And welcome back to 35,000 Watts, the podcast. My name is Michael Millard. I’m the director of a feature film called 35,000 Watts, the story of college radio. It is about college radio and it is available for download at this very moment at 35,000 watts.com. But first, why not listen to a podcast episode also about college radio like this one?
And today, we are gonna talk about a iconic college radio band and an iconic college radio album that came out 30 years ago. So that’s kind of one of the reasons that we’re pulling it out now to have a discussion about. We’re talking about the band live and the album throwing copper released in 1994. Oh, and I should say I’m going to talk about it not just with myself, but with my 2 co hosts, Keith Porterfield and Scott Mobley. Hello.
So throwing copper came out in 94, and I remember almost to the day when we got the 1st promo for because it was promo to college radio first. It was a college radio exclusive. I think a 10 inch disc, vinyl. It was transparent blue, if I remember right. Vinyl.
And, oh, green. It was I think it was actually green. No, it was green. That’s right. I bring that up because it showed that the record label understood how to build this album.
It was promoted to college radio first. It was sent on vinyl. They knew exactly what they were doing when they did it that way. They wanted the the core college radio audience to buy into this album first. This is their depending on if you’re reading the Wikipedia page or if you’re reading other sources, their second or third album, I think we’ve all kinda consider it to be their second album after mental jewelry.
I personally didn’t I don’t remember playing much off mental jewelry. At KTXT, we did play songs off that album, and I think it came out before my time there. So maybe it was in heavier rotation before I got there. But my introduction to to live was this this 10 inch vinyl of selling the drama that was the first single that was released. So, again, I bring it up because the record label obviously had a plan.
They wanted to get college radio on board. That was where mental jewelry had had done all of its damage and had found its success. I think someone, if not many people at the record label, recognized that they had something pretty good probably on their hands when throwing copper came out, and, they wanted to to build it on college radio first to let it find its audience, and then it it was destined to obviously be a much bigger album than that on mainstream radio. And and in fact, it was. They had multiple, singles that hit pretty big on modern rock radio, on billboard charts.
And, eventually, I think in its 52nd week on the charts, made it to number 1 on the billboard chart. These days, it’s absolutely unheard of that an album would be out for 52 weeks before it hits the top of the charts. Like, that just doesn’t really happen anymore, and it wasn’t super common back then, but that was a time when you could let an album kinda bubble and bubble and bubble until it found its audience, and it I think not every album had that chance, obviously, but, the record label for live, I think they recognized that if they gave this album time and gave it the right promotion, that it was gonna be huge, and and it was, in fact, a pretty huge album. It’s the one that I know the 3 of us. I I was gonna say owned, but owned in the sense that I think we all 3 got a free copy from KTXT, because if I remember right, they sent, like, 10 or 15 copies of that album to us on the heels of of the, selling the drama promo because they wanted us to to give them away and to promote them, and obviously they wanted the staff to be on board with it.
So again, an example of of how well they were kind of promoting the album to college radio, but I think all 3 of us got it for free, from from the station, but I think we probably would have bought it, you know, as as soon as it came out if we hadn’t. And if I remember right, all 3 of us kind of fell in love with it. We all played it constantly. It’s it’s a solid album from beginning to end, and it never really got the acclaim that Pearl Jam 10 or Nirvana Nevermind or, you know, Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream. I it it doesn’t seem like it’s really spoken about in the same terms as those albums, but I would argue that it it is as good, if not, maybe better than some of the albums that do get spoken about in in hush tones as being, you know, the the albums of the nineties.
So again, being 30 years now after the release, we’ve all had a chance to go back to kinda think about it and listen to it. And I’m curious, you know, what your thoughts are after you go back and revisit this album so long after its release. I find it very interesting that, you know, what what you said is absolutely true that this is not considered one of the iconic albums of the nineties. And I don’t understand why because to me, it is almost the iconic album, at least for me, of that era of my life. It was the album, and I I’m sure you guys remember I was I was absolutely nuts for this album, and I still am in a lot of ways.
I mean, a lot of the songs maybe have gotten a little played out, But in in listening to it again, you know, I I was really blown away with just how solid it is cover to cover. And and I will say for me, I know this is not true for, I think everybody else here and maybe a lot of people too, but I was very into metal jewelry. I really love that album. So when this thing came out, it was not something new for me. It was something I was anticipating.
I was waiting for this album to come out. I was ready for it to come out. I can wait to hear what they were gonna do after this album that I love, the Metal Jury. I mentioned that listening to Throwing Copper now, I still feel the same way about it I did then. That is not true of Metal Jury.
That album has not aged well at all. And I think we’re gonna get into this a little bit more, but I think the reason this album is not considered an iconic nineties album is because of where live went afterwards. You know, they never did anything this good again. And I’ve spent a lot of time thinking about why that is, and I think the reason is that, lyrically, this album is unlike anything they ever did. The lyrics on this album are they are powerful and poignant, and in some ways, spiritual.
But lyrically, live seems to get on this really sort of new age hippie spiritual train lyrically that I think abandons a lot of people. And I never thought that mental jewelry was that album, but it absolutely is. It’s it it reeks of it. And the album after this reeks of it, and everything they’ve done since reeks of it. But this album, they got right.
But I think that that sort of fade out that they had, the sort of lack of success in the albums that followed this have sort of tarnished their reputation. I think if they had put out another album I mean, putting out another album as good as throwing copper is probably a a herculean task for any band. But they could have put out one that was similar enough to it that it would have carried that forward. And they just did they put out this sort of droning, Secret Samadhi is a very I I hate to use the word mellow because it’s not mellow. It has a lot of crunchy guitars.
