Two Librans – Details, episodes & analysis

Welcome to the first episode of the Paintwork Two Librans podcast hosted by two cartoonists of moderate renown, Roman Muradov and Tom Van Deusen. Each week, we attempt to provide informed commentary on one song by The Fall, but inevitably get derailed and talk about highly unrelated things. So, if you are not a Fall fan, you are perhaps more likely to enjoy this, than if you are.

LIVE MIXING

On our first episode, we figure out a better name for the show live on air once it's revealed that it's one of the hosts' Very Special Day, so please ignore when we call the podcast “Paintwork”, that is no longer accurate.

Fittingly, we start off with “Paintwork”, from the seminal 1985 album This Nation's Saving Grace. With the benefit of hindsight and several more episodes in the can, we can say with confidence that this is the most focused coverage of a song we ever did or will ever do, so strap in.

Also each week, we listen to an interview with the very cantankerous Mark E.Smith, and for the first week, we picked the classic 1989 clip "Mark E Smith German TV Interview 1989". Our favorite little imp was in a pretty feisty mood for this one, and the format, wardrobes, and vibes are all deliciously off the charts.

ALSO COVERED

Sister paintings

Fan numbering

Roman’s Google search result success

Fellow Fall fan and friend of the pod Liam Barrett

German Singer / Songwriter / Sensation Phillip Boa

Sad Bachelor Meals

Please make sure to tell your friends, family and coworkers to listen up and learn a thing or two about a band they've never heard of and probably wouldn’t like. Ring the bell, smash subscribe and stay tuned for next week's episode.

PS. Don’t forget to subscribe to Roman’s award-winning personal substack, DADA issues.

P.P.S Don’t forget to subscribe to Tom’s non-award-winning but still pretty funny personal substack, Tom Van Deusen Land.

Welcome back to the Two Librans, the only podcast that is brave enough to criticize the French and their lacivious ways. This week we are covering our namesake, “Two Librans”, from the 2000 album The Unutterable.

Roman decided to shrink himself down to record this episode from inside a toilet bowl, so the audio quality on his end is rather echoey and there’s a bit of clipping in one portion. We sincerely apologize and have since gotten that sorted. The next one is better, and the one after is even better than that.

With our new name, we tap into our “Libra Moods”, and discuss all sorts of non-Fall subject matter. This includes a lengthy discussion on the wildly unhinged Russian version of Wheel of Fortune, Field of Wonder. Strap on in.

INTERVIEW

This week’s interview takes place on the infamous “Red Sofa” with Lauren Laverne, who tries to make things cheeky and fun but is swatted down by a particularly pissy MES. The audience in the background is made up of children who seem bored and confused. We forgot they’re even there until they chuckle at something Mark says over three minutes in. A great time was had by all.

ALSO COVERED

Funereal disrespect

Mark E. Smith’s BEE MOVIE prophecy

“Chimps are funny.” Jerry gives us a glimpse at his manuscripts from the Library of Congress

Hugo Remastered

The Russian TV intro animation that terrified Roman as a child

The Field of Wonders, everyone!

The only group that captured the true essence of The Fall

Roman’s animated take on the Russian Field of Fortune and other traumatic TV memories

PS. Don’t forget to subscribe to Roman’s award-winning personal substack, DADA issues.

P.P.S Don’t forget to subscribe to Tom’s non-award-winning but still pretty funny personal substack, the beautifully named Tom Van Deusen's Blog.

One of the Fall’s weirder 90’s bangers, Jerry Garcia on rap, Chester Brown on hair, and, of course, astrology (for Libras only, the rest of you turn away now).

Ho ho ho, and Merry Motherloving Christmas to our our Christian listeners out there. Welcome back to Episode 3 of our mighty podcast, recorded well before Thanksgiving, so don’t expect any holiday gift guides for the Fall fans in your life. Instead, we’re finally getting the hang of speaking into microphones, and this is the first episode we can say with authority is “okay”. Well, mostly, aside from Roman’s audio still being a bit lacking. We promise the next episode will sound like a Steely Dan album; crystal-clear dogshit.

This week, we’re covering a pretty obscure track (The Birmingham School of Business School) from an album most folks forget existed (Code: Selfish).

Wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah… wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah-wah

We discuss the “creative accounting” that inspired the song, its rather unfocused lyrics and the album Code: Selfish that rarely left our collective Case Logic CD briefcase. And, true to our brand, we discuss what it was like to rent video tapes in Russia, Chester Brown’s hot new look, and a bunch of other enlightening topics.

