NAME: ATI FOR TOVA GILEAD; WIDTH: 21P9; DEPTH: 28P6; COLOR: BLACK PLUS ONE; AD
NUMBER: 00083491
BAND Continued from Page 19
From left: Ken Silver, Jason Long, Joe McAnally and President
Clinton Courtesy of Ken Silver
NAME: CONG. TIFERET BET ISRAEL; WIDTH: 21P9; DEPTH: 28P6; COLOR: BLACK PLUS ONE;
AD NUMBER: 00086938
Love We love it.

Beautiful weddings and receptions at
Tiferet Bet Israel
Chapel, Sanctuary, Rabbi’s Study
Multiple Event Rooms
Complete Catering Facilities
1920 Skippack Pike
Blue Bell, PA 19422
610-275-8797 www.tbibluebell.org
20 OCTOBER 24, 2019
be on the mark. This was salesmanship, affecting the demeanor
the clients found most attractive. Is there an appreciable difference
in the quality of a wedding band with five horns instead of four,
with three female vocalists instead of two, with or without a break-
dancer? Not really, but if you can quell anxiety about the quality of
the product by adding empty calories, why not?
It’s easy to see this as unscrupulous or morally compromising. What
the righteous don’t understand is that there’s a difference between
being unscrupulous and what the kids today call “getting yours” in
a business where loyalty is fickle, success fleeting and musicianship
often beside the point. Because, even in the most civilized of times,
the talent is often seen as well-dressed, well-paid help.

But it wasn’t cynicism as much as fatigue that prompted my
father’s career pivot back to public education.

In the spring of 1996, the company my dad founded, The
Entertainment Group, folded.

DJs were hot and more economical and didn’t complain (or
complained less) if the clients refused to feed them. Ask a musician
of a certain age if he thinks a DJ is an artist, and then set aside a
good half-hour and make sure you’ve got access to a comfortable
chair and nowhere else to be.

The rise of affordable automated music notwithstanding, the
musical trends had passed my father by. He didn’t have the will
or want to keep up. He had two young sons and was more inter-
ested in coaching Little League and being down the shore during
wedding season, playing tennis and riding his bike.

He thought about whether he could go the rest of his life
without again perceiving the myriad nauseous qualities of hotel
kitchens after midnight, or the dangers that lurk in loading docks
at 2:30 a.m. — dangers like prehistorically sized city rats who
appear as though they’ve evolved to fight back against cats.

He decided he could go without and, to this day, he sees
weddings as right up there with laws and sausages on that list of
things you don’t want to see being made.

The memories of his career as a very minor, hyperlocal celeb-
rity are vivid, though after two decades as a school principal, they
seem remote, another lifetime ago.

As for me, my mother thinks I still want to be a bandleader
— this is her rationale for why I didn’t want to be a lawyer after
getting a law degree.

If I could be paid in pickles from Jack’s Delicatessen, I’d get the
band back together. ❤
msilver@jewishexponent.com; 215-832-0737
SIMCHAS JEWISHEXPONENT.COM