Results tagged “theymightbegiants”

       

Click through for more photos from It Came From Brooklyn, and a review of They Might Be Giants, who played a benefit in town earlier this week.

       

Brooklyn-based alt rock pioneers They Might Be Giants have decided to start sponsoring little league teams, following in the footsteps of other community-friendly entrepreneurs like Hoffman Car Wash and Dick's Sporting Goods. It's another savvy move for the protean Johns, because the free advertising can't help but boost record sales on their growing catalog of children's albums. (The band just won a Grammy for Best Children's album for "Here Come the 123s")

Their 30th anniversary just three years away, indie rock pioneers They Might Be Giants remain as resilient as ever. It's certainly easy to take these brainy workaholics for granted when living in New York, where the duo got their start rocking East Village performance art parties; their steady touring schedule has them gigging around town at least half a dozen times a year. The casual listener need not catch every single show, but anyone who ever appreciated songs like "She's an Angel" or "Ana Ng" or "Dr. Worm" or "Subliminal"—all of which were played Saturday night during their reliably jocular set at Le Poisson Rouge—might be surprised to hear how fresh they sound after all these years.

When They Might Be Giants released their twelfth album, The Else, over the summer, The Village Voice called it “as tuneful and rockin' as all the rest, from the withering ‘I'm Impressed’ to the female-empowerment anthem ‘Take Out the Trash.’” Keeping it fresh is no small feat for a band with such an impressive body of work, accumulated over the course of the past 25-plus years. But a listen to The Else or, even better, a couple hours spent at one of their live shows is proof enough that the Johns remain as creatively resilient as ever. They spent most of the fall 2007 on the road and have since been putting the finishing touches on their next project for Disney, “Here Come the 123s.” Oriented for children, the CD/DVD package will feature a mix of animation and music like their previous “Here Come the ABCs”. On Saturday February 2nd they play a grown-up rock show at The Beacon Theater, with horns. [Tickets.]

EVENT: If you haven't taken a trip back to the Summer of Love yet, head over to the Whitney tonight for the exhibit and enjoy their Whitney Live event. DJ Scientific and Dana Leong will be providing the tunes.

Over the past quarter-century They Might Be Giants have become such a consistent presence in the indie rock solar system that it’s quite possible to take them for granted. Because they were there at the ignition of "alternative" rock and never took their feet off the gas, one assumes they'll keep rocking all the way to the end, with "Don't Let's Start" providing the dance music for cockroaches' post-apocalyptic revelries. But despite their expansive musical output – in addition to their numerous “adult” rock albums, the notoriously productive duo keeps busy making brilliant kids’ albums, composing tunes for everything from Dunkin’ Donuts to Disney’s Meet the Robinsons, posting dozens of podcasts on their website and touring the world with their super-tight band – they somehow manage to keep flying just slightly below the mainstream radar.

Videographer Kelly Loudenberg went downtown to see how man and technology were making music together.

League of Electronic Musical Urban Robots (LEMUR) presents its first concert series consisting entirely of works commissioned for LEMUR's musical robots. Titled "Robosonic Eclectic: Live Music by Robots and Humans," the program will be performed during a three-night run, from Thursday May 31 through Saturday June 2, 2007, each night with a start time of 8 pm. The series will take place at the Mainstage Theatre at the 3-Legged Dog Art and Technology Center.

Continue reading "Video of the Day: Robots and Humans Making Music"

May 3: Cheezapolooza III: Naked vs Cooked

"If you will it, it is no dream." Four years ago Scott Shuffitt and Will Russell were just a couple of bums the square community didn't give a shit about, trading dialogue from the Coen brothers' comic masterpiece The Big Lebowski, when they decided to found a festival in honor of all things Duder. (Others have since gone on to make it their religion; called "Dudeism", adherents describe it as "your answer to everything".)

THEATER: Jude Narita's one-woman show, Walk the Mountain, is about the hellish effects of the Vietnam War. In the wrong hands, this might make for an unbearably ponderous evening, but the Times review puts us at ease: “In dramatizing unspeakably horrific events, must an artist end up brutalizing her audience as well? [Jude Narita] reminds us that it's possible for a performer to treat both her material and her audience with respect.” For Walk the Mountain, Ms. Narita interviewed Vietnamese and Cambodian women who survived the horror and traces the country’s history of resistance back to 39 A.D., when a Chinese invasion was thwarted. L.A. Weekly called it “haunting and heroic.” - John Del Signore

Tonight 826NYC is back with another benefit, this one is their Art Show, with all money raised from the auction going to the charity. You know about 826NYC, right? The nonprofit is dedicated to supporting kids from 6–18 with their creative writing skills, while helping teachers inspire their students to write. Just think of all the future bloggers in that place.

So we love They Might Be Giants as much as the next blog. And of course we've occasionally thought "gee, it'd be fun to paint lyrics to a TMBG song onto a silver cardboard box," but we never actually went through with it or anything.

