THURSDAY-REHEARSAL

Immediately there are problems. We planned on playing

"Bulls On Parade" and "Bullet in the Head," but

there's "objectionable" language in each of those songs.

We assumed that Saturday Night Live would be fully

prepared to bleep it out. However, that was not enough

for them because Steve Forbes, the billionaire,

ex-Presidential candidate was hosting the show and had

friends and family in the studio. SNL insisted on

muting the language during the performance within the

studio itself, because they claimed they had to run

a "tighter" show due to Forbes' appearance.

During rehearsal, our crew hung two American flags

upside down on the grilles of the bass and guitar

amplifiers. No big deal. We thought that is was

appropriate, especially in the election year, to

demonstrate that, in our opinion, American democracy

is inverted when your only choice is between wealthy

representatives of the privileged classes. We weren't

tearing up pictures of the Pope (as Sinead O'Connor

did), just a couple of upside-down flags. We already

had to endure some of the Steve Forbes skits in which

he incessantly promoted his flat tax. As the Republican

Convention draws near, he just wanted to keep that on

the agenda, and the show was on April 15th--Tax Day.

So anyway, they start throwing a little pissy fit when

they see the flags. At this point they're completely

up-front; they say we can't have the flags on-stage

because it will "offend our corporate sponsors. They

have to come down. Steve Forbes is on the show." And

we're like, that's absolutely ridiculous, they promised

us eight minutes to play what we play and do what we

do and this is what we do. We argue and hassle about it

and have a little conference among ourselves. It's

about 5 p.m. and we say, "Okay, we'll take the flags

down. *WINK*"

SATURDAY-DAYTIME DRESS REHEARSAL

The dress rehearsal for the show goes off without a

hitch. The flags are not there; we're waiting for the

actual performance, the live performance that night. At

this point there's plenty of time in the show for both

of our songs.

During the dress rehearsal, we played both songs and

came out at the end. They show you exactly where you

stand; Steve Forbes stands at the front, you flank him

on the side. He's looking straight ahead and we're

glaring away. I thought, I'm just going to break the

ice here, and I complimented him on a particular joke

during the opening monologue. He responded like any

good candidate does--he smiled that crooked grin. People

were laughing their heads off at my "ice-breaker."

As an aside, it should come as no surprise that General

Electric, which owns NBC, would find the second song

we were going to play that night, "Bullet In The Head,"

objectionable. It's a song which is in part about the

media manipulation of public opinion during the Gulf

War, and GE was a major manufacturer of war planes that

were used to commit war crimes in the Gulf, specifically

the bombing of hydroelectric dams, killing thousands of

Iraqi civilians.

SATURDAY NIGHT-LIVE

Show time. We're standing on-stage thirty seconds

before we're to begin performing "Bulls On Parade."

Steve Forbes is waiting to introduce us: 25 seconds,

20 seconds.... Our roadies unfurl the upside-down flags.

There's a panic among the SNL stagehands who rush to

the stage to get the flags down. They're yelling, "Take

the flags down!" The countdown is 15, 14, 13....

A melee ensues on-stage where our crew is grappling

with their crew over the duct tape on the flags.

They're successful in removing the flags as the time

ticks down to five, four, three, two seconds. Steve

Forbes introduces us. We play "Bulls On Parade."

As soon as we're offstage, the show's producer, Marcie

Klein, Calvin Klein's daughter, informs our tour manager

that we have to leave the building. There will be no

second song, no cozy wave "goodnight" at the end, no

hugging Steve Forbes. It's just, "Get out of the

building right now." Tim Bob is so incensed that he

takes one of the torn-down U.S. flags, shreds it up,

charges into Steve Forbes' dressing room and hurls it

at his entourage. The backstage area floods with Secret

Service people because Steve Forbes, in addition to

being a great comedic actor, is also a billionaire

and ex-Presidential candidate. Some of us are escorted

from the building and others manage to hide out long

enough to meet up with our friends afterwards

SATURDAY NIGHT-LATER

That's not the end of the incident. Later outside of

the NBC studios I was approached by several members of

the cast and crew--to protect them from retribution by

the network, they'll remain nameless--who expressed

their solidarity with us and felt really embarrassed

about what NBC and SNL had done, and thought that it

was shameful.

The time that we were to play the second song was

only, like ten minutes after the first song. They were

shrieking at our manager Brigitte Wright and our A&R

guy Michael Goldstone: "Get them outta here! There's no

fuckin' way they're gonna play another song!" If the

real reason was, as they falsely claimed in the press

release, that the show ran too long, then why weren't

we there at the end waving good-bye? Because we had

been kicked out of the building! That just sort of heaps

shame upon shame on Saturday Night Live, to lie about

it after the fact like that.

Compared with some of the things we'd considered doing during our promised eight minutes on-stage, hanging two flags upside-down looked pretty pale. They should be writing us thank-you notes for only doing that.