What’s up, Internet! One thing to note before we get into the show notes: Shaun has been uploading his Let’s Plays on Fallout 4 on The EZPZ’s YouTube channel. Check those out if you haven’t yet. They are in glorious 1080p HD 60 FPS. Alright, let’s get into the show notes.
Ronda Rousey lost to Holly Holm! What a fun match to follow. The lemon heads share their thoughts on the match.
Electric Forest announced they are banning Native American headdresses for 2016. They will be looking at restricting totems, too.
He who will not be named said something else racist. What do you know?
ISIS claimed they would be issuing an attack at WWE’s pay-per-view event Survivor Series. Hacker collective, Anonymous, announced they will be shelling out attacks on ISIS.
Going back to activities/props being banned from music festivals, wubbing is something Dan does not think should be banned. Dan Is Pro-Wubbing.
Shia LaBeouf discusses how his love for himself only grew after his “Shia Watched Shia” event.
Our thoughts are with hardcore band, The Ghost Inside! They were in a horrific car accident which killed their driver and all the members sustained serious injuries.
At the time of this recording, Shaun was about 25 hours into Fallout 4. He showed Nick a few neat things in the game and they discuss some glitches and bugs Shaun’s found. Overall, Bethesda has done a top-notch job with ironing out all the bugs.
And rounding out the show, Nick wanted to discuss Justin Bieber’s antics at a skateboard park in Chicago.
Thanks for listening to the podcast! We have Alex Marean on EP020 of the show next week! Look for it soon!
HATE-MAIL? LOVE-MAIL? Any mail? Send it our way. We don’t bite and you’ll be on the show, I PROMISE!
Nick and Shaun went to the Armor For Sleep 10-Year Anniversary Tour for What To Do When You Are Dead! This tour got announced in late June and they snagged tickets on day one because well, it’s Armor For Sleep. Nick hadn’t seen them before this and after the fun road trip they took to see Title Fight in March, they knew they had to record the fun moments for this road trip.
DISCLAIMER: This special episode was recorded in Shaun’s Mazda 3 on an iPhone 6 during the drive home from Chicago, so the audio isn’t the best. It was great seeing the band back in action. We discussed our fun road antics, our fast food choice, “The Great Shaun Mix-up” and the show itself.
Again, we are sorry for the audio quality, this was recorded on an iPhone 6 and is more of a way to capture the memory of two best friends road-tripping to see a band that means so much to them.
You can send us your letters at: TheEZPZPodcast@gmail.com The EZPZ: Website: TheEZPZ.com Twitter and Instagram: @TheEZPZ Spotify playlists that Nick makes for every episode can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/user/ncgsxe Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theezpz Shaun’s Twitter and Instagram: @ShaunSJohnson Nick’s Twitter and Instagram: @bazookaxnick Nick’s Facebook art page: Facebook.com/nickgandyart Make sure to post our hashtag on every tweet and Instagram photo: #StealthModeDan
Every month since January 2011, Shaun Johnson has been making monthly playlists of his favorite music. As soon as the last couple days of the month roll around, Shaun starts a new playlist for the next month with whatever music he is jamming out to at that time. These playlists include any music that Shaun loves and are not confined to any specific genre or release date. The playlists usually include new music, but they can also include tracks from bands that Shaun is planning on seeing live that particular month.
These write-ups are solely for Shaun to promote the music he loves and to give him an outlet to write about music in a consistent manner! Don’t be afraid to send him your thoughts on his write-up or playlists on Twitter: @ShaunSJohnson
I had the privilege of interviewing CHON’s Drew Pelisek in Omaha at The Slowdown at the Circa Survive, Balance and Composure show. It was one of the best concerts, let alone be experiences of my life. Pelisek was one of the coolest band members I have ever met in my entire life. My media production class at Iowa State University demanded a project every single week for the last 6 weeks of class. The main stipulation of the assignments was that they have to have something to do with an event in Ames. It can be a feature on a future event, too. This was particularly rough for me since I lived in Des Moines, Iowa.
