They Might Be Giants Wiki Information
They Might Be Giants
(commonly abbreviated to TMBG
) is a double Grammy Award-winning American alternative rock band which began as a duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, and currently also includes Marty Beller, Dan Miller, and Danny Weinkauf. Formed in 1982, they are best known for an unconventional and experimental style of alternative music. The group has found success on the modern rock and CMJ charts, in the children's music genre, and in theme music for several television programs and films.
TMBG's best-known songs include "Birdhouse in Your Soul" and their cover version of "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" by the Four Lads (both from the 1990 album, Flood
), "Don't Let's Start" (from 1986's They Might Be Giants
), and "Ana Ng" (from 1988's Lincoln
). Their appearances on the show Tiny Toon Adventures
also gained recognition for the song "Particle Man" as well as for "Istanbul". Their song "Doctor Worm" was a surprise hit in Australia, ranking 13th in the Triple J Hottest 100 for the year 1998. Two TMBG albums have been certified gold: Flood
and the 2005 children's music album Here Come the ABCs
. Flood has also been certified platinum.
Their song "Boss of Me" served as the theme to the Fox Television Network comedy series Malcolm in the Middle
and earned them a Grammy Award in 2002. They have also contributed theme songs to Comedy Central's The Daily Show
, The Oblongs
, Adult Swim's The Drinky Crow Show
, Disney Channel's Mickey Mouse Clubhouse
and Higglytown Heroes
, along with a commercial for Cartoon Network's shows Dexter's Laboratory
and Courage the Cowardly Dog
.
The band was the subject of the 2003 documentary film Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
, directed by AJ Schnack. The band has sold over 4 million records in total.
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History
Linnell and Flansburgh (often nicknamed "the two Johns" or "John and John") first met as teenagers growing up in
Lincoln, Massachusetts. They began writing songs together while attending
Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School but didn't officially form a band. The two attended separate colleges after high school (Flansburgh attended
Pratt Institute), and Linnell joined
The Mundanes, a
New Wave group from
Rhode Island. The two reunited in 1981 after moving to
Brooklyn (to the same apartment building on the same day) to continue their career.
[1]
Then: The Earlier Years (1982–1989)
Taking their name from the 1971 movie
They Might Be Giants
, the duo began performing their own music in and around
New York City — Flansburgh on
guitar, Linnell on
accordion and
saxophone, and accompanied by a
drum machine and/or a prerecorded backing track on
audio cassette. Their atypical instrumentation, along with their songs which featured unusual subject matter and clever wordplay, soon attracted a strong local following. Their performances also featured absurdly comical stage props such as oversized
fezzes and large cardboard cutout heads of newspaper editor
William Allen White.
[2] Many of these props would later turn up in their first music videos.
At one point, Linnell broke his wrist in a biking accident and Flansburgh's apartment was burglarized, forcing them to take a break from performing. During this hiatus, they began recording their songs onto an
answering machine, and then advertising the phone number in local newspapers such as
The Village Voice
, using the moniker "
Dial-A-Song".
[3] They also released a demo cassette, which earned them a review in
People
magazine. The review caught the attention of
Bar/None Records, who signed They Might Be Giants to a recording deal.
[4]
The duo released their
self-titled debut album in 1986, which became a college radio hit. The video for "Don't Let's Start", filmed in the
New York State Pavilion built for the
1964 New York World's Fair in
Queens, became a hit on
MTV, earning them a broader following. In 1988, they released their second album,
Lincoln
, named after the duo's hometown. It featured the song "Ana Ng" which reached #11 on the US Modern Rock chart.
Move to Elektra (1990–1992)
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In 1989, They Might Be Giants signed with
Elektra Records, and released their third album
Flood
the following year.
Flood
earned them a gold album, largely thanks to the success of "Birdhouse in Your Soul" which reached number three on the US Modern Rock chart, as well as "
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)".
In 1990,
Throttle
magazine interviewed They Might Be Giants and clarified the meaning of the song "Ana Ng": John Flansburgh said, "Ng is a Vietnamese name. The song is about someone who's thinking about a person on the exact opposite side of the world. John looked at a globe and figured out that if Ana Ng is in Vietnam and the person is on the other side of the world, then it must be written by someone in Peru." (Derek Thomas,
Throttle
, August 1990.)
Further interest in the band was generated when two cartoon music videos were created by
Warner Bros. for
Tiny Toon Adventures
: "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" and "Particle Man".
