Burnt Hills Ballston Lake High School Karaoke Party
AFTER PROM PARTY
I had the pleasure of providing the music and entertainment for The Burnt Hills-Ballston Lake High School After Prom Party last Friday. Great time for all!
The midnight party was at the The Bayou Cafe, 507 Saratoga Rd Schenectady, NY. The festivities included a huge spread of fingerfoods, and our karaoke & music video jam!
The kids sang all kinds of oldies that actually surprised me. They also had a goofy limbo contest for a number of prizes and danced the night way!
The staff at the Bayou were great! They were totally cool with shutting down the whole place for the party and were super dealing with all the kids. They sang and danced some, too! I highly recommend them for private parties! 🙂
Hey, Lady ChowChow! DJ Kenny Casanova here, wedding DJ extraordinaire. I was surfing the web and saw that you were questioning if the Capital Region was “happening.” Being a mobile disc jockey in Troy, NY, I get to see some very interesting places and meet some very interesting people all around the area that you call Upstate. I would like to, therefore, chime in about your recent post about happening areas in the Capital District, and note that it is, and not just in the areas that one would think to visit.
While the Big Apple is the city that never sleeps and seemingly always has something going on somewhere, The Capital Region is also happening, and not just in the so-called “hot spots.” Areas in and around the state’s capital of Albany are making an impact and not just by the creation of great new businesses and eateries popping up within the cornerstone city of Albany, NY.
Saratoga Springs has a huge and continually growing list of must-see places. Schenectady is starting to really step up it’s game with all the recent face-lifts downtown. And it is also now “happening” in the ever-growing Troy, NY.
For a long time, Albany was really the only real town to go to for Capital Region “happening” happenings, but it seems, as of late, it’s neighbor, Troy, NY is also becoming “the place to be.” Here are a few reasons that The Capital Region is in fact happening, in Troy, proving that the area, as a whole is worth taking a look at:
The Charles F Lucas Confectionery & Wine Bar
1) CHARLES F LUCAS CONFECTIONERY – Lady, first off, you hit sugary nail right on the head with your recent review. You are correct that the Lucus Confectionery & Wine Bar is a delicious place to grab a glass of wine with friends. They have a great wine list, with a vast import selection that allows wine drinkers of all makes the means to find something that they will personally enjoy.
The cheese offerings at the Charles F Lucas Wine Bar are not cheesy, to say the least, and the sweets menu compliments the attitudes of the staff and owners: “comfortable and engaging.”This truly is one of the newest happening spots to break out in Troy, where people go who want to try something new.
2) BROWNS BREWING CO. – Another place the Troy traveler will want to try is Browns Brewing Co. If you are feeling more like beer instead of wine with weekly live entertainment, and interested in looking for a micro brewery with great food to boot, 417 River street is where it is at.
At Brown’s Brewing Company, they have an impressive selection of homemade brews including Oatmeal Stout, Pale Ale, Brown Ale, Porter, Whiskey Porter, Tomhannock Pilsner, and my wife DJ Maria’s personal favorite Cherry Raspberry Ale. Order one of these pints in a membership mug (well worth the money) along with a hot pretzel and you are good to go!
(Brown’s Brewing Company is also the host of Revolution Hall, a musical venue that also pinch hits as an in-house catered wedding hall. Here is a recent review I wrote up on it, looking at Browns as a Wedding Venue.)
3) DINOSAUR BARBQUE – What is happening? “The Tres Amigos” Bar-BQ sampler at Dinosaur Barbque in Troy, NY., that is what! Ironically overlooking a beautiful section of the Hudson River in what many refer to as “the best biker bar around,” this BBQ joint embraces individuality.The wait staff dress respectably, while at the same time showing off body art and piercings. However, they present each customer with excellent service and arguably the best barbque around.
Even though Dinosaurs Barbque has other locations regionally, they are not at all corporate high brow. Dinosaurs is all about the local scene. They book local entertainment, host live events and are really becoming part of the Troy, NY scene. Carrying their own competitor Brown’s beer on tap, the atmosphere is one you won’t want to write off in your Troy visit, and if you choose, you can even write on their bathroom wall, as that is encouraged, as well.
Mexican-Irish Food at Its Finest
4) JOSE MALONE MEXICAN IRISH RESTAURANT – Lady ChowChow, I don’t know what ethnic cuisine you prefer, but at this location, it doesn’t matter…If you want the best in Mexican-Irish cuisine? (Insert ethnic joke here ___________. I could hit all kinds of stereotypical jokes here, but it is way too easy.)
