Post by Gene on Oct 11, 2011 15:14:23 GMT -5
Hiya, chuckleheads! I hope you are enjoying the beautiful fall colors and the great weather!
Not a lot of gigs to report this time of year, but I do have a few (and I’m lucky to have them!) :
SAT, OCT 15, Kewadin Casino, Hessel, 9pm-1
SAT, OCT 29, Kewadin Casino, Hessel, 9pm-1
SAT, NOV 12, The Islander, Hessel, 9pm-1
I don’t know what it is about Hessel, but I coincidentally have all my gigs in the next few weeks in this one little town. That’s fine with me; It’s one of the nearer towns for me to accommodate, although I don’t know a lot of folks from around there. Kewadin is going to try live music at their Hessel location. I’ve never been there, but I’m told it’s small, and I hope it works out decently. Because casinos are SWIMMING in money, they pay VERY well, so moneywise, it’s like having five gigs this upcoming month instead of three, so it’s hard to complain. I got a good name from playing at the Islander this summer, so they’re inviting me back for one in November. This place always surprises me for attendance; I have NO idea where all the people come from! It could be a different story in November, though, but we’ll see.
The past gigs at the Dixie Saloon in Mac City went very well. The first one of September 10 had me on the O’Reiley’s Pub side while DJ techno-dance thumpy-thump music was blasting in the other half, which was very hard to play over, but I managed, somehow. The second one on September 17 had moderate attendance, but it served me well, since the manager sat and listened to my whole gig at the bar that night, drinking and doing paperwork. When he paid me, he said that he’d like to have me every Sunday regularly for the whole summer next year. That’s good news, although that’s quite a load for a day job guy like me, so I’ve got some arranging to do to make that work, if it does happen. It’s nice to finally have the reason for less gigging be a SUPPLY problem rather than a DEMAND problem, though, for sure!
Contrarily, we’re now in the time of year where me just having a gig once every two weeks is fortunate. I don’t take it personally, since I see that most other day job guys don’t even have THIS, and even career musicians are finding it difficult to show a decent looking schedule. North of Boyne, the venue-night slots are down not only seasonally, but definitely down compared to similar times of past years as well. There’s no regular open mic anywhere, either, north of Boyne. There’s a few full band venues, and LOTS of DJ’s and Karaoke, but few offering intimate solo and duo acoustic acts. I guess this is the time to “sharpen the saw”, and learn new material and dump marginal material, and I’ll take full advantage of it. I’m sure glad my wife’s substitute teaching money kicks in about now!...
I saw in the local paper that the Marina Pub in St. Ignace was going to have an open mic the last Thursday in September before it closed for the year. I went, since I was taking the following Friday off from work. Attendance was thin, but Dave Jasmund (who hosted it) played a few, Will Springsteen got up and did a few, and so did I. Nick Roberts was there, but didn’t perform and left early, probably because he had work early the next morning. Apart from this one-shot thing, I haven’t heard of any other events like this in a good 60 mile radius, but I’ll keep my ears open.