But as far as pacing goes, it’s a much more somber album than Throwing Copper is. And I think it just threw a lot of people off. That’s the big picture of live, is that they sort of rose up through mental jewelry, recorded this absolute masterpiece of an album, and then went back to what they were doing on mental jewelry in a sense, musically. It’s not, but it is. And I think they just sort of lost their their grip on on people’s ears because they weren’t doing what we obviously wanted to hear with an 8,000,000 copy selling record.
I sort of blame them more than the music industry or, you know, anything else. I think they just kind of went the wrong direction after this album. That said, I do remember getting those vinyl copies of selling the drama, and I do remember the CDs coming in, and I remember a lot of stuff. But one thing I remember, above all of that maybe is there was a song that is not on this album called Hold Me Up. It was somehow, someway heard by me in 1994 when this album came out.
I have done research as far as I could possibly go, trying to figure out where I would have heard that song. I always thought it was the b side of some single we got at k txt, or it was on a promotional thing, or something like that. Everything I find online say it was unreleased, and no one ever heard it, but I did. And, and so this is sort of the the backstory of that. I had forgotten about the song.
I didn’t really think much about it. It had completely washed out of my brain. And several years ago, Kevin Smith made a movie called Zach and Miri Make A Porno. And he used the song hold me up in the, forgive the pun, in the climax of the film. And I heard it and went, that’s that song that wasn’t on the album that I heard and loved back in the day.
And so I started trying to find it again, and you couldn’t find it. But the fact that all the research now says that it didn’t exist is really bothersome to me because I know I heard it, and, obviously, Kevin Smith heard it. So you know? And, apparently, he had to beg them to put it in the film and give a bunch of money. Oh, there’s a bunch of story on that.
Anyway, because the song sort of had a little resurgence after that movie and all of that, it’s now included on the 25th anniversary of Throwing Copper. And so if you download it off of, Apple Music or Spotify or one of those things, it’s on there. It’s a great song. If you haven’t heard it, it fits perfectly well on this album. So that sort of leads me into the my next question.
I realize nowadays there’s no such thing as how many songs can we cram on an album or, you know, we we we gotta keep this down to 1 disc, so what goes away? But just for the sake of argument, let’s say that we have to get hold me up on throwing copper, and we have to eliminate a song to do it. What song would you eliminate in order to do that? And to help me with that, I sort of ranked the songs on the album best to worst in my humble opinion. I thought that would kinda get us to sort of talk about the tracks a little bit and maybe just sort of go through those things and and sort of answer that question.
Well, for me, on this album, I had to go back and listen to Hold Me Up. I didn’t remember it. And even after hearing it, I didn’t remember it. So I I’m not sure where you would have heard it earlier because I’m not sure that I ever did. If I did, it didn’t stick in my mind.
First things first, I will reject the premise. There’s not a song on Throwing Copper that I would swap this one out for, but if I had to if I had to get it on there and I had to get rid of 1 of the, tracks, that exists on the album as it is, it would probably be White Discussion. That’s a song that’s got its fans, and I know, Scott, that you are one of them, so I hope I’m sure we’ll discuss this. For me, though, there’s just not a weak song on that album. Like I said, there’s not one that I would really want to get rid of.
The one when I listen to it again, and pretty much the only reason that I say wide discussion in this conversation is when I went back and relistened to this album, I was thoroughly engrossed all the way through. I was listening to every note of every song, all the way up until my discussion. It was the one song that my mind wandered on. It was the one song that I found myself thinking about other things and then going back to, oh, yeah. This really, really is pretty good.
And then my mind is wandering again. And I don’t know, I think, why exactly that is. I think it has more to do with the fact that I like the rest of the album as much as I do, more maybe than it does with not liking that particular song. But there’s just no way like the first 8 songs on that or 8 or even 9 songs on that album, there’s nothing on there that I would even really consider. You know, starting with Damn at Otter Creek and then running all the way through Shittown, there’s not a song on there that that I would even remotely consider removing from that album.
Like, that is as strong a run to open an album as I have heard pretty much on anything. I mean, that’s 8 just solid, solid, solid songs right back to back. So if I have to get rid of 1, it’s probably the right discussion. But I don’t think that there’s a song on that album that I’d wanna get rid of if I don’t have to. I’d rather tack it on the end if we’re gonna, you know, include Hold Me Up.
I had not heard Hold Me Up until today, actually. And it’s fantastic. It’s absolutely as good as anything in my opinion on throwing copper. I did some research to go back a little bit, kind of like you did, and there are people who claim to have had it like on a cassette or, you know, something in the nineties. So it was out there floating around in in that shadow world that that certain albums, you know, circulate in that somehow it shows up on your radar.
You don’t know how. You don’t know where. It didn’t on mine. It didn’t on Keith, it sounds like, but somehow it showed up on yours. But, it definitely had a cult following, and there were a lot of people that were really excited to get, like, a proper studio release of that.
But again, today was my first exposure to it. There is a a song that I I would probably, trade out TBD if I had to. White discussion would probably be this my second choice to drop off the album, but but to a lesser degree, TBD is is really the only track on on throwing copper that I it’s not you know, again, it’s not that I don’t like the track. It’s it’s to me, it’s the only one that that is weaker than hold me up, but also kinda like Keith was saying, like, that’s the one where maybe I lose attention a little bit, whereas the rest of throwing copper, I mean, it it really does grab you and keep you engaged the entire way through. Like, there’s real there’s just not a moment that that it drops for, you know, for being a a 13 or 14 track album depending on if you count the hidden track, it’s just so solid.
You know, there’s a few tracks in retrospect that got so much airplay that now, you know, I’m a little more burned out or at least I was burned out on in the nineties. I alone and Iris and all over you got heavy, heavy, heavy rotation on on MTV and stuff. So those are songs that maybe if I am doing, like, a a a quick listen of throwing copper, I’m not as into just because I’ve heard them so many times, but none of them would be songs that I would drop. Because I remember when we first got the album and we’re first hearing those songs, How did they manage to record this many great songs in a row? How did this album not manage to get kind of more acclaim as a in retrospect?
