Slainte is a warm, wood-paneled oasis of food for the soul down in Jack London Square. It was my great pleasure to be there on a recent Wednesday filling in for Lori Cassels (who is off on her holidays in Ireland this month) as host for the Irish American Writers & Artists October West Coast salon.
Folks ready for an evening of excellent music filled the pub. Pints flowed and a good-natured buzz was in the air when I took to the mic to thank the crowd, for being there, the pub, for having us, and IAW&A, for booking the event.
My first crowd warmer-upper, the lively, “A Pub with No Tunes,” will be released this March as part of my Irish rock band CaliCeltic’s sixth studio album. The song questions pubs that claim to support Irish culture but neglect to support traditional Irish music,
“Far all too often
In the world’s Irish pubs,
While you’re sure to find pints
And Etsy signs about spuds,
I’m here to tell you
This message of gloom:
There’s nothing so sad
As a pub with no tunes!”
Following, the pub swelled with voices as the audience joined me singing Carsie Blanton’s “Little Flame” in celebration of her recent return from an attempt to bring food and medicine to Gaza as part of an international humanitarian aid flotilla. Next up was Alameda dynamo, Deborah Crooks. Sitting nearby with his Danelectro slung over flannel-clad shoulders, Michael McNevin joined her onstage, slipping some able-fingered licks behind and around her first song, “Grandma Mission Blues.” Deborah graciously invited me to grab my bodhrán to play her next song, “Department of the West,”
“Here we stand but this land was never ours
No matter who spoke truth or who lied,
Settled scores,
this land was never ours
In a war there are always two sides”
Before her final song, “What the Land Will Tell You," Deborah reflected, “I was a really happy little kid who liked to make art…in my adult life I realize I just want to be like I was as a kindergartener.” She then proceeded with her prescient rendition of a song exploring the theme of listening to the natural world.
Deborah has released several collections of original music solo and with the band Bay Station, which she co-founded with Kwame Copeland along with their “Love the Bay" Music & Sailing video series. Her most recent projects include the bird-themed folk opera “Flight Lessons” and a forthcoming release, “I was Yours.” In the past couple of years, she’s organized “19 Voices in Solidarity,” benefit concerts.
Next in front of the hearth was Michael McNevin, who has a flair for gilding everyday things with compelling poetic sentiment in his lyrics. His set began with “John’s Cocoons,” a song about the moths whose cocoons his eldest brother used to collect and then set free. The song juxtaposes his brother’s husbandry of the moths alongside the siblings’ relationship,
“He loves me as I am
And I want to be like him
He’s good at drawing dinosaurs
Prehistoric murals fill his room
He lets me in when I am bored,
when I need a cocoon.”
As the applause died down, “What a nice place this is” he observed, “Can’t believe it - loving it: all the wood and brick…the Irish blood in me is having a beer without even a glass in my hand!” Next up was “Cradle to Grave,” a song Michael wrote for a film about an Irish family reunion in Texas that didn’t make it into the final cinematic cut, freeing Mike up to release the song on its own merits a few years ago. Your author was lucky enough to throw a little bodhrán on that recording, and I joined him again live Wednesday, harmonizing along with the wistful bridge,
“Sometimes I’m lost,
Sometimes I’m last,
Sometimes I drive just to burn up the gas,
Dallas to Waco, Kerrville and back,
And if I could make Ireland, I’d surely do that.”
Ever the personable performer, Michael set the guitar down to share some limericks and tell the crowd about the tongue-in-cheek name, “Helen Wait,” he gave the mannequin who would greet visitors at his Mudpuddle shop when he was out, saying, “When I wasn’t there, they’d have to go to Helen Wait.” He finished up gracing the audience with a new, nostalgic song, “Every Time.”
McNevin has shared stages with the likes of Johnny Cash & The Carter Family, Donovan, Shawn Colvin, Richie Havens, and Utah Phillips, and he showed up powerfully for the crowded room at Slainte Wednesday, his songs and humor leaving every heart full and mind tantalized with the unseen possibilities of the world around them.
The final Irish American artist of the evening was Megan McLaughlin. Her Larrivée firmly in DADGAD, Christy Moore’s “The Curragh of Kildare” kicked off her set. Her powerful voice lifted the beloved standard up into the wooden beams over listener’s heads. Then it was “Orlando,” Megan’s original song inspired by the Virginia Wolf novel.
As the chords faded, she leaned into the mic, saying, “This next song is called ‘Mistakes,’ and it's going out to anyone who’s ever made a mistake.” The chorus exhorts us,
“Go tell that little voice inside your head
To take a break
And forgive yourself, for heaven’s sake,
For you are not your mistakes”
The crowd certainly seemed to hear themselves in her words, as applause erupted even before she finished her last strum. Riding the energy, Megan grinned behind the mic and lit the pub up, practically shaking the windows, as she brought the crowd to join her singing the chorus of her song, “I’m alive.”
Megan’s band, The Musers, boast four studio albums and their heartfelt songs, harmonies, and dancey grooves can be heard at their frequent shows all around the San Francisco Bay area.
The crowd did not want the evening to end, and the performers were not able to safely leave until each got back up to give the pub an encore. Grabbing the goatskin, I delivered a version of the Irish traditional song, “Love, will you marry me” with some new humorous verses I’d written (which garnered an appropriate amount of laughter). Deborah gave us her song “Starlings and Mockingbirds,” to rousing applause. Megan was next, sharing a brand-new bluesy original, her shiver-inducing voice slinking through the cracks and bends of the melody,
“Coffee really gets me up, up, up,
With coffee I can face the day
Faking like I’m awake
As I pour that coffee in my cup”
Fittingly, McNevin saw the evening to an end with his poem, “The Irish Goodbye,”
“Not saying nothing is not the same as a lie,
Just crawl out the window with an Irish goodbye”
And with that, the magical evening ended. Glasses were stacked, musicians packed away the guitars, and the good folks at Slaínte stacked the chairs on the tables. Yours truly marveled at this beautiful corner of the world and how lucky I am to be part of evenings like this one, filled with excellent, heartfelt original music and good company.
