Celtophilia

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Artist: Marc Gunn
CD: Heart’s Ease
Reviewer: Julie

My very first review on Celtophilia and they gave me an instrumental CD? Pretty big challenge! At least the artist is Marc Gunn and I already have a lot of respect for him and his musical abillities. His CD, Heart’s Ease, is a compilation of fourteen songs played entirely on an autoharp. Never heard of an autoharp? Not surprising. Neither had many others before becoming acquainted with Marc’s work, both solo and when he was a member of the band, Brobdingnagian Bards. (For more information on autoharps, click here. If you’ve never listened to an autoharp, you should really give this CD a try. You would never imagine the extensive assortment of melodies achieved using only one instrument.

If you aren’t hooked by the first song, Stardust Serenade, don’t give up. The first song was a little long and monotonous, repeating the same lines over and over; however, Marc makes it work with his use of feeling through changing dynamics.

Heart’s Ease was by far my favorite. To me, it was light-hearted, lively, and cheerful using a wide variety of tones. It was one of the shorter songs and was over long before I tired of listening to it.

She Vanished in the Mist was a very lovely, yet melancholy song that put me in a solemn, thoughtful state of mind.

Desire…do I even have to go there? Out of the whole CD, this was the thorn in my side. I gave it chance after chance by listening many times, and I couldn’t learn to love it. I completely respect it for what it is and I’m sure Marc put his heart into it as all of his other songs, but it just wasn’t for me.

Wildflowers of Party Field literally made me want to run, skip, and jump over a hill covered in wildflowers. What a wonderfully happy tune! The next time I am feeling blue, I’ll be sure to pop in this CD and turn it up so I can flounce about my living room and turn my attitude around!

There were a multitude of very interesting notes and sounds in Return to Lonely Mountain. It was a very entertaining song and not nearly as sad and lonely as you might gather from the title.

I enjoyed this whole CD more than I would have imagined before listening to it. Marc has a brilliant selection of both the merry and the somber to suit whatever your current mood, whether you need some cheering up or had rather drown in your own sorrow. Go ahead and draw a tub of water, (don’t forget the bubbles), light a few candles, and prepare to relax and soak up some autoharp.

Disclaimer: I purposely saved this for the end of my review so I could warn you not to read it until you’ve listed to the CD on your own. I certainly wouldn’t want to ruin your opinion or cause you to hear something you wouldn’t have otherwise by sharing my insight of one of my favorite songs on the CD. Listened already? Okay, read on…Summer’s End had a different feel to it. Call me crazy, and Marc, please forgive me, but this song totally made me think of Lightning Crashes by Live. I’m not saying it sounds just like it or anything to that extreme, just reminiscent. Please don’t think it’s a bad thing because I thoroughly loved this tune! Please, Marc, pretty please…don’t hate me!

Well, now that I’ve completed my very first CD review, feel free to critique me. Disagree with me? Let me know! We at Celtophilia are starved for feedback, so any opinion at all is welcomed. Hopefully you’ve enjoyed a new perspective enough the guys will let me hang around and feel useful a little while longer.

Slainte!
Julie

I get it. This is a strange time for an introduction. If you’ve been around for any length of time, you’ve seen Julie around. Whenever I need a beautiful person to take photos of, she shows up. There she is, back at St. Pat’s, sporting her Guinness t-shirt. Cute, huh?

Get to the point, Mike. Oh, right. Well, see, here’s the thing. Anyone who was paying attention might have noticed that Bonnie and I have been a WEE bit unfocused lately as to writing reviews. The fact is, several of our good friends have written to us asking ever we were even still doing reviews. The answer is… well, yeah, we MEAN to be, but life keeps getting in the way. So, in the interests of spurring the two of us laggards to actually write reviews, schedule interviews, write interview questions and the like, we’re bringing a responsible adult onto the team. I, for one, think it’s about time. Bonnie has been leaving her dirty dishes all around Celtophilia studios, and it’s time someone made her clean them up!

Ok, seriously, what does this mean? For one, it means a third reviewer. You can expect her first review to come rolling out sometime next week. For another thing, it means one more Celtophilia.com person to follow on Twitter. It also means actually having someone on the team who is willing to simply walk up and talk to people. If anyone ever introduces themselves to you as “that person from Celtophilia.com,” there’s a good chance that it will be her. Lastly, it means ANOTHER Twitter box over in the corner of the screen! I know you’re thrilled about that, right? Right? RIGHT?

Anyway, Bonnie and I are thrilled to have her aboard, and we look forward to new shenaniganery (new word, I’m claiming it) in the days and decades to come.

Slainte!

