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!

Patti Smith's N-word pass, Kramer apology remix, poly book club, oh and a song by the Fall.

Hello and welcome back to our eleventh episode of the Two Librans. You’re in for a special treat, because this is our first in-person episode.

Recorded at Lincoln Center or some other place in New York, so please forgive the occasional cheers from our adoring fans, as well as Roman mumbling, and Tom talking much louder with his large American mouth.

This time we’re talking about Service, a melancholy number from the Infotainment Scan, which is one of Roman’s favorites, and one so impactful to Tom that he can’t remember if he’s heard or not. Roman recommends the Peel session version, which you’ll hear excerpted in the episode.

ALSO DISCUSSED

Patti Smith says a choice word on record, repeatedly

This takes up probably half of the episode, and good god, it goes places.

Poly book club update

Yes, big news for the locals—Roman finally enacted some real societal change in a city he no longer inhabits. We also discuss the literary value of the Ethical Slut.

Jerry Seinfeld on what’s “NOT FUNNY.”

Also

Tom questions Roman’s self-described victimhood, and a more successful cartoonist than us says (privately) that Roman draws like a woman (we should reiterate at this point that this is absolutely fine, and we have nothing but respect and admiration for that cartoonist, and Roman does draw like a woman).

Lastly, we finally connect Pizza Gate and Pizza Island. They could’ve gotten away with it if it wasn’t for those pesky meddling .

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Tom hasn’t updated his in a while so who gives a shit. Roman has rebooted fan-favorite Terrible Father…

…and made some Resident Evil 4 fan-art.

Just in time for spooky szn, one of the more disturbing Fall songs from an album with a kind of holiday skull. More importantly, we finally fulfill the astrological premise of our podcast, and talk for an unreasonable amount of time about a certain Bushwick bar, centered around the stars and their signs.

We go in deep, reading google reviews and missions statements, and, as usual, end up in the doghouse, discussing whether it’s cool or not to ruin your ex-wife’s songs. We also talk about “straight bars” where we feel safe, Roman’s amorous escapades, rejection vouchers, and many other things. Listen till the end for a bonus interview with the man Mark E.Smith and the woman Brix Smith themselves.

ALSO DISCUSSED

This fucking style

Get Your Birthday Song from Hermeto Pascoal

The Less “Doctored” Earlier Version

What do you think, listener, is it better? We think it is, and Mark was a bit of a knob to dismantle this song further for no good reason.

Normal Men Weigh In on Brix’s Contributions

Aaaawesome Book for Real Dudes of the Manosphere

The Classical

The Other Great Kr*utr*ck Album Art

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman is halfway through his long depressing book, and in the next chapter the umbrella story from this episode might reappear in a slightly altered form.

Roman’s 15 minutes on Substack from back when Ghibli AI was relevant.

Are you feeling parched? Well, it’s time for another Two Librans episode, so open your cake holes and we’ll douse you from our content firehose!

Before we start to discuss The Fall, which is ostensibly the subject of this podcast, we start the episode with a new, short-lived and deeply problematic segment dubbed “The Dog House” (a.k.a. “the Meat is Back”) in which we wanted to go over the latest breakups in comics scene, for all the single minglers out there. We cut almost all of it, out of respect for our colleagues.

MEIN DYKHOFF

Once we get that out of our systems, we get to the real subject of today’s episode, a discussion of the classic track Lie Dream of a Casino Soul.

Adorned with classic Savage Pencil art, this non-album single slaps in every possible way, from the pling-plong keyboards to the lyrics, which are discussed to no end and no point on The Annotated Fall.

There’s a lot of bickering in the comments there until, on the seventy-ninth comment, someone posts the lyrics, written by Marc E. Smith himself, scanned for a Omega Auction of his estate:

So there you have it, he doesn’t say “So I think I’ll cut my dick off”, he says “I think I’ll cut my Dykhoff”, which makes zero sense.

NEW FACTS EMERGE

Oh, but does he? When putting together these notes months after the recordings, we came across another Omega auction with the lyrics to the song, with hand-written additions by Marc.

So this will remain a mystery until we use AI to resurrect Marc so we can ask him ourselves. Get on it, Zuckenberg!

