08.11.08
Posted in Uncategorized, music news at 3:01 pm by Dick
Last night, Sunday August 10th, Deb and I (Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh)performed at the Sand Lake Center for the Arts. We were scheduled to perform at Butler Park in Averill Park, but as par for this summer, the weather prohibited this performance. So they moved the event to the Arts Center. I loved it. It’s so nice performing for an audience that is so intimately involved. All ears are close and receptive. I love this kind of performance. We had so much fun. The audience had a good time too. We had bought a new power mixer, and we brought Deb’s 14 year old grandson with us to teach him how to do the sound. It turned out great. He did a great job. It’s so nice working when you don’t have to think about the sound equipment and just what the audience is hearing. Everyone said the sound was great. We also had a new monitor which worked great. It’s so nice being able to hear what we’re both doing. The Sand Lake Center for the Arts is a beautiful room to play in. It’s fully equipped with lighting and staging. It’s in an old renovated church, on route 43/66, which is smartly done, and the acoustics are supurb. The folks in that community should be proud to have such a nice listening room. Thanks so much to the community that came out to enjoy the evening with us. We would love to play there again.
Permalink
07.29.08
Posted in Uncategorized, poetry, music news, personal at 11:31 am by Deb
Well, where do I start…
The festival was one of the best for me. I heard great music, connected with friends, found a very dear friend unexpectedly, danced, played music late at night, got little sleep and loads of inspiration. Wed. and Thurs. were rainy, rainy, rainy. Both days were so rainy that the roads into the festival grounds were closed, so we had to carry our things in. I had arrived on Tuesday to drop off supplies for the Activities 4 Kids tent, so I was able to pitch my tent that day. I also had help carting things and did it gradually over the course of the festival. I was amazed by everyone’s good spirits in spite of the hardships. Friday and Saturday were gorgeous days. I would almost say that they were perfect days with no hint of what was to come. Then came Sunday…
The day started out overcast but okay. I went to the information tent to find out the forecast. I was told that we were expecting very severe storms in the afternoon, around 2 pm, with high winds and possible hail. I passed this info on to a few folks, packed up my things and moved my car to a spot by the road that I knew I could get out of. I’m so glad I did.
My job every year is to run the Activities 4 Kids tent. When the rain started, it came down in buckets. You couldn’t even see across the path. Then came the winds and the hailstones the size of ice cubes. I had my hands full trying to keep our big festival tent up and all the families calm. As you can imagine, there were a lot of screaming and crying kids, so we sang. When I finally had it fairly stable and all the children in the middle and away from flying debris, I went for my radio to call site crew and security. That’s when I found out that both food tents were down. My 4-year old granddaughter, who has been raised by me since she was a year old, had left with her dad to get lunch and then the Volunteer food tent to ride out the impending storm. You can imagine my own worry, wondering where she was now that the tent was down.
She had quite an adventure of her own, having been separated from her dad in the confusion of the collapsing tent. She was with my 14-year old grandson (in the food tent), who had seen her dad go to try to hold the tent posts and keep the tent from flying away, and was carried out of the collapsing tent by him and his friend. She was completely safe, thanks to my grandson’s clearheadedness and his friend’s help, and was taken in by two separate groups of people. The first group they found didn’t have a vehicle down below, so they huddled around her, like a football huddle, with her in the middle. They sang songs and gave her and the other two kids a science lesson on how hailstones are formed and what makes them different sizes. Then he found a van, that was packed full of people. He talked them into taking in the two girls then went to find her dad, me and his mom. He found us pretty quickly, and we took them to our friends’ school bus which was in deep water, up to my knees, but not going anywhere. They had fallen in the deep water many times and were shivering, so I dried them off and wrapped them up before leaving to see what was happening and what I could do to help. A little later, someone offered to bring them hot cocoa. They had also rummaged around in the bus and found cookies. That made things much better.
