Entertainment
Eagles vs everyone
In this episode of 'Rock and Roll Story,' hosts Brian and Murdock dive into the complex legacy of the Eagles, exploring the reasons behind their polarizing reputation. They discuss listener ...
Eagles vs everyone
Entertainment •
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Interactive Transcript
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Welcome to Rock and Roll Story, guys.
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Hey, it's Brian and hey, it's Murdock.
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If you've got a question about the rumor, the In New Window,
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anything surrounding your favorite artists and favorite songs,
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we are the story guys at gmail.com.
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Here's what our friend in Oklahoma Ashley has to ask us.
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She says, so I can respect the collective disdain for the Eagles.
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But that was the band by parents loved when I was a kid.
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And so therefore, I do too.
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Killer Harmonies epic songs, but I am over Hotel California and she writes.
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And a singing drummer, question mark exclamation point,
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spill the dirt and help me see the other side.
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Clearly there were egos involved and they split for a while,
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but I just don't know much else.
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So what happened with these guys that make them so disliked?
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Isn't it a drag that the Eagles number one enemy,
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which they probably try to use the most to benefit them,
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and it up destroying them and that's radio.
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And that's why people hate the Eagles.
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So, okay, this is interesting because I spend a lot of time researching this
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and trying to get different perspectives.
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And one of the things that I did see a lot was people would say they were overplayed.
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Which is interesting that that's exactly where you went immediately was to say that
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it's we've just been overexposed.
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Yeah, and they call it qubearn.
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I wonder if Ashley is old enough for this.
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She wasn't inside of a radio station with lots of creepy news in the 70s.
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But so if you have a record, Ashley,
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and you have to stop it, you actually stop the motor on it,
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and you scroll the record back on the needle so it goes right before the music starts on the record.
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And a lot of times if you played that record a lot,
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it would leave you a hole.
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And they would call that a qubert.
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So radio guys, that's a term that they would call.
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That they continue to use when things went digital too.
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Or to tell the things and continue to call like qubert,
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even though there was actually a reason for calling it qubert when it was a record.
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Okay, so first let's clear this up.
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She sort of intonates that we have said we don't like the Eagles.
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Have we said that on the show?
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Do you dislike the Eagles?
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That has been said before on the show.
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I definitely think so.
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Okay, and I think it's come out because of either one of our experiences from work for sure.
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I know I have members of my family that don't like them, and that's probably it.
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But I also grew up with them like Ashley did.
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And sitting in the back of the car, you know, my dad wasn't listening to pop music or top 40 music.
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Like my dad was listening to country radio.
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And so they had country cross overheads.
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So you'd hear a blind eyes and things like that.
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Sure.
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You know, just heavy.
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Yeah.
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So some of those songs to Kiela sunrise.
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Yeah.
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And I didn't know what to Kiela was for the longest time.
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And I knew that song.
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And I was saying it.
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So they were like, they were like, like some of that.
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It's like a, that's like a beachy song.
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And that like it's a feel good song.
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Yeah.
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So, um, yes, what happened?
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Well, let's talk about the Eagles.
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Okay.
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So first, let me, let me say, I have seen the Eagles in concert.
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Not once, but twice.
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And interestingly, one time was literally in the very last row of an arena at the very, very top.
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And one time was in like the first five rows of an arena.
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And a pretty great experience.
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Yeah.
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It was awesome both times.
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Like I remember thinking it was awesome when I was like a football field away from them.
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And also awesome when I could see Joe Walch's shoes.
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Uh, it was really, really fun.
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Uh, the second time I got to go with my dad, which also made it fun for obvious reasons.
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Have you ever seen him live?
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Never seen him though.
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All that aside, this is an interesting question.
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Because on first plush, it appears to be a query based in subjectivity, which is not typically what we do on this show.
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Typically we are, we are objectively answering questions.
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We are asking things about fact.
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So if we're going to tackle this, what Ashley is asking us to consider, I think there's two parts.
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And one is, is there collective disdain for the Eagles, beyond whatever you and I may be putting off?
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And then why might that be?
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So here's, here's how I started the research.
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This was different than any other episode.
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I started the research by typing into Google, the Eagles banned sucks.
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And then I hit return and I got 746,000 results.
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I want to hear this stuff.
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Let me reduce the matter of the headlines.
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Okay, these are actually titles of articles.
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Quit defending the Eagles.
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They are simply terrible.
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Eagles, worst band ever?
