Ironic Jukebox

This post is a hard one for me to begin because its subject represents the springboard of my musical education and the genesis of all my amazing dance moves. Its subject has also gained the status of a minor legend amongst my friends because I’ve reminisced about it so frequently and with great detail, description, and, probably, nauseating repetition. Its subject is “Daddy’s Dance Party,” an event in my household that has been going strong for the past fifteen years or so. And as I write this, I’m feeling more and more that this might have to be an installment post, because…you’ll see…there’s a lot to be said.

I don’t know how it began, if it was my parents sneaky plan to get us completely wiped out before bedtime or if it was our request after to dinner to rock as hard as we possibly could and give ourselves hematomas and headaches from headbanging and running full speed into walls and other immovable pieces of furniture, but some time in the early 1990s, Daddy’s Dance Party was born and we’ve never been the same.

My dad is a music hound–his tastes are wonderful, broad, and at times eccentric, but at that point in my childhood his preferences were as follows: yacht rock and seventies soft rock for dinner table/outside/lazy Sunday music; British invasion, and American classic rock from the sixties and seventies for any sort of party time. It was the latter that featured heavily on the turntable during DDP.

This is how it always began; after dinner, all four Maas children would assemble breathlessly in the front room (where the stereo system and minor breakables lived), and begin doing various calisthenics (jumping jacks, wind sprints, judo chops) while dad prepared the playlist. We shouted our preferences: “GOOD VIBRATIONS!” “MY GENERATION!” “THE BALLAD OF BILLY THE KID!!” But the first song was non-negotiable, it was always “Ride My See Saw” by the Moody Blues and it always had the effect of frenzying us into a pack of raging banshees.

Here’s why: “Departure,” the spoken word prelude to “See Saw,” features the mad, mad voice of Graeme Edge talking (with Vincent Price-esque accent and urgency) nonsense about flying through tarmack and lying in meadows, etc as the background music gets louder and louder only to finally burst out our little eardrums with Edge’s hysterical laughter and an atonal noise akin to the infamous “brown sound” (the sound that makes all listeners lose control of their bowels). Then “See Saw” took us off into the stratosphere! Cue the air guitar! Cue the running full speed into Dad, and being launched Superman-style into the cushions of the couch and hopefully not through the window right behind the couch! Cue the helicopter spinning and the running in place like a Flashdance extra!

After “Ride My See Saw” it was all-request. There were favorites, though. We were bonkers for the Moog, so “Good Vibrations” would always get a spin. We loved all of The Who’s catalog, especially “Pinball Wizard,” and fancied ourselves Tommies of the dance party circuit, freestylin’ phenoms. “How do you think he does it? / I don’t know…” we’d sing and imagine ourselves wowing the good people of the British countryside, not with our pinball skills, but with our awesome attempts at The Worm and other more experimental and expressive (read: uncoordinated) forms of breakdancing. Meanwhile, my Dad would stand in the middle of it all, like a crazed wizard with his troop of wacky elves, encouraging the near-breaking of bones and the playing of all music on volume 11. He would throw us and spin us and twist us around, all of us– at the same time. It was pure bliss. I have never rocked so hard.

It would end with someone vomiting or bleeding usually, but there was always a lot of laughter and singing and fist-pumping up to that point. We would finally, when Mom came in to let us know our time was up, head upstairs soaked in sweat like marathoners to dress our wounds, run our baths, and read our bedtime stories and make our quiet preparations for the next day, but our dreams I assure you, were not so quiet. In our dreams we were screaming “THANK YOU, ALLENWOOD!” through the PA system. “YOU’RE BEAUTIFUL! WE LOVE YOU!”

Ironic Jukebox is a new column featuring the dynamic duo of Hilty Hazzard and Lauren Maas. Each week one (or both) of these Virginia lasses will delight you with humorous tales of their musical exploits.

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