Last time around, we explored the dark and serious world of the Jason Only Project, as well as my many years of musical non-training leading up to that collaboration. In this latest entry following the colorful journey that has been my music “career,” we take a somewhat more … retarded turn.

Ryan Baug – man or myth?

On the last day of high school, after the final bell rang, I headed over to my friend Ryan Couevas’ house, along with Jason Feinberg and Ryan’s friend Adam Cone. (It may not have been the last day of school, actually, but my memory being what it is, we’ll leave it as is for dramatic effect.) It was there, in Ryan’s bedroom, that the greatest cover band to never step foot on a stage not located in a garage was born.

We were all messing around with various instruments, mostly Ryan’s Casio keyboard, recording what dumbassedry would follow on a cassette boombox. There were sad attempts at reggae toasting over preset rhythm patterns. There were likely other funny things that now I can’t remember. But, most importantly, there was the conceptualizing of a band whose sole purpose was to enjoy the splendor of tapioca pudding and make full use of every handicapped parking spot in the city. Ryan kept a guitar chord chart in his bedroom. And upon that chart, the name of our unstoppable, mentally challenged musical crew was discovered: BAUG.

(For the non-musicially inclined among you, there is a chord called “B augmented,” which is abbreviated … yeah, you get it.)

Baug was less a band than a way of life. Or an excuse for us to chant “Baug!” as we bowled and terrorized those around us. We adopted the iconography associated with the disabled — notably the international handicapped logo oft found on signs above those parking spots you’ll get fined for occupying. We dreamed up album titles such as “Stank Ice.” Did I mention we bowled? But the one thing we didn’t do was practice playing music, because, well …

Aside from Jason, none of us really played music.

Oh, sure, the Ramones got their start the same way, allegedly. Feh. We didn’t even have instruments. Adam allegedly played drums at some point in his young life, and Jason owned a rudimentary drum machine with four playable pads, so there was our rhythm section. Ryan and I … well, we didn’t do much else than joke around and trade Glenn Danzig impressions. Jason, of course, was the guitar virtuoso, so he pretty much showed up and legitimized the whole thing. So, of course, the most logical thing was to invite all of our friends to my garage for an end-of-school party to drink wine coolers, eat pizza and watch Baug fuck shit up.

I’m going to eschew describing to you the process that went into organizing and preparing for the first — and last — public appearance of Baug. I won’t tell you about the computer monitor I burned out by using it as a colored strobe light thanks to a BASIC program I created. I won’t tell you about the pylons and other objects stolen from road construction sites we vandalized and tagged with the iconic Baug logo. And I certainly won’t explain why a) I dressed like the Crow, b) Couev wore a robe or c) we all donned satin Harrah’s jackets. Instead, I’ll let the most god-damned awful video you’ve ever seen do the talking:

Next time, we’ll (for real) dish on the secrets behind Rahne’s semi-success. Stay tuned.