The 'Aero' fiddle seed dispenser

February 10, 2012

Last week I talked about drivin’, our latest Belfast sculpture and about the things we used to do when we were kids.  I mentioned how flax used to be grown a lot and how it was retted in a Flax Hole.  I never actually witnessed that process because, although my Dad used to work for what was then called, The Linen Thread Company, by the time I was around man-made fibres had taken over and very little linen was being made.

I DO remember when the neighbour’s field behind our house was used to grow corn.  Now corn, means different things in different parts of the world.  In the USA it normally means maize, which we used to call ‘Indian corn,’ here in Ireland – it was first introduced here when America first sent us some as famine relief in the nineteenth century.  In England corn means wheat, but in Ireland corn always referred to oats – the cereal that looks most like grass, in my opinion.  We don’t grow much oats any more, because it mainly used to be grown to feed horses – in the days when horses where used for agriculture.

Then tractors began to appear on the scene and horses became a thing of the past.  The first tractors we saw were mostly old Ferguson 35s, before it became Massey Ferguson.  These started on petrol and then ran on something called TVO – Tractor Vehicle Oil.  Diesel tractors came a little bit later.  In fact, out in the country we improvised our own tractthers, usually by chopping the body off an old car and adding a sort of trailer body – more like an early pickup truck than anything – but you could use one to go around a field, spreading manure, or picking up hay at haytime.  Yep, it was right out of the Beverley Hillbillies!

I drove one of these – belonging to my uncle Wullie, who lived just up the road – when I was only about six, or so.  When I say ‘drove’, I just steered it in a straight line, while it crawled along in first gear, while my father and cousin forked peat litter (from the hens we kept), off the back of it.  When we got near the hedge my Dad would jump down and steer it back towards the other end of the field, then go back to work.

When our neighbour’s corn (oats, I mean) was ripe in the field behind us, they brought in an old Ferguson 35 tractor, towing what we in Co. Down called a ‘r’aper’ – in other words a former horse-drawn reaper, trailed behind the tractor – to cut the corn.  The sheaves were then bound by hand and stooked together to dry – the whole family taking part.  After a few days drying the big event took place – the thresher arrived!  This was an old – originally horse-drawn – thresher, made mostly of wood painted with orange lead paint, that had faded to a sort of pink colour.  It was trailed into the field behind a tractor and then belt driven from the tractor to thresh the corn.  No such thing as a combine harvester in those days!

Back then, practically everything was done by hand.  When our hay was ready to cut in June a neighbour would come and cut it with a r’aper, then, in the evening, the whole family would rake the hay into rows, with huge wooden handrakes.  Even with my mother and uncles and cousins helping it took hours to row eight acres – and the next day they’d have to be spread out in the sun again!  We didn’t have such a thing as a baler, either, so when the hay was ready it was loaded by hand with a pitchfork onto a trailer, or one of those pick-ups, and hauled in to the yard, where it would be pitchforked again into the shed.

Our neighbour on the other side had about twenty acres, which he farmed full-time.  He would stack his hay in fairly small stacks and then later collect it with a buckrake, a large pronged implement on the back of the tractor, which reversed under the stack and lifted it up.  What usually happened, though, was that the front of the small tractor would lift up instead – so my neighbour’s sons and daughter would have to sit on the front of the tractor – just like Ellie-May Clampett! – to balance the load, and they would proceed across the field see-sawing up and down – great entertainment for my brother and I.

We had one very steep field, with maybe a 40 degree slope!  It’s known as the Dam Bank, because it’s opposite the river, which used to have a dam back then, so that it could feed water to power a couple of watermills.  My father decided to re-sow this field one year and a neighbour ploughed it for us one-way – in other words, down the slope.  There was some room to line up at the top – though it must have seemed like jumping off a cliff – but very little room to turn at the bottom – a very hair-raising and dangerous enterprise, which nobody would dream of attempting nowadays.

After it was ploughed and harrowed my father sowed the field – again by hand, using a piece of equipment which was common enough in those days.  It was called a fiddle, because you held it in you left hand like a fiddle, with a small a mount of seed in a bag attached over your shoulder, and you played back and forwards with a bow in your right hand, whose string went around a cogged wheel.  This wheel flung the seed out in each direction as you played and all the sower had to do was walk back and forth across the length of the field, re-filling the bag and sowing as he went.  I helped by bringing him by marking the soil already sown and bringing fresh seed – but by the time we had that field sown my Dad and I were both pretty well sunburned!

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Raymond McCullough hosts and produces the popular Celtic Roots Radio show – downloaded by around 7,000 listeners, in more than 100 countries around the world.  The show features a wide range of Celtic and roots music – Celtic, folk, folk/rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, Scottish, Irish, Breton, Cajun, singer/songwriter – plus a regular helping of northern Irish craic from Raymond, himself.  This blog makes available the scripts from that section of his show.

