Game Theory / The Loud Family

otm^^

I found out about Game Theory and Loud Family mostly from glenn mcdonald's blog, and I emailed him a few times, for both the Ask Scott feature and the Music: What Happened project. Big Shot Chronicles is such a rad album, and Lolita Nation and Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things were v good too. Such a bummer...

thanks Ctrl-Z for the downloads, Scott had such a fascinating approach to music. I am looking forward to listening to them

My fave Loud Family song, because I need to hear it right now

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HpXA6Hu6HJw

been giving Interbabe Concern a loooooooooooong overdue listen on Spotify. it's. fucking. amazing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XnP7C44DXA

He never ran out when the spirits were low
A nice guy as minor celebrities go

RIP Scott. This is horrible news.

I found out about Game Theory and Loud Family mostly from glenn mcdonald's blog

Likewise; one of the first CDs I ordered from the internet was Plants And Birds And Rocks And Things. Always wondered if Scott Miller would have been better served by some sort of Flying Nun-esque profile (always thought him & Bill Direen/Graeme Downes would have gotten along). Rest in peace.

RIP.
underrated genius. i'm a huge fan.

what's the cause of death?

Very sad.

"what's the cause of death?"

there was some speculation but if you want to go digging, the cause is stated on the gametheory/loud family group page on fb. I won't repost it here.

Love this photo from the Lolita Nation sessions: Mitch Easter, Michael Quercio, Scott Miller

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/12/Mitch_michael_scott.jpg

“I’m utterly serious about music. I just respect the buying public’s judgment that it’s not what I should do for a living.”

ouch.

― hellzapoppa (tipsy mothra), Tuesday, 2 February 2010 13:48 (3 years ago) Permalink

think about this quote a lot

sad news

listening to lolita nation right now, wow what an album!

i had a game theory EP i bought from a dollar bin on vinyl years ago, had this great song "plan five from rigel nine" (i think) but i never dug deep into the band or loud family

wishing now i would have paid more attention.

Some of the stuff on Lolita Nation, I dunno how they did it, unless they used samplers. Because the drop-ins on "The Waist And The Knees" would've been insanely time-consuming otherwise.

this is sad.

The site notes it was the new Bowie record that inspired Miller to get back to work. I love the idea of this guy still so engaged with music that a new record could move him to come out of semi-retirement. It's tragic nothing came of the momentum. :(

Some of the stuff on Lolita Nation, I dunno how they did it, unless they used samplers. Because the drop-ins on "The Waist And The Knees" would've been insanely time-consuming otherwise.

― Pope Frank is the messenger of your doom (Tarfumes The Escape Goat), Thursday, April 18, 2013 11:19 AM (11 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i dunno man good tape slicers can really do a lot on some old records...

:(

Would only add that Days for Days is such a wonderful, wonderful album. Seems really under-appreciated.

oops i screwed up the song title, this is it. i love this song so much

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jm4jvfwv8uQ

There's a light on the nineteenth floor tonight
They don't know there won't even be a fight
But they'll find out I've tired of all the things I've
Called my own
When they go to the final mats alone
Don't even waste the man-hours on us
We are finding no solution
Call all the boys in from the fighting fronts
We have lost the revolution
None of the soaring flight we dreamed
Is any closer to perfection
And all I want is one to fold my arms around
We are throwing the election
There's a light on in Joanie's room tonight
And she won't sleep till summer's going right
She thought she saw something that would lead her to believe
I'm the kind who'll accept the strokes and leave
Make me an offer, I don't waste them now
We have no more fixed intentions
Give all the faithful long-deserved rests
We've abandoned our dissentions
You could be one of someone's hundreds
Who'll be chosen for affection
And all I want is one to fold my arms around
We are throwing the election
I've got a feeling it's all rigged
I've got a feeling it ended a long time ago
Nobody tells me
I've got a feeling it's over now
I've got a feeling it's over now
I've got a feeling the votes are in and I got none
And all I want is one

anyone have a link to days for days? my copy is in my garage unripped and I can't locate it on spotify or anywhere else for that matter

http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/musicblog/2013/apr/18/scott-miller-game-theory-loud-family-dies

major bummer. lolita nation is all i own but it's a HUGE record in every sense (songwriting/performance/production). the only good that can come out of this is that the shitbird who has been holding game theory's catalog hostage for 25 years will see the error of his ways and allow them to come out for the financial sake of scott's family.

man something has been pinging with me the whole time i've been listening to Lolita Nation and it finally hit me....man I bet those New Pornographers dudes were huge fans of this, something about how they structure melodies is really the same

This is really sad. I, too, only know Lolita Nation, but I love it to bits. Big loss.

That Guardian piece is sharp, and some of the comments equally so -- Mitch Easter and Phil McMullen among others have posted.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LwXHSo7qAg8

Sort of tempted to post every YouTube I can find but I will restrain meself.

I got on board in the mid 90s and snapped up all the Loud Family albums while they were still easy to find. And new ones kept coming. Then new ones stopped coming, and I would scour used CD bins for the Game Theory discs, which was mostly an exercise in futility.

Whenever this thread got bumped, I'd see it and hope for news of GT reissues, or of something concrete about Miller's new project.

Ugh, this is not the bump this thread needed. RIP Scott Miller, you loaded your music with so many twists and winks, and it still took flight and just soared.

Now playing: "Sodium Laureth Sulfate"

I remember getting into Game Theory when I was on a Mitch Easter/jangle pop/power pop kick. I definitely vibed with the style Scott Miller had going on. This is pretty shitty.

"man I bet those New Pornographers dudes were huge fans of this":

from A.C. Newman's twitter:
"man I bet those New Pornographers dudes were huge fans of this"

lol i meant this:

RIP Scott Miller. Game Theory had a massive influence on me from my teens onward. Incredible voice, lyrics, melody, production. Damn.

best song Spoon never recorded:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38xKdox2ztU

Still sad/angry about this. Wish I'd gone to more Loud Family gigs.

Thanks for nice words about the piece, Ned.

interesting eulogy by a harvard poetry professor

http://www.salon.com/2013/04/19/game_theory_pure_pop_for_nerd_people_the_greatest_unknown_80s_band/

“Yes is one of those bands that are really good,” Miller told one fanzine, “and one day it became effective culture to hold a gun to people’s heads and say, ‘You can’t like them, you have to like punk because it’s unpretentious.’ And the world bowed down; I bowed down, to a limited extent.”

Some interesting Miller/Game Theory stuff in this Donnette Thayer q&a from '97. (Also interesting stuff in here for Church fans.) She seems as awesome as I would hope.

http://www.shadowcabinet.net/archive/dthayer/questions/dtself.htm

What's your favourite Game Theory album & song?

Favorite Album: Lolita Nation, favorite song: all of Lolita Nation. I played Lolita Nation for Steve shortly after it came out, and he liked it very much. He complained about how he would never be able to put out a sprawling record like that, much as he would have liked to. He said that his project was being restricted by Greg Ladanyi to the guitar song format, and he had to stick with archetypal pop songs like “Under the Milky Way” on his unassuming little record “Starfish”. Poor Steve. (To be fair, Steve also credited Greg Ladanyi at that time with having an amazing amount of music savvy, and had a sense that the work they were doing on Starfish would take him for quite a ride.)

Who or what is your greatest inspiration with regards to songwriting?

Scott Miller taught me how to write music that holds up in court (so to speak). Because of his direction, I don’t write lyrics that I can’t publish on their own, hoping that the music will carry them. Steve taught me how to groove; his objection to Game Theory was that the minute we caught a groove, we would be off on something else (and indeed most Game Theory songs had about sixty zillion chords, forty bridges and two hundred different verses). Grooving is hard for me. I like billions of chords, it makes me feel safe and accomplished, and in a way that creates a kind of a groove/nongroove Zen thing. But my main influences have always been my muses. I’ve given it some thought and have developed a list of methods of approaching your muse:

Thanks for nice words about the piece, Ned.

It was well worth the praise. Also why do I keep forgetting that's you!

That Salon piece is really interesting, and full of good insight and analysis. But I also wish it had been written by a really good journalist instead of a Harvard poetry professor, because it would have been half as long and a quarter as verbose.

So the journalist's word-to-verbosity ratio would have been higher? In its defense (and, with some disclosure, Steve's a friend, and former fellow college dj—our joint first move on getting access to our station's collection was to run for the Alternate Learning LP, which we'd never been able to hear before, this being 1992), the piece was written to another purpose. Doesn't quite work as a "eulogy"—and was never intended to—since it's almost as much about Steve as about Game Theory, and originally appeared in an academic journal. Not therefore surprising that it feels mis-focused for a piece seemingly in reaction to Scott Miller's death. Probably should have been adapted to its new purpose, then given a new ending. But Salon likely just leapt for the best thing out there.

someone's touchy, but still, that was a pretty interesting non-eulogy. the awkwardness of it sort of performs game theory/loud family's nervy/brainy appeal

xpost No, it was a good piece. I enjoyed it. And I knew it was written predeath. But I'm a journalist. I'm used to things being tighter and sharper. A good journalist might have done that, and it's a reasonable thing to say about its publication in Salon. But a good journalist wouldn't be able to teach poetry. I'm not calling your friend's worth into question.

Also, by ilx standards that's barely even criticism of a piece of writing!

Touchy? For pointing out the piece was written to ends other than journalism, and for suggesting that Salon might have handled that problem better? It probably wouldn't have made for a great Salon piece before Scott Miller's death, and it certainly feels a little odd just after, though yes, the awkwardness is performative.

If anything, I was agreeing that the piece was a little unwieldy and not a great fit for its current use.

Where did I ever suggest anyone was calling Steve's worth into question?

OK. No problem.

not touchy at all!

Well wow, Game Theory reissues finally on the way.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkjnAQtQWcU

Very cool. Everything but the trash bag.... Would love to have seen Alternate Learning stand on its own, though, not as bonus downloads (and you can't quite tell if all the ALRN material will be included).

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Too bad it happens only after Miller's death

This is great news. I've still never heard 'Plants & Birds & Rocks & Things' or any Game Theory albums.