Real Music & Real Estate . . .

Yiddishe Cup’s bandleader, Bert Stratton, is Klezmer Guy.
 

He knows about the band biz and – check this out – the real estate biz, too.
 

You may not care about the real estate biz. Hey, you may not care about the band biz. (See you.)
 

This is a blog with a gamy twist. It features tenants with snakes and skunks, and musicians with smoked fish in their pockets.
 

Stratton has written op-eds for the Wall Street Journal, New York Times and Washington Post.


 
 

TURN IT DOWN!

by Bert Stratton

The bride asked if Yiddishe Cup would play quietly. I said, “Great! I’m in two Facebook groups, ‘I Hate Cilantro’ and ‘I Hate Loud Music.’”

I attended another wedding — as a guest — where the band blasted like they were at Noriega’s palace. Then a DJ in an adjoining room (behind a party-center folding partition) blasted like he was shooting a cannon.

There were about 225 guests at that wedding. I was the only one bugged? Apparently. My wife thought the band was terrific. She said, “They are like a magnet, pulling me to the dance floor.” (My wife was a like magnet pulling me to the dance floor.)

The band had no keyboard player or bass player. The lead singer cued backing tracks on his laptop. The drummer faked playing a lot.

My late rabbi, Michael Hecht, could have been the president of the “I Hate Loud Music” society. Every time Yiddishe Cup played at his shul, Congregation Beth Am, he would ask us to turn it down. One time my sound guy/pianist said, “I can’t turn it down any more. The sound system is completely off.”

Rabbi Hecht’s understudy is me. Hey, turn it down!

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3 comments

1 Steve Kohn { 08.24.22 at 12:16 pm }

And I’m your understudy.
It’s long been my suspicion that raising the volume to “11” is to mask imperfections in the performance.

2 Bert Stratton { 08.27.22 at 9:13 pm }

Here’s a comment from Kenneth Goldberg that was inadvertently deleted:

“Rabbi Hecht had a lot of pet peeves.”

3 J.D. King { 12.23.22 at 9:01 am }

I attended a wedding in 1986 where the reception band was… Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers, a trio. Quiet. Jonathan on a jazz guitar, very small amp, a guy on stand-up bass, no amp, and a drummer with just a snare, maybe a high hat, using brushes, as I recall. Opening number was Volare. A good time was had by all.

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