My wife and I saw TMBG a couple of months ago. I'm a big fan, but she mostly just listens when it's my turn to control the radio. Over the course of the concert, she kept shooting me these surprised and baffled looks. I asked her what was up with that afterwards.
"I thought those were weird songs you made up to sing to the cat! Who writes a song called Dr Worm?"
I can't imagine how surreal it must be to see a band play your spouse's silly cat songs in front of hundreds of cheering fans.
When I was in kindergarten or very early elementary school (maybe 1991/1992) there was an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures with animated music videos for Particle Man and Istanbul. It still lives in my head today.
I didn’t even know they were a real band until I was older and knew I recognized those songs from somewhere.
Particle Man: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7pG0QTzO-K0
Don't forget years later that they had a music video for Dr. Worm air on the Nickelodeon show, Kablam!:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TkVHdUkMJdk&pp=ygUIZHIuIHdvc...
I found a real Dr. Worm:
https://www.reddit.com/r/tmbg/comments/1f31sx5/hes_a_real_dr...
(I don't know if he plays the drums)
That was a surreal episode and probably the one that was cemented in my head the most. I had a friend who was a big fan and had introduced me to them before that.
My copy of flood might have been the first music I ever bought with my own money.
My kid brother watched TTA and that was also my introduction to them.
They also did an animated music video with the Homestar Runner folks: https://youtu.be/ZUgMpG1I_o8
I was in fifth grade when that episode came out, and told my aunt about those songs. She was a big fan of theirs and played their albums for me.
Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns): A Movie About They Might Be Giants is available on YouTube at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6LaAgpV5UAM
Myself, went from causal to super fan after watching the above. Highly recommend.
I went to high school with Robin Goldwasser, who is married to John Flansburgh.
I’m really only bringing this up to say that my public high school in the 1980s fostered a creativity that I didn’t see when I was a teacher in high schools in the 1990s.
She was in my art class and my art teacher was excellent, but if I’m remembering right, she was also in my photography class where we had a dark room with unlimited access.
I also love the band by the way, even before I found out that her and John were married. Great lyrics and really imaginative compositions.
They are still going! Recent album 'Book' is brilliant. Heres a fan video made using Google Sheets for final track of Book - Less Than One
If you know the song, you'll understand why charts and presentation slides work as a video for this
seconded, that's some classic linnell right there!
I've been to only one They Might Be Giants concert. Half the audience were little kids, and yet it's the only concert I've ever been too that was shut down by the cops.
It was hilarious to see one of the John's being hauled off stage by the police as he was playing Edgar Winter's "Frankenstein".
https://tmbw.net/wiki/Shows/1992-07-23
sounds like the concert in question
But why?!?! You must give context.
I remember listening to a small college radio station back in the day, around the time Flood landed, and the DJ comes on talking about his experience with TMBG. He talked about the time they were in town and stopped by the radio station to do an interview with him. He sees these two guys walking in carrying gear and says to them "Great! Wheres the band?" to which one of them replies "We are the band". Egg on face moment for sure, but I just love how they look like two normal guys not rock stars.
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I was six when Flood came out. My brother had a bootleg copy, which I later "borrowed" and carried around with me in my walkman (also "borrowed"). It was so...different than anything any of my friends listened to, and I loved it.
But maybe the greatest thing about Flood was seeing Particle Man and Istanbul on Tiny Toons. It was as if all my favorite weird things in the world (at least for a kid) were part of the same pocket universe.
I still find myself humming different songs from Flood on the regular, unprompted. Thanks for posting this.
Saw these guys on JoCo a few weeks ago. Great set. Birdhouse in your soul was one of our wedding songs. Hard to believe Flood is 35 years old. Thanks for linking this.
TMBG was the first band I ever saw live. For some reason, they made a tour stop at the local women's college in my town and a few friends & I went. This was in 1993, in an auditorium that sat about 500. Super fun live and lots of crowd interaction. The songs are so short, too, that it felt like they played about fifty.
