Zekundbest is the stage name of me, Martin Hallett!!!

A Brief History of me.....

I was first introduced to traditional folk dancing at the village primary school, where the headmaster (my father!!!) loved teaching country and maypole dancing for the Mayday festivals, and I was told to be a willing participant. Later in my schooling, in the sixth form, me and my mates from my all-boys school took a liking to going to barn dances in a search for the perfect companion for life. Didn't work for me, but my good friend Kevin found Elaine, and they have been together for over 40 years now! After a 10 year or so abstention from folk dancing, in 1987 I took up Morris Dancing, and soon decided to contribute to the required music by learning to play the melodeon, or button accordion. In 1990 a ceilidh band was formed with like-minded souls, and soon "Easy Weasel" was playing their lively dance music all over the northern Home Counties. After a few years I started calling the dances in addition to playing the music and a good reputation for providing a fun and enjoyable performance was gradually established. In 2004, a "mid-life crisis" meant a move to North Wales for complete career and life-style change, and playing for ceilidhs was put on hold for a few years, until I started calling for a newly established band based near Caernarfon, which I continue to do, in addition to calling for other bands, and have acquired a reputation as the second best Ceilidh caller in the North Wales area - hence my choice of stage name for this new project!

Zekundbest?

For some time I have wanted to develop a simpler, cheaper, way of sharing my love of ceilidh dancing with you. You can't beat a full-on ceilidh band for many events, but there are times when a smaller event is not viable because of the costs of hiring a full band. So, how can I help?

Well I'm certainly not unique, but there are not too many dance callers out there who can also play a lead instrument at the same time, and there's probably even fewer callers who have been championship winning town criers. I'm not a virtuoso meleoden player, doing lots of fancy, intricate stuff in obscure keys and time signatures - but I sure know how to bang out cracking dance tunes with a solid beat and strong melodies. So, I have the voice and I have the tunes. At it's most basic, I can offer myself and my squeezebox, without any amplification or PA. This will be fine for small groups of say 20-25 people, and has the advantage that the ceilidh can be held just about anywhere - in a garden, on the beach, up a hill (all daylight permitting!). There is a monthly tune and dance session in our village social club, and I call for that without any PA with no problems, with that number of people. Being fully independent and mobile I can get up close to the dancers and even stand in the middle of them to ensure the instructions are clear. For a fuller sound I can bring a professional PA system, and I mean a proper PA system, the same as I would use with the full band, not a small karaoke-style mini-system. With this, my voice and squeezebox would be amplified and I could add a backing percussion track using my drum machine, which I control with my feet. The PA adds a bit of "oomph", although it does limit my mobility and ability to get up close to the dancers. I would say it's suitable for events of up to 30-40 participants. The third option is to use the PA system to play pre-recorded music for the dancing. Some of the music will be my own recordings (using a 16-track digital audio workstation), and some from a carefully chosen selection of CD's/downloads from top bands from my collection amassed over the last 30-40 years! With this option you obviously get the full band sound, and the full attention of me as caller, but you lose a bit of the flexibility of live music. As I don't have to think about playing the music I could accommodate larger numbers of dancers, say 50-60, but anymore than that and I think a full band would be a better option for you.

For the options using a PA system, I can also play background music during intervals, and I am also happy to play a bit of party/disco music after the ceilidh dancing, either your own selection (I can plug your own iPad/laptop/smartphone into the PA if it has a standard mini-jack plug headphone socket) , or from my own collection (although that is, shall we say, for the more mature audience - if you want the likes of "Dancing Queen", "YMCA" and the "Birdie Dance", I'm your man!!!). I could even probably also sort out some karaoke for you if you want!

For something different, if you want to hire in a Maypole, I can teach Maypole Dancing as well!

I am always happy to discuss options to work the best way to give you the event that you want, to the best of my abilities. I can also add extra musicians to give a fuller sound if required, although this will of course be reflected in the price.