They Might Be Giants’ Flansburgh contradicts terms

By NED O’REILLY

I never thought I’d hear this from anyone, let alone from a musician whose music I’ve admired for years and whom I’ve never met. It came out of discussion of terminology and how certain words mean different things to different generations and – maybe I better put this in its proper context. Wander with me down a city park path with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants.

Why don’t you start with the MoveOn project?

"I’ve never done anything even remotely like this, but I live in New York City and I don’t like New York City being waved around like some crazy, cultural prize in some media war. I’m pretty much a regular knee-jerk liberal moderate Democrat that’s spent a lot of time shaking my fist at the television. I’m very disappointed in this administration and people really have to come together and realize that something’s gotta change.

"There was a lot of attention being drawn to swing states and other media/pundit-driven concepts. This isn’t really so complicated. We have a terrible president who’s doing a terrible job. I’ve read a couple of Nixon biographies. He was a crazy guy, but he was an intelligent guy with measured responses to complicated issues. I think even if you’re a Republican, just look at the legacy of your president. There’s nothing to be proud of. He’s ruined our situation internationally. He’s absolutely reckless with the economy. It’s a disaster. I think the [voter] turnout is going to be massive and I think he’s going to lose.

"So, as a civilian and as essentially a non-political person, I thought, ‘What this political season needs is a little bit of optimism. Enough of this horse race stuff. Let’s just remind people that something else could happen and that you’re not alone.’"

So you decided to do a compilation record?

"I was especially interested in working with people who weren’t the usual suspects in the political fray. It brings a whole other level of integrity to the project. It has to be said for the record – I am not a representative of MoveOn. But I’m glad that there’s such a quality organization as MoveOn around as a place for my efforts to land. It’s involved in consciousness raising and that is needed."

So you said you made cold calls?

"I contacted a really great label and pitched them on the idea: Barsuk Records out of Seattle. And Josh, who runs Barsuk, was totally game and very intrigued. He was really a kindred spirit. We made an outreach to a bunch of musicians and were blown away by the response. Virtually no one turned us down and a lot of people were wildly enthusiastic. It was a really heartening project. I thought it would be a hassle, but people were very generous. Maybe the most exceptional thing about this compilation is the quality of the music. It’s all new recordings and the star power is pretty jaw-dropping: The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Tom Waits, Blink 182, David Byrne, Death Cab For Cutie, R.E.M, Fountains of Wayne."

Let’s talk about TMBG a bit. You’ve got a new record out. And is it doing well?

"It’s doing great."

Does the record company have any expectations about the album?

"We are our own record company. We’ve licensed our records to Rounder and to Universal who distributes them around the world."

So it’s a lot more up to you than with some artists?

"Ultimately everything’s up to you and nothing’s up to you. You can always just say no if you feel you don’t want to work for something. John [co-Giant Linnell] and I have a uniquely un-neurotic response to the challenges of being a working musician. There are a lot of things about it that are investments in the future, but there are a lot of things about it that are just immediately very pleasurable."

That’s terrific that you use the term un-neurotic to describe you and John because a lot of people could say that you guys are really neurotic.

"There’s something about the way music is discussed that the persona is inextricably linked to the product. Not everything really works that way. Most creative writers of any kind are interested in character and in things that are impossible. The reason you write a song is you want to write about something that couldn’t be written about in any other way. I like all kinds of music, but I especially like music with a psychedelic impulse, because it takes you to things that are intrinsically musical."

‘Psychedelic impulse?’

"Song structure, song topics, and juxtapositions. Things of dreams."

I once covered a bunch of songs with a band and we did "Your Racist friend" and "Ana Ng."

"Funny."

I found it really hard to sing both of those songs. Wondering what octave I should go to and what you guys do…

"We’re not afraid to sing badly in any key."

But that’s what I mean. The impression is that singing is not your strong point, yet there are a lot of layers there.

"We’re very into the craft of songwriting, so we do lot of things that are a little bit tricky and that’s a constant thread. I’m not saying that’s something to be proud of. There’s nothing better than a really simple song that’s really effective. It’s like design. The best ones are actually the simplest. The ones that are tricky and filigreed – you might be exploring something, but it doesn’t necessarily make it better at the core of it. There are so many people who write more complicated stuff than we do, but they might not even think of themselves as working in pop."

Do you think of yourself that way?

"Absolutely. Yeah. And it’s always by default. The interesting thing is that we’re sort of experimental in our approach, but the actual finished product has more classic song structure."

Very few of your songs run longer than 3 minutes and a lot of them run less than 2. That can’t be an accident.

"When we started the band, we came up with a long list of things we didn’t want to do. We were very concerned about boring people. And people were so bored by so much popular music…"

Especially in the '80s.

Yeah. John and I went to high school together in the '70s and really suffered through a lot of California rock, a lot of big rock, sort of superhero rock. It just seemed very baggy. Like a lot of long keyboard intros and guitar solos and just a lot of breaks. And coming out of the punk rock/new wave thing, we really felt like the short song was a very powerful medium. So we just said no intros, no solos. And if you cut out intros and solos, most 3-minute songs become 2-minute songs. Of course, we have plenty of songs with solo breaks in them now, and lots of songs with intros and outros. We’ve really softened on a lot of those things over time, coming to realize that we were maybe working from a mistaken notion. We realized that if you make the stuff too hyped up, you run the risk of making the audience nervous, which is just as bad as boring them."

I saw you live – gotta be '90,'91 - you did Istanbul, and you did it like 3 times as fast as the recording.

"We didn’t tour in '91, so did you see us at the Metro in 1990?"

Yes. That would be exactly it.

