Flaky Biscuits : This spacey band plays at Ventura’s Insomniac Coffee House for laughs and three bucks.

Hungry for humor in a hurry? Then get ready for Big Biscuit Express, where nothing serious ever happens. It’s not the funniest joke in the world (where you die laughing), but they are terribly amusing. The three--who look an awful lot like Mario Falso, Jason Bays and Dave Girtsman--certainly are not your ordinary local rock gods.

Actually, they’re a bunch of tourists, not from the Valley or even Texas, but much, much further away. You know that McDonald’s commercial where the big cheeseburger crashes into the observatory? Apparently, the side order made it too. The Big Biscuit Express will play Saturday night at the oh-so-down-to-Earth Insomniac Coffee House in Ventura. Pretty spacey.

“I need to be honest with you right from the start,� lied the drummer who looks a lot like Girtsman.

“We’re not from this planet. We’re from Biscuitonia 5. Playing music for us is the only way we eat. And we don’t eat Earth food, we drink beer and absorb harmonic frequencies created when earthlings clap. That’s why we ask people to clap after a song; it’s not ego but how we stay alive. We have no plans other than to stay alive.�

The band has only played about five or 10 times, but nobody dances, a few people clap, a lot of people laugh. They may be from outer space, but these Biscuit Heads have had plenty of time to practice since they took the low-budget scenic route from Biscuitonia 5.

“We came on a big SCAT bus,� Girtsman said. “There was a picture of Barry Manilow and Rod Stewart on the side, and Neil Diamond on the back, but we couldn’t tell them apart, so we got off. The bus comes by Biscuitonia every 14 years. We like it here because there’s a lot of cool bands that’ll let us play with them such as Pinching Judy, Screwtape. Oh, and we can’t forget the Whereabouts.�

These guys are flakier than Goofy watching “Ren & Stimpy� with the sound off, while listening to the Surf Punks. With tunes such as “We Are the Biscuit,� “Cheese Platter� and “Space Biscuit,� don’t expect a lot of serious types taking notes and trying to decipher the Meaning of It All.

These guys are off the wall like Frank Zappa, They Might Be Giants, the B-52s and Devo. But for a fraction of the price: three bucks. And you won’t spend a fortune on booze and a hangover, either. The Insomniac doesn’t offer alcohol, only organic munchies and industrial strength rocket fuel, um, coffee.

Like a dazed Beat poet (Girtsman) reciting behind Firehose-intensity rock (Falso and Bays), Big Biscuit Express plays it hard and fast. And Girtsman, formerly a bass player, is now the drummer. A lot more stuff to carry around, right?

“I usually borrow someone else’s drums so all I have to do is bring a couple of sticks to a gig,� he said. “That’s why our name is not on our drums--the other bands might not like it. Actually, I started out playing the drums before I switched to the bass. I can supply the beat--that’s about it.

“Our music is just an expression of our higher selves. We let the music flow through us. We don’t make it up--we’re just conduits, relaying signals from the home planet. We think of our music as one continuous work that is always changing, getting longer or shorter. And we never practice.�

To give you an idea of Biscuit music, one need only look at their cover tunes. One is a 25-year-old golden oldie by the Standells, “Sometimes Good Guys Don’t Wear White.� Except the Biscuit band covers the Minor Threat version, which is about 75 times faster than the original. The Biscuit dudes also perform a reverently rocking rendition of the B-52s’ “Planet Claire.�

“Planet Claire seemed appropriate because it’s in the same solar system as Biscuitonia 5, so we’re just paying homage to our neighbors,� said the Girtsman-like creature.

This group is an example of how hard it is to keep track of the personnel changes in the local band scene without a score card. Girtsman’s other band, the Mudheads, have a new tape, but aren’t playing right now. Before that, Girtsman was in Plato’s Cat. Falso and Bays used to be in Something For Nothing, but that band added a new drummer, learned a bunch of new songs and became Pinching Judy. Got all that? Opening will be Screwtape, which features Matt Schulte, Dave Ragsdale and Jeff Sparks, who have all been in a zillion bands.

They may not have their name on the drum set, but Big Biscuit Express has a tape plus some T-shirts on the way and even another gig later in the week.

Had it with Bush’s thousand points of debt? Can’t inhale Clinton’s spiel? On Monday night, Big Biscuit Express along with Chunk, Roggue Cheddar and Zeet Rio will perform at the Insomniac in a Green Party fund-raiser.