007 - Down

"Today on blink-155, a professional endeavour that people should take seriously, we're going to talk about our favourite Terry Crews vehicle."

## Episode Summary

### Housekeeping

* Josiah has taken too many notes which will challenge Sam's editing capacity. Previously, Sam has edited out significant tangents, such as Josiah's extensive discussion of white belt post-hardcore and Christian alternative music. Sam's intent is to edit while also still making Josiah look profoundly uncool (see 004 - Up All Night for POD/RATM incident)
* While Sam is was actually in California for the California episode, Josiah reveals that he is kind of down this week. His house is half packed for a move, BC forrest fires are giving his a 'weird fire cold,' and finally, he burned himself reaching across the spout of his boiling kettle and had to go to the hospital for what has turned into a very deep wound.
* Sam picked the song this week as a good way to get into the "self-untitled" album.

### Initial Thoughts

* Josiah thinks the song is okay but always forgets about it.
* Sam thinks the song represents all of the ideas from the record perfectly executed. In other songs, the influences end up as a weird mashup, but in this song it structurally all works, the drum beat, the piano etc.

### Main Discussion

* Josiah suggests the song is a perfect example of how Tom and Mark balance each other. Tom is overwrought and very emo in the song and Mark sings the chorus very dead inside.
* The song is a ballsy choice for a single because the chorus is just one word repeated in monotone.
* The most ridiculous part of the song is the pre-chorus whispering. After Sam guesses the whisperer to be Scott Raynor or Yelawolf, Josiah reveals it is the combination of those two people: Travis Barker. Reddit user iamkringle uploaded the isolated whisper track. This is Travis's only time on the mic with blink was on this song.
* Josiah's theory about why the whispers work is that good pop music needs to the right amount of embarrassing. You have to have just the right amount of corny without playing it too safe. This is why Angels and Airwaves doesn't work.
* The video looks like Traffic, with the saturated yellow, and features Terry Crews and directed by Mr. Scandalous (Josiah can't find any information about Mr. Scandalous on the internet). While Josiah feels he couldn't understand the video's narrative, Sam does not think it's complicated. Josiah was perhaps just distracted by Mark and Travis's hair. The extras in the videos are all ex-cons that work for an entertainment company called Suspect Entertainment.
* There is lots of content about this song on DeviantArt, including someone's furry persona (fursona) that is based on the song.
* Sam suggests this song's sadness, while corny like some of blink's other work, reads in a much more sincere way than Going Away to College. Josiah thinks the whole album works as a concept because they wrote and recorded it all in one place. That cohesion allows blink to get away with the cornier content. There are video clips of them working on the album in a house together which make them seem like your friend's band figuring out a song.
* The song was originally 6 minutes long with a long Travis drum and bass part, which Josiah thinks may have been cut out and turned into the Fallen Interlude
* Producer Tom Lord-Alge mixed the record and has really cool hair (and looks like a punk hobbit). He also created a different chorus that had a lot more dynamics
* This is one of the few blink songs that Tom performed with Angles and Airwaves

### List of Covers

Josiah's brother-in-law Darryl has suggested this segment of the show should be called Down Down Down or Not Down Down Down

1. Andy Susak, acapella (both are Down Down Down with it)
2. ?, mashup of Down and Sugar We're Going Down
3. ?, mashup of Down and I Miss You, the equivalent of mixing two types of water together (Not Down Down Down)
4. Royal Noise, shitty EDM mix, Down Down Down
5. Smittythegreat, screamo version in a barn, Down Down Down
6. Protiminstrumentalist, British ska, if ska can become twee enough it becomes charming (Josiah is Down Down Down)

### Final Thoughts

Josiah didn't really care about the song first but after researching it for three days and talking about it for two hours he now loves it.

Sam had it in his top five but hated the whispering. Now Josiah has bludgeoned him with facts and he hates it and never wants to hear it again.

## Bands/People/Places Mentioned

* Friends of the pod, Justin and Nicole - describe the pod as a woke podcast that happens to be about blink-182.
* Fest - Sam suggests Josiah should form a band like Hot Water Music or Small Brown Bike with his new raspy voice.
* Nathan Fielder - Sam hopes they are popular enough by the I Miss You episode to get Nathan on. As each episode of the pod gets meaner, they are realizing they might not get any members of blink.
* NOFX - has an album called Self-Entitled. Josiah only likes So Long and Thanks for all the Shoes and the Decline. Sam hedges but ultimately says it is the best pop punk album of all time.
* Grown-ups - Josiah's old band. It used to upset him when people did not include the hyphen in the name.
* Drake - After visiting Sam's house, Josiah realized that everyone in Toronto listens to Drake at all hours of the day.
* U2 - Mark's vocal delivery reminds Josiah of Numb from Zooropa
* The Band - Sam thinks the harmonies in Down are innovative and exciting, like The Night They Drove Old Dixie Down
* Foo Fighters - Sam likes the album At Last There's Nothing Left to Lose which the band recorded while all living in a house together, similar to blink and the untitled album.
* Tea Party - Sam was introduced to Tom Lord-Alge because he mixed the song Temptation on the Big Shiny Tunes 2 album
* Mariana's Trench - Canadian radio stations have to play a percentage of Canadian music and Mariana's Trench was created by the government to fill that quota.

## Other Notable Items

* It was Josiah's birthday this week.
* Sam and Josiah discuss what they are going to refer to this album as, which is technically called Untitled but Josiah thinks that's too pretentious.
* Josiah thinks they need a radio DJ type sound effect that signifies when they attempt to get into identity politics, possibly a boner "boing" sound.
* This album is the introduction of the bastardized Nirvana smiley face. This remind Josiah of the era when people would wear youth large tshirts with logos silkscreened on the bottom right side of the shirt. Everything was Volcom influenced.
* Top 5: During initial thoughts, Sam puts Down in his top 5
* Sam reveals himself to be a harmony enthusiast
* Sam suggests his role is to be a foil to Josiah, so that Josiah can provide him with information which allows Sam to do no preparation for the podcast.
* First episode not heavily edited by Sam
* Josiah announces Tom as his favourite member of blink-182 and Sam claims Tom will be the first member to be a guest on the pod.