Wake the Bard: Press

"We saw this great Celtic music band, Wake the Bard, playing at the Riverside Plaza a couple of weeks ago. Normally, when we hear a band playing outdoors at a marketplace or other venue, we might only stay for a song or two , then move on to other things..."

"The band was great. Sensed the crowd…Was able to accompany Celtic dancers. Everything asked of them they did. Their music made our event fantastic. Would highly recommend to anyone."
Debra H.
Santa Ana, CA
3/17/2006

“They communicated in advance, came out and brought samples of their CDs for me to listen to and develop a song list. They were perfect! If they were available for my next event this New Year's I would hire them in a hot flash!”
Valerie F.
Redondo Beach, CA
12/31/2005

Back by popular demand, Wake the Bard, a Celtic folk group from Green Valley Lake, will take to the stage at 2pm for a free public concert at the lake...The first of Big Bear Lake's summer concerts at Veterans Park will take place tomorrow, June 2, 2007...

Jammin' keeps the music green. Mar. 11--GREEN VALLEY LAKE -- The sound at a Wake the Bard jam session is like a musical Irish stew. The flavor depends on the ingredients, or in this case, the musicians and the instruments they bring to play. Four members of Wake the Bard came to the Lake Inn Restaurant on Saturday with a hammered dulcimer, harmonium, acoustic guitar and fiddle...

I wanted to express my appreciation to the "Wake The Bard" band/group of musicians that I saw last Saturday night at Finn McCools. Even though at times the crowd was...being themselves... a group of people who might have expected rock and roll or ??? and talked quite a lot through your songs..I enjoyed your music and steadfast allegiance to the lyrics. (Btw I am not dismissing these young people, who might have had whole other agendas which were clear to me too when I was young) At one time, a group of young hispanic men stopped talking and grew silent...and then lifted their glasses of beer to you.

I spent my 40th and 41st birthday in Ireland and I was honored to have spent my 59th birthday listening to you.

Thank you. But geez the hangover.

Keeping the Tradition Alive Through Music

It’s impossible to sit still while listening to the members of Wake the Bard play their traditional Irish music. Heads nod, hands drum, feet tap—reactions that delight Sandi and Pat Huckaby and Stephanie and Mike Adams.

When Sandi and Pat moved to the San Bernardino Mountains six years ago, they never dreamed their lives would take the musical turn they have.
“We assumed we’d be nature freaks,” Sandi said. “We didn’t think we’d meet anyone like us up here.” Then they met Stephanie and Mike, who made the move a year later. In the Adamses, the Huckabys found kindred spirits—friends with whom they could get together and play music for fun.

That fun evolved into Wake the Bard, which has developed quite a following. They play once a month or so at The Lake Inn in Green Valley Lake, where the two couples live. They played a number of dates at Finn McCool’s prior to its closing and have now taken their music to Killarney’s Pub in Riverside.

“We decided to play for a year for fun,” Mike said. “Then we decided to get serious. By our third year, we started playing more paid events, which helped legitimize the band to ourselves.”

“It makes you feel as though what you’re doing is worth something,” Stephanie said.

The band, now in its fourth year, has come up to a more professional level, in Mike’s opinion. “Now things are going crazy,” he said. “The phone has been ringing off the hook for St. Patrick’s Day.”

The band, Mike said, got calls from Hollywood and Las Vegas for St. Patrick’s Day, but they were already booked for five events in three days. “Booked is booked,” he noted. “It doesn’t matter if you’re playing in an elementary school.”

IRISH FESTIVALS

In their fifth year, Mike said, they would like to get more into Irish festivals. In the spring, there are about 10 from San Diego to Oregon. “Participating in the festivals would put us more in the forefront of what’s going on,” Mike said.

Wake the Bard plays traditional music, as opposed to the more rock-oriented music of some bands. “A lot of people aren’t familiar with traditional music,” Mike said. “We may get little response while we’re playing and that’s one of the hardest things for us. We’ll wonder, ‘Why aren’t they applauding?’ And then we realize they’re listening intently.”

The songs tell a story and thus the origin of the group’s name. In ancient times, the group explains, the bard was one of the most highly revered members of the clan. Since nothing was written down, the bard memorized the genealogy and history of the people and passed them on through his songs, accompanying himself on a harp.

When England took control in Ireland, they tried to do away with the bardic tradition. The Irish language was forbidden, bards were killed and harps were destroyed. A spark was kept alive, however, and Irish culture and traditions survived.

“Wake,” the bands notes, carries a double meaning: mourning what was lost as a result of the English rule and waking up the tradition.

THEIR INSTRUMENTS

Mike and Pat have both played the guitar for as long as they can remember. In addition to playing the guitar in Wake the Bard, Pat also plays mandolin and sings both lead and harmony vocals.

