12/06/04’s illustrious band:

1st Night

Welcome to Pellavision Week! This week's entries comprise a guided tour of Rockapella fandom, as seen by yours truly.

I’m a bit of a late bloomer, I’ll admit. While most girls go through their rock groupie phases in their teens, I’ve saved mine for my mid-thirties. Which explains why I recently made a much-anticipated 550-mile round trip to Madison, WI, to see my favorite band perform.

They’re not a rock band in the traditional sense: no guitars, no keyboards, no drum kit, no fireworks, no fog machine, no laser light show. They don’t need ‘em. They’re just five guys and five microphones and the most amazing sound I've ever heard. They’re Rockapella.

Technically, I am not a new fan. I’ve thought Rockapella was cool since 1992, when I first saw them clowning it up on the PBS special Spike Lee & Company Do It A Cappella. They were a Day-Glo novelty act in a sea of neutral-colored solemnity, singing about zombies and flat tires. The lead singer’s mullet-o-braids was ridiculous even in the early 90s, and the mud flaps on two of the other three were nothing to write home about either. And could those black pants be any tighter? Definitely not your mama’s barbershop, doo-wop, or gospel group.

However, I love good singing and good theater, so for me, it was love at first sight. I videotaped the special and watched it so many times over the next few months that I dreamed about the quartet (there were only four Pellas then) snow skiing while forming a human pyramid, singing their zombie song.

The Spike special proved to be the band’s big break -- the only one they’d get for a while -- and Rockapella was hired as the house band on PBS’s geography-themed kids’ show Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego?. I’ve never seen a full episode of Carmen, although I did sometimes make it home from campus in time to catch the boys belting out the eponymous finale. I liked their sound enough to look for it in record stores, but no luck. It was all but impossible to get their albums in the U.S. at the time.

Oh well. On to other things. Except for occasionally replaying my tape, I pretty much forgot about Rockapella for the next eight years.

Monday -- One: 1st Night
A Rockapella fan is born

Tuesday -- Two: A Change in My Life
That first concert

Wednesday -- Three: Falling Over You
In which the narrator discovers that she is not alone

Thursday -- Four: Come My Way
Madison concert notes and Pellavision Awards

Friday -- Five: People Change
Rockapella then and now

E-mail the Media Sensation: BandNameoftheDay@hotmail.com

Visit the BND archives at http://jugglernaut.blogspot.com.