In these days of instant pop stars, it's vindicating to find people who appreciate the Egg's unwavering, if underground, commitment to excellence. The good souls at the following publications have said kind things about us, not under duress or for payola, but simply because they are smart. And right. They are, we'd even say, at the forefront of what is smart and right. So a special thanks to the New Haven Advocate, Sixeyes, My Old Kentucky Home, Stylus, PopMatters, Phony Nowhere, Musings of an Indie Kid, Each Note Secure, Muruch, Beautiful Sounds, ORTF, TofuHut, Green Music Blog, Catbirdseat, Fingertips, Largeheartedboy, You Ain't No Picasso, Tuwa's Shanty, The Bestever Blog, Autismland, Antidisingenuousmentarianism, This, That, and the Brother, music-news.com, cokemachineglow (sort of), Chromewaves, The Perm and the Skullet, 4F, Turquoise Days, Eric Danton's blog, Musings of an Indie Kid, the Yale Herald, El Badaluque, Waxfruit, and Southcoasting. And of course Always Double Back.

The Pleasures of Indulgence
Stylus (Soulseeking column)
By Ian Mathers

I'm fortunate that Nick's “The Perfect Listener” diptych has recently been the focus of Soulseeking, as he brings up an issue that I want to use this space to be totally perverse about. To paraphrase social scientist Barry Schwartz unlimited choice can produce genuine suffering. In the past a person could have, with varying degrees of difficulty and obsession, kept up with every (for example) rock record being released in a given year. Then, for a while, you could at least make a credible claim for keeping up with all the “important” releases (by whatever metric you'd like to employ), but you'd be hard pressed to argue that those days persisted into the 80's, let alone more recently.

We're all drowning in music. Part of this sensation may be the result of personal history; in my case, I came into my purchasing power seemingly just as the amount of available music exploded into infinity (and not just thanks to Napster). There are whole other columns to be written on how you could or should react to this, but I want to talk about something else. I want to talk about really big albums. Not just double, not even triple, but massive albums, chock full of songs, hours of them.

It started with receiving Joy Division’s Heart and Soul box set for my birthday. All four discs went onto my iPod for airing at work and for about a week I found it difficult to listen to anything else. It was an almost embarrassingly luxuriant experience, immersing myself in just one band, multiple versions of songs, poring over every last scrap. I was able to just let the discs play—I was going to listen to them repeatedly, so I didn't always have to be paying full attention. But I realize now I was still treating those four discs as discrete albums, as thing to be experienced in one chunk; I hadn't gone far enough.

Next I dug out my copy of the Caretaker's Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia. Those who remember the justly enthusiastic review of the album here at Stylus may be wondering how, or why, I own a copy; wasn't the whole thing free to download? It was, and is, but James at V/Vm took the risky step of releasing a special edition of the whole shebang; 6 CDs (ranging from 37 to 44 minutes long) in a jumbo DVD case, complete with liner notes and artwork. It's the sort of project that only breaks even, and there's plenty to say about why I care so much about possessing the absolutely lovely music as an object as well as just on my computer, but the basic point is: It's too long. Not only is it too long, such is the hauntingly blurred nature of the music therein that it doesn't make much sense to decide you're going to haul out disc four today because that's what you're in the mood for. Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia defeats attempts to engage with it as a traditionally conceived album; really, all you can do is put the whole thing on, hit the “shuffle” button, and see what happens.

This, even more so than Heart and Soul, was tremendously freeing. Nothing relaxes the album-obsessed mind quite so much as loading up three hours of music with no lyrics or much other audibly human activity to focus on, and just soaking it up for as long as you can bear. Functionally, even if I wanted to queue up all of the “Memories” on the Caretaker discs in the “proper” order, the experience would be close to listening to it on random. The sheer impossibility of judging the music is part of the appeal—either you like and understand the sound, or you don't, and in the former case with the shuffle and repeat buttons the experience can last as long as you want.

Once again I felt irresponsible, but as good as the Caretaker is I hadn't reached the limit of my newfound appreciation of albums too big to grapple with in traditional fashion. Luckily a while back I was sent a rather unique item going by the name of Open Book: The Collected Thunderegg 1995-2004. It's not really an album so much as a succession of them, eight records and 213 songs crammed onto one data CD. All of that music is primarily the work of one Will Georgantas. Thunderegg was and is now a band, but much of Open Book are demos record by Georgantas, not to mention the band's similarly interesting project to post a free song a week during 2005. The music is very different than the Caretaker, of course; fairly standard bedroom indie pop/rock, with the sheer scope of the project allowing Georgantas to go in as many directions as he'd like to, from whimsy to grandiosity and back again.

It's still pretty easy to tell tracks from the more polished The Envelope Pushes Back from the more fragmentary likes of Powder to the People or New England Music. But it's also clearly the same group of guys, and given the rather drastic range of each album it's not hard to think of any random play-through of Open Book as its own album. I haven't assimilated the bulk of the compilation yet, and maybe I never will, but the great benefit of dipping into Open Book is that this no longer bugs me. There's some beautiful, raucous, funny, touching stuff in there, and the more obsessive compulsive/fannish parts of me wants to atomize the whole collection until I can discern which bits I like the best. But that part is slowly loosening up when faced with the blunt fact of 523 minutes of music.

