Novelty bands...

Anybody ever been involved with some sort of Novelty band? As some may know from some of my rants of late, that I'm somewhat on the skids with my current band. Basically we've had no gigs for a while because everybody's been doing other stuff. With all this time on my hands, I've been considering putting together my own group. As a side band.....or perhaps even a main band.

Thing is, is that what I'd like to do could be construed as a novelty act. I'd like to do a band to do music basically from about 1955 to the 65 (give or take a little). Basically, early rock & roll. Doghouse bass, pocket drummer, boogie piano, swingin' sax, etc. Also a really good 4 (3+me) person vocal group to front. I think it would be a ton of fun. We could do classic car shows, etc. I just wondered if anybody out there's ever done something like this. I think I could do it, my wife is telling me I should. Just trying to get up the gumption to pull the trigger in the new year. Maybe that'll be my resolution.

Thoughts?

Hey, go for it, what do you have to lose?

Funny you mention car shows... a few years back my friend had a 50th birthday party, and he invited all his classic car club buds, and guess what? They had a great little 3 piece band - 2 guitars and stand up bass, no drums. The singer channeled Hank Williams to a T, and they also played a bunch of rockabilly stuff. It was great!

I was hoping he would have asked for my band to play, but since most of the guys there were from the car club, he asked these guys to play because he said they'd been doing the car club thing for years.

Sounds like you've got a plan, good luck!

Cheers,
Doug

I was asked to play a sock hop a few years ago and was going to do something like that. The gig never happened and the idea faded away. I say do it! Especially with real good backup singers.

Paul.... the singers are kind of what excites me the most about this idea. I'm a singer first really. I always wanted to do a vocal group.

I say go for it also. Why not?

Are there many bands around there doing that? If not, you have a chance at being one of the few and people find it a relief from metal, country, whatever.

As you stated it's just going to be finding the vocals to fill the bill, but if you live in NY you should have no problem.

Good luck with it.

Sounds like a great idea to me. I'd hire you based on the description of the lineup alone. Good luck with it!

There's a band around here that are a rockabilly novelty act - but don't bill themselves as novelty - and they're doing very, very well out of it. If it's good music it'll speak for itself and hopefully lose that novelty band stigma.

Tribute or theme bands are always fun and usually out earn your average classic rock bands. I've thought of the idea of doing an all guitar band doing 70's southern and country rock with two really good players on guitar. Other than that I'd love do do an acapella doo wop thing as a side gig.

There's a lot of 1940's stuff happening these days. In Boulder for the last few years they've held a WWII Christmas Ball where they have a swing band and everyone dresses up like they came out of a Bing Crosby movie. It's been drawing more and more people every year. I guess my point is that you might think about doing some swing stuff, too, especially if you have good vocalists who can cover Andrews Sisters type stuff.