Once again I attended a concert by They Might Be Giants. Like the previous 2 I went to, this one took place in the Calvin Theater in Northampton. Unlike any other TMBG show I’ve been to, this one was on New Year’s Eve.
I took pictures using both my regular camera and my iPhone, so the quality varies. Some of the images have been enhanced because they were too dark (at some point I will play with the iris settings on the camera so that it doesn’t darken down stuff when the flash is on and the subject is far from the camera).
Here’s the stage setup:
They had plastic pigeons all over the place. Here you can see a couple on the main drum kit:
I was pretty close to the stage, having a depth of 2 people in front of me at first, more like 1 as the night went on.
There was a brief opening set by Peter Stampfel, who is formerly of the group The Holy Modal Rounders, and his daughter Zoe. I was not familiar with Stampfel or the Rounders before this. It was sort of folksy, bluegrassy, irreverent, and odd all at once. Fun stuff, though Peter seemed to forget some lyrics a couple of times, and he didn’t seem to have a lot of physical stamina for performing. The only pictures I managed to get of them are overexposed:
That set only lasted 30 minutes, and then approximately 45 minutes passed before TMBG took the stage. They had horn players with them once again, in addition to the 5-member group they’ve been for years now.
The stage layout was different than they’ve ever done before, as there were 2 drum sets, one on each side. John Linnell’s keyboard was at the front of the stage, but was directly in the center, rather than its usual location off to one side (generally he’s been stage left). Here’s Linnell at the keys:
I took notes on the setlist on my phone, so I can reproduce all the songs in order here:
Dr. Worm
Withered Hope (always excellent with horns)
Birdhouse in Your Soul
The Guitar
Dig My Grave
Meet the Elements
Take out the Trash
At this point in the show, Marty moved to the electronic drums, and John Flansburgh talked about how Marty had programmed them with special sounds. Marty demonstrated the odd sound samples that corresponded to the different pads, and then they played
Why Does the Sun Shine? (the Sun Is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)
Marty on the little electronic set:
Marty changed the sound of the electronic drums to more normal sounds for
Meet James Ensor
After that, the special guest of the show arrived: The Deranged Millionaire. This character, played by John Hodgman, first appeared on the band’s DVD Venue Songs, in which he was the driving force behind the band creating special songs for each venue they played in on their 2004 tour (apparently he had bought Brooklyn, and was going to kick them out if they didn’t do the songs). During this concert segment, they played several of those venue songs, with Hodgman talking about each venue and its city, and maybe explaining the song. He appeared on a projection screen:
but was doing his thing on stage in front of a little video camera (which was mounted on a lone bass drum):
He clearly didn’t have all his lines memorized, as he kept looking at what I assume was his iPhone:
The venue songs that were played:
Los Angeles
Anaheim
Albany
Dallas
Vancouver
Pittsburgh
Glasgow
Charlottesville
Asbury Park
Brooklyn
These songs were done with Marty on the usual drums, and without the horns. After these, they played:
Museum of Idiots
Clap Your Hands
Whistling in the Dark
Seven
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
New York City
The Mesopotamians
They Might Be Giants
Here are some shots of the horn players (I don’t remember exactly when in the concert they occurred):
The band exited the stage, and then came back for the first planned encore. In this, John and John got in front of the video camera with some knit sock puppets:
Here they are on screen in a couple of blurry shots:
Dan Miller, the guitarist, went to the keyboard at this point, and Marty got out a board with 3 “ring for service” type bells on it.
And with this setup, they played:
Shoehorn with Teeth
In the Middle, in the Middle, in the Middle
and then they took up their normal instruments for
Damn Good Times
They left the stage again, and came back for one more encore, which contained 2 songs:
Alphabet of Nations
Mr. Me
In this show, they had their normal confetti cannon, which was fired off near the beginning of the evening. However, they also had a different cannon, which kept firing confetti into the air continuously for a minute or more, fired during the second encore. I turned around and got a picture of the stuff floating above the audience:
And that was pretty much the night. It was a good long set – the total time TMBG spent on stage was about 1 hour, 45 minutes. We got out of the place a little after 11:00, and I headed for home, ringing in 2010 in my own living room.
