Mono Puff was a briefly active side project of John Flansburg of the brillaint pop-pranksters They Might Be Giants.
Mono Puff formed in the mid 90s as a quick EP, but morphed into a full-fledged side project with 1996's Unsupervised. Their sound wasn't too far away from what They Might Be Giants were doing at the time.
What set Mono Puff apart was the fuller sound they had. TMBG often simply revolved around the two Johns, their vast array of musical talent, and studio tools, with a huge touring band following them as they trekked around the globe. Mono Puff was a full band with an impressive resume.
The band, of course, was fronted by John Flansburgh, and also featured Steve Calhoon of Enon and Skeleton Key, Yulav Gabey of Soul Coughing, the legendary singer/musician Trini Lopez, plus actresses Mary Birdsong, Kate Flannery and Elina Lowensohn, amongst others.
Mono Puff stuck around for about 2 years, releasing 4 EPs and 2 full length LPs. The band is on hiatus due to many members moving out of the New York City area, but John F has said he'd love to revive the band some time down the line.
"Unsupervised, I Hit My Head" is from their full length debut, Unsupervised, released on Rykodisc in 1996.
Showing posts with label They Might Be Giants. Show all posts
Showing posts with label They Might Be Giants. Show all posts
Wednesday, September 27, 2017
Thursday, May 5, 2016
Video Playlist #4: Bands Within Bands
In an attempt to write more, I'll now be publishing new material every Thursday night. plus your regular randomly posted crap...
Our fourth video playlist on esoteric topics, this one is bands that mention other bands in their songs. I found I could probably do this one with just Dead Milkmen songs! Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZc9OcrqQsPvLUw_0OSue5mS
1) LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge (Can, Suicide, Daft Punk, The Beach Boys, Modern Lovers, Yaz, This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, The Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, The Human League, The Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra,
Joy Division, Lower 48, The Association, Sun Ra, Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc, Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force, Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil Scott Heron, The Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders, The Fire Engines, The Swans, The Soft Cell, THE SONICS)
2) LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk is Playing at My House (Daft Punk)
3) House of Love - Beatles and the Stones (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones)
4) They Might Be Giants - We're The Replacements (The Replacements)
5) They Might Be Giants - Au Contraire (David Bowie, Bach)
6) Elvis Costello - This is Hell (John Coltrane)
7) Bruce Cockburn* - Last Night of the World (Superchunk, Friends of Dean Martinez)
8) Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love (George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Smokey Robinson, Bob Marley, Sly and Robbie, Kurtis Blow, James Brown)
9) Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water (Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention. The Rolling Stones)
10) Lard - 70s Rock Must Die (The Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Aerosmith)
11) Tacocat - Crimson Wave (The Cramps)
12) The Dead Milkmen - You'll Dance to Anything (Siouxsee and the Banshees, The Communards, Book of Love, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Public Image Ltd., Naked Truth)
13) The Dead Milkmen - The Thing That Only Eats Hippies (The Grateful Dead, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, David Crosby)
14) Mojo Nixon - Debbie Gibson is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Lovechild (Debbie Gibson, Rick Astley, Tiffany)
15) KMFDM - Sucks (KMFDM, Michael Jackson, Depeche Mode, Madonna, Kylie Minogue)
16) Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Thou Shalt Always Kill (Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Johnny Hart, Desmond Dekker, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Syd Barrett, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Crass, Minor Threat, The Cure, The Smiths, Nirvana, The Pixies, Oasis, Radiohead, Bloc Party, The Arctic Monkeys, Pheonix)
Our fourth video playlist on esoteric topics, this one is bands that mention other bands in their songs. I found I could probably do this one with just Dead Milkmen songs! Enjoy!
