For the record (DO article, local PDF), a quality write-up about Mike Brandt just posted in The Daily Orange, with thanks to Michael Sessa for the remote gumshoeing.
“You put a bass and a keyboard in front of him and he turned into Geddy Lee, without the vocals,” Allis said.
This is 100% true, although Mike took many more solos. F3 did a cover of Peter Gabriel’s D.I.Y., for which one of us “not-Sean” had to do vocals – this meant I had to do vocals. For the other story in the article, “ransacking” may have been a slightly overly-dramatic description of the event that I also fondly remembered in the other post.
Interviews become stories, stories become tales, tales become legend.
One of the other parts to that theft story was the police escort to the house where the gear had been stashed. The drums and two guitars were taken from Mike's house despite there being a keyboard, a bass, another bass, a Chapman Stick, and all kinds of amps and processors and the like in tripping distance – being trained musicians, this struck us all as kind of "Obviously you're not a golfer" odd. Sean and I did our best not to goose Mike about where in the musical guitar-bass-drums trinity his visitor thought his 4-strings-is-less-than-6 avocation fell.
The eclectic sampling from Mike's abode made a little more sense on sight of the rest of the stash. The visitor had, among other items in his collection, several huge Igloo coolers (not the free-with-complementary-siding-estimate size, but the kind medium-build folks could hide in), a mini trail bike that I believe I heard was stolen from the Mr. 2nd's Bargain Outlet on Erie Blvd., and 50 pairs of fireman boots – all proof that, when you do (certainly the wrong) drugs, you're not in your best state of mind.
