Plum and Horn again

I hope my plum source never dries up, because I just love this stuff.  And more and more people are loving it too.   It makes a surprisingly sweet sounding (but still managing to be robust) set of smallpipes.

 

More photos here:
Gallery

This one time at fiddle camp . . .

My good friend Ward MacDonald is running a new camp in Prince Edward Island in June. Despite it's name, PEI Fiddle Camp will actually include instruction in a number of musical disciplines - fiddle, mandolin, guitar, piano and more, but most importantly, instruction from two of the best and most funnist smallpipers on this side of the world, Dr. Ellen MacPhee and Tim Cummings.

Here's the website:

http://peifiddlecamp.com/

It will be June 20th -26th. So mark your calenders and send in your deposits.

I will be providing a number of "practice sets" for the week, so anyone who is interested in trying out smallpiping for the first time would be wise to sign up quick and reserve one.

I haven't been this excited about going to camp in a long time.  Ward's camp will allow pipers something that I think is incredibly important, and all too rare, the chance to just be one type of musician among many types.  We tend not integrate ourselves into the folk music world very well, but this camp will help.  Ellen and Tim will show you how to play with others, and every night there will be chances to play with others in jams/sessions.

And here's Ward MacDonald showing off some of his abundant fiddling and fiddle teaching skills.

Maine Pipes and Fiddle Spring Weekend Date set

The Weekend date is set for May 7th - 9th.  The week preceding, the instructors will be performing at various venues across Maine.  Look for info HERE.

Commando Trad

We need more of this in the world:



Chipping away at the tarnish that's grown over us all.

New ways to buy "Gaelic" Cds.

Well, I always recommend to customers looking to buy piping Cds to go to BagpipeDiscs.com.  Ian Lawther has every Cd you could want, and great customer service.  But sometimes you just want to download a Cd so you can hear it right away.  Well, I use to do that at tradtunes.com, but they no longer exist.  However,  I recently found GaelicMusic.com.  Lots of piping Cds, and they have a really cool feature I haven't seen elsewhere.  You can either just download the album for 9.99 (pounds), or download the album immediately and get the Cd in the mail for 11.99 (plus shipping).  Pretty cool.

Some New Recent CDS

Over the past month I've been in the shop long hours trying to catch up on the orders.  All this hard work has made me feel I deserved some new Cds.

El Tri

These guys have been on my radar for a while.  Originally, with a different piper, called the Boston Kiltics (Tri is a much better name!), this band is lead by Doug lamey, grandson of the well-known Cape Breton fiddler Bill Lamey.  It's a great combo, they're American, they play Cape Breton music, and they have a smallpiper!  What more can you ask for?  Plus they're joined by the very talented Cape Bretoner Kimberly Fraser on Piano.

Here's a video at their CD release party:



Secondly we have Dochas.  I thought I'd start with their first Cd An Darna Umhail.  This is one of those super bands packed with incredibly talented young musicians that's all the rage these days.  Like most of the Scottish (and Irish) bands/musicians like this it lacks the drive that Cape Bretoners manage to get into their  Cds, and it's pretty heavily "produced", but it's actually a more enjoyable listening experience than I'd originally thought it'd be.  You can't help but love Julie Fowlis's singing, and I was already a fan of Jenna Reid's fiddle playing.  Plus there's Border Pipes and Smallpipes, both of which sound very good on this Cd.

Here they are at The Orkney Folk Festival:



Next we have Gadelle.  I've been waiting for this Cd for some time.  Gadelle is from the French part of Prince Edward Isand, and two of the four members were in Barachois, probably the funnest band to see live in the history of live bands.  I hope to see Gadelle live soon.  Their Cd is chock full of energy!  It's got all the missing get up and go that Dochas forgot to get into their's.  If you're a fan of Barachois or Visten, you'll be a fan of Gadelle.  French-Canadian Fiddle, French Canadian singing, French-Canadian foot percusion.  Good stuff.

Here they are at the Skye Theatre in Maine (which I haven't been to yet.)



And finally we have Iain MacInnes's Cd Sealbh.  It's been a long time since Iain came out with his first Cd Tryst, but it looks like the wait was worth it.  Like with Tryst, I wouldn't have arranged my Cd the way Iain does.  It sounds like Iain likes classical music a lot more than I do.  A lot of the tracks sound like chamber music and he even uses harpsichord on a number of tracks.   But this is not a bad thing.  It's a great sounding album with lots of juicy tunes.  Mostly D smallpipes, but both A smallpipes and Border pipes make an appearance.  And I especially enjoy the tracks with concertina and smallpipes.  I think Iain wants to show the world that smallpipes are a real instrument.  You're preaching to the choir Iain.

Sorry no youtube for Iain.  But I'd recommend ordering the Cd right away.

Missing Cape Breton

I haven't been up to Cape Breton in some time so I went to youtube to get my Cape Breton fix.  Here's a few videos I enjoyed:

New Blog Look

I just got tired of the same old looking Blog, so I went all crazy and changed it to this one.  The background reminded me of the ceiling of the pipe shop.