Celtic Squall

We’ve tracked about five songs.

- All Among the Barley (available on “Chorus for a Queen”)

- Wild Mountain Thyme (available on “Chorus for a Queen”)

- Drop of Good Beer (a Faire-traditional song)

- Let Union Be (also a Faire-traditional song)

- Without Her (original by Stu Venable)

There are probably about 4 or 5 more that are ready to record without additional rehearsal time. Then we’ll start working on the new stuff.

We’ve been talking about releasing two discs at once for our debut. If that happens, the division of the songs may be themed in some way — maybe traditional on one and originals on the other; perhaps by subject matter. Not sure yet. Not sure if we’ll have enough for two discs.

It’s been a very different recording process than it is with the larger groups (the Poxy Boggards and the Merry Wives). The Boggards and the Wives are such large groups, you have to record all the songs in phases: do all the scratch tracks, bring in each performer and have them record everything: a day for the bouzouki, a day for percussion, a day or two for every part.

With the smaller size, we can concentrate on one song per recording session. That is, we all go in the studio and record, say, “Drop of Good Beer.” By the end of the evening, we’re done, and we have a completed track. The sense of accomplishment at the end of every day is very apparent, so it really gives you a feeling of forward momentum.

When we’re a little further along in the process, we’ll post some rough mixes for you to hear.

We had a blast playing our ad-hoc 10am show at the music stage. Thank you to everyone who came out to listen. And a big thanks to everyone who gave us their opinions. To answer the many questions, YES, we are recording a CD. Being a small group, the recording is going very quickly. Wednesday night, we recorded all of the tracks to “Drop of Good Beer.” It took less than two hours.
We’ll continue recording the music we performed at the Royal Music Stage set. Once all of that is down, we’ll start working on the new material.
We’re guessing the CD will be finished in the Fall.

In the meantime, you can go to our myspace page, at www.myspace.com/celticsquall and get the two songs we donated to the RESCU CD, Chorus For a Queen.

Near the end of the production of our premiere disc, we’ll start looking for a venue for a show. It’ll be a small place, probably in the Pasadena area. If you’d like to be kept apprised of our progress, please join our mailing list, subscribe to our RSS feed or just check back here.

Again, thank you to everyone who shared your kind words about our music. It means a lot to us.

You’ve got three more weekends (6 more chances) to see our early morning set at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale, California.

We’re performing at the Royal Music Stage, starting right after the opening parade passes — about 10:10 a.m.

Here’s the post card thing we’re going to give away next weekend. We don’t have a CD yet, but we’re working on it. This card will just be a sort of reminder to look for the CD when it’s released.

If you’re interested in hearing our future CD, join our mailing list and we’ll let you know when it’s out. We’ll also release a few song for free so you can hear what you’re going to get.

We had a couple people ask us at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire last weekend if we had a CD with “Without Her” on it. While we have started production of our premiere CD, we don’t have that song recorded yet.

Attached is the demo version of the song I recorded for my podcast, the Angryfolk Music and Infantile Comedy Show.

 

 Celtic Squall #001 [3:02m]: Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

(photo by A.J. Stevens)

Our debut performance at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire, in Irwindale California, Saturday, April 5, 2008.

We’re sneaking on the Royal Music Stage around 10:10 am, for a few songs.

This is the online home of Celtic Squall. We are a Southern California based folk quartet. We’re in the process of developing our repertoire and recording our debut CD at the mighty Angryfolk.com Studio.

We’re going to try to sneak in a set now and again at the 2008 Renaissance Pleasure Faire in Irwindale, California. We’re also looking for small, intimate venues to perform during the rest of the year.

In the meantime, you can join our mailing list by clicking on “Join Our Mailing List” in the menu to the right. We’ll keep you up-to-date on where and when we’re playing and when our CDs will be released. We should also mention, we’re going to put up some free songs so you can hear what we’re doing. If you’re on our mailing list, you’ll be send a link to a page where you can hear more.