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D&D, Fantasy and Geography with Moving Boxes · Rock For Initiative

0:07
What's up everybody, Welcome to another episode of Rock 4
0:10
Initiative. My name is Phil and I am your
0:12
host. Today I'm joined by one of my
0:15
favorite bands, Moving Boxes. I have JT and Nikhil, who are
0:20
awesome, amazing people. I got a chance to interview them
0:24
live in person. So I think this is my first
0:27
episode of, of of being like in person with with a band, but I
0:33
interviewed them right before they opened for Aren't We
0:36
Amphibians and Ben Quad and Max Seal.
0:39
Super great show, by the way. Super great tour if you were
0:42
lucky enough to go. Moving Boxes is one of the one
0:46
of the bands from like my local scene as a North Carolina band,
0:50
and they have a great new album that came out this year called
0:55
Nothing So certain. I would absolutely recommend
0:58
checking that out. They are a little kind of on
1:02
hiatus. They're playing live shows here
1:04
and there. Sophie, they're vocalist slash
1:07
bassist is, is working on her Graduate School.
1:12
So very cool. But yeah, check them out if you
1:16
get a chance to see them live. Absolutely do it.
1:19
They're amazing, very fun. I'll see if I can put any of my
1:22
footage from the concert in in this episode.
1:26
And you can enjoy that if you are a visual watcher of the
1:30
podcast. Rockford Initiative, of course,
3:36
is part of Never Phase Network. If you're not familiar with
3:39
Never Phase Network, check out Never A Phase Network.com.
3:43
It is a great place to read articles to find out about new
3:46
music. We do a lot of music reviews for
3:48
albums as they come out from bands that we love, so check
3:52
that out. Check out some of the other
3:53
podcasts, Never Phase Podcast I I recently had an opportunity to
3:57
interview Color Me Crazy Crazy. Another great great local band
4:01
for me. I was guest host for the Never
4:03
Phase podcast. Also make sure you go check out
4:06
Jammer Isaac. They are the band that you heard
4:08
at the top of the podcast. That song is called Once Upon a
4:11
time. Like such a good band.
4:14
Gator is a friend and offered to let me use the music.
4:18
So make sure that you go and check them out and support them.
4:22
Love Jamurai Sack, love moving boxes, love JT who we were going
4:27
to meet in just a minute. When we talk some D&D, we talk
4:30
geography with Nikhil. While I'm plugging stuff, make
4:33
sure you go check out J TS new project which is called Never
4:36
More Sincere. You can find their latest single
4:39
on Spotify or anywhere else you stream music.
4:41
And if you are in North Carolina, make sure that you
4:45
check out Moving Boxes when they are part of the HARM Release
4:49
show in November, November 14th. And yeah, other than that, enjoy
4:55
the interview. All right.
5:10
I am here with JT and Akhil from Moving Boxes.
5:14
How's it going guys? Good.
5:16
How are you doing? We've been trying to sync up for
5:19
this show for a long time, and we finally made it.
5:23
We're finally here. So the thing that made me just
5:29
know deep in my heart of hearts that you guys were the right
5:32
people for this show was seeing a song called Hot Brennan Lee
5:37
Mulligan on your newest album. So.
5:41
I have to give a shout out to my very good friend Jacob Juarez
5:44
from the band Blank State, AKA maybe one of the best bands on
5:48
the entire East Coast. Jacob formulated that title and
5:55
was like you guys should name a song Hot Friendly Mulligan.
5:58
It's a great, it's a great song name.
6:00
It's it's hilarious, it's awesome and it's so in character
6:03
for us. And so I told him I will use
6:06
this title and I will give you credit when someone asks us
6:10
about it. Well, there you go.
6:11
Jacob not on the show yet, but we're going to get we're going
6:14
to get blank state as well so tell me I I did very I did 0
6:21
prep for this interview perfect. Tell me like what is what kind
6:25
of stuff do you guys geek out about?
6:28
I know there's some dungeons and Dragons.
6:29
I've I've heard a little bit about that, which I'm excited
6:31
about because you'd be surprised in like the 15 interviews I've
6:35
done so far, or maybe one person's talk Dungeons and
6:38
Dragons with me. I yeah, I would have expected a
6:41
lot more to be honest. I feel it's like an easy
6:43
accessible 1. Well, and the the pod's called
6:46
Rock for Initiative, you'd think, but you know, whatever.
6:50
Oh yeah. So are you playing Dungeons and
6:53
Dragons right now? Like campaigns?
6:57
I don't play D. No D and DI AM.
7:00
I am D Ming, a campaign I've had a campaign that I've been
7:04
playing in since I was in high school and then I have a
7:07
campaign that I I've been to forever DM for another my
7:11
college friends. Yeah.
