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St. Patrick's Is a weird holiday and we USA folks are weird people.


Notes_Norton

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8 minutes ago, craigb said:

Ya, Americans don't really care how authentic their holidays are, just that they have fun on them. 

Coming soon Ramadanapalooza featuring a guest appearance from Santa himself..........

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19 hours ago, craigb said:

Ya, Americans don't really care how authentic their holidays are, just that they have fun on them.  Better start learning the Macarena for Cinco de Mayo!  LOL. 😆

IMO having fun on the holiday is more important than being authentic. Fun is our product, and if the audience is primed for fun, it just makes our job easier.

We also play a couple of Polkas for Oktoberfest, only secular songs for Christmas parties, and include Caribbean music along with a few Hawaiian tunes for Luau parties. We played a wedding (adult-second marriage) where the wedding couple chose "Release Me" as their first dance - the audience loved it.

Three of the Patty Melt party people already booked us for next year to make sure they can get us on St Pats day plus the Friday and Saturday before Paddy's day. I give them a break on the price if they have it before the day, and that way the disappointment of not getting it on the 17th is softened by saving money. Some people actually prefer the early days to save the money.

Having 3 to 5 Patty Parties is good. The songs are only good once a year, so by the time we get to the last day, we actually can play them without hiding minor errors :D (One difference between a pro and an amateur is that when the pro makes a mistake, unless it's a train wreck, the audience doesn't know because it's covered up well.)

Our philosophy: Life should be a party, and when we are on the job, we get to be the life of the party. We take the PLAY in PLAYing music seriously.

And yes, in their heyday we did Alley Cat, Macarena, Mambo #5 (we still do the original Perez Prado version on occasion if we get ballroom dancers), Achy Breaky Heart, and pretty much anything that will get them going. Songs that are like Junk Food for our ears. Fun but without much nutritional content. And they don't make you fat!!! But gigging is balanced because we also get to play some challenging tunes.

So I'll put the song by a Jew about the great flood in Mesopotamia (Iraq) written for children and sung by Canadian passport holders to rest until next year's Patty Melt when I'll be happy to bring it out and watch the audience mumble over the "Green Alligators" chorus.

Insights and incites by Notes

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I'm so sorry Craig - it's infectious. It ran through mine for about a week, first in learning it, then gigging with it.

I guess that's why it's a winner.

As soon as it sneaks in, I 'change the station'. Right now it's Mark Murphy's version of "Bebop Lives" which is a vocal adaption of Miles Davis' "Boplicity".  It's a swing tune about the same tempo and right now it provides delightful interference.

I've put the floating zoo away for another yer.

 

Notes

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  • 3 weeks later...

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