Jonathon Townley (00:02.414)
Reach the un-streamables, leave a message after the time. wait.

Jonathon Townley (00:09.358)
you

Hey, welcome. I'm Jonathan Townley, and this is the Unstreamables. First of all, I want to give you a little bit of a rundown on what's inside this episode. So we'll do some topics off the top of my head relevant to what we're talking about on the Unstreamables. Then we'll dive into the history of They Might Be Giants and Dial a Song, and how the band turned that humble answering machine into a cultural phenomenon. Finally, we're going to get a little future peek at what's coming up on episodes in the future.

future peak. I think I meant to say a sneak peek. I'm gonna tell you folks, this is hard.

And before we dive deep, I want to thank everybody who signed up to our newsletter at theunstreamables.com after our website launch and teaser video went out. Really appreciate you, really appreciate folks posting it to social media. So I want to send one special thanks out to Aya in Oakland for her amazing feedback and her presentation tips. So before we get into the meat of the show, we're gonna talk a little bit about a couple issues.

things that are kind of interrelated to what we're talking about today. The first of is Flood, the probably first studio produced album, professionally produced album by They Might Be Giants, turned 35 this week. So if you haven't heard it, it's probably one of their most recognizable albums and it kind of speaks to the band's whole oeuvre.

Jonathon Townley (01:37.903)
It's really fantastic and it's probably what first engaged me with the band. Speaking of oeuvre, kind of a harder topic is the passing yesterday of David Lynch. I am recording this on Friday and when I heard the news yesterday

It kind of floored me, I have to be honest with you. He was a true auteur. He will be greatly missed. As his family said, a great light has gone out. I can't help but get an emotional feeling when I think of this. And had to evacuate his home because of the wildfires in California. I'm deeply saddened to see the infighting that's happening over it and I hope it comes to a swift resolution and that we take care of the people of California and then we take some time out to remember.

this great auteur, this great creator, this person who rejected the norms of Hollywood and sort of pat tropes. know, some of my favorite bands, as sort of a metaphor, some of my favorite bands are the bands that other bands love, musicians that other musicians look up to. And David Lynch is someone I deeply...

deeply regarded. Hold a little room in your heart for David Lynch and for the people of California and we'll do what we can to help them.

Jonathon Townley (03:18.04)
Hey, just a little continuity note, I spent an hour talking with Kyle over video and the conversation ended up being so good that I decided to put it in a second episode. So stay tuned for that.

Hey, I'm here with Kyle Suppley, good friend of mine that I've known for at least a decade. Yes. Hello, everyone. Thank you, Jonathan. That was a nice intro. I am Kyle Suppley, a history buff, a collector, repairman, DJ on the side, salesperson by day, always have my hands on lot of different things. And then DJ, I just, I love vintage music. Well, I had a phonograph for my 12th birthday. I got an original hand crank, 78 RPM, shellac record phonograph.

that I would bring friends over to play the old school, yeah, that you got it, the old school records and pulkas and what was it? Glenn Miller was one of my favorites. So that's where it kind of started. Kind of got me to look at the old records and such. But anyways, discovered those records from my parents. My dad had a great collection. I did start loving history at a very young age when I was around nine years old.

Mm-hmm.

I have the eight track ball radio by weltron though that looked like the helmet that took eight tracks I fixed it played some in there, but I do choose vinyl when I can

Jonathon Townley (05:07.182)
I think, like you said, there's something nostalgic about it. When I'm DJing out, I love talking to the older folks that lived it and were part of the disco scene or the 70s that will give me hints or song suggestions and then I will look for those vinyls. And then on those records, you'll find other great songs too. That's how you keep them coming back. That's fantastic. can you tell us a little bit, that's a good segue into, tell our viewers what Julius is.

iconic. Why is it significant?

feel it's palpable, the history and the memories and just there's something really magical about a small little bar in the village. There's not that many left that can claim they were there. Here's Kyle talking about some of his treasures from his record collection. good segue. This is another band. have a lot of these, the Ray Block Singers.

