Flotsam and Jetsam: John Mulaney

I turned 30 a few weekends back. The new decade started with a hangover (as did the previous decade). But by sheer happenstance, the preeminent comedian of our time delivered yours truly a little birthday gift. John Mulaney posted a Spotify playlist of the music he plays in his office while working. As you may expect from the musical performances on his Netflix show, John Mulaney has good taste.

The most interesting thing about this--for me, at least--is that further down on the playlist is "Wild in My Day" by Silkworm. That's both a great song and a reasonably deep cut. But in an accompanying video on X, The Everything App™️, Mulaney also shared a video of him holding up various physical releases that are not available to stream. Mr. Mulaney I was unfamiliar with your game. While all the records are by fairly standard Cool Guy favorites, they are also all left of center selections (with one exception). And save for that one exception, they were all new to me, so I figured I'd check them out.

Pere Ubu - Cloudland

Pere Ubu is definitely the biggest blind spot for me here, having never heard anything they've done. Cursory Googling suggests that this is among the most accessible records they ever made, and that definitely tracks with the infectious call-and-response of "Waiting for Mary" or the boom-da-da-dum harmonies on "Breath". As you make your way down it starts to get a little stranger (closer, I imagine, to the more standard Pere Ubu sound) and I was less stoked on those songs. I would bet my super Gen X old coworker who put me on to Brainiac is really into these guys. One of these days I'll throw on Dub Housing and give it a real go.

Captain Beefheart and the Magic Band - Bluejeans and Moonbeams

This one continues the trend of accessible-work-by-famous-weirdos, finding Beefheart operating mostly in a 70s soft rock mode. His whole band had quit prior to recording, and he found himself lost without having someone to translate his ideas into something resembling musical notation for his new band members. But the keyboard-laden songs are smoky and elegiac, and Beefheart's growl still adds eerie gravitas to the more standard fare on display. I could see how someone who worships him for Trout Mask Replica or Lick My Decals Off, Baby would be put off by this, but I'm into it.

John Cale - Walking on Locusts

For most of the 1990s John Cale worked as a producer, featured performer, or collaborator with other musicians--his sole studio album of the decade was Walking on Locusts. It's generally lovely, but it also contains "Entre Nous" which is, quite simply, one of the most beautiful songs I've ever heard. "Entre nous" is a French phrase that is used to to suggest something be kept a secret; Cale situates it against the invocation of opposite ideas ("It's the sun and the moon/entre nous") to indicate both a closeness with his subject and a potential vastness between them.

But Cale continues to address the unnamed person with endearment in a way that suggests their relationship has expanded to contain a whole spectrum of irreconcilable differences. It reads to me as a song about estrangement, the many ways that the people who we once loved never truly leave us. I find it achingly nostalgic and, were it not the type of back catalog gem consigned to YouTube videos with two thousand views, I would love to sing it at karaoke.

Captain Beefheart and his Magic Band - Trout Mask Replica

There's not a whole lot I can say here that hasn't been covered already. When I listened to this as a teenager I definitely considered it more "important" than enjoyable, but listening back for the first time in a decade or so I hear echoes of all the more experimental stuff I've gotten into since and can actually sink into it. Might be time for a major Beefheart phase.

The Chameleons - Strange Times

Strange times indeed, am I right? Just kidding. I shazamed "Up the Down Escalator" from The Chameleons' first album awhile back but never really dug in further. The guitar tones on this one are absolutely insane--just listen to the first minute or so of "Childhood" for some absolutely gorgeous sounds. I definitely prefer post-punk in this goth, melodic mode to the talkier variety that's all the rage these days. Almost immediately after John Mulaney's video, The Chameleons announced a new album. And it looks like I'm not the only one who made the connection.

Recommendation Corner:

Trying this out as well–a place to shout out things I've read or watched recently.

READ:

Torii MacAdams "The Story of Memphis Rap" - a six part (five are currently live) reposting of the liner notes from a quasi-scrapped Vinyl Me, Please box set of Memphis rap he helped compile

Ock Sportello "Toward a Unified Theory of Uncool" - this one made the Twitter rounds and is every bit as good as advertised; I'm also partial to his earlier piece about LaMelo Ball as the ultimate zoomer athlete

WATCH:

Caught by the Tides (dir. Jia Zhangke 2025) - If you still have the opportunity to catch this in a theater I can't recommend it enough. It's unlike anything I've ever seen; a mix of old and new narrative and documentary footage spanning years in real time. It also features several deliriously fun needle drops and a really beautiful score