The Mediocre Gatsby Revisited
All bands must die
Trustees of the Faux,
The first song I ever released on Bandcamp was “The Mediocre Gatsby.”
That was 5 years ago.
I had been egged on by my best friend growing up in Duluth,1 who suggested we try doing a letter-exchange blog where we wrote songs based on the news of the day and release them on Bandcamp.
We kept it up for some time but ran out of steam eventually.2
You can check our songwriting blog here.
I tried finding the original Master version of this first song in GarageBand recently and realized, to my horror, that I had deleted that Master file, likely in an effort to improve the performance of my machine.
Talk about mixed up files.
However, I did find this rough mix, which I am adding to the “Mixed Up Files” album today. Listen below:
This song name-checks a plethora of Minneapolis artists, some more famous than others. They are:
Fixed Gears are for Jerks and Lesbians3
The Replacements
Hüsker Dü
Prince
The Blue Up?
Steel Shank
Velma
Chromaphase
The Spectors
Trip Shakespeare
The Hang Ups
Rex Daisy
The Wonsers
Chatty Cathy Cathcart and the Catheter Catharsis
The Mediocre Gatsby
I’ve got a soft spot for this song for some reason.
I’d gone looking for the original master file, thinking I might be able to get a better mix than that 2018 version.
But alas . . .
It would seem, a radically improved version of this song will require starting from scratch.
There’s a story about how “Take On Me” by A-ha was released 3 times and flopped each time before getting a good video etc for it’s fourth release.
Maybe the third go-round for “The Mediocre Gatsby” will be the charm for old FAUX JEAN.
Until then, please gratify my ego and listen to the tale of The Mediocre Gatsby, as told by your humble servant,
OX&C,
Faux Jean
Here are the lyrics:
My first band,
We weren’t bad
We were not trying to reinvent the wheel
We just wanted to make music
That was fun to dance to
At parties in basements, in garages
That was fun to dance to
And we called ourselves the Mediocre Gatsby
And we had our own theme song
And it went just like this:
The Mediocre Gatsby is coming to your town
That’s right!
The Mediocre Gatsby is living in your home town!
That’s how our theme song went!
And my next band, we were called
Chatty Cathy Cathcart and the Catheter Catharsis
We were pretty good
We played around
We played some parties
And in the the Clown Lounge
And people danced and they cheered
In the Clown Lounge it felt weird
(in a good way)
But Chatty Cathy Cathcart and the Catheter Catharsis
Had to die, just like all bands must die
Like Fixed Gears are for Jerks and Lesbians
The ‘Mats and Hüsker Dü and Prince too
And The Blue Up? And Steel Shank
And Velma and Chromaphase
And The Spectors (and Trip Shakespeare)
And The Hang Ups (and Rex Daisy)
And The Wonsers
Now!
It is time, to repeat the theme song, of my first band:
The Mediocre Gatsby is coming to your town
That’s right!
The Mediocre Gatsby is living in your home town!
Mediocre Gatsby!
John Francis Klun, with whom I started a band in 1977 that never made it out of our 2nd grade bedrooms.
I had more songs I wanted to get out there than he did, perhaps.
always loved this band name.