Shows/1985-07-12

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• Poster

Setlist: (Incomplete!)

• You'll Miss Me

They Might Be Giants
— with Eugene Chadbourne co-headlining —
8BC in New York, NY
July 12, 1985 at 11:00 PM

Fan Recaps and Comments:

This show was reviewed by Glenn Kenny in the August 13, 1985 issue of The Village Voice:

Genius Walks

They've been termed a "performance duo" in other rags, but I say pshaw! They Might Be Giants are just a coupla real fun guys. The two Johns — Flansburgh on guitar and vocals, Linnell on accordion and vocals, aided and abetted by live soundman Bill Krauss, who also engineers their prerecorded rhythm tracks — have double-handedly resurrected the transcendently silly/surreal pop song. Imagine a cross between circa 1979 Costello (ascending-scale hooks and general oomph) and Tin Huey, and you've got some of the idea. Throw in some ersatz c&w, a polka, and some truly memorable song titles ("Nothing's Gonna Change My Clothes," "Alienation Is for the Rich," and "Youth Culture Killed My Dog," which I've adopted as an anthem), and you've got a little more.

As you've probably guessed, the whole idea has to be taken in live. At 8 B.C. recently, they (or They) were in fine form, Flansburgh doing a great nerd-at-the-Golden-Nugget schtick for "You'll Miss Me," their fake macho kissoff number (in which the spurned protagonist boasts "Your money talks, my genius walks"), and Linnell looking like Brad Dourif somehow zapped into Lawrence Welk's band. All their tunes fairly bristle with zingers both musical and verbal, and Flansburgh's guitar reintroduces you to the joys of tinniness. Linnell's accordion sounds, of course, just like an accordion.

They Might Be Giants are, in this reporter's opinion, one of the finest entertainment values in show business today. If you don't believe him — well, I'll be personally hurt, but you can call their 24 hour Dial-A-Song service (718-387-6962 — awfully sporting of them to do this, I mean even "nice guy" Phil Collins doesn't have a Dial-A-Song number) for further verification of their general wonderfulness. And if you're not convinced then, well I say pshaw! on you.

This was the first time the band shared a bill with future collaborator Eugene Chadbourne. John Linnell stated in a 1989 interview: "[Chadbourne is] a genius. A national treasure. I don't know everything he's done, but we performed with him once. It was fantastic." In a 1996 Pitchfork interview, John Flansburgh explained how this show eventually led to Chadbourne's appearance on the song "Absolutely Bill's Mood":

We'd done a show with him where his amp had blown up and he asked if he could borrow my amp. I was really reluctant to let him borrow my amp. I didn't know him at all. He was like, "Don't worry. It won't be bad." And then he plugs in this electric rake with like, a cheap pickup on it. So he's playing it through my amp making this completely hellish feedback sound really loud. Then he gave me back my amp and it wasn't... broken. But I think I made it clear that he owed me one. So we were figuring out the arrangement for the song, I thought, "Hey, I'll give him a call. He borrowed my amp." And that was the deal.