ABC 123

[mmcirvin]

Speaking of They Might Be Giants, we now have occasion to watch the DVDs of both Here Come the ABCs and the new Here Come the 123s a whole lot.

I'm more impressed by the bonus material at the end of the CD/DVD combo of ABCs, which, besides a video for "Clap Your Hands" that seems to really impress Jorie and the obligatory Disney Channel tie-in, includes several live-action videos of the band singing "Fake-Believe" from ABCs, a few songs from No! and "Stalk of Wheat" from The Spine. But the animation in 123s seems much more slickly produced, probably because Disney knew it was a guaranteed seller—Here Come the ABCs was actually TMBG's second gold album after Flood, which was way back in 1990.

On the new one, "Triops Has Three Eyes" really stands out as a monster earworm, and "One Dozen Monkeys", "The Nonagon" and "Double Dutch" are also really good, but Jorie's favorite video seems to be the felt-animated "The Secret Life of 6".

jwgh mentioned Ezra liking the "Number 8" song. There's a moment in that video that looked awfully familiar to me, something that seemed to be a Homestar Runner reference. I looked at the credits—sure enough, "Number 8" was animated by the Brothers Chaps. Which means, if you think about it, that Disney has now distributed animation by the Brothers Chaps. I think that is what they call the Big Time.

Comments

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I've had 123s sitting wrapped on my desk for about a week now-- I bought two other albums this week (only took me 14 years to find a CD copy of Mix-A-Lot's "Swass"). Jonathan Richman has a new one out on Tuesday, so I guess I'd better start listening to this CD now!

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

This is my copy, but I'm buying a second for my nieces, who'll be 3 and 5 in May. My sister reports that ABCs DVD is already in heavy rotation in their house, as well. (And "Q-U" has a special place on my mp3 player.)

Also, I like to shop for music for the girls year-round, generally stuff that won't drive my sister and bro-in-law up a wall while in the car, and I find that Zooglobble (www.zooglobble.com) is a great place for leads. I've probably mentioned it to you before, but it's worth mentioning again. :^)

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Actually, I think we've already used it! That might have been the place that put us onto the Putumayo Kids series, which is generally terrific.

That also reminds me that we need to get more music by Justin Roberts. We like him.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Jonathan Richman is one of those artists I feel like I ought to know more about than I do. TMBG often cite him as a major influence; their Stylophone-heavy podcast cover of his "I'm A Little Airplane" is terrific; both Jorie and my niece Jade love it when I sing the song.

How could I forget the robot icon?

[sunburn.livejournal.com]

I was feeling the same way not 2 months ago. I had "I'm So Confused" from years ago. I discovered he's got a pretty good best-of called "Action Packed," and I picked up "Jonathan Goes Country" primarily because of a great instrumental he did that turns up from time to time on "This American Life." ("Your Girl's Gonna Go Bad")

That and maybe "I'm So Confused" would be a pretty good start on covering his canon. I've also seen this 2-disc import set (http://www.amazon.com/Roadrunner-Beserkley-Collection-Jonathan-Richman/dp/B0002ADXY8/) of Modern Lovers that looks like a good cross-section of their music. (It reminds me what kicked this off-- an episode of "The Wire" had a cool cover of "Roadrunner," and I still haven't found the cover.)

I haven't been buying new music in the last year, as much as playing catch-up with some bands/artists I feel like I should know better. (Which is to say, yes, I'm friends with a Guy Who Knows Music, at work, and feeling inferior and uninformed.) And so while I have in the past looked down upon the "best of" albums, they sure do save a bit of time, and there's a lot to be said for the passage of time as a selecting effect.

I try to get a "best of" and one or two of their greatest works based on a casual survey of internet music writers. Fortunately, the internets have a good mix of "I like REM's new stuff" and "REM hasn't been good since Fables of the Reconstruction [after which they got popular]"-type essays on any given band.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Jorie also really likes the "Number 2" song. But today in the bath she suddenly started singing "John Lee Supertaster" out of the blue. I kid you not.

"it's a lion"

[pootrootbeer.livejournal.com]

I kind of feel that the kids' music TMBG is doing these days is significantly better than their recent adults' music.

Re: "it's a lion"

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The adults' stuff has been, I think, influenced by the desire to do something more different from the kids' music, so it's gotten heavier and more overproduced as a result.

I think they've done some great adult stuff lately but much of it is, for some reason, not on the albums proper. "The Else" had a few terrific songs on it, but the bonus disc "Cast Your Pod To the Wind" that shipped with it was actually more entertaining, with classic stuff like "We Live In A Dump", "Vestibule" and "Brain Problem Situation" (which still cracks me up at the part where Flans comes in singing about the field sobriety test).

Re: "it's a lion"

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...Also, one the songs whose absence from "Cast Your Pod" disappointed me the most, their version of the old kids' song "I Never Go To Work", is actually on "Here Come The 123s" passed off as a song about the number 7. The video with the rhinoceros-headed boss is pretty amusing.