Episode 64: Live’s “Mental Jewelry” (1991)

Summary

Accelerated Culture Podcast: Episode 64 – Live’s “Mental Jewelry” (1991) Summary

Overview

In Episode 64 of the Accelerated Culture podcast, hosts Lori and Scott Free delve deep into Live's seminal 1991 album, Mental Jewelry. This episode offers a comprehensive exploration of the album's tracks, the band's history, songwriting processes, and the philosophical underpinnings that influenced their music. Additionally, the hosts provide updates on the band's trajectory and reflect on the lasting impact of Mental Jewelry in the alternative music landscape.

---

Shout-Outs and Listener Support

Timestamp: 01:14 - 04:40

The episode begins with Lori and Scott extending gratitude to their listeners and Patreon supporters. Notably, they acknowledge Rock R O C K for loving the podcast and Mike Peterson, their newest Patreon subscriber and lead singer of Chicago's 45 Souls. Scott also highlights a dedicated listener, Rocco from Wooddale, Illinois, who has been voraciously consuming the podcast's archives since its inception.

Notable Quote:

Lori (03:58): "Mike is the lead singer of a band here in Chicago called 45 Souls. Check them out on the web at 45souls.com."

---

Personal Updates and Previews

Timestamp: 04:40 - 11:09

Scott shares his recent experiences, including attending a one-night-only IMAX screening of the Becoming Led Zeppelin documentary. He reflects on the documentary's insights about Led Zeppelin's origins and expresses newfound respect for guitarist Jimmy Page. Lori mentions her upcoming concert with The Ocean Blue and addresses a postponed interview due to scheduling conflicts.

Notable Quote:

Scott Free (06:10): "I learned so much in this one. And newfound respect. Already had huge respect for Jimmy Page, but newfound huge respect for Jimmy Page in particular."

---

Introduction to Mental Jewelry

Timestamp: 11:09 - 22:44

The hosts introduce Live's album Mental Jewelry, released on December 31, 1991. They discuss the band's formation, noting that Live members Chad Taylor, Chad Gracie, Patrick Dahlheimer, and Ed Kowalczyk originated from York, Pennsylvania, and began performing under the name Public Affection at New York's iconic CBGB. They highlight the significance of Jerry Harrison of Talking Heads as the album’s producer, emphasizing his role in refining Live's sound.

Notable Quote:

Lori (17:58): “Ed Kowalczyk has such a distinctive voice. It's unmistakable on that voice. Yes.”

---

Songwriting and Philosophical Influences

Timestamp: 22:44 - 33:12

Scott and Lori explore Live's collaborative songwriting process, likening it to U2's dynamic between The Edge and Bono. They discuss Ed Kowalczyk's philosophical leanings, particularly his admiration for Jiddu Krishnamurti, whose teachings significantly influenced the album's lyrical content. The hosts reference various interviews and articles, including insights from Guitar World and Rolling Stone, to shed light on the depth and complexity of the album's themes.

Notable Quote:

Scott Free (24:01): "I picked up Krishnamurti's You Are the World in some kind of New age bookstore when I was 18... his basic philosophy is that all knowledge is limited."

---

Track-by-Track Analysis

Timestamp: 34:11 - 99:23

The core of the episode consists of an in-depth analysis of each track on Mental Jewelry. Lori and Scott dissect the musical composition, lyrical themes, and philosophical messages embedded within the songs. They address both the strengths and critiques of the album, often referencing Krishnamurti's philosophies to contextualize the lyrics.

1. Pain Lies on the Riverside (00:35 - 04:40)

   • Discussion: The hosts admire the song's complex bass lines and Ed Kowalczyk's emotionally charged vocals. They interpret the lyrics as themes of cleansing and letting go of pain.
   • Notable Quote:

     Lori (38:14): "I have loved this album ever since it first came out... it has a spiritual component to it."

2. Operation Spirit (The Tyranny of Tradition) (42:00 - 54:48)

   • Discussion: An exploration of challenging established traditions and belief systems. The hosts connect the song’s message to Krishnamurti’s idea that truth is a "pathless land."
   • Notable Quote:

     Scott Free (45:26): "Tradition is peer pressure from dead people."

3. The Beauty of Gray (48:53 - 59:59)

   • Discussion: Viewed as an anti-racism anthem, the hosts interpret the song as a call for embracing diversity and rejecting superficial divisions.
   • Notable Quote:

     Lori (55:17): "It's about embracing our differences."

4. Tired of Me (60:06 - 75:56)

   • Discussion: The song delves into self-examination and emotional exhaustion within relationships. Anaphora is highlighted as a key poetic device.
   • Notable Quote:

     Lori (61:30): "It's the self, analyzed through a strained relationship."

5. Mirror Song (64:30 - 76:09)

   • Discussion: A departure from previous tracks, this song emphasizes self-rescue and internal reflection, aligning with Krishnamurti’s teachings on personal truth.
   • Notable Quote:

     Scott Free (69:54): "He's observing the room that he's in and the world it exists in."

6. Waterboy (71:53 - 76:06)

   • Discussion: Combines jangly guitars with themes of freedom and self-determination. The hosts relate the song to the power and fluidity of water.
   • Notable Quote:

     Lori (75:50): "Water can cut through rock, that's how the Grand Canyon was created."

7. Take My Anthem (76:30 - 84:05)

   • Discussion: Influenced heavily by U2’s The Joshua Tree, the track features slap bass and anthemic choruses, embodying the band’s youthful energy and ambition.
   • Notable Quote:

     Scott Free (78:33): "They really take their time here on this one."

8. You Are the World (80:44 - 84:34)

   • Discussion: An emotional plea for unity and empathy, the song reinforces the interconnectedness of humanity.
   • Notable Quote:

     Scott Free (82:28): "It's the voice of someone who has known war and has known pain."

9. Good Pain (84:21 - 88:49)

   • Discussion: Addresses the struggle between peace and conflict, advocating for personal growth and overcoming internal battles.
   • Notable Quote:

     Lori (86:53): "We're all living in constant conflict and struggle."

10. Mother Earth is a Vicious Crowd (88:50 - 93:35)

    • Discussion: Combines unconventional rhythms with themes of communication and understanding within chaotic environments.
    • Notable Quote:

      Lori (91:03): "Ed is telling the vicious crowd to communicate and be heard."

11. 10,000 Years Peace Is... (93:23 - 98:35)

    • Discussion: Concludes the album with a powerful statement on immediate action for peace, rejecting reliance on external saviors.
    • Notable Quote:

      Lori (95:26): "We can't wait for somebody else. If we want peace, peace is now."

---

Where Are They Now?

Timestamp: 99:23 - 114:17

In this segment, Lori and Scott recount the band's trajectory following Mental Jewelry. They highlight the success of subsequent albums like Throwing Copper and Secret Samadhi, Live’s performances at Woodstock '94 and '99, and the band's peak as iconic figures in the alternative scene. However, conflicts arose, particularly around songwriting credits, leading to Ed Kowalczyk's departure in 2009. The introduction of con artist Bill Hines further strained the band's finances and trust, resulting in legal battles and the eventual exclusion of original members Chad Taylor and Chad Gracie. The episode concludes with reflections on the band's legacy and hopes for future interviews with contemporaries like The Ocean Blue.

Notable Quote:

Scott Free (103:42): "Ed Kowalczyk appeared in Fight Club... originally cast for a non-speaking role, but ended up with lines because David Fincher liked him."

---

Insights and Conclusions

Throughout the episode, Lori and Scott emphasize the profound impact of Mental Jewelry both musically and philosophically. They commend the band's youthful earnestness, intricate musicianship, and the depth of Ed Kowalczyk’s lyrical content. While acknowledging criticisms of being "preachy," the hosts defend the album’s sincerity and its valuable messages on truth, unity, and personal growth.

Final Notable Quote:

Scott Free (99:23): "It's all balanced so beautifully. Where on this one, I can pick out, like, the shimmering acoustic guitars and Patrick's thumping bass and the drums are so crisp. Production-wise, this is just gorgeous."

---

Conclusion

Episode 64 of Accelerated Culture delivers a thorough and insightful examination of Live's Mental Jewelry. By intertwining musical analysis with philosophical discourse, Lori and Scott offer listeners a nuanced understanding of the album's significance in the broader tapestry of alternative music. The episode not only honors the legacy of Mental Jewelry but also underscores the enduring relevance of its themes in today's societal context.

---

Additional Resources

• Podcast Website: AcceleratedCulturePodcast.com
• Listener Support: Patreon - Accelerated Culture Podcast
• Live's Official Website: LiveMusic.com

---

Note: All music clips discussed in this podcast fall under the ”Fair Use Doctrine” as defined by Section 107 of the Copyright Act.

Transcript

[Lori]

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[Scott Free]

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[Scott Free]

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[Lori]

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[Scott Free]

Hello and welcome back to the Accelerated Culture Podcast. I am your co host, Scott Free.

[Lori]

And I'm Lori. Welcome back.

[Scott Free]

Welcome back. How's it going, Laurie?

[Lori]

It's going pretty good. We haven't seen each other for a while, have we?

[Scott Free]

We have not. We did take a couple week break there.

[Lori]

Yeah. But much needed. We just had so many things going on. Life gets in the way sometimes.

[Scott Free]

It does. And you know, there was a episode we were gonna do, but then we didn't because we delayed it because. Reasons as reasons.

[Lori]

Yes.

[Scott Free]

And we'll get into those a little later.

[Lori]

So, Scott, I'd like to start off with a couple of shouts out.

[Scott Free]

I got one myself. What do you got?

[Lori]

Okay, so somebody using the name Rock R O C K wrote love this podcast. NXS is one of my favorite too. It was my first concert with the Soup Dragons at the Rosemont Horizon.

[Scott Free]

Wow, old school.

[Lori]

So obviously this is somebody local to us because the Rosemont Horizon is in a suburb of Chicago.

[Scott Free]

Well, all right. It's. It's curious because I did mention I also have a shout out. And my shout out is to Rocco at. Com in Wooddale, Illinois, who I have met through my band playing. And he has been going through the entire Accelerated Culture podcast archives from the very first episode a year before I was even on the scene. And he is apparently going through it with just a voracious appetite for pop culture and music. And I'm going to go ahead and say that rock and Rocco are the same guy.

