For the Holiday season, 4-AM returns to our roots with The Merry Maskers Carolers singing holiday carols and having a great time getting into the spirit.

Well, last Saturday, November 12th,  at Woodfield Mall was the earliest I’ve ever caroled. But it was all a part of the 12 Days of Arthur Christmas, a new holiday film from Sony Pictures and we were caroling and having pictures taken with anyone who asked. There were Arthur Christmas activity books for the first 100 kids to visit Santa in the Ice Palace, a speed wrapping contest and prize wheel in the Grand Court of the mall. Oh, I almost forgot the cookie decorating there as well. I think they may have been tipped off ahead of time, because I didn’t get to decorate any cookies…Which is probably better for everyone all around, now that I think about it.

It was a great time. There were lots of smiles and wide eyed kids, replete with cookie frosting all over their faces, pictures taken, flying wrapping paper and people singing along. I guess it’s never too early for Christmas.

But here’s a not so secret ‘Secret’.

If you go to the 12 Days of Arthur Christmas Calendar and choose Chicago, IL from the drop down list and you look at the 11th Day of Arthur Christmas, you’ll see this:

O COME ALL YE CAROLERS
Trump International Hotel and Tower Chicago | River Walk
401 N. Wabash Ave. | Chicago, IL 60611 | 2:00PM-4:00PM
Spot the ARTHUR CHRISTMAS Carolers for your chance to learn a Christmas carol and receive a prize

…And I bet that if you look hard enough and long enough on the internet (are you done looking yet?), you just might be able to find a picture of the Carolers you’ll be looking for Tuesday.

Happy Holidays and Good Hunting from 4-AM!

Is it too early for Christmas? originally appeared on 4-AM on 15 November 2011.

Last night’s gig was a simple one. We were to perform at a cocktails and appetizers portion of the evening for the guests. Here’s a twist. We’re going to be singing waiters. Once again, nothing to out of the ordinary for us. So we’re told to wear black pants and a white shirt, we’ll be given the rest of the outfit when we get there.

Check. Our spin on it is that at some point during the evening, Flora will trip and drop her tray and I’ll say “Be careful. It’s so easy to fall. Be careful.” and then we’ll launch into the Linda Ronstadt song “It’s so Easy” and after that, we’ll do the gig and be done.

I head down to the gig and once I’m there, I’m given a matador jacket and a black bow tie (see picture). We’re all there and discussing how things are going to go when another curve comes our way. We’re going to actually serve  appetizers to the guests before we sing. That’s not standard on a singing gig and that’s when I find out I’m the only one of us with serving experience (I had been a singing server at a restaurant called Knickers years earlier and spent a summer at a conference grounds where I was a performer/server).

No big problem. Yes, it’s a skill, but we should all be able to handle it and come out relatively unscathed. And the appetizers are fairly easy to remember. We’ll be serving bacon wrapped scallops, mushroom tarts and shrimp cocktail. Good. Everything is going along fine, until I look over at the other staff and notice…They’re wearing gloves. I hesitate to ask, but I go ahead and say…

“Should we be wearing gloves?”

“Oh yes” comes the reply. “Let me get those for you.”

Everyone looks at me with a pleading “Why did you ask that?” look in their eyes. I don’t blame them. I’ve carried huge trays in my serving days and done it all on fingertip, but not with gloves…Or silver trays…With appetizers…And the other hand filled with a plate with napkins. The level of difficulty just went from a 4.0 to a 6.6.

We get our gloves and we get our appetizers (I got the shrimp cocktail, it was the heaviest and I was okay with that) and off we go.

We get out into the crowd and I’m feeling all right about the job I’m doing when I hear a thump behind me and think to myself “Is it time already?” And turn around. Nope, a small table had been knocked over and that’s when I see that the rest of the staff is out, but with no appetizers. They’re shadowing us to make sure everything goes smoothly and nothing major happens (other than what’s planned, of course).

We serve a few appetizers, then gather in the middle of  big group of guests and Flora does her faux trip and drops an empty tray and I rush over with my appetizers still in hand and deliver my line. But before I could finish, I could hear people whispering things like “What’s going on?” and other things because the service here is obviously impeccable and this would be really out of the ordinary. So by the time I’ve finished the setup phrase, we’ve got the attention of everyone around us and when we break into the song, people started laughing and smiling.

And that’s the way it went for the rest of the gig. The guests loved us and what we were doing and didn’t hesitate to let us know. What a great gig and a great time. But one of the best lines of the night came from one of the members of 4-AM (I don’t remember who it was), but they said in passing “Good thing we were supposed to be bumbling, that really worked for us”.

