"Employee" video and "Electric Car" preview

Catching up on the past week or two of happenings online, we'll start with the most recent. Animator Elliot Cowan has created a video for They Might Be Giants' "Employee of the Month" using his Boxhead & Roundhead characters. The video grabbed the band's attention and is now being featured in their MySpace and newsletter updates. On Cowan's blog you can read his "interesting" perspective of his exchange with the band.

The Star-Ledger spoke with John Flansburgh for an interview. Topics of discussion included the transition to performing for children, Tommy Lee interviews, and how their unclassifiable music still brings in an audience.

Via TMBW, TMBG manager Jamie Kitman spoke with NPR in a seemingly unrelated interview about electric cars at the Detroit Auto Show. The audio interview ends with the debut of a new song by They Might Be Giants called, appropriately enough, "Electric Car." Only a portion of the track is played, but it's mentioned that the song comes out in the fall, likely with the release of Here Comes Science.

Interview, extended Coraline clip, TMBG on Conan

Starting off the new year right, Stay Thirsty Media has an interview with John Flansburgh on their site. The lengthy interview has John compare They Might Be Giants to Jethro Tull, describe how performing in the play People are Wrong! differs from playing live with TMBG, and list a few of his musical inspirations. The article also has short audio clips of the conversation. You may remember that early last year Stay Thirsty spoke with John Linnell.

A helpful editor over at This Might Be a Wiki pointed out that the Coraline website is showing clips from the upcoming film. The editor notes that a longer version of our previously known song has made it onto the site as well (click the record player). TMBG's role has been unfortunately diminished since the project began and we don't know how much of their input remains, but we will know when the movie comes out next month (February 6th, two days before the Grammys).

Finally, a new TMBG newsletter was sent out today. In addition to reminding everyone to catch the Grammys, the band gives up a heads up on a different TV appearance. They Might Be Giants will be performing on Late Night with Conan O'Brien on Thursday, February 12th. This is the same week as the Grammys and a week before Conan's last show on Late Night. Apparently TMBG has appeared on the show more times than any other rock band so be sure to catch their final appearance before the host moves. You can subscribe to the TMBG newsletter over at tmbg.com.

Final interviews of the year, new Theynow

In today's post, we wrap up the links from Christmas to the new year's eve. Coming in just before the holiday is a new episode of Theynow. The installment features covers of TMBG songs as well as other songs you might like.

With They Might Be Giants playing New Year's Eve shows in Philadelphia, they have a few interviews in the city including some from last week. Philadelphia Weekly speaks with John Flansburgh and he comments on the disintegration of the music business and compares TMBG's children's music to The Sopranos.

NBC Philadelphia has a great video interview from the TLA with John and John. At a good 14 minutes long, the Johns discuss bands with bad names (even the Beatles, says Flans), the trouble of remembering lyrics, and the intentions of the group both starting out and starting children's projects.

Finally, we have an interview with Linnell and Flansburgh from Phawker. The interview is a fun read and the Johns give some good answers. Among other things, you can read which band member Flans hit in the face with a guitar, their thoughts on playing at the TLA, and how their "Boss of Me" Grammy win has helped their careers, among other topics. A worthy article to end the year.

Science images and Philly interviews

While the Grammy nominated Here Come the 123s is still on peoples' minds, people are looking for news on the upcoming Here Comes Science. Frequent TMBG collaborator Hine Mizushima has posted some stills from her new video for the upcoming kids album. (Maybe your guess of which video it's for will be the same as mine if you look closely.) The images were also featured in a recent TMBG newsletter.

These newsletters and MySpace postings of the past weeks have been ramping up the promotion for two purposes. First, to let us know of their new holiday bundles (which you can still order by Sunday to guarantee merch by Christmas via FedEx). They've also put some holiday themed songs on their MySpace profile page.

The second topic is, as always, shows; such as the pair of New Year's Eve shows at the TLA in Philadelphia. To help get the word out on upcoming shows, they've announced an RSS feed on their website that will update you of all upcoming They Might Be Giants shows.

Another promo gig the band had recently is an interview with Phrequency on these Philadelphia shows (via TMBW). John, John, and Marty sit in to tell the folks how they start writing a song, give their Grammy reaction, and tell of some interesting fan interactions.

Also in Philly, the group held an interview with Preston & Steve of 93.3 WMMR. You can hear the audio of the interview (via TMBW again), view pictures from the meeting, and watch video of the two songs performed on the show: "Particle Man" and "Why Does the Sun Really Shine?"

Flansburgh on kids projects and rock albums

Thanksgiving week gave us a healthy amount of news on They Might Be Giants' current endeavors. Starting on Tuesday, TMBG collaborator Tony Millionaire mentions how he got involved with the band. The interview primarily concerns his new cartoon, for which They Might Be Giants wrote and performed the theme song. Tony says the Johns sent him five or six songs to choose from.

