Brobdingnagian Bards Tales: 04/2005

Last night, we had a small, but loud contingent of Nagians at Carney's Irish Pub in Bryan, Texas. It was a grand time, but boy was it a challenge.

After a fairly exhausting weekend in New York for I-Con 24, I was wiped out at work. Though I came up with a great shocking comment for the Nagians when they asked why we weren't wearing kilts (we don't always, just usually).

I responded, "Well this is the last time we'll be coming to Carney's Irish Pub...
when I have a day job that won't allow me to easily change into my kilt before we go."

The gasps and looks on the Nagians faces was priceless! ;)

The show went rather well. I got to use a newly setup autoharp that sounded really good. We also had a lot of great anecdotes from New York.

Seems most of our limited "Virgins: Bard tested... Unicorn approved." T-shirts are sold out except for the 2XL-4XL shirts. So if you want one, better hurry. Course, you can also get smaller sizes from the artist, Nikki O'Shea.

Also, seems there are a lot of people interested in the new compilation CD that we released through the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine. The CD is called The Secret World of Celtic Rock. We're not on it though my vocals were used in remix of "My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose" by Rimbo, who recorded "The Scotsman Dance Remix" for us.

Overall, Carney's Irish Pub was a wildly successful evening and thanks to the Brazos Valley Celtic Association for hosting us.

Labels: performances

Back Home from I-Con. What an intense weekend. Seems like every time I come home from another Con, I come away overwhelmed. So much passion and energy. The weekend seemed to last forever, yet it was over too soon. Started off horrible, but turned out brilliant.

Thursday we arrived on the late side at the airport-3pm. Had to fly out at 4pm. But we made decent time. It wouldn't've matted though since the Atlanta airport was closed due to storms. So our flight didn't leave until nearly seven pm. Andrew remained optimistic. "Hakuna matata" was his theme song that day.

Finally, we arrived at the airport and due to a rescheduling of our flight, we had to race across the airport. I did this cool Indiana Jones leap into tram that runs between terminals that left Andrew sour-faced behind me wishing cruel doom to my existence. But he eventually caught up with me at the terminal. Turns out there wasn't any rush. The flight to Islip was canceled. So we waited in a line to find out our options.

After a good thirty minutes, we decided to catch a flight to La Guardia. That meant another trek across the airport to another terminal. Andrew was still bright and chipper ready for the flight. It was suppose to leave at around 11:30pm. But when they announced, "there are a couple of serious problems with the airplane" plus, seeing that GOD was listed on the standby list, I knew we were in trouble.

Andrew made the umpteenth phone call to our ride in New York, Rachel, "Guess what?" And it was turning into a joke and Andrew's optimism finally waned a wee bit.

But we finally did arrive at La Guardia... around 3am. Andrew's optimism returned... at least until our suitcases didn't arrive. Humbly, we left the airport with Rachel sans suitcases, wondering if we would have our musical instruments for our show at 5pm that evening. We crashed and slept late.

Our luck did return though. The suitcases arrived by 1pm, Rachel took us to the Con in time for our 7pm show, and we played for a big crowd of Nagians. It's so cool to see our audiences grow each year. I still remember this ballroom we played in four years ago. It was fairly empty. It's grown more and more each year.

The show was a heckuva lotta fun though we got a wee bit risque thanks to a few crazy suggestions in "Ducats" and our own general silliness.

Later that evening we watched Boogie Knights perform. I love their music. They performed a parody of an Emerald Rose song that left me humming the song for the next two days. So of course, I'm listening to their music right now. Such cool stuff.

I'm up on top of the wall,
Looking down on the raiders,
And the only source of comfort I can find
Is this large pot of oil
That has just begun to boil.
I've been cooking on the top of the wall.

Hehe. I think that was the one evening I got a decent night's sleep... wait that doesn't sound right. Oh yeah! How could I forget Voltaire?! Voltaire had a midnight show, the only one of the Con (except for the Cabaret). I caught the show. And dang, he's such a great performer! It was well-worth the sleep deprivation.

The next morning, we setup shop and Kate and Chelsea joined us to help sell CDs. After setting up shop, we strolled downstairs to the Dealers Room. We ran into Tony Amendola from Stargate SG1 down there. He enjoyed our music at DragonCon last we were there, so we decided to give him a copy of Lord of the Rings music, Memories of Middle Earth.. He seemed rather pleased with that so gave me an autograph in return. I've never been a huge autograph person, but I think with this I'm gonna start my own album of autographs from other celebrities as they come along. That was really cool. He's a very cool guy.

Well, we ran into more and more of our friends. That evening our show was nearly packed. We got to play our version of the Boogie Knights song "Exclamations". They seemed to enjoy our version. Though I forget to ask them... Where on earth did they get "Moot" for the Scots? I've never heard that exclamation... ah well... someone could ask the same about Mr T. in "Angel's Lament".

After our show, we watched Boogie Knights and then headed to the Cabaret. I really hope they move to a better venue next year. The gymnasium has the worst acoustics. But it was still fun. And I finally got to hear a wee bit of Blue Knight. I featured them in my Celtic MP3s Music Magazine a last year for a cool song that James Gilchrist had written, "A Maid In Ninian's Day". I've never really heard someone professionally play a psaltery. Made me want to go out and buy one. Very cool sounding.

After the cabaret, I joined CerealKiller and a few other Nagians who gave me a drive back to the hotel for filking. Apparently, there was no official filk track this year. So organization kinda sucked, but I did get to feature some of my new cat songs. When filking ended a bunch of us just hung out in the room until, oh, five a.m. talking. Been a lonnnng while since I've done that.

Needless to say, I slept in on Sunday. First thing I did on arriving was to go see my friend Kyara. It was great seeing her, and I finally met her new beau. He's pretty awesome. Just wished I coulda spend more time hanging with them, but the day flew by. I caught the last Sudden Death show. Sudden Death is a comedy rap artist who was #1 on the Dr Demento Funny Five this week. Seeing him reminded me of what I've wanted to do since our first CD--release a dance version of "Do Virgins Taste Better". I'm hoping Andrew and I can record some vocal tracks for him to do a dance mix with sometime this summer.

Our last show was fun and adventurous despite a few technical probs, and it was a great way to end to the Con. Afterwards, we joined a bunch of Nagians for a wee gathering at a nearby diner, departed after another late night of chatting with friends at the hotel. The flight home was safe and my kitties are happy to see me. But nevertheless, after being with so many sweet, loving friends, it's hard to come home. I hope everyone made it home safely. Slainte!

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