← Ongoing History of New Music
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Alan Cross
Hey, it's Alan and I just wanted to let you know that you can now listen to the ongoing history of new music, early and ad free on Amazon music included with Prime. Welcome to Nadia Yada island, next on Metro's Nadia Yada island podcast. I almost fainted when the four new bombshells arrived. Four free Samsung Galaxy A16 5G phones at Metro. No way. And finding out the fourth line is free. Thanks God Heated. That's wild. Join Metro and get four free Samsung 5G phones only at Metro. Metro plus tax. Bring four numbers and an ID and sign up for any Metro Flex plan. Not available currently at T Mobile or available with Metro in the past 180 days if rivers Cuomo of Weezer were to walk past you on the street, you probably wouldn't notice him. If you did, you might think that this stranger kind of looked like Louis Tully, the nebbish accountant played by Rick Moranis in a couple of Ghostbusters movies. Chances are he'd be wearing skinny jeans, a T shirt, a hoodie, maybe a baseball cap, indistinguishable from a hundred other short, slight guys with glasses that you encountered that day. And that's just the way he likes it. But Rivers Cuomo is also a rock star, an unlikely sort of rock star that is extremely committed to being a rock star and doing things that he hopes will keep him at that level. He's highly educated, deeply introspective, very private, and always looking to learn something new, be it studying the mysteries of writing the perfect song, to computer programming, to intense forms of meditation, to careful study of the music industry. He does all these things, and one day he wants to make a Weezer movie. Not a tour film, but some kind of actual movie. Weezer has been together for more than 30 years. There have been no breakups and no reunions. There really haven't been any official hiatuses. But Rivers has also taken up pickleball with a vengeance. He's a very good chess player, and he's fascinated with Japanese culture. What else can I tell you? PETA once voted him the sexiest celebrity vegetarian, although he does confess to hating carrots. He doesn't have a middle name because his parents wanted him to choose one when he got old enough, but he just never got around to it. Fox filmed a pilot for a TV show based on the years Rivers went to Harvard, and once he had a pet squirrel named Mr. Peanutbutter. This is just a start. Think we can fill up an entire program or two with fascinating facts about Rivers Cuomo and Weezer. I bet you we can. This is the ongoing history of new music podcast with Alan Cross. Say It Ain't so over your joke is a heartbreak. Weezer. And say It Ain't so from their debut album, the so Called Blue Record. And a song about learning his hippie parents getting a divorce. And if you've ever wondered about the line wrestling with Jimmy, that's a reference to his brother who was born Leaves Cuomo. You know, hippie parents, right? He now goes by the name James. So Jimmy James has actually shown up in a bunch of Weezer songs over the years. For example, there's a reference in My Name is Jonas about River's little brother, and that had to do with the time James was having issues with an insurance claim after a car crash. James is a professor of sociology and he has taught courses in things like new religious movements. And I think he's still at UMass Amherst using the name James Kitts, Kits being the last of his and Rivers stepfather. Oh, and James used to be a rhythm guitarist in a KISS cover band. I think that's enough there. Hello again, I'm Alan Cross. And this episode, actually the next two episodes, are going to be very dense with information and trivia about Rivers Cuomo and Weezer. One of the most successful and, let's face it, nerdy bands that we've ever seen. There's so much to learn here and a lot of it is quite, and I don't want to use the word weird because that wouldn't be just. Let's just say that they're unconventional. Yes. Even for a rock musician. Rivers Cuomo is unconventional and the band itself is unconventional. Let's explore that, because the more we learn, the more we can understand Weezer. And like I said, this is going to take a couple of programs. We have to go back to the very beginning. Rivers was born in New York City. Dad was a hippie musician and mum was a hippie. Hippie, hippie. Why is he called Rivers? Well, there were two stories. First, his dad was a big soccer fan and was wrapped up in the 1970 World cup when his son was born. And there were three players. Revelino, who played for Brazil, Italy's Luigi Riva, and Gianni Rivera, who also played for the Italian side. So Rivers, I guess the other story relates to his mom, since he was born in a hospital between the east and Hudson Rivers in New York City. And because mom could apparently hear one of the rivers outside her window. Rivers it was. He was raised in several Buddhist communities during the first 10 years of his life before the family settled in Connecticut shortly after his parents divorced in 1975. It was an ashram called I'm Not Making this Up. Yogaville. This is where Rivers gained a stepfather named Stephen Kitts. When Yogeville moved to Virginia, everybody else elected to stay put. Rivers life was kind of normal for a while. He went to school, performed in a choir and acted in school plays. He also for a time changed his name to Peter