Perhaps it’s poetic license that has seen They Might Be Giants—Johns Flansburgh and Linnell—through a voluminous series of ups, downs and holding patterns over its three decades in operation. TMBG’s second adult album in five years and its 16th overall, Nanobots (Idlewild/Megaforce) boasts 25 new songs. Much of Nanobots takes advantage of what is now a fully acclimated quintet that also includes guitarist Dan Miller, bassist Danny Weinkauf and drummer Marty Beller. “We’d been functioning as a two-piece for 10 years, and we really just sort of talked ourselves into it,” says Linnell of the bumpy transition, which began in 1992. “It’s still John and I making the decisions, but we lean heavily on the other guys for a lot of the musical resources. It’s a benevolent dictatorship.” Flansburgh will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand new TMBG feature.
Flansburgh: The internet has exploded in the past few years with demo clips in general, and for us guitar folk, good gear demos are especially useful. While these videos can be almost clinical—where you see the pedal get engaged and see the knob on the fuzz box being turned up—they can have an odd charm! Personally, I find this one hypnotizing: it features a man named Burgs relentlessly hammering our the riff from the Ventures song “The 2,000 Pound Bee” on a fuzz box called (quite magnificently) One Ton Bee. The tone is super ugly, and changes ever so slightly, but the riff stays the same! When you need the sound of a one-ton bee, you know what box to use!
Video after the jump.