Chef Ryan Cusack is the cultural mash-up mastermind behind this Mexican Irish . His blend of of mouth-watering Mexican & Latino dishes with Irish favorites makes this a place you have to experience to understand. If you want originality, this is the place to be, Jose Malone’s serves Irish Bangers & Mash with a guacamole. This odd cultural mash-up is also quickly becoming known for their original margaritas and their once-a-week tapas menu.
Jose Malone is seemingly the perfect place to eat corned beef burritos, get drunk and have a siesta with all your friends. This, too, is a definite cultural melting pot in Uncle Sam’s hometown that you won’t want to miss.
What the hell? They even have a live Bluegrass music night?!
Where You Can Play skee ball in a Bank Vault
5) FOOTSY MAGOOS – One of the few places near Albany where one can find “pickleback shots” and a great peanut butter white Russian is also in Troy. Footsy’s, making it’s home in what used to be a savings bank, has a good selection of Scotch and Beers that you can easily bank on.
BEWARE: Do not be blind to Old Man Magoo’s little hole in the wall. This place is happening.
Whether you are hungry, thirsty, or just looking for a place that you can go to to have a good time with friends, this is a pace that is worth investing your night at. This oddly-decorated little place has a decent shepherd’s pie, pictures of professional wrestlers and playing cards shellacked to the walls in the men’s room, and a skee ball inside the steel vault from the old bank.
Villa Valenti Pub has great food & fun weekly entertainment
6) VILLA VALENTI PUB – Over on Pawling Ave is a pub with great food and a rich history; perhaps one of the oldest and well-known pubs in Troy, owned formerly by Academy Award winner Maureen Stapleton & her brother John. Winning wing awards yearly, Villa Valenti Pub has a huge pizza take-out business, great pub fare, a beverage list that can’t be beat.
The Pub also mixes their great food & spirits with weekly entertainment. There is an Open Mic night. There are live bands. They have a weekly game-show like trivia game steeped in prizes and they also feature the area’s hottest Karaoke Jam with old school music videos and every game playing on the 27 big screen TVs. This is the happening “place to be” for a great mix of food & fun.
So is the Capital Region happening?
Your thoughts?
Lady ChowChow, I challenge you to come back to Troy, NY sometime soon and give a few of these happening places a try. Then you will know, first hand, why Troy, NY is helping to better make The Capital Region a happening place!
PS – Don’t forget The Brown Bag!!! (Pineapple Salsa Burger!)
For more on Troy, NY and also party planning tips & wedding information in The Capital Region, check out DJ Kenny Casanova’s blog.
Because wedding season slows down a little over the holidays, I decided not to write about the nice little reception we did at The Stockade Inn that I did over the weekend, and focus on “Black Friday” for this post.
First off, unlike the wedding I was the DJ for at there in Schenectady, there was nothing “nice”, nor “little” about this year’s Black Friday.
For the past 8 years or so, a friend of mine has been meeting up with me at the crack of dawn to run around like fools the day after Thanksgiving, looking at the deals at all the major stores in the area. However, the deal with this year’s Black Friday, in my opinion, was there were no deals.
It looks like Black Friday may have a very grim future and the downward spiral has begun.
NO LONGER JUST FRIDAY – I think this greedy move by retailers to try and get all of your holiday money spent at just their locationis going to backfire in the end. Target said, “lets open at 9pm on THURSDAY,” so Walmart opened at 8pm, with two other “sale events” kicking in later at midnight, then early in the morning on Friday.
Creating a “Gray Thursday” is a bad idea, in my opinion. This also grays the line for when Black Friday actually starts and creates lees of a sense of urgency on the buyer’s behalf. Why wake up at midnight or 5am or whenever for Black Friday sales, if places have already been open since immediately after you ate your pumkin pie the night before.
DOORBUSTERS FAIL – Sure there were a couple of bucks to be saved, here and there, but there were no real great saving doorbusters, as there were in the past. Since downloading media is huge now and you can just rent movies for $1 at the Red Box, CDs and DVDs at $5 really didn’t seem to be as big of a deal as they once were to everyone.
FLAT SCREEN FAIL – And on bigger ticket items, every store was pushing flat screen LED/LCDs. However, this can’t work forever because face it: PEOPLE CAN ONLY HAVE OWN MANY TVs! Once you have one in all the major rooms, you are done with this need. While some people may have taken advantage of this for this year, I think it must have been less than last year, and will continue to be less of demand by the consumer.
