They Might Be Giants work hard, like you do. They go to work every day, like you do. Sometimes they have to work weekends, just like you do.
But the vagabond rock duo They Might Be Giants have to go to work every day at a different place, in a different city, far from their home. Their homes away from home are the dingy, smoke-filled rock clubs of America. As they've gotten more popular, fewer and fewer of these clubs can fit them and their fans.
Wednesday night, their home will be at Mr. Small's Theatre in Millvale. They've even written a song about it. In fact, they wrote a song about every rock venue they visited on their 2004 tour. They can be heard on "Venue Songs," a set that contains live versions of 36 venue songs recorded at its venue, packaged with a DVD of cartoon music videos created for 15 of the songs, including the song about Mr. Small's.
"We wrote each song in the parking lot of the venue before soundcheck," says John Linnell, the skinnier, quieter of the two Giants (the other is John Flansburgh), on the phone from outside one of their favorite venues, the 9:30 Club in Washington, D.C. "And then went in and figured it out during soundcheck and played at the show that night in the venue. We did this for about three to four weeks, wherever we happened to be playing, for every single show."
But why⢠Well, they might have had many reasons for taking this challenge. Maybe it was to keep their songwriting chops sharp. Maybe it was just to keep the cities from blurring together.
"It seemed like an incredibly impossible task -- can it be done?" Linnell says. "As we warmed to it, it seemed like we were warming to all these new ideas."
The band was a little worried that some of the venues might be hostile this time around, since not all the venue songs are exactly complimentary. So they named each song after the city instead of the venue.
"Pittsburgh," the Mr. Small's song, is a bouncy, paranoid pop nugget typical of They Might Be Giants' early work -- "We are the guests of Mr. Small's/He's somewhere watching us through eyeholes in the walls." It mentions dark dreams of the Electric Banana, the late Pittsburgh bar where They Might Be Giants had a tough early show.
"It's a gig we played -- probably '86, after the release of our first album," Linnell says. "It (the venue) stood on sort of stilts on an edge of a hill, which we became aware of after we played the set, it was hanging maybe 40 feet over the edge of a precipice. It added to the sense of exciting danger."
The legendary North Oakland club was known for its seediness -- and more accustomed to hardcore punk like Black Flag than geeky, accordion-driven pop like They Might Be Giants. Only 23 people bothered to show up that night.
Memorable for all the wrong reasons is probably better than simply forgetting you were ever there -- provided, of course, that get through the gig alive.
The only deal-breakers for a venue are bad sound and bad bathrooms, Linnell says. Still, this is rock and roll, so you need to expect to get some dirt under your nails.
"We've very often said we never wanted to play somewhere again, and then went ahead and played there," he says. "We don't really get to cross stuff off if it's on the circuit."
Additional Information:
They Might Be Giants
When: 8 p.m. WednesdayAdmission: $25
Where: Mr. Small's Theatre, Millvale
Details: 412-821-4447
