censorship, shows, and looking for a couple good musicians.

Our radio spot on kkup last friday went off pretty well, our drummer got stuck in traffic and arrived after we’d already started so we couldn’t set up his full set, it would have been too disruptive since we were already live on the air, so he ended up playing with just his snare drum. the result was a set that was way mellower, much more folk-y then anything we’ve ever done before. considering the venue that was probably a good thing. I dunno though, if anyone happened to catch it on the air and wants to let us know how we sounded we’d love to get some feedback.

In other news, we’ve been making steady progress on the album, this is a good thing. Last night Laura and I finished re-recording the vocals for the new Beltaine’s Fire album to remove all the cursewords and fix a few other minor issues. I’ve resisted going “clean” with my lyrics for years, but with the band we’ve got a bunch of opportunities to get radio play, we just have to make sure that the cd’s we send are “radio friendly”. Problem is, we can’t afford to mixdown and master 2 version of the album the way artists on the big labels do, so the only real option if we want to get heard is to make our actual album ‘radio friendly’.

I still have mixed feeling about it, honestly. On the one hand it pisses me off no end that the Puritans are able to impose their morality onto the publicly owned airwaves through the FCC – and thus onto me and my music – and censor certain arbitrarily chosen words. Words exist for a reason – expletives exist to enable people to express complex and potent emotions succinctly. What the Christians REALLY object to is the emotions being expressed, after all, there is no prohibition anywhere in the bible against curse words.

For whatever it’s worth, I find the christian belief that everyone who doesn’t accept an undead jewish sun-god as their “personal savior” is going to be tormented in a lake of fire for all eternity far far more offensive then any curseword, and yet their allowed to spew this kind of idiocy all over talk radio. then again, people like me – agnostics and athiests – are the single most hated and reviled group in america today, so I shouldn’t be surprised that my being offended is seen as much less of an issue then the offense taken by some hypothetical christian who might object s to my choice in words. All I can do when I hear hate propaganda by theists on the radio is shout inefectually at the radio or turn it off, but if I use even 1 word that the theists have declared verboten they can call in a complaint that would cost the station that aired my music thousands of dollars. What we have here is government enforcement of religious mores, no more and no less. And, after years of refusing to compromise, I’m finally caving in to it. I can justify myself by saying that the songs have never really been about the cursewords anyway and it’s more important to get the real message in the music out to more people by opening up access to radio, but at some level I’m giving up a percentage of my creative control over my own music to the government when I let them choose what words I can and cannot use. That hurts. but if making that compromise means more people will hear the music then i guess it’s probably worth the pain.

On a more positive note, we’ve got a bunch of shows coming up! so if you’re in or near the bay area we’d absolutely love to see ya’ll.

08/30/2007
Ireland’s 32
3920 Geary Blvd
San Francisco, CA 94118
9:00 PM
Beltaine’s Fire & Blue Rabbit. Free show! If you’re gonna go pub crawling, start your crawl here. =)

09/06/2007
The Starry Plough
3101 Shattuck Ave
Berkeley, CA 94705
9:00 PM
$7.00
Doors open at 9pm, Beltaines Fire, Boudica (arabic celtic fusion), and Greenbridge (one of the best Celtic trad bands in the bay area, if you didn’t already know)

09/21/2007
South First Billiards
420 S 1st St
San Jose, CA 95113
9:30 PM
Saturday night at the south bay’s finest bar / lounge / billiards hall. 21+ with ID, FREE to listen to music and hang out in the lounge/bar area, or play billiards all night for $10 with a student id.

09/28/2007
The Quarter Note
1214 Apollo Way Ste 403
Sunnyvale, CA 94085
9:30 PM
$8.00
Beltaine’s Fire, Bluegrass Revolution, and the Four Finger String Band – git yer roots on!

last but not least, Chris (our drummer) is leaving in October and we have yet to find a solid replacement for him We’re also (still) looking for a fiddler or an irish whistle player with solid chops. If that sounds like you then please send us an email.

solid,
lynx
for Beltaine’s Fire

Posted: August 28th, 2007 under Beltaine's Fire.
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