527 - Disgraceland

0:00 Hey guys, it's Karen and Georgia and we are so thrilled that Jake Brennan's legendary true crime music podcast, Disgraceland, is now on the Exactly Right Network. That's right.

0:09 If you like true crime and music, you're going to love Disgraceland.

0:12 New episodes of disgrace Land drop every Tuesday, with bonus episodes on Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday.

0:18 And at the end of this episode, we're going to play the Disgraceland trailer for you, so make sure you stick around and listen to that.

0:23 And after you listen, head over to disgraceland Feed and hit follow so you can binge over two hundred and fifty award winning episodes and.

0:30 You'll be glad you did. And don't forget to follow Disgraceland right now on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you get your podcasts.

0:37 Goodbye, hello, and welcome.

0:57 I'm my favorite Murder.

0:58 That's Georgia Hardstar, that's Karen Kilgarath, and today we are very excited we have a big announcement two of our favorite podcasts in the world joining the Exactly Right Network and it's such an exciting thing to be telling you about.

1:12 Right now, everyone murderinos. This is Jake Brennan. I'm just Graceland and Hollywood Land and he's joining exactly right media. I am indeed yes, and I'm very happy about it. I'm very psyched. You can't believe I'm here. This is completely surreal.

1:27 Actually, I feel like this has been in the works since we kind of met for the first time. Yeah, it's just the universe and all the people pulling the right.

1:37 Strings and pushing us in the right direction.

1:39 And I could not be happier to be here. And just thanks. Yeah, psyched, Yeah, thank you.

1:44 It's perfect. It's like a perfect mix. We were like big fans from the beginning and like true crime podcast friends for a while. So we're glad you picked us. Yeah, yeah, of course I'm glad you picked me.

1:56 It's been ever since we did that event back in when my book came out. You guys were so generous with your time and you came to that bookstore opening that I did and probably boosted sales by like one hundred percent, So thank you for that, which is cool.

2:11 But we had just a great time.

2:12 We had great chemistry on stage together, so this is this is awesome.

2:16 Yes, and we know our audience loves you because you did that during COVID. I don't know if you remember doing that crossover with us where you told us that amazing home down and it's one of the most popular episodes we've ever posted.

2:28 That blows my mind. Yes, that's yeah. Yeah.

2:30 I still run into people in my hometown who are like who asked me about that episode, which is good and bad because I like to remain breathing, you know, and I don't want certain people to hear that episode.

2:40 Yeah, well, you want to tell us, like when you started as Graceland and like what your intentions were.

2:49 I started in twenty eighteen, and it was really just to make a music podcast that I wanted to listen to. And I grew up obviously, you know, loving music. I played music. This is what I did with my whole young adult life.

3:05 What was your first band name, cast Iron Hike.

3:08 It was a hardcore band from.

3:09 Boston's real Yeah, oh shit, yeah Victory right, yeah, we were on Victory Records and yeah, so.

3:17 We toured in What did you play or sing?

3:20 I was the singer. I was the front man in that band.

3:22 Anything was you know. It was in bands throughout you know, my my twenties and thirties.

3:27 And then I had a.

3:27 Family and I had a job at an ad agency and I was doing music licensing and I.

3:31 Was really bad at it, and I knew I was going to get fired.

3:34 And I was like corporate, I know, but it was like the coolest ad agency too.

3:38 It wasn't corporate, but I still sucked at it, and.

3:41 I was like, what the hell am I going to do?

3:43 And I knew this is like right when podcasts, you guys started in sixteen, right, I remember you guys were around and I was into like s Town and Cereal and Crimetown.

3:53 And I was like, I'm going to start a podcast.

3:54 And my only ambition was that I thought it might lead to some sort of war in audio. And I launched it and it was just this music and true crime mix, and the true crime thing came from I knew I wanted to tell music stories. But you know, my whole life, I've been the guy like in the in the van with my bandmates being like I gotta tell you the story about this thing, to the point where they're.

4:20 Like, dude, shut up, shut up, and I knew.

4:26 That the stories I wanted to tell.

4:27 I didn't want to just do like music biographies and stuff that's already been done a million times. I wanted to tell the stories that I wanted to hear. So that's where the true crime piece came from it. And then I remember it was like a month after I launched the first episode and it took off, and I came out here to La to meet with some folks.

4:46 I remember being in my hotel room and you guys had mentioned Disgraceline. I think you mentioned the Norwegian black metal episode or something like that, and that was the biggest thing.

4:56 I was, like, my favorite murder was talking about discre and it just blew my mind. And here we are all these years.

5:04 Later, which I never I didn't realize that that happened that way for you.

5:08 Yeah, I feel.

5:10 So like, yeah, we got the same thing from oh Jack O'Brien. Yeah, oh yeah, yeah, Like he did that for us, so we're honored to do that.

5:18 Yeah, very cool, very cool.

5:20 We're paying it for Jack O'Brien style.

5:22 Yeah, exactly.

5:23 He'll be psyched to hear that.

5:25 Yeah, he's the best.

5:28 What was your first show?

5:29 Well, this is kind of this is going to sound a little weird, and it's might sound like I'm making this ship up, but I swear to God, I'm not. Like I saw the Ramones when I was ten years old, and I have a in trepidation in telling this story because I literally got I got beat up for this later in the course of my adolescence from like, you know, once the punk rockers started coming around, like I saw the Romoones because my dad opened up for them. My dad was in a band, and I remember I was too young to really know what it was. My dad was cool enough and still is and just cool enough to know that should bring his son to this, right And I remember him telling me, because I was into the Beach Boys at the time, I remember him telling.