M

PS - for those of you into symbolism. Yes, there is some meaning to her Twitter widget being the white one between Bonnie and I. =)

My love of Renaissance Festivals goes back a LONG way. To high school, or maybe even middle school, going out to the old Georgia Renaissance Festival when it was still at the old site. (Which I still say was far prettier than the current site, for the record.) A few years ago, we started going in garb, and I found that wearing a costume REALLY made the experience grand. If you’ve never done it, do. The characters interact with you differently, the locals are friendlier, and it’s much easier to get yourself into the right frame of mind to enjoy the experience. Lastly, Renaissance Festivals are a GREAT place to find bands playing Celtic music. When I accepted my new job in St. Louis a few months ago, one of the first things I did was look up the St. Louis Renaissance Faire, to see when their season starts and ends. What I found was that, while the Faire here is in the spring, they make use of the site in September to put on the St. Louis Pirate Festival! I immediately marked it on our calendar as something we needed to see. When I saw on the Bounding Main email newsletter that they would be performing the final weekend of the Festival, the deal was sealed.
There’s something else I should tell you about my experience with Renaissance Festivals in general. If I go, expect something to go insanely wrong with the weather. It will be scorching hot, freezing cold, raining, or some mixture of the above. This experience was no different. The day began with torrential downpours, which we avoided by showing up a bit late, and was cut short by thunderstorms, which we avoided by running for the exits with all due haste and jumping in just before the heavens opened up and poured forth.
The first thing I notice about any Faire site, other than the parking situation, is the site itself. St. Louis has a beautiful one. Almost the entire village is set in a wooded grove, and it feels VERY secluded. If the weather were any cooler, the grounds might get uncomfortable with so little sunshine to be had, but it was perfect for the sort of day we had yesterday.
Now, nothing is ever perfect, and things can always be improved, so I will share my two basic critiques with the experience I had yesterday before I move on to talking about the music. First, and this was partly due to the rain I’m sure, but there were several shops or booths with no attendants, or closed. This lends a sort of abandoned feel to the place which is impossible to ignore. The second thing I have to say, and I won’t call them out by name, but one of the stage acts we saw was simply awful. AWFUL. A-W-F-U-L. I’ll never get those thirty minutes of my life back. Now, enough of that, because the rest of the day more than made up for it.
The first bit of music we saw for the day was a fun bunch of bellydancing/drumming/fiddling/guitar strumming pirates, called the Chuvani Bellydance Troupe. I thoroughly enjoyed the mix of songs they performed and danced to, including traditional percussion with finger cymbals, gypsy fiddle/guitar, and one song that just completely broke the mold, but worked great to get the audience involved in the show. Unfortunately, I can’t seem to find a website to link to for them. If anyone knows of a current one, let me know. I would love to hear more of their music.
After we wandered away from the bellydancers, we happened across the incomparable funny-songs group 3 Pints Gone finishing up a set with a crowd-rousing tune about, what else, beer! After they cleared the stage, on came another favorite on the Renaissance Festival circuit, Queen’s Gambit, who performed a fantastic set of Irish tunes, including “Foggy Dew”, “Rocky Road to Dublin,” and, while Julie and I were sharing a cup of Woodchuck cider, “Johnny Jump Up.” I had never had the pleasure of seeing Queen’s Gambit perform before, but I hope that they will be back in the future, because I really enjoyed the performance. Doing her part to promote Celtophilia for the day, Julie went over and introduced herself to the band and collected a business card (ahem… I mean, writ of somethingorotherpiratey that looked an awful lot like a business card) while I wrangled the kiddies.

Finally, we made our way down to the Rogue’s Wharf stage for what promised to be the highlight of my day, Bounding Main! If you’ve been around Celtophilia a while, you’ll know that we simply adore Bounding Main around here. If you need proof, just see our glowing review of Going Overboard. Bounding Main, for those of you who don’t know, is an awesome a capella act who do sea shanties and musical ballads, with a bit of self-deprecating comedy and cheesy pirate jokes thrown in for spice. I’m convinced there’s no such thing as a bad Bounding Main set, and so naturally the one we saw was wonderful. One of the things I love about seeing a group on stage is watching how they handle situations when things go off on a tangent, and these guys are pros at turning every situation to their advantage. What to do when your pitch pipe decides to run off and hide in the depths and folds of your costume? Don’t panic… just dig, then realize that you didn’t need the pitch pipe anyway. Yes, it’s these little moments that make me love you.
After Bounding Main wrapped up, we had intended to run grab some food, then get back for the last set of the day, but while we were eating, the aforementioned thunder and lightning began, and so sadly we quitted the field and headed back for Manchester. While we’re a hearty and rain-loving group who will happily splash through the mud and sit on a wet bench to see our favorites perform, we draw the line at risk of electrocution.

In all, it was a good day out at St. Louis Pirate Festival, and hopefully by next year all of our garb will be out of storage! Huge thanks to Bounding Main for letting us stowaway on their ship, like proper pirates.

***Edit: My apologies for not including in this post to both Tullamore and Shillelagh Law, whose sets I had intended to see, but the rain-shortened day prevented it.***