I setup a new blog at our Celtic Music CD Store. It features Celtic Music CD News from Mage Records, my record label. The blog is short, sweet and to the point. It includes the Top 20 Celtic CDs sold each month as well as a list of podcasts that feature the music of our artists.

I just updated the Celtic Music CD Store with a Celtic CD news section to announce the latest CDs by my independent record label, Mage Records. It doesn't match the rest of the site yet, but it will.

The North Texas Irish Festival is here once again. And sadly, I'm gonna miss it this year. I've only gone three times now, but I do enjoy the festival. Last year's festival was my favorite. They had an amazing lineup including quite a few Austin Celtic groups. Not as many Austin groups this year which is rather disappointing.

So thinking about NTIF, I decided to compile some of my past posts regarding the festival and a few links that you might find useful. But first, here are some special features from my Irish & Celtic Music Podcast that highlight many of the bands at last year's show.

• Irish & Celtic Music Podcast #15 - North Texas Irish Festival Wrap Up, Part 2
• Irish & Celtic Music Podcast #14, North Texas Irish Festival Wrap Up, Part 1

Some past reviews of the North Texas Irish Festival:

• North Texas Irish Festival (NTIF) 2005
• North Texas Irish Festival 2004 Review
• NTIF 2003 Review
• North Texas Irish Festival CDs 2006
• North Texas Irish Festival CDs 2005

Well, I may not be present, but I'm sure there'll be a lot of folks who are. So I can't wait to hear what people think of entertainment. Do check out Arabesque who are on my new Victims of Irish Music compilation CD. They sound Fantastic!

It's that time of year again--St. Patrick's Day. People are getting ready for and searching out the wazzoo for everything Irish. So Irish drinking songs are popular once again.

That's good news to me because Irish drinking songs is what I do. Whether it be Irish Drinking Songs for Cat Lovers, Irish Drinking Songs: The Cat Lover's Companion, The Holy Grail of Irish Drinking Songs, A Collection of Irish Pub Songs, or even the Pub Songs Podcast, this year I practically have a monopoly on Irish drinking songs... or at least the term.

Because exit the internet, and no one has heard of Marc Gunn or the Brobdingnagian Bards. They're still hung up on The Dubliners, the Irish Rovers, The Clancy Brothers, The Wolfe Tones, and other groups who've given a name to the drinking songs of Irish music. And with good cause. Those bands are awesome. Those are the groups from whom I learned many of the Irish drinking songs I sing today. So raise a glass to them.

Yet where they made a name for Irish music in middle of last century, I'm trying trying to do the same in the digital era. No one is out promoting Celtic music. That's why I started the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine and the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast. My goal is to keep Irish folk music alive. So I have all those CDs above, plus, I have a traditional Irish music compilation CD and try to promote Celtic groups as I am able.

That said, St. Patrick's Day is almost here. And you can bet I'll be doing a lot for the Irish holiday. Keep an ear open for podcasts and MP3s and magazines and of course new CDs of Irish drinking songs, because that's what I do when I want to promote St. Patrick's Day music.

And why shouldn't I? It's my birthday after all.

The latest CD from the Brobdingnagian Bards, Real Men Wear Kilts, is four or five years in the making. I forget. It's been a LONG time. I remember how it started too.

We were in Salado playing an evening party for Clan Gunn when our friend Royce implanted the idea that we should do a Scottish CD. Well, we had just finish Songs of Ireland, and I was already thinking about it too. I'm Scotch-Irish but never really embraced my Irish half until recently. To me, I was all Scottish! I've long wanted to record more Scottish songs, but somehow fate intervened and most of the music I learned was Irish. Who am I to go against fate?

That didn't stop this idea. We didn't know many Scottish songs back then. But I had quite a few I wanted to learn. So we started learning them.

Shortly after that I designed some free Real Men Wear Kilts stickers to giveaway. Then my friend Jen Clower-Brown redesigned them to the current style.

Time passed and still we hadn't touched this CD idea. Finally in January of 2007, something clicked inside us. We learned and accepted something about us as a band.

You see the Brobdingnagian Bards are not a typical Celtic music group. I love keeping traditional songs alive, but as a group we, well, we have fun with the music. We play around with the lyrics pronunciations. I can't begin to tell you how many people have emailed and said, "It's TROOSERS, not TROUSERS!" Other Scots laughed when I sang "Loch Lomond" with an Irish accent a few years back.

Well, we don't accents nearly as much as we did, but when you're an American singing songs written in the Scots dialect, you have to make a few decisions. Do you rewrite songs? Do you use them as is?

For us, nothing is sacred we do what we do without apology... with one caveat. We want you to know what to expect. If you're expecting some contemporary Celtic sound from Scottish musicians, listen to Ed Miller. He's outstanding. If you're expecting us to not screw up the Scottish dialect, think again.

