Month: April 2021 (Page 4 of 4)

The PopCulteer
April 2, 2021

It’s hard to believe that we’re in the fourth month of 2021 already. Maybe it’s the pandemic-induced time-fog, but for a year that’s already seen an attempted coup, a successful stimulus program and here in West Virginia an experiment in kakistocracy as performance art, the year seems to be flying by at an insane pace.

Since this is a pop culture blog, and these days you can’t get much more pop culture-y than streaming services, I’m going to play a little catch-up this week and offer some of my brief observations of new and old streaming services in which I have been indulging.

Last week I gave you my first impression of how well the WWE Network’s move to Peacock is going. I appear to be in a tiny minority, but I feel like I’m getting my money’s worth for the first time in years. I never used the pause or rewind functions, and didn’t search by wrestler before, so losing that didn’t really affect me. I have been struggling with getting a decent stream from WWE Network for years, so being able to watch the Fastlane PPV uninterrupted was a delight.

Likewise, Peacock going back and editing all the blackface and bad attempts at race-based comedy doesn’t really bother me either.

The rest of Peacock is a nice bonus. Having access to every episode of every season of Law & Order: SVU is sort of like having free24/7 delivery of crack to the house, and it’s cool to go back through all the seasons of Saturday Night Live to see how many times it was obvious that their old shows were better. There’s more stuff there than I’ll get around to watching, and at five bucks a month (with ads) AND the WWE Network included, it’s one of the best streaming values around.

The WWE Network goes away in the US on April 4, and since I really only watch the PPVs, special events and documentaries, I won’t miss it. It’s a little bittersweet, since I only got a Roku streaming device in the first place so I could watch WWE Network, but time marches on, and I will have a much more pleasant viewing experience now.

By the same token, I mainly wanted HBO Max to replace DC Universe, which Warnermedia gutted last year. I have access to most of the DC Universe video content that I want, plus I have HBO and the excellent new Looney Tunes cartoon shorts. I’ve had HBO on and off since 1977, but I dropped it from my DirecTV account about five years ago. It’s cool to have it back again.

Theatrical movies on the day they open in theaters are a bonus (for the rest of this year), and it’s cool to get to see Last Week Tonight live now. It’s odd that they bought the rights to show South Park, but seeing it uncensored is a revelation.

However, the navigation of the app on Roku is garbage. It takes three minutes for the main screen to load, and each section after that loads slowly. I would love it if streaming services would give me the option of skipping the “Who’s Watching” profile screen, and also let me flip a switch that would keep the credits going at full-screen without the next show starting with a countdown.

I’m a credit-reading nerd. Don’t make me have to work hard to enjoy that part of the show. I can’t be the only person who hates having the credits lopped off or shrunk down to an unreadable size. HBO Max is hardly the only offender, but since they really need to rebuild their entire technical interface to bring their app up to acceptable standards, they might as well fix that, too.

The whole idea of having separate profiles is useless when you’ve only got two people in the house. It’s just a longer wait and another hoop through which to jump to get to the main screen… which as I pointed out, takes forever to load.

The content is great, but we knew that already.  How about making it easy to get to it?  HBO is a quality brand, but they really need to iron out the bugs, reprogram their index pages and stop rotating out movies and shows so frequently. Also, it would be nice if some of the movies didn’t freeze or just stop with no warning. At fifteen bucks a month, the technical interface shouldn’t be the worst among the streaming services.

Mrs. PopCulteer has signed us up for Paramount + so she can indulge her SpongeBob habit, and, perhaps because they had practice under their previous name, CBS All Access, they have their navigation act together. The stream is solid and everything is easy to find. They have almost every episode of every cartoon in the Nickelodeon library, plus they have tons of Paramount movies, and every episode of every Star Trek show,

They also have current episodes of every CBS show from daytime, late night and prime time, and all their news programs, which would be great if I watched anything on CBS. They also have all the classic TV shows produced by Paramount, from The Twilight Zone to Happy Days to Cheers, Twin Peaks and more. They also have plenty of sports programming, but I won’t hold that against them.

Again, it’s more than I’ll ever have time to watch, but for seven bucks a month, it’s a good deal.

These are just my quick observations. In the coming weeks and months I’ll take deeper dives into some of the individual programs on these new streaming services.

