M.I.R.V.

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M.I.R.V. was a San Francisco Bay Area band formed in 1993. Their music blends hard rock, heavy metal, funk, country, opera, electronica, and experimental sounds, with even polka elements at times.

The original lineup was Marc "Mirv" Haggard on guitar and vocals, Craig McFarland on bass, and David Kobza on drums. Jeff Gomes, formerly of Fungo Mungo, joined in 1994 after Kobza left. Bryan Kehoe contributed vocals and keyboards.

Their first album, Cosmodrome, was written and recorded by Haggard and released on Les Claypool’s Prawn Song label; it features a recurring character called Granddad. The follow-up albums, Feeding Time on Monkey Island and Dancing Naked in a Mine Field, were released on Poison Eye, the band’s own label.

Kehoe left in 2001 and was replaced by Adam Gates (aka "The Filthy Ape"), and for a time the band performed as a five-piece with both Kehoe and Gates. Gates later formed Madame Blavatsky Overdrive with McFarland and Gomes and released Idiot Jones will Have His Day, produced by McFarland.

Live shows during the Kehoe era often featured humorous interludes and on-stage pranks, including Haggard prompting a contest winner from the audience to touch Kehoe, who would sing in a high-pitched operatic voice after the bit. Haggard also played an electric saw on stage.

In later years M.I.R.V. toured worldwide with acts like Jerry Cantrell, Fishbone, Primus and NOFX, and played with Cheap Trick, Run DMC, Papa Roach, and Nuclear Rabbit. In 2014, Mirv and Kehoe performed with Les Claypool in the U.S. The band continued to play sporadically into the late 2010s and has been inactive in the 2020s, though no official disbandment has been announced.

Their song "Monkey Boy" was used in a Sega Saturn Fighting Vipers commercial, and "Shave My Face Off" appeared on MTV's Beavis & Butt-Head in season 6 on March 7, 1996.