They Might Be Giants First Album Live
Baudilio Eliason
First Album Live is a live version of the self-titled first album by They Might Be Giants. The album was released in July 2014 in MP3 format at no charge on NoiseTrade[1][2] All the songs were recorded during the band's 2013 tour.[1]
At the time, New York was just emerging from the economic stagnation and crime surge that battered the city in the 1970s; 1981 would turn out to be one of its most violent years. But there was potential in the disintegration. The Johns began working on music together in earnest, with Flansburgh on guitar, Linnell on accordion, and a drum machine. The absence of a formal rhythm section was liberating: While they might not have been able to afford an orchestra, they could program one on a computer. (Besides, lugging an organ to gigs was exhausting, as they found out at their first show: a Sandinista rally in Central Park.)
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Very timely! We just discovered TMBG (For Kids) album "Here Comes Science." I was pleasantly surprised how much I enjoyed it, not just as a "kids" record, but as an actually great collection of songs. I think they're objectively skilled musicians. Their range might be haphazard but I think that's kind of a strength.
Welcome to \u201CIs This Band Good?\u201D, a semi-regular feature where I, with the help of a knowledgeable and accomplished musician, try to determine\u2014quantitatively\u2014if certain bands are actually good.
I wish I could go back in time to see how people pitched They Might Be Giants in the \u201880s. In an era brimming with new wave, metal, punk, hip-hop and cocaine, it\u2019s a wonder how a group that manages to be the opposite of all of those became a phenomenon. What was their intent? Was their music supposed to be taken seriously? Who, exactly, was their audience? I\u2019m not an expert on music marketing, but I\u2019m pretty sure you\u2019re supposed to have an audience in mind, and nobody can get away with saying \u201Ceverybody.\u201D
But that\u2019s sort of what They Might Be Giants has accomplished during their 40-year run. The band formed in 1982 when Lincoln, Massachusetts natives John Flansburgh and John Linnell moved to Brooklyn to pursue a music career. The two-piece\u2014Flansburgh on guitar, Linnell on keyboards/accordion\u2014quickly built a cult following with live shows that blurred the lines between concert, comedy show and performance art. In that regard, it seems the band could\u2019ve only existed in New York City\u2014a city with a burgeoning appetite for post-postmodernism, transgressiveness, and high-low art.
By the time their self-titled first album came out in 1986, they had become so popular that they were selling out every show at Darinka\u2014a Lower East Side (illegal) venue that claimed TMBG as their official house band.
How TMBG got the music video for their first single \u201CDon\u2019t Let\u2019s Start\u201D (which was later shouted-out on Jimmy Eat World\u2019s \u201CA Praise Chorus\u201D) on MTV is anyone\u2019s guess, but the herky-jerky energy and low-budget aesthetic proved a decent fit among new wave bands who were experimenting in the visual medium\u2019s then-infancy. The video for \u201CDon\u2019t Let\u2019s Start\u201D gave the rest of the country a taste of TMBG\u2019s pop avant-garde that had previously only been accessible to New York weirdos.
The band also pioneered zany and unconventional methods of sharing music, namely through their famous Dial-A-Song phone number. Simply, anyone could dial up the band\u2019s Brooklyn answering machine to hear new TMBG songs, demos, and other miscellania. The concept seems novel and terrifying now (why would anyone choose to dial a strange phone number?), but Dial-A-Phone\u2019s twee originality won over the hearts of listeners across the nation, including This American Life editor, Sarah Vowel, who profiled the service in 1998. You have to know about Dial-A-Phone when discussing the band, or else TMBG-heads will call the cops on you.
Their growing popularity landed them on the major label Electra, which put out their seminal third album, Flood, that featured the hits \u201CBirdhouse in Your Soul\u201D as well as \u201CIstanbul (Not Constantinople)\u201D and \u201CParticle Man.\u201D Both of those songs were later worked into animated segments on Tiny Toon Adventures, which proved to be a perfect showcase for the band\u2019s child-like absurdity. I would not be surprised if a large fraction of current fans came to the band through Tiny Toons. That\u2019s how I did.
