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A Taste of Fame: Local Tribute Bands (even Bill Shatner?!)

In the 2001 film Rock Star, former rapper "Marky" Mark Wahlberg plays a member of a "tribute" band, singing the music of his favorite hard rock group Steel Dragon.

He takes the gig so seriously that he gets in a fistfight with his guitarist onstage, arguing "There's no solo after the break...that's not how the song goes!" His policeman brother Joe ridicules this career choice, telling him "You know the sickest thing about you, little man? You don't have any fantasies of your own - you fantasize about being somebody else."

Wahlberg's character has lots of like-minded company in the real world. Some musicians see tribute groups as a way to get their foot in the door of the music industry. Others have long been on the other side of that door without ever seeing the upstairs rooms and copping another's act seems to be their only chance at earning recognition.

In the Rock Star film, Mark Wahlberg is fired from the tribute group but, one phone call later, he replaces the singer he idolizes in Steel Dragon and is playing the L.A. Forum. Within ten movie minutes, he's leading that band to greater heights of fame than ever and graduating overnight from wannabe to bonafide rock god.

To paraphrase another unreal character, Rocket J. Squirrel, "That trick never works."

Upon losing lead singer Rob Halford, Judas Priest hired Ripper Owens away from a Priest tribute band, publicly proclaiming "You'll forget Halford's name when you hear this guy sing." The next stop wasn't the L.A. Forum - it was Jimmy's Pizza Grotto in Woonsocket Rhode Island.

If history hasn't provided any examples of someone leaping directly from paying tribute to playing arenas, that hasn't stopped the number of soundalike bands from growing exponentially over the last few years. Hundreds are listed at tributecity.com, and many clubs have made a specialty niche of presenting these acts, such as the House of Blues in Anaheim, Paladino's in Tarzana, the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, Winston's in Ocean Beach, and the now-defunct Jason's nightclub in Point Loma.

San Diego has seen dozens of working tribute groups, including Love Gun (Kiss), the Electric Waste Band (Grateful Dead), Power Load (AC/DC), Kashmir (Led Zeppelin), the Steely Damned (Steely Dan), and an all-male tribute to the Bangles who dress in drag onstage and call themselves the Dangles.

"We acknowledge how ridiculous it is to dress up and pretend to be something you're not, just to get a tiny taste of someone else's fame," says lead Dangle "Tarzana Hoffs" (real name Percy Murray).

"We're like the supermarket generic brand trying to hoover a few bucks from the pocket of some chump who refuses to pay full price for his Cheerios. Or, more accurately, the TV version of 'Private Benjamin' or 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'...cash in on whatever's hot and maybe, just maybe, lightning will strike again the same way. Well, we're not delusional, we know we'll never have a hit record, so we just play it for fun and the audience, when they get it, they have fun too."

"That's as long as the crotch of my pantyhose doesn't rip. I may look better in a miniskirt than Susanna Hoffs but, if Mister Happy accidentally pops out, then nobody's smiling any more."

According to Professor Robert Walser, who chairs the Musicology department at the University Of California, Los Angeles, "I don't know why there shouldn't always be tribute bands...what else are symphony orchestras?"

There's a reason, however, that nearly all these bands commemorate acts with generations of fans even though nobody's reaching far enough into the past to launch a Bobby Darin or Bill Haley tribute. "There's always plenty of good music being made, and there's plenty of music that only young people care about. But young people today see everything back to the Beatles as music of their world; before that is alien," he said.

Van Halen tribute OU812 eschews the David Lee Roth years. “We do Sammy Hagar-era stuff because we really love what he brought to that band,” says bassist John Osmon. “Plenty of bands do David Lee Roth, but we don’t think anyone wants to see us in spandex.” The group dresses and coifs like their counterparts, as well as using apropos instruments like a Michael Anthony custom flame bass (“exactly like he used on the last Van Halen tour”), Hagar’s signature Cabo Wabo Yamaha (“we have his Les Pauls for Montrose songs”) and a $2,600 replica of Eddie Van Halen’s striped “Frankenstein” model.

“We played down in Cabo Wabo during Sammy Hagar's birthday week in October [2007] and have met the whole band at various times, so they know what we’re doing and dig it,” he says.

Osmon says OU812 guitarist Angel Llanos attended a party thrown at Eddie Van Halen’s house for the X-rated film “The Sacred Sin” (which includes two Van Halen songs). “There were adult film industry folks all over the place and strippers and a bevy of naked women. Eddie was the host, playing with a band he had hired and walking around pouring wine and giving tours and bragging about his son. Meanwhile, naked women are hanging from acrobat things from the ceiling and in the pool…His house was really nice but had the appearance of having been gutted by the divorce and never really put back together, sort of beat up as if a drunk hermit was living there by himself.”

“Personally,” says Osmon, “I think Eddie is an a-hole, especially after the f--k-job he did on Michael Anthony. Leave it to Eddie to dabble in the porn industry and then take his 15 year-old son under his wing and out on tour…Classy guy. I'm sure [his son’s] Mom is absolutely thrilled about that. Don't get me wrong, I’ve been a Van Halen fan for a long time and I really am rooting for him, but I’m also rooting for him to stop screwing over the good people in his life that have stood by him through the years, only to watch him turn into a complete bum.”

The Cured pays tribute to – who else – the Cure. “Tribute bands like Atomic Punks [Van Halen], Super Diamond [Neil Diamond] and Dead Man’s Party [Oingo Boingo] can make upwards of $5,000 for a single set show, depending on the venue,” says band founder Zippy Twombly. “There are other tributes out there that will play for $200. We’re currently somewhere in the middle but we play just about every week.”

Formed two years ago, at first only singer Twombly dressed and coifed like his Cure counterpart. “It took us a lot of struggle to get our bass player to wear lipstick,” he says “But when we started doing larger venues like the Belly up and House of Blues, the rest of the band threatened to hold him down and put it on him. We now have a clothes designer and a make-up girl and we spend a lot of time researching the look. Luckily, the Cure has had so many members that it’s easy for the band to look like one of them.”

So do tribute bands get tribute groupies? “It’s my contention that girls will always like guys in bands. Our audience is seventy-five percent women, most of them drunk and singing along to the songs. Nature will take it course, and if they’re confusing us with the band they’re really fans of, I’m not real good about correcting them.” He draws the line at impersonating Smith offstage. “That would be creepy, like Johnny Depp showing up at a club dressed like a pirate.”

