On greeting John Flansburgh — one-half of legendary NYC pop duo They Might Be Giants — via telephone, I find the script has been flipped.
“The newspaper, or the scene itself?” I ask.
Deadpans Flansburgh: “Yes.”
So begins a wide-ranging, 45-minute discussion that kicks off with talk of surviving alt-weeklies, pondering the number of home studios in Music City and “out” music as a rebellious act.
“There’s only one Nashville,” Flansburgh says with a laugh. “And Memphis, too — I just saw the Big Star documentary [Nothing Can Hurt Me], and hadn’t realized how unrelentingly cruel life was to those guys, just how much reality kicked them around. The one lucky thing that happens to most bands is one more than what happened to Big Star. It’s remarkable how they persevered, with no lucky breaks. Their records testify to how stuff of quality will get discovered, however long after its pop moment.”
The conversation turns to TMBG’s history. Flansburgh, 62, is speaking to the Scene from Reservoir Studios in Midtown Manhattan, a newer facility in the same spot where he and partner-in-crime John Linnell recorded their seminal third LP Flood during the heady twilight of the 1980s. As Flansburgh remembers, he and Linnell tracked “Birdhouse in Your Soul,” “Particle Man” and other future Giants staples one room over from C&C Music Factory.
“We got to hear ‘Everybody Dance Now’ before the rest of the world — and got to know them in the lounge where people hung out, smoked, watched TV, took naps,” he says. “[People] often act as if different genres, different bands, are at war with each other — when in fact, any session musician has more in common with a random person busking than anyone would imagine.”
Flood was TMBG’s first of four albums for Elektra, and the duo’s major commercial breakthrough. It hit stores in January 1990, following the group’s eponymous 1986 LP — highlighted by the college-radio classic “Don’t Let’s Start” — and 1988 second effort Lincoln, featuring the heart-tugging “Ana Ng.” Flood also marked the Johns’ second-to-last outing as a primitive drum-machine-powered duo, and its darkest tracks (“Lucky Ball & Chain,” “Your Racist Friend,” “Minimum Wage”) feel even more relevant now than they did then.
“Our first decade on the road felt like being shot out of a cannon,” Flansburgh remembers. “The Pixies opened for us in Boston before they were famous. I saw their sound check. It was really interesting, impressive — they were the loudest band I’d ever been in the same room with. … But as a headliner, I can’t take in the opening act. I can’t relax. I fret about the theater of what we’re doing more than I should be. Now it’s all pretty dynamic. We’ll never do the same show twice. We look up what we played last time in each town, just to make sure.”
All the same, revisiting the Flood material for the current tour was a musical challenge to begin with. Flansburgh explains that doing so post-lockdown only made it more daunting.
“We were psychically traumatized by COVID,” says Flansburgh. “Very early on, when Adam Schlesinger from Fountains of Wayne died of it, that made us very afraid. It was like standing next to someone struck by lightning.”
Many Flood standouts — like the creepy “Hearing Aid,” wordy “Letterbox” and emotive “Someone Keeps Moving My Chair” — hadn’t been explored much in the live setting since they’d been written.
“We used to spend a lot of time thinking about small-combo arrangements,” Flansburgh says. “On this tour, we’re working with a three-piece horn section, which can be a majestic thing.”
In 2001, my dad and I caught the Giants at the Wiltern Theater in L.A., exactly one week after 9/11. The set’s standout wasn’t an original, but rather a cover of “New York City” by Vancouver, B.C., twee-punk trio Cub, which moved the sold-out crowd to tears. Flansburgh remembers the tour well.
“I can’t believe we actually did that tour,” he says. “It started on 9/11. We were flying out to the first show — there was a tour bus waiting for us in Boise, Idaho. All was beautiful. Then the event happened. … But there was never any question we’d keep going. Being in a band your whole life, it’s just the thing that’s happening while everything else is happening.”
Flansburgh and Linnell’s music, oft oversimplified when described as comedic rock, never hit harder. And with what we’ve been through the past few years, Wednesday and Thursday’s shows promise similar catharsis.