Name: Office Hours Songwriters Roundtable w/ Steve Gunn & Jeff Parker
Uploaded: 2022-04-01T23:43:43.000Z
Description: Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Office Hours Songwriters Roundtable w/ Steve Gunn & Jeff Parker' from Tim Heidecker on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-01. Transcript available.

Watch the stand-up comedy video 'Office Hours Songwriters Roundtable w/ Steve Gunn & Jeff Parker' from Tim Heidecker on Comedy Buff. Published 2022-04-01. Transcript available.

Office Hours Songwriters Roundtable w/ Steve Gunn & Jeff Parker

okay yes we're live it's official well ladies and gentlemen i am tim heidecker
it's friday
it is april fools so uh we have a bit of a surprise for you here in the studio
is bruce
springsteen and uh george w bush no just kidding we didn't have any it just
occurred to me that
we have we're doing this on april fools and if you know people expect stuff
like that from us
always be ready for anything do you have any april fools day uh plans tonight
tim you know we don't celebrate april fool that's amateur hour that's true
every other day of the
year yeah we take a day off today we do serious stuff that's true that's what
we're doing today
uh we are here in the studio uh with two uh legends
i think jeff parker and steve gunn are you on mic yeah you are you're laughed
up yeah just do a mic
check two two two two hey hey hey check here we go and dj doug pound is here
hello vick burger woke up
with a what he's claimed was a sore throat i assume he's just i think he's he's
is that a joke he's
making that shit up i think he's uh like back in the high school days i'm
embarrassed because i came
down and steve was here you're a little off oh i'm a little off mike yeah and
steve said good he did
the old good to see you again i said long time long time no see
i might as well do drops okay
i felt like i was losing my mind
and i didn't realize but we had met many years ago a long time ago my feelings
weren't hurt that you
didn't remember and we grew up well we didn't grow up together but in the
college they went to college
around the same time at the same college yeah did where were you in any classes
together
were you in film school i was yeah what the yeah you think i would remember a
steve gun
right did you change your name were you under another name no well that would
have been
oh steve schneider we definitely like hung out on campus i remember you had a
shaved head
i was a not i was a skinhead nazi i was a white powder guy you had a shaved
head in college too
yeah well not a shaved head i don't know why i remember that but i had like a
crew cut
why because i was into hard right politics the white shoelaces and then when
did you switch
very recently um with uh 2004
hey listen we all i just used to see the tattoos i have
not good yes with the long sleeves to cover up
um jeff we've never met no never met do you know who i am familiar with my work
part of it and it's fine it's okay any answer is safe here uh no thank you i
feel good about that
i feel okay with that now doug is from chicago oh that's a good question
that's not a question no i've seen you perform many times with tortoise and um
i saw you at
recently well not that recently but at that bar on fig when you were playing
monday nights
yeah i recognize you i definitely i think i was probably standing next to
someone you actually
knew and i was like hi i'm friends with someone you know because you live here
in l.a yeah i live
oh i live in alfadena oh okay cool well this was just down the street for you
yeah not to don't
get my address out you got pasadena and you have the alternate dina that's the
one that's nice you
like you like you like it out there i do yeah all right well we're neighbors
now yeah maybe we'll
become friends i don't know yes we'll see how this goes um well we saw you guys
last night at zebulon
a great show thank you thank you um steve you you're playing uh with a but you're
playing with the band
tonight tonight are you playing with the band tonight as well yes your band uh
kind of this man these
keeps falling out of my ear oh here's the trick you go over the back okay
there you go oh yeah there you go okay thanks yeah i'm actually playing with
the group that i play
with on monday nights the group that you saw oh you are where uh tonight at uh
zebulon oh cool where
do you play monday nights again what's it called it's called eta it's on uh in
highland park oh wow
56 uh avenue 56 in figueroa okay it's a hot band i just saw them last monday
and it was
very very good i've never been invited it's very good to go
you do and it's a standing appointment you're just that's what you do mondays
yeah most i mean the
thing ever since things have opened back up like everybody's getting really
busy now so i don't know
when we'll be able to do it again oh because the band you play with have other
obligations yeah um
all right i think we're good i just want to clarify that thanks for having us
yeah yeah definitely um
steve you you have an album that it's just has come out fairly recently right
this year yeah it came out
like in late august early september of last year yes and are you are you so you
guys are on tour
is this a tour it is it's kind of it hasn't taken flight yet because we're here
for we're playing the
zebulon three you're playing zebulon three nights at three the last night was
our first night and then
we have two more right and then we go on the road and go all the way up to vancouver
is it a van tour
situation it's just vehicle it's really nice kind of vehicle it's a minivan
okay so it's a minivan tour
but when you hit the road you're not bringing other people it's just the two of
you
and our associate michael and michael yeah so it's the three of us what do you
put on the what do you
listen to in the van do you figure it out yet is it quiet is there talking if
you let's let's let's uh
doug's van uh ambiance of the van and highway sounds now no let's just let's
role play who's driving
you're driving michael's driving michael's driving michael's driving michael
get in here
michael
come kneel down use that microphone and we're going to simulate
okay you're you're you're about an hour into the you're about an hour into the
drive and take it away scene and scene