Asked if he’s ever met Robert Smith, Twombly says “No, but our former keyboard player knew a girl who washed his hands after he made his imprint in the concrete in front of the Guitar Center in Hollywood.”

The Cured have also spun-off a second homage group, Still Ill, performing the music of Morrissey and the Smiths. Singer Virgil Simpelo (aka Voz) is a Morrissey look-a-like who also creates comic books published by locally-founded Sypher Art Studios. “I think I have somewhat the same skull structure as Moz has,” he says, “and the same eyebrows that help me produce a similar voice…yes, eyebrows play a key role.”

Tony Montegu, bassist for the two groups, says “I knew that the Cure and the Smiths would be a great match for gigs.” Each band averages $1000 per show, with most venues willing to book both tribute acts on a single bill.

Though just recently formed, Still Ill has already seen lineup changes. “The lead guitarist was too young and inexperienced,” says Montegu, “so he moved behind the drums. But then he had too much conflict with Voz and was let go…I asked another friend to play drums, and here we are.”

Still Ill often plays the House Of Blues, which frequently books tribute-themed events. The band hopes to attract Morrissey fans disappointed by the singer’s June 3 ‘07 Viejas concert, which ended early amidst audience jeers. “After Morrissey's last appearance here,” says Simpelo, “I think his fans deserve the encore they paid for.”

The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash is a local country-rock band that has released several CDs containing their own original songs. The band really began to take off after opening for Haggard at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. They recorded their own six-song EP and, in 1998, they received an invitation to perform for over 20,000 attendees of Willie Nelson's annual Fourth of July Picnic in Luchenbach, TX, the first San Diego band ever to receive such an invitation to this three-decade-old institution that showcases some of the most cutting-edge artists in country music.

"We aren't a tribute band," says founder/front-man Marc Stuart. "We never set out to be a tribute band." Yet, the 2006 European release of Walk the Line helped the Bastard Sons book a 30-date European tour. In 2006, the band toured Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, and England."

Are the Bastard Sons endorsed by the Cash estate?

"We weren't endorsed by the Cash estate," says Stuart. "We were endorsed by Cash himself.... I met him at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in 1998. We were invited to his house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where we recorded songs for our first record. He told us he would be honored if we were his bastard sons.”

"We were playing a club called the Exit-Inn in Nashville," says Stuart. "The people at the bar came up to me, all serious, and said 'Johnny Cash's son, John Carter Cash...he's here and he's waiting to talk to you backstage.' I'm sure some people thought he was there to try and intimidate me or something, because he's Johnny's real son and here we are, the Bastard Sons. I didn't think he was there to beat me up or anything. At least I hoped not!

"So I went out back and he couldn't have been nicer. He told me how him and his dad had defended our band against a lot of people who had negative things to say about the name and he said 'I really love the group. I'd love to record you guys the next time you're in the area.' Well, a couple of months later, in August, we were out on tour in Memphis, Tennessee, and we had a few days off. I called him up and said 'We're in Memphis, we're in trucking distance, so how're you looking at the studio?' He said 'Great, my dad's working in there in the morning, so you guys can come in about noon and have the studio for the rest of the day.'

"They have a recording studio on the Cash property called the Cash Cabin and we spent three days recording 'Spanish Eyes' and 'Nowhere Town.' Being right there in Johnny's back yard was amazing. It's about 20 miles outside of Nashville, in the middle of the woods. The studio is a little wood cabin on 50 acres. There's wild animals all over, deer and goats and pigs, and peacocks just wandering around. They've even got their own fully stocked bass lake within walking distance, so John Carter and I would go out with fishing rods and catch a few big mouth bass between takes.

"The studio itself is like a history museum, full of Cash and Carter memorabilia, but it's also fully modern and functional for recording. I was singing into the same microphone Johnny Cash was using just a half hour before. The lyric sheets for his new songs were spread around the studio and I got to look at those. We even got to hear some of his new tracks, songs that haven't been released yet. He [Johnny Cash] called the studio from the house but he wasn't feeling well enough to come out, so we didn't get the chance to meet him there. But he said the same thing as his son -- that he likes our music and doesn't mind that we're called the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, 'cause he made fun of that kind of thing way back when...he's the guy who sang about 'A Boy Named Sue,' after all!"

The Steely Damned is a Steely Dan tribute band (duh) fronted by Rockola's Bob Tedde. Guitarist Hank Easton has lately been nursing his inner rocker on the electric guitar. He says his playing is influenced by the likes of Hendrix, Beck, Clapton, Carlos Santana, Steve Howe, and even Peter Frampton.

A highlight of Easton’s Steely Damned set is a medley reproducing the guitar solos from several Steely Dan guitarists, including Larry Carlton, Denny Dias, Elliott Randall, Rick Derringer, and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Steely aficionados typically marvel at how Easton slips from one guitarist’s signature riff to the next — the jaw-dropping medley frequently earns him standing ovations. The first time I viewed it on YouTube, I gave him one too, standing right there in front of my computer.

Easton’s favorite Steely Dan riff? “Larry Carlton’s in ‘Kid Charlemagne’ is probably my favorite overall,” he says. “The two solos are a perfect mix of jazz and rock: melodic and powerful, with incredible tone highlighting the chord changes perfectly and wowing the listener. He takes a great song and makes it an incredible song, which is what a solo should do.”

Regarding Steely Dan’s two songwriters, I asked Easton whether he prefers Walter Becker or Donald Fagen. “After listening to the respective solo works by both Steely Dan main men and seeing both of them at live shows,” he says, “I’d have to say Fagen. Although I do love some of Becker’s guitar solos, like ‘Bad Sneakers’ and ‘Josie,’ to name two. They work well together, though, that’s for sure.”

Brother Love takes its name from the 1968 Neil Diamond hit “Brother Love’s Traveling Show,” but the group refuses to settle for attracting the singer's aging fan demographic. Songs like "Sweet Caroline" are powered up with heavy metal arrangements to create a sound that's more Vince Neil than Neil Diamond, intended to draw and please college-age San Diego barhoppers. This isn't as unlikely as it sounds if one considers the contemporary hit remakes of classic Diamond cuts like "Red Red Wine" (Simply Red) and "Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon" (Urge Overkill). “One of the toughest things I’ve ever done was to convince hard rock musicians to do Neil Diamond music," says Brother Love singer Gary Day. "It’s a continuous sales effort actually keeping them in the band."