And happily, that effect seems to be trickling down, part of the great slow thaw of my listening habits. When you consider that we can no longer be on top of things, you can retreat into creating what Nick called a “retirement fund of cultural artifacts,” you can make yourself miserable striving to keep up, or you can start to let go and care more about whether you like what you're listening to than if your listening is somehow “complete.” The latter is the happiest and healthiest option; it's not as if I suddenly hate albums, I was raised rockist and I'll probably always use them as my primary unit of listening, but I feel less and less as if I have to “keep up” with the overwhelming number of them that get produced.

The likes of Theoretically Pure Anterograde Amnesia and Open Book are wonderful listens in themselves, yes, but the freedom engendered by music's existence as a digital thing which allows these kinds of sprawling assemblies to be put together perversely enough also allows them to be freeing to the listener. If a fair bit of loving music enough to read about it as well as listen to it is stepping back occasionally to just appreciate it, these sorts of albums are the mountains we climb to appreciate our sea level lives, the fasts we take to whet our appetites, the long strange trips we take to come back home. Both immersive aesthetic affairs and palate cleansers, they're not the sort of thing the 10-CD-a-year person wants or needs, but to those of us toiling in the trenches out of love, I cannot recommend the experience highly enough.

Mellifluous Wednesday: Thunderegg
Song, by Toad

Well after all that frothing and complaining I needed something to settle me down and here I have it. Mellifluous is going to be the word of the week and will crop up in at least two more posts before the weekend, so if you have any sort of allergy then I suggest you keep your adrenalin syringe handy.

Today's portion of mellifluvium (now that really should be a word!) is served by Thunderegg, a relaxingly familiar bunch of indie slackers (actually I don't know this for a fact, I'm completely making it up because of their sound) from New York and Connecticut. They'd be indie kids actually, but for the fact that they have all long since left that sort of kid-dom behind and settled into another sort altogether.

This kind of grown-up, settled perspective informs much of their songwriting, both in terms of subject matter and the sound. For to listen to Thunderegg is to call to mind that kind of Sunday lunchtime pottering about that is so satisfying and yet so normal. They fall somewhere between the likes of The Pernice Brothers (less dreamy), Death Cab For Cutie (less ambient) and the more.. ..wait for it... ...mellifluous! moments in the Yo La Tengo songbook.

So if you like a DIY ethic and wry songwriting backed with mellif.. sorry, simply assembled, direct melodies then look no further than their myspace page where you can preview and download some tracks and buy a few more. You can also get in touch with them through their webpage which is extremely download-friendly and buy some stuff. I would recommend This Week, which is a collection of the best bits from their recent song-a-week-for-a-year project, with similarities to The Wedding Present's Hit Parade project (in ethos if not in style!), but have an eye for Open Book - a whopping omnibus of roughly nine hours of Thundereggery that will keep your ears occupied for weeks to come.

Thunderegg: This Week
Perfect Porridge

Bedroom rock that’s smart but not smarmy, emotional but not evasive, Georgantas has an authentic, level-headed approach to songwriting and lyricism that kills softly with its song.

Open Book: The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004
PopMatters
By Neal Hayes

Open Book: the Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004 might be one of the best bargains in rock history. The anthology, which comes with a 108-page lyric booklet, includes the first eight Thunderegg albums in MP3 format on a data CD, and it is available on the band’s website (www.thunderegg.org) for a mere twenty-five dollars. Although currently a six-piece band, Thunderegg began as the solo project of Will Georgantas, a songwriter with a penchant for quirky, confessional lyrics and pleasant arrangements. On Open Book, Georgantas makes the most of his four tracks of cassette recording space, drawing on a sonic palette consisting of guitars, drum machines, shaken percussion, keyboards, and vocal harmonies. His songs range from spare acoustic ballads to delicate instrumentals to catchy pop-rock numbers. Not every song works, but a surprising amount of the music is very good, and the collection is consistently enjoyable. Listeners who invest in Open Book can look forward to spending hours tracing the evolution of a unique artist and enjoying high quality independent music.

Thunderegg: Open Book
Waxfruit

Thunderegg's album Open Book is easily the best value ever in the history of time, a CD with the band's first eight albums, recorded between 1995 and 2004, that also includes a 108 page illustrated book with all the lyrics therein and some rather lovely drawings also.

Considering the quanity of the songs on this release the quality is fantastic; I was really impressed with how good the songs are. It's really interesting to hear the band's growth from the original albums to the later albums, which have a fuller, more ambient sound.

There is a good deal of varitation in the songs which is really important considering the volume on offer in this package. Personally I prefer the more acoustic-based songs to the more up-tempo pop rock songs, but there is easily enough good songs on here for the listener to return many many many times.

This is the kind of band that the Indie scene is all about, a great band giving it all back to the listeners. This band deserves your love!

Thunder and the Mountain
Southcoasting
By Jon Simmons

The only two essential bands in America today: Thunderegg and the Mountain Goats. The 'Egg bask in semi-obscurity ("poised to break into cult status"), the Goats have grown into a major label cult, but both have been incredibly productive, in spite of their obscurity, and are writing some of the best songs in America today.

