We played one of the last “indoor” music quiz games of the season at a recent trivia night at Corner Brewery in Ypsi.

As many locals already know, Corner has a large “biergarten” out back with picnic tables and an assortment of shade trees.

Beginning May 1, if weather allows, music quiz games will be staged outdoors in the biergarten.

This means I’ll try sitting where I get the best Wi-Fi signal, bring decent chair pads, my Thermacell 🦟 discouraging device (when people ask me what it is I jokingly tell them it’s a noiseless Bluetooth speaker), and if warm enough…my little fans!

We remain in second place in the overall standings. As much as we try narrowing that points gap between the baby team (the Party Sharks team that always brings their baby mascot to games)…

The more that gap widens!

Well, we’ve never been a trivia team – either mine (The Pods team) – or Kim’s team (Sparty On)  that ever has anything too easy! Or handed to us! We eat trivia challenges for breakfast! With a side of a bagel with cream cheese, maybe an egg, some coffee…maybe a deliciously decadent doughnut.

We won’t cry if we don’t finish at the top of the charts at the end of the season. We know that there is no crying in baseball – or trivia games.

Seriously, we just enjoy the weekly meetups! And celebrate the fact that there is virtually zero chance of getting sportsball questions! Unless they ask about Super Bowl halftime performers! 😆

We won a $20 prize in game two at the most recent game. We didn’t finish very strong overall, but like Taylor Swift tells us to do, we… “shake it off.”

Speaking of Taylor Swift, we had a nerd point on one of our questions asking what her middle name is. Kim, our music team’s fearless leader, was all over it (probably thanks to her daughter Molly being a big Swiftie).

Categories we had in game one were:

Pop Punk, Disco, Glam Metal, Old School R&B, ’90s Rock Bands, 1990s Pop Rock, and 2020s Pop.

We flubbed question one in Pop Punk – we mistook Maroon 5 for Fallout Boy (shame on us). We also flubbed the title, which was Fallout Boy’s “This Ain’t A Scene, It’s An Arms Race.”

We also missed the nerd point: This song’s music video begins with the end of the music video for what other song by this band?

It’s always a big facepalm moment when you completely blow the first question of the night, isn’t it?

As Dean Martin might drunkenly sing…

“Ain’t that a kick in the head?”

For Girl Groups, they played a song by that band that Beyonce was in. You know…*that* one? We correctly spotted the song, but again, missed the nerd point:

This song was nominated for the Grammy Award for Best R&B song in 2000 but lost to what song by TLC?

We picked the wrong TLC song. We won’t tell Kim’s husband Brent (a little inside joke there).

In the category of Disco, we not only won the fashion contest at Studio 54 (LOL), but we rode in on a more attractive horse than the one Bianca Jagger rode in that iconic Manhattan club in the 1970s.

They played a song by the band co-founded by the legendary Nile Rodgers. The song that has the refrain “Freak out?” Yeah, that one!

Virtually everyone thinks of Quincy Jones when they think of great music producers of the 20th century. Fewer think of this very talented guy who’s helped make plenty of danceable hit songs.

For the nerd point, we had a choice of band names – we had to pick which one they used from 1972-1977 – Groove Express, The Big Apple Band, or Funk Boutique. We guessed the right one.

In his post-Chic years, Rodgers produced for big  artists including Sister Sledge, Diana Ross, David Bowie, Duran Duran, Madonna, Lady Gaga and countless others.

Talented guy! I’d totally want him to produce my album too! 🎵 🎶

But I’d also settle for Rick Rubin or Brian Eno! Though that depends upon what type of album I’m making 😆

I like to say that disco didn’t die…it just evolved into “dance pop!”

Our next question about Glam Metal was a softball (at least for us). Band led by Dee Snider, and their biggest hit song.

For our nerd point:

The end of this song uses lines from the character Douglas C. Niedermeyer from what 1978 raunchy comedy film?

I love it when my team leans on me for my knowledge of raunchy comedy films! 😂

Moving on to round two…

We failed in our knowledge of old school R&B. How dare we mistake Muddy Waters for Ray Charles? In that old Pepsi jingle from the 80s Charles may have sang about the” right one, baby” but clearly he wasn’t talking about our trivia team on this question!

We did manage to figure out the title “Mess Around.”

Kim’s nearly spotless 90s music mojo would be our salvation on our next question about ’90s Rock bands.

For this one, we heard Everclear’s song whose title is a city in California. Which I think was the setting for “Three’s Company.”

We also got the nerd point:

Which of the following is this song’s subtitle in Europe – Watch the World Die, Escape to the Ocean, or Nothing Good Stays?

