JG Thirlwell and The Venture Bros.

It's a funny thing. I've been a fan of JG Thirlwell's for about seven years now and I really didn't even know it until fairly recently. That might not seem to make sense, so let me explain. Seven or so odd years ago I was watching TV late at night. As per my usual routine, once it was late enough I switched the channel to [adult swim], the nighttime version of Cartoon Network aimed at an older audience (no duh). It was on that fateful night that I first witnessed The Venture Bros, what has ever since been my favorite show. If you don't know, The Venture Bros. is basically a spoof of Johnny Quest along the same vein as Space Ghost, Harvey Birdman, and Sealab 2021. By the way, if you've never seen those shows, you really should! There are tons of reasons why I love The Venture Bros and the music is definitely one of those reasons. Normally the soundtrack for a show doesn't really have much of an effect on me, but that's because normally shows don't have a soundtrack like The Venture Bros does. In fact, Jackson Publick, one of the co-creators of the show along with Doc Hammer, said that the music of JG Thirlwell is the REASON that The Venture Bros even exist. He was originally going to make it into a comic book series until he heard a song by Steroid Maximus (one of JG Thirlwell's brain-children along with Foetus and Manorexia, among others). Here's a quote from Publick about it...

 "Animation was my day job, but on the side my co-workers and I published an annual anthology of our personal comic book stories called Monkeysuit. Which was my intended destination for The Venture Bros until a more musically adventurous friend of mine lent me a copy ofQuilombo because he knew I would dig it. He had no idea how much. Track 4: "Fighteous." That changed everything. Ten seconds into my first listen, and the first thing that ran through my head was "what is this strange, wonderful, Jonny Quest-on-steroids music?!" The second thing that ran through my head was Hank and Dean. Literally. Their now iconic silhouettes from our opening title sequence appeared fully-formed before my eyes and started running in time to the beat."


That is the perfect way to describe it... "strange, wonderful, Jonny Quest-on-steroids music". I couldn't have said it better myself, which is why I used a quote.


So here's some Youtube videos of some of the music from The Venture Bros, by JG Thirlwell.

And just for shits and giggles...