[Lori]

Oh, okay. All right, well, thanks for listening, Rocco.

[Scott Free]

Thanks, Rocco. Really appreciate the support.

[Lori]

Was that your shout out?

[Scott Free]

It was.

[Lori]

Oh, okay.

[Scott Free]

We have the same shout out.

[Lori]

That's funny. That's funny. Okay, my other shout out is for our newest Patreon subscriber. Ooh. Ah, yes. Mike Peterson. Mike is actually one of my colleagues at the college and he listened to the episode on Matthew Sweets, which he was really, really stoked about, and he said he'd forgotten that album. He actually got his son listening to it now. And so I want to give a little plug here. Mike is the lead singer of a band here in Chicago called 45 souls.

[Scott Free]

Cool.

[Lori]

Check them out on the web. It's 45 souls, 45s o u l s dot com. So giving him a little plug there. And Mike, thanks for supporting the podcast.

[Scott Free]

Mike, thanks so much for listening. Thanks for the Patreon support. And what does Mike get for his support other than shouts out on the air?

[Lori]

Yeah. Thank you so much for the Patreon support. And so Mike got an envelope of accelerated culture swag.

[Scott Free]

Button, button.

[Lori]

Yes. I still have lots of buttons. And if you are interested in helping us support the podcast, please visit patreon.com acceleratedculturepodcast do it.

[Scott Free]

Give us your money so that we can just give it right back to the hosting service.

[Lori]

That's kind of how it works. So. Hey, Scott, Scott, what have you. What have you seen? What have you done since our last episode?

[Scott Free]

I have been many places. I have been to Denver and seen an amazing house DJ who's name escapes me. I have been to Detroit a couple times. But the one thing that I've done relevant to what we do here, the one pop culture music thing I've done is saw a return one night only screening on IMAX of Becoming Led Zeppelin. Obviously the Led Zeppelin documentary that follows the band from childhood through their debut as the Yardbirds. People know that members of Led Zeppelin were in the Yardbirds. What I did not know was Led Zeppelin first performed under the name the Yardbirds and then became the Yardbirds performing as Led Zeppelin. And then the Led Zeppelin that we still know to this day follows them from formation through their first two albums. It is an amazing documentary. I learned so much in this one. And newfound respect. Already had huge respect for Jimmy Page, but newfound huge respect for Jimmy Page in particular. Worth seeing. Seek it out if you're into that.

[Lori]

Sort of thing, which you know I'm not.

[Scott Free]

You're wrong. It's the craziest thing I've ever heard. But I guess people are entitled to their own opinions. However ill founded and wrong minded people.

[Lori]

Are entitled to my opinion. All right, well, I am supposed to be going to see the Ocean Blue On Sunday the 27th here in Chicago.

[Scott Free]

Right on. I may, if I can make my schedule work, go see them that night as well.

[Lori]

That happens to be somebody's birthday that we know.

[Scott Free]

Somebody's. Yes, whoever could it be? It's me, Scott free. By the time you listen to this episode, I will have gotten even older. But that's true of pretty much every episode we do. That's how time works.

[Lori]

Yeah, I was gonna say we haven't quite mastered the time travel aspect of it yet.

[Scott Free]

That's another yet soon. But that's not the only Ocean Blue related news now, is it?

[Lori]

No, it's not. We kind of have to give our listeners a little bit of an apology here. So we had hoped to have our episode on Cerulean by the Ocean Blue this week, but I've been going back and forth with members of the band the Ocean Blue. We've been trying to schedule an interview and unfortunately our schedules just have not meshed up. Scott, you mentioned all the travel that you've been doing and obviously they're on tour right now, so they're traveling. We are still hoping to get them on the podcast for an interview. I've been communicating with Peter from the Ocean Blue.

[Scott Free]

They've got plenty of tour left this year, so we are hoping to get an interview in while they're still on the road and soon.

[Lori]

Fingers crossed that that will be coming soon. And then we'll also do Cerulean and that's probably how we're going to close out 1991.

[Scott Free]

In theory. In theory, 91 left. But we can't stay here forever. There's so much 90s left after 1991 and we are. We're gonna have to close the book on this one eventually. I'm still holding out hope for a couple, but you and I negotiate that behind the scenes.

[Lori]

So since we are hanging out in 1991, I chose the album this week.

[Scott Free]

You did.

[Lori]

It was released on December 31st of 1991. So just barely in the year.

[Scott Free]

Just under the Wire.

[Lori]

And that is live, their major label.

[Scott Free]

Debut album under that name.

[Lori]

Under that name, Mental Jewelry.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. This was an album that I was aware, aware of at the time that it came out. I heard the big singles that made the rounds on MTV and college slash alternative radio, but it was not an album that I had sat down and listened to all the way through and it was full of surprises. And you have a More of a history with this album, do you not?

[Lori]

I do. I have loved this album ever since it first came out. Honestly, the first time I discovered it. You're going to laugh. Back in the day, they used to advertise albums on television and there was a commercial for mental jewelry by this band called Live that I'd never heard of. And they had a little bit of. I think it was track one. And I had never heard anything like it before, especially Ed Kowalczyk's voice. And I said to myself, I have to find this album. So I went down to the record store, picked up a copy, and it has never left my rotation ever since. I really. Yeah, No, I mean, this album, it to me, has a spiritual component to it, which, when I was 18, when this album came out, you know, I was kind of searching. And, you know, it's interesting because I spent a lot of time in my teens hanging out at the Theosophical Society in Wheaton, Illinois.

[Scott Free]

Seriously?

[Lori]

Seriously. There's actually a kind of an indirect connection with some of the subject matter of the album and the Theosophists, which we will no doubt get into.

[Scott Free]

I think we'll have to.

[Lori]

But, yeah, this album is just. For me. It's so beautiful, and it really just resonates with me on just a very, very deep, spiritual level.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I was just gonna be like, and it rocks. But yours is deeper and more profound. And we'll go with yours.

[Lori]

Okay. All right.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

So we should probably talk about the band live, how they got together. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

All right. So it should be noted, one of the things I remember in the hype around this band when they first came out is how young they were when this album came out. They're not the youngest band of the era. That honor actually goes to the aforementioned the Ocean Blue, who we are hoping to interview and whose album cerulean from 1991 we will also be doing an episode on soon. Those guys were in high school when it came out, but live, they were 19 when this album came out. And as a guy who was 21 when it came out, I was like, damn, these guys are younger than me and they're making music this complex that rocks this hard, and they're on MTV and selling a shit ton of records. I may not be living my life right. It only took me another 32 years or so, but I. I got into bands and I'll be on the Rockstar train any minute.

[Lori]

Well, yeah, so they actually started off playing Together in eighth grade, a guitarist named Chad Taylor and a drummer named Chad Gracie. They were best friends in eighth grade.

[Scott Free]

That's too many Chads.

[Lori]

Two Chads in one band. That's a little bit unusual. But Chad and Chad recruited their buddy Patrick Dahlheimer to play bass. And then they booked themselves at a school talent show where they performed an instrumental medley of U2's Like a Song and Nucleus's Jam On It.

[Scott Free]

No way.

[Lori]

Way.

[Scott Free]

I freaking love Jam On It. And I would not have thought that this was a song those guys would do, except Patrick Dahlheimer is kind of a beast on the bass, and that is a very bass heavy song. So it makes sense to me now.

[Lori]

Well, so that information and a lot of the other information that I'm going to be discussing in this episode actually came from a Rolling Stone magazine article from 2023. It was called How An Alleged Con Man Tore Apart one of the 90s biggest bands.

[Scott Free]

Spoiler alert, that band is live.

[Lori]

When we get to the Where Are They Now? Segment at the end of the album, man, it's a roller coaster.

[Scott Free]

Oh, dude. It is a Pardon My French and nephews, cover your ears. It is a shit show.

[Lori]

So the trio of Chad and Chad and Patrick did not win the school talent show.

[Scott Free]

They did not.

[Lori]

But in the audience was a kid named Ed Kowalczyk who used to try to beat Chad Taylor up. Brilliant, right? This was also a theme of Blur, wasn't there, where one of the guys was bullying?

[Scott Free]

Anyway, bullying bandmates leads to global success.

[Lori]

I guess so. I guess.

[Scott Free]

Bones, I'm coming for you, man.

[Lori]

Is that his name, Bones?

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Okay, so in that Rolling Stone article, Chad Taylor says, I was walking down the hall and I saw Ed. I was like, oh, my God, we're going to fight again. My stomach turned inside out since I was so scared. And he walked up and he was like, hey, man, I. I would love to play with your band.

[Scott Free]

That took a turn.

[Lori]

Right. This, by the way, was in York, Pennsylvania, I think I neglected to mention. So Ed Kowalczyk joined the band in 1984, and they became known as Public Affection.

[Scott Free]

It is a terrible name.

[Lori]

Yeah, well, it came from one of the guy's girlfriends or something.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

When they graduated from high school, they recorded a cassette of original songs called the Death of a dictionary in 1989. And, Scott, I think you listened to that one, did you not?

[Scott Free]

I did. I did. I gave that a listen. You can catch that on YouTube the entire cassette. And, you know, it sounds like a less jangly, harder Darker REM Or a lot like a harder Towed the Wet Sprocket. Which, you know, most things would be harder than Towed the Wet Sprocket, but Towed the Wet Sprocket with poundier drums and harder guitars. And so basically they sound a lot like live because it's the same band. That's the band and they were just called Public Affection. And yeah, Want to keep your personal number private, but still stay connected? With line two, you can get a second phone line right on your device with a super simple app and no need for another phone. Whether it's for online shopping, dating, or shielding your main number from spam, Line two is an easy way to manage it all ready for peace of mind without breaking the bank call, text block and more for only $9.99. Get started with line2.com audio or download line two in any app store today. Line two, your second line. Simplified.

[Lori]

Yeah. Ed Kowalczyk has such a distinctive voice. It's unmistakable on that voice. Yes.