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Question mark.
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Why the Eagles suck?
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Someone you know just wrote an essay.
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Why are the Eagles popular in America?
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I thought that one was funny.
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How about this?
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How shitty are the fucking Eagles?
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Now, as a control to the general nagging environment that is the day of the internet,
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I substituted a few other band names in that search to see if what we might be seeing is just a general display of trolling.
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Right?
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Because this is sort of what the internet does.
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And I will say that in most cases you can find plenty of victory.
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I'll spewed about almost any famous band if you let the algorithm guide you.
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But in a lot of those cases, the snake venom of phrasology like how shitty are the fucking Eagles is definitely not at the same level.
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One thing that has to be acknowledged though is that this kind of disdain.
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It only comes with a prerequisite.
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Massive success.
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And you've already alluded to this.
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They were an enormously huge band.
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For quote unquote, everyone to hate you.
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Quote unquote, everyone has to be aware of you.
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So here's some stats.
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Five number one singles, six number one album, six Grammy Awards, five American Music Awards, considered the most successful musical act of the 70s or at least one of them.
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And they've not slowed down really.
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We're not talking about a band that's, you know, playing 500 C clubs in their twilight, right?
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They're still doing the sphere in Vegas.
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Well, we might be accurately trying to describe here is a turning of the tides in perception.
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Right? Like a divide between the retail value in the reputation.
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So I started looking for like, how do you explain this?
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And I had to go to one of the Mount Rush more guiding lights of the aesthetic of this show.
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I had to go to the writer Chuck Closterman.
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Chuck Closterman wrote an essay nearly a decade ago.
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The title of which is a riff on an early review they got in the 70s that we'll probably talk about later.
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And the title of this essay is another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I'm contractually obligated to hate them.
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And in this essay, he says that this dichotomy, this huge success and huge division,
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is a product of a phenomenon present in most subcultures, but very present in music,
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which is the clash of an exterior culture and an interior culture.
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Let me quote him here, pop music's exterior culture.
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So like everybody that listens to music is why the Eagles are the best selling rock band in US history.
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It's interior culture.
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The people who are talking about thinking about and podcasting about music
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reviles the Eagles so much that almost nothing written about them can ignore that reality.
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He later puts it this way, the musical reputation of the Eagles is great
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and the social reputation of the Eagles is terrible.
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Yeah, and that's too bad.
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God, those songs are good, aren't they?
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Well, I'm all on.
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It's funny because if you spend much time reading, like I actually went on Reddit, went on Quarer.com,
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asked a question, right?
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Why do people like the Eagles?
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And most people will not say that the songs are bad.
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At worst, they will say that the songs are boring, but almost no one will say that the songs are bad.
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And I think they're a lot better than the birds.
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Really?
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Yeah, thanks so.
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Okay, that's a hot take.
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Okay, so yeah, it's a hot take.
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I'll take that.
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I mean, a couple of those birds songs are great, but no.
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Eight miles high.
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I remember the first time I heard eight miles high,
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and I kept rewinding it to hear the 12th string.
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I was like, that sounds so bad ass.
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The coolest thing to me about the birds is when they played the Monoray Pop Festival,
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and they were like totally completely out of their face on acid,
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and David Crosby told the whole crowd that JFK was killed in a conspiracy, like it was a...
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And there was a cover-up.
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See, that didn't happen to the Eagles, though they have a fascinating breakup that we will talk about.
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I don't know if you know the story of the breakup, but...
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Woo, we got to get to that just for fun, because Ashley mentioned it, and I was like,
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we got to talk about this because it's good.
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Okay, here's what I want to point out, though, also about this reaction to the Eagles.
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It was immediate.
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Okay, it was not something that I thought sort of what I started into this,
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that this is something that's developed over time,
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due partly to thinking sort of what you positive at the beginning,
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which is overplay.
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They're just totally overplayed.
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And so we've been overexposed, and that's why people now are turning against them.
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But that's...
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That doesn't explain why immediately, Graham Parsons says the success of the Eagles is gallantly, quote,
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rock critic Robert Krzyszkow, who wrote that original essay, that the Closterman essay,
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quotes, or wrote the article that Closterman essay quotes,
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will go down in history with for saying this in Newsday, in 1972.
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1972, so this is very early.
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Another thing that interests me about the Eagles is that I hate them.
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Do I hate music that has been giving me pleasure all weekend,
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made by four human beings that I've never met?
