The N8i St. Patrick's Day Marathon, 3.17.10

It all started at a fairly civilized hour, when Chris and I arrived at McCormick & Schmick's at (11th and J) to set up the sound system. We had plenty of time to get set up, do a quick check to make sure it was all functional, and even have a quick nip to get the blood flowing. That was around noon....

We left on foot to head toGig #1 at deVere's Pub, about 5 blocks away on L Street between 15th and 16th, for their 2nd Annual St. Paddy's Day Block Party. They had been setting up since 4am, and had closed off the street, installed portapotties and police cars, and the Block Party officially started around 8am that day, so when we arrived the stage was already set up, beer was being served, food was cooking and people were starting to stream in, all being recorded for several different local news broadcasts. Kenneally Dancers were everywhere with their curly hair and colorful outfits, gate lists checked, wristbands applied, cold beers gotten, and sound check completed, then we played from 1:30pm until 3:30pm. It was a decent crowd, and we were able to escape before the really REALLY crazy revelers arrived. (Did see one guy puke right in front of the stage, he was escorted out, but STILL HAD A BEER IN HIS HAND!!!!)

Then we walked BACK to McCormick & Schmick's for Gig #2, where we played from 4:30pm to 6:30pm for an Irish Happy Hour!! This restaurant is at the corner of 11th and J Streets, and is absolutely gorgeous! They have a fabulous bar, stocked with just about every Scotch you could imagine (OK maybe not EVERY one...), great food, and one of the best Happy Hour menus around! The crowd was appreciative, and starting to get a bit rowdy, so it seemed everyone had fun.

After Mc&S, we packed up the sound system and headed over to Gig #3, to BREW IT UP! This great brew-pub is located at 14th and H, and they had set up an outdoor seating area, plus they had menu specials throughout the day. We had sore feet, sore fingers and we're starting to get a bit cranky, but once we started playing, it was a blast!! For the third time that day!! Mike and the gang took good care of us, getting us past the crowds to set up, and then we played from 8:30pm to 10:30pm to a very enthusiastic fun crowd!! We only had one close call when a, shall we say MATURE woman was twirling around dancing, and almost took a stage dive over the monitors into the mic stands, but Brady was there and successfully caught her before any damage was done!!

All in all it was an exhausting but fabulous day, and we can only hope that the multitudes who saw/heard us has just a fraction of the fun we had!! We'll do it again next year, though we may decide that two gigs will be enough.
Irish and a wee bit more!!!

Linda

Sonora Celtic Faire, what a weekend!

Wow, what a week!! It would seem I have been lax in my blogging duties having not put one up about last weekend, but come on, we have been a bit busy hahaha. Well our St. Patrick's week started in Sonora, CA. at the Sonora Celtic Faire. We got to play alongside Golden Bough, those folks are great fun. We met up with some great NEW friends, and fellow Clan Inebriated members (more on that in a bit), and got to hang out with our old friends from Dallas, Needfire! Somewhere out there is video of them letting me sit in with my drum on a tune, that I must say was the highlight of the weekend, or at least the one I can tell you about Muahhaaha. What does that mean? It means you should have been there!

So about the whole Clan Inebriated membership LOL! I found a clan, or perhaps they found me, on the first night we were there, and it would seem I was living via their motto (to drink, to friends, to fun!) , so much so I was told I HAD to come to the clan tent the next morning! I'm surprised I even remembered that truth be told. What I do know is between the C.I. folks and the Kilt Lassies (<-- see photo!) from MacKinnon's Kilts we had a great time that night, and they made it a wonderful weekend that we won't soon forget. Thanks Ladies!

Here is the short video of Needfire with Chris sitting in on the bodhran...he and Mike (the fiddler) totally ROCKED it!!

Sound check done? Check! Players ready? Check! Audience? BIG CHECK! WHAT A NIGHT!!

FRIDAY, February 19th, 2010: The day started like so many others on a gig day, lots of packing of gear, essentials, and what-nots, followed by a bit of a drive and lots of coffee, but today was a bit different: it was The Center for The Arts.
We arrived a bit early, and it was a good thing too, it gave us time to get sound check done, kinda get some food, and get ourselves ready for the coming few hours. I have to admit I was a bit nervous in the beginning, but once we got the sound check done and had some beers in the green room, I was REALLY anxious, and I don't think I was alone.
All those thoughts and feelings just disappeared once the "curtain" went up so to speak and we all sat/stood at our respective places on stage and started doing what we love to do, play music - Irish music - for people who love to hear it.
The nervous energy we had was turned into drive and rhythm that was then fueled in turn by the energy of a crowd in the throws of dancing and clapping and foot stomping. I felt like I was being given 220v of pure electricity every time I looked at my friends on stage and we were all smiling, swinging, swaying, and having a very good time. We had over 90 in attendance last night, some of them we knew, some we know now. They all worked together to make themselves my pick for audience of the year!

Thanks to Mikail and Marny from TCFTA for the fabulous sound and the star treatment, and Annie O'Dea Hestbeck from KVMR for the great introduction, and everyone else at KVMR for welcoming us to their station - you guys are great!!

In short, the crowd was great, the music was smoking, the night was a huge success, and if you weren't there, you have no idea what you missed. I sure hope you make the next show....lots coming up in March!!!

Chris

(Note from Linda: Special thanks to everyone from Center for the Arts for giving us the chance to play at their wonderful venue; to everyone who came out to support and hear us; to Jon Hartley Fox for his Way With Words, and both Jon and Jacky for help selling CDs, we love you both; and to Kathy, Brady, Bo and especially Chris for helping convince me to get out there on stage when I'm supposed to!! I love you guys!)

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