Once the secret of art school punks, John Flansburgh and John Linnell (the Ren and Stimpy of music) have blasted their way into Orbit with their 4th wacky release, Apollo 18. Their new single, "I Palindrome I," starts simply with the revelation that "Someday mother will die and I'll get the money." --Nutsy, eh?
They Might Be Giants are musical pioneers. When they first formed in the early '80s, they began Dial-a-Song. "It's a service that John (Flansburgh) began 9 years ago...just a phone machine connected to a phone line that you can call which plays demo versions of our songs...all unreleased material. It's the cheapest way of getting people to hear us," Linnell explained. When We phoned recently, we were treated to a little ditty, "Welcome to the Jungle Gym." The guys change the recording every few days when not on tour.
On Apollo 18, TMBG are among the first musicians to make full use of the shuffle mode on CD players with their song "Fingertips."
"That was my idea. It's a piece of music that consists of extremely short choruses that were in different keys and tempos and sound like they're from different songs all spliced together." They experienced a lot of grief in production trying to make enough of a break between sequences to obtain the desired effects.
"There's like 20 individual indexed pieces and then a total of 18 other songs on the record, so you generally get a full song and then a fingertip, then another song, then two fingertips...it's like little commercials that come between the songs." It makes everytime you listen to the CD a different experience. Please pass the milk, please! To call TMBG Dial-a-Song service, dial 1-718-387-6962 (Kids: ask your parents first!) They Might Be Giants play The Michigan Theatre in Ann Arbor April 12.