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Yes, I think so.
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Listening to the Eagles has left me feeling alienated from things I used to love.
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It's so weird.
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It's a visceral response.
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But the thing is, is that Glenn Fry, I don't think,
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would ever start a bar fight.
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Well, he's nice guy.
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Yes, though, no, he's an asshole.
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We'll talk a little bit about that.
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Glenn Fry's an asshole, especially to the band.
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He's not nice to the other guys in the band.
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We'll get there.
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You've got to hear this breakup story.
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If you don't know the Glenn Fry breakup story, it's so good.
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I think the Glenn Fry cassette, that's solo records.
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I've heard that.
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I want to hear the heat is on.
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I used to play that as much as possible when I programmed a hot AC radio station.
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That was like, we weren't supposed to play it regularly.
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It was just in the library.
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And I would spike.
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That's another radio term.
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Now you got two.
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I would spike that in.
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That's when you put something into the playlist that's not supposed to be on the playlist.
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I would spike that in as much as possible.
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Because I love that.
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Thanks for not playing Smugglers Blues.
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No, I did not play that much.
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Until later.
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Anyway, right.
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So, actually, review.
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While the average person thinks he goes make good music, that's the exterior culture.
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Musicians, music press, hardcore music obsessives, the interior culture.
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Complicated feelings about these guys from the beginning.
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And so to explain that, it's important to understand the setting of the story.
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Do you have anything to say about Laurel Canyon in the 70s?
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I just think it's interesting that anywhere you could have a community where people can hang out together.
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Nexus of countercultural activity and attitudes in the middle of the 60s and early 70s becomes famous as the home to a bunch of L.A.'s rock musicians.
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Here's a list.
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Cass Elliott, Mama's in the pop-ass.
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Joni Mitchell, for example.
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Jim Morrison, Carol Kane, The Birds, Buffalo Springfield, Ken Heat, The Bend Love, Neil Young, Brian Wilson, James Taylor, Jackson Brown, Bonnie Wright, Linda Ronstane,
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Matt, are you tired yet? Harry Nelson, The Monkeys, of course, The Eagles.
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So, these guys not only are they seasoned musicians themselves, which we're going to talk about.
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They are part of a particular music scene.
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So, all of their friends and all of their enemies, basically everyone they know are musicians.
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And I don't know, I mean, I actually do know.
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I know that you have been part of music scenes in your life.
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And you know, the competition among a bunch of musicians who get success.
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How much do they get? Do they deserve it?
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Did they sell out to get it?
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These are all constant concerns.
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And on top of that, this scene is born from the counterculture of the 60s.
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So, to be tame or to be seen as corporate, that's sort of a sin, right?
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And that is not what Glenn Frye and Don Henley want to do.
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They want to rock, but some circumstances decide otherwise for them.
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And here's what goes down.
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So, do you know, like, if there was, if we were using the vernacular to say that there is someone to blame for the Eagles,
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do you know who that person is?
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Lindo Ronstad.
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Oh, really? I was going to think about what label they're on and who like made that whole thing.
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No, no, no, no, no.
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So, they're all in the world, Canyon, and she needs a band.
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So, she hires Don Henley and Glenn Frye.
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They're already playing in the scene. They are in other bands.
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And they play in her backing band in 1971 hired guns.
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I mean, they are hired guns. That's not the name of the band.
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But that would be a cool name for a backing band.
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When Henley and Frye get the idea to start something on their own,
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so they're playing with her, but they're like, we sort of have a chemistry.
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Lindo is not just supportive. She actually arranges for a flying burrito brother,
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she knows named Bernie Leiden, to join her tour so that the three of them can meet.
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They'll go on to recruit Randy Meisner, who had been in Ricky Nelson's band,
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which is hilarious to me for some reason.
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And Poca.
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Poca.
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Yeah, so here's another thing.
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These guys are not high school talent show aspirants, right?
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They clearly see the business end of this from the start.
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And they're good to go.
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And I think people hold that against them a little bit, right?
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Because it's a little calculated.
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It's one of those things where now this far out like armchair quarterback from so many decades away.
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It's like, were they being authentic or was like the gimmick that they were being authentic?
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We've sort of touched on this before on the show, I think,
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but there is this rock and roll whistfulness for a musical success story
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to not carry the stench of stacking the deck.
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We love a good tale of like, whoops, our passions were uncompromised
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and we accidentally got famous.
