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Tuesday, 22 December 2009 09:15

Project Overview:

An Electronica/Trip-Hop/D&B/Downtempo/Glitch/Dubstep offering fusing Highland Bagpipes from Pro-Tool Session files from Uncivilized by Tartanic (www.tartanic.net).

Tartanic is producing this album in the self-imposed mission of including the unlikely instrument of the Great Highland Bagpipe into accessible modern dance music to be released on a compilation CD marketed at Tartanic performances, the band’s website and through Itunes digital distribution.

Unavoidable

Released: 2009
For an artist, a compilation of a body of work is Unavoidable. Since 2002, Tartanic is on a mission to “make bagpipes cool” to a vast cross-section of people, and not just to those with Scottish heritage, but to many diverse ethnicities and peoples who, in turn, embrace this union and pass it forward as our music transcends generational barriers now ...

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Virtuosos virtually vanishing

Monday, 28 December 2009 17:25

Music, by nature, changes.

As do people, generations and taste. However, I am still trying to decide if I am aging (which I most certainly am a victim of the inevitable as we all are), and thus becoming “crotchety”… a guy who is more akin to yell “Hey, you kids get outta my yard!” than to listen to current Billboard Top 40 Hits.

Let me tell you now, that I keep up. I am an NPR junkie who listens to Rice University radio as well as our local Pacifica station, and Houston’s 97.5 KTBZ (alternative), 97.9 KTBX (rap, R&B) and 104.1 KRBE (Top 40). As a result, what I have seen and heard since 1990 is a virtual lack of virtuosity in music.

Case of the stolen doublet

Tuesday, 22 December 2009 09:07

At the Texas Renaissance Festival Tartanic has enjoyed a seven year history. With the beginnings of the Rogues, who created a monster audience for Great Highland Bagpipes and drums, to the 34,900 people in attendance on Saturday, November 14th, 2009.

Tickets cost $20 at the gate, and believe me the food and drink prices are no different than a movie theatre… but you have a 60 acre screen full of show. Now, this can be overwhelming for some.

One would think, in a 35 year history of fantasy, fun, bosoms, beer and beefcakes there would be more trouble and newspapers would have a new story every week about the drunk redneck that. . . .well, whatever. Point is, it’s a pretty respectable place.

So what place does that put the average ticket-buyer in? For just a measly entrance fee, you are regaled with another world—a retro-neo-renaissance of knights and armour, feasts of food, maidens and villains, royals and peasants, on top of 400 independent shops and 22 stages of endless entertainment. All this is the ticket-buyers playground, and while dark corners of pubs may offer something off-the-menu, a stage act is another story. Especially if one is sitting in the audience.

On October 24, 2009 an audience member in the center section, 4th row, 5’5” brunette with shoulder length wavy hair, mid-thirties, and medium build caught my doublet (jacket) as I threw it into the audience for our “Clothing Optional” Show.

The woman in question stole it. My doublet was not a gift. What, in a $20 ticket price permits one to commit larceny? In seven years, my clothing has been returned or playfully ransomed (for a kiss, perhaps?). Never has it been met with a mindset that must think:

--“Ah, a one-of-a-kind handmade costume piece! I am sure this is part of the show! I caught the foul ball! He must spend a lot of money having these made so he can throw away 16 of them at the Texas Renaissance Festival.”

This is not baseball, honey. It is environmental theatre with bad-ass music. I am so glad we sell a good time, and I want everyone to have one (within reason).

In Arizona, April of 2006, a woman in the front row was hell bent on lifting my kilt while I, standing on a doumbek and further elevated 3’ off the ground by the stage, gathered my kilt about me to prevent it. She changed tactics, grabbed on, and let her knees go out from underneath her, resulting in a 4” tear in a 1965 Vintage Ancient Hunting Stuart Kilt.

While Tartanic presents a rock-star anachronism at a renaissance festival, the above is still behavior that would call out the bouncers.

I can admit a personal “I got what was coming,” with the incident this past October. I did break the fourth wall and threw my clothing out into the audience. Strippers do not get their garters back—brides either, for that matter.

All the hours spent on the making of that doublet are not the thing to me. Nor is it that my wife made it for me. Nor is it even that it was a remake of a custom design from 1994. It just does not seem right to me that one would walk away, not meet the band, not tip at the show, not even buy a CD, but take the spoils and run.

If anyone has any information leading up to the location of my doublet, attached is a photo, please email me direct at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .

Tickets cost $20 at the gate, and believe me the food and drink prices are no different than a movie theatre… but you have a 60 acre screen full of show. Now, this can be overwhelming for some.