Decadance was formed in the Autumn of 2004 by Gary Carman & Genette Flatman, both based in North Essex.
The name of DECADANCE was chosen by Gary, it has the meaning of 'hits of the decades' (being the deca part) and 'dance' meaning what you and your guests will do when you hear us!
We worked hard to establish ourselves and as we were both experienced and talented at what we did it didn't take long to get going. We decided to be a pop and a rock duo as I, myself Genette was from a cabaret pop type background and Gary was from a rock orientated background (naturally being a guitarist!).
It was the perfect combination and we worked very well on stage together, Genette actually has to thank Gary for persuading her to sing rock music, at first she was a little apprehensive as most of the songs are sung by males and of course she doesn't exactly look like a rocker! Genette believes that every professional musician should be able to adapt their craft and perform in any genre of music, with this in mind she accepted the challenge and was very glad she did! With her depth of vocal and knowledge of vocal techniques the rock was a success, not only in performance terms but also for the audiences - there are alot of rock fans so we have found!
It did work both ways of course and Genette persuaded Gary to perform some Kylie Minogue and more recent chart hits. If the audience like it then we perform it. That is our jobs as professionals, naturally we have our own personal tastes but a true musician can perform music they dislike to a high standard and you would never know!
Gary was heavily influenced in his guitar playing by Brian May and Eddie Van Halen, Gary even performed as Brian May in a Queen Tribute Band at one stage of his career.
He had a real passion for the band Queen both on and off stage and his love of them meant Decadance performed many Queen numbers in their set. Every audience loves Queen and Genette felt very honoured to learn them and perform them with the closest guitarist to Brian May himself - Gary.
Genette took over the running of Decadance very recently after the tragic and awful shock of Gary passing away.
Genette contacted various musicians and contacts in the industry to frantically try and cover the bookings that were in the diary.
It hasn't been an easy time as you can well imagine and dealing with her own personal grief whilst acomplishing this has not been easy at all.
Genette has recently met Ken Dee, a very talented professional guitar player that we all feel is worthy to replace Gary and continue building on the success of Decadance.
Ken lives in Harlow, Essex, and has been performing and managing within the music industry for over 25 years.
He is a very accomlished guitar player, a confident singer and is extremely excited upon meeting Genette and assisting her
to co-manage Decadance.
Decadance are fulfilling all the bookings from Sat 1st December 2007 onwards as Genette, Ken (and Gary in spirit)
Decadance will be (and are already!) bigger and better than ever and will do Gary proud. The Decadance name is to be kept as it is well established and above all we both feel it is an honour to continue it on as it is the name Gary created.
Please visit our 'In Memoriam' Page to see some photos and to read the poem Genette has written for Gary....
