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And how is everybody today? {Good, Mr. Beller!} Goooooood!! I hope we're all ready to give Mr. Beller your FULL attention, because we've got a lot of work to do, boys and girls. We've got lots of reeeaaalllly exciting stuff to talk about!! {yea!!!} Like information on how and when you can order the new Keneally CD and home video...{oooooh}...and some veeerrrrry interesting concert reviews...{aaaaaaah}...and the tale of another audition...{oh god not again, please don't make us listen to that fucking shit again, no, please!}...and news about my quest to become an author...{oooooooh}...and an article that I'm writing for Bass Player Magazine {aaaaaaaaah}...and the inside dirt on Cami Slotkin...{wait a minute, that's the girl who said the word "kike" over and over again, she scares me, no, wait, AAAAAGGGHH!!}...are we ready boys and girls? No? That's too bad...ha ha...ha ha ha....HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!!!!!

There. I think that there's enough of those little dots and exclamation points in that paragraph to tie me over to the next Act. I've missed those little dots. You see, here in The Life Of Bryan, I'm free to let my little dots roam...AND CAPITALIZE WHEREVER I WANT...and write sentence fragments all over the place. Like this. Or; use; semicolons; and: colons: anywhere I see fit so that I can write a sentence that can be as long as...I want and say: all sorts of different things because I think it's cool to be able to write whatever the fuck you want at any given time; I've grown to value this here outlet for my every literary and punctuational whim!...?...(hi).

But, if I really want to be a writer, I guess that I need to write some real sentences--you know, subject, predicate, that type of stuff. Maybe a real article or something. So, thinking back to the Martha Lawrence "instant literary schmooze" incident back at Mrs. CEO's 40th b-day party, I decided to pitch Jim Roberts, the editor of Bass Player Magazine, with the kooky idea of me writing an article for them on the topic of...you guessed it...auditions. You know, the typical "I've been there" type of artist's perspective piece, along with some supposedly helpful advice from the guy who just had to endure The Mother Of All Auditions. Would you believe that, after inspecting my literary chops during a visit to the LOB, that he called me back and said, in a pretty businesslike fashion, "Uh, yeah, why don't you do a 3,000 word piece on auditions, your experiences, some advice, you know, make it friendly, tighten up the style a bit from the webpage, and take as long as you like, OK? No deadline, just take your time and have some fun with it."

3,000 words?! That's 12 double-spaced pages!! Wait a minute...this Act will probably be twice that. Anyway, the article's already done. 13 and a half pages, to be exact (like I could've possibly come in under the limit--you know me better than that). It won't run for a couple of months or so, but avid page readers will find little LOB references if they read closely enough. So, those 13 pages, combined with the 50 (double-spaced) pages I've gotten done for the book I've been working on, adds up to a hell of a lot of typing this month. My fingers are tired. Ow. But do I skimp on you? Do I cut corners here at The Life Of Bryan, Inc.? Would I ditch my web column for greener literary pastures? Hey, man, I'm still down wit' da hood. You know whut I'm sayin', g? I'd never leave you, unless I got a big book contract or something.

OK, here it is, the official Mike Keneally New Product Update, so listen closely. I just talked to Suzanne Forrest (a fellow CEO, she of Immune Records) so that I could relay to you, the people for whom I have never-ending love and affection, the very latest news about the new double-live CD and home video, and here's what she told me. Both "Half Alive In Hollywood" (the CD) and "Soap Scum Remover" (the full-length video) will be ready and waiting for you to order on...October 22. If you want to, and of course you do, you can order each of these lovely items directly from Immune Records with your credit card, by going to their website at http://www2.connectnet.com/~immune. Or, I'm sure that you can send a check to the address provided at the Immune site. The double-live CD, over 130 minutes of music, is only 20 fucking dollars!! No wonder I'm so damn poor. The video is $24.99; both prices are postage paid. ALSO, if you happen to be attending the G3 Tour, massive amounts of Keneally merchandise will be available at the concession stand, right along next to the Vai t-shirts and the Satriani Halloween masks. "Half Alive In Hollywood" will eventually make it to the venues, but not before the 20th or so of October. If you should happen to be at a G3 show where they don't have something that you want, order forms for all things Keneally will be at the stands for you to grab plenty of. I think that this is the most overtly commercial thing that The Life Of Bryan has ever done, but it's for a good cause...your listening pleasure and our bank accounts. We DO have mutual interests after all!

We now interrupt this baldly capitalistic Act of The Life Of Bryan to bring you the following special CONCERT REVIEW.

Mike Keneally and Bryan Beller, Genghis Cohen, West Hollywood, CA, 9/12/96.