6:05 Me they're like the Beach Boys are just really loud.

6:08 True, it's kind of true.

6:12 But it was at a point in the Ramones' career, like in the early to mid eighties when they were kind of like they weren't what they were in the beginning or what they were by the time the nineties rolled around. But it was a great experience and just being backstage and like looking up at you know, twenty foot tall Joey Ramone.

6:25 And be like, oh my god, what this.

6:26 So I go back to, you know, my little central Massachusetts hometown and whatever, it's just the Ramones. But then, you know, five years later or whatever, when I'm like in my early teens and all my friends start listening to punk rock, all my older friends who all of a sudden weren't they were like, acdc Ison cool.

6:44 I'm like, fuck you, it's not cool.

6:46 So that was already a point of contention because I wouldn't give up heavy metal. But I was like, you know, I saw the Ramones, you know, I was like, no, you didn't immediately a fist fly? Yeah, pretty much, pretty much birded Hill Clintons. Yeah, that was what it was like back in the eighties.

7:02 Serious boys, serious group of boys.

7:05 Yeah, exactly.

7:06 Well what was your first true crime story that piqued your interest or got you obsessed with those kinds of stories?

7:14 Yeah, we were talking about this the other night, and it was the first one was Helter Skelter and the Manson story. And reading Helter Skelter. I was grounded a lot as a kid, and I spent a lot of time alone in my bedroom reading and listening to music.

7:30 And this is the result. America's right right, Like we're college dropouts. And I liked, tell me someone was doing better.

7:40 Way to get asked back to speak at the school as you dropped out.

7:43 Of Monica City College, here I go Zach State, I have nothing to tell you.

7:47 Honorary degrees, so Helter Skelter, and I remember reading In cold Blood shortly after that by Truman Capoti, and I was actually thinking about that last night because I just started watching the Feuding with Capoti, which is fantastic so Helter Skelter and and in cold Blood. But I was always I had a subscription Rolling Stone. I had a subscription to Spin. I was, and I had all those cool like Rolling Stone anthologies that they would kind of mass market in the eighties and nineties, so you read all the backstories. And I remember reading this story about Jerry le Lewis allegedly getting away with murdering one of his wives, and it was so wild to me that this was in Rolling Stone. And it was also so

8:31 wild to me that his nickname is the Killer.

8:35 I said, are you everyone knows? And yes, exaustly famous.

8:42 Because he's famous. It's almost like a cute joke. Right, Yes, he plays the piano, but he also murders women, right.

8:49 And then you say it and people are like, how dare you Yeah, they're like no, I'm like yes. So that was the first episode of disgrace Land. That's actually where I got the name Disgraceland because that's what they call Jerry Lee's home in Nice Bit, Mississippi, which was a few miles from Elvis's Graceland, and it stood in contrast to that.

9:07 That's such a good episode too, what a good like not coming of age story. What's what's the origin story?

9:14 Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that's a good one.

9:17 Yeah, but that the story in Rolling Stone on Jerry Lewis was super true crimey, super true crimey, and that's sort of like my thing. Like I'm researching the Foo Fighters right now, and you know, I was thinking about this morning and anticipation of coming on here, and I got really excited about this story about Dave Grol in Europe with the hardcore band Scream that he played for the DC hardcore band and he's he's getting chased down an alley from Heroin Addicts with a knife and I'm like, this is amazing. I get all excited. I'm taking notes about it. And you know, you can tell the story of young Dave Grohl, sort of his origin story going on tour in Europe with a hardcore band and be like, oh,

9:54 they played in this venue and there were twenty people there, but they played their hearts out, or you can be like, yeah, they were playing this you okay, but beforehand they were getting chased by heroin addicts or knives audiences the performance.

10:07 Time, and it's more interesting to me at least, that's so true, like asking those same questions that every interviewer asks instead asking some kind of weirder shit that like makes it more interesting or makes it like less of a biography than.

10:21 A yeah, yeah, it's our own take on biography. The way you guys tell stories as well. I mean it's it's it's not apples to apples, but your point of view is both of your points of view is so strong and unique that I mean, there are a lot of people who tell true crime stories, but obviously they're not as entertaining, and that's because of the point of view, I think, which makes it awesome.

10:43 Thank you same, yes, yeah, your point of view.

10:47 There is a piece of it where It's like I didn't know if you were a musicologist. I couldn't tell if you were like in a band. When I heard that first episode and like first got into it, it was a brand new thing all the way around. This guy a journalist is he sounds like a musician like all those things, which is kind of like we've said this before. What I love about podcasting where it's like if you have a point of view and it's strong enough and you're interested enough, and you've already done your time right, the research was your life growing up and being bands on loving music.

11:17 Right and dropping out of college and being in a shitty van with your band. And I remember before, you know, back to the ad agency thing, and like, knowing I was going to lose my job, I asked one of my best friends, Adam, who recorded a bunch of my music back in the day, and my wife. I asked them the same question. I was like, if you could hire me for one job, what would it be? And they both gave me a version of the same answer.

11:39 And Adam was like, I'd pay to just go in the control room and tell me stories. Fuck, and my wife. My wife was like, I'd paid to tell stories. I was like what and I was like, I have to do this.

