It is amazing how a week of not doing anything creative has been beneficial. I have been absorbing knowledge and tried to read many things. On top of that, I was also getting in touched with friends online. These conversations have stretched for several days. Through the process I discovered new sounds and a new way of looking at life.
These conversations I mentioned brought new bands to my attention. One of those bands are the Webb Sisters. They impressed me with the YouTube video featuring Leonard Cohen. I prefer Cohen over Dylan but that has nothing to do with greatness or who is a better artist. It’s just a matter of how Cohen’s style of singing plays an important part in my liking his songs.
My friend Paula thought I’d love the Webb Sisters. She’s an electronic artist who supports my love for Celtic music! I made my research and found out that: They’re not ‘new.’ They won many awards and they also collaborated with well-known names in the music industry.
They’re a duo rather than a band, comprising of sisters Charley and Hattie Webb. I checked if they are related to the famous composer Jimmy Webb but there is no reference of that sort on the web. Both are talented singer/musicians: Hattie plays the harp and mandolin, and Charley the guitar, clarinet, and piano.
They’re from Kent England but they have this Americana sound. That’s because they have an interesting musical history. According to their bio, they met Johnny Pierce, a record producer who invited them to Nashville, where they recorded their debut album, Piece of Mind. After six months, they went to California, selling the album at their gigs. They were soon discovered and were offered a publishing deal by Windswept Pacific Publishing, and, soon afterward, a record deal with Universal Records.
The sisters totally immersed themselves in beautiful Americana sound of Nashville and in America, their distinctive melodic style flourished. This resulted to Piece of Mind (2000). The “When Will You Come Home?” (2013) – 5-track EP is what I am listening to right now. This is what Paula gave me as a gift. I can’t thank her enough. She has given me this, the Celtic frames, the books, box of tea and chocolates and many more. She’s one of those people who helped ease my pain when my mom passed away.
The tunes of “When Will You Come Home?” EP have that sensitive melodic touched. They are all wrapped in delicate harmonies with terrific vocals. If there is an album that you should listen to when you are in pain then this has got to be it. It’s a collection of thoughtful and less intrusive sounds. It reminds me a bit of Alison Krauss and Francis Black. There’s sweetness underneath the songs of missing someone, the pain of separation and the hope of reunion.
I can tirelessly meditate to these songs every day. I guess enduring songs are about craft,the softer bits and pieces that sing to your soul. It is the whisper rather than the screams. It’s the ordinary topics about life that resonate as time goes by. It is how it’s like with family. They don’t have to possess superhero strength to make us admire them. It’s the ordinary things that happen every day in their presence that count. This is what “When Will You Come Home?” sounds like. And yes we never stop missing those we love and we wait everyday…hoping one day they will return again.
Huzzah!
Hi dear readers. Welcome to our eclectic post of the week. Yes it takes all kinds….
Mary Fahl
Fans of October Project’s former lead singer have a reason to rejoice. Mary Fahl is working on a new album called Love & Gravity. She is also writing a song for the audio book version of Anne Rice’s novel The Wolves of Mid-Winter. You can sample the track off the upcoming album called How Much Love in this link: http://maryfahl.com/music
According to her:
I’m thrilled to announce that my new album “Love & Gravity” is almost finished. Produced by the great John Lissauer, best known for his classic recordings with Leonard Cohen, the album features an extraordinary group of musicians including Shawn Pelton, Chris Bruce, Cranston Clements and Glenn Patscha and Byron Isaacs of Ollabelle. In the meantime, I’ve just completed a pre-release CD with selections from the album that will be available at my upcoming performances around the country. My summer touring schedule is filling up fast and I may be coming to a city near you, so please check back here for updates. In the meantime, hope to see you all in my travels!
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My facebook buddy Dermot McIlroy who owns the McIlroy Guitars in Antrim Northern Ireland posted this video. One of the lads in this video actually plays one of his guitars. By the way Mr McIlroy is part of The Folkalists. He is finishing off re-mastering an old album (that they are going to re-release) and also they have a new CD out which I will be listening to soon! He son Damian is also in the traditional Irish music scene as part of Athrú.
So yeah that video is by Goitse and they are from Limmerick. Members are :
Wall Street has fangs. In a 24-hour world, does anyone notice the unusual behaviors of many, including the reclusive rich. When international power brokers, vampires and shape shifters hiding in plain sight, threaten Micaela and those she loves, will this heiress to a Druid legacy deny her power again and let others die? Can she accept the friendship and love of others with strange and frightening powers? A thrill ride of money, magic and murder across the globe.
Do you sleep better at night believing that vampires are things of fiction?
