I still remember the last number one song he wrote about was Wild Flag's Romance (eek those pdfs aren't on the website anymore).
"Hey hey, can you feel it?” is the first appearance of the main motif: the Go-Go’s. It’s nice enough that anyone would write an unflinching Go-Go’s song, but when that chorus revs, you realize they have bigger plans. Yes, you just have to hear it, but, really, you almost don’t; the momentum is implicit in the sheer layout of the words: “Hands down we like, we like what we like/Hands down we like, we love, we choose you.” Just the horsepower and propulsion of that is overwhelming. Hands down. We’re sure. We repeat it. We agree. “Like” turns to “love” turns to making a choice, a commitment that it’s you. All the lines go by fast, like this brightest of the flashes: “We dance to free ourselves from the room.” Verse 2 starts, “Back when I had no story, nothing to form me/You got under my skin.” Perfect—that’s what romance (the title) is: a story. You make me exist romantically by putting me in a story, and the music is the story, and “Sound is the blood between me and you.” I think it is, too."
I will never stop kicking myself for missing his Los Angeles club appearance for his book. (I saw the Loud Family live several times and interviewed him over the phone once in the late nineties.)
Oh man, nostalgia. I was into Game Theory as an undergraduate. I didn't like Two Steps from the Middle Ages as much as The Big Shot Chronicles or Lolita Nation, but still thought it was pretty good. I lost all three cassettes during my move for grad school (in '89) but never replaced them, though (I'd been drifting away for a bit) and never heard about the band renaming -- I assumed they'd broken up.
Loud Family was Scott Miller's band after Game Theory broke up, though much of their first album originated in (I think) a final Game Theory lineup. After Miller's death, all of Game Theory's catalog was reissued with bonus material. My favorite Loud Family albums are Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things and Interbabe Concern. Probably my favorite Louds song is "Aerodeliria."
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Date: 2024-04-16 01:36 am (UTC)"Hey hey, can you feel it?” is the first appearance of the main motif: the Go-Go’s. It’s nice enough that anyone would write an unflinching Go-Go’s song, but when that chorus revs, you realize they have bigger plans. Yes, you just have to hear it, but, really, you almost don’t; the momentum is implicit in the sheer layout of the words: “Hands down we like, we like what we like/Hands down we like, we love, we choose you.” Just the horsepower and propulsion of that is overwhelming. Hands down. We’re sure. We repeat it. We agree. “Like” turns to “love” turns to making a choice, a commitment that it’s you. All the lines go by fast, like this brightest of the flashes: “We dance to free ourselves from the room.” Verse 2 starts, “Back when I had no story, nothing to form me/You got under my skin.” Perfect—that’s what romance (the title) is: a story. You make me exist romantically by putting me in a story, and the music is the story, and “Sound is the blood between me and you.” I think it is, too."
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Date: 2024-04-16 01:56 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-16 01:57 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-16 02:01 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2024-04-16 03:14 pm (UTC)Time to catch up with The Loud Family.
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Date: 2024-04-16 05:40 pm (UTC)