Prior to May 2000, Day had never been in a tribute band. He calls his first gig with Brother Love "An awesome memory and learning experience...that performance was aired on national television and in thirteen other countries. I sang 'Sweet Caroline' as Neil Diamond on Dick Clark’s 'Your Big Break,' which aired December 2000 on ABC 10 in San Diego." The short-lived syndicated program showcased soundalike performers and Day was chosen to sing for the live audience of around 300 from among over 4,000 hopeful entrants.

"I’ve always admired Neil’s writing, and I like the energy of driving rock and roll. I swear when I was a teenager, I used to have daydreams imagining Neil Diamond doing an album with Van Halen." Unlike Alan Iglesias' Crossfire, Brother Love doesn't strive to reproduce any of Diamond's studio or live concert recordings. "All we do is improvise. The material had to be completely rearranged, going from a twenty piece band plus orchestra to a three-plus-one [group]. Our guitarist David McGrath has done a great job of retooling the songs ala heavy metal."

"Our older audience has occasionally mentioned that the music is too loud for the vocal, yet a girl in her 20s told us during a show that 'You sound just like him, but you’re outta control.' Then she pointed her finger at me and said 'And you are way too loud.' That was right after 'Longfellow Serenade.' I went back to the drawing board on that one."

Day says he's still surprised at the enormous response one can get by pretending to be someone else. A February 1st 2002 gig had been so well promoted that the show sold out and the club was packed with rabid Diamond fanatics. "Those folks at the Cannibal Bar scared the hell out of me. I hid out in the dressing room after the first set and started having second thoughts about the whole thing. We recorded the show to CD, and when I listened it to a few days later, I realized that not only did we do fine, they were actually applauding and saying good things about us. The fact that we lived to tell about it tells me that we’re doing something right."

As for the band's most disappointing gig, "We were booked at a new Indian casino about a hundred miles away. They made us play at 'background' level for four sets. It drove us crazy because there were about ten people in the whole place. We should have just cranked up anyway, because the next day our agent told us we weren’t getting invited back." If Day ever found himslef face to face to the real Neil Diamond, what would he want to say? "I’d probably forget how to talk and then be consumed with guilt."

Piece of Mind pays tribute to heavy metal icons Iron Maiden, but only the version of that band fronted by singer Bruce Dickinson, who quit in 1994. Since their debut in August 1999, they've become semi-regulars at clubs like 'Canes in Pacific Beach, where lead guitarist Anthony Ciullo played his first ever gig with the group. "I was seventeen years old and popped a string on the first song. I didn't have an extra guitar and ended up missing three songs. The band and even the manager of 'Canes lectured me after the show. I was so disappointed and embarassed, but I have never gone to a show without back up guitars since."

"Prior to playing with Piece of Mind I never gave much thought to tribute bands…With any band, there is always a level of groupies. One time a female fan grabbed [lead singer] Ron's dick while we were playing. He quickly removed her hand from his crotch and she instantly grabbed me. She pulled me down and licked my face and almost yanked me clear off stage. L.A. is a better venue for hooking up after a show. Everyone at our shows in San Diego always seem to have husbands or boyfriends."

The band Roundabout, a tribute to Yes, often finds themselves sharing the bill with other look-alikes like Pink Froyd (Pink Floyd tribute) and Led Zepagain (duh-again).

Roundabout's original bassist Kevin Dennis founded the band after seeing the success attained by his friend Kevin Krohn when he joined Pink Froyd. Asked the most common complaint of Yes fans reacting to his band's shows, he says "Probably that our guitarist played too much like 'Travor Rabin trying to imitate Steve Howe.' But most people think we were doing a really good job. We didn't really try for the look, except that our lead singer looked a bit like Jon Anderson and usually wore white like Jon does. And on bass, I try to dance around and smile a lot like Chris Squire did and does."

Though Yes has recorded hundreds of songs, Dennis says Roundabout mainly sticks to performing recognizable radio hits rather than obscure cuts from albums like Relayer or Tales of the Topographic Ocean. "We actually learned some other songs that we like but are not as well known, and some of them went over like a lead balloon, so we kind of dropped them." Dennis was replaced on bass by Bryan Patterson.

"The first few gigs [with Bryan] were a bit shaky, but we got a lot stronger," according to the band's original keyboardist John Cox. He says the group had its hands tied when it comes to improvising on Yes' recorded output. "There's room here and there to play around with it. We tried to be faithful to the studio version, it's a jumping off point. We incorporated a lot of live intros and endings that Yes are known for...I've been complimented on my organ solo in Roundabout for being very close to Rick [Wakeman's]. That was flattering."

Steve Coon, the band's former guitarist, says "I was probably the least 'Yes-like' player in the band so I often took liberties with the parts a bit to fit them to my style. The main critique I personally heard is that I am not '[Steve] Howe-like' enough, but what can I say? I am what I am. He wasn't an influence on my playing. Trevor [Rabin, who replaced Howe and wrote the hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart"] was, however...that was more my era." Coon was replaced by guitarist Johnny Bruhns. John Cox eventually left the band as well, to be replaced by Dave Smart.

Roundabout drummer Tom Schlesinger says every gig is a challenge, due to the complexity of Yes' seventies-styled progressive music. "First of all, I have to be two drummers, Bill Bruford and Alan White, both of whom play from distinct mindsets, and have quite different styles and feel. Although I've listened to Yes since I bought their first album in 1968, and Bill Bruford was a huge influence on me, my personal style is much closer to Alan White's. Bill is quite a stretch for me conceptually because he was essentially a jazz drummer. I'm a rocker and much of his playing is improvised. As a result, his tracks are more difficult to memorize and execute exactly."

Schlesinger admits to playing in a tribute band before his current gig ("I toured for a short period of time with a Bette Midler tribute show in the early '80s"). He's actually met members of the band he pays tribute to, albeit long before the formation of Roundabout. "I actually found Bill Bruford and Alan White talking to each other at the NAMM show about 20 years ago. I told them that Yes was my favorite band, how much their music meant to me, and how inspirational and influential they had both been on my playing. They could not have been less interested."

