Venue Review: House For An Art Lover, Glasgow

• Category: business, Ceilidhs, Events, Food and Drink, Glasgow, Music, performing, Scotland, venues, weddings
• 3 Comments

A popular wedding venue where the Jiggers are regularly invited to play is Glasgow's House For An Art Lover in Bellahouston park. (It's just round the corner from where the Jiggers are based, which is nice!). This is the venue of choice for lovers of Charles Rennie Mackintosh art and architecture.

The venue has an upstairs section for the reception ceremony and meal, with the downstairs "Art Lover's Cafe" which is a kind of mini-gallery that transforms into the gathering place for the evening ceilidh.

We often provide clients with music for the full day there, and were performing there again at the weekend. A popular choice is our bigdaymusic Wedding Silver Music Package, which includes a piper for welcoming guests (handy, if you're lost in the park and can't find the venue) and our jazz pianist usually tickles the ivories on the venue's baby grand piano during the meal. We also supply our string quartet for e.g. the drinks reception or the ceremony which can be held in the venue too.

Clients often ask what size of band is suitable for the House for an Art Lover…We usually suggest 3 piece or 4 at a push. 5 would be tight, especially if it was a full function band with backline. You can see the relatively small stage setup of the 3 piece Jiggers band, including DJ & lights, in the picture below. Including lights with the entertainment is a must for the art lovers cafe, whose white walls really benefit from some nice party lighting, i think.

If you've had an event at the House for an Art Lover, please do post a comment to tell us about your experience there.

Me, Katie & Dougie, the 3 piece Jiggers ceilidh band outside the House For An Art Lover.

Update: Jiggers Ceilidh Band on Scotland’s BBC Live hogmanay show?

• Category: business, Ceilidhs, Events, Fun Stuff, Glasgow, Inspirational Scots, Music, performing, Scotland, Television
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I have a theory that if everybody spoke like Robbie Shepherd, there wouldn't be any wars.

Sadly, this year the Jiggers ceilidh band will NOT be performing on Radio Scotland's live Hogmanay show. A bit gutted. That would have been fun. It was an honour to be asked, though! We've got some of our musicians playing at Hampden, others at the Hilton, AND (to further disappoint those of you who like fortuitous alliteration) at the Mormon Church. (maybe they could call it a Hootenanny?) It's going to be a pretty tight stretch as it is…

Good news, however, is that I discovered the DV tapes from the original BIG JIG were NOT corrupted after all, it was just the video camera I was playing them in! D'oh! Well, that means that I'll have TWO events to get a new Jiggers video from (the other being the Wee Jig on Saturday night there). So all in all, things are going OK.

How does a musician arrange car insurance?

• Category: business, Ceilidhs, Fun Stuff, Music, performing, reviews, Scotland, Travel, weddings
• 5 Comments

This promises to be the most exciting blog post about insurance that I'm ever likely to write. However, that is like saying that "4 Weddings And A Funeral" is the best film ever made by Richard Curtis which features a funeral and four weddings.

I hope to spice it up a little by including exciting pictures not really related to the blog, the ceilidh band or indeed anything to do with insurance.

Ready? Here goes.

Car insurance costs me a flippin fortune, despite the fact that I have never had an accident, and a number of years of no-claims bonus built up. I'm 30, so I'm probably outside the "psychotically dangerous" age range for guys. "Nul points" on the license (of course! what are you suggesting?!)

Computer says NO, NO, NO.

The problem (apart from my unsettling knack for honesty) is my choice of career. Tell insurance people that you manage and play in a Scottish wedding band, and it seems to blow their circuits.

"Hmm. No… the computer doesn't have that one. What about 'nurse'. Would you say you're a nurse?"

They don't like entertainers, and certainly not music agents, those insurance companies. There's an impending sense of doom attached to finding out that the insurance people, the most hated of all people, are making judgements about my trustworthiness.

They think I might get famous and do an Amy Winehouse on them. I wonder what *her* insurance costs…

ALL OVER THE INTERNET

Our quest to find a company willing to take our cold hard cash from us took us into some slightly worrying areas. My wife had a most surreal experience talking to someone at "Sheila's Wheels", the insurance company whose name suggests that kind of whimsical impulsiveness everyone looks for in a company responsible for handling fatal accident enquiries.

The woman my wife spoke to, however, seemed to have job confusion all of her own, believing somehow that her role was really some kind of careers counsellor, or maybe a clinical psychiatrist.

"I know what the underwriters are afraid of…they're worried that you'll sign the next big thing and they really don't like celebrities."
"but it's really mostly a wedding ceilidh band called the Jiggers".
"Let me just google them… "
(sounds of big stupid elephant fists mashing up and down on a computer keyboard)
"Oh no no no…they're ALL OVER the internet"

AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHH. So nice to be "famous". I'm amazed that she found us, just by googling, oh, I don't know, "the Jiggers ceilidh band glasgow". What are the chances?

 OK, thanks, Sheila. I think I hear your home planet on the other line. Next?

MY DRINKING PROBLEM

I can understand it a bit…driving late at night from venues where (eek!) alcohol was dispensed. They don't really believe when I say I'm a tee-total musician. "Ha!" They say "How else does he cope with the crushing insecurity, eh?" (answer: I blog.)

Well, anyway, I managed to get a quote from a company called Bell insurance. They actually have "dance band musician" as a legitimate occupation. How validating! Plus, they're happy to insure me to use the car for full business purposes, not just to occasionally nip out to stock up on paperclips for the office cupboard.

The quote? Well it wasn't as much as £700 for fully comp, but it wasn't much less than that.

I may yet become a nurse.

About

• Category: Jig Blog
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Jigblog is the blog of Greg de Blieck.

I’m a musician and entrepreneur. I’ve been running music-related businesses since I started the Jiggers Ceilidh Band in my final year at school in 1997.

I have set up two companies that reflect my various musical interests. Big Day Music ltd is a music agency that hires out musicians and bands (like the Jiggers), and Beatcave is a music production service offering remixing and programming for commercial music.

I am also a professional songwriter and am the credited writer of such hits as __________ (information pending)

If you want to know why to read this blog, see my reasons for blogging.

If you like this blog, do drop me a note, add a comment, bookmark it (using one of the handy bookmark options at the side of the page), and feel free to link/trackback or whatever it is bloggers do!

Thanks for reading

Greg