Class of 76 reunion

Wow, thirty five years. On Saturday afternoon the class of 1976, the Bi-Centennial Class, from Guilderland Central High School will gather for their 35th reunion. The song above was the number one song in the country as the graduates walked across the stage, set on the football field, dressed in red and white caps and gowns. Has it really been that long? This years reunion started last year on facebook. A small fire started as a few classmates decided to come back to Guilderland the same weekend. The fire spread to the many people that were still in the area, tours were set up in the Altamont Elementary School, the High School and the Farnsworth Middle school. After, a gathering at DeeDee's in Latham, why not, DeeDee was a classmate. The night was filled with fun and laughter, old friends and new stories.

This year, we are having a reunion, it is a clambake, picnic, steakroast what ever you want to call it. We are too old to do the Country Club thing anymore. We don't need to impress our classmates. We are what we are, shorts, t-shirts, sundresses, now that's the way to celebrate thirty five years of being an adult.

Over 500 graduates on that sunny June day in 1976 crossed that stage, we lost the first one a few weeks later, on Labor day weekend. The trouble with reunions is the loss of old friends, when you were 18 you were invincible, by the time you are 53, you know the truth. So to all the friends that have gone before us, we will lift a glass to your memories this Saturday and tell all the stories that used to embarrass you, you will always live on. See all you Dutchmen on Saturday.

How to become an Irish music fan

When you decide to expand your musical taste into another genre, the easiest way is to just go out and buy as many cd's as possible. The downfall, other than the cost, is how do you know what to buy. Youtube is a great source for many different songs done by many different artist. Still you nee a little guidance. Two different people in the last couple of days have asked me about Irish music. So here is a little guide to becoming an Irish music fan.

Growing up in the Irish culture you first hear the songs being sung around a table at partys. When you can match a song with a type of music you like voila, you're a fan, (think Whiskey in the Jar, traditional song + rock and roll [Thin Lizzy or Metallica ] ). This doesn't happen often so most times you are left to the finding of a friend. The problem here is what if your friends taste in music is different than yours? So I will give you a few suggestions here to start you off on your way to becoming an Irish Music fan.

The Clancy Brothers and Tommy Makem

When the folk music craze hit the US in the 60's the Clancy's did the same thing in Ireland. Standing together in their fisherman knit sweaters and singing all the old tunes. This is a great place to start and it will give you a strong background.

Makem and Clancy

As the years went by so did the band. Tommy Makem and Liam Clancy went on to record as a duo, they still did the Irish favorites but added songs like, The Dutchman, and Eric Bogles song, The Band Played Waltzing Matilda.

Planxty

In the early 1970's Planxty emerged as a traditional music band. Jigs and reels where mixed with songs for a complete package of Irish music

The Chieftains

As far as traditional music goes the most well known band is the Chieftains. since there inception in 1962 the Chieftains have brought Irish music to the entire world. Six time grammy winners the band has recorded with many artist that you would never consider to be Irish music fans. My favorite album is Irish Heartbeat, with Van Morrison and next would be Another Country, recorded in Nashville with Ricky Skaggs, Emmylou Harris, Chet Adkins, Willie Nelson and others. The Long Black Veil, was recorded in 1995 and featured artist like Tom Jones, Mick Jagger, Sting and Sinead O'Conner to name a few.

The Wolfe Tones

For over thirty years the Wolfe Tone brought there brand of rebel songs to America and beyond. The ballads and folk songs were mixed in with songs of rebellion from the 1916 uprising, civil war and through the troubles in the north. Songs like Kevin Barry, Boys of the Old Brigade, Men Behind the Wire and Rock on Rockall.

The next generation of Irish music

The blockbuster film, Titanic, exposed many people to a little know band at the time, Gaelic Storm. the steerage band playing An Irish Party in Third Class, brought them popularity and success. The band tours many Irish Festivals around the country (including the Irish 2000 Festival in September at the Saratoga County fairgrounds).

Flogging Molly this band mixes rock and roll and Irish into a whole new type of experience. This is the new Irish, that includes bands like Dropkick Murphys from Boston and New York City's Seven Nations and Black 47.

Irish Festivals are a great place to see different types of bands all at once. Most festivals give you a choice of traditional music stages and contemporary music stages. They also usually feature a local stage. Nice place to see the bands that play in your home town all year round.

Bands that you can see in the next few months that are just a short drive from Saratoga include,

Enter the Haggis, Prodigals, Shilelagh Law, The Screaming Orphans and Celtic Cross.

Don't forget our own local bands, Hair of the Dog, The Fighting 86's, Who's Your Paddy, The Brothers Flynn, and what ever form Kevin McKrell has put together.

So you see there is a lot to choose from if you want to dive into Irish music. Set aside a few hours and let your fingers go wild on youtube and enjoy.

The Irish are coming!!

