Completely Conspicuous 572: History Never Repeats

Celebrating the show's 15th birthday with a look back at some key moments over the years. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").

Show notes:

- Going the clip show route

- Episode 2: The early days

- Episode 72: The first guest, featuring Jay Breitling

- Episode 141: Talking about mixtapes, including recordings I made when I was 13-14

- Episode 146: Talking to Amanda Guest about college radio

- Episode 186: My visit to Seattle, which got off to a strange start

- Episode 253: Ric Dube and I break down "Smokin' In the Boys Room"

- Episode 315: Brian Salvatore and I torture ourselves by listening to Van Halen III

- Episode 494: Talking about drug-related concert experiences with Phil Stacey.

Completely Conspicuous is available through Apple Podcasts. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 502: Telling You How We Really Feel

Part 3 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of 2018. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ
- Featuring special guest/studio audience member Ric Dube
- On to our top 5 selections
- JK's #5
- An unexpectedly great album from a member of the Strokes
- JB's #5
- Weird shoegaze straight outta Philly
- JB's #4
- More excellent Philadelphia indie rock
- JK's #3
- Angry, angular UK rock act that has listened to the Fall
- JB's #3
- "I had difficulty finding fault with this record"
- Esteemed YoLa-ologist in the house
- YLT keeps doing its own thing
- JK's #2
- Another fine double album from an interesting Toronto act
- Where hardcore meets prog
- Lots of guest vocalists
- JB's #2
- Sweeping orchestral material, hot jams
- Bands still make videos for some reason
- Picking and choosing from the catalog
- JK's #1
- A political record released early in the year that still resonates
- Fiery live show to go with the album
- Countering a master of distraction
- The kids with the vaping and the pot smoking and the whatnot
- It's a strange time to be alive
- JB's #1 and JK's #4
- Bit of a grower
- A darker, moodier album than her previous work
- Terrific live performer
- Dube: Became a fan by complete accident
- Doobs recommends the Salad Boys
- New stuff on the horizon: Bob Mould, Pedro the Lion, Mike Krol, Swervedriver, Telekinesis
- Johnny Foreigner reunion seems unlikely

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 501: Make With the Counting Down Already

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of 2018. Listen to the episode below or download directly.

Show notes:
- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ
- Featuring special guest/studio audience member Ric Dube
- JB's #10/JK's #9
- On-again, off-again band led by Steve Hartlett
- Ah, the old "sweatpants-with-beers-stuffed-down-the-legs" deal
- Reminiscent of "Bug"-era Dino Jr.
- JK's #10
- Labelmates of Parquet Courts with similar sound
- The downside of "Music Limited"
- JB's #9
- Boston act traffics in "millennial mopery"
- Lo-fi, self-released effort
- Stickin' it to the Man with his Bandcamp URL
- JK's #8
- Released on 1/1/18
- Fueled by political frustration and anger
- A "fun protest album"
- JB's #8
- Brand new record from a UK supergroup
- Long-awaited followup to 2007 debut
- Rhythmically diverse look at British culture
- Whither Gorillaz?
- JK's #7
- The 12th studio album from power-pop masters
- Four songwriters who each wrote three songs
- Consistently great
- The fun of hunting down B-sides and rarities before artists started releasing compilations/reissues
- The ability to fall asleep on your feet while at a rock concert
- JB's #7
- A good record from a guitar wizard
- Less volume than his main gig
- "Relatively understated throughout"
- JK's #6
- An expansive effort from a prolific indie act
- Branching out their sound with more danceable songs
- Voicing political outrage
- JB's #6
- Venturing into jazzier realms
- Led by one of the more interesting guitarists of last 25 years
- Avant-rock/jazz; "it's not like Kenny G"
- Next: The top 5

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 500: Less Rock, More Talk

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Jay Breitling about our favorite music of 2018. Listen to the episode below or download directly.


