Pod Insights DISGRACELAND Bonus Episode: Disgraceland Q1 2026 Preview About this episode In this special bonus episode of the show, Jake and Zeth take you behind the scenes and into the editorial room to give you an exclusive preview of some of the brand new episodes coming your way in the first few months of 2026 – featuring subjects like Johnny Thunders, the Runaways, and Mia Zapata of the Gits.
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Transcript 9,074 words · 10 speakers
Speaker names marked ? are inferred from speaking time and the show’s known hosts — they are not voice-verified.
0:01 Speaker 00 This is exactly right.
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0:41 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wines since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
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1:42 Speaker 01 Disgrace Land is a production of Double Elvis.
1:59 Jake Brennan? This is a story about, well, it's a story about a bunch of stories. Wild stories, stories too wild for mainstream storytelling. Stories the corporate studios wouldn't dare tell. Stories the algorithms will suppress. These are stories about the most interesting musicians from music history. And they're stories about musicians and true crime. These are DisgraceLand stories. And this is a revealing look into the lives and transgressions of the musicians that we love, which means that it's a story about great music. Unlike that music I played for you at the top of the show, that wasn't great music. That was a preset loop from my Mellotron called Brubeck and Six MK1.
2:45 Jake Brennan? I played you that loop because I can't afford the rights to whatever the hell it is that is number one on the charts today. And why would I play you that specific slice of modern cheese if I could afford it? Because today is the day that I take you behind the scenes of the upcoming season of DisgraceLand. On this episode, we preview our stories on Lady Gaga, Mia Zapata and the Gitz, Johnny Thunders and more. I'm Jake Brennan and this is a special behind the scenes look into the next season of DisgraceLand.
3:32 Jake Brennan? All right, guys, I'm trying something new today. In the past, we used to only release 24 episodes per year and we could have seasons of DisgraceLand. And for each season, I'd make an announcement and reveal which artists we were covering. And we'd all discuss online all of those cases and, you know, which other artists you guys wanted covered in upcoming seasons. But ever since we evolved our release schedule a couple of years ago to being always on, there really aren't any seasons anymore. It's kind of just one big ongoing season, which if I'm being honest, kind of took from me one of the things that I really liked about DisgraceLand, which was having the space to announce and discuss the upcoming subjects.
4:15 Jake Brennan? So that's what we're going to do here today. And we're going to do it four times a year, every quarter. But it's going to be more than an announcement. It's going to be a behind the scenes look at the show, a discussion on the artists and the crimes and the production of the stories that we put together. This conversation is going to happen at first between Zeth and I, and then we're going to bring in all of you as well. And we're going to give you a peek into how we choose these subjects. Now, you can also help be a part of this selection process in more of a formal way on Patreon. And as we get into the formal selection of these artists throughout the year, we'll give you guys who aren't Patreon All-Access members, like I said, we'll give you a peek into that process right here in these behind the scenes episodes.
4:59 Jake Brennan? So let's get started and let me bring you back to Hollywood, 1975.
5:10 Jake Brennan? Down on Sunset Boulevard, latchkey kids from the suburbs were gravitating to Rodney's English Disco, ground zero for all things glam and glitter and best of all, transgressive. Carrie Chrome climbed out of the car and slammed the door shut and watched as the strangers who'd given her a lift drove off into the distance. She had no idea how she'd get back home, but who cared? She wasn't going back there. This was the place and these were her people. The girls who looked like boys and boys who looked like girls, the rooster hair, the rhinestones, the sequins and platform heels, all of it soundtrack, not by Captain and Tenille
5:50 Jake Brennan? or the fucking Eagles, but by the New York Dolls, T-Rex, The Sweet and that preeminent badass of leather cloud rock and roll, Susie Quatro. Carrie took it all in and for the first time in a long time, she felt at ease. But it wasn't enough to simply be there in the crowd. Carrie Chrome would be an active participant. She wanted to be the one to write the songs of tomorrow, the ones local legend DJ Chucky Starr would spin for this glamorous crowd. It was a crowd that on any given night included everyone from Robert and Bonzo of Led Zeppelin to Ray and Dave at The Kinks to the once boy king himself, Elvis Presley. Who knows?
6:31 Jake Brennan? She could run into Iggy Pop or Elton John and slip them a page of her lyrics and maybe even David Bowie himself. But it wasn't Bowie or Iggy or Elton that Carrie Chrome met when she went to Hollywood. Instead, she was introduced to another songwriter and music producer, a man named Kim Fawley. Fawley's resume was scattershot, but impressive. He'd written for Warren Zevon, Alice Cooper and The Byrds, and produced songs by Gene Vincent and Jonathan Richman. But what really mattered to Carrie was that he seemed genuinely interested in her songs. He said she had real talent and that with his guidance,
7:13 Jake Brennan? she could be somebody, somebody else. And so on her 14th birthday, Carrie Chrome signed a contract with the 36-year-old Kim Fawley. All right. That is a live excerpt from our upcoming episode on The Runaways and Kim Fawley. The Runaways was, of course, Joan Jett and Lita Ford's first band. I mentioned Joan Jett and Lita Ford by name because they went on to have prominent careers after The Runaways. Now, covering The Runaways is something that I've been planning on doing since I started Disgraceland back in 2018, but I always shied away from it because of how dark the subject matter is. And I kind of had this, this other idea, a fun way to
7:58 Jake Brennan? cover this story. I know people who knew Kim Fawley, who worked with him, and I always got this, this weird feedback that he was a vampire. And I thought it would be funny to produce a show that literally cast Kim Fawley as some sort of actual, real life Hollywood vampire. But the subject matter here is too real, it's too raw, it's too fucked up, that taking that tone would have been a mistake. This is one of the first all-female rock groups of consequence. And because of that alone, there's a lot to be celebrated in this story. But there's a darkness here that is just gross. It's not something that I necessarily wanted to have my head submerged into during weeks of research.
