EPISODE CHASER: The Music of Erich Zann
This is the introductory edition of our brand-new Episode Chaser series, a collection of companion pieces designed to explain some of the more obscure references we make, expound on the not-so-obscure ones, and correct some of the mistakes we make due to lazy research or drunkeness.
It’s a better version of the old “scrapbooks” I used to throw together at the beginning of Season One.
And if you dig it, do the thing:
The References
We’re two Gen-Xers whose minds are everywhere all at once, sub-referencing ourselves into the boundless depths, thus warranting a deeper dive into some of the passing remarks we make on the show.
1. Pączki
Truly flummoxed when Alec mentioned them, I allowed these Mysteries of Life to lie dormant in my brain for a time. They awakened soon enough and began supping heartily on my cortical fluid.
How pączki (pronounced “punch-key”) avoided my radar for as long as they did is beyond me. Talk about cloistered! No monk am I, but I apparently grew up in a town devoid of any Polish heritage.
Look at that picture. Satan’s Ova. One of these would induce in me such fits of sugared hysteria that you’d have to put a saddle on my back.
It’s my mission in life to try one.
2. Fun with ChatGPT
I’m no fan of AI-generated anything, but that doesn’t mean I can’t employ it then rip the shit out of it for how wrong it gets Life.
When Alec described his beer as a “Boozy Pączki”, I heard it as PUNCH-kee, not POONCH-kee as it’s actually pronounced, and immediately envisioned a washed-up ex-boxing manager, name o’ Boozy Punchky, sitting in a bar somewhere.
I packed a bunch of prompts up the robut’s ass and he gave me this:
GREAT JOB, ROBUT!
Let’s break it down.
I said nothing that could conceivably be interpreted by a Threat To Humanity as “looking like he crawled through Andy Dufresne’s sewer pipe”, but there we have it.
Why is he wearing half a bomber jacket? 😭FAIL😭
The hell is that tat on his shoulder? Did he ask for a dragon-feathered ouroboros and get that instead and then fell into a bin of soiled diapers and that’s why he has that expression?
He’s sitting in Lolert. I’ve been there. They pour a great pint of Bessrs Lar.
Score: Meat brains - 1, Robuts - ZILCHO
I asked for a couple of tweaks and got this:
Lol nice perspective, Robut. Love the cauliflower eyes. And he’s sitting at a school desk right out of The Wall in a bar called “72” that apparently doubles as a bus depot?
And why is his ass on fire?
😭PATHETIC😭
3. Beautiful Sag Harbor, NY
What was once a quaint, historic whaling town far from the claustrophobically annoying rest of Long Island has now become a quaint, historic whaling town slithering with a loathsome brood of lip-inflated Hamptonites.* You know them even if you’ve never been there. This is the only good olive oil crowd.
*I’M SURE SOME OF THEM ARE FINE PEOPLE
I suppose the town has always been, shall we say, “elevated” due to its proximity to the Hamptons. And yes, it has always attracted summer folk. It just seems like in the—oh, I’d say, past twenty years or so?—it’s become a bit clogged with these:
Perhaps I’m just anti-entropy.
But the place also has a neat literary heritage.
In case you don’t know, John Steinbeck is the hugely popular author of Cooking for Jeffrey (Penguin Random House. 2016.)
4. 🚨LOVECRAFT ALERT!!!🚨
There once was a fella called Howard
Whose horror ideas have all flowered
Though tropes in his stories
Beat Kafka's and Gorey's
The name of his cat leaves one souredNote: The Short Horror Beer Cast “Alert” system was devised in Season 1, Episode 2, and defined in Season 1, Episode 4. You should listen to the latter episode in its entirety, but here it is for today’s coffee generation:
5. The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari
I’d made reference to the 1920 film when discussing how HPL describes the Rue D’Auseil. The story was written in 1921. One wonders if he’d seen the film.
Dig:
Had the pleasure of seeing Caligari at Halloween within the stony walls of the Cathedral of St. John the Divine in New York City, accompanied by music played on the church’s immense and glorious pipe organ. I recommend.
6. The Viol
In illustrations of the story, artists often mistake the instrument Zann was playing for the violin. Nope. ‘Tis a viol.
Also known as the voila da gamba, the viol is a cousin of the cello, but it has seven strings, not four. Although the one in this Wikipedia photo has six, so I don’t know.
Also I don’t think they all have Oompa-Loompa heads.
7. Cats and the Paranormal
Although I personally don’t believe cats (or anyone else, for that matter) have any connection to the so-called “spirit world”, Purina sets the record straight.
https://www.purina.co.uk/articles/cats/behaviour/common-questions/can-cats-see-ghosts
Thank you, Purina. Your unwavering commitment to truth is indeed a testament to the collected intellectual endeavor of all humanity, for it is only in our pursuit of truth that we may be glorified.
8. Keith Emerson-san
We couldn’t use the OG’s music on the show. So what you hear in the background is not Keith Emerson’s giant cosmic nightmare Moog synthesizer, but rather some guy’s amazing demonstration of the Minimoog, another wonderful piece of 70s ephemera, the sight and sound of which gives this old nerd sweet shivers of delight,.
Here’s the man himself posing with the real deal. As you can see, Alec was right to describe it as Lovecraftian.
And next up we have Keith making a lot of noise on the thing. Not his best playing, but a great demo of what the monster synth sounded like.
To this day, there’s been nothing quite like it, or him.
🚨70s ALERT🚨 Keith is wearing Martian gigolo formalwear and the rest of the band have not yet discovered Pantene.
Argumentum ad ebrietate
We speak off the cuff, and often under the influence of a particular fermented beverage. It's only natural our mouths run ahead of our brains and we muck up some of the details. So I’ve decided to group these gaffes under the above heading and excuse it thus.
1. Bacchanal
Oops.
2. Invoke vs Evoke
On the subject of words, I used “invoke” an embarrassing number of times when I meant to say “evoke”.
😭DUMBASS😭
3. Twin Fork Beer Co.’s Triple Wordplay
So the company was founded by twins, it’s brewed on the North Fork of Long Island and distributed throughout the South Fork as well, and the logo has a tuning fork.
Forgot to mention that.
And that’s all I got! Catch y’all next time for some “Cool Air”.
