No Filler Music Podcast

For our Sidetrack this week we dive into Box Car Racer, the shortly lived side project of Blink 182's Tom Delonge. During recording sessions of Blink's second studio album, "Take Off Your Pants And Jacket", Delonge began experimenting with different guitar stylings with an acoustic in hand. Coupled with an increasingly grim day-to-day life while recovering from a back injury, Delonge also began wr...

We kick off our batch of episodes devoted to our awkward teenage years with a look at a band that sings about boners and dysentery: the one and only Blink-182 and their 1999 record Enema of the State. And while the juvenile lyrics, addictive melodies and fast-tempos certainly appealed to a younger crowd, it was perhaps their music videos that catapulted Mark, Tom, and Travis into the mainstream st...

As we're wrapping up our 90's rock binge, we thought what better way to do it than to share a few of our favorite non-singles from Post Malone's April 24th Nirvana tribute concert. Playing alongside (while maintaining at least 6 feet distance from each other) songwriter & bassist Brian Lee, guitarist Nick Mack, and legendary drummer Travis Barker, Malone & Co. breathe new life into 15 classic Nirv...

Before finding global success with 1995's Tragic Kingdom, ska punk darlings No Doubt were going nowhere fast after signing a record deal at Interscope Records. With little support from the label, no access to studios, and a growing list of 60+ songs under their belt, No Doubt took things into their own hands and built a studio in their garage in Anaheim, California. After a long weekend recording,...

Out of tragedy came a collaboration between two of Seattle's most legendary acts. Lead singer of Mother Love Bone Andrew Wood passed away from a heroin overdose in 1990. His former roommate was none other than Chris Cornell, who wrote a couple of songs as a tribute to his late while touring Europe with Soundgarden. Cornell reached out to former Mother Love Bone bandmates Jeff Ament and Stone Gossa...

Thirty years later and rock fans are still at odds about what qualifies as "grunge" music. But despite Cobain's commentary on the band's underground cred (and their lack of sincerity with the flannel), few would argue Pearl Jam's grunge status and impact on the Seattle scene at the birth of the movement. In 1991, the year that grunge broke, Pearl Jam released their debut Ten just a month before Ne...

Three years after the dissolution of Stone Temple Pilots, Dean and Robert DeLeo joined forces with Filter frontman Richard Patrick in 2005 to form the short-lived supergroup Army of Anyone. The band's debut single "Goodbye" peaked at number three on the Billboard Mainstream Rock Songs chart, but ultimately the veterans of 90s era grunge and alt rock didn't have the staying power against the nu-met...

Stone Temple Pilots saw huge success with their testosterone-filled debut album Core, but struggled to gain any love from the Cobain acolytes who insisted they weren't truly grunge (they were from San Diego after all). After a stint of touring and loads of in-fighting, the band returned to the studio to record their second record. Less than one month later, the band emerged with a sound that was u...

On this week's Sidetrack we're listening to one of Billy Corgan's favorite bands, Spiritualized, with a couple non-singles from their '92 debut Lazer Guided Melodies. Another example of just how varied the landscape of nineties rock was shaping up to be, LGM is at times quite minimalist and cinematic, and other times much more progressive and heavy, with a solid shoegaze backbone. The album's twel...

Just a few months before grunge took over the 90s, Smashing Pumpkins were carving out their own space in rock music with an album that perfectly bridged the alt-rock and post-punk sounds of the 80s with the heavy shift that was just around the corner. On this episode we talk Pumpkins' debut album Gish, and discuss the album's perfect blend of psychedelic, shoegaze, and hard rock fuzz, with Billy C...

What do the boys of Daft Punk do when they're not dawning helmets and winning Grammys? For Thomas Bangalter, he likes to create unsettling movie scores and dark dance beats for psychological horror dramas. At least that's what he was doing in 2002 when he scored Gaspar Noé's controversial film Irréversible. We listen to a couple of the more synth-heavy tracks from the film as we wrap up our batch...

Arguably the greatest electronic act of all time, we talk about the origins of the men underneath the helmets - before they wore the helmets! The electronic french duo Daft Punk put out their debut record, Homework, in 1997 after a couple of successful singles, including Da Funk, started a bidding war between record labels to sign the young DJs. The album has gone on to achieve iconic status for h...

On this week's episode, we open up the No Filler vault with a playback of our 3rd episode, a look at Tycho's second studio album Dive. The perfect blend of IDM, chillwave, and downtempo, Scott Hansen creates a lush and sun-dappled soundscape on this record that perfectly matches the imagery he creates under his graphic design moniker ISO50. Also featured on this episode is our very first discussio...