MARK ON TAPE

The “interview” this week is really just Mark E. Smith pontificating about what’s on his mind that day. According to the YouTube title, this includes “Music, Civil Rights and John Lennon”, and mumbles about six words in on each of these subjects.

ALSO COVERED

A recitation of River Cuomo’s unfortunate fan letter to cartoonist Joe Matt

Pascal Le Gras’s Fall covers

Mark’s graphic design skills firing on all cylinders on this record

Chester Brown’s Coiffurial Style Corner

Morrissey’s sexual accomplishment

“At this, Eliza and Ezra rolled together into one giggling snowball of full-figured copulation, screaming and shouting as they playfully bit and pulled at each other in a dangerous and clamorous rollercoaster coil of sexually violent rotation with Eliza’s breasts barrel-rolled across Ezra’s howling mouth and the pained frenzy of his bulbous salutation extenuating his excitement as it whacked and smacked its way into every muscle of Eliza’s body except for the otherwise central zone.”

PS.

Roman drops merch, and a bunch of dubious discounts…

…and Tom discovers Japan.

A thorough discussion on a classic track(s) from Hex Enduction Hour, the most cantankerous and irresponsible interview to ever appear on Australian children’s television, and some Dangerous Truths from a Special Guest Host!

We’re closing out 2024 with a BANG, covering an absolute classic: Winter (Hostel-Maxi) from 1981’s Hex Enduction Hour. We discuss why the song was split in two, dissect the (many) lyrics, and pull some demented theories from the bottomless depths of the world’s most useless, defunct website, The Annotated Fall, all with newfound swagger on the mic and crispy-clean audio quality. Around halfway through our discussion we encounter a shocking revelation, which will continue into Episode 5 next week!

NEW YEAR NEW HOST

2024 was the year our humble podcast splashed out of the womb, and as a thank you for sticking with us this far, we also had on our first Mystery Guest Host, who delivers some Dangerous Truths that might rip you out of your comfort zone and question the values you hold so dear. We also veer into legthy discussions of the The Fall’s responsibilty for the entirity of modern Icelandic music, problematic terms for German prog music, and the live-action Disney remakes of their classic animated films.

MARK VS. MARC

This week’s interview is from the Australian program(me) “Sounds”, hosted by the genuinely charming Donnie Sutherland. His charm is countered by two men who had gotten into a literal fistfight the evening before; MES and Marc “Happy Fall Guitarist” Riley. Why they decided to have this duo on exclusively for the interview after Marc gave Mark a well-deserved, nasty shiner (poorly hidden by heavy makeup) is anyone’s guess, but Donnie powers through the interview like a true pro and wins them over by the end. It’s capped by him recommending Hex Enduction Hour to Australia’s youth, which is not only hilarious but socially irresponsible.

ALSO COVERED

The only way the French know how to pay tribute

Educating Zoomers

God-teir song-ending fake-outs

“The book was better!” and similar tropes

PLUGS AND FALSE PROMISES

Roman made some very generous promises about sweepstakes prizes this week, and to raise money he’s selling a beautiful new, branded ballcap on his award-winning Substack, DADA issues.

And please smash a like, subscribe and a ding-ding-ding for Tom’s personal Substack, which he promises will be updated soon with “content”.

The second half of our discussion on Winter, sixty seconds of Mark E. Smith mumbling about drinking while “drowning in a sea of Boddingtons”, and over a hundred minutes of discussion on things that are decidedly not the Fall.

SCENARIO: A Fall superfan discovers a brand new podcast about their favorite band. Better yet, there’s two whole episodes and over THREE HOURS of discussion on their favorite song, Winter from the 1981 masterpiece Hex Enduction Hour. They subscribe, pop open their podcatcher and are utterly baffled by sound collages, lengthy descriptions of a deranged Seinfeld episode that sound like a fever dream, and stories about blacking out from drinking in Buffalo in the mid 00’s. No, sir, this isn’t your grandmother’s Fall podcast (though I heard that’s pretty good, too), this is Two Librans; the intersection of comics, astrology, Patti Smith’s poetry and The Fall. Only listen to this once a day. Your brain might be destroyed!

Our original plan for last week was to cover the entirety of the two-part song Winter, but like all good trains, it got derailed. Tom joked before that recording that we could discuss Winter 2 the following week, but that is exactly what happened. The boys wrap up the discussion with the help of some very lonely and bored men who loitered on the defunct Annotated Fall when it was still a going concern, and also talk about all sorts of other things. This one is a hoot, and we laughed at ourselves quite a bit while editing. Radical Self-Love, I think that’s what they call it.

