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Ransom Riggs
The Late Movies: TMBG’s Venue Songs
by Ransom Riggs - July 13, 2009 - 6:47 PM

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I’ve been a fan of They Might be Giants for about as long as I’ve been a fan of music in general, but despite the already-enormous body of work they’ve generated in the last 20 years, they only seem to be getting more prolific. Back in the 80s, they wrote and performed short songs into their answering machine, and thus Dial-a-Song was born. They’ve made albums about the states, the presidents, an album designed to be played while reading a specific issue of McSweeney’s (a song for every story), several albums of children’s songs, and during a 2004 tour, they wrote a performed a new song for every venue along the way. The best of them were compiled into an album called Venue Songs, and music videos for each of them were created, all “hosted” by John Hodgman. A testament to a band with endless creative energy, here they are, in order — the venue songs.

Dallas: Trees


Albany: the Egg

Hollywood: House of Blues

Anaheim: House of Blues

Vancouver

Pittsburgh

Asheville: the Orange Peel

Glasgow: the Garage

Charlottesville: Star Hill Music Hall

Asbury Park

Brooklyn

Comments (6)
  1. Oh, I so love them!

  2. My heroes and one of my favorite DVDs. Long live TMBG!

  3. TMBG stopped by WTJU in Charlottesville, VA in around 1993 and did 2 theme songs for my wife’s radio show. 15 years later, we still find ourselves saying almost anything in tune with the melody they wrote.

  4. Also, Starr Hill has 2 “r”s

  5. CSI: TMBG

  6. I saw them open for Hootie and the Blowfish in Carbondale, IL back in late 1995 or early 1996. I didn’t even know they were going to be there, quite a pleasant surprise.

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