Every Album

I'm sorry for this terribly rushed post. I felt awful earlier today, then had to work and I need to get to bed for work again so this is going to be very hurried. I apologize.

In an effort to do a quick and easy post, I am giving you a list of my favorite song of off each album (just the regular ones, not all the extras). But to keep it from being too boring and too much of a repeat from other entries, I'm also going to give you a sleeper favorite from each album. By which I mean a lesser known and loved song that I happen to adore and don't give enough (or any) attention to on all of my various favorites lists.

Here goes.

They Might Be Giants
Favorite: Don't Let's Start
Sleeper: Rhythm Section Want Ad

Lincoln
Favorite: Ana Ng
Sleeper: Mr. Me

Flood:
Favorite: Birdhouse in Your Soul (Duh)
Sleeper: Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love

Apollo 18
Favorite: Fingertips
Sleeper: Dinner Bell

John Henry
Favorite: Subliminal
Sleeper: Thermostat

Factory Showroom
Favorite: Till My Head Falls Off
Sleeper: Metal Detector

Long Tall Weekend
Favorite: Certain People I Could Name
Sleeper: Dark and Metric

Mink Car
Favorite: Man, It's So Loud in Here
Sleeper: Wicked Little Critta

No!
Favorite: Where Do They Make Balloons?
Sleeper: The House At the Top of the Tree

The Spine
Favorite: Museum of Idiots
Sleeper: Stalk of Wheat

Here Come the ABCs
Favorite: Alphabet Lost and Found (but only because I find the recorded version of Alphabet of Nations on this album so inferior to the live version)
Sleeper: D is for Drums

The Else
Favorite: Withered Hope
Sleeper: With the Dark

Here Come the 123s
Favorite: Nine Bowls of Soup
Sleeper: Nonagon

Here Comes Science
Favorite: I Am A Paleontologist
Sleeper: Photosynthesis



This is actually kind of an interesting exercise because there are several albums that have multiple of my very favorite songs on them so this forces me to look at my favorites just in terms of albums and pull out some songs I don't recognize enough. It's also just given me an idea for another entry. Maybe I'll give you a bonus one tomorrow to make up for this rushed one. Hmmmmm.

Stage Announcements - 8/6/2010

Ok, I admit it. I forgot to do Friday's post before I went off on my day's adventures. There wasn't any news to report anyway but you can have this tiny belated post as consolation.

Interesting bit of trivia from my day: I saw Iggy doing lights at the free outdoor OK Go show I went to in Providence this evening. I came around a corner and there he was. He was on the phone but we had a brief "hey, I know you" moment and waved at each other. It was an excellent show too, even though I couldn't see very well.

On the subject of stage techs, I found this article interesting. Vince was the sound guy on the leg of the Fall TMBG tour that we road tripped.

http://blog.greenlightgopublicity.com/2010/08/other-side-producer-vince-casamatta.html


And one from the retro files:

http://gothamist.com/2007/05/15/john_flansburgh.php

Enjoy.

There's a Picture Opposite Me - 8/4/10

This is another from the mind of Megan.





"And he cut out a paper heart, pinned it to his arm, gave her everything he was holding in his head, this is what he said" - Withered Hope - They Might Be Giants

Fan Confessions

All right, we are going to have a little fun at our own expenses today. It's time to embrace the shame and air all of your embarrassing secrets. Well, all of your TMBG related ones anyway.

Maybe it's the lyrics you misheard for years (Come on, somebody entered "I don't want the world, I just want to wear hats" into the wiki. Was it you?) Maybe it's the song everyone else in the world seems to love that you can't stand (There has to be a fan out there somewhere that hates Birdhouse). It could be the album you've never listened to, the video you've never seen, the picture of Flansburgh that is tacked to the ceiling over your bed. Anything that puts a ding in your uber-fan street cred or just makes you cringe a little to admit.

Please note, this is meant to be funny, not painful or creepy. Keep that in mind when you are sharing. In other words, that thing you'd really like to do with that member of the band (and I don't mean get a cup of coffee), yeah, keep that one to yourself.


