News updated 12/06/06

Boy is it cold!   It's the winter season and things are slowing down a bit for TFT, but not it's members.   We've been booking less shows, but getting paid more for playing them (yay us!) - Thanks to our fans!

Speaking of fans, thanks for coming out and filling the house at the Halloween show.   We met a lot of good people there and had a lot of fun.   Jeff from D'z Nuts came out *just* to play with dg's new handlebar mustache.

Not to get any of you too excited too early...   But we got a request to book a couple shows with Flattbush!   Flattbush just so happens to be signed on Koolarrow Records - which is owned by Billy Gould, former bassist for Faith No More. The shows will be in March - we'll keep ya posted on the when and where. Ooh - and soulvasq will be playing!

Speaking of soulvasq, we're back in full gear and will be playing more shows soon.   Our new original project, -Ideamen- with Tim Swanson (formerly of Duct Tape Mustache and Dog Fashion Disco) is getting an album together and will be playing out sometime in the new year.   You can take a sneak peek at our demo studio stuff here.

News updated 09/12/06

Hiya folks!   We had a blast at Marina Pointe with The Funky Monks on August 19!  It was an outdoor show under a giant tent right next to the river with a view of a giant battleship.  After the show we hung out in front of the elevator at the Executive Inn.   We hung out in front of the elevator because there were people there camped out after being kicked out of their rooms by an unfriendly friend.   They were all right in front of our rooms, and we were planning on being loud and unruly anyhow.   We sat and drank things out of their cooler until members of The Fake Thing and The Funky Monks started singing Beatles songs and security popped out of the elevator.  Ever seen cockroaches scurry when the light comes on?

Thanks again to Chris Gardner for playing with us on the spur of the moment. And speaking of Chris, he recently helped soulvasq finish some recordings we started a long, long time ago. You can listen to them at soulvasq.com.

Our secret project is shaping up. We've purchased some of the equipment we'll need to make it happen, most importantly a video projector (that might come in handy for TFT as well). It also has a name - "Popcorn and the Movie Tones". Maybe, just maybe we've said too much.

News from 04/16/06

Oh, it's good to be back.  So good we haven't even had time to write a news page about it.  The Fake Thing had a fantastic first few shows with our new keyboard player Scott (see news below), and we think we'll keep him.  HAH!

We also enjoyed playing with our brothers in Angry Chair, and our old friend Chris Lathrop from Love Removal Machine.

Our friends Funky Monks hooked us up with a show at a classy joint in Evansville, IN.  We can't wait!

The Hole In The Plot family keeps growing and intermingling, and making our dreams come true.  soulvasq is officially back in action, with the addition of Gwen Mitchell of The Gwen Mitchell Experiment on guitar and keys.  Special thanks to Chris Gardner for playing with us at The Mutiny in Chicago, and thanks again to Juicehead, Donkey Punch, and D'z Nutz for asking us to play and getting the soulvasq ball rolling again.  And happy birthday Jen and Kelly!

Ideamen is recording, and at the same time rooting for and waiting for the return of Tim Swanson (formerly of Duct Tape Mustache), who is currently on tour with Dog Fashion Disco.  Looks like they play practically every day!

And Finally, there is a secret project brewing here at Hole In The Plot.  So secret that we can't tell you anything about it.  All we can say is that it will include mambers of The Fake Thing, soulvasq and The Gwen Mitchell Experiment, and that it might make you want to eat popcorn.  We'll keep you posted.

News from 02/14/06

We couldn't wait to see you all, so we booked some shows!

We as of this news bulletin have broken our hiatus, and have three shows lined up.

We're proud to say we'll finally be breaking in (or just breaking) our new keyboard player, Scott Borchert.

Scott is also a member of the fantastic band "After Grace". You should go see them sometime. We did. We liked it.

We're still learning new songs, and will be performing a few of them at the upcoming shows.

In Other News...

All of the members of TFT are in other bands. Here's a rundown...
Mark, Dave S., and Phil are in the beautiful and arrogant band known as soulvasq. soulvasq has been inactive throughout the past year, but we were offered a show, and we couldn't pass it up. Here's the details.

Phil, mark and Dave S. have also joined/created a new project, called "Ideamen". It rocks. We don't have anything for you to listen to, but soon...