ALSO DISCUSSED

The great Savage Pencil (who is still alive)

SavX’s badass artwork for Big Black’s (middling) Headache EP

… which replaced the original, truly reprehensible packaging conceived by the original edgelord, Steve Albini (do not look this up).

They’re just pumpkins.

It’s just a cheeseburger (squint).

Okay, Gooner.

How do you celebrate 3/11?

Chechnya in Cars 2

Marc Bell invented The Minions, period.

Jeffrey Lewis’s terrific Legend of the Fall

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman has become public domain, apparently.

Also, his new book is up for preorder! Don’t miss his sombre side with this one.

And whoa! Tom finished his portfolio, fucking finally! Mostly professional animation work but also has some of his drawings and prints. And he’s working on a new comic, he swears!

http://tvd.design

He’s also going to start his blog again, he swears!

https://substack.com/@tomvandeusen

Hey everyone! The Two Libs are back with an important new episode. We’re doing the difficult but necessary work to cool the hateful political rhetoric poisoning our country right now, so we can all see each other’s inherent human good and right to free discussion.

Specifically, we’re talking about the legacy of the Cherry Poppin’ Daddies! You know, that swing revival band with a name that straddles between stupid and abhorrent? Roman indulges Tom in a full 30 minutes of “Daddycast”, and lo and behold, they’re both more problematic than you remember and impossibly worse now. So strap in for that! What was our podcast about again?

SOCCER SCORES

That’s right! It’s about soccer (football, for the limeys) and the week’s scores! Specifically from 20 years ago, and specifically read by the lead singer of The Fall, one Mark E. Smith. He performs a very straight-faced reading of a bunch of football results with scores like “Nil-Nil”. When he’s finished he insults the host’s looks. Not to be missed, especially if you believe the comments, since this video has everyone in hysterics for some reason.

Also, Roman tells a long, confusing sex “joke” which he later says is “more of a story”. He eventually drew it into a four panel comic which you can read right here.

ALSO DISCUSSED

Tom Morello wankery (per usual)

The Actual Zoot Suit Riots

The worst anything, ever

The biggest dichotomy between an album’s music and its cover

Toilet paper lore

Also features Roman’s manly new song “Once I was Just a Young Man, Now I’m a Slightly Older Man.”

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman has been making relatable comics for your co-workers.

And here’s Tom’s Substack he’s sorely neglected because he’s been working on career stuff.

Hello and welcome back to Two Librans, a podcast hosted by the “least empathetic cartoonists of the last 20 years”. Today marks our 12th episode, and to celebrate wee-’re introducing an exciting new segment which you won’t want to piss miss! So grab a big beverage, hold it down with your #1 favorite podcast!

A GUITAR LINE WITH A “GREEK MOTIF”

Roman’s pick this week is Theme From Sparta F.C., a banger track from “The Real New Fall L.P. Formerly ‘Country on the Click’”, which is a surprisingly good album despite the horrendous title. Roman, the commensurate jock of the show, insisted we not only cover a song related to his favorite sport of “footie”. Get your fuckin’ bitch-ass ready for a testosterone-fueled bro down! WOOF WOOF!!

ALSO DISCUSSED

Mark E. Smith reads the weeks’ football results and it’s HILARIOUS!!!

Fred Durst Breaks Stuff for 9/11

Our favorite Nelly tracks

Bono doesn’t just suck at music

This band had this name in 1998 and that was considered okay. Oh wait, they’re still a band and haven’t changed their names.

Prince Vincent Gallo

The back cover of Roman’s next book

Now on YouTube too!

Attn: Gen Z! It’s time to revisit the classic eps with YouTube video content. You won’t see us, but you can probably have a great time vegging out to the trippy video loops.

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman has put out two new Terrible Father adventures, on sleep and smell.

Tom’s busy working on a comic and redoing his website, but you can catch up on his Substack, which will eventually cover his agony getting back into comics

Howdy-ho, fellow and honorary Librans, to a brand-spankin’-new episode we recorded months ago! Now that we’ve crossed the threshold into winter, it’s a great time to release an episode that we recorded in late spring and said will “probably come out this summer.” When Tom heard that while editing the episode it made him very sad! He looked outside at the frosty gray day from his millennial gray apartment. He then looked back at Adobe Audition and started sobbing. Poor Tom.

