By Josh Gondelman — 19 Oct 2026

#206. Music Snobs and You

Hi everyone,

I had an unusually busy week between work (more on this below) and hangin' out (some daytime friendship catchups, a quick visit to New Jersey so my in-laws could spend time with their grandpug). Since we moved to our new apartment, I've been waking up pretty early most mornings and getting a jump on the day, and let me tell you...that's too much day. My standup schedule prevents me from being a true early-to-bed type. So if I want to snatch some extra z's (zs?), it has to happen in the morning or the afternoon. And if I'm waking up early enough to be extra productive, a nap is probably out of the question too. Until last week, it hadn't mattered too much because I've had a fairly low-impact lifestyle, but I am starting a little bit behind after a long week of actually having to do stuff. In short: Wah wah wah boo hoo!

Gus and Grace and Niko and Luke and me and Ted and Rax at Littlefield. — Bad lighting, great vibes.

Fortunately, the stuff itself has been mostly excellent! On Tuesday night I read a piece of music writing at Rax King and Niko Stratis's SUPER fun Words and Guitar show at Littlefield. The whole show was fun as hell and convened a bunch of friends from different corners of the northeast. Niko came into town from Toronto. Luke flew (fancy!) from Boston. Augusta Koch of Gladie zipped into town from Philly. And Ted Leo came in from Jersey on his break from touring with Bernie Sanders for some get out the vote events. There will be even more about this event below, but I wanted to thank Rax and Niko for having me along. And I suuuuper want to thank Wendy Eisenberg for playing a beautiful cover of "Doctor Worm" as a companion piece to my reading.

On Wednesday night I saw LA-based comedy duo Zach and Jess's movie Mock Trial, which is so funny and so wholesome. I could tell from where the some extra big laughs hit that audience was full of Dropout fans, and it was so much fun to see a movie in theaters where people were really cracking up. (Do NOT talk to me about You Can See Everything, which I have not been able to allot 3 hours to watch in a theater yet.) If you have the chance to check out Mock Trial, I super recommend it, especially to people who are looking for something that hits the way the first season of Ted Lasso did in 2020.

My friend and editor Gaby Paiella reached out to me to cover Love Is Blind Season 11 which was set in Boston for GQ. I wish the season had felt more local, but I wrote about some secretly Bostonian moments. I think I did a pretty decent job meeting the show on its level despite not being a big reality dating show fan. One thing I wrote about in my first draft that didn't make that cut was that one contestant (is that you call the people on these shows?) was reluctant to disclose a recent medical diagnosis (as is his right of course!!!!), and it reminded me so much of the way my family deals with medical stuff (by not telling me). I also didn't have the space to mention that several of the people on the show live in Connecticut, which is about as far as you can stretch the term "greater Boston area."

I'm standing in my dressing room at HIGNFY wearing a navy suit and a pink shirt. White sneakers too. — Trying to convey that I do, indeed, have news for you.

On Friday night, I recorded an episode of Have I Got News For You, CNN's late night comedy show. The taping was long, but it was so much fun throughout. Roy Wood Jr. is one of the best working standup comedians, and he's such a warm and quick host too. "Team Captains" Michael Ian Black and Amber Ruffin are extremely generous collaborators, and they're so good at balancing being funny and being informative in their own specific voices. It's such a great environment for goofing around. Fellow guest panelist Adam Mockler is a 24-year-old political commentator, and he has such deft skills for inserting thoughtful commentary, which is his specialty, and playing along with a panel of comedians who have all been doing comedy for roughly as long as he's been alive, if not longer! The whole episode is now available on HBO Max if you're interested in watching it.

This week: I'm performing in Irving, Texas on Wednesday and Houston, Texas on Thursday! Irving at least is doing a promo for cheap tickets, because large numbers of people do not seem interested in seeing my show on a Wednesday in the suburbs of Dallas at regular prices. The following week I'm San Diego and Chandler, AZ on a similar Wednesday/Thursday trip. And I'll be doing an event with Alison and bunch of cartoonists at the New Yorker festival back home in between. I think it'll be a good time and then I'll be ready to hole up at home for a couple of weeks (including my New York Comedy Festival show at the Bell House on 11/11)!!!

PEP TALK FOR MUSIC SNOBS

Remember this kind of guy? I think they were hunted to extinction in like 2015, but you know what I'm trying to say, yeah?

I had so much fun reading this piece at Words and Guitar, and I'm sharing it for you here. I'd started to write a heartfelt personal essay about my love for They Might Be Giants, and how I saw them live for the first time with a group of close childhood friends more than twenty years ago (which is all true) but I got sick of my own bullshit, and I realized that the other readers (Rax and Niko and Luke O'Neil and Grace Robins-Somerville who shared an extraordinary essay about love and cover songs and The Replacements) write that kind of thing better than I do anyway). So I pivoted to yelling at the audience which is more my lane. Here's what I wrote...