He notes that Roundabout is one of the only tribute bands unconcerned with matching their look to that of the band whose music they recreate. This would be difficult, considering Yes has employed nearly two dozen lineups over the years. "Our audience is a mix of the curious and the converted...this is not a Kiss entertainment extravaganza. All we do is play Yes' music...it's difficult enough finding musicians who can play the material, much less who look like their respective band member! The most successful tribute bands are those which put on a full-blown show imitating their chosen group through voice, movement, costumes, makeup, even duplicating musical instruments. We just play, and I don't believe a Rick Wakeman mirrored cape will get us more gigs."

In 2006, Roundabout opened for Yes bassist Chris Squire and Yes drummer Alan White at Acoustic Music San Diego in Normal Heights.

Alan Iglesias began playing guitar professionally in 1970 by performing at VFW dances. After high school, he toured the New England area in obscurity for fifteen years with local blues-based rock bands like Touch and Relayer before moving to Escondido and forming Crossfire, "a tribute band that strives to capture the essence of a Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble concert with authenticity, respect, and yes, love."

"The tribute idea just came to me as I was learning some Stevie songs as part of my 'Stratocaster set.' Sheesh, I whispered to myself, I don't look unlike the guy. I can sing pretty much like him. I can, if I work on it real hard, play pretty much like him - would I actually dare to put that hat on and go out there in front of people and try to bring back a little bit of Stevie for an evening?"

Iglesias first heard Vaughan's playing in 1983, on David Bowie's "Let's Dance" album and then the guitarist's first Epic album "Texas Flood," recorded with the group Double Trouble. "The initial effect didn't completely blow me away...I remember saying to myself that yeah, they call this guy a blues player, but listen to all the Hendrix influence and the way he turns it up!"

A dedicated blues enthusiast, Iglesias thought of Vaughan as just another blues-influenced rocker until hearing recordings like "Live Alive," a concert album given to him by his brother. "Before long I considered [Vaughan] a contemporary who, although [he] went down a slightly different road, was still speaking the same language I was."

After relocating to the left coast, Iglesias found himself reassessing his musical career to date. "I desperately needed to play great music, with great players, for folks who wanted to hear that music. I figured it would take me four to six years to build up the reputation needed to do what I wanted to do here in San Diego. At 46, I just didn't feel I had that sort of time, so I started looking at alternatives that I would never have considered before." Before forming Crossfire in 2001, had he ever played in a tribute group? "No, and I never in a million years thought I'd ever do anything like this."

"A few years ago I saw Ralph Saenz with the Atomic Punks, a Van Halen tribute from L.A. Certainly the fact that Ralph did Dave [Lee Roth] better than Dave helped, but it also struck me that if Van Halen is all but completely gone, why would it be a such a bad thing to recreate the wonderful energy that they brought to the world of arena rock...especially when there are plenty of people out there who still want to hear it? Stevie has been gone for well over ten years now, and there are still so many that loved what he did. If I can remind them just a little bit of what he was able to do, then perhaps we can all benefit from it."

Iglesias concurs that his Stevie Ray Vaughan recreation is dedicated to the idea that recognition is the key to tribute band success. "Looks, appearances, and body language are extremely important if you want to present a world-class act, but never at the expense of musicianship, of course. They are both actually quite entwined, I think. I explain it this way: It's perhaps not so important that I try to look and sound exactly like Stevie looked and sounded, although I certainly give that a lot of effort, but rather to strive for a situation in which I am feeling some of the same things that Stevie was feeling when he played a live show."

When I point out that some musicians resent his ability to sell out shows on the strength of SRV's reputation with all-original bands have difficulty even landing gigs, he replies "On one level, I don't blame them a bit. But these days the people you describe are going to be typically a lot younger than me, and are already considering me a musical fossil anyway. They have a wonderful chance, like I once had, to break into an industry in which the vast majority of current popular music speaks to them and the material that they are creating. This will never again happen for me. So I say to them 'fight the good fight' and, if they are lucky, they will have wonderful, soulful music like Stevie's - and perhaps an audience who cares - to play when they are old and washed up!"

Cover Me Badd mocks all kinds of bands with painfully faithful "tribute band" performances. Among CMB's many incarnations: the Fookin' Wankers (spoofing Oasis), Geezer (old men performing Weezer songs), Wookie Card (Rookie Card dressed as Star Wars characters), Rabbi Gimbel's Jews Explosion (Hebrew rock history), and Rookie Ricardo, El Vez's onetime wedding backing band (they played a song with El Vez at his wedding). CMB's Blasphemous Guitars spoofed '80s hair metal, earning a nomination for a 2007 San Diego Music Award as "Best Cover, Tribute or Bar Band."

The band is headed by longtime Rookie Card frontman Adam Gimbel. Gimbel and company are currently doing a monthly trivia contest (Musical Pursuit at Whistle Stop) and another event they call anti-karaoke night (Too Cool For Karaoke, twice a month at the Kava Lounge).

And then there’s Shatman. “With the resurgence of Bill Shatner’s acting career, there’s been a lot of interest in his music,” according Dan Lederman, aka ShatMan, the One-Man Shatner Tribute Band.

“I started doing Karaoke shows to discs of music that Shatner has covered, the really well-known stuff like Lucy In The Sky and Rocket Man…I didn’t try to copy his look until I wore a Star Trek uniform at the Lamplighter, one of the original Velcro jerseys but a little too small, and the crowd went insane for it. Now I have the loose-fitting toupee, too…I look a little like Belushi doing Shatner.”

ShatMan still cruises local Karaoke nights (“Gay bars like me, but they think I’m a butch girl”), though he says his MySpace page has resulted in well-paying corporate and private gigs.

“They wanted me to do a two [different] one hour sets at a sci-fi convention in Atlanta so I expanded the repertoire to include stuff Shatner never recorded, but should have, like [the Beach Boys’] Good Vibrations…I over-enunciated all the doo-wahs and shoo-wahs in Shat-speak.” The gig paid $2,000 plus travel and hotel expenses.

Lederman says he’s looked into talent agencies specializing in celebrity impersonators, but “Most of them aren’t looking for strictly-musical acts. They want you to walk around and take pictures with people and I don’t look much like Shatner up close…I got asked if I do Denny Crane [Shatner’s Boston Legal role] but I need my CDs, there has to be music behind me. I can only impersonate him when I’m singing.”

COMING IN PART 2: Deep Purple, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Black Sabbath, more!

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In the 2001 film Rock Star, former rapper "Marky" Mark Wahlberg plays a member of a "tribute" band, singing the music of his favorite hard rock group Steel Dragon.

