Review - They Might Be Giants - Holidayland

Ah, the many joys and images of the Christmas season. Snowflakes falling gently to the ground, Santa Claus luring away your wife, snowmen in protective rubber skin. Fans of the quintessential pop duo known as They Might Be Giants have long been familiar with such unorthodox holiday imagery but now these disturbing scenes are available in one convenient, festive package known as Holidayland. The earliest track on this collection is "Santa's Beard", from their infamous Lincoln album. Flansburgh sings "I saw my baby wearing Santa's beard / She kissed him once and whispered in his ear" to a stripped down and ratty guitar paired with a pogo-stick bass beat. Also by Flansburgh is "Careless Santa", originally released by his side band Mono Puff. Before now, "O Tannenbaum" was only available as a special 7" vinyl single from the They Might Be Giants fan club but now it has been converted to a bunch of shiny, laser-encoded pits for your listening pleasure. With J.D. Feinberg utilizing brushes on the drum kit, Linnel sings a drunken jazz version of this famous melody in the original German. Another rarity is the original "Feast of Lights", previously released on a compilation album. The song is played mainly on a harpsichord with the occasional percussion flourish, giving it a spooky, subdued feel. Recorded specifically for this project is a cover of "Santa Claus", written by the legendary 60s band The Sonics. The Giants give this tough, bluesy song a spin in their power-pop blender, creating a delicious holiday beverage. The only Christmas missing from the TMBG catalog is the B-side of the "O Tannenbaum" record, a humorous off-the-cuff ditty called "Christmas Cards" where the singer explains why you won't be getting a Christmas card from him this year: they all seem to get stolen before he can mail them, right out of his desk. But they didn't ask me. They never ask me and to tell you the truth, I'm getting a bit tired of them not asking my opinion. Clocking in a just under twelve minutes, this EP would make a great stocking stuffer.

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, December 2001.

Review - John Linnell - State Songs

In contrast to the Monopuff albums I still find myself listening to this album. It's AMAZING! KILLER, even. Witty, quirky, catchy... GIVE ME MORE, MAN!!!!

John Linnell, the accordion playing half of They Might Be Giants, has a mission: to write a song for every state in the union. His first solo CD, State Songs, is a wonderfully quirky collection extolling fifteen states plus the "title" song "The Songs of the 50 States". The songs are very similar in style to that They Might Be Giants, and rightly so, though the instrumentation is more keyboard/ saxophone based instead of guitar, and there exists a great variety of instrument combinations.

The opening song, "Illinois" is an instrumental played exclusively on the Wurlitzer 103 Band organ (with custom paper roll cutting by Bob Stuhmer). The album really gets rolling with the aforementioned "50 States" as Linnell reflects on the songs themselves while dabbling in catchy, syncopated melodies and humorous, self-effacing lyrics such as "I'm not gonna say they're great/ I ain't gonna say they ain't." "West Virginia", the nation's leading producer of bituminous coal, is replete with a 60's vibe, mostly due to the Doors-ish organ that runs through the entire song. Mixing the baritone vocals of "Whistling in the Dark" with the pounding rhythm of "Birdhouse in Your Soul", "South Carolina" finds Linnell singing of a bicycle accident and punitive damages. "Idaho" is a quiet song about driving the tour bus across the Idaho state line while everyone else on the bus sleeps, ending with the sound of a lone car alarm going off in the night. Some of the songs, including "Pennsylvania" with its catchy yiddish violin theme and the jaunty sax/ accordion/ piano/ drum quintet called "Mississippi" are instrumentals. Few of the songs actually go into any depth on the state in question but instead speak of something happening there. Except for the rousing fight song of "Michigan", don't' expect state travel bureaus to adopt these songs. "Utah" is about how forgettable the state is, with the repeating line "I forget Utah" while New Hampshire is lambasted with lines like "No one likes New Hampshire" while more organ paper rolls whirl in the background. It is with mixed emotions that I report that "Indiana" has not received a song on this CD… maybe the next one.

