In this enlightening episode of Some Joyful Noises, we delve into the profound thematic interplay between music and visual storytelling, specifically focusing on the comic "Middlewest" by Skottie Young. Our esteemed colleague Josh Patterson presents an intriguing discussion, proposing a curated selection of six songs - five Midwest Emo songs and 1 extra - that he posits would serve as an evocative soundtrack for the comic's narrative journey. Engaging in a thoughtful dialogue with Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell, we explore the emotional resonance of these tracks, elucidating how they encapsulate the essence of the characters and their struggles. Each song is meticulously analyzed, highlighting its relevance to the overarching themes of identity, familial conflict, and personal growth that permeate "Middlewest."

This episode stands as a testament to the symbiotic relationship between music and graphic literature, inviting listeners to reflect on their own experiences as they navigate the poignant landscapes crafted by Young's artistry. A compelling exploration of the intersection between music and literature unfolds as Josh Patterson, alongside Joshua Noel and TJ Blackwell, delve into a curated selection of songs that resonate with the themes of the comic book 'Middlewest' by Skottie Young. This episode serves as a continuation of their previous discussions, where the trio emphasizes the emotional depth found within the comic's narrative. Each song chosen reflects significant moments and underlying sentiments that mirror protagonist Abel's journey, from the tumultuous relationship with his father to the search for belonging among the carnival community. Patterson's selection of six songs, including tracks that evoke a sense of nostalgia and introspection, allows for a multifaceted discussion about the role of music as a soundtrack to storytelling, enriching the comic experience and inviting listeners to reflect on their own emotional landscapes.

Through this discussion, the speakers engage not only with the music itself but also with the intricate themes of childhood, family dynamics, and self-discovery that permeate 'Middlewest'. As they dissect the lyrical content and musicality of each song, they draw parallels to pivotal moments within the comic, offering insights into how music can amplify the emotional resonance of visual narratives. The interplay between the songs and the comic's illustrations is highlighted, with the speakers sharing personal reflections on how specific tracks encapsulate the essence of Abel's struggles and triumphs. Ultimately, this episode serves as a thoughtful tribute to both the comic and the music that encapsulates its spirit, inviting audiences to experience the profound connections between art forms.

Takeaways:

1. In this episode of Some Joyful Noises, we delve into the thematic resonance between music and comics, specifically exploring how music can amplify the emotional depth of narratives like Skottie Young's 'Middlewest'.
2. Joshua Noel, Josh Patterson, and TJ Blackwell engage in a thoughtful discourse about six selected songs, each of which encapsulates significant emotional moments from the comic, offering listeners a curated soundtrack experience.
3. The discussion reveals how the characters in 'Middlewest' grapple with their emotional landscapes, mirroring the lyrical content of the chosen songs, thereby enriching the audience's understanding of both the comic and the music.
4. Listeners can expect an insightful analysis of the intersection between musical expression and narrative storytelling, as the hosts articulate their personal connections to the music in relation to the comic's themes.
5. The episode serves as a bridge between the worlds of graphic novels and music, illustrating how varied artistic mediums can collaboratively evoke profound emotional responses from audiences.
6. Through the examination of each song, the hosts highlight their personal experiences and interpretations, fostering a deeper appreciation for the emotional complexities present in both music and comics.

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Songs sampled in this episode:

1. "How Do You Know It's Not Armadillo Shells?" by Hot Mulligan
2. "Tongue Tied" by Free Throw
3. "A Sitcom Without You is Just a Drama" by Midwest Goodbye
4. "Scott Pilgrim VS. My GPA" by Mom Jeans.
5. "Tears Over Beers" by Modern Baseball
6. "DON'T TELL THE BOYS" by Petey USA

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Hey, guys. Welcome back to some Joyful Noises. I am Joshua Noel. I won't say host because this show has no host.

It's a music podcast with no rhyme, no rhythm, and no reason. Anyone can host an episode. Anyone can jump on and do whatever they want. There's literally no structure to this.

Speaking of which, today Josh Patterson is going to be leading a conversation with me, Joshua Noel, and good friend TJ Tiberius Juan Blackwell. We're talking about some songs that he thinks paired well with a comic, Middle West.

And I'm gonna let him take it from here because I'm musically illiterate and that's why other people are here.

It's true. It is true.

Well, well, well. Hello, friends. I'm now somehow in charge on a podcast that is not Rethinking Faith.

Joshua and I have been doing podcast crossover thing where we talk about comics called Rethinking Comics. And so basically, I don't know anything about comics Joshua has been sending me or, like, telling me, like, hey, this is a good comic.

We're going to read it. There's good themes. We'll talk about it. And the last one we did was a comic called Middle West.

And the entire time, from the moment that the book arrived on my front porch and I opened it and looked at it, I was like, this needs a Midwest emo soundtrack. And so then during the episode, I told Joshua that, and I told him, I will.

I will put, like, five songs together that could go with this book, and I'll send it to you and we can post it on the episode, and then people can listen to it if they want. I ended up sending him six songs. One of them that I thought just fit well, but isn't technically Midwest emojis.

It's more like indie rock, poppy kind of thing. But it was my playlist, and so I decided to do what I want. So that is how. That's how this happened. And now we're here. Now we're talking about it.

Now we're here.

I still don't know what Midwest emo is.

It's so like, there's emo music, right? And then imagine that. But it's in the Midwest and it is a little bit different. Yeah, it still has the kind of like, sad, emotional. Hence, emo. Right.

It's emotional music. So you get a lot of like, my girlfriend dumped me. I am sad. My friends are assholes. I am sad. I am drunk, and I am sad. Like, these are the.

These are kind of themes that are common, but with Midwest Emo, the guitar playing tends to be a little bit more intricate, a little bit more mathy, as they would say. They like to plan some weird time signatures.

It's a little bit more clean, kind of like twinkly, if you will, but it still fits that kind of like sad boy or girl or person vibes. Yeah. Tj, would you.

Yeah.

They were inspired by like, Slint, which, if you never listen to Slint, that they're like huge formative, genre defining band that somehow refuses to be defined by a genre. Slint rocks, but them squirrel bait. And it just kind of became this, like Josh said, more intricate and still demonstrably whiny genre of music.

It's like, it's a defining quality. It is very windy.

Not known for great vocals.

Not known for great vocals. A lot of Midwest emo music, it's just, it's popular because it's very emotional and it's very real. It's not like overproduced.

The vocals are usually not great. It's just very authentic. And I think that's why it resonates with a lot of people.

Midwest emo, I think we're currently in, like, what they call fourth wave emo, which I think all of the songs we're talking about today are fourth wave, if I'm not mistaken.

So.

The genre has gone through a lot and it exploded in popularity because of, like, Covid. During the pandemic, people got sadder and whinier and they're like, oh, there's already a genre for this? That's awesome.

So it has exploded in popularity over the last 6ish years.

Which, which brings us to today where, you know, just kids, like normal kids are like, yeah, man, I love the front bottoms and American football and hot mug in hot. Especially hot Mo, I like.

So I've said this before for people who listen to this and other podcasts randomly that we mention music on. I wasn't allowed to listen to music that wasn't either produced by, you know, Disney or say the word Jesus until, like, I went to college.

So I'm still, like, discovering a lot of bands and people that I should have known my whole life. So it's like I'm always just constantly, like, I just now learned what music Is, you know, But I do know it's fun.

In high school, a mutual friend of me and TJ's, whenever our friend Felipe would pick me up, you know, listen to what he has in the car, you know, I'm not gonna complain about other people listening to I. It's not my rules. My parents rule. And I'm just like, yeah, this vibe, but I never knew what it was, so never looked into it again. And, yeah, that.

Like, that 90s emo, then that's kind of what this reminded me of also.

Y' all complaining about, like, the whiny, like, being sad about things also just makes me think of, like, weirdly country music, I feel like, does a lot of the same thing. Very different music, but a lot of, like, trucks gone sad girls gone sad dog died.

Right? I just want to. What is that? Never mind. We're not.

I just want to fish.

I was gonna. I can't even do the lyrics.

