Hot Tamale Brass Band

Rhythm and Roots Festival Wrote;

Like jalapenos, cayennes, and habaneros, the “Hot Tamales” have been spicing up the Rhythm and Roots Festival for several years now by playing and marching through the crowd as soon as each Main Stage show ends. Before long, this infectious New Orleans style band has picked up a veritable parade of merrymakers who march along with them” complete with Mardi Gras masks, beads, festive hats, costumes and streamers that sparkle and wave in the wind. The “Hot Tamales” also lead our daily Kids Mardi Gras Parade, for which dozens of kids have hand-made their own masks and percussion instruments. It just wouldn’t be Rhythm and Roots without these wonderful musicians! As Emeril would say, they “kick it up a notch” !

*Boston First Night Wrote;

Dear Mickey,
Thank you so much for all your efforts and help with the First night 25th Birthday Celebration in Copley Square. Everyone had a fabulous time and our board of directors along with the visiting First Night cities called it a great success. Much of the praise belongs to you and the Hot Tamale Brass Band. You guys were the hit of the party-kept everybody dancing and the festivities hopping! Once again THANK YOU from all of us at First Night.

*BOSTON PHOENIX,

Brett Milano wrote on Billy Ruane's 35th Birthday Bash at three clubs simultaneously, T.T The Bears, The Middle East and Green Street Grill;

On Tuesday, you had to keep moving, through hallways that got crowded all the time, to catch the alternating 20-minute sets at T.T.'s and both levels of the Middle East(and sometimes the music moved with you, as the Hot Tamale Brass Band paraded through the clubs New Orleans style, adding a surreal element to the proceedings).

*BOSTON GLOBE,

David Wildman wrote;

One of the most important lessons that Mickey Bones of the Hot Tamale Brass Band has learned in his years of show business he learned the hard way; If your group is performing in a parade with the Ringling Brothers elephants, you should never let them put you between the elephants and the food.” Bones recounted;”The parade organizers said,'When we give you the signal, you start marching in front of the elephants and start playing.' But they were running them along at a pretty good clip, and in front of us was the cornbread and the water, that was what the elephants wanted. No one told us we were going to have to run for our lives. I turned around and saw this three-story-tall elephant coming at me” Show less