About the Band

The Swinging Orangutangs have a swinging-door policy about their musical line-up. Over the years, we've had more than 20 monkey members, both full and parttime helping us to make music. Sometimes when we look at old gig photos, we have to squint our eyes and rack our brains to recall the names of people on stage with us.

Our instrumental line-up has almost always been lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, drums, with three or more singers and one hot chick playing percussion, pennywhistle, and flute. Our current line up is me, Bill Thompson, III, on lead guitar and vocals; Julie Zickefoose on lead vocals, flute, pennywhistle, percussion; Steve McCarthy on drums and backing vocals; Vincenzo Seraphino Mele on keyboards and guitar and backing vocals; and Marty Margolis on bass.

The music we play is an eclectic Mulligan's stew: some rock, some pop, some blues, some country, some tofu-folk, some jam-band stuff, and a heaping handful of original compositions. However, we have the nerve to swerve from the middle of the road, so if you hear us perform, you'll know some of our songs, but they won't be predictable or the expected bar-band fare.

We play out as often as the mood strikes us. But we're at a point in our lives where we can pick and choose our gigs. We ALL have day jobs, such as they are, so we aren't so desperate that we'll play in a smoky rathole bar for free beer (unless it's really good beer) and we refuse to play for audiences that want to hear any of the following songs: Achey-Breaky Heart, Boot-scootin' Boogie, Magaritaville, or Olde Tyme Rock & Roll. Sorry, but them's the rules. I realized long ago that, in order to be a fulltime professional musician, I'd need to play lots of music that completely sucked my will to live. So I chose (and choose) to be a part-time musician so I can play exactly what makes me feel good!