Discography: Jon Brion
Revision 2.14h (1 January 2009)
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This document is a discography of:
Jon Brion
Copyright © 1997-2008 by John Relph.
The latest revision of this discography can be found at:
http://idiot-dog.com/music/brion.jon/
Visit Fairfax Avenue:
http://fairfax-avenue.com/
Visit the Largo for Jon Brion's Friday night show:
http://largo-la.com/
Join the Embrionic list, for email discussion of the music of Jon Brion:
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/Embrionic/
Visit The Grays unofficial site:
http://alienmindbenders.com/grays/
Some information was gleaned from the Jellyfish discography (Chris Bray),
the Aimee Mann discography (Gary G.) and from the MusicCentral database.
Special thanks to: (in alphabetical order)
Dave Ambrose, Griffith Davies, Alan Thomas DeBoer, Sarah Diamond,
John Dunbar, Evan, Lee Farber, Don Fertman, Chris Flinchbaugh,
Chris Franz, Adam Gimbel, Richard Gratzer, Probyn Gregory,
Ben Hasler, Eric Shane Helmer, Rob Holloway, Brian Kehew,
John Krivit, Cindy Lamb, Ed Lynn, Angela McGregor, William Murphy,
Reyn Ouwehand, Lon Palmer, Spike Priggen, Ed Rotchford,
Jonathan Rundman, Clay Russell, Elizabeth Setler, Ben Steidel,
Jack Steinmann, Margaret Strader, Truck, Uyen, John Wickham,
Tommi Zender, Marty Zucker.
Plain-text discography available upon request.
Michel Gondry directed a video for the Kanye West song “Heard 'Em Say”. Jon Brion, co-producer of the song, appears in the video, playing a miniature piano in the toy section of Macy's.
Jon Brion wrote the theme to VH1's Behind the Music 2.
Jon Brion and Dusk Bennett were involved in the initial production of Fiona Apple's album Extraordinary Machine, but Mike Elizondo was given the final production duties.
Jon Brion has been doing a weekly stint at the Largo in Los Angeles, every Friday night. He goes on pretty late (11pm - 2am), does an amazing one-man show, and often has guest musicians on stage. He and his show get a name-check in P. Hux's “Yet to Say” from the International Pop Overthrow Volume 4 compilation.
A big party was held at the Largo on July 18th, 1997, to celebrate his signing to Lava/Atlantic Records. It was his 50th show at Largo.
Efforts are underway to rerelease The Bats' 1982 album How Pop Can You Get? on CD, including bonus tracks. However, release of the CD has been delayed. The album was released as a digital download in July 2008. A video was made for The Bats song “Paranoid Schizophrenic” which received some airplay on HBO Video Jukebox back in the early days of music video.
In 1988 World's Fair, with Jon Brion, recorded six tracks at Q Division in Boston. The recordings were never released. The tracks included “Heaven in Disguise”, “Impossibility”, “Waiting for the Sun”, “Never a Better Time”, “Truth Takes a Fall”, and “Better You Than Me”.
Jon Brion was born in Glen Ridge, New Jersey, the son of a classical-conductor father and a nightclub-singer mother. By the age of ten, Jon was playing drums, flute and trumpet; as a New Haven high school student, he drummed with a semipro jazz band led by Willie Ruff and Dwike Mitchell (a/k/a The Mitchell/Ruff Duo). “But years before that I was banging on guitar, bass, synthesizers — whatever was around. My dad knew some people who were clinicians for Moog, who were friends in turn of Philip Glass and Steve Reich.”
The Sex Pistols' God Save The Queen, Jon recalls, “was the first rock music I'd heard since age four that really excited me, the first thing that had the same power as the Basie brass section!” Two or three enthusiastically thrashy punk bands later, Jon retired from music at the ripe old age of 20.
“I started listening to records that affected me more than what I was doing. Like Billie Holiday — that was everything I wanted out of music, great medicine, great fun. I worked a variety of jobs at recording studios — assistant engineer, keyboard programming — and eventually started using the studio where I was working. In the middle of the night, I'd be pacing, playing the piano . . . with nobody listening, I could scream my head off! I wrote an astronomical number of songs.”
In 1987, Jon moved to Boston. He played solo gigs with an acoustic 12-string guitar, formed another short-lived band called World's Fair, and later joined Aimee Mann and Buddy Judge in the last touring version of 'Til Tuesday.
I have chosen not to list singles from albums that Jon Brion appears as a guest musician, unless those singles include non-LP songs. Similarly, I have decided not to include compilations or collections which include songs from such albums. This job is difficult enough as it is.