7:13
And we just started a new campaign last week.
7:16
So we have our we had a session zero last week and we're
7:20
actually doing our session one in 2 days.
7:22
So you're like 15 bands and DM ING 2 campaigns?
7:26
I actually get to play in the high school, which is really
7:28
nice. That is nice.
7:29
My my friend Jake is our our forever DM from that group.
7:33
And that that campaign was actually the first time I'd ever
7:36
played DND Really. OK, so still gets to be a part
7:39
of that, which is really cool. Do you prefer DM ING or playing
7:43
or is it just a little bit of both?
7:45
They're both a lot of fun. I think I get a lot of
7:47
fulfillment from DMA because I get to give cool plot hooks and
7:51
then just kind of watch my players figure out what's
7:53
happening and and like write the story themselves.
7:55
And that is really cool and fulfilling.
7:58
And I have a lot of fun getting to play like a bunch of
8:00
different NPCS and things. And then playing is just so much
8:04
fun because I get to be really in the head of 1 character and
8:07
really live that character, which is super awesome.
8:11
So I it's fun to be able to do that.
8:13
Do you have a preference? I I think I prefer well, I don't
8:19
know. I just started DM ING really
8:21
like the first time I've DM like a full campaign.
8:23
I've done a couple of one shots before, but I just started this
8:27
this full campaign that's very like dungeon crawler Carl
8:30
themed. And and we like had we we got to
8:35
our first floor boss last night and I got to play the whole time
8:39
during this like big epic fight with like multiple phases and
8:43
and as a player, you have to wait between turns.
8:47
So I don't know, there's there's all and I get to play every
8:50
character, which is exhausting but also fun.
8:53
Yeah, exactly. I think I think both are are
8:56
great. What's your What's your favorite
8:58
class to play? I love clerics.
9:04
I if I'm, if I'm going into like a long term campaign and I'm
9:07
playing, I'm probably going to make a cleric.
9:11
And like when I got really into Baldur's Gate, I did a cleric as
9:16
my first character and then I did an origin run with Shadow
9:20
Heart, the cleric. So fun.
9:24
You get so many hit points, you get the craziest AC, you get to
9:28
do so many cool spells, you get to hit like a truck.
9:32
Clerics are awesome. Yeah, amazing.
9:35
Like super super versatile and you can wear super heavy armor.
9:42
And in Balterskate spirit, Guardians is always on.
9:46
Yeah, yeah. So you played a lot of
9:50
Balderskate. It sounds like you've played at
9:53
least 2 playthroughs. 5 playthroughs I'm the worst when
9:59
it comes to Baldur's Gate. I start I get like halfway
10:02
through the 1st chapter and I'm like yo God I really wish I was
10:05
playing a Bard right now. Yeah, yeah.
10:08
So you're you're a Bard guy? Bard, whatever.
10:11
I mean, I I barbarian, especially in especially in in
10:16
that game, it's like every class is really fun.
10:22
How about you? Are you a video game player?
10:25
What's what's what's your what's what is the flavor of nerd that
10:29
I can get out of Nihil many? I, I I always, I think my my
10:38
forever answer to this is always geography.
10:40
Geography. Hell yeah.
10:45
Yeah. I mean, you know, naturally as
10:46
an extension or an Ave. geography.
10:48
So you're you're absolutely right.
10:49
But yeah, I mean, that's that's one thing.
10:52
So let's dive into that a little bit.
10:56
Like how does one like how does one get into geography as a
11:02
fandom? As a fandom, by being born on
11:06
the earth, I think it is incumbent upon anyone to learn a
11:09
little bit more about your place.
11:11
No, but seriously, I think I, one of my parents has like
11:16
favorite stories about me. Is that like when I was 3 or 4
11:20
on our like our, our desktop computer that was in the nook
11:23
outside of the kitchen, like we go on this website,
11:26
shepherdsoftware.com and they'd be like, all right now play some
11:30
games and the games are all like map games.
11:33
So like at the ages of three and four, I was like learning the
11:35
countries capitals outlines of like Europe and Africa and
11:39
stuff. And then when I got into the
11:42
ages, like high school age, yeah, I somehow decided to pick
11:47
back up on that again. Shout out sporkle.com.
11:51
They have the like widest Sporkle STORC, le.com.
11:55
Shout out Sporkle. Dot com potential partnership
11:57
sponsorship. Hey, yeah, that'd be great,
12:00
Matt, if you're listening. Matt, get on the the moving the
12:03
moving boxes. You make all my favorite
12:04
geography quizzes on. Geography, moving boxes.
