Dude! Joe's Jottings, Mostly Junk

Canadian family Leahy will be in Manassas on May 21st, at the Hylton Performing Arts Center's grand opening.

September 22nd, a Tuesday: Steeleye Span at The Birchmere.

Tix only 29.50 (plus ticketbastard fees).

At the Birchmere, doors 6pm, show 7:30 (two opening acts, really good Irish bands).

Lemme know if you want me to add a saved seat.

( so far I have... )

Save the date of Tuesday, September 16th, 2008 for Scottish masterminds Old Blind Dogs, plus the Irish groups Teada and Cara, at the Birchmere in Alexandria.

As it gets closer (and more confirmed), I'll start taking names for holding a table.  I plan on getting there EARLY. :)

It may be a record for all I know, but this longest email address I've had is going to be shut down within the month.  I'm consolidating all of my websites onto one ("under construction 'cause i ain't had the time") page and saying bye bye to an address I've held for over 10 years.

celticdistrict.com will be down for a while as I rethink how I want to present the info and how to get new info there with better security - my open-ended web forms were fine back in the day, when only the occasional online-poker script-kiddie was all I had to deal with in terms of spam.  But looking at the archive sql dump, I was getting tons of bad submissions and comments and that had to go.  i need to look for any free "secure submission" systems in php, stuff that uses the auto-generated image verification approach.  I *think* i recall a recent php-architect magazine discussing one, but I need to look it up.  I should also hit snipeyhead 's pages to find other time-savers out there.

Finally, I need to tweak my CMS system and get the ability to put in google-ads.  This stuff doesn't pay for itself, and though I'm going to be saving $300 / year (well, it was a reasonable price 7 years ago), that little extra helps.  Relatedly, I need to get onto the amazon and bn.com "link to me and if someone buys, you get credit" programs.  I was on cdnow's when the site first started, if that tells you how old I am, online.

For the calendar, I'm probably going to start sending people to dragansmaragach 's yahoo mailing list.  This leaves me with just trying to get the living history groups page back up first, then the musicians listing, probably both I'll do from static copies first.

This move also means that a lot of images I used to host, particularly a lot of the political cartoons I relayed, will be down.  The last was done months ago so the 404s shouldn't be causing anybody's friends page any grief.

however, all of that needs to be lower in priority as I have to get the MSFB site up and running for this year.

I've not had the time to decide a real playlist for today, so I just threw the celtic list on random...

• Altan - John Doherty's Reels - Runaway Sunday
  
  Pretty standard 3 reel set from the post-Frankie line-up.  Dermot Byrne is a very fine box-player and the middle tune is quite a highlight.
  
  
• Solas - The Big Reel of Ballynacally, etc - Suny Spells and Scattered Showers
  
  A reel set from the second album.  This set highlights Seamus Egan's banjo playing, where he has the lead on each tune, sharing it with one or two other lead instruments (at one point overdubbing a flute).  Pretty standard (meaning fantastic!) guitar work from Patrick Doyle, who always has this nack for being very percussive in his style yet still getting the chords across crystal clear.
  
  
• The Rankin Family - Grey Dusk of Eve - Endless Seasons
  
  An odd song, even for these Cape Bretoners.  Complex percussion rhythm and a keyboard wash are the main accompanyment to this song featuring Gaelic background vocals from the 3 sisters under a poetic lyric by Liam O'Maonlai of Hothouse Flowers (who also adds a fantastic Irish pipe melody).
  
  
• Skyedance - The Iron Rig / The Boxwood Reel - Labyrinth
  
  Scottish Fiddler (and California resident) Alasdair Fraser, after working with a fine group of musicians for a solo album (Dawn Dance) including Braveheart piper Eric Rigler and longtime friend (and Baltimore resident) Chris Norman on flute, decided to actually form a group putting 7 of these musicians and himself on the road.  The group has done 3 albums so far, including a live one recorded in Spain with Galician musicians.
  
  
• Deaf Shepherd - Jean Carignan - Synergy
  
  A fine Scottish group, featuring piper Rory Campbell, who's also in Old Blind Dogs.  Very nice accoustic sound for their tune-sets like this one, but their songs were a little too mellow for my tastes.  I thought they were defunct (Rory implied so when I talked with him back in 2001), but they appearantly reunited in 2004 for a new album that I need to pick up someday.
  
  
• The Iron Horse - Stray Peas - Voice of the Land
  
  The Iron Horse have been through a number of line-ups over the years, but generally have kept the same basic sound.  This odd track from a TV soundtrack features a cittern hornpipe solo over a drum-machine mix, with fiddle and faint distorted electric guitar joining in on occasion.  Not a great track...maybe it worked better in context.  They've done better.
  
  
• Andy M. Stewart & Manus Lunny - Monday Morning - At It Again
  

  Monday morning, why do you haunt me
  With your bells and factory whistles all around?
  Monday morning, why do you taunt me?
  And I so tired I could sleep here on the ground.

  Celtic blues?  nah...
  
  BTW, Andy is from Silly Wizard and is the author of a number of songs that some still mistakenly call "Trad. Arr."'s work.  Though Irish, Manus plays guitar and bazouki with Scottish celt-rockers Capercaillie.
  
  
• Donal Lunny - La Irish Costa De Galicia (The Irish Coast of Galicia) - Journey
  
  From a best-of compilation of this fine composer's work.  Donal has been involved in many of the greats, including Bothy Band, Planxty, and Moving Hearts, putting him in the same league with Davey Spillane, Andy Irvine, and Riverdance composer Bill Whelan.  This track includes him playing tunes inspired by the traditional music and pipes of Galicia, a region of north-west Spain that saw quite a bit of back-and-forth Irish-celtic migrations over the last thousand years.
  
  
• Deanta - The Benedy Glen - Ready for the Storm
  
  Irish group from County Antrim.  This slow song is a little more modern than their tune-sets tend to be, with a keyboard wash and ethereal essense.
  
  
• Capercaillie - An Fhideag Airgid - Glenfinnan (Songs of the '45)
  
  Originally released on Karen Matheson's first solo album, feature just her on Gaelic vocals and husband Donald Shaw on piano.  Sad, gentle ballad, probably describing a rather sad but typical story of lost love in the midst of the failed rebellion.

Pretty impressive cross-section, I think...

...your celtic music collection might be kinda, sorta, just possibly, and even maybe, too large when you listen through an hour long block in Emerald Voyage on XM Radio's Fine Tuning...

...and realize you had every single track they played.

*sigh*