TMBG Anecdotes
Chaos Harlequin
Hideho!
I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
Here's two for you:
<J&J are singing "Why Does The Sun Shine?">
Linnell: The sun is so large, a billion earths could fit inside it.
<Crowd mumbles to itself>
One fan: Bullshit!
Linnell: Fuck you, man!
<g>
When I went to buy Unsupervised this July, I looked in the shelves
under "M", but it wasn't there. Disappointed and ready to leave, my
attention was suddenly drawn to the music playing on the tiny speakers
hidden strategically around the room. I became aware of a very JF-like
voice singing "I was Unsupervised, I had a real good time, until I...I
hit my head." Happy again, I walked over to the counter, pointed to
the ceiling, and said "Do you have *this* in stock?"
Ecstatic with my new acquisitions, I was preparing to leave the store
when I heard one Record Shop Guy say to the other "*What's* he
singing? 'I hit my head'?"
So, what are your favorite TMBG anecdotes? Please share.
/---------------------------Joshua Hall-Bachner---------------------------\
| part...@servtech.com http://www.servtech.com/public/particle/ |
| "The few surviving samurai survey the battlefield. They count the arms, |
\--the legs, the heads, and then divide by five." - They Might Be Giants--/
Brian Kobashikawa
>I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
>anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
>how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
I went to see them [TMBG] at the Pantages two years ago. I thought I
saw them using the restroom. It turned out to be two other guys who
did not resemble them in the slightest. In fact, I believe they were
of different ethnic origins than the Johns.
Oddly enough, your bizarre anecdote about getting Mono Puff was a lot
like mine with John Henry. I first heard this weird music playing
backwards (Subliminal's end) at the Wherehouse while I was searching
for the CD. And then following that was a bunch of garbage about a
snail shell or something. I'm all, "This better not be TMBG,
otherwise I'm gonna be pret-ty damn disappointed."
Well, lucky me when I saw "Snail Shell" as being Track 2.
Fortunately, the rest of the CD turned out a lot better. (Yeah, and
don't any of you say that Snail Shell is by golly your FAVORITEST
[sic] song in the whole wide world, because we all know that it's not
true.)
The Wherehouse played it once again later on that year. One of the
girls working there said to the guy who put it on: "Would you turn
that crap off?" He tried to defend himself but turned it to something
like Alice in Chains anyway. I thought that was pretty hilarious.
Not very clever, nor funny. BUT PRETTY GOSHDARN SILLY!!!
____
Brian Kobashikawa
Visit the Jerry Chavez Worship Page at
http://www.dragonfire.net/~JChavez/
Visit the Unofficial Gameboy Tetris Home Page at
http://www.dragonfire.net/~JChavez/tetris/
Chris Conaton
In article <5541uq$g...@post.servtech.com>, part...@servtech.com (Chaos Harlequin) says:
>
>Hideho!
>
>I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
>anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
>how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
>
><J&J are singing "Why Does The Sun Shine?">
>Linnell: The sun is so large, a billion earths could fit inside it.
><Crowd mumbles to itself>
>One fan: Bullshit!
>Linnell: Fuck you, man!
><g>
>So, what are your favorite TMBG anecdotes? Please share.
This one comes from a NYC show in the Halloween run of '94. They finish
the Famous Polka and Flans plays this loud guitar chord and says, "And it's
still perfectly in tune. Never a problem, when you don't care."
Mercury Lounge, 3/14/96-Flans, "I've just been handed a piece of paper in-
forming me that it's Kim's birthday. If your birthday is parked outside,
please move it, there are other birthday's trying to get by."
And a personal one. This was at the Hill Auditorium concert in Ann Arbor
in April of '94. I had about six people with me, one of whom rode up with
his other friends, who had different seats. We were on the far right side
of the first balcony, and his friends were on the far left side. The
acoustics in Hill are strange, so when his friends stood up and started
shouting "Doug! Doug!" you could hear it perfectly from where we were. So
every time his friends started yelling his name, Doug stood up and took a
bow. Eventually, we got the whole place chanting "Doug! Doug!". It's still
one of my favorite concert moments...then Brian Dewan came on to horrid
audience reaction, but that's another story.
randall floyd
Chaos Harlequin wrote:
>
> Hideho!
