Just getting back from a great couple of days at the East Durham Memorial Day Weekend Irish Festival... IMHO the granddaddy of Irish festivals... simply the most venerable and authentic Irish culture massing you will find. Great weather, great crowds, and fantastic live music.
Our band Celtic Cross appeared twice yesterday in a lineup that we were thrilled to be part of. Our sets alternated with the 17 Grammy Award winning Jimmy Sturr Orchestra... I think more Grammies than Michael Jackson.
But I completely enjoyed the two exceptional groups from Canada that performed after us... Greenwich Meantime and Enter The Haggis.
This festival stage has hosted legend after legend from Irish and Celtic music... the likes of Black 47, Saw Doctors, and Hothouse Flowers in recent years. It was fantastic to see these two Toronto groups that I have been a fan of for a while headline the evening.
Greenwich Meantime were better than ever, with a new lineup and an electrifying tight set. I have loved the songwriting and performance on their two Cd's, but I have to say that their live show last night took my appreciation of these guys to a new level.
Then ETH performed a rock show that was as polished, explosive and fun as any that I have seen in our scene. I really think these guys are the new kings of Celtic music. First of all, they rocked hard. But they are intricate and sophisticated arrangements reminding me of Dave Matthews in spots. Musically, they are intense and impressive.
And both bands could not be cooler to meet and hang out with.
From chatting with folks at the show, it surprisingly seemed that many in the crowd (predominantly NYC/NJ/CT) were seeing GMT and ETH for the first time. I am sure that these great bands have thousands of new fans coming from their fantastic performances last night.
Definitely check out their websites: Greenwich Meantime and Enter The Haggis.
Sunday, May 25, 2008
Tuesday, May 20, 2008
EAST DURHAM!!
As a kid, I can remember counting down the days until Memorial Day weekend...well here I go again! Memorial Day weekend not only kicked off the official start of the summer, it also meant that East Durham was finally opened, alive and awake from its sleepy hibernation of the winter.
Vacations in East Durham were always the highlight of our summers. My parents were always more comfortable in the mountains than the beach...maybe because of our "cheap Irish skin." there were tons of families, like ours, packing into this town and great Irish music ringing out of every resort on Rt. 145.
We would spend weeks, leading up to our vacation, practicing what "act" we were going to shop around to the Amateur Hours in order to bring home the prized 'breasted angel on fake marble' trophy with the coveted 1st, 2nd or 3rd place engraved on it. My parents still have shelves of these dusty souvenirs in their basement.
Celtic Cross started playing in Erin's Melody, back in 1990. Erin's was the place to be and it was always packed in with the "young crowd." Hundreds of Irish and Irish Americans would squeeze into the Martin's bar to spend countless nights, drinking and dancing 'til the wee hours.
After 4 am, and well into our 2nd wind, we would head to the secret "shale pits" to sing around a bonfire and drink until the sun came up. Only then, like vampires, would we scatter back to the various mediocre accommodation to sleep again, until the sun went down.
Although years have gone by since those crazy days, East Durham on Memorial Day weekend is still the place to be. The Irish festival has a tremendous line-up and this Saturday, we will be hanging there all day and into the night. We have 2 sets-3:30 and 6:00. Come on by and be sure to say hello! Hope to see you there!
Cheers-Kath
Saturday, May 3, 2008
The Shores of America Story
It’s still in the back of every New Yorker’s mind. We look like and think we have healed, and we really have on many levels, but so much has changed. The world will never be the same. From the banker, the NYFD retiree, to the immigrant cabby, every denizen of Gotham knows where they were, where their family was, what they did that night… 9-11-01. And it hasn’t been the same since that day.
Shores of America, the new Celtic Cross CD takes an uncommon perspective on the tragic attack that deeply impacted the proud Irish-American community in the city its ancestors built from the ground up. From the tragic stories of the victims that left no neighborhood unmarred, the ensuing changes to immigration that strangled the flow of new Irish blood, to the military families that are still making their sacrifice, the Irish in New York wear 9/11 on their sleeves… no matter what their tough exterior might suggest.