I noticed that many stores were trying to crank out LCD tv’s with deeper discounts than previous years for their Black Friday deals, but seemingly to no avail. Go into some of the stores like Best Buy, Target and Walmart and look at the huge stacks of crappy no-bame brand flat screens that people didn’t bother with like Emerson, Symphonic, and Dynex.
The reason for the size of these unpurchased piles of TVs is probably two-fold: 1) Most people who wanted a huge flat TV already have a flat screen by now, and 2) why buy a crappy brand, when you can spend a little bit more and have something with better quality?
I asked a guy at Best Buy why there were so many flat screens in a pile marked at $159. He said he didn’t know. Then I asked, “Do you know why they are called ‘Dynex’? …Because they die the next day!”
Anyhow, to make a long story short… I didn’t get anything at at all on black Friday, except for a pretty sweet omlette at The Wolf Road Diner in Colonie.
I just hope that next year, Black Friday doesn’t start before I eat my turkey. If so, stores will probably be serving cranberry sauce in line to the idiots waiting in line on White Wednesday for $9 thumbdrive.
DJ Kenny Casanova is Mayor Lou Rosamilia approvedThe community around Stowe Ave in Troy, NY had another great annual summer block party this past Saturday, August, 11, 2012.
There was so much going on at this block party that there really was a little bit of something for everyone. Families, food and fun were the predominating forces for this bright sunny day of celebration.
Having had some ring announcer experience for professional wrestling, including two times at the Times Union Arena in Albany NY with The WWE, I had the pleasure of being named the special emcee for a new feauture this year; championship sumo matches. The inflatible sumo costume challenge was good fun with the participants making their ways to the circle of competition accompanied with theme music and a ridiculous professional ring announcer providing live commentary to boot.
Additionally, there was this year’s installment of the traditional “No Hands Needed Mega Meatball Eating Contest.” There was also a tag team water balloon tossing contest.
A free BBQ was provided to all including hotdogs, hamburgers, cotton candy, sno-cones, sausage & peppers, and watermellon. Mayor Lou Rosamilia even joined in the fun at the grill. He cooked and served the community members of Stowe Avenue all they could eat.
In the end, it was a great success. A great time was had by all.
How can you optimize your dance floor experience at your wedding reception?Being proactive against distractions is one of the most effective way to keep your dance floor full at your wedding reception, bottom line.
By the term “distraction” I am talking about allowing multiple entertainment options or activities all simultaneously. When this happens, you subsequently split your audience all over the place, and in turn give your guests excuses not to dance.
It really is very simple. If you want a full dance floor in the last two hours of your wedding reception, only offer dancing as an option and play music that the majority of the population will enjoy.
One mistake is booking two forms of entertainment and creating your own competition. If you are planning and ask, “Wouldn’t it be cool if we had a DJ in one room, and a band or acoustic act in the other?” You may be right. This sounds like a neat idea, but it is important to not run them at the same times.
“Should we photo booth all night, even while the band is playing so that people who don’t like the band, or those who don’t want to dance have something to do?” Yes you can do this, but I have been to weddings where some people will do the photo booth thing all night and never make it to the dance floor.
Offering multiple forms of entertainment options simultaneously splits the audience. This occurrence can make people interact less, and will definitely leave guests out of the dancing fun who need encouragement. And overall, It means less people dancing and less people seeing the acoustic band play a great number. The solution? Run them at separate times.
Remove Distraction!I was recently at a wedding in Troy, NY at The Italian Center that was great fun, but some of the guests kept wandering off into a separate bar to see the big game. More people would have danced if the brode and groom had just shut off the TV!
Distractions can also be inherent in the actual venue’s layout. If there is a great smoker’s lounge, or a separate bar with a New York Yankee’s ballgame playing right down the hall, you can bet that a few of your guests who don’t take to dancing naturally may set up camp belly-up-to-the-bar. This will decrease your dance floor attendance, in the end.
“But I really do want to have a photo booth, or a band AND ALSO have a DJ. What do I do?” Chop up the time and have a the first cocktail hour be for the live band, or only run the picture photo booth the first three hours and leave the end just for dancing. When go this route, more guest we default to dancing for entertainment with no alternative distractions. Then, and only then, will you have full optimization or your dance floor.
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