Unclean! Unclean!

December 14, 2005 2:21 AM

They Might Be Giants have a Podcast - Dig it!
The inaugral installment features, among other choice musical morsels, a cover of the Banana Splits' "I Enjoy Being a Boy," yet another nifty rendition of Particle Man, and a hilarious collection of turtle songs. Direct link to feed.
posted by JHarris (23 comments total)

I was unsure if a podcast link was suitable for the front page, but decided to just bite the bullet and post it.

Further...

One of the songs in the collection is a recording of the old campaign song "Tippecanoe and Tyler Too." Searching for info on it turned up the story of Harrison's defeat of Martin Van Buren. Fairly interesting!
posted by JHarris at 3:03 AM on December 14, 2005

oooooh my go... errr... universe man!
posted by a. at 3:11 AM on December 14, 2005

Oyven maven. Thanks, my husband will dig it.
posted by emjaybee at 4:39 AM on December 14, 2005

Oooo...not for children TMBG...thanks. Great discovery!
posted by ParisParamus at 5:28 AM on December 14, 2005

What's gotten into them? They've gone techno--very cool.
posted by ParisParamus at 5:29 AM on December 14, 2005

I don't know from podcasts, but having peeked into the above-linked XML file, it appears to be a ridiculously verbose way to link to one large-ish MP3 file.
posted by majick at 6:07 AM on December 14, 2005

Crap. "...one large-ish MP3 file." Sorry.
posted by majick at 6:08 AM on December 14, 2005

ridiculously verbose way

Ye gods, don't say that, or Dave Winer, the Allfather of Blogging, will descend upon us in all His righteous glory!
posted by lodurr at 6:18 AM on December 14, 2005

yet another nifty rendition of Particle Man

The Free Bird of the college set.
posted by The Jesse Helms at 6:30 AM on December 14, 2005

"...one large-ish MP3 file."

Yes, that's really all a podcast is. Though the term/movement has encouraged people to record some pretty interesting stuff that they maybe wouldn't have otherwise. Which is nice.
posted by PinkStainlessTail at 6:43 AM on December 14, 2005

To derail onto podcasts: I was really surpirsed at what people thought they were when they first started being done. Some people thought that there was going to be a new golden era of blog entries via podcast, and just weren't interested in hearing that for post people and w.r.t. most blogs, it wasn't something that was going to be useful to them.

Where it's useful is where you might want to actually hear instead of read something (e.g., a musician's blog), or where there's actually some production value and decent voice talent (which does make a difference). So, for example, when I was at Iceland Airwaves in October, I downloaded the daily podcast before I left my room. It got me away from the comptuer and out into the city.

IOW, podcasts are valuable for things you could conceive of as shows, but not for things you'd think of as a normal blog entry. As such, they really revolutionize nothing about blogging -- but potentially have a big impact on radio and TV.
posted by lodurr at 7:09 AM on December 14, 2005

The host sounds kind of pithy - a lot like a deeper-voiced "Kip Dynamite."
posted by pithy comment at 7:45 AM on December 14, 2005

Oooo...not for children TMBG...thanks. Great discovery!

Some say that They Might Be Giants' children's albums are some of the best stuff they've done in recent years, marking a return to the verbally-clever, insanely catchy tunes of their earlier days. Their songs "ZYX," "Fake Believe" in two versions, "E Eats Everything," and "Alphabet of Nations" from Here Come the ABCs, and "No!," "Where Do They Make Balloons" and "Fibber Island" from No! are, to me, about as musically interesting as anything they've done.

What's gotten into them? They've gone techno--very cool.

TMBG has always been all over the map musically; their older song "It's Kicking In Now" is technoish, and if I thought about it long enough I could probably dig up a few more examples. More interestingly, what kind of song would one call "Older?" "Shoehorn with Teeth?" "Number Three?" "Fake Out in Buenos Aires?" "Reprehensible?" Or "Turtle Songs of the North American Continent" from the podcast, which is itself more of a comedy sketch than a song?

Anyway, my point is that TMBG defies genrefication, so don't expect the next installment to contain techno too -- you could probably better predict the output of a random music generator than you could the next song by They Might Be Giants.

(Now that I've exposed myself as the total TMBG fanboy I am, I must away! WHOOSH!)
posted by JHarris at 7:48 AM on December 14, 2005

If you never podcasted before

Heh. Good to see the boys are down with the latest trends and all. First time I've heard listening to a podcast referred to as "podcasting."

(I'm not a real doctor, but I am a real worm.)
posted by soyjoy at 8:22 AM on December 14, 2005

This makes my day, I haven't had any new TMBG for awhile!

Blue canary in the outlet by the light switch
Who watches over you.
posted by Tacitus at 8:39 AM on December 14, 2005

Does anyone else remember Dial-A-Song? Free when you call from work.

There's only one thing that I like
And that is whistling in the dark
posted by BuffaloBandit at 8:58 AM on December 14, 2005

Somewhat related: I discovered the TBMG podcast the day I found another jewel: the Ricky Gervais podcast. Looks interesting.
posted by kdern at 9:48 AM on December 14, 2005

I have no problem with linking to a podcast on the front page. It's linking to They Might Be Giants that I find offensive (we used to refer to them as They Might Be Shitty).
posted by JeffK at 10:17 AM on December 14, 2005

I'm kind of surprised that TMBG hasn't had a podcast earlier. They've typically been early adopters of alternative means of music distribution, with the aforementioned dial-a-song, and their mp3-only album, Long Tall Weekend, which was the most-purchased online album for its release year.

Anyhow, great find, thanks!
posted by Durhey at 11:10 AM on December 14, 2005

Thank you for this! My first podcast download.
posted by CunningLinguist at 11:15 AM on December 14, 2005

Wow JeffK, what's with the hate?

Interestingly I thought, for what amounts to a free MP3 collection is that there are still a lot of really cool songs here. Probably the weakest one is the lead-off, a parodic version of "It was a very good year." Their cover of "I Enjoy Being a Boy" is classic. And the only one I had heard before was the version of Particle Man, which as they explain was originally done for XM.

My point though is, shouldn't someone be telling these guys that they should be saving the good stuff for commercial albums?

We both said 'I really love you.'
The Shriners loaned us cars.
We raced up and down the sidewalk fifty thousand million times....
posted by JHarris at 3:19 PM on December 14, 2005

A friend of mine does a TMBG podcast at TheyNow as well. Good stuff.
posted by youcancallmeal at 3:32 PM on December 14, 2005

Also haven't had much TMBG in awhile, much to my embarassment. Thanks!

Don't want to be known as the freak who just comes around to catch her eye...
posted by artifarce at 4:20 PM on December 14, 2005