New Music Now 013 :: Jason & Trevor

Greetings and welcome to New Music Now, an Ink 19 podcast. My name is Julius C. Lacking, and I’m really glad that you are listening. Thank you for being here. Our musical guests on the show today are Jason and Trevor, who make original old school hip hop here in Grand Junction, Colorado, and our host is Ink 19’s own Arn McConnell, perhaps the most interesting person you didn’t know you knew, and they will be talking about the music that they are loving right now. Stay tuned to hear new tracks from Robin Hitchcock’s album, Confuser, and some from the new Parody Party album by Sesame Street, both out this past July. We’ll also hear music from Lice’s Miami Lice album and Jason and Trevor’s newest hip hop tracks. Be sure to follow us at ink19.com, where you’ll find updates on this show and other Ink 19 endeavors. And now we turn the mic over to Arn McConnell. Here’s new music now from Ink 19. • • Hi, my name is Arn McConnell. I am a filmmaker and occasionally an author and also occasionally an Ink 19 contributor. I co-wrote and directed the 1987 horror comedy Shock, Shock, Shock, which was released on Rhino Video and is probably best remembered as the first film of actor James Gandolfini and is also my biggest point of pride. But people probably know my credit as the original editor of MTV’s Beavis and Butt-Head better, and I’m currently working on an elaborate comic project, a horror fantasy story called Journeyman. Now let’s say hello to some old and new friends of mine, Jason Dunn and Trevor Adams, Grand Junction musicians. Welcome to the show, and please tell us a little about yourselves. Thank you, Arn. I am happy to be here. My name is Jason Dunn. I am a musician. I’m also a studio specialist here in the building that we are sitting in. And it’s called 970 West Studio. And I’m Trevor Adams. I’m the Trevor part of our band, Jason and Trevor, and I’m a Grand Junction native, and Arn and I go back probably about twenty five years as fellow music nerds, obsessive collectors, and also know each other through the theatre world. I spend a lot of time doing theatre, but most of my creative endeavors have been in playing music. And now I’m doing that with Jason. AM: Thank you both for being here. And we’re very happy we’re going to hear some of your music today, as well as some other songs. So why don’t we get started? Robyn Hitchcock, The Confuser All right. So my choices of tracks today, music I’ve been listening to a lot — and I’m sure this really surprised the editors at Ink 19 — but I chose Robyn Hitchcock’s new album, The Confuser, which was just released on his label Tiny Ghost, and is produced by Brad Jones. I think it’s one of the best records in his entire discography. It’s his 26th studio album in a career that’s now lasted almost fifty years. And for a guy to be making great, compelling music that long into his career, it just seems noteworthy to me and inspiring. TA: So my knowledge of Robyn Hitchcock is actually due in part to Arn. I don’t know Robyn Hitchcock that well, but Arn and I have spoken about him a bit. And so because of that, I’ve listened to him a bit. I listened to these two songs Arn’s about to play this morning and absolutely love them, so I’m looking forward to hearing them. JD: I am embarrassed to say that I have not heard Robyn Hitchcock, or if I have, I don’t remember. What’s like his hit song, what was like his big song? AM: He first came to fame as a member or leader of the band The Soft Boys, which never had huge hits but were highly influential during the like the New Wave years. They were an early proto-psychedelic band even before the the New Paisley movement hit in California later. And they were very influential on those bands, very influential on R.E.M… Peter Buck was part of his touring group in the early 2000s. But his, probably his best known song as a solo artist was “Balloon Man,” which was kind of an alternative hit in the 1990s. It’s a song that apparently now he doesn’t, he doesn’t relish hearing, but, uh, but I think it made more money for him than any other song, so I think he has a little bit of an ambivalent relationship with it. JT: Well, I am excited to hear Robyn Hitchcock. AM: So the, the song, the first song that leapt out at me from this album and the one that has continued to be a real earworm for me in the past few weeks is a song called “I Am This Thing.” Yeah, I think this song got me extremely excited when I heard it. In fact, I had the chance to interview Hitchcock for Ink 19, um, a couple months back, and I wish I had heard this album before I did the interview, because I would have asked some specific questions about this song and others on the album. But this is “I Am This