Quote of the Day

From last night's auditions:

"Well, that answers my next question."
-- Matt Hempey, after one auditionee sang "Enormous Penis" for his solo

I guess you had to be there.

Now arriving at Gate 37 -- the Richter Scales!

ESPN is launching a new sports network called ESPN U. They wanted to wow cable executives at the annual Cable Executives Brou-haha and thought it might be novel to have a group singing college fights songs to greet executives as they flew in to SFO. The person in charge had a friend who had a sister who attended one of our concerts and remembered our group name.

Now we know that viral networks work for websites and a cappella groups. * (Tell a friend.)

So we landed the gig. 10 fight songs, 2 weeks, 1 group ready for the challenge. ;-)

The group scoured the net for fight song sheet music, Mark ordered other songs over the web and had the supplier overnight the sheet music to us. The group worked on songs outside rehearsals (a rare occasion but for ESPN (and their money), we scrapped it together).

I didn't like the fight songs. I had a hard time memorizing them because they all sounded like each other. Imagine a high school marching band, stiffly strutting around, big flooffy things coming out of ridiculous hats . That's fight songs.

So I looked forward to the gig because it was novel (and it was ESPN), but regarded the songs as a necessary evil.

It ended up being a ton of fun, fight songs and all! We sang for three hours. I wouldn't have thought I could survive three hours of fight songs, but at the end, I was raring to go another hour. People really liked us which makes sense. Baggage claims have never really been a mecca for entertainment, especially when the bags have even come up on the carousal yet. We did catch a few executives which we serenaded with their alma mater's fight songs and made our clients very very happy.

We left our mark on SFO. And we didn't even have to lift a leg.

---loren---

* And an nifty name doesn't hurt. Companies like TechSmart, MicroTech, CompuGen: take note.

The Idea of the Scales Headed North

Wow. It's been so long since we've had anything to say. You'd think we've just been sitting on our butts. Well, nothing could be farther from the truth. We've had a number of very productive rehearsals and a couple of very, ahem, lucrative gigs. And, of course, some sitting on our butts.

I've been pretty busy with non-Richter Scale things myself, having just closed a production of Candide with the Lamplighters (I was identified as "impressive" by the Napa Valley News...honestly! See for yourself... http://tinyurl.com/3n6fx ) And it just so happened that the last evening performance was at the Napa Valley Opera House, immediately following a private birthday gig we were hired for in nearby Sonoma. So the Richter Scales (and the accompanying Richter Significant Others) decided to make a whole Wine Country day of it, spending the entire afternoon in Sonoma, singing and picnicing, and having a jolly old time. We drank a lot of wine, ate a lot of pickles, ate a lot of melted Hagen Daaz popsicles, sang a lot of songs, ate a lot of Mother's Animal Crackers, ate a lot of white chocolate Reese's eggs, drank a lot of wine, sang a lot of songs, ate a lot of salt and vinegar potato chips, ate a lot off chips and salsa, and then to cap it off we sang a lot of songs.

At that point we all drove one valley over so I could prepare for the show while the rest of the guys ate dinner. (I'm not kidding. They really ate dinner.)

The show seemed to go pretty well and it was too bad all the guys needed to rush home so quickly, since the rest of the cast ended up partying well into the morning. Unfortunately, the rest of the Scales needed to be back at SFO early in the morning for their, ahem, lucrative gig with ESPN. Since I wasn't there, I'll let someone else tell that story.

So, someone else. Tell that story.