A
few weeks ago I received one of those digital missives informing me
that if I Acted Fast I could take advantage of a Very Special offer.
But this one was different. Rather than telling me about ways to make
my penis larger or offering discrete sex with lonely locals, I was
informed that for the bargain basement price of forty-five American
dollars I could be the proud owner of one box full of They Might Be
Giants merchandise.
Included
in this amazing deal were the following:
1
Drinky Crow “Countdown to New Year’s” t-shirt designed by Tony
Millionaire
1
“Them Ain’t Big Eye Ants” DVD – a collection of new videos
1
Travel coffee mug
1
set of all-new Cryptozoology playing cards designed by Paul Sahre
1
set of reproductions of TMBG show flyers from early in their career
1
glossy reproduction of their first official press photo
3
Mystery items!
I’m
going to go ahead and tell you that the flyer reproductions alone
made it worthwhile to me. To be able to take a peek at the Golden Age
of TMBG as they were taking over the Village was too exciting to pass
up.
The
rest of the items were great too, though. The last TMBG t-shirt I
owned was a “Why the Sun Shines” ringer and I believe it was
stolen by an ex-girlfriend years ago. I haven’t bought one since
because I haven’t exactly been keeping up with my second favorite
band. I listen to them on a regular basis. Heck, I play through every
TMBG song on my Zune at once at least twice a year. But the last
album I bought was Mink Car
from 2001 and I wasn’t crazy about it (although “Cyclops Rock”
and “Another First Kiss” are amazing songs). I’m still not.
Wait
– I’m wrong. I bought NO!,
Here Come the ABC’s,
and Here Come the 123’s
for Lil’ Troublemaker. But Mrs. Troublemaker does not like They
Might Be Giants so we don’t listen to those very much. So actually,
it looks like the only studio albums I’m missing are The
Spine, The
Else, and Join
Us and I can tell you right
now I remember when The
Spine came out and I
immediately thought of Mink
Car and went, “Meh”.
But
TMBG’s entire pre-Mink Car
catalog is always in regular rotation for me and I’m still on their
e-mailing list. So when I got the notification that if I Acted Now I
could get all of the above goodies for forty-five bucks I Acted.
The
playing cards seemed like the weirdest thing to me, so I’ll start
with those. They were designed by an artist named Paul Sahre (who I
am admittedly not familiar with). I didn’t really care about the
cards and thought their MSRP of $15 was absurd. I don’t need
playing cards at all, but if I did I’d just run over to Rite-Aid
and spend a buck on them. As far as the concept of these being
novelty playing cards, that’s not something I get. You can’t
really frame them or display them in any meaningful way.
But
the value of the rest of the stuff in the box easily exceeded the
overall price, so I looked at the cards as a freebie.
Now
that I have them in hand I can say that these are really cool little
pieces of art. This isn’t just a deck of cards with different
things drawn on them, it’s a completely redesigned concept. Clubs,
Diamonds, Jacks, and Hearts have been replaced by Cryptids, Myths,
Hoaxes, and Paranormal. Each new suit has its own icon as well as its
own substitute for the Jack, King, and Queen:
It’s
a cool concept, the art is very nice (reminds me a bit of Edward
Gorey), and the cards themselves seem to be a good quality as far as
my experience with such things goes. I can’t really say they’re
worth fifteen bucks, but as an extra that was thrown in with this
great bargain box of merch they’re pretty awesome.
The
coffee mug is an item that I would once have been just as ambivalent
about as the playing cards. I never drank coffee until I started
working at my current job. But after my first week of eight hour
classes listening to a man I have often referred to as human Ny-Quil,
I knew I was going to have to start caffeinating. Once I started 12
hour shifts it became essential.
A
couple of years ago we were the victims of a bunch of budget cuts and
they stopped supplying Imodium, Ibuprofen, and a number of other
pharmaceuticals; as well as paper coffee cups. I started bringing in
a KISS Coffeehouse mug, but that thing is nearing the end of its
useful life. I thought that a brand-new, stainless steel They Might
Be Giants mug would be a fine replacement.
