Band Pays Tribute One Final Time

Despite their label as a cover band, the group slated to perform as the Rod Stewart Tribute Band during Arts First weekend has a surprisingly varied catalogue. Over the last few weeks, they’ve perfected a repertoire of pop hits—ranging from Rod Stewart’s “Do Ya Think I’m Sexy” to the Dire Straits’ “Walk of Life” and Prince’s “Erotic City”— to be performed tomorrow at their multimedia event “Your Favorite Stars” in the Cambridge Queen’s Head Pub.

The Rod Stewart Tribute Band features Anna J. Murphy ’12 on keyboard, Julene V. Paul ’12 on harmonica, and Ruthe J. Foushee ’12 on ukulele, with all three sharing vocal duties. The band’s origins are attributable in part to common dorm and in part to common interest.

“It kind of came out of an online karaoke program and a six dollar keyboard from Ebay,” Paul says. “It was birthed out of Arts First.” Though the girls are set to play as the Rod Stewart Tribute Band, the three Canaday residents have adopted the band name Captain and Captain and Captain and Tennille based on the American pop music duo made famous by chart-toppers like “Muskrat Love” and “Love Will Keep Us Together.”

According to the band, “It came out of Anna buying three captain hats on Ebay and then making a multimedia piece based on the one-hit wonder.” Rounding out the three female “Captains” is Tenille, who, according to Paul “is not a real human being but Anna’s creation made for her VES project.”

The band will be part of Saturday’s “Performance Fair,” a four-hour multi-venue event featuring over 100 specific performances. This idea, according to Matt Weinberg, the Associate Project Manager for Arts First, came from actor John A. Lithgow ’67. Weinberg contends that the Queen’s Head is an ideal venue for alternative artistic performers like Captain and Captain and Captain and Tennille and rock bands and stand-up comedians. “We want the rock bands to play as loud as they want and at the Queen’s Head they can do that,” he says.

Rather than being a typical music show, this performance is a multimedia experience. “It’s part music performance and part art or video performance, an inevitable merging of different types of pop culture,” Murphy says. “It will not be just a conventional performance.” According to the band, Murphy plans and arranges the songs with a software program and puts them to backing tracks and video.

“Even though we only have five minutes to set up, our vision would be to find lots and lots of things to put on the stage for a projection show,” Paul says. To classify their multimedia description, “there will be videos, video art, performance, interpretive dance, and combat,” the band says. “There will probably be some violence.”

While this is a special performance, it may be the last chance to see the group perform under this name. “After this we might have to retire as Captain and Captain and Captain and Tennille unless something more comes from the Arts First weekend,” Paul says. “The last show will probably be this weekend.”