STEELY DAN

Highly melodic misanthrope Dan Bryk gave a copy of his CD Asshole to Ben Folds when he was in town recently. A week or so later, Ben played "She Doesn't Mean A Thing To Me Tonight" on an influential L.A. radio station and said it was "the greatest thing he'd heard in a long time."

Dan was also among those asked to play at Deborah Gibson's Learning Annex show. Dan performed that f-word-laden song about wanting to be some software programmer and apologized profusely to Deborah's mother for the profanity. Deborah replied: "I think my mother's heard that word before. I think she's used it a few times, too." Deb further commented about the song: "That wasn't exactly my genre... but it was good."