12:07
It's like a match made in heaven.
12:09
That's what I'm saying. Basis with the the Sporkle guy
12:11
is awesome. Yeah, everyone, everyone knows
12:15
Matt isn't to Sporkle, but yeah, I mean, it's like a big thing
12:17
within the geography community. It's like either Sporkle or
12:20
Satara. We're doing these like map and
12:22
capital quizzes. And then, yeah, like high school
12:24
age. I just as an extension of that,
12:27
I became really interested in like the the cultural
12:29
anthropology of I go like these aren't like just places on a
12:32
map. It's like there are cultures,
12:33
there are people that live here. That's that's very fascinating
12:36
to me. Yeah.
12:39
You know, we have civilizations in like the most remote places
12:43
on Earth and also in the most densely, densely populated
12:47
places. And everyone has such a, this
12:49
sounds like really altruistic and preachy and very American.
12:51
And I'm sorry about that. But like, it's, it's just, I
12:54
don't know. I mean, it's inherently A
12:55
fascinating thing for sure. And so, yeah, I, I, I got my,
13:00
my, my degree from college. I have a minor in geography.
13:04
I'm just, yeah, I'm very interested in like the science,
13:06
the social sciences, the connection aspect of it.
13:10
So I, I mean, I was just talking to to and during another
13:14
interview, I was talking about how like there are these fandoms
13:18
out there that are huge that I don't even know like exist until
13:24
I find out about them. And they're like the one I
13:26
specifically called out is like 21 pilots.
13:28
Like there's like lore. Seth, get over here.
13:36
I, I was just saying, I had an interview the other day and I
13:39
was talking about how like there are like these pockets of
13:42
fandoms out there, like 21 pilots where people are like die
13:45
hard. But like it's kind of, it's kind
13:50
of very similar to geography. Like you were just saying like
13:53
there's places on a map and then you like think about it.
13:55
And then there's just like people there that you'll never
13:58
meet that have like these like robust, complicated lives.
14:02
Yeah. I mean, yeah, yeah, yeah.
14:05
I think towards the more like weird fandom side of it, there
14:11
are like people may adopt like special interests in like really
14:17
niche geography, like topics or places.
14:20
It's weird and inherently dehumanizing, but it is also a
14:22
little bit funny. I'm trying to think like during,
14:27
during high school, I had the Wikipedia page for the country
14:30
of Eswatini opened for like 3 years and it's just cool.
14:36
Is the, a country in southern Africa formerly known as
14:39
Swaziland? But in like, I believe 2019,
14:43
they reclaimed their colonial name.
14:45
Maybe it was in 2019. It might have been earlier than
14:47
that. And so now they're known as
14:48
Eswatini. Yeah.
14:50
You know, I, I, I. Never heard of Eswatini.
14:53
I had heard of Swaziland. Yeah.
14:54
So there you go. You you do know about it?
14:56
It's, it's the same place. Yeah, yeah.
14:59
I, I, I feel like every, every person that's into geography has
15:02
like a, is like weirdly obsessed with like a thing.
15:05
Do you guys have like forums and meet ups and like a discord that
15:09
you just all hang out in? Oh man, that'd be crazy because
15:14
I think there would be like way too many people to do things
15:17
like that. But at the same time, this is
15:19
like a, it's like a career field also kind of thing, right?
15:22
So it's like, you know, you also get like jobs and like real
15:25
world actual stuff that isn't just online forums.
15:28
And but yeah, I mean, yeah, there there's the, the community
15:34
is, is is large and thriving, I think made way more of a
15:38
tangible thing throughout the Internet, which which makes it
15:42
feel nice. Yeah, that's really cool.
15:45
Yeah. What do you do in a?
15:46
Sporkle. Sporkle, yeah.
15:48
What, so it's like quizzes or? Yeah, so the website is
15:51
basically just a whole quizzes, trivia games on like any topic.
15:56
It's just the geography category on the website is like by and
16:00
large one of the most popular ones and it's sort of how I
16:03
reinvigorated my my spirit in the subject so.
16:07
So Geogesser, is that cool in the geography realm or is that
16:12
kind of like the? No, Yeah, yeah, yeah, it, no,
16:15
it's, no, you're right on the money.
16:17
Geogesser was, was is absolutely cool.
16:22
Yeah, that's just one of those things that Geogesser really is
16:24
like so huge now, man. It was a shame 'cause I mean
16:30
the, the subscription is is not that pricey for it all things
16:33
considered. But in high school when I'd be
16:36
playing that and then it was like, oh, sorry, you can't play
16:38
anywhere. You got to pay for this
16:39
subscription because Google is getting mad at us for for using
16:44
their map footage those. AP is are really expensive.