>
> I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
> anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
> how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
not actually an anecdote but a little story...
my friend jeff and i used to <note: used to> host a radio show on
KABF... our air time was 1 A.M. to 4 A.M. <or something like that>...
which gave us full choice of what we would play... so one night <our
last night i do believe> we crammed as much TMBG <and only TMBG> into
our time slot as we could... and we did a sing along to 'WDTSS' which we
were told sounded like 'squat'... this was directly following the JH
release by the way...
well to top it off... They Might Be Frank was a rather nice treat for
christmas before last... frank black sang some of particle man to me and
some friends on the sidewalk outside the club 616 in memphis and i think
i baffled flans when i asked if the car he was getting into talked <the
reason is that it was a chrysler new yorker... i owned a new yorker a
while back and it had a voice thing in it that always tried to convince
me that my 'door is ajar'>...flans said he didn't know if it talked but
he liked the taurus that frank was getting into better... later on
during the show <frank taking the place of linnell who was in scotland
at the time> frank annouced during 'WDTSS' that the sun was in fact made
of things like niacin... vitamin c... estrogen... and other things of
that sort... quite amusing to say the least... um... well i guess you
had to be there.. oh well...
RF... <HoP>
Keyser Soze
On Tue, 29 Oct 1996, randall floyd wrote:
> well to top it off... They Might Be Frank was a rather nice treat for
> christmas before last... frank black sang some of particle man to me and
> some friends on the sidewalk outside the club 616 in memphis and i think
> i baffled flans when i asked if the car he was getting into talked <the
> reason is that it was a chrysler new yorker... i owned a new yorker a
> while back and it had a voice thing in it that always tried to convince
> me that my 'door is ajar'>...flans said he didn't know if it talked but
> he liked the taurus that frank was getting into better...
Interesting, My mother has an '87 New Yorker that also insists that the
door is a jar. It always says, "Thank You" when the door gets shut as well.
I think once it even said, "Your engine oil pressure is low, prompt
service is required."
Anyhow, this is way off the subject.
-Darryl Suskin-
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
sus...@students.uiuc.edu O- http://www.students.uiuc.edu/~suskin
ejpophatptwwtptitito
"You said you were the king of liars, and I belived you and called you sire,
but I realize now that I have been deceived." -they might be giants-
GoodOmenz
>Interesting, My mother has an '87 New Yorker that also insists that the
>door is a jar.
said...
~izl (too shamed to use real name)
Jim Ellwanger
St. Petersburg, Florida, April 1992, on the Apollo 18 Pre-Tour (Their last
tour without a full band):
John F.: It's great to be back in St. Petersburg.
John L.: Yeah, the last time we were here, it was called Leningrad.
--
Jim Ellwanger <trai...@mindspring.com>
<http://www.mindspring.com/~trainman1/>
"Big risk, big reward...in The Twilight Zone."
Mitchell Harding
>Fortunately, the rest of the CD turned out a lot better. (Yeah, and
>don't any of you say that Snail Shell is by golly your FAVORITEST
>[sic] song in the whole wide world, because we all know that it's not
>true.)
It's a damn good song -- I have no favorite, but it's tied for my
favorite (with about a third of their songs, admittedly).
Mitch
Sarah & Robert Ferguson
In <5541uq$g...@post.servtech.com> part...@servtech.com (Chaos
Harlequin) writes:
>
>Hideho!
>
>I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
>anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
>how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
My wife and I went to see Them at the Beacon Theater in NYC (our first
sit-down TMBG show). Anyway, the point: there is an upper level in the
theater, and a group of people from the upper level were yelling
something over and over. At one point between songs, it got so loud
that it prompted some strange looks from Them, then Linnell said,"You
guys up there are yelling something, but we don't know what it is."
I guess you had to be there. Were you?
Ferg
Amber-f...@friday.houston.net
> part...@servtech.com (Chaos Harlequin) writes:
> Hideho!
>
> I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
> anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
> how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
>
March 31 of this year when right before They started to play "They Got Lost" (a downright rolicking song, by the way!) and they
asked the audience to pay attention to the lyrics. But, Flansburgh needed to read the lyrics and it was a very dimly lit room. He
asked the lighting guys to turn up the house lights "not because I can't read this, just 'cause it looks sooo cool!" I don't know. I
thought it was so cute! And then Mr. Linnell told some silly little anectdote about getting coffe that I can't remember, but it was
funny! Flansburgh also gave me his set list at the end of that show and the drummer from the opening band (Swales? Swell? not
sure) gave me their itinerary! All in all, a good show!
