yeah that one is also very good
― akm, Tuesday, 12 March 2019 20:09 (five years ago) link
this guy is some sort of holy grail huh
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 16:08 (five years ago) link
Plants And Birds is also amazing!
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 18:55 (five years ago) link
Why did none of you TELL me about Scott Miller?? Wow
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 18:58 (five years ago) link
i dunno this thread has been here for a long time. but he was certainly not as lauded as he should have been while alive.
― akm, Wednesday, 13 March 2019 19:05 (five years ago) link
I No Longer Fear The Headless is the most glorious thing in the world
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 20:53 (five years ago) link
time for some game theory
― ( ͡☉ ͜ʖ ͡☉) (jim in vancouver), Wednesday, 13 March 2019 21:00 (five years ago) link
cover of "roadrunner" on the lolita nation reissue is a lot of fun, there's definitely a lot of what made the modern lovers a great band in game theory
― the scientology of mountains (rushomancy), Thursday, 14 March 2019 08:10 (five years ago) link
lol shush
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Thursday, 14 March 2019 08:17 (five years ago) link
Game Theory took a while to grow on me but I like them a lot - I've never quite got into Loud Family but I think that might be changing, Plants and Birds... finally clicked with me after another listen last night.
I really enjoyed reading Miller's Music: What Happened? even though I disagreed with a lot of his positions on things.
― Gavin, Leeds, Thursday, 14 March 2019 09:51 (five years ago) link
Days for Days is classic. Does anyone know why it's not streaming? I thought Alias was the hold up, but the rest of the catalog is on Spotify.
― john. a resident of evanston. (john. a resident of chicago.), Thursday, 14 March 2019 15:22 (five years ago) link
I've got to find that one
Interbabe Concern is...astonishing, at this point rapidly climbing various all-time lists of mine. just stuck in my head constantly now
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Friday, 15 March 2019 22:59 (five years ago) link
I bought DFD on iTunes haha
In about a week, LF has become one of my favourite bands. It's ALL amazing
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 18:25 (five years ago) link
Yeah, I picked up the LF discography one at a time, but it was all in the span of a month or two, mostly via Amazon. This was around 2001, and when DFD was next on my list to buy, I just happened to find it used for like $2 at a Wherehouse Music in a mall in suburban Florida, which I still have a hard time believing.
I got all the LF stuff before I even checked out Game Theory. I love it all now, but still generally prefer the LF albums. And Interbabe is one of my favorite albums by anyone.
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 19:41 (five years ago) link
Lolita Nation was the first I heard (all of eight or nine days ago haha) and was obviously great, but LF is a step up and away into something much more rarefied (and weirdly uncommercial considering how every track bangs)
Finding out about Scott Miller has been like stumbling across a not so ancient tablet that contains instructions for as many awesome hooks as the rest of the pop/rock canon previously contained
Interbabe Concern is definitely the best one imo too, and therefore one of the best albums I've...ever heard? but the other albums are amazing, I've not been able to get Attractive Nuisance or Days For Days out of my head today. And it's all so clever and surprising - he'll do something like have Soul DC have an unassuming and maybe slightly overlong intro, only to slam into an unbelievable pop anthem without breaking stride. It's heavenly
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 19:54 (five years ago) link
I've never ventured beyond 'Lolita Nation' - which is brilliant - but you're making a pretty strong case that I should dive into Loud Family.
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 20:00 (five years ago) link
proceed, and keep us posted :)
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 20:02 (five years ago) link
Will do!
― Uptown VONC (Le Bateau Ivre), Tuesday, 19 March 2019 20:03 (five years ago) link
interbabe was my first and remains my favourite (inspired to check it out back in oh 1997 by Glenn Mcdonald’s review on TWAS), subject to never having been able to find plants and birds.
I think one of the things i love about scott’s work is that it doesn’t sound nearly as “smart” as you’d expect from reading about it.
By way of example, those long twisting rhyming couplets on “Screwed Over By Stylish Introverts” don’t ever sound laboured, it’s more like he just happens to think in metered rhyme.
