They say it's your birthday

[vovat]

Happy birthday to bethje, my one true love and best friend. I hope you have a great day. I'm sorry I have to spend most of it at work.

A few other things I have to say:

1. I worked until 11 last night, and then helped Beth with her homework, the result being that I didn't get to watch the new Simpsons episode. I'll probably have some comments on it after watching it tonight. Whether that means a long review or just a few observations depends on how thought-provoking the episode turns out to be.

2. I hate having to wear a coat. What also bugs me is that the weather is kind of cold, but not THAT cold, meaning that I have to constantly adjust the heat in my car to make it comfortable.

3. It seems so trendy these days to be an ex-They Might Be Giants fan. Does the fact that I still consider them to be my favorite band make me a big loser? (I mean, I know I'm a big loser anyway, but does this make me an even BIGGER loser?)

4. Speaking of birthdays, here are the results of a horoscope quiz:

You are 40% Scorpio

How much do you match your zodiac sign?

I thought that quiz could have used some varying degrees of "true" and "false." There were also too many compound statements, if that makes any sense. One of them was "You're self confident, and possessive of what's yours." Well, the latter is probably true to an extent, but the former not at all, so I had to say it was false.

And another quiz:


Which File Extension are You?

Comments

Read this, eat it, ta ta.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

That post about Krauss was so long ago that I have no idea whether I'm remembering it correctly. It's certainly possible that it wasn't by Myke, wasn't about Krauss, and didn't mention bad tempers. (I'm pretty sure Flans was involved in some way, though. {g}) I DID manage to turn up Myke's angry farewell post (http://groups.google.com/groups?q=author:jerk%40earth.execpc.com&start=70&hl=en&lr=&selm=4trg75%24aeb%40daily-planet.execpc.com&rnum=76), though, which mentions that both Krauss and Bo Orloff had been "shit on by Flansburgh and whomever else." So it's quite possible their parting of ways wasn't that amicable. As for Fried, I think Robin Goldwasser still works with him, so I'm guessing he and Flans don't hate each other too terribly much. I guess there isn't necessarily any indication of that, though.

You're probably right that Flans tends to make most of the decisions, or at least justifies them. I read somewhere that Flans usually decides on the track order, and then he and Linnell justified that order to the record company. (I guess that, in the case of Mink Car, the European label flat-out rejected Flans's track order, and went behind the band's backs to change it.)

It's weird, though. For the Shy one, Linnell sure does guest on a lot of stuff. And for the Outgoing one, Flansburgh sure _doesn't_.

I know Flans has done some work directing videos and producing stuff, which I don't know that Linnell has ever done. Linnell is probably a MUSICAL guest more often simply because guitar players are a dime a dozen, and accordion players are harder to come by.

Oh, and for what it's worth, Myke briefly reappeared in October 2001, and I think he pretty much apologized for the way he had left back in 1996. He apparently didn't stick around for very long after that, although he might still be lurking. I'm not sure.

Re: Read this, eat it, ta ta.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I'd actually like to know what happened with Bill; I know the standard Official Line is that they'd just felt that they'd sort of moved on and should work on producing their own stuff or at least working with other people (since Flood's about half/half TMBG/Bezozi and Langer/Winstanley, IIRC, without actually looking at the liners.. I know that's one of the reasons production on that album is so uneven; it took TMBG a while to figure out _how_ to Produce... I don't think they ever really got the knack until Mink Car, actually...), but.. yeah. One gets the impression that Bill was actually one of Flans' best friends in the Early Days. But yeah -- I didn't really remember that with Bo, although that'd probably explain why www.dnai.com/~obo[1] isn't tmbg.com, heh. But yeah... it'd be interesting to know.

