Wonderful! - Wonderful! 125: A Thighful of Chico
Episode Date: March 18, 2020(Note: This was going to be our kick-off episode for the MaxFunDrive, which has been postponed. We’ve cut most of the drive-talk out of the episode — hence the shorter-than-usual runtime and occas...ional pauses. Hang in there, y’all.)Rachel's favorite burger science! Griffin's favorite fruit! Rachel's favorite strange reflex! Griffin's favorite funk band!Music: "Money Won't Pay" by bo en and Augustus - https://open.spotify.com/album/7n6zRzTrGPIHt0kRvmWoya MaxFunDrive ends on March 29, 2024! Support our show now by becoming a member at maximumfun.org/join.
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Hi, it's Jesse, the founder of MaxFun. We promised you a MaxFun drive this week, but things haven't
exactly gone how we expected. So, given the pandemic, we're going to postpone this year's
drive. Events are still fluid, so we're hesitant to give you specifics about new dates. Right now,
we have late April penciled into our calendars. We'll keep you posted about that.
As it stands, a lot of our drive machinery was already cranked up.
So for one thing, you might hear a reference or two to the drive in our shows, which might have been recorded before we made this decision.
And here is some good news.
There's a bunch of great bonus content available for all of our MaxFun members.
If you're a member and
you missed the email with instructions on how to listen, check your spam folder or log in at
MaximumFund.org slash manage. Also at MaximumFund.org slash manage, you can change your membership if
your circumstances have changed. We know this is a tough time for a lot of people and we understand.
have changed. We know this is a tough time for a lot of people and we understand. You can also go to maximumfund.org slash join at any time if you'd like to become a member. During the next couple
weeks, what would have been the drive, we're going to do our best to be extra available to you.
We've got some streaming events planned, some social media stuff. We know a lot of folks are isolated right now, and we want to help provide comfort in
the best ways that we know how.
You can follow us on social media, and we'll let you know what's up.
During this tough time, I have been feeling really grateful for my community of colleagues
here at MaxFun, and for you, the folks who make our work possible.
Goofy as that work may sometimes be.
Stay safe out there. We're thinking of you. hello this is rachel mcelroy hello this is griffin mcelroy and this is wonderful
rachel has just criticized the way i'm sitting but i can't help it i'm balled up like a little
tiger ready to freaking strike do you know why that is rachel because it's the max fun drive it
is max fun drive time and it's happening now and you
are in it. Wait, let me do my air horn noise. Yeah.
Oh, God.
It's getting worse.
It's getting worse
over time or better. It depends on
if you care about authenticity or just
like raw fun factor.
For me, it's really fun. This is the Max
Fun Drive. It's the first week you're
in it. We're here.
We're live.
And we're just living the dream.
And we hope that you are too.
How are you doing?
Let's check in.
I mean, I'm doing real good.
I like your straight hair.
You've straightened your hair.
You look like a very business profesh.
Got a chunky necklace on. That's very stylish.
Very in right now.
And you know what else is in right now?
Supporting the Maximum Fun Network.
Oh, interesting segue.
Thanks.
This year for our bonus episode, Rachel played Animal Crossing New Leaf on the 3DS for what?
Like a month and a half now and talked about her experience, which is really fun because
you don't often dabble in the gaming space.
I am not a video game person.
Yeah, so that's a really fun one.
And we have tons of other stuff.
And every other show on the network does too.
You get that when you become a member
at the $5 a month level.
Small wonder.
I am going to say,
for my small wonder,
Cheez-Its.
Cheez-Its.
Those little square cheesy crackers.
Ooh, Cheez-Its.
You've seen them Cheez-It crisps?
You know, I think, didn't we see an advertisement for that? We saw an advertisement, Cheez-Its. You've seen them Cheez-It crisps? You know,
I think,
didn't we see
an advertisement for that?
We saw an advertisement
for Cheez-It.
And we thought
that is a brilliant combination.
What is that?
What is like a
Cheez-It
that they made a Pringle into?
