It was a Flook

Okay, that last post was really lame. I'm tired, but its no excuse. If I keep that up, I'm soon to alienate my lone captive reader (does "audience" have a singular form?).

So let me toss this up here. I was going to wait until tomorrow, but since it already is tomorrow, it works.

Tonight, then, I'm looking forward to going to see my favorite progressive-trad group, Flook at one of my favorite small venues in Chicago, Martyr's.

A layperson would likely categorize Flook as traditional Irish music, but they really are pretty far out there from the pure-drop trad perspective, mixing in influences of jazz and and other various world folk styles with their Irish sound. In terms of instrumentation, they are fairly traditional, but have some departure, most notably the lack of fiddle. Make no mistake, they are a floot flute-driven group.

Brian Finnegan is a fantastic wooden flute and tin whistle player. Sarah Allen, who plays silver Boehm style flute and accordian has recently had a baby, but filling in for her on this trip is Michael McGoldrick, an original member of the band who has also been a part of Lunasa and Capercaillie. Ed Boyd keeps the group glued together with his rhythm guitar, but the star of the show is John Joe Kelly. Arguably the best bodhrán player in the world, John Joe makes more music with a stick and a goatskin than many can manage with an entire ensemble.

Exhibit A: a rare video of his solo that is a feature of Flook's concerts, this one taken from the Milwaukee Irish Fest in 2004. (Unfortunately, embedding's disabled, so you'll have to click the link. It's well worth it, though.)

And just because I had my heart set on my first post with an embedded YouTube clip, here's one of the whole group. There's others out there on YouTube, some with better quality, but this is pretty representative of their style...