So, we haven't posted here in a while. The new show is great. We played Sacramento with it, and this weekend we're in SF. Then a couple of weeks later on May 6th we're in LA. May 7th Arizona and I'm working on what to do after that.
I think I want to do a demo version of our next CD and then work with a label to fine tune it, produce it and get it out.
I love the first CD. The second CD will have more short skits involving music. This will make it more usefull to radio DJs. The shorter skits seems to be the direction we're heading anyway so this isn't too much of a stretch.
I'm working on a radio show with the guys from Gas, Food, Theatre called The Mustaches, or it might be called somthing else. It's a radio sitcom of sorts about four guys who escape prison together, grow mustaches and do their best to have a normal life on the lam. We should have some shows ready by next fall. I'm stoked to be working with these guys. They're so damn funny.
And I have my stand up comedy show at Luna's, "Funny Peculiar", still going strong. Check out www.indycomedy.com for that.

http://www.kdhx.org/ Click to visit KDHX in St. Louis. The show "Slip of The Disc" has been giving our CD some good rotation. Listen online and request more ICBINC.
http://boogiepopwcsb.blogspot.com/ Another Fella's spinning us alongside Strongbad In Cleveland. Oh, an dyou can buy our CD HERE

The New Year is off and running. The last two Funny Peculiar shows have totally sold out, standing room only.
We're working on our next scetch show. Rehearsals are going well and it's turning out to be quite a different show from anything else we've done. I'm liking it a---lot. Lots of shorter skits in this one.

Bringing in the new year by listening to The Haints, (a Sacramento band featuring all 3 members of the Groovie Ghoulies and then some) hanging out at home, reclaiming the apartment from the mess Bryna and I created durring the Christmas week. I've been pretty emotional today over the Tsunami disaster in south Asia. What a mess. I'm buggin everyone I know to give what they can and to find creative ways to get others to give more to the relief effort. It's an amazing effort so far from around the globe. It's so important to get things cleaned up quickly though or the death toll can double from disease, thirst, exposure. We'll give whatever money comes in at the wednesdays Funny Peculiar show to the effort. Oh yeah, this wednesday is the third Funny Peculiar show at Luna's Cafe. See www.indycomedy.com for the facts.
Later I'll pick up Bryna from work and we'll decide where to be at midnight. I don't really care where we end up, so long as we kiss at start of the new years, as we do everyear. ELEVEN YEARS! Our anniverary is in a week. Congratulate are certainly in order.
Oh, and I went and saw my friends Johnny and Amalia's baby, Maya Luna. What a cutie. She came out a whole month early so she is TINY!
Well, back to the housework.
I'm thinking of trying to get a radio show together. I need a prolific musician to help soundtrack a weekly bout of storytelling and lies.
Peace. Happy New Year.

Haven't written here for a while. I should make the blog more accessible from the site.
We were crazy with trying to market the CD durring the Christmas shopping rush. Now we're less crazy and just getting ready for March shows in Sac and April shows in SF. We're putting together all new material. We've got some great skits. Lot's of stuff about love oddly enough. It's the Love Show. I hope to do some more writing before we start rehearsing and I know Becca does as well.
It'll be good starting rehearsals again, though it'll be odd without Miles. Oh yeah, Miles is no longer with us. We've decided to part ways. I think he has too much going on. It seems like we've had much cast change in the troupe, but really we're still four original members and one newby, Becca, though she's not that new, she's been helping with lights and such from very early on.
We just started as a huge crew and we've shrunken down over the years. Three years to be exact. The March shows will mark our 3rd anniversary and my birthday.

My new comedy show is tonight. I've though about my material but I've refused to let myself write it, which is nerve racking. The point of this show though is to develope my abilitiy to shoot from the hip, something I've always done well at. It sure can make you feel better though to have it all planned out. I can't wait to have tonight out of the way, and to be doing this regular enough that I go back to being chill about it.
A lot of my family will be there, which adds to the nervousness. Bombing would suck but bombing in front of your family would suck worse.

http://www.warprecords.com/ography/WARP79/
Click the link to meet Chris Morris. Who the hell is Chris Morris you ask? Chris Morris is a British show host. I hesitate to call him a comedian because he's an odd sort of funny man. His stuff is sometimes inocent and light and at other times almost painfully dark. With Blue Jam he combines his short stories and skits with ambient, techno, and other great music. The mix is perfect. This is headphones comedy. He has a deadpan, low key touch like Nichols and May (if your not familliar with Nichols and May, fix this immediately). I feel like we are in the same genre as Chris Morris with our audio stuff, and heading more and more in that direction.

