Thursday, September 13, 2007

Milk Moustache

From Big Notebook for Easy Piano, Soaking in the Center of the Universe, Vol. 2, and Remember Cassettes, Vol. 1

Cigarettes. Drugs. Caffeine. I think there are more references to drugs in this one song than the entire rest of the canon combined. Everywhere else, the references are kind of in the background, but here the speaker relishes in all of them as only a student (or former student) at a party school in a college town could.

And what’s more, this song is fun, like more-fun-than-“Have Fun” fun. We get a quick piano intro, and then the bass exclaims, “Whoopee!” as we dive in for a three-and-a-half-minute romp that includes some of my favorite vocal harmonies to be heard on Big Notebook. In between references to various vices, we get a glimpse of a common relationship trap to plague kids in high school and college: the relationship fueled by substance abuse. From chorus to chorus, the speaker goes between wanting company and not wanting the company of his girlfriend, as if the amount of alcohol or weed or mixture thereof determines his tolerance of the girl and his willingness to pursue the relationship.

The video is from the porch of the Red Rose Coffee Shop from August 24, 2001. After the song is finished, there’s a fine example of how to conduct a sound check at a venue where you have to bring your own PA system.

6 comments:

Jakob Dorof said...

i've always thought the bass was saying more of a, "mmm'mm." like it just downed a tall glass of milk...

Jakob Dorof said...

oh, and SPEAKING of soaking in the center vol. 2, anyone else find it odd that both fl. oz. selections for that disc come from BNFEP, when ITNOFW was (i believe) already out? (or, if not out, at least close to completion; the comp houses loads of demos and works-in-progress from Self, the Katies, and the Roaries, so why not any mostly-finished fl. oz. tracks?) always struck me as odd. is there a story here?

Juan Horsetown said...

On its back cover, Volume 2 is listed as being released in March, 1998, about a month after the primary recording had been done for INOFW. That means that when those CDs were actually pressed, the actual songs wouldn't have been recoreded or ready. (INOFW was recorded in Feb, 1998.)

Jakob Dorof said...

damn, had my chronology wrong...thought volume 2 came out in 1999, not 1998.

nevermind me!

Juan Horsetown said...

With March 98 on the back, that date could actually be when the compilation was assembled, though it was still too soon to put INOFW tracks on it. So it may have been 99 when Volume 2 came out.

Anonymous said...

how did I miss this post?

one of my favorites on Big Notebook. I have always enjoyed the subject matter. I always thought the character needed to be drunk/high or she had to be in order to tolerate having him/her around. or the only way she would have sex with him would as if she was drunk in order to place blame on the encounter. is our hero getting used?

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