I'll try my best to be objective. Genghis Cohen is a small room that features mainly acoustic artists. Mike and I have been known to masquerade as an acoustic duo from time to time, and perhaps it was fitting that the last official quasi-BFD gig before his departure to the land of The Fire Garden and 7-string guitars was played by just the two of us. As far as acoustic instruments go, me and Mike are Taylor folk; they simply make the most natural sounding acoustic guitars on the planet (the infomercial continues...this space in The Life Of Bryan is for rent as well. Just send me some information about your business or product and a check for $17,000., and I'll give you a sentence or two. You know, something like, "Hungry? Head on down to Bob's Chicken Ranch in Escondido, California!! You'll never leave hungry--that is, if they let you leave at all...HAW HAW HAW HAW HAW!!!" I, of course, have complete editorial control over the ad copy, so submit at the risk of being edited and taken completely out of context. What the fuck was I talking about...). I have this unbelievable sounding Taylor acoustic/electric bass that actually resonates real, audible, warm bass tones without even being plugged in. Once you plug it directly into a board, it simply becomes magical (as well it should, since I'll be paying it off until the next millennium).

Anyway, the set went off without a hitch, even though we were limited to thirty minutes. Heartfelt renditions of "The Cowlogy", "I Can't Stop", "Skunk" and "Lightnin' Roy" were played with the urgency that accompanied the knowledge that this was to be our last gig for as many as six months. I can't say that I wasn't wistful. A nice crowd of about thirty to forty folks witnessed the event in quiet, attentive appreciation, which was a welcome diversion from the madness of The Troubadour and other recent gigs. To those who attended, thanks. It was a bittersweet moment for me, m'lads. Nevertheless, the Beller/Keneally chemistry was in full gear and emitting this defiant message, if I felt it correctly: "Fuck the madness of the current situation. Let's make music." At that moment, I couldn't have agreed more.

Oh, I almost forgot--Andy West and his wife just happened to be in both town and the neighborhood, and they hung with us after the show. It was NAMM Flashback time. What a damn nice guy he is. And, lest I forget and be castrated, Cami "the girl who hates to be referred to as the girl who says 'kike' all the time" Slotkin, was also present and took some really cool pictures of the two of us. I think we need to talk about Cami for just a second.

First of all, Cami's Jewish (as am I), which gives her the right to say the word "kike" until she's blue in the face. But I really should define her in at least one other way besides her supposed fondness for anti-Semitic racial slurs, so here goes: she's an extremely sardonic, extremely talented writer with a preference toward free verse poetry. Her style could be described as Keneallyish, but a little darker and with a more extensive vocabulary (as if that's possible); she's hilarious. But a recent experience with her boss at Starbucks Coffee in Santa Monica was not nearly as funny. It seems that Ras Daveed and Providence (aka "The Jewish Guys" that I play around town with) and their clan of about fifteen or twenty friends/relatives had committed the unconscionable offense of becoming regular patrons of the caffeine-dispensing establishment, spending lots of money on coffee and danishes and sitting at the tables outside (remember, these are Hasidic Jews, with the long curly hair and all). Cami's manager, oh, let's just call him "Adolf" for now, was not amused by these developments, and took Cami, friend of said Jewish Guys, to task over it one day in the office in the back of the store.

Adolf: "Look at them. They just waltz in here and take over the place. I get SO many complaints about them, taking up all of the chairs, acting rude and obnoxious and all that. I mean, what RELIGION could they possibly be?"

Cami: "You know, Adolf, they've been saying that about MY people for the last 4,000 years, usually right before they try to kill us all or something."

After that little confrontation, Cami, a Starbucks manager and several-year veteran, was suddenly getting the worst shifts possible, as well as bad reports to higher-ups in the company from wonderful ol' Adolf. She ended up having to get a transfer to a different store, but not before Adolf repeatedly attempted to thwart her with tactics such as suddenly "losing" all of the records containing her accrued vacation pay from over the years, and the like. So, hopefully by now Cami's good name has been cleared. But, if you still can't see her as anything other than the pottymouth that I've made her out to be, she sent along a little self-portrait to accompany this story just to make you happy. She's wearing the self-described "swastika support" model bra for extra, added comfort.

We now interrupt this nakedly anti-Semitic Act of The Life Of Bryan to bring you yet another special CONCERT REVIEW.