What?
That doesn't seem
to make a whole lot of sense.
That sentence.
What about you?
You know,
I think I've talked
about it before,
but I just love taking apart
machinery i love taking apart electronics i fucking love it i just did it with the switch
i have to put it together give it a little animal crossing glow up you check out my insta story to
see the process probably not anymore i don't think those things no i pinned it i pinned it you can go
watch it anytime i just really uh the process of taking something apart and putting it back together again is
so like soul satisfying to me.
Like I am so into it.
And now kind of like after doing this enough, I have kind of a bucket of like electronics
and plating and stuff like that that I can use for like whatever the hell I want to.
Just chocables.
Just things to chocam.
No, it's locked away in the bottom drawer of this cabinet. So not very locked away at all. Hey,
what is your first thing? And by the way, that's the biggest fucking bottle of Topo Chico I think
I've ever seen in my life. I got it when we hosted people a while back and we never drank it. And
when I looked into the fridge today, there was no more sparkling beverage except for this giant
50 ounce. 50 ounce. Yeah, it's the size of my thigh.
It's like you're drinking a thigh full of Chico.
Hey, what's your first thing?
My first thing is the evolution of the veggie burger.
Hey, it's come a long way, baby.
Yeah, dude.
Yeah, I'd run an impossible boygas.
You know what?
I haven't.
I have not either.
And that feels weird because i
love a food like gimmick not that it's like gimmicky but it's new we don't do fast food
a lot ever yeah we used to man we used to just go to a restaurant we don't usually have an instinct
to order a burger at a restaurant unless it's a burger restaurant and then like yeah if we do
like a burger fast food it's usually shake Shake Shack. And like, I think they do one, but sorry, I'm going to get that smokestack like every time.
I'm so bad.
I like to order it if, you know, I'm feeling like I need to get some more vegetables in my diet.
Sure.
It also tends to make me feel less sick after.
Oh, than a big beefy boy.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So I, there's maybe only one year in my life that i was
a vegetarian um but i still enjoy a vegetarian product particularly the veggie burger because
it's come a long way yeah because are you saying the the yardstick you're using to measure the
distance that the veggie burger has traveled is that yardstick sort of labeled proximity to meat like texture and flavor and
realism i mean all of the above okay right like i'm gonna tell you about how it started and you're
gonna realize i think just how far it's come i'm gonna guess it started with just like somebody
took a big portobello it was like this is a burger now handle it is even worse than that oh boy okay uh so this is 1982 gregory sams uh had a natural
food restaurant in london and then he decided to go into wholesale natural food his original idea
was to sell it in dried food packets to be rehydrated hey that sucks so it was like a
little bag of wheat gluten sesame soy and oats with some herbs in it and
you would form it into a patty and cook after rehydrating it rehydrate you just run that
shit under the kitchen sink water in there make it a play-doh and turn it into a burger
do that for me dude don't say don't that's what he did shortly after i think to save on cost and
packaging he went that direction.
I can understand that like people buy big tubes of ground beef and turn those into burgers.
Like I get it.
Yeah, I know.
You can't give me a big bag of carrots and be like, now make that into a fucking burger.
Like where do you draw the line?
At the time, it was cheaper than, you know, like getting like a meat.
So that was like a pro, I guess.
Fair, okay, yeah. like getting a like a meat so that was like a pro fair okay yeah um by 1985 which is just three
years after uh sam's did this uh garden burger was founded i know them this is what i love though
so they were founded in 1985 they released their first vegetable-based burger in 1992
seven years of yeah yeah right what Yeah. Yeah, right. What?
I just picture them
in a room
with like a bunch of carrots
and bell peppers
and chopping them up
and being like,
oh, this won't hold together.
Not this.
Start over.
What about this?
That's just a whole eggplant.
You just wrapped some tape
around some mushrooms.
That's not a burger.
You wrote hamburger
on a whole head
of iceberg lettuce.
You know that isn't right.
