| Interbabe Concern | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|
 | ||||
| Studio album by | ||||
| Released | July 1996 | |||
| Recorded | 1996 | |||
| Genre | Rock, power pop | |||
| Length | 57:34 | |||
| Label | Alias Records | |||
| Producer | Scott Miller | |||
| The Loud Family chronology | ||||
| ||||
| Review scores | |
|---|---|
| Source | Rating |
| Allmusic |   [1] |
Interbabe Concern is The Loud Family's third full-length album, and their first to be produced by Scott Miller instead of Mitch Easter. With the exception of keyboard player Paul Wieneke and Miller, this was a new line-up of the band.
After touring in support of the 1994 album The Tape of Only Linda , three members – bass player Rob Poor, guitarist Zachary Smith, and drummer Jozef Becker – left the group for family or career reasons.
For Interbabe Concern, Scott Miller took over the lead guitar duties that he had ceded to Smith on prior Loud Family albums. Paul Wieneke remained on keyboards and occasional lead vocals, and Kenny Kessel and Dawn Richardson joined the group on bass and drums, respectively. [1] Becker remained as drummer long enough to record several tracks on the album.
As credited in the CD booklet, the members were:
Guest musicians included Ken Stringfellow of The Posies on guitar, and Nina Gordon of Veruca Salt. Gordon provided backing vocals on the co-written song "The Softest Tip Of Her Baby Tongue". Stringfellow is credited for co-writing "Sodium Laureth Sulfate" and "I No Longer Fear the Headless," and also played on "Not Expecting Both Contempo And Classique."
Former Game Theory drummer Gil Ray and keyboard player Shelley LaFreniere also appeared as guests; Ray would join the Loud Family as a member for their next album, Days for Days. [1] Richardson left the band in 1996, and was replaced on the concert tour by drummer Mike Tittel, who currently leads the Ohio-based band New Sincerity Works. [2]
According to the Los Angeles Times , the "prevailing mood of frustration and loss" in Interbabe Concern sprang from the "collapse of Miller's marriage to Shalini Chatterjee." [3] Critic William Ham, writing in the 2005 book Lost in the Grooves, called this a "harsh, difficult album" with "dizzying mood-swings," drawn from a dark period in Miller's life. [4] Ham noted the twin departures of Miller's wife and his longtime producer Mitch Easter, and inferred that "since Chatterjee is [in 2005] married to Easter, we can assume that the two events were not mutually exclusive." [4]
The result, according to Ham, was a "jagged sonic mosaic" adeptly fashioned by Miller from the "shattered pieces." [4] The Tulsa World's Thomas Conner identified it as "sort of a concept album... an overanalysis of a divorce ('recorded in cold, passionless digital') by one very intriguing artist." [5]
Mark Deming, in the 2002 book All Music Guide to Rock: The Definitive Guide to Rock, Pop, and Soul, wrote that Interbabe Concern features "the fragmented songs and purposefully twisted aural montage" that were missing from the group's prior album, The Tape of Only Linda. [6] Deming noted:
This new Loud Family sounded more like Scott Miller's backing band than the group that made the first two albums, and without producer Mitch Easter on hand, Miller seems to have used Interbabe Concern as an opportunity to reacquaint himself with the cryptic side of his musical personality; there are a lot more short pseudo-tunes interspersed between the "real" songs, plenty of odd found noises and sound effects, and while Miller plays plenty of guitar here, there's a decidedly lower hard-and-heavy quotient than on the muscular The Tape of Only Linda . Interbabe Concern plays like a somewhat stranger version of Loud Family's debut, Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things ... the production has a lot less gloss, and Miller's fondness for chaos seems to outweigh his knack for perfect pop hooks. [6]
According to Conner, "Miller arranges his songs like roller coasters; you always know where you're going to end up, but the time signatures and key changes throw you around on the way there." [5] Conner cited the song "Don't Respond, She Can Tell" as a "real kick with what sounds like a BB dropping on a table keeping time." [5]
Reviewers found the album difficult; for example, Deming wrote, "It's an inarguably interesting album, but one that demands a lot more work for the listener to ferret out the good stuff." [6] Conner agreed, and emphasized the reward: "Miller cycles through incongruous guitar chords with the same bravery and success of Steely Dan, and he packs each song with one syllable for nearly every note. Some of these songs might play well with the top down, but those who like to listen too closely to their pop music will get more out of the Loud Family. And you'll have to – it's not an easy album to make sense of on the first spin, but those brave enough to have another go likely will, like me, one day be astonished at how long the disc has been in one chamber of the disc changer." [5]
CMJ New Music Monthly ′s review categorized the music as "pop of the most depraved variety," and wrote, "There’s always some jarring detail added or subtracted, some unsettling minor component that takes these tunes out of the realm of the normal. Gently plucked acoustic guitars will suddenly be ripped apart by a mutinous fuzzbox, seemingly at random." [7] The review continued, "If pop’s purpose is to soothe and delight, then this is either half-pop or fullblooded mutation/mutilation, as there’s nothing soothing about this in the least. It’s disturbing, but the sort of disturbance you’ll be whistling at work. [7]
Let's Active was an American rock group formed in Winston-Salem, North Carolina, in 1981, and often identified with the jangle pop guitar work of the group's frontman and songwriter Mitch Easter. After disbanding in 1990, the group reformed in August 2014 to play a benefit show in North Carolina.