Here goes nothing:

• For probably two years, I thought the line in Till Your Head Falls Off was "There were 87 apples in the bottle."
• I do not actually know all the lyrics to probably about half the songs. I know all the songs, I know at least some of the lyrics of all of them but there are dozens of them that I couldn't sing through without a lyric sheet. Which may not seem that strange until you consider I still know most of the words to the songs in my third grade musical. I blame this mostly on the next thing on the list.
• I do not own all of the albums (and thus I don't have all the liner notes to look at while listening). My boyfriend has everything and I have made a huge series of mix CDs from his albums that I listen to in my car constantly but they are grouped by favorites rather than albums. Which puts me in the strange position of not actually owning my two favorite albums (John Henry and Here Come the 123s) and leads to:
• I can not reliably link songs to albums. Because I don't usually listen to the albums as a whole, I frequently forget which songs are on which records. The only ones I know reliably are Flood (because I have heard it live soooooo many times) and the kids records because they are so nicely themed. Beyond that it's a crap shoot.
• I have repeatedly had to ask my boyfriend if the correct name of the song is Where Your Eyes Don't Go or Won't Go while writing recaps on the road. I never remember the answer from one time to the next.
• I do not particularly care for Particle Man, especially the recorded version. 
• I actually tend to prefer the later years to the early years. 
• I have an entire collection of pictures of the band's shoes. It's on Flickr. You can go check (and yes, there is a story behind it. I don't just have a thing for shoes, though I now get excited when I see one of them is wearing a new pair.)
• I joined MySpace, Live Journal and Tumblr all specifically to follow band related things.
• My boyfriend and I have created Lego version of all of the band members. It is a work in progress but we have actually gone so far as to order specific parts online for the purpose.
• I skipped most of one of my best friend's bachelorette party to go to a TMBG show.
• Not counting people I work with, I see the band more often than I see most of my friends.
• I bought two different collections of Rock music Silly Bandz so that I could represent each of the guy's guitars (I wanted the Fender and the Gibson and yes, I can tell the difference in Silly Band form).
• I will readily admit that Linnell is my favorite John personally, but I feel somewhat bad admitting that I prefer his songs almost across the board. You might note in my top 25 songs I listed a while back, there are only 2 Flansburgh tunes (plus one he wrote that Linnell sings). I am not actually ashamed of this, it just feels disloyal somehow to admit it.
• Flansburgh actually terrifies me a bit. Don't get me wrong, I love him dearly, but I find him very intimidating. I fear him in the way I feared my old boss, meaning I really just fear pissing him off. 
• I harbor a fierce loyalty to the members of the backing band and for a long time I would not allow myself to choose a favorite among them because it felt disloyal in the way that picking a favorite child does. I still feel this way, however.....
• (Pssst, as you may have suspected I've got kind of a thing for Danny.)
• I am actually a little disappointed if Danny doesn't smile at me at least once at every show. How's that for stupid fangirl?
• It is my dream to someday conduct fan interviews with each member of the band. This will never happen but I can dream right?
• I secretly hope that I will someday be invited out for coffee with the guys. Really, who doesn't?
• My very fondest wish would be to work for the band. I would love to be the office girl/personal assistant/gal Friday/merch queen whatever. As long as I got to go out on tour I would be happy doing anything. And if you know me at all, you know I would actually be pretty damn good at the job too. Ok, now you can laugh and tell me to keep dreaming.
• And finally, I am in love with this picture. I am not sure why but I keep going back to it again and again. This one and the one of the guys at Sasquatch which I am too lazy to go find right now. http://twitpic.com/19cirz (Sorry the formatting isn't working for me to embed it.)

That's all I can come up with for now. If I think of more I'll add them in. I do actually have one other thing that I could add but I am still hoping there is an outside chance it might happen someday and I don't want to spoil it. I promise I'll share if it ever happens.

Please feel free to laugh and tease (that's kind of the point) but only if you submit at least one confession of your own to be fair :-)

Stage Announcements - 7/30/10

Hello, hello.

We are going retro again today as it's been another slow news week.

I've picked out this 1998 interview with Flansburgh because it seems to talk about a time period in band history that Erin brought up in the comments of monday's post. And also because I was thinking of his answer to one of the questions when I was watching Flans watch Jonathan Coulton last week.

http://www.popculturecorn.com/music/issues/oct98/interview-tmbg.html


And you also get this one, just because I like the interview.

http://www.guitar.com/articles/truly-gigantic-interview-they-might-be-giants


Finally, this seems like a pretty worthy cause to get behind and help our guys support. (Not trying to get all politically motivated here, so if you don't agree don't yell at me, just don't watch the video.)


Main PSA (7.14.10) from TakePart on Vimeo.

There's a Picture Opposite Me - 7/28/10

This one is from Jamie.






"Would you mind if we balanced this glass of milk where your visiting friend accidently was killed?" - Someone Keeps Moving My Chair, They Might Be Giants

Burning Questions

Hello, legions of internet TMBG fans. I promised you a more cheerful Audience Participation entry this week and I am hope this one delivers. It should at least be an interesting discussion topic.

