There’s still lots of room at the bottom
And then the young, black-garbed woman stepped off the stage, pressed the microphone to her lips and began bleating like a barn full of burning sheep.
“Don’t rape me! Don’t raaape meee!! Don’t raaaaaape meeeeee!!!”
A star is born.
Not “star” in the Barbra Streisand sense of the word.
Judith Davis’ singing is more Yoko Ono meets Charles Manson.
Singing? Forgive me. The primal, ear-splitting wails were what you’d expect to hear from someone in the throes of a bowel obstruction.
It was bad, people. Breathtakingly, beautifully “b-a-d.”
And that made her good enough to win last week’s preliminary round of the First for the Worst Band in Spokane contest. On Friday night, Davis and her three-piece punk band, The Clap, return to The Spike coffeehouse, 122 S. Monroe St., to compete in the finals.
I, however, will not be making a comeback.
I sacrificed last Friday night to serve on the worst-band judging panel. That Friday night is gone forever. I’m not losing another one.
Plus it would be wrong to offer up my eardrums for more abuse. Even with spongy plugs jammed halfway down my aural canals, way too much awful still seeped in.
I don’t want to overstate matters. There are probably many more unpleasant ways to spend an evening. Having my spleen removed with a chain saw, say.
Patrick “Dude” Walsh talks like he just came up with Spokane’s next Hoopfest. “Round One is in the history books,” chirps The Spike’s CEO and head custodian. “It’s a defining moment.”
Walsh’s worst band contest does have a sarcastic poetry. The national love affair with TV’s “American Idol” has spawned many talent show stepchildren. On the local scene, for example, we have “Spokane Idol” and “Gimme the Mike” and RAWK “Final Four” and “Quest for the Best” and …
In Walsh’s eyes, all these needy performers scrambling for the top have left the bottom wide open.
“There are so many not-good bands that aren’t allowed to play in those ‘best of’ competitions,” he says. “We give the underdogs a chance.”
So Walsh put out the call and, sure enough, the musically challenged began “lining up like forlorn zombies.” They are competing for the collected $5 entry fees (about 75 bucks) and cans of potted meat.
The preliminary event included such unappreciated (read “unknown”) artists as: Bleeding Eardrums, Anti-Pants and Rich Toppins and the Pastries for Love.
Walsh cleverly separated audience and bands with a wall of chicken wire. He conned a few dim bulbs into judging the event.
But determining bad is not as easy as it sounds. Thumbing through my notes, I see entries like: “Haven’t heard a voice like that since Pee Wee Herman” and “Send this band to Iraq.”
Some players, though thoroughly lousy, were trying to play even worse. Intentional incompetence is un-American. It should never be rewarded.
The aforementioned Rich Toppins was too entertaining and clever to be considered. His act was to have faux “relations” with his keyboard, which would moan with ecstasy upon command.
Bad? Hardly. Jim Carrey would kill for this hilarious bit.
The annoying shouldn’t be rewarded, either. Like the jerk who detuned his guitar and then thwanged away at a volume level you’d use to call forth the legions of Satan.
This guitarist was no Van Halen. He was Van Helsing.
“I seriously thought my eyeballs were going to explode out of my head,” says Walsh.
What we judges were looking for was sincere, honest and unadulterated BAD. The Clap was all of that.
Walsh may be onto something here. But my advice is the same advice they tried to give Dr. Frankenstein. Be careful what you wish for. As Huey Lewis once warned:
“Sometimes bad is bad.”