I drove all day and all night and I still feel a bit like a zombie even after sleeping. I went to the bank today and in the back alley where I parked I walked out to find this.
It is good to be back and I’m excited about getting back to work!
It’s always wonderful to see a good busker and in front of the original Starbucks today I heard a whole band of them. The girl playing the fiddle had an amazing clear voice and I hope they made a fortune today because they deserved it.
The original logo for this first Starbucks depicts a mermaid’s bare breasts. They probably changed it when they went national to protect our children. I’m just glad the kids I saw in there with their parents didn’t seem to notice. Who knows what damage might have been done.
Also this is probably the only Starbucks in the country where they won’t call the cops on you for playing music out front. Just sayin’.
I’ve finally got video of the two latest sets of smallpipes, both coincidentally going overseas. the Galician one has a sharp seventh which I love but I’m not used to the open fingering.
Here are the videos of the standard A/D set going to Japan:
Thanks to the wonderful Marshall family, Linda Hill, and the warm congregation at St Mary’s Episcopal church of Big Spring Tx, I was able to play pipes with a couple of friends and catch this beautiful Texas sunset.
Richard Kean and Randy Wothke were both in good form as we played some tunes at the evening St Andrew’s service and then jammed in the courtyard while an excellent reception meal was had by all. A bass drummer named Roy from the Thorn and Thistle pipe band helped us out on a few tunes which was great.
On the way back to the airport I caught a picture of a working oil field with giant windmills in the distance. The future looks bright.
Three weekends of playing medeival music in garb accurate down to the underwear but this picture is just as true for what’s going on out here.
The two aren’t together. The little girl just happened to be standing near there and got into the picture spontaneously when she saw me taking a picture of McVader.
At long last I’ve completed the two sister sets of pipes to customers in Galicia and Japan. It’s very exciting to make instruments for people in these countries and I’m hoping it will lead me to visit these places one day.
Everything takes forever when I go on the road and set up the workshop in a different place and this month has been no exception. Here in Houston I have family and friends and a gig on the weekends so there’s hardly any time to get work done.
I had thought the long post I wrote about last weekend had published but I guess that’s what one gets when one doesn’t check one’s own website.
Clandestine played a Ceilidh at the First Presbyterian Church of Salt Lake City last weekend and we were treated to some excellent hospitality and found this great Mexican restaurant. It is a great feeling to be back in this band.
I hear Houston is getting a freeze this morning but so is Asheville and I know which place is going to be warmer in the next month so off I go with the workshop all packed up into one suitcase.
It’s a bad picture but the lathe is buried in there somewhere. The pipes going to Spain and Japan are almost done but now I’m playing shows for the next few days and won’t have time to finish them until next week.
When photographing waxed, polished blackwood you have to really watch the fingerprints. This is a set in A for a customer in New York. I’ve still got a few days of playing to do on them and I’ll be starting turning on the next set during the next few days as well.
This was a picture on the way back from a town festival in Waynesville NC where I played with the local pipe band.
Tomorrow we’re playing two church services and I’m doing the finishing on the turned drones for the latest set of smallpipes and going to the local Irish session. It’s going to be a full day.