Thing,” by Robyn Hitchcock. “I Am This Thing” TA: Oh. AM: I, I just adore this song. I think the lyrics. Probably, uh, nothing to brag about, but I spend a lot of my time thinking about consciousness. And this is a song about consciousness, about spirit in a material world. Uh, I think, uh, Hitchcock here is talking about the fact that we in this Western culture, we tend to perceive ourselves as skin enclosed personality islands. And, uh, I’m not sure that’s actually true. Doesn’t actually, uh, jibe with my own beliefs, but I think that’s the illusion that we all must struggle against. And I think this song does a really great job of naming it. And then there’s a lot of wit in it, too, besides the, uh, Hitchcock isms of referencing, uh, fried rice and, and, uh, things like that. There’s that little, uh, musical break where he sings nonsense lyrics right after saying that the thinking is fine. I just think it’s a pretty brilliant song overall. And the other thing that I love about this song and the whole album is the production. Uh, this was produced by a fellow by the name of Brad Jones, who I first became aware of in the very early nineteen nineties when he produced Jill Sobule’s second album, which is probably her best-known album that had “I Kissed a Girl” on it. And he toured with her, and I happened to see Jill Sobule open for Robyn Hitchcock, with Brad Jones backing her up. So when I saw that Jones was producing Hitchcock’s new album, which was the first time he’s produced Hitchcock, it was kind of like Old Friends Week. And, and Jones is just a terribly underappreciated producer. He operates out of Nashville. He’s produced many great albums by the likes of, well, Jill Sobule, Pee Shy band from the nineties that had a couple of great albums, at least one of which he produced. Ross Rice, who’s not a real well-known singer songwriter, but another super talented guy, put out albums produced by Brad Jones, and he had his own recording career. He put out albums under his own name, and you can find tracks by him on, uh, old compilations from the '90s. So, just a terribly talented guy who people don’t talk about enough. And I think he did a knockout job on this album. TA: I really like this song. Arn, how old is Robyn Hitchcock? AM: He’s 73, I believe. TA: That’s so awesome, and I hope that when I’m 73, I’m making music that has this kind of energy. Um, you know, it’s there are not a lot of 73 year olds out there who are still interested in rocking like this. I love it. AM: And much of the album touches on mortality, including this song. The end there basically is, uh, lamenting the impermanence of us. Uh, “touch me and I’m gone, baby.” TA: Yeah. AM: And many of the tracks on this album do discuss mortality, which we’ll talk about more a little bit, in a little bit, but, yeah, he, he’s obviously thinking about subjects that are appropriate for his age, but he’s singing about 'em like a young guy. And it was inspiring to me, at 67, to hear this album, I’ll tell you the truth. TA: I really like the drumming, too. Wasn’t that great drum performance. Jason? JD: Yeah, that was rocking out. That’s… what instrument does Robyn Hitchcock play? AM: He plays guitar… JD: Because, uh… AM: He’s typically not the lead guitarist in his band, so he typically plays rhythm, but, uh, but sometimes he does, uh, the lead and the solos. JD: I heard some cool, like, wah wah pedal action in there. That was really cool. I also, this is my comment as I heard, um, I heard one little part in there that kind of reminded me of The Byrds. The B-Y-R-D-S, Byrds. And I was like, oh no, I shouldn’t say anything that was like, that would probably just a mistake or something. And then he totally in the next line was saying, he likes the music of The Byrds. So I was like… AM: Yeah, he’s covered “The Bells of Rhymney” (Pete Seeger, 1958) and other Byrds songs in the past and very… he, basically, he’s made it known that his big inspirations are the musicians of the 1960s. He’s heavily influenced by Bob Dylan and John Lennon. You can hear John Lennon, I think, a lot in his voice. JD: Yeah. AM: And, um, and then his biggest influence by far without question, was Syd Barrett of the original Pink Floyd. JD: Oh nice. AM: He, um, he’s written at great length about Barrett and his influence on his music. And in fact, his most recent book, Stranded in the Future, which is his second collection of memoirs that he’s released in the last couple of years, but that book deals at some length with his essentially stalking of Syd Barrett when they both lived in the same town in England. And, um, so if you… He never names Barrett by name in the book, but if you know anything at all about music or Robyn Hitchcock, you know who he’s talking