Geezer never gets old

“I always said that I’d never do any Cover Me Badd acts seriously, since we spend more time making fun of those who do,” says Adam Gimbel, whose many spoof bands include Geezer, a senior citizen–themed Weezer/Beastie Boys tribute. “But Geezer just keeps getting better and never gets old...so to speak.” The group is preparing for their first appearance at San Francisco’s Great American Music Hall on July 20. “A friend of mine books shows up there and owes us a favor, so he put together a ’90s covers night and wanted us to go last, so it looks like we’re the big, popular headliners, even though we’ve never played there.”

The ornate 5000-square-foot concert hall opened in 1907 and has hosted thousands of acts, from Count Basie to Chuck Berry, the Grateful Dead, Joni Mitchell, the Ramones, and Arcade Fire. “With our schedule about to ramp up, we have to get used to having substitute Geezers from time to time, so I got my friend Nick Laquiniano to fill in on drums. He’s played with Smiths, New Order, Duran Duran, and No Doubt tribute acts in the Bay Area, but we also needed someone to handle the rap duties for when we do Beastie Boys.... There’s an L.A. Beastie Boys tribute act called Pollywog Crew and their Mike D, Jeffrey Davis, agreed to do it. So I’m flying him in just to do six songs. Unreal, but we wanted to give our Bay Area grandkids the full Geezer experience.”

Formed by Gimbel and his band Rookie Card for a 2005 Casbah show, Geezer once appeared onstage with Weezer at Cox Arena in 2008. “Their singer, Rivers Cuomo, ended up asking me about the cookies I was passing out onstage in front of 10,000 grandkids while everyone was getting set up.”

“A short clip of Zachary and our nurse [bassist Zachary Goode’s wife Marrisa] from that night ended up in their video for the song ‘I’m Your Daddy.’”