Last week while you all were waiting for up to date posts, I was down in Pearl River, NY at the Bi-annual New York State AOH/LAOH convention. The Hilton Hotel, very nice, so nice it cost $.49 a minute for the internet. Everyone knows just how slow I type so it would have cost me a fortune to post a blog from the convention. Besides all the Hibernian business that had to take place, there was some Saratoga things to do as well. Two years ago the Saratoga Hibernians decided to take a run at bringing the convention to our city. I started working with the Saratoga County Convention and Tourism Bureau. Together we set up a plan, Last week that plan went into action. The convention starts with an icebreaker dinner on Wednesday night. The Toga boys and I wore our kilts and Saratoga Irish shirts to dinner. We passed out as many of our Saratoga Irish pins as we could. That night we headed to the hospitality suites to campaign. I walked into the Nassau County suite, our foe for the week, and showed just how classy we Saratogians are. The whole week we never made any discouraging remarks about our downstate brothers and sisters. I told them that no matter the outcome, there would be a convention in 2013 and we would all have fun. On Thursday morning it was time for the presentations. They had won the coin toss and went first. They made some mistakes. They showed a slick video that showed all of Long Island. They said you could take a short train ride to Montauk (93 miles away, short?). When they were done it was our turn. I went to the podium with six members of the LAOH and a representative from the Convention Bureau and from the Holiday Inn. I invited them all to Saratoga, I explained that the last AOH Convention in Saratoga was a National Convention in 1906, and at that Convention a resolution was passed to form the Ladies organization, I invited the ladies to come back to their roots. I then introduced a video that, I told them the Hibernians had made to show them what to expect when they came to Saratoga Springs. Sometimes it's easy to get a laugh if you know your crowd, sometimes even if you know the crowd they don't laugh. As the photos of the Saratoga Battlefield came up on the video a voice over said, "The British came to Saratoga..............once, and with the help of Timothy Murphy.....we sent them packing!". The room broke out in laughter. We were on our way. The rest of the week we smiled, talked about the great city of Saratoga Springs and how much fun the people would have if they came. Nassau County was running scared, they couldn't keep up with us. Everything they did, they did second. The desk clerks were wearing Saratoga pins, they had to run over and give out I love Long Island buttons to them. We were unstoppable. On Friday night at the awards dinner the bagpipe band came in to play wearing our pins. The Ladies have a fundraiser every convention. Each county makes a basket to raffle off, the Saratoga men all bought tickets, wrote "Vote Saratoga" on them and put them all in the Nassau County basket. We waited anxiously as the tickets were pulled but to no avail, we did not win the Nassau County basket. That night I told the Nassau County women what we had done and one said, "I wish you had won, that would habe been the funnest thing ever". Saturday morning rolled around and we went to vote, now the waiting began. We headed off to lunch still not knowing. In the middle of lunch my phone went crazy, Saratoga wins. Saturday night was a great celebration. We could not have done this with out the help and support of the Schenectady LAOH, the men and women from the Albany, Troy, Watervliet AOH/LAOH our brothers and sisters across the state.

Now the real work begins. The Irish are coming to Saratoga Springs 2013.

It's Summertime

I'm sorry but nothing says summer like the Beach Boys. OK, Jan & Dean, Surf City, John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John, Summer Nights, Chicago, Saturday in the Park, Don Henley, Boys of Summer. So I guess there are a lot of summer songs but still, when you hear the Beach Boys all you can conjure up in your mind is summer.

It's not even July 10th and the calender is filling up. Weddings, Class reunion, Music Festivals, it seems I'm now making plans for late August. Remember when the summer was so long and you had nothing to do but play baseball or ride your bikes and it got to the point that you wanted to go back to school. Now everything is planned and ridged and carved into stone; almost. So here is my July.

12-17 New York State AOH Convention. A week of meetings during the day and Irish music and culture at night. This year, the Saratoga AOH is putting in a bid for the State Convention in 2013. It has been a lot of work preparing for our presentation and we have to work the crowds all week for the vote on Saturday morning but I am looking forward to it.

22, Kids are coming into town and my cousin's daughter is getting married. Nothing says wedding more than a reception at the Canfield Casino, (it's haunted ).

23rd Open date?

29-31 Great American Irish Festival in Frankfort NY, that's just outside Utica. A great three days of music and fun.

30 Guilderland High School Class of 76 reunion. OK, here's the first of the double bookings. Do I stay out in Utica and miss the reunion or do I come back and then try to make it out for Sunday in Utica. This might just be a last minute decision.

So that's my July, oh and the track opens. August is filling up fast also, so now you can see just how hard it is to be a social butterfly. I think I'm going to sit back this weekend and listen to a little Beach Boys. Wait, this weekend I have a party to go to on Saturday and a Hurling match on Sunday that might turn into an all day affair. If these are my biggest problems then life is good and folks, right now..........life is very good.

