On Friday morning to band gathered at our local television station to go on the air and perform Dr. Albert Capati’s now infamous parody of The Weeknd’s, “Can’t Feel MyFace.” You would think that by now this would be old hat for your favorite mashup band but things were a little unusual in these circumstances. First off, Aaron, Talon and myself would be without our instruments, relying solely on the instrumental track. I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a guitar player have his guitar taken away from him and asked to perform but it’s something akin to watching a dog scrape its feet and walk in a circle for several minutes before finally settling on its spot in front of the fireplace. Second it would mark the vocal debut of drummer Talon Holmes. To be clear these were not vocals in the traditional sense rather the incarnation of a character who has been severely medicated by his dentist. Due to the awkward nature of this performance, you will notice no link has been provided and no video has been shared. Should you want to venture out in search of what will surely go into the Fun DMC vault, you are on your own.

There is a very definite line of demarcation that splits the activities of this past weekend. However the one unifying theme that ties them both together is that age old question, “Is it going to rain?” That was definitely on everyone’s mind leading up to our show at the Susan G Komen Race For The Cure event in front of the State Capitol on Friday night. I always enjoy all ages shows because it’s one of the few times that my three-year-old daughter can come out to see her daddy and his friends play music. As it would happen she was also able to see her grandpa, Bill Schnake, who was on hand to run sound for the event. Following The opening ceremony and the Survivors Walk, for which the band provided a live performance of Martina McBride’s “This One’s For The Girls“, Fun DMC pushed through a little over an hour’s worth of material for the runners, joggers, and runners who showed up to raise funds and awareness in the fight against breast cancer. The event closed with a dazzling fireworks display of pink and the band was able to pack the last of the equipment and just barely miss one of May’s most torrential downpours.

I should begin Saturday by saying that for months the members of Fun DMC have been looking forward to a weekend band retreat as it were. For at least the last month we have been discussing and planning a camping trip near Starved Rock State Park. That discussion lost momentum sometime around last Tuesday when the five day forecast came out. And wouldn’t you know there was nothing in the works but rain. So on Friday night as the band wrapped up their post show dinner at Smokey Bones, it was pretty clear that most of us were less than optimistic about the forecast, which was really a shame since we had all ordered matching camp shirts for the weekend. As expected it rained most of the night but on Saturday morning there was a bit of clearing on the horizon. All it took was for Aaron to invoke 2013’s short-lived catchphrase, “YOLO” and it was settled. Come hell or high water or maybe even both, Camp DMC was eminent. As for that 90% chance of rain that we talked about on Tuesday, when all was said and done it hit for about an hour while most of us were fast asleep in our tents.

While I could take the time to go through a very detailed accounting of the band’s camping experience, which included cooking on an open fire, S’mores, fire brewed coffee, hiking through Starved Rock State Park, telling stories around the campfire, and not losing any appendages while cutting up firewood with an ax, it should be noted that the essence of joy for the band over the weekend was what they were not doing. It should be noted that we love to perform live. We love our clients and our fans and it is a joy every time we take the stage. That said, at times what we do can be very labor-intensive and at times even chaotic. For this reason, it was quite the welcome experience for us to be able to hang out with each other with no deadline, no load in schedule, no speaker system to ring out and EQ, and no trailer to load up at the end of the night. As we hiked through Wildcat Canyon, single file in our yellow Camp DMC T-shirts, a very puzzled passerby inquired about our matching attire. I told her we were a band. When she asked what kind of a band I had to stop for a second because the answer isn’t as obvious as you might think. Pop band? Wedding band? Mashup band? I thought about it for a while as I carried 40 pounds of excited toddler on my shoulders through the Illinois woods all the way to a hollow where a multitude of hikers had gathered to watch water pour forth from the rock facing 100 feet above. What kind of band? The kind that takes the weekend off to go look at a waterfall.

A post shared by Fun DMC (@fundmcmusic) on May 22, 2017 at 6:43am PDT