Scrambies Celebrates the 10th Anniversary of the National Biscuit Company's On the Dance Floor

On April 18, 1998 my old band, the National Biscuit Company, released its first full-length album (following two EPs), On the Dance Floor. In honor of this anniversary, Scrambies is making the album's five best tracks available for free. (You can buy the rest at iTunes, but I'm not sure that any of the songs is worth the 99¢ you'd pay for it.) Here they are (MP3s all):

• "On the Dance Floor"


• "How's It Going?"


• "Shoot the Moon"


• "Lenina"


• "Take Me Home"

Five years ago, in honor of the fifth anniversary of Dance Floor's release, I wrote (using the moniker Jefferson Wilson) a piece called "I Think I Flipped Along the Way: The Legacy of On the Dance Floor" for Carligula.com. It tells you more than you could ever want to know about this otherwise forgettable musical recording. Here's a taste:

On the Dance Floor was certainly not an ambitious studio album. The project, recorded on two ADAT machines in a home studio over the course of a few weeks for $400, was certainly no masterpiece. "If I remember correctly," Tinley recalls, "Tim was under the impression that we'd just recorded 12 demos. He didn't find out that we planned to release an album until it was too late." . . .

On the Dance Floor is musically obvious: It opens with its snappy-title track; many of the songs are built on conventional major-key chord patters; a handful of mellow tunes break up the otherwise upbeat track listing; the album's penultimate track, "Take Me Home," is its longest and heaviest and is followed by "My Everything," the album's ethereal swan song. With regard to composition, the album is safe and uninspired with a few exceptions. The title track's intro builds into a memorable chorus that repeats throughout the remainder of the song only to be interrupted by an organ solo and a short bridge. "Empty," the only song written in a minor key, provides the listener with a much needed respite from the album's unapologetic pop tunes. "Nothing New," featuring Gober on lead vocals, is musically odd, mixing raunchy guitar riffs and jingle-jangle pop, all highlighted by Fuzzell's drum heroics.