11:51 Yeah, that's a great way to figure out what you want to do with your life, Like what are the things like? I mean, I guess my thing would just be snacks. So you can't really just talk about snacks or.

12:01 It's somebody else telling you I want to hear I want to watch you eat snacks, or I want to hear you review.

12:07 I don't want to hear you eat snacks.

12:08 Well that could be a thing.

12:09 Yeah, it's a different that's a different part of you too.

12:11 Right.

12:15 Well it's interesting though, but you come to that where you're kind of like trying to crowdsource. Hey, I want to do a thing. I'm not sure. Cut to years later where you are. Do we have that picture of Jake and his very famous friend but he got to meet this podcast Sir Elton John is a fan of discs.

12:33 This happened, Yeah, that was how do we do this?

12:37 Well, you can't see in that picture is that I am on no sleep after like two days of being on a plane. Is complete madness. How this took place. I can't even believe it happened.

12:50 It's like a fever dream.

12:51 I was actually on my way to Denver from Boston to go do a live version of Disgraceland, and I was in my buddy Jackson and We're gonna go.

13:01 See the Rolling Stones.

13:02 I've missed out on seeing the Rolling Stones, my favorite band, so many times for various reasons. I literally, with my friend Adam was once like, you know the studio we recorded at. I woke up the next day, I had all these messages.

13:15 Ron Wood was at the studio and I just missed it. It's the worst, you know.

13:19 So anyhow, I'm going out to play this show in Denver and I and and then we're gonna go see the Rolling Stones. And then I was gonna go to LA and meet with some people. And I'm I'm at Logan parking my car and I get a call from Connell from iHeart and he was like, hey, uh, you know, if you could interview Elton John if that opportunity, would you would you do that? I know you don't do interviews, but would you do I'm like, fuck, yeah.

13:49 I would do that.

13:50 Are you kidding me?

13:50 He's like, can you be in Milan in forty eight hours? I'm like yes, yes, and no idea how I was going to do that, but just say, yes, this is a lesson, like, don't.

14:02 Worry if you figure it out, details come later.

14:04 Yeah.

14:05 So at the time I was working with somebody we were we were working on our an adaptation of Disgraceland for for TV, and he's friends with Elton John and he had just stayed with Elton John and I played him a Disgraceland episode. So when Elton was doing the promotion for the biopic that came out about Elton John.

14:25 I don't know how the mechanics of it happened, but they were like, who's going to interview? And my name came up and and that was it. So I had it. It's so cool. I had to go to Denver do the show.

14:35 You did it. I was going to say, did you do a makeup show for them?

14:38 Because yeah, really, because it's like everything's canceled.

14:40 They would have understood.

14:42 They were amazing and they had no idea. I was just like Cloud and I, so we figured out we could do it. I couldn't go see the Stones. Jackson still came with me because he's awesome.

14:50 To Milan.

14:51 No, not to Milan, that's not that awesome. To Denver, I did the show. I got up at like three in the morning for like an hour, and I had to go back to JFK and then fly to Milan, and it was already tight and by the time I got to do it was one of those one of those things where you get to the airport, it's delayed, and you're going like, I can make I can I can still do this, and then you get on the plane and you're delayed on the plane. So I'm like literally texting Elton John's husband being like, dude, I don't know if I fucking get there.

15:20 And then I'm texting my wife.

15:21 I'm like I'm I don't know if I'm gonna fucking get there, but I'm going to Milan to have breakfast apparently, and I'll be back. And I fully did not expect to be able to do it. I get there, it's the whole thing. The guy with the sign at the airport, you know. I get picked up there these flying like you know, Italian driver fast at times ten because we're late and I don't want to give it away where he was staying. But I go there and I'm brought up to this suite and they walk me in and I walk in. It's it's more than a suite. It's like a whole apartment. And I get to like the study and he's sitting there and I see he's reading an email that I had sent to somebody with the questions like my email.

16:00 And he's like, oh, hi, Jake, how are you? And I'm like, what do I call you?

16:04 Can I put me sir? Do I call you Elton?

16:06 I'm like, Elton, where's your bathroom's PostScript? I go to use the restroom and he's like outside in his office.

16:18 Sweet type situation. And I'm in the restroom.

16:21 I'm sleep deprived, I'm a mess, and I'm like, I couldn't figure out how to flush the toilet.

16:27 It's one of those European different flushing all of Europe. But what are they doing with their plumbing? I don't know. It's rich very exactly.

16:36 Yeah. So I'm like what, I'm like, Okay, I gotta I gotta go out and I have to ask Elton John how to flush the fucking toilet. My other option is I just pretend and then Elton John's gonna be like, who is this barbarian who doesn't flush the toilet.

16:47 Disgusting America options.

16:51 So thankfully I figured it out.

16:53 It was like the flusher was like flush unintended, I guess on the back of on like wallpaper.

17:00 It was like a rich person was the secret like and it worked.

17:04 And I went out and we did the interview and it it went off without a hitch that.

17:08 Could have ended really differently.

17:10 Ye yes, yes, Oh, before we go any further, I have stuff for you guys.

17:14 Oh yes, that cool.

17:15 Absolutely, I got these.

17:19 For both of you. This all right. So when we did that show in La, I tried doing this. Then I went record shopping for you guys. Okay, yes, I love it, and I flew from San Francisco to LA and I left like all the records on the plane.

