SPRING: Busiest Time of the Year!!

Our new CD, "Out on the Ocean", was delivered on December 11th, but we are just getting the word out on this great CD! We had a great initial CD Release Party at The Fifth String in mid-December; thanks to all who came to see us, and to those who helped out! Then we headed up the hill for a New Year's Eve show at our favorite pub in Reno, Ceol Irish Pub. A great time was had by all, there were no casualties and we didn't even have to use our chains!

We all survived the holiday season, which means we lived through all the visits with family, the stress and extra pounds from those wonderful meals and desserts (love my mom's lemon meringue pie!) We pretty much took the month of January off, and played a Contra Dance on Friday, February 5th, and now we're already ramping up to March....but we've got a few other exciting things coming up before that:

We've got a Fox & Goose show on Feb. 11th, but our big one will be on February 19th at The Center for the Arts in Grass Valley!! We'll have Annie O'Dea and Laurie DesJardin from KVMR Radio helping us out that night, and we're really excited about this one!! Tickets are only $15.00, and can be purchased from The Center for the Arts (in person or online), as well as from Briarpatch Market and Yabobo in Nevada City, and from Cherry Records in Auburn.

We'll post another blog after we are done with that show...we'll have a few days to decompress before heading into March, which is of course the busiest time of year for any self-respecting Irish band!!

It's Already WINTER?!?!?!?!?

Yup, it is, and Fall was passed here in Sacramento with N8i mostly spending time in the recording studio. Paradise Studios, to be exact...and Craig at Paradise got to know us all probably better than he wanted to!! We did the final recording in September, then spent most of October listening, fixing, relistening, adjusting, changing track order, adjusting levels, and we finally got it all to our liking just after Halloween!! The CD artwork was done, we sent it off for duplication and printing...in the mean time we traveled up to Reno for a gig up there, played on a Friday night at Revolution Wines tasting room (try their wines, they are FABULOUS!! www.revolution-wines.com) and now it's the middle of December.....December 12th to be exact, and we just got the CDs delivered YESTERDAY!!!

"Out on the Ocean" turned out better than we had hoped, and Kathy and I (Linda) were on KVMR radio to help announce the arrival of the CD, and to help promote our initial CD release party, which is taking place at The Fifth String, at 930 Alhambra @ J Street, in Sacramento, on Sunday December 13, at 4pm.

We're also heading back to Ceol Irish Pub in Reno for New Year's Eve, though it will be a more ad hoc group, with Kathy and Brady being replaced for the evening by our friend Frank Frizell, and we'll be doing lots of pub sing-alongs. We plan to have lots of fun, though, and it's a great way to ring in the new year!!

In 2010, we have a big night planned for February 19th, when we'll be playing in Grass Valley at the Center for the Arts, and some great shows coming up for March as well!! In the mean time, happy holidays everyone, and you can always get a copy of the CD for a Christmas gift - just visit the official Nine-8ths Irish website at www.nine8thsirish.com. See y'all soon!!

Summer 2009...It's been quite a ride!!

We have had an AMAZING summer, and I've been completely remiss in my postings here. I am going to now try to fill in what's happened since May...and it's has been a BUSY few months!!

First of all, we have added a singer to our lineup: Brady McKay, renowned jazz vocalist, is now the lead singer for our band!! We are very excited about Brady, and she seems to be enjoying us as well!! Our first show with Brady was the Valhalla Renaissance Faire up in South Lake Tahoe on May 30th. We were very well taken care of, met some amazing people, got to share the stage with the fabulously entertaining "TARTANIC", and just had a great time!! We're hoping to have an opportunity to work with Marti and everyone from Valhalla again...

Then came the pinnacle of the summer: July 4th weekend, we travelled to Dayton, Ohio to be part of the annual CityFolk Festival!! They flew us out to Ohio and treated us like rock stars!! We had our own "Tour Guides", who made sure we were on time, fed well, had water when we needed it, arranged our rides back and forth, and were just wonderful to us all weekend!! On Friday July 3rd, we played on the Main Stage, where the photo here was taken by Alicia Fidler (an intern with the Dayton Daily News.) Later that weekend we were part of a Workshop with the amazing Michael Cleveland and Flamekeeper, demonstrating the close relationship of Irish and bluegrass music. We got to see Bela Fleck with Oumou Sangare, Ralph Stanley, The Duhks, Feufollet (Cajun), Chicago Samba and more!! We were honored to be a part of this great musical weekend, and had one of the best experiences we could possibly have!!

On July 11 we travelled to Reno to take part in the HiRish Festival, which is the "Highest Elevation Irish Festival in the World"!! And it was: it took place at the Sky Tavern area outside of Reno, at over 7,000 feet up!! Besides being an absolutely gorgeous place, the guys from Ceol Irish Pub always treat us like kings!! Though we got rained out and had to do our last set acoustically inside the lodge, we had a great time!! We, along with Autumn and Glen from San Franciso, as well as Johnny Connolly and the members of Skelpin, and all adjourned back to the pub for a great night of sessioning!! After that we found ourselves (quite by accident) at the same bar in the Circus Circus casino as all the gang again, where we drank and laughed till nearly 3am....and even won a bit of money playing slots!! It was a great time, we look forward to heading back to Reno soon...

