Happy Saint Patrick's Day *we celebrated early

 

And I am as hung over as if there were adult beverages involved, although there weren't. I don't see midnight very often, but my pedometer reset on the way home. Left the venue with 10400 some odd steps, got home with 0. However, it was worth every rain-swept, wind-ravaged mile of the round trip ride.

I first experienced the High Kings thanks to Ralph. I was sitting in the dining room on the old computer bitd, avoiding television as I always do. He called me, "You gotta come see this!"

 They were on PBS playing Marie's Wedding.

I was stunned. I spent Lord knows how long standing in front of the dreaded tube enthralled. Before the night was over I bought Marie's Wedding for my playlist on whatever ancient device I was using then, along with a whole bunch of other new favorites (Whiskey in the Jar anyone?).

Their music was soon featured heavily on my personal "Barn List". We took turns blasting the CD player in the barn during the twice daily milking of the cows. The kids had somewhat more rock and country based stuff, but I loved the band from that first night, and whenever they produced an album I added it.

Fast forward a bit. We started going to their concerts whenever they played locally, two or three at The Egg, one in Syracuse, last year at Troy City Music Hall.

Then a couple of months ago the girls cooked up a trip to the Academy of Music in Northampton Massachusetts. Liz would drive. Long night drives are not much fun for us fogeys. Tickets were purchased, in the balcony, but there isn't a bad seat in the house when they are playing.

Yesterday Liz let me know that she had been watching the ticket sales and had found an open seat in the second row so she bought it. She might have taken it herself, but she gave it to me.

What a gift! I don't have words. It was a great show. What an enthusiastic crowd! 

Sometimes when you hear a favorite musician the people mixing the sound don't get it quite right. You can't hear the words, or one band member is muted and you can't hear them right. Last night was perfect. Sitting in front I could feel the music as well as hear it at its finest. I am glad I faithfully pursue my walking goals so I have the stamina to join the fun.

They played old favorites, including Men of Aran, and an as yet unreleased instant hit called 77A. (Yes, go listen, you know you want to...)

I always knew Darren Holden had a magnificent voice, but his rendition of The Town I Loved So Well gave me cold chills last night. If they play near you, grab some tickets (I recommend getting the best you can find) and prepare to be blown away. if you can't go, they are available to stream on most services. I have a ton of their songs on my 3C Walking List on Amazon Music, which helps propel me through my 10000 steps a day routine.

It was the best concert I have ever experienced.

Mad props to Liz for driving in the horrible storm that hit right after we got inside the theater, and heartfelt thanks for that ticket. Thanks to the rest of the family for sitting in the balcony without complaint while I sat all the way up front between prefect strangers...nice fellows, not rude at all, although they did enjoy those adult beverages...

It was a long night and I sure hope the coffee kicks in soon, but I don't regret one second of lost sleep.

***Oh, and there were bagpipes....

...And another talented guy, Zack Telander, opened for them. This song will be going on my list as well....or maybe not. It doesn't appear to be on Amazon.

I woke up this morning with Chasing Rainbows playing on the jukebox in my brain. Just can't stop winning...

Boxes

 

I was running around before the sun came up this morning, catching up the housework so the decks would be clear for the day. In deference to the other people who live here I was listening to my threecollie walking playlist with earphones and trying to be quiet. No sense in waking them up.

Brown-eyed Girl, by Van Morrison, came on, and I sang along, very, very softly....and thought about boxes.

The song came out in 1967. I was fifteen and enthralled by it. As teenagers did in those days, I wore the 45 rpm record out, just wore the grooves away, lying on the floor in my bedroom and listening to it on a different sort of box than the one I have now.

It was my own little portable record player, if I remember correctly it belonged first to my folks, who were also driven by music. They got something better and it came down to me. Snapped closed it looked like a little suitcase. Open it brought me great joy.  I was forever losing or breaking those little plastic adaptor inserts that made a 45 playable on a spindle intended for a 33. 

I could never have imagined that lo, these many years later, I would be listening to the same song on a little rubber-padded box containing all the knowledge, music, media, and mystery anyone in the world might want to employ for any kind of reason. 

We have come a long way, baby!

