After I posted earlier on Joe Perry's bare-chested R.S.o.S. adventures, an interesting discussion crept up on Twitter. Let's say you had a scientific charity approach you for a lab photo shoot. Who would you want to invite? Chemjobber has already weighed in here. Personally, I trend towards more eclectic acts, so I'd be inclined towards TMBG (they did write a song about nuclear fusion, after all...).
So, readers, who would you like? More 'arena rockers' like Bon Jovi or KISS? Perhaps a socially-conscious musician like Bono? Classical, perhaps? (I think Yo-Yo Ma would look great in goggles). Or maybe someone more modern, like Will.i.am or Lady Gaga?
Voice your choice in the comments. Thanks!
Lets roll with the bad puns
ReplyDeleteI've always wanted to Rickroll someone so I'm thinking Rick Astley singing "never gonna give you up" posing in a Xenon compound lab or a EDTA chelation titration in a quant analysis lab. Maybe some sort of filtration or ecological decontamination research lab. That sort of thing.
AC/DC doing "thunderstruck" at an energetic materials research lab.
BNL would be an obvious one for me, given the Big Bang Theory theme. Will.i.am already is pretty involved in FIRST robotics and science outreach, so he'd probably be easy to get on board.
ReplyDeletePersonally, I''d want to see some of the women of rock and roll encouraging girls to consider science. Some modern, like Lady Gaga, or Amanda Palmer, some old school, like Joan Jett . Get women that girls already look up to as strong role models of "cool" telling them that science is also pretty damn cool.
And Henry Rollins, because I think the pictures would be either epic or hilarious, or both.
A good choice would have been Johnny Cash, who could have performed "Burning Ring of Fire" for those labs not fortunate enough to use solvent delivery systems. Alas.
ReplyDeleteThe Ramones, for their many references to prescription drugs..."sitting here in Queens, eating refried beans, my father's gulping down thorazines" for all the med chemists.
ReplyDeleteBow Wow Wow "I Want Candy" to a video of kids being taught the periodic table and making molecules with appropriately colored gumdrops and toothpicks with correct shapes and bonds. All kids need to know chemistry is cool (and that's kind of like cooking)
Richard Dolby's "Blinded Me With Science" on proper lab protection gear. Nobody wants a repeat of the Sheri Sangji accident.
I'd better stop here...
I love me some arena rock. I also second MissMSE's vote for Rollins (I proposed Bruce Campbell/Henry Rollins as a last-second write-in for the Prez/VP ballot). But after giving it some thought, I have to ask how cool would it be to have Sir Paul McCartney at your fund-raiser? He's quite socially-conscious, supremely talented, and can still bring it at age 70 as he showed at the London Games. He might not have the chemistry tie-in like some other acts mentioned here, but that doesn't seem to a strict criterion in the prompt.
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