And finally as many of you know, we started recording tracks for our second CD in late May, at Paradise Studios here in Sacramento. Craig Long, the owner and fabulous engineer at Paradise, had been recommended by Kathy, our guitar player, who had worked with Craig on another project. Mind you, this is after we had recorded our first album in Kathy's living room...so we were very excited about the prospect of recording in an Actual Professional Recording Studio!!

So we went in, met Craig, and immediately settled into the process of tracking....usually fiddle and guitar together, then whistle and bodhran coming in after.....THEN we started really having fun!! We brought Brady in to sing a few songs, Craig had some really amazing ideas, and we are SO excited about what we've got that we can barely contain ourselves!!

We've got all sorts of harmonies, some really great songs, a few production surprises, and overall, an album that we are extremely happy with, and it's not actually completed yet!! We're really hoping for a late October release date, but it could be mid-November....we're really wanting to do this right this time!! The new album will be titled "Out on the Ocean", and it's again going to be on the FGM Records label...check the website for details as the project reaches completion. We've already got some rough mixes posted on the website, which leads to another bit of news -

THE REDESIGNED WEBSITE WAS SUCCESSFULLY LAUNCHED!! Check out the streamlined website at www.nine8thsirish.com - we've got rough mixes from the new CD, new photos with Brady, and a nice, easy to read Schedule.

So that's been our summer in a long, rambling nutshell....we're heading out to Grass Valley for the KVMR Celtic Festival the first weekend in October, where we will be hosting an Open Session on Saturday afternoon, enjoying the entertainment of Dervish, Dougie MacLean, The Elders, and more....we're planning on late night sessions, many photos, and perhaps even some advance copies of the CD, if we can swing it!!

Spring Hits N8i Hard!!

Spring usually hits pretty good here in northern California, and it's no different this year. We had a great month of March, a nice rainy April, and now it's May - and we're having a bit of Spring Fever...we're very excited about some of the things coming up this month and during the summer. First of all we are heading back into the studio to record our second CD...we are slaving hard on pre-production, with an initial recording date of 5/29, and have some really great tunes and arrangements, including four of my original tunes. We're not sure when the album will be completed, what with all the gigs we have coming up, but we're hoping for a release date in early fall 2009.

Nine-8ths Irish played our very first Renaissance Faire the weekend of May 9th & 10th in Auburn, where we joined the festivities at the Cain's Crossing Ren Faire. A great time was had by all, as evidenced by the pictures we took, a few of which can be viewed on our Facebook page at www.band.to/nine8thsirish.

We also are scheduled to go back to Reno, Nevada, on Saturday 5/16/09, where we'll play again at Ceol Irish Pub, with special guest Phil Herrold, one of our buddies from Chico, CA. He'll pull out the guitar as well as banjo, and help us entertain the masses and celebrate graduation weekend at UNR (University of Nevada, Reno). The music starts at 9pm, goes to about midnight, and there is never a cover charge at Ceol!!

At the end of May we'll play the Valhalla Renaissance Faire in South Lake Tahoe, CA. This great event puts us in the same venue as Tartanic, an exciting band from Houston, TX. See the Valhalla website for all the details: www.valhallafaire.com

The big event coming up this summer is our trip to Dayton, Ohio for CityFolk Festival....we'll have more information on that soon, including a very exciting announcement about an addition to the band...KEEP CHECKING BACK!!

Linda
(the fiddler)
www.nine8thsirish.com

St. Patrick's Day 2009: Two States in One Day!!

This year, St. Patrick's Day was on a Tuesday. We all took the day off work (because as we know, REAL musicians have Day Jobs!). We are hosts of the Twice-a-Month Sunday Session at deVere's Pub, and they included us in their First Annual St. Paddy's Day Block Party!! They actually closed down L Street - one of the busiest streets in Sacramento - and had an all-day St. Paddy's Party...we played from 11am to 1pm, and had a few of the Kennelly Dancers come in as well. By the time we left, it was well on its way to being a blow-out party!!

But leave we did....and headed up I-80 to Reno! We got to Ceol Irish Pub a bit past 3:30pm, and had just enough time to set up our system, get a quick sound check, and start playing! The local news was preparing to do a live broadcast, so we played during their broadcast, which included a few dancers as well as N8i on stage...and they did three or four of those live broadcasts throughout the evening!! We played till around 7pm, and just had a blast!! The crowd was great, a few people finally got brave and danced, and the green everywhere was soooo cool!! We just love Ron, Tom, Stacie and everyone at CEOL, and are hoping to head back up there in May.

Synopsis: 2009 St. Patrick's Day, no casualties, played some good music, met some great people, and then headed back to work on Wednesday, with only the slightest of hangovers! I'd say it was a great success!! Until next year.....

