Happy St Paddy's Day ...

While "The Irish Ballad" is about as authentically Irish as a Shamrock Shake, I thought I'd say a happy hello to all those celebrating today. I raise a pint o' Guinness to y'all.

Just thought I'd ask ...

Anyone looking to work on this film

-- in Toronto --

is encouraged, nay, ordered to send their resumés, portfolios or reels to irishballadeer@gmail.com.

Happy Birthday Rudy

Today is the 42nd anniversary of the release of the Rankin Bass Holiday Classic,

Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer. This movie is one of my earliest childhood memories, and is partly to blame for my love of animation.

Check out Rick Goldschmidt's "official" Rankin Bass site. His book on the making of the television special is a must read for Rudolph fans.

Gerry O'Kane Live at the Wellington

A special treat for Gerry O'Kane fans!!

I've had a number of people contact me who were also looking for Gerry -- all of them reminiscing about nights at the Wellington and singing along with him. While I still haven't been able to track him down, I did manage to find an old cassette he gave me.

With a little fiddling, I converted it to an MP3.

The quality isn't great...

BUT!

I think it's the only place anyone can find a

LIVE

recording of Mr O'Kane

and the bunch of drunken louts who frequented the best damned pub in Kingston.

The recording is from 1992.

If you were a regular then, you're probably in the crowd.

I've only converted one side of the tape -- here is the set list:

The Irish Ballad

The Black Velvet Band

And The Band Played Waltzing Matilda

Mary's Wedding

The Mary Ellen Carter

Farewell to Nova Scotia

Seven Drunken Nights

The Old Dunn Cow

The Ballad of Willie McBride (only the last few verses)

Dirty Old Town

The Wild Rover

The track is 44 minutes long and includes all of Gerry's banter with the crowd in the pub, as well as their shouts in all the right places:

"HEY WIFE!!" -- seven drunken nights

"MACINTYRE!!!" -- the old dunn cow

"RIGHT UP YER KILT!!" -- the wild rover

"AND SHE WAS!!" -- the black velvet band

I am going to ask some pals of mine with audio recording experience -- and ProTools set-ups to do a proper conversion of the entire tape. I'll put up a link to it when it's done. You won't want to miss the other side -- it has Finnegan's Wake, The Rocky Road To Dublin, Johnny Be Fair, and the crowd favourite, Barrett's Privateers.

In the mean time -- to download the 5 meg file

right-click here

and "save target as"

I hope you all enjoy it!

SIX MONTHS LATER.......

An update:

With everything else on the go, this project has spent the last 6 months on the back burner.

The good news is ...

the

Ottawa International Animation Festival

is coming up.

A great place for more inspiration.

Will get me working on the film again -- in the 15 minutes of spare time I have each day.

Sweet

A wonderful bit of stop-motion -- and a documentary on how they did it to boot

Found on:

http://www.transbuddha.com/index.php/buddha/C132/

Letters From Lehrer

This week marks the opening of a stage production in Toronto entitled Letters from Lehrer. The show is playing at CanStage Berkely Theatre. Ticket and performance information can be found here.

An article in today's Toronto Star talks about the impact Tom Lehrer's tunes have had on the lives and careers of 3 individuals. I'd like to add my name to that roster. It was the animated tunes of Tom Lehrer that appeared on the Electric Company that stuck in my head as a kid. Who can forget "silent e" or "-ly"?

Years later when I heard "The Irish Ballad" I knew I wanted to make an animated version of it -- long before I knew I wanted to be an animator.

I'm glad to see a resurgence in the interest in Mr. Lehrer. The planets are alligning again.
Hopefully, it'll help spur on the completion of my film.

Gerry O'Kane

I've been trying to track down Gerry O'Kane. He's the wonderful voice you can hear on the soundtrack if you click the play button in my banner.

He used to perform at the Wellington in Kingston, Ontario -- but I have lost track of him. Many Google searches and directory queries have turned up nothing.

If anyone knows his whereabouts, please drop me a line.

I'd like to fill him in on the progress of the film.

*** UPDATE *** I have an MP3 of Gerry singing live at the Welli' -- not very good quality, but you can check it out here.