What happens when you mix emo, punk and hardcore? You get the corky and offbeat music of Reggie and the Full Effect.There are two stories floating around as to how Reggie came to existence. One says that Reggie was a bluesman who just vanished at the top of his career and then Reggie records just appeared on the doorstep of a few independent studios. The other and probably more likely of the two is that the keyboardist from The Get Up Kids and former drummer from Coalesce James Dewees had some down time from his bands and started recording songs as Reggie and the Full Effect.The band has a fun way of mixing together side splitting skits, hopelessly emo songs, and love songs so sappy and sweet they could rot your teeth with a heaping spoonful of tongue and cheek humor. Reggie is one of those bands that are out there to have fun playing and giving music to other people. One of their more well-known skits opens their full length album, Promotional Copy. The track is called “Bitch’s Get Stitches” which starts with Reggie and his friends talking about buying some Girl Scout cookies. It ends with Reggie getting shot in a drive-by which is then followed by three minutes of people say “Reggie got shot” accompanied by keyboard and scratching. On the lighter side of Reggie is his other alter ego band called The Common Denominators, a band from Finland whose only U.S hit single is “Dwarf Invasion.” A song filled with cheesy rhymes, and a guy whose sole job throughout the song is to sound like a cat hawking up a hair ball. One of my favorite lines in the song is “This is not a friend! You are very small! You can barely stand up to me! You can’t play basketball! This is dwarf invasion!” Aside from the silliness, there is a very real art to Reggie and the Full Effect. When Reggie is not writing silly songs about dwarves or joking about getting shot, he is writing hopelessly emo songs about girls he loves and girls he has lost, and every other possible thing you could think of that has to do with matters of the heart. So if you are looking for some laughs and some heartfelt tunes, you should check out Reggie and the Full Effect.