I can't believe I typed the whole thing.
johawny
on the making of Mink Car...
Hello everybody. We just finished making our new album Mink Car and are
happy to say that it is ready for the world, dripping with listening
satisfaction. We wrote the record over the last couple of years, but
recorded most of it in just the last few months. We enlisted our
notorious live band, The Band of Dans (yes, they are all named Dan), as
well as some of our favorite producers. There is a wide range of
recording approaches. Some tracks are just us rockin' out with our band,
while a couple are almost purely electronic, and a lot are a hybrid of
the two. We tracked most of it in Brooklyn and Manhattan, and did the
very last bit in London.
1. Bangs
We enlisted producers Clive Langer and Alan Winstanley (who helped us
create our British top ten hit "Birdhouse in Your Soul") for this
infectious melody in the hopes of repeating our success in the UK.
Best-selling author Zadie Smith has written a companion short story
("The Girl with Bangs") but hastens to remind us that in Britain this
haircut is called a "fringe."
2. Cyclops Rock
This is the story of a fellow who feels betrayed and beaten by a
relationship, but is surviving. He compares himself to Chuckie, from the
Child's Play movies. The shocking chant at the end is delivered by
Cerys, the singer from UK hitmakers Catatonia.
3. Man, It's So Loud in Here
This song has been completely re-orchestrated from its original rock
inception with the help of producer Adam Schlesinger (who's also in
Fountains of Wayne). It doesn't sound like anything we would have ever
done by ourselves, probably. It pays homage to one or two well-known
bands from the mid-1980s, but we're hoping the song will be so
successful that eventually people will hear them and be reminded of us.
4. Mr. Excitement w/ Doughty
Originally an instrumental, this track was put together from
manipulations of various horn samples from the Velcro Horns, Dan Levine
and Jim O'Connor. The beats were then super-sized with wild sonic
manipulations and real live scratching by beatmeisters The Elegant Too,
but when Doughty (former front-person for the infamously excellent Soul
Coughing) heard it, he insisted on taking the track home where he cooked
up the crazy rhymes, which we are still trying to decode.
5. Another First Kiss
This song has been largely rewritten from its original incarnation as a
power pop tune off our live album "Severe Tire Damage." Straight-ahead
love songs are relatively uncharted territory for us, but we are very
happy with the results here.
6. I've Got A Fang
The strange appeal of this track is partly due to the inhuman insistence
of the ride cymbal, and partly the human pathos of the befanged
protagonist. The image of the fang-as-can-opener comes from the vague
memory of some Saturday morning cartoon. It might have been "Milton the
Monster."
7. Hovering Sombrero
This was written twelve years ago in the studio while we were recording
our Flood LP. Nobody makes LPs anymore, but "Hovering Sombrero" still
remains fresh to us, after being defrosted in the microwave and served
on a bed of the Band of Dans.
8. Yeah Yeah
Beloved English pop star Georgie Fame had a hit with this song way back
when. He played jazzy electric organ and sang this melody, whose lyrics
were set to what we assume was originally an instrumental jazz solo.
This was the preferred songwriting method of the author Dave Lambert and
his vocalist pals Hendricks and Ross. Our version retains some parts of
the original but the rhythm has been electronically tousled. It has the
exciting addition of a psychedelic guitar solo by Dan "Solder" Miller,
and hand percussion by this friend of Phil Hernandez named Karl who we
had never met before and didn't leave his phone number.
9. Hopeless Bleak Despair
This is what happens when you record the whole song and then write a new
bridge, which is then recorded in a different studio with different
instruments and inserted into the recording. Kind of like an effect we
might go for intentionally. Despair, the author notes, is an unbearable
burden that will one day go its own way, perhaps to be enshrined on a
heavenly throne.
10. Drink!
This song is the voice of one boozer pleading with another to keep their
scene together: "I'll take back my piñata, it's wasted on you/ just
spinning that pool cue all over the room/ and give back the blindfold
that's under your shoe."
11. My Man
The story of someone having a chat with his own body after he's become
paralyzed. It's not meant to be sick or anything. Check out the triangle
and bongos.
12. Older
We recently got to perform this song on the Conan O'Brien show, but that
was before we added the two instruments heard at the top. The first one
you hear is called a "Rauschpfife." It is then joined by the strident
Saroussophone, a 19th century substitute for the Contrabassoon.
Obligatory wisecracks about the reasons for their current unpopularity
have already been made and are unwelcome. The song itself is just as
current today as it was earlier today.
13. Mink Car
We wrote this song while Adam was tinkering with the mix of "Yeah!
