Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine is one of the loudest guitarists around. And he puts his volume to work creating mythical tones that have captured so many of our imaginations, including our special shoegaze correspondent, guitarist and pedal-maestro Andy Pitcher, who is our guest today.

My Bloody Valentine has a short discography made up of just a few albums and EPs that span decades. Meticulous as he seems to be, Shields creates texture out of his layers of tracks and loops and fuzz throughout, creating a music that needs to be felt as much as it needs to be heard.

We go to the ultimate source as Billy Corgan leaves us a message about how it felt to hear those sounds in the pre-internet days, when rather than pull up a YouTube clip, your imagination would have to guide you toward a tone.

But not everyone is an MBV fan, so this conversation is part superfan hype and part debate. We can all agree Kevin Shields is a guitarists you should know, but we can’t all agree what to do with that information.

This episode is supported by http://fender.com

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Hey, this is Nick Milavoy.

And this is Jason Shadrick.

And this is the 100 Guitarist podcast where each week we are talking about one of the 100 guitar players that we think you should know.

And this week we're talking about a guitar player that I really think you should know about.

And his name is Kevin Shields of My Bloody Valentine.

Yes, you should definitely know about him.

Where you take it from there.

Entirely up to you.

A lot of hot takes on this episode.

Before we get there, we want to remind you that if you're listening to the 100 Guitarists podcast, wherever you're listening, we're also available everywhere else.

You might find a podcast wherever you'd like to find us, rate us, review us, like us, all that stuff.

And while you're at it, get at us, shoot us an email.

100 guitarists.

That's 100-guitar.

We love to hear from you.

We have a hot message today that we'll get to in a little bit, but look out for us to open up the voicemail lines.

Yes, about the next episodes and shout out to Matthew Field, who emailed us the Nels Klein amp du Jour that we talked about a couple episodes ago.

Yes.

Thank you.

Thanks for hooking that up.

You know, it's easy to forget about the Wayback Machine.

That's right.

Right.

But it's there for a reason.

There we go.

Check out the Amp du Jour column if you can.

That is a great piece of guitar writing.

Experiential guitar writing from a master.

You know who strangely did a similar thing is at the end of Donald Fagan's book, he did a similar thing where he talks about what all these venues sound like and just day by day, you know, this one sucks.

This one's great.

Whatever.

He also complains about forces hotels in different cities.

Yeah.

That is an excellent book of musician complaining that you just reminded me of.

And I think I might have to revisit soon.

All time.

All right.

And today's episode is brought to you by Fender.

Tell us about it, Nick.

Fender's Player 2 series includes all new vital versions of the company's most iconic models with contemporary upgrades for players of today.

That includes comfortable Modern Scene next that have smooth rolled edges, the return of rosewood fingerboards, and new vintage colors that were unearthed from the Fender vaults.

Yes.

For example, the Player 2 Stratocaster has that come from Modern Scene neck with rolled Edges classic gear tuners for rock solid performance.

So that's, that's great.

So, yeah, head on over to fender.com anything over 50 bucks, you get free shipping.

And also tied into this episode, you can check out the Kevin Shields signature pedal.

Yes, don't forget about the Shields blender, which is.

I haven't played one, but I was very excited about that when that came out.

It's fairly, fairly recent addition to the pedal line.

Those look very cool.

What I have done is watched Kevin Shields and Jay Maskus demo that pedal and spent a lot of time listening to that and it is very, very cool.

Instant My Bloody Valentine, as you'll hear in this episode.

So, okay, before we, we have a.

We brought in a friend to talk about, to talk about My Bloody Valentine today and help us get through, you know, just parsing out what, what's so important about Kevin Shields and maybe, maybe mediating a little bit of our, our difference in opinions here.

But, you know, for anybody, we dive right in.

But for anybody that isn't familiar with My Bloody Valentine, you know, they're most notable.

You know, the, the band is under the leadership of Kevin Shields.

He's the visionary of the band.

They are most notable, notable for having just like walls of really loud guitars just covered in fuzz and other effects.

Legendary feats, Painfully loud, painfully loud, painfully.

Loud, loud to the highest of degrees, beyond beyond healthy levels of loud.

These just legendary feats of volume.

