This next tale is one of caution. When a wizard invites you to his home to listen to recordings -- don't. Unless you want a ridiculous story -- then by all means do.
For those of you who don't know, I am in an all ukulele band called Britches & Hose. A unique ensemble like ours can attract some amazing and eccentric fans. This is the story about one called The Wizard (let the record show he actually lets people call him that although I think his real name is Scott).
The Wizard first learned of our talents at an annual Iowa event called Shagstock that we have played the last few years. The first year he was dancing along with his scepter. The second year we played The Wizard was using his magic to run sound.
At a different gig this year, the Wizard put a spell on us that somehow convinced us that it was a good idea to drive to the middle-of-nowhere-Iowa to listen to our recording from Shagstock. Monday nights are a bit of a scared ritual among the Hose, so giving up this time to go to the Wizards was a big deal.
Apparently, the Wizard had forgot to disarm his Repello Muggletum spell because everyone got lost on the way to his house. By the time the last of us showed up, the group as a whole was already annoyed.
Upon entering we were overwhelmed by a number of things. The first being this beautiful homes' unusual decor. All of the lights were off, except for some Christmas lights. At first, I thought this was just an old hippie/college dorm room style of decorating where you use Christmas lights all year round. Then I turned the corner and saw the Christmas theme continued (remember this is the middle of August).
We were also blind-sided by the setup before us. Not only were there a whole crowd of people we weren't expecting, but The Wizard had a whole soundboard with mics set up and had taped out spots with arrows for each of us to stand by. We had not agreed to a private performance for The Wizard's mother and barking dog.
Someone insists that we do what we came to do, listen to the Shagstock tape. The Wizard tried to give us all some wine that was probably full of Polyjuice Potion. Then he led us downstairs to a makeshift home theatre room with recliners nailed to a pallet platform behind a couch. The TV was playing a cackling fire. The Wizard made sure to inform us that he had multiple versions of the fireplace scene with one playing -- you guessed it -- Christmas carols.
One of the magical talents The Wizard must not posses is that of hearing. He played our recording back to us so loud we were convinced that he was secretly torturing us before a sacrifice to the Basilisk. As if that wasn't enough, I had to feel the eyes of a Taylor Swift painting burning into the back of my head.
After the torture was over, I spotted this gem of a relic in the basement and felt slightly better. Someone who enjoys the beauty of this kind of furniture was probably not into niche ukulele band murder porn.
After playing a few quick songs so The Wizard could play with his sound equipment, I had to take a leak from the beer I was chugging to get through this experience. And that's when I learned the crop top trend had made its way into the toliet muppet scene.
The next day I still was trying to decide if what happened was a dream. And that's when my bandmate texted me this. I cannot stop laughing.
