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"Curses! Curses! Foiled again!"
---Dick Dastardly

So there I am, mulling life over in early March. Z's CD is out and I have a dog head. Toss won't tour with us. For the first time in six years, me and Joe Travers aren't playing together on a regular basis. The sequence of events since the demise of Z had never seemed so ill- fated as they had during these few days...much credit must go to Mike, my father, lovely sexpot roommate Joanne, and the wonderful girl I met at the NAMM show, Mary Rose, for keeping me from heading straight for "they're coming to take me away" land. Mike and I figured that, at the very least, we could get some videos ready for the BFD Video Club.

Joanne had endured endless hours of live footage while Mike and I tried to sort out the wheat from the chaff; now it was Rich Lewis' turn. The amazingly helpful Mr. Lewis was being just that and then some; first, by buying a high-end Sony S-VHS VCR (to edit our masters onto...S-VHS's resolution is far superior to regular VHS) with the intent of returning it seconds before the 30-day Satisfaction Guarantee expired...second, by offering his home to us to use as an editing facility, complete with a mixer, a character generator, three VCR's, two monitors, all sorts of sound effects, etc, all patched together in a way that I couldn't even begin to understand. We'd go over there, record stupid intros and outros in the editing room, edit together the best stuff we had, take a break for dinner cooked by Rich's mother-in-law, go back and work until 3:00 AM. Aside from one instance when Keneally's head almost exploded due to his frustration with a patching problem (Joe Travers had to come over and save the day with his infinite technical wisdom), it was great fun. Quickly, we had two videos done, and the plan became to get six done before the tour. Oh yeah, we need a drummer.

Toss's first reference was a guy named Frank Briggs. I'd never heard of him before, but Joe and Mike had (One of Joe's friends told him of a discussion he had with Frank, in which Mr. Briggs said that he could never envision himself playing Keneally's music. Great). Mike told me that he'd seen a Frank Briggs instructional video, and that he could definitely handle it, but that he had a lucrative teaching career and was hesitant to give it up for a month. Fortunately for me, the first time I met him was the time that he said that he would tour with us. We scheduled rehearsals at his kick-ass soundproofed rehearsal room (believe it or not, he lives in a house owned by Chad Wackerman) for the second half of March...12 rehearsals to learn Keneally's whole set, eyebrows and all. Undaunted by the massive challenge, me and Keneally literally skipped out of his driveway, happy to know that we'd actually be getting on a plane to play BFD music wherever it landed.

Video days were Mondays. Rehearsals were Tuesday, Wednesdays and Thursdays or Fridays. In his spare time between being a father and a husband, Mike was going out of his mind trying to take care of all of the details of the tour, like where would we sleep and where would we play...you know, stuff like that. He was really starting to lose his mind...what could I do but offer some organizational support? I soon found out how insane it really was for him. I can't even remember some of the plans for the tour that fell through, but they were all ridiculous...at one point, we were going to open up for Brand X in Montreal and three other Canadian venues, the last one being less than 24 hours before our show in fucking Santa Cruz, CA (can you say red-eye to San Francisco?)...we were going to try and borrow transportation around the east coast at another time and place (I quickly dissuaded Keneally from that idea...I've been quite generous with his money, actually)...clinics in places as disparate as Fargo, ND and New London, CT were booked and cancelled as fast as you could say booking agent (which usually came up in this context--"Why don't we have a fucking booking agent? Fuck!")...coordinating with our various endorsement companies who would pick up what airfare costs and who would hang what banner behind us and whose corporate cock would we all have to swallow to get from Newark, NJ to San Francisco, CA...whose house would we crash in and for how many nights before they got sick of hearing Keneally snore louder than Iron Maiden at the Meadowlands and kicked us out...all of these things needed to be somehow settled while we weren't rehearsing or making videos or eating or sleeping.

