It's my Birthday Too, Yeah

I spent my birthday weekend experiencing a phenomenon that I'd only heard about until now: The Butties reunion weekend in Vermont. The Butties are a Beatles tribute band and they're now in their 25th year. In fact, I first saw them play in the mid-80s in Syracuse, NY. Each July, they descend on the Londonderry/Manchester area of Vermont and the locals don't know what hit them.

I've always maintained that the Beatles were kind of a special case, but they are certainly an on ramp for a lot of anglophiles. And these guys are hardcore. During the show, they'll ask really tough trivia questions ... you even need a British-American dictionary to decipher their name. In the UK (especially the UK during the era when the Beatles were growing up), butty = sandwich, presumable with some butter in involved. The young Beatles were keen jam butty eaters.

So it's clear that there's a deep Beatlemanic/anglophile connection.

The Butties met in college. They are:
* Mark Humble, an insanely talented singer/songwriter. Mark is currently writing and composing children's CDs/book sets.

* Sam Lloyd, a very popular actor, probably best-known as Ted Buckland, the lawyer on Scrubs.

* Paul F. Perry, an Emmy-nominated composer. (Paul has also appeared on TV, with Sam, as a member of The Blanks.)

* Robbo Morey, a philosophy professor and musical director.

You've probably heard them before ... their Christmas album is everywhere during the winter season. You can listen to their imaginative takes on popular carols at the iTunes store.