TraegerMethod Podcast

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**TraegerMethod Podcast**

West Coast America-centric punk / indie cultural history as told by the people who lived it with a dose of mindfulness and non-duality talk.

Latest Episodes:

Episode 76: Marc Maxey (Justice League, Pollen Art Inland Empire 80's punk) Apr 28, 2023

Show notes

Here's a different way to do show notes.

EPISODE 76

Intro: Spring has arrived. Mindfulness.

GUEST: Marc Maxey

Bio: bass / guitar / singer Justice League, Pollen

Art, The Killing Flame, Slothfist

Co-owner (with Justice League bandmate Ryan Hoffman) of Quiet Panic Records

Date/Place of our first meeting:

Southern California Early/mid 1980’s

Conversation notes:

Inland Empire/Pomona punk history:

Toxic Shock Records

Fartblossom Records / Bob Durkee

Straight edge hardcore history.

Reno punk history.

San Diego punk history.

Los Angeles punk history

Violence at shows.

Tour stories.

1980’s punk

MUSIC

Pollen Art 'Damn Jam'

Justice League 'Shattered Dreams'

TMpod theme by Jason

LINKS

Marc's instagram

Quiet Panic Records

Mindpower Records

THANK YOU FOR LISTENING AND FOR SUPPORTING THE PODCAST!

PATREON

Episode 74: Christopher Sutton (The Dirt Bombs, The Gossip, Dub Narcotic Sound System etc.) Mar 24, 2023

Show notes

It has been my great privilege to count this week’s guest low-end legend Christopher Sutton as a friend for near three decades now. Episode 74 marks his TMpod debut, the first of many appearances I hope!

The conversation starts at the beginning, wherein we meet a young Chris in the 80’s walking down the strip mall streets of his hometown of Lacey, WA carrying his new $208 bass guitar toward home where he would begin practicing his hair metal bass shredding.

It wasn’t until his mom insisted he and his friend Dan check out a music festival happening downtown that he had any inkling that he lived in a punk rock epicenter. All that changed the moment they stepped out of the car to check out the International Pop Underground Festival.

It wasn’t long before he met IPU creator, K Records founder Calvin Johnson while recording with Oly ska band Engine 54 and was swept away on a musical odyssey that continues to this day and has taken him around the world beginning with Calvin’s Dub Narcotic Sounds System continuing with C.O.C.O, The Gossip, The Dirt Bombs, Chain and the Gang to name a few.

Always a prolific musician, Chris has recently released a collection of selected solo tunes on the Antiquated Future label created between 1998 and 2019 called you brought me back from the dead. It's great listening and I urge you to seek it out either in it's cassette form or streaming on all the web places!

Enjoy my conversation with Chris!

LINKS:

Antiquated Future

Bandcamp

SUPPORT THE POD!!! THANK YOU!!! https://www.patreon.com/traegermethod

Music:

Christopher Sutton 'We're So Ugly' 'Baby Ornette' and 'Love Dub'

We also feature a short excerpt from The Transfused musical recorded live in Olympia in 2000.

TMpod theme by Jason

Episode 73: Gabe Dinger (Stand-up Comic, Portland Punk) Mar 11, 2023

Show notes

We’ve had run of Olympia music history episodes on the pod but with this one we’re heading south on i-5 and sprinkling in some stand-up comedy history.

Episode 73 is a conversation with my good friend, stand-up comic and 90’s/00’s Portland punk Gabe Dinger.

Now based in Los Angeles, Gabe and I met in 2011 when we were both working the stand-up stages of Portland. Gabe was one of my favorite established comics on the scene and after becoming friends we bonded further on our shared punk history.

He tells us about his preteen punk awakening in the Nu metal era. After being informed by a skater friend that there was more to punk than Green Day he followed the breadcrumbs left by bands like 7 Seconds and the DK’s to discover a vital current Portland scene centered around all ages Stage Four club and his high school punk band (and Recess Records' artists) Berserk.

From there we explore Gabe’s bio as a stand-up comic and the history of the Portland comedy scene that has helped develop many well known comics of today like Shane Torres, Ian Karmel, Amy Miller (TMpod ep. 31), and Gabe's tourmate and bestie Ron Funches to name but a few.

Thanks for listening and for supporting the pod. Enjoy!

Gabe's Instagram

SUPPORT THE POD THANK YOU!

