Really, Why

Miasma

A dollop of genuine weirdness.

Craig Ferguson. They Might Be Giants. And John Hodgeman.

What more could you want?

Debate Prep

They Might Not Be Giants

There aren't enough rock songs that can double as hardcore history.

This may or may not be one:



In an alternate universe, John & John are the coolest teachers in a suburban High School somewhere outside of Boston.

I Sing The Weirdo Electric

Nobody's Business But the Turks

Standing at the corner of Cool and Bizarre, waiting for a busload of hipsters.

The toned and the tony stand under a bus shelter. Not because it's raining. Not because it's hot.

But because it is there. And ultimately that might be the only reason anything gets done in this world. The rest is an excuse, an attempt to funnel irrational behavior in a bacon-rasher's worth of meaning.




But confronted with the truly random, we rebel.

We want order. Crave it. Pine for it.

So we tell ourselves. We shout to ourselves even when we're not listening:

There must be a reason.

When we find it, we'll be sure to report back to you.

And You're Not So Big

There is no point explaining...

"I was gonna say something. I was gonna write it down."

Nothing. No sound. No response.

"I was about to do it. I was looking for the words."

And yet.

Nothing.

The words don't come.

The words are somewhere else. Doing something fun.

They don't want to come in here and hear me torture them.

"I thought --"

Waiting. Thinking. Wondering how the sentence ends.

And then. And yet. And still.

"Listen."



Life is unfair.

Soap Star, Fake Mime, and the Herky-Jerky Guy

You tell me

There were a lot of reasons to love the song "Jessie's Girl" by Rick Springfield.

He was cute.
He was a soap opera star.
The album it came from (Working Class Dog) featured a photo of a dog in a shirt and tie with a photo of Rick Springfield in the breast pocket.
It's pretty damn catchy.

But for me and all my friends, there was one overwhelming factor that made us love this song: the line "I wanna tell her that I love her but the point is probably moot." (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


And then there's They Might Be Giants, a band made for late-night college-hallway arguments about the meanings of their songs. But in the internet era those arguments would have to include the question does this version of "Birdhouse in Your Soul" make more or less sense than the original?


You tell me.

They Might be Back at School

Ladies and gentlemen, the sun!

Ask Americans between 30 and 50 to recite the Preamble of the Constitution and they won't be able to do it without this Schoolhouse Rock song running through their heads (especially the chorus, which starts about 45 seconds in).

So, to celebrate the fact kids are starting school again (and the more important fact that we remember things better when dull facts are spruced up with catchy tunes), here's a new slice of book learning from They Might Be Giants (from their new album Here Comes Science) and Boing Boing.


Meanwhile, if you're looking for a blast from the past, I wrote about They Might Be Giants here and here. And here's an older video of theirs that can enlighten you about the sun:


Or if you want to mellow out, try this:

I Never Travel Far Without a Little Big Star

Name-checking basks you in the reflected glow of cool.

There's a certain thrill that goes with discovering that someone shares your musical passion. It's an immediate shortcut that establishes you as members of the same tribe.

And when songs name-check your musical obsessions, isn't that just a shortcut to cool?

They Might Be Giants may just be the kings of name-checking bands I love (the dBs, Young Fresh Fellows, XTC) in their songs. Which brings me to the Replacements.

I was late hearing the Replacements, although I'd been reading rave reviews of their records for years. But what drove me to finally seek out the Replacements was the song "We're the Replacements," by They Might Be Giants (the flip side of their "Don't Let's Start" single). The song celebrated the wretched sloppiness that characterized many live performances by the Replacements. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Early Replacements records were a bit too sloppy for my taste, but when they tightened things up a little, they were amazing. When their album Pleased to Meet Me came out, I thought the song "Alex Chilton" was amazing and I listened to it over and over again. The song -- an ode to Chilton, who sang "The Letter" for the Box Tops when he was only 16 and went on to form Big Star and release a series of idiosyncratic solo albums starting in the 1970s -- is a pure explosion of tribal joy set to a pounding beat (and an evocation of an alternate universe that loves good music enough that "children by the millions wait for Alex Chilton to come 'round"). (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


Bonus: Yesterday, I was listening to the great Barenaked Ladies album Gordon, remembering how much I loved the song "Brian Wilson." In my mind, the song revels in Wilson's early genius and scratches its head over his long decline and involvement with Dr. Eugene Landy (the shrink who was accused of crossing ethical boundaries by moving in with Wilson and co-producing a Wilson solo album that included songs that credit Landy as co-writer).


(By the way, I have an astrophysicist friend who assures me that if Alex Chilton and Brian Wilson record a song together about They Might Be Giants and Barenaked Ladies, that would bring about a musical singularity that could cause the entire universe to collapse. Luckily, that seems unlikely to happen.)

Terry and the Lovemen Conquer Black Sea

All part of decency's jigsaw, I suppose.

