TMBG Info Club Archive/Winter 1995

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The following newspaper was mailed out to Information Club members in early 1995.

They Might Be Giants - Info Club - Issue 1, Winter 95

A Letter from Flansburgh

(NEW YEARS DAY) Happy New Year Info People! John Flansburgh here, with greetings from San Francisco. They Might Be Giants just got off doing a whirlwind of Christmas festival shows. Highlights included our longest conga line on record (way into the hundreds) at some arena in Dallas, where we followed the reunited Go-Gos. The New Years Eve show here at the Hard Rock Cafe was cool because it was free, instead of the usual audience-busting $30. We played on a make-shift stage built on top of the installed tables, which raised us up to the level of those famous Hard Rock celebrity guitars on display near the ceiling. I couldn't resist plugging some of them in during the show and giving them a strum just to see if they still worked. The Los Lobos guitar was surprisingly in tune, but the most interesting sounding was the one from the Alarm. Very twangy. I didn't have a guitar to spare, but maybe someday I'll retire one and there will be a place for it next to that very new looking Depeche Mode guitar.

Checking in with Saint John Coltrane

I went to an interesting storefront church today that should be a part of anyone's visit to San Francisco. Our trombonist for New Year's, Dan Levine, took me to the African Orthodox Church where the jazz saxophonist John Coltrane is worshipped as a saint. The service began with the robed clergy donning saxophones and joining the house band for an impressive two hour Coltrane jam. There was an impressive Russian-icon-like painting of Coltrane with flames bursting out of the bell of the horn. Underneath his name was spelled in this mysteriously "meaningFUL" way: John Will I AM Coltrane.

On the Road with Frank Black

This last fall, as many of you are aware, we did the first big swing through the States supporting "John Henry." I also had the distinct pleasure of touring with my friend, Mr. Frank Black. Frank has a very different attitude than most musicians about touring. He really likes the parts most people hate. He loves the physical act of driving, and is always willing to explore what's out there on the road, even if it means blowing off sound check. He always drives his own car instead of being on a tour bus, or in a van with bandmates. Consequently, when you tag along in his car you're in his world, and leave the touring party and all its obligations very far behind. Frank and his significant other, Jean, have traveled extensively across the states on Pixies and Frank Black tours and have acquired an impressive knowledge of most cities' cultural oddities and culinary treats. They travel with a radar detector and a CB, and are always down for stopping in the all-night truck stop to pick up some budget cassettes of some unknown singer. Frank never got out the police radio on this tour, but I've seen him use it in LA.

I first ran into Frank back when he was working under the name Black Francis in the Pixies in the late '80s, around '87 I guess. They Might Be Giants were on one of our first tours after the release of the first Bar/None album. We were doing a show with them in a bar in Boston called Green St. Station. I remember their sound check and Frank singing in Spanish, and the excitement the Pixies were feeling as they had just been signed by 4AD in England. I regret I didn't get to see the Pixies show that night. What I did see walking in was the third act on the bill--one of the more disturbing pieces of performance art I've ever witnessed--right before I saw my parents in the audience.

Later They Might Be Giants did a press tour in the UK where I got to spend a few days hanging out with Frank at the Columbia Hotel. The Columbia is one of those places that actually lives up to its reputation as a "Rock Hotel." The bar is open very late, which is unusual for London, and it is often populated by a cast of characters directly reflecting that week's NME cover. Frank and I commiserated over the odd set of concerns one has doing interviews all day, and exchanged phone numbers.

Over the years we made a point of checking in with the other in New York or LA, or if our tours crossed paths. We finally had the chance to work together when he asked me to direct the videos for "Los Angeles" and "Hang On to Your Ego" off the first Frank Black album in the beginning of '93. Our bassist, Tony Maimone, came off of our tour and joined his, and John and I ended up performing "Spy" on stage at the Academy in New York with the Frank Black band. A very rough version of the song got recorded with them for a live radio broadcast at Electric Lady.

They Might Be Frank - Memphis December 20, 1994

It might have seemed inevitable that Frank and TMBG would end up playing together on stage while he was doing his solo show opening for us. He occasionally sat in for "Spy," but we never really mixed it up as much as I thought we might when this touring package came up. Through an odd set of circumstances They Might Be Frank was finally realized, however, in Memphis just before Christmas. The TMBG tour was to end on the 18th. Linnell booked a flight to spend the holidays overseas, but then this radio festival got confirmed without our knowledge for the 20th. Frank bailed us out by coming back from rehearsal in Rhode Island for his next European tour to do a special set with Brian, Tony, and me. We were billed as They Might Be Frank, and performed a bunch of his current songs, "Los Angeles," "Headache," and "Czar" along with a new, very cool song he wrote called "Jumping Bean," and some Giants regulars "Spy" (which Frank conducted the improvisational portion of) "Dig My Grave," "The Sun," "Istanbul" and a Bo-Diddleyized version of "Particle Man" with Frank singing and playing the clarinet line on the guitar. We also covered "Duke of Earl," which to my surprise (but not Frank's) had the audience chanting along almost right away.

