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I Kicked it With Weezer and Now I Want My Own Moustache
By Peter Kimmich: 2008-06-27 19:51:43
I closed my e-mail and stared at the monitor. What was I going to do now? I hadn’t actually counted on it working. I glanced over at my acoustic guitar, propped up on the arm of the couch. I hadn’t changed the strings in about six months, and I didn’t have enough time in the next two days to do it. Did I even remember the songs? I also had work to consider. Hmm.
Suddenly, I came to my senses. Uh, the strings don’t matter, the songs don’t matter, and work, it doesn’t matter either. I have an invitation to go jam with Weezer. That’s Weezer, the band that accompanied my car stereo all the way through college and on every road trip I can remember, one of the only bands whose albums I prefer to buy rather than burn. I am totally and completely stoked. I had just become part of the Weezer Hootenanny. It’s a multi-city jam-fest where the band stops in your town, gathers together local fans and their instruments, buses them to a studio, and records some music, jamboree-style. What you end up with is 200 über-excited Weezer fans clinking xylophones and banging on guitars along with the band, and the show supposedly ends up on Yahoo! Music, and potentially on local radio. My connection was via the Weezer mailing list, where I had replied to the summons with some simple information and a couple of links, and now all I needed was an excuse to leave work early. Sweet. I told my close peoples, and they were excited and jealous. I practiced the songs I was supposed to practice and told my job I had an optometry appointment (they would have understood, but I didn't want to have to explain all of this). I then arrived at the predetermined bus pick-up location as ordered, with no cell phone, no cameras, no carrying cases where I might hide cell phones and cameras, my photo ID as my ticket, and a printout of the e-mail just in case. What a nerd. What I encountered upon arrival was several busloads of other musically inclined nerds gathered on a Fox Studios lot. They were singing and playing Weezer songs in groups, whether they were still on the bus, standing in line, or in front of other people’s home video cameras. Others were tuning or messing around on their instruments, which ranged from acoustic guitars (making up about 90% of the instruments) to recorders, clarinets, sousaphones, accordions, tambourines, piccolos, cowbells, kazoos, and melodicas. It occurred to me that someone should have thought to bring bagpipes – but still, even without bagpipes, this was going to be awesome. It turns out the slowest line in the world is the one that has your favorite band at the end of it, and it seemed like about 16 hours before all of us were safely ushered into the spacious recording studio, where we were arranged in a TV-friendly fashion under colored lights, to make us all look less pale. We were given practice packets with the lyrics and chords, signed by the band (except for Brian, because his signature would have made the packet’s eBay value tank, I guess). Suddenly we looked up, and there were the four elements of Weezer, surrounding us on raised pedestals, with microphones and instruments ready. The sky opened up, golden light spilled down, and the angelic hum you hear in movies actually occurred (but was not recorded because the mics weren’t on yet). We were all thoroughly enthralled. Rivers was about 10 feet in front of me. Maybe he was going through an image adjustment. He was sporting knee-length socks, basketball shorts, a trucker hat, and a moustache the size of Kuwait. About three feet behind me was bass player Scott, and drummer Pat was some distance away from him. Guitarist Brian was across the room. If I could have reached, I would have high-fived them all. Rivers introduced the band as The Weezers, and we got started. We nailed “Pork and Beans” on the first take, with everybody singing in key, to my surprise. Radiohead’s “Creep” started with some tones from the brass and woodwind section (which produced a sound best described as “high school band”), and the guitars crashed down on the chorus – including the pre-chorus guitar scratching, which one guy thought to ask about. “Island in the Sun” went well also, complete with harmonies and even the verse guitar fill, which I honestly didn’t expect anyone to think of. I was impressed. Right about the time Rivers asked if anyone knew the solo to “Say It Ain’t So,” I wished I had changed those strings, as my axe was good for slamming chords, but not much else. They found a couple of accordion players to do it, and after we killed that one (in a good way), the guy behind me said something about checking that off his list of things to do before he dies. El Scorcho’s solo was even cooler, since it was mostly done by people making falsetto “beeee boooo weeee” sounds. At some point I noticed someone in the VIP viewing section who looked a lot like Fab Moretti of the Strokes. This made me, if possible, even more stoked. “Automatic” was partially electric, with Pat on vocals and a crushing bassline from Scott, and even “Beverly Hills” was fun, with Rivers encouraging the male chorus singers to “sound more macho.” The Q&A session’s highlight was a girl asking if the band ever took psychedelic drugs for inspiration (Brian: “OF COURSE NOT….,” Pat: “Errr…”). After some photos and some scrambling for autographs, they shuffled us out of there. The bus ride back to the cars was, of course, a traveling jam session, with half the bus singing “In the Garage,” accompanied by many guitars and one wildly rambling trombone. The handful of non-Hootenanny passengers had no idea what was going on. Finally, we were dropped off at the rendezvous point once again, and Weezer CDs blasted from every departing vehicle. We had done it. It was the best optometry appointment of my life. RELATED: rivers cuomo, weezer
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July 2nd, 2008 at 00:19
is there something im missing? why would brian's signature ruin the lyrics packets? was that just sarcasm or something? it seems like scott's would do it the most harm. please enlighten me.