1992-09-01 Discorder
They Might Be Giants
By Rob Harrison, Discorder, September 1, 1992
Archived from: https://open.library.ubc.ca/viewer/discorder/1.0050054#p10z-2r0f:flansburgh
His last visit here was two years ago, but John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants remembered his previous Vancouver stop well: "It was the first show of the Flood tour," recalled Flansburgh. "We were pretty well rested when we did it. It was a nice hall too (Vancouver East Cultural Centre). The people who worked the show were really great."
On the phone a continent away in Hanover, New Hampshire, where he and John Linnell are in the infancy of a tour that will land them in Vancouver on September 6th at the Commodore, Flansburgh's interest in the upcoming show is perked by my description of the Granville wonder's special qualities: its size, decor and that beefy bouncy dance floor. "I hope the stage isn't like that," says Flansburgh. I assured him it was a normal stage.
What we'll see when the Giants show up at the Commodore will be anything but normal, even for them. This will be the first tour on which the Johns will be accompanied by a backing band, staffed by veteran New York players such as Tony Maimone (Pere Ubu, Bob Mould) on bass and Kurt Hoffman (The Ordinaires) alternating between keyboards and woodwinds. "It's great," gushed Flansburgh, "it's a lot of fun. It's a completely different way of working for us. A lot of things work a lot better. With the band it's very loud and very exciting."
For part of the set though Flansburgh and Linnell will return to the old approach when appropriate. "We have a portion of the show where we play unaccompanied by the band," says John. "We do a song called "Mammal" off the new record as a duo and that works really well because it's a pretty quiet song. It just works better as a duo, so that's the way we do it. We weren't a folk act when we started, we just do whatever material works best with whatever situation or set-up."
"Mammal" is one of the entries on the aforementioned newest release Apollo 18, their second for Elektra. Upon hearing this song you might feel a certain poignancy expressed in the song towards animals, but if there is, it's by accident. "The song is basically a definition of the variety of mammals and what they have in common with one another. It's almost an educational song in that you just get a lot of information on what defines a mammal. We're not members of PETA. We eat meat. We're not proud, but we do it."
Flansburgh's love of writing about strong feminine figures and their effect on others (dating back to "She's a Hotel Detective") shows up this time in "She's Actual Size"."Actually, it's a song about being intimidated by somebody," said John. "The original song was actually written like a brag song as 'I'm actual size,' but it was getting really harsh and kind of bogus that way. I didn't know how to modify it except to turn it into 'She's actual size.' That worked much better."
Waiting at the end of Apollo 18 is "Fingertips" (track eighteen on the disc...by mere coincidence?), an epic collection of songs, or bits of, strewn together and, well, John can explain it: "I think if you listen to it a few times, you'll hear a continuity to it," explains Flansburgh. "You find yourself kind of singing the next part before it comes along. It kind of sounds like this late night TV commercial for golden greats from the forties and fifties, and part of it is that you're not really familiar with the songs that they're referring to, so you just hear (breaks into song) 'The golden leaves...I know you....' Part of it is not being familiar with the fragment that you're hearing and wondering what the rest of the song might be like. Another thing that is kind of interesting is the collision between one piece of material to the next, being so different from one another. Yeah, it was set up for maximum contrast."
Before hanging up, I felt it was in my best interests to salve my political curiosity and ask this red-blooded American how he was going to vote next November. Who do you like, Mr. Flansburgh? "I heartily recommend that people vote for Mr. Clinton because George Bush is a bastard. It's a personal thing, but I can't forgive him for the whole situation the country's in and I hold him and Ronald Reagan personally responsible for a large part of it. So I feel like it's time for a pro-choice president and somebody who's got a little bit more vision in the future than some Republican."