Band Profile: They Might Be Giants
They Began Performing with a Drum Machine
They Might Be Giants was formed in 1982 by John Linnell and John Flansburgh--Flansburgh played the guitar while Linnell played the sax and accordion. In their first few years they didn't have a percussion section in the traditional sense of the notion. As a matter of fact they used a drum machine to provide the beat for their songs. When they were burglarized and they lost their drum machine they began doing recordings onto a phone answering machine and placed ads in The Village Voice for their money making idea: Dial-a-Song was born. The idea is simple: dial their number and listen to a song for a fee. It still exists today this pay-for-a-song enterprise though it went silent for a brief period of time...over the 25 years that it has been running they have put some 500 songs on the pay-for-a-song service.
They Might Be Giants has won two Grammy Awards--one for an album and one for a single song recording.
Their most well received effort was "Flood" which was their third album..."Birdhouse in Your Soul" a single from that album reached number three on the USA Modern Rock Singles charts while the album containing that song reached number 75 in the USA album charts. The band has played on several labels during their career, but when they were with Elektra they had their most success. Their album released in 1988--"Lincoln"-- went to number 89 on the USA Modern Rock album charts. "Flood" went to 14 on the UK album charts after its 1991 release..."John Henry" went to the 64th spot on the US album charts while "Factory Showroom" reached 89 on the US album charts.
The singles They Might Be Giants have released reached higher in the American charts while the albums they have released have done better in the UK album chart listings.
People might be curious about where the name for their band came from...it is from the 1971 movie starring George C. Scott and Joanne Woodward about Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson.
Resources:
www.en.wikipedia.org/They_Might_Be_Giants_discography
www.imdb.com/title/tt0067848/
Published by Tommy Hayfield
Entertainment is my focus now with me churning out a lot of funny material in the form of poems and poems with prosaic content fully integrated...I have recently begun to explore the viability of YouTube as... View profile
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