Another Product of Shaking Skin House

[vovat]

I did a little bit of research into the International Criminal Court issue that Bush brought up during the debates, and it looks like the main reason the United States didn't join was that it could be "used for frivolous or politically motivated prosecution of American troops" [1]. While I can see that this would be a concern, Bush's position still doesn't sit too well with me, because it seems too much like his typical "America is always right! We can't be bothered paying attention to what those lesser countries think!" attitude. It seems to me that the more appropriate approach would be to try to reform the ICC, rather than avoiding it altogether.

Last night, bethje made me watch the two-part series finalé to Full House. Michelle falls off a horse, and the resulting trauma makes her grow up to be an anorexic cokehead. Okay, she actually just loses her memory in an unrealistic and unconvincing manner. Besides, to be fair, I guess it's only half of Michelle that becomes drugged-up and anorexic (not that the other half looks all that healthy either), which might explain why she was only in rehab for half the recommended time.

Anyway, here are my thoughts on Volume 6 of Andy Partridge's Fuzzy Warbles project.


The Laugh Track—A track of Andy cracking up during the “Omnibus” recording session. Kind of interesting to have, but not exactly something you’d want to listen to over and over again.

The Stinking Rich Song—This was one of the songs that Andy wrote for the animated James and the Giant Peach film. I forget why they weren’t used, but I think it might have had to do with money or something. I’ve seen the movie, but I really don’t remember any of the songs that Randy Newman did for it. I would have preferred Andy’s songs, but then, I guess that goes without saying. This one has Andy doing the voices of James’s two evil aunts, which is pretty amusing to hear, but he claims it hurt his throat. Not too surprising, really.

I Can’t Tell What Truth Is Anymore—I like the lyrics to this Nonsuch-era demo. The music is good, too, but I especially enjoy lyrics like, “Is the world still round and flat, like our grimey bathroom mat?”

Candle Dance—Another ambient kind of thing, written for a film.

The Tiny Circus Of Life—A nice little song, with some cool circus music and sounds. As Andy admits, it’s sort of similar to “Dear Madam Barnum” in theme.

The Man Who Sailed Around His Soul—A demo of what I usually consider to best the weakest track on Skylarking. Oh, well. It’s still nice to have, and since I think Skylarking might be my favorite album of all time, even the worst song certainly isn’t bad.

In My Hand—This is a cover of a song written by a friend of Andy’s. It’s actually a really good song. Not very Andy-ish, but something I think I would like even if he weren’t singing it.

Difficult Age--The point of this one seems to be that EVERY age is difficult. The music is kind of repetitive and not too interesting, but it's an interesting idea for a song.

Pink Thing--I've always liked this semi-dirty but fun song, which can also be heard on Oranges and Lemons. The demo is rough-sounding, and not as light and airy as the finished version. The liner notes include the sentence, "Of course being more of an upright member of society these days, if I spot a [double entendre] in my lyrics I whip it out immediately." Ah, Andy, you and your dirty yet genteel manner.

Shaking Skin House--An idea for a song that eventually developed into "Merely A Man." A "shaking skin house," by the way, is a person. I generally find these really rough ideas to be more interesting than the almost-the-finished-product demos that pervade much of the Warbles discs.

Bike Ride To The Moon--A slower version of the Dukes of Stratosphear song. The Man in the Moon has a goofier voice in this demo. Incidentally, if I may get pedantic for a minute, one thing I've always wondered about in the lyrics of this one is the line "And I might be a positive boon." Isn't a boon ALWAYS positive? {g}

My Love Explodes--Much like the previous track, this is rougher, slower, and less psychedelicized than the version that ended up on the 25 O'Clock EP.

Omnibus--Introduced in a silly faux-Bulgarian voice. For some reason, the introduction appears at the end of "My Love Explodes," but since it mentions an Omnibus, I assume it's supposed to introduce this track. Mostly the same as the finished version, but with a few different euphemisms.

Across The Antheap--Andy calls this rough demo "swampy." I can definitely see where he's coming from.

Across This Antheap--It's interesting when a rough demo is followed by a more developed version of the same song. This was done with "I'm The Man Who Murdered Love" on Homegrown, and it's done much the same way here. This is quite similar to the album version. I don't think it ended up being this long, but that's probably largely because the percussive ending was cut out.

Human Alchemy--The ending of this song is awfully long on the album, but I think it might be even longer here. As much as I love XTC, I think they sometimes have a problem deciding when to end a song.

Moonlit Drive--This is a pretty neat little instrumental, but I don't have much else to say about it.

Prince Of Orange--I used to have an MP3 of this song, but, while I'm pretty sure it was the same recording, it didn't include the second half. I know it was on a CD that Andy did for the Hello Recording Club. Did that version include anything beyond "causing fanfare to those listening, now" and the keyboard solo? Anyway, this is a bright-sounding song, which makes me wonder why Andy cries at the end. I'm not alone in wondering that, though. He himself writes, "As for the crying, where did that come from?"