8:42 Jake Brennan? So I, I passed it off to our colleague, Zeph Lundie here, and had him do it. Zeph, you actually researched and wrote this story. So, uh, give us a peek into the darkness. But first of all, how you doing, my man?
8:55 Speaker 04 I'm, I'm doing great. I'm glad to be out of the darkness and in the light with you right now. And just looking at this slate of- Subjects we have coming up this year. I'm just really excited for the stories we're gonna tell.
9:04 Jake Brennan? Awesome. Yeah, I'm pumped too. I feel like this year I made a conscious effort to really focus on female artists as much as we can. And it's, there's always been this gender imbalance in our story episode subjects, because the best stories that we tell are the ones that are, they're, they're reckoning stories. They're stories about an artist behaving very badly and doing a bunch of transgressive, true crime, etc. Just on balance from music history, there's not a lot of women who fit that bill. There are some, and we've covered them all, I think, or most of
9:49 Jake Brennan? them. But we kind of found a way to tell stories about more female artists that are at least transgressive, they're involved in transgressions, things have been happened, things have happened to them, which gets us into the story. And it just allowed us to kind of up the, the quantity of female artists that we can cover. And you're definitely going to see that in 2026. But back to the Runaways. Zeth, give me a one sentence description on this runaway story.
10:16 Speaker 04 I think this is a story about the transformative power of rock and roll, like how you can use it to literally become somebody else to escape the dullness of everyday life. But it's also about the flip side of that, the, the price that you have to pay for that kind of escape, the manipulation and exploitation that is often at the center of the music business.
10:35 Jake Brennan? Like I said, when I was teeing this story up, there's a lot of exploitation. You just mentioned exploitation. And we could have focused solely on that and the grossness of it.
10:46 Speaker 04 Right.
10:47 Jake Brennan? And I'll just say, there's a quote in this story from a writer from Rolling, not from Rolling Stone, he goes on to be the editor of Rolling Stone, a real serious dude. I'm not going to burn his name here. And what he says in a review of a live runaway show about the band is,
11:06 Jake Brennan? Honestly, if I were writing this script for a Hollywood movie and I turned in this quote to depict a skeevy rock guy from the 1970s, it would get rejected because it's too over the top.
11:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:18 Jake Brennan? It's hard to believe that it was even printed. It was printed by, was it printed by Cream at the time, Seth? Or was it printed by Crawdaddy? I think it was Crawdaddy, actually, now that I say it.
11:28 Speaker 04 The even grosser thing, though, Jake, is that the more you dig into the research on this, that wasn't like an exception to the norm. That was like the way that, that, that rock critics wrote at the time and the way that women were, were looked at and objectified. And it makes it even skeezer that they were all underage.
11:46 Jake Brennan? Yeah, I mean, we haven't mentioned that yet, I don't think. But, you know, she was, Carrie Cron was 14 years old when this was going on. And the other members of the band were like 15, 16.
11:55 Speaker 04 Yeah.
11:55 Jake Brennan? It just, just, it's unbelievable. It's truly shocking. It's truly revealing and revelatory and gross and just disgusting. So there's, there's that, which is criminal enough.
12:08 Speaker 04 Right.
12:08 Jake Brennan? And we get into those crimes, sex crimes.
12:12 Speaker 04 Yep.
12:13 Jake Brennan? But it's not the whole story. Give me more of the true crime backstory here to the Runaways.
12:17 Speaker 04 I mean, you touched on another aspect of it in the, in that reading from the script, which is this, um, you know, the transgressive slash like illegal nature of the scene that they came out of, which was a scene where teenagers were partying with adult rock stars at clubs in LA all the time. And then there's a, there's a major bust in England when the entire band is arrested and thrown in jail. And then there's a, the life of crime that one member of the Runaways was forced to live later on when the band broke up.
12:46 Jake Brennan? Which is really sad.
12:48 Speaker 04 It is very sad because all she wanted was for the band to continue on forever.
12:51 Jake Brennan? Yeah.
12:52 Speaker 04 For that to be her thing. And then it was taken away from her and she had a really hard time coping with that.
12:56 Jake Brennan? Yeah, yeah, it's a fucking bummer. We're sort of unintentional music historians. We never really set out. For this job. And we have, we come to these stories with a ton of, of knowledge, both specific and general. And I knew the Runaway story loosely. I'd never read a book on the Runaways. I'd never, I haven't seen the movie with.
13:22 Speaker 04 I didn't, I didn't watch it either.
13:23 Jake Brennan? Yeah, sometimes it's good to not watch the biopics because you don't want to fall in the same storytelling way.
13:29 Speaker 04 Exactly.
13:29 Jake Brennan? I knew enough. I knew enough about the Runaways. I knew a lot about the Runaways. But as is always the case, we try in our episodes to dig revealing facts out of the research that you guys might not know, even if you are music historians yourself or music fans. So Zeth, give us, give us one sort of like truly revealing kind of, oh, man, I didn't know that fact or anecdote from this story.
