News

Fort Worth, TX (August 12, 2004)--Brian Teasley, a percussionist in the two-dozen-plus-member band The Polyphonic Spree, caused a ruccous last week at Dallas Fort Worth-International Airport, when a custom-built microphone in his luggage shut down five gates due to terroism suspicions.

According to the Associated Press, Teasley had been in Austin, taping an episode of Austin City Limits, and was taking a flight from there to his home in Birmingham, AL. Having planned to do some recording at home, he put the mic in his suitcase and flew home. The suitcase didn't show up on the baggage carousel in Birmingham, however, so he filed a missing-baggage claim and went home.

The bag, in fact, didn't arrive because it was being examined in Texas, where a terminal area and five gates had been closed after the mic was spotted during a routine baggage check. The microphone had grabbed their attention due to the wires and threading caps running through it; eventually, a bomb dispoal robot was used to remove it from the suitcase.

If that seems a little over the top for a mere microphone, it was nothing compared to the reception that greeted Teasley when he arrived home, as he told the Fort Worth Star-Telegram: "I had Taco Bell in my hand, and all of a sudden, these cars block me in my driveway. They've all got tinted windows, X-Files-style. Then here comes one guy with a bulletproof vest on, another with a gun showing. It was a very harrowing day."

Teasley said he invited the officers into his home as he explained that the “pipe bomb” was in fact a microphone: "I told them we had just used it when we were on Craig Kilborn's show. I still had it on my TiVo, so I was like, 'Come watch it with me.' After they figured out I was telling the truth, they were pretty cool. I was talking to them about music. But thank God for TiVo."

Good thing it wasn’t a shotgun mic.

The Polyphonic Spree
www.thepolyphonicspree.com