After the show we drove to Graceland and looked at the Christmas decorations and did some late night souvenir shopping.

Hope you had a great New Years. See you in the conga line in February or March.
- Flansburgh

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Inn in Hell Lends Joy

By John Sidney Linnell

Another season of grueling toil on the road for TMBG, more frivolous little car games to pass the time. This year while driving across America and Europe I made up anagrams out of the names of our band members, which led me to wonder if the hidden messages lurking behind every name or phrase has some mystical significance (doubt it), or if the letter combinations that someone picks out are a reflection of that person's contorted picture of the world. I'll leave it for you to decide; readers are certainly welcome to make up their own anagrams and send them in to the Info Club.

Randy Andos (trombone, tuba):
add no yarns, on a dry sand, dandy arson

Tony Maimone (bass):
I am on my note, am I not money, emit yon moan

Mike Kelly (tour manager):
eke my kill

Kurt Hoffman (sax, keyboards):
tuff honk arm, funk from hat

Brian Doherty (drums):
drab in theory, a brother indy

There are a seemingly endless number of anagrams for They Might Be Giants. I picked out these from a much longer list:

• MY BIG TEETH GNASH IT
• HIGH TAB, MEET SINGY
• THY GIG BENEATH MIST
• BIG HAT, TEENSY MIGHT
• I MIGHT BEGET SHANTY
• THE BIG STEAMY THING

Driven by Their Own Musical Interests

From PitchWeekly:
News and Entertainment for Metro Kansas City
December 22-28, 1994

JEFFREY DRAKE

Imagine Frank Zappa, without the technical virtuosity, condensing his ideas into two minute vignettes. Or imagine the Beatles beginning their artistic evolution at the White Album. Then, imagine them as a duo hailing from Brooklyn, NY, who craft their melodically accessible tunes with accordion, guitar and unmistakable nasal harmonies. Better yet, combine these two images and add the unpredictable instrumentation and musical palette of Brave Combo. Somewhere within that equation lies the essence of They Might Be Giants.

Putting one's finger on the slippery stuff that is the "giant-ness" of They Might Be Giants isn't that easy. What complicates the matter is the catalog of musical styles and peculiar topics that the band has covered in over 100 songs to date on five full length albums, seven EPs and one Christmas single.

More than a decade after getting together, John Linnell (now 33) and John Flansburgh (now 32) are still producing their peerless brand of terse, eccentric pop. And unlike most bands who strive toward a well crafted pop ideal, neither the years nor the signing to a major label have swayed They Might Be Giants from their unique musical vision.

No Necessity For Momentum

John Linnell and John Flansburgh became They Might Be Giants inauspiciously enough in 1983 in Brooklyn, N Y. Having been friends in high school in suburban Boston, the two Johns, then 22 and 21 respectively, by coincidence found themselves in virtually the same suburban New York neighborhood several years later. They made the rounds of the progressive and diverse New York club scene as just a duo; with Flansburgh on guitar and vocals, Linnell on organ and vocals and a cassette recorder adding whatever additional sounds they needed, The openness of the club owners at that time and the preponderance of electronically based music provided the band with the perfect opportunity to pursue their eclectic goal.

"It was very informal when we started. It didn't seem like a very bold decision to start writing songs and recording them and performing." Linnell says.

They recorded their songs on a 4-track tape recorder in Flansburgh's apartment, which came furnished with a piano. The early songs were austere, no drums or drum machine, only piano, synthesizer, guitar and vocals.

Linnell says, "I remember at the time we were really interested in the whole idea of studio based recording that was obvious to anyone listening that it was not the recording of a live band."

"There were a lot of things on the radio in our neighborhood that obviously weren't above, like, four guys in a garage. It was very much a recorded thing," Flansburgh says.

To help spread the word of their band beyond the clubs and beyond the city limits, Linnell and Flansburgh came up with a deviously simple scheme: turn Flansburgh's home answering machine into a phone service called Dial-A-Song. The number (now 718-387-6962) offers a personal greeting from the Johns, information on upcoming shows and a new song every day.

"We were doing a lot of shows in this real nocturnal world. You'd go and do a show at 1:30 in the morning for a bunch of people who are going to be up until five," Flansburgh says. "But I think we realized pretty early on that the people who were really going to be interested in what we were doing are probably not heading out to the disco on weekdays. So, Dial-A-Song was an opportunity in a very low entry level way to get people aware of what we were doing.

