They Might Be Giants 1996
Rosella Brain
In my job as the arts and entertainment editor of the San Francisco-based website HotWired (part of Wired Magazine), I already had been the host of two Internet interviews. One was with musician Laurie Anderson, the other with Yoko Ono. Both of these guests were amazingly articulate, sharing sophisticated ideas -- I could barely keep up. Though I usually save lots of documentation, I had been told that Internet content would be around for eternity. So this time, I didn't save a thing. Not a note. Not a recording.
When I was getting ready for the second season of I Couldn't Throw It Out, I dug through the treasures I've saved for decades and pulled out everything I had about They Might Be Giants. One of the things I found was an audio tape of my third live-streamed HotWired interview -- with John Flansburgh. As far as I know, it's the only live interview that survived.
John -- who was about to perform at San Franscisco's Warfield Theater that night -- answered my questions and those submitted by listeners in a chat room. Back then, almost no one had high-speed Internet, capable of streaming live audio. So as far as I could tell, there were about 15 people listening and posting questions. Most of them seemed to be the website's staff members, listening from across the room.
At first, I was hesitant about sharing an interview that's so old and potentially outdated. But then I realized -- it's a time capsule, a snapshot of exactly what John Flansburgh was thinking on November 20, 1996. Though 2Pac, Snoop Dogg and Jay-Z were making music at the time, rap was not yet mainstream. But, during our interview, John accurately predicted that rap would become the most popular music genre. He also shared both his hesitation about the Internet and his prediction that the Internet would help people get unprecedented access to pop culture. He ain't just a Giant, he's a fortune teller!
This year, when I interviewed John for I Couldn't Throw It Out, I had no idea that a few of the questions I asked him were identical to questions I asked back in 1996. I also discovered that his responses were really similar to the answers he gave 1996. So, on the positive side, both of us are consistent. (Hear the brand-new 2023 interview here.)
Lenny, HotWired:
Thanks for logging on to Pop Talk. It's HotWired's forum for live interactive audio programs. While you're listening to live broadcasts and RealAudio, you can join the rest of the audience in talk.com for a simulcast chat session. That's where you can participate in today's show. Just follow the links that say "Chat here now." And here's our host, Pop Editor, Michael Small.
Michael Small:
And he's in town, in San Francisco for a show at the Warfield tonight and to play a lot of songs from the band's sixth full-length album Factory Showroom, which is perhaps the greatest album by They Might Be Giants and anyone in the history of the world,
Michael Small:
I try not to be biased when I do an interview. Also I would like to add right from the start that uh... John also worked on a solo project called MonoPuff, which was a record that came out...
Michael Small:
And as I told him earlier, that record is totally rockin', as you will discover when you listen to the song Totally Rockin', which is one of the greatest songs in the history of the world, I believe.
Michael Small:
Okay, good answer. I think I'd like to start by asking you about the song, I Can Hear You, on the new record. Would you be willing to tell the folks at home how this song was recorded, why it was recorded that way, and how it all came about?