It it certainly got a claim at the time. But even 10 or 15 years later looking back, how is it not seen right there with, like, never mind and 10? For the sake of of this argument for me, I sort of ranked the songs on the album from top to bottom. And just to to tell you, just to sort of give you a perspective on how good this album is, I ranked 13 songs. I didn’t include horse, which is the the hidden track.
All Over You is number 10. It’s at the bottom. That is not a slight against All Over You. It’s a fantastic song. It’s not as good as the 9 tracks that I have before it, you know.
And that’s just a testament to how great this album is. But in ranking it top to bottom, I also chose TBD as as the bottom. I think you’re right, Keith. It does get back to it. It gets it gets there by the end, but it feels like a gear shift when it comes on.
And it just has always kinda stuck out to me as the one maybe weak link in this chain. Although, I I do like it, and I I certainly, you know, I would much rather have an album with more songs on it than less. But and and then that one doesn’t need to go anywhere. But if, you know, gun to my head, I have to take one of these off. That’s TBD is the one that goes.
If I have to throw in a second one just to to throw a vote, I would say Shittown. I can see that. I mean, lyrically, especially Shittown is not the greatest set of lyrics on there. You know, you talk about TBD being a a gear shift in there, though. I think it’s it works well for that reason actually because, you know, you get, after, lightning crashes, you get a run of just relentless rockers, great relentless rockers, but I think you need that little pause in there that that TBD kind of gives you between, Shittown and stage, and it just it just gives you enough of a pause before you get right back into the serious rockers with stage right after that.
So I like it its placement in there as well. You know, you can call it a gear shift, but I think it works well, as a gear shift in the spot that it’s in in the track listing. I think you’re right. I mean, I agree with that. I and I and I certainly think it has its place there, especially since, you know, getting into the end of this album, you have some of the longer, a little more epic sounding songs, and maybe that’s a nice little break before you get into that.
So, yeah, it’s a it’s a perfectly good song. I’m not saying anything bad about it. It’s one of those things where you if you gotta pick one, for me, that’s the one. I have at the at the top of this list, I had to put lightning crashes. And I know that that song is played out.
I know that it got drilled into our heads for years when it came out. But in retrospect and listening to it again now, that song is as good as advertised. It is just it’s so perfectly written. It’s so perfectly produced. It is it is it deserved everything it got.
And, unfortunately, I think everything had got sort of tarnished it as well. You know, people kind of grown at it now, but it is just such a fantastic song. And then right behind that, I have one we haven’t really talked about muchly yet, and that’s Pillar of Davidson, which is a little bit of a standout on this album, and that it’s it’s longer than anything on here. It doesn’t rock quite as hard as some of the other tracks in this album. But, man, what a fantastically written and executed song.
And the, you know, the end the build to the end with the with the back vocals and all that stuff is just incredible. I I have listened to that song a 1000000 times in my life, and I hope I get to hear it a 1000000 more. It’s just it’s so good. Good. Now to the surprise of no one, all the rockers are toward the top of my list.
I have stage waitress, Iris, top, all up towards the top of this this list because that’s just my that’s just my thing. I really had a hard time putting these in order putting them in some kind of order because I I finished it and I went, wait a minute. Damn it, Otter Creek is number 11? That song’s fantastic. You know?
But it’s the 11th best song on this album, in my opinion. So it’s just, you know, it’s really just a testament to how great this album is. Every I’ll I’ll revisit this album probably every couple of years, I guess, for various reasons. And one one song that I didn’t appreciate as much at the time that I appreciate more now is stage. I did not fully appreciate how much that song rocks.
It rocks real, real, real hard. Like, I just can’t even Lots of lots of rocking. There’s lots of rocking happening in that song that I just which is funny because I’ve mellowed out a lot as I’ve gotten older, but I didn’t appreciate how hard that song rocked when I was in my my my rocking phase. I don’t have them all ranked. I will say my favorite song on the album is pop.
To me, that was the obvious next single on the album and it shows what I know because it it was not released at all, but that’s that’s probably my favorite stage now is is is right up there with that. You know, the the songs that were the huge singles, it’s a little harder for me to kind of rank those properly because I I did get burned out on lightning crashes. I did get burned out on eye alone for sure. But, selling the drama still as good as ever as far as I’m concerned. I actually really like Shuttown having lived in Lubbock.
There was a little bit of there’s a little bit of recognition in those lyrics, I think. It’s one of those things where you’re only allowed to to to say that about Lubbock if you’ve lived there. And if someone else said it, I would defend Lubbock. Maybe not as much anymore, but I I used to be more defensive of Lubbock back in the day, but, it did it did kinda ring hit home a little bit. But, yeah, those are top stage shit town or or at the top, but but like you, the the difference between number 1 and number 13 is way, way tighter than than on most albums, if I were to rank them.
That’s for sure. For us at KTXT, I believe that we we had kinda given the big singles their flowers already by the time we got to top, if I remember right. I think Selma Drama, Lightning Crashes, I Alone, maybe even Iris had all had some runs, up and down our our top 35 before we even got to top. But we were still getting so many requests for everything that it was kind of the, you know, what else are we gonna play off this album? Well, this is the obvious one.
It’s it’s gotta be top because it’s such a great song. And it is disappointing to me that that didn’t never, you know, actually got released as a single because it is such a great song. And it might be my number one as well. I still love the singles through the ones that did get released, selling the drama, I Alone. Those are gonna always gonna be me toward the top of my list, which I just love those songs.
