What Have I Been Doing?? Fall-Winter 2014

Well, it's been a totally crazy and busy and FUN-FILLED Fall!!

I've traveled with Coolin, and Jiggernaut, played with The Quibble Brothers, with Ed Rogers and Kathleen Jackson as the Ed Rogers Trio, played in a few Trinity Hall sessions, took part in the O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat (for my birthday!!), and generally had a WONDERFUL time!!

With Coolin, back in early September we traveled back to Jackson, Mississippi for the CelticFest there, and of course, as we always are, treated like rock stars!! Don Penzien and Co. definitely know how to treat their musicians!!

Coolin was also featured as one of the "Mini-Concerts" at the O'Flaherty Irish Music Retreat in late October - AND I was treated to a chorus of HAPPY BIRTHDAY from the entire dining hall on my birthday!!

With Jiggernaut, we did two shows in Sept/October in Missouri, one in St. Joseph, one in Weston. Both were amazing trips, but the Weston Irish Festival remains one of the best festivals EVER!! Michael and everyone at the Weston Brewery/O'Malley's Pub put on such a great event, they take care of the bands to such an amazing degree that we had Bloody Marys brought to us, ON STAGE, on a little tray!! I have to say a big thank you to Deanna and the boys of Jiggernaut for including me in such a fabulous event!!

I also have had a chance to play a few wonderful shows with Ed Rogers, the great singer-songwriter from Fort Worth. I'm excited about the chance to stretch my wings musically and work on more improvisational playing, and I'll playing a few more shows with Ed & Co. coming up in November/December.

I've also been called again (RE-called?) to sit in with Dallas bluegrass band The Quibble Brothers for a few shows in November/December. Very fun stuff, and it's been great to steer myself back to more of the style I started with as a kid, sort of the American/Oldtime/Contest fiddling stuff, which fits into the bluegrass niche nicely.

Neat. Note my knack for alliteration there.

I figure I'll just continue rambling, since really I'm the only one who reads this....

As for regular life stuff, I'm still working my Day Job. It's a bit stressful sometimes, and I'm trying to keep my workouts going and eat better, but it's tough. I sort of fell off the exercise wagon with all the road trips....plus Chris is now working a new job, THIRD SHIFT, which means he works from basically 11pm to 7am. But at least it's close to home, so that's good. As a result of the night shift, gigs with Coolin are few and far between lately, but we just found out we have been selected as one of the bands to play the 2015 North Texas Irish Festival, so we will be out en force en March!! Er....IN March!! GAH!!

See you out there somewhere!! I'll try to put all shows on the Calendar as they come in...

Happy Fall - Thanksgiving - Winter - Holidays - Kwanzaa - Solstice - Christmas to everyone!!

#coolin #deannascotland #gigs #jiggernaut #missouri #weston #jackson #quibble #edrogers #oflaherty