[5] The videos reflected TMBG's high "kid appeal", resulting from their often absurd songs and poppy melodies.
In 1991, Bar/None Records released the B-sides compilation
Miscellaneous T
. The title referred to the section of the record store where TMBG releases were often found as well as to the overall eclectic nature of the tracks. Though consisting of previously released material (save for the "Purple Toupee"
b-sides, which were not available publicly), it gave new fans a chance to hear the Johns' earlier non-album work without having to hunt down the individual EPs.
In early 1992, They Might Be Giants released
Apollo 18
. The heavy space theme coincided with TMBG being named Musical Ambassadors for
International Space Year. Singles from the album included "
The Statue Got Me High", "
The Guitar (The Lion Sleeps Tonight)", "I Palindrome I", and "My Evil Twin".
Apollo 18
was also notable for being one of the first albums to take advantage of the CD player's shuffle feature. The song "Fingertips" actually comprised 21 separate tracks — short snippets that not only acted together to make the song, but that when played in
random order would be interspersed between the album's full-length songs. (Due to mastering errors, the UK and Australian versions of
Apollo 18
contained "Fingertips" as one track.)
Recruiting a band (1992–1998)
Following
Apollo 18
, Flansburgh and Linnell decided to move away from the guitar & accordion (or sax) plus backing tracks on tape nature of their live show, and recruited a supporting band that consisted of live musicians (
Kurt Hoffman of the
Ordinaires on reeds and keyboards, longtime
Pere Ubu bassist
Tony Maimone and drummer
Jonathan Feinberg).
John Henry
was released in 1994. Influenced by their more conventional lineup, this album marked a departure from their previous releases with more of a guitar-heavy sound.
[6] It was released to mixed reviews amongst fans and critics alike.
Their next album,
Factory Showroom
, was released in 1996 to little fanfare. The band had moved away from the feel of
John Henry
, and
Factory Showroom
includes the more diverse sounds of their earlier albums, despite the inclusion of two guitarists, the second being
Eric Schermerhorn who provided several guitar solos.
They left Elektra after the duo refused to do a publicity show, amongst other exposure-related disputes.
[7]
In 1998, they released a mostly-live album
Severe Tire Damage
from which came the single "
Doctor Worm," a studio recording.
Beyond Elektra (1999–2003)
For most of their career, TMBG have made innovative use of the Internet. (As early as 1992, the band was sending news updates to their fans via Usenet newsgroups.) In 1999, They Might Be Giants became the first major label recording artist to release an entire album exclusively in
mp3 format. The album,
Long Tall Weekend
.
[8] is sold through
Emusic.
Also in 1999, the band contributed the song "Dr. Evil" to the motion picture
Austin Powers: The Spy Who Shagged Me
. Over their career, the band has performed on numerous movie and television soundtracks, including
The Oblongs
, the
ABC News miniseries
Brave New World
and
Ed and His Dead Mother
. They also performed the theme music "Dog on Fire", composed by
Bob Mould, for
The Daily Show with Jon Stewart
. More recently, they composed and performed the music for the
TLC series
Resident Life
, the theme song for the
Disney Channel program
Higglytown Heroes
, and a song about the cartoon
Courage the Cowardly Dog
.
[9]
During this time the band also worked on a project for
McSweeney's, a publishing company and literary journal. The band wrote a McSweeney's theme song and forty-four songs for an album that was meant to be listened to with the journal, with each track corresponding to a particular story or piece of artwork. Labeled
They Might Be Giants vs. McSweeney's
, the disk appears in issue #6 of
Timothy McSweeney's Quarterly Concern
.
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Contributing the single "Boss of Me" as the theme song to the hit television series
Malcolm in the Middle
, as well as to the show's
compilation CD, brought a new audience to the band. Not only did the band contribute the theme, songs from all of the Giants' previous albums were used on the show: for example, the infamous punching-the-kid-in-the-wheelchair scene from the first episode was done to the strains of "Pencil Rain" from
Lincoln
. "Boss of Me" became the band's second top-40 hit in the UK which they performed on long running UK television programme
Top Of The Pops, and in
2002, won the duo a
Grammy Award.
[10]
On
September 11 2001, they released the album
Mink Car
on
Restless Records. It was their first full album release of new studio material since 1996, and their first since parting ways with Elektra. The making of that album, including a record signing event at a
Manhattan Tower Records, was included in a documentary directed by
AJ Schnack titled
Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
. The film, released in 2003, won rave reviews and several awards, and was featured in dozens of film festivals. The film was released on DVD in 2003.
