Unbiased Review

Coming from the DC suburbs, I've seen more bands in a weekend than most people get to see in a lifetime. The main reason is P Street Beach, basically a huge field in the District with dozens of baseball diamonds. The planners of our Nation's Capitol were ingenius, in that while, even when I lived there there was insane growth, some semblance of sanity prevailed in preserving these places. On the weekends, especially during the summer, various bands would play there at about two hundred foot intervals, on anything from flatbed trucks to full blown stages. Blues, Rock, and somewhere tucked over in the corner, a budding bluegrass band would always be playing.
They weren't chopped liver.
I sang with three different bands over the years managed by Domestic Sound Productions.
There are some venues here that have the same, bands play the same sets month after month after month. First of all, it's a mistake to book a band any more frequent than every SIX WEEKS, because there really isn't enough time to add songs and change song sets.
I'd heard The Switch, way before I met and became friends with Artie and there is no way, they could have lived up to the hype I heard about them. I DID wonder for a long time, why they had such a following week after week after week. Okay, I know about the groupie thing and the "THIS time that guitar guy will notice me!"
But this was more than that.
Well last night I heard the Switch for the first time since their doing the grand opening for Pastimes. To be honest, a lot of the reason for my reaction back then was I was still stinging from Vic Bunn's passing and I didn't wish to see Vic's Bar change as it inevitably HAD to. (BTW, last night at Locked & Loaded a girl came up to me and said, "You used to sing at VIC'S! ....It's just not the same place, is it?")
Anyone would have trouble keeping up with these guys. One minute they're singing out in the audience...the next, lined up on the bar. It's just crazy. Early on, the press would ask a young Elvis Presley, "Couldn't you sing it without some of the wiggle?"
EP's response, "Well sir, yes I COULD come out there and just stand and sing, but people come to see a show and if I did that, they'd say, 'Well, my goodness, I can hear that by just listening to his RECORDS!' "
Artie plays keyboards, guitar and sings and changes hats like Cher changed outfits on the old Sonny & Cher Show. If he doesn't rub his scalp raw from doing that, he may start finding a lot of follecal material on the shower floor.
The Switch's drummer demonstrated how boring it must be to play drums to a honky tonk, country song, by playing catch with a stick with other members of the band. It's a whole lot more fun with a whole lot more possibilities with the wireless technology there is today.
The point is, the Switch was good, REAL good and know exactly where to drop out on the vocals for the audience to fill in a word or phrase.
I'm just wondering...what do you call a person who follows the Switch around from gig to gig...a Switch HITTER? (Gotta work on that)
Oh, did I mention that this bald guy was called up from the audience to sing "Jailhouse Rock?" He was okay, but he certainly was no Andy Williams.