TMBG: Real American Heros

I watched Gigantic again this weekend. I hadn’t seen it for a while. It’s crazy to think that Flood came out 18 years ago. It’s really been that long. It’s funny how an album can work like that one does. At the same time, it feels as though it just came out, as if I’ve only listened to it a few time, yet it also feels like it has always been a part of my life.

If you like the Johns (both members of They Might be Giants are named “John”), or if you just feel like a minor artist that is trying to do something a little different, you need to see Gigantic. I have a copy. You can come over and see it at my place.

As I watched this movie, I just kept having the same thought over and over again: these guys are heros. They didn’t stand up for the same things that a lot of heroes stand up for. Not the huge values like TRUTH and BRAVERY and AMERICA, but they stood up for little things that matter a lot:

• They stood up for rock without the rockstar.

• They stood up to reject the bacchanalia of music.

• They stood up for a quirky sound.

• They stood up for serious humorousness.

• They stood up for the little guy getting big.

I remember the day I bought a copy of their album Flood (on tape!) at my hometown’s Wal-Mart. My mom didn’t think I was really going to like it. It’s safe to say that it is probably one of the albums I have listened to more times than almost any other.

Now, the Johns are the grand old men of nerd rock. They are either the USA’s biggest little band or littlest big band. They made it happen for themselves, because making this music was something that they really needed to do. If not for them, I don’t think we would have had great bands of this decade, like The Mountain Goats or The Decemberists. We might not have even had Cake.

It all started somewhere in Brooklyn with a reel-to-reel tape machine and a giant stick with a microphone strapped to it.