Veggie burgers now are made with a lot of different things.
Oh, yeah.
I've had like a black bean burger, which is pretty popular.
There's also like a lot of nuts, grains, seeds, and mushrooms.
You'll see a lot lately different like vegetable proteins
yeah that's what that's sort of the basis of the here i am very uh i've never lived as a
vegetarian anything other than an omnivore sort of lifestyle so i don't follow like the impossible
burger what it is i know that it is a vegetarian thing but as from reading just sort of cursory
news as the as this thing was in development i think it's made of just like celery sims stem
cells or something like that oh please okay okay so in 2011 that's when the impossible burger hit
the scene yeah uh it is soy protein coconut oil sunflower oil natural flavors are the primary
ingredients okay so the coconut oil is where you, natural flavors are the primary ingredients.
Okay.
So the coconut oil is where you get the fat that holds it together and sizzles and everything.
Okay.
The Impossible Burger has 19 grams of protein.
They not only make burgers, they make sausage. So in May 2019, Little Caesars began testing the Impossible Supreme Pizza in Florida, New Mexico, and Washington State
with plant-based sausage.
There is something vaguely Orwellian
about the Impossible Supreme Pizza
made with faux sausage.
I'm wondering if it's really cool
and good on Little Caesars,
because they're such an affordable option
to make that available.
I've had a veggie burger before.
So I imagine the Impossible Burger is like dope as hell.
That's like all I ever hear about it.
I remain skeptical of the sausage simulacra
because, and there's a restaurant here in Austin
that people love and I'm not gonna name names,
not gonna name names, but it's a vegan restaurant.
People love here in Austin.
And it was right next to where Rachel,
your apartment was when I first moved here. so we go there all the time for brunch scoop on in there and be like let me get that vegan breakfast sausage and it was like a puck
of sort of oats that was like it did not even come close to i'm trying not to ron swanson out over
here but like i don't know about that one that one's closer to me to my heart um well if you think about sausage sausage
a lot of it is seasoning like a lot of it is that like you know spicy pepper yeah you know that like
that sausage flavor the sausage experience sausage isn't anything i think anyone's particularly
excited about uh speak for yourself okay i wanted to tell you beyond the impossible burger 2019
the awesome burger what is this get ready okay so the impossible burger as i mentioned had 19
grams of protein the awesome burger 26 okay so more protein than a beef burger the awesome burger
pea protein also coconut oil wheat gluten and then
fruits and vegetables so this one not only you know tastes good it get you jacked is what you're
saying i mean a little bit the thing is anytime you put coconut oil coconut oil in something
you're going to get a fair amount of fat so it's not exactly like a health food um but it i mean
is more nutritious in some way yeah Yeah, it makes you crazy strong.
So that's like all that matters to me because you know I'm all about that sort of lifestyle
of getting very powerful.
Can you give me some examples?
Of how much protein?
I'm like cramming in a single day.
Yeah, just tell me some of the foods you eat that are high protein.
Peanuts, white fish, a lot of cod.
How do you eat your peanuts exactly oh like a little handful
or no i do it in big bowl i do it in big bowl big bowl yeah so i just have i'll have a bowl
of peanuts like a salad bowl like a mixing bowl of peanuts just at my desk and then when that's
gone what i'd like to do is go downstairs, cram some whitefish,
slam some halibut,
and then I will refill the bowl
and I'll bring that right back upstairs.
So yeah, my blood peanut content at this point,
I'm blowing like a 1.2 or something like that.
It's rough.
Oh, you just reminded me of Mr. Peanut.
It's fine.
Remember, he came back to life.
I think I missed that.
I was living in a world where I thought he was still gone. No, he came back as a baby i think i missed that i was living in a world where
i thought he was still gone no he came back as a baby oh like groot like a groot like a groot
situation okay stand in your fucking truth mr peanut is dead and you had it that's all you had
to do is walk the fuck away you had it and then you're like look it's like baby yoda remember him i'm like fucking cowards
the reason i bring that up is just that i think a lot of people just say well i'm not a vegetarian
why would i eat food designed for vegetarians but i think it doesn't hurt to uh to switch it up a
little bit and and i will say there was research that you know it's like under five percent of the
population is vegetarian but the majority of the population is vegetarian.