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A Wee Taste a' Craic – Raymond McCullough

The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – Gerry McCullough

Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Precious Oil Publications also recently published (January 2012), The Seanachie: Tales of Old Seamus – by Gerry McCullough: 12 tales of love, intrigue and humour, set in the fictional Donegal village of Ardnakil.

The CD begins with a touching version of The Castle of Dromore, and includes many wonderful songs including The Star of the County Down, The Isle of Inisfree, She Moved Through the Fair and The Connemara Cradle Song.

With excellent diction, pitch and a vocal style that reminds me a bit of Mary Black, Claire’s voice is just perfect for this music. She connects with the lyrics on an emotional level that draws you right into her songs. The Harp playing here is exquisite! Her runs go from fancy and complex to simple. Her accompaniment always compliments her vocals and never gets in the way of them.

If you’re missing Ireland, make yourself a nice pot of tea, then put on Songs from the Harp Room, close your eyes and you will be there.

Artist: Claire Roche
Album: Songs From The Harp Room

Hometown: Blackrock Co. Dublin
Similar Artists: Mary Black, Loreena McKennitt, Mary O’Hara

In addition to writing for Celtic Music Magazine, Jay Michaels is a full time musician who plays both the Traditional Gaelic Wire-Strung Harp (Cláirseach) and the Nylon-Strung Folk Harp. He also plays Guitar, Mountain Dulcimer and the Epinette de Jambe. Jay and his wife Abby are the Celtic/Folk/Early Music duo The Harper and The Minstrel. www.theharperandtheminstrel.com

Posted by JM on January 27, 2012 from Dallas TX, USA

I wrote the story below some years back, remembering my mother’s mother, Agnes Harrop. It retells the the tale of my last visit with her in Fall River MA and it provides the backdrop for my love of Celtic music; my family history. I learned to love the songs my parents and their parents loved. I learned to sing the songs that crossed the ocean with them, from Ireland on my father’s side and from England and Scotland on my mother’s side . ( Here’s a link to a Youtube Video - One of Agnes Harrop’s Favorites )

I still sing today some of those songs I learned as a child, and I still remember the stories my family told. I close my eyes and I can place myself back in time to that ethnic community in which they lived, the old New England mill town with the Irish Catholics on these streets and British Protestants on those streets.

My parent’s union broke that tradition, and it raised quite a stir among their families. Dad’s family had been marrying Irish Catholic girls, right off the boat since the Marums landed in the US in 1861, from Kilkenny. Mom’s family were Protestant and almost all born in England or Scotland. I can tell you that the mix of cultures did make for an interesting childhood! And it planted a deep respect for the traditions of both. This story is one of the reasons why.

Many Counted Blessings
(c) Jed Marum 2009

We sat in the sun-drenched front porch of the home, you and I. It was a
circular room with a high ceiling and tall windows all around – even so, the
space was just big enough for our table and a few comfortable chairs. A
pretty nurse brought us wonderful plates of food that day. Fish I think it
was, yes Cod, certainly … with boiled potatoes, stewed tomatoes, green
beans and warm soft rolls with butter. It was a typical Yankee dinner!

We laughed and told stories all through lunch, while outside the New England
Spring brought us an early glimpse of summer. And so joyous it was! The sun
poured in through the windows, spilling across the floor and warming your
back. Brilliant the daffodils bloomed in the garden just below the window,
showing off their shiny new yellow faces and perfect green stems.

You had tea, and I drank milk. You laughed and laughed and conjured
memories, with a little prodding from me. You told me your father’s story
about leaving England behind along with his gambling debts. He started a new
life among the English and Scottish immigrants working the textile mills of
Fall River Massachusetts.

You told me stories about your husband’s family from Scotland. They also
worked the cotton mills, settling into American life of the late 19th
Century and bringing their culture with them. You told me stories about the
houses these family members had in different parts of the city – houses now
long gone as the city has grown into modern times. And you told me stories
about the quirks of personality you remember of those just a generation
before you. There were the songs you remembered your mother-in-law sang in
her old age, sitting in her rocker, needle work in her lap and a cup of tea
at hand. You remembered your mother’s uncle and his tales from the days of
fighting in the Civil War, and his long whiskers, smelling strongly of pipe
tobacco and often just a hint of whiskey.

“What’s this?” you asked me, pushing a bit of potato onto your fork with a
butter knife. Still smiling from our last story, you turned to face me.

“That’s potato, Nana,” I told you.

“Well I can’t tell if it’s fish or potato ’til I get it into my mouth!” and
you laughed again. “Isn’t it awful to go blind?” Still chuckling and leaning
in closer as if it was our secret, you said, “Well I guess I’m lucky it
isn’t all over my lap!” There were a few crumbs there, but I didn’t tell
you.

