The Technology of They Might Be Giants

Brian Heater writes "I recently did a two-part interview with John Flansburgh of They Might Be Giants. It might be of interest, as we discussed the role of technology both in terms of their recording and distribution, from Dial-a-Song, to podcasts, to Myspace. Says John: 'All the song writing we do, we'll be working with a computer, just as a recording device, and maybe we'll be working with a program as a music-generating device. That's just the sound-making devices that are there. A lot of times it's good enough, but when you hear it played on a real instrument, it's much more persuasive and exciting. Or conversely, you've have some lumpy, homemade loop that has oodles of charm that you forget to leave on the final version of the song, because it seemed amateurish. Finding the balance is really the key for us. I'm very excited by the time we live in, but I feel like any time in the post-mechanical era would be good for me.'"

Theme Song!

[sg3000]

I can imagine there's huge overlap (okay fine, relatively large overlap) between Slashdot readers and fans of TMBG, with their clever lyrics and unusual song topics, such as Mesopotamians [apple.com], past presidents [apple.com], or even Linux users [apple.com].

So when is Slashdot going to pay They Might Be Giants to do a theme song? Fatboy Slim [apple.com] already did one, but there probably aren't as many fans on this board.

Continuing the them of TMBG using technology, I heard that their song Spider [apple.com] was originally created on a Macintosh just moments after they unboxed it. This was back when Apple first introduced 16-bit stereo (as opposed to 8-bit mono) recording capabilities in the early 1990s. I had heard TMBG used the box of said computer to also do some of the percussion for the song.

They built this whole neighborhood out of wood,

[TexVex]

They built this whole neighborhood out of wood, out of wood
I guess I'll still be around when they burn, burn it down
I will be standing around when they burn it down
Here in the Museum of Idiots

...

If you and I had any brains, we wouldn't be in this place

Chop me up into pieces, if it pleases, if it pleases
And when the chopping is through, every piece will say "I love you"
Every piece of me will say "I love you"
Here in the Museum of Idiots

Linnell's Robot Orchestra

[Fez]

What, no mention of John Linnell's computer-controlled robot orchestra?

See:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EL9_IK8YNV8 [youtube.com] (Rehearsal)
And:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c4RZpKJ1x6o [youtube.com] (Live)

Hooray for unencumbered, artist-direct MP3s!

[Asmor]

TMBG has been my favorite band for a long time, and I liked them even before I knew who they were thanks to Paticle Man and Istanbul both being on Tiny Toon Adventures.

It's really great, however, knowing that they have set up their own website where you can buy mp3s of their albums at reasonable prices (99 cents a track or $10 an album last I checked). If you buy the album, you even get all the artwork in pdf form!

Music unencumbered with DRM is always great, only kind I'll buy. That it's run by the artists and (presumably, never actually checked into it) they get all the profits is just gravy.

TMBG truly is the future of music.