Out of Print and Unavailable – Page 27

Diet Band of the Land (2003)

We had a lot of fun with this one. The idea behind Diet Band of the Land was that one of the things me and Beth were really into doing at the time was trying many different flavors of soft drinks, in addition to coming up with our own signature style of drink and snack recipes that we ended up publishing some of as part of our Band Of The Land Newsletter, which is something I go into more detail about in the page about the first Baseball Effect movie.

So we made this whole album that mostly consisted of songs about soft drinks and other culinary adventures.

There’s a song about a limited edition Pepsi flavor that was around at the time called “Pepsi Blue”, a song called “The Search for Dr. Brown” about how hard it was to find Dr. Brown soda, a song called “Carbonation” that was also about soda, and a song called “Fishy” that we wrote by interviewing 5 different members of The Band Of The Land about their relationships to fish and other seafood – we were able to interview 5 different members of the band pretty quickly because, like many of my bands, The Band Of The Land had a number of members who only appeared on one or two albums or songs, and sometimes even just as a co-writer on a song, but all of them ended up playing a unique role in the broader lore and dynamics surrounding the band, so they were still considered members of the band in this abstract sense – me and Beth were always the core of this particular band, though.

This was a really fun album to write, because until then, I’d mostly been focused on writing songs about romance and heartbreak – writing a whole album that was mostly about soft drinks and food was a good way to mix things up a bit, and it’s one of the things that inspired me to start writing all the songs I’ve written since that are about all kinds of topics that aren’t normally covered in songs. It’s also more fun to listen to as a result, and it was almost as popular as our most popular cassette release, The Band of the Land and the Mic that Goes Around Your Neck.

recipe for “Diet Band Of The Land”, a drink inspired by the album of the same name, published in The Band Of The Land Newsletter

from Out of Print and Unavailable Discography (with The Band Of The Land)
The Scarf Soundtrack (2004)
Band Of The Land Beach (2004)
Costa Rica for Christmas (2003)
The Band Jams (2003)
Diet Band Of The Land (2003)
The Band Of The Land and the Mic That Goes Around Your Neck (2003)
Finally Not Just the Two of Us (2003)

(or, go to the beginning for the full list of out-of-print and unavailable projects)