Celtic, Irish and American Rock Band – Fire on McGinnis, Juneau, AK

“Bedlam Boys” video captures awards in Poland

Mark Lukey — Thu, 19 Apr 2012 03:53:37 +0000

Dominik Litwiniak’s video for the Fire on McGinnis song “Bedlam Boys” has won two independent awards in Poland.

The first award was presented at the Amateur and Independent Film festival in Gniezno, Poland where he won a commendation in the independent category. Shortly afterwards, Dominik placed 2nd in the independent filmmakers category at the Animated Film festival ANIMOCJE in Bydgoszcz, Poland.

The long strange trip that became an award winning product began with another song entirely. Originally, Dominik was inspired by the album’s flagship song ”Foggy Dew” and sent the band a few drawings. The band was impressed with the imagery of course but couldn’t follow through with the project as another artist had already taken on FD as a Kinetic Topography video. As time passed, it soon became clear that the song “Bedlam Boys” was becoming the album favorite. The band offered the song to Dominik but it didn’t really catch until we explained what the song was about (Madness, mental hospitals and the odd pastime of people visiting mental hospitals for sport!). Dominik quickly took to this imagery, did some homework on his own and created a video “theme” of a young lady who visits a mental hospital and comes out a changed person. All aspects of the project were done professionally. Dominik first created a list of the scenes (Monkeys dance, Elephant stomps), followed by a black and white plate draft of how the animation video will progress in real time. Months and many idea filled e-mails passed between Dominik and the band. Meanwhile, in anticipation for the new video, FOM had the “Bedlam Boys” song post produced by and re-mastered by Scott Horton in the Czech Republic. Finally, around Halloween the animation product was ready. First arriving on Vimeo and then YouTube where it has gone mildly viral. The video has been picked up by several video channels in the U.S. and smaller video stations around the world.

With all the success of the “Bedlam Boys” video, Dominik never forgot about the original song, “Foggy Dew.” Not willing to leave it well enough alone, Dominik recently sent FOM some video imagery of what he would do for that song. FOM of course was blown away by the new footage and decided that a 2nd video for FD was a great idea. Only, this time, at Dominik’s request, we would have to be more involved performance-wise. More details on that later, for now let congratulate Dominik on a job well done! -FOM

Bedlam Boys video

fom — Wed, 15 Feb 2012 06:42:18 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=1bmQ_sfeZtE

This video was created for us by Dominik Litwiniak in Warsaw, Poland. The theme for the video is a young woman enters a mental hospital and comes out a changed person. As odd as it may seem now. It wasn’t all that long ago that tourists sought out insane asylums and paid money to watch the antics of the patients committed within.

Foggy Dew video

fom — Wed, 11 Jan 2012 01:55:21 +0000

www.youtube.com/watch?v=rDFLcd51lGs

Fire on McGinnis is happy to present the result from a collaboration with Light Within Productions U.K. Early last winter LWP expressed interest in creating a video for our song “Foggy Dew.” Their format is called “2d Kinectic Topography.” Of course, none of us had ever heard of this style so we were quite curious. We have to say - it’s pretty interesting to watch! It tells the story of the 1916 Easter Uprising in a very clever way. Check it out!

“Foggy Dew” selected for Women of Substance Radio

fom — Fri, 12 Aug 2011 21:36:22 +0000

Congratulations to Martha Defreest. The Fire on McGinnis song “Foggy Dew” was recently selected for broadcast on the highly coveted “Women of Substance” radio. Women of Substance radio plays music by solo female artists, female bands, or band fronted by a female singer. The songs must speak to listener through vocal excellence, depth of character and emotion. Women of Substance plays music by Indie, Unsigned and Label artists alike.

Green Blobs Cancel Rooftop Show

fom — Fri, 22 Jul 2011 23:29:59 +0000

In the vain of The Beatles and U2, our bagpipe player, Lazlo, has always dreamed of playing a rooftop concert. His dream was on track to becoming reality until the “Green Blobs” swept into Juneau.
When Lazlo brought up the idea of a rooftop concert in June the band was pretty excited. Next question was, what roof? Lazlo hit the pavement and found Jill Ramiel, the owner of the Silverbow Inn and Bakery on 2nd St. Jill of course loved the idea and expanded it to a parking lot party and beer garden (hey, all the better!). Jeste Burton from Juneau Arts and Humanites council caught wind of the idea and put a massive about of work into promotion (thank you Jeste!). Mark Lukey ran around town and scared up equipment from Studio A and Mark Alton. He also found a soundperson at Alaska One. So now, with the band, the sound equipment and the beer ready, all we needed was the weather to cooperate. And…Well, it turns out that father cloud couldn’t resist a Fire on McGinnis show either. The week of the show was crap. Raining buckets in fact. Still, as anyone who has even planned an outdoor event knows, hope is the last thing to go. We watched the weather reports closely. Especially the path of the doppler “Green blobs” of rain sweeping off the Pacific and into Juneau.
With the pitter-patter of raindrops on the roof, the band met at the Silverbow to decide what to do. When we set out to do this gig, we decided the cancel the show if it rained (I mean, jeez, who wants to come to a rainy beer party?). Then we learned of the investment the Silverbow made for this. They had purchased a pallet of beer and organized extra staff. With this in focus, the band decided that the show must go on! We did a shotgun band set up and simply played indoors. Lazlo and Yoshi started the show outside however, playing “Bells of Dunblane” and “High Road to Gairloch.” We continued the rest of the set indoors. We really enjoyed the crowd. They were fun, engaged and dancing. One dynamic we were not prepared for was the audience being quiet between songs. This did give us a chance to talk about the songs however, and the audience got to see some of the goofy band member interactions that go unnoticed in a loud bar. We also, for the first time in public, performed a new Lukey/ Defreest composition called “Chimney Sweep.” Despite the sound issues, the band later agreed that it was one of the better shows we have played.
On a sad note we later learned that people didn’t drink enough beer! It appears that we attracted bagel eaters instead? This of course is another Fire on McGinnis first.
So, for now, rooftops in Juneau will have to wait for our particular brand of Irish and Celtic rock. Meanwhile we would like to thank Jill Ramiel at the Silverbow (that’s clearly the coolest place in Juneau to stay and has the best bagels, pastries and cookies!) for making this happen. -FOM

“Catharsis” selected for Primal.fm

fom — Thu, 07 Jul 2011 23:18:11 +0000

There’s opportunites and people that need music everywhere if you are willing to dig a little bit. One of our more rockin’ instrumentals, “Catharsis” captured the interest of a group called Primal.fm recently. Primal.fm provides rock music to gyms across the U.S. Their moniker is “Rock that builds muscle.”
We at Fire on McGinnis are of course, big time into to working out. Except for maybe, uh, Lazlo our bagpipe player…
You can listen to Primal.fm anytime using this link: Primal FM.

Fire on the roof!

Mark Lukey — Wed, 15 Jun 2011 05:44:21 +0000

Fire on McGinnis will be playing a free show on the roof of the Silverbow, Friday July 1, from 9:15 PM – 11 PM. Come and see one of the liveliest bands in Juneau perform in a most unique venue. We’ll be schlepping all of our equipment up four flights of stairs to entertain. All you’ll have to do is stop, listen & shake it! All while enjoying a beverage from the beer garden. This is one of a kind show you won’t want to miss!

Foggy Dew re-mix single available now!

fom — Mon, 16 May 2011 23:48:51 +0000

Fire on McGinnis is excited to announce a new partnership with Scott Horton of Short Ton Productions. Scott is interested in the band and wants to take a few of the FOM songs to a level we were not able to.
Like most indie bands with little time and money, we tracked, mixed and produced our debut CD. Mostly this was done by our rhythm player, Mark Lukey who has tremedous energy and creativity when it comes to music. That said… A true sign of greatness is to know when to ask for help! Lukey, depite his tenacity, realized late into the production that the FOM CD could benefit greatly from professional music producer with better equipment. After many months of searching, riddled with red herrings and dead ends, Fire on McGinnis found Scott Horton. The first product from the new collaboration,”Foggy Dew (Radio single)” is now available to listen/download right here on CD Baby.

What It Was Like To Play At Eaglecrest

Youseph — Mon, 21 Feb 2011 10:01:32 +0000

Fire On Mcginnis played a show up at Eaglecrest this last Saturday an event called The Winter Fireworks Spectacular! It was such an adventure! We all started setting up early by hauling up pieces of our stage and sound equipment to the main building Friday evening. This process took several vehicle loads to complete.

The next day was performance day and the weather was not on our side. Juneau was getting hit by a major blizzard. By 2pm on Saturday we had hauled most of our musical equipment up the mountain to the main building and started setting up. By the time we where done setting up the powers at be at Eaglecrest postponed the fireworks show till the following day. Those up at Eaglecrest opted to have a good time anyway with food from the kitchen and music provided by us!