Lightning Crashes, I agree, might be the best song on the album. It did get a little overplayed at the time, and there was even a time where I kinda had some some backlash toward it. I didn’t wanna hear it anymore. But going back and listen to it now, you you can’t deny just how great that song is. And for a lyric writer that, you know, we’ve we’ve discussed his lyrics a little bit, I think we’re gonna get into that a little more moving forward, but, you know, most people tend to fall into 2 camps with his lyrics, either they’re they’re really deep and great or they’re kind of goofy, And I tend to, lean toward the they’re kinda goofy, end of that spectrum.
But there are some great lyrics on lightning crashes, the the couplet where he talks about the the baby dying just down the hall from or the baby being born, I should say, just down the hall from the old woman dying at about the same time and just kind of the the imagery of one life ending as in the other one is brought into the world. I think is one of the times where his pretension of being a really deep lyricist actually worked and is is really good. I won’t say that hit that entire song is is, you know, at that level of lyrics, but I do like that particular verse. I think that’s one time where his his, output actually met, you know, his intentions, which wasn’t always the case with that guy. But, yeah, you know, to put one of these songs one of these songs, if you’re gonna rank them, one of them has to end up at 13.
And none of these songs deserves to be considered the worst on an album because none of them are bad. It’s just because it’s number 13, which for me again would be White Discussion. I love White Discussion. I think it’s a great song. It’s just of these 13 songs, it is probably my least favorite of them.
But, yeah, there is not a single bad song on this album. It is, to my mind, one of the greatest rock albums of the nineties, and revisiting it to do this has actually been a lot of fun for me because I hadn’t heard it in a while, and I had thoroughly enjoyed getting to go back and kinda revisit a lot of these songs. Just really, really great album. Do you think that the popularity of something like lightning crashes is the reason maybe it’s not considered that? Like, we’re all talking about it kinda being played out, and it and it is.
But do you think maybe that’s why, especially, like, in the critical community, they wouldn’t go back and say this is one of the best albums of the nineties because they just got burned out on it. And, you know, maybe maybe that’s it. And then maybe the, you know, coupling that with that nothing they did since sounds like this, you know, obviously, is part of it too. But I I think I think just for this, the sake of this album, you know, if you look at these, you know, greatest albums of the nineties or whatever, any of those kind of lists, there’s a lot of a lot of, you know, one album wonders on there. So why not this one?
And I think it’s maybe maybe it’s that. Maybe it just got it just got burned out. It just got played out a little bit too much. Because I definitely there was a time where I was totally sick of lightning crashes. I never I could’ve gone without ever hearing it again.
But, you know, taking some time off and going, man, listening to it again, I’m like, I I can’t I just can’t. I can’t dismiss that song. It’s too good. You know? So maybe it’s some of that.
I don’t know. I think you’re right. I think that probably has a lot to do with it. It was just it got so played out at the time that a lot of people never went to, you know, needed felt like they didn’t need to go back to hear it again. But I think what happens later in their career and the fact that they never have really another big hit or anything else that kind of brings them back into the public consciousness probably hurts them too.
You know, if if, say, 3 albums down the road, they had had a monster hit of some sort, you know, a rocker or a ballad or whatever, it doesn’t matter, that kind of brought their them back into the public consciousness. I think maybe you would have had a revisiting of those songs and might have had, kind of a resurgence of of popularity or popularity is probably not the word I wanna use, but of just being considered to be a better record than it is. The fact that they never had that probably works against it just as much as the fact that it got as played out as it did at the time. They did have a minor resurgence with the song when the doll I think it’s called when the dolphins cry. It was a minor that song.
Yeah. Yeah. It was the album after secret Samadhi, and I forget the name of that album, but it was the lead single on that album. And it was a mild hit. I think, this is just my opinion, that the lyrics of that song might have reminded people what they didn’t like about the lyrics of live before.
And the lyrics for that song are, not to put too fine a point on it, they’re horrible. They’re they’re like I I could pick up any 9th grade girl’s journal and find those lyrics. And, you know, they I I they’re they are the lyrics of Creed. They are the you know, it’s that. And so I think maybe even though the song is very catchy and it was a mild hit, I think maybe some people went, oh, yeah.
That’s a guy that’s, you know, got this weird obsession with spirituality and the harmony of the earth and all this other stuff that just comes off as really trite. I mean, there’s a way to do it, but I just I don’t think he knows how. But I was gonna bring that song up. So my trajectory with live, I actually like secret Samadhi. I listen to it quite a bit, not as much as there as throwing copper, but I I remember buying it the day it came out.
I went to see live in in Las Vegas in 97 when I was living there, and they were touring on secret samadhi. It was a great show. I I think Secret Samadhi is actually better than than we’re kind of given it credit for, because he hadn’t started to go back into his worst tendencies yet, I think, lyrically. It starts to show up. It’s certainly not as cohesive an album as Throwing Copper.
It’s it’s definitely not as good track for track as Throwing Copper, but few albums are. But I like, like, Likinis Juice was the first single that did okay. Turn Your Head was was played quite a bit on on rock radio in Vegas at the time. I remember they had a an edge kind of station in in Vegas that I used to listen to. So those songs got got airplay.
What I was gonna say is it was when the distance to hear came out and that damn dolphin song came out where everything started to go wrong, like, you can’t release a song called the dolphins cry and expect not to get some blowback from that, like, that is an absolutely ridiculous thing to call a song. You you just you have to stop yourself at that point. Someone needed to stop Ed Kowalczyk, who I’m sure was a 100% responsible for the lyrics and the name of that song. You gotta actually makes the lyrics on mental jewelry seem a little more a little less goofy. Yeah.
I mean, that is a a pretty good song. If you can somehow block out the words that he’s saying and just listen to the song for what it is, it’s it’s a it’s another solid live track. It’s it’s a song that you would expect to come from from later era live, and it’s And it’s it sounds more like throwing copper than anything on Sacred Samani. Absolutely. Yeah.
