Song Of the Day: July 19, 2005
To paraphrase Byron Coley, they very idea of adults playing songs on toy instruments is nausea-inducing. Why then, was this Peter Holsapple-produced LP one of the most charming of the 80s? Songs, m'boy, songs. Really good songs. Songs that are so good that you sort of forget that they're being played on toy drumkits and pianos and ukeleles. As Great Plain/Gibson Brother Don Howland says in his excellent liner notes, "It's a music filled with weird little plips and plunks, like music heard through a wall from a parallel universe. A parallel universe where everybody is nice." The end result is far less cloying than the average Of Montreal album.
Unfortunately, the creator of these wonderful tunes, Alex Garvin, seems to have gone 'round the bend after the band made a second LP, which consequently was never released. Anyone ever get to hear it?
5 Comments:
That is utterly charming.
Hmmm... I have a toy piano in the basement...
Movie trivia - the band appeared in "Life Without Zoe" - the Francis Ford Coppola segment of New York Stories (1989) -performing songs at a posh child's birthday celebration. I'm not saying the story was good, I'm just saying Pianosaurus was there...
There are two versions of this L. P. - one on New Rose (French label), the other on Rounder. Each have tracks not featured on the other, so you need them both ! I'd love to hear that second album. There's some sort of Pianosaurus-King Missile connection but I forget what it is exactly.
The Pianosaurus/King Missile connection is that Alex Garvin and John Hall were childhood friends, growing up around the corner from each other in the west Village. They played many gigs together. John's pre-King Missile band was a travesty known as "You Suck" and I moonlighted with both bands on occassion. I was Alex's girlfriend in those days, and have many happy memories of loading in the toy band and gigging around a pre-gentrified New York with them.
Just surfing around the net, came across this. Can't believe no one has posted the Pianosaurus "Back to School" recordings. I'm sure I have it on cassette tape somewhere - demos or unmixed, but the whole thing. It was recorded at Water Musis in Hoboken around 1988-89? What's the big mystery?
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