MobyD's Blog – May 2008 Archive (9)

Over the past few days I've added three new lenses to my Squidoo set of Celtic Music lenses. There are now 18 lenses for artists and groups, plus one for The Thistle & Shamrock, LiveIreland.com, and the Celtic Music Lenses lens which lists all the others.



I was a bit surprised that there wasn't more… Continue

If I'd set out to do the Celtic Music lenses in any kind of order, the lens for Planxty might've been among the first. The four original members, Christy Moore, Donal Lunny, Andy Irvine and Liam O'Flynn will be familiar to anyone with much interest in Irish music They helped popularize the bouzouki, a Greek instrument introduced to Irish music by Johnny Moynihan. Moynihan was a member of the group Sweeney's Men when he introduced it, and… Continue

I'm glad I continued work on the lens for Loreena McKennitt, one of the six lenses I'd done basic work on several days ago, early in the day. While it was very warm yesterday, today was downright hot, with temperatures in the mid-90s, well above the average high even in mid-summer. Considering most of our days have had below-average temperatures since last September, it was… Continue

I was only going to do one lens today, the one for Enya. But as I was looking up information for her, I realized she hasn't released as many albums as I thought, and somehow I found myself looking at what Amazon offers for Silly Wizard.



I got Enya's lens done in plenty of time to get to work on Silly Wizard's. Amazon is offering five of their albums directly from them,… Continue

Yesterday I decided to get basic work done on six Squidoo lenses I knew I'd eventually want to get published. So I began setting up each lens, adding YouTube videos and photos or album covers, deleting stuff Squidoo puts in the basic setup and adding what I felt I'd need. Other than selecting YouTube videos, which goes fairly quickly since I just look for a good quality one that's long enough and if possible one I know I'll like, it's fairly… Continue

Thanks to the influence of liveIreland.com, I've tended to focus on Irish music for the Celtic music lenses I created first, although I did get the lens for Scotsman Alasdair Fraser in there. Over the past few days, I've created three lenses for the Scottish groups The Tannahill Weavers, Capercaillie, and The Battlefield Band. The page for Celtic Music: Lenses was updated as well of course.



Normally, I'd been creating one lens and seeing it through to publishing before starting on… Continue

My Squidoo lens for today is about the Irish/American band Solas. It's yet another one inspired by music heard on liveIreland.com. The band can play straight Irish traditional music with the best of them, but specializes in giving it their own twist on it. From the start, they've garnered a lot of praise from mainstream media and Irish/American publications. Based in the United States, they give American audiences a chance to hear… Continue

My latest Squidoo lens in the Celtic Music series is for the Irish traditional band Lúnasa, another group I discovered by listening to liveIreland.com. They released their first self-titled album in 1999 and it became an immediate best seller in Ireland, and was named one of the top ten albums of the year by the Irish Echo in the US. With the release of a "best of" album this year, they now have seven to their credit. The band tours… Continue

With this latest Squidoo lens, I'm back to focusing on performers. Alasdair Fraser is a fantastically talented player and teacher of traditional Scottish fiddle music. I learned about him from a coworker around 1989 - he had a tape of The Road North playing in his car while we rode home from work one day. I was impressed, and the next January, we went to a Burns Night celebration at Sanders Theater at Harvard University to see him… Continue