I went to see them again about twenty years later, at a larger venue, and it was just as fun. No one else in my family seems to really like them, though. :)
Just stopping by to say that pastry/coffee shop lasted for something like 100 years in the East Village before closing about a decade ago. I remember dropping in from time to time at night with friends when I was in my early 20s and new to the city -- it was these spots that always made the city feel like magic, but unfortunately we've lost a ton of them.
I saw them in Shepherds Bush for their last tour. Fantastic act, tiny arena, rammed full of people all singing the same silly songs.
Everyone around me was German, or spoke German, or had worked in Berlin at some point in their lives. I made a few friends.
I can't wait to see these guys perform again.
I haven't seen them in ages, but I must have seen them six or seven times on the college circuit back in the early 90's. Always a great show. I loved when they turned on a radio and searched around randomly for a song that the audience responded to, and then tried to play it. They tried Pink Floyd's "Money" and failed pretty spectacularly. It was hilarious.
Their old "dial a song" where you could call their phone number and hear a recording of them playing something new inspired me to hack unused voicemail boxes at college and record their songs as the greeting message. I then posted flyers by the public phones with the extensions and the song on the extension. It lasted for about a semester before the school got grumpy and locked down unused mailboxes.
Dial-a-Song felt like magic back when I was younger, thanks for the nostalgia hit!
Played that album to death when it was new. I never knew this promo existed, thanks for sharing!
to any fans of TMBG I recommend the two-part AV Club article on them that was just posted a few days ago https://www.avclub.com/they-might-be-giants-interview-set-li...
My daughter is a huge fan of TMBG. I like a few of their songs but honestly it's not my favorite music. BUT I went to a concert with her up and Cleveland and it was an *incredible* show. I loved every minute of it.
If you are looking for another similar magical conert experience and get the chance, take your daughter to The Flaming Lips. Some of their music is pretty accessible, some of it quite challenging but the show was so much fun and there was a 8(ish) year old in a unicorn onesie perched on a riser near the stage for the entire show. The put on their own brand of arena show theatrics even for smaller venues. Highly recommended!
Curious why when they mention Instanbul (Not Constantinople) it's quiet when all of the other songs have little audio snippets. Is that a rights issue?
https://youtu.be/C-tQSFQ-ESY?si=9Ujs3-1nVjjeoncO&t=71
They toured for the Flood album a year or 2 ago and I missed it. It sold out real fast. They are on tour again, probably for new stuff. Reading everyone's comments here about how good their shows are, I think I'm going to check them out (if they are not sold out again)
Probably, it's a cover of a Four Lads song written by Simon & Kennedy in the 50's.
It is such an iconic album from the 90s. I highly recommend it if you haven't listened to it. It won't be everyone's thing, but there are a lot of great songs on it. I listen to Dead regularly.
Listened to Flood continuously in high school. In many ways, I felt it empowered me to embrace my own weirdness.
genius:
I'm going down to Cowtown, cow's a friend to me
Lives beneath the ocean so that's where I will be
Beneath the waves, the waves, that's where I will be
I'm gonna see the cow beneath the Sea
From I Palindrome I, few albums later on Apollo 18:
Son, I am able, she said, though you scare me. Watch, said I. Beloved, I said, watch me scare you though. Said she, able am I, son.
Brilliant.
I don't really get the meaning. Would love an explanation.
I feel like most TMBG songs don't really have a meaning as such. Sure is a fun sequence of words to sing though!
IMHO the funniest thing they do is refer to themselves unironically as a "rock and roll band"
Anybody here remember calling Dial-A-Song back in the day?
You still can
There's something so quaint and comforting in revisiting the world of peak post-modernist "sarcastic irony" that infused everything in this era. It was just so damned sure of itself.
I've been seeing them live since these days. I recently took my two teenage sons to see them. They're both fans. But, during the second encore, one son turned to me and said "Dad, I'm tired. Can we go?"
I pointed to John and John on stage who were working hard and said "You know, those two guys are senior citizens, right"
The Istanbul song is still floating around in memes today but I totally forgot about Birdhouse in Your Soul. Listening to the Flood album now. Thanks for posting!