It is the first time that CMF features a novelist. I think that those who read Dark Dealings will really know why she is making a stir in the literary world. Through the twists and turns of this story, Karen Victoria Smith incorporates traditional Irish music either as a way to describe a feeling of the moment, an incident music or the tunes around characters when they go to a ceilidh. This is after all a story that merges Celtic myths and vampire horror. For those who haven’t picked their copy of Dark Dealings, I recommend you do it now. It is a great read.Very satisfying and full of suspense and action. You won’t be disappointed. In fact you will keep coming back for more and wish for a continuation story of the characters. It is a book with a lot of HEART, WIT and LAUGHTER. You will know more through this interview:
CMF You created an interesting character in Micaela. How many percentage is she you?
KVS: It is an interesting process. I did not set out to create a character that was me. But writers write what they know. And by that I don’t mean just that because I worked on Wall Street that is what I write about. We, as writers of novels or music, know emotions and experiences; we know our life and the lives of those near and dear. I was recently talking to a friend about a difficult decision I had to make but wasn’t ready to make. I said I was just going to put it up on the shelf and deal with it later. I suddenly heard Micaela’s voice coming from my lips. She is in some ways a lot like me. But good characters always get to do the things we wish we could do and say the things we wish we could say. Micaela is perhaps my alter ego in that way.
You told me that Dark Dealings is “It has been a labor of love. A tribute to all I know and have learned”. How strong is the knowledge of Celtic mythology in your family?
The knowledge was stronger in my grandmother’s generation. She is my Una (Micaela’s grandmother), but not so much in my parents’ generation. My grandmother instilled in me not only basic knowledge as a small child but a love and curiosity for my Celtic/Druid heritage. I began to seriously reconnect with that heritage in college and have pursued it since. My dream would be to live in a traditional cottage in a small Irish village where I could write and smell the earth and feel the energy from the land.
Your characters unfold gradually as opposed to in your face kind of vampire treatment. Do you have a liking for things that are implied in writing?
I have always like novels of discovery. I want my readers to see my characters change and grow and, in the process, become dear friends and family, even the vampires. I am a throwback to in my approach to writers like Bram Stoker, Anne Rice, even Stephan King. I can only wish to approach their caliber of writing, but I like the tension, the relationships to evolve. It is so important that reader feel like a novel is an experience in which they are a participant and not an observer. When I read as a child, I always imagined myself to be a character in the story. That extended to my favorite television shows and movies. I wrote some of it down but never kept it. Guess today you would have called it FanFic.
Dark Dealings is certainly not your typical vampire novel. We are dealing with a career woman dealing with powerful people and war of wits. Is this going to be a chronicle?
It will be a chronicle of both Micaela and a number of the characters in Dark Dealings. I am currently working on edits for Ogham Court, which is based on Devlin, Nora, Aine and set primarily on the street where the Salmon Run Inn and the Singing Stone is located. Relatively minor characters in Dark Dealings but who have developed lives of their own that I suspect one day will come full circle back into Micaela’s life. Micaela as a strong career woman is again a reflection of my personal career path before a became obsessed with writing. She is also a product of my taste in female characters. I could never stand helpless females waiting always to be rescued. Even when I read Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women (hardly paranormal horror LOL) I identified with Jo. She was smart, strong-willed with a hidden vulnerability, with a sharp tongue that was sometimes her undoing.
I think one of the things that are worth noting is how the relationship between the characters unfold. When we think of Nikki, her tale is kind of ‘sneaky’ because who would have thought there is more to her than just working as a law enforcer. Are you more into the characters or the plot?
I think both are important. But I consider myself character-driven. I start with a rough sketch of a plot and the theme. I spend a lot of time in the beginning developing my characters and they continue to reveal themselves in each round of edits. For me, it is taking well formed characters and sticking them in tough situations and watching how they respond and are changed as a result.
Where did you get your inspiration for the Baron?
Beyond my central interest in my Celtic heritage, I have been fascinated by old European royalty before the late 19th century. Two of my favorites are the English , particularly the Tudors and the early Russian dynasties. Both are so deliciously dysfunctional full of treachery, murder and political intrigues. I actually debated the end scene for the Baron (trying to avoid spoilers here). Could have gone either way for him.
If ever this becomes a movie, who do you see playing the role of Liam?
I have some thoughts on this but I would really love to have readers chime in on my Facebook page with their suggestions or to my Pinterest board for Dark Dealings. I love seeing for my work and the works of others how each reader brings their own interpretation to the character. It is a shame we lost Heath Ledger, though
The book is like a sly predator. It starts gradually and the last parts become really explosive and action packed. This isn’t one of those sentimental romance novels masked as vampire fiction. was deviating from the typical vampire franchise your intention?
