Not ready for prime time
I wish we had a word for those people who observed us from the fringes of our Thursday night activities. Some of them liked us, some of them hated us, others were just indifferent.
It was always a delicate judgment call whether to approach such people. On the one hand, I didn’t want to ignore someone who might become interested in old-time music or dancing. On the other, perhaps they weren’t all that happy to have their dinner atmosphere consist of obscure fiddle and banjo tunes of rural Southwest Virginia.
Sometimes I felt more of a need to approach people outside our music and dance community if our attendance was low. The bands were paid based on money collected from the audience, and I felt bad if there wasn’t a lot, even if there wasn’t anything I could do about it.
One night, I had booked an old-time string band that, to be honest, wasn’t ready for prime time. I didn’t like the fiddler’s playing, they hadn’t played together all that long, and the banjo player was really more of a bluegrass player. Yet it was hard to say no to them when they asked to play, for a couple of reasons. They were filling a hole in the schedule that I wasn’t able to fill with another band. Also, two of the band members were regulars of the Clog Palace. I didn’t want to hurt their feelings by expressing my opinion that they needed a couple more years of practice to be fit for even our little venue. However, as the night of their gig proved, even several of the diehard cloggers didn’t show up. So, faced with a rather low take that night, I decided to approach one of the diners at Capt. White’s, and explain (as I usually did with people who seemed to be unfamiliar with clogging) what we were doing, and that I was collecting money for the band.
“For them?!” responded the woman who I recognized as a waitress at the Tastee Diner down the street. “They’re terrible.” I leaned toward her, and with a lowered voice, I told her that the money I was collecting was for “music lessons for the band.” She still looked annoyed at the music she was being subjected to, but also forked over a couple of bucks. I hoped that this information wouldn’t somehow find its way back to the band.
Posted on May 31, 2008
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