― Tim F, Tuesday, 19 March 2019 20:48 (five years ago) link
Attractive Nuisance is almost as great as Interbabe. The run of tracks from...3 to 10? is peerless, amazing. Plus Blackness, Blackness sounds like he heard Smashing Pumpkins and decided he'd show these bozos how to do their own music, in the nicest possible way
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Thursday, 21 March 2019 22:04 (five years ago) link
Days For Days has some legit jams. Great production too.
― brimstead, Friday, 22 March 2019 01:37 (five years ago) link
Lolita Nation seems to be the critical favourite but Dead Center is my favourite Game Theory album
― Colonel Poo, Friday, 22 March 2019 14:48 (five years ago) link
I hadn't gotten around to the 2 Steps from the Middle Ages reissue until today and the live tracks on it slay - killer "The Waist and the Knees" that's maximal VU freakout.
― Elvis Telecom, Tuesday, 2 April 2019 20:36 (four years ago) link
(inspired to check it out back in oh 1997 by Glenn Mcdonald’s review on TWAS)
Lol this is exactly how I found out about GT/LF
― days of rags and noses (Drugs A. Money), Thursday, 4 April 2019 19:37 (four years ago) link
(today would've been Scott's birthday btw)
― days of rags and noses (Drugs A. Money), Friday, 5 April 2019 00:08 (four years ago) link
:(
― PPL+AI=NS (imago), Friday, 5 April 2019 07:53 (four years ago) link
the best band (Loud Family)
― imago, Saturday, 13 July 2019 10:34 (four years ago) link
just constantly in my head
The "new" Game Theory album, Across the Barrier of Sound: Postscript is basically the demos for what would become the first Loud Family album, plus some covers (Beatles, Eno, Monkees, Big Star) and a few collaborations with Michael Querico of The Three O'Clock. I doubt I'll ever listen to it more than twice, but hearing how Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things might've turned out as a Game Theory record is tantalizing, and "Inverness" remains one of the most beautiful songs ever written in any form.
― Maria Edgelord (cryptosicko), Sunday, 22 March 2020 16:23 (four years ago) link
Pretty sure I prefer the LF musicians as well as the music but I may give this a listen. If the LF albums were put on Bandcamp I'd certainly buy most or all of them
― strangely hookworm but they manage ream shoegaze poetry (imago), Sunday, 22 March 2020 16:27 (four years ago) link
interesting, though I can't abide Querico.
― akm, Sunday, 22 March 2020 17:03 (four years ago) link
jajaja ¡que rico!
It's 'Quercio'
― doktor forstus (Drugs A. Money), Sunday, 22 March 2020 19:49 (four years ago) link
Reissue of the last Loud Family album
http://omnivorerecordings.com/shop/what-if-it-works/
― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 16:07 (two years ago) link
The Scott Miller original songs on this are great, and the Anton Barbeau songs are fine. It's a shame it's padded out with covers, which Scott was never able to record convincingly. I sometimes think "Song About 'Rocks Off'" is his best song ever...but he precedes it on the album by covering "Rocks Off", when the whole point of the answer song is his distance from the Rolling Stones!
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 16:34 (two years ago) link
I see what you're saying about the placement of the "Rocks Off" cover. In this context it's kind of like a flashback with Scott donning unconvincing makeup to play his younger self. I think the Anton songs get progressively better as the album goes on and I actually really like "I've Been Craving Lately," but yeah, "Song About 'Rocks Off'" is the big highlight and the other Scott songs stand above everything else here.
― Vaguely Threatening CAPTCHAs, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 17:35 (two years ago) link
I only got around to listening to Across the Barrier of Sound: Postscript a few weeks ago, but it's a very listenable compilation of his work between the era of the two bands. I could see someone becoming a fan and exploring further if it was the first thing of his that they heard, which wasn't the case with the scraps they had to use as bonus tracks on the previous Game Theory reissues.
― Halfway there but for you, Wednesday, 2 February 2022 17:48 (two years ago) link
Yeah, What if it Works is a bit of a grab bag, but the highs--"Song About Rocks Off," "Mavis of Maybelline Towers," "I've Been Craving Lately"--are very high.
