Doctor Noize

It’s the January 2009 Noizeletter!

Wow. You look remarkably similar to the way you looked last year. But that was so last year. In any event, here are this month’s Top Five Noizy Thingz…

1) Oh, The Places We’ll Go!

A mere nine years after the devastation that was the Y2K Glitch, it’s amazing how we’ve managed to rebuild. And Doctor Noize will be visiting more places and states than ever before in 2009. No, this is not part of a multi-state community service agreement stemming from my heretofore undisclosed nationwide jaywalking compulsion. Rather, it’s because Doctor Noize is growing, and more people in more places are making the somewhat conscious decision to make their lives a little more Noizy. One day, I may even be as big as Phineas. But I sure hope not. Check the Showz calendar in the coming months as details of more shows in more places are published. And contact early in the year if you’d like your hometown to be somewhere Doctor Noize performs this year!

2) The World’s Largest Children’s Museum!

There is much deliciousness on Doctor Noize’s 2009 plate, some of which cannot be revealed as yet. (Isn’t that mysterious?) One of the most exciting thingz is my new partnership with the world’s largest children’s museum, the Children’s Museum of Indianapolis. If you’ve never been there, go some time — it’s amazing. I’ll be playing a series of shows, seminars and book readings there in early March in the first visit of a partnership that will span many years and spawn more than simply showz. (I just won a bet by alliteratively using the verb spawn in the Noizeletter…)

3) Rocking The Rockies!

We had a great time rocking in the New Year with three shows at multiple venues in the Denver metro. This weekend I will be rocking Denver again with shows at two more venues. The first is an unplugged show and book reading at a Denver library. The second is a big family show as part of The Music Train Family Concert Series in Arvada at the über woober bo boober hip D Note — part nightclub, part art museum, part pizza parlor. Pretty much the only thing the D Note is not is a gas station, and I, for one, am glad about that. Oh wait — it’s also not a nuclear waste dumping facility. So I guess that’s two things it’s not. Still, it wears a lot of hats for one venue. Check it out.

4) I Hereby Vow To Love My Creative Children Equally This Year!

The book is starting to get more attention, like in this newspaper article. As a guy who’s spent his whole life in music production, performance and promotion, spreading the word on the book has not really received the attention it deserves from me. It has sort of been the forgotten child, like Tina Yothers on Family Ties and whatever Ray’s kids are named on Everybody Loves Raymond. The book has been the CD’s Tito to Michael Jackson, its Nicky to Paris Hilton, its Kieran to Macaulay Culkin, its Graem to Jack Bauer. (Those who didn’t know there was a Nicky Hilton should congratulate themselves.) I could go on… but I won’t. But you will see a greater dedication to the book this year, with many more library and bookstore appearances than I’ve made in the past.

5) Noizemakers Of The Month!

The Noizemakers Of The Month are these macho pops who braved the stage with me to perform a song on New Year’s Eve. Look at the focus by these four dads and Peter from the Children’s Museum of Denver. As Bottomus would say… They’re committed to the groove, baby. Many thanks to Noizemaker and phab Phineas photographer Rachel Drummond for sending photos of the show. Also kudos to the kids at Cowell Elementary School in the heart of the city of Denver, where I played this month’s Giving Back Showz — they are wonderful, musical, energized and energizing, and it was my distinct privilege to perform there. Thank you y gracias! Here’s a funny story about that show if you wanna read it.

Love yer buddy for life,

Doctor Noize

P.S. If you’d like to be removed from this mailing list, respond with the phrase “Nicky is hotter than Paris.”
P.P.S. If you’d like to be removed from this mailing list, but disagree or are uncomfortable with the phrase “Nicky is hotter than Paris,” than I suppose you could just go with the more coded “I love Paris in the springtime.”

Being a live performer prepares you to expect the unexpected. That being said, there are still things that happen for which you are unprepared. Case in point…

On Wednesday, I played this month’s Giving Back Showz at Cowell Elementary School in the heart of the great city of Denver. The kids there were absolutely fabulous, and I was psyched to be there. Their inner city public school budget doesn’t have the resources to hire out assemblies by performers like me, and the resources of the community’s parents are not such that they can pick up the slack in this school budget.

(A little behind the scenes explanation is in order here: As everyone knows, public schools are underfunded, and things like music assemblies are not exactly high on the list at many schools. So many of my elementary school assemblies are funded by the PTA or PTO rather than the school itself. At Cowell Elementary School in Denver — and many inner city schools — a vast majority of the kids are on the publicly funded meal program, meaning that most of the parents are quite poor. Funding a Doctor Noize show is probably not high on these parents’ “essential list,” thus their kids almost never get to see “enrichment activities” like assembly shows. So the monthly Giving Back Showz give me an opportunity to perform for a group of kids who don’t generally get to see me play.)

In any event, the kids rocked, the show was rocking, everything was going great, and during the second song I was running around out in the crowd singing and dancing “Banana” with the kids… when I felt a huge and sudden tear. So, while simultaneously singing and dancing, I surreptitiously glanced down at my lap to confirm my suspicions: there was a giant hole ripped in my jeans, about four inches wide, right in the front. So there I was, trying to bring a bit of musical inspiration and be a positive example to hundreds of low income kids, a grown man jumping up and down singing the word “banana” in front of a group of children with a giant hole in my crotch.

This was not exactly how I planned the show.

Strangely enough, nobody really seemed to notice. All the kids were bopping around, moving and singing, laughing, watching my crazy facial expressions. I made my way back onstage as several things popped in my head, not the least of which was this: I have a backup plan for if each piece of equipment breaks down, I have backup plans if my voice is shot from a cold, I have backup plans if a particular song is not going well, I have backup cables if a sound cable goes bad… but it has never crossed my mind to bring a backup pair of pants for showz. In all my 38 years, I can’t ever remember suddenly and inexplicably ripping a four inch hole in the crotch of my jeans while running, playing, dancing, or anything else. Yet here it happened, in the second song of the first of two sets to two audiences I was playing at the school that day. That’s 90 minutes more of standing in front of a group of kids with a giant hole in the front of my pants.

Anyway, I wore my guitar, my Ax (keytar), and every other instrument I could think of for as much of the show as possible that day, and things seemed to be all right. But from now on, maybe I’ll bring a backup pair of pants to showz.

The show must go on!