Monthly Archive for January, 2011

Happy Ice Day!  So, for any who weren’t aware, I’ve been living in Kansas City for a while.  Yep, lotsa driving.  Anyway, one of my bigger pet peeves about living down here has been the absolute terrified reaction when the weather isn’t at least 65 degrees.  If there’s even the smallest threat of a few snowflakes the schools, churches, etc. are boarded up and there’s a palpable “wait ’til spring comes” attitude toward resuming classes, church activities, and even Meals on friggin’ Wheels!  Seriously, people!  Don’t the people who need Meals on Wheels need it even more when the weather is bad?!

Cut to Tuesday morning.  Schools were, of course, closed yesterday in honor of Martin Luther King, Jr.  It was a balmy 40 degrees yesterday — beautiful.  Well, Chicken Little, there was a brief rain shower overnight before the temperature dropped back below freezing.  So what do we see on the morning news?  You guessed it!  A never-ending crawl at the bottom of the screen with a list of all the schools, churches, Meals on Wheels (again!), and you-name-it that will be closed due to treacherous road conditions.  In Minnesota, showing such cowardice after a few chilly sprinkles is enough to get you laughed out of your ice fishing hut.  In Canada, it’s cause to tie you to the goal posts and shoot frozen pucks at your nether regions.

Hello, ironic twist!  Just when it’s starting to look like they’ve closed every school twice (just to be on the safe side) the regular local news is interrupted by breaking news to bring us a high-speed car chase.  “But, Geno,” you ask, “what about the life-threatening conditions on the icy roads?”  Well, cautious reader, thankfully there are helicopters to bring us clear views of all the safe, dry streets.  Now, I’m not going to pretend that some of the side streets weren’t a little slick.  But as long as drivers – most of them, anyway – aren’t fleeing the police they’ll be just fine.

This chase goes on for almost 15 minutes as the driver weaves in and out of traffic in a car that we learn was obtained in a car-jacking.  Fortunately, there is no damage or injury in what will ultimately be a trip to the local McDonald’s.  Something compels the car to stop.  I could speculate as to whether it was the new oatmeal that Ronald is offering or maybe it was something as simple as a good old strawberry milkshake, but we see a young urban troubadour exit the vehicle and run inside the restaurant.  Another XL man in 4XL clothes is summarily escorted out of the building by at least a dozen cops and a couple of service dogs.

Martin Luther King, Jr. would be so proud.

Hi everyone! I guess it’s time to write something! )

I actually got an email the other day (okay, it was like two weeks ago) from someone asking me to write up our Ireland experience! (Hi Brian!) Scatterbrained as I can sometimes be, I forgot that I hadn’t done that yet! And then I forgot about it for another two weeks… But here we are, and it’s probably time I wrote about it!

I don’t know if any of you have seen our video blogs from Ireland, but they are posted here if you are interested in looking at them.

Honestly, I can’t really believe how smooth the trip went. There was not a single major disaster (or really any minor ones) the entire time, and it was just such a great experience. We got to see tons of stuff, meet lots of cool people and played some fantastic shows! Some of Ireland’s most famous bars are now feathers in our cap, like The Quays in Galway and Scruffy’s in Killarney. The pace was kind of killer, as we did tourist-y stuff during the day, shows at night and then had to be up bright and early to start it all over again the following day, but that’s really the only way to do it. Not that I am at all a morning person, but I digress…

I think I’ve probably mentioned this, but when Maria from Celtic Journeys first came to us with the idea of organizing a tour of Ireland on which we could get fans to sign up and come, I was thinking, “oh yeah sure, great idea! Then all we’ll have to do is draft a letter to the five people who actually do show up, explaining to them that we had to refund their money because there weren’t enough people.” How wrong I was! Honestly, we were hoping to get 12. We ended up with nearly 70! I am still floored by how much interest we had, and I really hope everyone thought it was as great as the band did. She really did a phenomenal job. The hotels were FIRST CLASS, the food was WONDERFUL and the buses were great! Our drivers Owen and Paddy were excellent tour guides and provided everyone with history and trivia on the various areas, along with plenty of humorous anecdotes to keep all the gullible Americans guessing as to whether or not they were serious about people having multiple wives in Ireland… Seriously though, they were great.

Let’s see… quick rundown of the places we went and played and all that…

*Flew into Dublin.
*From there we drove to Clonmacnoise in Co. Offaly near Athlone, which is essentially the center of Ireland. It’s a 6th century monastic site and the ruins offer much in the way of stone and moss.
*Drove to Galway (the We-shht is the besssht, as they say). I think it was pouring rain when we got into the city in the afternoon, but really it was pretty effing cool. Galway is my ancestral county (Mom’s family) and it meant a lot to me to be playing there, so no rain was going to dampen my spirits. Or jet lag, for that matter.
*Spent our first night in Galway at the same hotel as the Samoan national rugby side. Made mental note to beat them down to breakfast buffet the next morning.
*Ended up closing the hotel bar down on first night, although my plan was to get to bed by 9pm. Not quite. See first video blog.
*Had a day tour of the wilds of Connemara (where the fam is from) and saw awesome things. Met cousin at a marble polishing shop. Name was Ambrose. Nice.
* Gig that night at the Quays. World famous pub and wouldn’t you know it, the first guy I see upon entering carrying gear was a guy in a Minnesota Golden Gophers jacket. Went all the way to Galway for that. GREAT gig though on a little platform overlooking the bar. Bar manager was thrilled with us, which is nice. I have a feeling we could have just royally sucked, but when you bring in 70 patrons you get some special treatment.
*Next we were on to Kerry, and a gig in Killarney. Ring of Kerry was pretty cool. Much cooler than in summer when it is overrun by Americans who don’t realize people speak foreign languages in foreign countries, I’m sure.
*Met some friends from England there and had a nice lunch and a drive around. It was nice driving in a car and not a bus for a bit.
*Killarney was AWESOME. Again probably America East in summer, but it was off-season and the people there were cool enough. Big group in the hotel from Wisconsin of all places.
*Gig at Scruffy’s was cool. Small bar, massive PA. Did an afterbar at another pub called Sheehan’s down the street, and sat in with the band. We played U2’s “With or Without You”, which rocked. This was a high point for me. Also raining like hell. Signed autographs in the bathroom. Interesting.
*Gets hazy at this point, but I think we were on our way to Waterford at this point, via Cork. Stopped at Blarney Castle for what seemed like two weeks. My parents bought a bunch of crap at the woolen mill shop. I bought Lucozade and water.
*Skirted Cork City, which I would have liked more time in but it was still cool. Funny accent, Corkonian.
*On to Waterford. Played a gig at Dooley’s Hotel. Went to bed immediately after, as I was wrecked.
*Up early and on the bus to Dublin. Refreshed and ready to go. Had a night out in Dublin with the band and Gibbons, and had a pint in the hotel owned by Bono and the Edge. Skip it and have a pint at a Holiday Inn sometime instead. Had lots of fun but my schedule was so whacked that again I was in bed at like 11.
*Up early and toured around Dublin on foot. Most people went home at this stage because the tour was over but I stayed a few days and went up to Belfast. Saw some friends and had some great times, a few music sessions and a few more pints.
*Glad to be home! Can’t wait to go again!

There you have it. A (brief) synopsis.

Not to make this a shill, but we ARE in fact going back and doing another tour! November 6-14, 2011. A longer tour, a different itinerary, and we are going up to the North and the whole deal! I’m excited. We’ll work on posting details soon…

Off for some dinner now. Thanks for reading!

Adam