T.J. Burnside entered the world of filk in 1975, a virtual child. Mitchell Clapp, on the other hand, already had degrees and languages and the beginnings of an Air Force career in the mid 1980s when he first encountered the notion of singing songs about the future as if it were the present. Both of them brought a prodigious level of skill to the tasks they would undertake: they sing (and play instruments); they write many of the songs they sing; they perform whatever they sing with humor, grace, and compassion in appropriate measure.

They are also a couple of fine examples of human being, and they had the brains to get married in 1989 and then to contribute three pretty special youngsters (also possessed of wit, charm and talent in various fields) to the next generation of the world. At this time there is also a dog.

They’ve each received multiple Pegasus awards (see list below). A few years ago T.J.’s “Lullaby for a Weary World” was saluted on Woody’s Children, Bob Sherman’s NPR show about folk music. Look for them on recordings such as Please Stand By, 1986, and Station Break, 1988, by Technical Difficulties (T.J.'s trio with Linda Melnick and Sheila Willis); Unreal Estate, 1990, where Mitchell sang many of his own songs as well as backup vocals for others; and numerous convention recordings over time and space.

They’ve lived in a lot of places across the country and outside it. They are enthusiastic readers and watchers of science fiction of all kinds. They can converse intelligently about food and drink (wine being a forté), and both have mastery in the kitchen (according to social media where evidence photos of meals prepared by either his hands or hers have been known to cause drooling from sea to shining sea).