Michiganders create 'music amid the madness' COVID spoofs

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In late March, Local Spins put out a call to Michigan musicians to submit songs and videos inspired by the COVID crisis. They responded with humor and with poignancy — and readers loved it all.

Quarantine Tunes: These Michigan songwriters and more responded to the crisis musically.

EDITOR’S NOTE: 🎄 Merry Christmas! No. 7 in Local Spins’ countdown of its top 2020 stories revisits a late March challenge to Michigan musicians to submit songs and spoofs inspired by the COVID-19 crisis. They came up with some innovative, fun ditties.

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Orders to stay at home.

Constant reminders to wash your hands and keep your social distance from other human beings.

Panicked people hoarding toilet paper.

The new self-quarantined society created by the coronavirus pandemic turned our world upside down — and inspired plenty of songwriters to churn out funny parodies as well as serious reflections on this crisis. And lots of people trapped at home were listening and watching.

So, Local Spins put out a call in late March for songs inspired by the COVID-19 crisis and written by Michiganders — or their own spoof/parodies of popular songs. Michigan songwriters responded in droves.

Indeed, Hoom Hits went one — or actually four — better: The Grand Rapids-based record label ended up creating and releasing a four-volume “Quarantine Compilation” of songs submitted by artists who wrote about the COVID-19 crisis amid their Michigan isolation.

Hoom Hits’ “Quarantine Compilation Jams”

The result: dozens of songs from the likes of WISP, Alex Perez, Seth Beck, Archie & The One Hits, Tom Hymn, Bedroom Ceilings, Further Closer and many other West Michigan artists who you can listen to and download/purchase at bandcamp.com.

Hoom Hits used the project to raise money for The Pyramid Scheme’s GoFundMe campaign aimed at creating “tips” for the Team Scheme staff idled by the pandemic. Donate to the campaign here.

LISTEN: “Let the Sunlight In,” Further Closer (Hoom Hits Compilation)
<a href="http://hoomhits.bandcamp.com/album/quarantine-compilation-volume-one">Quarantine Compilation ~ Volume One by Further Closer</a>

As for Local Spins’ call-out for musical contributions, the submissions were impressive, led by The Brandino Extravaganza, aka Brandino Proch. The Grand Rapids singer-songwriter and looping wizard spent upwards of 16 hours creating the various parts for his parody rendition of “This is Halloween” — from “The Nightmare Before Christmas” — which he dubbed, “This is Quarantine.” It features six different vocal parts and video footage of him singing the ode to COVID-19’s lockdown. (He won a Local Spins gift package for sheer determination and a brilliantly delivered concept, and the video has since racked up more than 24,000 views on YouTube.)

Other contributions ranged from an upbeat “Quarantine Blues” ditty by Grand Rapids jazz pianist John Proulx and his daughter, Maya, to Dan Lynn of the Blue Water Ramblers, who cleverly adapted the actual wording of a “March 21 Briefing” by the president on the coronavirus crisis for his entry.

Grand Rapids’ Dale Wicks wrote his ditty from the perspective of many musicians whose music has been silenced by the crisis. “I wrote it when I didn’t know what to do with myself after all my gigs got canceled because of COVID-19,” he explains. “The song is not really humorous, though it is surprisingly major-key and bouncy, given the subject matter.”

Brother Adams (Photo/Local Spins)

Detroit-born singer-songwriter Scott Fab created the poignant “Wish You,” with fellow Detroiter Jeff Karoub making his “Pandemic Times” a tribute to health care workers who are risking their lives to care for fellow Michiganders, which was also the focus of Kalamazoo’s Rob Clark and his tune, “Need You Now.”

The Holland band Brother Adams’ “The Rich Will Still Be Rich,” was written, performed and recorded by Jair Driesenga, with his brother, Bryce, creating artwork and a video for the track that was sent to Zeeland’s Jake Kalmink for mixing and mastering. They call it “a simple and lighthearted take on current events and was put together to give people a laugh.”

And there were more, so we’ve compiled some of the best of them here (with a parental advisory that a couple of these contain some profanity). Listen and watch these tunes below and let us know what you think of them.

VIDEO: The Brandino Extravaganza, “This is Quarantine” (Parody of “This is Halloween”)