the sender's name is "They Might Be Giants (Through Yahoo! Store Order System)"

Thanks, Cronny! I'll check it out when I get home.

BigJohn

man, i hope it took.

*grins daftly* I remember when I got that e-mail update.. I laughed myself silly for a good five minutes or so after I read the very first line. Just 'cause it was my friend Sylvia who convinced her dad (Mr. Kates) to do something business-like with Flansy again (they used to be buds).. ahah, and when had them over at his apartment for dinner afterwards (them = Flans and Robin), it somehow came up in conversation that his daughter and her friend were in fact rabid fans of TMBG.. and Flans made some amusing remark along the lines of making certain he didn't have any run-ins with us.

Anywhoo, I still need to poke Sylvi-yarr into giving me a copy of that interview, because I don't have an XM Radio and couldn't listen in. Blast.

i am stunned now.

Why so? Didn't I tell you guys before that my best friend's dad went to HS with the Johns? *scratches her head* I guess not, that must've been when I was all uber-paranoid about saying such things, because people would be, "OMG reeeally?" and try to pry stuff out of me. And out of respect for Mr. Kates, I'd rather not be party to that. But yeah, that's why I had one of those demo tapes (which I could've sworn I posted a picture of on here. If not, I'll dig it up and show you guys. ) and such.. hell, when I asked Flans to sign it after the Brooklyn concert he was confused too, he was all like, "Where did you get this? I don't even think I have one of these anymore.."

ooh! are you up for making copies?

i guess you never mentioned it, cuz if you did i don't think i would have forgotten. that is very cool.

Ahh, I suppose I didn't then. Well, here's the stuff that the infinitely nice Mr. Kates gave to me ~ *whips out old files of her beauties that she scanned in when she got back from NYC the first time <3*

The demo tape (he had five of these stuffed in a box alongside all his other tapes.. apparently Flans had given them to him with instructions to distribute them, a waaay long time ago obviously, but he'd forgotten all about it until I came to visit and brought Gigantic with me , which he'd never gotten around to seeing before. It was funny watching it with him and Sylvia.. because he would like, remember things they were referring to and make random comments about it, and would pause it a couple times to tell us stories related to what was going on. But yeah, went he saw the bit mentioning the demo tapes, he was all like, "Oh! Whoa, I have some of those..") :





The Don't Lets Start mini-CD EP (Another bit of awesomeness he had and passed along to me. ^^ This I no longer have, however. ;__; I kept it in the back of my CD case, which got stolen during my Sophomore year.. nor the tape, I kept in the front pockets. It was one of those 46 CD zip-up carrying cases.. and I like lived out of that thing. I had confetti from shows and a Flans guitar pick in the pockets, too, and some rings/jewelry, Magic the Gathering cards, mini Pokemon figurines and other miscellaneous personal belongings. Amoung other CDs (the case was completely full), in there was all of my normal TMBG CDs (all their albums, Dial-A-Song, Then, and some random newer EPs) and a semi-rare Why Does the Sun Shine? EP So I re-bought all of their stuff.. but obviously I couldn't get back the tape and the EPs. I bet the stupid guy who stole it didn't even know what they were worth, and either trashed them or sold them off for nothing. The thought kind of pissed me off.. I mean, I've had stuff stolen before, like my calculator, cell phone, and my old digital camera. (Yeah I used to be really stupid about leaving stuff laying around and walking into another room.. but all of these were stolen at school functions, and you'd *think* things would be safe then, but alas.. ..needless to say I now protect my stuff with a crazy paranoia, after the CD case incident) With that stuff, fine that's annoying, but whatever. But music, all of my CDs.. that's crossing a line. Music is so important to me. So it was like, personal, and if I ever got my hands on the guy I'd give him a good, swift kick where it hurts. (Assuming it was a guy. ) If it were closer to then I'd probably strangle him, but I've cooled off about it.. a little bit. [/minirant of still hot anger after all this time] ..ahem, anyway. Sorry, didn't mean to go on a rampage. XD *wasn't intending to, was just going to show the pictures and be done with it, but it felt good to blow off some steam.. I'd forgotten just how much that pissed me off*) :




Anywhoo, I would be of course quite happy to make you guys copies of the songs on the tape, as Sylvia still has a copy; I can borrow it from her. I'll have to figure out how to get stuff from a tape into mp3 format, though. Any ideas?

that is the saddest story i ever heard!!! i don't think i'd ever be able to sleep again if that happened to me. i think i would be perminantly depressed forever. that just freakin suXXXX!!!!!

you have a lot better attitude than i would.

i'm sure there's a way to get a tape onto the computer, but i don't know it. BigJohn probably would though. he knows PCs & Macs both. maybe you could ask him in his tech support forum.

i'm so sorry that happened to you, Chinny. i really truly am.

*kicks humanity*

Okay, I'll go do that then. Hopefully he'll be able to tell me how to do it. Because the songs on that sucka are really quite amusing to behold.. it's like, all the embryonic forms of many of the songs we know and love today, plus some other really random stuff.

Also, as soon as I get a copy of that XM interview, I'll post it here too, in case any of you are interested in hearing it.

As for the stolen items.. well, at the time I certainly wasn't so mature about it. This is over a year after the fact, mind you, and I'm still threatening bodily harm to this person. When it actually happened, I spent like five days doing nothing but pissing about it on LiveJournal. I was really quite bitchy, to the point where it probably got on people's nerves.. Whoops. I couldn't think about anything else for nearly a week afterwards.. then I realized that being mad wasn't going to do any good, so I began merrily re-purchasing CDs and got a new case.. stuff, even the irreplaceable, is just stuff after all. Worse things could happen. Thanks for the kind words though - see, humanity's not all bad, since we've got people like you in it.

That sucks about all your stuff, CZ, but I would be THRILLED to have such close ties with the Johns. You are very lucky

Oh, I am thrilled, believe me. ^__^ It was a wonderful concidence, in fact... I started to really get obsessed with TMBG late 2003, and then Sylvia calls me from NYC (she was there as always for the holidays to visit her dad) all excited one night, and says, "Guess what?! I just saw this really great band called They Might Be Giants, and my dad's an old friend of there's apparently, so I got to meet them backstage..!" and I was all, "ZOMGWTF, you WHAT? You're not going to believe this.. but I JUST got obsessed with them." ..and the craziness expanded from there.

it wouldn't have got on my nerves... i woulda been bitching right along with you.

you're right though... stuff is just stuff... but that was some GREAT stuff!

i hope someone can help you out with the computer stuff. we have some really smart people around here, so your chances are very good.