Scottish & Irish folk songs combined with Lord of the Rings music and Celtic music fun at Renaissance Faires

Brobdingnagian Bards Tales

The latest music news, stories, and events of The Original Celtic Renaissance music group, the Brobdingnagian Bards. CELTIC GEEK at its Best! Find out more from the Nagians page.

This past Monday, we played on KUT radio's Eklektikos. We got to play four songs and did a brief interview with John Aielli, the DJ. John is extremely cool with truly ecletic tastes. He's been the DJ for over twenty years and has one of the best radio programs probably in the world. If you get a chance listen some morning. You'll see what I'm talking about.

Any case, Andrew recorded the program from the RealAudio stream on their website. Then he converted the RealAudio tracks to MP3s and uploaded them to our MP3.com website. Scroll down halfway through the page and you'll see Part 1 and Part 2. We performed four songs, and one of which is an exclusive listen to our latest J.R.R. Tolkien tribute that we wrote at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival this year. We hope to record it in the studio later this year.

Speaking of which, "Tolkien (The Hobbit & Lord of the Rings)" is #41 on all mp3.com as of today. Go have a listen.

Oh, and Happy Halloween!!!

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Wednesday, October 31, 2001
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Busy, busy, busy...putting out CDs. Hmm? What's that new CDs? Yes, and no.

Just today, I finished putting together Nagians Only, Vol. 1. This is a semi-new CD. Meaning at the beginning of this year, we put out a Best of the Bards. From your responses on our homepage survery, the 50 or so people who bought that limited edition CD, seemed to really enjoy it. I asked around and found that you like to hear us performing live...in all it's glory, or lack thereof. So, through peer pressure, we have not laid those original dozen live tracks onto a completely live CD, called Nagians Only. This is just for you. It features some extremely popular songs like "Patriot Game" and "Rising of the Moon". Plus, we added an interview and track from when we performed in College Station on KEOS radio's "Celtic Core". So if you'd like to listen to us live in your bedroom, now you can.

Now, some keep asking about our most recent live recordings. They are still coming along. Andrew is now finishing up the mastering of the songs we recorded mostly last spring. Songs that people are begging for like the "Jedi Drinking Song" will be on this CD, and some other fun favorites will be on it for better or worse. I'm putting a tentative release date for November 15th. So mayhaps we'll even bring it out to the Texas Renaissance Festival?

But that's not all. Let's back up and talk again about the Best of the Bards. It was a popular CD long ago when we had just a couple CDs, but now, we have LOTS and LOTS of CDs. We need one! So by next week, I hope to release 'Best of the Bards' Returns. This will be a CD packed with our most popular songs. There'll be a good hour available for listening. And I think you're going to love it... AND... as a special treat, we will add some rough mixes of some songs from our Winter album "Songs of Ireland"!

That said, let's move on to me. I got started as a songwriter performing all manners of Indie folk rock. You've heard some of my first album Ichabod's Geography on my personal website. But I discontinued that CD and combined some of the songs into Mountain Rain, a CD filled with some of my most popular songs on MP3.com. Meanwhile, I've been recording on my 4-track and realized... "Hey, you have enough Celtic material for a CD!" So in steps Celtic Love & War, an eleven song album with all my Celtic songs I've recorded at home. It is now available and features all my Celtic hits, like "Lanigan's Ball", "Happy Birthday From Ireland" and "Buttercup's Lament", plus many others.

Finally, a brief note of our future plans. But despite the fact we're putting out album after album, I decided nearly three years ago that I would record a solo album for me. I've put together a list of over twenty songs that I plan to record in a professional studio. I'm hoping to get a great new CD featuring a quite a few original songs, plus a few Scottish songs. Reaching back to my Scottish heritage, I'm hoping to capture all those Scots tunes that we as bards have been missing.

In the meantime, if you're in the Austin area, please come on out to the Austin Celtic Festival this weekend. It's going to be smashing great time. We'll have a booth with The Rogues, so drop by and say, "hi". Slainte'!

