The Richard Wooten Podcast

The Richard Wooten Podcast

Richard Wooten (session drummer, elder-millennial, leftist metal-head, and jazz-funk aficionado) has long-form discussions with his closest friends about their favorite Music. Analyzing, unpacking, and reflecting on the two way street of influence between music and culture. Playlists included. Occasional political and social commentary.

Episodes

December 7, 2022 180 mins

“My breakthrough was understanding that each album is very different, down to their essence. And that there were no two that I was going to enjoy in the same way” 

 

More digging into Baroness. We talk about my trouble getting into Blue and we gush about how Yellow/Green is maybe the best album ever made. 

 

00:00 Intro

00:56 Animals as Leaders and Killswitch Engage

24:51 Lamb of God always destroys, Chris Adler doesn’t get enough ...

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No planned listening this week, decided to just go for it with a Rando Show

00:00 Start, nothingface, the role of compilations/soundtracks in the 90s and early 00s

21:45 music licensing, temp tracks in film composing, the nature of sessions work

35:29 Synthwave and Rise of the Synths revisit

42:03 Hurricane Rita evacuation

1:01:01 Falling in Reverse laptop drama, evolution of playing in churches with backing tracks, 

1:18:30 Lot...

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November 22, 2022 170 mins

“They have so many ideas; they complete them all, it’s never boring, and it all goes down easy. I have no idea how they do it.” 

 

We begin our series on Rob’s all time favorite band… Baroness. 

 

00:00 intro

00:42 voices are weird, figuring out how to do metal vocals back in the day

20:22 Learning technique from music videos is a bad idea, the standard of precision is so much higher today, and the rising popularity of extreme prec...

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Ep36: More metals with Harrison Jacob of As Eden Burns and Cavernous

 

Harrison Returns! 

00:00 Intro

00:16 pirating music 

09:07 AI generated art etc...

25:56 fb as new tech 

38:12 missing the real interaction the fb approximates

================================================================ 

43:02 playlist start 

58:02 Decapitated

1:03:34 as eden burns 

1:19:28 Trey Gammon is a BEAST

1:22:40 Cavernous and how Harrison's dad ...

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Old friends catch up about being introverts, parenting, teaching, and then dissect Mudvayne’s LD50

 

Justin is a high school journalism/media teacher, has a BS in History, and is a prolific visual artist. Check out some of his work here:

https://www.inkmethod.com/portfolio

 

00:00 intro

Preamble

00:49 Justin always comes prepared, our class ruined alot of things, and justin intro

10:33 Synthwave revisit: future gazing and individ...

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November 2, 2022 198 mins

In this one Rob introduces me to the genre of synthwave. Much of our discussion revolves around the Rise of the Synths documentary, highest possible recommendation btw.

https://youtu.be/usnW-CsFVwI

 

00:00 Intro

1:17 start, getting into buying  synths

11:46 reading books vs listening to audio books

26:11 Severance on apple tv, identifying with your job, and asking kids “what they want to be?”

50:30 My background and philosophy o...

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October 19, 2022 193 mins

“I think I’m just too chill for this music”  - Rob

 

In this episode I introduce Rob, who is not a death metal fan, to the world of Suffocation. Suffocation is one of my absolute favorite bands but I kept the playlist short so that it wasn’t too overwhelming. 

Preamble

00:00 start

01:19 inside baseball, Kayla Kent ripping pantera solos, and the bs that women have to deal with

29:49 Toxic drumming community, pantera reunion, and ...

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Our final Machine Head episode… for now...

We dig into Locust, which is Rob’s favorite MH record, and Bloodstone, which has some of my favorite MH songs. Also add some context to the timeline between the records, adam leaving, and MH signing with Nuclear Blast. Heaping handfuls of speculation on their inner band dynamics that possibly lead to the split with Adam. 

 

Preamble

00:00 Intro 02:03 Band power dynamics, what it takes to...

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We elaborate on another factor that helped kill nu metal…. THE INTERNET!

In the mid 00s everything started to get heavy. This set the stage for Machine Head’s “comeback” albums. 

Preamble: 

1:33 The habit of healthcare, and some mental hospital stuff 

21:18 political stuff and social media

36:42  Who is allowed to be angry, trying too hard to be friends with everyone, chasing spectacle

51:19 why i don’t play in churches anymore

...

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“This album reeks of experimentation… for better and for worse”

 

Hey!  This is basically three episodes in one, so it’s long, feel free to skip around to what interests you.  

 

Burning red is awesome. It has killer melodies, grooves, feel, and I love the vulnerability in the lyrics. It’s one of my fave records. 