I don't either.

Did you see the Jon Stewart thing about. With that? Because that was so funny. John Stewart's like, is it really that hard to be countries? Like, I just want.

I think you could do all of these things, guys. My favorite is, like, at the end, John stewart's and for the love of God, don't forget to feed the dog. What do you mean? Just feed your dog?

That's so funny.

Correct.

But I don't know. I.

For me, I feel like I. Tj, actually, I'm interested for you. Joshua found out because I told him about it. But for me, I listened to a lot of, like, heavier stuff starting in, like, late middle school, high.

You know, early high school kind of thing. And then emo, you know, I started getting the emo, like, from that, and you have, like, you know, screamo, which is, like, the combination, you know?

And then I got into bands, like, you know, from Warp Tour, like, you know, the Story so Far and the Wonder Years and, like, this kind of thing. And then that is what then led me into kind of, like, the Midwest emo stuff.

Some songs started showing up on, like, you know, random spot, Spotify playlist and all. And I was like, this music captures how I feel. I am an inherently sad person. I'm going to listen to it.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I have a. I actually kind of have a similar story to both of you.

I did not grow up in, like, a nearly as strict, pious household as Josh, but we didn't have Internet, so I just didn't really get to explore much music growing up. I only got to listen to like, what my sister listened to because she's like, nine years older than me, and, like, what my cousins were listening to.

Yeah.

So I've been listening to Hawthorne Heights since I was, like, seven or eight. And then eventually, like, when I got to high school, like, I had a phone, I could get on the Internet, look up songs. I would just.

Just kind of, you know, look around every once in a while. And then I met some. Some people I was friends with, and they were like, oh, you should check out this band, you know, Panic at the Disco.

So from there, I'm, like, straight into the emo trinity. And then I kind of went the opposite direction of you. I went harder from there. So I got into, like, Slipknot. Not really.

I was never a huge Slipknot fan, but, like, Three Days Grace shined down. A lot of my friends were listening to them, and then I got harder, and then I only listened to Amana Marth for, like, almost a year.

I've recovered, but I do know all of the Amanamar songs.

I got better.

I used to have all.

They're so good. Yeah.

But I've kind of mellowed out with Midwest Emo. I listen to it a lot. Like, at least. At least one Midwest Emo track a day. Just because of the way I listen to music. I just shuffle everything.

So it's just. I just kind of found it and I like it.

My whiny outlet is folk music. I like really depressing folk, especially Passenger, because I get, like, philosophically whiny. That's where it's at for me, you know? Yeah.

But I think the strongest music I listen to is because of tj.

Pretty much everything else to is due to either TJ or my wife being like, hey, Josh, do you know insert, like, band everyone's heard of, and me being like, well, never heard of that. And be like, here's Sugar Ray, here's the Beatles. Josh, how do you not know?

I did know who the Beatles were for the record, but some of them are probably that ridiculous. But I think the hardest thing I listen to is probably pirate metal. Yeah.

Yes.

Ale Storm.

Yeah.

Yeah. And that's DJ's fault.

Good job, TJ.

But that's. That's just kind of how it went for me. And I lost my train of thought again. I just can't think the sun's down. I'm not doing my best.

I turned my brain off at like, seven, so we're gonna try.

Yeah.

It must be very late for you, foreign. I'm interested to see what happens later if you shut your brain off.

I don't need it.

It gets better.

35 minutes. It gets really bad, actually. I do know what that's like. I've hung out with Josh till wee hours of the morning at Portcon. Yeah, that was a good time.

I don't know if I turned my brain off that whole time, though. Like, I feel like at that particular event, it was like, it's three in the morning. I'm like, josh, do I technically count as open theist?

If Josh is like, dude, it's three in the morning.

Does the future exist? Yes or no? There's your answer.

No.

Hard to say.

You're an open theist.

I just have a complex relation to time that infuriates Dr. Ortiz. But it's fine. At least I don't think the future feel. I think he should give me that. Yeah.

It is really fun to talk to him about time.

Tom. Yeah. Have you guys. Do you know RT Mullins? Have you heard of him?

I know him from you.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. He, like, if you guys really want to go crazy on time, talk to RT Mullins.

He is very much into the philosophy of time and is like, ooh, when there are time questions that Tom can't answer, is like, not comfortable speaking into. He'll be like, go talk to Ryan.

I like it. I like it.

Yeah. R.T. mullins.

So we're gonna get some of these songs or.

Yeah, let's do it.

Yeah.

So the. Well, I guess for the playlist, let me just read it off real quick. The songs I put together.

And now this is not reminiscent of, like, necessarily my favorite five songs or something like that. They were five songs that I tried to think thematically what would go with the themes of this book. And that's why I picked these five.

And which that entire album is fantastic. It's kind of like a breakup album. It's very sad. Last year, they put out a 10th, 10 year anniversary edition. Very good. Would Recommend.

Then a song that, like, I don't really know how I found it.

TJ asked me earlier, just, like, showed up on a playlist one day because I don't even know if, like, it's a full on band, if it came from, like, a TV show or what, but there's a song called A Sitcom without you is just a drama and. And it's really cool. It's basically a Midwest emo song where all of the lyrics are, like, references to sitcoms and it's very clever.

Then Scott Pilgrim versus My GPA from Mom Jeans, which is a rather popular band in the genre. Finally, Tears Over Beers by Modern Baseball, which, again, Modern Baseball, pretty popular.

And then I added a sixth song, Don't Tell the Boys by PD usa, who doesn't actually count for the genre, but thematically I thought was right on par. And it was my playlist, so I decided I could do whatever I want. So. Yeah.

Which to. To be fair to your credit, Petey blew up on TikTok because people were getting into Midwest emo and he just kind of rode along and now he's.

Now he's a musician. Yeah, dude.

His. I stumbled upon him first through his, like, silly, stupid videos that he would make where he would play, like five or six different characters.

I loved that. Like, very dry humor. Hilarious. And then I was like. And he does music. What?

Nice. Yeah.

Yeah.

For the record, I'm gonna try to cross post this to Systemic Ecology. So the. If you're listening there, go check out some joyful noises. We like what we do here. Those of us who do things.

I'm gonna try to, at least for a few of these, do like a.

If this was a TV series made by Amazon prime, which I think would have to be two seasons to get, like, exactly what I would want, where I think the song would play. Because, like, in my mind, that's how I was going about.

Like, there's at least two that I was like, oh, I know when this song's coming on, this is going to be great.

All right, how about this? Joshua? What?

Since I sent you the playlist, let's start with which one of these six songs that you've been listening to, what, for like, a week or so now? Out of the six of them, which one stands out to you the most and why? And then we'll. We'll talk about that one.

That's. That's hard because it's between two.

Okay.

A sitcom without you is just. There's dot dot dot here, just a drama and Then Scott Pilgrim versus my gpa. And I think for two different reasons.

I think the sitcom one, realistically, is because, like, I just like wordplay. And when I'm like, oh, I get that reference, like, I'm like Captain America all the time. Like, oh, I get that one. That's just how I feel.

So, like, that was probably why I love that.

But the other one, Scott Pokemon versus my gpa, I think it's because, like, the moment that I imagine that playing during the comic, I'm like, that's one of my favorite moments. And this is going to be awesome. O. All right, well, whenever I convinced Amazon prime to make the show, it's going to be perfect.

Let's start with that one. All right, we'll start with Scott Pilgrim versus my gpa because you have the perfect moment in the comment. So how do we want to do this?

Do we want to have TJ play a bit of it for us first and then. Cool.

Yeah, there's no reason to this. We'll just. Whatever. Look at that.

Best buds. It's a cute photo. So leave my sweater on the board.

I'll leave your bag under the snare. Don't go back to our old place.

It's probably locked up anyway.

So. Yeah, for fair use reasons, we should. We should probably stop there, but it's fine.

But, Josh, I think Mom Jeans is the one band you should like the most from this because they love Bob's Burger.

It's funny. I was gonna ask you guys if I'm gonna check out one of these artists more. Which artist am I most likely to. So you already answered that.

