My cultural WTF moment: Tracy Bonham & Blue Man Group covering "Baba O'Riley" on America's Got Talent

Seriously. How many things are wrong in this picture?

http://www.concertshots.com/Aug%2003%20Images/cs-BlueManGroup-TracyBonham2-Atlanta82403.JPG

OK, they're also covering "One Of These Days." I'm going to go kill myself now

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r6JpB92f-_g

And I suppose this was obvious

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-ClvcHtK4

Mind = blown.

can we just put the blue man group in an early '90s retro time capsule and be done with them for the next 50 years?

why they've sustained any kind of career outside of a cramped east village black box theater is beyond me.

I've seen their Boston show, Vegas show and The Complex Tour, all of which were fun, noisy, spectacular stuff that I would see again, but I definitely see yr point in terms of ubiquity and silliness: I kinda wish they'd go back to being in a tiny theater, wherein their schtick could still come off as "art" instead of fun, noisy, spectacular merchandising.

They are very American.

they have their own line of licensed Blue Man Group TOYS FFS

http://www.pixelsumo.com/wp-content/uploads/2006/blueman.jpg

http://www.pixelsumo.com/post/bluemangroup-toys

Aimed at 8-14 year olds, these toys will kind of emulate the instruments used by the Blue Man Group in their stage show. The Percussion Tubes (shown top) will use distance range sensors to give dynamic control over sound, priced at US$69.99, whilst the keyboard (bottom) will cost US$79.99, both to be released later this year.

In 2007 two more toys will be released. The ‘Drum Suit’ (US$39.99) consists of a pair of motion-activated gloves and five sensors that strap on to the user’s body. The Drum Suit emits sound when a hand gets waved over the sensors. the ‘Air Pole’ (US$19.99) makes different sounds when it’s swung around like a baton.

The toys have a placeholder for your iPod, so you can jam along whilst listening to your playlist. Each instrument will also come with a Blue Man Group DVD for children to watch and emulate.

Having a keen interest in physical musical toys, this is something that really interests me. Whilst “new proximity sensor technology” isn’t really new, as they are used in academia and the ‘new interfaces for musical expression’ world all of the time, it is great to see these kinds of interfaces being released in the mainstream. It’s also worth considering that the Blue Man Group are very visual, with paint splatters on drum beats and light coming out of the tubes, so it would have been more exciting to add a visual element to the toys.

they are indoctrinating our children into their blue sinful ways

i don't get it. weren't they a mainstay for like 20 years? when did they blow up? how? what happened? did they just hire a genius manager or something?

Seeing this thread reminded me I had read about the Blue Man Group covering "Baba O'Riley" some place else. Here goes...

