In music, a flat five is a passing chord that harmonizes well with almost any sound. The singers in Chicago’s Flat Five—Kelly Hogan, Nora O’Connor, Scott Ligon, Casey McDonough and Alex Hall—are as versatile as the name of their group implies. They’re all well-known songwriters, musicians and side-persons in their own right, but when they sing as the Flat Five, they touch on something transcendent. Their complex, intertwining harmonies bring to mind the shimmering sounds of the Four Freshmen, Beach Boys, Lambert, Hendricks And Ross, Harry Nilsson and the Everly Brothers—singers who could create breathtaking emotional effects using nothing but their voices. The Flat Five will be guest editing magnetmagazine.com all week. Read our brand-new feature with them.
O’Connor: If I could have had a career in playing air-guitar or lip-syncing, I would have.
Growing up, I had a couple different styles of microphones and guitars. There was the classic Hair Brush Microphone; perfect for the rock songs by Zeppelin, Journey or, better yet, Rush.
Then there was the curling iron microphone that I saved for songs like “Tell Me Something Good” by Rufus And Chaka Khan, “Double Dutch Bus” by Frankie Smith or the 12-inch single of “Street Life” by the Crusaders. I liked to hold the curling iron mic in my right hand and twirl the (electrical) cord between the last two fingers of the left. It was a strong look, especially with my groomed bang flip, sprayed with Avec for perfect stiff peaks.
My headset mic was a hair band with a piece of wire hanger and aluminum foil on the end. This was great for Godspell, The Wiz and Chorus Line soundtracks because of the choreography. I needed to be hands-free.
And even though in my real musical life I’m mainly a singer, I don’t know why, but I can air-guitar 80-percent of Santana’s Marathon record from 1979. I started out on a couple of tennis rackets. The wooden rackets were always superior to the aluminum, tone-wise. Eventually though, I settled on the perfect ax—which was inexplicably a wooden construction level with a square embroidery hoop stuck on the end. I wish Ted Nugent wasn’t such a despicable human, because I totally nailed “Free For All” with that axe—but really, fuck that guy!!!
Between 1986-1988, I spent arguably way too much time lip-syncing and choreographing songs with my friends—numbers that we would later drunkenly insist on performing at parties. We were all doing community theater and attending community college, so we had time. I mean, we were thespians, after all!
My best friend to this day, Thomas Dunning, and I spent hours in his bedroom choreographing “Alphabet Street” by Prince and “Mother’s Talk” by Tears For Fears. My sister-in-law, Catherine Smitko, and I perfected a pretty righteous “Somewhere Down The Crazy River” by Robbie Robertson (I was the BoDeans dude on that one—a pretty easy role) and when the time was just right and everyone was perfectly tipsy, the performances would begin.
My one lip-sync regret during this era was never getting to publicly perform my spot-on “Sat In Your Lap” by Kate Bush. That performance somehow never left my bedroom—but if my cat Macalla were alive today, he would tell you “she nailed it purrrrrrfectly … ” And for the record, that one required a headset, because: dancing.
Later, in my 30s, I lived in a three-flat in Humboldt Park in Chicago with dear, dear friends on the first and second floors. Most of us were musicians and artists—and all of us were music fanatics. Every year we had a “Friends Thanksgiving” party and every year we’d break out side one of “Boston” by Boston and air-jam. It was hard for everyone to not to want to do all the parts, so we’d trade off guitar, keys and drum solos. Those were good times. We were free as birds.
Lip-syncing was such a release for me, and to do it with friends was pure joy and complete silliness. I’d like to think I could still let go like that today. Maybe one day soon while my kids are at school, I’ll grab my hair brush for a song or two in the mirror. I think I’ll even dust off my copy of ABACAB for old time’s sake.
Tips for the trade: Any flat surface works great for B3 or piano work, but if you’re really good just go for it in the air. And for the air drummers out there, I would recommend good quality chopsticks or number-two pencils.
