I was kind of out of the loop LF-wise when this came out, and didn't find out about it until I saw it at a record store. It wasn't even a cool indie store -- it was the crummy Tower Records at the Fremont Hub. Shortly after I bought it, I signed up for a Loud Family e-mail list (loud-fans), which I thought would keep me updated with upcoming shows and things. I was expecting one "playing the Hotel Utah next Saturday" mail every few months, but when I checked my email a few days after subscribing, there were more than 200 messages in my inbox! It wasn't an "announcements" list -- it was a "discussion" list. With tons of discussion, some only tangentially related to the Loud Family. Finding that list back when the internet was a large and scary place could have been one of the the best things that ever happened to me.
Anyway, back to TTOOL (in the net age, every album is its own acronym!). The album title comes from a bootleg tape of isolated Linda McCartney vocals that made the rounds in the early 90s, and features songwriting contributions from other LF bandmembers (one by Paul, two by Zach). I've always found that title choice fairly curious.
After PABARAT, TTOOL was kind of a letdown -- partly because of the bevy of non-Scott songs, and partly because Scott's own songs were somewhat weak. I was initially intrigued by a Loud Family Christmas song, but "It Just Wouldn't Be Christmas" is kind of a throwaway, and a couple of the songs ("Marcia & Etrusca" and "Ballet Hetero") are twice as long as they need to be. I almost never (as in not ever) play the entire album, and have copied only four of the ten songs to iTunes.
My four track TTOOL consists of "Soul Drain", "Hyde Street Virgins", "Baby Hard-To-Be-Around", and "Still Its Own Reward". The band made a really cool video of "Soul Drain" that isn't on youtube, but this less cool video of "Marcia and Etrusca" is.
The A-Ha style rotoscoping style is kind of interesting, but becomes more tedious when you realize that its the same 20 seconds of footage looped over and over for all 7+ minutes of the song.
4 comments:
I was curious if, or how, you'd tackle "the list"! Certainly it's a phenomenon nearly inseparable from Scott's career. And, of course, a life changer for a whole bunch of us!
I kind of think the adventures surrounding the release of TTOOL were the beginning of the end for the promotional/commercial fortunes of the band. For whatever reason, this one was near-impossible to find. My memory is hazy 15 years later (is that even possible - 15 years?) but I remember looking and looking for it on the supposed release date (which, again hazy, I think was pushed back a few times)... Was it around this time that those well-regarded acronyms all left Alias? And it was around this time that Archers of Loaf became pretty popular - and, I think, ate up Alias' limited promo budget. (I can't blame Alias: you put your dollars where they're likeliest to breed more dollars.) But the sense that the Loud Family was a band the label regarded highly began to fall off, it seems...and shortly after (I think) the fortunes of the label...
I've uploaded the Promotional Video of Soul Drain to YouTube. There are also many Game Theory / Loud Family videos on the Scott Miller fan page on Facebook.
All the Alias staff that promoted the Loud Family left before TTOOL, which was the main reason their commercial fortune took a downturn after that album.
Here's the "Soul Drain" video on youtube.
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