They're also known for taking forever to release new music.

They have EPs and stuff, so this doesn't paint the whole picture.

Loveless followed three years later.

And then it wasn't for another.

And, you know, all that stuff is just like ripe for like myth making and you know, people, you know, all sorts of theories on the Internet about, you know, what would take so long to make these albums and what goes into making these albums.

So we're, we're rapping about it today with our good friend Andy.

Andy is a friend of the show.

Andy is a musical colleague and the Andy pitcher he's called in before.

So if you're a listener to the podcast, he'll be no stranger.

But he is a great source for MBV thoughts and information.

So we thought we'd bring him in.

And he dressed the part.

And he dressed the part.

And Jason, you were really excited to do this episode.

Episode I've been waiting for this for literally hours to do this.

Jason's enthusiasm throughout is.

It is.

I have a healthy appreciation.

They're not.

I'm not as into it as you guys.

I have a healthy appreciation for them.

I'm glad they exist.

They're definitely a band you need to know about.

But then again, once you're aware of them and you check out an album, do with that as you wish.

Yeah.

I would say that your enthusiasm for MBV is about the same level as my enthusiasm for, you know, Eric Johnson.

As.

As.

As, you know.

But.

But we're here covering this stuff, and we're.

We're guitar journalists, and we can see the big picture.

Yeah.

Yeah.

All right, let's get to it.

All right, so we're here with friend of the pod, Colin correspondent from previous.

Episodes, official shoegaze correspondent, Andy Pitcher.

Andy, thank you for being here and thank you for wearing the right shirt for the gig.

Thank you.

I had to find it in a trough full of things.

What does Kevin's guitar playing sound like to you?

Well, his sound that is most.

Him is most idiomatic sound is this style that he calls glide guitar.

And it's like an undulating wall of sound that, as he describes it, allows you to imagine far past what the eye can see.

He wants it to be expansive, he wants it to be textured, and he wants it to be kind of a story in and of itself, which is always exciting when you get to experience.

Experience of the glide guitar thing.

Like, is such a cool way to capture what his guitar playing sounds like.

But I do kind of feel like it only captures that one thing, which I.

It's like.

How do you even describe it?

If you're describing somebody who's never heard of it or never heard it.

Right.

It sounds like a guitar that is melting in between every chord.

Yeah, exactly.

Yeah.

I think that the first time that I heard Kevin Shields, I got.

Isn't anything I heard before Loveless.

And I don't think it was totally clear to me at the time what was guitar and what wasn't.

And it was all guitar.

But it's like, to me, I wasn't sure, are there synths in here?

Like, what's happening in these sounds?

And that's, you know, that's what was happening.

But I think, like, that was the thing that captured me first.

But the thing that I've been so fascinating and thinking a lot about this last couple days as we've been preparing for this episode, but just in general, because I don't really know how to capture it myself is the sound of, like, guitars totally cranked, full of fuzz, just, like, sizzling and sounding like they're actually on fire.

Yeah, yeah.

You know, like there.

There's a.

Not a shrillness, but, like a high end texture to his playing that is unbelievable.

And I think it would be unforgivable if it wasn't for the context of the band he had built around him.

Yeah.

Debbie.

Debbie Good's bass tone, I think, is one of the most important part of Kevin's sound because it contextualizes a lot of noise and a lot of, like, really out sounds because she just has this big, fuzzy bass tone under it.

So it almost sounds like these two instruments are one and the highs are melting and the lows are stable as anything.

Yeah, it's super unified on the records and, you know, and then the vocals also play a part.

Like, the vocals are also a part of the guitar sound.

Right.

Like, the vocals sound like they're coming out of the guitar sound in a way that's really different than, you know, the way you would talk about any other vocalist in any other band because they're so dreamy.

It doesn't.

It doesn't matter to me.

I don't, like.

Can either of you hear what the vocal.

I can never hear what they're saying.

Yeah, they're.

The lyrics are.

Are way more forward than you'd think.

Yeah, yeah, it's like.

It's like.

It's like very like pillow talk, but.

It'S kind of fun, so.

All right.

So, Jason, what does My Bloody Valentine sound like to you?

