The Recliners Blog

So it’s the opening night of the Olympics and normally I’d be home glued to the TV but it’s Friday, and Fridays means we’re at Cafe Diem for our weekly engagement.There’s an amount of trepidation before any casual gig like this. You don’t have a ticket count so you don’t know if you’ll be playing the 1st set…or the 3rd…to a handful of people or a packed house. You practice, you advertise, you hope to build on previous successes, but maybe there’s something else going on that night. Maybe you’ve got a boatload of people coming in or maybe it’s the opening ceremonies of the Olympics. Could go either way and the thing is, ultimately it doesn’t matter, you owe it to the one guy in the corner who may or may not be here to see you to put on the best show you can just as much as if you’ve got a roomful of people screaming your name and offering up their firstborn and/or undergarments. The difference between the two derives from where you get the energy. It’s easier when you’ve got a good crowd to vibe off of. Think of it as the musical equivalent of home court advantage and pretend I’ve just cleverly tied this back to the Olympics.So to everyone who came out last night, whether you came specifically to see us and Russell’s awesome new outfit or you just stopped in for a drink and liked what you heard, here’s a colossal thank you. Playing music is extraordinarily gratifying in and of itself, but playing to an audience that’s right there with you is an almost indescribably fulfilling experience.Until next week, lounge on,J. Poroszokbassist,The Recliners

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Song Suggestions are always welcome, be it in through this forum or scribbled on a Bevnap! 

A Recliner’s Recipe : Take traditional standards from the

20’s to the 60’s, add in newer songs from the 70’s, 80’s

and 90’s, swing them across the dance floor, and then mix in

a generous shot of sultry bossa nova and cha-cha rhythms,

blend until smoother than a James Bond come-on line,

add tasty original songs (shaken…not stirred)

and you’re in martini heaven, baby. 

This is The Recliner’s mantra.

Smiles, fun, attitude, swank, style, and cheeze. These are Recliner’s ingredients.

At gigs, people often have suggestions for songs for us to Reclinerize. I ask them to write them on a bar napkin (bevnap). I have a file cabinet drawer in my studio with a file full of bevnaps and from time to time I’ll go through and pull one. The process is not merely adding a beat or groove to a song, but also totally changing the chordal structure.

While a pop song like Prince’s “When Doves Cry”

 

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may have only 3 or 4 chords in it’s original form, by the time we get through with it it may have 8 to 12 chords. Restructuring melodies go hand in hand with this process and sometimes it hard for band mates to even think it will work and struggle to get the original version out of their head. All in all it is a very fun and creatively exciting process and makes playing them live and watching people’s expressions hearing the tunes and realizing what they are that much more enjoyable.

Song Suggestions are always welcome, be it in through this forum or scribbled on a Bevnap! 

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One question I get asked a lot is “how can I play weddings”? Over the past 11 years, The Recliners have lounged and rocked on almost every conceivable type of stage one can imagine; from a crap hole-in-the-wall bar to Vegas flash, to San Francisco hip & cool, to mega stages doing opening slots for big bands with audiences of 5,000 to 20,000 people. Believe it or not, I find that playing weddings to be one of the coolest gigs ever. We’ve been doing it almost from the very beginning of this crazy ride of Reclinerville. Sometimes we would literally be flying back from a show opening up for Social Distortion and from the airport, shower and shave and go straight to the ballroom of some ritzy hotel and set up.

Playing weddings is definately an all day affair and sort of a zen-thing in a way. You’ve really got to just relax, get there early and chill. A lot of the time, the wedding takes place nearby the stage for the reception, so loading gear and sound-checking is not an option after the guests arrive. This means arriving early and setting up before the guests arrive. It’s a very long day. This is why we charge a certain fee…and , we ARE The Recliners after all! (heh)

Most everybody is running around like chickens with their heads cut-off, stressing about this & that; making sure all is right for the Big Day. Being in the band is a bit different. I can see how being in the actual wedding can be nerve-racking, but by the time our job of performing comes around, everyone is so relieved from all of the other pressures (usually Bride and Groom included) “it’s fun-time now”. Plus there’s nothing like seeing Gramdma and Grandpa dancing to the Beastie Boys and AC/DC…(”Reclinerized” of course).

Cheers!

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