13:56 Speaker 04 This one's kind of funny, actually. The fact that Robert Plant of Led Zeppelin was responsible for this arrest in England. I mean, and he was responsible in a way. I won't burn it here, but Joan Jett definitely blamed him for what happened. And you can hear all about that in the episode.
14:12 Jake Brennan? And you gotta take the context. I'm not going to burn the story here either, but the context is, is super rich because the Runaways, you know, even though they had a moment, they're still, they're still an obscure band. And, and they're palling around with Robert Plant, who's literally the biggest rock star on the planet at the time. So the sort of like fame and power imbalance here. And to think that Robert Plant is responsible for what happens to them in this situation is super annoying from Joan Jett's perspective.
14:41 Speaker 04 Absolutely.
14:42 Jake Brennan? All right. So check that out. That's, this Runaways episode is one of the first ones we're going to be releasing in 2026. I'm excited for you guys to hear it. I'm excited for you to hear all the episodes we're releasing. We're, you know, kind of looking at this seasonally, even though we're always on. So, you know, seasonally, we're talking about, I guess, you know, 10, 12 episodes per season. I don't even know what season we're on right now. It's like a 27 or something insane like that.
15:10 Speaker 04 Something like that, yeah.
15:11 Jake Brennan? Anyhow, we're going to get back with the rest of the episodes and talk more about it and dive a little bit more behind the scenes right after this.
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16:06 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
16:37 Speaker 00 Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Ana Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.
16:48 Speaker 06 AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing, and where.
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17:09 Jake Brennan? Okay, Zeth Lundie, if I were to ask you which modern day female artist is the subject of one of the most batshit crazy conspiracy theories that you could actually conjure up, which female artist would you guess that was?
17:28 Speaker 04 There's one in the upcoming mini-episode of The Runaways, the Runaways mini-episode about Joan Jett and a church that worships her supposedly. But even better than that, maybe that one about Beyonce and Jay-Z being like leaders of the Illuminati. There's all kinds of hidden symbolism in her work.
17:46 Jake Brennan? That's not a conspiracy theory. That's actually true.
17:51 Speaker 04 I'm glad we settled that here.
17:52 Jake Brennan? No need to even talk about that.
17:56 Jake Brennan? I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Don't clip that. No, it's not Beyonce, though that is crazy. And that that would actually make for a good episode. Yeah, for sure. I have a hard time with conspiracy theorists who are just like, I have friends like this. There's obviously you can't avoid these folks online.
18:15 Jake Brennan? Who are just, they're just always diving deeper into whatever the fucking YouTube portal wormhole is. But they're really like at, at most an inch deep on the actual research. You know what I mean? You know what I'm saying? Yeah, I do. One crazy source does not make for a legitimate conspiracy theory. So on the one hand, I'm super annoyed by that. On the other hand, I'm equally annoyed by people who are just like, who won't entertain any conspiracies because the pattern from history is so obvious.
18:58 Jake Brennan? That yesterday's conspiracies end up being today's historical record. It's happened over and over again, and I've talked about it so much, so I'm not going to do more of that. So I have these like twin annoyances, right? On the one hand, the conspiracy theorists annoy the shit out of me. On the other hand, the people who just dismiss conspiracies annoy the shit out of me. Almost even more so, those people are more annoying to me. Yeah, yeah. Because it indicates a, a lack of curiosity, which to me is, is right up there with like one of the most unattractive qualities a person can have is to just be, to not be curious. I can't stand that. It's so boring. It's like, what are we going to do?
19:40 Jake Brennan? Just make small talk at the fucking kids' football game? You know what I mean? Like, what are we doing? I can't stand it. So, okay, so hold on, I have a point here. There's a middle. There is a, there is a, a middle that we don't explore enough where we should be able to look at conspiracies objectively and, and try to pull apart whether or not they're true and damn the shit out of them if they're, if they're false, you know? And, and to me, what is more interesting than the, than the reckoning piece of it than the judgment piece of it, what's more interesting to me is like, why do these conspiracy theories take root? What is the root of it? Is it just for clicks? Or is it based in some sort
20:24 Jake Brennan? of, uh, some sort of cultural insecurity or fear or whatever? So the why of the conspiracy, even if the conspiracy is false, is as interesting to me, almost as interesting as if the conspiracy were true. Okay. So that's where I'm coming from with this story that we're going to do on one of the biggest female artists in pop music history who's still rocking right now. And
20:55 Jake Brennan? my dog Dusty is a big fan, as you can hear. She's a big fan of Lady Gaga. All right?
21:02 Speaker 04 Okay.
21:02 Jake Brennan? Okay. This conspiracy theory is completely messed up. And again, let's, let's just be super clear. I'm not saying that this conspiracy theory about Lady Gaga is true. We are simply looking into the theory in this episode. We're looking into why it sprung up. We're looking into what the backstory is. And the backstory is incredible. And I'm a little shocked at how underreported this story is. I think if Lady Gaga was like 20% less famous, this would be a much bigger story.
21:36 Speaker 04 Okay. But we'll hold, wait a minute, wait a minute. Hold on. I don't even know what this is all about. What's the story? What's the theory here?
21:41 Jake Brennan? All right. Okay. All right. I don't even know where to start.
21:45 Speaker 04 You're like Joe Pesci in Lethal Weapon, uh, three or two. Okay. Okay. Okay.
