Captain Swing and the Coney Island Corndogs

Last Sunday I had the pleasure of performing with probably the largest group I've ever been involved with (if you don't count jam sessions).

Bill Merwin (aka Captain Swing) assembled a band including the Captain on banjo, ukulele, lap steel, kazoo and vocals, me on washboard and ukulele, Pat Spaeth (my Snake Suspenderz partner Thaddeus's sister) on accordian and vocals, Larry Gibson (her sweetie) on ukulele and vocals, Steve and Kristi Nebel (of the Fabulous Filucies) on lead guitar and bass, respectively and Kathye Long on acoustic guitar.

We played at this year's iteration of Bonney Lake Days to a small but excitable crowd.

Considering we had just one practice together I thought we did well. Yeah, there were a couple train wrecks but there were also a few we flat cooked on as well as a number that we at least "pulled off successfully."

The set list included such greats as Coney Island Washboard Roundelay, Along Came Jones and a dozen other good time tunes.

Captain Swing has a kazoo rig that mounts on a mike stand and consists of the bell and about 2 or so feet of tubing off of a trombone. The actual kazoo gets stuffed into the end of the tubing and the sound is just awesome. If you have an old trashed trombone around talk to me before you throw it out!

It was a nicely renumerative gig but the thing that put it into the personal fantasy^TM category was playing with a band called Captain Swing and the Coney Island Corndogs.

Gotta love it.