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13th Annual Arcata Eye Ball

What:

Guitar in Your Eye

The lucky 13th Annual Arcata EyeBall is coming up on Sunday at the Arcata Theater Lounge. The annual celebration of the other Arcata-based weekly promises all sorts of fun with emcee Rick St. Charles at the helm. Michael Fields and some other folks from Dell’Arte are working up sketches based on Kevin Hoover‘s internationally acclaimed Police Log.Shantaram the Magician, who also celebrates his birthday that day, has a bag of tricks up his sleeve (or someplace). The infamous Eureka Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence have been enlisted as auctioneers for a fundraising interlude. And last but not least, there’s famed Zappa band “stunt guitarist” Mike Keneally with bassist Bryan Beller.

If you have to ask why — you don’t know Kevin Hoover. Kevin is a serious Zappa-phile — he loves Frank — and was host of a Zappa show on KHUM for a time. He brought Keneally to Arcata in the ‘90s with his band du jour Beer For Dolphins and he’s been waiting to bring him again.

“We’ve known Kevin for 14 years now,” said Keneally, calling on his way from his San Diego home to NAMM (the big music industry trade show in L.A.). “We’re playing because Kevin asked us to. It’s a touring concept we came up with called MyKeneally: the idea being anybody who wants us to play can bypass the usual promoter angle of booking a tour. We go directly to fans that want to hear us and play in any environment including their homes. We did a lot of house concerts last year and that was really delightful. So Kevin inserted us into this colorful event he has going on.”

Expect some guitar pyrotechnics since Keneally’s position during his short-lived time with the Zappa band (the final tour) was something called “stunt guitarist.”

“That was something that Frank invented,” said Keneally, “for Steve Vai, basically. Frank had written a lot of melodies and instrumental parts over the course of his career that were never intended to be played on the guitar, things written for keyboards, or a saxophone or maybe marimba. Because of the way a guitar is operated, Frank thought these melodies could never be executed on guitar, but Steve Via indicated to him that they could. When Frank saw what he could do, he invented the title ‘stunt guitar.’ When I was in the band, I was given the task of executing those parts as well.”

No blindfolds or playing while riding a skateboard or while standing on his head, and not much acrobatics, but said Keneally, there was a song about Jimi Hendrix that required some teeth playing, “And when we did the song, ‘Stairway to Heaven,’ it was Frank’s preference that I end the song on my knees at the front of the stage, which was, uh, ridiculous.”

Since MyKeneally is basically your-Keneally, requests will be honored. If you want to increase the ridiculousness factor, well you know what to do.

The 13th Annual Eye Ball begins at 6 p.m. on Sunday, Jan. 24, at the Arcata Theater Lounge (1036 G St.). Admission is just $10, $8 for Eye subscribers (bring the address label from your paper). All ages may attend, those 17 and under must be accompanied by an adult.Tickets are available at arcatatheater.com, The Works in Arcata and Eureka and at the Arcata Eye in Jacoby’s Storehouse. For further details, pick up this week’s Arcata Eye or go to www.arcataeye.com or the Arcata Eye Ball Facebook page, or call (707) 826-7000 or email news@arcataeye.com.

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