|
|
| Author |
Message |
| 25 new of 226 responses total. |
bmoran
|
|
response 100 of 226:
| 
Mar 16 14:33 UTC 1998 |
It was taped for me, I'll check it out later today if I have time.
I finally bought Martyn Bennett's _Bothy Culture_. Traditional
fiddle/pipes/ud/doudouk/drums/tape loops/spoken word W/ trance
backbeat/etc. It was the music of the day yesterday, and will probably be
heard a few more times in the next day or two. Even the dead get up and
dance to this stuff.
|
krj
|
|
response 101 of 226:
|
Mar 17 16:52 UTC 1998 |
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all readers of this item.
I always remember a non-Irish folk musician once reporting that
St. Patrick's Day was Full Employment Day for musicians...
Traditionally I observe the holiday by buying an Irish music album:
last year, I think, it was Eileen Ivers' WILD BLUE. This year
I'm probably going to bend the rules and get the most recent
Loreena McKennitt disc, since I'm somewhat surfeited on
trad Irish music right now.
bmoran above: I am scratching my brain trying to remember what
the word "bothy" means.
|
mcnally
|
|
response 102 of 226:
|
Mar 17 23:19 UTC 1998 |
Isn't it a small cottage or hut?
I usually find St. Patrick's Day celebrations to be silly at best
and occasionally embarrassing (when they go overboard with the really
idiotic stuff like green beer and leprechauns..)
|
lumen
|
|
response 103 of 226:
|
Mar 18 23:09 UTC 1998 |
Heh..but it's the American way.
|
krj
|
|
response 104 of 226:
|
Mar 19 05:47 UTC 1998 |
From the new issue of Scottish folk music magazine THE LIVING TRADITION:
"In many ways the bothy ballad is one of the less frequented corners
of traditional song. Long nights, when not pursuing farm duties,
and the relative isolation of many of the "ferm touns" in which the
bothy system of lodging farm workers operated led to a "new" set
of traditions. ...
So I'm still not sure what the word "bothy" means, it's more than
just a small hut.
|
bmoran
|
|
response 105 of 226:
|
Mar 19 20:33 UTC 1998 |
It sure is...My boss lived near one in Scotland. A bothy is an illegal
drinking establishment. They are usually an old motor home or trailer,
almost always on it's last legs. They get raided once in a while, move on,
and set up again. Farther away from the reach of the law, they can be a
somewhat permanent building. This is the one she lived near, and her dad
and uncle frequented the place after working the farm.
|
krj
|
|
response 106 of 226:
|
Apr 20 18:46 UTC 1998 |
Argh, I never got back here: the April issue of FOLK ROOTS magazine
had a complete definition of "bothy" and I will have to come back to
key it in later.
In the mean time, I'm enthusiastic about Tuesday night's concert at the
Ark, which is the Battlefield Band from Scotland, with John Renbourn
(ex-Pentangle guitarist) opening. Battlefield Band is a bunch of
old pros who have been around forever... though only founding member
Alan Reid (keyboards) has been with the band for more than five or
six years, now that I think about it. Young fiddle star John McCusker,
who joined the band when he was 16, must be in his early 20s by now;
this years newbies are Davy Steele (ex-Ceolbeg) on guitar and some singing,
and I don't know the name of the new bagpipe and whistle player.
I've seen Battlefield a bunch of times over the last 15 years, and
they always make lots of fun noise.
|
krj
|
|
response 107 of 226:
|
Apr 28 21:26 UTC 1998 |
John Renbourn was just a little bit somnolent, and I think most of our
group snoozed off during his opening set. Me, I was interested, if only
for the sense of history, and the little stories about other singers
from the 1960s British folk revival. (Most notably the reference to
Davy Graham, who Renbourn credited with popularizing the DADGAD tuning,
and who "expanded his tiny little mind" down in Morocco -- Graham was
one of the folk scene's earliest drug burnouts.)
Battlefield had a pretty good set, and I didn't even mind Davy Steele's
singing as much as I have in his past ventures. John McCusker
is turning into the band's multi-instrumentalist; he spent as much time
on cittern and whistles and accordion as he did on his first instrument,
the fiddle. The band as a whole are certainly great entertainers.
Next up at the Ark: fiddler Natalie MacMaster, from Cape Breton, on May 3.
(We might have to skip it due to general busyness; I saw MacMaster
last year and she did a fine show. I do wonder how many years she can
stepdance through an entire evening's show, though.)
|
anderyn
|
|
response 108 of 226:
|
Apr 29 01:20 UTC 1998 |
I had to give the Battlefield Band a miss, but Bruce liked it a lot!
