August Single - JANICE demo - Tyson archives (Patreon)

The year was 2008, Tyson was starting to put together the early ideas for what would become The Fanastic Plastics.  JANICE was one of the first songs written for the band, but never really wound up on a release.  There are multiple other versions where we attempted to turn this acoustic demo into something more Plastic-esque, but it just never worked out.

This acoustic demo is a really fun song however.  Aside from the kick drum machine loop, the rest of the song is played entirely on a multitracked acoustic guitar.  They are a few leads also played on the acoustic that were meant to eventually be played on synths.  It's just a rare example where the acoustic early version was actually recorded and saved.  It's slow, it's silly, but somehow raw and beautiful.

The song itself is one of those story telling songs that we rarely do these days.  JANICE is not only the name of the protagonist but is also an acronym for Just Another Needy Individual Crippled by Emotion.  The acronym was not meant to be snarky, or mean spirited in any way.  The idea was that, in general, humans are needy and have emotions, where as, Robots do not.  The song is really about technology replacing humans in the workforce, but it's sort of disguised as a song about a female employee who learns a machine will replace her position soon.

We hope you enjoy this jam.