I want to thank Becky, who keeps me in music and books, for the wonders conveyed by the magical time machine in my pocket. There are a few songs I can't add to that playlist, but most anything I want to hear is available. I added the song above to my walking (10000 steps a day) playlist just the other day. Most of that list consists of Irish and Scottish music, Canadian music, a bagpipe song or two, a little Beethoven and the like, but there are just a few classic favorites from the fifties, sixties and seventies on there too.

However I do not miss the clumsy box on the bedroom floor and my mama hollering up the stairs to "turn that darned thing down" one little bit. (Well, part of that is a lie....I do miss Mama every day.) I do not miss saving my 25 cents a day lunch money for weeks to afford the next new song I wanted either. 

This is a lot easier.

Next on the playlist: C'mon Marianne, Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons.

Flashback

 

How often are you transported, whole, back to your early teens? To those years of insecurity, of finding out you were different from the kids you played with and the powers that be, of not knowing whether you were cool or not?

We moved to Broadalbin when I was in 6th grade and I found out all about different. I had been fine in Fonda...they were used to me and my quirkiness. That didn't fly up north. I consoled myself by lying on the dining room floor...cold, bare, empty, hardwood...after the dishes were done of course...and wearing out Dad's Kingston Trio albums. They had a little record player that sat on the floor there and I could play them all I wanted if I was quiet. My favorite was, and is,  From the Hungry i. (We still have the one with the grooves worn almost beyond redemption.)

Everyone else was listening to the Beatles. I didn't. (Until later when we got the band going but never with any great pleasure.) Did you know that the Beatles once opened for the Kingston Trio? Yep, I found that out last night.

See, Becky inherited my love for their music and wore out MY cassette tapes when she was about the same age as I was during the dining room years. They played locally during the years we were showing cows every summer, but due to one fair or another I couldn't take her.

 Fast Forward a few years....

Tickets went on sale for a show at the Universal Preservation Hall a couple of months ago and she got seats for the three of us. We searched out maps and parking and off we went in a snaky, slithering rain, with much trepidation.

I had watched videos online and liked what I heard, but had no idea what to expect from this extension of the original band. The founding members all left us long ago.

What can I say but, wow! Becky was one of the youngest people there, by at least a few decades, but they rocked that place and the crowd was downright dynamic. They played the best-known KT classics with a polish and fidelity to the past that was at once exciting, and yet comforting to this old fan. It was great to remember those dining room years from where I am now and realize that weird really isn't all that bad.

They played songs I had never heard before, having moved on to country and rock once our band got going and we needed to please others, so I missed some albums. They closed with one written, I believe, by John Stewart, about America's first moon walk that literally gave me cold chills. (BTW, for historical reference, along with my brother and friends, I belonged to two rock and roll/country bands, Hereafter and Stone Free. We always joked to the audience that we would probably be here after they walked out, and that although we didn't play stone free, we were certainly dirt cheap.)

The show was great rollicking fun. We laughed, sang along, clapped, and laughed some more. Even Ralph sang and amazingly well too. He is not exactly a music guy. At the end of the show the band mingled in the lobby, shaking hands and sharing memories with anyone brave enough to walk up to them. I am a sniveling coward at heart as it happens, but that didn't stop me one bit....nice guys and very approachable.

Among my favorite aspects was Buddy Woodward playing the conga drum. Such flash! What panache! However, it was all fun, from fan favorites to new territory.

Before we were home last night, having traversed the dreaded route down 29 in rain-lashed darkness, lit mostly by ill-placed reflections glaring from the watery road, Becky had found some of my new favorites, and placed them on my "3C Walking" playlist. (You know, threecollie...who is a walking fool.)

Thanks Beck for getting the tickets and coaxing us out there, Ralph for driving under such nasty conditions (at least it wasn't blinding snow like that one High Kings Concert at the Egg), Dad for giving me so much music in my kidhood, and the band for a great evening's entertainment. 

Hope they play here again and soon.

Back in the band days
upstairs at Sherman's Amusement Park
Loved that Framus guitar
and I believe that is the drum set Mike is sellin
if you are interested. It's a good un.

I can Barely See.....

Near us in the parking garage

Oh, but it was worth every minute of it. Becky took us to see the High Kings last night at the Egg, and it was one of the best concerts I have ever attended. We have tried, literally for years, to get tickets to see them, but they always played where we couldn't go, or while we were at camp, or they were sold out. 