The Celtic Cross recording, released in December, chronicles the Irish American kids growing up stories on New York City’s streets. With catchy tunes like First Kiss, telling a love story under the 7 train in the Irish crammed streets of Woodside, and Those Were the Days, a world-wind tour of a “narrowback” or second generation Irish child, Shores of America delivers a colorful view of the immigrant households that are the fabric of so many Irish ghettos around town. All delivered with determined singing and an updated pop rock edge that critics call Irish Americana.
But the piece that sets the tempo is the title track Shores of America. An edgy energetic anthem sung by the sassy lead singer Kathleen Fee makes you sit back and listen, and look for the lyrics page. “We didn’t set out to write a 9-11 song, and we certainly never thought to be political,” says Ms. Fee, “but any way you look at things, it has been the key turning point for so much about Irish culture in the US, and nowhere more deeply felt than in the Irish-American stronghold neighborhoods in New York City.”
Shores of America spins three real life vignettes; each verse is a different chapter in Irish Americana over the last seven years. The first and most poignant grips the listener with the notion of a good looking good natured fireman who died in the tragic World Trade Center attack. Specifically, Ms. Fee writes about NYFD’s Tom Foley, a Pearl River friend of the band. A look at the names of 9/11 victims from the New York Fire Department is like the map of Ireland. The memories of funeral after funeral with bagpipes kept the pain of the terrible attack with us for months and years. It would be hard for a New Yorker not to stop in retrospect when Ms. Fee sings:
There is a traditional Irish melancholy sing-song of the same title as the Celtic Cross title track that speaks hauntingly of the hope, promise and desire of the famine impoverished Irish as they longed for freedom in the United States. At the moment of this personal reflection on the death of one of 343 New York’s Bravest, the hopes of the world’s emigrants were put on hold and their view of the Shores of this America are forever changed.
The Irish talked about the Flight of the Earls in the eighties as the best and brightest, and a good portion of the rest of Ireland’s youth renewed the levels of immigration to the US not seen since the fifties. The vibrant inflow created venerable Celtic ghettos in neighborhoods like Maclean Avenue in Yonkers, Katonah and Bainbridge Avenues in the Bronx, and Roosevelt Avenue and Queens Boulevard in Queens. Celtic Cross banjo/mandolin player Frankie McCormick, himself an immigrant from County Armagh in Ireland recalls “We could get a gig seven nights a week with all the bars in the Bronx and Queens, and every night packed to the doors.” But things began to change well before 9-11 with the emergence of the “Celtic Tiger” Irish economy in the late nineties. Job growth in Ireland exploded, stymieing the flow of emigrants and reversing the flow back from the US.
The War on Terror’s dramatic crackdown on immigration laws was the final straw. Shores of America’s second verse speaks of the aftermath from the disaffected immigrant perspective. The days of the packed Bronx bars were over. Ms. Fee sings:
The once longed for Shores are now out of reach, and may never be the same.
The ramifications of the attacks are further chronicled by Celtic Cross in the eyes of the military mother in the third verse. The band’s fiddle player, Ken Vesey (brother of Kathleen, and John, the band’s accordionist) talks emotionally about his military cousins, “My Aunt Bridie always has a smile on, but I know she cries every time one of them packs their trunk to head out to the base.” Ken, Kathleen and John have four first cousins who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few years. Kathleen sings about her Aunt and cousins,
This final verse brings the 9-11 Irish America story to date with a hopeful prayer for the safe return of her military children (and ours) from the dessert from the perspective of an Irish mother in New York. Something of an end to a story that doesn’t have one yet.
The Celtic Cross record Shores of America weaves a view of Irish New York that is forever changed, yet ever-charming. The music is updated, yet mindful of the great Irish music tradition. The stories are for all of us in New York, and all of our Irish friends and their families.
Shores of America, the new Celtic Cross CD takes an uncommon perspective on the tragic attack that deeply impacted the proud Irish-American community in the city its ancestors built from the ground up. From the tragic stories of the victims that left no neighborhood unmarred, the ensuing changes to immigration that strangled the flow of new Irish blood, to the military families that are still making their sacrifice, the Irish in New York wear 9/11 on their sleeves… no matter what their tough exterior might suggest.
