Idol Chatter & Voice Views

We met some “different” performers during Idol’s Thursday episode from the Pittsburgh auditions, and those would include Reed Grimm.

His onstage antics had the judges enthralled. His voice impressed them, too.  Of course, he got their attention by auditioning with the theme song from “Family Matters,” something that apparently hasn’t been done before.

Little wonder Reed seemed comfortable on stage.  The 25-year-old from Ellsworth, Wisconsin, grew up performing with his parents in their touring band.  In fact, if I heard right, he first took the stage at age 2.

He does not perform with that touring band at present.  Instead, he fronts a funk/rock band called Shoeless Revolution … from behind his drum set.

Here’s how his sister, Jennifer, describes him in a story on twincities.com: “He’s really cool — he can beat box, he can sing, he can dance, he’s a charmer.”

She also said this year marked his fifth time auditioning for Idol and he was helped out by her “dream ticket,” won at Disney’s Idol Experience.

Since she’s too old to compete, she passed it along to him.

Shoeless Revolution, by the way, has an 11-track album — “From the Inside Out” — available from its website that was released in September 2010.

Here are a couple of the band’s performances …

Shoeless Revolution — “Dance”

Shoeless Revolution — “Okay”