Adrian Belew (placeholder)

In the late 80s, The Bears would occasionally play the 9:30 Club in downtown Washington, D.C. My merry band of misfits would never pass up a chance to see the great Adrian Belew at work (play?), so we dutifully trekked into the city for all those shows.

One particular show stands out. As I recall, Ropert Fripp and the League of Crafty Guitarists were scheduled to play the following week at Georgetown University, so on the way to the 9:30 Club I casually said something like, “wouldn’t it be cool if Fripp made a cameo appearance?” That was a mistake.

By the end of the first set, my lovable but obnoxious roommate was extremely drunk and rowdy. He was also big and had a booming voice. Every chance he got during a break in the music, he would shriek, “FRIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIPP” at the top of his lungs – and I mean loud. We were right up at the front of the stage, so it was really embarassing. After about the tenth ear-splitting “FRIIIIIIIIIPP”, Rob Fetters had had enough. He side-stepped his microphone and yelled, “HEY BUDDY, WHY DON’T YOU SUCK MY DICK?”

We lost it. It was perfect. Unfortunately, Mr. Obnoxious was too drunk to realize it…he had no clue what had just happened, which was the source of endless ribbing for years to come.

During another 9:30 show, I stood at the foot of Adrian’s mike and generally rocked out the entire time, singing along, growling like a Bear, etc, etc. After the last encore, Adrian sought me out, made eye contact, reached around his mike and asked, “Do you want my pick?” as he jammed it into my outstretched hand.

I still have the pick 20 years later – a white Fender Medium.

If I ever meet Adrian or Rob, I’ll surely relate this story and apologize for my roommate. Adrian probably won’t remember the incident, but it wouldn’t
surprise me if, to this day, Rob Fetters’ blood curdles at the sound of idiots screaming, “FRIIIIIIIIIIPP!”.

seen him live around 15 times since 86. he will talk to you after show and sign anything you give him to sign. one of the greatest guitarist i’ve ever heard. makes music much more complicated than most people seem to like. that is his genius. he has played with everyone from paul simon to 9 inch nails. he produces artists also. if anybody is interested they should google him and check out his blog.

The question before most sessions is… “do you want Clapton? or do You want creative shit?”.... The secret to being REALLY creative in a split second – “WHAT WOULD ADRIAN DO?”

so…..If eric clapton is god…. then where does that leave adrian?

Clapton is one of my alltime heroes, but there was a huge copy-cat trend over that guy that went on and on and on… it was called the 1960’s and would have gone on forever…but thanks to Lynard Skynard we all kinda realized that anyone could jump on that boat… Hendrix almost copied clapton…until he got bored, high, practiced 27 hours a day and showed everyone that it’s almost impossible to escape the wrath of the clapton riff.

Then one day…. a boy name adrian decides to make his guitar sound like water, or video games, or eric clapton in reverse while playing forwards and doubling the part with a harmonized oboe line.

Eric was never in KC. Do you think he could keep up?

I can’t deny he is the reason I wanted to play guitar, but Adrian is the reason most of us know what danceable/experimental/trippy/”what the fuck was that noise?” rock music is all about.

Adrian’s not god either…. who is? Tony Levin. God HAS to be gay… I mean…. Look at the priests?!?

I met Adrian in the mid-seventies in Cincinnati, Ohio. He auditioned for and got the position as lead guitarist in my band, Sweetheart, to replace our exiting guitarist, Joe Madrigal. He was not called “Adrian” then but “Steve,” my name as well. Adrian said “we can’t have two Steve’s in the band so call me Adrian … I’ve always liked that name.” The grace with which he so quickly changed his name from Steve to Adrian, much because of me, impressed me.

As part of our “schtik,” Sweetheart wore double-pleated pants and dressed like gangsters way before either was again popular. We were kind of an “in your face” band, regionally successful. Adrian’s entry into the band softened that image as he was never comfortable being anything but himself. His influence gave the whole band a more relaxed approach to image, allowing us to concentrate more on our music. We grew more successful and with Adrian garnered more and more fans.

I am embarrassed to I say cannot remember the name of this person but Adrian actually owes the launching of his career to a certain limo driver in Nashville. This fellow was an ardent fan of Sweetheart and often brought stars he was chauffeuring to hear us. He brought Frank Zappa to the Nashville night club Fanny’s to hear us, which is how Frank found Adrian. He also brought Aerosmith one evening. Steven Tyler loved our band and spend the whole night at our sound board with our sound engineer, John Peters. Steven, knowing we could not afford to go into the studio, announced that night that he would pay for us to do so. Soon after we went into Columbia Studios with a sound engineer Steven had flown in. That was the end of Sweetheart as it became obvious that night that the only two band members with confidence in Adrian’s budding songwriting ability were Adrian and me. Adrian and I left Sweetheart and were forming a band with Nashville studio drummer Eddie Bayer, which we were were going to call “Bogart.” That is when Frank Zappa called Adrian to audition. Since Adrian felt he had made a commitment to me to form Bogart, he asked me whether or not he should fly out to California to audition with Zappa. Because of this gracious act, if I were limited to describing Adrian with only a single word, I would say that word is “integrity.”

You Belew fans can thank me for telling Adrian to get on the plane by visiting my band website. It is www.ninetyninecents.net. Though I still rock out, my day job is Director of Information Technology for one of the largest precast manufacturers in the U.S.

I went to see him live both in San Francisco and Santa Cruz this past November. He’s really nice, cool and a great performer. It was great to finally meet him after both shows.

I also took some digital photos and video footage of his concerts, but I will never sell this to anyone. I’d rather his management use it for promotional purposes, since I respect him as a person and an artist.

Lately, I’ve been ordering his CD’s through his online store (found at his official website) to both support this great musician and to build up my Belew-realted album collection. Today when I got my mail, I had received two albums (Coming Attractions and Op Zop Too Wah). When I opened up the jewel case for Op Zop, I noticed that he had signed the disc even though I did not request him to do so! That was unexpected and cool, which supports as true that he really is a decent fellow.

I love his music, especially his more challenging compositions. I have admired his virtuosity with the guitar (who else can make a guitar sound like a zoo?) and his rather evocative yet somewhat cryptic songs.

If more people got to know how wonderful a musician Adrian Belew is, he would become more popular. Even so, I hope to meet him at one of his shows in California (I have tickets to both SF and Santa Cruz shows). I’ve heard he’s rather nice, which is a big plus in an industry defined by posturing primadonnas of both sexes.

After all, this is one cool dude. I’m slowly building up my collection of his available recordings, and highly recommend his official website as a starting point to discovering this incredible Twang Bar King.

Does he give guitar lessons?

As a student at Kent State University in the early 1980’s I had the opportunity to see King Crimson at the E> J. Thomas Hall in Akron, OH Barely framiliar with their music, I was asking myself, “who is this guy in the pink suit?” As soon as he starting playing the strings off his guitar and artfully feeding back with his amp (ala Hendrix) I just answered, “my new hero.”

Many years later I found he was going to play guitar on the Sound + Vision Bowie tour. As a part of the tour, Adrian was visiting my local station WMMS’s morning show. I decieded to show up to work late and hung out in their offices until the interview was over.

What a gentleman. He was kind, he took a picture with me. He just smiled when I told him how important his music had become in my life.

I continue to see Adrian every chance I get. The last time I even had an opportunity to bring my 19 year old daughter along. We kept on looking at each other and saying things like “did you see that?”, “What is he doing now?”, and “Zow!”

Adrian is truely a man to respect, admire and enjoy. He is the man.