I’ve been trying to take it easy — I’m really focused on research again. I didn’t make a They Thursday post last week, and today you’re going to get a reprint of something which is now 5 months old: my testimony of the very first They Might Be Giants concert I attended, on November 17, 2025, at The Orange Peel in Asheville, North Carolina.

NOVEMBER 17, 2025

The Orange Peel

Asheville, North Carolina, USA

THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS
JOHN LINNELL = keyboards, accordion, vocals

JOHN FLANSBURGH = guitar, vocals

DANNY WEINKAUF = bass

DAN MILLER = keyboards, guitar, vocals

MARTY BELLER = drums, percussion

DAN LEVINE = trombone, euphonium

MARK PENDER = trumpet

STAN HARRISON = saxophone

NOVEMBER 17, 2025
THE BEST DAY OF MY LIFE

Written November 18-24, 2025

I WOKE UP AT 5:06 AM, thinking only of the wonderful night I was expecting to have. I’d been looking forward to this moment ever since I bought the ticket, but really I feel like I’ve been waiting 20 years for this.

They Might Be Giants are my favorite American band. Ever since I was a 3 year old and my mom bought a copy of Here Come The ABCs for me (which I still have), I loved them. This band’s music is pretty much ingrained in my muscle memory, and their music videos have always been fun and imaginative. The project I’m undertaking now is a comprehensive multi-volume biography project about They Might Be Giants, and it’s so rewarding to do this. I love what I do because I can do this all day.

And for all the research trips I’ve taken, I still hadn’t got the chance to see them live — the ultimate research trip.

I live in Hendersonville, North Carolina, and moved here from Abilene, Texas in April. During the moving process, TMBG announced their tour dates this year in the much bigger neighboring city of Asheville would occur in March. I didn’t mind missing it, as I was moving. So those shows sold out. The band arrived in Asheville, John Linnell even went to the Moogseum — I went in June and the nice lady at the front desk talked about TMBG with me — and then Linnell got sick. They canceled the March dates and rescheduled them for November 18 and 19. I didn’t attend those shows. Bummer that I’d be in the vicinity of the place and have to miss the shows, but there’d always be a next time.

Next time came sooner rather than later, as just after my first trip to Asheville, where I saw The Orange Peel, took pictures of its exterior for my book, and then visited the Moogseum, TMBG announced several new tour dates including an additional show in Asheville that would occur on November 17. That's it for me – on June 19, I quickly purchased my ticket from Etix.

They Might Be Giants have played in Asheville now 13 times since 2001. They first hit the WNC scene on March 30, 2001 at a place called the Asheville Music Zone, which was active from 2000 to 2003. The Orange Peel opened in 2002, and TMBG first played there on September 28, 2004, during the Spine On The Highway tour in promotion of their 10th album The Spine – at which point they were also composing brand new songs about every venue they were performing at during said tour. These venue songs were released first as a digital download that December and then next November as a DVD/CD combo pack, both called Venue Songs. The song “Asheville” (they couldn't name the songs after the venues, so they named them after the cities) was recorded during the soundcheck at the September 28, 2004 show. This is important.

Please allow me to introduce myself, I’m the Orange Peel

You don’t remember but I was once part of your orange

I’m the peel that you left on the floor

You took the good part and walked out the door

And I hate you for that

I hate you for that

I’m the Orange Peel.

When the flood waters reach where I lay

French Broad River will float me away

And I hate you for that

I hate you for that

I’m the Orange Peel.

— They Might Be Giants, “Asheville”, 2004

At only 90 seconds, it's such a short song, but it packs so much into it – 6/8 time signature, a Marxophone solo, lyrical themes of abandonment and blind hatred, references to “Sympathy For The Devil” and also the horrific and devastating flood of the French Broad River on September 8, 2004 due to Hurricanes Frances and Ivan (not unlike 2024's Hurricane Helene, this flood too devastated the River Arts district). The key is in G, but there are moments when it falls to Eb–Bb–D in which then it resolves to G (this occurs thrice) and it's such a euphoric chord change.

All this stuff buzzed around my head by the time I took my bath at 7:09 AM.

The letter patch idea came to me because of my childhood. My entire fit for the day was a callback to my childhood. Sometimes my mom would iron on letters on my clothes so that I’d even wear them, she says. I wanted to present that idea, but in a way unique to my adulthood, and so my plan for future TMBG concert appearances is that whenever I attend one, I’ll fashion a new sweater with the iron-on letters just for that show. It’s also reusable, and a cool reminder of the fun I had on that particular day.

I had ironed these blue letter patches onto this orange sweater I had on October 24 (I was really gonna come prepared), but I suppose since this was my first time ironing something I didn’t do a good job, as it was falling apart. So the morning of, I had to hot glue them together as a last minute bodge. No one noticed.

My roommate Jules was the person driving me from Hendersonville to Asheville. She doesn’t like They Might Be Giants and did not join me for the concert. A couple people even offered to give me some extra tickets for the November 18 and 19 shows, and while I would have accepted those in a heartbeat, Jules wanted to do this as a day trip to begin with.

At 1:54 PM we got a room at the Moxy Asheville, and I had 90 minutes of downtime before I decided to get going. I soon realized that The Orange Peel is literally down the street (well, avenue) from our hotel – just 250 feet apart! So there I walked.

I brought my beagle plushie Claude. Another callback to my childhood – I’ve had Claude ever since I was a baby. Plus, he also wanted to see the show, so I had to take him!

I also brought two DVDs. One of them is my personal copy of the Here Come The ABCs standalone DVD – though it’s not my childhood copy, I thought it would be symbolic if I could have the Johns sign it, knowing that they’d sometimes meet up with fans after the show and sign stuff. The other DVD I brought was a copy of my animated short film Disabled World – of which, incidentally, the 1st anniversary of its 2024 release fell on this day – and I wanted the Johns to have it.

I also brought my Sony ICD-PX312 audio recorder so I could interview people, especially some friends I planned to meet – namely Rachel Jones (who wrote an excellent dissertation on TMBG in 2023 and got a PhD by way of them) and Jon Uleis (who co-hosted the podcast 9 Secret Eps, and some of his photographs have made their way onto an official digital release of a live album). Those lovely little before-the-show quotes at the beginning of this are the result of those.

I brought these items in a tote bag I got when I subscribed to The New Yorker a year ago. This tote bag is also important.

By 3:26 PM I found my place in line and recorded myself saying this:

It’s 3:26 PM. I’m outside of The Orange Peel now. I’ve made it. My entire life has been leading up to this moment. I’m actually like 45 minutes early. Rachel isn’t even here, and I don’t see Jon anywhere, but when I do I’ll report on that. Once either Rachel or Jon show up, I’m gonna start interviewing concertgoers, trying to get quotes for my write-up that I’m gonna do about it, for the writing samples that I need to give to people so that they can see my ability as a writer. But before all that, I have to actually experience the concert! I mean, I’m excited, but I’m also super nervous. And of course, I knew I would be this way because I was excited and nervous when I went to Durham and met my other friends there. [The previous statement alludes to a trip we made on July 25-26, 2025.] So again, I’m just gonna stand around here. Pretty soon, I won’t be alone, and I’ll have seen Rachel and Jon and their friends… and eventually, They Might Be Giants.

Rachel came earlier than I expected (she said in our emails she’d be there around 4 – in my autistic mind that means “exactly 4 o’clock on the dot”, but that’s just me), and she brought her friends Jamie and Amber along. Soon enough, I met Jon, and all the people in line. I just made so many new friends. For the most part, TMBG’s fanbase is exceptionally welcoming, and for once in my life I felt completely accepted as part of a group. (It helps that I had information to offer that they were interested in hearing, given my experience having conducted just over 100 interviews for my books before this.) I met fellow first-timers, as well as fans more dedicated than me who have attended dozens upon dozens of their shows for decades.

For They Might Be Giants’ current tour, The Big Show Tour, they’ve been doing a lot of sets in which their previous albums are highlighted – usually Flood [1990], Apollo 18 [1992], John Henry [1994], and Mink Car [2001]. For a while, they’ve been touring with a horn section (which they call the Tricerachops Horns) – they’ve pretty much expanded their core lineup to include the horns, making They Might Be Giants an 8-piece band.

