Nov., 2007

I am preparing for another trip this month, to visit family in Connecticut. Usually I fly in at Bradley in Hartford, but this time it will be Newark, NJ, and one of my sisters can pick me up there. Though I'll be spending Thanksgiving for sure with relatives, I am also hoping to connect with Rose Flanagan and Linda Hickman in the New York area for some tunes.

Jim and I have been performing a lot of Irish tunes with Richard Gelardin and John Walsh, and after some deliberation we have finally settled on a name for our group -- "Rakish Paddy." It's also the name of a popular session tune. Terri McCoy joins us on bohran when we do gigs.

The Wednesday night session at Snow City Cafe will no longer be happening after November, but the Thursday night session at McGinleys has been quite good, and so I've been attending regularly.

Oct. 1 , 2007

Two new things to mention: I'm about to purchase a "newer" concertina, though it is used. It's a Morse concertina built by The Button Box in Massachusetts. I've been trying it out at the sessions and it rocks! Second new item: Shonti Elder now has a web site, which I've started for her, though time constraints have made the process quite slow: http://www.ShontiElder.com

The Iron Chef event in Halibut Cove was quite a memorable gig. All members of Jubilee piled into the "juggle van" with our gear, and were transported by ferry out of Homer to Halibut Cove. This was the first real road trip for Jubilee since before we had children! This popular event featured master chefs from the Kachemak Bay area in competition for creating appetizers from surprise ingredients on the fly. Generous guests made bids to become one of the panel of judges. The band was also treated to some outstanding food (see Oct. photo of the month!). Our dear friend and band member Elsa has now departed for Africa with her family. It will be at least a year before we see her again.

Sept. 1, 2007

Had a wonderful time at camp in August. There were some good sessions, and I've got some new tunes to work on that Rose Flanagan brought to the fiddling masses. Enjoyed good weather the entire week, as I did at the State Fair yesterday. I'm about to take a road trip down to Kachemak Bay with Jubilee. We will be taking a boat from Homer to Halibut Cove, and play for a special "Iron Chefs" event. This will be the last gig with our flute player Elsa before she moves to Africa for a year (or two?)


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