http://www.nelscline.com/tech.html

I got a message from Josh Haden telling me that The Blue Man Group wanted me to play a solo on their new record. What?! I had seen them once in Boston at a street festival. I had played with Mike Watt and the Crew of the Flying Saucer (Morphine and Shudder To Think had also played, I recall). This was back in 1995. But the guys in the core band had remembered me and were allegedly fans. This could end up being a long story, so I'll try to be brief. The main thing they wanted me to play on was a cover of "Baba O'Reilly", the Who classic. They wanted a wild guitar solo where the viola solo is on the original (at the end, where it speeds up). So they sent a rough of it on a CD-R along with a couple of other things, including a track of Donna Summers' "I Feel Love", also vocal-less. I said 'yes'. Why not? They flew me to New York, put me up in a modest but decent hotel.. Hell, I even booked myself a gig at Tonic while I was there! I went to their soundstage/studio in the East Village where they were rehearsing for their big new show - a real rock tour - with David Bowie, Moby, et al. All the people I met were REALLY nice. When rehearsals ended, it was time for me to go to work. An amp was selected and set up in the soundstage area, and all my pedals and such were in the control room (it's a killer setup they have!). The first thing we worked on was "Baba O'Reilly". The key band members, musical director (the main drummer in the core band), three main (and original) Blue Men, and 2 engineers were present. It was very relaxed. One of the Blue Men, Chris, always has his little dog with him. The guys were constantly having to leave to take calls and such (turns out they were having trouble with Virgin Records people, their label at the time), but that actually put me at ease. Anyway, I played a solo on the Who tune that really flipped them out! The next thing I knew, more and more people started coming into the control room (they had apparently called their wives, friends, and such to come check me out), and I ended up playing on more and more songs - including one that Josh sang on. Some of the tracks were already pretty dense - the opposite of the Mitchell Froom style, they had TONS of tracks going to be selected from later - so I had to rely on my instincts about what would fit, and I fielded a lot of ideas. But the more out there I got sonically, the more they seemed to get excited. Ultimately, I ended up coming back the next night, and even did more when the gang found out that I was in New York a month later (Chris tracked me down on my cell phone and said, "Get over here!"). They had no idea what to pay me (and I never know either), but suffice to say that the gang was generous, gracious, and they're fun to hang out and drink with, too! They saved my ass last year! Anyway, funny things about the album: for one, "Baba O'Reilly" never even got on the record. Apparently, they never found the right vocalist for it (I suggested Carla Bozulich, which I still think would have been potentially amazing and kind of un-obvious). And one song I'm on has that Gavin Rossdale guy from Bush on it! Mr. Stefani! AND, I actually heard their version of "I Feel Love" at my local gas station as I pumped gas into my car - a first for me, hearing myself (sort of, it's really dense) on commercial radio that way. But the funniest/saddest thing is that Virgin had totally been in their shit about almost every aspect of the record, poo-pooing vocalist choices, etc. (they'd already gotten Dave Matthews, for chrissakes!), and they were refusing to commit to a real ad campaign, arguing I guess that the stuff would sell at their shows. The first Blue Man CD (I've still never heard it ) won a Grammy for Best Instrumental Record and had sold something like 350,000 copies with no advertising at all! Now, they wanted to step up, try some things, reach a broader audience, whatever. I just love that Virgin would fuck with a group than can only make them money (all their production is in-house, it's pure profit!). This is why the industry is dying, why people like me have trouble mustering sympathy for their short-sighted plight. Anyway, Virgin U.S. collapsed, and Blue Man got on a subsidiary of WEA called Lava, and everybody's happy. I ended up on 5 tracks, and can actually hear myself on 4 of them (tracks 6, 8, 9, 10, & 13, if you care).

there's more than one group of Blue Men? that's like discovering there's no Santa.

i guess like Mr. Kringle they need "special helpers" around the world.

I got dragged to one of their touring shows (which suuuuuck, BTW - it's more 'bad techno' than the dancey-artsy stuff they're famous for) and she was one of the openers, along with a really bad laptop-pop duo (Venus Hum? or is that a new ladies' razor?).

She started out saying she wasn't going to play "Mother, Mother" but broke down and did it for an 'encore.'

I didn't think much of The Complex tour musically, but I really enjoyed it as a show.

Though I did have to play my friends Audio after the show to convince them that the regular stage show music didn't suck.

i ushered for the chicago show six times my freshman year of college.

i had a friend who ushered something like 40 times in one year. she got barred from the theatre for being too stalker-ey with some of the blue men. that and she dressed up as a blue man for the halloween show and many audience members thought she was the real deal and the show's managment decided that was crossing a line.

That does seem a bit much.

On their fan forum you've got people that try to do DIY pvc-instruments and dress up in the full costumes etc, it's endearingly lolworthy.

I like the idea of these cultural WTF moments. It's exactly what I experienced in the early '90s in downtown Toronto when I saw a full-blown Rastafarian with a bassoon playing "Stairway To Heaven".

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5-ClvcHtK4

'I Feel Love' WTF??

grady was your friend a character in arrested development??

poor tracy bonham. started with a perfect ep (the liverpool sessions), an amazing single ("the one"), and oh so swiftly downhill from there.

I thought that was a great Baba O'Reilly. I don't know wtf is wrong with you cranks.

I discovered ILM because I was googling for Blue Man Group :[

there's more than one group of Blue Men? that's like discovering there's no Santa

Yeah, there's the touring group, the group in Vegas, etc.

xpost :D

Audio was my favorite CD in eighth grade

I do feel like something train-wrecks a little in the breakdown, but they recover well.

Cline story about hearing himself on commercial radio for the first time is so great (on a Blue Man Group cover of "I Feel Love!")

Also Cline OTM (re: Bozulich for "Baba O'Riley" cover)

had NO IDEA nels cline was on the second blue man album!