1983 Demo Tape
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Demo tape by They Might Be Giants | |||||
| First released | 1983 Release details / collectors: Show | Hide |
Tracks | 5 (known) | |||
| Label | Unknown, likely none | Length | 10:18 (known tracks) | Next demo tape | 1984 Promotional Demo Tape | |
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The 1983 Demo Tape is an unofficial title used by fans to refer to a collection of demo recordings made by They Might Be Giants in the early 1980s. These tracks are among the earliest works by the band to be publicly released.
The collection consists of five tracks that were released in 2008 in episode 32A of the They Might Be Giants Podcast — "Now That I Have Everything", "Sally Boy Candy Bar", "Weep Day", "Hell Hotel" and "I'll Remember 3rd Street". All five originate from a single cassette tape. Though informal and rough, these recordings reflect a formative stage of the band's creative progression.
It is unlikely that the band regarded this collection as particularly significant at the time. Rather than a definitive release, it was just one of many demo tapes they produced during their earliest years. Several other early recordings from this period have surfaced over time, providing further insight into the band's development.
Contents
Background[edit]
On September 1, 1981, John Flansburgh and John Linnell moved into the same apartment building, a run-down brownstone at 341 3rd Street in Park Slope, Brooklyn.[1][2][3] Flansburgh relocated to New York to attend Pratt Institute, while Linnell arrived with his band, the Mundanes. The two had casually collaborated on music when they were in high school and they resumed that practice after reuniting in Brooklyn.[4] There, they formed a short-lived trio with David Lindsay, a mutual friend and fellow resident, featuring Flansburgh on guitar, Linnell on keyboards, and Lindsay on upright bass. The band "rehearsed for like a month" before Lindsay departed, after which Flansburgh and Linnell continued as a duo.[5] Sometime in 1982, they both moved to a duplex apartment at 213 DeKalb Avenue in Fort Greene, Brooklyn.[6] They have credited this space as being instrumental in the formation and development of the project that would become They Might Be Giants. The band wrote in the liner notes of the 1997 compilation album Then: The Earlier Years:
Although we had begun recording and performing while living in a building in Park Slope, it was our good fortune to find an unusually large and sonically isolated apartment together in Ft. Greene (above a realtor that closed at night and a barbecue restaurant that was often louder than us.) This setup afforded us the unlimited time and noise-making capability for They Might Be Giants to really take shape.
During their time at this apartment, the duo entered a notably productive creative period. While their high school recordings had been limited to abstract sonic experiments, by this stage both Flansburgh and Linnell had independently begun to pursue songwriting in earnest.[7][8] The first song composed jointly by Flansburgh and Linnell was likely "Cowtown", originally started by Linnell in 1977 and further developed with Flansburgh in 1981 or 1982. "Space Suit" — or "I'll Remember 3rd Street" as it was titled when first written — was another early original, composed by Flansburgh using complex chords he had learned from his guitar teacher.[9] Other early compositions included "Complete Paranoia" and "Become A Robot".[10] A few songs in their early repertoire had been written for previous projects, including "Alienation's For The Rich" (written by Flansburgh for his college band The Turtlenecks), "Letterbox" (written by Linnell, possibly as early as 1980),[11] and "Now That I Have Everything" (written by Linnell and once rehearsed with the Mundanes).[12] Flansburgh initially appears to have been the more prolific writer of the two, and the majority of released material from this period feature him on lead vocals. Linnell stated in a 2011 interview: "In the very beginning, one of us wrote lyrics and the other one wrote music." Their repertoire also contained a number of covers, including "Lines Upon A Tranquil Brow", "Maybe I Know", "What Am I Doing Hangin' 'Round?" and "Why Does The Sun Shine?", as well as some songs by the Ramones and Willie Nelson.[13][14] Flansburgh reflected on this period in a 2013 interview:
We did so much recording and rehearsed every night for an hour, no matter what. During those rehearsals, we would drink these giant mugs of Café Bustelo. At a certain point, we realized that about an hour after consuming all that coffee, we started arguing. It was completely coffee-fueled. It took about four months for us to realize that it was just like a chemistry experiment. If you drink that much coffee you'll start yelling at each other no matter what. We didn't need a topic, it was just caffeine.
