Errors-To: owner-tmbg-digest@tmbg.org Reply-To: tmbg-digest@tmbg.org Sender: owner-tmbg-digest@tmbg.org Precedence: bulk From: owner-tmbg-digest@tmbg.org To: tmbg-digest@tmbg.org Subject: tmbg-list Digest #46-19 tmbg-list Digest, Volume 46, Number 19 Saturday, 20 October 2001 Today's Topics: TMBG: Urbana show (10/18) TMBG: TMBG Article from Pittsburgh Re: TMBG: TMBG Article from Pittsburgh TMBG: The Neato Chicago show! Administrivia: If you wish to unsubscribe from this mailing send mail to tmbg-digest-request@tmbg.org for instructions on how to be automatically removed. --------------------------------------------------------------------- The views expressed herein are those of the individual authors. --------------------------------------------------------------------- tmbg-list is digested with Digest 3.5b (John Relph ). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message-Id: Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 02:26:10 -0600 From: Tori Adore Subject: TMBG: Urbana show (10/18) Well, I just got back from another wonderful TMBG show! I was right up front, which was a good thing because it was pretty darn hot and would have been worse in the middle of the crowd. It never ceases to amaze me how neither of the Johns seem to have aged more than a couple years since 1987 or so... but we all know that they are secretly immortals ;) Anyway, the set list: Subliminal Dr. Worm Cyclops Rock James K. Polk I've Got a Fang Lie Still Little Bottle Yeah Yeah Birdhouse in Your Soul SEXXY Twistin' She's Actual Size "Spin the Dial" (band attempts [fairly unsuccessfully, hehe] to play along with the radio) Older Boss of Me Man It's So Loud in Here Maybe I Know Drink Particle Man Famous Polka Famous Polka (Super Duper Fast Version) Famous Polka (Quantum Leap Faster Version) Working Undercover for the Man (looks like "Wacky Underwear" in my handwriting) Robot Parade Bangs The Guitar Why Does the Sun Shine? She's an Angel New York City **Encore: Mink Car Istanbul **2nd Encore: Fingertips I wish I could go to the Chicago show tomorrow night, but I'm already going to be driving up there on Saturday and again on Tuesday, so it's probably not in the cards. Perhaps next time they come through the area :) Scott ------------------------------ From: Mbrosendale@cs.com Message-ID: Date: Fri, 19 Oct 2001 18:35:43 EDT Subject: TMBG: TMBG Article from Pittsburgh In preparation for the upcoming concert in Pittsburgh next week, The Tribune Review ran a lengthy article, along with 2 color photos (from the Mink Car sessions). Media Darlings by Regis Behe Shock-rock disc jockey Howard Stern is known as the King of All Media, but They Might Be Giants might be more than just pretenders to that crown. In no particular order, the Giants' ventures include: the just-released Mink Car, the band's 20th album; Dial-a-Song, a telephone (and now Internet) service that plays new TMBG music; Composing and performing the theme songs for the television shows Malcolm in the Middle and The Oblongs; Internet services TMBG Unlimited, a MP3 subscription service, and Radio They Might Be Giants; Writing the incidental (or background) music for Malcolm in the Middle and They Daily Show with Jon Stewart. And sometimes, they even tour. They'll be playing Club Laga in Oakland next week. "We're involved in a lot of interesting stuff," member John Flansburgh admits, "but some of it is much more pedestrian than others. They're funny sidelines to our rock thing, and I feel our primary thing is that we're all about the rock." While admitting the band is seemingly everywhere at once, Flansburgh politely demurs to don the media crown ascribed to Stern. "I don't know about that," says Flansburgh in response to an analogy to Stern's omnipresence. "There are two words in incidental music and one of them is incidental. So, to be king means more than being incidental." Fans of Flansburgh and songwriting partner John Linnell will disagree that the group is anything less than vital. Long perceived as an offbeat due who pen delightfully eccentric tunes such as Istanbul, Youth Culture Killed My Dog, and Birdhouse in Your Soul, their profile has been raised noticeably of late. The Giants' Dr. Evil was the song that opened and closed Austin Powers The Spy Who Shagged Me and Malcolm in the Middle afforded further exposure via its title tune, Boss of Me. But Flansburgh says there's another important benefit to the group's involvement in so many diverse enterprises. "The main thing about it is it made us realize we could work in a lot more styles than we thought we had, with a lot more approaches that we had previously," he says. In the 1980's Flansburgh explains, he and Linnell did a lot of home recordings, "a sort of bedroom rock thing" with drum machines. In the 1990's the band started to