about. JD: Nice. AM: So the other track that, I mean, I love every song on this album, but the other track that I thought was worth highlighting is a track called “Yesterday’s Rain,” again from Confuser. “Yesterday’s Rain” AM: So you hear a few of Hitchcock’s preoccupations in that track. There’s his love for surrealism. When I had the chance to interview him, he talked at some length about how he’s been influenced by surrealist painters. And his father was a surrealist painter. And you can hear a lot of surrealism in his songs. Things like crocodiles on skis are not that unusual in a Robyn Hitchcock song. TA: I caught that. That was a great lyric. AM: I, I like, I’m gonna probably bobble the line now, but, “naked lunch in a…” Naked lunch there, of course, is a reference to William Burroughs. Yeah. So, um, he’s a huge ballad fan and, and so, I think you can hear, you know, the influence kind of riding in lyrics like these. And then the other thing I’ll just point out, I think Robyn Hitchcock really likes he finds beauty in anger. It seems from his lyrics, because that song ends with “you’re fierce, but you’re lovely, you’re fierce but you’re lovely.” It echoes songs that he sung in the past, like “sinister but beautiful.” And so I just find it an interesting, uh, kind of obsession that keeps creeping into his music. TA: Wow, Robyn, teach me your ways. JD: I can definitely hear the, uh, now that you mentioned John Lennon. I could definitely hear that in his influence. In his voice, too. That was awesome. AM: Yeah. “Naked lunch inside a lilac tomb.” I think that’s a particularly lovely turn of phrase. JD: Yeah. AM: He has a reputation for being funny, but his songs can also be exquisitely poetic. There are certain Robyn Hitchcock tracks that can seriously bring me to tears, songs like “Glass Hotel” and, so there’s, there’s a lot of sides to the guy. So if you’ve never checked him out, I urge you to check out his music because it’s very, very varied. So let’s hear some new music picks from Jason and Trevor now. Jason. Sesame Street, Parody Party JD: Thank you. So I’m going to be one thousand percent honest. When I read the… that we were talking about music that’s come out with in the last six months, and I definitely, I listen to a lot of old music. And I also am concentrating a lot on making our beats for, for Jason and Trevor project here. And I, so I just googled new releases, um, in the last six months and I, I feel really old, but I literally didn’t know who any of them were for like the first fifty. Like maybe I’ve heard of them on social media or something, but I definitely did not know any of their music or what it sounded like or anything. However, I saw that Sesame Street put out an album recently within the last six months, and I definitely grew up on Sesame Street, so I didn’t know. I know it’s silly, but I was like, I’ll give it a chance. And it turns out I really dug a couple of songs on there, mostly the ones with old Cookie Monster’s singing on there. And another thing is, so it’s a par… The record’s called Parody Party, and it’s obviously parodies of other songs that I haven’t really heard. I maybe heard them just through osmosis in the grocery store or something like that, but, um, they’re pretty big hits. Trevor told me that he had heard a couple of them before. I’m in to Cookie Monster’s voice just in general. I don’t know if it’s still the same guy that voiced it way back in the day, but… TA: I looked this up this morning. Jason. It’s a new guy whose name I can’t remember [David Rudman]. He’s been doing it since 2001 when Frank Oz quit doing it. Maybe Frank Oz retired. I don’t remember exactly. Or graduated. Yeah. JD: Graduated. He’s doing a pretty good job of it. Um. Oh, yeah. And you know, they’re silly. What this one is, um, there is an artist. Chappell. Chappell. Roan. God, I feel old. I’m not, I swear. I have heard of that person. But anyways, um, they they do a song called, uh, hot to Go, I think. Yeah, but Cookie Monster decided to change it into Got to Go and it’s a parody of that song, talking and teaching, uh, the little ones that they need to listen to their body when they got a potty. Yeah, let’s hear some of that. “Got to Go” JD: It reminds me a lot of Devo and I think Devo would like that comparison. TA: Chappell Roan. I wouldn’t be surprised if she would say Devo was an influence. JD: The toilet. TA: The toilet flush sound is a good bit. TA: I love that the song is credited to Cookie Monster. JD: Yeah, yeah, like Cookie Monster wrote it. TA: Yeah, he’s the artist. JD: I like that, like it actually sounds good, too. Like the the guys were in the studio trying to make this sound as possibly good as they could. Even though it’s about like going