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But like musicians don't want to watch other musicians try.
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You know, it needs to look effortless.
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And so when these guys are in this band and they realize they all have this pedigree
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and they all know some people and they are already doing okay.
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And now they do better and better and better in the music business.
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Yeah, that's, you know, that's going to create some disdain.
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That's going to get people like Graham Parsons to say that you suck.
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That's not surprising.
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Yeah. And you know what?
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Graham Parsons to say you suck.
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Here's something else that I think annoys interior culture about the Eagles.
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The Eagles did not do themselves favors in terms of not being annoying.
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Let me illustrate what I'm getting at by asking you a question.
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Do you call them the Eagles or Eagles?
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The Eagles.
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Well, so Steve Martin tells the story in Born Standing Up about Glenn Fry
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because you know, this is what I mean.
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There's all these connections like they were hanging out with Steve Martin.
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Glenn Fry tells him he's working on this new group and he's like,
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I think I might, I think I might name it Eagles.
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And Steve's like, oh, you mean the Eagles?
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And Glenn's like, nope, just going to call it Eagles.
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And that has been a thing that's followed the band to this.
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I mean, I think they were arguing about it in recent history.
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Saying their name is Eagles, not the Eagles.
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Right?
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Like when you see it on stuff, it says Eagles.
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Yeah.
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And that sort of general obtuse this.
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So I don't know.
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I mean, they're being this obtuse before the band is even formed.
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Right?
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So that's just off putting.
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So a third thing that I think interior culture holds against these guys
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is back to the sound that they popularize.
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This is the thing I kept singing over and over, even in recent posturing about,
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oh, the Eagles suck.
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Is this idea that, yeah, the songs aren't bad, but they're boring.
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They're too perfect.
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Now, country rock is not necessarily new at this time, right?
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We'd had Buffalo Springfield, Myzner, came from Polko.
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There's a president's for the sound.
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But as I said, this sound is not what Henley and Fry had in mind when they got together.
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They actually wanted to do a straight ahead rock and roll band.
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And so they were like, here's what we do.
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We're going to start this project.
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We've got Linda's blessing.
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We're going to hire Glenn Johnson.
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Recording engineer for everybody in rock in the late 60s.
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Stone, Speedls, Zep, Dill, Zep, Dill.
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Same year he works with the Eagles, he co-produces, who's next.
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Right?
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So this is the guy you want for rock and roll cred.
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Here's the problem.
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Glenn Johns doesn't think the Eagles rock.
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He actually turns down the job two times.
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And then he gets called back and he hears them do harmonies and he's like, okay.
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Lightbulb comes on and he's like, maybe these dudes can do a country.
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So he doesn't want Glenn and Don cranked up for it, which is sort of what they want.
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He wants bass and banjo.
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He wants to make them twang.
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So Glenn Fry will say later and I apologize for this quote because it does not hold up in 2022.
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It was said in the 70s.
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Yikes.
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John's was the key to our success in a lot of ways.
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This is Glenn Fry.
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We just didn't want to make another limperisted LA country rock record.
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Yikes.
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This tension between who, Henley and Fry are versus who they want to be or how they want to be perceived by their peers.
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I think this is going to drive both some of the pretentiousness and the struggles that define this band for most of their career.
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They put up this.
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They put up this first record.
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But they don't feel like these people that they live next to in the canyon respected because it's trendy and soft.
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And so this will drive their decision.
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Let me ask you this.
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If you're in a band and you don't think your other musician friends are taking you seriously, what do you do for your next record?
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Oh, yeah, you make the concept record.
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That's the age old thing, right?
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No, we're going to tell a story that lasts for both sides of the LP.
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It's going to get real high.
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So this is what becomes Desperado.
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Do you realize Desperado was supposed to be a concept record initially?
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I did know that.
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But it's never stuck with me as much because the idea that Sargent Pepper was supposed to be wanting to.
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And I think it's just whatever.
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It's like it's my least favorite Beatles.
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Except for that part in the middle where you're like, what am I listening to who invited the circus in?
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Okay, so there's larger aspirations at first for the Eagles, right?
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They want to tell stories of anti-heroes.
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Okay, so they're going to make a concept record about anti-heroes.
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This is why people are annoyed by them in that scene because that's a pretentious thing to do.
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Man, do you...
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Listen, Desperado is not as ubiquitous or whatever is yesterday.
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But how many people have covered Desperado?
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Oh, sure, sure.
