Yeah..what was it James Brown said..'..the music business....hmmm, 90% business, 10% music....man !..but, I Feeeel good !"

This is the same James Brown who fined , by taking money off of his band members for every mistake they made on stage, eg coming at at the wrong time, bum notes,missed cues, etc etc "..cop that Braves..that'd make ya or break ya as a muso wouldn't it ?

A cat like James Brown could do that. A guy with an accordion, playing roots music doing something like that would be a death sentence.

In the realm of C/Z music, having fun and creating an atmosphere of a party is foremost. Everyone makes mistakes, and I'm sure even James Jenkins Brown made 'em. Trying to compare Mr. Brown to even the most popular C/Z artists is not comparing apples to apples (R.I.P. Steve Jobs).

Even the upper echelon of C/Z artists keep the same players for quite a while. Usually, it's creative, touring conflicts with their day jobs, hearing loss or personality differences that cause and exit for band members -- not a dictatorship brought on by some money-mad, egotistical front-man. I'm not saying it couldn't happen, but it's ethnic folk music and not an internationally recognized Dick Clark endorsed household-genre social movement.

I'm sure that money problems always exist to some degree in all bands, but any "leader" docking pay for making mistakes (a very subjective argument) is pure insanity. I'm sure if someone wasn't putting their time into learning the parts, then that would definitely show at gigs -- and that's ground for dismissal. But to keep tally on numbers of goofs while caught-up in the moment is inhuman.

james brown was a tortured genius
eccentric
artistic
temperamental

if he fined someone for a mistake,
he would also usually covertly slip them back most of the money

or buy them a cadillac for christmas


wle

I love how you write
Larry
Like a haiku
Everytime

Hey JB, Sorry I've been so slow on the trigger with this one - mighty busy, verily I say unto thee.

I think Larry had a stellar suggestion about having a regular gig; weekly, ideally, even if it doesn't pay at all. Being on stage week after week will really help you to hone your craft, make you comfortable on stage, and make performing second nature to you. As for websites, you might check ours out at I'm sure there's a ton of things we could do better, but we've gotten a lot of jobs off of it (and from Rick Reid - another suggestion: get on his good side! Actually, all his sides are good . . .). Of course, it helps that we're the only Cajun-attempting band for 250 miles around . . .

yep

the old 'only band in the tri state area' ploy works too!

another thing that works is this:
say 'yes' even though they want
zydeco
new orleans jazz
dixieland
cajun
low country boil songs all day

actually i get these requests all the time

i say 'we don;t do that quite that way, but what we do might fit, it depends on what you really want'

because they usually either are more flexible than they realize, or they just don;t really know anything about louisiana music and anything with an accordion would be fine

but i will always explain the difference between cajun and zydeco, or
zydeco and jazz..

[[now your 'zydeco' never has a tuba or a tenor banjo, or guys in matching colonel sanders ties]]

most of the time we get the gig anyway



wle

I do the same thing with song requests, Larry: when they say "Do the Kaplan Waltz", for instance, I say "That WAS the Kaplan Waltz! Didn't you recognize it?"

BTW, the website I meant to post, and thought I did, is snakeeyesandthebugband.com