This Might Be A Thread: Talking about TMBG

[Exposition Owl]

I hate to start the thread on a note like this, but it looks like Flansburgh was in a bad car accident last night in NYC. It looks like he'll be fine, but in the meantime, he has seven broken ribs, so he'll be in the hospital for a while. Here's what he had to say about it:

 

[muteKi]

As he got hit by a car there was a message for us
Our hopes of a summer tour have clearly been crushed

 

[zonetrope]

This news really shook me, and I'm glad he's going to recover. The Johns are both on my list of people whose deaths are straight up going to make me break down and cry. TMBG is the first band I ever loved and their music means so much to me.

 

[lincolnic]

If this news wasn't sad enough, the tour that they'd started last night had been on hold for two years. They'd been postponing and rebooking these dates since 2020 (honoring all tickets purchased back then, of course). TMBG is the best band and the best people are in it.

I have to say, if something like this had to happen, at least it happened in his home city. He gets to be in a familiar place while he recovers, his wife and friends and bandmates can spend time with him in the hospital, and he gets to go straight home as soon as the hospital discharges him.

In any case, if there's one thing I know about Flans, it's that he'll find a way to keep working even while recovering from seven broken ribs. It's going to take a while, but this won't stop him.

 

[zonetrope]

To move the thread away from the car accident:

I highly, highly recommend the podcast Don't Let's Start. It's two superfans doing incredibly deep, funny, insightful dives into every track the Johns ever recorded, featuring lots of great, illuminating interviews with collaborators like Bill Krauss, Joshua Fried, and Laura Cantrell. They've been moving at a fairly slow pace because they both have lives, and every episode involves a lot of intense, rigorous research. But they're up to the Why Does the Sun Shine? EP and are supposedly going to be running through John Henry before too long.

 

[Ludendorkk]

I'm not even a real TMBG fan but I did have a friend take me to a show they were performing at Border's Books in Ann Arbor in 2005 when they were promoting one of their children's albums. It was a fun and interesting show, obviously a lot of people who had grown up on TMBG brought their small children to see them and the band seemed very much in their element.

 

[jpfriction]

That tour they did a bit back where they just played Flood top to bottom was one of the best shows I’ve ever been to. Love these guys.

 

[Kirin]

Oh man, terrible to hear about the accident (and I'm also a little surprised I hadn't already heard, as I thought I was on all TMBG's mailing lists, but I guess maybe that was just on social media or something so far), but glad he's stable and in recovery. Real pity they're going to have to delay the current tour yet again but I wish him all the best.

I've been a fan of TMBG since like the mid 90s, and while I can't say I have literally everything they've ever released, it's pretty close (and given their proclivity for copious output, that's a lot). I've often joked that my music collection consists of "game soundtracks, J-pop, random 80's one-hit-wonders, and also all of TMBG". I've also probably been to nearly as many live TMBG shows as I have all other live concerts combined...

 

[muteKi]

 

[lincolnic]

Flansburgh is out of the hospital and currently expected to fully recover by the end of July!

 

[Kirin]

Excellent news! For an accident that bad, that really seems like the best one could hope for.