21:50 Jake Brennan? All right.
21:52 Jake Brennan? Okay, there have been online always these rumors about about Lady Gaga's origin story, where she came from as an artist. Okay, there's a woman named Yana Morgana and she had a daughter, Lena Morgana. And Lena was Lena Morgana was friends with Lady Gaga back when Lady Gaga was starting out. And Yana Morgana claims that Gaga stole her whole trip from her daughter Lena Morgana. Her Lady Gaga stole her musical style, her fashion, basically her entire artistic persona is the claim. Not my claim, not my claim, to be clear. But I'm interested in this claim. Because back in
22:36 Jake Brennan? 2008, at just 19 years old, Lena Morgana killed herself, Lady Gaga's friend.
22:42 Speaker 04 Okay.
22:44 Jake Brennan? Now, there are people who don't believe that Lena Morgana killed herself. They actually believe that Lady Gaga killed Lena Morgana. And to be clear, I don't think that happened.
22:56 Speaker 04 Right.
22:58 Jake Brennan? I do not believe that. But this story won't die. It's a Reddit circus. There's a ton of wormholes. They're very big. And I'm fascinated. I again, I don't believe Lady Gaga killed anybody, but I remain open to the possibility that anything is possible. And I'm going to dive into the subject and see where it leads me. And where are they going to find out if it's true? Again, I don't think we're going to find out that it's true.
23:26 Speaker 04 Right.
23:27 Jake Brennan? Or we're going to reveal, we're going to reveal why the conspiracy is a conspiracy and where it came from. And the fascinating details around the conspiracy are what's honestly most interesting to me. There are some crazy similarities here. And there are, you know, when you look at what these people are claiming, they're actually not just, it's not like, this isn't like Flat Earth stuff, you know, it's actually, it's rooted in, how do I say this without sounding like conspiracy theory? See, this is difficult, which is in part why I like it. The theory is rooted in some truths. Okay, that does not mean that the theory is true. Right. There's two different things and I want to objectively look at this and find out why this
24:09 Jake Brennan? this type of theory could even take root. And we're going to do it all, of course, by doing what we do while giving our own biographical take on Lady Gaga as an artist. And Lady Gaga is fascinating to me as an artist. Yeah, for sure. I, there's a lot of her music that I like. I don't, I don't consider myself a fan. I'm, I'm not. But you know, I hear stuff now and then I'm like, that's, that's fucking great. Yeah. As a person, she's always interested me because she's incredibly talented beyond, I mean, as an entertainer, you know what I'm saying? Yeah. Oh, yeah, of course. I don't like Barbra Streisand's music, but Barbra Streisand comes on screen and I just go, oh shit. Yeah. Right. I'm watching this. This is great. Yeah. You know what I mean? Yeah.
24:54 Jake Brennan? And then I spent 20 minutes trying to figure out if it's Barbra Streisand or Bette Midler, because I was confused the two in my head.
25:03 Jake Brennan? You have the thing, those things from when you're a kid where you just like, you mix people up. You mix them up when you're five years old and you can't stop mixing them up. Yeah, of course. Of course. I, I had a theory when I was a little kid. I remember I went to a new school in the fourth grade and it was connected to this Barbra Streisand and Bette Midler thing. I, I would group celebrities in my head. I would get them confused because they were similar to me for whatever reason. And then I went to this new school and I started to notice that these, these kids looked just like kids at my old school. This is fourth grade and I started to think like,
25:36 Jake Brennan? maybe we're just like breeds of dogs, you know, or maybe we're just like, you know, we're all kind of like, you know, you got your boxers and then you get your cocker spaniels. Sure. And they're different dogs. They're different people. Of course. They all kind of look alike. You know what I mean? Yeah. You know, and then it kind of evolved into like, well, maybe that's what our, that's, that's, you know, what the, the supreme being who runs the algorithm has created. Just little, little cohorts of people who all look the same and do the same thing.
26:05 Jake Brennan? Anyhow, way, way off track. I don't actually believe that people. Um, Zed, this story, the Gaga story reminds me of a couple of our past episodes, like the Nirvana episode, you know, talk about behind the scenes. It's the purpose of this. The Nirvana episode, when I went into the research, I went into the research thinking, yeah, okay, there's a possibility that the soaked in bleach stuff and Courtney Love had something to do with his, you know, I was open to it. Right, right.
26:39 Jake Brennan? And then I did the research and I was completely closed to it. It just didn't happen, people. I'm sorry. I saw soaked in bleach. I've seen, we have, we have literally a dossier of supposedly incriminating evidence on Courtney Love that isn't actually incriminating. There's too, there's too much. And I, every time I talk about this, it pisses people off and I get angry letters, but I don't care. I believe it in my core. I don't believe Courtney Love killed Kurt Cobain. And if, and if I did believe it, I would say it. But the research doesn't point to that. Yeah. And so I came out of that episode just feeling like I felt. Now conversely, I
27:16 Jake Brennan? went into the mamas and papas, Charles Manson story. And yeah, I was, I, I didn't believe that Charles Manson was a CIA asset. And then I came out of that research and I 100% now believe that Charles Manson was a CIA asset. I believe in the MKUltra theory because the research supports it. That's what I love about this job. You know, this is, is, is getting to a new place in our thinking based on the facts. Zed, do you have examples of this from your research? I'm curious. We have never, literally never asked you this question before. It's true. You haven't. Every day. Yeah. Yeah. I'm sure you do. Let me know.