"There are songs that end up on records that are really liked by our fans that were probably written without ever thinking it's going to go any farther than Dial-A-Song," adds Flansburgh. "Which is one of the nice things about having other reasons to write songs than making records."

After the first year of the band's existence, Linnell picked up the accordion, an instrument he was familiar with only through playing other keyboard instruments. The switch not only served to further set the band apart, but also became a great asset.

"The accordion had this really great sound and seemed positive in every way when we introduced it," Flansburgh says. "It also was when we got the accordion that we realized that we could go and do shows on the subway. We could actually travel to (the legendary New York live music venue) CBGB on the subway with the amp and the suitcase, with the cassette recorder, the accordion and the guitar. That was our whole deal."

Though the band auditioned several drummers early on, they quickly discovered that the addition would upset the portability of the band and the chemistry the two shared as well. But Linnell remembers that most important reason why they stayed a duo. "The fact is," he says, "we just weren't making enough money to make it interesting for anybody except for ourselves."

Flansburgh agrees, "If there's no money involved then everybody's got to be happy for personal reasons. And what we were talking about doing was so personal to us and kind of extreme and hard to defend. You know, if we could say, 'we've got this master plan. Ten years from now we're going to be signed to a major label and it's going to be really cool.' Maybe it would hav held interest for somebody.

"Ultimately, it (being a duo) was lucky, because it was a format that we could stick to, and it afforded us the ability to get better. And it wasn't like, 'we've got to get signed this year or somebody's going to leave.' You know, there was no need for it to have momentum. It was just a creative project that we could pool all our personal energy into and get back everything that we wanted from it."

It took almost four years for the band to be picked up by New Jersey-based independent Bar/None Records. "You know," Flansburgh says, "we were traveling at a pretty slow velocity."

Not As Funny As People Think

Though both Linnell and Flansburgh write, they do not necessarily write together. But if you were to check out the credits inside any They Might Be Giants album, you would find that all songs are credited to both writers.

"I think the thing for us is that, you know, combining the songwriting is a way of not acknowledging the fact that even though one of us might come up with a song, the whole project is a very mutual thing," Linnell says. "I think it would be fair to say that we actually liberally steal each other's ideas. And it's a way of taking responsibility for that. We're heavily influenced by each other, so that's kind of the way it works."

Flansburgh calls it a conscious effort to avoid people dividing the pair up as critics are so fond of doing with other famous songwriting pairs, like John Lennon and Paul McCartney.

"There are tons of people who are happy to say that everything good about the Beatles was due to John Lennon, because he was, like the rocker, and he projects this much more clear cut rock image. But in fact, Paul McCartney is a total powerhouse of talent," Flansburgh says. "And you know he wrote some incredible rock songs, like he really came up with the template for a lot of different kind of approaches to putting together a rock song."

Aside from the Beatles, Flansburgh also cites the influence of the popular music of the '60s in general. "It seemed like rock bands or pop bands could-and were sort of expected to-do more than one kind of thing. And that's an interesting way to approach it. But now it's like people are really working in one monolithic style. Their musical sensibility links up with their fashion statement. It's like one very neat package. But that's just not our bag."

Fashion is immaterial to the music They Might Be Giants produce, and their style could never be called monolithic. The band revels in subject matter totally alien to the pop landscape (aptly inferred from titles such as "Purple Toupee," "The Statue Got Me High," Nightgown of the Sullen Moon" and "Extra Savoir-Faire). And their songs are just as likely to be expressed in traditional rock terms as being drawn from Latin, Eastern or Middle Eastern styles of basic country and jazz.

But the common foundation of all the songs is a strong pop melodic structure. "It's a challenge to write a good song; it's not the easiest thing to do," Flansburgh says. "We want to make something that is challenging to the listener, challenging to us and also works."

"We try to let every song just take us wherever it wants to go."

And so the song "Shoehorn with Teeth," from their second album Lincoln, not only has an upbeat '40s radio ad quality to it, but lyrics about a man of questionable sanity; he asks a girl if they can both sit in a chair, but he doesn't get nervous/she's not really there . "How people fit in to society is always interesting," Flansburgh says. In our songs a lot of times people think that (the songs are) saying more about the outside world than they actually are."

"We write about internal stuff," Linnell says. "The songs are not autobiographical. They're also not generally about very specific things...People think we're a lot funnier than we actually are."

Both men describe themselves as "self-involved, but in a good way," and are much more comfortable discussing their professional careers than their personal lives. The nature of their art is something that they have taken great pains to refine, though both find it difficult to put into words. "I guess there's some abstract notion of quality that definitely is our goal," Flansburgh says. Then he adds with a laugh, "I know that sounds like some hotel chain or something."