It started getting dark around 6 PM. By the time I had decided I’d interviewed enough people who had usable quotes for this very piece, I had to go to the bathroom. As I was walking, I could hear music coming from The Orange Peel. It was They Might Be Giants, doing soundcheck. What song did they play during soundcheck? None other than the Asheville venue song. Twenty-one years after the officially released version was recorded at the very same place, during the very same circumstances, they did it again, and I was close enough to hear it. I heard them rehearsing the song, too. It’s as if this was 2004 and they were practicing it for the very first time. I started getting emotional, believing I might cry, and I tried to hold back tears as I could hear them completing a run-through of the song, even through locked doors and several feet worth of distance. Linnell’s voice, Flans’s guitar, Danny’s bass, Dan’s guitar, Marty’s drums, the Marxophone samples, the arrangement… it was nothing short of beautiful. And it was right there. I imagined what it’d be like once I’d get inside.

I rejoined the line, where Rachel’s friend Amber talked to me. Amber has neurodivergent family members, and was able to (literally) walk me through my confusion and semi-anxiety attack. After all, I wasn’t used to being in such close proximity to THEY MIGHT BE GIANTS!

Amber was very patient and gracious with me. They were the first to inform me of The Orange Peel’s bag policy, which is that small bags (such as my little purse) are allowed but bigger bags (like my aforementioned tote bag) are not. I also had to abandon my pepper spray which is for self-defense. No matter – I took a brisk walk back to the hotel, where I left all my stuff except the DVDs I felt compelled to bring (I couldn’t stuff them in my purse so I just carried them), as well as Claude. My purse was already on me. I walked back to The Orange Peel, and since I was in such a frenzy Amber offered to help me put stuff in my purse. When you’re in a rush, it’s very hard to put things inside of other things in an efficient manner. My purse was able to fit my DVDs after all, and I stuffed the rest of my belongings (gum, wallet, phone charger, etc) in the front pocket.

I didn’t have a panic attack, but I was about to, so Amber encouraged everyone in line: “We’ve got Charles’ back, right?” [This was back when I was using my real name in this space.] They cheered in agreement. That doesn’t happen to me every day. Like I said, this is a rare moment in my life where I felt like I truly belonged somewhere.

7 PM rolled around, and I went inside. Upon bag inspection, the security guard pulled out my audio recorder, asked me what it was, and I explained what it was. She said it was fine that I have it…… as long as I didn’t tape the show. Okay, so she took it away and promised I’d have it back after the show. That’s fine. Other people in the audience captured video footage, so that was okay even though they were adding a visual component to their taped show. I took lots of pictures, which you’ll see here, but I won’t tell you just how I got the quotes as accurately as I did.

The place was sold out. By the time it was 7:55 PM, I’d look behind me and see a sea of people, and I couldn’t even see the exit. Then it was 7:56. Then 7:57. 7:58. 7:59. 8:00. 8:01. 8:02. With each passing minute, time stretched thinner and thinner as the pressure got more and more unbearable. Then, the blue lights dimmed, and the crowd cheered. The crowd cheering is going to be a recurring theme.

The “Stompy Intro” that the band ran onstage with is now 20 years old, but it’s still epic. It raises one’s blood pressure, it quickens one’s heartbeat. One by one, Marty Beller was the first to get onstage, and his drums are highlighted with this intro. Then Danny Weinkauf joined. Then Dan Miller joined. Then John Linnell joined. Then John Flansburgh joined. Before the audience had any chance to process being starstruck (I know I was), they went right into “Subliminal” – signaling right away that this would be a John Henry show. I’ve always felt that “Subliminal” is a perfect opening track: John Henry was the first full-fledged album They Might Be Giants released after incorporating a backing band (before this they’d been using drum machines, MIDI synthesizers, and tape recorders); “Subliminal” begins with Linnell’s accordion, an instrument much familiar to anyone who’d heard the previous four albums, and then Brian Doherty comes blasting on the drums, and then Tony Maimone and John Flansburgh come blasting on the bass and guitar – that’s the perfect way to let you know things have changed. The 2002 documentary about the band, Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns), also opens with “Subliminal”, in a live performance at the Polish National Home in August 2001.

Now it’s Marty Beller blasting on the drums, Danny Weinkauf blasting on the bass, and Dan Miller blasting on the guitar – Flansburgh and Linnell still play guitar and accordion on this song respectively. It’s deafening. It’s amazing. I noticed Danny was wearing a shirt promoting his son Kai Weinkauf’s music, which is sweet. Everyone in the front row with me sang along to every word of every song.

When “Subliminal” ended and the crowd cheered wildly, John Flansburgh took the microphone and made the first announcements, with the crowd (myself included) cheering wildly between each sentence:

Good evening everybody! How’s it going? Look at all the beautiful faces of the beautiful people in Asheville, all here together on a Monday night! How is that even possible? There’s no way to explain it!

Ladies and gentlemen, we are They Might Be Giants from Brooklyn, New York, thank you so much for coming to our show! It’s a very special show for me, I started parting my hair on the other side just two days ago. It’s really changed my attitude for the better.

So we’ve got a special program for you tonight, ladies and gentlemen. As we like to say at the beginning of every show, we are doing two sets, it’s ‘an evening with’. We are opening for ourselves!

The crowd cheered, to which Flansburgh responded, “No! Wrong response, treat us like any other opener for the next 45 minutes.” The crowd started booing and jeering (in jest), and Flansburgh encouraged this: “That’s a piece of it, that’s a piece of it! Arms folded, shaking your head, no applause at the end of songs. New rules.”

That’s the thing — the Johns are just really funny guys. They always have been with their onstage banter and otherwise. No one is sacred, not even themselves, and I love them for that. The proceeding back and forth between Linnell and Flansburgh is especially funny, and warranted a laugh track out of us.

Flansburgh continued by announcing the “special program” for the first night in Asheville would be a John Henry show. The crowd erupted at that, and then he admitted, “I came barely close to saying the name of another album.”

Linnell added, “Which would’ve– there would’ve been a lot of explaining to do, because it was Relayer by Yes.”

Flansburgh said, “Just sides two and three. Actually, I don’t know how many sides there are to Relayer.”

Linnell joked, “There’s three sides. I don’t know. It was an expensive pressing.” Flansburgh referenced “that Monty Python one” – The Monty Python Matching Tie and Handkerchief, which actually does have three sides (it achieves this on a single record by way of parallel grooves) — and then he left his digression to address us again, but not before adjusting the settings on his amplifier.

“You gotta get your patented Flans sound,” Linnell remarked, “otherwise people will be disappointed.” Disappointed we wouldn’t be either way, but Flansburgh adjusted the amp, and then they proceeded to play “Snail Shell”, the only single from John Henry.

Hearing “Snail Shell” not only being played at a deafening volume, but also being played by the very same people who wrote it 3 decades ago is a special experience unto itself. Marty Beller’s drums shine on this song; Danny Weinkauf’s bass shook the floor beneath us (and it would continue to do so for the rest of the night); John Flansburgh and Dan Miller’s guitar were ear-piercing and rightfully so; John Linnell sang this song with the same energy he put into it in 1993 when it was written. These guys are senior citizens, and they haven’t lost their spark or their energy.

Once “Snail Shell” ended, they needed not announce the next song, “Out Of Jail”. Even though it’s a relative obscurity, I’d say it garnered a good response. It certainly did out of me — I’d hoped if they were gonna do a John Henry show that they’d play “Out Of Jail”, since I’d been listening to it a lot lately, and I was chuffed as chips when they pulled it out for their THIRD SONG. (I was expecting “Sleeping In The Flowers”, as that’s how the album is sequenced.) Honestly, no song is going to get crickets from the audience, because even if the song is unknown to most people outside of fans who know all the songs, it’s still They Might Be Giants and they still rock. “Out Of Jail” was incredible to see live.

After that, Flansburgh announced that they were “just about to play the slowest song”. That alone told me “Unrelated Thing” was next – and it was. That song was amazing (I have nothing bad to say about the concert itself, really). After that, Linnell stepped out from behind the keyboard, strapped on the accordion, and I had a hunch that “Meet James Ensor” would ensue (my hunches tend to be right 90% of the time), which of course it did. However, this was not before Flansburgh said, “I don’t know why I have nothing to say right now”, so he asked Linnell how he was doing, to which Linnell responded, “I’m running a very slight fever and I’ve got a sore throat, but I don’t want sympathy, I want… some other thing.” So first he arrived here in March and got sick – now here he was again in November, also getting sick. Luckily though, he persevered (the Johns seem to be really resilient), and after Belgium’s famous painter was properly honored, they went straight into “The Famous Polka” – a famous B-side from the famous 1987 Don’t Let’s Start EP – and these two songs work so well as a medley.