A couple of weeks ago, we went to see a special screening of the film Sleep Dealer. It’s a political science-fiction film, dealing with a (very?) near-future time when the U.S.-Mexico border is completely closed physically, but workers in Mexico are able to connect their minds to a network and control robots to do work in the States.
The director, Alex Rivera, is a graduate of Hampshire College (which we live just up the road from). He was on hand to introduce the film and answer questions after the screening. He mentioned being influenced by quite a bit of current events (including immigration, remote military technology, control of natural resources, all sorts of aspects of the Internet) in creating the story and coming up with the concepts in the movie. Certainly, like most good sf, the film not only indicates a direction society might take, but offers commentary on where we are now.
The ideas in the film, technological and sociological, are very interesting, as are many of the visuals. While it contains many elements that have been seen in other sf film and literature, what Rivera has put together feels fresh, and comes from a unique point of view. I would advise any sci-fi fan to check it out, especially if you like politically-oriented work. If I had to name a downside to the film, I thought that, while it was had intriguing ideas, and an engaging plot, it didn’t have a lot of emotional impact. There were instances in the film that should have been emotionally powerful, even cathartic, where I didn’t have a strong reaction at all. I think this can be chalked up to a couple of things: first, that Rivera admitted that it was a struggle to come up with a plot, when he mainly wanted to play with ideas, and second, that he has made a number of short works before, but this was the first time he really worked with actors. The acting was good, but more experience in writing and directing might have given the movie more feeling.
Nevertheless, it was very worth seeing, and I highly recommend it. For those living in Western Mass., the film is playing this week at the Amherst Cinema. Enjoy.
Posted by seaking on 05-16-2009 at 08:05 pm
Posted in Arts/Media with 0 Comments
This is the last catch-up post – again posting about something that happened in October. I went to see They Might Be Giants at the Calvin Theater in Northampton, just as I’d done the previous October. Seating was different this time – the last time I’d been there, there were additional chairs setup in front of the fixed seating, and all tickets were assigned seats. This time, the area in front of the stage was open, and tickets for that section were general admission, which was what I bought.
Unlike many previous times I saw Them, there was no opening band. Then again, you could say They opened for Themselves. They played 2 sets, the first of which was composed of all the songs from the album Flood, played in order.
I arrived soon after the doors opened, and was surprised to be able to get a spot right up by the stage. It was over to one side, but right in front of John Linnell’s keyboard! I took a few pictures of the stage before they came out, some of which didn’t work so well without a flash.
The sign hanging in front of the backdrop:
Confetti cannon:
I think it’s self-explanatory what this is:
And of course, Mr. Linnell’s most famous instrument (and his coffee cup):
The Flood set was great, as They played some songs I’d never heard in concert (and that They rarely play live). They had horn players with the band, who joined in on appropriate songs, such as Your Racist Friend (on which I think Flans screwed up the lyrics by repeating part of a verse).
Flans broke out a marching bass drum for Whistling in the Dark:
That’s the best photo I have of it. I tried often not to use my flash, partly because there was a ‘no cameras’ sign in the lobby, and I didn’t want to draw the attention of the theater staff. Eventually, I got tired of blurry photos and turned the flash back on.
At one point (I don’t remember which song), Flans passed his guitar into the audience so people could play it.
During the intermission I got a picture of the non-Flood backdrop:
and the setlist for the second half:
to spell out the listed songs:
The first thing written under the name of the venue looks like “rompy”. I believe this just refers to Their intro music as They came out on stage. They then played:
Hey, Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had a Deal
S.E.X.X.Y.
Alphabet of Nations
The Mesopotamians
Memo to Human Resources
Experimental Film/New York City/Why Does the Sun Shine?
The Sun Is a Miasma of Incandescent Plasma (from an upcoming album of science songs)
Don’t Let’s Start
Drink
Spider/Damn Good Times
Dinnerbell
Here Come the Horns (written to introduce the horn players in concert)
Withered Hope
Seven
Dr. Worm/Clap Your Hands/The Guitar
Mr. Me
They went right from Dinnerbell to Here Come the Horns. The setlist has written “I Hit My Head”, which would refer to a Mono Puff song, but They didn’t play it or anything like it.