YAY! I'm pretty excited. I just got a comedy show at Luna's. Stand Up, storytelling, sketch, performance art, but mostly Stand Up. We'll do it open mic style but with some quality control so that the comedians get a place to work out (those that do the actual work) AND the audience gets a good show.
I'm doing one show on November 26th and then another on December 8th, then in January we'll go to twice monthly onWednesdays, with occasional "Big Shows" on Fridays to showcase our best and brightest.
I'll set up a website just for this eventualy.

Come to our cd release party. See our shows page on this website for more.

College papers being written about you, yep, that's when you're a real success. My pal Mia is writing a paper on ICBINC for a class she's taking. The assignment called for a report on The SF Mime Troupe, The Pickle Family Circus, I think there were a couple of other choices. To write on something outside of the choices she had to submit a proposal and so she proposed to write on us. Pretty cool. I'm a high school drop out being written about in college.

SO SICK OF BEING A BUSINESS MAN! I'm glad that I can do it, but I'd much rather be working on new comedy. I wonder if it would have been a better career move to just do my comedy ALL the time and then it'd be out there more frequently and the quality would be improving at a faster rate, and then someone else would come along an take care of the business. As it is, I feel like I was a lot of energy doing business. I try to find a way to do business creatively but I'd so much rather just be writing and putting on shows. Why such a drive to sell it then? So I can stop spending 40 + hours of my week working for someone else in a TOTALLY uncreative capacity.
Tired. This CD marketing thing is just wearing me out.
I've been thinking about the next show. I want to do something we've talked about from the beginning. I want to rent a bus and do the whole show aboard the bus and at various stops. It's not totally original, the inspiration comes from Popcorn antitheatre who we perform with in SF, but there's was a variety show and verry anarchistic. I want to do a full, fluid, bus ride, scripted and all tying together. Video, music, skits, shills, mass fun.
That'd be so cool.
There's no reason why we couldn't tour such a show. It's easier to rent a bus in every town then to rent a venue.
Hmmmmm.

Wow, we got our first negative review. Kinda nice to have it done with. Almost three years at this and so far nothing but glowing reviews. The negative review was made much worse because it was written by a friend and he was asshole enough to mention that I'd been calling him and asking for a review. BY NAME he mentions me. All three names, of course. It suck because I never called and asked him for a review. I assumed that since one of our members works at the paper they couldn't review us. I was calling asking him to listen to it because I wanted his feedback, because we're friends. My other friends can tell ya, I've been bugging all of them too. So, it was a pretty harsh sting in that way. Otherwise it wasn't too bad. He mentions The Firesign theatre as an example of a good comedy troupe. I HATE the Firesign Theatre, so that's almost a compliment. I should mention that we've gotten some rave reviews as well. For instance Robert Berry at Retrocush.com writes.

"I can't stand what passes for comedy CDs these days. I like to see a standup comedian in action, not just listen to a soundtrack of their act. That's why Sacramento's own I Can't Believe It's Not Comedy Troupe's debut CD "Funnier Than God" is so great to hear. Using a mix of old time radio style and irreverent (but surprisingly non-profane) humor, the crew brings to mind some of the funnier bits of Monty Python and vintage Saturday Night Live. Highlights of the CD involve a couple episodes of "Naked Man", a crime-fighter who takes advantage of the discomfort he causes super-villains by fighting them naked, and "Pizza Sluts" which takes a funny angle on the real-life aspects of making porn movies."

HEY! We're having a party. The CD is out. It's in stores, Dimple, Tone Vendor, The Beat, Tower on Broadway, and it's SELLING! We've sold a bunch online as well, including one to Stockholm Sweden which is pretty dang cool.
We're gonna celebrate with a HUGE bash on November 5th. It'll be 10 bucks to get in, but that gets you a copy of the CD as well so you can't lose. DJ Junior from the Trash Film Orgy is back in town and will be DJing as will Francois Fly. Our house band The St. Simon 3 will be playing and special Guest Bob Barango will be rockin' also. Who knows what else, piniata, stip go fish, whatever we can come up with. Maybe gorrilla strip tease. Woo hoo. See the Shows page of our website for more. AND BE THERE.