Mark is also in The Gwen Mitchell Band (formerly but increasingly inaccurately known as The Gwen Mitchell Trio), and they have two recordings in the works. "Lila" will be the title of their full-length album, and they recently did some live recordings at a cottage in Colon, Michigan. Yes, Colon. The results of this will be boiled down to an EP, so far affectionately dubbed, "The Ostomy Sessions".

News from 11/10/05

We're back!! Here's the latest news in no order whatsoever.

We are ready for all of you FNM hungry fans who have been waiting for us to get a keyboard player already and get this show back on the road. The wait is over. Book us. Book us now.
We have had a successful applicant for the position, and it is our opinion that you will like him very much. His name is Scott (we'll figure out his last name by next practice) and he already knows enough songs for us to play a show. Not only that but he inadvertantly forced us to learn new songs. We're not real big on secrets, so at our next couple of shows, you might hear:
Kindergarten
A Small Victory
R.V.
Midnight Cowboy
Star A.D.
Take This Bottle
Just A Man
Evidence
Stripsearch
Woodpecker From Mars
And just because we love you so much:
Sweet Charity
Vanity Fair
Retrovertigo

However, we will still take audition requests for anyone else who wants to play keyboards with us. We have a thing about having enough people to play anywhere, anytime, and we plan to do a lot of that real soon. So - open invite for musicians. Contact us.

In Other News...
We made the Wikipedia!
Yes yes, we know that anybody can put stuff up there, but we didn't do it. Our hearts are warmed by all the neat stuff that people have done for us, from hooking us up with shows, to making us a My Space account (we didn't do that either), cv.org adding us to their links page - and now, someone added us to the Wikipedia!
Now of course we aren't special enough to have our own entry, but we're on a list, and that makes us happy. What makes us more happy is the list is called "List of well known tribute bands". You can see it HERE if it makes you happy.
And to you, the mysterious benefactor who added us to that list - Thank You. You rock. And just for the record, we would have no objections to you adding a link from there to here. My faith in the goodness of people tells me you didn't omit it because you didn't know our address, but rather that you didn't want to run the risk of overloading our servers without us knowing why. But we've got a pretty good host, and (hee hee) I really don't think little us will get all that many hits. But if we do get a lot more, we'll know why.

News from 06/08/05

** - Attention - Achtung - Attenzione - Atención - Aandacht - **

First off - KEYBOARD PLAYERS - WE NEED YOU -

The Fake Thing needs a keyboard player!  Here's the deal:  Gotta be from the Chicagoland area (or willing to travel, but who wants to do that), we're out of Hammond Indiana, 1 minute from 80-94 and Calumet Avenue.  Obviously, we'd like to think that all applicants would be fans of Faith No More and Mr. Bungle, but hey, if you can play it, that's a good enough fan for us.  We'd like you to know most if not all of The Real Thing album, for audition purposes, and 'cos Mark thinks it would be cool.

And here's what we have to offer:  We have a pretty light practice schedule, and a comfortable house to practice in.  We have a keyboard available, that is to say we'd like you to use it.  It's an E-Mu Pk-6 (Roddy played an E-Mu, and we've got most of the sounds programmed).  We've got enough gear to run our own sound if we have to, and pretty much everything you'd need, so you don't have to pack much when you come out or play out.  Plus we're all really nice guys.
To try out: Email us at thefakething @ gmail.com,
and/or call Mark at 773-787-3991.

In other news, Mark has been networking all over the place, and he ran into Billy Gould on the internet. They communicated, and The Fake Thing has Billy's official blessing!  Check it out:

May 3, 2005 3:14 PM
Hey Mark, Thanks for the letter....and don't worry, I'm "chill" about it. Actually, we went through a period of many years banging our collective heads against walls, trying to find gigs, getting snubbed...so even though we ended up doing great in the end, I still appreciate the fact that we've made a connecting with our music with someone. So thank you!
I'm going to check out your page after I write this, but meanwhile...
you have my blessing.
Bill

News from 03/13/05

Hello there kiddies!   Gosh it's been a long time since we posted some news here.   You'd think that maybe we all vanished in the rapture or something.   Instead, we've all been blissfully occupied with our various projects in the aetheric network we call Hole In The Plot Productions.   Here's a quick rundown:

The Vasq - Mark Vasquez (Billy Gould) - Has been bringing all the elements together and letting us do what we wish with them.   He is currently playing with The Flying Aarons, The Gwen Mitchell Trio, and the newly hatched Sine Of Infinity.

