Welcome
Episode 7 Unlikely Pairs
Some things are not supposed to go together.
Hip hop and ballet.
Rap and orchestras.
Cartoons in street verses.
Silence in a song.
Then someone does it anyway.
In Wu-Tang: An American Saga, orchestral strings enter a room of hip hop legends. At first, resistance. Then expansion.
Run-D.M.C. and Aerosmith smash genres on Walk This Way and culture shifts.
King Crimson holds chaos and restraint in the same breath.
Frank Zappa calls music “decorating time.”
Then silence.
John Cage reminds us it is never empty.
Contrast creates tension.
Tension creates attention.
We are contradictions.
Light and shadow at once.
Unlikely pairs are not accidents.
They are evolution.
The art is not the clash.
It’s the courage to let it stand.
Mentions and References
🎬 Wu-Tang: An American Saga
🎧 Wu-Tang Clan
🎧 Run-D.M.C. — Walk This Way
🎸 Aerosmith
🎸 King Crimson
🎼 Frank Zappa
🎼 John Cage
“Inspiration exists, but it has to find you working.” — Pablo Picasso
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True Fans and AI Web Crawlers we proudly present… The Transcript
Episode 7 Unlikely Pairs
[00:00:00] The Musician: Hey everybody.
[00:00:08] The Writer: I’m the Writer.
[00:00:10] The Musician: I’m the Musician.
[00:00:12] The Writer: Welcome everyone.
[00:00:14] The Musician: Cheers.
[00:00:14] The Writer: Cheers.
[00:00:22] The Musician: On today’s show, let’s put things together that don’t belong together.
[00:00:32] The Writer: Oh, that’s delicious.
[00:00:33] The Musician: Let’s talk about unconventional pairs, like that book. What’s that book that you love with the pets? Like, uh, the Duck with the Monkey and the Horse With the
[00:00:46] The Writer: Unlikely friendships,
[00:00:47] The Musician: the Horse with the Snake, and it’s all these weird,
[00:00:50] The Writer: oh, that book is so good.
[00:00:51] The Writer: It’s called Unlikely Friendships. It’s all these random animals, they get together and just adore each [00:01:00] other.
[00:01:02] The Musician: It’s funny to think that some animals that wouldn’t get along in nature might even be enemies, can become friends if we were applying that to art. Maybe there’s things that don’t go together naturally at all, and even if you thought about it, were contrasting or unlikely to pair together, but that could be a direction for your art somehow.
[00:01:29] The Musician: Taking contrasting things, putting ’em together. Maybe that even happens a lot of times in art and we don’t realize that’s what we love so much about the art, is that they’re, they’re waking up our brain by putting things together that don’t naturally go together. Certain colors or mediums or,
[00:01:47] The Writer: or objects or,
[00:01:48] The Musician: yeah,
[00:01:49] The Writer: textures,
[00:01:51] The Musician: everything.
[00:01:52] The Writer: And it seems like such a playful state when you find that unexpected moment of putting [00:02:00] two things together that don’t normally go together. Like we watched a movie recently where hip hop and ballet was combined and I thought it was so cool ’cause at the end, like I’ve never seen those two combined together.
[00:02:15] The Writer: But it was brilliant and so beautiful.
[00:02:18] The Musician: Fusion.
[00:02:20] The Writer: Yeah,
[00:02:21] The Musician: like some fusion restaurants putting together Mexican food and sushi.
[00:02:27] The Writer: Yeah, like that sounds so gross. At first,
[00:02:30] The Musician: it doesn’t sound right, but then there’s sushi burritos, which people are making a thing that is a sushi burrito, but it’s not actually Mexican.
[00:02:40] The Musician: It’s just sushi, but in the shape of a burrito. And there’s a place here in San Diego that’s doing sushi, that has a carne asada roll or a adobada roll. Some sort of a Mexican flavor, but it’s a sushi roll and I don’t know if they still bring you the [00:03:00] wasabi and and soy sauce and chopsticks and
[00:03:03] The Writer: I’m really looking forward to going on a date there with you.
