St. paddy's day

[catmandu2]

Is this the busiest weekend for everyone? #Or, is it Christmas time for ya?..

I had jams over the weekend, and two formal St. Paddy's Day dates this week. Seems to me it's just as busy as any week during the xmas season, and moreso than at any other time of year. (I never appreciated SPD until I took up fiddle/mando..)

[Dan Adams]

We played Saturday and added in a few Irish tunes into the regular sets, and a few into a new set. My favorite 'made-up' holiday. Dan

[steve V. johnson]

Friday we played our regular session (5:30pm til...) at the Runcible Spoon restaurant in Bloomington, IN. #

Last night our band, the Culchies, played a private party in Zionsville, Indiana, to around a hundred people. #The host,
Steve Doyle, is a publisher, a fellow of very broad and eclectic interests and his guests were wonderful. #We rocked and
had a great time.

Today (Sunday) we played a special St. Pat's brunch at the Muddy Boots Cafe in Nashville, Indiana, a small arts colony
village with an idiosyncratic and rebellious history, and drew one of the biggest crowds they'd ever had. #Chef Kerry
laid on a splendid Irish menu and we were joined by Amanda Caretta on bodhrán, Genevieve Riley Manset on button
accordion and mandolin, and singer Pat McNulty for some great old songs. #Luthier Bruce Taggart and wife to listen,
along with many other good friends. # It was a real peak experience.

Tomorrow my splendid wife, bodhranist and bones player Min Gates, and I will play with (ex-Minneapolis/St. Paul) fiddler
Becka Schafer at the Meadowood retirement community (we have a -great- time there, each time we play there!) in the afternoon, and then we'll join fiddler Mari Kermit Canfield, Matt Williamson on fiddle and concertina, Ron Nehrig on guitar and
Tony Brewer on bodhrán at (get this!!) a benefit for the local women's roller derby team, the Bleeding Heartland Rollergirls
at a real, nasty, green-beer bar in Ellettsville, Indiana.

Hey, it was almost too easy.... http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif ... so we had to have a dose of those folks who don't know trad Irish from ... baseball....

It's been a great, great weekend with more to come!

Thanks,

stv

[allenhopkins]

About ten St. Pat's-related gigs, including three tomorrow:
1 p.m. Concert at seniors' facility with my band Innisfree
3 p.m. Irish songs sing-along at another seniors' facility (solo)
7 p.m. "Irish Music In America" solo concert at a library in Albion NY.

Then another seniors' gig on Tuesday, a Purim service at a local temple (quick ethnic switch!) on Thursday. Ahead, the New England Folk Festival April 25-27!

[catmandu2]

Good grief...where do you all find time for all this?

[Dave Reiner]

Just one gig, last night (Saturday) at Morey's Tavern in Maynard, MA. I was on fiddle and mandolin, my son Eric on piano, and Steve Brown (twice all-Ireland bones champion) on bones and bodhran. We had a 10YO Irish fiddler, Ellie as a guest for a few medleys. We had a few songs, but it was mostly 3 and 4 tune medleys, 12 to a set. Lots of tunes -- kept the place jumping from 8PM until almost 1AM.

Dave

[mandroid]

Food, Beer and hours of playing with old and new friends Sunday,
thin widely spread tip jar.

Tavern in ownership change , new Irish Native owners,

I was assured, exterior will not be left gray Painted,

... more sessions to come.

the 'ManJo' was a most useful instrument.

[mandopete]

No, but I ate a bowl of Lucky Charms - does that count?

http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/smile.gif

[mandolinny]

Made up holiday?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/rock.gif?http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/wow.gif Hey!!! It's my birthday!! http://www.mandolincafe.net/iB_html/non-cgi/emoticons/laugh.gif

[catmandu2]

We just played this afternoon for about 75 folks for a special SPD lunch. Other than the singer forgetting to, well...sing, once or twice, it was much fun--and we even made enough in tips for me to pay my bandmates.

Happy SPD/Birthday Linny!

[ruraltradpunk]

There's nothing "made up" about St. Patrick's Day - it's the feast day of the patron saint of Ireland. The made up bit would be the green beer/kiss me I'm irish t-shirts/etc etc, and all of that seems to have originated in America, not here in Ireland.

Jill

[allenhopkins]

Jill --

I understand the emphasis is religious on St. Patrick's Day in Ireland, without all the foofaraw we have here, with millions of people, without the slightest connection to Erin, wearing green plastic hats and bellowing and stomping to The Wild Rover.

A bar somewhere in the Midwest is trying to break the Guinness record (didn't know there was one) for continuous singing of Danny Boy. #They were up to 35 hours when the cable news cameras were there, and the guy on guitar looked both bored and wasted. #Were I to wander into that place, I'd do some serious imbibing!

I love the Irish music, and even love the pseudo-Irish or juke-box Irish songs written here in America by composers such as Chauncey Olcott -- When Irish Eyes Are Smiling, Wild Irish Rose, etc. #I don't love the scene in the bars over the weekend, and it's nice to put together a well-planned musical program about how Irish-American song reflects the history of the Irish immigration, and to sing it in a library or some other place where people come to listen and not to get drunk.

[ruraltradpunk]

Allen,
Paddy's Day isn't really terribly religious in emphasis nowadays over here - for a long time it's basically been a bank holiday that happens to have a parade happening too, so a day off work for everyone, and yes, copious amounts of drink gets consumed! Even the "parade" has only gotten smartened up in recent years (floats, giant puppets, fireworks in the evening), thanks mainly I think to returning immigrants who'd gotten used to a bit grander type of parade courtesy of their years in NY/Boston/San Francisco etc etc. Prior to that, by and large the parade here was made up of some soldiers, a few high school marching bands from America, and a priest leading a bunch of kids in their Holy Communion/Confirmation outfits. I only got up on my high horse about it being the feast day of St. Patrick because I was merely trying to show that it IS a real holiday with a real history and not just some American marketing man's brainstorm!

Jill