A Concise History of Buddha Witha Gun

For several years after the demise of his local rock trio, Way Gone Liza, März Eldritch tried to raise a band whose energy and originality might rival Way Gone’s. Nothing came of these efforts.

When local arts and entertainment weekly, Flagstaff Live!, was conducting a KISS version of its famous “Cover Up” benefits, März leapt at the chance to perform a set of KISS covers. He enlisted the talents of elven percussionist Senator Matty “Thunder Roach” Keebler, former drummer/co-songwriter for Arizona ska legends, Warsaw, and ISM bassist Mike McClain. He dubbed the group “Stan Kopplich and the Babushkas of Doom.” The Babushkas and Cover Up gods, Subterranean Vision Serpent were the high rock points of the night. (Before their set started, when März began checking his guitar levels, an audience member was overhead saying to a friend, “This is going to hurt.”)

Roaring through Stan Koplich interpretations of “God Of Thunder,” “Parasite,” “Strange Ways,” “Deuce,” and “She,” März’ determination to forge a rock legacy before growing too old and feeble was reborn.

Some months later, März was asked to perform at a going-away party for FlagLive! editor, Joe Collier. Collier had so loved Stan Kopplich and the Babushkas of Doom that he wanted one last taste before he left for Chicago. In the absence of Mike McClain, Tasha Zarathustra, Eldritch’s longtime lover and artistic collaborator, volunteered as bassist. Keebler was again recruited for the evening, and after a rollicking set of Eldritch’s original tunes, asked to stay on permanently as the band’s drummer.

Taking the name “Buddha Witha Gun” from an amusing conversation with a well-armed student of Zen, the band was born that night in late 2000.

BWG’s next performance, warming up for The Tex Watson’s Swingers Convention, was made more interesting by the fact that Zarathustra had broken her left wrist in a snowboarding accident, and played that night with her arm in a purple cast that friends of the band had decorated with rhinestones and well-wishes scrawled in marker.

Since then, BWG has performed at both the old and the current Joe’s Place, private parties full of drunken mountain bikers, Flagstaff Brewing Company, The Alley, Mogollon Brewery, Club 111 and The Joint. They’ve shared the stage with bands like The Route 66 Killers, Q, oh my god, and Tex Watson’s Swingers Convention.

BWG has also appeared live disguised as HOP, or Hippie Outreach Program.

Matty Keebler was replaced during a sojourn with the ill-fated band, Fat Chance, by leprechaun percussionist, Father Sean “The Impaler” O’Darby. It was during this time that the four-song EP, “The January Demos,” was released.