They did 2 encores:
The first was Older/James K. Polk, during which Flans thanked the crew, and the second was just the song Fingertips. Normally, the confetti cannon is used during James K. Polk, but Linnell decided (couldn’t tell if it was planned in advance or not) to shoot it off earlier. If memory serves, it was during Clap Your Hands or The Guitar.
Here’s a few random shots of Linnell:
After the concert was over, the drummer, Marty Beller, came out on stage to say Hi to fans:
And so ended my 10th time seeing TMBG in concert.
Posted by seaking on 04-12-2009 at 10:04 pm
Posted in Arts/Media with 0 Comments
So, once again this year, They Might Be Giants came to play in Northampton. They played last night at the Calvin Theater, and added something special just for this stop on the tour: a horn section!
The concert was in the evening, but earlier, they did a quick acoustic performance at the Northampton Box Office. I thought the box office might have a back room or something that would be used for the performance, but no, the band and crowd were all crammed into the lobby where one purchases tickets. Everyone fit, but it was cramped. John Flansburgh and John Linnell stood at the front of the place, and the drummer and horn players were all up in the display window. I took a few pictures with my cell phone’s camera – here are the ones that aren’t ridiculously blurry:
In that second one you can see drummer Marty Beller, not playing any actual drums, but getting ready to drum on the case from John L’s accordion.
As I mentioned, this was a short set, as they played only 3 songs. Those were:
Mr. Me
She’s Actual Size
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
This little concert was put together by our local alt-rock radio station, WRSI 93.9, and it was broadcast live. At some point the audio should be available on their website to listen to, but it isn’t there as of this writing.
It was a fun, though quick, little show, and then the band hightailed it back to the Calvin to prepare for the main show. It had started raining as we were admitted to the box office, and was still raining lightly when I walked outside. The sun was also coming out, though, and there was a rainbow visible, which I got a semi-decent picture of:
The evening concert was my first time in the Calvin. It’s an old movie palace, and a historic landmark in Noho – pretty nice place. Before going to my seat I visited the merchandise table, and picked up a shirt and an EP. It was assigned seating, so I hadn’t needed to get there early. I was on the main floor, near the center, in the 9th row.
There was an opening band who I hadn’t heard of before: Oppenheimer. As their page states, they’re a duo from Belfast, Ireland who play electro-pop-rock stuff. On stage, Shaun (don’t ask me why someone from Ireland spells his name that way) played a drum set and sang lead vocals, and Rocky alternately played guitar and synths, though when he was playing guitar they had pre-programmed synth lines going on. Their music was not bad, and Shaun impressed me at one point by saying that Twin Peaks was the best TV show ever, and dedicated their next song to Agent Dale Cooper and Laura Palmer.
So once Oppenheimer were done, after some more setting up, TMBG took the stage. For the first song or two it was the usual five piece group (John, John, Marty, Dan Miller, and Danny Weinkaupf). Then they were joined by the “Tricerachops” horns. Unfortunately, the only one of their names I recall is Dan Levine, the trombone player. I don’t recall the names of the sax player (maybe Phil something) or trumpeter. Nevertheless, they were a welcome addition to the performance. I believe this is the first time since my first TMBG concert (in 1994) that I’ve seen them with a horn section (this was my 9th concert, BTW).
Here’s a picture of the stage setup, again taken using my cell phone:
Of course they had to have those William Allen White heads there on the curtain.
Here is the list of songs they played, punctuated with some comments:
The Cap’m
Damn Good Times
The Mesopotamians
Mr. Me
She’s Actual Size
Withered Hope
Withered Hope sounded awesome with the horns (not surprising, since it has horns on the album).
Working Undercover for the Man
Metal Detector
Those two songs were prefaced by the Johns saying that they were going to play a couple songs that they don’t normally play live, and that having the horns there was making it possible to play them. I was especially excited to hear Metal Detector, as I’ve never heard it live, and it’s a great song.
In the Middle, in the Middle, in the Middle
In the Middle was prefaced by Flans talking about the crosswalk in the center of downtown Noho, which gives walk signs in all directions at the same time, so pedestrians cross wherever they like, including diagonally across the intersection. He said this song was their advice to people who live everywhere else.
Spy
Spy always involves a long, sort of improv bit at the end, conducted by Linnell. In this case, Linnell conducted for a while and then Flans took over (mainly indicating when each instrument should start or stop, and often having them only play one note before stopping).