There was a code coverage tool for node called Istanbul. When they did a new front end for it they called it nyc.
Should be the top post on here IMHO. These guys were the first social media influencers going viral (posting demos of songs on an answering machine): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S5GFVP7MMeg&list=PLtTX1yXkqz...
edit: say something relevant to HN
I don't know what TMBG has to do with Hacker News but I dig it so much. It surprised me seeing such a cool band alongside a lot of tech articles for a bit :)
I feel like Jonathan Coulton, Tally Hall and Neil Cicierega are the TMBG equivalents for 2000s kids like me.
The first time I heard this Neil Cicierega mashup, I thought it was genius and still do: https://youtu.be/UwHlEBlWT-4?si=8PMgA_5f9dvZiZC4
I started a TMBG fan club called Church of the Possible Giants around the time this album was released. One of the requirements for membership is that your given first name is John. If you want to join, drop me a line, convince me your name is John, and I will send you a CotPG pencil.
My wife knew their Drummer when she was a P.R. and Analyst relations executive with IBM. He was working for IBM research.
Seems fitting, since their original drummer was an electronic drum machine.
TMBG's "Older" track was included by default on some windows installs as part of the media player library circa early 2000s. That's how I found out about them anyway. I'm trying to find more info but seems it was specific to dell machines of the time.
My favorite TMBG song (from Flood): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0XlO39kCQ-8
(I don't know if they wrote it, but their performance is awesome).
I noticed the blank spot in the promo. Probably a rights thing. :(
EPK stands for Electronic Press Kit
They are just incredible live ... Flood was the soundtrack of my childhood. It's great to see how many fans on HN they have. If you have a chance to check them out in concert, do it!
I have a copy of Snow Crash by Neil Stephenson signed by They Might Be Giants, somewhere.
They were my favorite band as a kid. They're still my favorite band now.
I saw them in Toronto that year. 1990.
OK, wow, that was a long time ago.
Ah, yes, The color of infinity, inside an empty glass.
Sorry to be the debby downer, but this feels completely irrelevant to HN. Why on earth is this allowed to fly? Is there some context that I'm missing?
Pff. HN has rebranded to become the DOGE News Network. If you want a more curated technical experience, I recommend https://lobste.rs. There's much less latitude for non-technical stuff.
It's pretty cool that they "made it" touring colleges and getting airplay on their radio stations, then signed to a big label (maybe as part of the FOMO around 90's grunge/alternative?) then just kept cranking out innovative music and media projects, then win a Grammy for their kids work. With the next generation of TMBG fans queued up I'm excited to see what they do next - something that could be the sort of AI-fueled shift we've been waiting for?
Nobody wants AI-fueled shit music.
I mean, nobody in the set of people who enjoy listening to music. I suppose there are a lot of record-industry companies who would prefer not having to deal with pesky artists.
The live experience is something to be seen, it's not just the two Jons playing Birdhouse in Your Soul.
They have a very large band including a lot of wind instruments, and they really have fun with it. (Spoiler alert) they've taken to playing Sapphire Bullets of Pure Love in reverse, filming it live, then playing that recording in reverse for the audience (post-intermission).
They did the Sapphire Bullets trick in the show I saw. It was pretty dang impressive. I love that they tour with a horn section now, and hearing new arrangements of old favorites that make use of the horn section was great. (And of course new favorites written with the horn section in mind from the get go were also great.)
I also enjoyed that they introduced Birdhouse with "Please rise for the They Might Be Giants national anthem."
> they really have fun with it.
Isn't that, like, everything? The first time I saw them it was because they were here, it was affordable, and I dug that Malcom in the Middle song, so why not? The second time was just because they're fun. There will be a next time and it will again be just because they're fun.
And I'm still not sure I could name another of their songs.
I saw their Flood tour. Variety Playhouse Atlanta 1990.
No band, just the two of them. Plus the metronome, and some prerecorded backup here and there.
Definitely one of the most unique bands to (kind of) "make it" and have some staying power.
My best friend and I saw them when we were 13. I don't know what TMBG concerts are like in the last 15-20 years, but there were maybe 100 people there. Great concert, my first, had a lot of fun.
