Blog archives for January, 2002

Most of you know that I am in an Irish band named Baile Daire. In fact, I am the manager, booking agent, web master, musical director, treasurer, and overall head of the band. Oh, and I play fiddle, guitar, and sing for the band as well. That is not to say that the others don’t do anything. On the contrary, without each of them we would not be the band we are today.

The members include Michael Wathen who is our main guitar player, PR Ford who plays recorder, whistle and is learing Irish flute, Jeff Cates who plays fiddle and sings, and lastly Hunter Murray who is our accordion player but is leaving the band in about 2 weeks.

Hunter was a founding member and has been a key player from the start. Hunter knows more tunes that any of the rest of us and has taught us many of his favorite ones. Hunter was in a rock band as a drummer several years ago so he also has a strong sense of the beat and of tempo. Hunter’s accordion also was a nice balance with the two fiddles, with PR’s whistle soaring above, and Michael’s guitar providing the bass. Without Hunter, there is a hole in our sound.

Any group “feels” it when somebody leaves. There are missing connections, assumptions that don’t apply any more, and relationships that no longer exist. For a band there are more problems. A band’s sound is based on the sum of the players plus that magic you get when the sounds combine. With somebody missing, the sound is just not the same. In addition to having somebody learn those tunes that Hunter led, we have to find our new sound on the tunes where he followed. We have to work out a new balance and build those new connections and assumptions. We have to become a new band. Sure, we will sound a lot like our old band to many listeners. But we will be different. And it will take time and some hard work. Hunter will be missed.

Those were the words I said when I heard that people were standing in line to buy Windows/XP at midnight when it was released. Not Me! Those were the words I said when heard all the hype about XP and how you has to get authorized by MS to run it. Not ME! Was what I said yesterday when Windows/ME crashed on me for the last time. I drove to Best Buy and plunked down $99 for a copy of XP! My words did not change but their meanings did. Windows ME was the worst OS I have ever used, bar none. It crashed, it locked up, it ran out of resources (a 1.3GHz processor with 256MB of memory and 40GB hard drive run of out resources!!!!!). I went home and upgraded. In just over an hour, I was back up. I had to find a few drivers (all on the web) and upgrade my NortonAV software (I had bought the XP version at Bust Buy at the same time). In just a few hours, I was a convert. Not ME!