Sunday, 4th of July, 2004

John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants (one of my fave bands, although of late they've had more misses than hits) is organising a compilation CD called Future Soundtrack for America, featuring a bunch of pretty hig-profile artists (R.E.M., Tom Waits(!), the late Elliot Smith, Death Cab For Cutie, David Byrne, etc), to benefit progressive political organisations MoveOn.org, Music For America and Common Assets among others. The CD will also be available with with a publication of fine literary journal McSweeney's Quarterly Concern called the Future Dictionary of America.
A definitely partisan venture aimed at mobilising voters against the Bush Administration, it sounds like a great idea. I don't know whether the profits will do much, distributed among a number of different organisations like this, but hopefully it'll generate positive publicity.

I've always felt that TMBG were on the right wavelength regarding lots of things (heck, one of their best songs from their best album (Flood of course, kids!) is called "Your Racist Friend"), but it's good to see Flansburgh out there doing something. Just hope this doesn't turn out like the hugely mobilised failure Howard's End that Timmy Freedman of the Whitlams organised.

Oh – and speaking of great people doing political stuff, here's the fabulous "FCC Song" by Monty Python member Eric Idle (download from link page). Warning – lots of lovely swearing at highly-deserving politicians and political organisations… Done in the style of Noel Coward (the Noel Coward from The Meaning of Life, that is).

3 Responses to “Future Soundtrack for America”

1. Peter says:
   July 4th, 2004 at 8:07 pm

   Just checking if I get php errors from posting this comment. Comments still get posted even if you end up with a page with a whole lot of php errors…

2. Peter says:
   July 4th, 2004 at 8:58 pm

   Checking the comments-preview thing.
   Seems to work well.

3. Mark says:
   August 9th, 2004 at 12:25 pm

   Hey Peter,

   When I saw your TMBG post, it reminded me that I forgot to tell you about the film clip I saw for their "Experimental Film" track from the new album.

   It's done by the Brothers Chaps of Strong Bad email fame and is very cute. It's a lion!