The Steve Vai Band, The Hard Rock Cafe, Universal City, CA, 9/17/96

Aaaah, the Steve Vai record release party for his new CD "The Fire Garden". I just had to be there. You know me...a true glutton for punishment. A large stage was set up in the middle of the floor of the restaurant, and the band consisting of Steve Vai, Mike Keneally, Phil Bynoe (bass) and Mike Mangini (drums) was to play a 75-minute set of material to be featured on the G3 Tour, as well as Vai's solo tour which would begin when the G3 madness ended. People were crammed solid on the floor level. Stairs led to a "VIP only" second level, whose balcony ringed the restaurant, looking down upon the stage. But that level was also packed to the gills--Steve apparently knew plenty of VIP's from all over LA. I finally met Vai's manager Ruta Cepetys (correct spelling!!), the mythical voice on the other end of the phone during the trying days of Anti-cipa-tion. Rich Lewis also re-appeared, and it was good to see him and his videocamera once again in fierce documentation mode. Several LOB readers approached me, saying some very kind and flattering things about what should be as opposed to what actually was, and although I thank them for their kind sentiments, it did contribute to the nearly surreal atmosphere in the room at that point. It was hard not to think what might have been.

The show began with Steve presenting his (in)famous double-necked heart guitar (from back in his David Lee Roth days) to the Hard Rock Cafe for wall-mounting and worship, and there were plenty of people in the crowd who recognized that axe and cheered all that it stood for. The 80's were back in all its glory for that brief, glimmering moment in Universal City...actually, they've never left in certain parts of the San Fernando Valley, but that's another story entirely. The show began with Fire Garden's opener, "There's A Fire In The House", and I watched as Keneally played a Steve Vai-model Ibanez guitar (Keneally sez, "these guitars are specially crafted to be able to pull off the Vai material. They have whammy bars that work like no other guitar in the world, even when you detune like crazy--and I have to often), an intimidating rack of keyboards, and even percussion, occasionally striking two mounted toms near his mission-control-looking workstation. Often he'd switch instruments between eighth notes. It was impressive and frightening. Subsequent tunes included "The Crying Machine", "The Animal" (containing a really scary double-lead by Keneally and Vai, one of many during the night), "Blowfish", "Answers", and "Little Alligators", on which Vai sang lead vocals. I know what you're thinking, and so was I, but he acquitted himself well enough (says me, the man with the golden tonsils) for a B minus. By the end of the tour, I'm sure his grade will have improved. He sure can play, that Vai guy.

It was pretty strange for me to see Keneally up there in a purely supportive role. Even in Z, he still had some control over the musical reins, simply because his musical personality was so strong, stronger than Dweezil's at times. But this was purely the Steve Vai show, and it looked weird to me. I'm sure no one else noticed; as a matter of fact, most in attendance were probably saying to themselves, "who is this fucking freak who can play Vai's licks on guitar, keyboard, and percussion all at once? How come I never heard of him before?" And that, ladies and gentlemen, is the point. Without those folks, BFD will only be the darlings of you and a select few others forever. Not that we don't love you (I'm currently trying to yank my foot out of my mouth, but it's stuck in there pretty good), but you know what I'm getting at. As far as those other guys in the band, Mike Mangini played a very large drumset very, very well, and took a solo that I'll call a "tribute" to Terry Bozzio. He's a talented guy with a lot of chops and independence who doesn't fuck up, ever. I know I should reserve comment on Phil--in the interest of objectivity, and all--but I just want to say two things, and then I'll shut up. One, he's a great bassist who definitely cut the gig and then some. Two, he has very large biceps.

The set wound down with "Bad Horsie" and our favorite, "Kill The Guy With The Ball", with Mangini repeating his nearly impossible feat of mimicking the 64-bar drum intro (the first time I saw him do it was at the audition, if you remember). Then, things really went 80's--Billy Sheehan and Greg Bissonette got up onstage for the encore and did an instrumental version of the David Lee Roth Band's signature shredder, "Shy Boy", and they fucking nailed it. The place went absolutely crazy, and I didn't realize until that moment just how strong the sentiment was for that style of music when it was popular. I was never really into the whole shredder thing, even though I did come of age in the 80's. I think it was the fact that I just couldn't play that fast, so I refused to listen to any of that stuff seriously. Also, I didn't look right in those tight red leather pants that were the hot shit thing back then (not like I ever tried ANYTHING like that on). Anyway, back to the encore--Sheehan's solo in "Shy Boy" was exactly what you'd think it would be--scary fast and very two-handed. Phil actually had to get back up there and do "The Attitude Song" after that. For that moment, I didn't envy him.

Actually, let me clarify something. I really didn't envy him. Sure, I would've liked the extra money and the recognition, but after watching that whole show, I realized that there was a part of me that maybe didn't belong up there. Oh, I could've done it and liked it, but my head drifted back and forth between thoughts of the show I could've been a part of and the book I was working on--specifically, what a great scene that I was in the middle of that I could write about. And, as Martha Lawrence says, that's when you know you have the bug for writing--when you live both in the moment and partly away from it, gathering material for later use in your work. That's really what I meant when I said that this night was surreal. If I learned anything that evening, I learned this: I can work on writing this book and be just as happy as I would've been up there on that stage. (I hear the chorus shouting..."Yeah, right!" Damn.) I'll just be poorer. For now. Man, I should stop right now before I end up having to plagiarize The Life Of Bryan for material for that damn book.