In the release of Windows Millennium, the hit "Older" was loaded on the retail copy of the operating system.
In 2002 they released their first album "for the entire family",
No!
Using the
enhanced CD format, it included an interactive animation for most of the songs. They followed it up in 2003 with their first book, an illustrated children's book with an included EP,
Bed, Bed, Bed
.
Recent activity (2004–present)
thumb
In 2004, the band created one of the first artist-owned online music stores, at which customers could purchase and download MP3 copies of their music, both new releases and many previously released albums. By creating their own store, the band could keep money that would otherwise go to record companies. ()
Also in 2004, the band released their first new "adult" rock work in three years, the EP
Indestructible Object
. They followed that up with a new album,
The Spine
, and an associated EP,
The Spine Surfs Alone
. For the album's first single, "
Experimental Film", TMBG teamed up with
Homestar Runner creators
Matt and Mike Chapman to create an animated music video.
[11] The band's collaboration with the Brothers Chaps also included several Puppet Jam segments with puppet Homestar, and the music for a Strong Bad email entitled "Different Town." More recently they recorded a track for the 200th Strong Bad e-mail, where Linnell provided the voice of The Poopsmith.
[12] [13]
On May 10, 2004, they made a guest star appearance on episode 140 of
Blue's Clues called "Bluestock" alongside several other stars, such as
Toni Braxton,
Macy Gray, and
India Arie. They Might Be Giants were in a letter for Joe and Blue.
Drummer Dan Hickey left the band around this timeframe and was subsequently replaced by
Marty Beller, who had already played with TMBG for kids' shows and other projects.
TMBG also contributed a track to the 2004
Future Soundtrack For America
compilation, a project compiled by John Flansburgh with the help of
Spike Jonze and
Barsuk Records. The band contributed "
Tippecanoe and Tyler Too", a political campaign song from the
presidential election of 1840. The compilation was released by
Barsuk and featured indie, alternative, and high-profile acts such as
Death Cab for Cutie,
The Flaming Lips, and
Bright Eyes. All proceeds went to progressive organizations such as
Music for America and
MoveOn.org.
Flansburgh and Linnell made a guest appearance in
Camp
, the
January 11,
2004 episode of the animated
sitcom Home Movies
. They voice both a pair of camp counselors and members of a strange hooded male bonding cult.
[14]
Following the
Spine on the Hiway Tour
of 2004, the band announced that they would take an extended hiatus from touring to focus on other projects, such as a musical produced by Flansburgh and written by his wife,
Robin "Goldie" Goldwasser, titled
People Are Wrong!
.
2005 saw the release of
Here Come the ABCs
, TMBG's follow-up to the successful children's album
No!
. The Disney Sound label released the CD and DVD separately on
February 15,
2005. To promote the album, Flansburgh and Linnell along with drummer Marty Beller embarked on a short tour, performing for free at many
Borders Bookstore locations. In November 2005,
Venue Songs
was released as a two-disc CD/DVD set narrated by
John Hodgman. It is a
concept album based on all of the "venue songs" from their 2004 tour.
TMBG
covered the
Devo
song "Through Being Cool" in the 2005
Disney
movie,
Sky High
.
Since December 2005, They Might Be Giants have been making
podcasts on a monthly, sometimes bi-monthly, basis. Each edition includes remixes of previous songs, rarities, covers, and new songs and skits recorded specifically for the podcast.
The band contributed fourteen original songs for the 2006
Dunkin' Donuts ad campaign, "America Runs On Dunkin'", including "Things I Like To Do", "Pleather" and "Fritalian". In the aired advertisement, Flansburgh sings "Fritalian" along with his wife, Robin Goldwasser. In a 2008 commercial, "Moving" is played.
[15]
The band has produced and performed three original songs for
Playhouse Disney series: one for
Higglytown Heroes and two for
Mickey Mouse Clubhouse. They also recorded a cover of the
Disney song, "
There's a Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow" for the movie
Meet the Robinsons
and wrote and performed the theme song for
The Drinky Crow Show
. The band was recruited to provide original songs for the
Henry Selick-directed
movie of
Neil Gaiman's children's book
Coraline
, but were dropped because their music was not "creepy" enough.
