8 Thursday, February 16,1995 They Might Be Giants Returns to Ritz With New Album, Members BY MITCH BENNETT ASSISTANT ARTS/DIYERSIONS EDITOR When They Might Be Giants hit the Ritz Sunday they'll be jamming with a btad rather than the drum machine of tours past The group’s fifth full-length release and full band debut, John Henry,has a fuller sound and some of die best crafted songs of TMBG’s history. With John Linnefl cm accordion and sax ami John Flansburgh on guitar, the duo has built a solid repertoire of songs with dever lyrics and original vocal style. The new band consists ofboth Johns, plus bassist Tony Maimone (Pere Übu, Bob Mould), drummer Brian Doherty (die Si loa, Freedy Johnston, XTC), Tim Newman on trombone and Jim O’Connor on trum pet We recently spoke with John Linnell. How didyou select the musicians for the new bawd? JL: We kind of went through a very slow filtration process where we began with the idea of just hiring Kurt Hofftnan (Ordinaires) to join us on stage to play sax and gradually we came around to the idea of getting a band. We had guys come in and we tried them out in lots of different combinations. Eventually we settled on Tony Maimone, who was somebody we already knew. I think that was a big part of it—Tony was a guy that we knew in our neighborhood and was the guy that we felt like we wanted to play with. And since then we got a drummer, a friend of a friend. We’ve really come to understand the im portance of personality compatibility with the band as we've gone along. The thing is, we have enough money to hire people who arcfood-the real difficulty is finding people that we tike. Haw you decided on a name Jbr the band ytt? JL: Mmm... we’re just calling it They Might Be Giants. h Pm Übu lined that you "stole" Tony Maimone? JL: Well, that was Tony’s decision. I think he felt like he had done his term with Pere Übu. He played with them for some thing like 17 years. They eventually got another bass player, so I think the vibes are still good. Last year we did a bunch of Duke Performing Arts Committee Presents OLIIRHI (?®\w7E.cg ■■ lyDavtf Manat A controversial if play about gender and power on ||9 a college campus. n Hpn Irani uMt I BffMrf vmv mu batman pHriiPSa** I 1 Feb. 20 PMEAUDITQRUIIIBPM. PAGE BOX OFFICE (884-4444)"^^^" V ,V* ■ a&l ItayMnSM.l OjW.cal72o Mof Ooral OMOMJ Yog* Admission is free. Seating for the lecture is limited. Soatfe Cntomtta at Fraatf* Street WedMulay - Saturday: 10 an-5 pm Saaday 1 - 5 p* SHEnfl K., : HKH IjP ? John Flansburgh, Brian Doherty, John Linnet and Tony Maimone make up TMBGs new lineup. Call their DiaEA-Song (718-387-6962) to hear new stuff. shows with Pere Übu, and for a couple of shows we had David Thomas (Pete Übu’s frontman) come up on stage, so it was pretty friendly. Who are those kids on the John Henry album and "Back to Skull" mazi-single? JL: Those are professional kids. We hired them. Most of them are show-busi ness lrids who have show-business parents who are trying to make careers for their kids. They’re trying to market their, you know, cuteness or their kidness or some thing. And then some of them are people that we know. The youngest girl in the picture is the daughter of Glerm Marrow, who runs Bar-None Records. Are fans wasting their time trying to figure out if they should worry about the song "The End of the Tour" on John Henry? JL: Yeah, it’s not about us. We’re con tinuing to tour, as is evidenced by the fact that we’re still out there plugging away. We don’t really write autobiographically. Do you have any set plans jbr TMBG? JL: We have the following plans, which don’t really constitute a solid plan for the future, but we want to put out a compila tion album of all the B-sides we’ve done for Intimate Views: INDIAN MINIATURE PAINTINGS FROM THE 1 6T H TO THE 1 9T H CENTURY February 19 - May 14 An exhibition comprised of the Ackland's collection of Indian miniature paintings shown together for the first time, featuring the gifts of Clara T. and Gilbert J. Yager, along with selected loans from public and private collections. Lecture and Opening Reception 2 PM Sunday, February 19 Dr. Joseph M. Dye, 111 Curator of Asiatic Art, Virginia Museum of Fine Arts, Richmond ACK^ANP The Umvenity ef Neeth Cemhnaet Chqpd Hill DIVERSIONS Music Elektra. Miscellaneous U> JL: Yeah, we don’t know what to call it. 72 or something. But that’ll be topped off with some kind of single that