They're running every episode of The Simpsons, from the first to the last. It's great to look back. I still love the Simpsons, but those early episodes we're realy something. Great show.

The new website is looking good. We're getting many compliments. Check out the Links page to find Scott Moon and Erik Lobo who designed the site for us.
We're still working on photo galleries and on making more visible links to this Blog.
Note, The CD is for sale. Woo hoo. Buy 20 of 'em. Now. Right away. Before they're all gone. There they go. Quick, quick, quick!
We're getting a tour together for Spring and Summer of 2005. I'm excited about touring and hopefull that we can get some support built up in cities we've never been to before by putting the CD out there.
In the meanwhile I'll be making trips to as many towns as I can to sell the CD to record stores and the like and to give copies to all the college radio stations.
We can use all the help we can get so if you know of cool record stores or DJ's who are willing to play weird indy comedy stuff let us know.
It's always great to get mail from folks. It's inspiring. So by all means, drop us a line. Make us feel all famous and stuff.

Here's a photo from the ICBINC cd recording studio and one from an ICBINC BBQ!

Done, It's Done, It's Done! The CD is Done! But I mean it for real this time. After the last time I said it was done I went back to the producer and had him tweek a few things. Now it's ready to ship. It's getting some great reviews from the folks who've sneak peeked it. Most exciting.
The new website is going up quickly too. From our current front page you can click Cast to get a look at the new pages. There are still broken links and what not, which is why we've not put up the new front page yet, but those should be worked out in no time. Woo hoo.

I've been having a-lot of strange dreams, probably the result of stressing over the CD. Here's one.

I'm at a party where the organizers of a film festival honoring a particular director are gathering to screen a few of his films and to discuss which ones to put in the film. It's realy nice. Some pleasant snacks, nice folks, even the colors of the room and the cloths are soothing and comforting. My friend Steve is there (a film buff in real life) and he puts on the first short films.

The Film
A young couple is talking with an adult woman, presumably a parent of one or the other. The woman is assuring them that whatever secret they have, whatever they're hiding, it can't be too bad. They can get through everything. The parent seems bright and intelligent and you're sure that even if the couple is about to announce a pregnancy or the like it will be handled well by all involved. After a few stare between the youngsters and a few reassuring smiles from the adult, they instruct her to look in the bathroom. Looking intrigued more than concerned the woman makes her way to the bathroom door. She opens the door and their is a chubby asian exchange studen, haning horizontal above the bath. He is tied and hanging by yards of piano wire which is cutting into his skin. He is pale and chubby and looks like the Hollywood stereotype of the nerdy exchange student. He looks up and smiles like an injured dog, more immediately happy to see company than aware of his prediciment. He then seems embarassed as he spits a mouth full of blood into the drain. The camera zooms in on the blood which pools as the drain is plugged with vomit and a few teeth. The blood drains down slowly sifting through the solids.

I wake up.

Today we listened to our new CD together. The whole thing beginning to end. Candace (our fan club president) as well as a couple of friend of mine who just moved back to Sac from Santa Cruz joined us in listening as did Chip and Simon from The St. Simon 3.
It's a good CD. I'm pretty happy with it. I don't feel like I'm hearing it all that objectively. I'm way to close to it right now. It's fun and it's pretty unique. I'm all ready to do another one but I know that's quite a ways off. Now comes the task of getting this one out there. We ship it to the manufacturers on Monday and we should have 1,000 copies with Irina Beffa's excellent artwork on the cover by September 3.
Our CD Release show on Sept 10th is to be postponed as the venue lost it's alcohol permit. We may move it to Body Tribe (Chip's Gym).
Scott Moon and Erik Lobo continue to plug away at the website redesign. It should be online very soon.

