Celtic Music, Anyone?

I don't know if I'm suffering from an excess of ideas this week, or if none of my thoughts on any given thing, idea, or incident are fully formed. So instead of just rambling on whichever topic I happen to catch as it passes by, I will offer this public service announcement (at least I think it's a public service!).

I've had an on-again, off-again thing going on with my iPod. I love the idea of the iPod, but I don't tend to find myself in situations that allow me to block out the rest of the world. I don't walk across campus, since when I am on campus, it is generally to teach or meet in "my" building (we've all got one. . .). I miss the walking, especially on cool, crisp sunny days. I have one of those little doohickeys that allows me to broadcast my iPod to my car stereo, which is cool, but I don't always remember to bring it to the car, etc. Until recently, I had to download my podcasts at school because of the high-speed connection. Now we have DSL. And I remembered to update my iPod. And it's charged.

So. . . I've been listening to an incredible podcast sporadically for several months, and I just had to spare some words for the Irish and Celtic Music Podcast. For those of you in Austin, it's done by Marc Gunn, who is in your neighborhood! I met him once at a Sci Fi, etc. "con" at the university where I currently exist, signed up for his band's (The Brobdingnagian Bards) email list, until Yahoo! kicked me off because I hadn't checked my email in, oh, years. . . So imagine my surprise to learn that he has an awesome podcast! At the time, I was wondering how I could discover new cool music with an utter absence of decent radio stations in my area. Problem solved! The Irish and Celtic Music Podcast is currently in the top 25 podcasts in iTunes, so check them out if you like Celtic music.

Just to get you started, the "new year" podcast was a collection of listener favorites from last year, and is quite a nice mix. It is #29 and was released on January 4, 2007.

Many of my favorites from the last year are included on episode #29, but some other favorite songs/artists have been:

Podcast #25 -"Old Carrion Crow" Michael William Harrison
Podcast #25-"The Scottish Song" Seamus Kennedy (MacBeth in a nutshell--a must hear!)

The Brobdingnagian Bards have a number of amusing songs, and of course, the ones that make you spit out your coffee in the car are the easiest to remember (include in this category "The Scottish Song," above). So from the Bards:

Podcast #24-"Now It's Time To Go" (from Memories of Middle Earth)
Podcast #17 -"The Orange and The Green"
Podcast #16 -"The Unicorn Song"
Podcast #15 -"Jedi Drinking Song"

This turned out to be much more of a Bards plug than I intended, but they have the funny songs, and like I said, funny sticks. This podcast is, overall, great celtic music--funny and serious, so enjoy!