27:59 Speaker 04 Well, the first one that comes to mind is certainly the entire Wu-Tang season that I researched and wrote that 10-episode season. I knew a little bit about, I knew that the FBI had a file on them, just like the FBI has files on so many other musicians over history since the days of Jimi Hendrix, right?
28:14 Jake Brennan? Yeah.
28:15 Speaker 04 But I was shocked, first of all, to find out how deep it went, that the feds were literally classifying the Wu-Tang Clan as a, what they call a 281F, which is a major criminal organization, like they were the mafia, right? And then on top of that, there was this wild reporting from the Village Voice about one of the group's members being an FBI informant during that time. So obviously, all of that was, kind of turned what I knew about this whole thing on its head, and it was incredible fodder for storytelling. And then the second one that comes to mind would be the one that I just recently researched and wrote, which is about how Johnny Thunders died, which is coming out next week.
28:54 Jake Brennan? Yeah, we're gonna get to that just in just a second. The Wu-Tang thing, I don't want to make this political, and I hope people don't take this as being political. The file on Wu-Tang Clan is, it's ridiculous. The government effort to surveil and watch Wu-Tang Clan is ridiculous, was ridiculous. It was a giant waste of money, even if they were up to no good. It shouldn't have, it shouldn't have rose to the level of the federal government, right? And this, to me, is just an example of what happens when you have, you have people in positions of power who are just fucking bored and need something to do. You know what I'm saying? Like, like, literally, that's what this is, you know?
29:39 Jake Brennan? Like, how about at the time, dude, like, looking into, I don't know, the Bin Ladens or some shit? You might have, you know what I mean? And it just strikes me as, as...
29:51 Jake Brennan? What happens when bureaucracy gets too fucking big and resources are misallocated? Because it's not like people sitting around, it's not like the government is sitting around, talking about conspiracy theories, the federal government, the FBI is sitting around like, oh, let's get those hip hop guys. You know what I mean? It's some person who's bored trying to make a name for themselves.
30:09 Speaker 04 Right.
30:09 Jake Brennan? You know, well, you shouldn't have that person bored on payroll in the first place. And this wouldn't happen. And it's just, it continues to go on and it's frustrating and aggravating. Unlike the Johnny Thunders story, which we have coming up, which I think is the, yeah, that's the first episode that's coming up.
30:25 Speaker 04 It's coming up next week. Yeah.
30:26 Jake Brennan? Next week. And this one's connected to another, another, another myth. I don't want to say conspiracy.
30:32 Speaker 04 Yes.
30:32 Jake Brennan? I will say myth and we'll tell you about it in a second, right after this.
30:36 Speaker 07 We'll be right back after this. Word, word, word.
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31:12 Jake Brennan? I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
31:43 Speaker 00 Hello, hello. I'm Malcolm Gladwell, host of Smart Talks with IBM. I spoke with IBM's Anna Paula Assis about what digital sovereignty actually means in the age of AI.
31:54 Speaker 06 AI now moves from somebody operating a system to the technology actually making decisions. So you have to have a much better visibility of what AI is touching, data it is accessing and where.
32:10 Speaker 00 Hear the full conversation wherever you get your podcasts.
32:15 Jake Brennan? All right, Seth Lundie, we are back. And listen, there's a large contingent of music history nerds like ourselves who believe that Johnny Thunders from the New York Dolls was murdered. That came out wrong. Music history nerds like ourselves who believe that, not necessarily saying we believe that, but we heard about this.
32:33 Speaker 04 Yes.
32:33 Jake Brennan? And we wanted to dig into it. And we wanted to figure out, okay, is this true? Is this not true? So without giving away the whole story, what can you tell us about the New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders and his death? That's number one. Number two, about your approach to writing this story.
32:48 Speaker 04 Okay, so Johnny Thunders was found dead in a hotel room in New Orleans in 1991. He was 38. He struggled with addiction his whole life. So the cops basically took one look at the scene and said, dead junkie, case closed. But there were all these other factors surrounding the last day and night of his life, like he had literally just flown into town. He, I think he was in Europe or Asia before that touring. He flew into town that day. He met some local people that he didn't know. They went out, they partied, some weird shit happened before and after his body was found. And because of this, and because the cops refused to look into any of this weird shit, people like Dee Dee Ramone, who knew Johnny well, began disseminating this counter
33:31 Speaker 04 narrative that he was, didn't overdose, but that he was in fact murdered. And the cops needed to look into this. And so I went into the research, like excited to dig into this counter narrative, because there's a lot of stuff out there about it from legit, legit sourcing. So that's how I ended up writing this is I wrote it from the perspective that this counter narrative, this theory could be valid. And of course, the fun part is how, where it goes and how it ends, which is totally surprising, I think. And I think the listeners really dig it.
34:02 Jake Brennan? Yeah, this is one of those stories reminded me of a little bit of the Sid and Nancy story where there is always this sort of like burbling in the scene about what actually happened.
34:10 Speaker 04 Right.
34:10 Jake Brennan? And who was responsible? And it wasn't really documented. And I thought, oh, this is similar. Again, I don't want to burn it here.
34:18 Speaker 04 Yeah.
34:19 Jake Brennan? But it's, it's fascinating. Johnny Thunders is just quite literally the most rock and roll guy of all time. And the myth around his death, he should have a myth surrounding his death.
34:31 Speaker 04 For sure.
34:32 Jake Brennan? For sure.