(Also, for the record, I know where Myke's coming from; it was one of the things that tended to drive me nuts about a.m.tmbg -- it seemed that to even _suggest_ that TMBG might not have put out the Best Thing Ever At Any Time was sacrilege. So, y'know, people'd flip out if you said that, say, Factory Showroom simply wasn't up to par. And, well, yeah. That _did_ get annoying; I'm not saying that everyone should have been "OMG THEY SUCK NOW!!!11111" or anything, but it would have been nice if there was more debate and stuff, like "Oh, I don't think that SEXXY should have been the lead single" "Well, TMBG typically alternate Johns for single, and SEXXY is an amusing track with a great groove; it might not have been the most radio friendly but, well, what have they done since Flood or A18 that's gotten airplay?", rather than "Oh, I don't think SEXXY should have been the lead single" "WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU YOU TROLLS MAKE ME SICK! JOHN AND JOHN ARE GOD!!!", which was happening. I mean, I disagreed with Myke that Flans was spreading himself too thin between Mono Puff and TMBG, but it was because I liked Unsupervised (though "It's Fun To Steal" is far superior, but that hadn't come out yet), and not because, you know, he was dissing a Giant. But, well, it's been not-quite-a-decade, so perhaps I should let it go.)

I'm not sure if Flans necessarily makes the decisions -- I tend to think it's a equal John and John thing -- but I'm pretty sure he's the Enforcer. Which is kind of funny to think of, Flans in sunglasses with an overcoat and a .33. But yeah. As for Mink Car -- actually, I kinda think the Euro Label was right to reject the track listing; I love Mink Car, and I love all the tracks on it, but as a cohesive album? It's not. It feels like a random grab bag. It's almost feels like J&J just loaded it into shuffle, and copied down the tracklist, maybe made a couple adjustments, since "Bangs" is a pretty good lead track, and went with that. I looked up the Euro tracklist, but that one honestly doesn't look that much better (though I haven't heard it in that order -- maybe I'll program it to see), and it's hell of lame that they cut tracks. (and they didn't cut the tracks I would have if I absolutely had to cut tracks, heh.)

You're probably right w/r/t the accordion; it seems that if you need an accordion, you either get John Linnell or Weird Al. (Although Linnell's done a bunch of, say, Sax work, too, on records. IIRC, need to check, both him and Kurt Hoffman guest on David Byrne's new one.) I don't think Flans has really produced much outside of Hello discs/bands, though, but his videos are awesome. He's on the list of directors I'd like to work with with my Hypothetical Band, Providing I Ever Decided Not To Direct The Videos Myself Or Something.

[1],,,why, WHY?! do I still remember that URL after ~10 years, about 8 of which being inactive?

Re: Read this, eat it, ta ta.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

The thing is, I think Bo might still work for TMBG. I seem to recall reading that he was the one who the maintainer of the old Twistid site to remove some of his TMBG songs. No idea about Bill, although I did notice that Severe Tire Damage was partially dedicated to him.

I've always been kind of in the middle of the "TMBG sucks now" vs. "Everything they've ever done is wonderful" debate. On the one hand, I do have a certain degree of blind TMBG fandom, but, as I've said before, I also support the right of people to criticize and complain. I think it's ridiculous when people act like any criticism of TMBG is bad (What, is every supposed to be "Gee, I love TMBG! They can do no wrong!"), but I've noticed that some members are so negative about everything that you kind of have to wonder why they're sticking around on a forum devoted to a band they apparently hate so much. Since I get the idea that Myke wasn't too fond of any of TMBG's post-duo work, it might have been best that he left when he did. It does seem like most of the people who either had connections to the band or just knew a lot about their early days has abandoned the Internet forums, though, which is kind of a shame.

As for the European Mink Car, I agree that it wasn't such a good idea to cut tracks. Honestly, I don't think I'd miss the last three songs or "Mr. Xcitement" much, and "Your Mom's Alright" is a good addition, but cutting "Wicked Little Critta" is just wrong. It probably would have been better if they'd discussed the changes with TMBG before making them, and they apparently didn't.

I tend to be drawn to bands that use a fair amount of accordion, and wouldn't need Linnell to guest on their albums. (Didn't Scott McCaughey play the accordion part on "Great News Around You," by the way?) If a band or artist DOESN'T have a regular accordion player, though, I could definitely see getting Linnell.

I know Flans produced at least one album by Muckafurgason, which wasn't a Hello band, but probably WOULD have been if they had existed back in the Hello days. I think I also remember hearing that he managed OKGo, or something like that, but I have no idea how true that is.

Re: Read this, eat it, ta ta.

[revme.livejournal.com]

I didn't know about Bo being the one to contact twistid, but that's good that he's still around, I suppose. And I know that Bill was in Gigantic, so perhaps it's one of those deals where they had a falling out, and then realized X years later that it was sorta dumb to fight and apologized.