LOL, I most definitely do not write romances. The recent trend in vampire and shapeshifter fiction has been very light, right up to vampires that walk around in the daylight. It was not always like that. Vampires and other preternaturals can be multi-dimensional characters yet they are capable of great violence. I am actually a huge fan of Laurell K Hamilton and her Anita Blake, Vampire Hunter series. Ms. Hamilton builds intricate worlds of preternatural creatures in an alternates and very edgy universe. Her plots and subplots are not everyone’s taste as she pushes the envelope on sexuality and violence. But at the same time she explores questions of power and what it means to be human or a monster. The Trueblood television series is similar in that it does not sugar coat the needs and desires of the humans or preternaturals. Lestat in Anne Rice’s chronicles is also from that same genre. Ms Rice’s beautiful writing is I think pivotal to the resurrection of the paranormal genre beginning in the 1970’s and 1980”s
I think there can be romance but that it must be the light part of a very dark world. It is part of the exploration of the character whether they are a normal or a preternatural. In Celtic tradition there is the balance between the male and the female, the light and the darkness. Balance does not always mean 50-50. AS the light and dark half of the day the balance changes throughout the year and is part of the cycle.
Dark Dealings is an LGBT friendly fiction where characters like Connie really shines. Has the current political climate gay rights also influenced your writing?
Frankly no. The current political climate is wonderful but a step in the evolution of society that began decades ago. When I first imagined Dark Dealings, it came from the recognition that most non-Judeo-Christian cultures have some form of the vampire and shapeshifter. I wanted to develop an international multicultural world for Micaela to move in. It seems a natural extension that a diverse world be just that …diverse.
Somewhere in my upbringing, twelve years of Catholic School notwithstanding, I developed a more pagan philosophy regarding all living things. It perhaps comes from the Celtic acceptance of all the possibly creatures that populate the Otherworld and this world. Or maybe growing up in the post-Woodstock generation. In my world, as in my life, people do not come from cookie cutters or in one flavor. It is the variety that makes life an exciting ride. In the middle of Dark Dealings, Micaela goes to her grandmother Una to talk about creatures and thing which are not supposed to be. Una’s response is that “we who have touched the Otherworld know differently.” I wanted to create a world in my book and the books that follow that accept that all things are possible and valid. It sounds trite but if we can accept the premise of vampires and werewolves who seem just like us than why not LGBT characters who are three-dimensional and powerful characters in their own right. I love the character of Connie; she is smart, quick with a weapon when needed, a powerful shapeshifter and a loving and loved partner who happens to be another woman. Regardless of sexual preference I want all my characters to be multi-layered and complex. I did not set out to make her lesbian but as she evolved she spoke to me and told who she was. She is in some ways the perfect foil for Ethan or perhaps a hint at a less stuffy side of him. I suspect we will see more of her.
Kinfolk are Brian Mcdaid and Gerry Power. Brian and Gerry met in south of England in 2000. Both were working in different bands, and involved in different musical collaborations. Gerry was busy on the London singer songwriter circuit playing suppot spots to established artistes such as Nils Lofgren, Colin Blunstone, Geno Washington, Bert Jansch. Brian was poised to go to America having just been offered a deal. Since that meeting they have worked together with a number of other musicians, mainly playing live venues throughout the UK. Since late 2004 they have been drawing on their shared musical heritage to create KINFOLK and their debut album: THIS LAND.
Brian was born in Glasgow, Scotland. His parents are from Donegal and Fermanagh in Ireland. Gerry was born in London of Irish descent, his parents coming from Cork. Both share a similar musical heritage being influenced by traditional and contemporary folk music from Ireland, Scotland and England. For Brian this influence was inevitable – his uncle was the lat Irish folk legend Corny Mcdaid.
Typical of many young people, their musical experience and experimentation developed over the years. These included rock, pop, jazz, funk and country. However throughout their musical careers they have always maintained a strong acoustic and folk link.
This meeting of musical experience has produced a song writing duo that has flourished and developed together. They have produced songs of quality diversity, appealing accross a wide range of folk music tastes.
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Up and coming: Will Tun and the Wasters – Star of the County Down- Acoustic Cabin Sessions
They will be my featured band around mid-October so watch out for an interview with someone in the band .
It was Anne Rice (who can trace her roots in Scotland) who introduced me to the Picts and the Pictish culture in her novel Lasher.It’s part of the series about the lives of the Mayfair witches. You can say that Pictish is related to Celtic or they look the same. But there is a difference. The are the ‘painted people’ of ancient Scotland inhabiting most of the North Eastern part. A beautiful example of their art can be found here: http://www.penandprint.com/images/scotland/2007_dec/pictish_stone_lrg.jpg
It was 
Celtic Music Fan 
