I was lucky enough to see Jonathan Coulton and They Might Be Giants play in Spokane WA last Sunday. On their way to Seattle, they offered to have JoCo answer questions, and mine got answered:
Tomorrow, April 26th, is They Might Be Giants Awareness Day. Tell your friends!
Today's Woot podcast resounds in my soul. You can hear it here if you like.
Frank, one of my cow-orkers, introduced me to this site. At only $4, buy it for the children: 8-bit Christmas, Christmas songs with old-school video game feeling.
I have a great friend that is an amazing musician. He plays so many instruments I can't list them all. I also get regular announcements from him when he is playing, so I thought I'd post his latest email.
Howdy Folks
Anyone complaining about the sunshine...? I doubt it!!! After a winter hiatus, Morgan Anderson, Greg and Caridwen Spatz, and yours truly will be playing irish music for your drinking and dining pleasure at O'Shays on Saturday Feb 21st and Feb 28th. Music starts around 7 pm. If you'd like to join us for some tunes, the jam opens at 9 pm. The only authentic irish pub in Cd'A, O'Shays offers a great menu as well as Harp and Guinness (on tap!), and a full bar. It is non-smoking so all ages are welcome. Kids 6 and under eat free if you tell them you came for the music. Hope to see you there...
O'Shay's is a great place to get a bite of dinner, and you can't beat the live music experience. The smoke-free environment is a huge plus. I hear their shepherd's pie is excellent, but haven't had the pleasure of tasting it yet.
Great Big Sea released their new CD today, called Fortune's Favour. Having pre-ordered it online, I received my copy with yesterday's mail. I got home late, though, and only started listening to it this morning. Having only heard six tracks so far, I must say it's quite a departure from what they used to do, although the last album or two has shown this trend less severely. I can't pass judgment until I've listened to the whole thing several times, and I hope I like it, but I haven't been able to just jump in and love it like the older ones.
I was in Edinburgh in August 2001 during their big festival and saw a really cool street band playing. I kicked myself for not finding out who they were, or buying one of their CDs. Tonight, while watching a PBS special on traveling in Scotland, I saw them again! On TV! Someone has to know who these guys are! Please help if you can!
This is the picture I took in 2001, scanned from slide film:
Here are some pictures from tonight's PBS show:
If you know who this band is, please tell me so I can buy all their CDs!
Here is a video of the band from the TV show (15.7Mb).
Update: 18 May 2011 I have finally found them!! The band is called Saor Patrol! See the image that cemented it for me.
First Young Dubliners tickets, and now a new Great Big Sea album! w00t!
PS: If you pre-order Fortune's Favour you get a free download of three bonus mp3s.
I just picked up tickets to the Young Dubliners at the Big Easy in Spokane for June 24th. I've seen them in concert before and really enjoyed it. They put on a great show.
If you were a long-time reader here, and I mean long time, you might remember a post about Band Logos I wrote about four years ago. Well, here's another one:
I got an email from Johnny, who has a band called Skurvy, who ran across this blog because of the name similarity. Their music is not really my thing (them: jazz, me: Irish trad), but if you like jazz you may like them. It won't hurt you to check them out anyway.
The Saw Doctors released a video of I Useta Lover, a popular single of theirs. Since you'll never see it in the U.S., follow the link and enjoy some good Irish music.