Richard Cheese, Weird Al, and NO PDX dates
Two of the better acts I’ve seen live in my life are Weird Al Yankovic and Richard Cheese. Not because they are my favorite bands, but because they know how to put on a good show. Work the room, interact with the crowd, act like it matters to them all these people came to see the show.
If you are not familiar with Richard Cheese you should be. He does lounge covers of your favorite songs-Closer, Nookie, Gin and Juice, You Oughta Know, Another Brick In The Wall, and more. They are fantastic songs and usually pretty brief (none of this six minute epic nonsense). It is the finest show you’ll ever see as long as you’re legal-To say his show is NSFW is putting it mildly.
Weird Al does cover some songs, but generally he does snippets all strung together and polka-style. His quirk is parodies-changing the words to an existing song and making it about something else. Standout examples are “Eat It” and “Another One Rides The Bus”, and because I must meet my daily Star Wars Mentioning Requirement, “The Saga Begins”.
NEITHER of these super fantastic artists have Portland dates scheduled…yet. Now Al might not schedule any (which would indeed be tragic), but Richard Cheese might! If you go to his Portland mini-site and request that he come, it helps determine what venue to book when/if he comes through here. Please don’t sign up if you have no intention of showing but seriously it’s a really great show and you’re TOTALLY missing out if you don’t make it to his last ever Portland concert.
Come on. You know you want to be down with the Dickness. If you want to see Al, there’s not a lot to be done there, but you might help get Lounge Against the Machine to show up and rock the house, and Gord knows if Portland needs one thing, and one thing only, it’s more Dick. all links SFW
You know those newish satellite jukeboxes they have in about half the bars in portland? They have a weird Richard Cheese EP on them that includes his version of “Rape Me” by Nirvana. I’ve noticed that if the patrons aren’t too inebriated, they’ll tend to notice when you play that song. They’re ears will perk up, and the cute girly ones will giggle a smidgen.
I’ve long felt that Weird Al is one of the best pop artists of a generation. Despite being a life-long musician, I pay very little attention to pop music. The first time I heard “Smells Like Teen Spirit” was actually Weird Al’s “Smells Like Nirvana”. (We’re a garage band/From Seattle!) I thought, damn, so this is Nirvana… They’ve got the courage to be self-deprecating…
Then I realized it was Al, and later figured out that Nirvana was just another self-obsessed, derivative, three-chord guitar rock band — with a twist! Turns out the leader was a disillusioned heroin addict. No wait, that wasn’t new, either.
Anyway, Weird Al rocks, and manages to transcend all the schlock he (lovingly) parodies. He’s a gem.
Only problem is that Cheese demands a $5k guarantee as his base – BASE! – to even talking to you. That’s an awful lotta scratch for the act he’s hawking (altho’ it is a pretty good show, I’ll have to admit).
Nolando: That’s if you want to book him for a private party (like my birthday or the office non denominational holiday gathering in December.) My link is just to say hey if he was coming you’d probably go.
Will you be there?