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I'm not arguing that it's good.
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I'm just saying, listen, that song, like, I had nobody.
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I know, that's what's so weird.
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But that's people cover Desperado.
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It's all that worked from those sessions.
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So they try to come up with these songs about anti-heroes and all they basically come up with is Desperado in one other song.
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They can't come up with anything else.
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So they just lean into the idea instead of being, like, Wild West Outlaws.
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And there's this night...
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And then they do interviews, which was a mistake.
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There's this 1973 interview quote from Glenn Frye,
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where he says,
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It has moments where it definitely draws some parallels between rock and roll and being an outlaw.
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Outside the laws of normality, I guess.
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I mean, I feel like I'm breaking the law all the time.
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He said that!
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To a music outlet.
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I feel like I'm breaking the law all the time.
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I wish I had, could you say that?
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There'd be awesome.
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Later, Hinley's gonna say that this was there supposed to be their quote,
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Big Artistic Commentary on the Eagles of Fame and Success with a cowboy metaphor.
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And then he says,
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quote,
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The metaphor was probably a little bullshit.
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We were in LA staying up all night smoking dope, living the California life.
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And I suppose we thought it was as radical as cowboys in the old West.
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All right, gosh.
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But despite their best efforts to be pretentious and earn respect,
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this album doesn't really do it for them.
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And so the guys get rid of Clint Jones.
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Then they make an appearance at the California GM Festival in 74.
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That gets them some national TV exposure.
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They take out some new members, Dodd Felter.
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He joins Jill Walls joins.
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And the one of these nights album comes out in 75.
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And they explode.
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End of the year.
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They're on the front of Rolling Stone.
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You know who writes the piece on Rolling Stone?
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Cameron Crab.
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I was going to say it's not Hunter's Tom.
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No, no, no, Cameron Crab.
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That's great.
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Here's some quotes.
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It's not just a high school game anymore.
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It's a fucking business.
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It's occupation.
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It's a profession.
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And it's fucking hard.
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I'm sure 9 to 5 is just his trying.
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But there's one advantage is that they can leave it at the office.
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This is a 24 hour a day trip.
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It's like craming 60 years into 28.
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That's Don Henley.
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World weary Don Henley who is not yet 30.
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Here's Glenn Fry.
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Quote.
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But that gets boring and unfulfilling too.
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There are days when I drive to the office drink a cup of coffee for an hour.
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Check the mail.
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Watch Irving A's off.
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Kill on the phone.
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Get existential anxiety.
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Go to the cock and bolt of E.
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Drive to the drive.
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Back to the house.
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Roll a joint.
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Look out the view and wonder what's kind of get me up to do what I want to do next.
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That's the whole premise of this song after the thrill is gone.
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Where is my next stimulation?
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Oh my god.
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So ridiculous.
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Oh, it keeps going.
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It keeps going.
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Cameron Crow for the win.
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This might be the best thing he's he he did.
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Even even beyond almost famous vanilla sky.
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Shouts.
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Okay.
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Where is the next dream now that you've got this one says Don Henley.
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We were talking about this with Clive Davis the other night and said something.
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He said something that really stuck with me.
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Listen to him name drop.
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Once you get comfortable once you get most of the things you've always wanted.
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Your universe becomes defined into a little square.
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Eventually you get to where you don't know what the fuck's going on outside your own little rectangle.
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It's like I got up the other day and I took my slide projector and to get worked out.
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And I got my camera repaired and the car wash and I got my cassette player fixed.
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Then Don Henley shrugs.
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It took up the whole day.
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Man, that is so weird.
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It goes on.
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I've got more of this even in the notes, but the whole so in the show notes you can go read this archived Rolling Stone Arcle.
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That band, those kind of band quotes were in almost famous.
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Remember that?
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Oh, yes.
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It's part of the narrative where all of a sudden you're watching it kind of through,
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kind of through the kids eyes.
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Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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Listen to him.
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He's really like looking up to them and all of a sudden he's hearing these kind of like,
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oh, that's so funny.
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And that's, you know, Cameron Crowe has said that still water in that movie is this outmauble
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nation of bands, right?
spk_0
But like it totally would make sense that this would definitely have influenced that.
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That's so funny.
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Yeah, you got to go read that in the show notes.
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It's crazy.
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They're certainly not the first or last band to complain about fame, but there is a certain performed attachment in this interview that I think adds to some of this
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I wrote about the Eagles in general at the time and since they've been working for this.
