"Alternative"

TMBG are my favourite band, they belong in that "we do our own thing" genre more than anything. They were founded with the idea of "Zappa and The Residents via the Monkees and The Beatles" and as they themselves observed ("spent our whole lives just digging up our music's shallow grave"), they never really changed from that.

John Flansburgh calls them a Punk band, just to really confuse the issue.