I’m on a music kick at the moment. You might say that’s strange, since I play in a band for a living. But actually, a lot of what we do involves no music whatsoever. I’m thinking of the traveling and management side of things. Then there’s actual life, you know, families, homes and all that stuff that gets pushed to one side for periods of months at a time, by a traveling musician.
Anyway, what prompted my musical recent fervor were two things. 1) I finally got Sirius XM Satellite Radio installed in my car which, for Americans, is where one spends a lot of time, and 2) I just returned from Ireland where music fairly oozes out of the soil in that green and pleasant land.
The Satellite Radio thing is pretty cool because as you know, we’ve done sessions for this station ( a billion dollar start - up back in the day ) and they have all sorts of channels like Blues, Country, News, Sports and one rock channel called Deep Tracks, that I like. There also one that features Jam Bands, a genre I’ve been wanting to find out more about. I was traveling back from Boston the other day in the passenger seat of our Subaru and this 3 hour, yes, three hour concert, came on the radio for the entire duration of the trip home. It was so much fun, like being stoned on music all over again and put me in the mind of the old FM Radio days in the States during the 1970s where we’d undertake these humungous tours by bus or station wagon.This was where we understood the nature of what Americans call a “Road Trip”.
Umphries is a great band in that old tradition that Wishbone Ash sometimes dips its toe into: Jamming. In fact, for Europeans, they’ll be playing the Burg Herzburg Festival in Germany this summer, a festival where we’ve appeared on many occasions. I thoroughly recommend them and the festival, one of the last true hippie festivals in Europe.
I’m now back home from my recent Irish trip, where I joined the Pat McManus Band at the Rory Gallagher Tribute Festival held in Rory’s birthplace of Ballyshannon, Co. Donegal. It was a Craic, as they say there. We played a slew of Ash tunes plus a couple of Rory pieces like Bought & Sold . As a guest of Mr. Pat McManus, I played with Pat and his band in an outdoor marquee on a stage in the centre of town. The crowd was really up for it and the weather held out quite well. While there, you can’t fail to be exposed to traditional music of one sort or another, either on the TV or in some hotel or indeed emanating from someone’s house. There’s no other culture in the world that has such a strong musical language that is continually reinventing itself. Check out a Pat McManus’ recommendation, Eileen Ivers. Her new album Crossing the Bridge features such luminaries as Steve Gadd and Al DiMiola. Completely self-taught, Eileen rocks out more than any guitar rock god I‘ve heard recently. The Washington Post calls Eileen ‘the future of Celtic fiddle’ and the New York Times hails her as ‘Jimi Hendrix of the violin’. I can’t disagree with any of that.
Aside from that, we’ll be making our own music on the Island of Vrsar in Croatia on July 20th. Judging by the photos and word of mouth, this place is truly beautiful and I’m hoping that it will be an inspirational trip in a way, because we are all going into the studio afterwards in August to make some new music of our own. More on that later.
I’ve just come indoors from our yard, having watched a very large pileated woodpecker virtually peck it’s way through a large willow tree bough which reaches out over the band’s touring rig, our beloved Chevy Van. I can see that this bird, the largest woodpecker in North America, could easily have the ability to fell a branch weighing probably 500 llbs. Did you know that research has shown that the amount of energy absorbed by a woodpecker skull from each “peck” is about 1,000 times the force of gravity. In a person, exposure to this sort of abuse would quickly result in severe brain injury. But woodpeckers have come up with evolutionary answers to this problem. Pileateds and their cousins have spongy-bone structures within the skull that help protect their brains. The brain itself has an elongated rather than round shape, which aids in diffusing energy. The angle that the birds use to drill and even slight variations in length between the upper and lower mandible all influence their ability to withstand incredible amounts of stress. Researchers have been studying woodpecker anatomy in the hopes of creating better head protection devices for human use. Perhaps this could eventually be of use for AC/DC fans during long bouts of headbanging. Just a thought.....
Bye now, until next time ~ A.P.