[00:03:06] The Writer: I think it’ll be so great.
[00:03:09] The Musician: It’s a place here in San Diego called North Park Sushi.
[00:03:12] The Writer: The other night we watched one of the last episodes of the Wu-Tang, an American saga that is on What platform is that on? Is it Hulu?
[00:03:23] The Musician: We watched it on Hulu. I’m not sure if that’s where,
[00:03:26] The Writer: and it’s so good. And the episode that we saw was when they were making music for the Forever album and Rza all of a sudden brings in these people from the orchestra and the Wu-Tang is there in the living room, just kind of looking around like RZA, what’s up?
[00:03:51] The Writer: What do you
[00:03:51] The Musician: you
[00:03:51] The Writer: expect us to do with that?
[00:03:52] The Musician: they were straight up defiant.
[00:03:54] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:03:55] The Musician: It didn’t belong.
[00:03:56] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:03:56] The Musician: In their minds. But that’s, he was having dreams [00:04:00] about, he was having a vision of something groundbreaking, going in new directions and trying to expand the world of hip hop
[00:04:06] The Writer: and rise up.
[00:04:08] The Musician: They didn’t see it.
[00:04:08] The Writer: Yeah,
[00:04:09] The Musician: they couldn’t see it. They just, they just wanted to do more of the same and keep going. That’s what’s making money do it.
[00:04:14] The Writer: And Rza had a whole different way of looking at it,
[00:04:17] The Musician: which is almost playing it too safe.
[00:04:19] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:04:20] The Musician: And you know, with them being the street, you have to be able to adapt
[00:04:25] The Writer: and how, that was the first time I saw and realized that WU means witty and unexpected.
[00:04:37] The Musician: There’s, there’s other, there’s other, they’ve taken the acronym, different directions.
[00:04:42] The Writer: Have they? What are some other ones?
[00:04:43] The Musician: I can’t say.
[00:04:48] The Musician: Yeah, we usually take uh, N garments.
[00:04:56] The Writer: Oh, right, right.
[00:04:57] The Musician: I just won’t say.
[00:04:58] The Writer: Okay. Yeah.
[00:04:59] The Musician: [00:05:00] Respect, respectfully. They’re really playful though. That’s the witty part. And I think that even comes from ODB and Method Man, more than any of the other wu.
[00:05:11] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:05:12] The Musician: That playfulness.
[00:05:14] The Writer: In art that we need that playfulness
[00:05:16] The Musician: because method man, here’s his first rap on the first album.
[00:05:22] The Musician: Mostly he’s talking about cartoon characters. He brings up so many different cartoon characters in his rhymes in that. And that’s not street. It’s not street to be talking about Mickey Mouse or
[00:05:38] The Writer: Oh yeah, that’s right.
[00:05:40] The Musician: But he says. Yip. Yo, I ain’t your average mc with your average flow. So he’s saying that he’s, he’s leveling up and he’s on point.
[00:05:55] The Musician: And actually then in forever, he’s the first one to sit down RZA and say, oh, these are the new tracks. [00:06:00] Great. I’ll put down the lyrics. He was the first one. He says, I’m a soldier. I’m always ready.
[00:06:05] The Writer: Yes, that’s right. And for everyone, go listen to it. It’s so great with an orchestral mixed in with hip hop sound.
[00:06:17] The Writer: Oh, it’s so beautiful. Deep beats. Mm.
[00:06:23] The Musician: Just so I can put light to it, if somebody hadn’t heard the Method Man song, he talks about Sam, I Am Green Eggs and Ham. He talks about, I saw a Puddy tat. He talks about Fat Albert. He then, you know, keeps it real with all the shaolin and, and all the, the wu slang. But he’s got this chim, chimney, chim, chim, cherri, and playful.