I'll just send you the song where Linda introduces the song.

Perfect. Yeah.

So in my mind, you guys might want to listen to that other podcast that we did that's on says Mike Ecology's website, as well as Rethinking Faith Patreon. It's on free for both of those, so you guys can just go listen to it. Because I don't want to, like, explain the whole comic, but there's a moment.

Abel is running from his dad. His dad's a literal storm, wrecking shit all over the place. Abel kind of finds the found family trope kind of thing amongst some carnies.

And it is just, like, a moment that Josh talked about that stood up to him when he was like, wait a minute, I'm actually wanted. Like, I'm not just, like, here. Like, I'm wanted. And, like, I just feel that, like, I see him, like, starting to work with the carnies.

And this kind of plane, like, I'm happy here. And maybe, like, flashing back to the house, like, leave my towel on the port. Like, all the stuff. Like, I'm like, this is the moment.

And then, of course, that'll be, like, right near the end of season one. And after that is when Abel turns to a storm. And I just think it'd be a good cliffhanger. Good season one. Like, what's next?

Season two would be much better than season one if that was the case, but worth it. Worth it for the setup, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, that works well. That's a good tie in, man. I like it.

Is that kind of what you had in mind or, like, you picked the songs? Like, what was. What was your thought when you were like, this one?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean, this one. So this kind of has, like.

I mean, this is kind of like a quintessential breakup song, but it does have that kind of, like, there was a bad thing that happened, and I'm sad about that, but now this new thing is happening, and I'm learning to be okay with that. And so thematically, that's kind of how it tied in for me, you know, because it.

I mean, especially as it goes on later in the song after he's saying, I'm happy here, and they do the ba da da da da thing. He says over and over and over, I sleep well alone now. I sleep well alone now.

And so the beginning of the song starts out with, like, I don't know what went wrong. He's. You know, I. It's hard for me to see exactly where the hell I went wrong. I never thought I'd see the day we wouldn't get along.

So they have this, like, relationship. It shatters now. It's like, I'm out of that, but I've figured out how to sleep alone. And so, yeah, it. Yeah. And it maintains the sadness. Right.

Because, I mean, I don't like sleeping, but it's.

It's melancholy.

Yeah. Because, like, that's the good.

The song. You're.

You're over it. Yeah.

Right.

You're looking back at it at this point.

Look back at it.

But it's still so sad.

I got goosebumps when I first heard that. Like, because, you know, I've been in a few different pretty serious relationships.

I remember, like, that post breakup when you're like, oh, that's right. I'm just going to bed when I want, by myself. And it's like.

It's weird at first, you know, you're like, Learning to be happy with that again can be hard. I was like, yeah, that's good.

And the trumpet.

Yeah, the trumpet's nice. A nice.

That is true. I do love some brass, you know.

Yeah. Quality. All right, well, that was the first bit. Mom jeans, thank you for showing up. Do we want to talk about the sitcom one next?

Since that was your kind of. You know, between those two, I was

thinking one of them. I don't remember which song it is.

Okay.

I feel like one of them talks a lot or at least a couple times mentions the dad or a dad. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Let's see.

I made that up. I thought one of them did.

Well, the Hot. So the Hot Mulligan song has a whole bit about how he's happy that the parent. He's like, basically saying, like, I don't.

You know, I hate to be a bummer, but I'm. Oh, hold on, let me see. Yeah, he says, and it's happened again. Another friend said, marry me while unknowingly signing away the life that he wanted.

I'm glad. But none of her parents stayed together. I hate to be a bummer, but I have three more beers from calling a cab.

So, like, there's that bit where he talks specifically about parent breakup and also like, oh, dude, my friend just got into a relationship and that's stupid of him because he's just going to get screwed over and he signed away his life. Yeah, that's a good bit.

I think there's two, because I remember that.

I think the other one, I remember there being a dad, actually, I think was the sitcom one because he talks about how, like, I wish my dad stayed in the office. So both of those have the parents

at the end of the song. Yeah. He says, I wish my dad was stuck in the office like the rest. Or they were married with children, but without the recast.

The happy days and good times are memories at best. My life ain't a sitcom, but this episode's my last, which is a good one.

That really.

Which is a crazy line.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

If.

If you're only gonna listen to one song from this episode of us talking, it should probably be this one. I think this is the cleverest.

Very clever. Yeah, very clever.

And sometimes it's not. And I think that's also very clever.

Which one is this? I can't read.

This is the sitcom. Without you, it's just a drama by Midwest. Goodbye.

I love the beginning, too, because it's like, it doesn't it start With a boy meets world.

Yeah. The beginning is beautiful.

Yeah, it's great. Yeah.

Yeah. Like, like. You should just listen to this song in its entirety. After you listen to this episode.

All of you,

will you grace me with your presence or send another text? Everybody hates bliss in this family.

I'm ready for the next but can't forget the community Even Steven can't forget Push me on the swing of the comber Head south parks and rec it's always sunny in Arizona at least that's what you tell me But I'd rather you were here and catch it all in the family Keep up with the Jones and Shepherds descendants and Cosby's you are my rock.

So cheers.

Here's to being 30 and lonely will you even know?

But if my life is a sitcom give me a break from the tragedy I'm ready to move out Somewhere west of the Silicon Valley but the sign felt wrong Now I'm stuck inside of the memory A fresh Santa, the air, golden hair smiling back at me I wonder rest to develop as a man in the story But I took a breath allowing growing pain inside of the family to be king of the hell I deserve to live ever happily said I scrub the pain away like there is nothing happening. Remember Because I knew the Bhasa we had far from.

We have to stop or we're just gonna listen to the whole rest of it because it just keeps getting more intense.

But this is also the song that I thought would be the funniest to imagine Josh listening, because I know for a fact he does not know most of these shows.

I know a lot of them. But I will say, like, watching the music video, I was like, man, I think I might have only picked up on, like, half of the references, which

is still a lot of references.

Like, look, that's crazy.

Maybe half.

Yeah. But, yeah, I need to watch the music video. That's. That. That was awesome.

To your point, though, it does. It opened. The opening bit is really beautiful. It's like he's like, oh, and like, you know, what do you do on the holidays? Or something like that.

So I get together with a few of my really close friends and we, you know, we celebrate each other. It's, you know, it's quite beautiful. And then the guy's like, oh, well, like, that must be hard not being with your actual family.

And then he does the cheesy but also, like, you know, tugs on your heartstring line about, like, oh, family. You know, family's not necessitated by blood or whatever. He doesn't say it that way. He says it more beautifully than, yeah, which.

Me being a dork because I watched a lot of Disney. Being a Florida kid who wasn't allowed to watch a lot of things, I remember.

I'm pretty sure I remember where that scene comes from because it's when the kid remembers, basically, he first realizes that his teacher doesn't have a family at Christmas. He's like, wait a minute. What do you do at Christmas? And what's going on?

And he's like, well, much like what you do, Matthew, is, you know, we get together and we share these memories. And he's like, well, that's not quite the same. And I'm just like, I'm a TV dork.

That's why part of why I love Community so much is like, Abel's whole. Like, everything's actually a sitcom sometimes. That's just how my brain works. I said Abel, didn't I? Listen?

It's hard to, like, my brain doesn't work past seven. We're talking about Abel and Mid Middle West.

Yes. Yeah, it's fine.

Yeah. Abel, Abed. They're the same. Yeah. Not even close.

Not the Bible.

Not even similar, but a. More.

Yeah, I can. I. I can only imagine how this song came to be.

Like, how writing this song went, because I've been chilling on a couch somewhere just talking to the dudes, and all of a sudden we're just listing things. I could totally see that being the reason that they wrote this song is they were just chilling, listing sitcoms.

And then someone's like, I bet we could write all of those into a song.

Yeah. And there's some very creative ways they pull it off, too. Yeah.

There are one time I. I was looking at the IMDb list, like, top 200 movies of all time, and I cannot remember what it is, but it's like in the 120s somewhere. Or closer to 200. And I looked at my friend Stone and I was like, dude, name 125 movies better than Jaws. And then he sat there. 125 movies.

