I am not one for doing the same songs that are done by virtually everyone out there. Nor do I have any notion that these "traditional pub songs" are sung all that often in Ireland. But I would like my British and Irish friends to know that not all bands over here are "green plastic hat and pointy ears" bands. In our Band, The Conklin Ceili Band (sorry for no fadas but I can't be arsed just now), we surely will hit one or two of these per set. And we surely will do a rebel medley, as well as a couple of reel sets. But much of our focus is on the children and grandchildren of the Irish Diaspora, and their contributions in the lands they landed in. We will often mix these with a reel, or tune, using the "A" part as the break between verses, and breaking down into the full tune to close the song. Hence, on our latest CD, we will do a song written by Tim O'Brien (John Riley), and use Loch Leven Castle for the breaks/ending. Another one that we used the technique on was Steve Earle's "Dixieland", but in this case we used "Ashokan Farewell" as the intro. Of course, AF isn't Irish, but it has the feel of an air, which is why so many trad bands snatched it up. We did take "Follow Me Up to Carlow" and mix it up with "The Swallowtail", on our first CD. The effect on audiences is that we have a pretty unique sound. They come expecting to hear some variation of the standard pub band, and leave us with comments about how they love the music and haven't heard anything quite like it. We put on the jokes and patter, but the music is the star, and we try to be something other than the standard pub band, or another jig and reel band. It seems to work well for us.

All the best,

Mick