End Of The Pier--Andy admits that this is similar to "Seagulls Screaming Kiss Her, Kiss Her," although I think this is probably catchier and less chaotic. Not that I don't like "Seagulls," but the cacophony is part of the point of that one, and this has more of a bright carnival sound, complete with sound effects. "It's raining on the beach" in "Seagulls," while it sounds pretty sunny here. As with Volume 5, one of the best songs on the CD was saved for last.

I guess my only real complaint about the Warbles project, aside from the exorbitant cost of the individual CDs, is one I could also make about Homespun and Homegrown. Too many of the demos are just slightly less polished versions of album tracks. They're still nice to hear, especially when looking for slight changes in lyrics or music, but not something you'd want to listen to all that often, when you can just play the actual albums. Really rough demos, like the skiffle version of "Dear God" on Volume 5, or the separate songs ("The Pot Won't Hold Our Love" and "Everything Decays") on Homegrown that were eventually combined to form "The Wheel and The Maypole," while not usually all that great musically, tend to be more interesting.

Overall, though, I think the Warbles CDs are a good idea, and probably the closest we'll get to new XTC for some time. I kind of wish more bands would do something along the same lines. For instance, a few CDs of They Might Be Giants demos and rarities would be nice to have. I guess that was kind of what they did with TMBG Unlimited, but I'm sure the Johns have enough other stuff in the vaults to bring out some stuff on actual CDs, and without all the ultimately unnecessary "previews" of Mink Car and No! tracks. (And no, TMBG doing a similar project isn't an original idea of mine, but I forget who suggested it initially. Someone on the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup, I think.)


[1] SOURCE: Edith M. Lederer. "Many Oppose U.S. Peacekeeper Exemptions." Associated Press Online, 21 May 2004.

Comments

[zimbra1006.livejournal.com]

Michelle falls off a horse, and the resulting trauma makes her grow up to be an anorexic cokehead.

Ha! You know, I don't think I did ever see the finale of Full House, but this is how I would've written it.

Incidentally, at my apartment we have a Full House in Hawaii poster on our bathroom door, and a picture of Bob Saget (with my roommate) on our mantle. The roomie had a bit of a Full House obsession as a kid.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I haven't heard the FW version, but the Hello version of Prince of Orange had the weird crying ending, too. I remember liking the idea of it, but then when I heard it, I was sorta "This is... sorta... not... good." Has "Candymine" made it out on a FW disc, yet? I like that one. I actually like the Abandoned Bubblegum Project. They really should have kept up with that one (I know "Standing In For Joe" was a cut track from that, which is one of Colin's strongest songs, I think), because I like it when XTC does the Various Goofs On Genres. Like the Dukes. The Dukes _RULE_.

And I pretty much agree with you on the demos versus album thing -- Homespun/grown ended up being pretty unessential, or rather, essential only for the liner notes, since I remember there being some cool info in those. But the actual CD? Not so much, since it's basically a Low-Fi copy of the real album. (Although I like the things about Colin either being the best or worst engineer in the world, since nothing he ever records sounds like what it actually is.) But yeah, the really rough stuff is the most interesting.

Also -- from what I remember at the time, he was all set to do James & The Giant Peach, but apparently Disney:
a) Offered an insulting amount of money
and
b) Demanded to own the music in perpetuity

So Andy told them to:
a) Fuck off
and
b) Die.

And, yes, TMBG definitely need to do a Fuzzy Warbles project. Mainly because a lot of their castoffs are good-or-better than stuff they've released. And the stuff they release is _awesome_. (Like, I love "Living Doll/Somebody's Body" (whichever title you prefer), say.)

And while sometimes XTC doesn't really know where to end a song, I reaaaaally wish they'd release the full version of "Travels In Nilihon", which was apparently 12 minutes long, the additional six mainly just coming from the cool groove at the end of the song. I would totally dig the hell out of that. Because that song RULES. It might be my favorite track on Black Sea, though that one has a lot of great songs.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Okay, if the Hello version ended with the crying, I must have just had an MP3 that cut off the end of the song, because I'm pretty sure that MP3 was from the Hello CD.

Yeah, I also think they should have gone ahead with the bubblegum project. I think it was originally discarded because Virgin didn't like the idea, but now that Andy has his own label, it seems like he could release it through there.

"Candymine" isn't on any of the FW CDs, but I have heard the song, and it's pretty cool.