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, November 1999.

Review - Monopuff - Unsupervised

While I have nothing to base this on, I get the feeling that Flansburgh is the businessman and Linnell is more of the free-spirited artist that needs shepherded. But either of them can write a song in ten minutes that puts my best to shame.

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It's always interesting when members of a band create solo albums, allowing the listener to decipher what influences each member brings to the band. With the release of Unsupervised under the band name Mono Puff, They Might Be Giants member John Flansburgh reveals his eclectic, experimental nature that was so great a part of the early TMBG albums. "Hello Hello" is the whisperings of paranoia as the singer intones "Hello, hello, it's good to be back" while the drummer supplements the hysteria with an incredibly complex, ever changing drum part. "Don't Break The Heart" and "Don't I Have the Right" are country songs replete with incredible harmonies and the obligatory twang. "Distant Antenna" is a compelling organ-based instrumental with a running dialog in broken English of one families struggle to pull in a Mono Puff song through the FM haze of their radio. In fact, many of the songs are instrumentals, such as the opening James Bond/surf music "Guitar Was the Case" and the eerie "To Serve Mankind" which is played on a melotron "sampled" with human voices, giving it a disjointed, otherworldly feel.

The worst part of the CD is that it is so short, the thirteen tracks only making thirty-three minutes of music. If you take out the one or two duds in the mix, that leaves only twenty-five minutes of good tunes. Of course Flansburgh is unable to leave his They Might Be Giants background behind and most of these songs would have fit in easily on a TMBG release. Instrumentally, bassist Hal Cragin has added some very creative bass parts, often times making a song that would have otherwise fallen flat. The lyrics are a bit more straight-forward than you would find on a TMBG release, but the humor is still there. Lines like "I hit my head/I hear the phone ring/ I was distracted by my friend Joe" from the title track and "Don't make the fatal error/ Of thinking you'll find someone better" bring an easy smile to the listener's face. Overall, it's a good first solo effort, very similar to They Might Be Giants in style, but horribly short!

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, October 1999.

Review - Monopuff - It's Fun To Steal

Oh Flansburgh... Was it you and your hipster ways that destroyed the TMBG that I loved? Or was it Linnell getting sober and having kids and growing up, though not necessarily in that order. Or did you both start taking yourselves too seriously? In any case, there are a couple of really good songs on this Monopuff album and a bunch of puff.

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If John Flansburgh is known at all in this city of the three rivers, it's as half of the quirky pop/rock duo They Might Be Giants. Since Flansburgh and Linnell are song-writing machines, they both have side bands as outlets for their material. On the first Mono Puff album, most of the songs were written by Flansburgh and had a very TMBGish flavor. On the latest release, It's Fun To Steal, the songs were written more as a band with lots of experimentation in rhythms, creating a Beck-ish white boy funk of deep grooving, party-atmosphere songs. But diversity is key here and although most of the songs are heavily processed shag carpet pseudo-funk, you'll find everything from straight rock to a capella folk to rockabilly ska.

The title song has the same suave soul-pop as "Pet Name" from TMBG's last album. The chorus is especially catchy with some tasty two-part hamonies as Flansburgh sings about cheating and breaking hearts. "Dashiki Lover" has a Zappa meets funk edge to it and would have fit right in on the first Mono Puff album. An early favorite was "Poison Flowers" as a kind of theme song for Dr. Evil. Starting with a foundation of aggressive rock, evil lyrics of world domination are layered on top such as "Who's going to build my death ray and grow poison flowers?" to which a chorus replies "We will! We will!" "Extra Crispy" is yet another love song to New York City, comparing it to chicken with "Once you have extra crispy / You'll never go back again." Where there are love songs, there are breakup songs such as creepy lounge of "I Just Found Out What Everybody Knows". Other odd characters populate this disc such as "Hillbilly Drummer Girl" ("Playing for a crowd of six/ Free beer and eight dollars/ That's money for new sticks") and "Night Security" sung in a resonant baritone. Though not for everyone, this disc is a great addition to seekers of fun musical experimentation and diversity.