Recording[edit]
The band are known to have created several demo tapes for various purposes in the early 1980s.[15][16] Flansburgh recalled in 2013: "I remember the very first couple we did had a nice span of songs–different approaches and lots of unusual sounds."[17] The recordings were primarily made for Flansburgh and Linnell's own enjoyment, and were not shared far beyond their friends.[18][19] The band had little intention of performing live in this early period, but it is possible that some of the tapes may have been produced as promotional material to secure live bookings. It has been rumored that Hilly Kristal, owner of CBGB, may have possessed one of these tapes, as the band played some of their earliest shows at the venue.[20]
Recordings were created using Flansburgh's TEAC A-2300S four-track tape recorder, which he had bought at the age of 12 with money from a summer job.[21][22] The band were recording songs "daily,"[23] and compiling them in ever-evolving collections. These early recordings were unpolished and their arrangements generally uncharacteristic of the duo's later work. The band favored multi-layered textural recordings at this stage, evident in such tracks as "Weep Day", "I'll Remember 3rd Street" and "Mr. Me". Flansburgh explained in a 1999 interview: "We were lost in home recording, multi-tracking, building up fifteen vocals on top of fifteen guitars on top of fifteen handclap type of tracks. So we were doing a lot of textural things that didn't really add up to a lot."
Most of the tracks that date from this period are mixed in mono. Flansburgh recalled in 2001: "What's funny is that when we made those recordings, we didn't use EQ. I didn't have a mixer, so I just mixed stuff with volume. That was it. There was no such thing as a board, at least in my life, in my little world. It was a very primitive time." All the songs from this era are short, and not a single one exceeds three minutes. The band have derided these recordings as "pale imitations" of the San Francisco experimental rock band The Residents.[24][25] Flansburgh stated in a 2011 interview:
When we started, we had a lot of big ideas about avoiding stock ideas. No solos, just arranged breaks. Short intros. No fade-outs. We weren't too big on writing about love, but we were also probably pretty shy about the topic too. Just staying away from clichés was the main thing, and while we have given in to the pleasures of intros, solos and an occasional fade-out, it's still the goal. When we started, we weren't that far past the new wave moment and short, sharply structured songs of any kind — whether it was the Residents to Elvis Costello — were infinitely more appealing to us than the baggy, jammy songs of progressive rock.
Flansburgh and Linnell set up a full drum set in the large main room of their apartment.[26] The drums were Dixie brand and belonged to Evan "Funk" Davies, a high school friend. Flansburgh explained in a 2012 interview: "He brought drums to our apartment and left them there. So on all our earliest demos, you're hearing Evan Davies' drums, played either by him or by us." The duo did not own an electronic drum machine yet, so rhythm tracks were typically constructed using their drum set and sound effects from Linnell's Micromoog synthesizer.[27] Some songs made use of tape loops,[28] others used drum tracks from DrumDrops albums, a series of LPs featuring pre-recorded beats. For a brief period in late 1982 and early 1983, the band actively sought to hire a rhythm section,[29] and at least one early song, "7-11", is known to feature an outside drummer.[30]
Between them, the duo owned a sizeable collection of instruments. Flansburgh had a right-handed cherry red Gibson ES-330 electric guitar, which he restrung upside-down to play it left-handed. The guitar had a tremolo arm that was capable of flexible pitch bending: "You can hear it on a lot of our earliest recordings – very nutty sounds."[31] Linnell owned a clarinet, a Farfisa Combo Compact organ, a Clavinet keyboard and a Micromoog synthesizer. At one point, he modified the internals of his Micromoog so that it could play a microtonal scale. This almost destroyed the synthesizer,[32] though the band managed to record at least one microtonal song with it, a short instrumental titled "Heptone".[33] Linnell picked up the accordion in the latter half of 1983, borrowing a small black-and-white Titano model from a friend. Only two released recordings from this period, "Mr. Me" and "I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die", feature the instrument. The band also owned a trumpet, an acoustic guitar, a "kinda sleazy" Korg synthesizer, and a pair of bongos.[34][35]
The band played their first show on July 18, 1982, at an anniversary celebration of the Nicaraguan Revolution in Central Park. The setlist included "Space Suit", "Cowtown", "Cabbagetown", "Alienation's For The Rich", "Birds Fly", and "Penguine". The band played next in February 1983. They adopted the name They Might Be Giants and started regular gigging; first at small showcase clubs and later in performance art spaces. Their live act consisted of Flansburgh playing electric guitar and singing, Linnell playing electric organ and singing, and a pre-recorded backing track playing along with them. In September 1983, the duo started collaborating with Bill Krauss. He initially joined as their bass player, but quickly found his role as their producer and live sound engineer.[36] Krauss was experienced in music production and he assisted the band in recording their home demos and live backing tracks. Flansburgh wrote about recording these tracks in a 2013 Tumblr post, in response to a question about "Sally Boy Candy Bar":
Every track is very different. We worked with a few drummers, generic drum records, and borrowed drum machines making "show" tracks early on. And a lot of it we just did ourselves track by track. Sally Boy Candy Bar was assembled the way a lot of our early tracks were–recorded on a TEAC 4 track probably three individual tracks of drums played individually (thumb on a mic as a kick, or the moog as kick) real hi hat or a moog hat) and a real snare played by John L. in that case. We had bongos and they came into the mix a lot. Everything was then bounced down to one track, and the we added bass and possibly an additional synth sound.
