Broughton-based bassist Iain MacPhail and the band are in the Big Apple, the city that never sleeps or knowingly sells alcohol to under-21-year olds.
You join us, mid-cosmopolitan, in Times Square, New York. By 'us', I mean Whisky Kiss, the Broughton-based souped-up ceilidh band (with dancers and breakdancers – oh, and a DJ). And by 'us' I also mean former First Minister of Scotland Jack McConnell who has invited the band to a cocktail reception tonight on 42nd Street and Broadway, the very epicentre of this skyscraper heaven. What a night, of tartan, bagpipes, and cocktails.
It must be Tartan Week, it must be Dressed to Kilt. It must be our 20-year-old piper from Newtonmore who the rest of us are keen to pass off as 21 (just so he can get his round in, what with the States having an alcohol age limit of 21). Otherwise, if Ewan (piper) couldn’t pull his weight on the bar bill, we calculated it would be around 20 per cent more expensive for the rest of us per round!!! I don’t need to tell Spurtle readers that that would spell D-I-S-A-S-T-E-R. There are some FTSE-250 companies (like Edinburgh’s darling, Forth Ports PLC) who have balance sheets that couldn’t cope with that kind of additional pressure.
So, it’s Day One and already we have learned in Gotham that Morality has its limits, and these limits are financial (typically sitting somewhere around the $16-a-cosmo mark).
Spurtle regulars will know what to expect over the next couple of days ... mentions of a ceilidh band, on an unlikely international escapade, in a beyond-expectations venue, interspersed with ludicrous celebrity name-dropping, and occasional grainy photos to back up our outlandish claims that once again we’ve been out drinking with the stars (and former first ministers).
This year we have crossed the ocean with a red-hot new show that has sold out at Edinburgh’s Voodoo Rooms for the past few months. It’s going great guns, and the dynamic in the team is unstoppable. We’ve travelled to the USA with the following line-up:
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2 x World Champion Highland Dancers (our Highland Hotties, Rachel and Lianne)
- 1 x superfly piper / whistles / flute player (Ewan '21' Duncan, Newtonmore)
- 1 x the hottest fiddler ever to come out of Perthshire (Siobhan Anderson, Killin)
- 1 x Broughton-based bass, accordion and DJ (Iain MacPhail)
- 4 x World Champion Breakdancers (4 guys from Brooklyn).
In the show, we have the girls perform a little, and then the boys bust some moves, before it all culminates in a red hot dance-off between the Highland girls and the Brooklyn B-boys.
We line the boys up, and we line the girls up, then one at a time they show the room their best moves. Breakdancers would call this a 'Battle'. Our piper (from Newtonmore) has a different working definition of what constitutes a nightclub-based Battle, but so far we’ve been able to keep him under control, thankfully!
The Big Event (the 10th Anniversary Dressed to Kilt) takes place in the Liberty Theater, on 42nd Street and Broadway, on Monday 2 April. Whisky Kiss will be joined by such luminaries as Kelly Brook, rugby icon Richie Gray, Scotland football captain Darren Fletcher, Keifer Sutherland and Miss Scotland. Broughton, you will be the first to see the grainy out-of-focus pictures, we promise!
When we get back Whisky Kiss are next at the Voodoo Rooms on 21 June - info on www.whiskykiss.com