Show notes:
- Recorded at Clicky Clicky world HQ
- Featuring special guest Ric Dube
- The decline of rock's popularity
- Album sales are way down
- That time the Melvins hit the Top 200 albums chart
- Apple's going to work with the Amazon Echo soon
- Breitling pays for the Amazon Music "Talky Talky"
- The youths don't pay for physical media anymore
- Ric's family has Spotify, he has dedicated streaming of his own collection
- Modern country is doing big business, relatively speaking
- Pop music is doing well
- Most rock acts make money through touring, not albums
- The Stones are still touring
- Mick and Keith were considered "old" in their mid-30s
- Breitling: The year's music really picked up in the second half
- New Mary Lattimore release is enjoyable
- Ric: Enjoying Brian Eno's latest release, which is a $30 app
- Kumar: Honorable mentions include Tony Molina, Slaves, Thin Lips, Arthur Buck, Buffalo Tom, Joyce Manor, Swearin, Stove, Screaming Females
- Breitling: Master System, Palm, Superchunk, Frankie Cosmos, Kurt Vile
- Next: We count down our top 10 albums

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Trust Fund Challenge #23: "It's Up to You" (1977)

We've had a few months' hiatus, but Trust Fund Challenge is back, baby! In our latest installment, Ric and I watch a short promo film trying to round up volunteers for the 1977 Sun Bowl Carnival. It's chock full o' Texans, urgent pleas for the public to do crappy jobs to help the college football establishment make big bucks and interesting '70s fashions.

Trust Fund Challenge #22: "Five Desperate Women" (1971)

If there was ever a time for much-needed laughter, it's now. The latest installment of Trust Fund Challenge finds Ric and I watching a 1971 TV movie produced by Aaron Spelling (like seemingly everything else back then) that pits Stefanie Powers and four college friends against a homicidal maniac. The movie is fairly serious stuff, but we have a lot of fun with it.

Trust Fund Challenge #21: "Poochinski" (1990)

There's a fine line between "So bad it's good" and "So bad it's goddamn awful." The latest installment of Trust Fund Challenge finds Ric and I watching a pilot that is legendarily horrendous: Poochinski. Filmed in the late '80s and aired once in the summer of 1990 on NBC, Poochinski featured Peter Boyle as a slob police detective killed on the job whose soul enters a bulldog. I know, gritty realism.  Anyhoo, we have a lot of fun watching this thing that somehow aired on network television. You will, too.

Trust Fund Challenge #20: Death Car on the Freeway (1979)

In the '70s, TV movies were big business. The Movie of the Week was a standard feature for all the big networks. The latest installment of Trust Fund Challenge finds Ric and I watching an above-average CBS flick directed by Hal Needham and starring Shelley Hack, who had just joined the cast of Charlie's Angels. The film features some familiar faces, prominent use of an 8-track tape and a particularly evil pair of black gloves.

Trust Fund Challenge #19: "Who Believes in Ghosts?" (1973)

In the latest episode of Trust Fund Challenge, Ric and I tackle yet another craptastic early '70s cartoon, The Brady Kids. Ostensibly a Scooby Doo mystery ripoff, this show also featured only half of the actual kid actors from the Brady Bunch because of contract disputes. So you get some truly awful line readings from the producer's kids, the same ones who appeared in the Lassie's Rescue Rangers show we watched in TFC #12. Add in recycled backgrounds, a hackneyed plot, leaden jokes and some racist characters and you have a typical mass-produced '70s cartoon show.

Trust Fund Challenge #18: In Broad Daylight (1971)

The great thing about the stuff we watch on Trust Fund Challenge is it isn't all bad. "In Broad Daylight" is a fairly well done 1971 TV movie about an actor who recently went blind and is out for revenge when he discovers his wife is cheating on him with his best friend. Featuring a pre-"Bob Newhart Show" Suzanne Pleshette, before her voice turned to gravel.

Trust Fund Challenge #16: ARK II (1976)

This week on Trust Fund Challenge, Ric and I dig into an episode of the 1970s Saturday morning live-action show ARK II. We had fun with the bad acting, the guest appearance from Robbie the Robot and a talking chimp who doesn't talk.

Trust Fund Challenge #15: Show 'N Tell's "The Story of Animal Warnings"

In the latest episode of Trust Fund Challenge, Ric Dube and I watch a film strip about animal warnings that was part of GE's Show 'N Tell series. Not only is it educational, but it's also entertaining. No, really.

Completely Conspicuous 390: The Great Escape

Part 2 of my conversation with guest Ric Dube as we discuss vacations. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded at More Lost Time world HQ
- Check out our web series Trust Fund Challenge
- Vancouver is a great destination
- Trouble at the border
- Someday, Jay will visit India again
- A co-worker's move to France
- Ric's vacation movie marathon
- Dick Clark's role in Killers Three
- Ric has beef with Christopher Nolan movies
- Medical emergencies
- Black Christmas is a Canuck horror classic from the director of Porky's

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Completely Conspicuous 389: Holiday Road

Part 1 of my conversation with guest Ric Dube as we discuss vacations. Listen to the episode below or download directly (right click and "save as").