He takes the gig so seriously that he gets in a fistfight with his guitarist onstage, arguing "There's no solo after the break...that's not how the song goes!" His policeman brother Joe ridicules this career choice, telling him "You know the sickest thing about you, little man? You don't have any fantasies of your own - you fantasize about being somebody else."

Wahlberg's character has lots of like-minded company in the real world. Some musicians see tribute groups as a way to get their foot in the door of the music industry. Others have long been on the other side of that door without ever seeing the upstairs rooms and copping another's act seems to be their only chance at earning recognition.

In the Rock Star film, Mark Wahlberg is fired from the tribute group but, one phone call later, he replaces the singer he idolizes in Steel Dragon and is playing the L.A. Forum. Within ten movie minutes, he's leading that band to greater heights of fame than ever and graduating overnight from wannabe to bonafide rock god.

To paraphrase another unreal character, Rocket J. Squirrel, "That trick never works."

Upon losing lead singer Rob Halford, Judas Priest hired Ripper Owens away from a Priest tribute band, publicly proclaiming "You'll forget Halford's name when you hear this guy sing." The next stop wasn't the L.A. Forum - it was Jimmy's Pizza Grotto in Woonsocket Rhode Island.

If history hasn't provided any examples of someone leaping directly from paying tribute to playing arenas, that hasn't stopped the number of soundalike bands from growing exponentially over the last few years. Hundreds are listed at tributecity.com, and many clubs have made a specialty niche of presenting these acts, such as the House of Blues in Anaheim, Paladino's in Tarzana, the Canyon Club in Agoura Hills, Winston's in Ocean Beach, and the now-defunct Jason's nightclub in Point Loma.

San Diego has seen dozens of working tribute groups, including Love Gun (Kiss), the Electric Waste Band (Grateful Dead), Power Load (AC/DC), Kashmir (Led Zeppelin), the Steely Damned (Steely Dan), and an all-male tribute to the Bangles who dress in drag onstage and call themselves the Dangles.

"We acknowledge how ridiculous it is to dress up and pretend to be something you're not, just to get a tiny taste of someone else's fame," says lead Dangle "Tarzana Hoffs" (real name Percy Murray).

"We're like the supermarket generic brand trying to hoover a few bucks from the pocket of some chump who refuses to pay full price for his Cheerios. Or, more accurately, the TV version of 'Private Benjamin' or 'Ferris Bueller's Day Off'...cash in on whatever's hot and maybe, just maybe, lightning will strike again the same way. Well, we're not delusional, we know we'll never have a hit record, so we just play it for fun and the audience, when they get it, they have fun too."

"That's as long as the crotch of my pantyhose doesn't rip. I may look better in a miniskirt than Susanna Hoffs but, if Mister Happy accidentally pops out, then nobody's smiling any more."

According to Professor Robert Walser, who chairs the Musicology department at the University Of California, Los Angeles, "I don't know why there shouldn't always be tribute bands...what else are symphony orchestras?"

There's a reason, however, that nearly all these bands commemorate acts with generations of fans even though nobody's reaching far enough into the past to launch a Bobby Darin or Bill Haley tribute. "There's always plenty of good music being made, and there's plenty of music that only young people care about. But young people today see everything back to the Beatles as music of their world; before that is alien," he said.

Van Halen tribute OU812 eschews the David Lee Roth years. “We do Sammy Hagar-era stuff because we really love what he brought to that band,” says bassist John Osmon. “Plenty of bands do David Lee Roth, but we don’t think anyone wants to see us in spandex.” The group dresses and coifs like their counterparts, as well as using apropos instruments like a Michael Anthony custom flame bass (“exactly like he used on the last Van Halen tour”), Hagar’s signature Cabo Wabo Yamaha (“we have his Les Pauls for Montrose songs”) and a $2,600 replica of Eddie Van Halen’s striped “Frankenstein” model.

“We played down in Cabo Wabo during Sammy Hagar's birthday week in October [2007] and have met the whole band at various times, so they know what we’re doing and dig it,” he says.

Osmon says OU812 guitarist Angel Llanos attended a party thrown at Eddie Van Halen’s house for the X-rated film “The Sacred Sin” (which includes two Van Halen songs). “There were adult film industry folks all over the place and strippers and a bevy of naked women. Eddie was the host, playing with a band he had hired and walking around pouring wine and giving tours and bragging about his son. Meanwhile, naked women are hanging from acrobat things from the ceiling and in the pool…His house was really nice but had the appearance of having been gutted by the divorce and never really put back together, sort of beat up as if a drunk hermit was living there by himself.”

“Personally,” says Osmon, “I think Eddie is an a-hole, especially after the f--k-job he did on Michael Anthony. Leave it to Eddie to dabble in the porn industry and then take his 15 year-old son under his wing and out on tour…Classy guy. I'm sure [his son’s] Mom is absolutely thrilled about that. Don't get me wrong, I’ve been a Van Halen fan for a long time and I really am rooting for him, but I’m also rooting for him to stop screwing over the good people in his life that have stood by him through the years, only to watch him turn into a complete bum.”

The Cured pays tribute to – who else – the Cure. “Tribute bands like Atomic Punks [Van Halen], Super Diamond [Neil Diamond] and Dead Man’s Party [Oingo Boingo] can make upwards of $5,000 for a single set show, depending on the venue,” says band founder Zippy Twombly. “There are other tributes out there that will play for $200. We’re currently somewhere in the middle but we play just about every week.”

Formed two years ago, at first only singer Twombly dressed and coifed like his Cure counterpart. “It took us a lot of struggle to get our bass player to wear lipstick,” he says “But when we started doing larger venues like the Belly up and House of Blues, the rest of the band threatened to hold him down and put it on him. We now have a clothes designer and a make-up girl and we spend a lot of time researching the look. Luckily, the Cure has had so many members that it’s easy for the band to look like one of them.”

So do tribute bands get tribute groupies? “It’s my contention that girls will always like guys in bands. Our audience is seventy-five percent women, most of them drunk and singing along to the songs. Nature will take it course, and if they’re confusing us with the band they’re really fans of, I’m not real good about correcting them.” He draws the line at impersonating Smith offstage. “That would be creepy, like Johnny Depp showing up at a club dressed like a pirate.”

Asked if he’s ever met Robert Smith, Twombly says “No, but our former keyboard player knew a girl who washed his hands after he made his imprint in the concrete in front of the Guitar Center in Hollywood.”

