1993-04-26 Massachusetts Daily Collegian
Two musical Giants set to invade Noho
By Darienne Hosley, Massachusetts Daily Collegian, April 26, 1993
Archived from: https://archive.org/details/massachuse19921993univ/page/n917/mode/2up
They Might Be Giants accordionist John Linnell fondly remembers his one year at UMass, as part of the 1977-78 freshman class — playing piano at night in the Fine Arts department, living in Southwest, taking over Whitmore...
"There was one main protest, over housing and Southwest, where I lived," Linnell said. "There was rain coming in the top. It was like living in a ghetto."
"So some thousands of irate students marched into the administration building and took it over for a day. It was really fun — I spent the night."
The Johns are on a two-week mini-tour of the northeast, leading to a May 1 show at their Massachusetts alma mater, Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, to benefit the Martin Luther King Action Project.
UMass didn't help Linnell's musical career; a brief stint playing tenor sax with the marching band left him bruised.
"It was kind of an unpleasant experience. Particularly because the marching was this kind of militaristic trap — the people they had hired to train [us] how to march were really into the humor of intimidating people," Linnell said.
Linnell found freedom with the accordion, describing it as his "perfect instrument," and Flansburgh as a bandmate. They are known for melodies and word games: "I met someone at the dog show/she was holding my left arm/but everyone was acting normal so I tried to look nonchalant."
Such lyrics lead many regard the band as silly — entertaining, but fluffy. Linnell said that hurts.
"We like being taken seriously, particularly personally. Often we get the feeling that we're considered a little bit foolish, and that isn't the way we think of ourselves," he said.
In fact, many of their songs are downright dark: "Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking part that wonders what the part that isn't thinking isn't thinking of/should you worry when the skullhead is in front of you or is it worse because it's always waiting where your eyes don't go?"
"It's generally more interesting to write sort of a black song. If it's just strictly beat, there's not much tension," Linnell said. "But we don't think of ourselves as depressing; we think about this as pop music."