Friday, September 12, 2008

My Baby Makes Me Happy

No, not Lucy (though she can be fun to have around sometimes...), my other baby- the one I had while I was a freshman at Harvey Mudd College in 1997. This baby's name is The Midnight Echo. It is (now) a really good A Cappella group at the Claremont colleges in SoCal. When I got down there in late August of 1997, I was fresh out of my high school's jazz choir and I wanted to be in another select group that performed a cappella music. I auditioned for the only co-ed group down there at the time, The Claremont Shades. I was turned down. Little did they know they unleashed my vengeful wrath, prompting me to form my own group of shades rejects, which we unimaginatively named "the bitter rejects". We soon changed this name to the Midnight Echo.

We started out small that fall semester, with only about 8 or so members, and we weren't very good (since we basically accepted anyone that was rejected from the other group). Spring semester, we cleaned house a little (I gave a few members their pink slips. Gently.) and we held auditions and picked up 6 or 7 more pretty good singers. We held several concerts, went on tour to Santa Monica, and recorded a cd (several group members were missing, and several others were drunk, so it wasn't of the highest quality). Many people told us we were even better than the original group that rejected us, though I think they were being kind.

I just found them on facebook. They are still there after 11 years, still holding auditions and performing. It's fun to see something that you started last a long time. Here's their face book page: Midnight Echo
And here are the Shades.


6 comments:

Nick said...

I should add that this baby was the main culprit behind my 2.2 GPA. Bad baby.

apyknowzitall said...

Nick you're about as bad when it comes to cyberstalking as I am.

Liz said...

they sounded really good but what was with the pants? i didn't get it.

Anonymous said...

Well, you can blame an proud mother for finding your blog for me...

I was in/ran Echo from 2003-2007, and it was a blast... although after 4 years, Im glad to be done with the chaos that was college a capella. The shades animosity is still there a little too, you might be pleased to know... although now we have to work together on things. (I dont know that Shades was doing Scamfest when you were there... but we started up our own version of it thats much less stuffy for spring semester).

It also gives me deep satisfaction that Echo was founded by a fellow mudder. Thanks for starting the group that made my college experience what it was.

Nick said...

Cristoph- Thanks for stopping by, and also for your hard work with the group. As I listen to Echo's music on their site, I think that much of the credit for how good they sound must go to you.

Some day when we're all rich and famous (possibly sooner) we should organize a Midnight Echo alumni concert.

Anonymous said...

Why wait? Men's B&W has alumni concerts every alumni weekend :)

Thanks so much for your kind words! I *did* actually have a hand in all of the songs up on the site... the second one I even arranged, but I should say that the first three songs were all ones we started halfway through my last semester in the group, so... blame others for the final sound :) You can hear me on the bottom two songs, though... the loud tenor on sunny and the soloist on Accidentally.

I have emails for most of the recent alumni... maybe this coming alumni weekend we should all descend and demand a concert. :)