Save Ferris at Harlow's in Sacramento: Crowd Brings Singer to Tears, Music Takes Writer Down Memory Lane
Twenty years ago when Save Ferris hit the mainstream with the ska release It Means Everything , I hit play over and over on my portable boom box. Monique 'Mo' Powell was everything to me. Here was a frontwoman who had the pipes to really belt it, singing lyrics I related to (or thought I did at 13 to 14 years of age) backed by a horn and rhythm section that put me in the groove to dance. Mo was the epitome of hip in my heavily mascaraed blue eyes. I was so enamored with the band that when I had an assignment to give an oral presentation of a poem or song that represented a certain literary style, I cracked up my teacher with a dramatic reading of "SPAM." (It's pink and it's oval. SPAM! I buy it at the mobile. SPAM! It's made in Chernobyl.) I can only guess I used the song as an example of rhyme. (I do remember I read Green Day's,"Hitchin' A Ride" for its alliteration, one of my favorite stylistic devices.) Not long after bringing