Glaucoma had completely taken your eyesight, at this point of your life –
and your 95 years had you bent over and hard of hearing, still your heart
was untroubled and your spirit unbowed.

You popped the forkful of potato into your mouth and spoke your final word
on the matter “Oh well, it all goes down to the same place anyway!” You
laughed again. We both laughed again!

We laughed because you had long since, gracefully accepted the conditions
life had placed on your poor tired body. We laughed because these stories
we’d been sharing, on a lovely New England afternoon had relit the joys of
life in our hearts. We laughed because you could relive those joys again and
again in these moments, through the telling of the tales – as they were many
counted blessings.

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Jed Marum’s album, now out of print is still available for download on Amazon, iTunes, CDBaby and just about all of the MP3 Services. It is called, STREETS OF FALL RIVER.

Hello Celtic Music lovers, Jim O’Connor, lead singer and songwriter for the band Boston Blackthorne here. This month I am going to tell you the back stories behind my song “Back When the Craic was Grand” from Boston Blackthorne’s album “Better Late than Never”. You can find the song in the podcast archives (#21) or on iTunes or just email me and I will send it to you. The song won the International Narrative Songwriting Competition a few years back in the Historical category- first prize a t-shirt tht inexplicably exclaims “I am a Canadian songwriter!” It chronicals my exploits as the guitar player in the house band at Tom O’Reilly’s pub in Manhattan in the early 80′s. This was just around the corner from Paddy Reilly’s where Black 47 had their residence during the same time period. Historical indeed…

“Judi and I up on Amsterdam Ave, We’d throw all the equipment into a big gypsy cab…”

In New York the gypsy cabs operated in neighborhoods where the licensed cabs dared not venture, including my neighborhood on the upper west side (just 3 blocks from the infamous “Murderers Row”). Here was the plan; Judi (my wife -then girlfriend) would stand on the corner of 110th and Amsterdam, sure to attract the attention of any gypsy cabbie. I would lurk in the shadows with guitars, amps, speakers, the whole lot and wait until she had completed her mission of flagging the cab down. Then she would sweetly ask the cabbie to open his trunk and I would dart out and quickly fill the trunk with the heavy metal. The cabbies often expressed surprise but never refused us as their shocks and springs groaned under the weight. And there we were- off to the races!

“Down to the corner of 23rd and Lex, where the pushers sold dope and the hookers sold sex…”

Extra points for that rhyme my friends, for being geographically accurate! Tom O’Reilly’s pub was located around the corner from the Mid-Manhattan tunnel, which made it a prime location for the ladies of the night to congregate. You literally had to run the gauntlet to get into the club as the girls attempted to schedule a date or failing that to pick your pocket. And to think I had to make several trips through the gauntlet and finish with all the equipment intact and functioning!

“Back When the Craic wasn’t something to smoke, just a nice night of music, a story or a joke. Here’s a moment of silence for young Bobby Sands, Back When the Craic was Grand.”

The tme frame of the song is the early 80′s when the scourge of crack cocaine was ravaging many parts of the city, along with the early emergence of the AIDS epidemic. Hard times. In Ireland in 1981, 26 year old Bobby Sands (he wrote the words to “Back Home in Derry”) perished in Long Kesh prison following a more than 2 month hunger strike protesting conditions in the prison. The owner of the pub organized a march carrying a coffin from the Irish embassy to the bar where hundreds stood outside in silent protest.

“At the end of the barroom down on the band stand, stood old Johnny Cronin and Andy McGann, I played the guitar I was the kid in the band…and filtering down through the noise and the murk, the banjo and accordian they were both named Joe Burke. Though relatively famous I guess they needed the work…”

Somehow I had stumbled into a regular gig playing guitar and singing the occasional ballad as part of this very august group of Celtic players. Andy McGann was well known for his stately fiddle playing and was famous for being a student of the great Michael Coleman. (Accordian) Joe Burke was considered by many to be the finest button accordion in the world. Andy and Joe’s album “Tribute to Michael Coleman” is a classic th the genre. Johnny Cronin was a true rascal and master Sligo fiddler who was featured in a film about the New York Celtic music scene of an earlier era. (Banjo) Joe Burke was a wonderful singer and 4 string player. At one point I was asked to replace Joe in his Sunday night solo gig when it was said he had to return home to help his ailing aging mother. When he mysteriously returned just 2 weeks later the waitress commented, “It apperars his mother turned out well after all.”

“Judi sat patiently down by the stand, you could buy her a drink but if you reached for her hand, she’d shoot you that look that says “I’m with the band”…

Ah the long suffering girlfriends and wives- and the long suffering musicians and boyfriends who have to watch these dramas unfold from the stage!