16:46
They are, and it's like, well, I just want to play my map game,
16:51
but I don't have any money. I'm in high school.
16:55
No. Yeah, but no.
16:56
Do you get some rocks? I haven't been on it in a in a
17:00
long time, to be honest, but yeah, it it was really, it's,
17:04
it's really good stuff. Love that there's some with the,
17:08
the widespread community of Geogester players, though.
17:10
There's like there's people that are able to, that have developed
17:15
a way of guessing places based off of things that like aren't
17:19
really geography related. They'll be like, oh, like the
17:22
camera has a little rift in, in the sky.
17:25
So, you know, it's in like Northern Africa, it's like
17:28
that's that's just a camera technological like issue that's
17:32
not really geography related. So you're kind of like perhaps
17:34
losing the spirit of of the game, but.
17:37
I love going down and like finding like like street signs
17:41
and trying to like like that language kind of looks like it
17:44
could be German or or Dutch or whatever.
17:47
That's the, I think that's the the tried and true way of doing
17:51
it. For real.
17:51
Yeah. But yeah, it's one of the things
17:54
they got so popular and people started to find their screamers.
17:58
Took it over. Screamers, yeah.
18:00
I can't believe we got speed runners on Geo Guesser.
18:03
Oh. My gosh are speed runners.
18:05
Yeah dude, you, you seen those videos of like the, the, of
18:08
like, what is it like .1 seconds to rain?
18:12
Yeah, guessing. And like, yeah, it's crazy.
18:16
People are really cracked at that game.
18:18
Yeah, people spend. To be honest, not me.
18:19
I'm never like, too good at it because my conventional tricks
18:22
only got me so far. What's your go to?
18:26
Is it is it like street signs or is it like something else?
18:31
Flags is primary for sure. That'll do it.
18:34
Yeah, but usually they do a good job of, like, trying to hide
18:37
them, maybe we have flags, street signs, for sure.
18:41
Languages. Yeah, I love linguistics as
18:44
well. So that kind of ties into it.
18:46
Yeah. Yeah.
18:47
You know. Very cool.
18:49
All right now. Now we're leaving JT out.
18:53
What other? So, D&D and what else?
18:56
What else are you? Are you like super passionate
18:58
and geeky about? I can't be normal about
19:01
anything, so if I'm interested in something, it's like
19:03
something that I'm. Deep dive.
19:05
About I do a lot of reading. I really love reading.
19:09
I get really geeked about music. I am extremely active on I
19:16
naturalist and anytime we play shows in a new city.
19:20
I'm like, what is I Naturalist OK.
19:23
Coolest app ever. You take pictures of shit in
19:27
nature. Can I say that you.
19:28
Can say shit in that. OK, yeah, you take pictures of
19:30
shit in nature and you can log like the the taxonomy of it and
19:36
everything and just post it. And if you get a couple other
19:40
people in the area to confirm like yes, you are correct.
19:42
This is what this is. Your post can be used in actual
19:45
scientific research. So a lot of it's like nature
19:48
research that happens. I naturalist is a huge source of
19:52
data for them because they can go in and say, OK, we're looking
19:55
at the decline of honey bees, let's check I naturalist and
20:00
let's see over time how many people are reporting honey bees
20:03
in this area. And you can see like instantly
20:06
you have a data set. You had 100,000 people post
20:10
honey bees in 2020. But then once this pesticide was
20:14
introduced in 2021. Suddenly you had 10,000 people
20:18
documenting honey bees the next year.
20:19
So it's like, it's a really cool app.
20:21
I like to just use it to know what's around me.
20:24
And you know, we, we, if we play a show in a new city, I'm going
20:27
to spend the 1st 30 minutes like walking in circles around the
20:29
venue like, oh, new bugs, new plants.
20:31
But like I'll see people kind of confirm those posts and I'll,
20:36
I'll see some of my posts. We'll get the check mark that
20:38
says, Oh yeah, this, this post is research grade.
20:40
And I'm like. Yes.
20:43
Like I went to Canada recently and I just the, the people that
20:47
I, I was there with definitely hated me 'cause I was just 15
20:50
feet behind them the entire time, like.
20:54
It's like an even nerdier Pokémon Go.
20:57
It's it's yeah, I said that the other time, which I am.
21:01
I am really bad with Pokémon stuff too.
21:03
Like I I played all the games and I have the cards and the
21:06
fantastic things. It's so funny to like consider
21:10
outside and be like, yo, this is just like Pokémon though.
21:13
It's like, hey, actually, I think it was perhaps the other
21:14
way around, but sure. I said that the other day,
21:17
though, I was on a walk with my friend Cal.