But Tom was rapidly filled with cheer as he realized this was the episode where we discuss…

BRITISH PEOPLE IN HOT WEATHER

Yes, what better time to share a song about summer than in the middle of the winter of our diss-content? This banging tune will certainly warm you up, whatever cold region you might be currently inhabiting.

Mark brings himself to giggles singing about how poorly the British handle the heat in this weird B-Side released around the time he went through a divorce and recorded Extricate. It might be their most spite-fueled album, which is really saying something when you consider their catalogue, and it’s nice to hear Mark get a little silly in this pretty throw-away track.

ALSO DISCUSSED

Spending the summer with Tom Hank’s son (really.)

No joke, this is Tom Hank’s son

Fellow faux-Jamaican-Patoi lover, Adrian Brody

Sound of the Summer.

Kubrik’s scene compositions in Barry Lyndon

This great interview with Robert Crumb at the 92nd St. Y (if you listen closely you can hear Tom laughing in the audience!)

The intensely disturbing Claymation film The Adventures of Mark Twain

Here, watch the whole fuckin’ movie!

Roman’s very short career in Facebook games

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks. Roman recently came back from France with some very French comics to show.

And whoa! Tom is writing comics again!

Holy shit, you’d better subscribe so you can READ THE WHOLE BOOK as he slowly draws it!

This episode we cover such festive topics as school shootings, Zohran’s waifu (who is definitely listening to the pod), and the prison industrial complex! Since this is the first episode we recorded and edited in a timely manner, we even talked about the newest Jeffrey Epstein “drop” and other topical matters—listen now, or feel irrelevant forever.

JINGLE BELL ROCK

Merry Mark E. Smith-smas, boys and girls, it’s the very first Two Librans Holiday Special! This episode’s Fall song is a bizarre cover of Jingle Bell Rock from a mid 90s John Peel session, with a wild story behind its improvised lyrics. We delve into the song’s history, and its many, many cover versions, almost all of them terrible.

For comparison, here is the original. We’ll go over all the missing and added lyrics, green M&S bags, Brussels sprouts, old beef, and all.

We’re a little drunk on this one. So sneak off from staid and awkward family time, lock yourself in the bathroom and spend some quality time with your real family.

ALSO DISCUSSED

The story behind the cover

From the new audiobook version of Steve Hanley’s the Big Midweek.

Roman’s exceedingly thoughtful gift for Tom

Gets yours here

NY post headlines

Prison

Just friends

Kurt Vonnegut farting around

River City Ransom US cover art

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks.

Tom is still cranking away furiously on his comic, and you can read the last installment with its proper formatting.

Roman recently had a work trip and made some exciting drawings about office life. If you’re reading this before the end of the year, his annual subscription has a discount, and he’s pledging to put out more posts.

WARNING, INFANT!

If you came to the pod looking for informed Fall commentary, this episode might not be the best place to start. It was ostensibly to be about the Fall-filler “classic” Papal Visit, but things got badly derailed when we discussed our European adventure together earlier this year. If you’re looking for a decent introduction to our somewhat-Fall-related banter, check out our recent recent ep on Bonkers in Phoenix. Otherwise, enjoy the travelogue!

As a result, the least-deserving song in the Fall catalogue is a two-episode special, so stay tuned.

LADZ ON TOUR

We’re going over our first and last pub crawl pilgrimage to Manchester, and get derailed into discussing beastmodes, Leigh Bowery at the Tate, sensitive actor Pedro Pascal, early British indie games, bouncy castles and other worthy matters.

ALSO DISCUSSED

LS Lowry 360 experience

VR Colonoscopy

Leigh Bowery

SHUT UP, LITTLE MAN!

That egg gate

Dizzy

Roman’s scenic death march

A bouncy castle near a church (church was on the left)

The Mancunian Neckbeard

The semi-official MES pub crawl

Honey, we have Cuphead at home

Bank Holidays in Manchester

BEAST MODE

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks.

Roman is back with an exciting new Terrible Father adventure:

Tom is still cranking away furiously on his comic, and you can read the last installment with its proper formatting.

PPS.

From one of the lavatories.