[Thunderegg's] latest product is the full-band debut "A Very Fine Sample of What's Available at the Mine" (2005), the kind of (as they say on the website) "100 percent do-it-yourself, straightforward, head-nodding rock album people don't really make anymore." However, their magnum opus has been Open Book, released early this year: 213 newly mastered songs, 523 minutes of mp3 files on a single data CD collecting together the first full 8 albums plus some extra tracks, with a 108 page book of lyrics, in a limited edition of 1000. It's an absolutely stunning achievement, and filled to the brim with classic songs. Probably one of the most essential music items so far (so-fa) of the 21st century.

Don't Break My Egg, My Achey Breaky Thunderegg
The Yale Herald
By Rachel Khong

Singer-songwriter and one-time Yalie Will Georgantas, TC ’95, sings about love and sometimes little yellow candy: “Little yellow candy rolling up and down the subway car, I wanna know what kind of candy you are/You could be a jellybean or a Lemonhead/You might be a Skittle, or maybe an M&M instead/I may not know what you are but I know what you gotta do: You better roll away right from under that passengers boot/Roll away, little candy!”

Yale Herald: Thunderegg—is that sort of like thunderthighs?
Will Georgantas: I hope not. It’s actually the state rock of Oregon. It’s sort of like a geode, a volcanic rock that has pretty silicates inside it. Historically the light-heavy dichotomy is important in rock music: Led Zeppelin, Iron Butterfly, Anvil Custard, Thunderegg. One of those is not a real band, but I won’t tell you which one.

YH: As a former Yalie, do you have any favorite places to get eggs in New Haven?
WG:I liked the Trumbull dining hall’s Eli Breakfast Sandwich. I also lived in New Haven until the February after my graduation. I always thought The Pantry on State St. did a nice job with their eggs.

YH: Hens lay one egg a day and continue brooding until they obtain whole clutches of maybe 10 eggs. In 2005 you did a “Song of the Week” project for which you wrote one song every Monday for 52 weeks, and Open Book contains eight albums of 213 newly mastered songs. Describe your process of songwriting: How do you do it?
WG: The pre-Thunderegg band, known as Larry, generally wrote songs by drinking a lot of beer and rocking out. Gradually it became a more solitary process. I have a melody in mind first, either from messing around on the guitar or humming something into my mini-tape recorder. Then I write the words away from an instrument. When I was in college, I wrote all my song lyrics in class. I appreciate that information about hens: I had no idea they accumulated such large clutches.

YH: I think what impresses me so much about Open Book is that you combine the sad and hilarious so seamlessly, with stuff like, “If I went on a diet, then would you love me? Even if there were so much less of me than there used to be?” Are all the songs autobiographical? Did the supergirlfriend actually exist?
WG: A lot of it actually happened. There was a supergirlfriend. There was a loft (different girlfriend). I never did lose my kids in a divorce settlement and end up with the Porsche, though. I have also never been on a diet. I probably should after all these eggs.

YH: “Little Yellow Candy” is so wonderful. What’s the story behind that? What kind of candy are you?
WG: Again, that is a 100 percent true story. There was, in fact, a little yellow candy rolling up and down the subway car. I wanted to know what kind of candy it was, ran through a few possibilities in my head, and ultimately was concerned for its safety. Strangely enough, a couple years after writing that song I came upon another little yellow candy rolling around a totally different subway car. My thought process this second time was more or less identical. I’m totally a Sour Patch Kid.

YH: There are so many themes packed into this tiny CD. A lot of it is about relationships or trying to get happy; some things just seem that they’re there for laughs. What do you find yourself writing about most?
WG: You’re right; most of this stuff is either about the quest for love or day-to-day minutiae. I’ve written some good love songs, but they’re harder to write when you’re in a stable relationship, as I’ve been for about a year now. I can’t seem to help myself with the funny little songs. I know I’ll get pigeonholed as a jokey songwriter, but if I wonder how the mail works, I wonder how the mail works. I know this is dangerous: Loudon Wainwright was a great songwriter, and the only song anyone remembers he wrote is “Dead Skunk.”

YH: What’s a secret about your that I wouldn’t otherwise learn from listening to the 523 minutes of music on Open Book?
WG: I think I pretty much wear my heart on my sleeve. I would have said that you probably don’t know how much I love puffins, but then I went and wrote a song called “Puffins.” It will be on the next album.

YH: There’s one lyric of yours that goes, “I’m reminded of my favorite Michael Bolton song: How can we be lovers if we can’t be friends?” Aside from that, do you have any other favorite pop songs?
WG: It has to be “Have a Nice Day” by Bon Jovi. Plus that chorus has the same chord progression as the Thunderegg song “In the Loft.” One day during a show I’m going to slip that in instead of the real chorus.

YH: What specific songs do you listen to when you are: a) heartbroken, b) really angry, c) eating an egg?
WG: a) Lambchop helps sometimes. b) Dead Boys—total dickheads. c) Richard Pryor—I like listening to comedy albums in the morning.

Thunderegg: Open Book
music-news.com
By Owen Gillham

Will Georgantas, the man behind Thunderegg, has undertaken over the last 10 years what can only be described as an inspired and single-minded artistic journey. Open Book, a marathon compilation that documents his artistic travels through the vehicle of 213 songs (just short of nine hours worth of music), is at its best a captivating and often deeply moving listen.

