The Complete Factory Showroom Sessions

	The Complete Factory Showroom Sessions Bootleg by They Might Be Giants
	First released	1996 Release details / collectors: Show | Hide	Tracks	22
	Label	Elektra	Length	68:20

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See Discography Glossary for definition of various terms.

Cassette

The Complete Factory Showroom Sessions is an unofficial title given to a 1996 internal Elektra cassette that leaked to the public. The collection includes nearly the entire Factory Showroom album and its associated B-sides, as well as seven other songs that had not been released at the time of its leak.

Background

A copy of the tape first made its way to fans via a friend of producer Pat Dillett.^[1] By February 1997, copies were circulating among a group of fans, and in March they spread to the wider online fan base.^[2]

John Flansburgh gave some background on the recording of the tape in a 2025 Tumblr post.^[3]

This is simply a comp of material drawn from that time, but it is in no way a reflection of what was “originally” intended for Factory Showroom. No matter what our relationship, we would only deliver a single albums worth of material (somewhere between 40 and I guess 50-something minutes) and some b-sides. Extra material was in fact very valuable to us, and we wouldn’t be in the business of delivering stuff for kicks. Things were institutionally rudderless at Elektra in general and regarding us it was almost silly at the time–there was not pressure, there were no goals, no one cared much and no one was paying hardly any attention. We put the entire sequence of the album together on our own, and the label had exactly zero notes, and zero thoughts, and no real formal response beyond “received”.

As I think of this extra material, many tracks were made at Coyote with no budget from Elektra. I don’t think Rat Patrol, They Got Lost, Reprehensible, Counterfeit Faker, or Older were ever formally submitted to Elektra–at least not by me–for their consideration, and were actually essentially early efforts to get another album together. Organizationally our management people were very gossipy at the time and probably leaked stuff to them. Couldn’t say, but after certain people I could name were gone, the leaks stopped and that was fine by me. [...] This is a very curious tape but it doesn’t reflect any more ambitious plan or rejection for Factory Showroom material. The rejection of They Might Be Giants as a project from Elektra was far wider and more profound.

Two recordings from this cassette, versions of "Older" and "On The Drag," have not been released and are exclusive to this tape. The five other songs that were exclusive to this tape eventually saw a release on Long Tall Weekend in 1999. "I Can Hear You" is absent from the collection, likely due to being a wax cylinder recording. "We've Got A World That Swings" is also absent, possibly because it appears to be a solo John Linnell home recording due to the use of entirely MIDI instruments and some of the same samples used on Linnell's House Of Mayors project.

The title of this tape is misleading—it does not collect the complete recordings from the Factory Showroom sessions. It is more accurately described as a compilation of recent recordings that the band had in reserve. While much of the material was recorded for the Factory Showroom album, some songs (e.g. "Spiraling Shape" and "New York City") originate from unrelated earlier recording sessions.

Track listing

#	Title	Length	Lyrics	Guitar Tab
1	New York City	3:02
2	Metal Detector	3:50
3	XTC vs. Adam Ant	3:37
4	Spiralling Shape	4:24
5	Until My Head Falls Off	2:53
6	Senssurround	3:02
7	How Can I Sing Like A Girl	4:32
8	Pet Name	4:04
9	S-E-X-X-Y	3:51
10	Token Back To Brooklyn	1:01
11	On The Drag	2:46		N/A
12	James K. Polk	3:04
13	Your Own Worst Enemy	1:45
14	Counterfeit Faker	2:12
15	Certain People	3:30
16	The Bells Are Ringing	3:32
17	Unforgotten	3:06
18	Exquisite Dead Guy	2:02
19	Reprehensible	3:17
20	You're Older	1:57		N/A
21	TMBG Got Lost	4:39
22	Rat Patrol	2:04