Nothing like a two month hiatus to refresh and renew the podcasting abilities. Well, not really. This episode is from the middle of March…I’m just now getting around to posting it now. I’m sure Michael is very happy he picked this cousin to do a podcast with.
Anyway, without further adieu, here’s episode 10, “The Lost Episode.” The title is actually a nod to episode nine, which was literally lost. Download the .mp3 here, listen below or subscribe on iTunes, keyword “Sup Cuz”.
We hope to have new episodes starting next week, but no guarantees.
Just in time to nurse you through that Fat Tuesday hangover, it’s everyone’s favorite cousin-hosted podcast, S’up Cuz!
Click here to download episode 8, “The Butt Rock Show,” or as always, subscribe via iTunes.
Topics this week include: the awesomeness of 80′s hair metal, the lameness of hackey sack and the patheticness of flying the rebel flag. Also, Michael talks to an airline pilot in the second installment of “Curious Michael.”
Author’s Note: This would have been a good story to tell on the podcast, but to be completely honest, I had already told the story to Justin. So it would have been lame to tell it to him again and have him try to act like he heard it for the first time by fake laughing and fake interjecting with statements like, “Really?” or “that’s crazy, man!” So in order to keep the podcast honest, I’m not telling it there, but thought it still needed to be told…so here it is:
About two years ago I was in Nashville for business. I have a lot of friends who live there, so whenever I go, I usually stay with them. I eat their food, dirty up their guest room, don’t make up the bed, make a mess in the bathroom, ruin any type of romantic plans the couples might have had. They love it.
This one time I was staying with my buddy, Hart. (I know it’s a weird, ridiculous name, I’ve told him several times, he’s aware.) He lives in a sort of eclectic neighborhood in Nashville, where a bunch of middle to upper-class folks live on the same street. He has a really nice, but small house and just a couple of houses away might be a million dollar home. Anyway, he called me and said, “What time are you getting off work and coming to the house?”
I told him it would probably be about 5:30 and he said, “Well, my neighbor is holding a rally for Obama and Michelle Obama is going to be giving a speech. But it’s at 5:30, so don’t be late.”
Well, this seemed like kind of weird situation, but Nashville is kind of a weird place and Hart is kind of a weird guy, so I said, “I’ll be there.”
I managed to get stuck in traffic on the way, but pulled into his driveway right at 5:30. I saw that two houses down was where they were obviously holding the rally. People were walking into the backyard and there were lots of Secret Service standing around. I walked over and was led to the porch. Continue Reading »
Hello Internet folks. It’s a been a flurry of inactivity in the S’up Cuz? Chicago studios (aka, my apartment) the last few days. “Real” work has kept me from posting this latest and greatest episode of everyone’s favorite cousin-hosted podcast, and for that, I apologize. Never again (unless I have to work).
So without further adieu, here’s S’up Cuz? episode seven, “The Most Famous People We’ve Met (Part 2) Show.” Click here to download the .mp3, subscribe via iTunes (be sure to subscribe to the feed that has episode seven in it, not the other one), or eat up a crapload of your office’s bandwidth and listen below.
Topics this week include: hecklers, Michael’s love of book signings, meeting the guys from Flight of the Conchords and the genius of Andy Samburg. Also, music connoisseur Matt High gives Michael is top 10 albums of ’09. Speaking of, his complete list (including honorable and dishonorable mentions, as well as his thoughts on many of his selections) is below.
Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix – Wow. These guys have been around for a long time and this album is a potent culmination of everything that is good about this band. Maybe wilco and built to spill could learn a thing or two from these guys about the maturation process of one’s music.
Roman Candle – Oh Tall Tree In The Ear – The unfortunate circumstance of today’s music industry does not allow band like Roman Candle to hang around for a long time unless you get as lucky as KOL. This long awaited album was worth the wait with it’s excellent storytelling and sound. Let’s hope it isn’t the last we have heard of these guys.
Neko Case – Middle Cyclone – More of the same from Neko Case. She has haunting stories to tell and haunting music to set the mood, but she does delve into the lighter side of things with this album.