The first two albums (Universal Nut and the slightly more edgy New England Music) are beautiful, delicate compilations, serving in part as an obituary for Georgantas’ previous band. Rough, raw, mostly acoustic and often out of tune, Thunderegg’s lo-fi, lullaby ethic is at once enraging and endearing. The songs are fragile, bruised, battered (‘New England Music’, ‘Birthday Envelope’ and ‘Hold Myself Up’), funny, self-conscious (‘I wish I Had A Stove’), hilariously observant (‘Other People’s Coffee’) and not in the least ephemeral (‘Ephemeral’).

Personnel Envelo-file marks a distinct development. Without doubt the album still sits firmly in the lo-fi camp, but the noticeably cleaner production and spiky arrangement of opening track ‘Cop On A Horse’ is an immediate jolt to the system and sets something of a precedent maintained by the irritating They Might Be Giants-esque catchiness of ‘How The Mail Works’, ‘Windmill’ and ‘Old Girlfriendses’. This aside the album is permeated by quality songwriting and a sustained warmth that suggests there is still a person behind the drum machine and fuzz bass, and irrespective of any criticism, it’s worth an hour of your time just for ‘Double Reverse’ and ‘Wilson Calls It Quits’.

1997’s Thunderegg preserves the peak and trough variety of Personnel Envelo-file, but perhaps with a lighter touch on the metaphorical musical steering wheel. Amongst the intermittent trademark quirk and peculiarity there is a reversion to the perfect pop sensibility and whimsy that dominated Universal Nut with ‘Christina Stopped Playing Her Violin’, ‘Of Such Is The Kingdom of Heaven’ and ‘You Forget You Get Wet’ making sense of the record’s weaker moments.

Powder To The People and In Yanistin, are mostly instrumental and a touch patchy, the former finding its author lacking direction and perhaps struggling for words (some of the music not-so-mysteriously turns up in song form on later recordings). A brave departure into lo-fi surf rock, “a transition in subject” to quote Georgantas, or a few too many nice ideas left undeveloped, I’m not sure, but Powder To The People is certainly a low point as far as this otherwise mighty collection is concerned. In Yanistin is altogether more cohesive, its forlorn semi-acoustic instrumentals brimming with the same sensitivity that Georgantas commands through song – hear ‘I Will Never Suffer Again’, ‘The Western Sieve’ and ‘The Envelope Pushes Back Demo’ for the evidence. But for all the sensitivity, there is nothing more isolating than the cavernous reverb that concludes the prophetically entitled ‘Aim At The Night’ or the empty hopelessness of the cyclical title track (one of only a handful of fully-formed songs included here). Deeply personal, often difficult to connect with, yet exceptionally moving and rewarding given time, In Yanistin documents perfectly an artist grappling with self-doubt.

2000’s The Envelope Pushes Back and 2004’s Sweetest One between them pull together the strings of history into one rather fantastic ball of resplendent twine. The essence of Envelope… is summed up in the glorious ‘If I Went On A Diet’ – a love song to end all love songs with the bass line to end all bass lines. Sweetest One is by comparison an exercise in simplicity – drumless, melodic and void of the very personal expression of suffering I’d rather got used to after 7 hours. The euphoric ‘Long Way From Home’ paints a beautiful picture of how the memory of what has passed can replace the emptiness of even our darkest, most lonely moments, a sentiment affirmed by the honest yet hopeful ‘Plaza Song’.

So having dragged my sleeping bag, flask of tea and a week’s supply of chocolate digestives to the computer in order to report back to you folks on nine hours-worth of music, I guess the questions are ‘was it worth it?’ and ‘have I done it justice?’ I don’t think I could have even started to do this record justice.

The sheer width and breadth of it can’t be summed up in a couple of hundred words. What I hope I have done is give you enough information in this whistle-stop tour to at least persuade you to give Thunderegg a chance and that, although there is probably music within this monster of a collection that will pass you by, this fact is easily outweighed by Will Georgantas’ knack for inspired, empathetic song writing. Be selective, bung 80% of this on your MP3 player and you’ll have music for every occasion on tap for at least the next year. [five stars out of five]

Thunderegg / Open Book - The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004 (independent)
Chromewaves

This is easily the most ambitious and overwhelming submission I've gotten in ever. It's a 108-page booklet and data CD-ROM (not an audio disc) containing eight of Thunderegg's albums plus bonus tracks - all told, over 530 minutes of music. It's like a pocket-sized box set. The liner notes are filled to the brim with lyrics for every song and charming little illustrations and a helpful table of contents for the whole package. Since there's no real practical way to listen to 232 tracks (besides actually listening to them all), I went with a random sampling approach and was really surprised how consistent and good everything I heard was - some tracks are short instrumental pieces and nothing is really epic length, but there were no throwaways or blatant filler. The Egg is absurdly prolific but not at the expense of quality control. There's a definite lo-fi, 4-track cassette aesthetic going on and that, plus the songwriting style, elicits some rather obvious Guided By Voices and Neutral Milk comparisons, but there's far worse points of comparison. Will Georgantas, he who essentially is Thunderegg, has true melodic gift and a wry, humourous (but not jokey) lyrical touch. I don't know how long it'll take me, but I intend of someday getting through everything here on the CD. We should all leave a legacy on this world so impressive.

And I swear my decision to write this record up this week had nothing to do with Stereogum doing the same a few days ago. Really.

