The Written Lie

Joe Cocker

2011-06-20T20:52:00.001-06:00

Sometimes when things get a little tough, time consuming, or just plain nasty, there are those that gather round and make sure their arms are outstretched to catch your fall, or outstretched to push you down into a seat while they pour you a cocktail and make sure you're fed. Funny how sometimes it's always the same ones. Joe sang it like he knew what it meant and I can feel where it came from especially today... I'm really thankful for the people in my life.

TwennyTen

2010-01-05T21:42:00.001-06:00

Happy New Year everybody - Thank you so much for coming out and supporting me and the Hounds and the Ready last year. I picked up a pretty sweet axe from Santa and have some plans cooking for some amazing music this year.

I hope you get everything you wish for this coming year and decade - It's like a whole new set of rules this time every year. It's a wide open, huge big blank page - so, congratulations in advance for chasing down those dreams!
Please come up and say hi at the next show you make it out to.
I'm expecting new recordings all around this year, so feel free to badger me for those, too.

Don't be too disappointed that we don't have robot maids, personal jet packs, or holiday condo's on the moon - I promise it'll be this decade though!

Leslie

2009-08-05T21:29:00.000-06:00

Hounds of Finn

Newsletter – August 2009 – www.houndsoffinn.com

Hey folks!

We have some pretty exciting stuff to tell you about. At least, we're excited about it...!

*IRISH FAIR!

This weekend is the Irish Fair of Minnesota at Harriet Island in St. Paul (Aug. 7, 8, & 9). The Hounds of Finn are honored to be

performing TWO slots at the fair this year: both on Saturday. Here are the quick details:

Sat. August 8th:

10-11am on the Jake O'Connor's River Stage

5:30-6:30pm on the Walser Gateway Stage

The Fair is completely FREE to attend, and any & all details regarding entertainment and vendors can be found at the official

website:

http://www.irishfair.com

We're excited to perform these shows and hope some of you get a chance to catch it.

*NEW CD!

That's right, we have accomplished our goal of completing a 5-song EP in time for Irish Fair! Special thanks to Michelle MacGregor

and Leslie Rich for completing the production in time for this! The CD will be available directly from the band at Irish Fair and at

upcoming shows; as this is a promotional CD we do not have a price on this disc - but you can always make a donation to the band to

help offset costs. The EP will also be available online at CDbaby / iTunes very soon. The EP is a pre-release for the upcoming fulllength

CD and DVD combo entitled "Breakfast in Belfast".

The EP features 5 all-new studio recordings of the following pieces:

1. Arms as Warm as These (original)

2. Reels: Finn's reel / A Father's Pride (original)

3. Shady Grove (trad.)

4. Foggy Dew (trad.)

5. Reels: Sligo Maid / Colonel Rodney / Congress (trad.)

You can listen to streaming audio of *two new tracks* via the home page of our website:

http://www.houndsoffinn.com

*NEW WEBSITE!

That's right, we have finally gotten around to redesigning our website. Actually, I've got to give the credit to our Fiddle player

Michelle MacGregor for this one. She did it all herself! We're very happy to have something that reflects the latest progression of

our group; and we hope you stop in from time to time to check it out. Any suggestions are welcome and encouraged! Check it out

for yourself:

http://www.houndsoffinn.com

*NEW T-SHIRTS!

We had to do it! We just couldn't continue to let the Langers Ball kick our asses so badly in the merch department...

We have T-shirts that will be available at all our shows and through the website. They're "hazelnut brown" with our logo and a sweet

slogan - "I'll be your dog..." Awww. There will be more designs to come as well, especially if these go quickly...

*UPCOMING SHOWS!

On Sat., August 15th we return to the Dubliner. All of our upcoming dates are listed on our website as well as our Facebook page

and our MySpace page. Check in when you can!

*THANK YOU!

We hope you are all having an excellent summer and we look forward to seeing you all again. Best wishes from the Hounds of Finn!

