Windy City Watch
Oh Chicago, you give us our home, and many great bands. This week Lord of the Yum-Yum hits the Watch.
The world of music can get pretty serious at times. Music is such an emotional thing; it's the soundtrack for weddings, birthday parties and funerals. The sounds we love usually have some pretty heavy or deep feelings attached to them. But sometimes you just have to break out of being serious, and truly appreciate something ridiculous, original and full of carefree fun. Chicago performer Lord of the Yum-Yum is just the person to combine all of those traits and bring a huge grin to your face no matter how you feel. Lord of the Yum-Yum (Paul Velat) is a Chicago based performer whose music is pretty much the only thing in the beat box/classical/vocal noise genre. That's right, the one man show uses looping machines to layer his all vocal performance of classical tunes combined with beat box breakdowns. Basically it's a man in a ruffled tuxedo with a mic making enough sound to perform "Habanera" from Carmen with his vocals alone. It is absolutely one of the most ridiculous and fascinating things I've ever seen.
I first saw Lord of the Yum-Yum (by the way, doesn't the name alone just make you giggle?) open for Dan Deacon a few months ago here in Chicago. Having no idea who he was, I was in for a huge surprise. I'd like to think of him as the pied piper of classical and opera music appreciation for our generation, exposing a new youth to the likes of Bizete and Bach, music that tends to get pushed to the wayside with a younger audience. Like I said before, us 20-somethings like our three and a half minute pop song, so sitting through a ten-minute aria is a bit much for those with little to no attention span. But seeing a spastic man jumping around in his senior prom '87 outfit beat boxing gives these songs a whole new exciting take.
Lord of the Yum-Yum is also down with another type of classic; classic rock that is. He ended his set with a medley of arena rock hits (let me remind you again, he uses no instruments, only his voice and looping machines) that totally blew away the crowd and had everyone backing up the chorus of Bon Jovi's "Livin on a Prayer." Let me tell you, you haven't lived till you sing Bon Jovi with 200 other people in a warehouse backed by a beat boxing scrawny tuxedoed nerd. Lord of the Yum-Yum is the fun counterpart to all things serious in the world of music.
Posted by Lisa White on Nov 14, 2007 @ 12:00 am