A string of interviews brought up by TMBG's performance of Flood in D.C. began with Express Night Out on Tuesday, which has John Flansburgh comment on Animal Farm-like metaphoric interpretations of their songs, hearing his music on TV, and keeping concerts fresh.

The next day, The Free Lance-Star spoke to Flansburgh as well. In the pull quotable-article, Here Comes Science is talked about and John states that they hired a scientific consultant for the upcoming children's album. Along with "more controversial issues like evolution," the article says "waves, states of matter and the sun" are song subjects on the album and confirms both "The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas" and the newly penned "The Sun is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma." The interview goes on to their next rock album, where John informs us:

"I think this next rock album my ambition for it is to blend more of the home-recording techniques that we presented in the '80s with modern sounds. I'd like to make a more insane-sounding record, to be perfectly honest."

Closing out the interview, you can read John tell that they were "basically cut out" of Coraline and what didn't work out in the experience.

Finally, on Friday, The Washington Post published an interview with Flansburgh. John begins with his early intentions for the band. Commenting on the New Wave and performance art movements' influence on the band, he says that it wasn't meant to become a job. The article focuses on the serious nature of They Might Be Giants' apparently lighthearted songs and hits on several elements that make them work. Perhaps most alarming, though, is news on TMBG's new adult album. While they have Flans quote that it's "a little bit more experimental," they also claim it "won't be finished for years." (The second is an article quote, not John.)

This might seem surprising, but I'd say it's not entirely unexpected. You may remember that an idea, as suggested by Flansburgh, was to release the kids' album followed by an EP before the next rock album. I'm sure they'd like as much space between the album releases as possible. Last year's The Else dropped in July with plans for Here Come the 123s set for three months later in October. The "album for children" was moved almost half a year to February, presumably because the initial date conflicted with touring and promoting the new "album for people." The band has undoubtedly learned from the experience, which may lead us to not receive the next rock album until possibly well into 2010.

Interview and Podcast 37A

Over the weekend, the folks from Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child had an interview with John and John before a show. After a round of questions on Benjamin Franklin, we find out that Here Comes Science will concern itself with ideas in science and not famous scientists themselves, though Flansburgh reveals that at one point he was working on a song about Nikola Tesla. Also revealed in the interview is the story of "Doctor Worm"'s origin.


Released yesterday is They Might Be Giants Podcast 37A. This special Halloween themed episode has some scary poems, some scary songs, and some songs related to Homestar Runner. Along with the recent "200 SBemails", a new song titled "Crystal Fortress" is played, which will appear in a future Homestar Runner project.

Included in this episode is the topical "Vote or Don't," a new song exclusive for the podcast. As US election day is upon us, the most recent TMBG newsletter includes a healthy "guide to voting" which you can re-forward to all of your friends. (And why not keep in the info on the podcast and show dates as well?)

Speaking of show dates, news is that the November 29 show at Le Poisson Rouge will be an Apollo 18 show featuring a full play-through of They Might Be Giants' fourth album.

Flansburgh interview, MySpace Music

This week They Might Be Giants sent out news through their usual channels (e-mail, MySpace) on their string of Flood shows, which has already begun. In anticipation for today's show in Northampton, MassLive.com ran an interview with John Flansburgh yesterday. Read the article to hear John talk on the preparation for the Flood shows, early career aspirations, and which band they opened for that he recalls as "intimidating ... guys from a pirate ship."

Finally, an odd end on the business side. BusinessWire has news that IODA (Independent Online Distribution Alliance), of which recent TMBG label Rounder Records is apparently a part of, has made a deal with MySpace Music to bring their artists' music to the social networking site. So what does that mean for you, me, and TMBG? It's likely that it just means their music will be promoted and sold through the site, but MySpace Music is also involved in hosting concerts. I find that one a long shot, but we bring you the small stuff here folks.

Podcast 36A, interviews, and more

I have so many links this week I may need to start updating more frequently again. Starting out from the weekend, TMBG's Sunday appearance on Out Of The Box on Q104.3 has been archived on the show's site for both streaming and downloading. John, John, and Marty were interviewed and played some songs live in the studio.

Plush You, a blog dedicated to handcrafted plush items, interviewed TMBG collaborator Hine Mizushima this week. The interview gives us some info on her creative background and explains how she got involved in making videos ("With the Dark," "The Secret Life of Six") for They Might Be Giants.

In movie news, it seems that there won't be as much TMBG in Coraline as everyone originally thought. ShockTillYouDrop.com visited the set of the movie sat down with director Henry Selick. Selick states that the film was initially going to feature more songs but it has since been limited to "a few moments of music." Chud.com, who attended the same set visit, lets us know that only one of the songs They Might Be Giants wrote for the film will ultimately make it on screen. You may remember that "Careful What You Pack" came from these unused songs. In addition to relaying some behind the scenes interactions with the band, Selick informs us that Bruno Coulais is scoring the film, in case you pondered if TMBG had involvement in that as well.