DG Soul - David Solar (Mike Patton) - Has had a row of things lined up and has yet to knock all of them down.   The Flying Aarons website, theflyingaarons.com was the first project, and has yet to be finished.   It was a free job after all, and really only gets worked on when Andy asks him to.   Hey Andy!

In the meantime, Dave's old buddy Jeff needed some work on his website.   If you're into really nasty death/black metal, you can buy a plenty in the underground network of Autopsy Kitchen Records.

The Gwen Mitchell Trio, in addition to recording with Chris (see below), also needed a slew of promotional materials.   Dave threw together some promo pics, buisness cards, bio, and posters, and will be doing a tiny bit of web work for gwenmitchell.net.

And most recently, Sine Of Infinity has hired Dave on to design their website. The initial results can be watched at Hole In The Plot.

Tigerfolly - Chris Gardner (Jim Martin/Roddy Bottum) - Has set up a studio alongside Dave's 'home office' and has been pretty busy lately.   He has been recording The Gwen Mitchell Trio, some of this can be found at Chris' projects page (content here may change regularly).

Sine of Infinity has also joined the Hole In The Plot family and is recording their material at The House Of Soul. That stuff can also be monitored at Chris' projects page.

News from 09/12/04

The Fake Thing would like to apologize for disappearing for a couple of months.  Mark, DG, and Chris were busy recording soulvasq material for an (hopefully) upcoming full-length album.  Some of the rough tracks can be found here.

During those couple of months, The Fake Thing has rearranged a bit.  TFT and soulvasq was shaken up by the loss of the drummer Eric Canchola.  His departure was for practical reasons (a wife and two kids), and no hard feelings were felt on either side.  We'll all still hang out, and you'll hear him on the new soulvasq album.  Plus you might catch him at a show or two.

TFT was fortunately prepared with the recent arrival of Eric's backup, Jason Hope (formerly of Neotribe, Wiseguy, Strapped In Pain and Tatoo Frank's The Altar).  We've worked with Jason before - Wiseguy was the first incarnation of soulvasq, and Mark used to play with Neotribe.  Jason has already played one show with us at Idols on July 16th, and, well, he rocks!   Jason is an incredibly talented drummer, or as Phil Goodrich would say, "He got the techs!"

We also have leads on a couple of new guys. As of this Fake News Broadcast, drummer Mike Wuchter has expressed an interest in performing with us, plus Mark just got an email from a guy known only as "Les", who plays Bass, Guitar, and sings.  Niether have been to a rehearsal as of yet, but you'll hear about them soon.

We just booked more shows - A Tribute Band Battle Of The Bands, at The Backdoor Lounge October 15th, and a big bash - The Witches Ball on October 30th in Muncie Indiana. We'll have detailed info on the Shows page soon.

We've learned some new songs, we're very rested after the long break, and the next few shows are at fantastic venues!  Hope to see you there.

-- D.G. Solar (Mike Patton) of The Fake Thing

News from 06/09/04

Hey there to all those who visit this hallowed place.  Or was that hollowed?  Whichever.

To anyone who has come here recently and noticed that the site had gotten a little stale (as in hasn't been updated for several weeks) I would like to say "Hey, I didn't update the page. Deal with it."  No, really, sorry I haven't updated the page in a while.  My excuse is that my back went out.  It's funny, because we didn't stop playing shows, because standing up was OK.  But sitting down hurt like mad.  And updating a web page takes a lot of sitting down.  But enough of my excuses. My back is mostly better now, hopefully it will stay that way.

On to the news!  We purchased some advertising airtime on "Night Rock", Tom (The Midwest Beat) Lounges' new show on X-Rock 103.9 FM.  A couple have aired already, on May 23rd and May 30th, we've got two more coming up for Sunday, June 13th and Sunday, June 20th. The show airs from 6 to 7 PM.  We think you should listen to the show, but if you don't want to, you can still listen to the ads - They are posted on our Home Page.

