The Wily Filipino

The Sippy Cups, Cafe du Nord, SF, 3/12/2006.

Great Moment in Rock and Roll #4,382:

The Sippy Cups are a band who has forged a career from astutely figuring out the cosmic link between hippie surrealism and kiddie songs. But it's not just Pink Floyd's "Bike" ("Syd must be riding his bike around Cambridge as we speak," dryly commented the lead singer, Sippy Paul) or "Space Oddity" or "She's A Rainbow" that gets the Sippy Cups treatment; "Bennie and the Jets," "Low Rider" and "Drive My Car" (even Elmo has a version of that one) all get trotted out on stage, with a few lyrics tweaked here and there, to the delight of parents and kids alike. (As proof of a similar mindset, the American version of the British-French film The Magic Roundabout, retitled Doogal on these shores, expunged the Kylie Minogue theme song and replaced it with Pilot's "Magic" and the Electric Light Orchestra's "Mr. Blue Sky.")

But I digress: the Great Moment in Rock and Roll #4,382 occurs about halfway through the set. The crowd of four to six year-olds up front and center -- hydrated by the juice boxes from the bar (Dad had his pint of Sierra Nevada), overstimulated by the lights and colorful costumes, entranced by Sippy Doug's juggling clown off to one side, perhaps a little sweaty and exhausted after trying to catch the big soap bubbles floating in the air -- are all geared up and excited. One of the singers, Sippy Alison, asks the audience if they want "a Velvet Underground sing-along" (this is "Who Loves The Sun") or "to jump around to the Ramones." There are various yells from the audience, and the singer says, "Sounds like you want the Ramones."

The drums kick in, that primitivist, elemental rhythm at 176 beats per minute. Sippy Paul crouches near the front of the stage: "I'm going to give you some vowels here, and you have to repeat them after me, okay? A! O!"

The kids shout, "A! O!" (The adults are grinning, because they know what will happen next, "Hey! Ho!" or not.)

Sippy Paul: "A! O! Let's go!"

The kids: "A! O! Let's go! A! O! Let's go! A! O! Let's go!"

And then Sippy Paul yells into the mic: "Now jump around!"

The kids go absolutely nuts. The band launches into "Blitzkrieg Bop," and it's as if someone pulled an electric switch and zapped the crowd. I don't think there isn't a single kindergartener on the floor in front of me that isn't jumping around like little Tasmanian devils, flailing with total lack of restraint. Over by the moshpit at the front of the stage I see my daughter Izzy's pigtails flying. The sheer energy of the moment is exhilarating, as if the kids all understood, on some deeper level, the thrill of collective abandon, of the primal joy of rock and roll made harder, louder, faster. The kids are alright indeed.

Posted by the wily filipino at March 13, 2006 12:01 AM