Open Book: The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004 (self released)
Crashin' In

Thunderegg is Will Georgantas and his years of hard work producing and recording 8 full albums. This singer/songwriter borders on the lo-fi with recording all of these albums in various bedrooms across NYC. His highly intelligent lyrics lay a foundation often found in old beat poets. For this collector edition, Will made a special hardback booklet packaging where you can also read many of his short stories while listening to his tales of surviving in the city over the past 10 years. Expect to see him playing out soon, now that he has a six-piece band.

Thunder + eggs = a lot of music
Eric Danton, courant.com Sound Check

Leave it to Thunderegg to extend its creativity from music to the packaging thereof.

The indepedent rock band, which has ties to Hartford, is wildly prolific. In 2005, for example, the “year of the egg,” singer and songwriter Will Georgantas posted a new mp3 on the band’s website every week. That's a lot of music. But Thunderegg’s latest project reveals the sheer scope of what Georgantas and his occasional collaborators have accomplished over the past 10 years: “Open Book: The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004,” features eight albums in their entirety, along with bonus tracks, for a staggering 213 songs totaling 523 minutes of music. On ONE CD.

Thunderegg isn’t the first to compress songs into mp3s and load the smaller files onto a CD, but no one has quite done this before. The package comes with a 108-page book featuring lyrics, album notes and illustrations and, because the disc is a CD-ROM that won’t work in a regular CD player, instructions for playing it in your computer.

“We suggest playing the songs on shuffle,” say the liner notes.

Given that “Open Book” spans a 10-year period, there is a range of different sounds. Some of Georgantas’ songs are quiet, almost folky, and some are more fully arranged mellow indie-rock tunes. Georgantas lives in New York City, and although the other three band members live in Hartford, I've only been able to find one lyric so far that might refer to our fair city: “My street hasn't been plowed in weeks,” from “Flower Hole.” Sounds to me like an all too typical winter experience in the Rising Star.

Crack That Egg: An embarrassment of pop riches on Thunderegg's new studio and retrospective albums
Brian LaRue, New Haven Advocate

Obscurity holds a certain preciousness in the arts. When a listener comes across an album or a song by a little-known and long-defunct band, or by a provincial group that has hardly left its remote hometown, or in a handmade format clearly not meant for mass consumption, that discovery feels unusually special and exciting.

Thunderegg's recent public flowering, via the 2005 album A Very Fine Sample of What's Available at the Mine and the '06 retrospective Open Book: The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004, twists the whole "precious artifact" situation. For one thing, we're presented with not a great lost album but an entire recorded legacy. Thunderegg was, for roughly a decade, the nom de four-track of singer/songwriter/multi-instrumentalist (and mid-'90s Advocate intern) Will Georgantas, who recorded and self-released eight albums while living in New Haven, New York City and Hartford; Open Book collects most songs from all eight albums, plus bonus tracks, in mp3 format (that's 231 tracks). For another thing, Thunderegg isn't special just because of the records' obscurity—the songs are often really good. Georgantas' melodies sound effortlessly executed, like he simply exhales, or stumbles upon while playing his guitar or keyboard, unusually catchy and inviting tidbits. His lyrics are wordy but unpretentious, clever but not grating, and natural-sounding enough for entire verses to go by at times before the listener realizes he's actually rhyming.

Cloaking sadness and anger in literate humor and deceptively bright melodies, the one-man Thunderegg at times recalls early They Might Be Giants; the breezy melodies and loping rhythm guitar recall Loaded-era Velvet Underground, and frequently the chord changes and countermelodies bring the Beatles to mind. But referents aside, what Thunderegg most sounds like is, simply, one guy, a couple of guitars, a keyboard, a drum machine, an active mind mulling over a series of girlfriends, and a bedroom recording technique sounding more professional with each successive album.

There's another difference between Thunderegg and the average "artifact" band—they're an active unit, still playing and recording. In some regards, they're more active than ever: For the first time since sometime in the '90s, Thunderegg is a full band, one that plays shows. A Fine Sample, the full band's recorded debut, reprises ten songs from Georgantas' back catalogue, and not one is a dud.

It's not fair to say that A Fine Sample is necessarily an improvement over the earlier versions of these songs. It's also not fair to describe the contents of Open Book as "demos"—many of the songs are much too intricately arranged for that. Rather, A Fine Sample simply offers an alternate take on these songs. While Georgantas sounds heartbroken or angry on the early versions of some of the more emotionally bare songs, he sings as if smiling proudly all through A Fine Sample. The band's album loses some of the artier angles of the earlier versions, but it gains the rush of a real rock band, as well as more confident musicianship. The new album loses the intimacy of Georgantas' demos—one of the most rewarding aspects of one-man-bandism—but it gains the loose feel of a band that's just learned a batch of songs and is still excited about them.

Thunderegg: Open Book
The Perm and the Skullet

Thunderegg (aka Will Georgantas) gave me an e-mail on recommendation from his friends the Twin Atlas and I'm so glad he did. A lot of blogs have posted about Thunderegg's most recent lp, A Very Fine Sample of What's Avaiable at the Mine (2005). But this post is devoted to the massive collection/restoration project that is Open Book.