The Celtic Cross recording, released in December, chronicles the Irish American kids growing up stories on New York City’s streets. With catchy tunes like First Kiss, telling a love story under the 7 train in the Irish crammed streets of Woodside, and Those Were the Days, a world-wind tour of a “narrowback” or second generation Irish child, Shores of America delivers a colorful view of the immigrant households that are the fabric of so many Irish ghettos around town. All delivered with determined singing and an updated pop rock edge that critics call Irish Americana.
But the piece that sets the tempo is the title track Shores of America. An edgy energetic anthem sung by the sassy lead singer Kathleen Fee makes you sit back and listen, and look for the lyrics page. “We didn’t set out to write a 9-11 song, and we certainly never thought to be political,” says Ms. Fee, “but any way you look at things, it has been the key turning point for so much about Irish culture in the US, and nowhere more deeply felt than in the Irish-American stronghold neighborhoods in New York City.”
Shores of America spins three real life vignettes; each verse is a different chapter in Irish Americana over the last seven years. The first and most poignant grips the listener with the notion of a good looking good natured fireman who died in the tragic World Trade Center attack. Specifically, Ms. Fee writes about NYFD’s Tom Foley, a Pearl River friend of the band. A look at the names of 9/11 victims from the New York Fire Department is like the map of Ireland. The memories of funeral after funeral with bagpipes kept the pain of the terrible attack with us for months and years. It would be hard for a New Yorker not to stop in retrospect when Ms. Fee sings:
Tommy was a friend of mine, had a heart so pure and so kind. His big, blue eyes could make your heart sing; being there for everyone was Tommy’s thing. Did his job that fateful day, when our NY skyline was ablaze…
There is a traditional Irish melancholy sing-song of the same title as the Celtic Cross title track that speaks hauntingly of the hope, promise and desire of the famine impoverished Irish as they longed for freedom in the United States. At the moment of this personal reflection on the death of one of 343 New York’s Bravest, the hopes of the world’s emigrants were put on hold and their view of the Shores of this America are forever changed.
The Irish talked about the Flight of the Earls in the eighties as the best and brightest, and a good portion of the rest of Ireland’s youth renewed the levels of immigration to the US not seen since the fifties. The vibrant inflow created venerable Celtic ghettos in neighborhoods like Maclean Avenue in Yonkers, Katonah and Bainbridge Avenues in the Bronx, and Roosevelt Avenue and Queens Boulevard in Queens. Celtic Cross banjo/mandolin player Frankie McCormick, himself an immigrant from County Armagh in Ireland recalls “We could get a gig seven nights a week with all the bars in the Bronx and Queens, and every night packed to the doors.” But things began to change well before 9-11 with the emergence of the “Celtic Tiger” Irish economy in the late nineties. Job growth in Ireland exploded, stymieing the flow of emigrants and reversing the flow back from the US.
The War on Terror’s dramatic crackdown on immigration laws was the final straw. Shores of America’s second verse speaks of the aftermath from the disaffected immigrant perspective. The days of the packed Bronx bars were over. Ms. Fee sings:
“Flight of the Earls now in reverse, leavin like our fathers first. I’ll be back for a holiday, but across the sea is where I’ll stay. Now I’m leavin here, Shores of America”
The once longed for Shores are now out of reach, and may never be the same.
The ramifications of the attacks are further chronicled by Celtic Cross in the eyes of the military mother in the third verse. The band’s fiddle player, Ken Vesey (brother of Kathleen, and John, the band’s accordionist) talks emotionally about his military cousins, “My Aunt Bridie always has a smile on, but I know she cries every time one of them packs their trunk to head out to the base.” Ken, Kathleen and John have four first cousins who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan over the last few years. Kathleen sings about her Aunt and cousins,
A war to fight that’s what they say, Sent Bridie’s boys away. One by one she kissed goodbye, Off to the desert now, they would fly. She lights her candle, in her window at night, says her prayers to safely end this fight. Bridie’s waiting at her door, when they’ll come home and leave no more.
This final verse brings the 9-11 Irish America story to date with a hopeful prayer for the safe return of her military children (and ours) from the dessert from the perspective of an Irish mother in New York. Something of an end to a story that doesn’t have one yet.
The Celtic Cross record Shores of America weaves a view of Irish New York that is forever changed, yet ever-charming. The music is updated, yet mindful of the great Irish music tradition. The stories are for all of us in New York, and all of our Irish friends and their families.
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