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Blackbird013

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Allow me to reintroduce myself! I'm Jason, and I'm the co-band leader of Broke By Sunday ( http://www.brokebysunday.com ). We've been together four and a half years.. and are booked most every weekend, as well as some weeknights (including a recurring Wednesday), as a full band, acoustic duo, and acoustic trio. We've taken on some gigs a bit beyond the bar scene, although we aren't the typical "wedding/corporate band".. and we've also done well at both frat parties, and as the opening act/side stage act at some regional county fairs and festivals.

 

The last time I was here on HC, I was mentioning how I was planning on starting up a wedding band ( http://www.popwireband.com ). That project has made some traction, but finding the players and lineup to make it what it needs to be has proven to be incredibly difficult! Still in the works.. just can't focus on it till early October. Why? Because...

 

... I have a third project, The Feenies! ( http://www.thefeenies.com ) The Feenies is a 90s cover band, and as you can see from the website, we're aiming to dress the part, and hopefully make it a 90s SHOW, and not just a 90s band. We've lined up a weekly Thursday night deal that is being promoted as 90s night... and we're aiming for some private event/party gigs as well as maybe a corporate/wedding or two.

 

My question to the class is... what things can you do to take a simple "oh that's the band in the corner" gig to a full blown party? I plan on having some Pogs set up on a folding table beside the stage.. perhaps with the offer that we'll buy someone a drink if they can flip X number of them... and I'm open to any other ideas. Suggestions?

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Love the 90s band idea and that you want to do stuff to make it more than a "Just the band in the corner" deal. I was a bit too old in the 90s though to know which nostalgia items would be good ones or not.

 

But maybe something like having contests where you ask people to name which TV show or movie a line of dialogue or character came from?

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Yeah.. the idea of a 00s band kinda morphed into a 90s band. I was thinking 90s trivia would be cool (and how awesome if I could get a 12 pack of the recently (limited- Amazon only) relaunched Surge to give away a can of Surge for a prize?),, and I'm hoping the Pogs idea has legs.

 

I see there is a 90s band in NJ that has trivia between songs.. and brings an old TV and a Super Nintendo for people to play on the breaks. Interesting idea... but I don't want to just completely copy another band's formula either.

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Allow me to reintroduce myself! I'm Jason' date=' and I'm the co-band leader of Broke By Sunday ( www.brokebysunday.com ). We've been together four and a half years.. and are booked most every weekend, as well as some weeknights (including a recurring Wednesday), as a full band, acoustic duo, and acoustic trio. We've taken on some gigs a bit beyond the bar scene, although we aren't the typical "wedding/corporate band".. and we've also done well at both frat parties, and as the opening act/side stage act at some regional county fairs and festivals.

 

The last time I was here on HC, I was mentioning how I was planning on starting up a wedding band ( www.popwireband.com ). That project has made some traction, but finding the players and lineup to make it what it needs to be has proven to be incredibly difficult! Still in the works.. just can't focus on it till early October. Why? Because...

 

... I have a third project, The Feenies! ( www.thefeenies.com ) The Feenies is a 90s cover band, and as you can see from the website, we're aiming to dress the part, and hopefully make it a 90s SHOW, and not just a 90s band. We've lined up a weekly Thursday night deal that is being promoted as 90s night... and we're aiming for some private event/party gigs as well as maybe a corporate/wedding or two.

 

My question to the class is... what things can you do to take a simple "oh that's the band in the corner" gig to a full blown party? I plan on having some Pogs set up on a folding table beside the stage.. perhaps with the offer that we'll buy someone a drink if they can flip X number of them... and I'm open to any other ideas. Suggestions?

 

What 90's music? The grunge stuff like STP, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden and rock stuff like Collective Soul etc? OF are you talking about Backstreet Boys, NSYNC etc??

 

I didn't think there was a market for 90's stuff anymore. Am I wrong? If so that's good because I came up playing that stuff as well and would LOVE to do a 90's tribute:)

 

EDIT: I clicked on your link and read your list :)))..

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some of our biggest songs are 90s tunes right now...just a few years ago, not so much.

