Hi I'm Cedric Bixler, I sing for At The Drive-In
and I'm at Amoeba Records and this is What's in My Bag.
This guy Ethan from a band called Heron Oblivion hipped me to this band Sleaford Mods
and I think we were just sort of texting back and forth to each other, talking about The Fall
and that led to, well if you like Mark E. Smith you're gonna like this new band, and I'd never heard of them.
So y'know I went down the wormhole of watching them perform as just a two-piece.
This guy who does his vocals and then this guy
who mans the beer bottle and the computer and they're just really
just something magical to watch and very, very, very English.
It's spoken word with that Pistols attitude
and some of the songs reminded me of like that lo-fi Le Tigre sound.
There are songs like 'Jolly Fucker.' There's a certain English way of saying 'fuck'
that is just really satisfying to me.
If someone asks me what I like that's modern, I'll say this
and if they like it then I'll be like, yeah we can hang out. So, Sleaford Mods.
And I picked up this Cluster record.
I always have said that all roads lead to Germany in regards to interesting
out-there music because y'know, Germans coming out of
the rubble of Nazism, the kids grow up and sort of say
fuck you to all this sort of Western rock music
and krautrock is this amazing rebellion against everything
and out of that is born stuff like Cluster
and I love to draw to this kind of stuff because it just makes me feel like I'm there
I'm inside the people I draw, the little characters I draw
and I can just put this on and it's just great it makes me feel like I'm in
a John Carpenter movie or something, or me and my gang are
gonna commit some sort of crime in this y'know barren alley and it's like, yeah.
I picked up this one. I don't have this Syd Barrett record.
I had it on a best-of tape when I was living in El Paso when I was in my late teens.
So we would listen to this a lot, my friends and I
and Omar, all of us, sort of just had this secret handshake about this kind of stuff
because we were such big 'Piper at the Gates of Dawn' fans.
This just reminds me of sort of having that strange obsession of...
Was he all together there? And you can hear the songs sometimes fall apart
and sometimes you can just hear this Rick and Morty thing where the grandpa's
stuck in Tiny Rick and he's trying to get out.
Syd Barrett and Rick and Morty are almost like that, probably too smart for their own good
and I think everyone should own his solo stuff. It's really important.
Or don't. Rebel, that's okay.
And I picked up a Big Star record from the documentary.
Even if you don't like the Beatles they're, to me, the American Beatles and
they're really important I think, for a lot of
modern-day music and their story's just really interesting
the fact that they were on Stax but they're this Beatles-sounding kind of band.
I think a lot of people have what I have, which is
you'll always gravitate towards the tragic figure which is Chris Bell
and he's just an amazing songwriter and he has a solo album call 'I Am the Cosmos'
and this stuff is embedded in your pop culture
psyche with, y'know, one of the songs being on a famous TV show.
A lot of the bands in the 90s that were big
alternative, things like REM, stuff like that, this was fueling them.
I don't think there would be a Cheap Trick without this and I don't think there would be a lot of
the power pop that exists today.
and it has 'I Am the Cosmos' on here, so it's sort of like your gateway drug for Chris Bell's solo record.
Alex Chilton. Thank you. He's in the Box Tops.
Then after this band breaks up, he does Tav Falco and the Panther Burns, I think which is
super left-field outsider music
and you think he's gonna make another kind of Beatlesque sounding band but it's not
he seemed to indulge in very strange, weirdo stuff that's a branch of punk, maybe
and so he's sort of like this godfather for a lot of underground music.
Didn't he produce The Cramps too?
Exactly! There you go. They knew about him and it's like
y'know, they didn't necessarily get a shiny Beatles record, but the fact that he understood what they were like
and decided to produce him, it's amazing so
he really is an important figure in American underground music y'know.
I'm a late bloomer too Guided By Voices because I've always been
because I've always been overwhelmed by the amount of releases there are.
Seems to be like a hoarder's house of records that they put out
but my friend Dan Elkman sat me down once
and just sort of played a song for me and then I was like, oh, ok I love it.
And then in going down that wormhole, I found my favorite song on this record, which is 'Motor Away.'
I just love this guy. He's a teacher
he's constantly doing big productions or four-track recordings, or as many records as he wants.
It's another band I think that benefitted greatly from Big Star
and you've got to respect your elders, because they still make great records.
Another thing that benefited from Big Star I think
even though they're probably around the same time is Flaming Groovies
in particular, I really love 'Shake Some Action,' which I listen to a lot when I draw too.
It's interesting, this was around right like
they were opening for The Ramones back then, at the Roundhouse
probably '77. Don't quote me on the year.
But I think the fact that this is what was given to England as our version of punk
I think that's kind of cool, because it's full of harmonies and everything, and it's so cool
and I don't have it on vinyl, so that's why I got it.
Going back to krautrock, even though this is not krautrock
to me, John Carpenter sounds like he should have been in a krautrock band.
That reflection is a pain in the ass, isn't it. Sorry.
and then I think the other side is The Fog. Both these movies are rad
and the fact that it's John Carpenter doing it by himself, especially on 'Assault.'
I'm always thinking, why didn't anyone sample this in hip hop? It's just cool.
You have this guy just going out on a limb making these strange movies
and then making the soundtrack too, I think that's just amazing.
Just him and a little synthesizer and it's legendary now.
A friend of mine named Ryan Sawyer
he's a really great drummer and he was third drummer for At the Drive-In
so he plays on our record called 'Acrobatic Tenement.'
When he started playing with us, he just schooled me on so much music
and Van Dyke Parks was something he schooled me on.
This could be an Animal Collective record if they could travel back in time and be his backing band.
Yeah, this is 1968. It's just a strange, strange pop record
and I don't mean chamber pop for the year; it's really a weirdo record.
This just is sort of classic, take a chance on a weirdo artist-era Hollywood
back when you could do that and lose your ass. I'm sure this didn't sell very well.
But it's great, worth a listen to, even if you hate it.
He was Brian Wilson's lyricist.
Right! That's right. So they're homies.
That's why most of 'Smile' is pretty...
apart from Brian Wilson being a weirdo himself, with all due respect, I think he was adding
a little extra weirdness.
Yeah I just saw that movie, the dramatization of all of it
I think half the time the Beach Boys were like, 'hey wanna get your friend out of here, man?'
It's about the music, throw the lyrics out, they're just words.
We need to throw you out.
I'm like, oh my god, you guys are so fucking square
but that's part of that genius, he needed a little homie there that was like, will you back me up on this
strange vision I have?
So let people like him be a lesson to you. You need that.
That's it.
Awesome.
Cool.