Open Book is a collection of Thunderegg material from 1995-2004, that's eight albums, 213 newly mastered songs, 523 minutes to be exact, and a collection of bonus tracks, album notes, and the icing on the cake is a 108-page lyric book chock full of drawings, notes, lyrics, and forms from Will himself. The packaging is awesome and the run is limited to 1000 copies. If you're interested in purchasing Open Book, the cost is $25, which includes s&h.

I've sat down and listened to almost the entire collection and I implore you, this is a must own. I was unfamilar with Thunderegg (minus the recent posts on their last lp) and I was literally blown away. The 1995 album, The Universal Nut, starts everything off with lo-fi bedroom acoustics and emotional songs with subtle humor that makes them even more intimate. The next seven albums follow this same formula loosely and as time continues, so does Thunderegg's growth and exploration into songwriting and instrumentation. What makes the songs on these albums work is Georgantas and his continued intimate connection with his audience. We get to hear him grow as an artist, a lyricist, and as a musician.

There are a few favorite tracks that I was immediatly drawn to upon first listen. I'll list them here with their respective albums and provide links for you to sample the work. If you like what you hear, I highly recommend you picking up Open Book, the collected works and NEWLY MASTERED versions of the Thunderegg back catalogue. Open Book is available through the Thunderegg web site.

Thunderegg: Pure Indie
4F

A day after devoting an entire post of homage to the true spirit of indie, I get a package in the mail. I knew it was a CD since I don't get any other kind of package, but this one was heavy. I'd say it felt like a triple CD collection, but I was wrong, it was an eight CD collection and a book to boot! What I got was Open Book : The Collected Thunderegg, 1995-2004. If you didn't already know, Thunderegg is a musician/school administrator who comes to us from the latest musical mecca, Brooklyn. The book that accompanies the CD is 108 pages long complete with a table of contents, lyrics, index of song titles and index of first lines (a true first). And like any good songwriter and writer for that matter Will Georgantas gives his listeners and readers a good witty 'hook'. Here's a sampler of my favorites (in alphabetical order thanks to the index):

1. Cop on a horse, cop on a horse, he's the pride of the force,
2. Dextromethorphan, dime-store paregoric,
3. Double-date Brad, didn't want to make Rebecca feel had,
4. He built a bed based on what she said,
5. I depend upon being depended on,
6. The American standard is slipping and it's all your fault,
7. Walking in my wet shoes on the way to Saturday,
8. You told me you were born a human race,

What is also great about this collection of eight albums, eight hours and bonus tracks is the honesty behind it's creation. As Will himself explains:

Open Book is only possible thanks to big changes in the music world: the flexibility of being an independent artist, the efficiency of mp3 files, the low cost of home recording, and guerilla marketing through music blogs and tons of free downloads. At the same time, it's an actual physical object that people can hold in their hands. . .

This collection is admirable. The songs are smart, playful, melodic and masterfully crafted. At times you hear traces of They Might Be Giants, The Meat Puppets or even Yo La Tengo. Nonetheless, Thunderegg is everything indie was meant to be.

Thunderegg: Open Book
Turquoise Days

Alongside the song a week project by Thunderegg, the band recently released "Open Book," a bumper package consisting of a CD featuring 213, yes 213, songs (stored on the CD as MP3 files), and a 108-page book featuring lyrics, sleeve notes, and artwork. This release collects together eight albums recorded between 1995-2004, most originally released on cassette, some of which existed as only 5 copies.

Obviously being faced with this many songs by any band is a bit of a daunting proposition, and I think the whole thing is best viewed like a big bowl of your favorite candy. You wouldn't want to eat the whole bunch at once but it's perfect for grabbing a handful every so often. The whole collection does clearly highlight that the talent on display on last year's A Very Fine Sample Of What's Available At The Mine CD and the weekly songs project didn't just magically appear last year, with every one of these older releases showing a wealth of catchy songs brimming over with clever lyrics, and despite the limited recording facilities there's plenty of imagination in the arrangements to draw you in and hold your interest.

The Delicate Sound of Thunder
Kathleen Cei, The New Haven Advocate

How cool it was to see the band Thunderegg 's name pop up again--not just because it's a name that pops, but also because it's been so long since we've heard from this Brooklyn- and Connecticut-based band (a July show at the Kehler-Liddell art gallery in Westville was the first time the band played in front of an audience since '99). We remember fondly singer-guitarist Will Georgantas from when he was an Advocate intern years ago while at Yale (where he and two of his 'Egg bandmates Jake Fournier and Keith Woodfin played together as Larry ). "We still make mistakes here and there. But they're loveable," admits Will, via email. While they usually play as either a five-piece or a power trio, Thunderegg will crack open a special six-piece lineup Nov. 15 as the featured act for open mic night at the Space. "With keyboards, pedal steel and trumpet, there's a lot of richness to the sound," Will notes. "Sometimes it even feels like a small orchestra, kind of chamber-poppish, like the Tindersticks or Belle and Sebastian. Though we rock more." Or as Will's mom, quoted on the band's MySpace page, puts it: "Sounds like: ’Four chords and nice lyrics.'"