“The set would wind down about quarter to four, when parents and their kids would appear at the door, for a lesson, a session, a couple of tunes more…”

This is still extraordinary to me. We would play until 4 in the morning, by that time the door was usually locked to keep out the potential robbers who sometimes cased the joint. But just after the final note was played the bartender would unlock the door and let in several sets of parents and young kids who had been patiently waiting outside for their turn to play with the masters. They had travelled in from the Bronx or Queens most likely. This dedication to passing on the tradition still gives me a chill and I wonder if any of those kids are playing somewhere today.

“Judi and I left the big city life, we moved west of Boston and now she’s my wife, with 2 kids and a day job it’s a different life, than Back When the Craic was Grand. Andy and Banjo and Accordian still play but I heard Johnny Cronin he just passed away, no we’ll not hear the like of that fiddle today…”

Since I wrote the song most of the players in the band have passed on. Joe Burke still plays the accordion and you can google him and read about him and find links to his music. I often wonder how my life would be different if I had followed his invitation to hit the road for a month’s gig in St. Louis,,,

I recently found myself in New York and after dinner in Murray Hill I made my way down to the site of the old pub. Nothing remains of that establishment that sat across from the civil was era armory on Lexington Avenue (which in the days after 9-11 was converted into a temporary and never used morgue). The city is much cleaner, more antiseptic now. The ladies of the night have moved on but as I leaned against the brick and closed my eyes I could swear I could hear their cackling voices calling out, “Hey sugar, wanna date?” And that high, lonesome sound- fiddle, fiddle, banjo, accordion, bodhran and my 1977 Martin 000-18 guitar drifts by. A moment of panic- like so often happened I am not familiar with the tune. “Hey Joe,” I whisper, “What key are we in?” A wink, a nod and the response filters down through the noise and the murk, “Ah, Jim, ’tisn’t in any key at all. Just play on boy!”

Sean Orr and Charlie Branch at B.D. Rileys. Photo by Mark Scott

A Song Henger found a cool resource for Celtic music in D.C. at www.celticdistrict.com.  However, he lamented that there wasn’t a mailing list to notify him about all the cool Celtic bands that came into his area.  He’s right to lament it.  Celtic mailing lists and non-profits are an invaluable service.  Most communities don’t have them. Even worse, most indie Celtic bands like Rambling Sailors and Rising Gael (two that he listed), don’t have the manpower to adequately promote their shows in your community.  So even if there was such a list, they might not end up on it.

When I was living in Austin, Texas, we were very fortunate to have the Texas Celtic Music Network’s weekly newsletter detailing all the Celtic shows in the state.  It was a great service.  Wouldn’t it be amazing if there was a list like that in every community around the nation or around the world for that matter?

Here’s a suggestion.  Start one.  I’ll show you how.

1. Create a Mailing List

Start by finding a list manager like www.EzineDirector.com.  They will host your list for free for up to 249 subscribers.  Even better.  Setup an account with Reverbnation as a “Manager” and start a mailing list there.  Using Fanreach, you can contact an unlimited number of subscibers for free.

2. Determine Your Area of Interest

If you’re in a culturally rich location like Boston or even Texas, it might be time-limiting to promote ALL Celtic shows.  You could limit it to a particular community in Boston.  Or you could focus on your favorite style of Celtic music (traditional Irish, Scottish music, Celtic rock, etc).  If you only have 10-20 Celtic bands in your region with the occasional local touring company, it’s a lot easier to maintain.

3. Find Local Venues and Bands Online (and Offline)

Once you determine your area, it’s a simple matter of locating all the local venues that host Celtic music and the bands that perform there.  Once a week or once a month, visit the website of the venue or the band.  See who’s playing there.  Add it all to a simple text file.  If the band doesn’t have a website, ask them to email you the info once a month.  Make sure to set a schedule and a deadline.  ie. all events should be submitted by the 20th of the month with the newsletter going out on the 1st of the following month.

4. Setup You Website

These days it is a breeze to setup a free website.  It is as easy as signing up to a free web host like blogger or creating a Facebook page (though that offers a little less flexibility).  You can get a wee bit more fancy when you buy an inexpensive domain from GoDaddy.com.  They also offer a low cost web hosting program.

One page will host your mailing list and show submission information.
One page will list links to the local bands and venues.
One page will be a blog with all the upcoming shows.

Keep it simple.

5. Attract Celtic Music Fans

The best way  of doing this is to keep your URL and website name very appropriate. www.celticdistrict.com is a great URL for a local Celtic website.  The Alabama Celtic Association has www.celticalabama.net.  “Celtic Events in YOUR TOWN” would be a great title for the site with URL of www.celticeventYOURTOWN.com. Keep it simple. Share the URL with bands you feature on the site and ask them to submit their upcoming gigs.

