They Might Be Giants - Let's Start (1985)

John Linnell and John Flansburgh first met as teenagers growing up in Lincoln, Massachusetts, and began writing songs together while attending Lincoln-Sudbury Regional High School, but didn't form a band at that time. They then attended separate colleges after high school and Linnell joined The Mundanes, a new wave group from Rhode Island, but they reunited in 1981 after both relocating to Brooklyn, moving into the same apartment building on the same day. At their first concert, they performed under the name El Grupo De Rock and Roll (Spanish for "the Rock and Roll Band"), because the show was a Sandinista rally in Central Park, and a majority of the audience members spoke Spanish. Discarding this name, the band assumed the title of the 1971 film 'They Might Be Giants', which in turn was taken from a 'Don Quixote' passage about how Quixote mistook windmills for evil giants. The duo began performing their own music in and around New York City, with Flansburgh on guitar, Linnell on accordion and saxophone, and accompanied by a drum machine or prerecorded backing track on audio cassette. Their atypical instrumentation, along with their songs which featured unusual subject matter and clever wordplay, soon attracted a strong local following, and their performances often featured absurdly comical stage props such as oversized fezzes and large cardboard cutout heads of newspaper editor William Allen White. From 1984 to 1987 the band were the house-band at Darinka, a Lower East Side performance club, playing one weekend a month, and by the end of their three-year stint they were selling out every performance. On 30 March 1985 They Might Be Giants released their 7" flexi-disc, the 'Wiggle Diskette' disc, which included demos of the songs 'Everything Right Is Wrong' and 'You'll Miss Me'. In 1985 the band released their full length demo cassette, originally distributed by the Johns at TMBG concerts in 1985-86. The material was recorded onto standard store-bought audio cassettes, with black-and-white photocopied inserts on different colored paper (commonly yellow, but also on white and blue), and although it was self-released, the cassette was reviewed by Michael Small in People magazine, giving the band the attention they would need to score a record deal with Bar/None. The duo released their self-titled debut album in 1986, which became a college radio hit, with 'Don't Let's Start' alerting me to the band, and they later issued one of my all-time favourite songs with 'Birdhouse In Your Soul'. So that you can hear what all the fuss was about at 'the start' of their career, here's that 1985 demo cassette, housed in new cover art, and (sort of) titled after the demo of 'Don't Let's Start' that features on the tape. Some of these songs later appeared on their debut album in a more polished form, and at least one was resurrected for their third album, but many of them are exclusive to this tape, so enjoy this collection of early work from the band.

Track listing

01 (Put Your Hand Inside The) Puppet Head  
02 When It Rains It Snows  
03 Number Three  
04 Don't Let's Start  
05 You'll Miss Me  
06 Hope That I Get Old Before I Die  
07 Biggest One  
08 32 Footsteps 
09 Boat Of Car  
10 Cowtown 
11 Chess Piece Face  
12 Rabid Child  
13 Youth Culture Killed My Dog  
14 Alienation's For The Rich  
15 The Day 
16 (She Was A) Hotel Detective  
17 Which Describes How You're Feeling  
18 Toddler Hi-Way  
19 Become A Robot  
20 I'm Def 
21 Hell Hotel  
22 They Might Be Giants  
23 Nothing's Going To Change My Clothes