This was our anniversary present from her.

It was great!

Imagine if you will a theater stuffed with people, all ages and levels of fancy dress, singing along with Goodnight Irene. Hooting, clapping, foot stomping, singing along with lots of other songs too....

An a Capella song that brought cold chills with every note. I need to figure out the title of that and see if it's on one of their albums.

The rowdy Irish music had the whole crowd clapping for hours. I mentioned to Becky that I felt like I was in one of the pubs in Nora Roberts books....The only hard part was listening to that kind of music sitting still....

Some of my favorite songs were played, Whiskey in the Jar, Leaving of Liverpool, Marie's Wedding, which was the first song of theirs I ever heard..... New songs. Songs they wrote, tribute songs, including Gordon Lightfoot's Early Morning Rain. A couple of good, lively sets.

These are wildly talented young men and they worked the crowd like the pros they are. My arms are tired from clapping along with the songs and knees are kinda weak from all that foot tapping. I have a number of their songs on the main playlist on my phone and listen to them while I work all the time. However, hearing and seeing them live was an incredible experience...they are one of those rare groups that are even better live.

I could go on and on, but I am sure you would rather I don't.

So thanks, Beck for taking us and Ralph for driving. (He is not a music man, but he had a great time too.)

We got monumentally lost getting out of Albany, thanks to the b**ch-in-the-box, who has no idea where she is going, and they did not play Boolavogue, which is my favorite song if I had to pick just one, but what a night. Go see them if you get a chance

It's a Question of Music

If the night light from the heifer barn was music this is how it would sound

Country, pop, and rock, from the fifties to today, I have heard a lot and remember many.

Riding in the Camaro with the kid we sing along with the Beach Boys, Led Zeppelin, Manfred Mann, Hinder.....and many, many more..... Music has always been a real big thing and all.....

 (And on side note, ain't it cool that kids today still love the music we grew up with?)

However, although I like classical music and really love some of it, (Beethoven's 9th, Toccata and Fugue in D Minor) I know very little about it.

Thus for YEARS I have been trying to find out what the piece of music is that is played during the Quadrille part of the Lipizzaner show in Vienna. It sounds like maybe Strauss or something .....

If you watched the PBS show on the stallions last night you heard it. (And thanks Mom!!!! For calling me and telling me that it was on. I was getting ready for bed, but I was real happy to stay up for a while.)

So, if anyone can help me figure out what that piece is I would be most grateful. I know you are a real smart bunch of clever folks and all.....

Thanks in advance.

For My Husband

On one of his biggest days.

Thank you, Robert, for reminding me of this.

In a One Horse Open Sleigh

I had always planned to clean up this cute little cutter and put it in the parlor in front of the windows. However, we could never get the second big door open and it languished up in the building.

It doesn't look like I am ever going to get around to that job, so the boss took it over to the auction to sell this Saturday. If you are interested, get there early....

It belonged to his dad...he is said to have bought it for ten dollars from some people he did grounds keeping for.

We kept the bells, and if I can get somebody to ring them while I take video, you will soon get to hear them. They are the mellowest, most sweet-sounding sleigh bells I have ever heard. I have them in the kitchen right now and I jingle them several times a day just for the sheer enjoyment of it. 

I can just see it spanking down a snowy road with a little bay horse in front....and those bells making merry for all who could hear as it passed by.

Garth

Love him or hate him Garth Brooks is an icon in country music. There are many of his songs that millions of people would recognize just by hearing the first chord. 

Our TV was out the other night when the live show from Vegas was on so we didn't see it. Probably would have missed it anyhow, as I have little patience for sitting in front of the boob tube.

However, Becky found a site that offered a chance to watch it online and a couple of days later I did .

And I loved it. I know there were a lot of complaints about the material, and the fact that only parts of songs were performed, as it was more of a Vegas show kind of thing (go figure) than a conventional concert. But I enjoyed almost every minute

Garth holds a special place in my heart. Some years ago, I had one of those wonderful friends in my life...one of those people that virtually everyone loves and admires and wants to be around.  She came from the same area as Garth and was a great fan....took in his concerts whenever he played anywhere in the region. 

