1986-04 SAY
They Might Be Giants
By Gary Ray Bugarchich, SAY!, April 1986
Archived from: https://www.facebook.com/groups/darinka/posts/10159998785571677/
Interviewer Gary Ray Bugarchich owned and operated Darinka, a small nightclub in Manhattan's East Village where They Might Be Giants regularly performed.
They started out in small bars and art galleries in Soho and the L.E.S. But now they've enveloped the entire northeastem corridor with their brand of musical spoof. They've played gigs in Buffalo, Boston, Burlington and Brooklyn. And if that's not enough for ya, they even opened for John Cale in Toronto. A record is coming out in the summer. If you're an "art buff" get ready to hear them at an unprecedented gig for the season opening of the Guggenheim.
John Flansburgh is the guitarist, while John Linell plays a mean accordian. They both co-write and sing. There is an invisible giant too: producer and sound man, Bill Krauss. All three were present for this interview.
Where was your first gig?
Dr. B's in Soho was the first show we did. It was the heaviest snowfall in NYC history. It was humiliating. We outlasted Dr. B's though. A significant percentage of clubs we've played have closed: Dr. B's, 8BC, Darinka, Limbo Lounge. We were booked at the Peppermint just before it closed, and we never got to play there.
Are you playing out a lot less because of this?
Playing out less in the East Village. We used to play four weekends a month right here. We have fun playing all the small clubs here. Except Neither/Nor. We'll never play there again. We tried doing free shows there and the doorman was taking money from people.
You played the Ritz recently. That must've been a big gig for you.
It should have been but we played at 9:30. Their policy has changed, everything is sharp, sharp, sharp! There were only thirty people there at that time.
Are you a rock band?
We're pros! (Laughter) There's some rock, but there are other things too.
Why are you considered by some to be a performance band?
Because we do overtly theatrical things. We're basically performing our songs. We leave the option open for people to think we have a sort of ironic attitude. We play in clubs where people really won't give a shit anyway.
Your are a sort of novelty band. Was that the initial objective?
No, it wasn't put together at once. We started with the idea of a rock band. I (Linnel) was playing normal looking keyboards and then later began playing the accordian. It was gradually that we turned into this avant-garde experience. It's that novelty that draws them in at first. When people have never seen or heard the band before there's stuff that's inevitably weird, funny and unusual. But that's not all that's going on. If it were, it would get boring quickly.
What kinds of audiences are you drawing to your gigs?
Really normal humans. The people who call our phone machine, they're even more normal. They have normal jobs. They don't necessarily go to clubs. A lot of working people can't get to the clubs. That's why we have Dial-a-Song (718-387-6962).
You've received a lot of press lately. How do you feel about it?
We enjoy great press from almost everybody except the reporter from the E. V. Eye. He was a complete doofus. He arrived completely drunk to interview us. He was unprepared. He'd never seen our show, never heard our music and had no idea what we did.
You've been called nerds quite a bit. Is it offensive?
It's a very poorly defined word. You don't know whether you should be offended by it. We're not about being nerdy or being a novelty act. We're really about just doing the songs we write.
Are your lyrics about social change?
Well, you don't have to be a lit. major to understand our songs. They have meaning.
Do you use many double-entendres in your lyrics?
Yeah, that's our whole schtick. The biggest disappointment about everything current is the proliferation of cheap sex jokes and very little imagination. And popular music is 80 to 90 percent love songs. (Flansburgh) If I could write a really good love song I would. But it's all been said already by the Beatles.