òran mór

Just a quick note:

If you missed us playing with Mudhook at the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival, you’ll have another opportunity later this month. We’ll be playing a coffee house gig at the Universalist Unitarian Fellowship in Durham NH on Oct. 15. You can see details and let us know if you’re coming at the Facebook event page we set up HERE.

In the meantime, you can get your Mudhook fix with this video that our friend Jeff Murdock took of us last weekend at our PMFF performance at the Moffatt-Ladd House.

Just thought I’d mention that Dave and I will again be performing as part of the maritime folk group Mudhook at this year’s Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival, which takes place this weekend (Sept. 24 & 26) in different venues around Market Square. It’s a great weekend of music, and audience participation is always key!

If you want to catch one of our shows, stop by The Moffatt-Ladd House on Saturday at 1 p.m. for a set that will feature several new songs. A full calendar of the festival’s events are at the website, and the schedule has all our other performance times listed.

We've come to LOVE playing The Barn at The Moffatt-Ladd House...the acoustics are great!

FYI – We’ll also be playing in Prescott Park at noon on Saturday to kick off the NH Fish and Lobster Festival (known locally as The Fishtival). The PMFF and the Fishtival have been working together on some overlap during the last couple of years because they are so interwoven thematically. Ours will be a short set, but that event is well worth checking out.

Every once in a while, I mention my history with The Wild Rover Pub in Manchester, NH in a post. What can I say: it holds a special place in my memory. After all…

• When I went to college in Manch-vegas, I spent more than a bit of time there.
• When I lived in Mont Vernon, I’d go every Thursday night to hear Marty Quirk sing.
• I became friends with some of the regulars and they invited me to join Manchester’s Ancient Order of Hibernians.
• The Rover is where I learned to play bodhran, where I first got on stage to sing, and where I had my first St. Patrick’s Day gig as part of the band, Shillelagh.

The trinity celebration

Well, I’m happy to say I’ve got a bit of a homecoming in a couple of weeks, as Dave and I will be playing the Wild Rover Celtic Festival. This is a tremendous event that includes three features:

1) The 21st Annual Halfway to St. Patrick’s Day 5K Road Race, which is benefits the Make A Wish Foundation. (I remember working a mile marker for this race when I was with the Hibos.)

2) A St. Baldrick’s fundraiser. This is a fun event that involves people shaving their heads for money, and that money goes for childhood cancer research. This local event is part of a national campaign which has seen 187,000 “shaves” raise more than $114 million since 2000.

3) And, of course, there’s live music and exhibits throughout the day. My friends Marty Quirk and Kevin Dolan will be playing earlier in the afternoon, and after we play there will be a U2 tribute band called New Years Day. There will be several schools of Irish dance taking the stage for demonstrations, and countless booths from local vendors and exhibitors to visit, including our good friends from Celtic Crossing in Portsmouth and the Seacoast Irish Cultural Association (SICA).

The race starts at 10 a.m. and the festival starts at 11 a.m. We’re tentatively scheduled to play between 4:30 and 6:30 p.m., so we hope you’ll stop by to visit and enjoy the day.

And if you decide to shave your head…lemme know and I’ll kick in a few bucks.

Would you shave YOUR head? These guys are doing it to help children with cancer.

The day kicks off with the 21st annual 5k road race to benefit the Make A Wish Foundation

We’ve often spoken about what a great camaraderie there is within the music community around the Seacoast – and with the Irish music community in particular. Well, we’ve got a great example of that happening on Friday, September 16, as we’ll be joining forces with our friends in The Tom Lanigan Band for a special half-way to St. Patrick’s Day Celebration.

Pete and Tom, on stage together at Ri Ra

This special event, which will be held at The Stone Church in Newmarket, NH, is the brainchild of Tom Lanigan and Reagh Greenleaf. They were planning a half-way to St. Pats show, but they wanted to expand it beyond just their band. They instantly thought of òran mór, since we have a mutual admiration of each others’ acts, we sit-in with each other once in awhile, and we’ve been wanting to do a double-bill sometime.

We’re thrilled that “sometime” is now going to be Sept. 16.

The doors open at 6 p.m. The gameplan for the evening is that òran mór will play for the first part of the night (7 p.m.). Then Tom, Reagh, Sue Young, and Jordan Tirrell-Wysocki will take the stage (9 p.m.). We’ll close the night with a big ol’ jam together.

Tickets are $10 each, but here’s the thing: Only 100 tickets will be sold.

Don’t be left out…you can order ticket now by getting in touch with us, or clicking HERE.

It’s gonna be a mighty night of music and craic…hope to see you there!

Stay tuned for more details…

Way back in 2008, when we started this little website, Dave and I talked wanting to have info both about our band and, more importantly, the Irish music happenings around the Seacoast. Our first post, in fact, was a video of our good friend Chris Vaughan singing one of the first songs he wrote, called Freedom, at Molly Malones where he was a bartender.

Jim Prendergast and Chris Vaughn, um, working...

Time has passed. Molly’s closed and became McMenemy’s. Then McMenemy’s closed.

But Chris Vaughan motored on. He kept writing songs, bringing them to the different sessions (particularly Friday nights at The Press Room), working with local musicians to polish his material. And now, at long last, he’s putting the finishing touches on a CD of his original songs, working with both Dave and our friend Jim Prendergast at Mill Pond Music Studio. But one thing was missing…until last night.

Freedom.

Friends in music, friends for life

To cap-off his CD project, Chris asked many of The Press Room session regulars to join him at Jim’s studio. So a large group of friends — including Emery Hutchins, Bob Frost, Alan Eaton, Gail McCarthy, Ramona Connelly, Bruce MacIntyre, Steve Carrigan, Dave and I — piled into Jim’s live room for some laughs and music. The live room sounded great and in two takes we got a terrific, very natural version of Chris singing with us backing.

Chris was extremely grateful for the help, and we were equally honored to be included in creating this fitting finale to his CD. Watching each other grow as musicians and artists — and encouraging and collaborating with each other along the way — are the great joys of our little musically community. Last night’s recording session was a great reminder that “this is the good stuff.”

It reminds me of a phrase Eamon Coyne once said to me: “A friend in music is a friend for life.” Just so.

Congrats to Chris on getting his songs recorded and ready to share with the world.

Emery having a laugh

Great Bay Sailor, reporting for duty

A lovely smile, indeed