And, if that wasn't stupid enough, we had gigs on March 20, 22 and 29. Toss played the first one at a really annoying hoity-toity club in LA called Luna Park. We opened up for a super old-timer progressive band named Gong (complete with the prerequisite 34 personnel changes over the years), and the place was packed--so much so that people who came to see us weren't allowed the privilege of paying $15. to see us play. Maybe if the club's guest list didn't have 35 people on it (Gong was allowed 15, BFD managed a paltry 8) they could have squeezed in one or two more commonfolk, but they wouldn't have even been allowed to sit down...the seats were "reserved". 50 people were standing up, 30 seats were empty, and anytime some poor tired fellow tried to take a load off, the Luna Park seat police sprung into action right quick (Gong's drummer was later expelled from the club for disobeying a direct order from the chief of the seat police). Then we were stiffed for our guaranteed money, even though Gong was using our entire backline, the club's reasoning being that we didn't bring anyone into the venue. Mike said, "Uh, excuse me, are you counting the people you turned away to make room for Johnny Bigshot and his two ugly hookers?" Well, maybe he didn't say that, but he should have. The promoter paid us out of his own pocket, for which we were all grateful. Except for Toss, that is, who reportedly called the guy and chewed his ass out mercilessly for not paying him extra money for drum transport, or something. I love the music business. More on the other gigs later.

In the crazy last week of March, the full circus was going all at once-- videos, gigs, rehearsals, tour plans. The pure madness of trying to do everything at once is the only reason I can come up with for what happened on the way to the Video Club being ready for takeoff before the start of the tour. We were cruisin' along at this point, having finished four videos (including the show with the on-stage brawl, some San Diego stuff with Joe Travers, and the massive NAMM compilation...we chose from 25 hours of NAMM footage and the editing process was excruciatingly slow, but worked well enough) and well on our way to having the predetermined six complete tapes finished on schedule. Glowing with pride over our victory against ridiculous time constraints, we brought VHS copies of the masters (what you, the consumer, would eventually see) down to the CEO's palace for an audiophile's perspective. Mr. Chatfield popped the first tape into his Dolby Surround Bitchen Kick-Ass Stereo System for an evaluation, and instantly his eyebrows perched in a curious, negative manner. We then listened in horror as he demonstrated for us what we would hear if he isolated the left and right channels (the stereo channels) and turned off the center channel (the mono channel)...nothing. Absolutely fucking nothing. Several attempts were made to explain the awful truth away, but logic had its way with us when, near the end of the third tape, all of a sudden stereo separation appeared. We remembered that, at that point, the audio patch was switched, apparently to where it should have been all along. Everything done before that was in beautiful, wonderful mono. All of the carefully slaved over edits would have to be redone. Was there any way we could go back and redo all of that shit before we left for the tour? No...we had just played a gig with Frank Briggs the night before (March 29) at a club in Lakeside (beautifully described in the latest "Mike Types To You"...a truly scary joint at which the overhead mike for the drums was draped over a wooden fish hanging from the ceiling, or something), and while we saw the future magic off in the distance, it became clear that rehearsals should be the first priority. So, the end result of all this is that work on the videos won't resume until after May 18. No one single human alive is more disappointed than me that we couldn't get it together sooner, but they'll end up better for it, I promise. We have two proshot videos (Club Lingerie and The MI Show, the one that will eventually be half of "Half Alive...") pretty much done, but the Video Club needs some personal touches before we just shove the tapes out there. I drove home from San Diego after that awful revelation mainly looking for an animal to run over.

But the rehearsals became much more focused after that gig. I learned this the hard way when I first played gigs with Keneally--knowing the material and being able to play along with the CD's isn't nearly enough to make this gig work. You have to catch the sarcastic, silly, and sometimes just plain weird vibe that Mr. K puts out, and interpret that into the music as you go, creating a different feel for the tunes every time you play them. Not being able to ride the Keneally vibe wave results in your contribution to a suck-ass gig (like me, back in 12/94). But that first time you "get it", it's a wonderful thing. Frank Briggs got it in the rehearsals after that gig at the Hanging Fish, and the difference was remarkable. As long as I'd been playing with Keneally, we never rehearsed more than twice before a gig...by the tenth rehearsal for this tour, the band is tighter than it's ever been, and Frank sounds awesome. I'm truly blessed to have played with nothing but stellar drummers in this band. In any event, we'll make a scary little combo on the road. You should hear Frank play "'Cause Of Breakfast" and "Top Of Stove Melting". Wow.