It’s very interesting to see first hand how people react in a crisis. Although there were a few who panicked, most everyone worked together very smoothly. There were paying customers who came around helping in the Med tent, helping site crew with the clean-up, and helping me get my A4Kids stuff disassembled and packed up. Eileen Ivers and her band set up on the grass by the workshop stage and played their planned set to help keep everyone’s spirits up. I was home by 7 pm. When I left, things were running smoothly again. I was there with my three kids and two grands. We all have our own stories and are all fine. It was too bad it had to end the way it did. All in all, we had a great festival and look forward to next year.
There are a couple of videos on YouTube, including one of the volunteer tent when it started collapsing, that are kind of cool and also frightening for those of us who were there.
I would love to hear other stories from folks who were there.
Permalink
07.28.08
Posted in Uncategorized, music news, life, personal at 10:08 pm by Dick
Got the bodhran! Help! Now what?
Actually it’s quite fun. But, I must say, it’s hard to play at a slow beat. Practice is in order. I can and I will. Only two weeks before our last recording session. If I can figure out how to post a mp3 of me playing it I will. To be continued.
Permalink
07.22.08
Posted in Uncategorized, music news at 9:55 pm by Dick
Deb and I listened to the rough cut CD again this evening in the car. This is the first time I am feeling excited about what I heard. It’s hard hearing yourself recorded. I think we just about have it put together…the order of the recordings. We still have to record three more cuts, but that shouldn’t be too hard. We’re looking for a woman poet to read Paula’s Lament, and I think we may have found someone…to be announced. I hope to overdub a bodhran (Irish hand held drum) in Young Timothy.
I think the tune will light up with the bass drum. Now all I have to do is to relearn the bodhran. I am thinking of buying a new one, but they are so expensive. Old Songs has one, and they said they will have it at the office for me to play tomorrow. It’s like $400.00. I think it will be a great instrument to have in our collection. I’ve always wanted to play one anyway. Keepin’ on truckin’.
Permalink
06.08.08
Posted in Uncategorized, music news at 12:07 am by Deb
Well, we’re more than halfway there. Hopefully, by the end of summer or sometime in early fall, we will have a full-length CD. We’ve got 7 out of 12 songs/tunes recorded and go back for the final time next Saturday. Most, if not all of them are at least 5 minutes long, so it will be a good amount of music. It has been exhausting but fruitful and incredibly rewarding. Obviously, between this, the new business, parenting and just living, I have even less time than before. But…I am happy and expectant. 
Permalink
05.06.08
Posted in Uncategorized, music news at 7:10 am by Deb
Here it is March. My last post was back in November. Since then, I bought a franchise for Music Together and have my own business now called Heldeberg Music Together. I am in my second semester of running it myself. It is thriving! I’m still struggling with figuring out how to market it well, but I’m holding my own anyway. I write a newsletter for the band at least once a month and am preparing to go into the studio at the end of the month. I also took a trip to Austin, Texas. Whew! As usual, I may have bitten off more than I can chew. I guess we’ll soon see. Well, I’m rushing off to work…
Permalink
11.10.07
Posted in music news at 11:27 am by Deb
Wow! We just got almost a full page profile in one of the local newspapers. What a gift for us! It was fun being interviewed and having a photographer come to one of our gigs. The interviewer asked some really good questions that made us think about our music in ways that I never had before. Everyone loves the quote at the end of the article and my quote that was used as a headline. There were also two photos that I can’t access yet. I’ll have to buy them online, and they’re not available yet. The article is pasted below. We had 5 new people come to last night’s show because of it. And… we get to use quotes from it in our promo and copy the whole article into our press/promo page. It was a nice break for us. Also, Dick read an article the night before last that made him understand his worth as a performer. I’ve been trying to explain to him that he doesn’t have to be a technically outstanding musician in order to be a good entertainer. He has a unique style and a wonderful compassionate way of relating to people that is a big part of our shows. He is the one who finally taught me how to be a performer rather than just a musician. People who enjoy our shows like us together and the way we relate to each other and to them. I hear that all the time. I’m so glad he finally got it!
From The Daily Gazette, 11-7-07, Page D8
LIVE IN THE CLUBS
Folk duo Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh blend genre’s past with its present
Partners in life and music doing their part to keep traditions alive
BY PHILIP SCHWARTZ Gazette ReporterReach Gazette reporter Philip Schwartz at 395-3111 or pschwartz@dailygazette.net.
