1996-05-16 Cincinnati CityBeat
"New Giant City: TMBG preview prospective new material on mini-tour stop"
By Brian Baker, Cincinnati CityBeat, May 16, 1996
Archived from: https://cdm16998.contentdm.oclc.org/digital/collection/p16998coll73/id/9880/rec/2
It's hard enough for a band to tour with a new album's worth of material. Fans like to hear those familiar old songs they know and love, and they're not always so patient with the new stuff they haven't had time to digest.
When They Might Be Giants roll into town Friday at Bogart's, they will be asking for an even greater effort from their fans-they'll roll out brand new material without the benefit of a new album. Much of the set list on this brief tour consists of tunes which may or may not eventually appear on the band's as yet untitled fall release, which they're in the midst of recording. In fact, the major focus of these limited dates is to polish the songs that are definitely making the album, as well as check crowd reaction to the songs that could possibly become the next TMBG classics.
Giant John Linnell admits that presenting completely unknown material has been somewhat disconcerting to their audience, but says so far the new tracks have been well-received.
"Some of the songs are in the tradition of the complicated, head-scratching type material that I think people will need to listen to more than once to fully get into," Linnell says. "But we've also got a couple of songs that went down well right away. One of them is called "They Might Be Giants Got Lost," and it's just a very explicit song about the band driving around in increasingly wide circles trying to get where they're going. It's pretty much straight autobiography. After we started playing this song, we realized that we pretty much get lost every single day on the road. We look at our directions and confidently start out, then find ourselves in some completely weird place trying to find a pay phone."
Linnell believes that this new batch of material is as strong as any they've done in recent memory. "I'm pretty confident that some of this stuff is single-worthy," he says. "There's a song by Flans (co-Giant John Flansburgh) which I think is a really wonderful song, called "How Can I Sing Like A Girl." I can't imagine it won't be a single off the record--it's a very poppy, finger-snappy kind of song. We're doing another faster, rocking version of a song called "Sensurround," which we released on the soundtrack of The Mighty Morphin Power Rangers movie last year. There's not a huge amount of overlap between the Power Rangers' audience and our audience, so we figured we'd give our crowd another chance."
Stylistically, Linnell says this new album follows in the vein of its predecessor, 1994's terrific John Henry. There's a strong sense that this record comes after that one, because we've got our rhythm section up and running. Previous to John Henry, we never had any live drums and bass. We had occasional guest musicians. But John Henry was the band. And this is the band as well."
One twist that will differentiate the new album is the band's use of the studio as an additional member, so to speak. "The thing about this record, we're going back to our technique of really exploiting the studio, doing lots of overdubs and stuff," explains Linnell. "We didn't really do much of that on John Henry, which was more or less live in the studio with vocals overdubbed on top. But this record we're going to be doing a lot more messing around. So far, quite a bit. We're a little bit freer with the instrumentation, we're layering stuff up, or stripping things away. It doesn't have to sound like a band, as far as I'm concerned."
The album is tentatively slated for a September release, which Linnell says is based entirely on the band's ability to deliver finished product by mid-June. "When you set a deadline, things have a way of getting pushed ahead," he understates. To date, the Giants have completed 12 tracks, and according to Linnell still have "a big pile of songs." He promises a wealth of B-side material to supplement the actual release.
Big things have been predicted for the Giants with previous releases, but the time seems right for them to break wide, if for no other reason than exposure. In addition to the new Giants album, John Flansburgh's side project Mono Puff will have a new full release on Rykodisk shortly, and his Hello Recording Club venture-a subscription-only CD series of quirky artists' unreleased tracks-continues to do well. Linnell, who claims to be "way too lazy" to engage in any serious side work, will offer another EP's worth of material for a Hello project. His contribution last year was an excerpt from his "State Songs" project, which will ultimately result in a song for each of the 50 states, and which he continues to pursue. This year's Hello disc for Linnell is entitled House Of Mayors, an examination of the mayoralty of New York City, which one would presume is in the vein of the Giants' B-side, "James K. Polk." He also was recently commissioned by accordionist Anne deMarinis to compose a piece which she will record and perform.
With the duo's professional relationship well beyond the decade mark, the question of the band's longevity becomes an issue. To the question of how they've managed to stay together for so long, Linnell answers plainly.
"We found a long time ago how to stay friends," he reveals. "Early on, we got separate hotel rooms so we wouldn't hate each other for snoring."