Recent changes to this document are indicated by green type.
num. numbered ltd. limited ed. edition
p/s picture sleeve std. standard s/s stock sleeve
s/l slimline j/b jewel box promo promotional
c/n catalog number g/f gatefold p/d picture disc
b/i back insert p/b paperboard w/s widescreen
Album: full album release, in one or more of the formats below:
LP 12" vinyl long-player (33 1/3 RPM)
CD Compact (digital) disc (std. j/b unless otherwise indicated)
CT (Mini-) Cassette tape
8T 8-track tape (obsolete)
RT Reel-to-reel tape
DC Digital Compact Cassette tape
MD MiniDisc (digital magneto-optical)
CR CD-R (CD Recordable or Read-Write)
SA Super Audio Compact Disc (SACD)
DA DVD Audio
DR DVD-R (DVD Recordable or Read-Write)
DD Digital Download (see Other Formats below)
Single: single or EP release, in one or more of the formats below:
7" 45 RPM vinyl
10" 45 RPM vinyl
12" 45 RPM vinyl
C3 CD-3, 3" (8 cm) CD single
C5 5" (12 cm) CD single (s/l j/b unless otherwise indicated)
CS (Mini-) Cassette single (p/b p/s unless otherwise indicated)
EP Extended play single or mini-album (vinyl, usually 33 1/3 RPM)
F7 7" flexi-disc, flexible vinyl single (usually one-sided)
Video: video release, in one or more of the formats below:
VHS VHS-format video tape
Beta Beta-format video tape
BRD Blu-ray Disc
UMD Universal Media Disc (Sony PlayStation Portable)
HVD High-Definition Versatile Disc (HD DVD)
DVD Digital Versatile (Video) Disc (including DVD-ROM)
VCD Video CD, popular in Asia (MPEG1)
CLV Video disc in Constant Linear Velocity format (8" or 12")
CAV Video disc in Constant Angular Velocity format (8" or 12")
LDS Laser Disc single (Japan)
VHD Video High Density, obsolete laser disc format (Japan)
NTSC Video format for U.S.A. and Japan
PAL Video format for the E.C. (except France), Scandinavia, Australia
SECAM Video format for France
Other Formats:
ROM CD-ROM, computer-readable disc
MP3 Layer 3 MPEG encoded audio
WMA Windows Media Audio
Pub A publication: a book, songbook, pamphlet, magazine, etc.
Definitions:
Q1/Q2/Q3/Q4 Calendar quarters: Winter, Spring, Summer, Fall.
Radio Show A release specially recorded for radio airplay.
Interview An interview transcription disc.
Collection A collection of tracks by this artist, usually previously
released on various albums and singles.
Compilation A compilation of tracks by various artists.
Soundtrack Soundtrack to a film or play released in Album format.
Box Set Box set of previously released and/or unreleased material.
Songbook Book of words and music.
Bootleg Unauthorized release of previously unreleased material
consisting of concert recordings, studio outtakes, and
radio or television broadcasts.
Pirate Unauthorized release of previously released material
without attempting to make the album look like an original.
Counterfeit Unauthorized copy of an officially released album.
Country codes are InterNIC domain names, except for the following:
AA Australasia AS Asia BX BeNeLux
EU Europe (EC/EEC) SC Scandinavia SO South America
WG West Germany (prior to August 1990) WW Worldwide
Please do not ask me where to find rare recordings, bootlegs, videos, or other releases listed in this discography. Please do not ask me where you can get scans of artwork for these releases. This discography is a list of releases that have been made available over time, not a list of my personal collection. Just because any given release is listed in this discography does not mean that I own that release, nor does it indicate that I am willing to trade, sell, or make tape copies of that or any other release. If you are looking for such recordings, try attending record shows, reading collector magazines, and hunting in used record shoppes.
While the existence of unauthorized recordings may be documented herein, I cannot advise on the legality of such recordings, nor can I advise where such recordings can be obtained.
All singles and EPs have a picture sleeve (p/s) unless otherwise noted. Unless otherwise noted, CDs come in a standard jewel-box and CD-singles come in a slim-line jewel-box. An “obi” is the paper strip (literally, the “sash”) that comes wrapped around most Japanese LPs and CDs.
Song authorship is denoted by names enclosed in braces, e.g., “{Blegvad/Moore}”. Where possible, the name of the lyricist appears first.
Information flagged with a question mark has not been verified (a guess, a rumour). If you have further information about these or other related releases or if you can supply missing artwork, please write me.
Many CD track times were found using my compact disc player and the time indicated on your CD player may vary slightly (± 1-3 seconds), due to the way different machines calculate track times.
Address all correspondence to:
John Relph <relph
at tmbg dot org>
This list was compiled and formatted by John Relph.
While information about particular releases is not copyright and may be used without permission, the compilation of this information in this discography in this format is copyright and may not be published in any form whatsoever without the permission of the author. Just ask.
This discography may be distributed electronically and otherwise if and only if the entire copyright notice and attributions are included.
Jon Brion “head” logo by Jeffrey Zablotny, licensed under a creative commons license. Thanks, Jeffrey.