The thing about fruit is that it comes in trilogies. At least according to That1Guy, who played at Vienna's Jammin’ Java on March 1. Each member of the trinity -- bananas, guavas, oranges -- has its very own song. In fact, after an announced 15-minute intermission, That1Guy entered into my books as the writer of the longest song about bananas in existence. Actually, he's more like the writer of the longest song about bananas which is played on a homemade harp-shaped plumber's nightmare known as the "magic pipe." Of course, I needn't leave out the "magic saw" or the "magic boot," the other components of yet another happy threesome, rigged up to a chorus of computer equipment.
At first glance, That1Guy looks like he should be sitting in the back of the room, pulling his black, thinly rimmed hat down over his stringy black hair. Instead he's in the middle of the stage, starting the evening off with a series of clicks, thumps, and taps on the magic pipe, sounds that can only be described as acoustic rave music. Moving swiftly from cradling the pipe to kicking it like a wimpy ninth-grader, That1Guy flows through several themes, genres, if you will. There's what I call "Blue's Clues Instrumental," "Jumanji Assemble," and then there's the fact that he plugged a cowboy boot -- the magic boot -- in and played it like a ukulele. FYI -- a magic boot sounds very much like the meeting of two coconut halves.
That1Guy comes across as a mix between Jim Carrey in "The Mask" and Weird Al Yankovic. In the midst of recording a new album, on which a lot of the songs are themed around "the moon and cheese because it's just something that's been happening," That1Guy has taken the time to perfect the balance between '80s metal and club jazz. Also, he's already written a song entitled "It's Raining Meat," so really, the moon being made of cheese is a nice contrast. The real question is, besides the magic pipe, what other kind of instrument is played with the entire human body? And if that's somehow answerable, what other instrument can jump from rave to jazz to a symphony of metal in a matter of seconds? The final two highlights of the evening reside in the magic saw, played like a guitar and then an upright bass and That1Guys's finale, a brief break dancing solo joined by a bushel of smoke fuming out of the top to the magic pipe. I'm not sure how one dreams up a magic pipe, or a magic boot for that matter, but in the smoke-filled end, it doesn’t really matter.