Thunderegg: It Was Really Pretty Good
Turquoise Days

So if you thought yesterday's post was but the gateway to a whole kaboodle of songs by the Arrogants, hold on to your hats, as today we can even top that by introducing you, if you haven't already met them, to Thunderegg. I know you're thinking, "huh the state rock of Oregon, since when has this been a geology blog?" (If you want a good time check some of those badboys out.) No, Thunderegg, in this case, is a band who have since the distant days of 1993 been making music together with various interludes of band members moving around the country. While this was going on Will from the band stayed in New York recording six CDs of four-track demos, displaying a perfect mixture of folk, pop, and some of the best heartfelt and humorous lyrics this side of the Lucksmiths. Taking some of these songs, the band recorded A Very Fine Sample of What's Available at the Mine, which you can purchase directly from them. So what have they done with those other 259 songs recorded as demos? Well, some can either be downloaded, yes, downloaded from the band's web site, purchased on separate CDs, or in the very near future they are going to put onto one MP3 CD, Open Book, which will also come complete with a very thick booklet of all the lyrics.

If that wasn't enough, Will, at the start of the year, began posting at least one new song a week on their web site to download. Every Monday you can go there and get your fix of a perfect pop gem to get you through the week. The great thing is, unlike here where we giveth the MP3 and then cruelly snatch them away from you in a week or so, you can still get all forty-plus songs that have been posted so far. So pick a week, download the song, and I guarantee you'll then want the whole bunch.

Thunderegg, A Very Fine Sample of What's Available at the Mine
Eric Danton, The Hartford Courant

It's records like this one that offer hope for Connecticut's original music scene. Thunderegg's full-band debut (after a decade of four-track releases) features ten songs that are low-key, smart, and catchy. Singer Will Georgantas has a mellow voice, and the trumpet is a nice touch on "What Was I Gonna Do?"

The Envelope Pushes Back
Ryan Tranquilla, Splendid E-Zine

Surprisingly affecting, low-key without being gratingly lo-fi, transcending the snarkiness of their personas—band members include Will Bite and Woodpile—Thunderegg deliver an hour's worth of wordy pop songs. With a productivity rivaling Guided by Voices (The Envelope... is the second of two discs recorded in 2000), Thunderegg have spent time woodshedding on their so-called "snippets" records; the new album, subsequently, doesn't substitute a quick melody and a dash of nonsense for fully constructed songs. By turns humorous and earnest, the band glows with an easy lyrical and musical intelligence. The disc comes packaged, for instance, in an actual envelope (Look at the album title again if this doesn't make sense to you—Ed.); that kind of attention to detail sets the band's music apart. Love, its pitfalls and half-triumphs, consumes much of the record, but its examination occurs without pathos and with a coy self-awareness: "Baby, you're not getting what you deserve," Bite sings on "Keep It with You". "And it's getting on my nerves/that I've shown I can't give a lot." Fortunately for the rest of us, this envelope doesn't get lost in the mail.

Thunderegg: "If I Went on a Diet"
Jane Magazine

Thunderegg Rocks!: Named after the official state rock of Oregon (and why not?), Thunderegg threesome Will Georgantas, Jake Fournier and Keith Woodfin met at Yale and have been playing sad and gorgeous songs ever since. This tune was recorded by Nathan Gohla with Jonathan Chatfield on keyboards. We're still trying to figure out how to inspire a song as pretty as this one. Say you knew 'em when and check out www.thunderegg.org.

I got an e-mail yesterday from Will Georgantas with Thunderegg, telling of an ambitious project to record one song a week for the year. In a rare show of motivation I went right off and downloaded some. I recommend "Hall Pass" and "It's Not You, It's Not Me (It's Her)," which both have a sort of lo-fi They Might Be Giants charm to them. The band's recording them on a four-track and digitizing from that, and Georgantas freely admits the technical limitations, but it's nice work: geeky, friendly, occasionally introspective, with a light humor throughout. The band promises a new song every Monday. Can't beat that. —Tuwa Baab, Tuwa's Shanty

Sometimes I think there's way too many bands in the world. Thunderegg, like many others, deserves far more attention than they're getting. They're super prolific (the informational booklet lists 163 songs recorded between 1995 and 1998) and the songs are really good. This CD is called Demo, but it probably should be titled Greatest Hits. The songs here come from three albums [Thunderegg, Powder to the People, and The Envelope Pushes Back]. Highlights included the V.U.-like opener "You Showed Them to Me," chronicling a once happy marriage gone bad. I can hear Lou Reed singing it, though the singing here doesn't come off as angry as Lou's. There's also the very nice "Christina Stopped Playing Her Violin," about a love who's found someone else. Thunderegg is mostly Will Georgantas recording to a Tascam Porta 7 4-track, aided by a SansAmp GT-2, Boss Dr. Rhythm 550, "3-for-$29.99 Sam Ash highball mics," a Yamaha home keyboard, and a bunch of old Boss effects pedals. Clever lyrics are abundant, and Georgantas is a truly original songwriter. —Rob Christensen, TapeOp

Ce qui est bien avec ce blog c’est que, de temps en temps, je tombe sur un diamant brut. Je ne veux pas déprécier toutes les autres bonnes musiques dont je parle sur ces pages, loin de là, mais j’admets qu’il existe une sorte de satisfaction très spéciale quand on trouve un groupe dont peu de gens ont encore parlé, et quand on a envie de crier sur les toits, Hé! Venez écouter bande de…

C’est le cas avec Thunderegg, un groupe que je gardais sous le coude depuis quelques semaines, le temps que leur compte chez CDBaby soit activé. Au départ, j’ai reçu un mail du groupe m’invitant à venir découvrir leur initiative absolument étonnante consistant à poster une fois par semaine tout au long de l’année 2005 une de leurs chansons à télécharger— ils en sont actuellement à la semaine 28 ce qui veut dire qu’il y a plein de bonnes choses à dénicher; j’admets que je n’ai même pas fini de tout écouter.

