Update 9/3/07: Back in the studio to work on a pop arrangement of a chant that John wrote for the Lughansadh rite.

Calico Jack in gig duds.	Catherine lost in the music, footwear.

John, on any given day.	Angus, unofficial band historian, hat wearer.

Here is the scoresheet for the band with many names.....

Originally we were Aumakua, a good name that Tymn had.

	The sole Aumakua gig: Pantheacon, 2005.
Mike, Tymn, Cath & Angus

After Tymn left the band begin its residency as the band with many and no name(s). We just referred to "Band Practice" and the website just said the name of the studio: AMN, for Anthem Music Noise (3 adjacent strips in the "rock & roll" magnetic poetry set, for you trivia nuts.)

So let us review the past 10 months and see what the (insert name here) band has been up to:

Commission #1 was presented to us in Late August of 2005: Make some pre-recorded dance music for the Community Seed Samhain Ritual. No Problem. None of us having done anything like this before, we were blissful in our innocence and did nothing for a few weeks. 70 minutes of trance music? Can do. Oh wait. Pre-recorded? Hmmmmmmmm......

The problem was how to make music that was interesting enough to trance out to but not too interesting, if you know what I mean. And that meant making a bass and drum loop and then recording other instruments and voices on top of it. How hard could it be? Karen had the song: a strange little Bulgarian folk song called "Visoko Drno". Jack wrote a killer bass lick, Angus added his best Clyde Stubblefield impersonation, and we were in business.

Our first run through of the hook (which would be looped 70 times for the foundation of the work) timed out at 1 minute and 7 seconds. Like any good gear head I took this brief recording and loaded it into iTunes, so I could listen to it on my iPod. iTunes, as you may know, works off the length of songs, not their names, or albums, or group names. You load a song from a CD, any CD, even home recorded and the software will dutifully trot off into cyberspace to find an audio track that is that exact length, down to the thousandth of a second. Almost always this system works well. The odds of two things having exactly the same time are sufficently remote. But sometimes.....

So our little nameless proto dance track pops back with the name "What About the Next Disaster?" When we stopped laughing we looked it up. This is actually a spoken message on some New Age Self-Help website. But it's also exactly as long as our hook, so there you go. It's no problem to change song names of course, but being silly and lazy we just left it that way, and the project took on the unofficial working title of "What About the Next Disaster?"

Jack and John laying down some solos.	During a rare break, Jack and Cath write a song together.

Someone (Okay, me) noticed that the initials of this are W.A.N.D. so that became our band name for those couple of months, while we frantically figured out how to fill in so much time with interesting - but not TOO interesting - music. Eventuallly we brought in the whole bench of Nate on bass, Karen on vocals, and John on guitar. In true Rock 'n' Roll fashion Cath and I finished mixing the damned thing just a few hours before the gig. Nothing like crossing that bridge when its burning behind us!

The final track, although flawed by our complete lack of looping experience, was nevertheless a complete hit at the ritual. It worked so well that the 90 celebrants were done with that part of the ritual in just over half an hour. So half of our Bulgarian-folk-psychadelic-trance-epic never got heard. Oh well. Mission accomplished!

(I have a wonderful memory of that ritual: The Harvey West clubhouse, stuffed to the rafters with pagans, all moving slowly and sensously to our song. Revelations were had, tears flowed, emotional breakthroughs right and left. Almost 100 people all trancing out - all except Nate, John and Jack, who are in front of one of the big speakers, totally air guitaring out to their own solos.)

	W.A.N.D. about 48 hours before the Samhain Rite. Finally done with recording; ready for mixing! (Or maybe a nap.)
John, Cath, Jack, Angus, Karen. (Not pictured: Sleep.)

Next up: A Pirate Handfasting! This was Karen and Angus' wedding, and we definitely wanted to use the band with many names. Almost by default the group name became the Troubadours, the closest historical name that would apply. After 3 months of practice (Mid-November to Mid-March) they opened the ceremony with a bizarre meddling of Lorenna McKennitt's "The Mummer's Dance" and Steppenwolf's "Born to be Wild". "Born to be the Mummer's Dance" drew thunderous cheers from the wedding guests, and the wildest wedding in memory was confidently launched.

February, 2006: Angus and Tymn providing the drumming at Imbolc.	"Wait! How does this go again?" Last minute run-through before the wedding guests arrive.

	"Sowing the Seeds of Confusion" March, 18, 2006: Captain Cath, Ranger John, Calico Jack, being reminded that this really was a novelty song, after all!
No, utilikilt and hiking boots are NOT historically accurate; They are, however, very Pirratical!

And then, two weeks later we were back in the Mason Jar, at another wedding. This was a more traditional pagan handfasting, except that Nancy and Steve wanted a couple of jaunty standards to open and close the ceremony. So we frantically learned Leon Redbone's version of "Aint Misbehavin'" and Ella's version or "Let's do it (Let's Fall in Love)". Came off pretty good for barely knowing the pieces. With the band in tailcoats and a variety of hats though, we did okay.

	April 1st, 2006 The April Fools (natch) playing "Let's Do It". And again, it's all about the costumes.
Jack, Cath, Angus (on 2 piece cocktail kit and brushes) and John.

Then there was the music for Beltane, 2006. I have done the drumming for many a Community Seed ritual, sometimes with Cath and Karen, but this was the first with the entire band, with Karen along as well. It was our first outdoor gig, and significantly, the first ritual with a plug-in instrument. Jack had WAAAAY too much fun playing bass guitar for this one. The rest of us were playing congas (ang), doumbek and frame drum (John), djembe (Karen) and lots of percussion toys (Cath), for a round-the-world-with-whappy-things feel. After two hours of almost continuous playing, Jack's fingers were just as sore as the drummers.

	A cold and overcast Beltane, UNTIL the 70 celebrants sent the cone upwards and parted the clouds. Mission accomplished! Given the nature of the event, and the earthy bawdiness of the festivities, we named ourselves "WR2B" for this gig: Women Respond to Bass. (And they do!)
Alternate name: Men in Kilts, and the women who love them.	(And yes, that is a bra hanging from the music stand on the right. Long story.)

Januuary, 2007: Mykey's epic 65th birthday party. The Mykeytones (natch) composed a three-part suite for the bellydancers.	And then practiced our frozen butts off all winter.

But before that we snuck in a couple of pop numbers. Here we are introducing "House of the Rising Grace".	And here Cath sells "Fever" for the birthday boy. We pretty much rocked the free world.

What's next? Who knows! We could fall back on the old chestnut of actually writing, recording and playing songs. We actually have a dozen or so tracks that we are working on, in between all these fun commissions, so even if nothing floats across our transom, we'll be just fine.

Except, of course, for the name-of-the-band thing...

We have very understanding partners.	And lots of fun at parties!

Thanks for Reading!

And remember this: "Music is just too important to be left to the professionals."

- Angus the Drummer