As we all sadly know, Sacramento's own True Love cafe will be closing in just two short weeks!!And to close it out in style they will be featuring some FREE local entertainment this weekend!This Saturday night see "I Can't Believe it's not Comedy" perform some of their classic and 'best of' all original comedy sketches for free at 5:30, we are gleeful to say we will be opening for Dana Gumbiner of Deathray who will be performing right after us! So that's two awesome acts for the awesome price of FREE!! That's right folks! We're giving you the guest list treatment! So if you wanna get 'hooked up' with some free tickets, you just let us know and it's done! You see, on account of it's free already...The True Love Cafe is located at:2406 J Street SacramentoBe sure to get there early as there's limited seating! And if ya sit in the front row we'll make sure it's as equally as fun as sitting in the front row of the Dolphin Show at Marine World!So join us for some comedy, some rock, some coffee, some fruit tea freeze, and some True Love Cafe goodbyes!Ambot!www.notcomedy.com

It never ends. I've now spent 42 hours in the studio. With the troupe, with the band, with just the producer. I still have about 9 hours to go, and anything not done at that point will just have to wait until the next CD comes out. I'm still keeping up with my day job, attempting to give attention to my relationship and trying to find time to breath. Add the appearance at the Trash Film Orgy, the Kid's Birthday party I'm doing tommorow, the work we're doing on the computer tommorow to get the CD manufacturing paid for and to download some sound FX, the interview with Jonathan Morken I'm doing regarding his new film Nwar which I'm writing up for The News and Review, and finally the TFO wrap party tomorrow night. I'm squeezing a haircut in in the morning also.
The funny thing is I still find time to be board. I can't wait until we're producing a film and every second of everyong day is occuppied with frenzied creative energy. If I can learn to be calm and peaceful then I will be a Zen Master.
I've decided to try to write one short story a day. Usually very short. Like four or five lines. I'm reading a book of Zen stories that my friend Allen turned me onto and I'm really liking it.

Hey everyone! Come see I CAN'T BELIEVE IT'S NOT COMEDY live and FREE at the True Love Cafe closing weekend entertainment a thon for 24 hours! Were scheduled to play at 5:20 but for only a half hour slot so get there early as it will be packed! The cafe is on the corner of J and 24th Street! Let is know if you have any question! We hope to see you there! Below are pictures from our cd recording session! Enjoy!

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We've sheduled a CD Release Cocktail Party. Woo Hoo. September 10th, at Uptown Studios, 9 and 1/2 J Street. Xeno and The St. Simon 3 will provide music, there will be a well equiped bar and we will be dressed to the nines. Woo Hoo. I'm happy.

The CD continues skyward budget wise, but it's coming out SOOOO well that It's worth it. At least that's what I think. Convincing our financier, well, that's another story. But you all, you will be convinced. I believe we have a completely unique recording, smart, funny, risky, silly, I can't wait to start playing it for folks.

We may do a small tour in February or March. Just a couple of us heading up to Portland, Seattle etc. That'd be fun.

I just got back from editing the CD with David Houston. We got through Yuppie Birth Scene, most of SHE and some of Naked Man. David had some realy great ideas and I really like the way this editing session went. After the recording sessions I was full of doubt about my performance and what not, always wishing we could do another take, but the editing process goes the opposite way. I'm amazed at how good we can make it all sound.
Back to it tommorrow. These are long days, what with the day job and all.

We had a nice little BBQ at my place. It was great seeing all the little ICBINCers again. Bob and Irina came by and stayed afterwards to watch a movie. They're great folks and I'm glad we're working with them. Reminder: Bob is our filmmaker, Irina is our graphic artist.
After the BBQ I headed to Barbarella at the Trash Film Orgy. Their live musical number beffore the show and durring intermission was great. I didn't get into bed until 2:30 am, very late for me. Up early the next day for an all day gig MCing the Power Tool Drag Races. I am beat.
I'm heading to David Houston's tonight after work and again tommorow to finish editing the CD. I'm getting excited. We're almost done. Woo hoo.

Keith! The cd layout looks awesome!!!! Great job to everyone involved! Also, I'd like to take this time out to congrat to XENOPHILIA for being inducted in to the hall of fame at last nights SAMMIES awards! Sooooo proud of you guys! Also congrats to my pals in QUITTER and CALL ME ISHMAEL for receiving critics choice awards, and QUITTER for receiving best cd of the year! SUPER exciting!!! It was great to see almost all of ICBINC out at the SAMMIES last night, I had a great time at dinner with you all and the party was a blast!