Dang. That reminds me of. This is probably a fairly controversial movie to bring up, but it reminds me of the movie the Ringer with Johnny Knoxville.

And there's that scene where the one guy is like, you know, a savant, and then the next guy tries to show him up and he's like, oh, yeah, name any movie. And the guy says, jaws. And he's like, that's a good move.

That's a good movie.

That is a good movie, though.

Yeah. Actually, I think our. Our mutual friend Ryan Dos, on his new horror podcast, did Jaws with my buddy Derek Weston.

They're going through, like, horror movies, and so that's cool. Yeah.

Isn't he doing that with Leah, too?

I think he recorded an episode with Leah, but it's not specifically with her.

Yeah, gotcha, Gotcha.

Yeah, it's called Everyday Dread, so.

Yeah. Josh, Curious view picking the song. Was there a moment in the comic that you feel like, this goes with?

Or is this just, like, general vibe or, like, how are you?

Yeah, I went general vibe for this one. Just, like, the overall storytelling and the gist of it.

And, I mean, running through sitcoms, going through, like, family stuff, you know, the entire comic is, you know, a big family question and problem. So it just. It felt thematically appropriate. And, I mean, I could see, like, you know, Middle west being turned into something like a sitcom.

I think it'd be more drama, but there's some funny parts. I laughed at parts in that comment.

Oh, yeah. Yeah. Especially a wizard in overalls just does it for me. I don't know.

Classic. Every time.

Yeah. I was two minds in my imaginary TV show. I'm of two minds because I'm like, this could be. And maybe it's both.

We do some, like, parallel stuff with this, like, because I could see the beginning when Abel's, like, home and his dad's, like, freaking out because he didn't, like, deliver the newspapers or whatever dumb shit started it.

All.

Right. I could see it playing then. It's like, you know, the good times, happy, whatever. It was all just made believe, you know, I could see it then.

I could also see it near the end when he's got the guy's name, the guy who's doing, like, all the child labor and he's basically imprisoned. I can see it then, too, because he's thinking back to, like, the carnies and how they rejected. How his dad rejected him.

All this stuff that's happened throughout the whole story. So I see, like, a little bit of almost, like a parallel with that, you know?

Yeah, yeah, that. Like, towards. Yeah, towards. Or like, what about you throw it as, like, an ending credit where kind of they do, like, a montage. End credits.

They do a montage that kind of runs through the whole story, and it kind of like he remembers it in his mind, and that's the song that's playing as he goes through.

Yeah, yeah. And then they'll have to do, like, a year later, like, one happy episode that's just. Oh, yeah. By the way he does get back with sprints.

Right.

Just let it draw out, though. Let us all be whiny about it for a while first.

That's the best part of the show.

Yeah, absolutely.

Oh, yeah. There's no reconciliation here.

I'll be. I'll give you my theory. And I. I tested this on Dan Koch, who is like a licensed therapist, psychologist, PhD, blah blah, blah. Dear Coke.

He's officially smart now.

Yeah, he's is what he is. But I was like, dan, I have a theory. I noticed that I have a tendency to try to stuff what I perceive as negative emotion.

So any kind of, like, sadness, depression, these kind of things. However, I love emo music and I feel it deeply. And so I wonder if listening to emo music. And also, here's the other part.

I'm a deeply empathetic person, and so, like, I carry the weight of my friends a lot. And so my theory is that part of why I like emo music is because it gives me permission to feel my own shit.

But to me, it seems like I'm being empathetic because I'm feeling the people's emotions from the song. So it's a cheat code where I'm tricking myself into feeling my emotions.

Yeah. So you have permission.

Pay Dan to tell him that. Did you?

So you have permission, but you don't necessarily have religion on the mind.

I think that would be a conflict of interest in, like, some kind of ethical dilemma, since we're friends.

But, yeah, because it sounds like you. It sounds like you solved the problem. You answered it.

Yeah, I therapized myself, Dan, so you can. Yeah.

Yeah.

Hey, Dan, nice degree, by the way. I figured it out.

I have a podcast, two guys. I do theology and psychology because I

have a friend who doesn't believe. And psychiatry. Like psychologists, they're just like, I don't think it works. And I'm like, it's annoying because you're.

You're one of the people that need it the most, actually. Yeah.

Is it the friend that just would lie to them? No, I have friends like that. They're like, oh, therapy doesn't work. Because I just wouldn't tell them.

Oh, no, it's just like, tell me. Talk about stuff. I already know what I need to talk about. Why wouldn't you say it out loud? I'm like, all right, you do you. I guess, anyway, sick.

By the way, before we move too far on. It was Jaws. Jaws is number 200 all time.

Nice.

So I. So I asked him to name 199 movies. Better than Jaws. He couldn't do that, but he did. Name 199 movies.

That's pretty good.

It was crazy.

I don't know if I could do that. I mean, I probably could because, you know, MCU gives me at least 25. I feel.

No, no. We did one for one per franchise. Not.

What's the number one movie on that list? TJ?

Shawshank.

I'm pretty sure that makes sense.

That wouldn't be mine.

Oh, yeah, it's Shawshank. Then the Godfather, Dark Knight, Godfather 2, and then 12 Angry Men.

Dark Knight should not be that high. It's an overrated. It's a really good film, but it's overrated. Shut up.

It's a good movie. That's a good movie.

That's a good movie.

All right, tj, you. I'm gonna throw it to you. You get to go. You get to choose next, so you have between. How do you know it's not. Armadillo Shells by Hot Mulligan?

Tongue Tied by Free Throw.

I'm choosing tears over beers.

Baseball.

There you go.

I'm choosing tears over beers. This is the one that I probably listen to the most.

That's not technically Midwest Emo.

It's a good song.

That's what you said.

It is.

Which one is. This one is P.D. uSA.

P.D.

uSA. Okay, wait. Sorry. I only have five on my screen, you know.

Okay, it's two. Miley Cyrus. That was a bad joke. I will see myself out.

No, Montana doesn't actually exist.

It's a made up place.

Gotcha.

Like Finland.

Yeah.

But I listen to it the most. I. I like to listen to it in the mornings. It's just. I don't know, I really vibe with the song. I don't know if there's any. Any other way to really.

To really put it. And we're just gonna listen to my favorite part.

Let's do it.

I'll wait him back again. Will be lovers, best friends he won't be no other woman like he did

way back when he was with me

he needed more than me I'm friendly

and thoughtful and quite awfully pretty but he needed more than me. So beautiful song.

I love it. It's great. I have no clue how this relates to Middle West. No idea.

Yeah, because this one's interesting because basically this is kind of a quintessential trope where it's like, but I'm a good guy. I might be awkward with girls, but I'm better than that asshole. She's with. That's kind of the gist. Now I have to remember why I picked this one.

I see. I feel like I misunderstood. The song is actually what my brain is going with. Well, because for some reason my brain was thinking of.

I was thinking of Bobby with the carnies and how she was kind of like, oh, he needs this more than I do. Like. Like, you know what I mean? Like, she's like. She's like, I got. I got problems. But he needs this more than me. But I wasn't thinking relationship.

So I feel like I just kind of. I missed. I missed it. I was thinking too much about the comic. That's what happened there.

Yeah, yeah. Well, as like a good precursor if you're going to listen to some Midwest emo, it's. It's probably about a relationship.

Yeah, yeah.

This is true.

Some type of relationship at the very least.

Yeah, that's fair.

Parents, friends, significant other, Dog. Dog.

I feel like Bobby was somewhere in between significant other and friend.

Yeah, I think so. I think there's that. I think there's the tension kind of the.

You know, this is too strong of a way to put it, but there is kind of like a sexual tension between Abel and Bobby in the comic. I think they kind of. They're feeling each other, but they're not going to say that they're feeling each other. Like one of those kind of things.

They might be too young maybe. Maybe it's like handhold tension, you know?

Yeah, handhold tension. Yeah, there we go. I've been in sixth grade.

That's fine, right?

Because no one was horny when they were never, never.

Not once the Lord clothed my loins.