John Flansburgh:
Sure. Well, actually, a few years ago, it's kind of a convoluted tale, and I'll try to make it as brief as possible. Basically, a friend of ours, Nick Hill, who works at a radio station called WFMU, in West Orange, New Jersey, invited us to contribute a song to this FMU benefit record that was about Thomas Edison. Thomas Edison's laboratory is in West Orange. And so there are a lot of things that sort of celebrate Edison in that town. And there's also... on this truly alternative radio station, WFMU, they have a wax cylinder and 78, sort of a pre-electrical recording show where they play all these old records from the '20s and the whatever you call the O's, the aughts. And then, you know, the 1890s and uh... the people who put that show together have a demonstration at the Edison Museum every year where they bring in some live music performers and they actually cut some wax cylinders and uh... there's this guy named Peter Dill which is an engineer who basically maintains this crazy interesting archaic equipment. He makes his own wax cylinders and this stuff is... basically the wax cylinder recorder is a different format. It's just like a record player in that it's got a groove and a needle and all that stuff and spins around. But what's different about wax cylinder recorders than modern records is that they don't use electricity to work. They're basically just these contraptions that work with sound pressure. And you sing into these... to make the wax cylinder recording, you sing into these giant cones that look like the things that are on your dog's head when you take them to the vet, you know, those things. And one of them is like 12 feet long and one of them is just kind of like, you know, dog-sized. And I sang the song and basically it was like bellowing into this thing and the band was playing into this other 12-foot long one. And it was just a really interesting experience, you know, and to make the recording and to have the, you know, to be in that place and then put the wax cylinder... onto the player and hear it back. It really was like being... I really felt like I was experiencing time travel because there are all these aspects to the way it sounds that really are very specific to that technology. I mean, you actually have to change your performance style to make it work because you have to sing very, very loudly. So there's this strident thing going on that, you know, it's not too different than the sound of RealAudio coming over your computer. But when you hear the 78s and the guy's going like, (loudly) "I love you..." it's not simply because that was the style of singing that was popular at the time. It was also that they had to sing very loud to be heard. That was the big revelation of the whole experience was that there was this technological part of making those recordings back then. So we were flattered to be invited. I guess Wynton Marsalis had done it the year before and Les Paul had done it the year before that. Les Paul wouldn't play an acoustic guitar, which I thought was kind of cool. He stuck by his electric. He's like making a recording on this wax cylinder and he still had to play electric.
Michael Small:
I keep thinking that after Armageddon when there's no more electricity the only music that will survive is like this song. People will be listening to this over and over and over again.
John Flansburgh:
Well, the song itself is a site-specific song. It was written for the performance. For people who aren't familiar with the song, basically it's kind of all the different things that you hear coming out of speakers. The wax cylinder was the original mechanical sound reproduction device. It wasn't just the first record player. It was also the first speaker. So that's what kind of set my imagination going, thinking about how it's affected our lives and how many things have little crummy speakers making noise at us... Especially living in New York. I guess it's probably true everywhere now just between phone machines and intercoms and...
John Flansburgh:
And computers. And car alarms. There are all these car alarms in my neighborhood that like talk at you now, that are just kind of strange and distracting. So that's what the song is about.
Michael Small:
Another song I wanted to talk about is "Spiraling Shape." I find the song really interesting. For people who haven't heard it yet. I guess it's about the latest trend and the need for a new trend every other minute or something like that.
John Flansburgh:
Well, it was originally... it was written to be in this movie for The Kids in the Hall, The Kids in the Hall movie. I don't know what it was finally entitled. I think the original title was The Drug. So it's kind of got a drug aspect to it. About the psychedelic experience.
John Flansburgh:
Right, right. Yeah, I guess, I mean, that would be a much better question for my partner, John Linnell, who really, who's the author of the song. So I don't want to put words in his mouth. I don't know, it's hard for me to completely grasp what the song is about.
Michael Small:
Your career has extended over so many years and you've seen so many trends come and go that I wanted to ask you about a few of the recent trends that this song might refer to. For instance, have you kept up with cocktail music and do you have any opinion about the whole lounge scene?
John Flansburgh:
Well it's interesting because friends of mine were really a big part of... Bar None, our original indy label back in that eighties uh... out of Hoboken New Jersey uh... put out the first Esquivil reissue. I guess it's kind of like the beginning of uh... and that was the big original lounge music reissue uh... I don't know, I think American culture has figured out camp at this point which is kind of interesting. It's strange to me to see mall culture become campy you know as opposed to kitschy.
Michael Small:
I have trouble thinking of any truly sincere and deeply heartfelt music that's cool. It seems like in the sixties this very heartfelt music was cool. In fact there's even a reference in one of your songs to-- "letting my freak flag fly.' Do you get the same feeling that sincerity is not particularly popular at the moment? Or do you think that's...
John Flansburgh:
Well, that's a really interesting question. For me, I feel like sincerity is something that you can't just declare. I mean, I feel like it's kind of an unsophisticated point of view to just say, "But I'm being sincere." That doesn't necessarily... most things are essentially sincere and most people are essentially sincere. But they're not really necessarily operating... It's more complicated, I mean the world is more complicated than simply being sincere and it doesn't mean much to be sincere.