Playing in totally silly bands!

[pklima]

All my bands are too serious for my liking. I play for a children's choir, plus in a band that does Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Tom Jones etc. but those aren't silly enough! My third band covers the likes of Edith Piaf, Leonard Cohen and Jacques Brel - waaaaay serious. They're all nice and all that, but sometimes I want to do something goofier and more gimmicky!

Oh how I long for a band that's completely free from ever being taken seriously as art, and where I can play a doubleneck bass and only use one neck to play notes - the other should be used for something more important, like hanging small stuffed animals.

Anybody ever done anything like that? How did you find that band? Was it as much fun as you hoped?

[Downunderwonder]

You're worried about a cover band being misinterpreted as some kind of high art form? Must be some seriously serious effort going into those cover versions.

Have fun with what you're doing and if someone accuses you of not taking it seriously then quit.

[pbd]

should be able to make your current bands more fun somehow, even if its just you


Todd

[Thunderthumbs73]

Did something like that in college on a lark, where we formed a "cover" band just to play a talent show, which we ended up winning, incidentally. It was fun and goofy and all that. But it was also like candy- good tasting, but made me want something that was more satisfying, filling and fulfilling over the long term.

I realized we could play silly songs easily, or play songs in a silly manner easily, but also opened my eyes to far greater potential of the musicians in the band.

Well, it was college, and most bands were pretty short-lived. Good concept, perhaps as long as expectations are in line with the product.

[pklima]

Originally Posted by Downunderwonder

You're worried about a cover band being misinterpreted as some kind of high art form? Must be some seriously serious effort going into those cover versions.

I think it sounds fine, but the presentation is too tasteful - you can judge for yourself. I want more jumping around, more bright colors, more stuffed animals, and MORE SONGS ABOUT FOOD!

Originally Posted by Thunderthumbs73

It was fun and goofy and all that. But it was also like candy- good tasting, but made me want something that was more satisfying, filling and fulfilling over the long term.

I can understand that, I found being avant-garde similarly empty and unsatisfying tbh. I just don't have the right personality to enjoy that kind of thing, though I'm sure lots of people find it great.

If I wanted to be taken seriously and respected, I can just go to work! Sadly, it's hard to find bandmates who share my sensibilities when it comes to the stuffed animals and the songs about food... I mean, I'm in three bands and between them they do a total of ONE song that's primarily about food! And it's about tomatoes, which are fine and all, but for a band to accurately reflect my personality there should be several songs about LARGE SLABS OF MEAT.

[jive1]

Here's a link to a goofy band I was in.
www.kingcomfy.com

We did covers, but no songs about food.
Although, a Food Metal band sounds interesting.

You should start a band called Czernina that does Food Metal. Duck blood soup, it's tasty, odd, and macabre.

[Downunderwonder]

I dunno, can you play the Krappy bass and jump around some more yourself? It's easy to see you want to be leaping about but the DB is too good an anchor.

Originally Posted by pklima

for a band to accurately reflect my personality there should be several songs about LARGE SLABS OF MEAT.

your personality or some other aspect of your persona?

maybe do a solo gig buck naked behind your bass

[praisebass]

I used to play in a bluegrass bar band that did Abba covers. Great fun. Especially when we ran into Swedish girls in the audiance who got excited and insisted on being part of the show. All in good fun of course.

I think you have to be spot on on your musicianship to pull it off - think Hayseed Dixie, Homer and Jethro, Brave Combo...

Of course, there's my froends the Garbonzoz who I remenbered from college days only to run into again 20 years later playing music together:

http://garbonzoband.com/

[pklima]

Originally Posted by jive1

Here's a link to a goofy band I was in.
www.kingcomfy.com

We did covers, but no songs about food.

Yeah, I'd love to do something like that - pretty normal covers (though my tastes are obviously less rock and more pop), just presented in a more fun than normal way.

Originally Posted by jive1

Although, a Food Metal band sounds interesting.

You should start a band called Czernina that does Food Metal. Duck blood soup, it's tasty, odd, and macabre.

Heh. Perfect.

Originally Posted by Downunderwonder

I dunno, can you play the Krappy bass and jump around some more yourself? It's easy to see you want to be leaping about but the DB is too good an anchor.

Heh, I was actually trying to stay fairly still. I'd be leaping about more if I didn't know that the girls at that particular gig would be dead still. It was their first real gig, though, they'll get better with time.

But, yeah, a band where playing the tripleneck Krappy would be perfectly appropriate would be great!

Originally Posted by Downunderwonder

your personality or some other aspect of your persona?

