The magic of age 15: Warped Tour 2001
Plus: Todd Terje, Korn, Kendrick The Filmmaker, Frankie, and PEZ
This week’s playlist is here. If you want to judge me or you’d like to know what the hell was going on with me, try and remember what it felt like to be 15, tyvm. And it’s NOT just punk, although that is a theme. It’s most of what I can remember listening to in the year 2000/01.
I’m a serial collector. As a kid, I kept bottle caps and Star Wars toys1 and rubber bands (😳) and paper clips (😐) and posters and sports cards and jerseys and magazines and posters. But my PEZ dispenser collection was undoubtedly the crown jewel2 and I owe that almost entirely to Less Than Jake, a punk/ska band you probably only remember for their name, if you remember them at all. Two of the bandmembers had ‘sizable’ PEZ dispenser collections and along with several friends in junior high, I jumped onboard. I still have most of them and it’s 500-plus, some of which are rare and perhaps worth doing something about.
We started a band3, went to a zillion concerts, lit stuff on fire, broke things, built mini businesses out of our backpacks, played sports and had it way easier than anyone ever should. Comes with the territory of being a white kid in the 90s with parents that made it and decided to give us the freedom to make our own mistakes.
In the summer of 2001, we got to see a ton of bands at Warped Tour at Pier 32 in San Francisco. 15, a magically stupid age: “hey can you drive us two hours, drop us off at noon, then come back at 10pm and seriously we won’t smoke weed or get in trouble and everyone else there will also be fine and sober and nice and also can I have some money?”
We got to see AFI from a very far distance, LTJ of course, Distillers, 311, Bouncing Souls, Fenix TX, Ataris, Rancid, and Good Charlotte4. The rest of the lineup is astonishingly good.
Fifteen.
Some Very Special Magical Stuff From This Week
I thought the magic stopped the day the music died or whatever, but, nope:
This week, my sparkling water sampled Todd Terje. Seriously. I was driving, opened a can of sparkling water5 and it fu**i*’ played the sound you hear in the intro of “Inspector Norse” (:20 second mark on the official video). There is no way you can deny that this happened. Todd Terje is The Greatest Artist Of All Time6, by the way. Spotify / Apple Music
Season 3, Episode 5 of Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt has this absolute banger.7 The line before it is something about whether he would like to eat corn. Korn made the playlist this week. Best Korn album? Hot take it’s 1999’s Issues, which is absolutely seething with Bakersfield anger. I ripped through hundreds of batteries in my CD player on this one. Have very good memories of being in the dark in high school photo class, absolutely handicapped by sight and sound, blissfully enjoying the unnecessary sounds of white suburban freakout. Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
I finally watched a lot of Fire Aid and Anderson Paak’s “Koreatown” jersey is my new favorite thread in existence. Also, Sheila E. looks so damn good for being almost 70. This four-song set they did (complete with Dre appearance) is the same one they did last summer at Hollywood Bowl. Also Dre has been in the music business for 40 years, in case me talking about the turn of the century and being 15 didn’t already make you feel geriatric.
Kendrick’s world-beating latest album GNX, released in the wake of Lamar’s extremely public murder of Drake, came out on November 22, 2024. This past Friday, he released the video for “Luther”, a lovely single with SZA. I know he's been very imperfect over time as a partner but it's kinda sweet how a lot of the imagery of his relationship with Whitney has been super romantic and appreciative. Started during the Mr. Morale era and has really continued all the way through. Kind of one of those narrative things that is easy to lose amidst all the beef. This thing is a beautiful 5 minute short film.
The new Mars Volta album is almost like a guilty pleasure in reverse. I have no idea if I love it or have already forgotten about it after a few listens. There’s a lot of their jazz, ethereal guitar playing and world rhythmic percussion roots on this one. The one thing they continue to do way better than anyone else is making albums that really feel juntos. These are not meant for titles, tracks, comprehensible lyrics (in any language), or 4-minute themes. This is meant to be listened to like Animals or The Velvet Rope; one continuous piece of music.8 My average Spanish tells me the title is Dirty Profit; The Eyes of the Empty(?). So, yeah, as usual, that tells you less than you knew before I told you the title. Spotify / Apple Music
I want, very badly, for this bass player to be my best friend. A LOT of Frankie and the Witch Fingers’ catalogue reminds me of King Gizz, which is a A Very Good Thing. This song is not quite as groovy as some of the KG-like stuff but it still sounds a lot more like what would happen if you took Scream and added some Misfits bass. Live music weirdo freaks FOREVER! Spotify / Apple Music
Art has always been integral to hip hop but imagination has disappeared from a lot of album covers over the last decade or so. 2025’s award for Best Art And Best Name goes to Droogie Otis, AKA superproducer Madlib + super rapper Your Old Droog’s single “Everything Designer.”9 Also Boldy James needs a f*ck**’ nap already. This guy just doesn’t stop. Spotify / Apple Music / YouTube
This week’s playlist, again, is here. Text me.
This is the old dude Howard J. Reynolds,
DROB
And the Pepsi / Mountain Dew bottle and can series, many of which remained sealed and displayed in my room, until they started leaking down walls and upsetting parents. I am really going to pay when my kid gets to junior high.
Of embarrassment? TBD.
The Cardboard Cutouts. Seriously.
For the record, I thought I hated them. Still do.
If someone thinks they can get me a sponsor, I’ll tell you what brand. But not really cause I think the Substackies would send me straight to the guillotine for taking money from a brand.
Norwegian DJ. I have been to Denmark twice, Iceland and Sweden once and I’m itching to get to Norway and Finland. In a different life without a family, I’d be setting up Google Alerts for ‘Todd Terje Tour Norway’ right now.
Side note (footnote?!) we went to NY this week to see Titus Burgess (another Kimmy star) in Cole Escola’s raunchy satire about the life of Mary Todd Lincoln, Oh Mary. I know people say “10/10 no notes” like they mean it but I *u***n’ mean it.
Classic Mars Volta-to-Pink Floyd-to-Janet Jackson string there.
Madlib’s real name = Otis Lee Jackson Jr, which is almost O’Shea Jackson (Ice Cube) and even more almost-er O’Shea Jackson Jr. (famous for playing Ice Cube in Straight Outta Compton). Wouldn’t it be nice if our minds saved room for important information?