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They obviously were a little calculated in trying to achieve this as we've already pointed out.
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And now they're complaining about it.
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I read one piece that pointed out something that I hadn't really heard or thought about before I wanted to opinion on.
spk_0
You know, we normally think of East Coast versus West Coast as a rap thing.
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But I read something that said there's an East Coast West Coast thing with 70s rock.
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Oh, this sounds fantastic.
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I want to end.
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Who is it?
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Okay, well think about it.
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Think about it.
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So let's take the Eagles.
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LA.
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Fat Cat Music Business.
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Slick.
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Lots of pedigree.
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The doors.
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The doors are sort of like that, right?
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But on the other side of the country, you got Bruce Springsteen, who sold entirely on the appeal of authentic struggle in desire and integrity.
spk_0
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I thought that was a moans.
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There you go.
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But I thought that was really interesting.
spk_0
I never thought about that about an East Coast West Coast sort of aesthetic to rock and roll.
spk_0
I think Los Angeles just is a completely different universe.
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I think that Southern California becomes a whole different thing versus I think New York is just gritty.
spk_0
I mean, it's just different.
spk_0
Here's another theory.
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Massage.
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The massage of the Eagles.
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Is this why people hate them?
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Curious about what you think about that.
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I mean, here's the thing.
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Stop for just a second.
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Don't even do this out loud.
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Just try to name five Eagles songs to yourself.
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Not hotel California.
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And you're basically going to get a bunch of woman blaming in the titles.
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I mean, they literally have songs called Witchy Woman.
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What?
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Witchy Woman.
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Yeah, it's the best song.
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Lion eyes.
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Yeah.
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I mean, think about all these songs.
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Sing them out loud.
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That, that, that ho is wrong.
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Okay, that's not an Eagle song.
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Sorry.
spk_0
Okay, to be fair, you're right.
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There's been lots of bands objectifying and criticizing women and equal measure throughout
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music and rock and roll.
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Sure.
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Why is it worse from these guys?
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Maybe it feels like less of an act because this music seems to take itself pretty seriously, right?
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So like...
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It does.
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You know, I mean, that may be part of it.
spk_0
So, I think we have some pretty decent evidence to purport a theory stating that disdain for the Eagles
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comes mostly from an interior culture.
spk_0
Music fans, musicians, industry professionals, and not from your average person, right?
spk_0
And I think we have enough to suggest that if we had to narrow it down to a term to describe
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what these people detest, the term is probably lack of authenticity.
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Would you agree with that?
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I was thinking maybe it was just more...
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Well, I think boring could be a big thing, a big factor, and then the other factor being that,
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you know, I don't know, it just feels...
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It feels calculated.
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It's, yeah.
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Yeah.
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And I guess that some people smell bullshit, but I think that most people...
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Maybe it's just a...
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It's a put on, man, and actually people love the Eagles because how do they sell that many records?
spk_0
Well, the exterior culture sells it, right?
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The interior culture are the only people bitching.
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So the music geeks, not the average music consumers.
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That's at the heart of this, right?
spk_0
I think we can at least partially think the Cohen brothers for the continuation of this attitude, though.
spk_0
Like, it might have died out if it wasn't for the dude in Bigelabowski.
spk_0
So the Bigelabowski brings it back into pop culture, but the other thing that sort of kept the Eagles on people's shit list is frankly the Eagles, namely Dod Henley.
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Let me give you some examples.
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This one's old, the classic.
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During the three years of intensity and insanity that were the making of the album The Long Run, I'm reading from a piece here, Dod Henley has said to have composed a long memo to the recording studio manager, informing him of his displeasure that the lavatory paper and the toilets came off at the bottom of the dispenser and out at the top.
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Quote.
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Oh my, a memo.
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If it was meant to come from the bottom, the memo allegedly read, quote, then the little flowers would be printed on the underside of the paper.
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Oh my gosh, this is so amazing.
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Now, this is part of the more more of the lore because we haven't really done this like breakdown of their career all the way through, but they basically hit this like amazing, amazing pinnacle in the hotel California album.
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And then they are all of a sudden in this headspace where they have to do something as good.
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And that's when they go to try to make the long run and the long run becomes this classic breaking a part of the band period of like three years where they can't, they can't get it right.