Pete McCauley - August 4, 2009

www.houndsoffinn.com

Vance 2

2009-03-14T23:51:00.000-06:00

...Oh, and crank it UP!

Vance

2009-03-14T23:32:00.003-06:00

It happens all too often, sometimes, but just when I think I'm the coolest thing on the planet I get reminded by something more infinite that I'm an insignificant, irrelevant trifle. Joan Coffey has reduced me to an emotional wreck on at least two occasions and tonight I had the privilege of being put in my place by someone I'm not fit to tune the guitar of. You mightn't bawl your eyes out at Indiscriminate Act Of Kind, but you'll surely feel the goosebumps at Bailie's Blood - Bangor's own, Mr Foy Vance.

Finn's Reel

2009-03-14T22:25:00.004-06:00

I have a little connection to my friend Pete's baby, Finn. I think it was because we talked about him so much and then he arrived with such an impact that I can't help but be affected by it. I still have people that came out to see those shows to find me playing solo, that want to know how Finn is doing (I got a lot of mileage out of that story!).
Pete wrote this reel and sent it to me as little bits of practice and fluff runs all mixed up with sections of him watching history documentaries with Finn (Finn seemed to have many opinions on what he was learning, but we'll have to wait until he can actually speak before we hear what he has to say about Abraham Lincoln!). I managed to piece it all together and mix it down to MP3 and name it after the little guy.
Finn's Reel

Tuning Up For Death... Or Something As Sure As...

2009-02-17T15:08:00.002-06:00

Doing taxes is a little like tuning a guitar. You pull everything up so that it's more or less in tune, stretch a little bit, bring it all up again. Pick a string. Tweak at it until it's there, stretch it again, bring it back up. Use that string to reference the next one and repeat the steps you followed for the first one, then go back and re-tune the first as it will need more tweaking due to the tweaking and stretching on your second. You then repeat this for the following strings, going back and tweaking the previous until everything is no longer stretchy and is right on the money. Then you have to put the thing on your knee and wallop it a whole bunch of times, shake it, rock it, sing loudly to it and do one more final tuning and then sit back and admire your job. Although, sometimes all that infernal tweaking leads to eternal tweaking and you can never get the damn thing to work... sometimes after this you have no choice but to forget the tweaking and just start paying... Ooops, I mean playing - Slip of the tongue!

Rare Ornithology Opportunity

2009-02-08T16:56:00.000-06:00

There was a rare and unusual sighting of the great, ostrich-like bird Rocketus Soulum Choirus up around the Dubliner area at University and Vandalia in Saint Paul this past Friday. It seems that its migratory patterns should guarantee regular sightings for the next two Wednesdays. Due to its nocturn habits the best time to catch a glimse of it will be between 9:30pm and 1:30am.
The Rocketus' song is quite unique, being somewhere between country and rock usually with a lo-fi, bedroom, acoustic, singer/songwriter quality, but recently it's had attributes of a slacker, Irish pub song nature. Normally quite pleasing to the ear, this new sound has an added attraction that needs to be heard for a better understanding. The Dubliner's less than city-priced beverages have also been known to add an extra quality.
Rocketus is not a shy bird, so no visitor limit has been placed on the local ornithologist community. A great opportunity to see this rare and glorious creature.

Book Geek Review 2008

2008-12-20T13:11:00.002-06:00

Being the grateful recipient of a Christmas Barnes And Noble gift card (A bookstore, to those of you that are of a foreign disposition), I have decided that I should get help with my next book purchase.

I love books. The ones with words. And also the ones with pictures. I have also been prone to ones that sometimes require the thinking with the brain and/or thoughtful scratching of the hair on my chin (-e-chin-chin). I also like books that YOU get excited about - It makes me want to read them too.

So with the thoughtful gift in hand, and the generous sentiment filed away for future reference, I decided that, through it, you would have the opportunity to help start off my 2009 reading choices. I plan to read twenty books next year - With five of those being of an instructive nature and teaching me a new skill

If you would send me one choice, or a top five, or a favourite/new/rediscovered author, then I will not only compile myself a reading list for 2009, but will score the nominations (Much like a successful 2004 election) in some loose manner and pick out which author/publisher will be the beneficiary of my gift card redemption.

