Twenty Years of TMBG

Rather than bore you with a detailed account of my time as a They Might Be Giants fan, I choose to bore you with a slightly more concise, bulleted list of the highlights from my time as a They Might Be Giants fan.

• TMBG on Tiny Toons - Why Is Hampton Wearing Glasses? 

What the hell is going on?

It all started, as I imagine it did for most 30-something TMBG fans, in the mid-90s with a little show called Tiny Toons. I recall seeing the music video episode, watching the videos for "Istanbul" and "Particle Man", hearing the name They Might Be Giants and then Buster Bunny asking "who are these guys?", but not truly understanding what I had just experienced. Why was Hampton wearing glasses? What was up with Plucky’s turtleneck and mop of hair? This remained a mystery for, literally, years until one of my best friends solved this enigma and, at the same time, changed my life for the better.

• Will Pomerantz Introduces Me To They Might Be Giants (Intentionally) - Something To Distract Me From Nine Inch Nails

I officially got into They Might Be Giants in early 1998. I misunderstood their initial description and thought that they were a band whose goal it was to make music with all the instruments that have ever existed. I got this idea from one of my best friends, Will, who asked if I wanted to see them in concert in March of 1998. He told me they had a guy who played the accordion and that they had a song with a "singing saw" and that led to me thinking they were kind of a novelty band. He corrected my thinking, but in the back of my mind I think that idea has always lingered.  Anyway, he gave me all the albums they'd put out at that point, six of them, and told me I had a week to familiarize myself with the music before he needed them back in order to brush up himself. I crammed and a lot of stuff blurred together. Some instant favorites were "Don't Let's Start", "Sleeping In The Flowers", and most of Factory Showroom.

We attended our first They Might Be Giants concert on March 26th, 1998, at Embassy. The show, which featured the oversexed beatboxing trio Double Dong as the opener, was fantastic. After the show had ended, a lot of people were still lingering, apparently in order to obtain a copy of the setlist. At the time, I had never heard of this practice and therefore was a bit shocked when Will shoved me as hard as he could in order to snatch the setlist from the hands of the girl in front of us who was just about to get it.

Setlist from my very first TMBG show signed by the band. Deepest apologies to that girl that got crushed.

Outside the club, Flansburgh just hung out, totally at ease, signing autographs and chatting with fans, while Linnell literally sprinted from the club's other entrance to the tour bus which was a few yards from the building. That dynamic has shaped the way I see the Johns and I feel it still kind of stands.

After that evening, once I had decided to sink my teeth in, Will was my guide; when I asked him which album I should purchase first, he warned "anything but Flood, that's their most popular". That was solid advice from a true friend. It would have been easy to pick up their most popular album and, perhaps, eschew their earlier, weirder, less popular stuff, but he steered me right. I believe my first purchase was their latest, Factory Showroom.

Between March and August of that year, I immersed myself utterly in They Might Be Giants*. By the release of their first live album five months later, I knew them well enough to be bummed out they didn't put the version of "Particle Man" on the record which featured Linnell singing "The Sign" before the third verse. Thanks again Will, this is all your fault.

• My Return To New York City and Subsequent Deluge of They Might Be Giants Shows

Since that show, I have seen They Might Be Giants perform over 70 times.
I had a lot of free time in college. Like...a lot. I arranged my schedule so that I’d have classes Monday through Wednesday, but then a four day weekend...every week for entire semesters at a time. I also never really went to bars, so all my disposable income went to music; albums, merch, and seeing TMBG at they seemingly endless parade of shows at the Bowery Ballroom/Irving Plaza in the late 90’s and early 00's. Not only me though; I’d bring friends, potential significant others, passing acquaintances...there was the time my friend was an RA and I convinced her to arrange a free outing to a TMBG concert. I brought upwards of 20 total strangers to a concert of a band I liked simply because I thought they were amazing**. I met my friend Jade at a TMBG show...on the Bowery...in the spring time... After college, I stayed in New York and saw them any chance I could. In case you're wondering, my favorite show was the one they did for their 2003 documentary, which lasted over 4 fucking hours. Sadly, it is the closest thing to a Prince concert I will ever experience.

• Becoming Tall - Oh Man I Hope This Isn't All In My Head...

During my deluge of TMBG concerts...something happened. I sort of became a Person. Specifically, The Tall Guy. At one show, Flans pointed to me and said "we’d like to thank the tall guy standing in front of the very short girl". While I was thrilled to be singled out (actor, hello?), I didn’t think too much of it; these guys had been touring for 15 years, they’ve got their raps and banter down to a science...but then, at a completely different show, while Linnell needed a moment on stage to confer with the horn section, Flansburgh asked the crowd “Don’t you hate when you call someone and their phone rings and rings because they don’t have an answering machine?” I nodded and Flansburgh said, “The tall guy knows what I’m talking about. The tall guy has a lot of friends without answering machines.” At the Mink Car in-store at Tower Records, Flansburgh asked if the audience could hear them. I gave him a thumbs up from the back of the room and he said “the tall guy can hear us, we’re okay.” Then, at their show at the Palace in Gainsburg, Florida, where I happened to be for spring break in 2002, during “Guitar”, Flans knelt down on the lip of the stage and handed me his pick, holding down the opening chords while I strummed the notes on his guitar. I felt...important. This kept me going for a while and some TMBG show regulars began to refer to me as “the tall guy”, for better or worse. It was weird, but gratifying and hopefully not all in my tiny, little actory head.