As far as seeing other performers, I only got to see one other act, lately. After some business in the Soo, I went to the Satisfied Frog and caught Danzo McCracken. He is out of Marquette county and plays with a band called Nudge, which has been rising in the U.P. for a few years now. He also has a solo acoustic act, and he has gotten into a routine of playing down at the Frog every other Wednesday/Thursday as solo acoustic, and the full band playing there on the weekend days. I caught the acoustic act. Danzo is a pretty portly fellow, with ratty clothes, long hair, tattoos, piercings, and sure looks the whole part of a rock star, but can he play? No problem there; Danzo is a pretty good player and singer. But, that’s about the end of the nice things I have to say about the act. It was actually a duo, with another guy named Carl (whose last name I don’t know). Carl is nothing special, but he gets the job done. Calling the act a duo is putting it kind of strongly, since it was more of a tag-team, one-at-a-time performance, and when they did perform together on the minority of the songs, they didn’t really employ vocal harmonies or anything, but they did do lead/rhythm combos well. They liked to swear and use vulgarity a lot in their stage banter, and also chose songs that did this a lot, too, sometimes substituting even MORE naughty words in the lyrics for more “baaad” effect. This was surprising, since the vast majority of venues I play would kick me out if I were to try stuff like that, but it seemed to fit, here, in a crowd of mostly younger folks wanting to cut loose. I’m no prude about this or anything, but I find the overuse of this in entertainment as sensationalist, and there’s no need to lay this on thick, especially if you’ve got the artistic goods like Danzo does. The songs were about one third obscure to two thirds familiar, which I thought was too much toward obscure for this audience. The work ethic of this duo was terrible. The act started 40 minutes late, they would play 40 minute sets and take a break for 40 minutes, playing thumpy-thump dance tracks during the long breaks. By this ratio, it almost has a look of being primarily a DJ, with live music in the breaks, rather than the other way around. Danzo seemed more concerned with using the on-stage time to set up and sound check gear for the upcoming band gig the next day, while his partner took over the solo act. Maybe he saw this as a way to “use the time”, but I thought this had a disrespectful look for the audience. Playing at the Frog as much as he does, he must be doing something right, though, but from what I saw, the list of things he did right was way shorter than the list of things he did wrong. But, that’s ME...
I’m not sure if many of you are familiar with Michael Lee Seiler, from the Boyne area. He’s a mellow folk and blues solo acoustic performer, as well as having a few other talents. He had a stroke a couple weeks ago, and it has left him with problems with speech and movement of his left side. He is undergoing physical therapy at Petoskey Hospital and is making progress. There is going to be a benefit for him in November sometime, but the exact date and place hasn’t been picked yet. His Facebook activity on his personal profile (named just “Michael Seiler”, as opposed to his entertainer profile) will have the info as it becomes available.
I sure wish I had more to state, but that’s about all I got. I will most likely not do a November blog, but given Christmas performing, I’ll probably have something to bring up by December. See you then!
–Gene.
Not a lot of gigs to report this time of year, but I do have a few (and I’m lucky to have them!) :
SAT, OCT 15, Kewadin Casino, Hessel, 9pm-1
SAT, OCT 29, Kewadin Casino, Hessel, 9pm-1
SAT, NOV 12, The Islander, Hessel, 9pm-1
I don’t know what it is about Hessel, but I coincidentally have all my gigs in the next few weeks in this one little town. That’s fine with me; It’s one of the nearer towns for me to accommodate, although I don’t know a lot of folks from around there. Kewadin is going to try live music at their Hessel location. I’ve never been there, but I’m told it’s small, and I hope it works out decently. Because casinos are SWIMMING in money, they pay VERY well, so moneywise, it’s like having five gigs this upcoming month instead of three, so it’s hard to complain. I got a good name from playing at the Islander this summer, so they’re inviting me back for one in November. This place always surprises me for attendance; I have NO idea where all the people come from! It could be a different story in November, though, but we’ll see.
The past gigs at the Dixie Saloon in Mac City went very well. The first one of September 10 had me on the O’Reiley’s Pub side while DJ techno-dance thumpy-thump music was blasting in the other half, which was very hard to play over, but I managed, somehow. The second one on September 17 had moderate attendance, but it served me well, since the manager sat and listened to my whole gig at the bar that night, drinking and doing paperwork. When he paid me, he said that he’d like to have me every Sunday regularly for the whole summer next year. That’s good news, although that’s quite a load for a day job guy like me, so I’ve got some arranging to do to make that work, if it does happen. It’s nice to finally have the reason for less gigging be a SUPPLY problem rather than a DEMAND problem, though, for sure!
