Monthly Archives: April 2006

An Irresistible Dynamic Duo: Victoria Vox and her Jumping Flea

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Victoria Vox is irresistible! I’ve seen her play twice, and both times she pleased the audience with a score of original, energy-packed songs buffered by stories of her life on the road. Miss Vox, who looks to be in her early 20′s, is addicted to touring, which a glance at her upcoming gig calendar can attest to.

Her youthful energy provides the backbone for “Victoria Vox and Her Jumping Flea”, an intense ukulele-based album. On the album, Vox sings with the maturity of a mo-town legend while strumming away on her ukulele, which she calls her “Jumping Flea.”

Victoria Vox
The album starts out with the perfect twist of tongue-in-cheek humor and solid musicianship on Ukulele Lady when she sings:

If you like a Ukulele lady,
A ukulele lady like me will like you.

The album then moves into what sounds to be a more serious song sung in French entitled Le Vent Nous Portera. I imagine she’s singing a love story about how crazy love can be in France, where she lived for a good amount of time. But maybe she’s just talking about the weather. I need to take some French.
A couple of tracks later, Vox talks about her Darlin’ Beau, a song which she plays a mean faux trumpet solo using her own God-given vocal pipes. I even saw her do this live, and it was impressive!

The album then turns to a sweet as Lake Wobegon rendition of Somewhere Over the Rainbow/What a Wonderful World, an arrangement made famous by ukulele legend, Israel Kamakawiwo. Though she lacks the sort of urgency that only death can bring to a song (Israel died a sudden and early death in 1997), Victoria sings with flair and her powerful vocals take the song to a place that Israel would be proud of.

Vox showcases her formidable songwriting talent on the album’s best track, Dreamin’ ‘Bout You. On this song, she really stretches her vocal chords while keeping the beat with an almost hypnotic strumming of her jumping flea.

The album ends with a song about hope, Christmas With You. On this song, Vox sings about how she wants to make it home to spend Christmas with a special someone, someone whom I reluctantly admit is probably her boyfriend.

Summary: This is Victoria Vox’s sixth album, and her maturity as a songwriter shine through in a unique fashion. Plus, she tours a hell of a lot, which gives her some credibility in my book.

Dr. Mario’s Diagnosis: An acute case of the bleeps and bloops

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I play a lot of Dr. Mario on the old 8-bit Nintendo gaming console (NES). I’m getting so good at that game that I can now get up to level 18 without batting an eye. If you were to watch me in my nerdy solitude, you’d probably make a note of how I regularly can be seen beating level 20, which is a significant accomplishment even for established Dr. Mario’ers.

As anyone who plays the game will tell you, Dr. Mario has some great music! Certainly better than that found on lesser games such as Tetris and Bubble Bobble. But even with that being the case, “the Doctor” offers me only two musical choices – “Music A” and “Music B”, respectively. I am extremely pleased to announce that I have found a third choice!!!

Avenpitch - Butterfly Radio – Dusseldorf

Avenpitch’s sophomore release, an LP entitled “Butterfly Radio” brings Dr. Mario to new heights with it’s solid hooks and jiving keyboard parts. Plus, the Avenpitch option gives me a solid 10 songs to choose from as opposed to just two. I might even go as far as to say that Butterfly Radio’s jams rival those found on the game. To illustrate this grand achievement, I have created the following chart:

Dr. Mario vs. Butterfly Radio
vs.

Category
Winner
Musical hooks Dr. Mario introduced some catchy melodies of a calibre not heard of since The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Brothers. Avenpitch has some catchy melodies and great hooks to enjoy on Butterfly Radio.
Beats While the Good Doctor has some sweet rhythms that repeat over and over and over again, there isn’t quite enough midi drum sounds to satisfy me. Butterfly Radio sports some pretty awesome beats behind it’s catchy melodies.
Lyrics I wrote and regularly perform lyrics over the Dr. Mario music. These lyrics include such gems as:”You’ve got to pray just to make it today.”

and

“You can lick, you can lick on my nads.”

 Avenpitch’s lyrics are astounding given the relative youthfulness of this group.
“Bleeps” and “Bloops” Composed almost completely of “bloops” and “bleeps”, Dr. Mario’s soundtrack pretty much corners the market on these great sounds. While Butterfly Radio certainly has it’s fair share of “bloops” and “bleeps”, it lacks sheer volume to compete in this market.
Overall Dr. Mario’s music is undeniably catchy and great to sing and play along to for hours on end, particularly if you are rubbing a victory in your friend’s face. Butterfly Radio is solid through and through. Tossup

The album begins with A Safer Car, an interesting song about how difficult it is to communicate with those we care most about. Frontman, Todd Millenacker, belts out:

Express yourself if you’ve got something to prove
I won’t be the one to stop you
And that’s the problem with this world we live in
Everyone’s got advice but no one wants to listen

After that first track, the band begins to build up momentum, rolling into the album’s title track, a song sporting brilliantly written lyrics that contort the song’s rhyming scheme while speaking of what I assume to be a confused mass of American citizens:

And the rumor on the left is that they’re dancing on the right
And when they’re told to turn it down they don’t give a frightful
Fear or second glance
Reliving their last chance

The album gets stronger as it goes along, finishing up with Tumbleweeds, a song that I believe is about regret over having said something to someone, most likely a lady.

Summary: Butterfly Radio is a magical album, especially when played as background music to Dr. Mario.