[Scott Free]

And now this. Citing one of my sources coming from Spin magazine's Lips Service podcast with Scott Lips, the August 19, 2024 episode entitled Ed Kowalczyk of Live on the story behind Lightning Crashes and the most influential 90s bands. I'll be referring to this at a few different segments, but in that podcast, Ed Kowalczyk talks about growing up in York, Pennsylvania. His father was a teacher, his mother worked at a bank, but his aunt, his aunt was a vocal coach and taught him. He was in choir. And through her teachings, he developed the really strong, loud, distinct voice that made Live live and did really well as a choir singer. He was in the Pennsylvania State Choir and advanced really far in it. And to this day, he credits her for the power and longevity of his voice.

[Lori]

Nice. I didn't even know that. So that's cool.

[Scott Free]

I'll surprise you once in a while with actual knowledge.

[Lori]

Oh, okay. So the four of them, Chad Taylor, Patrick Dahlheimer, Chad Gracie and Ed Kowalczyk, started playing regular concerts as public affection at CBGB's in New York, the legendary punk bar.

[Scott Free]

You know, they grew up in York, Pennsylvania. It's not a big town. That's one of the things Ed Kowalczyk said in this interview is that really the only good thing about York, Pennsylvania was that it was so close to so many places on the Eastern seaboard, in particular a two hour drive to New York City. So even as high school students or recent high school grads, they could be playing shows at CBGB's, which is huge.

[Lori]

So they caught the attention of Radioactive Records, who signed them.

[Scott Free]

Yes, Part of the signing was a insistence that they change the name. And how did they come up with Live again? According to Ed Kowalczyk, they literally pulled it out of a hat from among other naming candidates. But one of the reasons why they liked it and stuck with it was that, and this is a quote, no one will ever be able to pigeonhole us. It leaves it wide open. He likens themselves and their name in particular to REM who were one of two of Live's huge influences, the other being U2. It was just sort of open to interpretation and it could mean whatever you want it to mean. Astute interviewer Scott Lips pointed out that perhaps that name was little too open to interpretation because obviously Live means and is used often with live bands, live music. So the quote that Ed Kwolik gave is it wasn't the most prescient choice of name for the Google era. And specifically cites how. Now, if you ask Siri to play you music by Live, it has no idea what you're talking about, and it could play just about anything. It's just so ambiguous that it has, in fact, caused some problems. But they got around that with particular capitalizations or the long vowel symbol over the eye, or any number of ways of treating it typographically to try to reduce that ambiguity.

[Lori]

Yeah. So the record label connected them with Jerry Harrison of the Talking Heads.

[Scott Free]

Listening to the interviews by them, this was a big deal for them. Although Ed Kwalchik talks about how when they were first told they were going to be produced by a member of the Talking Heads, his mind immediately went to, oh, cool, David Byrne. And then he gets there and it's like, this is Jerry Harrison. He's like. He's the keyboard player.

[Lori]

All right, cool.

[Scott Free]

Game on. Let's do this. And, you know, Jerry Harrison has been become a pretty big producer, but this is pretty early in Jerry Harrison's producing career. By the time Live came along, Jerry Harrison had really only produced three albums for other groups. Two of them actually are pretty big names in alternative music. 1986, he produced the Violent Femmes, the Blind Leading the Naked, which I think is nobody's favorite Violent Femmes album, but good and featured the Violent Femmes doing a cover of T. Rex's or Mark Bolan's Children of the Revolution. And then in 1987, the Bodines outside looking in again, not one that, you know, big singles off of, but it was the one right before the Bodines blew up to the extent Bodines blew up. So getting Jerry Harrison as a producer was a big deal because Talking Heads was a big deal because Major Label, or at least subsidiary of Major Label.

[Lori]

And Jerry would go on to produce a four song ep, which was actually the band's first release under the name live on September 24th of 1991.

[Scott Free]

So, yeah, I had not realized that this album, that Mental Jewelry was produced by Jerry Harrison. But, you know, they had their work to do in terms of making, crafting their own sound. And I think that's the thing you can really credit Jerry Harrison with is taking the sound that you heard on the Death of the Dictionary and really leveling it up, polishing it. And it's a really well produced album.

[Lori]

Mental Jewelry, absolutely. So he started off producing the four songs ep and two of the songs on that ep, Operation Spirit and Good Pain, would then later be on this album, Mental Jewelry. The term mental Jewelry, it's actually mentioned in one of the songs we'll talk about. But it originated in the writings of Jiddu Krishnamurti, who was an Indian philosopher and spiritual figure. A lot of the songs on this album draw inspiration from the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. I said earlier that there would be a little bit of a connection with the Theosophist.

[Scott Free]

You did.

[Lori]

Krishnamurti was adopted by the Theosophist as a child and they raised him to fill this world teacher role that they had envisioned. But when he reached adulthood, he rejected that and he decided to start his own kind of philosophy. So he was groomed to be in this role and completely rejected it. But there are some elements of. Of theosophy and his teachings.

[Scott Free]

So, yeah, so I hate it when the sources that I find in my research have a source nested within the source. But from of all things, song facts.com they quote a Spin magazine article in which Kowalchik talks about how he discovered Krishnamurti's work. So the quote goes, I picked up Krishnamurti's you are the World. Quick side note, this will come up later as one of the song titles and lyrics in another song. But I picked up Krishnamurti's you are the World in some kind of New age bookstore when I was 18, when I was surrounded by all this baby talk philosophy. And I read it and thought, damn, this is so unique. His basic philosophy is that all knowledge is limited. So no matter how elite you are in the world of knowledge, even if you were a saint, as long as your idea of God or truth or whatever is projected from that limited source, then it is essentially not true.

[Lori]

That's very deep.

[Scott Free]

I'm having trouble getting my head around it, if I'm honest. But I have not delved that deep into philosophy, baby talk, theosophy or otherwise. So I'm just going to take Kual's word for it.

[Lori]

Okay. And I was a weird kid, so.

[Scott Free]

And that changed when you became an adult how?

[Lori]

Oh, I just got weirder.

[Scott Free]

All right. That's good. You really embraced it and ran with it.

[Lori]

Yeah, well, you know, when you're an adult, they can call you eccentric, right?

[Scott Free]

That's right. Funny side note, when I was, let's call it, 26 and an intern at an ad agency, the owner and creative director of that ad agency, and I just talked briefly, and at one point he said to me, you know, you're an odd young man. And I said, I prefer to think of myself as eccentric. And he, in his late 50s at that time, I believe, looked down his nose at me, shook his head a little bit and said, no, no, you're not old enough to be eccentric at your age. At best, you're idiosyncratic. And that. That really stuck with me. But now I know now I'm almost as old as he was then, so I feel like maybe eccentric is on the table.

[Lori]

Yeah, no, eccentric, definitely. And then me, I'm now the spooky, witchy goth woman that all of the kids in the neighborhood stay away from. I'm totally okay with that. Anyway, back to Mental Jewelry and to Jerry Harrison's production of it. Yes, I love how warm and intimate the recordings on this album sound. They sound, to me almost as if they are a live performance. It feels that intimate, you know, it. I don't know how to explain it. There's empty spaces in places where, you know, you just hear the drumming or you just hear a little bit of bass. But it is just. It is.

[Scott Free]

I mean, it lacks some of the super clean production that was a hallmark of, well, their later albums, you can feel the room that they're in or the effect simulating such a room. It was actually the room it was produced in was Jerry Harrison's studio in Milwaukee. But the performances, the musicianship, particularly of Patrick Dahlheimer on bass, he is really going for it most of the time. The drumming of Chad Gracie, he's a big, heavy drummer and not just doing straight backbeats, like he's really going for it. And none of this is to take anything away from Chad Taylor, the guitarist, who you can definitely hear some of his influences, and they are big and sometimes heavily effects processed. But these are musicians who are really going for it. And you cannot talk about live without giving props to Ed Kowalczyk and that voice, it is one of the most distinctive and alternative rock, and it's big. And he is sending it. Absolutely said that's part of the reason some people are detractors of live is they don't like the tone of his voice. They don't like how earnest he is. And we can get into the lyrics later, but those people are being jerks. It's a hell of a performance that he gives.

[Lori]

And there's a few songs on this album where just his voice is cracking with emotion.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, earnest, as I said. Yeah.

[Lori]

You've heard the term, Scott. Auditory frisson.

[Scott Free]

I'll say. Yes. But can you explain it for the audience who might not know as much as I do?

[Lori]

Laurie, that was good. It's when music moves you so much that it can move you to tears or goosebumps. And I think I've said in previous episodes, I feel everything a lot more deeply than I think most people do. At least that's my impression when talking to people. But there are a couple songs on this album that have moved me to tears. Just with the raw emotion behind it. It's just, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Scott Free]

Ascending it that I was talking about is not necessarily belting it, Although, boy, he can do that. But, yeah, the perform. He is performing his heart out. Whether it's loud, soft, cracking with emotion, and sometimes that emotion might be anger isn't quite right, but questioning indignation.

[Lori]

Okay, yeah, I like it. I like it. Yeah. So is there anything else before we get into the track by track? Scott.

[Scott Free]

Yes, a little bit on their songwriting process. This is one of those bands where it is much like one of their idols, U2, where the songwriting process was truly collaborative, but with a division of labor. This one from guitarworld.com, an article from August 7, 2017 lives. Ed Kowalczyk and Chad Taylor discuss the remastered Mental Jewelry package, reunion and band's future. Right. So in this, Ed Qualic says, we usually did a mixture of riffs and ideas to jam out and others where I might bring something in that was more fully formed that we would tear down and rip apart. It's always been that hybrid, and that sounds a lot like the process that U2's the edge and Bono described that we related in our recent episode on U2's Achtung Baby. Sometimes they would have pretty well developed song ideas. That they would bring into the studio, but then tear them apart, reconfigure them, and come up with something largely new out of it. And other times, it would just be a chord progression and they would jam and it would come out of that. But that was the band together making the music. And then Ed Kowalczyk was almost exclusively responsible for the lyrics. And, boy, are these lyrics. They are deep, they are involved, they are complex. He is a hell of a poet, and he is, as you talked about, talking philosophy pretty much always. This is not your material issue. Or Matthew Sweet making songs about girls. And this is not the Happy Mondays making songs about raving and partying and getting wasted. This is philosophy made into poetry, made into lyrics that really meshes well with the music they make. Chad Taylor then expands upon the songwriting process. Because we were so young when we were writing, there were obviously no rules. It was a process of self discovery. I can remember having conversations with Ed with my perception of how difficult it must be to write lyrics. And he would tell me he was having trouble putting together chord parts, but we always pushed each other. And I think that really shows there is no one voice musically happening in here. Although vocally, man, Ed really shines in the center of this. But when you get past those lyrics, you get past that voice and listen to the actual music, man. Does it all work together really well? Let's see how specifically. And get into that track by track.