17:44 So I'm like, I'm doing it this time. I'm doing it this time because I knew I was gonna see so okay, so I got these are not the exact same ones.

17:50 These are cooler. I think. I don't remember really what the last ones.

17:53 Were, but these are.

17:53 These all have either some some significance with you guys, the show, the whole, you know whatever. They all have some meetings, so Karen, I know you have some Stevie Nick's Badassory in your Past. Yes, so I saw that and I was like, this is you know, it's got edge of seventeen on it. Oh my god, I think there's an aunt with a Chevy SS Supersport in.

18:18 My cousin Lisa, who had this eight track in her Chevy Supersport with the backjacked up that she used to drive me to four each meetings going one hundred and twenty miles an hour on the backgrounds of pet Luma also stopped dragging my Heart around on this album, which is one of my favorite songs of all time.

18:34 Amazing.

18:35 Tell everyone from the audience what it is.

18:37 This is the Stevie Next album Bella Donna.

18:39 Yeah, well we're talking about the greatness.

18:41 Of we're talking about who took this picture? Yes it wasn't Tom Petty, so amazing. Okay, this is another same from the same era. This is a recent episode of Disgraceuny. This is the Pretender's fantastic album and just Christy how and It's Badasses has has transmutated itself onto you in some fashion.

19:05 So oh what an I love this. I was just listening to this episode and she is just such a badass.

19:10 She really is, and a lot of people don't know.

19:12 I mean, she was almost in the class, she was almost in the sex Pistol, she was almost in the Damned. And you're thinking like, oh, that would have been awesome, and I'm like no, because then the Pretenders.

19:20 Yeah about and when you watch those videos of her from the eighties, like, first of all, thank you so much, because this might be the best compliment I've ever gotten in my life to even be slightly associated with Chrissy Hin. But when you watch those videos of her and those Pretender songs, they're so original and individual to her, Like, I don't see her being in other people's band, right, it's her.

19:43 The word icon gets overused these days.

19:45 In my opinion, she is iconic. She truly is.

19:48 Yeah, and this I don't know if you know this, but this is a quintessential La record. And Arthur Lee from Love has a kind of true crime past as well, So oh say what it is?

19:58 So there you go. Love of Ye with Arthur Lee, Reel to.

20:01 Real is the band. When it was like this, I thought it was the Go Gos. The first album where I'm like, yes, you've named but now I'll listen to this because it's something I don't know.

20:12 I guarantee you that Charlotte Kathy for the Go Gos was listening to that album when she was writing a lot of the riffs that were on the first Go Gos album for sure.

20:21 Sorry, can you just look at this group of people real quick? Oh wow, this is like LA nineteen seventy two.

20:28 You met Charles Manson?

20:29 Yeah, it was a fucking seventy four seventy four amazing Thank you?

20:34 You got it all right? So, Georgia, who am I moving on?

20:38 Who am I get to know yourself?

20:40 Jake Brennan the Bottom Pressure, Ellie, I'm going to be a fun.

20:45 It's all show tunes, kind of goth show tunes by the Cramps. Yeah, so I know about the Danzig and Henry Rollins lore in my favorite Murder and I actually was looking for a Danzig album couldn't find it. This is actually better, I don't yeah, the first Crans record. It's just you cannot mess with this album.

21:01 Thank you.

21:01 This is amazing. This is the Cramp's greatest hits. I don't own this. It's so beautiful. I'm honored. Where's this?

21:08 What is this?

21:08 The Ballroom? The Mental institution.

21:12 No, it's not the mental institution one, but it's just I'm not exactly sure where that pictures from.

21:16 But great songs on that album, love this and I love that they were in Glendale.

21:21 Yeah, just hanging out around here.

21:24 I gotta say it is serial killery around here, isn't it really is.

21:30 It's truly like a lot of cement and like long blocks of nothing.

21:35 Yeah, dirt, there's dirt lots. Whe're like, what's over in the corner over there for just keep driving.

21:40 Yeah, there's a lot of places to dump bodies.

21:43 Totally or like the Hillside Strangler had their shop right around here, very close to here.

21:49 Really it's and that alone is like what portal to hell opened? Where that took place exactly right?

21:55 Get me careful, you can get sucked into that portal.

21:57 Yeah, speaking of portals, evans Uh, this has come on Field the Lemonheads, which is not not the one with all the hits, but it's still amazing. It's not it's a shame about Ray. I actually think this is better and it's a nineties connection gen X. You know that I am and and I'm from Boston.

22:16 So oh my god, it's beautiful.

22:18 Thank you, and also Evan Dando's one of the most beautiful people on the planet.

22:22 He really truly is.

22:24 You know. I toured with him for a quick like three or four days, just me, him and my friend Greg Conley, was tour managing, and in addition to all the insanity times a million that you could imagine from him, he was the sweetest guy. And he never said a negative thing about anybody.

22:42 Wow, that's hard how to do, and it.

22:44 Really I even baited him a couple of times.

22:46 I was like reading Rolls One, I wonder about this asshole, you know what I mean, you like, wouldn't go there.

22:50 I don't think I could be friends with someone because like that's how I bond with people, was like just talking some shit.

22:55 And it was a real eye opener for me, It really was.

22:58 It was such a strong thing that it wasn't an accident, you know what I mean, Like he must have had some governing instinct when he was a kid to kind of make him that way.