I think as I was doing research for this episode, I remember when MBV came out when I was working at Premier Guitar, I was like, man, I hadn't heard Love this in a long time.

And I went through, like, another little deep dive and I was like, yep, sounds like My Bloody Valentine.

Great.

And kind of continued to push it to the side, but I ran across this Spin article that the title of it pretty much summed it up pretty well for me.

And it's like, bloody My Bloody Valentine.

The opposite of rock and roll.

And that pretty much was one of the best descriptions I've heard of.

I don't think Kevin would necessarily disagree with that.

I don't think he would view that as any kind of, like, slight or anything, but it's.

It's some of the most dense music I've ever heard, you know, and it just.

Like there's.

There's definite, but it's not dense without melody.

That's the thing that is important, that.

It'S not noise music.

It's not noise music.

No, there's noise in it, but it's not noise.

I always thought of it as.

Until I really started to listen to it, you know, especially Loveless, I think.

Loveless.

I mean, again, there's three records there.

Loveless is probably the most melodic of the three.

I think.

I could see that.

Yeah.

Right.

I don't think that's a hot take.

No, it's the one that connected with the most.

The widest group of people.

Even for something that's obviously way left of center.

As far as his guitar playing goes, it's.

Yeah, it's, like, hard to.

I mean, you hear unusual notes and chords in places, but, like, here's the thing.

Andy, have you ever seen a My Bloody Valentine tab book?

No.

No, I don't think one exists.

You know, they tour with, like, 30 guitars because every tune is in a different tuning, because it's all just, like, open string, drone.

But I'm thinking, like, something that came out in the early 90s.

That was a very big guitar record.

You know, tab books are all the rage in the 90s.

Yeah.

You know, and I wonder if somebody, like, tried it and they're like, no, we just.

We can't.

We can't do this.

I would love to see one.

Like, one song.

It'd probably be, like, one song.

We'd probably be, like, 70 pages.

Yeah.

There's like, a composition dissertation right there.

I mean.

Yeah, because you'd have to get the stems.

You'd have to do.

There's.

There's no way you could do it from the mixes.

You would have to get the stems.

You would have to have Kevin's participation in it all.

Yeah.

And I'd be willing to bet he couldn't even remember what guitar 16 was doing on this track.

You know what I mean?

Which I do kind of love that.

He seems to have a memory that, like, when it gets sparked, like, I've seen interviews where they bring up something and he kind of goes away for a moment and then it all comes back to him.

Sure.

Because it's like all he's ever thought about, you know, which makes.

Makes for a specific person.

But we're like, oh, Kevin, did you play that at the eighth fret or the fourth fret?

Yeah.

Right here's a fuzz.

Like, that's.

That's how I would think he would answer that kind of question.

So it's.

To me, they're like every part of the Beatles at once, where it's like.

If Revolution Number Nine was like a great pop song, you have all the vocal harmonies, you have all the melody.

You got all the tape loops, you got all the noise, but you got all the acoustic guitar layers.

But all of it at once.

All the time.

Yeah.

Like a tune, like sometimes or something where it's just like.

It's like pounding on the same chords between the acoustic and the electric, all these tape loops.

It's.

You know, I think it's more.

If you played every track off Revolver at the same time.

I think that's basically the recipe.

I would agree.

I would agree.

But White Album, like, I need.

I need the Revolution Number Nine stuff in there.

I need.

It's too long.

White Album's too long.

We can't.

We're not.

Yeah, it's too long.

We need something short, experimental.

Yeah.

If you just line up every track on Revolver the same in a daw and just hit play, that's the next.

That's the next My Bloody Valentine record.

Before we go any further, I want to play something so yesterday.

So I've been thinking about, like, who's.

What band is the most.

Like, what band is the most liked by Bloody Valentine?

And I've always thought about Jay Maskus.

And there's a really great video of J.

Mascus and Kevin Shields playing the Fender Shields Blender, Kevin's signature fuzz.

And it's like those guys are, like, so tuned into each other.

It's like Jay is just, like, soloing for a long time in the studio, and Kevin is just, like, tweaking the fuzz, going through all the sounds.

And there's not a lot of people I want to watch doing that.

But it's really fun to see those guys, like, interacting on a.

On a sonic level.