Yeah. Sounds more like throwing copper, and it doesn’t sound like anything else on distance to hear if I remember right. Musically, anyway. But dear God, you can’t really saw it called the Dolphin’s Cry and expect to be taken seriously. So, you know, I I think secret somebody was a let down, but I don’t think it necessarily was the death knell.
They could have maybe come back from that with another album that that didn’t lean into his worst tendencies and maybe continue that path that they were on. But the Dolphins cry, man. The Dolphins cry. I I think I agree with you that in I I I definitely agree with you that Secret Samadhi is not a bad album. It’s not.
I think where that album goes wrong, we talked we’ve talked a lot about how they go wrong lyrically quite a bit. And that really, I think, is the biggest problem that they had moving forward. Secret Samadhi doesn’t really have that problem. Secret Samadhi’s problem is that it just doesn’t have any singles on it. I mean, even Likinis Juice, which was a single and a pretty successful one and a great song.
It’s not your traditional rock radio single. It’s kinda it’s slow. It’s kinda droning. It has a sort of a different sound. It doesn’t sound like anything I’m throwing copper.
And I’m all for them trying a new direction. But Secret Samadhi is lakini’s juice and 9, 10 more songs that sound exactly like it. It really doesn’t have any it just doesn’t have any singles on it. It doesn’t have a lightning crashes or an iris or an eye alone or, you know, it just it did that those songs aren’t on it. And I think that really hurt.
And had they come back with an album, and I think that’s what exactly what they were trying to do with that next album, Was that, okay. This didn’t work. Let’s go back and make it sound a little more like throwing copper. And that’s what they did, but then they let Ed write lyrics about dolphins crying, and that’s where where it went south. It just all goes wrong, man.
I agree. Secret smarty is actually not a bad album. You know, we talked about little king’s juice. Actually, it’s my favorite song on that album and for me holds up with pretty much anything else live did. So I think that’s a really good one.
Turn my head. Highly at the time that Turn My Head was big, I was working an overnight shift, weekend overnight shift, at a hot AC radio station and it seemed like I had to play that out that song like every 2 hours. I mean, that song I don’t know if it was that big everywhere else, but at the at the hot AC station I was working at, we played that thing all the time. There are other good songs on that, album, especially toward the end. I think America and, Gas Head Goes West, which are the last two songs on the album, are both really good.
My problem with with Secret Samadhi is is just that there is a lot of filler on it. Like, there are 3 or 4 really good songs, and the rest of it, like you say, is just not not anything interesting. Like you said, mid tempo, droney, not much going on. Lots of filler on that album, but it did have its moments. So, yeah, I I don’t wanna, you know, completely diss Secret Samadhi.
It did have some some good songs on it, but, yeah. You’re right. Dolphins Cry. That was you’re probably right. The hard left turn into just, you know, the irretrievable loss of their career kinda happened right about that moment.
And it’s me that’s maybe not fair, but I think it also it plays into Ed Kowalczyk’s image, the way he presented himself if you were a big enough fan or if you were into the rock world enough to know kind of about Ed as a person or whatever. He’s not the most super likable rock star whoever walked the face of the earth. I mean, the members of his own band, I don’t think really like him anymore if I’ve followed their career trajectory, correctly. And and so I think that that they they they they go together. Right?
Like, you could excuse some of the spirituality and the lyrics being maybe a little pretentious if you like the person who’s giving that to you. Or the other way around, you could excuse the guy being kind of unlikable if he’s writing really great lyrics and writing songs like throwing copper. Right? Like, no one hated Ed Kowalczyk during the throwing copper years because he was even though he was rocking that terrible haircut and coming off as pretty pretentious in interviews and stuff, even at that time, he was writing absolutely fantastic music. So you you you can kinda overlook some of that, But I think you get into Seeker Samadhi to some degree, and certainly The Distance TO Hear, and and the the albums that came after that, it’s hard to overlook all of that, and hear a song called The Dolphins Cry, and not kind of start to back away from that band.
And I think that’s what I did. I think that’s what everybody did for the most part. I mean, surely, life still has fans, so saying everybody is not fair, but, it affected their popularity moving forward. And then in retrospect, and I think that’s the question we’re trying to dig at, does it affect people’s view of throwing copper? And I think it does, and it’s unfortunate, because as we’ve discussed, throwing copper is easily a top five nineties rock album, easily top 5, I think.
I just I don’t know how you could really not put it in in a top 5 of of rock albums in the nineties. So for it not to be kind of spoken about like that more, I think means there’s something else happening, and I think that something else is the decline of their popularity and the and the decline of our view of of live and who Ed Kualacek was as a writer and as a person to well, quite honestly. I think you’re onto something there because you you tend to look at a body of work when you’re talking about great albums of 30 years ago. Right? You’re tending to you know, you wanna look at a band like like Pearl Jam.
You know, they, they, they never had another album as popular as 10, but they have a lot of fans and they have a lot of great albums along the way. I think as a live fan, and I, and I’m one of those people that have listened to all of these albums they put out over the years. And I’ll tell you that they all basically sound like the distance to That’s that’s the sound they settled on with that album, and that’s what they’ve done since. Now, you know, lyrically, it comes and goes. But but that sort of that sort of sound, that sort of I hate to use the word power ballad, but that’s what they are.
They’re they’re like they’re ballads with a lot of a lot of bass and drums and, you know, things like that. It’s all just kind of the same thing over and over and over again. And I’ve given all these these albums a chance. And I will admit that on all of them, there are good songs. There’s 2 or 3 good songs on every album they have put out since Throwing Copper.