I tweeted at Pelisek a few days before their show at The Slowdown in Omaha with Circa Survive and Balance and Composure about a possible interview to preview their Iowa State University show just a few weeks later. He said, “yeah” and I was excited. The tweet was completely on a whim and a final attempt before I would have to do some sort of lame preview of something I don’t care about in Ames.
The next few days before the show I was jamming to CHON’s new album, Grow, nonstop, along with all of their other tracks. I listened to CHON and only CHON for the first week of April because of all the editing I put into the video.
The beginning of April I was watching Transparent on Amazon Prime. I had just finished The Walking Dead’s season five and Better Call Saul’s first season, so I needed to move onto something else. When deciding I watched a couple trailers of shows. Transparent was one of those shows. In the trailer, they used Vance Joy’s “Mess Is Mine”, which is a phenomenal song that fit very well in the shows trailer.
Sufjan Stevens masterfully crafted some of the most heart-wrenching songs of the year with one of the best albums of 2015 with Carrie & Lowell. There are a bunch of great songs on the album, including “All of Me Wants All of You”, “Fourth of July”, “No Shade In the Shadow of the Cross” and more. The album is truly wonderful and will be on my end of the year list, for sure.
Madeon also released a new album in 2015 with Adventure. It is a good album, but somewhat forgettable, overall. I do enjoy the tracks where he collaborates with a solid vocalist most. The track with Passion Pit, “Pay No Mind” is probably the best on the album.
Death Cab for Cutie’s Kintsugi was released in April, also. It falls short of most of their other works. It’s a shame because of how great I know that Death Cab for Cutie can be. This was also their last album together as the same band that released the fantastic albums in their catalog, like Plans and Transatlanticism with Chris Walla’s departure.
The third single from Passion Pit’s Kindred was released mid-month. It was “Until We Can’t (Let Go)”. If I were to rank the tracks on the album in terms of best to worst, I would put it in the middle of the album overall. A lot of Kindred is really solid, songs like “Lifted Up”, “”Whole Life Story” and “Where the Sky Hangs” are close to the quality of Gossamer’s tracks. I think that Gossamer is nearly perfect overall, so Passion Pit had a lot of work to capitalize on that album. Overall, I think Kindred fell short of that, but it is still a solid album.
Earl Sweatshirt released I Don’t Like Shit, I Don’t Go Outside at the end of March. Although, I haven’t given it enough time, I really like the first half of it. Tyler, the Creator released the Cherry Bomb in April, too. This year has been a really great one for rap and hip-hop albums. I think Tyler released a good album. The two singles, “FUCKING PERFECT” and “DEATHCAMP” are really great. I also love “SMUCKERS” with Lil Wayne and Kanye West. Lyrically it is heads above Wolf, but I don’t think the album is better at this moment. I connected with songs like “48”, “Awkward” and “Answer” off of Wolf. Tyler, the Creator really has a lot going for him and I think he will be around for a long time.
I threw some Run the Jewels on the playlist because they were announced as one of the headliners at this year’s 80/35 in Des Moines. I cannot wait! The show will be absolutely bonkers. Earth Wind & Fire’s “September” was on the radio at work and I found myself grooving to it.
The Bully and JEFF the Brotherhood show was at Vaudeville Mews in Des Moines on April 11th. It was a great show and got me even more excited for Bully’s first full length, Feel Like on June 23rd.
The Brand New, Circa Survive show was on April 25th and both bands were absolutely unreal. Brand New sounded very good and were everything I expected them to be. They opened with their new song, “Mene”, too, just as I predicted. Seeing Circa Survive twice in the same month was pretty neat. Anthony Green is one of the best frontman and performers of all-time. He looks healthy, vibrant and sounds clean. I’m happy for Green and the rest of the dudes in Circa Survive.
I became somewhat reminiscent of Electric Forest and some of my friends in my “forest family”. Before Electric Forest, I had never listened to Tycho. At Electric Forest, after we got our camp all set up and the schedule of performances poster put up, we all sat around the poster discussing who we wanted to see. The only person in the group that said anything about Tycho was my friend, Danyiel Turner. There was so much to do and see at Electric Forest but none of it meant much unless I was experiencing it with my friends. So, I told him I would tag-a-long with him for Tycho. And I’m glad I did, since they put on one of the best performances of Forest. Now nearly a year later I’m still listening to their debut album Awake. They would definitely be up higher on my end of the year music list, too.
