Rock Bottom Remainders on Tour

Let's face it, everybody who's a boomer has at least once--hopefully, when nobody else was around--stepped in front of the bedroom mirror and strutted like Mick Jagger or done that leaping arm-windmill that Pete Townsend made famous. Somewhere deep inside, despite being rhythm-challenged and unable to hit the high notes, we'd all love to be rock stars. So why should world-famous, best-selling authors be any different?

Well, they aren't. Proof of that is the Rock Bottom Remainders, a garage rock band of cheerfully amateurish literary luminaries, including Stephen King, Amy Tan, Dave Barry, Ridley Pearson, Scott Turow, Mitch Albom, and writer-cartoonist and The Simpsons creator Matt Groening, with occasional guest appearances by actual rockers such as Bruce Springsteen and comic, actor and actual banjo virtuoso Steve Martin. Founded in 1992 by San Francisco author, radio producer, and general literary maven Kathi Kamen Goldmark, the Remainders get their kicks from performing surprisingly decent versions of rock classics such as the Standells' "Dirty Water" and the Troggs' "Wild Thing." (Here's a YouTube video of them performing a rollicking cover of Wilson Pickett's "In the Midnight Hour" in 2008.)

We should mention that the Remainders are also playing for money--not for them, since they've got all those royalties and multimillion-dollar advances, but for charity. This spring, for example, the Remainders' April 20-24 Wordstock 2010 tour support a range of causes. Two appearances in Washington--a Tuesday gig at the Harmon Center for the Arts and a show the following night at DC's 9:30 Club--will benefit World Vision's Haiti earthquake relief efforts and the America's Promise Alliance, which works to help young people graduate from high school and college. A Thursday show in Philadelphia will benefit the Free Library of Philadelphia, and shows Friday in New York and Saturday in Boston again will benefit Haiti relief and America's Promise. Additionally, the Pearson Foundation's and Penguin's We Give Books campaign has pledged to donate five books to libraries in the various cities for each ticket sold.

Bonus: If you're willing to pay shell out additional bucks for a VIP ticket to any of these shows, you get a chance to hang with band members and perhaps coax them to read the first few paragraphs of your unpublished novel. Well, maybe not, but you'll get to meet them anyway. Stephen King and Matt Groening have scheduling conflicts this year, but you will get to see Dave Barry, Amy Tan and most of the other Remainders, plus a special actual-rock star guest, Byrds co-founder Roger McGuinn.

For more tour info, go to the Rock Bottom Remainders' web site.