Gigantic: a story of two Johns, three Dans, a tape player, an accordion, a guitar, and...
Hey, ![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
zaph, was that really you in the Tower Records concert scene? I mean, so I'm watching this movie entirely figuring I'll see you or jish somewhere, and then BAM they show the crowd in the store during them playing New York City and well, you're pretty recognizable.
Yeah, so anyway, today I went to work, which wasn't anything special except the part where we ended our team meeting and went into the hallway to see like 50 people standing out there and Jeff Bezos was letting people try his Segway. Well, and the part where I got invited to go drinking with some guys on my team but I had already made plans to go see Gigantic with Eli.
I took the bus after work up to the U-district. I thought I sawelphie walking down the Ave as the bus approached 50th and the Ave, where I got off to catch dinner at Sushi Express. I think I am about as close as you can get to being a "regular" there, the sushi chef even offered me tuna tataki this time because he remembers I like it. After dinner I walked down to the Varsity Theatre, bought two tickets to the movie, and read until Eli showed up.
The movie itself was like watching the last 13 years of my life flash before my eyes. I mean, it's like, a lot of the audience was laughing at the early videos and stuff because I guess they'd never seen them before, but for me it was just like a trip down memory lane. From the minute they started the movie with the Johns sitting in practically the exact same place they filmed the Puppet Head video (well, at least that's what it sure looked like), I was just watching all the old footage like "eeeee!" Some of the interviews were kinda disappointing (the worst was Syd Straw; I've always had a lot of respect for her as a musician, and heck, I EVEN SAW HER WHEN SHE SANG WITH TMBG IN 1992, but man were her interviews just plain annoying), and there was not nearly enough old footage to make me happy; almost all the concert footage was from some show in 2001. Oh, and having the random celebrities recite random TMBG lyrics was silly at best and annoying as hell at worst (I just have four words: End of the Tour. Ugh). Overall however, it was fun to watch, there were a lot of priceless jokes and such in there, mostly made by the Johns themselves. TMBG have been near and dear to my heart for over half my life, and as such I really enjoyed the movie. I think anyone who's a diehard TMBG fan would still enjoy this movie and should go see it now now now. And if you're not a diehard TMBG fan, what the heck is wrong with you?
Sigh. I hear CMU has a DDR machine in the UC now. I'm both happy and sad about that.
zaph, was that really you in the Tower Records concert scene? I mean, so I'm watching this movie entirely figuring I'll see you or jish somewhere, and then BAM they show the crowd in the store during them playing New York City and well, you're pretty recognizable. Yeah, so anyway, today I went to work, which wasn't anything special except the part where we ended our team meeting and went into the hallway to see like 50 people standing out there and Jeff Bezos was letting people try his Segway. Well, and the part where I got invited to go drinking with some guys on my team but I had already made plans to go see Gigantic with Eli.
I took the bus after work up to the U-district. I thought I saw
elphie walking down the Ave as the bus approached 50th and the Ave, where I got off to catch dinner at Sushi Express. I think I am about as close as you can get to being a "regular" there, the sushi chef even offered me tuna tataki this time because he remembers I like it. After dinner I walked down to the Varsity Theatre, bought two tickets to the movie, and read until Eli showed up.The movie itself was like watching the last 13 years of my life flash before my eyes. I mean, it's like, a lot of the audience was laughing at the early videos and stuff because I guess they'd never seen them before, but for me it was just like a trip down memory lane. From the minute they started the movie with the Johns sitting in practically the exact same place they filmed the Puppet Head video (well, at least that's what it sure looked like), I was just watching all the old footage like "eeeee!" Some of the interviews were kinda disappointing (the worst was Syd Straw; I've always had a lot of respect for her as a musician, and heck, I EVEN SAW HER WHEN SHE SANG WITH TMBG IN 1992, but man were her interviews just plain annoying), and there was not nearly enough old footage to make me happy; almost all the concert footage was from some show in 2001. Oh, and having the random celebrities recite random TMBG lyrics was silly at best and annoying as hell at worst (I just have four words: End of the Tour. Ugh). Overall however, it was fun to watch, there were a lot of priceless jokes and such in there, mostly made by the Johns themselves. TMBG have been near and dear to my heart for over half my life, and as such I really enjoyed the movie. I think anyone who's a diehard TMBG fan would still enjoy this movie and should go see it now now now. And if you're not a diehard TMBG fan, what the heck is wrong with you?
Sigh. I hear CMU has a DDR machine in the UC now. I'm both happy and sad about that.
no subject
no subject
I know you meant this question in a half joking manner, but, I'll bite.
Whenever I hear their songs I feel like I'm just not clued in. Like there's some huge inside joke that I'm just not privvy to. People who are fans totally get all these cute little cross-references and whatnot, and I just don't have the time to invest into a band whos sound is quite the accquired taste.
I've liked a few of their songs, and some of the videos are pretty good, but other than that, I just don't see myself playing this in my car or on the plane on a trip.
With all due respect, what is the main draw to the band? Why do you listen to them? (Deanna's friends, feel free to answer as well- you're probably just as nutty as she is ;)
no subject
I Palindrome I, Birdhouse in Your Soul, Mammals, She's an Angel, They'll Need a Crane, Anna Ng, Don't Let's Start, For Science
no subject
but it's not that deep. you don't need to read some "huge inside joke" into it, because usually, we're just as clueless about the meaning as anyone else. just take it at face value and you'll be able to appreciate the songs on their own.
Why do you listen to them?