And these are kind of funny. They're good for like when you're vacuuming the house or doing dishes and it's covers at the time of hits then by not the actual people. It's like the hydrox compared to Oreo. You get like kind of the hit and you're like, I'm not sure of the song. But they had a ton of those here. This was a moments to remember. I started a joke by the Bee Gees, but not by the Bee Gees. Abraham, Martin and John. That's an intense one. You should listen to that kids out there. But yeah, that's a fun one there. This one's fun.

Yeah, Andrew DiCarlo mentioned this one. Times Square, this was a movie. And there's Tim Curry was in the film. I've not actually seen this film yet. Maybe I'll do that tonight. But it's kind of a rock and roll. It's got rock and roll. Yeah, let's try and find it. Suzy Quatro is on this. We got Talk of the Town by The Pretenders, Roxy Music, Gary Newman.

Jonathon Townley (07:15.918)
Some really good music on it. I've heard the movie is like, but the the music's really great pissing in the river by Patti Smith group Hey, go I've heard of her right. These are great, too This is these are very thick my friend amber Martin collects these as well. They're Enoch light and the light brigade They're thick as in like the covers are really substantial, but

These are really great, like kind of music of the time. also covering some of the hits of the day. this one is more focused on Broadway song, Cole Porter's, Cole Porter. so that's a fun one there. What else do I have hiding? So when you say music, you mean like what they used to pipe into offices and elevators as a service instrumental versions of your favorite hits. Right. Yeah. So they didn't have to pay the performance rights, but it was like light.

music. Yeah, and people, like the housewife at home, I feel like you would put that on for the day and it wasn't super intrusive and it wasn't too much rock and roll, but it made you feel safe and comfy.

Do you bring vinyl to Julius or is it digital? mean some of these are pretty rare treasures. Yes, I try to be careful with them as much as I can. have sleeves on them. On ones I really want to protect. I should probably have them on all

sleeve helps out. But I have my little carrying case. It holds about 25 to 30, so I'll go through each time and try to pick different ones than the month before, what have you, and mix it up and vinyl up. Then I also will go for my digital collection because it is huge. But I'll go between the two sometimes. I'll do my sometimes do a single on a 45 or I'll do my larger LPs and then back to the record and then I mean back to the computer and then back and forth. So it's a mix, but it's fun. I just love seeing when young people walk by and they're like

Jonathon Townley (09:09.104)
real vinyl and it's like just they get really a kick out of it which is fun and then the older people are like that is how it was supposed to be done which is fun so yeah if you want to hear some of this amazing music on vinyl the next After Dark a disco very is February 1st at Julia's bar in Manhattan you can find me on Kyle's out there on Instagram I often every month I post about the event as well

And yeah, I hope you'll come by, bring friends. It's, you know, on the earlier side of a Saturday, so you can still go have a crazy raucous night if you want to go out after 1 a.m., after the 80s part of the evening. But it's a good time. Check out some of this rare music and hear it on vinyl the way it was intended. That's great. Thank you so much, Kyle. I really appreciate it. You've given me a lot of ideas. Thank you so much. This has really been excellent. I can't wait to see you again. We'll come by your place.

in a couple of weeks and I'll see you at July on February 1st. Talk to you soon. Bye. Next up our segment on They Might Be Giants and Dial a Song. They Might Be Giants are a Brooklyn based alternative band founded in 1982 by John Flansburg and John Lanell.

quirky, clever lyrics, groundbreaking fan engagement. They've won multiple Grammy Awards, released multiple platinum and gold albums, and become iconic for their indie experimental spirit. If you are a younger person, you may know their Here Come the 123s and Here Comes Science, and their musical work on SpongeBob. So an iconic band outside a little bit of the mainstream, but they've sold over four million albums, and they are certainly streaming.

One of their most iconic albums, their first professionally produced albums, Flood, turned 35, like I said in the opening just the other day. If you don't know the band, you probably know their most famous single, Istanbul, not Constantinople, arguably like just a, you know...

