UK Blog VII
Ahoy mateys! ` September 24, 2009
PF here, riding aboard the Stena line ferry from Stranraer, Scotland, to Belfast, Ireland. That’s right! The Hot Seats are invading yet another two countries. Today and tomorrow we are in the Republic of Ireland, and then Saturday we are in Northern Ireland. Very exciting to say the least! Right now I’m watching two ladies kiss at the table next to mine! Oh these crazy European
We’ve had a couple of great days off, hanging out in Edinburgh. It’s interesting to be there when the Fringe is NOT happening. Still fairly bustling, but not nearly as absurd or crowded, and also not full of venues. Edinburgh is beautiful, as you may know – a city surrounding a castle, lovely hills to climb for views, cobbled streets. It’s not a great driving city, but perhaps that’s due to it’s age, eh? Maybe the serfs and vassals didn’t need to worry so much about parking spaces and one-way streets.
Ben and I have been staying with our new pals, Paul and Fiona Johnston, of the great Scottish group Rock Salt and Nails – who we met at a bluegrass jam session in a pub during the Fringe, and became fast friends. It is, for us, edifying to meet people who have been able to so successfully combine real life (house, kids, relative normalcy) and musical careers. Our two nights were spent talking, drinking a variety of Scotches, and playing bluegrass music – Paul is quite the guitarist and singer, and enthusiast. They’re gunning to get us back over here for the Shetland Music Festival. Sounds good to us.
So let’s see, when last we spoke, we were in Aberdeenshire. Our Tin Hut gig was, as expected, a great time. A full house, very appreciative and high energy. I can’t say enough about how much we love these town hall style gigs. It seems so very appropriate to travel to a tiny town and perform for farmers and folks who live way out in the outlying areas. Kind of like an old-style griot or snake-oil salesman, except that we don’t take coinage from the rube, or refer to anyone as “rubes.”
Anyway . . . Fraser and Fiona, our hosts in Aberdeenshire, are incredible folks, with a lovely herb farm and rustic, self-sufficient, lifestyle. After the show we all went back to their house and had a big old meal of local haggis, purple runner beans, and potatoes. But not regular potatoes. No no! Fraser is a potato nut, and grows all kinds of heirloom potatoes, with great names like the Arran Comet, the Ulstre Sceptre, the Kestrel, and the Pink Fir Apple (this is the one we were eating). Fraser will also talk to you about potatoes and their many strong points and the minutiae of their many differences. And, to be fair, these are not your standard bland baking spuds from a supermarket. These are REAL potatoes – knobby, cantankerous, and delicious!
The other thing about which Fraser is passionate is whiskeys. He has TONS of unmarked bottles of connoisseurs stock whiskeys from distilleries throughout Scotland. For more info on this, you’ll have to ask Ben, Aaron, or Jake, as I was not present for the all-night Scotch drinking session that took place. Needless to say, when Gerry, Ed and I arrived to pick them up in the morning, they were awake, but bleary.
What followed were our two days off in Edinburgh. And then, we were picked up yesterday (my 3 year anniversary, thank you very much!) and whisked off to Peebles for our gig at the Eastgate Theatre. We played this venue last January with a great response, and had a similar experience last night. This, specifically, is the experience of a very quiet room full of audience members who are not obviously having a great time, but who, in fact ARE. It’s a funny thing for us, as we are so used to playing to hooting, stomping, or just straight-up conversing audiences. It can make us a little awkward – an attentive audience. However, during the break, Malcolm (another new friend, former drummer with the Incredible String Band(!!!)) laid it out to me that audiences here are, for the most part, unused to seeing bluegrass or string band music, and frequently don’t know how to process it. Add on top of that our general bizarre behavior, jerky syncopations and funny looks, and it is understandable, sez he, that the crowd would be a bit dumbstruck or “gobsmacked,” as he put it.
Anyway, we got up quite early this morning, and are now en route to Ireland. This ferry is really fancy, with a shopping mart, coffee shops, video games, and even a nail salon! Crazy! It’s not the best mani-pedi I’ve ever gotten, but it’ll do for now (we HAVE to look after your cuticles you know, otherwise what separates us from chimpanzees, digging through the dirt for edible termites and flinging our waste at one another?).
We’ve got three busy days ahead of us, with early leaving times and gigs galore. I hope to have some good stories to share with you. Until then, enjoy the pics and let me know if there’s any particular details that I should be accentuating.
Guinness-bound,
PF Hot Seats
Three days later . . .
Wow, it’s been a mighty packed three days folks, and there has been neither a free internet signal, nor a minute of free time, to post this blog, so allow me to update and then we will post.