Whistling in the Dark
Bee of the Bird of the Moth
Bee… is another one that has horns on the album, and so sounded great with them here.
Alphabet of Nations
Phone Calls from the Dead
They did the phone calls feature last time they were here. In that case, it was Cal Coolidge who called them. This time it was Emily Dickinson (voiced from offstage by Flans). She said that it was very cold and dark under the ground, which inspired her to write a new poem. She thanked the band for visiting the area again, and then recited the poem:
“Hickory Dickory Dock
The band ran up the clock
They brought in some horns
But it was still boring
Fuck you guys”
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Take out the Trash
I’m Impressed
Museum of Idiots
Museum of Idiots is another awesome, awesome horn song.
Ant
Ant was introduced by Flans saying that they wrote it many years ago as being about a scary, dystopian future, but these days it just comes off as topical.
Dr. Worm
At this point they left the stage, and then came back for a first encore. They played:
Ana Ng
Band intros (Flans called the ’song’ Graveyard)
Why Does the Sun Shine
WDtSS explained that the heat and light from the sun come from the nuclear reactions between estrogen, estrogen, estrogen, and more estrogen.
They left again, and then came back for a second and final encore.
With the Dark
Istanbul (not Constantinople)
Istanbul started out with a horn duel between the trombone and saxophone, where the audience was to be divided in two to cheer each player on. Flans was speculating on how to divide the audience, when someone in the front row yelled out “Jews!” Flans declined saying that “The overwhelming power of the Jews would crush the competition!” he ended up deciding that the townies would root for the trombone, while the students would root for the saxophone. The actual duel involved each player taking a turn riffing, and then they started playing at each other simultaneously. I got a blurry pic of that:
And that song was the end of the concert. I went up to the stage afterward to try and get a setlist, but they had already been given away by the stage crew. I did get to shake Marty’s hand, though, as he was hanging out on stage and greeting the audience. I also saw Dan Miller by the sound board on my way out of the place, and told him it was a great show. He thanked me.
Misc.: Flans referred more than once to those of us in attendance as “Calvinists”. He also announced at one point that the editors of the TMBG wiki were in attendance at the show, and said that we could check the wiki to verify any facts he was unsure of about their songs.
Posted by seaking on 10-21-2007 at 11:10 pm
Posted in Arts/Media with 0 Comments
I received an e-mail the other day of news about They Might Be Giants, including this link to a video for the song “Shadow Government”, which is on their new album. A pretty neat video, IMHO.
The animation style in the TMBG piece reminded me of a video that I saw a few years back at a film festival in Cincinnati. That would be this video, by the band Bad Religion (to date, it’s the only song of theirs I’m familiar with).
This year I didn’t have to drive for 2 hours – we were able to see They Might Be Giants right here in Northampton.
They performed 2 shows last month at the Iron Horse Music Hall. Specifically, there were 7pm and 10pm shows on Saturday, May 5. We had decided to get tickets to the early show, thinking it might be less crowded. As it turned out, the 7:00 show was the first to sell out (eventually both shows were sold out in advance).
Spring is the time when young Ann Arborites’ fancy turns to thoughts of terrible cinema. Those thoughts are directed at the Smithee Awards, a presentation that recognizes bad movies for their lack of accomplishment (Smithee web site here, Smithee blog here).
The show is put on by some friends of mine and I’ve attended many times in the past. I went this year, and here is my report.
There’s a fun little feature on the website for the movie of The Golden Compass. If you’re familiar with the book, or even if you aren’t, you may want to rate the accuracy of my result, and see what your own is.
Posted by seaking on 05-02-2007 at 10:05 pm
Posted in Arts/Media with 3 Comments
Yesterday I went to Albany, NY for the annual Tulip Festival. It wasn’t anything intrinsic to this festival that drew me (though I do like tulips), but rather the fact that there were a couple of stages of entertainment, and the headlining act was They Might Be Giants.
Those who know me know that I’m a big fan of the band. In the 15 years I’ve been a fan, this is the 7th concert of theirs I’ve been to (if you count appearances in music stores then the count is actually 9).
