In May of 2007, They Might Be Giants released The Else, their "least coziest" album, which had been produced by themselves, their long time friend and producer, Pat Dillett, and the Dust Brothers. It is, at times, a political album ("I'm Impressed", "The Shadow Government"), a classic TMBG album ("Bird of the Bee of the Moth", "Take Out The Trash"), and a TMBG/Dust Bros. collabo ("Withered Hope", "Upside Down Frown"). It also features a Monkees pastiche, the opening track from their scrapped work on the Coraline score, a Frankenstein experiment, and a song which resulted from a challenge issued on NPR. It stands, boldly, out from their later catalogue of work and, about eight years after its release, at the nigh-submersed Williamsburg Hall of Music, it was given its due...except for "Feign Amnesia", which was too hard to learn.
Highlights from an evening absolutely teeming with highlights included "Doctor Worm"*, the instant live classic "Unpronounceable", "Withered Hope" (even with the lack of horn support), the abrasive punk assault of "The Shadow Government"** , "Don't Let's Start", "Bills, Bills, Bills" (because I know it's fleeting and because I love how angry Flans seems to get when telling us about the "triflin', good-for-nothin' type of brother"), "Twistin'", "Rhythm Section Want Ad" and "Contrecoup", which, although Linnell said they didn't do very often because it was too difficult, they made sound easy.
Lowlights included the idiot girl on ecstasy who was alternately making "heart hands" at the band, snapping her head around wildly, and licking her poor-bastard-of-a-boyfriend's teeth throughout the evening.
The. Entire. Evening.
The real star of the show, however, was TMBG's drummer, Marty Beller. He can't be 100% human. Can not. The way he obliterated tracks like "Let Me Tell You About My Operation", "The Famous Polka" and, especially, "Upside Down Frown", with their combination of precision drumming and high BPMs prove this point.
He's a weaponized drum machine in the shape of a guy from Brooklyn.
Overall, I found their lack of horns disturbing; The Else, performed live, needs horns.
Bottom line.
Despite that fact, it was still a fantastic and varied show.
Next month, the band is performing two kid's shows and then, in July, a Lincoln show.
* I saw a lot of TMBG shows in 1999 and have heard this song, with and without horns, dozens of times, but I can't remember a time when the energy was this high. Either the coffee was doing its job or the band has fallen back in love with this track.
** A performance choice which really illustrates the unease and chaos at the heart of the song.
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