The following interview was conducted with Keith Morris (Black Flag/Circle Jerks/OFF!) in early 2019, discussing his then current podcast the Blowmind Show. Keith and his co-host Pete Weiss were deep on a journey through the surreal end of reality from the punk rock / so-cal perspective...Aliens, Cults, Mind Control, The Illuminati, Bigfoot, The Beatles and more. Unfortunately, not long after this interview was conducted they stopped producing new episodes. The 48 episodes they released can still be found (as of the date this interview was posted) by a Google search of the show’s name, but it appears as though the RSS feed is no longer going out to any of the podcatcher apps. Strap in for a ride and check them out them while you still can!
How long have you and Pete known each other? How did you meet?
I've known him too long! First off Pete and I are neighbors as we live four houses away from each other on the same street, and we've been friends for about 40 years. It's almost as if we're brothers. He's an incredibly terrible human being and I have absolutely no idea as to why I put up with any of his crap or his shenanigans, ha, ha, ha! He works a job where he can spend time reading the L.A. Times and listening to NPR or various other news sources, and he'll come across something that he finds interesting. I'll do the same as I try to read the Times every morning when I’m not on tour, and we toss conspiracy stuff back and forth until the light clicks on over our heads and we agree on a subject. We met due to us being members of the Hollywood music scene as he was the drummer and one of the founding members of Thelonious Monster and The Midnight Corn Shuckers, and I was still participating in the Circle Jerks.
One of the things I love about Blowmind is you kind of get the impression that you and Pete would maybe be having some of these conversations with our without the podcast? It really comes across that you guys are great friends.
All of the episodes start out with us talking at the coffee shop at the end of our block, as we have to figure out what the topic of our discussion is going to be. Pete usually starts with some kind of rant about something that's bugging him or I do the same thing. Our chemtrail episode came to us as we were standing outside the coffee shop - when I looked up and noticed all the white stripes they'd sprayed earlier and asked Pete what he thought of this. I said let's get to the bottom of who and why they're doing what they've been doing. He said YEAH!
A couple favorites of mine were the Jack Parsons episode and the Uncle Walt episodes. Any personal favorites?
To be honest I only listened to the first few episodes until about a year and a half ago. I wasn't really that interested in what we had to say, which seems ridiculous as you'd think, "Hey don't you want to know what you sound like and what was said?" We spend a good amount of time doing research as I know Pete puts in 3 or 4 days getting into the subject material, whereas I have a much busier schedule and can only devote about 16 hours reading up on what we've decided to talk about. Pete goes deep on the details while I try, but at the same time I’m also thinking of accompanying music. And both the Jack Parsons and his Jet Propulsion Laboratory and the Walt Disney episodes were totally enlightening!
I think your show would lend itself well to a live setting, any discussion about taking it on the road or doing some live recordings?
We were asked to do a live podcast in San Francisco by our friends at Goldenvoice and because of my herky-jerky schedule we couldn't pull it together. They wanted Blowmind in a club that holds 300-400 people and my first thought was we've got to be sandwiched between a couple of popular local bands to pull that off. I just didn't see us realistically being able to fill that room. Pete's idea was completely different from mine as he knows a freaky musician in the Captain Beefheart or Residents realm who lives in SF that he wanted to perform, along with the dude who recorded our intro music for Blowmind, David Scott Stone who has played with The Melvins, The Locust, Jello Biafra, No Age and a few others.
Plus we needed our expenses covered including Nate who is the most important part of Blowmind, as he's our engineer and effects master. I think there might be some editing that if we were to try to do a live recording could cause problems as the way we work is Pete, Nate and I do the recording and then Nate takes it home and edits by cutting stuff and adjusting levels when that's necessary and then when he's done he'll post it.
I really enjoy the music you play on the show, who picks it out?
I'll spend about 2 or 3 hours creating a list of potential music as will Pete and Nate (they don't spend as much time as me) and then we get together about an hour or two before we actually do the episode and listen then argue about what songs are going to be used. We'll go back and forth as I’ll bring a list that's usually a minimum of 10 songs knowing we'll only end up using 4 or 5 songs as breaks per episode. Pete hates certain bands such as The Flaming Lips who I totally enjoy so I try to avoid any of their music. Because Pete will get adamant about certain artists I’ll always try and dis all of the tunes he picks just to rattle his cage. No Talking Heads or Elvis Costello! Pete also has a thing where the chorus usually has to hammer home the subject of that particular episode which really bums me out because the verse could be exceptional and just as pertinent. We fight like a couple of old curmudgeonly dudes until we both make our musical compromises.
Any interesting conspiracies you can let us in on for future episodes? Any teasers?
Our next episode will focus on the California fires and who might be responsible. Why these particular areas? Hint: they're areas the California government has been trying to buy up for years for the bullet train.
Any chance of a quick OFF! update?
OFF! has written 25 songs for a soundtrack for our movie. We've got to record first and then we'll get around to making our film. It's going to be crazy!