Dear Cats & Kittens- We now have a home for Letters From Our Fans, and here it is! Here is the first to be posted. Its a great letter written by Ted Quock from Japan, who has been a Big fan since day one! It made me smile when he mentions an Easter Egg-type bonus he discovered. Good ear, Ted! The Bunny on the lefts got nothin on you! Thank you for writing, & Rock on! Dear Bubba, Thanks for adding me to your mailing list. I’m very excited to be in direct contact with the group! To give you my personal lowdown, I was born in San Francisco in 1950, which I suppose makes me more or less the right vintage to be a hardcore fan. Im Chinese-American, so I grew up with music ranging from Lawrence Welk and Mitch Miller to Martin Denny to Chinese opera. That said, as there were three boys in the family and my formal name is Theodore, my parents relented when Ross Bagdasarian hit it big with the “The Chipmunk Song (can’t thank you enough for including them on the new album, by the way). Anyway, I fell in love with Big Daddy through Dancing in the Dark and “Hamster Love” on the “Tales of the Rhino double-CD set, which I had bought on a trip back home, but was devastated to learn that the band was defunct. Japanese record stores don’t have comedy sections, but Tower Records (which still operates here) did have Cutting Their Own Groove, Sgt. Pepper,” and later “The Best of Big Daddy. I also happened upon Chantmania” at Berkeleys hallowed Amoeba Records. As Ive become more Net-savvy, Amazon and YouTube have been most helpful in keeping the fire alive, particularly with the first two albums on vinyl and cassette tape. And then I decided on the spur of the moment to look the band up on the Internet and was rewarded with the discovery of your reuniting and new album. I am a professor of English communication by trade, specializing in Western Humor. I teach a three-year seminar course on Western Humor, as well as courses on Mixed Media and Music as a Medium of Communication. Big Daddy music fits neatly into all three courses, whether the starting point is humor, cover versions, parody, mashups, or music history. You may or may not be aware that the world premiere of “Titanic” was at the Tokyo International Film Festival, so that film is still held in high regard here, even among many of my current university students. I take great delight in revealing “The lost Elvis tapes” to them. And, needless to say, it’s always a treat to watch their faces when I pre-teach the intro to the Beach Boys’ “Don’t Worry Baby” and then follow up with your rendition of “Sukiyaki. Since downloading your new album last week, I’ve gone to bed every night listening to it on my iPod. I was curious when I saw the mix of titles on line, especially since some of the source productions pre-date “Big Daddy 59,” but I‘m happy to conclude that it works just as well as your other albums have. Very similar to the way in which generations of Americans delighted in searching for “Nina” in Al Hirschfeld’s cartoons, I’m sure my fellow Big Daddy admirers get a kick out of trying to figure out the sources for the arrangements of your songs. Speaking for myself, most numbers on the new album ranged from instantly obvious (“Tara’s Theme,” “Music of the Night,” “New York, New York”) to eventually easy (“What Kind of Fool Am I” and “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” even though it seems to be the Chipmunks’ voices rather than the musical arrangement), others needed to be researched before I was sure (“As Time Goes By,” “I Could Have Danced All Night”), and there are regretfully still a few I’m still trying to figure out conclusively (“Summertime”—Little Richard?--and “Try to Remember,” maybe my favorite cut on the album—I’d say the Marcels, but they’re already represented). I’d also like to add that I love the Easter Egg-type bonuses for those paying attention towards the end of “New York, New York” and “Tara’s Theme,” both as effective as the double surprise at the end of “Dancing in the Dark.” Pure genius! I have to question whether my ramblings would be of much interest to anybody, but of course you’re welcome to post any parts of this on your site that you deem worthwhile. My recent viewings of Big Daddy material on YouTube have finally given me faces to go along with the voices. Since you were kind enough to write to me, may I ask for some of the numbers on which you are the lead singer? In conclusion, let me say “Welcome back” and “Long live Big Daddy”! My warmest regards to all of your fellow band members. Ted Quock
Posted on: Wed, 02 Jul 2014 23:20:56 +0000
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