Ok so it’s 1987, it’s late, and you’ve been cruising the Jersey City streets for about an hour in your dull green Ford Escort that your grandparents got you as a present which means you can’t complain about how ugly it is. Maybe you’re looking for a liquor store that’s still open at this hour, maybe you’re just bored and killing time since you don’t have work or classes tomorrow. You turn a corner and hit the waterfront; you can see New York City across the Hudson River and wish you weren’t trapped on this side of the water. When you moved up here you’d intended to find an apartment somewhere in Manhattan but your parents had said New York was “too dangerous” so you compromised by moving to East Jersey which, I mean can we really call this part of Jersey safe? But they it pacified them so here you are taking classes part time and waitressing or bartending when you can find the work.

Of course your greatest discovery since moving here has been the local radio station. They play plenty of music you already enjoy but you’ve also heard some of the strangest, ugliest, most oddly compelling shit that would never have made it on the airwaves back home. You’ve got the dial tuned to 91.1 with volume down low, something by the Jesus and Mary Chain creating a noisy, shimmering ambiance as you turn another corner away from the River. Just as you begin to realize that you don’t quite know where you are anymore, you hear a new voice mumbling on the radio so you turn up the volume.

“There’s something coming. There’s a new car on the horizon. It’s coming very slowly. It makes a noise. It has kittens painted all over it, with a new kind of fur. Clear, but with a unique smell. Yet, one of these kittens is not prepared to have a good time. It stands alone, away from the crowd. It’s your kind of kitten. Now the time has come to climb into that car and shake the paw of destiny.”

Then another voice,

“No. No! They Might Be Giants are not satanists. They are not posing as an easy listening Nazi rock band trying to lure intellectuals into believing what they already know to be true. No–listen to the sound of my voice. Put away your big blue cigars and make way, yes, make way ladies and gentlemen for THEY. MIGHT. BE. GIANTS.”

You smile to yourself without really knowing why while a quiet song plays like a lullaby. These guys are obviously fucking around and you’ve definitely heard weirder shit on this station, but there’s a conviction behind these voices that makes you feel like, yes, this is my type of kitten.

“Hi this is John of They Might Be Giants and you’re listening to the Frank O’Toole radio show on WFMU. If you’re driving in your car right now, we urge you to sit back, relax, close your eyes, and drive really fast.”

You pull over under a street lamp and grab a pen from the glove box and an old receipt, ready to write down the name of whatever song is playing and the name of this–what even are they, a band? But after a few moments you realize that you have to get home as soon as possible. You speed down the backstreets until you orient yourself and find your way home. Lock the car, dash up the steps, thank god your roommate is still up to buzz you in. Once you’re in your room, you throw a blank cassette into the deck, turn on the radio–there they are, singing about cat food in a bank account–double check that the radio is connected to the deck, then hit record.



*********

This particular episode of the Frank O’Toole show, known informally among hardcore TMBG heads as the WFMU tape, aired March 4th, 1987 and for a great many years bootleg copies of this show, recorded by early, enterprising fans of the band, were considered to be the holy grail of TMBG studies. These days, the tape is easily available on youtube (although the last chunk of it appears to be missing) and for download here (this links directly to the download, so don’t freak out <3). While WFMU in the ‘80s was no longer affiliated with the college it broadcast from, freeform radio stations like it and other college radio stations around the country were a major player in They Might Be Giants’ rise to fame, especially by the time Flood was released. Around the same time that “Puppet Head” and “Don’t Let’s Start” were getting a surprising amount of airplay on MTV, those same songs started popping up on college radio stations and by 1990 Flood was the fifth most played album on college radio stations in the US (beating out Sonic Youth’s Goo), according to the CMJ New Music Report.



The first half of the WFMU tape is made up of different pre-recorded openings the Johns used for their live shows (though a few of them sound like they were recorded specifically for radio) interspersed with promos for the Dial-a-Song service and various Dial-a-Song master tapes played directly to the show. The second half has Frank O’Toole interviewing the band while Flans promotes a show at the Village Gate. While most of this material can be found through other releases like The Power of Dial-A-Song I & II or on Then: The Earlier Years, the way this program was strung together gives you a madcap tour through They Might Be Giants’ Pink Album and Lincoln-era work while the Dial-a-Song demos and specially recorded radio IDs give you an intimate peek into what the band sounded like before they hit it big with Flood. The WFMU tape is unparalleled as an early TMBG artifact and is essential to understanding this era of the band. If you don’t really want to sit through all 90 minutes of the tape, here are some highlights:

–JP