Also mentioned:

Recess Records

SMEGMA Dives First into Punk Rock 1978/79 CD

Christopher Sutton 'You Brought Me Back From the Dead Cassette

Music:

Berserk: 'Traitor' and 'Die Questy Scum'

Theme by Jason

Episode 72: Pete Chramiec (Verbal Assault) returns! Feb 18, 2023

Show notes

So good to have Pete back on the pod.

This episode Pete Chramiec and I stretch the very definition of what a podcast can be. For instance, together we prove that a podcast CAN consist of two late-middle age men looking through some old stickers and flyers in real time.

We also demonstrate that if you space out a guest’s appearances it really doesn’t matter if we tell the same stories we’ve already talked about. Podcasting is a very intimate medium, I hope my voice feels like the voice of a friend even if we’ve never met. One thing I know about friendships, especially long term friendships: we tell and listen to the same stories a lot. So consider this episode a relaxed chill sesh with your friends Jason and Pete.

We do cover some new territory: we talk about the Unwound shows we recently caught, Pete tells us about the last couple Verbal Assault tours they did and I talk about the power of mindfulness when dealing with mood disorders. It’s a cool episode and I’m proud of it, so there!

Music:

Verbal Assault

‘Vicious Hippie’

‘Dead Society’

TM Theme by Jason

Support the Pod: PATREON (THANK YOU!)

Episode 71: Blaine Cook (The Fartz, 10 Minute Warning, The Accused, Toe Tag, Accused AD) Jan 28, 2023

Show notes

It was a real thrill talking with Seattle punk/hardcore/thrash LEGEND Blaine Cook for episode 71.

As a kid coming of age in the pre-Grunge Seattle punk scene of the early 80’s, for me and my friends The Fartz set the standard of what it meant to be a hardcore band. Their name sometimes drew snickers from the uninitiated but the intensity of their live shows and recordings, which owed everything to Blaine’s guttural sandpaper delivery, immediately dispelled any idea that this was some kind of novelty punk act. They were as hardcore as it gets.

In our conversation Blaine and I talk Seattle music (and skateboarding) history, and we chronicle his four decade career fronting and snarling with The Fartz, proto-grunge pioneers 10 Minute Warning, crossover/punk/thrash mainstays The Accused and Toe Tag up to his work today with The Accused AD. He is the epitome of an uncompromising punk rock n roll survivor.

I’m so happy to be able to share this conversation with Blaine Cook.

Links:

Blaine Cook:

Instagram

The Accused AD

Support the pod:

PATREON

Music:

The Fartz “You Got a Brain”

The Accused “Martha Splatterhead”

TM pod theme by Jason

Episode 70: Jason solo Mini-sode (Overcoming resistance, seeing The Mona Reels live, is Mick Jagger a golfer?) Jan 13, 2023

Show notes

Episode 70 is a SOLO MINI-SODE.

I've decided that here in season/year three of the podcast I am going to release an interview episode and a solo episode alternating weekly.

If you subscribe and support the pod because you love the conversations I have with musicians, artists and friends NOTHING IS CHANGING you will still get an episode like that every other week, just like you've been getting. The difference is now you will ALSO be getting another episode in-between those ones.

These solo episodes will be more free-form in nature, they’ll likely be of a shorter duration and will be whatever I want them to be; funny, philosophical, musical, meditative, self-help etc.

This week’s episode I talk about overcoming resistance to doing things you know are good for you, I share some funny stories and I talk about how much I enjoyed seeing The Mona Reels live in Portland.

Thank you so much for listening and supporting the pod!

PATREON

The Mona Reels

Music:

The Mona Reels live in Portland at Dante’s 01/11/23

Background ambient:

Fluidscape by Kevin MacLeod | https://incompetech.com/

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Creative Commons CC BY 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

Episode 69: Jared Warren (Unwound reunion, Big Business, Karp, The Melvins, Tight Bros) Jan 07, 2023

Show notes

Episode 69 (...grow up) is a conversation with low-end god and Oly punk legend, Jared Warren. Jared has kept it heavy since high school where he met his KARP bandmates, the late Scott Jernigan and guitarist Chris Smith.

From those beginnings he has gone on to front and play in several legendary combos, The Tight Bros From Way Back When, The Whip, and his current and most enduring job fronting and playing bass in his Big Business , his mega-duo with drummer Cody Willis. Big Business joined forces for many years with The Melvins and did the seemingly impossible: made the legends of heavy even heavier.