That medley went over really well – again, there were audience screams and applauses in between pretty much every song – and so in introducing the next song, Linnell remarked,

So speaking of famous… we do a lot of songs that we think, “This’ll be the single on an album! Everyone’s gonna love this song!” And once in a while, people like a song that we didn’t think anybody would like, for complicated internet reasons. So this one caught us completely off guard.

This unlikely hit was the Nanobots track “Stuff Is Way”, which became a TikTok ‘trend’ because the most unlikely songs just become TikTok ‘trends’. “Stuff Is Way” live was fun – but John Flansburgh was nowhere to be seen. He slipped away offstage, and provided some really cool ghostly call-and-response vocals. When the song was over, he nonchalantly sauntered back onstage and said, “Hello fellow kids!” And after some banter, he announced the next song would come “off our brand new Grammy-losing album” – he’s talking about 2021’s BOOK, which was nominated for the 2023 Grammy award for Best Boxed or Special Limited Edition Package (it lost to a 17-disc Grateful Dead box set) – “and it’s called ‘Synopsis For Latecomers’.”

“Synopsis For Latecomers” is a great opening track which cracks me up (with lyrical references to eating babies and “doodley doodley doodley doo”), and it’s amazing to see it done justice in a live setting, because right in the middle of the song, Dan Levine, Mark Pender, and Stan Harrison came onstage and brought their contribution in the form of an outstanding horn section. Barely any time was given to the audience to applaud their performance when the next song, “No One Knows My Plan”, came barrelling in. A lot of the time when TMBG would perform this song live, they’d urge the audience to form a conga line while they played it (the Johns got this from a formative experience in attending a Brave Combo concert at Irving Plaza in 1984), but I don’t know why they didn’t urge us to form a conga line this time, seeing as The Orange Peel is standing room only.

But maybe the conga line would’ve distracted from the spectacular performance they were putting on. Mark Pender’s face was turning red at hitting all the high notes (and this wouldn’t be the last song where he’d do so). “No One Knows My Plan” was brilliant, and no announcement was needed for the next song “Spy”. “Spy” is a remarkable song in TMBG’s catalog, because there is lots of room for audience participation and improvisation. This performance was no different – “Spy” is great, it’s so fun. There’s a part where the audience just chants, “spy, spy, spy, spy, spy, spy,” and that’s so fun to be a part of. It’s oddly intimate for an audience of 1,000 people. Just after that came the improvisational part of the song, which you just don’t want to end. The improvisational part of “Spy” is just difficult to describe, because in some respects, to get into the minutia of it all would just kind of ruin it… but I'll try. Linnell was conducting the rest of the band this time (at other times Flansburgh would conduct, or they’d both conduct) and amidst a sea of wailing sax and trumpets, atonal synths, and arhythmic pounding drums, Flansburgh triggered a foot pedal that played back a relentless looped sample from Gene Autry’s 1947 recording of “Here Comes Santa Claus”. It wasn’t too far from the Christmas season, so it kind of made sense, but it was so funny. They had that on standby just for one particular part of one song. I love “Spy” because it’s conducive to this kind of messing around.

“Spy” ended as spectacularly as it began, and then John Flansburgh announced that they’d be playing “the last official song from the John Henry album, and after that we’re gonna go free range.”

Really the last song they played from John Henry the whole night, “Dirt Bike” highlights the horns in a really unique way, as they have the entire intro to themselves, and by the time the rest of the band kicks in with that shuffling beat, the horns still have a principal and (literally) instrumental role in the song. After this, the horns made their first exit – they’d be back many times after this, they wouldn’t just do 4 songs and then leave – and then they went into “You Probably Get That A Lot” off 2011’s Join Us. Dan Miller took on keyboard duties for this one, as Linnell provided just vocals. The song rocks.

After this, the band went into a now-famous (and ostensibly mandatory) part of the show: “stelluB”. “stelluB” is the Flood track “Sapphire Bullets Of Pure Love”, but played and sung in reverse (in this performance, the lyrics sound like complete gibberish). The crew films and records them doing just this song, and when the second set starts the performance gets played back to the audience in reverse, so even though it’s being played backwards it sounds how the song was originally written and recorded forwards (and the lyrics being played in reverse sound somewhat like the original lyrics). At the end of this performance, Linnell kicked off his slip-on shoes.

He put them back on in time for what’s listed on the setlist as “MAR•STAN•BUL” – where Marty Beller and Stan Harrison have an extended improvisational duet before the literal show-stopper, They Might Be Giants’ rendition of “Istanbul (Not Constantinople)”. This song has lasted the Johns 38 years since they first put it on their setlist at a 1987 show in Norfolk, Virginia when they just needed more material to extend their set to an hour’s time. Now it’s one of their most well-known songs. “Istanbul” here lasted 7 minutes. Nobody wants “Istanbul” to end, it’s the one that gets the most attention. Around 4 minutes in, Mark Pender had an incredible unaccompanied trumpet solo. At one point, we were encouraged to stomp and clap to maintain a beat for Mark, and that was awesome. Then, he stopped playing his trumpet, and had us just sing the song while stomping and clapping (“Swing it!” I think he said) – it amuses me to think They Might Be Giants saw us perform in that instant. But of course, they couldn’t have it that way for long. Just when we were getting into the groove of it, “why did Constantinople get the works? That’s no–” and then the dramatic sting, more trumpet improvising – this song was not allowed to end naturally. I almost died laughing, that was just breathtaking.

Thus ended the first set.

After 20 minutes’ intermission, the video projection of “stelluB” reversed was played back, and then another old intro that remains epic to this day: “What Nut Intro”, which they’ve been using for 18 years.

A full band arrangement of the Flood track “Dead” (which on the album is Linnell’s multi-layered vocals and a piano, otherwise unaccompanied) played as we in the audience were instructed to turn the flash on our phones on and wave them back and forth. That went into a pleasant enough surprise for me, the Spine song “Memo To Human Resources”. I love the Johns’ vocal dynamic in this song. THEN, from “Memo”, they went right into the Join Us opener “Can’t Keep Johnny Down”. That entire stretch of songs rocked.

Then, Marty made himself seen to us at the front row with a somewhat unfortunate vantage point. I could see John, John, Danny, and Dan, but Marty was obscured by John Linnell’s keyboard. It was nice to see him come out front and center, especially because what he did next was nothing short of brilliant.

Marty not only conducted the horns (using one of his drumsticks as a baton), but when the time came he would ring an old bell cymbal suspended from a rope loop which John Flansburgh described as a “high school gym bell”. The song that warranted this was none other than “Shoehorn With Teeth”, from TMBG’s second album Lincoln. That was wonderful, seeing any Lincoln song live is amazing. They Might Be Giants have been playing “Shoehorn With Teeth” since May of 1987, and 38 years and 6 months later it was just as fresh as when it was new. It’s really great that TMBG have virtually never dropped any songs from their old catalog.

Marty was conducting and ringing the bell, Dan Levine was on euphonium, Mark Pender on trumpet, Stan Harrison on saxophone, and the Johns playing no instruments and singing. This was really fun to see in action.

After “Shoehorn With Teeth”, they went into “Brontosaurus”, also from BOOK. This is really a highlight of their recent catalog. In 2023 they played this song during their appearance on the wonderfully politically incorrect talk show Jimmy Kimmel Live, which is how the song got more well-known – they were spectacular then and they were spectacular now. The horns add so much to this song upon its performance live.

Again, we had little time to process what just happened before they moved on completely. Linnell played curious-sounding stings that are marked on the setlist as “mystery” – giving Flansburgh the perfect music bed to introduce the now-legendary Stick. (It is customary to capitalize it.) The Stick is a particular object that is usually brought out whenever They Might Be Giants play “Lie Still, Little Bottle” (also off of Lincoln), and Flansburgh uses it to keep the time, striking it against the stage floor with every offbeat. The loud thud made by The Stick is resonant because it is hollowed out and several omnidirectional microphones are placed inside. This time, when Flansburgh banged the Stick onto the stage, it sounded like gunshots!

Flansburgh found a particularly good Stick in Australia last year after TMBG had toured there – how he brought it through customs, I don’t know, he said on Tumblr that it was “smuggled” – and when the song was over he said the Stick came out of New Zealand (it quite possibly could have), and jokingly mentioned that the secret to the sound comes by way of the many New Zealand bugs inside of the Stick, spreading diseases here in America. I thought that was insanely funny.

More mystery stings from Linnell as Flansburgh twirled the Stick and put it away backstage. Flansburgh came back, silently motioned for us all in the crowd to quiet down, and it took a few tries but we did. After some shushing and hushedly announcing that the next part of the show would be quieter, he suddenly belted, “WELL LET ME TELL YA ABOUT MY OPERATION!”