21:19
And, you know, I just kept, I was probably being a terrible
21:22
friend, but I kept pulling my phone out to take pictures of
21:24
plants that we walked past. And he asked about the apps.
21:27
I was just geeking out about naturalist.
21:29
And I told him like, Oh, yeah, it's, it's like Pokémon Go, but
21:33
you catch things that are like actually in real life.
21:35
And he just kind of looked at me and went.
21:37
But it's like more science and. Yeah, I have some really good
21:42
ones on there. I just logged.
21:44
I, I was really proud of my post from the other day.
21:46
We caught a Mediterranean house gecko at my office and so I made
21:53
a really awesome post with like 5 different pictures of this
21:56
Mediterranean house gecko. They're technically invasive,
22:00
but they're not a threat like they don't they don't compete
22:04
with anything in the area for resources.
22:06
So it's it's not one of those scenarios where if you see one,
22:09
you have to eradicate it for fear of destroying the
22:12
environment. So we were able to just release
22:15
him back into the office so that he could keep our office net
22:17
free. His name is Hook because he's
22:20
missing a hand. So we named him Hook and I made
22:24
it a lovely little post on I Naturalist.
22:27
If you look up. I can't remember my username on
22:30
I Naturalist, but if you find me on I Naturalist you can see.
22:33
Check the comments, check the. House get go.
22:35
Check the description. We'll get JT Design Naturalist.
22:39
Yeah, That's that's amazing. Gosh, what was I gonna.
22:45
I threw myself off, Yeah. What do you geek out on?
22:48
What are some of the things you. Geek out on all sorts of stuff
22:51
and honestly, this podcast has been a really amazing experience
22:54
for me, except that it gives me these new things that I want to
22:58
look into that I'm like, oh, I'm, I'm definitely getting into
23:01
that. Like these guys are here tonight
23:03
with aren't we amphibians? And Brandon was the second
23:07
interview I did for the show and he talked about basketball,
23:10
which like was super into talked about how he got into it and how
23:15
I like. And then he, we also talked for
23:18
a long time about SCP and creepypasta, which is something
23:21
that has always like appealed to me, but I've never gotten into.
23:24
Yeah. And I have read a bunch of it,
23:27
but I haven't had the time to like really get into it.
23:30
And then right before that I had Mike from Summer Brews.
23:31
We talked about wrestling and I'm like, again, like something
23:36
that has kind of been in my peripheral, but like, I've never
23:38
really gotten into. But hearing someone geek out
23:41
about it is like next level and, and really makes me want to get
23:46
into it for sure. For me it's DND More and other
23:50
tabletop games. Brandon Sanderson.
23:53
Novels. Oh, I love Sanderson.
23:55
Oh. I have, if you ever, if you ever
23:58
catch any of the other episodes, I sit in front of my bookcase
24:01
and it's just five shelves of Brandon Sanderson novels.
24:06
Sanderson's great dungeon crawler.
24:08
Carl, as I mentioned it before, reading just in general, science
24:13
fiction, fantasy, non fiction. Yeah, I also, I'm really into
24:18
Muppet casting things. Oh, that sounds awesome.
24:23
What does that mean? So like, like, like take a movie
24:27
or a play. We'll take Hamilton because it's
24:30
come up on the podcast before. Yeah, you'll look at it and
24:33
you'll be like, how would I cast The Muppets in this?
24:36
Oh, OK. Like in place of the.
24:37
Yeah. So it's like, yeah, Kermit would
24:39
be Hamilton, right? We go deep.
24:45
My wife and I got in a big fight yesterday about how we win
24:48
Muppet cast Hairspray 'cause I was like obviously Edna Turnblad
24:54
is Miss Piggy and Wilbur is Kermit, the parents I don't know
24:57
if you're familiar with. And she's like, no, Tracy is
25:00
Miss Piggy 100% and we just cannot see eye to eye.
25:04
And now we're getting a divorce. Oh.
25:06
No, just kidding. Oh my gosh.
25:09
Yeah, I got about that kind of stuff.
25:11
But it's awesome about me, guys. What?
25:14
You read the prior of the orange tree.
25:16
I have not. OK, that is the best fantasy
25:20
book I've ever read. Like hands down.
25:21
So if you enjoy that kind of like Sanderson high fantasy with
25:26
really interesting magic systems that aren't just like the
25:29
wizard, cast the spell 'cause he's a magic wizard.
25:33
That's my, that's my jam. Yeah.
25:35
Like, almost like scientific fantasy to, to a like where you
25:39
just dive deep into how the magic works.