So, we landed in Belfast, an easy ferry ride, and departed. Now, our first gig (Thursday, September 24) was in Manorhamilton, County Leitrim. Pretty much on the same latitude as Belfast but directly across the country, on the west coast. This also makes it in the Republic of Ireland, rather than Northern Ireland. So, a few things happen. Miles turn to kilometres, pounds turn to euros, and the roads turn to bumpy, potholed, and curvy. In general, the European roads are much more narrow and serpentine that the US equivalents, so when an Irishman/Scotsman/Brit tells you that “oh THAT’s a bad road,” you know it’s meaningful.
Manorhamilton is a nice small town, surrounded by fields on all sides. I got a chance to take a walk around and found two paupers graveyards, where hundreds were buried during the Famine. Pretty stark reality to come up against, to say the least. Anyway, the gig was in a great arts centre called the Glens Centre, and our hosts were Anna and Ray, our sound man. Both folks could NOT have been more professional or accommodating. Ray is a rare bird, inasmuch as he’s a soundman who cares DEEPLY about the happiness of the artist (that’s right, I said ARTIST!). What a joy to work with someone like that.
The gig was great – a ¾ full house and a very energetic crowd. Plenty of stomping and clapping. It’s gratifying when a line in a song that you think is really great elicits the response that you want from a crowd, I’ll say that much, same thing when someone takes a great solo and it is so obviously appreciated.
We had another 6am leave the next morning, and had all plans of having an early night in preparation, but oh it was not to be. Given that we were newbies to the area, Anna insisted on taking us to at least one or two of the local musician spots. The first was a pub called Connolly’s, and the proprietor is this fellow Joe, who apparently never leaves the pub. It’s pretty much a tiny box, and it’s apparently the oldest pub around. The real joy is that Joe has an amazing voice and knows tons of songs, and he’ll gladly swap you song for song. So we did! Eddie and I sang a duet and Ben, after some mild prodding,led us all in a raucous rendition of “Okie from Muskogee.” In trade, Joe sang us the great Marty Robbins tune “Big Iron” and an Irish drinking song that I think is called “Jonny Jump Up.” What was great is his voice! Oh man that voice. Sounds like the man has a diaphragm that’s the size of a trampoline! Anyway, that was great. I videoed him singing, and HERE’S the first one.
After that, Anna took us over to another pub where we were honored to get to hear the fiddling of Ben Lennon, apparently a product of the County Leitrim fiddling ways. Now this man is not young – white furry eyebrows, and it was not early. Reminded me greatly of many of the older, more revered old-time musicians. He played very quietly, and all of the other musicians leaned in to listen closely to what he played, so as to not miss a note. Aaron and I were convinced to play a couple of tunes for them, but we were, at that point in the night (call is 3am), in less than pristine form, so it was only a couple of tunes. And then to bed, for a very short amount of time.
Friday we woke and got right in the van for another curvy and bumpy ride to Wexford, in the Southeast of the ROI. Another lovely town. We had an early gig in the town square, and we mostly played bluegrass and old timey standards. The crowd that gathered was enthralled by our flashy American ways and bright white smiles. There was even a set of dancers who arrived by the end, to the entertainment of all. We were served a great lunch afterwards – I took a picture of Jake’s meal – Pork Belly and Mash.
We then made our way to our evening gig at Colfer’s Pub, out in the country. It is now that I’ll comment on the unfortunate suburbanization of many of these Irish towns – ugly cookie cutter houses are everywhere, and furthermore, more than half of them are empty! It’s like the States, pretty much, and it sucks. Apparently the Republic of Ireland suffered a much larger balloon and a much bigger crash than we did, and it’s evident all over the place. Thanks Alan Greenspan! The pub gig was fun, although not remarkable. Alas, we were all fairly tired and it was a small room of folks, so we didn’t give them our best, I’m afraid to say. The highlight was when the owner of the pub joined for a tune on his harmonica. He played “Miss MacCloud’s Reel,” and we played “Did you Ever See the Devil, Uncle Joe?” which are luckily the same thing. He was amazing on that thing!
After the gig, it was quick to bed with us, so that we could get up the next day and head for Belfast!
Saturday morning it was a luxurious 8:30 leave, which felt like serious sleeping in, in comparison to the last two days. It was a pretty easy drive up to Belfast, as the roads were fairly large and straight. We rolled into the Open House Festival at about 1pm, a full hour before our 2:15 set. This is a really great Fest, right in the center of Belfast, with lots of fun Americana acts. Red Stick Ramblers, T Model Ford, Bob Log III, and our Hackensaw pal – Ferd Moyse, just hanging out, playing with nearly everyone around. There was also a Chili eating contest and a helium balloon karaoke area. Fun!