“Let Me Tell You About My Operation” is 10 years old – it’s on 2015’s Glean – and hearing it live was great. The horns were blaring. It was brilliant. I felt like I was inside the song.

When that song was over, Dan Miller came forward to the keyboard so Linnell could put his accordion on again – “The Darlings of Lumberland” was next. The three-part harmony between Flansburgh, Linnell, and Miller is delightful.

Upon singing one of the verses, Flansburgh happened to change one of the lyrics – one which goes right before one of Linnell’s accordion riffs, and is self-referential in both instances. The original lyric goes:

Just got my cast off / I’m gonna blast off / A little melody if time permits / Hold my cold dead hand for a bit

And the lyric he sang on this night was:

Just got my cast off / I’m gonna blast off / A little melody from John Linnell / Hold my cold dead hand for a spell

The whole thing was delightful. It must be really well-coordinated, with all the parts going at different tempos, and the hand movements.

Once the song ended, I think this was the point in the show where Flansburgh and Linnell entered a dialogue over whether or not Squid Game or The Hunger Games was the more violent series, and by extension which franchise should the show be more comparable to. This is a bit I knew they used before, but it was fun to participate. In the end, they decided the show was comparable to Squid Game for how violent it was.

They were about to announce the next song, and Flansburgh said, “This one goes out to an album that we put out on Bar/None Records and Tapes”... before Linnell called him out on “dedicating the song to the album”, and another hilarious back-and-forth between the two ensued from there. Eventually, they got to announcing the next song, “Where Your Eyes Don’t Go” (also off of Lincoln), and that was another highlight for me. After that was another BOOK track, “Moonbeam Rays”, which rocked – followed by the Join Us joiner “2082”. Linnell introduced “2082” as “a song about my favorite subject: time travelling into the future and murdering your future self” – which it is, and it’s a great song. Then right after that, with no introduction, came barrelling in another Spine song, “Damn Good Times”, which absolutely rips apart any place. Dan Miller’s guitar solo at the end was manic. Then it went right into “Particle Man”. You just have to. The way TMBG have been doing this song live lately is that they’ve made it a medley, pushing it next to the Sun Ra song “Rocket Number Nine Take Off For The Planet Venus” – except instead of Rocket Number Nine, it’s Triangle Man. These references are admittedly niche… but that’s what we live for, isn’t it?

It was almost time for They Might Be Giants to take off for backstage, but they left us with one more song – a song which I’ve known and loved ever since I was in the 2nd grade: “Birdhouse In Your Soul”. It was nothing short of magical. I couldn’t believe they ended with that. Flansburgh was jumping across the stage as if he was young again, which for someone who broke his ribs 3 years ago is astonishing. Again, the guys are really resilient.

When they exited the stage, we kept screaming. “More!” I shouted, “Come back!” I knew they would, but I guess in my mind I really didn’t want it to end.

They listened to us and came back. I think they save some of the even more special songs for their encores.

The way Linnell announced the next song was:

This is a song about this place.

I heard them rehearsing it during soundcheck, and now here they were, about to do it live. Appropriately enough, the lighting shone bright orange just for this song. Some of the friends I met just outside of this venue had said that they’d never been here before, and so to hear the venue song for the Orange Peel here at the Orange Peel would be very special. It was. There’s just something really magical about a venue song being performed in the space it was originally composed in.

I should also mention that I knew that Linnell had to quickly switch between the accordion (which he plays for most of the song) and the keyboard (which has the Marxophone samples for the instrumental break), so actually seeing him do it was really cool.

After “Asheville”, the horn players came back, and two back-to-back rockers ensued: “Twisting” (off of Flood) and “When Will You Die?” (off of Join Us) – both were so exciting. And the moment was still fleeting. They exited the stage AGAIN, and we kept screaming for more. I shouted, “Don’t go!”

And they didn’t just yet. They came back for a second encore, and proceeded to play one more song: “Doctor Worm”. They ended with that. Just like with “Birdhouse”, seeing “Doctor Worm” live was magical. By the end, Mark Pender’s face was really turning red at hitting every high note so emphatically. The band was bursting with energy, from start to finish. Two hours in heaven.

When the song finally ended, and They Might Be Giants made their final exit, I saw Danny Weinkauf handing people in the front row setlists. Then he left. Marty Beller also came out and handed people in the front row his drum sticks – not before autographing them. He left the stage after handing other fans more setlists. Jon Uleis got a setlist for this show from one of the guitar techs.

Eventually, I got my sound recorder back. People started leaving the venue, which was good because I could see things more clearly. I eventually found the metal gate near the stage, where I handed an assistant the extra DVD copy of Disabled World that I wanted to give to John Flansburgh and John Linnell. She said she couldn’t promise it’d find its way in their hands, but she left it near the stage, so they would see it. I’d like to think it’s theirs now. I didn’t get my DVD copy of Here Come The ABCs signed.

I made my way to the merch table, with $45 in my wallet, ready to support this fantastic band, and the superb and tremendous performance I just witnessed. I saw they had vinyl copies of their albums, signed by the Johns — Mink Car, Beast Of Horns, and the Flood picture disc. These were being sold for $35 plus tax. Well, I only had cash, and the merch table only accepted credit, so I owe gratitude to the guy who stepped in and paid for my order with his card. I gave him my $40 cash, and walked out with a signed copy of Mink Car.

Then I said goodbye to my old and new friends and I walked back to the hotel, where I proceeded to tell everyone about it, including my mom, my sister, and some people who I happen to be on texting terms with: namely former TMBG members Eric Schermerhorn and Hal Cragin. These are people I've interviewed rather extensively and I guess they enjoyed talking to me. Eric said I “deserve it” and that the next time TMBG hits LA that he'll attend a performance. Hal was also delighted – “Good to see those guys… They are always a great show.”

It was them. It was They Might Be Giants. I didn’t want it to end. No one did.

Sometimes I see people online asking if it's socially acceptable for autistic people to carry their stuffed animals around. I'd say go for it. I don't care what anybody else thinks, and a couple people even said “Nice dog” to me. Claude enjoyed the show just as much as I did, so I'm glad I brought him.

This is my testimony, it is true to my memory and the documentary evidence that exists (pictures and recordings). Thank you for reading this. Please go see They Might Be Giants live. You will not regret it. ■

“It was a wonderful show, it was great. It was one of the better ones that I’ve seen, I feel like. It was a good John Henry show. Biggest bummer for me was that there was no ‘End Of The Tour’ in the John Henry portion. It was the same setlist, identical – except for the venue song – actually, to the Cleveland Friday show [at the Agora Theatre, November 21, 2025], the last one that I got to see, so I saw it twice. But it was a good setlist! I enjoyed it a lot. It was funny, because as I mentioned in our initial interview, the Monday show was my birthday, and John Henry actually came out the year that I was born, so I got a birthday album show for my birthday, so that was also a fun little bonus thing!” — Rachel Jones

“The Orange Peel exceeded all expectations as a venue, and you can tell the band really loves playing there. It was a special moment getting to hear its beautiful venue song performed in situ. It's a bummer that Linnell is under the weather (hope he's fully recovered ASAP), but his voice sounded strong and it led to some very funny conversations between the Johns. Would definitely come back to Asheville to do it all again sometime!” — Jon Uleis

“The Orange Peel is just a great stage, great crowd, great energy. The staff is really really nice and helpful. People being nice might be a big part of it. You kind of don’t notice how harsh some venues can be until you get to a nice one.” — John Flansburgh, in a 2012 Tumblr post

---

Special thanks to Jules Bedard, Tony Bedard, Rachel Jones, Jamie Harris, Jon Uleis, Stella, Valerie, Claire, Alex, Heather, Justin Tarleton, Amber, the krewe at the Orange Peel, TMBG’s crew, everyone who attended the concert on 11/17/2025, everyone who filmed videos and posted them on YouTube literally the next day, Eric Schermerhorn, Hal Cragin, and my mom.

Thank you John, John, Dan, Danny, Marty, Dan, Stan, and Mark, for making this night the best of my life.

More next week. Thank you.

