Jack Antonoff

Jack Antonoff goes record shopping at Amoeba Hollywood in this "What's In My Bag?" episode. The GRAMMY-winning producer, singer, songwriter, musician & Bleachers frontman talks about Saves the Day, Propagandhi, Nick Cave, getting in the van to play music at age 15, sampling spoken word, and the Kennedy assassination. Bleachers' fifth studio album everyone for ten minutes is out now via Dirty Hit.

Jack Antonoff's picks:
• Redd Kross - Redd Kross (LP) 
• Saves The Day - Through Being Cool: TBC20 (CD) 
• Blue Magic - Blue Magic (LP) 
• Propagandhi - How To Clean Everything (LP) 
• Hot Water Music - Caution (LP) 
• Alkaline Trio/Hot Water Music - Split (LP) 
• Craig David - Born To Do It (LP) 
• Various Artists - Bubble Gum Greatest Hits Vol. II (LP) 
• Sparks - No. 1 In Heaven (LP) 
• Tom Waits - Mule Variations (LP) 
• Nick Cave - "I'm Down Here For Your Soul" Framed Print (POSTER)  
• Andrew Lloyd Webber & Tim Rice - Jesus Christ Superstar (LP) 
• Carmine Coppola - Apocalypse Now: Final Cut [OST] (LP) 
• Kennedy/Nixon - The Great Debates 1960 (LP) 
• John F. Kennedy - The Presidential Years 1960-1963: The Speeches (LP) 
• John F. Kennedy - His Last 24 Hours (LP) 
• Reid Collins - Four Days That Shocked The World (LP) 

Featured Artist: Jack Antonoff

Editor: Brendt Rioux
Executive Producer: Rachael McGovern
Producer/Director: Craig Miller
Assistant Director: Aaron Araki
Cameras: Derich Heath, Aaron Araki
Audio Recorded by: Patrick Emswiler
Assistant Editor: Patrick Emswiler

Watch Jack Antonoff's "What's In My Bag?" episode on Amoeba.com

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Transcript

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hey, I'm Jack Antonov. I'm Adam Meeba, and this is what's in my bag. Classic LA band, Red Cross. This is just a big shout out to Steve and Red Cross because when I think of LA, I think of this. Steve McDonald, completely brilliant. And there's like so many generations of Red Cross. I kind of like it when they were like sort of mod for a second and had that video where it like felt like British invasion-y. Saves the Day. Very important album to me that actually only have one vinyl. The CD was here, and so this is Saves the Day's seminal uh New Jersey album.

unknown 1:12

Win Friday!

SPEAKER_01 1:22

When I was growing up, Lifetime and the whole New Brunswick scene was breaking up and Saves the Day grabbed the torch. Shoulder of the wheel is a one of the great songs ever. Holy hawks, forget me now. My sweet fracture. Oh there's basement damage on this is like a some deluxe thing. These are connected. Blue Magic is the Philly soul band. On my new album, I sample, just don't want to be lonely. And it's cool that this is new.

SPEAKER_07 1:59

I just don't want to be alone.

SPEAKER_01 2:03

This is Super Bleachers Coded. The song The Van is this. It's the sample from this, and then who I was at this time, which was really someone breaking their ancestral pact. You leave when you're young and you have all this hope and wonder about what's ahead of you, and it's beautiful. And then as time goes on, you start to think about what you left. I come from a long line of people whose goal was to create a life where their kids could survive and have a house and have food and that was it. And then when I was 15, me and some friends, because we just didn't want to be lonely, got in the van and left and started playing music. And there was this amazing wonder and joy and an incredible guilt about taking that chance. I also say packed the van and spun through being cool. So this is like the song The Van All in One.

SPEAKER_07 2:49

That's the story about kids in the shadows. We just didn't want to be lonely.

SPEAKER_01 2:56

Okay, I was looking for Less Talk More Rock because it's a seminal album for me, but what I found, How to Clean Everything, is the perfect album. Classics such as Ska Sucks. Ska Revival isn't cool, you stupid fucks.

SPEAKER_06 3:06

The feds are only in it for the buttons. And if they don't believe me, you'll spot. But the trend will find out what they like.

SPEAKER_01 3:16

This album, first of all, brilliant. Propagand is a brilliant band, but super worth picking up because there's a song on here that kind of details the Middle East and everything going on and the genocide in Gaza. They were really early discussing about what was going on there.

SPEAKER_06 3:29

The Gaza Strep, so new big parking lots for American tourists and fascist cops, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38

Propagandy is like full of energy and politics and everything all at once, and I believe John K. Sampson is still in the band at this point, who went on to start the weaker then's, who are easily my favorite band of all time.

SPEAKER_09 3:54

Stop to stop to stop thinking of you.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Alkaline trio split that I didn't know about. That's exciting to listen to. This is a bit different. Big Craig David fan. Craig David's like an artist I want to just put on. So I don't have any vinyl. Now I have this.

SPEAKER_05 4:58

Can you feel me?

SPEAKER_01 5:01

Every time I go record shopping, I just try to find something that I've no idea what it is, but I'm taking it by. It says Bubblegum Greatest Hits. Who even knows? Haven't heard of much of this stuff.

SPEAKER_09 5:09

Sweet of that jugger. Oh baby, that can't be phenomenal.

unknown 5:17

Sweeter that juggle.

