I co-hosted Rich Pike’s online show None Radio yesterday, for what I believe is the fourth time to date. A pretty amusing show, too… much of our on-air time was spent geeking out over Sci-Fi minutiae – from varying versions of the “Star Wars” movie soundtracks, to our childhood experiments with action figure modification, to an almost awe-struck nostalgia-fest for the 1979 flick “The Black Hole.” As I remarked on-air, we’re going to have a hard time getting dates after throwing down a geek-fest of that magnitude.
Beyond moving ourselves several notches down the hipness scale, Rich had selected a number of news stories to read and comment on during the show. The hands-down most bizarre was an account of a man who jumped into a lion’s den and began trying to convert the lions to Christianity by reading the Bible. At one point, the man shouted for the lions to attack him – which they apparently did:
(The fellow survived, with only a bite on the leg to show for his efforts.)
Lest we forget (and it’s easy to do so with this show), there was much music to be played (including a number of tracks I’d requested), and Rich also talked me into doing a couple of live on-air performances. I’d had reservations about doing it, citing feeling a bit under the weather and wanting to conserve energy. But then Rich reminded me of the story about Steve Vai being so sick at a Frank Zappa gig that he had to be wheeled out on stage and propped up with a luggage cart for the duration of the show, and he succeeded in getting me geared up for some playing, which was worth the cajoling in the end. It was nice to get a couple of non-album tracks (“Entwined” and the live, solo version of “Signify”) documented in some fashion, too – both tunes are staples of my gigs, and show a very different side from most anything I’ve put on CD thus far.
Much fun had by all – Rich is a great guy, and remains one of my most vocal supporters. I don’t understand why, but I definitely appreciate it!
A gig in LA in a couple of weeks, and several in New York City in mid-March – stay tuned for more on that front…