Making the band, GlassBuild style

—By Katy Devlin (aka K. Diddy), e-Newsletter editor, e-glass weekly

In 2006, all of America (or rather, the MTV-obsessed portion of America) watched Making the Band and saw Diddy (formerly Puff Daddy, formerly P. Diddy, now just Diddy) fulfill the dreams of the five girls that now make up the hip-hop group Danity Kane.

If I were Diddy—well actually I’d probably go by K. Diddy—I would have passed on all those grueling dance and voice auditions with 18- to 25-year-old girls and chosen my band from the performers during Live Band Karaoke in Atlanta in conjunction with GlassBuild.

Sarah Porter from All Weather Tempering in Phoenix scheduled the industry event Monday at the 10 High Club. This is the second time Sarah invited glass folks to rock out karaoke-style, but in front of a live band instead of outdated 1980s music videos. The attendance grew from 15 in 2006 to about 100 this year.

As K. Diddy, I would not have worried about finding band members that lacked energy or passion, as jumping, head banging and overall “rocking” seemed natural for all the industry people that braved the stage. Finding perfect pitch performers might have been a bit tougher, but hair bands in decades past never took too much time to get that right either.

The choice for lead singer would be, hands down, Pete "The Real Jovi" Frank, managing editor of Window&Door magazine, who gave an inspired, exciting and hard-core rendition of Bon Jovi’s “Living on a Prayer.”

Of course, the band would fail miserably without a backup singer, and who better than Sarah "The Siren" Porter (think Joan Jett meets Pat Benatar but with a flare for tempering).

If I really were K. Diddy and had the power to make the band, GlassBuild style, Pete and Sarah would be well on their way to the studio to lay down their first single. By next year’s show, they would already have completed their first sold-out stadium tour.

Auditions for the rest of my hypothetical glass metal band will be next year at the third annual karaoke band night at GlassBuild in Vegas (Oct. 6-8, visit http://www.glassbuildamerica.com/ for details).