- 02
- Oct
What happens when your band comes from a lost civilization? Navigating a charcoal cityscape on an empty tank with one piece of gum, Sargon, Hammurabi, Ashurbanipal, and Gilgamesh, aka the Mesopotamians, go Gorrillaz with their pet goat/yak. This They Might Be Giants video for The Else's "Mesopotamians" -- which comes after an Apocalypse Now-quoting preview and Monkees-riffing short -- finds John Linnell and John Flansburgh referencing the aforementioned as well as Josie And The Pussycats, the Beatles, etc., all the while reminding us of that long-gone Tigris and Euphrates cradle.
The boys try to adapt, trading their language-preserving stone tablets for mini-cams and other technological creature comforts, but it's a little too late ... Poor fuckers can't get catch a break. Miss you, Hammurabi.
The Else is out via Idlewild/Zoe Records.