New Photos from Wedding of the Year 2008

We were invited to be the live music for the big $50,000 Wedding of the Year sponsored by BrideAccess.com and Alysse's Bridal. You can check out the photos courtesy of Dan Hixon Photography in the slideshow at the top left of the blog page. We were featured again on Sunday, Dec 7 on the Bride Access TV show at 9:30 AM channel 4. There is another feature next Sunday on Bride Access with the Salamanders also. So please check it out! If you happen to miss the show, you can see the Salamanders segments at BrideAccess.com/vendors.

Sundance Wedding on a Beautiful Fall Evening

We were invited to play for a wedding that was held on the deck of the Rehearsal Hall at Sundance. We have played here many times before, but the evening was just perfect as the leaves were turning but the weather held out and it was comfortable to have the ceremony outside. Many stayed to dance to the end of the night! Thanks to the crew at Sundance for all their help!

John Popper from Blues Traveler at Port of Call!

Mike Rytting was filling in for his good friend Dave Wilbur at Port of Call on Thursday, June 22nd. The band is called, "This is Your Band" and plays every Thursday at Port of Call. It's a venue where everyone from the audience comes up on stage and sings with the live back up band.

Tonight, someone noticed John Popper, the harmonica player/vocalist for Blues Traveler was sitting at the bar. The management invited him up on stage and he agreed! We played a couple of generic tunes, including "Stormy Monday". But the highlight of the night came when he tore it up on "Run Around", Blues Traveler's biggest hit. What an amazing musician! Even though he was a little...happy, he just sang perfectly and TORE IT UP on harmonica! Here's a picutre of him on stage taken with my cell phone. Bad photo, but a great memory!

Michael Dowdle Christmas Concert!

Michael Dowdle has been the guitar player in our group for about 6 years. We're fortunate to perform with such an outstanding and gifted musician! We always introduce him as the one player in the band that "never makes any mistakes"!

We have started to schedule concerts featuring Michael's music. Michael has recorded and released three Christmas CDs over the years. This holiday season, we are already booking events for corporate Christmas parties. It's the perfect event when you want something classy and memorable for a holiday event. We have done some events where the employer has arranged to give their employees Michael Dowdle CDs as gifts to remember the evening by.

Give us a call today and we'll fill you in on details. Call 801-979-7377 and ask for Mike.

Salamanders to appear on BrideAccess!

Be sure to watch Oct 12th and Oct 19th when the Salamanders will be featured on the TV show, BrideAccess! The first show is a planning show that goes into details about what brides should look for when arranging for vendors for their wedding and features an interview with Mindy and the bride and groom. The second show is the day of the wedding, with a quick interview with Mindy and Mike and some footage of the band performing at the "Wedding of the Year", featuring the $50,000 wedding giveaway winners!

Broadcast times are 9:30 AM, Oct 12th and Oct 19th on channel 4 in the Utah area. These shows will be rebroadcast in December also. Be sure and tune in!

Perfect Wedding at Salt Lake Country Club!

Wow! This one was a stunner! The evening was perfect. A beautiful fall night and as the sun went down, the dancing started up. We had played a set of jazz and mellow music for the social hour, featuring Mindy on vocals. Then the party all jumped in for a night of dancing under beautiful lights on the patio.

Thanks so much for the invitation to join you on your perfect day!

Salamanders at the Salt Palace Convention Center

We welcomed some business visitors from Canada when we played for their reception at the SPCC. We were treated very kindly by the group, and got an invitation to fly up to Canada to play. Hope that comes through! We've already been to Canada once this year. We were in Toronto in May!

Thanks to Mary with Beautifully Done Events for the invitation to perform! You can visit Mary at www.beautifullydoneevents.com.

Wedding of the Year!

