At Moontower Comedy Fest, The Session Mixed Music and Comedy To Create Pure Magic

Photo Credit: Shaun Nix

Music and comedy are the two loves of my life so when I read the description of The Session on The Moontower app and saw that Tom Segura was the guest, I was all in!

For those of you who don’t know, Christian James Hand is a British musician, producer and broadcaster who has taken his love of music and created a show that is completely mind blowing and unique. Mr. Hand created a process where he takes a song and separates the individual layers of vocal tracks, instruments and sounds, then presents the individual stems to his audience one layer at a time. As consumers, our brains are accustomed to receiving fully digitally mastered tracks, so we’re never truly able to process everything that’s actually happening when we listen to our favorite songs and listening to music in this deconstructed light allows us to have an even greater appreciation for the vision, talent and hard work that goes into creating music as an art form.

Christian James Hand and Tom Segura introduced the show and explained that they would be focusing on two songs for this edition of The Session. Tom is a big fan of hip hop so the first song being dissected was A Tribe Called Quest’s “What’s the Scenario.” That seemed reasonable enough but then they announced their second song they really threw me for a loop. They said, after a quick intermission we would be taking apart the Carly Rae Jepsen hit, “Call me Maybe.” They promised that once they were done with it we were going to love it as much as they do but I was skeptical. I was familiar with the song but always considered it to be as Christian James Hand described it, “Trapper-Keeper pop” and never in a million years would’ve guessed it to be one of these badass dudes’ favorite songs. I didn’t hate the song but definitely didn’t think anyone could make me love it….

In all honesty, there was so much amazing programming at Moontower, I planned to leave at intermission to try and split my time and get as much content in as possible, but then something amazing happened. These two intelligent and hilarious men got in their zone and blew my mind with not only the different individual stems of sound that went into making “What’s the Scenario” but with the back story of the production and insights about the history of hip hop and rap, all while slipping in stems and stories from other songs such as Jay-Z’s “Empire State of Mind” and Slick Rick’s “Children’s Story” as well. “What’s the Scenario” is not only a dope song it’s also the track where Busta Rhymes was first introduced to the world! I loved hearing Christian and Tom talk about their memories connected to this song.

The first half of The Session was so good, that when intermission came and they promised once again that we were going to love “Call me Maybe” as much as they do, this time I believed them and decided to stay… And boy am I glad I did because they completely blew my mind! Christian told us the story of how this demo was originally brought to Dave “Rave” Olgilvie who was a member of the rock band Skinny Puppy and how Skinny Puppy is one of the bands that are given credit for creating the industrial/electronic genre of rock music.

Once I learned that information, Dave’s fingerprint on “Call me Maybe” became evident. There were sounds and beats in that song that my brain had heard a thousand times before but I never truly knew it until Christian James Hand isolated them and played them for us individually. It was so good, I could not stop dancing in my seat and for the second time at Moontower I experienced my new favorite emotion, laughter while dancing. Heaven!

The Session was magic, pure magic and I want more…

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Sara Dahms

Sarah Dahms is a comedy superfan hails from Chicago and travels all over the country checking out the best comedy everywhere.
Sara Dahms
Sara Dahms
Sarah Dahms is a comedy superfan hails from Chicago and travels all over the country checking out the best comedy everywhere.