Part Two will have almost nothing to do with music…though I’ll try and fit it in…

If ever I had any indie rock cred, I’ve lost it. 

Over the years, it has been draining from me at a slow bleed, in a manner similar to, say, M. Night Shyamalan’s talent (zing!).  It probably began the first time I defended Billy Joel in public.  It started leaking out my ears, dripping down onto my Marillion T-shirt, and pooling atop my copy of REO Speedwagon’s Hi Infidelity.

Recently, though, I willing reached into my soul with a dry sponge and mopped up the remaining drops…by participating in musical theatre.

For reasons that hardly need explanation, musical theatre is not hep with the hipsters.  Hokey, jokey, clichéd and often hackneyed, musical theatre is not “cool” as the word “cool” is defined.  Okay, perhaps super obscure Japanese avant garde theatre types like J.A. Caesar are cool, but that’s awfully obscure.  If you’re into that, you’re not a hipster either.  You’re a music nerd (or you’re me).

Whenever someone tries to write a “cool” musical, they seem to fail. Let’s face it, musicals aren’t cool.  Rent was supposed to be fairly hip…but you could argue that point for five hundred twenty-five thousand six hundred minutes straight, and no one’s likely to believe you.

Yet there’s plenty about musical theatre that deserves a little defence, even from the hipster’s point of view. Andrew Lloyd Webber was not just cool at the start, he was – and I use the word in all seriousness – awesome.  The original recording of Jesus Christ Superstar is a groovy rock record, with no one less than Ian (Deep Purple) Gillan as Jesus.  Roger Miller was a pretty decent songsmith, and his Big River is a gospelly country classic.  A bit of irony and some attitude can go a long way as well, as evidenced by Little Shop of Horrors or Hedwig and the Angry Inch. 

(Let’s not even get into movies.  Phantom of the Paradise?  Once?  Those two alone would make my case).

I don’t expect to ever regain my indie cred by talking like this.  But that’s okay.  You gotta dig what you gotta dig.  I may not go flip on The Full Monty soundtrack very often, but in the end, I’m happy I got to sing “Big-Ass Rock.”  And that I got to be naked in front of hundreds of people.

That last bit has very little to do with music…but I think I’m going to write about it next time anyway.  I’m pretty sure my editor will cut me some slack…