Is that really the PA, or just somebody's radio left in the corner of the room?

[vovat]

The newest They Might Be Giants podcast continues the trend of not having much new to talk about, but it does include a demo of "Bed, Bed, Bed, Bed, Bed" (the slower version of "Bed, Bed, Bed") sung by John Flansburgh, and an unreleased instrumental called "No Left Turn." I also thought it was cool hearing a high quality version of a song I'd previously only heard on an umpteenth-generation tape of Dial-A-Song recordings. The fan name for it was "We Love All the People," but Flans said it's simply called "Rock Club" on the tape, and he can't remember if it had a real name. I get the impression that the Johns are pretty casual with their song titles. Speaking of which, am I the only one who's somewhat bothered by the fact that the official release of Venue Songs calls the songs by the names of the cities, even though a great many of them don't even include the city names in their lyrics? I'm sorry, but I'd rather not refer to the TLA song as "Philadelphia." Anyway, getting back to "Rock Club" (since I guess that's the closest thing it has to an official title), it doesn't seem to be very popular among the group of hardcore fans who've actually heard it, but I kind of like its forlorn sound. I think it's sort of a precursor to the better known but more annoying "Disappointing Show."

I listened to Mink Car today, and I have to say that it's still probably my least favorite TMBG album. I know a lot of people blamed the fact that fans had been hearing a lot of the songs on it for years before the actual album release, and there's probably some truth to that, but I don't think that would be as much of a problem if the songs had more replay value. Oh, well. "Older" really did suffer from overexposure, I would say, since I can't think of too many other songs that I loved more upon first listen, or hated more after the twenty thousand millionth listen. I actually didn't particularly mind hearing it again today, though, so maybe it's been long enough since the last time I did. Probably because I haven't been to any of their live shows recently, I would imagine.

Comments

[slfcllednowhere.livejournal.com]

The fan name for it was "We Love All the People," but Flans said it's simply called "Rock Club" on the tape, and he can't remember if it had a real name.

Oh man, I remember that song! Man, a high-quality version of that? Crazy. And yeh I agree with you it's not bad. I like it when Flans does his wistful thing.

Aww I feel bad for Mink Car. It gets a bad rap but it has some awesome stuff on it. I love So Loud and Hovering Sombrero and Bangs, and Cyclops Rock is fucking amazing, one of my all-time fav Flans songs.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Oh man, I remember that song! Man, a high-quality version of that?

I think it's the same version that was on DAS, but not played through a phone, which makes for a vast improvement in sound.

I kind of thought that "Bangs" was overrated by the band. It's cute, but really doesn't have enough zest to make a good opener or single (which I'm not sure it ever was, but I'm pretty sure there was discussion of that). Then again, while I like "So Loud" pretty well (it was better as a rock song, but still good as a dance number), I never thought it was hit material either. "Hovering Sombrero" is excellent, though.

I was actually planning on mentioning "Cyclops Rock" in the post, but I forgot. I listened to both the album and What We Did This Summer versions, and I think some of the changes made for the album version were good, and others not so much. Removing Nixon was criminal (even if he himself was not a crook :P), but I prefer "mess up my cyclops mind" to the simple "I've got a cyclops mind," and changing the number of glass eyes made sense. I mean, where's a cyclops going to keep a second glass eye? Maybe I'm taking it too literally, but I still think "one glass eye" works better. And I don't like the Cerys Matthews vocal, which I originally thought was Flans with his voice sped up. In fact, I liked it better back when I thought that, as the thought that someone's voice naturally sounds like that is kind of disturbing. Speaking of which, I recently briefly conversed with someone who was a fan of Matthews but didn't like her "Cyclops Rock" vocal.

[nova-one.livejournal.com]

Ha-ha, I kind of just sit through "Bangs" and wait for the rest of the album to kick in.

[jenhime.livejournal.com]

I like Mink Car. >_> It's one of the few TMBG albums that I ever think about putting on and listening to start to finish. So Loud is awesome. :D

[nova-one.livejournal.com]

IAWTA posts

I love Mink Car, but "Older" is my least favorite song on the album.

My least favorite album? The Spine, hands down. It's short, it doesn't rock much for me - it's got a few catchy tunes, but most of the songs (for me) are just sort of lamely-weird and not cool-weird. ("Bastard Wants to Hit Me," "Prevenge," "Experimental Film,"... the songs feel immature, at least to me.)