But the majority of the population is trying to be more health conscious.
And this is a way to do it.
Yeah.
I want to eat one of these now.
Yeah, me too.
I'll do it.
I'll do it.
Let's do it tonight.
Let's just throw our hat over the fence.
Let's stop putting this off.
Let's go get in the Jeep right now.
We don't have a Jeep.
Burger King has a veggie burger. burger king has a veggie burger king
has a veggie burger i don't know where a burger king is but we can figure that out there's got
to be a burger king i'm trying to remember the last time i saw a burger king we'll figure it
out together hey do you want to know what my first thing is yes me too oh yeah dunk oh man
i got two that like when i started to write my notes on this, like for both of them, I was like, we have to talk about this.
Like it was full Mandela effect.
Like I know we've talked about this.
I'm also talking about a fruit and or a food.
Okay.
I was going to say it wasn't a fruit.
I'm talking about a fruit.
An impossible burger is a fruit if you think about it.
It's got seeds.
We'll come back to it.
Okay.
I'm talking about grapes
if you sat me down in front of two buttons and one of the buttons was labeled grapes disappear
and the other one is labeled all other fruits disappear and i had to press one of them
oh boy that decision would take me a long time i don't think i knew that you like grapes this much
i love grapes i don't uh i don't know i don't we don't keep a knew that you like grapes this much. I love grapes. I don't, I don't know.
I don't, we don't keep a lot of them around the house,
but whenever we get those little cocktails
that have like the different fruits in them,
that's mostly for, you know, I'm in there
just constantly sneaking them grapes.
It has to be a firm grape for me.
Oh, interesting.
If it is the least bit squishy,
I am not interested.
Take it away.
I do not care so much about that.
I think the term nature's candy is kind of like played out,
but I think grapes are so good
that candy should be called mankind's grapes.
And that's just where I stand on the matter.
I think I would press the destroy all other fruits button
because here's the thing, grapes, versatile, right?
Just on the surface level, you got your purple grapes
and you got your green grapes, right? Your purple grapes and you got your green grapes, right?
Your dark grapes and you got your white grapes.
There's tons of different like grapes.
Lots of grapes.
There's lots of different grape types though
beyond that, right?
You've got your very sweet concords.
You got your-
What about that cotton candy grape?
The cotton candy grape.
I do remember that one.
And it's funny you bring that up
because what the fuck?
That one came around and I didn't hear about it until a couple years after it came around how did i miss that they
made that how did i miss they made it seems like they somebody should have contacted you it seems
like somebody should have called me up the company that made that is called the grapery they made
cotton candy grapes where they just basically uh you know did some cross-breeding different dank strains of grapes
until they made one that tastes like cotton candy,
which I don't know how you necessarily dial that in.
But Concord grapes are a component in that.
Concord grapes rarely sold individually.
They are usually made into other things.
So, like, oh, the Grapery also makes a kind of grape i had never
even seen before really called the grapery it's called the grapery they are like the leaders in
boutique grapes uh they make a grape that used to be they used to call witch fingers and then i think
they decided hey that's gross and people don't want to eat that uh now they're called moon drop
grapes and they're shaped like a gherkin like they're they're long they're almost rectangular and i need to have these grapes uh there's a japanese type of
grape uh i can't remember the name of it but that's like this can grow the size of a plum
there's all kinds of different grapes so if there's no more other fruit you're fine because
there's lots of different grapes right i've never never eaten like a gross grape in my life.
Oh, see, I disagree.
Okay.
It's the squishy ones.
You know what I'm talking about?
Yeah, I guess so.
One thing to keep in mind about grapes is they are one of only a small handful of foods
that are naturally fun-sized.
And I think that that is important.
