We all regret things, even some things we didn’t do ourselves. I spoke with Canadian indie-rockers Peach Pit ahead of their set at Innings Festival on February 20th as they shared stories of favorite gigs they’ve seen, video games they’ve been enjoying, and card games that have gone wrong.

Logan Melia: Okay, rock and roll. So guys, how are we doing? I mean, first gig in a little bit, right? 

Neil Smith: Yeah, we were just talking about that today. It’s our first one in a couple months, so we’re a little nervous. 

Peter Wilton: Bit rusty 

Logan: Really, bit rusty?

Neil: Well, we rehearsed, but yeah. 

Logan: What does the rehearsal process look like? Are you guys just getting together once, multiple points? 

Neil: Oh, dude, we only can do it once. Honestly, we like playing our songs in our rehearsal room by ourselves is like torture. Yeah, I hate it so much. It gives me like the feeling of like when you’re in high school and you have to do like a project or like or homework and you don’t want to do it. 

MIkey Pascuzzi: When you do it the night before it’s due. 

Neil: Yeah, yeah, exactly. So we run the set. We run the set. 

Chris Vanderkooy: Yeah, we’ll argue for the first half about what the set should be. Yeah, then go for lunch and then run the set twice. 

Peter: But yeah, any part of those, the set always ends up being pretty similar. 

Neil: Yeah, yeah. Some songs like have to kind of be later in the set. You can’t like blow your load super early with popular ones right away. 

Logan: What’s the setlist looking like? Are we doing a lot of stuff off Magpie? 

Neil: No, we’re doing two songs off Magpie. 

Chris: Two songs off from two to three. 

Neil: Yeah, we mostly have to always do most songs off of Being So Normal, our first one, just because it’s the most popular one. 

Chris: That’s what we tell ourselves. 

Neil: No, it is true, though. 

Chris: But those songs also have the most energy, I think. A lot of the time, compared to the new ones, we love those recordings on the new albums. Yeah, the old stuff, it just goes over well live to people who have never heard of these before, too. So if we’re trying to draw new people in, that’s the good stuff to do. 

Logan: I saw you guys in May of last year in Chicago.

Neil: That was so fun. It’s a cool spot.

Logan: It’s such a beautiful venue right on the lake right there. You guys open with that little combo with Warpigs there. How’d that come to be? Because when I think about you guys, with all do respect, I don’t think about Black Sabbath. 

Neil: I think it was yours or Dougle’s or yeah, we basically for the past, for the past like 7 years, we’ve been opening our show with a bit of a cover. So we’ve done, we did a Led Zeppelin song. We did Slayer. Slayer. 

Chris: Yeah, and the Slayer was really fun because we had just kind of put out our most folky album and people were coming out to the shows and it was just like post-pandemic. And then we would just drop into Slayer and we could see the visible confusion on the crowd’s faces. And so ever since then, we were like, this is so much fun to come out like this and do something a little unexpected. So yeah, it’s something we’re kind of always striving to do and look for another cover. 

Logan: Is there anything unexpected coming today that I should prepare myself for? 

Neil: Uhhh… no.

Chris: No, we wrote a little instrumental to start off our first. 

Neil: Oh, that’s true, yeah, for sure. We’re going to open with the Arc Raiders theme song. 

Logan: That’s really sick. 

Neil: Yeah, we just walk out to it.

Logan: Are you guys Indiana Jones fans?

Peter: Oh, no. Oh, OK. Sorry. It’s confusing. There’s a new video game out, kind of like Fortnite kind of style vibe. It’s called Arc Raiders, which sounds like Raiders of the Lost Ark. 

Logan: That’s where my mind is. 

Peter: But I actually have a huge hit. 

Mikey: Yeah, I love it. 

Peter: That was my favorite movies as a kid ever. 

Chris: Actually, The Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. 

Peter: Oh, yeah. We should open with John Williams. 

Logan: Fortnite… You guys play any video games recently? You guys hopping on anything? 

Neil: I guess Fortnite a little bit. 

Chris: We were in Fortnite for a while. 

Neil: Mikey’s been playing, what have you been playing?

Mikey: Ghost of Tsushima and Ghost of Yotei. It’s like the samurai game. 

Neil: They’re a big God of War guys. 

Mikey: Oh yeah, the God of War. I played that a couple years ago. 

Neil: I flew down here with my PlayStation actually. Yeah, I put it in my carry-on bags. More than half of your bag. Yeah, half of it is closed and the other half of the suitcase is my PlayStation. So I can play Arc Raiders. 