23:06 Which is well, maybe it's just his life as a beautiful person where he's like everybody's okay, You're just like you need to get kitchen the teeth of.

23:13 Cover right time, right what's wrong with life when doors just fly open for you and supermodels want to sleep at you.

23:17 Everybody wants to give you all their drugs.

23:19 Give you drugs and food and all this time it's like not my experience.

23:22 Yeah yeah, this just didn't call me up and invite me on tour. Dude, I don't know what you're talking about.

23:25 This, Okay, this is so cool?

23:27 All right?

23:27 Yuh?

23:28 You know this kind of like the Arthur Wee thing, the Love album. I want for a little more obscure here.

23:32 This is the Luvin Brothers Satan is Real, which look at that that looks like a Slayer album cover from like the nineteen fifties or forties.

23:39 I know this song. It's fucking incredible. It's like a gospel song.

23:43 Yeah yeah, but.

23:44 Satan is Real, which is like they're like anti Satan, but you could listen to it.

23:48 It's a warning. It's very much Satan is Real. Watch out what you're doing.

23:52 I love that. This is like I feel this. It's heavy.

23:55 Yeah, this is what music was really weighty.

23:58 This is incredible. I'm going to put it on our record wall.

24:00 We have like the Nice Nice So there you go, thank you.

24:05 I'm going to listen to the Drunkard's Doom by myself.

24:11 Even brothers are good for that for sure. And they hate each other and hated each other and wanted to kill each other. So there, oh yeah, there's there's in a disgrace in episode coming on moving Brothers.

24:19 Yes, how long does it take you to like because you get deep, like we do homework podcast, but it's like a week of homework you do same.

24:27 Yeah, But to what Karen was saying earlier, it's a life's long kind of you know, baseline education and understanding of this stuff. And then the week of research is I kind of know where the bodies are buried, so to speak, and where to look.

24:43 And it wasn't always like that.

24:45 I mean the first episode took like six months, almost a year to put put together, just the first episode, you know, because you're just figuring things out, you don't know what's what. But yeah, it's a week to research, and then it's a week to write, and then I don't know how long the guys take to produce it because we have a production cycle, but you know, call it a week for that. Mabe.

25:07 I don't wave your hands like that. They can see us, right, now, no, are you kidding me?

25:14 There?

25:17 Truly the only reason, Thank you guys.

25:19 Oh, I was gonna make a confession that I love that merch that you have your bag, which is basically four of your big stories. I could not finish the Big Lurch episode. It was the most horrifying story.

25:35 Yeah, it's pretty horrifying, so bad, and I was just.

25:38 Like, I remember where I was. It was my old house in the backyard. And then I was just like, oh no, no, no, I can't do this. And I was like, I don't really have You know, as we people who listen to true crime or pay attention to it, it's like you're used to certain things. That story is so above and beyond.

25:54 Yeah, cannibalism is above and beyond all of it. And it's tough. I've run into that. I'm coming up on one actually that I don't know how I'm going to tell that.

26:03 No, that was that I could get through.

26:07 That was just feces.

26:08 I could work my way through that.

26:10 Nazis And yeah, but the Ian Watkins lost profits thing. I've never done anything that involves kids. He was such a dirtbag and he died in a way that you know, I don't like seeing violence being foisted upon anybody. But it was just it's a very dramatic story, and it's a current, kind of a current story. So which one is that I don't know, lost lost prophets.

26:33 I haven't done it yet.

26:34 It's it's a horrible act of pedophilia that's like so beyond shocking that you're just kind of like what in the living.

26:41 Happened to exactly? Yeah, it's brutal, horrible.

26:43 Are there any that you won't do? Like, we have true crime stories that we just don't cover because it's just the dregs of humanity and it's the absolute worst, and there's no way to like spin it the way we like to do with like victims advocacy and like making it a story that's somehow palatable.

26:57 Yeah, you have those, Yeah I do.

27:00 I do.

27:00 I have a couple.

27:01 And for various reasons, the again the kids thing, like everyone's like you should do a Gary Glitter episode, I'm like, don't. I'm good man, I don't want my had to, you know. But with the Ian Walkins saying I think I know how to do it. I've tried doing the Elliott Smith story. I researched it at ending and there's a lot there that his friends you can just tell her, are such love for him, and it's so sad. And I'm not saying I won't do it at some point, I just don't know how to do it and have really a reason to do it, because I don't have a point.

27:31 Honestly, I'm same I thought about doing it.

27:33 It is literally heartbreaking answer it was for him, So I feel like he was this entity that was doing a thing for my experience. Like the first I remember where I was when my friend put that CD in her car CD player and was like, you have to hear this, and then we just sat there like, uh oh am I going to sob so hard. I never stopped crying, like what's happening to me? And later this is my big brag and I'm sure I've told you sorry.

28:00 But he would play at Largo where we would do comedy shows, so there was crossover, and he came and did when me and Mary Lynn did Girls Guitar Club, and he came and was our guest on the show just because he was in town, and like Flannagan got him to do it or whatever, and I think we had eighteen people in the crowd.

28:16 We do.

28:17 It was not a sellout show in any way. My friend David still thanks me for like I can't believe I was there when I got to see that we're.

28:23 Intimate show and he play his own songs. Yep, oh my god. I was about to have a like I saw him once that it doesn't even come.