But it’s just sort of settled into this groove that I don’t think is ever gonna find mainstream popularity again. And I think you’re right. I think that sort of tarnishes the legacy of something that, you know, was a lot of a lot of critics and and people like that, people like us that sit around and discuss, you know, things like this, they tend to to take the big picture and go, well, maybe that was just lightning in a bottle. Maybe it was, you know, maybe it was just maybe they’re not that great of a band. They just stumbled upon this.
And so it it tarnishes their legacy, and it’s kinda it’s kinda sad, honestly, because the there is no denying the the greatness of this of this album, Throwing Copper. And the the flip side to that, and spoiler alert, this is an entire episode that we have in the can that we haven’t released yet, is a band like Nirvana, who I think, and we’ll talk about this in that episode, gets too much credit because they didn’t have anything to tarnish their legacy. They ended on In Utero, which is an undeniably fantastic album and also the, Unplugged album that they recorded in New York, which is thought of as as probably the best album that came out of the m p MTV Unplugged series. Certainly, one of the top 2 or 3. I won’t get into that because we’ve got into it, and that that episode will be coming out pretty soon.
But it does kind of shore up that argument that you can tarnish the legacy of a fantastic album by recording successively crappier albums afterwards because we don’t know what Nirvana might have done after that. We don’t know if Kurt Cobain would have remained an idol or would have become a pretentious prick that nobody really wanted to listen to or, you know, maybe Kurt records an album about dolphins later in his career. Who knows? We don’t know what’s gonna happen, but they didn’t have to Nirvana didn’t have to worry about that. Live did have to worry about what Ed Kowalczyk was gonna do and where he was gonna take the band lyrically, and that I think unfortunately, reflects badly on on throwing copper.
And I think there’s other bands that maybe fall in that category where had their output ended for whatever reason, hopefully, maybe something not as tragic as as what happened to Nirvana. But if for whatever reason, throwing copper was the last word that we heard from live. Maybe even secret somebody, maybe they maybe they knocked that one other album out. I think we look back on them completely differently as we do now. And it’s not fair, and it’s not necessarily something that, you know, should affect an album retroactively like that, but it absolutely does.
For what it’s worth, I would pay a lot of money to hear Kurt Cobain’s Dolphins Cry song. I’d say it’ll be good, but just the idea of that dude suddenly putting out, like, a spiritual sunshine and lollipop song. It’s just awesome. My brain. Yeah.
With Throwing Copper, you know, I think Scott got it right when he said that, you know, the later album’s kinda settled into a different sound. The first album, Mental Jewelry, also does not really sound a whole lot like Throwing Copper. It’s a little much more acoustic, kind of like more of a funk rock vibe to it almost, that that kinda goes away on, Throwing Copper. My first introduction to life was actually seeing them live, and I was not at all enamored of them. I, you know, I didn’t get into them until Throwing Copper went back and listened to mental jewelry and and thought it was a pretty good album, but I didn’t even then think that it was on the same level as what Throwing Copper was.
And I think that’s the one thing we we haven’t discussed a little bit when trying to decide, you know, why is it that this album is maybe not as well thought of or didn’t age as well. It may probably does have something to do with Ed Kowalczyk’s lyrics, and it does have to do with, you know, what happened, in their career afterwards. But I think the interesting thing about this album is that it just does not sound like anything else in their catalog, really. It didn’t sound like what went before, and the things that came after didn’t really sound like it. And I, you know, I wonder if the move toward a more heavier guitar sound on that album had to do with what was going on around them at the time with that, you know, the grunge rock thing really coming along.
But they kind of abandoned what they did on metal jewelry and went with something completely different on throwing copper, and it just worked. You know? And and then they never really got back to doing that again. And so, you know, the kind of catching lightning in a bottle aspect of it, I think, has to do somewhat with the sound of the album too. Now I don’t know that that explains why it doesn’t remain as or, you know, tape it up as big a headspace as it should, you know, when you’re looking back at old albums from that era.
But I do think it’s kind of the the one album in their career that kinda sticks out like a sore thumb in a good way, but the sound of it is very much different than than anything else they did before or after. And I think that probably, you know, helped its popularity at the time and maybe hurts it even a little bit maybe moving forward because people get used to a different sound from the band. I don’t know. I’m gonna give one more possible thing here, and this, it’s it’s just we haven’t talked about producers, And I think that’s a big factor with a lot of these bands. You know, we we talked about it with REM.
We’ve talked about it with some other bands. Who produces the record has a lot more to do with it than I think people give it credit for. Mental jury and throwing copper were both produced by Jerry Harrison of the talking heads. Beyond that, Secret Samadhi and On, most albums are credited as produced by Live. That might be a problem right there.
Not saying that Live can’t produce a record, but they certainly haven’t yet. I I think, you know, maybe maybe credit where credit is due to Jerry Harrison. Maybe he he was able to sort of rein them in and and get them to sound a certain way. And and, yeah, metal jewelry is definitely more acoustic, folky, sort of, almost yeah. Like you said, like, almost like a funk folk sort of thing.
Musically, I think that album is fantastic. And at the time it came out, I loved it. I mean, 19 year old me was all about Ed Kowalczyk’s spirituality and pieces now, and why can’t we all just get along and all that stuff. That really worked on 19 year old Scott Mobley. But 52 year old Scott Mobley finds it really pretentious and trite.
But, but I still think metal jewelry is a great album. And so maybe maybe that’s it. Maybe it’s Jerry Harrison. Maybe bring him back. Somebody can do.
I don’t know. Certainly. Yeah. I think it’s underestimated how important it is to have that, like, adult in the room kind of situation in it. I mean, he may be younger than those guys for all I know.
