Songs Of the Day: October 11-12, 2005
Game Theory - Like A Girl Jesus
From The Big Shot Chronicles
Rational/Enigma Records LP, 1986
The Loud Family - Inverness
From Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things
Alias Records LP, 1993
Since privileged, white college-educated males need to have their angst articulated just like everybody else, can I just tell you all how much I love, love, love (and some would say rip off, rip off, rip off) the work of Scott Miller? While I admit that his more ambitious experiments sometimes baffle me, he writes the three-minute popsong with a virtually unmatched combination of catchiness and sophistication. Lyrically he is intelligent and empathetic; many times in my late adolescence (which ended last week) I turned to Scott Miller to comment on my minor annoyances and catastrophic heartbreaks with a wit and grace I could never muster myself. It is impossible to pick a favorite from the seemingly bottomless well of Miller tunes that have graced my mix tapes over the years, but here are two I like very much. One from Game Theory, and one from his 90s project The Loud Family.
posted by Jon Harrison at 11:48 AM
10 Comments:
There was a great Game Theory anthology released in the early 90s called Tinker to Evers to Chance... which was totally enjoyable from start to finish. (Sadly, I think it's gone out of print.)
Thanks for posting this (and reminding me to go listen to "Bad Year at UCLA")!
I agree entirely with the "Like a Girl Jesus" pick. What a glorious piece of work! I've ripped off it's linear style (like "I'm a Don Juan" - probably not coincidental that it too was a "Little Hit.") many, many times. As I believe you have....
I love "Inverness," but I am PSYCHO about "Blackness, Blackness." Cliched, corny choice, but it is, by far my fav. Loud Family song.
And regarding the sinful out-of-printness of the Game Theory stuff, the story behind that is really insidious, and worth a serious journalistic piece. Downright weird how many labels have tried to get a hold of those to re-release, to no avail.
I've read that Scott Vanderbilt Rational Records owns the Game Theory masters. Given that he allowed Alias to reissue them at least once, I'd be curious to know why they went out of print so quickly and why he (or Alias, or someone) won't put them back into circulation.
Well, Alias no longer exists, so that's out. During the brief period when I had a label, I asked Scott Miller about the possibility of reissuing LOLITA NATION, and his answer was that even if it weren't for the problems with Scott Vanderbilt, he's so unhappy with how that record turned out that he would want to remix, resequence and at times re-record the tracks, and he didn't have the time or money to do that, so he would prefer that it be let alone.
Well, Vanderbuilt def. owns them, and has been sent registered letters at a machine shop or something in California. Someone signs for them but ignores them. I've talked to folks at Ryko and others who have tried to simply initiate the conversation to no avail. I really don't get it. There are more stories than this -- people are certainly interested. But Vanderbuilt won't even begin to respond.
Funny, given that he made sure that he owned them. I'd be really shocked if Miller would protest letting them be re-released without a REMIX! A remastering, maybe, but that is crazy. I've never heard that. When was that? Was it horse's mouth?
Hi Jon, this is Melissa here, and you may remember a few years ago selling me a ton of Miller stuff when I was in a very Miller mood (I think I may have even gotten Tinker to Evers to Chance from you). These are indeed great songs. My favorite Miller song (which will probably score high on a lot of people's cornometer as well) is Amelia Have You Lost, which was also covered very finely by Bradley Skaught.
Anyway, Hiram and I have both been reading you for quite a while, but we've been mostly quietly appreciative, not having blogger accounts. Thanks from both of us for this wonderful resource!
Born: Yeah, the "not without a remix" discussion came up during a conversation between me and Scott Miller himself, in 1996. As you may know, the final released version of LOLITA NATION is not how Scott originally envisioned the album: Enigma wouldn't release a double CD, so it had to be re-edited down to under 74 minutes (the standard at the time), which meant that "Chardonnay" was cut pretty much in half (the full-length version is out there on the net, and frankly, I think the song gained a lot in being edited, because the long version gets kinda dull), a couple of other things were dropped and other songs were rearranged. "The World's Easiest Job" was originally on side three, for example.
So, basically what Scott told me was that even if Scott Vanderbilt wasn't being difficult, he -- Miller -- would want nothing to do with a LOLITA NATION reissue if it wasn't reworked into the shape he had originally intended, which would require a ton of work that he didn't particularly want to do at the time.
I can see why he'd want the director's cut, but I personally wouldn't find that entirely satisfying: it would be great, but it wouldn't be the album I fell in love with.
I remember many moons ago when "Like a Girl Jesus" was at the top of your Game Theory playlist. GT did a whole lot a good songs!!!
Like a Girl Jesus - simple, rousing, powerful; and only six lines of lyrics. You've done it again Harrison, reminded me of another song that I can't do without from now on. Like a Girl Jesus is moving into heavy rotation on my personal littlehits hit list.
Who's this Scott Vanderbilt clown and what's his problem?
This music must be made available.
I'll go out to San Francisco and beg him myself.
WTF.
Scott Vanderbilt?
GT / LF ... all-time top-10 band for me.
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