we’ll crank out for that. That’s the main prospect for some kind of release this year. And by the way, we have a ton of material from B sides, because we put out three albums on Elektra. Are you sick of playing “Istanbul (Not ConstantinopleX ” “ParadeMan, ’’ "Don’t Let’s Start," the ones that everyone wants you to play? JL: No, you know, it’s still fun to play music, and it’s always different We’ve actually done a lot of those songs in differ ent ways. We came up with a different version of “The Sun Is a Mass oflncandes cent Gas” —it’s got a’6os rock feel the way we’ve been playing it recently. And we’ve also tried playing “Particle Man” in the key of C-minor instead of C-major. That woked surprisingly well. We’re still ca pable of trying out different approaches. What influence did producer Bill Kraus hate on your early sound? JL: The great thing about Bill was he was really into the vibe of the band. He BI mL — i \ FINAL WINTER] I CLEARANCE! L M Aa Hundreds or Items Storbwidb at $5 Mpt Pants • Sweaters • Shirts • Dresses Turtlenecks • Knit Tops - Flannel Shirts ■K Catalog and Designer Clothingatupto - ®^^ 7 85 % OFF sssi— 1 W / COATS COATS COATS womirsrou length v’ /up to 7£ % OPF o^J'nOW S64\ m m oMonMLcataiocmuch \ JsiaAn% ft fflT shoes . OMCMAL CATALOG MUCIS off des **™rsilks R OaiGlXAi. CATALOG PUCKS QRQr WOW \ CAT * t ”" lc ” , p utl J7| JIMS \ 306 W. Franklin St ** . . lionet $44 SUM ' —_ur-ocro, I Drtwt M 4 $21.00 always had a great sense of humor and his favorite material of ours was die most oddball stuff. So 1 think he really contrib uted his own spirit to the one that existed. He was into experimentation. When we first got into MIDI, we left Bill alone in the studio mixing “Piece of Dirt.” When we came back he had replaced every single drum sound with a kind of different, com pletely weird sounding drum. Little tri angles and clicking sounds and stuff. It turned but that when he really cut loose in the studio, he came up with some of die most interesting stuff. A girl said she’d give mejive bucks flashed you fyou like gladiator movies. JL: Wow. Did she say I have to answer? I don’t think so, but I’ll split it with you f you d0... JL: I land oflike “Ben Hur.” I sortcfhke those movies; I happen to know that John hates those movies. When he sees Victor Machura wearing a toga he gets really de pressed. Do you and John spend much time together aside from music? JL: Yeah, ocasionally. We’ve had only a certain amount of free time recently, but, uh, what was the last thing John and I did together? We’ve mostly beenworking. John came over recently and we looked at pic tures. What is the relationship between TMBG and Frank Blade? JL: We’ve known him for a long time; we played with the Pixies before either of our bands had gotten any sort of notoriety. It’s one of those things where you end up playing with a lot of bands that are at a similar level. Since then we’ve toured a whole bunch with Frank Black. We did a tour opening for his band in France last year and then we had him opening up for us solo in the United States in the frill. And I played on his first record and John has directed some ofhis videos, so we’ve done a lot of work together. How about the Meat Puppets? JL: We had Kurt Kirkwood design one of our shirts for us and we also sang on a Meat Puppets recording last year. They did a cover version of a song called “A White Sport Shirt and a Pink Carnation,” H Pi NT 1' r i" v* C ■ Imports y\ Local Bands ■ J&T7... ■ PA” . ■ ■ Free Parking ■ and John and I sang backup vocals. But that seems to have been a promotional record for radio and I don’t know what’s happened to that recording. Witt there be more songs about the Hotel Detective? JL: I don’t know —we got such a muted response from the second song (on the “Bad: to Skull” CD single, 1994)—most people seemed to think it was a cover of the first song (on They Might Be Giants, 1986). Sometimes I think die only person who Kked that song was Flansburgh. I basically made a demo at home and I played it for him and he was really excited about it Then we recorded it and even some of our friends were not particularly... interested in it (Laughing) So, I don’t know if I should get discouraged or not I Weed it JL: Thanks. b she someone you know? JL: No, no, just an imaginary, fictitious character. How do you and Flansburgh write songs? Together? Alone? JL: We each write individually, gener ally , but we’ve had a couple of occasions to collaborate. On this record, one of the things we did was that John wrote sets of lyrics. I actually asked him to give me ten song tides and instead he wrote ten sets of lyrics and handed them off. So I worked on a couple of them; I came up widi “Sublimi nal” that was his lyric and I wrote die music, and I wrote another song called “Dark and Metric” which hasn’t been re leased yet but will come out eventually. We’ve also collaborated in the past I wrote music for a song with no words pretty much musk without even a melody on top, and I gave that to John who wrote “My Evil Twin” based on that. “Put Your Hand Inside the Puppet Head” was the first example of that. I basically wrote the musk and the chorus and he wrote the rest of it Are you available? JL: Nope. I have a significant other. And Flansburgh? JL: Same answer. Sony. You can’t touch, but you can still watch They Might Be Giants this Sunday at the Ritz in Durham. Tickets are available at CD Exchange and School Kids in Chapel Hill. The Cat’s Cradle show is canceled. Tickets are $12.50 m advance. Planned N annual physicals for women and men Parenthood. ■ infection checks We understand ■ birth control yOUT needs. N menopause services T . H HIV testing and Two dimes to serve you: counseling call for an appointment: u rr ■ cancer screening 942-7762 ° 93 S. Elliott Road, Chapel Hill ■ confidentiality ■ affordable fees 820 Broad Street, Durham ■ female clinicians O Planned Parenthood™ of Orange and Durham Counties, Inc. minada jewelers, inc. Exquisitely handmade jewelry and other works of art. Monday thru Saturday 10:00 to 9:00 University Mall Chapel Hill North Carolina 27514 (Eljr Daily ®ar Brri R&B BRIEFS BY SHARINA WILLIAMS STAFF WRITER TLC CrazySaxyCool (LaFaca Records) Be coming off of their double platinum debut LP, Ooooooohhh... On die TLC Tip, T- Boz, Left Eye and Chilli, true women of the ’9os, are blowing up the R&B charts with the first release from their new album, CrazySexyCool, entitled “Creep”, about what you guys force us women to do when you don’t act right Although they have shed their hardcore, B-boy, condom-wear ing image, TLC’s “I ain’t one to be ques tioned... Don’t take no mess from no body” attitude is still intact as relayed on the track “Switch”, produced by one of hip-hop’s finest young talents, Jermaine Dupri (also known for his success with Da Brat and Kriss Kross). CrazySexyCool, a combination of the group’s personalities, is much more mature and balanced than their first effort, giving more of a laid-back “I’m in control” feel from T-Boz and Chilli without losing any of Left Eye’s energy, thanks to executive producers Dallas Aus tin, Antonio “L_A.” Reid and Kenneth “Babyface” Edmonds. The trio produces a nice mixture of styles ranging from giving props to “His Purple Badness”, now the artist formerly known as Prince, on the remake cut “If I Was Your Girlfriend,” to getting a little hip-hop back-up from rap artists Phife of A Tribe Called Quest on “Intro-hide” and Die of foe group Outkast on “Sumthin’ Wicked This Way Comes”. On the flip side, though enough worrying about backstabbing “friends”. The track “Case of die Fake People” could have definitely been kicked to the curb with no tears shed. It sounds like a bad attempt to recreate their success on “What About Your Friends.” Besides “Creep”, one of my personal favorites on the LP is “Red Light Special,” where there is an even Wend between T- Boz’sbrassy vocals and ChiDi’sß&B style, backed by synthesizers and dectric guitar riffr. The confident ladies let the fellas in on the mottoof the ’9o’s: “I’m a woman, a real woman/1 know just what I want/1 know just who I am, "which goes along with the territory when you’re CrazySexyCool. Actor-turned boxer Mickey Rourke and starlet Julia Roberts were recently spotted at the popular Henry’s Bistro in Chapel Hill, NC. According to a reliable source, Roberts started her meal with duck confit served with fried onions and watercress and then chose the shellfish saute with wild rice and tasso ham. Rourke reportedly began with a house salad with gorganzola cheese followed by grilled tuna topped with a sweet ginger sauce and wilted winter greens. The couple shared a bottle of 1989 La Loggia Chianti Classico and a slice of caramel apple pie before being ! whisked to an exclusive Carrboro i nightclub for an evening of dancing, j 919-967-8964