REO Speedwagon
“Mediocrity at its finest... wait a mintute, than it wouldn't really be "mediocre", would it?”
“We izz of da hizzle, yo!”
“IT'S STILL MY BAND!!! STILL.....MY.....BAND!!!! MY BAND!!! IT'S MINE!!!! ”
“REO PEEDWAGON!!!!”
REO Speedwagon is a Sedimentary Rock band from Illinois. They are, even today, considered to be one of the worst bands ever in modern music's history, even in comparison to some of the acts on American Idol. They have performed incredibly horrendous live concerts and at dances of all genres from ballroom to breakdance competitions. Never before has a band been this amazingly mediocre and just "mediocre", yet still had such an effect on Old Persons' Polka Night. On the other hand, it has been argued that REO are in fact one of the great bands, and that every music critic and millions of people across the United States just got it wrong.
Current Speedwagon Line-up[edit | edit source]
- Need Dough - key, dashboard
- Kevin Federline - screams
- Bruce "Celine Dion" Hall - tail pipe
- Bryan "Jabba the Hutt" - drum breaks
- Dave "Jim Morrison" Clamato - The Doors
Past Members[edit | edit source]
- Alan the Grate
- Gary Richwrath
- Gregg Fillin
- Terry the Hutt
- Mike Motherofmurphy
- "Kevin"
Founding[edit | edit source]
REO Speedwagon, commonly written as "REO Peedwagon" or "REO Speedaddict", was founded in 1967 when Need Dough approached Gary Richwrath for a loan. Richwrath blasted Dough's eardrums with "GET A JOB", and the ensuing conflict caused Alan to Grate his teeth in anguish - which led to such dissonance that they realized they could probably make a fortune in the recording industry. Terry the Hutt added screams, and Gregg Filled In on bass.
"Kevin"[edit | edit source]
Terry the Hutt, completely oblivious to the fact that he was a rock singer in a band with a major label record deal, increasingly wanted to leave the band in order to fulfill his lifelong dream of being a Denny's Manager. After randomly walking out of the studio never to be seen again, he was replaced with that one guy named "Kevin" in 1972. Kevin, whose hobbies included kitten huffing, talking about how great he is, giving really long monolauges about nothing in between songs at concerts, incessantly hitting on women and flipping out Jerry Springer Show-style when people insult him, seemed like the perfect frontman for REO. But eventually, his loud, obnoxious, "insane" style of singing heavily forced executives to shorten his nickname to "Just Kevin", in order to give him a less barbaric and uncivilized image. This, coupled with the fact that the band's loud, noisy, ultra-vulgar music and concerts wasn't getting them any female groupies, caused Kevin to begin singing slow ballads such as "Slap that Sucker!" and "Watch those Double D's Jiggle" instead of screaming, and thus the band entered the mainstream with "Hi Mediocrity" in 1980. Fans were both horrified yet strangely intrigued at the same time.
Each band member was given $1000 dollars to spend however they wanted: Need Dough bought a new box to live in, Gary bought an entire series of "For Dummies" books, and Kevin used his share to buy beer. So, in turn, the money was all well-spent.
The Feud and subsquent fall into obscurity[edit | edit source]
Somewhere around 1989, Gary Richwrath got into an argument with "Kevin" over who would get the last bottle of beer. The argument ended with Gary saying "I'm rubber, you're glue. Whatever you say bounces off me and sticks to you!". This greatly pissed Kevin off, and lead him to fire Gary from the band. He was replaced by a homeless man named Dave Clamato. 3/4 of REO's fans automatically disappeared and so they spent the next 10 years playing obscure strip clubs, hence why you won't find a single 1990's REO video on Youtube.
Comeback[edit | edit source]
Since then, they have re-gained commercial success after emerging the wonderfully awful musical genre of Emo-Polka out of the shitters. The genre, which combined the darkness and overwhelming self-pity of emo and the happiness of polka, was a surprising hit with both old people and stoner teenagers everywhere. Again, people were offended, disgusted, and completely "blown away" by the over-all "awfulness", and yet they were, at the same time, fascinated. This brought completely new meaning to the quote "There is a sucker born every minute". Now, REO still tours their native-land, as well as making appearances on soft-rock radio stations, being Greeters at Wal Mart, and scaring children [at Wal-Mart!]. Several former members have not returned to tour with them again, but hell, who would want to, right? Barney would. And maybe even Brian Peppers would,too, seeing that his career in music never made it out of the trash.
Where are they now?[edit | edit source]
Not much is known about what became of the former members. It is known that Terry became a Denny's manager and and Alan the Grate went into recluse deep in the mountains (this was confirmed by Kevin himself in 2007). Gary Richwrath blew all of his royalty money on beer and now lives in a trailer park somewhere in Illinois, obnoxiously screaming "MY BAND!!!! MY....BAND!!!" whenever "Take it On the Run" plays on the radio. Greg Fillin currently operates a day-care center in Rhode Island, and Mike Motherofmurphy became a priest.
Discography[edit | edit source]
- REO Speedwagon (1971)
- REO Speedwagon 2: This time the Electric Boogaloo is Personal! (1972)
- Biding our Time Out (1973)
- Lost in a Meaningless Fourth Studio Album (1974)
- This Time We Mean It (our first four albums were just practice) (1975)
- Uhh...I think we'd better start writing some love songs (1976)
- You Can Tune a Piano, You Can Even Tuna Fish, But You're Never Gonna Keep Us In Tune (1978)
- Meow (1979)
- Hi Mediocrity (1980)
- Hi Mediocrity II (1982)
- That Album with "Can't Fight this Feeling" on it (1984)
- Kitten Huffing as We Know It (1987)
- Gary and Alan are gone, get the hell over it (1990)
- Kevin Solo Album featuring REO Speedwagon (1996)
- That ballad stuff on our '96 album sucked, didn't it? (2007)
- OMG! Hawthorne Heights is the awesomez! (2009)
- Led Zeppelin IV (2013)
- REO is off da hizzle, yo![Their ONLY Rap album, thank God.] (2012)
- Our Mothers are Ashamed (2016)
- Yet Another Greatest Hits album that Contains nothing great
- The Pimpsons Movie Soundtrack
- The Worst of REO Speedwagon - contains most of their songs.
- Shit, Volume 1
- Shit, Volumes 2-89 (aka Volumes and Volumes of Shit)
- REO Speedwagon: The Wal-Mart Years
- The guy that worte this as a Jackass. He has no life and knows nothing about the Band, Fucking Jerk Off
See Also[edit | edit source]
- Shit
- Mediocre
- Mediocracy
- Led Zeppelin
- Celine Dion
- Jim Morrison
- Shit music
- Karl Rove... wait a minute, what the hell is he doing in here! OH MY GAWD!!!!
- Illinois
- Breakdancing
- Kevin Federline
- Beige
- Global Warming