Eventually, your site will catch on.  You will become that wonderful asset to your Celtic community that you long to see.  Best of all, you will help other Celtic music lovers connect to their Celtic heritage.  Get started today!

Have you created a local Celtic community website?  Post your link below.  Share your experience with other Celtic music lovers.

Drinking songs for those who like to LOL!  Marc Gunn riotously combines Renaissance festival fanaticism with Irish drinking and Sci Fi fandom into a satirical jam session between Weird Al and The Clancy Brothers.  Marc Gunn is an award-winning acoustic folk musician rooted in the American Celtic song tradition–-Celtic music, the Traditional and the Twisted. His musical instrument of choice-the autoharp-continues to surprise musical veterans and fans a like for it’s unique sound and spirited energy. Find out more at www.marcgunn.com.

'Rise' sculpture, Belfast, at night – better known locally as 'The Balls on the Falls'

I don’t know if any of you, like me, are prone to criticise other drivers when you’re driving a car?  I’m sure you would never do that!

My wife was beginning to get tired of me remarking on drivers with only one headlight working and suggested – a bit sarcastically, I thought! – that I ought to count them and keep a record.  Great idea, I thought and immediately began counting cars with defective right and left-hand headlights.

This had the result of my complaints being reduced to a simple, “Thirty three and thirty five, now!” every now and then, with a dry, “Yes”, in response.  Eventually, I counted up over 4,000 defective headlights before I stopped, and discovered that the number of right-hand and left-hand defective lights always came back into balance.  Maybe I should publish this important research?  I don’t know!

At least once a week I tend to be driving into Belfast from the Lisburn direction, in other words down the M1 Motorway.  A couple of years ago we had a major overhaul of this road, so it’s now what North Americans would call a 6-lane.  It now connects directly to the Westlink, which takes you right through the middle of the city and, at the other end, connects with the M2 and M3 (Lagan Bridge).

As you come into Belfast from a southerly direction the road now dives under the Broadway Roundabout, which has recently had a huge new sculpture added.  This is in the form of two spheres, one inside the other, made up of interlocking triangles.  It’s officially called ‘Rise’, but locals in Belfast apparently now refer to it as the ‘Balls on the Falls!’

Actually, just after they first opened the new road – and before the specially ordered pumps arrived – this tunnel flooded in heavy rain and the road had to be closed again for a while!  It happened so fast that a taxi driver who ran into the flood and stalled had to literally swim for his life!

Working in a Flax hole around 1914

Another thing I was thinking about recently was some of the escapades we used to get up to as kids.  Just up the road from where I grew up in the Co. Down countryside, there’s an estate of many acres – or a demesne, as it’s often called – with a huge house and a stone wall built right around the grounds.  Incidentally, this was a ‘famine wall’, built in 1845/46 to provide work for poor starving labourers, in order to avoid actually giving them relief!

The father of a couple of friends of ours was the Farm Manager of this estate and they lived on the premises, so my brother and I’d often cycle up there and mess around with them.  You know, play ‘King of the Castle’ – by throwing each other off the top of the hay bales in the hayshade; take sips of the sweet molasses used for making silage, and leap around in the clump of rhododendron bushes right in front of the big house, as if we were monkeys!

One thing we loved to do was ride our bikes downhill as fast we could and crash into a large clump of bamboo at the bottom.  It would take us maybe ten minutes trying to extricate our bikes from the bamboo and then we’d have another go.  Right next to the bamboo was a small wood known as the ‘Round Wood’, which was well fenced off with ‘Danger’ signs placed around it.  Apparently, when the estate was previously owned by an army colonel, they placed a whole lot of unexploded World War II bombs there.  Needless to say, we never ventured in there.

Another thing we’d get up to was building dams – either across the small stream at my cousin’s farm or, when we were younger, in the sheugh at the bottom of the field next to our house.  A sheugh is a field drain and, as this one led from a small bog to the river nearby, it always had water in it.  We’d arrive home for tea with our clothes black and stinking with river mud.

Animals sometimes got into the sheugh to drink and then found they couldn’t get out again – hence the expression, ‘Ye’re as awkward as a pig in a sheugh!’  At the other end of this particular sheugh – just beyond our property and right beside the bog – was what is known here as a ‘flax hole’.

When the linen industry was at its height in Northern Ireland, there were thousands of flax holes all over the countryside.  Farmers would cut the flax and bind it into sheaves, which were then placed in the flax hole underwater and left to steep for weeks.  The soft outer fibres would rot away, leaving behind the strong fibres needed for making linen – a process known as ‘retting’  the flax.  And that’s where your expensive Irish linen comes from!

