I’m going to be honest, I was a little scared to meet Marc Maron, a stand up comedian and host of the popular WTF Podcast. He is famously known as someone who does not hold back with his anger and I wanted to be sure his time here in the basement of KCRW was spent enjoyably talking about music.
And it was, except for when he gave us crap for not playing enough AC/DC.
Marc started off by saying he uses his iPod “like an I.V. unit” to elevate whatever mood he might be in. I was actually a bit surprised about how much he talked about love – but not by the honesty with which he did it. On David Bowie’s “Heroes” and Elvis Costello’s “Beyond Belief”.
“When my heart swells, there is a heaviness to it – some sort of dark longing to it in the sense that any relationship, any romance…so much of it is something we are manufacturing in our brain. It’s something that we want it to be or or something that we want to see it as or something that literally kind of takes you out of time and space.
Certainly “Heroes” and “Beyond Belief” do that for me. They sort of identify how I see myself or how I see my sadness or my feelings and then put it into context or that romantic idea.”
(an AMAZING live version of “Heroes”)
My fave part, however, was when he talked about the spirit of rock n roll.
“The idea of rock and roll is obviously rebellious and to me pushing the limits. And what anyone does to push the envelope in their particular creativity – it’s all rock and roll to me in a sense that rock and roll can be both entertaining and uplifting but there is that release there.
That release to me, in the spirit of rebellion, is definitely apparent in my comedy and the spirit of rebellion is definitely apparent in my comedy to some degree. Although to my comedy has gotten a little more personal. I don’t know if I would say sharing my neurosis in an honest way is rock and roll, but maybe to me it is.”
Check out his set here and his song list below.
RR
http://www.wtfpod.com/
Marc Maron’s Guest DJ Set Tracklist:
1.
Heroes
– David Bowie
2.
Beyond Belief
– Elvis Costello
3.
American Girl
– Tom Petty
4.
It’s Only Rock ‘n’ Roll
– Rolling Stones
5.
Hell Ain’t a Bad Place to Be
– AC/DC