabs for, you know, square going some guy.

Chris: I mean, you don't want to have your politicians going around slugging the public, but I don't know if too many people were shedding any tears for a pro hunt guy that had lobbed eggs at him getting his comeuppance.

I mean Prescott was famously a very working class guy. Very bullshy. Yeah. Yeah. It's a reputedly like felt quite uncomfortable in some of the political circles we moved in, even though it was labor. A lot of them are privately educated and you know, especially Blair and Prescott felt a bit self conscious and that.

His son works

Mark: for Jamie Corbyn. He's on his, uh, And part has to hold that against them. We won't.

Chris: Yeah, we got there. Thank you. Uh, that was good. Thanks, Tommy. Thanks for the suggestion. We will continue to work our way through them at some sort of pace. We haven't quite decided what we're doing [01:33:00] next week.

The AI says we should do hum. No, we need to get out the 90s. We do. We do need to get out the 90s, at least for one week. Should we do it? Should we do it? I don't know yet, because I've not actually had it on yet. But, uh,

Mark: I think we should agree to do it. And if it's pushed, then we just have to deal with the consequences.

Chris: I suspect we will do that at some point in the future. Once I have familiarized myself with his take on early hard rock. Yeah. We'll, we'll, we'll work it out. In the meantime, as we said, the Christmas episodes, always, always the talk of the town, are going to be for subs only. Please get subscribed. Go to patreon.

com forward slash unsung pods and go in at the basic level. four bucks, you'll get all of the back catalog, all of the secret episodes and bonus episodes. You'll get access to the triple a groups. You'll be able to suggest records. You'll be able to give us feedback on these kinds of things. You'll be able to give us abuse that we will read unavoidably.[01:34:00]

Yeah, that's a great place to be. And Anything else that we need to cover at this point?

Mark: Give us a rating and a review on your podcast platform of choice, be that Spotify, be it Apple Podcasts, and if you've come across us via a video, say hi! For fuck's sake,

Chris: say hi! Oh, one last thing. As we said, Christmas episode, we're starting to gather in the questions.

Email us, comment on Patreon, comment on our socials, DM us, whatever you want, you can ask about anything. It can be about music, certainly, it can be quite generic, what was your favourite album this year? But it can also be like, Chris, what the fuck do you think you're playing at? What do you think I'm playing at?

I don't know, but I'll be contractually obliged to tell you. The Christmas episode after a few shandies.

Mark: Yeah, and also, I'm going to say this just now, and you can cut this out if you want, but if you want to hang with us, then we could livestream the whole thing, and we could have a conversation with the subs live on air, as we get increasingly more drunk.

To quote Jumbo Lumba, [01:35:00] shh, shh. Okay, maybe not. Maybe next year. Bye. Bye.