Barenaked Fakies (The Barenaked Ladies Debacle)

"It was Sunday afternoon and I was painting my house when the cell phone rang," says Teddy Wigler, the booking agent for the San Diego rock and blues club, Blind Melons. "The guy introduced himself as Bill Crooks from Barenaked Ladies. He said BNL was playing Coors Amphitheater tomorrow [Monday] night and had tonight off. They were looking for a club where they could sit in."

Wigler told Crooks he might be able to squeeze them into Blind Melon’s and to call back in a few minutes. Then Wigler called the band that was booked at the Melon that night, Ninth Strangers, and asked if Barenaked Ladies could use their gear and play an hour set before they went on. Ninth Strangers agreed.

"I called the bar and told them to get some extra staff in there because Barenaked Ladies was coming in, and then go spread the word. When Crooks called back I told him it was a go. He said they would be down there at 9:30. I assumed that’s when they intended to play."

After Teddy talked to Bill Crooks, he phoned my house about and informed me BNL was coming to Blind Melons to play an hour set from 9:30 -- 10:30. Being a BNL fan, I stopped what I was doing and rushed down there. When I arrived, at 9:15, the room was packed. I asked C.J. Gladstone (lead singer from Ninth Strangers) if he was excited that BNL was going to open up his show and use his equipment. He said he didn’t know their music, but he was happy the room was packed.

Then we played the waiting game. While a sound man was tinkering around with the equipment on the stage, everyone in the room was buzzing around wondering when BNL was going on and if they were going on. Ninth Strangers were salivating at the corner of the stage, anxious to play.

At 11:00 p.m., some unfamiliar faces  got on the stage. One of them -- a large man with black hair, a Hawaiian shirt, and a guitar strapped from his neck (who I later learned was Bill Crooks) -- said to the crowd, "Hi. We aren’t anybody, nobody knows us, but we’re gonna have some fun. Is that ok with you?!"

Then, horror of all horrors, they started playing blues covers. And the played and they played. I asked their sound man who they were and he told me it was the guitar technician for BNL, the video crew chief (Crooks) for BNL, the keyboardist for BNL (Kevin Hearn), and a local blues man (Curtis Delgado). They played blues covers until Midnight.

When they got off stage, I approached the keyboardist, who was in the back of the room with his entourage. He was arm-locked with what appeared to be his girlfriend. I asked if he was Kevin Hearn -- keyboardist for Barenaked Ladies. He said "Yes I am." His girlfriend tightened her grip on his arm.

"Can I ask you a couple of questions on the record?"

"I’m a little busy right now," he answered."

"Just one parting question then . . . What the Fuck was that!? You guys called up the booking agent and told him that Barenaked Ladies were going to play here tonight. Instead we get Barenaked Fakies."

"I don’t know anything about a phone call," he said. "It’s our night off and we’re just partying. Our show is tomorrow."

"You don't know about a phone call. You just happened to stop by; and then you decided to get on stage. Do you routinely step on unknown stages of unknown clubs and jam with the equipment of unknown bands?" I prodded.

At that point his girlfriend pulled him away. "That’s it. You’re done," she said and shot a look at me. As she led him away I heard her say, "I’m sorry honey."

Shortly after, the guitar player for the Barenaked Fakies approached me.

"Are you the guy from the Reader," he asked, "I need to talk to you."

"That’s me," I answered.

"I’m Bill Crooks, the guy who called Teddy and booked this set. Look, Kevin told me you talked to him. I just want to get this straight. We meant no harm. It’s all in fun. We do this in every city and everyone has a good time."

"Maybe," I responded, "but you told Teddy Barenaked Ladies was going to be here. People took time out of their busy lives to see them."

"We never said Barenaked Ladies was coming in," Crooks defended. "When I called Teddy, he was painting his house. I guess he inhaled too many fumes."

"Teddy also said you said were going to be here at 9:30p.m.," I added. "You didn’t go on until 11:00 p.m. You arbitrarily made us wait for something that we weren’t even waiting for. Worse still, the band that was supposed to play tonight -- the band that was gracious enough to let you use their equipment, even though they didn’t know who you were -- didn’t get on until after Midnight. Pretty lame."

The next day, I asked C.J. Gladstone about the episode.

"We stood around and waited and waited for their show to start. We were standing on the side of the stage getting antsy. . . . I saw those guys in there too. I thought they were just waiting for more people to arrive. But it was already a packed house. We kept asking their sound guy when they were going to start and he kept saying, ‘They’re going on in five minutes.’ Then fifteen minutes would pass by and they still hadn’t started."

Gladstone made it clear that it wasn’t an entirely negative experience. Ninth Strangers is a new band trying to drum up new fans.

"On one hand," he said, "They brought people in that would not normally have seen us. And I will say this, we did make more money than ever before. But they started after the time we were supposed to go on. And it was Sunday night, people leave early you know? We worked hard. We put flyers all over the place. It was our only night [At Blind Melons] this month. We have to cherish our good gigs. . . ."

"They treated us like they were rock stars," says Willow Levitan, a fan who heard about the rumor and showed up to see BNL. "They made us wait for over an hour -- like rock stars; They were in the room listening to us all talking about them -- like rock stars. But they weren't rock stars. And after all that we got Mustang Sally! There’s a problem there. I did not agree to rearrange my night to watch them play Mustang Sally."

"In hindsight," says booking agent Teddy Wigler, "I realized that everything Crooks told me on the phone was ambiguous. He was meticulous with the words he used. He didn’t say, ‘I’m in Barenaked Ladies,’ He said ‘I’m from Barenaked Ladies’; he didn’t say, ‘We’re gonna play at 9:30’; he said ‘We’ll be there at 9:30. When he said, ‘The Barenaked Ladies were coming in’, what he was not saying was, ‘It’s really just the keyboard player and some members of the road crew.’"
 

Portions of this article originally appeared in the San Diego Reader (8/30/2001)

EJD 9/2001