Logan: Did you guys see the Simpsons season of Fortnite? 

Neil: Actually, I did. That was pretty awesome. 

Peter: We hoped on together. 

Neil: Did you guys get the Homer? 

Peter: Yeah, you kind of had to, right? 

Chris: No, I never figured out how to do the scans. 

Neil: You just put your credit card in and then you get it. 

Chris: One time when we were really into Fortnite, Neil like bought me a skin on Fortnite for my birthday, but I just logged on. I didn’t realize someone had sent me anything. I was just like, ‘they just gave me a free skin I’m the Mandalorian now’ And I like texted him being excited and he was like, that was neat. 

Logan: But you know, it’s a little gestures like that. 

Chris: Oh yeah, totally. 

Neil: It’s a great gift actually, a skin. 

Chris: A Fortnite skin? 

Neil: You wouldn’t buy it for yourself. 

Chris: No, yeah, exactly. 

Logan: Neil, I saw in an interview, you said that you are kind of a jokester guy at all. You write the quote I had written down, “I come up with the jokes for the show”. 

Neil: Oh, yeah, for that onstage show. Offstage show tho…

Chris: Mikey comes up with them. 

Logan: Now, I know you guys are Canadian. Norm Macdonald. Do you have any favorite Norm moments, any jokes? 

Chris: We can’t say them on air. 

Neil: Norm is like, he’s just like my favorite person maybe ever. Like I’ve seen, there’s like no Norm MacDonald clip on the internet that I haven’t seen. I mean, just like, I don’t know. Everything is good. Like his interview shows are good. His jokes are amazing. I love the, I want to quote, I’m trying to think. 

Mikey: The Larry King bit where he’s like ‘I’m a deeply closet homosexual’. 

Neil: So what you’re saying is your gay? 

Chris: Do you know what a deeply closeted man is? A man who won’t admit he is gay. Yeah, I’m deeply closeted. 

Neil: I mean, he’s just, I mean, Norm, dude. I wish I could have seen him live. He’s the best. He’s the best of all time, for sure. 

Logan: Are there any acts either comedic or bands that you are lucky you saw live? Like, did you see like Tom Petty a year before he passed? 

Chris: Yeah, I was at Red Rocks visiting my uncle and I went and checked out the venue and I was like, oh, this is beautiful. Well, I wonder if anyone’s playing tonight. Tom Petty was playing with the Heartbreakers and it’s like, oh, sweet. Oh, there’s still tickets left. Uh, 80 bucks. I’ll see him another time. He died like six months later. 

Neil: This was also for context, you were like 20. Yeah. And so 80 bucks was like, I can’t afford that. 

Logan: I’m 20 right now. 

Neil: I don’t have a job. Yeah.

Chris: There was 80 bucks in 2014. 

Logan: Canadian or USD? 

Neil: USD so even worse.

Chris: Yeah, it was rough. But yeah, I mean, Neil got to see Paul McCartney in November. Oh, yeah, it was a bucket list one. 

Logan: I was like, yeah, I should have said hi. 

Neil: Were you there? Yeah. Oh, really? Yeah. Last day of the tour. 

Logan: No, it was the day before. 

Neil: I mean, whatever. Yeah, we flew in with our wives and went and saw him. We’ve been like, yeah, we were like, we have to see him? 

Chris: Yeah, he was great. 

Neil: Yeah. He was so good, right? 

Logan: Oh, my God. He’s how is he not good? He’s so old. And for him to, like, dance a little bit. 

Chris: Every time he walked up to the piano, I was like, he’s going to slip and fall. 

Neil: He’s didn’t take a sip of water. He didn’t take a drink. He played for three hours. 

Logan: It’s like no shade to Bob Dylan. Great artists, but I’m not sure if you guys have seen those live videos. He just kind of sits there behind a piano.

Neil: Yeah, those guys are weird because I don’t get it because they’re so loaded, they don’t have to do it with the money, but they still go on tour. And to be honest, if we have enough money to not go on tour, we’re 80, I’m not going to be going on tour with you guys. 

Chris: You’re going to miss us more than you think. 

Neil: No. 

Logan: Just with United Center, Springsteen just announcing new tour. Are you guys Springsteen fans at all? 

Neil: Yeah, sort of. I saw him a couple years ago. 

Chris: I love his album Nebraska more than anything else. 