MARK E. SMITH LIKES A BEER AND IS NOT ASHAMED

This week we’re treated to a damn-near incomprehensible monologue by our spiritual leader MES, where he proffers such invaluable truths as “You cannot be an alcoholic if you have your drink in the open”. Actually that’s about the only wisdom he provides, the rest is just typical kvetching about other bands and the media. And we wouldn’t have it any other way. 60 seconds of pure gold.

ALSO COVERED

Roman’s one-night-long stoner phase

Tom’s view at TCAF, 2017

Patti Smith staying relevant with youth culture

Emmanuel Macron staying relevant with youth culture

Roman’s comic about painting with children which was enjoyed by the stingy scum of Antwerp

Best museum for day drinking in Paris

Meeting Public Figures on Facebook Marketplace

The original crop from a couple years ago:

There were so many that at a certain point Roman just started copy-pasting the text instead of screenshotting:

Recent updates:

David Hockney sliding into Roman’s dad’s DMs 👍

Cow Tools

Roman’s first memory

Did Kramer impregnate a secondary character?

Roman may’ve misremembered a few things, but other people of the internet are on the same page:

Listeners, what do you think?

Also, was William Blake a nudist?

John “the Baptist” Cale

And once again, Brain Ticket

More Radical Self-Love

As always, links to Tom and Romans’s personal Substacks.

In this Tempo House we discuss: a very long and weird song from possibly the Fall's best album, the proud-boys-to-proud-men pipeline, the story of our meeting, the art of editing, Snow White and her Dwarfs, Twilight soundtrack, and Tom's mom.

…in which these men discuss crime (cyber, and regular), gloryholes, the manosphere, and The Fall, ft. Caitlin Moran

Why hello there, did you miss us? We're back from a short hiatus you may or may not have noticed. We have both been incredibly busy with outside projects (also Tom was very sick), and discovered that keeping a weekly schedule was slowly ruining us. So, if we miss a week, please go back and catch up on any episodes you may have missed. Do not listen to any other podcasts.

This week we cover an obscure track that’s only appeared on bootlegged live performances or tacked on as a bonus track on reissues, “That Man.” It’s a somewhat obnoxious song that neither of us particularly like, and the mealy-mouthed explanation of why Tom chose it falls apart pretty quickly as the discussion progresses. Even the unlovable goofballs on the now defunct Annotated Fall disapprove. Nevertheless, because we are covering everything Mark E. Smith ever penned, we do a full lyrical analysis of this stupid song, and discover it’s rife with extremely-specific Manchester references and (according to the Annotated Fall) William Blake references? Sure, buddy.

And this being Two Librans, our discourse flies off the handle. In addition to That Man, These Men discuss Chuck E. Cheese, South American retreats for adherents to the Manosphere, glory holes (quite a bit on this actually), and Cyber Punishment for Cyber Crimes. Also: Tom plays a kazoo.

DO YOU LIKE SEX

This week’s interview is from some awful television show called Naked City, where host Caitlin Moran tries to drum up controversy with an extremely bemused and increasingly drunk Mark E. Smith.

Perhaps the best part is when he’s asked who his favorite comedian is, and he answers Bernard Manning, an English comedian and nightclub owner whose sense of humor resembles your racist uncle telling jokes to try to impress uncles even more racist than him. He looks and sounds like an anthropomorphic jowl, so good luck trying to understand the clips they play of him blathering about immigrants or women or something.

The whole interview has a strange, 90s Vaseline sheen, and is so oddly-produced that it’s pretty entertaining.

ALSO COVERED

Translated Russian dubs from the Soviet era

VERY heterosexual men's retreats, no vegans welcome

Preventative measures for glory holes in Seattle

Note: this is a photo Tom took in 2012 of the bathroom he discusses in Volunteer ParkBonus: Here’s a comic he scribbled out at a drink-and-draw night in 2016 that features it:

Tom teaches Roman about Chuck-E-Cheese / Dave & Busters

Tom’s cousin’s MTV reality show about models

Porn-’n-Chicken Night at the Old Pink in Buffalo (RIP)

The difference between Love & Lust

Russian pirate labels listed on Allmusic

Roman steals a question from Caitlin Moran in his comic

PS

As always, don’t forget to follow our personal substacks!

Roman recently wrote a manifesto no-one asked for:

This marks our first child-themed episode, and it runs the gauntlet from how to dress your child, horrible movies your children will demand to watch, mistakes your child can make when under the influence of Rock and Roll music, and of course, the song Spoilt Victorian Child.