Hm, yeah -- I mean, I do tend to take it a little more personally than I should when people are all like "Oh, TMBG can't sing!" or whatever, but, yeah. I do like when people can talk about decisions they've made (i.e., I personally thought that the eMusic thing was kinda stupid, but that was mainly because I don't like the idea of paying for 128kpbs mp3s; if I'm going to buy mp3s, they'd best be 256kpbs, or at the _very least_ 196. And, I thought it was stupid that Long Tall Weekend was only released as MP3s , and the only CD that existed was a Radio Promo. (I did like the CD/MP3 combo of "Working Undercover for the Man", though -- _that's_ what LTW should have been.)), though. And, yeah -- I do remember how Myke seemed to despise John Henry (which I don't get, that's one of my favorites), but he was such a great resource, I didn't mind, and I never got any sort of "Oh, you're just here to bitch!" sort of vibe from him. But yeah -- like I mentioned, though, the other way can get weird, because I'm on the Chris Morris mailing list, and apparently, I'm a bad CM fan, since I actually _LIKE_ the things he's made. Apparently everything he's done since 1994 is supposed to be horrible shit, and the stuff before 1994 is Fair-To-Middling-I-Guess.

I've built the UK Mink Car in iTunes, but I haven't given it a listen yet. When I do, I'll mention how it flows. I do like that they added Boss of Me and YMA, but I don't quite get why they cut the four tracks. (Although, I suppose "Wicked Little Critta" probably doesn't translate overseas, heh...) But yeah -- I think they should have just done what the Australian and Japanese labels did and just staple on the bonus tracks to the end.

But yeah - I actually have a lot of accordion-band-CDs, too... I've always wanted to learn the accordion, actually, but never got one. And, yeah, Scott plays the Accordion on that song, I just checked the liners... he also plays about everything else in the world on it. Which is surprising, because he's not the only musician on it, and, so you've got other people playing stuff too. Which is probably why that track sounds so full. And cool.

Ah, forgot about that. I don't recall hearing the OKGo rumor, but I don't think it's true; when their album came in at the college radio station I was at, IIRC, they thanked Flans, but he didn't get any particular credit (I think I would have remembered if it said "Managed by John Flansburgh" or something n the liners). Also, I'd figure Flans'd probably be a bit busy to manage a band, although, well, John and John do seem to thrive on being insanely busy, so... I mean, you wouldn't expect him to have time to be the lead in an Off Broadway play, but there he is.

Re: Read this, eat it, ta ta.

[vovat.livejournal.com]

I'm not sure if Bo still reads the newsgroup. For some reason, I get the impression that he heard about the site through Jim Stabile, who in turn heard about it through someone on the newsgroup. I don't know for sure, though.

I wouldn't be too surprised to find that Flans and Bill had patched up their wounds, especially if they're no longer working together.

I'm not much of a stickler for bitrates, and I have bought stuff (not just TMBG) through eMusic, but I agree that having stuff that's ONLY offered that way is a bad idea. It's possible there was something in their contract with eMusic about offering exclusive stuff, but a lot of the Long Tall Weekend tracks have since been released on commercial CDs ("The Edison Museum" on No!, that version of "She Thinks She's Edith Head" on the McSweeney's disc, and several other songs on They Got Lost), so I have to wonder why they don't just go ahead and just release LTW itself on CD already.

I know the early YFF tracks that use accordion ("That Letter" and "Back Room Of The Bar" come to mind) have guest musicians playing them, so either Scott's learning the instrument is a more recent development, or he didn't think he could do justice to the accordion parts in those particular songs. Actually, on a similar note, I think a collaboration between Scott and TMBG would be really cool. They must know each other, since Hello put out a Minus 5 CD, and the YFF namecheck in "Twisting" and cover of "Hillbilly Drummer Girl" imply that Flans, at least, is a Fellows fan. I guess it's possible that the feeling isn't mutual, though. I mean, Andy Partridge is in pretty much the same position with respect to TMBG (Hello CD, band namecheck in "XTC vs. Adam Ant," cover of "25 O'Clock"), and I understand that he doesn't really care for TMBG.

And I'm probably either misremembering the OKGo rumor, or the person who started it didn't know what they were talking about.