Now, you can say, what are you going to say?
I'm going to argue.
You're going to say like strawberries.
Strawberries like a two-bite. like that's not especially strawberry blueberry blueberries and blueberries
blueberries like an m&m i wouldn't say an m&m can be even fun size right like it's it's small
and intangible grape is just perfect little bite every single time and you don't have to go through
and say how many grapes am i gonna get or go through and like pick an individual grape off
the grape tree or whatever they come come on these beautiful old clusters.
You just grab a cluster and go.
It's like Go-Gurt.
It's nature's candy.
It's Go-Gurt.
It's fun size.
They've like figured it out.
You get so close to writing a poem
on so many episodes, Griffin.
And I just, one of these days,
I want you to cross over.
But that's the thing about grapes, right?
You think about them and you have a point,
like when they get super old, you can't eat.
Yeah, they're squishy.
I need a little firmness.
Wrong.
If you let them go even further, they turn into raisins.
And raisins are awesome.
You get, I don't eat them again anymore.
But when you're a kid and you get those little red boxes
sun made in your lunchbox and crack that open,
it's like a little just dried fruit vacation
all throughout the cafeteria kids screaming i've got raisins you reach a certain age where you're
too fucking cool for raisins right and then like your mom starts packing you some star crunches
some oatmeal cream pies and you're like i've moved i've put away my childish things i don't need
raisins but there was a time where i needed raisins. But I'm just saying, if grapes get too old,
they turn into raisins.
And that's incredible.
That is incredible.
We also got to talk about when you just squeeze these things,
the fluid they secrete, grape juice.
Don't mind if I do.
That's like the best juice that there is.
It can also, you mix it with blueberry juice,
cranberry juice to make a little grape juice cocktail.
There is no time when I don't want to be drinking that.
The problem is if you let grape juice get too old, you can't drink it.
Oh, wait.
That's what wine is.
You really should have been on the debate team in high school.
That's what wine is.
And wine is dope.
And it makes other food taste better?
Yeah. From grapes? Yeah. That's true. Apple, and wine is dope, and it makes other food taste better? Yeah.
From grapes?
Yeah, that's true.
Apple's not doing that.
Orange isn't doing that.
Lime isn't doing that.
This is only the purview of grapes.
But you have to be really careful with grapes, because if they get too smashed up, then you can't eat them anymore.
Wait a minute! that's jelly there's nothing you can do to
grapes to to ruin them there is nothing you can do to a grape where it's not still like
i'm still good to consume in some way think about it it. What are you going to do? You can't put arms and legs on them in sunglasses.
Oh, wait.
You totally can once they turn into raisins.
You can be like, you could even be like,
you know what, I'm going to get ahead of this.
I'm going to crush them all up when there's still seeds.
So you can't, that's grapeseed oil.
You can't do anything to ruin them.
It's not like they have a board game or anything
oh wait grape escape grape escape is a thing yeah it's i'm i'm just blown away by the versatility
the survivability of a grape and i think that the saying when life gives you lemons
you should make lemonade i also think that's bullshit now
and it should just be like make your life a grape and then it doesn't matter what life gives you
make your life a grape it doesn't matter what life gives you you're gonna be good you're gonna
make jelly out of it you're gonna make grapeseed oil out of it yeah it's the best have i convinced
you that this is the best fruit yet?
Yeah.
No, I'm on board.
A hundred percent.
It's the fruit I always want to be snacking on.
Yeah.
But then even if I hated the flavor of it,
you got to respect the grape because it can be whatever it wants to be.
And there's nothing you can do about it.
Yes.
Hey, babe.
Can I hear your second thing?
Wait a minute.
This one's not going to have a Tim
Allen break in it. Let me just drop the home improvement stinger in right now for no reason.