For some of us in the band playing up at Eaglecrest was nothing new. For some of the newer members it was quite the experience. Driving up the mountain with thousands of dollars of musical equipment as snowplows came barreling down in the opposite direction was at times very scary.

But playing music was awesome! People where clapping and smiling. All in all good times where had.

A big thank you goes out to all of Eaglecrest. Not just for inviting us out to play, but for also helping us setup all of our equipment. Thank you guys! We had a great time playing for you!

Celtic Twist – Return to the stage

fom — Mon, 17 Jan 2011 01:31:25 +0000

When Deb Barry at the Rendezvous asked us to play last Friday night, the band happily obliged. Later, with pipes blasting, beer flying and all kinds of freak dancing, it’s hard to believe that this was the first public performance by Fire on McGinnis in nearly 18 months. We like to think of the Rendezvous event as the end of a troubled time for the band and the beginning of a new era.

If you saw us Friday night, and have been with us since the start, you probably noticed that we have played a serious game of musical chairs. Let us explain…
Mark Lukey became a member of Fire on McGinnis in 2005 just as the band was getting a foothold in the Juneau scene. Though he would jump up on stage to sing to “Drunken Sailor,” recite Lewis Carrol poetry and mimic the sound of a diving submarines, Mark was mostly found offstage as the bands sound engineer. With Laurie G. and Mr. G. moving on to international bagpipe competitions, the bands rock guitar player, Lazlo saw an opportunity to take over the FOM’s lead bagpipe position. This opened a rhythm guitar position that Lukey slid into naturally as he knew the songs already and loves the music. Lukey is the product of many guitar styles including acoustic finger style, folk, swing and rock. If you listen closely you can hear his Ska influence as well. Lukey didn’t rake in all the monster chords however. Lazlo still commands a large chunk of the guitar landscape and the signature guitar solos, only now he’s on double duty with bagpipes AND lead guitar!

Another chair switch was our bass player. During the 18 month hiatus, our first man on bass, James Bibb, simply went off into the ether. We love and miss James but having an ether-bound bass player is simply not a way to keep a band moving forward. Ironically it was Jame’s sister-in-law that told us about another bass player in town who was steeped in the Celtic music tradition, Mat Ghelardi. Mat brings his bass chops from an Irish band called “The Scruffy’s” based San Diego. Mat learned the complicated FOM material at a Superman like pace and has added a fun bouncy bass quality the band didn’t have before.

Lastly, as most people know, we had to replace our first drummer, Dave Sheakley due to an incurable wrist bone marrow infection. What started as light wrist stiffness developed into a nearly disabling condition. At first we just thought it was carpal tunnel or tendonitis. As as band, we took massive breaks from regular rehearsals to let young Dave heal. After a year, Dave returned to a practice to see if his wrist could hold out. The results were not good. 2-3 FOM songs and he was in agony. As a band he had to decide whether to dissolve or move on. With a heavy heart we decided to keep this brand of music alive and press on without him. We love Dave, he is part of the family, and he’s expected to live a long healthy life – just not as a wrist breaking Celtic rock drummer!
With the drums being an essential part of FOM’s sound, the band had some pretty big shoes to fill. This is no easy task in a small Alaska town with limited drummers. After months of searching, 3 auditions and near band dissolution, a Craigslist ad found our new drummer, Youseph “Yoshi” Tanha. Yoshi comes to us from a pretty solid rock background, although he admitted to being a little “rusty” at the start. The band has worked with Yoshi for over a year now. Long practices at the JACC every week plus multiple coaching sessions at Studio A and intense reviews of recorded material. Fire on McGinnis is not an easy band to drum for. In fact we are probably the hardest band for any new drummer to just “jump into” as we explore crazy time signatures and play nearly 40 songs. Now if we can only get Yoshi to calm down. None of us has ever seen a drummer that routinely breaks drumsticks!
So, it’s true. We have lost and gained a few but it’s natural for a band to evolve before settling on a solid lineup. We still think of the former members as family and they are certainly welcome to jam with us anytime. In fact Laurie G and Mr. D joined us on “Paddy’s Leather Breeches” at the Celtic fest. Our thoughts are, hey, the more pipers the better!
Currently, the leaner, less complicated 5 piece FOM is holding regular rehearsals at the JACC (usually on Sunday night). Now that Yoshi is mostly caught up with historical FOM material we have started to scat around with new ideas. For some reason, people that like Fire on McGinnis also like another band called Mumford and Sons. They have a song called “Little Lion Man” that we all love. There is one hickup with the tune however – we don’t know how to make an electric guitar sound like a banjo!

Stick with us. –FOM