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Like they can't figure out how to make the follow up to hotel California.
spk_0
And so this is during that period and basically depending on what you read, Henley sort of loses his nut during this period, right?
spk_0
Like he just, he's rude. He's ugly to everybody losing his mind trying to duplicate this success of hotel California.
spk_0
That's maybe the romantic way of explaining it, but that comes from that. There's a lot more though.
spk_0
I mean, have you ever heard a crazy Don Henley story? You want to insert here?
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Oh my gosh. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I wanted to tell you like it right at the very beginning, but I knew I would blow it.
spk_0
Okay, here is my Don Henley is a jerk story.
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So my ex-cisterin law.
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Oh, this is like personal.
spk_0
Yeah. Oh yeah.
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Oh, all right. Go for it. I thought you were going to be like, I read this thing once. Oh no, this is your ex-cisterin law.
spk_0
I'll bring it. So it's my, it's my brother-in-law. My ex-brother-in-law, his sister.
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If that's counts, I don't know, I guess, whatever.
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Maybe that isn't my sister-in-law. My ex-brother-in-law sister.
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You're set a real Tennessee right now, dude. This is good.
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Listen, they might have been related through marriage.
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I don't know.
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So she worked at Morton's of Chicago in Nashville.
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And Henley was there with a part, like in a private room, and he had ordered this incredibly expensive shot of vodka.
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Oh, yeah.
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Just a shot of vodka.
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And he, after the first shot, the waitress came back to my brother-in-law's sister and said,
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the gentleman at the table thinks that we're pouring him cheap vodka and wants the vodka port at the table.
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Oh my God.
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So she went and unlocked it.
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Because it was, it was something like, it wasn't out everywhere else, I guess, because Morton's Chicago too.
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And then she brought it to the table.
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And it was Don Henley.
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Oh, she was like, oh, it's Don Henley.
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Amazing.
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She had a shot glass and she poured the shot for him and he shot it and he goes, now that's real vodka.
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And she was like, man, what a penis.
spk_0
These stories, these stories don't stop, right?
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This one's from Rolling Stone in 2015.
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I'm just going to read.
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A year after complaining about Frank Ocean sampling Hotel California on a mixtape,
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Eagles singer and drummer Don Henley is still bitter.
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The R&B singer had used the entirety of the Eagles hit in his song American Wedding on his 2011 mixtape.
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And this is Henley's quote, I didn't think he was cool.
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Henley told the Guardian in a new interview quote, I thought he was a talentless little prick and I still do.
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Also, in 2015, it is showing Detroit.
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He has a fan ejected by security for yelling out Don Filders name.
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What the wait, what year?
spk_0
In 2015.
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Oh my gosh.
spk_0
Dude, that is like, and listen, it's not just Don Henley who's problematic.
spk_0
Glenn Frye says at one point in the history of the Eagles documentary, which is a whole other thing if you want to, if you want to go deep.
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Quote, in talking with Irving about putting the Eagles back together in 1994, I said Irving, I'm not going to do it unless Don and I make more money than everybody else.
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And you know they did it.
spk_0
So a few things for you wrap up first.
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It's not directly related, but I've been telling you we need to talk about the breakup of the Eagles.
spk_0
Ashley sort of mentions this and it's for good reason because this story is absolute insanity and it does involve Don Filder, a guy who we've not talked a lot about, but he joins the band later.
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Also, shout to Fast Times, Rich Mon high.
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Okay, so he released a book in 2007.
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There's a giant snippet of that book in the show notes.
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Go read it.
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He goes into great detail about this incident that has gone down in history as the long night at wrong beach.
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This is after they've been touring nonstop to support the long run.
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So they get that album done.
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They go into her.
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Glenn, Glenn, without asking the rest of the guys, commits them to playing a fundraiser for California Senator Alan Cranston.
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Oh, this is from Filder's book.
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Glenn knew I wasn't comfortable with a rock band doing a show for politicians.
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His hostility was compounded when Mrs. Cranston walked up to me backstage to say hello just before he went on stage.
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Hello, I replied nice to meet you and as she walked away, I said under my breath, I guess.
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Glenn heard this.
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He found me in the dressing room and started yelling at me.
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I don't know if it was the drugs or the fact that we'd been on tour for so long, but he just blew up.
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And just before we stepped on stage, I turned to him and I said, you know, Glenn, what you did back there, you're an asshole for doing that.
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And he replied, that's an honor coming from you.
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And then we walked on stage and he came over to me while we were playing the best of my love and said, fuck you, I'm going to kick your ass when we get off the stage.