One thing about TMBG vs. XTC demo-wise is that, while XTC's demos are interesting to hear, it's pretty much always the case that the finished product is superior. On the other hand, I've heard some TMBG demos that were as good as or better than what they ended up putting on the albums. For instance, the Power of Dial-A-Song tape I have includes a demo of "I'll Sink Manhattan" with Latin guitar, which I prefer to the synthesized steamboat whistle, or whatever it's supposed to be. The 1985 demo tape versions of "You'll Miss Me" and "When It Rains It Snows," while not necessarily better than what ended up on the records, are interesting and distinctive earlier takes on the songs. So, yeah, a collection of TMBG demos would definitely be a good thing.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Heh, yeah, sounds like it was probably someone who just hacked it off because they didn't like it and didn't want to listen to it whenever they heard that song. (I've done that with some of my mp3s.)

That'd be pretty awesome, although, I wonder if they would, since I don't think Colin was so keen on the project. But, hey, it could always be another Andy Solo Project, like the Dub Experiements (which are _awesome_. He should do more of those!).

That's really true with TMBG, and I've heard that _all_ the released versions of "You'll Miss Me" are completely different than each other. (IIRC: Lincoln, Demo Tape, "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" Wiggle Diskette. I _might_ be forgetting one, though...). I've only heard the first two, though, at least that I recall. I think I remember the DAS version of ISM, but I think I like the released one better. Although it's still interesting. (There's a few of those, sorta like the DAS of "O Do Not Forsake Me" which is hilariously awful (Flans on vocals, just sorta doin' this... weird... almost Dylan kinda thing or SOMETHING, and the "Drunken Bullshit Mix" of Your Racist Friend, where it sounds like Flans got fucked up and just started doing Your Racist Friend, where he just keeps sorta looping back in the song, and keeps singing "listen to some bullethead and the BULLSHIT!!! that he's sayin'" and it's sorta funny if not really actually good.) So, uh, yes. I do not care if it would be flooding the market, they should totally just release fivehundred CDs of demos. That'd take care of, what, 1/4 of the stuff they've done?

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I think I've heard that version of "O, Do Not Forsake Me," but not that take on "Your Racist Friend." I did hear about it, though, and I kind of think they should have left the word "bullshit" in it, if only because it goes better with "bullethead," but I can see why they might have wanted to avoid it while sober. There was also a drunken rambling Flans version of "I Palindrome I" (the "born on the fifth of July" version, not the album one), which I heard recently.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I _think_ the Bullshit Version is on "Free When You Call From Work", but I could be wrong on that one. I think I actually like it better the clean way, though, partially because it's that sort of standard TMBG thing of setting up an Obvious Line/Word/Rhyme and then not using it. ("Hot Cha/Where are you/Everybody's/Eyes are closed", for example.) Although Flans DOES get into saying "Bullshit", so...

Also, it's been a while since I've heard Flans Palindrome Flans, but that one doesn't really strike me as being particularly drunk. (There's a few DASes where, well, if he's not, he should perhaps switch brands of coffee. Either that, or he's really good at pretending.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I've heard two versions of the Flans "Palindrome," one of which is just sung straight, and the other in a more rambling, disorganized manner. I wasn't even aware of the latter until recently, when someone posted a link to it on the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Ah, that's probably it, then. I don't think I've heard the Rambling Disorganized One. The one I've heard is more or less straight, if not really all that great of a song. (I typically prefer Flans' TMBG stuff than Linnell's (though more-or-less by a slight amount, but I seem to get where Flans' head is at more), but Linnell's IPI beats Flans' hands down.)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Yeah, Linnell's IPI is definitely a better song (which is probably why it's the one they used for the album). I do have to wonder why they have two completely different songs with the same title. I have thoughts of one of them throwing out the name and then both of them independently writing songs with that name, but that little imagining is probably nowhere near the truth (although it would be kind of cool if it WERE true). Really, I don't see Flans's as actually having much at all to do with palindromes, at least in an overt sense.

I probably like Linnell's songs better overall, but I think I might prefer Flans's voice. I've heard quite a few other people say that Linnell has the better voice, but then, I think Linnell wrote "The World's Address" and "Reprehensible" and had Flans sing them, while I don't know of any examples in the other direction (which doesn't necessarily mean there aren't any, I suppose). I guess this doesn't mean that Linnell thinks Flans has the better voice overall, though, just that he has the better lounge singer voice. I think "Reprehensible" might be Flans's best vocal performance, really.

[revme.livejournal.com]

My guess is that Flans wrote his IPI, and Linnell thought it was a neat title, and wrote his IPI. (They've mentioned that stuff like that has happened before, where one'll write a song, and the other'll take something from it and run off and write a different, better song -- although I don't think they mentioned IPI, so it could just be a random thing. Or maybe they just thought about seeing what'd happen if they were both given a title and had to write songs called it. Or maybe they both just got struck by the same idea, which'd just be really weird, since, y'know, "I Palindrome I"? That's not really intuitive, I'd think.)