Indeed. Indeed.

Oh, God, that's funny.

I've been girding my loins for years.

I had. If you have sex, you'll get pregnant and die talk.

Yeah, that's true. I could get you pregnant and you could die.

Would not be good. I'm not looking to get pregnant anytime soon.

Me neither. Me neither.

But yeah, this is a fun one. And modern baseball is just a good band. That's another one.

Where do you see it? In Middlewest? I know you're thinking a little bit about it.

Yeah, I mean, I think. I think I just.

Again, I mean, to go back to the trope, it's about relationships and that's runs, you know, that is what runs throughout, you know, whether it's the Bobby Abel relationship, like you pointed out, or even like the Bobby and Bobby's robot or the wizard and his sister, or Abel and his dad. You have all of these relational tensions constantly throughout. And so it's just thematically, it works. And I wanted a modern baseball song.

I could see it.

Yeah.

I feel like if you were going to cop out and just add one to have another Midwest emo song, this is one of, like, the five or ten song that would come to mind.

Yeah. And it's called Tears Over Beers. And, like, I don't know about you guys, but there's been multiple times when I personally have had tears over beers.

So I think once together, even actually

probably, you know, I don't know if I've ever cried over a beer.

Thought it was going to stop.

I don't know if I spelled it. Yeah, I've never, I've never cried as a baby.

So awful. I'm crying.

No, I've. I, I, I cried once today because it's the 25th anniversary of darn Hart's death.

Yeah.

Yeah.

That's all I saw. A really sad montage.

Montage.

That'll do it. Yeah. You made me think of something, though, Josh, because you talk about, like, all the different relationships.

If we're going with the, like, you know, at least I'm not as bad as that guy. Abel's dad and his dad, the grandpa, you know, I can see that kind of relationship. I don't.

They don't ever interact in the comic, but, like, I could kind of see that where, like, he probably is thinking that the whole time of, like, well, I'm not as bad as my dad, you know?

Yeah. Because there is, I mean, throughout, they do have that bit where, like, you find out Abel's dad is acting just like his dad.

And then there are parts where Abel starts to act like his dad. And so it's like this. I mean, like we talked about in the episode, the generational trauma, these things getting passed down.

Yeah, you know, that's, that's a good pick. I just didn't associate with that at first, but now I'm associated with a lot of stuff. All of the things that might play every episode. It's fine.

All right. I. So I'll pick the next one. Since I haven't picked one yet. I'm torn because I love all three of these songs genuinely.

Let's break the genre for a minute. We'll, we'll, you know, we're about, like, a little. About halfway through the songs.

Let's go with Don't Tell the Boys by PD USA because I absolutely adore this song. And I'll share a little bit about why after TJ plays his selection from it.

Don't tell the boys that we done spent the week inside and watch three seasons of the OC Till Marissa dies in no time. I'm more like Ryan, You're a little more like Seth. You're so quick winning. When we talk about what happens after death.

Boom. Yeah, this is another one I'm gonna have.

I feel like we can get away with a little bit.

Yeah, I'm gonna have to.

I feel like you can get away with more on pd. Pd.

Yeah. Yeah. Like, yeah. Watch the music. The official music video.

And then there's a live recording they did of it, Joshua, that I will send you because it's amazing. But then it goes on the. To the next bit, he says, I heard your brother's in the desert. He's been fighting for our freedom.

He's been chasing nameless faces ever since he finished rehab. Can we support the individual without supporting the whole damn complex? It's either shooting guns or heroin. At least one of them pays for college.

All that is some high quality writing right there.

And, like, I recognize that in my own self because, like, I have some pretty strong nonviolent tendencies and don't think that blowing people up is a good idea. But also, I have very close friends that are law enforcement or active military. I have many. You know, I come from a family of active military people.

And so, like, the whole bit about, like, supporting an individual without supporting the whole complex is interesting to wrestle with the. I mean, that's either shooting guns or heroin line. That's nuts. Like, yeah, that's great. Gets me every time.

But I mean, so thematically, why I picked this song for the comic should be obvious. It's about friendship, and friendship is really important in the comic. And it's the whole found family bit like Joshua was talking about earlier.

But so, like, that's why I picked it. But one thing that I really like about this song, part of the vulnerability about it, is that it's a song about the importance of male friendship.

And it kind of has this trope in it.

Don't tell the boys, because there's, you know, kind of, like, with the ingrained homophobia within culture, where it's like, oh, if I have this kind of, like, close friendship with another guy as a dude, where I'm, like, crying or being honest and we're being vulnerable and we're watching, you know, the OC and talking about our problems, like, that's really good and helpful. But don't, like, don't tell the rest of the guys, they're going to like make fun of us for it.

So I just think it captures like, I think it speaks into something that's very real and then the kind of the fear of like, oh, but we don't want people to know. But also he's naming that, so it's bringing that out into the light.

And I just think from like a cultural perspective where I very much value friendship and I have a lot of guy friends who I have cried in front of. I think this is just a beautiful thing to put into the world of toxic masculinity and people who want to say empathy is bad. So.

Yeah, yeah.

It also, it is like, it is a masterstroke of writing the phrase shooting guns or heroin because the phrase itself is also like trying to reconcile the military industrial complex. Because the reason it's so strong is because, look, a lot of people have a couple of options. You can either be a junkie or join the military.

Yeah, like that's, it's, it's right there. And then he keeps singing about it.

Yeah, Yeah, I didn't think about that. I mean, I think people should email me and let me know which is more of a don't tell the boys moment.

Me and J. Patty possibly crying over the beers or me and TJ Having to share a one person tent that one time. You guys let me know which. Which one's more don't tell the boys.

I, I haven't told nobody, but it's not a story I tell a lot.

You mentioned it on whole church at least once. That's why I thought it was it safe for me to say that just then?

Yeah, I don't care. It just doesn't come up a lot.

I mean there's no reason Josh and

I had to sleep. Josh, just in case you didn't know if you're, if you're not personally familiar with Joshua Noel. Hates being touched. Cannot stand being touched.

We are not going to air out anyone on the show. But the other person with us on that campsite did not smell very good.

Yeah. Yeah.

So instead of sharing the three person tent with her like I was going to plan to do, Josh caved and was like, okay, we can, we can share my one person tent.

Yeah.

And one person like it is. It's like a North Face stormbreaker tent.

It really is for one person, I think to me.

And we still did it without touching each other.

I was gonna say slept like both

on our shoulders, on our sides, just perfectly vertical. Yeah.

Like I don't Want to fall into the whole like, oh yeah, toxic masculinity. Because like, it's not that. But I am genuinely impressed that we somehow managed to just not touch at all. Like it was a very tiny space.

I remember in high school, me and my buddy Alex used to like to pitch a tent in my parents backyard and. And tent, you know, camp in the backyard or whatever.

And one time it was pouring to the point where this was like at least a three or four person tent. And it was storming so bad that the tent was sideways where it was like basically like the roof of the tent is like hitting you in the face.

And the tent was flooding. So Alex and I just kept getting closer and closer and closer together because all the water was on the outside.

And it got to the point where eventually like, yeah, I guess we have to go inside now.

That's pretty funny.

Reminds me of what actually happened. There was a flood. The three person date was flooded.

So it was either we all slept in the car together or one person slept in the car and the other two stared. A1 person tent. Yeah, that's what it was. Right? That was rough. The other thing is also true though, still. Yeah, the other one also true.

So this song with the comic, I don't know exactly when, but it's definitely when Abel's taken prisoner with like the child labor guy. Right. Because like there you have the story. The one girl who's there who is, you know, basically ran away because her dad's like hates gay people.

Yeah.

And I could see her being like, don't tell the boys. You know.

Sure.

Kind of similar. Not, you know, not exactly same similar vibe.

You know, I could see Abel because he's showing his emotions and he's trying to be a tough guy also kind of being like, you know, there's just a lot of moments that even Abel's dad, where he's almost gets emotional at the bar and instead decides, let's start a fight. Yeah, yeah.

I think that's important. That's cool though, because out now I'm going to give you guys TMI in therapy.