Jonathon Townley (11:13.782)
Completely recognizable itself was a cover of a band kind of a novelty song from the 50s. It is fantastic I won't deny that John John and the band of dance such as they are or the brass who study sometimes play with are Tremendously streamable, but dial a song was such an analog DIY punk effort that I had to pick it up for the first episode I really can't overstate how much I love this band. All right, let's let's get behind the wheel of our

DeLorean and juice it up to 1.21 gigawatts and talk about how once upon a time the telephone wasn't a tiny little distraction rectangle in your pocket it was a big clunky thing tied to your house it was a place in your house I'll get it in the den I'll get it in the living room I'll get it in the kitchen

So, you know, it wasn't always mobile. The network was, was pretty static for a long time. The invention of the telephone, of course, was a game changer. I really don't need to tell you this, but the commercialization of the network really reshaped the world. Bell Telephone didn't just connect people. They built massive infrastructure. I'm inserting a little footage here of the New York telephone company, the Bell Telephone Company in downtown Brooklyn, which is a New York landmark. It is a beautiful.

beautiful Art Deco building and it's now condos which are also beautiful and really really pricey.

buildings, switching equipment, and whole industries sprung up. Phones even had their little setup, little furniture telephone tables with drawers for the phone books. You would sit there and there's like a note. It's a very big mid-century thing. I'll throw up some graphics if you're watching the YouTube version of the show. We're going to listen to a little bit of this NPR interview from Ask Me Another in 2015. Guys, 2015, huge year for you. You're reviving Dial a Song. Correct.

Jonathon Townley (13:14.51)
Yes! Dial a Song was a phone machine in 1983 up through I forget which year which played songs by the M.I.B. Giants when you called the phone number which was actually John Flansburg's personal telephone number.

Jonathon Townley (13:35.96)
Dial-A-Song was punk in its accessibility. Anyone with a phone could hear a song. The band could record a song to a couple of tapes, pop them in there, and change them out daily. It's sort of a new, you know, third millennium version where it's, it uses some digital thing that I don't understand. It's called MP3s, Yes. We basically wanted to just try something different, give ourselves a challenge. We weren't tired enough.

So we basically are posting a new song every week online. I love this because long distance used to be a thing. If you needed to call another area code, you had to pay.

So long distance phone books, landlines, a lot of this stuff doesn't exist or barely exists anymore. But I just want to say, Dial-A-Song is still going strong now. After several reboots, including the ambitious 2015 Songweek project, you can still call 844-387-6962. It's a free phone line. It's 844, uh, what is it? Uh, 387-6962.

John Flansburg, what do you think? Another 20 years, will you do this again? Absolutely. How will it be delivered this time? From a hospital, pedofera.

Jonathon Townley (15:04.622)
3, 2, 1.

So long distance, phone books, landlines, a lot of this stuff doesn't exist or barely exists anymore. Like when's the last time you saw a payphone in the wild? But Dial-A-Song is still going. It's still going strong. It's been rebooted several times. In 2015, they did this really ambitious project called Song a Week where they put out 52 songs in one year.

you can still call 844-387-6962. That number again is 844-387-6962 to hear a new track every day.

Not only do they still have a phone number and get, they might be Giants updates, five songs a day. It's really twee. It's sort of like if Wes Anderson went to Pratt for UX design instead of philosophy or whatever he went to school for. It's amazing to me how the band continues to embrace nostalgia and innovation. And it's just sort of one of the things they do with their show to engage with fans. One of my favorite little gags they do during their show is

is they kind of like have a radio on stage and they turn the dial and the radio, whatever it lands on, they play a song. So it's kind of like you're scanning through the dials of the radio. It's hilarious, it's great. One of my other like that they do, and keep in mind, this is done right before they break between sets. So if you're going to one of their longer shows, you're getting a lot of value for money. This is not even the grand finale of the show.

Jonathon Townley (16:45.612)
This is like halfway through. So they play and record a song. The gimmick is or the joke is that they're playing the song backwards. Right? So they're musically playing the notes in reverse order. And then when they get back from break, they rewind.

that tape, they play it backwards, it's been recorded, so they play it backwards and it is one of the nuttiest things. And it sort of speaks to the same kind of idea as the linear media that they're playing with, know, as cassette tape and even the thing with the radio. All three of those things kind of play together. The band continues to innovate and innovate and innovate and that's why I love them. Let's just say if you buy a ticket to their concert, you're getting a lot of value for money.

