Frank Black
Frank Black is a musician, Pixies frontman (as Black Francis), and a fan of They Might Be Giants. He has toured with the band both as a solo act and with Pixies. TMBG and Black have covered each other's songs on a number of occasions, and collaborated in various other ways as well.
John Linnell played saxophone on Frank's self-titled debut album as a solo artist. John Flansburgh directed two of his music videos, one for "Los Angeles" and one for a cover of "Hang On to Your Ego" by The Beach Boys, both from that album. A live promo CD of Black's, Live Thursday June 24, 1993 10pm EST, features John Flansburgh (guitar and vocals), John Linnell (baritone sax, conductor), Tony Maimone (bass), and Kurt Hoffman (tenor sax) as guest artists, in addition to Joey Santiago from Pixies. The show also included performances of three TMBG songs: "Mammal", "Particle Man", and "Spy".
TMBG covered the song "Havalina" on a tribute album to Pixies called Dig For Fire, and Flansburgh covered Black's song "Oddball" for Mono Puff's The Devil Went Down To Newport EP. Black performed "Road Movie To Berlin" on Hello Radio: The Songs Of They Might Be Giants.
Black was interviewed for Gigantic. He discusses the album Flood, which he was not fond of initially, but after thoroughly familiarizing himself with his copy of the cassette, he decided it was in fact one of the best things he had ever heard.
There is an instrumental from Frank Black's third album, Cult of Ray, called "Mosh, Don't Pass the Guy." Frank has said in concert the title of this song came from John Flansburgh. (Specifically, Frank yells before the song, "IN THE WORDS OF JOHN FLANSBURGH, MOSH, DON'T PASS THE GUY!")
In 2015, Black served as the judge of the fan video submissions for "Erase".[1]