Show notes:
- Recorded at More Lost Time world HQ
- Check out our web series Trust Fund Challenge
- A reboot/remake/sequel to National Lampoon's Vacation is out
- The first Vacation movie still holds up
- Based on a National Lampoon novella
- Both of our families went to Disney World in the '70s
- Family vacations can either be packed with activities or relaxing
- Jay: Just went to Disney with two other families
- Ric: We rent a vacation home in Maine every summer with inlaws
- Jay: We vary vacations each year; might go to Europe in a few years
- Doing work while on vacation sucks
- Ric: We were an hour away from everything
- Ric's dad takes on a ropes course
- Going out West
- To be continued

Completely Conspicuous is available through the iTunes podcast directory. Subscribe and write a review!

The opening and closing theme of Completely Conspicuous is "Theme to Big F'in Pants" by Jay Breitling. Find out more about Senor Breitling at his fine music blog Clicky Clicky. Voiceover work is courtesy of James Gralian.

Trust Fund Challenge #14: Why Do You Buy? (1971)

The latest installment of Trust Fund Challenge is short, punchy and a good encapsulation of what we do on TFC. "Why Do You Buy?" is a 10-minute short film about marketing messages and how they try to manipulate you into buying crap you don't need: in other words, it's how marketing works. Ric and I have fun with it and note that it's probably the first screen credit for David Rasche, who went on to star in "Sledge Hammer" and appear in numerous film and TV roles. But the best part of the show is the realization that director David Altschul went on to become the very thing he was warning about in this film.

Trust Fund Challenge #13: Goldengirl (1979)

What's not to like about Goldengirl? Plenty, actually. But it's a fun watch. On this installment of Trust Fund Challenge, Ric and I have fun dissecting this piece of 1979 fluff that was designed to make leggy chanteuse Susan Anton a star and coincide with the jingoistic fervor around the U.S. athletes participating in the 1980 Moscow Olympics. Neither of those things happened: Anton made a few more movies before becoming better known for TV cameos and a regular nightclub act in Vegas, and the U.S. pulled out of the '80 Olympics to protest the Soviet Union's invasion of Afghanistan.

Still, the movie has a lot of unintentional hilarity, including James Coburn's cheeseball sports agent, Curt Jurgens' Cherman doktorr, and of course, the suspension of disbelief required to believe that Susan Anton could be a world-class sprinter. We have a great segment during the musical montage in which we translate the real meaning behind "Love Theme for Goldengirl" or whatever the hell it's called.

Trust Fund Challenge #12: Lassie's Rescue Rangers (1973)

On the latest installment of Trust Fund Challenge, Ric and I watch an episode of Lassie's Rescue Rangers, a short-lived '70s Saturday morning cartoon that was essentially a Scooby Doo takeoff. Only remove the amusing talking dog and stoner buddy and replace him with a smug know-it-all collie, a deadly serious patriarch figure who never opens his eyes, an effeminate teen and some other lunkheads solving half-baked mysteries. Oh, and an insipid yet insanely catchy theme song that will burrow its way into your brain like a Ceti eel from Star Trek 2.

Trust Fund Challenge #9: "Supertrain" (1979)

In this mega-sized installment of Trust Fund Challenge, Ric and I are confronted with the shiny spectacle that was the 1979 NBC megaflop Supertrain. The network invested a lot of resources on this "Love Boat on the rails" show, and it failed miserably. We have a lot of fun trying to figure out why this happened and who thought it would be a good idea to feature the acting stylings of one Steve Lawrence in the pilot.

Trust Fund Challenge #8: Hot Wheels (1969)

A little late posting this one, but it's a good 'un. In this episode of TFC, Ric and I watch a couple of old shorts from the Hot Wheels cartoon show, an actual thing that aired in the late '60s. It's a blatant toy commercial masquerading as a cartoon, but it features voice acting from the likes of Casey Kasem and a young Albert Brooks. We definitely had some fun with it.

Trust Fund Challenge #7: Satan's School for Girls (1973)

The latest installment of Trust Fund Challenge finds Ric and I tackling a classic old TV horror flick produced by none other than Aaron Spelling, Satan's School for Girls. This 1973 ABC movie of the week featured two future Charlie's Angels, Kate Jackson and a very young Cheryl Stoppelmoor (aka Cheryl Ladd), as well Roy Thinnes, Lloyd Bochner and Pamela Franklin. The film definitely influenced other, more well-known movies and even inspired a "modern" update in 2000 starring Shannen Doherty. Settle in and grab a gigantic glass of wine...