Dicey Riley, high-energy, kick-ass Celtic Rock and Roll from Northampton, MA!


Jimmy Gibbs bass	John McLaughlin drums	Katherine First fiddle	Michael Jennings guitar	Dr Frank Toscanini bagpipe
We had to kill original Dicey bassist Danny Richards...trust us, you’d understand. Fortunately, everyone knows bass players don’t really do anything, and they certainly don’t have to look good, and lucky for Dicey Riley there are plenty of unemployed, homeless winos around, so they offered him $5 a night to play in the band. Who says there’s nothing good about a shitty economy? As a part-Irish, part-Italian mongrel, Jimmy came from a family where it was corned beef and linguini almost every night. His father, Luigi Patrick “Huckleberry” Gibbs is famed as the inventor of Slarghi, a blend of Irish Whiskey and Chianti (named for the sound made by those who drink it), which he insisted the family slug by the gallon every night. Jimmy never knew his mother because just before his birth she fled in the middle of the night, leaving Jimmy’s father to bear and raise the child. Jimmy has changed careers many times: working in a winery as a corksoaker; in a hosiery factory as a socktucker; testing waterproof timepieces as a clocksinker; and most recently, packing shipments of plumbing grout as a caulksacker. His bass playing is summed up by his comment after his debut performance with Dicey Riley: “Hey, this thing is easy, you can just whack away at the strings and no one pays attention to anything you do!” All Jimmy's life he has wondered why strangers on the street keep slapping him.	John, the band’s drummer, is also rumored to be Dicey’s lead singer. He plays something called a “cocktail drum set,” the result of a violent auto accident that fortuitously allows him to sing lead while drumming standing up. John is from Northampton, Massachusetts. During the day he is a lawyer. And like all lawers, at night he's a werewolf. So he keeps in shape day and night by running from hordes of angry villagers carrying torches and pitchforks. John has been drumming since a few weeks ago when he began by drumming his fingers while waiting to use a men’s room. After 7 years he was thrown out of the East Hartford High School Marching Band in 1976 for graduating. In addition to drums, John is talented and prolific in the art of sweating, and goes through as many as four shirts in one performance. He dyed his hair white when he noticed how much attention Mike Jennings was getting from the women screaming in front of the stage, and now Dicey Riley groupies also ask John if he’s their father. One day he hopes to beat the 9-year-old kid next door playing drums in RockBand for XBox. In 1998 John was one of the founders of Dicey Riley, although he never told that to any of the other members. His vocal style was influenced by growing up big city (Hartford) Irish Catholic and listening at an early age to equal parts Beatles, Clancy Brothers and his father yelling at him. His musical heroes are Shane McGowan, Enya, Alvin & the Chipmunks, the Beatles, Sinead O’Conner, Harry Connick Sr, and pretty much anyone from Ireland who’s missing most of their teeth.	A woman of many talents and identities, Katherine, who was once known as Walter Carlos, then Wendy Carlos, then Yo-Yo Ma, and now in her latest sex- and identity change as the token chick in the Dicey Riley, Katherine, who likes to brag that she “wasn’t always a virgin,” decided early last year to give up the sousaphone and learn a more “girly” instrument. Failing to get the hang of the accordion, Jew’s harp or clavichord, Katherine opted for the fiddle because it’s small, melodically expressive, and looks really cool on stage. A respected Professor of Smartness at Smith College and the renowned Worshipful High Priestess of the local Ashur-Du-Smelbad pseudo-Asian ashram/sex cult, Katherine insists on pretending it’s “only an accident” when she repeatedly bashes Michael in the teeth with her elbow during a typical Dicey Riley performance. In her spare time she listens to Jerky Boys albums and colors the pictures on Abdow’s children’s menus; her favorite color is mauve, her favorite food is Chinese-style cat fritters, and she hopes someday to live in a yurt on a freeway median strip.	Talented, urbane, witty and handsome, Michael rose to fame in the early 1970s when he surreptitiously donned blackface to perform on a national concert tour as Jimi Hendrix until word leaked out that Hendrix had died. Known as the artistic member of Dicey Riley, Mike subsequently pursued a long, illustrious career as an interior decorator until the tragic day in 1999 when he made the horrifying discovery that he wasn’t gay. After bumming around for several years painting drunk women’s tits at street fairs in New Orleans, Key West and Ft Lauderdale, Michael decided to settle down in the staid, conservative village of Northampton and opened a painting and wallpapering business as a front for a Sinn Fein terrorist training facility. His eclectic interests also include translating classic existential literature into Pig Latin and competitive yawning. He’s been strumming guitars for 30 years and one day hopes to purchase one with strings.	Few people realize that “Dr Frank,” as he is laughingly known by his friends and patients, was originally a gynecology student, but was thrown out of medical school for attempting to introduce the controversial “taste test.” He went on to study chiropractic, alchemy, palm reading and homeopathic psychic surgery at the George Noury Institute. Billing himself as the world’s only Italian bagpiper who wears a kilt from Victoria’s Secret, Frank is the band's “babe magnet”...until the occasional ill-timed stray breeze reveals to revolted female fans the result of the horrendous playground accident that cost him his genitalia at age 10.