Neil: I went and saw him. You’re a big fan. Yeah. Okay. I don’t want to shit on Springsteen though. I got free tickets to go see Springsteen and it was pretty good. It was like 3 hours long. He plays everything. But it’s just like the Springsteen arc of the show is like… They go to 11 and then they just like stay at 11 the whole entire time. Like every song is 1, 2, 3, 4, and then you’re like, oh my god. I’m not a huge Springsteen fan. It was, it was cool. I did learn some deep cuts that I listen to now. 

Logan: Hell yeah. What is on the playlist these days for you guys? Anything fun? Anything unexpected? 

Neil: Geese, dude. Nobody listens to that, man. Actually though, there’s like two Geese songs. They’re like my favorite song ever right now. 

Chris: Yeah, Jessica Pratt. I’ve been listening to a lot of her. She’s great, she kind of sounds like she should be playing for a great haul in Beowulf times. You know what I mean? She just sounds like an ancient singer-songwriter. 

Neil: What are you guys listening to? I haven’t been listening to that much music, to be honest. 

Mikey: I just throw on playlists and whatever’s on there. 

Neil: I guess I got some records recently. What did I buy? I bought so many albums at Toomes Records Store. Pat Kelly. He’s a reggae singer from Jamaica. That’s it. 

Chris: It was cool. There’s this band, The Districts, that we really love. 

Logan: Philadelphia, right? 

Chris: Philadelphia. So their lead singer started his own solo project called Super Infinity. And he kind of just dumped. A ton of songs out without making a big deal out of the release, and I think for that reason, I didn’t hear about it for a while, but now I’ve gone back and listened to this record it’s like 20 songs, some of my favorite songwriting ever, their production is amazing, his voice is incredible, so really good, really recommend, especially if you like The Districts. 

Logan: Yeah, it’s more research. Your album, I think it was From Two to Three, was originally named Fuckboy Blues. Can I get a confirm or deny on this?

Peter: That was You and Your Friend. You and Your Friend, which we wanted to call the album Fuckboy Blues. 

Neil: And then we have a song called Feeling Low in brackets, Fuckboy Blues. Okay, so basically what happened was it was our first album after being so normal. We wrote a song called Fuckboy Blues. We got on Columbia. And they basically just recommended that we don’t have a song with the word “fuck” in it because they wanted it to be the first single. They were like, yeah, this is going to be on the radio. And then it just, I don’t know. The song didn’t really go anywhere.

Chris: Yeah, it could have been huge. 

Chris: But yeah, yeah, we were going to call it “Fuckboy Blues” because Neil has “fuckboy” tattooed on his ass. 

Neil: Not by choice. Yeah, it’s true. I went to Asia, this was back when I was like 20, I went backpacking in Southeast Asia. Me and my friend were playing this card game called cribbage the whole time that we were away. And in crib, if you lose really bad by a certain amount of points, you get skunked. So we were playing like a game of skate with crib, where like every time you got skunked, you’d like write a letter. Anyway, long story short, I lost the bet. And the bet was that you had to get a tattoo on your ass that said skunk, which is kind of stupid, but whatever, we were young. And I came home and we were at band practice, and this was way back in the day. This is even before Mikey was in our band, we had a different guy named Tom. The guys were like, you’re getting your fucking tattoo tonight. Peter, he was doing a little stick and pokes at the time, he’s like, ‘we’re going to do the tattoo tonight. We’ll go to that party. You’re going to do it tonight’. And I was like, oh, shit okay, whatever. So then we go to the party and like, I lay down on the floor I yanked out my pants Peter gets all the needle ready and we have a bunch of friends there my sisters there and he’s like okay Neil like whatever you do like just like don’t, I don’t want you to look at it until it’s done and I didn’t I swear to God I didn’t even bat an eyelash at that because Peter’s like a really really you know Peter he’s a really really nice guy he’s not like a piece of shit.

Logan: Do you agree?

Neil: I would say you’re not a piece of shit.

Peter: I don’t think so.

Neil: So he’s doing the tattoo. I’m like, taking a little while or whatever, and at one point I was even like, damn this is taking a while. And then right, he’s like, I’m just about done. And right when he finished, everybody in the room burst out laughing. And I was like, ‘NOOOO’. And I ran into the bathroom and they, yeah, he touched me. 

Chris: He was, Neil was like livid. 

Neil: I was so angry. 

Chis: It was not good actually. 