[00:06:50] The Musician: I love it. I think that’s what, um, the unconventional, unlikely friends, the fusion in food, hip hop, and ballet, I think all [00:07:00] of it represents a playfulness versus how these things are so contrasting that they might combat or they might not agree, they might really clash and really rub wrong and make you feel uncomfortable if you thought about it too much.
[00:07:18] The Musician: But with an imagination and your playful attitude and with this exploration that you have into new forms of art and music and and fashion and everything, even fashion on, uh. Project runway we watched, they would, they would always be unconventional challenges and trying to put abstract into formal wear, put street into something else and trying to combine and, and fuse styles together.
[00:07:51] The Musician: There can be a beauty to that
[00:07:52] The Writer: and it seems really friendly in this way. Be even just being able to see two things [00:08:00] going together that don’t normally go together like your mind. In a way has to have some harmony.
[00:08:07] The Musician: I was thinking about that harmony and connection. More connecting the dots and finding ways to increase the vibration.
[00:08:17] The Musician: Say, go ahead.
[00:08:19] The Writer: Oh, I was just gonna say like even just welcoming that, welcoming two things that don’t normally go together, like sending this invitation for it to create a complementation. And just see how they interact with each other.
[00:08:36] The Musician: Like we’ve talked about in the burner community, there’s this radical expression where you’ll see someone in a suit right next to somebody in a onesie, right next to a naked person, right next to somebody in the wildest costumes.
[00:08:49] The Musician: And, and all these fun contrasting elements all go together and, and get together into this big, big community [00:09:00] of everyone accepting each other for what they’re doing. Nobody has to be the same. But the similarity is in the confidence you bring your own funk and the way you accept other people’s funk, to give them the confidence to be themself.
[00:09:15] The Musician: And at that level, I think we really can meet and see each other more clearly. By not making everybody the same, by not making everyone conform to your style, your flavor. What, what, what you bring to the table.
[00:09:32] The Writer: Absolutely. Yeah. A hundred million percent that like so much
[00:09:40] The Musician: in, in some weird math where it’s acceptable to have over a hundred percent.
[00:09:46] The Musician: Definitely a million.
[00:09:49] The Writer: Cheers.
[00:09:50] The Musician: Cheers.
[00:09:51] The Writer: To being different. And just yourself and
[00:09:55] The Musician: cheers to
[00:09:56] The Writer: ccra craziness, whatever it is you wanna do to express yourself.
[00:09:59] The Musician: You [00:10:00] know, it reminds me of Faith No More back in the day. And it got so popular so quickly despite the fact that when most people were catching it the first time, it wasn’t the continuity for them to hear such hard rock with, with hip hop sensibility.
[00:10:19] The Musician: Or even experimental music. Mike Patton brought a very experimental, some of his melodies and the way that he put things together, it was so unconventional, and I think that sort of broke people to be like, wait, I’m so into metal. Why am I now enjoying hip hop with my metal? And how run DMC had did that with Aerosmith.
[00:10:41] The Musician: Aerosmith walk this way.
[00:10:43] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:10:44] The Musician: And that was a serious break. Anyway, that was a serious record that people would play that those drum beats to rap over before the guitars ever came in. They’d let it go to the guitar, Beastie Boys and run DMC, and they put the The Rock with the rap and just made people get down with it by, [00:11:00] by their enthusiasm.
[00:11:02] The Musician: I think you have to own it. I think that’s one of these things about,
[00:11:05] The Writer: yes,
[00:11:05] The Musician: the unconventional combinations. You have to own it. If you, if you limp in, if you’re timid at all with it, people will strike you down and say that those don’t go together. And you might agree. Okay. Sorry.
[00:11:20] The Writer: Wow, that is such a major part of it, isn’t it?
[00:11:23] The Musician: Owning it.
[00:11:24] The Writer: Owning it. The belief in it.
