Gram Parsons makes a funeral pact in this exclusive clip from Disgraceland's season 7 premiere
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Jake Brennan’s wildly popular, ever-compelling Disgraceland podcast returns for its seventh season this week, kicking off with a dive into the life and death of oddball songwriter Gram Parsons. The podcast, which bristles with tales of the criminal corners of the music industry, will also unspool seedy stories about The Beatles, Tupac, the Ramones, and Oasis in its new season.
It begins, however, with the strange fate of Parsons, and The A.V. Club has an exclusive clip detailing the morbid funeral pact the singer made with his friend and collaborator Phil Kaufman. After enduring the depressing, staid funeral of Clarence White, a veteran of Kentucky Colonels and the Byrds, the pair promised each other that neither would allow the other to have a funeral so dire. Parsons, as you’ll hear, wanted his body burned at Joshua Tree National Park. The full story, as you’ll come to learn, gets even wilder from there.
Hear the clip below ahead of the episode’s January 12 premiere.
On February 2, Disgraceland will become an Amazon Music exclusive. From then on, that’s where you’ll find all previous and future episodes of the podcast. And, based on its upcoming slate of episodes, you’ll want to follow it there. We can’t even imagine what gnarly shit Oasis has gotten up to over the years.
Listen to the season’s trailer here, and check out the full schedule below.
Jan 12: Gram Parsons
Jan 26: Tupac Part 1
Feb 2: Tupac Part 2
Feb 9: David Bowie
Feb 16: Ramones
Feb 23: The Beatles Part 1
Mar 2: The Beatles Part 2
Mar 9: Lil Wayne
Mar 16: New York Dolls
Mar 30: Oasis Part 1
Apr 13: Oasis Part 2
Apr 27: Lil Peep
May 11: Notorious B.I.G Part 1
May 25: Notorious B.I.G Part 2
8 Comments
I enjoyed Disgraceland for the most part, but I dipped out due to being completely unclear as to what parts came from fact and research, and what parts were the host embellishing. There were sections where I was completely unclear whether the description was based on a primary source, purple guesswork for narrative’s sake, or some shade in between.
Maybe it got better in later seasons, but I checked out relatively early on when I started noticing how he spoke about black artists was significantly harsher than white artists that did similar things.
The episode about Amy Winehouse was where I checked out. I had been having trouble with the seemingly gleeful way he related violence against women, but presenting Winehouse’s dying thoughts as fact was a solid “No thank you to any of this” moment for me.
I thought the delivery of the narration was repetitive and irritating. You’re better off waiting for You’re Wrong About to cover some of these subjects.
Brennan locked himself into a formula that really turned me off the podcast- he would start on these interior monologues, gradually building in intensity, and really seeming to get off on the violence he was portraying. And then, he would cut to that acoustic guitar piece and try to bring everything back to reality or something. It got repetitive and boring, and it was disturbing how turned he seemed to get at the prospect of drug-fueled violence.
“On February 2, Disgraceland will become an Amazon Music exclusive.”Oh okay, another thing I shouldn’t start then, especially considering that Amazon’s podcast library has been very bad so far.The pod exclusives are getting fucking tiring what with Gimlet basically going exclusive on Spotify. Those greedy fuckers already took Conviction season 2 and are about to take Heavyweight away from me.
I mean, there’s literally a film starring Johnny Knoxville as said manager so it isn’t like this is new ground. I hope they have some new stuff to add.I’m legit looking forward to the NY Dolls segment.
Yup, Grand Theft Parsons.I’ve read it’s not very factual, but I found it freekin hilarious.