Double duty with Cirrus Minor

Cirrus Minor plays Wooly’s on Friday, Feb. 28.

It’s been a long day, and Rich Cantrell is uncomfortable. The Cirrus Minor keyboardist/hype man has been on set recording the band’s new music video since the early hours, and now his socks are wet.

“It’s from all that slush outside,” the ever-smiling Cantrell said. “Bringing everything in from the street soaked my shoes.”

After starting down at the KCWI studio at 7 a.m. (shooting a segment as the band’s alter ego, The Doors tribute band, No One Here Gets Out Alive), Cirrus Minor finds itself setting up to finish the music video shoot at House of Bricks nine hours later.

“We are in the latter part of the song, where it gets pretty bizarre,” Cantrell explained. “(It) becomes very psychedelic and acid-fueled. So we’re going to get as crazy with the lights and just get as weird as we can get.”

As anyone who’s seen Cirrus Minor’s act can attest, that can be pretty weird. The band — consisting of Cantrell, drummer Joe Corbin, bassist Aaron Lea and guitar/vox man Mike Ruby — has created of one of the most entertaining live shows around. And today they’re trying to translate that fun into video form with an assist from some of KCWI’s people.

“We’d done several appearances with the ‘Great Day’ people — Lou (Sipolt) and Jackie (Schmillen) and everyone down there — and we just happened to be going down there today to do the Doors thing,” Cantrell said. “So we thought, ‘Hell, it would be cool if we could just do the shoot down there and get them all involved.’ So there will be cameos from the ‘Great Day’ cast and crew.”

The guys keep themselves busy, pulling double-band duty: They performed a Doors tribute show this past Saturday at House of Bricks, and this week they’re performing as Cirrus Minor at Wooly’s with, ironically, two tribute bands. All the shows and practice time keep the guys moving. But their passion for the music keeps them warm at night, wet socks be damned.

“The benefit is that Cirrus Minor IS the Doors band. So as far as practice nights go, that’s pretty easy,” Cantrell said. “But man, there is never enough time,” he laughed. “I guess you make time for all the stuff you want to do.”

And that’s the Cirrus Minor ethos in a nutshell: “Stay busy. Keep rockin,’ ” he said with another smile. CV