That is this week’s PopCulteer. Check back for all our regular features and fresh content every day.

“Perfectly normal music for slightly odd people.”

I first heard Tautologic three years ago when Herman Linte played a track from their album, Re-Psychle on The AIR‘s progressive rock program, Prognosis, and the band caught my ear. I was pleasantly surprised to learn they were from Chicago.  I started following them on Facebook, and in the Summer of 2019 I happened to be arriving in the Windy City via Amtrak on the same day they were playing an outdoor show at one of my favorite hangouts, Giddings Plaza in Lincoln Square.

Mel and I managed to get into town, get checked in to our hotel and jump on the L in time to catch the band performing live–on one of the hottest days of the year.  Of course Mel and I shot video for Radio Free Charleston, but since the RFC video show is basically an annual event these days, the footage remained unedited, on my hard drive, until late in 2020, when I put together our latest video episode. When that show debuted I sent links to the band and got in touch with their leader, Ethan Sellers.

Tautologic was first formed in 1997 by Ethan Sellers and Pat Buzby, and their current line-up was settled in 2010. The band has an eclectic sound, heavily influenced by progressive rock, but also with diverse elements in the mix that make them really stand out in an era where so much pop music has a sameness to it. Tautologic makes true progressive pop, and it’s a joy to listen to.

It turns out that Tautologic has a new album coming out April 2, 2021 (that would be tomorrow, if you’re reading this the day I post it).

I’ve been previewing tracks from Wheels Fall Off on the RFC radio show on The AIR for a few weeks now, and when I was offered the chance to do a quick interview with Ethan (seen left), even though I don’t often do interviews in PopCult, I jumped at the chance and this is how it went…

PopCult: Your new Album, Wheels Fall Off, is due out April 2. How much was this album shaped by the pandemic, lyrically and musically?

Ethan: Lyrically, it was not at all influenced by the pandemic. The last of the album’s lyrics was probably written in 2015 – so any resemblance to current events is either a matter of resonance, circular history, or perhaps clairvoyance (haha).

Musically, the primary influence of the pandemic was that the absence of gigs turned my musical focus exclusively towards studio work, teaching lessons, and general wood-shedding/self-improvement. Most of the album’s tracking was already completed before the pandemic, but I used the time in isolation to perfect the vocals and tinker with synth/keyboard sounds.

A bit later on, when we were more confident about going into the recording studio, Pat Buzby re-recorded a few drum tracks at Rax Trax in Chicago to insure that the whole album has a unified sonic character.

Rick Barnes at Rax Trax mixed and mastered most of the album on his own. I came in for an afternoon or so to do in-person tweaks once he’d gotten it most of the way, and we did a few minor touch-ups after the fact.

PopCult: When did you begin work on this album? I know that some of the songs date to before the pandemic.

Ethan: Without looking at the file creation dates, I’d say that some of the very earliest performances were recorded a decade ago – but much of that was built upon and then replaced as the arrangements evolved and line-up of the band changed. Four of the ten songs were recorded mostly-live at a full-band session in late 2013.

To be frank, I didn’t work consistently on the album. During the period 2009-2013, I struggled financially, was doing a lot of other musical projects to cobble together an income, and my father went through a series of health problems and passed away in 2012. It wasn’t an easy time. Things started to get on track financially around 2014, but I needed a few years to earn some money to finance the previous album, Re:Psychle, this album, and some other projects I have in progress. All of these albums were financed primarily through a combination of gigs and recording work I did for other musicians/clients over the course of several years.

PopCult: Your lead single, “That’s What I Hear,” was released as a benefit for the ACLU, and has decidedly political lyrics. How hard is it to try to craft an upbeat song with political themes in what can be such discouraging times?  Is this sort of what “Memo To Yourself” was about?

Ethan: Contrasts are useful for balance – otherwise a song with serious lyrics gets too dour or an upbeat song with happy lyrics ends up too treacly. I remember Sting talking years ago about using the dark lyrics/light music contrast on his song “All This Time,” and that stuck with me as a good idea. In the case of “That’s What I Hear,” both the lyrics and the vocal melody went through a couple iterations before the final version. It started with the title, which I had envisioned as part of a then-imaginary medley of soul classics whose titles would read in sequence like a brief dialogue: “What’s Going On?,” “Freddie’s Dead,” “That’s What I Hear….” – so the obvious task after that was to write a song that could keep company with classics by Marvin Gaye and Curtis Mayfield. I’ll leave it to others to decide how I did at that….