Kitts. That lasted for a couple of years in the middle 80s before he went back to his original name. But not before Peter Kitts appeared in one of his very first bands, a glammy metal group called Avant Garde. They played maybe six shows before Peter reverted to Rivers and the band moved out to Los Angeles. Avant Garde didn't last very long. They changed their name to Zoom and then broke up in 1990. Rivers enrolled in college, kept writing music and for a while worked as a roadie for a band called King Size. He also had a part time job at the famous Tower Records on Sunset Boulevard. This gig was very important because this was the time when alt rock was starting to assert itself. Working in the record store exposed him to the Pixies and Nirvana, Sonic Youth and Nine Inch Nails. It also introduced him to fans of this music. And that's how he met drummer Patrick Wilson. Weezer was officially formed in 1992, but they weren't called that at first. It was Rivers, Pat, bassist Patrick Finn, a co worker at Tower, and guitarist Jason Cropper. One of the names they considered was 60 wrong sausages. They even recorded a four track demo called the Cholesterol EP. But that went nowhere. There were a few other songs too. Check this out. It's 60 wrong sausages and the Answerman. Now remember, in a few months this band would become Weezer. That's pretty metal y right? In addition to 60 wrong sausages, rivers and Pat Wilson had a group called Fuzz. There was another project called Bush. No, not that one. They thought about the name Goat Punishment. Outhouse was another suggestion. So was Hummingbird and the Big Jones. Many, many songs were written during this period under whatever name. And if we have to narrow things down to the first proper Weezer song, it probably has to be this one. Recorded in a scummy Hollywood rehearsal space on February 16, 1992. It's called I Can't Forget the Way Every Time I Feel the Castle high up on the story. Now that's a long way from where Weezer would have end up. In just a few months, everybody moved into a house at 2226Amherst Avenue in Los Angeles and spent hours and hours rehearsing in the garage. It was a pretty stark arrangement. There was no refrigerator and the only thing they had to sit on inside was outside lawn furniture. They were so poor that Rivers would save pizza crusts in a fanny pack. He'd have a slice and then save the crust for later. The day they moved into the house, they got an offer to play at a club called Roggy's, which needed more bands to fill out that night's bill. This was March 19, 1992, and the headliner that night was Dog Star. And yes, the bass player was some guy named Keanu Reeves. If they were going to play that night, they needed a proper permanent name, and eventually Rivers, Pat Jason and bass player Matt Sharp now went with the name Weezer, using the nickname Rivers had been given by his father. It's a reference to one of the characters in the old timey movie serial the Little Rascals. From that moment on, Weezer played a lot of gigs in and around Los Angeles. In 1992 and 1993, Rivers had been talked out of forming a punk funk band. He was worried that might crash the band's chances again. It was the early 90s. The more alternative sounding Weezer got, the more emphasis was placed on authenticity. And, you know, if word ever got out that Rivers was a formal metalhead, it could be death for the group. Eventually, though, that was never a problem. Songs like this started to emerge. This is the band's third practice shot at this one. Even though songs like that would eventually become hits, Weezer was having trouble getting people out to their gigs. More demos were recorded with the third one, the tape fans call the real demo, catching the attention of Todd Sullivan, an A and R guy for Geffen Records. After many long discussions and after considerable pushback from Sullivan's bosses at Geffen, Weezer signed a deal on June 25, 1993. And this brings us to the recording of the debut record, the Blue Album. And we'll pick it up there in a second. After Dark Myths, Misdeeds and the Paranormal is a podcast that delves into the dark side of history. Expect murder and conspiracy, ghosts and witches. I'm Anthony Delaney. And I'm Maddy Pelling. We're historians and the hosts of After Dark From History Hit, where every Monday and Thursday we enter the shadows of the past, discover the secrets of the darker side of history on After Dark. From History Hit wherever you get your podcasts. When Weezer signed to Geffen and were asked who they wanted to produce their debut album. They said, us. We'll do it ourselves. Which was pretty ballsy considering that this was a major label and they were just a bunch of guys in their early 20s. So the answer there was a firm no. Give us some names, said the label. Someone in Weezer said, you know, we really like the Cars. Get us Rick Ocasek. That was meant as a joke. No one really expected it to happen. Yet Rick turned out to be into it, and on August 11, 1993, the band flew to New York and recorded a practice demo with the lead singer of the Cars. They got along great, and Rick was the guy. Weezer was back in New York in August for about six weeks, recording at Jimi Hendrix's Electric lady studio. More than a dozen songs were recorded, including one particular song that Rivers absolutely hated because he thought it was just cheesy. Rivers had written it on June 25, 1993. He'd