The lemon heads are back this with episode 003 this week! Your co-hosts Shaun Johnson, Nick Gandy and Dan Brown start off by gushing about how awesome the Brand New, Circa Survive were at 7 Flags Event Center. Then they chat about the issues with the venue and the problems with “will call” attendees. *Interlude: “Welcome to Bangkok” by Brand New The Mayweather-Pacquiao fight was Saturday, May 2nd. The only lemon head that watched it, #StealthModeDan, found it online for free. We chat about the some of the attendees, the celebrity that wagered and lost $250,000 and how Mayweather is a smart, skillful, piece of shit. *Interlude: “Hot Jazzybelle” by Kaytranada After the discussion about the Mayweather-Pacquiao fight, we realized we were recording the podcast on #StealthModeDan’s MacBook Pro mic instead of our Snowball mic. Dan put his sound engineering skills to good use and cleaned it up to make it sound pretty good. We apologize, but hey, who said we were pros? Then we dove into a discussion about the Avengers and the new movie, Avengers: Age of Ultron. Shaun went to see it with Lydia and thought it was pretty solid. Nick told us about how much he loves big, muscular superheroes and Mortal Kombat fighters. *Interlude: “Bombay” by Damn Kids The lemon heads then discussed the awesome technology that Tesla announced at their keynote in Los Angeles, California. The dudes discussed what they thought about the Powerwall and how Elon Musk is the baddest mother fucker walking the face of the Earth. *Interlude: “Rain” by Singularis Make sure you all keep the #StealthModeDan hashtag going! It’s going to be our little thing for a while. We let the listeners know about how we actually recorded our third episode on April 25th, but trashed it since it wasn’t up to par with episode 002. The Story So Far, Four Year Strong and Terror show is on Saturday, May 9th at Wooly’s in Des Moines, Iowa. Shaun and Nick are going to the show, so we discussed the bands on the bill. We also get a little nostalgic and chatted about August Burns Red and Bring Me the Horizon. *Interlude: “I Don’t Fuck With You” ft. E-40 by Big Sean That wraps up episode 003! Thank you for all of your support. We are working hard to iron out any kinks. We are learning as we go, but we are always happy to hear how we can improve our show. You can send us your letters at TheEZPZPodcast@gmail.com The EZPZ: Website: TheEZPZ.com Twitter and Instagram: @TheEZPZ Spotify playlists that Nick makes for every episode can be found here: https://open.spotify.com/user/ncgsxe Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/theezpz Shaun’s Twitter and Instagram: @ShaunSJohnson Nick’s Twitter and Instagram: @bazookaxnick Make sure to post our hashtag on every tweet and Instagram photo: #StealthModeDan
Every month since January 2011, Shaun Johnson has been making monthly playlists of his favorite music. As soon as the last couple days of the month roll around, Shaun starts a new playlist for the next month with whatever music he is jamming out to at that time. These playlists include any music that Shaun loves and are not confined to any specific genre or release date. The playlists usually include new music, but they can also include tracks from bands that Shaun is planning on seeing live that particular month.
These write-ups are solely for Shaun to promote the music he loves and to give him an outlet to write about music in a consistent manner! Don’t be afraid to send him your thoughts on his write-up or playlists on Twitter: @ShaunSJohnson
Shaun is EZPZ
With the start of March and how February started, I think I have come to the realization that each month is going to start with the end of last month’s playlist leaking into it. March’s first chunk of tracks were songs sampled on Miguel’s “Do You…” seems like a track that was written with the thought that it would be sampled. The same goes for AlunaGeorge’s opening track to Body Music, “Outlines”. That track is simply unreal, it’s the first week of April and I find myself putting it on repeat while cruising on the interstate. AlunaGeorge’s “You Know You Like It” seems to have been overshadowed by their more popular single “Attracting Flies”. Both are really great tracks, I just enjoy “You Know You Like It” a lot more.