[Lori]

Well, hold that thought.

[Scott Free]

Oh, God.

[Lori]

That. That article that you quoted was from 2017, right?

[Scott Free]

I believe that that's true.

[Lori]

Okay. Well, in 2023, they were saying something different in that Rolling Stone article.

[Scott Free]

Oh, really?

[Lori]

In that Rolling Stone article, Chad Gracie felt that Ed Kowalczyk actually was right to demand soul writing credit. He said, quote, ed has written every lyric and every melody for live ever.

[Scott Free]

Whoa.

[Lori]

And Chad would try to take credit. Chad might come up with a guitar idea that would become a song, but he didn't write the song. And this was one of the things that ultimately led to the band breaking up was this.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I was going to say that article was from 2023.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. The band was not getting along well by that point, were they?

[Lori]

No, not so much. But I think it's interesting. I think it's interesting that Chad Gracie feels that Ed Kowalczyk wrote the lyrics and the melodies, and Chad Taylor perceives it very differently. You know what they say. There's both sides and then there's the truth. Right. Which is usually somewhere in the middle. So.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, right. Yeah. The other thing they say is follow the money. So who was trying to get what out of that argument? Right.

[Lori]

And we are going to touch on that when we get to the. Where are they now? Because it was a mess. It was a mess.

[Scott Free]

At least in the early days, in the Death of the Dictionary, in the Four Songs ep, and in this, their debut on a major label under the name Live Mental Jewelry, the songwriting process was a lot more collaborative, I think.

[Lori]

So, yes.

[Scott Free]

Let's see how that played out. Let's get into the track by track and start it off with track one. Pain lies on the riverside.

[C]

I must learn to swim all over Dead lives on the river side.

[Scott Free]

So put your feet in the water Put your head.

[C]

In the water Come on, Just water.

[Scott Free]

Man. The rhythm section starting off strong. Chad Gracie, the drummer laying down a solid, fast, funky rhythm with just a kick, a snare, and maracas. Unusual right out the gate. And then Patrick Dahlheimer coming in on the third measure with a bass line that just really moves. He is all over the place.

[Lori]

This is the first song I ever heard by live, and I fell in love immediately.

[Scott Free]

And you were a bass player, were you not? Were you at this point yet a bass player?

[Lori]

No, not yet.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so disregard. Go on.

[Lori]

I really do appreciate his. His bass work on this song. It's. It's a very complex bass line.

[Scott Free]

All right, here's the thing. I thought so, too. And, you know, when I research these bands and these tracks and these episodes, I. I dig around all over the Internet, something I don't usually do, though. And I watched a reaction video. In general, I kind of dislike the entire reaction video genre, but this was a reaction video by a professional studio musician, bass player Justin Panariello. I was kind of floored by his reaction to this baseline quote from him. Just right off the bat, when I hear something like. And he does a vocal version of the bass line, like that kind of baseline, like, that's kind of like, really kind of. It reminds me of, like, playing in high school. It's just kind of a basic bass line. And I'm like, damn, dude, what high school did you go to? I am not a bass player, but that feels harsh and off base as a layman. Not face player.

[Lori]

Yeah, that.

[Scott Free]

Dude. That bass is moving and it's going and it is a groove. Right?

[Lori]

It's better than I could do. Absolutely. I mean, not that that's saying much, but yeah. No, yeah, I've tried. I've tried this song. It is hard for me. And then when Ed's voice comes in in the very beginning with this kind of almost guttural like chant like, ah, I can't even do it. I can't even do it justice. It's just right from that very moment, you know, that something special is happening here.

[Scott Free]

I. I have another quote from Ed Kowalczyk on the writing of this song. Again from that guitar world.com interview. That was the first time I had a fully formed song on acoustic guitar and walked in and said, hey, what do you guys think? Chad playing that cool shaker part and that groove was something I never would have imagined. But that was the brilliance of the band. Our songs were never one train of thought. They were an amalgam of jamming, free flow versus here's a full formed song. Let's learn how we can make it fit.

[Lori]

Oh, that's cool.

[Scott Free]

Ed saying that. That was more collaborative. So interesting in the context earlier disagreement.

[Lori]

Yeah. Anyway, yeah, and lyrically I love everything about this song. You know, the idea of water being cleansing. Pain lies on the riverside, you know, jump into the water, Leave your pain on the river's edge and just let it wash away.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. The one quatrain that I particularly dig. I have forever always tried to stay clean and constantly baptized. I'm aware that the river's banks, they are dry and to wait for a flood is to wait for life.

[Lori]

That was a quote I was going to do too. Why do you like that one? Why do you like that one?

[Scott Free]

I like it because of the sort of ambiguity, particularly of that last line. To wait for a flood is to wait for life. Is the flood life or the waiting is the duration of your life. I enjoy that ambiguity.

[Lori]

I interpreted that as if you wait for the water to come to you, if you wait for the flood to come to you, you're going to be waiting a long time. So take the initiative, grab life by. Grab the bull by the horns and you know, experience life and don't just wait for it to come to you. So I feel that. Yeah. So there's actually a couple songs on this album where this theme of water and cleansing is going to come up again. But man, what an amazing way to open this album.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, for sure.

[Lori]

So this song was released as a single and it peaked at number 24 on the US modern rock chart.

[Scott Free]

That's pretty strong debut.

[Lori]

Yeah, absolutely. I want to say it was the second single because the first one, the Operation Spirit, was actually released in advance of the album because that was on the four song ep.

[Scott Free]

You really get a good idea of what this band is about from this song. Not the only mode they do, but one of the big modes they do. And that is a rocking, stomping song that is just full of energy and full of Ed Kowalczyk's voice. You can see how live could almost border on jam band. But it's harder than that, or harder than what we have come to think of as a jam band. That said, everything I just said is why some people just don't like live. As I was telling people in advance that this was the album we were going to be covering for this episode, there were two people very close to me whose taste in music I generally respect were like, ugh, I don't like live. And I hate to be that guy who's going to be like, I think maybe you don't actually know live and force them to listen to it. But I. I may.

[Lori]

Okay, well, Scott, then that brings us to track two.

[Scott Free]

So it does.

[Lori]

Operation Spirit, the tyranny of tradition. What an interesting name.

[C]

About a scene now Heard a lot of talk about a lot of things Never meant that much to me Heard a lot of talk about my spirit Heard a lot of talk about my soul But I decided that anxiety and pain will make my friends so I let it go.

[Lori]

Go.

[C]

My friend let's get it back let's get it back together.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. All right. So in the intro, you mentioned that you were first introduced to this album, that you just had to have it when you saw a TV ad for album, which is something we don't see a lot these days. But it was a. Not common practice, but not unheard of practice back then. Right, Right. Yeah. The other one that I remember vividly from back then on independent TV stations in Detroit was for Loving Rockets Express, which. Oh, yeah, I was hooked immediately, much like you were with Mental Jewelry. But I remember the ad for Mental Jewelry as well. And among the things that it did feature was clips from this song from Operation Spirit, the Tyranny of Tradition, and in particular, that. Give it up, give it up, give it up did you give it up, give it up, give it up. Which just so hooky. Right? And sing alongable and you know, in just the words at face value. Give it up, give it up, give it up. You might think that this is just a typical rock song about sex and whatever, but, yeah, that's not what they're talking about here, are they?

[Lori]

Not at all. Not at all. So some of the lyrics that I'd like to quote here. Heard a lot of talk about this Jesus, a man of love and a man of strength. But what a man was 2,000 years ago means nothing at all to me today. He could have been telling me about my higher self, but he only lives inside my prayer. So what he was may have been beautiful, but the pain is right now and right here. And damn if that didn't resonate with 18 year old baby Laurie.

[Scott Free]

Right?

[Lori]

You know? Yes. I mean, that's the age where you start kind of questioning the beliefs that you've been raised in and all that kind of stuff. And that actually does relate to. To one of the teachings of Jiddu Krishnamurti. Truth is a pathless land, meaning there's no path to finding the truth. And he very strongly advised against following any discipline, any teacher, any spiritual guru, including himself.

[Scott Free]

Ooh, paradoxical.

[Lori]

Yes. So I. I can relate that to this talk about this man, Jesus, a man of love and a man of strength. Where is the path to truth through him? And for many people it is, I'm sure, but.

[Scott Free]

But let other people feel free.

[Lori]

So the subtitle of this song in parentheses is the Tyranny of Tradition. And that's a really kind of a profound statement that if we are married to these traditions, these belief systems, whether it's, you know, Christianity or Islam or, you know, Judaism, whatever, that we're doing things because it's a tradition that's been passed down in our families or whatever. Not necessarily because it's something that we truly resonate with or truly believe.

[Scott Free]

Right. That truly aligns with our values.

[Lori]

Exactly.

[Scott Free]

Curiously unrelated to live and this episode at all, Just yesterday online, I saw a great quote that I think applies here. Tradition is peer pressure from dead people.

[Lori]

I've seen that quote. I love it. I love it. Yes. Yes. No, that's. That's a really good quote.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. People may not have been aware of the nuances of the lyrics, but definitely you felt that groove the first time you heard this track. I have more from the Guitar World interview once again, Ed Kowalczyk. I remember sitting in the practice loft of Chad Gracie's garage, and Chad Taylor was there playing this rhythmic groove. I was following this rhythm and started doing a chant over that. There are only two or three more chords, but there was enough to get an emotion across. Then you add Gracie's drumming and how energetic the song is. We wanted a song that would grab people's attention right out of the box. It definitely did that. At the time, I had no idea I was even writing a song. I remember Ed telling me to keep playing and then he started singing Over Top of it. That's actually my first memory of a collaboration with Ed. The other funny story about that song is because it was one of the first songs we had written. I remember telling our manager that I didn't think it should be on the album. I have to laugh at that now because it came out of the box and was the signature thing that we started to build the band. But again, we were young and blissfully unaware of the business and we were just trying to put our best foot forward. I would say it worked.