Coraline won't get wide release until next year, so if you're looking for a TMBG fix, hit up the They Might Be Giants Podcast. Released yesterday as an early preview on their MySpace page, Podcast 36A has been sent out. Songs from the podcast include a few from their ringtone projects, a Beatles cover, and more. The podcast-announcing newsletter states a 36B is on the way.

Wrapping up a post too long for its own good is the rumor mill. "Tippecanoe And Tyler Too" was played in today's podcast and Flansburgh reminds everyone to go out and vote (for the people they're going to vote for). It looks like John may be getting a little more active than that in spreading the good vibes for his candidate of choice. A Twitter post from a one Mr. Noah Carter indicates that They Might Be Giants will be making an appearance at a supporter-organized fundraising event for Barack Obama.

So who is Noah Carter? I have no idea either, but he's listed as one of the hosts of the event along with several relatively famous people from the New York area. The event itself is in Brooklyn on October 6th and TMBG has a show in New York on the 5th so this wouldn't be out of their way. It's also not noted if they will be performing or just showing face.

Here Comes Science named as next children's album

In this week's online wrap up we have an interview with John Flansburgh. The Super Cool Stuff Show podcast asked John some questions (about six minutes in) and got some news with his answers.

Back in January, John Linnell made known their idea to make a DVD about science for kids. Flansburgh confirms this and that Here Comes Science will be their next album with the possibility of an EP showing up before the next non-kids album.

Other interesting points of the discussion include the show that reminds Flans of childhood memories and that they are involved in writing a song for the World of Warcraft community. The beefy parts of the interview are transcribed at Blogcritics.

"Davy Crockett" hits the internet

I've just a couple of links from the past week or so here today. With "The Ballad of Davy Crockett (In Outer Space)" video released last week, both the tmbg.com blog and the band's MySpace blog are pointing out that the video is available for easy, embeddable viewing on YouTube.

If you like the video, you may want to check out the "making of" post from Tiny Inventions' (creators of the video, along with illustrator and frequent TMBG collaborator David Cowles) blog. The post describes some of the methods used to create the video and includes lots of interesting pictures and videos.

Finally, we have an article from the Asbury Park Press speaking to some of the Disney Block Party acts including They Might Be Giants. John Flansburgh describes what it's like to play for children who might not recognize they're at a concert and tells what he's learned from audiences.

John Linnell on The Else and No!

In the break before TMBG's upcoming Disney tour dates, LiveDaily has an interview with John Linnell. Linnell speaks about how they worked with the Dust Bros. on The Else and where he thinks that album stands in their catalog, saying:

I think "The Else" was a spike in popularity for us. That partly represented people who hadn't been paying attention to us, who [hadn't taken] notice, and there's probably some new fans who got interested in [us at] that point and maybe felt like it was better than the last couple They Might Be Giants records.

He also gives a good summary of how their first children's album, No!, came about, his thoughts on the Disney Music Block Party Tour, and going back to the old Village Gate.

Linnell interview, shows into next year

The Press of Atlantic City had an interview with John Linnell earlier this month that slipped by. The interview promoted TMBG's appearance at the Appel Farm Arts & Music Festival. Pointed out by the TMBG LJ group, the article mentions the influence of certain substances on the band, among other topics.

In show news, TMBW has posted several new shows for the fall and into next year in New York City. Most take place at Le Poisson Rouge, home of the former Village Gate, an early venue in They Might Be Giants show history.

Robot podcast, Flans interview

The newest installment of the Family Podcast is now available online. Continuing Spaceman and Robot month, Flansburgh and Linnell greet us in their spaceman and robot outfit, respectively. Up first is "I am a Robot," a DVD only track from Here Come the ABCs. Then, in the fashion of May Day, the Johns tell some hilarious robot jokes.

We soon meet Addison the Sock, who introduces a Disney tour announcement from Flans. Rounding out the episode, spaceman Flansburgh and robot Linnell sing "A Shooting Star is Not a Star."

The Charlotte Observer has a short word with John Flansburgh in preparation for TMBG's upcoming shows in Charlotte, NC this weekend. As two of the three concerts are sold-out children's shows, the article focuses in that area, asking of children's music from Flans' childhood and the pluses of children's and TV work.

Flans interview, radio takeover archive

A new TMBG newsletter was released, echoing a MySpace post, and in it a new show is announced for Milwaukee, WI in late June. Two previously announced shows are taking place this weekend in Kansas City, MO and the Kansas City Star has an interview with John Flansburgh. As the Jiggle Jam Family Music Fest is They Might Be Giants' Saturday show, the interview stays on the children's music topic and asks about the intent behind their first children's album and how kids' shows differ from regular shows.