So, to close the book on the whole Vai saga, I'll leave you with the particularly insightful words of Frank Briggs, who saw the Steve Vai Band at MI just a week later: "A lot of times, they sound kind of like a souped up funk/fusion band, just with different sounds and different hair." Leave it to Slumber Party Briggs to come up with the quote of the month.

OK, just one more thing. I want to read YOUR review of the G3 show when it comes to your town. What do you think? Keep your thoughts down to one page, send them to me at bassboy69@earthlink.net, and I'll pick the best one, plus selected lines from maybe a couple of others, and present them to the readership of The Life Of Bryan (now about to crack the fifteen-person mark) so that they can witness your genius, or lack thereof. You don't even have to send $17,000. along with it. What a deal!! And, if you should happen to see Mike on the road, make sure you tell him this: "Bryan Beller says hello, how are you, and blow me." Those exact words, so that by the fifth or so time he hears them, he starts to lose his mind.

Two quick pieces of information...I just found out that Earthlink, my super-bitchen cool new internet service provider, is owned by those Scientology people. I hate when that happens. Also, I've learned from informed sources that Bass Player Magazine is preparing to do a feature length interview with...Scott Thunes!! Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that this will be his first real interview in at least eight years, or maybe more, or maybe ever. It's certainly overdue. For those of you who've only heard about the legend of Mr. Thunes and his sometimes "erratic behavior", you need to read this article whenever it comes out. I really don't want to spoil it for you, but I'll give you this much...it's going to be pure magic. The ultimate irony would be if my article and his interview appeared in the same issue. I don't even want to think about that...it's too heavy and karmic and all that stuff.

We interrupt this karmic cycle to bring you another fucking special CONCERT REVIEW. Yay.

Rage Against The Machine, The Universal Amphitheater, Universal City, CA, 9/29/96

"So this is what a riot looks like", I thought to myself as the groove to Rage's opener "Bombtrack" kicked in. The Universal Amphitheater has an open area about fifteen to twenty feet deep in front of the stage, and you know what that means--the moshing was so intense, it was frightening even to us back-row dwellers at the show. How somebody didn't get killed is anyone's guess. But let's talk about the music here for a second. I know that some of you can't get past Zack De La Rocha's angry white rap and saliva-filled vocal inflections, but you're missing a great groove if you let that alone stop you from digging this band. I swear, these guys really bring it hard; even a jaded old musician like me couldn't help my butt from shaking with the beat. This guitarist Tom Morello, a Harvard graduate, is practically re-inventing what the electric guitar can do. Not only that, but all of those turntable-record-scratch sounds he gets are live--no overdubbing tricks at all. He was reproducing his amazing sounds from the CD flawlessly, all with a picture of Che Guevera painted on his guitar amp. The bassist, Timmy C., opted for an upside-down American flag to decorate his rig with. It would be a huge understatement to say that I was jealous of his distorted bass sound. It's probably the best I've ever heard. And it's hard to believe that De La Rocha could keep up the manic, jumping-bean energy level that he set for himself from the outset, but he did. He's a freak.

Taking longer breaks in between songs than your average band, they tore up the following numbers: "Take The Power Back", "Vietnow", "Down Rodeo", "Know Your Enemy", and others before getting to the real slammers, "Bullet In The Head", and the first single from the new CD "Evil Empire" (which you need), "Bulls On Parade". By the encores ("People Of The Sun", "Killing In The Name", [with it's 'fuck you, I won't do what you tell me' refrain], a re-arranged, mellower version of "Roll Right" and, finally, "Freedom"), the moshpit was understandably less frantic--they were absolutely drained. These guys are one of the greatest live acts around. Spend your money and find out for yourself.

I also saw Me'Shell Ndegeocello at the LA House Of Blues this last month, but I'll spare you another review other than to say that anyone who's interested in real, old-school, honest-to-goodness funky soul (especially the bassists out there) should pick up her latest release, "Peace Beyond Passion". I think her tour's over now, but she needs and deserves to be more famous than she is. OK, I think I'm done picking out your CD collection for you now.

God, all of that and I still didn't have time to tell you about my audition with Gary Hoey. Oh well...maybe next time. I figured that you're still recovering from the last one. I know I am.

Can you believe that next month will be the ONE YEAR ANNIVERSARY of The Life Of Bryan? And that I'll be writing the 20th Act? It's been a long year, I can tell you that. We'll have to do something extra special to celebrate...maybe trot out some old pictures, or something. Be afraid. Be very afraid. So, without further delay, we now return you to your regularly scheduled program, already in progress..................B.B.