Main Street Tunes, 12/28/10

A joy to have David and his Mom, Susie, stop by for tunes this morning - tunes that included The Cock That Announces the Day (new to me, can't wait to learn it), Virginia Reel, Banish Misfortune, The Banshee, Miss McCleod's; Tobin's/My Darling Asleep; LeTourment/La Maison de Glace/ Early In the Year; Lighthouse Keeper's Waltz/Out on the Ocean/Kesh Jig, etc. Thanks for coming by, see you again - soon, I hope.






Mother and son duet: The Cock That Announces the Day. Lovely.

Tommy's, Christmas Eve Eve

A quiet night out at the pub, due most likely to folks being either at home wrapping presents, or in transit, headed home for Christmas - Cambridge being a college town, the place does empty out on major holidays - or, maybe all the money was spent on gift shopping and none was left over for a pint. Nonetheless, the music was brilliant, as always.

I decided to mess around with the 40D and my 50mm/1.4 tonight. The verdict: it's still bloody dark in that place (Dear Santa, please bring a 7D, with ISO range up to 12,800 and HD video).

Sean, Liam, Levi.









Sean Connor




Sean Connor and Liam Hart.

Tommy Doyle's 12/22/10

Text Rec'd from friend: Tunes tonight?
Reply: Desperately need tunes.

Still struggling - photographically, that is - with the dark cave that is Tommy Doyle's. All shot at ISO 3200, between 30th - 40th sec @ 2.8. Shooting in RAW format does allow me to recover an image that is even 2 full stops underexposed - all processed, including some noise-reduction, in LR3 - but I think these have crossed over into the realm of art. I rather like them, nonetheless.




Rosanne, Jon.






Sean Connor





Sean, Rosanne, Jon, Cormac, Eric.






"Christmas Eve"


There's medicine in the music.
I'd love to know the names of these tunes - one of Cormac's brilliant sets.

Hibernian Hall Slow Session and Ceili 12-19-10

I somehow ended up at the Hibernian Hall in Watertown today. Not that I didn't have a million other things to do, but how could I pass up the opportunity to spend a Sunday afternoon playing music? Those million things will all be there waiting for me tomorrow. The slow session began at 1:30, then at three o'clock a few other musicians arrived and we all went up onto the stage and became a ceili band and played for a room full of dancers. This session/ceili takes place on the third Sunday of every month. Everyone was extremely warm and welcoming - I'll be back.

What a Year It's Been

Self-portrait.                                                                                                                            This month marks one year since attending my first session down at Paddy Barry's in Quincy. And what a year it's been since that first night when I couldn't play a note on my fiddle and could just barely stammer out my name. I am now able to play quite a few tunes, and have added a bouzouki to my bag of tricks, but more importantly, I have made a ton of friends - of all ages - and have connected with the most wonderful musical community.

Greenbriar Slow Session, 12/13/10

My friend Louise was up visiting for a few days from the island. Usually I am down there on Mondays, so I took advantage of the rare opportunity to attend the Greenbriar, at least the early session, because I knew I would be pushing it by keeping Lou out too late, though I do love that later group. We went over early, for dinner - delicious fish 'n chips - and I settled Lou at a table with a couple of new friends, where she sat and enjoyed the music and the socializing. This particular session is nothing, if not social - and it is a good bit more, of course: an opportunity to play, enmasse (this evening I'd say there were thirty to forty players), all of my favorite tunes, albeit a bit slowly for my taste. Well, too slow for the tunes I know; just right for the tunes I'm learning. The number of people I know increases with each session I attend - I love this - tunes, too, as I am more and more able to pick up tunes on the fly, at least the ones I already have in my ear.

Rosanne, etc.

Yours Truly, by Joanie.

Ditto.

Tony, and son.

Joanie, etc.

Frank and Joanie. My friend Brian brings his grandpa Frank to most sessions, where he is always given a seat of honor and often sings a song from the homeland. We all love Frank. God bless ye, sir.

The Company

Tommy Doyle's, 12/9/10

It's difficult to explain what, exactly, this music means to me, though I could probably sum it up in one word: homecoming. Yes, my involvement with Irish Traditional Music is a coming home of sorts; the gatherings I find myself in in various Boston pubs being so very reminiscent of the kitchen table of my childhood, when many evenings would find my mother, my brother, and me - and often an assortment of neighbors, friends, and relatives - gathered,  mother playing her Silvertone baritone uke, my brother, John, on guitar; all of us joining our voices in the folk and civil rights songs that were popular in the '50s and '60s. It was at this table that I learned to play guitar - beginning with my mother's little uke, at age 8 - and it was at this table that we were united in heart and spirit as a family, through music. Indeed, those kitchen hootenannies, as they were called then, remain as the happiest memories from my childhood. While the music we played and sang at our table was not specifically Irish, though some of it certainly was, it is the music that I now play around the table in the Irish pub that has reconnected me with my musical roots, with a sense of family, and with joy - after being away for far too long.

(I'm still sussing out the G12, trying to reconcile it with the very dim lighting in Tommy Doyle's.)