Forget arguing over whether uptown or downtown Manhattan is better - the new fighting is about what's better, Williamsburg or Park Slope. There's a hilarious Observer article about the psychological divide between residents of hipper, edgier enclaves like Williamsburg and Greenpoint and those of Park Slope, Carroll Gardens, and Boerum Hill. Yes, hipsters may lives in South (Gentrified) Brooklyn and yuppies may have condos in North (Gentrified) Brooklyn, but that doesn't matter - it's all about the state of mind - and a state of dress and other stuff. You're vintage-clothes wearing, kickball-playing, getting-drunk-all-the-time, crunchier liberal arts shools-graduates if you live in Williamsburg, you're a stroller-pushing, contemporary-literary-fiction-reading, $200-jean-wearing, Ivy League graduate if you live in Park Slope. It all makes so much sense now! Maybe if the G train ran better, maybe there wouldn't be such hostility. But we can't wait for the remake of the Warriors, where it'll be a gang running from the cooler-than-thou types in one nabe into the young-settled-couples in another.

Sleeping in the Flowers

Here's a perfect clip for all of our brother and sister nerds out there: Tron clips remixed to They Might Be Giants' amazing techno-inflected song "Am I Awake." It's just like living in the future!

Parts of Co-Op City, the Bronx development with 55,000 residents, have lost power this morning at 2:30AM. And before you can blame it on Con Ed, Co-Op City produces its own power. CBS 2 reported that residents are "without electricity, heat or hot water," which is no good on this cold work morning. City agencies and utilities are working on the problem this morning.

What? No New Year's plans? Leaving it a bit late, no? Forget the overcrowded bars, the swarms of amateurs, the lame-o house parties. There are a ridiculous number of shows happening around town, some of which are worth your time and some of which not so much. Many of them are sold out, but it's highly possible you could score with the scalpers. Let's have a little look-see, shall we?

It's that time of year again. The time of year we spend entirely too much money on going to a bar or party or club that any other night would cost nothing to enter. But we go, we pay and we fight the Bridge & Tunnel crowd for a spot at the bar. Why? We don't know. It's just part of NYE in NYC. This year we're fleeing the country, but for those of you staying on the island here's a list of parties to go to (that is, of course, if none of your friends will have you at theirs):

Yuck! New Year's Eve is only two weeks away, and that means everyone you know will soon be asking about your plans. Normally we stay indoors on December 31, better to avoid being vomitted on by drunken tourists streaming towards Times Square. The Ask.Mefites seem to have similar feelings-- you won't be seeing them anywhere near 42nd Street. Upcoming.org has a growing list of NYE activities-- but nothing seems all that appetizing. If you really must go out, here's our top five suggestions right now:

We're proud to announce that Neighborhoodies is sponsoring the Movable Hype 4.0 show on Monday. Amongst other things they'll be giving out goodie bags stuffed with treats! So get there early before they run out, it's first come first served.

EVENT/MUSIC: It's Children's Day at South Street Seaport this Saturday. With Gordon from Sesame Street, The School House Rock Stage Show and They Might Be Giants! Wait...AND fireworks! [via FreeNYC]

John Flansburgh, Songwriter/Performer

For a while now Music For America has been providing us with endless amounts of entertainment, events and information.

There are a lot of free concerts in New York this summer. So many, in fact, we're struggling to keep up with all the festivals and park performances.

Sam Potts, Graphic Designer

The Post also talks to blogger Scott Lapatine and describes him as running "a popular media Weblog in Manhattan (he requested we not divulge the name so as to protect his identity)." Gothamist does not approve of anonymous blogging: We believe all bloggers should stand behind their posts with their real names. If you can't do that, you shouldn't be blogging. Scott Lapatine, while we will not out you publicly in this post, we recommend that you out yourself at your earliest convenience. The jig is up! Let your freak flag fly! As They Might Be Giants say, Scott Lapatine, you can't shake the devil's hand and say you're only kidding. In other words, if you want to play Donnie Brasco and go all deep-cover, it's best to avoid giving interviews to the New! York! Post!

Gothamist will be publishing on a lighter holiday schedule for the next two weeks. We're accounting for latke overdose, too much eggnog, and that New Year's resolution of "spend more time away from the computer." Gothamist will have new posts daily, but we'll be back at full strength (whatever that means) on January 5.

A glimpse into the musical tastes of some bloggers can be seen at Professor Barnhardt's Journal, where Bob Sassone asked a few for their ultimate mix of 20 songs from the past 25 years, including me. Bob told us to "list your favorites, not some list of 'best' or 'popular' or 'influential,' or whatever VH-1 was doing with that thing." Lots of bloggers seem to be They Might Be Giants fans. Even so, fellow contributor, 601am's Aaron, says his list "runs towards the embarassing," but as we at Gothamist know, everything can be embarassing - friends, family, hairstyles, behavior - so we take embarassing to be pretty status quo. Also, creating a mix, though it's permanent, is just a glimpse into one moment of your life (the science of a mix can be more elegantly explained in High Fidelity), and I expect my own list would be different tomorrow.