What Else Are You Doing Thursday? No, Seriously.

I'll start with the bad news. BJ will be unable to represent the Chicago Choir this Thursday. We wish him well and know that next show he will be right there...rather stage right for him more likely. You can see his astouding meeting with KG at left. Yes, it appears as if KG was totally engaged and interested in what BJ had to say. :)

Our other Choir member Eric has linked our blogs and lovingly come up with a nice name/logo/identity for us Chicago Camaro Choir members. C3. I like it. You can read his take on his blog here.

Jake has put together the best email trying to wrangle our friends/collegues/lovers out to the show come this Thursday. So damn good that I will just post word-for-word, links and all. Killer:

Yeah, it's late notice, but what else are you doing Thursday night?

I'll be rocking the Double Door with Bang Camaro and you should come. Unless you hate things that are awesome. Show starts at 9, we'll be on around 11 (for about an hour -- we never overstay our welcome).

This will be my fourth or fifth show as one of the Camaro's many lead vocalists, and my first since we kicked off Lollapalooza (which was pretty cool). I believe this is the Camaro's third national tour, so you'll still get some indie rock credibility when they make it huge. They are featured in Guitar Hero 2, Rock Band, and Rock Band 2, so you may already know some of their stuff (your 15-year-old nephew does).

Bang Camaro is 80s arena rock taken to its illogical conclusion -- original songs featuring 8-15 lead singers all at once (to get that authentic rock and roll sing-along chorus sound), 3 guitarists, and no verses. Only choruses and guitar solos, even in the monster ballads. Because verses suck. Bonus: most of the choruses are extremely easy to pick up, so you can sing along, too. Extra bonus if you are a single (or semi-single) lady: 20 dudes. I'll steer you away from the troublemakers.

Myspace, with song samples: http://www.myspace.com/bangcamaro

Just for fun, their Wikipedia page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bang_Camaro

Tix: http://www.doubledoor.com/shows.php (or in person at the Double Door -- there are still tix available as of right now.)

Disclaimer: if you want me to send these to another email in the future, don't want to receive these, or just hate things that are awesome, let me know and I'll act accordingly. My feelings won't be hurt. I'm in a 20 person metal band. I can take it.

-Jake

Lollapalooza Recap

Bang Camaro was nice enough to let 4 of the Chicago Choir members perform with them at this year's Lollapalooza rock festival on August 1st. Ryan, Jake, BJ and myself sang the encore set with the Camaro in front of hundreds of fans. It was the most mind-blowing experiences I have had...growing up idolizing bands and living for festivals like this...and then rocking hard core with this great band was unbelievable.

You can find the link to the AT&T Blue Room video that was shot and projected on the jumbo trons. Too bad the cameras were giving love only to Ryan and I on the right side of the stage. The poor bastards Jake and BJ got only about 0.5 seconds of air time, but hey, my dad always taught me that a little cash at the right people will get you places - like up on a friggin jumbo tron! Totally worth the $3 I gave that dude. Ha! Anyway, here is the Lolla performance of Push Push (Lady Lightning).

Afterwards, all of Bang Camaro got to hang out with Kyle Gass from Tenacious D. You can check out our acoustic set with him on his bus below.



You can see also all the photos I took from the event at my Picasa Web album.

Jake did a great job recapping as we all quickly wrote down some of our own personal highlights before they left our heads. Below is pretty much a copy-paste with links/videos embedded after the fact:

"On Sunday night, Andy chatted up a group of people who turned out to be Kenny Chesney's tour people. His accountant is a metal guy, and is all about checking out the Camaro. One of the other guys is the Corona corporate sponsor. We worked on him for a while. I mean, it's a girly beer but it's still beer. Then Andy brought Jake over to KG's bus and Jake signed the guitar and got a picture with the man himself. Super cool.

BJ made friends with a little hottie photographer who was pretty cool (we assume the number she gave him is real), so we met a bunch more photographers. BJ and Andy got backstage to watch most of the Raconteurs' set, too.

By late Sunday night we were all drunk enough to walk up to random strangers and talk to them. Jake bonded with the bass player from Black Joe Lewis and the Honeybears about poorly timed gear breakdowns (he lost everything but his DI 2 songs into their set), and anyone we met from C3 we definitely were extra-friendly with. We almost had to sleep with a couple of C3 chicks to solidify the in, but then we realized that they probably didn't want to sleep with us anyway (that's not true, they totally did).

Ryan and Andy forced themselves to leave Sunday evening/Monday morning and catch a long hang-over train back West. Goddamn every stop on the Midnight Express. Andy put in a full day at work smelling of pure vodka....people were afraid to have open flames near him.

Jake's two best random celebrity moments: physically running into a guy he realized 2 days later was Saul Williams (he really should have been looking where he was going), and nodding to Newton Faulkner as he passed, and extending a super-smooth fist-bump to the dreadlocked guitar monster, without getting up. Jake's just that cool (when drunk).

Andy made friends with all the right security guards in the Artist area so he could sneak free drinks out to watch bands. It's good to have the right connections!

One of us may have massively overtipped the super-hot bartender with the rad fake boobs. It did not result in a useful connection. It happens.

Ryan engineered a massive beer-a-mid which failed to impress just about everyone, although we noticed a profusion of smaller beer-a-mids sprouting nearby later in the night. Don't pretend you're above the beer-a-mid just because you're in the artist lounge, people.

We're looking forward to the Camaro's triumphant return to the Double Door, a road trip to Madison, and checking out Chicago entries on the new Choir audition website (there are none yet!). We'll take those kids under our wings and let them know how we in the Chicago Choir do this!"

-Jake

Rock-n-Roller Derby?

Jake, the "founding father" of the Chicago Choir, performed at the Windy City Rollers on Saturday night. Yes, they still have roller derbies and this looked like an outstanding event!!!

I'm a total slacker as I didn't make it to the event to support a fellow Camaro. Shame on me. What was I thinking??? I could have been watching girl-on-girl hair ripping action...oh...and Jake sang as well. We'll keep you posted on any hijinx that ensued or if there is any audio/video from the event.

Can't Stop the Blog

As I sit here on this last evening of summer, vodka lemonade in hand, I feel it very appropriate to start this Bang Camaro blog - Chicago Choir edition. You see, the Chicago Choir has become pretty close knit over the past few shows as we have guest appeared with Bang Camaro, and I felt compelled to start gathering all the photos, videos, and other crazy events we have going on between Camaro shows. You see, we are all musicians in our own bands, but come together whenever Bang Camaro rolls through the Midwest.

First, if you have no idea what it means to be in a Bang Camaro choir, you should start here. Yes, we tried out and made the cut to play on stage with 'em. They are a great group of guys that know how to throw a concert and rock every last person in the house.

So sit back and enjoy some rants from your favorite guest Camaros: Jake, Ryan, BJ, Eric, and myself.