🎙️ Episode 98: Montauk Mix and UFO Flix

Strap in for a cosmic ride back to the Summer of '98—when alternative rock was maturing, Montauk was still weird and wonderful, and UFOs might have been hovering just offshore.

Steve and Keith dig through the musical treasures of 1998, spinning tracks from Neutral Milk Hotel, Elliott Smith, Mercury Rev, Beastie Boys, Sunny Day Real Estate, and more. It's the year of In the Aeroplane Over the Sea, XO, Deserter’s Songs, and Hello Nasty—a golden moment when indie, emo, electronica, and even Madonna (Ray of Light!) all collided on our Walkmans and Discmen.

☀️ Along the way:

• Summers in Montauk: sand in cassette decks, longboard surf sessions, and the quiet magic of a sleepy beach town
• The Montauk Project: time travel? psychic experiments? Stranger Things vibes years before Netflix
• Lights in the sky, rumors around bonfires, and the sweet mystery of pre-Y2K anxiety

🛸 Expect music nerdery, heartfelt nostalgia, and just maybe a few unexplained sightings along the dunes.

Tagline: The year alt-rock grew up... and Montauk got even weirder.

Cue the mixtape, cue the conspiracy theories—it's Episode 98!

Let us know what’s up.

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🎙️ Episode 1997: Desert Island Classics – The Year That Was Everything

What if you could only bring one year of music to your desert island? For The New Dad Rock, that year just might be 1997.

In this special “Desert Island Classics” edition, Keith makes the case for a trio of albums that still echo through indie rock history:

🎸 Modest Mouse – The Lonesome Crowded West
🎸 Pavement – Brighten the Corners
🎸 Radiohead – OK Computer

These three towering releases helped define an era, a mindset, and a mood—sprawling, angular, atmospheric, and occasionally absurd. Steve and Keith unpack their enduring influence, share personal memories tied to these records, and debate what makes an album truly castaway-worthy.

🌴 Also in this episode:

• What counts as a “desert island disc”?
• Are we really alone out there—with only our CD wallets and Discmen to keep us company?
• And which albums from 1997 still feel like survival essentials?
  

No filler. All killer. Come wade into the waters of a year that still resonates like a perfectly delayed guitar loop.

The New Dad Rock—where nostalgia meets noise.

Let us know what’s up.

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1996 was a wild, weird, and wonderful year for music. Alternative rock was shifting in unexpected ways, techno was taking over clubs and airwaves, and Gen X was riding the high of a pre-Y2K world—blissfully unaware of what was to come. In this episode of The New Dad Rock, Steve & Keith take a joyride through the sonic landscape of ‘96, from scrappy indie rock to stadium-filling anthems to the rise of electronic music that made rock purists sweat.

So what was in that five-disc CD changer back in ‘96? This episode revisits some of the era-defining records, including:

🎸 Beck – Odelay (Genre-bending brilliance)
🎸 Modest Mouse – This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About (A lo-fi road trip for the soul)
🎸 Oasis – (What’s the Story) Morning Glory? (Champagne Supernova, anyone?)
🎸 Cake – Fashion Nugget (Quirky, ironic, undeniable earworms)
🎸 The Olivia Tremor Control – Dusk at Cubist Castle (The Elephant 6 movement at its trippiest)
🎸 Neutral Milk Hotel – Everything Is EP (The precursor to Aeroplane Over the Sea)
🎸 Prodigy – The Fat of the Land (Firestarter ignited a whole new sound)
🎸 Chemical Brothers – Exit Planet Dust (Rock meets rave culture)
🎸 Sublime – Sublime (Laid-back anthems, sun-drenched SoCal vibes)
🎸 Fugees – The Score (One of the greatest hip-hop albums ever)

Along the way, Keith recounts his legendary summer road trips, complete with mixtapes, underrated indie gems, and a time when Olivia Tremor Control was a best-kept secret. The guys also dive into the great genre debate of 1996: Was rock dead? Or was it just evolving into something new—thanks to the rise of electronic music titans like Underworld, The Chemical Brothers, and The Dust Brothers?

It was a halcyon year—carefree, creative, and chaotic. So jump in, roll the windows down, and take a ride back to 1996 with The New Dad Rock.

Let us know what’s up.

Support the show

Did you know that The New Dad Rock has swag? Coffee mugs, pillow and t-shirts in a multitude of colors and arm lengths.