to the bathroom, like it’s like, actually sounds really good, especially in these headphones. TA: Yeah. P O T T Y oh oh… When you got to go… P O T T Y oh oh… Catchy. JD: Yeah. I also like that the song is nice and short. You wouldn’t. You wouldn’t want this to be like a ten minute song about going potty. Even though that’s not the original Cookie Monster voice. Like I was saying, I think he does a pretty good job there. AM: And hugely influential on the entire genre of death metal. JD: Yeah, the Cookie Monster vocals. TA: Absolutely, right? Yeah. They, I think they sometimes like legitimately refer to that death metal voice. JD: Yeah. Cookie monster. TA: Cookie monster. JD: Yeah. TA: I looked up the videos to these two songs this morning and they are, they are worth watching. They are very fun. And they will take you back to your childhood for sure. AM: You know, I have to say that, um, I came to being a pop hound from novelty records and novelty records have been hugely important to me all my life, and I’ve always defended them, even against, uh, vicious calumnies from my punk friends during those days. Uh, but, uh, I can understand how you would love this, because it’s got a lot of the appeal of Weird Al or, um, or any great novelty songs. Yeah. TA: Speak… AM: Go ahead. TA: Speaking of novelty songs, the last time Jason and I recorded a podcast together, it’s called That Takes Me Back, talking about songs that take you back. And a song came up called, “Rappin Duke,” which is a novelty rap song, as if John Wayne had made a rap song. It’s hilarious. And it’s one of the first rap songs Jason and I heard. So we talked about it and talked about how Biggie referenced it. So yeah, we both dig novelties. JD: I definitely love novelty, like all the Doctor Demento stuff and the Weird Al and all that stuff. I definitely, as a kid totally gravitated towards that. Like, I don’t know, the, the not taking everything so seriously, the sense of humor, but still like good like that, you know, good catchy music too. So I’m with you there. JD: Let’s torture ourselves some more with… So this… Trevor told me that this, he used to like this song. And it is a song… it’s parodying… What is the song called that it’s parodying? TA: “Call Me Maybe”? JD: “Call Me Maybe.” TA: And the artist is suddenly escaping me. AM: Was it Carly Jepsen? JD: Yeah, that sounds… TA: Yeah. Carly Rae Jepsen, and Jason, this isn’t torture. We were laughing during this. JD: I know, I was just… TA: This is fun. “Share It Maybe” JD: Referencing the Keebler elf, possibly? TA: Oh yeah. TA: I like that this is really about Cookie Monster loving cookies and how he wants. He doesn’t have one, so he wants you to give it to him. But it’s also a lesson about sharing. JD: Oh, you’re right. That’s true. JD: And being polite about it too. Yeah. Teaching the kids they do not just grab the cookie. Me going off me rocker. Please be me, Betty Crocker. You. JD: Okay, so that’s the best rhyme in this whole thing is “Going off my rocker. Please feed me Betty Crocker.” That’s like a… That’s pretty genius. TA: It’ll never not be funny to me that Cookie Monster says “me” instead of “I.” JD: Yeah, yeah. He’s doing the… TA: It’s hilarious every time. AM: Are those the only two Cookie Monster tracks? JD: Yeah. Um, yeah. On that record? Yeah. There’s other, there was other Sesame Street characters that I didn’t recognize because I’m one hundred years old. I don’t know who these people are, but there was one that had Oscar the Grouch too. But those were the two Cookie Monsters were the ones that spoke to my soul. So I had to… we highlighted them here. Um, yeah, the rhyming the “off my rocker” with “Betty Crocker” is a highlight of that tune, I would say. AM: There were some good cookie puns. I also liked “toll my house.” JD: Oh, I didn’t even catch that one. Nice. TA: That’s good. JD: Yeah, the toll house cookie. That was a good one. Uh, elf in a tree talking about the Keebler elves, probably. Yeah, it’s silly, but, um. But somebody spent some creative time on that, and those are good puns and references, so I liked it. AM: So, uh, how about you, Trevor? You. Let’s hear some tracks that have been keeping your ears entertained. Lice, Miami Lice TA: It was hard to choose. I could have picked new songs from new albums by The Strokes or Death Cab for Cutie, but I figured Jason and I are hip hop group. Why don’t I pick some hip hop? So the artist is Lice and the album is Miami Lice. This is, as you could tell, a bit of a lighthearted project by two artists, Aesop Rock and Homeboy Sandman. Aesop Rock is one of the biggest inspirations to me as a rapper. I won’t say an influence, because he’s so great, I could never I could never be as good as him. But I think