I just spent six days camping in the Black Rock Desert with Bryna, Allen and Steve from Gallery Horse Cow and a whole bunch of other folks. The Desert is gorgeous. I decided not to bring my lap top as I would not be able to replace it if the desert were to eat it. Too bad as I would have liked to have gotten some work done. I was on megaphone duty for a rousing game of Flaming Bryna Ball. It's like soccer but there's not goals, teams or point, just balls made of toilet paper rolls dipped in gasoline and set on fire, sometimes with mortars inside them. The players then randomly kick the flaming balls around the desert hoping not to be close to one when it explodes. If you should decide to play this ridiculously dangerous game I can bear no responsiblity, after all, it was Bryna who accidentally gave Allen the idea to add the mortars. Hence the name; Flaming Bryna Ball.
I was wearing polyester and suffering with a bad back so I provided megaphone MC duties instead of playing. Plus I encouraged survival instinct lacking folks not to smoke near the big bucket of gasoline!
I met some great folks from Portland, Seattle and LA. The people are events coordinators, members of Arts Colonies and all around neat, creative people. I'm hoping they will be anxious to help us bring our show to their towns and to share in the experience.
For now we continue to plug away at the CD. Nothing new to report. Just waiting to be done recording. I am going to Irina's now to peak at the art.
First, on last piece of news. Patrick, AKA DJ Junior will be returning to Sac after Burning Man. It will be good to have him back.

We did our live recording session. Thanks to those who came and played the part of the audience. Xeno came and did the soundtracking for She and Dharlin' Big Break. It was great to work with Xeno again. We have one more recording session in the Studio with The St. Simon 3, then some editing and we'll have this thing wrapped. I am anxious to have it done and to start getting it out there. Finally they'll know who we are in Boise.

The website is getting a major overhaul and the changes should start showing up in the next month. Mr. Lobo of www.cinemainsomnia.net and Scott Moon of www.planetxmagazine.com are doing the redesign which will include some multimedia and TONS of pictures.

I went and saw Slider, the new show from Abandon Productions. Amazing show. I'm so flattered that these incredible performers and their director are into what we're doing. We may even end up working at The Space, where they do their shows. Slider is over now but be sure to watch this space for news of their next show. They are unlike anything else you've seen.

Went to st Simon 3 rehearsal yesterday to run over the music for the CD which we're recording today. They've put together some great sounds. An overly dramatic organ durring the Naked Man Action Radio Hour, some ominous David Lynch style soundtracking for Yuppie Birth Scene, surfie x-mas music for Unborn Billie, a bit of prorno soundtracking and some red hot Jingle action too. We record the music today. Then one live session and a bit of touch up and we're done. The artwork's all done too and it's great. I can't wait to be distributing this CD.

Wow....it's been a crazy holiday weekend! Thursday was a very special and uber fun night for me, I had a Short Bus show I booked over at Capitol Garage, before hand I had a BBQ/cocktail party at my place with all the bands and friends and fans! I was extra happy because a good but far away friend of mine Jacy (who plays in Askeleton & End Transmission) who lives in Minnesota's band was one of the bands on the bill to play the show that night and I haven't seen him in a year and a half, but we've done a great job of keeping in touch through email and phone calls....so when I heard him knock on my door it was truly a happy time! He was followed into my house with rest of the band and we all partied before the show! The other bands on the bill that night were Killing Buddha, The Woods and The Velveteen side project; The New Trust! Afterwards I went with the bands to Lyons and we ate junk food till 3:00 am....after a few hours all the nice kids from Askeleton came over and crashed with me, I was sad to see them all drive away that afternoon, we sure had fun, but their tour had to continue! That evening I went to one of the coolest, biggest underground parties...it started at a parking lot/warehouse near 25th and R st...there were near 200 people there, all my downtown friends from over the years were there, it was amazing, then we got kicked out and then the party got moved to the art warehouse at Broadway and 5th, it ended up being this sort of tailgate renegade style party, nearing close to 300 people now....I was operating a mini bar out of the trunk of my car making sure all my friends had a drink in hand....then there was a band that set up to play in the parking lot....super cool electro dance band, then one of my fav Sac bands; Mr. Metaphor played...amazing...my good friend Angelie and I were blasting some Miss Kitty out of her car....running around like a couple of school girls....my other dear friends; Adam, Candice, Andrew, Nick, Robbie and I were all cruising this crazy party and running amuck. I ended up getting to sleep at 4:00 after the cops came and kicked us all out....this is by far one of the best Sac parties I've been to. Sundays cd recording for our ICBINC cd was super fun, it was my first time in a recording studio and I took some cool pics I'll share soon! The time went by fast and afterwards we had a Lil' party and ate and drank! :)