10 Year Anniversary of “Too Big To Fail” by the Twinkie Jiggles Broken Orchestra

I’m Twinkie Jiggles. I don’t use the moniker as much anymore but I spent a few blissful years of my life where I was almost equally likely to be called Twinkie rather than Sean. A long time ago the dude who did the booking at Barrio in Lowertown wanted to book my group Big Trouble but none of the dudes wanted to do it so I started my own band. I called it the Twinkie Jiggles Broken Orchestra and we set off playing a tremendous amount of lightly attended restauranty type gigs for $150-$250. Barbette, Red Stag, Sauce, Barrio (just the once, weren’t a big hit) et cetera. I was doing this in the midst of one of the biggest estuaries in my life: heavy responsibilities for Trivia Mafia, a receding role at McNally Smith but still working there, Heiruspecs is active, Dessa is crazy active, my first live-in girlfriend relationship is ending, my relationship with my now wife is starting, radio is just starting for me with me dipping my toes in at the Current. It’s all happening and I don’t know what is really going to stick. A bunch of things that feel settled in my life at 43 do not feel resolved at 33. And I’m spending a lot of time trying to make this happen while sitting in a van with the Dessa band careening across the country with questionable access to the internet.

A lot of time to think, a lot of time to stress, a lot of time to write and the inspiration of being around young writers out of McNally who are kicking ass, seeing the work that Dessa and Dustin are putting in surrounding Dessa’s albums, wanting to be involved, not knowing how to get involved. I believe the music that is dominating my life is Dawes, Frank Ocean, Aesop Rock, Future Islands, Bahamas, Joni Mitchell. These are all sort of guesses but my head is full with the idea that dense lyrics can be sung, not by me, but they can be sung. For a short period of time I live in a condo that has a piano in it. It’s right next to my bedroom. I wake up and play it and as a I play it more, more songs come out. And I start to be drawn to the piano. When I’m at Rachel’s parents house in Fargo I sat down and wrote “Hi, My Name is Ana” while the family was out of the house for I don’t know. . .one hour? Two? My fingers never felt better on a piano but those couple months. I don’t know how to get it back. I’ve got a piano now but it’s in the playroom. It’s covered in papers, paints, receipts, dolls, bath toys. It isn’t calling my name.

The Twinkie Jiggles Broken Orchestra gigs started feeling great. Joey Van Phillips on drums, DeVon Gray on keyboard, Ashley Gold on vocals. That’s the nucleus. It’s great when Chastity sang with, great when Linnea sang, when McGlone played drums, when Patrick played guitar and keyboards. But the nucleus is Joey, DeVon and Ashley. I think we had fun times. No one really came. We ate dinner, We played these songs and we started going into studios and recording. I at some point convinced myself that this record I’m talking about broke even, but it’s hard for me to believe that. Right now I’m listening to the song “Sister’s Wine”. DeVon on keys. Graham O’Brien on drums and Chastity on vocals. I’m on bass. Scott Agster played trombone, can’t remember the name of the beautiful man who played saxophone. I think it’s Bobby playing guitar. I think this song is great. I don’t need to be humble if I think the shit stands up to me.

At the writing level I wasn’t trying to make sense out of my life, I was trying to make it into a superhero’s story. It’s what inspired me to call it “Too Big to Fail”. It’s what inspired me to be rather awkwardly sex forward. If I put my professor glasses on I’ll say I wanted to assert my full humanity as a fat man who could be heartbroken, arrogant, fragile, confident, fictional, realistic and everything in between. The way it makes more sense to me is I wanted to write the stories where even where I’m the loser I’m still the hero. I wrote a bunch of songs about my struggles with my ex (Perfectly Enamored, Free Change, Easy Enough). I wrote largely fictional songs that still kind of sounded alcohol fueled and edgy (Fat Jodie, Cigarettes, Sister’s Wine). I covered a Sleater-Kinney song I used to play with my first serious girlfriend. I would play drums and she would sing and play guitar. Some of the funnest moments of my life. Play Sleater-Kinney, listen to Sade, go to Lifetime Fitness and eat at Pizza Luce. God damn it that was great.

I’m proud of this record. Some days I think about getting the band back out of retirement to play them. It would be different. It might not be worth dusting off. But I wanted to at least write about it, and remember the remembering. When the anniversaries come up for these releases in my life I both want to remember the album and also remember what I thought about them years later.

The release party was great, did it at the Icehouse. I remember being gassed up because Lizzo came out. 1000% guarantee that her and her coterie hung in the back and were far from hanging on every note we played, but still felt good that the jam was cool enough that the coolest person at that moment in the scene decided to hold court in the back of that particular room. We debuted the song Achilles at the show which I still feel is the best song that I’ve been exclusively responsible for writing.

In the end it was radio and trivia that came to dominate my working life. Still plenty of music, but a different relationship, a different angle. But I listen to this record and I want to liberate that piano from the playroom detritus and find out what’s under my fingers now.