Such a time happened at a recent ballroom dancing class (See Previously). After learning our steps for the week, the teacher played some swinging big band music. I led, and began counting aloud, which is the only way I can pull off ballroom dancing.¹

Then, the singer crooned:

I feel stupid and contagious/
Here we are now, entertain us/

My right foot swung like a rusty pendulum, and hit Stephanie square in the shin. “Ow! Pay attention,” she said.

“Is this…” I mumbled aloud, sweat poured down my brow as if hearing some arcane spell oozing from the mouth of a cultist. “Is this…no, it can’t be…”

The singer continued with an upbeat,

A mulatto/
An albino/
A mosquito/
My libido/
Yeah!

My brain locked its wheels, hit the wall at 200 MPH, and my face contorted: “IS THIS A BIG BAND COVER OF SMELLS LIKE TEEN SPIRIT?!”

Stephanie, a member of MENSA, was immune to the confusing cover. “What?”

I leaned in close, my eyes wild like the protagonist in an H. P. Lovecraft story, and not-quite-whispered, “This. Is. A. Big. Band. Cover. Of. Smells. Like. Teen. Spirit.”

Stephanie, bless her, was more concerned with my feet trampling her own. As my brain tried to jumpstart itself, she took over leading. 1-2-3, “Snap out of it,” she said. Slow, slow, quick, quick. “And pay attention.” She glanced down at her bruised shins and leaned me against the mirror covered wall. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath as she rubbed her feet and shins.

A cover of a Nirvana song was the last thing I expected at our ballroom dancing class. Actually, that is not quite true. The NEXT song was:

Oh, can’t you see me standing here?
I’ve got my back against the record machine/
I ain’t the worst that you’ve seen/
Oh, can’t you see what I mean?

I croaked. “Oh…no…”

Ah, I might as well jump. Jump!
Might as well jump.
Go ahead, jump. Jump!
Go ahead, jump. Jump!

My bones melted and I flailed like a rag doll in the wind. Stephanie shook her head and propped me up once again. “Now what?”

The letters built up on my lips, but like some eldritch horror, I dared not speak the name. Stephanie’s concerned eyes convinced me otherwise. “Va…Van…Halen.”²

“What about them?”

“This is a cover of…Jump.” I became a puddle on the floor, not unlike Lewis at the end of RoboCop, “Murphy…I’m a mess.”

This week’s class was sans wacky covers, but we did get to ballroom dance to the original version of The Power of Love from Back to the Future, so it all evened out, and I didn’t screw up nearly as much.

–
¹ I have to do the same thing when figuring out a tip on a check. Good thing I have eleven toes.

² Their first album is one of my all time favorites, and I own most of the Roth-era albums, including 1984.

³ He is older than I, and was around when the song was a hit. I wasn’t even three years old at the time.

Much to the enjoyment of my neighbors, Stephanie, bless her heart, bought me a ukulele for Christmas. [GeekMom has an informative post on 'a' or 'an' ukulele - Ed.]

A uke is an interesting instrument, as it causes an immediate reaction from my social circle, which varies depending on one’s age/generation/blood alcohol level.

Mom, aunts and uncles: “Can you play any Tiny Tim yet?”

Stephanie, sister, cousins and friends: “Can you play any Zooey Deschanel yet?”

And then, Dad: “Can you play Big Bottom yet?”

I had the portable amp out because I plan on dressing up as a Spider from Mars for an “intergalactic” birthday party (which is why I was learning Moonage Daydream).

This idea came to me when I was curious if I could run my iPod Shuffle or DSi through the amp in case I didn’t want to try and play the song.

I decided against the Shuffle quickly because it has “issues.” It is doing this thing where one of the sound channels keeps cutting in and out and it is very sensitive to any cord movement–it pauses right away if the sound cord giggles too much.

So I went with the DSi.

I ran it through my distortion pedal and then my chorus pedal and messed with the tone and distortion on the amp itself.  It made for an interesting sound.

You can tweak the pitch and speed of the songs via the DSi, which I of course did. Listening to Rush’s Working Man sped up, distorted and in a chorus was  something out of this world.

I liked being able to tweak the output of the song live via the pedals and the DSi interface.

Does this have any sort of practical application? I doubt it, but it was fun.

The little Marshall, with its built in belt clip, makes for a great portable speaker if I need sound for a costume however.

I am going to have the guitar and amp with me for my costume and I am toying with attaching one of the pedals (maybe the distortion) somewhere on my costume, as the OD (overdrive) on the little amp leaves a lot to be desired.

In perhaps the best news of 2009, Amazon has made most of Mojo Nixon‘s albums available as free .MP3 downloads.  If you enjoy crazy rockabilly music, then look no further. Mojo does not disappoint. Heck, he even gets a shout out in the song Punk Rock Girl by the Dead Milkmen.

