In the second episode of "Talking Shit", Darren responds to some "viewer mail" regarding the first episode. Namely, the fact that he burped out loud and didn't edit it out like a professional. Darren's response is pure Darren and leads him to admit to a process that is actually quite simple: he get stoned and hits 'RECORD'.
To breeze past that and straight to today's subject, Tom fucking Petty, just fast-forward to 4:20 (I shit you not)
Darren's notes:
I was a kid when Damn The Torpedoes came out in 1979 and it, along with a handful of other seminal albums by the likes of Elvis Costello & The Attractions, the Pretenders, and The Police, was very responsible for reshaping my mind as a young music lover.
Petty and his band went from being a struggling mid-level rock act to one of the biggest bands in the world without sacrificing one iota of their soul.
Damn The Torpedoes is the sound of a band making the only music they know how to make the only way they know how to make it, with fingers crossed that what makes them give their all to their art will connect with us just as much.
And somehow, back then, we got it. Sure, most of us were still just young kids living a very worry-free existence. We didn't yet know what it meant to be "kicked around some" but the way Petty told it, there was a certain honor in being a loser if you were still out their trying your hardest.
With a song like "Even The Losers", he made it romantic to be that person who never quite makes it over the hump, but who's story is still worth telling. You get the feeling that for as good as he had it back then, Petty still identified with those characters.
But this is a cat who has spent the past thirty years hanging out with rock royalty. Even before he was truly worthy of sharing the spotlight with the likes of Roy Orbison, Dylan, George Harrison and others, there he was sharing the spotlight with the likes of Orbson, Dylan, Harrison, etc. Even as a fan of his, I found it odd to see those guys so eager to welcome him into their elite club.
Having said that, after a good six months or s of pinching himself on a daily basis that he was in such esteemed company, he couldn't help but believe the hype and no longer saw himself as the little guy fighting the good fight.
These days, he's Tom fucking Petty, above criticism, making jam band albums with the remaining Heartbreakers, still estranged from original drummer Stan Lynch, whose presence in the band gave a smirk and swagger to Petty's music that it might not have otherwise had. Additionally, he was the sand in Petty's Vaseline, keeping the songwriter honest and being vocal when the material or performances weren't up-to-snuff.
Petty simply got too big to have to put up with such "nonsense". After all, he was having dinner with Ringo and Johnny Depp now. Lynch left and the Heartbreakers have been on cruise control ever since. In today's episode, I tell Tom Petty what he must do if he ever wants his music to matter again.
Not saying we gonna stop loving the man, just no more pretending to like the new Allman Brothers album, if you catch our drift.