it’s good to aspire to be, you know, maybe 5% as good as him. And this project is really fun, hearing the two of them together, and they just, they complement each other well because they have very different voices and generally very different styles, although they use similar rhythms in this song. I don’t know if one of them came up with a rhythm and the other one decided to write similarly, but this first song we’re going to play, “Who Sent You?” is a great example of Aesop Rock’s incredible production. This groove is so funky and it’s going to be hard for me to not get up and dance to it. And then the two of them just they each have one verse and they’re both just amazing technicians. And then just very, very clever and often funny wordplay. So this is “Who Sent You?” by Lice, off of their album Miami Lice. “Who Sent You?” TA: How about that bassline, Jason? JD: Yeah. That’s cool. TA: Yeeeaah. I love that. JD: And this is the other guy? TA: Yeah. Homeboy. Sandman. TA: They both often put the rhyme. Not where you would expect it. Which I really want to learn how to do. JD: I’ve heard you do it, sometimes. You’re good at it. But I see what you’re saying. TA: “I’m so woke, I’m sleep deprived.” JD: Yeah. Those dudes are pretty evenly matched. Which is a which is a very impressive because Aesop is amazing. TA: Yeah. “When I make popcorn, all the kernels pop.” JD: Yeah. TA: That’s an amazing brag. Like, hip hop is known so much for braggadocio, but it’s often a lot of the same kind of braggadocio. So I love it that Homeboy Sandman puts that in there. Like, what’s up? I bet when you make your popcorn, you’ve got kernels that haven’t even popped inside. Guess what? Not me. AM: And so they both had solo careers? TA: Yes. Uh. Huh. Yeah. Aesop goes back, I think, twenty seven years. And Homeboy Sandman is a little bit of a, like, a decade later. Yeah. And I don’t know Homeboy Sandman that well. I and I got into Aesop Rock late for some reason. I didn’t get into him in the two thousand, when he was first coming up and first, like more in the zeitgeist for some reason. And then, he put out an album called Impossible Kid in the last decade or so, and I was just blown away. And ever since then I’ve been a huge fan and he is incredibly consistent. All of his albums are just so damn good. And he used to occasionally use other producers, but now it’s entirely him. He makes all the beats and does all the rapping. Every once in a while he’ll have a guest. AM: Where are they out of. Do you know? TA: That is a good question. I know that Aesop Rock is out of New York City. I don’t know where Homeboy Sandman is from [Queens]. JD: Yeah. Me neither. AM: New York? TA: Yeah. You’ve had some time in New York. AM: Yeah, and I always, for some reason, always preferred East Coast hip hop myself, but. TA: Oh, yeah. Me too. For sure. Oh, so this next track is called “The One,” and… they each have a solo track on here, and this is Homeboy Sandman’s solo track, although the beat is by Aesop Rock. So here’s “The One.” “The One” TA: I love a song that has a little bit of a concept like this. Beginning every line with “the one.” TA: Yeah, it’s a nice hook. AM: You guys would probably have some sense, is this entirely sample based? It sure sounds like there’s live band members here. JD: I think I’m… if I had to guess, I would say that somebody actually played the drum beat. And then at some point somebody played that bassline, but they sampled it, and then little chunks of that bassline will be able to sample, so you can kind of make it bup bup buh de bup. Um, that’s what I think is happening. Yeah. AM: You hear that in the bass, but the guitar almost seems to be counterpointing the rapper. JD: Yeah. TA: Oh yeah. Sure. JD: I’ll bet you somebody actually played the guitar live. That’s what it sounds like to me, with a wah pedal and stuff. TA: Yeah, yeah, that’s that sounds to me like live instrumentation. And the song before did, too. I don’t know if Aesop Rock actually plays instruments… AM: Although I will say that piano part in the in the I don’t know if it’s the chorus or a middle eight, but that sounded an awful lot like a Billy Joel sample to me. JD: That was very possible. TA: I’ll have to go on Who Sampled Who after this. Another thing that I love about both of them is I think they’re probably both in their fifties. This is grown man rap music. Like he talks about only eating plants and doesn’t smoke and doesn’t drink. That’s not something that most young rappers talk about, or at least I think, I don’t listen to a lot of young rappers. But you know, Jason and I are hip hop artists of a certain age, and I really appreciate that people, not only are still doing it because hip hop is a particularly young