As you can probably tell by the title of this post at least a portion of it is going to have to do with They Might Be Giants. I am definitely a fan of the Johns, but not as huge of a fan as some people. I think a GIGANTIC: A Tale of Two Johns was a great documentary…one of my favorite music docs, but as far as their music goes I tend to focus on their early albums…I have a two disc collection of the self titled and Lincoln that I listened to for days at a time when working at 52.5 in college (Clay probably remembers that).

Last year I acquired a copy of Lincoln on vinyl, and I am very happy to own a copy of that on wax (it brings a smile to my face every time I play it).   They Might Be Giants have a new track called “Electric Car,”  and I have to say that this song also brought a smile to my face in the same fashion that Lincoln does. The pop sensibility that I love about TMBG, but with no Johns singing? A really wonderful little track with vocals by Robin Goldwasser and horn arrangement by Dan “The Machine” Levine.

[mp3] They Might Be Giants- “Electric Car”

This track is off of They Might Be Giants’ Here Comes Science CD/DVD, buy it here.

Something much less exciting that I heard was the newest Modest Mouse single (I don’t recall it’s name, nor do I want to acknowledge it by looking it up). I agree with klk that Isaac Brock sounds like a caricature of himself, and this song kind of depressed me.  I hadn’t really listened to Modest Mouse in a couple of years,  but actually put on Sad Sappy Suckers the other week, and remembered why I loved this band.  There is a track called “Call-to-Dial-A-Song” on the album, and I can only come to the conclusion that this was an actual message left on TMBG Dial-A-Song Answering Machine. There are internet claims that the latter fourth of Sad Sappy Suckers were from a Dial-A-Song service that Brock ran for a while, but I haven’t found a way to confirm…but this is supposedly one of the songs that was used:

[mp3] Modest Mouse- “Black Blood and Old Newagers”

Buy it buy it here.

Either way I feel that it was a pretty awesome idea, make a phone call…hear a song, whether you would be calling the original TMBG line or one that Modest Mouse might have done (I would have been happy to hear that song above). According to wiki TMBG’s dial-a-song “had died of a technical crash, and that the Internet had taken over where the machine left off.” I feel like this is really sad…almost like the death of a format, but more personal than a CD or record…Dial-A-Song only existed for a moment (if you didn’t hear the song from that day it was gone).

In the internet age I feel like there isn’t anything that exists for such a short period of time as a phone message. We have music blogs, and myspaces.  While myspaces theoretically could work in a similar way (put a song up, take it down the next day), I feel like there was something magical in the phone call.

While it isn’t as temporary I really feel that City Center is doing the most modern day equivalent to dial-a-song by posting new tracks extremely frequently on their blog.  Now a days everything is archived, and that is exactly what City Center have done.  At the beginning of the year I listened to a couple tracks of theirs… I wanted to hear more, and ventured in to the blog…I found myself downloading seventy or so tracks the first evening. They have been consistently posting free and legal mp3s, documenting their bands experimentation and growth.  Currently I’ve been digging on this spacey folky jam that they posted back in August:

[mp3] City Center- “Sky Flower”

As well as the video of their last practice before tour:

City Center- “Dinosaur Games”

Buy City Center records here.

While Dial-A -Song was a specific moment in time… City Center’s is an archived time line.  I see the advantages to both, but thinking back on it I would love to crawl through that back catalogue of TMBG dial-a-song recordings…I’m sure there are some gems that never saw the light of day in there.

Links:

• more on City Center here.