Word: gigging
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Dates: during 1980-1989
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...past 18 years, with rare exceptions, Woody Allen has spent every Monday night on this bandstand. He even skipped the 1978 Academy Awards, where he won an Oscar for Annie Hall, in order to play his regular gig in midtown Manhattan. Why does a man who has had such a successful career as a writer, comedian, actor and filmmaker feel a compulsion to go out and play the clarinet once a week? Certainly not for the money -- he refuses to accept a cent for playing. Nor is it for self-promotion -- he insists that his appearances not be advertised...
Michael's Pub, where the band finally landed a regular gig in 1971, has been the scene of more than a few light moments. When the Mets were in the 1986 World Series, sports-junkie Woody showed up with a tiny transistor television and propped it up on his music stand so he could watch the game while he played. Trombonist Dick Dreiwitz and his wife Barbara, the tuba player, tell of a surprise visit by Groucho Marx. "After one of Woody's solos," says Barbara, "Groucho reached up and handed him a few pennies as a tip." Psychiatrist...
Allen's standoffishness with the public is echoed in his relations with the other band members. Although many of them have played with him for nearly two decades, he does not socialize with them or hang around making small talk after a gig. Nor do the other musicians, most of whom come from the slick Dixieland school, share Woody's abiding passion for the rough-hewn New Orleans style or his aversion to tuning up. Despite the different approaches, says pianist Dick Miller, the band tries mightily "one night a week to create the collective sound that resembles the music...
...open for them on their new tour, the Stones have chosen hard-rocking Living Colour for a slot that has, over the years, taken on a fair amount of significance. Opening for the Stones has come to be not just another lucrative gig but a way for musicians (black) to break through to a larger audience (white...
This aggregation landed its first gig two weeks later. "Hey," MacGowan said to a local club owner, "we're in a band that plays Irish Republican songs. Can we do a set here?" The club owner agreed, and MacGowan, Stacy and three friends were soon doing a 20-minute set of "mutilated Irish rebel songs" that was frequently interrupted, according to Stacy, "by chit- throwing British soldiers, who displayed far greater musical taste than the rest of the audience...