GUEST LIST: NATE FERNALD

Fehlfarben, The Delgados, Winter, Califanes & Noodles

It’s GUEST LIST time. I met comedian and writer Nate Fernald years ago when he was in a duo called Team Submarine with Steve O’Brien. Over the years I’ve gotten to know Nate as one of the funniest people I know, whether it’s onstage or managing to squeeze genuinely funny comedy bits into 2020’s late-night television.

Nate’s responsible for a number of truly funny bits and just…things that I think about all the time, like WTF with Marc Maron and Nate Fernald and the legendary Geedis saga. He’s got a new(ish) band called CRUB which has genuinely catchy songs about canceling the Geico lizard for sending him pictures of his slimy little asshole and lizard dick every night.

Nate also loves music and has some great picks. I particularly dig Noodles and Fehlfarben—a statement that sounds like I’ve never listened to music and someone asked me to name two bands I like and I got really nervous and maybe it was at a pasta restaurant.

Ok here’s where I stop talking and Nate starts talking:

Fehlfarben - Ein Jar (Es geht goran)

I spend way too much time on the internet reading about music. Whenever I come across something that sounds interesting I'll drop it on my rateyourmusic.com wishlist. For context, said wishlist is currently at 1,434 albums. A few weeks ago I was poking around in Permanent Records while waiting for a show to start and saw Fehlbarben's Monarchie und Alltag (from my wishlist!) for $10. Given that it was never released in the states, it seemed like a once-in-a-lifetime deal. I'd read good things about it, so I made the purchase.

Turns out this is one of the most important albums in German punk (released in 1980, it went gold in 2000). "Ein Jar (Es geht goran)" seemed like the stand out track to me and turned out to be the band's only hit single. And in classic punk band fashion, it turns out they hate this song. The catchiness and danceability of it was done "as a bit" to make fun of popular music. Well, joke's on me! Guess I'm just a dumb dipshit who likes popular music.

The Delgados - Lazarwalker

The Delgados have been a favorite band of mine for a very long time. They started as a scrappy Glaswegian Pixies-inspired band in 1994. Their third album, The Great Eastern, was produced by Dave Fridmann around the same time he did The Flaming Lips The Soft Bulletin. And their next album, Hate, was also produced by Dave Fridmann around the time he did Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots. There's got to be an alternate universe where The Delgados are just as famous as The Flaming Lips. I have a distinct memory of listening to a RealAudio clip of their song "Coming in from the Cold" at 8:30 PM in the winter of 2002, then racing to the record store before it closed at 9:00 PM to buy Hate on CD. I got there just in time and then my car broke down on the way home and, not having a cellphone yet, had to run several miles back to my house and was chased by a dog on the way there. Worth it. When I moved to Chicago in 2004, the release of their next album, Universal Audio, was what made me finally venture beyond my neighborhood so I could get it from a record store.

So yes, a very important band in my life. Despite that, I'd never explored beyond their five full-lengths. In advance of seeing them do a reunion show this coming August, I decided to dig up all of their non-album tracks and found that they had 36 of them - nearly three albums worth. I made some artwork, put together "The Delgados - The Complete B-Sides: 1994-2005," dropped it on my phone and haven't looked back. "Lazarwalker," off their very first EP, is the one that's been sticking with me most. It's one of those perfect mid-90's, quiet/loud songs with male/female vocals trading off. Not sure that there's anything that would get me into a song more than that description.

Winter - Write It Out

Winter has been putting out music for a few years now, but I only recently heard her when she released What Kind of Blue Are You. I instantly loved this album when I heard it. If I were to reductively describe it by comparing it to other bands, I'd say it sounds like My Bloody Valentine meets The Sundays. But I won't do that. I was going to order the record when it came out, but noticed that Winter is located in LA (Winter in LA! Wouldn't that be something!), so I figured I'd wait for a local show and buy it there.

It took a while, but there was finally a Los Angeles Winter show a few weeks ago. I was by far the oldest person there. Oh god. Where has my life gone? At least young people are still making and listening to great music.

Noodles - Red Bunny

I discovered Noodles deep into lockdown. At the moment of my discovery they had 14 full lengths, four EPs, five singles and one soundtrack (and more since!), so it was really fun to just dive in and inhale their entire discography. They are from Japan and seem to be virtually unheard of in the U.S. It's a little surprising because they make very American-influenced rock music, citing influences like Weezer, The Breeders, The Buzzcocks and Green Day. Maybe it's because they're called "Noodles" and it doesn't feel great telling people to listen to a band called "Noodles." But there's an overwhelming amount of great songs in their discography. Their albums are hard to come by locally and pretty expensive on import. But I recently found someone selling most of their discography on Yahoo Auctions (essentially Japanese eBay) and was able to get a pretty good price. In the batch of albums I bought, there was also a sampler CD from their record label which had the song "Red Bunny." I'd never heard it before and, what do you know, it turns out their leftover tracks on compilations are every bit as a good as their album ones.

Fun fact: on their covers album they cover Yura Yura Teikoku, who was featured in one of Brett's recent newsletters.

The Gold Standard

Caifanes - Viento

Caifanes is an 80's band from Mexico City. Their music ranges from goth, to post-punk, to cheesy radio pop. "Viento" combines the best of all of those worlds. This song blew me away when I first heard it and my mind was boggled as to why it wasn't famous. But then I noticed it had over 60 million views on YouTube. Turns out it is very famous, just not among non-Spanish speaking people. Someone needs to go back in time and put this song in the end credits of a John Hughes movie.

Thanks for having me, Brett! Attached is a picture of a pin I bought on eBay that has the slogan from Tower Records Japan - a sentiment I firmly stand by.