Maz,
never, never, never, worry about those blokes in the "audience". They probably thought you were hitting some radical blues licks. If you got any applause or even a 'yeah man', you did Tre Bon. I've seen George Jones topple over, nose first, on stage, and get applauded. Keep on keepin' on.
JB

I thought the moral was always have your box with you, just in case you need it! And keep a spare in the car.

I thought the moral of the story is learn to be versatile by playing on many different accordions so when you are called up you will be confident on any instrument.

If you are being called up, always expect to play what you are given. If you can't do that, don't ruin someone else's show.


I remember being (unwillingly) pulled on stage by a promoter to play a song with Leroy Thomas' band. He handed me this old POS to play that was leaky as hell with a monster size thumbstrap. I never worked so hard to play one song in all my life. (thank God it was only one song.)

DP

I already made you mistake. However, the person whose box I was using said that she usually needs to twist the strap around a time or two for it to fit her. So, on the first part of the song, I'm struggling like hell. Bouncing all over the ****ed place. Then, when the fiddle comes in and I can get a break, I twist the strap up to where its tight. Then it was ****ed metal buttons. I got applause, but so do dancing dogs.

I feel your pain, Maz! That's a great story! I remember several years ago at a local festival, I had to follow 'The Kid Kloggers.' They were not very good cloggers, but they were absolutely adorable. Huge crowd appeal... seriously. Cute kids clogging for 10 minutes to a cassette tape of polka tunes. Precious but not very well executed.

S t a n d i n g O v a t i o n!

Then... my... band.... takes the stage.

Crowd dispersed.

[crickets chirping]

Turns out most of the Klogger's fans were parents, friends and relatives. But even after an hour, we still didn't garner the captivated audience they had.

So I turned a new page with this "note to self":

1) Never follow an animal or kid act no matter how good or confident you are or *think* you are!

P.S.: Find a kid to join band.

R!CK

That reminds me of a related story. A few years ago, talking to a friend about to go on stage at a fiddle contest. Had to follow a mediocre but cute kid, and the crowd loved it. Joked about how you're never supposed to follow kids or animals. A little later, another friend was getting ready to play, and around the corner comes the constetant that was to preceeded him - a little girl holding a fiddle, and a kitten.
Steve

Maz,

Back in 1998, Al Berard and I played the "Moustache" with Sheryl Cormier and her husband. Joe opened for us. Al and I stayed at Joe's girlfriend's house with her and her little girls. They took us down the coast to visit the church at Grand Pre' where I took some wonderful pictures. Anyway, Joe took me and Al to his house which he wasn't living in to look for a guitar that Al was interested in. Inside this cluttered, dusty house was literally hundreds of accordions. He had everykind of squeezebox you could imagine from single row to piano. They were hidden behind furniture, under boxes and on shelves. He had them in the living room, in the bedroom and in the attic. It was quite exciting.

I wore my t-shirt from the "moustache" for many years. What can I do to get another one?

Ganey

I'll see what I can do for you Ganey. :-) I didn't know you had played here! Was that during GrouTyme festival?

No festival. The whole logistics of the trip was a nightmare. Sheryl was playing a festival at Stepping Stone Ranch in Rhode Island and she had a good paying wedding in Bangor, Maine. Joe offered her a pickup gig at the Moustache saying it was just a ferry ride from Bangor. Needless to say, the ferry ride was $150 for the van and five people. We came back by land which added 17 hours to the trip as well as $200 in gas and we missed our first set at the festival. Magnolia filled in for us and we took one of their sets.

We also got detained going into Canada because Sheryl's husband had a handgun in the van and said he didn't. Coming out, we were detained because Sheryl collected a bottle of dirt from Grand Pre'. They searched every nook and cranny of the van.

I crossed the border to play festivals about 15 times over the years and that was the absolute worst experience.

Oh my god, what a nightmare. And all of that was pre-9/11! North America is indeed a big continent!

Maz,

The audience rarely notices. If anything, they notice that someone new and mysterious has been invited onto the bandstand.

The only folks who could even tell that you played bum notes would be serious Cajun musicians. Dancers? Much less likely.

Oh, and try to remember that with all the limitations note-wise on a Cajun accordion, it's hard to hit a "bad" note. It's not the fiddle, where messing up IS a tragedy.

Nick B

Don't worry Maz, it's only your own critical opinion that makes a problem, All the other people love your performance, because they didn't expected that you as a guest could play with the band. Just keep the good or nice things from that gig and keep on doing it.

I had a similar experience, but not as bad, when I sat in with Geno's band a few years back. I had helped get him a gig at at conference put on by ESRI (the company I work for). The conference runs for a week and that year had 10,000+ attendees. On Thursday night, there is always a huge blowout party, and we have had Geno play that gig 3 times now. The following Friday, he played the local zydeco dance and he saw me in the crowd and asked if I wanted to sit in and I agreed. I didn't have my accordion so I played his. Yeah, his thumb must be bigger than mine or he jsut likes a loose strap, and my thumb was just flopping around loose in there. Somehow I got things under control and it was OK, but it definitely threw a curve ball at me for a while!

So perhaps I might have brought my accordion along on the off chance that it would get used. But on the other hand, I know of more than one person who did just that, and had it stolen out of their car while they were at the dance. That is WAY worse than having your thumb flop around!

-David

Maz,

Do you have any idea how the Father's Moustache pub got it's name?

BJ

No idea man!

Couple of weeks ago Jesse Lege had a gig in Vermillionville and he asked me to sit in for a while. I played on his box earlier this year, in London, so I knew what to expect: it's Danny Poulard's red box, a bit worn so you have to work the thing pretty hard. 'Though I had my own with me I felt comfortable enough with Jesse's and I wouldn't consider using my own as it might take some time to change the mike and who knows what might happen to the sound! Also with a crowd of 150 people waiting for the next song I guess it's better to get on stage and communicate with the rest of the band as fast as possible about what you're intending to play and then just go...
By the way: it's a nice thing when very very experienced musicians give you the opportunity to get on stage, even if they never heard you play before, as Jesse did.

Don't worry about it Maz, Joe is a great guy, but bring along one of the thick elastics they use for broccoli, you can use it to tighten a loose thumbstrap sometime.

Yeah, I remember you doing it at my place. Here, we use Lobster elastics