I tend to find that Flansburgh's a little more experimental and Linnell tends to be a bit more pop-oriented (not that they don't do either, and aren't really good at both, though, I could have, say, done without some of Linnell's Band Organ Obsession on State Songs). I get the impression that Flans, say, is the bigger Residents fan[1] than Linnell (though I'd wager they both probably have most of the Residents records in their collections, since, um, TMBG get pretty Residential from time to time). And Flans tends to do the straighter-ahead Rockin' Numbers. Both can be clever, but it seems that Linnell's a little more hung up on it (but that's OK, because he's actually good at it, unlike a lot of folks intent on being "clever") than Flans. (I think this is why I tend to like the first few records more, since they sorta drifted a little away from the more Weird Stuff (i.e. Fake Out In Buenos Aires, Boat of Car, most Dialasongs) to the more straightforward Rock-and-Pop stuff -- though there's plenty of Weird Stuff on the new records, too, like, well, a lot of No!, or "Spine/Spines", "Stalk of Wheat", it just seems less-so, where on, say, Pink, it was pretty much neck-and-neck, heh. (And I really dig the second Mono Puff album, the one where Flans was mainly experimenting with funk/soul. That was pretty awesome. He should do more of that. Like, "Pet Name" is one of my favorite TMBG songs.)

My mother hates Flans' voice, but I actually really like it. I think I might agree about him having the better voice; at least he seems to have more range, or at least is more willing to stretch vocally than Linnell. And I can kinda hear a bit of Linnell's writing in World's Address and Reprehensible, too, so I think you might be right.

[1] I've often sorta said that the Young Fresh Fellows are what TMBG would have been if they'd grown up on 60s garage rock like the Sonics instead of 70s avant garde like the Residents. (Even though I suppose age-wise, "grown-up-with" isn't exactly the right term.)

[revme.livejournal.com]

(also: My guess that Flans wrote the first IPI is just because his IPI is so... demo and sketchy that it has sort of "I'm basically jotting down an idea here to work on later" nature, which'd be a little odd, to me, if he were like, writing something based from Linnell's IPI, assuming his was closer to what was released and not say "I Palindrome I/la la la/son of a bitch/la la/windmill/bass tone".)

[vovat.livejournal.com]

My basic thought about the Johns has generally been that Flans is weirder musically, and Linnell lyrically. You can usually understand what Flans's songs are about, for one thing. I think the differences between their songwriting styles really came out around Apollo 18, with their songs being somewhat less distinguishable in the early days.

As for the weird stuff, I think I'm more into the melodic songs than the totally experimental ones, although I've been known to like some of the latter from time to time. And I'd say the songs you mention seem to fit into both categories, as, for instance, "Stalk Of Wheat" is quite melodic and poppy, and "Fake Out" not so much. I do like "Boat Of Car" quite a bit, but I found it creepy at first. While I no longer find it such, that might actually have turned out to be a good thing in the long run, because it made the song stand out more than it otherwise might have.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Hm, I'd go along with that -- Linnell's lyrics tend to be a little more cryptic with more layers going on than Flans' (I mean, Birdhouse is about a nightlight -- it makes sense, but in sort of a roundabout way that takes you a while to decipher), but Flans' are typically to be a little more all-over-the-place musically (sorta like the "Calling Mr. Pupkin" section of "Prevenge" (maybe a bad example since I don't think that part really works per se, but oh well)).

"Stalk of Wheat" is a little more experimental to me even though it's pretty conventional musically just because they're playing with genre; it doesn't fit into that Rock Thing at all, it's closer to a bit of vaudeville... That and it's a little harder to find recent stuff that actually made it to records -- they've still got recent stuff like "Indian Ocean" which is pretty much as residential as anything they've ever done, or a bunch of the McSweeney's tracks, like "Down to the Bottom of the Sea", which is sort of a Standard Rock Song only with different sounds (sorta like the replaced drum sounds on "Piece of Dirt"). But yeah, "Boat of Car" _is_ creepy; it's a neat little bit of atmosphere on the record. I like those.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

Was "Indian Ocean" really all that recent? It was first released through TMBG Unlimited, but I think it might have been something that they had sitting around their vaults for some time before that. I don't know for sure, though.

[revme.livejournal.com]

Actually, I'm not sure. I _think_ Indian Ocean was recent (but all my archived TMBG lists are on the other computer), but a few hours after posting, my brain de-shorted out and I realized I meant "Tender Is The Mind" (the one that they released the little QT file for a year or two ago, probably more now... of them just sorta messing around in the studio, and it ends with Linnell turning off the organ, IIRC. For some reason I had decided that was a video for "Indian Ocean" rather than "Tender Is The Mind". I do not know why. I am thinking it is the crack that I don't smoke.)