Though they admit some of their songs are nothing but light entertainment, the majority of their work is what they consider serious.

"I feel like we write complicated songs. And there's a range of intentions in them," Flansburgh says. "A lot of our most interesting songs, there's a couple different things going on. And it's actually the contrast of the two that makes it really powerful. You know, it's not our goal to be insignificant. We're not trying to tell people to take a load off and listen to They Might Be Giants records. I think in a sense, we want to warn people: If you're not up to the challenge of listening to a record that might strike you as unusual, just don't even bother, because you're not going to like it."

Their unusual repertoire has caused many critics to dismiss the band as just a novelty act, on par with Weird Al Yankovich. To which Flansburgh replies, "I think that's our cross to bear. I don't think we're ever going to be able to shake that."

But that doesn't necessarily concern the Johns. "| think there is a perception about stuff that's not dead serious that it has a less important effect on the listener," Linnell says. "And I always feel like the stuff that I reacted to that kind of changed my philosophy and made me emote and that I was into, was often stuff that had some humor in it. It wasn't totally deadeningly serious."

This doesn't mean that they are trying to see how bizarre they can be. "There's a perception to people that we do stuff to be weird or we're doing it for the sake of strangeness," Linnell says.

Flansburgh adds, "It's easy to just toss in some really obtuse stuff and declare you're a weirdo, but it's another thing to do something that actually is a strong piece of work and has a real impact and sounds fresh and solid."

That attention to pop sensibility is the engine that propels the band. No matter how obscure the lyrics may get or what anomalous hybrid of music they may graft the melody to, what matters most is that the song is well crafted.

Ultimately, what critics have to say about the band has little impact on them. "I've come to realize that it's a pretty useless element in my life," Flansburgh says. "We've never been in a band that's trying to reach everybody."

The Low Road To Success

Another four years, two LPs and three EPs on Bar None Records, They Might Be Giants were picked up by Elektra in 1990, a move which meant better distribution, surprisingly without an artistic compromise. The big label muscle, added to the steady growth of the band's popularity and their loyal core following, recently pushed their first Elektra release, 1990's Flood, to be certified gold in the United States (500,000 copies sold) by the RIAA.

"The first thing I thought was 'where's my solid gold Cadillac?'" Flansburgh says. "It took four years for it to go gold, so it's typical of everything in our career, which is that it's kind of in its own slower pace."

The more relaxed pace works better for the band who would trade careers with almost no one on the Top 40. Flansburgh says, "There's no reason to get jealous of other people's careers."

And Linnell adds, "Because ideally you're doing your own thing...You're sort of saddled with your own music, whether people like it or not."

In the last four years, the band has seen the appeal of their music grow, and the venues and crowds filling then grow larger and larger. As a result, the band itself has increased to a six piece with Brian Doherty on drums, Tony Maimone on bass and a two-piece horn section. It was a change Linnell and Flansburgh felt was due when they found themselves heading back to some of the same places they had recently been on a previous tour.

In Flansburgh's words, "It seemed important to make some kind of real changes in the show." After touring with a full band, they decided to let that energy spill over into the studio. John Henry, the band's fifth and latest full length release, marks the first time the Johns have been joined by a lively rhythm section in the studio.

And it's just another step on the band's low road to success. Flansburgh says, "The next record we probably make is just inevitably going to be somehow different than that. I don't think we're going to just do the exact same thing again. It think we'll probably end up doing something more integrated, that's more like what we did up until John Henry with, like, the best of the two different ways of working...But I think we'll probably make a more fucked up sounding record than the last one."

Linnell adds with a laugh, "That's sort of been the, what do you call it, the byword for the next record, 'fucked up.'"

The successes haven't really changed the duo. Their music continues to dwell in its own eclectic category, nearby other musical fringe dwellers like Frank Zappa and The Residents. But making a living at doing exactly what they want to do is what matters to They Might Be Giants, not stadium capacity crowds, the adulation of millions or a bevy of hangers-on.

"It's not about making it or being stars or whatever," Flansburgh says. "We enjoy having careers, and we have enjoyed the success we've had. But I get the feeling that if we weren't on the road, we'd just be in New York playing gigs, playing in a bar or playing at a theater."

"It's really started out as a project that was driven by our own interest in what we were doing, what we were able to put together," Linnell says. "The ideas that we put into the music are what sustains our enthusiasm for it. And that was all we had for a few years in the beginning. So, I think we're prepared to become unknown, despised, hunted."

That may be many years down the road. Right now, there are too many people who share the enthusiasm for their music for They Might Be Giants to slip out of favor or out of sight. As for being hunted, we can only wait to see what the next album brings.