Monday, July 11, 2005

 
fed the damn dog, don't you know what i mean?

I'll be pissed off if I find out that people tuned out because of the Trachtenburg Family Slideshow Players today. How could you not like it?! They're actually letting Rachel Trachtenburg drum and sing on their recordings now! That single was so incredibly cute thanks to that! It's better than their first CD!

So, if you want to hear a low quality playback of that single, here are the links:

Part 1
Part 2

I've also got another episode of Scruggscorp for you. This one is an episode of Jerry Waldaman from May. On this episode, Jerry has an expert on to talk about the new Star Wars movie, except this guest is an expert on the government weapons program known as "Star Wars", not the movies. So, there's a lot of conversation about both. Plus, I called during this episode. See if you can figure out which caller is me. ^_^

So, here are the links to that:

Star Wars Part 1
Star Wars Part 2

I just got off an IM with the PR guy who's supposed to set up the Tammy Ealom (from Dressy Bessy) interview with me. He said he's going to ask her if she can do it next Monday. Let's see if it really happens...

Comments:
i could only tune in for about 20 minutes this morning, so i missed the trachtenburg thing, but i thought the goat song was the real low point. it wasn't funny or interesting, it wasn't good music, but most importantly, it wasn't cute. are you abandoning your principles???
 
Actually "The Goat" is by one of my two favorite bands, and I've played it lots of times before. I think it is interesting, and I love the singer's "grandpa" voice that he uses to sing that song.

Really, I wonder how anyone could not like that song. Maybe it's jarring to hear it after something as cute and sweet as Dennis Driscoll, but in its original context (an album full of songs about gay supremacy, with a few other weird songs in the same vein as "The Goat"), it really works. People love to sing along to that one live.
 
yeah LAURALU, you haven't lived & lost in life until you've lived thru your goat die...(or something like that) & i think Grandpa really pours that feeling of loss into the song :.(
 
almighty...,

Eh... have you ever read her blog? She's suffered a much worse loss than that. Which may also explain why she doesn't like that song. Perhaps she's unhappy with the lighthearted manner in which it treats the loss caused by death.

But then there are those who do find it funny that the goat died because the piece of poop wouldn't come out of his belly (we had to call Doc Nelly!). And they love the performance of Dennis Flemion's grandpa voice on that song.

It brings up an interesting question. Should I avoid playing songs about death because listeners who recently had an experience with the death of a close friend/relative may not be emotionally prepared to handle those songs? So far, it's been a definite yes for me. I even had that whole death-related set of songs earlier this year when the pope died and it was about the time of the anniversary of Kurt Cobain's suicide.
 
i don't have a problem with death-related songs, although i do appreciate your concern. i don't associate the death of a fictional goat with the death of my son (a fact which i'm sure will relieve my therapist). i'm also all for gay supremacy, or at least gay equality. i just thought it was kinda dumb, and understanding its context just makes it seem even more dumb, although i did get much more into the candy apple song, so maybe it's not the frogs generally but just the goat song specifically. or maybe one needs to be high to appreciate it. either way.

regarding death: it happens, and it happens to everyone, and music is one way of dealing with it. the world would be a much more difficult place in which to live without death-related music. i'm not a fan of gratuitous death depicted in the arts, but i don't want to keep anyone from publicly contemplating death in an artistic way - not even the frogs with their dumb goat song.
 
Don't let Laura fool you, she secretly harbors a fascination with my grindcore records when she thinks that noone is home.

She also 'gives up the goat' on a regular basis as she cruises around in our rockin' Volvo stationwagon with the moonroof down.

Oh yeah, I was diggin' on the Sonic Youth covers this morning.
 
my carefully-constructed cover is blown.
 
laura,

It's surprising what kind of mental leaps the mind is capable of making. Someday, I may be reminded of a lost loved one when I listen to "The Goat".

I wish I could play more of the Frogs for you. It's sort of hard to explain them to people because they're quite complex, but people mostly know them for their gay supremacy material. And that's really good stuff, but a lot of it, I can't play on the air because it can get a little graphic at times.

Oh, and I just remembered that they actually had a "Death Songs" period at the beginning of their career. But that's different from "The Goat". In their Death Songs period, they did songs about how they were going to kill the audience with their demons and gargoyles. Great stuff!

justin,

How can anyone not have a secret fascination with grindcore? Even if you don't listen to the albums, there's lots of interesting artwork and funny song titles to read!
 
Some enterprising linguistics grad student could probably dedicate an entire dissertation into deciphering grindcore and black metal names from their artwork.

Not a bad idea, actually, I have been meaning to get back into school. I'll entertain my proposal ...
 
well, sure, who wouldn't want to be threatened with a gargoyle?

i promise to keep an open mind if and when you play more frogs. but i still don't like the goat song. what you hear as that cute grandpa voice, i hear as adam sandler jumping the shark.
 
noooooooooo! don't stop playing death songs! pleeeease?
look at it this way: you are performing a public service by showing that there are other ways of viewing death than the typical death metal/grindcore/"urrr-urrr-urrr" vocals. so please keep the cuteness in our mortality & keep playing death-related songs. in fact, how about a "death" edition of Boogiepop? ;] just a thought...
p.s. LAURALU: speaking of loss & grindcore, those 2 things were united this year for 'CSB fans when Ed the Watchman passed...& his song titles were the hit of any party! gosh i miss him. :.(
 
uh, thanks, almighty - i'll pass your suggestion on to someone who actually has a clue about grindcore, which is clearly not me.

i do second your suggestion for an all-death boogiepop show, or at least a set.
 
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