We're going to Artisan next, I think May 18th.
|
eire
|
|
response 109 of 226:
|
Jun 8 18:19 UTC 1998 |
respond
I promised krj..I'd stop by...In reading previous entries..I've noticed no
mention of Brigid Boden...I rather like her...of course..I also like Sinead
O'Conner's "stretched on your grave" A couple of Miss Boden's songs are
taditional laments..set to a techno beat...what can I say..I like to dance
and cry at the same time:) Also..I 've heard no mention of RealWorld records
here...although the Celtic selections are sparse they are decent enough....
'Lament' on the RealWorld lable is interesting...A special project bringing
together 14 haunting solo airs form the Irish musical tradition of lamentation
Also...would ya'll include Trisan...as Celtic..?
I'm currently working on deciphoring about 20 new tapes brought back by a
friend from Dublin...Some really great stuff..But I'll have to sit down with
him to find out what may be available and what is not....He's known for
wandering the streets with a casette recorder in hand.....
|
krj
|
|
response 110 of 226:
|
Jun 10 15:55 UTC 1998 |
The latest Capercaille album, BEAUTIFUL WASTELAND, is now out
in the USA. I thought about picking it up yesterday, but Capercaille
have disappointed me so often through the years that I decided t
wait to see how their Ark show turns out.
I've got the Brigid Boden cd mentioned by eire around here somewhere, I
need to dig it up for another listen.
|
krj
|
|
response 111 of 226:
|
Jun 11 22:58 UTC 1998 |
Runrig news scooped off the website, www.runrig.co.uk and some of its links.
(krj summarizes) With the departure of lead singer Donnie Munro,
Runrig has been dropped by Chrysalis/EMI. EMI has put out a compilation
called BEAT THE DRUM, and the band seems a bit unhappy about it.
It seems to be a fair collection from three EPs which did not have a
long shelf life, so I'm not exactly sure why the band is complaining.
Back on their old, band-owned Ridge label, Runrig has put out its
own compilation: THE GAELIC COLLECTION, 1973-1988. This is a two CD
set and it should be pretty nice; Schoolkids is decent about stocking
Runrig discs so I'll wait a while to see if a copy turns up.
The band webpages says that they wish to squelch speculation:
they have gotten nowhere in their search for a new lead singer.
(Have I written about Runrig before? They are a Scottish rock band,
not particularly folky but they do draw on Scottish tradition and they
have a big appeal to Scottish national sentiment. In their home turf
they play stadiums. The sound has a lot in common with the early
Big Country, but Runrig has been a lot more durable.)
|
mcnally
|
|
response 112 of 226:
|
Jun 12 02:26 UTC 1998 |
For some reason I always thought that they were connected with
Big Country in some way, like perhaps having band members in common.
I guess that's not the case?
|
krj
|
|
response 113 of 226:
|
Jun 12 03:54 UTC 1998 |
They picked up one Big Country member around 1980, if I remember the
bio from the website correctly.
|
krj
|
|
response 114 of 226:
|
Sep 17 18:11 UTC 1998 |
The Paperboys // The Ark // September 17, 1998:
I was startled by the size of the turnout: maybe 150 people.
I didn't think that more than a dozen people in Ann Arbor knew
who this band was. In a lot of ways they are a good-time Celidh
band; visually they are dominated by the blonde woman accordion
player and fiddler, who reminded me of "3rd Rock's" Kristen
Johnson, towering over the guys in the band. As is usual
with the Canadian Celtic bands, the slow songs veered towards the
sappy and sentimental, but the uptempo stuff was pretty exciting.
The band had an epic version of "All Along The Watchtower,"
probably inspired by the Oyster Band's version, spliced into a
tune set. Every now and then the electric bass player would
pick up a banjo and the sound would veer off into a bluegrass
raveup, and once or twice there was a Latin touch reminiscent of
The Mollys.
Sorry you missed this one, Twila, you would have enjoyed it.
|
krj
|
|
response 115 of 226:
|
Sep 30 21:11 UTC 1998 |
NP: Runrig, THE GAELIC COLLECTION 1973-1998. As the title suggests,
it's a two-CD set of Gaelic language songs which Runrig recorded over
the years. They did a lot in Gaelic when they recorded for their
own label, but after they signed with Chrysalis they mostly sang
in English, with just 2-3 Gaelic songs per album.