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Wednesday, 2 February 2022 18:05 (two years ago) link
The What if It Works reissue is out now (at least on Apple Music) and listening to it again for the first time in a while, I actually think its stronger than my previous post suggested, especially if you program out the covers (or even just "Rocks Off"). I haven't gotten to the bonus material yet, but I'm happy just to be discovering that I like this album more than I thought I did.
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Friday, 25 March 2022 18:05 (two years ago) link
Listening to samples of the bonus tracks, it has hints that make me wish there was a little more wildness or experimentation on the record proper. I think Scott regarded recording covers as a low-stress activity, but it would have been nice if he could have brought some of that casualness into his songwriting. By 2006, I think he was not only out of practice, there was a paralysis brought on by self-questioning about what was worth saying. You would hope that a collaborator and an album contract would have inspired him to produce with a little less self-consciousness, it could have freed him up.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 25 March 2022 18:49 (two years ago) link
can you blame him for giving up, he wrote three close to perfect albums in a row and nobody gave a shit
― imago, Friday, 25 March 2022 19:11 (two years ago) link
Sure, but then why do the What If It Works project at all? Why not just co-write a few songs with Anton Barbeau and let him record them? The two "bonus" tracks at the end of the original CD only came about because the owners of 125 Records pressed them to come up with a couple more originals to make the record seem less flimsy. I'm sure they worked as hard on the album as they were able, but it might have been good for Scott to crank out two or three more songs in a week or so without worrying about e.g. whether the metaphor in the middle of the third verse was significant enough, and then record them with a similar lack of fuss.
― Halfway there but for you, Friday, 25 March 2022 19:38 (two years ago) link
Scott was famously (or as "famously" as he could be) meticulous, and did talk, during his life, about how slow the songwriting process was for him. There's an "Ask Scott" column on this that I would dig up for an exact quote right now if I weren't swamped with work right now.
― Les hommes de bonbons (cryptosicko), Friday, 25 March 2022 20:18 (two years ago) link
Plenty of his songs were nominated for that <2 minutes poll, but surprisingly Rayon Drive wasn't - what a discovery, what a song! The single thing on Real Nighttime that most clearly points to what brilliance was to come imo
― imago, Sunday, 16 October 2022 18:48 (one year ago) link
"Rayon Drive" is great, probably their most convincing rocker to that point. I actually find Real Nighttime less convincing as an album than Blaze of Glory, though it's a step-up in professionalism for sure (finally recording in a studio instead of Scott's bedroom!). Someone online called "Waltz the Halls Always" their best song, while for me it's quite possibly his worst original, a trebly mess.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 17 October 2022 01:03 (one year ago) link
their best song? christ that is a terrifyingly ignorant call, he was just getting started, just beginning to explore his powers
― imago, Monday, 17 October 2022 10:14 (one year ago) link
Holy shit, Wish I Could Stand Or Have. He's done it again! The undisputed master of the sub-2-minute song!
― imago, Monday, 17 October 2022 18:09 (one year ago) link
2 Steps From The Middle Ages is both a sign of songwriting greatness maturing and improving, but also a sign of a particular band that had run its course. Easy to say these things in hindsight, but you can absolutely hear what Miller was about to unleash, and why he had to shake up the people who were going to help him
― imago, Monday, 17 October 2022 18:14 (one year ago) link
There was an 89/90 Game Theory lineup with Michael Quercio, with Joe Becker as the common denominator with the first Loud Family. According to the biography, the Lolita Nation/Two Steps lineup was wilder and fiercer onstage than you might think from the records.
― Halfway there but for you, Monday, 17 October 2022 19:18 (one year ago) link
Oh, the bonus tracks include some live stuff! A rollicking Baker Street on RN and a fearsome Waist + Knees on 2 Steps! So I can well believe it. But studio recordings were what he most believed in, I'd say
― imago, Monday, 17 October 2022 19:53 (one year ago) link
Is it a common sentiment among fans that Game Theory were great and Loud Family greater btw? Or is that just my own particular splitting of small differences?
― imago, Monday, 17 October 2022 19:55 (one year ago) link