Search - Game Theory :: Lolita Nation

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John L Murphy | Los Angeles | 02/06/2006

(4 out of 5 stars)

"I'm posting this review here as well as there, the two places the album's listed, for maximum exposure. By the way, The Loud Family has a website and links to Scott Miller's earlier band, Game Theory. The "Ask Scott" column on the site reveals him to be not only witty and erudite but gracious and as eclectic in his reading, thinking, and listening as you'd expect.



The legend of this album has only grown since it appeared, and the impossibility of finding a CD version (unless auctioned for over $100) makes it all the more desired. As the comments here accurately summarize, this ambitious collection should not be the first, but probably the fourth album you listen to. I am exactly the same age as Scott Miller, and so I have always felt as if he was speaking for me. Amazing to think that I read a review of their first or so EP in the same issue of BAM that mentioned on the same page another indie EP: REM's "Chronic Town." The other GT releases I'd recommend in order are Big Shot Chronicles, the most compact and punchy; Real Nighttime, the first strong one from the mid-80s; and either Two Steps, not nearly as lackluster as I thought it was in the wake of Lolita Nation when it first appeared, or the wonderfully titled Tinker to Evers to Chance compilation. Distortion of Glory collects, and re-records, some of the early ep's.



I had transferred LN from my LPs to digital files (recommended as the LPs can still be found used at a fraction asked for the much rarer CD), rather time-consuming, but it also allowed me to punch up the bass levels, for as much as I love Mitch Easter's production, the trebly quality and Scott Miller's pitch do make for a rather wobbly sonic assault at times as the minutes accumulate in an album that demands attention and concentration, and isn't background music. This is what made GT so engrossing: Miller and his ever-changing crew may have made him the Mark E Smith of college rock's heyday, but his talent, intellect, and self-deprecating persona made his gift for hooks and his ear for tunes and those who could express his musical swirl as if effortlessly--all this is concentrated and pulverized on these 27 tracks. It was compared to Finnegans Wake in one review; the possibilities of language and its fracturing and reassembly have, remarkably, been little exploited by others in indie rock before the advent of sampling and ProTools. Leave it to a computer code-writing genius with a penchant for recording on the side to make this a mind-expanding reality.



I played it the other day to see how it had weathered time. The collages and the tinkly keyboards, two characteristic features throughout Miller's career, come to the forefront here, sometimes at the expense of the guitar-bass-drum crunch. The album does go on at times beyond one's ability to sit through it, but the sprawl invites one's admiration, if not always promotes its willfully eccentric accessibility. The contributions of Gui, Gil, Shelley, Donette, and the supporting musicians Easter invited (along with himself) to play deserve acclaim. This is a perhaps inevitably uneven and at times playfully annoying album, but for sheer reach, it far surpasses nearly everything else from its time. Five stars for effort, if only four, honestly, for achievement: this could have been crafted for CD if not 2 LPs originally and better have used its running time, in hindsight. It's fun, but wearying in its density. Half of it's great, the other half never less than listenable, which for a struggling indie band working in bits and pieces on a tiny label and small budget is quite a success.



In closing, I might add that a former member of GT told me that even her CD copy of LN had been given to her by a fan years after it had been issued! Such is the rarity of it, apparently. So, tape the LPs and we can only hope for its reissue one day in some remastered remodeled 20th anniversary edition. I suppose some legal wrangling must be preventing the re-release of GT (and Loud Family) records? Here's a plea for them again, as new fans who missed out the first time around should not have to languish when such enjoyable and smart music awaits.

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I'm really the first to review this?

Arthur R. Blose | Hummelstown PA | 09/02/2005

(5 out of 5 stars)

""Lolita Nation" is one of the very best power-pop (if that term even begins to encompass the depth and breadth of this band) albums of the 80's (came out in '87). Scott Miller may be familiar to some as the leader of the Loud Family, whose most accessible long player was 92's "Plants & Birds & Rocks & Things". Scott is an extremely literate lyricist, a writer of great pop hooks, but has a bit of a grating vocal style (at least for the uninitiated). His body of work includes all the Game Theory LPs, along with the Loud Family canon. He has been out of commission since 2000, and the loss is immense. If you can get past the quirks, you will find some of the best pop songs ever written right here.



Lolita Nation (at 26 songs) is a huge undertaking initially, until you get the hang of where Scott is going (some songs are snippets, some repeat themselves in later albums, some backward-reference earlier records, it all ties together eventually, believe me). But patience allows the major songs to emerge, and the hooks will stay in your head forever.



I originally found this in a used bin in Lincoln NE in 1992, on the recommendation of a friend that I just had to own the song "The Real Sheila". He was right. I had just bought "Plants, etc." and had an idea of the structure and self-referential style.



Initially, this perfect song appears to overshadow everything else on the LP. But be patient. The songs all assert themselves over a few listens (think about discovering Zen Arcade, Get Happy or Disintegration, and watching the gems fall out). "Last Day That We're Young" captures a moment we all have gone through, and has never been stated better. He generously gives air time to one of his female musicians, and "Mammoth Gardens" and "Look Away" are 80s classics that the Bangles or the Go Go's should have done.



"One More For St. Michael" will thrill Star Trek" junkies, and "Waist and Knees" rocks as well as anything out at the time. This record (as far as I can tell) starts some Scott patterns, such as songs with two women in the title, and the "Where" series of songs (see "Interbabe Concern" for more on this).



In summary, this is a truly coherent album. The more you listen, the more it makes sense, and the more you see the beginning/middle/end and make the journey with Scott. I know punk was supposed to blow off these "rock opera" like structures, but look at Husker Du, and how they embraced a "concept" album (twice, actually).



You should also check out the other GT releases available, especially "Big Shot Chronicles", and all the Loud Family releases. The man has absorbed his sixties gods, but more than anything, he absorbed the sprit of Alex Chilton. His own voice and studio tricks obscure the picture a bit, but at heart, this is music in the true spirit of "#1 Record" and "Big Star".



Buy it, love it, make it a part of your life. This is a guy who will be "discovered" 20 years from now, and his praises will be sung to the rooftops. Beat the masses, and discover him now.



Art Blose

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