Phred Mileski versatile vocalist
The Too-Timers
Two much fun for human consumption!
Singing, playing, funning and punning on American standards, jazz, folk, country, calypso and any other genre they can torture.
Phred has the voice (but not the personality) of an angel. Kipp is the little devil extraordinaire. You will see and hear many instruments, including guitar, banjo, ukulele, melodica, harmonica, drums, shakers, bells (and whistles!) and whatever else they can get hold of that makes noise.
A pandemic success story
Phred and Kipp met in December of 2019, when they were both playing gigs on the same day in different rooms at the (now defunct) Bee & Thistle Inn in Old Lyme, CT. A retired mail carrier, Kipp had spent all of 2019 playing gigs at practically every retirement village and nursing home in eastern CT. When the COVID lockdown began in March of 2020, Kipp was asked by a clever entertainment director at one of these places to play outdoors, serenading the residents while they watched from their windows. Kipp had an outsize stage presence, some battery-powered amplifiers, and a sense of adventure, so he was perfectly suited to this.
He contacted Phred out of the blue to ask if she would join him on this gig (without the entertainment director’s permission…heh heh), so she brought her ukulele and microphone and plugged them into his amps, which were set up in a little wagon. The entertainment director gamely hauled this wagon all around the outside of the building, stopping periodically so that Kipp and Phred could play a few tunes in various areas for as many of the residents as possible.
Kipp and Phred had never even practiced beforehand, since no one knew whether it was safe to go into other people’s houses, what with COVID and all. Kipp told Phred to just show up at the gig. When she arrived, he presented her with a melodica (a little handheld keyboard you blow into that sounds kind of like a harmonica) to play that day (and forevermore). From the first note of the first song, it was as if they'd been performing together for ages!
(Note from Phred: I’m not entirely unconvinced that we were a vaudeville duo in a previous life.)
That was March 30, 2020. It took them more than three hours to circumnavigate the premises that day. By the time they were done, they both knew they had something worth offering to other such places.
Kipp got on the phone to pitch the idea to all the other entertainment directors he knew—and the gigs started POURING in.
At some point, this intrepid duo decided to bill themselves as The Too-Timers, since they both agreed that, what with all the music and bad jokes, they were too much...harhar. (Also, “Two-Timers” was already taken by some acoustic duo in Massachusetts).
…and they’re STILL at it
Today, The Too-Timers continue to bring music and mayhem to the nursing/retirement home communities (but indoors now, safe from meteorological interference). They even occasionally perform in various public venues around southeastern CT, usually as two-thirds of The Three-Timers.
Click here to find out when the Too (and Three)-Timers are playing next!
March 30, 2020: Our début!
