Read this week's ConChat with Carla Ulbrich, our 2011 Music Guest of Honor!

1. You say your influences are Sesame Street, camp songs and commercial jingles. What is your all time favorite song from one of these?

All time? Only one? Boy, that's hard. So, I'm not going to name just one.
From Sesame Street, I love:
"Clink Clank" by Ernie and Bert
"La la la," (about the letter L) also Ernie and Bert
"Rubber Duckie" (see a pattern here?)
"ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOPQRSTUVWXYZ" (Big Bird)
"I love trash" (Oscar)

Camp song faves include
"Wish I were a little bar of soap" (we made up lots of our own verses to that one)
"Comet" (will make your mouth turn green)
"Found a Peanut"

As kids, we often sang cat food commercials, like the
- 4-part harmony for Chef's Blend
- that annoying earworm melody for Meow Mix
- an awful parody of "McDonald's Is Your Kind of Place."

Those are definitely my roots.
Later I found Ray Stevens, Weird Al, and Lenny and the Squigtones.
2. How many instruments do you own and what is your favorite one?

How can I make this answer also a lot longer than it should be? I know-

How exact do you want me to be?
I have
- a flute I never play.
- a box of New Year's eve noisemakers ( I do play them...)
- a keyboard, but when I moved it got sticky stuff that made the keys all stick together, so I am not playing that presently either.
- 2 harmonicas. I only play them when I'm doing bar gigs and singing "Piano Man."

As for my guitars. I have:
- 3 classicals. One is useless, but I've had it since I was 13. The 2nd has a pickup in it, useful for gigs. The 3rd plays really nicely.
- 1 electric classical (solid body) - a Godin. I really like this one. I even named it. It's named Thom, after Thom Bresh (a great fingerstyle guitar player, son of Merle Travis). He had a Godin named Carla. It was only fair.
- 2 steel strings- a Takamine and a Collings. The Collings is another favorite.
- 1 tele, 1 strat.- I went through a rocker phase, but I mostly just use the electric guitars for recordings these days.

OK how many is that? 8? Good Lord.

I mostly use the 2 steel strings these days. The Takamine goes with me to the gigs, because it has on-board volume control, so if the sound guy wanders off, I can adjust things on the fly. (Sound man? How often do I even have that luxury?) The Collings is a better guitar, but it gets out into the world only a little more often than the unabomber.
3. If the tapes with the songs about your college professors showed up would you release them?

Ha! Yes but only for free.
4. Who would you most like to perform a duet with?

Fellow Carolinian Stephen Colbert.

5. What is your theme song?

"I Feel Fine" (The Beatles).
Thankfully, it's no longer "on the commode again."

http://concarolinas.org/index.php/cc/ccblog/203/6