back to article Internet finally ready to replace answering machine cassette tape

2015 will see the internet finally replace an answering machine that uses cassettes as its storage medium, or at least the answering machine used by alt.rock outfit They Might Be Giants' iconic Dial-A-Song service. They Might Be Giants created Dial-A-Song in 1983 when one member broke his wrist and the other's home was burgled …

  1. Ole Juul

    718- 387-xxxx

    If they started in 1983 then the number must have changed because the 718 area code was not created until September 1984. Also the 387 NXX was not introduced until 1994.

    1. fattybacon
      Headmaster

      Re: 718- 387-xxxx

      That's some fine pedantry there. Doffs cap.

    2. John Gamble

      Re: 718- 387-xxxx

      Hmm. My earliest TMBG CD is a 1987 release, and it has the 718-387-6962 ("Free if you call from work") number.

      I suppose it's possible that this is a re-release (I bought it in the nineties) with the booklet updated. And of course your point on the area code stands.

  2. censored

    feels like it's lost something

    Sure, you can very easily create a website that displays a different song every day. Hell, you can automate it, load it up with a million songs and leave it for all eternity. But it really loses something compared to dialling in to someone's house and listening to a song they've specially put onto the tape for people.

    If they had it all self-hosted and you knew that the song you're hearing today was specifically chosen and put there by the band, it might keep some of it's soul. But since it seems all the songs are readily available on YouTube and they're just pulling them in probably at random, it really does lose idiosyncratic charm and personal care.

  3. Frankee Llonnygog

    Surely the right choice to replace cassette tapes?

    Mercury delay lines

  4. rogue-Element

    NIght Light

    The song is about a night light the writer had as a child; it is his friend, though not his only friend, in fact not a real friend at all.

    1. Robert Ramsay

      Re: NIght Light

      God bless wikipedia...

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Birdhouse_in_Your_Soul

      1. mark 63 Silver badge

        Re: NIght Light

        thats a 25 old mystery solved for me!

    2. Oninoshiko

      Re: NIght Light

      I always thought this was quite obvious.

    3. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      Re: NIght Light

      Yes, the lyrics are hardly difficult to interpret, particularly if you ask your friendly reference librarian for help with the more obscure references. What are they teaching in schools these days?

      I'm having trouble thinking of a TMBG song that isn't pretty clear with a modicum of thought. "Minimum Wage", maybe.

  5. Mage Silver badge

    Baffled

    Digital replacements existed in the Corporate world from late 1980s. (Hard drive based Voicemail systems for PABX)

    I think they were asking the wrong people.

    Gradually the price reduced and storage increased over last 20 years.

    1. mark 63 Silver badge

      Re: Baffled

      yes i was about to say the same. And will do:

      If their 2006 computer was outwitted by a 1983 answering machine they must have been doing something wrong!

  6. Avatar of They
    Pint

    Awesome band.

    That is not the weirdest lyric by any stretch of any imagination in any universe.

    "Dr worm", "I palindrome I", "the triangle man song.", "Minimum wage" To name some of the other oddities.

    They do a kid friendly matinee on stage with the "Avatar of They" glove puppet (hence my name on this forum) and are completely mental.

    They are scientists as well, adding healthy (proper actual science) science in songs and on stage "the sun is a ball of incandescent gas, a gigantic nuclear furnace." became "the sun is a miasma of ever changing plasma" etc. As science moved on our understanding about the sun. :)

    I never knew any of the dial a song stuff apart from their compilation album having that name. Makes a lot more sense now to some of the references in there.

    Thanks Reg - have a beer.

    1. Tom Chiverton 1

      Re: Awesome band.

      Triangle man was about wrestling wasn't it ? Bless Loony Tunes !

      1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

        Re: Awesome band.

        Triangle man was about wrestling wasn't it ? Bless Loony Tunes !

        The song's title is "Particle Man", and the cartoon in question is part of an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures, not the older WB Loony Tunes series. It's a good one, though, with Plucky Duck in the eponymous role.

        The wrestling interpretation used by the TTA writers is a variant reading that doesn't fit particularly well with the entire text. A less-resistant reading is probably just to see the song as the typical TMBG dream-logic treatment of the four-color-comic superhero genre.

        But meaning inheres in the reader, not the text. It can be as much about wrestling as you like.

    2. Swarthy

      Re: Awesome band.

      Don't forget "Wearing A Raincoat" for some weird lyrics.

      "Being awake is swimming around In a lake of the undead And the undead are like a bunch of friends That demand constant attention"

  7. phil dude
    Coat

    a free idea...

    Here's a free one, as my coffee kicks in.

    Something that answers the phone, and when you get put on hold plays YOUR music, until the human comes back...

    Your Welcome.

    P.

  8. Frumious Bandersnatch

    answering machine works both ways

    I always figured that the conversation in "Untitled" on the "Miscellaneous T" album (two people apparently in a conference call) was accidentally recorded on their Dial-A-Song answering machine.

  9. Crazy Operations Guy

    Maybe they could use Skype, or somethign similar?

    They could always limit the bandwidth for the audio (Or use Comcast) to simulate the bad quality of a land line with dropped packets. Then they could expand the service into video by doing something like re-record the music videos by way of pointing a VGA-resolution webcam at a television.

  10. kilgore trout

    "I don't want the whole world .... I just want your half"

    1. Michael Wojcik Silver badge

      ... which line was recorded using an answering machine. (Don't know if you're already aware of that, and this was just a wink for the knowing. If that's the case, no soap, radio.)

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