[16] Only one song, entitled "Other Father Song", was kept for the film with Linnell singing as the titular "Other Father".
Their twelfth album,
The Else
, was released
July 10,
2007, on
Idlewild Recordings (and distributed by
Zoë Records for the CD version), with an earlier digital release on
May 15 at the
iTunes Music Store. Advanced copies were made available to stations by mid-June 2007.
[17] The album was produced by
Pat Dillett (
David Byrne) and
The Dust Brothers (
Beck,
Beastie Boys).
[18] On
February 12,
2009, They Might Be Giants performed the song "The Mesopotamians" from the album on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
.
[19]
In the rest of 2007, They Might Be Giants wrote a commissioned piece for Brooklyn-based robotic music outfit
League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots and performed for three dates at the event, and covered the
Pixies "Havalina" for
American Laundromat Records "Dig For Fire - a tribute to PIXIES" compilation.
The band's thirteenth album,
Here Come the 123s
, a DVD/CD follow-up to 2005's critically-acclaimed
Here Come the ABCs
children's project, was released on
February 5,
2008.
[20] On
April 10,
2008, They Might Be Giants performed the song "Seven" from the album on
Late Night with Conan O'Brien
. In 2009, the album won the
Grammy Award for "Best Musical Album For Children" during the
51st Annual Grammy Awards.
[21]
In an interview with
Terry Bartley on
The Super Cool Stuff Show
, John Flansburgh confirmed that the band's fourteenth album will be
Here Comes Science
, a science-themed children's album.
[22] This album includes a songs about Paleontology, Evolution, Astronomy, Chemistry, Anatomy and more. Release date is set for September 8, 2009.
Name
The band took their name from the 1971 film
They Might Be Giants
(starring
George C. Scott and
Joanne Woodward), which is in turn taken from a
Don Quixote
passage about how Quixote believes
windmills to be evil giants.
According to Dave Wilson, in his book
Rock Formations
, the name They Might Be Giants had been used and subsequently discarded by a friend of the band who had a
ventriloquism act.
[23] The name was then adopted by the band, who had been searching for a suitable name.
A common misconception is that the name of the band is a reference to themselves and an allusion to future success. In an interview John Flansburgh said (paraphrasing) that the words "they might be giants" are just a very outward-looking forward thing which they liked. He clarified this in the documentary movie
Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns)
by explaining that the name refers to the outside world of possibilities that they saw as a fledgling band. In an earlier radio interview, John Linnell described the phrase as "something very paranoid sounding".
[24]
On the compilation album
Miscellaneous T
, on track 13 ("Untitled"), a confused caller to TMBG's Dial-a-Song named Gloria talks to an unknown third party (presumably unaware that the entire conversation is being recorded) about the mystery of "There May Be Giants", as she mistakenly refers to the band.
In the commentary for the cartoon for "Experimental Film" on Homestarrunner.com Strong Bad refers to "They Might Be Giants" with the incorrect name "Supergiants".
In the
Terry Pratchett novel
Soul Music
(Set on The
Discworld) a group of musically gifted dwarfs call themselves 'We're Certainly Dwarfs' as an homage to TMBG. This is mentioned by the author in
The Discworld Companion
.
To promote
Flood
, TMBG performed "Your Racist Friend" on
The Today Show
, where
Bryant Gumbel called them "They Must Be Giants". On the
Severe Tire Damage
album track "They Got Lost", John Flansburgh refers to this error when he jokingly introduces themselves as "They Must Be Giants", to audience laughter.
Discography
Throughout their career, They Might Be Giants have released 13
studio albums, 8
compilations, 6
live albums, 21
EPs, 5 videos and 11
singles. They have also collaborated on many other projects.
[25]
- They Might Be Giants
(1986)
- Lincoln
(1988)
- Flood
(1990)
- Apollo 18
(1992)
- John Henry
(1994)
- Factory Showroom
(1996)
- Long Tall Weekend
(1999, Internet-only)
- Mink Car
(2001)
- No!
