Top 10 records every wedding DJ needs… NUMBER 1!!!

• Category: Ceilidhs, DJ top 10, Fun Stuff, Glasgow, Music, performing, reviews, Songwriting, weddings
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The scenario is this. It's your wedding day.  You have 45 minutes left before the taxis arrive to whisk your guests away, and you want to finish in style. You have the dancefloor, the DJ, the lights and a one point twenty one Jigger-watt sound system, cranked to 11, hungry and waiting to be fed.

 You need 10 records, all killer, no filler. There are thousands of worthy contenders out there, but you want the best of the best. Guaranteed floor-fillers: feel-great anthems, and who cares if there's the odd overtone of ripe camembert.  Just get these weird and wonderful people onto the floor, cares cast aside and throwing moves like nobody's watching.

So here is the run-down: arguably the best ten records for wedding DJs.

No 10:Summer of '69: Bryan Adams
No 9: Billie Jean: Michael Jackson
No 8: Dance The Night Away: The Mavericks
No 7: Hey Ya: Outkast
No 6: Don't Stop Me Now: Queen
No 5: Nine To Five: Dolly Parton
No 4: I don't feel like dancing: Scissor Sisters
No 3: Young Hearts Run Free: Candi Statton
No 2: Brown Eyed Girl: Van Morrison

…

But what comes next? What makes a song the greatest disco record of all time?

Humbly I suggest the following step-by-step guide…

HOW TO MAKE THE GREATEST DISCO RECORD OF ALL TIME: THE JIGBLOG GUIDE

Step 1: Hire the tightest disco rhythm section on the planet.
Step 2: Start it quickly. Just a snare drum leading into a killer horn hook intro.
Step 3: Load the subject material with light-hearted innuendo
Step 4: Write catchy, repetitive lyrical hooks over a 4-to-the-floor bassline
Step 5: Get your performers to wear outlandish costumes
Step 6: Invent a dance to go along with it.

The result? you've guessed it…

the greatest disco record ever produced.

Are we all agreed?

Wedding Season and the Scottish Weather

• Category: Ceilidhs, Events, Glasgow, Music, performing, Scotland, Travel, Weather, weddings
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The Jiggers, (Bigdaymusic's main Scottish Ceilidh Band) is really busy at the moment, playing upwards of twenty ceilidhs a month around Scotland. Most of those ceilidhs are Scottish weddings. I guess summer is popular for weddings because of the fact that you have more daylight, nice weather for the wedding photographer, the possibility of maybe an outdoor drinks reception… But sometimes the Scottish weather has other plans…

Big Day Music, the live music agency, has musicians playing at a wedding in Arran today. Reports suggest that Ayrshire is getting thunderstorms right now.Eek! (While I write this, the rain here in Glasgow has just started. Big-time.) There's a saying that if you can see Arran from Ayr, then it's about to rain. And if you can't see Arran from Ayr, then it IS raining.

Meanwhile, I'll be playing at a Gleneagles Hotel event this evening, possibly in an outdoor marquee. If you don't hear from me soon, presume I was struck by lightning.

"If it wisnae for yer wellies, where would ye be?"

HT for the photo Elizabeth Anne Designs

Toto’s “Africa”, performed by a choir

• Category: Events, Food and Drink, Fun Stuff, Glasgow, Music, performing, Religion, reviews, Scotland
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Last night I attended a free concert at Wellington Church on University Avenue (as part of the West End Festival) to hear various works including Vivaldi's Gloria (not Gloria's "Vivaldi".) We heard an organ piece which attempted to emulate a thunderstorm as it interrupts a typical church service. It was a brave attempt (the thunder was more convincing than the lightning, it has to be said).

Coincidentally in my email this morning is a link from the Innocent Smoothies newsletter of Perpetuum Jazzile Choir.

It's hard to get traditional choirs to do this kind of thing well, because the disciplines are so different for pop music than they are for classical, particularly with respect to groove/feel.

But I think these guys do it very well indeed.

Looking forward to the JS Bach Mass in B Minor tomorrow performed by the Dunedin Consort in the same venue.  Tickets are still available for this work, sometimes described as the humanity's most eloquent argument for the existence of God…

Tickets are £10 on the door (contrary to what the festival website says), or £5 for students. 7.30 start.