He’s probably older, but we talked about, like, Bill Berry’s influence on REM. He wasn’t the producer. He was the drummer, but there was a balance that he brought to the force that when it became unbalanced, you got albums like around the sun and reveal instead of the 8 or 9 amazing REM albums that came before that. There there’s a balance that gets struck, I think, in artistic endeavors, like recording an album. And when you get that balance exactly right, and you have someone that can curb the worst tendencies and bring out the best of certain tendencies, you get you go from what could have been a good album to a a great album to maybe even a transcendent album, like throwing copper.
And so I do think the producer almost certainly had something to do with the quality of that album, and more importantly, his absence had a lot to do with the lesser quality of the albums that came after that. And I don’t think it’s a coincidence that they get kind of steadily worse because I think some of seeker Samadhi was written and recorded during the throwing copper sessions or they came from sessions that took place. So you you usually have some spillover. I’ve I’ve noticed this with other bands as well when they change producers or when they have that one amazing album. It’s pretty rare that you have, like, just a complete and total drop off to the next album because you usually have some material that gets carried over, you know.
And, like, hold me up, for example, the reason that that one of the reasons that that wasn’t on throwing copper, one of the reasons that Kevin Smith got turned down for the first time he wanted to put it in a film was that they were thinking it would be a single on their next album, and it probably should have been. It would have been a very, very good choice That would have been to make. That would have been a great follow-up to La Quinta’s Juice. I mean, a great follow-up because La Quinta’s Juice is the slower song, and it’s it’s fantastic. And it worked as a single.
I remember we all liked it when it came out. Yeah. I just didn’t wanna buy an album that was 9 more songs that sounded exactly like it. And I think something like hold me up might have saved secret somatic. I mean, that’s that it’s the it’s the upbeat song that that album desperately needs.
It’s missing. Yeah. It’s the song that that that that album is missing. It’s still not gonna be, you know, throwing copper. But if you come out with a Likinis juice, and then you release hold me up, and then you release turn my head, those are 3 strong strong singles on a reasonably strong album.
You’re you’re not getting a lightning crashes out of that, but you’re getting something. You’re you’re getting more than you got out of secret of money. That’s for sure. I think so. And and something we didn’t talk about except Keith just kinda touched on it is live is a good live band.
Like, they are a good touring band from from my memory. I’ve I think I saw them 3 times, once in Dallas, once in Vegas, and then I think once in Houston with you guys. And they were they were always really solid. So they had the ability to go out and promote their albums and and bring people in. So you go to see live because you love throwing copper.
If they’d had the material and had, you know, the the wherewithal to go out and play some of those some of those tracks like hold me up or or whatever. I think they could have worked some more people back into the fold, but instead, you know, they’re thinking about dolphins and and everything goes wrong. I saw them live probably more recently than than anyone. I I wanna say it was ’08 or ‘nine, which, you know, is over a decade ago now, but it it’s it’s pretty recent considering when their heyday was. I saw them in Houston, and they played a venue that’s probably 4 to 5000, packed it to the gills.
I will say that the set was heavily throwing copper and metal jewelry. Like, we got maybe one song from every and I don’t I don’t think they played anything from Sigurd Samadhi. They played Dolphin’s Cry. They they played the lead single off the album with the blue bird on the cover. I forget what it’s called.
It might be called 4 or something like that. But, anyway, that album had one big single on it. They played that. But the set really was I I think they played, like, 8 tracks from Throwing Copper and 6 from Metal Jewelry. So there was that, you know.
So but they like I said, they’re they they’re a fantastic live band. They’re really, really good. And they sound they sound very close to what they record when you see them live. It’s it’s pretty impressive. They are they are a great band.
And these days, I have a feeling you could probably see them in a club if you knew where to look, you know. I would admit. Possibly on a cruise ship. Yeah. Maybe.
And so sad to think about, but it’s probably It’s not fair. It’s not fair to them at all because, you know, have I recorded an album? Wanted it to be the next big arena rock band. That was their Yeah. That was the thing.
Two things happened. I think they sort of also got swallowed up by grunge, but Arena Rock also kinda died at the same time. So I they just they were just kind of too late to that that game. But, yeah. But that was their always their goal.
They wanted they didn’t wanna be an alternative indie bayon. They wanted to be the next journey. You know? And Yeah. They might have gotten there.
I don’t know. I guess we saw them in Dallas at what was the starplex back then. I forget what it’s called now. It’s changed names like 5 times, but that’s a 20,000 seat shed if I remember right. So I mean, they were certainly one of the biggest bands of the mid nineties, and they were able to to fill reliably, you know, 15,000, 20,000 seat arenas, at least for those 3 or 4 years.
I think in Vegas, I saw them in 97, and they played the Aladdin theater. And so that’s probably more like a 4 or 5,000. I think that’s probably where they settled into. So they just have that brief period of being able to fill, like, a an arena and then went back to, like, a theater tour. I was thinking about it.
I know they played arenas on throwing copper era, but I never saw them in 1. I’ve seen them probably 4 or 5 times, and it’s always been in a in a smaller venue. I I saw the throwing copper tour before it really blasted off. I think, Keith, you I think you were at that show. It was Dallas Yeah.
Weezer opened for them. Yeah. Yep. I’ve definitely was at that show. That was at I wanna say that was at Deepdale 1.
So that’s when I saw the throw and copper tour. I saw them open for someone on the mental jewelry tour, and I cannot remember who it was. And then I saw the I’ve seen them, like, 2 or 3 times since, but always in places like a house of blues or, you know, about 4 to 5000 seat arena. Our venue, I’ve never seen them in an in an arena now that I think about it. The first time I saw them, I like I’ve mentioned before, they were touring with, mental jewelry.
It was part of a, festival show in Austin radio station that used to be there and the, alternative station, and they were one of the bands on the bill. I’m trying to think who else. I know Peter Murphy was the the headliner that night. The Soup Dragons were there, but live went on. I think there were 3 bands after live.