What's your second thing? My second thing. I think maybe to others it is a nuisance,
but when you experience it yourself, is enjoyable are you gonna be like
wasps no yawning you enjoy that you enjoy don't you love a good yawn i've never thought about it
as being good or bad i just thought about it as like it's not as good as a sneeze i'll give you
that a sneeze is pretty great okay first of all this is like this is a weird sort of psychic vampirism i'm
gonna talk about that a little bit okay yeah it's griffin looked very interesting i was i was just
like that moment it was weird my body was like yawn sounds pretty good right about now and then
like my body tried to do it but then it was like nah you're good it's noon you're not that tired tired yet. I yawn a lot when I'm nervous. Or nope, there it is. Oh my god. Can we I apologize.
If you're not a yawner, you're going to during this segment and I apologize. Yeah. Like sometimes
I'll be like waiting at the doctor's office and I will just uncontrollably be yawning or like
just nervous about a job interview or whatever. And so I was kind of fascinated with it and like why I do it all the time.
And so here's,
here's,
there's been a lot of studies on it.
Okay.
The most scientifically backed theory is brain temperature regulation.
If your brain temperature gets too outside the norm,
inhaling air can help cool it down.
Okay.
So if you're real hot or real cold powerful stretching of the jaw
increases blood you have to stop griffin you have to stop powerful stretching of the jaw increases
blood flow in the neck face and head the deep intake of breath during a yawn forces downward
flow of spinal fluid and blood from the brain damn Damn, all that just from opening my mouth real big?
Yeah.
Damn.
So there was a study where researchers went to Tucson in the winter and in the summer.
The researchers asked 80 pedestrians to look at pictures of people yawning,
which is traditionally a trigger for a lot of people.
In cooler weather, 45% of people yawned when they looked at the pictures,
but in hotter weather, only 24% of people yawned.
That's wild.
So like taking in the air to kind of regulate your temperature.
Yeah, I don't think about it like that.
I just think it as a sleepy boy thing.
How come it's a sleepy boy thing?
Okay, so another reason you may yawn is because the body wants to wake itself up.
The motion helps stretch the lungs and tissues that's three this is insane by the way yeah babe it is
this yeah babe it kind of is for fucking professor x over there in my fucking dome
is fucking professor x over there in my fucking dome mixing stuff around okay in order to wake yourself up uh yawning may stretch the lungs and tissues and allow the body to flex its muscles
and joints it also may force blood towards your face and brain to increase alertness okay okay
now it makes sense this is gonna make you feel good about all the yawning you're doing right now. There was a study at Baylor that shows that the greater empathy a person has, the more likely they are to yawn.
They did a study where they looked at 135 college students and how they reacted to different facial movements.
The results showed that the less empathy a person had, the less likely they would yawn after seeing someone else yawn.
Okay.
So I guess that's
not exactly what you're doing right now kind of is but yeah the idea that you're mirroring somebody
in an empathetic way can i tell you a little bedtime hack for me for getting henry down and
i realized this like if you read a book that's like a bedtime designed book where a character
like yawns i every time it started out unintentionally
like i would read like the character says yawn and it would make me yawn because it's later at
night and then henry would see me do it henry would yawn and then he was really easy to go
take down and then i just started doing it on purpose like i just started like really trying
to get a good yawn out because it worked like i started to get very superstitious about it like
if i can't make this boy yawn he is is not sleeping tonight. This is true actually on the nights where I put Henry down
because either Griffin's not present or we're kind of switching. I will ask Griffin, like,
what are your tips and tricks? What is the new practice that you're doing? Yeah, it's really
hard not to sort of create a ritual out of it. So here's some other tips and tricks kind of to
stop yawning. I would need these right now.
Okay.
This, I think, is a reason that I yawn when I'm nervous.
If you feel yourself yawning excessively, try deep breathing through your nose.
Your body may need more oxygen.
A 2007 study also found that nasal breathing decreased contagious yawning completely in
the research yeah but i don't want to do that into the microphone i know but i think that's
why i yawn when i'm nervous because i'm my breathing is real shallow okay that last one
by the way that was i did a fourth one just while rachel i didn't stop the show and make a big
production out of it but it felt i'll give'll give you this, babe. It felt so fucking good.