The
mug is very basic. It’s a sturdy model with a gasket top rather
than a screw-on. I’ve always preferred gasket tops. They seem more
secure than most screw-ons. One side features the slightly Masonic
“TMBG” logo that the band has been using for the past several
years, the other features this comforting tagline:
I’m
a little concerned about the durability of the printing and how it
will hold up to repeated washings, but it seems pretty solid for now.
The
Tony Millionaire t-shirt is a no-brainer. Band t-shirts are and have
always been pricey, so I didn’t even blink at the $25 price. I
particularly like this shirt for how much it vexes Mrs. Troublemaker.
She is a big fan of Tony Millionaire - and Drinky Crow in particular
- but can’t stand They Might Be Giants, so this shirt is very
frustrating to her. It’s a high quality t-shirt with a great print
job. My XXL fits the way I like XXLs to fit. It’s long enough and
doesn’t bell out at the bottom.
The
shirt and the DVD are where I felt like the practical value of the
box was. While the flyers were an enticing addition, they were, after
all, just photocopies. They might be neat to look at, but there’s
no disputing that you can wear a shirt and watch a DVD. “Them Ain’t
Big Eye Ants” is a compilation of various videos from 2004 to the
present. I think they’re mostly from online projects. I watched it
while I was wrapping Christmas presents the other night and enjoyed
everything on it. I particularly liked their cover of Chumbawumba’s
“Tubthumping” with the AV Club Chorus. I’m not a big fan of
that band or that song, but the pure joy of that performance is
infectious.
Actually, everything on this disc is good-to-great. It
got me pumped up for They Might Be Giants again, to the point where I
went and downloaded those missing albums.
The
flyer reproductions and press photo came in this exciting envelope:
And
were everything I hoped they would be and more. The press photo is
just a neat glossy:
But
the flyers are amazing. They range from press releases to what appear
to be inserts for demos. The print quality is as good as it needs to
be and there are a ton of the things! I couldn’t believe how
many were in there. I’m sure it’s just a tiny fraction of what
the band used in their early career, but I was really impressed. Here
are my favorites:
I
didn’t want to scan or take pictures of all of them because I feel
kind of special for having them. If the Johns wanted these plastered
all over the internet, they’d have done it themselves.
Finally,
that brings us to the three Mystery Items!
First
there is a Christmas air freshener:
I
like the design a lot and I assume it smells Christmas-y in some way.
I haven’t opened it because I am very sensitive to synthetic smells
and don’t want to be aurally offended. This was a neat extra, a
step above the sticker one might expect from this sort of thing.
Next
up is a bumper sticker:
I
know I might have been a little dismissive of stickers above, but
they are perfectly acceptable freebies. I’m always stoked when a
band or other entity sees fit to throw a sticker or two in with
something I have ordered.
Finally,
here is the cream of the Mystery Item crop – a set of four TMBG
guitar picks featuring Paul Sahre’s Cryptid artwork:
I
am a sucker for guitar picks. One of my absolute, most prized
possessions is a Faith No More guitar pick from a 1997 show. I don’t
have a collection or anything because I am not aggressive enough to
run down picks when they get thrown into the audience. I only have
the Faith No More one because I was working the stage at the show.
But receiving this little packet of picks was a great bonus that
actually made the playing cards seem a little more cool.
All
in all this Holiday Bonus Box was totally worth it. As far as useful
things I have a new t-shirt, a new coffee mug, and the DVD. I put the
bumper sticker on my file cabinet and I think I’m going to figure
out some neat way to frame some of the flyers, along with the picks
and the playing cards. We’ll see.
-Phantom
Is this Haloday pack still available from Xmas 2013
ReplyDeleteI don't think so. It's probably about time for a Christmas 2014 Holiday Pack by now.
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