SPEAKER_01 5:18

Sparks, one of my favorite bands of all time. Also, this is their worst album cover. And I don't mean that as a diss. The one with the plane crash, the one in the boat, best album covers of all time, right? So this is not one of their album covers that is one of my favorites, but it's really interesting one because it's number one song in heaven, which is a very long song in which the brothers discuss the song itself being the number one song in heaven. Sweet, sad, and funny. He's one of those artists where I have like multiples of Heart of Saturday night and foreign affairs. But some of the later stuff I don't have, so I'll start chipping away at that.

SPEAKER_07 5:58

Hold on. Stand around, he gotta hold.

SPEAKER_01 6:07

Hold on, House where Nobody Lives, Georgia Lee is one of the most incredible songs ever written. Why Wasn't God Watching? Why wasn't anyone there for Georgia Lee? I mean it's a devastating song, but but that's a perfect album.

SPEAKER_09 6:19

I wasn't gonna for Georgia.

SPEAKER_01 6:28

Oh yeah, I forgot about this. I mean, this is going right in the studio. They captured him so well, whoever drew this. I love Nick Cave, I love almost every generation of Nick Cave. The stuff I go back to the most is actually kind of like No More Shall We Part moment. Songs like God is in the house, 15 feet of pure white snow, as I sat sadly by her side.

SPEAKER_10 6:46

Her hair was falling down her shoulders.

SPEAKER_01 6:56

Certain images, him, waits. I look at them if I'm in the studio or something, or think about them and feel a lot of excitement about music. I love letters, one of my favorite songs ever. Sometimes I sit down and writing, and just uh, even if I'm doing nothing that sounds like it, I just think of that song.

SPEAKER_10 7:15

Will only standing in the ring with a letter and a print.

SPEAKER_01 7:22

For all the super aggressive moments of Nick Tabe or the big preacher moments, or whatever it is, really my favorite is when he's hunched over a piano, talking like he has a direct line to God.

SPEAKER_04 7:31

In my hearts. Oh Lord, in my hearts.

SPEAKER_01 7:56

Apocalypse now, whenever I hear the score of this, I'm like drifting towards the Dolong Bridge, terrified. And I love movies like this that are like not about what they're about, it's also about slowly losing your mind. I guess this is kind of a series here. I really like a lot of spoken word or historical stuff. I think we open things up with the Kennedy Nixon great debates. We've seen clips of this stuff, but I think it'd be pretty powerful to just listen to as is probably these two doing what they think is their best.

SPEAKER_11 8:32

Whether it's in the field of housing or school or the development of electric power, we have programs which we believe will move America. I don't want historians 10 years from now to say these were the years when the tide ran out of the United States. I want them to say these were the years when the tide came in.

SPEAKER_01 8:50

I've never seen this before. This is the GFK original speeches.

SPEAKER_03 8:53

The United States maintained its determination to achieve a world free from the fear of nuclear attack and nuclear war. And then the last 24 hours.

SPEAKER_02 9:04

I've spoken about just the new frontier. We do stand on the edge of a great new era. Filled with both crisis and opportunity.

SPEAKER_01 9:12

And then this is a serious find. Four days at Shocked the World, the complete story. Well, uh story. I think we all have our own version of the complete story. I wonder if they mentioned the mob. Lee Harvey Oswald, actual denial of guilt. Sable the fuck out of that.

SPEAKER_11 9:26

These people have given me a hearing without legal representation or anything. I didn't shoot anybody, and also.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

Oswald allegedly kills Kennedy, which is not what I think happened. Everyone has mob ties. Ruby is very sick and dying. So the mob goes to Ruby, which is a classic move and says, You're not gonna be here much longer, but we will take care of your whole family if you carry this thing out for us. Well, it's all in here. But Ruby goes, kills Oswald, and then Ruby's like, I don't give a fuck, take me to jail, I'm dead soon anyway.

SPEAKER_11 9:52

Who was he? Jack Ruby is a name. Jack Ruby? Ruby, Carousel Club. He runs the carousel club, he handed me that card the other day.

SPEAKER_01 10:00

I love sampling uh speaking. You know, sometimes if I like make score music around someone talking, I can just like forget myself a little bit. I mean, mark this moment, I think this is gonna open up a whole world for me. But one of the reasons why I'm so interested in the Kennedy assassination is it was really, to my estimation, the first time there was an image that this country saw that didn't match up with the story they were told. And that creates an amazing split of dissonance. Right? You know, before that there's always half-truths, untruths, conspiracies, all these things, but they're all kind of baked into these systems. And then one day, and you know, my parents talk about it all the time, it's like you saw something happen and it didn't fully gel, and I think there was a real fracture there. If you go to Dili Plaza, there's a plaque on the book depository building, and it says, and this is you know the site where Oswald allegedly fired blah blah blah. And it just reads normal, but all the people come in must be made of steel or something, and they've carved an underline under the word allegedly. So the complete story.

SPEAKER_08 10:54

It's a mystery, wrapped in a riddle, it's not an enigma. The fucking shooters don't even know. Don't you get it?

SPEAKER_01 11:00

The main takeaways that that's that's where my head's at right now for sure.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

Thank you so much. This is probably the first time the Kennedy assassination has come up in a what's in my bag.

SPEAKER_01 11:09

Really?

SPEAKER_00 11:10

And to this level of depth.

SPEAKER_01 11:11

This is probably the first time the Kennedy assassination has come up this late in the day for me. It I it it's so there's certain things you return to so quickly. So these are all very linked in my head.

SPEAKER_00 11:20

Thank you for sharing that with us today.

SPEAKER_01 11:22

Can I buy all these now?

SPEAKER_00 11:23

You sure can.

SPEAKER_01 11:25

Now it's just you.