met a guy at college who lent him a small synthesizer because Rivers wanted to try recording a goofy New Wave type song. The chorus came to Rivers and he sung it in time to his steps as he walked through the college campus. The subject was the band, making fun of his friend Kyung Hee. He did not like that his homies were dissing my girl. The rest of the band, Enrico Kasich, loved the song. Notes started appearing around the studio that read, we want Buddy Holly. Eventually, Rivers caved. And not only was the song recorded, it made the album. And not only did it make the album, it was a single. And not only was it a single, but the Happy Days themed video directed by Spike Jonze became legendary. It has become the most performed song in Weezer's history. Now that we all know the official version, let me play you something else. This is another demo. It's slower than the final recording, but that's the way it works with songwriting. You start with an idea and then build on it. A couple of things about that song. There was originally no mention of Buddy Holly and Mary Tyler Moore in the lyrics. The name checks were Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers. When they recorded it for the album, it was performed at more or less the speed of the demo. It was sped up later during the mastering process. So what we've been hearing all these years is not how the band intended it to sound, at least at first. And finally, it was released as a single on September 7, 1994, which, by the way, would have been the real Buddy Holly's 58th birthday. The Blue Album itself was released on May 10, 1994, and the band that went into the studio was not the same one that came out. Guitarist Jason Cropper left the group during the recording sessions, and it's unclear what happened because there are, well, legal issues surrounding his departure. One story is that he was asked to leave because he'd just found out that his girlfriend was pregnant and Jason wasn't taking it well. And this wouldn't do because anyone in this band had to be in it 100%. And there was no way that Jason could be a proper partner and father if he was in Weezer. So Jason was asked to leave. There was some animosity at first, but Jason would say 20 years later that this was definitely the right decision. Brian Bell, a fan from the group's early days, was invited in. It's also unclear if all of Jason's guitar parts were re recorded for the Blue Album. And even though Weezer was feeling pretty insecure because of all the drama, they really shouldn't have been worried. The Blue Album started to sell and sell and sell. At last count, worldwide sales are somewhere north of 15 million copies. It also made the band money through its appearances in a number of video games. And here's a weird little fact. Buddy Holly was included on the installation Disk for Windows 95. If you put the CD ROM in the drive and look for a folder called Fun Stuff, you'll find it on, along with a song from Edie Brickell and New Bohemians called Good Times. I'm not sure why, but Cool. Weezer had no idea that the song would be included in what was at the time the biggest software launch in history. Nobody in the band even owned a computer. And at first they were furious because they weren't told. But given that Windows 95 sold 40 million copies in its first year, it turned out to be a pretty good bit of promotion for Weezer. Now that we've established the Weezer origin story, we can move into a bunch of different areas and this is where we can talk about the leg. Rivers was born with two perfectly fine legs. But as he grew, his right one grew to be 44 millimeters, 1 1/3 inches shorter than his left. And that meant without orthopedic shoes, he would lean quite sharply to the right. With money he earned from the Blue Album, he embarked on some very expensive and very painful leg lengthening surgery in March of 1995. This involved breaking the leg bone and being fixed with a brace. That was followed by months and months of enticing the Bone to knit itself back together longer, bridging that 44 millimeter gap. And to do that, screws on the brace had to be regularly turned, stretching his leg bit by bit with bone growth following along. There was a lot of physical therapy. He spent a lot of time in hospital under the influence of painkillers. And naturally this had a profound effect on River's mental state during a time he was supposed to be writing more songs for the oh so difficult second album. In September 1995, still healing and Walking with a Cane, Rivers enrolled at Harvard University to study classical composition. His studies took up a lot of time and that also affected his songwriting. He tried to keep his hand in music, auditioning for a Harvard choir, but he didn't make the cut. He grew a beard and basically kept to himself. He found it really amusing that he would be in class with fellow students wearing Weezer T shirts and they had no idea that the guy with the beard, yeah, that was Rivers Cuomo. He did manage to write that second album and here are some things about Pinkerton. When it was released on September 24, 1996, about two and a half years after the Blue album, there were very high expectations. People wanted more of whatever Weezer was on that first record, and that's not what fans got. Pinkerton was a short 34 minute album of material left over from Rivers attempt to write a rock opera called Songs from the