Fable of the Frontman 🦹‍♀️ : Dirt From The Road, Part Deux 🏍️ 🏍️

(a Stoop Chat 🔊)

In late November, drenched in the slick heat♨️of a North American Lobes tour, we recorded and released the only (bar one) Stoop Chat to feature an official guest. In this case, that guest brought his own podcast: Dirt From The Road, the long-running behind-the-music munch from our friend and recent tour support Brett Newski. Brett was on the tour, we were on the tour, we both have podcasts — okay, Brett has a Podcast and we have a Multimedia Micro-tainment Vertical — so why not combine them, to everyone’s benefit?

Well, we did it, and nobody complained. Better still, one person said in the comments, “Newski has a real talent for being present in a conversation without dominating it and he has brought out the best in you both,” and someone else said they “enjoyed the change of format and pace that Newski brought to it.” Well, we’re not in this game for money or praise, but money and praise sure get our attention, because they make us think, “Maybe that praise is happening due to the quality of the art,” or, “That money is a direct reflection of how good the art is.”

Short story long (we’ll finish by dawn): Here’s Dirt From The Road x Stoop Chat Part Deux, available as a full-color 1hr17min feature movie over on Mr. Newski’s YouTube page, or here on S.D.I.R. in intimate stereo audio — close your eyes and let your headphones become a door to Keith’s living room in Greenpoint, Brooklyn — for some reason a full four minutes longer than the video version🤷‍♀️.

This is what happens when you let AI splice three different images into “a seamless whole.” Seams aside, it’s pretty good.

Show Notes:

• What do you do when you find a dead body? Here’s a pretty reasonable list of steps.

• Although it’s uncommon to consume the bones when you eat chicken wings, this reddit guy says it’s fine “as long as you’re breaking the bones down enough that they aren’t going to puncture anything and you’re careful about not choking.” On the other hand, Dr. Leslie Koh says that “eating is a fundamental part of life, and while it can bring extreme joy and nourishment, it can also bring potential dangers that we may not realize,” and goes on to write: “Avoid eating chicken bones.”

• We talk about meeting Seymour Stein, who signed Madonna, The Ramones, The Talking Heads, and not We Are Scientists. Bob Lefsetz on Seymour Stein: “But you’d see Seymour all over the world, always soaking up the flavor, looking for new acts and looking for good food. Seymour loved not only Chinese, but other cuisines. He’d put that napkin in his collar and… If you ever ate with him you know what I’m talking about. Well, let me just say his manners were not the best, as in food dripped and splattered, but if Seymour were still here he wouldn’t be offended, he’d double-down, and make an excuse.”

• Lee Child was indeed very intimidating to meet, but we quickly grew comfortable, too comfortable, and ended up forcing the poor bastard to film this…

• Keith talks about, through cowardice, not meeting Charli XCX 😒 at the Life Is Beautiful Festival back in October. We discussed other aspects of that adventure in this post.

• Chris overstates the similarity between Belgium and Rhode Island. In fact, Belgium is substantially larger: 7.6x in terms of land mass (Belgium is 30,528 km^2, Rhode Island a mere 4,001 km^2), and 11x in terms of population (11.6M Belgians fighting just over 1M Little Rhodies). Using these criteria, the U.S. state most similar to Belgium is Ohio. Using the criterion of “importance of fried strips of potato to the local economy,” the relevant state is Idaho.

• The David Wain project that Keith approached apprehensively then ecstatically beheld was Middle Aged Dad Jam Band, and he will not reveal whether Sly Stallone made it to the stage on the night he caught them. For more David Wain that we loved at the time it was released, but which (who knows?) may or may not hold up today, check out the show Stella (2005) — Wain made it with Michael Showalter and Michael Ian Black, and there are bits and piece on Vimeo.

• Here is a compilation of NBA fights that Brett sent Chris as a followup to their last hang.

• Bezos.com seems like it’s kind of available? Somebody has it, but it looks like they’re waiting to get a good offer. It’s funny: obviously Geoff Bezos could just buy that thing using the stock certificates that flew out of his airplane when the door blew off at 10K feet. He must have decided not to play ball with the soft-extortionists, which, yeah, you get it. Same time, it would be pretty sweet if bezos.com just went to:

  

  📷:Annie Leibovitz

Newski’s Canvases

Brett “Brandt” Newski does music, podcasts, and all the rest of it, but did you know he does paint? When we were on tour together, we were often shamed by the volume and quality and artistic acumen of his social media posts (many of which we re-boosted), but we only recently learned about his tendency to mark up canvases, and they’re pretty damn sweet:

If you want to replace your Picasso print with something not already familiar to every guest through your door, consider an original Newski — he takes orders.

Questions 🤔

Leave your responses in the comments.

• Is Sarah McLachlan a good hang? Is Eddie Vedder better?

• In your life — excepting the family of a potential spouse — who were you most nervous to meet?

• Who’s the best frontperson that doesn’t play an instrument?

• Seen any good standup comedy specials lately?

• Which bands’ studio albums are unequivocally, without exception, better than their live shows? Which bands’ live shows possess a magic that none of their albums manage to capture, or even make up for?

• In the context of live entertainment, have you seen a fist fight?

✍🏻,

𛲇𛲗👥𛲗𛲇