• Meeting Bill, the Alternate Timeline Me 

The next big thing happened all because of my friend, Megan Boggia. She was working at XM Satellite Radio in the late 00’s. She worked with a guy named Bill and told me I should meet him...
We all got together for lunch one day and I happened to be wearing a TMBG shirt. Bill offhandedly mentioned that he grew up with them in Lincoln.
Hm.

A CORRECTION FROM BILL: "I did not grow up with them in Lincoln. My late best buddy Jimmy Mac did, and we all hung out a bunch before they got famous when I would hitch-hike from the New York suburbs (where I did grow up) to visit. Then they got famous, and I only hung out with them for Famous Reasons, like radio interviews. But we’re still friends."

Skip forward a few months to Megan calling me and asking what I was doing that afternoon. I told her I was working and she told me that I wasn't, that I should call in sick, and that I should visit her at XM. I did so and, lo and behold, there were the Johns being interviewed over ISDN by Bob Edwards. Soon after that, Bill and I got to know one another and discovered that he and I are the same person, just from alternate timelines. He is a massively talented voice actor with a penchant for Slack, cartoons, and the weird. I respect him greatly.

• An Afternoon At Kampo - The Best Day Of My Life Thus Far

Bill and I worked together on a few audio things here and there, built a friendship and then, one day in mid-October of 2007, I get a call from Bill. He tells me to show up at Kampo Studios in downtown New York.
I asked no questions.
Turns out Bill had booked the studio for a live recording and interview with the band and he'd invited me.
Over the next few hours, I met Pat Dillett, saw TMBG assemble their cover of Mark Mothersbaugh's Sims theme, enjoyed a mini concert as one of two audience members (the other being Bill), sat in on one of the best interviews with the band I've ever heard, and, perhaps coolest of all...got coffee with the Johns. Anyone who knows anything about They Might Be Giants knows how ridiculous of an honor that was.
But, most importantly, I just got to be a normal guy chatting and hanging out in a studio with They Might Be Giants. All that weird fan/band member stiffness and stress sluiced away as I was there as a friend of Bill's, not some fanboy who'd bribed his way in, or someone asking endless question about the meaning of this song or whatever. It was singular and perfect.
This was a major shift in my relationship to the band, a maturing moment.

• Interviewing Linnell...Without Pants

Some years later, after I'd been writing for Soundblab (a UK alternative music site), the opportunity arose to interview Linnell for Glean. I took that opportunity and, in my opinion, conducted a pretty solid interview. I asked some general questions and some pretty deep cuts, got some great responses from the man. The bit towards the end about Gloria and how Linnell wished people could still stumble blindly upon the music of TMBG really got me. Nothing is unknown these days. A quick look at your phone and everything confusing or mysterious is laid bare, a known quantity, processed and then forgotten.

• Aftermath

As a result of all these unique experiences with They Might Be Giants, I've achieved a sense of calm...I no longer scrabble for a setlist after a concert or show up four hours early to shows in order to potentially lock eyes with Linnell or paw at Flansburgh's guitar...I merely appreciate what they do along with the fact that they're still choosing to do it all these years later and that they don't have any of the usual bullshit that causes other bands to break up or whatnot.
All these years later and I still can't seem to articulate why I love TMBG so much, just that I continue to do so unabated.

Signed flyer from my first TMBG show

As an afterthought, here are the handful of TMBG videos I've worked on in some capacity over the years. These guys make inspiring music...

"It's Kickin' In"
Featuring the aforementioned Jade. I made this because it's one of my favorite songs from The Spine. I wanted to make something as literal as I could and it paid off.

"Can't Keep Johnny Down"
Why was DV ever a thing? It was the "muddy" quality of this video that potentially cost me first place in They Might Be Giants' "Can't Keep Johnny Down" video contest, although I did take one of the runners up positions.

"Am I Awake?"
Referred to as a "lovable sasquatch" by contest judge the honorable John Hodgman, this entry was named as one of a small handful of finalists.

"Erase"
One of the winners of the "Erase" video contest; I owe all the success to the cast and crew.

* Nine Inch Nails hadn't put out any music since February of '97 and I was legitimately dying.


** Back then, if you hadn’t heard of a band I liked, I’d make you a mix CD, then ask you if you had listened to the mix CD yet, then ask you why you hadn’t listened to the mix CD yet. See, I liked the best bands and I was super cool and smart and I could help you get super cool and smart too by sharing my music with you...did I say “music”? I meant “Truth of the Universe”...

While I have mellowed out since then, allowing people to like and not like whatever they want, reducing my rate of proselytization by about 98.8%, I am always happy to put together a playlist for a potential new conver-...ah...fan.