34:32 Speaker 04 He should.
34:32 Jake Brennan? Yeah. So we're going to get into that. And it's hard to talk about here without burning. And one thing, little more behind the scenes thing that I'm struggling with with this episode is what we're going to do with the music. Because when we talk about punk artists or metal artists, or even rock or hard rock, there's a tendency, and I learned this in the Guns N' Roses episode production, to, you know, use music that is, that it sounds similar to what the artist was making. And for whatever reason, heavy music, or at least like, yeah, just, just heavy guitar oriented music does not sound good in our production with VO. It just doesn't work.
35:17 Jake Brennan? Whereas electronic music, hip hop music, dominated beat, beat type music, it sounds fantastic. So it's like, like we guys, we always try to do this thing where, you know, we've learned our lesson, where we take the artist that we're talking about, and we try to put him through the massive attack machine, which is, you know, okay, take, so, so take, the, the right way to score a Metallica episode is not to try to make music that sounds like Metallica. It's to take Metallica's influence and run it through the influence of massive attack.
35:52 Speaker 04 Totally.
35:53 Jake Brennan? Always massive attack, because massive attack has this like super vibey electronic menace to it. And it's just served us well. So there's no way we can make New York Dolls, Johnny Thunders style music work. And, you know, I had this idea, like, we should do something, you know, we've already kind of taken the New York Dolls music and run it through the massive attack thing in the New York Dolls episode. This is going to be part two, Johnny Thunders. So I was thinking, we should take New Orleans music, because Johnny Thunders dies in New Orleans.
36:27 Speaker 04 Yep.
36:27 Jake Brennan? We should take like, you know,
36:29 Speaker 04 He wanted to make a New Orleans record, too.
36:31 Jake Brennan? He wanted to take a, make a New Orleans record. So take, you know, Alan T. Sondheim, Dr. John, that kind of New Orleans vibe, entreat it with that menacing massive attack thing for this, for this episode. I think that could be cool.
36:44 Speaker 04 Right? Yeah, for sure. Yeah.
36:46 Jake Brennan? All right. Well, maybe we'll fuck with that somehow. Um, or we could just use Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers' sound music and piss Johnny Thunders off.
36:54 Speaker 04 People will get that joke when they hear the
36:56 Jake Brennan? Yes, yeah. There's a heavy Tom Petty vibe in the Johnny Thunders episode. That's not good. All right. Murder is at the heart of all the episodes that we've discussed so far. One of the most requested episodes we've had since the show started was to do something on Mia Zapata from the Gits. I've always shied away from this story, similar to the runaway story for a bunch of different reasons. But we decided this year was the year we're going to tell the Mia Zapata story. Now, guys, what often happens is Zeth and I aren't being lazy. We'll have editorial meetings around each episode where we'll get together and talk about, you know, what we know, just, you know, without
37:40 Jake Brennan? any research, what we know of the artists, what we know of the crime, certain themes we might want to explore, things, things we know we want mentioned. And then we'll go off into the research and we'll pull it all together. And we used to meet after the research before recording. We don't even really do that anymore. We're just kind of, we got it so dialed in. We haven't yet had that meeting on Mia Zapata in the Gits. And we figured that we'll do some of the editorial work, behind the scenes work here for you guys, Zeth. So, you know, we were gonna have to do a call about this this week. And I said, No, wait, let's don't burn it. Let's do it. Let's do it when we when we tape this thing. So, give me your questions on Mia Zapata. We'll try to work our way through this real quick.
38:19 Speaker 04 Well, this is, I'm just gonna brain dump what I'm thinking here, based on the research I've done. There's an obvious way to tell the story, right? And that's with Mia Zapata's brutal, shocking murder. You know, it happened right after Stephanie Sargent of Seven Year Bitch died, and then right before Kurt Cobain. But in a way, it has this, the bigger ripple effect in the nucleus of that music scene, the indie scene in Seattle. First of all, it tragically happened right after the Gits went down to LA, met with Atlantic Records. And Atlantic was basically like, we're gonna give you guys a deal. And then in the wake of this, a lot of bands in their circle broke up. There was a lot of paranoia and suspicion because all these guys in their, in their, in their crews and their bands were being brought in by the cops for questioning like.
39:03 Jake Brennan? Yeah, the investigation focused on her friends at first, who are all musicians in the Seattle music scene or connected to the Seattle music scene that they weren't musicians. And it should be mentioned, this is 1993. This is the height of the grunge explosion. And Mia Zapata from the Gits was not like any, just any old band. They were like a real band in the scene. They were friends with, you know, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, all those folks. So it's, you know, it's, that's the backdrop here.
39:29 Speaker 04 Yeah, thank you for that context. And so I think everyone kind of thought that it was somebody that they knew. And then when the murderer was, I mean, the murderer was, was, uh, wasn't caught for like 10 years. And so when he finally was, it took everybody by surprise because they figured it was someone that, that, that Mia had known, someone that they all knew. And there's this random dude who like split for Florida after it happened. This takes place in the very early years of DNA helping to solve a crime.
39:52 Jake Brennan? Yeah, that's huge.