Our gig went exceptionally well, the tent was maybe half-full at the beginning, with lots of talkers and ignorers, but we pretty well got most eyes and ears focused on our doing, and filled the tent in the process. We sometimes really excel in these long single sets, as they allow us plenty of time to stretch out and cover lots of musical ground. The unfortunate end is that our songs, as maybe you know, range from about 1 to 3½ minutes in length. So a 90 minute set is somewhere around 25 songs. Phew!
After the set, there was merch selling and backstage schmoozing. The band after us – I Draw Slow – is a group of oldtimey musicians from Dublin. I can’t get enough of folks over here playing oldtime music. It makes me very happy to think of Fred Cockerham eluding the respect he is owed in such faraway climes. I wonder if the same is felt about American Irish musicians?
We checked into our hotel with the promise of late night jams aplenty, come the midnight hour. It being only 7:30ish after dinner, and us being quite tired, we felt it prudent to walk around and keep ourselves awake. We went back to the festival to watch some music. One tent had a Ryan Adams tribute show going on. Echem! Sorry, I had to repress something there. All I’ll say is that Ben and I were very tempted to rush to the stage and loudly request “Summer of ‘69,” “Cuts Like a Knife”, and “The Robin Hood Song,” but we didn’t.
The OTHER stage had a three band bill. It started with Ivan Ivanovich and the Kreml Krauts. OK, they were high energy and hilarious, maybe 9 of them on stage – two guitars, bass, drums, accordion, french horn, etc etc – but folks, hasn’t the Slavic-punk-ska thing run its course? Clearly not, though maybe that’s not a good thing. OK, yes, Gogol Bordello is a good band, I think so too! So why try and sound just like them and open yourself to my unflattering comparison?
The next band was called Prison Love (they had us from hello, you know? We’re a sucker for a bad band name!), and they were a group of Dubliners who could really swing the oldtimey/Cajun beats. They played a lot of great songs to my enjoyment. It must have been good, b/c I even got out with our pal Helen Keen (from London) and did some lame two-stepping and flatfooting with her. Again, I’ll reiterate my love of Irish folks playing American trad music. Sometimes they’re more pure than the OG’s (as is evident by our complete lack of purity).
The final group – Union Avenue – is a Glasgow group that specializes in Jonny-Cash style renditions of many songs that were never played by Jonny Cash. I have to give it to these guys, they were great. They had the crowd whipped into a minor frenzy, and thy pulled off the 50’s Rockabilly with gritty precision. Highlights for me were “White Wedding,” and “Should I Stay or Should I Go?” The singer did a fairly spot-on impression, and had the American accent down, such that I didn’t know he was Glaswegian until I was told.
After this we headed back to the hotel for jamming fun. Ben and I grabbed a mess of instruments, roused Aaron and were congregating in the lobby. At that moment, Ferd and Morgan (of Casa Chihuahua) rolled in and the jam began. Now, Aaron and Ferd have this little love thing happening, so they essentially french kissed while they cooked through lots of tunes, I was playing guitar, and Ben, Helen and Morgan were playing the banjos. Morgan also has this suitcase with a drum pedal that he beats upon. It was a raucous sound to say the least, and would have gotten us many a baleful stare at Clifftop or Galax, but that doesn’t mean it wasn’t full of fun and great energy. We had a good crowd of drinkers hooting and swaying with us, and that’s what matters most in the late hours, anyway. Old time music, is it the best music ever? It’s probably hard to say for sure, but it definitely has it’s time and place, and this was exactly it – late night, boozy, loose and exciting!
As the jam collected drummers, I lost a bit of interest, and also tiredness overtook me. I personally rolled out around 3am, and it showed no sign of stopping.
And here I sit, drinking strong coffee and eating a light breakfast. We roll to the ferry in about an hour’s time, so it’s probably time for a shower and a shave and other morning things. Back to Scotland for a last week of great shows. Stay tuned for more!
PF, Tired and Out!
Oh, one last thing! You may know that we are fans of fancy bathroom air-dryers. No? Well, we are. It started with the Excelerator, which is raw power. Then we found the Airblade, which is more precise and a little more ingenious (though it won’t blow you across the room like some kind of juggernaut). And now there is the Celtic! A stream that’s almost as powerful as the Excelerator, but an added bonus of a cool bluelight that, I guess, shows you where the air is hitting your hand. Kind of looks like your hand is being beamed up. Fancy!