person’s music, but talking about grown, grown ass man kind of stuff too. JD: And being like a positive influence. And, you know, it was cool. AM: So let’s get to what I’m calling the pièce de resistance today. Let’s listen to some of your guys’s music. Music from Jason & Trevor. Can you tell us a little bit about your act and also about the tracks we’re going to hear? Jason & Trevor, Fresh Tracks TA: Yeah, we’d be happy to. So, uh, let’s see. I’m trying to decide how far to go back here. I’ll make it short, huh, Jason? JD: Yeah. TA: We’ve known each other since we were teenagers in the nineties. Um, both played in rock bands sometimes, uh, playing in different bands, but we’d play the same shows. Mostly both of us playing drums also sometimes other instruments, but we didn’t start making music together until the end of '23. Is that right, Jason? JD: Yes. Correct. TA: Yeah. Jason showed me a beat, and I hadn’t rapped since I was a teenager, but I got the urge to rap. And so we started making music then, and now we’ve been doing it for about two and a half years or so, and I don’t want to bogart the conversation, Jason, do you want to talk about… are we going to play “Brain Demons” first? JD: Yes. Yes, we are in fact, going to play “Brain Demons.” “Brain Demons” JD: A bunch of samples in there that are fun. And Trevor’s talking about mental health things, which is important. That’s a… that first sample that it starts with… It’s from a samurai movie somewhere. AM: Is that Shogun Assassin? JD: Yes. Probably, thank you. TA: I only know it from the beginning of a GZA song, GZA from the Wu-Tang clan, his song “Liquid Swords.” JD: That’s where he got it, though. JD: The guy going “woo woo” is Paul McCartney. TA: Is it really? JD: Yeah. TA: I didn’t know that. Or, I forgot that. You probably told me. JD: That “count goes on” is from an obscure old '80s song about Major Tom. Not the David Bowie one. AM: Peter Schilling. JD: Yeah. Yeah. TA: You played live drums on this right, Jason? JD: I played the drums on this, but they were just electronic drums. TA: But yes, but it’s your performance. I love the drums on this song. JD: Thank you. AM: I like a lot of the rhymes, but I gotta say, the thing that really blew me away listening to this track is the production. TA: Oh, yeah. AM: Productions really outstanding guys. JD: Oh. Thank you. I’m still learning that stuff, but, uh, yeah. AM: A lot of modern music, especially, I think in hip hop, sounds overcompressed to my ears. It might be because of my age, I don’t know. But yeah, I appreciate that this does not. TA: Nice. That’s a very nice compliment. Thank you. Because I am still figuring out compression. Compression is just, for anybody who doesn’t know. It’s like a effect that you can put on like each track or on the mix in general and on, you’re right, you can definitely go overboard with it. And it’ll start to just like suck the life out of everything. So thank you for saying that. That was very nice of you. … Yeah. We put, we did a weird thing in the middle right there where we, like, busted into a kind of a drum and bass break there, which is like out of nowhere, but it seemed to fit. Trevor has some great lyrics on this one. They’re clever. Uh, he did really good layering the vocals, where you can kind of hear where the vocals… there’s two Trevor’s, but he did it really well, so it’s like, just makes the vocal thicker. AM: It took me by surprise the first time the drums and guitars crash in. Yeah, yeah. But I really like this track, guys. JD: Thank you, my friend. AM: Another thing I really like about it is the variety and the dynamics that the variety gives it because it goes up, it starts low, goes very strong… then there’s some other parts that… And I also like that it seems to draw on a lot of musical styles besides just hip hop. JD: Yeah. Yeah, definitely. Um, thank you for saying that because I definitely don’t just listen to just hip hop for sure. And the dynamic thing also, thank you for saying that because we definitely this is like, um, we try to do dynamics in every song, but this one, we definitely were like, how quiet can we actually get in the middle of this thing and then bring it all back in and like, pummel your face off. So thank you. TA: Yeah. So yeah, Jason came to me with that or sent me this beat pretty much as it is. Um, he does a lot of post production too, but, um, I was so stoked when I heard this song because it has so many styles. Like you mentioned, it’s, it’s very rock. Like you can hear a rock influences in this song, but like Jason said, it’s got that, um, part of it that sounds a lot like drum and bass. You can definitely hear Jason’s rocking at the end. He’s playing live drums, doing some really cool