Ignorance is the hobgoblin of little minds... especially in regards to free music downloads!

I always loved that quote by Emerson. It really captures the absurd nature of some people... those same people who burn books, and listen to others instead of thinking for themselves. Seems there's a flood of that in the world, even among people who you'd hope and expect thought would think differently.

That's the case with Peter St. John. Heard of him? He's attributed to having written the "Fields of Athenry", the rebel song popularized by Paddy Reilly in 1979. I added Peter to my Celtic MP3s Music Magazine Things Celtic and Music Directory in order to help promote him, but he refused my offer. Typical.

Why? Because he didn't read my website FAQ.

Anyone who reads them knows that my website is dedicated to FREE and LEGAL MP3 downloads. It's posted on the front page of my site in bold letters. Yes, to attract a larger audience, I promote that my site features music LIKE Enya, The Corries, The Dubliners, etc.. But the key word is LIKE. There are NO illegal downloads on my website or even LINKED to my website. And anyone fool enough to not read the site will know that I believe MP3s are a great tool for indie musicians to promote themselves. That's it!

Some people though are too narrow-minded to accept that, and that's okay. I guess it goes with the territory... or rather, territorialism.

On another note, is Peter St. John the author of "Fields of Athenry"? Yes and no. His website and interviews say, hell yes. However, the more appropriate response is not entirely. The lyrics used by St. John were based on an 1888 Broadsheet. Just read the lyrics and you'll see the lyrics are pretty much the same as the the Broadsheet lyrics with minor changes. Course an musician can copyright the arrangement. So in that aspect, the modern arrangement is his.

The music, however, (and to the best of my knowledge) is completely his as the old Broadsheet had a completely different melody.

In any case, it's a brilliant song, and we've been learning it. A big huzzah to Peter St. John for his arrangement.

Solas at the One World Theatre

Ye know, one of the really big advantages of being on the board of the Austin Celtic Association happened last night. I was attending the ACA Board Meeting when Celtic Storm radio host, Donnelle McKaskle, came in with some free tickets to see Solas last night. So I grabbed one and went.

I haven't followed the career of Solas as much as I'd like. I spend most of my time checking out Indie Celtic groups, so it was a mighty pleasure to catch the other side of the coin. And wow! The arrangements and instrumentation and of course performance was fantastic!

It wasn't a rip-roaring evening, mind ye. The late show began around 9:30pm, so people were obviously a wee bit tired, but it wasn't due to a tired performance, that's for sure. The band very quietly and humbly, commanded the stage and played two ours of material, largely centered around their new album Another Day that was released last week. What struck me the most was the arrangements.

According to the bio, founder Seamus Egan, was somewhat of a child prodigy. So the fact that he also produced the album and no doubt worked quite a bit at arranging the songs really stands out. It's contemporary traditional Irish music, if ye know what I mean. No?

Well, "pure drop" trad Irish music is where ye have a group of musicians playing the same tune, usually with different instrumentation. Well, that happens here too, but instead, some of the instruments embellish the music that make the stunning trad side sound even more stunning. The bit that really grabbed me was wondering how to attain that "sound".

I mean, I like the NoFi folksy sound that we've been doing for a while, but I would also LOVE to do a future album that has that full-body.

Memories of Middle Earth is the closest we've come, but contemporary Celtic music really covers the entire audial spectrum. The autoharp, recorder and mandolin don't. It's a fairly narrow band. But my ability to come up with ambient sounds just hasn't worked as well when I've tried it. It usually entails a lot of reverb and synth, neither of which I'm super proficient with.

Well, end of the evening, I happily bought one of their $20 CDs to support the group (you can buy it at amazon for much less). Now I'm ready to jump into the trad music world. Though I've started practicing the Penny Whistle, so that makes it easier.

Oh, and the moral of the story, head over to the Austin Celtic Association and become a member. Or if you're not in Austin, join your local organization. (In either case, Coventina's Well benefits the ACA). The Celtic community really needs your support. We had a great festival, but thusfar, we've only broken even. Now we need people to help rocket us forward and to help build the Celtic community.