Uptown String Band Kicks off in STYLE

Mummers kick off new year in style

By: BARBARA J. ISENBERG COURIER TIMES
Date: January 2, 2006

"Bum's the Word" was this year's theme for the Hulmeville-based Uptown String Band. PHILADELPHIA-They strutted. They marched. They played. And they did it for almost 10 hours Sunday. Bucks County's own Uptown String Band, the only local Mummers group to perform in Philadelphia's annual New Year's Day parade, danced with the best of them to place ninth out of 17 entrants in the String Band Division. They placed ninth last year also.

"Bum's the Word" was the Hulmeville group's theme this year as performers, dressed as bums and hobos, played trumpets, banjos and accordions for three miles up Broad Street from Oregon Avenue to City Hall. The group of about 60 performers and 50 marshals performed their routine a total of nine times, not including the numerous times the band stopped to play a song.

Uptown Mummers dressed in elaborate, colorful "rags" decorated with glitter and gold trimmings were flanked by grocery carts filled with trashcan lids, empty liquor bottles and paper. Several huge props, including a Dumpster and a cityscape, provided the backdrop to their four and a half minute routine. Along Broad Street, Captain Jamie Caldwell of Penndel stopped to pose for pictures with spectators and wish young children a Happy New Year.

"Usually South Philly's filled," Caldwell remarked about a third of the way through the parade. "I don't think there are as many people especially since it's so warm." Despite fewer people in South Philly, Uptown was met with roaring approval at each performance along Broad Street. "We get better each time we do it," Paul Travisano, a dancer from Doylestown, said en route to the main judging area. "We should peak at City Hall." Ryan Radcliffe, one of the group's choreographers, said Uptown spent between $55,000 and $65,000 this year on costumes and props.
"We chose this theme because we thought it might help us save money, but we've ended up spending just as much as usual," Radcliffe said while eating a sandwich midway through the parade.

Lorraine Speziale of South Philly choreographed the specialty dancers' parts and said she considers the group her family. "They really are a special group of guys," she said. "Look at me, I get all teary about it." Closer to City Hall, the crowd grew larger- and more rowdy - as the Uptown Mummers hurried through some last-minute touch-ups before the big finale at City Hall. Mummers refreshed their makeup and rearranged their costumes, checked the props and tried to calm down before giving it their all for the judges.
"I'm a wreck," Speziale said before the group's last performance. "I just want them to do good. That's all I want."

The Uptown Mummers pulled out all the stops for the judges at 15th and Market streets. They sang louder, jumped higher and smiled broader than they had all along Broad Street. Dancers clanged trash can lids, threw bags of trash and twirled ratty umbrellas in style. "I think we did great," Travisano said after the group's performance as Uptown members breathed a sigh of relief. But the show wasn't over for Uptown. The Two Street parade and a party in Hulmeville awaited them.