òran mór » Tunes

Halloween 2011 at Ri Ra

Pete Hale — Mon, 31 Oct 2011 16:02:11 +0000

Tonight marks Halloween 2011, and the entire town will be out in costume for Portsmouth’s annual Halloween Parade. I’ve always loved how so many people get into the parade with outlandish outfits.

The boys and ghouls at Ri Ra will be no different. They’ll be getting into the spirit of things with costumes and specials all night, so Dave and I have decided (at the last minute) to perform tonight’s show in costume. Now to find something that won’t get in the way of playing or singing…

Of course, it only makes sense to celebrate Halloween in an Irish pub, since the holiday started as a Celtic pagan celebration! There is a really interesting description of the holiday at The Irish Genealogy Toolkit, which starts:

“To find the origin of Halloween, you have to look to the festival of Samhain in Ireland’s Celtic past. Samhain had three distinct elements. Firstly, it was an important fire festival, celebrated over the evening of 31 October and throughout the following day. The flames of old fires had to be extinguished and ceremonially re-lit by druids.

Happy Samhain, everyone!

It was also a festival not unlike the modern New Year’s Day in that it carried the notion of casting out the old and moving into the new. To our pagan ancestors it marked the end of the pastoral cycle – a time when all the crops would have been gathered and placed in storage for the long winter ahead and when livestock would be brought in from the fields and selected for slaughter or breeding.

But it was also, as the last day of the year, the time when the souls of the departed would return to their former homes and when potentially malevolent spirits were released from the Otherworld and were visible to mankind.”

Apparently, the holiday also marked the end of the apple harvest season, since it was believed that the puca – or evil fairies – would spit on any unharvested apples making them inedible.

Looks like I’ll be having a couple of Magners Ciders in celebration tonight.

Hope you’ll swing by…and watch out for any banshees!

Mudhook at the Durham UU Coffee House

Pete Hale — Sat, 01 Oct 2011 14:38:40 +0000

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.

Click here to view the embedded video.

Celtic Crossing displays local music support

admin — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 15:46:30 +0000

Debbie and Steve Codd and family go beyond just running a great shop at Celtic Crossing Portsmouth – as they are always finding new ways to support local musicians. They have been the key sponsor for the Portsmouth Maritime Folk Festival for three years, they give local CDs special display space and in-store listening, and this week they’ve unveiled a new ‘local music’ window. Debbie has created large versions of a number of local CD covers, like the classic vinyl LP size. These are hung in mobile form amidst the actual CDs. It’s eye-catching and very effective.

Thanks again to Debbie and the whole Cobb family!

Wild Rover Celtic Festival 2011

Pete Hale — Thu, 01 Sep 2011 16:12:05 +0000

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

Nottingham Summer Concert

Pete Hale — Sun, 31 Jul 2011 13:44:25 +0000

One of the great things about the area’s sessions is that in addition to playing music with our friends every week, say, at The Press Room’s Friday night trad session, we get to join them in a multitude of different, special events during the year. Another of those special events is coming up this Tuesday, Aug. 2, in Nottingham NH. We’ll be joining The Press Room Gang to perform one of the summer concerts sponsored by the town’s Recreation Department. It will be a wonderful mix of songs and tunes by a talented group of players…hope you can join us.

A Party for Patsy

Pete Hale — Wed, 04 May 2011 13:16:27 +0000

If you live in New England and enjoy Irish music, then at some point you’ve probably heard of Patsy Whelan. Hopefully, you’ve been lucky enough to see him perform…he’s a great singer, fine fiddler, a funny man and heck of a nice guy. We had quite a few laughs at a session he used to run in Boston with our friend Eamon Coyne.

Well, Patsy had a bit of an accident over the winter that’s generated some serious medical bills, so there’s going to be a fundraiser for him at Mr. Dooley’s in Boston this Sunday, May 8 starting at 4 pm. I’m encouraging as many people as possible to get down there. There’s going to be some fantastic music, and all the proceeds will go to help this legendary performer and his family.

I hope you’ll be able to join me at Mr. Dooley’s to help a man who has helped so many others.

Reagh Rah!

admin — Thu, 28 Apr 2011 12:57:50 +0000

Well… quite a party it was! Reagh Greeneaf’s last appearance (for a while) with the Tom Lanigan Band at RiRa in Portsmouth raised the roof last night.

Many good friends stopped by to have a pint and a few laughs with Reagh and to give him the Wednesday night part of his Earth Walk sendoff.

Some of us got pulled up on the stage for various songs and shenanigans

As you probably know, Reagh’s Earth Walk across the US, to raise environmental awareness and promote ecological sustainability, will start this Sunday, May 1st at 9:30 at the Seacoast Science Center at Odiorne Point, Rye.

Many of us will join him again there for the ‘real’ sendoff. Learn more about Reagh’s trip at his website.

For now, the memory of last night’s fun will ring on for a good while….

A St. Patrick’s Day Treat

Pete Hale — Thu, 17 Mar 2011 00:07:31 +0000

” Twas the night before St. Pats and all through the pub

Song list and back cover for our recording debut

the people were lined up for drinks and some grub.

Musicians were scrambling to play gigs here and there,

while the fear an ti* stood in the corner and stared.

But Pete and Dave were absent, as they put CDs in sleeves,

and packed their debut recording on St. Patrick’s Eve.”

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

St. Patrick’s Day approaches!

Pete Hale — Thu, 03 Mar 2011 20:04:00 +0000

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.

Well-deserved staff night

Pete Hale — Sun, 27 Feb 2011 14:02:59 +0000

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.