Avalon Rising

Zoe sent an e-mail this morning; her friend in Brocelïande is also in a Celtic rock band that's considering coming to Oregon this summer. This evening I had fun looking at the website for this band, Avalon Rising. They performed at the Oscar party for the Lord of the Rings Fan Club in Hollywood; I like this quote from one of their reviews: "The irony of folks using the Tolkien epic during childhood to avoid the cool kids and using it in adulthood to be the cool kids is too rich to not savor."

When I first met R. and then he moved to California, he made me about 10 hours of audiotapes, and one of the songs that most captured my attention was "Cam Ye O'er Frae France," by Steeleye Span. (It wasn't until years later that I read an explanation of the lyrics on-line and learned that it was a really, really biting satire about one of the early King Georges of England; today's political cartoons have nothing on this song. For my own future reference, here's a link to an analysis of it.) And then after I moved to California, I listened to lots of Steeleye Span and, even more wonderful, Fairport Convention, which played English folk songs like "Matty Groves" with electric guitars. One of my favorite albums still is Sandy Denny's "Northstar Grassmen and the Ravens"; she was the lead vocalist for Fairport.

So now I have a new Celtic band to learn about -- what fun!