Enfin , pour une fois, un peu de perspective. Ce groupe est très bien, mais il n’est pas le prochain—insérez ici votre déité personnelle du panthéon rock—. C’est de la bonne indie pop/rock, le genre de chose qui fait chaud à l’intérieur, et donne envie de les accompagner en fredonnant dès la seconde écoute. J’espère qu’ils vont continuer à faire des choses de qualité ensemble, mais même si le groupe se sépare la semaine prochaine, il aura toujours un petit coin réservé dans mon cœur d’indie rocker pour l’accueillir.

Ils décrivent leur musique comme un ‘shed rock’ [shed -> abri, cabane, remise], par opposition au ‘garage rock’. C’est un bon descriptif de ce sentiment qui de dégage des chansons mineures, presque country par moments, lo-fi et abrasives à d’autres. Le groupe est composé du trio classique guitare, basse et batterie avec l’assistance occasionnelle d’autres guitaristes, ou d’un trompettiste et parfois d’un organiste. Bien qu’ils viennent de sortir leur tout premier ‘vrai’ album [incitation subliminale—achetez-le chez CDBaby—], ils ont d’énormes archives de chansons datant de 1995, et peut-être de plus loin encore. J’ai l’impression qu’ils peuvent donner de très bonnes choses [s’ils arrivent à mater leur tendance épisodique au Lloyd-Colisme, ce désir de coller trop de syllabes ‘dures’ sur des lignes mélodiques qui ne disposent pas, tout à fait, de toute la place pour ça—écoutez The Envelope Pushes Back en streaming à CDBaby pour un exemple].

Et—si vous vous posiez la question—un Thunderegg est une sorte de gemme semi-précieuse dotée d’un centre, souvent en forme d’étoile, mais formée d’autres matériaux. —Green musicBlog

A l'instar de mon compadre, j'ai reçu récemment une invitation à découvrir la musique de Thunderegg. Et comme lui, je suis sous le charme. Avec un projet de cette ampleur (le groupe poste une nouvelle chanson chaque semaine), il est évident que tout n'est pas toujours du même niveau. Mais lorsque les chansons sont bonnes, elles le sont réellement.

Je vous recommande en particulier "If I Went On A Diet", une petite perle qui a fait son effet dans ma maisonnée (ma dame et mon chat se sont mis à danser en se foutant ouvertement de ma gueule). Prenez une ligne mélodique aussi simple qu'entraînante, ajoutez une pincée d'humour, ne cachez pas trop votre désarroi sous-jacent. Touillez. Vous avez là un bel "oeuf de tonnerre", à consommer en repartant du bureau pour se mettre dans de bonnes dispositions. [pas de morceaux ici - tout est déjà chez Green ou en streaming sur CDBaby] —ORTF

Thunderegg is the alias of a prolific singer-songwriter whose work is distinguished by clever wordplay and the endearing way in which he sacrifices meter to fit a full lyric. He fills out his songs with guitar, bass and drum machine. Wonderfully amateurish, playful and poppy. —listen.com

With a great packaging idea, Thunderegg is one of those projects which come along once in a while, with simple songs & the odd gem which can really grab you when you first hear them. The production here is pretty good too, the whole album only slightly missing on a couple of occasions here. By & large though, I liked the whole album, with the peak being reached just about at the end of the album, on "Keep It With You," which really gets hold of you, with a simple acoustic base being the driving force as on most of the songs. Another genuine highlight comes on "The Second Coffer," as well as "Pardon Your French" & the very quirky but likeable "If I Went On A Diet." Some very interesting stuff happening here, so if you like your music fresh, check it out—you'll love the packaging, trust me. —hEARd

Thunderegg, a nice melodic guitar rock sound fronted by ballad style vocals. For an album that was claimed to be recorded to a 4-track cassette it is outstanding in content, style, production and quality. Pushing the boundaries of originality, this CD didn't come in your standard jewel case—instead it came in a large envelope! Pretty handy considering the name of the album is "The Envelope Pushes Back." Musically, I truly enjoyed the sounds of Thunderegg, it had a nice soft touch to it with progressive instruments that really captured the essence of the album. Everything merged in and out vocals colliding with instruments and back and forth throughout the album, everything was level and well, "perfect." Rating: 5/5 —Wednesday Elektra, Space Junkies Magazine

On their website Thunderegg notes "We're not famous, and we never will be" and that's really too bad because this little example of bedroom pop is a lot better than so much stuff churned out these days. This album is the band's seventh, is packaged in a snazzy envelope with the album's lyrics enclosed. Musically Thunderegg is folksy and a bit rock n roll. Overall this album is very good especially Ceiling Fan and In the Loft. The best part is that if you visit their website and email them they will send you something free. —Trevor H, The Bees Knees

"Bouncy home taping and twisted lyrics. He even whistles!" —Don Campau, No Pigeonholes Radio

"It's nice, but it's not at all suitable for artefakt, since we focus on experimental electronic explicitly non-vocal music only." —artefakt