Game Theory was an American power pop band, founded in 1982 by singer/songwriter Scott Miller, combining melodic jangle pop with dense experimental production and hyperliterate lyrics. MTV described their sound as "still visceral and vital" in 2013, with records "full of sweetly psychedelic-tinged, appealingly idiosyncratic gems" that continued "influencing a new generation of indie artists." Between 1982 and 1990, Game Theory released five studio albums and two EPs, which had long been out of print until 2014, when Omnivore Recordings began a series of remastered reissues of the entire Game Theory catalog. Miller's posthumously completed Game Theory album, Supercalifragile, was released in August 2017 in a limited first pressing.
The Loud Family was a San Francisco-based power pop band formed in 1991 by songwriter and guitarist Scott Miller, who previously led the 1980s band Game Theory. The Loud Family released six studio LPs and one live LP from 1991 through 2006. After Miller's death in 2013, three Loud Family members participated in recording sessions for Supercalifragile (2017), Miller's posthumous Game Theory album.
The Orange Humble Band is an alternative rock band formed in early 1995, by Darryl Mather on guitar. He was joined by Anthony Bautovich, Mitch Easter on vocals, and Ken Stringfellow on lead vocals. The group issued two albums, Assorted Creams (1997) and Humblin' (2001) before disbanding later that year. They reformed in March 2012 and issued a third album, Depressing Beauty, in May 2015.
Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things was the 1993 debut album by The Loud Family, a band formed by singer, songwriter and guitarist Scott Miller after the dissolution of his 1980s band Game Theory. It was Miller's fifth album to be produced by Mitch Easter.
Slouching Towards Liverpool is an EP that includes live performances of songs from The Loud Family's first album, Plants and Birds and Rocks and Things, as well as some live studio tracks recorded at WNUR-FM in Evanston, Illinois.
The Tape of Only Linda is the second full-length album by The Loud Family, released in 1994. The title of the album is a reference to the notorious tape recording of a live performance of "Hey Jude," by Paul McCartney, in which an engineer had isolated Linda McCartney's vocals.
Attractive Nuisance, released in 2000, is The Loud Family's fifth full-length album. It has the same line-up as the 1998 album, Days for Days. At the time of its release, it was announced as the final Loud Family album.
From Ritual to Romance is The Loud Family's sixth full-length album. It is a live album released during a six-year hiatus from studio recording, which followed the expiration of the group's recording contract with Alias Records in 2000.
What If It Works? is the Loud Family's seventh full-length album, a studio collaboration with Sacramento-based pop musician Anton Barbeau released in 2006. A March 2022 reissue of the album, with eleven bonus tracks, was announced by Omnivore Recordings.
Lolita Nation is the fourth full-length album by Game Theory, a California power pop band fronted by guitarist and singer-songwriter Scott Miller. Originally released in 1987 as a double LP, the album was reissued by Omnivore Recordings in February 2016 as a double CD set with 21 bonus tracks.
Two Steps from the Middle Ages (1988) is the fifth studio album by power pop band Game Theory.
The Big Shot Chronicles is Game Theory's third full-length album, released in 1986. Produced by Mitch Easter, it was recorded with a new lineup of Game Theory members after leader and songwriter Scott Miller moved the band's base from Davis to San Francisco, California. The album was reissued on September 23, 2016 by Omnivore Recordings as part of the label's series of reissues of the Game Theory catalog.
Scott Warren Miller was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist, best known for his work as leader of the 1980s band Game Theory and 1990s band The Loud Family, and as the author of a 2010 book of music criticism. He was described by The New York Times as "a hyperintellectual singer and songwriter who liked to tinker with pop the way a born mathematician tinkers with numbers", having "a shimmery-sweet pop sensibility, in the tradition of Brian Wilson and Alex Chilton."
Alison Faith Levy is a San Francisco-based musician and songwriter, known as a pop and jazz performer on keyboards and vocals, most notably as a member of power pop group The Loud Family, as well as for her later work as a children's musician in The Sippy Cups and as a solo artist.
Real Nighttime is the second full-length album from Game Theory, a California power pop band founded by guitarist and singer-songwriter Scott Miller. Released in 1985, the album is cited as "a watershed work in '80s paisley underground pop." A 30th anniversary reissue was released in March 2015, on CD and in a limited first pressing on red vinyl, with 13 bonus tracks.
Blaze of Glory is the 1982 debut album from Game Theory, a California power pop band founded by guitarist and singer-songwriter Scott Miller. After Miller's death in 2013, the album was reissued by Omnivore Recordings in a remastered edition with 15 bonus tracks which was released on CD and vinyl in 2014.
George Gilbert "Gil" Ray was an American rock drummer, guitarist, and vocalist, best known for his recordings in the 1980s and 1990s as a member of the bands Game Theory and The Loud Family. In late 2012, he joined Rain Parade as drummer for a series of reunion performances.
Supercalifragile is the sixth and final studio album by Game Theory, a California power pop band founded in 1982 by guitarist and singer-songwriter Scott Miller. At the time of his death in 2013, Miller had started work on the recording, which was to be Game Theory's first new album since 1988. Producer Ken Stringfellow and executive producer Kristine Chambers Miller enlisted the participation of numerous past collaborators and friends of Miller to finish the album after Miller's death, using Miller's partially completed recordings and source material. Supercalifragile was released in August 2017.
The Bible of Bop is a mini-album and the first solo release by English guitarist and songwriter Kimberley Rew, released in 1982. It mostly consists of tracks taken from three singles Rew released through indie label Armageddon between 1980 and 1982: two under his own name, backed by members of the dB's and the Soft Boys; and one as part of the Waves. In 2010, the album was reissued on CD for the first time on the CGB label with three bonus tracks.