The Cured have also spun-off a second homage group, Still Ill, performing the music of Morrissey and the Smiths. Singer Virgil Simpelo (aka Voz) is a Morrissey look-a-like who also creates comic books published by locally-founded Sypher Art Studios. “I think I have somewhat the same skull structure as Moz has,” he says, “and the same eyebrows that help me produce a similar voice…yes, eyebrows play a key role.”

Tony Montegu, bassist for the two groups, says “I knew that the Cure and the Smiths would be a great match for gigs.” Each band averages $1000 per show, with most venues willing to book both tribute acts on a single bill.

Though just recently formed, Still Ill has already seen lineup changes. “The lead guitarist was too young and inexperienced,” says Montegu, “so he moved behind the drums. But then he had too much conflict with Voz and was let go…I asked another friend to play drums, and here we are.”

Still Ill often plays the House Of Blues, which frequently books tribute-themed events. The band hopes to attract Morrissey fans disappointed by the singer’s June 3 ‘07 Viejas concert, which ended early amidst audience jeers. “After Morrissey's last appearance here,” says Simpelo, “I think his fans deserve the encore they paid for.”

The Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash is a local country-rock band that has released several CDs containing their own original songs. The band really began to take off after opening for Haggard at the Coach House in San Juan Capistrano. They recorded their own six-song EP and, in 1998, they received an invitation to perform for over 20,000 attendees of Willie Nelson's annual Fourth of July Picnic in Luchenbach, TX, the first San Diego band ever to receive such an invitation to this three-decade-old institution that showcases some of the most cutting-edge artists in country music.

"We aren't a tribute band," says founder/front-man Marc Stuart. "We never set out to be a tribute band." Yet, the 2006 European release of Walk the Line helped the Bastard Sons book a 30-date European tour. In 2006, the band toured Switzerland, Austria, Germany, France, Holland, Belgium, Ireland, Scotland, and England."

Are the Bastard Sons endorsed by the Cash estate?

"We weren't endorsed by the Cash estate," says Stuart. "We were endorsed by Cash himself.... I met him at the House of Blues in Los Angeles in 1998. We were invited to his house in Hendersonville, Tennessee, where we recorded songs for our first record. He told us he would be honored if we were his bastard sons.”

"We were playing a club called the Exit-Inn in Nashville," says Stuart. "The people at the bar came up to me, all serious, and said 'Johnny Cash's son, John Carter Cash...he's here and he's waiting to talk to you backstage.' I'm sure some people thought he was there to try and intimidate me or something, because he's Johnny's real son and here we are, the Bastard Sons. I didn't think he was there to beat me up or anything. At least I hoped not!

"So I went out back and he couldn't have been nicer. He told me how him and his dad had defended our band against a lot of people who had negative things to say about the name and he said 'I really love the group. I'd love to record you guys the next time you're in the area.' Well, a couple of months later, in August, we were out on tour in Memphis, Tennessee, and we had a few days off. I called him up and said 'We're in Memphis, we're in trucking distance, so how're you looking at the studio?' He said 'Great, my dad's working in there in the morning, so you guys can come in about noon and have the studio for the rest of the day.'

"They have a recording studio on the Cash property called the Cash Cabin and we spent three days recording 'Spanish Eyes' and 'Nowhere Town.' Being right there in Johnny's back yard was amazing. It's about 20 miles outside of Nashville, in the middle of the woods. The studio is a little wood cabin on 50 acres. There's wild animals all over, deer and goats and pigs, and peacocks just wandering around. They've even got their own fully stocked bass lake within walking distance, so John Carter and I would go out with fishing rods and catch a few big mouth bass between takes.

"The studio itself is like a history museum, full of Cash and Carter memorabilia, but it's also fully modern and functional for recording. I was singing into the same microphone Johnny Cash was using just a half hour before. The lyric sheets for his new songs were spread around the studio and I got to look at those. We even got to hear some of his new tracks, songs that haven't been released yet. He [Johnny Cash] called the studio from the house but he wasn't feeling well enough to come out, so we didn't get the chance to meet him there. But he said the same thing as his son -- that he likes our music and doesn't mind that we're called the Bastard Sons of Johnny Cash, 'cause he made fun of that kind of thing way back when...he's the guy who sang about 'A Boy Named Sue,' after all!"

The Steely Damned is a Steely Dan tribute band (duh) fronted by Rockola's Bob Tedde. Guitarist Hank Easton has lately been nursing his inner rocker on the electric guitar. He says his playing is influenced by the likes of Hendrix, Beck, Clapton, Carlos Santana, Steve Howe, and even Peter Frampton.

A highlight of Easton’s Steely Damned set is a medley reproducing the guitar solos from several Steely Dan guitarists, including Larry Carlton, Denny Dias, Elliott Randall, Rick Derringer, and Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. Steely aficionados typically marvel at how Easton slips from one guitarist’s signature riff to the next — the jaw-dropping medley frequently earns him standing ovations. The first time I viewed it on YouTube, I gave him one too, standing right there in front of my computer.

Easton’s favorite Steely Dan riff? “Larry Carlton’s in ‘Kid Charlemagne’ is probably my favorite overall,” he says. “The two solos are a perfect mix of jazz and rock: melodic and powerful, with incredible tone highlighting the chord changes perfectly and wowing the listener. He takes a great song and makes it an incredible song, which is what a solo should do.”

Regarding Steely Dan’s two songwriters, I asked Easton whether he prefers Walter Becker or Donald Fagen. “After listening to the respective solo works by both Steely Dan main men and seeing both of them at live shows,” he says, “I’d have to say Fagen. Although I do love some of Becker’s guitar solos, like ‘Bad Sneakers’ and ‘Josie,’ to name two. They work well together, though, that’s for sure.”

Brother Love takes its name from the 1968 Neil Diamond hit “Brother Love’s Traveling Show,” but the group refuses to settle for attracting the singer's aging fan demographic. Songs like "Sweet Caroline" are powered up with heavy metal arrangements to create a sound that's more Vince Neil than Neil Diamond, intended to draw and please college-age San Diego barhoppers. This isn't as unlikely as it sounds if one considers the contemporary hit remakes of classic Diamond cuts like "Red Red Wine" (Simply Red) and "Girl You'll Be A Woman Soon" (Urge Overkill). “One of the toughest things I’ve ever done was to convince hard rock musicians to do Neil Diamond music," says Brother Love singer Gary Day. "It’s a continuous sales effort actually keeping them in the band."