Miike Snow – Miike Snow – If this album doesn’t make you bob your head then you need to make your way to the closest hospital to get your ears or your pulse checked out because something is the matter with you.
Jay Reatard – Watch Me Fall
Kings Of Leon – Only By Night – This is an excellent album. It is where U2 should have gone after Achtung Baby. Unfortunately it is so overplayed at this point that it feels like it has been around for five years.
Peter, Bjorn & John – Living Thing – The inventive Swedes decided to stay indoors and hit the beatbox more than they did on Writer’s Block. Nothing To Worry about may go down as the most addictive song of all time. Don’t feel guilty, just keep hitting repeat.
Karen O & the Kids – Where the Wild Things Are Soundtrack – A delicate album that is as warm as the story it is meant to accompany. Quite a departure for Karen O, but with standouts like worried shoes and hidaway I excitedly wait to see the next avenue the YYY choose to take.
Dinosaur Jr. – Farm – Straightforward rock n’ roll. Thank you for bringing back the guitar solo on every freakin’ song.
Hauschka – Snowflakes & Carwrecks – More of a classical music genre, but the frenetic pace of the ticks and tocks of this album result in a beautiful sound that is not found coming out of some American idols overhyped mouth.
I recently made the mistake of going to a concert in a college town. At the age of 31, I don’t feel myself too far removed from “college-age” folks but apparently I am. I go to see bands all the time in Memphis and know what to expect from the crowd. There are barely any college people and most of the audience is around my age. There’s very little dancing, but there is still a very obvious appreciation for the music.
But what I experienced in Oxford, Mississippi, home of the Ole Miss Rebels, was utterly ridiculous.
It’s very rare that a band comes through my region and skips Memphis to go to Oxford, which is an hour and a half away. But when we heard that Modest Mouse was going to be there, we decided it was worth the drive, even during the middle of the week. Now, middle of the week concerts are always a big decision. Getting home at 3:30 and waking up for work at 6:30 is for young men, not me and my old-ass friends. And that kind of schedule is what we’d expect from one of the Memphis bars where we see music, where most bands don’t start until 10:00 pm, and that’s for the first of usually two opening bands. But the venue in Oxford said the show would be over by midnight, meaning we’d get home earlier than normal, so we went for it.
When the three of us got there, we immediately felt out of place. We were the “old guys”. Everyone looked much younger than us and I felt like somehow the eight years that we had been out of school must have really taken their toll on us.
The venue is called the Lyric, and it’s a renovated old theater with no seats, but merely a sloping floor down to the stage, with the capacity of maybe 800 people. As the opening band played we slowly moved forward, and when Modest Mouse came out we were probably 20 feet from the stage in a fairly large crowd. Continue Reading »
Hello Internet surfers! Time to catch the wave of nonsense known as “S’up Cuz?” and ride it out of the boredom pipeline all the way to Entertainment Beach.
Jeez. Sorry.
The sixth installment of our podcast is now online. Click here to download it, listen below or subscribe via iTunes.
NOTE: If you already subscribe via iTunes, you’ll have to resubscribe. A computer error—not operator error, thank you very much—caused me to have to upload the episodes once again under a new RSS feed. In other words, if you don’t resubscribe, new episodes won’t show up in your feed. You don’t want that, do you?
Topics this week include: getting pooped on by birds, tatoos and fraternities. For good merit, I discuss getting dissed by a tween and Michael and I talk about hobo pee for a good 10 minutes. Trust me, this show’s a doozy.
In my attempt to be a good father this weekend, I am afraid I may have inadvertently made my son dumber. It really wasn’t my fault and I feel like someone should have warned me. I’ve read a handful of books on parenting and the number one thing they say is to just “be present” for your kids. And that is what I was attempting this weekend when I took him to a monster truck rally.