After Flood\u2014which was certified platinum\u2014and a few more albums, the two Johns expanded TMBG into a full band for 1994\u2019s John Henry, but their positive eccentricity kind of got lost in the dour sea of grunge. But they\u2019ve managed to stay in the spotlight through their prolific TV work (they wrote Malcolm In The Middle\u2019s [\u201CDEWEY!\u201D] infectious theme song \u201CBoss of Me\u201D as well as the opening song to John Stewart\u2019s The Daily Show). TMBG have also leaned into their childish appeal by putting out a series of albums written specifically for kids.
This all raises the questions: Who does They Might Be Giants write music for, exactly? Are they a band for kids? Do they make music for children? Are they a joke band? Are they genuine weirdos, or are they just talented opportunists who follow the money? Are TMBG songs clever, or just silly? When they\u2019re underwater, do they get wet?
Scott Wasilewski: You might remember me from such \u201CIs This Band Good?\u201Ds as \u201CIs This Band Good: Cake\u201D. I\u2019m a cellist [1][2][3], composer and performative critic of everything. I also have great taste so if anything you read here doesn\u2019t seem funny, I invite you to look inward and use it as an opportunity to work on yourself.
RB: Growing up, They Might Be Giants\u2019 Flood was one of the few albums my entire family could agree upon. The album was a perennial soundtrack to Sunday morning chores\u2014a compromise between the grunge my brother and I wanted to blast, and whatever my parents were listening to in the mid \u201890s. Sorry, parents, for throwing you under the bus, but given the choice between Toad the Wet Sprocket and They Might Be Giants, we were gonna pick TMBG every time. To this day, I know every word to every song on Flood.
But I\u2019m not sure how Flood entered our household. I think my older brother and I had actually seen the Tiny Toons clips before we had got the album, but I don\u2019t know if my parents had also seen the cartoons and then bought the album based on our reaction, or if it was just coincidence. My dad was especially fond of new wave-ish bands, so I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if he had discovered Flood independently from Tiny Toons.
You\u2019d think that something as integral to my upbringing would spur further exploration into the band\u2019s catalog, but before embarking on this deep-dive, I couldn\u2019t name any TMBG song that doesn\u2019t appear on Flood. Sort of a Flood-and-done sort of thing, if you will.
This encapsulates how I feel about They Might Be Giants now: it\u2019s easy to become infatuated with their music, to let it enter your veins and open your mind, but it\u2019s just as easy to toss it aside once the rush is done. In that sense, their music is like candy\u2014something that was valuable to me when I was young, but now is only tolerable in small doses.
SW: So TMBG has been around just a little longer than I have. We practically grew up together. You know, in the way that I grew up with millions of other people who I\u2019ve never met that happened to be created around the same time as me, give or take a few years. So that is to say, I am able to assume they exist. I did work at a radio station for a little while though, so when Ryan asked if I knew who these guys were, I was legally obligated to say yes and rattle off a few things I had heard from someone who was way too into TMBG at a party that I somehow retained.
The thing is, as TMBG was titillating the east coast with their accordion tinged comedy rock, a man, Alfred Yankovic was doing the same thing across the country. I don\u2019t know what parents would call it in the \u201880s or \u201890s, but I think most would consider it self-care to only allow your offspring to listen to one accordion-wielding comedy rock group. It might also be a more responsible developmental decision for the children. I\u2019m not a child psychologist. What I do know is that we were a Weird Al house (the aforementioned Alfred Yankovic is actually better known by his stage name Weird Al. Don\u2019t feel bad if you googled this. I should have mentioned it earlier).
I\u2019m sure I was aware of TMBG. Probably some kid from school played them for me on the bus or something, but it wasn\u2019t a standout moment for me. I do remember my rediscovery of the band, though. It was totally the Malcolm in the Middle thing. I was in high school when that show came out and was finally getting some sense of musical identity. The theme song had this snotty pop-punk sort of sound that I was starting to gravitate to. Now that I think about it, that show Sealab 2021 had the same sort of feel. When I chart my musical development I now have to rectify that I went from listening to primarily Weird Al to primarily TV theme songs.
That\u2019s probably enough of inventing a backstory when I really don\u2019t have one. I know these guys mostly by reputation and a handful of their most popular songs. Before sitting down to write this article I assumed TMBG were the spot on the Venn Diagram where the circles \u201CBarenaked Ladies\u201D and \u201CWeird Al\u201D collide.
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