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Venue Songs by They Might Be Giants (2005)

A Random CD Review from the Stutzman Memorial Library

Venue Songs by They Might Be Giants (2005)

So, it’s been a long time since I’ve written. I’ve been busy at work.

But I was getting a little bit wistful for the schtick where I have Excel tell me what to write about. And today, Excel spit out #593, which just so happens to be the CD/DVD combo of Venue Songs by They Might Be Giants.

Here’s the premise: the two guys in TMBG challenged themselves to write a new song for every venue that they played at while on tour and perform them, at the respective concert. This CD has a live recording of the songs as well as fancy studio recordings of some of the better ones. The DVD features videos for the best songs and a few extra videos previously unissued in this format, (my favorite of which is “Some Crazy Bastard Wants to Hit Me.”) Also, there’s a nice role for John “I’m a PC,” Hodgmon as The Deranged Millionaire.

The highlights for this collection for me are: “The Garage” from Glasgow, (just try to get that chorus out of your head), the two House of Blues songs and “The Egg.” At least those are the ones I can think of off the top of my head.

If you’ve read much of this blog, you probably know that TMBG are a mega-musical influence for me. Grandpa Griffith could become a TMBG cover band at any time and I’d probably still be content. But with that said, something about the Johns’ output over the last two or three years has lost its’ luster for me.

Of course, this is pretty much all subjective, but their music has become a little bit disposable for me as of late. They still come up with damn good melodies most of the time and they can still create a zany arrangement, but I suspect with more readily-available recording technology at their disposal, they have backed off on their ability to self-edit. What I mean is, when it’s easier to get your songs in a fixed, final recording, it’s probably tempting to call everything that you put any time or energy into a masterwork.

The reason I bring up technology at all is that I can hear in their last couple albums more fancy digital bells and whistles and an overall compressed sheen that seems to have taken some of the “life” out of the sounds. This all makes me suspect that they have Pro Tools set-ups at home to noodle with.

Anyway, this is not to demonize Pro Tools, (the last Grandpa Griffith album was done on Pro Tools), or to diss the Johns. It’s just that I’ve heard much better from them in the past.

But then there’s the raw idea behind Venue Songs. They basically imposed limits and structure on themselves to help the creative process. This is a pretty grand idea and seems antithetical to Romantic notions of liberated art and it’s not the first time they’ve done it—Here Come the ABC’s and Dial-a-Song…To me, they are exploring a modern-day version of what J.S. Bach did way back in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s, with his groups of organized compositions. I’m thinking in particular of The Art of the Fugue and The Well-Tempered Clavier, where he wrote a group of pieces employing all the major and minor keys, as well as his systematic creation of church music. I think it takes a particular kind of personality to draw inspiration in this kind of way. I think the more traditional view of an “artist” is one who creates order out of chaos, or even creation ex nihilo, creation out of nothing. We tend to think of artists as free spirits, who are liberated and act from flights of fancy.

But the Johns and Bach are dealing with a different type of situation, where you have creation from an already existing order or structure. This, to me, seems more like art from the “head” than from the “heart.”

I’m not about to place a value judgment on which is the better method.

And I’m spent.

posted by Mike @ 2:08 PM