Supercharger isn’t a bad record but it didn’t do well at the time. I argue that this is not because of 9/11 but because...

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“Zao was so ridiculous that I needed to show people, and I did that so many times that I started to love it”

 

Joined by our long time friend CJ Menard to dig into the songs that formed his musical tastes.

Preamble

01:20 Black Dahlia’s Nocturnal and the codification of metal, and Trevor tribute

36:14 The spilling of the Mr. Hinkus tea

 

1:00:10 How the christian music environment affected music discovery, religious trauma/guilt,...

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“Burn My Eyes gave hope to the rest of us”

“It will never be my favorite, but it might objectively be their best”

We LOVE Machine Head! The first of five epic parts analyzing all of their albums, adding context to the time periods of their release, and lots of speculation on what was going on behind the scenes. 

00:00 Intro

1:25 DAW talk, memorizing vs looking things up in physics and programming

25:37 Experts make it look li...

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August 31, 2022 197 mins

A breakdown of some of our current faves

00:00 intro

1:36  lessons learned from trying to start a record label, copyright law and anarchists, 

21:52  Physics digression on the nature of symbols and some light professor blackmail

37:53 Pantera digression

48:31 Roe V Wade

 

1:07:48 Topic start, Kettel's Wingtip

1:42:57 Chick Corea’s Leprechaun album 

2:14:19 Steve Gadd digression

2:28:15 Meshuggah’s I 

 

Recorded 5/7/2022

 

Kettel...

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Shae commits violence against Richard and Robert stands by

 

Guests: Shae Cottar and Robert Rabel

 

Recorded 4/20/2022

00:00 Intro

2:13 Preamble: Addictions, the role of language in recovery, 

24:00 my frustration with the bjj community and celebrity practitioners, and my how my motivation changed over time

33:00 Don’t let assholes take jurisdiction over the things you love

 

44:06 Topic: First impressions, apologies, and what d...

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Rob and Shae initiate Rich into the “middle” era of Pink Floyd

Guests: Shae Cottar and Robert Rabel

 

I have traditionally not been a big fan of Pink Floyd, I didn’t actively dislike their music but it just wasn’t for me for whatever reason. But two of my best friends and collaborators are HUGE Pink Floyd fans…. So we figured the only sensible thing to do would be to force feed me floyd until I love it… results pending. 

 

Recorded...

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“Down is the only super supergroup” 

A look at Down, New Found Power, Hellyeah and the Pantera side projects; Dimebag and Vinnie's death; and some final thoughts on all things Pantera

 

Recorded 4/02/2022

 

00:00 Intro

1:45: Preamble: RIP Taylor Hawkins, and Foo Fighters put on maybe the best concert I’ve ever seen

12:44 Phil’s prolific output and the risk he puts in all his projects

27:49 NOLA: Robert and I gush about what a prist...

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“On the redbeard, SONOFABITCH Dimebag!” Harrison joins as Rob and I wax nostalgically about the Pantera live experience and the best live metal record ever made. There are a few essential elements to a Pantera show and if you’ve seen one then 101 proof reminds you of all of them: the subtle ways the songs are performed differently, phil’s inspired improv vocals, the surprise outros and breaks, and Phil shrinking the room with how ...

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The only solution is MORE PANTERA!

 

00:00 Intro

2:06 Preamble: Offspring, my first show, coal chamber, our first demos, and Jeremy hated singing

 

14:57 Pantera: revisit cbfh & vulgar, more essential and trash tracks, and Vulgar’s profound influence

33:38 Far Beyond Driven overview: essential and trash tracks, Phil’s prolific output and different lyric perspective, good friends and a bottle of masculinity 

1:11:14 Love for Vinnie ...

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The first of FOUR Pantera episodes! Robert and I picked up our instruments during the height of Pantera's relevance and they are maybe our biggest influence. So we have VERY strong and detailed opinions about almost every song in their catalog. 

 

00:00 Intro

01:14 Anti-trans bills in texas, russian invasion of Ukraine, and assortment of people we want to F*&! off

46:54 Cowboys From Hell

2:05:26 Vulgar Display of Power

2:31:54 Phil...

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July 21, 2022 6 mins

 What to expect, why the chaotic upload schedule, and wtf is All Severed?

 

recorded July 14th 2022

 

What to expect moving forward?

-we just finished recording episode 32. We've got a four part series on Pantera, two parts on pink Floyd, four parts on machine head, and a few rando episodes.

-initially I was going to try and release things every week but that doesn't work for me. They will go up as soon as I get them edited. Probab...

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