When my three boys were growing up and getting interested in music, it was really popular to want an electric guitar, learn to play it and then join a band. When you think about it, that’s an awful lot to do, isn’t it. It can take a year or more to become proficient on the guitar. Then you have to find like minded people who want to join a band with you and then there are the practises!
My eldest son wanted a guitar. We bought him one for Christmas, thinking that it might be a five minute wonder. We were wrong. He soon became addicted, sitting up in his bedroom night after night, sometimes all night, teaching himself the chords and listening to the sort of music he liked, mostly classic rock or heavy metal.
My then husband J had always played guitar, folk mostly on an acoustic and the boys grew up with music always in the house. They told me later that they thought every house was full of music and guitars and were surprised to find that other people’s houses were different.
After about a year, my son could play. He then started sending off for complicated guitar riffs (the solo bits in the middle of a piece) and studied those with a compulsion. He didn’t neglect his school work, luckily.
I’ll skip a bit here, which I may come back to later, but what followed next concerned me and my life.
Once in a band, my son (R) needed somewhere to play. Local pubs and clubs would let the bands play but they preferred a band to be experienced and play songs which other people could recognise. By now the band was writing its own stuff and wanted to show it off. In order to play in a pub, the band had to get some fans to come along and support them. This, of course, ensured that the pub landlord got bums on seats and received money for beer at the same time. The band would be paid a remuneration at the end of the night. This is where I come in. The boys in the band may have looked fierce, but they were still young and were shy to go up and ask for the money. My husband and I went to support the band and I offered to get the money for them at the end of the evening. This worked well all round. While the band were putting their instruments away, I would get the money and then give it to them when it was safe to do so.
The pub landlords got to know me and it wasn’t long before they were ringing me up and asking if I could get them a band to play on the next Saturday night. Perhaps they’d been let down or just hadn’t managed to get a band. I knew quite a few bands by then, friends of my sons and friends of their friends and they would also ask me if I could get them a gig somewhere or other. It was fun!
Then one day someone asked me if I could get them a band for a wedding party. The bands I was working with were not exactly suitable for weddings so I decided to advertise. That is how Starlight Promotions came into being.
I am talking about the time circa 1992 and it was before many people were on the Internet so they were limited as to how they could find information. These days people would just go on to Google or one of the other search engines and type in ‘wedding bands’ or ‘entertainment agencies’ but at the time I’m talking about, it was mostly word of mouth.
to be continued …
Oma 