They Might Be Giants
Severe Tire Damage

CD review by John Moe

How many times have you been tricked by a live record? Maybe you’ve seen the band in concert, had a great dinner beforehand, some quality beer after, really hit it off with your date, even dug the opening act. So when the live recording comes out, you want to re-create the experience. Or maybe you’re just nuts about the artist and devour the latest offering while gritting your teeth with low expectations. And why the low expectations? You’re smart. Live albums suck and here’s why: Most try to duplicate the experience of attending a concert. There’s some inane or, less frequently, clever banter between songs, interminable stretches of cheering and whistling to indicate that you also should be cheering and whistling, and assorted other annoyances. You just can’t put a concert on a CD; one’s an event, the other’s an object. At best a live album is usually a postcard: a pretty picture, some funny writing, you put it on the fridge and never really look at it again.

But on Severe Tire Damage, the, yes, live album from They Might Be Giants, those pitfalls are not only avoided but transcended. The charm of the band has always been that it’s basically just two smart funny guys, John Flansburgh and John Linnell. Since the mid-80’s the prolific Brooklyn duo has been putting out albums of insidious wit and sophisticated, if often synthetic, instrumentation. On previous recordings, the band has played all the instruments themselves and re-recorded to simulate an actual ensemble. A somewhat guilty pleasure of witty evocative lyrics and goofy pop music that dared not to take itself very seriously was the result. To hear their previous efforts, it may be surprising that TMBG plays live at all given the practical limitations of, well, being just two guys. Indeed they used to tour with a four-track playing behind them, sometimes even letting the four-track be the opening act. On recent tours, however, and on Severe Tire Damage, the Johns are accompanied by a full band, allowing them to just cut loose and play. The result is a recording less precise but more, well, rockin’ than anything they’ve done. The record is heavy on energetic fun, heavy on distortion and extremely light on banter, cheering, and unnecessary filler so frequently inserted to replicate the live experience.

Keeping in the spirit of breaking the live album tradition, "Doctor Worm", the never before released opening track, is not the throwaway token new-single-stapled-onto-the- old-recording-compilation one might expect. Instead it delivers a dizzying up-tempo pop beat wrapped around classically off-center lyrics: "I’m not a real doctor but I am a real worm/ I am an actual worm/ I live like a worm/ I like to play the drums/ I think I’m getting good but I can handle criticism." Reading these words you might wonder how they can fit into the cadence of a pop song and after listening to it you might wonder the same thing. But they do. Over the course of the album, you may wonder if you’re really hearing a tuba, a vibraphone, a brassy horn section and an accordion. You are.

Classic TMBG hits constitute most of Severe Tire Damage with ripping renditions of "She’s Actual Size", "Birdhouse In Your Soul", and "S-E-X-X-Y" standing out in particular. Other older songs have benefited greatly from the energy and urgency of live performance rising above the, hate to say it, nerdiness of their original versions. Of particular note is "XTC vs. Adam Ant", a debate on substance vs. form (it’s a draw) which packs in more driving guitar rock fills than longtime fans may expect. Besides the aforementioned "Doctor Worm", new numbers include "They Got Lost", a rumination on the band not being able to find a radio station where they were to make a live appearance. Again, this song succeeds thanks to thoughtful, off-kilter lyrics, "John said to John, I think we make a left at the light/ There should be a big crinkle assuming this map is right", sung over enough whomp-fuzz guitar work to push the listener’s mind to the word "funky".

The album also includes "Why Does The Sun Shine (The Sun is a Mass of Incandescent Gas)" which was originally recorded for an educational children’s album. Here, the Johns speed the tune up, give it a powerful guitar riff to drive it along, and sail some dizzying keyboard over the whole melange. It’s a rocking fast version of the tune but not so rockin’ and not so fast that the educational element fades and the song loses it’s meaning. At the end of the tune, I really knew quite a bit about the sun. Did you know that the sun is so hot that all matter inside is transformed into a gas? Copper, aluminum, everything? I didn’t. This tune made me yearn for more rock music that can teach me things. No, seriously, it really did.

But for many, the highlight of Severe Tire Damage will be the seven part "Planet of the Apes" series hidden, and unlisted, at the end of the disc. There’s a mini-song for each of the movies here and every one of them is improvised. You get a dizzy paean to Cornelius on "Return to...", a hard rocking jock-rock salute to "Conquest of...", and a fervent "Battle for..." which pits the two Johns against their backing musicians.

The sizable geek-rock following the band has enjoyed over the years should not be put off by the addition of a few Marshall stacks. The verbal intricacies and opaque instrumentation that have long been the bands trademark have not been abandoned during the addition of the harder rocking accompaniment. In fact it makes lyrics like "All alone at the ’64 World’s Fair/ 80 dolls yelling ‘Small girl after all’" (Ana Ng) all the more intriguing to hear them really sung over a real drum beat instead of merely voiced over a drum machine. This hard-driving sound, which the band has probably been playing for years but only recently recorded, may break They Might Be Giants out of the novelty music pigeonhole. It may finally allow them to be taken seriously as rock musicians, despite all their efforts not to be taken seriously about anything.

Severe Tire Damage is a rare record. In many ways, the recordings here surpass, in quality and sheer listening pleasure, their original predecessors. It’s a live album that is just as effective as a greatest hits collection. Plus, it’s loads of fun.

John Moe is the author of Poultry In Motion, a humor column.

Andrew Hamlin's Review of TMBG Live

Check out They Might Be Giants Official Page

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