But I think this is interesting because publicly typically anger is the quote, unquote, negative emotion that men are allowed to display. Right. And things like sadness and vulnerability tend not to be great. For me, that's flipped.

I stuff anger and I am comfortable like being on stage in front of 600 people and crying or being vulnerable. But then what's bad about that is I turn into a tornado when I do get angry and I do stupid Things like punch my refrigerator and break my hand.

Which happened back in December. So, like, I think that, like, trope shows up in the comic in that scene. Exactly.

Because as Abel's dad is getting to a point where he's being invited to be vulnerable to admit that he's wrong to express, you know, sadness and regret, whatever. Instead of doing that, he just turns to anger, which, again, seems to be the only socially acceptable negative emotion for men to express.

Yeah, I'm a little vulnerable and maybe weird here, but, you know, weird. Weird's fitting for me. This is reminding me again of the moment when Abel's with the carnies the first time.

And the first time he's like, oh, I'm wanted. Because, like, hearing you talk about it kind of makes me realize I don't know how to word this without just sounding obnoxious. So I apologize.

Do it.

I don't really bottle stuff. I just don't feel stuff as much as other people seem to. Like, it's like. And that's, like, across the board.

Like, I. I get where, like, it's advanced advantageous with, like, the sad things. Like, oh, I don't get sad. So I don't get made fun of, like, guys crying all the time. But also, like, I do get made fun of sometimes.

Like, hey, Josh, that should have made you angry. Like, I don't know, guys. I don't know what to tell you didn't.

And, like, I remember, like, for me, it's hard to be open about that because it either sounds like. Like, a humble brag and, like, you're a jerk, or it sounds like you're heartless. And I feel like, the beer camp, guys, the Alti beer camp.

Whenever I start getting around you guys for the first time, I start to open up and just be myself. And I'm like, yeah, none of these guys care if I get emotional or don't get emotional and equally makes me feel accepted.

That was, like, there's no expectation of how I'm gonna react, you know? Yeah.

I've seen Josh cry, though. Just so we're clear.

Oh, yeah, it does happen. And I do get angry. It just. Pretty rare.

Yeah. Just. He's not some emotionless robot. Yeah, no, Josh does.

I'm not Mitt Romney, but

I miss Mitt Romney, man. I miss. I miss when both candidates were, like,

saying, okay, you know, people.

Neither made you angry. There we go.

Yeah. I miss when the worst thing about a candidate was always Mormon.

Oh, God. Yeah. I was listening to podcasts the other day. I was Talking about that.

I was like, y' all remember when it was, like, a huge, huge thing that Mitt Romney used the phrase, I have books of women, and now it's like, no big deal that the president's in the Epstein file somehow. What happened, dude? Like, what? Yeah, if you haven't heard, we live in a time.

Do you guys know who Propaganda is? The hip hop artist?

Yeah. Yeah, because of you.

Oh, cool, you made a little song. I'll do a humble brag real quick. I was on a call with him earlier today.

Oh, that's awesome.

Yeah, because we're trying to get him to do fun stuff. But anyway, Prop has a podcast, Hood Politics, and it's really good. If you haven't listened to it, would recommend.

But his most recent, like, short episode that he put out is about how Epstein was a pimp. And, like, his argumentation is very convincing because he argues that, like, he said.

Well, the thing that's sad about this is that it makes the whole thing more gross because obviously you have the young girl thing, deeply problematic, but the young girls were kind of like bait. What Epstein was actually selling was status and access, and the.

The.

The access to the young girls and then the access to, like, famous people kind of fed off of each other is very gross, very disgusting, very evil. Demonic, if you will. And. Yeah, anyway, that episode's very good. Would recommend.

Yeah.

And that's why, if you've seen it all of the times Elon Musk is. Is in the files is him, like, begging to get. Begging to be invited.

And he does it because everyone else is like, hey, don't invite things, like, weird.

Then, like, you know something. Yeah, good boy.

Yeah. He's like, hey, we. We touch kids. But that guy, there's something wrong with him.

Don't.

Don't invite him to the island.

Absolutely not where I saw this conversation going.

No. But, yeah, that's a less than joyful noise.

Yeah, that is.

Yeah. I mean, it's a dark.

Hey, it's. It's only some joyful noises.

Not every noise.

Yeah. Somehow. Yeah. All right, well, I will. I will rescue us. We have two songs left. Joshua, it's back to you. You either get to do.

How do you know it's not Armadillo Shells by Hot Mulligan or Tongue Tied by Free Throw? Where do you want to go?

I feel like I'm being selfish with this. I want to do. How do you know it's not armadillos, but it's because I want Tongue Tied to be last more Than it is I want to talk about.

Okay, ej, you got tongue tied, then

that's fine with me. I just. This is another one of those songs where, like, you really have to listen

to all of it.

Yeah, you really do. So I'm just gonna play the fast part.

Do it.

Pulling out the pictures that I wrote for you Hoping you don't think that I panic.

Cause I know the truth Be too much I'm not enough I'm always disappointed in the things I write Even when I speak it seems the words will never come up. Like helping alone Just bring me home.

It's so good.

It's so good. You know, I see this in two different places. In the podcast, in the p. In the madeup TV show.

Also, if the comic was a show, you know, because, like, very much you hear him constantly, like, that first half, like, what I'm saying. Season one of, like, when he's on the journey, he's meeting the wizard in overalls.

He's trying to find and eventually finds the carnies, like, his home. Like, he's constantly, like, blaming himself, not his dad necessarily, like, of like, I wasn't good enough.

This is.

This is me, I'm not good enough kind of deal. And like, the fact that it's, like, talking about home too. And, like, I just.

I like the themes of the song fitting it, but I also see it after the carnies reject him because he turns into a storm. He caused that damage. And then him going, it is me. Like, like, to him, he had a moment of hope of, like, maybe I do have a found family.

And then now all of a sudden it's like, oh, actually, no, it's confirmed. You are the problem. And that's where I see this, you

know, does he literally turn into a storm? Does he, like, turn into a tornado?

Yeah, it's awesome. Cool. Like the art when it displays that.

Let me grab it off the shelf and show you. Continue talking.

Sweet. Like a. Like a Tasmanian devil kind of thing or like a storm kind of thing.

I say storm. Cool. Sweet.

Of course, Joshua just fucking had it already.

Yeah, it's just on his desk.

Yeah, he's going to find a full page spread before me. Cool.

Cool, cool.

Sweet. So like a. Like a Hercules thing. Oh, sweet.

Yeah, that. No, that's good. Yeah, exactly. Kind of like the.

Yeah.

What are they called in Hercules, though? The Titans? Yeah, kind of like they're called Titans.

I can't remember that one's name. I think that's Typhon.

I call it the wind one or the most annoying one to fight in Kingdom Hearts 3. In fact, it's the only one that's annoying to fight in Kingdom Hearts 3. The rest of them, not so bad.

Yeah. The rest of them are a bunch of wimps.

Yeah. Ironically, no problem. Wind, not gonna happen. Maybe that's why Ing was so good. Who knows? Yeah, that's why.

That's why Oza or Sozin was like, hey, we have to kill those people. We have to get rid of them.

Well, and it's true, though, like, and I think that's why I love that in the comic of, like, they used a storm.

Because I feel like unless you've lived through a lot of hurricanes, I feel like a lot of people don't underestimate how much damage, like, tornadoes, hurricanes really cause. So, like, I love that they use that for this. That it's not just, like, you're not just impacting your family. It's like radial damage collateral.

Yeah, there it is.

Yeah.

And as somebody who works in emergency management as a hazard mitigation project officer, where my job is to secure grant funding to mitigate against natural disaster and climate change, and somehow that's weirdly political, I will go on the record for saying maybe this is controversial. Tornadoes don't care who you vote for.

If you have a Donald Trump sign out front or a Joe Biden sign out front, that tornado is going to destroy your house. So maybe we should all work together to mitigate against these disasters instead of turning it political. But maybe that's just me being crazy.

Yeah.

If the weather machine was real.

Yeah.

