October 18, 2009 by Ro.

We have exciting news! We have been asked to be the guest vocalists at the Morris Choral Society’s holiday concert at the Bickford Theater in December! It is a huge honor and we are thrilled to be part of this. We are feverishly working on six Christmas songs for the show.

Unfortunately, for some reason, the songs involve a lot of syllables like “doo” and “dong.” We need little encouragement to regress to pottymouth days.

Rehearsal verbatim:
“We have to keep our doo-doos moving here.”

“What does ‘subito’ mean?”
“It means our doo-doos suddenly get soft.”
“I hate it when that happens.”

“Audrey, Steve and Jeff need to hold their doo-doos longer in this measure, otherwise Ro has a dangling doo-doo.”
“Ew.”

“What went wrong?”
“I think Jeff has been holding his dong too long.”

The merriment intensifies after we skip a week of rehearsing to accommodate various Back To School Nights. Apparently going 14 days without rehearsing allows pent-up hilarity to erupt uncontrollably when we reconvene, with Steve falling to the floor a record three times, twitching merrily, the other three in different states of rapturous ruin. At one point, gamely getting back to business, we resort to singing with our backs to each other, valiantly suppressing our laughter, but the telltale vocal quavering is enough to set us off and send Steve back to the floor.

Life is good for Moderately Bright Four, with many more upcoming performances, including some new venues, and a whole slew of new music to tackle, if we can ever stop laughing.

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September 26, 2009 by Ro.

September 5, 2009

Five Years!

It is hard to believe that Moderately Bright Four has been in existence for five wonderful years! If we were a child, we would be starting kindergarten. Let’s see… fifth anniversary. I’ll look it up… Hmmm, it’s celebrated with gifts of wood. Toothpicks? Chopsticks? A cord of logs? Perhaps a suite of new furniture?

It doesn’t seem possible that it was five years ago when Ro, sweating with nervousness from all her various pores, walked into the first rehearsal, which was for all intents and purposes, an audition. It was our first song, “My Girl,” with Jeff starting with his “Dimmmm dit didip didip” bass line, Steve’s impeccable solo “I’ve got sunshine on a cloudy day” and then Ro & Audrey echoing in harmony “On a cloudy day.” The harmony was perfect and we all stopped simultaneously and exclaimed, “We can do this!” And the rest is history!

We have seen each other through good times and bad, through sickness and health, for richer and for poorer, and the harmony and camaraderie always pull us out of whatever slumps we’re in, individually or collectively.

Interviewer: So, Moderately Bright Four, what have been your favorite experiences over the past five years as a group?

Steve: It would have to be our first outdoor concert at Flanders Park. As we started our set , the thunderclouds rolled in, rain started to splatter, and it was clear that we would have to cancel. Luckily, Temple Hatikvah was right next door, and we convinced our audience to drive over so we could continue the concert over there. I don’t think I’ve ever sweated so much racing to take down our equipment in a thunderstorm and scrambling to set it all up again in record time.

Audrey: I love all of the hilarity whenever we attempt to sing “M-O-T-H-E-R.” Every time we try it, some disaster occurs and we end the song twitching on the floor shrieking in fits of laughter. It is truly a dreadful song to begin with, with awful lyrics, and when that’s topped with our spelling out “MOTHRA” or substituting “E is for the enemas that she gave me” there is no hope we will ever perform that song well unless we are all at gunpoint.

Ro: Ever the serious one, I would have to say singing the Star Spangled Banner at the Somerset Patriots stadium with all our fans waving, well, fans at us from the stands. That was quite a thrill and I’m eternally grateful that I didn’t wet my pants from nervousness while being broadcast on a JumboTron. Oh yes, and I like to write the blog.

Jeff: Dum diddip diddup dum. Bum doo. Bop didda bop. Rip di diddle dip bo…

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August 2, 2009 by Ro.

As predicted, August 1 is a sunny and beautiful summer day, perfect for the rescheduled Blues Cruise car show. Billed as “not the biggest, but the coolest” car show in NJ, it lives up to its name with dozens and dozens of very cool cars on display. Ro and Jeff, the motorheads in the group, enjoy examining the cars while Steve and Audrey seek out shade.

This is our third performance at this event and it is one of our favorite gigs. This year we get to perform while riding in the back of an antique truck! Ro is especially happy because the truck is painted a bright orange and the color will bring out the brassy shades in her newly-tinted hair. However, being the Seat Belt Queen, she is not unaware of the dangers of riding around on a bumpy lawn STANDING UP in the bed of an antique truck. She can envision the possibilities: one false move as the truck swerves to avoid a collision with some other antique vehicle and it will be Moderately Bright Mayhem as we fly through the air, clutching our wireless mikes and desperately try to stay on pitch and not die.

