Podcast – Popdose   /     Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross: Episode 214

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross:  Episode Two Hundred Fourteen

This episode – recorded in May (!) – picks up quite nicely where you last heard them in March, in which Rob starts his health turnaround (so the show opens on a positive); the boys discuss Rob’s lack of desire to play music or write (songs, pieces on music or reviews) – the conversation turns immediately to hearing new music that “turns your head” in which Rob opines about The Kaiser Chiefs, ’90’s Britpop and The Jam and eviscerates the failed early 2000’s “new guitar invasion” shuck/overhype with bands like The Strokes and The Yeah Yeah Yeahs while praising The (long forgotten) Star Spangles and The Hives; the wave moves towards Rob’s deep love and appreciation for the original Athens, Chicago and Minneapolis bands of the early ’80’s; bad “Xerox”-copies of “power-punk” (like Green Day and Blink 142); Jon talks about his affection for The Arctic Monkeys and how they progressed and grew.  Rob touches on the current ills in society with everyone’s need to be angry and primed to fight; Jon takes the wheel, dissecting people’s motive in wanting to create mountains out of molehills (which inspires Rob to really lay into these individuals).

The boys do their pivot to sports and talk about the (highly enjoyable) Stanley Cup playoffs – including a little history of hockey franchises transferring cities; they also discuss the probable move of the Oakland A’s to Las Vegas; the necessary talk about what’s happening in major cities is brief, but highly poignant (as is their exchange on the power of genuine communication when two people disagree). They also talk about the new pandemic of raging, out-of-control narcissism and the dangers starting to rear its collective head (spurned on by TikTok); Jon’s astute pinpointing about saving one’s own neck is on-the-one and the failures of society in raising children in the modern world; the “participation trophy generation” and what Rob defines as the “handbook for assholes in social media”.

So listen with an open mind and open ears – you may not like everything you hear, but you will hear the truth.  And that’s what matters most.

Radio City With Jon Grayson & Rob Ross:  Episode Two Hundred Fourteen

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