In October or November 1983, Flansburgh and Linnell were evicted from their Fort Greene apartment.[37][38] Flansburgh moved to an apartment in or around Bedford-Stuyvesant, and within one day all of his possessions were stolen except for his four-track tape recorder.[39][40] He then moved to an apartment in Williamsburg, where he and Linnell continued their rehearsals. It was there that he launched the Dial-A-Song service, a telephone answering machine that played the band's songs as the outgoing message. The limitations of the medium necessitated a more stripped-down approach to both the recording and arrangement of material. Flansburgh explained in 2001: "You spend a lot of time digging yourself as far as texture goes. With Dial-A-Song, that stuff does not matter. If you have really interesting words and a really direct melody, that scans over the phone. All the elaborate, interesting multi-layered recordings we made in our apartment before then just sounded like nothing."[41] The band adopted a generally more minimalist approach to their recordings. They started incorporating drum machines, which would come to characterize their sound through the following decade. Flansburgh: "We used to use real drums, and the house we were living in had neighbors that didn't complain. Just at the time we were kicked out, we got able to afford a drum machine."[42]
Promotion[edit]
Two separate advertisements for demo tapes from the band’s early period have been documented. The earliest is a classified ad placed by John Flansburgh in the January 13, 1982 issue of the progressive political magazine In These Times:
- FOR SALE
- "I KNEW GLEN MILLER — WE were in the same plane" 14 unique songs unavailable except by mail! On quality cassette! Satisfaction guaranteed! $4 to Flansbobota, 341 3rd St., Brooklyn, NY 11215.
The contents of the advertised tape are unknown, though any material it included must have been recorded prior to Flansburgh's move to Fort Greene. The magazine had a 12-day lead time on classified advertisements, so he would have submitted it on or before January 1, 1982.[43] The ad makes reference to American bandleader Glenn Miller, whose plane disappeared over the English Channel in 1944 and who was subsequently presumed dead. Flansburgh wrote of the advertisement in a 2025 Tumblr post:
I'm sure it was me. Not sure why exactly, but I suspect someone said it was free to advertise and, hey, $4 was two meals for me in 1982, so I just put something in the paper. Probably some iteration of a demo. [...]
I know it wasn't me who misspelled Glenn Miller–That was damaged in transit. I had Glenn Miller records when I was 10 and, well, it just looks so WRONG.
As for the Flansbobota–there is this dadaist poem... oh it's a long story.
The poem he referred to might have been by German Dada artist Elsa von Freytag-Loringhoven, who frequently used absurd portmanteau in her poetry — or it may have been a poem that Flansburgh himself wrote.
Another advertisement for a tape appeared on the back of a flyer created by the band in 1983:
- Happy to announce a 10 song cassette is now available for the low low discount price of $1.50. Cash only. Simply send $ to address on opposite side. 2–3 weeks delivery.
The given address is 213 DeKalb Avenue, which almost certainly dates it to 1983. The material contained on this tape is unknown, though a booklet produced around the same time listed lyrics for "Weep Day", "Birds Fly" and "Hot Cha", which might suggest their inclusion. Both the booklet and the tape advertisement feature images from Andrew R. Kosma's 1943 book The A.B.C.'s of Motion Economy. Images from that book also appeared on some of the band's early show posters.[44][45][46]
Ephemera[edit]
The band produced several promotional items in the early 1980s, which were distributed through their mailing list. A booklet and a two-sided flyer from this period were reproduced and sold in 2012, and a press release was featured in the documentary Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns). All of these materials appear to date from 1983.
Flyer, front
Flyer, back
Booklet, front
Booklet, back
Press release
![[44]](https://tmbw.net/wiki/File:1983-03-19_Poster.jpg){kind=link}
![[45]](https://tmbw.net/wiki/File:1984-07-20_Poster.jpg){kind=link}
![[46]](https://tmbw.net/wiki/File:1985-04-06_Poster.jpg){kind=link}
Material[edit]
Episode 32A of the They Might Be Giants Podcast was released on February 5, 2008. It included five early tracks that are said to have been sourced from a single 1983 demo tape. Three tracks — "Weep Day", "Hell Hotel" and "I'll Remember 3rd Street" — were released for the first time here. The remaining two, "Now That I Have Everything" and "Sally Boy Candy Bar", had been previously released on Then: The Earlier Years and TMBG Unlimited - July, respectively. Neither the original track order nor the total number of songs on the tape is definitively known. "Now That I Have Everything" may have been the opening track, as the band have referred to it as the "first song on their first demo." It is possible that "I'll Remember 3rd Street" was the final track, as it is followed by six seconds of empty hiss, suggesting the end of the material on the tape.