We were honored to be invited by the winners of the $50,000 wedding giveaway sponsored by BrideAccess.com and Alysse's Bridal to be the music entertainment for the evening. The bride was beautiful, the groom couldn't have been more fun, and everything was perfect for this event. Be sure and watch the planning show on Oct 12th and the wedding show on Oct 19th, Sundays at 9:30 AM channel 4 and the TV show "BrideAccess". A special thanks from the Salamanders to Ryan Winterton and Heather Beers from BrideAccess and also to Jennifer and David Young from Alysse's Bridal for their sponsoring the event! What a blast to work with such great people! Thanks to Dan Hixon for the beautiful photographs which will be posted here soon. Visit him at www.danhixsonphotography.com.

The Big 50!

We had a wonderful time playing for a husband and wife in Sandy, UT who were looking at the big 50 birthday this year. So to celebrate they invited all of their friends and the Salamanders to help them party! We played on a tennis court in the back yard, food was great, and everyone had a wonderful time!

Salamanders at the USANA World Convention in SLC!

We were fortunate enough to be invited to perform at a couple of functions with USANA at their convention held in SLC, Aug 27-29. Many members of the band joined in the opening ceremonies that featured music performances by some of USANAs big wigs. We really had a great time. We were joined on stage by Collin Raye, country superstar! We performed 4 of Collin's songs.

We then finished the night by having pre-invited conventioneers come up on stage to perform the song of their choice...kind of a "USANA Idol". What a great time and a fantastic crowd!

Later in the week, we performed as part of the main convention meeting with nearly 10,000 in attendance in the Delta Center. Thanks for having us USANA!

Wonderful Wedding at Silver Lake Lodge, Deer Valley

We always love going up to Deer Valley to have a world class environment to play at, and Silver Lake Lodge is one of our favorites. The bride and groom were lovely and the bridal party stayed all night, dancing the night away. We were also contracted to provide an hour's worth of jazz, which is a treat for the players in the band. We get out a different set of music than we normally play and we really enjoy the change. It's a nice blend of traditional jazz, smooth jazz, some pop standards that work well as instrumentals. The players get a chance to stretch out a bit. Beautiful wedding! Thanks for having us!

Salamanders at Mellaleuca Convention!

We had the opportunity to play for the thousands that come to SLC every year for the Mellaleuca Convention held at the Salt Palace Convention Center. It's always a great time, and we have played for this event several years now. I was told that there are 8,000 people in attendance! Pretty incredible. We were lucky enough to have Tommy Hopkins and Todd Mitchell perform with us. What a great time with great players and killer music!

Erin's Slumber Party a Huge Success!

We had a blast at B98.7's "Erin's Slumber Party" this year. One of the highlights was to get to meet and work with Michael Damian, who had the hit single "Rock On" in the 90's. You know..."Hey kids, Rock and Roll, Rock On". He is also a soap opera star...you know which one...uh... Anyway, he was a sweetheart to work with and the crowd of women loved his performances. Thanks to all at B98.7 for the invitation, especially Todd and Erin, Rusty Keys, Shawn Stevens and Ceci Williams. It's always a pleasure to work with you guys!

Salamanders to Appear at "Erin's Slumber Party" for B98.7

We've been invited back to perform for all of the ladies in town who have tickets to "Erin's Slumber Party". It's this Friday, Aug. 15th, so if you haven't gotten your tickets, listen in to B98.7 and hopefully we'll see you this weekend!

Water, Fire and Ice at Kearns, Sat, Aug 9th!

We had a blast playing for the 10 year anniversary of the building of the Olympic Oval and adjacent water park. We played from 7 to 9:30 PM and the night ended with an incredible display of fireworks. There were thousands on hand, and everyone had a great time. Check it out!

Play this video...!

Mindy was feelin' it!

The fireworks at the end of the night were fantastic!

Meet the Band

Create Your Own

Salamanders Online!

We're testing the feasability of having a blog page on line. We're hoping that people who we've worked for will keep in touch. We're hoping that people interested in hiring us will use this to determine whether we're a good fit for the music needs of their event. But mostly, the people in the band are doing some pretty interesting things musically and this would be a great place to keep track of it.