Wizard Rock: Awwww, cute! They think it's music!

I can understand Potter-mania to a point. After all, I'm the one who reluctantly admitted back in February that I would probably be up at midnight on the 21st of July to buy the new book. In fact, I can almost understand the costumes and the ridiculous candy, although I am still at a loss as to what kind of kind of person would a) go into public dressed as a wizard-in-training and b) deliberately pay for (not to mention consume) a candy made to taste like grass or vomit. I can even almost understand the hundreds of thousands of bookstores that will throw middle-of-the-night parties for bi-spectacled pre-teens and their parents in a couple of weeks. But this?! This just blows it all out of the water.

Apparently "wizard rock" is a thing. Apparently, people, some of whom are grown adults, as in the case of Harry and the Potters' Paul and Joe deGeorge (20 (!) and 28 (!!) respectively), feel that the world is in need of Harry Potter-themed indie rock. In fact, they even feel that it is their responsibility to announce to the world, through lame drum machines and tacky techno-loops, such bold pronouncements as "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock" and "Hagrid is Fun to Hug" (both of which are song titles of the aforementioned Harry and the Potters. These guys just must be the biggest geeks ever.) I mean, seriously? SERIOUSLY? These two college and post-college age men seriously want to do this with their lives?! And they're not the only ones, either. Of course, after Harry and the Potters must come Draco and the Malfoys, which also consists of two college age brothers who have decided to devote this part of their lives to the strangest (read: geekiest) of musical projects, and after them you have a slew of wizard rock bands, with names as creative as The Whomping Willows, Ginny and the Heartbreakers, The Parselmouths, Dobby and the House Elves, Justin Finch-Fletchley and the Sugar Quills, Siriusly Black (oh, the wit! hahaha...!), Dumbledork (yes, "dork". now THAT's ironic...) the Hermione Crookshanks Experience, and (this one's the best) Huffle my Puffle. Also, in a classic incident of children mimicking adult behavior (or is it the other way around in this case? I'm not sure), the kids have jumped on board, too. Singer and guitar-player Darius started The Hungarian Horntails when he was just eight years-old, and has quickly risen to fame within the "sub-culture" (bah!) of wizard rock. (His debut album is available for purchase as we speak, entitled, I kid you not, "Burn Voldemort's Butt".) But unfortunately for global normalcy and customary maturity, people like Darius are in the minority among popular wizard rock bands. Most of these bands seem to be comprised of high school and college age Harry Potter fans. In fact, the so called "originator" of wizard rock was Drama, the nineteen-year-old singer of indie pop act Switchblade Kittens (which now popularly goes by the moniker "the Weird Sisters"), who famously wrote the song "Ode to Harry Potter" and posted it on her band's web site during the Christmas season of 2000. The song, which focuses on character Ginny Weasley's crush on Harry Potter (the most eloquent of the lyrics:"I can't help but blush when you're near me/But you just exclude me from your circle of three/I'm right in front of you but you don't see/You treat me like I'm a Colin Creevey." ), began the whole phenomenon of Harry Potter-themed indie rock (dubbed "wizard rock" by the press), which is showing no signs of slowing down.

And now if that wasn't nerd-y enough for you, check out this video of Harry and the Potters preforming "Voldemort Can't Stop the Rock", a danceable anthem in which the brothers implore the audience to "stick it to the man" because "where I come from, the man is the guy that breaks into your house, kills your parents, and leaves a scar on your forehead". And apparently, "Voldemort hates dancing". Who new? (Oh, and if you decide that this just isn't enough for you, you can check out other Harry and the Potters tracks, like "Save Ginny Weasley from Dean Thomas", "The Wrath of Hermione", and "Stick it to Dolores", also available on YouTube.)

For more information concerning the "wizard rock phenomenon", you can visit these links. But be warned, depending on your personality and your threshold for the absurd, you may want to give these a miss. They have been known to make their readers laugh hysterically, scream in terror, or cry themselves to sleep at night. Enjoy!

http://www.salon.com/
http://www.forbes.com/