Where do you do what you do?

Subject: Where do you do what you do?
From: Mikal
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 10:49 AM

OOOOOH! Max, I'm blaming this hangover on you too! And the three trees that died last night, and the pile of lost instruments on the floor!

Anyway, on to a new question that came up during the sing-along last night:

A bud of mine was talking about the places he has been, and that begain a long conversation, (okay, it was 3 AM. Long for then!) about where we play or tell tales.

This morning I did a serch of the forum to try to see where many of the 'mudders get to work, (not the pros, of course, we KNOW that!) And I found no thread that listed anything like that.

So here goes: Outside of the three times a year storytelling gigs at the usual festivals/schools, I have three main outlets for the songs I try to sing, (and I do mean try...) where this fat old guy can hold an audience. Each one requires a really different playlist for the most part, and a different approach.

First, I do the Fantasy/Dark Ages groups, (Dagohir, SCA, Etc.) and sing and tell tales from the European middle ages playlist, introducing the uneducated to the real stuff. Sometimes it's a paid gig, sometimes it's just to get drinking buddies and a couple of bucks on tapes. The second group is the Buckskinner/Civil War re-enactors, who often pay bucks to have an entertainer in the camp. (As well as giving me some nifty duds to terrify the kids when I come to teach the next week!) That playlist runs 1800-1900, with a few early 1900's in for color and contrast. This group is hardly ever interested in original work, (but they did like the one I wrote about being lost....) Lastly, I used to run up to Sturgis every year. Now that the bike is so much twisted metal, (you should see my x-rays!) I don't go, but the local guys still call me up about three times a year to do a little gig at a local groups home turf. That playlist has a lot of original, some 1900's stuff, Irish immigrant songs (who'da thunk they would like "Barney Hare" so much?) and a lot of "Biker stories". This one sells tapes! I can clear about $100 on one of these!

Any other folkies out there; what kinda small gigs do you do?

Subject: RE: Where do you do what you do?
From: Susan A-R
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 10:53 PM

I sing with "Hardtack and Homespun" a Civil War group that does costumes, the whole bit. The person who has organized it has found some interesting stuff and I like the "heart on your sleeve" nature of the music. I also occasionally sing at local coffee houses (haven't done this since the Kitchen got going) I'll be singing at a Kosovo Aid benefit next week, I also get together now and then with two friends with whom I have now sung for 10 years. We have sng at local coffee houses, done benefits for whatever we feel like doing benefits, talked friends into having us come sing at their local church, whatever we can swing. We do a very wide range of music, from old balads (we do a pretty nifty Scots program, if I do say so myself, up through some originals. Oh, and I show up at our monthly Irish session and throw in a song amongst all of that fiddle music.

Subject: RE: Where do you do what you do?
From: bseed(charleskratz)
Date: 02 Apr 99 - 11:41 PM

When I read the thread title, the first response that came to mind was "Out behind the wood shed" which I revised to "I don't do it any more." Then I read Mikal's question and his description of what he does, and revised my answer again to "I never did it." Oh, I have the "Born Once Gospel Singers" aka "The Point Isabel Poodleers," and we've done a couple of free gigs at University related things, I occasionally do the Thursday night jams at the Fifth String in Berkeley, I did four weeks in a teachers' strike band, "The Board Erasers," in 1975; I sing and lead singing at events of the Bay Area Alternative Press and the Western Service Workers Union, and I'm teaching a few students traditional music at Berkeley Independent Study program. I've been thinking of getting some of my fellow once-borns to do some volunteer performing at rest homes--the only problem is that our some-time bass player and her husband do it professionally and I wouldn't want to cut into their territory. --seed

Subject: RE: Where do you do what you do?
From: Mikal
Date: 03 Apr 99 - 04:53 PM

Huh. Coffee houses? You mean those stange half dark places where weird folk gather to hear some "beat" poetry? (Grin) The problem with living in the semi-wilds of the midwest is that such uban constructions never reach here. I remember hearing my brother, Dan talk about going to a coffee house to hear folk. Damn, I'm so ordinary!

I love the name: Born Once Gospel Singers...It has a nice ring to it. I have sung on the stike lines for the teacher's union before. Got my picture in the paper too.

Any body else wanna chime in?

Mikal (Bored today)