Deb Cavanaugh and Dick Kavanaugh get passionate when the subject of traditional music arises. And in a conversation with the folk duo — billed as Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh — that subject will inevitably come up.
Over coffee and tea at a cafe near their Albany home, the couple, both life and musical partners, get into the importance of folk music, the need to keep traditions alive and how it’s all tied to our understanding of American culture and history.
“It’s important for us to know and remember our culture,” Cavanaugh says, “and it’s getting lost and increasingly becoming a corporate culture.”
Managing to avoid a self-righteous tone, both Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh talk about their mission (though they don’t expressly use that word) to help pass along the traditions of folk through their workshops and performances. And by singing old songs alongside their originals, they seem to relish being part of a kind of folksong dialogue that stretches back through history, but still touches the present.
ORGANIC GROWTH
When they first started playing as a duo, however, there wasn’t any sort of overarching commitment to traditions or preservation, Cavanaugh said. “It’s become more of a focus over the years,” she noted. “I started with just saying ‘I’d like to do some traditional stuff.’ Then as time went on, it became more deliberate.”
Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh have been life partners for 14 years, their coupling somewhat fortuitous considering the similar last names. Cavanaugh, a full-time musician who teaches and gives workshops, has been playing all her life.
“I grew up in a family where there was always singing,” the Stamford, Conn., native said. “We were always playing music. We would often, after dinner, clear the table, sit and sing. . . . I was singing harmonies when I was 3. The first time I got a paying gig, I was 15.”
By contrast, Kavanaugh, an electrician by trade, grew up in Delmar with a purist’s love of folk and acoustic blues, but didn’t start playing until his mid-30s. Similarly, his partner, though she spent her younger days concentrating on the piano and vocals, waited until age 40 to take up the stringed instruments that are so much a part of the Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh sound: mandolin, dulcimer, guitar. The stringed instruments he plays are guitar, mandolin, fiddle and banjo. Live performances can include any combination of those, in addition to Cavanaugh’s limber jack or Kavanaugh’s pennywhistle.
TIMELESS SONGS
The traditional songs they play, meanwhile, center on the old-time Irish and Southern U.S. traditions. Anti-war and labor songs such as “Green Fields of France,” “Mrs. McGrath,” “Masters of War,” “Granite Mills” and “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag” are all part of the repertoire. But underneath it all is a slight, if mild, tension between Cavanaugh’s want to infuse new influences and Kavanaugh’s more purist nature. This can be a strength, however, Cavanaugh said. “That’s what makes us interesting,” she said. “Dick has that traditional focus and I want to be wild and do whatever.”
Playing traditional music, however, can be somewhat of an occupational hazard in a culture obsessed with youth and the taste of now. Even among an evolving roots-music community where younger generations of artists are bending what folk means, Cavanaugh and Kavanaugh still have the earnest, sweet sound that’s typical of their baby boomer generation and the time that generation ushered in the first folk boom. Nevertheless, Kavanaugh maintains that this music is just as relevant today, and will continue to be for the next generation.
“There’s a string of commonality to folk music where it touches everyone,” he said. “I feel like most of these traditional songs are timeless. Sing a song like ‘Green Fields of France’ and that was written about World War I. It still moves people. Not much has changed, you know. We’re still fighting wars.”
“That’s what makes us interesting. Dick has that traditional focus, and I want to be wild and do whatever.”
