During my time in the 4th and 5th grade at Bloom Elementary, I was a part of the extracurricular program dubbed “Sonic Bloom.” It was essentially a student rock band club that would occasionally perform at the school and local music events, and was my first real experience playing with other musicians.
Although we were technically a “rock” band, the songs that we covered actually belong to quite a diverse set of genres. And given that looking back on one’s life is common practice right before graduation, I thought it’d be fun to revisit some of the songs that we performed.
“Beat It” by Micheal Jackson
This was the audition song for guitar players in Sonic Bloom back in 2018, and the first cover that the band ended up working on. I wish I could say that 4th grade me had the technical skill to executive Eddie Van Halen’s epic solo, but I could barely play the song’s opening/main riff without messing up (looking back, I find it hilarious how when we covered the song, we’d still do the same buildup as the original but then just completely skip the solo and jump back into the chorus).
The song is a well known classic from Jackson’s 1982 mega-smash hit LP Thriller, so it was a sure hit with the crowd whenever it was performed.
“Shake It Off” by Taylor Swift
Pulling a song from 1989 for a supposed rock group to cover is a bit of a stretch, but that was of little concern to our singers, who were all girls and therefore very enthusiastic about playing the song (I also admittedly enjoy the tune, but 10-year old Miles couldn’t let anyone else know that).
Ultimately, the song did actually work well for the group given it’s pretty straightforward in its chord progress and repeatable, catchy lyrics. The only issue for me was that there really wasn’t an electric guitar part in the original, which meant that I just strummed open chords the whole time (word of advice for guitarists in a band planning to cover this song: don’t do this).
“La Bamba” by Ritchie Valens
Are you seeing a theme across the songs? No? I don’t blame you. For some reason we not only transcended genres, but also languages.
Like Shake It Off, the song is repeatable and catchy, with the added bonus of a tasty guitar solo. It was the only song on this list that I hadn’t heard before we learned it as a band, and I’m grateful the experience introduced me to this catchy classic.
“Seven Nation Army” by The White Stripes
This one was particularly popular among the guys in our group, given that it was a more traditional rock song and had a sick guitar riff, one that even 5th grade me could executive consistently. The song was actually perfect for us: the instrumentals are straightforward, and it’s a good hype song that always got the crowd invested.
The only quirk to the performance was a small lyric change: “hounds of hell” was changed to “cafeteria smell” out of fear that the former would be deemed offensive. I understand the reasoning behind the decision, but I believe that if the Countdown Kids version of the song keeps the original lyric, then we probably would’ve been fine. But other than that, probably the group’s tightest cover at the time.
Despite all the quirks of Sonic Bloom, I am truly grateful for the experience: it got me good live performance experience at a young age, which was extremely beneficial for my future music endeavors.
Thanks to band leader Mix Lewis for believing that a group of kids could manage to pull off a rock band act. I owe a great deal of my musicianship to you.
