User:Dr John Oakland
| TMBW Userboxes | ||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Dr John Oakland - @DrJohnOakland - is not a real doctor and is not a real John. He's not an actual John. He's not even an Oakland. The whole name's an alias he created once, and is easier to write as "DJO".
Born on the 5th of June 1981 in Leeds, England, where he's spent most of the rest of his life to date.
The first time Dr John heard of They Might Be Giants was when Birdhouse In Your Soul was released. He liked the single, but didn't buy it. At some point, he also heard versions of Istanbul (not Constantinople) being performed by Steve Martin and several years later by the Muppets. Other than that, DJO's life was fairly TMBG-free for quite a while.
While listening to his LaunchCast station, a personalised web-based "radio" application, DJO gave Birdhouse In Your Soul a 5 out of 5 rating, which led to hearing more of the band's tracks, thus spurring him into buying the Dial-A-Song compilation album in February 2004. It was through the Launchcast station that he also discovered his 2 other favourite musical groups - Pink Martini and the Barenaked Ladies.
In 2010 Dr John finally got to see the band, at both of the Royal Festival Hall shows, and shortly afterwards uploaded the concerts' song lists to the Wiki. This was 17 years after DJO had performed as part of a school group in the national finals of the National Festival of Music For Youth in the same complex.
When TMBG played the UK in November 2013, User:BlueCanary arranged to meet DJO outside when he went to the London and Manchester dates. Having read about They_Day, DJO decided to adopt the custom, attending both gigs with "They" written on his head with a permanent marker! After the Manchester gig, Marty_Beller came out from behind the drums and had a brief chat with the concert-goers. As DJO hadn't been to many gigs, he confused Marty with Danny_Weinkauf and wished him well on his Kickstarter for No_School_Today!
As yet, DJO hasn't really made very many changes to the Wiki, but is continually impressed by how comprehensive the site is, the rate that any TMBG news is added, and by the interpretations some people have of the songs.