I'm just saying it'd be different. I hate a boring conspiracy more than anything. Like, weather machine. It's not even interesting.

I know. It's like, just accept Jewish space lasers. It's. Yeah.

Except for specific groundbreaking signs.

When Dr. Doofenshmirtz did it, then it was great.

It's not even ground. Like, we just can influence the weather. It's just true. We've been doing it since, like, this, the 70s and 80s for Chernobyl.

You Chernobyl insert here.

Yeah, but do you remember why? Why two bits vertically made the Raininator weather machine?

No.

Literally just trying to ruin golf games.

Oh, there you go.

I'm just tired of people playing golf.

Hilarious.

The rain and Nader.

Great.

Yeah.

That might be one of my favorite villains. Doofy, Smurfs and Abel's dad. Two favorite villains. Wildly different reasons.

Well, there you go. I'll. I'll. I'll say so. I picked this song thematically because of what you said, Joshua, like, the kind of the insecurity that Abel has.

And that's actually why this is one of my favorite songs, because, newsflash, Josh Patterson, rather insecure person.

And, like, I love the chorus where, you know that TJ played, where he says, pulling out the pages that I wrote for you Hoping you don't think that I'm dependent Because I know the truth might be too much I'm not enough I'm always disappointed in the things I write Even when I speak it seems the words never come out right.

Coping alone just bring me home so, like, I just personally feel this song as, like, a Josh Patterson chorus, but it relates to Abel in the comic for that reason.

Well, I mean, that's. That's part of why it's one of my favorite. Or it is my favorite comic, too, is like, the insecure bit.

Like, I don't have that much problems with my dad. Like, that's not. That's not it for me. But, like, the insecurity, the. Oh, you guys want me. Like, that's the stuff where it's like, that's my jam.

I don't know. I need that comic sometimes in my life. And this song goes really well with it, so maybe. Maybe I need this too.

Yeah.

Thank you. Yeah. Yeah.

All right, tj.

So I guess I get Tongue Tied.

Bring us home and.

But before we even start, Tongue Tied, I love. There are not a lot of genres where a band will come up with a song that is.

Has a much, like, wildly more popular song by the same name in a similar, you know, genre.

So.

Shout out. Shout out to Free Throw for going with Tongue Tied. And let's check it out.

Everything I ever meant to say but always said it wrong Every day I die your number I just never make the call it's like standing on the edge so I can contemplate the fall

all right, this is excellent. Other than a sitcom without you is just a drama this is the song on the playlist that I heard the least.

Okay.

Like, this just. It hasn't been around. I might have heard it once or twice just in passing, like, hanging out with.

With, like, the skater kids, but because, you know, if you look up. Tongue Tied.

Yeah.

But also a great song.

Yeah.

But I. I do like this a lot. I've just kind of been listening to this playlist just intermittently over the past couple of days just because it's not that different from what I.

What I just normally listen to. Like, any time I've been. Like, I want to listen to tears over beers. I'll just. I'll just click it in this playlist and then listen to the rest of it.

But it's great. I think it really stands among these other giants of Midwest emo.

I'm quite the fan of Free Throw. I tj, if you haven't listened to that in that album, just as like full on through, I'd recommend it. I think you'll like it. I. This is a good song.

I think there are. It's probably in the top five songs on the album, but there's some really good ones on there. Some pretty heavy hitters.

It's a breakup album, so it's, you know, surprise, surprise.

Yeah.

But yeah, I mean, that's fine.

Yeah, I definitely am going to check it out because I. I was sitting here like, you know, just going over the band because after, like, I looked up Midwest Goodbye and Midwest Goodbye so they don't even have like a Wikipedia page.

Yeah, I think it's. That's why I think it's like a weird Free Throw thing.

Then I checked Free Throw to see if it was like a similar thing.

Yeah.

But I am really intrigued.

Midwest Goodbye has 3,000 monthly listeners on Spotify.

Yeah.

Oh. Oh, well, it's about to be up by at least three.

They're getting. They're getting very good advertising right now.

Right.

Yeah, you're welcome, actually.

Yeah.

If we cross post this to Systematic Ecology, I think we get more monthly listeners than the band. That's crazy.

The.

But not competition.

But this song has 27,000 streams though.

It's good. So I wanted this to go to last because the other ones were my favorite. But like, I think just guys, I'm bad with words, vibe wise.

Like the vibe of the song, like the tone of it fits the tone of Middle west the best, I think. And I'm curious to hear like, your thoughts on it.

But like, for me, I more think of Abel's dad with this because, like, you know, at first you think he's just like this bad guy, the storm. And then like, as he goes, like he actually is caring for his kid. He wants to bring his kid home. Like, he is worried about his safety and everything.

And it's like he doesn't know how to express that. And even the one time he's at the bar we mentioned, he's like. Like, he's almost there.

Then he's like, whoa, what did you do to your kid when they ran away? He's like, dude, what do you mean? Like, just talk to your kid. So like, tongue tied. I was like, I don't know.

I kind of make that association a little bit.

But, yeah, no, I. I think it's good. I. I agree with you. And I think even though, again, this is about a relationship, because it's Midwest emo.

This whole bit in the chorus where he says, every day I dial your number, I just never make the call. It's like standing on the edge so I can contemplate the fall one that's, like, wildly relatable. Like, I feel that personally.

Incredible lyrics.

Yeah. Yeah. So, like. But if as Abel's dad, to your point, like, you're saying he is angry, he is an. But he does care about his kid.

And so, like, I could see him, like, you know, in that bar scene we talked about earlier, sitting there, you know, with his phone pulled up, you know, and, you know, picture, if you will.

If you've never been in this situation, there's a contact pulled up in front of you, and all you have to do is hit the call button, and you just can't bring yourself to do it, even though you want to. Like, I think that tension exists very much like you said, within his. His dad.

Yeah. Which to me is just a little crazy. And I hate to just talk about the comic so much because they're going to listen to us talk about the comic.

But, like, that thought still, I don't know, it gives me chills. Which is probably my favorite comic. I read it all the time. It's like, you don't see his dad having that same thought.

His dad went off somewhere else and isolated himself. So his dad doesn't even have the struggle.

So the fact that he has the struggle, that he has that desire where, like, I could envision that character with his phone out, like you mentioned, like, I want to call. That's still so much progress from where his dad went. And yet it's still bad. Like, he's still shitty. Right.

But it's like, I don't know, it's hard to just hate them.

Yeah. It adds complexity to the character, which is good writing.

Yeah. Yeah. Scotty Young, I hear he does, you know, happens to be one of my two favorite writers also.

I do hope that the. The bassist of Free Throw didn't just have, like, a one off. Phenomenal song as the bass line of the song is great.

Yeah.

It's so good. And that is one of the things that I do like about Midwest Emo is that you'll.

You'll get a really sol bass line a lot because of, like, the prog rock, math, rock influence. And I like. I play bass. I like to hear it.

Yeah.

You know, musically, people who know something about music talk about music. I'm like, man, if I knew. If I knew anything about music, I might sound like that. That was cool.

Well, that's good. If you go and listen to a tj, listen to the original version first and then if you like it, listen to the 10 year anniversary afterwards.

Because they do. Like, there's a song in there. Let me pull it up so I get the name exactly right.

And actually I wanted to ask you, tj, like, since you're a fan of this genre, like, what if there's like a band or maybe like a song? Maybe we could just do a song that you want to, you know, bestow upon Joshua as he continues on his Midwest emo journey.

Like, oh, you have to go listen to this one. Let me pull up this free throw bit and name the song. Yeah, yeah, dude. There's a lot of really good song titles on this album.

So the album's called those Days are Gone. The song I'm specifically talking about is called hey, Ken, someone methodically mashed the. It's scrolling the donuts.

Hey, Ken, someone methodically mashed the donuts. Solid name for a song. You also have great songs such as Kim Tasty, How I Got My Shrunken Head, Let's Get Invisible, what day is it? October.

These are all great song names.

It's awesome.

But the song Kim Tasty is a heart wrencher, dude. Anyway, yeah, we're checking out.

