As usual, sunny warm California weather here and a great St. Pat’s Day!
I had three very lucrative gigs for the day.
Uilleann piping at Fibbar Magees pub, highland piping at Rosie McCan’s pub, and finally playing uilleann pipes and whistle with a couple of friends at the Fairmont Hotel in downtown.
Between last weekend’s playing for the Spirit of Ireland events and this, I made more money in two days than I do in a week of regular work!
If only I could be a full time musician. Yeah, I tried it once but not enough regular gigs.
And, by the way…as I was playing at the first gig, I decided to play Danny Boy (the tune everyone but Paddy Keeean seems to hate. He told me so). It was amazing, like all of a sudden the crowd woke up and paid attention. Still a big hit.
Crowds still want to hear the old familiar tunes above all.
I get asked to sit in with a group once a year (playing fiddle, no less). In order to fill out the time in their sets I get to do some solo stuff on the pipes. I usually lead off with Danny Boy because, as you noted, it gets the crowd’s attention because they’re suddenly hearing something familiar. In a similar vein. I followed that up with a set of jigs which included Irish Washerwoman. After that, I was able to have my way with the crowd and play reels and whatever else struck my fancy. All in all, it was a good day for me and the pipes. The only bad moment came when I made eye contact with one of the audience and the whole second part of Carrickfergus disappeared from memory. It finally came back and I was able to end it gracefully, but I swear, I’m going back to the 1000 yd. stare or start playing with my eyes closed.
My St. Pat’s was pretty good. I had a gig with another piper, a piano player, and a bouzoukist, all of whom I love and love to play with. Unfortunatly we were told to be acoustic, and naturally the pub was very noisy, so we couldn’t all hear each other too well. But we play together fairly often so we knew what we were doing anyway. My reed was behaving nicely for the first time in several months. I got $300 for four hours of playing, with a break in the middle when the weird highland pipers marched into the pub with their drummers and played Scotland the Brave and Amazing Grace and so forth. But they went away and we got back to playing real Irish music.
“Greenoisie”. Funny. I was waiting outside the loading dock of the Landmark Center to keep an eye on the instuments and have a well-deserved smoke when this young chap bedizened in greenery wandered my way with a long plastic - and green - trumpet thingy, blaring away on it at intervals. He blearily accosted me with, “Are you leaving?”, and I pleasantly said, “No, I’m arriving.” This seemed somehow to hit him harder than he needed, as he just replied, “Oh,” and wobbled away.
After that, it was the Pool and Yacht Club, where the old St. Paul Irish money - descendants of the olden-day criminals, politicians, financial barons, and cops - meet in brotherly communion. We even played “When Irish Eyes are Smiling”. You never heard such mawk and saccharine.
The place seems rather faded these days. There was one sweet old lady who gave me her last ibuprofen, and upon learning that her people were from Kilkenny, and as she’d never heard it, I told her about the storied Kilkenny cats. She didn’t believe me.
When I was playing with my pal Connor Blaney’s band “The Reel Shindig” from Belfast on Friday, we were playing outdoors in a parking lot just down the street from Powell’s Books. The sound system was by far the worst I have ever encountered–whenever I’d ask for more pipes in my monitor, I’d get an earful of accordion and feedback. The upshot was that people could hear us from about three blocks away, so we got a lot of curious punters and passers-by. One guy, who had the kind of drunken slur to his voice that you can only get from guzzling antiseptic fluid, came up and requested we do “an Irish song” like “When Irish Eyes Are Smiling.” “Nah, we don’t know that one,” said Connor. The man started to get a bit testy, seeing as how Connor and his band were Irish and he wanted to hear an “Irish” song. “No, I swear, I REALLY don’t know that one,” said Connor emphatically. This upset the man, but fortunately he had a couple of huge, menacing bouncers to share his feelings with…
So Richard, was that Rosie McCann’s in Santa Cruz that you played at? I have fond memories of playing Highland pipes with David Brewer down there in high school. I remember we used to make quite a killing playing out front on the street until the noise violation complaints started rolling in…Does it still have that uniquely strange faux-Irish/Pakistani decor?
My St Patricks Day was busy, and rewarding. I taught two of my piping students in the morning, came home in the afternoon for a snooze, and then went to play pipes in a very posh restaurant near Bath. Rather well paid for about 1.5hrs playing. The restaurant was very hot though so I had to do a lot of drone retuning on the fly, so to speak. The money I earned will come in very handy as I’m moving 100 miles east next month to live in Portsmouth in Hampshire.
Actually it was the new Rosie McCann’s at Santana Row in San Jose, CA.
I played there for 8 straight months with a friend from Scotland until they got wise to paying us $200 a night (for 2 hours) plus all the drinks and food (for me it was New York steak) we could put away.
They now hire me for special occasions only. So Richard, was that Rosie McCann’s in Santa Cruz that you played at? I have fond memories of playing Highland pipes with David Brewer down there in high school. I remember we used to make quite a killing playing out front on the street until the noise violation complaints started rolling in…Does it still have that uniquely strange faux-Irish/Pakistani decor?
I know David Brewer very well. A good friend and an incredible musician. I am his stand-in at Isle of Light concerts when he is not available (although we have played in concert together as well).
Yeah, I think Dave played a gig over at Google, pretty nice. Haven’t heard how or if it went down though. He’s getting better and better on the uilleann pipes every time I hear him play!
The St. Patrick’s celebration went great here. Played with another piper at the Irish festival. It really blew away some fellow musicians with two uilleann pipers playing a duet. At the pub played for several hours with fiddle and guitar. Crowd there loved the uillean pipes and a when I pulled out the minstrel banjo and boomed away on it, they were in for a shock and another meaning for Irish minstrels… Ed
fri gig was weird. not a soul under 65. all they wanted was foxtrots, cha chas, merenges, and waltzs. they said, “we can’t do “THE JIG” all night. WE are DANCERS!!!”
leader played every 50’s and 60’s tune he new. I took solos on the banjo, which were tunes.
sorry so many people’s St. Paddy’s days were sucky. Mine was quite profitable, actually. I had a gig fri. night: paid $20, but got over $100 in tips. Same on Sat., but with $40 down. Went really well!
I got a bit P’d.O. having to correct the owner of one of the coffee houses I played at, she wrote “live music for St. Patty’s day” on my advertizements. Was Patty Paddy’s wife?
I got $300 for four hours of playing, with a break in the middle when the weird highland pipers marched into the pub with their drummers and played Scotland the Brave and Amazing Grace and so forth. But they went away and we got back to playing real Irish music.