39:53 Speaker 04 Yeah, it was taken at the crime scene, stored for years until it was able to be analyzed and added to the FBI's database. Now, that, that all said, the other thing I wanted to point out, Jake, was that the drummer for the band, for the Gits, Steve Moriarty, he just published a new book recently about the band and about Mia. And his primary motivation was that he was sick of hearing about Mia's murder. He was sick of having the tabloid nature of the crime overshadow the excellence of the group and Mia herself. And so he barely even touches on the murder in the book. It's more about her and about them. And so I think what I want to do with this episode, and this is what I want to talk to you about, is strike this balance between what is our bread
40:34 Speaker 04 and butter here, which is music and true crime, but also do it in a way that we're not sensationalizing it and that we're truly memorializing her for who she was, you know? So if like any of the guys in the Gits happened to hear this episode, they would be like, oh yeah, like these guys got it. They got it right.
40:47 Jake Brennan? Yeah, absolutely. Because there is a documentary on her and there's like, you know, three of those sort of like, you know, 48 Hours, TV true crime things, ID TV. And I don't want to do anything like any of that. And I haven't seen the doc.
41:04 Speaker 04 I've seen it.
41:05 Jake Brennan? You have, you have seen the doc. So, you know, we need our own point of view on this that I want to take. And she's a fascinating character and I'm sure this will be in the book you're talking about because she was kind of like a double kid. She was a rich kid who, or you know, at least, you know, very upper middle class who grew up in, in that world of, you know, tennis clubs and whatever. And then-
41:27 Speaker 04 Yeah, her mom was like a TV, a high ranking TV executive who lived in like a penthouse apartment overlooking Central Park, I think.
41:33 Jake Brennan? Yeah. And then she ends up going to Seattle and lives sort of the, I don't want to say grunge lifestyle, but the, the rock and roll kind of like, like she lived it. I mean, it was real.
41:43 Speaker 04 Yeah.
41:44 Jake Brennan? And there's a, you know, people will be like, oh, you're, you're faking it or that's bullshit. That's, you know, people are who they are. Doesn't matter where they come from.
41:51 Speaker 04 Right.
41:52 Jake Brennan? You can be whoever the fuck you want. I mean, that's the point of this Runaways episode two. But there's an interesting psychology there, which would be cool to, to crack into.
42:02 Speaker 04 Yep.
42:02 Jake Brennan? And to treat the rape and the murder with the sensitivity that it deserves. There's some really interesting things, guys. So normally when we would do this, I would point out to Zeth, like, okay, here are some things that I know about this and I want represented in, in this, if I'm not writing it. The medical examiner, so when she was killed, they, she was so badly abused that in just the body, they didn't know who she was. And it took a couple of days and the medical examiner was a fan of the git's and that's how the body was recognized. Like he actually was like, oh, it was somebody who worked in the
42:44 Jake Brennan? medical examiner's office, if I'm remembering correctly. He was, he was like, oh, oh God, I know who this is.
42:50 Speaker 04 Oh shit. I didn't, haven't even turned that up in my research yet. That's fascinating. I'll look into that.
42:55 Jake Brennan? I think that's a scene for sure. Maybe it opens with something like that. And, and there's just, there has to be something like the theme. I don't know what themes we're going to get into, but it could be the theme or just a sub theme of the community rallying around her.
43:10 Speaker 04 Yep.
43:11 Jake Brennan? Afterward, because they did.
43:13 Speaker 04 Yes.
43:14 Jake Brennan? They, they raised their own money. They hired a private investigator. I'm sure all of that is covered, you know, ad nauseam because it's obvious, but it needs to be mentioned. And then the other thing is-
43:25 Jake Brennan? I think sonically, what I want to do with it, they say, what I've read anyways, is that she was walking down the street like 2:00 AM before she was attacked and she didn't hear the killer coming because she had headphones on. And that's how the killer was able to get the drop on her. I think it would be cool if we do something with the music in this episode where remember, remember like old school Sony headphones, like the little orange, you know, cushiony things?
43:52 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah, yeah.
43:52 Jake Brennan? And it's, it doesn't seem to happen anymore with earbuds. But back then you could really hear when somebody was like pumping music, you know, if you're somebody was walking by with headphones, you could like hear the, you hear the bleed.
44:04 Speaker 04 Yeah, yeah.
44:04 Jake Brennan? We should do that in sonically, like make that a audio device. Part of the score is that that headphone bleed and try to do like a Hitchcockian thing with that during the, during the, um, the lead up to the death. And I don't want to dramatize the death.
44:25 Speaker 04 No, I don't either.
44:26 Jake Brennan? Beyond that, um, I really, I think your instincts are dead on. We want to, we want to make this about her.
44:32 Speaker 04 Yep, yep.
44:33 Jake Brennan? All right. So that's going to be the Mia Zapata episode.
44:36 Speaker 04 Great. That's, that's all great for me to go on. Perfect.
44:39 Jake Brennan? All right. Dope. Guys, if you have any other thoughts on how we should treat this Gits episode, get at us because we've got a little time before we get into the production. And let us know 617966638, voicemail and texts at disgracelandpod on the socials or [email protected] on email. We'd love your input and we'd love to include some of it if it's, if it's relevant, makes sense for the story we decide we want to tell. All right. We're going to take a quick break. Back right after this.