We continue our European travelogue through our misadventures through Berlin and Leipzig last summer, and to accompany it we chose to discuss The Fall’s “Das Vulture Ans Ein Nutter-Wain”, a song whose title in German means absolutely nothing.

We also discuss our old bugbear Patti Smith (the bleeper had to do overtime on this ep), Jordan Peterson’s all-meat diet, and Roman’s dangerously truthful Trumpberg-trolling on Instagram. Roman is pretty trashed on this one after a full day of irritating his audience online for no reason. Probably not his finest performance, but the man was dealing with Society, give him a break, damn it! Tom is drinking too, but that’s pretty par for the course.

ALSO DISCUSSED

Roman’s Epstein moment

Jordan Peterson DESTROYS feminism by talking over woman

Patti Smith’s N-word pass revisited

Previously discussed in episode 11.

Beyond Bath and Beyond

Here she is confirming that she indeed is a n************. This might be the most irritating interview with anyone, ever. She uses N-word within the first minute (different times).

IYKYK

Other classics

Tom interrupting Roman’s “meditating”

Saul Steinberg getting a little flirty with the interviewer

(different times)

The Crumb bio

that probably desperately needs promo from our very popular pod

Roman’s cursed children’s book that brought him questionable new audiences

Friend of the pod Anna Haifisch

Friend and collaborator of the pod James Turek

Men sleep on layers of bedsheets and think it’s fine

Us

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks!

Roman has a new graphic novel coming up on Feb.24th from Fantagraphics. And if you’re in London, you can get it signed on Feb.26th at Gosh Comics.

Tom has nothing to plug on his ‘stack, he’s still slowly working on his comic and his prints. Follow him on Instagram, why don’cha?

In this episode we intended to cover the entirety of the Fall’s late-career banger “Y.F.O.C / Slippy Floor”. However, we went so off-course we can legally only say we covered the acronym. We’ll cover the eponymous “Slippy Floor” that somehow broke both of Mark E. Smith’s hips another time!

The song is still an absolute banger, and we do go a bit into the background, but this episode is pretty much all side-quest missions.

INCLUDING!

Joe Rogaine

Isn’t it nice when people you hate turn out to be bad?

“It seemed like a good idea at the time!”

The golden age of Boob Signing

That’s album art, alright

Amanda Palmer, Patreon Saint of the pod

PS.

Roman has a new graphic novel coming out from Fantagraphics. He’s doing an event for it at Desert Island in Brooklyn, and Tom will join and read some new comics.

Guaranteed to be the event of the century.

Tom has nothing to plug on his ‘stack, he’s still slowly working on his comic and his prints. Follow him on Instagram, why don’cha?

Today we are covering several terrible songs by probably the worst ex-member (although the membership itself is disputed) of the Fall, E* Bl*n*y. We censored his name because he seems like the sort of person who googles himself, and I don’t think there’s a single kind word said about him in this whole episode. So, E*, if you stumbled upon this, just walk away. You have a life, a family, and a career. This is just a tiny podcast made by practitioners of the lowest artform in history.

For everyone else, prepare to explore the wild world of this guy, as well as various forums and obscure musical review sites, where E*’s mates have gone out of their way to write something positive about his “skronking wonk bonk.”

Note: This video is age-restricted for pretty graphic real-life war footage. It should also be taste-restricted for being utter shit.

This is a bit of an unusual, ‘proper’ podcast, where we ‘do a journalism’ and go deep down a rabbit hole of mediocrity, instead of just endlessly derailing each other. It’s the NPR of Two Librans, except actually good.

ALSO DISCUSSED

Pascal Le Gras’s cover art

Honking Skronk Rock recorded at a rented house in Holmfirth

Another act from the Manchester Bl*n*y-verse

Seriously, who in the hell IS this guy?!

Mark hits a nadir

Proto-Blaney from Fast Show

Eric Clapton on his racist past: “I just thought it was funny”

PS.

Don’t forget to follow our personal stacks!

Roman has a new graphic novel coming up on Feb.24th from Fantagraphics. And if you’re in London, you can get it signed on Feb.26th at Gosh Comics.

Tom has nothing to plug on his ‘stack, he’s still slowly working on his comic and his prints. Follow him on Instagram, why don’cha?