As always, Ro’s fears are not realized. It is great fun tooling around and singing to the people with their cars on display. There is a professional photographer there who manages to get a rare picture of the four of us in which we simultaneously look perky and cute. He is able to print the photo on various items, and Audrey and Jeff surprise Ro with a Moderately Bright Four mug. Now when Ro drinks her morning coffee, she can see Audrey, Jeff, and Steve smiling at her from atop an antique truck. There is no better way to start the day! Ro is concerned the first time she uses the mug that it might be some sort of trick mug in which hot liquids make MB4’s clothes disappear, but thankfully it is just a normal mug. It is truly a special and prized item and I’m sure there is some website out there where more can be ordered. Ro is thinking of perhaps having a complete set of MB4 dinnerware made.

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June 25, 2009 by Ro.

June 20… Rained out at the car show (But rescheduled for August 1 — it will be a sunny day for sure!)

June 21… Rained out at the beach…

June 24… Finally we are able to squeeze in a show between the showers. We share a bill with the Fabulous Unknowns, an up-and-coming blues trio. Rumor has it they won’t be Unknown for long — they are very good! Ro has a big crush on the slide guitar player “Slidemaster” (sigh)

Audrey has a GPS on Jeff, so we are able to track his concert-bound commute (He’s on 287! He’s on 80! He’s on 206! There goes his car! That’s him! That’s him!) The excitement is palpable. He arrives with plenty of time to change into his black ‘n’ blues, the uniform of the day. Steve paces in anticipation, watching the storm clouds gather and threaten us with certain death by electrocution. Ro muses, “What if my last word is “Bop?” But all fears are put to rest when the clouds pass us by and go on to ruin someone else’s outdoor plans for a change.

We are able to debut our three new songs and don’t mess them up at all! We do, however, have some pronoun-related mishaps on “Pretty Little Angel Eyes” which I’m sure will be addressed at our next rehearsal. The audience doesn’t seem to notice and it is great fun singing outdoors at Flanders Park yet again.

A big hello and thank you to our loyal fans, including many of Ro’s students and former students who came out to the show to celebrate the end of the school year. It was great to see a lot of “Happy Foster Dances” going on!

Happy Summer, everyone!

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May 31, 2009 by Ro.

We are going full tilt to get ready for our June events! To celebrate the lazy hazy crazy days of summer that are fast approaching, we are offering not one, not two, but THREE opportunities to see our latest songs and shenanigans.

Saturday, June 20: Blues Cruise Car Show 9:30 - 4:30 in Knowlton (off Exit 4 Route 80). This is our third appearance at this wonderful car show and we’re revving up all our doo-wop numbers. Jeff’s head is just a-spinnin’ from all the doos and dip-dips and dum dit-dits he’s turning out. Steve, Audrey and Ro are feverishly trying to memorize all the car parts mentioned in Shut Down and Little Deuce Coupe. We’ll be singing on and off all day. Come out and enjoy the great cars, great clams, great music, and free firetruck rides!

Sunday, June 21: Budd Lake Beach — We go on at 3:00 p.m., followed by The Fabulous Unknowns (featuring Ro’s husband Al Foster on slide guitar!). This is a fun venue, featuring a sandy beach on NJ’s largest natural lake (it’s not all that big, but it was made by glaciers! Talk about cool!) Free to Mt. Olive residents. Treat your dad to a fun concert at the beach for Father’s Day. Don’t forget your beach chair, sunscreen and shades!

Wednesday, June 24: Flanders Park — we go on at 7 p.m., but come at 6:00 to catch The Fabulous Unknowns! Free concert — bring a lawn chair, a picnic supper, and enjoy the show! Free!!!!!!!!

In other news, we are working on a few new songs, including a jazzy arrangement of Over the Rainbow, Shut Down (featuring Ro spitting out all those car words), and That’ll be the Day (a great belter that Audrey does impeccably). We also are finishing Seems Like Old Times, in a barbershoppy arrangement. Unfortunately the whole song takes about 45 seconds to sing and there doesn’t seem to be a second verse. Do we repeat the whole thing on Loooo? Do we write our own second verse? Do we do Ro’s harebrained idea of a segue into another song (unfortunately in a different key and involving a disturbing and ill-advised modulation)? Stay tuned!

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