[Lori]

Technically. It was the first single off the album, but it appeared on that four Songs EP that predated it.

[Scott Free]

Right. And was released as a single in advance of Mental Jewelry. Right?

[Lori]

Correct.

[Scott Free]

Right.

[Lori]

It peaked at number nine on the US Alternative chart.

[Scott Free]

Huge for a band that had only recently started existing, at least under this name. And not a lot of people heard about the stuff under the Public Affection moniker either. So, like, yes, this is essentially a debut and a pretty big one. Well then, let's see what they did with track three. The Beauty of Gray.

[C]

This is not a black and white world you can't afford to believe in yourself this is not a black and white world to be alive I say the colors must swirl and I believe that maybe today we will all get to appreciate yes, we will all get to appreciate the beauty of rain the beauty of.

[Scott Free]

Right off the bat, more than a little drama in that opening with that almost flamenco hard strummed acoustic guitar, then with these long pregnant pauses. And then musically, the song keeps it really interesting and just mixes it up a lot. There's the aforementioned flamenco style intro thing, and then this relatively straight backbeat in the refrain. And then this like hard driving march like chorus. And then this softer arpeggiated post chorus break. And then the cycle repeats again. There's a lot going on in this song. It changes it up, it keeps it moving. And it's pretty damn interesting musically at the very least, I imagine. While you like that, if I know you, Laurie, and I think I do, you have some thoughts on those lyrics?

[Lori]

Oh yeah. And this is another one that just resonated with me from the first time I heard it. It's a message about. Well, it's anti racism is what it is. If I told you he was your brother, we could reminisce. This is not a black and white world to be alive the colors must be swirled. Although I think that rhyme is a little hokey. Well, it. But it works in this context. And you Know, growing up, we were always taught that the United States is a melting pot. Right? They always use that analogy, a melting pot. And that's kind of how I'm visualizing this, where, you know, black, white, brown, whatever your skin color is, you know, we're all human under the skin, you know, and it's about embracing our differences.

[Scott Free]

Well, I mean. All right, so here's the curious thing. When I was looking at these lyrics, I wasn't thinking race, okay, Thinking morality. I was thinking teams and nationality. But I didn't immediately go to race. And I think probably the reason is, you know, you mix the various colors of the human race, I don't think you end up with gray. Right.

[Lori]

Oh, that's.

[Scott Free]

I think it's about. I think it's about moral shades of grave more than it is necessarily racial. But I think that's the beauty of it, is that it works on levels and you can bring to it your own perception, and it's gonna work on a lot of those. Right?

[Lori]

Yeah. And. And I don't disagree with that interpretation.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so among the main words that people who like to criticize live will use to criticize live, foremost among those words is preachy. And, well, if you look at the lyrics for this particular track, kind of fair. They are a little bit preachy, but also, it's like preaching a pretty good sermon. Like, it is hard to look at that message, at least from my particular perspective, and be like, no, I disagree. Things should be more black and white and people should be more divided. But I recognize that that is not currently the prevailing worldview. Yeah, do people need more live? Is that the problem? Could Ed Kowalczyk save us all? Probably not, but, you know, it's a good song.

[Lori]

You know, people leveled the same criticism against U2 and REM and as you mentioned, Scott, they were two big influences on live, so.

[Scott Free]

Oh, yeah, I can remember having friends who were of that kind of mindset in college, as I was when this came out, that they didn't like REM, U2 or live or being too preachy. But, like, it doesn't have to all be party music, man. It doesn't have to all be sex, drugs, and rock and roll. And, you know, a good message is a good message.

[Lori]

And for the record, we at Accelerated Culture Podcast do enjoy the sex, drugs and rock and roll.

[Scott Free]

Oh, for sure. In theory, in music, uh, stay off drugs, kids stay in school. If sometimes the lyrics on this one are a little bit on the nose, the imagery is a little too ham fisted. Eh? Okay, that can be a legit criticism. I know you don't personally share that one, but eh, I don't have a problem with musicians getting preachy. I think a lot of the reason people had problems with Michael Stipe or Bono getting preachy was between the songs, on the stage, on mtv, in interviews, on the rooftop with a megaphone or wherever. I don't think anybody really had problems with YouTube's music and lyrics being too preachy. Did they? Some did. They were wrong.

[Lori]

Okay, anything else on that one?

[Scott Free]

That'll do it for me.

[Lori]

Okay, so the next song is kind of continuing with this theme I think of racism or anti racism. Brothers unaware.

[C]

And if I don't I love them all and if I don't love you just them all. And if I don't love to care, I care.

[Scott Free]

So it's a slower number. We've been dealing with bangers up to this point and this one's a slower groove and musically it's maybe a bit samey. It kind of does the same groove for the duration, for the whole 4 minutes 44 seconds. But it's a solid mid tempo groove and Ed Kowalczyk's voice does give it drama and the gravitas that the lyrics demand.

[Lori]

That is a really nice kind of mellow groove. I have very vivid memories of lying on the grass at night looking up at the stars and listening to this song. It just brings that whole feeling back now. The beauty of gray. If the message behind that one was a bit ambiguous. Brother's unaware. There's no ambiguity here.

[Scott Free]

Oh no. Leaves leaves nothing to chance, Nothing to interpretation on this one.

[Lori]

So many people I know only a few. Yes, I may say that I love this man and that man but what keeps me from loving you? Date of birth, geography. The color of my skin ideology. You got 10 fingers, two legs, one nose. Like me. Just like me. And it's as simple as that.

[Scott Free]

Yes, yes. Most of it. Yes. I'm down. Like. I don't have a problem with an anti racist song specifically saying, hey, this is an anti racist song. The color of my skin ideology. Like it. You got ten fingers, two legs, one nose. Like me. Just like me. I kind of hate those lines.

[Lori]

It's a little silly. Yeah, it's a little silly.

[Scott Free]

It's a little, pardon the pun on the nose because you said ten fingers, two legs, one nose. You get it?

[Lori]

I got it, I got it.

[Scott Free]

No, comedy is always better when explained.

[Lori]

Now there's one part of the lyrics though that I don't really understand. But I like it.

[Scott Free]

What do you got?

[Lori]

From the mouth of a baby will come the world saving words that will save us all. And from the lungs of a child will come the everlasting breath of God.

[Scott Free]

Yes. And that comes right after several lines that I really dug as well. And if I don't know who to love, I love them all. And if I don't know who to trust, I trust them all. And if I don't know who to kill, I may kill myself instead. From the mouth of a baby will come the world saving words that will save us all. You know, I would think that if we're talking about people who are so entrenched in race or ideology that they have lost sight of their commonality, that from the mouth of the baby will come the world saving words. It takes the innocents who have not yet learned to hate who will actually unite us. Right.

[Lori]

Oh, wow.

[Scott Free]

And from the lungs of a child will come the everlasting breath of God. Right. Increasing peace and honesty and not carrying on despite of me.

[Lori]

Wow.

[Scott Free]

All right. I mean, I didn't pick it up, but I feel like that's kind of where he was going with that.

[Lori]

Yeah. All right, I'll go with that.

[Scott Free]

Right?

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Damn end. Really going for it here.

[Lori]

As far as the music itself, I don't know what it is, but the percussion on this, it's so crisp and so powerful. It just. It's the heartbeat of the song. It's so good.

[Scott Free]

I'll go with that. Yes, I'm with you.

[Lori]

All right. That's all I got on that one.

[Scott Free]

That's fair. That brings us to track five. Tired of me.

[C]

Tired of the water Tired of the rain Tired of the future Tired of time Tired of the madness Tired of the steel Tired of the violence Tired of me. You still, you still, still Am I what was liable in love now? Hard and crystal light the intellect is fine Counting money and recalling times that she cried crownless I breath.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so it must be noted that the title of the song is Not Tired of me, it's Tired of Me. And I'm making air quotes here. Sorry, what's that? Okay, so the guys in the control room are informing me that this is an audio only podcast and that the audience can't see my air quotes as I'm saying me in quotes. Right.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. So it's not tired of me personally, it's tired of me. The concept of me. Right. The. The self.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

Is it?

[Lori]

I think you are probably right.

[Scott Free]

I think it has to be. Otherwise why Put it in quotes.

[Lori]

But I think that it's coming through the lens or the perspective of a bad relationship where something about this relationship is forcing you to analyze yourself and not be happy with yourself. Specifically confused between what is and ain't. She cries groundless and free. And that groundless and free comes up a couple times in the song. And so if she's crying groundless and free, it sounds like, yeah, she's not happy with the situation in the relationship. I mean, I don't want to use the word separation, but it's an emotional separation. It's not necessarily a physical one. I'm rambling. I'm rambling.

[Scott Free]

No fair. Ramble on. I think you and I have both been in that relationship where. Well, there's a whole verse here that repeats the word tired. Right. I looked this up, and this is a poetic device called anaphora, the repetition of a word or phrase at the beginning of several successive clauses that have different endings. And Ed Kwalczyk uses it here to great effect, I think, to convey that exhaustion at the relationship that no longer serves. Tired of the water Tired of the wine Tired of the future Tired of the time Tired of the madness Tired of the steel Tired of the violence Tired of me. I felt that.

[Lori]

Yeah. Well, you said you and I both had that relationship. I think we should specify not with each other.

[Scott Free]

No, no, no, no.

[Lori]

But then there's some other words. Shortly after that. What was pliable in love is now hard and crystallized. And then the very last two lines of the song, Hope is a letter that never arrives Delivered by the postman of my fear. What a good metaphor.

[Scott Free]

I added my notes on that one. Take it down a notch, Ed.

[Lori]

Musically. And you've probably noticed as we were listening to that song. Yeah, this one. There's something about it that just makes me want to dance barefoot under the moon. I mean, I don't know. There's something about the rhythm. It's just a very kind of deep, primal rhythm that I just want to connect with the ground, with my root chakra, and then just kind of, you know, let. Let it all kind of come out dancing anyway.

