TMBG Info Club Archive/Spring 1994

The following pamphlet was mailed out to Information Club members in the spring of 1994.

They Might Be Giants - Spring 94

A Letter From Flansburgh

Hey everybody. JOHN FLANSBURGH here, with greetings from Brooklyn, where one man's t-shirt reads "Where weak are killed and eaten."

Just got back from Bearsville Sound Studio in upstate New York, where TMBG were recording part of our next album, now tentatively titled "John Henry." Bearsville is a stone's throw away from Woodstock, and is steeped heavily in the legacy of the Sixties. The studio was started by Bob Dylan's manager, Albert Grossman, with the intention of creating a more informal, residential recording facility. It has been very active ever since, and the site of recordings by The Band, Dylan, and the Isley Brothers, and more recently the B-52's, REM, and 10,000 Maniacs. We stayed in houses that various members of The Band used to live in, and heard a bit of the history of these small towns.

We soon found that Bearsville in January is very stormy and very cold, and with this January being among the snowiest in recent memory, the experience ended up more like being stuck on Ice Mountain than the beatific working vacation I thought it would be. While we didn't get out into town that much, there was plenty of work to keep us busy. At the end of the day I would retire to my house and turn on the five billion channel cable TV in search for another broadcast of that Danzig video. That song has now become my mantra.

We rehearsed for a couple of weeks in a renovated barn, figuring out the songs we were going to record for the album. This is our first album with the full band, and we wanted to capture the best part of the live sound, while holding on to the focus and intensity of our previous records. Up until "Why Does The Sun Shine?" our recordings were made primarily with a drum machine as the foundation, with John and I recording our parts individually on top of the sequenced drums and bass. Fortunately for this new configuration of the band, we've been working on most of these songs for a while, so it wasn't a big scramble cooking up our parts. But when it came down to the actual recording, it felt very different going for a single good take simultaneously with Brian, Tony, and John. We were revved up by the high quality sound of the studio and it was exciting after all the demos and rehearsing to finally be laying it down for real. Of course, sometimes recording the instruments live just didn't quite come together, and we'd have to go back in and fix up mistakes or edit together different takes. But overall, I was surprised how quickly, bolstered by many cups of coffee, we were capable of making a workable recording. The guitars sound really good to me, and it seems like this past year of working with the band has really brought my playing up.

Here, in alphabetical order, are the titles of the twenty songs we tracked (some with their beats per minute along side the title):

• A Self Called Nowhere
• Destination Moon
• Dirt Bike 74
• Extra Savoir Faire 111
• I Should Be Allowed To Think 133
• Meet James Ensor 93
• Nyquil Driver 124
• No One Knows My Plan 133
• O Do Not Forsake Me
• Out of Jail 153
• Sleeping In The Flowers 72 up to 156
• Snail Shell 110
• Spy 168
• Stomp Box 140
• Subliminal 132
• The End Of The Tour 121
• Thermostat 128
• Unrelated Thing 111
• Why Must I Be Sad 127
• Window

Looks like the record will be coming out in August. For some previews of demos, call Dial-A-Song at 718-387-6962 and hear how the songs sounded before we figured them out. Hope we're coming to your town on this upcoming tour. If not, I'm sure we'll see you in the Fall.

Our First European Tour - John Linnell

In the fall of 1987 John and I and our producer, Bill Krauss, embarked on our first tour of Europe, which was also the first time I had ever been there. At that time I think we had a vague that TMBG would carry more prestige as an exported product, or even that success in a smaller market like England or one of the continental nations would be a kind of springboard for us in America. Well, nothing ever happens exactly like you expect it to, for even as we boarded the plane for London our fate was being decided in secret meetings at MTV back in New York. Within months our American club dates had increased in attendance by as much as 30%, thanks to the influence of this nascent powerhouse, cable TV. By the next year we had tasted the sweet life, and it tasted sweet. Let's return now to those innocent days before our escalatoric rise into rock's mezzanine. Here are some excerpts from my diary of that first European tour.

FRIDAY, NOV 26, 1987
Performance at the Odeon in Münster tonight. Tour going exceptionally well, though we have no idea what to expect. The crowds all seem to understand enough English to have a complete grip on the show, as far as can be discerned from the emphatic response to each song and multiple encores.

In Paris I lost my wallet with $15 and my I.D., bank card, and worst of all, my address book, with the result that I don't know where to send most of the postcards I've been writing. Trying to pick up bits of German during the week we're spending here, doing as poorly as one might imagine.

