Episode 10! We are in double digits! Wow. Alex says he saw a stat that most podcasts don't make it to Episode 10, so congrats us, and mostly thanks to all you listeners. Jana monologues about the performance art demanded of being online, versus the existentialist detangling from it all..."nothing matters lol." Alex adds some great points about how queer musicians learn to mask and perform from a very young age, and it ends up in our art. There's also a very important update about Leo the Turtle learning new things at an advanced age.

Follow along with this week's playlist: https://www.tunemymusic.com/share/CVvVc1QHdW

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Alex sent some magic beans to Jana in the mail this week for the drink ingredient...Tonka Beans. They are used in a super delicious drink! Listen to Alex's very informative note about how these beans might be illegal in the U.S...but here we are making a drink with them anyway.

BLOOD FLOWER

1.5oz aged rum

.75oz cherry liqueur (ginja rossio)

.75oz lemon

.5oz cinnamon and tonka syrup

2 dashes angostura

luxardo cherry

Shake all the ingredients over ice and strain into a glass over a big ice cube

Cinnamon and Tonka Syrup Recipe

* 1 cup white sugar

* 1 cup water

* 2 tonka beans

* 6 cinnamon sticks, broken into shards

Toss everything in a saucepan, and whisk until sugar is saturated. Bring to a boil, let sugar dissolve, then let sit until cool.

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This week's song batch is another interesting grouping. We start with "Cut Back" by Marmozets, a British-based four-piece rock band. We love the aggressive synth melodic line...maximalism is back, Alex exclaims. We hear some Paramore and Metric here. A song about hating small talk is close to both our hearts. "Keep it on the sunny weather," is a smart hook and they dig into the mindlessness of surface level interactions. The angle of the song's narrator criticizing herself for engaging this way keeps it from being a preachy song and more of a smart commentary.

Maisie Peters and Julia Michaels give us "Kingmaker," an almost perfect folk-pop musing on being used and left behind. It's about a relationship, it's about the music business, it's about all the things. Maisie excels at a Swiftian confessional songwriting style, and pairing with Julia Michaels is a one-two punch of smart, witty lyricism. We love that it's a full-on duet, not just a guest spot with wimpy background vocals. We discuss whether the post-chorus is passé or coming back...or just needs to be executed really well.

The Mountain Goats give us "Charlie Sheen Reaches Out to the Feds," already winning for best song title on the pod ever. It's referring to some interesting lore concerning Charlie believing that a Japanese horror film (Guinea Pig 2) was so violently realistic that it had to be a real snuff film. The FBI was called in (there was no real murder, it's just a movie). John Darnielle's songwriting is smart, charming, and another interesting take on being so deep into the screen that reality becomes fuzzy. Charlie is placed as the hero of the moment, which is another excellent use of a POV/angle in a song. It's a straightforward folk-rock song, which aids in getting the storytelling across. Will someone please think of the Charlie Sheen of it all? We did.

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Alex's links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/flowerboying

TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@flowerboying

Alex's Substack: https://alexanderdaoust.substack.com

Jana's links:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/janapochop

Website: http://www.janapochop.com

Jana's Substack: https://janapochop.substack.com