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Dean on the Big Breakfast
Vol. 1, Issue 5 - February, '95
Before I forget, allow me to mention a handful of upcoming concert dates...
"GIG ALERT"
An Evening With Dean Friedman
(actually, several evenings with Dean Friedman)
Friday, February 24, 1995 at 9:00pm
The Turning Point - Piermont, NY (by Tappan Zee Bridge)
tickets $12.50
call: 914-359-1089
Sunday, March 5, 1995 at 8:00pm
The Town Crier - Pawling, NY
tickets $12.50
call: 914-855-1300
Saturday, March 18, 1995 at 8:30pm
West End Gate - NY, NY
2911 Broadway (between 113th & 114th St.)
tickets $15
call: 212-666-8687
April 6, 7, 8, 1995 (Thurs., Fri., Sat.) at 8:00pm
The Bloomsbury Theater - London, England
tickets £12.50, £10.00
call: 011-44-171-388-8822
.......................................................
Let me explain...
There I was minding my own business, programming VR InVideo games for Disney and Fuji TV, building Boobles and Honkblatts and shipping them all over the world (Japan, Mexico, Texas), trying to eke out a modest living as a multimedia mini-mogul when a fax comes in from the UK that says there's a TV show in England called the Big Breakfast and the host Gaby Roslin wants to launch a Dean Friedman record revival. Yeah, I know it sounds silly. But a week later they sent me a videotape of the show. It turns out Big Breakfast is a top-rated morning show seen by millions of people throughout England and indeed every week for two months they did a running Dean Friedman segment where they played my music, read letters from my fans, and even dressed up like me. I know this seems absurd but the cast and crewmembers all donned Dean Friedman mustaches ala my first album cover and mimed the words to Lucky Stars. You can imagine my own amazement. I mean, it never even occurred to me that it was possible to dress up like me. I don't even dress up like me.
In any case, this peculiar phenomenon reached its climax when I was invited to make a surprise live guest appearance on the show the last week of December. I flew over and was spirited into the dressing room so that the host, Gaby, wouldn't see me. They had me climb inside of a giant gift-wrapped cardboard box and they shut the lid.
So, there I was crouching down in absolute pitch black darkness in a cardboard box at 8am on the set of Big Breakfast, live on national TV waiting to surprise Gaby Roslin. I have to say that sitting alone in the dark in a cold cardboard box gave me serious pause for thought. It was an opportunity for careful inner reflection, a meditative moment. My career flashed before my eyes. What exactly did I do to wind up in this peculiar place and time? I guess I'll never know. Gaby - who, I have to say, has been very sweet about all this - opened the lid of the box, I jumped out and, blinded by the cameras and TV lights, found myself on national TV.
I couldn't help but ask myself, as I leaped from the safe dark womb of obscurity in the cardboard box into the homes of England's TV viewers, whether I might be experiencing a kind of weird rebirth back into popular media. A symbolic return from a decade of artistic exile. Could this really be the beginning of my reentry into the music business. Or was I just another singer/songwriter jumping out of a cardboard box on the Big Breakfast in front of millions of TV viewers. Who can say?
I relay this strange story to you because if you're on this mailing list then you have some familiarity with the bizarre twists and turns my career path has taken. I thought you'd get a kick out of this one. After spending the last 10 years recuperating from the record business, achieving something resembling a normal existence (if you call building Boobles normal), there's now the very real prospect that the craziness could start all over again. I have mixed feelings about it. But, hey, what can I say?
So, all that is by way of explanation as to why I'll be doing my first London concert in 7 years. If you happen to be in the UK at the time stop by. If not, I invite you to any of the handful of warm-up dates I'll be doing here in the US.
In the meantime, I have to go upstairs, lock myself in the studio and try and remember the lyrics to all my songs. You think it's easy? You try it! Especially considering the goofy rhymes: Dumb, glum; steady, spaghetti. I can't believe I don't get fined for this stuff.
Anyway... Thanks for listening. See you soon.
Yours,
Dean