Actually some of the Germans seemed to speak English better than many Americans. One spooky detail of our reception in much of northern Europe was that when we finished playing a song there was often a few seconds of dead quiet in the club, enough to convince us in that moment that there had been a complete breakdown in communication, and then the audience would begin, quietly, making a dog-howling-at-the-moon sound that would increase in pitch and volume until it dissolved into reassuring applause.

WEDNESDAY, DEC 9, 1987
On a 20 hr. ferry tonight from Esjeberg to England. Scandinavia full of audiences which made up in enthusiasm what they lacked in size. Oslo is a city which has left a deep imprint on me. The hour and a half sunset on our left as we drove in, coupled with the simultaneous full-moonrise on our right and the layer of frost on everything in this weird light was only a portent of the stupendous city we were coming into.

I met a woman there whose name I'm not sure of, but I'll never forget her face or the musical language everyone spoke.

It pains me now, six years later, to say that I can't remember what her face looked like and have only a vague memory of the musical language everyone spoke.

In Hamburg there is a square with a statue of Hans Albers, holding one end of his accordion and letting the other end hang down. It stands facing the Hans Albers bar, where on the jukebox you can play Hans Albers singing "La Paloma" in German. Our promoter Joachim played it and some other songs and asked us if we'd like to do a tour of East Berlin, Warsaw, Prague, and Budapest. Naturally we all shouted assent. This may happen next fall.

It didn't. Regrettably, TMBG has never performed in eastern Europe, and we missed the opportunity to visit the old Soviet satellites the year before the dramatic transformation of those countries. Happily, though, many of those places are relatively unchanged and are still in a state of desperate poverty and political turmoil.

Catalog

EPs

7" $4.00, 12" $4.50, CS $5.50, CD $6.50 (except Statue import CD $11)

• DON'T LET'S START (LP, CS, CD) - Remix of the title track plus We're The Replacements, When It Rains It Snows & The Famous Polka.
• (SHE WAS A) HOTEL DETECTIVE (LP, CS, CD) - Remix of the title track plus For Science, The Biggest One, Mr. Klaw & Kiss Me, Son of God (alternate version).
• THEY'LL NEED A CRANE (LP, CS, CD) - Title track plus It's Not My Birthday, I'll Sink Manhattan & Nightgown Of The Sullen Moon.
• THE STATUE GOT ME HIGH (CS, Import CD) - Title track plus She's Actual Size, I'm Def & Which Describes How You're Feeling.
• THE GUITAR (CD only) - Extended mix of title track, two Cold Cut remixes, Welcome To The Jungle, I Blame You, & Moving To The Sun.
• I PALINDROME I (CS, CD) - Title track plus Cabbagetown, Siftin'* & Larger Than Life* (Joshua Fried's remix).
• WHY DOES THE SUN SHINE? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas) (2 Song 7" or 4 Song CD) - The title track is TMBG's version o a song rom a 1959 educational record with a cover of the Allman Brothers classic Jessica on the 7". The cd includes two bonus tracks: a horn-filled version of the Meat Puppets song Whirlpool and a new TMBG original entitled Spy.
• O TANNENBAUM (7" only) - John and John sing this classic Christmas carol in the original German. Backed with the existential anthem Christmas Cards. Absolutely the perfect gift for any holiday season.

*Song on CD only

Bumper Stickers

Screen-printed on weather-resistant paper.

• Coffee Cub - Black & red design
• TMBG - black & white design

$2 each or 3 for $5

Shot Glasses

• Four beautiful shot glasses with red and black printing featuring the They Might Be Giants logo and card suit symbols. Perfect for poker games or just drinking alone! Set of 4 just $10/set

Postcards

• Two shots of John and John. Each set comes with an extra pair, so you can save one set and send the other. $2/set

Keychain

• Antiqued metal key chain. $7.50

John & John Answer Your Questions

On Misc. T. album, where did you get the material for track 13?
Flansburgh- Back in the days when Dial-A-Song only got five calls a day, it took messages (which were mostly from my friends asking why I had to have such a long message on my home line). I often set the machine to "unlimited message." One day I got back from work and discovered the full thirty minute tape filled with messages. I soon found it was mostly a single message. The primary speaker is a woman who called on a conference call with her friend, listened to our song and then proceeded to comment on it while my machine recorded their conversation. We only used about a tenth of it. It originally appeared unlabeled at the end of the "Don't Let's Start" ep.

What's the backwards message on the song "I'll Sink Manhattan"?
F- Again, it is a message that was left on Dial-A-Song. This one was left by a New York cop saying something like "Hey They Might Be Giants, the NYPD love you," and since the song had a New York theme, it seemed relevant.

