TMBG Yeah You Know Me

A well-written and thoughtful concert review/article about one of my favorite bands, They Might Be Giants, here (from the Village Voice).

I say they're one of my favorite bands, but I honestly haven't purchased one of their "adult" studio albums since 1996's Factory Showroom (unless you count the McSweeney's magazine soundtrack in 2001). We have both the more recent "kids" albums, No! and Here Come the ABCs, and I even own the 2003 documentary on them: Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns). But I sorta feel like I don't know them anymore...

I'll never forget first listening to Flood in Adam & Cheryl Gohr's basement while in 8th grade in the spring of 1991; introducing Mark Rospenda to it while playing pool in his basement (TMBG sounds good in basements, apparently), and him thinking that his tape deck broke the cassette when he heard the slow-mo in "Someone Keeps Moving My Chair"; doing a full-on interpretive dance with my sister to "Fingertips" (from Apollo 18), which we still reference to this day; and seeing my first TMBG concert in Ypsilanti, MI with the MTs in spring '97.

Am I silly and weird because I like them or do I like them because I'm weird and silly?

I keep saying that I need to listen to their new stuff, but the little I have heard I haven't gotten immediately excited about, and I've quickly moved on to other things. What a bastard I am. This is my public apology to the good Johns: I'm sorry for being a bad "adult" fan in recent years.

The family and I love the kids stuff! No! really is a wonderful album, and includes a few of my favorite TMBG songs ("Bed Bed Bed", "I am a Grocery Bag", etc.). We even went up to Chicago to see them play a kids show at the Old Town School of Folk Music a couple years ago. I still listen to the old music, particularly since the ten-year-old daughter is now really getting into them. But, darnit, they've been so good to me all these years, I need to take a solid listen to contemporary TMBG, starting with their new album that's just coming out, The Else. Given how tech-savvy and "with it" they are, with free frequent podcasts, free MP3 downloads, multiple websites, etc., I can't say I have much of an excuse to not listen in. So, I promise you...I'll have a listen and report back--someday--on my new aural experiences with the boys of TMBG.

For now, here's some delicious old-school rock silliness:

They Might Be Giants - "Don't Let's Start" [video]


Official Band Site Buy the Album (No!, and many others of course)
MySpace