Somewhere in the middle of all of this (March 22), we played a gig with Joe Travers on drums, at the now infamous home of the drunken drummer, Bourbon Square. We're just like Spinal Tap with the drummer situation, the main difference being that all of our drummers are still alive. The Luna Park LA nightmare show with Toss was done with no rehearsal, and for this one, me, Mike and Joe got together in my bedroom, where Joe beat his hands on his lap. I got a wild hair in writing the set list for this one...we played a segueway that went like this..."Spearmint Pup" into "Land Of Broken Dreams" (a live debut for that one) into the album version of "Good Morning Sometime" (another first-timer). If it wasn't entirely smooth, at least it wasn't boring. Joe kicked his usual share of ass, and Mike sang impromptu lyrics to a new song that will eventually be called "Frozen Beef", but for tonight was entitled, "Don't Play Luna Park". LA veterans roared in approval. The real treat, however, was that we were on a double-bill with local legends The Raging Honkies, a blues-rock trio with Michael Landau on guitar and Abe Laboriel, Jr. on drums. They are unspeakably awe- inspiring, as well as a good draw, and by halfway through our set, you couldn't move in that room. The fire marshal definitely would not have approved. Joe didn't approve of the guy that Keneally brought up on stage to "sing" the Hendrix cover we do, "Power To Love". Mike even gave him a guitar solo. Joe cringed. For a few minutes, we were in FZ "You Can't Do That..." Vol. 1's version of "Yellow Snow" with the "Broadmoor" poetry guy for sure. Enforced recreation live on stage in Van Nuys, CA? Well, sort of.

Speaking of Joe, I went to see him play with Warren Cuccurullo (how the fuck do you spell that anyway? From now on, he's just Warren to you and me.) at the Velvet Room in Hollywood. Did you know that the sexpot roommate Joanne's boyfriend, the friend of mine that I introduced her to, Wes Wehmiller, is Warren's bass player? You do now. So I'd heard via e-mail that the NY shows that Warren's band played were nothing short of spectacular, and I brought Mary Rose to see the show, which was supposed to start at 11:30. What Warren didn't know was that an extra band had been booked, and that the club only had a license to make rock-music-sounding noise until 12 midnight. The extra band was a group of Dee-Lite DJ-looking too-hip Japanese women, and they sucked ass harder than the drunken drummer's band from way back when, and I didn't think that anything could be worse than that. Warren was VERY pissed, and took the stage at around 12:45, cursing the club owner at every opportunity. The vibe in the room was nothing short of abysmal, and Mary Rose was less than entertained (as were we all), so at 1:20 AM we left. We shouldn't have. Five minutes after we left, the club turned the sound off on Warren, maybe after listening to him call them cocksuckers one too many times. This prompted Warren to put down his expensive axe, pick up a cheaper one, and jump off of the stage with the guitar/weapon over his head in angry, violent pursuit of said club owner. Warren had to be restrained. Meanwhile, Joe's solace in this whole mess was to drink. Heavily. After the sound went down, Joe reportedly danced for the remaining crowd (Joe's a wonderful dancer, by the way)...and then got back up behind the drum set and performed a drum solo until the club turned the lights off on him. At least HE had a good time. That report is second-hand, by the way. I believe it's 97% true.