And, like, I.

That's where I always go to.

But to me, it's Smashing Pumpkins are the actual.

Are the band that actually sounds the most My Bloody Valentine inspired.

Not because I don't think they sound like My Bloody Valentine, but there's something about that.

Specifically, the early stuff, Billy's guitar sound, the type of chords he's playing.

Sevenths and ninths with a lot of reverb and distortion.

So, anyway, so I asked Billy Corgan to tell me about Kevin Shields, and here's what he had to say.

There are very few guitar players in the history of rock and roll whose style is so singular that they make you change the way you look at the guitar.

And Kevin's in that very short list of Guitar players that made you consider, why am I doing what I'm doing?

There are very few guitar players in the history of rock and roll whose style is so singular that it forces you to reevaluate the way you play, why you play, the way you play and what you're playing through.

Because he achieved a sound that was so groundbreakingly different, you weren't even sure it was a guitar.

And I remember sitting in a studio with Butch Vic Smart Studios, his original studio, and we were hearing rumors that they were baking the tapes so that they would sound like they were melting.

And I mean, we could for the life of us, not what Kevin was doing.

Of course.

When we work with Alan Molder, Alan's like, oh, it's just an xpx90 effect that he's using reverse reverse reverb and he's doing the whammy bar and it's like, oh, that's it.

But again, the beauty was, yes, it was an effect, but it was the way he had stumbled on something that everybody thought was irrelevant.

And he revolutionized the way people looked at the guitar's atmospheric capability.

The other thing that Kevin really contributed to my thinking in terms of how to record the guitar was recording tonally, breaking the guitar into sort of tonal registers, which probably the only other guitar player has ever really done that is Brian May from Queen.

Tony Iommi to a certain extent, but Brian May more so where he looked at the guitar as like, oh, I can have it just be this mid range instrument in this one section of the song and leave all this space around it where most guitar players want the most full bodied sound.

So, yeah, I love and appreciate Kevin for that because he's very unassuming about his contribution to the guitar, but absolutely a revolutionary.

Okay, so what do you guys think about what Billy said?

100, right.

He's completely correct.

I wish I would have been able to hear Loveless when it came out.

Yeah, you know, I think I'd have a different context.

Is real different.

Yeah, yeah.

First of all, I was in college, I was on a very strict diet of jazz guitar and just did not have time to even consider that as part of my own listening stuff.

But.

But I real.

Mm.

I'm glad you mentioned Iommi.

Because I think Sabbath have a similar thing where.

When that, you know.

Similarly, Jason.

Like, I wish I could have heard the first Sabbath record in context.

Yeah.

Oh, God.

Thankfully it was like one of the first albums I ever heard, so it impacted me.

But just as time has gone on, I cannot imagine what the awe that must have inspired just a totally singular world.

Like all of a sudden this thing came out fully baked.

And MPV is similar because like, even their.

Their eps before isn't anything.

They still sound like the Glider EP or Tremo.

They still sound like the band they.

That we come to know.

Yeah.

Just from the start.

It's like right out of the.

Right out of somewhere.

It's incredible.

And he also mentioned, like, it was good to know that even where he, you know, he's sitting there with Butch Vig.

Like they even couldn't figure out how he was making these sounds.

Yeah.

You know, like, I have no clue how if I wanted to start to sound like My Bloody Valentine.

Live is one thing, studio is another.

I think that's also a big difference.

Even though they have a sound, I think how he approaches, how Kevin approaches it in the studio and how he approaches on stage, you just don't have the luxury of having 16 guitar players playing at the same time.

You know what I mean?

And it's real interesting.

I would love to hear like, what, what.

What does a My Bloody Valentine rehearsal sound like?

Yeah, you know, like, all right, it's been 15 years.

We're gonna go play a handful of gigs.

You get in the room.

What's, you know, what's what.

What's the logistical discussions and musical discussions.

Those four people have to translate what's on a record to the stage.

Yeah, that's a great.

That's a great question.

I mean, Kevin, there's like eight amps on stage, I think, and as many pedal boards with different configurations.

And it might be like seven pedals for one tune, but that's how you do it.

So he tours with like a big rack full of pedal boards into multiple amps at once and different amps depending on what tune.