[Scott Free]

Well. Well, yeah. In much more simplistic terms, it's got a little bit of swing to it, and I appreciate.

[Lori]

Okay, so the next song is called Mirror Song. Let's give it a listen.

[C]

I know that I should think about giving and think about Help me now to think about Think about living But I, I, I can't seem to rescue myself what about my bank account and my Holy desert shield they keep me drowning my flags and Mental Jew is all I know and to keep me happy and warm inside.

[Lori]

So this one.

[Scott Free]

Is such a departure, I feel like, for this band who we've only known for five songs so far. But it starts off a little bit more acoustic and strumming. Although, even with that, Chad Gracie going minimal yet big with that Big Tom hit on the four. And he does a great job at keeping it minimal on the drums, but dramatic throughout, with the exception of the pretty straightforward chorus. In a lot of ways, this track feels so unusual to me because it feels in the arrangement, it feels in the structure and flow of it. It feels almost like 70s soft rock. Like, this could be a Cat Stevens or Rodriguez song.

[Lori]

Yeah, no, I could see it. It's definitely got, like, kind of a.

[Scott Free]

Or Seals and Croft. It could be Seals and Croft.

[Lori]

All right.

[Scott Free]

But with, of course, Ed Kowalczyk just kind of letting loose.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Like, the voice is so big, right?

[Lori]

Oh, yeah. You know, and this one, again, there's this beautiful, beautiful drumming that comes in. It's right when I faded it out at about minute 15. And it is just. So this song gives me the chills.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, I can see that.

[Lori]

Yeah, you can see it, right? Yeah. Goosebumps. This song is where the album title Mental Jewelry comes from. There's that line, flags and mental jewelry is all I know. In Jiddu Krishnamurti's teachings, Mental jewelry refers to the elaborate and often distracting thoughts and beliefs that people hold about themselves and the world. Yes. And then in terms of the Mirror song, there's another quotation from Krishnamurti. Man cannot come to it meaning truth through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest, or ritual, not through any philosophical knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through. Through the mirror of relationship. So I think that that's where this is coming from, the mirror of relationship, and that we find our understanding of ourselves through that mirror. I know it's. It's kind of deep.

[Scott Free]

Well, it's fair for me. The song takes a turn. Like he is talking about his life and about his defense, defenses, and about the ways that we try to create meaning in our lives, but that are not meaning. But then the last third of the song or so. I really love the turn it takes. So I said unto this man, who are you? And where do you come from? And he proceeded to tell me many things, but I said nothing at all. For the flower in the corner by the room in the window and the sun said it all that his mind just wanders and he is observing, but he's not observing himself, his mind, his life. He is observing the room that he's in and the world it exists in. And, you know, I think that's just good poetry right there. But then I was thinking about it harder, and I'm like, why does this feel. Feel so familiar? And I remembered high school and college English class poetry lessons and how much this segment reminds me of William Carlos Williams. So much depends on a red wheelbarrow glazed with rainwater beside the white chickens. That. Okay, so much depends. But what? How? But he's not going to explain it. He is just focusing on the world that he's in and that imagery and that existence is enough. Right?

[Lori]

I've always loved William Carlos Williams, so I appreciate that you managed to work that into a podcast episode.

[Scott Free]

Really? Yeah. I went poetry heavy today, but between William Carlos Williams red wheelbarrow and the poetic device of anaphora, I really got heavy into the poetry for this episode because Ed Kowalczyk kind of forces you to. He's a pretty damn good poet.

[Lori]

And then to circle back. That poem and the lyrics that you quoted from this song are also consistent with Krishnamurti, where he basically taught that you have to be present and you have to be observing, and that truth comes from observing the world around you and participating, and not through somebody telling you, this is truth or this is what you should believe. I said unto this man, who are you and where do you come from? And he proceeded to tell me many things. Could that be a guru? Could that be a teacher? But instead of responding and really internalizing those teachings. Yeah, there you go. He's finding truth in the flower in the corner by the room, in the window and the sun. That. That is more truth than anything that this teacher had said. Maybe.

[Scott Free]

Yes, that's the lesson. Ignore your teachers, Laurie's students. You don't need to listen to Laurie. Just stare at that flower in the corner in the sun. This is not intended as serious academic advice. This will go poorly for you on your final.

[Lori]

Yes, and I was going to say you were my teacher, and I pretty sure I ignored you, so I'm pretty sure you did.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Well, then that brings us to number seven, Waterboy.

[C]

They don't even know how to sing My Soul, but they won't even try it with me. With me, with me. Yeah. Who is standing over playing like a teacher on a safe and learning trap, but can't leave her. I want to make a liar lay down their sirens and they.

[Scott Free]

All right, so this one, jangly guitars, straightforward but beating drum pattern. This one feels like early REM to me, like from the Murmur era. Well, until the chorus. And then it really sounds like live, which makes a lot more sense, what with it being live and all.

[Lori]

Yes, yes.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Well, like, you can hear the REM in it early. Right.

[Lori]

Yeah. So I. I see some similarities there. So once again, we've got the theme of water, and it's really an interesting song. What do you say to the child whose God is in the tv? And what do you say to the man who blames the world on tv.

[Scott Free]

Who is standing over playing like the teacher, harnessing the learned who try but can't leave her? You were talking earlier about rejecting teachers, rejecting gurus, that the path to truth is no path. Something like that.

[Lori]

Yes. Truth is a pathless land.

[Scott Free]

There we are. Yeah. So, I mean, reinforcing that theme.

[Lori]

Well, so the chorus. Free my son. Free my son. Make him waterboy. So I'm not so sure about the water boy part, but the. Seems important.

[Scott Free]

What was it being the title of the song.

[Lori]

I know, I know, but that idea of Free my son or freedom. So then again, to relate this to Krishnamurti, freedom is pure observation without direction, without fear, fear of punishment and reward. In observation, one begins to discover the lack of freedom. Freedom is found in the choiceless awareness of our daily existence and activity. Observation without direction, without fear of punishment and reward. And to Krishnamurti, that is how somebody achieves freedom. So I could see the idea of, you know, the son who has not been freed. Right. Free my son being constrained by the teachings, by the fear of punishment, by the promise of reward and not thinking for himself, not observing himself and finding his own path.

[Scott Free]

Well, yeah, I think make him water boy. I don't think they're saying make him the guy on the team who gives the team water, but, yes, make him the. Like water who can find his own path, who cannot be contained, at least not when there is a river bed to flow down and find his own way.

[Lori]

And, you know, that's actually a really profound statement, Scott. I mean, water can cut through rock, right? I mean, that's how the Grand Canyon was created. Water is really a powerful force. This is getting deep.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. I'm out of my depth here, but, yes, I feel like we've really hit on something.

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Thank you, Ed Kowalczyk.

[Lori]

Yes. And thank you, Jiddu Krishnamurti.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Yeah. But mostly Ed.

[Scott Free]

Mostly Ed. Yeah.

[Lori]

Yeah. Anything else on Waterboy?

[Scott Free]

Shortest track. On the album, I think three minutes, seven seconds short for you guys.

[Lori]

Okay, so, Scott, our next song is called Take My Anthem.

[C]

No difference, no difference between us the jails in the ocean are all so.

[Scott Free]

Sweet.

[C]

You got to.

[Scott Free]

Okay, so you don't necessarily get it from that clip, but take my word for it. Better yet, go back and listen to the intro of this song, Take My Anthem. It starts off slower and more atmospheric and. And it starts with some serious edge, U2 lilting, kind of noodly super reverby guitar strains that honestly are straight off of the Unforgettable Fire. Both the album and in particular the title song, like that just cannot be unintentional. And in fact, as we've already mentioned, Ed cites U2 as one of the two major influences growing up. He actually cited a stadium U2 show he saw in 1987 in Philly where they saw the Joshua Tree tour. He described it as life changing. And on the way out of the show, he turned to his buddy and said, I'm going to do what Bono and that band is doing or I'm gonna die trying. And Chad took that ball and ran with it and really made what is essentially, at least for the intro, a U2 song. And we'll hear in subsequent tracks how they really embrace that. Harder.

[Lori]

Can we talk about the slap bass that Patrick Dahlheimer is playing on the verses?

[Scott Free]

We probably should.

[Lori]

Yeah. Oh, my God, it is so, so good. It's really good here. Yeah.

[Scott Free]

And again, These guys were 19 when they put this out.

[Lori]

That's amazing.

[Scott Free]

Right?

[Lori]

There's that beautiful gentle instrumental intro that you mentioned. And then he comes in with Ed's voice. War in me War overseas Ain't no difference between Blood in me Blood overseas Ain't no difference between. This reminds me of Hermes Trismegistus. I don't know what. Yes.

[Scott Free]

It reminds you of that.

[Lori]

Yes. As above, so below, as the universe. So the soul war in me War overseas As without, so within there. There's the parallels between what's happening on the outside overseas. Right. War overseas, blood overseas. And then what's happening in the individual, the macro and the micro. So that's the first thing I thought of.

[Scott Free]

Well, all right.

[Lori]

So this is like, weirdly deeply philosophical and. Yeah. Metaphysical and all that good shit.

[Scott Free]

That is your poll quote for the episode promo and all that good shit.

[Lori]

Well, I was going to say. No better way to end the conversation and to start quoting Hermes Trismegistus.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Oh, yeah. It happens so often. It's just an old Hat that's happened to me.

[Lori]

Anyway.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Anything else on. On Take my anthem?

[Scott Free]

No, I don't think I can top any of that. Let's just move on to track nine. You are the world.

[C]

If you've ever known war if you've ever known pain if you've ever said no. Make sure that you are on time.

[Lori]

You.

[C]

You are on time. That you are on time. We are on time.

[Scott Free]

Ah, yes. You Are the World. The controversial sequel to We Are the World.

[Lori]

Arguably much, much better.

[Scott Free]

That bar is low.

[Lori]

Yeah, yeah, that. That song. Don't even get me started on We Are the world.

[Scott Free]

But, yeah, the one line from the lyrics, make sure that you are on time and I'm out.

[Lori]

What do you mean you're out?

[Scott Free]

You know, you've known me for a long time. How often am I on time?

