We hate They Might Be Giants!
Jun. 9th, 2004 04:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
vovatI've been a fan of They Might Be Giants for about seven years now. It seems hard to believe it's been that long. I have memories of listening to their albums for the first time, realizing how brilliant, catchy, and totally weird the music was.
There wasn't really any one person or thing that got me into TMBG; rather, it was a combination of factors. I remember hearing "Birdhouse In Your Soul" on a kids' radio show when I was in high school, and thinking it was a really cool song. I had probably heard "Istanbul" and "Particle Man" before that, on Tiny Toons and/or on that same radio program, but, while they were fun, they didn't really grab me the way "Birdhouse" did. But I didn't really look into the band until college. That was when I first started using the Internet regularly, and, since I was a big Weird Al fan, I read the alt.music.weird-al newsgroup. TMBG came up frequently on there as a band that a lot of Al fans like. Fortunately, it wasn't that hard for me to hear their music, since several of the people in my building were fans (it WAS an honors dorm, after all, so there were a lot of nerds there {g}). I heard a lot of their songs for the first time when the guy next door made a tape for my then-roommate, which contained all of Flood and various songs from other albums. I remember "Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal" being among them, along with several Apollo 18 tracks, including "She's Actual Size," "Mammal," "The Statue Got Me High," "Spider," and "Turn Around" (the last of which I immediately recognized as being a major influence in the structure of Weird Al's TMBG style parody, "Everything You Know Is Wrong"). I also remember hearing "Dinner Bell" and "Fingertips" not long after that.
In an odd and fortunate coincidence, TMBG actually played a show at my school that year. In the building right across the street from my dorm, in fact. I think I was actually fourth in line for tickets, although that was probably due primarily to my dorm's proximity to the ticket window and my lack of anything else to do that morning. I didn't know a lot of the songs they did at the show, but it was a lot of fun. I know they played "Shoehorn With Teeth," as well as "Exquisite Dead Guy" with the puppet heads. I also participated in the conga line (something I've never done since, and I think I've only attended one other TMBG concert where the band even started a conga line), although I couldn't remember what song they were playing at the time. Knowing what I know now, I realize it must have been "No One Knows My Plan," but I remember listening to "See The Constellation" shortly after buying Apollo 18 and thinking, "This sounds like the conga line song!" I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here, though.
I considered buying a TMBG album throughout the summer, but didn't actually go through with it until August, or possibly late July. I think what finally pushed me to make the purchase was hearing "Birdhouse" on that same radio show again. I didn't buy the album with "Birdhouse" on it, though, but rather Apollo 18 and the fairly new Then: The Earlier Years. Yes, both on the same day. It was kind of a gamble, really (I'd heard most, if not all, of Flood and Apollo by that point, but very little from earlier albums), but it definitely paid off. While I think it was largely the band's wacky sense of humor and fun that drew me in (I was coming into TMBG fandom from Weird Al fandom, after all), and I had the initial idea that their lyrics were generally just nonsense, I soon came to think that there was more depth to the band's songs than I had originally thought, and I realized that, especially with the earlier songs, there was often a somewhat dark, paranoid undercurrent. I remember having a bad dream where "Boat Of Car" was playing, and I found that song kind of creepy for a while after that. I also had some GOOD dreams involving TMBG music, though; I can recall ones where everyone in a room just started singing "Kiss Me, Son Of God" for no reason, and another similar one featuring "James K. Polk." The important thing, though, was that this music basically just blew me away. I was pretty obsessed with it for some time after that. I worked at a movie theater at the time, and I remember singing TMBG songs to myself while walking to work, and while sweeping the theaters. I started checking out TMBG-related forums on the Internet, starting with the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup, and later the tmbg.org mailing list. I bought the remaining albums soon after returning to school, starting with Flood on my first day back. From there, it escalated to songs available online, EPs, Mono Puff, etc. I bought Severe Tire Damage the day it came out. I also started taking suggestions from the TMBG FAQ and people on the forums as far as other music to check out, which is how I got into Moxy Früvous, XTC, Camper Van Beethoven, the Young Fresh Fellows, Frank Black, and more. TMBG fandom even affected my life in other ways, perhaps most importantly in that I met my girlfriend on an off-topic offshoot of the tmbg.org list. TMBG has had such a profound influence on my life, perhaps even more so than Oz. Although I don't listen to them now quite as much as I used to, they remain my favorite band, and I'm eagerly awaiting their next album, The Spine.