Sonora Celtic Faire

On the weekend of March 14-15, 2009, we were fortunate enough to take part in the 23rd Annual Sonora Celtic Faire, in beautiful historic Sonora California. Though just a week or two before there were massive rainstorms and snow flurries throughout the Sierras, the morning of March 14th was just gorgeous...it was a bit misty through the mountainous terrain of Highway 49, and was a perfect day by the time we got to Sonora.

Our first set was at noon, inside on the Guinness Stage, which seemed ultimately appropriate to us. We warmed up a bit outside, then were introduced to Forrest, who was our Sound Guy on that stage all weekend. He was great, and the sound was quite good, once we got the kinks worked out. We had a nice set, then another at 4pm, during which we all had nearly as much fun on stage as the whisky-tasting servers and customers had!! They cheered each time someone took a shot, so we had a ready-made cheering section!

Other bands that were there included Festival organizer Patrick Karnahan's group The Black Irish Band, the popular Wicked Tinkers, Tempest, and all the way from Texas, Needfire! It was great to see some of my old Texas friends again, and they were celebrating the release of their new CD, "Chasing Orion". Check 'em out if you haven't heard them, www.needfire.com - they are very exciting, high-energy, and great guys each and every one!

Another band that I was looking forward to seeing was Brother, whom I had seen years ago in Arlington, Texas at the Highland Games there...this band was originally three Australian brothers, who played Scottish Bagpipes, lived in Los Angeles, and wrote and performed really quality original rock-and-roll music! Well, Brother is now a power trio, and this time the leader singer/guitar player Angus had to stay behind, as his wife was expecting to give birth to their first child any minute! So the band was only d'Albo the drummer, and Drew, who is generally known as DidgeriDrew! These guys are such professionals that even though they didn't have their singer, the other two still showed up to do their gig at the Festival, and asked some of the other musicians to sit in with them! So along with members of Needfire and others, the guys asked me to come and play my fiddle with them! It was very exciting, and we've included a video of the event - the tune is one of my original ones, which we've named "Escher's Staircase":


NOTE: Angus now has a beautiful baby boy, and has already written a song for him. Check out Angus' Journal Entry here: http://www.brotherjournal.blogspot.com/

As my mother accompanied us to Sonora, she also got some video of Nine-8ths Irish on stage, which can be viewed at these URLs: Sally Garden & Frank's Reel, or Golden Keyboard/Maudabawn Chapel/Dinkie's.

So a great time was had by all, Patrick and Shannon and the whole crew at the Sonora Celtic Faire treated us fabulously, and we got to play some great music, listen to some great music, make some new friends, and share the whole weekend with those we love! Thanks to everyone in Sonora, we look forward to coming back next year!!

February...short month, short blog entry

In February we started our actual 2nd and 4th Sunday Session at deVere's. At the first one on Feb-8th we had a decent number of people, including Tim Connolly, who evidently had not been playing for quite some time. We were honored to have him join us!!
It was raining that day - and a COLD wind was a-blowin'!! Perfect weather for being in a nice warm pub, drinking a nice (*insert preference here: hot, cold, warm, stiff, etc) beverage, so we had a decent crowd!

The 4th Sunday Session was even better, as we had Dan Engle, Kathy Barwick (our guitar player, who doesn't really frequent sessions), Tim Connolly again, and surprise visitor Shelly Connolly (I believe they are related, but only by marriage). Much fun was had by all, and coincidentally, it was, once again, rainy and windy!!

We got a surprise gig back in Reno at Ceol Irish Pub, which is quickly becoming our favorite pub, home-away-from-home kinda thing. We were asked to come back and play for the last day of February, Feb-28....and it turned out it was the day of Reno's Beer Crawl...resulting in a decent crowd for the evening!

As before, they treated us extremely well, putting Chris and I up in a very nice (resort!) hotel, where we availed ourselves of the down pillows, pillow-top beds and generous nickel slots!! (OK we only won enough to cover our breakfast, but hey, it put us on the plus side!) The next morning, after we leisurely left the hotel and had our well-deserved breakfast, we got on the road back towards Sacramento around 11am, and it was raining. Keep in mind this was Highway 80 over Donner Pass, in FEBRUARY. So when we passed the outskirts of town and saw the big digital Road Conditions sign, it said "Snow Over Pass, Carry Chains". Of which we had none. So we just soldiered on with all the other cars and trucks, watching the temperature drop with each foot we climbed, until it was about 31 degrees, and HUGE snow flakes were falling rather quickly!! It was sticking (there was already snow on the ground, so no big surprise there), but there were just enough cars to keep it from freezing up on the road.....yet. Ultimately the trip was uneventful, we made it back down to Sacramento, but had we lingered over breakfast even another 30 minutes we may have been stuck in Reno for a few days!!

So we once again look forward to March, which this years sees us on a local Sacramento morning show, then off to the Sonora Celtic Faire, back to deVere's for a midday St. Patrick's Day show, and back up the hill to Reno, for a few hours at Ceol, where they take such good care of us. And we're already watching the weather!! ;-)