VO-BB - 20 YEARS OLD!

ChrisMezzolesta

Some of you may have already heard that in my other, non-VO life I write and record comedy music, and have had a number of "hits" on the "Dr Demento Show" over the years. Some may remember from the old Savvy board, hearing our ELO-styled song "Hold On, I've Got To Take This". This song is sitting at the #4 position for the year, and is considered the longshot to hit #1 for the year, but is still possible.

You can hear the song for free at http://www.thefump.com/fump.php?id=1006, and if you would please, jump over to http://drdemento.com/request/ and enter your request for the song - if it gets enough votes to make #2 or #1 on November's Top Ten, it might possibly break through and get all the way to #1 for the year. Your requests will be muchly appreciated.

And keeping this on-topic (or trying to), I've used many character voices in our songs over the years, usually emulating various singers or styles (i.e. heavy Cockney in our Madness style-parody, typical "today's country" in our typical "today's country"-styled tune, a sort-of "Davy Jones meets The Move" on our baroque-psych 60s rocker, a straight-ahead dork on our surreal big hit "My Cat Is Afraid of the Vacuum Cleaner", etc.), so it has come in quite handy.

Please take just a sec and throw us a request for the song and help us get to #1 for the year - many thanks!
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

jchaze · Guest

Chris,
My 2 fave groups of all time are BEATLES and ELO.
So, as you can imagine(pun intended), I L O V E D your ELO send-up.

You've managed to create some very special moments...like the great music break, complete with echo, and the vocoder effect which made me laugh out loud.
Yes, of course the words are fun...but GREAT Production and amazing job playing all the instruments.
The only thing missing? I really expected the drums to come back in at the end, along with the chorus and a fadeout.(a-la "Free as a Bird")

LOVED IT!
JC

ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 6:08 am Post subject:

Well thanks a ton JC (or a metric tonne)! I tried to take great care in putting in as many signature ELO bits as I could muster (driven into memory from years of listening)...Very true on the ending, great idea that never occurred to me - I had the ending of "Big Wheels" in my head when I constructed that part...I'm living it all over again now that my 15 year old daughter is getting heavily into ELO.

It was fun to record and I'm gratified that so many people have dug it. Your request to www.drdemento.com/request will help it up the chart for this last monthly Top Ten and hopefully all the way up the Funny 25!

I'm grateful for whatever vocal chops I was given, so that I can do these "emulations"...The husband of my band vocalist was convinced that my Steely Dan style-parody "I Saw The Coelacanths" was actually Steely Dan!

Thanks again, and am glad you had some laughs.
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

Deirdre · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 9:46 am Post subject:

ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 11:12 am Post subject:

Whoa - many thanks again! I'm working on finding a full version of that song online, not sure if there is one yet, but another Dan parody can be heard at http://thefump.com/fump.php?id=1084 , the artist is another big Dan fan, and I produced and played on her track, a parody of Hey Nineteen that deals with her lousy seat assignment (actually A19!) at the Steely Dan show last year.

I'll see about putting up Coelacanths (try rhyming that one!!!)

Thanks again...

C
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

Deirdre · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 11:40 am Post subject:

"Coelacanths" rhymes with "orange".
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bobsouer · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 1:16 pm Post subject:

And "purple."
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ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 1:55 pm Post subject:

I found the master file and uploaded it, it is at www.voiceguy1.com/audio/01.mp3

Power Salad - "I Saw the Coelacanths"
composed, recorded & played by CM except:

background vocals & fingersnaps by Kickie Johnson-Taylor (pronounced Kiki)
guitar solo by Tom Ross
horns by Russ McQuaide and Tony Spicer

from our album Power Salad 3: Sweat Equity.

Enjoy...hopefully.........and please request "Hold On, I've Got To Take This" at www.drdemento.com!! thanks...
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

Lee Gordon · Posted: Thu Nov 06, 2008 2:01 pm Post subject:

Deirdre · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:28 pm Post subject:

Just listened with Dieter to all of "I Saw the Coelacanths".

Dude, that is some seriously tasteful stuff.

Hilarious— but SERIOUSLY TASTEFUL.

May I tell others about it? I can host the MP3 so it doesn't kill your bandwidth.
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ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 3:56 pm Post subject:

Oh by all means, I appreciate it (have you listened to "A19" yet? Same kind of thing) - what kind of evolved was that I didn't want to just do parodies since Weird Al is "the man" for that kind of thing, and a lot of my fellow indie dementia artists seem to mostly deal in parodies and they don't do much on the musical end, since the surface humor is in the lyrics and few of them are actually musicians...so I decided to focus more on the style-parody aspect of things, being that I'm also a huge rock/pop music fan and music scholar...I thought "I like this tune, why don't I write a song that 'sounds' like this song, but isn't!" (witness the Utopia "Deface the Music" album - all Todd Rundgren originals but all sound SO much like The Beatles down to the engineering...) and that was my non-sensical Steely Dan example. Kind of like what Leiber and Stoller said about their approach to production, particularly in regard to the Coasters records: "We didn't write songs, we wrote records."

I certainly have many Sweat Equity CDs hanging around in case anyone's interested!!!... Smile

As another example, our latest tune which was played on Dr Demento a few weeks ago, was presented to me by my partner with the instructions "sinister, Bond-type music"...I figured OK, I know Bond music...and the result is http://thefump.com/fump.php?id=1091 .

Thanks for whatever passing along you do, and if you don't mind hosting the file that'd be superb...

And since I try to be a good forum user, straying back on-topic, my ISDN installation is next Friday, with the booth construction hopefully taking place between now and then. Now it's a matter of another marketing round to let folks know about that! I look forward to testing out my (used/new) Xstream and getting all this STUFF off my dining room table!!!!!

Thanks again.
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

Deirdre · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:20 pm Post subject:

It made me think of Neil Innes and The Rutles.

I'll host the tune I share— can't wait!
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ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Fri Nov 07, 2008 5:38 pm Post subject:

Ooh, that's great since I am a major, major, major Bonzo Dog Band fanatic. Been collecting their records in a serious way since about 1979, have many rare items, and love the comic anarchy and satire. Rutles = total genius.

Thanks again for your interest in the tunes.
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Mon Nov 10, 2008 5:29 pm Post subject:

I have been emailing with Dr Demento over the last couple of days, and have provided him with the new Bonzo Dog Doo-Dah Band reunion album, he will be playing it on his Nov 23rd show. WooHoo.

Once again, hope everyone has had a chance to listen to our tune and can go to Dr Demento's website and request it, hopefully giving us a #1 for the year!

Thanks a ton.

ISDN coming this Friday!!!!!
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com

ChrisMezzolesta · Posted: Sat Nov 29, 2008 7:50 am Post subject:

I'd like to thank everyone profusely for requesting the song, we made #3 on this month's Top Ten. (http://dmdb.org/cgi-bin/plinfo.pl?drd08.1130.html) Not sure if that is enough to get us to #1 for the year, but it will be darn close, and it may well surpass our 2006 #3 placing. I do appreciate everyone taking the time to go to the Dr Demento website and lodge your complai- - - uhh, Request for the tune. We'll see on the New Year's weekend how things turn out!

Thanks once again and Happy Holidays.
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Chris Mezzolesta, Voice Talent
800.356.5519 www.voiceatile.com