So they were not at that time, you know, like one of the headliners, they were solidly in the middle of the day, on that show. And then, yeah, I’d never saw him in a a big arena either. I don’t think because when I saw the Deep Ellum live show, and then also saw them, at a theater show as well. So, yeah. I don’t think I ever saw them in a in a huge venue either, or, you know, at the time that they were playing those kind of venues anyway.
I’ve always managed to see them in in smaller settings, And, yeah, fantastic live band and a really big noise considering there’s only 3, you know, playing members. I I remember metal jewelry sort of being, you know, being popular in this circle of people. Like, it was always one of those if you know, you know kinda albums. Like, there were people that were into it. There were other people who’d never heard of it.
And, I I certainly was not in college radio or really into alternative music at that time. I was kind of dabbling in it. But I I remember, like, having a small group of friends that liked that album, but it wasn’t hugely popular. I don’t think. I think it got more popular after throwing copper came out and people kinda went back and and and listened to what they did before.
So it doesn’t surprise me to hear that on a 5 or 6 band bill, they were number 4 or something. You know, that I just I don’t think metal jewelry was that popular. It was it was very popular with the people who stumbled across it, but that was a very limited number of people at the time, I think. Yeah. Like I said, I I did not know anything about live until that selling the drama hit.
I I’m sure I I probably even played a, you know, track or 2 on KTXD just in my normal course of, like, playing the rotation, but it didn’t hit me. That album never quite grabbed me. Although, there was there was that’s not true. I went I did go and buy that and and listen to it. The kinda like you were saying, like, when you’re younger, it kinda Ignore the lyrics, and it’s a great album.
Yeah. Yeah. That’s all there is to it. Ignore the lyrics on metal jewelry, and I think musically, it is on par with throwing comfort. I think I think it’s that good musically.
It’s just those lyrics get real trite and real kind of almost it’s almost annoying how hippie ish they are, whatever you call. You can smell the patchouli in the air. Write I was in a bunch of hippies doing crazy stupid stuff, those lyrics are what they would say, you know, to to prove to the audience that these are a bunch of goofy hippies. Alright. 30 years on, it’s hard to believe that, I I mean, I still I like like I said, I I can remember seeing the vinyl on the turntable.
I remember getting the stack of CDs in the mail and being like, hey, they hooked us up with this giant stack of CDs and taking it home and listen to it. So it’s it’s just almost impossible to believe that that was 30 years ago. But, here we are 30 years later talking about that particular album. There were, you know, dozens of albums that came out that year, and I’m sure we probably could have an episode about a lot of different ones. But there’s a reason that this one stuck out in my head.
And and I think when I mentioned having an episode about it, you guys jumped on board right away because it really was that good. It really was that, impactful to college radio and to just to those of us who were music fans and, like, we’re all we were always looking for the next new thing. And we were you have to remember, this is a time when we were chewing through dozens of albums a week. You know, it’s not like we were hurting for music. And it was just like, oh, this oh, man.
I, you know, I finally found an album I can listen to. I mean, we were listening to music non stop all the time, day after day, chewing through new albums that were coming in the mails. You know, if it didn’t come in the mail, we would go buy the ones that we could afford. And yet, this album was constantly in rotation at our houses, in our apartments when we were going out. Like there’s a reason that that we wanted to talk about it.
And so if you haven’t heard throwing copper or you haven’t listened to it in a while, go to, you know, your your chosen music platform, Spotify, Apple Music, go to the local record store, probably the UCD store, if you still have one in your town, has a copy laying around. It’s that good. It’s it’s it’s good enough to take an hour out of your day to just sit down, put on some headphones, and, like, don’t put it on the background. Don’t just kinda casually, like, put on some headphones and really, really listen to throw in copper. I think you’ll find it enjoyable, delightful, rocking, and, well worth your time.
And just real quick, if you like live and you’ve never heard hold me up, please listen to that song. It is fantastic. And it’s the lost gem of life. That’s that’s all I’m gonna say. If you if you consider yourself a fan of life and you’ve never heard Hold Me Up, fix that problem.
It’s a great song. I agree. Yeah. I hadn’t heard it until today. I didn’t know I did know, I guess, that the 25th anniversary came out, but I wasn’t in tune enough to know that they had included 3 unreleased tracks.
The other 2 are fairly unremarkable. I thought there’s a reason they didn’t make it on Throwing Copper. Hold Me Up. The only reason it it shouldn’t have been on Throwing Copper is because that album was chockablock full of singles, and it they should have kept it back for secret somati and put it on that next album simply because they had, like, an embarrassment of riches. You know, otherwise, I think that that that song should have made the album, but I could see holding back.
They probably should have held back 1 or 2 other songs for secret somebody now in retrospect. It might have kind of evened their career path out a little bit. But, but, yeah, go find the 25th anniversary version. Listen to throwing copper from track 1 through track 14, which is the hidden track, and then listen to hold me up as part of that. And I think you’ll I think you’ll have a a delightful experience.
And and, man, it’s yeah. It’s touching. It’s got some beautiful moments and it absolutely rocks through price 75 to 80% of it is just some of the best, like, straight ahead rock music you’ll hear. It was really fun to go back and and listen to it. It was even more fun to have this conversation.
So thank you guys for joining me. Keith Porterfield, Scott Mobley, our resident music gurus joining me for the podcast today, talking live, and, talking about college radio, which is also the subject of a feature film documentary called 35,000 Watts, the story of college radio. It’s about those days of college radio. It’s about, before Keith and and Scott and I jumped into college radio in the early nineties. It’s about after that, what what comes after and what comes into the future of college radio.
It’s, I think, worth a watch, but I’m, you know, maybe a little biased. You can download it now at 35,000 watts.com. Once again, Keith, Scott, thanks for joining me on this episode, and, for all our listeners out there, tune in next time on 35,000 watts, the podcast.