25:42
Yeah, Yeah. I would say Priory isn't
25:46
necessarily that way. It's just like, I think it's
25:50
just unique in the way that they handle magic.
25:51
It's very, it's very Tolkien feeling like it goes very heavy
25:54
on the world building and there's really like.
25:57
I love that. Really, really complicated
25:59
political structures in this world.
26:00
The the main point of tension in this book, and then you get this
26:04
in chapter 1, so it's not a spoiler.
26:06
The main point of tension in Priory is that you have these
26:09
two major world powers that have kind of been on and off at war
26:13
with each other for the like the existence of this universe.
26:17
And the reason for that is they believe in the same deities, but
26:23
they interpreted the source text opposite ways.
26:28
So it would be like if you had two major countries here and one
26:32
of them like worshipped God and thought that the devil was evil
26:36
and the other one worshipped the devil and thought that God was
26:38
evil because they interpreted the same source text the
26:40
opposite ways. So these two like major powers.
26:44
It's not just that they disagree, they like
26:47
fundamentally think that the other side is even.
26:49
Just polar opposites, yeah. So at the beginning of the book,
26:53
it's a peace time. They've kind of started to work
26:57
out some of their differences, like trade has started to open
27:00
back up, but there's still a lot of people that are very
27:02
suspicious and thinking it's a bad idea.
27:04
And then the one power discovers a plot from a third party to
27:11
murder the queen of the other party.
27:12
And they're like, if this happens, we get blamed for it
27:16
and we go back to war. It's Oh my God, that book is
27:20
amazing. Like they, they go into so much
27:23
depth on the history of the world and like the political
27:27
dynamics between the two powers. And like that all the third
27:30
parties that kind of pop up and like it.
27:34
It's, it's one of the most immersive and lifelike fantasy
27:37
books I've ever read, which is why I loved it so much.
27:38
All the characters are just so interesting and like the world
27:42
building is second to none. It's incredible.
27:45
I'm really excited about this. And it has female characters
27:48
that talk to each other. What?
27:52
Like it? It's not like the meat fest that
27:54
so many other high fantasy books kind of tend to be.
27:57
Unfortunately, it's it's a phenomenal bug.
28:00
I can't recommend it highly enough.
28:01
It's probably the best fantasy book I've ever read.
28:03
And it's called One More Time. The Priory of the orange tree.
28:06
The Priory of the orange tree. I will probably have to text you
28:09
about that and get the get the title again.
28:13
Shout out my best friend Beckett.
28:16
Beckett is a new, not really prequel, not really a sequel
28:20
because it kind of happens concurrently with the original
28:23
book, just like from a different perspective.
28:26
I didn't even realize that it had been released.
28:29
And for my birthday, my best friend Beckett got me a signed
28:33
copy of it. And so I like, opened it up and
28:36
it was I, I saw the art style and I saw the author and I
28:39
didn't recognize the name of the book.
28:40
And I was like. Mind blown.
28:45
Most thoughtful gift ever. It was so nice.
28:47
I would love that. What's your most thoughtful gift
28:49
ever? The.
28:50
Most thoughtful gift ever. What, what, What gift have you
28:55
received that spoke most to the inner nerd?
28:58
The inner geek. Oh, I guess the one that is
29:03
immediately coming to mind. Of course, it was also my most
29:05
recent gift given was the the book surrounding these daily
29:12
puzzles that are known as mini cryptics.
29:14
Yeah, yeah, yeah. Are are you familiar with the
29:18
mini cryptic like like the cryptic crossword clues?
29:21
I don't I'm I'm going to say something, I'm going to sound
29:25
like a a real tool like Myrtle is that kind of along the same
29:30
lines I. Don't know what that is.
29:33
Then no, I haven't heard of it, but now I now it's another thing
29:36
for me to check out Mini. Cryptic.
29:38
Mini cryptic. Yeah, OK.
29:41
Is that like, explain it to me a little bit?
29:43
Like what kind of puzzles are they that you're?
29:47
They're like word play puzzles. Yeah.
29:51
So they're basically just like daily crossword clues that are,
29:56
that are given in in the vein of like New York Times games,
30:00
Wordle and all that stuff. But this is independent from an
30:02
Australian company. And yeah, the, the clues
30:07
consists of like hidden definitions and word play.
30:12
And like within the entire thing of the clue, it tells you how to
30:15
solve the answer. But it's like intentionally very
30:17
cryptic and stuff, as you might, as one could very easily infer
30:22
from the title of what it's called.