With regards to “Memo to Yourself”…Sting/The Police rear their heads again as a musical influence here as well, I suppose. The lyric is loosely based on an imaginary seduction I never had the nerve to attempt. The ending rant was a free association that somehow stuck – so the politics there come from my subconscious, I guess.

PopCult: In the song “High School Reunion” (heard on this week’s Radio Free Charleston) you sing about not wanting to attend your school reunion. When you wrote this song did you realize how many people share the sentiment?

Ethan: At the time when I wrote it (coming up on 20 years ago), I had no idea. Now I know it. At 10 years post-high school, it’s still too early for many of us to re-visit the traumas of our teen-aged years while we’re still trying really hard to figure out and/or become who we’re going to be.

It’s really been in the last 10 years as I’ve re-connected with some of my high school classmates on Facebook, and I’ve seen that we’re all kind of going through the same stuff in terms of having kids and all of that. I’ve also been pleasantly surprised that many of my high school classmates have turned out to be better and/or more interesting people than I would have predicted at the time. Some turned out pretty much exactly as predicted, too.

Probably the biggest thing that I’ve realized is that everyone in high school is not only dealing with their developing brains and bodies, but they’re also saddled with all of the garbage their parents programmed into them. If kids are lucky/smart enough to leave town and have different experiences – college, the military, Peace Corps, whatever – they get a chance to re-evaluate, un-learn, and re-program.

Maybe I’ll write a kinder sequel – one that acknowledges that most of us were trying our best.

PopCult: As with your other albums, ‘Wheels Fall Off’ has such a delightful mix of musical influences–I hear hints of everything from Jethro Tull to Kansas to Madness, Zappa and other acts that combine musical intricacy with sharp pop sensibilities. What are the five “go to” albums in your record collection?

Ethan: Thanks! A lot of that’s in there, for sure. Picking five… that’s hard. I could use up five albums each on some artists I like. I listen to a lot of different music and basically try to reverse engineer it and mash it up with other stuff. The one thing I’ve noticed about the streaming era is that my tastes are broader, but I listen to everything far fewer times. You can binge an entire artist’s catalog and get a sense of their vibe/approach, but your relationship with the music isn’t as deep.

PopCult: Tell me a little about the grant from the Illinois Arts Council that helped finance the completion of this album. What was the grant application process like?

Ethan: The Illinois Arts Council was my first successful grant application. I honestly didn’t expect to get it, because I hadn’t had any luck with some other grants for which I’ve applied. You need to prove that you’re a resident of Illinois and put together an artist statement, artist bio, a budget, and obviously samples of your work. Having a few albums’ worth of self-promotion under my belt, I had a fair amount of “language” drafted, but it can be an exhausting process to try to explain yourself and your art. The process forces you to really think about what you’re doing and why it matters, and sometimes that line of thinking takes you to some dark nights of the soul where you start to ask, “Well, does anyone actually really need my art?”

PopCult: The pandemic has torpedoed so many band’s live performance routines. Are there any plans for Tautologic to perform live any time soon? What does the future hold for Tautologic?

Ethan: No plans to play live until we’re all vaccinated. By the time that happens, it’ll have been almost a year and a half since we’ve all played together – so there will be some rust-scraping to do. Also, I’ve been writing – so we might just head straight into pre-production rehearsals for the next one. We’ll just have to see…

I want to thank Ethan Sellers for his time and August Forte, who made this interview possible. Wheels Fall Off by Tautologic will be available April 2 as a download from Tautologic’s Bandcamp page, or as a physical CD from Turtle Down Music.  Check their website for more details on their recordings and when they might be able to perform in front of audiences again.

I really recommend their new album. It’s such an original work, but the band wears its influences on its sleve, so I’d recommend this to fans of XTC, Kansas, YES, Jethro Tull, and to be honest, at times they even remind of Charleston’s own Stark Raven. Wheels Fall Off is a pretty epic album, one of the best independent releases of the year, so far. Check out this short video trailer…