You can’t just tell them
You have to show people
A bunch of us were singing at the piano bar at Frank’s Steakhouse in North Cambridge years ago. It’s a legendary joint in the part of Cambridge that becomes pretty suburban and Irish. The last vestiges of Tip O’Neil-land and times still hang on, Frank’s being one of them.
Amidst the regulars scuffling up to sing “Danny Boy” and “The Unicorn” and “Somewhere Over the Rainbow,” were sometimes Chris Toppin, Hilken Mancini, Winston Braman, a bunch of other people who came but would not sing, and me.
The piano player, a rather flamboyant chap, would look at us askance, trying to figure out if we were there on a goof, or subsequent times, if we were the people who he remembered being there before, the scraggly bunch who actually could sing and knew the words to some classic old tunes. We were.
He once asked on the microphone, “who are you people? Are you show people? You must be show people!”
When our side project, the Bathing Beauties, finally gave up trying to be a real band, Top and I decided to soldier on and finish the songs and recordings we had started sporadically in fits and starts over the better part of 10 years. That project needed a name. Show People. It is all recorded, mixed, and NOW MASTERED. So if you downloaded it before, it now sounds better on disc. I think Kevin will upload it at billjanovitz.com. If you need a new version, I am sure. But you can go get it at CDBaby. I want to send it out to some college stations, but I’m sure it will take my sorry ass a while to do so. But if you are involved in such an endeavor and would like to request one, send an email to janovitz.bill@gmail.com or post here. Eric Masunaga mastered it and made it sound infinitely better, great, in fact.
I will also post some tunes here as time goes on.
Glad the CD is out-I will go to CD Baby now and get it.
hey! what about the poor saps who paid for it when it was only a download?
Hi Anon,
Well, thanks for supporting the cause early on. It will be made available also as a higher-quality download as well (the downloads have already been replaced, I believe). Ask Kevin at my website, but I would probably just try using the password he gave you. If you also want a CD, I guess we can send you one as well, but I’m not sure how that will work via CD Baby.
Yeah, no problem, if you bought the mp3s before just drop me an email and I’ll send you the link to the remastered songs posted on the site.
thanks- Kevin
site
stuff: email Kevin
Sorry, email link didn’t work above
email me here: guiney@fas.harvard.edu
All this chat of old-style restaurants, singing ability, and Tip O’Neill is fine and dandy, but here’s the one question left hanging out there: which one of the wooden dummies is modeled on you Bill?