A Mighty Wind

in 2002, Chris Guest followed up “Best in Show” with a parody on folk music of the 1960s. The Spinal Tap guys were already The Folksmen. Jane Lynch, Michael Higgins and Parker Posey led the New Main Street singers. Paul Dooley was the holdover from the originals. Gene Levy and Catherine O’Hara became Mitch and Mickey and I was their bass player.

We made the movie and we figured that was it. Then somebody made a comment about Gene and Catherine dubbing in their instruments and we decided the only way to convince people that we really did perform those songs was to go perform those songs. So we did two nights at the Getty museum in LA and we figured that was it.

Those two nights were such fun that we did a couple of mini tours. Town Hall in New York, and clubs in Philadelphia and DC. The Warfield in San Francisco, and halls in Seattle and Vancouver. And we figured that was it.

Then the Academy award nominations came out and the Mitch and Mickey song “A Kiss at the end of the Rainbow” was nominated. So in 2004 we got to go on the show and play the song. Between the camera coverage (wide shots, medium shots, close-ups, extreme close-ups, over my shoulder into the audience, etc) for the movie and the various concert dates. We had probably played the song a couple hundred times. But when we got off stage at the Oscars, we all agreed we had never played it any better than that.