We did pretty well on the next one about ’90s pop rock too. They played a song by the band who sang “Every Morning.” We flubbed the nerd point asking what was the most notable thing about their music video, given the choices of:

Filmed in reverse, filmed in black and white, or claymation.

We finished strong in the category of 2020s pop. They played “Karma” by that blonde singer who’s dating that Chiefs player. I was so impressed that Kim even knew her middle name! If I didn’t know better, I’d say that she’s a “Swiftie!”

Obviously the other teams fared better than us on the questions that were weak for us. That happens.

We were in fifth with 48 points (tied with slice o housers) going into the final. Strip Your Bartender was 10 points ahead in fourth with 58, Go Blue was in third with 59, no country for old people was in second with 60, and Marvin Gayme was in first with 62 points.

Whenever Marvin Gayme shows up for music quiz, they prove how well it’s “going on” with their music trivia knowledge! We’d tip our hats to ya if we wore ’em!

As for how we’d do on the final question? Uh not so much…

We had to pick what year a foursome of songs was recorded. I didn’t get this question down as a slide or in my notes very well (it was all audio). One of the songs threw me off so it was totally my fault that we missed this. 😢

Who knew that that awful song by Darkness with the naked people in the video was originally recorded a lot earlier than when you couldn’t escape this song about 15 years later? Not us! Sorry Kim, I should have let you do your thing with this question and kept my mouth shut. 🤐

Us getting it correct would have put us in second.

We’ve all had our guesses in trivia games overruled by others. It’s best not to dwell on these things, right?

Game Two would be much stronger for us in all regards!

Our categories were:

1960s rock, EDM (electronic dance music), title tracks, emo, pop rock, ’80s hip-hop, new wave, and Latin pop.

We heard a song called “Wouldn’t it Be Nice” from what would be my dad’s playlist for 1960s rock. We had to name the artist, which was easy peasy for pretty much every team in the room.

That nerd point was more difficult (we missed that): Which of the following instruments is NOT used in this song – bagpipes, glockenspiel, accordion or saxophone?

We guessed wrong here…

We’d also guessed wrong for the next question, which was a song by the band that Gwyneth Paltrow married. Well, just one of the dudes, anyway (honestly I don’t know all of the details of celebrity marriages).

Funny Gwyneth story that randomly popped out of the mouth of a player on my team years ago “She steam cleans her (full in blank with body part I will not name here).”

Because of him, that’s what I always think of when I hear her name (thanks Geoff)! 🤣🍑

What was the song again? Something Just Like This? I have this in my notes. Was that the song? Maybe some of you Coldplay fans reading this can tell me!

80s Hip Hop was the trio of Jewish guys from Brooklyn. They played a song from their second album – Paul’s Boutique. Specifically a song mentioning, among other things, a (Cadillac) Coupe DeVille, a hard-core girl with a gold tooth (one of my favorite songs by this group).

We did fail the nerd point about where they played their last concert together in Tennessee. Guess we don’t know our music festivals well enough.

I didn’t get screen captures from all of the game two slides. But there was an “arena” question attached to this about some arena in the UK. We guessed Wembley, that was wrong. I guess they have other arenas there besides Wembley? Who knew?

The only question we all got excited about in game two besides the final question was the one where they played the very first song that was ever played on MTV, we had to also give the artist.

Nerd Point: A version of this song by Bruce Woolley and the Camera Club featured what “She Blinded Me With Science” keyboardist?

We were in second with 59 points heading into the final, go blue trivia crew were in first with 63 points.

Marvin Gayme was right behind us with 56, no country for old people were in fourth with 55, strip your bartender were in fifth with 54, smells like team spirit were in sixth with 52…

There were nine total teams.

We bet it all on this final question:

Category – Defunct Grammy Categories

Due to the backlash against disco in subsequent years, the Grammy Award for Best Disco Recording was only presented once. Which of the following artists took home the award at the 22nd Grammy Awards in 1980?

We heard songs by Gloria Gaynor, Donna Summer, Earth, Wind and Fire and Rod Stewart.

This was one of those awesome times in trivia where before they even revealed the question, I was talking about what it might be about. It was a random factoid I’d kept tucked away for just such a special occasion.

Likewise, it’s not very often that random tidbits I know about disco get to hit the dance floor in a trivia game. Like this guy…

Special thanks to My Trivia Live host Stacy L. for sharing this fact with me years ago! She probably doesn’t even remember doing this. But thankfully…I did!

The one team ahead of us – Go Blue Trivia Crew – missed this, so we ended up in first. Marvin Gayme got this, so they finished second, and no country for old people finished third.

We’ll be attempting to climb the sharts yet again Monday. As always, Go Pods, Sparty On, and stay classy, Ray Charles!