Floating Crowbar, Bag of Spuds, O'Connell's Trip to Parliament



(Above) Liam Hart, accompanied by friends (Sean Connor, Alex, Rosanne, Wynter), sings his arrangement of Fill a Ruin, "Come back, dear, come back." This song is on Liam's album, Far From Home.




I'm sure these tunes (above) have names - somebody help me out -  but I will always think of this set as Wynter's Set. Brilliant. Can't wait to learn them. Okay, got 'em (thanks, Rosanne, for these as well as for video #1): College Groves, Jenny's Wedding, Cregg's Pipes.

Saturday Night, Boston, 12/4/10

I was already planning on going to the session at The Littlest Bar on Saturday night, but a text I received from a session mate Saturday afternoon sealed the deal: "Littlest is gonna be leanin' heavy and should be totally off the feckin' charts..." I supposed at first that "leanin' heavy" must have meant there would be a large crowd, but now understand that this was a reference to the musician heavy-weights who would be in attendance. Having also received a text advising that the Locals would be playing at nearby Mr. Dooleys, I was happy to break free from my shackles and jump aboard the Green Line, inbound from Coolidge Corner, for a downtown Saturday night out.

The last time I went to Littlest I transferred to the Blue Line and got off at State Street, since it appeared to be the T-stop closest to the bar. This time I decided to walk from Park Street, thinking that the time lost while waiting for the connecting train is about equal to the time it takes to walk a few extra blocks. Besides, I love to walk and I was in the mood for taking in the sights and sounds of the people-filled holiday-season streets of Downtown Boston.

I wasn't exactly sure how to find my way from Park Street, though, and ended up on a somewhat meandering path down Tremont towards Government Center, and then turning right, where I discovered, and saw for the first time in my life, Old City Hall, which was quite grand; lovely, all lit up with Christmas lights.

As I continued to wander through the windy canyons of Boston's financial district - somewhat randomly, in the direction (I hoped) of Broad Street - suddenly I heard what sounded like someone calling my name. I ignored it at first, thinking I was hearing things - certainly nobody in that neighborhood knew me - but I did turn to see, sure enough, Levi - a fiddler I know from Tommy Doyle's - coming up behind me, waving, also on his way to Littlest. This was quite fun to come across someone I knew in the middle of this totally foreign neighborhood. Not to mention, a bit of a relief to have a tall, strong traveling companion through the now-dark city streets.

Levi and I found our way together to Mr. Dooley's - a wonderful, family-style Irish pub. Really, this was such a wonderful atmosphere. People were relaxed and happy and seemed to know each other, and there were even a few children in attendance. Laura and Cormac and Brian sounded great, too; a great combo of voices, whistle, fiddle, and guitar.  Eventually, Eric turned up. A funny thought that crossed my mind at the time was, how did my life turn out this way - that at age sixty I would be traipsing through the streets of Boston, bouzouki on my back and fiddle in hand,  running into barroom buddies in the middle of nowhere, and also even happening to know someone sitting at the bar (Eric) at an Irish pub I'd never been to in my life? Life is just so, well, interesting. The only downside was, somehow I managed to lose my Charlie Card. Mysteriously, it fell out of my mitten somewhere between Park Street and Mr. Dooley's. I say mysteriously because I double and triple-checked - there was no escape route from that mitten. A drag, especially because I had recently put $20 on it.

Regardless - it was a great night for Irish music in Boston.

Mr. Dooley's

The Locals: Cormac, Laura, Brian.

Steve Earl's Galway Girl


The Littlest Bar

The Littlest Bar: Cormac -  fiddler/surfer dude from Dublin; Tara - button accordion; Eric - flute; Brendan Bulger - host fiddler; Larry Reynolds - fiddle; Sean - fiddle; Greg - mando, whistle, and tenor guitar.

The Littlest Bar is actually not very little, though the corner where the session is held is a bit cramped, and delightfully so. This was my second time at The Littlest, and as much as I enjoy it, I don't feel as at home there as I do with the folks I play with regularly every week. There seems to be a different sub-set of tunes, for one thing, many that I've never heard before. There weren't many tunes I could play on my fiddle, proportionately, compared to other sessions I've been to, so I mostly played my bouzouki. I was happy to be the only chordal instrument in the house (for a change), though I tried not to abuse the privilege. At times it was quite enjoyable to just sit back and listen, especially when only the fiddles were being played. And yes, the heavy-hitters were in attendance and the music was brilliant.

Greg; Tony - bodhran.

 Laura,  right, has dropped in after her gig at Dooley's.

All shot with the G12; still getting to know this little camera and its capabilities. I tried the Low Light setting tonight. This setting doesn't offer much more than my usual Manual/RAW settings, but with no RAW capabilities, and no control of settings, with tiny files, to boot - yes, a little less noise, but I can reduce noise in post-processing in LightRoom, so I think I'll just stick to shooting Manual/RAW, 3200 ISO. I suppose I could have adjusted the WB in the color shots from The Littlest, cooled them down a little, but I rather like the warm pre-Christmas glow.

The Locals

My friend Laura is in an Irish Trad band called The Locals. Laura, Cormac, Brian, and I had a fun shoot outside of Porterbelly's pub in Brighton a while back.