Oooh! What do you (guys) listen to more often - The Else or Cast Your Pod to the Wind?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think The Spine is my favorite TMBG album to be released since John Henry. I agree that "Bastard" is one of its weaker points, although it's grown on me over time. "Prevenge" kind of sounds incomplete to me. And while I quite like "Experimental Film," it seems a little by-the-numbers, as if Linnell was consciously trying to imitate some of his earlier material. But I think "Memo to Human Resources," "Museum of Idiots," "Au Contraire," "Damn Good Times," and "Stalk of Wheat" all show the Johns at the top of their game. I agree that it's too short, but that seems to be the way of TMBG albums nowadays. I mean, I guess we're not really getting any less material, what with all the podcasts and Internet releases, but a TMBG album with less than eighteen songs just seems wrong.

As for your question, I've probably listened more to The Else, but I think of the two as a set, and I try to listen to them back-to-back when possible. I think the stuff on CYPTTW is what would have been B-sides back in the days of frequent EP releases. I actually think that several of the CYPTTW songs would have worked on the album, and "Contrecoup" probably should have gone on CYPTTW, but I guess that wasn't my decision. More annoying to me is that they chose to omit some podcast songs from CYPTTW. Come on, were "Kendra McCormick" and "Scott Bower" really more worthy of CD release than "Miniature Sidewalk Whirlwind"?

[nova-one.livejournal.com]

Yeah, even as I was saying I didn't really like The Spine, songs like "Stalk of Wheat" ended up playing back in my head. There are things to like about it. I didn't like the little Spine-themed interludes, and for me they weren't nearly as cool as the Flood introduction.

I liked "Kendra" and "Scott" more when I realized they were meant to be used as answering machine out-going messages by those people. It felt like a fun new twist on the dial-a-song ethos. I love "I'm Your Boyfriend Now," "Brain Problem Situation," and most of the others. "Greasy Kid Stuff" would have been album-worthy. In any case, I listen to Cast Your... about twice as much as The Else, so I like to think of it as an additional album even though it's really just a Bonus CD.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I certainly don't mind the presence of the answering machine songs, but if it were down to a choice between those and some actual full-fledged songs, I probably would have opted for the latter. "Brain Problem Situation" is great, and I also quite enjoy "We Live in a Dump" and "Microphone." "I'm Your Boyfriend Now" is clever, but seems a little on the novelty side. I mean, it sounds like something Weird Al might have written, and I know the Johns have been annoyed at comparisons to Al in the past.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I kinda like "Rock Club" too, since listening to it on my Dial-A-Song tapes. DOOORK, But yeah. Not my favorite DAS cut, but it's good.

I like Mink Car; it's wicked uneven and sounds like they just randomly threw the tracks on in whatever order, but the songs are all really good. My least favorite is still Factory Showroom -- a good EP with some so-so bonus tracks made worse by the fact that they left off REALLY AWESOME SONGS like "Certain People" and (the original version of) "On The Drag". Dang it, Johns! If you're gonna dis the Quantity Power Sphere, at least choose the GOOD songs.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think my favorite of the unreleased DAS cuts that I've heard is "Half a Boy." There was a more developed version of it on Clock Radio, but I kind of think it would have worked better if they'd played up the country sound from the demo.

I'd say FS was my least favorite until Mink came out, although choosing least favorites is a little tricky what with all the "wait, does this count as an album or not?" stuff they've been releasing recently. I'd probably rank both FS and Mink higher than the ABCs or 123s, but those are somewhat limited by their intended audience and subject matter. I agree that there was too much left off FS, although I think that might partially have been Elektra's fault. "Reprehensible" is one of my all-time favorite TMBG songs. Then again, my overall favorite TMBG song is "It's Not My Birthday," which was a B-side. So maybe that just goes to show that I don't always agree with the Johns on what their better songs are.

I like the released "On the Drag" pretty well, but starting with the "I won't die until I'm dead" verse still sounds wrong.

[kristenjarrod.livejournal.com]

>>I listened to Mink Car today, and I have to say that it's still probably my least favorite TMBG album.<<

I borrowed Mink Car from a friend back in 2002, and it was hands down probably one of the worst albums I've ever heard.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Had you heard any other TMBG albums, or was that your first?