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Raymond McCullough hosts and produces the popular Celtic Roots Radio show – downloaded by around 7,000 listeners, in more than 100 countries around the world.  The show features a wide range of Celtic and roots music – Celtic, folk, folk/rock, Appalachian, bluegrass, Scottish, Irish, Breton, Cajun, singer/songwriter – plus a regular helping of northern Irish craic from Raymond, himself.  This blog makes available the scripts from that section of his show.

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Celtic Roots Craic is taken from Raymond’s popular Celtic Roots Radio show on iTunes and is also available as a separate podcast, as a blog and now the first 25 episodes are available as a new book, A Wee Taste a’ Craic, (available from Amazon.com etc. in paperback, Kindle & Kindle, UK editions).

Celtic Invasion of Galway, Ireland 2012

Since 2007, I have taken Celtic music fans to see and explore Ireland.  In 2009, I established Celtic Invasion Vacations as your connection to the Celtic world.  These aren’t like other trips to Ireland.  Other trips, pile you on a bus and race you around the country to see more than your brain can handle.  They’re fun, but at the end of the trip, you need a vacation from your “vacation”.

Celtic Invasion Vacations does it differently.  You see exciting locations around the world.  You relax and become a part of the culture and community that you visit.  You celebrate your cultural heritage with Celtic music by Marc Gunn, The Celtfather.

This year, we’re gonna live in Galway, Ireland.  You will see spend a week in Galway rambling through its streets, drinking in its pubs, and sharing in its music.  You will see the Cliffs of Moher looking up at its majesty from the ocean waves.   You’ll visit one of the most culturally rich parts of Ireland as we hike around the Aran Islands. In the hills of Connemara, you’ll enjoy the incredible beauty of Kylemore Abbey.  You will experience Ireland like a local. Join me this summer, June 2-9, 2012 for the Celtic Invasion of Galway.  You can find all the details and reserve your spot at CelticInvasion.com.

Celtic Music Podcast News

The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast #115 – Top 20 Best Celtic Music of 2011 is getting rave reviews from listeners.  Listen and enjoy the show.  When you’re done, cast your vote for next year’s Celtic Top 20.  The most-popular songs from the podcast will be featured in next year’s Best of 2012.

• Listen to the Best Celtic Music of  2011 today
• Cast Your Vote in The Celtic Top Twenty
• On iTunes?  Rate our newest Celtic Playlist
• Submit Your Celtic Music

The latest Pub Songs Podcast features Funny Irish Drinking Songs as performed by Marc Gunn.  It’s a fun show with lots news as the show turns to a monthly format.

New Video by Marc Gunn

I posted a new video of me performing “Leaving of Liverpool” on YouTube.  This is part of a new video series I am recording every couple of weeks.

Celtic Music CD Store Newly Updated with Marc Gunn Music

The Celtic Music CD Store is newly updated with actual store integration.  No longer will you head there and be forced to a third-party to buy Marc Gunn CDs.  You will buy them direct.  Buy by January 24th, and you will save 15% when you use the coupon code: NEWSTORE2012.  Look for more great deals from me and other Celtic music artists coming soon.

More Celtic Music News from My Community

I just heard on the Shite’n'Onions podcast that Murder the Stout has a new EP.  I loved the sounds of the new songs.  Hopefully, I’ll get them on the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast some time soon.  In the meantime, you can listen to tracks below:

If you want something a bit more traditional, here’s one of my favorite Celtic bands.  They are amazing tune-smiths. I give you The Tea Merchants.

See Marc Gunn in Huntsville, Alabama and Robert, Louisiana

I’ll be performing at the end of the month (Sat, January 28th) at the Maggie McGuinness Pub as part of the Irish Society of North Alabama‘s monthly membership.  A week later, I return to Louisiana for a house concert  on Friday, February 3rd in Robert, LA.

What’s your favorite Celtic love song?

Valentine’s Day is less than a month away.  What is your favorite love song?  Let’s compile a great list for the coming holiday.

Drinking songs for those who like to LOL!  Marc Gunn riotously combines Renaissance festival fanaticism with Irish drinking and Sci Fi fandom into a satirical jam session between Jonathan Coulton and The Clancy Brothers.  Marc Gunn is an award-winning acoustic folk musician rooted in the American Celtic song tradition–-Celtic music, the Traditional and the Twisted. His musical instrument of choice-the autoharp-continues to surprise musical veterans and fans a like for it’s unique sound and spirited energy. Find out more at www.marcgunn.com.

Uncle Joe was born and raised in the Midlands of Ireland. He had a story that was almost word for word the same as that of my great-grandfather. Joe said when he was 17 his father came to him and said “Here is the fare to England, son; God Bless You!” Since Joe had a number of younger brothers and sisters and the family was poor, he knew it meant the time had come for him to make his own way in the world.

