Will Shirley ever notice Sam?
Will they fall in love?
To find out, watch the video now.
The video features whimsical sketches by artist Mason Fernandez.
If you’re like me and have some word nerd in you, you will enjoy the homonyms, internal rhymes and expressions.
And with the handy onscreen lyrics, you can sing along.
For a high quality audio file, listen on the Mad Maggies BandCamp.
Mixed and Mastered by Wally Sound at the Wally Sound, Oakland, California
After so much warm, humid here in Montréal, it is hard to believe that the streets were covered in snow just a few months ago.
Enjoy a very snowy, wintry trip through the streets of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve, Montreal, Quebec while listening to The Mad Maggies’ release Groove d’Hiver* (Winter Groove), a dub-infused instrumental.
Listen to a high quality audio file on our BandCamp.
The Streets of Montreal. I had big fun filming the hood during snow storms. Each shot had to have snow falling.
The streets I wandered looking for video shots for Groove d’Hiver are specifically the streets of Hochelaga-Maisonneuve (Ho-Ma) and Viauville, two neighbourhoods on the eastern side of the island of Montréal which border the St. Lawrence River.
Before the Europeans came, Iroquois inhabited the area. By the early 1800s, it was a rural village, then a working class slum, then a busy manufacturing district. By the 1980s, the manufacturing sector had shrank and the economic decline hit the area hard. There is some rebound now because of the affordability of the real estate.
All this history makes the area’s urban landscape a hodgepodge of blight and gentrification. There’s Beaux Arts architecture from its glory days, remnants of factories, blocks of condos, empty storefronts and plenty of graffiti. Alleyways thread through the backs of most streets, some rough and ignored, some family friendly and “greened”. Copper-clad church steeples are everywhere.
I haven’t been letting a pesky pandemic stop me from writing and producing music. 🙂
We — the Mad Maggies — have been recording tracks remotely and sending them to Wally Sound in Oakland, CA for mixing.
In December ’21, we released “Within the Wyrd“, a cool groove with shades of first wave ska.
Enjoy the danceable, retro feel. Kick off your shoes, turn up the volume and shake what you got.
Mixed and Mastered by Wally Sound at the Wally Sound, Oakland, California
Johny Blood: tuba
Ray Fernandez: saxophone
Ian Luke: drums
Maggie “Mags” Martin: accordionist, composer/arranger
Mark Nemoyten: trumpet
Tim Sarter: bass
Ned Stone: trombone
Gary “GDub” Wium: guitar
Why Wyrd?
In Norse mythology, under the huge tree of life, Yggdrasil, there is a well. This well is called the Well of Wyrd (Well of Urðr). Three Norns tend to Yggdrasil every day by bringing water from the well to the tree to keep it green and healthy.
These beings of time, Urðr (what was), Verðandi (what is) and Skuld (what will be) are said to spin our destinies.
I think of the “Wyrd” as the twists and turns of our lives, a weaving of experiences — some ordinary, some extraordinary. We’re all in this tapestry of life together.
Music from everywhere flows around and through us. It flows from the past to the future. In Within the Wyrd, the sounds flow from the Caribbean to the Northern realms to the west coast of California.
🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶 🎶
A New Release!
The Mad Maggies’ new song Reva’s Revelation is now available in high quality audio download from our BandCamp: https://musicshop.themadmaggies.com/track/revas-revelation
I named the tune for the main character in the wonderful Swedish movie “Border”. This fantastical tale of self-discovery by director Ali Abbasi is a must-see.
Over the last ten years, my love Gary and I have crossed the North American continent twice by train and over 7 times by car, besides several times by plane.
I especially love the open road and videotaped many stretches along the way.
You can see some of that footage in the video.
Enjoy!
Our friend and musical colleague Scott died yesterday, November 26.
He was an exceptionally gifted fiddler, dedicated to the Irish/Celtic traditional music community.
We met him many years ago through our mutual friend Roxanne Oliva, who was his musical partner and, as time passed, his longtime caregiver.
The best way I can think of to honor him is by sharing his playing.
Here is a set of hornpipes and reels from the album ” 水精 Water Spirit ” which he recorded with Junji Sirota (guitar) and Robin Petrie (hammered dulcimer).
Walsh’s – The Knotted Cord – Green Groves Of Erin – The Flowers Of Redhill
Go mbeidh neart ceoil ann cibé áit a bhfuil tú anois, ár gcara.
(May there be plenty of music wherever you are now, our friend.)
🍀🎶💚🍀🎶💚🍀🎶💚🍀🎶💚
Beannachtaí na Féile Pádraig oraibh!
Bain sult as na foinn seo agus tú ag caitheamh siar ar Éirinn.
Happy St. Patricks Day!
Enjoy these tunes while tipping one back for Ireland.
🍀🎶💚🍀🎶💚🍀🎶💚🍀🎶💚
Drunken Sailor’s Hornpipe
Teach Tábhairne Mhaillí Ní Dhuibh – Molly Black’s Tavern
Musical Priest S
Morning Star
Sleepy Maggie
#Gaeilge #StPatrickDay #theMadMaggies
The Mad Maggies have another new video. This time it’s something blue for blues waves and the blue skies ahead. Let’s dance and celebrate a little.
Enjoy our live version of the ska classic “Blue Ska” on YouTube now.
