Ben Folds, Undeclared, and ICCA

February 20th, 2008 | Comments (1) | Trackbacks (0) |

It’s no secret that I have many unnecessary and un-useful skills. It once prompted my friend Brandon to call me the “king of party tricks”. One of these skills is vocal percussion. I’ve spent a lot of time (too much?) since my freshman year of high school perfecting the art of mimicking a drum set with my mouth.

In college, I sang and did vocal percussion in a group called Undeclared. There’s a competition for college a cappella groups called the International Championship of Collegiate A Cappella (ICCA) that’s kind of like the a cappella version of the NCAA basketball tournament. We competed three times while I was there, and this past weekend I had the opportunity to emcee a quarterfinal that was held on the Luther campus. It was an incredibly fun time interacting with the audience inbetween groups and meeting many of the performers. I even got to perform a song with Undeclared during their showcase (they compete this weekend in St. Louis).

Anyway, Ben Folds is performing at Luther on March 3, and Undeclared has the honor of opening for him. I was asked to come up and do vocal percussion with the group, and I’m totally excited. Although it’s unconfirmed right now, I heard Mr. Folds will even be joining us for a song.

Click below to hear Undeclared perform a song called “Florida” in which I do vocal percussion. My friend Mike Lang is singing (he plays bass and sings backup vocals on my album). And if you’re so inclined, check out this video on YouTube of us performing “Over My Head (Cable Car)” which I arranged.