And yeah, like I said, different guitars for different tunings.

I mean, he'd be the all time rig rundown.

Yeah, it would be long.

Well, first of all, it'd be long.

There's lots of fodder there.

And two, it would be so rare to even have a situation where we could.

They're playing a gig or something and we could, you know, it's not like they're playing the Ryman, whatever, you know.

But that would be an all time top five rig rundown would be Kevin Shields.

Oh, man, I hope there's an opportunity.

The Ryman would fall apart.

They would have to play outside.

Maybe in the caves.

Maybe in the caves.

That'd be awesome.

That would be great.

Yeah, I'd come down for that.

They're the only band I've like traveled to see.

Yeah.

So, Andy, you're the only one of the three of us who's seen them live.

Tell us, give us the experience.

Don't be surprised.

Like you're not surprised that I have not seen them live?

Don't be surprised.

No, I'm surprised.

Nick hasn't.

Wait, no, come on.

You got, you got Trey back there.

You like big sounds?

No, but so, bro.

No.

Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry.

And let me, let me stop.

So my MBV experience started with me nervously checking my bank account and deciding I could get two face value tickets.

And I was.

I was in the back of class and I wasn't supposed to have my laptop out, but I did it and I grabbed a ticket for New York and a ticket for Philadelphia.

And what year was this?

Hold on, what year was this?

Their last tour?

I was working at Supro and you know, Megabus was five bucks Philadelphia.

And so that was the first show and I got tickets on the floor and for the second show I got a ticket seated so that I could experience one in the crowd and one kind of like eye level with the.

A raise.

And what were the venues?

Where are we talking?

I love how serious.

Fillmore.

Fillmore in Philadelphia and then Hammerstein in New York.

Okay.

And I was experiencing.

I brought a backpack full stuff to Philadelphia.

I was experiencing unbelievable back pain by the time the show started.

And it was.

I ended up laying down for a bit of it in the back of the venue and it was euphoric.

It was incredible.

Their sound live is unbelievable.

They have a keyboardist with them is doing a lot of the tape loop sounds.

But it was exact.

It was exact.

It was, it was so gorgeous.

And then the seated one really was like if, if I can see them again, I'd like to be seated again, seeing the full thing.

They're doing like the like acid test style, like projector, you know, dish soap and oil thing.

Just blasting, blasting, blasting.

And there's so much clarity live that you wouldn't expect.

They played new music and I knew what the riffs were.

It's not just that I knew the shape of this sound.

Was this familiar song because the new stuff was totally, like, you could dictate it.

I wore earplugs and over ears.

I had 50 DBs of reduction because I care about my ears, but I wanted to feel what that felt like.

I only took the over off during the noise wall at the end of Feed me with your kiss, and it was terrifying.

I cannot believe people were just listening to that with their raw ear.

But it really was a bodily experience over anything, and it was unlike anything.

I've been lucky to see a lot of shows.

I go to shows for work all the time.

I've never felt anything like that.

Wow, okay, so you answered a question I had.

But I'm curious what you guys think about just, like, the experience of something with such volume.

You know, we.

We work.

We work in a.

In a heavy volume field.

And I've certainly, like, you know, with my own music, pushed myself to do feats of high volume that I've regretted later.

I've seen Sun a couple times, and I think I've seen them three times.

Two or two or three times.

And it's just like these amazing shows, but I kind of stopped going to see them as much as I love them.

In the experience of seeing.

It's like, okay, if I were to listen to a Sun record, I would say the best way to experience sun is to see it live and to just have that stuff resonating in my body.

But I think in, you know, now when I've thought about going to see it, like, last time they were here, friends were going, and I was like.

I sort of flipped my way of thinking and decided that the best way to listen to sun is on a record.

Because live, I'm so protected, my ears are so protected that I'm.

Yes, I'm feeling the experience of sun, but I'm not actually hearing the overtones and the harmonic information that they're creating because I'm guarding my ears from it.

The only way to actually experience it is at extreme volume.

And I've come to this whole, like, you know, I've spun out on this about, like, how do you hear all this and also feel it?

And I.

It sounds like from what you're saying, like, my Bloody Valentine show would be the same.

