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?