Linnell- Any tips on how to play the accordion?
Linnell- I play the kind of accordion with a piano keyboard on the right hand. It's not hard to learn if you have already played a keyboard instrument. There is a simple system to the arrangement of buttons on the left hand that puts chords which are more closely related closer to one another. This makes it easy to play two and three chord songs because the buttons are always adjacent.

Why the name THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS?
They Might Be Giants are named after a movie from the early seventies starring George C. Scott.

At the Vanderbilt University show in Nashville TN, there were some pictures/posters hanging from the ceiling. Was the little girl Pearl from "Night of the Hunter" starring Robert Mitchum?
Yes, and the movie is definitely worth checking out.

Any chance of a live album, ever?
Plans are being made to record TMBG at the Fillmore in a couple of months, and some of that material might become a college radio release or be featured on a CD5 for the next album. We have had some luck with live recordings. There was a show we did through WXRT that came out sounding good, but often the arrangements don't seem dramatically different enough from the records to warrant putting them out as proper releases.

How about a 2nd video compilation? (A very popular question)
L- We have lots o videos under our belts since the last compilation, plus some promotional films for our last two albums. We hope to release this material soon. Our working title is "Super-Fueled Freaksicle."

What did you study in school?
Mr. Linnell studied liberal arts for a year at UMass Amherst. Mr. Flansburgh got a BFA from the Pratt Institute in Brooklyn.

What is that accent of yours?
F- We both spent some formative years in the western suburbs of Boston. A bunch of our friends talk like we do, although it's not really a standard Boston accent. I think of it as normal.

From one composer to another, how do you guys arrive at the arrangements for your songs?
L- There's usually a certain amount of trial and error, though some of our songs have their arrangements built-in when the songs are written. On a few occasions we've hired out, like when we got the Ordinaires to play the music for "Kiss Me, Son of God," or like the a capella arrangement of "O, Do Not Forsake Me" Wilbur Pauley of the vocal group "Hudson Shad" made for his group to sing on our upcoming record.

Do you usually write the lyrics or the music first?
F- I have traditionally written both simultaneously. Recently I have tried experimenting with writing lyrics first - which was something I'd resisted in the past because it seemed like cheating. "Meet James Ensor" on our new album was written that way.

I own 2 different CD's with a quid grabbing a tooth whale on the cover, the other one is Trip Shakespeare's "Are you Shakespearienced" Is there a connection or a weird coincidence?
F- There is no connection between us and Trip Shakespeare, who we are unaware of. The image of the whale and squid shows up in natural history exhibits as a big battle among sea creatures. Our cover was taken from Fate magazine, a pulp science ficiton magazine from the '50s.

Have you ever done any projects with Suzanne Vega?
Mr. Linnell played the accordion solo on Suzanne's "Tired of Sleeping."

Do you eat meat?
F- We both eat meat. I went vegetarian for a year and a half, but it just got too dull living without barbecue.

What is the picture in Misc. T of?
The cover photo is a picture of some papier maché letters Flansburgh built in his hallway (or on the cover of the cassette, the stairs) of his apartment. The inner sleeve is a close up of Linnell's accordion buttons, and the back is a photo of the Brooklyn Library.

When will you be touring Australia?
L- We want to go this year, but the logistics of touring are only about five percent in our control. The only tour we ever did in Australia was a total blast.

What is Dial-A-Song?
F- We started Dial-A-Song (718-387-6962) about ten years ago so people could check out our songs. We didn't have any records out, and it seemed like a good way to get our music heard. Since we started to record, we didn't want to seem like we were copping out, so we kept on doing it. It doesn't cost any more than a regular charge call to Brooklyn.

What's your favorite flavor of Pez?
F- Any flavor that comes out of my custom built Nixon pez dispenser.

John F- Where did you get that ultra cool metallic green rectangular guitar with those gauges in it that you played "The Guitar" on in Ventura CA?
F- I had that guitar built for me by Mojo Guitar in NYC. I actually designed it myself. For a "prop" guitar it sounds pretty good.

Are you going to release more sheet music?
We haven't had much luck with our publisher about coming out with a book. We usually think about it after we've finished a record, and it is too late in the cycle. Maybe we'll get it together this time.

Are you going to record with Brian Dewan?
L- Brian appeared as a guest vocalist on some of the "Fingertips" segments of our last record. He doesn't appear on the current one. Perhaps we'll record with him on the next one.