Like, I'd be stuck with the same feelings about it.

Like, I want to hear how all these amps interacting with each other clash.

Like, on the record, they make all these ghost sounds, right?

There's this other stuff that's happening, and it's such dense harmonic information.

That if you cover up your ears, you're not hearing those high harmonics.

What do you think about that?

That's really fair.

But I think when you're working with, with an amplifier like a Marshall, a lot of that information gets clipped.

And so the highs that a Marshall produces end up being really powerful and not shrill, but sharp.

And so when you're using something like super Fuzz, which is a very bright, very first order harmonic forward style fuzz, it cuts through the hearing protection.

You're impervious to some of it.

Of course there's going to be details you miss, but those greatest details that you can see under the microscope of the studio are lost to the volume live.

And so, yeah, a lot of that information just isn't there to hear.

Got it.

Because it's being overpowered by the next louder thing.

And what you end up with is, for me, in my opinion, that physical experience.

There's some interesting interviews where Kevin talks about discovering that stuff for the first time, where they, they played a pool hall and instead of starting their set, they were like, well, we'll just like kind of annoy.

It was a bar, but there were guys playing pool.

They're like, we'll just kind of annoy these guys until they leave.

And they ended up just playing on like two chords for half an hour.

And it was better than the set would have been in their opinions.

Like, it was, it was such an incredible thing.

So then when they went back, they used to practice in like a, like an art gallery or something.

So they dragged all these amps into the big room and just for an hour, like did the thing that now they're known for and discovered this body experience more than a sound experience.

So, yeah, I would say live.

Like you're not missing anything.

In my opinion, by wearing hearing protection, they hand out earplugs at the shows for free.

Oh, wow.

Okay.

Yeah, like they thoughtfully.

They want it to be bodily.

They don't.

It's not an oral thing.

Yeah.

I wonder how much they charge for a ticket.

If I could just sit in the lobby, because that's.

That came to mind.

And the other thing is.

Do you think he records loud?

Yes, I do.

I would think so.

Because when you're at a show most, I mean, obviously more of the volume is coming from the PA than the stage, right?

Typically, yeah.

Yeah.

So I'm curious if he has ways to record.

I mean, he can't record it.

PA volume.

No, but I think the amps are dimed.

They would record kind of out in the countryside.

So they could do whatever.

Yeah, I think they're.

I think that they're loud.

And then.

Does he mix loud?

That's a great question.

Yeah, just on, like, my gut responses that he mixes loud.

Because you always, you know, watch these videos with mixers and they say they.

It's surprising when somebody who's like a really experienced mixer, how soft they're listening when they're mixing, you know, and if it's such a.

If he wants the end result, obviously, when it's on a record, whoever's listening to it is listening to whatever volume they want to.

But if he wants to kind of protrude that bodily experience somehow through a record, I wonder if he feels like that needs to translate to mixing to get it as close as he can.

They go through extreme means at times to capture the live thing on the record.

Like Loveless, a couple years ago got a re release where it was recorded to tape.

It was mixed to tape.

It was mixed in analogy, but when it was pressed to vinyl, it was digitized.

And they did a lathe cut off of a master tape a couple years ago that you could get where it basically is, like, there's no one and or zero between his microphone in 80 or nine, whenever they started recording it, and like your stylist today.

And they.

Sell out, like, the people who are into them.

How many copies have you bought?

One.

Okay.

Yeah, but I do own it.

But, yeah, it's, you know, it's like.

And it's gorgeous.

And it does sound different than, like, pressings I had heard prior to that.

All right, so to just kind of sum this up about My Blood Valentine, somebody coming in.

Listen to this.

All right, where do I start?

It's pretty easy because there's three albums.

You can just end a couple eps.

You could just go listen to all of it in a couple hours.

For me, Loveless is like, such an obvious place to start, obviously.

I kind of.

I feel like, for me, though, like, you know, we were talking about this the other day, Jason, that, like, Lost in Translation is such a famous movie, and so many people have seen that movie.

It's like.

And I love the vibe of that movie.

And I think that, you know, Kevin did the soundtrack.

It's like a.

It's not My Bloody Valentine.

It's Kevin solo that sometimes, like.

Have you heard that?

Do you like that vibe?