use a live rhythm section. Creating the incidental music for Malcolm in the Middle has opened up the Giants' musical palette even more, causing Flansburgh and Linnell to experiment with everything from drum-and-bass collages to more contemporary pop interludes. "The great thing about Malcolm in the Middle is that it's a totally faceless enterprise. Even though you might have a credit at the end of the show, people don't listen to the show going 'That was They Might Be Giants playing that techno cue.' So it was actually a great boot camp for us, because we could try to develop a lot of different things that would be kind of really off of our radar up until now. For a band that's made a lot of psychotic records, this is definitely upping the ante." The Giants' musical basic training is evident in the band's new release Mink Car. Stylistically diverse, incorporating rock, electronic, hip hop and techno music, it's the aural equivalent of a George Lucas movie: the listener never knows what's going to happen next as the band veers from sound collage to pop ditty. "We grew up with the Beatles and the whole notion of a pop album having a scope to it," Flansburgh says. "And over the years, people have kind of gotten away from the idea of adventure over a course of a record. More often than not, records have the one good song and a bunch of songs that sound kind of like a good song. That's like the most you can hope for. For us, it's a more interesting challenge to take on every song as its own thing and don't worry about continuity." John Flansburgh has a special affinity for Pittsburgh. He and fellow Giant John Linnell have appeared here many times over their nearly two-decade career, and WXXP-FM, the city's gone-but-not-forgotten alternative radio station, was the first commercial outlet in the country to jump on the They Might Be Giants bandwagon. "Pittsburgh was the first place ever to play Don't Let's Start" Flansburgh says of the group's first single from 1986. "We always have fun there. I really like it there." --Make's me proud to be a Pittsburgher! Mary Beth ------------------------------ From: "Nathan Mulac DeHoff" Subject: Re: TMBG: TMBG Article from Pittsburgh Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 01:56:17 +0000 Message-ID: Mary Beth, quoting Regis Behe: >In no particular order, the Giants' ventures include: the just-released >Mink >Car, the band's 20th album 20th? A typo, or just a joke on how much the band has done recently? If the latter, it sort of missed its mark, since TMBG really hasn't put out that many studio albums, considering how long they've been around. >Long perceived as an offbeat due who >pen delightfully eccentric tunes such as Istanbul, Youth Culture Killed My >Dog, and Birdhouse in Your Soul, their profile has been raised noticeably >of >late. ANOTHER mention of "Youth Culture Killed My Dog"? What is it with reviewers and that song? You'd think it was the band's big hit single, with all the mentions I've seen of it in articles. -- May the light shine upon thee, Nathan DinnerBell@tmbg.org http://www.geocities.com/fablesto/ _________________________________________________________________ Get your FREE download of MSN Explorer at http://explorer.msn.com/intl.asp ------------------------------ From: Gegatron@aol.com Message-ID: <7f.1bec583f.29025c97@aol.com> Date: Sat, 20 Oct 2001 00:50:31 EDT Subject: TMBG: The Neato Chicago show! No horns, no "in a van outside of new york" part in cyclops rock, yet it still rocked my face to a ginormous degree! I had the pleasure of hearing (correct me if i'm wrong) the first ever live performance of Hovering Sombrero! Fingertips rocked hard, and while not directly mentioning sept. 11th flansburgh right before new york city said that we should all live our lives to the fullest and that life is precious (which was something strange to hear at a giants show). It seemed longer than the average TMBG show. It's so loud in here was great. It sounded way less prerecorded than it did on Conan. Heres an impartial setlist not in order (except for the first and last songs) -Cyclops rock -Ana Ng -James K polk -Actual Size -Birdhouse -Drink -hovering sombrero -dr. worm -lie still little bottle -spin the dial -older -bangs -yeh yeh -robot parade with a cool segway about how the audience hated the slow version of robot parade into -shoe horn with teeth -man it's so loud in here -New york city -(encore) mink car -fingertips -(encore 2) particle man -I palendrome I -Istanbul i know i'm forgetting a lot, but it was great fun! OK Go opened and were actually good. I heard they were crappy off of this list but i liked em. so out of 11 tmbg shows i've been to i'd say this ranks as number 4. ------------------------------ End of tmbg-list Digest #46-19 ******************************