wedding bands (but wait--there's more!)

Total Entertainment

Total Entertainment represents a couple of "marquee" bands.
i had seen one of them, Soul Solution, play at the wedding of a family friend and they were amazingly excellent. i *hate* to dance, and could not help but stay on the dance floor the entire night. T's one reservation about Soul Solution was the "soul" factor; in meeting with bands so far, we'd found that the rock n'roll component of soul-centered bands was a little bit lacking. it's not that they sucked at singing the Boss or Bon Jovi, they just were a little out of their element.

Soul Solution, however, has an impressive pedigree, having been the band that Paul McCartney booked for his wedding to Heather McCartney née Mills.

then Total also represents Soul Street, another band with a celeb wedding to its credit-- that of Billy Joel to his child bride a summer or two ago.

according to the rep at Total, they also had a "new" band--nothing like the others, and people either love or hate. this band was called "White Light," again furthering Thurston's speculations on Aryan rock. (again, happily, he was wrong!) since we met with the agency, it seems that White Light is now known as Soul Connection, to fit with the soul theme, i guess.

we watched the DVD of Soul Solution (about $23K) and really liked them. then we saw Soul Street ($18.5K) and were pretty sure that this was it. we had a wedding band! they were young and had great energy and did a remarkably unembarassing version of "Milkshake," which i insisted that we have played at our wedding.* i was ready to sign on the dotted line, but T wanted to hear the last band.



sure enough, we all (mom, dad and Thurston) loved them the most. the thing was they actually rocked when singing rock. (what a novelty!) in booking rither Soul Solution or Soul Street, T had resigned himself to request that the band sort of avoid the rock genre altogether. a tragedy of sorts, since T is kind of rock-obsessed. (anyone who has seen his Billy Idol karaoke performances knows this all too well.)

so that was that. except that we still had a meeting left with

Greg Denard
the thing about Greg Denard, is that he used to be the lead singer for Soul Solution (and was in this gig when SS played at the aforementioned family friend wedding.) he was really quite the entertainer and had a great crowd rapport. however, at one point between 2004 (when said wedding occurred) and now, Mr. Denard and Soul Solution parted ways, with the former starting his own band-- the Greg Denard Orchestra. they looked great to me, so i was excited to meet them.

however, as the appointment approached, i was more and more convinced that White Light** was the band for us-- so i called to cancel the Greg Denard appointment. as it turns out, they were about to call me, since Mr. Denard did not really have my date available. alls well...

so we now had a band and a venue. what's next? oh, the fun of finding a wedding planner and a photographer. good times!

---

* and not just because Kelis admired my change purse/keychain at the bloomingdale's gift wrap counter, where we she was waiting with Nas. although, it sure didn't hurt.

** they may officially be called Soul Connection, but they remain White Light to me.