“Blue Ska” was recorded by the Cavaliers most likely in the mid-60s. The 45s I’ve seen on YouTube list J. Willacey as the writer. I can’t find much about him except that he was trained in the Alpha Boys School, a catholic educational institution in Kingston which produced some of Jamaica’s finest musicians. Willacey recorded with Lester Sterling, the Jamaican saxophonist and trumpet player best known as one of the founding members of the Skatalites.
When I first heard the tune, I loved its simple but infectious hook and its irresistible dance beat. I arranged it for us making sure we were true to the original groove and giving plenty of room for the horns to strut their stuff.
Videographer Mira Stenger caught us live at Lagunitas Beer Sanctuary. The live show audio was impressively good. Add some B-roll from our Cotati Accordion Festival show (thanks to Jeff Stafford) and other bits and I was able to edit together an authentic taste of a Mad Ms performance.
We’ve also recorded “Blue Ska” at Wally Sound and will be releasing that studio version soon.
Watch the new Mad Maggies video!
WARNING: Contains subtle political commentary and explicit calls to action.
10 days until the USA midterm elections on November 6, 2018. We can turn the tide.
_________
SYNOPSIS: There’s that horrible feeling when you realize that you’ve been duped by a brazen con-artist. It keeps you up at night. You know you’ve got to fix the situation. You CAN do something.
LYRICS
It’s three in the morning
I’m losing sleep
How did I fall for a
no good lying cheat?
There were so many warnings
I should have seen
through his gold plated charm and
lavish thieving schemes
but I strayed, yes I strayed
and was played for the fool
my careless heart made an easy mark
Far from gilded seats of power
Stars still shine, lovers meet
Sweet melodies ease our sadness
the madness is washed to the sea
It’s three in the morning
I’m wide awake
It’s time I put right my
sad, sad mistake
_________
AVAILABLE as a single on BandCamp:
https://musicshop.themadmaggies.com/track/three-in-the-morning
from the Mad Maggies’ 8th album “Naked Ladies”
THANKS to Sean Pete for concept consultation and new headlines footage.
THANKS to all the Mad Ms for video material:
Gary Wium
Ray & B Fernandez
Johny Blood & Juliana
Ian Luke & MJ
Mark Nemoyten
Ned Stone
_________
Vote! https://www.vote.org/
Pitch In! http://aclu.org
Language, music and art have always been cultural exchanges. That’s how we humans roll. We share and cross-fertilize. If you don’t recognized how entwined we are, then you best get to reading some history. Lots of it.
We have been sharing artistically for millennia. We mutually appreciate our fellow creatives on this planet. We inspire each other in countless ways — a musical rhythm, a colorful pattern, a delicious recipe, a way of styling hair, folding a scarf, herb knowledge, a good story, a sad melody.
The attempt by some social activists to draw artistic boundaries between us and insist that those borders cannot be crossed is absurd and futile. Censorship and intellectual tyranny stifle mutual respect. Don’t fall for the silliness of “cultural appropriation”.
I was at the soft opening of Slāv on 26/6/18, a presentation by Ex Machina sponsored by Festival International de Jazz de Montréal (FIJM). Friends who worked on the show had comped us tix. Outside the theater a small group of outraged social activists were protesting. They were outraged that the white singer/writer Beatrice Bonnafassi who is Serbian/Italian and the director Robert Lepage who is French Canadian and gay — created a show with themes of slavery. They claimed that the show was a “rip-off” by white people of their black western hemisphere experience.
They were aggressive, rude, almost hysterical. They formed a gauntlet that we had to push through to get to the theatre entrance. They screamed at us that we were privileged, that we were racists. One pushed a poster into my face literally rubbing my nose on it.
I thought how very silly this ado was. I asked one man yelling at me whether he had seen the show. He hadn’t. None of them had seen the show yet. They couldn’t have because this was the first public performance. Why are these people in such a lather over a show they hadn’t even seen?
“Slāv” is a musical play aka an artful expression of a sorrowful human experience. The work is not a farce or mockery. It is not stereotyping or denigrating others. It is not stealing from others for profit.
The protestors could have been using their energy to fight serious issues like chemical pollution or income disparity or detention centres for asylum seekers or, hey, sex slave trafficking. But, no. They picked the low-hanging fruit of a musical created by a popular artist and director at a world class festival, undoubtedly to nab headlines.
The festival after originally supporting the show, eventually caved to the protesters’ political correctness tantrum and cancelled the show.
Shame on you, FIJM for being cowed by these dilettantes. You let nonsense trump freedom of expression.
The protestors and commentators in the media kept referring to the profits being made in theatre. They imagine the director, creator and performers all making oodles of dough off of this “appropriation”. Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha … oh. my. word. Do they know anything about theater? … Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha …
https://www.theglobeandmail.com/opinion/article-should-white-people-sing-black-slave-songs/
It was Mardi Gras, February 12, 1991. We’d gone on a “date” to Stanroy’s Music in Santa Rosa. We then wended our way back to my pad, an old farmhouse in Penngrove, California. The house was on what had once been a chicken ranch during Sonoma County’s egg production heydays in the 1920s. The living room had high ceilings, windows that faced the horse pasture in the front, oak trees on the side. The fireplace was smokey because of a poorly functioning insert. The couch was rust colored and modular — a hand me down from my oldest sister.
We had started hanging out after the Winter Solstice, talking, watching movies together, taking drives, more talking. We were falling in love but, having both had been married before, we were taking it slow, very slow.
This night, 27 years ago, after more talking and pots and pots of herbal tea, I saw bands of light reaching out from our hearts pouring into each other. We kissed and …
Of course, I wrote a song about it:
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