The Gomers with Aaron Veenstra "Let's Stay Together" (21.8 MB) Live at High Noon Saloon Madison, WI June 20, 2006

It's my birthday today, so I've put the last We Are Scientists clip on hold in order to bring you this potentially embarassing bonus feature. Last week my dad was in town, and we all went to the High Noon Saloon's weekly "Gomeroke" night. Every Tuesday night, this band called the Gomers plays a live karaoke show with a catalog of about 1200 songs. You head up to the stage, tell them your song, they play, you sing. The one hang-up for a person like myself is that their catalog has a steep drop-off after 1990. There are maybe half a dozen songs I'd be comfortable enough with to sing on stage, and most of those don't strike me as very interesting performance songs -- e.g., old Pearl Jam singles.

Owing to Pulp Fiction, "Let's Stay Together" was by far and away the best choice for me to sing. I also brought with me the lyrics to "Black Hole Sun" and "Alison," but those were distant second and third choices. This was the first time we've done Gomeroke, and I think this song went pretty well. Later on in the evening, after quite a number of drinks, I went up to sing "Baba O'Riley" with my dad doing the Pete Townshend bit, and we destroyed it -- as it turns out, I actually don't really know how it goes after the first verse. So, this piece of advice for any would-be Gomerokers: Knowing one verse or the chorus does not mean you know the song. In fact, if you're not sure you know the song, you don't, and you shouldn't try to sing it in front of an audience.

(BTW, this clip isn't in the actual podcast feed, so you'll have to use the download link to get it.)