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL0QOmyo1JgZc9OcrqQsPvLUw_0OSue5mS
1) LCD Soundsystem - Losing My Edge (Can, Suicide, Daft Punk, The Beach Boys, Modern Lovers, Yaz, This Heat, Pere Ubu, Outsiders, Nation of Ulysses, Mars, The Trojans, The Black Dice, Todd Terry, The Germs, Section 25, Althea and Donna, Sexual Harrassment, a-ha, Pere Ubu, Dorothy Ashby, PIL, the Fania All-Stars, the Bar-Kays, The Human League, The Normal, Lou Reed, Scott Walker, Monks, Niagra,
Joy Division, Lower 48, The Association, Sun Ra, Scientists, Royal Trux, 10cc, Eric B. and Rakim, Index, Basic Channel, Soulsonic Force, Juan Atkins, David Axelrod, Electric Prunes, Gil Scott Heron, The Slits, Faust, Mantronix, Pharaoh Sanders, The Fire Engines, The Swans, The Soft Cell, THE SONICS)
2) LCD Soundsystem - Daft Punk is Playing at My House (Daft Punk)
3) House of Love - Beatles and the Stones (The Beatles, The Rolling Stones)
4) They Might Be Giants - We're The Replacements (The Replacements)
5) They Might Be Giants - Au Contraire (David Bowie, Bach)
6) Elvis Costello - This is Hell (John Coltrane)
7) Bruce Cockburn* - Last Night of the World (Superchunk, Friends of Dean Martinez)
8) Tom Tom Club - Genius of Love (George Clinton, Bootsy Collins, Smokey Robinson, Bob Marley, Sly and Robbie, Kurtis Blow, James Brown)
9) Deep Purple - Smoke on the Water (Frank Zappa, The Mothers of Invention. The Rolling Stones)
10) Lard - 70s Rock Must Die (The Bee Gees, The Rolling Stones, Neil Young, Aerosmith)
11) Tacocat - Crimson Wave (The Cramps)
12) The Dead Milkmen - You'll Dance to Anything (Siouxsee and the Banshees, The Communards, Book of Love, The Smiths, Depeche Mode, Public Image Ltd., Naked Truth)
13) The Dead Milkmen - The Thing That Only Eats Hippies (The Grateful Dead, Stephen Stills, Graham Nash, David Crosby)
14) Mojo Nixon - Debbie Gibson is Pregnant with My Two-Headed Lovechild (Debbie Gibson, Rick Astley, Tiffany)
15) KMFDM - Sucks (KMFDM, Michael Jackson, Depeche Mode, Madonna, Kylie Minogue)
16) Dan le Sac vs. Scroobius Pip - Thou Shalt Always Kill (Johnny Cash, Joe Strummer, Johnny Hart, Desmond Dekker, Jim Morrison, Jimi Hendrix, Syd Barrett, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin, The Beach Boys, The Sex Pistols, The Clash, Crass, Minor Threat, The Cure, The Smiths, Nirvana, The Pixies, Oasis, Radiohead, Bloc Party, The Arctic Monkeys, Pheonix)
Saturday, September 17, 2011
Cuddlecore: The Genius of cub
When I saw the title of the new single and album from Florence and the Machine, I got excited. Unfortunately, it turned out that "What the Water Gave Me" wasn't a cover of the cub song of the same name... (no video but check the second song in)
http://youtu.be/HYnaEBiHisY
I have three bands I'm obsessive about and collect about everything I can get my hands on. The first is Elvis Costello, the second is Devo. The third is Vancouver's cub. Yes, the band is so cute that their name is spelled in lowercase. cub was a band from Vancouver, a trio of girls who came together to make a style of music called "cuddlecore", kind of a giddy, lo-fi garage rock style. Think The Ramones crossed with Hello Kitty and you get some of the idea. The two constants in the band were bassist and vocalist Lisa Marr and guitarist Robyn Iwata. They shifted drummers a few times, including a very young Neko Case, who is featured in the video for "Nicolas Bragg"
http://youtu.be/gUCdJHP_6Bg
Why cub? I suppose a couple of things attracted me to the band. At the time I heard them, music was very dark and gritty and angry. In 1992, the grunge movement was in full force and everything was loud and sludgy. cub was the anti-grunge band: cute, light, amateurish but not childish. They sounded like nothing else being made at the time. The band has the lo-fi garage aesthetic too. In fact, Robyn performed several early shows sitting on the stage, reading cheat sheets for the chords she needed to play. In the video for "My Chinchilla", you get a sense of what the band was doing. Very cute, very lo-fi, very real.
http://youtu.be/-u3fG2eJvCc
It also didn't hurt that the girls in the band were as cute as buttons. I still have an innocent dream of marrying one of them some day.
The band's first full-length album came out in 1993, Betti-Cola collected some of their earlier work, released on 7" vinyl, on the Mint label, where they spent their whole career and added some new tracks. The cover was illustrated by Archie Comics artist Don DeCarlo, which perfectly captured the bands playful nature.