It felt really, really good.
Sometimes if you really let go,
like don't worry about how your face looks.
Don't try to stifle it.
Yeah, I just let it rip.
Just go for it.
It feels good.
Other ways, get moving.
Breaking up a routine can also help stimulate your brain.
Excessive yawning may be from too much caffeine.
So if you consume too much caffeine, that may happen.
Also cool yourself down.
You can take a walk outside or drink a cool beverage,
and that may help too.
Cool.
I'm sorry that this segment ruined you.
I did another one.
I am actually really curious now from our listeners.
What's your high score?
All right, let's get up on the leaderboard.
Yeah, what's the high score?
Take it to the leaderboard.
Mo, I did fucking
five. I didn't do any, but I think I'm so focused and stimulated right now. You're clearly not.
I'm clearly not. I mean, it could also be because I drink a, you know,
a gas tank full of coffee every day before noon. And that is probably not awesome. I need to get
that energy back up. So I'm gonna tell you about my second thing
and boy, it's gonna get me there.
Again, I could have sworn on a stack of Bibles.
I had talked about this before.
I'm talking about a band, a band that is so good.
I feel nothing but guilt for not bringing them yet.
I am talking about Wolfpack.
We have not talked about Wolfpack on this show.
I feel like we have, but I i according to wonderful.fyi we have
not okay okay maybe it was a small wonder is that possible i i clicked on the small wonders button
and there was nothing so i think we're good you brought this to the macklery family in a big big
way not long ago it is a big thing in our family it's a if you listen to like the pre-show playlist for any of our shows there are a lot of wolfpack songs on it uh i think one of the reasons why
actually we think we have talked about it on this show before is because uh one of the songs was
like kind of on the short list when we decided to switch formats to be the theme song i remember we
like talked about it and if you've never heard wolfpack before like i'm gonna just start this segment out by playing that exact song uh it is off of their 2016 album uh the beautiful game and the
song is called animal spirits i listen to wolf back sort of like off and on like whenever they post a new youtube video like
i'll jump in and dive back in and just remember how much i dig them and today like writing my
notes for this i just like went through
all their shit and it's just so good it's like very very good it's just such great like hype
fun time music and it's so like it covers such a like broad range of genres and stuff like that
but all sort of executed at this like perfectionist level so uh wolfpack is formed the the members of
the band kind of formed
like avengers they are all uh from the they all went to the music school at university of michigan
and uh they all played the rhythm section for this school performance and one of the founders
of the band a guy named jack stratton uh was inspired by these 1960s session musician groups
uh that would play on on funk albums like
the funk brothers and the wrecking crew and so like after this this performance he was inspired
to like have this kind of live rhythm section experience like like they had had so he put
together wolfpack and the whole sort of concept is it's for like core members of the party who are all most of them sort of multidisciplinarians that are just tight, tight as hell, like musicians that play fucking really, really tight rhythm sections of music.
And that's the whole thing.
And they will blend in other performers on top of that to like tackle other genres.
But they are mostly they are mostly uh they are
mostly funk artists but as soon as you get into volpec as soon as i found them uh probably 2018
uh and this is true for anyone at any time like there is just an infinite reservoir of good shit
that they have made whether it be albums or uh videos um they have one of my favorite genres that they frequently tackle is this like super
blissed out like R&B soul stuff. And usually that is with a collaborator who's a vocalist
named Antoine Stanley, who is probably my favorite like living soul singer on the planet.
And that's kind of just the ethos, right? They're really good and they work with people who are also just like really good at their craft.
And like, there's something about that collaboration
that is really kind of playful and fun.
Like all of their videos are very funny and enjoyable.
But like this song that I'm about to play next
is called Wait for the Moment.
It's just like, man,
like just an instant sort of soul classic.
So this is Wait for the Moment.
I said wait for the moment
Gone home, went to bed
While the other kids, they're still outside
I don't feel time when I sleep
So I snuggle up with my sheet
And wait for a brighter day So my favorite thing about Wolfpack is,
and this is true for that song that we just listened to,
that they are very online.