28:31 But then afterwards, here's my double brag. Triple brag is that afterwards we were standing in the back because our act that I did with my friend Mary Lynn, it was all just like play the guitar even if you don't know how to, and then we'd like go into a cover where we're barely doing like the open chords and stuff, and it got a little bit better as it went on.

28:50 Very I saw it. I was in the crowd watching you not that night. Unfortunately.

28:55 I know should have come to our Valentine show.

28:57 Really great you were at the Money Money Boston's or you're at something She's a.

29:01 Full ska nice. But all I was gonna say is that I got to have a conversation with him after because we were he was complimenting what we did, where I was like, please don't do this. I'll have a nervous breakdown. And then he started talking to me about how much his voice bothered him and that he didn't like and I watched a person who I was like, this is what artists do to themselves. Nothing's good enough, it's always bad. It's this thing where you think you're and him as a person who was the least disappointing performer and musician, I felt like I'd ever kind of experienced every time I watched him perform, like when he was on the Oscars and it was like so vulnerable, everyone was so rapped, and it was like and it

29:41 was perfection and that song was it was such a time and place and to hear him just being like, I'm sorry, I wish my voices but where I was like, no, no, no, please don't do it. And that it inspired me later because I love to pull myself apart and be like, and that's why you don't do anything. And it's like, if that ma did that to himself, if only he had delusion or whatever it is to just not do that to yourself, to keep going, how it could have perhaps been different, and maybe it's like many wouldn't have been himself, but it made me later, just go, don't shut the door on yourself because you've decided it isn't good when people love.

30:18 It, right right?

30:19 Love that?

30:19 Yeah?

30:20 I love that too. And that's the thing with art. It's the best art. I don't care what medium it is.

30:27 It's risky, whether it's a guy who doesn't like his voice but sings like an angel, or it's a comedian who ends up talking into a microphone all the time and has to push past whatever you're thinking about with your voice. And I think we all kind of do that and in some weird, cosmic, spiritual call it whatever you want way, that risk, the energy of taking that risk ends up in the work, and I feel like it ends up attracting people, you know what I mean, Like it makes it. I don't know, I don't know.

30:58 It's magic.

30:59 That's why you can't define it.

31:01 You know, there's like a seventh sense of like, oh, that's a human being actually being a human being right like right in front of us, Like go over there, because that's permission that like you're doing it now, I can do it.

31:11 Yes, And you can connect with it on a way that's not just like corporate.

31:16 Yeah, for real, we're going.

31:17 To play a game.

31:18 Do you want to do musical mad libs?

31:21 Sure? Yeah, I've never played musical mad libs.

31:24 Well, I'm a little scared.

31:26 Kate shell and Bach I haven't either. You might know her from Luscius Jackson.

31:29 You know, it's kind of odd that you have a member of your staff who's actually been in a disgrace Sounded episode. When I got connected with her on an email, I was like, oh fuck, oh shit, And I Google word searched her name in my just to make you boys episode, just to make sure it was cool, and thank you Kate for being cool.

31:45 Yeah. We that's like our like exactly right. Brag is that Kate Shellen works with us.

31:50 I've been on a thread with my family all day talking about how I was going hang with the Beastie boy no.

31:55 Offense guys, Oh.

31:59 You know the out Yeah? Really Okay. So I'm not going to tell you the song obviously, and I think, what am I doing here? What's the Have you ever played mad lips? So I'm just going to ask you for random now the battleships, right, do you drop the checkers in? I'll just be asking you for forms of the English language and then we're going to be plugging them in and reading new lyrics to an old song.

32:24 Oh it's lyrics grammar.

32:26 Here, I'll help you.

32:29 I'm like, dude, I'm.

32:33 There's no adverbs.

32:37 I've written a book though.

32:39 How did that happen? How did you get the editor?

32:42 Editors? Editors? Editors?

32:44 So we are starting with adjective?

32:46 Okay, I got you.

32:48 That's a description, work, got that? So any kind of descriptor good? Bad? Sideways? Oh?

32:56 Any, that's right? So's any? Yeah? What you got?

33:01 Stinky?

33:04 Yes?

33:04 And as like fourth grade as you can be with these words. I think it's more fun and mad lips? Right?

33:09 You have a fourth grader? Right?

33:10 So I have a sixth grader and a second grader?

33:15 Oh? Perfect?

33:16 Do they like mad lips?

33:17 Have they done this?

33:18 I don't think they have actually come on stopped depriving real what do you They don't know that the internet exists yet.

33:25 So we're working up to mad libs.

33:29 Okay, So well this next one is good natural disaster?

33:33 Oh, any natural disaster or historical naturally whatever you want? Hurricane okay, no body part penis sure? I figured I would just take it there. I'm blushing place you're asking me all these what are drinking?

33:53 Glendale?

33:54 Sweet noun?

33:59 You go with the now, okay, let it flow. I can't think of a word. I've never thought my entire life. I've never said a word. I don't person place her thing I know, but Elvis nice, Jesus fucking Christ.

34:16 Emotion, melancholy, deep.

34:22 Direction, Oh h you turn sure direction? I think it can't be absolutely direction, another direction, reverse.

34:38 Weather phenomenon.

34:40 How's that different than a natural disaster? Oh you'll see a phenomenon so singular not phenomena?

34:47 True ah, mud slide.

34:51 Perfect person Jerry Lee a crime past tense.

