They Might Be Giants
They Might Be Giants, often abbreviated as TMBG, is an American alternative rock band formed in 1982 by John Flansburgh and John Linnell. During TMBG's early years, Flansburgh and Linnell frequently performed as a musical duo, often accompanied by a drum machine. In the early 1990s, TMBG expanded to include a backing band. The duo's current backing band consists of Marty Beller, Dan Miller and Danny Weinkauf. They have been credited as vital in the creation and growth of the prolific DIY music scene in Brooklyn in the mid-1980s.
Over their career, they have found success on the modern rock and college radio charts. They have also found success in children's music with several educational albums and in theme music for television programs and films.
TMBG have released 23 studio albums. Flood has been certified platinum, while their children's music albums Here Come the ABCs, Here Come the 123s, and Here Comes Science have all been certified gold. The duo has been nominated for four Grammy Awards, winning two. Flansburgh and Linnell won for writing "Boss of Me", the theme to Malcolm in the Middle and They Might Be Giants won for Here Come the 123s. Flansburgh and Linnell were also nominated for a Tony Award for Best Original Score Written for the Theatre along with other composers of the show for SpongeBob SquarePants: The Broadway Musical. In total, the group has sold over 4 million records.
History
Earlier years (1981–1989)
John Flansburgh and John Linnell first met as teenagers growing up in Lincoln, Massachusetts. They began writing songs together while attending Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School but did not form a band at that time. The two attended separate colleges after high school and Linnell joined The Mundanes, a new wave group from Rhode Island. The two reunited in 1981 after moving to Brooklyn to continue their career.At their first concert, They Might Be Giants were introduced as and performed under the name El Grupo De Rock and Roll, because the show was a Sandinista rally in Central Park and a majority of the audience members spoke Spanish. They had previously chosen a name that, according to John Flansburgh, was "so bad that John and I have made a vow that we will never tell anyone, even our children." Soon discarding this name, the band assumed the name of the 1971 film They Might Be Giants, which is in turn taken from a Don Quixote passage about how Quixote mistook windmills for 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. The name was then adopted by the band, who had been searching for a more 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 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 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".
The duo began performing their own music in and around New York City at the East Village Pyramid Club – Flansburgh on guitar, Linnell on accordion and saxophone and accompanied by a drum machine or 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. Many of these props would later turn up in their first music videos. From 1984 to 1987, They Might Be Giants were the house band at the Pyramid Club and Darinka, a Lower East Side performance art club run by Gary Ray. They played on the stage there one weekend a month and by the end of their three-year stint, their performances were selling out. On March 30, 1985, TMBG released their 7" flexi-disc, dubbed "Wiggle Diskette" at Darinka. The disc included demos of the songs "Everything Right Is Wrong Again" and "You'll Miss Me".
In 1983 within the same timeframe, Linnell broke his wrist in a biking accident, and Flansburgh's apartment was burgled, stopping them from performing for a time. 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". They also released a demo cassette, which earned them a review in People magazine. Authored by Michael Small, the review caught the attention of Bar/None Records, who signed them to a recording deal.
From the 1980s until 1998, Dial-A-Song consisted of an answering machine with a tape of the band playing various songs. The machine played one track at a time, ranging from demos and uncompleted work to mock advertisements the band had created. It was often difficult to access due to the popularity of the service and the dubious quality of the machines used. About this, one of Dial-A-Song's many slogans over the years was the tongue-in-cheek "Always Busy, Often Broken". The number, 387–6962, was a local Brooklyn number and was charged accordingly, but the band advertised it with the line: "Free when you call from work".
The duo released their self-titled debut album in 1986, which became a college radio hit, selling 10,000 copies in its first year. The music video for "Don't Let's Start", filmed in Flushing Meadows–Corona Park and directed by Adam Bernstein, became a MTV hit in 1987.
In 1988, they released their second album, Lincoln. It featured the song "Ana Ng" which reached No. 11 on the U.S. Modern Rock chart.
Move to Elektra (1989–1992)
In 1990, They Might Be Giants released their third album Flood, through Elektra Records. Flood earned them a platinum album, largely from the success of "Birdhouse in Your Soul" which reached number three on the U.S. Modern Rock chart, as well as "Istanbul ", a cover of a song originally recorded by the Four Lads.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".
Further interest in the band was generated when two cartoon music videos were created by Warner Bros. Animation for Tiny Toon Adventures: "Istanbul " and "Particle Man". The videos reflected TMBG's high "kid appeal", resulting from their often absurd songs and pop melodies.
In 1991, Bar/None Records released the B-sides compilation Miscellaneous T. Though consisting of previously released material, 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", "I Palindrome I", and "The Guitar ".
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 that add up to 4:35 in total with the longest one being 61 seconds.
Recruiting a band (1992–1998)
Following Apollo 18, for live shows, Flansburgh and Linnell decided to move away from recorded backing tracks and recruited a supporting band.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 not dissimilar to the grunge music of the time. It was released to mixed reviews amongst fans and critics alike.
Following John Henry, TMBG's next album, Factory Showroom, was released in 1996. It also is the last album they released through Elektra and their first album produced by Pat Dillett who has co-produced every album with them since then.
In 1998, they released a mostly live album Severe Tire Damage from which came the single "Doctor Worm," a studio recording.
In 1998, Danny Weinkauf and Dan Miller were recruited for their recording and touring band. Both had been members of the bands Lincoln and Candy Butchers which were previous opening acts for TMBG. Weinkauf and Miller continue to work with the band to the present day.
Beyond Elektra and move to Restless Records (1999–2003)
For most of their career, TMBG has 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, 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. They composed and performed the music for the TLC series Resident Life, the theme song for the Disney Channel programs Higglytown Heroes and Mickey Mouse Clubhouse, and songs about the cartoons Dexter's Laboratory and Courage the Cowardly Dog.
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, but songs from all of the Giants' previous albums were used on the show. "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.
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 A. J. Schnack titled Gigantic . The film was released on DVD in 2003.
In 2002, they released No!, their first album "for the entire family". 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.