Next up on our batch of episodes devoted to the wide world of electronic music, we take a left turn and listen to a couple of tracks from the ambient-electronic trio KILN. By manipulating live instrumentation (treated guitars, sampled drums) with field recordings and other found sounds, KILN create lush and immersive soundscapes that borderline on hallucinogenic, and masterfully walk the line betw...

Before we rolled into the 2010s, Sam Annand (aka Architeq) had a lot of buzz generating online around his 2008 Birds of Prey EP. After months in the studio, his debut album Gold + Green proved the buzz was warranted. On this sidetrack episode, we listen to the dubby "Into the Cosmos" and the downtempo-synthesized "Odyssey". Tracklist Architeq - Twilight Architeq - Into The Cosmos Architeq - Odysse...

Nearly a decade ago, the synthwave genre saw a new wave popularity after the release of the action-drama Drive, with Kavinsky's "Nightcall" being prominently featured in the film. But Seth Haley (who goes by the Com Truise) had been making analog electronic music for years prior to that, and released his debut EP Cyanide Sisters just one year before. Com Truise's brand of synthwave expertly blends...

Hot on the heels of our McCartney Unplugged episode, we're listening to one of the most beloved and best selling live records of all time, "Frampton Comes Alive!". Recorded in 1975 and released the following year, this album took Peter Frampton from opening act to household name, and made him synonymous with the Talk Box vocal effect after singles "Do You Feel Like We Do" and "Show Me The Way" fli...

Fresh off his 106-show Paul McCartney World Tour that featured dozens of staple Beatles and Wings songs, it's no wonder McCartney saw MTV's Unplugged as the perfect opportunity to take his live show format and do the exact opposite. Relatively unheard of up to that point, McCartney's performance and subsequent album release gave Unplugged jumpstarted the show's popularity and helped it gain the cu...

To wrap up our batch of recap episodes, we look back at the last decade to bring you our Top 10 from the 2010s. This list was way more difficult to put together than we initially thought it would be. Turns out trying to distill an entire decade of music into just 10 tracks is no small feat. Although No Filler is all about celebrating the hidden gems between the singles on our favorite records, we...

Part 2 of our year-end recap: this week we look at our favorite tracks from 2019, from shoegaze to Star Wars. Steve Lacy - Only If Lusine - Turn Back Hatchie - Her Own Heart Oh Sees - Poisoned Stones Kainalu - How Do I Let Go Of You DIIV - Between Tides SAULT - Why Why Why Why Why Wilco - White Wooden Crosses Juniore - Ah Bah d'Accord Ludwig Goransson - The Mudhorn Learn more about your ad choices...

We begin our batch of year-end recaps with our top 10 discoveries of 2019. While there was certainly a ton of great new releases this year (and we'll review those next week), sometimes it's the album put out decades ago that ended up being your heaviest rotation of the year. If you're hearing it for the first time - it's just as new to your ears as the latest single from your favorite artist. So t...

Hot on the trails of our deep dive into Larry Carlton's Steely Dan guitar solos, we thought we'd pay some homage to another guitar god from the same era: the one and only Jeff Beck. On this episode, we take a listen to his 1975 debut solo record Blow By Blow. Having tried a few times to put together a successful rock group after his departure from The Yardbirds, Beck gravitated more toward the jaz...

For this very special episode of No Filler, we welcome our father Stan to the pod to help us commemorate our 100th episode. He ignited our passion for music at a young age, introducing us to bands like Steely Dan early and often. And he was once the Music Director and morning drive DJ at a small town Texas radio station back in the 70s. Together we take a look at Larry Carlton's many contributions...

This week we're digging up an old episode that we recorded over 2 years ago that we never ended up posting. We tackle our favorite Steely Dan album Pretzel Logic, from 1974. This was the band's final release as a proper five-piece before Walter Becker and Donald Fagen posted up shop in the studio, recording all future albums with a constantly revolving cast of studio musicians. Pretzel Logic varie...

​On this episode we listen to Texas natives Midlake, and their 2004 debut album Bamnan and Slivercork. One of the more successful bands to emerge from the Denton music scene, Midlake's meticulous blending of acoustic guitars and lo-fi electronica create the perfect blend of psychedelic and folk. Vocalist and lead songwriter Tim Smith's whimsical lyricism and Thom Yorke-like falsetto truly sets thi...