45:24 Jake Brennan? All right, guys, we are back. Thanks for hanging with us in this sort of, I don't even know, behind the scenes look at Disgrace Land. I don't know what we're calling this, but that sounds good enough to me. I meant to get at us with any thoughts you have on any of these episodes as we're in pre-production. If you want to lend your voice and lend your take, happy to hear it. In addition to the Runaways, Lady Gaga, Johnny Thunders, and Mia Zapata, next season, we're also releasing episodes on Hunter S. Thompson, which will be our last public release of a non-music subject in Disgrace Land. That experiment will officially be over. We're going to do a second episode on Inexcess, because there's this way more there that we need to tell Chrissy Hyne from The Pretenders,
46:09 Jake Brennan? and Pete Doherty from The Libertines. Those are all coming up in this next season of Disgrace. And finally, we have this new concept that we're going to try out in Disgrace Land as well this year. I've long been obsessed with murder ballads. You guys who know me, you know this. And I wanted to do this show forever. And we're going to look at one, it's a slightly askew look at music and true crime. It's not from the perspective necessarily of the artist, but it's from the perspective of the song. And much like we did in the Derek and the Domino's episode with the Lawson family murder, we're going to look at, in these, you know, at least one Disgrace Land episode per month or so, we will look at
46:53 Jake Brennan? one song that was either inspired by a true crime or inspired a true crime. And we'll look at the killer connected to that. So think Talking Heads and the Son of Sam, or Cock Eye Billy Cook and Jim Morrison, or Charles Manson and Helter Skelter. We probably won't do that because we've done a lot of Manson content, but just there's, this is endless fodder. This is unofficially being called Dead Notes. And these, these will be like special features in Disgrace Land that you guys are going to get. All right, guys, listen, get us your subjects that you want us to cover, 617-906-6638.
47:32 Jake Brennan? Voicemail, texts, at disgracelandpod on the socials, [email protected] , email. Let us know which artists you want us to cover. You guys are good at it. You've been doing it forever. Keep doing it. And we'll talk more about it in here. We're also doing this thing over on Patreon, which if you're part of our $10 tier, you're gonna, in addition to getting This Film Should Be Played Loud, our new video podcast, every month, you're also going to gain access to sort of the special twice yearly roundtables where we get on a Zoom together and we formally discuss which episodes we're gonna cover. And we choose them, select them, or select a large handful of them. So that way you will have, you'll be guaranteed to have direct influence on the show.
48:17 Jake Brennan? And some of that, we'll take some of that content we create in, during that process. And some of it will be reflected in these, in these behind the scenes episodes that we're rolling out for you guys. So that's another way for you to be involved. Appreciate the involvement. Love the community we have, guys. Thank you so much. Z, thanks for your time, man. I know it's a busy time of year. Appreciate you digging in. Anytime. Guys, thank you so much again. Thanks for supporting us on Patreon, on Apple Podcasts, just being fans of the show. Love you, guys. Have a great day. Talk soon.
49:07 Jake Brennan? All right, guys. Thanks for rolling with us on a special episode of DisgraceLand. Question of the week this week is obvious. What artists, which subjects do you want us to cover next? Get at us, 617-906-6638. Voicemail and text. We'll dive deep into it in this week's after-party. Get into some specifics. Guys, if you're listening on Apple Podcasts, make sure you have auto downloads turned on. 617-906-6638. Voicemail, text, at disgracelandpod on the socials. Here comes some credits.
49:40 Jake Brennan? Disgrace Land was created by yours truly and is produced in partnership with Double Elvis. Credits for this episode can be found on the show notes page at disgracelandpod.com. Rate and review the show and follow us on Instagram, TikTok, Twitter, and Facebook @disgracelandpod and on YouTube at youtube.com slash @disgracelandpod. Rocker roll.
50:05 Speaker 09 He's a bad, bad man.
50:09 Jake Brennan? Hey guys, time to dust off your detective skills while unwinding in the Caribbean on Virgin Voyages' second true crime voyage. It's back by popular demand, this five-night, adults-only escape sets sail March 20th, 2027 to Grand Turk in the Beach Club at Bimini. The difference between this year and last will be that I will be on the cruise this year, along with Zeth, and he and I will be taping a live version of Disgrace Land, along with podcast hosts from Exactly Right's Buried Bones, Podcast of the Year Award winners, Wisecrack, and other fan favorites. Get on this cruise with us, guys, and enjoy live podcast recordings, behind-the-scenes storytelling, exclusive meet-and-greets, and immersive
50:50 Jake Brennan? true crime programming throughout this one-of-a-kind voyage. Head over to www.virginvoyages.com/truecrime to secure your spot. I like a story with a twist as much as anyone, but some of the best traditions don't have one. They just started and kept going. That's something that's great about Chateau St. Michelle. They've been leading Washington wine since 1967 with wines that are balanced, expressive, and easy to enjoy. Choosing the right bottle shouldn't feel complicated. It should be something you open with confidence every time. So for once, here's a story with no twist, just a good bottle. Redefine your rituals with Chateau St. Michelle.
51:30 Speaker 05 OnDeck is built to back small businesses like yours. Whether you're buying equipment, expanding your team, or bridging cash flow gaps, OnDeck's loans up to $400,000 help make it happen fast. Rated A+ by the Better Business Bureau and earning thousands of five-star TrustPilot reviews, OnDeck delivers funding you can count on. Apply in minutes at ondeck.com. Depending on certain loan attributes, your business loan may be issued by OnDeck or Celtic Bank. OnDeck does not lend in North Dakota. All loans and amounts subject to lender approval.
Previous Bonus Episode: New Year’s Stories of Rock ‘n’ Roll Redemption Next Bonus Episode: Lady Gaga, Elvis Presley, and the Orion Conspiracy Page updated October 31, 2026 · transcript and summary are machine-generated