Peter: No one ever like, here’s the thing. I wasn’t initially like, this isn’t a great idea. Everyone else was like, it’ll be funny. I think it was my idea. His sister was like, he’ll think it’s funny. And I was like, I didn’t know him that well at the time. So he did it and then Neil was so mad and I started crying.

Chris: And I, in the moment was like, you know what, we shouldn’t have done this, it was very fucked up but this will be funny later. 

Neil: Yeah, it aged well

Logan: How many years ago was this?

Neil: 11 years ago. A long time ago

Chris: Yeah, we were very young ago. 

Neil: So anyway, I’m going to cover it up eventually. I still have ‘fuckboy’. I go to the local community center to go use the sauna a lot. And whenever I’m getting changed, I’m facing the lockers of people. They don’t see your junk, and I can just see someone looking at my ass. 

Chris: Yeah, totally. That was a really evil thing to do, but I think made us stronger. 

The greatest joy in life is learning isn’t it? We are all students of life. I think I learned a lot during these 13 minutes. For example, we learned that Neil Smith, lead singer of 2021 JUNO nominee for Breakthrough Group of the Year Peach Pit, has ‘fuckboy’ tattooed on his butt. Learning!

The Canadian quartet continues to be a constant in my ears with their latest release “Magpie: Expanded Edition“, and the rest of their charming discography. Their set at Innings Festival featured a dozen tracks spanning their decade making music and opened with that beautiful instrumental jam as promised. Peach Pit has only a select handful of festival dates on the calendar, including the recent announcement of Shaky Knees. If you can, catch this band. Their live shows are filled with ear worms and high energy. If you walk in not knowing any songs, you’ll walk out wanting to know. For future updates, can follow Peach Pit here.

The post Interview: Peach Pit on Tattoos, The Simpsons in Fortnite, and Norm MacDonald appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Tennyson, engineered by artist Luke Pretty, was advertised as a solo act, but the touring band he brought with him seemed like they had been a group act all along. The band featured Luke’s sister Tess Pretty on drums, Beau Diako on guitar, and Akos Forgacs on bass.

After the excited rush of the opening song, the stage went black. Luke thanked the crowd, explaining that the band was on tour and this was their first time playing in a venue “like this,” presumably referring to the Englert Theatre’s size. “It’s nice to have some extra room on stage, to spread out a bit,” Luke said.

The interactive elements made the show fun and inviting, but of course the real highlight was the music. Tennyson’s studio music is very impressive on its own, but the addition of live instruments and acoustics took everything to the next level. Tess, Beau, and Akos all played enthusiastically while Luke delivered raspy, impressive vocals. He occasionally played with autotune, making his voice sound either inhumanly low or inhumanly high.

Luke and his sister Tess were very interactive with the crowd during their set, and Luke’s microphone often picked up his laughter between songs. At one point, Luke asked the band to stop playing just a few seconds after they began a new song. He had forgotten to start the instrumental backing track. “I don’t know, I guess I was spacing out,” Luke said, and the crowd laughed with him.

About halfway through the show, Tess remarked that the band was from Canada. The band, according to Tess, was sure that no place they visited on tour would be colder than Canada. “Is it always this cold in April?” She asked the crowd. “Yes,” the audience replied, their tone conveying a mixture of amusement and frustration with Iowa’s weather.

Tennyson continued with their energetic set, which was a mix of electropop and rock. Luke stopped the band a second time, saying there was an off-key feedback note in his ear that was distracting him. The band took a minute to try to solve the problem, but ultimately Luke waved it off. “I’ll just have to forget about it, I’ll just put it out of my mind,” he said.

If the feedback was causing Luke any issues, he didn’t show it. He was absorbed in his art, rocking back and forth as he sang, eyes closed, fingers perched on his keyboard. He and Tess often smiled at each other mid-performance, reveling in the experience.

They closed the show with audience favorite “Figure Eights,” which veered away from electropop and toward punk rock. Luke upped the vocal distortion, giving himself a brash edge that matched the gritty guitar riffs. Lots of headbanging ensued, both in the audience and onstage.

After their last song, Luke flashed the audience a peace sign and the band left the stage. The crowd continued cheering in their absence, wanting an encore, and the band obliged. They officially closed the night with a vibrant instrumental track.

The band thanked the crowd once again, with Luke hinting that they’d be back. Hopefully, this is not the last time Tennyson visits Iowa City.

The post Tennyson electrifies the Englert Theatre at Mission Creek Festival appeared first on KRUI Radio.

