Well, it wasn't the Punk Rock Orchestra, only two musicians (violin and cello) and three vocalists... An extremely pared down version of the Punk Rock Orchestra...

And...we rocked the house!

We played

Nazi Punks F*** Off (Dead Kennedys)
Institutionalized (Suicidal Tendencies)
Pretty Vacant (Sex Pistols)

We invited the crowd to sing the chorus of Pretty Vacant with us, and they were screaming!

They demanded an encore and we played

Los Angeles (X)

The ironic thing about all this is the PRO is in turmoil and hasn't had any gigs for six months...so a couple of us took it into our own hands. In fact, I had officially quit the orchestra!!!

And we got several offers to play other gigs as well!!!

heartbeatocean said:

You GO !!

It's funny you should mention the taking it into your own hands thing. I'm a first-time band leader and lately I was feeling uneasy and a little discouraged about the way things were going with the band and I realized it was because I was trying to please them a bit too much, and a couple of the key members weren't really steppin' up in a few areas (like songwriting). I realized today that this band is *my* vision and some of the things that I was expecting some of my members to do--well, *I'm* going to have to step up and do. I'm feeling much better about things overall (I have a clearer perspective), and today's rehearsal went very well.

So, your post came right on time--I'm INSPIRED! (We violinists have a way of doing that to people anyway )

Congratulations!

NuPwr319 said:

Hi Nupwr...

I agree... it seems like the band leader thing only works when you can get people to participate on your terms, rather than hoping they'll rise to your vision. I struggled for a long time to bring together a quintet, but everybody had different ideas of how it would work (which allowed for a lot of flakiness) -- which tends to put me in a bad mood.

The only way that I got this gig to work out was:

a) I knew the owner of the gallery and he asked me for a favor.
b) I agreed to the project before I had gotten any commitments
c) I put an open call to the full orchestra for musicians and singers
d) Two vocalists leapt at the chance to perform and they recruited a third
e) No musicians leapt at the chance, so I chased down one whom I had worked with before.

SO the lessons I learned, in my case, were:

A - The VOCALISTS ARE TOTALLY COMMITTED AND WILLING AND DEPENDABLE (which is fab because it's hard to have a show without them)
B - The fewer musicians, the better. (less hassle and flakiness) And despite the scores being written for a full orchestra, pulling them off with a single violin and cello worked amazingly well
C - The audience loved us, I made some new friends, and we got more offers to play. Iniative pays off.


The secret seems to be finding committed, professional partners you like working with. Easier said than done.

Glad to hear you have a clearer direction. I think the more focused you are on your own vision, the more focused the group will be to support that vision. It's great to hear about your process.

heartbeatocean said:

That sounds AWESOME! So cool that you rocked the house with violin and cello. Sometimes, less is more.

VinaBlue said:

The vocalists said they thought the crowd enjoyed us MORE than with the 40 piece band, it being more intimate and direct and all. I don't know if that's true, but we never had the crowd screaming like that in such a unabashed manner. Not to mention it really helped to warm them up for the cell phone symphony which happed immediately afterward.

heartbeatocean said:

What, pray tell, is a "cell phone symphony"?
[Edited 5/12/06 16:47pm]

NuPwr319 said:

It was a little experiment of mine and part of the same show. I talk about it here:

http://www.prince.org/msg/15/188164

There really wasn't much more to it other than me waving my hands at the audience and having them dial each others' cell phones.