[00:11:26] The Musician: Even the most contrasting things somehow compliment each other. The light and the dark. You know, you need light to make shadows, which are darkness. You know, darkness begs for the light, and it seems like maybe these contrasting things want each other somehow. They want some connection, and so you are doing a favor to life by taking two things that that are so diametrically opposed, like so opposite.
[00:11:53] The Writer: That’s beautiful.
[00:11:54] The Musician: And bringing it all together and finding a connection. Yeah. I think then you can maybe find some connections within yourself, parts of [00:12:00] yourself that were incongruous and you can make more sense of why can I be so blissfully happy and yet at the same time then break down to tears for something that’s really sad or be in the middle of a very sad moment and have this deep, deep sadness within you, but still laugh and make light.
[00:12:23] The Writer: All of that happened to me just yesterday.
[00:12:27] The Musician: Like one of those things that would be so, you know, odd to be say at a funeral and have somebody making jokes and have people laughing when they’re actually all really sad, but the laughter almost feels refreshing or good to, to compliment.
[00:12:45] The Writer: Mm. Maybe that’s a driving force behind why we even create art with contrasting elements, perhaps because it does help us to feel more human. [00:13:00]
[00:13:00] The Musician: Mm. Mm-hmm.
[00:13:03] The Writer: And get in touch with that and embrace it, but also because it helps us feel more alive.
[00:13:10] The Musician: Yes. Like how they say that. Say you had a skid out in your car and you almost, oh my God, and you’re okay.
[00:13:19] The Musician: I’m okay. I feel so alive at that moment where you might have been, I don’t wanna say close to death, but, you know.
[00:13:25] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:13:26] The Musician: Uh, rollercoasters. Why are they so exciting being at the edge of the cliff, and why is all this stuff make you, you feel so alive? It’s like daredevils, skydiving. Oh, it was amazing. Life changing.
[00:13:38] The Musician: I feel so alive after I jumped out of this plane.
[00:13:41] The Writer: What is it that we’re touching about touching inside of ourselves? Is it the like quality of life, the unknown or the,
[00:13:52] The Musician: it could be the
[00:13:53] The Writer: impermanence or
[00:13:55] The Musician: it could be the basic atoms positive charge. Negative charge. They [00:14:00] somehow love each other. Negative spins around the positive.
[00:14:03] The Musician: Mm-hmm. Yeah. And loves itself. There’s a little love relationship in the atom itself.
[00:14:09] The Writer: Aw, that’s sweet.
[00:14:10] The Musician: But in the bigger picture, you have to somehow let your negative and positive dance. Oh,
[00:14:16] The Writer: that right there.
[00:14:17] The Musician: Dance in harmony.
[00:14:18] The Writer: Oh my gosh. Okay. So sometimes I just wanna lick Errrric’s brain because he says these things that I love so much.
[00:14:26] The Writer: So I’m licking his brain
[00:14:30] The Musician: because my brain is made of candy.
[00:14:37] The Writer: And the atoms that like to dance with each other, that’s his brain and that’s my tongue licking it.
[00:14:47] The Writer: Cheers.
[00:14:48] The Musician: Cheers.
[00:14:53] The Musician: You know, I’m even thinking about the contrast of, uh, the cream in my coffee. Ooh, [00:15:00] the bitter hot coffee with the smooth cold cream.
[00:15:07] The Writer: Yes.
[00:15:07] The Musician: And somehow that contrast just lights me up.
[00:15:10] The Writer: Me too,
[00:15:14] The Writer: every morning. Cheers. And cheers.
[00:15:22] The Musician: I had actually heard that while people think Starbucks sells a lot of coffee, no, they sell a lot of milk through all the frappuccinos and lattes and cappuccino and everything that people are doing, they sell a lot of milk.
[00:15:40] The Writer: I heard that they have a cow in there.
[00:15:48] The Writer: Just kidding.
[00:15:52] The Musician: To have a cow on staff.
[00:15:55] The Writer: Imagine
[00:15:56] The Musician: clocks in.