 

the 90s stuff we do that works well right now:

All For You- Sister Hazel

Run Around- Blues Traveler

What I Got- Sublime

Two Princes- Spin Doctors

Tubthumpin- Chumbawumba

Santeria – Sublime

Breakfast At Tiffany’s- Deep Blue Something

Laid – James

Mmbop- Hanson

Every Morning– Sugar Ray

Semi Charmed- Third Eye Blind

The Bad Touch- Bloodhound Gang

Slide- Goo Goo Dolls

 

rap stuff:

This Is How We Do It- Montel Jordan

Here Comes The Hotstepper- Ini Kamoze

Bust A Move- Young MC

Jump Around- House of Pain

 

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We used to get the bars and the distributors involved in special nights. Both can provide all kinds of crap (t-shirts, hats, glasses, etc.) that can be won through little contests and games that you orchestrate on breaks. We'd do a Hawaiian night or a summertime Halloween costume party and involve other business that frequented the bar we were at. The games were as harmless as hula contest with skirts and coconut bras, all the way to the banana eating contest for the ladies. Don't scoff. It worked and worked well. Funny how it always came down to a tie. Darned if I didn't always only have one banana left for that! One stage prop idea we used were around ten to fifteen TVs with VCRs on top of various sized platforms playing different videos that fit the theme of whatever we happened to be doing that week. It's cheap and eye catching. I think Guido's using projection which is also dead simple and cheap these days. It shouldn't be too difficult to be eye catching these days. Virtually every band I've seen lately comes in wearing the same thing as their audience and looks like a complete afterthought. Step it up and take a few risks.

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Nostalgia is nostalgia. Everyone gets to certain age and has fond memories of the stuff they grew up with. I don't care which era it was. We don't do much 90s stuff yet, but are certainly looking to start adding some as that writing is on the wall.

 

The 90s will be the new 80s if they aren't already. Most of what Jeff has in his setlist I think would work great with most any 25-40 yo wedding/corporate crowd. No shoegazing depressing grunge stuff. But the upbeat rock and pop/dance stuff? Yeah, all day long.

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The band I know of around here working the most good gig and doing the most 90s stuff are these guys. They've got a very 90s-heavy song list. Most of what Jeff's band is doing and quite a bit more.

 

They've taken at least a couple of corp gigs away from us in the past and I know it was due primarily to the differences in the setlist. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing---we're niching ourselves to a different market. I'd like to think they lost a gig or two to us along the way as well. :)

 

They started out a few years ago as a strictly 90s band but were likely a bit too far ahead of that curve and added older and newer stuff to get more gigs it seems. But when the market reaches the age where full on 90s tribute bands will be more in demand, they'll be a step ahead of the rest if they go back in the that direction.

 

http://lovefoollive.com/

 

 

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Looks like I've added another band to my roster: 90's tribute! :)

 

There ya go! Looks like Florida might need one! It appears that these guys are covering gigs down that way. I'm wondering if that's because nobody else has tried to lock up the market yet down there?

 

http://www.ninedeeeznite.com/index.html

 

Three years in a row we did a corp party for a division of Google. Last year we didn't get the gig. They hired Lovefool instead. Asked the girl in charge why and she said "everybody wanted a 90s band this time."

 

I don't expect anyone to hire the same band more than 3 years in a row for an event anyway, but considering the average age of the employees at those Google parties, I wasn't at all surprised they hired that band.

 

That's OK. I'm not feeling any big compulsion to swap out big chunks of our set for 90s material. But if we were doing some of those songs instead of some of the other stuff we do, I have no doubt it would work just as well. We'll make some changes here and there one song at a time. Simply just how the passage of time goes.

 

A few years ago we had a bunch of 70s stuff in our set. Other than a couple of disco things I don't think we really have any 70s stuff at all any more. "Walk This Way" and "American Girl" still get trotted out once in awhile but that's about it.

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There ya go! Looks like Florida might need one! It appears that these guys are covering gigs down that way. I'm wondering if that's because nobody else has tried to lock up the market yet down there?

 

http://www.ninedeeeznite.com/index.html

 

Three years in a row we did a corp party for a division of Google. Last year we didn't get the gig. They hired Lovefool instead. Asked the girl in charge why and she said "everybody wanted a 90s band this time."

 

I don't expect anyone to hire the same band more than 3 years in a row for an event anyway, but considering the average age of the employees at those Google parties, I wasn't at all surprised they hired that band.

 

That's OK. I'm not feeling any big compulsion to swap out big chunks of our set for 90s material. But if we were doing some of those songs instead of some of the other stuff we do, I have no doubt it would work just as well. We'll make some changes here and there one song at a time. Simply just how the passage of time goes.

 

A few years ago we had a bunch of 70s stuff in our set. Other than a couple of disco things I don't think we really have any 70s stuff at all any more. "Walk This Way" and "American Girl" still get trotted out once in awhile but that's about it.

 

 

That is one of the bands I researched when looking into this. Certainly looks like they know how to make it a 90s PARTY and not just a band in the corner.

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