-OM

For those who are wondering, the Dave Lindsay tape has not yet been digitized. I have the cord I ordered, that’s no issue; the issue is that I’m trying to fix my Fostex machine, as the tape transport has suddenly stopped working. When I insert a tape (I’m not testing this with Dave’s tape, I’m using an old one I had just in case the tape gets chewed up), the machine grinds to a halt before it completely stops. Same thing when it reverses and fast-forwards. With no tape inside, these functions work fine. I’ve replaced the belts for new ones. I’ve blown the internals with compressed air. I’ve cleaned the heads, capstan, and pinch roller. I believe the problem is that the lubricated parts have become hardened. This is a common problem, and the internet has informed me that the solution is: white lithium grease for plastic parts, and sewing machine oil for metal parts. I found white lithium grease very easily at Walmart in the hardware section.

In short, the reason why it’s taking so long for me to digitize Dave’s tape is that I’m waiting for my order of sewing machine oil to come in.

So I thought I’d give you something else. Sorry it’s short today (in fact the end notes are longer than the main text, oops). I promise you, more will come next week. Until then, in celebration of the Artemis II space mission, I want to talk about the song “Destination Moon” — track 13 on They Might Be Giants’ 5th album John Henry [1994].

John Linnell wrote “Destination Moon” in 1993, when a lot of the songs for their 5th studio album were written and first introduced. The band first demoed the song in July 1993 at Excello Studio in Brooklyn,¹ when they had a few weeks off from performing live — it was only demoed and not recorded because the band was getting used to performing with a backing band in the studio. They had been touring with a backing band consistently for just one year. The John Henry album was recorded completely from the ground up at Bearsville Studio in Bearsville, New York (and some tracks at Skyline Studio in Manhattan, where TMBG had recorded Flood), from December 1993 to January 1994.

It may be difficult to tell whether John Linnell is referencing Destination Moon, the 1950 film, or “Destination Moon”, the 1962 song by Dinah Washington², or both — both the film and the song are about a rocket ship heading to the moon. The lyrics allude to the Raymond Scott Quintet’s 1950 song “By Rocket To The Moon” (of course, this is not the first time TMBG have referenced Raymond Scott’s music), and there are of course commonalities between TMBG’s and Dinah Washington’s respective “Destination Moon” songs.

Unlike their previous 4 albums, which were recorded using drum machines, synthesizers, and computers, most of the album John Henry was recorded with real musicians, but “Destination Moon” is one of two songs on the entire 20-track album that contains computer sequenced music. Linnell said:

We only did two songs with sequencing: “Destination Moon,” in the middle section there’s a brief moment of synth stuff that’s not humanly playable, and then in “Snail Shell,” it’s part drum machine and part human being.³

The Johns haven’t really talked much about “Destination Moon”, which has contributed to it being one of the less well-known songs on John Henry. That’s a shame, it’s a really fun upbeat song.

John Henry came out 8 years before I was born. I listen to “Destination Moon” now, having grown up in the 2000s, and I think, “This sounds like it could have been a song from Little Einsteins,⁴ were it not for the loud drums and guitars in there.”

More next week. To the astronauts of Artemis II, godspeed; to the rest, thank you.

-OM

NOTES AND CITATIONS

1. This, and 18 other demos of songs which would end up on John Henry, was released on an album called John Henry Demos — released in 2012 as a fan club exclusive, and in 2018 to the public.

2. The very first episode of Ira Glass’ solo radio show on WBEZ in Chicago, Your Radio Playhouse (“New Beginnings”, aired November 17, 1995), features Dinah Washington’s “Destination Moon”, as the very first interstitial song between segments — at the end of the episode he says most of the music used therein was taken from the record library of Steve Cushing (host of WDCB’s Blues Before Sunrise). The music in between this show ever since would become very important in linking two similarly-themed segments together.

   Incidentally, the very first guest Ira had on his show was TV talk show pioneer Joe Franklin, in a 6-minute phone interview where he sought out advice on starting a new radio show. Joe Franklin is the man who, in 1985, gave They Might Be Giants a spot on The Joe Franklin Show where they made their very first nationally televised appearance. In November 1995 Ira said he got the idea to interview Joe Franklin from David Isay’s book and CD Holding On — but in January 2026 in an interview with me, he said that he got the idea because he heard David Isay’s story on Joe Franklin in an episode of NPR’s All Things Considered (aired September 8, 1991). Either way, it wasn’t hard for him to just ask David Isay for Joe Franklin’s phone number; ever the “publicity-friendly man”, as Ira describes, Joe happily agreed to an interview. Joe Franklin appeared again on Ira’s show on its 17th episode, “Name Change / No Theme” (aired March 21, 1996), where Your Radio Playhouse offically became This American Life. This episode is also the first to feature a They Might Be Giants song as an interstitial between segments — they used “Hey Mr. DJ, I Thought You Said We Had A Deal”, from their 1991 compilation Miscellaneous T, and played it in its entirety.

   Both Ira Glass and Joe Franklin would eventually appear in interviews filmed in 2001 for AJ Schnack’s documentary about They Might Be Giants, Gigantic (A Tale Of Two Johns), which premiered at South By Southwest in 2002 and was released on DVD in 2003. Unfortunately, 24 years on, Ira could not remember being interviewed for Gigantic.

3. “Giant Step-Time: Computers in the Life of They Might Be Giants”, John Poultney, Music and Computers, July/August 1996.

4. I’m doing deep research on all programming aired on the Disney Channel’s preschool morning block Playhouse Disney, because when They Might Be Giants start recording music for their shows (Higglytown Heroes premiered in September 2004), and when they start having their videos from Here Come The ABCs air there in January 2005 (and Here Come The 123s even later), I need to contextualize everything that has come before and since. (It’s also a nostalgia thing. I was born in 2002.)

   Little Einsteins ran on Playhouse Disney from October 2005 to December 2009. Four kids — Leo, Quincy, June, and Annie — zoom through the sky in a rocket ship that takes them through centuries’ worth of famous works of art and classic musical compositions. It sounds niche now to think that a kids’ TV show about music theory could ever hit the airwaves, but it worked. It was very popular in the 2000s. People like me, who grew up with it, still have fond memories of viewing it — when my sister was a baby she had dolls of Annie and June.

   Anyways, with the whole rocket ship theme, you can see why I’d think sometimes that “Destination Moon” would fit right in, although much of the music that Billy Straus had composed for Little Einsteins isn’t exactly rock.

   Now that I mention that, Billy Straus has a connection to Brian Doherty, the drummer on John Henry. In October 1993, They Might Be Giants had a couple weeks off from touring, and Brian was fulfilling other gigs. By this point, he was a founding member (and the first drummer) of the Ben Folds Five. One day, he got a phone call from David Yazbek (who was under the belief he was talking to J.D. Feinberg, TMBG’s first touring drummer, who Brian had recently replaced), asking him to come in for a session with XTC. Andy Partridge had written several songs for a project called The 12 Flavors of Hercules, which was an aborted album that was to contain songs purported to be performed by bubblegum pop bands in the 1970s, in a compilation of songs from the (fictional) Hercules label — XTC were really into the idea of performing under various pseudonyms, but Virgin Records weren’t into this idea if they couldn’t promote it the way they wanted to, so it was shelved and its songs were repurposed. One of those songs, “Cherry In Your Tree”, was recorded for inclusion on a CD tie-in to the PBS game show Where In The World Is Carmen Sandiego?, called Carmen Sandiego: Out Of This World [released March 29, 1994]. So Brian Doherty went to Studio A of Kampo Cultural Center in Manhattan (TMBG would record there later), where Billy Straus was the engineer for this particular session.

   Incidentally, Garo Yellin of The Ordinaires played the cello on this song.

   Also incidentally, David Yazbek remembered that when Brian was done tracking his drums, the members of XTC huddled together, and then Colin Moulding remarked, “That’s one for the address book.” This means that if XTC wanted to record an album soon after this, they would’ve called on Brian Doherty. They didn’t end up doing that (their next album, Apple Venus Volume 1 [1999], features Prairie Prince on drums), but Brian still has a fond memory of the one session where he played with XTC — and for a man who would go on to play drums on a song called “XTC vs. Adam Ant”, that’s not bad at all!

   The fact that all these people are as interconnected as they are just makes researching this story all the more fun and interesting.

I want to tell you about what happened yesterday, and some of the events leading up. A while ago, I mentioned that I was in touch with Dave Lindsay, and he was going to give me a demo tape which he recorded on a Fostex 4-track cassette recorder, in which one of the songs was co-written and co-performed with John Linnell, c. 1983. Well…

In my ongoing quest to find people who have something new to say about John Flansburgh and John Linnell (and promptly contacting and interviewing them), I found out about the bassist and writer Dave Lindsay. They will always remember him for his specific unique contribution to the band’s formation, in a short-lived 1981-82 trio called Brave New Whales. The lineup for Brave New Whales was:

• John Flansburgh, guitar

• Dave Lindsay, bass

• John Linnell, keyboards

Accounts vary on just how many songs were in BNW’s repetoire (some sources say 3, others say 5), but three songs which have been confirmed are “Cowtown” and “Cabbagetown” (co-written by Flansburgh and Linnell), and “Slow Ambulance To Heaven” (written by Lindsay). A key aspect that often gets overlooked, though, is that without Dave Lindsay, Flansburgh and Linnell might not have thought about forming a band. It could have been possible, but this is the way things went down.