[00:15:58] The Writer: Yeah. [00:16:00] Yeah. You gotta pay it
[00:16:01] The Musician: and produces hard.
[00:16:03] The Writer: Totally.
[00:16:03] The Musician: And then goes home exhausted.
[00:16:08] The Musician: My teats are so sore. My, from working at Starbucks all day.
[00:16:13] The Writer: Oh, I gonna massage my teats eric massage for me at the end of the day.
[00:16:23] The Writer: I just have such a good imagination because imagine if there were cows there.
[00:16:28] The Musician: Well, it’d be kinda like that Bob’s Burger episode.
[00:16:32] The Writer: Oh, tell me more.
[00:16:33] The Musician: They thought it was so fun to have the cow until it started like going to the bathroom on their floor.
[00:16:38] The Writer: Oh no.
[00:16:39] The Musician: And it’s like gallons and gallons and gallons.
[00:16:41] The Musician: Not fun. Not fun at all. And that place would smell.
[00:16:46] The Writer: Oh yeah.
[00:16:47] The Musician: You talk about the imagination, but. It could have been funnier if you think about it. It could be like a guy in a cow suit.
[00:16:57] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:16:58] The Musician: Like two, two [00:17:00] guys of the head and the tail.
[00:17:03] The Writer: Yeah, I can see it. What are some other contrasting elements in art?
[00:17:12] The Musician: You know, there’s graphic design classes and there’s probably entire days, if not weeks, devoted to contrasting a hard line with a soft edge a, a soft texture with a hard texture, a, a dark and light on the color wheel. I, I bet they spend too much time actually learning how to balance contrast.
[00:17:38] The Writer: Yeah.
[00:17:40] The Musician: Probably it doesn’t come naturally. I, I know that that’s one thing that frustrated me in music classes in school was there wasn’t a great emphasis on contrast and, and doing your own thing.
[00:17:54] The Musician: It was like, here’s the classical way to do this, play the music as written. [00:18:00] I’m sure it’s changed more and more, but there wasn’t much experimental in going for your music degree. It wasn’t emphasis on contrast or experiment or color outside the lines. It was pretty,
[00:18:16] The Writer: yeah, free being free and playful. Yeah,
[00:18:19] The Musician: it was pretty much,
[00:18:19] The Writer: it was just follow this structured routine this way it is
[00:18:26] The Musician: until you got to jazz soloing, but that’s solo on top of so much structure.
[00:18:34] The Musician: Like, almost like they put the jazz container around it so you could
[00:18:38] The Writer: Hmm. Yeah.
[00:18:39] The Musician: Make the jazz noises like inside that little box.
[00:18:45] The Writer: Oh, that sounds so fun. And just break rules.
[00:18:48] The Musician: Well, one of my favorite professors had us solo using only one note, and I thought that was the most brilliant lesson that day. And it was so hard for people.[00:19:00]
[00:19:01] The Musician: You know, you take these players like saxophone player or a guitar player, and they’ve studied their scales so much. They know all the scales and all the notes and they just go [diddly diddly ding]
[00:19:12] The Musician: whatever they’re doing and their magic with all these notes and wow, it sounds so amazing. But now one note, just one note and make it interesting. And when you’re that limited and you’re, it all comes down to rhythm, it comes down to inflection, it comes down to dynamics. It comes down to so many things since you’re now limited by not being able to play all the notes, that when you take all of what you learned in a one note solo and put it into multiple notes, those solos become even better with all the dynamics, rhythms, and everything you learn from a one note solo. So there’s a lot to be learned in that improvisational space.
[00:19:53] The Musician: It’s not just about the notes you play, it’s the feeling you put behind the notes [00:20:00] that really makes it.
[00:20:01] The Writer: Do you ever feel like when you’re making music that you’re part of the contrasting element would be silence, like you’re
[00:20:09] The Musician: Yes.
[00:20:09] The Writer: You’re
[00:20:10] The Musician: always
[00:20:11] The Writer: almost like you’re playing and creating the music to speak to the silence.