The only other one I can remember right now (and just as vividly as the first!) was not too crazy, but kind of cool just the same.
When I went to buy my copy of FS (which I ADORED right from the start so take that!:)) just as I walked to the counter with CD
in hand everyone started asking about the new album and when it was coming out and blah blah blah. None of them had seen it
in my hand, so it was all pure coincidence that 5 or 6 Giants fans came in at the same time. The guy at the record store then
ripped open his new copy and played it for all of us. Kind of trivial, but a great moment in my TMBG history nonetheless.
Thats all!
Amber Erceg
*"I've never been frightened of being enlightened, but some things can go too far."*
(beautiful) Barenaked Ladies
"These Apples"
-while we're on BNL- does any one know why their newsgroup isn't operating?! anyone know when it will come back?...talk
about cool stories, I have some awesome BNL stories for you...
Demona
I thought it was really funny at the August 9:30 Club concert when
Linnell accidentally spilled his, I think it was coffee. He had just
picked the accordion up (which the coffee had been resting behind) and
it (the coffee of course!) tipped over. He gave it the funniest look,
like, "You're not supposed to do that" then sort of smiled, shrugged,
picked the cup up and drank what was left. It was funny at that time...
Another funny time was right after the Taste of DC show. My friend and
I had followed this generic guy to their car, which Linnell had just
come up to. He said something like, "We can't sign autographs" and the
guy said reverently, "That's okay, can we just shake your hand?????"
For some reason it was really funny. Then, after shaking his hand, my
friend Mismirilda almost fell into their car- I don't know why she
tipped off balance...
Another friend of mine, blue canary, and I were at the Elizabethtown
show. We were really early (like three hours) and were waitiing on this
bench at the back of the place the concert was at (I don't know what it
was). Anyway, we heard the soundcheck going on, and naively assumed it
was They doing the soundcheck. Then we both got the shock of our lives
when this car suddenly drove past the bench, over the grass, and parked
in front of us, Flans at the wheel! Neither of us could move- after
all, we thought they were inside! Then blue canary got up, so I
followed her, and we just kind of watched them go in in silence... It
was funny at the time...
Well that's all I remember. Maybe not that funny but oh well.
Demona
randall floyd
i forgot to mention the coincidence of amazing proportions...
some of my friends and i were outside 616 in memphis listening to the
TMBG/FB soundcheck and getting occasionally bitched out by security
guards for peeking in the window at them... <this was the night that i
got to chat very very briefly with flans and frank sang a few bars of
particle man to us right there on the sidewalk> anyway... my friend jeff
said 'man i hope they play dig my grave'... and like one second after he
said that they started playing 'dig my grave'... i also got to meet the
murmurs that night and they were supernice...
T-Set
>In <5541uq$g...@post.servtech.com> part...@servtech.com (Chaos
>Harlequin) writes:
>>
>>Hideho!
>>
>>I'd like to hear all your funny, silly, and clever TMBG stories and
>>anecdotes. Have a funny line John said in concert? A weird story about
>>how you got your copy of FS? A strange TMBGcoincidence? Share it.
When I was at the concert where They were opening for Hootie,
::T-Set pauses until the boos and hisses are overwith::
they played new York City. Only instead of "God, I hate this
weather," they said "God, I like this weather." Perhaps they did that
to fit the lifestyle of us midwesterners.
Also, between just about every song, Linnell would remind us that the
name of the band was, in fact, They Might Be Giants. He also decribed
the sudden revolution that would occur if everyone present bought
Factory Showroom.
"The Boy Scouts mistook my signal,
and have killed the postman."
-SAKI
T-Set
Sam Meyer
The first time I saw Them, on 3/27/95, was at the State Theater in
Ithaca, NY. Before the show, a whole line of people stretched down the
block waiting to get in. Our college radio station was doing a remote
broadcast from the theater, so we had a perfect ringside seat to watch:
No one in the crowd knew what John & John looked like, so they were
totally oblivious as They cut through the line several times to go in and
out of the theater. Linnell wandered down the pedestrian mall to a used
bookstore, and Flans went into a small guitar shop next door to the
theater and bought an amp. As he conducted this transaction, he went in
and out of the store quite a few times (to get his guitar, checkbook or
whatever, etc.), and cut through the oblivious crowd each time! Great fun...