DEB CAVANAUGH
Folk singer and musician
Permalink
10.21.07
Posted in Uncategorized, music news, life at 10:50 am by Deb
Whew! Somehow, I can’t seem to continue to keep this up. Between working, taking care of a 3 1/2 year old, gigging and life, why can’t I find the time to do one more thing? I love the idea of blogging, it’s just time consuming. I do continue to journal every morning. Once in a while I skip a day, but mostly I manage to keep up. Dick asked me last night if I thought anyone would ever actually read it someday. I never really thought about it before. I suppose my grandchildren or maybe my great-grandchildren will be interested somewhat. If I write with that in mind though, I may not feel as free to write what I am really inspired to write at the time. I don’t want to censor my journal any more than I already do. When my grandfather died, we found a couple of his journals. It was fascinating to read through them. He had just left home for the first time and was in pharmacy school. It was very cool to get to know my grandfather - the real person that I never knew - through his writings. I actually made a decision last month that I want to focus more on my music and less on extras. As a result, I have started taking a dulcimer class once a week for 6 weeks. When that is over, I’m going to take something else. It forces me to put in my own practice time in each week. I would like to do even more than I have, but at least I’m doing some, and it’s more than I was doing. Unfortunately, I am a fast learner, so it doesn’t take a lot of practice to get ahead. Imagine what I could do if I put more time into it. I am working more this year than I have before. I have another student and started another music class, “Fun With Music”, for 4 - 7 year-olds. I’m also teaching more Music Together classes and should be buying the Albany site soon. OMG, then I’ll be running a growing business in addition to everything else! We also will probably be running the Open Stage at the new Eighth Step site in Schenectady. Thankfully, we will be rotating it with other hosts, so it will end up being only once a month. So…just how full can my life be with music anyway?
Permalink
09.16.07
Posted in Uncategorized, music news at 8:11 am by Deb
Well, we finally did it. Last night was our long awaited show at Caffe Lena. We had a great crowd and played very well. I think it was a combination of excitement at finally headlining in a nice listening room, especially on that means so much to us, having such a warm and supportive audience, and having another person providing a different instrumentation. Whatever it was, last night was probably the best performance we’ve ever given. My grandson, T, videotaped most of the first set. Thank-you, T. I can’t wait to see it. Hopefully we can put a bit of it up on our site soon. Now the goal is to make a demo DVD so that the essence of our shows can, hopefully, get put across. We realized the other day that our music alone is not the heart of our performances, and how do you transmit that to someone who is just listening to a CD? This may be the answer. I think T is probably very good at this, so I’m excited to see the result. There were family members, old friends, new friends, and strangers there last night. Everyone were as wowed by our performance as we were. Thanks also to Dave Danks who played very well and added a new dimension and depth to our music. We just all had a blast, and it showed. I think we’ll keep playing with him occasionally and hopefully will get more gigs that warrant a third person. Maybe we’ll be The 3Ds.
Permalink
08.26.07
Posted in Uncategorized, music news at 12:12 pm by Deb
We had a very fun gig last night in a new venue. We shared the show with two other musicians, Steve Grogan and Molly Durnin. We all did two alternating short sets. Although it was a minor annoyance having to bring our equipment and do all the set-up and break-down by ourselves, we still had a good time. For one thing, it was nice sharing a show with younger people. Also, there were a fair amount of people who came specifically to see us. That was a nice change. We’ve actually had a gradual increase over the last few months of people who return to see us or hear about us from friends. The down side was there was no publicity in the paper. Oh well, it was a chance to break into a new place. Molly was very good. She did two songs that she had written the night before. They were both good, but I was very impressed with the second one. I felt inspired to write and discouraged at the same time. After the show, we chatted with Mr. Math for a while. I mentioned my dilemma about not having a secluded place where I could go to compose my songs. He told me about a famous artist who painted on someone else’s back porch because he didn’t have studio, yet. My reaction to this was to dismiss it and tell him about having too many distractions from Grandsweetie when trying to write or play music. He then told me about some great mathematician who did much of his important work “with his grandchildren on his knee.” At that point, I decided to give up. He just didn’t understand. Later last night, after unwinding at home for a couple of hours, I decided to read before going to sleep. I remembered Molly’s two songs and the things that Mr. Math had told me. At 3:30 am, I had a wonderful new song that I plan to debut at our next show. It’s called “A Brand New Day.” It’s a new style for me and is fun and light. The lesson I have learned from all of this is a lesson I should have learned a long time ago: If I want something, I need to go out and grab it rather than waiting for it to find me. I’m sure I’ve learned it many times. I just get caught up in the struggle and forget. Thanks to Mr. Math for the encouragement and to Molly for the inspiration.
Permalink
« Previous entries ·
