Spooky Men - Massive Singlets
The Spooky Men – led by their ‘spookmeister’ Stephen Taberner – have burst the Covid choral barrier with a massive on-line community sing that boasts up to 500 singers of all ages and backgrounds - weekly and worldwide!
The weekly Massive Singlets - with an adult edition, a kids’ edition, a ukulele edition and a massive ‘spooky’ edition - promise to ‘gloriously transcend’ the technical limitations of zoom singing and deliver choral adventures that are fun AND redemptive.
And they also raise money for the Covid fund of Medecins sans Frontieres!
The Spooky Men are an all-male choir and comedy act. This new ‘thing’ – which is open to all – is the ultimate invention of mother necessity – pioneered in UK by long time Spooky singer James Sills.
Taberner - ever the comic conductor (or lightning rod?), says: “This is a thing which has been made necessary by other things, the things which make us all be in our smaller rooms, and not in bigger rooms with other people.
“This is what I've been doing for 27 years, only usually in the same room as people! But these are interesting times, and the solution might be interesting too: hence, the Massive Singlet. For people to come together, to be together, to sing, has always been a human need: it is so now, even more than ever.”
And with hundreds already participating in the first weeks of the series, it has already been a wonderful thing!
Those signing up join 500 other online participants worldwide in warmups, the learning and singing of a song (or two), a little drink break, and then a bit of sharing: thoughts, knitted things, flags, or snippets of music… sometimes even finishing with a dance track.
Tonight’s Massive Singlet (Tuesday 2 June 8pm Sydney time) features guest stars Jack Fitzgerald and Naomi Cooper leading Cyndi Lauper’s “True Colours”. Thursday’s Kids’ Edition at 7pm (where participants must be accompanied by a minor aged 7-13!) will include Samoan clapping games, songs and dances. Later, at 9pm, the Ukulele Edition will offer Taberner as “idiot savant” of this charming but often misused instrument (you only need to know a handful of chords). And on Saturday 6 June at 8pm it’s the Massive Spooky Singlet – an all-comers big sing led by Stephen and a handful of handpicked gentlemen from The Spooky Men’s Chorale, the black clad, bearded, steam powered behemoth who have been charming audiences around the world since 2001. www.spookymen.com
The series continues next week and onwards until the end of June - at least!
Would-be singers can find out all about the Massive Singlets at www.massivesinglet.com