Prior to May 2000, Day had never been in a tribute band. He calls his first gig with Brother Love "An awesome memory and learning experience...that performance was aired on national television and in thirteen other countries. I sang 'Sweet Caroline' as Neil Diamond on Dick Clark’s 'Your Big Break,' which aired December 2000 on ABC 10 in San Diego." The short-lived syndicated program showcased soundalike performers and Day was chosen to sing for the live audience of around 300 from among over 4,000 hopeful entrants.

"I’ve always admired Neil’s writing, and I like the energy of driving rock and roll. I swear when I was a teenager, I used to have daydreams imagining Neil Diamond doing an album with Van Halen." Unlike Alan Iglesias' Crossfire, Brother Love doesn't strive to reproduce any of Diamond's studio or live concert recordings. "All we do is improvise. The material had to be completely rearranged, going from a twenty piece band plus orchestra to a three-plus-one [group]. Our guitarist David McGrath has done a great job of retooling the songs ala heavy metal."

"Our older audience has occasionally mentioned that the music is too loud for the vocal, yet a girl in her 20s told us during a show that 'You sound just like him, but you’re outta control.' Then she pointed her finger at me and said 'And you are way too loud.' That was right after 'Longfellow Serenade.' I went back to the drawing board on that one."

Day says he's still surprised at the enormous response one can get by pretending to be someone else. A February 1st 2002 gig had been so well promoted that the show sold out and the club was packed with rabid Diamond fanatics. "Those folks at the Cannibal Bar scared the hell out of me. I hid out in the dressing room after the first set and started having second thoughts about the whole thing. We recorded the show to CD, and when I listened it to a few days later, I realized that not only did we do fine, they were actually applauding and saying good things about us. The fact that we lived to tell about it tells me that we’re doing something right."

As for the band's most disappointing gig, "We were booked at a new Indian casino about a hundred miles away. They made us play at 'background' level for four sets. It drove us crazy because there were about ten people in the whole place. We should have just cranked up anyway, because the next day our agent told us we weren’t getting invited back." If Day ever found himslef face to face to the real Neil Diamond, what would he want to say? "I’d probably forget how to talk and then be consumed with guilt."

Piece of Mind pays tribute to heavy metal icons Iron Maiden, but only the version of that band fronted by singer Bruce Dickinson, who quit in 1994. Since their debut in August 1999, they've become semi-regulars at clubs like 'Canes in Pacific Beach, where lead guitarist Anthony Ciullo played his first ever gig with the group. "I was seventeen years old and popped a string on the first song. I didn't have an extra guitar and ended up missing three songs. The band and even the manager of 'Canes lectured me after the show. I was so disappointed and embarassed, but I have never gone to a show without back up guitars since."

"Prior to playing with Piece of Mind I never gave much thought to tribute bands…With any band, there is always a level of groupies. One time a female fan grabbed [lead singer] Ron's dick while we were playing. He quickly removed her hand from his crotch and she instantly grabbed me. She pulled me down and licked my face and almost yanked me clear off stage. L.A. is a better venue for hooking up after a show. Everyone at our shows in San Diego always seem to have husbands or boyfriends."

The band Roundabout, a tribute to Yes, often finds themselves sharing the bill with other look-alikes like Pink Froyd (Pink Floyd tribute) and Led Zepagain (duh-again).

Roundabout's original bassist Kevin Dennis founded the band after seeing the success attained by his friend Kevin Krohn when he joined Pink Froyd. Asked the most common complaint of Yes fans reacting to his band's shows, he says "Probably that our guitarist played too much like 'Travor Rabin trying to imitate Steve Howe.' But most people think we were doing a really good job. We didn't really try for the look, except that our lead singer looked a bit like Jon Anderson and usually wore white like Jon does. And on bass, I try to dance around and smile a lot like Chris Squire did and does."

Though Yes has recorded hundreds of songs, Dennis says Roundabout mainly sticks to performing recognizable radio hits rather than obscure cuts from albums like Relayer or Tales of the Topographic Ocean. "We actually learned some other songs that we like but are not as well known, and some of them went over like a lead balloon, so we kind of dropped them." Dennis was replaced on bass by Bryan Patterson.

"The first few gigs [with Bryan] were a bit shaky, but we got a lot stronger," according to the band's original keyboardist John Cox. He says the group had its hands tied when it comes to improvising on Yes' recorded output. "There's room here and there to play around with it. We tried to be faithful to the studio version, it's a jumping off point. We incorporated a lot of live intros and endings that Yes are known for...I've been complimented on my organ solo in Roundabout for being very close to Rick [Wakeman's]. That was flattering."

Steve Coon, the band's former guitarist, says "I was probably the least 'Yes-like' player in the band so I often took liberties with the parts a bit to fit them to my style. The main critique I personally heard is that I am not '[Steve] Howe-like' enough, but what can I say? I am what I am. He wasn't an influence on my playing. Trevor [Rabin, who replaced Howe and wrote the hit "Owner of a Lonely Heart"] was, however...that was more my era." Coon was replaced by guitarist Johnny Bruhns. John Cox eventually left the band as well, to be replaced by Dave Smart.

Roundabout drummer Tom Schlesinger says every gig is a challenge, due to the complexity of Yes' seventies-styled progressive music. "First of all, I have to be two drummers, Bill Bruford and Alan White, both of whom play from distinct mindsets, and have quite different styles and feel. Although I've listened to Yes since I bought their first album in 1968, and Bill Bruford was a huge influence on me, my personal style is much closer to Alan White's. Bill is quite a stretch for me conceptually because he was essentially a jazz drummer. I'm a rocker and much of his playing is improvised. As a result, his tracks are more difficult to memorize and execute exactly."

Schlesinger admits to playing in a tribute band before his current gig ("I toured for a short period of time with a Bette Midler tribute show in the early '80s"). He's actually met members of the band he pays tribute to, albeit long before the formation of Roundabout. "I actually found Bill Bruford and Alan White talking to each other at the NAMM show about 20 years ago. I told them that Yes was my favorite band, how much their music meant to me, and how inspirational and influential they had both been on my playing. They could not have been less interested."