There wasn't really any one person or thing that got me into TMBG; rather, it was a combination of factors. I remember hearing "Birdhouse In Your Soul" on a kids' radio show when I was in high school, and thinking it was a really cool song. I had probably heard "Istanbul" and "Particle Man" before that, on Tiny Toons and/or on that same radio program, but, while they were fun, they didn't really grab me the way "Birdhouse" did. But I didn't really look into the band until college. That was when I first started using the Internet regularly, and, since I was a big Weird Al fan, I read the alt.music.weird-al newsgroup. TMBG came up frequently on there as a band that a lot of Al fans like. Fortunately, it wasn't that hard for me to hear their music, since several of the people in my building were fans (it WAS an honors dorm, after all, so there were a lot of nerds there {g}). I heard a lot of their songs for the first time when the guy next door made a tape for my then-roommate, which contained all of Flood and various songs from other albums. I remember "Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal" being among them, along with several Apollo 18 tracks, including "She's Actual Size," "Mammal," "The Statue Got Me High," "Spider," and "Turn Around" (the last of which I immediately recognized as being a major influence in the structure of Weird Al's TMBG style parody, "Everything You Know Is Wrong"). I also remember hearing "Dinner Bell" and "Fingertips" not long after that.
In an odd and fortunate coincidence, TMBG actually played a show at my school that year. In the building right across the street from my dorm, in fact. I think I was actually fourth in line for tickets, although that was probably due primarily to my dorm's proximity to the ticket window and my lack of anything else to do that morning. I didn't know a lot of the songs they did at the show, but it was a lot of fun. I know they played "Shoehorn With Teeth," as well as "Exquisite Dead Guy" with the puppet heads. I also participated in the conga line (something I've never done since, and I think I've only attended one other TMBG concert where the band even started a conga line), although I couldn't remember what song they were playing at the time. Knowing what I know now, I realize it must have been "No One Knows My Plan," but I remember listening to "See The Constellation" shortly after buying Apollo 18 and thinking, "This sounds like the conga line song!" I'm kind of getting ahead of myself here, though.
I considered buying a TMBG album throughout the summer, but didn't actually go through with it until August, or possibly late July. I think what finally pushed me to make the purchase was hearing "Birdhouse" on that same radio show again. I didn't buy the album with "Birdhouse" on it, though, but rather Apollo 18 and the fairly new Then: The Earlier Years. Yes, both on the same day. It was kind of a gamble, really (I'd heard most, if not all, of Flood and Apollo by that point, but very little from earlier albums), but it definitely paid off. While I think it was largely the band's wacky sense of humor and fun that drew me in (I was coming into TMBG fandom from Weird Al fandom, after all), and I had the initial idea that their lyrics were generally just nonsense, I soon came to think that there was more depth to the band's songs than I had originally thought, and I realized that, especially with the earlier songs, there was often a somewhat dark, paranoid undercurrent. I remember having a bad dream where "Boat Of Car" was playing, and I found that song kind of creepy for a while after that. I also had some GOOD dreams involving TMBG music, though; I can recall ones where everyone in a room just started singing "Kiss Me, Son Of God" for no reason, and another similar one featuring "James K. Polk." The important thing, though, was that this music basically just blew me away. I was pretty obsessed with it for some time after that. I worked at a movie theater at the time, and I remember singing TMBG songs to myself while walking to work, and while sweeping the theaters. I started checking out TMBG-related forums on the Internet, starting with the alt.music.tmbg newsgroup, and later the tmbg.org mailing list. I bought the remaining albums soon after returning to school, starting with Flood on my first day back. From there, it escalated to songs available online, EPs, Mono Puff, etc. I bought Severe Tire Damage the day it came out. I also started taking suggestions from the TMBG FAQ and people on the forums as far as other music to check out, which is how I got into Moxy Früvous, XTC, Camper Van Beethoven, the Young Fresh Fellows, Frank Black, and more. TMBG fandom even affected my life in other ways, perhaps most importantly in that I met my girlfriend on an off-topic offshoot of the tmbg.org list. TMBG has had such a profound influence on my life, perhaps even more so than Oz. Although I don't listen to them now quite as much as I used to, they remain my favorite band, and I'm eagerly awaiting their next album, The Spine.
