trop

This collection of t* artists should help you realize that I can't possibly list even all of my favorites (or least-favorites), let alone every t* band that has ever existed... When I miss your favs, don't get mad - tell your own stories in the comments!

The Tallywood Strings - a bunch of cellos and such, covering pop albums symphonically (and sans lyrics). That's just a guess, as I'm not about to do any research; I just know that they remade Radiohead's "Kid A" (the whole album, not just the song). While it's semi-interesting for the first few listens, it's really just sleep-inducing - even more than the original Radiohead album. Not that "sleep-inducing" is a bad characteristic, though. Yet I do prefer Radiohead's bizarro electrosamples, instrumentation, and "huh?"-inducing lyrics.

Ted Heath - I don't know if Ted's the one playing it, but I'm all about his music's heavy emphasis on the bari sax in fun big band/jazz tunes. "Big Deep" is one of the best tracks. Lots of honk on the bari, as it should be, rather than trying to be smooth and elegant. Disclosure: after figuring out rather quickly that I was horrible at keyboard bass, I picked up bari sax in high school jazz band.

The Temptations - worth a Motown mention. I thought I had a story, but I guess it was just my imagination.

Tenacious D - a hilarious break from my typical playlists of "real" or "good" music. Sometimes you have to do things gently, discreetly...

That 1 Guy - one of my newest obsessions, as you may read in one of my posts from last October. He is deliciously strange - think of Ween-like lyrics (catch Ween on the W post from a few days ago) on top of a complicated, one of a kind Whamola-like contraption. He's quite the one-man band.

That 1 Guy stands alone as the only [relatively] big-name artist I've met before hearing any of his music, or knowing anything at all about him - rather serendipitously, we talked for a minute back in September while I was waiting in line for the concert featuring him and Buckethead; I didn't even recognize him until he said who he was. Crazy. He was in a hurry, or else I would have badgered him for autographs.

Thelonious Monk - pushing the jazz envelope. Not much else to say.

They Might Be Giants - yet another strange ska-ish band with almost big band instrumentation and an endless supply of creativity. A reasonable example of their style is the theme song to "The Oblongs", to be found on Cartoon Network's late-nite Adult Swim. More important, educational, and comical, though, is their rather famous cover of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)". Go listen to that, then wait for Matheatre to come around in a few days. Trust me, it's worth it.

The Thompson Twins - 80's heaven! Lies, lies, lies, yeah. Let Kyle tell the stories about these guys. They're nicked from ole Saigon.

Tokens - who in their right minds would come up with something as genuinely messed up as "The Lion Sleeps Tonight"? Oh, apparently these guys.

That song was most definitely a staple for bombin' around in the van. Too bad most of you missed out on those likely-embarrassing times... It doesn't get much better than pulling up to a stoplight with a van full of high schoolers wailing this song with the windows down.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers - these guys were just barely before my time, so they're worth a mention, but I'm relying on you to tell some worthwhile stories in the comments.

Tom Waits - I'm mostly familiar with this barely-comprehensible growl-crooner for his vocal contributions to Primus on "Tommy the Cat" and Coattails of a Dead Man"... Dig through jarmstro's blog for analysis from an expert.

Tommy Roe - an oldies guy, basically a one-hit wonder with "Dizzy", which I don't think was really even a hit. It's a little bit catchy and has an avant-garde (at the time) use of strings, but the real highlight is a music theory "feature".

Often, songs will change keys about 2/3 of the way through in order to add energy, cheat to make the song longer, or just for kicks. "Dizzy", however, means business. I listened and counted: in two and a half minutes, "Dizzy" changes keys SIX TIMES. That includes twice in the first few measures, before he even starts a verse! What's worse is that each change is upward, so the song just gets higher and higher, rendering the song unsingable. With six changes, the song moves up at least half an octave (maybe more - the piano's in the other room, and my name's not Jana), so if the beginning is in a comfy singalong range, you don't stand a chance of keeping up - literally - by the end. That is, unless you're Mr. Roe, apparently.

Tony Orlando - if you even recognize who this is, you're probably thinking something about tying yellow ribbons, right? Though I spent several years with a radio that only picked up the St. Louis oldies station, I have heard that song a total of zero times. In contrast, I quite enjoy his collaboration with this mysterious "Dawn" character, the fruit of which being the light-hearted, sweet, yet absolutely hilarious love ditty "Knock Three Times"... One of the earliest uses of sound effects instead of lyrics on record, I believe. Also responsible for a fair amount of ceiling damage and plumbing issues, no doubt. I have to stop writing and listen to this song (another "bombin' around in the van" essential, btw).

Tool - for when you need something angry and cryptic to sleep to, I guess? None of the songs I actively like are clean enough to mention here. Their front man, Maynard, could use a little work on varied syllable emphasis.

Tower of Power - tower of funk power! Their live recordings are nothing short of addictive. Even normal people, i.e. not me, are willing to groove along with them on loop.

The only non-gushing story I have is pretty weak - one of the Tower's biggest hits is "What Is Hip?", which is groovalicious and a lot of fun on their live albums. Contrast this with commercials for HAP, consisting mostly of people asking, "what is HAP?", and then having experts explain/advertise. Observe pun. Ok, maybe it's only funny to me. For the gold medal, I still don't know what HAP is. All I know is that what is HAP today might become passé...

Tracy Chapman - confession #1: I am one of the few on the planet who dislikes this excessively well-written, genre-defining, passionate folk stuff. Tough luck, mom. Confession #2: I love "Give Me One Reason", and it's one of the few songs I learned to play (and can still play) on the acoustic guitar. Oh, irony.

Trashmen - haven't you heard about the bird? Everybody knows that the bird is the word!

Why is it that irritating = catchy?

A Tribe Called Quest - ah, rap from the days of yore, when it was about random stupidity instead of crunk stupidity.

Troggs - simple = catchy as well, off in the one hit wonderland.

Trout Fishing in America - courtesy of one of my high school English teachers, I bring you extremely intelligent, yet agonizingly catchy lyrics about Napoleon and vegetables, spoken/sung over barely enough guitar and bass to define a chord. I may be off my dot, but I've listened to these four or so songs enough that every word is permanently etched into my brain...and that I can still keep up with "Proper Cup of Coffee". I thank and blame you, Mr. Oser (and I apologize for my intentional abuse of punctuation and pronouns). PS, van-cruising classics.

Tsunami Bomb - screaming girl punk, except when it's sing-songy punk. If you would like them, you're probably already famliar... Thanks to Em/Bill for this one.

Turf Surgery - speaking of Emily and Dirty B (and friends), here they are! I unfortunately was never around to see them live, but you can catch them on MySpace. You might simply label it "punk" if Emily couldn't play so many instruments.

Twista - quite the fast rapper, plus some decent beats. Brings back memories from freshman year of college...

Type O Negative - the gothiest of goth metal, combined with intentionally laugh-out-loud lyrics. They sound angry and evil until you notice they're covering "Day Tripper" or "Summer Breeze". Then they sound like you're playing records at half speed. At the end of a live show, their front man (Peter Steele) would often pull the strings off his bass guitar. As a bass player, I can confirm that this is a difficult task. He would also occasionally play a full-size classical upright bass horizontally, like an electric bass... Hmm, something else I may or may not have done on a regular basis (bassis?)...

The bro and I joked that this was the only band we could truly sing along to. His voice is subterranean. Both Tim's and Peter's, for clarification.


Whew! That's it for today. Comment away.