Okay, so it's like that's.

That's sort of like the precursor that.

It's like a good way to talk about it.

Like, have you vibed on Lost in Translation, then you should listen to Loveless.

But I don't know that.

I think, like I said, I heard Isn't Anything first.

I don't think that's a bad place to start either.

I don't think the MBV is a bad place to start because it's like, between the recording of Loveless and MBV and the release of mbv, the quality changed.

MBV is so textural and so granular that it's like.

That might be just as good of a place to start.

What do you guys think?

I would.

I would find the record, since there's so few, I would find the one that best fits your interest.

If you like more rock sounds, I would jump to maybe Loveless.

If you're in a power pop, like, Isn't Anything is a great place.

There's a lot of fun songs on there that, like, translate really well to acoustic guitars.

It's just that the textures are wild.

And if you're more on the ambient side of things, if you like experimental music, if you like, you know, the next layer of sound, MBV is a really great place to start.

There's a.

To me, there's a.

There's an obvious gradient.

That Love List sits really great in between.

But it's not necessarily my favorite record of theirs.

I wouldn't say another one is, but it's not, for me, like, a clear winner.

Yeah, Yeah.

I would say start with Loveless.

I mean, that's the one that's the most well known, and then that's the.

One you can, like, have a conversation with anybody about.

Yeah.

Would you do.

Now, Nick, in our ZZ Top episode, you spoke of this mythical challenge.

Yeah, yeah.

Do you know about this?

Andy?

You knew about this.

I know about this.

Okay, so where you have to listen to a band's entire discography on a road trip above conversational level.

Yeah.

So you could feasibly, Nick, Drive from Philly to New York.

With traffic.

Yeah, with traffic.

And get through the whole thing twice.

Yeah, exactly.

I would do that.

I would do that.

Like, the ZZ Top challenge is way harder because it's days of driving.

This is just like, if I got myself on a tip where I want to hear a lot of My Bloody Valentine.

Right.

And, you know, not even to put a pin on it.

If I just want to hear a lot of, like, textural guitar sounds.

Yeah, I'd do that on a.

On a drive to New York, where I know there's going to be some traffic or a drive down to D.C.

or something.

I'd just.

I'd just do it, probably.

All right, final.

A couple.

Cool.

Couple rapid fire.

Super fan questions, Andy.

Number one.

Is the mythical box set ever going to see the light of day?

I.

He's never.

He's never lied about.

Well, no.

There's a lot of myths, but about a release, they've always come out.

It's just eventually, if he.

You know, if.

If time runs out before he does it.

No, but I do.

I do trust.

I do trust that everything will happen one day, because so far it has.

So do you feel like there.

Because he does speak a lot about all these songs that were recorded have never been released.

Yeah.

You think at some point those could see the light of day?

Yeah.

Okay.

I think so.

Number two, he's constantly.

Sorry.

Oh, no, go ahead.

He's constantly remixing stuff.

A couple years ago, they put out a CD that was all their early EPs and stuff as, like, a collection.

And it's all remastered and it all sounds great.

And for someone to, like, constantly be tinkering.

I've always thought of Kevin kind of as, like an impressionist.

And a lot of those folks, like Ives, were the same way, where they were constantly tweaking their own material.

So I would not be surprised if that stuff came out eventually.

All right, number two, will there be another My Bloody Valentine album and.

Or tour?

I think there will be another ep.

The music that they were playing when I saw them live, that was like, new music.

It sounded kind of like the who.

It was cool.

They're like, you know, through the MyBlade Valentine filter, but they're working on stuff.

The Last one took 22 years or something, so, you know, we got some time.

But I think there will be another EP and hopefully more touring.

I'd like to see them again.

All right, final question.

You both can weigh in on this.

You have a My Bloody Valentine tribute band.

What's the name of the band?

Mvb.

My.

My.

My Bloody Valentine.

Nick.

Oh, man, that's tough.

I don't know.

Glider.

Glider's good.

Good one.

But Glider is just a good band name.

Yeah.

You know, Glider's not just.

It probably is a band name.

Maybe tribute band.

Shields is Blenders.

Oh, like, full with the costume and everything.

Yeah, yeah.

Cover band versus tribute band.