Yeah!" in the other room. Jim O'Connor, who owns and operates a
flugelhorn, expressed some feelings he had been keeping in freezer since
1966. Danny Weinkauf made everybody burst into tears with his lovely
bass playing, and that's Clem "Wildman" Waldman pounding the skins and
triangle. Clem is part of the Loser's Lounge, a New York revue at the
Westbeth Theater, and has vast experience in the Hal Blaine school of
60's drumming on which he draws for this very retro-styled track.
14. Wicked Little Critta
Incorporating half the vocabulary of our childhoods in the suburbs of
Boston, this lyric may jar the memories of many New Englanders. Remixed
by the Elegant Too, the track celebrates the enchanting "old school"
sound of the mid-1980s inner city even as it evokes the "older school"
of Eastern Massachusetts in the early 1970s. If you get the feeling that
you've heard this song before then this song is dedicated to you.
15. Finished With Lies
There are a few songs from way back when that must be acknowledged.
"Lies" by the Knickerbockers, yes, and "La La Lies" from the first Who
album. "Finished With Lies" was originally a slow, hypnotic march, but
after a few years of playing it that way we found our way to this more
direct homage.
16. She Thinks She's Edith Head
Earlier versions of this song and "Bangs" were included on a special
disc that we created for issue #6 of Dave Egger's literary journal
McSweeney's. We contributed 37 short pieces of music to go with 37
written pieces or pictures. This song was the companion to a painting by
the artist Amy Sillman of a woman with dozens of heads and other things
emanating from her very wide body. McSweeney's #6 has already sold
30,000 copies (pretty good for a literary magazine).
17. Working Undercover for The Man
If they ever do a remake of the remake of the "Mod Squad"...
Marcus B
Marcus
Yer Pal Paul
"johawny" <jwa...@circapress.com> wrote in message
news:3B695A06...@circapress.com...
> 6. I've Got A Fang
> The strange appeal of this track is partly due to the inhuman insistence
> of the ride cymbal, and partly the human pathos of the befanged
> protagonist. The image of the fang-as-can-opener comes from the vague
> memory of some Saturday morning cartoon. It might have been "Milton the
> Monster."
Ha! I remember Milton the Monster! It was a Satrurday morning cartoon on
NBC from 1965 thru 1967. The open of the show actually shows the one-eyed,
one fanged monster (not Milton but one of his pals) opening a can with his
fang! Check out the quick-time video of the opening here:
http://www.sirenent.com.au/milton.html
The fang bit, which obvious was the inspiration for the line in the song is
about 33 seconds in.
Yer Pal Paul
Not back on that old Time is Money kick, still on it.
Kevin Sullivan
wrote:
>7. Hovering Sombrero
>This was written twelve years ago in the studio while we were recording
>our Flood LP. Nobody makes LPs anymore, but "Hovering Sombrero" still
>remains fresh to us, after being defrosted in the microwave and served
>on a bed of the Band of Dans.
Heh, cool. I wonder if they recorded a demo of it back then....
Nicki Lighthouse
Must...not...comment...too incriminating...
-mandy
(BZZT GAAH!)
--
http://heck.fisticuffs.org
"Booze has crowned me king of the lovers!"
scratch
Nicki Lighthouse wrote:
>
> > on a bed of the Band of Dans.
>
> Must...not...comment...too incriminating...
Oh come on. We all know why you have the red corduroys... ;]
-scratch
Asa Pillsbury
johawny typed:
> Jim O'Connor
Is it O'Connor or O'Conner? I've seen it both ways in a variety of reliable
sources.
--
The vegetable must be destroyed!
Marcus B
reliable
> sources.
Radio Sampler #1 Says O'Connor and so does Mike Violas 1999 CD "Falling Into
Place"
Marcus
Nathan Mulac DeHoff
> This was written twelve years ago in the studio while we were recording
> our Flood LP.
Considering that there have been several versions of this floating around in
just the past few years, I wonder how much of the song had been written at
that point. Did it have the Spanish lyrics? The lyrics it has now? Just
the first verse? Perhaps we'll never know.
Nathan
Time is flying like an arrow.
scratch
heard was, and that's how many other notable Linnell songs started out
(Don't Let's Start, Turn Around, Dr. Worm, ect.)
-scratch
John David Crafton
also STD has it as O'Connor
--
John David Crafton
simon
<jwa...@circapress.com> writes
>2. Cyclops Rock
>This is the story of a fellow who feels betrayed and beaten by a
>relationship, but is surviving. He compares himself to Chuckie, from the
>Child's Play movies. The shocking chant at the end is delivered by
>Cerys, the singer from UK hitmakers Catatonia.
I knew it!!! That's exactly what I thought when I heard the song but I
thought it couldn't possibly be her.......
Well at least they have some angle to market it on now as well as the
Zadie smith thing. From a British media perspective anyhow.
--
simon