The first track will tell you pretty much everything you need to know. “That’s What Heaven Feels Like” screams into being with the sound of feedback from an amp that gives way to a catchy guitar riff and Betham belting out the lyrics “I’m a million impulse decisions tonight.”

The Dirty Nil is not a complicated band trying to reinvent the wheel and reshape the music industry. They’re impulsive and raw and everything that makes rock & roll fun.

Bentham’s vocals have the charm and snarl that make every great punk front man a compelling performer. Not to mention the fact that he once managed to snap a picture with the Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau while wearing a shirt with pot leaves sewn on the shoulders. Personally, I feel that should earn anyone a spot in the punk hall of fame.

The lyrics touch on topics that are familiar to anyone even remotely versed in punk music. Lyrics such as a friend who’s struggling and the narrator doesn’t know how to help which they show on “I Don’t Want That Phone Call” in which Bentham shifts from a softer tone into a howl on the line “You said you’d straighten out / AFTER YOUR DUI”  a trick that seems a deliberate throwback to the pop-punk of the early 2000s. “Auf Wiedersehen” gives us an infinitely relatable line for anyone who’s ever had a bad friend, “I mean this in a nice way/F*CK YOU.” On “Smoking Is Magic” he gives a whiny performance that you can’t help but compare to Billie Joe Armstrong.

The Dirty Nil are, at their core, a backroom rock group. Listening to their album through headphones doesn’t really do them justice as this type of old-fashioned, audacious rock & roll is meant to enjoyed from the heart of a mosh pit. The closing track on the album is a punk cover of Metallica’s “Hit the Lights”. A metal cover ought to feel out of nowhere compared to the rest of their anthemic pop-punk output; however, it instead proves how connected to the history of rock they are and serves as a testament to their ability to make a genre that’s somewhat fallen out of fashion fun again.

The post Album Review: “Master Volume” by The Dirty Nil appeared first on KRUI Radio.

Saturday night, Mexico and Canada had the WBC looking more like the WWE after a 9^th inning benches clearing brawl that left multiple players on each team ejected from the game.

The instigator of the fight is debatable, but the root of the fight had to do with the World Baseball Classic’s tiebreaker rule which has to do with runs scored. The Canadians were already up 9-3 at the time, but, because of the rule, attempted to put more runs on the board. This started with a bunt single in the top of the 9^th by Canada’s Chris Robinson.

Mexico’s Luis Cruz fielded the ball but was playing too deep to make a throw to first. Instead he instructed pitcher Arnold Leon to bean the next batter faced – which he did (on the third try).

After being hit, Canada’s Rene Tosoni began walking towards the mound, and all hell broke loose.

Both benches cleared, punches were thrown by both sides, players took each other to the ground. Even the pro-Mexican crowd felt obligated to get involved as multiple items were thrown at the Canadian bench.

Though I feel that both teams deserve a punishment of some sort, I cannot say that I was overly offended by the fight. I have read comments all over ESPN about how disgraceful it was and how much class it lacked, but to be honest, at least it was entertaining.

People still act surprised by baseball brawls, as if they never happen. If ESPN can make a top ten baseball brawls list, then I would say they are a common enough occurrence.

Also, the World Baseball Classic is a bit of a joke anyways. I find it a tad ridiculous that players can go play for any country if they have roots there. Chris Denorfia and Nick Punto are both American born MLB players, but yet they can go play for Italy? Or how about Ian Kinsler or Kevin Youkilis playing for Israel? I am half Mexican myself, but if I were in this situation I would play for the United States over Mexico. Alex Rodriguez is Dominican, but yet in the last WBC he played for the United States. Just because players have a little bit of that country in them does not mean they should just play for a country they are not a citizen of.

If these players were mandated to play for their home country, maybe the U.S. would assemble an even better lineup, and not get 4^th place like they did last time. I am sorry but the U.S. losing to Canada in baseball is unacceptable. It is our national pastime. I am sure that Brazil would feel the same way about us beating them in soccer, or New Zealand would feel the same way about us beating them in rugby (even though neither would ever happen).

Let’s face it, our society in infatuated with violence. It is the reason we love de-cleaters in football, and fights in hockey. I realize it is not supposed to happen in baseball, but sometimes the unexpected makes for good entertainment. And the fact that it is in WBC makes it even more so. Stopping treating this like the Olympics, and that the players should be ashamed for fighting. The World Baseball Classic is a joke and all that this incident did was provide some extra entertainment for the viewers.

The post Brawl Makes World Baseball Classic More Interesting appeared first on KRUI Radio.