Now some 60 years later here was Joe in New England retelling the stories of a lifetime to me; a young man, a stranger eager to hear the tales of a life so different – but a life not unlike that of my own family. I listened. I was amazed at the hardships. I marveled at the challenges Joe had faced and I was in awe at the humor he had retained. Uncle Joe lived hand-to-mouth and labored at menial tasks throughout his life, building only to the level of day laborer in the streets of, first Liverpool and later London – and yet Joe had one of the sunniest dispositions and kindest hearts I’d ever known. He had married while in Liverpool, raised a family in London. His eldest daughter, now grown with a family of her own – had convinced him to find his sister and come to America to pay a visit. So they looked up Mike’s mom, made contact and flew to Sudbury Massachusetts one summer for a holiday. That’s how I met Uncle Joe.

Mike ran a small excavation business out of his home and since Joe had worked as a hand laborer for many years, he found coming to work with Mike me more to his liking then doing the tourist things with his daughter and family. Joe would sit on the fender of my backhoe and we’d swap stories all morning, get out the rake and shovel in the afternoon or drop into the trench and lay pipe – or complete whatever tasks we had – all the while swapping stories. Joe reminded me of my father’s uncles. I was young when they passed away but I still remembered the accents and the humor. I still remembered the stories and the light in their eyes when they sang their favorite songs. Joe had that same light, that same joy at remembering the good times and retelling the stories. He had that same love for music.

I worked music in those days too; one or two nights a week at local pubs or restaurants. Shortly before they returned home, Mike brought Uncle Joe and the family to one of the pubs I played regularly.

“Oh you played Spancil Hill and Wild Colonial Boy,” Joe went on, the next day after visiting the Pub where I played. “I always sing those songs back home. Then you played the harmonica. Oh I love the harmonica! I always wished I could learn to play the harmonica,” he went on and on. We talked more about some of our favorite songs and how much we loved music. All the while we were working on a new excavation project.

This day Joe and I were laying in a new water service to an old building. The new pipe would run alongside the water main that supplied the town of Wayland. I spent a few hours carefully exposing 300 feet or so of the water main with the backhoe, and finishing the work by hand to be sure we didn’t damage the pipe. The time came for us to connect the new pipe with the old so I dropped through a man-hole cover into the pit where the pipes would be joined. It was a simple matter; push one brick out of the cone-shaped well that made up the pit and then run a new line through the hole. I didn’t need any help, but Uncle Joe wanted to give me a hand. “I’m in the trench and I have the crowbar with me,” he spoke from outside the pit. There was a short pause then excitedly I heard him say, “OOops! We’ve got water comin’ in!”

“WHAT??” I thought. I couldn’t believe it! I’d spent hours carefully, painstakingly uncovering the water main so as to be sure it was not damaged. How did this “leak” suddenly appear?? I climbed out of the pit just in time to see the sandy soil of the trench falling in around Joe’s feet as he hopped out the hole. Water pouring up from the main and had already bubbled up high over his ankles, reaching almost to his knees by the time he got out.

“What in the heck happened?” I wondered to myself, but didn’t speak because Joe was looking a bit guilty. The water department fellows were close at hand, as they always are when work is being done on their pipe, so they quickly shut down the main supply and stopped the flood. But that meant they’d shut down the entire water supply for the whole town of Wayland and several other towns just west of Boston. This was looking like a costly and troublesome error!

Once the water was shut off and we’d drained the trench, I was able to see that a nice neat, dime-sized hole had been punched into the top of the pipe. It seemed obvious to me that the hole was precisely the size of the crowbar tip. And it turned out that because the hole was small and neat, we were lucky. We’d be able to fit a patch onto the pipe – a high tech, expensive patch, to be sure – but it was much less costly and disruptive then having to replace a section of water main. We had the pipe fixed and operational within a half an hour. Nephew Mike was not happy, of course, about spending five or six hundred dollars to patch a hole that his Uncle Joe had accidentally punched into the water main – but it was a lot better then several thousand dollars that a full scale repair would have cost. We counted our blessings!

After hours, that day we stopped for a beer at Mike’s favorite local and Joe told us the full story, “I jumped into the pit to help Jed make the connection,” He said, “but when I dropped the crowbar, it bounced off the side of the trench and landed directly on the top of the water main.” Joe admitted the error sheepishly but by now we could all get a good laugh about it. Still, that was it for Mike. He stopped calling Joe, Uncle Joe and started calling him Crowbar Joe and the name stuck for the rest of the visit.