JL, 1990: When we decided to put a band together it was because there was this bass player who lived in the building we were both living in in Brooklyn. He said, ‘Let’s make a band.’ John and I would never have admitted that that was something we actually wanted to do, but suddenly it seemed groovy. We never performed, but we felt like a band because we practiced our three songs over and over.¹

I inteviewed Dave Lindsay on January 19, 2026. This is why I have to remember that I love what I’m doing: I’m learning all this new information that nobody else has ever got before. Just a few revelatory things Dave told me:

• Dave Lindsay, a.k.a. Allolo Trehorn, came up with the Klezmatics’ name (and he’s still good friends with trumpeter Frank London).

• A lot of the names credited in Flansburgh and Bill Krause’s 1985 zine Art In Context are pseudonyms for Dave Lindsay. There are some notable contributions by one “Franz Heidler” for his cousin Arto, and for Flans and Linnell’s group They Might Be Giants.

• In 1984, Dave had a one-man-band solo act called John Henry.

And, most revelatory of all, is that he had co-written a song with John Linnell that nobody else had ever even heard about. It’s called “In Bathtub World”. It was written and recorded in 1983. That year, when John, John, and Dave moved out of the Park Slope apartment in Brooklyn that they had all lived in since 1981, they split ways; the Johns moved to an apartment in Fort Greene, and Dave had relocated to Jamaica Plain in Boston. Sometimes the Johns would visit Dave, and on one occasion when Linnell visited him, they decided to co-write this song in the Exquisite Corpse style,² and of course they made a recording of it.

Naturally, I wanted to hear it.

There was a format war with the recording tape industry, and consumers had a lot of choices as far as 4-track home cassette recorders go. Fostex was just one of many companies manufacturing and distributing cassette recorders; their machines ran at twice the speed of a normal cassette tape, meaning if you tried listening to it in a regular tape deck not only would you hear just 2 of 4 tracks, you’d also hear the recording significantly slowed down. This creates a problem for us now, in the era of digital-only file sharing and music streaming. Physical media will never die, but it will probably become outdated and obsolete. The Fostex tape that Lindsay and Linnell recorded “In Bathtub World” on is one of those obsolete formats. He also said that relatively recently, he got in touch with Linnell and asked him if he or anybody he knows could play the tape, to which Linnell said no.

I told him I wanted to have a go at digitizing the tape.

And of course, the 21st century effect of the late 20th century’s format war is, I had to buy a specific machine just for one express purpose. But this just shows you how far I’m willing to go in order for my books to be as concise as possible.

Earlier in March, I made a fast friend in a musician and fellow TMBG fan named Lucy Thorkelson, who reads this blog (hi!) and messaged me. She records some really rockin’ songs with her band on a Fostex 4-track tape machine, and she offered to help me digitize Dave Lindsay’s tape. I told her that I really appreciated that, and that I’d call upon her if, for whatever reason, I couldn’t do it.

I got a used Fostex X-24 machine for $60 online.

Dave’s family lives in Buncombe County, North Carolina, and sometimes he passes through my hometown of Hendersonville to get there. This meant that he didn’t necessarily have to mail me the tape, as I had initially thought things would go; instead, he’d literally just hand the tape to me in person.

I suggested we meet up for coffee, and he agreed. We settled on 2 PM on April 1 (yesterday) — no joke. I told him about a really neat local coffee shop in downtown Hendo called Black Bear Coffee Co., which sits snugly among the geology museum, the music store, the bookstore, the ‘50s style diner, and many boutiques. Downtown Hendo is great, and if you’re ever here please check it out.

I don’t drive, so my close friend and roommate Jules drove me there, and she sat in with us. We met perfectly on schedule, at the expected time, at the expected place. Things went completely without a hitch. I can honestly say that for an in-person interview (which I’m not exactly used to, as most of my interviews have been done via phone calls and Zoom meetings), it went very well.

Black Bear Coffee Co. has several specially crafted lattes to choose from. They’re all pretty good, but my favorite one is the Cozy Cub: brown sugar syrup, white chocolate sauce, cinnamon, and nutmeg. I love the sweeter, more substantial side of lattes, and this one hits every single button. When I’m interviewing someone, I want to honor them and show them how much I appreciate their contribution to this story, so I went and ordered Dave his black coffee. (I want this to be a trend!)

We joked and laughed, we had rich conversations, we had a really good time.

I felt compelled to tell him about The Incident. (If you don’t know, I detailed “The Incident” in the previous They Thursday post.) I think that is exactly what I needed to do.³ Dave really helped me process my feelings, and he could totally relate to my nervousness in the moment in which The Incident occurred.

We talked about the tape. There it was, sitting on the wooden table. I thought ahead of time and brought my Fostex machine and a pair of headphones along with me, so that Dave could hear the tape for the first time in over 4 decades. When he did, he pointed out that my machine was playing the tape too fast, even on its slowest speed setting. All that means is I have to slow the recording down digitally.

I decided to bring my tablet along and show him some pictures that could help jog his memory. My friend Jon Uleis lives just a short walk away from the Park Slope apartment, so a few years ago he just snapped a photo of it. That was one photo I showed Dave, who remembers 3rd Street to this day. He pointed out that sometime after the ‘80s they had the front door replaced, and he also told me that when he and the Johns lived there in 1981-83 the building was owned by an older lady who was letting her son live there. After this, we were just talking about writing books and what goes into that.

By the end of this meeting, I asked him to sign my cassette copy of Lincoln, for his contributions to the song “Cowtown” alone (I’m still a fan, after all) — and he did.

I want to conduct more in-person interviews and get them to sign my albums so I can eventually accumulate exclusive copies of these albums with all these people’s autographs. After all, I think it’s a good idea.

We all walked to his car just before he had to leave, and I talked to him about my short film Disabled World, which he saw on YouTube (and enjoyed), and I decided to give him an extra copy I had on DVD.⁴ (There are only 8 limited-edition copies of this DVD in existence. Soon I’ll make more.)

This left me in a good mood for the rest of the day, and I still feel really good about making this happen. Obviously I’m going back to writing They Thursday posts, but this meeting has revitalized my efforts in the book. It’s gonna happen.

Now, about that tape.

It’s in my hands now. It’s still Dave’s property, but for the time being I have access to it. I haven’t digitized it yet, because all I need at this point is a cord that goes from an auxiliary input to a USB input. I quickly ordered that on Amazon for $6, and it’s coming in the mail tomorrow. I plan on not only digitizing each song in full, but also each of the 4 individual tracks on the tape, so I can see what’s on each track. Next week, I’m going to let you know what’s on the tape!

Thank you.

-OM, from a 2009 MacBook laptop.

NOTES AND CITATIONS

1. “What do Giants eat?”, Karen Catchpole, Sassy, March 1990.

2. The lyric sheet (which I have included in a previous installment of They Thursday) is revelatory in and of itself, because we now know that Linnell recycled phrases; “and when it’s so / there’s this to know” was reused in “The Bells Are Ringing” (1996), and “like a broken record” was reused in “Ana Ng”. In 2023, Bandbox reissued TMBG’s second album Lincoln on vinyl, with a track-by-track booklet called Everything Sticks Like A Broken Record, so even these days they still harken back to the days with Dave Lindsay.

3. 26,000 people saw me embarrass myself in front of my musical heroes, so The Incident is probably lolcow legend by now, and is the reason why I’m now using a pen name. I’ve told other people about The Incident, including former TMBG members Eric Schermerhorn and Hal Cragin, who have become very good friends of mine. Eric let me know that he thought the Johns were “actually really interested in what [I was] saying, but those other guys were trying to be mean”, and Hal let me know that he felt I was “a very thoughtful and deep thinker about people”, and that he “know[s] from experience that the Johns are very sensitive to their fans and while distant in some ways, they understand their audience very well.” These people knew the Johns longer than I’ve even been alive. I’m gonna trust what they have to say.

