Nice Nice Nice

Been posting links to clips of big shows. Fiddlers with long black coats playing wicked fast. Been playing fast, too.
But the playing of these three is "just swell." I'm going to breath a bit more when we play.

Tune of the week

This weekend on Bowen saw the yearly start of day visitors stuck in the cove for an hour or two on Saturday night, when there is no ferry from 6pm-8pm. So people mill around in the nice weather after they get over the shock of not getting on a boat when they expected to. They wander into the Snug and listen some, and sometimes give us brief glances of indignance when they order food that we can't make for them.
Here's the deal. The kind owners of the Snug let us play in their cafe, and we sell prepared food and bevvies from a change bowl on the counter. We don't make the sandwiches that are advertised on the Specials board. The grill is off. The espresso machine is off, but we have really good drip coffee and tea available. When we explain that we don't actually work at the cafe, and that the owners trust us with the keys to their store, well people are just tickled pink and settle in for some locals making music. They catch the next ferry looking visibly more relaxed.
We don't mention that on some nights, more of the musicians are from the mainland.

Colin started this tune up on Saturday: The Lads of Laois.

Here's a video clip from Comhaltas

Straight or Swing?

We have this peculiar "groovy-swing" tempo, particularly with reels, when we play as a small group. Even when we start a tune set square and fast, it will often morph into this almost lazy off-beat West Coast kind of thing. But this tends to change when fiddlers are in the room. I don't know if the groove thing is a flute thing, or if bowing lends itself to that more traditional 4/4 drive.
This past Saturday we hit fiddler critical mass: 11-some musicians, three of them playing fiddle. Wonderful tune sets with that galloping straight ahead tempo.
Whenever our friends from town come over, I look forward to hearing this tune
And speaking of fiddler critical mass, here's the tune played at the end of a set.
This much talent on one stage is like all of the G8 leaders deciding to pile into one plane.

A Bowen Island song

Song for the Cape:



This song is based on an old Irish tune with a chorus thrown in.

One stormy spring day
As I rambled at the Cape
And gazed out to the ocean
Where the seals sport and play.
From the sea foam and spray
There arose a fair maid
As she stepped on the rocky shore
To me she did say:

Oh the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come.
Oh the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come.

Her gaze met my eye
And she began to cry
And her keening stilled the south wind
In the far distant sky
Said she "Sir, you stand
Firmly rooted on this land
I appeal to your true heart
Will you give me your hand?"

For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come
For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come

The wind died away
And the sea foam and the spray
Took back the fair maiden
At the end of the day
In a grove of old fir
I felt my heart a-stir
To respond to her calling
And devote my life to her

For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come
For the old world is dying, and the new is yet to come

Tunes of the week

It's tunes, because one of them is one that we frequently play but tends to go off the rails when new players visit our session.
The variation of "The Frost is All Over" that we play is this one
Apparently this is some cryptic variation generally known only to veterans of the former Irish Heather Session, and to recent players who want to be their friend (like me). The end of the B-part is atypical.

The Old Copperplate is certainly a well known tune, but I can't recall the last time we played it. Most all of us play it, so I'm posting it here as a reminder that we should play it more often.

But speed can be fun

Arty McGlynn plays guitar on so many recordings, but I've never seen video footage of the man himself. I'm a sucker for this tempo, if not lousy at keeping this tempo for a whole set.
I'll buy tea for the person who can name the tunes.
Tune of the week to follow: