Tag Archives: inappropriate walk up music

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Windigo

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

My post yesterday, which referenced a collegiate memory, prompted another, which I have not ever written about on this site, a fact I find very difficult to believe. Because it is legend among me and a small group of friends.

My junior year of college, I lived in a five-guy suite. This was definitely my favoritest time at college, since me and my roommates would often engage in goofy shenanigans and goings-on. One of my roommates this year worked at the radio station and would often book bands to play there. Not necessarily bands he dug, but work is work, and experience is experience. As such, he came home with armloads of demo CDs he had no intention of ever listening to, nor did the rest of us.

However, for reasons that have been lost to the mists of time, one day we decided to pop one of these CDs in the stereo. It was by a band called Windigo. The first track was called “C and M (Confident and Militant).” It started with the lead “singer” intoning this manifesto, spoken:

I’m confident
I’m militant
I’m a living, breathing accident.

He then began rapping, over no music, the following lyrics:

Ain’t never ever been to South Central
But the pain in my brain still makes me go mental!

Followed by some lyrics about “the power of one,” after which he literally said BREAK-DOWN! And the music kicked in. Rap-rock was still in its infancy as a genre at the time, so none of us were really prepared for what we were hearing. It sounded like outtakes from a session for background music from a Navy commercial.

Even if the style was new to us, we did know funny when we heard it, and this was hilarious. We rewound the BREAK-DOWN! part and replayed it a good 10 times before proceeding. The rest of the song was basically an extended jam of Nutritional Supplement Rock, with the repeated refrain I’M CONFIDENT! I’M MILITANT!

We became obsessed with this song, to the point where we had Windigo Parties. We’d put on “C and M” to get psyched up to go out, or when we woke up in the morning, or just on a lazy afternoon. But we wouldn’t just listen to it. We’d do a full-on hardcore version of a Soul Train line dance, where we’d all take turns doing ridiculous slamdance-type moves, or whatever dumb gyrations came to mind.

Me, I used to alternate between The Lawnmower and The Charleston. There was also a move we all did that had no real name. Let’s call it The Orb. You pretended to roll/shine an imaginary glowing sphere in your hands, then pass it along to someone else. Why? Why not?

Did I mention that we would do this with girls in our suite? What’s more amazing is that guys whose idea of good time was having Windigo Parties would ever have girls in their suite. I didn’t say they were there for long, just that they entered the premises at some point.

Sadly, that demo CD was lost in the shuffle and mishegoss of college life. Amazingly, considering the role it played in our lives, no one seems to know what happened to it. Windigo put out a full length in 1998 that did NOT include “C and M.” And since that demo predated the explosion of online file sharing, all of my efforts to find it online have been fruitless.

If you happen to have access to a copy of this song, you do not know what I would pay to own it. No price is too high. I may even regale you with my rendition of The Orb.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: “Goodbye Cruel World”

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

One of my collegiate roommates had had an extensive music collection. Most of it fell under the heading of punk, with a particular fondness for Johnny Thunders live bootlegs where poor Johnny was barely coherent. (I remember one that started out with him announcing, in his intensely Elmhurstian accent, “This song goes out ta Yassah Arafat. I heah he’s movin ta Queens.”) But he also had a weakness for doo wop of the late 1950s/early 1960s, the more New York-y the better (think Dion).

In keeping with this latter category, he had a few Billboard compilations from that era. Once, he burst into my room and demanded I listen to a song from the 1961 collection because it was so singularly bizarre: “Goodbye Cruel World” by James Darren.

Mr. Darren was best known as an actor, most notably as Moondoggie in the Gidget movies. He also had a recurring gig on T.J. Hooker. If you’re a nerd of more recent vintage, you may recall him as the holographic crooner Vic Fontaine on Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. But he enjoyed a singing career in the early 1960s, and “Goodbye Cruel World” was his biggest hit, charting at #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 for 1961.

The pre-Beatles pop music landscape was really weird. If you weren’t aware of that fact before, you will be now. “Goodbye Cruel World” is a song in which the protagonist uses the titular phrase to signify that he’s “off to join the circus” to be “a broken-hearted clown.”

Let’s review: A song named after a saying that usually means someone is going to kill themselves, weirdly censored to mean the singer is merely becoming a carny, was the third biggest hit in 1961.

The circus milieu of this composition was not subtle, either. The song has blaring carnival horns, booming drums, and calliopes. It’s like “What’s New Pussycat,” only a thousand times less swinging. And I know that if I ever saw a batter come up to the plate to it, I would lose my mind.

Inappropriate Walk Up Music 2011

Inappropriate Walk Up Music: Sanford and Son Theme Song

For an intro to this series, click here. For the original series way back in 2009, click here.

Cliff FloydThis is an example from a real major league batter from a few years ago. When Cliff Floyd first came to the Mets, he would come to bat to hip-hop or R&B, usually pretty standard stuff. But at some point in the 2006 season, he began strolling up from the on deck circle to the theme song from Sanford and Son. (A post from Paul Lukas at Uni Watch from that season corroborates my memory.)

The first time I heard it, I thought it was a mistake, like the Shea Stadium A/V guy hit the wrong cue. That is not a song that signifies a slugger is approaching the plate. It should be played when the opposing team calls a mound conference or boots a grounder.

But no, this was not a mistake. Floyd had quite the sense of humor, even about himself, which is rare for a pro athlete. I remember that when the Sanford theme first became his walk up music, he said it was a reference to his own chronic ankle woes. I couldn’t find any reference to that from 2006, but apparently the joke went back a few years. According to this Cliff-centric web site, way back in 2003 he told MLB.com:

“You see me now,” Floyd said. “I’m like ‘Sanford and Son.’ I can’t run. I’m walking around here like Grady.”

Bless you, Cliff Floyd, one of the few bright spots of the Art Howe years.