[Lori]

I don't think you've ever been on time for anything in your life, Scott.

[Scott Free]

That is correct, yes. I'm sorry. It's not that I do not respect other people's times. It's just I don't have a good sense of it myself.

[Lori]

That's quite all right. I'm used to it. This is one of those where the emotion in Ed Kowalczyk's voice just as he sings. If you've ever known love if you've ever known peace and then if you've ever known war if you've ever known pain. And that is the voice of someone who has known war and has known pain. And it is coming through. Just every note that he sings is just so rich with emotion. And then for you Are the World, when they get to the meat of the song, I guess I wish that I'd had the opportunity to see this band live when they were at their peak, because I can just close my eyes and imagine the whole crowd swaying and singing along with this. It's just. It's such a powerful song. I mean, musically, not just lyrically. The drum beats, the bass. It's just.

[Scott Free]

And at 2:56. Not to keep harping on this, but I'm gonna. At 256. Once again, these guys are absolutely students of U2. Chad Taylor's guitar comes in in Edge's other mode, that machine gun jangle. And, like, the song really picks up at that point. So I'm with you.

[Lori]

Yeah. So good. So good.

[Scott Free]

I'm with you.

[Lori]

All right.

[Scott Free]

We made short work of that one.

[Lori]

Yeah, well, it is. It's concise, you know. All right. The next one, Scott, is called Good Pain. Interesting title. Let's Listen.

[C]

So many of us stand in the middle looking back to the worst looking forward to the fall Making weapons of peace for the defense but the blood stays on our feast the sidewalks you say the building got too tall Next going to fry your brother When I say you better walk away walk away walk away and find your mama N no more bit out sweet no more good pain.

[Scott Free]

All right, so they really take their time here on this one. The slow percussionless intro with just Ed K and Chad Taylor on guitar for like a full on minute. And then they add just a little bit of Chad Gracie on some very slight cymbal rushes until the 1 minute 20 mark when with a yell, it kicks in. Chad Gracie really pounding the drums at that point. And then later at like 3 minutes, 30 seconds, the guitars really go full U2 edge again, even if just for a bit. Yeah, this one really takes its time building, but when it finally builds, it really goes for it.

[Lori]

Oh, it does, yeah. This is one of the two songs on this album that was on the four Songs ep. So this is actually one of their older songs.

[Scott Free]

If I can the lyrics, it's right from the beginning. This one grabs me lyrically.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

He said, he said, he said there was nothing to fear, boy and he said, he said, he said Worthless are your tears, boy Just realize your senses and realize your earth Just realize your essence first I'll never be the same again say what you will preachy or pretentious or whatever your criticism may be. Ed Kowalczyk is putting in the work here.

[Lori]

Absolutely.

[Scott Free]

He may eschew the teachings of the teachers and gurus, but damn if the message there isn't a pretty concise lesson one would do well to take.

[Lori]

So then there's a few lyrics that really spoke to me.

[Scott Free]

What do you got?

[Lori]

So, so many of us stand in the middle, looking back to the worst, looking forward to the fall. So you're never living in the present if you're looking back to the worst. If you're reliving all the past traumas, you're looking forward to the fall. You're anticipating something bad is going to happen. You're not enjoying life, you're not participating in life. You're just standing in the middle and you're surrounded on both sides by this negativity. And then after that, the next line, making weapons of peace for the defense of the bloodstains on our peaceful sidewalks. That's a really interesting image. Making weapons of peace. Well, first of all, that obviously a contradiction, right? But weapons of peace for the defense of the bloodstains on our peaceful sidewalks. So bloodstains on the sidewalks, that implies, you know, violence on the streets. Right, that. That's. You know, we hear every day on the news about shootings and murders, and it kind of leads you to wonder, what exactly are we protecting? Yeah.

[Scott Free]

A timely message that much of the world could stand to learn right now, eh?

[Lori]

Yeah, well, they're not going to.

[Scott Free]

They're not going to learn.

[Lori]

I was going to say, you and I have all the answers. They just haven't asked us.

[Scott Free]

So we.

[Lori]

We.

[Scott Free]

We really need to get this podcast out in front of the right people. And I think this may be.

[Lori]

You think so?

[Scott Free]

May. No.

[Lori]

No, I don't. Okay. Anything else on Good Pain?

[Scott Free]

No, I feel like that'll do it.

[Lori]

All right.

[Scott Free]

All right. That brings us to track 11. Mother Earth is a vicious crowd.

[C]

Were born to work and born to die I have chosen my anthems of these I am proud for a divided crown. Talk to me, talk to me now. Amen. You're all that I have, Amen. You're all that I have, Amen. We're all that we have. Talk to me, talk to me now.

[Scott Free]

All right, so musically, I'm going to say this one's in 12 8. At 68 or 12 8. It's one of those. And it's got that 1, 2, 3, 1, 2, 3, 1st, 2, 3 thing going. I don't know, Right there. Unusual stands out. And it also, I think, provides another link to one of their major influences. We heard a lot of that on REM's out of Time earlier this year. And, yeah, I feel like there's some. There's some kinship there, direct influence. I don't know if there was time for that album to have directly influenced this one, but that same sort of unusual approach to rock rhythms and instrumentation, I feel like there's something there. Prove me wrong. Please don't prove me wrong.

[Lori]

I think this is actually the first track on the album that has keyboards, if I'm not mistaken.

[Scott Free]

How interesting that does sound, right?

[Lori]

Yeah. Because I don't remember hearing any keyboards on any of the other songs, so that's an interesting touch.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. And personnel wise, I have a feeling. Who. Who would that have been? Nobody is actually credited with keyboards.

[Lori]

Hmm, interesting. They played themselves. This is another one. You know, I mentioned that auditory raison earlier that I experienced, and, man, the emotion in Ed's voice makes me tear up when he's singing talk to me, talk to me now and it's really kind of Ironic in a way, because it's the vicious crowd that he's speaking to. So he's telling the vicious crowd, talk to me, talk to me now. Go on with the shouting, go on with the heckling. Because he's connecting with them. He wants to listen, he wants to hear what they have to say. I find that very relatable. One of the first things that I do when I'm in a group, especially like a workplace type situation, I always seek out the loud complainers because they have something to say, say, and they're feeling like they're not being heard. And those are the people that I want to listen to. I want to get that perspective. I want to invite them to have a seat at the table. I want to hear. Because if you're this passionate, there's a reason for it, you know, I want to hear what you have to say. And that really comes through, I think, in this song.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Wow, that is insightful. Oh, just the lines. I have chosen my anthems of these I am proud portraits of a divided crowd. Talk to me, talk to me now. Second time he's mentioned anthems in just a few songs, you will recall. Take my anthem. This time he's chosen his anthem. That's his anthem and he's sticking to it.

[Lori]

Oh, and then the whole thing about the divided crowd, I mean, that is just as true, if not More so in 2025 than it was in 1995.

[Scott Free]

Definitely more know.

[Lori]

Oh, my gosh. Yeah, yeah. So I guess then that is a good segue to the final track.

[Scott Free]

I strenuously disagree. No, United Krabby, you are.

[Lori]

Okay, so the. The last track is called 10,000 years peace is.

[C]

If all of the Indirams in the world passed a second ago, what would you say and who would you obey? I am here to say that peace is now, Peace is now all peace is now, Peace is now.

[Scott Free]

So, I mean, you know what you're in for. I mean, hell, you know what you're in for before the song even starts. Because of the title, 10,000 Years Pieces Now. But lyrically, it opens with the world is burning down can't you smell the smoke in the air? War, disease and famine this demon, she is everywhere so, you know, it's gonna be just a lightweight little trifle of a song.

[Lori]

Well, and then it continues. Poets and preachers and politicians, they've all had their say and we got 10,000 years devoted to nothing. What I'm taking away from the lyrics on this is we can't wait for somebody else. We can't wait for the politicians, the preachers to bring about change. If we want peace, peace is now, we have to do it. There's not somebody else that's coming that's going to rescue us.

[Scott Free]

I mean, that's a yes, but it's a yes. And because the one line after that, poets and preachers and politicians, they've all had their say. And we've got 10,000 years devoted to nothing but tomorrow and yesterday, tomorrow and yesterday. What's missing today? That this is the only time where action means anything and where life has any meaning at all. So the past doesn't matter. The future doesn't exist. Now is the moment and the only time you can make that change.

[Lori]

And that's very similar to Good pain, the track 10. So many of us stand in the middle, looking back to the worst, looking forward to the fall. Same kind of concept. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I have one more quote from Krishnamurti. Well, okay, so this is from a statement that he made in 1929. It's called the core of the teachings. And he said, time is the psychological enemy of man. Our action is based on knowledge and therefore time. So man is always a slave to. To the past. Yeah. Thought is ever limited, and so we live in constant conflict and struggle. And that relates to what you were saying instrumentally, this whole album. But definitely this song in particular. I am so impressed with the mixing of this because especially if you're on headphones or you have really good speakers, you can pick out every instrument and there's not one instrument that's overwhelming another. It's all balanced so beautifully. Where on this one, I can pick out, like, the shimmering acoustic guitars and Patrick's thumping bass and the drums are so crisp. Production wise, this is just gorgeous.

[Scott Free]

Yeah. Jerry Harrison knew what he was doing. There's also this 12 string guitar comes in after the chorus. Just love me some 12 string. And it's just got this full, amazing sound. I'm into that. And then lyrics continue and they continue hitting hard. Selfishness and separation have led me to believe that the world is not my problem, the world is not my problem. I am the world and you are the world. So wait, this. This isn't. You are the world. No. No, it's not. You know, but this is a point he really wants to hammer hone here in the final track of the album, you are the world. As it turns out, you are not separate from it. You are it. As am I. Yeah.

[Lori]

Hell of a way to end the album.

[Scott Free]

And then the actual ending the last fading notes, this fade out on this almost arabesque chant like repeated vocal. It's haunting and it repeats and layers over itself while the whole time fading out. Recedes off into the distance and just has this beautiful ambient ending with a whimper. But it screamed whimper. I think it's just a very dramatic ending. And yeah, it serves as a great closing note to what I was surprised to find is a pretty amazing album throughout.

[Lori]

You were surprised? You know, I.