Are Kurt Hoffman, Brian Doherty etc. really new members of TMBG?
F- Well, John and I still lead the band, but everyone in our touring band is a big part of our next album. We've all tried to come up with a name for the other guys to differentiate this band from the duo set up, but we can't ever come up with one we like.

Was there ever a video made for "Hey Mr. DJ"?
Nope.

When are your birthdays?
Linnell-June 12th, Flansburgh-May 6th.

Why doesn't my CD player register "Apollo 18" as having 27 tracks, thus allowing it to be played as TMBG intended?
Sadly, the overseas pressings of Apollo 18 CD were not pressed with the individual tracks of "Fingertips." We're not really sure why, but all the domestic releases seem to work.

Send more questions for John or John to:
QUESTIONS, TMB PRODUCTIONS
P.O. BOX 110535
WILLIAMSBURGH STATION
BROOKLYN, NY 11211-0003

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Introducing Our Opening Act For April And May - BRIAN DEWAN...

Brian Dewan has just released his first album of songs on Bar/None Records called "Brian Dewan Tells The Story." He has illustrated album covers for David Byrne and They Might Be Giants, played in the house band for Blue Man Group, and gives concerts accompanying himself on an electric zither of his own design.

This interview was conducted over a speaker phone by Flansburgh, while holed-up in Bearsville recording the new album. This interview will also appear in the next issue of Raygun Magazine.

Flansburgh: Hey Brian.
Dewan: Hey, how are ya?

Flansburgh: Can you hear me?
Dewan: Sure can.

Here are some short questions. What was the last song you learned?
The last song I learned was called "I Know An Old Woman."

Not the old woman who swallowed a fly?
No, no. It's about a woman who made her husband suck the marrow of bones, so that he would want to kill himself, so that she could run off with another man, but in a snafu she fell into the drink herself and he couldn't save her, because he couldn't see.

Wow.
It's an Irish song.

What record is currently on your turntable?
I've got a record of ballads sung by Andrew Rowan Summer. He recorded on Folkways int he fifties. He was an attorney from West Virginia who learned a lot of folk songs in Appalachia, and has been an influence on me over the years.

His style or just the songs he found?
Well, he plays songs he found which are traditional songs and many of them are very old. He fancied himself as a curator of folk songs as an amateur anthropologist, although he's a pretty idiosyncratic folk phenomenon himself.

What was the last T.V. show you saw?
Oh god. It's been a while since I saw a TV show...

No editing now...
Well the last thing I saw was really on a videotape which was about the Donner Party. I don't know what the name of the program was but that's what it was about.

You've been accused of being a folk musician in recent press. Where to do you feel your music is coming from?
Well, my record is put in the pop/rock/soul bins in record stores, which is fine by me because it's just the code to not be put in a specialized corner bin. I wouldn't want to be sent off into the folk bin. I think popularly the term folk is used to refer to a kind of acoustic soft rock or acoustic soft pop music that does not really have its roots in traditional music as far as I can tell. perhaps folk ought to mean what the word avant-garde meant or experimental meant, which is a music that has an independent origin.

Do you think of yourself as being traditional? There are elements of your music that seem really unorthodox, but from the things you're saying it seems like you put yourself in the traditional camp.
The musical roots of the songs I play in my shows and on my records is traditional. I've had a lot of inspiration from traditional music.

There are a lot of different characters in your songs. Do you just feel people are going to understand the songs are not written from your point of view?
Well, I did have a number of people ask me about the song "My Eye" and say, "did you really poke out your eye?" (laughs) I feel like it is apparent that some of the views espoused in my songs are not necessarily my own, but if somebody doesn't get that, it's not my problem.

What are you thoughts on your song "99 Cops" being paralleled to Body Counts' "Cop Killer?"
It's really a nuisance. To me it would appear obvious that a song about a cop who comes back to life again and again as a fairy tale-like Terminator, kissing in trees, singing out of tune - that it's a surreal fairy tale. But because of the Body Count stuff, people have that as a framework to understand it, so they just hear "He fell dead" and that's the end of it. The rest of it somehow doesn't get heard.

Listening to your record, it seems like there are a lot of themes of authority.
Yeah, I guess so. I hadn't quite thought of that. I guess there is really a spectrum between there being an imperative to respect authority or reject a false authority. So, there is no program about authority itself, but rather to raise the issue of what constitutes authority. In that respect I suppose there is a message, if you want to call it a message, of, on the one hand, being free of any form of tyranny but on the other hand to not be insolent and disrespect that which is holy.