Oh and you might also remember him as Toad in the Super Mario Bros. Movie.

Or maybe that’s just me.

Anyway, most of his albums are hard to find in stores or online (at least in my experience), so do take this opportunity to enrich your musical library with such classics as Elvis is Everywhere or Don Henley Must Die.  I had the sheer luck of finding a new copy of Whereabouts Unknown at Flat Black and Circular in East Lansing about a year ago, and quickly purchased it.

I read this is in support of Mojo’s new release, Whiskey Rebellion, which is a neat concept–but given that Mojo hasn’t been in the eye of the mainstream for…uh…awhile, I can see why this happened.

Or better yet, in the man’s own words:

“Can’t wait for Washington to fix the economy. We must take bold action now. If I make the new album free and my entire catalog free it will stimulate the economy. It might even over-stimulate the economy. History has shown than when people listen to my music, money tends to flow to bartenders, race tracks, late night greasy spoons, bail bondsman, go kart tracks, tractor pulls, football games, peep shows and several black market vices. My music causes itches that it usually takes some money to scratch.”

I saw a Twitter update by @gmcalpin (writer and artist of one of my favorite webcomics, Multiplex) about the metal band Mastodon allegedly scoring the upcoming film Jonah Hex (based on a comic). It lead to an article on Ain’t It Cool News (movie rumors and such).

I read the article and was amused, I enjoy Mastodon but realized I don’t own nearly enough of their music. I hopped over to YouTube and watched a few music videos and also listened to some other songs, sampling cuts from the albums Leviathan and Blood Mountain.

Realizing I still had an online gift certificate from my birthday, I decided to buy a Mastodon album (along with Pink Floyd’s Dark Side of the Moon on vinyl). But I couldn’t decide which to get–then a friend commented on my Facebook page that Crack the Skye was nothing short of amazing (a friend whose opinions I hold in high regard).

So, I ventured back to YouTube to listen to a few cuts from Crack the Skye and read a few online reviews. I quickly decided on ordering the album–and when it comes to bands like Mastodon, I really prefer having the original CD over .MP3s (because the music is complex and/or layered–things that can get lost when compressing music to .MP3s).

After clicking Finish My Order, I sat back and thought “What the heck just happened?” Over the span of maybe twenty minutes, I went from reading about Mastodon scoring an upcoming film to buying one of their albums, mainly on a whim.

It was an interesting string of events: I read the article, listened to songs online/watched videos, got a recommendation from a friend who lives in another city, read reviews and purchased an album. All without leaving my seat.

I guess this shows you can’t underestimate the advantages of people talking about your stuff on the Internet.

Also: My latest article for Lansing Capital Gains is now online.  It is about the Soup Spoon Cafe, a very tasty restaurant (good coffee too).

The bands ran a very eclectic gauntlet, from latin jazz to indie rock to worship Christian rock. Thankfully, there was an excellent turn out, a bit over 200 people–which was great for a library on a Thursday night. Ryan and I each had score sheets and took notes while each band played, and we were also told to base our choice on crowd reaction (partially, anyway).

After the four sets, we made our choice–Alumenium, the latin jazz band. This was actually a pretty easy choice, because Alumenium just knocked it of the park from the get-go. They were a young group, which I think caused us (at least me) to underestimate them, but they were all great musicians.

My second choice was Commodore Cosmos, because I really enjoyed their lead singer’s presence and lyrics. Don’t Ever Tell was a decent pop-punk band (great drummer) and honestly, they were severely hurt by the lack of a quality sound system for the show (this event was the first of its kind, so that will be handled better if they decide to have another battle of the bands…and given the 200 or so folks that turned out, I think there’s a good chance there will be). I don’t really get worship music/Christan rock at all, so SOULvation Band, while good performers, wasn’t really my thing (although my favorite part of the evening was when the lead singer told the audience to “Get down with your GOOD self!”). And given the amount of fans singing along in the audience, SOULvation Band didn’t look like they were hurting for exposure.

What Ryan and I tried to base our final choice on was, which band would benefit the most from the studio recording time? Alumenium was definitely a band we could see doing some great stuff in the studio–especially since they were all pretty young and would only get better–and the type of layered music they did would work better in studio than live, I think.

This got me thinking: how many big bands/musicans have had a moment like this in their lives? I don’t know if it is me being egotistical or something, but I couldn’t help but wonder what effect I’ve had on the course of music history, for better or for worse. Likewise, say that by coming in second place, Commodore Cosmos decided to hone their chops even more and end up becoming the next big indie rock band (rejection is a great motivator, ask any writer with a stack of rejection letters. Or this other guy).

It makes you wonder (ok, maybe just me).

For those that don’t know, I play drums in the band. This is our first gig at Macs with me behind the drums and our first gig at an actual venue ’round Lansing (our first being at a charity event in Grand Ledge last month). Enjoy the lameo online flier I made.