They are very on the internet.
And a lot of the songs that you hear on the albums they record in studio one take all together uh and record it and then they put a video
out of that and that's the music video for it too oh and so wait for the moment you can go and watch
them play it just watch them perform it like you're at a live performance uh and i that's enjoyable right if you enjoy the
songs it's enjoyable because you get to watch it get made and that's like super cool uh they are
also sort of aesthetically just kind of very funny but the the the reason why like i cannot
stop watching their videos is because there is a sort of genre of online videos that i'm really
into which is just like people being really good at the stuff that they're doing and that is true for anything that they have
anything yeah i never really thought about that but you're right uh their bassist is a guy named
joe dart who has gone on to become sort of a household name in the bass industry he has his
own bass guitars now that are sold in stores uh there are just videos of him
like on on stage just ripping a fucking like three minute long bass guitar solo which is difficult to
like uh difficult to get into uh and there are i mean there's just an infinite number there there's
a song called cory wong which is basically just like uh and cory wong is a contributor and
collaborator with the band uh that is just like i don't know five minutes of solos and so the music video for that is like
half them in the studio half them at a live show just like fucking destroying uh but the video i
come back to and my favorite video of theirs i sent to you today i don't know if you had time
to watch it well i didn't watch the whole thing it is uh the video for a song called tea time and it's off their uh album from i think
2018 called mr or 2017 uh called mr finish line uh the song has three performers on it theo katzman
uh plays the the symbol uh the hi-hat i think uh jack stratton plays the kick and snare so i love
that they have split up the drumming duties between two people and the
only other like thing happening there's some clapping in the background but the only other
thing is woody goss another member of the band is just tearing a yamaha electric piano the fuck
i thought it was sped up i thought the video was sped up i thought it was sped up when i first
listened to it i thought it was like multiple people playing a keyboard i thought it was not live like no way
for two minutes and 43 seconds uh he just fucking shreds it and this video they filmed it outside
all the takes are filmed outside they're on this lush green lawn and uh joe dart cory wong and
joey dysick are just like chilling next to the electric piano they all have cans of lacroix
that they are drinking on this like nice day. And over the entire video, there is this timer counting down from two minutes and
43 seconds to the end of the song. The aesthetic is like unbelievable on this video.
Well, it's called Tea Time, right? Yeah.
It has like kind of a golf.
It has a bit of a golfy quality to it. The song is unstoppable. And I'm going to play a clip of
it now. And as you listen to it, just remember that everything that's not drums is one guy at an electric piano just playing the
shit out of it uh and it like viral youtube videos of like hey this
guy goes to the airport and plays like super hard piano.
He plays Megalovania at the airport for two hours,
watch him do it.
And like, this is that sort of idea
of people being really, really good at playing music,
which is, you know, I say that and it sounds like,
hey, isn't that every band ever?
But there's a certain level of like funk expertise
on display here that is sort of the whole thing
of the band.
Yeah, the music is
front and center you know a lot of times when you see a performance like we're really we're focusing
on like the the narrative story of the song yeah and this is like this is music first and yeah
there's not like a lead right there's not like a lead of the band except on like vocal tracks with
antoine stanley which are uh universally fucking amazing. It's just about making really tight funk music.
And I just love it.
I love it to death.
Love them to pieces.
Go watch the Tea Time video, please.
It's the one I've watched that video a hundred times.
I cannot stop.
Yeah.
Thank you to Bowen and Augustus for the use for a theme song, Money Won't Pay.
You can find a link to that in the episode description.
I'm not going to thank Max Fun.
No, we've done that.
But hey, if you're interested in listening to other macklery shows checking out macklery
videos you can go to macklery.family yeah um and i think that's it i think that's it i think that's
it well is there a way you could take grape and put it in a fun song for us to go out on noマリオ ワーキングオフマリオ ワーキングオフ
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