can't keep johnny down!!!

Okay for anyone reading this who doesn't know what this is and is curious what me and this anon are on about DAS = Dial-A-Song which was the long running phone service started by they might be giants in the early 80s as a very DIY way to get their music out there and you can just read the article about it on TMBW if you want to know more. or you can ask me to explain it to you because I have a lot to say. anyways:

I mean this isn't actually a thing in terms of like oh mattjay AU or anything like that I was saying that as a joke but I just really like thinking about the parallels and why I think both ntb and tmbg are especially appealing to me/the shared elements in both that I love

I mean there are just superficial parallels. I've been thinking about it since I saw this post but there are a ton of these to both the characters and the real life guys. Best friends since highschool who feel like the other one is the only person who truly is on exactly the same wavelength as them artistically and aesthetically and is their measuring stick for what is actually good and who have a lifelong creative partnership. They move to the city together live together form a band that is JUST the two of them and create things with the aim of making things that will appeal to them and not really anyone else. One of the guys has crazy levels of ambition and drive and is absolutely sure they are destined for greatness and the other guy who is a bit more ambivalent but also the musical powerhouse of the duo with the other one being really obsessed with the technical side of things and pushing the boundaries of the medium and trying to do things that haven't been done before with it. Even the one of them that has an MFA and the other having dropped out of school being exactly the same lol.. Do you see my vision

Flans in the early days especially was such an mj type schemer. I mean he was doing flyer plan by himself + dial a song is such a. From the outside SUCH an insane idea especially when you consider that he was using his own home phone number for this. Like this is just so:

And they have talked about it before like. This was a pre internet way of just getting stuff to a ton of people, directly and for free and it's actually really crazy that they had this model of distribution so early. if you think about it dial a song was like their webseries for a pre internet age

Obviously the operative difference here is that John and John's scheming did in fact work and they did get shows. also they did in fact have actual songs + a plan for their live show but I do think they have that early tmbg artistic peculiarity in the stuff that they DO make like I was saying this to the beloved mutual who made the above post but I could sooo see nicky nicky nine doors being on the 1985 demo tape. Play it on a Casio instead of an actual piano and put drum machine. Keep the slowed down vocals. Do you see what I mean

Alternatively can't you see Matt doing something like this. or them doing something like THIS

Everything TMBG does especially those early things is imbued with this kind of absurd surreal humor that is also dark and alienating especially in the early days. I think about their early live shows and how they were sharing a stage at Darinka with people like steve buscemi and how their live show had these seemingly bizarre performance art elements that were an integral part of it. Imagine doing this onstage at the rivoli

ALSO the big thing is of course how both of them LOVE love love love a reference and so much of their work is about like drawing on a wide variety of references from the world they grew up in: music films comic books etc pop culture touchstones and synthesizing that into this thing that is in some ways this exploration of the world that they grew up in, for the johns the 60s/70s and for matt and jay the 90s/early 2000s and I think there are key differences in like. how those elements are presented and what theyre doing with them and what the end goal is but thats a whole other thing but anyways like. I just think its telling that both of these videos exist: