Prolific alt-rock duo They Might Be Giants have been entertaining the masses since 1982. From magnum opus "Birdhouse in Your Soul" to TV Theme songs to wildly popular children's albums, their pop proficiency knows no bounds. To say we were excited to delve into their Setlist data would be an understatement. We hope you enjoy watching this episode with John Flansburgh and John Linnell as much as we loved filming it! Get into it:
John Flansburgh: Here's one at the Tree House Brewing Company which appeared to be the surface of Mars while we were there. It was like 118 degrees.
John Linnell: It begins with "Damn Good Times" which is a great introduction for me because it's just Dan Miller playing the guitar so everyone else has a chance to kind of prepare.
JF: It's kind of an easy on, easy off, as they say in the trucking industry.
JL: And I should point out, John Flansburgh is the guy who constructs the set and he does it usually right before the show.
JF: We stopped having openers and started doing "Evening with" because we just wanted to play more songs and, um,
JL: Get more money, I think, right?
JF: Well, I don't think... It's pretty marginal how much money we were paying the openers.
Live debut of "Birdhouse"
John Linnell: The Bottom Line in 1989.
JF: Oh, my god.
JL: Holy...
JF: This is the first time on record that we played "Birdhouse?" Interesting.
JL: But entirely possible, because this was 1989 and the song had not even been released yet. I think we were surprised by the amount that "Birdhouse" blew up.
The spiritual vacation
JF: We left the major label world after 10 years. All of a sudden, we were getting offers from all over the place. We're getting offers from television shows for theme music and incidental music, and we did the "Malcolm in the Middle" show, and we did "The Daily Show" with Jon Stewart.We also were approached by Rounder Records to do a one-off children's record. And we just were sort of slipping that in in-between time. Then when the record came out, it immediately just sold 100,000 copies and it got crazy amounts of press.
JL: I like to think that it was partly driven by the fact that we were not sleepwalking through it. We were really enjoying ourselves, making that first kids record and doing stuff that seemed like it might not even be appropriate for kids. It was just supposed to be entertaining and it was under the guise of a kid's record.
JF: After 10 years of people just sort of worrying how we could possibly have a song break through on the radio, it was a real spiritual vacation to just be like, "Let's just do something that's interesting and for entertainment purposes."
Spin the dial
JL: Here's a song called "Destiny's Child's Child" which was probably an improv. A lot of of these were probably just made up on the spot.
JF: "Sweet Caroline," Neil Diamond cover. We played it once. You think it was in Boston?
JL: Let's find that out.
JF: You think it was in the middle of a baseball game?
JL: Peoria, Illinois. Do not remember that.
JF: That must have been "Spin the Dial." We had this thing where you had a radio on stage and we turned the radio on and spin the dial and just play.
JL: We play along to whatever song was on the radio.
The show must go on
JF: Bowery Ballroom, it's really kind of like our home turf. The Bowery Ballroom and the Music Hall of Williamsburg. We played there on September 10th before September 11th happened. It was a really glorious show.
JL: It was a very celebratory show because as I recall, we had a lot of guest artists
JF: Syd Straw, Frank Black, Charles Thompson, Black Francis from the Pixies, and Gordon Gano from the Violent Femmes.
JL: That was also the show where Joe Franklin showed up.
JF: Oh, yeah.
JL: I think he introduced the band. It really felt like it put a punctuation mark on that era.
JF: It was such a chaotic time to try to tour afterwards. So many bands canceled their tour and I don't think we even really thought about canceling which was really odd.
JL: I don't know why. 'cause the show must go on or something.
First show
JL: This show we were not even yet called They Might Be Giants, but we were invited by a friend of ours to play at a Sandinista rally. It was the anniversary of the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua.
JF: I wonder what the song sequence was. I think I have a notebook with it in there. But yeah, "Penguin," "Alienation's for the Rich," "Cabbagetown." Not a lot of bangers in this.
JL: It's unusual that it was documented but there's actually a photo of us on stage with the enormous FSLN banner beneath us. 'Cause one of the people working there took a Polaroid and gave it to us.
----
They Might Be Giants have rescheduled many of their 2023 tour dates to 2024. To see a list of original dates + future dates, visit their official site here.