However, she really didn't have any other fans in her family, and after she converted me to his music, we made plans to hit a concert together, next time he played nearby.

At around that time, she injured a foot and couldn't drive, so I was taking her and her dog to dog obedience school, one night a week. Even though I wasn't bringing along a dog we had a lot of fun.

One night, after dropping her off outside her house, I heard Beaches of Cheyenne for the first time on my car radio. I couldn't wait to ask her if she had heard it. Alas, I never had another chance to speak to her....ever... I never made it to a concert either. No one to go with.....

However watching that show on the little computer screen the other night took me back to a couple decades of fun times, and reminded me in a hundred ways of one of the nicest people I ever knew....so yeah, I liked it a lot. And you know who I think about whenever I hear Beaches...or Shameless, yeah, that one too. 

What Does it Say

About this silly farmer person that I am grinning from ear to ear this morning because the Mousehunt game on Facebook Rick Roll'd players for Trick or Treat? Totally caught me off guard. Thought I was going to get some ingame reward......however, I love the song. Have to play it three or four times whenever it crops up.

Oh, and that kinda/sorta poem that came to me the other day while I watched a pair of robins sky fighting at dawn the other day....Robert Dennis and his son have turned it into a western song. 

You cannot imagine how thrilled I am at this. I have always loved music and spent years in a band with my brother and friends, back in the day....rhythm guitar player and token blond, as was required in bands in those days. We played at school dances and later in bars and clubs. 

I could tell you stories about the time the motor cycle gang (probably wannabes, but I was plenty scared) showed up at Lake Aire where we were playing and made us play Born to Be Wild all night, while they tossed other patrons off the roof onto cars....

And lots of other times too....like playing a battle of the country bands kind of thing, after my right hand got accidentally dehorned by the dehorning iron earlier in the day. I had a perfect little circle of ouch that night.

Anyhow, I have always loved music, a lot. Always, every minute of the night and day, have some song playing in the back of my mind. I wake up with a song in my head and go to sleep ditto, and dream music every night too.

Thus it was pretty cool last night during chores to have a song that I had a part in writing, even if it was only a very small part, playing on that mental jukebox all through chores. Robert said I could post it here to share it with you, but alas, I have no idea how to do so.

Katydids, Perseids, and Jason Aldean

Guess which one I got to see.....

The kids went to the Jason Aldean concert at SPAC though, or at least Liz and Alan and their significant others did, while Becky, the boss and I stayed home and did chores and milking.

Somebody's gotta. 

The concert attendees raved about the show. Both of ours said that Jason Aldean was the best performer they had ever seen. Considering that they had lawn seats, where the drooling drunks and druggies do their best to wreck the experience for those around them, that is saying something.

For me my favorite concert will continue to be Emerson Drive at Fonda Fair. We had 3rd row seats, they put on a fantastic show, and it was a whole lot of fun. I actually had to be dragged to the fair to see it, to keep Becky happy, but was a devoted fan by the end of the first song.

Since that night the girls and I have been to two other states to hear them again....and you know how often I leave the farm.....however, even they have never topped that night.

As for the Perseids, alas, it was still a tad too light in the west when I went to bed last night and already a bit light in the east when I got up this morning. No meteor shower for me.

Oh, well, there is no shortage of katydids. They are calling all around us, including this one on a lily pad in the garden pond. And I have been having fun feeding Japanese beetles to the chickens. I wonder.....they changed the name of English sparrows to house sparrows to be more politically correct. I wonder how long it will take to change the beetles to Asian beetles, or Pacific beetles, or blasted pest beetles....

I Defy You

To listen to this song by one of the nicest blog folks out there and not grin from ear to ear!

Seriously, this will make your morning, you gotta hear it.I was going to write about these clear, frosty mornings that we've been having but Robert did it better so....

Waited a Long Time

To get up nerve enough to ask my brother to let me post a video of him singing and playing. He was kind enough to say yes, so here he is at yesterday's family get together. 

Musical Cows

Yesterday we burned a CD for the barn, taking turns choosing what songs went on it. Thus it was downright eclectic and various.

This morning it was playing while we milked, early, because Liz and her BF had important commitments elsewhere.

Along about the end of the task the cows got to bellowing for their grain. They care nothing for our schedules and passionately about their own and it was TIME.

