Category: speaker

Kimberly Butler Spotlight

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I would spend years going to places all over the FSU (the former Soviet Union). Then there was Chechnaya. It started like every other airlift at the airport. People crying, saying goodbye, and excitement for the freedom from persecution that was to come. Our Israeli contact told us he was taking these people to Jerusalem, and would be back in 2 days. In the meantime, my assistant and I would stay with these 2 local bodyguards, and one Israeli who was stationed there.

“We want to take you to a privately owned Restaurant! They have great oxtail soup!” One of them said. Bells and whistles started to go off in my head. I wasn’t touching the soup. The guy next to me asks why. “I’m a vegetarian.” He sticks his hand, with his long dirty fingernails into the bowl, takes it out, and says, “Now, it’s vegetarian!”

Ok, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought. My assistant and I both sensed the danger. I am going to skip a lot of frightening details, and just say we managed to get back to the hotel. We holed up through the night and escaped at 5am. A taxi got us to the airport. “Ok, who’s going to Moscow?” I yelled out in this tiny waiting area. A Pilot came over, I “gifted him appropriately, and off we went.”  Wheels up, and I could breathe. There’s a lot more to this story, including an Israeli Commander who kept denying he was a spy. This was followed by a romantic interlude that would stretch from the ice of Russia to the romantic desert winds of the Middle East. But you’ll have to wait for the memoirs.

Sandy Gennaro – Grateful Drumma

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Sandy Gennaro

…Shortly after touring with Cyndi, I was asked to do a record in Frankfurt Craaft, a German band. Subsequently after that record came out, they wanted me to do the tour. And in a similar situation, it was in an opening act. You know Cyndi Lauper explodes,  we were were playing arenas several nights a week, the biggest thing on MTV, blah blah blah, and I’m asked to go to Germany. I got paid very little to do it, but as a favor to a friend of a friend, and I went ahead and did it. Because my theory is, it’s like, if somebody wants me to play, I’m flattered. If somebody wants my drumming on their record, or on their gig, or on their live date or whatever, I’m flattered. Man, they like me. All right, so anyway.
The highlight of my Craaft association was the tour, opening for Queen. So from Craaft, I did The Monkees tour. I was actually doing it, again, as a favor to a friend. I filled in for a drummer that bailed out on him, and about a year later he gets the Musical Director gig with The Monkees. Based on, “Hey, Sandy, you bailed me out that night. I want you to do The Monkees tour, they’re reuniting.” So I did not only that Monkees tour, but almost every reunion tour subsequently.