"SHAKESPEARE IN THE ALLEY"

is the Good Twin of Dennis D'Asaro. His 1961 high school group wore pinstriped button-down shirts and polished cotton pants and played FOLK MUSIC. He studiously ignored both Dion DiMucci and post-stratocaster Dylan and has been trying to catch up ever since.

Stephen Minnich is a paragon. He has been in 100 bands. He can make his stratocaster sound like any record made since 1940. He can play all those leads, too, but usually eschews them and, once a song has begun, simply begins composing. Sometimes he goes away to Guitar Planet and a messenger has to be sent to fetch him back.

Andy Gordon is an actual feet-on-the-street social worker. He has been married thirty years. He's known all his friends since high school, and his "other band" has been together since 1979. To counter all this responsibility, he plays the banjo.

Philip Minnich is the Evil Twin of Stephen, and occasionally deigns to join the band on bass, harmonies, and the odd Ray Price shuffle tune. He remembers fondly the thirteen minutes of peace and quiet separating his brother's birth from his; thus, while he has also been in 100 bands, they were not the same 100 as Steve.

SHAKESPEARE leans toward "retro folk rock" or something. Their second major is Irish music. They do some blues songs just to let Steve play the guitar --- and about anything else people ask them to. Dennis is an appropriately introspective singer-songwriter, but he did 20 years of the human juke box gig, too. Andy plays banjo in a square dance band but he also spent 11 years as the bass player in a lounge act. And Steve --- Steve just plays.  So requests for "Early Morning Rain" or the Hendrix version of "The Star-Spangled Banner" are no problem, and keep the show lively.

Dennis writes in folk, Irish, rock, and country idiom. Steve and Dennis have invented Catfish Brown, a 75-year-old bluesman undergoing the tribulations of hard sharecropping, devious love, shamefully distinguished service in the Pacific War, and discovery late in life by hip collegians.

There isn't an "act" here.  The group are just genially present and prepared to interact with each other and the audience.

Look for some varied stuff...and fun!