Design Plans: Funky Rocker

Moe stomped the Hydraulic Stank-Face Pedal. The drums tilted. He rode the toms like a surfboard. Lulu’s pogo-bass produced a low-frequency wobble that made the health inspector’s clipboard jiggle off the bar. And Spiro, dangling upside-down from the ceiling in a sequined leisure suit, opened his mouth.

The crowd froze. A kid’s glitter-glue fell in slow motion.

His voice, filtered through the floor-mic, sounded like a demonic lounge singer trapped in a elevator. He scatted. He yodeled. He growled, “ Sock it to me, you funky tectonic plate! ”

Lulu complained her low-end lacked “the jiggle.” Spiro nodded, pulled apart a pogo stick, and embedded its coil spring into the neck of her bass guitar. Now, every pluck sent the headstock boinging like a deranged metronome. The note wobbled so hard it sounded like a tuba falling down stairs—in key.

Spiro tapped a felt-tip pen against his dentures. “The problem,” he announced to his bandmates—Moe, a drummer who played with oven mitts, and Lulu, a bassist who only knew one note but played it with righteous fury—“is not our talent. It’s our rock . It’s not funky enough.”

Then the Rusty Crickets took the stage.

The night of the Battle arrived. The venue, The Rusty Spork , was packed with punks, grandmas, and a confused health inspector. The headlining band, , had lasers and smoke machines shaped like skulls.

Spiro rigged a vintage wah-wah pedal to a car battery and a hydraulic lift from a broken La-Z-Boy. When Moe stomped it, the entire drum riser tilted forty-five degrees. The funk was undeniable—Moe slid into Lulu’s amp stack, creating a new chord called “the splat.” The crowd at rehearsal (three mannequins and a cat) went wild.