I'm just trying to get myself motivated to get ready for our pub gig this evening.  My little Celtic band, The Skirmish, is always working on St Patrick's Day, but in recent years, the number and lucrativeness of gigs has declined.  That's partly recession and general decline in pub culture talking, but largely it's a function of St Pat's Day cycling through the weekdays, advancing one day each year.  Last year Tuesday.  The year before, Monday.  The Monday was better for us, at least we had two well-paid gigs at high-status Ottawa pubs.  Last year, the Tuesday, we were down to one show in a little joint in Carleton Place.  That was the nadir, I'd think, except that now it's a Wednesday, and we have another last-minute, small-town-small-room booking paying notably less than last year.  (How much less?  Trade secret.  But we're making about a quarter of what we did from the two shows on the Monday two years ago.)  

 I started The Skirmish in 2006 with my friends Gary and Linda, with the intention of having a band that was employable rather than artistic.  It's gone OK, and we settled on a permanent four-piece lineup a year later when Victor brought his fiddle into the mix.  There are a lot of conceptions of what "Celtic" music is, a spectrum between "ethereal" (Enya) and "Raunchy" (The Pogues).  We're somewheres in between, I prefer uptempo and rollicking--i.e. suitable for drinking audiences--to "achingly beautiful", cause a bit of that goes a long way.    

Here's a clip of us in rehearsal playing "Fogarty's Cove"--can't go wrong with Stan Rogers, I always say.

I have a million things to do--gotta drag a few instruments out, and a lot of cables and microphones and stuff, and  make sure I have it all, and in a perfect world I'd put some new strings on.  Actually in a genuinely perfect world, I would have restrung all my instruments three days ago and not have to worry about them going out of tune as they are breaking in.  But frankly, I have gotten exceedingly lazy about changing strings in my dotage, I pretty much change them when they break.  Eventually, that is, after I have broken strings on all my spare instruments (not an inexhaustible collection).  So my final offer is that I'll make sure I have extra strings for every instrument.  

Later this afternoon I'm going to go pick up a new condenser mike--all the cool kids use them now but I've never had one--then it's off to Almonte to set everything up.  After that, all we have to do is play.  Oh, right, I have to finish editing the setlists.  Details, details.  

One thing I won't be doing tonight, much, is drinking.  I pretty much give myself a two-beer limit on gig nights, maybe a third after the show if not driving.  Start and end with ginger ale.  Tonight I'm driving.  It's a myth about Celtic musicians needing enormous quantities of libations to do their thing--it's quite the opposite, actually, although I would except the Pogues and their imitators from this.  But generally, we have to keep our shit together and are too busy trying to play competently and safeguard a bunch of expensive instruments and sound equipment from those who are enjoying the full St Patrick's Day drunken staggers and jags...and there's always one who wants to mishandle a microphone and do his best Shane McGowan impersonation...this evening will eventually be fun, but honestly, I'll be glad when it's done, too.  

Don't get me wrong, I'm a firm believer that "playing music for a living is not a hard life.  It's just weird.  Coal mining is hard."  Nuff said.  Time I got to work on that setlist.