For your own benefit I have provided my top five (just in case you need a list for yourself)

1. - Katherine Dunn - Geeklove (Though, the rest of her novels are less well engineered)
2. - Charles Bukowski - Post Office (Some of his other work can be swear words and drunken buffoonery, but in Post Office you're on his side... It's an unbelievable "cry-laugher", so be warned!)
3. - Michael Azzerad - Our Band Could Be Your Life (It could!)
4. - Paul Auster - Book Of Illusions (I think I've just got to the point that I only read Paul Auster when my life is getting a little dull, because I know that during the reading odd and interesting coincedences will start to happen - It's true... Try it for yourself)
5. - Walt Whitman - Leaves Of Grass (I truly can't pass by this on my book shelf and not pick it up. It's torn and tattered and dog-eared and bent at the spine, but whenever I lose a little faith in humanity I read some of this and it restores my enthusiasm for life!)

Not on this list, but contenders are;
Charles De Lint (The Little Country, if anything, but anything will actually do), Anthony Kiedis - Scar Tissue, Walter Wangerin, Jr. - The Book Of The Dunn Cow (I've never been so frightened by a chicken!), Morgan Llywelyn - Bard (The total Celtic spirit, and almost a history, in 461 pages), Colin Bateman (Anything. Honestly, anything at all. From Bangor, Northern Ireland. You'll know him from Divorcing Jack and maybe Wild About Harry, but get stuck into Of Wee Sweetie Mice And Men or maybe Empire State and you'll shut those believing that you had just, in actual fact, read a text book on the Northern Irish male!)

I'd be most grateful if you'd help me with my list, but I also think that you'll find it interesting too.

Joyeux Noël
Leslie

2008-12-10T23:25:00.003-06:00

It turns out that my trip home to Ireland (the Chronology will be skewed here with subsequent blogs) has set me back 3 years, 11 months and 18 days.

I am constantly amazed at the attitudes and demands of American life. There is a sense of entitlement with most of the Americans I know that I had myself convinced was some sort of skewed preconception of mine until I returned home for two weeks at the end of November. I'm right in thinking that almost four years is enough to consider myself educated (albeit from a removed point of view - an outsider point of view, say) in American ways. I might have lost the edge of my accent in recent times, but my values hold pretty true, even if I do "play the game" in a state of semi-passivity. I was happy to rediscover the quiet self assuredness of the Northern Irish, in not only their customer service attributes, but also in something as simple as driving down a highway. There is a real sense of humility in their everyday life that America has beaten out of me. Customer service in a restaurant setting is straight forward and honest, as if the waiter (or in one case, the waitress - Yes they have no trouble using that term in Ireland) was simply serving their parents, or siblings - A desire to seem professional, but without the pretense of camaraderie, or puppy dog need to please. This stems a little from the knowledge (rightly so) that no one person is better than another. You know, I think it's because of the lack of "competition" (and also quite possibly, the need for the use of quotation marks!) with everyday people. It's the, "I'm not anything less than you when you go home and crap on the shitter" attitude in a completely unconscious manner that sets the tone for every transaction.

Today I was in a room full of corporate hounds, trying to validate their every decision within the corporate boundaries of their servitude to the (here we go again) "Customer" and the talk was of rules and policies and best practices and I spent almost my whole time (not all, as I am a respectful little puppy-hound myself) seeing the stark contrast with what I had just experienced at home. In Ireland it wouldn't be about what it says in the rule book, but more about how I believe I should treat other human beings trying to get through the day in the exact same way as myself.

