I'm sure most folks would be overwhelmed by all the material.... These guys have deliberately created 'tunes' for their own self-imposed 'dead-lines': -making a song a month for "Dail-A-Song" -making a song for every venue they played, one year, in the early 2000's Love 'em, hate 'em, or just ambivalent to them, you gotta admit; they're quite unique!
I actually enjoy the Venue Songs record more than number of their more "proper" albums. By nature of its creation, it has a lot of the experimental vibe of the early stuff.
Heads up for TMBG fans - they just made a 2015 show at the Music Hall of Williamsburg available for a free download: We have a gift for you-since we are unable to play until 2022, we have a FREE download of a special duo set as well as a full band set from the Music Hall of Williamsburg awaiting you at www.tmbgshop.com. It will be up gratis for a week. Shout this from the rooftops, or at least tell a pal! The epic volume of downloads from our previous post crashed the site and scrambled some of the program's settings (evidently turning on shipping charges-why? We have no idea) but we have be assured it is all a-OK now, and the issues are behind us. If you have any issues, please tell us. Otherwise, enjoy the free show!
John Linnell's Roman Songs EP is available to download now. A collection of 4 songs sung entirely in Latin. It's available at Bandcamp for $9.00 USD John Linnell - Roman Songs, by They Might Be Giants Or TMBG store for $5.00 USD John Linnell - Roman Songs EP download However, on the Canadian iTunes store there are two available versions. One is $4.00 CDN and the other is $10.00 CDN. The $10.00 one has a digital booklet and the other doesn't. I wrote to the TMBG store to ask if the download from there comes with the digital booklet and they wrote back and said "Thanks for reaching out! The Roman Songs EP download contains only 4 song files." The Bandcamp one also only has the 4 songs listed. Six dollars extra for a digital booklet seemed a little expensive but I had some credit in my iTunes account so I bought it. The booklet is quite nice. It comes with an alternate cover, a track listing (that lists two songs as FRONS (front) and two songs as TERGVM (back)), the cover with the ship, a page each for each song with Latin lyrics and English translations and a credits page. Interestingly, it has a copyright date MMDCCLXXIII which is 2773 but also one in English that says "2021 Idlewild Recordings". I've just now burned a disc and made a booklet in InDesign. I don't know why the booklet version isn't available from the artist's store(s). Very weird.
I've been listening to it for about 3 weeks though still waiting for my physical copy. Took a couple of listens for it to click but it's another amazing album
Mink Car and Join Us have been re-released on vinyl. for the former its the first time, the latter it may as well be because copies were listed for like $150+ (dunno if they were actually selling at that price). both well worth picking up - Mink Car is maybe not their best, but it's one of those unfairly maligned albums which in retrospect has a lot of great tunes on it. Join Us is classic TMBG, one of their 'later' albums which I think captures the creativity and weirdness of their early stuff latest album BOOK is really impressive as well - IMO as good as anything they've done
Some scary news last week, but thankfully John Flansburgh is doing better. They Might Be Giants\' John Flansburgh Out Of Hospital Following Car Accident
I enjoyed one crazy show of theirs, here at a local theatre. I enjoyed one eye-opening album. I shared their music with friends when they were ready for it. And then, I moved on.
No! …. the album, that is. Was my kids favorite CD for car rides. I thought it was clever, and better than the alternatives like the Wiggles ….
This was pretty much my experience. In my case, the eye-opening album was Lincoln, and I tried to foist it on at least a few people. In any case, I thought Flood ("Birdhouse" or no "Birdhouse") was a step down, and then … I wasn't in the right headspace any more. I did enjoy the one live show I saw, though it was post-peak IMO. And I'd seen John Linnell in his earlier band The Mundanes when I lived in Providence. (Played on the same bill, even.)
I've seen them live 7 times I think? they hit Milwaukee every tour, and they tour all the time. it's always a great show. if anything they've gotten better over time. they're super funny too, especially Flans.
Saw them 3x in 1992-93 then they fell off my radar for a bit, especially when it seemed they were content to do jingles, TV show themes and kids albums. Started getting back into them with Nanobots (2013) and finally saw them live again at the start of 2016 (Jan 2nd in Brooklyn). I was blown away by how great they still were live and by all the fantastic unfamiliar songs they were playing. Over the next two years I devoured their catalog from the past 20+ years and by the time they released I Like Fun in the beginning of 2018, I was fully back on board. Saw them four times that year (including their two New Year's shows at Daryl's House + TLA), once more in 2019 (Asbury Park) and their first two shows of 2020 (Daryl's and Bowey Ballroom). I was about to head up to to see them again in NY in March, but of course Covid happened and the shows were canceled. This year, I'm due to see them about eight more times, all rescheduled from the '20 tour (it's been an adventure trying to keep all the show dates correct with all the changes) and in fact was about to leave on the morning of the 9th this month when I'd heard about Flans. Thank God he's okay and still has his sense of humor intact. Looking forward to the shows in August and beyond, provided Flans is up to perform. Here's them doing Istanbul in Asbury Park in 2019, with the incredible Curt Ramm on trumpet AND trombone (sorry about the less than stellar audio):
when I'd gotten into them I think it was like...1999 or so. idk if I was even in high school yet. there was definitely this sense that they'd fallen off/sold out/lost their edge or whatever. in retrospect it was funny how everyone seemed to be complaining about them taking so long to follow up Factory Showroom because they were arguably busier than ever - Long Tall Weekend, all the eMusic stuff, the TMBG Unlimited CDs, Severe Tire Damage, the McSweeneys soundtrack, a solo Linnell album, two Mono Puff albums, plus a bunch of commercial work. yeah it wasn't all good but there were so many great tracks from that period. so I came to them as a band that was never gonna be as good as they were, especially since those first 4 albums were still so very special to me...but I did see a show on The Else tour which just changed my mind completely about them. for some reason watching them do those songs live it became apparent that they were really not that different from all the power pop stuff I was getting into...XTC, Devo, Joe Jackson, Elvis Costello, etc. and the next time I listened to The Else I suddenly recognized that it was actually way better than it was getting credit for. I guess those early albums, as great as they were, are also a curse in some way.