"We were still a 2-piece then and the version that we did was basically a fast 2/4 version and that’s really the way we always did it live before we recorded it. Then in the middle it probably broke into this crazy echo chamber vocal thing that just went on and on and on. That was the most tripped-out part of our show in 1990."

So the recording was really the exception.

"We started playing Istanbul in like 1986, I guess. On our first national tour we were booked in a place called the King’s Head Inn in Norfolk, Virginia. We were given this little memo that said, ‘And by the way, they need two hour-long sets.’ We were coming from New York where we were playing at clubs like The Pyramid Club and APC, which were these very downtown, super-druggy, super-gay, super-transvestitey clubs where you would play for 20 minutes. That was it. We would change our show pretty often, but there wasn’t a call for doing what anyone would consider a full-length show, let alone like a mid-Atlantic bar length show."

Like Bruce Springsteen.

"Yes. Exactly. So we had to learn a lot more songs. We learned Istanbul basically because it was like a two-chord song, and also it has like this yodeling thing in it, which I can do. But it was really just to pad out the show.

"Then when we were recording the Flood album, we had bought these Casio FD-1 samplers. I basically spent a couple of weeks in my house recording every single thing I could figure out how to record and playing it back on the keyboard. And so all these things that you hear on Istanbul are samples, except for the violin solo at the beginning and the trumpet in the middle. The thing that sounds like an accordion is actually a melodica that’s been sampled. In the ‘Even old New York’ part, it’s a Coke bottle being blown into a chord. The song’s got a very unusual texture."

It’s almost like Phil Spector-ish or something. Wall of Sound.

"It was the first thing I did after I got this machine. In a way now, I wish I could get back to that kind of excitement. It was this musical device that would take over my life for the next ten years."

What things would you say over the last 15 years have replaced that excitement? Obviously, you formed a more complete band at a certain point.

"Yeah. It was a different challenge. It was a kind of double-edged sword because it made our live show suddenly much, much more immediate and exciting for the audience. It really became a celebratory thing. A lot less of this sort of space walk. But then it made recording our records and deciding what the textures of our records should be much more complicated. We suddenly sounded like every other band."

I don’t think you did, but I know what you mean.

"If you’re working with a drum machine and a synthesizer and then with a guitar and accordion on top, the recordings are automatically going to sound very unusual. Moving over to full drum kit and bass and working with really solid guitar players…"

Not to mention horns.

"Well, the horns probably helped pull it back to the left a bit, but it was a different kind of challenge. It took us a while to get used to it, to figure out how to do it. But it was definitely worth the transition."

One of the songs that we love in our house is "Another First Kiss," which you did on the live album and then did it slower on "Mink Car." Which version did you actually work out first?

"The rock version on the live album was a very sketchy fast version we put together. I was really trying to think of Cheap Trick or something."

The other thing about it is it’s a love song, which you guys almost never do.

"Yeah, the love song is such a big part of regular songwriting. In a lot of ways that song is really about the complexity of a relationship. The direct, emotional part of being in love."

But it’s not "Lucky Ball and Chain," where you’re trying to figure out "My God, what’s really going on here?"

"Well, ‘Lucky Ball And Chain’ – that’s a pretty [laughs throughout] autobiographical song. What’s funny is that so many of the songs about love that we’ve written are really about adult disappointment. A lot has been written about us and a lot has been said about us, but I feel like that’s something that’s always looked past. A lot of the best stuff in our songwriting has dealt with those issues and a lot of them are pretty bittersweet. It’s funny, people keep on harping on how happy we are and sometimes I wonder what band they’re listening to."

I think it’s not happy, but it may be bright. You don’t play a lot of minor keys. You don’t yell very much. You’re not angst ridden.

"Well, we’re not particularly interested in sticking to one mode either. But because we have some very lighthearted songs, it kind of blows everybody’s minds that we could possibly do anything else."

My publisher said that the focus of our next issue was going to be nerds. And I thought, well, what do you mean by that? When I was in high school the term was completely derogatory.

"I think we went to the same high school."

And it usually meant someone who was stupid and talentless.

"I know a lot of people celebrate the term, but for me – as Bill Cosby is to the word ‘nigger,’ I am to the word ‘nerd.’ I’m confused when people have such positive feelings about it, but I’ve seen it."

But I also think it’s a generational difference. People in their 20s define the term differently.

"They grew up with the dot coms and they think the whole idea is like a way of being even more culturally alive."

A totally different word, which has evolved, is "bitch." Boy, when I was in high school, that was the second worst thing you could call a woman.

"Well, I’d rather you called me ‘bitch’ than a nerd."

And I think the term has changed that much. So OK, I didn’t mean to offend…

"Ned, I’ll be your bitch, but I won’t be your nerd."

I follow you on that one! So I thought, "OK, so what we really want to do is embrace the part of our reading audience that actually has an intellect." And I know it’s painting with a broad brush, but I just see that audience as the kind of people who would listen to They Might Be Giants. Because this audience – including myself – likes to hear a song and pick it apart and analyze it to figure out what it means or doesn’t mean or just laugh at the references.

"I observe our audience all the time and the thing that surprises me endlessly is how diverse the desires of our audience are because a lot of people really think of what we’re doing as pure escapism. To a lot of people we’re a party band. And they find that listening to us just takes their worry away and takes them to a very happy place. I am proud that our audience takes it in a lot of different ways because I think that things of quality usually are appreciated on a lot of different levels.

"It’s also not just about the front row for us. A lot of people come to our shows and we’re one of many bands that they like. We’ve never really assumed what audiences were taking away from [the shows]. We’re doing something on its own terms and it’s a constant surprise to us what people like about us. Some people really like how hard the show rocks. Other people would laugh if you told them that our show rocks. Obviously there are much louder bands than us."

But rockin’ isn’t all about volume.

"Absolutely."