Contrarily, we’re now in the time of year where me just having a gig once every two weeks is fortunate. I don’t take it personally, since I see that most other day job guys don’t even have THIS, and even career musicians are finding it difficult to show a decent looking schedule. North of Boyne, the venue-night slots are down not only seasonally, but definitely down compared to similar times of past years as well. There’s no regular open mic anywhere, either, north of Boyne. There’s a few full band venues, and LOTS of DJ’s and Karaoke, but few offering intimate solo and duo acoustic acts. I guess this is the time to “sharpen the saw”, and learn new material and dump marginal material, and I’ll take full advantage of it. I’m sure glad my wife’s substitute teaching money kicks in about now!...
I saw in the local paper that the Marina Pub in St. Ignace was going to have an open mic the last Thursday in September before it closed for the year. I went, since I was taking the following Friday off from work. Attendance was thin, but Dave Jasmund (who hosted it) played a few, Will Springsteen got up and did a few, and so did I. Nick Roberts was there, but didn’t perform and left early, probably because he had work early the next morning. Apart from this one-shot thing, I haven’t heard of any other events like this in a good 60 mile radius, but I’ll keep my ears open.
As far as seeing other performers, I only got to see one other act, lately. After some business in the Soo, I went to the Satisfied Frog and caught Danzo McCracken. He is out of Marquette county and plays with a band called Nudge, which has been rising in the U.P. for a few years now. He also has a solo acoustic act, and he has gotten into a routine of playing down at the Frog every other Wednesday/Thursday as solo acoustic, and the full band playing there on the weekend days. I caught the acoustic act. Danzo is a pretty portly fellow, with ratty clothes, long hair, tattoos, piercings, and sure looks the whole part of a rock star, but can he play? No problem there; Danzo is a pretty good player and singer. But, that’s about the end of the nice things I have to say about the act. It was actually a duo, with another guy named Carl (whose last name I don’t know). Carl is nothing special, but he gets the job done. Calling the act a duo is putting it kind of strongly, since it was more of a tag-team, one-at-a-time performance, and when they did perform together on the minority of the songs, they didn’t really employ vocal harmonies or anything, but they did do lead/rhythm combos well. They liked to swear and use vulgarity a lot in their stage banter, and also chose songs that did this a lot, too, sometimes substituting even MORE naughty words in the lyrics for more “baaad” effect. This was surprising, since the vast majority of venues I play would kick me out if I were to try stuff like that, but it seemed to fit, here, in a crowd of mostly younger folks wanting to cut loose. I’m no prude about this or anything, but I find the overuse of this in entertainment as sensationalist, and there’s no need to lay this on thick, especially if you’ve got the artistic goods like Danzo does. The songs were about one third obscure to two thirds familiar, which I thought was too much toward obscure for this audience. The work ethic of this duo was terrible. The act started 40 minutes late, they would play 40 minute sets and take a break for 40 minutes, playing thumpy-thump dance tracks during the long breaks. By this ratio, it almost has a look of being primarily a DJ, with live music in the breaks, rather than the other way around. Danzo seemed more concerned with using the on-stage time to set up and sound check gear for the upcoming band gig the next day, while his partner took over the solo act. Maybe he saw this as a way to “use the time”, but I thought this had a disrespectful look for the audience. Playing at the Frog as much as he does, he must be doing something right, though, but from what I saw, the list of things he did right was way shorter than the list of things he did wrong. But, that’s ME...
I’m not sure if many of you are familiar with Michael Lee Seiler, from the Boyne area. He’s a mellow folk and blues solo acoustic performer, as well as having a few other talents. He had a stroke a couple weeks ago, and it has left him with problems with speech and movement of his left side. He is undergoing physical therapy at Petoskey Hospital and is making progress. There is going to be a benefit for him in November sometime, but the exact date and place hasn’t been picked yet. His Facebook activity on his personal profile (named just “Michael Seiler”, as opposed to his entertainer profile) will have the info as it becomes available.
I sure wish I had more to state, but that’s about all I got. I will most likely not do a November blog, but given Christmas performing, I’ll probably have something to bring up by December. See you then!
–Gene.