Back in January, John and John took over radio station Y Rock and played a bunch of their and their crew's favorite songs. An archive of that hour is finally up on the Y Rock website for streaming. You can find the setlist on the site as well under 9 pm.

Finally, from the fan side of things, a new Theynow was released with some covers and live music and check out Hine's latest art project, 9 Practical Applications for The Else.

"Zeroes" podcast, TIME, radio interview and songs

They Might Be Giants' Family Podcast is back today with "Zeroes." Sung with the help of Hannah Levine, who also sings "One Dozen Monkeys," the song describes the many uses of the zero while the video features several birds, such as the one on the Here Come the 123s cover, helping to demonstrate.

After the video, the puppet Johns sing a quick little song and tell some jokes. I think it's great to see little songs like this in the podcast where they won't necessarily be taken so seriously and are a fun little diversion. The video ends with the podcast's goodbye song.

They Might Be Giants were profiled by TIME concerning their children's work. The article is mostly an overview, but you may want to check it out, if only for the excellent photo of the Johns and their puppets.

Several audio-only videos of TMBG on radio station WNRN have been posted to YouTube. A two part video from last year has an interview with John, John, and Marty on the drums. Part one covers working on The Else and an in-studio performance of "Contrecoup." Part two has them discussing their reasons for releasing The Else online a month before its retail release and they play the previously linked "Star Hill Music Hall."

Also uploaded by the station are several in-studio performances from way back on September 12, 1997. The songs include "Cowtown," "New York City," "Older," and what is possibly the very first performance of "Doctor Worm." They're interesting arrangements and are all well worth listening to.

New Dunkin' commercial, full interview

A new Dunkin' Donuts television commercial has taken to the airwaves, this one called "All Night Blowout." The 30-second spot is the latest in the "American Runs on Dunkin'" campaign and is viewable on YouTube.

The fine folks at WJFF have reposted Friday's interview with They Might Be Giants. Now the full half hour interview is available for streaming and download from their website. Additional topics covered in the second half of the interview include indie music on the Internet, humor in their songs, and collaborations with Home Movies and Homestar Runner. The Johns specifically note that more Homestar material is on the way and in the works.

Radio interview archived

If you missed TMBG on the radio last Friday, you can listen to some of their interview before the show at WJFF's website (Date: Friday, April 18, 2008 7:28 pm) for the next week or so. Unfortunately the recording is cut off halfway into the interview, but you can still hear what John and John have to say about the band members and their thoughts on illegally downloading music.

All Over Albany has posted another short quote from speaking with Flansburgh. He tells them of the challenges of performing a children's show filled with adults and writing for children with no musical history.

Flansburgh on The Egg, upcoming radio show

John Flansburgh has been interviewed a few times recently. All Over Albany spoke with him about TMBG's upcoming show at The Egg finding out John's inspiration for its song and what his first impression of the venue was. John also spoke with WAMC in Albany, NY over the radio on the venue song for The Egg, his philosophy behind performing and promoting their kids' music, and his relationship with John Linnell.

The other day a new TMBG newsletter was sent out hinting at Podcast 34B (though a new MySpace bulletin states it's 33B, which is probably the correct number) and reminding everyone of upcoming shows. The newsletter also mentions a sold out live radio concert on Friday to be broadcast on WJFF. The songs will start at 8 o'clock but the band will show up early for an interview at 7:30.

Soundcheck appearance, Conan reminder

They Might Be Giants appeared on WNYC's Soundcheck today promoting Here Come the 123s. During the interview, they played "One Dozen Monkeys," "Apartment 4," and "Alphabet of Nations" live in the studio.

A few MySpace updates have been posted. On TMBG's MySpace blog, an update mentions the Soundcheck appearance and also reminds everyone of their upcoming Late Night with Conan O'Brien performance tomorrow night. In other live news, TMBW has several new shows on their shows page.

Finally, They Might Be Giants have placed second in Zooglobble's KidVid Tournament with their video for "Seven Days a Week (I Never Go To Work)." There were a ton of votes in the finals so if you need help counting, check out Friday's Family Podcast for a refresher and get your kid video fix for the week.

Hannah Levine interview, music video tourney

Kids links are the flavor of the day today. Spare the Rock, Spoil the Child has an interview with "One Dozen Monkeys" singer Hannah Levine. She answers a few questions about working on Here Come the 123s and lets us know that she will be performing with TMBG live on April 20 in New York.

Kids music site Zooglobble has been running a KidVid Tournament, pitting children's music videos against each other to find the best video of the past year. They Might Be Giants are in the mix with "Seven Days a Week (I Never Go To Work)" and is already in the semi-finals.

Finally, though I'm not sure how recent this is, iTunes has all of the music videos from the Here Come the 123s DVD (aside from the intro and exclusive videos) for download on the iTunes Store.