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Tuesday, October 30, 2001
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Want to hear us live? We just got scheduled for a radio interview with Eklektikos to promote the Austin Celtic Festival next weekend (Nov 3-4). We'll be playing on KUT 90.5 FM this Monday, Sept 29th at noon CST. And best of all, KUT does stream live, so you can listen to it on the web.

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Thursday, October 25, 2001
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I had a second inquiry today. Apparently last night on the TV show "Roswell", a band did a cover song of "If I Had A Million Dollars" ...by the Barenaked Ladies. Yes, we perform a parody of that song called, "If I Had A Million Ducats." We wrote it in 1999 actually a year after it was hitting big on the Austin radio scene. I think the original song came from the Barenaked Ladies second album, though they released a live version a year or two later. But for those unfamiliar with the original song, ours sounds new and refreshing. Those who don't know it are now asking questions, "Where the heck did that song come from?" Answer: Barenaked Ladies.

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Wednesday, October 17, 2001
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A quick bad news update. Looks like our trek to Alabama has fallen through. But I have heard word of another festival on the East Coast that we're gonna look into. And it also means will be peforming at Finnegan's Wake in a couple weeks. So stay tuned, and I'll try to give you an update of this past weekend's happenings.

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Tuesday, October 16, 2001
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Wow, what a weekend! It all began Saturday as the crowds at the Kansas City Renaissance Festival grew bigger than ever. We had some good-sized audiences and sold lots of CDs. Plus, we were able to meet quite a few people who found our music on mp3.com. But the world was slightly batted around when our Number One Nagian and CD Lass (no, not seedy lass;), Courtney McKenny, said she couldn't make it out Sunday and Monday for the faire due to school.

So at the end of the day Saturday, we pulled aside a couple wonderful women, Jamie and Merideth, to help us sell CDs for those two days. They jumped at the opportunity and by Sunday afternoon at the Smoker, they were dubbed the Brobdingknocker Babes. Thanks a million for helping us out and offerring to do anything to sell a CD! They are incredible!

Sunday night was the cast party...and let me say wow! I have never seen as big a production at a faire. It wasn't just a cast party. It was cast party and awards ceremony with a DJ, Big Screen TV, and all the glamour you'd never expect from a Renaissance Festival. One person described it was bribery for Columbus Day on Monday, but still...

Well, we were thrilled to be out at this shindig if for no other reason, than we were voted the Best New Act of 2001 at KCRF for this year. We were able to share our joy with all Courtney, Brian, our friends of Noble Cause, and our countless new friends at the faire. Plus, our good friends Tourdion won second place for Best Act!!! We stayed out and danced wayyyy too late, but it was a blast! A special thanks to all who have helped support us this year at KCRF!

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Wednesday, October 10, 2001
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Sad to say, we've made the changes on MP3.com. The 100+ free downloads are no more. Sorry all. MP3.com now requires that we focus on CD sales, but the cool thing is that you download each 16+ song album for as low as $3.99. Pretty cheap, eh?! But there are still at least four songs per album that you can download absolutely free. And most of them are our most popular songs too!

Also, at present, I've decided to leave my personal page completely open to free downloads, including my hit songs, "(Princess Bride) Buttercup's Lament", "Lanigan's Ball", "Froggy Went A-Courtin'" and "Happy Birthday From Ireland". I am still trying to record a new solo album, but with Kansas City Ren Faire going on, it's been slow going. I did lay the autoharp track for "Angel's Lament" this week. I'm hoping to do some mass recording right in a couple weeks when the faire ends. That's when Andrew and I will start planning on recording our next album as well.

Now, here's something I found really odd. Yesterday, Andrew and I were driving back from a gig, when Andrew makes the comment that I'm eccentric!? That struck me as very odd. I've never thought of myself as eccentric. Certainly, I learned long ago that only hurt me more to listen to other people's opinions, but does that make me eccentric? He quoted an example of how sometimes he and I are talking to someone and I wander away without telling anyone... I laughed.

I am now looking it up in the dictionary., "deviating from an established or usual pattern or sytle; deviating from conventional or accepted usage or conduct esp. in odd or whimsical ways." Hmm? Sounds a little like me. What do you think?

--posted by Marc Gunn of the Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
  Friday, October 05, 2001
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