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Looper's Delight
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Hi Paul, Hi Tim & Elizabeth Wow, talk about a small world: Try cabling it!! LOL right after I posted a description of Elizabeths looping rig, she came home and I mentioned to her that Id bookmarked the link to your site so she could check it out. I was downloading the video clips as I described Different Drums to her, and how I wished your US gigs werent limited to Wisconsin this time around. It's unfortunate but the band only seems to work in this 'small' area at this point (bigger than all of Ireland I'm sure :), we have actually been talking for the first time about making contact with festivals ourselves and fancy some west coast in the winter and East coast in the fall. We have contacts in Texas too who want us to work there too but we need a few decent gigs in a short space or a presidential invitation to make it financially viable :) Before Id finished, she told *me* the story about "The Drum Formerly Known As Prince" (which I had not yet read at <http://www.differentdrums.co.uk/ddi.htm>), Actually the drum is still known as 'Prince' we have it on tour with us, actually we have the two princes (who adore you ...) on tour as well as a greyhound drum. To elucidate, Prince was Stephen's German Shepherd dog who passed away peacefully in his old age and was then professionally separated from his skin which was then used on a bodhran, (an Eamon Maguire) the second bit of Prince's skin is now on a Albert Alfonso drum, (it's alright but nothing like an O'Kane or a Maguire). Dog has been used for years as a bodhran skin, greyhound normally, it's very oily and gives a great low warm fundamental. and then over dinner told me of the political significance of having bodhran and lambeg sharing a stage; Yes that is what makes us unique, we have a foot in both camps in N Ireland (thereby exposing our tender 'underbelly' but we'll not go there), the band is 50/50 Catholic/Protestant and there is more co-incident strangeness as the Catholic members of the band have British passports and the Protestant members have Irish passports - talk about bucking the stereotype! The bodhran is associated in contemporary terms with the Nationalist/Catholic tradition and the lambeg is associated with the Unionist/Protestant tradition, even the skins are different, although both use goat most commonly, the lambeg skin is much thinner. The irony is that both drums have a history of being used by both traditions. The 'cultural' divisions are longstanding and stem from the indigenous and 'settled' populations, it goes waaay back beyond the 30 years that is touted as the 'troubles' maybe 800 or more years although the drums are more recent, the Lambeg from about 1680 (descendant of the military field drum) and the bodhran being an indigenous drum (made from a seed sifter) fused with the frame drum which has its origins in Persia. Its playing style is unique. I have articles on both on www.drumdojo.com type lambeg or bodhran into the search engine if you're interested it turns out that she joined you at a seisiun at Molly Malones in Portsmouth, NH a couple of years ago, the day after your Portsmouth Music Hall performance! (She was the vocalist in Awen at the time, and is a friend of the Angel Band... She says you might remember her from the seisiun as the one who sang 'Foggy Dew' "not as a ballad".) Unfortunately Tim, I'm only with the band full-time since last September although I was drafted in for specific events / deputising in previous years, so I will not have met Elizabeth. Seushuns are mighty craic, we're hoping to get a few started when we're away, I'll play all night if the Guinness keeps coming LOL. I'll pass on Elizabeth's wishes to the band. If Elizabeth remembers the members, I replaced both Kevin & Ruarai (Rory), Ruarai's parts are now played on my double bass drum pedals and HTS 'Snodhran' whilst Kevin manifests on my trusty Spiritdrums djembe. It took a bit of working out but we got there and I'm just getting to the point where I can start to let rip a bit, Mamady Keita meets the Chieftans LOL Best of luck with the tour! Very kind of you Tim and everyone else who took the time to put finger to keyboard to comment or wish luck. My offer of tickets and a beer-opportunity still stands if anyone can make it, I'd love to see y'all stateside :) Regards to Elizabeth, I hope we get to meet up. See y'all in a couple of weeks -t- Paul ---------------------- Paul Marshall Portfolio Sound Artist http://www.powerhaus.net http://www.drumdojo.com http://www.differentdrums.co.uk NI Facilitator for the Da Capo Foundation www.dacapo.co.uk __________________________________ Do you Yahoo!? Yahoo! SiteBuilder - Free, easy-to-use web site design software http://sitebuilder.yahoo.com