Music Made in Two Countries...how an Irish-Canadian band added the Drum and Bass
Playing out at a traditional music session at the Wolf & Hound in Vancouver the other night, one of the older musicians asked us how we could be a band if we only came together to tour, and often weren't in rehearsal together for recordings.
Well, of course, we would love to be "all together," all the time. And yet, until we sell enough records to live in a big dysfunctional mansion together, with an in home studio, nursery for the littlins and basement full of whiskey, we will have to make do.
Celtic music is also not the same as conventional 4-piece rock outfits. The patterns are not just similar, within the genre, but familiar to all. So, it's well known that an instrumental will be 16 bars, and should contain two sections of eight that are really circular 4 bar repeated melody schemes. It's HOW it works!
Not that we stick to that! But like jazz, once you have common ground, the shared understanding let's you groove together.
Another thing is the technology. In August, our Canadian members, Todd Biffard and Colin Cowan laid down the bed tracks for our new material (the EP record The Drunken Priest...and the ghostly hymns of autumn and LP, tentatively entitled, Amárac, which in the Irish means, "tomorrow.")
Onto the bed tracks I then laid scratch tracks of bouzouki, lute, guitar, whistles, uilleann pipes and vocals, and sent them off to the other instrumentalists. Now, not all the ideas will be used, but it's like painting a picture with a group of painters, (who have the ability to erase and re-paint what they don't like); not everything gets used, but you have the fun of experimenting, and trying new things. And only sometimes, if it's not working, we may have to go back and re-do the bed tracks of drum and bass for a new vision of the song.
Touring is hard. It's so competitive, and it's like the chicken and the egg. You have to have DONE the big shows and festivals, before you can book them. But you can't book'em till you've done'em. Hence, one word...promotions!
Of course, only once you have some solid music. And that's where we're at. Finishing up our solid music.
Damanta has spent the last year, 2007, on the road and in Canada, trying to find the right drum and bass player to add to lutes, whistles, fiddle and banjo. And now we have them. Found in the one place we looked last and should have looked first...CRAIGSLIST.com
Todd Biffard is a great drummer, who always pushed for the swing and the groove, but has an eccentric, spastic kind of flair that is driving, and suits the Celtic style quite well. He is a veteran of Scottish Pipe bands, which certainly helps. Todd is from Kelowna, B.C.
Colin Cowan looks like a leprachaun, with his scraggly red hair, sharp eyes and mischievous smile. But that is where the Celtic ends. He plays bass like he's laing dance beats for Jamiroqoai while Maynard James Keenan from TOOL sings in the background. He is perfect, for what we want.
It was from this long-sought addition that we discovered the new slogan for Damanta:
Funk. Groove. & Gaelic.
It will be exciting to begin summer touring with our newfound drum and bass section, that is, once we have enough dates to get us all on the road.
Until then, please spread the word, listen and request us on the radio, and give us a comment on myspace. We actually have two myspaces, one for booking Celtic festivals and folk events, another for booking clubs and bars (where I swap my acoustic 8 string Irish bouzouki for the electric 10 string lute, or cittern.)
http://www.myspace.com/damantaofficial
has our rock remix of the song "The Drunken Priests of Donegal," which is rock form is just called, "The Drunken Priest." And features Vancouver's Jesse Waldman (of the Monica Lee Band) on guitar. It also has our acoustic, folk and old Gaelic, a cappella, sean nós songs.
http://www.myspace.com/ceoldamanta
Has just our acoustic, and folk style recordings.
Thanks a million for reading this, and we'll see yeah for a pint of tea,
slán,
Damanta