----------------------------
Sam Meyer (aka Sage Dangerboy of the Temporal Sponge)
President, Ithaca College chapter, Militant Gardening Club
sme...@ic3.ithaca.edu
**ANOTHER NORTH CAROLINIAN AGAINST JESSE HELMS**
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Every jumbled pile of person has a thinking | "I'm not God...I was
part that wonders what the part that isn't | just misquoted."
thinking isn't thinking of." | --Dave Lister,
--They Might Be Giants | RED DWARF
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Robotech_Master
Not really much of an anecdote, but I just thought I'd mention that
one of my friends _thought_ that the line from "Ana Ng" was "I don't
want the world, I just want to wear a hat." Cracks me up every time I
think about it...
--
Chris Meadows aka | Author, Team M.E.C.H.A., Crapshoot & Co.
Robotech_Master | on the Superguy Listserv (bit.listserv.superguy)
robo...@jurai.net | With a World Wide Web homepage located at
robo...@eyrie.org | http://www.jurai.net/~robotech/index.html
j.s.haven
at the show i saw yesterday (opening for hootie), flans said to the
people in the far back `hey, how are you guys up there doing? kinda like
pay-per-view, huh?'
even though giants only played for 40 minutes, it was still a lot of fun,
since my friends and i had second row tickets and we were the only people
up close standing up and dancing, and the johns kept looking at us and
smiling.
i guess giants came back out and played with hootie during the encore,
but my friends and i were eagar to get away from all the drunk (albeit
surprisingly nice) hicks. besides, we managed to sell our (vastly
overpriced) tickets to some other people with much worse seats.
j.s.haven (who's looking forward to the nov.29th minneapolis show more
than the inevitable fall of the macharana).
Steve Vallone
Well, it has something to do with TMBG:
On December 29, 1995, at 3:30 AM, I and a friend, slightly intoxicated,
were in New York City. We went to this place on 7th (i think) Street
between 44th(?) and 45th(?) called the 810 Deli, a 20 hours a day place
which served great Cappucino. We got about four or five cups and went
across the street to a hotel (Hilton?) to drink them in the exquisite
lobby. After a while, we began to sing Giants songs pretty loud (and do
other stupid things) and we realized we were bothering this elderly
gentleman and his lady friend at a table who were the only other people
in the lobby-bar. To keep it low key, we began to sing 'O Do Not
Forsake Me' and when we got to the 1000 years old part I realized that
there were now three voices and I was shocked to see the man singing
with us. When we finished singing I asked the man 'You know this
song?' I was shocked that he had not known any of the other TMBG
songs. He told me 'Yeah. I recorded this song.' It was Mark Bleeke
from Hudson Shad. We spoke for a while about the group's name (shad
used to be swimming through the Hudson River and it was symbolic of a
time which they all remembered fondly), recording the song (done in
three takes over about an hour or two in I believe the Skyline Studio in
Manhattan), and the Johns ('they were really nice guys'). Then he
started talking to me about James Joyce (I had a copy of Ulysses which I
was reading with me) and PBS specials about him. We both told each
other that we were impressed. Although Hudson Shad is a small chapter
in the history of TMBG (and Mark himself an even smaller one) it was
still very exciting. He sounded exactly like he sounds on the album
(tenor #1) and he thinks Wilbur Pauley is a great guy and a musical
genius of sorts.
That's about it.
-Steve
Chucklehead
A friend of mine likes TMBG, but on a Drama Club trip another friend
of ours played "Particle Man" and "We Want a Rock" over and over and
over and over and over again on his boombox. Now those songs really
annoy her, so every once in a while I'll just ask her if she wants a
rock to wind a piece of string around or start whistling "Particle
Man." She rolls her eyes and covers her ears. Heh heh heh.
UW Student
Amber-f...@friday.houston.net wrote:
> thought it was so cute! And then Mr. Linnell told some silly little anectdote about getting coffe that I can't remember, but it was
> funny! Flansburgh also gave me his set list at the end of that show
Linnell said They went into Steep n' Brew to buy a cup of coffee and
the lady at the counter asked if they were having some kind of latte
party. I was at the show too, and I also came upon a very good
bootleg of it. Would you be interested in a trade, Amber?
Bill Smood
kjlu...@students.wisc.edu