Come Out, Come Out came out in 1994 and cemented their sound and their reputation in Canadian college radio, featuring their singles "Flaming Red Bobsled" and "New York City", which was later covered by legendary nerd-rockers They Might Be Giants.
http://youtu.be/jlx-pvUfuk0
http://youtu.be/lRL9C5cttcI
By 1996, the band had started to lose it's way a bit. Box of Hair wasn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't exactly sound like cub. Check out the video for "Freaky" and see the change in look for the band. Lots of hairspray and dark makeup, a heavier approach to the music and a bit too much sexuality. The album does feature one of my favourite tracks though with "Pillow Queen"
http://youtu.be/lrTxV5eMB20
cub broke up in 1996, but Lisa and Robyn went on to other projects. Lisa Marr formed a band called Buck that put out one album, then she moved to Los Angeles and released music under the Lisa Marr Experiment, as well as recording an album with Kim Shattuck of the Muffs under the name The Beards. Robyn Iwata changed her stage name to Cup and formed a San Francisco/Vancouver based electronic band called I am Spoonbender, who have released several well-received albums. Drummer Lisa G is still retired from music as far as I know. The band's last release as cub came as a b-sides compilation in 1997 called Mauler, which was released on a small Australian label called Au-Go-Go Records.
http://youtu.be/dQxox6OS_Vc
http://youtu.be/HYnaEBiHisY
I have three bands I'm obsessive about and collect about everything I can get my hands on. The first is Elvis Costello, the second is Devo. The third is Vancouver's cub. Yes, the band is so cute that their name is spelled in lowercase. cub was a band from Vancouver, a trio of girls who came together to make a style of music called "cuddlecore", kind of a giddy, lo-fi garage rock style. Think The Ramones crossed with Hello Kitty and you get some of the idea. The two constants in the band were bassist and vocalist Lisa Marr and guitarist Robyn Iwata. They shifted drummers a few times, including a very young Neko Case, who is featured in the video for "Nicolas Bragg"
http://youtu.be/gUCdJHP_6Bg
Why cub? I suppose a couple of things attracted me to the band. At the time I heard them, music was very dark and gritty and angry. In 1992, the grunge movement was in full force and everything was loud and sludgy. cub was the anti-grunge band: cute, light, amateurish but not childish. They sounded like nothing else being made at the time. The band has the lo-fi garage aesthetic too. In fact, Robyn performed several early shows sitting on the stage, reading cheat sheets for the chords she needed to play. In the video for "My Chinchilla", you get a sense of what the band was doing. Very cute, very lo-fi, very real.
http://youtu.be/-u3fG2eJvCc
It also didn't hurt that the girls in the band were as cute as buttons. I still have an innocent dream of marrying one of them some day.
The band's first full-length album came out in 1993, Betti-Cola collected some of their earlier work, released on 7" vinyl, on the Mint label, where they spent their whole career and added some new tracks. The cover was illustrated by Archie Comics artist Don DeCarlo, which perfectly captured the bands playful nature.
Come Out, Come Out came out in 1994 and cemented their sound and their reputation in Canadian college radio, featuring their singles "Flaming Red Bobsled" and "New York City", which was later covered by legendary nerd-rockers They Might Be Giants.
http://youtu.be/jlx-pvUfuk0
http://youtu.be/lRL9C5cttcI
By 1996, the band had started to lose it's way a bit. Box of Hair wasn't a bad album by any stretch of the imagination, but it didn't exactly sound like cub. Check out the video for "Freaky" and see the change in look for the band. Lots of hairspray and dark makeup, a heavier approach to the music and a bit too much sexuality. The album does feature one of my favourite tracks though with "Pillow Queen"
http://youtu.be/lrTxV5eMB20
cub broke up in 1996, but Lisa and Robyn went on to other projects. Lisa Marr formed a band called Buck that put out one album, then she moved to Los Angeles and released music under the Lisa Marr Experiment, as well as recording an album with Kim Shattuck of the Muffs under the name The Beards. Robyn Iwata changed her stage name to Cup and formed a San Francisco/Vancouver based electronic band called I am Spoonbender, who have released several well-received albums. Drummer Lisa G is still retired from music as far as I know. The band's last release as cub came as a b-sides compilation in 1997 called Mauler, which was released on a small Australian label called Au-Go-Go Records.
http://youtu.be/dQxox6OS_Vc
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