Makes Me Laugh (Encore Episode 148)

Encore 148
Jason Tate

On this week’s episode of Encore I am once again joined by special guest Drew Beringer. This week we talk all about the new albums from New Found Glory and Paramore. First we catch up a little (Drew got married!), talk a little basketball, Funkos, the usual. Then we dive into the most recent releases from New Found Glory and Paramore and talk about their place in the music scene and their careers as a whole. Mixed within is a talk about Blink-182 and if they should shake it up with a new producer like NFG did (spoiler: probably), and a talk about leaks not mattering much these days, and how we feel about long wait times between album announcements.

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FCC Votes to Begin Dismantling Net Neutrality

Jason Tate

Karl Bode, writing for TechDirt:

Surprising absolutely nobody, the FCC today voted 2-1 along strict party lines to begin dismantling net neutrality protections for consumers. The move comes despite the fact that the vast majority of non-bot comments filed with the FCC support keeping the rules intact. And while FCC boss Ajit Pai has breathlessly insisted he intended to listen to the concerns of all parties involved, there has been zero indication that this was a serious commitment as he begins dismantling all manner of broadband consumer protections, not just net neutrality.

As you might have expected, the FCC was quick to release a statement claiming that gutting the popular consumer protections would usher forth a magical age of connectivity, investment, and innovation.

Travis Barker Appears on “The Doctors”

Travis Barker
Jason Tate

Travis Barker of Blink-182 appeared on the TV show “The Doctors” on Monday to talk about recovering from a deadly plane crash in 2008. Some clips from the show can be seen on Huffington Post:

“The doctors said, ‘You’re probably going to be on most of these drugs for the rest of your life because you went through such a horrific experience, and you’re dealing with bipolar disorder. You’ll probably never play drums again, you’ll never run again,’” he recalled on the program this week.

“Then the challenge was in my mind just to prove them wrong,” he said. “I had to wean myself off of every drug, start playing the drums immediately, run, and then I became even healthier than I ever was before the plane accident.”

An Oral History of ‘No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls’

Simple Plan
Jason Tate

Simple Plan did a little oral history of No Pads, No Helmets…Just Balls over at Alt Press:

That record could have taken, at the most, two months to make; it took a year. We were living in very close quarters, sleeping in a windowless room with bunkbeds. We were cooking for ourselves, which is normal, but nobody knew how to cook, so it was horrible. It was a tedious process. Arnold had this vision where he would say, “You guys record yourself, I’m going to come back and criticize and edit it,” and that’s exactly what he’d do. He would leave us days at a time in the studio, I would record the whole album, he would come back and be, like, “Yeah, you could do better,” and scratch everything I did. It was frustrating.

Reset was still better.