The CD player hangs in a window on my side so I turned it up.

And they turned it up.....the bellowing that is.

It was painful (can't grain them while we are milking or they will stomp all over us.)

We raced to get done so they could have breakfast and we could have sanity.

Then Sherry, by the Four Seasons came on the stereo.

Instant cessation of the mooing and hollering.

Only one cow let out a soft moo the whole time the song played.

Then as soon as the next one came on they were back at it.

Who knew that they were fans of the classics?

Music of Our Days

Woke up from good sleep to a cardinal.

Singing, seemingly two inches from my ear.

Felt like someone sliding a letter opener into my head. He must have been perched on a twig right next to the window.

Thought with all that singing it might be sunny.

Nope, rain through Friday.

At least.

This cold, wet, weather is setting crop planting back, right across the nation and messing with the commodities markets something fierce, or so I have heard. It is messing, in a quite literal sense of that word, with everything here. Lotsa mud. Lots.

Not only is getting on the land a distant dream, but just cleaning up is going slowly.

But back to music. After I wrote about my new song, my dear brother arrived on a mercy mission involving mom and dad's frozen food (which has been staying with us due to the death of their freezer, but now it can go home to their new one), with a CD full of songs he had burned for me. Then Jinglebob sent me three fantastic songs that he made.

I am awash in riches....just swimming in musical joy. Thanks!

And yesterday morning when we went out the daffodils were prostrate under the weight of a frost from night so cold it defied description. They were just getting pretty, the earliest ones a couple days in bloom

I despaired.

However, by the time we were done with morning chores they had pulled themselves up by their bootstraps and were shining their sunny faces right at us. Such a glorious resurrection seems particularly fitting to me just now.

The Good

Northern mockingbird, following us around while we built fence.

Since July of last year I have been trying to track down an mp3 of the RW Hampton song, Donnie Catch a Horse for Me, without success. You could get it on a hard copy of an album CD, but if it was out there for single purchase I couldn't find it. RW put up a link to a file of the song on Facebook yesterday, so I gave it another listen.

Still liked it.

Shared the link.

Came in from chores last night to find that a particularly dear friend, who has been known before to surprise me in sweet and wonderful ways, had found the song and sent me an mp3 of it in an email. Bet you can guess what I will be listening to today.

I dunno about you, but I use music as a crutch to get me through the boring parts. I can even do dishes, my single most hated job, and not even notice that I am doing them, if I have my favorite play list running.

I named the list Little Niagara after a river in a story I read once and it is pretty eclectic in its make up. Chris Ledoux and Elton John. Todd Fritsch and Queen. Dire Straits, the Allman Brothers Band, the Eagles, Garth, Jason Aldean, the High Kings, Emerson Drive, Lonestar (I only like one of their songs, but I like that one a lot), Jimmy Buffett, Bach's Tocata and Fugue in D Minor and lots of other stuff that only fits together in my head (although now that we have a CD of parts of it in the barn, Beck has become a Doobie Brothers fan). Now it will have Donnie Catch a Horse too.

Grin.

Belated

Here is a Christmas song, sent to me a little while ago by a friend, which you should really check out. Computer problems kept me from playing it until now....be patient when listening..these are so much more than they seem at first.

Straight No Chaser

Oh, boy, here is another fantastic one....I am going to see if I can buy this for my iPod.

****Thanks Jean!

Real

Some fine music for you on this frigid Tuesday, while we ago about dealing with whatever chose to get froze last night.

Food Court Hallelujah Story Revealed

Last week I posted the video of the flash mob that performed Handel's Messiah in a Canadian food court (it still gives me cold chills when I listen).

Here is the story behind the video.

Amazement

Visiting the folks is always a great source of it. Becky bought this violin from her grandmother, who gave a short demonstration.

This instrument has tone and volume like you would never imagine. a note sounded from its strings made you feel as if you were in a concert hall.... I tried it at home and alas could only squeak.

Herkimer diamonds

Daguerreotypes.

And books, always books. We looked at several really cool ones........and that is not to mention all the wonderful love they hand out so freely. Sure was good to see them.

Dire Straits

You get a shiver in the dark

It's raining in the park but meantime

South of the river you stop and you hold everything

A band is blowing Dixie double four time

You feel all right when you hear that music ring