American Idol Season 9 - Los Angeles Auditions - Katy Perry and Avril Lavigne Bring their Claws!

Hello America!  Well, after that hour we spent in Los Angeles, I can say that I did get a few laughs, but was left a little unimpressed by the amount of talent that we were shown.   We saw 5 of 22 that got sent through to Hollywood.  That's quite a rough ratio.  But we did get to see the evil side of our 2 guest judges.  Day 1 brought us Avril Lavigne who promised to go easy on the contestants.  I guess her hoodie with devil horns convinced her otherwise?   And, well, I didn't expect any less from day 2's guest judge Katy Perry.  But, I loved that she had it out for Kara the whole time!

But we did get a little insight on some of our golden ticket handlers.  So let's take a deeper dive into what we saw:

Hollywood Bound

• Jim Ranger - 27 from Bakersfield, CA - Jim is a pastor and married with 3 kids.  He's a different looking guy from your normal Idol.  A little on the husky side, long hair and a beard.  But he sure drove home a rendition of his self-penned song "Drive."  Didn't really hear enough of the song to know if it's any good or not, but the voice was good!   I didn't understand why Kara and Avril were focusing so much on him being a pastor and a father so he shouldn't have time to be on American Idol?   Did they give Josh Gracin a hard time for ditching the Army to be on the show?   Anyway, Jim was pretty good and he had the nice "crying after getting through so he can provide for his family" thing going on for him too!
  
• Mary Powers - 28 from Burbank, CA - Or as she will be known this season "This year's ROCKER Chick".   She gave a pretty decent rendition of Pat Benetar's "Love is a Battlefield" but Simon didn't like her attire.  He thought she was too cliche' with her leather rocker gear.  But, the voice was unique as the other judges pointed out.  Top 12? I don't know, but I think we'll see more of this one.   And she had her daughter working overtime for her as well.   A cynical hardcore Simon Cowell fan, Mary's daughter got the chance to meet HER idol.   Cue the "awwwwwwwww's" from the crowd! 
• Andrew Garcia - 23 from Moreno Valley, CA - So many stories here.  Where to start?  Okay, the obvious is the name.  ANDY GARCIA????  Is that too easy?  Okay, we'll move on.  How about his wife?  Who knew Andy Garcia was married to Kate Gosselin's hair?  Just crazy!   Okay, then the story Idol tried to force on us.  Andy's dad grew up in Compton and was involved with the gangs.   So Andy Garcia got to grow up away from that.  All his father wanted was a better life for him.   Okay, so Andrew never spent time in a gang himself but he still decided to ink up his neck?  RESPECT YO.   Okay, I kid, but the dude did sing pretty well.   He did a rendition of Maroon 5's "Sunday Morning" which I always thought like a Stevie Wonder (in his prime) type of diddy.   Good song, good audition, this guy is on his way to continuing to live his GANG-FREE existence!  What a story.   Who is with me for continuing to push for the story where he's named after that Hollywood guy that was in the 3rd Godfather?    And I still love the Kate Gosselin's Hair angle too! 
• Tasha Layton - 26 from Granada Hills, CA - So she is a personal assistant during the day and a minister at night.  She sang Joss Stone's "Baby Baby Baby" and sang it well.  I'm not sure why Simon went for the "Oh Happy Day" medley comment.  Did every other minister, pastor, preacher that has made it to Hollywood this year get that speech?   Sure, the editing leaves a lot of the audition on the cutting room floor, so maybe Tasha just went on and on about how much she loves singing in church!   Anyway, another good audition, but still waiting to hear more from her. 

Let's pause to have Katy Perry throw her coke in Kara DioGuardi's face!!   I am so glad that someone else gets annoyed by Kara!  Who else is with me?

• Chris Golightly

The Bad Ones

Well, who should I pick out of all of the wannabe's we saw?   First of all, one more Kara bashing by Katy Perry.  "You shouldn't send someone to Hollywood because you feel bad for them!"  Couldn't have said it better myself.  Kara seems to recruit Randy to her cause way too much this season and the guest judge usually goes along with them.  I'm glad Katy stood her ground!  Granted, we didn't see those contestants perform, but eh who cares?   The bad ones - There was Neil Goldstein with the high IQ and sweaty face.  Loved when he sang Meatloaf and the lyric "Remember everything that I told you" and then forgot the rest of the song!  Simon's "That's ironic" had me rolling!  You had your screecher in Jayson Wilson's "All By Myself" performance.   The unemployed Jesse Chang did some "Kung Fu Fighting" and some great arm motions with his "HUH" grunts!  There was the Mick Jagger dancing machine in Austin Fullmer (what was up with that sit on the floor and clap dance?!)   But the following 3 are the ones I'll highlight.

• Damian the Martial Arts fan.  He had been working on his nemesis, THE HIGH NOTE before the audition.   When he went in, the pepperoni sandwich maker said he was going to sing the Righteous Brothers tune.   The judges "Unchained Melody?"   Damian - "No, the other one"  Judges: "You've Lost That Loving Feeling!"   LOVE IT!   But the best part about the audition wasn't the awful singing.  It was when he messed up the high note and he thought THAT was when he "screwed up" the audition.  Classic stuff folks, classic! 
• THE ADAM LAMBERT CLONES and A.J. Mendosa - What was up with all of the people wanting to be like Adam Lambert this year?   If there is one thing we have learned, the next year clones never succeed on Idol.   After a medley of Adam Hair Kids, we met A.J.  He claimed to have sent a demo to Adam Lambert who had nothing but great things to say about it.   Hey, I have no doubt that story is true.  Would Adam Lambert ever say a bad thing to someone when he's not performing?   (you know...because he's super nice guy off stage and then MANIMAL when he plays "dress up!")   Anyway, watching AJ's trainwreck of a performance was fantastic. He even went all high pitch like his Idol.   He sang "Cult of Personality" but it sounded like "Keltive PIERSONELITAAAAAY"   Lots of ventriloquist comments from the judges and rightly so.   Great fun to watch! 
• Jason Green - Well you knew you were in for something special when the extremely flamboyant and sexually charged Jason Green came in and flirted with each one of the judges!  And of COURSE he sang the Divinyls tune "I Touch Myself".  And of course he believes in MAGIC! (jazz hands please!)  His air drum sound effects into the chorus were a great time "BOOM! BOOM!"  And he made Katy Perry feel dirty.  A nearly impossible feat.  Very crazy stuff indeed.  

So, that's it from L.A. folks!  Were you impressed by any of the talent we saw?  Tomorrow we head down to Dallas, Texas and will be joined by the continually AWESOME Neil Patrick Harris and the....um JOE JONAS?  Really?!!?!   I guess we'll have a very teenage friendly episode on Wednesday because we know viewership will be up!

Ending Credits

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