Isaac and the Awkward Situations

Sammus is a fierce rapper from Ithaca, NY. She spouts rhymes fast and hurls jokes and comparisons, and nerdy metaphors in righteous lyrical spitfire flow. Scattered, frantic, fan fic laptop hip hop.

She made an EP tribute to Samus Aran, (from Nintendo’s Metroid games bruh) and put on a prop gun arm to deliver her songs “Cybernetic Armor” and “Brinstar.”

She told me she has a helmet, but it’s fragile, hard to travel with and hard to rap in. (With the help of some costumed assistants and a smoke machine, her show could be more like Gwar or The Aquabats.) It was pretty awesome to have her in an intimate all ages venue. I loved her song in which she said, “I’m not one thing, I’m not two things, I’m not three things, I’m not four things, I am more things than your reporting!” (The song is called Mighty Morphin”) It was about how she was called an Oreo because she liked video games, cartoons and was articulate! F your stereotypes and assumptions! We are not homogenous! Listening to Sammus can get you pumped to smash the patriarchy and I hope that comes off as sincere and not patronizing. Thank you Sammus, I WILL LISTEN TO ALL YOUR TRACKS!

A former video game programmer and elementary teacher, she now goes to grad school, programs beats and rocks a mic. Her real name is Enongo Lumumba-Kasongo and her website is here.

The Doubleclicks had some charming banter and interacted with the young girls who came to the show. One of whom said, “that’s a terrible lullaby” after they played “Sing a little lullaby for Mr. Bear.”

Another asked, “why are we clapping?” It became a running gag as Angela questioned her goals and choice of dedicating her life to music between nearly every song.  “Why are we clapping, indeed?” It really showed their flexibility and comfort on stage. They are willing to make fun of themselves and meet the mood of the room. They also claimed the most popular member of the band is their cat keyboard and played a rendition of the Dr. Who theme in digital meows. Maybe They could meow the x-men theme next, can you imagine how cool that would be?  Meow meow meow meow mewo meow meow, MEOW MEOW!

The sci-fi and fantasy pop culture references were nearly absent at this show, instead they opted for more personal and inspirational material. And many songs about cats.

After a string of their popular, crowd pleasing songs, “This is my Jam,” “Hanging with Cats at Parties,” and “I love you like a Burrito,” they played a Jimmy Eat World cover and their inspirational anthem “Unstoppable Force.” Their video has over 9,700 views!

I’ve seen many bands with cellos and I really like what Aubrey does in the songs. The songs are pop songs, and the cello serves the song every time. It isn’t showing off, and it isn’t trying to sound like a guitar or a bass.

“Why are we clapping.” To me it means, “why are we comgratulating adults who write clever lyrics and set them to catchy music when they could have a REAL JOB?” And the answer is too often, “we applaud them for being braver than us, for we do not have the confidence or skills to do what they are doing.” There was no need to explain to that little girl, we all knew it.

I might ask myself, “why do you self publish on the Internet while you lack the artistic skills to properly draw a human arm?”