They Might Be Giants is my Phish in that I really think you need to see them live before you get their whole thing. And I know that that’s maybe the most niche opinion you’ll hear today, but it is my truth. I first saw them when I was twenty, and I had previously thought they were a band for kids in part because I liked them when I was a kid, and I had only recently become not one. Hearing the band with full instrumentation showed me that they’re a legitimate rock and roll outfit and not a novelty act. Their concerts are fun and energetic. And their lyrics are often strange and even more often poignant. They stand up on record for sure, but I’m excited one of tonight’s musicians agreed to play a cover so you can experience it in person. But first, to get you in the right frame of mind, I’d like to read a new piece for you that’s called…

You Hipster Dipshits Will Acknowledge the Tender Poetry of They Might Be Giants, Goddammit

(It’s purely speculative of course and could not possibly be about anyone in this room.)

There is a strain of aging hipster, many of them Brooklyn based, that thinks and talks too much about what genres of music are “dead” and which are still thriving. You might see them at Baby’s Alright looking like the proud parents of the energetic three-piece combo of 20-somethings onstage, wailing through their debut album, which earned an impressive 7.2 on Pitchfork. Or maybe you’ve spotted them microdosing mushroom chocolate at the birthday party of a toddler in a Nirvana onesie.

These people crave authenticity. They want art to make them feel something. They’re desperate for it. They were sincerely disappointed by The Life of a Showgirl, but they’d never say so publicly for fear of being shot dead in the street by a 13-year-old girl or a 37-year-old woman who was at her limit because her boyfriend wouldn’t stop watching clips from Shane Gillis’s podcast at full volume on his phone while on fraudulent disability leave from his job as a security guard at Dick’s Sporting Goods.

Where has the craft of lyricism gone? They wonder. Why doesn’t anyone play instruments anymore? They ask. How the fuck do tickets to a This Is Lorelei show at Webster Hall cost as much as seeing Beyoncé at Citi Field? These are the people who fill the Barclays Center once a year when The Strokes perform there, within the ten square mile radius where they can still fill a room that big while the entire audience resists admitting that their sound counts as “classic rock” now.

I don’t say this out of judgement. I say this in solidarity. But there is a solution to this malaise. There is a torch-bearer for righteous, emotionally resonant independent music that has been at it for decades and still sounds great and tours relentlessly. And for the purposes of this thesis I am NOT talking about Ted Leo.

Tonight, you hipster dipshits (speaking generally here) WILL acknowledge the tender poetry of They Might Be Giants. That’s right, you sanctimonious twerps. I said it, and I mean it. I’m not going to stand here in front of you and pretend that They Might Be Giants isn’t one of the ten greatest American rock bands of all time. Why? Because I’m not a fucking liar, that’s why.

“They Might Be Giants? You mean the band from Tiny Tune Adventures and the theme song to Malcolm In The Middle?” Uhhh. Yeah. Did I stutter?

Did you know that They Might Be Giants’ first gig was at a Sandinista rally in Central Park? Well I DID. Because I read it on their Wikipedia page THIS MORNING. And guess what I ALSO read on Wikipedia this morning: Their band name is a secondhand reference to a quote from Don Quixote. That is so much cooler and more interesting than how every band now is called: I Am The Guy In The Band That I Am In.

Do you know that They Might Be Giants has a song called “Kiss Me, Son Of God”? It came out in 1988. Put that in your American Spirit cigarette and smoke it, all you fools who thought Sufjan Stevens invented songs about being gay for Jesus or maybe just being regular gay although in this case I think it is primarily about Jesus.

The song “She’s An Angel” contains the lyric “just ‘cause you’re following an angel/doesn’t mean you have to throw your body off a building.” You’re telling me you can’t imagine Cameron Winter from Geese mumbling those exact same words? Be honest with yourself. Why would it be better if he sang that song? Because he’s 6’4”? Grow up.

Literally no other band has wrung so much pathos out of topics ranging from a dinosaur egg hatching to puppetry to Belgian expressionist painters. And if they’d dropped out of NYU six months ago to write these songs you’d be cramming them into your Spotify Wrapped before halfheartedly apologizing for using Spotify even though you KNOW how little it pays artists.

“Doctor Worm” is an extremely poignant and beautiful song about being a worm who plays the drums. And yeah, I just heard what I said, and FUCK YOU. It is a song about friendship and vulnerability and an openness to critique. It also captures the awkwardness of trying to give yourself a nickname. There’s a Rabbi in it for some reason. There is a horn section because They Might Be Giants is not afraid to GO FOR IT. This song is weird and good and, ironically, human. AI could never write “Doctor Worm” because it is more about emotion than logical coherence.