4. I also had an extra DVD copy of Disabled World that I wanted the Johns to have. I left it with a member of the krewe at The Orange Peel in Asheville when I saw TMBG in concert there on 11/17/2025, and she let me know that though she couldn’t promise the Johns would see it, she’d leave it in a prominent place near the stage where the Johns would see it. When The Incident happened, I asked them if they got the DVD. Tim Heidecker thought I was asking him, so he answered my question which was meant for the Johns. I still don’t know if they actually got it or not. I’d like to think they did. More people have seen The Incident than have seen Disabled World. You can remedy that by watching it here: https://tinyurl.com/DisabledWorld2024

Tim Heidecker’s livestreamed call-in podcast Office Hours isn’t exactly my cup of tea. I loved him in Tim and Eric Awesome Show, Great Job!, but Office Hours isn’t how I like to listen to people being interviewed. (NPR is more my speed.) However, They Might Be Giants were guests on Office Hours once in 2023, so I have to take their testimony which they give in that specific episode into account, because I have to take all testimonies they give into account for the books I’m writing about them in a multi-volume series called They Might Be Giants: Time Is Marching On.

On March 16, with the release of their latest single “Outside Brain”, I learned through the main page on This Might Be A Wiki that John Linnell and John Flansburgh would be appearing on Office Hours again in 2026 for a St. Patrick’s Day special. An idea shot into my head like a signal dashing through a fibre optic cable: call in and talk about their Irish connections. There are already so many that I’ve come across:

• Brian Doherty and Graham Maby, two former members of They Might Be Giants, are of Irish descent,

• Richard O’Connor and Brian O’Connell, co-founders of Asterisk which animated some music videos for TMBG in the 2000s, are also of Irish descent. O’Connor even spent a year from 2015 to 2016 studying abroad at Trinity College in Dublin.

• The biggest one: Flansburgh himself is of Irish descent. This goes two ways — one through his paternal grandmother and the Evanses, and another through his maternal grandfather and the Hospitals. My current theory is that both Richard J. Evans and Andrew Hospital, the first of their families to immigrate to the United States, came here from Ireland in the 1840s amidst the potato famine, if not earlier. Further genealogical research is warranted.

This would be the perfect opportunity for me to have a conversation with the Johns, even if it was to be a short one. I understand the format of a call-in show, and from the start I took into account the fact that I couldn’t be hogging up the phone line, even though I could talk with both of the Johns for hours about everything I’ve ever found.

So the next day, March 17, was the big day, and I was prepared.

Before this, back in January I interviewed Ira Glass, the host of This American Life, and talked about his connections to the band. I’m a fan of This American Life. Unlike most of my interviews, in which I initiate the phone call, Ira was to call me. As you can imagine, I was really nervous. I tried not to be; I took some deep breaths, tried to ground myself in my line of questioning, and then the unexpected happened. Ira had to delay the call for 15 minutes because he was in a meeting that he didn’t expect would go over schedule. This was perfectly alright by me; I could have used more time to prepare myself, anyways. But then he called me earlier than I then expected (later than the original scheduled times, but earlier than 15 minutes after), and I froze. It got bad. I fumbled some questions, confused one book for another. There were mic issues and Ira hung up on me and I had to call him back. I deviated from my original line of questioning and I don’t believe I’m going to have a second chance. This is not how 90% of my interviews go. Ira was great, he was very nice about it and gave me some good answers, despite my nervousness. But on my part, that was a major fuckup, and it wouldn’t happen again.

Well, I didn’t deviate from my original line of questioning again.

I didn’t watch the livestream on YouTube; I wanted to be one of the first callers in so I could be ensured a spot on the queue, so I was listening to the first 80 minutes of this show on my phone. (Oh yeah, my call dropped twice amongst all this.) And I knew what to expect from an edition of Office Hours, so I found it kind of enjoyable at first. I was jiving along until, during the first call they took, Weird Al Yankovic showed up. Completely unannounced, he just walked in and from then on it was a joint interview with Weird Al and They Might Be Giants. Most people would see this as the coolest unlikely crossover that ever happened, but it just wrecked me. If I’d have known he would show up, I’d have at least prepared a question for him. Or maybe I could’ve had one question for each of the guests, three total. But that didn’t happen. Al would go on to be marginalized in my line of questioning simply because I didn’t take surprise guests into account, and he plays no further role in my testimony herein.

About 77 minutes in, my call was taken, and before I knew it I was in the nerve-wracking position of being on the air.

I had a lead-in to my question — aimed at Flansburgh, I’d have asked him about his maternal grandfather Ralph Hospital (a brigadier general who served in both World Wars), and how much he remembers about him, as Ralph died when John was 12 — but I did want it to be known, apropos to St. Patrick’s Day, that TMBG had those Irish links which I listed above. Just as a lead-in to the question. Was that long-winded? Yes, but this is a very special occasion that I’m probably never going to have again, now that I think about it. I will probably never have the opportunity to interview the Johns in depth, so any sliver of a morsel of a conversation that I can have with either of them means everything to me. Also, it’s a holiday.

Everything seemed to be going OK at first. I felt compelled to tell them I’m writing a book about them, because it’s only right that they know. As I was listing out those facts as the prelude to my question, Tim Heidecker interrupted me and compared me to Mark David Chapman, as a joke in regard to my obsessiveness. Mark David Chapman is the man who shot and killed John Lennon in 1980.

For me, only one band subordinates They Might Be Giants. The Beatles. Both bands have perfect discographies. Both bands have especially intriguing histories. Both bands have made music that function as emotional safety nets that make me feel happy again.

Other people may have found it funny, but the comparison to Mark David Chapman jostled me, to say the very least. I’m not the least bit alien to being insulted and bullied. I was terrorized in school by classmates, teachers, and staff members. I’ve been cyberbullied. Ableist shit still happens to me sometimes, even in the current decade. These are scars that I still bear. Pardon me for being a bit sensitive to getting mocked.

At least I know how to deal with it; in the moment, I laughed and played along — literally grinning and bearing it, otherwise I would’ve just broke down on the air. Then Tim started rushing me. I completely understand why: this is a call-in show, I have to make room for more callers. But as I said before, I took that into account as soon as I was preparing my line of questioning. It was unnecessary.

Eventually, I was finally able to ask John Flansburgh the question I was just about to ask him, and right as he was getting started on answering my question (he got as far as “it was the Vietnam War”), the conversation completely devolved. I didn’t even get a full answer. For the rest of the episode, “writing a book about someone” would become a metaphor analogous to obsessive stalking and harassment. I don’t know how else to say that I have no intention of scaring or hurting anyone I’ve ever talked to or researched in the last 4 years, but please believe me when I say I mean well. I really want to know more about this band I love, and I think everyone should. I have a distinct honor and privilege as a biographer, and I try not to take that for granted.

Being the host and having the most airtime, Tim’s comments will influence the Johns’ perception of me. Tim has control of the narrative as long as it’s his show and he gets to one-up everyone. I’m sure the Johns must now think of me as some creepy weird stalker or something. Linnell has been stalked before, so he’s probably on high alert because of Tim’s assumptions about me. I was laughing during the call, but by the time the show was over I was crying my eyes out. I was devastated. I think I might’ve fucked it up for life. I can’t even listen to their music right now. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again: the thing that attracts us to They Might Be Giants’ music is that it is so welcoming and unjudgmental, and it makes us misfits finally belong somewhere. The one place I’ve ever felt like I truly belonged somewhere was standing in line outside of The Orange Peel in Asheville, talking with fellow fans about this band I’m so passionate about. Tim’s remarks at my expense are the opposite of that; it was a mean-spirited, alienating, insulting joke. After I hung up and stuck around for the YouTube livestream, he made a comment about steering clear of North Carolina (my home state) for a while.

Really, more than anything, the Mark David Chapman comment is what’s killing my drive right now. Tim’s comedy is driven by insults and absurdism — these are things that I thought I liked, until I became the butt of the joke. In my opinion, the only thing I found funny is what John Linnell said to me about Ralph Hospital being called General Hospital (in clear reference to General Hospital, the famous long-running medical drama soap opera on TV, which was on by the end of General Ralph Hospital’s lifetime).

I don’t want to hold any of Tim’s words against him. It was very mean. I guess insult comedy isn’t my favorite thing. But I can’t be ugly back. I don’t want to insult Tim Heidecker just because he made me the butt of a really ugly and discouraging joke. I just think writing it down, documenting it, and making it known is what I should do. I don’t demand anything in return other than total understanding of where I’m coming from and what this project even is.

Okay, this one merits a bit of explanation because the question I posed at the end of my call is intended to serve a real purpose. I always close every interview I conduct with, “Is there anything you’d like to ask me?” as a way to turn it over to the guest. It is crucial that the guest knows that they have a say in how this story is ultimately going to be shaped. It’s not just me being egotistical or whatever.