(2002)
- The Spine
(2004)
- Here Come the ABCs
(2005)
- The Else
(2007)
- Here Come the 123s
(2008)
- Here Comes Science
(2009)
Charting singles
Year
| Title
| Chart positions
| Album
|
US Modern Rock
| UK Singles Chart
| Australian ARIA Charts
|
1988
| "Ana Ng"
| #11
| -
| -
| Lincoln
|
1990
| "Birdhouse in Your Soul"
| #3
| #6
| -
| Flood
|
1990
| "Twisting"
| #22
| -
| -
| Flood
|
1990
| "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)"
| -
| #61
| -
| Flood
|
1992
| "The Statue Got Me High"
| #24
| #92
| -
| Apollo 18
|
1994
| "Snail Shell"
| #19
| -
| -
| John Henry
|
2001
| "Boss of Me"
| -
| #21
| #29
| Music from Malcolm in the Middle
|
Music videos
The band has released music videos for twenty of their songs:
[26]
- "Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head" (1986)
- "Don't Let's Start" (1986)
- "(She Was a) Hotel Detective" (1986)
- "Ana Ng" (1988)
- "Purple Toupee" (1988)
- "They'll Need a Crane" (1988)
- "Birdhouse in Your Soul" (1990)
- "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" (animated) (1990)
- "The Statue Got Me High" (1992)
- "The Guitar" (1992)
- "Snail Shell" (1994)
- "Doctor Worm" (1998)
- "Boss of Me" (2001) (abridged version premiered on FOX; some airplay on MTV2 and other stations; featured in an episode of VH1's Pop-Up Video)
- "Cyclops Rock" (2001) (live-action combined with CGI for the "cyclops" scenes)
- "Experimental Film" (2004) (animated, with Homestar Runner characters)
- "With The Dark" (2007, created by Mizushima Hine)
- "The Shadow Government" (2007)
- "I'm Impressed" (2007)
- "The Mesopotamians" (2007)
- "Davey Crockett in Outer Space" (2008)
- "Employee Of The Month" (2009)
Other videos include:
- "Rabid Child" (1986) (home video, not released publicly, clip can be seen in Gigantic
)
- "I Am Not Your Broom" (1990s)
- "Istanbul (Not Constantinople)" (1990) (produced by and featured on Tiny Toons
)
- "Particle Man" (1990) (produced by and featured on Tiny Toons
)
- "Why Does the Sun Shine? (The Sun Is A Mass Of Incandescent Gas)" (1997) (animated/live action, premiered on KaBlam!
)
- "Doctor Worm" (2000) (animated, premiered on KaBlam!
)
- "The Oblongs..." (2001) (from the TV show by Mohawk Productions: the Oblongs… who came 2001 ended 2004)
- "Courage the Cowardly Dog" (2002) (computer animated, aired on Cartoon Network)
- "Dee Dee & Dexter Japanese theme song" (2003) (animated by Klasky-Csupo, aired on Cartoon Network)
- "I'm All You Can Think About" (2004) (animated in Macromedia Flash by John Linnell)
- "Damn Good Times" (2005) (animated, appears on )
- "Bastard Wants to Hit Me" (2005) (animated, appears on )
- "Dallas", "Los Angeles", "Anaheim", "Vancouver" "Asheville" "Glasgow", "Albany", "Pittsburgh", "Asbury Park", "Brooklyn" and "Charlottesville" (2005, on the Venue Songs DVD)
Notes and references
- They Might Be Giants Early Years Handbook v3.0
- William Allen White
- They Might Be Giants Anthology
- TMBG New York City Where Everyone's Your Friend
- They Might Be Giants: The best band you've never seen
- They Might Be Giants
- Gigantic: A Tale of Two Johns
- eMusic.com & YAHOO! To host exclusive web-launch of "They Might be Giants" new MP3-only album July 19
- TV And Movie Themes
- Boss of Me by They Might Be Giants Songfacts
- Experimental Film
- TMBG Complete 10th Studio Album
- They Might Be Giants
- They Might Be Giants guests on Home Movies TV.com
- Fritalian - TMBW: The They Might Be Giants Knowledge Base
- THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS' JOHN FLANSBURGH SHARES PLANS FOR A SLEW OF NEW ALBUMS WHILE REVISITING OLD FAVORITES QUIRKY DUO BIGGER THAN EVER
- Billboard.com: They Might Be Giants Plot July For Next Disc
- Mailing List Archive/2006-03-13
- Hulu- Late Night with Conan O'Brien
- Here Come The 123s
- The 51st Annual Grammy Awards Winners List
- Here Come The Super Cool Stuff Show
- Rock Formations (full text) at [1]; last accessed December 19 2006.
- TMBG: FAQ (Frequently Asked Questions)
- Summary of Releases
- TMBG Facts