Firewater Gets the 'Glee' Treatment

Quite recently, Green Day took a bit of a critical drubbing and clout-bath after turning their mega-selling, Bush-bashing 2004 opus, American Idiot into a … gulp …. Broadway musical. They weren't the first band to do this, of course. Artists like The Who (obviously), Abba, Roger Waters and --- unsurprisingly – Kiss have tried to bring their music to stage of the Great White Way, usually to dubious affect. But there was something truly antithetical about Green Day – ostensibly a punk band – turning their music into, well, "show tunes." Doesn't seem very "rock 'n' roll" and certainly doesn't seem very punk, but then – isn't brazenly flipping the bird to convention what punk rock was supposed to be all about? Maybe going Broadway was the punkest thing they could possibly do in that respect. Or not.

As bemused as I was to learn of that ambitious plan, I didn't ever foresee it happening to any of my favorite bands (Pink Floyd and Kiss notwithstanding). I don't see how a theatrical adaptation of, say, What's THIS For…! by Killing Joke or Rattus Norvigicus by The Stranglers would really work in the context of an all-singing/all-dancing B'way spectacle. Well, imagine my surprise, then, when a friend forwarded me the video below. Herein we see the, ahem, "Janesville Craig Spotlighters perform at Fort Atkinson Showcase, February 13, 2010, singing 'This is My Life', choreography by Ben Schrank, directed by Bob Schrank and Karla Vriezen." Evidently, the JCS is a "show choir" from Wisconsin ala "Glee."

The reason I find it pretty shocking it that prior to its show tune makeover, "This is My Life" was a song by one of my all-time favorite bands, Firewater, from their excellent 2008 opus, The Golden Hour (see below).

I guess no music is truly safe.