Chrysalis dropped them this year, after a ten year run, but they
seem to have been cooperative in licensing a bunch of tracks back
to the band's own label Ridge Records so this is a nice
career spanning set. Runrig is probably a bit too much arena-rock/
easy listening for many of you, but I'm enjoying the heck out of
this collection.
This set was sort of a validictory compilation for departing singer
Donnie Munro, who is a pretty fine singer.
|
cloud
|
|
response 116 of 226:
|
Oct 3 22:20 UTC 1998 |
There was a wild rumer going around that Runrig was looking at Fish as a
possible replacement, but it was squashed.
|
urlman
|
|
response 117 of 226:
|
Oct 30 05:38 UTC 1998 |
if you know any Internet Radio stations that play good Celtic music I
would like to add it to Kill Pop Radio Dot Com @
http://www.killpopradio.com
e-mail me @ urlman@hotmail.com
Thanks :)
|
eeyore
|
|
response 118 of 226:
|
Nov 19 15:10 UTC 1998 |
I just got Seamus Eagen's "When January Sleeps" CD....WONDERFUL stuff! I
highly reccomend it to everybody! :)
|
mappy
|
|
response 119 of 226:
|
Dec 5 15:35 UTC 1998 |
hmmm...that's odd...nobody is mentioning Loreena McKennitt...she is awesome...
she does mostly celtic music, but sometimes her sound delves into
middle-eastern sounds. She travels a lot and bases her songs (well, most of
them anyways) from her travels and documents them in liner notes. I also like
some Clannad (I like their music from the 80s TV version of Robin Hood...all
I can say is wow), and some of their later works (such as those from 'Lore')
are pretty decent and Celtic in spirit...of course a lot of them are just
plain New Age music too, which at times I have found kind of annoying, but
thats just my opinion. I also like Enya, but I own a few Celtic Collections
that are quite impressive...you can usually find good Celtic music at a store
called Natural Wonders...they even split their music section into categories
(Celtic, New Age, Native American...) and some record stores do the same thing
(I know Best Buy has a celtic section) ;)
|
eeyore
|
|
response 120 of 226:
|
Dec 7 15:34 UTC 1998 |
Err....Seamus Egan's album is "When JUNIPER Sleeps". :) Whoops/ :)
|
isis
|
|
response 121 of 226:
|
Dec 31 07:11 UTC 1998 |
Has anyone heard the group Secret Garden? They are pretty kewl...I love to
listen to them as I drift to sleep..the most peaceful music I know. Also I
love Cecilia...isn't exactly Celtic.., she is from Iceland.., but it does give
over the same feel.
|
anderyn
|
|
response 122 of 226:
|
Dec 31 15:36 UTC 1998 |
I like Secret Garden, though I think of them as more ... mainstream.
|
krj
|
|
response 123 of 226:
|
Mar 17 08:53 UTC 1999 |
Happy St. Patrick's Day to all the readers of this item!
Only 21 responses in the last year; I'll have to nudge some people
to help make this one more active.
I bought this year's ritual St. Patrick's purchase a day early,
so I could review it for you today. This year, it's
The Chieftains / HEART OF STONE. The theme of this new crossover
album is "women:" every track has a featured woman performer.
Unfortunately, from my one listen so far, most of the songs are in
a slow style with minimal accompaniment. The only songs which
grabbed me so far were the ones from Natalie Merchant and The Corrs.
The highlight of the album is a ten minute tune set called
"The Lady Fiddlers" or something like that, with Natalie MacMaster,
Annabjorg Lien, and two other guest fiddlers.
Maybe since this purchase wasn't so wonderful I'll try to pick up
Donal Lunny's COOLFIN album, though again that might be too traditional
for me. Also, Irish Music magazine was heaping praises upon the
new Solas album.
|
anderyn
|
|
response 124 of 226:
|
Mar 17 18:32 UTC 1999 |
I *really* like the new Solas album -- we (my friend Linda and I) were
in Borders a couple of weeks ago, and heard it, and went -- oooh, that's
NICE, where is it? And so did about three other people, who were totally
disappointed that they appeared to be sold out, but we managed to dig
up three copies in the end, and I have to say that I like it quite a
bit. It has a lovely selkie song on it, and a cover of Woodie Guthrie's
"Pastures of Pleasure" which I never would have guessed was a Guthrie
song, instead of a traditional Irish one... and lots and lots of jigs
and reels and tunes. I just checked and it also featured Iris DeMent and
Bela Fleck as guest musicians, but I couldn't have told you that just
from listening.
|