Shack Session

musicians gathered around the table at the shack session in athlone

The last couple of Shack sessions have been populous, lighthearted musical romps.

Boy, that sounded like a review of something at the west end.

This week Guy Noir and I stuck the heads in early and spent a good deal of time discussing an insightful, but myopic comparison of anglo and yankee masculinity I had read somewhere. We came to the conclusion – me through my U.S./Irish perspective, he through his British/Irish upbringing – that the author, while he makes some interesting observations, is wrong in his assessment (and probably has some serious personal issues as well).

But this is a session post – not a sociological essay. The tables were pushed together for the first time this week and extra chairs were harvested and we still ended up with musicians sitting outside the circle for lack of space.

Mags & the notorious frenchman were absent, but the sheriff and deputy showed up along with the fingerpicker. Bongos, pads and amber moon (they’re baa-aack!) filled out the table along with the deep sea diving banjo player. Burrrshting with musicos!

For a change of pace, we had some trad in the way of some deep sea diving banjo music. At one point pads picked up the mandolin (fair play!) and unexpectedly started playing Sullivan Street – it was good to have the bean back around to trade vocals with.

I’ll tell ya, the whole daddy thing must be seeping deep into me, because at one point I ended up singing twinkle, twinkle little star . . . although, in fairness, I’ll admit that’s not the version I sing to the munchkin. *grin*