Happy Birthday USA

Happy 235th Birthday America. What a concept our fore fathers had and the desire for freedom. OK, it was a bunch of rich guys who didn't want to pay taxes and repayment of loans. America has become from the beginning, the greatest land in the world. Sometimes we forget this. We have had our growing pains, we were not the best and brightest in some areas, we had slavery, it took almost a hundred years to abolish this and another hundred years to give the decedents of slaves the civil rights that they, as Americans, were due. We are growing older and as a country we are changing to make sure that the words of the Declaration of Independence are still true today as they were when Jefferson wrote them. "We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal,that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable rights, that among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." . To show that we are still growing as a people New York State has just passed a law allowing same sex marriage, not to get into a debate here but doesn't that say just what Jefferson said. Enjoy your holiday and I hope you like the music I chose.

Your 4th of July Playlist

Thanks to my friend Maura (second fifer from left) for providing this clip of the Adamsville Ancients Fife and Drums. What's more Fourth of July than a fife and drum corp playing Marie's Wedding, Mountian Tea and other Irish tunes.

Ok, here we go. The cooler is stocked with cold beer, the grill is ready for the burgers and dogs and of course, Johnsonville Brats. What backyard party would be complete with out Johnsonville Brats. Yeah Meat. ( no, this blog is not brought to you by Johnsonville, but it could be. Anyone out there from Johnsonville or any other company that wants to sponsor this blog feel free to contact me and we could talk. You hear that Anheuser-Busch. "The cooler is stocked with cold Budweiser, and for this 4th of July try Bud in the Limited edition, Red, White and Blue Patriotic Cans. Budweiser will donate a portion of all sales to Folds of Honor, an organization that supports families of US Military personnel killed or disabled while serving their country") The guest are arriving and you need to put on the days music. So here is a list of songs for the Fourth of July.

Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers, American Girl

Bruce Springsteen, Born in The USA

Ray Charles, America the Beautiful

The Guess Who, American Woman

Grand Funk Railroad, We're an American Band

David Bowie, Young Americans

David Lee Roth, California Girls

Lynyrd Skynyrd, Sweet Home Alabama

Billy Joel, New York State of Mind

Mountain, Mississippi Queen

Ray Charles, Georgia

LeAnn Rimes, Blue Moon of Kentucky

Bruce Springsteen, Jersey Girl

R. Dean Taylor, Indiana Wants Me

Dropkick Murphys, Shipping up to Boston (what? you thought I was going to go with The BeeGees, Massachusetts )

Crosby, Stills and Nash, Ohio

Mark Lindsay, Arizona

Charlie Daniels Band, Texas

Kieth Whitley, Charlotte's in North Carolina

Bobby Sherman, In Seattle

Elvis, Viva Las Vegas

The Ventures, Hawaii Five-0

John Denver, Rocky Mountain High

Elton John, Philadelphia Freedom

Tony Bennett, Moonlight in Vermont

Bruce Springsteen, Nebraska

Merle Haggerd, Okie from Muskogee

Fats Domino, Kansas City

Johnny Horton, North to Alaska

Lyle Lovett, North Dakota

Woody Guthrie, This Land is Your Land

OK, that should get you started. What songs can you add to the list?

4th of July Movies

So it's the Fourth of July weekend, picnics, fireworks, flags waving, the weekend we all are proud to be Americans. Based on my criteria for a holiday (movies and songs about the day), the Fourth of July is one of the top holidays of the year, (at least here in the good ole' US of A, take that England) so what are the top Fourth of July movies.

Yankee Doodle Dandy, The story of George M. Cohan staring James Cagney, Joan Leslie, and Walter Huston. It tells the story of one of America's greatest composer, playwright, actor, singer and dancer. From his start in Vaudeville to the bright lights of Broadway. Cagney sings and dances through the patriotic songs It's a Grand Old Flag, Over There and the title tune, I'm a Yankee Doodle Dandy. A must see for the holiday weekend.

1776, The film version of the Broadway musical comedy set in the days leading up to July 4, 1776. The film stars Ken Howard (The White Shadow) as Thomas Jefferson, William Daniels (St. Elsewhere, Boy Meets World) as John Adams and character actor Howard Da Silva as Ben Franklin. Unless it's raining this weekend feel free to miss this one.

The Patriot, Mel Gibson bravehearts the American Revolution with the help of Heath Ledger (Brokeback Mountain, The Dark Knight), Jason Isaacs (Brotherhood, Harry Potter), and Chris Cooper ( Bourne Identity, American Beauty). This film didn't fare well in England, aparently they didn't like the ending as much as Gibson's earlier film Braveheart.

Stars and Stripes Forever, The biographical story of John Phillip Sousa, America's "March King". The 1952 film stars Clifton Webb (Titanic, Heaven Can Wait), as Sousa, Robert Wagner (It Takes a Thief, Hart to Hart), and Debra Paget (The Ten Commandments, Love Me Tender). The film features the Sousa marches, The Washington Post March, Semper Fidelis and of course the title march, Stars and Stripes Forever.

So there are four movies for you to see this weekend, but really, don't spend time inside watching movies. Go out, have a burger and a beer, run the flag up the flagpole. Show the world just how proud we are to live in the greatest country in the world.

Tomorrow, a playlist of patriotic songs for your holiday picnic but till then....