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Ladies and Gentlemen:
The Alan Smithee Band
From left: John Fuller, Gerry Cohen, Ricky Cosentino, Steve Muscarella, Phil Rodriguez, Katja Reickermann, Brian Roberts and Craig Schiller
aka the Alan Smithee Band. (Photo: Robert Hale)
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Alan Smithee is alive and well as an L.A.-based "kick-ass garage band" thus far playing more than 40 gigs at Southland bars and clubs.
The band is comprised of five DGA television directors: Gerry Cohen (The Drew Carey Show) on bass, John Fuller (The Drew Carey Show) on guitar, Steve Muscarella (Unsolved Mysteries) vocals and drums, Brian Roberts (Everybody Loves Raymond) on guitar and Craig Schiller (Entertainment Tonight) on keyboards. Until they are able to find DGA members to complete the band, non-DGA members Ricky Cosentino (from Ambrosia) on drums and vocals, Phil Rodriguez on trumpet and Katja Reickermann on sax sit in.
The band's first gig was at Brian Roberts' 40th birthday party. All had played in bands as teenagers. After dusting off their instruments for the party, they found that now, with the pressure off to succeed as professional musicians, they could just go out and have fun. Their set list is an eclectic blend of music featuring covers of tunes ranging from the Beatles, James Brown, Van Morrison, B.B. King, Wilson Pickett, Bruce Springsteen, Taj Mahal and Bob Seeger to name a few.
The main obstacle for them is scheduling. "Try to take five directors and put them together on a regular basis," Roberts said. "It takes about three different people to pull together everybody's schedule so that we can play two or three gigs a month. But it's a blast. After working on the set with 60-70 people all day, it's nice to go out and play."
They settled on the name Alan Smithee because they didn't want to embarrass themselves in case they weren't any good. But they were.
In fact, after they'd been playing
a while, they were surprised one night when a record company executive came out to see them. He said he'd heard a lot of great things about them. However, it only took one set for
the exec to realize the band only played covers.
"It was really funny," Cohen laughed. "He said, you guys are great, but you've got to come up with some original stuff."
Cohen added that a lot of the actors they work with on shows love to come out to watch, "mainly to see the director sweat." Some have sat in. To keep abreast of the band's gigs, check out their website at www.alansmitheeband.com.
-Ted Elrick
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