I refuse to look you in the eyes, all 100 people in America who thought that Digger was a good movie, and diminish the greatness of Brooklyn via Massachusetts legends They Might Be Giants. And you’re going to reject my entreaty, why? Because one of the guys plays an accordion? Because they somehow sing all the right notes while also sounding like they're mocking the very concept of singing? I won’t allow it. Not with all the shitty ironic tattoos that I know are covered up by this sea of skinny jeans. I will not let you sit here and act superior to the one band in American history who seems like they could have written the “Werewolf Bar Mitzvah” song from 30 Rock but in a sincere way.

PEOPLE OF BROOKLYN I BEG YOU TO OPEN YOUR HEARTS, LEAVE THE NIGHTLIGHT ON INSIDE THE BIRDHOUSE IN YOUR SOUL, AND WELCOME TO THE STAGE WITH WARMTH AND ENTHUSIASM, WENDY EISENBERG.

PEP TALK FOR A READER

I did a little editing of this request, and I added a nickname.

After a successful run in the world of software, I fell on my face a number of times and realized back in 2024 that I was not going to get back in there, nor did I want to. I pursued owning a small business and business brokerage, but neither felt right. I got into a memoir incubator and will turn in my first draft in a week. As part of this new career, I started doing stand up in June. I think it is going well, but I have no idea what "going well" actually looks like. At this point, I would love a pep talk from you about starting out in comedy and ways "going well" can or does feel. Thank you for all you do!
- Clear Eyes, Open Mic, Can't Lose

I try not to make this newsletter a series of in-depth comedy craft meditations because I think other people do that kind of thing better, and that's not what people come here for anyway. This question really got me thinking, though, because it touches on some of the specific joys of standup comedy and also some of its more universally applicable facets.

The spectrum of "going well" for any artistic endeavor is so vast, and it's so variable based on what you value about art. Are you talking about generative output? Skill building? Popular appeal? Critical acclaim? Mountains of cash?

Comedy can be going well and going badly at (basically) the same time. To pull a hypothetical example out of thin air, you could set a record for selling the most tickets in history to a comedy performance, and then 2.5 months later, people could be mad at you for performing an extremely sexist opening monologue on Saturday Night Live. Does "going well" mean traveling to your gigs in a private jet or does it mean making art that is cool and interesting? Who can say?

The beauty of standup comedy is that there are so many ways to succeed. (Let's ignore, for now, the myriad ways standup comedy puts you in the octagon with hulking failures that will beat your ass.) For some people, getting onstage at all is a triumph over their own fears. You can also feel proud of effectively communicating an idea that's close to your heart or tweaking the wording of a new joke to squeeze in a few extra punchlines. There's pride to be mined from increasing your sense of ease and poise onstage, even if you've been projecting that kind of confidence the whole time (or if you never show the audience how comfortable you are). Every "I loved the new stuff" in the green room or an invitation to perform on another showcase in town can be a source of satisfaction if you let it.

The greatest rewards for working hard on your art are improving the breadth and depth of your work, and getting to do more of it. That's not to say that you shouldn't ever aspire to get paid for a job well done or that you should accept mistreatment from people who are offering you crumbs. But someone tossing a wad of money at you doesn't mean you're doing great work any more than trouble earning income means you're doing bad work. The more you do it, the more you'll grow the kind of figurative and occasionally literal muscles it takes to stand in front of a crowd and entertain them with articulation of your specific thoughts, feelings, and vision.

In the business world you have to hit specific financial and production benchmarks to feel like a success. When you're learning a new craft for your own edification, it's extra nice to take a moment and appreciate the small flickers of internal growth and community validation.

The rest of it is mostly being good at email.

PICK-ME-UP SONG OF THE WEEK: R.E.M. - "Fall On Me"

I have never been a huge R.E.M. guy, but Luke read such a great essay on Tuesday about the pleasure of puzzling over obscure and even opaque lyrics. He made a beautiful case for hearing what you hear and interpreting a song through that lens. Ted played an excellent cover (which should not be surprising considering that last year he toured as part of Michael Shannon's R.E.M. tribute/second wave). I'd forgotten that Michael Stipe's had been kind of legendarily inscrutable because I probably came in contact with the band's more straightforward-sounding lyrics first, given when I was born. "Everybody hurts sometimes," sure, man. I've skinned my knee too, you know? But this was a classic old school Stipe poem in the shape of an excellent song. It's good! Have you guys heard of R.E.M.? Pretty good band!

In other music news from this week, Gus put me on to the new EP by Marissa Paternoster's solo project NOUN. You may know Marissa from her work in the Screaming Females, and these new songs are really heavy and melodic and good. It's fun to find something out through true word-of-mouth too!