[00:20:19] The Musician: Silence is almost my favorite note.
[00:20:22] The Writer: Oh, that’s so cool.
[00:20:25] The Musician: In composition, I wonder sometimes how far I can go. Without playing a note, like how long I can keep a bed of silence before a note has to happen to keep it interesting. I’d love, you know, to explore a space of like the most minimal beat possible and just the bare bones, like this is necessary to make the groove happen, but nothing in there is unnecessary and there’s plenty of that open space.
[00:20:50] The Musician: It gives you that tension, it gives you that feeling of what’s gonna happen and the note happens and then you get that resolution, you go, oh, well there it [00:21:00] is.
[00:21:00] The Writer: Oh, that makes me think of dancing, and I know that people dance to music, but it by the way you describe that, it sounds like just making the music is a dance in itself.
[00:21:12] The Musician: Oh, yeah.
[00:21:13] The Writer: Or making art in any art is a dance or even a connection, a relationship.
[00:21:20] The Musician: Yeah, that’s,
[00:21:21] The Writer: it’s a dance
[00:21:23] The Musician: that’s my favorite. If we’re talking about contrasting, that’s my favorite thing is the contrast between silence and sound. I think that is music, but silence is like the canvas that, that a composer creates their art onto. They create their art onto silence, or Frank Zappa had called it Decorating Time with Music notes.
[00:21:44] The Writer: Ooh, I love that. Decorating time with musical notes.
[00:21:49] The Musician: So you get that contrast. Silence and sound. Silence and sound and that like our original podcast about everything and nothing, the nothing [00:22:00] being that space that you put something onto to create focus, to focus on something, you put it in its own little field of just that one thing.
[00:22:11] The Musician: It helps you define your art. To have either a blank canvas or silence. Once you put something on there that something becomes really important, you make an importance of something with the more silence or the more space negative space that you put into your art. In our topic of contrast today, I think that’s one of my favorites actually, how long you can go before a note is necessary to keep the continuity of what you’re doing.
[00:22:41] The Musician: Continuity is so important. But if you didn’t have to play a note, why did you play it? I don’t like unnecessary embellishments,
[00:22:49] The Writer: right? Yeah.
[00:22:52] The Musician: Why some people would say Ringo wasn’t that great of a drummer, but I’m like, he was a great drummer for what he did. It was very minimal, but [00:23:00] his beats were what was needed to really make that groove happen.
[00:23:05] The Musician: And he didn’t put in more than was necessary.
[00:23:09] The Writer: Hmm.
[00:23:09] The Musician: He put like just the right amount. Minimal. I like minimal. Not to say I don’t like complexities. Things like King Crimson where you know, all the musicians are playing in three different time signatures, but then they all lock in on the one at the 21st beat and it’s this musical mathematical masturbation.
[00:23:30] The Writer: Oh wow. I wanna hear that song.
[00:23:35] The Musician: You’ve heard it.
[00:23:38] The Musician: Listen to indiscipline. By King Crimson.
[00:23:42] The Writer: Oh yeah. You have played that for me.
[00:23:44] The Musician: It’s fantastic.
[00:23:46] The Writer: Yeah. Yeah. Both minimal and complexity. I jive with both
[00:23:53] The Musician: contrast.
[00:23:54] The Writer: Yeah,
[00:23:54] The Musician: and they do both. King Crimson has some really minimal beautiful songs that, that are really [00:24:00] minimal, minimally done versus some of their complexities, the real complex arrangements.
[00:24:09] The Musician: I think we have somehow reached the end of our podcast. Just, uh, an abrupt, we’ll just put tear, tear on the brakes. And end it all.
[00:24:21] The Writer: Thank you everyone for joining us on our conversation.
[00:24:25] The Musician: We’ll catch you on the next podcast.
[00:24:27] The Writer: Cheers.
[00:24:28] The Musician: Cheers everybody.
[00:24:29] The Writer: Love you.