Maximum Fun Forum

An interview with jazz pianist Robert Glasper, who transforms the 90s grunge hit Smells Like Teen Spirit into something surprisingly beautiful. Then Pendleton Ward talks about his animated show Adventure Time. It combines two great elements of boyhood: innocence and Dungeons & Dragons! Plus, Found Magazine's Davy Rothbart shares a mysterious note uncovered in Texas and Andrew Noz shares some of his favorite tracks!

Bullseye with Jesse Thorn: Robert Glasper, Pendleton Ward, Andrew Noz and Davy Rothbart

Two weeks in a row...two people who have met Mr. Rogers. I sense a theme.

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This was a terrific episode! Bullseye's such a well assembled production.

(Also I'd really really like to see the drawing that Pen did of Jesse.)

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Steve Wolfhard
Twitter http://twitter.com/wolfhard
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Co-sign!

Perhaps it deserves its' own threat: MaxFunster Found Magazine submissions?
http://i94.photobucket.com/albums/l108/ ... /Found.jpg

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Treat Yo Self!

My duet with my cat Yoko: http://khu.sh/songify_4ff28357361cf&v2

Oh man, it never occurred to me that you could just put dumb drawings on twitter, thats all I'm going to do now!

my apologies in advance for crashing Twitter.

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Is there anyway to post a scan of the drawing Pendleton made of Jesse because that sounds like the greatest thing ever. I want to see the way he pursed his lips!

I really enjoyed Glasper's thoughts about the future of jazz. I think he's pushing things in interesting directions. But what he's really doing, as he put it, is extending jazz into other genres. What historically pushed jazz forward, though, was incorporating elements of other genres into jazz, not the other way around. I think pushing too far into other genres loses jazz's essence or just creates a "mash up." But bringing new things in can fundamentally change jazz, like in the birth of hard bop, fusion, and Latin jazz.

I think jazz is facing a problem a lot of music is now, and that's also something talked about on Bullseye, which is looking backward and bringing back old ideas, not truly making new ones.

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Flee The Scene Podcast | @DoctorHighFive

Adventure Time went from something I knew nothing about to something I figured was probably worth my time to know something about when I learned that the amazing Ryan North of Dinosaur Comics was writing some Adventure Time comics, but it hearing it described as Dungeons and Dragons adventures in a post-apocalyptic wonderland ticked enough of my "things that are amazing" boxes that I got off my duff and set up the DVR to record it. It's so great.

There's always been at least some element of conservatism in jazz. Louis Armstrong of course famously hated bop. But in the 40s, the voice of the forward thinking jazz musicians was much louder and stronger than the establishment (maybe because the establishment was much less established then), so more progressive jazz ideas were able to flourish and outshine the stodgy old swing set. But definitely now that jazz is as established as it is, it is a lot easier for the Kralls of the world to dominate newer voices.

And an interesting thing about these being the most powerful jazz conservers is that it makes other conservative fans, who maybe just want to listen to iterations of Mingus and Evans tunes, seem forward thinking in comparison (I'm not sure if Robert had in mind one or both types of people in this conversation, certainly his comments could apply to either), when they are in some ways even louder in their contempt for things like electric bass or synth sounds in jazz, or other rocky elements - things that became common practice almost forty years ago.

I really enjoyed hearing this jazz conversation. I'm happy that there's people who are forward thinking and awesome making jazz today. I will definitely be picking up some of Robert's stuff.

Separately, the bit in the note in the Found section where the kid writes "every boy likes you except for some" is the best thing I have ever heard.

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