Somewhere, somehow, in the middle of all of this, the tour came together. Canada fell through, but NY came through. Weymouth, MA didn't happen, Burlington, VT did. While on his way into the ill-fated Warren show, Keneally was summoned into Warren's limo by the man himself. Warren then proceeded to ask Keneally how it was that he was going on tour...how did he make it work without the typical big-label tour support? The fact that Warren asked Keneally this question from the inside of his limo notwithstanding, the answer is this...ever since Mike announced that he was leaving the Zappa organization and going to pursue his solo career, people have come from out of the woodwork with offers of support and help, all of which we desperately need and for which we are eternally grateful. The man who started it all is a guitarist/professor at Berklee College Of Music named Jon Finn. He secured for us a gig at the famed school (as well as clinics for Mike and I...my very first clinic. I hope I remember how to plug in my bass.) and has offered his humble abode to us as well. Wait 'til he hears Keneally snore--he'll rue the day he let us into his house. The Executive Producers of The Life Of Bryan, Robert and Laura Beller, have allowed BFD to make their house our East Coast Headquarters, as well as help us with countless other time-consuming chores...I love you SO MUCH MOM AND DAD!!! An angel named Michael Harrison has decided to devote time and resources to the BFD cause for the duration of the tour, providing west coast transportation, video and audio equipment, and a million other things, and asking for nothing in return. Rich Lewis remains the most important man to us who isn't in the band or owns the label. Speaking of the label, Suzanne Forrest, the CEO of Immune Records, has been the only other human helping with arranging the logistical end of the tour besides me and Mike...she's waited a long time for this to happen, and her patience will not go unrewarded if we have anything to say about it. This is starting to sound like a Grammy speech, but after becoming intimately familiar with the maddening details of putting a tour together, these people should not go unmentioned (in no particular order)...Thomas Nordegg, Keith Winston at Rivera, Doug Marhoffer at EMG (see you at the billiards table...vengeance is mine!!), Rick Carlson at SWR, Joe Dickless at Rent- A-Wreck in East Orange, NJ (can't wait to see what our "tour bus" looks like), Ed Palermo (helped us secure the NYC gig), Roy Cunningham, Henry Kaiser (I get to see The Mistakes! Yippee! Andy West is gonna use my rig! Andy West!!), Larry Baione and Joe Santerre from Berklee, Chandra Lynn, Shawn Ahearn (the poor promoter who paid us out of his own pocket for the Luna Park show only to be lambasted by Toss...he also tried hard to get us hooked up with Brand X in Canada to no avail), Greg Henry, Bruce Rothstein, Bill Imperial, all of the kind folks who offered us support if we got anywhere near them, and finally, to all of you, for making us feel wanted. We're coming, fuckers, we're coming.

Did I mention The University Of Maine at Farmington? Some guy up there must have rigged a student body representative vote to see who plays their big end-of-semester bash, because Mike Keneally and BFD won handily. Suzanne received a call from these folks on like April 3 or something, about ten seconds after the itinerary was officially finalized, requesting our presence their on May 5. That's right, May 5. The same May 5 that's two days after May 3, the day we play in fucking Vancouver, British Columbia...you know, 2 and 1/2 hours north of Seattle? Impossible? Not for us (to put it politely, it's worth our while to get there any way we can). It's being put together as this goes to print, so if it works, we can thank the U of Maine, Dunlop (pedals, not tennis balls), and Doug and Bongo (that's right, Bongo) at Down Home Music in Fairfield, ME. If it falls through, ignore this paragraph.

So, to finally wind things up here before I leave you all until mid-May, let me share this with you. When I first moved to LA to join Z and meet my destiny, I left a blues-rock band that I was the bassist for (as well as the organizational arms and legs) named 100 Proof. We were good friends, and it was a real band, and I left them in a bit of a lurch, for which I've felt intermittently guilty. They regrouped after my departure and moved to Nashville, where they've been ever since, struggling through personnel changes and the overall tough life that a fledgling band leads. You have no idea how happy I was to hear that the band, now called Backwaters, had recently opened up for The Fabulous Thunderbirds and was building a following formidable enough to warrant a showcase for some major labels in LA. The showcase was at...where else...Luna Park. I went to see them with Joe (who was the original drummer for the Berklee-based band) and Wes, who played with them as well at school. They sounded great, and we all sat in after their showcase was over. Joe and Wes played "Whipping Post", and I got up and played an original tune of the band's that I hadn't played in over three years. It was good, simple, hard driving blues-rock, and it was very rewarding to see them at that level, since I was the one who had dreamed up the idea for the band in the first place. Why am I telling you this? Because I have that feeling again with Mike, and there's no substitute for it. There is nothing for a musician in the world like putting everything you have into a band and seeing it work out somehow or another. I may be a sideman in the future to subsidize myself during down time, but I know where my heart lies. We will succeed or hurt ourselves trying.

As I mentioned about 8 years ago, March was a long month. If this particluar Act was not as coherent or disjointed in any way, I apologize...it was written over the course of a few days. I tried to make it short...I really did. Yeah, I'm lying.

OK, that's it! The Life Of Bryan goes on the road starting Tuesday, April 9, at 6:30 AM. I'll be back a couple of days after my 25th birthday (May 6). Maybe I'll get to write something from the road, maybe not. As far as e-mail is concerned, if you could wait until I get back, that would be cool...I'm going to be taking a little vacation upon my return, so it looks like I'll be up and running here again on around May 12. So, from all of me to all of you, I'll see you when I see you.............(offstage voice---"and...CUT!". Scattered applause...everyone congratulates each other, then goes home...maintenance man turns out light...roll credits).............B.B.