I actually arrived in the mid-afternoon and caught the band that was on before them: OK Go. I saw OK Go once before, opening for TMBG, in fact, back before they had any singles on the radio. OK Go were not, at first, as amusing as I remembered them from before. Their songs were enjoyable, and I had to like that they did a cover of Don’t Bring Me Down, by ELO. They finished with a great “encore.” While their equipment was being struck, the lead singer talked about the ancient history of MTV, when music videos were played. The band then proceded to do a “video” on stage for their new single. The song was played from a CD and they lip-synched and danced, with silly choreography, slow-motion martial arts moves, and the like.
Most of that set there was a guy standing just in front of me, smoking and drinking what must have been at least his 4th and 5th beers. I say this because he didn’t seem to be able to keep from stumbling into me, even before the music had started. He also at one point turned to me and declared “That’s rockin’, man!” and wanted me to give him a high five/hand clasp or something. In other words, he was just generally being Annoying Drunk Boy. A bit later, I noticed that ADB had a caterpillar walking on his shirt. I decided not to warn him, and watched amusedly while it crawled onto his neck. It took him a while to notice it there, and when he did, he knocked it down the back of his shirt while trying to get it off. At that point, I just felt sorry for the caterpillar. Not sure what happened to it after that.
Once the OK Go set finished, some of the crowd cleared away, and I was able to get a spot right behind the front row of people (and away from ADB and his friends). It was a nice, close spot from which to see John and John* (not to mention Dan, Danny, and Marty**) as they took the stage. I memorized the setlist as they played, assigning one word to each song, so that I could write it down later as I didn’t have pen or paper with me.
The setlist was as follows, with my mnemonic word in bold for each one:
Damn Good Times
Birdhouse in Your Soul
Why Does the Sun Shine?
Why Did You Grow a Beard?
Boss of Me
Careful What You Pack
Number 3
Fingertips
Albany
Los Angeles
Experimental Film
Older
Cyclops Rock
We’re the Replacements
We Live in a Dump
James K. Polk
Drink
[Song introducing band members]
Istanbul (Not Constantinople)
Alphabet of Nations
Dr. Worm
New York City
Those last 3 songs were the planned encore. John Flansburgh prefaced Number 3 by saying that he had once considered taking out references to the president in the song, as it was written in the Reagan era and he figured we would only have better presidents after that. He has changed his mind in the current presidency.
Speaking of that, apparently the heat and light of the sun are caused by the nuclear reactions between a failed foreign policy, a failed domestic policy, and a failed presidency.
Other highlights: the confetti cannon that they have used in the past for the song James K. Polk is now a double cannon, and it was used in 2 songs other than that one (plus it was accidentally set off backstage early on). For the song Drink, Flans had the audience members pretend we were doing an intervention. So, every time Flans said the word “drink,” we were to yell “No, wait!” Finally, in the song New York City, he sang about being 3 hours from NYC (the normal lyric being 3 days).
After their set, I bought a pre-signed copy of their Venue Songs dvd, had some overpriced festival food, and headed for home. The weather had been nice and sunny most of the time in Albany, but I entered low clouds when I crossed the Berkshires, and then found out that it had been rainy all day in Belchertown and surrounding environs. Perhaps, as the Mayor of Albany said on stage, he really does have powerful connections…
*Flansburgh and Linnell
**Miller, Weinkaupf, and Beller
Posted by seaking on 05-14-2006 at 10:05 pm
Posted in Arts/Media with 1 Comment
I’ve added two new blog links to the sidebar, and you can tell they’re men of distinction, because they’re both named Sean.
Sean Pronay is a friend from Cincinnati, who I met through a local Dennis Kucinich group during the 2004 election. In addition to sharing many of my political perspectives, he also is a video/media guy. His experience comes more from the advertising world, as opposed to my work mostly being in the public sector – as such, he is certainly more knowledgable about persuasion than I am. And if you happen to have stereotypical ideas about what advertising people are like, then you need to learn more about Mr. Pronay.
Sean Bieri is a minicomics artist in the Detroit area. I’ve been a fan of his work since the early ’90’s, but have not ever posted a link to him before. This is because, until a week ago, he never had a web presence to which one could link. Much of his work is wonderfully irreverent, and I look forward (and you should, too) to it being posted on his new blog.