I’ve had concerns about my ability to take on the role of biographer, specifically regarding my mental capacity, for years. I have autism, ADHD, depression, anxiety, and PTSD. Mental illnesses like schizophrenia and dementia run in my family. I’m not saying this to garner sympathy, I’m just saying this because this is something I’ve seriously considered regarding my actual ability to work on a project. Sometimes, in the worst moments, I can convince myself that I’m mentally unfit to do this. The Mark David Chapman comment really only makes it worse. I’m considering passing this project off to somebody else.

I first started asking around if anyone would be willing to write a book about They Might Be Giants around three years ago, as I wasn’t exactly planning on doing it myself. Nobody seemed up for it. Eventually, I decided I’d be up for it, and I took it on basically because nobody else did, but I really do want to give They Might Be Giants the contextual history that they deserve. The problem lies therein: how am I gonna lob this off to someone else if I started this project because nobody else wanted to take on the task?

Please be patient and just continue waiting for the books, as I will see this project out to the end. Right now though, I’m trying to take a break. The Big Detox. I need it.

More in due time. Thank you.

-CM

Beta-read by Arlo, Tony Bedard, Jennifer Rotella, and Jon Uleis. Thanks to ES, HC, and my mom.

This will just be an update to last week’s post, specifically concerning the Dave Breese cassette and the Record-a-Call 675 answering machine repair.

There isn’t much of an update regarding the former. I sent the Braille Circulating Library an email requesting the How to Be a Good Christian cassette 6 days ago, and haven’t yet received a reply. I suppose they’re busy — best to keep waiting for the moment.

But I have a lot to update you on as far as the answering machine is concerned!

I did something that, through the 23 years in which They Might Be Giants operated the original incarnation of Dial-a-Song with Record-a-Call answering machines, they seemingly never did: I fixed the machine. John Flansburgh frequently bought replacements (in AJ Schnack’s film Gigantic (A Tale of Two Johns) he shows one in his home studio that he bought secondhand for only $2); Mike Buffington estimates that they went through “approximately 30” units.

For me, it all started yesterday afternoon, when I received my order of an assortment of square rubber drive belts for cassette players in the mail.

Once I got these, it was time to buckle down and get serious.

I ordered this Record-a-Call 675 answering machine on eBay back in November. The days of being able to find these things secondhand for only $2 are sadly a quarter century gone, as mine cost $34. I knew it wasn’t working, as indicated in the eBay listing (working units cost at least $100 nowadays), so I let it sit around for a few months (it was the holidays, and then I was busy still after that). Now that I had these belts, though, I couldn’t just let this thing sit around while I did something else. It’s my machine, and I wanted to make this baby work again so I could enjoy poking around on it for my research on Dial-a-Song.

The first step was flipping the unit over and locating the 8 screws on the bottom. Thankfully, not only are they clear, they’re even labelled.

Yes, it does say “do not remove case” and “no user servicable parts inside”, but that never stopped me!

By the way, here is the written information on the bottom.

So, this case uses three different sizes of screws to keep it secure.

This got me inside. This was probably the hardest part of the entire operation; I had to break out a big Phillips head screwdriver to get the most stubborn screws out.

I got the unit open, and I could see where the belt drive was! I had to get this circuit board out of the way. This board was held by two golden screws with nuts.

Once I got these out, I was able to open the unit further, and locate the belt drive mechanism.

At this point, the only thing holding the circuit board and the rest of the unit together were three ribbon cables. I promptly disconnected those, and then I removed this faulty belt.

You can see how, quite literally, this belt has become bent out of shape over time. I don’t know when the last time the belt on this particular unit was replaced, if it was even replaced at all — clearly, the eBay seller didn’t attempt to change it. Of course, not a lot of people know how to change a drive belt these days. This really was my first time doing this.

I emptied out all the belts from one of the two identical bags that I ordered. Initially, I thought the biggest of these would be too small…

…until I decided to try fitting it anyways, and it proved to be a perfect fit. I spun these gears around a couple times to ensure that this mechanism could move freely.

In case you’re curious, this is the circuit board itself. I have an elementary knowledge of the different kinds of chips (I’ve never done soldering before), but judging from what we can see there’s a pretty interesting mix of Japanese-made and American-made components here. I hope someone makes a schematic of this!

Then, it was just a job of screwing everything back together.

I did it. I replaced the belt mechanism in something. The only thing left to do at this point was to see whether it worked.

So, I plugged the answering machine in, using the original power adapter.

And when you’re testing an answering machine like this, there really is only one tape you can use to test it with…

And it worked. I made the Record-a-Call 675 work. Now I can listen to They Might Be Giants songs the way many fans would have long before I was born.

And, as a bonus, now I have the experience, and a big bag of belts that I can reach into whenever I have to fix this thing again.

There’s been a bit of a debate lately surrounding the name Brave New Whales. In my previous They Thursday post, I talked about Dave Lindsay, and the trio he briefly formed with John Flansburgh and John Linnell — that short-lived group was certainly called Brave New Whales. However, I and many others were also initially under the impression that the Johns called themselves that way back in the 1970s, when they were recording their very first demos. The wiki says their now-famous recording of Yoko Ono’s “Don’t Worry Kyoko (Mummy’s Only Looking For Her Hand In The Snow)”, the Johns’ very first recording together, was “possibly” recorded under the name Brave New Whales. In the article for that song, it is said that “At around this time, the duo named themselves The Brave New Whales”, with a citation to an article that was printed in The Honolulu Advertiser on November 7, 1990 called “They Might Be Giants (but they’re musicians)”, written by one Wayne Harada. This is what one paragraph in that article says as far as covering their origin story:

The two Johns were pals working together on a high school newspaper in Brooklyn when they met and turned to music instead of journalism. In their first incarnation, they were known as The Brave New Whales. They had a whale of a time playing together, but never recorded anything.

Now, in trying to relay information that the interview subjects give, sometimes reporters prove to be fallible, and they just make errors. (Don’t even get me started on Cori Taratoot’s article for American Eagle in 1988, where she totally switches Flansburgh and Linnell’s quotes from their names.) We know that Flansburgh and Linnell went to high school in Lincoln, not Brooklyn. Plus, this origin story may be jumping around in time, going from 1976 in one sentence to 1982 in the next. Though details inserted in articles like this may be obviously wrong to people like us who know better, it seems like the other things that are revelations that come through those articles aren't so obvious. I emailed David Lindsay regarding this yesterday, and here’s what he had to say:

I remember being the one who came up with the name, which would date it, but it’s not a hill I would die on. It could have been some previous name they used or already had in their heads. Or something we made up all talking together. I guess the only way to know that would be to ask one of them. Of course they might not be sure either.

My theory is that Brave New Whales formed very briefly in 1982, and that the Johns probably didn’t use that name in the 1970s. We don’t know what band name they recorded their first demos under, if any, because we don’t have their first demos. I’ve seen and heard a 1983 demo that was labelled under Circle Gets The Square, another prospective band name they used (not to mention Dumptruck), but they’ve been using They Might Be Giants since 1983 so maybe they were still deciding on what to even call themselves — perhaps it wasn’t set in stone. After all, for their very first live performance together on July 18, 1982, they went as El Grupo de Rock and Roll, a name which was virtually foisted upon them just for that one performance. Dave Lindsay was not in the band at that point — which also leads me to believe that Brave New Whales was so brief that it only lasted within the first half of 1982. The reason why Brave New Whales broke up is that Flansburgh really wanted to write pop songs, and that collided with Linnell and Lindsay’s experimental approach.

David Lindsay and John Linnell co-wrote “Bathtub World” around 1982-1983, in Jamaica Plain, Massachusetts. Dave sent me a picture of the tape box, and it was not recorded as Brave New Whales. There, by the way, his writing indicates that particular demo was recorded c. 1984. I haven’t heard it yet, so I can’t say anything else for sure.

Also, a fan more astute than me named Valerie (I met her in Asheville in November 2025 when I saw They Might Be Giants at The Orange Peel) noticed that some lyrics of “Bathtub World” are not only reused in “Ana Ng”, like I noticed, but some more lyrics are reused in “The Bells Are Ringing” from Factory Showroom — “and when it’s so, there’s this to know” is the recycled phrase. Thank you Valerie.

(Jon Uleis sends me screenshots from the TMBW Discord server. I see your reception, and I thank you all for your interest.)

More next week. Thank you.

-CM