We were out at the LI Irish Fest which was held at the Abbess Farm in Calverton from about 2 until 11 on Saturday, and I had been having such a good time I had forgotten to take any pictures at all. All I have are some crappy shots from a cell phone, though I think Sport had a camera with him. There were 7 tents of various sizes, all very impressive. I quipped that we should find out how much it costs to have one of these put up, so we wouldn’t need to set up any tents at all when we camp; We could just partition the huge thing into rooms! In fact, the only thing that wasn’t impressive about the fest was the turn out. I don’t know if it was a lack of advertising or what, but there were some awesome bands playing to nearly empty tents which was a shame. The lack of crowds was very welcome to me personally, however - I just hope they broke even at least. Those tents were probably not cheap.
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I was lucky enough to hook up with a bunch of friends to see the Pogues play Roseland on St. Patty’s day! I skipped out of work a bit early, caught the train in to Penn, took the C up two stops to 50th St. and hiked up the two blocks to 52nd street. Tim was already in with Sport and Cate who had gone in early for the parade and were just getting the kids and grandparents back on a train out east when I arrived, so I just hung out on line and talked to some cool people from New Brunswick about bands we liked until they could get down to meet me.

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This is a static version of a dynamic document kept on Google Docs, which is shared with several friends to view and collaborate on over time. The most recent version of the page may be found here. This is basically a list of bands I want to check out, have only begun to investigate, or think are worth sharing - I find new bands by talking to friends, listening to the local college and independent radio stations, or some of several Celtic Folk music podcasts, or internet radio stations.
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Update March 6: Had another great time up at the Checkmate this month! Updated image.

I play Irish and Celtic music for fun. For about a year now I’ve been getting together pretty regularly with a friend to practice at least once a week. Occasionally we’ll cruise out to another friends’ place for a session (Seisiún) with some more folks, and once in a while we’ll take a field trip to see a band play. It’s always a learning experience - as a teacher once told me when I was taking my education classes, “after this class, you’ll never take a boring class again. Even if you’re not interested in the subject matter, you’ll be analyzing the teacher’s technique.” For almost a year I’ve been making half-hearted plans to run up to see…

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We used to quote a line in a punk song when we younger: ‘you’re only bored when you’re boring’ and it’s proven to be a truism. I’ve had just way too much to do lately to spend very much time writing about any of it as well. This entry is really just a summary of several recent activities - although I usually like to put a little more effort into these journal posts, there’s really just too much to say to do it all any justice. Jamming regularly with Tim, and less regularly with Ned since the feast of Imbolc (around Groundhog’s day) blossomed into a CD and a sweet gig of sorts at the Tuatha de Bhriain feast of Beltaine (what later became May day). We had such a good time at that camping event that we decided to get some more tunes together and go out to Pennsic to play them. Pennsic [link:]http://www.pennsicwar.org is a participatory medieval festival that I haven’t been to for nigh on 8 years, and was as fantastic and otherworldly as I remembered it. My brother and I spent nearly the entire time jamming in various camp-life venues. The night we rolled in, Momus and our new friend Christianna caught us and gave us 10 minutes to dress and grab our intruments out of the car to run up to the Chalkman for their annual talent contest. We went on 11th of 17 acts! As we were going up on stage (of sorts), the ‘MC’ asked Momus what we called ourselves, and having never thought about it, he burst out, ‘Momus and the sugartits’! (after Ned’s recent favorite Mel Gibson comment to a female police officer). The MC leaned over and said ‘you have three seconds to think of another name’. Fjord later suggested that he should have said ‘OK, Dave and the sugartits’, but instead he blurted out ‘Momus and the Fomorians’ (after the legendary Irish immigrant race). The MC, apparently unaware of this piece of Irish folklore suggested ‘it looks like there’s only TwoMore-ians’ which brought some serious laughter.

Momus’ tune ‘Whiskey Down’, which mentions the chalkman among many other delights of Pennsic won for originality and we were brought back up on stage for photos and a plaque! The rest of the time we spent jamming in the clan’s yurt (actually it was Vollund’s Yurt, but was leant to Fjord for Pennsic since Vollund was in Ireland), or just around camp for various guests and gambling night festivities. Blending two of my favorite activities, Medievalism and playing music has allowed me to discover a huge mess of great modern and well as ancient folk music and provided a forum which forces me to practice performance.

In more mundane news, sometime in June I bought a mountain bike used from a guy at work. He’s been into biking for many years and this was his 2002 Giant Warp DS-1 that he had put almost 600 miles on. He’s about 12 years older than me, but our first time out together at a local park he squarely kicked my butt on the hills and trails. I stuck with it, riding two or three times a week, whenever I could get out for an hour. I’ve ridden at some of the trails maintained by Climb, but also around home in the woods that will soon be ripped out to build a new electric generation facility. I’ve really improved, and can ride for an hour (about 10 miles) on the trails without getting worn out anymore. The hills are no longer massive obstacles, they’re just part of the ride - and it’s great to be able to do just a little bit better than the last time i was out. As activities go, mountain biking is really one of my favorites, since I can go out to check out new places in the woods just like I used to when I was a kid, it’s a mini-adventure and I’m getting some much needed excercise.