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COPYRIGHT 2002 All rights reserved. Reproduced by permission of The Condé Nast Publications Inc.
John Flansburgh and John Linnell--partners in the musical duo They Might Be Giants--were on their way out of a trendy little restaurant in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, when the young waiter who had served them caught up to them. "You make good music," he said solemnly, then moved on. On the face of it, this was not a momentous event, but Flansburgh was beaming. "That was absolutely flattering," he said as we arrived at the studio he maintains in his former apartment, a few blocks from the restaurant. "I think we've got a nice kind of fame."
They Might Be Giants have released nine albums in sixteen years, are about to issue a career-spanning boxed set, and have been touring widely since Reagan was in the White House. Two witty, articulate men in their early forties who write catchy songs about things like thermostats and metal detectors, Flansburgh and Linnell are the elders to a whole generation of smart, earnest "nerd rockers"--Moxy Fruvous, Barenaked Ladies, Harvey Danger, and Weezer, to name just a few. But, as highly respected, seminal bands often are, They Might Be Giants tend to be commercial runners-up to their offspring. (As David Bowie once put it, "It's not who does it first, it's who does it second.")
Still, it turns out, that's not such a bad thing. In an industry addicted to blockbusters, most bands don't rest in the middle ground for long; they either go on to greater things or, more often, drop back into obscurity. But They Might Be Giants, a band that's run like a grass-roots political campaign, has inhabited that rarefied limbo for most of what Flansburgh calls their "tortoise-like career." The Giants gross between one and two million dollars a year, a sum that would barely cover Mariah Carey's manicure budget, but which, even after expenses, provides Flansburgh and Linnell with a tidy income and that most elusive of commodities artistic freedom. They probably won't ever get filthy rich, but they do earn a comfortable living doing exactly what they want to do, which makes them the envy of many far more commercially successful artists. Along with a select few--performers as disparate as Fugazi, Robyn Hitchcock, and Lucinda Williams--Flansburgh and Linnell enjoy a modest but constant popularity, the wonderful state of obscure success.
If a nerd is someone whose every word and deed are predicated on the belief that appearing smart is more important than getting laid, then They Might Be Giants are, in fact, nerds: their music doesn't sell sex; it sells smart-kid whimsy. Arty, melodic, and well wrought in a formal way, it bristles with wordplay and musical ideas. Its references are not to such totems of cool as the Velvet Underground and Leonard Cohen but to quirky styles ranging from polka and commercial country to cartoon music. So it's hardly surprising that They Might Be Giants have a disproportionately large presence on the Geek Broadcasting System, also known as the Internet. The Giants started a Web site back in 1994 and soon rivalled much more famous bands--Pearl Jam, U2, and Nirvana--in online popularity. Thanks to their Internet following, Linnell was voted one of People Online's ten most beautiful people in 1998, and at one point Flansburgh ranked high in the Person of the Century poll on Time's Web site, coming in just behind Jesus, Adolf Hitler, and the pro wrestler Ric Flair.
The two Johns long ago settled on a division...
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