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The full performance!

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Newly uncovered video!

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THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS Toronto 1990

John Flansburgh and John Linnell - known as "the Johns" or "the Two Johns" (a joke only '80s alt-rock nerds will still get) - met in high school in Massachusetts but formed They Might Be Giants in 1981, when they moved into the same apartment building in Brooklyn after attending different colleges. They built up a following playing clubs in the NYC area, a duo playing accordion, saxophone and guitar backed by a drum machine or taped backing tracks. They had just emerged from what we used to call the indie circuit and released their third album, Flood, on Elektra Records in 1990, when I was assigned to photograph them for the cover of NOW, the big alt-weekly in the city.

They Might Be Giants had proved to be deft hands at self-marketing during their years as an indie acts, putting on a theatrical stage show in NY clubs and running Dial-A-Song on an answering machine starting in 1985. Fans could call a number (718-387–6962) and hear demos or incomplete songs from Flansburgh and Linnell. More than a gimmick, it helped establish the band's identity as creative but unpretentious, produced a compilation album and was still in service until 2008 when they had to retire it and the number. (It was revived in 2015 as a toll-free number, a website and radio network.) The band have written themes for TV shows like Malcolm in the Middle, songs for musicals and won Grammys for their children's albums.

It was still early in my time at NOW magazine when I got the assignment to photograph They Might Be Giants for a cover story, which meant both colour slide and black and white. I have no memory at all of where these photos were taken - probably a hotel room downtown - but I know I brought my single Metz flash on a light stand shooting into an umbrella, and used my Nikon F3. NOW covers were shot to a rigorous formula at this time - the subject squeezed into at most two-thirds of a vertical frame with space at one side and the top for the logo and cover type. It was restrictive and tiresome, but we had just innovated slightly by convincing the paper to drop their unofficial (and baffling) ban on white backgrounds.

I had obviously found the white wall in whatever space where this shoot took place, and got the band to tuck themselves into my frame. Flansburgh and Linnell were more than cooperative - they seemed to sense what I needed to convey the quirky energy of the band, and provided me with more than enough material for the cover layout - a big deal since I still felt very much on probation at NOW at the time. This is the first time these photos have been published since the story ran almost 35 years ago.

hi-joe

John Linnell in the Mundanes, 1979

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Live performance of Dirt Bike on Good Morning America from '94.

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Elektra Flood promotional nightlight from the early ‘90s. The odd lighting effects are due to the chipped paint on the bulb.

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Live performance of I Hope That I Get Old Before I Die for the Australian television program "The Noise" from December 1990.

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TMBG article from The Johns Hopkins News-Letter c. 1995.

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They Might Be Giants host Nick Rocks in 1988.

New video from 1988 of TMBG hosting Nick Rocks! Includes a performance of Cowtown & Why Does The Sun Shine?. (Credit to Neil Krupnick from the Miscellaneous T Facebook group for the video.)

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TMBG magazine clipping, presumably from the late '80s.

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Here's another (poorly) translated TMBG article. I believe this was printed around 88/89. (Photo editing software was used to restore the top photo.)

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TMBG article from the Japanese music magazine "FM Fan" dated 1991. Restoration efforts were made to restore/translate the article. The accuracy of the translation is dubious, albeit entertaining.