We've had an interesting time lately, trying to find our little niche in the area music community.  Since all of our members are in other bands, we have a kind of backup system in Chris Gardner, who covers for both Dave Cohen (guitar)and Andy Jones (keyboards) when one of them can't make it.  Chris took on a double load and learned both guitar and keys for nearly all of the songs we play.  But our backup plan almost failed when we discovered that niether Andy nor Dave could make it to the June 11th show at The Scoreboard.  Chris heard the news, shrugged his shoulders and said, "I'll play both".  We said "At the same time?", Chris said, "Sure!".  You really should see what Chris has in store for you at the Scoreboard.  Partly because it will never happen again, and partly because it's just so darn cool.

So come on out kids, we're booked up through June and a little of July, and then we'll be on a short hiatus to brush up on the ton of new songs we've added to our set list.  I'd like to give a big SHOUT OUT to all the friends and fans, the bars and the bands - Hope to see you soon.

-- D.G. Solar (Mike Patton) of The Fake Thing

News from 05/01/04

Wow has it been a busy month for The Fake Thing. We booked a ton of shows, finished and printed our bio, finished recording our new demo tracks (which are now up on the Music page) and then finally had time to update the website. The Links page has been revamped and added to, and we finally finished the Message Board!

The Message Board
Thought we'd give you a quick rundown on the message board. It's a really cool streamlined bulletin board system for you to share your mind on. We've set up some general forum groups and started some threads, now it's up to you to find your place in this new online community.

We've set it up so you have to register in order to post. Although you don't need a valid email address to register, it's a good thing to have because it sends your password information there for you to keep. If you want to register, and you don't have an email address, drop us an email from someone else's email or call us. We can help you out.

You can pick just about any name (unless it's already been picked), and you can link to a picture (called an avatar in phpbb) for your posts. It really is a pretty cool system. Kudos and thanks to Chris (Trey) for setting it all up.

So since we spent all this time doing all that stuff, we haven't updated the show info. Keep looking, there's nine more shows on the way.

News from 04/02/04

So hey there FNM fans! Life is just grand here at TFT Headquarters. We recently put a post on cv.org, and since then have been flooded with emails and postings and whatnot from all over the country. Sounds to us like things are gearing up for a summer tour or two. So, YOU, out there, wherever you are, if you want to bring us into town, contact us and we'll chat.

We have finally finished our bio, for anyone who's into that sort of thing. We're into that sort of thing, and we like it. Plus we used a nifty javascript fader thingamajiggie for the web slideshow.

We're still pluggin' that show at J.J. Kelley's in Lansing, IL on Friday, May 28th. It's still a fantastic lineup with The Funky Monks - A Tribute To The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Pumpkin Seeds - A Tribute To The Smashing Pumpkins, coming out from the Quad cities on the border of Illinois and Iowa.

And on the soulvasq side, we have nearly successfully recorded a demo of a brand new one, "Funky Girl". As soon as we're finished, we'll dump it on our soundclick.com site for all of you to hear. The official soulvasq website is in the works, and will have all of the music for free, without all the signing up and logging in and wasting your precious time.

News from 03/24/04

Hey kids, spring is in the air, and the cold will only come back a couple more times. We hope that you are all well and peachy, and we hope that you are as excited about spending the splendid summer with The Fake Thing as we are. We've got a lot of nifty things in store for you as we work our through new material to share with you - some songs you asked for at the last few shows, and some other goodies... (mmmm....nestlé)

So you may have seen that our next show is up in Racine Wisconsin all the way on May 14th. That's a long time from now and we don't suppose any of you will be coming to that one - but never fear, we've got more on the way, hopefully a couple coming soon in April to stave off the FNM DT's.

We do however, have a great show lined up at J.J. Kelley's in Lansing, IL on Friday, May 28th. It's a fantastic lineup with The Funky Monks - A Tribute To The Red Hot Chili Peppers, and The Pumpkin Seeds - A Tribute To The Smashing Pumpkins, coming out from the Quad cities on the border of Illinois and Iowa.

For those of you who know us, you might be happy to hear that we're taking some of this time off to record a bit of new soulvasq stuff. We know it's been a while since the last soulvasq show, but we're still here tinkering and searching for more members. (Hey, we need a keyboard player! Ironically enough, as TFT has three. But none of them have time to be in another original band.) soulvasq will be back on the road as soon as we're good and ready. Until then, come and see a Fake Thing show!