[Scott Free]

When I was talking about some of the people who considered live a little preachy, I may have been one of those people not like fully in the tank and adamantly against it, but I did not expect to be as on board with the spiritual message as I turned out to be. And yeah, no, I got. I got to give Ed Kowalczyk his props for writing a very deep, very dense album lyrically. Yeah, it can be heavy handed at times, but I just have to appreciate the earnestness and the sincerity and the sort of really educated, especially from a 19 year old lyrics and the message. I got to give it to him in a way that I didn't necessarily think I was going to be as on board with.

[Lori]

That's cool, that's cool. Well, I'm glad to hear that. So, Scott, now that you've listened to this with a fresh set of ears, what's your favorite track on the album?

[Scott Free]

So as I said, my eyes were opened to a lot of the deeper tracks on this album. This, if I'm honest in doing my research for this album, was my first time listening to the album all the way through. So some of these tracks did really stand out to me. In particular the later stuff where that U2 influence really comes to the fore and makes itself obvious. So track eight, Take My anthem, was a strong contender, but I will sometimes, you know, self flagellate for picking as my favorite on the album one of the big singles. But honestly, track two, Operation Spirit, the Tyranny of tradition, which we said was one of the first things either of us ever heard from this group, from that TV ad for the album that. Give it up, give it up, give it up. Operation Spirit is just a banger of a song. It set the tone for the career that would follow. Yeah, I'm gonna say that that is my personal favorite.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

And yours, Laurie.

[Lori]

Well, up until this episode, I think I would have said pain lies on the riverside because that always has resonated with me. But now on listening to it again, I am going to go with Mother Earth is a vicious crowd.

[Scott Free]

Really?

[Lori]

Yeah.

[Scott Free]

Good one.

[Lori]

Yeah. But I mean, there really. There's not a bad song on this album.

[Scott Free]

I will agree.

[Lori]

Well, good.

[Scott Free]

Any qualms one might have with some of the lyrics or delivery? I think you kind of have to give it to them just because they were so young and so earnest. But the musicianship is great. And again, if you're really earnest about a positive message that people need to hear, again, maybe a little preachy, but it's a sermon worth hearing. Yeah, I'm going to go ahead and give it to him.

[Lori]

All right, so now we're going to begin the where are they Now? Segments.

[Scott Free]

You know, just a few highlights of their career in the years that follow. Obviously, their 1994 album Throwing Copper was absolutely huge. Eight million copies, huge singles. The the Angel Opens Her Eyes, Lightning Strikes, I Want to say, and I Alone. Amazing singles. So great stuff followed. The band played at Woodstock 94 and 99, which, you know, troubled festival, at least one of them. But, you know, they became absolutely huge. One of the iconic bands of the alternative era, which is why we're talking about them at all.

[Lori]

So Mental Jewelry peaked on the US album charts at number 73 and was certified platinum in the United States. Their subsequent album, which you mentioned, Throwing Copper, that was their biggest one that was from 1994, went to number one and eight times platinum. Then albums after that, Secret Samadhi in 97, that one also debuted at number one and was double platinum. Then they did Distance to here in 99.

[Scott Free]

One of the interesting little bits of trivia that I did not realize is that Ed Kowalczyk appeared in Fight Club.

[Lori]

Did he really?

[Scott Free]

He really did.

[Lori]

Who did he play?

[Scott Free]

Right. Okay. So he tells the story in that Spin magazine lip service interview that I've been talking about. He had moved to LA and had mentioned to a friend of his that he wanted to act. And that friend of his, he asked if Ed Kwalchik knew of David Fincher. And Ed was a big fan. And the buddy related that David Fincher was actually a big fan of live. So he at first was going to be a non speaking but notable part that you may remember, when Tyler Durden instructs the members of Project Mayhem to go out and pick a fight with a stranger.

[Lori]

Oh, was he the priest?

[Scott Free]

He was gonna be the priest.

[Lori]

Okay.

[Scott Free]

Was originally cast for that role, but David Fincher liked him enough that he decided that he should have a speaking part. So the waiter who talks about the. The tainting of the soup terrine. Right.

[Lori]

I'll have the clam chowder, the fried.

[Scott Free]

Chicken with a baked potato with everything.

[Lori]

And a chocolate chiffon piece.

[Scott Free]

Clean food, please.

[Lori]

And, sir, may I advise against the.

[Scott Free]

Way to eat in the clam chowder.

[Lori]

No clam chowder. Thank you. Wow, I did not know that.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

All right, I'm gonna go rewatch that. The band continued to release albums. 2001 V, 2003, Birds of Prey, 2006, Songs from Black Mountain. And then things started to get ugly.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, they did.

[Lori]

Yes. So in 2009, Ed Kowalczyk decided he was leaving the band. Well, you know, I talked about this earlier. I think where which band member deserves the songwriting credit? Right? And that was a lot of it. Ed recorded some solo albums and was actually touring in 2012. The rest of the band sued him because he was using the name Live. Now, somehow they managed to resolve that, but. Oh, and I got a little bit ahead of myself. So ed left in 2009. In 2010, the remaining band members were introduced by their attorney to a quote, unquote, wealthy real estate investor named Bill Hines. And this was the gist of that Rolling Stone article that I mentioned earlier. Heinz, according to the article, was basically a con artist, although the band didn't realize it at the time. He'd had multiple bankruptcies and judgments against him.

[Scott Free]

Feels like Hessie's gonna go well.

[Lori]

But they didn't know that at the time. They were introduced by their lawyer. So they thought, okay, this guy must be on the up and up. And Bill Hines promised to fund a recording session for the boys in Sausalito, California, with producer Jerry Harrison, housing for the bandmates, families, and a tour. And he said that he would put up the money for all this. At this point, I just want to read from this article in Rolling Stone. It was only when they arrived in Sausalito, along with their gear, Taylor claims that they learned every check Hines wrote for the project had bounced. We were stuck. Taylor says. Talk about making an awkward call to your wife. I had to say to her, I need $10,000 right now to pay for the studio deposit. Oh, and I need another $15,000 for housing. And she's like, you mean out of our personal checking? So they found themselves financially in a very bad situation. Chad Taylor and the other members of Live, other than Ed Kowalczyk, sold their publishing stakes in the band's catalog for $1.9 million because they really needed the cash.

[Scott Free]

Dang. Like, it's a lot of money, but it's not that much money for guys who have Been a multi platinum band for 20 years at that point.

[Lori]

Right. So they got their money and then that Bill Hines character started sniffing around again. I think he caught wind of the fact that they had money. So one of the schemes that Hines talked the remaining three band members into was investing a million dollars with him into a building in Reading, Pennsylvania. And to quote Chad Taylor, I'm not shitting you, the building fucking imploded and fell down.

[Scott Free]

Other king said it was dat to build a castle on a swamp. But I built it all the same just to show them it sank into the swamp. So I built a second one that.

[Lori]

Sank into the swamp. So I built a third one that.

[Scott Free]

Burned down, fell over, then sank into the swamp.

[Lori]

Damn, it gets worse. It gets worse. So then despite all this, Bill Hines then talks the band into forming a company called United Fiber and Data. And the idea was that they were going to build fiber optic network cables in areas that were underserved.

[Scott Free]

Oh yeah, I feel like being a multi platinum rock band really qualifies you for that kind of work. And no one should have seen this as a potential problem.

[Lori]

Right? So Gracie Taylor and Dahlheimer not only invested, they also took leadership positions at the company with Heinz as the CEO, and that ends up being a scam. Bill Hines was indicted for fraud and a number of other charges in 2021, I want to say. But despite all of this, somehow in 2016 they managed to reconcile with Ed Kowalczyk. They decided to go back on the road for a series of reunion shows. And the only way that Ed was willing to rejoin the band is rather than splitting the tour revenue four ways evenly, he wanted 40% then. So I mentioned Chad Gracie and Chad Taylor had been friends since grade school.

[Scott Free]

Yeah.

[Lori]

Chad Gracie allegedly ended up having an affair with Chad Taylor's wife. So yeah, this ended up being a hot mess. And then of course, the Pandemic hit and that really affected everything. In June of 2022, Ed Kowalczyk took a 55% controlling ownership of the band. And his first action was to fire Chad Taylor.

[Scott Free]

Harsh but fair.

[Lori]

And then October of 2022, Ed brings aboard three new touring musicians and they began performing as live without Patrick and Chad Gracie. So now Ed Kowalczyk is the sole founding member of the band that's still in the band.

[Scott Free]

Harsh but less fair is what I would say to the firing the other members of the band.

[Lori]

But from what I understand, a lot of that was due to this situation with Bill Hines and them basically losing all their money. But yeah, so that's where they're at right now. They've had a number of compilation albums out, I will say, and I know this is a controversial opinion, but this is my favorite album by Live Overthrowing Copper. Overthrowing Copper, because I think Throwing Copper was a little bit too polished and too produced. Whereas I think they have a more raw, authentic sound on this one.

[Scott Free]

Certainly feels more, I mean, pardon the pun, Live, like an actual performance rather than studio magic, I will give you that.

[Lori]

Yeah. But it's interesting because both albums were produced by the same guy, by Jerry Harrison. So, Scott, I don't think we figured out what's going to happen for the next episode yet.

[Scott Free]

I don't think we have.

[Lori]

No.

[Scott Free]

It could go one, two ways.

[Lori]

It could either be Ocean Blue or not Ocean Blue.

[Scott Free]

All right, so two ways, then.

[Lori]

Okay, so. So I guess I. Stay tuned. We'll.

[Scott Free]

It's very exciting, very suspenseful.

[Lori]

Yeah. Well, I really hope that we can connect with the boys in the Ocean Blue, because that would be a fantastic interview, and I am so looking forward to their show this weekend. They always put on a great live show, and they're doing two albums in their entirety. They're doing the Ocean blue, which was 89, I want to say, and then cerulean, which was 91. So it would fit very nicely into our year.

[Scott Free]

Yeah, that's right. Right in our wheelhouse.

[Lori]

Yes. Yes. All right, well, tune in. In two weeks, we'll have something good. We don't know what, but it'll be something good. And this is Lori saying goodbye.

[Scott Free]

I'm scot free. See you in two weeks.