30:24
Yeah, I mean, yeah. And so, yeah, I, I've, I've been
30:29
doing them daily, almost daily since like November of 2024 when
30:33
I discovered them. Sounds like the kind of thing my
30:35
wife would be like super into and ignore me for weeks on end
30:38
to do. It's like it's when you're
30:42
solving them, it's like looking at a brick wall until it just
30:45
kind of like you figure it out. Like the first couple that I was
30:48
doing, I was like, man, what are we doing here?
30:51
It's like a whole, it's like learning a different language
30:53
basically, or like really affects the way that you think
30:57
about the English language perhaps.
30:59
And we're back to language, because you are a huge language
31:03
nerd. Yes, yes, yes.
31:04
I I very much enjoy linguistics as well, right.
31:06
So yeah, it's they're all tied together in that sense.
31:11
It's all. Coming together, it's.
31:12
All coming together. But yeah, the the the gift I got
31:15
was from my girlfriend. It was.
31:17
It was a book of those clues by the people that made
31:21
Monocryptic. Very cool, yeah.
31:23
It's been fun. Very cool.
31:26
We got a couple more minutes. I think so like what?
31:31
What other stuff do you guys deep dive into?
31:33
I feel like GT could go in a lot of different directions.
31:36
I feel bad that our interests have been so disconnected.
31:39
And I feel like we could perhaps just we could maybe I think we
31:43
have a shared interest in the in the culinary arts, in cooking.
31:46
Yeah. OK.
31:47
So we could maybe speak a little bit about that jam.
31:50
Jamaray Sack Gator from Jamaray Sack.
31:52
I don't know if you've heard of them.
31:53
It's. A funny name.
31:55
It's a great name, great emo band.
31:58
They are the the intro music for this podcast.
32:02
Oh awesome. And we're going to get Gator on
32:04
to talk culinary arts. So.
32:05
Beautiful. Love that.
32:07
Yeah. Have you been you?
32:09
Could overlap. Also just on emo music like you
32:12
and I both geek out. We kind of go on different sides
32:15
of it, but you and I, we do geek out.
32:16
On I mean, that's why we're here, right?
32:18
It's just emo music. OK.
32:23
But yeah, no, yeah, we, we, I think we've come from different
32:26
sides and we've converge and diverge in in different spots.
32:30
But yeah, the, the Guitar World is, is dense and, and full of
32:36
everything that you could desire in many ways.
32:40
Where are we going with this? Sorry, I don't remember things.
32:43
That we can overlap on. Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah.
32:46
So that's that's something we got.
32:48
So so when you say you're on different sides of emo music,
32:54
help me understand that a little bit like different sides of what
32:59
emo music is or? We come from like polar opposite
33:03
musical backgrounds. Because.
33:06
I. Grew up on guitar music I've
33:08
really like. It's only been in recent years
33:11
that I've started to listen to non guitar music and my guitar
33:15
teacher from when I was age 7 to like 16 was a big emo, not emo.
33:21
He was a big like indie and shoe gaze guy.
33:24
So he got me into like, you know, mute math, Modest Mouse,
33:28
all the good early stuff. So I, I feel like I kind of came
33:33
into emo from the indie world and, and growing up on like
33:38
really melodic kind of layered geeky indie music.
33:44
And then you can talk about. How you got into it?
33:47
Yeah, for. Me, I've played music for like a
33:53
long time in my life. My first instrument was the
33:56
violin. I started playing at age like 4.
34:01
But yeah, I don't know. The music that I grew up with
34:04
was a lot of like Bollywood and Indian pop music.
34:10
And so I think I just have more of like AI had a pop music
34:13
background growing up, right? And like the first things I
34:17
heard on the radio was like, say, it was like the 20 early 20
34:20
tens. So all of those Electro pop
34:24
artists. This is the the point in radio
34:25
music where Electro pop was really the thing.
34:27
So, so so you can get a radio hit by having like a European
34:31
DJ, you know, David Guetta, Afrojack Zedd.
34:35
Collab with a pop *. Nicki Minaj, Bebe Rexha.
34:38
And then for a little cherry on top, have a hip hop artist or
34:42
rapper like Florida or blanking on others and then like have
34:47
them do a verse as a feature. And then that was your radio
34:50
hit. So yeah.
34:53
And then I, I during my teen years, my early teen years, I
34:56
was very much into electronic music.
34:58
I didn't discover guitar music until like 2019.
35:03
OK. Yeah, that's.
35:05
Crazy to me with how well you play guitar.
35:08
Yeah, this. Was right before COVID so then I
35:10
think I it was just one of those things that happened at the
35:12
right time right place and then I really took a deep dive into
35:17
into guitar museum as such I mean there's so many gaps in my
35:19
knowledge that JT could fill real easily but yeah I mean
35:25
there's. I I've played a lot of.