35:01 This is a crossbird was.

35:04 A living being?

35:07 Humanoid?

35:11 That could have been band name too?

35:12 Oh yeah?

35:13 True object?

35:16 Microphone, body part?

35:19 You do this one fingernail noun, dump truck. This is this is peak podcasting noun, kaleidoscope.

35:34 Concept concept.

35:39 Black hole?

35:40 Go nice shape?

35:44 Is it an anagram? Is that the weird.

35:48 Triangle?

35:49 Thank you? Common shape? I should have said a living being again, Jesus, I'll do this living being.

36:00 Jesus, he's not living.

36:02 Oh yeah, so you.

36:07 Say a dance style interpretive.

36:13 If anyone's sweating, I'm sweating.

36:15 Almost done this sound effect, sound effect splat nice and finally, Italian last name, Italian last name?

36:29 Can I give my wife's maid name? Petrolia?

36:32 Nice?

36:33 Ready?

36:34 Yeah, I'm going to read you now the new lyrics to Bohemian Rhapsody. Is this the stinky life? Is this just fantasy? Caught in a hurricane? No escape from reality? Open your penis, look up to the Glendale and see I'm just a poor Elvis. I need no melancholy because I'm easy coming, easy go little U turn, little reverse. Anyway, the mud slides doesn't really matter to Jerry Lee Lewis.

37:06 Mama just murdered a humanoid, put a microphone against his fingernail, pulled my dump truck.

37:13 Now he's dead.

37:14 Carrie Kaleidoscope, Carrie Kaleidoscope, as if black hole really matters. Skipping the opera part, going to I see a little triangle o of Elvis Costello, Scaramuge, Scarramuge. Will you do the interpretive dance splat and lightning, very very frightening, Galileo, Galileo, Galileo, Petrolia.

37:38 It's like a love song for your wife. That is impressive. I'm actually so did you guys? I don't know anything about this yourself.

37:46 I know who did it, Kate the Bucy Boy herself.

37:48 Kate.

37:49 I love that nice war Kate, right, yes, we barely made it out of that one alive.

37:54 I really listen when you do a twenty minute game.

37:57 I mean, this is like twenty years of podcasting together.

38:00 That's right, you know, so we're doing it all right now.

38:04 What's your favorite rock memoir?

38:07 The Rick James memoir? Oh wow, shit, because you're like, are you fucking kidding me?

38:11 Dude?

38:12 You're admitting to like, what what are we talking about?

38:15 He didn't know.

38:15 It's not an autobiography. The writer finished it after he died. But it's it's just like it's gold, Like I could have done ten episodes on Rick James. Yeah, it's running drugs for the Colombian cartel and literally breaking out of prison.

38:30 Just crazy, so good crazy.

38:32 The Disgraceland out right now is the Patty Smith, Yes.

38:37 Which her, I mean, she's the memoir master. Actually, and actually that is a better memoir.

38:42 The Just Kids is is incredible, even though it's it's I know you guys have talked about it.

38:48 I think you've read it. It's more her origin.

38:52 Story and her love story and then the memoir after that, M Train, which is more her story of being an artist and how she creates and goes through the process. And in M Train, actually this fascinating thing that I never knew about Patty Smith, which is amazing. She's obsessed with like cheesy crime fiction.

39:16 Really just like no, like Law and Order.

39:20 Oh, the ship we're into like cs fucking CSI, but good stuff like the killing, you know, And when the Killing was canceled, she wrote to the producers and was like, please don't cancel whatever, and they're they're like, well, we can't do anything about it, but why don't you come on an episode?

39:37 So she went on an episode.

39:38 She was on Law and Order as well.

39:40 Yeah, she's like, you know, a National Book Award winner and literally we were joking about honorary degrees like all kinds of that. She accepted Dylan's Nobel Peace Prize Forum, you know, like the high Priestess of art. She's like binging ship crime fiction, like like, well, she knows that's good. And the thing that as I'm researching her and putting the story together for Disgraceland, I'm like, she survives, you know, she lives at the Chelsea. She lives through the whole punk rock thing. She lives through the eighties and nineties, like the two great loves of her life die. She survives all that has this incredible sort of like late life, reaping the fruits of her artistic labor, ways that artists

40:23 seldom get to do.

40:25 And I'm looking back and.

40:27 I'm going, oh my gosh.

40:28 She survived all this crime and violence and drug use and everything that goes along with being a rock star and being an artist because she was obsessed with artists who were criminals, and her mother was obsessed with the Lindberg kidnapping and would talk to her about it. She lives through the Son of Sam. She lives through you know, Helter Skelter was a huge thing, even for rock people on the East coast. Maple Thorpe was obsessed with it.

40:58 And if she were alive now, she was like our age. Now I know she's alive now, she would be like a murder. You know, she would be my favorite. She probably isn't my favorite murder. And could you imagine the whole thing of like being aware, right, And I mean, I'm looking at your book behind you. Stay sexy, don't get murdered like that whole thing, Like, you know, I know it's a catchphrase, but it's like it's true, there's truth.

41:22 In it, like I think, be aware, you know.

41:24 So I think her sort of fascination with crime, crime literature, with how do you pronounce a guy's name the French poet Jean Get I can't say it, the correction Jean ja.

41:37 Thank you.

