WeThe
Bonton Roulette band was founded in the spring - summer of 1989. It was
intended as a blues - jazz outfit using the southern shuffle rhytms. We
played mostly covers of shuffle music of the American south (The Fabulous
Thunderbirds, Ronnie Earl - he is one of my favourites, Duke Robillard)
along with the numbers of Robert Cray, Tailgators, Allman Brothers, Little Feat and others.
This gig held on November, 11th, 1989 in K4 Club in Ljubljana. There was
very small stage and 8 people to play; drummer with the biggest Slingerland
kit, 2 keyboard players with their equipment, 2 guitar players with Marshall
stacks (I didn't have my Vibroluxes then) being almost not opened (and quiet
of course) and the bass player with big Trace-Elliot combo with singer
in the front. The guy with 'flute' (Dejan Mesec) was our guest; instead of playing
3 numbers he stayed on stage for the whole gig (in the middle his electronic
AKAI sax dropped a quarter of tone due to bad battery - the result wasn't
pleasing at all!). The event was filmed with the VHS camera the tape I
still have.
This
band had too many people to cope with. After a couple of months we started
to play big time gigs (5 of them), but we weren't quite ready yet. The singer (and
the leader) had the vision of changing people to get the sound of the band
he wanted, but that was not a good idea. However, I insisted on playing
small venues, so the band could grow naturally - either presenting its
own sound or adapting to the original sound of that kind of music we've
had been playing. So, couple of months weren't enough to raise the band
with confidence and routine. Instead, we played the music in question as
a bunch of individuals. And I've left soon after; the band has played one more
gig and then disbanded...
Copyright © 1999-2001 Matthias. All rights reserved.