The date of 1983 for these recordings was cited twice by John Flansburgh: in a February 5, 2008 email newsletter, and a February 10 post on the band's website. The band has not always been consistent in recalling specific dates, so it is possible that the recordings originate from earlier or later than 1983. The narrator of the podcast states that the recordings came from "an early demo, maybe the earliest we can find."
Another group of early recordings was released across a series of three consecutive podcasts in June and July 2011. Four tracks of comparable fidelity appeared in podcast episodes 46, 47 and 48 — early versions of "Cowtown", "They Might Be Giants", "Hell Hotel" and "Hiya Hi". While Flansburgh referred to two of these tracks as originating from a "1985 demo cassette," all four recordings appear to date from an earlier period. He also referred to this version of "Cowtown" as being from the band's "original demo," suggesting it dates back to their earliest years. The full context of these recordings remains unknown, but they may have originated from a single tape.
Various other early recordings have been released through different channels over the years. These tracks and their sources are listed below. A number of other songs from the early 1980s are also known to exist but are not available in any released recording. Notable examples include "I Wouldn't Be Mad", "My Father's Son", "Rubber Guy" and "Smiles". A full detailed list of these can be found on the Unknown Songs page.
Released on Podcast 32A[edit]
| # | Title | Length | Lyrics | Guitar Tab |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Now That I Have Everything | 2:20
|
|
|
| 2 | Weep Day (Demo) | 1:50
|
|
N/A |
| 3 | Sally Boy Candy Bar | 2:28
|
|
|
| 4 | Hell Hotel (1983 Demo) | 2:01
|
|
N/A |
| 5 | I'll Remember 3rd Street | 1:39
|
|
N/A |
Other Early Recordings[edit]
Several additional early recordings have been released through various outlets over the years, including Dial-A-Song, the They Might Be Giants Podcast, the Instant Fan Club, and the TMBG Unlimited service. These tracks are generally assumed to date from 1981 to 1983, based on statements from the band, circumstantial evidence, and their audio quality.
| Title | Notes |
| 7-11 | Released on TMBG Unlimited - July; is assumed to date from the early 1980s given its recording quality and use of a live drum kit. |
| Alienation's For The Rich (Demo) | Released on TMBG Unlimited - July; was written in 1980/81 for Flansburgh's college band The Turtlenecks; is assumed to date from the early 1980s given its recording quality, could date back to the Turtlenecks era.[47] |
| The Big Big Whoredom | Released on Then: The Earlier Years; is assumed to date from the early 1980s given its recording quality. |
| Bread Hair | Released only on Dial-A-Song; is assumed to date from the early 1980s due to its utilization of bongos. |
| Cabbagetown (Demo) | Released on TMBG Unlimited - September; stated to have come from the band's "very first demo."[48] |
| Cowtown (Original Demo) | Released on Podcast 46; stated to have come from the band's "original demo." |
| Hell Hotel (Podcast Demo) | Released on Podcast 47; identical to the "1983 Demo" of the song, with a different vocal take. |
| Heptone | Released only on Dial-A-Song; stated to have been recorded before Dial-A-Song began, "in the early '80s sometime."[49] |
| Hiya Hi | Released on Podcast 48; is assumed to date from the early 1980s given its recording quality and use of a DrumDrops pre-recorded drum track. |
| How Much Cake Can You Eat? | Released only on Dial-A-Song; was among the earliest batch of recordings created for Dial-A-Song. |
| I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die (Demo) | Released on the 1985 Demo Tape; stated to have been recorded in "the earliest days," either at the band's DeKalb Avenue apartment or Flansburgh's subsequent apartment. |
| I Need Some Lovin' | Released only on Dial-A-Song; stated to have been recorded before Dial-A-Song began. |
| I'm Gettin' Sentimental Over You | Released on Then: The Earlier Years; was among the earliest batch of recordings created for Dial-A-Song. |
| Indian Ocean | Released on TMBG Unlimited - August; stated to have been recorded at the band's DeKalb Avenue apartment. |
| Mr. Me (Demo) | Released on TMBG Unlimited - July; is assumed to date from the early 1980s given its recording quality and use of a live drum kit. |
| Penguine | Released on Podcast 43; is assumed to date the early 1980s given its recording quality and the fact that the band performed it at their first show. |
| Swing Is A Word | Released on Then: The Earlier Years; was among the earliest batch of recordings created for Dial-A-Song. |
| They Might Be Giants (Song) (1983 Demo) | Released on TMBG Unlimited - May; described as "one of the band's very first recordings," features Flansburgh's Gibson ES-330 guitar that was stolen in late 1983. |
| Weep Day | Released on Then: The Earlier Years; identical to the "1983 Demo" of the song, with a different vocal take. |
| Youth Culture Killed My Dog (Dial-A-Song) | Released to the 2024 Instant Fan Club; stated to have been recorded at the band's DeKalb Avenue apartment. |