In hindsight, I guess I should have seen the possible implications of such an outing. But when he saw the commercial for the monster truck rally coming to our town, his eyes grew to saucers and he pleaded with me to take him and well, I just couldn’t resist. But now I think my three-year old may be permanently dumb for life and it’s all my fault. Continue Reading »
Today is a big, big day. Why? Because it’s a S’up Cuz? anniversary, you silly gooses!
Who would’ve thought that two guys with the attention span of four year-olds could sustain such a labor-intensive podcasting effort for five episodes? You can celebrate with us by listening to this week’s podcast, “The Emergency Room Show.”
Click here to download the mp3 file. Or—and I know that you know what I’m going to say here—subscribe via iTunes. And if you have the bandwidth at work, listen to the full hour show below.
Topics this week include: trips to the emergency room, the “box truck wave,” Olive Garden’s response to Michael’s praise and the music of recently deceased punk rocker Jay Reatard. As a bonus, Michael launches his new interview series and Justin paints a mental picture that will make you vomit a little in your mouth.
Also, we discuss The Blind Project, a charity run by one of Michael’s college friends, which you can learn more about here.
In our ongoing effort to seem like a quasi-legitimate media outfit of sorts, we’ve launched a new series within S’up Cuz?. It’s called “Curious Michael” and it’s an interview series in which Michael interviews otherwise regular people who have something special going on. Maybe they’re award-winning amateur filmmaker, or perhaps they’ve climbed K2, or maybe they’re a beat cop in a really bad part of town. Maybe they’ve even met Burt Reynolds, which would obviously be amazing. Who knows? In other words, they’re people who have something interesting to say. Unlike you, Sam Barnes of Evansville, Indiana.
In the first segment of “Curious Michael,” Michael sits down with Daniel Farris, drummer for Jason Freeman and Jeffrey James & the Haul (available on iTunes), to find out what life as a drummer in an up-and-coming band is really like. Farris was also the drummer in Staynless, Breath Your Alive, the Colorcast, ElDorado and the Ruckus and The Coach and Four.
Click here to download the mp3. Or, as always, you can do the logical thing and subscribe via iTunes. Or, just listen in the player below (run time is 15 minutes).
And for the record, I am aware that I said the name of the segment wrong in the outro song.
Finally, Michael has been bugging me to get these pictures up for a month now. There. Are you happy now, Michael?
Possible Captions:
“Want some candy?”
“Seriously though, how many roofies should we take with us tonight?”
“So where do we sign up to be cops?”
“For Sale: Van. Slightly used.”
“What do you mean he shaved it off? Tom Selleck you are dead to me now.”
“Mustache trimmed…check. Eagle on Trans Am hood polished…check. Aqua Velva applied liberally to erogenous zones…check. Zero percentage that we’ll spend the night at a ladies house tonight instead of Mom’s basement…check.”
By all means, add your own in the comments section.
Hello, Internet peoples. It’s been a while since you heard the sounds of our voices. If you’re like our Moms, that makes you sad. If you’re like our wives, that makes you happy (unless you’re faced with the daunting task of opening a new jar of pickles).
But allow us to remedy that with Episode 4 of S’up Cuz, entitled “The Reunion Where Michael Screwed Justin Out of $200 Show”. You’ll have to listen to learn more about the ridiculously long title.
Click here to download the file, or for the love of Baby New Year, subscribe on iTunes. Or, if you have the time (and the bandwidth), just listen below.
A few thoughts on this episode:
1. We waste no time insulting a potential new demographic, but I think I’m okay with that.
2. If you listen hard enough, you can actually hear the discomfort in Michael’s voice when he talks about the clothes he had to wear for his family holiday portrait. I’ll work on getting the photo so I can post it in all its awkward glory.
3. Something about the song at the end makes for one of the more homoerotic outs yet. Maybe that’s because of all the harmonizing?
"S'up Cuz?" is a weekly podcast hosted by Justin Allen and Michael Malone, cousins who live in Chicago and Memphis, respectively. Michael is a writer, father of two and music guru of sorts. Justin is a writer and video producer, has red hair and also writes a blog called Underemployed. Both of them can be reached by email here.