Black Hole. It was self produced, darker and reflected Rivers disillusionment with the rock star lifestyle. The album covered former girlfriends, groupies, a fan letter and his search for identity. The darkness also came from all he went through with his leg. His leg affected his guitar playing too. He couldn't stretch it out, so he had to write most of the songs on the album. With limited mobility on the fretboard, Rivers had also become interested in Japanese culture. He became very acquainted with the Puccini opera Madame Butterfly. Again, not a real surprise since he was studying classical composition. This was not a grungy power pop album like the first one. It was, if anything, a proto emo record, something that people weren't quite ready for. In 1996, the album was six or seven years ahead of its time. Now though, it's very well regarded and considered very influential, especially with the emo scene. But in the fall of 96, not so much. This song was written when Rivers couldn't come up with enough courage to strike up a conversation with a girl at Harvard on whom he had a big crush. He was just too shy. The song was written as a homework assignment for one of his music classes, and the title was inspired by hot sauce called Del Scorcho from a local taco place. I like hello, I'm Gay, I'm Way Way to Know El Scorcho, one of three singles from the Pinkerton album. While the Blue record sold 15 million, Pinkerton originally sold less than 1. That was just one problem. There was more. One day before Pinkerton went on sale, they were served with a restraining order from Pinkerton Inc. The detective agency that was formed in 1850, and the problem there was federal copyright infringement. The company wanted $2 million in damages plus a prohibition on selling, distributing or advertising an album named Pinkerton. A spirited defense followed, including a six page essay by Rivers explaining that this Pinkerton had to do with B.F. pinkerton, a character in the story of Madame Butterfly. The case was thrown out of court when the judge ruled that the Pinkerton detective agency was just being silly. Weezer toured behind the record through late 1996 through mid 1997. Everything had to be postponed, though, when Mickey and Carly Allen, two early fans who ran the official Weezer fan club, died in a car accident with their sister Trista. They'd been driving home from a Weezer show in Denver. When all the tears were dried. Weezer decided they needed a break. They were off the market for three years. Matt Sharp left the band Rivers went back to Harvard, completing semesters in 1997 and 1998, and during that time he played in a campus band called Homie. For a while they played a couple of shows with a rotating cast of musicians. But then, an opportunity. Homie recorded one song. It featured Greg Brown from the band Cake, Matt Sharp before he left to form the Rentals, Adam Orth of a band called Shufflepuck and Yuvel Gabble of Soul coughing. That song did get released as part of a soundtrack of Meet the Deedles, a comedy that was a, well, box office bomb, even though it featured Paul Walker, Dennis Hopper and Robert Eglund Freddie from A Nightmare on Elm Street. But nobody Cared. Darling, I'm Afraid to Close My the only song ever released by Homie, a Weezer side project of rivers Cuomo. In February 1998, his studies at Harvard complete, Rivers moved back to LA, taking an apartment under a freeway in Culver City. He was still hurting from the bad reception of Pinkerton and felt that self isolation was the answer. He unplugged his phone. He sealed out all the light by covering the windows with fiberglass insulation and just to make sure it was dark enough, he painted all the walls black. And for the next year, the only thing he talked to was his pet gecko. Rivers was very depressed. He didn't own a car either. And in la, if you don't own a car, you pretty much don't go anywhere. But he was very productive during this time. In that blacked out apartment under the freeway, he wrote 121 songs. Some of those songs were later released as part of a series called the Home Recordings of Rivers. Cuomo Geffen refused to release that material for years because they didn't want substandard material sullying the good name of Weezer. But eventually Rivers won in a war in 2007. And here's an example what he wrote in that apartment under the freeway with the blacked out windows and black walls and a gecko. This is called Crazy One. I think Rivers eventually found his way out of that apartment under the freeway. Weezer also found a new bass player. Mickey Welsh, survived an audition process and got the gig. Still, there weren't enough songs in which the band was confident to make another album. There were some tentative steps into the outside world with some secret gigs under the old name Goat Punishment. One show was nothing but Nirvana covers. Then there was a show that was nothing but Oasis covers. It wasn't until after April 2000 that Weezer really kicked into gear again. Again, they'd never really broken up. They just sort of weren't doing anything. The thing that got them started was an invitation to perform at the Fuji Rock Festival in Japan. Rivers FAN OF Japan okay. And that got them excited about making music again. In fact, they were so jazzed that they even joined up with with the Warped Tour for nine dates that summer. And this was interesting. They played songs from both