All in all, I think Andrew said it best, "We're not Scottish. So we're crap!"

That said, here are some of the songs you can expect to hear on our eleventh album, Real Men Wear Kilts:

1. Loch Lomond
2. Follow Prince Charlie
   
3. My Love Is Like A Red, Red Rose
   
4. Ye Jacobites By Name
   
5. Bonnie Jean
   
6. Donald, Where's Your Drunken Scotsman?
   
7. Flower of Scotland
8. Jock Stuart (A Man Who Wears A Kilt Every Day)
   
9. Mary Mac
   
10. Skye Boat Song
    
11. Auld Lang Syne
12. Seven Drunken Nights
    
13. Oor Hamlet
14. Green Grow the Rashes
    
15. Garry Owen Set

Yes. There are more songs, but I don't know all of them yet.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
http://www.celticmusicpodcast.com
February 12, 2007
CONTACT: Marc Gunn
(512) 470 - 4866

THE IRISH AND CELTIC MUSIC PODCAST HITS #1 ON THE MOST POPULAR MUSIC PODCASTS AT iTUNES

AUSTIN, TX (February 12, 2007) – Let's face it, everybody likes to be #1. For the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast (http://celticmusicpodcast.com/) that chance came this week when they reached the top spot on iTunes list of music podcasts. Not only did they top the music podcast chart, they also ranked 14th of all podcasts in the world since iTunes is the #1 distributor of podcasts. The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast is a free, bi-monthly, downloadable radio show of independent Irish & Celtic music. It features Irish drinking songs, Scottish folk songs, bagpipes, music from Ireland, Scotland, Brittany, Wales, Nova Scotia, Galicia, Australia, the United States, and around the world.

Two exciting podcasts are slated to be released by the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast this March. The first is a St. Patrick's Day podcast, featuring perennial Celtic music favorites as well as historical tidbits and other St. Paddy's Day fun. Also coming in March is a podcast which will announce the Celtic Music Award winners for 2006 and feature music from the winners. Selections are made by popular vote and are hosted by Celtic MP3s Music Magazine (http://www.celticmp3s.com). The awards honor the most popular online Celtic music groups and individuals. Both podcasts are sure to be among the best of the coming year.

With the increasing popularity of iTunes, a more diverse crowd of listeners is clearly seeking out their music choices from iTunes vast catalog of downloads. The popularity of the Irish & Celtic Music Podcast is clear evidence of this ever-widening circle. Listeners are encouraged to vote for their favorite songs and submit suggestions for podcasts they would like to hear. The Irish & Celtic Music Podcast also has a page on my Myspace.com (http://myspace.com/irishcelticmusicpodcast) where information about recent and upcoming podcasts can also be found.

The Irish & Celtic Music Podcasts are sponsored by Song Henge (www.SongHenge.com) a website offering the largest selection of totally free and legal downloads of Celtic music.


ABOUT Marc Gunn / The Bards

Marc Gunn is an Irish and Scottish folk singer with a strange affinity for Celtic ballads, drinking songs and cats. He is the lead singer for the Brobdingnagian Bards. He is also Celtic music podcaster and promoter as well as publisher of Celtic MP3s Music Magazine.

http://thebards.net Brobdingnagian Bards, Celtic Folk Music
http://celticmusicpodcast.com/ Irish & Celtic Music Podcast

Renaissance Festival Podcast - Music and Entertainment from Ren Faires http://www.renaissancefestivalmusic.com/

XXX

For Further Information Contact Marc Gunn (512) 470-4866.

Cross-Published at PRWeb.

In the summer of 2001, the Brobdingnagian Bards were doing fairly well on the Celtic MP3 charts on the late great MP3.com. That summer, I started the Celtic MP3s Music Magazine, a weekly electronic newsletter dedicated to promoting Celtic music.

Visit the
Celtic MP3s Music Magazine

Actually, the magazine was a blatent attempt to promote the Brobdingnagian Bards. But as I started publishing the magazine, I recognized more and more great Celtic music groups. I made some friends. Eventually, I changed the format from a newsletter to shamelessly plug my band into a valuable service for the Celtic community, the ONLY ezine for Celtic music.

In fact, it is still the only ezine dedicated to Celtic music. There are occasional ones who try to sell you music, but I realized that Free Celtic MP3s were a brilliant way to sell CDs. So instead of teasing people with clips, give them music they can listen to over and over again. Bands will build fans and sell CDs. And you know what? It works!

The Celtic MP3s Music Magazine has evolved over the years due to time constraints with the Brobdingnagian Bards. The magazine is now released once a month, however, it features more than the two downloads that were in the earlier version of the magazine.

Thanks the magazine, I've also developed Song Henge, the online archive of free and legal Celtic music downloads from past MP3 features. The project continues to grow with amazing success.

If you enjoy Celtic music, drop by the website and subscribe.

Slainte!