Joe and his family were scheduled to head back home a few days after this incident, so I stopped at the music store and bought a harmonica for Joe as a going away gift. He and I were finishing work on a new roadway we’d made for a golf course along the Sudbury River when I gave Joe the harmonica. I was totally amazed at his response. You’d think I’d given him a string of pearls! Tears ran down his cheeks. He walked away a few steps, trying it out; blowing in, drawing back, moving up and down the row of holes – then he ran back over to me and gave me a big hug and a kiss on the cheek. He was just so touched at “such a thoughtful gift” as he said, and he “really was going to learn to play it, too!”

I spent a few minutes explaining the basics of “harmonica music theory” and then Joe worked at it. He worked at it all afternoon and he really was finding a few melodies before long. He really was learning to play.

So many years have passed since I said goodbye to Uncle Joe. I’d always remembered his stories and his way with the truth. I’d always remembered his kind heart and his joyous spirit in a world; that, toward him had not been all that kind. One day just a few months ago I was sitting at home playing with a new melody and Joe popped into my mind. A few hours later I had my new favorite song. A song I simply call, Uncle Joe. I hope the song pays homage to a lovely old man who gave a wide eyed young man some great stories and a few hours worth living.

NOTE: The song UNCLE JOE is included on my album SANDS OF ABERDEEN.

http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jedmarum9

by Jed Marum, at home in Dallas TX

The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast has a brand new episode.  This one features the Best Celtic Music of 2011 by your votes.  You’ll find music from The Crossing, The Flying Toads, Sligo Rags, Keith Hinchliffe, Maggie Drennon, Rising Gael, Heather Alexander, Vicki Swan & Jonny Dyer, Atlantic Wave, Rambling Sailors, Scooter Muse, Colin Farrell, Pandora Celtica, Molly Bauckham, Jiggernaut, Rathkeltair, Alison Nolan, Jimi McRae And Sam Okoo, Gaelic Storm, and Ockham’s Razor.  The show is packed with great indie Celtic music, and next time, we’re gonna feature those same artists with new songs for the new year.

• Listen to the Best Celtic Music of  2011 today
• Cast Your Vote in The Celtic Top Twenty
• On iTunes?  Rate our newest Celtic Playlist
• Submit Your Celtic Music

What’s your favorite Celtic love song?

Valentine’s Day is a month away.  What is your favorite love song?  Let’s compile a great list for the coming holiday.

See Marc Gunn in Two Upcoming Shows with the Irish Society of North Alabama and Back in Louisiana

I’ll be performing at the end of the month (Sat, January 28th) at the Maggie McGuinness Pub as part of the Irish Society of North Alabama‘s monthly membership.  A week later, I return to Louisiana for a house concert  on Friday, February 3rd in Robert, LA.

Drinking songs for those who like to LOL!  Marc Gunn riotously combines Renaissance festival fanaticism with Irish drinking and Sci Fi fandom into a satirical jam session between Jonathan Coulton and The Clancy Brothers.  Marc Gunn is an award-winning acoustic folk musician rooted in the American Celtic song tradition–-Celtic music, the Traditional and the Twisted. His musical instrument of choice-the autoharp-continues to surprise musical veterans and fans a like for it’s unique sound and spirited energy. Find out more at www.marcgunn.com.

Band Name: Gaelic Brass (Liza Zumbrunnen, director/arranger)
Hometown: Overland Park, Kansas

Gaelic Brass plays only Celtic arrangements by Liza Zumbrunnen (the director and trumpeter). Although the music is played by two trumpets and a trombone, the songs stay true to the original Celtic style. The arrangements can be described a brass interpretation of traditional Irish and Scottish tunes.

What Celtic countries have you visited or do you dream of visiting?

I haven’t been to any Celtic countries yet. The closest I’ve been is England and France. Although I absolutely loved London, I dream of visiting Ireland and Scotland as a tourist and a performer. I want to experience the music culture as well as sight-see. I would also like to do research in my personal Irish and Scottish roots.

What’s your favorite song or band and why?

My favorite artists include Ewan MacColl, Kate Rusby, Regina Spektor, and Sufjan Stevens. One of the most influential bands for the Gaelic Brass has been Gaelic Storm. They inspired a lot of my arrangements as well as our band name.

What instrument do you play and what do you wish you know how to play?

My main instrument is trumpet, which I focus on playing in the style of a fiddle. Although I play many different Celtic instruments such as guitar and bodhran, I’d like to be able to play fiddle at an advanced level. However, I wouldn’t give up playing fiddle tunes on trumpet- it’s too much fun!

What do you do in your downtime?

In my downtime I usually am arranging new tunes for the Kansas City Renaissance Festival. I’ve written over 75 arrangements so far and I’m getting ready for the next festival season in August. When I have nothing to do I like to watch comedies or anything with Norman Reedus. I’m also a born-again Christian so I make time for Bible study.