The two of us both stayed around to meet the Johns. Waited 30 or 45 minutes in the newly brightened room as the place cleared out and all the roadies packed up. Finally they emerged, with the two of us the only ones left. We asked for their autographs and they said "sorry, kids, if we gave you autographs we'd have to give everyone an autograph" and laughed out the door.
We kind of instinctively looked around the room to indicate we _were_ everyone, but maybe that was the joke. To a 13 year old it didn't sour anything, but can't deny we weren't disappointed.
> I don't know what TMBG concerts are like in the last 15-20 years, but there were maybe 100 people there.
Like that, but bigger, and eventually with more people on stage.
And every so often, giant puppet heads.
[Verse 1]
They call me Doctor Worm
Good morning, how are you? I'm Doctor Worm
I'm interested in things
I'm not a real doctor
But I am a real worm, I am an actual worm
I live like a worm
[Verse 2]
I like to play the drums
I think I'm getting good
But I can handle criticism
I'll show you what I know
And you can tell me if you think I'm getting better on the drums
I'll leave the front unlocked 'cause I can't hear the doorbell
> I'm interested in things
This song, and this particular line, are a part of my religion.
My “career arc” is scamming people into paying me to learn, and I’m good at it.
Best career arc. That's what work is supposed to be.
Funny story, one of my advisors made me play Dr Worm after PhD defense presentation, because I was quite literally now Dr Worm
So true. My kids didn't believe me when I said I didn't make up "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" song:
https://youtube.com/watch?v=3JdWlSF195Y
Neither did TMBG. It's a cover of a song from an album of educational music from the late '50s.
And the melody is a variation of the traditional song "The Girl I Left Behind" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Girl_I_Left_Behind), which dates at least to the 17th century.
I believe you mean a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6q3s1MI6NE
See also: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=23e-SnQvCaA
They really are an amazing band that defies neat classification. https://tmbw.net/wiki/This_Might_Be_A_Wiki:Other_Bands_You_M... is quite the list.
I just had this experience with my girlfriend last week. she could not fathom this particle man I kept singing about was an actual song.
Next, introduce some lyrics by Primus or The Presidents of the United States of America.
Kids are very familiar with The Presidents of the United States of America, in a way, through Caspar Babypants.
Clips from their (non-existent) Public Domain Songs album at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gtTBb95alU0
This is amazing! Such an imaginative band, not 1000 of the same crap we hear today.
In 1990 I was 10. The music you heard most of the time was "1000 of the same crap we hear every day".
I made a similar comment to my parents, about how music in the 60s and 70s was all so good, not like the crap today. They responded by telling me: "We were there, it was mostly crap".
I've paid attention since that conversation, and come to the conclusion that: most music for most time periods is crap. Some of it is good enough to be remembered. Some of it is nostoligic to a time/place/scene and will be remembered. But most of it, is just crap clones of crap songs.
The best music seems to come from relatively obscure/underground scenes and then grows outward from there. Sometimes the awareness cone may miss your own light cone for a while and you only learn about a song years later. That's ok, it happens to everyone. Sometimes you don't realize how good a song was because you didn't have some of the life experience or knowledge or perspective to see how great it was - that's ok too. Often you'll revist a song that just hit right for the moment and it turns out that you were wrong about it's greatness... it was awful after all (but you have a bit of guilty nostalgia about it anyway)... thats OK too.
Point being there's always good music being made, and if you want to catch it fresh you gotta expand your exposure to more music from different genres/scenes/etc. I'm 100% certain that there is incredible new music being made somewhere, right now, as you read this.
it's funny how songs with ridiculous lyrics seem unbelievable (especially across generations) can turn out to be real. My father, whose name was Michael, would always sing the chorus from "Playground in my Mind" and we were convinced he was making it up.
Similarly if you ever get a chance you should read the Dave Barry book "Book of Bad Songs" where he relates singing "MacArthur Park" to his increasingly incredulous son.
I had a similar experience with my girlfriend and Dr. Worm - genuinely one of my favorite songs of all time!