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Neither of us really wanted to be there that night.
spk_0
And for me, it was one gig too many.
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And as the night progressed, we both grew angrier and began hissing at each other under our breath.
spk_0
It got so bad, the sound technicians have to keep turning the microphones off until Glenn is actually singing.
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Because they're worried the Don Felder and Glenn shit talking each other is going to get picked up on the microphone.
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Can you imagine being the sound guy in the back?
spk_0
Like turning the pod up and down.
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Turn it down. I think he's saying, oh, is he saying best of my love?
spk_0
No, he's saying, fuck you. Oh, no, bring it down.
spk_0
Okay, he approached me, after this is Don Felder, he approached me after every song to rant, rave, curse.
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And let me know how many songs remained before our fight.
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So Glenn is counting down how many songs until I'm kick your ass and three songs.
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So spoiler, they don't actually end up fighting.
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But to release the tension, Felder gets a guitar tech to take one of his old acoustic backstage and lead it like back by the stage door.
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And so people are packing out and everything and he thinks everybody's gone.
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He goes back and he's like pissed off. It's just been a terrible night.
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And he picks up this guitar and he just destroys it.
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He smashes the hell out of it. It gets a concrete column in the backstage area.
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And then I'm going back to the book. This is what he writes.
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By the time I finished, it was kindling on the floor.
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And then I turned and saw the crantons standing right behind me.
spk_0
Their mouths open. A few feet away stood a stony face, Glenn.
spk_0
This had had little or nothing to do with the crantons, but Glenn thought I did that right in front of them to drive the whole thing up his butt.
spk_0
Within a few days, I cooled down the phone rang and it was our producer.
spk_0
And I said, hey, what's the schedule for the band? And he said, there is no band.
spk_0
It was 1980 in the Eagles or history.
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There is no band. Wow.
spk_0
So I find this interior exterior culture thing to be really helpful in explaining this idea of everybody hates such and such a band.
spk_0
I actually asked our producers life and Troy to give us a list of other acts they think this might apply to.
spk_0
Or do you have any you want to throw on this list?
spk_0
Gosh. Nickelback is an easy one, right?
spk_0
I can't even like they just kind of rolled right through me.
spk_0
And I don't even know.
spk_0
Listen, they still play arenas.
spk_0
And simultaneously they are they punch line to every joke about bad taste.
spk_0
I mean, I have a friend who makes bourbon because you know, living in Ducky.
spk_0
And he literally aged bourbon by playing it nickelback.
spk_0
Like that's a thing that he did as a joke, right?
spk_0
So like that happens.
spk_0
But if they come to your town, they're going to sell eight to 15,000 tickets, right?
spk_0
They can bring it man. They can sell lots.
spk_0
Okay. Okay. Others on this list.
spk_0
Creed.
spk_0
Yeah, we can go all day on Creed, man.
spk_0
Coldplay.
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Because that's that's one that I love.
spk_0
But I do hear people shit on cold play.
spk_0
Yeah, you're a cold play person or a radio head person.
spk_0
Like there's I don't think I don't think you have to be one of the other.
spk_0
Here's a couple more matchbox 20.
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I remember people making fun of Creed nickelback in matchbox 20 at this karaoke bar one time.
spk_0
And it was very difficult to take those bands seriously after that karaoke.
spk_0
20 years ago.
spk_0
One more John Mayer.
spk_0
How do you feel about John Mayer?
spk_0
I guess I purposely have not followed him as much.
spk_0
But I the thing that don't the ladies hate John Mayer because he's a butthole.
spk_0
Like did wasn't he like.
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I like Taylor Swift.
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What like.
spk_0
They're like some other.
spk_0
Listen, there've been a lot of good looking men who have not been nice to Taylor Swift according to Taylor Swift.
spk_0
So I mean, I don't know if that pulls you off the list all the way.
spk_0
He's been a little weird, John Mayer, just in the way that he's interacted and reacted over the past few years.
spk_0
But I feel like he's still doing okay with the court demo.
spk_0
I don't know.
spk_0
I'm interested in your thoughts on this though.
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If you're listening and you, there's somebody who you think the interior exterior concept really applies to hit us up.
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It's weird to storyguysgmail.com.
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And you can support the show on Patreon and grab a whole bunch of back episodes.
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So again, hit the show notes, fight all those links.
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And until next time, Murdoch, what should people keep doing?
spk_0
Keep telling stories.