June 24, 2011

They Might Be Giants: Join Us

They Might Be Giants
photo: Shervin Lainez

A cheesy organ, nasal lead vocals. Nothing has changed for They Might Be Giants, The Brooklyn duo serve another helping of catchy tunes that will appeal to anyone with a sense of rhythm and a sense of humor. John Flansburgh and John Linnell have mastered the art of short slightly geeky pop songs. With their sound grounded in the Eighties they've found themselves to be fashionable again.

Most of the tracks on their new album Joins Us run under three minutes which gives them plenty of time to tell a short story with several layers. Leave it to TMBG to compare a girl with the Vietnamese war or discuss the final pages of a book in Spoiler Alert.

There are 18 songs on Join Us and although there are no fillers it will be challenge for listeners with a short attention span. Nowadays EPs are back in demand and they are well aware of that when they released a digital four advance tracks EP as a forerunner.

They Might Be Giants:
John Linnell: lead vocals, backup vocals, keyboards, bass clarinet
John Flansburgh: lead vocals, backup vocals, guitar, programming
Dan Miller: lead guitar
Danny Weinkauf: bass
Marty Beller: drums
Stan Harrison: saxophone on Cloisonné

They Might Be Giants: Join Us

Join Us is released on Idlewild/Rounder. Release date: July 19.

Tracks:
  1. Can't Keep Johnny Down
  2. You Probably Get That a Lot
  3. Old Pine Box
  4. Canajoharie
  5. Cloisonné
  6. Let Your Hair Hang Down
  7. Celebration
  8. In Fact
  9. When Will You Die
  10. Protagonist
  11. Judy is Your Viet Nam
  12. Never Knew Love
  13. The Lady and the Tiger
  14. Spoiler Alert
  15. Dog Walker
  16. 2082
  17. Three Might Be Duende
  18. You Don't Like Me

Make a video for "Can't Keep Johnny Down"

Have a cat? And feel creative?

YouTube is good for a lot of things--especially cat videos. They Might be Giants have a different kind of video in mind. We are having a contest for our song “Can't Keep Johnny Down”.

TMBG is inviting creative visual people to make a stylish, smart rock video for the song. It can be live action, motion graphics, animation, stop motion. It can be people jumping around in capes, but they should be very stylish people in very stylish capes or you will not win the contest.

Videos are to be uploaded to YouTube and posted on the official TMBG Facebook page. All videos linked there will be voted on by the Facebook friends of TMBG, but the winner will be judged by Judge John Hodgman and Hodgman alone. Submission deadline is July 15th.

Winner will receive $1000 bucks and a pizza from the pizzeria of their choice. The video will be posted on tmbg's you tube channel as well as posted on TMBG’s podcast -- so lots of people will celebrate your efforts.

Select runners up will also receive the pizza of their choice.

» theymightbegiants.com

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