What the Folk!

You don't sell out places like Radio City (2 nights) without being somewhat mainstream. I'd imagine they'd be humongous if HBO wasn't a pay channel.

I hadn't thought of it like that before, Cuse. I think you're dead-on.

Their popularity is kind of a double-edged sword, I'd imagine. On the one hand, I'm sure they appreciate the fact that so many people are buying their CDs, watching their shows, paying to see them live, and buying the merchandise. BUT...because of this popularity, they're losing their anonymity and perhaps the feeling that they can do things the way that they want. I'm imagining them being pulled in many directions right now.

What I want is for them to resist the pull and to do only what they want to do. If that means we don't see them live for a long time- so be it. As long as they can creatively be and do what they want, then I'm assured that whatever they do put out will be good stuff. (Or at the very least that they won't feel they've compromised themselves at all.)

Before they got really big (this is probably the first half of the first season) I'd be wearing my fotc t-shirt, and SO many people would come up to me and say "I saw Jemaine hanging out in Williamsburg!" I'd think he can't really do that as much now.

Laura and Cuse,

Ultimately, I imagine that their dilemma will be figuring out a way for them to continue exerting their desire to be creative in their own way. Although, I find both Jemaine and Bret to be men who know what they want and they do not seem to be wavering to the suggested pressures of mainstream media or Hollywood executives.

I think that they will be true to themselves and their creative nuances.

True to all that. Although the funny thing here is that the few people I know who are also into FOTC don't have HBO, including myself. The person who introduced me to them doesn't even have a TV. It's all due to the internet, of course.

Yup. No HBO in our household.

I found them through HBO. (Something our household wouldn't normally have, except comcast sold me one of their bundles last year, and we realized later it included HBO.) I had flipped by the show many times, but never stopped to watch it until I heard an NPR Fresh Air interview highlighting it. I figured if NPR thought it was good, it must be something fairly intelligent, and decided to give it a try. So, for those people who don't have HBO, I'm curious, how did you discover them?

A friend showed me some YouTube videos. I then took it upon myself to watch many many more youTube videos, lol.

My friend played me Foux du Fafa on her iPod, and I was intrigued. I then asked my aunt and uncle if they knew of them (they're big into HBO), and they showed me an episode and a bunch of youtube clips. I then made it my mission to find all of the episodes online, and when I finally did...the obsession began

A friend had Robots and Frodo on her MySpace page. After viewing them, I headed to YouTube where I spent hours watching all I could. I then bought S1, was clued in on the 2nd show being added in Detroit by FOTC MySpace and got the early password which enabled me to get great seats to the show, found this place..and the rest is history.

Laura, just curious, what do you mean by "the early password"?

I guess she means the password for the pre-sale that started on FEB 2nd "sugalumps"

The presale password for the second Detroit show that was added later. The presale was March 10th and was "angels"

Yup...what Kelly said. If I hadn't "friended" FOTC on MySpace, I wouldn't have gotten the presale password and might not have gotten decent seats at all.

I guess I've never heard of such a thing. So, was this something (the password) that you had to say to Ticketmaster in order to get good seats? I tried to get tickets one week before the show in Boston with no luck. Would have tried to get them earlier if I had even known who FOTC was more than one week before the show. (Unfortunately, I had just discovered them.) Now I'm wondering if I had known the password would have I maybe been able to get tickets, or was that only for people who bought really early?