It’s so easy to fall originally appeared on 4-AM on 12 October 2011.

Do you remember around a year ago when I wrote about the independent short film Bound with Love in which we sang and appeared? I ran across it in a search in a format I could post here on the blog. So here it is. Anytime you hear singing, it’s us and we get some screen time at about the 4:48 mark. Yes, it’s a bit belated in that it’s a Christmas short, but it’s still a nice piece to watch. I hope you enjoy it!

Click here to view the embedded video.

I found it! originally appeared on 4-AM on 10 February 2010.

L-R Jim, Jenny, Flora & Gary (click to enlarge)

The first gig out of the gate is always fun in a lot of ways. You get to see what you remember and what you don’t, and by this point of singing together for almost 15 years, there’s very little we don’t remember, except the occasional lyric (why did I forget that one anyway? Oh…Rudolph, that’s right).

It’s a busy time of year, but one I wouldn’t want to do without. I get to see old friends and catch up with them and enjoy the time of year and help people celebrate it. What more can you ask for?

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas originally appeared on 4-AM on 25 November 2009.

But the best thing about the gig for me came in two parts. Even though it was the beer tent, it was early enough in the day that all ages were allowed to site in and around the area and as we were singing, the crowd grew. That’s always a good sign. And then I was watching as wel were singing and most of the crowd was singing along with us, which is really cool too. Okay, and I always enjoy a chance to use the music to mack on the ladies.

Jim mackin' on the ladies during a song

It was great to see some friends who came to the show, Steve, David and Ginny, Tim of The Legends and also meet some new friends like Rodney and get the chance to talk with Rich of the White Saddle Band, if only for a moment. There were even rumors that after the show ended Gary and Flora transformed into Austin Powers and Lucille Ball, but I don’t have any pic…

Gary as Austin Powers

Well, unfortunately no pictures of Flora as Lucy.

I’d like to thank Karen, the Entertainment Director for the Buffalo Grove Days and Ed, the guy who manned the Sound Board for us. We appreciate everything you did to make us feel right at home. There are a couple of other people who were working Buffalo Grove  Days I’d like to thank, but I didn’t get their names, so I hope this will do. It was a wonderful time for us and the crowd had a good time with us.

Photos courtesy of David Gibbs of Fallingrock Photography

And the pictures to prove it! originally appeared on 4-AM on 7 September 2009.

On December 5th, we went into a recording studio and recorded O Tannenbaum in about as many different ways as you could imagine, Fast, slow, in German, in English, only on Oooo, on Oooo switching to Ah and… well, you get the idea. It was a great time and we enjoyed every minute of the time we spent recording, even when we left the warmth of the recording studio to go out in the back lot to record the ambiance of singing outdoors and believe it was very cold that night, but it was a great experience, all the way around and that was only the beginning.

We did our part of the filming on December 13th. There had been a major part of the shoot the night before as well and true to Chicago, the weather was very different between the two. The night before was cold with wind chill dropping to somewhere near -20 degrees Fahrenheit, but the night we filmed, it was near 40 degrees above zero and the snow was melting with standing water all around, amazing (you can see production stills from the shoot on our Sights & Sounds page). Once again, despite the weird weather, everything went pretty well, we actually lip synched to a small alarm clock/cd player for the shoot as well as did some live takes, that was interesting. Everyone was great to work with and a lot of that had to do with the person who was the driving force behind the project, Norman Skul. One of the nicest people you’d ever want to meet and one of those guys that you hope you’re going to get the opportunity to work for and with again. He made everything flow really smoothly and there was just a great attitude throughout the entire experience.

Sadly, we learned that Norman passed away suddenly and unexpectedly after the first of the year. I didn’t get to know him very well in that short time, but based on what I saw when I did get to work with him, everyone who knew him, loved him and he will be missed. Fortunately, we’ve been told that production is going to continue not just on Bound with Love, but on the whole series and Norman’s vision will continue. Maybe that’s the best tribute of all.

Picking up and Carrying On originally appeared on 4-AM on 18 February 2009.

So if you’re up in the Zion, IL area and want to see us, the parade starts at 1:00 CT, you can click the map link under the Next Show heading at the bottom of the page. If you want to follow me on Twitter or Plurk you’ll get some on the scene updates and probably a picture or two (I’ll see what I can work out, cell phones don’t really go with the turn of the 20th Century costumes).

No matter what you do, have a great weekend!

Happy Labor Day! originally appeared on 4-AM on 31 August 2008.