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, October 2000.

Review - They Might Be Giants - No!

This might be the last great album TMBG put out. And it's freaking me out that when I wrote this I only had two young pups. I'm up to seven now and the afore-referenced Joshua is seventeen.

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First a disclaimer: I love the music of They Might Be Giants and have raised my two sons, Joshua and Matthew, to enjoy their quirky, intoxicating melodies (as well as other snobbish music-critic audibles). It was no surprise then that they took instantly to No!, the first They Might Be Giants album designed to be enjoyed by the entire nuclear family.

As you might expect, the usual colorfully cartoonish sound of TMBG (here represented by the Johns and their band of Dans) lends itself easily to a childrens' album. What makes this album different from their regular albums is that there aren’t any songs about death or depressing subjects (albeit wrapped in bouncy, happy tunes). The subject matter runs from bizarre to weird, which is exactly how Nickelodeon made its fortune. “Violin” sports a simple melody, sparse orchestral strings and lyrics like “Violin,” “Hippo,” “Mop,” “Speck of dust” and “3/4 of George Washington’s head.” The ultra-catchy “In The Middle” is sung by Robin Goldwasser and intones “Don’t cross the street in the middle, in the middle, in the middle of the block” while manic xylophones dance nimbly around your ears. A longtime favorite from a fan club EP is “The Edison Museum,” sung with gusto by Nicholas Hill.

Touted as the “most famous haunted mansion in New Jersey,” facts about Thomas Edison float above a spooky background of baritone sax and harpsichord.

But wait, there’s more! Although the 17 tracks run a disappointing 34 minutes, the CD includes special interactive sequences for most of the songs, playable on either a PC or Mac. In “The House At The Top Of The Tree,” which is about a mouse who eats your house unless he has potato chips which are delivered by a dog in a car, you get to feed the mouse potato chips to keep him from eating the house. Much less complicated is the funky “Clap Your Hands,” where you make three odd bird-creatures dance, stomp their feet, groove and generally git jiggy wit it. While none of these could be called games, each interactive sequence is quite interesting and lends yet another fun element to this already enjoyable CD.

Like the best products made for children, the contents of this disc appeal to both kids and adults with songs that speak to children without speaking down to them. The lyrics are definitely not plain (“Spaghetti is from China but Italians make it best”) and the music is equally inventive and varied to bear many repeat listens. Don’t tell Child Protective Services, but this album was a big hit at my house after a single listen. You can get a sample of the songs and interactive sequences at www.giantkid.net.

This review first appeared in WhatzUp, June 2002.

Mink Car Revisited

Originally I found the 2001 They Might Be Giants album Mink Car to be a mediocre album: a few good songs and lots of stinkers. In my nerdy CD database I had given it a 6. This morning I gave the album a fresh listen and was impressed by the number of great songs that kick off the album: Bangs, Cyclops Rock, Man It's So Loud In Here, Another First Kiss, I've Got A Fang and Hovering Sombrero all appear in the first half with Older, She Thinks She'd Edith Head and Working Undercover for the Man on the second half. A couple of those are classic status and the rest a good goofy fun! Why didn't I like this album more?

Oh wait... it's songs like Mr. Xcitement, Yeh Yeh, Drink!, Wicked Little Critta... songs where Flansburg has seemingly fallen off his musical rocker. HEY FLANSBURG... YOU'RE NOT SINATRA!

It's also of note that most of the above-listed great had previously been released on E.P.s or other collections so I can see how, in 2001 after waiting five years for a full album only to receive a few new songs that were good and an equal amount of new songs that were MAJOR stinkers, well, a six might have been generous.

As it stands I want to give this album an 8 but the Good to Stinker ratio is still frighteningly high. I'll bump it up the a 7 and hopefully will like their kids album (SCIENCE! - due September 1) better.