I don't think I can define what it is I like about them, though. granted, I don't like them as much as I used to, or as much as a lot of the other bands I've discovered since then, but they're still a lot of fun, and I still go see them every chance I get.
no subject
I remember in the early 90's, there were some songs like "Birdhouse in Your Soul" that were just the epitome of being a nerd in that time period. We were the smart kids who couldn't really get up and dance to the "stuff on the radio" as it were, but you played Birdhouse, and we were jumping all over the dance floor like a bunch of idiots. Same for Istanbul, Particle Man, etc. You'd see someone else wearing a They Might Be Giants shirt and know you could strike up a conversation with them because they *must* be your sort of person to talk to.
There's no inside joke to get in most of the songs. Half the time they're just playing with random language and music and trying to combine it in interesting ways. But very little of it is something you can't get if you think about it... and then you get a little extra kick of "ooh, I get it!" when you make the connection. For example, in "Cowtown" on their second album, there's this line that goes "The yellow Roosevelt Avenue leaf overturned". I swear I listened to that song a few hundred times before I realized the wordplay of that line. Same for "There's a place for those who love their poetry/It's just across from the sign that says 'Pros Only'." Another is the title of their B-sides album, "Misc. T". One day I was just thinking about random crap and I was like "OH! IF A RECORD STORE DOESN'T HAVE A SECTION FOR TMBG, THEY PUT THEIR ALBUMS IN MISC.T!" Man, did I feel clever.
The main thing is that a lot of times they do this interesting thing where the lyrics totally don't match the mood of the song at all. Generally it's cheery music with incredibly depressing lyrics. Or sometimes they just match up total nonsense with catchy music. Or neither with neither (I'll be the first to tell you that they have several songs that suck large quantity of ass). Other times they just do things completely randomly. ("So I asked them, what the HECK is Meet James Ensor about? And all they said was 'Dude, he's a really good artist.'")
It's like a movie you can watch over and over again and still pick up on new things even on the 30th viewing... songs that I've heard a billion times in the last 13 years and I'm still not sure I've picked up on everything.
I've actually learned stuff from TMBG; ranging from historical (James K Polk, a song about our 11th president) to scientific (Mammal, about various species), to vocabulary ("...he had the same obsequious manner, that was the reason I had him killed"), etc.
I had a close friend in highschool Laura, who totally hated TMBG and couldn't figure out why I liked them so much. She was all into alternative rock, grunge, goth, industrial, whatnot of the day (this was 1992-1993 or so), both of us went to TONS of concerts. So one day we swapped shows. I forget who she dragged me to (Fugazi? Faith No More?), but I dragged her to TMBG. And she actually LOVED it, she thought their live show was awesome, we had a great time in the mosh pit, etc. She went and bought a few of their albums. I lost touch with her after highschool, but winter break of my sophomore year of college I came back to Philly, caught a TMBG show, and sure enough, Laura was there.
They're not the greatest band ever, nor are they Dr. Spock's Backup Band. But there's just something about John Linnell's voice that has always just made me feel like, "This is right. This is the music I want to listen to."
And there's my story.
no subject
yup.
Some of the interviews were kinda disappointing (the worst was Syd Straw; I've always had a lot of respect for her as a musician, and heck, I EVEN SAW HER WHEN SHE SANG WITH TMBG IN 1992, but man were her interviews just plain annoying)
oh god, yes, she was horrible. half the time she wasn't even saying anything relevant.
and there was not nearly enough old footage to make me happy; almost all the concert footage was from some show in 2001.
like the part where someone (I forget who) talked about them playing Lie Still, Little Bottle with just the stick and the baritone sax, and then they cut to a scene from 2001 where they were playing it with a full band and piano?
Oh, and having the random celebrities recite random TMBG lyrics was silly at best and annoying as hell at worst (I just have four words: End of the Tour. Ugh).
yeah, it didn't really fit with the documentary aspect of it. in fact, the film wasn't really so much a documentary as it was a video collage. there was absolutely no cohesiveness to it, and it didn't build to anything.
I think a better way to do it would have been to chronicle an entire tour, or just "a day in the life of TMBG," but trying to summarize their entire career in 102 minutes, with 98% of the footage being from the past year and a half just doesn't work.
granted, I still enjoyed it, because I am a fan, and it was cool to see the Johns on the big screen and gain a very tiny bit of insight into their career (I felt like the film didn't really cover anything most fans didn't already know) but damn, AJ needs to learn how to make a documentary or stick with music videos.
er, sorry for the long rant about it in your journal. here's my full review from June if you didn't read it because of spoilers.
no subject
No, so seriously, I thought it was really funny when I was watching the Tower Records scene and I'm scanning the crowd and I say to Eli "HEY! THERE'S LAWRENCE!" "Huh?" "Lawrence Solomon, right there singing along, green shirt, lower right corner."
I think it's kinda weird that show was what, September 10, 2001? And they don't even really say anything about what happened right after it...
It was good to see a FEW videoclips that I hadn't already seen though. ESPECIALLY the one of them playing Birdhouse on the Tonight Show. That was pretty cool. I really wanted to see concert footage of them from 1992-1994 though.
no subject
well, that was the last day of filming anyway, so the scope of the film only goes through the instore, and was always intended to. there was really no place in the film to mention the events of September 11, 2001, because they weren't relevant to anything else that was mentioned.
no subject
no subject
no subject
It has been duly baptized by the sweat of Jameel. Let the unlocking begin!
no subject
no subject
I cry.
no subject
Wish I would have seen you!