They Might Be Giants w/Moon Hooch: at The Cannery Ballroom (Nashville, TN) Wed. March 6, 2013

They Might Be Giants w/Moon Hooch

Lightning 100 & Miller Made Music Presents

Pop/Rock

Nashville Scene Critic's Pick …

By tonight, it will all be over. Well, it won’t “all” be over — the chances of the universe suddenly contracting back to a pre-Big Bang state of existence (or nonexistence, if you think about it) is pretty slim. But the 24-hour binge we were planning between the release of the Johns’ latest LP Nanobots and their appearance at Cannery will be over. Usually, we like to let an album marinate between purchase and catching a performance, but it looks like it’s not going to happen this time — so 24 hours of They Might Be Giants it is! This is not entirely different from any other 24 hours in the past, oh, three decades of our lives except that we’ll be swapping our extra-worn-copies of Lincoln and Apollo 18 for a fresh copy of Nanobots. Also, our better half won’t be giving us the hairy eyeball for chugging beers and listening to children’s records like the classic Here Comes the ABCs. It’s not that the better half doesn’t like children’s records or beer, but the combo of the two makes the better half a little skittish.

—SEAN L. MALONEY

The Cannery Ballroom

Wed. 3/6/13
Show: 7:30 PM
Presale ($20.00) & Day of show ($22.00)
18 and over
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They Might Be Giants

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Alternative

New York NY

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thephoenix
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They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from thephoenix)

I don't formally speak for all TMBG fans, but I think I speak for most TMBG fans when I say that every post-John Henry studio release has been greeted with crossed fingers and a mantra: "Pre-John Henry caliber." Admittedly, TMGB's 1994 transitional album is old news, and they are definitively no longer a duo operating under the necessity-is-the-mother-of-invention methodology. So, cautiously, I submit that Join Us, their 15th album and first non-children's release in four years, has that old-sch......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from crawdaddy)

They Might Be Giants Join Us (Idlewild, 2011) Even a longtime They Might Be Giants fan like me has to admit they're pretty difficult to distinguish from Weird Al Yankovic these days. Join Us, their first non-children's album since 2007's The Else, is an impossible sell outside of their fanbase, and probably to many within. Their sense of the bizarre has softened up a bit, as have their rock instincts. Johns Linnell and Flansbergh are great singers with extremely limited marketability; nasal voic......

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS - Join Us (from aquariusrecords)

After many years of romping through almost every possible musical style imaginable and composing tons of music for movies, TV and kids' albums, Join Us find the two Johns bringing the focus back to what they've always done best... that is, writing clever, witty, quirky, hook-laden pop songs with a sweet dorky charm. Really, this is their most solidly classic college pop rock (circa '90s) album in eons. So, if you're an old They Might Be Giants fan with a nostalgic hankering for their earlier sou......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from spin)

If you only heard it in the shower and couldnt make out the puckish lyrical twists or compositional tics, this clever Brooklyn duos 15th studio disc might be mistaken for a Radio Disney pop pageant. Having made several hit kids albums, Johns Flansburgh and Linnell reapply their sprightly tempos, cheery tunes, and tightly wound structures to songs about cephalophores (a martyred saint carrying his/her own head), humanoid lizards, and other antisocial types, with cheery/eerie results. Their wit ke......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from altsounds)

There is a really plausible worry that an act can fade into a tired, stale sound once elapsing a significant amount of time in the business. This theory can be heightened when the artists in question could be lazily bracketed into the 'American Rock/Pop' category, something which They Might Be Giants can easily fall under without a second glance. The five piece, who originated in Brooklyn certainly can't be accused of adopting the 'if it ain't broke don't fix it' approach, having, perhaps sur......

they might be giants - Join Us Review (from ultimate-guitar)

Sound: "Join Us" absolutely sounds like They Might Be Giants, but maybe a little more experimental as far as arrangement, vocal delivery/melody, and instrumentation. There is a lot to love on this album, as far as vocal harmonies, guitar melodies, interesting percussion and an interesting vocal delivery and lyrics. "Join Us" is a pop album but is diverse in sound and instrumentation, with a strong rhythmic pulse. The multitude of guitar tones, horns, bass, hand-clapping, finger-snapping, accordi......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from undertheradar)

Find It At: Insound For all the reductive adjectives typically used to describe They Might Be Giants--"quirky," "weird," etc.--their songs are always rooted in their own realities. A drum-playing worm sounds perfectly normal when described by John Linnell, and why wouldn't The Replacements have a song called "We're The Replacements?"Conversely, Join Us, the band's first non-children's record since 2007, presents standard rock topics in unconventional packages. Not liking a friend's girlfriend, ......

they might be giants - The Else Review (from ultimate-guitar)

Sound: They Might be Giants or generaly a very poppy rocky band, commonly associated with nerd rock and stupidity at the same time. This album, though, was produced by The Dust Brothers, and they pushed it into a more loop based sound. This album is by far more serious than there other albums. Also, anybody familiar with They Might be Giants knows that there's one guy who makes par songs(Flansburgh), and one guy who makes excellent songs (Linell). But this time around, Flansburgh really showed w......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from soundspike)

