Tim Nelson
Soon you can rest assured that if you attend a show by the Platters, the Coasters or Shangri-La, at least someone on stage is an authentic one-hit wonder.
Minnesota’s new “Truth in Music Advertising Act” will require that, as of tomorrow, you’ll have to feature at least one original member to bill a “recording group” as the real thing.
The law dates back a couple years when Sha Na Na’s original “Bowser,” Jon Bauman, came to Minnesota to urge legislators to ban imposters. He’s the prestigious chairman of the Truth in Music Committee at the Vocal Group Hall of Fame. The “Truth in Music” portion of his Web site contends:
I have been told by several musicians who back up these impostor shows that they’ve seen instances when one of the phony groups didn’t make it to the gig. So some of the fake “Coasters” who’d just performed changed out of the red spangly suits into the blue spangly suits and reemerged as “Drifters”!
If you want a gut-wrenching experience, try watching a baby boomer audience leap to its feet at the end of an impostor group show. The audience so clearly thinks it’s honoring the body of work, the legacy, the deep pleasure this music has given them since their youth, the way this music brought people of different races together in America and helped change the world.
Consider your baby-boomer gut safe, at least from wrenching, as of tomorrow. (Don’t worry, though, cut-rate “tribute” and “salute to” shows are still legit.)
But you’ve already spent your last legal night sleeping at home more than a few steps from a carbon monoxide detector. Don’t stay up for the dog fight, either. Just watching is a misdemeanor as of tomorrow.
Today is also the last day you’ll be able to fire up the ticket buying software to corner the market on Hanna Montana tickets. And if you’re going to touch a peace officer’s gun, Taser, chemical irritant or baton, you better get about your business. That’s a felony tomorrow.
And finally: as of today, you’ll have to have a current doctor’s prescription to get your rear and side car windows tinted to reduce light transmission by 50 percent or more, although there are exceptions for limousines and hearses.
You’ll at least take your best and last rides discretely and legally.
See the rest of the list here.