41:38 Matt Boden, who is our production guy, is French. He's going to kill me picturing that. But but he was, you know, he was a criminal, and she was friends with Borrows. Borrows killed his wife and got away with it, you know. And I think she just kind of she had all that stuff that true crime kind of steeped in her, and I feel like the knowledge of that, somehow, cosmically, spiritually whatever, it helped her avoid being a casualty. That's sort of my take on it anyways, And that's I don't mean to just give you a whole preview episode, but I'm very excited about it right now.

42:12 It's kind of a perfect teaser though, because it is like it's like, do you like music, do you like true crime? Do you like both? This is all right?

42:19 Patti Smith Patti Smith.

42:20 You like New York and the seventies when it was real dirty, and.

42:24 Yeah she was writing because the night that her biggest song during the Son of Sam.

42:31 Yeah, just what a time, man, what a time.

42:35 Well, Jake, it is truly such an honor to have a podcast as beautifully made and thoughtfully made and made by a talent that isn't just like successful, but also like it does feel like we know you, and we've known you for a long time. We're fans, and now we get to like do it with you, and I think it's the dream combination and we're so so genuinely thrilled that this is starting.

43:00 You feel like one of us. So welcome to the Shit Show.

43:03 I could not be happier to be part of the Shit Show.

43:07 You guys are the gold standard in podcasting and you have been from the beginning, and I've been a fan literally from the beginning, so that what you've built is just unbelievable.

43:16 Guys, congratulations and thank you.

43:18 And your staff is amazing. The people who work here are great. Everybody I've worked with has been a delight to work with. They've all been awesome, and that's a reflection on you guys, and yeah, it's really cool.

43:28 We've got an incredible group over here, and everyone just like what's cool? Is everyone stoked? And it really feels like there's a sincere love of what we're all doing, and it's it's a great team. It's a great team to be on. It's really fun.

43:42 Happy to be here.

43:43 So glad you're here, Thank you, thank you.

43:45 So okay, just Graceland is now part of the Exactly Right Network and iHeart podcast. New episodes every Tuesday, bonus episodes Thursday, and rewinds on Sunday, and new episodes of hollywood Land come out every Monday, with bonus episodes Wednesday and Friday. Write that down. It's a lot of content, So listen, subscribe, and give it a five star review wherever you get your podcasts. That's pretty helpful. Yeah, some reviews.

44:07 I often I take calls on our bonus episode, and I also will read a review, and if I read the review, I'll send that person a little.

44:15 Merch I love. I think we should let so you can lead it and leave a nice review and I'll send you.

44:22 You can't steal it, but you can participate in it.

44:25 Do you think you are at least get a twenty percent?

44:31 What's your promo codey?

44:37 I think we did it.

44:37 Thanks guys here, thank you?

44:40 Right on, Stay sexy and don't get murdered. What do I do? You're saying goodbye?

44:45 Saying goodbye in your way that you Oh yeah, do it again? Can you do it again?

44:49 Stay sexy and don't get murdered?

44:52 Rock a Roller? Yeah, I think we did that last time, and I froze up as well.

44:56 It's weird to just point at someone and accept them now, yeah, boy, that's true. Elvis, do you want a cookie?

45:08 What is up?

45:09 Murder Reinos.

45:10 Fans of the Exactly Right Network and elite podcast listeners everywhere, This is Jake Brennan, host of the Disgraceland podcast, your new favorite music and true crime podcast, a show where every week I dive into the story of one musical artist and the true crime or crimes that have impacted them. And I'm thrilled to announce that Disgraceland has found a new home at the Exactly Right Network in partnership with iHeart Podcasts. In Disgraceland, we have episodes on over two hundred musicians. Sometimes these artists are the victims. Sometimes they're criminals, and some of these stories are the kind they don't want told, the kind that are so unbelievable that you're gonna end up telling.

45:50 Them to someone else.

45:51 The story about Blondie's Debbie Harry escaping Ted Bundy, about rock and roll pioneer Jerry Lee Lewis aka the Killer allegedly getting away with killing his wife, how Patti Smith isn't just the godmother of punk but she's also the og true crime girl. And of course stories about the Norwegian black metal church burnings, Big Lurch, the hip hop artists who ate his roommate Amy Weinhaus, the Stones, Laana del Rey, Bowie, Kurt and Courtney, sid and Nancy, and too many wild stories to mention. This is the podcast for the music in True crime obsessed. New fully scripted episodes with award winning sound design are released every Tuesday.

46:32 Bonus episodes where I respond to your calls, texts and dms are released on Thursday, with rewind episodes dropping every Sunday. I hope you guys jump into your podcast player right now in search Disgraceland and give it a follow.

46:45 I promise you will not be disappointed. All right, stay sexy and don't get murdered by a rock star rock a roller.

47:04 This has been an exactly right production.

47:06 Our senior producer is Molly Smith and our associate producer is Tessa Hughes.

47:09 Our editor is Aristotle lass Vedo.

47:11 This episode was mixed by Leona Squalacci.

47:14 Our researchers are Mary McGlashan and Ali Elkin.

47:16 Email your hometowns to My Favorite Murder at gmail.

47:19 Dot com and follow the show on Instagram at my Favorite Murder.

47:22 Listen to My Favorite Murder on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts or wherever you get your podcasts.

47:27 And now you can watch My Favorite Murder on Netflix.

47:29 And when you're there, hit the double thumbs up and the remind Me buttons. That's the best way you can support our show. Goodbye,