Do the Puppet Master!
In a development that I can only file under the heading of “Abjectly Unsurprising,” the MC Bat Commander, of the famed Southern California surf-ska band, The Aquabats is now the proud owner of a children’s television program, Yo Gabba Gabba. It premiered back in August, and already had guest appearances by Biz Markie, Tony Hawk, Elijah Wood, and of course, The Aquabats (doing a child-aimed version of their song “Pool Party.” Thanks to youtube, I don’t have to go into any effort to describe the show to you – just search “Yo Gabba Gabba,” and go to town – or until you get bored of seeing Elijah Wood lead 5 life-size monsters (at least one of which is recognizable as one of the old villains from the days when the Aquabats had villains in costume attack them on stage during performances (which I think they still do to some extent (they must))). I got bored after about two minutes, but it’s good to know that faux-psychedelic non-sequitur children’s programming is alive and well, in the good hands of The Aquabats.
For those of you that aren’t aware of The Aquabats – don’t worry. That’s perfectly normal. They’re one of those bands whose popularity, it seems to me, is dependent almost entirely on the existence of High School Marching Bands. But I don’t really want to talk about The Aquabats – they’re right on the edge of the group of bands that I used to listen to but still haven't effectively explained away. Except that I was in a HSMB, and let’s face it, those Aquabats did put on some good shows…
Which reminds of the time, in the past, where I tried to be a good older brother, and turn Mike on to a bunch of the good bands that I liked, when he was still in Junior High (but alas, was already a member of an HSMB), so that he wouldn’t fall completely under the sway of the lame-ass classical music that Nate & Jack were always dumping on him. Good bands, like Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, Pavement, Man or Astroman?, and unfortunately, I threw The Aquabats into that mix as well. And demographics took over. What music does Mike like the best now (so far as I know, anyway)? The Aquabats, and all that lame-ass classical that Nate & Jack dumped on him (Yes, I’m talking about John Adams, first and foremost there – I stand by my opinion that almost all of his music sucks, and much of it is ideologically distasteful (and any tolerance I had built up to Adams during Jack’s “Boosey Years” faded rapidly this summer when a friend of mine told me about a talk he heard Adams give about his “Transmigration of Souls” (which is fucking wretched and God-damned distasteful, if you ask me) wherein Adams trashed Britten’s War Requiem (in obvious favor of his own new piece of music)).
I think that there are plenty of Aquabats fans out there that weren’t in HSMB, and would take offense at being lumped in with band dorks, so maybe I’m just skewing the perceived demographic because I was in an HSMB. To explore this Marching-Band-ness a bit further, I’ve resorted, once again, to listening to music… now playing on my turntable… The album “Pure Music” by the band “Chase.” (and please, sit through the intro on that you tube clip, to get to the at least the 3 minute mark of the clip, it'll help you understand.) How do these Chase records keep surviving all the about-to-move record culls that have happened over the years? Some masochistic nostalgia? (This music is terrible, really.) Before this post gets overly-long, I’ll also dodge describing Chase to you all out there (relying, again, on youtube), except to say that Bill Chase is a trumpeter of the Maynard Ferguson school of playing, who took whole-heartedly Fozzie the Bear’s behind-the-curtain advice to Kermit the Frog. Louder and funnier. With healthy dosages of misogyny, 70s-era jazz fusion, fuzzy references to Greek mythology, and very high trumpet notes (with the usual funk band array of brass instruments replaced by a chorale consisting of only four trumpets).
The kind of album that exists in one’s collection so long only because it says “This is something that I own,” in its particular loud way (Kind of like, I suppose, those couple years when I wore a chain on my wallet, mostly because it seemed to say, in its particular loud way “I’ve got a chain on my wallet.”). A good conversation record – “Were you in marching band? No? Well, listen to this shit!”. And a record that, although Chase was mostly a Las Vegas phenomenon, apparently, seems to owe most of its existence to the High School Marching Band, both past and present.
And the kids that are watching Yo Gabba Gabba? I bet their parents were in Marching Band back when they were in High School.
For those of you that aren’t aware of The Aquabats – don’t worry. That’s perfectly normal. They’re one of those bands whose popularity, it seems to me, is dependent almost entirely on the existence of High School Marching Bands. But I don’t really want to talk about The Aquabats – they’re right on the edge of the group of bands that I used to listen to but still haven't effectively explained away. Except that I was in a HSMB, and let’s face it, those Aquabats did put on some good shows…
Which reminds of the time, in the past, where I tried to be a good older brother, and turn Mike on to a bunch of the good bands that I liked, when he was still in Junior High (but alas, was already a member of an HSMB), so that he wouldn’t fall completely under the sway of the lame-ass classical music that Nate & Jack were always dumping on him. Good bands, like Fugazi, Nation of Ulysses, Pavement, Man or Astroman?, and unfortunately, I threw The Aquabats into that mix as well. And demographics took over. What music does Mike like the best now (so far as I know, anyway)? The Aquabats, and all that lame-ass classical that Nate & Jack dumped on him (Yes, I’m talking about John Adams, first and foremost there – I stand by my opinion that almost all of his music sucks, and much of it is ideologically distasteful (and any tolerance I had built up to Adams during Jack’s “Boosey Years” faded rapidly this summer when a friend of mine told me about a talk he heard Adams give about his “Transmigration of Souls” (which is fucking wretched and God-damned distasteful, if you ask me) wherein Adams trashed Britten’s War Requiem (in obvious favor of his own new piece of music)).
I think that there are plenty of Aquabats fans out there that weren’t in HSMB, and would take offense at being lumped in with band dorks, so maybe I’m just skewing the perceived demographic because I was in an HSMB. To explore this Marching-Band-ness a bit further, I’ve resorted, once again, to listening to music… now playing on my turntable… The album “Pure Music” by the band “Chase.” (and please, sit through the intro on that you tube clip, to get to the at least the 3 minute mark of the clip, it'll help you understand.) How do these Chase records keep surviving all the about-to-move record culls that have happened over the years? Some masochistic nostalgia? (This music is terrible, really.) Before this post gets overly-long, I’ll also dodge describing Chase to you all out there (relying, again, on youtube), except to say that Bill Chase is a trumpeter of the Maynard Ferguson school of playing, who took whole-heartedly Fozzie the Bear’s behind-the-curtain advice to Kermit the Frog. Louder and funnier. With healthy dosages of misogyny, 70s-era jazz fusion, fuzzy references to Greek mythology, and very high trumpet notes (with the usual funk band array of brass instruments replaced by a chorale consisting of only four trumpets).
The kind of album that exists in one’s collection so long only because it says “This is something that I own,” in its particular loud way (Kind of like, I suppose, those couple years when I wore a chain on my wallet, mostly because it seemed to say, in its particular loud way “I’ve got a chain on my wallet.”). A good conversation record – “Were you in marching band? No? Well, listen to this shit!”. And a record that, although Chase was mostly a Las Vegas phenomenon, apparently, seems to owe most of its existence to the High School Marching Band, both past and present.
And the kids that are watching Yo Gabba Gabba? I bet their parents were in Marching Band back when they were in High School.
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