When Glenn Copeland’s son, Garth, joined the children’s choir at Saint Tom Landry Catholic Church last year he was ecstatic. “Garth has a great voice and we’ve known it since the day he sang his first nursery rhyme,” said Glenn. “Joining the choir was a great way for him to learn about vocals and keep his pipes in shape.”
Three month ago, though, Glenn was even more excited when Garth asked for a bass guitar for his twelfth birthday. “Oh, man, I was really stoked,” said Glenn, “because I’m a huge Who fan, and in particular John Entwistle, so this news was music to my ears. Garth’s brothers have taken up the guitar and drums respectively, so I was thinking of a power trio of course. I immediately started to push cool vocalists who played bass too on Garth. You know, like Sting – only during the Police years, of course – or John Doe of X. Ben Orr of the Cars would be great too.”
Just last week though, Glenn’s hopes were dashed. He explained, “I heard Garth in his room practicing. It was weird, because I recognized the bass line but I couldn’t put my finger on it. Then it hit me. Jesus-H-Christ on a Popsicle stick! He’s playing that Mr. Mister song from the eighties!” Glenn quickly rifled through his wife’s old LPs and, sure enough, Mr. Mister was missing. Glenn burst into Garth’s room only to witness Garth playing and singing along in the mirror to the 1985 number one smash, “Broken Wings.”
“I was crushed,” said Glenn. To add insult to injury, Glenn spied his wife’s vinyl copy of a Chicago album under the Mr. Mister LP. “You know, the one when Peter Cetera took over. Good God, I thought, what’s next? Sting’s Sacred Love?”
The senior Copeland didn’t want to show his disappointment to his son but he couldn’t hide it from his other two sons. “Sure,” said Glenn, “I talked to the other boys. Maybe they’ll have more sway with him than me or my wife. I mean, I’m no Rush fan, but at least Geddy has mad chops. I’d take that any day over Cetera. And I know Paul McCartney can be a mop-headed, old lady sometimes but…” Glenn trailed off in thought. “At this point I’d take him emulating Aimee Mann during the Til Tuesday years over 1980’s Chicago or Sting post-1992.”
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