Shows/1988-01-15

Fan Recaps and Comments:

Tickets were $6.

From an article on the band by Dorene Lomanto
Washington Square News, Feb. 10, 1988:

"It's time for the famous polka!" cried John Linnell, pounding out a tune on his accordion and thumping his foot. The audience cheered, yelling a few "Heys!" as John Flansburgh pounded his chest between screeching guitar solos.

Soon it was time for The Stick's performance. "The Stick, The Stick!" cried the audience. "This song was written to be performed by The Stick," said Flansburgh before he began pounding "the instrument" on the floor and singing "Lie Still, Little Bottle." "More Stick! More Stick!" requested the audience. Flansburgh pounded the stick harder. "Would the drunk person please get off the tape recorder," Flansburgh yelled toward the back of the room. This "technical problem we call a fuck up," as he put it, preempted the performance of "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head." Then there was the group's musical science lesson: The sun is a mass of incandescent gas/A giant nuclear furnace/Where hydrogen is built into helium/At a temperature of millions of degrees.

"GIANTS AND JICKETS: PLENTY OF ABSURDITY" by Jane Greenstein
Jersey Journal, Jan. 21, 1988:

Are the Giants getting big heads? Is MTV exposure, drooling critics and a hot underground album making the two guys known as They Might Be Giants take themselves a wee bit too seriously? Judging from their performance to a packed house at Maxwell's in Hoboken on Jan. 15, I'd say they need to loosen up.

New York-based guitarist John Flansburgh and accordionist John Linnell are definitely improving as songwriters, and their ranks of fans are growing fatter, but their show is not as quirky as their music would let on.

The Giants' music, is, in a word, absurd. Let's face it, life is hell these days, what with the apocalypse coming any moment and the proletariat losing its footing with each passing day. How to handle it? They Might Be Giants do it by incorporating a phone book full of musical styles with lyrics that never fail to make you chuckle. Even when they sing about some pretty heady stuff, they always keep their tagging tongues planted firmly in their cheeks. (Sample lyrics: "The sun is a nuclear furnace/The sun is so hot that everything on it is a gas' or how 'bout 'I built a little empire out of some crazy garbage called the exploited working class"). Not that they get too didactic. These guys certainly know how to polka when the time is right or get down and dirty with a stomper like 'She Was a Hotel Detective.'

No, you can hardly accuse them of being pretentious. How can you fault a band that uses a chunk of wood to beat along in time or close the show with an audience sing-a-long, complete with cue cards? (Just picture it, a group of affected young folk chanting 'And I hope I get old before I die.') The duo isn't uptight, maybe just a bit stiff (the canned backing tracks don't help matters any) but a lot of fun. Perhaps They Might Be Giants just wanted to keep it cool after seeing their opening act The Jickets. Let's just say it's too bad "The Gong Show" went off the air. This band would have walked away with the big money.

The lead Jicket, who sounded something like Mr. Bill on acid, was decked out in a white tuxedo, fur collar, and a stop watch dangling from his neck, of course. Song content? Subjects ranged from 'the cavalcade of stars' right there at the club, to a girl being pushed off the Manhattan bridge (no, she didn't fall). But The Jickets endeared themselves to me forever by belting out one of my all time favorite Chicago tunes, '25 or 6 to 4,' and asking something that's been burning in my brain for a good ten years now: What does that mean anyways? Don't look to these guys for answers.