After four years of making music aimed at kids, They Might Be Giants have finally returned to the land of the grown-ups, but "Join Us" doesn't remove the band far too far from the sandbox. The group, after all, were a natural fit to become crossover kiddie heroes: co-leader John Linnell (the John who doesn't wear glasses) has a tone and demeanor cut from whole talkin'-to-the-youths cloth, a sideways-arching voice that manages to be patient and sincere and skeptical all at the same time without ......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from paste)

They Might Be Giants are, along with Matthew Sweet and a handful of others, what I remember of college radio from the early '90s. TMBG stand out for me not so much because of their so-singular-it-borders-on-proprietary sound, but because they were the first band I encountered that spawned superfans. I was pretty young in the early '90s, and at best my peers loved classic rock in that early, holistic, passed-on-like-a-hair-color way. At their worst they loved whatever everyone else loved that day......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from rollingstone)

The last time John Linnell and John Flansburgh released an album for grown-ups, 2007's The Else, it was one of their most aggressively rock-centric to date. This time, they've gone more playfully experimental, from the sunny lead track, "Can't Keep Johnny Down," to the sly, strutty cabaret joint "Cloisonné." "Old Pine Box" seizes Simon and Garfunkelian acoustic jangle, and "Canajoharie" has one of Linnell's catchiest choruses ever. And while Join Us is lighter on lyrical surrealism than earlier ......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from americansongwriter)

After concentrating mostly on creating family music recently, They Might Be Giants have returned with just their second "adult" album in the last six years. While there is plenty of cartoon whimsy in everything that TMBG does, their "adult" music allows them to explore darker themes (both "Old Pine Box" and "When Will You Die" deal with death) and use more adult language (you wouldn't find a line like "All the dicks in this dick town" in one of their children's album). In fact, even educated adu......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from ink19)

Fresh, hot nerd rock! Get it while it's hot! Album number 15 from the icons of geeky music is out on CD (and for all I know, 180 gram vinyl if you dig around). While it's not a departure from the previous work of John Flansburgh and John Linnell, it sounds fresh and clever and you won't be disappointed.Opener "Can't Keep Johnny Down" reeks of a potential hit -- it's upbeat, offers a solid hook and bridge, and tells about a man with a loose gas cap. That's They Might Be Giants -- polite and worri......

They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from musicomh)

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They Might Be Giants - Join Us (from recordcollectormag)

Considering the quirky innocence of their best-known songs (Birdhouse In Your Soul, Boss Of Me), it's no surprise that the Giants have largely focused their energies on making educational children's albums in recent years. This, their 15th long-player, however, is being marketed as a grown-up's record, but retains enough of the band's wide-eyed charm to appeal to the kid in all of us. The core duo of John Flansburgh and John Linnell may be in their early 50s now, but their knack for articulati......

Moon Hooch

Bio | Upcoming Events

Dance

Brooklyn NY

Artist Bio:

Cave Music / kAv myoozik / It's like House, but its more wild, more jagged, more free, more natural to live in.

"Whoever thought of a band with two saxophones and a drummer? That's the stupidest idea, right?" Moon Hooch saxophonist Wenzl McGowen asked the crowd at a recent gig. Well, Wenzl, James Muschler (drums) and Mike Wilbur (saxophone) never intended on forming a band together. The three guys graduated from The New School for Jazz and Contemporary Music in Manhattan in 2010. Wenzl and Mike shared mutual contempt, each one thinking the other was a cocky sax-o-phony. And while they were both correctly judged each other, they eventually learned tolerance when Wenzl moved in to an apartment with James, next door to Mike.

The three began busking in the subway and in the city's parks. At the same time, Wenzl was producing House music and writing House for saxophone. When the guys played this music in the subway, people immediately began dancing.

One subway passenger asked, "What's your band's name?"

Mike blurted, "Moon Juice."

A Google search revealed that there were already multiple bands called Moon Juice. With the help of a thesaurus, the name Moon Hooch was selected, and more importantly, the trio now realized that they were, in fact, a band.

Since solidifying as a band, Moon Hooch has quickly gained a reputation for inciting "subway raves" (they were banned from performing at the Bedford Ave stop off the L line in Brooklyn for "starting too many dance parties"), their strange instrumentation and explosive live show. Their frequent presence in New York City subways and parks has brought them notice and fans which has led to appearances as the house band on Australian TV show "Hamish and Andy's Gap Year," and a national tour with Mike Doughty (Doughty saw them on a train platform and immediately invited to tour as his supporting act). They are now at the midpoint of a six month residency at Brooklyn's Knitting Factory, having sold-out all shows to date.

The band has already begun to expand its sound beyond just two saxophones and drums. Wenzl inserts a cardboard tube into his saxophone to create a Dubstep style womp, and switches between a contrabass clarinet and electronic wind instrument. They also have begun experimenting with various vocalists, inviting both singers and rappers on stage with them at shows.

Recorded in just a single day, their debut record, "The Moon Hooch Album," gives the listener a taste of what's to come for these guys. They seamlessly blend House, Dubstep, Drum & Bass, and Jazz into style that is uniquely Moon Hooch: Cave Music.

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They Might Be Giants w/Moon Hooch