A slow jig named after my paternal grandmother, Catherine McNally (nee McCormick) of Glenburn in Paisley.
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Duncan’s Boots
This reel was written in the summer of 1997 after a memorable time at Sabhal Mòr Ostaig on Skye during the fiddle and step dance week.
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Captain Service’s Trip to Whitehead
Here’s a wee march that I wrote in 1997 and dedicated to Campbell Service, or Paddy as he was known around Oban. Originally from Ballycarry in County Antrim, Paddy was a skipper of large cargo vessels and spent much of his time at sea. He loved guitars and had a fair collection of them at one point. He didn’t hoard them however, preferring to leave them in the care of local guitar players. He left a limited edition Martin D35 with me for a number of years, a guitar I eventually purchased from him.
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The Tempting Seamstress
This tune was written back in 1996 when I had nimble fingers due to all the busking. Playing for hours a day, most days, does wonders for your dexterity and I can’t play it now with the same fluidity. The pipes I play here were made by Jon Swayne and have a right hand thumb hole, allowing you to play the minor third without cross fingering. The title is self explanatory and the tune was written for a friend.
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Fitas de António
This tune has been floating about my head for a month or two. I wasn’t sure if it was a Portuguese tune that I had heard somewhere or a figment of my fevered imagination. I asked my friend António Freire, a well known piper from Coimbra in Portugal, if he recognised it and he said he didn’t. So… I’ve claimed it as my own and named it Fitas De António, Antonio’s Ribbons, after the colourful ribbons hanging from the cover of Antonio’s gaita de foles (see pic below).
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Van Travels 2020
There is no excerpt because this is a protected post.
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The Woodside Reel
The session scene in Oban has used a number of different venues throughout my time as a participant. For a while in the mid 1990s the main weekly session was in The Woodside on Tweedale Street. This was before the pub was extended and the rear was converted into a night club of sorts. A small, narrow pub, it didn’t have much space for musicians or punters but this did make for a good atmosphere as it didn’t take many folk to make it feel busy. I was making my living as a busker at the time so was playing a lot, often many hours per day. New tunes would…
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Lisa Cronin’s Jig
Another tune from 1995. This jig was written for my girlfriend at the time, Lisa Cronin of Tralee, County Kerry, Ireland. Like many young traditional musicians I had discovered syncopation and started to incorporate it into some of my own tunes. I thought I was being modern and contemporary at the time but syncopation actually has a long history in border piping. As Matt Seattle points out in the introduction to his great book of tunes ‘The Border Bagpipe Book’ (Dragonfly Music, 1993), “Syncopation, which is now being introduced as a kind of modernism into Highland piping, was almost certainly present in Border piping three hundred years ago.” I play…
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The Toffee Works – Lusty in Carnac
Around 10 years ago some pals and I put together an Anglo/Scots band to try and realise some musical ideas we had been thinking of for a while. We named ourselves The Toffee Works after the factory in Jon’s home town which makes that famous Wigan sweet, Uncle Joe’s Mint Balls.
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Mike Campbell’s Reel
I wrote this tune back in 1995 and named it for one of Oban’s characters, the late Mike Campbell. I first met Mike when I was still in school as he worked as a clam diver with the father of one of my friends. Later, when I was old enough to drink in the pubs, he would regularly be found in The Oban Inn, telling stories and sinking a fair few drams. He loved the music and always had a request for a tune or two from me.