i'm in i'm usually in the passenger okay so make that happen so you gotta i'm
usually in the back
jeff's usually in the back steve's sitting shotgun okay we're usually listening
i like to listen to the wfmu
archive of like i have there's a handful of shows i like to listen all the time
and wwz in new orleans
there's like a few shows and they're like three hour shows which is kind of
nice for drives
and steve's like put on wmmr yeah we'll put on wisp philly definitely classic
rock sometimes i'll pop my
headphones in okay to maybe listen to something different yeah i like to do
that when i'm in a road
trip situation and i feel like it's kind of rude i'm worried that it's rude but
i don't think it's rude
once you get once you get moving no one no one's feelings are hurt i want to be
in my own zone and
it's easier i'm sorry i i excused him i think that should be a more acceptable
thing to do is to
listen to you whatever you want in your that's because i don't know he's canceling
headphones i
listen i like to listen to a lot of dumb stuff sometimes like what what do you
mean by dumb stuff
in sync i don't know yeah maybe if i'm feeling it you know no or like pop music
or i have sometimes my
attention span is is different and i feel like i want to listen to just kind of
maybe things that
i wouldn't necessarily listen to just to kind of because i'm sitting still in a
moving vehicle right
and have time i have trouble reading in the van oh that's really hard so i'm
just sort of like
you know watching the road how about you jeff what are you putting on me i'm
usually in the back
listening uh i usually have my my headphones in and i'm usually listening to
jazz jazz joe henderson
i listen to recordings of people playing 20 questions
that'd be a fun podcast 20 questions okay let's do it do you know the song 21
questions by
there's um it's like a rap song 21 questions yeah i know 31 flavors is that
what it's called it's 50
cent i'm j period it's a great song let's hear it it's not this will be our entree
into it's a great
song songwriting analysis very long it's about a breakup well we're going to
talk about songwriting
analysis oh yeah is it this is um 50 cent yeah
oh i know this song i know that beat
was that that was nate dog or no that was that was the dog scene
have either of you been sampled on a hip-hop song uh yes in from uh tortoise no
from uh
chicago underground uh core trio but and then i forget who the i think it was
black milk
sampled it black milk yeah i don't know black there's a cool name though um he's
from uh detroit i think
he's a producer from detroit um steve yes um what how uh where why that's just
that's a game go
through a wheel of those four things and we have to choose which one to start
with but i mean basic
question like how do you how do you approach starting to write a song what is
the first part of that
process that is is it is there a system that you have in your life to control
that or is it hard to
have any control over it it kind of comes in little bits i play sometimes i'll
play a lot of little
guitar here and there yeah and i say oh that sounds good right i'll maybe
record it on my phone or
sometimes i have a i have a little studio at home but i have a little zoom
recorder so i kind of try to
keep little things that i come up with and then move on i tend to like do all
kinds of stuff and then
re-listen back and revisit things i guess um and then i you know then i'll if i
like something i'll try to
piece together make a demo and then try to come up with some words maybe think
of some ideas so the
music starts things off i think so yeah yeah is the lyrics are the lyrics kind
of uh a sec well they're
secondary by the fact that you're starting that part part after the music is
kind of starting to
establish so you're yeah are you looking for words that suit the the vibe of
the music sometimes do
you have things that you'd want to get out of you what you there's ideas and
thoughts you want to get
out yeah i mean yeah i think it's sort of i'll write about pontificate about
something and i'm thinking
about i don't like to be very specific i don't like to be like confessional or
here i am it's not
autobiographic it's cool dude walking down the street i kind of like to think a
little differently
and it's i like i don't know sort of i like to experiment with words did you
just eat your words
literally it's all this carbonation it is that's what i burp freely on this
show by the way oh i burp
loudly and freely and frequently yeah i was trying to uh what's your swallow it
you can't hide anything
from me um what about you jeff what's your process to use a overdone word um i
mean it's kind of
similar to steve's i um
i mean
it usually starts with well either improvising for me um or just an idea like a
um musical phrase sometimes sometimes it's just uh i kind of rely on processes
a lot you know so like what
what do you mean by that like i might have you know what if i try this and it's
more about me trying
like having an idea of a way to uh
to make music more than the actual music ideas like i could like kind of okay i'm
gonna create
pads of sound and then like move them around and see what happens right like
that type of thing i make a lot
of my music like that actually so experimenting with different uh like
parameters yeah yeah or like a blueprint
you know like i'm um like i might have like
uh
like a uh like a score like or um i'll like lay out a series of events that i
want to happen
and it doesn't even matter what the music is it's more about like me creating
this sequence of events
how do you do that practically what is the thing you're doing is it in a
program is it on paper is it
yeah just in your head like what is the practical like uh nuts and bolts of it
um i mean it could be
like uh i mean for instance i i recently um i composed a piece for this
contemporary music group called
downiente and um i mean what i did is in is in um
this program called ableton live i think doug's a master of that right not a
master he's a master
i have that i play with it but i knew the thing that i wanted to do was i kind
of created these
these pads um with a digital delay pedal and some filtering and i knew that i
just was gonna make
these pads and then i miss 