I have played in a few garage and wedding bands through the years. Sometimes, they were the same band. My first exposure to an Irish band (besides U2) was hearing Fisherman's Blues by The Waterboys on a college/alternative music station in the Bay Area in 1989, at age 18. I loved the song, but instead of buying the Fisherman's Blues album, which would've exposed me to more traditional Irish music, I opted for one of their earlier albums- This is the Sea, which is a great soulful rock album. A year or 2 later, I picked up Room to Roam and it became on of my favorite albums of all time. But alas, it was the era of grunge, and I was a teenager who could only play barre chords on my Fender Squirer guitar- Irish music would have to wait.

A few years later, love and marriage arrived and I sold most of my music equipment and went on a playing hiatus. My wife could see that I still had the desire to play music, so on our 5th anniversary she surprised me with a Dean acoustic guitar. I would play again! But by now, I was finished with the hard rock, and started to get more into acoustic/folk music. It was also about this time that I started to become a little more obsessed with Irish music. My wife swears that the movie Titanic started this. Remember the scene where Jack and Rose were in the bottom of the ship dancing around to that awesome traditional music? She says that was the moment for me. I don't specifically remember that being the catalyst, but her memory is far superior to mine.
 

I started collecting and listening to more traditional Celtic music (I finally bought Fisherman's Blues- what took me so long?) I wasn't playing with a band, but every once in a while I'd get together a group of friends for a wedding or party or other event and play some acoustic poppy stuff, but still no Irish music. I had been wanting to visit Ireland for a while, and finally in 2004 my wife and I went for a few weeks with our siblings and their spouses. We had such a great time that we went back in 2007 with our 3 kids (hey, where'd they come from?). By this time, I had taken also become interested in bluegrass and took up the mandolin. I started playing in another wedding band, but still no Irish music.
 

I always felt comfortable being a part of a band, because even if I was singing, I didn't feel like all the eyes were on me. But I was always hesitant to play and sing by myself or in a duet because I lacked confidence. In 2008, I finally mustered up the courage to start a duet with a friend who has a lovely voice, Megan Ferguson. We started playing once a month in a small restaurant in my hometown of Scappoose called Romigs. We would split up the singing duties and most of the songs that I chose were Irish or Scottish folk songs, like Black Velvet Band, Caledonia, Wild Mountain Thyme, and Galway Bay (the Francis Fahy version). After about a year of playing there, the restaurant closed, and I wanted to turn our little duet into a full fledged Celtic band and look for other places to play. Megan wasn't too interested in that idea, but I had some other musician friends that were.
 

Jereb Scott and Josh Curll had come to a few of my acoustic shows and had even joined me on some songs the last few months before the restaurant closed. We decided to press on as a 3 piece- guitar, bass, and mandolin. We were fortunate to land a regular gig right out of the box, at the Rosemary Cafe in Vancouver. The shows were fun, we expanded our set to 3 hours of all Irish folk songs. We also started adding more instruments to the songs, Josh on steel guitar and myself on harmonica, bodhran, and verrrrrry occasionally, on accordion. After a few months of these shows, we wanted to rock out a little bit- but not too much. So we contacted our old friend Dave Battrick, who Josh and I had played with off and on throughout the last 20 years. He agreed to join us, and we started looking for some Irish pubs to play.  We added a fiddle player as I added a few more traditional instruments to my arsenal.  Using the creative juices that flowed, original songs ensued.

So far we've had the opportunity to play at Biddy Mcgraws (Portland), Paddy's (Portland), Brickhouse (Vancouver, WA), Shannahan's (Vancouver, WA), Galway Bay Irish Pub (Ocean Shores, WA), A Terrible Beauty (Seattle) and a few other pubs around the Northwest. We've also had the opportunity to play on the same bill as Anton Emery, Bronnie Griffin and Nancy Conescu, Stout Pounders, Culann's Hounds, Rayborne Experience, Maggie's Fury and Ockham's Razor from Seattle.
 

We hope to entertain you at an Irish pub in the near future!