Today he is looking forward to playing bass on the upcoming Unwound tour where he will stand in the spot where the late Vern Rumsey once stood. Jared tell us about his relationship with him, one that stretches back even before high school when he first met 'The Straw Haired Boy' at their mom’s Tupperware party as children.

CONTENT WARNING:

We also share some darkly funny stories of our time working together in Olympia with a developmentally disabled population some of whom were formerly institutionalized sex offenders. We don’t get into anything graphic but thought I should still mention it.

We also share even more harrowing stories of the time we started doing stand-up comedy in Seattle in the very late 90’s/ early 2000’s.

Please enjoy my conversation with Jared Warren!

support the pod: Patreon thank you!

Music: Karp ‘Bacon Industry’

Big Business ’No Vowels’

short excerpt at break: Silly Killers ‘Knife Manual’

TM theme by Jason

Episode 68: Jason's New Years Eve/Day Reflections and Projections (Non-Duality talk) Jan 02, 2023

Show notes

HAPPY NEW YEAR TM POD LISTENERS!

This episode I say goodbye to 2022 and hello to 2023 with some reflections and projections on them both.

The bulk of the episode is dedicated to examining the non-dual perspective that has so informed and made possible the transformation I’ve experienced since a profound depressive episode at the end of 2021. Hopefully some of what I share is useful and helpful to listeners who might struggle with being ok and finding joy in their lives.

Here’s some of the names I mention in the episode:

‘Seeds of Consciousness’

‘I Am That’

collected talks by Sri Nisargadatta Maharaj

Rupert Spira on Youtube

Wisdom of the Masters podcast

THANK YOU for listening and for supporting the pod!

Music:

Surreal Forest by Meydän | https://linktr.ee/meydan

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Creative Commons CC BY 4.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/

and

Serena (Longer Version) by Spheriá | https://soundcloud.com/spheriamusic

Music promoted by https://www.chosic.com/free-music/all/

Creative Commons CC BY-SA 3.0

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/

Episode 67: Tobi Vail (Bikini Kill, the podcast return of...) Dec 10, 2022

Show notes

Episode 67 features the return of Tobi Vail to the pod! Last time she was on we spent most of the episode covering her musical / cultural biography, growing up punk rock in western Washington.

This time around we focus primarily on her life today, making music at home and in residencies with groups likeGirlsperm and Morgan and the Organ Donors when not touring the world with the newly reformedBikini Kill.

We hear her account of the fraught and sometimes alienating reality of touring in the Covid era and also how fun and exciting it is to be out there playing to the biggest crowds of her decades long career.

Tobi also shares with us her enthusiasm for a current crop of artists and the joy she finds pursuing a lifelong course of learning and growing both as a musician and scholar of music history.

It’s a fun and inspiring conversation, and I’m happy to share it with you, dear listener.

Music:

Bikini Kill ‘Hamster Baby’ Live at Capitol Theater, Olympia 11/09/22

Girlsperm ‘What Do I Do with My Guitar’

TMpod theme by Jason

SUPPORT THE POD THANK YOU:

PATREON

Episode 66: Brandt Sandeno (Giant Henry/Unwound, Survival Knife, Olympia Music) Nov 26, 2022

Show notes

Happy (American) Thanksgiving to all TM pod listeners! I’m delighted to say TM pod ep. 66 marks the first ever podcast appearance, here or anywhere else, of musician, friend, founding Unwound member Brandt Sandeno!

Brandt and I talk about his musical origin story beginning as a teen at Tumwater High School with his (pre-Unwound) Giant Henry bandmates Justin Trosper and Vern Rumsey. He describes how as a passionate guitarist, he was the band’s drummer out of necessity and was happy to turn over the throne to Sara Lund not long after G.H.’s name change.

Brandt went on to play keyboards with Unwound and would throughout the years frequently collaborate with Justin in other projects such as Survival Knife, The Young Ginns, Replikants among others. He shares a ton of great stories and paints a vivid picture of the influential Olympia music scene of the 80’s and 90’s from his perspective as a local kid growing up in that fertile place and time.

The two of us also get into some funny tales of our time as co-workers at K Records and in the halls of power at the Washington State capitol.

Hope you enjoy our conversation as much as I did making it. Thank you for listening!

Music:

Survival Knife 'Divine Mob'

Giant Henry 'Chris Jordan'

TM pod theme by Jason

Survival Knife

Unwound self titled LP featuring Brandt

Support the pod!