A couple weeks ago, I went out to see a band that was scheduled to start at 10:30. This served two purposes: 1) It proved that I'm not old, and 2) It let me see an XTC tribute band -- which calls itself "Terry and the Lovemen (Luke Adams, Jon Button, Zak Shaffer, and Danny Delamatyr) -- perform XTC's Black Sea album in its entirety. In order.

The cover of Black Sea shows the band wearing diving suits, but I always thought of it as "the Green album" because the first pressings came wrapped in a green paper bag (for reasons that escape me). I still have the vinyl and it's still wrapped in the paper bag (and that's probably what kept me from completely wearing out the record).

The band, whose members are session and touring musicians with great credits, were amazing. And they were having a great time, playing fantastic (and surprisingly difficult) music.(Link for Gmail subscribers.)


When you hear a song live that you know really well, what you're hearing blends with your strong memories of the music, creating a hybrid experience that blends the recording you know with the show you're seeing. (This partially explains why tribute bands do so well and can be so much fun.)

Now, Black Sea is an album I know backwards and forwards (especially side 1 of the vinyl). The album built on the strengths of Drums and Wires, but featured better songs and tighter performances. The chance to see the album performed live (even if it wasn't by XTC) was too good to pass up -- even if it meant going out to see a show that wouldn't start until 10:30.

By the way, the name "Terry and the Lovemen" has great meaning for XTC fans. It was an alias used by XTC when they re-recorded an old B-side for the XTC tribute album A Testimonial Dinner (which also included XTC songs redone by Joe Jackson, Sarah McLachlin, and They Might Be Giants. And it also was one of the alternate titles for the album that would become Black Sea. Drummer Terry Chambers vetoed that title, but he was long-gone from the band by the time of A Testimonial Dinner, so the band dusted off the name. (More trivia: according to Andy Partridge, the list of performers who wanted to appear on the XTC tribute album but couldn't includes: Elvis Costello, Sting, Tony Bennett, David Byrne, Suzanne Vega, Bjork, Barenaked Ladies, Red Hot Chili Peppers, the Beastie Boys, INXS, Shonen Knife, the Chieftains, and Al Kooper.)


Virgin Records chief Richard Branson was still pushing to make Colin Moulding a sex symbol (and portray XTC as Moulding's band, despite the fact that Andy Partridge wrote most of the songs) and decided Virgin needed a video for Colin's song "Generals and Majors." Branson decided they should shoot a video starring Branson (filmed at Branson's country estate). To Branson's credit, he allowed the band to appear as waiters serving him, then had them pretend to play guitars while bouncing on a kids-party inflatable castle in the driveway.

Virgin also had XTC record a more radio-friendly version of Andy Partridge's song "Respectable Street" (eliminating the words "abortion," "sex position," and "wretching" in a failed attempt to please top 40 stations and MTV).


As for Luke, Jon, Zak, and Danny that night? They were amazing and really fun. My only regret is that more people weren't at the show. And that they didn't play the kazoo solo from "Sgt. Rock (is Gonna Help Me)."

I'd go see them again in a heartbeat -- only next time I'll be sure to bring a kazoo or two.

Surrealistic Pillows (Watching They Might Be Giants Watch Themselves)

Doc will solo!

So I'm sitting with John and John from They Might Be Giants. They're watching themselves on TV and sitting on my crappy $20 couch near the one window with an ocean view. (My ex-girlfriend recently claimed the couch had fleas, but I'm pretty sure you only got fleas with the $10 couches).

I'd been a They Might Be Giants fan going back to Don't Let's Start and thought their smart-ass geek-rock (with accordian) was often perfect. Plus, they name-checked the dBs and the Young Fresh Fellows on their new album (and had written a song about James K. Polk), so their bona fides were well established in my book.

The Johns had been plugging that TV appearance for weeks ("and Doc will solo!" they'd proclaim). This was before they had a real band -- it was just John singing and playing guitar and John singing and playing accordian live to prerecorded backing tracks (bass, drums, etc.). And every night my ex-girlfriend's uber-cool brother would control those backing tracks; "it's like remixing an album live every night," he said.

Now, I'm sure it was much cheaper not to bring a band on the road (plus, it was weird and quirky, just like They Might Be Giants). But obviously they wanted a real band and the freedom that would bring to change tempos and not limit their performances to preset times and rhythms.

That afternoon, they were in Burbank in front of hundreds of cheering fans and gushing guest-host Jay Leno. (I was at my crappy day job being cheered by no one.) But by 11:30 at night, they were in my small apartment on the beach on my crappy $20 couch (with or without the fleas) watching themselves on TV. I glanced at it, but mostly I watched them watch themselves. It was surreal -- and they gripped our couch pillows (which may have cost more than the couch, come to think of it) in horror. I think they'd been on TV before, but nothing on the scale of The Tonight Show.

After, they had absurd crticisms about their perceived physical flaws ("my forehead is enormous!") which no one else noticed.

Watching that performance now, it's clear they kicked ass that night (as they did most nights). And, as promised, Doc did solo. (Link for Gmail subscribers.)


But I wondered if, in their minds that night on the couch, what they saw looked more like this. (And which of the Johns was the fez-wearing shark?)