Mike also plays acoustic guitar, as well as a resonator guitar, which is made of bell brass and nickel plated. “It weighs 50 pounds,” he laughed. And he has learned to play the bodhran, a traditional Irish drum. He would like nothing better than to spend some time at the Dingle Music School in County Kerry, Ireland, learning to play the bodhran the Irish way. “There are no instructors here,” he said.

The hardest part of playing the bodhran, Mike noted, is not going crazy. “You can only play it so long,” he said, “before your wrists start to hurt.” In fact, Sandi pointed out, teachers will tell their students not to play the drum on an entire song.

The harmonium is the interesting-looking instrument Stephanie plays. It looks rather like an accordion on its side. “It originated in England in the 1800s,” Pat said, “and moved to India with the colonists.” It is the national instrument of India, Pakistan and Sri Lanka.

When Stephanie went to the Indian music store where she purchased her harmonium to pick it up, she started playing Irish music on the instrument in the store.

“All the Indian musicians came out to hear what was going on,” Stephanie said. “This music is infectious. It just grabs you and you want to play it.”

She had not played Irish music before meeting Sandi and Pat but was trained as a concert pianist.

Sandi began playing the hammered dulcimer 23 years ago because she “liked its soft, gentle sound on slow tunes and its rousing excitement on the fast dance tunes.”

LOVING THE MOUNTAINS

The two couples agreed they love living here in the mountains. “I like it because it’s a small town and quiet,” Mike said.

“We like being off the main drag,” Sandi said. “The only people here are either lost or come here deliberately. When we retired, we wanted the beauty of nature, but we’re still close to Southern California.”

“We have the best of both worlds,” Mike added.

“You can create things here,” Sandi said. “And we’re all involved in civic activities. This is our home. We belong here. We want it to be a great place. You have to work hard at that.”

They plan to attend the Green Valley Lake community meeting on March 15, although they’ll have to leave early for a show they have scheduled. Mike and Stephanie’s daughter lost her home in the Slide Fire, which burned to the Adams’ family’s foundation. “We lost 160 trees in the fire,” Mike noted.

THEIR SHOWS

Right now, Mike said, the band could play for five hours nonstop. “We play about 52 songs in four hours,” he noted. Some are in combination as the band segues from one song to the next. “That’s almost too much music for some people,” he joked.

They like introducing people to music they may not have previously heard. “Danny Boy,” they feel, is very overplayed. “We don’t want to become a cliche,” Stephanie said. However, they did play the song recently at the request of a woman whose father had just passed away.

“The priest wouldn’t let her play the song at the funeral since it’s secular music,” Sandi said. “So we were happy to play it for her.”

“We’re always looking for new songs,” Mike said. Sandi’s niece just let her borrow her favorite Irish albums.

Sandi does the set list for the band’s shows, and Pat does all the mixing for their CDs. Two are available at their website (www.wakethebard.com) or at www.cdbaby.com.

The band is currently at work on a new CD, which includes one track—”John Riley”—in Irish tuning, which is an open tuning. “There’s no major or minor,” Pat explained.

Mike said he has heard from more than one parent that their 10 or 12-year-old children download Wake the Bard on their iPods and listen to the music over and over again. “Isn’t that weird?” he asked.

The band recently received a gift in the form of a quilt they use as a backdrop at their concerts (see the photo). Sandi and Pat’s neighbor Herb Gross was watching them play at The Lake Inn and decided they needed a suitable background. He had a friend, whose work hangs in museums, make the quilt for them.

“We were floored when it came,” Mike said. And Stephanie added, “We carried it in the Fourth of July parade here in Green Valley Lake.”

THEIR DREAM

“There are all sorts of fiddlers in Green Valley Lake,” Sandi said. In fact, fiddler Clare Bellefeuille-Rice often plays with Wake the Bard.

“This is a mecca for musicians and artists,” Sandi continued. “My dream is to use the meadow down the street for a music festival. There could be workshops in fiddle, hammered dulcimer and guitar. We’d have jams going on all day, with lots of good food to eat. There’s even a campground nearby.”

Anyone yearning to hear Wake the Bard right now can catch them at The Lake Inn on the second Saturday of every month from 2 to 5 p.m. as they lead a Celtic jam. “This is open to all musicians,” Sandi said. “We sit around in a circle and musicians take turns calling out songs they want to play.”

The band will play at Killarney’s Pub in Riverside on St. Patrick’s Day from noon until 5 p.m. They’ll be back there on March 30 from 5 to 9 p.m.

To hear selections from their music and check their concert schedule, visit www.wakethebard.com.
March 13, 2008 – Mountain News – Lake Arrowhead