All our times have come

You just don't ignore the phone call that promises to lead you to greater glory.

When I answered the phone yesterday afternoon, the question posed to me was: "I've got two boys here who are looking for a lead singer. Interested?"

Um, SHYEAH!

In addition to fame, wealth and stardom, I was also offered BBQ. Sold.

So I showed up to the Mercers' place, where Boy Mercer and Billy were already eyeballs-deep on the band's tour. The Beechers (if you're an OZ fan, you'll understand the reference...and no, not as in The Wizard of) had already played several gigs, but they were missing a vital component to their band.

Solution: bring in a tone-deaf, pitchless singer, who happens to have a pretty good sense of rhythm and can play a mean cowbell.

I was terrified to sing at first, I will be honest. As I mentioned, not a whole lot of range in my vocal "abilities", so I was worried I was going to destroy the band's cred. You can't buy back cred, you know. Just ask Britney.

I checked around me to see what shatterables were in proximity, mentally calculating how much money I would owe the Mercers once I destroyed any glassware they had nearby. That made me nervous, too, since I don't get real money on this tour.

We started out pretty easy, and it was a song that I knew, so that actually helped a lot. After I got more comfortable with the mike and the screen telling me what I was doing wrong, there was no stopping me.

And, did I mention that I was singing on medium? Yeah, that's right. Nothing easy about what I was doing, y'all.

We played RB for at least five hours, taking about an hour off for dinner (the BBQd hot dogs were awesome, p.s.). I was actually losing my voice last night. And this morning, when RM called me he asked if I was trying to compete with our coffee girl from before with the raspy voice thing. Ahh, the life of a world-famous songstress. The fans can't get enough of you.

So, The Beechers got a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, and we finally qualified for the Hall of Fame. We're so awesome. Then, as we were all starting to crash a bit (well, Billy, Girl Mercer and myself were, anyway), we were told by our manager that we had to play this eight-song set in order to be inducted into the Hall of Fame.

How can you stop when you're that close to glory?

Answer: you can't. Poor Billy had the worst carpal tunnel from the guitar, my voice was starting to die (as previously mentioned), but Boy Mercer was on fire and too excited to stop.

We had a wicked set too: Metallica's Enter Sandman (loved singing that, btw), Blue Oyster Cult's (Don't Fear) The Reaper, Iron Maiden's Run To The Hills (quite possibly some of the most horrifying lyrics, set to one of the catchiest beats), and we finished it all off with The Who's Won't Get Fooled Again.

I think my favourite song to sing was (Don't Fear) The Reaper. It's a great song in general with a really cool sounding singer (I don't actually mean me), and besides, it cures my fever.

Because we all know that the only prescription is more cowbell.