Monday, June 23, 2008
Every Friday the Great Markoni and I head over to a local buffet style Chinese restaurant for the celebration of “The Feast of the Maximum Occupancy”. We trade off each week who will be tithing and making the sacrificial offerings to our respective gods so that consumption of delectable and low cost Chinese food can commence. Last Friday it was Markoni’s turn to make the payment which worked out well, as he brought his niece with him, who was visiting from out of town.
We made our way over to the table and began eating our meals, occasionally lifting our heads from our respective troughs to snort out some vague conversation. (Hey, this IS buffet, you know…) At some point in the meal, Markoni made reference to singer/songwriter Paula Frazer. I recognized the name but could not completely place her.
Markoni issued a quick retort, pointing out that the last time he had mentioned Frazer’s name around me, I had launched into a tirade of knowledge about her. (This is something I do quite frequently. Bring up a topic I’m interested in and then stand back.) I stared at him rather quizzically, as I could not remember this conversation at all.
“Yeah, I had mentioned some band she had been in before and you went off on it. Some band in California that I think you’re kind of into,” was his leadoff.
I spun my gears and thought as hard as I could. I tried to fish a band name, a song title, ANYTHING out of him that would jar my memory. As time wore on I got more and more irritated, as I began to actually recall the conversation in question, but absolutely could not place the band to save my life.
“Invalid search terms, please try again,” I would comment in my best computer voice. I knew that once he gave me the correct keyword, the proverbial floodgates would open.
Thankfully, Markoni happens to be a fellow tech geek, so he pulled out his phone and established a wifi connection so that he could browse Wikipedia for information on Paula. I looked at his niece, smiled and said, “Watch this, as soon as the right word or words is given to me, I will burst with a flood of information.”
The page loaded on Markoni’s phone and I began reading through Paula’s entry until I found the magic words: Faith No More. As soon as I saw those words, my eyes lit up and out sprang the information.
“OH! Paula was one of the temporary vocalists for Faith No More in the 80’s. They were actually kind of a revolving door band when it came to members until they solidified in time for their first release. A young Courtney Love sang for them for awhile, as well.”
“Their first release, after bringing in vocalist Chuck Mosely was We Care a Lot, which was later followed by Introduce Yourself. The song ‘We Care a Lot’ from that timeframe is currently used as the theme song to ‘Dirty Jobs’ on tv.”
“After parting ways with Chuck Mosely, they brought in vocalist Mike Patton, who in his time since Faith No More has proven himself a very talented and eclectic artist, performing in bands such as Fantomas and Tomahawk. Patton was the singer for their breakthrough hit, ‘Epic’, which is currently playable in ‘Rock Band’.”
“Lead guitarist Jim Martin had a cameo appearance in Bill and Ted’s Bogus Journey, and has since more or less retired from the music scene. He does have a world record for 235th largest pumpkin ever grown.”
“Faith No More broke up in 1998 and many of the members have gone on to other projects, most notably Patton, as mentioned before, and Roddy Bottum, who founded Imperial Teen.”
“I was only able to catch Faith No More in concert once, on July 21, 1992, at the
Pontiac Silverdome. They were the opening band, followed by Metallica and then Guns N Roses. This show was about 9 days before James Hetfield was accidentally set ablaze.”
As is typical, I finished my little expulsion of information only to see the stunned face of Markoni’s niece staring back. It always amuses me how people react to information overloads.
This is a sad fact of my life. What I have just described here is something that I do almost daily on tons of different subjects. I’m kind of that guy who knows a bit about everything, and that’s mainly because I find interest in everything. Prime example: I bought a book on the history of salt this weekend. Perhaps I’ll regale you all with some salt based knowledge before too long.
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