35:29
Different instruments before landing on guitar.
35:32
And I mean, I think this is maybe just one of many that I'll
35:34
end up like doing throughout, you know, love it.
35:38
It's. That's maybe the more.
35:39
Perhaps pretentious holistic view I have of my relation with
35:42
music, but yeah, I don't know. The first rock band I got into
35:47
was Weezer. I love Weezer.
35:49
How do you feel about new Weezer?
35:50
Like their new album? Or are you like a Pinkerton and
35:52
stop? No, no, no, I'm not one of.
35:54
Those people I my favorite Weezer album is the White Album.
35:58
I love White Album. Oh my gosh, I'm going to get a
36:00
lot of hate in the comments, but I love just about every Weezer
36:03
album with very little, very good, very little that I will
36:07
Passover or skip on any Weezer album.
36:09
Absolutely. I like.
36:10
I like. To hear that, yeah.
36:13
Yeah, I, I. I've.
36:14
Listened to Gold, I haven't re listened to it, so I need to do
36:19
that like a couple more times. I have it sink in.
36:21
But yeah, I mean, everything that they've that they've put
36:24
out, I've just grown accustomed to it.
36:26
I think it's just some more, maybe more of a liking than for
36:28
who they are kind of thing. But you know, I started out
36:32
listening to White and it was at a time of my life where I was
36:36
like, dude, summer guitar vibes are are awesome.
36:39
My. People listening who are on the
36:43
show often will have heard this story before, but I I'm a big
36:47
San Diego Chargers fan, LA Chargers, whatever, but also a
36:51
huge Weezer fan. And my name is my name is Phil
36:54
or Phillip, my son when he was born, I, my wife and I were this
36:59
close. And I mean, like, we had the
37:02
birth certificate in our hands. We were going to name him
37:05
Phillip Rivers Cuomo, Fair brother.
37:07
And Oh my gosh. You get the Phillip Rivers from
37:11
the. Chargers and you get Rivers
37:13
Cuomo. That's awesome.
37:15
I wish we. Had it's my biggest.
37:16
Regret. Hands down my biggest regret.
37:18
Not my son, just the name. Hey, good clarification.
37:22
One of the most important things to me, his name, I I've tried to
37:26
talk him into changing it since he's like 11 now.
37:29
I'm like, you sure you don't want to?
37:31
Yeah. That's so funny.
37:33
That's really. Funny.
37:34
Yeah, that's crazy. The the I have.
37:37
I know you guys have. A show to play in just a minute
37:39
here so I I will also want to make sure that we talk moving
37:42
boxes for just a minute sure. So you guys are wrapping up your
37:46
live shows for a while to so if he's off doing grad school
37:51
allegedly, allegedly and yet somehow here to No, I'm just
37:55
kidding. But you also just released an
38:00
album, which is fantastic. Thank you please.
38:03
Tell the. Folks at home.
38:05
About your music, where they can find you, What else you have
38:09
coming up, if if anything? Yeah, so.
38:12
Yeah, Sophie's in Texas for grad school, so shows are going to be
38:14
slow. We're playing Harms album
38:16
release show, another one of our very good friends in the area.
38:19
They're they got their release show happening in November.
38:21
They're incredible. So we'll be playing that and
38:24
then shooting for a summer 27 tour to hit some, hit some new
38:29
spots. So shows aren't done.
38:31
We're just going to have to be much more intentional with
38:35
planning shows cuz she's down. We just put out in a record
38:39
called Nothing So Certain. It is our most prized creation.
38:43
We're so proud of it. We put a ton of love into it.
38:46
It was like 2 years of our lives we poured into this record.
38:50
And I mean, it's I, I think we all agree that it's the best
38:55
thing we've ever made and the most collaborative thing we've
38:57
ever made and the most moving boxes thing we've ever made.
39:00
It just feels like us. It's very good.
39:02
I. Not I'm not blowing smoke.
39:05
I will like put it on while I'm at work as like background music
39:08
and just listen to it like thank you so much over and over and
39:11
over. It's like it's very it's like
39:13
calming, but also very emotional and like it fits almost any mood
39:18
I'm in. It's I can't say enough about
39:20
how much I enjoy moving boxes. We appreciate that.
39:24
I thought, yeah. I know it took a while to get.
39:26
You guys on at some point, I'd love to have you on and maybe
39:29
like deep dive into Dungeons and Dragons a little bit.
39:33
So if we can talk a little bit more.
39:34
About that, Say hi, Sophie. Sophie's over there, so.
39:37
She's no longer appearing in this film one day.
39:43
But yeah, thanks again. Appreciate it.
39:46
Check out Moving boxes and.