That's.

I think.

I think tribute band.

I would do M.

Mvb.

I like that.

Yeah.

Cover band, the Unlovables.

It's like.

It's like slightly loveless, but.

Jason, I would ask you, but I don't Think you would ever even consider having my.

I just want to know that if I see any band names in the listings to, like, not if you, if you had to.

What, what, what cover band name would trick you into going to the first rehearsal before you realize it was a My Bloody Valentine Band.

Like, I accidentally joined a jam band once.

I didn't realize it was a jam band.

What was the name?

Was it based on the name?

I can't talk about that.

But I.

Because I, I.

But you know what I mean?

Like, what band name that.

And then you're like, oh, duh.

Was my buddy Valentine.

I didn't even realize.

Oh, man, there'd be so many.

They got cool titles.

They got cool titles.

Yeah.

Another.

Another thing about them, like, thinking of COVID bands and their influence and Kevin Shields influence.

Like Sabbath is the same way.

I've never heard another band do it right.

It.

The influence is so omnipresent.

But there's, like, two bands I've ever heard where, like, the drums are heavy.

My buddy Valentine is like, a very heavy band in a lot of ways.

In the same way that, like, no one.

I've never heard someone go to do Sabbath and swing the right way.

Like Billboards.

Billboard growing up listening to jazz versus someone growing up listening to Bill Ward.

Two very different players.

Totally.

Yeah.

And same for me with my buddy Valentine.

Someone who grew up listening to Kevin Shields is not going to get the nuance.

Right.

They're just going to get this great explosive thing.

They're, they're, they're, they're heavy band.

And then you get like all this really beautiful, dreamy stuff.

But there's no, like, there's no toughness to it.

I'm gonna call it.

They're going to be doing the midnight set at Bonnaroo next summer, or the Sunrise set.

That would probably be even better.

Oh, that'd be.

I wake everybody up.

It like Hendrix at Woodstock.

Yeah, my grandpa was.

My grandpa went to Woodstock.

You know, my grandpa's a real.

You know, he worked.

He was a mechanic in the New York Fire Department for his.

Basically his whole life.

Very straightforward guy.

And one day he's like, yeah, I was at Woodstock.

I was like, what?

He's like, yes.

Me and some friends went up and, you know, I've never.

He, like, only sing Sinatra to me, like classic Italian grandpa.

I was like, what was it like?

You know, and he's like, you know, when Hendrix came on, some people were having an incredible time, and some people were hiding in their sleeping bag just, like, having A really bad trip.

And then he kind of got quiet and I was like, oh, man, I think my grandpa was in a sleeping bag having a real bad trip.

But, yeah, that's my shout out to grandpa.

All right, well, thank you, Andy, for hanging with us and putting up with my.

My all time favorite band, My Blood.

It's all good.

You know, you need a.

You need both sides of it.

All right.

All right.

Well, that was our talk with Andy Pitcher about My Bloody Valentine.

And Billy Corgan.

And Billy Corgan, which was.

It was great to get that contribution.

I told, you know, I told Jason the other day, I said, I'm coming in hot for this one.

I'm really prepared.

Yeah.

What do you think after this, after we split, you go get.

Get some lunch?

You putting on Loveless?

Are you coming back to this?

Nope.

Again, like I said, I will happily buy a ticket to sit in the lobby.

I'll throw him a 20 to sit in the lobby.

You respect your hearing too much.

Dude, it's more than that.

But.

But yeah, I.

Again, I will probably not be making that.

Making that gig.

After.

Let me ask you this last episode we recorded was Judas Priest.

After that, have you listened to Judas Priest again?

No.

No.

I feel like.

I feel like we go into such deep dives on these that once we get done recording, no matter who it is, need a break.

We got.

We're on to the next run.

That is one.

That is it.

But I still have Judas Priest album saved on Apple Music.

Like, I.

I'm coming back to Judas.

Priest, you know, and Eric Johnson.

I.

Maybe less so.

Maybe less so.

But actually, that was a very good Eric Johnson episode.

Andy Wood gave us some really great tips.

Gave some great tips.

So, you know, I felt like I was directed to some stuff.

I do need to check out more.

That's right.

24.

7.

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