the Blue Album and Pinkerton, plus a handful of B sides and up to 14 brand new songs that fans assumed would be part of a third album. We'll get back to those in just a second. Things were about to get a lot better. But Weezer stayed its idiosyncratic self. We'll continue there in a moment. We can almost say that the Weezer we know today really began in 2001 when they released their third record, the One known as the Green Album for obvious reasons. But before we get to that, we have to talk about another lineup change. Mikey Welsh was out as the band's bass player. Already he was in rough shape. He suffered a breakdown, too many drugs mixed with some undiagnosed mental health issues. All Fans knew in mid-2001 is that he suddenly left the band. The truth was he needed to be checked into a psychiatric hospital. He was diagnosed with bipolar disorder, PTSD, and borderline personality disorder. At worst, Mikey, who was 6'two was down to 140 pounds. There was a suicide attempt with a drug overdose. He was in a coma for a few days before being transferred to the psych ward. And this explains why we don't see Mikey in the Weezer video for island in the sun, one of the singles from the Green album. Because he was hospitalized at the time, Mikey was replaced by Scott Shriner. Mikey would later make something of a comeback as both a musician and a painter, sculptor, and someone who works with found objects. And some of that art ended up on a line of Burton snowboards. In the end, though, Mikey Welch died of a heart attack stemming from a suspected heroin overdose in a Chicago hotel on October 8, 2011. The first single from the Green album was entitled Hash Pipe. It was written about a homosexual transvestite prostitute. This is River's description, not mine, and resulted from some experiments that he called his catalog of riffs. In addition to posting scans of letters and pictures of personal items, he posted a lot of musical musings online. And the music part was really interesting because the creation of a lot of this material involved plugging in a guitar, taking one Ritalin pill with three shots of tequila, and then going out into the backyard to see what happened. The fourth step, which sometimes came along, was closing his eyes to see if any songs appeared in his mind. Don't try that at home. Even if it did work for Rivers and Weezer, I got my eyes wide, you got your big cheese I got my ass wide I got my ass wide A big hit for Weezer and one their record company did not want to release. Rivers and the band had a big fight, but they ultimately won. And guess what? They were right. Hash Pipe was part of a group of songs designated summer songs of 2000 tracks, incorporated into their live sets as their comeback after, I guess we call it a hiatus, I don't know was mounting. They were also part of an unofficial album that was intentionally leaked online by Rivers in 2001. There were at least four recording sessions made during rehearsals, featuring 18 new songs and maybe two dozen more that were recorded live during the Warp tour. They had an eight track mobile unit capturing some of their performances, but most of what we got were soundtrack recordings. A few of those songs, like Hash Pipe, did end up on official releases. This one, for example, would be heard in a finished form on the Maladroit album in 2002. This was another Ritalin and tequila experiment. Rivers had overdone it and was sitting in his dark apartment at six in the morning, foaming at the mouth. In his altered state, he started composing the song in his head. No guitar, no nothing. And he says this song was written in his head in all of three minutes. We needed to spend the entire first half of this profile on Rivers, Cuomo and Weezer dealing with some very deep background because, well, there's no other way to understand everything that came next without learning the unconventional. And there's that word again. Foundations of the group. On part two, we'll skip through the band's catalog. Talk about meditation, strange and wonderful marketing plans, River's graduation from Harvard, some lineup changes, a bus crash, a two year period of celibacy, and a whole lot more. Once you get started with the Weezer rat Hole, there is no end to it. Meanwhile, grab all the ongoing history podcasts you want from any podcast site you like. We can meet up on all the social media platforms. I'm always updating my website with music, news and information seven days a week. Just go to ajournalofmusicalthings.com and you'll find it. And while you're there, sign up for the free daily newsletter. And don't forget my other podcast, Crime and Mayhem in the Music Industry. It's just like it sounds. True crime meets music. I think you'll really like it. All email should go to AllenCross CA Technical Productions by Rob Johnston. We'll see you for part two of this Weezer thing. I'm Alan Cross. Blake's so worried about my sister. We're engaged. You cannot marry Amarillo. I was sick, but I am healing. Returning to W Network and Stack tv. The west side Ripper is back. If you're not killing these people, then who is? That's what I want to know. Starring Kaley Cuoco and Chris Chris Messina. The only investigating I'm doing these days is who their pants Killer messaged you yesterday. This is so dangerous. I gotta get out of this. Based on a true story. New season Mondays at 9 Eastern and Pacific. Only on W stream on Stack TV.