OSHI and Sam Gellaitry both made it back onto my monthly playlists again this month. These dudes are the future of music. They are going to be emperors of SoundCloud in the coming years. Gellaitry has already signed to Soulection Records based out of Los Angeles. I hope they sign OSHI soon. My friend and co-host of The EZPZ Podcast, Dan Brown, is confident that he will be on their eclectic roster soon enough. OSHI just made an appearance on Soulection’s Love is King compilation. The compilation is pretty solid, although only a few artists truly standout. Love is King was released as a celebration for Soulection reaching over 200,000 followers on SoundCloud. Gellaitry’s EP, Short Stories, is going to be one of my favorite releases of the year without a doubt. I hope he comes stateside soon. I would travel to Chicago, a 6-hour drive, just to see Sam Gellaitry perform. His performance in Paris at the beginning of March was put on YouTube and I have clocked a bunch of miles on the treadmill watching it. I suggest you check it out, Gellaitry is the future of music.
The boys in black and white (and floral green) have returned to my monthly playlists for the third month in a row. Their album, Hyperview, still gives me the chills. I absolutely love everything about Title Fight and how they are metamorphosing into something truly brilliant. The album didn’t receive nearly the amount of praise as their second album, Floral Green, but it did with me. I got to see them live on March 8th in Lawrence, Kansas with my friend and co-host, Nick Gandy. I needed to see them live, especially after their album, Hyperview, dropped. These dudes know how to put on a performance. I am bummed that I am missing their co-headlining tour with La Dispute due to class and work. It also didn’t help that the closest show to Des Moines, Iowa was in Chicago on Easter Sunday. I’m far from a religious man, but familial duties come with Easter Sunday. The same thing happened when Title Fight toured in support of Circa Survive, too! Such a shame, both those tours were monumental.
Okay, I am not giving credit where credit is due—the openers for the Title Fight show I caught in Lawrence, Kansas were phenomenal. Power Trip, a hardcore band, and Merchandise, manic pixie dream world indie pop. I loved the intensity and thrills that Power Trip brought to the stage. Kids were flying everywhere and going completely nuts. Merchandise wooed those same kids into a trance. The people that just watched Power Trip tear apart the stage stayed and watched Merchandise create something truly wonderful. The band ‘s music sounds like it should be played in front of English royalty. I can see why Title Fight wanted to tour with both bands. Loyal Title Fight fans love both their fast-paced, punk songs, usually led by Ned Russin and their soothing, whammy-bar abused songs, usually led by Jamie Rhoden. Both the opening bands brought a side of Title Fight to the show. I loved Merchandise’s set so much that I was kicking myself after the show for not buying any of their merch or material. I got their EP, Totale Nite, and threw the track “Anxiety’s Door” on my playlist.
I guarantee I will be getting the album’s logo tattooed soon enough. Title Fight is just one of those bands that makes songs that you take with you throughout your entire life.
Passion Pit released their first two singles off of Kindred mid-March. The singles are wonderful and I found myself listening to them non-stop for a week or so.
A Big Sean album would have never have been on one of my monthly playlists just a year or two ago but hey, we all change and grow as music fans. Dark Sky Paradise had some really fun songs. Although he is a strong rap/hip-hop artist on his own, Big Sean’s tracks where he collaborating with some of the biggest artists out right now are where he really shines. I especially enjoyed tracks like “All Your Fault” feat. Kanye West, “I Don’t Fuck With You” feat. E-40, “Play No Games” feat. Chris Brown and Ty Dolla $ign, and one of the catchier tracks released this year, “Research” feat. Arian Grande.
We have the radio on at work 24/7. Although the radio gives me twelve times more headaches than pleasure, sometimes I hear a song play on the radio that is really good. Throughout the last decade or so Cage the Elephant has released a lot of good albums. I never really gave them the time of day because I would hear them on the radio enough the way it. I really like their latest sing’e, “Cigarette Daydreams”, though.
Kanye West is one of two artists that I know has the ability to release an album that can make my top three albums of the year. The other being Radiohead. Kanye West released his first single off his new album, which just got a name change to Swish, was released in late March. “All Day” is a strong track but it isn’t really anything remarkable and will probably go down as one of West’s good tracks instead of great.
