THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Thursday, February 16, 1995 TAG: 9502160028
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E3 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY SUE SMALLWOOD, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 79 lines
WHAT SEPARATES They Might Be Giants from other quirky nerd-rockers like Possum Dixon and Weezer? They did it first and still do it best.
Five studio albums ago, the Giants' two Johns - the accordion playing John Linnell and bespectacled John Flansburgh - bounced into the public consciousness with cleverly eclectic pop tunes and offbeat visual props such as giant fezzes and oversize thumbs.
Now comes ``John Henry,'' the Brooklyn duo's latest LP. The smart absurdist wit is still there, but the fizzy pop songs have been given new muscle with the addition of a seven-piece band.
Actually, the ensemble setup is nothing new, Linnell explained recently. ``It's been about two and a half years now. We were in the middle of our tour for `Apollo 18' (the Giants' 1992 LP), which John and I recorded as a duo. We decided to gather musicians to come perform with us midtour. . . . We thought it would make things more interesting. And now it looks like we're kind of a band.''
One would expect that with the addition of more players, recording would become a more complex process. Not so, Linnell said.
``We made it more complicated for ourselves when we were a duo because it was like doing a laboratory experiment, we used lots of samples and sounds and spent a long time tweaking everything. In the case of this record, what we did instead was just rehearse for about two weeks with the band and then just went into the big room and played the songs.''
Linnell admits that the two Johns were wary at first of negative response from ardent fans.
``People are resistant to change,'' he said, but ``response has been overwhelmingly positive.''
The Giants' tongue-in-cheek humor is still intact on ``John Henry,'' with songs like ``I Should Be Allowed to Think,'' whose fed-up-with-the-victim-excuse lyrics borrow from Allen Ginsberg's beat poem ``Howl, Part One'':
I saw the worst bands of my generation/applied by magic marker to dry wall.
``It partly grew out of the melodic aspect of that Allen Ginsberg poem,'' Linnell said. ``The poem is called `Howl'; I could've called this `Whine.' It's basically a complaining song . . . people blaming stuff on their parents and others.''
The Giants' divine nonsensical sensibilities are still at work, too, witness ``Meet James Ensor,'' a snappy jewel all about a Belgian painter.
``Flansburgh went to art school,'' Linnell said. ``He said that when the slide came up of a James Ensor painting, that's what really turned him on, he really dug James Ensor. We've been writing biographical songs for a little while now; it kind of seems like a great well. There isn't this annoying trend of biographical songs that you're always hearing on the radio, so it's a very wide open kind of genre.''
Both Johns keep very busy beyond the bounds of They Might Be Giants. Flansburgh has directed two videos for Frank Black and runs the Hello CD of the Month Club, which has released obscure tracks from artists like the Residents and members of Superchunk, R.E.M. and NRBQ.
Linnell has contributed saxophone to albums by Frank Black and the Jon Spencer Blues Explosion and is working on ``Fifty State Songs.''
``That's my personal song cycle that probably will never be finished,'' he said, chuckling. ``They're kind of like state anthems except they're ones that I made up, and they don't really have very much to do with the state. I've recorded five of them for Mr. Flansburgh's Hello recording club: Nevada, South Carolina, Maine, Pennsylvania and Oregon.''
And the They Might Be Giants Dial-A-Song hot line - (718) 387-6962 - is still up and running, ``always just a regular call to Brooklyn. No extra charges.'' ILLUSTRATION: CONCERT FACTS
Who: They Might Be Giants
When: 9 p.m. Friday
Where: the Boathouse, Norfolk
Tickets: $9 advance. To order, call 671-8100
Information: 622-6395
by CNB