He notes that Roundabout is one of the only tribute bands unconcerned with matching their look to that of the band whose music they recreate. This would be difficult, considering Yes has employed nearly two dozen lineups over the years. "Our audience is a mix of the curious and the converted...this is not a Kiss entertainment extravaganza. All we do is play Yes' music...it's difficult enough finding musicians who can play the material, much less who look like their respective band member! The most successful tribute bands are those which put on a full-blown show imitating their chosen group through voice, movement, costumes, makeup, even duplicating musical instruments. We just play, and I don't believe a Rick Wakeman mirrored cape will get us more gigs."

In 2006, Roundabout opened for Yes bassist Chris Squire and Yes drummer Alan White at Acoustic Music San Diego in Normal Heights.

Alan Iglesias began playing guitar professionally in 1970 by performing at VFW dances. After high school, he toured the New England area in obscurity for fifteen years with local blues-based rock bands like Touch and Relayer before moving to Escondido and forming Crossfire, "a tribute band that strives to capture the essence of a Stevie Ray Vaughan and Double Trouble concert with authenticity, respect, and yes, love."

"The tribute idea just came to me as I was learning some Stevie songs as part of my 'Stratocaster set.' Sheesh, I whispered to myself, I don't look unlike the guy. I can sing pretty much like him. I can, if I work on it real hard, play pretty much like him - would I actually dare to put that hat on and go out there in front of people and try to bring back a little bit of Stevie for an evening?"

Iglesias first heard Vaughan's playing in 1983, on David Bowie's "Let's Dance" album and then the guitarist's first Epic album "Texas Flood," recorded with the group Double Trouble. "The initial effect didn't completely blow me away...I remember saying to myself that yeah, they call this guy a blues player, but listen to all the Hendrix influence and the way he turns it up!"

A dedicated blues enthusiast, Iglesias thought of Vaughan as just another blues-influenced rocker until hearing recordings like "Live Alive," a concert album given to him by his brother. "Before long I considered [Vaughan] a contemporary who, although [he] went down a slightly different road, was still speaking the same language I was."

After relocating to the left coast, Iglesias found himself reassessing his musical career to date. "I desperately needed to play great music, with great players, for folks who wanted to hear that music. I figured it would take me four to six years to build up the reputation needed to do what I wanted to do here in San Diego. At 46, I just didn't feel I had that sort of time, so I started looking at alternatives that I would never have considered before." Before forming Crossfire in 2001, had he ever played in a tribute group? "No, and I never in a million years thought I'd ever do anything like this."

"A few years ago I saw Ralph Saenz with the Atomic Punks, a Van Halen tribute from L.A. Certainly the fact that Ralph did Dave [Lee Roth] better than Dave helped, but it also struck me that if Van Halen is all but completely gone, why would it be a such a bad thing to recreate the wonderful energy that they brought to the world of arena rock...especially when there are plenty of people out there who still want to hear it? Stevie has been gone for well over ten years now, and there are still so many that loved what he did. If I can remind them just a little bit of what he was able to do, then perhaps we can all benefit from it."

Iglesias concurs that his Stevie Ray Vaughan recreation is dedicated to the idea that recognition is the key to tribute band success. "Looks, appearances, and body language are extremely important if you want to present a world-class act, but never at the expense of musicianship, of course. They are both actually quite entwined, I think. I explain it this way: It's perhaps not so important that I try to look and sound exactly like Stevie looked and sounded, although I certainly give that a lot of effort, but rather to strive for a situation in which I am feeling some of the same things that Stevie was feeling when he played a live show."

When I point out that some musicians resent his ability to sell out shows on the strength of SRV's reputation with all-original bands have difficulty even landing gigs, he replies "On one level, I don't blame them a bit. But these days the people you describe are going to be typically a lot younger than me, and are already considering me a musical fossil anyway. They have a wonderful chance, like I once had, to break into an industry in which the vast majority of current popular music speaks to them and the material that they are creating. This will never again happen for me. So I say to them 'fight the good fight' and, if they are lucky, they will have wonderful, soulful music like Stevie's - and perhaps an audience who cares - to play when they are old and washed up!"

Cover Me Badd mocks all kinds of bands with painfully faithful "tribute band" performances. Among CMB's many incarnations: the Fookin' Wankers (spoofing Oasis), Geezer (old men performing Weezer songs), Wookie Card (Rookie Card dressed as Star Wars characters), Rabbi Gimbel's Jews Explosion (Hebrew rock history), and Rookie Ricardo, El Vez's onetime wedding backing band (they played a song with El Vez at his wedding). CMB's Blasphemous Guitars spoofed '80s hair metal, earning a nomination for a 2007 San Diego Music Award as "Best Cover, Tribute or Bar Band."

The band is headed by longtime Rookie Card frontman Adam Gimbel. Gimbel and company are currently doing a monthly trivia contest (Musical Pursuit at Whistle Stop) and another event they call anti-karaoke night (Too Cool For Karaoke, twice a month at the Kava Lounge).

And then there’s Shatman. “With the resurgence of Bill Shatner’s acting career, there’s been a lot of interest in his music,” according Dan Lederman, aka ShatMan, the One-Man Shatner Tribute Band.

“I started doing Karaoke shows to discs of music that Shatner has covered, the really well-known stuff like Lucy In The Sky and Rocket Man…I didn’t try to copy his look until I wore a Star Trek uniform at the Lamplighter, one of the original Velcro jerseys but a little too small, and the crowd went insane for it. Now I have the loose-fitting toupee, too…I look a little like Belushi doing Shatner.”

ShatMan still cruises local Karaoke nights (“Gay bars like me, but they think I’m a butch girl”), though he says his MySpace page has resulted in well-paying corporate and private gigs.

“They wanted me to do a two [different] one hour sets at a sci-fi convention in Atlanta so I expanded the repertoire to include stuff Shatner never recorded, but should have, like [the Beach Boys’] Good Vibrations…I over-enunciated all the doo-wahs and shoo-wahs in Shat-speak.” The gig paid $2,000 plus travel and hotel expenses.

Lederman says he’s looked into talent agencies specializing in celebrity impersonators, but “Most of them aren’t looking for strictly-musical acts. They want you to walk around and take pictures with people and I don’t look much like Shatner up close…I got asked if I do Denny Crane [Shatner’s Boston Legal role] but I need my CDs, there has to be music behind me. I can only impersonate him when I’m singing.”

COMING IN PART 2: Deep Purple, Elvis, Michael Jackson, Black Sabbath, more!

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