Kendrick Lamar released To Pimp a Butterfly on March 23rd. After one listen I was convinced that nothing could come close to topping it for my album of the year. After listening to the album from beginning to end, listeners are sure to be exhausted, but it’s the kind of exhaustion that one gets from completing the Boston Marathon. After an active listen, you know you experienced something that made you a better person. That same thing that made you a better person makes you contemplate how you think of the world around you. The tracks are stories in themselves and at the end of each song is a separate story that is told as a spoken-word poem by Lamar. The culmination and pay-off is at the end of “Mortal Man”, the last track on the album, where Kendrick Lamar pseudo-interviews the late rapper, Tupac. Judging from the conversation Lamar has with Tupac, he is one of the few rap/hip-hop artists to admit he doesn’t have all the answers and doesn’t know everything.
CHON released their debut album called Grow in March via Sumerian Records. The release of Grow couldn’t have been a better time for me. I was gearing up to see them open for Circa Survive and Balance and Composure on April 2nd at The Slowdown in Omaha, Nebraska. Just a few days before the show, I tweeted at the lead vocalist/bassist of CHON, Drew Pelisek and asked him if I could interview him for one of my classes. To my surprise, I got a “Yeah, no problem, dude”. I couldn’t believe it. Although many kids in my class gave the professor of my Media Production a lot of shit for never being organized and assigning a ton of projects, I appreciated it because of the fact that it brought me out of my shell. I interviewed Pelisek in the green room of The Slowdown with my sister, Shelby Johnson, manning the GoPro. Before and after the interview we got to watch Circa Survive from the VIP area backstage. It was a dream come true. The experience really opened my eyes and showed me that I can do this for a living! It gave me the confidence that I can do anything. The Saturday after the show I worked on the cutting together a video for the interview. I spent the entire day from 6:00 a.m. to 8:00 p.m. working on the video. It turned out great and I got an “A”. After seeing CHON in Des Moines open for Animals As Leaders in July of 2014, I was already a fan but with just this one night, I became a lifelong fan of everything Drew Pelisek does with or without CHON.
Vance Joy has been on the radio for a year or so now with his song, “Riptide”. It’s a good song but I never really got into it too much. When I finished Better Call Saul, I was looking for a new show to watch. I had heard a lot about Transparent, an Amazon Prime exclusive, and their continuous push of the award-winning show on their app got me to check out the trailer. The trailer almost brought me to tears with the inclusion of Vance Joy’s “Mess is Mine”. Whoever chooses the music for the show and it’s trailers needs a raise.
In typical fashion, I added songs of bands I was about to see live to my playlist. With the Circa Survive, Balance and Composure and CHON show on April 2nd, I added songs to prep myself for one of the best tours of the year.
At the end of the month, Earl Sweatshirt released his single for his newest album which was due out just a week later. I snagged up the single, “Grief” with a pre-order from iTunes.
To Pimp a Butterfly by Kendrick Lamar was released early this morning because it allegedly leaked. His team definitely made a good call releasing it early because all those that pre-ordered it on iTunes got locked into their pre-order. If they stood their ground and released it on March 23rd even though it leaked, they would have faced a lot of cancelled pre-orders.
I’m one listen in and absolutely loving it. Kendrick Lamar masterfully brings hardcore rap lyrics with soulful beats. Just like his sophomore album,good kid, m.A.A.d city, he takes it to another level. I love how so many people had a hand with certain tracks. Including features from Thundercat, George Clinton, Anna Wise and Snoop Dogg. Also, Flying Lotus produced “Wesley’s Theme”? Yes, please!
Fun fact: To Pimp a Butterfly is well over an hour long. There aren’t many artists that can pull that off these days. Kendrick Lamar is one of them that can. I’d love to hear what you all think of the album. Shoot me a tweet @theezpz and @shaunsjohnson!
Scotland’s Sam Gellaitry just dropped his highly anticipated debut EP, Short Stories, on February 17th, 2015 with Soulection. Gellaitry is only 18-years old and he dropped 2015’s first instrumental release that caught my attention.