Truly one of The Fall’s great “bangers”, frontloading the already excellent This Nation’s Saving Grace. We have a nuanced conversation about the lyrics, which are relatively straightforward by Fall standards. Also, we miss some very obvious references. Have any guesses as to what “SVC” could stand for in this song? Tune in to hear us take an entire episode to figure it out!

We also go back to school and cover Tom’s hit lists and Roman’s enormous genitals on the pages of Nikolai Gogol’s Dead Souls. Ah, youth..

A DIP INTO THE COMMENTS CESSPOOL

We’ve danced around the petty, strange world of the comments accompanying the “annotations” on the Annotated Fall, but this week we do a deep dive into their chatter about “SVC”. We read aloud a very stupid, petty argument among grown men over the lyrics to the song, before someone posts the lyrics sheet as listed in the official single, almost as if it’s an irrelevant aside.

ALSO COVERED

Gaston Bachelard vs Fletcher Hanks

Fantagraphics childwear

(still for sale at the moment of writing)

Fuck Al/Fuck AI

Tom’s college classmates

The revolution will begin with Limp Bizkit

Robert Christgau, “The Dean of American Rock Critics”

Tom’s Hit List

The only reason to visit Bethesda, Maryland

PS

As always, don’t forget to follow our own substacks.

Tom’s been writing weekly about “making art” in the screenprinting studio, and also documenting his terrific dietary habits.

Roman recently posted some very dumb cartoons, and the very first one of these you can hear being riffed out in one of the upcoming episodes.

Welcome to the TENTH episode of your favorite podcaster’s favorite podcast, Two Librans. We’ve spent the better part of a week together on a European holiday, and haven’t killed each other quite yet, and even managed to finally edit another episode, based on this certified banger:

We both agree it’s about living in squalor, but both Roman and the weirdos at The Annotated Fall think it has something to do with Mark E. Smith expecting the previous tenant of his flat to leave a belt for him to wear when the move out (?). There are plenty of demented theories in the comments, and we ride along on their leaps of logic till they become too stupid to deal with.

This week’s episode is also our new format! From here on out we’re only going to cover one topic or song. It’s shorter! This one is a 1hr! 1hr! 1hr! Enduction ep. This is also our first episode with an HR complaint, as we navigate the tricky world of slack-based workspace bullying.

ALSO DISCUSSED

Mark Zuckerberg’s Neck

Roman brags about eating charcoal for some reason

Women of the World Take Over the Pod

Jeffrey Lewis’s fun “documentary” on The Fall

Miami Review of Comics

Drew Lerman’s proper comics podcast which has no mention of astrology or the Fall (which is why it’s not as good as ours). A recent episode of it may’ve been sampled into nonsense in this ep (the real thing is much more sober and informative than what we do here).

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman recently got hospitalized (he’s fine-ish now) and improvised some demented comics about the oldest profession.

And Tom is about to post pretty long travelogue series on his trip to Europe, including lots of shocking and disturbing revelations about Roman that MIGHT end our friendship! Subscribe so you don’t miss one juicy bit.

Welcome back Foodie Fam! It’s ya boys, JellyRoll and GobbleGoo for another delicious episode of Two Librans, the only podcast that dares to ask how much food can one stuff into their mouth! This week isn’t just about eating, it’s also about chewing, and this week we’re chewing on The Fall’s fantastic cover of the Kinks Klassic “Victoria”!

Unfortunately, The Annotated Fall let us down yet again, and has no page dedicated to this cover song. It kind of makes sense, considering they didn’t change any of the lyrics of the original, but we still miss goofing on the deranged and lonely men arguing in the comments. Still, there’s plenty for us to discuss, from our love of The Kinks to the original design of the Michelin Man.

PRESS YOUR LUCK

This week’s interview is amazing, maybe the best we’ve covered so far. Featuring the very charming Kristy MacColl and a surprisingly agreeable Mark E. Smith popping on a fun show called Video View. The host plays a video, and all three have a giant buzzer to press when they’ve had enough. Everyone talks a lot of shit, and Mark even looks rather tame compared to the razor-tongued MacColl. Really worth watching before we discuss it.

ALSO COVERED

How many harmonicas does one band need?!

We kinda lost it watching this one. Play along if you want the full communal experience.

Jim Carrey’s savage and disrespectful political cartoons

This.

And its forefather

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman recently illustrated a children’s book, ripe for the extended foodie fam:

And Tom had an existential crisis when he completely fucked up a screenprint. This is the penultimate post in the saga you have all been following so closely!