Take your pick! I clearly have the personality of someone who eats lots of meat. I'm also large and meaty myself.

Originally Posted by praisebass

I think you have to be spot on on your musicianship to pull it off - think Hayseed Dixie, Homer and Jethro, Brave Combo...

Yeah! I do know Brave Combo, since they are Texan. I could definitely do something like that. But with more stuffed animals!

[CaptainWampum]

I play in a totally silly band. We just play music that makes us smile and laugh, and we always wear costumes that make us almost unable to play our instruments.

[Munjibunga]

Originally Posted by pklima

All my bands are too serious for my liking. I play for a children's choir, plus in a band that does Lady Gaga, Britney Spears, Tom Jones etc. but those aren't silly enough! My third band covers the likes of Edith Piaf, Leonard Cohen and Jacques Brel - waaaaay serious. They're all nice and all that, but sometimes I want to do something goofier and more gimmicky!

Oh how I long for a band that's completely free from ever being taken seriously as art, and where I can play a doubleneck bass and only use one neck to play notes - the other should be used for something more important, like hanging small stuffed animals.

Anybody ever done anything like that? How did you find that band? Was it as much fun as you hoped?

I was in a band in the late '70s (Axolotl), and it was my custom to put a rubber chicken on my mic stand. I had a 1-foot flex neck on the stand, and I'd cut an anal vent in the chicken and run the gooseneck right up through to the beak. Then I'd stuff the mic down the chicken's throat to where the mic clip was. It ended up looking like the chicken was holding the ball of the mic in its beak.

Well, there was a little boy Joey who was a friend of the family, and he would come occasionally to our practices. Of course, Joey's now in his 30s, and just a couple years ago he confided to me that that chicken bothered the hell out of him when he was three. That is SO cool.

[hublocker]

There used to be a band in Vancouver that called themselves Tartan haggis and did all Scottish rock. "You really Scot me" "It's my clan and I'll wear plaid if I want to" "The River Clyde blues," etc.

They morphed into the Real Mackenzies:



http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TiPxY...eature=related

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MIXb7cUA-QE&feature=fvw

[Phalex]

Around here there are a few "silly" bands, but my favorite one of all is The Concussions: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SNrbRR7CBEA

They always wear some sort of disguise (The Zorro mask is pretty standard fare). The drummer, Billy (He's the one talking during the interview parts) is the percussionist for the Grand Rapids Symphony. Awesome drummer and a heck of a laid back guy!

[Thunderthumbs73]

All the bands I'm in are reasonably serious insofar as we're trying, demonstrably, NOT to be some musical version of a comedy act. But, I can say with a fair amount of certainty that in every band I've been in, there are little bits of humor, some of it a kind of musician-to-musician humor, and some of it more overt, and meant for audience consumption, be it something of a musical nature, or some commentary or other funny moment.

I find it important to sometimes reach the audience occasionally through humor, but while also not sliding the slippery slope and decent (?) into self-parody, irrelevance and unprofessionalism.

To clarify though, I think you can be completely professional while being silly, and even having self-parody, if not parody of others. In some sense, to truly mock, imitate and to be silly while putting out a truly solid musical product takes real skill. Nothing against that. Weird Al Wankovick (perhaps most famous like that) was/is a truly and largely unsung master of that balance.

[TolerancEJ]

I'd like to do a Weird Al cover-show sometime. If you ever get a chance to see him in concert, you should go. Musical, theatrical, comedic.

[I<34080]

How many do you wear when you play?

[jakrees747]

this is as serious as i got,

http://www.myspace.com/thejoelexp

an extremely fun silly band, quit due to the band being to freakin loud!

[pklima]

Weird Al is great, though I'm not necessarily aiming at outright comedy like that. Something along these lines musically would also be good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cbg8rwQbF9U - no way I could pull off that kind of image even if I wanted to, though, haha. But it's totally catchy, bouncy and ridiculous.

[Jason P Bass]

How about the band Ween? Definitely not to be taken seriously. I love "Mister Would You Please Help My Pony" and "Buenos Tardes, Amigo". I always get wrapped up in the raw emotion in "Pony" - the guy is just looking for some help, something is wrong with the pony, it might be his lung, please won't anybody help? Aaargh! I get choked up just thinking about it.

[plankspanker13]

Just whipping out Weird Al's "Happy Birthday" was enough to turn most of my bands silly. One was so into silly that we would be trawling for birthdays between sets, to find an excuse to play the tune.

Of course, this year's Halloween gig was pretty silly too, since it involved cleaning up lyrics and a few of the moves to play for a crowd of elementary schoolers.