Gellaitry obviously has an innate ability at incorporating a bunch of different sounds into a 16-minute EP. Short Stories seems longer when you listen to it from beginning to end because of how well the songs transition to one another. The EPs fluidity is what gives it legs. The subtle opener “Temple”, I thought I knew the tone of the EP until “Reflectionz” rang in. I was hooked halfway through “Reflectionz” and I bought the album on Bandcamp for the reasonable price of $5. After about 30-listens of this monolith EP, I have to say that “To Earth and Back” is my favorite track. I wish the second half of it was just a little cleaner in it’s delivery. 16-year old, Oshi, from London remixed a version that has a warmer second half. You can listen to it here. “Monochrome” has some bass tones that are reminiscent of a Thom Yorke solo-release, which I can’t say I don’t enjoy. Short Stories is rounded out with “The End”. Sam Gallantry’s Short Stories is a journey that is the perfect length and will leave listeners completely satisfied.
Soulection – The Sound of Tomorrow
Hey, Sam, you should tour the United States ASAP, please.
RIYL: Flying Lotus, Röyksopp, Thom Yorke’s solo stuff
An announcement came at the beginning of December that got led to my most anticipated album of 2015. One of my favorite bands, Title Fight, was releasing cryptic clips on their website for the last couple weeks of November. The clips were weird and had night vision type overlays. I was hooked! Title Fight’s Floral Green was my “album of the year” in 2012 and I’m sure Hyperview will not disappoint. Check out the details of the album here. Their first single, “Chlorine”, was released on December 2nd. I loved the song so much, it cracked my “top ten songs of the year” in just a couple weeks. Everyone should be on the lookout for Hyperview, come February 3rd.
December is hectic when it comes to music. It’s the month I have to cram a bunch of albums in so I can make absolutely sure I did not miss anything for my “end of the year” list. Although, listening to albums this way is not ideal, it has to be done. I listened to Circa Survive’s Descensus, Run the Jewels’ Run the Jewels 2 and FKA Twigs LP1. All three albums are extremely good and made my end of the year list in some sort of way. Although Circa Survive was the only album to crack the top 10, all three could have if I had given them enough time.
One of my biggest mishaps for music last year was not listening to Childish Gambino in any sort of way. He is one of my favorite rappers now after I gave his first album, Camp, a listen way back in January. Although, better known for his comedy and acting, Donald Glover has a lot going for him as rapper. Break the Internet is a little different than Camp. Glover has developed into a more mature person after his Instagram-therapy incident and Break the Internet seems to display that side of him just fine.
After my friend Brandon’s Ugly Sweater party, we had a dance party and listened to an assortment of wonderful music. The dance “party” consisted of myself, my girlfriend, Lydia and friends: Alex and Brandon. The main songs that I remember dancing to were from Glitch Mob. So, I added some Glitch Mob to my list.
As far as working out, I usually jam out to The Chariot and Every Time I Die to shed as much weight as possible before the end of the year. Instead, this month I jumped back and bumped to Code Orange’s Love is Love/Return to Dust.
I find myself diving into Circa Survive’s Juturna at least a few times a year. December is a perfect time to do this because of the long nights and cold days.
After weeks of cryptic posts to their website, Title Fight released details on their third LP, Hyperview.
(Artwork done by the wonderful John Slaby. He has done all of Title Fight’s album/EP artwork.)
Releasing February 3rd, via Anti- Records, it will surely be on my 2015 end of the year list, if not top it like Floral Green did in 2012.
Check out the video and lyrics for their first single “Chlorine” below!
Here’s the lyrics to “Chlorine”
Silhouette
of a violet view
Felt it fade
Was it too soon?
Hollow
You can’t hold it in
Poison in your mood
Chlorine eyes from you
Found your place
in a model face
Fell into
the violent daze
Hollow
You can’t hold it in
Pour out
all your emptiness
Poison in your mood
Chlorine eyes from you
Decorated blue
Opening a wound
Flying Lotus’ new album, You’re Dead! is wonderful and I urge anyone that enjoys instrumental music to give it a listen. I like to call him my generations’ Aphex Twin!
Shaun Johnson 