Okay, so moving on a little bit, I want to talk about five songs that made it... they're kind of like unloved hits. I think that they're underappreciated. First of all, absolutely Bill's mood. It's jazzy, it's surreal, it's kind of underappreciated. Nightgown of the sullen moon. Haunting, quirky.

Hey Mr. DJ, this is one of my favorite sort of, it's kind of like getting a B-side. Hey Mr. DJ, I thought you said we had a deal and it's a biting critique of the music industry. It is real inside baseball, I love it. They'll need a crane, a bittersweet masterpiece, absolutely. And finally, Purple Toupe. It's oddly profound and funny. It's very good. Some of the more famous ones that you already know are Bird House and Your Soul.

I'll put some of the other hits and a link to the entire album. They have now released an album that you can get online for free of 80 of these tracks. So what were the fan reactions? Well, in 1989, one fan called Dial-A-Song like every day frequently and recorded the tracks and shared via the answering machine. So those tapes are very nostalgic and a glimpse of the band's innovative distribution method. But you know,

Jonathon Townley (19:06.082)
Back in the day, was no internet to trade them on. There was no Napster or anything. fans would trade things by hand. if this is something that you're into, I would like to hear about it in the comments. If you're a tape trader or you went to a lot of dead shows or fish and...

Counting Crows or any band that allowed you to tape and distribute the recordings during the show. I'd like to hear from you, talk a little bit about your collection. So make sure to leave a comment or you can get in touch with us at TheInstreamables.com. You can also email admin at TheInstreamables.com and that will get to us. So some of the famous fans, Weird Al Yankovic.

described they might be giants as prolific, smart, funny and great guys, citing them as one of his all time favorite bands, which is really a high honor. think Weird Al is a real human being and that's a high compliment. The guy's a bit of a quirky genius himself.

You know, and fans are still reacting. There's some modern reaction videos to Birdhouse in your soul. And they sort of show the band's continuing appeal and the joy it brings to new listeners. And that is one of the reasons I love them so much.

That's what the show is about. So we covered the quirky brilliance of Dial-A-Song, songs that started on cassette and became iconic, and the importance of embracing imperfection and creativity. Because really, I think that what I'm doing here, like I said, is I'm just trying to learn as I go, rather than be a perfectionist. I spent probably an hour trying to set things up for you today. I wonder if...

Jonathon Townley (20:56.47)
I'll get better at, I wonder if I'll get better at just kind of reaching through the lens and talking to you about these topics. I can't wait to have some guests on. I can't wait to have some guests on, including today's guest, Kyle. He's just gonna join us by video call for a little bit and we'll talk about what's coming up in his episode, which will be...

hopefully up around Valentine's Day. So, okay, let's close out. A little call to action for you. Thank you so much for tuning in. If you loved this episode, like, comment, and subscribe. What I understand, one of the keys to growing this channel.

Is the YouTube algorithm and you know, I have spoken about my my hesitancy around it But I'd also like to organically grow right and so the more you like comment and subscribe The more other people get attention to it if you can take this video and post it to your other platforms

that will really help. Sign up for the newsletter at theunstreamables.com to join the conversation and discover more rare treasures. That's where we will do most of the writing for the show. That's where we're gonna post the visuals. We'll post the YouTube videos and when we finally get it sorted out with regards to...

actually making this an audio podcast, we'll post that stuff there as well. So thank you so much for tuning in. I really love what I'm doing here and thank you for your support. We'll talk to you soon.

Jonathon Townley (22:43.726)
Thanks for listening to the very end. I'd sing through the credits, but nobody wants to hear that, so I'm going to put them up on the screen now instead. Also want to thank Kyle Suppley and Michael Fellows for his research work. You can find all of this and more at TheUnstreamables.com.

Jonathon Townley (23:32.499)
Welcome back. My name is John.