Swing City Update

Photo of the week: (by Eric Seavey)

This Week at Swing City:

"Beantown" is back! Highly tallented Swing Era Big Band joins us again for a night of Swing classics. Featuring 20+ musicians, the band's repetoire includes a wide range of tunes from slow sweet vocals to some really jumpin' musical numbers.

Plus this week "It's All Swing" is in the house again teaching our comprehensive beginner and intermediate lessons. The new intermediate lessons program has proven to be a big hit! "Slick" Mike Smith heads up the intermediate triple step/lindy lesson with some of his instructor crew, and while others handle the intro' swing lesson.

Lesson Schedule:
1) Beginner: 7:30
2) Intermediate: 7:30
Lessons go until about 8:45. No partner necessary.

The great thing about the new intermediate lessons program is that the bulk of our regular dancers will be able to take a non-beginner class with our rotation of Boston's top dance instructors, while still being able to bring beginner friends for the intro lesson. The intro class will be single step East Coast, while the intermediate class will be taught in triple-step and sometimes will include some Lindy and more. The intermediate class will be different each week. Furthermore, if either lesson is too hard or simple for you, one can just switch to the other one as needed.

So please join us for lessons, a night of rich live music, dancing, affordable cocktails (yes, $4!), lots of cool fun people of all ages, and some great exercise. Bottom line, two parties for $15 ($10 with college ID), the cheapest cocktails in town, and a great vibe! Read, "Boston's official Cheap Date."

More Recent Swing City Photos in the Photo gallery

We hope you'll join us.

This week's Raffle Winnner:

FINALLY! This week we have the winners from the last three nights picked! Sorry about all the suspense...!

Winners are:

J. Robbins
Audrey Aduama
Julie Foley

You've each won a pair of tickets. To claim simply contact me at olaf@swingcityboston.com

 

More items:

• Please join our Facebook Group
• A look at some of the responses about Swing City
• Advice on getting to Swing City (it's EASY!)

Facebook: Are you familiar with Facebook? It's the modern phenomenon in internet social networking. Please join our group and literally keep up with the Joneses! You need to create a free account if you don't have one, and "become a friend" of Swing City. Go Here »

Comments on our recent requests for feedback:

We got a lot of great comments and suggestions from people in regard to improving Swing City. One thing was somewhat common: a lot of people simply haven't come out to Swing City recently, some folks even dating back to the move to Newton (!).

Thus, a brief Swing City FAQ or sorts:

- MYTH: Swing City is far away and hard to get to. It's not! On the map it looks far for the people coming from the 'burbs, but if you made it to Newton, the Somerville location takes literally only 5 minutes longer to reach from Newton Corner/Mass Pike than the MacKenzie Center. It's easy highway driving all the way, and just three blocks from the highway exit. Getting to Swing City probably even takes less time than going through traffic lights to the various past and present Watertown/Cambridge spots. Coming from Rt. 2 via Alewife is obviously local roads, but its not bad once you have it down.

- Call to action: Swing City Needs You! Many people haven't made it out to the new place yet. Now is the time! Given the economy and all the competition, it is YOU, the grass-roots past and present Swing City patrons, who are going to determine the future success. The old Huron Ave venue has been demolished, and the West Cambridge Youth Center is likely not going to host the old dances again at this point. Some people just don't know why they haven't made it yet. Come join the party! Swing City is a great community and a lot of people would really like to have you there! Also, Swing City is definitely a great, yet inexpensive night out.

- What's up with the smokiness? Mostly Resolved! we have pretty much succeeded upstairs in sealing out the smoke from the basement members' lounge, and made good progress in the Annex too. It is much better and will continue to seal off the few remaining "leaks".

We know the City Club is not the "perfect" venue, but what place is...? The bottom line in this day and age is that this place likes us, we like them, and to that end they are willing to let us fix it up incrementally as we need. But, we need everyone's support in terms of attending the dances to make that all work. So please don't stay away until you "hear that it's good", which I hear through the grapevine from many people.

If you have your own comments to share, we'd love to hear them. Please email us at olaf@swingcityboston.com

See you this Friday!
-Olaf
on behalf of all of our entertainers and staff

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Getting to Swing City: Quite a few people have griped about finding the City Club. I ask them how they got there, and they all say, "I used my GPS". AH! NO WONDER! Trust me, it's REALLY EASY if you just follow our directions. We're just off the higway. GPS will take you on the scenic "shortcut" through Cambridge and Somerville if you're coming from the Pike for example, because it thinks its shorter distance. It is, as the crow flies (by a 2-3 miles), but you have to go though Cambridge traffic light hell. Take my word--take the highway route!

Thus, for those people coming from south and western 'burbs, just take Mass Pike to I-93 North, take exit 28, make a left, left again at the second light, and park in the huge lot. From the Newton Corner exit it's maybe 10-15 minutes max.

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