fills. Uh, which I really love. That’s unusual for a rap song. JD: Thank you. TA: I want to encourage everyone to go to our Bandcamp page, Bandcamp, Jason and Trevor, and you can listen to that song without us talking over it. So you can hear all of our subtlety and all the cool things we put into it. AM: And there are a lot of great lyrics in it. And I’m with this classify as nerdcore? TA: You know, we didn’t go into this project thinking, okay, we’re going to make music that’s nerdcore. And for anybody who’s listening who isn’t familiar with that term, there’s a subset of hip hop where the artists actually call themselves that, and they are are purposely trying to make music that’s nerdy. They’ll often talk about, computers, software, D & D, Magic The Gathering, things like that. So we didn’t go into it attempting to make nerdcore, but I definitely wanted it to be. Well, we both wanted it to be us, to be true to us, to be expressing ourselves, not playing, not playing characters. It’s partly why we call ourselves Jason & Trevor rather than… AM: Personas. TA: Personas. Yeah. And so this is my voice. This is how I talk. This is my accent right now. I wanted our music to be the same. I wanted to use the same voice. So my R’s are hard. So I’m going to use hard R’s in the music. Even though almost all rap music has soft R’s. I shouldn’t… I shouldn’t go too deep into this because I have so many opinions about it. Anyhow, the point I’m trying to make is we are just trying to be ourselves, and I’m pretty nerdy, That’s who I truly am. And so I’m okay with our music sounding nerdy. Or at least I should really only speak for myself because I don’t think Jason’s tracks are, like, inherently nerdy, but, um, and sometimes I lean into it. Sometimes I make my voice maybe even nerdier than my speaking voice. Like we have a song called “Glasses,” and I say “nerdin’ ain’t easy” and “it’s hard out here for a nerd,” so I sometimes lean into that. Um, there was one other person, a friend of ours who’s really into hip hop who brought up the word nerdcore, and I don’t mind it at all. AM: I think you’ve hit on what was making me ask, because I think it mostly is your vocal phrasing. TA: Yeah. AM: And and it’s not a negative thing. I went through a huge nerdcore phase, uh, in the '00s, uh, which I still, you know, there’s still a lot of stuff I listen to from that period that I really love, but you sound a little bit like maybe MC Lars or someone like that to me. And, uh, and again, not meant as like putting you in a box or anything, but sure. But was something that actually worked for me when I was listening to your music for the first time. This was not the first time I’d heard your music because I’ve listened when you’ve shared it on social media. Uh, but, uh, but that’s something… I’ve tuned into with you guys from the start, so. TA: Sure, I appreciate that. So the next song we’re going to play, I guess we should say first, uh, these aren’t from an album, per se. We mostly just release singles on Bandcamp. Um, so you can just hear these songs on their own. This next one is called “Fix Our Hearts.” Yeah… “Fix Our Hearts” AM: I love this one just because of the allusion. TA: Oh yeah. Sure, sure. So this one, um, came from a couple of things. Jason had this great sample, David Lynch, his character in Twin Peaks, talking about a trans character in that show. And I was very inspired to write lyrics like this, partly because of that prompt from Jason, when he used that sample, and it’s also because of the horrible, despicable attacks on transgender people in our country that absolutely sicken Jason and myself, and we are furious about it. And we want to be the best trans allies we can be. So this song is about that. This song celebrates transgender people. If you go to the track on our Bandcamp page, you’ll see a photo of Marsha P. Johnson, who was a trans woman who was really important in the beginning of Pride, the Stonewall Riots. And we mention her and a bunch of other trans icons. And we also put in on our Bandcamp page that if people like this song. Well, first I should say that all of our music is free to either stream or download, but if people like it, we would like to, uh, encourage them to go to the website for Loving Beyond Understanding, which is an organization here in Grand Junction that supports people who are members of the LGBTQ community. Um, it is staffed by members of the LGBTQ community, which I really appreciate. And they do all kinds of amazing, amazing events and support and programs. They have an event almost every day. It’s fun stuff like a trans book club or learn how to do drag makeup, and they do things that support all different ages of the queer community here in Grand