Discriminating Weirdos

A Musical Visit From Mario

I suppose it was inevitable, considering how so many Internet users grew up with Nintendo-related thumb cramps, but there is a trend among Web musicians.  Apparently, you aren't worth a small stack of pennies as a YouTube performer unless you film yourself playing the Super Mario Brothers theme song.  In a way, Mario music seems to have become an internet performance right of passage, and the videos just keep on coming.

It has gotten to the point where it isn't enough to simply play the song.  Everyone has seen it performed on piano, guitar, ukulele, and other fairly conventional instruments.  People have even tired of the recent full orchestral score for the game.  The new trend is to play it using objects that most people wouldn't even consider as musical instruments.

Consider the following three examples.

First, as a tribute to dorks, nerds, and geeks everywhere, I present the musical Tesla coils of Bob Ward and Jeff Larson.  In 2007, these guys built a Tesla contraption that essentially uses giant bolts of static electricity to play the song.  How?  I have no idea.  But the fact that they were able to do it proves once and for all that there is nothing people can't do if they put their minds to it and become so obsessed with it that most everyone around them starts to question their sanity.

Next, let's look in on Gerry (Jerry) Phillips, otherwise known as the Manualist.  Not only can this guy make his hands sound like a duck, but he can make them sound like a duck with a regular gig at the Chicago Opera.  Frankly, if he could add some tremolo and a bit more dynamic range to his performance, he could play first chair in any woodwind section I've ever seen.  Give him a minute to get going, look deep into his eyes, and let the magic of Mario wash over you.  This dude can turn your bad feeling into good feelings, no lie.

Finally, proof that you can make just about anything as long as you avoid the distractions of life.  Nothing could get in the way of the dream these guys shared, especially girlfriends.  Somehow, using glass bottles and a remote controlled car, these guys manage to play the Mario theme.  Imagine what they put into this feat of musical engineering.  They had to tune the bottles, space them perfectly, learn to drive the toy in a straight line... I can't get my mind around the time they spent setting this up.  And that doesn't even take into account all of the drinking and bottle storage.

I wonder if PONG had a theme song... (ADAM)

Happy belated Mother's Day

I had meant to post this video for Mother's Day, but I forgot.  I didn't forget Mother's Day, but I did forget what is probably the most important part of Mother's Day in the Moe family.

As you may have read in previous posts, I am a fan of bad music.  Part of my idiotically large collection includes various pieces of trauma-inducing holiday recordings, and I make it my business to play them as part of each holiday celebration.  I don't think I've missed spinning "What Can You Get a Wookie For Christmas (When He Already Owns a Comb)" since I started the tradition some 20 years ago.

Side note: I was utterly surprised I found an MP3 of this horrendous ear-salad on line.  I've tried in the past but never found it.  I thought for a while that I had the only 45 of this "song" in the world.  Fortunately, it appears that the recording is alive and well, and I can take my copy out of the safe.

Some holidays, Christmas and Halloween in particular, are well-represented in horrible music.  others, however, are a bit more difficult.  Easter, for some reason, doesn't seem to make crazy people burst out in song.  Sure, there's always the old joke about leaving crushed Easter baskets next to bits of roadkill, but I don't think there's a song about it.

Father's Day and Mother's Day are really difficult.  Sure, there are lots of smarmy songs for them (see C. W. McCall's Roses for Mama and Red Sovine's Daddy if you don't believe me), but true humorous recordings are hard to come by.

Groucho Marx gave us the great Father's Day song, Father's Day:

Today, father, is father's day,
And we're giving you a tie.
It's not much we know,
It's just our way of showing you
We think you are a regular guy.

You say that it was nice of us to bother.
But it really was a pleasure to fuss,
For according to our mother,
You're our father,
And that's good enough for us.
Yes, that's good enough for us.

And now, thanks to the multi-talented Mr. T, we have a song for Mother.  Watch the heart-felt dance and delivery from Sir T.  And just where was he keeping that microphone? (ADAM)