Every little decision, argument, life choice, change in tone, roll of the eyes, tut, harrumph and sigh is analyzed until the life has been rung out of it, whereas Irish life never apologises for speaking its mind, ignoring every little politic or even being misunderstood. NOTHING is dumbed down in case you might not understand it, because having to have it explained is not a weakness - instead it actually has allowed you and me to make a connection and instead of me being the smart one (which, of course I never felt in the first place, as it's not a competition!), we now both have the knowledge, because it was shared, and are as smart as each other. "Sure, aren't we a couple of smarty pantses? 'Mon we'll go have a pint!"

Maybe all America is missing is story telling.
I recall reading a quote recently that states that there might have been great societies that have survived without the wheel, but there have been none that have not had stories. I sense everyday, this lack of appreciation for story telling, for sharing knowledge and information and for opening up of discussion and it seems it's because it might make one of us look stupid. It might make one of us seem, well... more knowledgeable - Oh, God, we wouldn't want that, so how about instead I either not tell a story, or tell it in such a way that all life and thought has been stripped from it so that you don't have to use your underused brain to totally misunderstand the thing that has been taught!
Let me analyze what I just said, attend a support group, appropriate some therapy and maybe take some strong drugs to stop me from speaking my mind again!

Salt of the earth, the Northern Irish are, and I'm badly in need of some seasoning! (please don't be sick.... but it's true!)

Well Then...

2008-11-06T00:26:00.000-06:00

4th November 2008

...Not much to comment on there, is there?

The Agonisingly Joyous 2008 Xmas Pop Poll

2008-10-31T16:15:00.004-06:00

Xmas Pop Poll 2008 - Get Yr Joy On!

Being not important to be validated by a CD compiled, designed and delivered by one Elliott, James, but most sought after and eagerly anticipated each Xmas none the less, I thought it important to share my results, as that, after all, is one of the most interesting aspects, being, as it were, talking and discussing with our peers what musical delights have set our fancy a-fire this year.

America has provided some distractions and delights in its previously described nooks and crannies. I've said it before, but sometimes you've got to do a little digging to find the gems.

Lots of the old Lesser's choices this year come from the long distance of time having been enraptured by one Robert Palmer's (No... not that guy) book, Deep Blues about the beginnings of blues. For me it was the deep attention to detailed musical theory that caught my noggin in it's twelve bar bliss. I started out by listening to the things he was talking about in the artists he mentioned and then started to see some of that in my own music - What better way to appreciate something than it sounding a little like yourself!

First on my non ordered list has to be Bye Bye Bird by the embodied embouchement of Sonny Boy Williamson - The fact that I was able to go on to YouTube and watch him make that warbled and muffled harmonica noise by placing the whole thing in his mouth sideways and still play a tune, played no part in my new admiration for the song!

Next discovery was the 2004 album, Before And After by the Wannadies. Not much needs to be said of the Wannadies, because they play music that almost sounds like it was written for the express purpose of being on one of James' Xmas Pop Poll CD's! The songs Piss On You, Little By Little and the blissful Love Letter are stand-outs.

Robert Plant and Alison Krauss? Are you kidding me? Who the hell told them that would be a good match? I'm not quite sure, but if I used the word genius it wouldn't be too far off the mark. Do I hate revisits to a musical past? No, not really, but in a modern world, without the modern twist it can seem a little pretentious (please don't mention the grating - if useable - Seeger Sessions), but there's just something about Raising Sand, and especially the track Fortune Teller. I can also honestly say that listening to Polly Come Home makes me want to reach out and lick Roberts chest in much the much vaunted Led Zep groupie stylee.

Joan Coffey did break my heart, make me cry, give up and sigh in a heap. Struggles And Lulls is probably the best female singer/songwriter album I've ever heard. A Little Deeper and Don't Tell Me will make many thirty-something's rip open their AM radio searching for the little Irish Pixie Minx living within, enchanting like Atargatis from the murky waters of death, drink and love, but it is the track Nearly Was that tells the most truth and ruptures parts in your chest that you didn't know you had, while King Of The Drink, which should really be performed by a mid American punk band at the same ponderous pace, brings the wrinkles out in her face that makes us love her all the more.