Junction, Colorado. And we just love that and we want to support them. So without further ado, here is our song, “Fix Our Hearts.” TA: I’ll say I want people to to catch these things on their own, but I’ll just mention real quick, that was a reference to JK Rowling and her absolutely horrible attack on trans people. AM: But I love how you played on JK. TA: Oh, I’m glad you caught that. Thanks. JD: That’s Sinead O’Connor in the background too, isn’t it? TA: Yeah. TA: Jason I’m hearing things in this that I haven’t heard before. It’s been a while since I listened to it on headphones. I always hear more things when I listen to our songs. Just all the different stuff you put in. JD: Thank you. I try to hide little things in there. It’s cool. I also tried to rip off that old Herbie Hancock song Rockit. AM: That part. I definitely hear that. In fact, there’s a part coming up where you do some scratching stuff towards the end that I really liked. Oh thank you. “I am stretched on your grave and will lie there forever. If your hands were in mine, I’d be sure they’d not sever.” TA: Why not toss in a Depeche Mode reference? Yeah. JD: Yeah, I tried to put. We got tons and tons of samples and things there, like my little friends. This is also the reason that we probably will never be able to sell a record, though it would cost a million dollars to clear all those samples. That’s okay. TA: Bandcamp hasn’t taken our songs down. Spotify probably would. JD: Yeah, probably. AM: I was really happy when I saw this was one of the songs that you guys were gonna play today. TA: Oh thank you. I dig it, too. JD: Thank you. TA: Yeah. So that song is really largely indebted to this Sinead O’Connor song called “I Am Stretched on Your Grave.” Isn’t that how the track started, Jason? JD: Yeah, I think so. TA: We recreated the bassline from this, from the original song. And then Jason sampled her voice and the fiddle in it. Is that right? JD: Yeah, there’s some fiddle action in there too. TA: Yeah. And then I sing. I sing the chorus, or at least close my melodies a little bit different. I sang it as I remembered it, rather than going back and listening to it. I kind of liked that it ended up a little different from her. But that original song, “I Am Stretched On Your Grave” is amazing. It uses James Brown’s Funky Drummer and, um, I was studying modern dance shortly after that came out and we used to love to improvise my, my fellow dance students and I loved to improvise to that song. We just put it on and it’s got this great groove to it. It’s this moody, kind of languid, lyrical. I’m not sure what the best way to to put it is. The vocal is like that, but then it’s got James Brown’s Funky Drummer underneath it, so it’s this busy, extremely funky rhythm underneath it. So that was the the basis of the track. And of course Jason did so many other things with it. He… I’m pretty sure what he does is he has magic dust in his pocket, and he sprinkles that over the drum machine and keyboard and computer. And that’s how he does it. He does this when I’m not in the studio with him, so I can’t… I don’t actually see that magic happen. Is that how it works? Jason. JD: Yeah, that’s exactly how I got magic dust in my pocket and other dusts. AM: It’s hell to get out of the carpets. But yeah, and, uh, I think you mentioned it, uh, briefly, but just to make sure people heard, where can you find Jason & Trevor music? TA: So all of our music is on Bandcamp, which is a great site for independent music, and you can stream or download all of our music for free. And you can also find us on Instagram and YouTube. AM: And my name is Arn McConnell. You can find me at ink19.com, but you can also find some of my non-music projects at cravenlovelace.com. And it’s been a real pleasure sitting with you guys and talking music. JD: Yeah, that was fun. Thank you. I learned some things. AM: Yeah, it’s been a great time. Arn. Thank you. JCL: You have been listening to New Music Now, an Ink 19 podcast. Today’s show featured new music from Robyn Hitchcock, Cookie Monster, Lice, and Jason & Trevor. • • Find links to all our social media, more Ink 19 podcasts, and other items at ink19.com. We would like to thank Arn McConnell, Jason Dunn and Trevor Adams for sharing their conversation with us, and a special thanks to you for being our listener. You can catch Jason & Trevor live at Copeka Coffee in Grand Junction, Colorado, on October 31, 2026, where they will perform a special selection from the catalog of DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince. Audio production and engineering is by Ian Koss and Rose Petralia, and original music is by Avi Bortnick. This is Julius C. Lacking. Thank you for listening to New Music Now from Ink 19.