òran mór

Song list and back cover for our recording debut

That’s right kids … we have an early shipment of our upcoming CD in hand and we’ll have them available for the gig tomorrow at Ri Ra! We’re looking forward to making this a memorable day, and we rushed a shipment of a few just in time for St. Patrick’s Day. We’re waiting for a few things to line up before the official release (awaiting quotes on a larger duplication run, finalizing the legal mumbo-jumbo, artwork revisions,etc.), but we thought it’d be worth it to get a few to share with our friends on St. Pat’s 2011.

Actually, we’re supposed to get the CD sleeves delivered tomorrow…so we’ll be busy little beavers in the morning before we take the stage at noon. I’m planning to start the day with a traditional Irish breakfast at Rory O’Connors in Georgetown before picking up the shipping package…and then we’ll be stuffing like maniacs.

The tracks on the CD are a bunch of our favorites and ones we get requested frequently by our friends. You can clearly read the titles in the photo, but one you might not be familiar with is The King’s Highway. That was written by a friend of mine, Kevin Dolan of the fab band Acoustic Nuisance. I got his permission to do a new take on an old song of his. I’m very happy he let me play around with is creation.

If you couldn’t already guess, we recorded it at Mill Pond Music in Portsmouth with our friend Jim Prendergast, who many of you have seen play with us on occassion on Monday nights. He did a fantastic job engineering this thing and keeping Dave and I focused. We’ve posted a few samples on the website’s media player, so you can get a feel for the quality. We’re pretty proud of these recordings and think you’ll enjoy the tracks.

More on this when in a few weeks when the ‘official’ release happens…but in the meantime, HAPPY ST. PATRICK’S DAY!

* fear an ti = Gaelic for “man of the house” or host

Well, the high holiday is quickly approaching…and we’re rearing to go. In addition to our usual Monday nights at Ri Ra in Portsmouth, we’ll be opening the musical festivities there on St. Patrick’s Day, playing from 12:30 to 4:30 p.m. We’re planning a high-energy show that hopefully involves a few special guests joining us during the afternoon…should be a lot of fun.

They’ll be great music all month, of course, and we’ll be breathing it deep and building the excitement. So don’t be shy!  Get out there, enjoy the celebrations and get your Irish on!

Looking old school...except for the mikes.

Hey all,

Okay, we originally thought that we were playing our usual Monday gig at RiRa tomorrow night (2/28)…but it turns out they’ll be closed for a  staff appreciation night.

But it’s a great opportunity for us to say “thanks” to the staff at Ri Ra. We’ve been playing there every Monday for about a year and they ALWAYS take terrific care of us. They are a great and fun group of guys and gals…and we’re so grateful to be able to work with them on a weekly basis.

The RiRa Gang

So, thanks gang. You deserve a night off…especially as you charge up for the ‘high holiday’ that’s coming in two weeks.

okay, okay…we know…

Yes, we’ve been dreadfully negligent about  keeping up our posts on the website.  Somehow, that danged ‘real life’ stuff has distracted us during the last couple of months. But we are still playing every Monday night at RiRa in Portsmouth NH from 7 – 10pm…so if you need your fix…

We call him Seamus

Actually, if you haven’t stopped in for a while, you should know that we continue to be joined by many of our musical friends on a regular basis. We’ve had a good stretch of being joined by Jim Prendergast — formerly of Nashville’s “Boys of County Nashville” and now proprietor of Mill Pond Music Studio in Portsmouth, NH. He’s a great guitar player and even better guy, so we love it when he stops in.

Of course, with the St. Patrick’s Day holiday approaching, we have several gigs lined up that we will be telling you about.

In the meantime, however, if you want to get your Irish on, we’d love to see you on a Monday night.

As I mentioned in previous posts, Dave and I are part of a quartet called MUDHOOK, which performs maritime music. Every fall, we get together with our friends Mike Jeanneau (of Boghat) and Alan Eaton to sing shanties, fo’c'sle ballads and contemporary songs of the sea at the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival.

Mudhooking in Market Square

The festival was this past weekend and, as always, we had an absolute blast playing our sets and catching some of the great music from some of the best performers currently on the maritime scene: Ken Sweeney, Bobb Webb, David Coffin, Ken Schatz, Liam Robinson, and others.

This year, we were able to release a special festival edition of our upcoming CD entitled “First Home.” In talking about the CD, however, a couple of people have asked what the album name means.  Actually, the name works on several levels, which is why we liked it so much.

The first connection is to a specific song on the album. ”The honor of ‘first home’” is the folly of the hero in Honor & Praise, a song Mike learned from the singing of Fairport Convention. The hero pushes his ship and his crew in order to be the first merchant vessel back to the home port, which — in part — is how he loses his vessel.

But “First Home” is also how we think of Portsmouth and the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival particularly. We all met singing and playing at the traditional music sessions in Portsmouth and Mudhook was originally formed four years ago specifically to perform at the PMFF…so the festival is our first home. Since we’re releasing this special edition of our CD at the festival, the name just made sense.

If you were able to make the festival and were kind enough to pick up a copy of this limited release — great. But if you weren’t able to make it and would still like a copy of this special edition, we have a few left and we’d be happy to get one to you. And we’ll have copies at our gigs as long as they last.

Mudhook's first CD - a special edition for the 2010 PMFF