new music

Farewell Tim

Tim Livernois
 
Tim Livernois, passed away on Monday. Tim was a member of our musical community, playing fife with the Kentish Guard and Irish flute at our late night sessions. Year after year he and I kicked off the session in the Wayside Inn on Saturday of the Sudbury Muster. He had a casual style of flute playing that I always enjoyed backing.

Tim was also instrumental in bringing color to the muster scene by helping to construct the elaborate Casbah for many years. The Casbah became a well know respite during the evenings festivities and often served as the final destination for many late night wanderers.

A few years ago Tim was diagnosed with Brain Cancer and had a tumor removed. After surgery he had to learn how to function again. He came to the Sudbury Session that year knowing that he couldn’t really play any longer. But he fought his way back and relearned how to play music and, astonishingly, was back in the swing a year later.

Farewell Tim, I’ll miss your color, your playing and your friendship.

Farewell Chantey by baconworks

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Pic from the Past

I stumbled upon this old picture today:
 
Roger and Greg

 
That is me on the right and my buddy Roger on the left. We were new to the Mariners and enjoying an ale just moments before a performance at the Roman amphitheater in Augst, Switzerland, which I will be returning to next week. It was the first time I had ever played in front of an audience that really cared and I can’t tell you how hard it was to play a fife while my knees were shaking.

The picture was taken seventeen years ago. Ugh!

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Some Pictures

Two pictures were sent along to me that I wanted to share. The first, taken by Karen Royce, is from last Friday’s show with Skip Healy. Skip is on the left, Roger in the middle and I on the right looking very relaxed. Check out all the old drums behind us. They were rattling all night long.
 

Skip and Friends

The second is an aerial shot of the amphitheater that I will be performing in later this summer with the Ancient Mariners.

 
Augusta Raurica

From the photo it appears that there is no fence or gate or anything preventing the local yokels from wandering down to the Roman playground and knockn’ back a few Warteck’s. Only in Europe.

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A Big Thanks…

Luke Stark
 
I have a long overdue ‘Thank You’ to send out. I’m going to cover may ass by telling you that I was waiting for the right time…which is now.

You see, about a year ago I was sitting in my office when my boss came a knockn’ and asked me if I could take a guy to lunch who had been interviewing at The MathWorks for most of the day. She said, ‘you don’t actually have to interview him, just keep him busy for an hour.’ Great. Do you know what a challenge it can be to take a complete stranger to lunch, be on your most professional behavior, not talk about the reason he is there to begin with, be interesting so the guy doesn’t think our company hires a bunch of bozos and not spill something? Since I like both my boss and my job I agreed to humor the guy for an hour.

The guy’s name was Luke Stark. Ten minutes into lunch we both realized that we had lots in common and before long we were yammering on about traditional music, electronic music, recording and audio on the web. I told him that I had started a recording a bunch years back but have been fairly inactive as of late, parked at a musical rest stop you might say. In any case, we exchanged contact info in case the job thing didn’t work out. Fortunately for me it did. It was the best non-interview I ever conducted.

Once at The MathWorks Luke began nudging me.
Luke: When are you going to get back to recording some of that fife music?
Me: Geez, I’d love to but I really don’t have any equipment, time, motivation…
Luke: Don’t be lame, I’ll bring in my rig and we can try it out.

Thus, he dragged me back onto the musical highway. We tried out some of his equipment, which was like dangling a hooked worm before a catfish. He then loaned me some equipment. Mmm, tasty worm. And then, he forced my to buy my own equipment, which I never would have done were it not for the barbed hook in my lip. Now I spend hours nestled away in my basement recording the Celtic equivalent of Time Out, which my wife is really thrilled about because she knows it will be just the biggest hit and once the royalties start rolling in we’ll be able to take that trek in Nepal that we’ve always dreamed of. Then, of course, I had to start a damn blog, sucking every last morsel of energy I have, so that I can share my progress.

So, Luke, in all sincerity, thanks. I’m sure I wouldn’t be doing this today if it weren’t for you.

Now, if anyone is interested finding out more about this Luke fellow and his cool music you can do so at his fresh new blog called Mighty Bee of Ynturest. I expect great things so pay him a visit.

new music

Neptune’s Trident

biscuits

Biscuits McGillicudy was the sound man for a band that I once belonged to called Amadán. He is shaggily bearded, pierced, stout in stature and gritty in character. His arms bear the permanent markings of India ink artwork as well as more crafted dermal displays. These are not the trendy tribal tattoos that all the smart kids from the ‘burbs are gettin’ but instead they represent the chapters of his life. Worn and faded, the older chapters are outshone by the vividness of the newer chapters. One look at him and you tell yourself that you’d prefer him to be a friend rather than foe. To reconfirm your knee-jerk judgment one only needs to hear a colorful line or two of his northeastern-biker-bar-localisms.

Once, after an Amadán show, I watched as he slogged up to a sweet, pretty young lady and opened with, ‘do you like stabbin’ people?’, to which she happily replied ‘Who doesn’t?’. To my astonishment his pick-up line afforded him a certain amount of latitude with her and they continued on with a delightful conversation. True story. Another time we were at a restaurant together after a gig. He heckled the waitress into telling him how old she was. ‘Thirty-two’ she said leerily. He boldly proclaimed, ‘thirty-two… that’s the age I date’. She then gave him her number and I believe they went on a date. How either of these pick-up lines worked is almost beyond my comprehension. I say ‘almost’ because just beneath his knives, guns and dump trucks facade is actually a very kind, giving and gentle person. He is an incredible example of how true character always shines through the thin exterior that we often work so hard to construct. I suspect both women quickly saw through his shell in spite of the shocking things he says that I’m afraid to print.

Biscuits is also a phenomenally talented rudimental snare drummer. A few years back Biscuits and I were talking about a new tune I wrote for the fife called Neptune‘s Trident.

kingnepute

He wanted to try his hand at putting a drum part to it. Sounded like a good idea and I agreed to get him an audio copy of the tune so he could work on it. Four years has passed, I’ve been negligent on my promise and Biscuits is starting to send me threatening emails.

So, Biscuits, before things get out of hand and you decide to give me a piledriver during out next encounter, here you go. You can call off the dogs. I’m expecting to see a drum part by the Sudbury Muster.

Neptunes Trident

P.S. – Biscuits, the wife and I would love to have you over for dinner. I’ll send you a list of the words you’re not allowed to use around my kids.

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Talk of the Town

starchamber
After Ned posted about baconworks over at starchamber.com a follow up discussion ensued that has been quite interesting. How does good music get discovered? How is the discovery process that takes place today different from what it was in the 60’s or in the 90’s? What do entities like American Idol do for the music world?

Incidentally, Ned blogs on a wide array of interesting topics such as The Age of Organic Knowledge, Cheap DNA Sequencing and The Origins of Alcohol. It is worth your time to check it out.