That reminds me of, like, sorry, this is kind of random, but, like, the reason that Passenger became my favorite is because, like, obviously everybody knew the letter Go song and I loved that song. Then I heard the album it was on. I'm like, man, that might be the worst song on the album. It's just crazy good singles.

That happens a lot with, like, radio singles. Like, you write a song specifically to be a radio single, it blows up. And then that's how you tell the posers.

Is that like when you ask what's your favorite, you know, song by such and such band, and they name, like the number one song off Spotify, which a lot of times is a great song, but it doesn't mean it's the best one.

Yeah, true. So true.

Dan gets frustrated with this because he has the Pretty Good Vibrations music podcast, which is wonderful, and they'll do like music tournaments and sometimes it'll be based off, like the best songs on Spotify and in order of streams and he'd be like, the people killed this band. These are not even their best songs.

I think the one exception might be Smash Mouth. Their best songs were the ones that were in Shrek. That's just true. Yeah. And Walking on Sunday.

Yeah. They didn't. They didn't write the songs for Shrek, but they kind of did.

Yeah.

You know, like, they. They got told, hey, write a song for the movie. And they were just like, we'll write a song. We're not gonna tailor it to the movie or anything.

Yeah.

And it just.

They were forever gonna be the Shrek band, though. Like that. That's who you are now. Yeah. Yeah.

But if I. If I was gonna say something, just check this out.

By a band he hasn't heard with a concept that he is familiar with because of Midwest Goodbye, Car Seat Headrest, and High to Death. The song High to Death. Because I was. I was trying to remember.

I. I'm pretty sure it is Carcia Harris that has a song where the outro is from A Sound of Thunder by Red Bradbury. It's like a dramatic reenactment of that short story.

Oh, yeah.

I just can't remember what song it is. And I couldn't find it in the past four minutes or whenever you asked me to. Could text you eventually.

But High to Death has a similar thing where the overlying plot of it. Much like, what was the show for Midwest Goodbye that they did the skit on?

But they have a similar thing in Eye to Death where the song starts and is interceded by and ends with an artist who is defending. Like, her. I guess it's not a dissertation for an art PhD, but she's defending her final art project and her academic art life.

I just think it's really beautiful and it's so well done. And Carcey Headrest is another one of those bands. It's like, hey, that's Midwest Emo, you know, so, yeah.

Car Sea Headrest. You guys said Mom Jeans is someone I'd probably like.

Yeah.

Yes. The album those Days are Just Named

is new to me, so I added that to my list. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

And then you would. Oh, God.

Just, you know, the.

Create another playlist. Let's just.

Josh knows.

Create another playlist so I can be lazy and just add stuff in there. Because I actually. I really dig this stuff. But I'm like, I. Yeah, the genre is good. Yeah. I'm like.

So like, before this episode, we were talking about, like, some philosophy stuff and, like, if someone never saw color, would they learn something when they saw red, you know, whatever. And, like, I feel like a lot of times that's me, where I'm like. And you guys are like, I'm coming up and being like, wow, this is red, this is blue.

And then you guys come out and be like, guess what? If you combine them, there's this thing called purple. And I'm like, whoa, What?

Purpling is not allowed.

That's what this, like. That's what, like, Midwest emo sounded like to me, though. It was like you guys going like, guess what? You can combine these things.

What?

We've already talked about how much we didn't like girls when we were young. Josh, you can't. You can't make purple.

Yeah. Deep red and deep blue, but no purple walk here. All right.

That's right.

I'm going to try to convince you to listen to more Hot Mulligan because I am a fan of them. They have a song called I Fell in Love with Princess Peach. So I.

They also have a song called Monica Lewinsky.

It's just a great song.

I mean, and it's.

It is a. It is an amazing song.

It's so not an armadillo Shell is like, also.

It's pretty good.

Yeah. But the first thing that I saw when I saw this playlist. Sorry, guys, this is. Brain's not working. But I saw that. I was like, wait a minute.

I thought this was Midwest. Because, like, my brain immediately hears armadillo and goes, yeah, that's Florida. You got a problem. I'm sorry. It happened.

Yeah.

Which you just don't think unless you've been in Florida and seen them.

Yeah.

Which there are a lot.

Ask anyone who doesn't live in Florida. They don't know that there are armadillos.

Florida, Alabama, Georgia, they have a lot. It's just a different type of armadillo that looks different, but not, like.

I would also say. I'd also say, like, neutral Milk hotel.

Yeah.

Is one of those, like, earlier perennial

classic milk kind of.

Yeah. Kind of got, like, heavily referenced in, like, sitcoms of the time by, like, the weird character, notably April from Parks and Recreation.

I love April. April school also.

Well, she loves neutral Milk Hotel.

Do you know who she plays in the mcu? Are you aware of this? The most infuriating thing the MCU has done is who she plays. And they sneak it into, like, Agatha all along show.

And I'm like, this is way too big of a character for you guys to be like, oh, by the way, this exists.

What Is she Enchantress?

She's Death.

Oh, that's cool.

I was like, what? What do you mean you're just gonna drop that here? Because not everybody watches the shows.

I feel like it's kind of weird that you just snuck that in here, but it's fine.

That's pretty awesome. Also, good choice.

Yeah. Also, she kills it. It's great.

Funny. Good pun.

Yeah, thanks.

Also, Joshua, Untitled, the band Knuckle Puck is great, but they have a song called Untitled, which is like Quintus. That's, like, quintessential, like, that's going to show up on any Midwestern Midwest emo.

I want to. I think you guys already know this. So our listeners know and why I keep wanting the playlist. I work at Chipotle.

By the time I start your burrito and get halfway through the line, I couldn't tell you what kind of meat is on it if you had. Right. Like, I know nothing about this burrito. That's how my memory works. That's why I hate the playlist.

I know nothing about this burrito. Look, all right, Joshua's had, like, we're setting them up. Three good song titles. You. Someone should hire him to write song titles for Midwest.

Yeah. Yeah.

Or you can just pay us directly and you can use the names that we've made here.

And he'll remember just the random stupid stuff I said. Yeah. One time Josh said this sentence. Not sure why.

I absolutely won't.

I don't know. You throw it up sometimes. Like, you know, one time Josh. I guess it's not sentences. Usually there's weird things I didn't know.

Usually you remember what I didn't know. Somehow that's what sticks in your head. Or my bad opinions.

That's a good break.

Yeah, I don't know. I don't remember those.

You remember what I usually didn't know somehow. That's a great breakup song.

Yeah, he's full of them. Yeah, he's full of them. But I don't remember your bad opinions. People will ask me, that's a good one. Like, I'll explain. Remember who you are.

That is a good one.

I'll explain who you are. It's like, oh, Josh with the bad opinions. And like, oh, what are his bad opinions? And I've got like, no, you got a list. I'll remember.

Yeah, but, like, it. I got deleted off my phone.

Oh, that sucks.

When I got new phone. You just start with the only ones I can. That's not that bad. The only ones I can consistently.

Remember member are he thinks the Halo multiplayer is bad.

I don't like that. I don't like anything about Halo, actually.

Right.

This is a perfect.

And that conversation. Florida State fan and that you can't eat mayonnaise.

I can, I can. I just don't. Why would I want to. Yeah, yeah, I'm with you.

Maybe it's a Josh thing, but I'm.

Why are you spraying an egg on my sandwich? I could just eat an egg.

Or you could eat an egg sandwich.

Yeah, I don't eat mayonnaise for that. Half an egg. All right, so.

Oh, and he doesn't like the finale of BoJack Horseman.

I think I might be have changed my mind on that. I want to re watch it. I think enough time has passed for me to accept what happened.

I was just too emotionally involved in a particular character because he happened to have the same mental health issues as me. Yeah, I think that's what happened there. So I need to rewatch it now that I've healed.

Fair sounds so dumb.

I have to heal from this TV show. Then I'll go back and see it again.

So how do we. How do we end some joyful noises?

There's no rhyme. There's no rhythm. There's no reason. There's no pattern. Like, it could just like, randomly end, like mid sentence or something.

You could just be like,