Hi, I'm Vanessa Bayer and this is my brother Jonah.

We're two siblings who love to talk about our childhood and nostalgia and how it shaped us into the people we are today.

Who have plenty of clarity, if I do say so myself.

Welcome to How Did We Get Weird.

... Today on the podcast, I want to tell a little story.

One of the formative experiences of my early journalistic career was going to Europe with our guest.

You were in college, right?

It was my junior year of college. I think it was the summer before my junior year and I was actually

in summer school. In college, it's not summer school. Like, you're in trouble. It's more...

Right. I think I had switched... That's good to do summer school. Yeah, it's good to do it. I think I had switched to like, I'd gotten into doing this zine and I think I wanted a writing minor and I had to take a couple extra writing classes. And I might have even been taking a magazine writing class. And I remember I had interned L Turner Press and somehow they were like, we want you to cover this band, Jimmy World. And they're putting out this record. I think it was on DreamWorks at the time and they

were like, we're going to fly you to England. I don't think I had ever been there before. Maybe I

had been there. I can't remember. But they flew me to England for like a two page story. It was

not a long story. It was very exciting for me. And I remember having to go to my teacher and be like, I'm going to miss some class because I'm doing an actual magazine story.

And I don't think the teacher believe me. I think like they thought it was made up.

And I remember even being at the airport and then being like, you're only coming to England for

four days and me being like, oh yeah, what are you doing here? And I was kind of trying to explain it,

but I wasn't very confident. I remember the woman at the airport was like, you're a music writer. Just say it. You can do this. Whoa, that's so nice. And I was like, oh yeah, I guess I am, but it felt

very surreal. And I was a fan of the band and, you know, familiar with their work. So yeah,

went to Europe, spent three or four days with them. They opened for Weezer, a Shepherd's Bush Empire, played a place called The Garage. I mean, this was over 20 years ago. But a really formative experience, so fun.

I thought this is what my whole life's going to be.

And then I got home and basically downloading was invented and no magazines had any money to ever send me to Europe again for the rest of my life.

But you became a music journalist.

...