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I grew up at the Renaissance Pleasure Faire. I still recall the sights and sounds and being part of something magical. I threw myself into the faire with all the fervor of a teenager. I learned History, Theatre, Fine Sewing, Human Nature, English Country and Morris Dancing, and I discovered a love for Early Music and Dance. Not that any of this made me rich. Or even comfortable. I've tried comfortable. It has it's good points. Someday I'd like to try being rich.In the eighties I sang and played bass with Cyderman's Fancy. It was my first professional band. Beltain sounds a lot like Cyderman's Fancy used to sound, except Beltain rocks harder.
Beltain is what happens when we put it together. Mik looks great in Victorian clothes so I book costume gigs, make him outfits and insist that he wears them. Not that he objects. It just doesn't occur to him. For Mik, anything more formal than a t-shirt and jeans is dressing up.
I have costumes for every occassion (well, not every occassion) and I make them myself. I can't afford not to and it's a good excuse to get away from the fire gear. Did I mention I make wild land fire fighting gear? No? There's a reason for that! It's my company. I'm the boss. Did you ever have to yell at yourself for screwing up? See what I mean?
Early music has always resonated with me. When I hear music from the sixteenth century and before it takes me back in time. I can almost see the people dancing in their heavy clothes trying to keep warm on a frozen winter evening. Not that I miss the cold, but I do miss the simplicity.
With my CD A Medieval Feast I have tried to capture that time and place as I think it must have been. A Medieval Feast is not a dry, studious album produced by an ivory tower academe. It is folk music played by me in my living room while my husband rolled tape (okay, it wasn't tape, but you know what I mean). A Medieval Feast makes me want to dance because that's what it is: dance musicLately I've been putting a lot of early music into Beltain's set. It works well alongside the modal melodies and stop-start rythmns common to music of the British Isles. My husband's ability to write a song that sounds hundreds of years old gives me lots of opportunities to arrange interesting vocal harmonies and to write bass lines that work like a ground, or a continuo, or even a Scottish rythmn cello.
Somehow, the band I joined as a bass player has morphed into (as my husband calls it) Morgan's band. I think that's weird. I've always thought of myself as the musical director for other people's bands, even if I was the one who put it together. At the Renaissance Faire it wasn't my band, it was the dancers' band. My husband thinks that's weird. I guess you had to be there.
Left: Pinball Wizard Mikkel McDow - guitar ; Morgan bass ; Kim Gimbal guitar & Fred Stuart - lead vocal Recorded by Fotovision for The Green Room, summer 1997. |
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Right: Chestnut / Childgrove / Hal N Toe Mikkel - guitar ; Morgan - octave mandolin, vocal ; Sue Carney guitarria, recorder & vocal Recorded by Fotovision for The Green Room, early 2000. |
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Left: Douce Dame Jolie Morgan McDow with Pipe & Bowl Morris Produced by Mikkel McDow for Normal Media Concepts. |
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Right: Strike The Bell (Train Wreck Version) Mikkel & Morgan McDow and Dave Cowan Live at the Palmdale Hotel Palmdale, Ca., August 21, 2009 |
