ZZaapp...POP!!! the new album...

...ZZaapp...POP!!!

"That didn't sound good... ...Andy? What was that?"

Deep below the surface at the heart of a concrete maze, recording is underway on the latest Mollys Revenge album. No other location could have been more secure than Fort Gadget Box for the ground-breaking project. The late winter winds whip along the Santa Cruz coast bringing a chill to the outside air, but the amber glow of tube pre-amps keeps me cozy and fingers nimble inside my sound-proofed chamber.
With that last take on the low whistle finished, my work on the album is nearly complete... only one great hurdle remains. All the whistle tacks, bodhran tracks and even singing tracks I have done so far, though dexterous, will seem easy compared to what is to come:
the addition of the Great Highland Bagpipe.....
Whatever the outcome, the world will behold it in due course. A myriad of scales, rolls, and arpeggios, carved from the bow of John Weed, a plethora of hammer-ons, strums, and syncopations chiseled from the pick of Stu Mason, and a vast cornucopia of melodious syllable strains voiced outward by Peter Haworth, the Lancashire Stallion have until now only been witnessed by Andy and Ryan of the studio, but soon the album may well have listeners saying in astonishment "this may be the finest recording of traditional music yet made..... ....by them."
More updates to come...

"I don't know David, let me check on that... Ah ha! The powered water Kettle for Stu's tea must have blown the fuse!"
"Oh...hmm... You pushed save, right?!"

--David

Vengeance in the City of Angels

Staring into the black murk that is my coffee, I reflect on the week just past. Another whirl-wind string of adventures, this time in one of the most perilous lands a touring Celtic band can find itself in...Los Angeles, is now over. As Andy silently adjusts the placement of my microphone, I can sense he is wondering the meaning behind the pained look on my face. He is thinking, "It's only the first day in the studio...I know they just got back into town last night but could that last take really have put David over the edge?". Finally, he caves in to the curiosity and asks "You ok? There are a lot of notes in that tune... it sounded like they were all there."
"I just don't get it Andy. All those people stopped on the 405--who are they? Where are they trying to go to?"

The week started with a stay over at Stu's Los Osos house; we got in a little practice then went our seperate ways. John hit up the local session and Pete led a posse to a nearby house concert featuring our Scottish friend Jim Malcolm.
On to Altadena to the adorable hidden stage of the Coffee Gallery Backstage, where for a moment you feel you are on the set of a movie about Colombian coffee smugglers. A rowdy set ensued in which several new tunes were debued and the madness was observed by a kind audience partially consisting of fellow Celtic musicians "Ciunas".
A while after the show...actually, a long while after the show and after combing the streets for late night food in a car with only three functioning wheels, an epic jam session occurred in a very small space with members of Mollys Revenge and Ciunas.
Later that morning ;-) the band had another rehearsal, this time in a hotel room. Afterwards, we indulged in some fine opening act music before our own performance at the second venue, Hallenbeck's General Store, in North Hollywood. The crowded elevator sized audience present was treated to a song writers cleaver originals, an electric guitar soloist we think even Simon Cowell would have enjoyed and perhaps at some point did, and an acoustic set by Mollys Revenge.
The next morning on our way to Encinitas, we did a surprise radio "appearance" on a well known LA show which culminated in Bethany dancing a hard shoe reel on an over turned station table.
Finally, the tour pinnacled with the San Diego Folk Heritage Concert. A large number of people turned out, many of whom had come out the previous year for our performance there. It was a night of firsts with even more new songs turning up, John displaying his skills as a stunt man as well as debuting his long awaited microphone dance. All this left the attendees jovially anxious for the bands coming appearance at the San Diego Highland Games in June.

Andy shook his head, "Sorry I asked... Are you going to see Lunasa tonight?"

--David