Anna Nalick also tickled a fancy or two, and not just because she's a stunningly pretty twenty-four year old American singer/songwriter, but mostly because of the acoustic versions of her overly produced album, Wreck Of The Day, tear down the prissy decoration applied by producers Brad Smith and Christopher Thorn (Originally from Blind Melon - I've never liked melons) and show the songs for the investments they should be.

Much praise should also be lauded on my cat for singing the best version of "Oh My God, There's A Bug On The Light And I Want To Eat It (Get It For Me Please)" just now!

Discovering what made 1500 people stand in the Minnesota night to see DeVotchKa made an incredible impact on my imminently musical 2009. Their blend of Romani, Greek, Slavic, Bolero and Mariachi is infectious and not at all the psuedo folk roots dance music for the sake of filling First Avenue that you'd imagine. In fact I'm pretty sure that listening to Dearly Departed wedged tightly between a sweatily enamoured "Kate" and "Josh" in the packed Main Room was probably the most painful, embarrassing and blissful experience since a first kiss. I own the album How It Ends, but have also been coddled on dark evenings by their cover of the Siouxsie and the Banshee's song, The Last Beat Of My Heart, which manages to evoke the pain of the original in a wood splintering, folk/punk way. This - if anything, would be my high scorer in my Pop Poll list.

The infuriating Jose Gonzales and the cover Heartbeats comes a close second. Infuriating by his severe lack of stretch in his musicality, song to song, but beautiful in his unquestionable taste in performing "bath" music. He has Almost drowned me on too many occasions, but has also made me inexplicably clean!
Lets not take a paragraph break and bare our crack at old ladies out the window for the glorious ORIGINAL version of Heartbeats by The Knife

Guitar picking you say? Why of course... Lets tie the dirty mess of dreadlocked hair, (much envied) Boheme attire, white boy funk and twelve stringed blues wood chipping of John Butler Trio. Better Than gave me enough distraction to run a red light (It was in a stupid place anyway) and then the video for Funky Tonight made me break fingernails since in an attempt to pull some fingerpicking drive out of my own, and many cover, tunes.

Oh... and then in a astounding oversight, I left Dick Gaughan somewhere in my past and rediscovered, and covered, him recently. Outstanding tunes are The World Turned Upside Down (Almost outshone by The Great Billy Bragg's own version) and Pound A Week Rise about Lord Robens' promises to the miners before he tore their, albeit fading, industry apart.

Please consider my entries for the Minnesota region.

Leslie Rich

Xmas Pop Poll #6

2008-10-31T15:31:00.004-06:00

So, with James being of a creative sort, with more friends than money, he thought up an interesting way six years ago to not only engage them in dialogue about certain events of the past year, but also, ingeniously, giving them a hand in choosing their own holiday present - Namely, the mix-tape (on CD). The idea was that we, his friends, would choose what musical awakenings we'd had throughout the year, old, new, soul, punk, country or pop, whether it be a song or an album or an unreleased mash from YouTube. James would then, using a complicated formula, calculate with wires, pulleys, rolling eggs and sometimes even flame, the final scores from all of the tracks provided (some of course are picked by more than one person) and compile a unique and incredibly listenable CD of some of the best music of the year - much in the vein of our dearly departed John Peel. Having thus far not really played much of a part in the choices themselves, James would then turn his illustrious artistic hand to designing a cover and accompanying booklet.
Awards are given in various categories that are usually only determined by reading the pasta shapes still in last night's six quart pot. This cover has been always a specific delight of mine when gently ripping open the ubiquitous bubble envelope. I wonder each time how he'll beat last year's work of art.

This year I've been thinking about my top pop picks almost since recieving the thing in the mail shortly before Christmas 2007. It's time again I believe and like the child that can't wait till Mama checks if Santa has left yet, please see my choices for the ...

SIXTH ANNUAL XMAS (Sorry, forgot to mention that James is also a gentile) POP POLL - 2008...