After having yet another conversation with a band member (Marty this time) on Thursday in which I said nothing particularly intelligent and just enough to be kicking myself for sounding stupid, I have conversations with the band on the brain. Despite my desire to come across as an intelligent, normal and perhaps only moderately star struck individual when conversing with members of the band, my mind always seems to go to mush and I either say almost nothing or something reasonably innocuous that I manage to convince myself later sounded idiotic. Not once have I been with-it enough to ask a question (except would you sign this?) and I always think of several that I would like the answer to after the fact.

Which brings us to today's topic. If you were given the opportunity to talk to the band, either in a formal interview or an informal chat over coffee, what would you ask them? There is a whole Fantasy Interview page of questions over on the wiki but most of the questions are either outdated, foolish (when are you coming back to Chicago? Can I see the Rabid Child video?), or I've already heard the answer in interviews. I'm really curious what questions you, the loyal readers, would want the answers to.

Here are mine. A few of these are very self serving but I think some of them would be interesting. I did 25 questions but you can do as many or as few as you want.

-Do you actually mind fans taking pictures and videos during shows?

-You sometimes refer to your most loyal, active fans as your "front row" but does it actually bug you to see the same people in the front row at every show? Would you prefer those fans stepped back and gave some else a turn sometimes?

Ok, I admit those first two were the completely self serving questions, but they are two that I desperately want to know the answer to because I would completely change my concert behavior if I knew for certain that it bothered the band.

-You've dabbled in so many different forms of media for music (film, TV, videos, commercials, video games, etc). Is there anything you'd like to take a stab at that you haven't tried yet?

-With the face of the music industry changing so dramatically, CDs dying a rapid death, and more and more bands leaving their labels to strike out on their own where do you see the future of the music industry lying and where would you like TMBG's place in that future to be?

-Settle an age-old annoying fan debate. Self Called Nowhere: it or id?

-What instruments do you typically write songs on or does it vary depending on the needs of the song?

-At what point in the song writing/recording process do you involve the rest of the band? How much input do they have into their respective instrument's part?

-Dan Miller regularly singing back-up on some songs live but does he also sing on any of the recorded versions of songs and if so which ones? (This has been my personal favorite debate question lately)

-For each of the members of the backing band: What is your musical background? Where/when did you learn to play? Why that instrument? How did you become involved with TMBG? How much of a time/career commitment is playing with TMBG? What do you do when you aren't playing with the band?

-With Dial-A-Song, podcasts, free downloads and the like, you have a history of testing out new material on the fans but you seem to have shied away from that in recent years. Deliberate and any particular reason or just lack of time?

-What are a few of your best tour stories from 25+ years on the road?

-Crazy fan stories? Creepiest thing a fan ever gave you or asked you to do?

-Has working together for so long spoiled being friends at all? I mean when the day is done and the work is over do you still want to hang out just for fun or is enough enough?

-What are some of your favorite pastimes when you aren't working?

-Do you ever begrudge the kid's music a little for messing with your rock career or are you mostly just grateful for it providing added support for your rock career?

-After a lifetime of interviews, what is the one question you are absolutely sick of answering?

-Do you see a lot of yourselves in your fans or do ever look out and wonder what the connection is?

-Looking back on your career so far, any regrets or things you would have done differently?

-How do you take your coffee? Favorite kind or just anything that comes from a bean? (Ok, yes, this one is just me being silly)

-You've, I'm sure, meet thousands of fans over the years, most of them desperate to tell you how much they love you and their personal TMBG story. Any really memorable fan encounters that truly touched you or had an impact on you?

-If you could go back and re-live any show you've done, either because it was so much fun or because you want to improve on it, is there one you would choose?

-Do you think you would still be making music if no one ever came to listen?

-What is the best perk of being in a rock band?

-How do you go about choosing songs for a setlist at the beginning of a tour? Aside from the must-plays (Birdhouse, Istanbul, etc) and the songs from whatever album you are touring, do you just pull a few at random out of a hat that haven't been done in a while or is there a method to it? Are there songs that we will likely never hear again or is anything fair game?

And finally:

-Will you please, please, please play Man, It's So Loud In Here for me at a show? Just once, so I can die happy? Please?

I could probably come up with a ton more, but that's what I've got for the moment. Can't wait to see some of yours. I'm actually sort of curious if anyone has ever asked about doing a fan interview with questions submitted by fans to post on TMBW or something like that. Seems like the sort of thing that might be possible and good promotion if presented in a professional way. I'd also love to see interviews with Dan and Danny and Marty. Too bad I'm not a reporter.