'Cheer' of the unknown

Senior Michelle Thompson sits on a twin-sized bed and picks at her fourth-hand, red and white '94 Mexican-made Fender Stratocaster. She, bassist Jimmy "Governor Scum" Doolan and drummer Charlie Anderson sit crammed into Anderson's small, cold "office" during the first practice session the three have had together. She alternately fiddles with the tuning heads and flips through a book entitled "The Encyclopedia of the Gods," looking for band names.\n"Let's call ourselves the 'Hot dogs,'" she says to Scum, sitting atop his bass amplifier.\nLess than enthused with the suggestion, the three decide to put the band name ideas on hold for a while and run through some new material. They meander through their first ever rehearsal of Thompson's "Hideaway," her un-miked voice competing poorly with her guitar in the tiny room. Anderson taps out a tasteful beat on dampered symbols. \n"I thought about a cool band name while I was playing that," Thompson says once they have finished. "How about 'Cheer up Charlie?' It's from Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory."\nShe sings a few bars from the movie; Scum tells Anderson to cheer up. Anderson hates when people tell him that. \nThey spend the rest of the rehearsal piecing together each of their distinctive musical talents to craft a unique sound. With only a few weeks before their first show, they have their work cut out for them.\nThree weeks after the first rehearsal, the verdict arrives: Cheer up Charlie, it is. \n"After a month of high stress trying to decide a name, we picked the first one we ever thought about," Thomson says. "Charlie is our drummer, and he is one depressed little stranger."\nThompson's first major collaborative effort is taking shape. After hours of hard work, she says the trio has revamped her original solo numbers with Scum's bass and Anderson's "kick-ass drums." \nThey can't quite put their finger on it, but they think the sound might be somewhere between "folky with an edge" and "'50s Rock." \nWhatever it is, Thompson says she can't wait to see how crowds react to their new material.\n"Bloomington is ready to have a really big band," she says.\nCheer up Charlie will open for the band Secret Girl in its Bloomington debut at the Vertigo tonight. Although she has never played there with her own band, Thompson is no stranger to the club. The musician has entertained the Vertigo's open-mic night crowds with her solo performances, if not with her onstage stand-up comedy.\n"I think I'm a comedian, I guess," she says, nervously fiddling with her eyelashes, and tells what she claims is 'the best joke I've ever told.' "What do you call a fish with no eyes? Fssshhh … I think I'm slowly turning into a mom with these mom jokes."\nThompson describes her music as easy-listening -- her definition of pop music. But her standard-issue blue jeans and concert t-shirts defy pop musician convention, because Thompson feels no desire to conform to stereotypes.\n"Like, if you're a female in the music scene, you should be singing songs that somebody else wrote, and someone else is playing the music," Thompson says. "And your boobies should be hanging out…Not that my boobies aren't hanging out. But I don't want to be Madonna. I have a dorky song I wrote a long time ago, but there's this line that says, 'I wanna be heard, not worshipped.'"\nProfound words, indeed. So whenever she steps onstage, the singer-songwriter's mind no doubt mind buzzes with similar deep thoughts.\n"(I'm thinking) that I need some whiskey," Thompson says, laughing. "I don't get nervous. If you get nervous, your voice sounds shaky. But you're nervous about getting nervous."\nNervous or not, Michelle never fails to captivate her audience, says friend and recent IU graduate Sam Samardzija. Bar chatter and pool games die down quickly when Thompson takes the stage, drawing in patrons with her voice, lyrics and stage presence, Samardzija says.\n"For me, the music speaks for itself," Samardzija says. "It's raw, with a very clean voice. That quality of a live show doesn't happen these days unless some girl-crazy band is lipsinging."\nThompson met Scum several years ago when she sang backup for his old band, The Infinite Path. \nThe two discovered common musical tastes in groups such as Modest Mouse, the Smashing Pumpkins and the French Kicks, and after swapping CDs for some time, began to discuss forming a new band. \nAnderson entered the picture more recently and brings his own unique style to the band's flavor. What exactly this "flavor" is, none of the members can say for sure.\n"I don't think we're trying to fit in," Scum says of the group's aspirations for carving out their own niche. "I don't care who we're playing for. I don't give a shit, I just wanna play."\nAnd play they will. Without a single show under their respective belts, the group has already set a definite schedule to establish a following here in Bloomington.\nAfter tonight's show, Cheer up Charlie will play Uncle Fester's House of Blooze with Awesome Cool Dudes, a Texas-based band, on Dec. 20th. It will return to the Vertigo Friday, Jan. 9 for another 30-minute set. \nWhile plans for a lead guitarist are in the works, the group intends to concentrate on its current strengths for the timebeing.\n"We are pathetic, enthusiastic, insecure people that love to make music," Thompson says of herself and her cohorts, "What more can I say?"\nPlenty, according to Anderson, who recalls instances in which Scum has been drunk on stage in a leotard.\n"You ever hear of 'The Dancing Grannies' before?" he asks.\nScum smiles as Anderson's anecdote jogs his memory, and he reminisces about the inspiration for such a stunt.\n"It's a workout video for old ladies," he says.\nApparently, Vertigo patrons are in for quite a show tonight. And even if they aren't, the members of Cheer up Charlie plan on enjoying themselves.\n"We just want to have fun, rack up a few beer tabs and enjoy the rest of our time in this town," says Thompson. \nAnd if you don't come see us, we'll kill you -- seriously"