Observations and revelations from the Aug. 10 taping of No Doubt's VH1 Storytellers episode, set to air in September—some of which may or may not wind up in the final edit:
• Gwen's intro to “Just a Girl”: “I grew up in Orange County, California.” [audience cheers] “It's not that cool, really.”
• Gwen and Tony's banter makes them out to be the Sonny and Cher of OC.
• There was once an early country version of “Excuse Me Mister.”
• Adrian models a lovely Vandals T-shirt through much of the show.
• Adrian tells two disturbingly detailed poo stories. Didja know he once made a mudslide in his pants on the way to a class at Cypress College in 1991?
• A string section performs on “Simple Kind of Life.”
• Lit's Kevin Baldes and Adrian sing a duet of Journey's “Wheel in the Sky.”
• Gwen sings part of the original version of “Don't Speak,” with pre-Tony-breakup lyrics.
• Somebody in the crowd calls a friend on a cell phone and hands it to Gwen, asking her to say hello. She does.
• Eric Stefani plays piano, and a horn section bleats away on “Trapped in a Box.”
• Tom's guitar solo that you'll see during “Don't Speak” was actually shot about 15 minutes after the rest of the song and dubbed in later.
• One live version of “Sunday Morning” is all well and good, but having to sit through several takes of it in a three-hour period is not.
>>>NOTE DOUBT The Anchorage Daily News sponsored a recent contest in which winners walked away with a pair of tickets to No Doubt's July 23 show at the city's Sullivan Arena. All entrants had to do was write a marriage proposal to one of the band members. One victor was 14-year-old Jennifer Jamison, who penned a love ode to guitarist Tom Dumont. “Jennifer chose Dumont because of his guitar expertise,” read the newspaper's description of the winning entries. “She even sketched a picture of his instrument”—the one with strings and a fretboard, we assume. . . . No Doubt's market value seems to fluctuate as dramatically as the NASDAQ, judging by the little item we found for sale on a recent eBay cruise: a copy of the Weekly's Feb. 25 issue, featuring No Doubt splashed across the cover. When we first came across this a few weeks ago, the seller was hawking it for $6. Of course, the Weekly is free. (Hmmm . . . there's a whole pile of those issues in the back room. If we swipe enough copies, we could escape to a life of exile in Argentina!) However, when we checked back a few days later, the issue's price had fallen to a paltry $1.50. But then just last week— possibly to capitalize on the band's recent Irvine show—the seller had jacked it back up to an extravagantly high $6.99.
>>>THE BRITNEY BEAT How could anyone who saw the “Sugar and Spice With Navels in Sight” front-page pictorial in the Aug. 4 Southern California Living section of the Times OC—the one with shots taken at Britney Spears' July 29 Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre show, depicting Spears' pre-pube fans (some as young as 7) made up in tube and halter tops, tight leather pants, Catholic-schoolgirl uniforms and low-cut blouses meant to expose breasts that won't blossom for at least a good half-decade—look at it and not think three words: “Jon,” “Benet” and “Ramsey”? . . . Speaking of Da Brit, what's with the recent trend among local rock scribes of taking a younger relative along to a teen-pop show and writing a review from their POV? Note to the Times' Robert Hilburn and the Reg's Ben Wener: we want to know what you have to say, not what your niece or cousin has to say.
>>>RADIO CHAOS So we just spent an entire lunch break tuning in to the new “Cool 93” radio station (curiously planted at 94.3 on the dial), the Anaheim-based frequency that had until recently spun a long-time country-music format under the call letters KIK-FM. Our verdict? Well, the DJ used the word “cool” four times within the first 20 seconds of our tuning in. One of their breathless slogans goes, “95 stations to choose from and only one is cool.” Then another slogan: “The most unique station on your FM dial!”—this as Joe Walsh's “Life's Been Good” began cranking up underneath. They played a Third Eye Blind song. They played this one song by a group called Smash Mouth, with a chorus that goes, “Hey, now, you're an all-star,” which we've never, ever heard before in our lives! Then they played an 'NSync song and something that was either Toto or Chicago, but by then, it didn't really matter. In other words, “Cool 93” is yet further proof that Satan has indeed established a beachhead in OC. (Rich Kane)
